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tv   Click  BBC News  February 17, 2024 12:30am-1:01am GMT

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automated voice: please take a picture of the text. _ now, don't anybody move! plus, ammie�*s gone to town to test the newest oldest camera that we've seen for a while. ..where taking a photo sounded like a small, sharp pop. and it was flashy — just like this outfit. hi there. got a question for you. of the two of us, who do you think is more of the health enthusiast? do you think anyone is saying me? literally everyone is getting that right. some people may have done. i do try, though. yes, you do. i do try. would you say it's always better to collect as much data about your body as you can? i think so. i find it really useful. i don't always act on that data, which can be quite frustrating, particularly when it comes to sleep. and some people can get a bit obsessive over it and it can make them feel anxious, and obviously in those cases it's not ideal. but personally i do find it motivating.
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so do you think that one day we'll be able to monitor enough about our bodies to be able to create a completely virtual version of the entire body that then maybe we can test drugs on or create personalised health care for? definitely. and that will help us step towards predictive and preventative health care, which is what we're hopefully going to do. brilliant. well, we are one step closer because scientists in barcelona have created a digital version of a human heart. this means that one day you could have a beating copy of your heart in the virtual world. and alasdair keen has been to find out how it all works. h ea rtb eats on the edge of barcelona, researchers are working on an ambitious project that could change the future of health care, centred around the body's most crucial organ. thanks to advances in science and technology, our understanding of the human heart is getting better and better, so much so that we can create digital copies of it. but as i'm about to find out, that involves some serious computer power.
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this is the home of europe's latest supercomputer. we've been invited in right as it's being switched on. here we go. so this is the supercomputer. this is marenostrum 5, the new system being installed in barcelona. so it's more than 7,000 nodes. to put that in context, your personal computer or laptop would usually count as one node. and every cabin of this, it's having 102 discs, every one 18 terabytes. so the total raw capacity is 350 petabytes. one of the characteristics of the system is the weight. you want to try to push it? oh, it is — it's heavy. it's heavy, huh? very heavy, yeah. and expensive. ifeel like i'm in a china shop trying not to break anything. so all the supercomputer
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is connected by a high—speed network. we have built these glass tiles, so you can see all the infrastructure. yeah. all of this computing power is generating a lot of heat. so now this is the back part, where all the cables are coming through from the basement. and this is the heat. it hits you. you cannot feel on the tv. there are pipes carrying cold water to cool it all down. the hot water that comes out is used to heat the rest of the building. the supercomputer is able to contribute to research in many different fields at the same time, from engineering to predicting climate change. but researchers here are also using it to study the human body and do medical tests virtually. today, we can model a beating heart, so we can model- the physiology, the mechanical contraction of the tissue, - of the muscle and also -
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the fluid, the blood mechanics, inside the ventricles i and atria and vessels. and if you kind of peel back the skin, as it were, of the virtual heart, it's basically lots of numbers and maths and calculations. nature can be interpreted using mathematics. - we describe your heart with equations in - a mathematical model. and then this mathematical model is translated - to a computer program. the beating hearts created are not generic. they can be based on an individual�*s data and used to determine if different drugs or treatments will actually work for that person. in a very similar way that in a real clinical trial- in which you test a therapy on a cohort of people, - we can do the same, but- on a cohort of virtual hearts. by exploring different i
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pathways for innovation, they can have better products — faster, cheaper and more - sophisticated — that can come finally to the patient. - it's estimated it would take 57 billion years for a human to attempt the calculations needed to create a beating heart. the supercomputer can do it injust nine hours. this latest update in the tech will help scientists delve even further into health care, but that requires medical staff and patients to trust the technology. the team here aren'tjust going to stop at hearts. they'd like to create a full replica of a human, but with all the different movements and contractions that happen internally that we don't even think about there's still a long way to go before that's possible. that was alasdair. now, there are around 25
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diseases for which we have safe and effective vaccines. but millions still die every year because those vaccines don't get to the people who need them. so one company has been looking at ways to streamline the process and, in doing so, save lives. lara: chikungunya is one of the infections that's - spread by mosquitoes. it's usually confined to sub—saharan africa but has started to spread. one vaccine has just been approved by the food and drug administration in the us, but others are working on it too. one of them is the bristol—based start—up imophoron. it's developed a new synthetic protein called addomer. the protein is adorned with parts of the target virus but it's not infectious itself. it's a different approach to how other vaccines like the covid—i9 ones were made, but there's one big advantage.
