this week, we're in edinburgh for all the fun of the festivals and to find out how you put on a high—tech tattoo in an ancient city. it's too narrow. it's on a hill. there's no straight lines anywhere. it's really quite a tricky space to work with. shiona's scouring the globe for new ways to make data look great. and at the fringe, the machines are waking up. you are not alone. you cannot be alone. nick tries on the very latest wearable tech... all: engage the cube! ..and meets the most advanced robots ever. is that a shopping bag?! every august, the city of edinburgh welcomes an explosion of creative energy from around the world as scotland's capital becomes festival central. the festival fringe bills itself as the single greatest celebration of arts and culture on the planet. everything becomes a stage here — not just traditional comedy clubs and theatres, but street corners and university buildings, lecture theatres, too, where artists perform dance and comedy and cabaret and circus. everything for every taste. on top of the fringe, there's loads of other events, too. there's a film festival and the international cultural festival. but perhaps the most colourful is the royal edinburgh military tattoo. it is a true spectacle, and alasdair keane has been to the show. it's loud, it's bright, and there's a lot of tartan. this is the royal edinburgh military tattoo. they've been holding it here on the castle esplanade since 1950. and this year's tattoo involves 800 performers, including bands from across the globe. the theme is stories. tonight's show is under way but i'm not here just to enjoy myself. earlier, i went behind the scenes. there are nearly 700 crew and technical experts working backstage. and another stat for you — 35 miles of cabling. up here is the control room where the technicians make the magic happen. hi. i'm alasdair. if you were to design a space to do a show like this, it would look nothing like this. it's too narrow. it's on a hill. there's no straight lines anywhere. it's really quite a tricky space to work with. from our point of view, it's very difficult for us to put a loudspeaker system somewhere that isn't in someone's view. we do a lot of olympic opening ceremonies, that sort of thing. we deliberately design the show so that there's a technical area, a zone where there's no creative activity, and it's out of the view of the audience, where we can place loads of technology that doesn't get in anyone's way. we don't have that option here. of course, instruments like the pipes and others are really loud, but there's still lots of microphones and amplification and things. you're right, pipes are loud, but this is a big space and we're outdoors. so the sound of the pipes, even when there's 100 of them, can need reinforcement. that's not difficult to do. it becomes difficult when that sound source is moving with respect to the audience. and to amplify that, the amplification has to be done in a way that matches the time domain or the sound arrival from the acoustic source. the reinforced source has to follow. from our point of view, we need to know within about a ten millisecond error where each microphone is going to be, and we need to be able to track that. now, there is a tracking system that we're using, so whenever we put a microphone on somebody, we also put a tag on that person, and then we can track them in three dimensions. we're not using that live during the show so, instead, we use it as a programming tool. this is the software that we use to do that. each one of these dots represents a microphone. anyone with a microphone has a tracker. so, this is where the musicians are split into two lines. they started at this point, they moved to this point over the duration of this cue, and this cue fires at this timecode value. traditionally, there wouldn't be a loudspeaker system. when massed pipes and drums are playing — there's 280 of them — it's pretty loud. but then there's other parts where there's 60 musicians and it's not loud enough. so, ourjob is to make sure that it should sound a little bit quieter than 280 musicians, but you should still be able to really enjoy the sound of something like that, and to amplify that to the point where it sounds like it's coming from a speaker means we've gone too far. drumming and chanting of course, the show is also a big logistical challenge. we can't do much with physical sets because we have nowhere to store them — it's a very tight space — so we basically craft the look and feel of the show through sound and light. the show is described visually and sonically through the equipment we're using. obviously, what's critical is that we're telling a story. it's not just about technology, but how you use it, and this is where our designers are really good at what they do. it's notjust gratuitous use of effect. it's using technology for the right reasons. one of the most evident pieces of tech is how they transform the walls of the castle. under here is two of the projectors, if we look up here. most of the performances are backed up by dazzling displays using state—of—the—art projectors. a medieval castle, though, is not a flat canvas to work on. talk me through some of the challenges. no. it's really, really quite complex. so, we've got 23 projectors hitting the castle. they also have back—ups in the case of anything failing, which of course it wouldn't do, butjust in case! what's interesting about those is, they're all on this same plane up here. there's some on the floor below us. some are set to portrait, some are set to landscape, the reason being, we really have to hit the castle from all angles to be able to fill in, otherwise you'd get lots of shadows. those laser projectors display a 6k canvas. that's 6,000 pixels of horizontal resolution. but it all starts with the design, and technology is helping with that, too. as part of our creative concept of stories being the theme of this year, we created a paper theatre. the exciting aspect of where we are, really, with technology within the creative side of what we do, we are now able to run a full 3d pipeline on something that size. so, this is all made in 3d. plus, as i was saying