christine blasey ford until friday to decide whether to give evidence against president trump's nominee for the supreme court. she says brett kavanaugh sexually assaulted her — a charge he has denied. her lawyers said the rush to a hearing was unfair. the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, has said that he is willing to resume negotiations with north korea immediately, following its agreement to shut down an important missile testing facility. the announcement was made during a meeting of the leaders of north and south korea. at the eu summit in salzburg, the british prime minister, theresa may, has again rejected the european commission's proposal that northern ireland should remain temporarily in the eu's customs union. she's called on her fellow leaders to show greater flexibility in the negotiations. the commission said a deal remained far off. now on bbc news it's time for click. facial recognition, x—ray vision and a brexit mission.

we're almost six months away from the uk starting its transition period to leave the eu. the details of which, in case you haven't heard, are still a bit sketchy. as the eu themselves have said, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed... but whilst the politicians battle out the final points and we consider the what ifs, ports across the country are bracing themselves for change. dover here exclusively handles eu imports, so when brexit does come,

it's one of the ports that's going to have to adjust the most, but no matter how final arrangements play out, making sure our ports and borders run smoothly is clearly going to be a key priority. almost 500 million tonnes of freight go through the uk borders every year. offloading and processing everything coming in and out is a complex task. technology is already fundamental in that process and some politicians hope it will be the saviour when the day comes for the uk to stand alone. this week we're looking at some technology that hopes to do exactly that. we start with estonia, which is said to be the world's most digitally governed country. so we sentjen to see how it manages its movement of goods.

after brexit, the uk may need to find quicker ways to monitor the freight coming in and out of the country from france by rail. new x—ray technology deployed on estonian borders might provide a model. the country separated from the soviet union in 1991. in its easternmost city of narva, the population is still overwhelmingly russian. before independence, there was no border in narva between estonia and russia. but now there are well—established entry and exit points. building hard borders took a lot of cooperation between the two countries. on the estonian side, radiation detectors and even a driverless x—ray vehicle scan buses and trucks for suspicious freight. contraband smuggled includes cigarettes, as taxes are much lower in russia.

so in russia and different third countries, the price of one pack is about 60, 70 euro cents. but, for example, in the uk it can be £9. so profit is absolutely big. there are many other unusual items, too. this is some kind of potion from china? it's full of snakes and starfish. you think people would drink that to get some kind of health benefit? probably. what is this? it looks... a medicament and inside parts of a bear. 0h! yeah. they kill animalsjust to take some profit. nikolai also showed me some of the low—tech methods people use to smuggle goods. do i look suspicious? kind of. show me what you have there. it looks like nothing, but, sorry... cigarettes. you have some cigarettes here. estonia has invested millions of pounds in five new x—ray scanners from chinese company nuctech. they automatically check their trains without stopping them. how does the scanner recognise that this is a freight train rather than a passenger train?

for this, we have special sensors installed at the rails. it's the first type of sensors. the second type is located on the bridge — it looks like a camera. yes. both sensors have to give x—ray a signal that this wagon is freight and not a passenger wagon. does russia have something similar on its side? no. they are relying on you guys? it's a way of cooperation. so if for the outbound traffic if we see something suspicious, we will forward the information to the russian side. the scanner has made inspection of trains 10—50 times faster. the x—ray images are shared in a central area. all estonians, latvian and the trains, and x—rays are connected to one network. so we can learn from other borders‘ images and compare.

we send pictures. that gives us a much bigger database. estonia is already looking at ways computers can speed up the process, further reducing checking times. it's nice to have very modern railway x—rays and but the analysis of the images must develop to the next level, not made by human. i believe ourfuture is machine learning and artificial intelligence regarding checking these pictures. is this something you can see being of use in the eurotunnel between france and england? why not? an automatic system to be used everywhere. that wasjen. back in britain, a southampton—based company has been looking at ways to detect passive radiation in cargo. it's developed highly sensitive detectors to do this by highlighting gamma and neutron rays. in the past, the equipment

would just tell you that there was radiation present. but with many everyday materials such as salt or fertiliser having natural levels of radiation, this could pose real delays for customs officers. this new type of equipment can tell you exactly what the material is. it tells you what type of source it would be. they can use that so they can compare it and understand better whether or not they are expecting that radiation. in the case of this truck, it signalled some radioactive material, identified as potassium chloride salt. and where vehicles can't be moved through the radiation monitors, the solution is to instead use a mobile version, to travel around the cargo, picking up emissions from at least 2.5 metres away. this high—level detection is just one element of an 11.8 million euro eu—funded project. it's trialling cutting—edge science and artificial intelligence to help smooth borders across the continent.

