day in iran. several demonstrations have turned violent, and it's thought at least two people have been shot in the western town of dorud. in the capital tehran thousands joined a rally to show their support for the government. arctic conditions and extreme cold have prompted some us cities to postpone new year's eve events. forecasters are predicting the big chill will continue into 2018, with temperatures plummeting to record lows. along cape cod, on the massachusetts coast, thresher sharks have been discovered washed up frozen solid. the authorities in nepal says they've banned solo climbers from the country's mountains, including mount everest, in an attempt to reduce accidents. they've also upheld a controversial decision to introduce restrictions on disabled climbers. those are the latest headlines. there'll be a full bulletin at the top of the hour. now, though, let'sjoin the click team for a festive special. 2017, the year of curious cats,

haunting holograms, and trigger happy trackers. hello. it is time to look back on the year in tech. as 2017 fades away, we could tell you about all the technology news that has happened, the hacking, the launching, the automatic driving, but that would be just like last year and, come to think of it, the year before that. so we prefer to share with you some unforgettable memories from our year on click as we travelled far and wide to bring

you some extraordinary moments. and we start with a personal highlight for me. back in october we travelled to japan and we got rare access to see how robots are helping with the dangerous task of cleaning up the fukushima nuclear power plant after its meltdown in 2011. scary? no. i have worn a plenty of protective suits in my time, but they have always been to protect the environment from my body. this time it is different. we're going inside unit five, which is identical to the units which were wrecked by the explosions. as you can imagine, it is really hot inside this suit. it is a confusing jumble of walkways and machinery, it is difficult to appreciate that someone in here is a seven story high tank of water called the primary containment vessel, the pcv. and now it's time to go right

underneath the reactor. oh wow. they think what happens after the meltdowns is that the molten fueljust burned through the bottom of the pcv and came through here to what's known as the pedestal. that's where they think the fuel is now. it's difficult enough getting through this place on foot, now imagine trying to remote control a robot through this after the whole place has been mangled by an explosion. oh yes, and do it in the dark. this is scorpion, its mission was to hunt for fuel in unit two. time is of the essence for any fukushima robot. the radiation will eventually damage and disable its cameras, rendering it useless. the entire mission can also be upset by something far more basic. this is service hatch x6, and in unit two they were hoping to send a scorpion robot down this

ramp to film the molten fuel at the bottom. but it never made it. they did not get any footage or evidence of where the fuel was. in unit three the water's much higher, so they had to think of another way to get a robot in. that is where the mini sunfish came in. well, actually, that's where the mini sunfish came in. built to fit through this 15 centimetre pipe, mini sunfish is a tiny underwater robot with five propellers, two cameras, and four human operators. 300 kilometres away from fukushima, in yokohama's r&d centre, i came face to face with the star of the investigation. injuly this year, mini sunfish was successful in finding material that could be fuel debris in the pedestal in unit three.

decommissioning the site could take a0 years and it may cost 8 trillion yen. those little robots have a lot riding on their tiny backs. ever wondered what cats get up to when no—one‘s there? meet roxie and zara, who seemed agreeable in taking part in some gadget testing. oh, sorry. if you have ever wanted to watch, talk to, or even play with your cats when you are not with them, then this could help.

once the device is connected to your home wi—fi you can log in via the app anywhere you can get your phone online. there's a laser game to play, snacks at the tap of an icon, and a function to proudly make and share videos and cat snaps. this rather unusual looking setup works in quite a similar way. there's a camera so you can see the cats remotely, also the ability to give them food wherever you are. plus this toy, which is apparently something that cats might like to play with. zara and roxie were possibly slightly intimidated by the jolting of the feathery thing and the app was extremely temperamental, making set up a rather tedious experience. the petpace smart collar has been around for a little while now

and is available for cats and dogs. it allows owners to keep an eye on temperature, pulse, breathing rate, heartrate variability, and even the positions the pet is in, so could be particular beneficial if there are health concerns or an injury to keep an eye on. meanwhile, there seems to be a game of cat and mouse going on. the latter played by a remote—controlled rodent. although it actually consists of the mouse chasing the cat, which probably says it all about my day's filming. that was lara with some pretty disinterested interviewees. you can't win them all. you know us, we will report from wherever we find a good story. there have been so great ones. so many successful ones in africa this year. back injune, dan simmons went to tanzania to see the first stages of what could be a global revolution in education.

