tv Click BBC News October 30, 2020 2:30am-3:01am GMT
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this is bbc news, the headlines. police in france, italy and tunisia are investigating a 21—year—old tunisian man being held in hospital on suspicion of killing three churchgoers in nice. it's reported that he migrated to europe last month, landing on the italian island of lampedusa. president macron has called the attack islamist terrorism. as europe struggles to cope with a surge of coronavirus infections, the president of the european commission says work should start immediately to prepare the infrastructure for a mass—vaccination programme. the scale of the problem was outlined by the german chancellor, who warned of a long hard winter ahead. there are now only five days left until the us election. as president trump and joe biden continue campagining, early voting has hit record levels. in texas — drive—through polling stations are contributing to the high turn—out. some campaigners have expressed fears of voter suppression aimed at minority communities. now on bbc news, click talks exclusively with
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legendary uk rapper stormzy about his appearance in the upcoming watch dogs: legion videogame. this week. fact—checking the presidential contenders. stormzy taking us through a ride on his hometown. and chris takes us through a ride through his kitchen. welcome to click. i hope you're well. as we head into autumn, the world has some pretty big milestones ahead of us. in the short term, the us election. the election of the moment always feels like the biggest yet. but this comes at the time when trust in politics and politicians is at a real low.
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the final presidential debate has now taken place and the idea is that these debates should tell voters about the candidates‘ policies, and help them to make an informed decision at the ballot box. but as well as becoming big, mudslinging, shouty arguments, the rallies and debates have also been riddled with untruths. we live in a time when disinformation is dividing and entrenching us, to the point where it is threatening democracies around the world. if you cannot believe what you see, read and hear, including what comes out of politicians‘ mouths, how can you make the right decision? it has become such a widespread issue that some organisations now have dedicated fact—hecking services and there are companies around the world whose sole job is to spot the lies. but keeping up with the volume of misinformation out there is a hard task.
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meet a member of a team of fact—checkers who were recently tasked with monitoring the debate live. but not all of her team members were human. you need to be in a position where you can take testing rapidly. sorting truths from half—truth to complete fabrication is very time—consuming, so she had help from an ai algorithm. if i were to manually fact—check a claim, it would take me on average two to three hours. which is minimal, because we have to manually check all of the sources, make sure our sources are reliable. but when the ai steps in, our time is reduced by almost 70 to 80%. so, we can turn a claim around and about 15 to 20 minutes, and so that reliable information is spreading as soon as possible. the first presidential debate
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was the team's first chance to work with a live video feed using the software. over the last four years, you have promised to repeal and replace obamacare, but you have never in these four years come up with a plan... the human and ai combination were able to fact—check 27 claims made by candidates. the software performed two tasks. first, it turned what was said into text. that is simply not true. which was no easy feat, so it did get a few things wrong. but for those it did manage to capture, it would then consult its huge database of pre—established facts that it had pulled out of thousands of articles from trusted sources. the forest fires in the west are raging now and they have burned millions of acres. over millions were checked and
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verified by a machine alone. —— overall one third of claims were checked and verified by a machine alone. our confidence score is 0.9. this means that the ai has also put in a link against which the extracted claim matches perfectly. even when the ai is fairly confident of its findings, they check the results before they are published. for half of the remaining claims, the ai still returns results with less certainty, and so they had to pass their expert eyes over the source material first. the ai really struggled with eight out of the 27 claims which had to be fact—checked completely by hand. this process still takes a little while, anything from two minutes up to more than 90 minutes for claims that have never been made before. so, i asked the man behind logically whether a late—breaking truth would allow the lie
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to have its impact. when you are putting your whole weight behind a claim and saying that this is true or false or based on presently available information unverifiable, some things you gain with latency, but they are not worth losing by getting things wrong every now and then. a recent cambridge university graduate and she knows first—hand how misinformation can risk lives. my grandmother passing away prematurely. she read somewhere that if she gave up her meds that were prescribed to her from a proper doctor and started drinking this specialjuice of some kind, that she would live longer and she would have a pain—free death, etc. and obviously that was all false. and apart from the health risks misinformation pose, the stories are a big political events in the past few years convinced and
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something had to be done. regardless of the outcome above the specific democratic events. it felt process—wise, something was breaking with how we as individuals interacted with information online, and how we were all being shoved into various filter bubbles and echo chambers digitally, and these certainly were impacting the decisions that we were making in our personal lives, but also important decisions that were making a society. for now, fact—checking services have become essential in this fight. but the defining change will ultimately come when the social networks are more able to stop this stuff from going viral in the first place. i think it is time for a bit of star power. what do you reckon, lara? are you up for a bit of star dust?
