this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. this week, we have a mix of medical marvels. go gently, it can feel that! how e—skin could give robots a sense of touch. so, just lean forward ever - so slightly.- that's good. keep going. keep going.

the machines are going off—road. we ride the wheelchair that can help you through a rocky patch. and on another note, a final note to blow your mind. yeah, we're with the rock singer who's got his voice back. that's a lot of air! the royal college of physicians is the oldest medical college in england. there's a skull eatin: his hand. ., yeah, henry viii founded the place in 1518 and since then, 122 presidents have overseen enormous changes in our understanding of the human body, its ailments and their treatments. in the garden, a reminder of the plants that used to be all we had to treat everything, and which formed the basis of many modern remedies. and in the treasures room, a collection of what used to be

the cutting edge of medicine. literally. urgh, leeches! but as time's moved on, it's remained at the forefront of developments in medical technology. in the 1950s, its members witnessed the world's first use of ultrasound in obstetrics, in the �*90s the world's first robotic surgery, followed in the noughties by the world's first robotic hand. the college has 40,000 members around the world, practising in 30 different specialities. so that's your immunologists, your neurologists, your cardiologists, your gastroenterologists. and our first guest this week needed many specialists and a bit of his own creativity to help him to regain his voice. # this is the moment # this is the day # when i send all my doubts # and demons on their way... #

this is kim hyuk—gun, who's agreed to give us a very special performance as he records his version of this is the moment from the hit musical jekyll and hyde for his youtube channel. # this is the moment # when all i've done... # also present are his assistant, who works the teleprompter, and his bodyguard, whose name is... untranslated which means...tiger. mmm, yeah. right. you know. 0k. he's like tiger. laughter now, hyuk—gun is only able to sing for us and his fans because of a special device which helps him to control his breathing. a, e,0... he vocalises you see, his is a long and painful story. in 2003, hejoined the band

the cross. they were a sensation in south korea and hyuk—gun's three—octave range wowed fans across the country. his career was booming. but then... ..in 2012 a motorbike accident left him paralysed. the first year of his recovery was, in his own words, hell. and the accident took away notjust control of his arms and legs, it had also robbed him of the one thing he valued above all else. i wanted to sing again. but my lungs had shrunk, paralysed diaphragm, make it impossible to make loud sound, yeah, so it becomes difficult to speak loudly. and i couldn't do

abdominal breathing, yeah. what he needed was a way of pushing the air out of his lungs with more force. and then one day, his dad worked out how. during practice, my father pressed on my abdomen, yeah, and i realised that it made my voice louder, yeah. he vocalises softly he vocalises louder i started developing a device to do abdominal breathing. hyuk—gun worked with biorobotics researchers to develop the device, which uses a joystick controlling a padded bar on his midsection to apply the right pressure for the note that he's about to sing. singing requires precise

control, yeah, for expression. it's like playing an instrument, yeah. playing... like playing guitar. richt. ., so the device had to be very precise, very sensitive, yeah. does singing feel different now? i can sing louder and higher. yeah. really? the device, yeah. because there's more... force---— # forallthese years... # and what force! i mean, considering that without the device, even taking in enough air to speak to me is exhausting for him, hearing him do this is just wow. # this is the moment... # newer versions of the device are being developed that use artificial intelligence to learn how much air a person needs, depending on the task

they're doing. but for hyuk—gun, well, he's happy with the precise control afforded by the joystick. # this is the moment... # got a lot of range. you can go quiet and loud. having lost so much, this device has allowed hyuk—gun to keep hold of a dream that one day he'll be able to perform live once again for his legion of fans. it's my life. it's my passion. i don't think i have ever considered anything else. i have a plan. i will sing in a live show. # the greatest moment... # now that's one show i wouldn't miss for the world. # of them all. #

that's... that is a note and a half. yeah, thank you. wow, that was amazing. i know, it's one of the most inspiring - films i think i've made for a long time.- now, a lot of what's in this room could make for some rather painful treatment, but pain is there for a reason. it's often a sign that something is amiss. yeah, and now there's research being done into how we allow robots to feel, too. giving them the ability to understand touch and motion could be important in the development of medical bots. so laura goodwin has been looking at electronic skin. skin is something we tend to take for granted, but actually, it's pretty amazing. helping us navigate and communicate with the world around us.

