Transcripts For BBCNEWS Click 20180121

Themselves while jeopardising their workers pensions. People in england with dementia and autism could soon be entitled to Blue Badge Parking permits, meaning they can park for free. Those were our latest news headlines. Now on bbc news its time for click. This week, cars, bars and a police ride im on my way to a reported incident on one of las vegas busiest highways. With the last rain falling overfour months ago, the oily roads mixed with the fresh water have become a lethal recipe for disaster. In the driving seat is sergeantjohn arias, from nevada highway patrol. Hes using waycare, software that alerts him to an incident as soon as its reported via someone calling 911 or through driving apps like waze, and it provides him with details and the best route to get to the scene. Itll tell me the location, what kind of accident, if its debris, how long its going and if theres any responders that are assigned to the call that are on their way. It constantly updates him on the situation as it develops. Having a robust system in place doesntjust help with weather related collisions. With our route 91 shooting that we had at mandalay, for the portion that we handled in the highway patrol, its really getting the public thats on the strip off the highway as quickly as possible, or closing off the freeway so we can have those critical resources, fire, medical, ambulances, to get people to the hospital and quickly. In 2017, 15,000 crashes were tended to, with over 300 people dying on average each year in road accidents in nevada. Getting Emergency Services to the scene as quickly as possible is critical. Were gonna send injury to it and its camera 217. The system has been running through the regional transportation commissions Traffic Management centre for the past three months. Now because were getting information through so many different data streams, not just the dispatchers, but were getting it through social media, things like the waze app, so people are tagging them in as theyre driving. Because all of this is happening so quickly, we might have already sent out all of that information and had everybody in this room aware before the first 911 call comes in. So were talking about possibly ten to 15 minutes of improvement in Response Time in some of these incidents. Thats major when youre dealing with traffic incidents. Waycare pulls in data from various sources traffic signals, cctv cameras, in Vehicle Sensors and information from driving apps. It factors in things like what day of the year it is, the time of day and the weather. Responding to incidents rapidly is one thing, but the point is to be able to predict incidents before they happen, so the responders can be better prepared and in the right location. Using deep learning, what we do is we look at the historical data, run it through algorithms to develop patterns that are emerging and tie it to whats happening now on the road. By doing that were essentially able to look forward in time to identify where these incidents are likely to occur. Unfortunately, waycare wasnt able to predict this one. The troopers taking pictures. It looks like its the rear. You can see how she was spinning out. She did a full 180 and struck right here. Being able to foresee accidents here could really save lives. The hope is that as the data gets more sophisticated, the predictions will become more accurate. Every day we get more and more evidence about what causes. What triggers an incident and the artificial learning gets smarter and smarter and more capable. For nevada now, though, the initial results are promising. They get there faster, we clear it faster and that means less secondary accidents and, if you think about it, secondary accidents have. Basically 18 of secondary accidents are fatalities. So we are reducing the fatalities on the road. And of course the goal is to prevent accidents altogether and Richard Taylor and Lara Lewington have been looking at some in car technologies that may help make that a reality. At ces, as you might expect, theres a lot of interest in self driving cars, and its pretty clear that we are on a one way street towards full autonomy. The but that does still seem to be a way off, although we dont know exactly how far. In the meantime, though, there is plenty of innovation to be seen before we reach our final destination. Unsurprisingly, the move towards autonomated driving is focused largely on safety, with hyundai creating a system to intervene when we need it the most. The cars fitted with a combination of biometric sensors in the seat, theyre tracking heart rate, and a low resolution camera which is tracking yourfacial movements. The reason its low resolution is so that the refresh rate is quicker. So if theres a problem, if it seems youve lost concentration or youre drifting off to sleep, then the car can quickly react to autonomously be moved off the road to a safe spot. And the basic premise of this technology could be available in just a year. Meanwhile, nissan has a different even more futuristic twist on biometrics, using my grey matter. The idea of this system is really to provide an interaction between man and machine, between my brain and the ai. And the concept here with nissan is that even in a world of Autonomous Vehicles, there will be roles for humans to play. After all, a lot of people do find driving quite a positive experience. It can interpret the signals coming from the human and actually enhance the ride. This so called brain to vehicle tech currently involves wearing this bizarre looking electrode studded helmet to capture my brain activity and interpret the signals as much as half a second before my muscles do. So, as im about to say change lane or hit the brakes, it will initiate the action for me, giving me a smoother ride, and yet still