Uncovering the technology that could help us emerge from the pandemic in 2021. This week electric rails. Kitten tails. And football fails. Spencer, and you you can barely kick the ball without falling over. In that way, you can, for sure, keep yourjobs. Hey, welcome to click hope youre 0k. It is nearly the end of 2020 insert cheering here and for the First Time Since march, you and i are together at the bbc at the same time. Hello, mate, how are you . Its great to see you, even though you still feel quite far away, but hey, things here are festive, it is feeling pretty cold, but we are together in the flesh. Yeah, a bit more flesh than there was in march, let me tell you. Hey, youve got legs id forgotten yes, i couldnt get away with slippers now how was yourjourney here . Youve travelled further than i have. Yeah, i came up on the train for the first time in months. It was quiet, let me tell you and in fact, thats what were going to talk about first. You mind talking a bit more about trains . Im fine with that. Excellent, love a good train. You see, train travel might be different these days but some things never change and in the autumn and winter in the uk, trains face delays caused by something very natural but very difficult to deal with. So paul carter has been taking a look at the solution to a very british problem one thats been around since the victorian era. Leaves on the line its that dreaded phrase that every british Rail Passenger is familiar with. It may get a few laughs but its actually a bigger problem than many people realise. Here at this test track in wales, theyre trialling a new technology that has the potential, at least, to revolutionise our railways. Existing methods of track cleaning have remained largely unchanged since the victorian era, but its hoped that plasma could finally be the solution to an age old problem. This new method involves blasting the leaves with a high Energy Electrical plasma beam basically, a bolt of lightning. Plasma track hopes to attach these concentrated plasma rays to the front of trains, which will burn off the layer of compacted leaves. The energy comes from regenerative braking on the train itself, or spare electricity from diesel trains. There are 10 Million Trees that line the uks railways and every autumn, thousands of tons of leaves fall onto the tracks. As trains whiz over them, the wheels compact the leaves into a black, greasy paste that sticks to the tracks. The safety aspect there are a number of incidents that can occur when trains are struggling to brake, so things like station overruns, where the train fails to stop at a station because its been unable to brake and stop in time. From the performance side, trains struggling to pull away from stations incurs delays. This disrupts the network and can cause knock on delays for passengers elsewhere, notjust in the area affected. Plasma tracks solution can clear the residue on tracks and restore them to a dry, clean and uncontaminated state, enabling trains to run as if it were summer all year round. But its back at plasma tracks laboratory where we can really see the lightning like power of the system. The plasma is generated from a high Energy Electrical beam combined with compressed gas. The beam can be as hot as 10,000 degrees celsius but it doesnt melt the track because the train is moving so fast that the contact is fleeting and hits just the very surface layer. So the problem is obviously from the trees, leaves fall onto the track but its not a slippy leaf like you would have on the footpath. Its actually the train running over it, crushes it creates heat and pressure and theres a biochemical and Chemical Reaction with the top of the railhead. You imagine its like driving on black ice. Aside from lightsabers obliterating leaves on railheads, theres also less dramatic technology being used to tackle the problems caused by trees and bushes along railways. Transport for wales have been working with one big circle to fit smart cameras on trains that automatically record, analyse and report vegetation that could cause safety risks to trains, such as hanging trees obscuring signals or hazardous leaf falls. Its a constant battle as vegetation naturally changes every time a train runs a route, but the smart cameras track these changes. Machine learning rapidly analyses the videos and provides early warnings so resources can be allocated quickly. We are principally starting with vegetation, so along the line side next to the trains, there are plenty of trees and bushes that cause a potential safety risk to our trains. We deployed this camera in place of the human eyeball, basically, to allow us to sort of grab more data and sort of do things in a much, much quicker and safer way as well. That was paul carter, who used to sit here, right next to me. This was my desk. I have not been here for nine months. When we left this place in march, no one really knew how Different Countries were going to be affected by what was coming. Turns out, the uk has not fared at all well. And so throughout the year, ive been talking to experts from around the world to try and learn how Different Countries have handled things better. Now, at the end of 2020, ive been back in touch with them to find out what they have learned over the past few months. Icelands Decode Genetics is at the forefront of Genetic Research and it has managed to sequence infections so accurately that scientists can tell who has passed the virus to whom. And the taiwanese government, just a stones throw from mainland china, managed to leverage its high levels of trust amongst its population to stop the virus from ever getting out into the wider community. When i spoke to its digital minister audrey tang back in may, taiwans coronavirus death toll was seven. When i spoke to her recently, that death toll was still seven. After nearly 250 virus free days, life in taiwan is thriving. Parades, businesses, schools and universities have remained open and an economic boom has followed. The only new infections have been from incoming visitors. This near unblemished record has been achieved by all communities within taiwan taking