Beyonce album smashes iTunes record

16 December 2013 Last updated at 13:20 ET

Beyonce's "surprise" fifth album has broken iTunes sales records, with 828,773 copies sold in just three days.

The majority of those sales came in the US, where it has racked up 617,213 sales since its release on Friday.

The tally broke Beyonce's own first-week sales record, set by her second album B'day in 2006, which sold 541,000 copies across a full seven days.

In the UK, the self-titled album cracked the top five in just 48 hours, after shifting 68,000 copies.

Beyonce stealth-released the record exclusively on iTunes last Friday, surprising fans by unveiling 14 new songs and 17 videos without the usual build-up of radio play, marketing and magazine interviews.

Its success has been fuelled by a number of factors: By keeping the project secret, the star avoided leaks; while the inability to purchase individual tracks online meant fans had no choice but to pay for the whole album.

The 31-year-old said the "visual album" was inspired by her memories of watching Michael Jackson's Thriller video premiere in 1983.

"I miss that immersive experience," she said. "Now people only listen to a few seconds of a song on their iPods and they don't really invest in the whole experience.

"It's all about the single, and the hype. I felt like, I don't want anybody to get the message when my record is coming out.

"I just want this to come out when it's ready and from me to my fans."

The album was codenamed "Lily" by staff at her record label, Columbia, to avoid rumours spreading, and even key creative staff were kept in the dark about the release plans.

Video director Ricky Saiz, who shot the clip for a slow, sleazy track called Yonce, told Buzzfeed he had "no idea" of the scale of the project until it was released.

"It was a complete surprise even to the people involved," he said. "To be honest, I was actually in bed when I got an email just kind of saying [the album] was live."

Reviews for the album were largely positive, with Billboard magazine praising the star's "creative audacity".

"Beyonce signifies where the future of R&B is heading," said the magazine, "with less focus on beats and more emphasis on emotive falsetto, stream-of-consciousness ideas and the occasional burst of braggadocio."

In The Telegraph, Neil McCormick wrote: "The album has a focus and intensity unusual in multi-writer ensemble productions, a sense of purposefulness that holds the attention even when the songs sometimes drift off in search of a chorus."

Apple, which runs the iTunes store, said the album had broken its previous first-week sales record, set by Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience when it sold 580,000 in March.

Beyonce also went to number one in 104 countries, it reported.

The company has exclusive access to the album for a short period - thought to be a week. Physical copies of the record are expected in shops before Christmas.

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Tablet goes on sale for £30

16 December 2013 Last updated at 10:25 ET

A tablet costing £30 has gone on sale in the UK.

The UbiSlate 7Ci, made by UK-based company Datawind, is the commercial version of the Aakash 2 tablet, which was originally launched in India.

There, the tablet is mainly used by students and was designed to provide cheap internet access to help improve education.

Analysts say UK customers buying this tablet and comparing it with others on the market may be disappointed.

The 7in (18cm) Android tablet has wi-fi connectivity, 512MB of RAM, a microUSB connection and 4GB of storage.

It has a three hour battery life and allows users to watch online tutorials and videos, browse the internet and play games.

When the Aakash was launched in India in 2011 it was dubbed the "world's cheapest touch-screen tablet" and was aimed at schools and colleges. The first version was not well received by critics, but an upgraded version, the Aakash 2, fared better.

Speaking at the Wired 2013 conference in October, Suneet Singh Tuli, who founded Datawind, said getting online was all about affordability.

"It's not just about creating low-cost devices, for us it's about delivering the internet," he said.

Cost offset

A partnership with the Indian government helped the Aakash 2 became one of the country's best-selling tablets.

"At the start of this year we became the largest supplier of tablet computers in India, ahead of both Apple and Samsung," said Mr Tuli.

Samsung has since taken the lead.

The company said it could afford to sell the product at such a low price as the cost of the hardware was offset with revenue from content and advertising.

"The reality is that with any consumer electronics device you get what you pay for," said Ben Wood, an analyst at research company CCS Insight.

"Any consumer buying this tablet with the expectation it will deliver a comparable experience to more expensive, yet affordable, Android tablets such as Amazon's Kindle Fire and Tesco's Hudl will be sorely disappointed."

The company, which was named as the UK's most innovative mobile company in a government competition in 2012, also has two other tablets with higher specifications advertised on its UK website.

Both Tesco and Aldi have recently joined the "low-cost" tablet market. Tesco's 7in Hudl device went on sale for £120 and Aldi sold out of the 7in £80 Medion Lifetab shortly after launching it. Argos also launched a £100 tablet known as the MyTablet.

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Facebook tops 2013 Google searches

17 December 2013 Last updated at 07:54 ET Continue reading the main story

Google has revealed that Facebook topped its list of the most searched-for terms of 2013 in the UK.

