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tv   Panorama  BBC News  April 22, 2020 3:30am-4:01am BST

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president trump has given more details about his intention to sign an executive order temporarily blocking immigration into the united states. he said the restrictions — which will apply for 60 days to green card applicants — are to protect workers from overseas competition after the lockdown. the uk government is under more pressure for failing to supply enough personal protective equipment to hospitals and care homes. the health secretary denied reports that they had refused to take part in a european union scheme to secure supplies of essential equipment for political reasons. the un's world food programme has issued a warning about the millions in regions of conflict, who could starve because of the coronavirus outbreak. the agency estimates the number of people going hungry could double to more than 250 million. most are in countries already affected by an economic crisis.
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you are pretty much up—to—date with the headlines. now on bbc news: click. this week, using tech to stay in touch, to volunteer your time, and to take in some art. hey, welcome back. here we are again. and thank you so much for all the kind comments about last week's programme. they meant a lot to us, mainly they were comments about the cushions and the painting, but i will take it. look who else is back, it's lara — hello mate, how are you, what have you been up to? hello, i have been very busy mastering the art of the zoom dinner party. have you tried it?
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no i haven't, that sounds very middle—class, i have been down the pub virtually with some friends, but i haven't done a dinner party yet. is this something you dress up for? of course, what else is there to get dressed up for at the moment? and the thing is, i have worked out how to do it so it is not awkward. your guests arrive, you have a nice chat before you start eating, then you turn the video and microphone off for a bit while you're serving food, so people aren't walking in and out of shot or peering around trying to get into shot, and also, no awkward chewing and talking at the same time, i know it happens in real life but no need for it at the moment, and then after dinner you get together again. nice! 0k, and you are pretty sure most people are wearing trousers? because that's the other thing about virtual meetings, you have no idea what is going on below the waist. absolutely no idea. but of course many of us are using conferencing apps at the moment for many different reasons. a lot of them far more important than my dinner parties. spencer, what do you think this lot are up to? both: the health and wellbeing
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of my patient will be my first consideration. both: i will respect the autonomy and dignity of my patient. it certainly sounds very important, doesn't it? i dunno, go on. yes, they are medical students taking their hippocratic oath. because without that, they can't become nhs doctors. and of course right now, we need all the doctors we can get. so newcastle university has accelerated the process with a virtual graduation, using microsoft's flipgrid software. all: upon my honour. that hippocratic oath is brilliant, isn't it, it's so important to people who work in medicine, they are the true heroes in this. there are many people who are particularly at risk from the virus, and those are the people we are properly trying to shield at the moment, many of them will be elderly. and when you are completely locked in your home and you are not allowed out, that is when we really need technology to help stay in touch with those people and help them keep busy. and jen copestake has been looking at what is on offer.
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concerns for people living in care homes across the country are increasing as many become ill with the coronavirus and are separated from their loved ones. while there is little human comfort for many during this incredibly difficult time, some care homes are employing technical solutions to try and provide some outside connection, and if not, a little distraction for their residents. in belgium, 60 zorabots have been deployed to care homes around the country to entertain residents kept in their rooms in isolation. zorabot plays classical music this includes henry, who spoke to me on the zorabot which visited his room. henry said it was too difficult to talk about how the isolation makes him feel, but he was very happy to speak on the robot.
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that's the biggest problem, is the isolation, that they are far from theirfamily, and they are not allowed to go outside or to see them or to hold them in the arms, and so we are doing all what we can to give them their contact with the family. in the netherlands, these sara bots were used in care homes before the pandemic, but now the company is providing them for a month free to anyone who would like to try them out. while sara is visiting the ward, this 95—year—old woman uses a videoconference in her room. but she has regularly spent time with sara. and for the first time in a care home, sara is being used in a trial to visit a patient who is critically ill with coronavirus.
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on thursday we got a phone call from the care homes, and they told me "we have a corona patient, and in this case it is really sad because we know she is not going to survive," so there was really, they were in a hurry. so they told me, they asked us, can you help us with this robot, so we said of course, and the next day we brought a robot in. here in the uk the nhs‘s innovation team, nhsx, are looking at how technology can be used here to alleviate isolation and bring families together. a trial with facebook‘s portal device in care homes and hospitals is under way. chd care homes in surrey were using the devices in a programme called adopt a grandparent. volunteers call in to in to speak to care home residents. i still work. you still work? that's nice, what do you do?
