this week, we brave the arctic permafrost to visit the ultimate data storage vault. it's a remote destination, far away from wars, crisis, terrorism, disasters. so, what could be safer? nick goes down under to meet the people helping to preserve one of the great wonders of the world. though some of the techniques are quite old—school. it looks like a giant thermos flask. it really is. spencer challenges the boss of lg to gaze into his crystal ball in a no holds barred 0&a. the year is 2030.

my hair is still suspiciously brown. what does the home of 2030 look like? and alasdair goes behind the scenes at disneyland paris to find out how tech is being used to bring the characters to life in one of the attraction�*s most popular shows. what happens if our most what happens if our most valuable data is lost? valuable data is lost? or if, years from now, or if, years from now, the technology it's stored the technology it's stored on becomes obsolete? on becomes obsolete? the search is on to find the search is on to find solutions that will stand solutions that will stand the test of time, and one the test of time, and one answer may lie close answer may lie close to the north pole. to the north pole. inside a former coal mine. svalbard is an archipelago high svalbard is an archipelago high above the arctic circle. above the arctic circle. isolated and far away, isolated and far away, it's home to a vault that aims it's home to a vault that aims to be the ultimate to be the ultimate backup for our data. backup for our data. we're about to head we're about to head

inside a former coal mine. it closed down three decades ago, and now it's home to the arctic world archive. it's certainly an unlikely location. it's a remote destination, far away from wars, crises, terrorism, disasters. and it's regulated by an international treaty. it's a demilitarised zone, so what could be safer? far away from everything, accepted by all the superpowers in the world.

it's all put on reels of film kept in these silver packets. what sort of things are stored on that film? now we have more than 100 deposits from 30 plus countries across the world, so it's a wide selection of cultural heritage, history, literature, art, music, you name it. and since its launch seven years ago, the archive has been filled with treasures. there are surveys of the taj mahal, old manuscripts from the vatican library, observations of our planet from space, plus music, movies and paintings. and among them, norway's most treasured artwork, the scream. this is a very special container... and in this box is a copy of all the world's open—source code, the building blocks of most of the world's software and websites that we use.

it's incredibly important for humanity to secure the future of software. it's become so critical to our day—to—day lives, we're essentially building another wonder of the world every day by working together to write software. we looked at a variety of different storage mechanisms and also how you'll actually be able to read them. ultimately, you can read it optically. you canjust magnify the film and read it optically. it's dark, dry and very chilly down here, conditions which its owners claim are ideal for storage that could last centuries. storing this information down here in the depths of a mine, how does that help preserve it? today, there is a lot of risks to information and data. there is terrorism, there is war, there is cyber hackers. nobody can guarantee what will survive, so this is a place to make sure that information survives technology obsolescence, time and ageing.

it all sounds rather dystopian. even here in the arctic, there are questions about security. and a thousand years from now, will people understand what's here? so, the data are stored on reels of piquilm, which is an information carrier that cannot be hacked, data cannot be deleted, data cannot be changed. and it's self—contained and self—descriptive, so that means on the film itself, stored in this vault, you have all the instructions future generations will need to have to really understand what it is and how we can use it, and how we can get the data back. the archive�*s owners also run the data preservation company piql. and back at its norwegian offices, all those files are printed onto film. there is a sequence of bits and bytes. we convert the sequence of the bits, which come from our clients' data, into images.

in some ways, it's quite old—school technology, but that's the idea, and it's intended to be easily readable even far into the future. this is the latest group to travel all the way to svalbard to deposit their reels in the archive. just behind those doors, a deposit ceremony is taking place right now, and there are individuals and organisations from around the world who are depositing their films inside the vault. so, we will invite you... one by one, reels are added. for many here, it's a significant moment. the latest deposits include original manuscripts of chopin's music, archives ofjaguar car models, and recordings of threatened languages. even images of islands that could disappear as sea levels rise. today, i deposited a footage, photography footage, visual witnesses of the marshall islands. it's an atoll state,

which means it's, like, the highest point of the island is three metres, and they're facing a huge impact of climate change. no—one knows how long this archive will last, but people are making plans to preserve the data we have today, no matter how uncertain the future. one of the seven wonders of the world, the great barrier reef is the largest living structure on the planet. it's home to a quarter of our marine life and serves as a carbon sink, removing c02 from the atmosphere. one of the seven wonders of the world, the great barrier reef is the largest living structure on the planet. it's home to a quarter of our marine life and serves as a carbon sink, removing c02 from the atmosphere. at its core is coral. the animal has suffered rising sea temperatures, leading to recent mass bleaching events, turning them

