Twelve men have been charged with the manslaughter of football fan Simon Dobbin. Dobbin was assaulted outside the Railway Tavern in Southend-on-Sea in Essex in March 2015 following a match between Cambridge United and Southend United. The dad from Mildenhall, Suffolk, died in October 2020 after suffering a brain injury as a result of the attack. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had now decided to prosecute 12 men in connection with his death and all the defendants will appear at Colchester Magistrates' Court on 31 March. Rebecca Mundy, deputy chief crown prosecutor, said the CPS had worked closely with Essex Police to examine and review material obtained during previous investigations.

A fly-tipper dressed as a giant purple T. rex has been caught on camera dumping rubbish in a street. The brightly coloured rogue raptor was spotted checking for traffic before crossing a road in Southend, Essex. The prehistoric predator then looks around before slinging two black bin bags to the ground next to large black bin. Footage of the incident, first reported by Your Southend, was captured on a resident's CCTV just before 21:30 GMT on Tuesday. The city council told the BBC it had not received any reports of fly-tipping in relation to the incident.

Ready or not, autonomous robots are leaving laboratories to be tested in real-world contexts. With more and more people living in cities, these technologies offer ways to cope with ageing populations and poorly maintained infrastructures, while promoting safer transport, productive manufacturing and secure energy supplies. Urban "living labs" are one way scientists are trying to understand how autonomous robots – or Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), to give them their full title – will affect our everyday lives. Autonomous robots are interconnected, interactive, cognitive and physical tools, which can perceive their environments, reason about events, make or revise plans and control their own actions. These technologies are designed to draw on big data and connect with the Internet of Things, to make our lives easier by increasing accuracy and efficiency.

Ready or not, autonomous robots are leaving laboratories to be tested in real-world contexts. With more and more people living in cities, these technologies offer ways to cope with ageing populations and poorly maintained infrastructures, while promoting safer transport, productive manufacturing and secure energy supplies. Urban "living labs" are one way scientists are trying to understand how autonomous robots – or Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), to give them their full title – will affect our everyday lives. Autonomous robots are interconnected, interactive, cognitive and physical tools, which can perceive their environments, reason about events, make or revise plans and control their own actions. These technologies are designed to draw on big data and connect with the Internet of Things, to make our lives easier by increasing accuracy and efficiency.

Pepper is a 4ft tall approximation of a human being developed in France, and now manufactured and marketed by the Japanese-owned corporate giant SoftBank Robotics. If you went to the recent Robots exhibitions at London's Science Museum or the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, you will be aware of what he (Pepper has been given a male pronoun, for some reason) can do. Using a screen on his chest, he tells interactive stories, approximates the basics of conversation, and performs everyday gestures – all the while, according to his creators, "recognising the principal human emotions and adapting his behaviour to the mood of his interlocutor". I have met Pepper on three occasions: the fact that my two children were so entranced spoke volumes not just about his capabilities, but the easy charm his inventors have wired into him. More than 100 SoftBank mobile phone shops in Japan are already employing Peppers to interact with their customers; last week brought news that HSBC is doing the same thing in its flagship US branch in Manhattan.

The rise of artificial intelligence in the workplace poses a little-discussed question – wouldn't it be better if the HR department, not the programmers, oversaw robots? Rob Mettler suggests the idea is not as bizarre as it sounds. Is HR ready for the robot revolution? The view that robots should report to the head of HR might sound absurd, but when the CIO of a major online retailer talks about his warehouse robots working in teams, when companies introduce "AI board members", and robots start being trialled in social care, it's time to reconsider lines of responsibility. Of course, many will be of the opinion that robots and artificial intelligence (AI) aren't human and we shouldn't even entertain the idea.

Historians discovered a code machine used by Adolf Hitler to swap top secret messages with his generals when they saw it advertised on eBay for 9.50. Volunteers from the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park tracked down the extremely rare Lorenz keyboard after seeing it on the online bidding site. It was being advertised as a telegram machine and the historians found that it had been left in a shed in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, with'rubbish all over it'. Historians discovered a code machine used by Adolf Hitler to swap top secret messages with his generals when they noticed it was being sold on eBay. John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum, said: 'My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter.