supposedly non—royal life will begin in canada. nicholas witchell, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather with darren. there is probably a different look and feel to the weather today. we are back into a mix of sunshine and blustery showers. the chance of some hailand blustery showers. the chance of some hail and thunder and snow over the scottish mountains. still some strong and gusty winds, not as windy as yesterday. eight, nine in the afternoon with double figures in eastern england built up quite a few showers to plan which will continue in their western areas. later on in the night that showers will become fewer web clear skies. temperature three, four degrees, maybe a touch lower in the north—east of scotland

where there may be icy patches. some sunshine for a while back out to the west we have cloud and rain coming in reaching eastern scotland and eastern england by the end of the day. as it turns wetter in the west the winds will strengthen and temperature is around eight to 10 celsius. hello. this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines... 16 million people in northern italy are placed in quarantine for a month because of coronavirus. in lombardy, ski resorts, gyms and nightclubs can't be opened. restaurant customers must sit at least a metre apart. china reports its lowest number of new infections in a single day since january. here, new emergency laws — including court cases over videolink or phone — to help tackle the virus are announced. a doubling in funding for flood defences to £5 billion is expected in the budget on wednesday.

a slightly unorthodox royal welcome for meghan, who delivers a message for international women's day. she really is beautiful, innit? value and appreciate the women in your lives and also set the example for some men, who are not seeing it that same way. now on bbc news it's time for click. this week, the truth about the truth about coronavirus. can ai help to treat it? can it predict its spread? could quantum computers find a cure? also, self driving wheelchair departing now from terminal seven. ifeel like the queen.

hello. this week marks three months since the world first heard about a newly—identified disease. i am of of course talking about covid—19, which is caused by a new type of coronavirus. to date, there have been over 3,000 deaths from nearly 100,000 confirmed cases and 81 countries. and this is how i know that. this is thejohn hopkins university covid—19 dashboard. since it went live injanuary,

it has gone viral and in a good way by demystifying the stats and the numbers behind the spread of this disease. it is amalgamating data from many of the world's health agencies and so for example right now i can see the total number of confirmed cases isjust over 93,000, these are the countries where they have confirmed cases by numbers, and just as importantly i think, this is the total number of people who have already recovered completely from the disease. and this is just one of the pop up projects that have appeared online, aiming to demystify the glut of covid—19 data. community powered site next strain drops the genome data shared by scientists around the world. as covid—19 is transmitted from person to person, it can change its genetic makeup in subtle ways, allowing researchers to build a family tree. to see how the disease has spread

is some genuinely fascinating stuff. a health crisis, particularly one that is growing rapidly like the coronavirus outbreak, we really need to communicate with people about what they can do individually and collectively to try and help get this under control. but also it is important that individuals understand that if they make minor, relatively mundane changes to their behaviour, they can help us to slow the spread of this down. in 2018, the bbc ran its own experiments to simulate the spread of a flu—like disease using a network of virtually infected smartphones. for me, the show did a brilliantjob of revealing how simple things like washing our hands can make a massive difference to how quickly and how far a disease spreads. 0n the right is what happens if we all wash our hands really well. 0n the left, is what happens if we do not.

just look at how the spread is slowed if we follow the advice of washing our hands well and often. posts like this are everywhere on social media, recommending good handwashing techniques and other scientifically grounded tips to try and limit the spread of germs. but they are not the only things you might find if you look online for coronavirus information. over the past few months, social media companies have been waging their own war against a different kind of pathogen. dubbed an ‘infodemic‘ by the world health organisation, social networks have been deluged with information about the coronavirus. some of this is correct, and helpful, but a lot of it is misleading. half true or completely fake. and that is making the real information or advice much harder to find.

looking through tiktok now, and it looks like any search for coronavirus or similar term now brings up this banner in the top and these videos from well—known organisations take up the top spots. similarly, dubious recommendations seem to have gone, coronavirus conspiracies used be one of the suggestions search terms. not any more. on facebook, it is a similar story with posts from well—known and trusted organisations taking up the top spots. so some of the kinds of misinformation that does travel around would be first of all not believing that there is a problem at all. and this is a creation in order to try and control people. that has been seen before. and is being seen now. also, people come up with ideas of cures whether it is drinking garlic water or whatever — people suggest that

something will happen or that there is a cure out there that it is being withheld. that is the circulating rumour at the moment. and you have to counter that because if you do not, people will not take action in the way that you want them to. so it is really important that we get the true messaging out there and the science underpinning, and that is what we are trying to do. and if you're really interested in educating yourself on the science behind covid—19, professor ward has a free online course that should really protect you from fake facts. so that is where we are now. but in this emerging age of artificial intelligence, we are starting to get glimpses of how that technology may help us in fighting outbreaks like this. and laura has been investigating. this coronavirus seems to have shaken up life as we know it. inevitably, it is going to continue to spread. but how far and fast that is going to happen and what we are going to do about it are still in question.

