to you within minutes, it would know exactly where you were, you could see where it was and you didn't even have to have any money on you. i mean, it was revolutionary. the company grew at a rapid pace, becoming the highest valued start—up in the world. this without ever turning a profit. in fact, in the last three months alone, uber lost an eye—watering $5.2 billion. undeterred, uber continues to expand and has its name stamped onto many apps that provide different types of services — all part of the so—called "gig economy". now, it has faced a lot of backlash in many of the countries that it operates in, from taxi drivers who have been losing out because of the platform's aggressive pricing strategies, and from city authorities who've raised concerns over workers‘ rights and passenger safety. here in london, the transport

authority says it too has concerns about passenger safety and it will decide later this month whether to renew uber‘s licence. in the meantime, carl miller has met up with an uber driver who has concerns, too — although this is about how uber controls his livelihood. it's monday morning and i'm catching a ride with hadi. another one. like so many parts of the digital world, the gig economy was supposed to be a liberation. you 0k? apps like uber were supposed to transform how you worked, work when you want, where you want. but now, many fear that whether it was either in the platforms and how they work, or the data and how it's collected, they don'tjust represent a liberation, but also something else — a potent new form of control as well. what i was told is that the closest

driver gets thatjob but i don't believe that to be right, cos what happens is i've seen customers sitting in my car, trying to book a ride and it's not bouncing to me — it's actually going to drivers who are far away, five, ten minutes. that was something i really couldn't believe, so we gave it a go. but although i was physically sitting next to him, the job went to someone several minutes away. uber has now introduced a system that aims to reduce the waiting time for everyone, notjust a particular passenger. and this may lead to the counter—intuitive situation where your driver can get to someone else quickly and another driver can pick you up soon too. confused? well, so is hadi. and although the driver app gives some information, he's struggling to understand what factors really determine how work is allocated. in his five years of driving, the work has become scarcer. it's becoming even more important to hadi to understand the algorithm that actually allocates the work that exists — important,

but also unknown. you drive around all day, thinking maybe that's the best way to beat this algorithm, or to meet up with the algorithm that has been set. carl, i don't know what's going on. on an average, i used to work six to eight hours, five to six days a week. the number of days have not changed, but the hours have increased. it will still be ten to 12 hours, five to six days a week. after costs are factored in, hadi says he and many of his colleagues are often struggling to make even the minimum wage. not only for hadi, but plenty of other drivers as well, it's actually, if you think about it, the algorithm that lets him feed and clothe his family. it's cold hard maths, but with tremendously human consequences. unfortunately, we all depend on the algorithm. want we want from it — to be fair, to be transparent. that's the most important thing.

there was only one way for hadi to actually figure out what's been going on — asking for his data. and when he got it back, it made things even more confusing. james farrar established the worker info exchange to help people across the gig economy to actually make sense of their data. he told us the information hadi received refers to everything from speed to battery level, but, crucially, doesn't reveal the things he really wants to know, such as rates of pay or the actual time spent on the platform and how to optimise his chances of earning more money. drivers always want to understand that they're getting a fair deal, that the value, the quality, the quantity of the work is fairly distributed. well, uber has always proposed to its workforce that the workforce, drivers are their own boss, they're free to make their own choices, they are effectively running their own business.

but if that's true, then i must be able to access the endless amounts of data i'm creating for uber every day. a joint study between oxford researchers and uber itself found that, on average, drivers earned above london living wage and reported they were happier than the average worker across the city. critics question, though, whether the full costs of being an uber driver have really been factored in when those figures were arrived at. the same arguments now playing out in the streets of london have happened in city after city across the world. in what might have been a global first, the powerful taxi and limousine commission in new york didn't just ask uber for data, but demand it. and until uber handed it over, they were banned from operating. what we found out was that conditions were worse than what was being described to us by drivers. 96% of drivers were making less

than the city's minimum wage. but without that information, you only have anecdotes — you have stories from drivers about low wages, but you have no way to really quantify that. and without quantifying it, you can't create a policy to bring those levels of wages up. in response, ubersaid: hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week disney officially entered the streaming market. well, it didn't quite go to plan. disney + finally went live in the us, canada and the netherlands, but customers reported technical issues, with many unable to connect. disney said demand had exceeded its highest expectations. maybe ralph really did break the internet after all? in the fastest backflip and u—turn since...well, sonic,

