this is bbc news. our latest headlines: two of britain's biggest supermarkets, sainsbury‘s and asda, confirm they're in advanced merger talks in a deal that could be worth £10 billion. alfie evans, the toddler at the centre of a legal battle over his treatment, has died. his father said on social media, my gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings. cabinet colleagues rally round home secretary amber rudd as calls from labour to resign continue. she says she didn't see a memo copied to her office which detailed home office targets for deporting illegal immigrants. a former policeman accused of being the so—called golden state killer makes his first appearance in a california court. josephjames deangelo is charged with 13 murders and 51 rapes. now on bbc news, it's click. this week we are going cryptocurrency crazy.

we'll see how to mine bitcoin in a warehouse of thousands of machines, or in your kitchen, on your blender. welcome to iceland, one of the strangest places i've ever been. it is ice cold. and boiling hot. now, that does come with advantages. the volcanic activity that formed

the island millions of years ago means it has access to very cheap geothermal electricity. and all that cold air? that can be used as a free cooling system. so cheap electricity and cold air. in short, the perfect place to put a load of computers. oh, wow. every single one of these is a home computer. that's all it is. that is a desktop computer. and there are thousands of them. these computers are working flat out. without a cooling system their processors would overheat in a matter of minutes. in the main area i would say the air temperature is about 20 degrees or so.

but behind the ranks of computers it is much colder, probably about five. and that's not because you have expensive air chillers. remember we're in a cold climate. so all we have are holes in the external wall. the air comes in, all the dust and humidity is caught by these filters and then itjust washes over the computers and out through the giant fans in the room. so what is it that these computers are doing that warrants all this noise, this heat, and this power? well, they are creating or mining cryptocurrency. yep, cryptocurrency, the new family of virtual currencies that its enthusiasts say it will replace pounds, euros, and dollars, and all the traditional currencies in the coming years. that claim is, however, still a very live debate, with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin,

ethereum, and ripple fluctuating wildly in their exchange rates. the more mining computers you own, the more money you make. and that incentive has led to massive hoards of machines like this one popping up all around the world. mining is cheaper if you don't have to pay for the cooling, but it's cheaper still if you don't have to pay for the computers you use at all. a factor that has led criminal is to think of new ways to try to make a quick crypto buck. here's dan simmons. it's a crime that's fast becoming the hackers‘ favourite. and the impact often goes unseen. this house looks like your computer after it's been hijacked. everything may look fine from the outside, but inside resources

have been ransacked. to add insult to injury, your electricity bill is about to go up, as you pay to power a machine that's now working hard for the criminals. a friend of mine got in touch with me on the sunday morning and said i havejust been to the information commissioner's office website, where the ico, here in the uk, our data protection body at the government, and he said my anti—virus program has thrown up this warning on the screen, he said it's a government website, can it have a virus on it? so what we discovered was, originally the ico website was running a cryptominer. so your browser would be hijacked to mine cryptocurrencies for the hackers. after some investigation, what we found was that a third—party supplier that provides them with software had been breached and they had included the cryptominer in that. a third—party app used by the ico and thousands of other websites had been compromised. the malware told visitors‘ computers to start mining cryptocurrencies for the bad guys.

and you can see before my system is doing one or two different things and now the miner is running, the miner is taking 100% of my cpu on this device and using it to mine cryptocurrencies. you can configure a cryptominer in how much power it will use. if you are greedy it will take 100%, then the computer or phone or tablet will slow down and you will notice that when you try to do things it is not responsive, it hangs. what they have done in this case is they configured it to use up to 60% of the power of the device. so it will use a lot of it. so the average user may never have known it was there and it was running. scott showed me how they could have stolen visitors‘ data. so why didn‘t they? what i‘ve set up here is something the attackers could have done. i‘ve given myself the same level of access they did. the information commissioner‘s office website has a name

and password field. if you go ahead and type something into that field, and already, if you look at the information being sent to my device here... oh my god. it‘s coming up on there straightaway. as you time, that is sent in real—time to me. and the attackers in this instance could have done this? absolutely. theyjust chose not to. why? easy money. attackers will take the low hanging fruit. they put the cryptominer into this website and they just walk away. the ico told us no personal data was compromised. third—party applications were swiftly reviewed and their systems patched. they are also exploring new ways of protecting their systems. security firms are reporting hackers making millions of dollars. it‘s called cryptojacking. it‘s on the rise. and the gangs that do it aren‘t only eyeing up a lambo. tesla is one of the highest profile victims.

