04/11/2017 Click - Short Edition


04/11/2017

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In around ten minutes

you can see Newswatch.

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But now on BBC News,

it's time for Click.

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If it feels like the weather

is getting weirder, well,

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that's because it is.

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In many parts of the world,

meteorological records seem to be

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tumbling virtually year after year.

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And as gets more erratic

and extreme, the need for accurate

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forecasts becomes vital.

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This is the BBC's Weather Centre

at New Broadcasting House.

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This is where they take their best

guess at what the next two days

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will look like.

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We kind of take it for granted,

these days, but as you would expect,

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there's an awful lot

of numbercrunching that goes on,

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which is what Ben

is doing right now.

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Hi, Ben.

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You might recognise Ben,

he's on the telly!

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Ben is taking raw data

from the Met Office on this screen

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and turning it into something more

akin to what we see on the TV.

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It all goes to make up that familiar

weather map that we know and love.

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And for the UK, each 4km square

gets its own individual

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forecast from the Met Office.

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Other services can provide an even

more granular forecast.

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But swing around to Africa,

and it's a very different story.

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Here we're working at

much lower resolution.

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The squares here are only

25 kilometres across.

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One of the reasons is because data

is particularly thin

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on the ground here.

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Now, over the coming month or so,

we're going to be looking at how

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technology

is changing this continent.

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And to start our journey,

Dan Simmons has travelled

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to Tanzania to meet a chap

who used to work here,

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but who is now on a mission

to improve the forecast for Africa.

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Sub-Saharan East Africa is lush.

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The soils are rich.

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It's the end of a very

wet rainy season.

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Too wet for some farmers,

who saw their crops rot.

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Angus and Asha farm in Lushoto.

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They tell me climate change has made

it difficult to predict the seasons.

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They've gone from drugs

to flood in recent years,

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and lost harvests in both.

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Next door, Peter's been planting

a type of runner bean which can take

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as little as six weeks to grow.

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In September to October,

the rainfall are very harsh.

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It rush the topsoil to down there.

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But last season, he lost his

entire crop to sudden,

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heavy, early rains.

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The farmers here know

what they are doing,

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they just don't quite know any more

what the weather's up to.

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Former BBC weather presenter

and keen gardener, Peter Gibbs,

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wants to do something about that,

and he's found a pretty neat way

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to explain it to me.

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I think you're like this, though.

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All right.

The big reveal...

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Oh, wow!

Oh my word!

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Look at this!

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Is that grand or what?

That is huge!

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That goes on forever, doesn't it?

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It just...

yeah.

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This gives you some idea

of the scale of Africa.

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The drop here is about 1,000

metres from where we are.

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No, no, no, that is close enough!

That's not...

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From the West Usambara Mountains,

where we're standing,

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down to the Masai Plain.

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We're looking at hundreds

of square kilometres.

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Lots of weather going on.

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You can see clouds building

over in the distance.

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Most of its farmed as well...

Exactly.

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There's lots of people living out

there, but no weather station

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you can see.

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So how do you do a good forecast

here without that information?

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That's incredible.

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You know, back in the UK,

you would have, at least,

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half a dozen, perhaps 15 weather

stations in that sort of area.

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So you can see the problem.

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So the satellites can't do it.

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Because we have

satellites, don't be?

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The satellites can do some of it.

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The satellites can pick up some

of the clouds we can see,

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but can't estimate the rain how much

each cloud can produce.

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You need those measurements

of the ground.

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Was the other parameters,

like temperature, humidity,

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and pressure...

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You know, it's like any

commuter programme -

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garbage in, garbage out.

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Peter's advising a start-up, Kukua,

that wants to pepper Africa

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with these.

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Fully automated,

self-reporting low-cost

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weather stations.

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They can be monitored from anywhere,

looking up to Africa's extensive

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mobile cell network.

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Kukua placed their first station

last year, and will have more

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than 100 operating by Christmas.

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So what do we get on our fully

automatic weather station?

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Well, we've got a bucket up here,

which measures the rainfall.

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There's a little seesaw device

in there which goes backwards

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and forwards for every

drip that comes through.

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That tells us how quickly

the rain is falling,

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as well as how much rain is falling.

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An anemometer a bit of giving us

the wind speed and direction

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by the vane there at

the very, very top.

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This is the solar panel,

which powers the whole thing

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and is also rather cleverly used

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to tell us how much

sunshine we're getting.

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Just behind it in this hive kind

of affair is the temperature gauge.