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a few weeks ago they put out a special call for the covid crisis to ask for more adoptions. how old are you? and the response we have had is now 70,000 volunteers registered worldwide. it's amazing. just for your care homes or care homes all over the world? 70,000 just for our care homes. wow! ijust think it is fantastic that there is potentially a technology answer to such a really human problem, because i am a big believer in the power of technology, and here is potentially something that is undeniably making things better for people in a really tough situation. we also tested a couple of tablets designed for elderly isolators staying at home with some help from some click relatives. the grandpad has its own data connection and is designed to work out of the box. it certainly seemed easy enough when i tried it out with kath. how does it feel talking to me on this video screen?
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it's lovely. i am talking to you. i haven't done anything with it. you haven't done anything? no. and the comp is a larger tablet has one dial to control functions. 0mar called his nan on it. it is quite big, it is nice to see your face and everything, it is quite nice. if it was just my friends i wanted to call, i would use my smart phone. when the pandemic is over some of these solutions may be permanently implemented to help look after our elderly relatives. but everyone we spoke to emphasised how much they would like to see us in person. we need to think carefully about the impact replacing humans may have on the future of care and the shape of our future society. that wasjen looking at how technology is in a small way trying to help in what is a really
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difficult situation. lara, you have been looking at something similar in the volunteer space? that's right, something to help those doctors and nurses who are working around the clock. because for those with children, there is an extra logistical issue in the equation. so medical students who are not quite ready for the frontline have found a way that they can still help. we made the facebook group and it just snowballed within the space of 24 hours, we were like oh my goodness, we have really got something here, this is really wild. babysitting app bubble one was that took on the task of helping connect them to nhs parents. more than 500 nhs workers have already booked free childcare through the apps pool of over 1000 safety checked volunteers. a lot of us are working in emergency rotas now so the hours we might have been doing before, or the pattern of work has changed considerably. so this would provide us with those extended hours of service that we would need. healthship is another service built by medical students looking to make good use of their spare time. students from 95 universities have signed up to help nhs staff.
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today i am picking up a prescription and delivering it to a patient. it means i can give back to the community and help those who are vulnerable in this pandemic. by far and large the vast majority of interest has been in childcare which makes sense because that is where the help is really needed. a further issue is that the lack of testing has resulted in nhs workers sometimes staying home when they don't need to. the covid—i9 volunteer testing network is a pool of smaller labs opening up to conduct critical testing. around 500 expert volunteers have also signed up to a service called scientists on standby to help the government ramp up testing. we are encouraging people who have got any type of laboratory bench space science experience to sign up but effectively what we are really looking for is those scientists who are perhaps registered biomedical scientists already. but any of us have a chance
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to volunteer in this crisis. over three quarters of a million brits have signed up to the good sam app to help others. when the news story came out that people could volunteer, i thought, that is exactly what i want to do. proof that not only are we in this together but community spirit definitely does exist. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week apple announced the release of the much rumoured mid—range iphone se. it comes just after 0neplus revealed its new flagship sg phones. nintendo's animal crossing new horizon was removed from sale in china after players in hong kong staged anti—chinese protest. and hundreds of thousands of zoom accounts were being put up for sale on the dark web for hackers looking
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to try out zoombombing attacked where uninvited attendees break into a meeting. if you haven't opened your maps app in a while you're probably not alone. apple's daily mobility trends report shows how many people are driving, walking and using public transport before coronavirus came into effect. forget old school caffeine and nicotine patches, how about a smart patch that measures your sweat? gatorade created the patch to measure sweat components in athletes but could also be used to monitor biomarkers for coronavirus patients. all you need is a 3d printer. scientists at uc san diego have
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found a way to 3d print insectlike flexible robots in minutes. creepy. i am in hastings, famed for its history, castle and mediaeval tapestry and i am here to get a taste of some of the culture they have got an offer, but not where you might imagine. i am just going to connect to hastings right now, that is just outside of london, certainly not somewhere i am allowed to go at the moment. that's right, i am going on a gallery tour inside a robot. welcomes to hastings contemporary. this is a collaboration between the gallery and bristol robotics laboratory. the idea is to adapt these robots so we can all enjoy art without leaving our homes. today i am being shown around by director of the gallery, liz gilmore. ok, here we go. (laughs) sorry. ok, so my bad driving aside, this project is about more than just
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bringing in virtual visitors during the lockdown. this technology has been developed for a while as being used in videoconferencing, but not before in a uk gallery. so it was opportunistic for us, we knew one of our trustees who is a disabled artist, she had been using this for her own communications and meetings, and so was able to ask bristol robotics if we could use this robot as a trial during this period at the gallery. from my end, all i need is a web browser and a prearranged slot to drop into the gallery. it's hard to argue that robo tours like this are anything but a positive idea right now. but what about when galleries reopen to in—person visitors? if you think about access to art, et cetera, you know, some people are able to afford those holidays to go across to venice
