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tv   Click  BBC News  April 13, 2020 10:30am-11:01am BST

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hello, this is bbc news with victoria derbyshire. the headlines... the number of people who've died from coronavirus in uk hospitals, passes ten thousand, as the country enters its fourth week of lockdown. the nhs has saved my life, no question. out of hospital and grateful to be alive. the uk prime minister recuperates at his country residence chequers, after praising nhs staff he singled out two nurses — jenny mcgee from new zealand and luis pitarma from portugal — for caring for him at his bedside
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at the most critical time. china reports the highest daily rise in coronavirus cases in more than five weeks — most of them imported from overseas. some construction workers in spain return to work — as two of the worst hit european countries — italy and spain — start easing some lockdown restrictions and nearly 200 members of the armed forces are being deployed to support ambulance services in england and wales. now on bbc news it's time for click. this week: following phones to track the coronavirus. how to come together whilst staying apart. and now that's what ai calls music.
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hello. we are still here. and so are you — so welcome. i hope you are well. we are, and we have been working hard on a new—look click that will work when we can't get out and about as much. so my living room is now also my studio, and welcome to my sofa. the good news is, though, you don'tjust get to look inside my house. we get to look inside lara's as well, so let's go to chez lara now. hello, mate, how have you been? i'm 0k. i've actually been pretty busy, albeit virtually, and luckily like you, i have one of these in my house. it is funny that, isn't it, yeah. how are you? all right, thanks.
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yeah, i think we both appreciate that we are lucky to still be working, which keeps us busy and keeps us in a good frame of mind, but i am missing the people that i can't be with, and we are all adjusting here as well. these are strange times. what we plan to do in the next few weeks is look at some technologies and gadgets that will help you during lockdown, whether that is to help you work or communicate or play or to help with the kids or to relieve stress, which is what we are going to do first, because this is an anxious situation. you have something that might help, right? i have. this is the somnox sleep robot. now, the idea is that it sort of breathes next to you as you cuddle it. it is designed for insomniacs and it has sensors on it. it has got an accelerometer and a c02 sensor, and it will track the breathing rate of its user, and it will breathe a fair bit slower than the person using it. the idea being if your breathing rate drops, you are more likely
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to get off to sleep easily, but i didn't have the greatest time with it. i have to say, it felt quite odd holding onto it. i can imagine, yeah. so i took it out of bed. yeah, it really did. i put it on the floor and what was even stranger was it was breathing down on the floor. but the thing i do have to say is when i tested it in the daytime on its relaxation mode, it did feel a little bit more like going to a yoga class and just getting your breathing right for that, so i can certainly see the relaxation purpose and maybe if i was a real insomniac, it could help. and there are so many ways that we are seeing technology being used at the time of this pandemic. as the virus continues to spread, some governments around the world have launched contact tracing apps which they hope may help control it. in israel, the shield app records gps location, storing that data locally on a user's device. so if someone gets the virus, they are asked if they are happy to share their data with the platform. so anyone they may have been in contact with can be notified.
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in singapore, the trace together app is hoping to do the same, but using bluetooth signals to monitor users‘ phones that have been nearby. this method, some argue, is more privacy conscious. i downloaded the app because it isjust easier for the contract tracers to contact me, or i could help them to contact other people if i was actually affected. until these apps, contact tracing had been a very manual process. the person must be well enough to answer your questions. he must be able to list down the details where he went and what are things he did. and often we cannot remember what happened. the more we lose details, the more likely we can't control the epidemic effectively. many more countries are looking to launch contact tracing apps. whilst the uk is considering a similar one to singapore, the eu is advocating a single app with data protection at its heart. so contact tracing
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is really vital, and here is why. people move. they move quickly and they move a long way. now, these visualisations are from a company called tectonics. what they did was they isolated 700,000 mobile devices in new york and they followed them over just two days. look how far they go in two days. right, all the way across to the west coast. here is italy in early march, and look how many people travelled to the uk by the end of march. so contact tracing looks at the spread of covid—i9 by following particular people as they move around, but what these visualisations actually show is how people move about more generally, and some governments are trying to use this information to look at how people are moving around, even under lockdown conditions. and they're not trying to get the data from individual mobile devices.
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they are going straight to big mobile operators. one of those countries is norway. oslo is usually a bustling city of almost 700,000 people, but like other places around the world, lockdown is now in force to slow infection rates. however, outside the capital, it is vital to understand how the epidemic is spreading throughout the rest of the country. telenor is norway's largest mobile operator, with 80% of all data traffic passing through its infrastructure. so it knows roughly where each phone is throughout the day as that phone hops between different base stations. telenor then provide the user location data to the norway institute of public health to try and track the spread of covid—i9. in our systems, there is knowledge about where people are at basically any time.
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so the trick here is to understand how the population is moving on an aggregated level. so if you understand how people are moving around, then you are also able to understand how disease is potentially spreading across a country or across continents. the niph takes this data, combines it with other information relating to covid—i9 infections and then uses a mathematical model that simulates the spread of the virus to try and predict how many cases are expected in each region and when. we have data on hospitalisations in norway since the start of the epidemic. and we have data on the cases of imported registered cases to norway since the start of the epidemic.
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we can lift, for instance, restrictions, we can open the schools and close schools and things like this, and we can use a model to inform us about what is the effect of doing that. we are primarily forecasting for the next three weeks so that we can look at what need will there be for hospital beds and for intensive care, and that is very important for planning in the health services. the effect is not only on the epidemic itself, but on public health overall, and on the economy and society overall, that we will be able through modelling to tackle, manage this epidemic in a much better way than the world has been able to during prior epidemics or pandemics. however, as always, anonymity is one of the major worries, even in times of international emergency. we are extremely cautious when it comes to privacy
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and what we are very afraid of is that individuals can be re—identified from the data. we count only groups of people larger than 20, because we believe it is very, very hard to re—identify all individuals in groups larger than 20. this isn't the first time that telenor has used mobile phone data to track the spread of diseases. previously, it has worked in bangladesh to track malaria and pakistan for dengue fever. the models have helped the governments there design more effective national response preparedness. around the world, countries including the uk, austria, israel and the us are all seeking to work with mobile operators to adopt similar models to norway to try and prepare and possibly even contain the virus. hello and welcome to the week in tech.
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it was the week that tesla showed a prototype of its newly designed ventilators to help address the shortage in hospitals. amazon reserved space on its site for healthcare workers to buy covid—i9 supplies, including n95 face masks and hand sanitiser, and uber built a tool to help its drivers and other gig economy workers in the us to find temporary roles at other companies during the pandemic. conspiracy theories spreading online linking 56 technology to the coronavirus has led to at least 20 mobile phone masts being attacked in the uk according to mobile phone operators. vodafone and ee said their masts had been set on fire, and key worker engineers harassed. meanwhile injapan, graduates have been able to celebrate their hard—earned work and maintain social distancing with the help of robots. students at tokyo business breakthrough university were awarded their diplomas while operating telepresence robots via video conferencing app zoom. self—isolating classmates were also present at the ceremony and also watching through zoom.
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quibi launched its mobile—based streaming service in north america and the uk. content on the app is limited to ten minutes or less, and viewers can flip between landscape and portrait modes. and finally, if you have been missing the orchestra while stuck at home, now is your chance to visit online. 215 musicians from the stay at home choir got together and gave their debut performance of vivaldi's gloria. singing the choir is open for submissions for their next rendition. for many, religion offers some spiritual calm, but of course at the moment, communities can't get together in the way that they normally would. yes, so religious leaders are doing what they can to work around this. this muslim call to prayer in egypt has been replaced by a message urging people to stay home to pray. and the jewish festival of passover started this week, and that has been looking
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a little different too. we wash our hands. rabbi mendel cohen here has been doing his best to connect with his community online. as well as videos of what would be happening in synagogue, here, he is demonstrating how the seder, the first dinner of passover, is set up. and this easter‘s sunday service will also be different. sophia smith gaylor has been finding out how religions are adapting. with mass gatherings being banned, many religions have had to stop public worship. and with churches closing, many have had to be particularly innovative, with some turning to live streaming. good morning, everyone. this is terribly exciting. st james' in sussex gardens in london is one of the churches that's been experimenting online. we were determined that the worshipping life of the church should continue, but it would have to continue
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in new and unexpected ways. when the coronavirus crisis started, they began live streaming their services on facebook. but they haven't stopped at that. we have a large group of families, large number of children, so we wanted really to provide something that would speak to them, comfort them, encourage them and build them up in the faith, so, yes, we threw our all into a rather madcap virtual sunday school. it's palm sunday! every week we send out a e—sunday, which contains within it the readings for the day and other notices and other devotional materials, and also an activity, so families download the activity. we are going to make our very own. this week, we made crafts for easter. for palm sunday. yeah, for palm sunday. and then about two weeks ago, we made this virgin mary.
