in about ten minutes or so, we'll have this week's edition of newswatch, but first on bbc news, it's time to click. welcome to click, hope you are all doing 0k. it is that time of year where we mark the international day of persons with disabilities. we have a show all about accessibility intact. our very own paul carter has been putting the show together and things to the magic of television, he is here. good to see you. it is not magic, really. someone tell her. there this is a show all about disability tack and i should point out, we do cover these stories all year round on click but this gives us an excuse click but this gives us an excuse to unashamedly focus just on these issues. i wonder how it has been putting this show together during a pandemic? it might look a little bit different from scale and scope from previous years as this pandemic showed us, we all have to find ways to adapt so it is an appropriate thing for this. lots of us had issues around isolation and loneliness but one of the positive things is the rise of remote learning and technology that makes that possible. disabled people have been calling for it for years and we are often told it is not possible and these large —— la st possible and these large —— last crazy, crazy few months showed us it is probably more possible than we thought. and i wonder what that will mean for the future. we will have more from paul later on in the show but first, lucy edwards was somewhere between becoming radio one's first blind dj and a tiktok phenomenon. she has been investigating how ai could been investigating how ai could be making phones more accessible for people with visual impairments. if you are blind like me, text that describes its surroundings could be life changing. facing south—west. .. not that could be life changing. facing south—west... not that it a lwa ys south—west... not that it always gets it right. is there always gets it right. is there a bike parking in front of us? that was last year. now, the new iphone 12 comes with lidar to help users detect those around them. that is especially useful right now and we are all meant to be socially distancing. i asked meant to be socially distancing. iasked my meant to be socially distancing. i asked my best friend dave to help me give it a go. nice to see you. in these strange times, have felt a bit anxious about leaving the house. have you tried it out of the house yet or as is the first time? this is the first ever time. the world outside is it so inaccessible for me. i don't know people are going to copy on my face or where they are in proximity to me but with this in my hand, will i have the answer? there is no people detected it so i am guessing thatis detected it so i am guessing that is correct. as we set off to my local high street, we saw the tool could be amazingly accurate. a white building with accurate. a white building with a red sign on it. a person wearing a helmet sitting on a motorcycle. then again, it could also think that dave was a child. hilarious. what did that just say? a child. hilarious. what did thatjust say? did thatjust say a child? i don't know! he did say you are in front of a building, though! but what really surprised me was the people proximately alerts. -- proximity. it is almost getting everything a person walking past. there is a person 1.5 metres away from me. do i need to socially distance? the smartphone counts down as people get closer. i found you, you're five metres away. people get closer. i found you, you're five metres awaylj people get closer. i found you, you're five metres away. i am. four metres away. two, 1.5... and your cane is about two, there we go. thank goodness you're in your —— my bubble, babe. right, you are there. a person standing on a sidewalk in front of a store, that is incredible. two metres away, and two metres away. 0h, incredible. two metres away, and two metres away. oh, there is another person, honestly, i think it knowing that people around me freaks me out a little bit because i'm really not used to knowing where people are. so i'm going to have to get used to it but i'm really excited that i can be in control again. but any iia mike to can only ever be as good as its training data. —— any ai tool. and this has never been the focus of an ai device before until now. these clips have been detected by microsoft city university of london and the university of oxford. but they've all been filled by people like robin. it wasn't really important that people themselves are the ones to do themselves are the ones to do the recording of the things that are important to them, that are important to them, that they are the ones capturing these training videos, because they other people that are going to be using software to find the objects. so far, some 3000 videos have already been collected. at the project aims to gather around 10,000 clips in total. because this ai can learn from personalised clips, it means being able to pick out your keys or your cane from other people's just imagine if ican train other people's just imagine if i can train it and say yes, robin's shoes or those are robin's shoes or those are robin's glasses. because you might have family members living things around, is this my mug oi’ living things around, is this my mug or somebody else's? that is amazing, i use apps every day but i've never seen something that would personalise objects in my hand before. and this will be groundbreaking for the visually impaired community. now we're going to talk about aiming enter specifically how accessible videogames rate. so paul, tell us about this next story, please. with the new consoles on sale, the ps five and the export series x, questions have been asked about how accessible they are, is this the most accessible series ever? we have been looking into it and investigating specifically what changes have been made for disabled gamers. i remember seeing my first games console