we are travelling a long way from any town or city to visit some of the 200 children in tata village in northern tanzania. we are booting up the tablet, the first one. the whole programme is in swahili so the local children can understand. i think they're going to need more tablets. this is one of about 150 villages in tanzania chosen as the testbed for the global learning xpriz. within a few months 4,000 tablets will be given out, the challenge to teach 7— to 11—year—olds to read, write, and do maths over the next year. the most effective app

will win $10 million. the prize here will be much more valuable. older children can walk up to four hours to get to and from school, for younger ones like this seven—year—old amina that is too far. she has been lucky, she is one of those who has been chosen to take part in the challenge. at the start she has not seen a tablet before so she is not used to touching screens. when it comes to reading, she does not know more than one or two words in a sentence. butjohn, who was with the project, thinks the tablet will eventually to read fluently. the problem is that there are about 60 to 100 million kids who have no access to school because it is too far. then you have 250 million more who go to school and to leave without ever having learnt to read or write a word. they are in botswana, boston, brighton, it does not matter. could go to school all over the world and they go and do not learn.

why is that? that's the question we're trying to address. in our greatest desire, every single child on planet earth has access to a world class education in the palm of her hand. we are hoping to be back next you to see how the teams get along. for now it is time to say goodbye. we have brought some biscuits to say thank you. and suddenly the difficulties the team will face when they arrived became clear. we just 20 or so tablets per village, there simply won't be enough for everyone to take part. to reduce potentialjealousy, the tablets will be locked to only run the educational software, but everyone wants one. a village of mamma has been chosen to settle any dispute. and the scheme‘s partners, unesco, will be asking some other important questions about tablets too. we are doing assessments of the social and emotional impact of such learning, because we expect some criticism from that side. we are engaging with the psychologists, anthropologists,

educationalists, to try to understand what does it do to the child? is it an option that is ethical because children go to school, they are socialised also, it is not only the cognitive of learning, it is learning to be part of the group. it's just like back at home. now they've all got tablets. they‘ re not really talking to anybody. that was dan in tanzania. next, we are off to germany with kate, who's found an elevator that goes sideways. the picturesque town of rottweil, germany, home to fearsome dogs, chocolate box buildings, and a 246—metre tower housing the tallest observation deck in germany. but this tower is not

just about great views. built by an elevator company thyssenkrupp, it has 12 lift shafts running inside it. one is used to transport passengers to the top, the others to test the latest in elevator technology. it is in the core of the tower. only a few people really have the chance to see what we have built and what is running there. an elevator without any ropes. this is revolutionary. instead of steel ropes, the cabin is carried by linear motors, it is the same tech that drives japan's bullet train. as well as eliminating the speed and height restriction of today's technology, this allows passengers to travel sideways as well as up and down, just like willy wonka's fantastical elevator in charlie and the chocolate factory. behind the scenes, behind the car, we changed this

exchanger 90 degrees. get prepared for the horizontal movement while entering and leaving. as soon as the doors close we can go sideways to the next shaft. and this is the most important thing that we come back to — a circulating system. reinventing the paternoster. using this circulating pattern means a lift shaft could hold ten or more cabins, much more efficient than a single up and down right that today's elevators are limited to. and this will only become more important when we start looking at elevators reaching perhaps 1000 or more metres into the sky. that was kate going sideways. and so are we. we are off to the place where china makes the world's tech, the city of shenzhen, where last month i got exclusive prelaunch access to see how