The social networking site beat the search company's own YouTube video service to the top spot. Google itself made it in to third place.

Shopping sites proved popular with web users with eBay, Amazon and Argos all making an appearance in the top 10.

Aside from spending and sharing, news proved popular with BBC News and the Daily Mail featuring high on the list.

Google also examined what questions people typed in to its search engine and from this compiled a top "what is" list. Facebook topped this too with a substantial number of UK-based searchers wanting to know what the social networking site was.

The second question was more a more heartfelt, "What is love?"

Other popular "what is" topics included searches for cancer, energy and blood pressure. Perhaps reflecting economic news throughout the year "What is the minimum wage" and "What is Universal Jobmatch" made it in to the top 10 most-asked. Universal Jobmatch is a government-run jobs-listing site.

Explaining Facebook's position at the top of the most searched and "what is" lists, Chris Green - an analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy - said: "Facebook has now firmly established itself as a hub on the internet, making it a destination for surfers to do multiple tasks such as communications, gaming, shopping, photo-sharing and information gathering.

Continue reading the main story

1. Facebook

2. YouTube

3. Google

4. Hotmail

5. Ebay

6. BBC News

7. Amazon

8. Daily Mail

9. Argos

10. Yahoo

"These are tasks that would have previously involved using a search engine to source multiple sites."

The "most searched-for" terms are based on the number of times the relevant words are typed into Google's search engine.

Mr Green added that Google's own appearance near the top of its list could be explained by the fact that Chrome and other internet browsers can be set to automatically use the search engine when a phrase - rather than a full web address - is typed into their top bars.

"Chrome makes no distinction between web addresses and words in its search box so people get lazy and just type in single words like Google rather than full web addresses," he said.

"But this registers as a search."

Man of Steel

Google also unveiled its "top trending" search terms for the UK in 2013. These are the entries that have seen the largest increase in traffic compared with 2012.

Many of the entries on the list reflected major news events of the past 12 months.

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Google's Laurian Clemence spoke to the BBC's Aaron Heslehurst

The death of the Fast and the Furious film star Paul Walker was at the top of the list.

Both Nelson Mandela and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who died this year also feature in the top 10.

The birth of Prince George in July came in at number four on the UK list.

"Celebrities always get a lot of interest and the passing of well-known figures makes people want to learn more about them," said Google's Claudine Beaumont.

"Despite that, some of the more traditional aspects of British life, from the Grand National to the royal birth, have generated many Google searches and will be remembered as events that have characterised the year."

New product launches helped the iPhone 5S and Microsoft's Xbox One become the biggest tech trending search terms.

There was a battle of the superheroes in top 10 most searched-for movies. Man of Steel beat Iron Man 3 in to top place. A small triumph for Superman who had lost out at the box office to his metal-clad rival.

Oscar winners Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty also featured. Only one animated film made the list, Despicable Me 2, but it was one of three sequels that were searched for including The Hangover 3.

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Google buys military robot-maker

15 December 2013 Last updated at 23:22 ET

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Robotics expert Noel Sharkey said Google's acquisition of Boston Dynamics, was "a big surprise"

Google has acquired the engineering company that developed Cheetah, the world's fastest-running robot and other animalistic mobile research machines.

Boston Dynamics, which contracts for the US military, is the eighth robotics company snapped up by Google this year.

Both the price and size of the project, which is led by former Android boss Andy Rubin, are being kept under wraps.

However, analysts say the purchases signal a rising interest in robotics use by consumer internet companies.

Online shopping portal Amazon, for example, recently announced plans to deploy a fleet of delivery drones.

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The firm's BigDog robot can throw breeze blocks

In a statement posted on the Google Plus service, Chief Executive Larry Page said:

"I am excited about Andy Rubin's next project. His last big bet, Android, started off as a crazy idea that ended up putting a supercomputer in hundreds of millions of pockets. It is still very early days for this, but I can't wait to see the progress."

Robot Machines

Boston Dynamics, which does not sell robots commercially, was founded in 1992 by a former professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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The Cheetah Robot developed by Boston Dynamics breaks the speed record

It consulted for Japanese electronics giant Sony on consumer applications such as Aibo, a robot dog.

But it mostly develops mobile and off-road robotics technology, funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa.

Google has said it would honour the existing military contracts with Darpa.

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Boston Dynamics road-tests its Atlas robot on rough terrain

Boston Dynamics' videos of its walking robots have garnered millions of views online.

One of them, called BigDog, is remarkably agile for a machine and is able to move over rough terrain such as snow and ice.

Another, of a four-legged robot named WildCat, shows the noisy machine galloping down a car park at high speed and pivoting quickly on the spot.

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Boston Dynamics' WildCat robot is put through its paces

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BT default 'porn filter' switched on

16 December 2013 Last updated at 06:33 ET

BT has announced the launch of a new internet filter designed to protect children online.

