the headlines... the french presidency says a national tribute will be held for the teacher who was beheaded near paris on friday in a suspected islamist terror attack. the victim has been named as 47—year—old samuel paty. millions of people are now facing tighter coronavirus restrictions in england. lancashire in the north westjoins the liverpool city region in the highest alert category, while household mixing is banned indoors in london. new zealand's prime ministerjacinda ardern and her labour party have won a second term in office with a landslide general election victory, after campaigning on their success in handling the coronavirus pandemic. hundreds of people have been queuing at a hospital in eastern china — where a covid—19 vaccine is being offered to the public for the first time. it has not yet completed clinical trials.

let me bring you some breaking news and this has come from the twitter account from the mayor of the city of love of pool —— liverpool. one of the regional leaders who agrees to liverpool going into the most serious category of restrictions on trying to deal with the pandemic. this is what he said... i'm sure the real importance of this and the threat to life, over 40,000 people are night out in the uk from the effects of coronavirus, we were

in the numbers are increasing —— warrant. there are better treatments now than six months ago but not eve ryo ne now than six months ago but not everyone will be able to benefit from those any life—saving way. now on bbc news... click gets hands on with the new microsoft xbox. and we investigate how tech is being used to abuse and control partners in a domestic setting. this week: how technology is being used as a tool of abuse. and how it can help survivors. the latest offering from apple. and the next generation of games consoles is here... nearly.

welcome to click. for many of us, 2020 has been the year we have all been stuck at home more than we would have liked. now for some, spending more time with our partners has been great. for some, it has started to grate. but there are those for whom being locked down with someone else has been no joke at all. we've heard a lot about how mental health issues have been on the rise because of the pandemic, but so has domestic abuse. and sadly, some technology can make it easier to abuse a partner or even ex—partner who's been trying to break away. the abuse in my relationship was kind of emotional abuse. things being said rather than physical. nothing really being done that was obviously tangible, but that changed very quickly.

compounded by a lot of issues during the lockdown, a lot of stress, financial stress as well. i've realised, you know, it was a lot of financial control, control of sort of how often i could work, i realised actually how much he was limiting my ability to work. meet kate and sue. well, those are the names we have given to protect their anonymity for their own safety. their stories are some of many experienced during lockdown. in the first few weeks, the police received a domestic service call almost every 30 seconds. in 2019, in the uk alone, there were almost 2.5 million domestic abuse cases reported, and many still go unrecorded. when i was trying to leave, i found that he was monitoring my location on my phone, monitoring my screen time,

that was being shared with him. increasingly, technology has become a tool for abuse. survivors often reporting beings stalked through tracking apps on their phones, keyloggers on their computers or their lives being controlled through smart devices in their homes. when he left the house, that is when i started to realise he was using the ring door bell camera to track me. i could take the battery out if i wanted to because i didn't feel like i could do that because he would say to me "you are compromising your children's safety". i was worried he would go to the police and try to suggest i was a bad mother. kate sought help from women's domestic violence charity refuge. although domestic abuse can happen to anyone, women are still three times more likely to experience violence and harassment. and the charity says over 70% of those contacting it have experienced some technological

abuse, one of the things it specialises in dealing with. and the law is finally catching up. the uk recently passed a landmark domestic abuse bill recognising that tech abuse is part of the problem. it will make it illegal to use modern technology to track or spy on a partner or ex—partner. but beyond the legislation, there is a wider debate around the products themselves, and whether they should be designed to offer better protection in these scenarios. it is really important to recognise that we are moving away from a personal device, that is why it is called pc, personal computer, and to an environment where we have collected devices that are shared in the household. often the perpetrator who tends very often

to be male is the person that purchases the device, maintains the device, and also disposes of the device. and that gives that person a lot of control over both the environment they are in but also the device and its settings. so a small team of employees at ibm have decided to try and solve the problem. they've devised a new set of design principles for tech companies to build on. right at the beginning of our research, we saw that there is help and guidance available to people who are facing this kind of abuse. but the bulk of it focuses on keeping safe by educating yourself in the technology. we believe that the burden of safety shouldn't fall solely on the shoulders of the end user. and we felt it was important to shift at least some of that onus onto thoughtful design. the list ibm has devised is long but they do have some interesting points. take for example a box like this, that looks pretty harmless, also a place where you might leave

a nice gift message to somebody, or when it comes to online banking, somewhere where you may make a note of a reference. but they are also being used for more sinister purposes. a place where perpetrators can continue their abuse. one suggested solution is to make them ‘smart‘, automatically monitoring for abusive language patterns of behaviour to potentially spot and stop them happening. but some changes suggested are hard to implement and need a bigger rethink. if the devices in our home had obvious alerts when they are remotely activated, and kept a digital record of who did what, when, this would make it difficult for abuses to obscure and distort the truth. furthermore, having a manual override on the devices would return some of the power to the local user. with smart devices becoming more commonplace, this issue has become more urgent to tackle.