allowing me a sense of control. They do need to sort out that helmet, though. Laughs oh, dear. Im not driving very well here. And yet what we cant hide away from is the fact that when full autonomy does come to pass, its not simply about cars. This is yamahas concept motorbike. A self driving racing vehicle that should be able to do speeds of over 120 mph, although not on actual roads youd hope. But whatever the form of Autonomous Vehicle, itll need to interact safely with pedestrians and cyclists too, a challenge ford are hoping to overcome in their vehicles. Initially cyclists will have to be seen by the vehicles and we are building perception into our Autonomous Vehicle that allows it to detect the cyclists, objects, understand their intent and ensure that we can be safely navigating in the same space. And ford are just one of the big brands that have called on the help of nvidia, whose processes, combined with intelligence software, can make the environment around the vehicle safer. For example, using lidar sensors to alert a driver who is about to open a car door onto a cyclist. And ai is fuelling other experiences inside the car, too. Speech recognition specialists nuance power many of todays in car interactions and they showed off how theyll look in future as well. Today we think about the assistant as something that we interact with using voice, but there are other modalities. Of course we have the screen, we have touch, but maybe we can use gestures and in this particular prototype we introduced eye tracking, as a way of helping the assistant understand what am i, as a driver, looking at and then i can ask questions about my environment. So if i see a coffee shop in front of me, i can just ask a question about it. What is the user rating of this coffee shop . Starbucks coffee has a user rating of three stars. So the other part of this system is that there are microphones placed in different parts of the car, which means the ai can respond according to where the different passengers are. So here on the passenger seat i can say, hello, dragon, im cold. 0k, raising the temperature in zone two to 71. 0 degrees. Theres definitely a trend towards making ourjourneys more enjoyable as well as safer. Toyota have even updated their happiness tracking concept car, aiming for a more pleasurable journey and even suggesting where you might want to go, for anyone who needs their car to tell them. Since you are a foodie, ill tell you something interesting. There are many options around union square from casual dining to michelin starred. High end restaurants as well as popular cafes. Do you like it . Yes. Well, that was a bit of fun, but i didnt need the al to tell me that i was ready for dinner. Sushi . Yeah, lets go. Lets go. Welcome to the week in tech. It was the week that ford announced it will invest £8 billion in electric cars in the next five years. A flaw in a vr porn app called sinvr left 20,000 users names and e mail addresses exposed. And hackers managed to steal 100,000 worth of cryptic currency by hijacking a server that hosts a web based wallet for virtual currency. It was a busy week for crypto currency, as bitcoin encountered its biggest daily crash in four months. It is thought fears over increased regulation, particularly in asia, were behind the downturn. A contraceptive app previously thought as effective as the pill has been criticised by a Swedish Hospital for a number of unintended pregnancies they say were linked to the app. The Company Behind it the app, natural cycles, defended the product, saying that as with any form of contraception it isnt100 effective. They are now launching an internal investigation, however. And i bet you didnt expect the latest nintendo offering to include, well, a whole load of cardboard. The latest add ons for the switch console are cardboard packs, turning the controllers into a fishing rod, a motorbike and even a robot suit. Gimmick or brilliant . And, finally, a rescue with a difference, as a drone was used to save two swimmers off the coast of nsw in australia. Lifeguards were being trained to use the rescue drone when practice became a reality and the drone was launched, dropping a flotation device to the teenagers. The whole rescue took just 70 seconds. In this trendy part of downtown las vegas, these passengers are waiting to hop on a special kind of ride. For the past two months, french Autonomous Vehicle company navya has been offering free bus rides to the public. Admittedly it doesnt travel far, itjust does a loop around the block with one stop at a doughnut shop. Hmm, well, at least theyre getting a taste of the future down the road, though, im waiting to catch a more private ride which ive booked on an app. As if by magic the door opened laughs the team were still ironing out a few issues, shall we say. I think this is the first genuinely Autonomous Vehicle ive been in where there really is no driver and there really is no place for a driver. Theres just safety man here. Laughs. And thats it. Safety man has an xbox 0ne controller down by his side. Navya is certainly not alone in this space. Uber and Googles Waymo have been battling it out for some time to become the first fully autonomous cab sharing service. Self driving cars use a lot of sensors to be able to navigate the road safely. Perhaps one of the most important is lidar. This is what enables the car to judge its surroundings. And the design of these sensors is at the heart of waymo and ubers court case. Navyas car is no different, it too uses lidar to look around. Interestingly what its not doing is looking at the traffic lights to judge what colour they are. Theyve fitted special sensors to each traffic light and those sensors talk to the car. So that doesnt sound very scalable to me. That sounds like you wouldnt be able to put this sort of technology