hello and welcome to newswatch. bbc news through a virtual reality headset. will audiences take a experiencing news events this way? and what questions to the new technologies pose for journalists? first, though, saffi roussos was one of 22 people killed at a pop concert in manchester on 22nd of may. she would have been nine on thursday. judith mauritz spoke to her parents. ijust judith mauritz spoke to her parents. i just wanted to judith mauritz spoke to her parents. ijust wanted to celebrate the birthday of saffi through doing this. what has your family lost? we have lost everything. we have, because we will just have lost everything. we have, because we willjust never be the same. stephanie and trevor firth we re same. stephanie and trevor firth were a number of viewers picking on one aspect of that interview, saying... versions of the report ran on bbc news all day, leading the news at 6pm. it provided powerful and moving television but some people had concerns about the prominence given to the item. here is mark eden.... linda dell also contacted us about the coverage, leaving as this telephone message. the coverage, leaving as this telephone messagelj the coverage, leaving as this telephone message. i found it to be mawkish in the extreme to show the video clip of the people outside the concert hall. surely the bbc can find better news than this and finding these people in anguish to put them on screen. i am fed up with it. the bbc director general lord hall announced the corporation's annual plan this week, and he addressed what he - a huge addressed what he called a huge competition presented online by companies such as amazon and netflix. he proposed the development of virtual reality content in the news and current affairs. there has been some work in this area, including we wrote, which dramatises the journey to europe of a syrian family on smuggler bows. —— boats. the film was animated by the makers of wallace and gromit and it won an industry award this week. it may not be news as we know it, but could it be news as we know it, but could it be the future? virtual reality footage like that is only properly experienced wearing a headset, but a simpler version, 360 degrees video, can be viewed online and on mobiles. the first such attack was aired following the terrorist attacks in paris in november 2000 15. following the terrorist attacks in paris in november 200015. this is what it is like in today, this is the place de la republique. the attention was to create an immersive style of reporting which puts the viewer at the heart of the story. but what questions to these new technologies raise for the bbc, and could they revolutionise the way that audiences receive news? i am joined by the newly appointed head of the bbc virtual reality hub. can you explain the difference between vr and 360? if you watch it through a virtual reality headset, the footage, when you look around, it feels like you're there. it is much more immersive. but true vr is made from computer graphics and fix your head into thinking that you are someone head into thinking that you are someone else. there is a giant pit that it up there you and your heart might start beating faster and you would get that fear of being in a real situation you are scared. we have seen 360 degrees footage of the large hadron collider. you get a sense of its scale. it is more than just watching standard news footage. vr is different. we have got that headset. you've got a film that has been made for bbc news on it. this isa been made for bbc news on it. this is a film we made to show you what it was likely be a firefighter. this was a fireman that rescued six children from a house fire on christmas day, 2012. the phone is slotted into the front of their headset which is playing it. get started. straightaway, it is in someone's room, and you're watching how the fire starts. it is amazing. it does feel like you're in the room with this fire officer talking to you, from his station, and explaining the background to this incident, that he had to tackle. it is just the scale of it. you feel like it is my size. it is very different to watching something on a flat screen. -- life-size. if it works well on a flat screen, it is not virtual reality. obviously yu hanchao —— choices about which stories get that treatment. how do you decide what might be a story for vr or 360, or the benefit of telling it that way? the benefit allows the audience to step inside story, so that they see it as you would, if you were a reporter. for example for a foreign reporter to stand in a place and allow the audience to look around and see, and almost smell and feel the sites of the place you're standing in. it offers amazing opportunities. with a firefighter one, it enables you to be there with someone, see one, it enables you to be there with someone, see how they do theirjob and being with them. it is be there, or be them. is there at different audience, one that does not watch bulletins and just watches things on the website? were at the stage now where we have not worked out, really, how you would deliver this regularly to an audience. it is still highly experimental. we are starting to understand the stories that benefit from it. it is early days. the bbc has developed content for mobile phones, when they were to deliver news but only 2 million people have vr headsets and the bbc is spending lots of money developing stuff for them. is that smart money at this stage? we're not spending a lot of money, we are investigating it and seeing what audience