the headlines: the us president—elect joe biden is outlining a $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy. speaking in delaware, described his proposals as a two step plan of "rescue and recovery." concern about brazil's new coronavirus variant has prompted the uk to impose a ban on travellers arriving from south america and portugal. the health system in the brazilian city of manaus is said to be close to collapse. scientists are still in the early stages of studying the variant, which may be more transmissible. the leader of a who mission investigating the origins of coronavirus says his team is embarking on a long journey. they've finally arrived in wuhan, where the pandemic began thirteen months ago, after repeated delays which have raised suspicions that china is not fully cooperating with international health authorities.

the pandemic is notjust having ever —— an effect on education of children, there is evidence that their physical well—being may be affected as well. a report says the children have been less engaged and less active in sport. for the children of this primary school, lockdown learning begins with with mr toby. get your knees up. begins with with mr toby. get your knees un— begins with with mr toby. get your knees up. makes me happy and it's fun- _ your knees up. makes me happy and it's fun. we _ your knees up. makes me happy and it's fun. we can't _ your knees up. makes me happy and it's fun. we can't go - your knees up. makes me happy and it's fun. we can't go to - and it's fun. we can't go to the — and it's fun. we can't go to the park— and it's fun. we can't go to the park and _ and it's fun. we can't go to the park and we _ and it's fun. we can't go to the park and we can't- and it's fun. we can't go to the park and we can't have| the park and we can't have parties _ the park and we can't have parties so _ the park and we can't have parties so fitness - the park and we can't have parties so fitness will - the park and we can't have parties so fitness will keep you — parties so fitness will keep you happy. _ parties so fitness will keep you happy. lt— parties so fitness will keep you happy-— parties so fitness will keep ou ha - . ., ~ , you happy. it makes me feel ha - you happy. it makes me feel happy and — you happy. it makes me feel happy and joyful- _ you happy. it makes me feel happy and joyful. the - you happy. it makes me feel happy and joyful. the schoolj happy and “oyful. the school sa s happy and “oyful. the school saysthat— happy and joyful. the school says that happiness - happy and joyful. the school says that happiness is - happy and joyful. the school says that happiness is key i happy and joyful. the schoolj says that happiness is key to their learning. 50 says that happiness is key to their learning.— their learning. so 15 minutes and it gets — their learning. so 15 minutes and it gets them _ their learning. so 15 minutes and it gets them awake - their learning. so 15 minutes and it gets them awake and | and it gets them awake and ready for the lessons in the morning and gets the day off to a good start. but morning and gets the day off to a good start-— a good start. but as much as gabriel loves _ a good start. but as much as

gabriel loves his _ a good start. but as much as gabriel loves his online - gabriel loves his online sessions, it is not quite as good as the real thing. i sessions, it is not quite as good as the real thing. i like my netball _ good as the real thing. i like my netball lessons - good as the real thing. i like my netball lessons that - good as the real thing. i like my netball lessons that we i good as the real thing. i like - my netball lessons that we used to do in pe but without my friends i can't do those and with the lockdown we cannot communicate. he with the lockdown we cannot communicate.— with the lockdown we cannot communicate. he is not alone. this pandemic _ communicate. he is not alone. this pandemic has _ communicate. he is not alone. this pandemic has had - communicate. he is not alone. | this pandemic has had children hard. a survey today shows activity levels, already too low, have decreased further, with only 44.9% of young people and children in england getting the recommended 60 minutes of daily at liberty. that is a drop of almost 2% from the last academic year. there has been an across—the—board drop in the ten most popular activities such as team sports, swimming and active play, with school full closures eating the figures, only walking and cycling have gone up. but more worryingly, there has been a significant decline in key factors associated with the enjoyment of sport and fitness with a report showing motivated

and confidence have motivation and confidence have motivation and confidence.— and confidence have motivation and confidence. hopefully as we return to normality _ and confidence. hopefully as we return to normality you - and confidence. hopefully as we return to normality you want - return to normality you want your kids to return to the sport they were doing before so it is about putting the work in now and trying to get them involved and stuck in and making everything is fine as possible. it making everything is fine as ossible. , ., ., possible. it is not all bad news. the _ possible. it is not all bad news. the figures - possible. it is not all bad news. the figures today | possible. it is not all bad . news. the figures today saw possible. it is not all bad - news. the figures today saw a rise in girls being fitter but, overall, the pandemic has seen 1 million fewer children be active in england with some troops worse hit than others across all the uk.— across all the uk. there has been a negative _ across all the uk. there has been a negative effect - across all the uk. there has been a negative effect on i been a negative effect on children's physical and mental health driven by a disturbed sleep, inactivity, it has been exponentially worse for those who are on low incomes and we are concerned about the effect on their health.— on their health. keeping children _ on their health. keeping children active - on their health. keeping children active and - on their health. keeping | children active and happy on their health. keeping i children active and happy is crucialfor children active and happy is crucial for the future. while they may have become more difficult right now, it may also have become more important. now on bbc news, click.

