An added boost from summer sun and sports fixtures for some businesses helped the UK economy to grow by 0.4% between April and June, according to official data. But the figure - in line with economists' expectations - is below the 0.6% expansion recorded in the first three months of this year. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said growth had remained relatively robust, with services sector propelling growth in the second quarter while manufacturing also grew. The economy is now 1.2% bigger than a year ago, but economists warn growth is likely to slow in the second half of the year. Computer programming, advertising and the pharmaceutical industry were areas of strength, the ONS said.

Twitch has been criticised by users after it emerged the popular streaming platform allowed their content to be used to train Amazon's artificial intelligence (AI) models. Amazon owns Twitch and a setting allowing the US tech giant to take data generated by creators and audiences to train AI is turned on by default. Users can now opt out of that, Twitch said on Wednesday, but the announcement sparked a backlash with some users questioning why it was allowed in the first place. Twitch's chief product officer Mike Minton, said it's respecting users by letting them opt out but on why data was collected by default, he admitted: If it's opt-in, nobody would opt-in. Users who remain opted in could have any of their channel content used for training, Minton said during a livestream, adding that the data collected will not be re-sold to other companies.

KisanHub, a Cambridge-founded startup applying AI to agriculture, has raised £1.12 million to accelerate its growth in the UK and Europe. The round was led by Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 (LCIF2) with backing from the Future Fund. Existing investors IQ Capital, Notion Capital and Sistema VC also joined. The'seed to sale' connectivity platform combines crop intelligence with supply chain intelligence, to make sure what farms yield actually makes it to kitchens in good shape. Integrating data from crops, stores, load dispatches, satellites and field sensors, the platform helps growers, field staff, procurement managers and management teams make informed decisions and avoid bottlenecks.

Amazon's Alexa has gone down and is ignoring user's requests, according to numerous reports from customers. Alexa is the name given to the artificial intelligence (AI) system that powers the Echo device range. The smart assistant has been down since early this morning but users say that the device either won't switch off or is switching itself off. Outage tracker Down Detector– the website that tracks outages – received hundreds of complaints about Alexa not working at around 8am this morning UK time. Amazon's Alexa has gone down and is ignoring user's requests, according to reports from frustrated customers.

The UK and Europe must continue to work closely together on artificial intelligence research regardless of Brexit, according to experts, as the race for AI leadership pushes nations to form strategic alliances. Dame Wendy Hall, Regius professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, said that the strength of UK research in the field meant that the European Union could ill afford not to strike a deal on collaboration with UK universities. She argued that a common goal of developing ethical practices in both research into and the application of AI technologies would give the UK and Europe a "high ground" and position them well to compete with the US and China. "There's a whole hype-wave around AI right now and every government in the world wants to get the best of it," said Dame Wendy, who was commissioned by the government to conduct a review of the UK's policies on AI last year. "[Anyone] not in a position to seize those opportunities and develop [their] own AI sector becomes dependent on the US or China. So it's very important that we build on our fantastic 50-year legacy of British AI research."