The moment I nearly threw up at a VR demo

Today it was my turn, as a virtual reality demo here at the CES tech show went badly wrong.
It started well. In an elegant hotel suite at the top of the famous strip, gaming chip-maker Nvidia gave a slick presentation about its Shield product - an Android-based TV connected device that offers a host of high quality entertainment options, including VR.
Then, it was time to try some new VR titles.

'Mind blowing'

Overall, I've been quietly impressed with VR. I've tried various headsets in various stages of development and seen some amazing virtual sights.
At home, I'm starting to think my family members are growing Google Cardboards out of their foreheads - although I know some VR aficionados say they don't count.
The day's first experience was mind blowing. Inside a small empty room, wearing an HTC Vive, I climbed Mount Everest.
The graphics were superb - actual footage provided by the makers of the movie Everest. And wherever I looked - up down, around - there I was in the Himalayas.



Even a glitch, when my hands went through the mountain, didn't dampen the moment - that's how intense it was.
I recorded my first impressions for our radio show Tech Tent as I stumbled tentatively around the mountain, teetering over vast ice chasms on tiny bridges and climbing a vertical ladder up a sheer face known as Death Falls.

Emotional ascent

Listening back to the recording, my voice actually cracked with emotion when I reached the top.
Everest duly conquered, it was time to take a trip into outer space with a demo of another new game called Adr1ft.
The Rift VR headset applied, I was given an Xbox controller. Now, I'm familiar enough with them but not to the extent that they are like an extra hand - and of course with the headset on you can't actually see it.
Suddenly, I was floating inside a glass windowed dome above earth not dissimilar to the cupola on board the International Space Station.

Various bits of debris surrounded me. It was powerful - but the constrictions of being inside a virtual space helmet gave the visuals a tighter window than I had expected.
The developer, Adam Orth, is passionate about VR. He started to tell me that Adr1ft was based on personal experience.

Space quest

"Have you been into space?" I asked, as I sat through the tuition video - although I have to admit by the time it had finished I'd already forgotten which buttons did what, and I was also distracted by trying to explain what was around me for the radio show.
"No. It was… metaphorical," he answered.
But before I could find out what he meant, suddenly, I found I just couldn't move.



Nothing responded as I expected. I couldn't even get to the space ship hatch to get outside and start my mission. I started to feel very hot and very disorientated. I was tumbling around, bumping into walls and debris and no longer knew which way was up. My virtual space helmet visor was cracking.
Within about 30 seconds I wanted to rip the helmet off and run to the bathroom.
I asked to stop.
Adam was totally thrown.
"Let me just get you out of the ship…." he said, taking the control from my hands.
But it was too much - I had to remove the headset.
He looked genuinely crushed and I felt terrible.
"We've never had this reaction before," he said.
He started pressing buttons and his face lit up.
"The controller is configured wrong!" he said.
"No wonder you couldn't do it."

 Broken illusion

I'm not sure whether this was a polite ruse to save my dignity.
"I still don't think I feel very confident about continuing," I said sadly.
There was a long pause.
"I'm sorry…" I tried.
"Would you tell me about your inspiration for the game?"
He didn't respond.
I sensed my time was up. After some small talk we said a polite goodbye and Mr Orth did ask if I wanted to continue, but I think we both knew the moment had passed. And I was seriously worried about throwing up.

I left the suite, immediately took a wrong turn and found myself totally lost in the labyrinth that is the average Las Vegas hotel.
When I finally did get outside, I walked the wrong way up the strip in the pouring rain. The disorientation stayed with me for about half an hour afterwards, and I felt too nauseous to get in a taxi.
Now - it could be that I'm just not cut out for VR gaming. It could also be that I'm nursing a winter cold and I'm not fighting fit for space travel.
But now I have experienced first-hand the weirdness that VR can induce - seemingly very suddenly - and I didn't like it. I am in a very small minority, I am told, and I hadn't felt it before.

