And fancy working in an enormous Train Station . I dont know if youve noticed, but there seems to have been a lot of election talk of late. This week, click is taking a trip to paris where, this weekend, the french take to the polls in the first round of their president ial election. And curiously, from a Technology Point of view, the way we vote seems, if anything, to be going backwards. In the last election, france did allow online voting for those living overseas. But not this time. For both the president ial elections and the legislative elections injune, it is back to pen and paper. And that is due to the fear of cyber attacks, which the French NationalCyber Security agency says are an extremely high risk. Queues of people, paper voting surely there has to be a better way. Well, we asked bbc newsbeats Political EditorJonathan Blake to have a look. Ancient institutions and modern technology the two do not always go together. As elections are held worldwide throughout 2017 that could radically reshape the political landscape, most people will cast their vote in the same way it has been done for decades using a pencil and paper to put a cross in a box. In the uk, Election Turnout has fallen steadily. Those campaigning for online voting say the system is stuck in the past and it is time to digitise our democracy. It would make politicians Pay Attention more to the groups that would be enfranchised by this method of voting. So those groups would be young people, because they are the ones who engage most online, and groups like people with disabilities, or with vision impairments, of whom there are 2 million in this country, voters abroad, and the armed forces. If they have this accessibility to voting, politicians will have to listen to them. One company is working on a way to make voting more convenient and, they say, more secure, with an app that lets you register and vote by selfie. It uses facial biometrics, and combines that with some sort of government document, whether it is a passport or drivers licence, to create a Digital Identity, which the voter is in control of. So this is a Demonstration Version of the app which Smartmatic Have developed. We will start by registering, first of all. It is asking me to take a selfie. The next stage is to add photo id. We will go with drivers licence, because i have that handy. Once the idea is matched to your face, the app confirms you are registered to vote. And we are voting for rushfield borough council, which is not a real place. It is asking me to take a photo, so i hold up a camera and the phone will take a selfie automatically. So here there is a list of candidates, the same as you would see on the ballot paper. I dont need to tell you who im voting for, so i wont. I will pick one at random. And thats it. It says you have cast your vote successfully, and it has given me a unique receipt number, which i can either copy or send to myself by e mail. You are asking people to take a photo of their face, capture an image of the photo identification. How secure is that information, where does it go . The Digital Identity you create is unique to you, and it stays on your device, on your personal mobile phone or tablet, whatever you use to create it. It doesnt get stored anywhere. You are in control of it at all times, and you are in control of what pieces of information you use to create that id, and who you share it with. When it comes to security, we apply non standard, additional layers of security, some stuff in terms of really strongly encrypting the vote on your device, to add that additional layer of protection. But concerns about Cyber Security mean countries once embracing the use of technology in democracy are having second thoughts. In the netherlands, where the Voting System has been computerised since 2008, this year, they are counting votes by hand. But the country that has earned a reputation as the electronic voting capital of the world is sticking to its guns. Estonia is almost obsessive about its Digital Identity. Here in estonia, everyone from the age of 15 carries a government issued photo id card. Using this, and accompanying pin numbers, you can access your bank, phone company, energy firm, but also a lot of official information. You can see this mans name, address, date of birth, where he went to school, health records, everything down to what car he drives. In estonia, Voting Isjust another thing you can do online. Download software, use your id card and pin to make your selection, and vote from the comfort of your home, or wherever is convenient. Around one in three votes is now cast online, but officials admit it has not boosted turnout. The Internet Voter is a transformed paper voter. Having a novelty, a convenient method of voting, is not enough to bring people from the no voting zone back to voting, or to voting. Because you need other incentives. You need policy, you need a reason to vote. I think it is interesting, but it needs proper security, and right now, the measures are not good enough, in my opinion. Using the smart id we have, it is easy, and quick access to everywhere. I have used it, and i think it is very useful. And it is very convenient, so i dont have to go somewhere to queue. Other countries seem reluctant to follow estonias lead. The british Minister Responsible for elections told me the government is looking only at taking very small steps. They have identification cards, and they keep the systems. The amount of information they keep on the citizens is very different to what we have in the uk. It is a very different space to what we have in the uk, where they dont have a privacy agenda, about protecting individual citizens rights, and protecting their own data. People are happy to do their banking online, shopping online. Why not use technology to