the more information we can get for each cargo, the easier it is for customs to determine whether or not that cargo is legal and can pass the border. and, yes — whilst that is the aim, brexit is around the corner. i sat down with the head of accenture‘s border services. he had been speaking at a uk select committee hearing this week, about the future of our borders. the question of timing was high on the agenda. to complete a full system by march wouldn't be possible. wouldn't? wouldn't be possible. there's a clash between the fact that you need to get systems up and running quickly, and if you took your time you could create the perfect technologies to do the job in an ideal way.

in some ways, brexit is an event — it requires transformation at the border. but it also gives us an opportunity to create a border that is world—leading, that is one that provides the uk with a really strong asset and trade effectively with the world. it can protect society and provide advantages to us when we are trading with the eu or with the rest of the world. what evolving technologies at the moment do you think are particularly relevant to the move post—brexit? let's pick a few. the internet of things. exciting technology. what does that mean for the border? in summary, everything is connected to the internet and therefore that gives us an opportunity to see where things are at any point. blockchain, often talked about — what does that mean for a border process? to move things across a border, we really need to trust the users, the traders,

and what they are sending. blockchain helps us to move from relying on what they are saying is true, to bringing a verifiable truth to what is in that supply chain. artificial intelligence — well, that's basically helping machines help people. how can we move some decisions that are made by people to be made by machines? hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week when apple once again took to the stage announcing new devices, revealing three new models of the iphone, with two being their largest size yet and carrying the largest price tag. and the new apple watch features an electrocardiogram, which the us food and drug administration approving the watch as a medical device. it was the week when google fought against legislation that will extend

eu citizens‘ rights to be forgotten to apply globally. facebook‘s ai, named rosetta, has learnt to look at images with text and interpret their meaning, to better understand memes. and smart tvs made by vizio could soon be telling its owners how to sue its makers. it was also the week when eu parliament approved two new controversial copyright rules which could force content providers to apply strict checks to videos posted on their sites. but some campaigners argue it could mean the end of these. music plays. the soon—to—be—released fifa 19 game is under investigation in belgium for keeping loop boxes in the new edition. they have banned the feature, saying it is similar to online gambling, which is illegal in the country. and finally, meet hal,

the robot designed to train medical staff treating children. hi, i'm paediatric hal. the humanoid bot has a pulse, can cry, bleed and talk. it can also be remotely set to go into anaphylactic shock and go into cardiac arrest. but the company that makes the robot said it's disappointed that people find it creepy and that none of the medical staff who trained with halfind him 0k. crossing borders isn't just about goods. it's also, of course, about people and a lot of them travelling at one time. we all know how busy those immigration queues can get, so i have come to see one company that hopes they can make the process a lot easier. so easy, in fact, that you may not even need to take your passport in future. here at sita's uk base, they're hoping airport queues and barriers could eventually become things of the past. right now, they need

to develop what could plausibly be put in place. this piece of kit is something you may already be familiar with, as they have been deployed in airports around the world. but the thing you are less likely to have seen is how this is playing out behind the scenes. immigration officers would then see all three photos match up, and be privy to information from national databases and watch—lists. and here we have the self—service checkout of immigration. ok, that's not what it's actually called, but these kiosks are already in some us airports and apparently they have helped people through the queues four times faster. this will also authenticate a person is who they say they are, as well as get through some of those routine questions. then i'm presented with a receipt, which i need to take to an officer. but of course that involves dealing with a person, a piece of paper, and i still need my passport,

but the idea here is that none of this needs to be necessary. the smart path mobile app is being trialled in brisbane and the middle east. much like the process with the other machines, your passport will be visually checked as well as monitoring the chip. that data will be sent to sita's bio—authenticate server, which will then be matched to a selfie. yes, a selfie that you take, to prove that you are the passport holder. then when you're travelling, this electronic document would be ready to link to your journey. it could do so by scanning and validating your boarding pass or possibly through integration with an airline's app. now i have a token created in the phone that has linked my passport, my face and my boarding pass. now all i need is when i get to a smart path touchpoint, as we call them, that check—in or security or bag—drop, all i need to use is my face. i don't need to get any of these