everything i had was like hand—me—down phones, hand—me—down laptops, so he would set up all the accounts, erm, he would set up family sharing on things, there was various alexa devices all over the property, he could go to someone‘s house and ring the alexa when we were at home. family apps are another area of concern, something that many of us use to monitor our children's safety, but in an abusive relationship they're also the apps that are most open to misuse, because they're all about sharing information. even though location data is central to the apps function, most don't notify users when they've been tracked, or constantly push users to turn location settings on, even when they've been actively disabled. there are better designs out there.

for example the online banking app monzo, has a share with us feature which allows customers to message the bank directly, leaving no trace behind that a conversation has even taken place. as our digital lives become more intertwined with our home lives, these issues will only become more prevalent. i think the companies should know what the products could be used for, and when you're in a couple and the account is going to be registered to one e—mail address, when something goes wrong, the person can't rectify anything or change details, you are stuck. he locked me out of our shared amazon account, which had my credit card details for all the payments. i rang up amazon and i said, "i can't take my card from this account." they said, "sorry, you just have to cancel your bank cards." my mobile phone was registered to his apple id and i didn't even realise the significance of an apple id. i do now, i have been on the phone

to apple three times and it got to the point where they said he has to give you the code. designs to better protect against controlling and stalking behaviour can improve privacy and security for all of us. but for the hundreds of millions affected by domestic abuse every year, change can't come soon enough. i just suddenly realised, i am in this situation and i am in this bubble and i have got no idea how i am going to get out of it. he has got all the money, he has stopped me working, the kids are at home now because he is worried about covid, we are all in the house, and likes, even when i leave he can see my location through my watch or my phone or my ipad stop anything, ijust realised how little control i had over mine and the kids' life, and how much he had, and yeah, once i realised, i was like oh, my god, i need to get us out.

domestic abuse of course knows no geographical boundaries. and during lockdown, many countries reported seeing an increase. south africa has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world. in the number of sexual offences including rape is rising. it has been reported that a woman is murdered every three hours, and 51% of south african women have experienced violence at the hands of someone that they are in a relationship with. and what is more, attitudes towards abuse in many countries like south africa means that the women can actually end up being blamed and shamed, even by those whose job is to help. now, a chatbot called rainbow, aimed at south african users is trying to turn this tide. abuse is an isolating experience. victims often feel uncomfortable talking to friends or family. it invites users to take part

in quizzes and stories in order to help them better understand what is and isn't abuse. the ai element is trained to learn people's behaviour and detect nuance in the language of the user that could indicate they are in an abusive relationship. survivors are then guided to areas of health and actions open to them. i was date raped twice and i think that happened because i didn't know my rights. i didn't see the red lines that would make me recognise that i was in danger. that made me recognise that my boundaries were being crossed. ijust assumed only initially thought that i am the one that read the signs wrong. tuli, as we're calling her, is not alone. last year, 42,000 women in

south africa reported being raped. when we were out and having drinks, they were spending all this money on me and i was feeling like i was special, so when it happened i blamed myself because i thought ijust spent all of this man's money on me. i did not stand up for myself. that is the case with many girls here in south africa. using the rainbow chatbot has now helped tuli to recognise her rights. what looking through it did for me and can do for others is that a person needs to consent before a person touches you, you need to be ok with that. had i known that i would have known that people had crossed boundaries and maybe i would have reported it. after levels of abuse rose around

the globe during lockdown, numerous celebrities and social media influencers decided to help raise awareness of the issue. in south africa, tendaiishe chitima, star of the netflix film cook off, decided to add her support to the rainbow chatbot, which now has some 18,000 users. i had an ex—partner who was stalking me and cyber—bullying me online. you mentioned that you had an awakening, and that seemed to be the point where you realise that this is not ok in the relationship i am in. i did not see it as abuse until i started getting depressed and was not myself any more, and i remember speaking to an aunt and she literally said to me, oh my gosh, this man really loves you because you know, he kept pursuing me, but it was a toxic kind of pursuing, and so that was really bad. it was terrible, really,

the feeling of it, i had been getting depressed, i was not eating properly any more and i found that this is just a platform that allows women to speak to a friendly nonjudgemental chat box, and how innovative is that? would there have been anything on the chatbot that would have been relevant to you? to be honest, if i had known about it before i probably would have utilised their platform even more when i was going through what i was going through, because i would have wanted to know, can i report to the police? get a lawyer involved? what are the legal options available to me? this chat box is not designed to judge you, it is not designed to even tell you to leave your partner, it is designed to offer solutions and to trigger action. hello, and welcome to the week in tech.