as robotics develop, researchers are increasingly looking at ways that will allow machines to feel — not exactly the way we do, but scientists at the university of edinburgh have been developing an e—skin that will help robots that need to sense and touch things better manoeuvre through their environment. softer robots is made of flexible materials - and which is safe and easy to use i in particularly unstructured environments. _ it has many potential application fields, . such as prosthetics, and it can be used to make more natural—feeling - artificial limbs, and also wearable technologies, i so it can be used to sense - and respond to the environment related to touch - and also movement. this acts like the function of neurons, wires, -

and this acts as - the nervous system so they can transmit. and conduct the signals an the way up — to the central sensing unit. they are quite similar to the brain. - the e—skin's neurons allow the robot to recognise the feel of their environment. this information is sent as signals. it's then decoded by an artificial network and then visualised onscreen so we can see what the robot is touching. one of the main drivers for e—skin development is because we're going to see a change in robotics in the coming years. now, you might be used to seeing something like this, very traditional, it relies on angles and maths to determine where it is. but what if robots became more like this? softer, more malleable. well, they're going to need more information to determine where they are. our first application- was focused on endoscopes, so we thought that there would be a very clear indication - of how we can - use this technology. so, endoscopes nowadays

are partly compliant. - there have been various occurrences of damages i to the patient and everything. it's not a very pleasant experience. _ soft compliant endoscopes are a new thing. _ the problem with those kind of devices is that l the more compliant they are, the less likely it is— that you are able to actually reconstruct the shape - of the object. so you never. know where the endoscope is exactly, or what kind of configuration it has. - is it pushing against. the tissue, is it sort of damaging the patient? the need for improved sensing capabilities is going to become very pressing. and again, these sorts of sensing capabilities - and technologies will help. and i guess that is part of the challenge, because you need to create something that is malleable, that is strong. yes. so what is in here? i so part of this is carbon black kind of material, _ which is basically a material. that is sensitive to, you know, electricity, if you want. and then the conductive part, which connects one layer - with the other, - is these little wires would be liquid metal, essentially. _

this particular e—skin can detect touch and motion, but there are other labs working on e—skins that can detect other sensations. sojust how far could this go? one of the potential directions is that researchers _ basically are trying to - integrate different kinds of sensors that can sense different parameters, i maybe related to the body. motion, like us, and maybe related to tactile information and maybe related _ to the health care parameters - and to do some health care prediction— or early stage - disease diagnoses. do you want to do exercise again? e—skin development isjust beginning, but it's a burgeoning space with a long list of possibilities for its use. so as machines enter the world of sensation, the question won't be, how does a robot feel? but rather. — how much more can a robot feel?

that was laura. now time for a look at this week's tech news. social networking platform linkedin is cutting 700 jobs and phasing out its local jobs app in china. the microsoft—owned company said the move aims to streamline its operations. it follows a wave of job cuts across big tech. apple co—founder steve wozniak has been explaining why he was among the tech titans warning of the dangers posed by artificial intelligence. mr wozniak told the bbc�*s zoe kleinman that while the tech has exciting potential, he fears it could be misused by bad actors. i think it's going to get better in what it's able to do and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we finally agree on regulations that basically say, you do the bad things, you know, you're out of line. vietnam is cracking

down on anonymous social media accounts. users of local and global social platforms like facebook will have to verify their identity under the proposed measures. the government says it's a bid to tackle online scams. and google used its annual developer conference to fully unveil its first folding smartphone. with dual live translation coming to the phone later this year, the pixel fold looks poised to compete with samsung's foldables. it wasjust really, really chilling and horrible and personally quite violating. this is cristina criddle. she's a tech journalist for the financial times and she's a friend and ex—colleague of mine. last christmas, she made global news headlines when it was revealed that she was one of a handful of journalists who'd had her movements tracked by employees of tiktok. so, two days before christmas, i got a call from the tiktok press officer. she called me up and she said,

"as a courtesy, i think "you should look at the new york times." so i went on to the new york times and i saw the story, and that's how i found out what had happened to me, that i'd been tracked. and how did you feel when you looked at that news article? it wasjust shocking. i was kind of scrolling through it quickly to see what kind of personal information they'd accessed, who was behind it all. i know that they used my location data to try and identify my sources, and i know that it was two staff in china and two staff in the us who were behind it. they've now left the company, but what really struck me was that tiktok has always maintained that access to user data from china would be really restricted and limited, and yet this happens. your tiktok account wasn't cristina criddle, financial times, was it? it was a personal account. it was my personal account on my personal mobile. and actually, ijust wanted to test out the features of tiktok because i write about it, i think it's important to use