"There's always going to be a small percentage of the population that gets motion sickness, there's no way around that," said Brian Blau from the tech research firm Gartner.
"But for most people, it usually won't be a problem.
"For the most part, when there's motion sickness it's caused by the app. Developers have to work hard to avoid types of situations that cause the problem.
"Making VR is not easy, it will take time and experience."
My experience hasn't put me off virtual reality, but it has made me cautious.
And I guess my future career as an astronaut is dead in the water.

Moment North Korean TV announces hydrogen bomb test

North Korea's state TV has announced that a hydrogen bomb was successfully tested in the Asian country.

The news came after monitors detected a tremor of magnitude 5.1 near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

CCTV of death crash driver who drove at 95mph in 30mph zone

23 December 2015 Last updated at 12:38 GMT

Police have released CCTV images of the moments before a man driving at speeds of up to 95mph (153km/h) hit and killed a woman.
Matthew Scrimshaw had been driving on the wrong side of the road and was 1.75 times over the blood alcohol limit at the time.
He hit 67-year-old Iris Higginson's Vauxhall Corsa head on in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, in December last year.
He has been jailed for 12 years at Nottingham Crown Court.

HTC Vive virtual reality headset gets upgraded - CES 2016

Taiwanese tech firm HTC has revealed changes to its forthcoming virtual reality headset at the CES tech show.

The Vive's release was delayed after what chief executive Cher Wang described as a "very, very big technological breakthrough".
This has been revealed to be a camera system that allows the wearer to see objects in the physical room around them, helping to avoid collisions.
Some have questioned whether the device will be affordable, though.
By pressing a button on a handheld controller, the user can see objects near them ghosted in to the virtual reality environment.
This merging of physical and digital is intended as a safety feature - and a solution to one of the practical problems facing VR.
HTC plans to launch the Vive in April.
Pre-orders for a rival PC-powered headset, the Rift by Oculus, are set to begin on Wednesday. However, the Facebook-owned firm has yet to reveal when they will be delivered.

The other major headset on show at the Vegas event is the PlayStation VR, which works with Sony's games console.

'New era'

"For too long, the promise of virtual reality has been little more than a promise," said Ms Wang.
"Today we stand on the precipice of a new era. Vive is creating a world where the only limit is human imagination."
The headset's improvements over a version revealed in February include:

• A front-facing camera, so the user can view the world around them when desired
• A redesign of the headset and strap to make them more comfortable
• Interchangeable foam inserts and "nose gaskets" to better fit the shape of the wearer's face
• A brighter display with better clarity than before
• Handheld controllers feature a range of updates including textured buttons, grip pads and softer edges

HTC would not reveal any details on pricing, but when pushed it acknowledged the cost might prove a barrier to mass-market adoption.
"It is a very good experience but if you already have, say a PlayStation, then PlayStation VR is going to be a quicker and cheaper way to get into it," said Stuart Miles, editor of tech site Pocket-lint.

Analysis: Jane Wakefield, Technology reporter

Today, in Vegas, I stood on the deck of a shipwreck and watched a blue whale float past - all in the comfort of a hotel suite.
I was trying out HTC's new, improved virtual reality headset and it was quite an experience.
The ability for 360-degree viewing makes it very immersive and the content is compelling. But whether I would invest in it is another matter.
At Christmas, my children played around with the much cheaper and currently available Google Cardboard and while that is a totally different experience it seemed to satisfy their immediate VR needs.

Vying for VR

Competition in the virtual reality market is primed to be fierce in 2016, according to Michael Goodman of Strategy Analytics.
"This is like a bunch of competitors, right at the starting line, eying each other just before the gun goes off," he said.
Attempts to popularise VR flopped in the 1990s, but Mr Goodman said that a positive sign this time was that several content-producing firms had already announced VR titles and franchises before the headsets had gone on sale.
"That's really unprecedented in the media entertainment space," he added.

Fitness gadgets

HTC also unveiled a trio of health-related devices as part of a tie-up with the fitness specialist Under Armour.
They will be sold together for $400 (£270) in a product titled HealthBox.
The first is the UA Band, an all-day wristband for tracking activity, exercise and sleep.
The second, the UA Heart Rate monitor, is designed to be strapped to the wearer's chest during workouts in order to detect heartbeats and calculate calories burned.
Finally, there is the UA Scale, a wi-fi connected set of scales which sync with a companion app so that users can track weight fluctuations over time.
"There is nothing amazingly new here," remarked Mr Miles.
"Rather, it is the sum of its parts and some will like the ease of a $400 box set for health and fitness."

Ebola outbreak ends in Guinea, says WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, two years after the epidemic began there.

Guineans are expected to celebrate the landmark with concerts and fireworks.
The disease killed more than 2,500 people in the West African state, and a further 9,000 in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Liberia was declared Ebola-free by the WHO in September, and Sierra Leone in November.

• Ebola: Mapping the outbreak
• Ebola basics: What you need to know

However, Liberia has had new cases since the declaration.
A country is considered free of human-to-human transmission once two 21-day incubation periods have passed since the last known case tested negative for a second time.
"It's the best year-end present that God could give to Guinea, and the best news that Guineans could hope for," Ebola survivor Alama Kambou Dore told AFP news agency.
Local health workers echoed a warning from the WHO that vigilance was still vital despite the mood of celebration.
"We have to be very careful, because even if open transmission has been stopped, the disease has not been totally defeated," said Alpha Seny Souhmah, a Guinean health worker and Ebola survivor.


In a statement, the WHO congratulated the Guinean government and people for showing "extraordinary leadership in fighting the epidemic".
But it also noted that there had been 10 new small outbreaks of the virus between March and November.
"The coming months will be absolutely critical," said Dr Bruce Aylward from the WHO's Ebola response team.
"This is the period when the countries need to be sure that they are fully prepared to prevent, detect and respond to any new cases."
The WHO will maintain surveillance and outbreak response teams in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia throughout 2016, Dr Aylward added.

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Analysis: Tulip Mazumdar, health correspondent, BBC News
This is another major milestone in the bumpy road to the end of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. It all started in Guinea when the virus emerged, probably from fruit bats, in a rural community deep in the forest.
Guinea saw far fewer cases than neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, yet the virus has been circulating there for longer than anywhere else.
I remember travelling through Guinea at the height of the outbreak, and there was still a lot of denial about Ebola; people told me it was a made-up disease. Suspicion is still rife in some communities, and many simply do not trust their government.
Ebola has made a comeback in Liberia after the country twice declared the end of the epidemic, and there is every possibility it could return to Guinea. It will be up to communities to keep the killer virus at bay, by reporting suspicious deaths and encouraging loved ones to seek treatment if they show symptoms of Ebola.
But medical facilities also need to respond quickly, which will happen for the extra 90-day "heightened surveillance" period. A key question is what will happen after that, particularly for the thousands of Ebola survivors who are still facing health problems.

More than 100 health workers also lost their lives in the fight against the disease.
Many survivors still live in fear of the stigma and long-term side effects associated with the virus.
The government in Guinea has blamed the virus for poor economic performance and says it has also caused people to distrust the country's health services.
President Alpha Conde has doubled the health budget since winning re-election in October.

Dental care in England 'Third World'

Standards of NHS dental care in England have been likened to a "Third World" service, by dentists.

The care, already "unfit for purpose", is becoming even worse, a letter signed by 400 dentists, in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, adds.
It says the creation by international charity Dentaid of a service for vulnerable patients in West Yorkshire is a sign of the mounting problems.
NHS England said services were improving.
An NHS England spokeswoman said: "These claims are wrong - more patients are getting the dental care they need, and 93% of people got an NHS dental appointment when they wanted one in the last 24 months."
The letter urges ministers to be "fully open and transparent" about the limitations of current provision.
The fact Dentaid, normally associated with providing care in the Third World, is now offering emergency care to homeless people, migrants and the low paid in Kirklees "serves to demonstrate the lack of a proper national dental service", it says.
The letter also calls the levels of tooth decay in children a "national disgrace".
Figures published last year by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed nearly half of eight-year-olds and a third of five-year-olds had signs of decay in their milk teeth.
The Children's Dental Health Survey for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, carried out every 10 years, also found 46% of 15-year-olds had decay in their teeth - although that represented an improvement on the previous survey.

Parents urged to get free sugar app to check products

Parents are being urged to sign up for a free app which tells them the sugar content of food and drink.

The "sugar smart app", from Public Health England, works by scanning barcodes and revealing total sugar in cubes or grams.
Officials hope it will help combat tooth decay, obesity and type two diabetes and encourage families to choose healthier alternatives.
PHE says young children are eating three times more than the sugar limit.
Its new Change4Life advertising campaign, which includes the sugar app, suggests that on average children aged four to ten years old are consuming 22kg of added sugar a year.
That's about 5,500 sugar cubes - more than the weight of an average five-year-old child.
The app has been developed to raise awareness of how much sugar is contained in everyday food and drink.
It works on more than 75,000 products, offering a quick guide to help parents to assess potential purchases that may harm their children's health.

How much sugar?

• a can of cola - nine cubes of sugar
• a chocolate bar - six cubes of sugar
• a small carton of juice - more than five cubes of sugar

Will you use it? Your reaction

Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist from Public Health England, said children were having too much sugar in their diets and this was leading to painful tooth decay, weight gain and the potential for serious health problems in later life.
Overweight and obese adults are more at risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
"If there's one thing I'd strongly encourage parents to do, and that's to swap sugary drinks out of their kids' diets for either a low-sugar drink or water or low-fat milk, which would be a really excellent choice."
She also said people might be surprised to discover the sugar contents, for example, of some yogurts and fruit drinks.

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Sugar traps

• In the UK, we consume over two million tonnes of sugar every year, but we don't always know we're eating it.
• Extra sugar is added to some savoury foods, like low-fat yoghurt and wholemeal bread, because it makes them taste better.

How much sugar is hiding in your food?

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PHE has previously said it supported a sugar tax to help people cut down on the sugar they eat.
It has also called for reduced marketing of sugary food and drinks towards children in stores, on TV and online as well as fewer price promotions on sugar-laden products.
The sugar smart app is free to download from app stores.

Daily recommended sugar limits

• Four to six year olds - five sugar cubes or 19g
• Seven to ten year olds - six sugar cubes or 24g
• 11 year olds and above - seven sugar cubes or 30g

Are Islamic State Missiles A Threat To RAF

We now know that they have at least the technology, if not the ability, to shoot down aircraft.
But how concerning is this for the coalition planes flying bombing missions over Syria and Iraq?
Will IS actually be able to shoot down US, French or British fighter jets?

Combat pilots can send out chaff and flares to evade missiles

The RAF Tornados and Typhoons fly at around 20,000 feet. Drones operate at a similar altitude. Shoulder-borne surface-to-air missiles, MANPADS, have a range of 12,000 feet, putting coalition aircraft out of reach.
The main threat therefore, would be to helicopters or during an aircraft's take-off and landing - the point at which they are most vulnerable.

Video: Inside IS Weapons Lab

During operations in Afghanistan, guards, usually from the RAF regiment, would patrol and secure the perimeter of Kandahar and Bastion airfields to prevent Taliban insurgents from targeting planes.
Surveillance balloons would keep watch over the bases and surrounding areas too.
This precaution isn't necessary during current anti-IS operations because all aircraft are stationed inside friendly territory: Cyprus, Turkey, Kuwait, Jordan, UAE and aircraft carriers in the Gulf.
Heightened airfield security is in practice, however, because of the situation.
If an aircraft is targeted by a surface-to-air missile, it has a suite of defensive options it could use to divert the attack.
Onboard detection systems will identify the MANPAD radar before a missile is even launched, giving the pilot time to take evasive action or prepare for an attack.
If a missile is fired, the pilot could send out chaff and flares.
Chaff is basically tin foil, cut into thousands of small pieces. It reflects radar signals and effectively hides the aircraft in an electro-magnetic cloud, confusing the tracking mechanism on the radar-guided missile.