The controls will automatically be set to "on" for new users. Customers who do not want the service will have to actively choose not to turn it on.

The filter is designed to block sites deemed unsuitable for children.

The move comes after the government called for internet service providers to filter legal pornography and other adult subjects "by default".

The BT Parental Controls filter will cover any internet-enabled device connected to its home broadband service.

The implementation of the controls will be pre-selected for new users who are setting up their internet connection for the first time. They will have to confirm this option and then will be asked to set a filter level.

There will be three levels - strict, moderate and light - or customers can choose to turn the filter off.

Existing users of BT's broadband will be contacted during 2014 and asked to make a decision on whether or not they want to set up the new service.

Search blocked

Sites that show pornography, refer to illegal drugs or promote self-harm will all be blocked. Other categories of sites that the filter can be set to block include nudity, social networking and gaming.

Users can also personalise the filters to block access to sex-education sites and search engines.

BT currently has 6.8 million broadband customers.

"BT takes the issue of online child protection extremely seriously and we are very pleased to be able to launch the whole-home filter to help parents keep their families safe online," said BT's managing director of consumer commercial marketing and digital, Pete Oliver.

The National Crime Agency's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP) said it welcomed the move by BT.

The government has said by the end of 2014, 20 million homes - 95% of all homes in Britain with an existing internet connection - will be required to choose whether to switch on a whole-home "family- friendly" internet filter.

Sky and Talk Talk have already implemented their own version of a "family-friendly" filter. Virgin is expected to introduce something similar in the new year.

In November, Google and Microsoft announced that 100,000 search terms that related to illegal material would be blocked by their search engines.

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Warnings over text-sharing apps

16 December 2013 Last updated at 07:35 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Warnings are being issued about Android apps that exploit a phone's ability to send unlimited numbers of text messages.

The apps are proving popular because they claim to reward phone owners for every text message they relay.

But, say security firms, the apps can relay huge numbers of texts via a phone and lead to its number being blocked.

Mobile operators say the apps violate their terms and conditions and could lead to a service being suspended.

Daily rate

The apps aim to profit via the unlimited texting that many people get with their mobile contract.

Routing text messages through a phone can be a cheap way to ensure an SMS reaches its destination, said Cahal McDaid from mobile security firm Adaptive Mobile.

"There's a huge market in sending text messages as cheaply as possible around the world," he said.

The fees for transporting text messages vary from country to country which has led to a "grey market" for routing messages via the cheapest route.

Routing the message via a phone already in the country that someone wants to reach could cut costs even more, he added.

However, said Mr McDaid, the sheer number of texts that some of the apps sent through a participating phone could cause problems.

Adaptive had seen thousands of messages passing through phones that had downloaded one of the apps.

In addition, he said, operators were likely to take a dim view of customers who use their phone as a text message relay.

"You cannot resell your message plan," he said. "Operators have terms and conditions for a reason."

A spokesperson for Bazuc, one of the message-relaying Android apps, said it told participants to ensure that the daily limit of messages they send is not set too high.

"We are fully aware that mobile operators are not going to be a big fan of this app," said the spokesperson. "We're simply trying to help people out there make some extra money."

The spokesperson claimed that some users of its app had five phones dedicated to using the app so they can cash in. Bazuc said it paid participants $0.001 cents for every message they relayed.

All the UK's large mobile operators contacted by the BBC said any customer using text-message-relaying apps would be breaching the terms of their contract. This could lead to their number being blocked or their service being suspended.

Marc Rogers, principal security researcher at mobile security firm Lookout, said getting caught using such apps could make the whole experience very expensive.

"If your operator decides to bill you their 'out of bundle' or overage rate for violating their terms you could be billed hundreds of pounds for those messages," he said.

"Aside from the potential issues with your operator, you are allowing people to send messages from your mobile number, without having any control or visibility of what those messages are," he said. "But you may have to face the consequences."

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Two charged over Twitter comments

16 December 2013 Last updated at 14:06 ET

A man and a woman have been charged over tweets sent to the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez.

Isabella Sorley, 23, from Newcastle and John Nimmon, 25, from South Shields, were charged with improper use of a communications network.

They will appear in court on 7 January, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Ms Criado-Perez said she faced abuse after successfully campaigning for the author Jane Austen to appear on UK banknotes.

The CPS said that after consultation with the police, it had been asked to "make a charging decision" over five suspects who allegedly sent offensive tweets to Ms Criado-Perez and the MP Stella Creasy.

It said it found there was not enough evidence to prosecute one suspect as the "high threshold for prosecution has not been met".

It added that it was not in the public interest to prosecute the suspect who allegedly sent offensive messages to Ms Creasy, citing the young age and personal circumstances of the suspect.

