this is bbc news — our latest headlines. jeremy corbyn has said he would sanction operations in syria, only if they had the un's approval. the conservatives have pointed out that russia would inevitably veto such action. sir martin sorrell, the founder and head of the world's largest advertising group, wpp, has resigned, less than a fortnight after the company announced it was investigating an allegation of personal misconduct. two teenagers have been arrested following a serious road traffic collision in essex. three people remain in hospital, but none of the injuries are life threatening. more than 500 firefighters, with support from aircraft, are tackling a huge bushfire, threatening homes in the southern suburbs of sydney. old mackelly had a farm, e—i—e—i—o.

and on his farm, he had a robot tractor, a flower picker and, oh, it looks like we're taking on a new member of the team! if i'm honest, i'm as comfortable on a realfarm as a cow would be in a data farm, but i'm here to see a world first. as farming gets more automated, it might not come as a surprise to know that many modern tractors will drive autonomously in a straight line. nearly all of them, though, need a human operator to turn the corners and generally be the brains of the operation.

what's interesting is that in this one field in shropshire in the heart of england, every single stage of the farming cycle, from preparing the soil to harvesting crops, is automated. welcome to the hands free hectare. the researchers at harper adams university, along with agricultural engineers, have already completed a whole year of sowing, growing and harvesting spring barley, all using autonomous machinery and without a single human touching the crops. and how have you made the autonomous? it looks like you've had a go yourself. so everything we've used is off the shelf, you could buy yourself, and it revolves around the open source autopilot from a drone, and then we've had to adapt the tractors‘ manual controls with motors and actuators.

and we will come back to the hands free hectare in a few minutes. these machines have an advantage for farmers because you don't need as many people operating or supervising them and, of course, farming automation is happening across the board. last week, we saw a pepper picking robot in australia. and, as brexit threatens to cut down the number of people available to work on the land, this could become increasingly important. jen copestake has been the netherlands to see some more developments in automated picking. selective harvesting of delicate crops like strawberries, mushrooms and flowers is physical and repetitive work. the crops are easily damaged, resulting in financial losses for farmers. traditionally, these industries have attracted migrant workers but with standards of living rising across the globe, the work is not as attractive as it once was, leading some farmers to consider how robots could fill in the gaps. many countries around the world are facing a labour shortage

for harvesting crops, including here in the netherlands, which has the world's second largest value of agricultural exports. it's the world's largest exporter of cut flowers. but are robots really ready to pick up the slack from human workers? at wageningen university, researchers certainly think so, and are working on all kinds of problems in the fruit and vegetable supply chain, from testing firmness of fruit to manual handling. firmness is usually tested by hand — by physically cutting the fruit and sticking a probe in it. it's a labour—intensive process and the fruit is left damaged and cannot be sold. researchers think robots will provide a more accurate and hygienic solution that doesn't damage the fruit. it is a funny robot, right? yeah. so what's it doing? it is a prototype forfruit inspection.

how does it do that? with near—infrared microscopy. so he's happy with that apple? yeah, he is happy with the apple — look how happy he is. do you think he's going to go for a pear next? we don't know. he decides. he decides? it's an autonomous robot, yeah, so, yeah. a key breakthrough will be getting these machines to work faster than humans and in a commercial setting. robots are already at work in the greenhouses here at florensis. and these machines can autonomously plant 2,400—2,600 cuttings an hour, compare to a human working at a still impressive m00 an hour. it recognises the top and bottom of the cutting and even shakes the conveyor belt to free them if the camera can't get a good look. the onlyjobs left for the workers here are scattering the cuttings on the machine and quality control of the finished product. so before, how many human workers

would be on this line? on a line like this, with this capacity, about 10—12 people needs to be sticking manually. 10-12? yeah. and now you have how many? two. fewer people does not mean less work can be done. at the end of the game, it — you can work 2a hours of the day, you could save, let's say, 60% of your labour cost. there are many aspects which is going to help the total process. i believe, and i am convinced, that this is just the start. and absolutely, this will replace the human being. bringing autonomous picking robots beyond prototypes to actually working in the field has been an immense challenge. but dutch company cerescon is ready to sell its white asparagus harvesting robots. it has sold one to a farmer in france, and are building more in its headquarters near eindhoven. white asparagus are more expensive

than the green variety. it grows under the ground. to stay white, they need to be picked before seeing any sunlight. we actually inject an electrical signal into the ground and we have these sensors which dig through the soil and when they approach the asparagus, they actually pick up the signal and the closer you get to the asparagus, the stronger the signal gets, and when it is above a certain threshold we know "oh, now we're very close", so we immediately pull back this sensor and then we know where it is. the asparagus is actually conducting electrically the signal because there is a lot of water in there, so basically the difference between water content of the asparagus and the sand, that makes the difference how we detect the asparagus. cerescon says the 3—row version of the machine can replace up to 70 manual hand workers. is this machine more efficient than a human? yes, yes, enormous, much more. and also, you have better quality asparagus because we detect them sub—surface, they do become violet and they don't flower,

