that's it from us from ces. we'll be back in vegas next year. echoes: next year... next year... not a casino or convention centre in sight! thundering, powerful music plays. welcome to ces 2022 from vegas! it's been touch and go but we made it, and there's plenty of tech here. yeah, not as much as we were expecting, though, to be honest. in fact, quite a few big names pulled out quite late in the day due to you—know—what, which does mean that the world's biggest tech show feels somewhat smaller, doesn't it? there are still plenty of gadgets, though. yep, true. i'll be looking at a few for the home in a minute but in the meantime, do you fancy a brew? i think it's time for a tea break, don't you? you've been working hard already, clearly. very hard, yeah! this is the bru tea maker. now, you can put in any loose tea or tea bags and then you set it for exactly how long you want that tea to be brewing for, so it'll hopefully make you your perfect cuppa. my perfect cuppa is i'd say about 3.5 minutes. can you do that? ok, i shall try and oblige. it's got quite a handy self—cleaning function in there as well. with these machines, that's often the hassle, isn't it? 0k. set up a 3.5—minute interlude, please. yeah, actually. not a bad cup of...tea. where... ? 0h! she's gone. that should keep him busy for a bit. now, these days, we're having more food deliveries than ever, so could this be a solution? fresh portal allows you to set it to hot or cold so your delivery should be kept atjust the right temperature. the finished product will have uv—c lights to sanitise it and a camera to monitor your food, but the problem is you do need to cut a big hole in your house to put it in. and here's today's delivery, which is rather unusually some yogurt. one issue with deliveries as they often come with way more packaging than you need. that i'll be after later. but clear drop hopes to overcome the problem of not enough soft plastics being recycled with this, a device that compresses them. you can either put in there plastic bags like this or any soft packaging. this is a prototype — the finished product will be about two—thirds of this size — but this is what happens. and this is what the plastic comes out looking like once it's condensed. i've been told that this is probably the quantity that your average family would come up with over the course of two months and being like this instead of big, puffy bags does make it a lot easier to be ground down at a recycling facility. anyhow, i'll pop it there because i need to get to the kitchen. as it happens, i'm not much of a fan of plain yoghurt but there is a reason that i've got this here. first of all, let me pour some into the bowl. this is spoontek and the company claims that through a mild electric current that runs through it, your food should taste better. now, when i am using it, the food will be covering this silver dot here. and when i'm eating with it, my finger will naturally cover that silver bit at the back. so this light will come on to show that it's definitely working. to test it, i'm actually going to be blindfolded so that i can't tell the difference between this, the functioning spoon, and these two that don't. i'm going to put this on and omar, can you come over and just mix things up a bit so i don't know what spoon i'm u sing 7 0k. it's here somewhere, i think. bleep. ok, this tastes like yoghurt. that tasted exactly the same as it did on the first spoon. um, strangely, that mouthful maybe sort of tasted a bit better? but i don't know. if i wasn't really thinking about it, i wouldn't notice a difference. it's not like you feel an electric current or anything. but i'm going to guess that this is the right spoon. musical flourish. it is. 0k. i was genuinely not expecting that! 0k, well, let's give it a go again. bleep. i think this is the spoon. buzzer blares. no. no! and i really thought it wasn't the first one. maybe it was luck, i guess, the first time. let's do it again. bleep. not feeling so sure this time. i'm going to go for this being the spoon. and it is! ok, that was two out of three. and it could be luck but i don't know! it was two out of three. the difference was so small, i wonder if it would be more substantial with something that tasted a bit stronger but i don't know! there's my really scientific test. and when it's time to leave the house, especially if you're going to be away for a while, then you may be concerned about security. and here's something that's taken things on a level from the old timer switch that makes it look like someone�*s in when the lights go on and off. let me just set it up. there we go. simple. it's got a sensor in it so it knows if it's day or night. done. home shadows aims to create the illusion that there are people moving around in the room and to me, it did just look like a bit of a glitchy light, which i suppose would indicate someone was in. but it doesn't exactly look like this. yeah, maybe we'd all be better offjust having omar marching up and down in our houses. i think he was only willing to do it for me. charming. all right, let's move on. now, have a guess. what are these? is it a dance game? no. here's a clue. light clanging. 0h! yeah, and here's another one. 0k. light clanging intensifies. and another. i've got it. this is fastpong, a table tennis training device. the eight tiles are filled with sensors that measure the speed and accuracy of your returns. it's been invented by amir kamandi, a 2010 world championship quarter finalist. �*805 rock music plays. and it's currently being tested by the winchester under—iis runner—up on one particular saturday in 1983. �*805 rock music continues. the system can work with any type of ball launcher. the innovation here is, of course, these flashing target tiles which can be programmed to play loads of different aiming games. personally, i'm just happy that i'm getting the ball back at all. amir, any playing tips for me? so, i think you have to first look at the ball without the target and leave the target in your peripheral vision. 