earlier, there's that sort of sense of taking the castle and creating a sense of depth which isn't there. over the three—week run, there will be 200,000 audience members — that's over 9,000 every night — so, the tech must deliver without fail. technically, it's a big challenge. there aren't that many projects like this, you know? there are very few, particularly in this setting. drumming people are paying good money to be here and they expect a quality show and we want them to get the same experience every night, a top—notch experience. pipe band plays what a show. that was incredible. they've been putting this event on for decades but it's clear to see how technology is keeping it relevant for a new audience, both here in scotland and right around the world. plenty of the shows here at the fringe are simply shows where the audience can sit back and enjoy the action. but there are a fair few that are more interactive than that, and some go even further and invite the audience to take control of the performance itself. nick kwek loves being in control, so we sent him to find out more. that's right, spen. this year, i'm properly getting involved. wait a minute. don't think i'll be doing that. yep. and i'll leave this one to the professionals. instead, i'm off to see something much more. on my level. he's benedictine. 15. laughter robo bingo, the interactive brainchild of two it consultants turned live stage performers. it's a smartphone—powered comedy act, which involves a lot of moving parts — literally — and quite the set—up. set up the main projector first. the first thing i've got to do is connect to the wi—fi, which they have to install each night and is what powers the whole thing. my best friend glen — 10. we used to build invoicing systems for small to medium enterprises in the midlands, and that was boring. so, we stopped and we took our skill set to this show. and what a show it is. it's a tech—tastic pop—up bingo hall—cum—virtual arts class turned giant multiplayer crazy frog rock concert game show. got it? me neither. and it is an excuse for us to show off our robotics that we have made in our living room. yeah, it's a series of useless inventions that we've created from various pieces that we found around the house. i think this is an old bit of shelfing, a football that was kicked into our garden and a bag—for—life that we cut up and stuck on. other bits have been built by the 3d printer and then broken as he's been crashed into the floor by the audience and glued together backstage before every show. the hand may have snapped a little... almost everything in the show is their own creation, including the artificial intelligence behind one hilarious round, where your artistic skill is pushed to its limit. that is the peter sutton patent pending circle accuracy algorithm that, on the whole, does an ok job of detecting whether an audience member has drawn a circle, and it gives it a percentage rank. and it gets it wrong a lot of the time. no, it doesn't. bingo! oh, and they're controlling everything that happens from their guitar—keyboard contraptions and spectacular smart shirts live on stage. # on a little fishy...# these are just the most advanced powerpoint clickers available on the market that we had to custom made. so we've got next scene in the show, previous scene, kick drum, snare drum. synthesiser, synthesiser. ship foghorn. small ship foghorn. medium ship foghorn. goodbye. i think after all that, i'm going to have to have a lie down! just as well, as i'm attending a sleep study. yawns thank you for participating in our study. chicago—based troupe october brian are performing a quirky comedy show debuting their new sleep—to—sketch technology. this group will be the first ever to experience the newest model — the cube. one volunteer. and tonight, by sheer chance, i'm the chosen one. all: engage the cube. engaged. now, obviously, this doesn't work, and i'm not really falling asleep, but the show must go on. perhaps the cube technology is not quite ready to ship yet! we have phones and we have other things where technology is omnipresent in our lives and we are over reliant on, and that's something we wanted to play with. stop that, nick. it's disrupting the study. we wanted to see how we could invent a sort of technology that people aren't yet scared of and now make them scared. yes, very scared. yeah. all: disengage the cube! time for a look at this week's tech news. microsoft has made another attempt to take over activision blizzard, the maker of video game call of duty. the new proposal was made after the original deal was blocked by uk regulators. the uk competition and markets authority says they will review the deal but says that is not a green light. india's space agency has become the first to land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon. the vikram lander successfully touched down on wednesday. the rover will be searching the surface for water—based ice, which scientists say could support human life on the moon. without this, the world would not be able to move forward with its plans to put a moon base and colonies on the moon. this is going to provide invaluable data on which to take those next steps. a pilot cargo ship that aims to reduce the shipping industry's carbon footprint has made its maiden voyage. the vessel has two windwings sails, which are designed to cut fuel consumption. the ship will travel from china to brazil to test how well the technology works. it's—a me, mario! hoo—hoo! nintendo have announced that charles martinet, the voice behind its famous character mario, is stepping down. he's been voicing the italian plumber since 1996. there are so many things on at the edinburgh festival that it is a fight to get audiences interested in your show. now, there are many tricks that you can use to get people's attention. colour, movements and an element of surprise tend to work best. well, shiona mccallum has beenjust down the road from here to a company that makes that kind of thing their living. visual communications dates back around 40,000 years, when the earliest civilisations used cave walls as canvases to share their knowledge, beliefs and stories. fast—forward