so could artificial intelligence play a vital part in providing some answers and maybe even improving the outcome? ai had an important role in the initial understanding of this outbreak. canadian specialist blue dot deals with global epidemic intelligence. they identified very early on that something was amiss through a combination of medical and airline data. we were one of the first groups in the world that identified this outbreak. this was back actually on new year's eve day, the morning of december 31st, the machine learning algorithms that we developed had picked up information and in chinese of a pneumonia, it wasn't known to be a coronavirus, of unknown cause, centred around this market in wuhan. when it was presented to our team, we recognised there were parallels to the sars outbreak 17 years earlier, so we knew immediately that there was some historic parallels here and that this

outbreak really warranted our attention. and this is where the human scientists were needed. ai can alert but cannot yet do the investigations to say what is really occurring. detecting an outbreak is really just the first step. there are multiple other things that need to happen. ultimately we need to determine what kinds of risk does this pose, is it likely to spread? if it is going to spread, where might it go? what kind of consequences might occur from that spread? and ultimately we have to get that information into the hands of people who can then be empowered with the information to take the appropriate actions. it is notjust about tracking, though. the dream is that one day, ai might be able to conjure up necessary vaccines on the spot. 0r repurpose the drugs to deal with new challenges. the latter being something benevolent ai in london is already leading the way on.

this company uses al to better understand the mechanism of disease. correlating data on illnesses, drugs and outcomes and providing more information than any human being could ever come up with. and in this case, a potential lead. what are we looking at here? this is a demonstration of our algorithm processing documents in real time, reading the abstract of scientific publications related to coronavirus and extracting relationships between key biological concepts that we really care about to carry out the discovery. and at this point, we're just a few months into an outbreak that could really, really grow. how meaningful do you think this data is so far? there's a huge amount of information being published. we are notjust pulling out the coronavirus information. but we are merging it with other existing publications on underlying biology.

0ur algorithms reads over biology at multiple layers from the nano world of proteins interacting in our cells through this maze of biological processes up to a human defined definition of a disease. it is very early days for the process but it is suggesting what might be worth further investigation. now a lot of people are looking at virals, antivirals and how they might potentially treat the disease. we looked at it from a completely different way. we said what are the other types of approved drugs that might inhibit the progression of that disease in the body? so we surfaced a number of drugs and then we did some experimentation based on that. and further research. and we came up with this one drug that we think is best suited. it has both anti—inflammatory properties as well as the ability to stop what is called endocytosis, which is what enables the virus to enter the lungs, which is the most potentially dangerous outcome of the coronavirus.

the company stresses that this is only conjecture. and although the drug in question is approved for use in rheumatoid arthritis, clinical trials and full scientific evidence will be needed before it could even come close to being used for this purpose. what we are trying to do is use this technology in the service of science to further the development of novel treatments for diseases that currently have no treatment. like right now in the world is over 9000 diseases that have no treatment. ai will play a greater role than it has already because what is being done is genetic sequences are being taken and that is the understanding of the organism itself and this is putting in the database that can then determine for a virus came from and what it might be going in the future. of course, ai has not solved the covid—19 crisis. but it has hopefully helped to some extent and should be learning

from it to be even more helpful in any future disease outbreaks. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week hong kong airline cathay pacific was fined half £1 million by the uk's information commissioners office for failing to protect customers‘ personal data. -- £500,000. the bafta game award nominations were announced, with death stranding and control leading the pack with 11 nominations each, winners will be revealed on the 2nd of april. and tesla admitted that it has put older, slower processors in some of its new cars. this is because of supply issues related to the coronavirus operate. the company said it would upgrade the hardware when supplies improve. if the thought of the smart robots fills you with worry, or even fear, you might want to look away now.

these bots have learned to walk in scarilyjust a matter of hours. google robotics used al to help mechanical monstrosities master the art of walking forward, backwards and even turning. if that doesn't concern you, boston dynamics, the company that brought us cyborg canines, has unveiled what happens when robots work together. this strange pair have partnered up for a shift to demonstrate the future of warehouse automation. they are showing off absolute, unbridled and organised efficiency. but maybe for now, let's just keep them stacking boxes. this extending phone concept can transform from a smartphone into a 7.8—inch tablet.