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yeah, it's been a lovely way to maintain continuity now that normal life has been... there's a bit of a hiatus in normal life and it has been a lovely way to sort of maintain a sense of normality. there has been a big focus on web resources, like achurchnearyou.com, that is our church finder. it has been a really, really key resource for us in recent weeks. we have now got more than 3,000 lifestream services listed on that site. as someone who is a regular churchgoer myself, i can't wait for that day when, on that sunday, i can walk back into my church and see family, loved ones and friends for the first time... i feel slightly emotional about that. all of these digital responses to this crisis have undoubtedly changed how people interact with faith online. but what will be interesting to see is how much of it will remain after the coronavirus
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crisis is over. that was sophia smith gaylor, and i am joined online now, by the archbishop of canterbury justin welby. archbishop justin, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. spencer, it is a great privilege to be with you. i am very happy to be here. we have just talked about some of the new online tools and services that the church is providing. how do you think they will benefit people? you will have seen, and i know you have seen, churches using live streaming, which is having a huge impact. there is a service a couple of weeks ago which reached 12 million people, ten times our normal total church attendance. that is remarkable. you couldn't begin to do that in the past. the best you could have had was a nationally televised service. here you can have everything from a nationally televised service to something that is just relevant to your village, your town, your part of a city,
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your part of the world. or you canjoin in something from anywhere in the world. we had comments from something i did online — i won't say from where, but a country where it is very difficult to be a christian in public, you are not allowed to worship or own your faith in public — and they had a message saying, i haven't been able to go to church, but i have justjoined in a service with the archbishop of canterbury. there is a cloud to every silver lining, but i think the service was what mattered. and technology is transforming the reach, the ability to comfort, console and encourage. it is a time of several religious festivals at the moment, it is easter, it is passover, ramadan is coming up too, and this is traditionally a time where families and friends would come together. there will be people who want to come to a church. what would you say to them?
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well, what i would say to them is, you know, that is me as well. the idea of not being at an easter service, i can't remember any time i have not been at an easter service in the last more than a0 years. and so it is going to be very strange but in the earliest centuries of christian history, church was in the home. and these wonderful buildings we have in the uk, these amazing historical buildings, are treasures, but they are not essentials. we can worship, and christians all over the world do, without buildings. the technology side is giving us a sense of a resurrection of generosity, of kindness, of contact, of care for one another,
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and i suppose both the challenge and the hope is what we are doing with each other and for each other now, and that sense of mutual compassion and support that technology is enabling, will be carried on in the new world, after this pandemic has died down. justin welby, archbishop of canterbury, thanks so much for your time. thank you, spencer, very much indeed. music is a lot more than just a collection of notes. packed with creativity and emotion, it seems like something only humans could make. but that could be about to change. i have been meeting musicians around the world who are embracing the machine, and i started at imogen heap‘s house. so we have been lucky enough to be invited to imogen‘s studio, just outside of london. this is a place where what many
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of her hits you might recognise, and also the music for the harry potter stage show, were created or worked on. and now it is being used to create something a little bit different. imogen sings. imogen has been working with artificial intelligence researcher, tom collins. many of the underlying parts of this experimental, unreleased track were generated automatically by his ai algorithm. we are the shadows behind the shadows. i thought that was the ai in everything. no, i love it. i love the challenge of this is going to be different. it has generated a song i would never have written, because it is taking me into patterns i would normally have not done, so i have had to go, how would i do that? and how would i transition from this to this? it is doing what i hoped it would do, which is what i believe ai will do for music and musicians, which is to push us to the next level of our own creativity.
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this song is still a work in progress. imogen isn't the only major performer that tom has been working with. # fade out...#. performed by tom and his family but composed in large part by the ai, tom is hoping this track could be the winner of the first ever artificial intelligence eurovision song contest. did someone say eurovision? yes, well, coronavirus may have forced off the human competition this year — the ai competition is still on. what a relief. the ai song contest is a contest for computers actually, in short. different teams from all over europe and australia are given the job to create a new eurovision song with the help of ai. the german team databots have previously made a name
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for themselves with their 24/7 live streams of ai generated death metal. here is a taste. death metal plays. well, if infinite death metal is not your thing, maybe their ai eurovision entry that you are hearing now will be more your bag. funky music plays. 0riginally we were going for 100% ai generated approach, here we first tried it by training our net on all of germany's eurovision songs, but it it did not sound broadcast worthy, so instead we flipped it. we said, ok, let us approach this like music producers just using these tools to enhance our workflow. this is another entry. called come together, it was made by the swedish team. all of the machine learning algorithms we have seen are only as smart as the data puts into them.
