as senior royals and work to become financially independent. prince harry and meghan plan to split their time between the uk and north america. the royal family is believed to be disappointed by the announcment, made, apparently, without consulting any of them. president trump has said iran appears to be standing down after tehran launched more than a dozen missiles at air bases housing us troops in iraq. mr trump said no americans were injured in the attacks. but he also said he would impose further sanctions on tehran. more hot and windy weather is expected to hit australia in the coming days as the bushfire crisis continues. 27 people have died since the fires started in september and more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed. millions of animals have also been killed in the fires. the prime minister has helped and

announced more money to help communities rebuild. you are up—to—date. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week: spotting a face, a ticket to space, and a drag race. it can only be the finest tech from click in 2019. hello, welcome, and a very happy new year to you. gosh, 2020 always sounded like the future, didn't it?! now that it's here, i guess it's not. we are going to get stuck into the new year next week but first we're going to take you on a trip back through 2019.

it was the year that we celebrated our 1000th show with an interactive episode online, where you could choose your own path through. imagine if everything that you watched was interactive, and if you could change your experiences depending on your mood, desires, or even how much time you had. if you go online to the address that is on—screen now you will find a special version of this programme that is interactive. you get to choose which tech stories you hear about and in how much detail. as you watch, you are given options to dive deeper or to look at things from a different perspective or maybe to skip on entirely. i tried out nasa's next moon buggy. by the way, we are on a slight incline right now. and we visited taiwan to see how green technology was helping to clean up the environment. i think 2019 was a year when many of us

regarded technology with a healthy degree of scepticism. instead of just openly welcoming tech advances, we worried about data privacy, about the management of social media sites, and about online security. it was a year when the police around the world stepped up their use of facial recognition technology and while, yes, it could help track down criminals, as the police here in the uk discovered, big brother is not everyone‘s cup of tea. police cameras in an east london street, everyone gets scanned. if you refuse, here's what can happen. if i want to cover me face, i'll cover me face! don't push me! this man didn't want to be caught by the police cameras so he covered his face. police stopped him, photographed him anyway, an argument followed. how would you like it if you walked down the street and someone grabbed you? what's your suspicion?

the fact that he's walked past clearly marked... i would do the same! i would do the same. it gives us grounds to stop him and verify... no it doesn't! the police said this was disorderly behaviour, so they gave him a fine. the chap told me down the road, he said they've got facial recognition. i walk past like that, it's a cold day as well. and police officers asked me to come to them. got my back up, i said to him, (bleep) off, basically. i don't want my face shown on anything. they want to cover my face, i will cover my face. it's not for them to tell me to not cover my face. got a £90 fine, there you go, look at that. thanks, lads! £90. well done. he was caught up in the last of ten trials carried out by the metropolitan police. the met have had successes — there were three arrests from facial recognition on this test day alone but the trials have proved controversial. 0pponents claim they are taking place in a legal vacuum.

there is nothing in uk law that has the words facial recognition. there is no legal basis for the police to be using facial recognition. there are no legal limitations on how they can use it, no policy, no regulation. it's a free for all. we are reviewing all live capabilities of facial recognition. absolutely, the technology is there for body—worn or smaller devices to be fitted with facial recognition technology as is cctv, so absolutely we will look at that again, the right safeguards and the right reviews and learning has to be put around that. and it turns out that warning was timely, because a few months later it emerged that facial recognition technology was being used to identify members of the public without their knowledge or consent at the london kings cross station estate. and, it was with the help of london's metropolitan police. the owners of that area and the police have both since apologised and the scheme was scrapped,

but there is still no laws in the uk specifically relating to how facial recognition cameras should be used. now, what is your top technology of 2019? the one that we think really came of age this year, really started to take off was electric cars. for the first time, if you were thinking of getting a new car you probably at least considered getting an all—electric one. so, we did a whole show on them. and to prove how quick they can go, we raced one against a lambo. now, both cars are in their fastest set ups, and whatever happens today, we recommend you don't try this at home. we have several safety measures in operation, first of alljohnny is a professional racing instructor here at drift limits, he does this day in day out to scare the living daylights out of members of the public. in the passenger seat will be mark, ensuring fair play and probably

screaming his head off, and who can we get to give one of the finest sports cars a run for it's money in a tesla? it's only top gear's the stig! oh, i'm sorry, the stig wasn't available, so i'm standing in. is that okay? it's only click‘s lara lewington! drivers, start your engines! ready... i'm the passenger here so myjob is really simple, ijust have to observe... 0h! i did brake a bit early but i have so clearly won.