it is one of several prototypes revealed by chinese phone maker tcl. instead of a folding display, this concept has a screen that rolls up inside of the phone and that way there supposedly will not be a crease inside the screen. the one i saw was just a dummy model with no electronics inside but the company says it is working on the real thing. there will be huge challenges to making this practical. for starters, it will have to work out how to stop dirt getting into the mechanism and scratching the screen, although the design is eye—catching. here is another concept. a tablet that can be folded in half. when it is closed it looks a bit like a tiny laptop which i thought was very cute. and out of all the concepts tcl showed me, i thought this was the most robust and practical. and finally, a trifold tablet. essentially a ten—inch tablet that folds down into a very chunky phone.

it has two hinges, one folds forwards and one folds backwards. and you can bend it into a lot of unusual shapes, although i'm not entirely sure why you would want to. none of these are ready to go on sale and the company doesn't even know how much they would cost but it does give us an idea of what some phones might look like in the future. if computers are in the future going to help us design vaccines to take on threats like covid—19, well, those computers are probably going to need to be very different. and they're also going to look very different. this is a quantum computer. in this case, one of google‘s. and while it is still early days, one of the things people expect quantum processors will eventually be very good at is solving hugely complex medical problems. a lot of calculations we run today with chemistry, you have to make approximations very early on in the calculation. which means you decrease the accuracy of the results. with quantum computing,

we are hoping that someday we will be able to get high accuracy in a short amount of time. quantum computers have some peculiar properties. they can consider many solutions to a problem at the same time. once we truly understand how to build them at scale and operate them, these machines should massively outperform traditional computers at certain tasks. there is a feeling that we are starting to get close to this quantum dream. at ces earlier this year, ibm, one of google‘s main quantum competitors, was showing off its 0 system 1. it is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. maybe that is because i am a massive geek, but can you give me a tour of the bits? yes. what you see on the outside is a refrigerator. so it is put there to keep everything nice and cold. the quantum chip sits at the very bottom of the quantum computer,

you can see where all of those, that exposure in the centre. the little square. yes. on that square, we have about 20 qubits on this particular device. 0k. they're all interconnected. and when this is in operation, it is the coldest thing in the universe. it is 100 times colder than outer space at the very bottom of the quantum computer. how do you interact with this? how do the instructions come in and how do those the results come out? microwave pulses is what you send in, it changes the qubits and that is how we essentially program a quantum computer. we can run them from a laptop. is there a usb port somewhere? laughter. yeah, no. we access these over the cloud. the kind of computer program

you might write for a quantum computer is nothing like the kind of code you would write for a normal computer, is it? no. it looks totally different. some of the concepts are similar, like how you have different gates and things like that. but you are not programming in ones and zeros any more. in fact, when you actually lay it out looks much more like a musical composition. so you have lines of qubits and these different gates that interact and it looks like a piece of music. wow. the more qubits, the more complex a calculation the computer can theoretically make. and at the end of last year, google said that for the first time, there was one calculation that its quantum computer could do way quicker then a non—quantum machine. this meant that it had reached something called quantum supremacy. but it is something that ibm says is a red herring. they showed something very specific. it was a nice experiment. i think that there is much more work to be done.

it was a very specific example. i think that there is a lot of work to be done to be able to roll that out and show a little bit more applicability. so, i actually like to think of it as quantum advantage. quantum advantage is kind of that point in time where you are doing a calculation on a quantum computer that you can't do on a classical computer. so we were discussing chemistry for example, it would be when we are able to achieve a higher level of accuracy for a molecule that we cannot do today using a classical computer or that is too time intensive or labour intensive to able to achieve that. both ibm and google believe that we are on the cusp of something big with quantum computing. ibm talks about the 2020s being the quantum decade. so maybe for the next pandemic, we will have bigger weapons in our arsenal. the mind—bending world of the quantum computer. now, we often talk about autonomous

cars on this programme. but have you ever heard of an autonomous wheelchair? the concept has actually been around for a few years now but issues around reliability and has meant the idea has never really made any progress. but one japanese company says it has a solution. and paul carter's been to new york'sjfk airport to sit in on a very special live trial. it is safe to say that airports and disabled people haven't always been the best of friends. if you have mobility needs, most airports and airlines require you to book assitance in advance, which usually means being manually pushed by staff to a predetermined point within the terminal. this results in a loss of autonomy and independence. but this mightjust have the potential to change all of that. this is the wheel autonomous wheelchair. at first glance it looks pretty much like a normal power chair.

