this is bbc news. the headlines: spain's prime minister, pedro sanchez, has banned people from leaving home unless they need to buy essential supplies and medicines or to go to work.

it comes as his wife maria tests positive for covid—19. the country is europe's worst hit state after italy. france has brought in strict measures after seeing a sharp rise in infections. prime minister edouard philippe has ordered bars, clubs, cafes a nd restau ra nts, cinemas and most shops to close. as many people as possible are being asked to work from home while schools will close from monday until further notice. the world's largest airline by passenger volume, american airlines is to cut three quarters of its international flights because of the downturn caused by coronavirus. the reduction will begin on monday and continue until may 6th. american airlines says the changes will mean parking almost its entire widebody fleet. this week, keeping our devices coronavirus free.

the mobile phone app hoping to help more survive snakebites. and this eagerly anticipated video game is here — but don't expect to see it on an actual screen in 1998, the release of first person shooter half—life sent a seismic shock across the world of video games. in 1998, the release of first person shooter half—life sent a seismic shock across the world of video games. it featured cinematic storytelling, taut action sequences and some

of the creepiest bad guys ever to grace a videogame. well, let's just say your hour has come again. i remember when half—life came out, november 1998, a massive moment in pc gaming. before than it had been doom that defined shooter games. half life reset the bar. a sequel followed in 200a. fans patiently awaited new half—life content, but its makers, a company called valve, went very quiet on the half—life front. until now, that is. marks cieslak has been to valve's headquarters in the us, where he's got his hands on the latest addition to the franchise, a game which has surprised many by embracing virtual reality.

bellevue, washington, is home to valve software, and award—winning games development company. it has plans to reinvigorate virtual reality with half—life's help. a title which changed games forever. hey, mr freeman, i had a bunch of messages for you... the first half—life i played was probably the second one, before going back to the first one. but both of them start with a train journey going on, and you are being introduced to the world as the train does, as you enter the game, you're seeing everything that's going on in the world. you're slowly being immersed in it. i played the first half—life not long after it came out. pa: current topside temperature is 93 degrees. there's something about having glimpses of set pieces that you never fully get up close to in games, that somehowjust accelerates the world building by 1000%. the knowledge that you may not have even seen it, i think is brilliant. pa: sector c test

labs and control facilities... like, the idea that on a second playthrough, or a third, you can see something you didn't the first time around, and even then, it'sjust by chance, it's going on outside a window, and if you looked to the right you would have seen a different set piece. morning, mr freeman. looks like you're running late. everyone has been fixated on the idea of a new half—life game for years. the a game, the second one, it handed us the gravity gun, we had much more puzzling, much more storytelling. and it has almost become a kind ofjoke over the last 13 years of half—life 3 being announced, because valve has always teased that something would come. there were lots of rumours, everybody wanted something new, but finally being told that we have got something in that universe, it's a whole new full—length story, people are really, really excited. set before the events of half—life 2, the player assumes the role of alyx vance, a resistance fighter struggling to rescue

herfather in city 17, the centre of an extra—dimensional invasion of the earth. there has been a lot of hype and high hopes around the rebirth of virtual reality. vr headsets have arrived from a variety of different companies. but in recent years, interest in the technology has waned. virtual reality, it seems, is lacking a killer app. that, however, could be about to change. it's probably fair to say that a new half—life game will be one of the most keenly anticipated titles of the last decade. but is making it a virtual reality only title a way of shifting headsets? i mean, this is a way to sell the headsets. the minute you put a half—life game on vr it's going to make people buy

something or potentially look buying something they hadn't had before. but it's notjust available on valve's headsets, it's available everywhere. so what this all does is potentially reinvigorate and kick—start everybody‘s interest in the vr space. one of our goals here was to hopefully show a bunch of people who looked at vr and thought, that looks interesting, but it hadn't convinced them yet, to say "oh, there's an experience over there i really want," and hopefully they will see this and say, actually, i'll go check that out. this is the moment that i've been waiting for. it's been 16 years since half—life 2 was released, and 13 years since we've had any new half—life content. right now i'm going to try out the latest game in the series in virtual reality. i'm playing using valve's own vr hardware, called index. the controller features sensors which translate my hand and finger movements. this will allow me to interact with the game world in much the same way that i would in the real world. here we've got an opportunity to try out some of the gameplay mechanics,

so we have the gravity gloves, which should allow me to pull this. and grab it. and throw it towards one of those barnacles. let the barnacle eat it. when you see items you can grab them with the gravity gloves, catch them, store them in your backpack for later. the title has been designed to work with a wide variety of different vr headsets. but the game's demanding technical specifications means it will have to run on a pretty high—end pc. the full index vr set—up like this one isn't cheap either, costing nearly £1,000. can't open these doors, they're jammed. that will open it up for me. here we go. almost everything you interact with in the game works like it does in the real world. everything apart from travel. getting around turns out to be one of the more interesting things in virtual reality. it's one of the trickier

