A private hire firm has called for standardization of regulation across all local authorities to ensure safety in future robo-taxi services. The call came in an interview with TU-Automotive by Andrew Wescott, head of regulatory and external affairs at Addison Lee, as he revealed the company's finding from the MERGE Greenwich project that carried out simulated autonomous vehicle ride-sharing trials in south-east London and sought consumer opinion. Wescott said the project showed that a set of national standards for private hire operators should be introduced across the UK and a national database of licensed private hire drivers to be set up. He said: "There are some authorities that are, let's say, a bit freer in licensing and others that are a bit stricter." While admitting several trials of this type are currently being staged in the UK, he said: "The important thing for us is there's a national approach that is then implemented at a local level. Because otherwise you might get some challenges in terms of the way you operate and also the way in which the transport system itself works. We're not going to go overnight from manual to autonomous, there'll be a staged process. Also, there'll be a need to integrate that with existing transport networks. That needs that level of national structure first."

Research analysts are the most likely employees on Wall Street to find themselves working with--or being replaced by--robots, according to a survey by Greenwich Associates. By next year, some 75% of banks and financial firms will either explore or implement artificial intelligence technologies, harnessing a variety of digital services to extract insights from mountains of data. While AI is probably near the peak of its hype cycle, several factors have helped it gain traction in recent years, according to Greenwich. Billions of images and documents are now available online for training computers to spot patterns and other high-level tasks. Advances in graphical processing units, which are adept at the kind of data crunching required by AI, are making sifting through daunting datasets much easier.

A pet owner was stunned after her parrot managed to shop online using Amazon's Alexa voice recognition software. Corienne Pretorius, 39, was baffled after a £10 order for gift boxes, which she had not ordered, arrived at her house. The mother-of-one questioned her husband Jan, 45, a civil engineer, and son Jaden, eight, but quickly realised the culprit was Buddy - their African Grey parrot. Ms Pretorius, from Greenwich, south east London, says the cheeky bird mimics her voice, and must have activated her smart Amazon Echo device to place the strange order. Pet owner Corienne Pretorius, of Greenwich, south-east London, was stunned after her parrot (pictured) managed to shop online using Amazon's Alexa voice recognition software She said: 'I couldn't believe it when I realised that it was Buddy who had used Alexa to make an Amazon order.

Ocado has become the first British supermarket to launch an app on Amazon Alexa meaning customers can add items to their shopping basket using their smart assistant. The service, which launched yesterday, allows customers to order food to be delivered to their homes simply by issuing a voice command. Ocado is the only British supermarket in the UK to offer an app on Alexa, the personal assistant device owned by rival Amazon, as it moves away from traditional supermarket shopping. The service, which launched yesterday, allows customers to order food to be delivered to their homes simply by issuing a voice command. As well as ordering food from the device customers will be able to add a product to an existing order or basket, find out which products are in season and receive inspiration for the best ways to include them in recipes.

They've become a familiar sight throughout the UK, nipping from house to house with vans packed full of groceries. But Ocado delivery drivers could potentially become a thing of the past, after the company completed successful trial deliveries using driverless vehicles in London's Greenwich. The online supermarket hopes the self-driving vans will improve safety and increase the speed at which orders can be met. It says the system could be ready for commercial launch nationwide by 2019. Residents of Greenwich had access to the country's first self-driving grocery delivery service powered by an electric CargoPod (pictured).

STEP into a taxi in south London later this year and you might not have to think about paying a tip. The UK's first fully public trial of autonomous vehicles will soon be under way. For four weeks, a fleet of driverless shuttles will each ferry up to five passengers and a "safety warden" along a 2-kilometre route in Greenwich. Previous trials there and in the town of Milton Keynes required participants to register in advance. This time the vehicles will pick up anyone wanting a ride.

Together, these sensors detect and visualise everything around the truck, including cars, pedestrians and lamp posts. The system works with Caesium, a cloud-based platform (also developed by Oxbotica) that can manage and coordinate fleets of autonomous vehicles. The company sells a "smart platform" which gives other companies access to its delivery infrastructure -- the technology behind its apps, its warehouses and delivery vehicles. So it's very important for us to keep innovating and to keep doing exciting technology projects, because that will give us a competitive advantage going forward."

Uber drivers could soon be out of a job, as new technology is being developed that will allow members of the public to summon driverless cars with a click of a button. The UK government has handed £12.8 million ($16.4 million) to an AI firm to develop a driverless car system. The firm plans to demonstrate a fully-working system that would allow people to order driverless rides through a smartphone app, in 2019. Uber drivers could soon be out of a job, as new technology is being developed that will allow members of the public to summon driverless cars with a click of a button. This is where the issue often occurs, as the rules aren't clear as to who is responsible if a crash occurs.

Members of the British public are getting their first extended trial of a driverless shuttle bus. Over the next three weeks, about 100 people will travel in a prototype shuttle on a route in Greenwich, London. The vehicle, which travels up to 10mph (16.1kmph), will be controlled by a computer. However, there will be a trained person on board who can stop the shuttle if required during the tests. Oxbotica, the firm that developed the technology behind the shuttle, said 5,000 people had applied to take part. "Very few people have experienced an autonomous vehicle, so this is about letting people see one in person," chief executive Graeme Smith told the BBC.

It's been almost a year since the UK's Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) opened sign-ups for a driverless pod trial in Greenwich. The original plan was to start before Christmas, but given today's date that obviously didn't happen. Over the next three weeks, roughly 100 people will clamber aboard "Harry," a self-driving shuttle named after clockmaker John Harrison. It will take them around a two-mile course in North Greenwich, near The O2, to demonstrate how the technology could be used for "last mile" trips in urban areas. The shuttle is a repurposed Ultra Pod, which is already in operation at London's Heathrow Airport.