ghostly white and sometimes dying. at the latest cop29 event in azerbaijan, it was announced that 44% of the earth's corals are under threat of extinction. but innovations are unfolding and at sydney's taronga zoo, efforts are under way to help. one idea being developed here is to preserve coral for many, many years to come and it's very cool. this is the world's largest cryopreservation bank of living corals. they're freezing them for the future. they have had a pause button pressed on their biological clock, so these cells are frozen in liquid nitrogen, and the temperature of the liquid nitrogen is —i96 degrees celsius. it's very, very cold. so, you can see exactly what we're looking at. wow! i won't pull it out, because we don't want to warm the samples up... yeah, of course, yeah. ..and damage them, but they're sitting nice and safe inside that tank there. they can go up a little bit

warmer and not be damaged. uh-huh. but anything above —150, we don't want. right, 0k, well, let's get the lid back on, then, and keep them safe. let's do it. they're frozen in time, but these are living cells that we can thaw out decades, centuries into the future to ensure that genetic diversity is not lost and that genetic diversity can be introduced into populations. roughly half the samples survive, but using computer—assisted analysis, researchers are able to determine which sperm to put on ice. this particular sample has a large number of sperm moving. you can use it to monitor sperm quality over time and there's a bit of artificial intelligence in there, that machine—learning approach for predicting, for example, which colonies we should be biobanking from. they've got around 4,000 vials. it equates to more than 4 trillion sperm. a lot of sperm in those vials. getting them here requires careful transportation.

so, this is a mini tank. it looks like a giant thermos flask. yeah, it is. it really is. and this one�*s empty, so you can actually see a canister, and this will hold the samples in place when they're being shipped. oh, wow. you can see that barcode there, which identifies everything from the species of coral, the number of sperm in that vial, the sea country of the corals, so where those samples came from. and so that vial... there'll be about five vials sitting on this cane. yeah. and that cane, after the samples are frozen, will be put inside that canister. yeah. and then that canister... so that goes inside there. ..goes back inside the tank. set for travel. let's put it back. how much of an impact will this work have on restoring the reef? we're seeing corals not being able to withstand these higher temperatures and so we're losing genetic diversity each summer. you can screen certain colonies for those heat tolerance traits, and then we can prioritise our biobanking activities for those

particular reefs. spawning, which is the mass event when coral release their eggs to be fertilised, only happens once per year, but the team are designing a workaround. we can only cryopreserve sperm and use that sperm during spawning. if we can cryopreserve larvae, because they represent the male and the female genome, we could potentially put them out on the reef at any time of the year. coral ivf is only part of the preservation puzzle. over at queensland university of technology, robots are being developed to help raise coral babies. we want to image the corals in order to automatically assess and measure their health, so that we know that the corals are growing well, how many there are and when they'll be ready to go back onto the great barrier reef. traditionally, all of the counting is done manually, which involves a trained expert hunched over a microscope, counting very tiny microscopic corals one by one over a small area that is only about 30 by 30cm.

while it takes an expert about an hour to count one tile, it takes us a couple of seconds. couple of seconds?! the system is 88% accurate, which dorian says is as fast asa human. even so, they've got their work cut out for them. we need to grow over 10 million corals per year, and so to do that, we need to have tens of thousands of these coral tiles being measured and counted every single week for up to 12 weeks. you end up costing, just in pure counting time, over $6 million per year. as well as cash, it could save lab time by generating heat maps. you can just look for the brighter spots and know that the corals are doing well. do you really think that this project will help save the reef? there's certain high—density megacities across the great barrier reef that if you target those, you can have maximum effectiveness. we are targeting the damaged

reefs and trying to tip them over to surviving for many more decades to come. now for a look at this week's tech news and yes it is back the consumer electronics show has opened its doors in las vegas, 4.5 thousand exhibitors including a thousand start—ups, everything from robotic dogs to string lists guitars. plus the biggest names in tech showcasing the next generation tv and smart home innovation. click is also here at the show we will bring you the coolest things we have found in a special programme next week. elsewhere apple has said it will update its artificial intelligence tools, this is after the bbc complained about inaccurate summaries of its headlines appearing on the latest i—phones copy the