and we have less sub—surface damage. with the current way of manual harvesting, we lose 30% of the crops with sub—surface damage, and with our machine, we think we bring it back to 10% or 15%. we are seeing the race to develop these robots for market accelerating around the world. this is the agrobot. it is being trialled in driscoll‘s berry fields in california. here in the uk, farmers are experimenting with the technology too. there are fears about the availability of migrant workers post brexit. i understand how an indigenous population in a country like britain may be reluctant to have a career in hand—picking strawberries. and so, it tends to be done by migrant labour. there are access issues with that with brexit and the like. we are keen to maintain, as a farming industry, good access to that labour pool at the moment, but we can see that in five, 10, 15 years time, we may have technology whereby this

work can be done by robots. a lot of work is being done to try and solve the labour crisis in selective harvesting with robots. perhaps one day, farms will look more like car plant assembly lines and humans picking fruit, vegeta bles a nd flowers will become a distant memory. that wasjen in the netherlands. back at the hands free hectare in shropshire, little autonomous tractor is making its way across the field. this is footage from a proof of concept project in automated sustainable farming, which means looking after the environment at the same time as growing enough food to meet the demands of a population that could reach nearly 10 billion people by the year 2050. but why have they chosen to use smaller tractors instead of the giant modern ones, which can cover much larger areas? so with all of the benefits

of those big tractors, there are also the problems. 0ne main problem is the weight of the tractors, and that weight is doing lots of damage to the soil, and that is essentially that the squishing and the removal of structure from a soil which makes it very hard for plants to grow. so we see the solution is the one guy who's driving the big tractor then becomes like a swarm or a fleet manager of these smaller autonomous machines. back in the field, ijoin kit franklin in a cold, cramped control hut. so what are we looking at here? ok, this is the telemetry coming back from the tractor. so you can see the position of the tractor, where it has got to, and you can see it meeting the waypoint, turning... as well as not compacting the soil, there is another advantage to using smaller vehicles — small sprayers allow for precision farming. now, that means being able to deliver the right fertilisers and pesticides only to the plants that need it. when you blanket spray, a lot of the spray isn't hitting target, it's hitting soil,

and then just going into the environment. so with a smaller robotic system, we aim to be much more precise and put targeted input. so if we only target the plant itself, we can drop that chemical use by 80% upwards, depending on whose papers you read. but how do you know which crops need special attention? part of the deal with precision farming is knowing exactly what parts of your field need what kind of treatment. now, that is usually done by eye. you would come and look at the crops and the state of the soil, you may even dig up a few samples and from that, work out what you need to spray where. well, here, even that part is automated. drones fly autonomously between waypoints, capturing pictures of the field with specially adapted cameras. so we are looking at multispectral images, so looking at near—infrared types of the spectrum.

under infrared, plants give away a lot. so we can look at disease stress or nutrient stress, and things like that. and kit says that even though you would need a fleet of smaller tractors to as do the work of one big tractor, each would cost just a fraction of the price of the big beast. 0ur machine that we are using in this field, i could sell you, with some profit, for £a0,000. so you could have multiple of my robot tractors, my autonomous tractors, for the price of your one very large tractor that you currently might be buying. ifeel like i'm in some kind of car sales showroom at the moment. i'm starting to be convinced. yeah, i will have five, please, yeah, yeah. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was, of course, the week dominated by mark zuckerberg's apologise—a—thon in washington. we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well.

while most observers thought the facebook boss came out on top, big questions remain. meme makers, meanwhile, have been working overtime, mocking the social media billionaire‘s performance at a us congress grilling. 0uch! it was the week gesture control specialists leap motion revealed its latest project — virtual wearable interfaces. you'll need an augmented reality headset, though, to bring this digital tech to life. uber acquired bike—sharing start—up jump, and its 12,000 gps—tracked bikes across a0 cities worldwide. and hackers removed youtube‘s most watched video — despacito by luis fonsi. they also defaced vids by a host of big—name acts like drake and taylor swift. the clips are now back online as normal. google‘s artificial intelligence boffins at deepmind have been training an al to navigate naturally through city streets like a human. using street view, the ai explores cities as if it's on foot — virtually, of course. the software could help self—driving cars get around

areas with rubbish maps. an escalator manufacturer has launched what it's claiming is the most boring virtual reality experience in the world — a never—ending journey on one of its escalators. somebody gets paid to think of this stuff, you know. it was my mistake and i'm sorry. yes, this is the way that facebook faced the music, as zuck was called to congress to answer tough questions about his company's treatment of its users‘ personal information. well, that was the plan, but the internet was quick to point out that the senators‘ questions didn't so much expose zuckerberg's flaws as they did their own lack of technical understanding. there will always be a version of facebook that is free. critics complained that because the whole theory of big data is so hard to get your head around, the hard questions weren‘t asked.

