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Airbnb agrees to hand over hosts’ data to settle its NYC lawsuit
Airbnb settles its lawsuit with New York City.
Recommended Reading: The reality of sci-fi's AI immortality obsession
Are Hosts, Replicants, and robot clones closer than we think? Jayson Greene, The Ringer Black Mirror already uncomfortably aligns with the real world, but we might be even closer to more advanced concepts from that show and others, like Westworld and Altered Carbon, becoming reality. The Ringer offers a look at just how far away we could be from Hosts, Replicants and robotic clones following a new trailer release for Keanu Reeves' long lost Replicas movie.
A humanoid is born in a Turkish robotics factory
The Uncanny Valley posits that robots get exponentially creepier the closer they look to humans -- take Nadine the social robot, RealDoll and the Geminoids (please). However, a company called Akin Robotics in Turkey has proved that robots don't need to look like humans at all to evoke the "ugh" factor. It recently unveiled a new factory that will produce an Eyes Without a Face-like model that will surprise, delight and terrify visitors at airports and elsewhere.
Surviving Westworld at SXSW
HBO is making the dreams of Westworld fans come true at SXSW 2018. The company built a replica of the show's Sweetwater town in an undisclosed location in Austin, Texas, and we were there to experience it firsthand. Before I tell you how it went, though, it's worth noting that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill installation. HBO says production for the project started in November of last year, and it took a 40-person crew five weeks to build the sci-fi park. In addition to that, the cast playing Westworld robotic Hosts, had a script that was 444 pages long.
NetEase to buy all new servers for Chinese WoW
Yes, as you may have noticed in the update on our post the other day, it's confirmed: NetEase will be taking over operating the World of Warcraft in China as of June -- their new homebase over there can be found at wow.163.com. And while we originally reported that The9 would be turning over their software, hardware, and staff to run the game, apparently that's not completely true. IDG News Service is reporting that NetEase will be setting up their own network of servers to run the game. That's a big undertaking -- it likely means that things will be bumpy for the first few days of the transition (though Blizzard is clearly confident that NetEase can handle it, having run a few other games in the market before). And it also means that some of the supercomputers we've reported on before that are owned by The9 will go to... well, we're not sure what.Not that there aren't plenty of things to use them for -- despite their stock dropping on news of the WoW license loss, The9 also runs a number of other games over there, including Guild Wars, Ragnarok Online, and a few more popular Eastern MMOs (not to mention that EA has a nice stake in them). And at the very least, there's got to be a market for supercomputers with other companies and educational institutions, right? It's unlikely that all that hardware will just sit dark.But more importantly, it'll be interesting to see how NetEase handles the transition -- we've had a few inventory and other issues here on the Western side of the world, but we've never had a major loss of character information (cue all of the Blizzard engineers knocking on wood). We're sure there are countless backups in place, but if something goes majorly wrong in the transition between hosts, it could be devastating for the WoW audience in China.
Sprint lays off all in-store greeters and hosts?
We're hearing rumors today that Sprint has laid off greeters and hosts from its stores -- a likely scenario considering the company's ongoing financial struggles and the fact that Verizon appears to be making similar moves. By the same token, it'd seem like these cats would want to be ramping up in preparation for the Pre, not down, so this doesn't bode too well -- making room for more straight-up sales reps, perhaps?[Thanks, anonymous tipster]