it was the week a rocket designed to launch and return humans to and from earth safely touched down in texas, thanks to amazon founderjeff bezos and his aerospace firm blue origin. facebook banned posts that distort or deny the holocaust after a successful campaign led by survivors of the nazi genocide. the chinese city of shenzhen has handed out ten million yuan in a pilot of its mobile—first currency. 50,000 citizens received the equivalent of around £20 to spend in local stores. bbc micro bit, the pocket—sized computer used by millions of children worldwide, has just announced its first major tech upgrade. initially rolled out in 2016, the device now comes with: a speaker, a microphone, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. scientists have built earpods that can monitor muscle movements to translate facial expressions. researchers say these could turn important

facial cues into avatars, emoji, or speech commands in remote work or learning environments. and finally, who wouldn't want an army of tiny robot artists? in a world first, researchers have shown how robot swarms can follow instructions to create art in real—time. yes, they say the bots, which leave colour trails on the canvas, are a new tool in what remains a largely manual craft. it looks like a brush with greatness! laughter. we are fully in the grip of tech launch season and following on from google and amazon, this week it's apple's turn, so let's see what they announce. first up is a new smart speaker, this is the homepod mini. this is the first new homepod they've announced since the original came out in 2018, whereas google and amazon have had several iterations of theirs. the homepod mini looks like the amazon echo, because it's spherical.

and a new feature is that you can now send intercom messages between homepods and other apple products, a bit like you can with amazon echo. homepod: we're late. let's go. woman: hey, siri, reply. we're onto the iphone now, this is the iphone 12, which they say has an "all—new" design. although, one that i think has taken a lot of design cues from the iphone 4. these will be the first 56 iphones, just like samsung, google and others are adding 56 connectivity to their flagship handsets. the 56 coverage is still quite patchy at the moment and a lot of us aren't going out and about, doing very much at the moment. so, this is kind of an investment for the future, i think. i don't think many of us will be taking full advantage of 56 just yet. this is quite interesting. they say the phone will only use the 56 when necessary, if you are trying to stream a movie or something, that's to conserve battery life, because 56 can use more battery power. they're also making the screen tougher with what they are calling a ceramic shield, which makes it

four times more likely to survive a drop. which is great news, because i am forever smashing my screen protector. ok, this is interesting. they say this is going to be the first smartphone to have a five—nanometre process chip. and what that means is you are packing in billions more transistors onto the processor, that gives it more brainpower and can make it more energy efficient. and they say they will be able to use this for 4k video editing and console—quality video games. they're also bringing out an iphone 12 mini, with all the same features, it's just smaller to cover all the bases. there are two new pro models as well, they're adding a lidar scanner to both, like you might find in a self—driving car, that can help the phone sense depth, which could be useful for photography, it helps you auto—focus quickly and also augmented reality applications. i think a lot of people were hoping they would get rid of the lightning port from the iphone and replace it with usb—c, which is

a common standard now. they've already done it for the ipad pro, and the macbook pro, and that would mean you could use any usb—c charger, even from an android phone, on the iphone, but they haven't done it this year. and that was it, nothing too surprising there. a bit of a refresh for the iphone 12. i think people were hoping for more flashy features, but actually the introduction of the five—nanometre chip and the sg connectivity could prove very significant, and we'll have to see what kind of experiences they enable in the future. anyway... those were the latest next—gen smartphones from apple, we're also about to see two next—gen games consoles, the ps5, and the xbox series x. the xbox will be first out of the traps, launching on november 10th. ahead of a full review next month, marc cieslack has been one of the lucky few to get his hands on a series x, to be able to give us a preview. here i am playing a next—gen game

on a next—gen machine — the xbox series x. but this is really only a taster of the next—gen experience, rather than the full three courses. you see, the console that i've been using for the last couple of weeks is pre—release, that means that lot and lots of things from the user interface to its overall performance will be tweaked and changed by the time people get their hands on the finished machine. so, for the purposes of a preview, we can only really talk about a limited number of its features. the first next—gen games we get to preview are certainly an odd couple. japanese rpg, yakuza: like a dragon, and racing title dirt 5, two completely different games that demonstrate that the next generation looks quite a bit like the current generation, with a bit more polish. a role—playing game with turn—based combat, like ya kuza, is perhaps not the best title to show off this new machine's new abilities. man: want to fight? punch. oof!