benefits we can achieve through it. there would be no point in the bbc spending lots of money until there is an audience for it. but it is a chicken and egg thing. if we can find extraordinary ways to tell stories using vr that allows people to step in, and understand the world in completely new ways, that is com pletely in completely new ways, that is completely justifiable. that film about the refugee experience, which has won awards, i wonder how many ordinary people have actually seen it. they work, yet, but eventually more people will be able to. that was a very early prototype, to see whether you could, through virtual reality, put people in a place where they would see what it was like to be refugees, trying to travel across the mediterranean in the boat with them, feeling the splashes of the waves, passing by the boat, and feeling the terror as they try to cross the sea. that is what it was trying to achieve. that was a reconstruction based report. if you are filming in 360, you get privacy issues and whether distressing images might be caught up. you have control of what you might be filming. absolutely. there will be lots of things we have to address as this technology develops. they are not much different from a reporter filming something on a mobile phone, it is just that it is all very round, and you might be filming things that you don't even see as you film them and you are in the spotlight when you're editing them. in the rush to give an immersive experience, which is what lots of social media does, things like periscope, is the bbc throwing away the editorial decision—making that distinguishes bbc news? most foreign reporters get excited about vr because one of the missions of the bbc in the end is to help people understand what is going on in the world. and so, if you go back to those presuppose what we are all about, and work out how vr or 360 enables you to achieve those, i don't think those issues will be so difficult. finally, while we are looking to the future, the better stephen hawking was taking the long view on sunday when he spoke to us at head of a conference to mark his 75th birthday. in an exclusive interview with bbc news, professor hawking told me he was worried about the future of our species. what is your view on president trump's decision to withdraw from the paris climate agreement, and what impact do you think that will have on the future of the planet? we're getting the point where warming becomes irreversible. trump's actions could boost the earth over a bridge with as becoming the plan of venus with a temperature of 250 degrees, and it's raining sulphuric acid. the decision to run that at the end of the bulletin on sunday at robert mccartney. he rang us to say why. stephen hawking, one of the greatest physicists of all time, gave an interview to the bbc in which he virtually said, the end of the world is nigh, because we're close to the tipping point at which global warming, we won't be able to stop it and we could end up becoming another venus. and you put it as a minor item at the end of the news. things are grim. you know, you're treating it as are grim. you know, you're treating itasa are grim. you know, you're treating it as a minor item on the news! thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your comments on bbc news and current affairs or appear on the programme, you can get in touch with those... —— with us. and if you ever miss an edition of the programme you can catch up with it on the bbc iplayer or through our website. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again in the next week. goodbye. time for the weather with phil avery. another day of mixed fortunes on the weather front. the best of the sunshine towards the south. further north, whether from sunshine towards the south. further north, whetherfrom coming in across the northern half of britain with its pieces of rain along its length. as it comes further south overnight, skies were clear behind and temperatures will drop away. away from that point there may be enough cloud across south—west for some spots of rain. temperatures in single figures for some. further south, another very close night, around 18 celsius. a warm, cloudy start in the south, the odd spot of rain along the line of the old weather front. brighter rain along the line of the old weatherfront. brighter conditions further north. too far north, and you run into anotherfront. rather breezy, here, with temperatures between 1a and 18 celsius. temperatures still into the 20s in the south. saturday night, lots of dry weather around, on sunday, another weather front for scotland and northern ireland, the odd shower further south, and of 26. —— highs of 26. this is bbc news. i'm martine croxall. the headlines at 8pm: the first day of the g20 summit in hamburg has come to a close, with climate change, international trade, and terrorism at the top of the agenda. but all eyes were on the first meeting of donald trump and vladmir putin — the pair spent nearly two and a half hours in official talks. meanwhile, protests have begun again tonight across the city of hamburg, after dozens of officers were injured in demonstrations yesterday. great ormond street hospital says it has applied to the high court for a fresh hearing in the case of terminally—ill baby charlie gard, after it received new evidence. an 81—year—old man has been given a thirteen—year prison sentence for sexually assaulting four girls at the medina mosque in cardiff. a 19—year—old man has been arrested at liverpool'sjohn lennon airport