Tonight on Close Up ` it's not another night of wasted patients. What were you drinking? It's a night of wasted resources. Babysitting drunks comes at one heck of a cost to the taxpayer. And why we have to learn their language? When you want to say 'hello', the word for 'hello' is 'jabami'. Jabami. Due to the live nature of Close Up, captions for some items may be incomplete. ONE News captions by Toni Tippett and John Ling. Close Up captions by Richard Edmunds and Angela Alice. The way Kiwis treat alcohol is an issue that isn't going away. Close Up's taken a few recent looks, from the sight of teens pre-loading on a Friday night to asking can we solve it with minimum pricing. Alcohol reform is on the way ` not before time, if you take a look at the front line in this battle ` the hospitals. It costs to keep a drunk in a bed, and you and I are paying. So is it a waste of taxpayers' money? Mark Crysell took a look. Saturday night, Takapuna. It's a Test night, but many are legless before the haka. Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora. Some will wake up with nothing worse than a hangover. I think she's just been drinking. But more and more are ending up here ` Darling, I'm Karen. I'm going to be your nurse, all right? How are you feeling? the emergency department at North Shore Hospital. I think what people think is that it's someone else's problem, but these are just everyday people that we're seeing over here. It's not somebody else ` it's yourself, it's myself. This woman (29) is one of the first of the night. She's drunk more than her fair share of vodka RTDs. What can you do for her? > We're just going to be insuring that she doesn't vomit and suck some of the vomit into her lungs and really that she doesn't come into harm's way from not being sensible. How long will she take up a bed for? At this stage of the evening, I think it's very likely that she's here until the morning. We really feel it's our responsibility to look after her, and, really, it's an extremely expensive resource to be using up. Each drunk person who ends up in a bed for a night costs a cash-strapped public health service in the thousands. What were you drinking? Uh... Ben? He's asking you the question. This young man keeps passing out and vomiting. He's been brought in by a mate. How much have you been drinking? About nine cans of 8% bourbon, and I'm fine. And he was meant to be the adult who was meant to be walking me home, but I knew about his condition, but I never knew that he wasn't allowed to be drinking, but now it's turned to this. < So how old are you? I'm 17. < You shouldn't be drinking, then. Yeah, I know, but he's meant to be the adult and Mum and Dad knows that I'm with him < And you think you're OK at the moment? I'm fine. Yep, I'm not going to puke. I'm fine. It's the third time this young man has ended up in the ED in the past few months. Just too drunk? Well, we'll see. There's a story that he may have a bit of a heart condition, Well, we'll see. There's a story that he may have a bit of a heart condition, so I'm not sure bourbon's a good thing for that. But we'll just see. We'll get an ECG from him, make sure that his heart's OK and just make sure that he's doing all right. Really, we're set up for people with heart attacks and severe trauma, so babysitting drunks comes at one heck of a cost to the taxpayer. The doctors reckon almost one in two of all the admissions to North Shore's emergency ward on Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol-related. It's not just people getting really drunk and things happening. You don't need a lot of alcohol and things get slippery. Cuts, broken bones, twisted ankles, dislocations ` you name it. And then of course the violence that's associated with alcohol. This woman in a wheelchair isn't drunk, but her partner had too much to drink and turned nasty. She's been hit on the back of head with a bottle. Clearly alcohol's been involved, and as we know when the football's not going exactly as everyone wanted and a bit of alcohol's involved, that's often what we see. It's an unsteady procession. Throughout the night, the young and the drunk roll on through the streets and eventually roll on in here. More and more, they're young women. It does make me concerned about the potential risk they're putting themselves in, including opening themselves up to sexual assault. You know, these young people` Sorry, guys. We need to... Well, that was a young woman just then. She's obviously intoxicated. Oh, well, looks that way, yeah, and that would be par for the course for an evening like tonight and, you know, you have to hold yourself concerned about what sort of risks she's putting herself up for. Cheap alcohol, binge drinking, a mad dash to the finish line. No drinking, huh? Not that much. No, no more drinking. We're going to be sober Kiwis. It's last drinks at the ambulance... One, two, three. ...at the bottom of the cliff. Can you see this getting any better? (CHUCKLES) I wish I could. I really hope, I really hope that things are going to get better, but we're rally talking about a cultural change ` that's what we need. And how do we go about changing our culture? We're just not drinking in the right way. People are just drinking themselves stupid. The doctor said it was about the culture, so what would it take to change it? It was really an independent, individual decision I had to make, and something that I had to do. We know the anti-smoking ad with the Shortland Street actors made an impact. You have to dig deep, be aware of your triggers. Redefine yourself. And so did the one with the infamous ghost chips. Grab a chip. Want a chip? You know I can't grab your ghost chips. Go away. Spoon! So what kind of campaign will it take to have a similar effect on binge drinking? We look at that tomorrow. If 70's the new 60 and 80 the new 70, we've got seniors out there still able to spend and still keen to spend. So where is that money going and can new business owners aim to get some of it? Matty McLean investigates. DANCE MUSIC I'm still flying high at 70. No good doing a half job. Three NZers, all over the age of 70, and all part of what's called the 'silver tsunami' ` Oh, it's absolutely wonderful, yes. our growing population. Because how old are you? 84. 84 years young, right? Yeah, that's right. I'm only a chicken. It's estimated that our ageing population will close to double in the next 20 years, and smart NZ businesses are starting to cash in by targeting the 65-plus demographic. Oh, hello, Rachel! Hi, Anna. How are you? Can I help you? Yes, please. Thank you. Like Rachel Marks and All Active Fitness. A major target market for us at the moment is seniors, because they're such a major proportion of the population. And I'm really passionate about helping them remain independent. Because so many of them actually become inactive, which actually leads to more health problems. Bend your knees. Going down nice and slow. Pause for a second. Anna Jones is 71 and a very happy client. People wouldn't believe you if you said you were over 70. I know. It's my secret because I'm a happy person. And you love it? Oh, absolutely love it. And she really works me hard. Tortures me all the time. Luckily, it just lasts half an hour. The pair have been training together for a year now in Anna's home, and the growth in her fitness, Anna says, is huge. She's really very good. What have you learned? I have learned to be motivated. Yeah, it helps me. It helps me to be more active and to keep my posture. I have learned to be motivated. Yeah, it helps me. It helps me to be more active and to keep my posture. The hardest one ` how you call it? Push it up? Push-ups. That's the hardest one. She gets you to do push-ups? > Oh yeah, 20 times. And I do it. Business for Rachel is booming. She visits Wally once a week at his retirement village. Enjoying it? I am, actually. It's one of those things ` as you get older, your muscles tend to atrophy, because they're not being used. Does she crack the whip? Absolutely. Oh, she's a hard trainer. She'd go well with lions. < (LAUGHS) Do you feel like you're fitter than you were before you started? Yeah. People have even commented on the fact that I'm looking better. Have you noticed a change in him since he took up this exercise? > (LAUGHS) He's still got two left feet. (LAUGHS) Up in the Hawke's Bay... We try to be like Morgan Freeman. ...Mel Harper runs Driving Miss Daisy. Driving Miss Daisy is a companion driving service, so we're like a taxi service, but we're a whole lot more. When we pick them up and bring them home, they can design a journey. So you know how often you want to pick up some milk on the way home or go to the post office? So we will do that on the journey home ` just like you would do if you were in your own car and you did it yourself, but you have your own chauffer. Vicky Vine is one of Driving Miss Daisy's regular customers. Where do you get them to take you? They take me to the physio department at the Hawke's Bay hospital, where I do an hour of exercises. Good morning. Here's the star. > Here's Vicky. When we get to where they might be ` say, with Vicky at the hospital ` we always go in and help her. What was life like before Driving Miss Daisy for you? Pretty dreary, really, and I didn't go out so much. Now I know that I can get Miss Daisy, they've always been able to help me, and it's wonderful. Mel and her husband Jack know they're on to a winner of a business. They've already sold 40 franchises in three years. All the statistics tell us that the plus-65-year-olds are growing daily. The baby boomers are coming through. We're in a market sector that is definitely on the increase. The Harpers will keep expanding Driving Miss Daisy ` a company that's brought both clients and owners and happiness. Would you say that the service has changed your life? Oh, definitely, yes. It has changed my life. I'm much happier, much brighter. Coming up ` find out why this man says he lives in the most energy-efficient home in the country. 20 degrees all year round and right now it's 19.5, so we're pretty close to that. And taking computer communication up a notch. (LAUGHS) The new language that will help us talk to robots. How does this sound in the middle of winter ` $15 a month to heat your home? Impossible, you say? Well, maybe not. Now you'll remember our zero-energy house from a month or so ago. Well, now we've got a energy-saving concept in house design that steps it up a notch ` the 'passive' house. Here's Michael Holland. BOTH: Welcome to our passive house. What on earth is a passive house? It is a fully insulated, no-heating house. You are telling me there is not a heater in this house? No, not a single heater. And what is the temperature in here right now? 20 degrees Celsius. About 20 degrees Celsius. 20? So I don't need this on, then? No. So you will carry it round for me during our inspection? OK. (LAUGHS) Come on, then. Let's go. DREAMY MUSIC Winter's doing its best to be noticed, but this is a house with no seasons; a cocoon of constant calm. It feels like we are almost sealed in, like in an aircraft? We are, actually. It's quite airtight. Not as tight as an aircraft, but pretty close. What's it like to live in a house where the temperature never changes? Well, it's quite nice. It's comfortable. 20 degrees all year round. Right now its 19.5, so we're pretty close to that. It is very quiet? Yeah, it is really quiet, actually. Almost library quiet? I haven't been to a library for a while, but it's nice to come in, close the door and know you're in your own space. A meticulously designed space encased by double glazing and heavy-duty doors... It's got a locking mechanism within the door that pulls the door tight and keeps it airtight. ...and supported by a high-capacity heat ventilation system that's continually refreshing the air. There's a very effective heat exchanger that's extracting the heat from the air that's leaving the house and mixing it with the air that's coming into the house. So that's one of the reasons why we're able to retain all the heat. AMBIENT MUSIC $15 a month to heat and cool the house. It's just way better than some other houses where you have to pay enormous power bills to do the heating. < $15 a month? It's incredible, yeah. < That's how many coffees down at St Heliers? Not very many these days. If you feel cold, old mate, you can always put this on. You don't have to carry it. You want to put it on? I'm not cold. This is Ethan's bedroom. He's 8 years old. We've just got a cotton duvet, cotton-top sheet, and that's it. And this will be the same in summer, because the temperature will be the same? Yes. So, whose idea was this ` Mum or Dad's? BOTH: Dad's. And I can't say he's crazy, because it really turned out so well. < Do you have to be obsessive to do this? I don't think so. I mean, sure, my husband is obsessive. I will not question that at all. I think it's obsessive to do it the first time, absolutely, to pursue the council and all the rest of it to get it going for the first time. That challenge was then passed to the builder to adhere to the strict international criteria for passive houses. Had to start from scratch and read up the specifications we were given, which were like a book. The key thing here is to make it simpler, faster, easier for other Kiwis to be able to build these. The key thing here is to make it simpler, faster, easier for other Kiwis to be able to build these. The passive treatment starts at the bottom. The foundations are insulated? They're in an ECO-Block, which is a foam block, and concrete is poured inside that block. There is no ability for the heat transfer to come out of the house and go into the ground. A special membrane that keeps the house sealed of air. This is basically what covers all the wood framing of the house. I go to a friend's house all the time ` well, sometimes ` and his house is cold. It's really cold. There's no insulation. They need a gas heater. He needs an electric blanket. It's freezing! What's his name? (GIGGLES) I kinda... My dad told me not to say. As a nurse, I feel really compelled to say that a warm and dry home has been proven over and over again to be much healthier. It's been a big challenge to get there, but we've got there. And you've got a client who wasn't going to stand for even one air leak? No, no, he wanted to make sure it was right, so we had to make it right. You're as snug as a bug, as they say? Yeah, we are pretty snug as a bug. Yeah, we are. We just really hope others take what we've done and improve on it and use it. It's pretty much really really nice. So passive is good? Yep. It's good. Philip was a bit cagey with Michael as to how much his passive home cost, but we know it's about 12% to 15% more than the build on your average house. Just ahead ` TECHNO MUSIC