the headlines: joe biden says he's on course to win the us presidency as vote counting continues. michigan is projected as a biden win, and it looks like he could also win wisconsin, putting him ever closer to winning the electoral college. european monitors described the election as competitive and well—managed. the trump campaign has launched legal action to stop vote counting in michigan, in pennsylvania and georgia, accusing democrats of scheming to disenfranchise republican voters. mr trump's campaign has also called for there to be a recount of ballots in wisconsin, saying there had been reports of irregularities. the democrats are expected to remain in control of the house of representatives, but with a reduced majority. in the senate, they have been unable to unseat republican susan collins. the democrats needed to gain three senate seats to take control. so far, they've made a net gain ofjust one. welcome to bbc news —

i'm mike embley. our top stories: it is about 3:30am. joe biden says he's on course to win the us presidency now on bbc news: click. but the vote halloween is here and this week, we have robotic tricks... counting continues. ..sailing treats... i'm not here to declare that we've won, but i'm ..eerie earbuds... here to report that ..and... when the count is finished, we believe we will be ..a presidential election! the winners. the trump campaign launches legal action to try to stop the counting in michigan, pennsylvania and georgia — and wants a recount in wisconsin. and we visit one so—called swing state — where the record number of postal votes mean they've got a lot on their plates. welcome to click. i hope you're 0k. listen, halloween might not be happening outdoors this year, but i tell you what — it's certainly happening indoors here, at least. let's cross to lara's haunted house and see what horrors await. wow, you've got lots

of halloween there! yeah. turns out i do. do you think i've overdone it slightly? oh, no, i love it! you have gone stylishly minimalist as always, i see. yeah, all i could find was this skeleton in my closet. i don't really have anything else to decorate the house with. do you know, i've never been trick—or—treating. have you not? well, look, many of us won't be trick—or—treating this year, but there are some people who try to make it as safe as possible for the kids who do pass by. trick or treat! this is luke key from austin, texas, and he's out to save halloween. he's been finding ways to dispense sweets from a distance. he's experimented with dropping them from a drone and even firing them from an air cannon. but i think his star creation is this, artie the robot. after eight years of tinkering, its latest skill is distributing socially d ista nt sweets.

it runs on arduino microcomputers, weighs in at about iliokg, and has been shrunk down to avoid scaring the kids. goodbye, guys. bye! just readjusting the lighting to something more sensible, because straight after halloween, there is another american horror story. never mind who wins, the run—up to the us presidential elections has been a political nightmare for many. two candidates yelling at each other, misinformation completely clouding the very real issues that the country is having to deal with, and of course the debate over whether masks are too scary to wear. now, for a long time there have been attempts to try and engage younger voters and also to make voting more accessible for people with disabilities. in the us, a few states have been running small trials to see whether technology can play a part, and james clayton has been to one of those states to see it in action.

america is about to hold an election that feels like a crossroads for the country, and already tens of millions of people have already voted either by postal voting or voting early in places like this. but is there a simpler, more technologically advanced way of voting? you can do your banking, even your tax returns online. so why can't you vote digitally? well, you might not know this, but in some states, you actually can. this is terra from west virginia. she's been disabled since the age of two. it was very simple. i mean, literally in less than 15 minutes, i had gone online, entered the information, got my ballot, voted, signed it, and sent it off. several companies are trialling mobile voting in this presidential election in a very limited way. those who are eligible are members of the armed forces and people with disabilities.

one called voatz does it by mobile. another called democracy live uses a web browser. so how does it work? when finished filling out your ballot, select continue at the bottom of the page to move on to the final step, where you will sign your ballot and review your ballot packet. well, every state is different, but all of the pilots need some kind of verification that it's actually you. that could be facial id or a photo of your id or a signature. then it acts very much like a postal vote. that's until you send it off. voatz uses blockchain to store your vote. democracy live keeps the data in amazon's cloud. a copy of your ballot is also printed out. the voatz app is being trialled in a county in utah, democracy live in west virginia, and jurisdictions in oregon and south carolina. it's not a huge trial. at most, a few thousand will vote this way. the pilots are all being funded by this man, bradley tusk. an early investor in uber, he's got deep pockets

and big ambitions. you know, i'm not doing this just because i want to make it easier for military to vote or people with disabilities to vote, but because i want to radically increase turnout overall, so that we move things into the centre, right? and so that everybody votes, and that means having technology that can handle millions of votes. so why aren't we all e—voting? why aren't we all voting on our mobile phones? well, it's because there are a lot of people who are very sceptical of the technology, and some believe there are some serious security flaws with some of these apps. i caught up with michael — he's reverse—engineered these two electronic voting systems and says he's found security flaws in both. i'm definitely surprised that it was as easy as it was.