on the open road without fitting every single traffic light in the us with these sensors. This is much morejust for predetermined routes for these kind of shuttle vehicles. Now, while ive been riding around in this particular smart vehicle, dave lee has been up in reno, not that far away, looking at a system thats making use of Data Collected by vehicles like this to help an entire city to move more smoothly. Theres been Great Strides made in Self Driving Technology over the past decade or so, but the thing about autonomy is that its often tested in bright, clear conditions. The real world is much more distracting. In fact, it is notjust darkness that is difficult for existing autonomous technologies. Whether it is through rain, snow, orjust far up ahead on the road, there is a lot self driving vehicles struggle to see. Important work is taking place at the university of reno, nevada, that is attempting to solve that problem, making autonomy more intelligent. And it all begins here, on the corner of 15th and virginia. So at that corner, we have a light sensor. That light sensor used to be on the Autonomous Vehicle. But, if we move it from the vehicle to the intersection, so it can track each pedestrian here, each vehicle here. What kind of things is that picking up . Is it recognising who people are . No, it only recognises this is a pedestrian, or this is a vehicle. It does not recognise who the person is. Think of this intersection as providing more eyes to an Autonomous Vehicle. It could detect the threat and communicate that to a car it could detect a threat and communicate that to a car heading in its direction, telling it to slow down, beware. So what these centres are doing, in essence, is giving Autonomous Cars more eyes on the road. Yes. They just know more about what is coming up ahead. Exactly, so no black spots. Part of the same programme is this connected car, a modified lincoln that can not only drive itself around, but also communicate with other vehicles and components in the city, signalling its intentions to others. The hardware that you see is pretty similar to what youre going to see in most Autonomous Vehicles, if not all of them. Where we really distinguish ourselves is in the software. So our research focuses on what i call social intelligence. We are trying to build machines that understand people, and understand human social behaviour, and can predict what other people are going to do, and then act appropriately. Its a skill that humans have. We navigate driving effortlessly, even though we cant read other peoples minds. And its a skill that computers are going to have to have if theyre ever going to drive cars in the world with the rest of us. And then there is the challenge of making the Technology Work in difficult conditions. Inspired by an earlier project to help drones see in the dark, the team at the universitys Autonomous Robots Lab has combined lidar, radar and cameras, to dramatically improve what a car can comprehend. It is also cheap. Once that technology is safe and ready, the plan is to deploy it on electric buses like this one. But until then, the team plans to use the autonomous tech to gather large amounts of data in preparation for a self driving future. This bus, made by california based proterra, is already out on renos roads, but right now with a more traditional type of driver. Its not autonomous yet. The idea is to, at some point, focus on that project. However, right now were focusing on Data Collection for what we call the living lab, and Data Collection that is going to be used for the intelligent mobility programme. For the foreseeable future, these buses will gather data for the Living Lab Programme in reno, a city that perhaps knows more about whats going on on its streets than almost any other city in the world. That was dave. And now to something that weve been hearing a lot about recently augmented reality. Now, it works by overlaying graphics on top of the real world, and while ar games like pokemon go have enjoyed global success, the most hyped bit of ar kit, magic leap, is still waiting to be released. Ar remains a technology that promises more than it delivers. But, by combining ar with al, researchers in florida are hoping to create new ways to train people to perform complex tasks. Marc cieslak took their ar kit for a test drive or should that be a test flight . The university of Central Florida has a long established relationship with the simulation industry, helping create simulated experiences for everything from driving to supermarket shopping. The Simulation Lab heres latest project is a bit more high flying than high street, though. As long as we have had pcs, we have had flight simulators. But if you are really serious about learning how to fly, then you need an aircraft, and a human pilot to teach you what to do. Well, this lab is about to be transformed into an aircraft cockpit, with the help of this augmented reality headset, and when i put it on, it will also provide me with my very own virtual captain. Called project cap, it is a collaboration with Aerospace Giants boeing. Necessary information. Sure, i have doubled my flow. Im ready for your take off brief. Give it your best try. The aerial cockpit is designed as a Training Simulator for pilots. They can brush up on skills, or practise in almost any environment. It does feel as if i can reach out and touch the controls, and i am very much tempted to. And i do that, and of course there is nothing there. Thin air. 0k, cap, you seem to have a good idea of what to do in this aircraft. So call for taxi. Roger, you are clear to start number two. Ready. At the moment, cap responds to a very small number of voice commands or questions. Beacon. 