this week, we are tearing into 2021 at full pelt but what technology wonders may it hold? we'll ask the experts. and no, you are not having a bad dream, but an artificial intelligence is. hey, welcome to click. happy new year? i hope you got some respite and a bit of a break recently. lara lewington! hello, how are you? i am good, thanks, all things considered. any new year's resolutions your end? absolutely not. don't do resolutions — that means i can't break them. i tell you what, i've decided to stay at home more and watch more tv. what's your plans for

the next few weeks? i think i'll have a quiet start to the year and then, well, i guess we can only hope. but, in the meantime, if you're having that january wanting—to—get—fit feeling, then of course it is going to be a bit harder than usual this year, but you could take advantage of some of the tech platforms that did really well last year. they certainly benefited from the at—home exercise boom. one of those companies is zwift, a virtual cycling platform whose subscribers are now in the millions. and this is no pootle in the park, either. in—app races have taken the competition to extreme levels, and jonathan coates threw himself into this to find out more. for many, cycling during lockdown offers escapism, and more people than ever are hitting the roads. but, for a growing number, the roads they ride on aren't tarmacked. cycling is a sport which has always embraced technology

and now, it's taken the ultimate leap into the virtual world. zwift is an online platform that allows amateur and professional cyclists to train and compete against one another. its popularity has soared during the pandemic and now it has more than 3 million subscribers. by putting a normal everyday bike on a smart trainer — basically a treadmill for a bike with a bluetooth connection — a rider's real—life physical output is converted into a moving avatar. in zwift, the resistance levels automatically change depending on gradients and conditions, and there is a whole host of other tech that can help add to the realism. the more advanced trainers simulate going over cobbles or through dirt tracks, and there are even fans that can match the wind speed to how fast you're cycling. but once you're plugged in, all you need to is start pedalling. you canjoin a group ride, do a workout, or simply cruise around some of the best routes

in the world with maps, stats and data. so to see what all the fuss was about, i thought i'd get stuck in. the plan — to get fit enough so that five weeks, i could take part in a race on zwift. and, in order to do that, i recruited matt rowe, a professional cycling coach who trains people through zwift. it is the future, for sure, for training, and that's for amateur cyclists who have got kind of four or five hours a week, right through to professional ranks. i mean, indoortraining, the benefits that it brings to performance gains speaks volumes. now, there's one key metric that seems to be the lifeblood of zwift, and that's watts. put it like this — your tv needs about 250 watts to work, and olympic gold—medallist bradley wiggins broke the hour cycling record by generating an hour average of 440 watts just with his legs. zwift bills itself as

a training platform and, unlike many sports, this set—up can actually replicate many aspects of cycling with genuine road speeds and conditions, meaning that all the data you gather is comparable to what you get in real life. so matt has set me a test tonight to see how fit i am. basically, it's to see how hard i can push myself and how many watts i can generate. so i've got my screen down here where i can see the training plan, what i've got to do, what he's going to put me on. it's 45 minutes, and it looks pretty brutal. at the moment, i'm doing 167 watts, or thereabouts. my legs are really, really starting to hurt now. that was one of the hardest things i have done... ..for long time. i mean, look at me, it'sjust horrendous. certainly, i had some work to do, and the training carried on five days a week

for five weeks. but while you can train hard and make real gains, it feels like competition is the pinnacle of zwifting. it's where zwift goes to the next level, both for the users and for the company itself. suddenly, the platform switches from being training—focused to something more akin to an esports platform. you can select a race, turn up at the right time and you are suddenly on the starting line with a huge group of other riders. and if you're good, there's serious money to be made from winning. i've heard from several zwifters who say "i've made more money on this one zwift race than i've ever made in an outdoor race that i've ever done". there's been some big cash prizes. at december�*s uci cycling esports world championships, the prize money was almost $10,000 for the winners. incredibly, female cyclists can make more money from winning races in zwift than in real life. so after five weeks of training, for five days