responsibility for themselves and when outbreaks do occur, finding their own solutions to get back on track. And as for the people who are found to have spread the virus, audrey says it was important they were able to be honest so the people that they have been in contact with could be properly traced. As a case in point, she told us the story of someone who did not initially want to admit who she had been in contact with. Initially in the interview of the first day after she gets diagnosed with covid, says that she stays at home, did not meet anyone, she did not know why she would contract the virus. And on the second day, because of the interview interviewers skill, i guess, she eventually admitted that she is a professional worker in an intimate hostess bar. Now there was a very large kind of social pressure around that time in april for the cecc, the command centre, to essentially threaten to put people in jail for refusing to collaborate with contact tracing, or threaten to shut down entire businesses by a top down order. Instead, the authorities got these intimate bars to close down and brainstorm their own plan for dealing with the local outbreak. This is very fortunate because around the same time in nearbyjurisdictions, we have seen the second or third wave because of the nightlife district that went underground. Meanwhile, icelands population, who are already used to having their blood taken and stored for future Genetic Research, were helping scientists to track individual mutations of the virus as it passed from person to person. This meant that researchers could work out who was infecting who and it helped pinpoint the cause of the most recent wave two tourists entering iceland in august. We have sequenced the virus from every Single Person diagnosed in iceland. It is important to know how the virus is spreading because on the basis of that, you can modify your containment effort. Should i close down the health clubs or should i close down the coffee shop, all right . I mean, if the experience is that the people working in the coffee shops got infected in the health club, you have more reason to close the health club than the coffee shop. But basically, this gives you the subtleties of data needed to make a decision, and its very important when youre making your argument before the politicians who eventually have the power to decide what is done is to be able to show them how this spread. And taiwans use of data has also been crucial to their efforts. For example, in digital fencing that tracks those quarantined using mobile phone signals. But would this approach work in western countries, where people seemingly dont like governments knowing their business or being told what to do . I think in taiwan, people really dont like being told what to do, and had we introduced new Data Collection methods, wed probably fail. Instead, its been from the bottom up with taiwans Tech Community designing mask maps to make sure everyone got their allocation, while messaging about Wearing Masks was conveyed slightly uniquely by the governments spokesdog. Remember the dog memes . Because this is a, you know, a very, very cute dog and who can be against to a cute dog telling you to physically distance from one another . The tactics were part of a recruitment campaign, for which audrey dressed up. The cat version of the Digital Ministry is far more compelling than the official version of the Digital Ministry. Right, well. Chuckles. Anyway, back to the serious stuff now, and icelands research has shown that children are only half as likely as adults to get infected in the first place, or to spread it once they are infected. Other research from iceland now shows that people who have been infected retain antibodies for longer than previously thought. But why some people are vulnerable to infection and others are not continues to elude even the experts here. There are probably an awful lot of extraordinarily rare qualities that make a very, very small percentage of the population resistant, and theres probably fairly rare qualities that make another small percentage of the population vulnerable, but the most important determinant in all of these societies is behaviour. And this spring, the epidemic was sufficiently dangerous to convince icelanders, this unruly nation, to behave properly. And is itjust a learning curve that we all have to go through until all of us, as individuals, improve our own levels of knowledge . I do think it is necessary for a liberal democracy to go through this collective learning process because essentially the top down shutdown, lockdown measures only go so far. People really do need to understand epidemiology. That is to say we dont make this false dilemma choice between human rights and democracy on one side and countering the pandemic, Public Health on the other. But with these lessons learned, 2021 is looking a bit brighter especially with the vaccine now on our doorsteps. It was amazing to see sort of in, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry how competitors turned their back together. We are absolutely convinced that we were working towards a common goal. I think that we are much, much better prepared to deal with the next pandemic than this one. Hello and welcome to the week in tech. It was the week that facebook said it will move uk users onto us agreements as the country prepares to leave the eu and its Data Protection rules. It says these accounts will not see privacy changes. Video app tiktok has come to tv after sealing a european deal with Electronics Giant samsung. And chinas ehang hit europe, receiving a long term permit to trial its autonomous aircraft in austria. In wearable tech news this week, a new smart ring could help diagnose the coronavirus before users have symptoms. The smart accessory the oura ring is being worn by more than 65,000 study participants, and us researchers say it can detect subtle changes in a wearers temperature. Zoox, the self driving carfirm amazon bought in june, has unveiled its first robo taxi. The all electric autonomous cab can hit 75 miles an hour and drive bidirectionally, meaning it can