redlock called them to say their cloud server, provided by amazon web services, had been compromised. the attacker obviously was doing cryptomining, what we found out was the server was also exposing the other secrets to the tesla environment. these secrets had access to some engineering test cars and other data. the crims didn‘t want secrets, they wanted resources. and now most things are connected to the net there could be some targets you have not thought of. this viewer‘s smart tv is not quite clever enough to stop they cryptominer who has put its processors into top gear. just look at the heat signature from the tv fire stick that isn‘t infected, to one that is. the cyber criminals can get onto any other device

in your household, for example, into a microwave or even into a smart blender if it‘s smart enough. itjust depends on the intentions of cyber criminals and how good the device is for mining. thankfully, at the moment, our connected kitchens don‘t quite have the processor power the hackers are looking for. i know what you‘re thinking. forget the criminals, is it worth us orchestrating our own devices to start cryptomining to increase our own bank accounts or or is itjust not worth the effort? while even your mobile can mine for cryptocurrencies, if you want to make more than a few pennies you want to buy one of these miners with processors specifically designed for thejob.

so how do the maths add up? we have one of the latest cryptominers. that is not the only cost in this business. we have to pay for the electricity to run it 21w. which in a typical us city might cost us about $200 per month. so how fast can it mine cryptocurrency? well, that partly depends on how many peoplejoin in the game. the more total computing power doing this, the lower our return will be. recent estimates suggest about one bitcoin a year. so, it all boils down to how much a cryptocoin is worth. look at the bitcoin rate back in december and now in april that price has tumbled. and our costs are rising. some reports suggest you would find it difficult to make a profit inside of a year. unless, of course, you‘re using someone else‘s kit. hello and welcome

to the week in tech. it was the week that whatsapp raised its minimum age for users from 13 to 16 in the eu, facebook asked for permission to fly experimental drones over new mexico, and elon musk casually mentioned he is building a cyborg dragon, via twitter. it was also the week that samsung released six new tv shows filmed exclusively in virtual reality. they include robots, a comedy about two british robots joining a futuristic new york police department. researchers at nvidia demonstrated a new way to reconstruct photographs using deep learning algorithms. this software predicts what a damaged photo should look like and fix corrupted pixels. robots are taking over morejobs this week. pepper the robot started a prestigious post at the smithsonian in washington.

and a robot helping patients rehabilitate by playing a game of tic—tac—toe with cups came to life in israel. and finally, we heard evil artificial intelligence could start a nuclear war by the year 2040, this is according to a report from the rand corporation think tank. it says advances in al could challenge the basic rules of nuclear deterrence and result in catastrophic miscalculations. on the flipside, it says with the right amount of global cooperation ai could actually make us safer. phew. as the parent of a five—year—old, i can tell you that i don‘t want to see my daughter glued to a smartphone or obsessed with using a tablet, but at the same time, our children do need to learn how to engage with technology. so it‘s no surprise that a lot of devices that aim to combine coding and creativity have become popular. today i am going to be

testing some of the latest. but seeing as i am a little too old for school i have some helpers. is everybody ready? yes! here at dallow primary school, these year 3 students seem to be engrossed in the experience. over here we‘ve got the kano pixel kit being tested. after a bit of coding takes place, there are lots of flashing lights. after connecting the app kids can get coding, creating light shows or games, even using the weather data or their own voices to trigger changes. the kids love the bright lights, but i do wonder how many times they‘d need to use it before the novelty wore off. it gives you more understanding of what coding it really is. and when you‘re older you can become an inventor. or anything that has coding. it would help you. over here we have something that is

actually called an inventor kit. how exciting is that? what are you up to here? we press this and then we pressed edit so we can change the picture. we can actually change the picture and how it looks. this magnetic electronic building system challenges the kids to create reactions triggered by sensors. here, one second after moving the gyroscope, a buzzer will go off. there are advanced functions are allowing smart home integration. and the invention guides to get updated, so provide a variety of things to do. the set is also compatible with lego bricks. it‘s encouraging our brains to get a bit better. to create things. i have no idea what they are going to invent next but i will leave them to it. over here we have a codeable drone. how are you getting on? good. it will raise up and then it will turn and go through. then it will turn red.