i'm no expert but that was no contest. wow! and i can tell you that lara hasn't stopped bragging about that race since. 2019 was the year when many more manufacturers joined the electric party. better infrastructure, decent driving ranges and guarantees on battery life all added to the mood music and so dan simmons went to the frankfurt motor show to catch the electric buzz. there was really only one big question for the big execs of the huge german car companies at the world's biggest motor show. why are they ten years behind tesla in offering us an all electric car? we are not each time the fastest or the earliest, but if we come, we come very strong. tesla is a company that has been solely focused on electric vehicle production, you have to give them credit for blazing the trail.

electric may only represent less than 3% of all new car sales last year but vw have taken a close look at them and reckon it's the future. well, it's obviously not real. these cool designs actually for the future, maybe. each car manufacturer brings out some concept ideas. interestingly on the volkswagen stand they were all electric. the real car they were launching was the ids. a sort of electric golf. with a 205—340 mile range depending on the exact model, with prices starting from a competitive 30,000 euros. and a first from vw. they will guarantee the battery for eight years, meaning that if it loses more than a quarter of its full charge when new, they will replace it. audi hasn't done much in the way of electric for the past ten years either although now they have this.

sorry, that's another concept car. now, they have this. they have started with the popular style family suv, but at more than £70,000, can many families afford it? yah, i think there is this perception in the market that i have to pay more for the electric version of the same size vehicle than i would for gas or diesel. i think what you are going to see is at least at audi we are going into a lot lower segments in order to make electrification much more affordable. there are not many families that could afford 90,000 euros for a car. sure there are! but surely some things will never lose the roar of a combustion engine. when land tover decided to make the defender electric, you know there is a trend going on. it also updates its own software over the air. and then, there were

the sports cars. the tycoon is porsche‘s first all—electric car and it shifts, 0—62 in 3.2 seconds, with a range of up to 279 miles and a guarantee on that battery. ok, it's £115,000 but that's a 12k saving on its petrol performance equivalent, the 9/11 actual turbo. good value, maybe, but i have a feeling that it's that vw that will turn out to be super competitive is an entry model for most. that was dan playing with the everyday and the not so everyday. now, from electric to self—driving cars. for the past couple of years or so they have been tested on the roads of arizona, usa. but in 2018, things went badly wrong when one of them failed to stop and killed a pedestrian. last year, i visited the state

to find out how the locals felt about living with autonomous vehicles. in chandler, there is the same mix of excitement and concern about self—driving cars that we have seen everywhere. the difference is, for these people, it is happening right in front of them, right now. it is big money saying, hey listen, this is cool, this is new, i'm sure you will like this because you see it and it's fascinating but at the same time you are costing people theirjobs and people who are taking care of their families. this is something you would see on tv when you were a kid in old 905 movies of self—driving cars and the fact that it is actually here at our fingertips, i think it is incredible. lyft drivers are going to lose theirjobs, and not only will they lose theirjobs, a promise you they are going to try to figure out a way to make machines create these cars, so they are not even going to let humans create the cars.

do i trust a machine with my children's lives? i don't know if i could do that or not. and last year, the fears of the community became a reality. but, the number of accidents involving self—driving cars is very low, for the millions of miles of testing that have taken place. testing continues, both in the states and elsewhere around the world, but most experts agree that we are still quite a few years away from seeing the widespread use of cars that can safely drive themselves. not least because the legal framework to allow it is still being thrashed out. now, another big development in tech this year has been the long—awaited arrival of 56.