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or paris, and see the louvre for instance, and that's not available to everyone. at its heart, this project could mean more people who wouldn't usually get the chance to see out like this can enjoy it. one can also think about this as a way of bringing people together in different ways. well, it was great! i've just been to a gallery! you know, when it comes down to it, that's reallyjust a very elaborate video call, but there is something quite nice about being able to walk around, discover the place yourself, find all the nooks and crannies as you would if you're actually there. pretty cool. that was absolutely brilliant! that is steve driving a robot round an art gallery! fabulous! and he didn't crash it on the stairs — love it! now that the outside world is a lot quieter and normal, anyone who's watched a post—apocalyptic movie knows the next thing that happens is anyone who is still driving on the roads starts driving like an idiot —
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see will smith in i am legend or anyone from mad max. well, as it happens, australia has just rolled out the next generation of traffic cameras to try and catch the worst offenders. here's nick kwek. you're driving down the road and suddenly your phone starts to ring, you get a text, someone has liked your instagram post about juggling cats. no, not the callous lobbing of pets into the air kind, the performing felines with great dexterity kind. you want to answer — you need to answer — but if you're driving around new south wales, chances are you're being watched. this month, after a couple of test trials, mobile phone detection cameras have been officially rolled out on the south—eastern state's roads. careless drivers are being caught red—handed, well, phone—handed, and being issued fines of up to $457 a pop and ten demerit points on their licence. now people can't be separated
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from their mobile phones any minute of the day, and so we've seen this actually grow into a road safety risk over the last decade, and really we've been trying to restrict this risk, because you're four more times likely to have a crash if you're holding your mobile phone and if you're texting, that risk goes, you know, out of control. the new cams are in fixed, temporary and undisclosed locations, hoping to bust more devious drivers breaking the law than patrolling police. at the moment it's very difficult to enforce. this system behind me is able to perform an automatic review on traffic. it's looking at every vehicle that passes the checkpoint and it does it day or night, in all weather tirelessly, and automatically filters out the majority of people who are driving their vehicles correctly. the heads—up system takes three photos in infrared and runs them through a custom—made algorithm. so this is a representation
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of what the camera system can see in its fixed and temporary locations. we've got the camera here and on the monitor we'll see what the ai thinks is going on. if i put the image in front of the camera there, you can see the ai system's immediately identified the driver and it's associated an offence score of in the mid—90s. that person's in fact holding a water bottle in their hand and they've got a mobile phone in their lap. so definitely not the safest of drivers. so now let's show an image of someone not breaking the law and just driving normally, see what it picks out, and it's given it a relatively low offence score. someone who's experienced firsthand the dangers of a car accident is leame. he was involved in a truck accident when he was younger. my spinal has been severed totally.
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i had some head injuries. what the result of the car accident, the vehicle accident i was in made me end up in a wheelchair, and this is for the rest of my life. he works for acusensus as a photograph reviewer. he makes the finaljudgement call on whether or not drivers really are using their phones. their call or their text or facebook post can wait. that's a very bad boy, bad boy. ignorant. 95% of the photos taken by the cameras are immediately binned. 0nly around 5% make it to people like leame, and the photos are cropped and blurred so only the driver is visible. the interesting thing is that between that pilot and the warning letters, the offending rate dropped by more than half, so we can see that the campaign, the fact that we are out there on the network with this new technology, we can see a reduction in the illegal behaviour
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already starting to happen, making our roads safer. the cameras could soon be coming to a town near you. they've already been trialled in india and have their eyes set on north america, so next time you fancy snapchatting your pals behind the wheel, think again. that was nick in australia. now, working from home sounded like it was going to be a great idea to start with, didn't it? but turns out no—one's home is geared up for maximum productivity. so, we wanted to give you some tips on how to increase your productivity while working from home, and we decided to draft in the best person for thejob — it's only kate russell! hello, mate, how are you? i'm great, thank you, absolutely living in chaos. my living room looks like a studio. cat meows you can hear the cat. i can hear that cat. it sounds like a cat anyway!
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i didn't expect that to happen! he is a cat and he is here to make my life more difficult and also more cuddly. and that's the problem, isn't it — if we're trying to be professional while we're on these video meetings, we're interrupted by all sorts of things. what i think is amazing is the rise of zoom in the last few weeks, what is also worrying, though, is the rise of unwelcome zoom visitors in meetings, because if you're giving out a meeting number that people can join, if anyone else gets hold of that number, they can join even if they haven't technically been invited. absolutely, but there's a simple way to protect yourself. first of all, you should password—protect and encrypt your meetings, but also, if you open the advanced settings when you schedule a meeting, you can tick the box that says you want to enable the waiting room and then what happens then is when somebody dials in they get put in a waiting room before you as the host give them permission to come into the main room first.