move forward and backwards and side to side. And finally, how about an a christmas chorus . All sing operatically googles blob opera can make totally new sounds, thanks to Artificial Intelligence trained on 16 hours of real life singing. An additional Machine Learning model helps out with the harmonies. All sing operatically applause now, i dont know whether youve noticed, but the price of top end smartphones has been creeping upwards and upwards. The latest folding phone from samsung will set you back £1,800. What . I cant believe how many people actually buying them. Of course, that is a high end phone, and you are paying for the fact it folds, but what if you just want a phone that allows you to make the odd phone call and take the odd snap . For the past few weeks ive been trying eight phones priced between £70 and £379, to see what you can get for your money. All of these phones are android phones. The cheapest iphone costs more than any of these, but we have got contenders from nokia, tcl, xiaomi, honestly, its been like a phone shop in here as i work out what these phones can do and what, if anything, you miss out on. First, i wanted to test their performance. Generally speaking, the cheapest smartphones dont have the latest and greatest chips inside them, to keep costs down. So, i did some basic tasks on all of them all of these phones were able to do these tasks with no problems at all, even the cheapest one, the nokia 1. 3, although this particular phone was noticeably sluggish, and that made it quite frustrating to use. And i feel like thats falling at the first hurdle. And it doesnt have to be like that, because for £10 more, the alcatel phone was buttery smooth. To push the phones a bit more, i played the hit game among us, and it wouldnt open at all on the nokia1. 3, but here it is running on the alcatel1s absolutely no problem. The next challenge was to see if i could play fortnite, which is a much more demanding game, with 100 players online and 3d graphics. And the two cheapest phones straight up wouldnt even install it they dont have enough memory. But it ran just fine on all the other phones. Even the ones that the app warned werent officially supported. And here i am getting a victory royale on the tcl10l. I did one more test, this time with some cloud gaming on Xbox Game Pass ultimate, and most of the heavy lifting there is done by the remote computer server, but this was pushing the three cheapest phones beyond their limits, the games just stuttered too much to be playable, but it worked beautifully on all the others, both with the touchscreen, or with the xbox controller connected. Heres the report card and it shows you dont have to go for a top end phone for console quality gaming. Lets take a look at the cameras. Thats an area that the Premium Brands focus a lot of attention on. In a cheap phone, i think if this was my mums phone, and the only way for her to send me pictures or videocall me especially right now would i be happy with the picture quality . thats my measure of whether these phones take good photos. Well, the pictures on the cheap nokia 1. 3 were fairly poor. I dont think anyones buying this for the camera. The rest of the phones all took what i would say are satisfactory shots that pass my mum test, with the tcl one here probably being my favourite. That shot was taken in broad daylight. What about a low light shot . We took some of those as well. These were all varying degrees of ok. Not mind blowing but not disappointing. They all managed to take a clear, fairly bright photo, which i dont think you would be able to do any super cheap phone ten years ago. Of course, the front facing camera has never been more important with all those video calls were doing. As with the other shots, the cheapest phone took a fairly low resolution selfie, and the alcatel one was slightly better. And the rest of the phones took nice, sharp selfies. Lets talk about features. What do you lose to keep the costs down . The two cheapest dont have nfc for contactless payments, none of the phones have wireless charging, although some of them do have fast charging, so you can top up your battery quickly. Sometimes, paying a bit extra get you a Newer Technology or something a bit fancier. So, the two most expensive phones can connect to the new 5g phone networks, and while all but one of the phones had a fingerprint reader, the samsung and oneplus phones had it embedded in the screen, which is a bit more fancy. I want to touch on software updates. Because, buying a cheap phone shouldnt come at the expense of your security. So i asked all these companies how long they intend to provide security updates for these devices. So, what conclusions can i draw from this . Well, if this is going to be somebodys only phone for taking family pictures or staying in touch with video calling, then i would say its probably worth leaning towards the more expensive end of this scale just for that better camera. But if you want something really basic for, lets say sending e mails or messages, or browsing the web, the alcatel1s proves you can do this for under £100. Chris fox there, proving that you dont need to break the bank to get a great smartphone. Now, as we said, this is the first time in nine months that we havent recorded our bits together over zoom i cant think how many video calls we shared since then thousands, millions a lot but i think youve missed the trick. Really . Throughout the pandemic, tv presenters, singers and reality tv stars have been making personalised videos and charging a fair bit for them. Theyve been using apps like memo or cameo. How much do you think i could charge, then . I dont know you would have some stiff competition. Snoop dogg and caitlynjenner have been doing it, some of the biggest names have been charging up to £2,000. Christina criddle has found finding out more. Ever wondered what happened to Lindsay Lohan or the child actors from harry potter . Well, theyre at home like us, but theyre making personalised videos for theirfans. This is t tom felton. Im Lindsay Lohan ive been looking at new platforms that let you order a video from a celebrity. You