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the addomer can be produced, stored, transported and brought to the people at ambient temperatures, which can go up to 50 degrees. this is a big advantage to other vaccines, which depend on a functioning cold chain. millions of doses of vaccines are lost every year because of inadequate refrigeration, especially when being sent to developing countries. part of the issue is- transporting the vaccine from the distribution depot, | where it is kept in cold chain conditions, to the site where i it's going to be administered. it could be hundreds of miles. and then when they get - to the facilities where they're going to deploy the vaccine, more often than not there's| not any refrigeration. now, over the years people have tried different ways _ of dealing with this. they, for example, would dig . holes and put the vaccine under ground to try and keep it| at a sort of temperature. but it is very, very hard. another big advantage of the technique being used here is that it could be synthesised to target more
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than one disease in one shot. the addomer is not yet in clinical trials but it couldn't have got to this stage without two key technologies. we are now coming to the cryo—electron microscopy facility. this is where our structured data collection will take place. this is ufuk. he's preparing the experiment. hello, i'm lara. nice to meet you. a prepared sample is placed in a tiny drop of water and inserted into that electron microscope at —i95 degrees celsius. so when we put it then into the cryo—electron microscope, the electron beam can go through it and we will see our vaccine particles. 0k. could i take a look at what it's actually seeing now? so we can only have one of those grids loaded. . those are the 3mm discs that we applied the sample onto. - this is a magnified image of that. - so this is a grid square image. and now we're going to zoom
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into these foil holes. - the microscope can zoom into 0.1 nanometre detail. that's one ten millionth of a millimetre. these raw images may not look like much to you or me, but they are a vital part of the process. so what's coming off the actual microscope is, like, just shadows. you're kind of looking at the 2d shape of it from lots of different angles. and then what you need to do is take all of these different views from all these different angles and then work out, "what's the 3d shape that can produce all of those shadows?" cloud computing lets us get to the answer now. and it's that kind of... the researcher getting the structure as they're developing it. that's the big change that cloud enabled. and ai is pivotal to this. where ai can help us| is we can run literally thousands of simulations of where to position, - which particular bit - of the protein to attach, where to put it, or if we need to stabilise it -
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or fix it in some way. and that can help us really reduce the time in the labi spent doing iterations until we get— the right molecule. but if they do succeed, the possibilities in other areas could be huge too, such as cancer vaccines that train the body's immune system to make antibodies against a tumour. and at least its methods do have efficiency on their side. the addomer uses established technology for its production. the manufacturing processes are established and we believe that they will be very competitive. and we are now working towards entering clinical trials. this is a small company, though, up against a big challenge and big pharma, and these vaccines aren't in humans yet so there's a way to go. this is oldham college in manchester.
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after a surge of coverage of the new apple vision pro this week, mark zuckerberg has now released a video saying, and this may shock you, he thinks his vr headset is better. the ceo of mehta says the quest three is more comfortable, not encumbered by a wide battery pack and has better hand tracking. but he would say that, wouldn't he? researchers at glasgow university have developed an ai powered robot guide dog. named robbie, the robo hound is armed with on—board cameras and satnav and basic speech recognition, but that's not all.— that's not all. take the example _ that's not all. take the example of _ that's not all. take the example of the - that's not all. take the i example of the museum, that's not all. take the - example of the museum, robbie will be very knowledgeable about the artefacts of that museum and will also explain to blind people augmenting their senses. tiktok has announced it will launch a local language election centre in the app to help people verify information during the upcoming european elections. the video platform also said it will establish a mission control space in
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advance of the elections to maximise its work.- advance of the elections to maximise its work. talking of tiktok, recognise _ maximise its work. talking of tiktok, recognise this - maximise its work. talking of tiktok, recognise this guy? l tiktok, recognise this guy? that's right, presidentjoe biden hasjoined tiktok in an attempt to reach out to a greater mix of voters for his 2024 presidential campaign. the account launched on super bowl sunday, despite the app being banned on most us government devices. this is oldham college in manchester. the campus has 5,000 students and up to 1,000 receive additional learning support. staff are committed to enriching the lives of those who are studying, and they're using technology to help them achieve that. the college has a dedicated dyslexia department where a variety of tech solutions are available for students to use depending on their needs. from helping them write essays and textbooks, to organising their college schedules and more, one such solution is the orcam learn.
