ten royal princes, among them several senior ministers, as well as dozens of former ministers, have been detained in a campaign to stamp out corruption. the crown prince appears to have sidelined powerful rivals. president trump has arrived in japan the first stop on what will be the longest tour of asia by a us president in 25 years. the trip comes at a time of heightened tensions with north korea over its nuclear programme and missile tests. the issue is likely to dominate the tour. the opposition labour party has called on all the main british political parties to agree a new, independent system to tackle sexual harassment within parliament and politics. it follows a series of allegations levelled against several high profile figures, some of whom subdequently resigned. now on bbc news it's our look into the online world, it's click. this week, we're talking emojis

with weather stations, xbox and andy serkis. if it feels like the weather is getting weirder, well, that's because it is. in many parts of the world, meteorological records seem to be tumbling virtually year after year. and as it gets more erratic and extreme, the need for accurate forecasts becomes vital. this is the bbc‘s weather centre at new broadcasting house. this is where they take their best guess at what the next two days

will look like. we kind of take it for granted, these days, but as you would expect, there's an awful lot of numbercrunching that goes on, which is what ben is doing right now. hi, ben. hi, spencer. you might recognise ben, he's on the telly! ben is taking raw data from the met office on this screen and turning it into something more akin to what we see on the tv. it all goes to make up that familiar weather map that we know and love. and in the uk, each likm square gets its own individual forecast from the met office. other services can provide an even more granular forecast. but swing around to africa, and it's a very different story. here, we're working at much lower resolution. squares here are only 25km across. one of the reasons is because data is particularly thin on the ground here. now, over the coming month or so, we're going to be looking at how

technology is changing this continent. and to start ourjourney, dan simmons has travelled to tanzania to meet a chap who used to work here, but who's now on a mission to improve the forecast for africa. sub—saharan east africa is lush. the soils are rich. it's the end of a very wet rainy season. too wet for some farmers, who saw their crops rot. angus and asha farm in lushoto. they tell me climate change has made it difficult to predict the seasons. they've gone from droughts to flood in recent years, and lost harvests in both. next door, peter's been planting jeska, a type of runner bean, which can take as little as six weeks to grow. in september to october, the — the rainfall are very harsh. it rush the topsoil to down there.

but last season, he lost his entire crop to sudden, heavy, early rains. the farmers here know what they're doing, theyjust don't quite know any more what the weather's up to. former bbc weather presenter and keen gardener, peter gibbs, wants to do something about that, and he's found a pretty neat way to explain it to me. i think you are like this, though. all right. the big reveal... oh, wow! oh my word! look at this! is that grand or what? that is huge! that goes on forever, doesn't it? it just — yeah. this gives you some idea of the scale of africa. the drop here is about 1,000

metres from where we are. no, no, no, that is close enough! that's not... from the west usambara mountains, where we're standing, down to the masai plain. we're looking at hundreds of square kilometres. lots of weather going on. you can see some clouds building over the mountains in the distance. most of it's farmed as well... exactly. there are a lot of people farming there, but no weather station you can see. so how do you do a good forecast for here without the information? that is incredible. you know, back in the uk, you would have, at least, half a dozen, perhaps 15 weather stations in that sort of area. so you can see the problem. so the satellites can't do it? because we have satellites, don't we? the satellites can do some of it. the satellites can pick up some of the clouds we can see, but they can only estimate the rain each shower cloud can produce. you need those measurements of the ground. was the other parameters,

like temperature, humidity, and pressure... you know, it's like any commuter programme, garbage in, garbage out. peter's advising a start—up, kukua, that wants to pepper africa with these, fully automated, self—reporting low—cost weather stations. they can be monitored from anywhere, looking up to africa's extensive mobile cell network. kukua placed their first station last year, and will have more than 100 operating by christmas. so what do we get on our fully automatic weather station? well, we've got a bucket up here, which measures the rainfall. there is a little seesaw device in there which goes backwards and forwards for every drip that comes through. that tells us how quickly the rain is falling, as well as how much rain is falling. an anemometer a bit of giving us the wind speed and direction by the vane there at the very, very top. this is the solar panel which powers the whole thing and is cleverly used to tell us how much sunshine we're getting. just behind it in this hive kind