a week, the time had come. it was race day. at 12:30 on a tuesday afternoon, the race began. and i had matt there on zoom to coach me through. pants. that's the most painful thing i've ever done. pants. that was — i mean, it was genuinely really fun. there's a real kind of thrill of racing. it must be unique to zwift. if parents are worried about kids doing too much gaming at home, then get them on this because they'll get fit and, honestly, you can't do it for more than 45 minutes or you'll fall over. but it was time to hear the results. five weeks ago, i had a functional threshold power of 233 watts. so, had the training worked? today, you were 38 minutes, you did 288 watts. wow! so an extra 30, 30—odd watts, 3a watts, and you sustained it for nearly twice the amount of time.

gosh! that's a massive increase. out of 32 riders, you ran 14th. hey! good result! you've got to be happy with that. there was what we call kind of �*sandbaggers�* in the group. there were two riders who were minutes ahead of third place in the cs. there were two guys in the race in my category, category c, who were considerably faster than everyone else. in fact, they came first and second with a minute between the third place, and it's these guys who are essentially are category a riders — they�* re really fast, really light, really powerful — competing in lower categories. you know, i came 1ath, but it sounds like i could have actually come 12th. and ifeel a little bit like — i don't know, ifeel a little bit cheated. perhaps where there's

competition, there's always going to be cheating, and professional cycling has had its fair share of scandals and now zwift is having to deal with digital performance enhancement and other methods of manipulation. but as i began to find out more about cheating on zwift, one name kept coming up. well, i can say this guy's name, camjeffers, because he — it was all over the news anyway. i don't like to be compared to lance armstrong. and i don't think it's unfair to compare me to lance armstrong. in 2019, cyclist and youtuber cam jeffers took part in, and won, the inaugural british eracing championships in london on zwift. but shortly after the race, he was given a 6—month suspension from all racing after british cycling ruled he had breached its disciplinary code during championships. i got a call one day from british cycling saying that they've had an anonymous complaint that my bike wasn't legit. and i was like, "you what? come and check my bike if you want. i don't know what

you're on about!" zwift said the charge related tojeffers using a bot to ride for him to unlock a special bike in—game, thus giving him an unfair advantage over his competitors. jeffers claims that he obtained the bike for a series of youtube videos he was making earlier in the year, rather than for the race. qualifiers — i remember saying to a couple of people, like, "do you not think, you know, should i not be using a bike that i've legitimately unlocked?" and they said "there's no rulebook. there are no rules been written for this event so there is no way you can get disqualified for using a bike that you haven't legitimately obtained." butjust like in any sport, there's a battle between those regulating and those trying to gain an advantage. cheers! let me say this, it was fair they took it away from him, but i think he could have won without the tron bike, so that's the sad thing. zwift are cracking down on any attempts to cheat

in their races with the support of global cycling governing bodies. if the platform wants to be taken seriously, it has to maintain its sporting integrity. i think cheating is probably something we'll have to combat. it will never go away — someone will figure out how to game the system. but having said that, there are things we know we can do, including hardware. so, for example, the world championships this year, everyone will be on the same bit of equipment. in addition to real world anti—doping controls that bar the use of performance—enhancing drugs, there will also be a group of analysts monitoring riders' race data for any red flags when compared to their previous performance stats. after just five weeks of using the platform, i got so much fitter but really, i was hooked, and it was the social element and the gamification that kept me coming back. people were showing up not for training, they were showing up because they crave that social connection. if i think about what zwift could be, it is certainly much larger than bike

racing as a community. if it's a gamified training tool or an esports platform, zwift has hit upon something which has resonated with cyclists. and key to this is the fervent community that is building with youtubers, live streamers, online trainers, and social groups. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that a request to extradite wikileaks founder julian assange from the uk to face espionage charges in america was denied by a court in london. employees from google and its parent company alphabet started a new labour union called the alphabet workers union. and volkswagen showed off its prototype fully autonomous electric car—charging robot which it says will work in places like underground car parks. there were also reports this week that billionaire founder

of chinese tech giant alibaba jack ma had gone missing after he hasn't been seen in public since october. mr ma had been critical of chinese financial regulators as not being innovative enough for technology development. mr ma had been preparing to list his group in what would be the world's largest initial public offering, but regulators shelved the listing after his criticism. data from singapore's covid contact tracing app, trace together, can be accessed by police despite previous reassurances of privacy. initially, officials they said data collected by the app would only be used for virus tracking. researchers from the university of pennsylvania have showed a robot with a body made from ice. the concept icebot could be used in remote locations like antarctica and even mars. the robot was able to claim icy inclines of up to 2.5 degrees and clear light—weight obstacles from its path during testing. 2021, what on earth does it have in store for us?

