Hay Festival Click

That is it for me. More on the website.

This week, hitting the Hay to talk space and robots. Going underground

to solve a mystery. And taking a walk in the park with a very special

guest. What is that one to? -- what does that one to?

A glorious weekend in it for Wales. This is he on Wye, known as the town

of books. This is where authors, thinkers and even royals, to embrace

their love of reading and discuss some of the biggest news of the day

-- Hay-on-Wye. And once every year it becomes the centre of the

literary world is the location of the Hay Festival. Of course it is

also just a nice place to sit and read. The Hay Festival has been

described as the literary Glastonbury. Literally. But it turns

out you don't have to have a book out to be asked to talking. Case in

point, in about ten minutes, we are on. To paraphrase the acting God

that is Kevin Costner, if you build it, they will come. We did, and they

did. Filling up the BBC tent as we brought Click life to an audience

who were no Way bribe to be there that early on a Saturday morning. We

brought the geek with talk of their hunt 60 degrees vision. If you try

this, it looks as if you are sitting on my lap. We amazed signs with Dr

Emily Grossman with 360 degrees sound. Wow! OK. Are you OK? Do you

want to come out? I'm loving it. And we gave a sneak peek of our upcoming

adventure in China. And it all ended with a musical climax where we play

big tent. You heard me, we played the tent live. But we weren't the

only geeks at Hay, some use the opportunity to meet and chat with

some of the biggest names in science and Tech. First, virgin Galactic.

Almost 18 months ago, the quest to build the world's first commercial

space line suffered a major setback after a tragic accident. Can we deal

with the crash first? Do we know why it happened? We know exactly what

happened. After the accident in October 2014, a foreign

investigation was undertaken by the NTSB, the US accident investigation

board. They established over a period of six or seven months

exactly what happened to cause the breakup of the spaceship. Having

understood the causes of that accident, we have completed the

build of a second spaceship. That was rolled out a few weeks ago in

the desert. We are completing ground tests of that vehicle will be back

into the test flight programme in a few weeks. When the original project

was announced, the indication was you would be up and running within a

short time. It has now taken a lot longer. What will be problems? What

have you mind? We have learned that space is hard. And especially if you

are building a vehicle when needs -- which needs to fly thousands of

times with paying passengers who expect a high level of safety. None

of that comes as a surprise to me. I would have thought that would be on

the table from the beginning. We knew it was hard, but we put out --

looked at what was potentially possible, and then you understand

the true complexities and making sure you are not just delivering an

extraordinary experience, but an extraordinarily safe experience. It

is time-consuming. Are you aiming only at passengers? It seems to me

if you were carrying freight to the International Space Station, it

would make more money. Is that where you are going with this? Our focus

to date has largely been on getting people into space. But we also

recognise there is a huge demand right now for wanting small

satellites into space. So satellites are getting smaller, smarter,

cheaper and lighter. There is desire for the data they can generate up

there. But the cost and availability of launch is as bad as it has been.

It is one of these unusual industries which has proven itself

to be incredibly important, but the technology used to get the payload

up there has not changed dramatically in the last

half-century. The other interesting thing is what we may be able to

develop using this experience we gained from this first stage is to

think about how we transport people on earth. It would be great to get

from here to Australia in a couple of hours, which is possible going

via space. And I think there could be big environmental benefits as

well. We are very focused on getting this first step right, but we also

spend a little time thinking what might come next. Nuclear explosions

are caused by weapons such as age bonds or atom bombs. -- H bonds. The

heat and blast is so severe it can kill. Welcome to the end of the

world. This is the bunker, a new live action point and click video

game set inside a nuclear shelter after a devastating atomic attack.