has it changed your life yet? amongst other things, sg promises to connect everything, all of the time. and when my say everything, i mean... everything. in this idyllic patch of british countryside, the birds are cheerfully singing and the cows are peacefully grazing. but look closer and you will see there is something very different about these cows, linking them to a unique experiment. this dairy farm in somerset is one of the first test beds for 56 in the uk. the cows are wearing sensors and all of the data is being sent to the cloud and the back to the farmer who can make decisions based on this data. almost every task on this farm can be automated. these cows are queueing up in this system chooses how many times a day and what two coming times want to be

milked. the robot picks up how much milk is coming from each of the cows‘ udders and controls the sensitivity of the milking as well. the cows here, go as they please with little human interaction their movements. so one of these cows has just taken itself a massage. 56 could change the life of cows forever. and from one minor miracle to the promise of another now, space travel for ordinary folk. like us! last autumn, mark was invited to new mexico in the united states to see the world's first commercial spaceport. fire! it's a little after 7am and i'm heading into the desert

in new mexico, about 20 miles past a place called truth or consequences. thank you very much. the only way that you could get to space today is with the russians and they are currently charging another around $80 million per ticket. spaceport america is the new home of virgin galactic, the company founded by billy nessa richard branson to take paying customers on 90 minute flights to the edge of space. the spaceport‘s exterior is the product of british architects

eventually, five spaceships and two aircraft will reside in the hanger. passengers will also receive three days training here before blasting off into the two upper atmosphere. you are go for launch. is also home to mission control where all flight operations are monitored from and this is the very first time a tv crew has been allowed to film inside this room. wins a holding once exterior at ten knots and 30... when do you think virgin galactic is going to be putting paying customers into space. what is the day, when is going to happen? right now according to our current projections, we think we can start commercial operations next year. the world of course has bigger problems to solve than just trying to get us off it and, in 2019, green issues and sustainability came to the fore. extiction rebellion, greta thunberg and the uk's commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050.

last year i met up with the first scientist to suggest that as well as stopping emitting greenhouse gases, we might be able to use technology to pull them back out of the atmosphere. it's called the artificial tree. the air passes through these filters which are made of a very special material because the c02 actually clings to this material as the air passes over it. once these filters are saturated with carbon dioxide, this whole thing moves down into a container of water where this particular material releases the c02 into the sealed container and then congratulations, you captured yourself some c02 from the air. this is the brainchild of klaus, here at the aptly named negative emission centre at arizona state university.

we realised very early on that this is a waste management problem. we are dumping c02 into the atmosphere and itjust stays there. it was very clear to me in the early 90s that sometime in the 21st century, will have to stop omitting. he was the first scientist back in 1999 to publish a scientific paper suggesting that carbon capture from the air was a feasible way of combating climate change. and once you've captured the carbon, the next problem is what you can to do if it? we can use the c02 to create drinks, beer or soda or whatever. we can also use c02 forfuel production. there are also currently studies ongoing to see if we can somehow use the c02 as a building material. yet, in the future, we may be able to lock c02 into concrete. climate change is getting ever more urgent and so the work to combat it is getting ever more important.

isn't that right alexa. yes, it is, spencer. you been quite popular over the last year? i have haven't i spencer. i'm always listening to you spencer. not so good are reacting to other types of sounds like alarms or dogs barking. i'm sure, maybe, i, am. yes, thanks alexa. paul carter, earlier in the year went to see a british company that is teaching voice assistance some new tricks. dog barking these waveforms that i can see here on the screen at representations of what is coming off the microphone is in there. and in the middle, is the actual dog bark threshold that the system is listening for and when it identifies them, you should hear it activate. hey marty, i can hear barking.

as it is late in your home alone, i'm going to alert your owner. turn on the lights and play some jazz because i know how much you like it! but dogs, as good as they are, only the beginning. the space you can be used to record an enormous range of sounds ranging from the dramatic... the more low—key. there is no shortcuts of this sort of thing. you literally have to have the data sets. we had to go and collect all of that data so we have the world's largest collection of audio data, 15 million audio event files that help us train that technology itself. and of course, we couldn't leave without taking a sledgehammer to some windows. smashing! now lara has been extremely busy over the past year and we asked her to pick a highlights from 2019, she chose this next film. like many of us, she has been worried about how the bigger

tech companies are using our data to target us with ads, decide what we see on social media or even possibly influence how we might vote. in the summer, she joined two production crew and a unique theatre experience to make us all think twice. we've been instructed to go to a pub near london bridge where we delivered a message. we need you, sarah needs you. keep your phone to hand and await further instructions. gosh. are you sarah? yes. do you know josh? yes. we are told about a secret mind shifting experience we give up our memories. memory deletion basically. and you don't remember because it is a procedure that you had done. i went behind the scenes with one of the creator to learn what is actually going on here. we get sent their name