problems to solve. so many things that are local scale allow you to just use your body in a naturalway, like, i'm going to pick up a bucket to look at what's underneath it. traversing space doesn't quite yet allow you to use your body in that way, so solving that for players is one of reality. we've chosen to provide a variety of methods. there are a couple of different styles of teleportation and then a more traditional movement that we call continuous motion. and some people are more comfortable with one than another. a roomful of headcrabs here. looking for zombies. let's see if there's any extra ammo in here, because i have a feeling i'm going to need it pretty soon. this title is unusual for vr, because that's about 15—16 hours worth of gameplay, much longer than a lot of virtual reality titles. let's get rid of this barricade, pull it out of the way. this is genuinely extremely

tense. 0k, well, i need new underwear. this adds an entirely new dimension to video game combat. one of absolute pant—wetting fear. the big question is, will this can be the one that persuades more people to invest in virtual reality? there is a real chance that half—life: alyx is going to be a killer app for virtual reality in 2020. in part that's because it represents the return of one of the most acclaimed series in gaming, but it's also down to the fact that there are not a lot of developers making this kind of experience with vr with right now. half—life: alyx might not push virtual reality into the mainstream by itself, but it could persuade a lot of developers to start working on similar experiences in vr, and that could be huge. i think the only game that could potentially sway me and make me want to get vr and play it is a valve game. the only downside is that i have to wander around my living room

in fear of my wife walking in on me pretending to smash up some combine offices with a crowbar. i'm with you every step of the way. we'll find out what kind of impact half life: alyx has when it releases on march 23. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. it was a week that the british government ruled that chinese tech giant huawei would still be permitted to develop the country's 56 network after a rebellion from its own mps. finish satellite firm ice eye debuted images made with cutting—edge radar tech which can operate through clouds and at night. and a game—playing robot has been taught to admit its mistakes. i feel bad for letting you all down. yale university scientists said that by expressing vulnerability, the droid helps humans to communicate better. as the coronavirus pandemic continues, one chinese firm says it has created facial recognition that can identify people while they're wearing protective masks.

hanwang technology says it's 95% accurate in this scenario and can even connect to sensors to help china identify civilians suffering from high temperatures. we have seen drones carrying medical cargo before, but now autonomous ports can help load packages too. a drone station like this is opening at a swiss hospital where staff will use smartphones to log samples they can then scan and drop off for delivery to nearby labs. and finally, a digitalfood specialist injapan has been 3d printing sweet treats based on weather data. tokyo's 0pen meals has used algorithms to create flavoured designs, where wind speed alters shape, pressure levels dictate size and temperature determines colour. now, that's cooking up a storm. we're all being told that the best way to combat the coronavirus is by washing our hands thoroughly with soap and water. but when we can't get to a basin, many of us are also using alcohol—based hand sanitiser. so much so that supplies have been running low. 0ne company we met in taiwan last year hopes to have now, that's cooking up a storm.

we're all being told that the best way to combat the coronavirus is by washing our hands thoroughly with soap and water. but when we can't get to a basin, many of us are also using alcohol—based hand sanitiser. so much so that supplies have been running low. 0ne company we met in taiwan last year hopes to have found the solution. this is the eleclean, a device that is claimed to create your own disinfectant. hopefully that will do the trick.

the company does expect that this protects against the coronavirus. the issue is, they have actually sold out of them. but it's notjust about keeping our hands clean. how about our devices? this week apple issued new advice about how to keep our phones clean, but i would suggest that you don't do anything until you've heard what chris fox has to say. with the growing concern around coronavirus, i thought i would be better safe than sorry and smothered my phone with antiviral gel. but it turns out that sanitisers and actually damage the oil—repelling layer on your phone screen which is supposed to keep off fingerprints. so check this out. if i put my phone next one that has the layer intact, you can see that this one looks like i've been eating pizza off it. it's covered in fingerprint and oil. this one does have some prints on it still, but not nearly as many, and then if i wipe down this phone

with a microfibre cloth, the fingerprints come off super easy. if i try this one, some of the oil comes off but you can see it is still really smeary. and as a final test i popped my fingerprints on there. you can see that this is absolutely gross, and this one not nearly as dirty. so how can you clean your phone without damaging it? well, this week i met with microbiologist doctor lena cilic and she told me how. you don't actually need to use antibacterial or antiseptic products on your phone. you can simply use soap and water. unplug your phone, turn it off and remove the case. dampen a microfibre cloth with water & household soap. gently rub the surfaces of the phone with the damp cloth. take care not to get moisture in any of the openings because even water—resista nt phones lose their protection over time. finally, dry your phone with a clean microfibre cloth. we haven't used any anti—bacterial or antiviral gel on this phone so how do we know they

