From now on, trading goods between the uk and the eu will no longer be frictionless. While the new trade agreement ensures there will not be tariffs or quotas on goods, there will still be more checks and paperwork. Some hauliers are nervous about the changes, as our transport correspondent Caroline Davies reports. Is this the calm before the storm . After weeks of cues, a quiet eurotunnel. The way goods are moved in and out of the country is about to change and requires new paperwork but here they say they are ready for it. It will add no more time to the journey because it takes place where we are already doing safety and security checks so they are all lumped together. We dont expect to see things build up until later on in the first week of the second week of january. But some are not so confident, concerned that delays will cost money, this Haulage Company decided not to run lorries from the uk to the eu for the first week of january. We didnt think the risk ofjoining a queue that could be one mile, two, ten miles long, in either direction was worth doing. New paperwork will also be required taking goods from england, wales or scotland to Northern Ireland. Sarahs Haulage Company in Northern Ireland has already lost a customer because of complications. Northern ireland has been left in a position. Fourth of january is too late, we have freight coming in from january the first or second or third. The memories of last weeks cues to dover after the border with france was closed for 48 hours are still fresh. The government says they still do expect some disruption as they adjust to their new relationship and they say that hauliers without correct documentation will be stopped and have their good health. Changes start tonight, a new year and a new way of trading lie ahead. Caroline davies, bbc news. Now its time for this weeks edition of 100 women. 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 . 0bviously 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 this is going to be 360, high definition, me. 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 amelia happening now. It is, yeah. Ok, no pressure. No pressure, dont mess it up. This new Technology Means amelia 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 amelia. 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 2. 8 million followers. With so much marketing potential, brud, the company that created her, is now worth at least 125 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 hopefully rules and boundaries so nobody does get hurt. Is this the end of jobs for models . I mean, models and influencers 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 influencers, and its 90 guys. Im not the only one who shares these concerns about male Centric Beauty standards. When shudu was first created, cameron received a lot of backlash for defining beauty in black women and cashing in on that image. 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 for black women. So itt started off with sort of magazines and publications coming up and asking to interview shudu and being a virtual suprrmodel, she doesnt actually have a voice, so i created her voice, i created that personality and her writing and her words, but 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 then 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. That are going to be used to animate my head. 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 it looks really creepy 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. I mean, 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. And 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 that she had to live with, that we both had to live with every single day, is 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 molly 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 avatars . Last year people thought of this as a very frontier 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. Because im happy. Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. A bad time for the world, but a good time for avatars. Like happiness is the truth. We did a tv show called the masked singer a singing show here in the us and they wanted to have avatars as augmented reality performers, so that the director 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 for digital humans changed at all . I hope we will be able to use them in a responsible manner. What weve seen now is that when you give creative people a tool, they want to make all sorts of stuff with that. There still arent many rules and regulations around 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 super busy year for 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 out remote job interviews as an hr assistant. Where do you see yourself in five years . While i did consent to all of these jobs, so far i havent made any money. But with the pandemic confining us to our homes and computer screens, could 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. Galaxia was really inspired by my love for sc fi movies and comics. Shes just kind of my little experiment, you know . For me, 3d models have always been about escapism and kind of, you know this kind of fantasy world that im kind of creating. Covid restrictions and Global Travel bans have not stopped camerons portfolio of digital supermodels from booking jobs and travelling to exotic locations. We put together our own fashion show and partnered with lavie by ck and we showed that at miami swim week. So its a really beautiful, dreamlike location inspired by some of the probably some of the most amazing places i would like to go. A lot of people were really amazed to see the potential of 3d fashion shows. They understand that 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 high quality avatars. I think the industry that has kind of benefited most from avatars is obviously the gaming industry. I mean, that is where avatars really live. The gamification of fashion is something that is slowly happening, and i think 2021 is going to be the 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. Ambition can 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. Hello there. A very happy new year to you. What a cold start it is, as well, for the 1st of january 2021. Weve got widespread frost this morning, some ice to watch out for, a bit of sunshine as well but well also have a weather front bringing thicker cloud with some wintry showers. Now this is the weather front which will bring cloudier skies to england and wales, northerly wind continuing to feed through wintry showers, particularly into northern scotland. But, like i mentioned, there will be sunshine around. Watch out for some icy stretches first thing this morning across the south west of england. Therell be some patches of freezing fog as well in the midlands and the south east this may tend to lift but stay in low cloud. There will be some spots of light rain at time, perhaps some sleet and snow over the high ground. Probably the best of the dry and bright weather will be across scotland and Northern Ireland that is away from northern coasts, where were likely to see further snow showers. Another cold day to come, maybe not as cold as it has been but still, 4 7 celsius is below the seasonal average. Now, as we head on through tonight, it looks like the cloud and the showers push southwards. Further showers will affect coastal areas, but many inland areas will see clear skies, lighter winds, so its gonna be another very cold night. A widespread frost in places, also some icy stretches to watch out for. So into the first part of the weekend, we hold on to High Pressure to the west of us, lower pressure to the east, so we maintain this northerly airflow and thatll continue to feed showers into coastal areas. Wintry showers, that is certainly over any higher ground, but inland areas should tend to stay dry with good spells of sunshine, but its going to be another cold day on saturday temperatures range from around freezing to 5 or 6 celsius closer to the coast. As we head on to part two of the weekend, we start to see a slight shift in wind direction higher pressure to the north, low pressure to the near continent. Thatll start to feed in a north easterly wind across the country, and thatll drive showers into north sea coasts, a few of them pushing inland as well, and they will be wintry, especially over the high ground, so probably the best of any dry and bright weather will be across southern, northern and Western Areas and again, a cold day to come. When you factor in the stronger north easterly breeze, it could feel quite raw. And that breeze just picks up further as we head on into next week. A stronger easterly which will feed in thicker cloud, outbreaks of rain at times, particularly across southern and eastern parts of england, and youll notice it will stay quite cold, particularly when you factor in the strong easterly wind. Welcome to bbc news. Im james reynolds. Our top stories big ben chimes the uk has left its partnership with the european union, bringing an end to a relationship that lasted nearly half a century. Nearly 56,000 daily cases of coronavirus are recorded in the past 2a hours in the uk the highest on record. The Health Service is straining under the pressure. I guess we are on oui knees begging, is for people to do their part, yeah, to take the pressure off. London rings in the new year with a spectacular fireworks display covid style without the customary crowds lining the river thames. Shocking. Sad in a way. We look at how the Younger Generation from across the world has been affected by
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