02/08/2014 Click

CHATTERING

Oh, no sugar.

This week on Click we're putting you right in the middle of the action

without leaving your seat.

You will need the goggles though.

We're at the Commonwealth Games where, for the first time ever,

360 degree footage of a major sporting event

is being live streamed to a virtual reality headset.

If that's the future of watching sport, we'll also be looking at

experiments exploring the use of VR to create immersive journalism.

Our dreams become reality as we sit down with screen legend

and sci-fi queen Sigourney Weaver to talk about her latest role.

Hint - may contain aliens.

And we'll look at how to plan your latest journey in Webscape.

Welcome to Click. I'm Spencer Kelly.

And welcome to the BBC's Broadcasting House in London.

But what does the future of TV look like?

Back in the '80s, the futurologists were telling us

that one day we'd all be wearing one of these,

exploring our own virtual worlds from the comfort of our own homes.

The problem was back then VR was rubbish.

So it went away, but not, as it turns out, for good.

These days the displays inside the goggles are much better

and the motion sensing technology is far more responsive,

and that means virtual reality is back.

And it's not just being used in video games.

Dan Simmons has been to the Commonwealth Games in Scotland

to witness a world first,

where the BBC is attempting to give you a ringside seat.

It's the biggest sporting event Scotland has ever hosted.

And for those responsible for broadcasting the Commonwealth Games

the aim is not solely to show what's here,

it's to make some lucky people feel that they are.

Inside the Hydro arena, camera operators have been practising

their own floor routines to ensure smooth coverage of the gymnastics.

But Stephen from the BBC's R&D team

is setting up a different kind of kit.

He's capturing and then sending a live,

360 degree video signal out of the arena.

To capture it all this camera has seven lenses.

Six around the side and one on the top.

Special software stitches together the seven video feeds on

the fly to create an image like this.

And to capture the roars and cheers a spatial audio microphone records

the sound from all directions.

The action in the Hydro is streamed live over the internet

to the Science Centre, in this case just half a mile away.

But, of course, theoretically, viewers could be anywhere

with a stable internet connection.

The camera's been deliberately positioned at head height to

give viewers a realistic idea of what it would be like to attend the event.

They did think about putting the camera above the action

or right in the middle of the floor,

but they found that that made people feel a bit dizzy.

Just how realistic will this be?

Oh!

I just heard a roar there.

It's really cool. It's weird.

That's amazing.

Ach, strewth!

This is where the magic happens.

Creating the illusion that you're actually there

are two screens inside the headset

that show a small section of that 360 degree video.

Motion sensors work out your head movements to show you

what you'd be looking at as if you were there.

We've seen surround vision cameras before,

but getting the footage to the audiences live,

with minimal time-lag, around three or four seconds,

is the impressive part.

There's a trade-off there.

The engineers have found that the quality of the video

needs to be reduced so it can be stitched together faster

and sent across the net.

So the picture isn't as sharp as we're used to.

A problem exacerbated by the fact the screen is so close to our eyes.

In future, higher-powered processing and more bandwidth for each viewer

could allow for more detail.

For now, getting a smooth, reliable feed is more important.

This is the first time that a major sporting event

has been streamed live to a VR headset,

something that could be an everyday reality in the future.

We're sending the sound in a special format that lets us move that

when you move your head.

That can really add to the experience cos you'll hear something

that happens over your shoulder

and turn your head to look and see what's going on.

People usually just think of the video side of things,

but the audio really adds to the experience.

You can see everything.

HE CHUCKLES

We're running it in real-time so that we can do this live broadcast.

In order to do that we have had to reduce the quality slightly

from what you can achieve with that camera,

but we're also recording the raw footage of each of the cameras

so that at a later date

we can produce a higher-quality output to use offline.

Of course, with a lot of money going into this area from broadcasters

and web streaming companies

it's not just sporting events that invite our virtual presence.

The R&D guys have been playing elsewhere.

-MAN:

-In three, two, one. Cue.