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by analysing mountains of existing songs, the idea is to try and learn the fundamental patterns that make up music. we gave the neuron letter a huge amount of data, and what it does is it tries to extract patterns from the data, so it creates over time, new melodies that were not in the datasets, and they are brand—new. twinkly music. but to ai advances like this mean that human composers are at risk of being replaced. ed newton—rex is a judge in the competition. maybe in a way, we as people do not want to think that al systems can be musically creative, and i think that is totally fair and totally understandable, but i think what we are saying is that should not be the aim of ai composition. the aim should be to be a tool for musicians, a way of inspiring them, a way of giving them new musical ideas. letting them maybe input an idea and seeing what the ai system does with it.
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this is an ai music competition, but the humans have been an indispensable part of the process. whether that will be true for humans in the future, though, may not be quite as certain. ai eurovision is now on, and we would love you to go and visit the website, listen to the tracks and vote for your favourite. the address is on the screen now. we have had a listen to the competing songs here. what did you think, lara? well, for me, eurovision is all about the theatre, and, of course, that is missing, which does take quite a lot away. and i thought most of them sounded quite computer—generated, but maybe the idea was to kind of go with that. it really did, didn't they? this was my favourite. let me play it to you. this one is called princesses, and it was one of the belgian entries. here we go. it reminds me a bit of a 60s classic, particularly at the start. double bass strums. good beat to it. yep, yep. so my favourite is from that
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well—known european country, australia. it is uncanny valley. the lyrics are bonkers. "dreams are cheap". "they can leave me crazy". of course they can. and then they start banging on about the power of fire. i want to know which bit of that the ai thought up. anyway, we will play out with this. thank you so much forjoining us on this most unusual of programmes, but hopefully it worked for you. hopefully. you can keep up with the team throughout the week on facebook, instagram, youtube and twitter at bbc click. see you next week, lara. see you on social media. thanks for watching. see you soon. # 0h. # welcome home. # 0—o—o—oh. # welcome home, welcome home. # oh, oh, oh #.
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hello. we've seen a real change in the weather for easter monday. yesterday, easter sunday, we got up to 25 celsius in london for instance, but today, it is only going to be about 12 degrees in london. right across the board, a much colder day. again, mainly dry with some sunshine around as well. the reason things are so much colder is we have had this cold front sinking south over the past 2a hours or so, pushing the milder air away to the south and opening the doors for this chilly northerly airflow. particularly across eastern scotland and down the east coast of england, you really notice those brisk northerly winds. gusty winds also through the english channel as well. a bit more cloud in the east, the best of the sunshine for the west. it is going to be about 13 or 14 degrees towards the warmest spots but along the east coast, just 6—8 celsius, much colder than recent days. into this evening and overnight, the winds tend to fall lighter and the skies are clear so it is dry, cold and frosty.
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you can see the blue colours on the map. temperatures even in some towns and cities getting down a little below freezing. it is going to be even colder than that in the countryside. certainly expect a touch of frost first thing tuesday but we are looking at another dry, settled day with a bit more cloud for the north—west of scotland and also for the far south—east of england as well. in between, long spells of sunshine, lighter winds tomorrow than out there today although temperatures still not great, only about 10—14 degrees, but not quite as chilly along the east coast as it is today. the dry, settled theme to the weather continues into the middle of the week because we have a big area of high pressure which is going to be dominating the weather, slowly slipping away to the continent in the middle of the week. but wednesday, another dry day which dawns on a chilly note. could be a touch of frost and one or two misty patches. a little bit more cloud for the far north—west of scotland but clear skies elsewhere. sunshine to be enjoyed of course out of your window and from your gardens. whatever the weather is doing, that does not change the rules on social distancing and staying at home where you can. but temperatures into the middle
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to high teens on wednesday. if we cast our eye down towards the south—west, towards the bay of biscay, a developing area of low pressure as we head into thursday starts to push a bit closer towards the uk. that may bring a few showers to the south—west but most other places looking dry, and after a chilly start to the week, temperatures gradually rising so highs up to about 21 degrees by thursday. that is it for now. goodbye.
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this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the number of people who've died from coronavirus in uk hospitals, passes 10,000, as the country enters its fourth week of lockdown. the nhs has saved my life, no question. boris johnson recuperates at his country residence chequers, after praising nhs staff. he singled out two nurses, jenny mcgee from new zealand and luis pitarma from portugal, for caring for him at his bedside at the most critical time. china reports the highest daily rise in coronavirus cases in more than five weeks, most of them imported from overseas.

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