and e—mail from our ticketing provider. we can run it through data enrichment on the person. it was nuts if pull up things like —related people, personal e—mail address, getup, anything that could be relevant, even if we don't exactly know how it is relevant. from that point, we can start curating the imagery which makes sense to show them. i'm looking for the dossier they collated on you. as the show unfolds, tension builds until the big reveal. the dossier on you, concocted from your online life. i have no idea what we're going to find in these files. what is this, wow! wow! my old boss from years ago. i'm really careful about not putting anything personal online, yet still, what they found surprised me. my first thought was that if you put my name into a search engine, you would find far more relevant and meaningful information than the pictures that i hear. that is true but at the same time, you were kind of know where it came from and it would lose a little bit of mystery.

take the memory stick out and delete information on sales. get rid of it all! everybody out! now, you need to go. go! give me the memory sticks! because if i don't have then he will. it has been a pretty intense experience but the thing that is really left with me is that i really want to hold onto my data. the show has really stuck with me yet a few weeks on, has my behaviour changed? of course not, i really want my online life to be easy so i'm still handing over my data left right and centre but maybe i'm just yet to be struck by what that means in the real world. that was lara, i wonder whether she is contemplating less datasharing for her new year's resolutions. those were the big moments and the big themes from 2019. who knows what 2020 will bring.

to get an idea, next week, were going to be at the world's biggest tech expo ces in las vegas. we hope you can be there with us. we will see you then. hello. weatherwise, it's pretty much a case of you name it and we've got it coming our way in the next few days. we've got a chilly start to thursday to the far north of the uk with a patchy frost and some fog. further south, it's unseasonably mild. this area of low pressure will bring wet and windy weather to a central swathe of the uk early on in the day. later on, the south—west gets targeted by another low, heavy rain, thundery and a risk of gales. here is the rush hour

across northern england and southern scotland, snow for the higher routes of the pennines, some heavy rain and some squally winds. all of that pulling out into the north sea as the morning wears on. quite a cutting north—easterly wind, though, following on behind, so chilly for those north sea coasts. by the afternoon, our next low coming in to the south—west, that's set to produce some heavy rain. strong winds, particularly, for the isles of scilly and for the channel islands, 12 degrees in plymouth, and contrast that to just 3 in aberdeen. through thursday evening and overnight into friday, some very heavy rain tracks across southern england as this low heads off into the continent, and then, by friday morning, the pressure is building. the winds fall light, the skies clear and it will start to turn pretty chilly. perhaps an exception being the far south—east where the cloud will only clear towards the end of the night, so not so much cooling here, but quite widely a frost first thing on friday. a lot of dry weather

to get the day under way. light winds and sunshine but cloud gathering towards the north—west through the afternoon, the wind picking up and the rain starting to approach. but friday's temperatures, notice just 6 or 7 degrees, a much cooler story overall. but overnight friday into saturday, we start to pick up a strong south—westerly air stream, strengthening south—westerly winds and very mild air floods into the uk for saturday. that's important because warmer air holds more moisture and that's going to make this front all the more potent to the north of the uk, bringing heavy rain before it clears through during the second half of the weekend. so, here is saturday, a very wet day for parts of scotland, northern ireland and northern england. 100mm of rain possible in some spots with i think localised flooding before that system clears away. warnings have been issued for the rain, also for the wind, quite widespread gales at least until the middle part of saturday. by sunday, the front away into the continent, the skies are looking clearer, the wind is lighter, but we've moved back into cooler

air, so we're down into single figures with some wintry flurries in the north—west.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm mike embley. our top stories: breaking with tradition...again! harry and meghan announce they'll be stepping back as senior members of the royal family. president trump says iran appears to be standing down after it fired missiles at airbases housing us forces in iraq. fresh warnings and evacuation notices in australia as hot windy weather returns, threatening towns and communities. the former boss of renault nissan, carlos ghosn, hits out at japan's judicial system in his first public comments since he jumped bail.