14/01/2017 Click

This week, mice, madness, and... Mario? It's a me, Mario! Woohoo!

Driving stateside can be a liberating experience. Wide roads,

big trucks, massive cars, but add egg desert bottleneck like Las

Vegas, it can be frustrating. -- at it. Come on. BEEPING. But today I am

driving an Audi with more brainpower under the hood, sorry, bonnet. There

is extra information about the speed limit and it also is telling me

there is a red light that will turn green in about 30 seconds up ahead.

Three, two, one. Green. The car is connected to Las Vegas's traffic

management centre over 4G. It reports its position and be centre

tells them how long until the next light turns green. It informs me

about the left light if I turn left instead. And around we go. One of

the advantages, says Audi, is that it is a bit of a stress and tension

relief as you know you have some time before the light goes green so

there is no point getting impatient. At the moment, this is only

available in certain models of car, and only in Las Vegas, because this

city has just one traffic management centre that handles all of the

lights. Some cities have more than 100 different authorities in charge

of their signals. So, one obvious use for this in the future is to

feed into an autonomous driving system. If the car knows when the

lights are going to go green in front of it, it can make a better

driver itself, if it has some kind of backup data signal from the

traffic management centre. It should get it right more if that happens.

Which is a good thing. It is judging that I will not make these lights.

Oh, and it is right. The car was right and I was wrong. Now, I do not

know much about the car industry, but what I do know is getting into

it when you are a new player is really tough, and complex. And

expensive. Faraday Future is a company that heard all of those

warnings and said, let us try anyway. How is that going for them?

David investigates. Faraday Future, a new car company that promises to

beat Kessler at its own game. Last year they showed us a scale model of

a car they had no intention of making. This year they promised

something more real. Introducing the FF91. They are pretty proud of it

and say it can do zero to 60 very quickly. It can even mark itself.

Just press a button and... RECORD RIP. It is being lazy tonight. It

can park on its own. This is a 3-point turn. One of the reasons we

do that is because we want to make sure all of the censors in the car,

of which there are many, can get a full view of the empty spot to

verify there is no one there. -- sensors. Look at that. Spot on.

Straight. Quite impressive. It is all well and good, but it will be

sometime before you can do this yourself. Each and every car park

will need to be approved by Faraday Future before it will work. And

there would need to gather data on the system so it is less chicken and

egg and more chicken and a very expensive ar. They have promised it

will be ready by 2018. There is a lot of potential but it is hard for

them to deliver. It is our lot of dirt at this point. The factory. To

build its car, they have planned a huge plant in the Nevada desert

planning to become possible to make the cars next year. There are

reports the factory is on hold because they are running out of

money. It looks ready for construction but there is no

equipment, no materials. And if they want this place ready by 2018, it

doesn't look like they are making much progress. We are resource

limited at sometimes. Things like this need to take priority.

Construction of the factory has stopped for some point and it still

looks like it is stopped. It will start since. Was it because of

financial restrictions? It is a matter of keeping the cash flow

balance between the projects we are trying to do. Not too encouraging.

But the good news is if they ever release a car it will blow your

socks off. Let us go! Oh my god! That is so quick. Oh my god. This is

now the fastest production vehicle in the world. And we are just

getting started. Well... Well it is not gritty useful on a school run,

is it, really? -- very. That was David. Cars were certainly be big

theme of last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. We

went to testdrive some of the projects on show. I have arranged to

meet Richard of Bosch, not to look at a washing machine, but a car.

Wow! It is pretty science-fiction. It does. They have a rich heritage

with cars. They invented the spark plug over 100 years ago. You and

your facts. What does this card do that we haven't seen before besides

look different? The personalisation feature is not too far down the

line. The idea is it can pick up my facial features and know who I am

and personalise the experience. It will adjust my driver's seat, the

mirror, the colour scheme, the entertainment system, everything.

That is pretty cool. Once you are driving is there anything it can do

to make it more safe? You obviously want to keep your eyes ahead. What

can you do? Gestures. In order to make gestures recognisable, what

they have done here is introduce what they call ultrahaptics, this

panel here, it is emitting ultrasonic waves I can feel tingling

against my hand to see where I can gesture. Once I do my gesture like

this, and I can programme a number of them, it will come up on the

screen in front of me, a number of different options. Looking at a

screen takes away from that idea of looking ahead, I have to say.

Slightly worrying. But don't worry, I will sort out the music. That is

even more worry in. If I move this around I am getting haptic feedback.

Their risk vibration on the screen. In three different sections, that

feels totally different. So it is almost like having physical buttons

because you can actually feel what you are touching. But I still would

not want to do it while driving. Is there a self driving mode? Is only.

As it happens, this particular vehicle has won. All I have to do is

press my thumbs against the panels for three seconds. Automatic driving

engaged. There we go. Once I put this down, fold it down... Here we

go. Amazing. Now we can relax! Yet, while Bosch are more about creating

parts, the car manufacturers themselves have some similar ideas.

