hello. this is bbc news. the headlines. after leaving a trail of devastation across central america, hurricane nate moves inland in the south—east of the united states. torrential rain and powerful winds flooded streets, prompting evacuation orders for some low—lying areas. after her difficult party conference, theresa may says she's resilient and won't hide from a challenge. it comes as senior tories have been urging colleagues to stop the infighting and back the prime minister. ahead of her party's annual conference in glasgow, nicola sturgeon says the snp will commit to exploring all options to secure eu citizens‘ status in scotland. spain's prime minister, mariano rajoy, says he won't rule out suspending catalonia's government as tens of thousands of people take to the streets to call for talks. this is the scene live in barcelona as people march through the city to oppose plans to declare catalonia independent. now on bbc news, click.

this week, click is injapan where we will be rolling, ponging, stroking and screaming. lots of screaming. i have seen things you people wouldn't believe. crystals on fire, on the shoulders of unicorns.

i have watched sunbeams glitter in the dark near the gates. all those moments have been lost in time, like tears in the rain. time to make some newjapan memories. in the land that inspired blade runner, we are spending two weeks exploring this unique country as it aims for the moon, reaches for the stars and tries to look after its own backyard. it's going to be a wild ride. and, just like in other parts of the world, a lot of fascinating research goes on inside japan's academic institutions.

here at the university of tokyo, they're putting something very interesting down on paper. this is projection mapping, where an image is projected onto a specially marked surface and as the surface moves, the projector warps its image to keep it in the right place. the difference between this and everything we have seen previously is just how accurately the projector follows the surface. the system scans the marker dots and understands the scene 1000 times every second, which really is faster than the eye can see. and it is this super—fast processing of the environment that professor masatoshi ishikawa thinks will be necessary when we hand over more control to machines. how have you done that?

what is the science behind this? we are notjust talking about projecting an image onto a fast moving object either. they can also follow an object with a camera with incredible precision. just look at how this ball is staying absolutely in the middle of the shot. no matter how fast i move.

in fact, remember, it is 1000 frames a second so we can even do this. instead of having to physically move the projector or here, the camera, it is this mirror that moves to catch the action, reflecting it up into the lens. although there are no concrete plans to use this in the tokyo 2020 olympics, this would certainly give you a proper ball‘s—eye view of televised sport. and that superfast image processing can also be put to other uses including reacting to an opponent's hand gesture in the as yet non—0lympic sport of rock, paper, scissors. see, that was so fast i didn't even know if it beat me. paper. scissors. that's too fast for my brain to work out what is going on. just for the record, it is identifying my moves as soon as i start to open my hand and then countering with a winning move

before my hand is fully open. so, basically, it's cheating. it may have won the game but i can take the moral high ground. now to chiba, just outside tokyo, where japan's biggest tech—fest is being held. each year, ceatec attracts more than 600 companies, many showing off their ideas before they are due to come to market. dan is there to show us the best of them. ceatec seems to be full of these cute robots. but they are not as helpful as they look. i would rather show you something you might find useful. it may look like a microwave oven, but this piece of kit is designed to tell me the number of calories and the sort of fat content, protein, carbohydrates of any dish

that i put in there. at the moment, itjust works with simple dishes. it uses near—infrared light and analyses the reflection of those inside the device and it should work with any sort of food. eventually. it only takes around ten seconds and here is what we have. this piece of quiche, ratherfull of calories, i might say. i might leave that one in there. it struggles with several foods on one single plate and readings on my quiche varied a bit. panasonic says it is still a few years away. but fish has to be good for you, right? so, doctor, i'm having these stomach pains... computer: niga itai no desu. nani ka kino wa taberarimashita ka? computer: what did you eat yesterday? i ate some sushi. computer: watashi wa sushi o tabemashita.

wakarimashita. i see. then i will check. please wait a moment. and i'm waiting a moment. and that sort of interaction, eye contact, can be kept and also nobody needs to touch any device either. it seems quite natural, apart from that long—distance call wait. the translation is done in the cloud, so response times will depend on cellular signal strength. this manga book has had a makeover and translation is again on hand. and a wristwatch has been brought up to date by epson. and, no, they did not print it. it is old school, it is analogue but it is smart. it will measure temperature, altitude, the steps i take, calories and uv light. it can measure the direction i'm

looking in and it can take me back to my hotel. by pressing this button, it shows me the distance i have to go and the direction. which i set previously by pushing this button to set a waypoint. 0h. oh, god, i just set the waypoint. which... 0k, 0k. igive in. let's go back to the robots. panasonic's cocotto loves to teach children. it praises and cautions them while encouraging them to do daily tasks like eating vegetables or cleaning teeth. parents can get the robot to nudge the child in the right direction through the app. but cocotto cannot be thrown, or it will break. this is a cushion with a wagging tail. it wags differently, depending on how you stroke it. i think it is time for man versus machine. for the first time ever,

this year's version of the table—tennis—playing robot serves. it is faster and it is meaner. now, as well as tracking the ball, it is also tracking my body language, which 0mron says can detect if i am about to go for a smash, and respond accordingly. it did not even move, did it? it did not even move when i went for that smash. are you 0k? i nearly hit you. hello and welcome to the week in tech. microsoft this week showed