In the BBC newsroom, viewers can see their usual presenter,

but also the remote controlled cameras

and glimpse into the director's gallery backstage.

And out in the field with reporters - literally -

as part of BBC TWO Springwatch.

Could this be the future of nature programmes?

Whether it's broadcasters or other big internet players, ultimately

these steps are about putting the viewer where the action is

and allowing them to take a look around just by moving their head.

If viewers truly invest in its use then these experiments today for

the Commonwealth Games could be offered up for real

in time for the next Olympic games in just two years' time.

Absolutely amazing.

Dan Simmons experiencing the Games in the round.

As well as sport, there are virtual reality experiments right now

which could help us to experience real events that are normally

only brought to us through newsrooms like this.

And they can be quite extreme.

BOY SINGS

CHATTERING

The sighs and sounds of Aleppo in Syria

experienced through a virtual reality headset.

The participant is transported to a place where anything can happen.

BOY CONTINUES TO SING

But this isn't a video game.

Journalist and filmmaker Nonny De La Pena

specialises in creating virtual worlds based on real life.

SHOUTS

The bomb is from an actual event

and we had to collect multiple sources to both figure out

what the buildings looked like before the bomb hit

and what happened in the aftermath.

This included mobile phone videos, a video camera

and various audio that people on scene had gathered.

Just tell us what you were trying to achieve

with this really immersive journalism.

It's really extraordinary how easily the mind can be tricked

when you use really good virtual reality goggles

and you use very believable audio

and fast cameras that track anywhere you look.

You can really have a sense of presence

that you're in another place.

It's also part of something called Project Syria.

To create it, Nonny deployed a team

to gather material at a refugee camp on the border.

That sense of being there, the sense of empathy,

the sense of deeper understanding of a story, I think,

really makes these pieces valuable for the future of journalism.

How do you build it?

Well, the first one I built,

which was called Hunger In Los Angeles,

which we recorded audio at food banks

and we recorded a day where a man went into a diabetic coma

because the food line was so long

and his blood sugar dropped too low before he got sustenance.

CHATTERING

That piece I built for 700 of my own money.

I had to learn a lot of things quickly.

I begged and borrowed favours.

Now I tend to get bigger teams,

we're actually outsourcing some of our model making now.

How have people reacted who have experienced this?

It has been really astonishing to me.

I've had people down on the ground crying. When he falls to the ground,

I mean, this virtual human, non-existent, I mean, it's a ghost,

it's nothing there,

they've literally reached in their pocket for their cellphone

to call for help before they realise where they are.

It's like an instantaneous reaction.

NONNY: What do you think?

NONNY: Oh, you're crying.

It may not look like reality just yet, but it's clear that

the scenes she recreates can still have a very powerful effect

on those who experience them.

That was Nonny De Le Pena.

There's certainly a lot of talk at the moment about VR being able to

put you in the moment, but, of course,

there are some moments none of us would rather be in.

Why not give us your thoughts about the applications of virtual reality

we've shown you so far.

E-mail us [email protected] or tweet us @bbbclick

Next up, a look at this week's tech news.

The UK government has announced that driverless cars

will be allowed on public roads from January next year.

Previously, concerns about legal and insurance issues have restricted

the machines to only being allowed on private roads.

The government has also invited cities

to compete in trials of the tech.

While a review of road regulations has been ordered

to provide guidelines for their introduction.

Next step, flying DeLoreans. I promise.

A highly sophisticated cyber attack on

Canada's National Research Council could take up to a year to repair

according to its government.

The attack which temporarily shut down the research council's

computers has been blamed on a Chinese state-sponsored actor

by the Canadian government.

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa dismiss

the report as a groundless allegation.

It's unclear which information was compromised.

Games publisher Electronic Arts has announced a new Netflix-like

subscription service for its games on the Xbox One console.

Called EA Access, the plan is to ask gamers to stump up £3.99 a month

for unlimited gaming on a selection of titles,

providing they keep paying, of course.

Initially only four games were up for grabs, but the company says

more will be added before the full launch later this year.

