09/04/2016 Click

Time now for Click.

This week, deep concentration in Malawi, nanotech candyfloss

in Cambridge, and in Switzerland...

I have no idea what that is, but I want one.

I'm looking for something that is thinner than a human hair.

And that's because nanotech is about building things

on the nanoscale, up to about 100 nanometres in width, or one 200th

of the width of a human hair.

No, I still can't see it.

It's not in there yet!

Right!

That'll be why.

Last week, we looked at one instance of nanotechnology - graphene.

Remember, those sheets of carbon that are just one atom thick

and that have amazing properties.

Well, now I've come to Cambridge, where researchers seem to be

pulling nanotech out of the air.

These are carbon nanotube fibres.

What we are looking at is carbon-nanotube based fibre.

So even that is not one carbon nanotube, that's like thousands

of them entwined.

Thousands of entangled carbon nanotubes.

And here in this lab, they've finally cracked how to

incorporate these tiny tubes into a copper cable to make something

they're calling UltraWire.

OK, having a lighter, more conductive copper wire,

because of the carbon nanotubes inside, who benefits from that?

The biggest beneficial is the transport industry.

In a single aeroplane, you may find from a few hundred

kilograms of copper cables up to five tons of copper cables.

Wow.

It would bring huge savings on fuel consumption, it would reduce

CO2 emission, and who knows?

Even possibly provide some extra space for your luggage!

Always about the excess luggage, tell me about it!

And nowhere will this make more of a difference than in space travel.

At the moment, it gusts an average of $20,000 to

send each kilogram of a payload into space on one of these.

Well, swap out any wiring for something perhaps even half the

weight, and it's easy to see how everyone from Citroen to Nasa are

interested in this kind of tech.

But beyond its weight, the increased conductivity of the

wire will mean faster data speeds.

Carbon nanotubes can take many forms,

so not only do we have these long strands, which are carbon nanotubes,

or intertwined, we also have a film of carbon nanotubes here, we have

a powder that is carbon nanotubes.

This is interesting, these are the scrapings

from the inside of their furnace!

They are also carbon nanotubes, and they also work.

There are thousands of projects now operating on the nanoscale.

On a more everyday level, nanotech could see the creation

of clothes that clean themselves.

Researchers at RMIT university in Melbourne in Australia have ,

with a cheap way to grow nanostructures directly onto

textiles that, when exposed to light, degrade organic matter.

And then there's this, which is a lavatory which does not need water.

In fact, it produces clean water from what you...put

in.

A nano-thick covering seals off any waste material that goes into the

bowl, preventing any smells, and that waste is passed through a nano

carbon filter that is so fine that what comes out the other end, so to

speak, is technically OK to drink.

Although we are told it does whiff a tiny bit, so you may just want to

water your plants with it instead.

Now, obviously, nanotechnology requires you to take

really, really accurate measurements, and for that you need

no vibrations, absolute silence.

Well, LJ Rich has managed to gain access to some really high precision

research in one of the quietest places on earth.

This building in Zurich hides a lab unlike any other.

Welcome to one of the quietest places in the world,

this is IBM's noise-free labs.

We are six metres underground, eight metres underground if you count the

two metres of extra work that's gone on to make this place so quiet.

And behind these doors, some amazing nanotechnology is taking place,

and we get to have a look.

Six labs designed for incredibly sensitive work reside

in IBM's answer to the Batcave.

It's taken years to build this place.

Experiments here are on a truly tiny scale.

In some cases, manipulating single molecules.

Noise of any kind has to be supressed.

So if you start playing around with single molecules, these are

incredibly small building blocks, typically one nanometre in length,

and if you want to make contact with single molecules, of course you have

to work in a very stable environment, because vibrations

can interact with your molecule.

Noise-free is not just about damping down sound, though they do down here

with these sound absorbing tiles.

There's also magnetic material in the walls and ceiling.

This prevents electromagnetic fields from entering the room

and interfering with measurements.

Even the natural vibration of the earth is cancelled out.

