Going Ape Click

That is it from me. Duncan will be

here at two a.m.. But now on BBC

News it is time for Click. Goodbye.

This week, we're talking emojis with

weather stations, Xbox, and Andy

Serkis. If it feels like the weather

is getting weirder, that is because

it is. In many parts of the world,

meteorological records seem to be

coming year after year. And as gets

more erratic and extreme, the need

for accurate forecast becomes vital.

This is the BBC's weather centre at

new broadcasting house. This is

where they take their best guess at

what the next two days will look

like. We kind of thing at the

granted, these days, but as you

would expect, there is an awful lot

of numbercrunching that goes on.

That is what that is doing right

now. Hello Ben. You might recognise

them from the television. Ben is

taking raw data from the Met Office

on the screen and then it into

something more akin to what we see

on the television. It all goes to

make other familiar weather map that

we and love. In the UK, each four

kilometres square gets its own

individual forecast from the Met

Office. But sling around to Africa,

and it is a very different story.

Here, we are working at much lower

resolution. Squares here are only 25

kilometres across. One of the

reasons is because data is

particularly keen on the ground

here. Over the coming month or so,

we will be looking at how technology

is changing this continent. To start

our journey, Dan Simmons has

travelled to Tanzania to meet a chap

who used to work here, but is now on

a mission to improve the forecast

for Africa. Sub Saharan East Africa

is lush. The soil is rich. It is the

end of a very wet rainy season. Two

wet for some farmers, who saw their

crops rot. Angus and Asha farm here.

They say climate change has made it

difficult to predict the seasons.

They have gone from drugs to flood

in recent years, and have lost

harvests in both. Next door, Peter

has been planting a type of runner

bean which can take as little as six

weeks to grow.

In September to

October. The rainfall than is very

harsh. It rushes the topsoil down

there.

But last season, he lost his

entire crop to sudden heavy, early

rains. The farmers here know what

they are doing. They just don't

quite know any more what the weather

is up to. Former BBC weather

presenter and Dean Gardner, Peter

Gibbs, wants to do something about

that, and he has found a pretty neat

way to explain it to me.

I think you

are like this.

The big reveal... Oh

my word! Wow! Look at this!

Is that

grand or what?

That is huge! That

goes on forever, doesn't it?

This

gives you some idea of the scale of

Africa. The drop here is about 1000

metres from where we are. No, no,

no, that is close enough! From the

West Mountains where we're standing

down to the mass I plan. We are

looking at hundreds of square

kilometres. -- Masai Plain. Lots of

whether going on. You can see clouds

building over in the distance.

Most

of its fund, as well...

Exactly.

There are a lot of people farming

there, but no weather station you

can see. So how do you do a good

forecast for here without the

information? That is incredible.

Back in the UK, you would have, at

least, half a dozen, Vaas 15 weather

stations in that sort of area.

So

you can see the problem. -- perhaps

15. The satellites can do some of

it. They can pick up some of the

clouds, but can only estimate the

rain how much each plant can

produce. You need those measurements

of the ground. Was the other

parameters, like temperature,

humidity, and pressure... You know,

it is like any commuter programme.

Garbage in, garbage out. Peter is

advising a start-up that wants to

pepper Africa with these. They are

fully automated self reporting

low-cost weather stations. They can

be monitored from anywhere, looking

up to Africa's extensive mobile cell

network. They place their first

station last year, and will have

more than 100 operating by

Christmas. So what do we get on our

fully automatic weather station?

Well, we have a bucket up here,

which measures rainfall. There is a

little seesaw device out there which

goes backwards and forwards for

every drip that comes through. That

tells us how quickly the rain is

falling, as well as how much rain is

falling. And an anemometer a bit of

giving us the wind speed and

direction by the then there at the

top. -- vane. This is the solar

panel which powers the whole thing

and is cleverly used to tell us how

much such an we're getting. Just

behind this high kind of affair is

the temperature gauge. It also

measures humidity and it is stuck in

there so it cannot be affected by

direct sunlight or more heat coming

from the ground, which is dissipated

by this housing. All of that data

need to be collected by a panel

round at the back, which is sent to

this communications unit. It has a

sink that works in every African

country. What some of us would do

for one of those... And then it uses

this transmitter to send it all back

to base. That goes back to Europe,

and then from the guys in Europe,

they will produce a model, which

will give people back here a more

accurate weather forecast. It is

already making a difference. Farmers

like Peter Gant daily text alerts,

giving them a steer as to what to

expect. This farmer told us his

texts have helped him decide when to

add pesticides. -- Peter get.