0h, 0k. so focus on the ball that's coming to you. why is this better than an actual practice partner? basically, you are gamifying your experience. this is the language that young generation understand it better. and we tried to bring them to the actual sport than just computer game, to have some activity. balljam — you don't get that with a human trainer. i think i hit one of the cameras in the — smack in the face just a second ago, so that's an achievement. after his table tennis career finished, amir moved from iran to south korea to study sports science and fastpong was born. he says that professionals can use this to improve their reaction time, agility and decision—making and amateurs can use the accompanying app to record their accuracy and speed, find their weaknesses, and get advice on how to overcome them. up until now, training and data analysis has been achieved using expensive high—speed cameras, so this may make training more accessible to all — including a rusty old player like me. i'm getting into it. i'm remembering that i've got to keep my legs moving, don't stand still, and just lean into it. now, the tiles are above the level of the table so if i'm trying to go for real accuracy, i kind of get the feeling that i can't do it with something that's not exactly the same level as the table — would that be right? not really because the object here is just hitting a disc area and not needing to be like one millimetre up and down. it's not an issue, actually. so this is about target practice and not the spin and the speed of the ball. of course, if you want to have a different spin and a speed, the machine — there are a lot of different type of machines out there they can provide you with a different spin, different speed. ok, i'm going to go for the midi camera now. yes! £1000 worth of damage! oops! chuckles. hello and welcome to the week in tech. news from ces coming up, but first, it was the week theranos founder elizabeth holmes was convicted by a jury on four counts of fraud. the blood testing firm collapsed in 2018 after it was found holmes�* claims about the technology were false. blackberry has turned off support for its operating system with the company saying its iconic phones will no longer reliably function. and the james webb space telescope was fully deployed. hooray! its tennis court—sized sunshield will allow scientists to capture images of faraway stars. all right, quick ces round—up for you as promised, and one of the trends to come out of las vegas this year — augmented reality smart glasses. here's tcl�*s nxt wear air, giving the equivalent of a 140—inch screen visible from 4 metres and weighing just 75g. meanwhile, vuzix�*s demoed a micro led stereo display for industry tasks. plus, sony got all charged up as it revealed plans to start sony mobility, to make electric cars. here's its concept electric suv, dubbed the vision-s 02. and labrador showed off these self—driving shelves — or should that be �*shelf—driving' ? they can fetch and carry stuff at home. looks useful for those of us with mobility issues. and finally, maximise your efficiency by automating your t—shirt folding. brussels students built this prototype with mdf from 3d—printed hinges and an arduino uno brain, which detects the tops and starts the motors. freshly folded tops are released through a trapdoor. may the force �*t�* with you! haven't we done this gag before? i think they're always just trying to get us to cover oui’ faces. yeah. charming. listen, this is the airxom mask. it's by french company and it is for people who really, really need to breathe clean air. it kills bacteria and viruses on the way in. first of all, there's a silicon mould here which sucks into yourface, giving you a really good seal — as evidenced by the line around mine right now. the air goes on the bottom and then a uv—a light kills the bacteria and the viruses before you breathe them in. is it comfortable? yeah, not really — and also, you have to lug around the battery pack with it. what?! yeah. ok, that's rather hefty in total. yours looks nice! thank you very much! this is the aeronest mask ventilation kit. nice. so you can attach this to any mask. the idea is — i'll take if off so you can see the inside of it — but if you want a bit of air to breathe in the inside of your mask, it comes through here, so it sort of tickles your nose and mouth. but the thing is, so if you're somebody who feels a little suffocated when you're wearing a mask, then this may help. but the only thing is you then have to wear something that's far heavier, far chunkier and sort of vibrates on your cheek a bit... really? ..so i wasn't that convinced. goodness me! yeah, a bit like wearing bone—conduction headphones — there's something thatjust doesn't feel quite right. you do get the air, though. you do feel the air. you are breathing it in. 0k, cool! well, listen, let's move on. as we said earlier, ces has been massively impacted by the ongoing pandemic. there are loads of companies and loads of people who simply aren't here. that's right. james clayton has been taking a look at how the show has changed and how it is for the exhibitors. last year, all of this — the robots, the gadgets, the gizmos — weren't here. the show was entirely digital and it was missing something — being able to touch products, hear what things sound and look like in real life, all gone. this year, the organisers were determined that the show must go on. however, ces has coincided with record covid cases here in the us, so would anyone turn up? we've been here at ces for about two hours, it's the opening day and you'd expect it and, to be fair, some people have turned up, but the numbers are way down. right here, you'd expect there to be exhibitors, but many simply haven't turned up. google, amazon, microsoft and many more have withdrawn, citing safety worries. that's what mark gooday wanted to do. founder of british headphone company meters, he would've preferred to have pulled out, but says he'd already paid $50,000 and with no prospect of a refund, decided to stay. this is a massive investment. we were shocked to see people building booths behind us and literally, overnight, they have obviously pulled out. shows are about people, you know? meeting people, communication and talking through a product, pressing the flesh, saying hello to people, washing your hands a lot — they're all drying up, but that's life — you can't beat it. so, should this have been cancelled? should it have been an in—person event, do you think? 