the white house press secretary, sean spicer, has resigned, reportedly because he was unhappy with president donald trump's appointment of a new communications director. the new appointee, anthony scaramucci, a former wall street financier, denied there had been tensions over his appointment. the world health organisation has said the cholera outbreak in yemen is out of control, with over 300,000 people affected. the country has been racked by civil war and an intervention by saudi—led forces for the past two years. as a result government health services have collapsed. the palestinian president, mahmoud abbas, has suspended all official contact with israel, as the crisis grows over additional security measures in the old city ofjerusalem. three palestinians were killed in clashes with israeli security forces, three israelis have been stabbed to death in a west bank settlement. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week... strange doorways...

light warriors... and a robo hatchling. there are sharks all around me! virtual reality. it's action packed. it's immersive... argh! there's a mouse! it's terrifying. argh! it's collaborative... laughter. it's a knockout! ok, you hit me. it's... oh, god. it's frozen. it's... it's fun, but it's not

going to change the world... it's not going to change the world... it wouldn't fit in as much as, say, my phone would. it wouldn't fit in... it's such a shame, it's so annoying. it's annoying. not really what you want to hear when you are talking about vr. especially since the technology has actually been around since the 1960s. this helmet is from the mid—1990s but it wouldn't be the first bit of amazing looking tech to simply fade into novelty. one of the problems is the media goes mad over it and then everything gets overhyped — not that we would be guilty of course... this is amazeballs! but the truth is, sometimes stuff gets overblown and the people who buy the thing end up getting disappointed by the thing. well, this week, the bbc, in partnership with ipsos mori, has published research into the reality of virtual reality. 16 ordinary people were given samsung gear vr headsets for three months, and asked to use them in their free time at home. and for any long—term observers of tech, the results probably aren't surprising.

let's start with this sheer faff. actually finding your headset in the first place, it might be shoved in a drawer or somewhere, under your bed, dust it off, it might be dirty, it might not be totally clean. getting your phone and putting it into the headset, if you have a mobile driven vr headset, and making sure that the phone has high battery because that will often be drained very quickly. finding the content to watch, the phone might overheat and the experience will then stop. you might fear family, friends or flatmates pranking you as you are doing it so you will feel self—conscious. your hair might be messed up, or your make up, whatever. and all of those various barriers come to be quite significant behavioural hurdles to get people to do this. these things just aren't ready for prime time yet. they are not easy to use and they are not easy to share. for example, as soon

as i take this off my head, it switches off to save power which means i cannot get something going and then give it to someone else to enjoy. it will switch off and they had to navigate to the content all over again themselves. that means i've ended up putting a sticker over the sensor so it does not know when it's been taken off, which is stupid! look, a doggy! there's really no argument that vr can blow your mind. i'm on a roller—coaster! look, i can go down! but after those initial experiences, keeping people interested is another huge problem. once they are exhausting the key experiences, the novelty experiences around the roller—coaster rides, and the horror experiences, those kinds of things, then their enthusiasm ebbs away quite quickly. and one of the reasons why people get bored is that there was not much new to watch. with vr content, i think there is a bit of a chicken and egg situation.

obviously, to encourage more people to buy vr headsets, it would be good to have more and more vr content. but, it costs a lot of money to make and you don't necessarily want to invest in making the content unless you are confident a lot of people will see it. so, it is difficult to put a lot of money into something if you do not know that people will buy the headset but then to convince them to buy the headset, maybe you have to do that? it's a problem that's also beset blu—ray, ak, and 3—d tv. we've moved incredibly far in the last two is in terms of what has been produced, but there was a lot of interdependent things here. there is consumer uptake of headsets, technology needs to be better for production tools to produce that. all of these things are happening at once and incredibly fast, but not fast enough. this might explain why last week facebook cut the price of their 0culus headset for the second time. it's a lot to shell out for something that mightjust end up

being a novelty. by reducing its prices, oculus will probably appeal to more people who were already considering buying the headset, but i'm not sure it will convince many people to buy it, to try it. it is still a lot. it still costs about the same as a games console. and it's notjust the price of the headset itself, you need to have a pretty high—end machine to run these things on. and even sony, the company that provides a high—end playstation 4 with its vr headsets, which has sold i million of the things, told us not to get too excited about it. i think that, in the last six months to a year, we have seen a little bit of overhyping of the category out there. certainly not by ourselves. we saw this as the start of a very long process of bringing vr into the mainstream. you will see a lot more technology innovation. i think content makers, game makers, and others, including folks making television programmes, they are really only just starting