a new smart phone is born. they make loads of different types of phones in this factory, so to keep the st a secret from other workers, everything happens behind the blue shroud of secrecy. are you ready? thank you. come in. welcome to production line 27. the phone starts life as just a tiny camera, there and it is gradually assembled around this u—shaped production line, which means by the time it gets to the end it is a fully featured phone. just about there. this is the reason china has come to dominate electronics manufacturing, a ready supply of a disciplined,

relatively low cost workforce. each person here has one uniquejob which requires concentration, speed and precision. a single speck of dust caught in the camera lens and a single phone will be rejected. what i found most surprising about this is it is all people. i would have thought with this kind of high precisionjob these phones would have been built solely by machines, but it is pretty much all humans. this is where an unlucky few phones are pulled off the production line to check extreme tolerance. elsewhere, other test phones escape that big plunge, but instead are dropped 5000 times each. others have their charging ports wiggled and buttons pressed 10,000 times. with the launch over,

one class will nervously await the first reviews and more importantly, the advance orders. and they will decide whether these people will be joined by hundreds more or not. a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain there in china. and now it is time to leave earth entirely for a few minutes to remember how the click crew explored the final frontier in vr. virtual reality game star trek bridge crew brings together up to four players, each taking a different role on the bridge of a starship. that is brilliant. incredible! 0h... oh my goodness, mark! we are warping everybody. wow!

that's pretty isn't it? we don't have time for sightseeing though, as we receive a distress signal from a stricken vessel. my vessel has lost all power and our life support systems are nearly exhausted. 0k, engineering — can you transport the survivors back here? i don't know. laughter. it is at this moment that the action takes a turn which will appeal to star trek superfans. wow! it is a d51 cruiser. it is a klingon d5 cruiser. 0k, target it! target destroyed. it feels like social vr at its best, really. communication is a must. if you don't have it, you're not going to complete the mission. great for team building.

i thought we actually had our lives on the line for a minute. a couple of sticky moments but i think we managed to keep it together as a crew and the result was a successful mission. now, one thing we love to do on click is to look at how things might change significantly in the future. and one area that we think is about to pop onto the scene and possibly on to many people's plates is lab—grown meat. i am talking burgers, steaks and fish. got a taste for it? back injuly, kat hawkins visited the cultured food capital, san francisco, to see what's cooking. i have come to this lab in the heart of silicon valley to visit impossible foods. they claim to have invented the food of the future — a completely meatless meat made entirely of plants. impossible foods found that the key ingredient that gives

meat its characteristic irony taste is a molecule found in most living things and especially in animal muscle. luckily, it is also found in plants. this is your magic ingredient right? your pla nt—based blood. right and it provides the explosion of flavour that you get, it is the different between white meat chicken with a beef burger. the company has recently flipped the switch on its meatless meatpacking factory as it ramps up reduction. this will eventually make 4 million burgers a month, and the next aim is to move into chicken, pork and lamb. but it is one thing being a scientist who is enthralled by food tech and another to be a chef using the ingredients produced on your carefully crafted menu. i think we eat way too much meat in general,

so it is a good way to be as close as possible to meat looks and tastes. the impossible burger is now the only one rocco has on his menu and he sells 250 of them are weak. it seems like at this stage it might be a novelty for silicon valley diners with money to spend, but of course, as always, the true test is in the tasting. ok, it's about to happen. it's really good. the texture is just like meat. it doesn't taste like mince beef. a little bit like mushrooms, but i know there is no mushrooms in there. what comes across talking to rocco though, is how important is for his customers that the flavour tastes close to meat while being ethical. but what if you could serve up animal flesh without a single creature being harmed ?