the platform, use the editing tools, but i didn't really want to make videos of myself, so i used my cat, buffy, and tried to make really fun cat videos of her, and some of them did quite well. and, yeah, it was kind of shocking to me that two random employees in china, _ two random employees in the us managed to find a tiktok account that was in my name of my cat to try and use that for something that was to do with myjob. buffy, bell. bell dings good girl. last summer, cristina was working on some stories about what working at tiktok was like after a manager at the company had to step down when he told staff he didn't believe in maternity leave. this was on your personal phone, wasn't it? so, in theory, potentially it was also while you were out meeting friends, meeting family, you know, going to the park. yeah, absolutely. and there's no telling when i'm at work, you know, it can be quite flexible, i can meet sources in the evening or on the weekend,

so if my location was being monitored 24/7, that's notjust limited to my actions at work, which it wouldn't be ok even if it was, but this was in my personal life as well, it was... yeah, when i was out with my friends, when i was going on holiday — all of that stuff's in there. so tiktok said it was a mistake and that the people that did it were fired. how do you feel about that? is that enough for you? i've asked tiktok for more details about what happened. i know it happened roughly in the summer but i've not got specific dates, i've not got specific names or really thorough details about what the investigation internally found. and to this day, i've still not had an apology from tiktok either, or any guarantee that it's not going to happen again. the uk's data protection act has strict rules about what companies can do with personal data. i did not consent for my data to be used in this way and we do have very strict protections for that in the uk and in europe, and tiktok has admitted

this was inappropriate access to data. so that's definitely on my mind. tiktok�*s owner, bytedance, said... ..describing it as a significant violation of its own code of conduct. it said the employees who did it had misused their authority and no longer worked at the company. do you still use tiktok? i have to use it for work. i used to really enjoy using it for fun, — like, i was on it for hours, i loved the videos, i learnt some fun cooking recipes and things like that, but now ijust have a dummy phone that i use it for at work and i don't use it. cat meows now, what do you get if you cross a wheelchair with a segway? well, that's what one company has done and created a self—balancing wheelchair that you steer by tilting your body weight. not only can it be operated hands—free, but it also allows users to go multi—terrain across surfaces that most wheelchairs can't —

like woodland, sand or pebbles. and martin dougan's been putting it to the test on brighton beach. i've been in a wheelchair for 13 years now, and that brings some day—to—day challenges. like pushing up and down kerbs, for example. thank you. 0r pushing with an ice cream cone in your hands. please don't fall. please don't fall. please don't fall. there's one obstacle almost all wheelchair users dread — the beach. what may be someone's idea of paradise can be a real nightmare for us wheelchair folk. it's pretty much impossible for my chair to get through these pebbles. but one company has a high—tech solution. cristian and matt both have spinal injuries which left them unable to walk. their company adapt ability combines technologies

from chinese company segway—ninebot and new zealand company 0meo technology to create the 0meo. hey, martin. how are you doing? you all right? _ all good, all good. how are you? - i'm brilliant, thank you. i feel quite insignificant as a wheelchair user in front of you right now. these are amazing. it is the world's only hands—free, self—balancing chair. lean in the direction that you choose and that's the direction you'll go. and it's these all—terrain wheels that enable cristian and matt to go gliding across the beach. when you sit in the 0meo, how does it make you feel? probably the best thing i've felt in my life since my spinal cord injury. ifeel like i can do anything. describe what life was like before you used the 0meo. i spent most of my days indoors. then i come across what was effectively a prototype of this chair at the time and when i saw that i was like, "damn, i've got to get this." we got one over here, ijust got on it, i went straight into the woods, put my dog on a leash, and away we go. i couldn't believe what was happening, honestly. the people were passing by

looking at me like, "what on earth is that?" and i was like, "this is my freedom." can i have a go? let's go for it. balancing in this chair doesn't look easy, so i'm going to need a tutorial before i hit the pebbles. darren. how's it going? i i'm all right, how are you? i'm good. i'm good. i'm no' going to lie, i i'm a wee bit nervous. i'm going to look after you. don't worry. right, 0k, great. what's the worst. that could happen? steering can either be done with a joystick— on the side there, and then at the back you've got a lever. . when i put that lever over, i the joystick no longer works. i do left and right with - moving my body left and right on the seat. 0h! swivelling away. i we need to get you on. oh, go on, then. you'll be fine. | being a little bit anxious, nervous, is a good thing. | so you need to just find that balance point. - so just lean forward ever so slightly. - whoa! that's good. keep going. keep going. and pick up a tiny bit more speed. . good. really good. it took a few runs up and down before i really started