but at least some managed to cut to the heart of the matter. would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night? um... ah, no. but you're following facebook users, even after they log off of that platform and application. ah, congresswoman, that‘s right, that we understand, in order to show which of yourfriends... so for people who do not even have facebook, i don't think the average person understands that several people. the average person understands that. this story has a long way to run yet. but could silicon valley‘s view that technology is always a force for good be dealt a fatal blow? well, jamie bartlett is a long—time friend of click, and in his latest book, the people vs tech, he argues that technology is slowly but surely eating away at society. here he is to explain.

good evening comedy social media giant facebook is under growing pressure to explain the measures it‘s taking to secure the personal data of its 2 billion users worldwide. the revelations about cambridge analytica and facebook have shocked the world, but this runs a far deeper. but this runs far deeper. it‘s just one example of a grand struggle taking place every day between modern technology and our democracy. strong and stable leadership. this country needs... you're not credible. jeremy, jeremy, i know there is no extra.. invest in education! invest in health! you're the coalition... the recent anti—gun movement in florida of course demonstrates how modern technology can be brilliant for democracy. it allows people to organise themselves, to have access to new forms of information, and get involved in politics. however, because of some of these very visible benefits,

i think it has blinded us to the deeper ways that digital technology is slowly pulling democracy apart. there‘s a problem of compatibility. see, our democracies are old. they were designed for an analogue age. and there‘s rules and institutions, like free elections, a vibrant press, informed citizens, that keep the whole thing working. but now there‘s a new game in town. digital technology. and it runs according to very different rules, it‘s decentralised, it‘s hard to control, it‘s data lead, and it improves at an incredible speed. think about it, our elections have rules to make sure that citizens have access to the same information.

that‘s how we thrash out the public issues of the day and make sure that what the candidates say is mostly accurate. but now, with big data analysis and micro—targeting, we can build up very detailed profiles of individuals and politicians can target them with highly personalised messages. this allows politicians to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities at an industrial scale and in a way that regulators can‘t easily see. if‘s out with the old public sphere of shared information and in with a million private spheres. pretty soon, politicians will be able to send a million personalised messages to a million people. and how do we keep politicians to account if everyone‘s getting

a different message? and do you know how much worse this could get? they can extract from this seemingly innocent information very accurate predictions about your religiosity, leadership potential, political views. one day soon your fridge will know everything about your diet, your car will know what journeys you‘ve been on, your home assistant will know your mood because of the tone of your voice. and you will be getting messages based on all of that data. and that will open up a whole new world of possible manipulation. but it‘s us too. democracies need informed citizens who have a shared sense of reality. but we‘re now overwhelmed with information, facts and claims, and misinformation and propaganda. and it‘s allowing us to create our own versions of reality. that‘s making us more angry and far less likely to compromise with each other.

in the end, there can only be one winner of this grand struggle, either tech will destroy democracy and the social order as we know it, or politics will stamp its authority and control over the digital revolution. 0n the current track, technology is winning. and unless things change, democracy will be washed away, just like communism or feudalism or absolute monarchies before it — as a system that worked for a while, but then couldn‘t upgrade when the technology around it changed. that was jamie bartlett on the people vs tech. blimey, i think we need something more uplifting after that, don‘t you? well, over the years, we‘ve looked at some technologies that help people with disabilities to gain more independence and a better quality of life. well, up next, kate russell has had first—hand experience of the impacts of a simple app on a family devastated by a chromosome disorder that has robbed a young boy of his voice. most children start

speaking their first words in the second year of life. people take it for granted — until it doesn‘t happen. i travelled to the south of england to meet bastian pond... hello! hello. ..and find out more about the impact this can have on a family. you‘re making the train track! bastian has phelan—mcdermid syndrome. it affects only 1,500 people worldwide and is the result of a missing or mutated chromosome, which results in global development delay. in bastian‘s case, this includes the absence of speech. although bastian can‘t talk, he does understand some of what‘s said. would you like a drink? he is using chatable to express basic needs and wants in reply. i want blackcurrant. all right, b. i want blackcurrant.

