This is bbc world news, the headlines. There are signs a truce between armenia and azerbaijan is unravelling. An Apartment Building has been destroyed in the regions second city. Azeris blamed an armenian missile strike and said seven people were killed. Ten days after testing positive for covid 19, President Trump has been medically cleared to return to an active schedule. His doctor, sean conley, said in a statement mr trump had been fever free for over 2a hours and was no longer a transmission risk. Brazils Health Ministry says more than 150,000 people have now died from covid 19 in the country the second highest number after the united states. A collision between a train and a bus has killed at least 18 in thailand. The bus was taking passengers to a temple, the crash happened 50 kilometres east of bangkok. Now on bbc news, click talks to the cio of zoom the video chat company that has experienced unprecedented growth during the pandemic. This week the zoom room boom. But will it continue to bloom . Ai gives your webcam the eye. And paul makes friends with tens of hens. Hey, welcome to click. Hope youre doing 0k. Its been nearly seven months now since we all packed up our camera kits on this programme and took them home. Even back in march we were
being told we needed to get ready for the long haul, but im not sure many of us were able to mentally prepare for that properly. How are you doing, lara . Well, i cant believe it has been that long already. I think theres a strange sense of us restarting this again. I suppose things had got a little bit back to normal but now we know we will be continuing for quite a while. One thing that i am starting to feel better about, though, and i think quite a few other people may be as well, is starting to differentiate between home and work life, even though its all happening in one place. Yeah, it is tricky to get the boundaries right though, i have to say. For example this is what happens at my place every week. I have to take over the entire living room and then we have these loud script meetings somewhere else in the house beforehand. Of course working from home can mean a lot of video calls, and that puts you at the mercy of meetings being interrupted by the dreaded free. Er, yeah, that. Which is really annoying when the person speaking was about to make a brilliant point. I think what lara was about to say is that chris fox has found a new way to keep talking even when your internet isnt playing ball. Hi everyone, thanks forjoining todays video call, hopefully you dont notice anything unusual about my face because this isnt technically a live video of me. In fact i am not even looking at the camera, im using computer trickery to make it look like i am. What youve just seen is one of several tools being developed by nvidia, the graphics card maker, that it hopes will change video calling and make it possible even on really slow Internet Connections like at my mum and dads house. Streaming video can use a lot of bandwidth so the idea is to send just a few key components instead, a reference image of the caller and facial expressions. These can be recompiled at the other end, closely matching the original footage. This is still in development. It only works if you have a static background and there are a few times where my avatar looked a bit weird, but this is using a fraction of the data that video calling would. Nvidia says this technique uses about 3 kilobits per second of video, although, obviously, youd have to layer audio on top of that too. The other benefit is that they can use face tracking data for other things like animating an avatar in real time for you to use in your video call, although id probably choose a more exciting design than this. Ive been told on twitter it makes me look like jacob rees mogg. They can also use face tracking data to change the direction youre looking so that youre facing the camera. The question is, is this me . I mean, it looks like me and it is controlled by me but its not me its more of the puppet of me, isnt it . To get philosophical, i called nvidias richard kerriss and asked him whether using avatars like this might make video calls less personal. Well, hopefully not. Hopefully its driven by you or driven by me and we would then be the puppetmaster in your analogy, but i think its you know, if i can have a better experience in my conversation with you by having a clearer picture and less diversions of things, whether its noise or video backgrounds and stuff, i think that helps personalise it more. Weve seen the capabilities of deep fakes and the kind of things people use it for, isnt there the possibility that people might use this kind of technology for dishonest purposes . Good question. But thats not our intent. Our intent is really to improve the workflows that people deal with on a given basis, and, look, there will always be ways that people can you can make movies of yourself just by doing this. I have seen kids in school doing that. My daughter, someone got in trouble at school because they made a rather lengthy loop of them paying attention in class. There will always be that kind of stuff but that is not our intent. How do i know you are not using it now . Are you using it now . I will be right back, im going to get a coffee and we just keep talking. No, im not using it now, im not in the lab. Right now its in the lab and were doing a lot of testing on it and soon well have it in early access for a lot of the Video Conferencing companies and let them focus on what tools and things that they need for their product to be great. Nvidia hopes its tools will be integrated into the big video calling platforms. The first one to sign on as avaya. To sign on is avaya. And we are seeing ai tools creep into our video calling software. We have noise suppression in zoom and eyeline correction in apples facetime. But, for me, the one ai feature i hope they can add next is one that could eliminate unnecessary video calls. That was chris. Now, one of the companies that has had huge success during the pandemic is zoom. It may have been founded in 2011, but its only really been since march this year that saying youre zooming someone has become part of everyday conversation. So spencer has caught up with harry moseley,
