Next week will see the start of a coronavirus inoculation programme after it was approved for use in the uk. At the four chief medical officers are urging caution saying it will only have a marginal impact on the numbers in hospital this winter so it must testing is likely to be key to containing the virus. But there are concerns as well after the rapid turnaround tests used in a test in liverpool mist half of the cases. Council staff here in wolverhampton are preparing to roll out mass testing from monday. Nose and throat swabs are taken but instead of being sent to a lab, lateralflow tests provide results within half an hour. But there is concern they are not as accurate as standard pcr tests, so more people could be told they are negative when they are not. If those people then go out and they visit their grandparents, they stop socially distancing and so on because they believe they havent got covid, thats not going to help, it could actually make it worse. In wolverhampton they hope Rapid Testing will help them move out of tier 3 by detecting those without any symptoms and getting them to isolate. That is what happened following a trial in liverpool last month. The government said mass testing helped towards reducing the rate of infection, but figures from the pilot showed tests missed half of all cases. Health advisers say they still have a value. Weve been very clear that this test finds people that we couldnt otherwise. What we are doing here is were doing case detection. We are not trying to say people do not have the disease if their test is negative. Were trying to say, you do have the disease and now we want you to go and isolate for ten days. Trials of mass testing are being explored across the uk. In england the tests are also being used in schools, care homes and by students before they head home for christmas. Behavioural experts say that could send mixed messages. The problem is that this is being used, for example, with university students, to say if you get a negative result on two occasions, youre all right to travel home. Because this is being done in this way, its communicating that somehow those people are not infectious. They may still be infectious after two such negative test results, so the government urgently needs to explain that this test is for identifying those who are infectious so they can isolate. It is not for reassuring those who test negative. Coronavirus is highly contagious. This new Public Health video has just been released as a reminder that even with mass testing and vaccines on the way, we still need to be vigilant to stop the spread of the virus this winter. Katherine da costa, bbc news. Now on bbc news, Amelia Hemphill has made her own avatar and entered the Virtual World occupied by our digital twins. The coronavirus pandemic has forced billions of our daily actions to go digital. Zooming has become a verb, social distancing has become a lifestyle and we are all able to work from home like never before. So how is all this going to transform our future reality and are we ready to fully merge ourselves with this new Digital World . Well, before the pandemic hit, i went to go find out what the digital humans of the future could soon be capable. Hello im siren and im a digital human. Is this the future, a world where hyper realistic avatars do everything that humans can . Americas Tech Community seems to think so. I think that if i could send my avatar off to have fun and party on my behalf, that would be a great thing. But in the virtual wild west, could women become nothing more than digital objects. I definitely want a better version of me. Is that sort of unhealthy for people . Whose beauty standards are designed by men sat behind a screen . Obviously my inspirations were quite unrealistic, you know . Its kind of like supermodels and barbie dolls. And who will control our avatars once weve gone . I just want to do what we started off doing and as much as that feels right. To find out ive made my own avatar and entered the dystopian world occupied by our digital twins. When most of us think of avatars, we imagine a tall blue movie character, but today theyre being used in a very different way. Avatars can be the digital copy of a human and theyre difficult to spot. From hollywood to the newsroom, avatars are going mainstream and our digital doubles could soon be working for us or maybe even replacing us. Back in 2019, i travelled to la where some of this Futuristic Technology is being built by women. But with big investment from the gaming, social media and porn industries, is it being built for women . To find out im going to need my own avatar. Hello this is luke from dna block, an avatar creation start up. Theyve made digital copies of hundreds of celebrities and now its my turn. How do i do that . The magic is behind here. So basically all these cameras, theyre going to take a picture of you at exactly the same time and then were going to use process called photogrammetry to reconstruct you. So so this is going to be 360 high definition. These cameras are going to capture every angle of my body and face down to the smallest pore and the photos will then be processed to make an exact replica of me. So what actually is an avatar . I think generally its something thats like interactive or thats three dimensional. So its kind of like a digital puppet . Yeah, i think thats a good way of explaining it. So you have a digital puppet of yourself. So this is how im going to live in the Digital World. This is digital avatar emilia happening now. It is, yeah. Ok, no pressure no pressure. Dont mess it up. This new Technology Means emilia 2. 0 can be puppeted in real time across different platforms and by anyone without my input. While luke starts building my avatar, im going to meet christine misano, the co founder of dna block, to see what i can do with my avatar and if she can earn me any money. Christine is a former model. I think ive still got it, so i think i can probably win. Shes given up modelling so she can build her tech company but her avatar, christine 2. 