The player adopts the role of John, born in the shelter on the date the

bombs fell. 30 years later, he is the bunker's only surviving

inhabitants. You can protect yourself and your family. And later

on, we will show you what steps to take. Of course, there is more to it

than just eating out an existence in a fallout shot. That would be boring

as a game. -- eating. This unassuming cottage is the entrance

to a real British bunker, and is the location for the game. What comes

first? The story that you wanted to tell, or the game that you wanted to

make? It really came from a sort of nugget of an idea which is a

character alone in a very unusual space. And we wanted to create

something really original around that. Facilities like this one,

which protect from nuclear attack, are dotted all over the UK. This

particular bunker was vacated by the Ministry of Defence in the early

1990s. The bunker is a character. The fact that when we came here and

everything was left, it was as if the government said it will probably

not happen now, so we will just go. And leaving all of the evidence here

and leaving all of these computers, systems and stationery, left every

single bit and thought what can we include and use? Wanted to do right

by the bunker. We almost wanted to tell its story. The game's visuals

are filmed live action rather than computer-generated graphics. This

means dozens of different options for how an event can be played have

been filmed. Why go live action instead of just having some motion

caption or Rudy monitors. Honestly, I don't know how to do that. I know

how to film. -- 3-D monitors. In also want from our first object, The

Hunting, which was is on the survival thriller, running around

the woods. We thought we were onto something. Because it is live

action, you can't physically control the main character with the

joystick. It is an actor in the room. You are telling him where to

go. You have to limit those things. John is played by Adam Brown, who

appeared in The Hobbit trilogy. I kept asking where are we in the

story, but it always changes for the game play. They could take me on a

certain path, and another gamer would take me on a different path,

and those stories, piecing it altogether. Sometimes I just went, I

am just going with it. I trust the gamer to put me on the right path. I

want this door sealed immediately! If he had gotten out of that door,

we would be dead. While the action in a biker has been filmed

underground, routeing the game together is taking place above

ground at this studio in Wales -- bunker. The team have tools to

bridge the divide between video footage and video game. So we use a

visual scripting tool which allows people like me who don't know how to

code are able to set up something like this, and then the code can

manage that and make sure we stay within the guidelines of making a

game. We start at the desk where you have the three options of picking up

the wooden figure, having a look at the back of the computer screen, or

checking the desk. Then two of those things are simple. You can go to a

weird video, and the further you go down to the desk, it becomes more

concentrated. You can go back to a previous loop and so forth and so

forth. As I'm here already, it would be rude not to give an early build

the game a go. They have taken some interesting decisions with the

storytelling. We are drawn into the world through John's routine. You

have to repeat things over and over again. It helps to correct this

atmosphere which is very lonely and a bit oppressive. I'm immediately

hit with a mystery. What has happened to the rest of the

survivors? So far the inexperience is an intriguing mix of movie and

mystery game. -- the experience. We will find out how these elements

come together when the Finnish game arrives later this year. -- finished

game. Welcome to the week in Tech. Twitter's live streaming video

service announced plans to get users to police offensive comments.

Comments flagged as inappropriate by one person will be sent to Iran Jury

of other viewers who can confirm whether the post a problem or not --

Renton. It will allow, sessions to be moderated in real-time. How much

would you pay for a supposedly high-end mobile phone that Tom Hardy

sort of approves of? For a smidgen over ?11,000, it could be yours. We

caught up with Tom Hardy, the official ambassador, at its launch

event this week. Can I ask a couple of questions about your own mobile

phone usage? But was Tom Hardy, the official ambassador. What news

round-up would be complete without a small number of robot stories. This

robot now has eight 360 degrees camera on top. And a tech company

would like you to meet this robot, which is designed to provide

assistance and in sentiment and companionship and listening to

commands and hopping around the world. I have a reminder for you! D

can change its voice. If you are still unimpressed by virtual

reality, perhaps this will convince you. This meant said he wanted great

the West game ever, and he may have succeeded. Much bit simulator places

you in a righty of unrealistic environments and forces you to fend

off wadis who direct and contort toward you.

The thing I love most about coming back to the countryside is that all

of the Londoners on the Click team get frayed by all of this ring

staff. And that weird smelling air -- green stuff. The thing they worry

about most is they can't get enable signal. Not much anyway. -- a mobile

signal. A good quality data signal is still considered a bit of a

luxury here. But we have been meeting the Indian developers who

have a few data tricks up their sleeve. There is a choice selection.

Don't get me wrong, I love Indian food, that these days, you can get

food from all over the world. Online as well Indians are tucking into a

feast taking to smart phones and guzzling data, using social media,

movie downloads and great music. It would be wonderful if the networks

were up to the job. But they are not. I think it is bad. Coverage

usually goes down because a lot of people are trying to use the same

network. Designing apps for creaking connections is becoming an Indian

speciality. This man is a popular music streaming app, checking to

make sure it makes it to the toughest network neighbourhoods.

Usually it is about getting the right amount of buffering for the

right time. To avoid buffer breaks, it gives itself a head start,

fetching data from upcoming songs so the flow of data is an interrupted.

When there is a squeeze on, it does away with surplus graphics. That

data is a problem. Make them lean, and apps run on overloaded networks

and budget devices. Many here get online with smart phones that are as

cheap as chips. Well, in this case, noodles. These low-end devices are

short on memory and can only host so many apps. It means there is a

battle royal over at screen real estate. A number of online retailers

have taken a kind of low carb approach, putting data on a diet

with so-called light apps. We have a system where we optimise the

experience, so this speed is 85% faster in a slow connection. You

will probably see a bit of degradation in the images, for

instance, because they are smaller size, but there is really no change

in the overall experience. The experience is almost double the

speed. India is a vast country that is short on cell towers. Much of the

radio connection used by mobile connections is blocked for military

use. Designers try to get more from less data, redesigning codex, for

example. This output streams real-time video at a bit rate close

to streamed audio. The internet's reach is spreading

and stretching, linking many more of us to other people and things.