of affair is the temperature gauge. it also measures humidity and it is stuck in there so it cannot be affected by direct sunlight or more heat coming from the ground, which is dissipated by this housing. all of that data need to be collected by a panel round at the back, which is sent to this communications unit. it has a sim card that works in every african country. what some of us would do for one of those... and then it uses this transmitter to send it all back to base. that goes back to europe, and then from the guys in europe, they will produce a model, which will give people back here a more accurate weather forecast. it's already making a difference. farmers like peter get daily text alerts, giving them a steer as to what to expect. this farmer told us his texts have helped him decide when to add

fertilizer and pesticides. we can actually make a massive difference to the farmers themselves. up to 80% yield increases. that would be the difference between eating to stay alive and sending your kids to school. and it's not just the personal impact. health agencies can use improved forecasts to better predict outbreaks of malaria or cholera. and insurers want to know if they need to pay out on policies. this information gap is holding the continent back. the coco belt in africa is shifting. multinationals want to know which way and by how much. and it will be selling on the big data that kokua collect that will help pay for what is looking like a pretty big job. well, across the whole of africa at the moment, there are around 500, just 500, reliable reporting weather stations. to get good coverage, you need to get up to something like 20,000.

from my point of view, after my years in meteorololgy, i think it's fantastic, that i feel i can make use of that experience, to actually make a difference to people's lives. that was dan simmons with peter gibbs in tanzania. we will have more reports from the african continent later this month on click. microsoft boasts its new xbox one x is the most powerful games console in the world! they've stopped short of calling it the most powerful console in the galaxy, i suspect they're saving that accolade for the machine comes after this one. but there's good reason for all this talk of power and that is down to what lurks under the hood of this console. it has an eight core processor running at 2.3 gigahertz,

a six teraflop gpu, i2gb of memory and a 4k blu—ray player thrown in as well. this means that the machine can throw out 4k graphics in hdr. stunning... what those numbers and specs mean is that this box is capable of producing much sharper, richer and more detailed graphics than the old xbox one s, which had a maximum resolution of 1080p, which is eye—offending high definition, as it's probably now know. what it does mean is that there is an incredible level of detail

in the graphics. look at this porsche that i'm driving in forza. i've managed to bump and graze it of a couple of times, and you can see every single dent and ding that i've put in the car, every single bit of chipped paintwork. it really is very detailed. the one x can play games made for the older xbox, but some titles will be enhanced, like rise of the tomb raider, which boasts upgraded 4k graphics and a higherframe rate, which makes everything look smoother. these enhancements won't be standardised, though. microsoft says it is up to developers to choose how they will use the brunt the one x provides. this new digital virtuosity is great if you own a 4k tv. but if you are using a hd screen, the one x can give you a graphics bus, as well, making games look better than they would on the old machine. but how do they achieve this? witchcraft? or more precisely, super sampling, a technique that allows all the detail and information in a 4k image to be scaled down to fit into a 1080p screen — which, i suppose, is a form of silicon sorcery.

apart from prettier visuals, the new machine should enjoy faster to load times and, unlike its 4k rival, the ps 4 pro, the one x has a 4k blu—ray play fitted as well. so it does more stuff, but the x box one is more expensive than the ps4 pro as well. microsoft is keen to see this in the world's most powerful console, but it is also the most expensive, at £a49. and i think that might be the biggest hurdle that the xbox one x has to overcome, its price. and, as the games the machine plays are essentially the same as those on its less powerful, older sibling, the one s, this console is probably only going to appeal to those with spare cash burning a hole in their pocket, or those with a 4k tv on which to watch the prettier pictures the console produces. that casts gloom over everything, doesn't it, lads? what a drag he is!

hello and welcome to the week in tech. it's been a bad week for tesla, as they reveal that they are months behind schedule of production on a new model three. whatsapp introduced a "delete messages for everyone" function to allow users to retract comments after they have said that. and bitcoin went beserk, reached a record high with one bitcoin worth over £5,000, up 8000% in the past year. google, facebook and twitter face a grilling this week from us congress about possible russian influence in last year's election. the firms had to explain why they failed to prevent political ads being published on their platforms bought with russian money. senators are now considering extending regulations found in television, radio and newspapers to social media sites too. now, are you sitting comfortably? well, ford's new robot certainly is. this contraption tests car seats by moving like a passenger getting in and out of a vehicle. it sits 25,000 times to create

the same wear and tear as ten years of use from your derriere. poor chair! and sony is teaching an old dog new tricks by bringing back the aibo. the resurrected robopup comes complete with artificial intelligence so it can learn what makes its own is happy. although a price of well over £1000, and a monthly subscription plan of £20, smiles may be short—lived. the original canine was canned ten years ago to save the japanese giant cash. music playing. whether you love them or loathe them, it looks like emojis are here to stay. in fact, we'll probably be seeing even more of them soon. so lara lewington has been investigating the future of emojis. in case you missed it,