hopefully some better things than 2020. we've asked some leading tech experts to give us their predictions of things that might be just around the corner. boston dynamics kicked off 2021 in style with a robot routine fit for dirty dancing. but twisting isn't all droids are getting up to this year. i think we're going to see in 2021 is the increased prevalence of robots coexisting in spaces with people. most robot helpers working today zip around controlled areas in factories or warehouses where bystanders can't get in their way. but many more robots are coming to public spaces like shops and hospitals. you may have people who are completely unaware that there might be a robot driving down a corridor.

firms like starship technologies have even run on—street pilots before, but 2021 brings unprecedented momentum. the market wasn't necessarily crying for more kinds of delivery, but now because of covid and in agriculture because of brexit, we're seeing the market looking for solutions. but berry picking prototypes like this won't be the first to scale. running from the field to the pack house and back and collecting new trays, loading punnets on trays, kind of tasks where you could have a robot doing that. so what needs to happen first? you have very large test groups and you build up an assurance that the likelihood of something going wrong is minuscule. an area with other growing risks is cyber security. on your smartphone, app developers can build in tools taking advantage of the device's operating system to make the app safer. but that's not the case

across the board. there are other systems that we rely on, whether that's automotive or medical or your smart city functions, that end up building every component themselves. we all can't be experts at everything, so this is the year that they recognise that it's hard to do everything yourself. a shift is needed, but to what? what makes more sense is leveraging security functionality from platforms so that we are not all reinventing the wheel in every different development team. there should be some places where it's appropriate to find, like libraries, find support from the framework on the platform. if you're wondering what's the worst that can happen if somebody hacks your smart speaker, well, it's notjust about turning the volume up. even if those devices are not managing anything sensitive, right, or that you may not consider sensitive, they're still a launching point to attack your laptop or your ipad.

but although some data is best kept private, in some cases, it's better shared, even all around the world. 2021 will be the year when, for the first time, a truly global collaborative artificial intelligence community will start working together. some global data initiatives do exist, but are generally limited to specialisms like cancer research in health orfraud analysis in finance. the order is actually to combine all of this data together into a single corpus of information. it is a technical feat, sure, but there is a bigger impact here. if you want to know how to improve the healthcare systems, where do you start investing? and this investment will improve healthcare, what about schools,

what about traffic, housing? all these items are correlated and artificial intelligence will help us understand that ecosystem as a whole much better. fascinating. let's see what comes to pass, shall we? ok, let's talk about something completely different now. lara, you know when you look at the clouds, sometimes you can see things in them, yeah? oh, yes! right. look at this photo, right. i took this over christmas. i think it looks like two angels having a chat in this one. i'm always seeing things that aren't there — a bit like when you're in a dark room and there's a bit of a shadow and you convince yourself it's a person and completely terrify yourself. right, 0k, exactly. this is your brain making connections in your mind and spotting patterns that aren't really there. it turns out that artificial intelligence can also have an overactive imagination. so, you know how image recognition software works, yeah? yes — you feed it, say, pictures of dogs so it can

identify dogs for itself, and then it will be able to see dogs in pictures. right. but if you ask it to look too hard, it will start seeing dogs everywhere. now, there is this google researcher who's name —— now, there is this google researcher whose name is alex mordvintsev, and he decided to turn this concept into art. he is the man who created google deepdream. it actually happened in the middle of the night and i really woke up with some weird dream of somebody entering the apartment, and somehow, i'm already woke up and it was 2am. and i had this idea that i wanted to try and i was like, why don't i spend half—an—hour coding? and yeah, there was this cat and dog picture i was using as a starting point for the optimisation. the images i got were so surprising to me that i shared them in internal

message boards. i think the exact text was something like "0k, it's 2am now but how can i sleep now after seeing this?" the sun never sets on the google empire and while alex was sleeping, it was afternoon in mountain view, california, and the image was going viral at headquarters. the unknown engineer from the zurich lab was famous. i posted the actual code into our internal depository and the next week, there were hundreds of people playing with this, and some images started to leak externally and i've seen the reaction of people outside, like "what the hell is going on? what is this?" a lot of people were saying that this is similar to like hallucinogenic experiences. we do see weird things. we see weird things on lsd. but some of the images from deepdream seem like hallucinogenic images

