Ads of the Week: The first robot influencer, IKEA ghosts, united fashion and other stories

Taylor Herring – Westworld (NOW TV)

Streaming service NOW TV has glimpsed into the future of marketing by promoting the return of dark odyssey Westworld using a hyper-realistic humanoid robot, inspired by the show’s artificially intelligent “hosts.” NOW TV commissioned five engineers from robotics company Engineered Arts to build “Fred the Robot” who is modelled on a real 55 year old male, named Tedroy Newell. Over twelve weeks the team developed several hundred thousand lines of computer code and tens of thousands of components, including a sophisticated metal skeleton, silicone