can ask them to film whatever you like, but it comes at a price. And if you want a good one youre going to have to pay quite a lot. Hey, whats going on, man . This is your boy, akon. For around a fiver you can get a video from a celebrity you dont really remember from big brother, or you could have singers like h from steps. Hello, there, you lovely lot. Celebrity drag queens, you can get animals from the zoo, you can even get rap royalty snoop dogg. Get your shoutouts, lets go its really easy to do. All you have to do is send a script to the celebrity, they then film it on their phone and they send it back to you, and people are buying these for all sorts of reasons, whether its a birthday, christmas, congrats on your new job, and some really weird ones. Were your favourite talking dogs and were here so, why would celebrities do this . I mean, whats in for them . I definitely think this is the new kind of autograph. Social media has democratised a lot of this and made the connection go more directly from the fans to the followers. We definitely have seen the desire to send more heartfelt messages, and cheering ups for isolation, but also on the celebrity side, many feel they want to give back, against covid, for instance. And also just be there and connect with their fans. I think many have more time on their hands, now. Happy birthday, megan what the hell . Youre 18 . websites have been popular, with cameo saying it has seen a 300 increase in ordersjust this year. And Companies Take 25 of the profits, quite a lot when you consider the average video only last 75 seconds. Singer lily allen is even using hers to make a new album. And you can get a video from her £300. So, ill be using these funds to finance my musical output. Of course, websites like these are a prime opportunity for pranking. Carole baskin from tiger king, the netflix series, well, she got caught out on cameo. She was asked to film a message for paedophiles jimmy savile and rolf harris. Now, the Companies Say these instances are rare and celebrities can always decline a request if they want to. So, memo let me try out the service with sven goran eriksson, who is a former england football manager, now turned memo star. His videos are 50 quid but he donates it to charity. First of all, it keeps up my english, second, it doesnt take me the whole day to do this. It takes me an hour. Its an honour for me. Its a nice way to keep in contact with the england fans. So, given his expertise, i thought id get him to see what he thinks of lara and spencers football skills. Hello, lara and spencer i have seen some old clips of you, both of you, playing football. Lara, your distraction tactics. Stephen, look over there . Are good, but the Co Ordination is awful. Spencer, and you, you can barely kick the ball without falling over, that way you can for sure keep yourjobs. Yeah, i am happier on the sofa than on the pitch, it has to be said. But weve just been critiqued by the great sven, how about that oh, brilliant, but never mind our lack of skill. Why were you wearing a suit . When have you ever known me to dress appropriately for anything . Ok, that is true. Anyway thats it from us at bbc new broadcasting house. Next week, its our click mas party. Now, its gonna be different this year, but we are having a party, one way or another its gonna happen online and we would love you to join us. Absolutely. In the meantime, you can keep up with the team on social media, on youtube, instagram and twitter at bbcclick. Thanks for watching, and well see you soon. Bye bye hello. Swollen rivers in western england and wales today, i suspect, the persistent rain has gone, some downpours around but a case of sunshine and showers, a bit more dry and bright weather at all points this weekend. At the moment, conditions developing again towards the is before another batch of showers this afternoon. They keep coming and going across Western Areas today, and they could be heavy and thundery. Some fairly gusty winds attached. The average wind speeds across Western Areas, with the showers coming through it could be 4015 the showers coming through it could be 110 15 mph. Still comparatively mild for this stage of december, temperatures down a bit on yesterday. It will lead to a cooler night, further showers in southern and Western Areas. Starry skies in between, showers most frequent in western parts of scotland. Much cooler than the past few nights. Some rural areas down to three or 4 degrees at the start on sunday. A fresh start tomorrow, brighter than this morning in eastern districts. Sunshine and showers once again. If anything, fewer showers, more dry weather tomorrow. Showers will still be fairly mild in the north west and northern ireland. Temperatures a degree. More cloud wind and rain towards cornwall and the Channel Islands. Low pressure across southern areas. The strongest wind across france, could hold onto rain all day long in the Channel Islands on and off. Heavy rain to begin with, lots of surface water on monday. Brightening up for many through the day, the brightest in northern ireland. Showers in scotla nd northern ireland. Showers in scotland turning wintry over the higher ground. Six or 7 degrees, 1213 higher ground. Six or 7 degrees, 12 13 further down. Some rain in the south on tuesday, keeping a close eye on this deep and nasty area of low pressure on wednesday, only potential at the moment but could bring strong winds and heavy rain. Whether we see it or not, it will be out the way and for Christmas Eve and christmas day, not a White Christmas but it could be frosty with lots of dry and bright weather too. Good afternoon. The Prime Minister and his cabinet are holding a Conference Call this lunchtime to discuss whats being described as the alarming rate the coronavirus is spreading in london and south east england. New measures although it hasnt been specified what are said to be under discussion there will be a News Conference this afternoon. Earlier this week leaders across the uk issued stricter guidance ahead of the temporary relaxation of the rules over christmas
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