in south west england were exposed to novichok, the same type of nerve agent used to poison the former russian spy sergei skripal and his daughter, in salisbury, just about 12 kilometres away. officers say there's no evidence the couple were deliberately targeted. in thailand, 10,000 litres of water an hour are being pumped out of the flooded cave complex where 12 teenage boys and their football coach are trapped. the hope is they can be rescued before the monsoon rains start within days. otherwise they may have to wait underground for up to five months. there's been more heavy fighting in southern syria, as government force try to recapture daraa province, one of the last rebel strongholds. un officials say at least 270,000 people, a third of the population, have fled their homes. it's just gone 3:30am in the morning. you're up to date on the headlines. now on bbc news, it's time for click. can artificial intelligence out—diagnose a doctor?

can a phone bring a giraffe to life? and can this robot make thisjump? britain's national health service turns 70 this week, and it is struggling to keep up with the modern world. an increasing population who are living longer and have evolving health—care needs has led to not enough hospital beds, not enough access to specialised treatment, not enough nurses, and not enough doctors. the situation in developing

countries is, of course, far worse. for a start, there is nowhere near as much money, but where you do have money, you have the issue of poaching of medical staff by richer nations. 0ne hope is to plug the gap with artificial intelligence. ibm's watson, for instance, fed with tonnes of data about cancer, may be better at diagnosing it than human doctors, and the hope is that it could be cheaper. i'm a virtual medical assistant. but more immediately, we are seeing the introduction of apps like san francisco—based senselink, which uses alto diagnose based on symptoms that we feed in. in other words, doing some of the work of a traditional gp. while some are sceptical that doctors can be replaced in this way, this week, one company claims that its ai is now better than a doctor. artificial intelligence has

the potential to influence our lives in a way we cannot yet understand. nowhere more than in healthcare, where decisions made by machines could mean the difference between life and death. hello, louise — how can i help you? at an event this week in london, babylon health claimed its artificial intelligence software can now diagnose illnesses better than the average doctor. i think i might know what is causing your symptoms. the company has already launched gp at hand, providing remote access to medical services in london. but the only involvement of artificial intelligence here was an algorithm that runs you through a symptom—checker. you would still talk to a human doctor for the diagnosis. now babylon says its software can pass a medical exam with a higher average grade than a person. what i found fascinating is that not

only it performed as well as them, but in questions it had seen before, it had 98% accuracy. so once the machine knows something, it neverforgets. there are clear implications for this test for people in the world who do not have access to healthcare. since 2016, babylon have provided its healthcare service to rwanda in central africa. sub—sa ha ran africa has 11% of the world's population, but carries a quarter of the world's disease burden, and hasjust 3% of the world's medical staff. in rwanda, the country faced a particular catastrophe with its healthcare system, after suffering one of the worst atrocities in the last century. over 800,000 people were killed injust 100 days

in the genocide of 1994. this memorial in kigali is the resting place of over 250,000 people who were killed in the area surrounding the capital. the genocide touched nearly every person in rwanda, decimating human resources. when the genocide ended, there were only 198 health professionals left for a population of over 6 million. it is difficult to overemphasise the challenges of rebuilding a society after such tragedy. but today, rwanda is regarded as an economic success story in africa. its president, paul kagame, has invited tech companies to the country to test their ideas. first drones, and now artificial intelligence. we visited the offices of babylon, called babyl in rwanda, with the health minister. he is here to see a demonstration

of how the ai triage works. the company already has 2 million registered users and has done thousands of consultations. babyl is using the same chat bot as its uk customers would use, but there are several differences here. most people use feature phones, not smart phones. so the service is provided by a nurse, who reads the text over the phone. this is the symptom checker, which would refer the patient to a human doctor. with long waiting times and long walks between homes and health centres, patients using the app can save a lot of time. after speaking to the nurse via a chat bot, pacifique was able to pick up a prescription in about ten minutes. translation: you see?