feature is meant to provide users with a quick overview of notifications from various apps they may have missed but the bbc several of its headlines were rendered inaccurate. apple says an update to apple intelligence will be rolled out intelligence will be rolled out in coming weeks. finally a robotics company has just shared the open source data set it is used to make its range of robots danced just like humans. unitary robotics is well known for its a—legged robots and humanoids, it is hoping by making the datasets widely available it will be easier for other developers to create robots that can interact more naturally with the world. music: together we are one by disney music group. i'm exploring behind the scenes at disneyland paris to find out how they bring some of cinema's best—known characters to life, including on the stage

at the together musical. it's a performance that mixes traditional theatre with technology to immerse the audience in different pixar worlds. it's all about charlie... ..a child who is passionate about music and he dreams of conducting the orchestra. but something unexpected happens. it always does. of course. band plays 0ur favourite disney toy story pixar friends join forces and we're going to travel all around and through the pixar stories with them. this is the music charlie's supposed to conduct, and it's everywhere. and...oh, no, it looks like lots of pages are missing. we want for our audience to be part of the story, to be part of the show with our characters. it's notjust you are coming and watch the show right here on studio theater, you are part of the story with them, so you feel

the emotion with our characters, with charlie as well, and you are part of the show. toys cheer look, buzz, be careful! l buzz grunts vers l'infini et au-dela!| the real magic is the technology and the screens that you're using. right. as you can see, we truly create an immersive environment on stage right here on studio theaterfor that show. we actually have ten led video screens on stage, almost 453 square metres from floor to ceiling. nemo? er, une minute, c'est qui, nemo? he's my son. five of them are moving and able to open and to close during the performance, as well as passing through a side to another of the stage. it's truly incredible. i think the favourite bit for me was when the house from up was flying through the stage, but actually

we were all flying with it. the screens were showing clouds, there was smoke, there was even wind hitting our faces. this is true immersion. to be truly immersive, we, as well, are using multi—sensory effects, from winds to water to sense, as well. you want the audience to not feel like they're watching...? no, that's the goal of our show. like, we forget everything all around us. we arejust, like, flying with ourfriends, dive into the water with our friends. it's like we are truly into an environment which is immersive. wait, the music score may have changed, but what if our adventure made it even better? there is always something new, something to discover, and something new to learn about technology more specifically, as well. so we always have to be updated on new technologies and we are disney live entertainment, always trying and seeking to develop and create, like, next—level

live show experiences for our guests. cheering and applause if you've bought a tv in the last decade, you'll probably have come across lg. it's one of the biggest makers of displays in the world, especially 0led screens that promise better contrast on your living—room telly. it's also a company we frequently run into at tech expos with their big, flashy stands. and despite having been one of the biggest companies in korea for many, many years, it's only relatively recently become known in the rest of the world for its home appliances. well, at a recent big tech show, i sat down with lg's boss to find out what the home of the future might look like, and also to talk about how the company, like many others, is having to reposition itself

as the world changes. since i became ceo, i've been travelling extensively, you know, almost 20 laps around the globe. that's more than me. that was a long journey, but i was able to identify the three inflection points taking place in the world. right. the first is servitisation. the devices are getting smarter and getting more connected and generating a lot of data. with that, the devices are really becoming service—providing platforms. the second one is electrification trend. and when you think electrification, think electric cars. with brand—new designs, and also the possibility that vehicles in the nearfuture might drive themselves, cars are the site of a new land grab by tech companies. there's no established operating system, no

incumbent to overthrow. forget the hardware, cars will become another platform to provide services to paying customers, with new onboard experiences and new ways of doing things. so, that's two inflection points covered. the third is digitalisation, and i strongly believe this is the most significant inflection point, with the emergence of ai. it will provide infinite opportunities for any industries. a! has been used in industry for a long time now, making efficiencies behind the scenes. but despite more and more home devices collecting data and connecting to the internet, a! hasn't really made our homes noticeably smarter so far. well, that may be about to change. there has been a lot of discussion around the concept of a smart home, but no—one really delivered the ground—breaking use cases,

and the ai is changing the way we experience the home. devices are rapidly evolving and becoming more connected, to ultimately provide hyper—personalised solutions as a platform. ok, the year is 2030. mm—hm. you're looking great. mm—hm. my hair is still suspiciously brown. what does the home of 2030 look like? 0ur a! home hub will recognise, will sense your...the behaviour and usage pattern of devices. mm—hm. for example, it will learn the level of noise of a washing machine. it will learn you are there in a specific location and the air flow direction will adjust direct to you. if you don't like the air flow directly into your face, if you dislike, it will automatically adjust the air flow direction to avoid your face.