0h, ithink it should've been cancelled. it should be vibrant and buzzing. it's not. that's the downside. that said, we're still seeing people and we're still doing business. not all the major companies stayed away. samsung, for example, had a major exhibit, showcasing projectors, fridges with wi—fi and tvs. including this tv by samsung that allows you to buy, sell and display nfts, or non—fungible tokens. now, i don't understand why you'd want to do that, but samsung has done it anyway. but many other big companies simply didn't turn up. that said, although the show was well down on numbers, and many of the big beasts failed to show up, many people did come. it wasn't a total washout, as some had unexpected. the organisers here say they've done everything they can to keep people safe, including mandating vaccines and giving everyone a lateral flow test. but there are some that believe that this show simply shouldn't have gone ahead in person. that was james, and i'm joined now by karen chupka, the executive vice president of ces. karen, welcome to our little corner of your show. thanks for being here! we're so excited to have you! so there have been a staggering number of cases of covid this week. i think on monday in the us, a million new cases. is it irresponsible to have an in—person show in a circumstance like that? well, i think what we've done is we've always focused on what are the right health measures can put in place? and so, you know, in the summer, we went and said that the entire show, you have to have a vaccine to get into the show. and we felt like that was really going to be one of the most important things that we could put in place to make sure that we were doing things right. we know that there are people that won't be able to make it to ces in person, and we want them to connect with us digitally, but for those who are ready, who are vaccinated, who are wearing masks and following our policies, we also wanted to have a show for them and give them what they needed to do to continue to grow their business. so, many major tech firms have pulled out, citing safety concerns. who's right — them or you? i think these are unprecedented times and people need to make the decisions that are right for them. we've had about 10% of our exhibitors actually pull out, so when you take... only 10%? only 10%. so when you look at the total number, we have over 2,300 exhibitors, which is 90% that wanted to come and 10% that didn't. you're closing a day early. are you refunding the exhibitors that day's fee? actually, you know, because we have extended the show through january 31 on the digital platform, they're still going to be able to connect with all of our attendees, they're still going to be able to get leads from the show, they're still going to be able to set up appointments. so, actually, the physical part is closing, but the great news is the show continues to go on through january 31, so they can make more connections and continue to do business. so you're not refunding them for the extra day? no, because they are still doing business and they're still connecting and they're having great valuable, you know, business that they can connect with. interesting. karen, thanks very much for taking the time, and thanks for having us on this unexpectedly large stage. i know! thank you for coming! upbeat electronic music plays welcome to eureka park where there's always something weird to see, including this. this is levita - a cabinet where you can make anything float. they've put perfumes and watches in here for retail shops. but today, they've put my microphone inside. and because the founders are magicians, they won't tell me how this is done. i am going to need that back, please. really? yes. sure, 0k. here it is. there you go for your microphone, sir. it's magic! laughter as always, more and more things are getting connected to the internet. this is a smart tap. i can ask my voice assistant, "alexa, ask moen for 500ml of water." alexa: wave over sensor to dispense 500ml now. | there we go! exactly 500ml — very clever. emily, does this mean if the wi—fi goes off, i can't make a cup of tea? absolutely not! you will always have tea. the motion control sensor will continue to operate. this is the soapy handwashing kiosk — very important, obviously, in these times to wash your hands. so i put my hands in and i have to follow the instructions on the screens, and the camera inside is making sure that i follow all the gestures properly. # happy birthday to you # — remember that? and now, all my hand washing data is uploaded to the cloud! so, mirat, how did i do? your wash was perfect! you did all the gestures. good job! super clean! this is battle racing, a start—up from columbia which i think we can say is inspired by an italian—japanese plumber. i can even leave little traps here for the people racing behind me, and then off i go! this is flying magic cleaner. the idea is that once you've vacuumed your carpet, you can suck some more dust out of the air — not using magic, but using static electricity. there's a few companies here this year doing facial recognition for dogs, so let's give it a try. here's a dog. we hold that to the camera and it's identified it asjohn. now, what about this dog with the pretty hair clip? is that a different dog or the same dog? that is alsojohn. laughs upbeat electronic music plays what do alcohol and bitcoin both have in common? every high is followed by a crash. i've just met cecilia. this is a robot bartender. i put my cup here. show me your id. and she's asking me for id, because obviously i look under 21. cecilia, i'll have a metaverse please. oh, cecilia. you're breaking my heart. you're shaking my cocktails daily. 