then it will do a shape. then it will rise again. then it is going to go clockwise. it is a good job you don‘t have them all that. it is quite complicated. you have set up a sequence of movements. once we get some space, we will go outside the classroom to do this. here we‘ve got the stemosaur, which is a codeable dinosaur. the kids had a great time constructing it. but it needed home wi—fi to be tested properly. leaving them somewhat disappointed. once built, as well as a coding panel to program it, it can tell stories, dojokes, do maths, and more. testing it at home, initially it was pretty intuitive, but much like a conversation with alexa or google home, it doesn‘t always grasp what you are talking about. can you help me meditates? i am not sure i understand. the company says it collects

information to better the questions and answers in future, but this is totally anonymous. once it has been usefully used it will be deleted with only the statistical analysis living on. all of the bits of technology do enable children to work on those programming and coding skills and problem solving as well at the same time. ok, so some space. let‘s give it a go. 0h! that was lara, and now we go back to crypto currency and the iceland, where i‘ve been getting the low down on the economics of running a giant crypto currency mining warehouse. wow! yes, cheap power is important for crypto miners.

but they are not always welcome. last month in northern new york, plattsburg became the first us town to ban bitcoin mining. this isn‘t because we‘re luddites, it isn‘t because we‘re afraid of crypto currency, it is because we recognise we have a fixed resource. plattsburg has provided unusually discounted electricity — about a fifth of the price of other american towns — and that‘s thanks to a fixed allocation of power from the niagara hydro power plant. but the surge in usage from mines has meant prices skyrocketing, hiking up bills for residents. so the local government has imposed an 18—month moratorium, preventing new commercial crypto mines from setting up shop. we were finding that the bitcoin and cryptocurrency users were coming and demanding so much of our power that it was forcing us to have to buy very expensive power and it had a really detrimental effect on our ratepayers.

they used such an immense amount of power — one operator alone uses 10% of the entire quota. mayor read expects other new york towns to follow suit. but crypto mining isn‘t always just the selfish pursuit of wealth, as marc cieslak has been finding out. the war in syria has raged for seven years. it‘s estimated that 470,000 people have died in the conflict. so the needs are huge. there are about 8 million kids that require our attention and that urgent help. 5 million of them are still stuck in syria. the effect of the war on the civilian population has been devastating. there are besieged places, there are hard to reach places, so we are trying our best to reach the children that are most vulnerable. various aid agencies are trying

to combat the refugee crisis caused by the war. unicef estimates that syrian aid will cost $3.5 billion in 2018. with such vast sums of money required, fundraising efforts have gone into overdrive. the latest initiative plans to pay for aid using the cryptocurrency ethereum. unicef in france is responsible for this unusual form of fundraising. called game chaingers, the project is the brainchild of france‘s largest advertising agency, betc. my mother used to say "money don‘t grow on trees" but she was wrong because you can do money with nothing. it‘s just electricity and a graphic card, which is very new, a new way to donate. the plan is to use blockchain technology to mine cryptocurrency

using gamers‘ computers. some of the most hardcore gaming computers belong to those who play games for a living — esports competitors. professional gamers. but theirfundraising efforts aren‘t taking place at flashy gaming events. so it‘s been necessary to enlist the help of people who have just the right equipment, which is why i have come to this quiet parisian suburb because this house here is the unlikely location of a crypto currency mine. this is the training camp for one of france‘s most successful professional gaming teams called gamersorigin. they play the game league of legends. our training is like five hours a day usually. sometimes we have days off and etc, but we need to play at least five hours and after, we have our free time.