documents out of my bag. so your face becomes your passport. my face becomes my passport. i am still feeling quite uneasy about putting my passport on a phone. how comfortable do you think people will be with that? it takes getting used to. but everybody has a phone. everybody trusts the data in that phone as well. the passport is a very secure document, but you still have to carry it. and they are lost a lot. the company does acknowledge that biometrics can prove a challenge to use with children. but one survey suggests that 82% of people do want a biometric passport on their phone. how does this process done through technology compare to a human being doing it? humans are far, far better at determining intent and also the behavioural detection officers are very good at that sixth sense. something's not right about an individual. but what a machine is very good at is the mechanical and particularly facial matching. but surely the real issue you need to overcome

is the authorities and regulation. how plausible do you think it is to reach a point where this could be deployed internationally? we are seeing this drive from governments. they're out there now working with systems integrators and providers such as sita to push technology within the regulatory framework as much as you can. i foresee an airport of the future having biometric tokens, so rather than technology being touchpoints that you have to stop at, sticky points, it's about a seamless experience through the airport. frictionless travel. there are trials and discussions around immigration tunnels. so no physical barrier, but rather like a customs channel, you walk through and there's exception intervention. so if they're identified through biometrics or behavioural detection, they are of interest, they can be pulled out of the line, rather than everybody being stopped in the process. so we have seen the technology that can make a difference to the process

of moving through the airport, but how about those final moments before you board the plane? well, nick heard there was some technology on the other side of the atlantic that could help. so he couldn't pack his bags quickly enough! today i'm off to bermuda. i've checked in using my passport. i've breezed through security using my passport. and now i'm boarding my flight — not using my passport. ok, so i'm not really going off to a tropical island, but i could if i didn't have to get back to the office. thanks, boss. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. we're using a new self—boarding process which takes a quick photo capture. jetblue has temporarily booked me

onto its 11:00 flight from boston logan airport, so what you are seeing is the passenger experience playing out. like the app lara has been exploring, here they're using facial verification in place of passports. passengers, should they wish, can simply walk up to this tablet on a stick, present their face, and get the green light to step on board. no passport needed, no boarding pass needed. there's no physical barrier either. perfect if you have misplaced your documents in your second oversized carry—on. not so good if you're camera—shy. i'm surprised by how quickly people are boarding. another thing that is impressive is it seems to recognise people's faces regardless of how tall they are, even children. the facepod has an extremely wide camera lens to help it capture people of all heights. it takes 55 snaps per second so it doesn't miss you. we boarded close to a full flight of 150 customers in under 20 minutes.

that's close to a ten—minute improvement from a typical boarding time, when we usually allot 30 minutes for boarding. now, before you go cutting up your government—issued id, there are a number of things that stand in the way of you and that gleaming green tick. passengers that check in online can't use it. travellers without e—passports need not apply. and if you check in at the airport using any other means than your passport, you will still need to show your papers to a human at the gate as normal before you can board. so, what does the us department of homeland security think about this? it increases our processing speed and the accuracy of our inspections, but the real value is that it allows our officers to focus on the enforcement mission. it allows them to focus on talking to people and enforcing cbp‘s laws and regulations. the self—boarding system

also provides a digital record of exit checks, but of course passengers are giving more biometric data to the government in return for speedy boarding. but is using just your face secure enough? it has passed our security checks so far. at the headquarters level we have a rigourous process and of course we're never going to enter into something that will weaken our position. now, the facial boarding technology has been trialled here for the past six months but there are other systems like it dotted around various airports in america. but it is not the technology — it is regulations which are standing in the way for worldwide rollout. in many countries, an officer must see your physical id before you may depart. and of course at the other end, you will still need your papers, because different countries will have different

border regulations. but in an increasingly digital world, this facial boarding is taking us a step closer to leaving our papers behind. there are games about alien invasions. there are games about raiding tombs while solving head—scratching puzzles. there are even games about experiencing the thrill of simulating life as a goat. but a game about brexit? now, that's unusual. forget hard brexit. this is black mirror meets a 16—bit yes, minister. not tonight imagines a dystopian future where the very worst kind of brexit has occurred. anybody in the uk of european heritage has been relocated