The service will offer early access and 10% discount to new EA games.

And finally, it turns out Facebook isn't the only site

to experiment on its users.

Lots of them do, including dating company OKCupid.

The matchmaking site released analytics showing how it made up

compatibility ratings to influence how people viewed

prospective matches.

The result, well, love is just as complicated

now matter how compatible you're told you are.

So just like real life.

Last year we saw this...

the Android based shield handheld console.

Well, this week I got the chance to try out graphics chip guru

Nvidia's latest stab at launching a handheld games machine.

This time it's an Android tablet called the Shield tablet.

As tabs go it's got some pretty meaty guts,

it's probably the most powerful Android tab around,

boasting a new powerful K1 processor.

It needs the processing grunt this chip provides

along with an optional games controller.

The Shield can play normal Android games

or it can play a range of older PC games

which have been optimised for play on the K1 chipset.

Finally, the Shield can stream and play games from a PC

as long as that PC is running a high-end Nvidia graphics card.

One of the questions you may be asking is why

would I want to take a perfectly good PC gaming experience

that you can play on a nice big screen like this

and transfer it to a much smaller screen?

Especially when these two devices still have to be

quite close to each other, certainly on the same Wi-Fi network.

Well, in well, in truth,

gaming PC are great big towers or they're hulking leviathans

of a laptop like this one,

so it might be that you don't want to carry it into the kitchen

or the bedroom for example.

So in that case I can understand why you'd want to play this

on a smaller screen in bed instead.

As long as you have an understanding other half, of course.

The tablet can also be plugged into a TV,

meaning it can play its own Android games on a much bigger screen

than its own eight inch display.

Fans of sci-fi movies and TV shows are an incredibly loyal bunch.

Just ask Sebastian here.

Which means if you make a video game of their favourite movie

and you don't get it right, they will not forgive you.

And that's why the team behind the latest attempt to adapt

the sci-fi franchise Alien really had its work cut out for it.

Marc Cieslak has been finding out if anyone can hear him scream.

-WOMAN:

-I don't know if you can hear me.

An abandoned space station.

I think...

I think there's something here.

Murderous, paranoid androids.

And the prospect of a close encounter which won't end well.

Alien Isolation remixes the ingredients from the 1979 movie

to create a first-person survival horror video game.

Set 15 years after the events of the sci-fi classic chiller

the player adopts the role of Amanda Ripley,

the daughter of the movies' original heroine.

And in a nod to the big screen incarnation of

cinema's unfriendliest ET,

two bonus missions which these exclusive shots reveal

reimagine key points from the film.

-MAN:

-Whatever it was...it was big and...

-MAN 2:

-You sure it took him under?

-WOMAN:

-Disappeared under one of the cooling ducts.

And the movie's cast have returned to lend their vocal talents to the game.

We should never have landed on this.

Me and Parker, we told them that.

Brett, over and out.

Which is why I've come to New York to meet the actress who played

the only surviving crew member of the commercial shipping vessel

the Nostromo.

Sigourney Weaver returns to the role that made her famous,

this time playing a virtual version of herself in 1979.

COMPUTER BEEPS

Why return to the role of Ellen Ripley?

The movie, you know, is...

..still, sort of, means something to people.

I still meet people,

young people who are still discovering it for the first time.

And I thought, it's such a specific cool,

claustrophobic world that the idea of giving everybody

the opportunity to come into that world

and make some of those decisions

and have that adventure, personally, I get it.

I dig it and I think it's very immersive and really scary

and also, in its odd way, very beautiful.

As soon as I open my mouth it was Ripley's voice.

And I really didn't...

It was like she'd been sitting next to me for 35 years and...

I guess if you played a part that many times that they, sort of,

become part of your DNA.

So there she was. And we had quite an interesting day.

Alien is one of cinema's great horror movies.

Do you think this video game can compete

in terms of scaring the player?

You know, in an odd way I think they take the scare

in a really new visceral direction.

I notice that when we did Avatar

that people really hated leaving that world.