after installing a bit of mining software, these computers‘ powerful gpus, or graphics processing units, can begin mining the cryptocurrency. so basically, we can raise money just by having our pcs on for, yeah, the majority of the time. and it‘s when these gamers aren‘t playing games that their machines get to work mining, which means their computers need to be switched on pretty much all of the time. like when we eat, when we can sleep and stuff, we just use it, we make the software on and yeah, when we play, obviously we don‘t use it. but some experts question the use of this technology forfundraising purposes. it‘s innovative in that it catches into the sort of bitcoin rise and bubble hype, where everyone is saying bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and it gets some attention for that. the cause is excellent. um, the cause should thoroughly be supported. but the method of raising

money is just really bad! like, firstly, mining cryptocurrency, this means using cryptocurrency that uses the proof of work method which is literally wasting money to calculate numbers and they throw numbers at the system until they win some coins. it‘s wasteful by design. it also burns out the video card, so it produces a huge pile of e—waste as well. i mean, it‘s a good cause, everyone should just go to the site with their credit card, give them some money. researchers at unicef think they might have other uses for blockchain technology beyond fundraising, though. it‘s estimated that 30% of aid to war zones doesn‘t reach its intended destination, lost to corruption in the regions. can blockchain technology be used to help in terms of corruption? because there is a lot of corruption around the distribution of aid in quite a few war—torn countries.

well, everything you do in the blockchain is public, so it‘s like really, really transparent. it‘s virtual, so people don‘t have to carry cash on themselves in countries where the security is sometimes very difficult. uh, imagine that the transaction would be, like, very clear, uh, from the onset, you see very well who receives what at what moment which avoids the risk of duplicating the transfers which happens from time to time, etc, etc. the game chaingers project ended on march 31 and generated 84 ethereum. unicef cashed these in, raising 26,378 euros, which will go towards providing aid for syria. its creators say this isjust the beginning — a beta test of the technology before they try using it for different aid—related purposes. that is it from a rather noisy

click. do not forget that we are. hello. an afternoon of contrasts. for some there is some sunshine of what we have the sunshine there was a good deal of it although showers are never too far away. elsewhere there is a lot of cloud and outbreaks of rain and the rain is going to be very slow to clear from the likes of the midlands and east anglia through the rest of the afternoon. slowly overnight the rain will start to fade and we keep a lot of cloud here. further north and west the showers are easing and clearer skies with a chilly night

against the northern ireland and scotla nd against the northern ireland and scotland and the far north of england. temperatures close to or even below freezing in rural spots. under the cloud temperatures hold u pto under the cloud temperatures hold upto five or eight. the most it is a dry started tomorrow, chilean places with sunshine and fewer showers around. a large swathe of the country has a largely dry day with stubborn to clear cloud. later in the day we have heavy outbreaks of rain arriving. slightly cooler feel to the day tomorrow with a strengthening winds particularly along the east coast were temperatures struggle into double figures. allies are drawn to what is happening over france and the area of low pressure pushes north on sunday evening and overnight into monday and it brings some very u nsettled monday and it brings some very unsettled conditions for monday morning rush—hour. heavy rain and strong winds and some disruption is likely so keep an eye on the forecast in the next 2a or 36 hours. here is how monday morning looks, wet and windy but southern and

eastern and central parts of england and perhaps even sleet and snow over the south and north downs and the rain band extends to the north during the day. not into scotland and northern ireland and the north of england but the persistent rain is still there with a very cool feel. it doesn‘t get as far west as wales from the south of england but a different story from northern ireland and scotland in the far north of england and it is largely dry with a good deal of sunshine and temperatures are responding very nicely. it will feel very cool indeed underneath the cloud. wind and rain and struggling in places to get much about five or six and you could see sleet and snow over higher ground but it is unlikely to settle. temperatures perk up through the week. not entirely dry but there will be rain. by the end the week temperatures will be the rise. this is bbc news.

i‘m lukwesa burak. the headlines at apm: a possible £10 billion merger — sainsbury‘s and asda confirm they‘re in advanced discussions to try and reach a deal. alfie evans, the little boy who was at the centre of a legal battle about his hospital treatment, has died. hundreds of people released blue and purple balloons next to alder hey hospital in memory of the 23—month—old boy. cabinet backing for amber rudd, who says she didn‘t see a memo detailing home office deportation targets.

the home secretary has apologised, saying that of course she should have seen it, but she can‘t be held accountable or responsible for a document that she didn‘t see and for decisions that she didn‘t take. also, the race to the premier league goes down to the wire.