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oh, definitely. now, many a rock star and musician has swapped the mic for a go at being a movie star. madonna has done it, mick jagger has done it, beyonce too. but these days, video games are bigger than music and film combined. so no surprise one of the most famous names have appeared in games. stormzy is one of the most successful names in the music industry right now. but he is going to be swapping his next gig from the stage at glastonbury, to the virtual streets of london in a video game. we met stormzy to chat about a game set in his hometown, and how the art form has grown up and is now tackling material that talks to the troubled times that we live in. multi—award—winning rapper stormzy‘s new single rainfall has a video with a bit of a difference. (music). it features the croydon musician as a video game character performing
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inside an actual game. i'm about to meet stormzy in the flesh. the game he is appearing in is set in the near future london, and has themes of protest and resistance. i am keen to find out if he thinks this video game has any parallels with things that are going on in 2020. one of the game's main themes is about ordinary people banding together to resist and to fight back against an oppressive regime. do you think that is saying anything about the world that we live in right now? it is very reflective of the times in the sense of, yeah, we, as people, need to be coming together. do you know what i mean? that captures that perfectly in the sense of like, your everyday person being more important than they
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realise, you know. so, yeah, definitely. a third—person action title, watchdogs legion takes place in a dystopian version of a future london, a state controlled by corrupt corporate interests. the player can recruit and control any of the thousands of characters they encounter on london's streets. performing missions that will ultimately bring down the authoritarian regime. all right, everyone! stormzy plays a version of himself and in this fictional world, he is a rapper whose message of resistance is transmitted via a pirated video signal. he spent three days being performance captured at the toronto studio. so, follow the gps, that should take you there. whoa, whoa. stormz, what are you doing? riding recklessly. on the back of there... it is so london.
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is it special being in the game that is set in london? it's the most. i am london. london is me. like i am a proper london boy through and through. and so, it's my city and i love it dearly. it is a big part of me as a man and an artist and my character. this is mad. my bank is up there, literally. if i turn... for people that don't know london, that's coutts and co. the same bank as her majesty the queen! bro, that is me. that is more me than a flipping picture. this is mental! stormzy is not the only musician in a videogame, he joins a long list of other artists that include the likes of 50 cent. and who could forget david bowie? you are not the first
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video game player to get your soul trapped. some efforts could be put down to cashing in on star power to shift games. but sometimes as about an artist experimenting with the new medium. and there are some points of convergence between the two art forms. there is a long history of music being used for protest and to provoke thought about things that are going on in the world today. do you think that video games have the power to do that as well? 100 million per cent. any platform whatever way, shape or form, or whatever mediums we use as creatives and artists, it's a platform to speak out against injustice, for it to be like pillars of truth or whatnot. especially with video games. even down to the reach of video games is astronomical.
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yeah, ioo%. especially with the times we are in, anything can be a platform to speak out. away from games and your music career, your bursaries to universities like to do the things that you're doing? i feel so blessed. i have so many platforms and so much reach, and i feel that it is my duty and responsibility to share what i have. so there is something wrong, that there is something that we need to think about things a little bit differently? these things are set up to address the uneven and injustices in a lot of these areas of society. so, there's so many other people of influence or artists or public figures doing these things to try to just, to uplift those who needed a bit.
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from best—selling grime artist to glastonbury headliner, and now taking on the world of games. the south london star continues to shine. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that the us government filed a lawsuit against google, accusing the company of violating competition law over internet searches and the online advertising. two million ads pricking political campaigning rules attaching false information warnings to a further 150 million posts. and afterjust six months, video streaming service quibi is shutting down. the start—up raised almost $2 billion for its launch, but suffered disappointing download and viewership numbers. it was also the week that nasa selected nokia to build a wireless 4g network on the moon. the proposed cellular network is part of a plan to establish
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a long—term human presence on the moon by 2030. developers of the covid—i9 contract tracing app for england and wales reassured users that none of their data will be shared with the police. this followed news that contact details of people told to self—isolate by the nhs test and trace scheme in england are shared with the police on a case—by—case basis. developers say that the app operates independently of this system. and finally, would you fancy a new dress that changes with the seasons? researchers at yale have developed the fabric with sensors and variable stiffness fibres that show the fabric responding to changes in temperature. when the fabric is cool, the particles stiffen, and in warm weather, they become almost liquid and soften the fabric. while microsoft and sony are racing to be crowned champion in the next generation console wars. nintendo has done something
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very nintendo and said, never mind all that ultra high—definition gaming, how about some augmented reality racing cars? this is mario kart live home circuit, which takes the best—selling nintendo game and turns your house into the race track. and the way this works pretty clever. it contains a camera that streams live footage of your living room to the nintendo switch console which you use as the remote control. in as the remote control. the box is four cardboard gates in the box is four cardboard gates that you can set up around the home in whatever configurations space will allow you to form your racetrack. the software can recognise the gates as you drive through them, creating the course as you go. you also give his cardboard barriers with arrows that will augmented with animations. which are set up, and it's like a regular game of mario kart. but it's all taking place of your own living room.
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you can also race up to four of these karts together to play multiplayer your living room if you got the space, so it will need a nintendo switch console for each one. it goes without saying that you need a fair bit of space to set this up. but you can arrange it in a modest—sized living room and that is because even though on screen it looks like the karts are zooming around the racetrack, in the real world, the kart is just trundling around the living room fairly slowly. it can also make some pretty sharp turns, so you can set it up in a smaller room. although i think you'd get more out of this the more space. there are some limitations to the software. not all the power—ups work in the way you expect them in the regular mario kart game. you cannot hold a banana behind your kart to protect yourself from shells. even though bullet bill does steer you around the track automatically, which i think is quite impressive, it cannot detect obstacles, and you end up crashing quite a lot. so, the augmented reality layer
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doesn't handle occlusions. so it is always overlaid on top of the camera feed. so, here where the track should disappear behind the table leg, it doesn't, and that means you tend to crash more than you would expect, although that's a part of the madness and you do crash, your character reacts on screen. the big question for all augmented reality applications is how much do you actually get out of this once you are over that initial moment of "this is cool"? most of the players i know who are still playing and i think that may also be the issue here. but, with all augmented reality games, i'm left with the question, how is is this better thanjust playing the original console game? and, ultimately, i think it is not. it's just different. it is a different take on mario kart and i think that's fine. hard to say whether this will have the same enduring appeal as the traditional console game, but mario kart is the best—selling game of the nintendo switch, so if any franchise can take ar mainstream, it's probably mario kart.
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that was chris turning his floor into a race track. how cool was that? brilliant. and because we can't all go out as much as we would like to at the moment, our homes have had to become our cinemas, our workspaces and our playgrounds, and that's what lara has been looking at this week. all you need is a projector. there are plenty of projectors promising to bring the cinema home, but there are also some quirkier options, as well as some that'll provide cinema on the go. it wasn't long ago that the idea of a projector turning any surface into a touch—screen, basicallyjust like a tablet, would have seemed the stuff of sci—fi. but that is what the hachi infinite does. take a look at this. the hachi infinite mi projector, uses deep learning, gesture controls, object recognition, and what it calls skeleton recognition, to be able to identify and focus on a surface
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as well as respond to a human‘s touch. i wasn't holding out particularly high hopes for the accuracy, especially when it came to typing on a keyboard like this, but, actually, i found it was pretty good. the system runs on android and can be paired with an android or ios device. as well as being able to search the web and use some built—in apps and games, there's in an ai—powered education feature to play with letters and blocks that it can recognise. a kitchen function is coming soon too, as is a fitness feature that's being claimed to track your moves, letting you know whether they're right or not. you can also use it to project on a wall, although when you do that, you no longer have the touch control available. it also needs to be very close to a wall because if you do it too far away, you accidentally end up shining it on the ceiling and wondering what is going on. that's just wrong — although it is quite cool.
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imagine turning up at your friend's house with this. no, it's not a drinks cooler. it's a 4k short—throw projector, and pretty much everything you need should be built into the box. it streams the content, it's got high—quality speakers, and you can even operate it through alexa or google home using your voice. the viewsonic xio—iik vibrantly projects 8.3 million pixels on a picture up to 120 inches in size. the speakers provide clear, crisp sound, but maybe not up to the volume that the picture might beckon. in a device that's trying to do so much, setting it up to achieve full functionality did feel overcomplicated, though. and, clearly, the standout feature here is that it's a portable 4k projector. at the lower end of the scale is this pocket projector, which you can connect directly to wi—fi or to your phone — maybe you want to do a slide show of some photos,
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or it can double up as a speaker. at a fraction of the price of most projectors on the market, of course your expectations of the viewsonic mi mini plus do need to be managed. getting set up was simple, with a dial to focus and the ability to deal with a range of file types. idid start to have a few issues. a few glitches with the apps, but the sound quality is decent and it's a pretty versatile device so at this price point, it is ok. and here's one for the kids. it comes with a parent portal so the parents can keep an eye on what the children are watching, and prevent them from seeing anything that they shouldn't. plus, it has sensors so if a child comes within 60cm of the light here, it'll automatically turn to protect their little eyes. the anker nebula astro also has all of the streaming services built in, as well as the ability to connect via hdmi, usbc, or bluetooth, providing a screen of up to 100 inches. it's a small but solid device.