the service is easy. you can use it at home and come to the hospital and they will see you immediately. babyl have employed several methods to get the message out to the general population. they hold rallies around markets all over the country and do a lot of on—the—street outreach. many people we are ready met were already signed up. she's already registered. some even had appointments. translation: it is really good because sometimes you take a taxi and pay 600,000 rwandan francs, and when you reach the hospital, you find the doctor is not there. but for others, there are simple barriers stopping them using babyl. translation: i don't have a phone. and on the chat bot, the country wants to see more country—specific data integrated into the software. the artificial intelligence being tested here with babyl has been designed from the uk system, but, as you know, public health issues are different in the uk and in rwanda. for example, malaria — we didn't find any question

related to malaria. we need to give it some local context. so we are developing modules for the conditions that are not integrated into the ai, such as hiv, tuberculosis in maternal and child health. things that are important for our context. back in the uk, babylon is tested on the performance of its chat bot versus human doctors. it said its diagnosis rate was 81% on its first attempt, versus 72% for a human. they calculated that average based on five years of exam results. but the results have been questioned by some senior doctors, who've questioned the timing of the release. i would not, with the research that i do, go public on it, and have a big media event,

before putting it through the scientific process, because i want to know that the reception i am doing is defensible, is rigourous, and that my peers agree with it. and i don't think we have been through that process yet. this important debate will continue as artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in our daily lives. certainly critical to this is finding safe and rigourously tested ways to integrate the technology into routine medical care. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that uber was granted a short—term licence to work in london. it ended an uncertain period for the company following the decision by transport for london not to renew its licence last september. at the time, tfl said the us taxi app was not a fit and proper operator. adobe has been working on artificial intelligence to find out if an image has been digitally altered.

and the singles charts got another revamp, as sites like youtube and apple music will now count towards the chart for the very first time. it was also the week that facebook cancelled its plan to use drones that beam down internet connectivity from the sky. it was announced in 2014, but it has not been plain sailing for the social network, with its drones failing to achieve long flight times. and on the ground, the defence advanced research projects agency — or darpa to its friends — showed off a new combat vehicle that relied on an altogether different type of wheel. darpa claimed that the wheels will result in better manoeuvrability. and if you like nothing more than traditionally—made pizza, you might want to look away now. this pizza—making robot can spread the sauce and put the pizza in the oven, and even cut it for you. the company behind the robot says it does not work faster than a human

pizzaiolo but can be more efficient by making several pizzas at the same time. deep in the heart of boston's jungle of cables, something stirs. it is a cheetah. and it is off for a prowl. we are starting to see walking robots like this trotting out of labs all around the world. now the important skill here is not that they can walk a particular route autonomously — they are usually controlled manually using games controllers. no, the amazing skill here is that they can walk and balance as competently as we can, even on the most unforgiving of terrain. ok, that is impressive. that slips, loses its

balance, and regains it. that is the important thing. whoa! good shot! how hard is this? very, very hard. we move our body very easily, but we have to make sure that we know that we have three times more neurons for muscle movement than your actual forebrain. we have 700 muscles. we are trying to mimic this with using only 12 motor. still pretty ha rd. how close are we to robots like this being of practical use? what do we still need to get right? i think we're pretty close in terms of mobility, like walking around, climbing upstairs, turning. the hardest challence is still using arms. i sent this to power plants with regular radioactivity.

opening doors is not a simple thing. that is where autonomous control fails easily. so we are thinking about combining human manipulation combined with nearly autonomous navigation. the robot can go by itself. a human can come in if there is a door and use human input. now it can go through autonomously. check this radiation level. then you can do some simple manipulation using calibration. and he has that in hand, too. really quick response. when the remote robot hits something, yeah.