to get the hang of it. but before long i was doing 360—degree spins. that's one of my favourite things about the 0meo, . it's got zero turn. so accessibility, getting in and out of shops... yeah, toilets. it'sjust...| it makes life a lot easier. to sit in, it is really, really comfortable. and it's really easy, i think, for me to understand it and to use it. once you click and you get it, you're away. time to find out a wee bit more about the tech that makes it possible. the 0meo itself comprises of two different technologies. we have a licence for both the self—balancing technology from china and we have a licence with new zealand to source their product, put them together and create the 0meo. what we have here is a very unique product. we have what's called a safety shutdown procedure to make sure that the user is always going to be safe when using it, whether they... totally run out of batteries or they go crashing into something. it feels really safe.

a lot of people might think that it looks dangerous, like you could fall off and hurt yourself, but this is the most secure i've ever felt in a wheelchair. so the real test is out there on that beach. i've never been on a beach in a wheelchair before. can the 0meo do it? we're going to find out. this is cool, innit? engineer tina is keeping close by in case of any mishaps. it's nice. nice. i've done something new today that i never thought that i would do. it really does feel different when you're on this surface. you've really got to kind of concentrate and work a little bit harder to get through this. a brand—new 0meo costs over £17,500, but some people may be able to apply for government funding. so what are my final thoughts on the 0meo? i feel like it's a little bit of a toy.

it'd be difficult to go on trains, planes, buses, taxis, and that's pretty much the way i live my life. but i think for anybody who's got upper limb issues, it's easy to handle. and let's be honest, it looks pretty cool. but for me it's a bit of fun and i'll be sticking to my manual wheelchair for now. brilliant. that was martin dougan out and about on brighton beach, and that is it from us, from the royal college of physicians. we shall be back next week. thanks for watching. hello there. we had big contrasts in weather on friday. west was best in terms of sunshine, so blue skies like these were pretty widespread. and in cardiff we had the warmest weather

in the uk with temperatures reaching 20 celsius. but east scotland and most of england were stuck under this area of cloud, a blanket of cloud, if you like. not that it was much of a blanket — around the north york moors, in fylingdales, temperatures only got to 8 celsius. and with the north—easter, i'm sure that felt more like wintertime. now, where we did see those temperatures struggle across eastern areas, eventually over the weekend, we should see some sunshine break out and that will lift temperatures quite widely into the high teens to low 20s. so eventually, it will get warmer. before we get there, though, we have this pesky low cloud with us again — most of england, east wales, eastern areas of scotland thick enough for an odd spit of rain. and these are the kind of temperatures perhaps if you're up early in the day. now, high pressure is in charge of the weather on saturday. so we are looking at dry weather conditions. the best of the early morning sunshine is likely to be across west scotland, northern ireland, wales and western england. cloudy elsewhere, but that cloud will get munched away by the may sunshine. eventually, there could be one or two areas that keep the cloud across eastern areas of england, around the east coast.

same for eastern scotland. but for the majority, it's dry, it's sunny and it's getting warmer. temperatures, high teens to low 20s, perhaps reaching 22 in northern ireland. if that happens, it would be the warmest day of the year so far. not that 22 is that impressive — by this stage of the year, more often than not, we've already had warm spells with temperatures into the mid to even high 20s. so 22 this stage of may — pah! now the second half of the weekend, we do have a cold front that's going to be dropping rain and dropping the temperatures across north—western areas. so a cooler day for scotland and northern ireland with rain here, and the rain eventually will reach north west england and across wales as well. to the east of that, well, i can't rule out an odd shower, but there will be hazy spells of sunshine and it could stay quite warm with temperatures again high teens to low 20s. cooler, though, in the northwest. that's our weather this weekend. but i want to tell you about a serious cyclone that's heading towards the bangladesh/myanmar border region. this is home to many hundreds of thousands of rohingya refugees.

and the weather looks horrendous — damaging winds, huge falls of rain and a storm surge. this could have potentially devastating impacts.

live from washington, this is bbc news. as title 42 ends, us officials say border crossings remain lower than expected — but there are fears that the numbers could rise significantly. plus pakistan's former leader is free on bail. his arrest has led to turmoil in the country. the boss of russia's wagner paramilitaries has accused the regular army of fleeing in the face of a ukrainian advance near bakhmut. i'm helena humphrey. good to have you with us.

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