this is bbc news, the headlines: the sole survivor of the group that carried out the 2015 attacks in paris has been found guilty of terrorism and murder after one of the biggest trials in ranch history. salah abdeslam was sentenced to life in prison. 130 people were killed in the french capital. the american singer song writer r kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. the grammy winner was called a prolific sexual predator. his lawyers

say they will appeal. nato leaders meeting in madrid have declared the kremlin a direct threat to security. they also said ukraine could rely on the military alliance for as long as it takes in its fight against russia. now on bbc news, click. this week: a high—tech message from ukraine. it's unusual for presidents or heads of government to use a hologram to address people. the artificial intelligence catching the rubbish dumpers in the act, including this suspicious—looking chap. there i am. look at that, bang to rights.

is it a film or is it a game? when you've got a hollywood director on board, it might be both. and is it a puffin? yeah, it's definitely a puffin. yeah, it is, although nick's been distracted by a gadget. is that a wee windscreen wiper? hello and welcome to this big, green, open space. never before have we appreciated outdoor spaces and parks like we have since lockdown. unfortunately lockdown also saw an increase in something threatening to turn our green and pleasant land into brown and unpleasant landfill, the illegal dumping of rubbish. there have been well over 1—million fly—tipping incidents in the uk over the past year and paul carter has been to see how ai is helping us find the fly—tippers. like many countries, england has seen a surge in the illegal dumping of rubbish during the pandemic. some people pull up and dispose

of their waste while others... well, they literally do it on the fly. here on the outskirts of london, a number of councils have turned to tech to combat the issue. cameras, but not as you know them. these use al to catch fly—tippers. since february, over 80 smart cameras have been installed at known dumping hotspots across a number of councils including kingston upon thames and sutton. they're just one of the initiatives of the south london partnership's innovate programme. it aims to harness the internet of things — or iot — to rise to challenges that have risen during the pandemic and help people live better and healthier lives. so i decided to put the cameras

through their paces. unlike regular cctv, these cameras don't record continuously and are only triggered when they detect movement. it not only limits the amount of footage someone has to look at, it also reduces the carbon footprint. the footage is transmitted wirelessly to a secure cloud—based platform and an alert is sent to the council's enforcement team. i've just dumped the rubbish we've seen behind me and you've had that come through to your phone as an alert? yeah, we get a notification on our device. so you'll be able to see in real time almost someone dumping something? yes, 100%. there i am. look at that, bang to rights. it's very clear so we can see the person, we can see what the items are on the trolley. is that important, to be able to identify what it is that they are dumping? very important because we have to know if it's anything that has health and safety concerns.

given that these cameras are operating in busy urban environments, they're often triggered over 100,000 times a day. the captured footage could just show a passing car or pedestrian, so why, then, aren't the council getting thousands of alerts a day? how is the camera able to spot a legitimate fly—tipping event amidst all that noise? well, the magic isn't actually happening in the camera itself, but rather behind the scenes in the cloud. there's an ai, machine—learning element to the process. how does that work and what are the cameras looking for? detection of people is reasonably straightforward. the cameras will do that themselves. the tricky bit is, what is rubbish? rubbish in one environment is not rubbish in another environment. the cameras collect a lot of date of movement in the environment. data scientists will look

at that and make sure we tag and review the footage and making sure the right thing is being tagged, are we getting false positives or false negatives? trying to minimise those elements so that what we see is accurate. so you're actually using a little bit of a human element to teach them context. that's quite a difficult thing for an al to learn on its own. vision technology can identify what a box is or what a mattress is, but it doesn't know whether that's good or bad. i can see shadowy figures dropping off rubbish. it has a green box marked around there. what has it identified? this is one of the computer vision models we use. it is detecting rubbish that has come into the scene of the camera. you may recognise the person pushing the rubbish! the model has detected at a level of 68% accuracy, in its opinion, that

that is rubbish. that's pretty accurate. if we look at other incidents, this one hasn't been matched so this is the same trolley so this should have actually been tagged. in this case it had a person in front of the trolley which is probably why... it might be someone doing their shopping in front of a rubbish bin! so we can draw a box over this and the model will, in future, improve itself based upon this information we give it. it seems that feedback loop is working, with significant drops in reported incidents at former hotspots. the real challenge for councils like the one here is preventing fly—tipping from happening in the first place and notjust potentially moving the problem into other areas. but it's clear to see that technology like the one being used here does have real potential to change the area and improve it for people that live and work here. paul there.