enable people to vote more easily . Going forwards, we have got to make sure that, while we embrace technology and we introduce things like online registration, online voting is a situation where, if we believe the current paper and pen method is the best way forward, then actually, it means that each individuals vote is counted equally. One voter, one vote. As technology advances, calls to Digitise Democracy will continue, but so will concerns about Cyber Security, so the pencil and paper may well always have its place. That was Jonathan Blake, and while Technology May not be applied to voting at these french elections, it has certainly been causing a stir in other ways. Keen to draw attention to his campaign, far left candidate Jean Luc Melenchon took to the stage this week, addressing a crowd of 6,000 at a rally in dijon, but at the same time, appeared at six other rallies across the world. They call it a hologram. We call it smoke and mirrors. It is not the first time politicians have used this tech to further their agenda. Indias pm, narendra modi, used it during his campaign, and the Turkish President , recep tayyip erdogan, used his avatar to appear at a meeting he couldnt make in person. Our political journalist saw melenchons first meeting. It was a particular weekend in france. He was in lyon, with marine le pen, and there was at the same time a big meeting with emmanuel macron, in lyon, as well. So he knew that he was not the top politician, so it was a matter for him to be. To stand out. Yes. Now, we have seen the peppers ghost illusion before on click, even it allowed me to get down with psy in korea. But its use by melenchon allowed him to address six venues simultaneously. A custom rig of 17 lights was created. The trick was to arrange the film lighting, which is pretty much identical to this, on a truss, a picture frame truss, very similar, and angle and lighting of the stages, all around the destinations you are broadcasting to. A camera in front of the stage filmed the wide shot, and the signal was broadcast over satellite to five french cities, and reunion island, off the coast of madagascar. Do you feel that this is the way that elections will be fought in the future with holograms and technology and showmanship . No, i dont think so. I think it is really a coup for melenchon. Many media were already there to see and to speak about it. I dont think that it is the way of making politics for the future days. But will this tech really help connect voters to politicians, or is this transparent projection just a gimmicky barrier that gets in the way . Egalite, oui welcome one and all to the church of facebook. This is f8, the companys developer conference, which this year is being held in sanjose. I am here to find out what Mark Zuckerberg thinks we will want in the years and even decades to come. I will start with the stuff that is happening right away. Facebook, you will no doubt have noticed, is locked in a battle with snapchat over augmented reality tools like this. You can have a second coffee mug, so it looks like you are not having breakfast alone. Facebook also launched spaces, a place to interact with avatars of your friends in virtual reality, when you cant meet up in real life. The company is also releasing these curious little cameras for Capturing Real Life Scenes in full, high quality 360. The innovation here is the ability for the camera to record footage that has depth. It allows what is known as six degrees of freedom. I can lean in and peer around, even though the camera that took the footage i am seeing hasnt actually moved anywhere. In the past, you were frozen in the middle of a world, as if you were seeing a painting on the ceiling. We wanted you to actually be able to lean in, and actually see the depth. And here is a neat little trick. The Depth Perception also means you can add a kind of green screen effect, without needing a green screen. Once you have that information, it is really built on the fact that you have captured the depth. You not only know the colour of that flower, you know how far it is away, and you know how far the ground behind it is away. And you can just subtract the ground away and replace it with grass, instead of rocks or bark. F8 is also about thinking what may be coming much further down the line. This little helicopter is another one of facebooks attempts to bring connectivity to difficult to reach places. It is tethered to the ground, but once in the air, it can Beam Internet to an area below, perfect for helping people in disaster zones. They have made it in conjunction with a San Francisco based start up. The idea is to basically build instant infrastructure. So it is an aircraft on a tether, where fibre and power run up essentially the longest Extension Cord you have ever seen. So, in an earthquake or a hurricane, we would drive this out, set it up with a generator and set up in the sky and instantly provide internet to all the people who need relief, and cant be reached because of disaster. And then, just when we thought the new ideas were over, things got weird. What if you could type directly from your brain . Even something as simple as a yes no brain click would fundamentally change our capability. It is many years off. They may never be able to do it. But this is the plan. Hardware and software that would allow you to post to facebook without moving a muscle. So thats it for another year. And as they pack up, we are all left pondering the question do i really want to plug facebook into my brain . Now back to paris. And how would you feel about renting your car to a complete stranger . Well, believe it or not, here, there is an app that lets you do just that. Drivy has been operating for six years. Over 40,000 car owners have chosen to list their cars on the platform, mainly in france, germany, and spain, racking up 1. 