0, is still being hired to work the catwalk, modelling digital clothes forfashion brands. As you see, avatar christine does get it perfect every time. So you probably do want to hire her, but whats interesting about this particular version of her is that its my body motion capture, so that is my walk, that is my stop and it is my turnaround so she really is sort of embodying me on the runway there. What else can i do with digital christine . Well, theres a tonne of other uses for avatars. Anything that you can really think of that a human can do digitally, you can replace with an avatar. She can speak a bunch of languages. She can speak asl without me ever having to spend a day learning it. Sign language. Hey, christine, i heard you know asl. Can we see a little bit of the alphabet, please . I like to be nice to my own avatar. Christine says the biggest Growth Markets for these hyper realistic avatars are fashion, advertising and digital assistants, but its still early days for the technology. I really think that gen z and the younger generations, theyre loving it and theyre going to be the ones that decide how it works, what the winners are going to be and how much of a part of the future its going to be. With such seemingly limitless opportunities, its no surprise that everyone is trying to cash in on this technology, including bitcoin billionaire crystal rose pierce. Im meeting her at rouge mocap where were going to train our avatars to fight so they can be used in the gaming industry. There are 95 cameras around the room tracking our every move. It only takes two minutes to calibrate those motions to our avatars. Back at crystals house, we test out our avatars. This is not looking good for avatar media. Crystal is so optimistic about the future of avatars that shes about to have an avatar wedding where her guests attend live via Virtual Reality headsets. I really just want to explore all the worlds that are being created. I love the idea of my avatar being able to do fantasy things as well as real world normal things. Being a ceo and a mother and an advisor and an investor, i have a lot of roles and i think that if i could send my avatar off to have fun and party on my behalf, that would be a great thing. Even her 6 month old daughter aurora has an avatar. Is she the first ever baby avatar . I think so, i think shes the first one thats gotten fully scanned. Well see if she can be baby influencer. You know, any any movie or commercial or film thats using the babies or needs a baby for an avatar, having one already created out of a human likeness is a great thing and shes a perfect canvas, she can be turned into any colour hair, any colour eyes. Are you worried that when she grows up she might not be happy with her image being used in a certain way or being a Game Character . Well hope that shes happy with that. Its just like any child actor but at least this is this is a likeness rather than her actual self. Crystal is confident that auroras avatar is safe from hacking because she holds the key to its data through blockchain technology. If it were stored on a centralised database somewhere, and someone else owned it, and we just had the ability to use it, id be a little bit more worried about it. But the use of her daughters image without her express consent has made me think about who owns the rights to my digital self and whos regulating what these avatars can get up to online. Many of the industries investing heavily in Avatar Technology are the ones already known for the commodification of womens bodies fashion, gaming, porn. Could turning women into digital objects that can be controlled by anyone and easily edited make that even worse . Lil miquela is an instagram influencer. Shes also an avatar and has 1. 6 million followers. With so much marketing potential, brud, the company that created, her is now worth at least 120 million. Jennifer powell is a talent agent whos just started to represent avatar influencers. Im at her office to find out whether these idealised digital models are going to set unrealistic beauty standards for the rest of us. When you shoot campaigns as a real person, theres retouching and theres editing that happens so i feel like this is kind ofjust editing before youre actually putting her out there to work. Do you feel like there are any ethical concerns around this . Were moving into the new wild west, i think, and i think that its going to be up to us, the people that are at the forefront of doing this to create some standards and and hopefully rules and boundaries on so nobody does get hurt. Is this the end of jobs for models . I mean, models and influences are going to be working really differently now that they have an avatar. Yes, i think that this is going to cutjobs but also create jobs. There are actual people behind avatars that are still being employed and being put to work itsjust a different type of person. But those types of people are invariably men, men who are defining what these avatars look like. Meet shudu tall, dark skinned, slim and the first avatar supermodel. Shes been hired by vogue, cosmo mobile Network Provider ee and the fashion brands balmain and ellesse. And this is her creator, Cameron James wilson. What is shudu . Shudu is. Shudu is like a digital entity of her own. Shes a character that im kind of developing the visual aspects for. I was really inspired by gaming, just before i created shudu. Black desert has really, really in depth character creation and it inspired me to want to kind of recreate these kind of really personal, really unique characters, but some of the things that inspire me, you know, often they are too sexualised. Do you think its going to be bad for peoples body image, comparing themselves to these perfect avatars like shudu . When i created shudu, obviously my inspirations were quite unrealistic. Supermodels and barbie dolls, kind of dated