to today and it's clear that images are still the preferred way for us to tell stories. creating super—engaging visual images is what this company here in edinburgh is all about. artists come together with data scientists who create interactive spheres that are used in museums, businesses and education to get a particular message across. why is this such an attractive product for people to absorb information? human beings are more attracted to a sphere than any other shape. so, what happens when you hang a sphere on the ceiling or you put it on a floor or mount it, people immediately gravitate to it and they want to engage with it and they want to touch it. the great thing about a sphere, especially if it's floor—mounted, is you're still engaging with the individuals, cos a crowd can go round the sphere, but you're also going on a personal journey and you're going at your own speed and learning and seeing new things, so you know, it's different. it's still new. even after 18 years, it's still new, and it will beat a flat screen hands down. tell me a little bit about the business here in edinburgh. the business has been around for about 19 years now — in fact, we call it the largest start—up in edinburgh. so, these are all over the world with organisations trying to share with their audience stories about their brand or their product. because it's so engaging, because it's so interactive, it's a great communication tool. thereafter, it's definitely visitor attractions — museums, planetariums, oceanariums, art galleries. you'll see these all over the world. they cost anything from £30,000 to £250,000. describe to me what i'm seeing. yes. so, in the heart of this system, we've got a very powerful projector. that's shining a light through this fisheye lens that's taking the light and bending it and filling the entire sphere. the other aspect to it, as you may have seen, it's a touch system as well. so, if you look here, we've got one, two, three, four infrared leds. what they're doing is they're bathing the inside of the globe with infrared light. combined with this infrared camera, we can see all the infrared light movements inside the globe. what that means is that when someone comes along with a finger and they touch the edge of the globe, it can detect that touch. the projector inside the sphere uses a powerful computer and works with an algorithm to generate the moving images. an app is used to load different content onto the spheres. each app is built in the pufferfish lab. we can load any number of apps onto here. i mean, some of the apps could be about data visualisation. they don't even have to be about the world. they could be about the universe, the solar system. it could actuallyjust be abstract completely. so, we can load any number of apps onto here. could you show me something else? so, this particular application is showing the ipcc data climate report from 2021. we've taken the tables of data and some artwork and then we've visualised them on this particular sphere here. it looks really cool, and we can click into the data, can't we, and find out more. so, will we have a look at what's next? so, what we have here is basically what could have happened in the future, depending on how we react to climate change. and, famously, there are two scenarios. one is the government target — so, 1.5 degree increase. what you can see here is how the world would look if there's a 1.5 degree global increase in temperature. if you go and click on the 11.5 increase, which is the worst—case scenario, what you can now see is a much different scenario and it's very clear and very obvious in this globe what the difference looks like. and, really, the purpose of this display is to be able to take that raw data and turn it into a message that's really impactful and makes people go, "mmm. i understand that there's a problem now." getting the message over about the climate crisis is a tough gig, and with more and more entertaining ways of communicating out there and no shortage of messages, true orfake, will pufferfish still have a place in a world that's dominated by chat bots and the metaverse? who knows? the future is really exciting. so, we're not in any way complacent, it's not all road—mapped out. we definitely believe that the sphere, in some shape orform, moving forward, will absolutely stand the test of time. that was shiona. now, if you do come to the edinburgh fringe festival, you will have a choice of around 2,000 shows every day, performed by artists from over 70 countries. they cover pretty much any theme you can think of but one of the popular ones is technology, like the one i'm about to catch next. distant memories of the near future is a one—man show by david head exploring how ai may ultimately change our lives. it's ok, isn't it, to not want to feel alone? that was the question you asked yourself before using the app but you didn't like phrasing it that way. it made it seem like you were incomplete, and that wasn't true. the show weaves together five stories, including that of a computer scientist who creates the ultimate algorithm — one that supposedly finds everyone their perfect partner. voice-over: you are not alone. sign up today and answer a short questionnaire, endure some mild brain scanning under observational conditions and hey, presto! the video rapidly exposes you to a series of stimuli while the app tracks neurological responses — faces, places, abstract patterns, cartoon characters, charming landscapes. the mini—brain—scanning headband thingy also checks your sweat or something, looking for pheromones. in a way, this is taking the idea of the dating apps that we have nowadays to its logical conclusion. when we talk about the fact that with enough data, we might be able to find, with the right algorithm, the right mate, as it were, it kind of sounds horrific on the surface but, actually, thinking about it a bit more, what's wrong with that? that actually sounds like a decent thing. ithink, potentially, it could be, if used in a healthy way. i think, potentially, as we find out in the show, the risk is that people who are already in relationships might then be tempted to view their own as