to learn what the tools are to make really good for your content. everybody knows it will take some time before we produce really good and compelling content, but we are inventing a new medium here and that is obviously going to take time. but unless we start somewhere, we will never do it. so we need to wait a few years while you guys get it right, so there is something worth watching? hmm... laughter. you cannot develop anything unless it is in conjunction with the audience too, say if we have no audience, we would never be able to create something and make it really work for them. it certainly seems that vr is struggling to become commonplace in the home at the moment, but that is not the end of the story, not by any means. mark has been to hollywood to see vr that has been given the movie treatment... here in los angeles, a company with a pedigree in movies is hoping to kick—start vr. if the living room is not

the best place for virtual reality, where is? well, a space like this one... this place has been built by imax. imax are most famous for giant cinema screens, which is probably why the foyer in its new virtual reality experience centre looks a bit like a cinema. here, players purchase tickets to try out a variety of different vr experiences. each one of these pods has got more than enough space in it for any virtual reality experience that requires the player to move around quite a bit. this space is, in effect, a modern version of a video games arcade. cables connecting the headset to a computer are fed overhead to avoid the player tripping up on them. so the game i am playing here is basically a wave shooter, there are just waves and waves of robots attacking me, and i have to fight them off.

from what i am wearing on my back, i can feel a little bit of rumbling when the gun goes off. so far, so straightforward, but are some experiences in here pushing beyond normal vr? what they have built is a little bit of set here. this is a helicopter. it is a tie in with the new tom cruise mummy movie. so i am sat on the side of the chopper, and it feels like the helicopter has a little bit of movement to it as well. it's great. laughter. this is surprisingly effective! there's a little bit of rumble underneath the seat. so, it feels like the rumble of the helicopter blades. while the helicopter effect is convincing, the rest of the gameplay is a bit samey. spaces like this one at least allow people to try vr without all of the mess of having vr kit in the living room. but, taking this experience to the next level need even more room, and for that, we have

to travel to a state which is all about wide—open spaces... arizona. scottsdale‘s 0ctane raceway is the home of the first large—scale vr space in america, from a company called zero latency. the key with this next level vr is in here. it is a massive, empty room. the thing is, when you put on a vr headset, this empty space becomes a gigantic virtual canvas, on which you can paint almost any picture. 64 cameras track the player's movement, with the grid on the floor assisting and allowing the computer running the show to know where the players are the room. so, i'm suited up and ready to go, i've got my virtual reality headset on, which has got tracking balls

on top of it so be system in there will actually know where i am in the virtual space. on my back is a computer, with all of the cables between the headset and the computer hidden so that i will have total freedom of movement when i am in the room. i will be completely untethered. zero latency is the brainchild of a team based in melbourne, australia. it's almost a brief escape from reality, but in the sense that you are transported to a different place. we find that the more games incorporate walking, and the sense of moving through a much larger virtual space, than the physical space, that seems to ramp up the immersion. the game i'm playing today is called zombie survival, and i'm equipped with a rifle which will provide the physical sensation of being fired when i pull the trigger, as i try to ward off hordes of zombies. ok, i can see bad guys!

i'm supposed to repair barricades, preventing the undead from getting close to me as i wait to be rescued by a helicopter. unfortunately, i get a bit carried away. oh, you want some of this? you want a piece of me? i can see zombies coming at me from every single direction! do you know what i mean? i need a little bit of help! so, it's time to recruit extra troops. up to six people can play in here at once. you cannot do this in your living room at home. moving around with this much space with a whole bunch of other people... about to take on the undead! headshots, headshots! i'm clear the area... die, zombies! all right, guys. good job! ok, so attempting that with a whole bunch of people made it a lot easier. i got by with a little help from some friends. this little fellow is called sea turtle.