therapy box is the company behind the app. so what was the inspiration behind it? i‘m a speech and language therapist by trade and have worked in the nhs and worked with lots of young people and seen how if they don‘t have the right tools to communicate that they‘re really restricted and not able to reach their potential. in our app, it‘s using photos, for example, of the child‘s environment, to support their communication. it might be a picture of their classroom or at home or pages that are more like grids, so they‘ve got an arrangement of symbols that they can press in order to make a sentence. although bastian‘s condition is incredibly rare, over 300,000 people in the uk have speech disabilities that could benefit from augmentative and alternative communication techniques. the chatable app itself is so versatile for the technology. if you see here, that‘s an old pecs communication book. it‘s cards and stickers with the symbols on them.

right. but this is so limited... so this is what he used to use. yeah. and then he shows it to me. 0k, well, what does that say? can i see that? can you show it to kate? ca rs. and he‘s signing cars to you as well. right. so to move on from that, to do it on the ipad is absolutely brilliant, because it‘s unlimited, you can have as many symbols as you like. right. what has been the effect on him of having a little bit more independence and also on the rest of the family? well, i described it as being a miracle, the chatable. because that‘s really what it feels like. it has given him a voice. and, um... without me getting really upsets... something that upsets me is that i will never hear him say "i love you, mummy" orjust call me mummy. sorry, i‘m just getting really emotional. but maybe with the app he might be able to. it‘s clear this technology is making a huge difference for bastian at home.

and it will grow with him with educational tools and analytics to help develop language, reading, and writing. there‘s also a visual timetable so he might one day be able to take more control over his daily life. at £99 per user, it‘s a lot of money, but the app will evolve with bastian, and the developers promise ongoing support and updates for users. they also told us they are dropping the price to just £1 soon, which will make a great difference to many families. what do you think it would have been like dealing with his condition without the technology? oh my gosh, it doesn‘t even bear thinking about. it is his communication, enjoyment for him, downtime, he watches tv when he goes to bed, the shows help him wind down. it‘s everything to him. highfive! yeah. brilliant. that is kate russell and bastian pond. don‘t forget, we live on facebook

and twitter — @bbcclick. so you can check in any time you fancy. thanks for watching. and we‘ll see you soon. we have got the warmest weather of the year so far just around the corner, looking at the weekend, it is going to get warmer towards the middle to end of the week. temperatures could hit 25 degrees around the london area, fairly widely, though, we will see temperatures and the high teens, low 20s. temperatures and the high teens, low 205. a bit temperatures and the high teens, low 20s. a bit of snow on the hills in scotland, perhaps not lasting too much longer, given those

temperatures rising, but this was the scene in devon earlier today. the radar picture picks up this rain, notjust coming along in one area, it is coming along in bands, which are working across england, wales, northern ireland and getting into scotland, as well. they will continue to push its way northwards, likely to continue to be on and off rain with some clear spells for a time. late in the night the weather should become clearer and drier across more southern areas should become clearer and drier across more southern areas of england. temperatures between five and 9 degrees overnight. there will be some sunshine around on monday at in england and wales but still quite a lot of clout in the sky, some quite high, which will make the sunshine hazier times. the wind picking up in northern ireland, as we go through monday night into tuesday, the rain will be really heavy at times, particularly across the hills. areas like argyll,

stirlingshire, into parts of dumfries and galloway in cumbria, could see around 50 millimetres of rain orso. we could see around 50 millimetres of rain or so. we could see some localised surface water issues with that. temperatures similar to those of today across many areas, but it is beginning to warm up across parts of eastern england, a sign of things to come, because towards wednesday, higher pressure builds across the near continent and will start to drag in some warm airfrom france. those temperatures will be rising across england and wales was quite a bit of cloud to start, that should thin with time, and temperatures coming up quite nicely, highs of 23 in the london area, 17 in edinburgh, not feeling bad at all. thursday, there should be more in a way of sunshine to go around and it will feel warmer as well, temperatures expected to peak at 35 celsius, easily the warmest day of the year so easily the warmest day of the year so far. -- 25 celsius. this is bbc news. i‘m vicki young. the headlines at four:

labour leaderjeremy corbyn has said he would sanction operations in syria only if they had the un‘s approval. voices from inside the devastation in syria — the bbc hears from a mother and daughter who survived the suspected chemical attack in eastern ghouta a week ago we went back down to the basement and we saw how they were bringing the martyrs. instead of breathing the martyrs. instead of breathing the air, we breathed the smell of blood. hundreds of australian firefghters are tackling a large bushfire threatening homes in the suburbs of sydney. the chief executive of the world‘s largest advertising agency, martin sorrell, is stepping down. also coming up: jubilation at the commonwealth games. england beat australia in the netball, to secure the greatest result in their history and win their first