a slightly surreal take on life on life as a japanese gangster, it looks nice enough — the smooth frame rate and sharp visuals, but it's not what you'd call a poster child for the next gen. da—da—da—daa! never fear, part—time hero is here! for that, you'd need a game with a bit more visual razzle—dazzle, which is where racing titles usually shine. off—road racing across a huge variety of tracks in all weathers is the order of the day here. but again, apart from good, but not amazing visuals, i'm yet to get any of the next—gen feels from either of these games. much has been made of the series x's ability to drastically reduce load times. this is in part thanks to its nvme ssd and the velocity architecture which joins up all of the console's new hardware to some smart software. there are still load times, but they're much shorter. when we compare it to the machine it replaces, you can see the differences appear.

when you're playing no man's sky, on the one x, it takes about a minute and a half to load. on the series x, it's 20 seconds — much faster! and when the game's up and running, we see some stability improvements in the visuals as well. then we come to quick resume. on current—gen machines, if you want to play a different game to the you've already played, loading up the next title can take several minutes. now it's just seconds. on series x, quick resume drastically reduces the time it takes to switch between titles, and games pick up right where you left them. so far i have tested this to be able to resume about five games at any one time, but that could change with the finished machine. lots has been made about backwards compatibility on this generation of consoles, and there is a very large back—compatible catalogue for the series x you can play. it's also been suggested that next—gen games could cost as much as £70 a pop, and the launch line—up of titles for the series x and ps5 isn't exactly stellar.

so, a back catalogue of older, but well—regarded games helps bolster the proposition. for series x, it enjoys quite a lot of backwards compatibility, with a lot, but not all xbox games, that includes games from the xbox one, 360 and original machine. onto the machine itself: it's a commanding presence in the living room — much larger than the machine it replaces — the xbox one x. while the older machine discreetly slots away beneath tvs across the globe, the series x towers next to the tv — it looks a little bit like the monolith from 2001: a space odyssey, however, like most of us during lockdown, it seems to have piled on the pounds. it is a big bit of kit. and the console itself — while in vision it takes up a fair bit of real estate, is whisper—quiet. i'm stood over the top of it — i can hear almost nothing and i'm right on top of the fan. if this were a human being, i would be sticking a mirror under its nose to check that it was breathing.

we're now in the final strait before the launch of all of the next—gen consoles. we'll bring you reviews of this and its cheaper, less powerful sibling, the series s, as well as the ps5 ahead of their launch next month. that was marc previewing what may be the last generation of physical games consoles. what do you think? oh, i don't know. streaming has certainly shaken up tv and film, so maybe gaming will be next? maybe. it's all down to your connection speed, isn't it? anyway. that is it for this week. as ever, you can find the team throughout the week on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter, @bbcclick. thanks for watching, and we'll see you soon. bye— bye! futuristic theme music.

hello, the weather looks fairly quiet if a little bit uninspiring this weekend. it will be predominantly dry, not completely dry, but many places will avoid the wet weather. often quite cloudy, though, with grey skies overhead. so this is the weather forecast for this afternoon. you can see extensive cloud across the map. some breaks in the cloud, some spells of sunshine, the odd shower towards the south—west of england and some patchy rain here and there, particularly, though, across northern parts of scotland where the winds are coming from the north, so it's going to feel rather chilly, 9 degrees in aberdeen and even further south highs of 12 or 13, nothing to write home about at this time of year. through this evening and tonight, still large amounts of cloud filtering down from the north with some spots of rain. the best of any clear spells probably to be found down across england and wales where we could see some mist and fog patches developing. temperature is widely 5—8 ,

getting just a touch colder than that in some places, particularly out in the countryside. tomorrow, high pressure is stilljust about in charge. the centre of the high is a long way away to the west but you can see this ridge in the isobars here. the weather is still relatively settled, but still quite cloudy and there will be a frontal system just about here giving some thicker cloud and perhaps some spots of rain. there will be some spells of sunshine here and there, perhaps bright across scotland, some sunny spells further south. wind is relatively light, that's why things are not moving around relatively quickly at the moment, the air is pretty still and calm. but rather chilly in the north tomorrow, in shetland 5—6 degrees the top temperature, further south 13—14. quite a big change as we head into next week, high—pressure retreats. low pressure starts to dominate the scene. we will see a frontal system on monday bringing cloud and outbreaks of pretty heavy rain across northern ireland

and scotland. england and wales are likely to stay predominantly dry but increasingly cloudy, the best sunshine in east anglia and the south—east. it will be a windy day but the wind coming up from the south, dragging some milder air towards us. temperatures on monday between 13 and 15 degrees. we stick with a slightly milderfeel as we head into tuesday and wednesday. there will be outbreaks of rain at times and it will often be windy. that's all from me. bye for now.

good afternoon. it's still stalemate between local politicians in greater manchester and the uk government over the introduction of stricter coronavirus measures. 28 million people in other parts of england have seen the restrictions on them tightened. northern ireland is in its first full day of a four week "circuit—brea ker" lockdown, with all hospitality venues closing, except to provide take—aways. daniela relph reports.