All the equipment rests on a suspended platforms

so finely balanced that I can push it with my feet and move 36 tons.

Pleasing!

Most of the work here is involved in making transistors smaller.

They're the building blocks of pretty much every bit of

technology we use, and it feels like the set of a science-fiction movie.

In there is an electron lithography machine for making transistors

at sub five nanometre levels.

That is absolutely tiny.

The thing is, it's experimental, so they don't know

if they're going to work.

Now, we all know that smaller components mean, eventually,

smaller tech, but with small tech comes the problem of lots

of excess heat, which is why work is being done here to explore what

happens when our gadgets get hot.

This ultra sensitive thermometer actually touches

the substance to measure its temperature, which is why the

noise and vibration-free environment makes for a more reliable reading.

So if you can better understand and see where the heat is dissipating,

we may change the device design, and by this we can improve the

efficiency and the performance of mobile devices, our computers, and

basically make them operate faster and more energy-efficient.

Sometimes, to see something small, you need to go big.

This is a four metre high massive electron microscope that allows you

to measure at the subatomic level.

And thanks to the fact that we are in

a noise-free environment, this thing is the most accurate in the world.

The microscope excites molecules with a laser

and measures what happens.

Here is a bigger version of the experiment.

As the distance changes between these magnets,

you can find the exact point at which they zap together.

But before you, like me, lust after the thought of working somewhere

completely quiet, here is the catch.

Lab techs actually spend most of their time here, with all

the air-conditioning units.

This is the room which keeps everything constant.

Specially built temperature maintenance systems, electronics,

and basically anything noisy is kept in this room.

And all the experiments are done with the scientists outside

the quiet room, because, well, even humans make quite

a din with all that breathing, heat and everything else we generate.

Wow!

Well, it is pretty obvious to me that a lot of the stuff going

on here is, you know, ten, 20 years in the future.

Meanwhile, it's time for me to go back to the noisy world upstairs.

That was LJ, and as LJ says, nanotech research takes time.

This is Bojan Boskovic, the boss of the company set up to

make the most of nanotech research here in Cambridge and elsewhere.

I think a lot of people, when they hear the word "nanotechnology",

think of tiny robots and tiny motors the size of molecules.

Should we be thinking like that?

Well, we're pretty much there with the size wise,

so the size of the smallest carbon nanotube, single-walled carbon

nanotube, is already in the range of the DNA molecule.

So we're not going to get much smaller than the atomic level,

and what is going to happen, those molecules and atoms, we will

learn how to manipulate them, and that is all about nanotechnology

engineering, at the nanoscale.

So we will learn to use them, but probably robots like we think

of small tiny parts going inside, it's not going to happen.

But could you make cogs and motors that are the size of molecules?

Yes, yes, yes.

And put them together into something very tiny that could

be called a machine?

It could be, it could be, and we will see more and more tiny

machines, but the real stuff is not probably going to be machines

in the sense that we think it now, of a lot of mechanical parts.

It is going to be what we call molecular machines,

so clever molecules doing things the way how we want.

It could be a drug-delivery vehicle, for delivering drugs exactly to

the cell that we need it.

They can also use, be used to kill the cancer cells,

rather than shooting in the dark.

Many things would be basically far more precise and far more

controlled, and that's the way how the nanotechnology is taking us.

In this week's tech news, one of the Old Masters, Rembrandt,

makes a return with a new painting.

Or at least, a computer has analysed and copied his style.

A team of Dutch researchers, with help from Microsoft, have created

a Rembrandt style image using a 3D-printing paint technique.

The 3D printing creates the same texture as an oil painting.

It was the week that Chinese outfit Huawei launched a brand-new phone

fitted with two cameras on the back.

Like Lytro cameras, the P9 smartphone is capable

of refocusing part of an image after a photo has been taken.

And it was also the week that games giant Valve found a new use

for virtual reality, as a means of allowing e-sports spectators to

get a whole new VR perspective on competitive gaming events.

Next, have you ever wished that your web browser was more complicated?

