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STRANGESIGHTS: A ‘ROBOT HOTEL’; NZ’S NEW FLAG CHOICES; AND, PERTH ARTIST TO LEND A LISTENING EAR…

DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…

The world’s first “robot hotel” – that is, a hotel run almost entirely by robots – has opened in Japan. The Henn na Hotel (which translates to ‘strange’ or ‘weird’ hotel) in southern Japan opened to the public in mid-July and features a robotic dinosaur receptionist, an automated trolley in place of a porter to carry your bags and the use of facial recognition technology to open doors. The hotel is part of an amusement park but owner Hideo Sawada reportedly says it is a genuine attempt to use technology to achieve greater efficiencies and adds that robots can reduce labour costs by as much as 70 per cent. Rooms start at about $US80 a night.

New Zealand has this week unveiled 40 designs for its new flag and there’s not a kiwi – or a sheep – in sight. The shortlist of 40 flags – taken from the more than 10,000 designs put forward – boast designs featuring the country’s famous silver fern, the Southern Cross and the Maori “koru”, a spiral shape based on an unfurling silver fern frond. One of the flags even features a modified “koru” version of a Union Jack. A “flag consideration panel” will now whittle the list down to four before a binding referendum will be held later this year. To see all the shortlisted designs (along with those that were rejected), head here.

An Australian artist has grown an ear on his arm which he plans to connect to the internet so people can hear him. The artist known as Stelarc (actually a Curtin University professor named Stelios Arcadiou) has told the ABC that he plans to use his own stem cells to make the ear more three dimensional so that a microchip can be installed inside, creating a wifi connection so that he can be heard anywhere in the world. He intends the connection to be 24/7.

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