now, can we see that picture of the trolley again? i think that was the teddy i gave him for his birthday! and what's that old chair? what on earth is there?! that's definitely the shot of the show! we've seen how a! can track fly—tippers. i know what you're thinking — can this technology also be used to track puffins? what? trust me, that's what they're thinking. we talked in the past about how putting up wind turbines might affect local wildlife. well, nick kwek has been out to the north sea to find out how one energy company is trying to prevent problems for a population of puffins. nine miles off the coast of wick at the far north of scotland, it's wavy and it's windy. i can see them there on the horizon. i've come to visit the 84 turbines that make up sse renewables�*s beatrice site.

this is one of the uk's largest offshore wind farms with enough capacity to power almost 500,000 homes. the uk government, though, wants enough wind energy to be generated to power all of british homes by 2030 and it has cut approval times for new offshore farms from four years to just one. of course, it's not as simple as just sticking these things into the sea bed. right now with offshore wind and the scale of development we're going to see, we just don't yet know how that's going to impact the ocean, so we always need to think about the impact on habitats and wildlife, especially when we're harnessing nature's resources, we need to make sure that we're protecting the natural environment too. they've been conducting a study with microsoft and avanade on the isle of may in fife, home to fauna such as seals,

ducklings and the much—loved puffin. this is a sanctuary for puffins with around 80,000 nesting here each year. it's estimated because traditional counting has been done by eye, so researchers have found better ways to keep better tabs on them. the effect of wind farms isn't seen immediately in the local ecology, it takes time and it's important we start monitoring the local ecology to our wind farms so we can understand the impacts we have and implement corrective actions and hopefully have a positive impact. they've installed four artificially intelligent camera systems to count puffins and monitor theirflight, each equipped with their own custom—made, marine—grade jackets. you can't buy this off the shelf. we've had this created specifically for these cameras.

the puffins are under surveillance 2a hours a day. is that a wee windscreen wiper? yes, that allows us to perform periodic maintenance, ensuring we can clean the lens of any salty deposits picked up from the sea air. puffins when congregating around, their bodies tend to face out looking down this hill so we have one camera positioned further down the hill looking straight onto the puffin in portrait. this one gives a side—on view. as part of the trial, we really wanted to understand what we give the a! the best opportunity to recognise a puffin. in february, this wasjust a barren ground with no grass or flowers and you can see here now all these white flowers that have bloomed, so the white flowers actually merge with the breast of the puffins in terms of the pixels for the al to pick up so it was actually tricking the ai and resulted in slight inaccuracies until we retrained the model to identify the puffins in amongst the white flowers.

wow. so it actually ended up not being a simple as you thought? it certainly was not, but that was the reason for the trial — to explore, understand what works well, what doesn't work well, and there are many takeaways, one of them including seasonal training of the model. this is chiefly a data—gathering exercise — the initial entries for a long—term puffin digital database. we're already building up quite a strong picture of how the puffins behave during certain times of day, understanding when there is peak puffin activity versus low puffin activity, so very soon we should start to be able to understand when there are anomalies in this behaviour, but at the moment, it is still very early and we're trying to understand the data, pulling it together. we've got a very narrow window of time to ensure we can protect ecosystems that are in danger and so it's something that's incredibly close to microsoft's heart.

is there a bit of responsibility or even guilt sometimes when it comes to addressing the climate change issues surrounding technology companies, having such a carbon footprint? we know that the carbon emissions that microsoft have represent less than 1% of the global carbon emissions, but you are right, the data centre footprint is one that we are focused on and i think in today's world, the demand for data and technology is one that's growing. and to satisfy that demand, we'll need more electricity. the thing is, if we're to reach government targets and lessen our dependence on burning fossilfuels, then we're going to have to embrace renewable energy. let's just hope the roll—out is a harmonious one, for everyone�*s sake.

time now for a look at this week's tech news and you know those pop—ups online asking you to consent to cookies that track your behaviour on the web? well, the uk government is looking to get rid of them and move to a system that assumes your consent unless you opt out. it says it wants to move away from the red tape of europe's gdpr law. viewers in the uk now have access to another video streaming service. paramount+ has launched here with further expansion to europe later this year. experts have questioned if people will pay for another platform, but the stars on the red carpet for the premiere were confident. i think it's wonderful that there are more streaming platforms because there is so much talent out there and i love the idea of everybody getting an opportunity. now that we're allowed back to the office, we might not quite be using zoom so much, but the video meeting software is still launching a new version. features of zoom one will include out—of—meeting

chat and auto translation into different languages for business customers. and students at university college london have developed accessibility software that now works on any computer to let users control the device with gestures. using a web camera, it can detect movements from hands, head, face or even full body, depending on the user's need. it's called motioninput v3 and it's available now on app stores. as some of the big thinkers and doers of the tech industry got together at founders forum last week, discussion on technology's role in ukraine was on the agenda and it was an appearance with a difference. via holographic technology, president zelensky will be simultaneously addressing this conference and some others around europe to ask the tech community to come together and support his country. it's unusual for presidents or heads of government to use a hologram to address people.