the new iphones have been released this week but, whist it may be seen hard to comprehend how a phone could be worth over $1000, the iphone x brings with it a quirky feature that possibly says a lot about the future of how we communicate. makes clucking noises. applause. animojis allow users to animate the facial expressions of a chosen emoji. it uses their phone selfie camera and facial recognition technology to tracks over 50 muscle movements to create the appropriate expressions and they are clearly not the only company thinking in pictures. emoticon, emojis, animojis, bitmojis, actionmojis, thingmojis — ok i made that last one up! but what's happened to good old —fashioned words? every day, six billion emojis are used. they have come a long way

since these, which were created by a japanese phone company in 1999. apple now offers 190 new static emojis to satisfy your every pictorial need, including broccoli and a brontosaurus. meanwhile, apple and google seem to be struggling over what order burger ingredients should be loaded in. um, surely the meat at the bottom! and if you're having a spot burger on tinder, then now you could throw a virtual drink over someone. but whilst some gestures may be universally understood, not everybody interprets every picture in the same way. it is like a friendly kiss. that's whistling. that's whistling? yeah. i think that's about confusion, actually. and that looks as if the emoji is pouting. ok, i can see that now but can you just pout for me? it'sjust a little cheeky kiss. 0k. slightly spaced out in a dream.

a secret or don't say anything. i've got nothing to say. awkward. look what i've just said. keep an eye out, with those two eyes. keep eyes out. so is facial recognition the future of the humble emojis? the team behind new ai—powered social networking app, called polygram, certainly hope so. let's see what the options are. that's pretty weird. wow. this app also uses artificial intelligence to map a user's facial expressions via the selfie camera, allowing them to respond to posts with an animated emoji, replicating their actual facial reaction. meanwhile, snapchat actionmojis launched a few months ago. for users who opt in, it will combine their gps location and their phone's accelerometer, tracking how fast they are moving to guess what they are doing at that moment, and that will then be placed

on what they call the snapmap. there is even a film, the emoji movie grossed over $211 million worldwide. and of course, there is also a world emoji day. but depending on context, what seems like a harmless picture could cause offence. something instagram is trying to overcome. nearly half of posted comments on the social network contain an emoji, so they have enlisted the help of some machine—learning to identify context and block anything they may believe to be offensive. that is not to say they can't provide a bit of fun. here's a bit of a quiz. what film title do you think this spells out? the lion king. lion king. too easy. apple time... peach time... clock apple... in french it's called orange mecanique. clockwork orange. so maybe they will have the last word after all. clockwork orange.

that is amazing! does this face look familiar? how about this one? these are some of the most iconic characters in a modern cinema. these are some of the most iconic characters in modern cinema. all of them created using groundbreaking performance capture technology and, although they do not look it, they are all the same face. andy serkis is himself the world's most iconic performance capture actor. his latest role has involved breathing an astonishing amount of humanity into caesar, in war for the planet of the apes, and it even led to calls for him to win the oscar for best actor. his production company, the imaginarium, is entering into video games, with the release of a new sony ps4 platform that extends the world of the planet of the apes. it is a decision—based game that plays out more like a cross

between a movie and a choose—your—own adventure book. and it's here that i got to sit down with the man behind the mask. you kind of are the king of performance capture. do you mind that? you have a movie coming out this week, you have directed, you have videogames as well, i mean, do you mind the fact that people still...? why would i mind? i love it. it is the most extraordinary tool for the 21st century actor, to be able to embody or play anything across multi—platforms. it is the end of typecasting. it is the most egalitarian form of acting. any actor can become a creature, a character, a humanoid or not, inanimate and bring it ascensions, existance. the art of transformation is becoming, for me — actors work in different but the process of completely embodying another character, drove me as an actor. and that's what i love doing and this technology allows you to do that to the nth degree. it is climbing deeply

inside a character, being that character and it can be as extreme as gollum or king kong, or anything in between. you're him, you're caesar. i fight only to protect apes. you can never quite tell what was tweaked in post—production. so is the performance that i am looking at actually what they you gave you on the day or did theyjust give it? when you're watching a real human do it, there's less of that doubt. if you look at modern filmmaking now, the amount of times that you can take a blink out that someone's done, you can add a tear if somebody is supposed to be crying and they did not manage to do it in the take. augmentation of live action movies is the crossover between what you think you are seeing as being real and in this day and age, visual effects are in every single shot of every movie, apart from very low—budget