facebook revealed it will lodge a new service in october. allowing publishers to create a pay wall to their content. if you've still got a myspace account lurking around, it might be time to think about deleting it. a massive security flaw might mean others may be to get access. steps, long the enemy of the daleks, have claimed another victim. so, humans took the only logical next step. this one sent first

picture. and you will soon be able to visit the iss for yourself. and google announced it will be available on street view. 0r google announced it will be available on street view. or is that space view? this little fellow is called sea turtle. designed to move, like, you guessed it, a sea turtle, his arms are shaped like the fins found in nature. he has been developed by researchers at arizona university to detect landmines, and sadly for him, detonate them. unsurprisingly, current deep mining bots on the market, cost a pretty penny, but sea turtle has been made on the cheap.

powered by a raspberry pi zero computer, this disposable device is £50 a pop. not bad for a machine that learns as it goes. we put a robot in front of a camera. and every time a robot makes a move, it essentially gives itself some positive reinforcement, in terms of, maybe i should try that again. if it gets negative, or it does not do very well, in trying a new type of control, then it is set negative reinforcement, then it does not try that type of motion again. in reinforcing it, by giving it good or bad feedback, it was able to learn to walk upon its own. not only could the lightweight robot, potentially save lives here on earth, it could also potentially be used to further research in space. one of our goals is to use this in order to manufacture robots in space. the idea is, rather than altering the design of the robot here on earth, where we do not have the environment, in which it is going to be deployed,

we can actuallyjust ship the materials into space and manufacture the robot on the spot. currently battery—powered, sea turtle is fairly powered after about three hours of charge, so researchers want to add solar cells to his back so that he can charge himself. they also plan to manufacture loads and alternate them, so swarms of bots working together could quickly cover large areas. this robot is really good at powering through sand, so not just landmines detection, but applications such as farming, for anywhere where you do not want a very expensive robot, interacting with very dirty environments, this robot is very good and well tuned for that. back to virtual reality now

and ifind myself in the immersive vr lab, in university college london. where the object is projected onto the walls and floor, shift and warp as i move around. from the point of view of my motion sensitive specs, though, the perspective is correct and it actually looks, to me, like moving through a 3—d world. now, this research, actually concerns how the environment feels, specifically if it really feels, like this imaginary ball, is hitting this imaginary wall. which it does. bang, that is a hard wall. itjust feels, it is bouncy, so as the ball hits the wall, i can feel it kind of bounce back slightly. the secret is in the superfast response time in the control. although video generally looks convincing if it runs at about 60 frames a second, your sense

of touch, is accurate to 1000th of a second. any less and it will feel like everything is spongy. as it is, the wall feels rock hard, the walls in the foreground feel lighter, because i can knock them over. this is great, because this is one more step towards a fully immersive experience. where i will feel like i really am in this virtual world. an alternative approach, of course, is to use virtual reality technology in the actual world that is around you. this is called augmented reality and that is what lara lewington has been trying out. i know many of you are eager to get started with augmented reality, but let's show you just how easy it is. launched at apple developer's conference injune, the apple ar kit is a set of software tools. it aims to make it easier for creative coders, to get ar into their ios apps and games and developers have not wasted any time

in trying to kit out. there is the mouthwatering, the mundane, the magical and a whole host of other amazing things, prototyped on the platform. apple says the ar kit could make it the biggest ar technology platform overnight and they could be right. after all, there are a lot of apple fangirls and boys out there. nowhere more so than at apple's developer conference, where the audience were suitably wowed by a hearty dose of name—dropping. the director, peterjackson, peterjackson, the lord of the rings, he is now really excited about ar and to show you what he has in the works, i am thrilled to introduce wingnut ar's creative director, alistair. alistair. since this augmented reality, you folks are in the shot too. peterjackson and his partner, fran walsh, they had seen some ar demos of the hardware and they were really excited

about the creative possibilities, and ar it is like a medium like no other, it offers so many creative possibilities, and they want to explore that space. traditional storytelling and entertainment concepts, and rolls around camerawork and everything else, they don't necessarily work in ar, so for the last year, we have been exploring that and figuring out what is fun and what is entertaining. and of course, the question every lord of the rings fan is asking right now, how long before we have an augmented reality lord of the rings? i think it is an amazing idea, there are so many opportunities with that. i think, people would probably love that experience, i don't know when we will see that in people's living rooms, it is hard to judge how fast ar will be, but we all know that it is coming over the next few years and it will be exciting, and it will ramp up so fast. these are the offices of amplified robot, a london based studio specialising in vr and ar, and they will be one of the first to get their hands dirty