the updated and redesigned hedgehog has been officially revealed in a new trailer for the upcoming live—action movie. the original trailer drew a deluge of complaints and mockery over the original cgi design of sonic himself, forcing animators — quite literally — back to the drawing board. from spinning hedgehogs to backflipping robots. these footballing flipping robots from mit are called the mini cheetah. its creators claim it is virtually indestructible and can right itself if it falls down. as well as some smooth soccer skills, it's also capable of walking over uneven terrain twice as fast asa human. let's hope it can't climb trees! and finally, in other robot news, if you're one of those people that don't like speaking to shop assistants, maybe you'd rather direct your questions to one of these welcoming faces instead. this humanoid shop assistant from russian company promobot can apparently show emotion and they claim they can make photorealistic clones like these arnold schwarzenegger and albert einstein dolls. greeted by these in store,

would it be hasta la vista? or will you be back? you decide. for those with serious food allergies, knowing exactly what you're eating can be a matter of life or death. when it comes to packaged food, the ingredients are normally clearly on the label, plus a warning if it may contain traces of nuts or any other allergens. but when it comes to eating in someone else's house or in a restaurant, things get a little bit more complicated. so if you want to add an extra level of checking what those ingredients are, well, i've been putting some technology to the test that might be able to help. this is nima. now, there's a version that tests for gluten and another that tests for peanuts. the idea is that you put in a small sample of the food that you're eating, as small as a pea, into one of these capsules. that goes inside the device, which syncs up to your smartphone,

and you can find out whether the ingredient you can't eat is in it or not. i'm going to put both of them to the test with this cookie, which should contain gluten but shouldn't contain nuts. the device uses antibody—based chemistry born out of mit technology to detect proteins or allergen. the company's algorithms then translate complex science into a smiley go ahead and eat it face — or not. this is a pricey occupation, though. each one—time—use capsule currently setting you back five whole dollars. and the company does advise that this is an extra level of checking on top of your normal due diligence and, of course, carrying any medication. ok, well, i can confirm that the device definitely got this correct. it says that gluten has been found. it comes up here on the device. and you can see here on the phone, 12:30pm today, gluten has been found.

if i tap on that, it gives me the option of notjust making a note for myself so i remember, but also sharing the data to the nima database. and, of course, as more people use these devices, that database will start to become a lot more valuable. let's give the peanut tester a go. you can do this with liquids or solids. and we have a result in the form of a smiley face. so, of course, these devices don't eradicate the need for a doctor's diagnosis or checking what's in yourfood. but for some, maybe they could provide an extra layer of reassurance. i'm afraid that's all we have time for in the shortcut of click, but the full length is waiting for you right now on iplayer. and we are always available on social media — on facebook, youtube, instagram and twitter at @bbcclick. thanks for watching

and we will see you soon. it will stay cloudy with the threat of rain across east anglia and perhaps i feasting on. sky is clear for scotland and northern ireland and it is going to be a widespread frost. the frost is down to the stretch of high pressure which will be moving across the british isles during monday stopping the flow pressure moving in from europe. it

could get low enough to bring a few patches of rain. for most of us a dry day with plenty of sunshine. after that a locally cold and frosty start to the day. temperatures struggling. temperatures in edinburgh around 2 degrees through the afternoon. nine or ten for cardiff and london. monday night will be a really cold night, probably the coldest of the autumn so probably the coldest of the autumn so far, with temperatures in the countryside in scotland getting to minus ten. a very cold night coming up. into tuesday, it should be initially dry with the ridge of high pressure in charge but increasingly we will start to see this low exerting its influence bringing thicker cloud and outbreaks of rain to western areas. wind is light on tuesday. most of us having a dry

day. there could be some lingering mist and fog patches with poor visibility initially otherwise fine and sunny conditions but that's where the front will make inroads across northern and perhaps reach the western fringes of wales later in the day. the same low pressure system in the day. the same low pressure syste m gets in the day. the same low pressure system gets closer to the british isles on wednesday so the cloud and rain more extensive across western areas and elsewhere are cold and frosty start to the day with mist and fog patches and whatever happens temperatures will stay on the low side. whether in the week ahead, i am not promising it will be com pletely am not promising it will be completely dry but the rain will not be as heavy or persistent as it has been.

this is bbc news, i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 8pm. sources close to prince andrew have told the bbc he stands by his decision to be questioned on newsnight about his links to a convicted paedophile. now lawyers call upon him to give evidence. whether a person is a prince or pauper, if anyone has evidence of information that might be relevant to an investigation of a criminal case, that person should provide it. in the election, the conservatives promise all migrants will be treated equally after brexit regardless of where they come from. the labour leader, jeremy corbyn refuses to confirm whether or not, free movement of people from the eu, will be included in their general