to ghettos and can only find low—paid employment. the player must earn a certain amount of cash in order to remain in the uk. this is the product of an indie development team, and they have tasked the player with working as a bouncer. the early stages of the game are spent being employed by pubs and clubs. by the end of the game, a very severely right—wing government has been put into place and by that point you are making horrible decisions about, say, the landlords will ask you, don't let any of this kind of person in tonight, and you have to try to decide whether you're going to follow their rules or not. by the very end, you're doing silly things like working border control on the dover border and on the london wall. it is very satirical. what inspired you to make a game about brexit? let's put it this way. there is lots of inspiration

for a dystopia at the moment. and not tonight was just a great opportunity to represent a kind of british dystopia, which i think is unique. i grew up in somerset and i remember being slightly underage, trying to get into various night spots around somerset. that always had a big impact on me because my friends were a year older. and then, the working simulator gameplay came along, games like papers please, and they were a big inspiration. and on top of that, brexit happened. and the juxtaposition of trying to get into a nightclub venue or party or house party, compared to getting into a country, it really hit a note with me. do you think games should tackle more weighty subject matters? absolutely, yeah, 100%. we have seen some elements of it in larger games, for example wolfenstein. .. wolfenstein character: you still got some nazi—killing skills in you? ..their re—imagination of america. but as an independent developer,

we really have an opportunity to publish something different and something political, and i think that's a good thing, there should be more politics in games. to be honest, i would love to see some big negative responses to it, because we want to get both sides talking, right? if it's just people who voted remain sharing this thing around, that seems quite pointless. that was mark, and that is it for our click border technology special. with six months to go until brexit, there is lots of themed programming across the bbc. but to keep up with us at click, we are on facebook and twitter. and of course we will be back here next week. hello there.

storm ali brought damaging winds across parts of the uk on wednesday. wind gusts of more than 90mph for parts of northern ireland. you can see this hook of cloud on the satellite picture, that's the storm pushing off towards scandinavia, but that doesn't mean things will be quiet over the next couple of days, far from it. and that means what we have on thursday is this wriggling frontal system bringing pulses of moisture from the atlantic, so through the day ahead we are going to see heavy rain at times and still the potential for some strong winds. a windy start certainly across northern scotland, some heavy showers here, and some rain across wales, the midlands, parts of eastern england, which will fizzle for a time before returning with a vengeance from the west as we get on into the afternoon. now, as the day wears on, the winds will ease a little bit across northern scotland, but still hefty showers blowing in on the breeze. some sunshine as well, 15 degrees for aberdeen.

for northern ireland, calmer than it was on wednesday, but still breezy with a fair amount of cloud, but look at the afternoon in north—west england, the midlands and into wales, very, very heavy bursts of rain with the risk of disruption and localised flooding. windy to the south of that but warm as well, 21 or 22 degrees in the south—east, where we may well stick with some sunshine. and then we go through thursday evening into the night, we take this wet weather across northern england, wales, the south—west. we push it eastwards, and with that, the winds strengthening across the southern and particularly south—eastern areas with gusts of 40, 50 or maybe 60mph, or even a touch more in some places. the strongest of the winds during the night into the early part of friday will always be in these southern areas. so, if you have travel plans, really over the next 2a hours or so, through thursday, on into friday, some heavy rain, gales at times. there is the potential for disruption. your bbc local radio station will keep you up to date. friday starting windy in southern and eastern areas too. but this area of low pressure responsible will be sliding away to the east, and in its wake, it will leave us all with some much cooler air, which will be coming

from a long way north. a messy start to the day, outbreaks of rain windy down the east coast as we go on through friday. the worst of the rain will ease, the winds will tend to ease as well. then we'll be left with sunshine and heavy showers, and a cool feel. 11 degrees in aberdeen, perhaps 18 or maybe 19 in parts of the south—east. then the weekend, very mixed. some sunshine, yes, but rain at times, most especially in the south. welcome to bbc news. broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is martin stanford. our top stories: the us senate gives the woman who accuses supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh of sexual assault until friday to decide if she will testify. the us says it's ready to restart negotiations

on completely denuclearising north korea, after north korea promised to close a key missile test site. britain's prime minister theresa may asks her fellow european leaders to drop what she says are unacceptable demands to get a brexit deal done.