you feel the force. that really feels like it is underneath my hands. so, how does the cheetah compare to the robots that seem to make all the headlines these days — those from the stable of boston dynamics? our lab is much longer. we have only done this up to seven years. our software is new. but i think our hardware is better. we started using electro motors for dynamic motion, which is very efficient. after we are showing robots, i think eventually these kinds of machines will be much more useful and safe. they are cheap and easy to maintain. our motors are different from those you find in a factory. those cannot handle impact and absorb energy. as you can see, our robot is landing and jumping by itself. they certainly can, as demonstrated

by this exclusive look at a previously unseen manoeuvre. laughter. you cannot hear it, but our cameraman swore there. it wasn't pretty! but the thing is, it recovered and stayed upright. i know people who could not handle the recovery there. he laughs. but the thing is, it recovered and stayed upright. i know people who could not handle the recovery there.

cheetah and its predecessors have already pulled off some pretty spectacular moves, but before we get too confident, let's remember this is still a work in progress. augmented reality experiences seem to be all around us. but how close are we to being able to create our own? adobe's project aero hopes to bring ar to the masses, and i have managed to get a preview of the prototype. unlike other products of adobe's, they are starting off by releasing a professional version. the animated image to be placed in the ar first needs to be created in photoshop and then moved into adobe's 2d and 3d tool, dimension — the end result gives resolution and quality they hope exceed many other ar solutions out there.

long—term, though, the hope is something simple will be available for anybody to create the assets themselves. the aim is a platform agnostic finished product. we tap on "behaviour". we request what we want it to do. what would it mean for this journey into a new ar world? i think, really, for apple, making such a big push for ar2, it is such a significant detail, here. adobe getting involved is a pragmatic move. ar is becoming an important content delivery mechanism. adobe are all about making tools that make contact easy. it makes complete sense that as this new medium emerges they would want to get involved in a creative tools to actually make it possible for creatives to make their content. but if what you really want to do is create your own simple augmented reality, maybe using something

like a child's favourite toy, then i've found an app that should be able to help. clone allows you to create 3d assets which can be exported in different formats. you may want to have something 3—d printed, or you may want to put it into an ar world. you go to website and print this off. you place your item on top of it... if you have a recent version of ios you will not actually need this if you are using an iphone, but you will with some other devices you will. i walk around the object to fill out this so it recognises every part of it from every angle. this is a little bit time—consuming. there, we've got it. a 3—d version of the giraffe. it isn't perfect, but can be edited in the application.

the models can be shared on social networks and saved in a variety of formats. there's more to ar than just butterflies and giraffes, but for now, we are perfecting how we are going to create it. that was lara. and just as augmented reality is moving into the realms of artists, the movie industry is also feeling its effect. here's mark cislak in la. in 1902, movie—goers were thrilled by a trip to the moon. george melies‘ seminal silent movie delighted and amazed audiences. since the earliest days of cinema, camera trickery and visual effects have brought magic to the movies. these days, visual effects artists have an enormous amount of tools at their disposal, thanks to computers which can bring the fantastical to life.

even in a world of computer—generated images and virtual actors, capturing stunning images in camera is a major bonus for many movie directors. that is precisely what this technology allows directors to do. the ar wall replaces the back of a movie set with what looks like a 3—d cg image played on a screen. the ar wall system is live tracking a camera using hacked together virtual reality gear which is able to sense how the camera is moving and — you know, at 1000 hertz a second — and then adapt to the movement of the camera to create a perspective illusion that is appropriate for the changing perspective of the camera. michigan avenue proceeding

north to 42nd precinct. in the hollywood's heyday, techniques like rear projection allowed actors to perform an environment which were much more controllable than the real world. with traditional rear screen projection, which i was a huge fan of, growing up, the illusion has been around for decades, but there were limitations to it. the screen can sometimes look washed out in a rear screen projection. ar wall seeks to allow the camera freedom of motion that you can just use it hand—held, however you want. lots of movies currently use green or blue screens for this purpose. and some films even go so far as to shoot entire scenes in green or blue screen, adding computer—generated effects including cg sets and characters in postproduction.