how good are you with languages? Well, the word for 'hello' is 'jabami'. Jabami. Jabami. ROBOT SPEAKS ROILA Why you'll need to master this one. Ever tried speaking to your hands-free phone or GPS and gone mad trying to get it to understand what you want? Scientists say robots and machines will play an increasing role in our lives, but if we can't communicate with them well enough, how on earth can they be useful? A team of researchers at Canterbury University think they've the answer, but it's going to require some work from you. Abby Scott explains. TRILLING ROBOT PLAYS TUNE, SPEAKS ROILA ROBOT SPEAKS ROILA Hanna. Hanna (6) already speaks Japanese, English and German. Now she can add Roila to that list. ROBOT SPEAKS ROILA (SPEAKS ROILA) Roila is a... a spoken language ` a language that you and I and also robots can speak ` that is, on the one hand, very easy to learn for the humans, and on the other hand, it is very easy to understand for... for machines in general. Machines which often struggle to understand irregular and complicated English. Currently, there is technology that interprets English, though, isn't there? Like on your mobile phone. Yes. Currently we have, for example, Siri on the iPhone. And we could give it a test run to see how good it is. Want to give it a try? What is the circumference of the Earth? Sorry. I'm not sure what you said. What... is... the circumference... of.. the... Earth? The circumference of the dead. The dead? See, he didn't understand. So it's close ` 90% ` but not really. SLOWLY: Circumference of the earth. Would you like to search the web for 'circumference of the ass'? BOTH LAUGH Even after 20 years of development, speech recognition and speech processing is not quite... as good as we wanted it to be. So his team at Canterbury University came up with Roila ` robot interaction language. We took all the natural languages that there are in the world, and we looked at, 'Well, what's the common ground?' 'What is all the phonemes that, really, everybody can pronounce?' Phonemes, then words. You know, 'What are the words that you could create?' And what we did here is we used a genetic algorithm to automatically create words that sound most distinct from each other. When we want to say 'hello', the word for 'hello' is 'jabami'. Jabami. Jabami. So, if you want to say 'goodbye', it is 'makebama'. Makebama. Makebama. 'The girl is too little' is... Batuno peca kute. And, literally, that is 'girl too little'? Yes. So has it taken all the extras out? Well, you have a lot of things in the language which are... only to a little degree useful, but to a learner can be quite difficult. Since the vocabulary is limited to only 800 words, instead of a couple of hundred thousand words in English, of course, it takes you much shorter. And also, since the grammar is perfectly regular, pronunciation is easy, in that sense, it's probably one of the easiest languages you could possibly learn. And you actually can learn it. There's already a how-to book. And making it user-friendly is very important. So we sat down and said, 'OK, now, we need to have a proper language guide, 'so you can get the book, you know, read it, learn it, and then you can exercise it.' How many of these have you sold? I haven't looked up the latest ones, but it's certainly not a Harry Potter. (LAUGHS) Is your ultimate dream to see everyone in the world speaking Roila? You can propose something, but, you know, it is` the people have to pick it up and see a use in it, and then it will carry itself. These French robots are designed specifically to interact and converse with humans. (GUFFAWS) But Roila would also help with everyday appliances of the future ` TVs, vacuum cleaners, anything that has a microphone and a processor. Artificial languages have been invented before ` most recently for sci-fi movies. (SPEAKS KLINGON) Currently, things like Klingon from Star Trek and Elvish from The Lord of the Rings movies are some of the most popular. (SPEAKS ELVISH) The problem that you have with any kind of artificial language is the first person has a hard time because there's nobody else in the world to talk to. But with Roila, with a simple software update, you would instantaneously have millions of devices to talk to. And if there are so many of them that are able to understand it, it'll be worthwhile you speaking it. ROBOT SPEAKS ROILA TRILLING FADES Now, MasterChef fans, you don't want to miss tomorrow's show. DRAMATIC MUSIC As a judge on 'MasterChef: The Professionals' in Britain, she's known as Miss Nasty. You don't seem that scary. No, not outside of work mode. I don't think so. (LAUGHS) Being a chef in the UK or in Europe, in these restaurants, you need to be tough, you know? 10 layers of thick skin. These kitchens, they're just so rough and full on. And you need to show that you're as tough as the boys. That's tomorrow night. WE COULDN'T SQUEEZE FEEDBACK IN TONIGHT. WE'LL BRING IT TO YOU TOMORROW.