5 million days of rentals. The app gives me a list of vehicles available in the designated area on my chosen date. And then i can swipe through pictures and details of each car. Yeah, its basically airbnb, but for your car. Kind of carbnb, i suppose. Right, First Impressions of the drivy office, its maximum start up. Table tennis, check. Sweetshop, check. Writing on the windows, check. But how has this company persuaded thousands of people to learn their cars to others . To loan their cars to others . I dont know whether it is because im british, but i think its a crazy idea to randomly hire my car out to other people. Do you not think that no one will partake of this, because of the risk of damage and having your car stolen . We definitely knew from the start that it would sound like a crazy idea to lend your car, to most people. The question was, would some people agree it was a good idea, and efficient, and how do i protect these people who are willing to try, rather than convince the majority. Do you think there is a reason why sharing services do very well here . Yeah, i think that france is special, because it has the right mix of being, like, still a rich country, where the law is rarely enforced, where business is going well, with still a mediterranean culture. So i think its the right balance for each Sharing Economy to thrive. British and americans are more scared about lending their cars. Im not really sure, i dont know, but i heard that you teach kids Stranger Danger in britain. And that is something that i absolutely dont know in france. So maybe less trust of people you dont know, and less willingness to share time, or things, with other people. You have been to london, then, clearly. Youve described london. Can you find a lost car . Can you geo locate it . With drivy open, which is our big technological focus, now, we can geo locate cars, see where the car is going, how it is doing. You can use the accelerometer to see if there were impacts. So you can do lots with technology. And basically, the future which is coming, which is all about connected cars, and then autonomous, cars is playing huge in ourfavour, because increasingly, the amount of data you have on the car, the control over the way its driven is going to increase until its autonomous, and then whoever is in the car is no longer a problem, except for Sandwich Crumbs or stuff like that. In their early stages, start ups like drivy famously use desks anywhere they can find them. And very soon, a lot of those desks could be here in the biggest Start Up Incubator i have ever seen. Goodness me and thats because, when it opens injune, this 90 year old paris Train Station will become the worlds biggest Start Up Incubator. Director Roxanne Varza has let us in early. What i like is these kind of future pods up here. What are these . Yes, these are all meeting rooms. We have them throughout the building, and theyre meant to be like Shipping Containers transformed into meeting rooms. So, massive glass walls on one side will stop tell me there will be marker pens inside. I hope so and theyll be. And they can put post its all over it. You got a write on the glass. If youre a start up, youve got to write on the glass. Station f is full of big numbers. Privately funded by an investor and telecomms entrepreneur, it cost 250 million euros. It has 3a,000 square metres of floor space. Its as long as the eiffel tower is tall. It will seat 3000 entrepreneurs and thats just in the middle section we havent even got to that bit yet. So this part is the start up zone. Oh my goodness, thats just insane. And ill tell you what, filling it with Building Dust like this makes it look awesome. And below us, we actually have showers, and lockers if an entrepreneur wants to stay here all night, he can. What you mean if somebody wants to stay all night . Thats the point of being an entrepreneur, you dont sleep for three years it may seem like overkill it certainly does to me but roxanne is confident that france can not only compete for start up interest with the likes of the us and the uk, but in these uncertain times, it actually has an advantage. Weve actually seen the impact of brexit, weve seen the impact of donald trump in the us, weve also seen i mean,. Silicon valley have been skyrocketing for the past few years. So we are seeing these elements start to play into where start ups choose to build their companies. A lot of companies which would have previously looked at the uk are now looking at france, looking at other places in mainland europe, and in our applications procedure, weve had start ups that have specifically referenced these as criteria when they were coming to france. France is currently second, behind the uk, in terms of both money raised in big data, ai, and other so called deep tech in the last five years, and also in the size of its developer workforce. So it might not need a massive leap to become number one. Everybody gets a locker . Everybody gets a locker, of course. I like this under lighting, thatsjust. Yeah, the lighting is. Do you think in france, there are more regulations, more red tape, more Official Stuff that you have to cut through . I do think that administratively, it is a place where there is potentially more complexity than elsewhere. I mean, it depends on what ecosystem were comparing it to. The main problem i here in france is that things change. As soon as new administration comes in every three years, were changing things that we have put into place. And start ups cannot keep up. They cant every few years they have a completely different tax credit or scheme, so they need something that is stable and that they can count on. Not that red tape is was a problem here. Not that red tape is always a problem here. One