20/08/2011 Click

is time for Click. We are now approaching London Heathrow. The

weather is fine. We hope you had a pleasant journey. This week, a

slightly more realistic flight simulator, as we get to the heart

of the action at the extreme end of the NSE of gaining. A brave new

piece of camera technology that should make everything clear. That,

plus the latest technology news and the smart phone up that promises to

make use smart as well. Welcome to Click. For years, video games the

current and Simulation designers have tried to make players feel

part of the action. And the grassy -- graphics and sound have improved

and the experience is more realistic. How realistic is it

possible to get? In a quest for the ultimate in Messi that simulated

experience, we found ourselves scaling new heights. Gains in the -

- simulator designers have tried all sorts of tricks to make games

as NSE as possible. From elaborate peripheral to 3 D goggles. We have

scoured the globe will find the ultimate simulator experience. And

our quest begins here, in Coventry. This street looks pretty normal. In

fact, it looks like thousands up- and-down Great Britain. Cars parked

outside homes. Beans waiting for collection. But inside this

particular house, we find something quite unusual. Commentary's very

own suburban 747. This is John Davies. His back bedroom has become

the scene of some extreme redecorating. A lot of people use

their back bedroom as a Home Office or as a spare room. But John Davies

has converted his back bedroom into a polling 747 cockpit simulator. It

is very impressive. But it did not always look like this. It will

start at 12 years ago, with a PC and a copy of Microsoft Flight

simulator. It is really a hobby that got totally out of hand.

are about five computers running it, with approximately 30 programmes,

interfacing with all of the different things. The main software

that runs the flight model and the flight displays that you see in

front of us it is called Aero links P S one. That just simulates the

Boeing seven for 7. And then I am using Microsoft Flight simulator

for the visuals only. We have software that takes over the flight

model of Microsoft. So we use that for the Bijan and night and day.

Fly at simulators have long been the preserve of a joystick and

plug-in computer. But the realistic switches and controls quickly makes

me forget that time in the back bedroom of a Coventry terrace house.

Convincing as it is, it does not improve my flying. We are on the

ground. I am clearly going to need

veg will passengers are going to make it to the terminal building

and one piece. But that is the beauty of the simulator set up. I n

2,500 seats in the air again on approach to Heathrow. I wonder how

rich is getting on, he is at the other end of the country, trying

out a different simulator. That's all well and good, but if you

happen to have a spare 10 or $15

one of these. Passports at the ready, we are off to New York. This

is the British Airways flight training facility near Heathrow

Airport. It would be impossible to fix the kit here its way back

bedroom. This beast is capable of replicating Maidment as well as the

sights and sounds of pilot experiences. How adding the motion

and turn and made around just reinforces all of that training

that we used to maximum effect. It ok

at the visuals and you look like you Attorney and the graphics

inside the aeroplane look like you are turning. But if your ears do

not tell you, you can get as confusion. In order to make the

projected visuals more realistic, the grass set -- graphics have been

shifted out of focus. The effect is quite successful. That is

incredibly realistic. How do you feel when you are in one of these,

do you get into his own? question. You're getting very

swiftly. You are getting on with the deep house and it is so

realistic that we take the full training process. Mein Yih-Shin

ears to land at this vegetable version of a jumbo jet. These back

gently. Just told it there. They do say that practice makes perfect.

Does easy it back a fraction. was a great landing. That felt a

bit better. It was a lot better. You have taking your fing your f

You have just seen the advantage of the training. Each approach, you

relax more and you have got and better and better. The advantage of

repetitious training and Simulation, you have just seen it. Back at

Heathrow, after a relatively smooth journey. His you really want to

experience the highs and lows and thrills and spills of flying. You

need this. That is why we have made this arduous trek to this airfield

in southern California. I am feeling the need, the need for

speed. They Air is a $5 fine for every Top Gun reference. Air combat

pleats would be fighter pilots against one another in a real

aircraft. They fully, the combat is simulated. However, everything else

is real. Two x the Top Gun pilots will accompany us, taking off and

landing the aircraft. In order to help us Channel that, myself and

Richard have got to look the part. Adding Lodder zero hours piloting

real aircraft, a pre-flight briefing is in order. We will go

out and do five dog fights. We're trying to engage somebody from

behind the Ling Lin. When you get the gun on them and you shoot, you

will see smoke come out of the back end. Breezing over, we received our

parachutes, hell lets and pilots call signs. I will be known in the

air as Eight years old. And diet will be called At stitch. This is a

military trainer. A maximum speed of 287 knots and is capable of

achieving a U-turn. If we do Upul that turn up there, I will not be

very happy because it really, really will not feel very nice at

all. We are essentially playing Laser Tag in the sky. They are

equipped with generators, so when I score a direct hit, he will know

about it. His plane will be up in smoke. Let's just hope that he

makes it back down. Way are false start I am looking forward to this.