that is what this several companies, including this small startup is working on. they plan to grow actual fish from stem cells. phyllis foods takes a small sample of cells from a real fish and cultures it up. 0ne cell can theoretically come one tonne of fish meat, but they are not there yet. we will be on the market in three years with products that are a new version of fish that people haven't had before and then in five to six years we will have steaks and fillets, just like the fish you currently eat at a supermarket, just like the fish you normally see in the ocean. kat hawkins reporting back in this summer. now, from california to the netherlands where nick witnessed a dance with a new hologram effect. today choreographers and dancers of ndt are working with a new medium

for artistic expression. they are taking two excerpts from a show called stop motion and are adapting it to include holographic projections. it is a really, bit treaty, almost an imax type experience. without the need for glasses, you know? every detail has been carefully crafted. they are projecting a fallen white giant and dust onto a black back drop playing with the themes of light and dark and destruction. technology needs to embrace the art. but not be sticking out all by itself. it needs to help, it is like a glove to the art, to the expression. the holographic illusion is created with the help of two very high end projectors and a special lightweight mesh screen. by playing out videos on the front mesh and back wall, it creates an optical illusion of 3—d depth. for the performers it is actually really good rig to work with,

they can see the projections on the side while they are on stage performing. with other systems, you don't really get that same wall realistic. dancers into position, standby lighting and music, cue projection and action! music plays. applause. after all that globetrotting, i have to say there is no place like home. there's no place like home. there's no place like... guards! yes, banks, voting systems and the nhs were not the only ones to have been under attack in 2017.

even in my own castle i had my hands full with this lot. we even lost our first guest on the show. sorry, ken. and in 2018 we will be going back into battle again, reporting from wherever we find the best technology from around the globe and home. we will see you next year. hi there. 2017 is finishing on a windy note in the guise of storm dylan. zooming out to the atlantic, 15 hours ago storm dylan didn't exist, but since then this area of low pressure has formed and it

has deepened as it has been racing towards the british isles. this nasty hook of cloud is characteristic of a very deep area of low pressure and that will bring severe gales to the northern half of the uk and a high risk of disruption as we get into new year's eve. the met office have already issued an amberwind warning for the strong winds. that will affect northern ireland and scotland as we go through new year's eve morning. gusts of 70—80 mph. aside from that, many will start off with rain, mild in the south and a bit of mountain snow in scotland but it is the wind that takes centre stage. initially the strong wind was with us in northern ireland before swinging a cross into scotland. we could see peak gusts of around 80 mph, enough to blow down trees, cause transport disruption and any trees falling down could bring power lines down as well. power cuts a possibility. the strong winds filtering

and funnelling through the central belt of scotland. we could have some very rough weatherfor the morning. elsewhere across england and wales, many areas starting on a bright note, with sunshine with a bit of rain left over in the south—west, clearing really quite quickly. those strong winds very slow to ease down across central belt of scotland, slowly easing from the second half of the afternoon. blustery showers continuing to be blown across the uk with these gusty winds with us across all areas and in the showers they will be heavy, some thunder and quite a range of temperatures between 6 and 12 degrees. 0vernight, as we count down to midnight celebrations, we will see further showers blown in on those strong winds. not as cold as it might have been though. temperatures around four and seven degrees. on new year's day, another band in the south, could cause problems with localised flooding and the weather being a problem. another area of low pressure bringing gusty winds to scotland and northern ireland along with outbreaks of rain. we have more unsettled weather coming on tuesday,

as we return back to work. wet weather pushing in and a quite windy day, coolness across the south—east but mild across the south—west, temperatures into double figures. looking at the week ahead. strong winds, further bursts of heavy rain with fairly big changes day by day with our temperatures. that is your latest weather. this is bbc news. our top stories: violence in iran, after a third day of anti—government protests. reports say at least two people have been shot in the capital tehran, an official show of support for the government draws thousands of people. from fountains of ice to frozen sharks, north america's arctic winter looks set to continue into the new year. nepal bans solo climbers from scaling its mountains, including mount everest. critics say it will do little to reduce accidents. and new year revellers prepare to see in 2018 in style, but in many european capitals,

there'll be tight security.