0k, well, taste test. 0h, very nice! is that pomegranate? thank you. and this is the perfect gadget for if you've been doing sports or exercise orjust walking around ces all day. it's cryosocks and it's going to give me instant deep cooling in my muscles from this canister here, so ijust give it a press... ah! oh, it is very cold! that was chris, and we haven't quite finished with weird and wonderful yet. oh, good! you know that nice feeling you get when a baby nibbles yourfinger? no! no, me neither, but someone does, so meet amagami ham ham. stick yourfinger in its mouth. right. is this like i'm torturing a toy? this is quite strange. tell us what that's like. ooh! it's squeezing the end of my finger. it's kind of... yes, it is. ..dry — i don't know! it's weird. well, you enjoy that while i read the press release, which says it's designed to recreate the somewhat pleasing sensation that people get when human babies and pet animals softly bite on the fingers. it uses a special algorithm to randomly select from two dozen nibbling patterns to keep users interested — are you still interested? fascinated. most people like the nibbling sensation, but know they need to teach their children or pets to stop it because kids and animals will otherwise bite them with full force eventually. amagami ham ham is a robot that frees humankind from the conundrum of whether to pursue or not pursue the forbidden pleasure. how's that for you? it's got quite excitable. can i take my finger out? yes, you may! and on that note, i think we'll leave it for ces for this week. it's good to be back, though, isn't it? it's very good to be back. it's been wonderful. super. ooh! as ever, you can keep up with the team on social media. find us on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter at @bbcclick. spencer, are you 0k? thanks for watching. we'll see you soon. bye! hello there. on tuesday, sunshine returned to the northern half of the uk. and through the rest of this week, we'll continue to see differences north—south. but we've got a milder, stronger breeze picking up across scotland and northern ireland. england and wales, the winds are going to be much lighter, so we're more likely to have some frost here and increasing amounts of mist and fog too. now, it was pretty damp and grey for many southern parts of the uk on tuesday, but all that low cloud and damp weather is heading out into the english channel, so clearer skies are following on behind. and whilst it's chilly across parts of scotland and northern ireland, a frost more likely in england and wales. not just that, but we're seeing some mist and fog developing, particularly in this area where we have the yellow warning from the met office. and within that area, there are some very busy roads. so with some dense patches of fog, driving conditions could be tricky in the morning. that's when we'll still have some fog around, but it should gradually lift through the day, and for many parts, we should see some sunshine coming through. some sunshine across northern ireland, southern and eastern scotland — much more cloud across the north—west of scotland, although it should be largely dry. quite windy, mind you, and temperatures probably reaching double figures in the north of scotland, nearer 7 or 8 degrees, i think, for england and wales, even with some sunshine. and we've got milder conditions across northern areas because we've got these strong winds coming all the way across the atlantic, around the top of this area of high pressure. and underneath that area of high pressure, this is where we're seeing the frost and the fog. so we start with another frost again on thursday morning, we may well find the fog a little more widespread, notjust across some southern parts of england and the midlands, maybe into parts of wales and across northern england for a while. some of that could linger into the afternoon, but for many places, again, we should see some sunshine coming out. and it's a similar story again across scotland and northern ireland — cloudier weather in the north—west of scotland, a little bit damp, as well. still those temperature contrasts really north—south across the uk. where that fog is slow to lift, it will be quite a cold day. all that cold air is stuck underneath this area of high pressure. stagnant air, really, so fog is tending to become more widespread. and it may well drift its way up into parts of northern ireland and southern scotland. most of the fog, though, on friday will be across england and wales, and it could linger into the afternoon. some sunshine away from that fog and low cloud. and again, it'll always be milder across more northern parts of scotland. welcome to bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories: president biden makes a passionate plea for reform of voting rights describing it as a defining moment for us democracy. us covid infections reach an all—time high with hospitalisations doubling in just two weeks — a stark warning is issued to the unvaccinated. about a 20 times likelihood that you would be dead if you were unvaccinated. the british prime minister under growing pressure over a downing street drinks party at a time when large gatherings were banned at the height of a covid lockdown. more than half of afghanistan's population has too little to eat. the un calls for billions of dollars in aid — the bbc�*s quinten sommerville reports on a growing crisis.