Up to

80% yield increases. That makes the

difference between eating to stay

alive and sending your children to

school.

And it is not just the

personal impact. Health agencies can

use forecast to predict outbreaks of

malaria or cholera. And insurers

want to know they need to pay out on

policies. The Coco Belt in Africa is

shifting. Investors want to know

where to and by how much.

Across the

whole of Africa at the moment, there

are around 500, just 500, reliable

reporting weather stations. To get

good coverage, or you need to get

down to something closer. This is

fantastic to me that I feel I can

make use of that experience, to

actually make a difference to

people's lies.

That was Dan Simmons

with Peter Gibbs in Tanzania. We

will have more reports from the

African continent later this month

on Click. Microsoft boasts its new

XBox one X is the most powerful

games console in the world! They

have stopped short of calling it the

most powerful console in the Galaxy.

I suspect they are saving that

accolade for the machine comes after

this one. But there is good reason

for this talk of power. And that is

down to what lurks under the hood of

this console. It has an eight core

processor. It has a fork a Blu-ray

player thrown in as well. -- this

means that the machine can throw out

4k graphics in high-definition. What

those numbers and specs mean is that

it can generate better graphics than

the old XBox one S, which had a

maximum resolution of 1080p. What it

does mean is that there is an

incredible level of detail in the

graphics. Look at this Porsche I am

driving in Porsche. I have bumped

and grace of a couple of times, and

you can see every single debt and

Dean, every single bit of chipped

paintwork. It is very detailed. --

Matt Abood. Some titles will be

enhanced, like Rise of the Tomb

Raider. He has would be

standardised. Microsoft says it is

up to developers to choose how they

will use the brunt. -- Rise of the

Tomb Raider. This new digital

virtuosity is great if you own a 4k

TV. But how do they achieve these

graphics? Witchcraft? Or more

precisely, super sampling, a

technique that allows all the detail

and information in a 4k image to be

scaled down to fit into a 1080p

screen. It is a form of silicon

sorcery. The new machine should

enjoy fast to load times and, unlike

its 4k rival, the PlayStation four

Pro, is very advanced. This might be

the biggest hurdle for the XBox one

X! Its price. And, as he gave the

machine plays are essentially the

same as those on its most powerful,

older sibling, the XBox one S, this

will probably appeal only to those

with spare cash burning a hole in

their pocket, or those with a 4k TV.

That casts gloom over everything,

doesn't it, lads?

Hello and welcome

to the week in Tech. It has been a

bad week for Tesla as they reveal

that they are months behind schedule

of production on a new model three.

WhatsApp allowed a delete messages

for everyone function to allow users

to retract comments after they have

said that. And Bitcoin reached a

record high of one Bitcoin worth

over £5,000, up 8000% in the last

year. Facebook and Twitter face a

grilling this week from US Congress,

over possible Russian interference

in last you's election. It firms had

to explain why they failed to

prevent foreign posts. I use it in

comfortable in? Ford's new robot

certainly is. This contraption tests

cast is by moving like a passenger

by getting in and out of a vehicle.

It sits thousands of times to create

the same wear and tear as achieved

after ten years of use. This robopup

comes with artificial intelligence

to learn what makes its own is

happy. The original can under

scanned ten years ago to save the

Japanese giant cash.

Whether you love them all loathe

them, it looks like imagine is I

hear to stay -- emojis. So we have

been investigating the future of

emojis. In case you missed it, the

new iPhones have been released this

week but was it may be seen hard to

comprehend how a phone is worth

$1000, it does bring with it are

quirky feature that says a lot about

the way we will communicate in the

future. Emojis allows users to

animate the expressions of a chosen

emojis. It tracks over 50 muscle

movements to create the appropriate

expressions of and they are clearly

not the only company that I thinking

in pictures. Action emojis... What

has happened to good old-fashioned

words? Every day, six billion emojis

yes. They have come a long way since

these, created by Japanese phone

company in 1999. There are emojis to

satisfy your every need. Apple and

Google seem to be struggling what

order burger ingredients should be

loaded in. Surely the meat at the

bottom! And on tender, you can throw

a virtual drink on someone. While

some gestures are universally

understood, not everybody interprets

every picture in the same way.