the companys chief information officer, to find out a little bit more about the zoom boom and how he perceives the future of work. The world changed for pretty much everyone in march and suddenly most of the world seemed to want to conduct Video Conferencing en masse. I would imagine that the world changed for zoom pretty drastically at that point, yeah . One could say so. I mean, if you go back to december 2019, we had north of 10 million daily participants on the platform, in march it went to 200 million people, and in april it shot up to over 300 million daily participants on the platform. So it we were running out of capacity in our new york data centre we were able to borrow capacity from our denver data centre and if that ran out we could borrow capacity from santa clara. Because, you know, as the sun comes up in the east, the data centres in
the west are quiet. I want to talk about your virtual background, because thats the thing thats just amazed so many people. Can you explain whats going on . Because it looks to me like it is trying to find the human being, and as i move different objects across my body you can see it kind of removes them, which is very. It obviously knows that that is not part of a hand, that cup is not part of my body, and so its removing it from my hand. What is going on . Its mapping out my body, so it can recognise my face and. And its also focused on the room. But, typically, when you walk backwards into the virtual background you actually disappear into the virtual background i dont know if youve noticed that. Yep, yeah. Because its the camera seeing, you know, sort of, its seeing the physical
presence and then its but then it cant see it because its out of range and then it sort of lays over the virtual background, its pretty clever stuff. What zooms success shows us is that the world is waking up to remote working. But some companies were ahead of the curve. Gitlab is a Software Firm that helps programmers collaborate on development and has been all remote since it was founded in 2014. With 1,300 employees living in 65 different countries, its been developing solutions to the problems other companies are only seeing now. When the crisis began, most companies who shifted to all remote actually saw productivity go up, and this is because everyone was transitioned to a single Playing Field where everyone had access and the same amount of information, and we were all drafting off of the relationships that we had already built. But now six or seven months into this, if companies are seeing productivity decline, well, you have to understand that many people have been thrust into their homes with a suboptimal workspace. They havent had time to optimise their workspace, they may even be working at home with a spouse or kids at home that are also learning. This is a disaster for productivity. So i see it as no surprise that things are starting to dip. I think humanity deserves a round of applause for it taking this long. You cantjust cobble together phone calls and zoom an email and expect work to just happen. You need a Central Point to funnel all of your work through. Companies now have a choice, if they invest in tools and processes to make this a core part of their strategy, one year from now they should see productivity numbers that would never be possible in a co located space. In fact, gitlab has published everything it knows online, so anyone can benefit from it. But its notjust about moving the office to home. So there are a few golden rules to doing remote well. The first is that you have to have complete executive buy in. Ideally have at least one or more of the executives that work off site by default because, remember, your work flows and communication will largely follow how the executives are arranged. So thats step one. Step two is you have to be Crystal Clear about your values. If you google gitlabs values you will find an extremely comprehensive list of not only our values but how we live those values when we dont see each other in person day to day. The company has real enthusiasm to share what its learned from remote working. An almost evangelical desire to help others work from home just as well. But, of course, not everyones going to share this optimism. And many will still feel it simply isnt the same. When everybody is working in the office, collaboration is great. When everybody is working virtually, collaboration is great. Were not going to have that though, were going to have a hybrid model where you have some people in the office and some people working from home. So how do you collaborate and cross that Digital Divide . The second thing that doesnt work in this hybrid model is culture breaks down. What do i mean by that . When you hire new people into the company, how do they get into the fabric of the organisation . How do they meet other people . Its different when were all in the office and people can walk around, meet people, knock on the door, say hi, i want to introduce myself, i havejustjoined. In the virtual environment that doesnt work so well. Were going to see, you know, augmented reality, Virtual Reality and 56 come to bear, were going to see things like holograms and being able to see people in 3d. I think that sort of, you know weve talked in the past about things like the notion of touch and the notion of smell
in a virtual environment. You know, ifundamentally think that we will begin to see those things in the future too, because 56 is going to enable we dont know what s g. Theres a lot of things we know that 56 will do. And theres a lot of things that we dont know what 56 will do, and i think the ability to have a more immersive experience in a virtual environment, i fundamentally believe we will see that. Imagine a world where. You know, lets say there is a dozen people in your circle that you work with, you know, closely. Imagine a world where you could set this group up and you could add all these people. Maybe you interact with them on a frequent ad hoc basis. Much like when you go into the office, as they come into the office you see them, so you log onto the network, you see them, you dont hear
