Two telepresence robots roll into a human-computer interaction conference. Sounds like the beginning of a very nerdy joke, but it really happened (#2017). A few weeks ago in Denver, Colorado, a robot I was piloting over the internet from my computer in Idaho stood wheel-to-wheel with a similar'bot in a pink skirt controlled by a researcher in Germany. We introduced ourselves by yelling at each other's screens. Given the topic of the conference, this particular human-computer interaction was a little too on the HD touch-screen nose.

Though he has prided himself on being a master deal maker, President Donald Trump and his policies might be taking a toll on the economy. Tourism in the United States has taken a hit since Trump took office and implemented an executive order temporarily suspending immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, according to data released by travel search engine Kayak on Monday. Travel from the United Kingdom to the U.S. especially declined, the Guardian reported. Searches for flights from the U.K. to Tampa and Orlando plummeted by 58 percent, while searches for flights to San Diego dropped 43 percent. Searches for flights to Las Vegas and Los Angeles dropped 36 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

This week, more than 2,000 Google employees walked out of work to protest President Trump's immigration ban. Far from disciplining them for leaving their desks, CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin treated workers to impassioned speeches of support. "Proud, moved, and touched to be at a company that boldly stands for its people," Googler Sam Tse tweeted. While Pichai and Brin were no doubt speaking from personal conviction--Brin's family fled the former Soviet Union when he was a boy--they also had little choice but to back their employees. Trump's directive cut to the heart of Silicon Valley's treasured values of globalism and openness, values widely embraced by the workers themselves.