India's fast and slim approach might just be what we need to avoid

network overload. Back at the A festival, another

fascinating talk on the this time from a reporter says. In his

research he asks the question, why do robots with all that processing

power and sensors, still find it so difficult to use legs? Especially

when the animal world finds them the most natural way of getting about.

We are trying to learn how we make motion in an efficient way. We can

walk for hours and hours without any problems, but if you want to make

robots walk in a similar way they can only walk for 20 or 30 minutes

and they run out of battery. He argues that even the robots we have

seen that can walk well are thinking about it too hard. Instead, we

should build bodies that are naturally balanced, that stay

upright, and that move without any processing power. The amazing,

jawdropping moment from your presentation was the bit about the

fish. Can you explain for our audience the bit about the fish? So,

this is an experiment done by researchers in the US, who made a

fish dead from a brain perspective, so they Iniesta -- anaesthetised it.

If you put the fish on the table, it is just dead. As soon as he put it

in a water flow it starts swimming. The reason is that to swim, the fish

doesn't really need brain and muscle activities. All it needs is a

well-designed body in the right environment, and it reacts to the

right stimulus from the physical environment. How hard is it to make

a body that walks by itself? You showed a video of a body that walks

by itself. How hard is that? You have to think about many different

things. You have to think about the weight of the body, the weight

distribution, the friction, dumping, also the shape of the foot is very

important. Mechanically it is challenging to design, but once you

decided it works. Can handle the real world best certainly do look

weirdly organic. The trick, of course, is achieving in the lab what

Mother Nature has spent millions of years perfecting.

We are not the only ones working incredibly hard on this week's

programme. Lara has been out and about in the park playing with some

animals. This week I am testing some gadgets

that need a little bit of help from man's best friend. I have been

asking around the BBC for any suggestions and it seems that

someone is making me here at midday. Wow! It is the dog from C BBC! Wow,

it is Lara Lewington from BBC Click. Here I am making my rake out

presenting debut on grown-up telly! Normally, it is us humans forget the

great gadgets to play with. This week, I have something for you guys,

so I wondered if you might be able to help me. There is even something

to keep dogs fit and healthy. Will it involve running about? Yes, and

you love that, don't you? Not me. I only do showbiz stuff. It is here my

contract, I like sitting down. With it a go find a real dog. Can you

make yourself useful? Item number one, the pit pat. This is like one

of those human fitness track of things but it is for dogs. It clips

tidily on the collar. It looks a bit chunky to me. It is available for

iOS, Android and Windows phone. You set it up in pretty much the same

way you do any activity tracker, only you need to input the breed of

dog, as well as weight, age and gender. It should be able to tell

you how much activity the dog needs to be getting and you can start

tracking what it is actually doing. You can see how much activity the

dog has been getting throughout the day, and if you want to look at what

has been happening over the week, here is the full data, and you can

tap on any day to get a bit more information. 210 minutes of activity

on Sunday, that was a busy day! Item number two, a GPS tracker that

dogs. Truffle! Truffle! Oh well. This has live GPS tracking, and it

can tell you what your dog has been up to over the past 24 rows in case

you don't already know, and it has a safe zone function. Can set up an

area you are happy for the dog to be in and if adventures outside of that

you will get an alert on your smartphone. This is an app that uses

artificial intelligence to identify what breed of dog it is looking at.

It can give you a percentage like us to familiar breed and can tell the

difference between a real dog and an inanimate object, like a cat! I need

a picture, that is perfect! It was spot on the Truffle, and some other

dogs are tested it on. But it wasn't so lucky when it came to Lucky's

mixed breed. And just to add a totally pointless but compelling

extra, or you can photograph friends and family to see which dogged a

most resemble. Although it did seem to think that he was real. This is

quirky combination of snack feeder and Paul Thrower. It can entertain

your pet when you can't and you can select the quantity of food you

wanted to provide. It can be used in doors or outdoors, and after firing

at Bulls for the dog to fetch, it will water them with snacks for

returning them. Admittedly, it takes a bit of practice, but once they

have got the knack it is a great way to wear them out. Isn't that right?

A special report. That is it from the beautiful A in Wales. NetSuite

via Konan a real adventure. -- next week we are going on a real

adventure. Join us for Click in China, it is going to be epic.

After a week of contrasts, with cloud in the east and sunshine

in the west, we will be getting something a bit more like summer.

After a cloudy start things will gradually turn warmer, one or two