To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Customers in London can now travel in the UK's first robotaxis as Uber launches its self-driving minicab on Thursday - the company is the first to launch the service. Initially, it only has 15 autonomous vehicles with a licence to operate in the city, and each one must have a human safety driver behind the wheel ready to take control if anything goes wrong. At the moment, the UK fare for a robotaxi ride will be the same fare as a standard UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort journey, with upfront fares shown in the app. The BBC's Zoe Kleinman was the first British journalist to hail a self-driving Uber in London - here's how the ride went.

Wayve's self-driving technology is based on an AI learning model rather than the mapping used by some rivals. Wayve's self-driving technology is based on an AI learning model rather than the mapping used by some rivals. London's first self-driving taxis for hire hit the streets Londoners are now able to hire self-driving taxis for the first time, after rides in Wayve's autonomous vehicles were added to the Uber app on Thursday. The chances of landing a robotaxi on request immediately are slim, with only 15 vehicles so far licensed. That contrasts with the more than 100,000 private hire vehicles in the capital - roughly the same number of Uber customers who have registered to take autonomous rides.

Uber launches UK's first robotaxis with a driver - here's what it's like to ride in one Londoners are able to hail the UK's first robotaxis - as Uber today becomes the first company to launch a self-driving minicab. Initially, it only has 15 autonomous vehicles with a licence to operate in the city, and each one must have a human safety driver behind the wheel ready to take control if anything goes wrong. Uber said it surveyed London-based customers via the app and more than 100,000 said they would choose a self-driving taxi if one was available, despite incidents of driverless rides malfunctioning in US cities where they already operate. As I found out when I became the first UK journalist to hail one, it was mostly smooth but the safety driver did intervene on one occasion. At the moment the UK fare for a robotaxi ride will be the same fare as a standard UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort journey, with upfront fares shown in the app.

Almost half of people in Britain live in areas where economic growth does not translate into a better quality of life with a stark North-South divide in the spending power of households, a new report finds. Researchers at consultancy firm PwC said every region the north of England, midlands and Wales had a lower spending power than the country's average, with London and the South East comfortably above. The findings come as Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to tackle the cost of living and regional inequalities in order to boost living standards. But questions remain over the new PM's economic policies with surges in UK government borrowing costs set to impact public spending choices. The report released on Thursday said the equivalent of 12.5 million households - 46% - lived in parts of the country where economic growth, often seen through increased business investment and job opportunities, were not leading to better living standards.

DIY store B&Q and the fast food chain Five Guys are among hundreds of UK businesses named by the government for paying staff below the minimum wage. More than 600 employers were ordered to pay affected workers the outstanding wages, with £4m returned to workers, according to the Department for Business and Trade. The firms have also been issued penalties worth £7m. B&Q said the underpayments were unintentional and the result of calculations involving geographical allowances, while Five Guys blamed technical differences in how payroll regulations were applied. The list of 658 businesses includes shops, restaurants, nurseries, social care providers and a handful of NHS trusts.

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Is the war entering a new phase? European Union foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has said the bloc is ramping up pressure on Russia after Berlin accused Moscow of being behind a failed drone attack on a German airport. Kallas struck a defiant tone on Wednesday as she warned that "attempts to intimidate Europe" would fail. She further denounced last month's attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport as "state-sponsored terrorism". Russia has denied involvement in the incident, with President Vladimir Putin alleging that the evidence had been "planted".

A startup called Mostik has a wild new approach to combining the capabilities of AI models. I recently met with some brilliant Russian mathematicians who showed me a way for artificial intelligence models to communicate via something akin to machine telepathy. The mathematicians work for a startup called Mostik--the Russian word for bridge. It's a nod to the group's approach, which allows different models to interact using the mathematical values found in their weights --the things that determine how a prompt gets turned into an output. In practice, this means the capabilities of a larger model can be fed to a smaller model to ramp up its intelligence much more efficiently.

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