Geek Weekly: Technology Decisions' quirky tech stories for 27 October 2015

Technology Decisions’ weekly wrap of IT fails, latest tech, new must-have gadgets, ‘computer says no’ moments and more.

Double trouble. Face recognition software can be really good, and it can be really bad. Just ask twins Alicia and Alicen Kennedy, who live in the US state of Georgia. When they applied to get learner driver’s permits, the Department of Drivers Services’ computer system couldn’t tell them apart from their photos, and decided one of them had to be a fraud. The problem was eventually resolved, but it does raise the question — can anti-fraud software be too good?

Don’t bank on it. Another day, another banking IT failure. Customers of Barclays Bank in the UK were left unable to withdraw money from ATMs on the weekend after an “internal infrastructure failure” sent the bank’s IT systems down. Barclays was unable to say how many customers were affected (which seems rather incredible), but told The Telegraph that most services were restored by Sunday afternoon, UK time.

Remote control firefighting. The KAMAN K-MAX remotely piloted helicopter has been used for years by the US military to deliver supplies on the battlefield. Now it’s being let loose on a different kind of front — the fire front, in a demonstration of its firefighting capabilities. Useful for those hard-to-reach places.

Are you the next Luke Skywalker? Try your hand at these four space pilot games and find out. They’re not your average shoot-’em-ups, though; you’ll need to engage your brain (and remember some high school physics).

Well now we’ve seen everything. We’ve all seen paper planes? How about paper cranes… that can actually fly? Watch the demo at the Cutting-edge IT & Electronics Comprehensive Exhibition (CEATEC) in Japan: