With tomas shafenaker. For most of the uk the weather really isnt going to change much for the rest of the weekend. Saturday are pretty dull, drizzly day, thunderstorms in the forecast too but its not all bad. There is some sunshine and pleasantly warm weather across northern wales, north west of england, south west of scotla nd north west of england, south west of scotland and the Western Isles so it is certainly not cloudy everywhere. The temperatures typically in the low 20s but a lot cooler on the north sea coast. Thunderstorms are possible broadly speaking across the southern half of the uk as we go through the rest of today and tonight. The overnight hours. A very muggy night. 18 degrees in london. Around the mid teens expected in scotland. Showers expected tomorrow. The possibility of thunderstorms again, probably the heaviest ones across more southern areas. A little brightness possible now and then, but on the whole, a lot of cloud the uk. This is bbc news. The headlines. Prince charles leaves commemorations to mark the 75th anniversary of vijay day, the day world war ii ended with victory overjapan. Thousands of holiday makers have arrived back in the uk after a last minute dash to avoid a mandatory two week quarantine which came into effect at 4am. The government has said it will cover the cost of appeals against a level results in england after nearly 40 were downgraded. Now its time for click. The uss biggest rival is moving in on social media and communications and the us is pushing back hard. This week we ask what is going on in china. This week we will bring you up to date with one of the most important parts of the technology world, a place which is a long way from Silicon Valley both geographically and culturally, a place that is now challenging the wests tech dominance. I am talking about china. This is Tiananmen Square in beijing. When i first went to china nearly 15 yea rs when i first went to china nearly 15 years ago it was already clear that ina mighty years ago it was already clear that in a mighty dragon was awakening and the next Technology Superpower was rearing its head. Fast forward to 2020 and Chinese Companies have broken into the west in a big way. Probably the best known of these tiktok and huawei. And they have outgrown criticism to say the least. Later in the programme we will look at tiktok but the biggest fish here is huawei. It has been in uk telecoms for 20 years, most recently beginning to be a part of the uks sg beginning to be a part of the uks 56 network. Injuly the government banned it. To understand what is going on now, banned it. To understand what is oin on now heres banned it. To understand what is going on now, heres a quick refresher. It might look like paris but this is huaweis brand new campus in shenzhen, china. A huge site where employees take a train between office buildings, each of which is modelled on a different european city. Few journalists which is modelled on a different european city. Fewjournalists have visited this disney world like project, the brainchild of the companies founder. He has been compared to the likes of steve jobs, growing his company from a small workshop to a global tech giant now employing 180,000 people. Huawei is currently enjoying huge success with reve nu es currently enjoying huge success with revenues last year in excess of 100 billion. But this is also a Company Facing some serious issues. The biggest is that the us is coming for huawei in a big way. We have met the enemy and it is huawei and china. Right now while went through access to unlimited capital from the Chinese Government, all this technology is built in, cyber spying for espionage because that is what the chinese do. He was once a member of Chinese Peoples Liberation Army and that has raised suspicion about his links to the state and whether it and while white may have each others backs. America is adamant that huawei is a poem for chinese authorities. In 2017 china the National Intelligence rule which says if asked all Chinese Companies and citizens must help the government to assist National Intelligence efforts. China claims this is part of an effort to safeguard its security but the fear is that if huawei supplies any countrys sg is that if huawei supplies any countrys 56 network, the chinese could exploit it. In a future where oui could exploit it. In a future where our entire infrastructure, our economy and our lives are run by computers talking to each other over asg computers talking to each other over a 56 network, what would happen if someone a 56 network, what would happen if someone shot that network down . The future of warfare will not necessarily be with armies, it will beat cyber warfare so with not firing a shot you could take a country out. It feared the Chinese State could order or our way to build secret back doors in the sg network that would leave a country vulnerable to a nationwide cyber attack and that could be catastrophic. In may the Us Government published a piece of legislation which had a massive impact on technology. This means if your economy uses american tools and software to make stuff for huawei, you will break us law. The us will blacklist you. So this stops most companies from supplying huawei forfear most companies from supplying huawei for fear of most companies from supplying huawei forfear of angering most companies from supplying huawei for fear of angering the us. Most companies from supplying huawei forfear of angering the us. For example, the chips which huawei used to run its products were manufactured by Companies Like taiwan based tsmc and tsmc uses some American Software to help design and build the chips. So under this new rule, tsmc cannot make chips for huawei and carry on trading with the us. This means for many companies, its a choice between china and the us. The way chips are produced is reliant on techniques that are owned by a small number of American Companies and what the American Government has done is site you can no longer use those, these Chinese Companies can no longer use those so if they carry on using it it will be done illegally or they will have to look for alternative sources and if they find those, it is more like a black box to us because we have less understanding from a security assurance point of view and that tip you into the point where you cannot be short enough about it so you will have to not using it. So, what can be done now . Governments around the world and the operators are keen to open in some way and to introduce alternatives to nokia and ericsson. Governments are keen to open the way for several players to become alternatives to these companies. Welcome to the week in tech. This week the court of appeal ruled that south wales polices use of facial recognition trilogy is in breach of human rights. Protests in belarus. And after 35 years in the laptop game, toshiba sold its last share of its last stake in the personal computer since. Google plans to build the biggest earthquake detection system. Using your phone. It uses tiny accelerometers built into smartphones to act as a seismometer that detects tremors. Is this the future of photography . Google has developed an ai model to create 3d models of new and complete scenes using still photographs. The model can even capture lighting changes without compromising the image. Finally, if you are in need of a cuddly friend without the long term commitment. This could be the closest thing to a real life pat. Developed by vanguard industries, this pet robot is powered by ai, it has sensors and uses an algorithm to map Human Emotions so it can learn and evolve over time. Chinas influence on the world is truly global. Most cities like london have a china town and the us is no different. There are an estimated 5 million Chinese People living in the states. President trunps focus on banning tiktok talk has stolen most of the headlines. But it is targeting of wee chat that could have a more profound effect on relations. That is because wechat has morphed into a colossus. Less of an app, more like an operating system. This is a Chinese Student studying in london explaining what it is. You can find out where hospitals are, theatres, movie tickets, restaurants, booking hotels. If you want to find out a pay station, i have an account for business, selling things on it. Everything in your life is on the app . It has become essential to its more than 1 billion users. How important is it . It is my life. People only know how to send a message, it is so important to them. The family connection, the home feeling, if i dont have this i feel lonely. The owners wont say how many users it has outside china, but it is thought to run into the tens of millions. It has caught the attention of the us authorities. President trump has mentioned impending action on tiktok. And for good reason. With Parent Companies based in china, these apps are significant threats to the personal data of american citizens. Tiktok says it doesnt hold any of its data inside china and would never give that to the Chinese Government. Many Security Experts believe it is wechat that holds a greater security risk. This is the former Security Officer for yahoo and facebook. Of all the Chinese Companies to worry about, tiktok isnt even in the top ten, i find it to be a bit ofa the top ten, i find it to be a bit of a symbol here for the entire chinese territory. I would be most worried about can sent. People run companies on wechat, they do things that could open them up to black belt so those are the kind of apps i would worry about. Wechat has long been criticised for censoring users in china. A canadian Analytics Company looked into how it moderated its users outside of china. We find routinely topics related to perennial taboo issues like Tiananmen Square, hong kong, anything to do with tibet or the dalai lama, those are pretty routinely censored. The people we spoke to didnt seem to be too concerned about security issues. The reason why he is saying he doesnt want it in the us is because he thinks some of the data from users goes to the Chinese Government. This is not true. It is important to the country. I think that is the good part for us, because if there was not government control something bad would happen. Research has found wechat censoring political content and content related to covid 19. We looked in particular at censorship around covid 19 and found that discussions about the pandemic very early on were censored, which is highly significant because, of course, physicians who were on the front line warning about the pandemic even before it had a name had their communications censored. Tencent deny this and told bbc click. Data security isnt the only reason trump has decided to ban wechat. It is far more political than that. To be honest, it is hard to look past the fact these Tech Companies have been sucked into a wider geopolitical battle between two superpowers. The battle over social media and especially who owns our personal data, is seen by many as the next big emerging rivalry between china and the us. In march, the chinese owners of internet hook up app grindr sold up for 600 million. They had been forced to sell by the us regulators over National Security concerns relating to the data on the app. In may, Chinese Social Media Company kuaishou launched an app in the us called zynn, which after becoming one of the most