with apple's ar kit. there we go, yes, that looks like a man who is walking around and i can see him walk around. there are hundreds of areas that can be brought to life with augmented reality, the medicalfield is one, education for kids, entertainment, real estate, this is the promise of augmented reality. these are some of the ar experiences that matt and his team have already created here without using apple's ar kit. each app has to figure out on its own how to attach its 3—d thing to the real world, so lots of extra programming for developers and a consistent ar experience between apps. many of those apps rely on markers to make the magic happen, that is either a special image or normal pictures, like the images in this book which the app then recognises and pins with 3—d content too. apple's ar kit uses a new technique that does away with markers meaning that ar can go on any flat surface.

clearly this is still very early days for ar as we know it, but with so many big players like google, microsoft and now apple putting their weight behind the tech, our realities could be set to get a whole lot weirder. hi my name is gareth. i am studying at university. i have had a stutter ever since i was 16 years old. i don't let it get in my way, in the way of things. although a stutter is incurable, gareth has dedicated his masters

degree, to finding a way to treat it as best he can through virtual reality. i am creating a virtual reality exposure therapy, and we are able to benefit people who stutter and to treat social anxiety. gareth is using a headset, which has the ability to track eye movement, something that can be severely affected when someone is stuttering. the eyes can close, flicker orfixate on a certain place and adjusting one's eye movement is part of established speech therapy for stutterers. by analysing the eye movements of his subjects, gareth is able to suggest similar exercises and techniques and in the future, he hopes his research might be used by speech therapists, and official treatments. i am a person who is in the environment, if they see an animated avatar and can talk to the avatar about a certain topic, their favourite holiday, and over that time, i will be tracking their eyes and behaviours

and seeing what they do when they stutter, i will be advising them what to do and how to improve their speech as well. gareth has previously used a more basic headset to improve people's confidence, emulating a whole audience for them to speak in front of. and although he is only addressing the eye movement and not speech element directly, he hopes that this research will be able to improve the confidence of those who stutter and indeed those who do not. it is stories like gareth's that remind us that vr might not live or diejust on its‘ entertainment values. that is it from our vr cave here at ucl, don't forget to follow us on facebook and twitter throughout the week. thanks for watching, and we will see you soon.

hello and welcome to the weekend. although you may view that as a somewhat hollow greeting once you have seen the forecast. during friday, some intense downpours. pushing further east in south—west england and wales more of a sunshine and showers story. some sunshine in between a really windy day for some of us on friday. over the weekend, it is still breezy, but the winds are looking lighter. this is what it looks like for early risers.

return of moving to the south—west of the uk. a band of rain pushing out, there in northern england and southern scotland. breezy picture in northern scotland. but north—west scotland should farewell throughout the weekend. northern ireland picking up the odd shower here and there. then there is this drive, quite a slot in the north—west of england, through wales and the midlands and through wales and the midlands and through the south—east of england. starting to get some showers even at this stage. these start with sunshine, you will see shum showers developing. some sunny spells coming through. northwest scotland, mainly dry and breezy. 0nly through. northwest scotland, mainly dry and breezy. only one or two showers in northern ireland. it could well be torrential into northern england, the risk of peya will and some rumbling thunder. perhaps not much on the way of sunshine. again, although it is not

as windy as it has been, it could be quite gusty. it looks like a better day for the gulf. the wind is lighter and there will be lengthy dry and at times sunny periods coming through. maybe a bit of rain on sunday. the picture looks like this. there could be more persistent rain. sunshine and showers elsewhere. temperatures through the high teens. maybe a slow clearance of rain through parts of eastern england. at the monday and tuesday, it warms up a little bit in drier, sunny weather. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. i'm duncan golestani. 0ur top stories: as the saudi—led coalition continues military operations in yemen, the country faces a massive epidemic of cholera. pockets of famine are growing, cholera is spreading,

and civil servants, like the doctors and nurses, here, haven't received a salary in over ten months. president trump's spokesman quits as a new voice takes over white house communications. the palestinian president freezes ties with israel as three palestinians are shot dead and three israelis killed in an outbreak of violence.