with defiance to the us, the european union and several latin american countries who've recognised the opposition leader, juan guaido, as interim president. he has declared himself acting leader. nicolas maduro has said he's breaking off relations with the us and giving american diplomats 72 hours to leave. president trump is looking into giving his annual state of the union address somewhere other than the house of representatives, where it's normally held. the house speaker, nancy pelosi, who's a democrat, has insisted he cannot speak there until the partial government shutdown ends. emergency teams in guernsey have suspended the search for a light aircraft missing over the english channel since monday evening. the plane was carrying footballer emiliano sala, newly—signed to cardiff city, and pilot david ibbotson. no wreckage has been found. it is just after 3:30am in the

morning. time now for click. this week, we talk talk. but can your voice reveal what's wrong with you? can this helmet hear you? and would you all please stop shouting? alexa, what are the amazon spheres? they are an unusual place to work, i have to say. the domes house 40,000 plants. they also have waterfalls,

meeting spaces and shops. they're slightly tropical, quite moist, and give you a real sense that you're working in the future. i mean, who'd have thought in the middle of seattle, there'd be a rainforest? an amazon rainforest? say "amazon", think what? jungle? 0nline shopping? or do you think of alexa? this is, after all, the company that has brought voice control to the masses. there's no training required for using voice. the vision for voice is that anyone — young, old, in any country, in any context — can use natural language to interact with technology. alexa is only gonna be as successful as the partners are that support it. and that's why voice is the next battleground for the tech supergiants.

the more voice apps there are and the more comfortable we are talking to them, the more they will integrate themselves into our lives. just this week, in fact, alexa's voice has started sounding more human. developers have used artificial intelligence techniques to learn from news broadcasts how to intone and emphasise words in a sentence. a lot from someone‘s voice — not just what they mean but also how they are feeling and possibly whether they're ill. now, that's obviously really hard for a computer to do, but nick kwek has been looking at some technology that is working towards just that. i've come to tel aviv, israel, to see a doctor with a difference. no cold stethoscope, but i do need to say ahh, as well as make a bunch of other sounds. it's a early decay of the voice.

today, dr levanon is going to give me my medical, purely by listening to the way i talk. ..see anything beyond verbal of what my state of health is. he's a firm believer that it's not what you say, it's how you say it. je t'aime. wo ai ni in chinese. or in hebrew, ani ohev otah. it's — all of that are ways of expressing love. and if i lack that and i commanding you, it's the same in all the languages. he isn't a doctor of medicine, but of research he's been working on for more than 2a years, which has culminated in a new piece of software. it's a tuesday morning. we've got to catch a flight later back to london. by analysing my vocal intonation, dr levanon says his algorithm can infer my mood, attitude and personality. you are ambitious, you are curious,

a little bit adventurous, and a little bit conservative. it is something in between. ifeel like i'm getting my palm read by a psychic. 0k! and the graph is saying, "0h, you are very tired." herzuee dr became". 2.911; his: gushes—b5— can also be used to diagnose, 7, — whether i have a disease, and even how bad it is, just by listening to my voice. we can show the early signs of parkinson's, so you can see that there is a weakness in this

area of frequencies. you can see the same crater but also vibration here. these are the signs of ill person and you can see decay of the voice, the deterioration — is ill, tired, can't express himself well. if you are combine all the signs together, we can see how severe is problem and what is his health problem. apparently, the system is 75% accurate and can tell you the severity of your condition. if for real, integrating the tech into listening devices could change the way we interact with our gadgets. further down the road, with our technology, these machines would also be able to tell "hey, something is different with your health condition. maybe you want to go and do another check—up."

maybe it will let my doctor know about this. so from the voice, there is so much information that can be gained, and we are just at the beginning. 0k, reality check time, because as amazing as this sounds, of diagnosing certain conditions and there are neurological characteristic changes to the voice to help us make a diagnosis. but whatever a voice‘s potential, today beyond verbal has had only one paper published, in conjunction with the us—based mayo clinic, investigating the connection between voice and coronary artery disease.

what this study has done is attempted to make a diagnosis of coronary artery disease using the voice alone. this is a completely new avenue and i would say that the technology at present needs a lot more work. the study that's been published doesn't give us definitive proof that this technology can make that diagnosis. the study has been performed in a highly enriched and highly selected group of patients. and actually, i would say the capacity of voice to be able to detect the severity of an individual lesion, as they've proposed, is a little far—fetched. california—based telemedicine start—up salubermd has begun incorporating beyond verbal‘s mood—analysing system into its gp appointment app. 0ne second. bear with me while i bring up your data here. whilst remote doctors listen to problems over video call,

the software can inform them about their patient‘s emotional state. how accurate is beyond verbal around the mood? very. how is accurate regarding the acute coronary syndrome? we don't know yet. at present, there is a very good feel around it but i, as a doctor, cannot trust a feel. i need to trust real correlation or real demonstration. beyond verbal isn't the only business claiming to understand our health via our voice. 2.2. 4.2. 7—22.21. 7—22.52? a}; 22. £55,225. 2. r—i 7- !ee eeiel eeeeer g; eeeeleig go to the doctor, make other checks. having potentially inaccurate health warnings at our fingertips could come with repercussions. and do we want the tech giants to know so much about us? the problem with anything that's predicting a disease process