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the orcam learn takes a picture of any text, whether that's what's projected on the board or a poster in class, or it could be their question paperfor a gcse mock exam and have it read back to them. and what's fantastic about that is that it's reducing our need to get extra support into the class with the learner. but that's not all it does. so, we often use the reading pal feature with our learners. we use it one—to—one as a personalised session with individuals. what it helps with, is it helps the learner to improve their reading fluency and their comprehension. so the learner reads out loud to it and it gives instant feedback. another area of the reading pal which we really like is that it sends a more detailed breakdown of their reading to an online portal. the device has loads of different functions and is powered by ai and optical character recognition, ocr, where generic
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algorithms have been designed to capture any text within four corners of a laser, then read it back to the student. some of those algorithms have been trained on huge data sets of hundreds and thousands of hours of audio collected by the company. for example, students reading books and students' spoken word, captured by the device when it's in record. it's important to note, however, that al is constantly learning and being refined. that's why it's able to give feedback in real time. the learners are studying early years education, which will involve reading out loud to nursery—aged children while on placement. under the guidance of faye, assistive tech is helping angel and rachel with their coursework. we did a reading, which helps me to say words properly, so when i go into placement, when i'm reading a word,
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i can slow down and i can say the words properly so they can understand it and they can say the words after me. are we going to give orcam a wee go? yeah? cool, let's do it. device beeps let's read. automated voice: please take a picture of the text. _ camera clicks, device beeps great, please start reading. "the hamster was dead, on his back, "legs in the air..." rachel is reading a full page of text from one of her favourite novels, and the assistive tech is going to mark her accuracy, then offerfeedback. automated voice: that was excellent reading. i you read six sentences out of| the 11 with complete accuracy. now it's angel's turn. she's using the comprehension mode. please point at any word in the sentence that -
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contains the answer- to the following questions. beep how long did it- take to get her tattoo? great. congratulations. you've answered all three questions correctly. - angel and rachael tell me they love working with orcam and their teacher is noticing positive results. but how does the company know their device is delivering accurate feedback? the orcam is designed to identify if a student is reading at text level, so when you actually input a student's details into the portal, you input their date of birth, you input their year group, and when that piece of text is captured and...is read back to the orcam, it transcribes both text formats and match together to identify the accuracy of the reading pal session. we don't get the students' data itself, obviously, due to student confidentiality, so that data really is for the teachers and the students. with any technology we bring
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into the classroom, experts agree that it can be exceptionally helpful, but it is important to be cautious. there's been increased use of artificial intelligence within education colleges, schools, universities, and i think that's a good thing. we need to look out for bias in data, so, for example, you wouldn't want to use a product that's only been trained on data from one gender or one culture. of course, whenever we're using machine learning technologies, we need to be careful about the data that's being collected about us, about our students, as we're using the technology. orcam's assured us their training data is versatile and, where relevant, consists of different genders, age groups, dialects and acoustic conditions. technology is changing education with the company, college and students doing what they can to make the world a more inclusive place.
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ammie: photography — the art of freezing moments in time. the history of photography is the history of the technology that made it possible. and the evolution of the camera is for the very first time, focusing its gaze backwards, not forwards. so let's get into it. we started with black and white portraits that required people to channel their inner statue, holding a pose for an eternity. now, don't anybody move! is that gun loaded, by the way? gun cocks as time marched forward, so did the evolution of photography and pictures — enter the flashbulb era, taking a photo sounded like a small sharp pop. and it was flashy, just like this outfit. flashbulbs pop flip forward to a smaller, faster camera. cameras that could capture for all time...
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here it comes! ..a short moment, a memory. enter the vibrant era of the polaroid, leading the way with instant photography, a limited number of chances to capture the moments as they went by. then came the digital age where we all became photographers. no longer for the few who could afford expensive kit and had the patience to wait. our pocket—sized phone studios meet demands instantaneously, and with the advent of digital manipulation and filters, you can get... mm... ..close to perfection every time. suddenly, everyone became a selfie connoisseur. this looks quite nice, quite strong there... but what about waiting? what about those magical minutes of anticipation? ok... that's the first time i take a picture of a dog. is it? oh, well, let's hope it's a good one. when the promise of what might have been captured is more satisfying than mindlessly tapping a phone screen. a new era in photography begins... polaroid was the 0g of instant photography. it was wildly successful
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at its peak in the 1970s with millions of sales. it was simple. it was all plastic. it was fab. you'd snap a photo, wait for the magic to happen and... chimes ting hard copies of memories. you know how i got this car? it knocked over your garbage can. they've just made a new addition to their line. this is the polaroid i—2 instant camera. what they are pitching is a blend of nostalgia with the cutting—edge tech of today — analogue charm with digital finesse, a sleek new design houses features like improved optics, autofocus and bluetooth connectivity. well, that's enough about what it can do. let's go see how it actually performs. and to help out, i've invited along my colleague, liv. we're going to have a bit of an instant vs digital comparison, where i'll be papping on the polaroid and she'll be snapping on a phone.