popular apps, was removed from both the Google Play Store and apples app store after being accused of plagiarising videos. But tiktok is now under pressure from us regulators and may be banned by the white house. I set a date of around september 15, at which point it will be out of business in the united states. But over in china, social media has been evolving in a different way. Earlier this year, before the pandemic took hold, Stephen Beckett went to beijing to meet some of the Major Players in the chinese social media landscape. When it comes to social media, china is a world away from the west thats in part because of long Term Government blocking of us tech giants like google and facebook, and thats partially why the country has evolved its own completely distinct online ecosystem. Alibaba is a bit like ebay, weibo is similar to twitter, and wechat started life in much the same way as apps like whatsapp and facebook messenger. Perhaps not a surprise, then, but for a time, china had the reputation of a copycat nation. China, with its Huge Population of over 1. 3 billion people has plenty of room for social ideas. And the competition is intense. These are the head offices of kuaishou, theyre one of the Biggest Social Networks here, theyve got over 200 million active users, but unless youre in china, you probably havent heard of it. Kuaishou has made a name for itself by targetting chinas relatively untapped rural population, and thats a lot of people around 40 dont live in cities. And that has led to a platform where the stars arent necessarily what you expect. Kuaishous secret sauce is the options it gives streamers to make their streams pay. Translation im a professional musician. I also give lectures via kuaishou in my spare time, which teach people how to play the chinese sorna. I try to popularise chinese traditional music and knowledge. Between sales of recorded lessons, purchases of virtual gifts during livestreams, he says he makes around £15,000 a month, and that is after kuaishou takes their 25 commission. But kuaishous 200 million users isnt quite so impressive when you compare it to chinas social titan tencent, and their so called mega app wechat. And now wechat is becoming a daily part of life, thanks to something called mini programs. Translation wechat mini programs are an app that doesnt require you to download and install, they are sub applications within the wechat ecosystem, and a new tool developed by wechat. Many programmes allow third parties to add new features to wechat on demand. Its a bit like having the entire app store already on your phone. The idea is that you can pretty much do everything you could ever want on your phone without ever closing wechat. So this Convenient Store is set up on the campus of wechats head office. And the idea is you canjust walk around, pick up whatever you like and then walk out the door, it will get automatically charged to your wechat account. Wechat relies on users handing over big chunks of their personal data and now that now even includes yourface. These vending machines are set up to use wechats new facial pay feature. The idea is you opt into it in the app and once youve done that, you can use your face to buy anything from these machines. It basically links your face to your face to your wechat account and your government id. But, is the convenience worth the possible cost to privacy . In 2016, Amnesty International awarded the Parent Company of wechat, tencent, zero out of 100 for their privacy practices. I think theres a common perception that people in china dont care about their privacy, and that perception is completely false. The government over the last few years has been trying to roll out its own cybersecurity regulations and trying to educate consumers about the dangers of data being lost or leaked. Wechats Privacy Policy says it will provide the Chinese Government access to much of what you do in the app when legally required, including the things you type and data like your location. Its hard to deny that social apps in china have taken on a life of their own, if not outpacing, then going in new directions to competitors in the west. The big question is whether more chinese apps can follow tiktok in going global, despite the concerns around privacy and censorship. Or, if not, it could it be the turn of Tech Companies in the west to play copycat themselves . That was Stephen Becketts view of china. And since the explosion of tiktok in the west, other apps have been springing up to try and compete. And chris fox has been looking at some of the alternatives that are available. If you cant get enough of short, hyper edited videos, luckily there are plenty of apps that have cottoned on to the format. This is triller, which i think is fair to say, has taken a bit of inspiration from tiktok. You can record clips with special effects and share them onto an endless scrolling feed of content. Triller seems to have done quite well out of all this uncertainty, at the start of august, it topped the app store charts on both i0s and android and has managed to attract some big name tiktok stars and celebrities over to its platform, including mike tyson and magician dynamo. Another app offering a similar experience is byte, which has also been popping in and out of the App Store Top download charts. Like tiktok, it offers you creative effects for your videos, although it is trailing behind triller, its been downloaded over1 million times on google play, whereas triller has had more than ten million. Tiktoks biggest competition may come from instagram reels, instagrams newly launched rival. It has Incorporated Many of tiktoks core features, including that endlessly scrolli