are clean? we can use these swabs and this device which tells us the level of microbial activity on the phone in relative light units, or rlus. so the higher number we get, the higher number of germs. the results are pretty good. so we would want a surgical surface to have a rating of 50 or less and all of the phones have readings of less than this, so that's pretty good. so they're significantly cleaner with just soap and water? yep, they are. how is that possible without using antiviral gel? what's going on here? the main ingredient in soap is a detergent, which is basically lifting off the grease and grime and the germs from the surface of the phone, which is then rinsed off with water, and that's what makes it clean. there are a few other ways you can clean your phone safely. this week, apple changed its guidance and that is if you have an iphone, you can safely wipe it with a 70% isopropyl alcohol wipe — the kind you can get from a computer shop or online, if they haven't sold out. there are also devices that can sterilise your phone using ultraviolet uvc radiation. this one is called phonesoap.

it costs about £80, although there are cheaper ones available, and what you do is pop your phone inside and let it cook for about ten minutes. the manufacturer says that shouldn't harm your device but some phones or cases could be discoloured over time. finally, what can you do if, like me, you have stripped the oil repelling coating of your phone's screen? there are some ways to fix it. first of all, you can get a screen replacement, although that is not going to be the cheapest option. or you could stick on one of those glass screen protectors which is a quick and easy way to fix the screen. or you can try this. it's called liquidnano and this wipe puts a silica dioxide coating over the display, which says it will restore the oleophobic properties for 12 months. it cost between 20 and £30 and you have to let it set on the phone for at least half an hour. so i tried it out on the phone i ruined and i have to say it seems to have

done a pretty good job! so that's one solution to what could have been an expensive mistake. just remember that if you do clean your phone, as soon as you touch it, you are putting germs back on it again and the most important advice remains to wash your hands thoroughly and frequently. that was chris. now, later this month, a number of globes here at the british library, some of them over 400 years old, are going be made available online in full, 360 interactive form. this isn'tjust a way of immortalising these fragile objects but also making them available to the masses. the digital globes project will eventually see 30 of them brought to virtual life without the risk of any grubby mitts damaging the originals. anthony, here we have the capturing process, quite a few dslrs. can you talk us through the set up? it's not actually capturing the whole globe, it's capturing elements. and the process is

called photogrammetry. so once all the images go through to the computer, the software we'll be using will render all the images together to make one complete globe. once they are all knitted together, you have to make sure that the colour‘s right, is that what that colour chart‘s for? that is correct. for example, we can do a 3d print from the items. so if you can do a 30 print, you need to have it exactly the right colour. so people can recreate their own — not that these globes are entirely accurate. california seems to be an island. and it wasn't due to ignorance in the 1700s, as some earlier maps had it right. inaccuracies were purposefully placed in maps for all sorts of reasons. such as, putting continental rivals, for example, down a wrong route or sending them the wrong direction. as well as being available on the british library's website, there is also an augmented reality version which is within

an app called sketchfab. this is accessible on any ar—compatible device. so here is the map and to turn it into ar, you tap on this and it is going to appear in front of me and then, i can travel around the world. it's an interesting contrast. while this looks so ancient to us, it was technology in its time and now we're mixing that in with a bit of augmented reality — the technology of our time. so whilst there may have been a little polishing in the virtual versions, these globes still provide a history lesson of how the world was seen, notjust geographically, but politically in each of their eras. so earlier, we were talking about the coronavirus. but now, to a very different sort of health risk. the snake bite. around 5 million people every year are bitten by snakes and,

of course, we know how dangerous their venom is. it can cause crippling injuries and be fatal. india is one of the parts of the world that has the highest death toll, falling into the tens of thousands every year. so could something as simple as a mobile phone app actually bring those numbers down? david reed has been gujarat in the west of india to find out. these guys are off to catch one of the world's most dangerous animals. the cobra. highly venomous. they're using a new life—saving app. it has told them a snake has been spotted in a local gujarati workshop. to bag it and get it back in the wild, they first have to find it in a pile of stuff where every second thing looks like a scary snake. this is going to take time, so let's check back with

them later. first, we're heading to a local hospital to see why this app is so important. this conservationist is going to guide us there with his indian snakes app. so we are here and have to go here which is about 25 kilometres away. it gives vital details to those bitten by snakes of nearby hospitals stocking the antivenom that could keep them alive. we actually are going to meet this doctor who is a specialist in snake bites. so this is the hospital. the hospital is there, the name is there, the phone number is there. we get there in snake bite rush hour. we've been here only a very, very short time. and in the matter of the last five minutes, three new patients have come in, complaining of snake bites. to help identify the snakes, patients often kill the animal that bit