I feel with this that after, probably,

so many of the fans watching this movie so many times

that the opportunity to actually trade places

with one of the characters and be in that world that has haunted you for

so long will be very satisfying.

I've only dabbled in video games,

but I actually think they're a very interesting, creative, new world.

People who make games are discovering that there's

a much bigger audience for games.

It's much more interested in content and in story

and in subtlety of character and things like that

than just shoo 'em up.

I know my husband just directed a video game that's based

and inspired by a play.

So I think there's a whole huge world that video games are heading

into that I think will be fantastic for the audience.

They'll be the stars of their own picture.

And gamers will be able to find out if they have the stomach

to star in their own version of this deep space scare 'em up

when the title's released in October.

Back here at Broadcasting House,

this is Studio A where the A stands for...anything you want it to be.

Because this is the virtual studio, and all these green walls

and the green floor can be replaced with any virtual set you fancy.

The cameras are fitted with these special markers,

which means the system can track its exact position and then add that

virtual set at the precise angle it needs to be viewed at.

And I'll let you into a secret,

not only does this place double as a news studio...

..(it's also the Webscape set.)

Talking of which, here she is - Kate Russell.

You'd better not make a mess in there, Spencer.

One of the things I love about virtual space is that

you can reinvent your own reality any time you like.

Take public transport, which we all love to complain about

when it holds us up, but could you do any better than the city planners?

Transitmix lets you test out your mettle by creating your own

complex network in whichever city you fancy.

As you map out your lines and routes, the operating statistics

and costs of each line will be shown in the control panel.

Eventually giving you an overall operating budget

for your transit network.

You'll have to go to the real city records

if you want to compare this with reality.

Some cities, like San Francisco, have existing networks already added,

so you can choose to edit those routes

and see if you can make the network run more efficiently.

Once finished, save and share,

preferably with your local planning department

so they can take some wisdom from your work.

If you have or witness an accident or serious illness

you call the emergency services.

But while you're waiting for them to arrive there could be

a qualified medical first aider close by to offer immediate support.

If you have the presence of mind to use it, the GoodSAM emergency app

aims to help people alert any registered first aiders close by

so they can provide immediate assistance.

Another potential live saver I found this week is

courtesy of the British Red Cross and YouTube gaming star Ali-A.

Lots of games come with epilepsy warnings,

but according to research by Epilepsy Action almost nine in ten people

wouldn't know how to help someone who is having a seizure.

That's the purpose of this video

that plays out like a first-person shooter game.

Captain Located. Uh-oh.

He does not look like he's in a good way right now.

Let's head over and see how we can assist the captain.

A few problems here - rigid body,

arching back, jerking movement.

Despite a lot of work being done to try and encourage girls

to think about careers in computing there remains a massive gender gap.

New initiative Made With Code has put together a brilliant series of

videos and practical coding projects that aim to appeal to girls across

the globe by making computer science relative

to their lives and interests.

The projects include coding a 3D-printed bracelet,

making a platform to accessorise your selfies,

coding a 2D avatar from scratch, creating a unique animated gif

and putting together your own Beats soundtrack.

And while the target audience is girls,

I would think most boys would enjoy coding these projects too,

and even a couple of parents.

If you send messages within Facebook

and don't use the dedicated messenger app on mobile,

you're about to have your hand forced as the company is

separating its chat service from the main platform.

This means you will have to download the free dedicated app

to keep chatting through Facebook.

But should experience faster messaging

untangled from the main timeline.

Talking of talking, you can now download the first free app for iOS

that encrypts voice calls - Signal Private Messenger.

Made by the same open-source security specialists that made

RedPhone Secure Calls for Android,

you can make and receive encrypted voice calls cross platform

with anyone who has either app installed.

That's Kate Russell's Webscape.

Your contributions to Webscape always gratefully received.

You can e-mail them to [email protected]

Tweet us @bbcclick

You'll find us on Google+ and Facebook too.

And for more from us check out website bbc.co.uk/click

I'm afraid that's it for now though.

Thank you very much for watching and we will see you next time.