Bring it right. You need to deflect your wings. I have got you. OK

false start --. You have gone into a spin. He well, Bonnie to your

right. We are heading back to the airfield. I believe recheck got hit

me a few more times than I got him. Seeking permission to pass the hour.

That is $25. You have to remember, as every good fighter pilot knows,

it is the first deal that counts. It looks as though you have lost

that feeling. Any is now $70 that you owe any. That feeling is gone.

That is the closest that those two will ever come to wading through

the danger zone. A look at this week's technology news. Two men are

posted messages on Facebook inciting others to riot have been

they'll -- jailed for four years, even though no violence took place.

They admitted encouraging crime in Northwich and Warrington during the

English Rights earlier this month. Both men are to appeal the decision.

Google is forking out 12 and a half billion dollars to buy a Motorola's

Mobile Division. It will give Google an opportunity to develop

hardware, which should give users of its Andrew Raines operating

system, a more integrated experience. Other man said

operators welcomed the purges as it brings about 107 -- 170,000 patents

which could help good will defend against potential lawsuits. The AA

Japanese outfit is giving a helping hand to iPhone for users. It is a

case where a seller can hand on the outside. Maybe it is so that you

can feel more in touch with your loved ones when they call. If you

think that it is a high, here is a video proved. You have got to hand

it to them. One of the great things about digital photography is that

even if you do take a bad picture, you can usually corrected using

software. It is too dark, you can brighten it. It is a level, you can

straighten it. You can croc and refrain as well. One thing that you

cannot do, not very well, is to correct the focus. The few have

shot something and it has turned out Lowery. Until now. Fresh from

his aerial dogfight, Richard has been looking at some technology

which promises to do something that previously has sounded completely

impossible. It is a scene that will instantly resonate for anybody with

children. Trying to catch that precious moment through a lens.

Memories may be priceless, but all too often, they end up as worthless.

Photography has exploded into the mainstream that as it has, skills

or lack thereof, has become all the more exposed. And frequently, over

or under. And when you are dealing with a tricky scene where your

subject just will not sit still, one of the hardest things to get

Even compacts can have problems with auto focus, especially if

there is a busy background. if you have a digital SLR and do no -- do

not know what you're doing, it can get messy. You want to train the

eye on the subject of the image and get everything else around it out

of focus. It is a principle called depth of field and it is something

the pros know all about. Casting an eye all over this London street

photography exhibition displays it perfectly. It is a kind of holy

grail for amateur photographers and the geographers seeking to emulate

the pros. Now there is technology that offers us all the chance of

getting creative which allows us to change the focal point of the image

even after we have taken the photo and it promises to revolutionise

photography as we know it. This is the way his website of a Silicon

Valley start-up which recently received a whopping $50 million in

funding. Their idea is to develop a consumer camera whose images you

can refocus after you have taken them. Clicking around these Flash

animations on the website gives you a good idea of what you can achieve.

Being able to refocus after you click the shutter is mind-blowing,

especially when you can share the experiences with others. People

through the Web, mobile phones, will be allowed to experience the

whole story of the picture, interact with it and discover new

things. The camera itself is available through Reserve before

its release at the end of the year but the company is releasing

precious few details about what you will buy. What they are sure we

knew his the technology behind the camera. The redefinition of the

Light Field is the amount of all the light travelling at every

direction at every point in space. Literally 100 cameras were plugged

into a supercomputer taking many Peters at the same time and then

trying to back up his light field in software. My dissertation was

how we could miniaturise the room full of cameras into the body of a

single camera to make it practical for regular folks to take pictures.

In Europe, one German company has in some ways already stolen the

march. They had spent the last year selling cameras using similar plan

optic technology. It can raise tethered to a PC to process it's

the photos but it uses the same light field techniques to capture

the photo. Instead of a camera Sensex capturing a single flight in

which, thousands of images are captured in a different way, by an

array of micro lenses housed in a glass wafer placed just in front of

the censor. This thing here is the' lenses. They are so small you

cannot see them with the naked eye. You. A laser at it and threw it and

then you can see the different focus points of the Micra lenses.

These lenses or catch a slightly different views of a scene which

software processes to work out the location of each point in space.

