houthi rebels, supported by iran, are fighting forces loyal to the former president, backed by saudi airstrikes. in the latest high—profile departure from the white house, one of president trump's longest—serving aides — communications director hope hicks — is resigning. it's just a day since she was questioned by the house intelligence committee, investigating russian interference in the 2016 election, but the white house has denied any connection. pupils have returned to their high school in florida, two weeks after a former student murdered 17 people. president trump has been meeting politicians, urging them to come up with legislation to prevent school shootings. two major retailers have announced they will no longer stock assault rifles. now on bbc news, click. this week, lady becomes model. man becomes ape. and spen becomes trump.

as donald trump: great, the best. 0k, movie quiz time. five points if you can name this film. correct — it's raiders of the lost ark. no, that is not harrison ford — that is the face of nicolas cage. 0k, try this one. yes, it is the fellowship of the ring. 100 points if you spotted nicolas cage, nicolas cage and nicolas cage. so, what on earth is going on? we're just about getting used

to the idea that there are loads of fakes online. fake news, fake tweets, fake photoshopped images. but these videos are a whole level above anything that we've seen before, and they may have consequences that go far beyond just switching out a few movie stars. a lot of what we talk about over the dinner table is, we live in a diverse world. researchers at the university of washington released this video last year, which used a computer vision algorithm to very convincingly doctor 0bama's mouth movements to make him lipsync to something he said in a different interview. a lot of kids, the doors that have been opened to me aren't open to them. and with the tricks and tools of machine learning becoming better and easier to use, it's now possible to do this without a particularly powerful computer. remember the nick cage videos from earlier? well, this mix of donald trump and angela merkel was created

using the same tool, a tool called deepfa kes. to be clear, this is notjust a face swap like you might see on snapchat. this is artificial intelligence that has learned what trump's face looks like and then made it copy merkel‘s facial expressions. what's fascinating is that these weren't made by a team of researchers, or a hollywood visual effects department. these were made by individuals following an online tutorial on a desktop machine. now, to see how easy it is, we're going to do it. we're going to take my face and make me president. we trained a neural network by feeding it video of some of my past appearances. we mixed it with president trump's state of the union address. the software broke the video into individualframes, run them through the network and, in less than a day,

this was the result. all of us, together, as one team... so, this is the original video of trump. and this is me, on his head. we all share the same home. i'm not sure it's an improvement, but that does seem to be president spenley trump. the other half of the experiment didn't go quite so well. this is click presenter donald kelly. now, this was a very short and quick experiment. it's far from perfect. it's blurry, you can see the edges and sometimes — well, it's just downright scary. but had we left the network to train for longer, on better videos, we could have got much more convincing results. now, deepfakes has hit the headlines in recent weeks, but it's not because of trump or nicolas cage, or even me. it's because of porn. an online community has been using al to put hollywood actresses‘ faces onto adult

movie stars‘ bodies. now, obviously we can't show you much of the resulting videos, but they feature a number of female celebrities. the videos are stolen, and so are the faces. i was surprised but, at the same time, not really, because of how technology is advancing so much that it's just seems kind of inevitable. however, the context of the material, taking a celebrity or a well—known face — or even anyone's face, for that matter — and putting it on a porn performer‘s body, and essentially creating this fake, non—consensual porn, it's disturbing. it was definitely a disturbing thing to see. are people going to take, like, pictures of ex—girlfriends and put them on porn performers? issues surrounding consent and copyright have led the website hosting this content to ban deepfake pornography, and the communities making it. reddit too, the site where the community started,

changed its rules to forbid involuntary fake pornography. away from porn, it doesn't take much imagination to see how one could create international outrage by making fake statements from world leaders. something that may become possible very soon, thanks to some software that we looked at last year. this is lyrebird. the idea here is that i can train a neural network with samples of my voice and then it will be able to speak like me. "harry hoped he would see some success from the current project. parents should look out for..." the software asks you to read out at least 30 sentences of its choosing, from which it can pull out the basic building blocks of words, the phonemes, that can then be put back together in any order. in other words, "in other words". i've always been a big fan of one direction. they were, quite frankly, better than the beatles.