0n. Mic check. Mic check one, two, three. But this Simple Practice can still be useful for training pilots. Augmented reality gives us a chance to bridge the things trapped in the Digital World and the real world around us. How can we start to merge those things together in effective ways . How can we create holograms right before you, for things that would be less safe if you were to do them in the real world, or that you might need additional information, besides what you can build around you in the real world . Closed and locked. Looks behind him to check that. V1120, vr140. It is a very convincing illusion that there is a pilot in here with me. Any questions . Do we have a specific altitude restriction for this . A year in development, cap is himself actually modelled on a real pilot. We have an opportunity to take some of our friends who are pilots, in this case one in particular, and see if he would actually subject himself to a full body scan, to then be able to use him as our avatar. So thats who we have, an actual pilot, who knows the mannerisms and gestures, that we could put into that virtual pilots seat. But is this another instance of technology putting people out of theirjobs . No, not at all. Its to provide student pilots with the opportunity to practise interpersonal skills before they actually get to a Flight Training centre, with real pilots. And we can provide them with a greater breadth of experiences, through introducing different variables, such as different cultural types or personality styles, that they can practice with. I do wonder about other applications for this sort of kit somebody that might be able to teach you how to drive a car, for instance, or teach you how to operate various bits of equipment and machinery. Some of the work that we had done before doing the work with boeing was in things like medical simulation, being able to have a holographic overlay so you could see the x rays laid on top, exactly placed, onto ct scans or mris. Those are things that we think hold great promise, not onlyjust because they will help with visualisation, but they might also lead to better quality of care, or lifesaving, because you have better access to data right when you need it. So one day, beyond the cockpit, caps digital descendants might help teach us how to do all kinds of things. Sure, no problem. And, from boeing to boozing, im on my way to the tipsy robot, where mixology has been given a hi tech makeover. Here, the drinks are shaken and served by these two chaps. I can even invent my own cocktail, by choosing from some of the 120 odd spirits hanging from the ceiling or, iassume, all of the 120 odd spirits in one. Can i do that . No, i cant do that, apparently. Role these droids can mix 100 cocktails an hour between the two of them. Noww, that sounded impressive, until i discovered some human bartenders can do ten times that. And thats it for click in the us for this week. Dont forget, you can follow us on twitter, where you can see loads of extra backstage videos and photos. Although, trust me, you dont want to see what happens after i have one or two of these. Cheers, see you soon. Fruity we are going to have some fun with the weather today, thats for sure. Snow already falling across some parts of the country and ice around as well so take it steady on the roads. Some huge contrasts in the temperature. It was the coldest night of the winter so far in dull winning in scotland, dipping down to 13 winning in scotland, dipping down to 13 degrees, and at the same time it was 11 degrees in penzance 13 in dalwhinning. The cold air across the north and east means a period of snow and the forecast. This is what it looks like around 3pm. Snow across the highlands and there could bea across the highlands and there could be a fresh covering of ten or 15 centimetres across upland areas there. Snow throughout yorkshire and at this stage i think snow will have moved across parts of the midlands east, so just because you can see rain here doesnt necessarily mean it will be raining. It might be more sleety with snow across the ground. We think the possibility of encountering some sleet and a little store is about as far south as the mfor, but through this evening very quickly the Atlantic Winds will start pitching in milder air the m4, but through this evening. It will take time for that snow to thaw away but temperatures climbing through the course of the night into this evening. As we go through the night itself, you can see there is still rain around in the south. These are the temperatures we will have first thing monday morning, around 9 degrees in the south. Above freezing generally in the north, then tomorrow, monday, it is entirely different. No snow in the forecast. There will be some sunshine around and a bit of cloud as well. Seven in newcastle, eight across northern england, and in the south double figure imagers. Then for the weekend huge low pressure across the atla ntic weekend huge low pressure across the atlantic then after that huge low pressure atlantic then after that huge low pressure across atlantic then after that huge low pressure across the atlantic. Mild air in our direction and the cold airfrom mild air in our direction and the cold air from the atlantic always sitting ready to come our way but i think it will be mostly the mail they are affecting us at least for they are affecting us at least for the first half of the week. With that also comes some wind and rain. That is it for now. Goodbye. Good afternoon. Afghan special forces have ended a siege in a luxury hotel in the capital kabul, 12 hours after it was stormed by gunmen. Six civilians, five afghans and one foreign woman, were killed along with all the militants. More than 150 people were rescued from the hotel by the security forces. The taliban says it carried out the attack. 0ur correspondent Zia Shahreyar reports from kabul. The final moments of a fight that had lasted all night