‘We don’t tell the car what it should do’: my ride in a self-driving taxi

Driverless ‘robotaxis’ will be accepting fares in Britain’s biggest city by the end of next year. Can they deal with London’s medieval roads, hordes of pedestrians and errant ebikers? I got in the passenger seat to find out‘I’m really excited to show you this,” says Alex Kendall, the CEO of Wayve, as he gets behind the wheel of one of the company’s electric Ford Mustangs. Then he does … nothing. The car pulls up to a junction at a busy road in King’s Cross, London, all by itself. “You can see that it’s going to control the speed, steering, brake, indicators,” he says to me – I’m in the passenger seat

Judge in rugby brain injury lawsuit tells legal teams to hurry up as cases drag on

The judge overseeing the pretrial phase of the two landmark litigation cases about brain injuries in rugby has issued another rebuke to the legal teams on both sides over their lack of progress.Senior Master Jeremy Cook started the latest round of case management hearings by reminding both the defendants and the claimants that “it won’t have escaped anybody’s notice that some of these claims are now over five years old, and we haven’t made much progress”.Since the cases involve claims of degenerative brain diseases, Cook said, time is at a premium. He has told both sides to provide him with written updates between now and a scheduled case management hearing in October, when both sides will be required to have identified their lists of 28 lead claimants from among the hundreds involved.The idea is these 28 will then be whittled down into a smaller group, who will represent the entire cohort

Banksy has been unmasked (again). But does this major Reuters investigation actually tell us something new?

Hi Kelly, everyone is talking about Banksy (again) – what’s he done this time?Hi Nick. So a really long (8,000-word) investigation by Reuters claims it has discovered the elusive street artist’s true identity, which backs up claims made by the Mail on Sunday British tabloid almost two decades ago that he is a 52-year-old Bristol-born man called Robin Gunningham, now going by the name of David Jones.Wait … didn’t we already know that? Or was it supposed to be the guy from Massive Attack?Sort of. Previous reports suggested that Robert Del Naja, the co-founder of Massive Attack – a pioneer in trip-hop, which is a music genre that also has its roots in Bristol – was Banksy. Now it seems that Naja is Gunningham’s secret partner/enabler/scout/gatekeeper

‘Alright mate?’: Amazon pins UK hopes on AI upgrade of Alexa

“Commiserations, mate, Chelsea lost 3-0 in the Champions League last night against Paris Saint-Germain,” says Alexa as it attempts to break the news gently to an awaiting Blues fan. Such is the injection of personality and understanding that Amazon hopes will lead to Britons re-engaging with their millions of Alexa devices, restoring it to the cutting edge of voice assistants rather than resigned to being a glorified egg timer.After its early access launch last year in the US, the long-awaited generative AI upgrade Alexa+ is finally making its debut in the UK, supporting eight years of existing devices strewn through more than half of UK households. With the UK being Amazon’s most engaged market and more than 40 accents to contend with across the UK and Ireland, the “next-generation ambient AI assistant” has its work cut out for it.The service will be available immediately for new purchases of Amazon’s latest generation of Echo and Show devices, with an invite system in operation for existing devices, which Amazon’s head of Alexa and Echo, Daniel Rausch, insists will progress faster than it did in the US

Sadiq Khan urges Labour to campaign on rejoining EU at next election

Labour should go into the next general election promising to rejoin the EU, Sadiq Khan has said.The mayor of London has repeatedly made the case for joining the customs union and single market, but went much further on Wednesday night by suggesting the party should promise full membership at next ballot.“We should, as a Labour party, fight the next general election with a clear manifesto commitment, a vote for Labour means we would rejoin the European Union. I think it’s inevitable,” he told the Italian publication La Repubblica.Khan cited the time that had passed since the referendum and the economic instability caused by Donald Trump since Labour was elected in July 2024 as reasons why it would be desirable

Seth Meyers on Trump’s Nato about-face: ‘This is just how Donald Trump does friendship’

Late-night hosts mocked Donald Trump’s rejection by Nato allies for help with the strait of Hormuz and a White House visit from the Irish prime minister for St Patrick’s Day.On Late Night, Seth Meyers recalled the many, many times that Trump insulted Nato, only to turn around and ask them this week for help with strait of Hormuz, blocked by his war with Iran. “You called them obsolete, sloppy and bad, and now you want their help?” Meyers marveled. “It’s like breaking up with someone and then immediately asking them for help moving – ‘I know I called you obsolete and sloppy, but I didn’t say you were bad at carrying things! Now hop to it, fatso, I gotta date tonight!’”The response from Nato members has been a resounding no, even from US allies like Germany and Britain. “You mean to tell me your genius plan of continually insulting them for 10-plus years and then begging them to help you out of a jam you got yourself into didn’t work?” Meyers laughed