off its upcoming windows mixed reality update, revealing an addition to its lineup of mixed reality headsets. the samsung hmd 0dyssey claims to make use of the full grunt of the update by allowing users to navigate their environment while enjoying the vr or ar experience or sometimes both. microsoft are not the only ones experimenting with mixed reality. the national theatre are testing smart glasses, allowing people with hearing impairments to enjoy live performances. the glasses shine light into user's eyes to overlay captions on stage. researchers have figured out a way to turn everyday objects and our body parts into remote controls. a simple webcam tracks movements in a room and, unlike traditional gesture control, the moving object can be anything. perhaps a hand or a toy car. and off—the—shelf vr equipment could one day be used to control

robots in the field. the virtual cockpit, developed by mit, gives human pilots the feeling that they are right inside the robot's head. and, finally, we got a look at honda's latest humanoid robot which it has been working on for the last two years. the disaster relief robot can move through narrow gaps, crawl over debris and even climb ladders. at a swish cross—continent press event this week, google showed off its new goodies specifically designed for the home. i went along for a gander. they are there when you need them, they're simple to use. and they anticipate your needs. we are introducing mini. first up, the new home mini.

this cute doughnut is a more compact version of the home, an assistant set to rival amazon's echo dot, with a pricetag to match ofjust under £50. and a premium version called max with its main mission of playing music changes audio levels according to its ambient surroundings. top of the line up, however, was a new flagship smart phone starting at £629. and here it is. this is the google pixel 2. this is the xl version, six inches in size to the regular pixel‘s five inches. this moves the speakers, so when you are watching a movie in landscape mode, you do not muffle the audio. it also has a nifty feature called live edge, which when you squeeze the phone, it brings up google assistant, which

can then assist you. what is the best phone? hm. its camera has had a reboot as well. it comes with a clever portrait mode, which creates depth of field found in professional photos with only a single lens, using machine learning to do so. verifications and reminders, all without pushing a button. with a new always—on display, the phone also shows you what song is playing in the background wherever you are. it is always listening. the pixel 2, particularly the xl version is really good. high—end. meets the specifications of the other competitors as well, but it only has a tiny percentage of the market. 0.5% compared to iphone and samsung. it has a tremendous amount of work to do to catch up. that is what was interesting. the vp of hardware came right out and said that they all have the same level and standards.

so he was saying that they will now rely on software and machine learning, ai, really, to try make these things better than their competitors. and after having a dig at apple last yearfor getting rid of a 3.5 you millimetre audiojack, google has done the same. pixel 2 users will have to use an adaptor that fits into the usb3 charging port to listen with wired headphones which are included with the phone. or they could buy new pixel buds. when used with google translate, they say this allows wearers to chat to people speaking a different language. for anyone who has tried google translate, will know how that goes. how is it going? absolutely 0k. thank you. at £159 for the pair, the earphones themselves have five hours of battery life, but can be repowered up to four times from a special charging case.

it has to be noted that the translation app already does this. you can actually do this anyway. whether it is possible for these earbuds to act quickly and produce something approaching real—time translation is the key. if they cannot do that, if it results in stilted conversation with lots of pauses, then what is the point? buds or duds? we will soon see. now it's back to dan at ceatec. could this robot be top of the class? denso isn't quite as dense as it would seem. it's answering university exam questions using artificial intelligence and then hand writing the answers. you can do anything here at ceatec — race a formula e car, practise your windsurfing, even climb a mountain. but sometimes all you really want is an easy time at the convenience store.

don't you just hate it when you finish doing your shopping and you've got to scan through each and every single item before you can end up paying for it? wouldn't it be better if you just popped your basket into something like this, pushed the screen and itjust knew exactly what was inside it. the reason why this works is because of these rfid tags, they've made them nice and easy to see, but they'd be inside the packaging and we've seen them before, but these ones work through water and through metal so they can actually put them inside. about ten years ago, they tried to do this and it couldn't scan all the items in one go by putting the basket in a reader. now they can. now, murata, the company that make the radio frequency tags, need to find a way to make them cost—effective and reduce pricing from 10 cents each to a disposable one. with so many companies

here vying for attention, i found a technology to help cut through the noise. they talk over each other. individual voice, that's basically because as we grow older, it's more difficult to distinguish sounds, but also if everybody is talking at the same time, it's often quite tricky to pull out one person's conversation. but this microphone could help. it's listening very closely and can separate out two or three voices talking at the same time. both talk simultaneously. dan: now, the system works out the individual component of my voice and therefore it can go off and rebuild it and resynthesise it to cut out all the background sounds. woman: mitsubishi electric technology is de—clustering the speech recognition, which uses aland is the world's first. dan: now, the system works out the individual component of my voice and therefore it can go off and rebuild it and resynthesise it to cut out all the background sounds.