It is

like a friendly keys.

That is

whistling. That is a bit confusing.

Can you pout for me?

A kiss.

Something.

A secret.

I have nothing

to say. Keep an eye out.

So is

facial recognition the future of the

humble emojis. A new social app

certainly hope so. Let's see the

options. That is a pretty weird.

Wow. It also uses artificial

intelligence to map facial

expressions, allowing them to

respond with emojis replicating

their facial reactions. Snapchat

action emojis were launched a few

months ago. It combines GPS location

and their tracking of our fast they

are moving to guess what they are

doing at that moment and that will

now be placed on what they call the

snap map. There is even a film,

raising over $211 million worldwide.

There is also a world emojis day.

Depending on context, what seems

like a harmless picture could cause

offence. Something Instagram is

trying to overcome. Nearly half

posted comments contained emojis

said they had been listed a machine

to block anything they believe to be

offensive. That is not to say they

can provide a bit of fun. What film

title is?

The lying King.

Apple

time... Pitch time...

Clockwork

Orange.

So maybe they will have the

last work after all. That is

amazing! Does this phrase look

familiar? How about this one? These

are some of the most iconic car is

in a modern cinema. All of them

created using groundbreaking

performance capture technology and,

although they do not look like it,

they are all the same face. And the

circus is himself the world 's most

iconic performance capture actor.

His latest role breathes an

astonishing amount of emotion into

these character, calling for an

Oscar nomination by some. The

release of a new Sony PS for

platform extends the world 's of the

planet of the apes. It is a decision

based game that plays out more like

a cross between a movie and a choose

your own adventure. I sat down with

them and behind the mask. You kind

of art the king of performance

capture. To you believe that? You

have a movie coming out you have

directed, videogames is not a love

it.

It is the most extraordinary

tool for the 21st century actor, to

embody all play anything across

multi- platforms. It is the end of

typecasting. It is the most

egalitarian form of a thing. A

creature, a character, a humanoid.

Bringing them into existence. The

art of transformation becoming, to

me, and different at this act in

different ways, but it drove me as

an actor. This technology allows you

to do that to the nth degree. It is

climbing deeply inside a character,

being that character and it can be

as extreme as King Kong.

You him,

you overseas.

I fight only to

protect the AIDS.

Is the performance

that I am looking at what you gave

on the day?

If you look at modern

filmmaking now, the amount of times

that you can take a blink out, you

can add it here is somebody is

supposed to be crying and they did

not manage to do it in the tag.

Augmentation is at a crossover of

what you think you are seeing is

being real and in this day and age

visual effects are read every single

shot of every movie, apart from

low-budget movies who cannot afford

it. When we are being directed, the

director takes my performance and

then he cuts it with Woody's that is

what he lives with. They even start

testing movies with the faces in

them. It has to live or die on the

performance. The performance is not

created after the fact, it is the

manifestation of the performance

after the fact which is obviously

incredible visual effects and

artistry. Matt lives with the cut of

the entire movie.

Of all your

performance captured Ross, which

stand out as something monumental

happened here?

I have a very soft

spot for:. With Caesar, they have

played apart from birth all the way

through to death and not only just

growing older but the character

evolving from one thing into

another. Going from a pure

chimpanzee to almost human. The

technology that allows any actor to

do that is all right by me.

The

legendary Andy circus. Before we go,

we have a tongue of click contact on

our Facebook page throughout the

week like this, showcasing research

from Switzerland which built a

curved concrete roof using new

building techniques. Algorithmic

calculations means less concrete and

fewer support structures are needed.

The researchers said the

manufacturing process uses a minimal

amount of concrete and support

structures of meaning less waste and

reduce the environmental impact. The

whole prototype weighs 20 tons with

just 100 kilograms of supporting

cables and textile.

They think with

resources disappearing and having

only one planet, we need to design

better and, as a structural

designer, I care about exactly that

and also showing that actually we

can make quite a big difference and

make exciting buildings that are not

wasteful but actually quite the

opposite. That do things much

better, much thinner, much more

integrated, much more efficient.

And

you can see more short stories from

the world of tack on our Facebook

page. Thank you for watching and we

will see you soon.