spencer laughs although the creators of lyrebird are aware that this technology could be misused, they say that by releasing it as a free tool, well, at least the public will become aware that fake voices are already a reality. as donald trump: great, the best! one idea that we are considering is to watermark the audio samples that we produce. so we are able to detect immediately if it is generated by us. so, how do we protect ourselves from having our online photos, videos and sound recordings used to create fake us—es? at the moment, we are in a wild, wild west situation. we don't know the attitude of the courts to this problem. we don't have a clear piece of legislation that would cover it. we have piecemeal laws on privacy, copyright, trademark and passing off that would be useful to somebody in trying to stop this from happening.

but we don't have a clear legal definition and we don't have a clear piece of legislation that is exactly on point. and until we have that, this legal uncertainty will continue. the morality and the legality of deepfakes are murky issues. just as we are wrestling with the fact that we can't trust what we read, very soon we will need to confront the fact that we can't trust anything we see or hear either. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that google's dedicated health farm announced it has created an algorithm that can predict high blood pressure, as well as risk of heart attacks or strokes, simply by scanning a person's eyes. as boston dynamics keep on showing us how intelligent robots are becoming, experts this week warned that artificial intelligence in the wrong hands is ripe for exploitation. drones turned into missiles, fake videos manipulating public opinion and automated hacking are just three of the threats they identified.

and amazon ceo jeff bezos is getting a new clock. but it's not one you can pick up from a shop. costing a huge $112 million — or £30 million — it is designed to run for 10,000 years, and construction began this week inside a hollowed—out mountain in texas. the vice president of facebook‘s adverts found himself in hot water this week, after tweeting that russian—backed ads were not designed to sway the us elections. rob goldman's tweet came after 13 russians were charged with meddling in the election via social media. his views were not those of facebook itself. and a conspiracy theory video claiming that survivors of last week's florida shooting are "crisis actors" somehow became youtube's number one trending clip before being removed. and, finally, pictures of samsung's latest phone, the galaxy s9, were leaked ahead of its launch at the mobile world congress, starting on sunday — ironically, via an app released

by the company itself. we'll move on now to video game news. remember nintendo's switch? its hugely successful console that's both mobile and which plugs into a tv? well, the japanese gaming giant has now created a host of rather unusual new peripherals which wildly alter how the machine is used. and marc cieslak has been getting all bent out of shape over it. he plays a musical scale. you may be forgiven for thinking that this cardboard is the packaging for the new peripherals for the nintendo switch console. however, the cardboard are the peripherals themselves. called labo, it's a range of devices which includes things like a piano, motor bike handlebars, fishing rod and even a robot suit. straps on the shoes...

i might look like i'm stomping around in a slightly weird way. but this game asks you to really get into the character of a giant robot. and, if i pull down my visor... i activate first—person mode. for precision destruction! called toy—cons, they are all constructed from folded cardboard. some use elastic bands and all use the switch's motion sensing controllers. i think labo is a big deal for the nintendo switch, just because it proves that nintendo is capable of continuing to innovate on an already innovative product. the fact that it is made out of cardboard and your existing controllers fit in, i think that will blow parents' minds and, more importantly, blow children's minds as well. but before you can play with your toy—con, you've got to build it first, something that you might worry requires the prowess of an origami expert crossed with the advanced flatpack furniture building skills of a self—assembly sensei. building these devices takes

varying lengths of time. more complicated toy—cons, like the robot suit, can take up to eight hours to complete. but that's part of the appeal of labo, taking pleasure from the building of the devices that you are about to use, and understanding how they go together. a little bit of patience and some deft folding results in this. nintendo reckons this is a radio controlled car. last time i looked, cars had wheels. my completed toy—con, which i can make move around, because the switch controllers have got hd rumble and it means that you can have different levels of rumble. allowing this particular toy—con to move about. now, this only took me about ten minutes to build, all in all. and because the switch controllers have an ir camera in them, on the switch itself, you can see where the toy—con is going. each one of the toy—cons

comes with a game. some are more complicated than others, but all require an element of physical control, which comes courtesy of the folded cardboard. the games themselves are more like mini—games. but that's not the point. this is more about creativity and making something than it is a hard—core gaming experience. but i do question the durability of cardboard peripherals. how does that go back in there? not very — based on my time with them. we've managed to have a pit stop with our very own cardboard mechanic. 0k, fantastic. so while i managed to damage my cardboard motorcycle, the repairs are really quite easy. there were two different offerings so far — the variety pack, which includes five different toy—cons, priced at £59.99, and the robosuit, which costs £69.99. that seems like a lot of money for cardboard toys