them. this is a highly venomous russell's viper. but administering antivenom carries its own health risks. doctors hold off using it and instead do a battery of tests until they know it is not a dry bite and the patient is showing the effects of venom. he will be under observation for 48 hours. if any venomous symptoms we see, then we will start the antivenom injection. often, there is no time for wait and see. a number of bite victims waste precious time visiting faith healers over hospitals — it's one of the reason so many die from bites each year in india — estimates say as many as 50 to 60,000 people. the indian snakes app aims to get people to hospital fast. the first moments, the first minutes, first hour of a snake bite, is very important. the major problem we face is people

don't go to the hospital first, they go to the local, traditional healer who they trust. when is not possible for him, he will send them to the hospital. the first warning on the dos and don'ts list is don't go to a faith healer. the second, don't suck out the venom, whatever you've seen in the movies. there's also a field guide to id venomous snakes. you want to see the snake in detail, so you can click on the picture and you zoom in... you can also report a snake in your house and call a rescuer. click on this. this is your current location, you'll find your nearest rescuer. all you need to do is contact the rescuer. remember these guys? let's see how they're getting on. actually, pretty well. they distinguish the snake from yards of cabling. it then instinctively made a dash straight into their black bag. and with a little coaxing, popped safely inside.

the indian snakes app is notjust about saving lives and helping snake rescuers, but also conserving and learning about snakes, especially in their conflicts with people. we get a lot of data from the country about the demographics, and epidemiology of snake bites. so it's kind of getting knowledge and giving knowledge app. do you think snakes are understood? completely, they are one of the most misunderstood group of animals. so this app's main purpose is to sensitise people of india to start working on snake bites and conservation, and lead the coexistence of the snake's life in the future. better education about how to avoid and treat snake bites could well transform our attitudes to one of the most feared and demonised animals on the planet. dave reed there in india. that is it for this week's show. you can keep track of the team throughout the week on instagram, facebook, youtube

and twitter at a bbc click. —— twitter at @bbcclick. thank you for watching. hello. well, the weather's going to be a little hit—and—miss early on sunday morning. some of us will need our brollies, for sure. but it won't be long before the sun comes out, and actually, for many of us, sunday is going to end up being a pretty decent day, with at least some sunshine. now, currently a weather system is barrelling across the uk. it's brought rain to scotland and some other western parts of the uk, certainly through the early hours of sunday morning. you can see the rainfall here falling across parts of wales, the south—west of england, and scotland and northern ireland

too. but two different wind directions. 0ne coming across the north across scotland, so here it's colder. also a little bit of wintriness across the highlands. here, the winds are blowing out of the south—west, so it's quite a bit milder. so i think a mild start to much of england and wales, but scotland and northern ireland will feel a little more chilly early on sunday. now, you can see the various areas of rain crossing the country, so this is a weather front that will bring some rain around lunchtime in the south—east and east anglia. showers in scotland, but the vast majority of the uk sunday afternoon enjoying a fine day. it won't be clear blue skies, but at least the weather is looking dry and bright. now, monday, two things happening on the weather front. 0n the one hand, we've got high pressure building in from the south—west. 0n the other, there's a low pressure lurking close to iceland. but the high pressure will be more dominant across the uk on monday, and early scenes outside of town probably looking something like this, so some mist, some frost around. crisp, sunny, calm conditions on monday. certainly across england and wales, across much of eastern scotland

too. but early in the morning, we'll start to see weather fronts affecting — or a weather front affecting western scotland and northern ireland here, and stronger winds. so very different weather here. but the vast majority of the uk, i think a fine day on monday, beautiful sunshine on the way. and then, monday night into tuesday, that weather front‘s going to slip a little bit further south. in fact, it's trailing out into the atlantic here, and there's another sort of pulse of rain running along it. so that does mean that we're expecting some rainfall to reach, again, north—western areas during the course of tuesday. there's a bit more cloud overall across the uk on tuesday. i think the sunniest spots will be on the south and in the east, but look at these temperatures. these are south—westerly winds, 15—16 degrees tuesday for some of us. monday and tuesday will feel like spring. and then, towards the end of the week and into next week, it's not necessarily going to turn that warm, but the winds will die down, the sun will come out, and we will have a high pressure, with crisp weather on the way.

welcome to bbc news. i'm maryam moshiri. our top stories: spain and france follow italy in announcing sweeping emergency restrictions on citizens to combat the spread of coronavirus. american airlines cuts three quarters of its international routes as passengers stay put through the pandemic. in the philippines blockades and cu rfews affect in the philippines blockades and curfews affect millions in the capital as cases plus 100. travel constrictions in place as they tried to stop the spread of covid—19. —— restrictions. and we look at the impact covid—19 is having on religious practice around the world.