i think there's a lot of things they could have done to make it much harder, but overall, those sorts of problems are not necessarily solvable in using the current technology, which is one of the reasons why we wanted to take a look at this system in the first place. here's the example he gives. remember the online banking comparison? well, this is why he thinks that's not a fair parallel. when you bank online, you can actually see a transcript of how you, you know, spent your money, and you can say, "hey, this transaction says that i spent $500 in the uk, but i live in boston and have never been to the uk, therefore this is obviously fraudulent, right? " you can't really do the same thing with voting, because if you can prove the way that you voted, if you can have this transcript, someone else can get a hold of it. i put some of these criticisms to both of these companies. first, democracy live.

at some point, we can't hold back the tide, right? next—generation voters are going to demand next—generation voting technologies. we're going to learn lessons, right? that's why we're starting small and responsibly with voters that would be otherwise disenfranchised. we don't have all the answers right now. the academic community and the security community don't have all the answers. that's why you do smaller responsible testing, learn the lessons, and then build from there. and that's what we're trying to do right now, and we're starting with groups that today would be otherwise disenfranchised. i put those same questions to the founder of voatz. obviously, it's new, so there will be criticisms. so we welcome the scrutiny, but at the same time, a lot of that is hypothetical. just by looking at one piece of the system without actually transacting with the system in any meaningful way often would lead you to incorrect or incomplete assumptions. so what did terra think of her experience of voting online? i like it for people with disabilities, because it gives us options, and we need

options because some of us just can't get out. some of us require special tools in order to write or speak, and i think that it's a good option for people like that, but i am not necessarily an advocate of electronic voting without a lot more security around. both types of voting have been used before in local elections, and both companies say they've never been successfully hacked. is e—voting the future? are voting stations like this the past? not so fast — because even the advocates of this technology say that technology is not quite there yet, which does rather beg the question, why is it being tried in a us election?

but perhaps these small trials may help to one day offer another safe and secure form of voting in america. just maybe not quite yet. james clayton there. of course, this isn'tjust a debate limited just to the us. the pandemic has played havoc with elections around the world, and the arguments for and against online voting systems have been given new life. but in one country, it has been a reality now for well over a decade. way back in 2005, digitally—savvy estonia became the first country to allow online voting in elections. skip forward to their 2019 general election, and 44% of voters filled out their ballots online. and there have been other examples of positive engagement with internet voting across the world. back in april, the labour party elected their new leader in an online ballot in which a 70% of its 550,000 members voted. this way of voting makes a lot of sense — it's less expensive than the traditional in—person system, and for many it isjust easier. and could online voting be the way to engage a younger generation?

as time goes on, online voting will become more and more important for young people. because society will become increasingly digital, increasingly online, whilst at the same time our voting system will look exactly the same as those that existed in the 1800s. therefore you are going to have a big divide between democracy and the way that people live their lives. we can have elections, but there are still thousands of people who can't physically vote, and therefore we have elections but we're not a full democracy.

however, many claim that online voting is still too vulnerable to cyber attacks and security breaches. malware could tamper with votes before they reach government servers, and hackers could create mirror versions of an election portal, steal voter credentials, or even attack the computers that count the ballots. but in estonia, there have been no serious security issues. however, crucially, online voting is linked to the country's state—of—the—art electronic id cards, which estonians use for everything from paying taxes to accessing health records, and not every country has such a solid digital infrastructure in place. and some countries just don't want to take the risk. after years of testing, for example, switzerland was hoping to push forward with online voting — but in 2019 decided to end trials after flaws were uncovered in the proposed system. regardless of whether you're

for or against internet voting, all would agree that the stakes could not be higher than in major elections where there can be zero doubt cast on the outcome. so we may have to settle for waiting in line at the ballot box for a little while yet. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that harley—davidson revealed its electric bicycle, the serial! will go on sale next march. the ceos of google, facebook and twitter, face hours of questions from us senators on censorship and misinformation on their founders, and alibaba founder jack ma's new online payment group detailed his plans for a stock market debut next month. it is said to be the world's largest ever. it was also the week that spacex satellite internet service started recruiting beta testers with low expectations to test its broadband.