them but you can see them. You can wave, you can click them, you can touch them and say, you know it turns on their speakers and microphone, you can say good morning, how was your weekend . Much like you would in the virtual, in the real office. I think, you know, and then everybody, you know has a red background for when they are in a meeting or on a call, has a green background when they are not, and so now i see like spencers free because hes green. There are still challenges to forming good relationships if you are only meeting people online for the first time. Often it is that sitting down, having a coffee, after youve met them online that really solidifies that relationship. I tend to agree its like once youve met a person in person, in the physical world so to speak, then connecting with them offline in a Virtual World works really well. If you are meeting the person to the first time virtually,
i think itjust takes more effort to sort of. Create that sort of true collaborative, true relationship like you would if you had met them for the first time physically. Hello and welcome to the week in tech. It was the week google, amazon, facebook and apple all faced criticism in the us following a 16 month long congressional investigation. The report from democratic lawmakers argued that the Tech Companies had too much power and that they must be reined in. The report suggested several changes that could lead to the break up of the companies, however republicans disagreed with many of the reports recommendations. Facebook announced that they are taking action to deal with material relating to the qanon conspiracy theory. The social media platform banned all qanon accounts, pages and groups across all its
platforms, although they say it will take some time to remove the content. Facebook also removed a post of President Trumps, where he falsely claims that covid 19 is less deadly than the flu. Twitter labelled a tweet for violating its rules about spreading misleading information. If youve been wanting to take your vr Gaming Experience to the next level, this vr treadmill makes your whole body the controller. You run, jump and crouch in place while anchored to a bar, which is then reflected in the virtual space. And finally, if robot news is driving you up the walls and onto the ceiling, well, theyre not too far behind. Toyotas latest Robot Development hangs upside down, helping with household chores like loading the dishwasher, wiping surfaces and clearing clutter. Hello. This is l] calling with my top tips on how to win
at Video Conferencing. First up, you probably dont need to buy new kit to look and sound better on camera. To improve your sound, wear headphones if possible it stops your mic picking up noise from the speakers and makes your voice sound clearer. You can check your video and audio work by going into preferences. You should see the volume meter to responding to your voice. One, two. And the video tab will show you what the shot looks like. For a better shot, have lights in front of you and avoid having windows behind you, if you can. This means that the cameras dont have to compensate for the bright light in shot. Of course, this doesnt matter at night. To avoid the nostrils from below shot, aim for your camera to be the same level as your eyes. You might like to put the computer on some books or something similar, as long as its stable. Its also a good idea to check there is nothing incriminating in the background. If you do choose to go with a virtual background,
make sure your computer is powerful enough and that the backgrounds not going to upstage you unless, of course, thats the idea. If youre struggling to minimise background noise, play with the noise cancelling options in the advanced audio settings tab. This can help you clean up your audio. Now youre ready to go live, its a good time to brush up on some zoom etiquette. Once you click on the link, you will either be ushered straight into the conference room, or you will enter the waiting room. If youre presenting, some people like you to keep your video and audio off, until asked to enable it. Best practice is to enable video first, then audio. You can use the icons at the bottom of the screen or, if you want to look really smooth, use the keyboard shortcuts to toggle the video and audio. If you like checking on your reflection, move the preview window to the top of the screen, near the camera youre more likely to look like you are paying attention. If you dont have a starring
role, you can stay on mute and temporarily unmute yourself by holding down the space bar. If you can, avoid typing on your computer while youre presenting, especially if youre using the internal microphone. We can all hear that clattering unless youre on mute. Theres an old saying on tv always assume your mic is hot, or live, so dont say anything you dont want broadcast. And always assume, if youre using the chat, that you might accidentally send your hilarious observations to everyone by mistake theres currently no standardised way to end a call, though its perfectly acceptable to wave or, if you want to be discreet, you can type your thankyous and goodbyes in the chat window. Before you go, unless youre wearing wireless headphones, remember that youre still plugged in. Thats better. That was lj. Now, over the past few years, weve found ourselves spending more and more time inside food computers. Now, these mainly involve growing food in special nutrient mixes inside shipping containers. You may remember the
strawberries that we saw in paris and the delicious salad that i tried in los angeles. The idea is to both precisely control the growing conditions, but also produce food closer to where its going to be consumed. But now, theres a new idea. Its not about growing fruit or vegetable, but insects. Paul carter has been to find out more and filed this bug report. Rooster crows. Wood farm. A family run business in the green fields of cambridgeshire. Home to fourth Generation Farmers charles and joe, a flock of 28,000 free range chickens and now, 6 million wriggling black soldier fly larvae. Dont worry these
are for the hens. Winner, winner, chickens dinner oh, my god there are millions in there. You dont need to stick your hand. You dont need to touch it. I dont want to touch it any more than you do. I really dont want to touch it. No. The chickens here are used to eating locally milled wheat. Sounds delicious but now, home grown insects are on the menu, thanks to this ai connected containerfarm. Its a system which allows by products to be upcycled on site into high quality, high protein animal feed. The climate controlled system is made up of trays stacked on robotic rollers. Each holds around 20,000 larvae, which get their own snacks and liquid feed. All this is controlled by a panel on the wall, with an app also in development. Typically, industrial scale insect farms grow and process larvae on site before shipping to customers. Better 0rigin, the university