concept of beauty ideals. Which is why i then went on to create bren, another model, once i understood the impact these models could have, i thought it was really important to create. Bren is a plus, a curve model, who has stretch marks, and has kind of natural imperfections that everyone has, and has a much more realistic body proportion. I guess my concern is that having these digital avatars is just going to reinforce these very male centric standards of beauty. I think thats a really important point and i think thats why i really want to encourage women to get involved with this space. At the moment it is a very kind of male dominated industry and im very aware of that, even as a guy myself, you know, i walk into a room where were talking about virtual influences, and its 90 guys. Im not the only one who shows these concerns about male Centric Beauty standards. When shudu was first created, cameron received a lot of backlash for defining beauty in black women. He has now employed a number of black models, like misty bailey, who have become the inspiration for shudus walk, style and poses. Ana badu, a formerjournalist, is helping to create shudus back story, reclaiming the narrative the black women. Its like magazines and publications coming up and asking to interview shudu, and being virtual she doesnt actually have a voice, so i created a voice, i created that personality in her own words, and Going Forward we want to develop it further. A lot of black women were upset about the concept of shudu. How are you trying to change that . Weve spoken extensively about the issues it has for models in the industry, especially black female models. How do we then create an avatar that can impact this . How do we facilitate a larger conversation of making change and seeing diversity and inclusivity in the industry . Im starting to see a future reality where the real emelia can be relaxing on a beach while emelia 2. 0 works on tv, never ageing, never having a bad day, and never dying. So what happens to my avatar when im no longer around . So, i did a series of facial scans, 3d facial scans, that are going to be used in an innovative way. So, this is molly, we scanned her head, 105 different times, with 105 different expressions. We have the eyes, and we start adding eyebrows, teeth, i know that it looks. Really creepy the process is really creepy. Molly is the late wife of self confessed avatar evangelist alex henry. As she battled terminal Breast Cancer she underwent 3d scanning so that her avatar could continue to explore the Virtual World after her death. Imean. How is this for you, looking at it . We went through this together. Molly was part of this process, so we got to laugh about it together. Its definitely creepy as hell, but there is a compartmentalising. Ive seen so much of this before, so that itsjust a little business as usual. It was, you know, on one hand it was like a lark, lets do it, and it will be fun, and on the other hand, there was something sort of unspoken, but, like. You know, theres something serious there. This is something she had to live with, that we both had to live with every single day, her mortality. Do you think that stopped you grieving . No. I know that grief is such a difficult and complicated process, but. Yeah, i think there are parts of this that has helped with the grieving. I dont think its stopping the grieving process. I think thats going to happen no matter what. Im not trying to be a black mirror episode. Do i see myself, you know, hanging out with virtual molly . No. I dont need an avatar to do that. As an avatar developer, alex is using digital molly to showcase the potential of the technology. He says she wont be available to his clients, but he will continue to develop her character and may even incorporate artificial intelligence. I felt weirdly defensive of my avatar when i made it. I sort of thought, this is really fun, i want to change this. But then the thought of somebody else changing it or using it in a way that i was not in control of felt quite. Not violating, but it felt weird. Yeah. I mean, there is a deep trust that molly and i had. Did she leave kind of an avatar will, in a way . No. She didnt need to, i mean, there was a trust. We talked about it. I dont want to control molly in her afterlife. Ijust want to do what we started off doing and as much as it feels, as much as that feels right. I know that she would be thrilled if her avatar became a pop star. Thrilled. It seems to me, many of the pioneers in Avatar Technology are relying on their instincts because the legal guidelines are still being established as Different Industries seek to capitalise on this technology, protecting our image will become increasingly important, especially if you are female. It has all made me feel a bit more nervous about the creation of my own avatar. I feel like ive just put my fingerprints on the internet, and now anyone can access them. Before leaving la, i went back to dna block to see what christine is going to do with the avatar she has created for me. We think you should own it. It looks like you, it acts like you, it talks like you, it will be a digital representation of you, and that we are just there to license it out to anybody who wishes to use it, or whom you approve to use it. So how will we choose to use this technology Going Forward . And what role will digital humans be taking in our post pandemic lives . One year on from my la trip, the technology is progressing at lightning speed, but many of my concerns are still the same. I caught up with some of our contributors to find out what has been going on since we last spoke. Do you think the pandemic has changed peoples attitude to advertise . Last year people thought of this as a very flimsy tech, fast forward a year, we really kind of see that, you know, people are kind of living more online, and there is a bigger need for content. A bad time for the world, but a good time for avatars. We did a tv show called the masked singer, a singing show here in the us, and they wanted to have avatars, augmented reality performers, so that they could basically shoot live on camera and the avatars would be automatically generated on top of that. But what weve really been focusing on is refining our products so that we can do projects at scale. And have your thoughts and ambitions on digital humans changed at all . I hope we will be able to use them in a responsible manner. What we see now is that when you give creative people a tool, they want to make all sorts of stuff. There still arent many rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do with digital avatars, or who benefits from your digital image. And what about my avatar, emelia 2. 