probably when i was around five or six but it wasn't something that appealed to me at the time, primarily because the controllers were just completely inaccessible to me. i have congenital hemiplegia which is a little bit like cerebral palsy but only affects the right side of my only affects the right side of d only affects the right side of my body so only affects the right side of ody so my only affects the right side of my body so my left hand is pretty ok, right hand, on the other hand... so having a control in front of me and then navigate a character's movement all at the same time is really, really difficult. with the nintendo wii, that was a really important to consult me but my first real exposure to gaming, personally, it was the playstation two. the release of the eye toy, you had a little camera above the telly and it would pick up all of your movements and it would correspond with the games. i could do that and then invite my friends over. the itoy for playstation two was the first timea playstation two was the first time a really experienced gaming even though if that was unintended but thankfully we have come a long way in the 17 yea rs have come a long way in the 17 years since and now accessibility is being considered from the very start of the design process. there has been such an awakening across the industry and within oui’ across the industry and within our culture, that it is no longer an afterthought and it is so much at the forefront of everything we do now. we've made leaps and bounds, evolution is in fine motor and auditory impairment and visual impairment. so with the new generation of controllers being touted as the most accessible ever, it is nowjust up to me to get to grips with them. so this is the playstation five jewel sense controller. it's pretty cool and it's, it has an ergonomic design that makes it quite easy to hold. what's also really cool is that all of these buttons can be remapped on the console so if you're like me, left—handed, you can put all of the controls on the left—hand side, if you like. it's also got haptic feedback. and it isn't just it's also got haptic feedback. and it isn'tjust sony's playstation that is taking steps to make games controllers more accessible. microsoft has been working with disability charities to help create something pretty unique. this is the xbox adaptive controller. it came out in 2018 and it is cool. it is basically like... one central controller but as you can see, there are loads and loads of ports here that you can plug in any controller that you like to make a more bespoke gaming experience. it's interesting, you know, i have been in the industry now for 20 something yea rs industry now for 20 something years and definitely i would say not just at x box years and definitely i would say notjust at x box but years and definitely i would say not just at x box but all of the partner publishers and developers and companies i deal with, the awareness is a lot higher and i think the realisation is when you design for accessibility challenges and opportunities, you actually open up so many other doors for a range of scenarios that are unexpected and you end up solving for one but applying to many ina solving for one but applying to many in a really positive way andi many in a really positive way and i think that's really catching on in the industry. like the ps five, the x box's —— accessibility menu has a screen reader and custom bottom assignments. there is also captions, voice recognition and even transcription facilities. accessibility in technology often focuses on educational tools or disabled people's ability to adapt to their surroundings on a day—to—day basis but it rarely tackles entertainment and downtime. it's like we're surviving but not thriving. special effect is a charity that recognises this and understands how important accessible gaming is to disabled people. what we do is if someone wants an assessment and there is a game games they wa nt to and there is a game games they want to play, we are able to send the equipment out to them and then we would go out and do assessments for the majority of people we help because actually being there is so important. the most important thing is this, the gaming industry is becoming so much more inclusive and it's paving the way for accessible tack everywhere, but most importantly, it normalises the idea of considering accessibility from the get go —— accessible tack. from the initial blueprints to the final product —— accessible lacko three. it is this that will help us change —— tech. it is that that will help us change oui’ that that will help us change our attitudes to disability. that is it for the shortcut of click, the full length is waiting for you on iplayer. thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon. bye— bye. unsurprisingly, covid—19 dominated the news again again this week, but at last some good news as uk regulators gave their approval to the vaccine developed by german firm biontech, in partnership with pharmaceutical giant pfizer. there's a huge appetite for information about vaccines, so the government's chief medical officerjonathan van—tam made an appearance on bbc breakfast to answer questions from viewers. so this first question is from gavin this morning, why is the uk the first to approve this vaccine and that all—importa nt question, is it safe? we are the first to approve it because we have been really, really organised about this from the word go. lots of you got in touch with your views. carly hunt was impressed. doug parret agreed, although included a smalljibe. this crisis also means lots of air time for our politicians as they seek to explain public health measures, and the decisions they are taking. but are the political interviewers getting as much out of their interviewees as they could? viewers have no shortage of opinion on this subject. robert churton says... robert boak takes another view.