many of us have seen president zelensky speak, super compelling, through zoom and 2d, but we thought as a technology event, we had to go one step further and give ourselves a challenge. yep, with a star wars t—shirt and all, president zelensky spoke of his tech vision for ukraine from this slightly larger—than—life holographic display which is known as capsule. shot on a cinematic camera with some very good lighting, the transparent lcd screen effectively uses a light trick behind it to portray depth. but the speech was also filmed using volumetric capture. images from a 21—camera rig have been stitched together to create a 3d model of the president and that's viewable in augmented reality by anyone, anywhere,

as long as they've got a new enough device, just by scanning the qr code. and the kit to make more content like this has been donated to ukraine. but whilst embracing new methods of communication may be good for getting the message out, the ukrainians who i spoke to here discussed the battle with disinformation. there is a huge attack on ukraine also in the media space. there is lots of disinformation that we have to deal with and ukrainians do their best to produce as much truthful information and reports out of ukraine, but more often than we would want to see, ukrainian content gets suppressed. and those with relative power want to help. for wikipedia, we are dealing with this in a lot of ways. we're trying to support the ukrainian community as best we can. we're really proud of the russian wikipedia community because even though they're under incredible pressure, the russian entry in russian language about the war is very

neutral, very objective, it doesn't mince words, it calls it a war, it talks about war crimes and so forth, so, for us, that's really something that's really powerful and meaningful to us, that we should stick to our values even in times of crisis. so what looked on the surface like a day of schmoozing in the sun had a fair bit more going on beneath and the surprise guest list just kept on giving — not that spot the robotic dog looked as approachable as most. we're going to talk about films and video games now and i think it's fair to say that hollywood has had a bit of a love—hate relationship with video games since about the 1980s. sometimes gaming adventures have been turned into big—budget, big—screen blockbusters. some have been great, some have been awful. yeah, let's not forget the recent, pretty good adaptation of uncharted starring tom holland, but let's also all try

and forget adam sandler�*s pixels. hmm. and now the brains behind sci—fi movie district—9, neill blomkamp, is having his go at creating a video game. i love blomkamp. the question is, can his video games be as good as his films? mark's been to vancouver to meet him. he's brought aliens to earth to provoke discussion on race and poverty in present—day johannesburg. and given us a bald matt damon cutting a swathe through an ecologically shattered future los angeles in an allegory for class division. stay back! let him get ahead a little bit. south african—canadian movie director neill blomkamp has long used sci—fi and action movies as a means of exploring contemporary themes and issues. and then you guys check the environment and walk with him that way. now based in the heart of vancouver's visual effects industry, i caught up with him

as he filmed motion capture elements for not the big screen, but a cyberpunk—inspired battle royale video game. it's called off the grid and is being developed by a new studio called gunzilla, a free—to—play game with a script by richard morgan, the author behind the altered carbon sci—fi novels. the game will see 150 players battle it out to become the last one standing. gunzilla also say the game will have a strong narrative element. blomkamp is billed as the company's chief visionary officer, working out of his base in vancouver, canada. what else have we got up here? this is pretty cool, i have another one of these which i filmed behind the scenes... in 2017, blomkamp established a studio here in vancouver to make experimental short films. he called it 0ats.

a lot of the tech used in these shorts is also used in video game development. the experience of 0ats and the experimental films that you've made there, has that informed what you are doing now with off the grid, the game? yes, completely, i don't think i would have taken on the game if i hadn't gone through the process of 0ats. i think something like unreal is going to replace traditional rendering. i think the biggest crossover between films and games is probably going to be built on an engine like unreal, which can either serve passive cinema or active gameplay. primarily it's a battle royale. the focus is going to be obviously on making a sort of player experience that's incredibly fun for the audience to play. if we don't get that right, nothing will really work.