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the set—up and the use of all the streaming apps was really slick. the picture quality was sharp and, in fact, the sound was pretty decent for these speakers. but, the price is high, and, i think, for a device aimed at kids, it may be too high. so, there you have it. a few of the latest ways of bringing entertainment home. unless, of course, you'd rather entertain yourself than spend your hard—earned cash on a virtual screen. wow, that projected touchscreen was amazing. yes, it got far more attention in my house the most of the gadgets i'm caught testing. my husband was fascinated. my daughter played noughts and crosses. i'm sorry you haven't had a chance to play. one day. ok, well, let's go from projecting things on the services to projecting things into the sky with lasers. back injune, we told you that this laser maestro had been showing his appreciation to carers and nhs staff by projecting love and thanks across his home city of brighton.
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after a trial earlier this month, laser light city is happening this weekend in leeds. with cities under lockdown and local autumn light shows unable to happen, the idea here is that 25 lasers mounted on buildings around the city will put on a show that residents can see regardless of restrictions on social gatherings. seb created all the control software himself. but this is an interactive show, meaning thousands of people were able to log on to a special website and take control of the lasers. changing the colour, shapes and direction of the beams, which can be seen up to ten miles away. as the dark nights draw in, seb's hoping that can light up more cities, and bring a little laser sparkle to these unusual autumn evenings. anyway, that is it for this week. you can find the team online throughout the week on youtube,
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instagram, facebook and twitter @bbcclick. thanks for watching, and we'll see you soon. bye— bye. hello. if the phrase it's raining again has been used rather too much this month, it will be used again before the month is done. even into the first part of november, more rain on the way. strong winds, looking quite stormy on saturday. so, a chance of further flooding and disruption as a result. and now this is friday's big picture. this weather front producing some more rain, particularly into wales to start the day. scotland and northern ireland, though, behind it will see some sunshine. a mild start to the day for many of us. for scotland and northern
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ireland, a few showers around to begin with. they will tend to clear. we'll get more in the way of sunshine arriving here. just a few showers towards north west scotland into the afternoon. northern england brightening up as well, and the early heavy rain in wales gradually easing. but for south east wales, the midlands, east anglia, southern england, it will stay cloudy. there will be further outbreaks of rain at times, although actually here is where we get to see the higher temperatures. still quite windy. not as windy as it was on thursday. but overnight and into saturday, this is where the winds start to pick up once again. and we'll see more rain pushing north across the uk. ahead of its arrival in scotland, it will be quite chilly. and it does look quite stormy, then, as the weekend begins. a deep area of low pressure to the north—west of the uk, so winds picking up across all areas. gales or severe gales are possible. and another band of rain sweeping east across the uk. some of this rain will be heavy, perhaps including some torrential bursts as well and really quite squally winds as it moves on through. behind it, though, you get to see the sunshine and a few showers.
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strong southerly winds, a few gusts here, but widely towards the north and west of the uk — 60 mph. maybe a bit more, elsewhere 50 mph. again, maybe a bit more, particularly when the heavy rain moves on through. it will be a mild start to the weekend, for what it's worth. it's still looking windy on sunday, particularly across the north—west of scotland. an early spell of rain clearing east, then brightening up to a few showers. then with uncertain timing, the arrival of some more rain pushing in from the west later in the day especially into sunday night. there are some met office weather warnings out. do get across those online for what that means for where you are. and after a windy and at times wet start to next week and of course early november, after that, something quieter, drier and calmer.
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welcome to bbc news — i'm lewis vaughan—jones. our top stories: more troops are deployed to protect religious buildings in france — after three people died in a knife attack in nice. the country is now on the highest security level — president macron described the attack as islamist terrorism. translation: i ask for unity from everyone. that is the message that i wanted to express here in nice today. as europe struggles to cope with a surge of coronavirus infections — the president of the european commission says it's essential to prepare the infrastructure for a mass—vaccination programme.
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