so, that's a home that learns your likes, but on the ai front, something new has just rolled into town. hey, ballie, i've got plans on saturday. can you suggest some places to check out with a friend? sure. i'll recommend some places you can visit l on weekends in berlin. both samsung and lg are promoting these little ankle biters as part of the home of the future. ballie pings mitch, it's time to take your medicine. - thanks, ballie. i almost forgot there. the arrival of large language models and the ability of ai to have more human—like conversations means we might finally get those robo—butlers that we've always been promised. so, you have a personal assistant that can roll around the house, but i wonder whether i would just want to speak out loud and the fridge hears me, but i want to ask it to turn up the air conditioning. and i'm not sure whether i want this thing to have to be there in order

for...to be heard. so, wouldn't that be a more practical solution? it will evolve eventually as a companion robot... right. ..with you. it will again understand your behaviour, usage pattern. it will have a camera and sensors, and it will learn from your environment through the sensor technology and it will evolve. having spent the last couple of years talking to large language models for the first time, i can actually believe that home help companion bots may earn their place in our lives. like cars, the smart home is another opportunity to win in a new market. and both samsung and lg have announced open platforms, inviting other manufacturers to hook in to one of their overarching apps that will control the entire home. as the margins on selling hardware shrink, it's

the services where big companies may end up making their money. if we let them through the front door, that is. that's it from us for this week. thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon. hello there. this really cold spell of weather is coming to an end in the next few days but we still have some cold, frosty and icy conditions this weekend. it was particularly cold in the midlands, where the fog lingered, and we have some fog in eastern england and also in northern ireland overnight. and these are the temperatures early on sunday morning, so a widespread frost. those temperatures not quite as low as they have been over the past few nights, mind you — that's because there's a bit more cloud around that's pushing its way through

the midlands into eastern england, the mist and fog lifting. sunny spells developing in england and wales. the fog lifting in northern ireland. as the cloud comes in, the winds pick up and that cloud will push its way into scotland, bringing a little rain into the far northwest. but for many eastern parts of scotland, northern england, down through the midlands towards the southeast, it's still a cold day, butjust not quite as cold as it has been just recently. the really cold air that's been trapped underneath that high pressure — that's getting squeezed to a certain extent, allowing these weather fronts to topple down from the northwest to bring a bit of rain. but more significantly, we're picking up a stronger wind coming in from the atlantic this time, and that's lifting the temperatures. early on monday, quite a contrast in the uk — a very mild start for scotland and northern ireland but still cold enough for some frost towards the southeast. here, the winds are a bit lighter. we may have some sunshine around on monday. elsewhere, that wind is picking up, blowing in the cloud. a bit of rain moves through scotland, northern ireland, into northern parts of england and north wales. a little bit of rain follows on from that as well. but it's the change in the wind direction and the strengthening

of this south—to—southwesterly wind that is tending to lift the temperatures. it's still quite chilly, perhaps, on monday across large parts of england and wales, where temperatures are going to be five, six degrees perhaps. but it is much milderfurther north — 12 or 13 in scotland and northern ireland. as we head into tuesday, we're still close to high pressure in the south, where it's a bit chillier. but elsewhere, the winds coming in from the atlantic bringing in a lot of dry weather, but a lot of cloud and we're continuing to see those temperatures rising — perhaps getting into double figures across parts of england and wales. again, 12 or 13 further north. and the highest temperatures over the week ahead are likely to be in scotland and northern ireland. still a bit chilly across the far south of england and wales at night, with a risk of frost, but otherwise we've got a breezy air, cloudy air and temperatures are rising.

live from london. this is bbc news. the number of people killed in the los angeles wildfires rises to 16 with firefighters battling to contain the two biggest blazes.

aerial crews have been bombarding the flames with water to hold back the palisades fire — which is menacing one of la's most exclusive neighbourhoods. winds are picking up again, further farming the flames — 166,000 more people have been warned they may have to flee. this is the scene live in la where the fires are burning into a fifth night. thousands of pets are missing or affected by the wildfires. we'll speak to the founder of an animal shelter which has been rescuing pets from the la wildfires. hello and welcome. i'm nicky schiller. we start in los angeles where it is nine o'clock in the evening and firefighters continue to battle the wildfires that have devastated huge swathes of the city. the number of people killed has

risen to 16 and a dozen are missing after five days of devastating fires.