once the battle royale system is working really well, then the focus can be, ok, now, how can we start to inject a lot of these narrative ideas into this without damaging or breaking the battle royale experience? some of it will actually be in game and there will be avenues you can go down, but you will still have 149 other characters shooting at you that are real players. what drew you to working on a video game? this idea of building a three—dimensional environment that a player is dropped into that engulfs you with real—time engines, that's something i wasn't getting from film that just felt incredibly fascinating to me and something that i was interested in for the previous 20 years. so if cinema is one of the defining artforms of the 20th century, are video games one of the defining artforms of the 21st century? yeah, absolutely. i think it goes a step

beyond being a defining artwork of the 21st century, i think games stand a chance of actually becoming sort of a new way of human socialisation. they're going to fundamentally affect humans in a way that films never really did. films and novels were always this passive thing that you can choose to engage with or not. i think where things really will get blurred is some version of social media and the metaverse and games and ready player one and just an online duplicate of reality. the word "games" won't even apply, it'lljust be some sort of virtual thing that you drop into. no, no, no — you listen to me. while neill blomkamp is busy in vancouver, development of the title continues at gunzilla's studios. it's recently been revealed the game will feature nft and blockchain technologies. attempts to integrate these things into games have proven unpopular with gamers.

i spoke to gunzilla's ceo, who's based in frankfurt, about including nfts in off the grid. you can find items in our game. among these items, you may find weapons, body modifications. you're not able to go to our in—game store and buy any item because there is no in—game store. the only way you can acquire new items, you can find them by playing the game for free or you can buy them from other players. but what about the gaming community's concerns about nfts and blockchain technology in relation to video games? all functionality relating to blockchain and nfts is completely optional. we never hide any functionality behind a paywall so everything players are paying for in a game will always be available for free, for gamers to spend more time in the game.

a few big game publishers have tried and failed to convince consumers that nfts and games are a good mix. we'll find out how gamers react to gunzilla's approach when off the grid launches next year. that was neill blomkamp. i love him so much, i cannot wait to see results. just me on that one, then! that's it from us for now. thanks for watching. bye— bye! hello there. a few more showery days lie ahead for most of us. sunny spells, yes, but also some heavy and perhaps thundery downpours.

and some more persistent rain for some of us to start thursday in association with this frontal system drifting its way northwards — a soggy start for parts of scotland and for northern ireland. temperatures as we start the day generally between 10—13 degrees, but let's zoom in on northern ireland because for some eastern parts, especially around county antrim and county down, we can see some very heavy rain through the morning rush hour with the potential for surface water and spray, some poor travelling conditions. also outbreaks of rain across parts of scotland, especially up towards the east and the northeast. a drier start for some western areas. for england and wales, many places start the day dry, but we will see showers popping up, some of those heavy, thundery and quite slow—moving as well with light winds. all the while, the rain across northern ireland and scotland drifts up towards the northern isles. we may see this area of cloud and rainjust grazing into the east of kent, perhaps coastal parts of suffolk and norfolk through the afternoon. temperatures north to south, 16—21 degrees — no great shakes for this time of year. as we go through thursday evening, overnight as well, we will see some showers continuing across parts of wales

and england. most other places staying dry, although there will be some rain grazing into eastern scotland by the end of the night. those are the overnight lows — most of us holding up in double digits. so, quite a complex weather picture to take us into friday. this weather system grazing northeastern parts of the uk, this one will bring cloud and rain later into northern ireland. and in between, yes, we'll see some sunshine, but again, we'll see some showers, some heavy, some thundery. a bit more of a breeze at this stage, so the showers should move through a little more quickly. 15—22 degrees, top temperatures for friday afternoon. into saturday, another belt of heavy, showery rain working its way eastwards through the day, some sunny spells in between. again, relatively breezy, and again, those temperatures in the mid—to—high teens, the low 20s for some of us. but as we move through sunday and into the start of next week, we do see this area of high pressure trying, slowly but surely, to take more control of our weather.

so, the showers should become fewer and further between as we head through the weekend and into next week. for some of us, it is set to turn a little bit warmer as well.

this is bbc news. our top stories: life in prison for the only survivor of the group that carried out the 2015 islamist attacks in paris, but victims say it's not over for them. nothing satisfying about the verdict and nothing satisfying about the fact that it ends, that we still have our injuries and our traumas and our nightmares and our wounds. the american singer songwriter r—kelly is jailed for 30 years for sexual abuse crimes. the shocking moment a russian missile hit a shopping centre in ukraine, killing at least 18 people. nato members meeting in madrid declare the kremlin a direct threat to their security.

ferdinand �*bongbong' marcos jr,