of cambridge spin out behind this trial, say they want to democratise insect production to farmers themselves. If you think of feed, right. It travels a very Long Distance to get to the point of farm. Soy usually travels from brazil, 0k . By putting a system on site, you can dramatically cut down on all that food miles. Not only that, you can do it vertically. But the smartest bit of all this is the ai thats monitoring the bugs. A combination of sensors speak with each other, sharing data around temperature, humidity, ph and motion. Computer Vision Systems analyse how quickly they consume their food and how much theyre moving. This information is put through a Neural Network to detect how each tray of insects is performing, if they need more less food, and if they are healthy or not, so the farmer can intervene. Of course, the main thing for farmers like charles is that its easy to use
and results in happy hens. The trails that weve done, weve seen that the gut health on the bird has been fantastic, weve seen the feather coverage so all round, we think its probably the best enrichment weve ever come across. Now, it would be click if they didnt familiarise now, it wouldnt be click if they didnt familiarise myself with the grubs and get in with the hens, whove been hiding inside the barn from the rain. Try to get in before they get out. Laughs. Come on, girls laughs. Its grubs up for the chickens quite literally. I have never seen anything like it. They love it theyre pecking my feet its a good job i dont have feet laughter. That was paul with 12,000 of his new best friends. Paul is online now. Paul, how was it
with the chickens . It was pretty intense. I never thought id get that up close and personal with so many chickens at once i know that you were not particularly looking forward to seeing the insects. How did that bit go . Well, i think they sent me on purpose because the member of the team most terrified of insects as me. But, fortunately, part of the beauty of the system is that it is automated you dont have to touch them, it is all done automatically. They come in big trays. And, as you saw, the farmer just takes the trays in and tips the bugs straight onto the floor, so you dont have to get your hands dirty. 0h, well get you next time, i promise. As we saw, there is potential for sustainability in this set up, isnt there . There is. Part of the beauty of this system is that it can be integrated anywhere, even on smaller farms, and the idea is that it is going to reduce their footprint and enable them to produce more of what they need to on site, so they are not having to import things like soya from the other side of the world. And the chickens love it. So, in theory, you know, everyones a winner. Well, paul, thanks for doing it for us. Anyone wants any eggs, by the way, pauls your man. And that is it for this week. As ever, you can keep up with the team throughout the week. You can find us on youtube, instagram, facebook, and twitter at bbcclick. Thank for watching and well see you soon. Bye bye. Hello there. Part two of the weekend looks a little more promising with more sunshine around and certainly fewer showers than we had yesterday. Now, there were frequent showers in the far north of scotland look at argyll and bute at the moment. It looks a perfect day for messing about on the water with just some fairweather cloud. Yesterdays showers, well, theyve moved off with that area of low pressure into scandinavia. Were starting to see this influence of High Pressure, albeit briefly. A weather front topples in later on today, but it basically means that today will be a quieter story. A few scattered showers running down through north sea coasts, perhaps likely, and a few scattered showers across wales and southwest england. Lighter winds, though, still from a northerly direction so not a warm source. Temperatures may well struggle, but i suspect in sheltered areas where we get see the best of the sunshine we might see 15 or 16 degrees noticeably cooler along that east coast. Now, as we move out of sunday afternoon, well start to see that cloud and rain gathering from the west. So western fringes of scotland, Northern Ireland seeing some wetter weather through the night. Clouding over ahead of it, but we could see clear skies across eastern and southeast england here. Temperatures perhaps dipping down into low single figures in rural parts. So a chilly start here, but a bright start pretty much. Not for long, however, clouding over quite quickly. The cloud and rain moves its way
steadily out of Northern Ireland and scotland, down through northern england, and here it may well linger for much of the day. And if that does so, temperatures really could struggle, perhapsjust a maximum of nine or ten degrees. The rain not arriving into the london area until the end of the day, but a brighter story by the end of the afternoon into scotland and Northern Ireland. Now, that weather front could linger for a time on sunday. It sinks its way steadily south and east. The isobars swing round to a northeast direction, so the winds swinging round to a northeasterly. Dry for scotland and Northern Ireland. Showery outbreaks of rain slipping its way across england, clearing the south east corner and the temperatures again still struggling. Just a maximum on tuesday of ten to 13 celsius, way down on where they should be for the middle part of october. Now, if you want something that little bit drier and a little bit more optimistic, wednesday into thursday High Pressure builds, quietens things down, but still not particularly warm with it. Take care. Ministers insist that the north of england is not being penalised as talks with leaders across the region continue about plans for further coronavirus restrictions. The Prime Minister will announce new measures tomorrow, including a new tiered system of rules for england. Liverpool is expected to be one of the areas placed under the tightest restrictions, as our Political CorrespondentJessica Parker reports. Last night in liverpool, leaders have been told that the city is set for the highest level of