and that could point to a connection between machine vision and the visual cortex. right now, machines are quite primitive, quite narrow. and they can run deepdream, and that's all. but we're running lots of different algorithms. i mean, we are machines — we are running algorithms all the time. and our algorithms can run awry. we can see things that aren't there, like a face on the moon for example. look at a cloud formation and you can see things in it but there are no birds in those clouds. then my wife came along and said "let's print some of the things you did" — like these prints here — and also there were a couple of people who were really wanting to buy prints from me.

so from that point on, i decided, "ok, i can probably call myself an artist as well". we know that artificial neural networks work, but we're not quite sure how they work and that's a central problem in al because, after all, artificial neural networks power driverless cars, as well as play a role in the internet of things. and if artificial intelligence takes charge of critical systems and then goes wrong, it will be crucial for us to understand what's going on in the layers of its brain between the inputs and the outputs, between the stimulus and the corresponding actions. we hope that this work can shed some light on internal duration of the neural networks. it's probably when we design control systems we should make sure that they function in the situation where even inputs can't be trusted

and outputs malfunction. i don't think that we are at the stage of full understanding. maybe there will be this idea of computer psychiatry. laughs. well, i guess we could all do with a bit of dreaming right now, although i'm not sure that's what i had in mind. chuckles. yeah, that's way—too—much of a cheese dream that, isn't it? anyway, that is it from us for this week. as ever, you can keep up with the team on social media. find us on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter at bbc click. thanks for watching — don't have nightmares — and we'll see you soon. bye — bye.

hello. the rain and snow that fell across many parts of the uk during thursday has been petering out. temperatures have been dropping away. surfaces are really wet out there. so with those wet surfaces and some cold conditions, ice could be a big problem on friday morning — fog patches as well. here's the frontal system that brought the rain and snow during thursday, but it has been squeezed out by high pressure. the winds have been falling light — that's allowed temperatures to drop. we've got some fog patches out there, quite widely scattered, actually, across the country, and some ice — especially for scotland, northern england, the midlands into east anglia and the south east — so if you do have to make an essentialjourney, it could be some pretty poor travelling conditions. through the day, most spots will see some sunshine. it is a drier day overall. the odd shower for kent, the odd shower for shetland and a few places across scotland, north east england, the midlands will hold onto fog all day long. if that happens, you'll be pegged back to just one or two degrees. even in sunshine, it will be a chilly—feeling day.

and then during friday night into saturday, rain will push in from the west. i say "rain" — as it bumps into cold air, we could well still see a spell of snow, especially over high ground in scotland in northern england, but even to lower levels, there could temporarily be a spell of sleet or snow, even as far south as east anglia and the south east through the first part of saturday morning as this frontal system works its way eastwards. but we will see some milder air working its way in, so any snow will be quite a transient feature, certainly at low levels it'll turn back to rain. and then even the rain will tend to clear away through the day with sunnier skies and just a scattering of showers following on behind. those temperatures climbing, particularly in western areas — nine degrees in liverpool, belfast, ten in cardiff and in plymouth. now, as we head out of saturday into sunday, that frontal system moves away. high pressure tries to build in towards the south — that's where we'll see the driest weather on sunday. lower pressure to the north, so here we have a greater chance of seeing some showery rain, maybe some hill snow across parts of northern ireland, particularly scotland. whereas further south

for england and wales, you can see largely fine conditions. patchy cloud and sunny spells, and temperatures for the most part between six and nine degrees. into next week, things look pretty changeable. there'll be some rain at times, but not all the time. it will turn a little bit milderfor a while. but how long that will last, we'll have to wait and see.

will welcome to bbc news — i'm lewis vaughanjones. our top stories: the us president—electjoe biden outlines a $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy. 0ur rescue and recovery plan is a path forward with both seriousness of purpose and a clear plan with transparency and accountability. concern about brazil's new coronavirus variant prompts the uk to impose a ban on travellers arriving from south america and portugal. after repeated delays, a world health organization delegation arrives in the chinese city of wuhan to look into the origins of the coronavirus. and from heatwaves to wildfires, scientists from around the world agree the last decade

was the warmest on record.