with bits of string for guts. nintendo hasn't yet said whether they are going to give you replacement parts for that, or whether you are going to have to scavenge cardboard from supermarkets or things like that. so it's going to be interesting to see how much nintendo are expecting you to spend on top of the base game and cardboard kits. this week, caterpillar announced the release of a new smartphone. you'd be forgiven for not even knowing they produced such a thing. these devices are specifically aimed at the construction industry. but this one has a few interesting features. an upgrade to their flir thermal imaging camera, the addition of a laser beam for measuring how far away something is, or room size, and the standout feature, a nose. yes, it can smell. or, more specifically, it has an indoor air quality sensor which aims to alert users

if there are high levels of volatile organic compounds — or vocs — in the air, something commonly found in paint, solvents and cleaning products. sound a bit niche? well, its creators don't think so. builders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, farmers. these type of people kind of generally get overlooked by the everyday phone vendors. so, what we are doing is understanding the technology that we can integrate into our products that really makes their lives better. next week on the show, we'll be bringing you all of the latest news and releases from nwc in barcelona. and releases from mwc in barcelona. that was lara. now, earlier we looked at how one face can be transplanted onto another. next, it's time to meet the people

who took this man's face and body and turned him into a completely different species. the team behind war for the planet of the apes is hoping to win the best visual effects 0scar next weekend. if it does, it will be the second 0scar in a row for dan lemon. bad place. human zoo. bad human. bad humans. soldiers... war for the planet of the apes represents the effort of over 500 people in visual effects. some of us worked on the movie for, like, two years. the movie runs about two hours and 20 minutes, and all but 15 shots in the movie had visual effects. many of the heaviest shots in the movie took over 11100 hours per frame to render. so, that's core hours. so we have a lot of those processors working at the same time.

maybe the frames wouldn't come back for two days, three days. bad place. i find long time ago, afterzoo, i... so the razor‘s edge that we walk is figuring out how to take our apes and adjust them, and make the performance readable to a human audience, so it is legible as something that you and i can connect with. but also not to take it so far that suddenly it doesn't feel ape—like any more. somehow it feels too human. that is sort of the fine line that we ride and that requires our animators to really, you know, it's their kind of skill and experience that comes into play there. this particular movie plays as sort of this epic western, you know? where they are travelling from one location to the next and you get to see a lot of different environments, and spaces. the big environment was the prison camp. that is where most of the second

half of the movie takes place. the prison camp, we actually built it near the vancouver airport in british columbia. it was a 70,000 square feet set. so it was a really big set. but it was surrounded by over 100,000 square feet of green screen. we needed all that screen because we had big wide shots that were set quite low. and beyond this set, we needed to put the sierra nevada mountains. we used a process called photogrammetry, where we went up in a helicopter and shot reference up and down the sierra nevadas in that kind of region. and then we turned those still photographs into three—dimensional geometry using the photogrammetry process. and we were able to use those pieces of geometry sort of like a kit set. and in the kind of traditional model making sense, we were able to take geometry from those mountains, cut them up and then put them together into a way where we could achieve specific compositions that matched what the director was after for that set. we developed this new piece of software called totara. totara is an ecosystem simulator.

so, we built the terrain and we sort of mapped resources. we said, this is where the good soil is, this is where the bad soil is. and then we let the plants grow from these seeds. we ran this similation over the equivalent of 80 years inside the computer. and it allowed the trees to grow up. and as the trees grew, they competed with one another for resources. so, they would kind of try to reach higher and higher. and what happened was a lot of complexity emerged from that simulation. it looked a lot more realistic, and we got a lot more realistic variation and naturalism from that simulation. one of the things that's so great about ourjob is not knowing what the next thing is. and that, for us, is the thing that is so much fun,

to be able to be, like, ok, here is the creative challenge. how can we take our technical tools and bend them to tell this story, or what can we invent, what can we make up to be able to tell the story? no, no, no... 0k... you might remember that late last year i had a brilliant chat with andy serkis about his role as caesar in war for the planet of the apes, and the art of motion capture in general. and you can watch that again right now on our youtube channel. and next week we will get exclusive, behind—the—scenes access to another visual effects 0scar nominee, star wars: the lastjedi. now, as it happens, the visual effects company that power star wars has also been involved in something rather different recently. just in time for fashion week season, the london college of fashion has teamed up with industrial light & magic to put on a show with a difference. two years in the making,