Unlike the Bosch car, this BMW vehicle also uses haptic feedback.

As a press my finger, I am moving towards a hologram being projected

through this mirror on the panel here on a little projector. It is

giving a futuristic appearance to things like text messages or even

video calls coming in. It is a very narrow field of view which means the

driver can see it only, making it a personal experience. It is not just

about the driver, though. The entire car has been thought about. Even in

the back there is more space in this car and it really is comfortable,

giving a living room kind of feel. In fact, let's play some music. The

best thing is everyone can play their own music so you don't have to

contend with other people is dodgy playlists. -- people's. Meanwhile,

the Ota's concept car wants to get to know you and find that your

interest. -- Toyota's. The upcoming roads are flat. It will answer

questions. It is beautiful out and a perfect day for a drive. It will

track your emotions to try to learn how to keep you happy. Great. You

seem very happy. Why are you speaking to him and not me? And more

importantly, it will provide warnings of any hazards on the road

hazard. Activating guardian system to avoid accidents. So, this is the

connecting home part of the whole connected world from the connected

car we will look at the connected fridge and... The only thing they

have in common is that your car can be a truly connected part of your

truly connected life. Hello and welcome to the week in

tech. It was the week Facebook announced it would start trialling

ads in the middle of videos, and Norway became the first country in

the world to turn off its analogue radio signals. It was also the week

the US military released footage of a test in California where it

launched a swarm of 103 mini drones into the sky from fighter jets. The

young man aerial vehicles were deployed to operate autonomously and

it's thought the system could potentially be used to carry out

surveillance in the future. And with AI system is one of the hot at the

moment, it was only a matter of time before something went a bit wrong.

Amazon's E went rogue and started ordering dollhouses. A TV station in

America covering the story about a young girl using the device to

purchase a house was inundated with complaints after viewers' own

devices apparently overheard the network reporters saying Alexa, buy

me a... Better not say. And for years we've been hearing all about

the wonders of grapheme. Well, engineers at MIT have decided to

kick off the year by actually doing something about it. Using the 3D

printer they fused flakes of grapheme into a spongelike object

and in doing so have created one of the strongest 3-D materials ever.

It's thought the newfangled product could be used in the construction of

aeroplanes or buildings. Hello, I'm Charles and I'm the voice of Mario!

And Luigi too! And Wario! And baby Luigi and baby Mario! Let's go! And

that was Charles, the voice of Mario, Nintendo's most famous

character. And he's helping us to introduce Minty's brand-new games

console. It's a little bit different as you might expect and Marc has

been trying it out. Nintendo Switch is an unusual games console because

it does a couple of different things. Firstly it's a portable

machine. It's got this tablet like touchscreen with a seven 20p

resolution, it can be played out and about on the move and when it docks

in this little station here, like Mario after he has chowed down on

those power boosting mushrooms, it supercharges the machine graphics

capabilities up to ten 80p full HD and can be played on a normal

television becoming a home console. The controllers which Nintendo has

dubbed joy columns can fly off the side of the portable unit and they

can be configured in a couple of different ways. The individual parts

can be used for multiplayer and when it stopped, the player can use a

separate controller or plug them into a battery pack, turning them

into this beast. Now be enjoying cons have a number of different

motor control features that can be demonstrated in this mini game here

called QuickDraw and weirdly what it does is it pulls the player away

from the screen and towards one another, and to that end I have a

cowboy opponent here and we're going to have a shootout. So let's load

our weapons, let's get ready, this is where you get your best thing

he's wood on. And I live to fight another day! -- Clint Eastwood. But

what that shows is that the designers are thinking differently

about the kind of games that can be played using this device. As far as

games are concerned, in the works is a new title for the portly Italian

plumber, the real world set Super Mario bodice and The Legend of

Tarzan Zelda, breath of the wild. The last console had a bunch of

issues from day one. There was an additional controller for their

already macro we console but it was a brand-new console. With the Switch

they have the same issue again but this time they have to nail down the

third-party support and getting more of the core gamer back on board with

their product. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the Switch is its price.

At ?279, the Switch might have a tough time against its rivals from

Sony and Microsoft. We will find out when it is released on March the

third. @BBCclick, here we go! Everybody, Meech Archibald.

Archibald, meet everybody. Archibald is living in a box for a

couple of days to help demonstrate a phone attachment that can see

through walls. This is Viar, which translates from the Hebrew to see,

and that's what this Israel company is helping us to do. It has taken a

large radar system originally used in breast cancer screening to shrink

it into a tiny box. Using an app to tiny up the image, its ability to

see through walls might stop you accidentally drilling through a pipe

when you're trying to put up a picture. In fact, it can detect more

than just pipes, it can actually detect people who may be approaching

on the other side of a wall. Viar is pitching this as a single sensor for

the Smart home, which can sense very subtle movements and detect which

direction they're coming from. Up there on the ceiling there's an

array of 20 antenna which are scanning the room for movement in

great detail and crucially they can detect movement in different parts

of the room. For example on that bed over there, if she was to stay

really still copy you will see her craft on the left go very quiet.