but thanks to some very clever technology built into the front here, this has the potential at least the transport passengers from security all the way over there and perhaps via duty—free or all the way to one of the gates like the one behind me. it has two wide—angle cameras on the front, cameras on the back as well as lidar and infrared sensors. they combine to make sure the chair doesn't collide with anything. prior to the chair being let loose on passengers, it has to spend several days plotting routes around the terminal building. in this case, jfk's terminal seven, all the time building up an internal map which it uses to locate itself. i arrived to see the start of a two day live trial. the process starts from the site survey, so we understand the airport environment, for example, how do customers line—up for boarding, how crowded the terminal is going to be and what is the peak hour and non peak.

and eventually we have to talk with operationals, how do we actually bring this and integrate this. now, the concept of self—driving wheelchairs isn't necessarily new. but wheels autonomous chair is the first to be trialed in a live airport environments. of course, it only gets you from security around the terminal. it doesn't solve the problem of getting on and off the planes themselves. this trial is a partnership with british airways, who are looking to see if the technology can be used to improve the experiences of disabled passengers. of course, i couldn't resist taking it for a spin around jfk myself. just press go. they're taking this down towards gate three. now, if i'm being critical, the ride could have been smoother. the chair has to stop often when it senses obstacles such as people. and in a busy airport likejfk,

there are obviously lots of those. i already feel quite safe. i don't feel like i'm going to run anybody down. ifeel like the queen. hello. after i had my few minutes of fun, it was time to let the more important people, actual passengers, try it for the first time. however, it didn't completely go to plan. call it the click curse, but despite the many dozens of successful tests, with its first passenger, the chair seemed to think it was in a different place. it got confused and staff eventually had to take over. subsequent passengers did try the chair and it did work well. they didn't just want to be filmed, so you have to take my word for it. despite the unsuccessful ride, hansa will still positive about the potential technology. wonderful. would you use it again? i would. any time. being independent, there's nothing

that you have to wait for somebody. you just go when you would like to go. maybe because i'm getting to that age so i need it. the next stage for the wheelchair is a full—scale trial at london's heathrow planned for march which will pose its own set of challenges. if it is a success, we could see these rolled out across airports where ba operates. air travellers needing assistance will be watching with interest. that is it for this week. don't forget we live on social media so if you need us, you know where to find us. facebook, youtube, instagram, and twitter at bbcclick. thank you for watching. we will see you soon.

hello. after we saw the cloud increasing yesterday and then a speu increasing yesterday and then a spell of rain, today we're back into a mixture of sunshine and blustery showers but at this picture taken in suffolk sums it up quite nicely. not too many showers here. it will be drier in yorkshire and eastern scotland. showers across wales and west in scotland but i'm hail and thunder but we may see more snow across the tops of the scottish mountains. there may be a blustery south—westerly wind today, maybe not as strong as yesterday. temperatures eight, nine typically stop there are quite a few showers to come and they will continue into the evening, especially in the west of the uk. later in the night the showers will become fewer and the skies will clear. enough of a breeze to keep

temperatures to three, four degrees. there may be ice in the north of scotland. 0ne there may be ice in the north of scotland. one or two showers to start monday. some sunshine for a while but in the west we had the thickening cloud and rain coming in from the atlantic which will reach eastern scotland, eastern england towards the end of the day. there winds will pick up and we will see temperatures around eight to 10 degrees. the strengthening winds will push the rain eastwards on monday and we will see a spell of rain overnight, which will ease off a bit. trace where the air is coming from, it is coming all the way from the azores, said potentialfor high temperatures across the uk. the rain will move southward into wales and the midlands. it will brighten up in the midlands. it will brighten up in the northern half of the uk. it should turn drier across much of

england and wales in the south. probably the strongest wins for the next few days. double figure temperatures for most of us. get some sunshine in lincolnshire, east anglia and the south of england. it won't last. we are back into cooler air, basically sunshine and showers over the week ahead and probably starting to see more snow across some of the northern hills.

good afternoon. italy has imposed sweeping restrictions on the movement and activities of more than a quarter of its population in areas of the north and east of the country. some 16 million people are affected by the virtual lockdown as the government tries to limit the spread of coronavirus. the restriction applies to the entire lombardy region, italy's wealthiest, and 1a other provinces. all travel not deemed essential is banned. jon donnison reports.

in central milan