0 . Well, 2020 has been a very busy yearfor my digital twin. Ive been featured in some video games and worked as a chatbot. Ive walked the runway for new york and paris fashion week, modelling clothes. My avatar has also been signed up by a new start up called hour one to carry outjob interviews as an hr assistant. Where do you see yourself in five years . While i did consent to all of thesejobs, so far i havent made any money. But with the pandemic confining us to our homes and computer screens, could these digital humans soon lose their novelty altogether . Cameron james wilson is already exploring new creative frontiers. Do you think people want Different Things now . I would really love to see fashion brands experiment more with non human characters, you know, things that are a little bit more different, out there. Its really inspired by my love for Science Fiction movies and comics. Shes just kind of my little experiment, you know. For me, 3d models have always been about escapism, you know, this kind of fantasy world that im kind of creating. Covid restrictions on Global Travel bands have not stopped camerons portfolio of digital supermodels from booking jobs and travelling to exotic locations. We put together our own fashion show and we showed that at miami swim week. So its a really beautiful dreamlike location inspired by some of the most amazing faces. I would like to go. A lot of people were really amazed to see the potential of 3d fashion shows. They understand the designers may not have a choice but to use an avatar now, and that may be the best choice right now for them. But not all fashion designers were so quick to adjust. When the pandemic first hit, many were unprepared for the Financial Investment and time still needed to create Higher Quality avatars. I think the industry that has kind of benefited most from advertisers obviously the gaming industry. I mean, that is where avatars really live. The game with occasional fashion is something that is slowly happening, and i think 2021 is going to be a big yearforfashion and gaming to come together. You also have to realise that these models can have an impact, it can be a very positive impact, it can be a negative impact, and you have to be super responsible. In addition to never overtake responsibility, and we have to be super careful when we are pioneering in this new industry. So, as Avatar Technology gets cheaper, faster and easier to use, keep a lookout for the next wave of post pandemic avatars. They could soon be appearing on a screen near you. Well, the chilly weather is here to stay for the next few days. Its not desperately cold but certainly cold enough for some of that snow to still hang around in the hills and the mountains. For most of us, sunday is actually going to be quite a bright day and, yes, a few showers in the forecast. Low pressure is close by so hence there will be a fair bit of cloud in places from the morning onwards. But more significantly we still have that current of cold air coming in and out of the arctic. It is actually fed all the way down towards the western mediterranean. So, this is what it looks like through the early hours of sunday morning, clouds and some showers there across northern parts of england. I think the coldest weather will be early in the morning across many western parts of the uk. Temperatures in rural spots under the clear skies will have dipped down to around minus three degrees. But most towns and cities it will be around freezing or above. So, here is the forecast for sunday. Notice a few showers as they are filtering in through parts of the midlands, maybe one or two showers close to the south coast of england, but for places like belfast, glasgow, much of scotland, actually, lots of sunshine on the way and there will be some sunshine in the south as well, but chilly, temperatures fall to six degrees celsius. And sunday into monday is going to be every bit as nippy as well. Here is thejet stream for monday. We still have that big dip in the jet stream across many parts of western and central europe, and this is the reason for the cold air leaking in from the northern climes. So, this pattern is certainly worse through the first half of the week. In fact, what we are going to see is low pressure forming in the north sea during monday afternoon. Monday afternoon itself is actually looking dry but then it does look as though monday night into tuesday, that weather front is going to roll in and it will produce rain, sleet and snow i think across the hills, probably yorkshire, the southern uplands, into the highlands as well. But in the south of the country, it should stay clear early on tuesday morning. So, lets have a look at the outlook, then, for the next few days. This is the summary. You can see those temperatures are into single figures. There isjust a gradual, gradual rise in those temperatures as we head towards the end of the week there, from four to eight in southampton. Bye bye. This is bbc news welcome if youre watching here in the uk or around the globe. Im Lewis Vaughan jones. Our top stories President Trump attends his First Campaign rally since losing the election and hes still refusing to concede. 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