woman: mitsubishi electric technology is de—clustering the speech recognition, which uses aland is the world's first. the company says one use could be better voice control of tech in cars when everyone's chatting. now, how about feeling like you're in two places at the same time? japanese outfit kddi calls this telepresence and the haptic feedback is crucial. i have the ball, ladies and gentlemen. i have the ball. here the robot is connected to my body—tracking gear through a wire, but with superfast sg telecoms networks just a year or two away, the company thinks it will help operators work remotely anywhere in the world. this robotic arm has developed a sense of pressure to its touch so although objects may look similar, it feels how much to squeeze them before lifting. transferring distinctive feelings to us humans is what alps

is trying to recreate. the company already make components for smart phones and games controllers and reckon in two to three years you'll feel more thanjust vibrations. that is cold! oh, wow! i can feel a heartbeat. but i guess because my fingers aren't moving on the controller, i can't feel the fur. that's very good. the sound from the controller adds to the sense of reality. this is hot? very hot. i think that could catch on! that was dan at ceatec and we'll end this week on a high... literally. this is a vr zone shinjuku and it's onlyjust opened so we thought we would drop in. spread over two expansive floors

in tokyo's expensive shinjuku district, vr zone represents a big bet on vr being a big winner. after all, this tech, these staff and this postcode don't come cheap. but before we take a look around, we've got a hairy situation on our hands. time for me to don my super—secret disguise and face my fears in the interest of feline wellbeing. curiosity won't get this cat, not on my watch. i've got to rescue the kitten, which is on the plank. i'm hanging off the end of the edge of a building. it wobbles. holy cats! all right, just stay there, kitty. come on! oh, no, the plank's fallen. what are you looking at?

vr arcades like these are touted as a way for us to experience the best vr has to offer without shelling out for expensive and ever—changing kit, or having to find space in our living rooms. something that's especially relevant here in tightly packed tokyo. to really sell the feeling of immersion, each game has its own custom interactive rig. there's the vr fishing rod, bicycle, segway, other self—balancing transportation scooters are available, fighterjets, skis, complete with chilled—air fan, and of course the giant vr robot thumb. oh, my gosh! i'm going up!

wow! i can feel the heat of the laser swords. the one drawing the biggest crowds, unsurprisingly, features this guy. you hare around the track talking to your friends on your headset while smacking them with hammers or hurling exploding turtles at them. oh, my god! i'm inside mario world. this is wild. mind the bumps. got you! hello, luigi! all these years, i've been saying if you try and simulate motion in vr when you're not actually moving, it's an unpleasant experience. it's still an unpleasant experience. this isn't the first vr arcade that we've seen,

but it is the first place we've seen so many people getting genuinely... screaming. ..excited about strapping a headset on to their face. even so, this place does make you appreciate just how far vr has to go, from the pages of instructions to the legions of staff managing each experience, the whole thing is still complicated, confusing and cumbersome. depending on who you ask, augmented reality could be the ultimate endgame for vr. that means overlaying information onto the world around us, like this projection—mapped climbing wall. the climbing routes can be changed in software, plus programmers can add in extra features and mini—games, like the punishing puffs of air when i get something wrong, which is quite often. anyway, that's it from click in japan this week. don't forget we live on twitter @bbcclick and all that business.

i'll see you soon. and we have a lot of dry weather today, but not everywhere with showers in the north—west but skies like the one above central london in most places. we have this area of high pressure that is nudging in from the south—west. a week weather front, a warm front towards the north—west will bring more cloud in

northern ireland, western scotland, with outbreaks of drizzle and light showers in the north—west. to the east, brighter skies and further south, looking mostly dry. this is at apm, 17—18 in the south. not a bad autumnal day. further north, more cloud in the north midlands into the north—west. east of the pennines, more sunshine and also in eastern scotland but in northern ireland and western scotland, cloudy, some patchy rain in northern ireland and more persistent particularly over the hills across the west of scotland. into the evening, we keep outbreaks of rain in the northern half of the country, drier further south. they could in the northern half of the country, drierfurther south. they could be drizzle in the early hours of monday morning. with the cloud and outbreaks of rain, it will be a mild and frost free night, with temperatures holding up to 11th 13 first thing monday. during monday,

starting on a cloudy note and we will see rain in the west of the country. central and eastern areas, sunny spells for much of the day but outbreaks of rain will work their way further to the east and more persistent rain in northern ireland in the afternoon but ahead of that, 14-18. in the afternoon but ahead of that, 14—18. many places having a decent day. looking unsettled through monday night into tuesday with low pressure approaching from the atlantic. 0n pressure approaching from the atlantic. on tuesday a weak front will push southwards with showers. that will be followed by drier weather before the next area of wet and windy weather arrives in the north—west later in the day, which sets us up for more rain in the rest of the country in the week ahead. drier in the south east. reasonably mild, quite breezy. good afternoon. tens of thousands of people are showing their support for the spanish government this lunchtime with demonstrations against those calling for independence for catalonia. the pro—unity rally is taking place on the streets of barcelona — the heart of the independence

movement. the spanish prime minister has said he will not allow the region to declare independence under any circumstances. gavin lee is in barcelona for us this lunchtime. gavin. these are the so—called silent majority, now in full voice, taking to the streets of barcelona,