independent movies who cannot afford visual effects. in planet of the apes, when matt reeves is directing a scene between me and woody harrelson, he then takes our performance and my performance goes into the cut and he cuts it with woody and there's a back and forth between us. that is what he lives with. that's what the movie is screened as originally, before you even see the apes. really? they even start testing the movie with the actor's faces. it has all got to live or die on the performance. you can't add the performance — that is not created after the fact, it is the manifestation of the performance after the fact, which is obviously incredible visual effects artistry. matt lives with the cut of the entire movie, with us in it — it's not planet of the apes, it's planet of the actors in make—up suits. master looks after us now. of all your performance captured roles, which stand out as something monumental happened here?

i have a very soft spot for gollum. but caesar, i've tried to think if there is any other part that an actor has played where they are played from birth all the way through to death and actually not only just growing older but the character evolving from one thing into another. going from a pure chimpanzee to almost human. the technology that allows any actor to do that is all right by me. the legendary andy serkis. just before we go, i wanted to remind you that we have a tonne of click content running on our facebook page throughout the week. like this, where we showcased research from eth zurich, in switzerland, which built a curved concrete roof using new building techniques.

algorithmic calculations mean less concrete and fewer support structures are needed. the researchers say the manufacturing process uses a minimal amount of concrete and support structures, meaning less waste and reduced environmental impact. the whole prototype weighs 20 tons with just 800 kilograms of supporting cables and textile. i think with resources disappearing and us having only one planet, we need to design better and, as a structural designer, i care about exactly that and also showing that actually we can make quite a big difference, that we can make exciting buildings that are not wasteful but actually quite the opposite. that do things much better, much thinner, much more integrated, much more efficient. and you can see more short stories

from the world of tech on our facebook page and on twitter. thank you for watching and we will see you soon. well, after the rain cleared through on saturday afternoon, colder, brighter conditions moved in its place but plenty of showers rattling in from the north—west. and through the course of the night, a very showery one across many western areas with some snow over the high ground, hail and thunder mixed in too, whereas further east it's been drier with clear spells. we start sunday morning on a chilly note. generally speaking, though, it's going to be a drier day than saturday for most of us. plenty of sunshine around but it's

going to be noticeably cold in all areas. we'll start sunday off with some of the showers across western areas with some wintriness over the hills, they'll slowly fizzle away into the afternoon and become more confined to western and south—western and eastern coastal areas with many inland places dry but cold. eight to 10 degrees, it really will be struggling, those values. and as we head on in towards bonfire night evening, those temperatures really will be falling. you can see the blue hue there across scotland. a few showers dotted around northern coasts there. a few through the north channel, pushing on in towards northern and western wales, and there will be some showers across the east coast. but for most places it will be dry for bonfire night, but cold, you really will need to wrap up warm. one or two showers around the channel islands too. now, as we head further on into sunday night and the early hours of monday, it turns even colder. you can see those blue colours across the north extending south into central and eastern areas, with some places potentially seeing

lows down to —5 or —6 degrees. so it could be a bit of a misty and a very cold start for monday with some frost around. the ridge of high pressure which brings the fine weather on sunday and monday morning slowly ebbs away and allows this weather system to push in off the atlantic to bring thickening cloud, strengthening winds and outbreaks of rain. but it's a cold start on monday, but dry with plenty of sunshine. the sunshine gradually diminishing from the west as that weather front moves in, but it will stay bright across east anglia and the south—east. spots of rain developing across western britain and certainly some persistent, heavy rain for northern and western parts of scotland where here it will be turning a little bit milder but cold, like i mentioned, in the east. for tuesday, quite a messy picture, that weather front will continue its journey eastwards. some heavy and persistent rain on it as it slowly trundles eastwards. fairly mild here but turning cold again across the north and the west with sunshine and showers. and then on into wednesday, again, we're in between weather systems. that one eventually clears in the south—east and leaves colder,

clearer conditions in its wake. more wind and rain pushing into the north and the west later on. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: saudi arabia's crown prince launches a major anti—corruption purge, several senior ministers are detained. touchdown in tokyo. donald trump arrives injapan as his mammoth tour of asia gets under way. lawyers for the us soldier who pleaded guilty to abandoning his post in afghanistan say he will appeal his sentence. as harassment claims continue to engulf british politics, the opposition calls for a new way to deal with complaints. hello and welcome to bbc news.