is that it can be wrong or its sensitivity is not high enough or it's not specific. so it will often make diagnoses when there isn't that particular problem or it'll over—diagnose problems that don't need any investigation, so that would be a concern to me as a doctor that we end up testing too many people. and it would also be a concern for patients, because they may end up being told they have a problem when actually, there isn't that concern. further trials are being conducted in israel, china and soon, the uk. and whilst it might be simply sci—fi, the idea of alexa in the future alerting me about my health is at once appealing, yet unsettling. hello and welcome to the week in tech. this was the week that the world came together for a truly noble cause. yes, it's my great honour to officially confirm that this stock photo of an egg is now

the most liked instagram photo ever. truly inspiring! in non—egg news, 0range shirt kid joined the list of people accusing video game fortnite of allegedly stealing dance moves. and the chinese space agency shared images of the first seed to sprout on the moon. youtube has said it will now ban clips of dangerous and harmful pranks from the platform. the change comes in response to so—called challenge videos which, in some cases, have resulted in injuries or even death. following through with the change may be difficult, though, with critics arguing it could be hard to decide where to draw the line on what constitutes ‘dangerous‘. time to make room on the bedside table for yet another essential gadget. sportswear company nike has unveiled the latest incarnation of its self—lacing smart shoe. controlled by an app, the $350 trainers adapt to your foot with a range of lace tensions. and if you're worried about getting stuck in them, no fear — the company says the battery will last at least ten days. and finally, spare a thought for the robots of henn na hotel this week, some of whom are looking for work.

in a twist to the classic tale, japan's iconic robot hotel has had to lay off half of its 243—strong robotic workforce. velociraptor receptionist is gone, as well as dozens of the in—room assistant churi. as well as maintenance issues, churi kept on waking people up at night, mistaking snores for questions, and velocira ptor receptionist couldn't handle foreign guests. and now, we're gonna go back in time to the consumer electronics show in las vegas from last week, where voice was a massive deal. and we asked lara lewington and richard taylor to check out the big talk at the show. it's only taken a few years for voice—activated smart assistants to become an integral part of every self—respecting techie‘s lifestyle. amazon's alexa started out as a small, self—contained box four years ago. today, it's enjoyed a phoenix—like rise, compatible with over 28,000 smart devices and myriad gadgets of all shapes and sizes. alexa, run the video.

you can always kick back with your smart instrument. if you're a keyboard player, you know it can be really frustrating navigating your way through menus, just to get to what you want. but with alexa built in, there's a world of possibilities that open up. so, for example, i can say "alexa, ask go:piano to select strings". alexa: the tone is tuned to strings. and with this particular device, there's a number of built—in commands that work offline. so, for example, "head up display". and there we go! ready to roll!

google assistant may have been late to the party but is trying to catch up. it is built into this alarm clock with internet phone... hey, google. what's the weather? ..or is around for a chat whilst you get ready. google assistant: currently in las vegas, it's 57 and partly cloudy. meanwhile, apple — and to a lesser extent, microsoft — are making a play for voice domination too, but amazon and google remain clear front—runners. not that you need to commit to just one. with this bluetooth headset from 0v loop, you can simply say "0v phone" to activate either siri or google, and "0v alexa" to activate its amazon rival. play gorillaz. but other voice—activated assistants are hoping to break new ground in specific environments. chris is desinged to work when in the car, even when you're offline, letting you control music navigation with your voice,

and somewhat curiously, with a few gestures too. and back in the home, some specialist devices are aiming to use voice function for slightly more human purposes. this is a social companion robot for the elderly. it combines google's voice recognition technology and leq's own ai platform to be able to not just respond, but also initiate conversation. we all need a little nudge from time to time. it can actually provide notjust the mind, but also call for its users. so if somebody has been sitting down for too long, the motion sensors will alert and it may get them to get up and do a bit of exercise. it could also be helping them keep in contact with their family through the tablet elements. but of course, these devices do have a way to go before they provide a totally seamless experience.

and now it's going to pull out one of the... voice should be the most natural user interface that's out there, versus touch or using a mouse or keyboard, or anything else, and so making it conversational, like you and i are just having a conversation right now, that's how it should be with alexa, right? we shouldn't have to keep using her name, or — we should have ideas of knowing what we're about to say. this is a gesture controlled speaker, which works like this. the company behind it are hoping to install their technology in virtual assistants, and it's notjust about being able to wake them up by tapping, it's also going to track how far away you are in the room so that the volume can be adjusted accordingly. a device's built—in speaker emits ultrasound waves and its microphone receives them, mapping where you are. the software acts on this information, maybe pausing or playing something you're

watching or listening to, or in the case of a virtual assistant, turning heating or lighting off. while there are ideas aplenty about how the future of voice could play out, for this year's ces, google and amazon certainly seem to be enjoying having the last word. thank you very much, goodbye. in the future, we will talk to our devices, and they will talk back. and that means that developers need to think in a much more nonvisual way. when you glance at a screen, you can selectively absorb a lot of information and selectively pick out what's interesting and relevant to you, but when you're listening to a skill or voice application in action, you're forced to listen tg wheeex-«er the. ski! ' ’ ”