it allows for a massive degree of flexibility, as far as effects are concerned. not now, jean claude! but achieving the effects of cg virtuosity as seen in modern blockbusters is very expensive. michael plescia wanted to make a short film called the mop liberator, but he had champagne cinematic tastes but a lemonade budget. our team wanted to develop the technology that lets you feel very kinetic, animated characters running around through catwalks of a city, or a scene, and having the camera person follow the actors spontaneously, and not with preplanned camera moves. making this film would normally require expensive green screen work. normally, the city would be added in postproduction. their skills allow them to create a technique to bring a multi—million dollar vision to the screen for a fraction of what it would normally cost. it created this sort of —

for actors, they are usually having to imagine what will fill the green space. but we had the luxury of projecting it, and actors could see exactly what movie they are in. that was mark in la. finally, with wimbledon starting on monday, i thought i would get in some practice on court. and, of course, i brought along my robot buddy. the tennibot autonomously patrols the court and collects the balls you lobbed, smashed, or in my case, mis—hit. for any ball boys and ball girls, worrying about their

jobs, do not worry. this isn't designed to replace you at tournaments. this is about people who are practising who are not very good. you can carry on practising. it will pick them up while you are busy being rubbish. its onboard camera spots the balls and the partner at the net keeps track of things too. it also has a handy and detachable basket. you can take it to the car and no one will ever suspect that you are the laziest tennis player alive. and that is it for this week. we're hanging around in the us

for another click next week. join us for that. in the meantime, you can join us on facebook and twitter at bbc click. from tennibot and me, see you soon. hello there. 29 degrees celsius was the high yesterday. that was in northern ireland. there will be a dramatic dip in the temperature here during the day ahead. we had and will have a dramatic drop in temperature for parts of scotland. you can see we had a few shower clouds yesterday. we had a few light showers across the southern half of the country. a smattering of rain for some of the gardens. we will see perhaps a little bit more during the day ahead. the change in scotland and northern ireland was brought about by this band of cloud.

the odd spot of drizzle. the noticeable change is a dip in temperature. for many of us, temperatures are higher than wednesday morning. a bit more comfortable for sleeping, i'm sure. this weather system is not bringing much weather. just a line of cloud. most of the rain is further north. but it is bringing the fresher atlantic air in. you can see the delineation between the hot air and that is the atlantic influence. that is why temperatures in scotland and northern ireland could be 10 degrees lower than those yesterday. there shouldn't be as much weather on that system. more cloud as it goes gradually east through the day. things brighten up. cloud building for the south to be a few showers in the pennines. more likely in the southern half of the uk, parts of wales in southern and central england. they could well be heavier than yesterday. thunder, given the heat building. it looks like the heat will be higher on the temperatures by a degree or two for the bulk of england and wales to be a contrast after the 29, only 18 or 19 during the day ahead. there will be a refreshing sea breeze around the coast. thursday and friday.

the change in the wind on thursday today should see the low cloud shift away from the east coast more quickly. early—morning mist will burn away. then it's a lovely day. the odd shower in the east. temperatures are gradually starting to recover across scotland and northern ireland as we lose the atlantic influence, building the heat by the day and therefore by night. it will be uncomfortably hot. many of us once again with temperatures in central and southern areas getting towards 30 degrees. high pressure ensures lots of dry weather through the weekend. the fly in the ointment is more cloud at times, producing patchy rain on these weak weather fronts towards the north and west. temperatures recovering and hot further south. refreshing sea breezes around the coast. still strong sunshine. looks as though fine weather will last into the early part of next week. welcome to bbc news.

broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: the uk's counter—terrorism investigation intensifies as a couple come into contact with the nerve agent novichok. the site is just a few miles away from the location of the russian poisoning in march. we can confirm that the man and woman have been exposed to the nerve agent novichok — which has been identified as the same nerve agent that contaminated both julia and sergei skripal. training for escape in thailand. the boys trapped in a flooded cave get advice from the military on a possible plan to get them out safely. we report from syria on the plight of people in one of the last rebel