You have?

Well, then the Vivaldi browser, designed for power users,

could be for you.

It's the brainchild of one of the guys behind the Opera browser.

Instead of stripping back features for simplicity, Vivaldi is

customisable to a mind-boggling degree, allowing users to have stuff

bursting out of every corner of the screen - if that is what they like.

Right, next, we're off to Malawi in Africa, and to a clever scheme

that we've reported on before.

We visited a school in Lilongwe, which had just been introduced to

30 tablets used to teach the children maths.

And the results were really startling, so much so that the same

tablets and apps are now being used in the UK with similar results.

Well, that the small scheme has grown at a phenomenal pace

since we first visited.

Dan Simmons has been back to Malawi to see what's new.

BELL RINGS.

This is the primary school, one of the busiest in

the whole of Malawi.

There are 9000 pupils attending this primary school,

and classes of up to 250, which makes teaching,

well, quite a challenge.

It makes getting through the playground quite

a challenge as well!

Hello, hi!

Hi!

It is seven o'clock, and the first shift of school begins.

These children will either come for the morning or the afternoon,

because you can't teach 9,000 kids otherwise.

First class of the day -

how to deal with 100 schoolkids wanting to shake hands!

This teacher is brilliant, she's fun, engaging, authoritative.

Even though it's maths, she manages to hold the children's attention.

Well, most of them, anyway.

But she can't monitor what they've written down -

whether it's legible, whether they're all keeping up -

and after this there will be another class of 80.

The classes are so large here, many are held outside.

If it rains, school is off.

A few years back, Malawi made primary education open to all,

before it had enough schools to cope, and it still doesn't.

In the last year or so,

a different kind of classroom has been popping up across Malawi.

It's very much shoes off and time to plug in.

Everything is really quiet,

because everyone's wearing headphones.

The UK's VSO charity is working with onebillion.org

and 68 schools to teach maths and, this year, the local language,

Chichewa, as well as English, to four and five-year-olds.

And when someone does well, the whole class knows about it.

What it does mean is that, for the first time here,

teachers are able to monitor every pupil's progress.

Staff at the school or back in the UK can watch

what works and tweak the lessons to get better results.

Early analysis by independent universities suggests this method

is hugely effective and it needs to be, because each child enrolled

gets just two half-hour sessions in this room each week.

This is a big deal.

Reading even one sentence after two years' schooling has proven

a challenge for most children.

This British project has set its sights on teaching more

than 20,000 children here how to read complete books

in their own language by the time they leave.

And how about this for interactive lessons?

This project it is the first in the country,

maybe even the continent, to run off a solar panel.

Using sunlight is a classic African answer to an African problem,

but the key thing with this project is the projector uses very low

power, so three hours' worth of exposure to the sun

will give these guys three days' worth of lessons.

Every school in the area now wants one of these projectors,

because the electricity here is so unreliable.

Now, you might think Malawi, being one of the poorest ten

countries in the world, doesn't have much to boast about,

but directly across the valley is Lilongwe's new $70 million

stadium, being built and paid for by the Chinese -

a loan for Malawi to pay back.

It sticks in the throat a little that those

on this side of the valley have to pump their own water

and now make their own electricity.

But the marriage of self-sufficiency and technology is hugely empowering.

Unlike the yet to be opened stadium,

any power cuts here won't be stopping work.

It doesn't take being part of a generation

who grew up with smartphones, social networks

and surfing the web to be making the most of life online.

One example of a growing number of apps and websites aimed

at the old market is Stitch, which has been referred to as Tinder

for the over 50s.

Nicole met her partner a few months ago using the app.

I think, within about two days, I'd stitched with someone,

which meant that we'd both seen each others' profiles

and we both liked each other.

That meant we could talk to each other via the messaging service

on there, we started messaging, and then we rang each other

on Christmas Eve to see how we would get along

speaking on the phone.

And, of course, there's always a little bit of anxiety, I'm sure,

when you meet someone you haven't met before, but there

is a sort of verification process with this app,

isn't there, that doesn't exist with all dating sites?