for a fairly steep $1199 a tester will get a router and terminal to connect to the satellites, giving access to what an e—mail describes as "better than nothing" internet service. the release of the highly—anticipated game cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed again until december 10th. a letter from the developers cd projekt red apologised for further delays and said they knew the announcement would raise emotions and questions. spot, the boston dynamics robot dog, was sent to chernobyl to help sniff out radiation. 3a years on from the disaster, 200 tonnes of radioactive fuel is estimated to still be in the area. and finally, we met another robot named spot who's also learning to behave like a dog. a team from johns hopkins university are training this robot using dog training techniques of positive reinforcement. when it performs a task well, the robot gets a treat. researchers say it can achieve in two days what would usually take a month of training. the headphone market is seriously overcrowded, so companies are having

to get a little bit more creative these days. take a look at this, for example — it looks like one speaker, and it is in this form, you call this party mode, but you can also separate them into two and place them up to 22 feet apart to create stereo sound. plus, take a look inside, and you've got a pair of true wireless earbuds. each part of the duolink go speakerbuds has six hours' battery life, and the buds can be recharged when they're sitting in the speaker. i've had a bit of a problem with getting earbuds to fit and stay in my ears. now, as i've often said before, this may be because i have strange ears, but these ones actually fit very well, so they're great for strange ears. this isn't the most amazing audio i've ever heard but for something so versatile at this price point, i don't think i complain. and now something for a quieter life. cocoon relax are claimed to be the world's first sleep—aiding headphones, so they hope to help you get a better night's sleep but they could

also give you a little bit of relaxation during the day. hm, i can't really do it here, can i? yep, i got a rest on thejob again. they use cognitive behaviour therapy methods to provide relaxation as well as being full of biometric sensors. the device's eeg sensor aims to track brave waves along with monitoring motion and heartrate, combining them with info on the user's environment. this allows them to personalise the programme — for example, change the audio when you've fallen asleep, or if there's some background sound, then add some white noise. you do, of course, have to buy into the idea that you would want to sleep in a pair of headphones. admittedly, they are extremely comfortable, it's just that if you try to move away from your back, it is quite hard to keep them in place. also, i do sleep pretty well and, to be honest, i don't really have much desire to relax — which maybe means i actually

need to — so i'm not sure i'm really their target market, but the thing i can see them being very useful for would be on an aeroplane, not that i'm actually travelling anywhere right now. an earbud version is coming soon too, and there are plenty of other wearable sleep devices out there, including other earbuds aiming to help you get the best out of your slumber. here, i have the ouieton sleep earbuds. one of the things they can do is use noise cancelling to get rid of any snoring. hopefully they can do that for my own. i tried them at ces a little while ago on the show floor, but now i can test a pair to go to bed. with ten hours battery life, there's plenty of time for good night's sleep. the noise cancelling and flattening did a greatjob of dampening down low—frequency sound and they were surprisingly and comfortable, but the one on the side i was sleeping on kept falling out by the morning, which is clearly a problem. although maybe my strange eears are to blame again! yes, they do a better job than foam earplugs,

but they do so with a pretty hefty price tag. but if you simply want a bit of silence, or at least some of the time, then these prototype earplugs are an interesting proposition. the idea is you place them deep inside your ears — as absurd as it sounds, i actually had to watch the video to find out exactly how to do it because it's not at all instinctive — but once you place them inside, further than i thought anything could actually fit in my ear, byjust using this dial at the side, you can reduce the volume around you by between five and 38 decibels. to put that into context, the company claims that's losing around 80% of household sound at its highest. and if you keep it on its lowest it barely makes a difference and the reason that would be useful is the company's premise is that you would wear them all day. you simply adjust them as to whether you want to turn up or down the volume

of actual life. these are just the prototype, and i wasn't really sold on the idea that i would want to keep them in all day, but if you, do with no battery and having been sitting in the depths of your ear canal, then you may be pleased to know that they can be washed in soapy water. wow, they look like they go right in — did they touch your brain? yes, i think so — it felt like it! 0k! now, you may remember a few weeks ago we took a look at the america's cup, a sailing race at the cutting edge of design tech. this week, we're going back to sea — this time for the start of a round—the—world race with a twist. all of the sailors have to do it completely alone. travelling 27,000 miles, it takes competitors 80 days of constant sailing. they can only pause for 30—minute bursts of sleep. so, naturally, this can impact their mental health. and one competitor is taking on some tech that she hopes could come to the rescue. zoe kleinman‘s been

to the south coast of england to find out more. this is pip hare. she's taking part in this year's vendee globe race. i don't think there is another sporting event on the planet that asks so much of human beings. pip‘s trying to beat the world record set 15 years ago by dame ellen macarthur. the challenge is physically tough both on the sailor and on the boat. but something that can be overlooked is the mental health strain of being completely alone at sea for weeks on end. it is why pip‘s team is going to keep a eye on her wellbeing. pip‘s boat is kitted out with every gadget you'd expect on a 21st—century craft. autopilot, gps, led flares, but what sets it apart is that mental health tech is also part of the package.