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It also measures humidity

and it's stuck in there

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so it can't be affected by direct

sunlight or more heat coming

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from the ground, which is

dissipated by this housing.

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All of that data has to be

collected by a panel

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round at the back, which is sent

to this communications unit.

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It has a SIM card that works

in every African country.

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What some of us would do

for one of those...

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And then it uses this transmitter

to send it all back to base.

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That goes back to Europe,

and then from the guys in Europe,

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they will produce a model,

which will give people back

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here a more accurate

weather forecast.

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It's already making a difference.

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Farmers like Peter get daily text

alerts, giving them a steer

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as to what to expect.

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And this farmer told us his texts

have helped him decide when to add

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fertilizer and pesticides.

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We can actually make

a massive difference

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to the farmers themselves.

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Up to 80% yield increases.

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That makes the difference

between eating to stay alive

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and sending your children to school.

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And it's not just

the personal impact.

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Health agencies can use improved

forecasts to better predict

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outbreaks

of malaria or cholera.

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And insurers want to know

if they need to pay out on policies.

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This information gap

is holding the continent back.

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The Coco Belt in West

Africa is shifting.

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Multinationals want to know

which way and by how much.

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And it'll be selling on the big

data that Kokua collect

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that

will help pay for what is looking

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like a pretty big job.

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Well, across the whole

of Africa at the moment,

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there are around 500,

just 500, reliable

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reporting weather stations.

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To get good coverage,

you need to get up

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to something like 20,000.

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From my point of view,

after my years in meteorololgy,

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I think it's fantastic, to me,

that I feel I can make

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use of that experience,

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to actually make a difference

to people's lives.

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That was Dan Simmons

with Peter Gibbs in Tanzania.

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We will have more reports

from the African continent

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later this month on Click.

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Microsoft boasts its new XBox one X

is the most powerful games console

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in the world!

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They've stopped short of calling it

the most powerful console

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in the galaxy, I suspect they're

saving that accolade for the machine

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comes after this one.

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But there's good reason

for all this talk of power,

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and that is down to what lurks under

the hood of this console.

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It has an eight core processor

running at 2.3 gigahertz,

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a six teraflop GPU, 12gb of memory

and a 4k Blu-ray player

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thrown in as well.

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This means that the machine can

throw out 4k 60 frames per second

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graphics in HDR.

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Stunning...

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What those numbers and specs mean

is that this box is capable

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of producing much sharper,

richer and more detailed graphics

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than the old XBox One S,

which had a maximum resolution

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of 1080p, which is eye-offending

high definition, as it's

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probably now know.

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Look at this Porsche that

I'm driving in Forza.

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I've managed to bump and scrape it

of a couple of times,

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and you can see every single dent

and ding that I've put in the car,

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every single bit

of chipped paintwork.

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It really is very detailed.

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The One X can play games

made for the older XBox,

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but some titles will be enhanced,

like Rise of the Tomb Raider,

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which boasts upgraded 4k graphics

and a higher frame rate,

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which makes everything

look smoother.

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These enhancements won't be

standardised, though.

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Microsoft says it is up

to developers to choose how

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they will use the brunt

the One X provides.

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This new digital virtuosity

is great if you own a 4k TV.

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But if you are using a HD screen,

the One X can give you a graphics

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bus, as well, making games look

better than they would

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on the old machine.

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But how do they achieve this?

Witchcraft?

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Or more precisely, super sampling,

a technique that allows

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all the detail and information

in a 4k image to be scaled down

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to fit into a 1080p screen, which,

I suppose, is a form

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of silicon sorcery.

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Apart from prettier visuals,

the new machine should enjoy faster

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load times and, unlike its 4k

console rival, the PlayStation 4

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Pro, the One X has a 4k Blu-ray

play fitted as well.

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So the box does more stuff,

but the X Box One is more

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expensive as well.

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Microsoft is keen to see this

in the world's most powerful

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console, but it is also

the most expensive, at £449.

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And I think that might be

the biggest hurdle that the XBox

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One X has to overcome, its price.

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And, as the games the machine plays

are essentially the same as those

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on its least powerful

older sibling, the One S,

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this console is probably appeal only

going to appeal to those with spare

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cash

burning a hole in their pocket,

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or those with a 4k TV

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on which to watch the prettier

pictures the console produces.

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That casts gloom over

everything, doesn't it, lads?

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What a drag he is!

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Thanks for watching and we'll see

you soon.

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