Google which has embarked on an extensive testing programme of the cars secured the approval of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.

Motor manufacturers have been working on taking human error out of driving for more than a decade with innovations such as lane departure warning, self applying brakes and cars which park themselves.

Google, however, has come up with the ultimate version of cruise control, by removing the driver completely with the help of video cameras, lasers and radar sensors.

The founder of VroniPlag, a website dedicated to unearthing academic cheats, claims he has evidence that Annette Schavan copied un-cited sources for her dissertation written in 1980.

The accusations come a year after Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the high-flying German defence minister, quit after he was found to have plagiarised large chunks of his thesis.

"Her work was clearly plagiarised, and this form of scientific misconduct must have its consequences," said Martin Heidingsfelder, VroniPlag's creator, adding that yet another case of cheating was shaming the federal government.

Al Jazeera English has closed its bureau in Beijing after the Chinese authorities refused to renew its correspondent's press credentials and visa, or allow a replacement journalist.

The channel expressed its disappointment at the situation and said it would continue to request a presence in China.

It has been requesting additional visas for correspondents for some time through the normal procedures but these have not been issued.

Melissa Chan, who has been Al Jazeera English's China correspondent since 2007, has filed nearly 400 reports during her five years in the country.

WH Smiths tills would only dispense receipts for 'The Queen's Knickers' for several hours yesterday, after a technical mistake in the tills screwed up receipt printing in the chain's outlets across the country.

Transactions were able to process as normal, said a WH Smith spokesperson, but the cash registers would only print receipts saying The Queen's Knickers, £5.99. '

A hacker group @AnonAteam on Twitter seemed, for obscure reasons, to claim responsibility for the cash register mistake:

WH Smiths Hacked, Every item scan at tills came up as Queen knickers £5.99 Just for The LuLz

But WH Smith were adamant that the Knicker receipts were not a hack.

The private detective at the centre of the phone hacking scandal, Glenn Mulcaire, has begun his appeal at the Supreme Court against a High Court order compelling him to provide details of who at the News of the World commissioned him to hack the phone of Nicola Philips, a former employee of the publicist Max Clifford, and who he reported back to.

In the statement, which he read out on BBC Radio 4's The World at One, Mr Mulcaire said:

"This appeal is being heard because I have been advised by my legal team from the outset that I should not have to give potentially incriminating answers to questions asked of me in the phone hacking cases in the High Court.