Video: Islamic State's Driverless Car Bomb

Flares are effective against infrared-guided missiles. These weapons seek a heat source, so they are attracted to the hot spots on a plane, in particular the jet engine nozzles and exhaust.
One of the features of stealth aircraft for instance, is a low heat signature.
Flares create sudden bursts of intense heat, hotter than anything the aircraft is giving off itself. This acts as a decoy to the missile, again confusing its tracking system and, ideally, diverting the threat away.
A classic manoeuvre is to fire off the multiple flares and chaff then make a rapid turn away from the threat, and reduce engine power to lower the thermal signature of the aircraft.
Commercial aircraft don't have these defence measures, but having this weapon in Raqqa is one thing, getting it to and using it at a major European airport against an international airline, is some leaps away for IS yet.
It's all very well obtaining a surface-to-air missile system, but you need to know how to operate it. Just because you own an F1 car, doesn't mean you can drive it properly.
The video obtained by Sky News doesn't show Islamic State fighters actually using the shoulder borne surface-to-air missile, but we do see them demonstrate a worryingly advanced knowledge of the way it is put together, and that, at the very least, suggests a degree of competency.
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Germany shocked by Cologne New Year gang assaults on women

The scale of the attacks on women at the city's central railway station has shocked Germany. About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved.
City police chief Wolfgang Albers called it "a completely new dimension of crime". The men were of Arab or North African appearance, he said.
Women were also targeted in Hamburg.
But the Cologne assaults - near the city's iconic cathedral - were the most serious, German media report. At least one woman was raped, and many were groped.
Most of the crimes reported to police were robberies. A volunteer policewoman was among those sexually molested.

The pretty Christmas market and medieval setting may look idyllic, but at Christmas and New Year the area around Cologne Cathedral is a notorious danger zone when it comes to pickpockets and theft.
Now the sexual harassment, and in one case rape, of dozens of women has shocked Germany.
What is particularly disturbing is that the attacks appear to have been organised. Around 1,000 young men arrived in large groups, seemingly with the specific intention of carrying out attacks on women.
Police in Hamburg are now reporting similar incidents on New Year's Eve in the party area of St Pauli. One politician says this is just the tip of the iceberg.
And there are real concerns about what will happen in February when the drunken street-parties of carnival season kick off.

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Cologne will stage carnival events in February, with hundreds of thousands of revellers expected in the streets, as on New Year's Eve.
The police chief said "the assailants' behaviour is a real concern for me, also because of the carnival".
Police were deployed outside the central station because of the crowds on New Year's Eve, but failed to spot the many attacks, according to reports. There are also fears that a number of women did not report assaults.

'Monstrous' assaults

Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker said the attacks were "monstrous". "We cannot allow this to become a lawless area," she said, insisting that visitors could not come to the city fearing attack.
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas tweeted that "we won't tolerate these abhorrent assaults on women - all those responsible must be brought to justice".
One man described how his partner and 15-year-old daughter were surrounded by an enormous crowd outside the station and he was unable to help. "The attackers grabbed her and my partner's breasts and groped them between their legs."
A British woman visiting Cologne said fireworks had been thrown at her group by men who spoke neither German nor English. "They were trying to hug us, kiss us. One man stole my friend's bag," she told the BBC. "Another tried to get us into his 'private taxi'. I've been in scary and even life-threatening situations and I've never experienced anything like that."
The justice minister warned against linking the crimes to the issue of migrants and refugees.


Germany saw a record influx of migrants in 2015, which provoked an intense debate on immigration and marches by the anti-Islam Pegida movement.
Mr Maas said "the law does not discriminate regarding a person's origin or passport. All are equal before the law".
Cologne news website Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger says the suspects were already known to police because of frequent pickpocketing in and around Cologne central station.

Wider problem

In Hamburg several women told police that gangs of men had molested and robbed them on New Year's Eve on the Reeperbahn - a street known for its boisterous night life.
Some similar attacks were reported in Stuttgart.
A policeman who was outside Cologne station during the New Year's Eve trouble told the city's Express news website that he had detained eight suspects. "They were all asylum seekers, carrying copies of their residence certificates," he said.
However, there was no official confirmation that asylum seekers had been involved in the violence. Commentators in Germany were quick to urge people not to jump to conclusions.
German n-tv news says Cologne police are considering calling in reinforcements from other parts of Germany and installing extra surveillance cameras, with telescopic lenses.