ilmxlab is debuting its live cgx technology in an augmented reality catwalk experience. real—life models are joined by a virtual avatar that is controlled by a human, wearing ilm's signature performance capture gear backstage. as the performer walks around, a specially designed rig, motion capture and depth sensing cameras tracked her every move. the avatar mirrors her physicality in real—time. ahead of the show, we got an exclusive sneaky peek behind the scenes. so, when we are calibrating, we are solving your skeleton from all the markers, so that you know, 0k, that is how your wrist moves, that is how your hip moves. it gets the right proportions and everything. having a live event, where we are using the technology that doesn't require a headset to be put on, and it is also not star wars—based, that is quite a two—part departure for us. so, you know, we are really excited to go into this new foray of what it means to collaborate on a live

event, numberone, and, numbertwo, just being out here in london. it was really interesting to design with the consideration that it would be thejedis. so, the textures and materials were chosen consciously to make sure it reflects what you guys can create. no catwalk is complete, of course, without a wardrobe change. and so, during the show, the virtual model's clothing transforms via the real—life performer taking a bow. the gesture triggers the change live. to view the transformation, though, tending fashionistas have to look at a large five by three metre led screen. it shows a live video feed of the stage taken from the balcony. the room around them comes to life, too, with overlaid graphics, turning this traditional interior

into a macau inspired street scene. the fashion industry is based on emotion. there is enormous desire for newness. so integrating technology and fashion allows us to create new experiences, new garments, in this case, for consumers to enjoy and experience. so, the last five minutes, all of the models will stand in position. seeing how the fabric drapes and falls, and how that mimics into digital format, that makes me really excited because of the potential of what you can do to fabric. so, that kind of control is something that i guess, as designers, we don't really normally have. and that's what we really wanted to kind of push for. eventually, the aim is to shrink this elaborate setup down to a pair of wearable goggles. let's hope they are suitably en vogue! bravo!

and that's it from us for this week. don't forget we live on twitter @bbcclick and on facebook, too. you can find us there, hanging around every day of every week. thanks for watching and we will see you soon. hello there. as far as meteorologists are concerned, the first of march is the first day of spring. but what we have to contend with through the day ahead is a continuation of this spell of severe disruptive wintry weather. still that met office red warning, still in force through central portions of scotland and west towards glasgow. a larger area of northern eastern scotland, covered by an amberwarning.

in all these areas, snow showers will continue to feed in relentlessly as we head through the early hours. some showers further west and south as well, and here the winds will be picking up, so it will feel bitingly cold up there. but of most concern is the weather across northeastern scotland into northeast england, 10—20 cm of snow falling here, perhaps even a little more than that through the central belt of scotland. that will continue to cause some significant issues. as we look further afield and run the weather through the day, you can see some of the showers will fade, parts of east anglia and lincolnshire will have a slightly drier day. down south, an area of low pressure is spinning its way up, that will bring some snow into the channel islands and likely set in in parts across southwestern wales. 0n the thermometer, your temperature will struggle to get above freezing. it will feel like —11 degrees in birmingham and in cardiff through the middle parts of the afternoon with that biting wind.

now this area of low pressure continues to push northwards as we head into thursday evening, and that brings the likelihood of a spell of really significant snow across southwest england and wales. the met office has an amber warning in force here, because the snow will pile up, 10—20 cm, maybe more in southwest england. very strong winds. there'll be blizzard conditions out there, as we head through thursday night into friday, some of that snow perhaps fringing into northern ireland, and as we go through the day on friday, snow will come across some other southern areas today. showers will feed into the northern and eastern scotland. temperatures for most of us are still disappointing, a bit milder towards the southwest. however, if any snow turns back to rain, it could hit very cold surfaces and turn immediately into ice, which would give some really slippery conditions. into the weekend, we continue to see frontal systems up from the south, and slowly but surely, something a little bit less cold,

so temperatures will slowly lift throughout the weekend. there will still be showers, and some of those will still be wintry. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories. three years after civil war started in yemen, the death toll continues to rise. both sides are fighting for the biggest prize, the capital, sa'naa. to take the fight into the heart of this historic, densely populated city would be a bloody, urban battle. back in class for the first time since the deadly shooting in florida. students return to a high school changed forever. another white house resignation. communications director hope hicks is the latest high profile figure to leave president trump's top team. and tributes to the evangelist billy graham. his body is lying in state in the us capitol as the nation's

leaders pay their respects.