All that depth information means any pointing images -- point in the

images can be refocused by pointing at different microbe pixels. Screw

heads of their production line can be scrutinised to see if they are

the same height and the perspective of images can be shifted to. There

is drawbacks, most glaring is that the final image resolution is

smaller than that of a regular camera. That could be off-putting

for consumers. That is why the German company says the Silicon

Valley company's ambitions is very -- is a very tall order indeed.

When all the' lenses come together, the processing will take longer.

Outfits with more resources are also taking an interest. Creative

software leader's Adobe make Photoshop, used for years by

photographers trying to recreate the hallowed low depth of field

effect. Behind the scenes, they have been researching the same

technology and policy challenge is bringing a camera to market they

are in no doubt as to the impact of the technology. -- while they see a

challenge. For we see it as the future of imaging, the next great

revolution. It started off been about digitising what you could see

and progressively we started getting more information and

figuring out ways to run algorithms on what was captured so you can

have more flexibility to do things after the shot and this technology

takes things to an entirely new level. The creator in Silicon

Valley is pleased with the potential. For when you change the

perspective, you can see the light refracting through these droplets

of water. Not everyone shares his enthusiasm. Critics have called it

a novelty and others have pointed out that it will not stop blurry

pictures from camera shake. Toby Smith is a professional

photographer. He blows post processing could have a real market.

From a consumer point of view, photography has shifted from being

a print based media took online. For technology to provide a new way

of looking at that image could possibly take off. I can imagine a

scenario where the latest Facebook posts, the latest online

photography group posts have an interactive version and it could

become the next must have way of doing a photo-shoot and it could

take off in a viral way. If they can get light-filled technology

down to a reasonable price and manageable size, we could have a

revolution on our hands. Many of us have smartphones these days but

does that mean we the owners are smart? Well, apparently having the

bright apps may very well improve your intellect and education. --

the right. What is the point of having a smartphone if you cannot

use it to help prove you are smart? Neurons is a very app that does

exactly that. Wait for the like to stop the traffic. -- delight. Then

collect your cracked not safely. The streaming content comes from a

variety of sources. They are truly enlightening videos which should

help get your grey matter nicely lubricated. The interface makes

great use of the phones user interface styling and be streaming

his great quality, streaming decently over Wi-Fi. Be aware of

how much does that the video eats up over 3G and if you tap and hold

a thumbnail, you can share items you find with your social network.

In this high-speed hi-tech age we live in, it could be easy to forget

our roots. Get back to basics with a visit to this website from the

Institute of the study of human knowledge maps out the human

It is fair to say the website is pretty old-fashioned although not

quite as old as 100,000 years. There is no video or interactivity,

just words and pictures but it is a fascinating compendium of

information about the abolition of humanity. This content offers more

than just a timeline of our biological progress. It discusses

changes in culture, diet, world- view, perception, social

organisation, language, maps and forms of communication. It is all

completely fascinating stuff if you ever wondered where you really came

I have been making history this week. Really, I have, thanks to the

launch of this app for iPhone and Android. It lets you pick historic

photos to real world locations. GPS brings automatic location tagging.

If you just want to enjoy a random sampling of great historic images

from around the world, give your As always, if you would like to

suggest an app al website for Webscape, get in touch. E-mail us

all get in touch on Twitter. At everything from today's programme

is up on our website. You can get all the reports in video and text

form and watch the entire programme too. That's it for now. Thanks for

If one thing, it will be a mild start to our weekend because we had

a weather system working its way southwards across the country,

giving us some rain. It tends to grind or hold across central areas.

For the north, heavy showers into the north and west and a brisk wind.

For the Southend East, dry and brittle whether making its way

through the clouds. -- drier and brighter weather. Cloud more broken

across the eastern side of England but they could be some mist around

as well given the light winds. Similarly across the south-east,

the temperatures start mild -- on a mock note. The cloud is quite low,

giving me a lot of hill fog already across Cornwall and Devon as well

as that wet weather around the coast. That will work its way into

the south-east of Wales moving north-east. By morning we will

still have that cloud across parts of North Wales but for Northern

Ireland it is looking brighter. There are some showers waiting in

the wings and they will be frequent and at times heavier cross parts of

north-western Scotland blown in by a strong wind here. We will see

some showers east of the Grampians but dry and brighter than it was

yesterday for Northern Ireland. That heavier rain making its way

gradually north-east Woods. South- east of that, we may escape with

just an odd shower. Some strong sunshine further north of London as

well. That rain will pester North Wales and Northern England, parts

of Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland later in the night as well

and as it clears across the East on Sunday, we could have some thundery