president trump has reportedly described the us government's top coronavirus adviser as "a disaster," saying that if he had taken anthony fauci's advice, the country would have had more than 500,000 deaths from covid—19. the president has repeatedly clashed with dr fauci, a highly respected infectious diseases expert. it's little more than two weeks now until the us presidential election, and early voting has begun in several states. florida, arkansas, idaho, north dakota and colorado have opened their polling stations, joining several other states who had already done so. election day is november the 3rd. belgium's health minister fears the country could soon be overwhelmed by new coronavirus infections. new measures are now in place as it's feared soaring case—numbers are close sunami, where authorities "no longer control what is happening". infection numbers are climbing across europe, prompting new restrictions. now on

bbc news, click. 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 disturbance 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 doorbell camera to

track me. i could take the battery out if i wanted to but i didn't feel like i could do that because he would say to me "you are compromising our 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 such 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, a place where you might leave a nice gift message for 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. 0ne 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 abusers 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 effect 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 like, even when i leave he can see my location through my watch or my phone or my ipad, 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,"0h, 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. and 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. ——help and actions.

i was dateraped twice and i think that happened because i didn't know my rights at all. 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 been able to stop it. after levels of abuse rose around the globe during lockdown, numerous celebrity and social media influencers decided to help raise awareness of the issue. in south africa, tendaiishe chitima, star of the netflix film cook 0ff, 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 ifound that isjust a platform that allows women to speak to a friendly non—judgemental chat bot, 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 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?" "can i 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 founder jeff bezos and his aerospace firm blue 0rigin. 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 ear pods 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! she laughs

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 have added 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 ‘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 also 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 very 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. 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 ten. ahead of a full review next month, marc cieslak 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 ya kuza: 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, though with a bit more polish. a role—playing game with turn—based combat like yakuza is perhaps not the best title to show off this new machine's new abilities. man: wanna fight? punch. 0of! a slightly surreal take on life on life as a japanese gangster, it looks nice enough with a 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! neverfear! 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. 0ff—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 thanks in part 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 1.5 minutes to load. 0n 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. 0n current—gen machines, if you want to play a different game to the on you're already played, loading up the next title can take several minutes. now, it's just seconds. 0n 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 that the series x 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 old xbox games, that includes games from the xbox 0ne, 360 and original machine. 0nto the machine itself — it's a commanding presence in the living room. much larger than the machine it replaces — the xbox 0ne 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, it's whisper—quiet. and 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 straight 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 at @bbcclick. thanks for watching and we'll see you soon. bye— bye! futuristic theme music very, very mild out there at the moment. and tuesday promises to be a very mild day too. we have southerly winds across the uk, and the air is coming all the way from spain and portugal, in fact. there's a bit of rain in the forecast too. quite a lot of it. you can see this big low pressure there sweeping in from the south of the cloud, that is with the air is coming from, all the way from iberia. so, with the winds it will be a very mild morning, with a lot of cloud and outbreaks of rain

too, it'll have been a very wet night in northern ireland, and parts of scotland but these are the morning temperatures. 13 in plymouth, double figures also across some northern part of the uk. the rain will be intermittent, it will come and go across most parts of england or wales. but northern ireland in the afternoon could see persistent heavy showers and probably clip parts of southwest scotland as well. but aberdeen will be a little bit brighter. but look at the temperatures. we are pushing 20 in the southeast. it's more likely to be 17 to 19 degrees there. now, on wednesday, another low pressure comes in. remnants of storm barbara which will have swept across parts of portugal, spain, the bay of biscay. we are not too sure how much wind this weather system will bring. the thinking is it will certainly bring a fair bit of rain and you see the dark blues there, but the wind could be for a time quite strong in the extreme southeast of the country. further west and north,

a different weather pattern and more sunshine for the lake district, but not completely dry. there are some showers around across the northwest of the uk. it is still going to be mild and the weather system are still coming in from the south. thursday, we have a bit of a break in the weather, and between weather systems. you can see fewer isobars on the weather map. the white pressure lines. that means that winds will be a lot lighter with some sunshine around and thursday is promising to be a pretty decent day across most of the uk. you can see the weather system out there in the north sea and one in the atlantic with a bit of wet weather to the south of us and we're in between so there will be more sunshine around. temperatures will be around 12 to 16 degrees. a little bit fresher. you can see the temperatures peaking on tuesday. from then onwards, it looks like it will cool off a tad bit. 0verall, staying on the mild side. that is it for me. goodbye.

this is bbc news — i'm lewis vaughan jones with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world... president trump attacks his own top coronavirus adviser — describing the highly respected expert anthony fauci as a "disaster". could china's covid success drive it further apart from the united states? we have a special report. belgium's health minister warns the country could soon be overwhelmed by new coronavirus infections — as cases there soar. one small step for man — one giant phone call for mankind — why there may soon be mobiles on the moon.