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brilliant, that's why we've got kate, you see, she will elevate you to zoom ninja in 20 seconds. and there's a couple of other great tips you should know about zoom. the software can handle up to 100 participants at a time, which sounds quite horrific to me, but i've been enjoying using the custom backgrounds. it adds a bit of colour to the meetings and handy if you don't want people you're virtually meeting to see your home. and the touchup appearance feature adds a softening and beautifying filter to your camera feed. it's not cheating! unfortunately, this increased popularity has attracted hackers too. in the past few weeks, security researchers have noticed a spike in the number websites registered including the word "zoom", and many could be spoof sites. just taking extra care typing in the web address is important for any site. i'm a huge list person, and todoist is what every ring—bound pad wants to be when it grows up.
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this digital to—do list let's you plan ahead, setting tasks, sub—tasks, deadlines and priorities. the free version can be used by up to five people on simple lists for up to 80 projects. in premium, you can work in groups of 25 across 300 projects, and you can add reminders, comments and upload files. another great way to improve productivity is to understand just where your time is going. time—tracking app toggl simply records the time spent on various tasks. recorded hours can be saved by project and client for teams of up to five people in the free version. the paid option lets you do the same with larger teams, also including features like setting reminders and rules for billable time, as well as project and team—management tools. i want to finish by sharing a tweet that spencer retweeted recently. because despite how hard we try, it's worth remembering this: regardless of personal circumstances, it is unrealistic to expect yourself to be as productive as normal during a global pandemic.
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read it, repeat it, forgive yourself. take care, everybody. ah, always lovely to have kate back on the show, and i have to say, try adding working from home with children to the equation and all i can say to you is i'm very relieved that door hasn't opened while we've been making this programme. it was 50—50, wasn't it, i remember you saying beforehand! the good news is, the next time kate is on she'll be dealing with the children, looking at tools and tips to do with homeschooling. i'm afraid that's it for now, we've done it, made it through another show! and you can keep up with the team through the week, although obviously we're not out and about as usual, on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter — @bbcclick. that's it for now, though. thanks so much for watching. we'll see you soon. bye— bye.
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hello there. tuesday was another sunny but windy day for many parts of the country. there was some cloud for a while, actually, across cornwall, the channel islands, gave a couple millimetres of rain, and then in the sunshine along the west coast of wales, south coast of england, temperatures reached 2! celsius. and we had a lovely sunset across the southern parts of england, helped by a bit of high cloud that's coming in from continental europe. still actually a lot of wet weather to come in the mediterranean, but our weather is dominated by that area of high pressure over scandinavia. not as many isobars on the chart for wednesday, the winds won't be quite as strong. but with a bit of a breeze overnight, these are the temperatures we are starting off
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with on wednesday morning. and, again, with lighter winds in the scottish glens, there may well be some frost around here. there may well be some mist and a low cloud affecting the southern uplands, onto the pennines and the welsh hills, but, again, that won't last long at all, it soon gets blown away. lots of sunshine on wednesday, a little bit hazy at times perhaps across more southern parts of the uk. but the winds won't to be quite a strong, it may well be a degree or two warmer. still a touch cooler along those north sea coasts, but as you head further west across the uk, those temperatures widely 20—21 degrees for england and wales. as we move into thursday, again, some mist and some low cloud to clear away early in the morning, same sort of areas. again, lots of sunshine around, that higher cloud is drifting a little bit further north by this stage. the winds will be much lighter though on wednesday, everywhere. it will feel warmer as well. the temperatures will probably peek at maybe 25 degrees somewhere in 0xfordshire, berkshire or hampshire. that's probably going to be the peak of the temperatures on thursday. mind you, friday's not far behind, again, a few mist and fog patches to clear away very quickly in the morning. and then light winds again, lots of sunshine around too,
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and those temperatures still making 22—23 degrees across southern parts of england and wales. a little bit cooler across northern scotland, bit of a northerly breeze here. the weather is starting to change a bit over the weekend. pressure is going to be much lower, especially across scandinavia, but also across the uk as well, pressure is falling away. a very weak weather front coming into more northern parts of the uk. that may bring a few showers across scotland, mainly northern scotland, perhaps into northern ireland. 0n the whole, it is going to be dry over the weekend. a bit more cloud coming down the eastern side of the uk, temperatures beginning to slip away a little, highs of 19 or 20.
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this is bbc news. my name's mike embley. the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world: president trump brushes off opposition to his temporary immigration ban. he insists it's to protect americans from the current economic crisis. by pausing immigration we will help put unemployed americans first in line forjobs as america reopens. this is what that crisis looks like in parts of new york, reeling from the pandemic as long queues form for food. a plane carrying badly—needed ppe equipment has landed in the uk. the government is still under pressure for failing to supply hospitals and care homes adequately.

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