While I'm making it go completely crazy. If I now hold my breath...

You can see how this type of sensor could alert someone if someone else

stops breathing. Hence this is being pitched as something that could act

as an alert system for elderly people, although it can also monitor

the quality of anyone's league by measuring how active you are during

the night. As we move towards a world where we want to monitor

everything, this is an interesting alternative to putting up cameras.

Today the world is going towards more connected living so we have

connected houses and cars but people don't appreciate having a camera

inside their bedroom or bathroom, so it doesn't provide a visual image

like a camera does and it is applicable in privacy sensitive

situations. That directional nature of the censoring means a system can

detect when a high thing like a person standing up in the shower

becomes a low thing, like someone who has fallen over in the shower...

At which point, it sounds the alarm. As well as preserving privacy, this

system has other advantages over a camera. The radar can see through a

steamy bathroom and even in the dark. Although if you're showering

in the dark, well, you can expect to fall over sooner or later. Lara

would have been much more careful. I would have put down a nonslip shower

mat for a start, but mind you there is plenty of things at this year's

EES looking to make the home a safer place. This home robot even wants to

become part of the family. I love you! For a start it's creators told

me in no uncertain terms that he must be called he or she rather than

it, I'm going for she. She is part Nanny and playmate because you could

use her to keep an eye on the children but at the same time she

could entertain them. She has four microphones around her head, so she

has directional sound, she also has a high-resolution camera in her left

eye, she has ... She knows about it if she bumps into things. Look at

this! Hey, can you read me a story? And as well as never tiring of

rereading the same bedtime story, she can do this. Hey, Curry, go

hide! One, two, three, four, five... All a bit of fun if you put aside

the idea that parenting would be a rather worrying drop for robots to

take over. And four when there's no robot nanny around, here's a way

keep things safely out of reach. I just need to unlock the covered.

That's it. This smart block connects to a mobile phone app which means

you can decide who has access to the covered as well as opening it and

closing it via your phone. It also means you can keep things safely

away from kids or any visitors if you don't want them getting their

hands on something in your cupboards, and if anyone who isn't

meant to open the cupboard does then you will receive a tamper alert on

this. It can also be set to simply unlock whenever you're in the

vicinity. But what can be a tricky issue to overcome is how to keep the

whole family safe online without blocking out the things they need.

This is the prototype of a Wi-Fi route that aims to bring together

powerful Internet antivirus and parental controls across the whole

network. Each member of the family will have their own profile so it

means for kids you can choose what times of day they can or can't get

online so at home work time they can't be tempted to go online if

they're not meant to, and you can also pause the Internet so if you

want to get everyone to the table, it might be a little bit easier. If

a child tries to look at a website they shouldn't actually be looking

at then it will come up with this page. From there they can make a

request to look at the page if they think it's important to them and

then that request will go to the parent who can make a call on

whether it is suitable. There's also a crowd ranking function which is a

way of parents saying they find the website appropriate or not and that

will be shared with other users as well. Meanwhile, with so much talk

of Alexa and other virtual assistants at this year's EES, this

prototype was... It isn't very functional heart the moment but when

ready it aims to provide a cloud based virtual assistant as well as

full control over your Smart home. But not everyone can walk into the

room to operate it. To add a bit of safety into the mix it has to know

you and it will either recognise you using this camera for face

recognition or know your voice before it carries out any commands

you request. It can create scenarios like when your activity tracker

knows you've just done a run, the heating will be turned down. OK, I

get that's not ideal for other people in the house! While all this

may make it appear gadgets can safely take control of our gadgets

and our homes, it does beg the question of whether we actually want

them to. That was Lara and I've been out of

bed for precisely the length of that report. About time I turn in for the

night but oh no, I've forgotten to make the bed. Fortunately I've got a

smart duvet, which means that from anywhere in the world I can click

the app and the thing makes itself. It's got an inflatable sheep inside

and the idea is you programme it to do this at any time you want on any

day you want. Yes, it is a bit noisy but the idea is you're not meant to

be here when it does it. It might scare the cat mind you. But that's

not the end of the story. If you're a slaw or you sleep with a snorer

then pay attention because tonight I am sleeping on Nora, which is an

anti snoring device you put under your pillow. If this microphone

detects the sound of snoring during the night, it will activate this

silent fan which inflates Nora, moving the pillow and your head just

enough to reactivate your throat muscles, open your airways and stop

you from snoring. You can track how many times it's been activated

during the night on the app if you want, or you can just have a good

night's sleep, safe in the knowledge that whoever else is in the room

with you is also getting a good night's sleep.