suboptimal. the issue with the app is that it can solve attraction but it can't make relationships work. his brain function monitor... what inspired you to put this show on? i wrote the first draft in 2019 where i was suffering quite badly from clinical depression and was in the midst of what you might politely refer to as a breakdown, and the act of being creative and writing was a way for me to rediscover things about myself i liked and to find a way sort of back to a kind of stable place, i suppose. one of the stars of the show is an artificial intelligence called hope. huh. artificial. i understand the semantics at play here but i don't like the implications of fake intelligence or a lesser one when it is very clear the opposite is true. you're talking about the creation of let's call it a chatbot that can write advertising copy and a different chatbot that can write poetry. did you come up with that idea before chatgpt arrived? when i wrote this, it was science fiction. it was supposed to be speculative. ai existed and the companies were gearing towards where we now are, but i didn't think the zeitgeist would move quite this quickly. it's moved very, very quickly. wow. so, yours has become less of a future and more of a history lesson? yeah, absolutely. like i say, it's a period drama now, whereas, previously, it was a sweeping science—fiction odyssey. this is not, however, a dark vision of the future. david was determined that the audience should leave feeling hopeful about the possibilities of technology. ultimately, it is a sentient artificial intelligence who presents the overall kind of thesis of the show, if you like, that lands the point that to be human is to be connected to one another in a way that's intrinsic and undeniable, and it's the al's perception of that that is critical to the moral of the piece. what i need you to picture is this. you are a light in the darkness. a firefly. a glowing pinpoint. you are not alone. you cannot be alone. so, the ai ends up telling us how to be human? basically, yes, yeah. sighs mmm. if you find something in your eye near the end of the performance, you're not the only one, let me just tell you that. with hope, a misstep and a connection, this story finally begins. applause and that's it from us from the edinburgh fringe festival 2023. it's been a joy to be back. i hope you've enjoyed our coverage, too. thanks so much for watching and we will see you soon. hello there. part two of the weekend is looking pretty similar to how it was yesterday. sunshine and showers, but i don't think the showers will be quite as heavy or certainly not quite as widespread as what we had yesterday. but again, eastern parts of the uk will see some of the heaviest of the thunderstorms and showers today, whereas further west, we've got this weather from bringing light and patchy rain to northern ireland in between some good spells of sunshine. so for the rest of the day it will stay rather cloudy with outbreaks of rain across northern ireland, skies brightening up from the west, later. western scotland, western parts of britain seeing some sunshine. most of the heavy showers will be affecting eastern scotland and eastern parts of england. again some torrential downpours in a few places. and top temperatures 21 or 22 degrees here. high teens further north and west. so for the reading and leeds festival today, i think the better chance of staying dry will be across reading. for the leeds festival, i think you could pick up a few showers, which could be on the heavy side. same too for notting hill carnival. i think today is a greater risk of seeing showers than what we'll see tomorrow. i think it could stay largely dry with good sunny spells. now, as we move through this evening, overnight, the showers mostly fade away. that weather front, a weakening feature, spreads across central and eastern england. just a band of patchy cloud on it. and it will be quite a cool night to come again, particularly out of town under those clear skies, single digits likely for many of us. now for monday, and — of course, monday is a bank holiday for most of us — it's looking like being a fairly good day. i think quite a bit of sunshine around into the afternoon. the shower clouds may bubble up. you could see the odd light shower here and there, but most places should stay dry. and top temperatures, 21 degrees. it's the high teens further north and winds will be light as well. as we move out of monday into tuesday, things change again. the low pressure starts to push into the north of the uk. that's going to bring stronger winds, blustery showers certainly to scotland. some of these showers could be quite heavy. elsewhere, some good sunny spells. but this weather front will be spreading across england and wales, bringing a band of showers, but it will become confined to southern and eastern areas by the end of the day with quite a bit of sunshine, ithink, developing behind it. top temperatures around 22 degrees. cooler than that, though, further north where it will be quite blustery. wednesday at this stage, not too bad thanks to a ridge of high pressure, but then it turns more unsettled for thursday and friday. could be quite wet in places particularly across england and wales. live from london. this is bbc news. russian investigators say genetic testing confirms wagner leader yevgeny prigozhin was killed in a plane crash on wednesday. killed in a mid—air crash — we hear how one of ukraine's most celebrated fighter pilots played a key role in training f—16 fighters. your mission is to save the lives on the ground, to save the city. it is basics and tactics and some techniques to be effective. in the uk the metropolitan police is investigating a possible data breach after "unauthorised access" was gained to the systems of one of its suppliers. hello, i'm luxmy gopal. authorities in russia have confirmed that the head of the wagner paramilitary group, yevgeny prigozhin, was killed in a plane that crashed north west of moscow on wednesday. they say that the identities of the bodies recovered correspond with the flight�*s passenger list, which named mr prigozhin. the mercenary leader had led an aborted mutiny