the latest headlines from bbc news. the united states has refused to rule out further military action against syria. it comes after it fired missiles at an airbase from which it believes president assad's forces launched a chemical weapons attack. but despite the strikes, syrian warplanes are reportedly once again taking off from the airbase. four people have died and 15 people were injured, nine of them seriously, after a lorry has been driven into a crowd of pedestrians in the swedish capital stockholm. the prime minister called it an act of terrorism. police arrested a man who they say resembles cctv images they released. the basque separatist group eta has announced that it's given up all its weapons. senators in the united states have confirmed neil gorsuch as a supreme courtjudge, following a year long political battle over the post.

later, newswatch, but now, click. robot voice: welcome home, spen. how was your day? awful. i'm stressed out. that's a shame. i'll run you a bath and play some relaxing music from your anger— management playlist. music plays. rory, do i have any messages. you 17,000 tweets, 16 e—mails, and 105 fake news updates. anything of them urgent? your boss sent an e—mail asking if he can stop by for dinner tonight. do we have anything to eat? there is a quinoa, sapphire, and ginger scallop bake in the fridge which feeds four. i'm setting the oven to come on now and ordered a bottle of his favourite wine

to be delivered at seven. and order some chocolate double—fudge cake. 0k, i've ordered it. shall i apply for a gym membership for you? rory, mute. now, one day we really will have artificially intelligent personal assistants which we can really talk to and who know us better than we know ourselves, like pretend rory. thank you, rory. you're welcome. mr rory cellan—jones, everybody. now, we're not there yet, but we are well on the way. what started in our phones with names like siri, cortana, and, uh, "0k, google," can now control our homes and our cars too. amazon's echo led the way. and this week, google‘s home is launched in the uk. now, it is all well having these intelligent personal assistants to which we can ask anything into their permanently open ears, but the more we use them, the more trust we are going to have to place in them.

0k, google, is obama planning a coup? according to "secrets of the fed..." for example, in his dayjob, the bbc‘s tech correspondent, rory cj, recently discovered that you can't always believe what they say. obama may in fact be planning a communist coup at the end of his term in 2018. that fake news storyjust happened to be the top search result for that question. well, dan simmons has been looking at some of the other unintended consequences of living with these devices. as we transition from controlling things through screens to using our voice, for those providing services things could start getting tricky. i'm in the bbc‘s blue room, a space where the broadcaster tests out new technology. and with voice—assistance, it's not all going smoothly.

alexa, when‘s the next train to manchester? sorry, i didn't understand the question i heard. if you have to find out when the next train to manchester is, right now you have to say, "open the national rail app, tell me when the next train to manchester is," and go through a number of steps to achieve that. that's just not natural. you have to remember a number steps to find out content from somebody else. and that disadvantage applies to search results too. up until now, websites aimed to be on the first page of results. with voice assistants, just one answer comes back. 0k, google, how far‘s the moon? fine if it's a right—wrong definitive answer, the ones that companies constantly demo. the moon is 384,400 kilometres from earth. more controversial if you are looking for a product or service. for anyone else, how did you get to that position?

only one person can have the first spot. everyone else will have to figure out what did they do, how do they work with amazons and googles to make sure their content and their results are there first. bell chimes. this is not the end of the world, it isjust the end of competition as we know it. oxford university is home to one of the world's most influential thinkers when it comes to competition. if we use our assistants to buy stuff, ariel believes there'll be consequences, and they won't be unintended ones. that shift from an on line environment to the digital helper, what is it that you have? you have a helper that is voice—activated, you are one step further from the ability to look for outside options. your ability to check whether the price you received is truly the best price.

you tell your helper, "order me one, two, three," and you just assume that the helper will serve your needs. the likelihood is that in a two—side market, the helper is actually serving the platform. today, your assumption, our default assumption, is that the price you receive is the competitive price. and you're suggesting that it won't be? i'm telling you that it's not. a walk down oxford's cornmarket street reveals something the professor believes won't be around much longer on line. doing something like that will not help them find what they actually want. so we want to make sure we are focused on what they want. amazon told us "there is lots of potential and room for many participants. ourjob is to innovate on behalf of the customer and then let customers decide." but perhaps what these home assistants are most useful for is what they are becoming most known for, and that's controlling other things around the house. alexa, turn on the bar lights. 0k. alexa, bar lights off. 0k. phone rings. hi.

dan, are you there? look, i know we have not seen each other, and you think i am crazy, but i wasjust passing by, and... oh, wait, have you still got that stupid voice control thing, what was it? alexa. turn on the bar lights. 0k. alexa, turn on the microwave. have i got your attention now? alexa, unlock the front door. 0k. it's only me. we set that up. but the lights were real, even though the oven and the front door was faked a little bit by us to just show you what the potential is of this technology if it cannot recognise your voice. in actual fact, amazon tell us the unlock feature for doors is not available on the echo, and that may be the biggest

admission there is that there is a lot to be done with security on these devices. when computing power was limited, the text adventure that players head—scratching puzzles and mysteries, all brought to life by typing instructions into the game. but the reason that i've taken us on this journey down 32 kilobyte and it's a title that reminds me of those old text adventures quite a bit. leading you through the abbey, abbess approaches one of the sisters. now, you might think playing a game

on one of these is like trying to play a game on your microwave. because the echo, of course, lacks a screen, or any other way of interacting with it other than barking commands at it. but that is exactly how the game i'm about to play works. play runescape. the player must solve a murder in a fantasy realm. the game plays like an interactive version of an audio book — you get a bit of dialogue, then it waits for a response. surprisingly, it commands quite a bit of your attention, and it's quite a relaxing way to play a game, although that relaxing mood is shattered when you hear this... sorry, that is not a valid command.

which you hear quite a lot. would you like to talk to the abbess now? talk to the abbess. sorry, that is not a valid command. go to the abbess. sorry, that is not a valid command. talk to the abbess. sorry... tell me, who is the murderer?! sorry, that is not a valid command. as the action progresses, it can shatter the illusion and become increasingly frustration when it does not understand what you are saying. which is obviously a bit of a problem for a game you play by talking to it. sorry, that is not a valid command.

when it does work, though, runescape on echo is a fun and immersive experience. it also points to the potential these devices have beyond reading at the weather to you or reciting rubbishjokes. runescape is available by the skill section of the alexa app. that is it for this weak. follow us on line. thank you for your interactions with us on twitter, which included changing the name of one person, the assistant. so thank you, rory. thank you for watching. we will see you soon. hello, and welcome to news watch. so what does britain think? are we

on the brink of a bright new dawn? or might we sink? a measured analysis of brexit from david dimbleby. it's in the form of a rap. first, one of the survivors of the westminster attack a couple of weeks ago gave an emotional interru to the bbc on wednesday. her husband curt was killed and she herself was badly injured. here is a clip from that night's news at ten. melissa cochran has spoken exclusively to my colleague fiona bruce. curt was probably the best mani bruce. curt was probably the best man i have ever met. he was sweet

and kind and i'm extremely proud of him and i'm very happy that the world now knows what a wonderful man he was. two viewers recorded their thoughts on that for us. they were divided about the interview, but united in their condemnation of how it was described and promoted on air. can someone please explain to me what it means when hugh edwards prefa ces a what it means when hugh edwards prefaces a news report with an expression "exclusive report"? the interview was very emotionally charged. and, but handled sensitively by fiona bruce, but i feel the interview was cheapened by this out of date expression. the woman was visibly traumatised, shocked. there were tears running down her face. i