Yes, when you join to be a verified member, you have to show that you've

got another profile somewhere else -

on Facebook or LinkedIn, so you've got that little bit

of security there that the person is a real person.

And there is a stricter level of identification to become

what they call a trusted member, but for Nicole the app overcame one

of her great irritations.

Well, Stitch is for over 50s.

The major thing with other dating websites is that the men, generally,

seem to want women who are about 20 or 30 years younger than themselves.

At least if you go onto Stitch, you know that everyone

is going to be over 50.

You also actually meeting up with some other people

that you've met as a community through the app, haven't you?

That is right, since I've met the person that I'm now seeing,

I've changed my profile, so I don't see people

who are looking for dates now.

But I can still see people that want to be friends, and

I can also join in the discussions, the book groups,

and the different forums.

So we decided it might be quite fun to actually meet,

and so we're planning a trip to Vegas in June or July.

And here is something aimed at older adults whose focus is less

on new people but more about engaging in a more meaningful

way with their loved ones.

The Kindeo app creates an easy way of filming and storing videos

of important moments of your life, so the experience prompts

you to answer specific questions about each area of your life,

so there's family, childhood, work, places, friends.

And once you tap on them, you'll go through a list of questions.

We all experience relatives and family getting older,

and it's very difficult thing to talk about sometimes.

What Kindeo does is give people a really easy way

to express how they are feeling.

For anyone who feels they are no spring chicken,

here is a website that might be able to help.

It's a place where learning mindfulness, tips on overcoming

loneliness, shopping and exercise advice come together.

The team, aged from 18 to 82, keep it up to date

with the latest products and ideas tailored towards seniors.

Begin to inhale...

And after all that screen time, with over 180,000 downloads,

Tai Chi for Seniors is one of many apps encouraging

you to get on your feet,

providing a spot of clearly explained gentle exercise.

Look into my eyes.

Go one, I dare you.

Yes, they're not that practical, but these glasses are just one

of a number of crazy inventions recently shown off at the very first

IBM Mad Scientists evening.

It had everything from soap dispensers that talk to you to

boxes that send messages into space.

No, not that box - this box.

All designed to attract kids of all ages and show

the fun side of coding.

They are testers, they write books, they write code, they are IT

specialists, they are programmers, those sorts of people,

all sorts of stuff, and we thought it would be good if we could show

these guys some of the cool stuff that we've done.

And it doesn't get much cooler than a BB-8 unit

controlled by the power of the mind.

You think of a song... I think of a song.

And it goes in a certain direction. And it goes in a certain direction.

Do you realise how insane that sounds?

Completely insane, but it's part of the event.

So you think of a song and it goes one way,

how do you get it to turn round?

By smiling.

That's just mad!

Luke's brainwaves are actually being analysed by a system

that is taking signals from his headset and then

interpreting them using a Raspberry Pi.

Those commands are then transferred via Bluetooth to BB-8,

although it's much more fun to say that Luke is using the Force.

But if you can't get something to move with your mind,

then how about controlling a drone using a tweet.

Good, trick zone, OK, let's do a backflip, OK, right.

This project teaches kids the importance of accuracy

in programming, both in spelling the commands correctly and in

fully testing things before deployment.

I'll tell you what, just for a laugh, I'm going to fly

into the camera now.

Got you!

And I will leave you with a dance floor that is controlled

using Twitter.

Why?

Because.

So anyone can change the pattern on it just by sending commands so...

# Come and get your love... #

Or you can send texts, which it will display too,

and I can't foresee any problem with that whatsoever.

So that it from the mad scientists at IBM, thank you for watching.

You can follow us on Twitter throughout the week @BBCClick.

That worked, see?

Brilliant, see you soon!

Good morning.

If you were lucky enough to have spring sunshine yesterday,

you probably got some spring warmth as well.

In fact, it was beautiful - warmest day of the year

so far across England and Wales.

We had highs of 19 degrees.