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ok, ok! all right, let's square it. unfortunately, i had a false start — two, in fact, which isn't the best when you've only got eight pictures per pack to play with. i mean, i think i've already taken about five... ..but it was third time lucky... ooh! and here it is... we need to wait a few minutes. ok, i'll reply to some emails. ok. yep, tell me when you're ready. a few minutes later, not a bad result from my instant pic, but i did waste two other pictures just getting there. all right, let me just dial in some settings first. needs. . . half an hour or so? camera whirs oh... ugh, again? this time, the picture got jammed and i had to take yet another one to get this result. decent in comparison, however, i could feel the cost per picture racking up. i've been able to take that many photos in a few seconds and you can just do that with a smartphone. you can't necessarily
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do that with that. it takes a of bit time to develop, to get it set up, and then, even then, you don't really know what you're going to get. ugh... that not knowing and uncertainty carried on to our next photo op. it took me two attempts to figure out the correct settings to capture this shot of the bicycle. whilst liv�*s phone pics were quick, budget—friendly and a breeze to edit, the polaroid camera never crashed the photo shoot with unexpected interruptions... oh, is that...? phone buzzes oh, who's calling you ? phone continues buzzing sorry, let me put that away. well, at least i would never get a call on this thing! feeling something in your hands gives it a weight, the promise of a premium product, and it's one of a kind. but in a world where photography is now so cheap, printing has became a luxury. that is the challenge now facing polaroid — it may well mean that they cannot replay the dizzying success of their �*70s heyday. it's remarkable what you can do. and, obviously, you enjoy doing this, do you? oh, yeah, yeah.
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but they're choosing to believe in the promise of anticipation, and hope their customers do likewise. a company can't survive on charm alone, so will the picture that emerges be a happy one? for a concrete answer, like the polaroid's customers, we'll have to wait. that was ammie sekhon. that's really interesting, isn't it? yes, and fascinating how instant cameras, polaroid's, other brands as well, have really got popular again. mm—hm, mm—hm. i guess it's one extreme or the other. you've either got loads of photos on your phone that you never print, or people want things straight away. that's true! yes, that instant print. well, listen, that's all we've got time for, for this week. thanks for watching and we'll see you next time. bye! hello there. once again, it's been another
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week that's been dominated by some wet weather at times, but when we have had the sunshine, it's felt pleasant enough. and some of us on friday had a beautiful scene, just like carmarthenshire. hope you made the most of it, though, because particularly out to the west, the start of the weekend looks decidedly unsettled, with more wet and windy weather arriving. ahead of it, we'll see quite a lot of cloud, and the cloud thick enough for a spot or two of light drizzle that'll be easing away from north—east england and eastern scotland. misty, murky conditions behind, and then some heavy rain by the middle part of the afternoon. so a west—east divide as we go through the day. some of the rain will be quite heavy, still quite mild with it, 14 degrees. and you can see across southeast england and east of the pennines, we may well continue to see some brief glimpses of sunshine. but the rain through wales, stretching up through north—west england, northern ireland and western scotland will turn increasingly heavy, accompanied by gusts of winds potentially around 40 mph. a little bit fresher as well into the north—east of scotland, but generally that
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mild theme set to continue. now, as we go through saturday evening and into the early hours of sunday morning, our weather front will continue to sink its way steadily south and east. the heaviest of the rain is likely to be now through the midlands and down towards southeast england, and that's going to take its time to clear. so during the early hours of sunday morning, expect a spell of wet weather. that'll probably still be there across east anglia and southeast england for early birds on sunday, but it will start to ease away through the middle part of the morning. a few scattered showers tucking in behind, and then sunday generally will be a case of sunny spells, a few isolated showers and still relatively mild for this stage in february, io—i4 degrees the high. now, as we move out of sunday into the new working week, once again we will see spells of wet weather at times. brief drier interludes to follow, but by the middle part of the week, we'll see a spell of particularly wet and windy weather right across the country. and that will have an impact on the feel of the weather. we'll lose that mild south—westerly flow, a north—westerly returns,
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cooler story for all from midweek onwards. so planning ahead, might be a mild, relatively sunny start, but it'll be wet and windy through the middle part of the week and then colder air to follow behind.
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live from washington... this is bbc news. alexei navalny, the jailed russian opposition figure, has reportedly died in prison. his family holds vladimir putin responsible. they will be held responsible for everything they've done to my country and my husband. there's been an international outcry. president biden says putin is to blame for the death of the russian opposition leader.
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repeating is responsible for alexei — repeating is responsible for alexei navalnys death. —— putin _ defy a public ban on gathering for navalny to lay flowers, and honour his memory. hello. i'm caitriona perry. welcome to this bbc news special report. russia's most prominent opposition leader alexei navalny, has died in prison — according to the country's prison service. his cause of death is not yet known — but world leaders are already pointing the finger at the kremlin — an accusation russia has strongly denied. navalny, a fierce kremlin critic, was serving a prison sentence in a russian penal colony. this was the last time he was seen alive publicly looking gaunt and emaciated via a video link. member of alexei navalny�*s team put out a statement saying, in part, "navalny always believed in russia and our people. he never gave up. that was always his main message — do not give up, do not be afraid, there are many of us, and we will win." his wife, yulia had a warning for the russian president.

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