i'm really interested in how you're going to cope with being completely on your own for such a long period of time. so it is a long time at sea, but i'm really not alone, i'm well connected. i have two satellite systems, i can upload video, i can whatsapp chat... and this connection to shore is where this 20—year—old yacht truly becomes cutting edge. pip‘s team plans to use artificial intelligence to understand how she's really feeling from the videos she shares during her voyage. it's looking at the text that's been transcribed from anything anybody says, and it's giving us a sentiment about positive, neutral or negative, about what's being said. and then it's also looking at your facial expressions as you are talking to identify emotions. anything from joy to effortful thought to emphasis, as well as things like contempt and disgust.

so when pip uploads a video, say something like this... it's my last day in poole today. it ends up in a system that looks a little like this, which picks up all of the different emotions that she's experiencing. this then allows her team to work out how they might be able to help her. it's really do...we sense that pip isn't asjoyful as she has been over the past week and do we want to have another phone call that really tries to lift her spirits? but to give it a fair trial, i thought i'd have a go too. and i don't think i'll be needing a pep talk any time soon — i seem pretty chipper. back on land, this technology is used to do market research, analysing video uploads from customers. it basically replaces the focus group, and medallia claims that lets companies monitor emotional responses to their products. but when it comes to this race, i'll be interested to see just

how useful it is. the team is still limited in what support it can provide remotely. looking after pip‘s mental health includes helping her make good decisions especially when she is tired. she plans to survive on just 30 minute bursts of sleep. it is not always easy to understand how well my cognitive function, how it might be impaired or how well it is functioning. so i am working with a company who specialises in monitoring rare health conditions for patient management. and they have written me an app that will help me assess my own cognitive ability while i am out there. for me, if i am about to make a big decision, maybe i might decide to have a bit of a sleep before i make the decision. this app called oxygen gives her regular prompts to complete basic maths challenges, a bit like brain training, and the speed and accuracy of her answers indicates how good she is.

i get a notification through my wearable, so there is a forward memory task where i recall the numbers in a list going forwards. there is a backwards memory task, same again, just a little bit harder. without the app i would just do it through mental arithmetic tasks, but the app gives a bit of regularity to what i am doing, and then we're also collecting the data so that we can learn from it when i get back. it is crazy to think that, the next time i come back, i will have sailed around the world. that was zoe kleinman with pip hare. we wish pip all the very best of luck for the race. that's it for click this week at halloween. lara, what on earth?! well, you clearly didn't think i was making enough effort, so i'm now mixing you up something in my cauldron. anyway, you can keep up with the team throughout the week — won't that be fun? we're on youtube, instagram,

facebook and twitter @bbcclick. thanks for watching, and we'll see you soon. echoing: bye! hello there. it's pretty cold out there at the moment across more southern parts of the uk. wednesday started with some frost quite widely in england and wales. what followed was a generally dry and sunny autumn day. but, for scotland and northern ireland, we saw more cloud moving in during the afternoon and the evening. you can see that clearly on the satellite picture from earlier on. that cloud moving very slowly southwards. we actually have weakening weather front bringing some damp and drizzly weather and lowering the cloud onto the hills. but we've got high pressure across the south, this

is where we've got the clearer skies and we've got those lower temperatures as well. milder in the north, but colder in the south. maybe some frost around for mid wales, midlands and southwards. notjust some frost, some mist and fog too. that's going to be dense in places in the morning. gradually through the morning that will tend to lift and break. may take a while in the home counties, mind you. then we get sunshine coming through. but, for north wales, northern england it looks quite cloudy, damp and misty over the hills. further north, we've got more of a breeze from the atlantic. that's significant. it's blowing in a lot of cloud but the cloud breaks to the east of the high ground in a bit of scotland. and a bit of warm, 15 or 16 degrees. elsewhere ten to 12. similar to what we had on wednesday. this time in the morning we've got much more mist and fog around. and into friday morning, again there will be dense patches of fog. again it's more likely for the midlands southwards. this time on friday that fog will tend to lift more readily. the breeze will pick up a little bit more and we should see sunshine developing.

further north, some low cloud around, misty over the hills. cloud tending to thin, some sunshine coming through away from the northwest. the temperatures ten to 12 degrees again. a little bit milder perhaps towards the south east, but the winds are picking up in the far southwest. the wind direction is changing just in time for the weekend. that's going to be quite significant because that's going to draw up some milder air and push it very slowly northwards. instead of the high pressure that's keeping it quiet at the moment, it'll be quite cold. that's moving away towards continental europe. and lowering pressure from iberia means we've got the threat of some rain coming up from the south. maybe the odd shower around on saturday rain across northern and western areas on sunday. temperatures gradually rising. higher temperatures towards the south possibly up to 16 or 17 degrees celsius. 00:28:01,673 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 airand