The fifth suspect faces further police investigations before a decision can be made, the CPS said.

It has written to Ms Criado-Perez to inform her of the charges. But she said on Twitter that the CPS had informed the press "ahead of me".

"About the level of victim-support I've grown to expect," she added.

Twitter backtracks on block

Ms Criado-Perez, from Rutland, who had appeared in the media to campaign for women to feature on banknotes, said the abusive tweets began the day it was announced that author Jane Austen would appear on the newly designed £10 note.

She reported them to the police after receiving "about 50 abusive tweets an hour for about 12 hours" and said she had "stumbled into a nest of men who co-ordinate attacks on women".

She told the BBC she had also tried to contact Twitter's manager of journalism and news, Mark Luckie, but he did not respond.

The form that allows Twitter users to report abuse was not adequate, she went on, adding: "Twitter need to be on the side of the victims."

On Saturday, Twitter reversed the changes it made to how people block other users, less than a day after they were introduced.

The changes - which allowed blocked users to continue to see tweets and interact with accounts that had blocked them - caused an outcry.

"We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users - we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe," Michael Sippey, Twitter's vice-president of product, said in a blogpost.

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Facebook starts auto-play video ads

17 December 2013 Last updated at 07:24 ET

Facebook is rolling out video advertisements, beginning with a series of ads for forthcoming film Divergent.

The ads will play automatically on some news feeds although sound will only be activated if users click on them, it said on its Facebook for business page.

Ads on mobile devices will have been downloaded in advance when the device was connected to wi-fi, the firm said.

Experts said that such ads may alienate users.

"It sounds as if they are doing it in a reasonably sensitive way but if they get this stuff wrong people may stop being active and posting new content," said Alys Woodward, an analyst with research firm IDC.

"The question is do they have rich enough analytics to target ads correctly? It isn't just about an ad for a film. I care about being sent the correct movie so try and sell me the right thing," she added.

Mobile users

Rumours that Facebook would introduce video ads have been swirling around for months.

Since September it has been testing ways of watching self-play videos on the social network and stressed that this extension to adverts is currently a limited trial.

"This format isn't intended for every video ad or page post video on Facebook... We'll continue to refine this new way for brands to tell stories on Facebook to ensure the best experience for people and marketers," it said.

Originally the video ads were due to start in the summer but founder Mark Zuckerberg delayed their introduction partly because of fears of how such adverts would go down with users.

Mobile users have complained that such ads would eat up their mobile data allowances.

To placate its mobile audience, Facebook has stressed that only videos that have been downloaded in advance via wi-fi will play.

"This content will not consume data plans, even if you're not connected to wi-fi at the time of playback," it said.

It added that users who do not want to watch adverts can "simply scroll past and the video will stop playing".

It is not known how much Facebook will charge advertisers for the service although in August, bank Morgan Stanley predicted it could rake in approximately $1bn (£613m) for video ads in 2014.

Its report went on to suggest that such ads could generate as much as $6.5bn by 2020.

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NSA data grab 'may be unlawful'

17 December 2013 Last updated at 08:57 ET

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Carney: Snowden "should be returned to the United States as soon as possible"

A US judge has ruled the National Security Agency's mass collection of telephone data may be unconstitutional.

Federal District Judge Richard Leon said the electronic spy agency's practice was an "arbitrary invasion".

The agency's collection of "metadata", including telephone numbers and times and dates of calls, was exposed by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The White House dismissed a suggestion Mr Snowden could receive amnesty if he stopped leaking documents.

On Monday in a Washington DC federal court, Judge Leon called the NSA's surveillance programme "indiscriminate" and an "almost Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States".

'Irreparable harm'

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by conservative activist Larry Klayman, a user of a Verizon mobile telephone who challenged the NSA's collection of metadata on his behalf and that of a client.

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An ex-NSA official tells the BBC the government will have a difficult time challenging the ruling

On Tuesday morning, US President Barack Obama met chief executives from the nation's top technology companies - including Google and Apple.

He was expected to discuss the NSA's surveillance programmes as well as government information technology reforms; the legal ruling may also come up.

The NSA had ordered Verizon - one of the largest phone companies in the US - to disclose to it metadata, including telephone numbers, calling card numbers and the serial numbers of phones, of millions of calls it processes in which at least one party is in the US.

Judge Leon ruled the plaintiffs had demonstrated "a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their Fourth Amendment claim and that they will suffer irreparable harm absent… relief", referring to the clause in the US constitution that bars unreasonable search and seizure by the government.

He issued a preliminary injunction against the NSA surveillance programme but suspended the order to allow for an appeal by the justice department, thus enabling the programme to continue for now.

Mr Klayman told the BBC the ruling "could have immediate impact.

Continue reading the main story

The Washington Post says that in order to make its case for telephone surveillance the US government must do more to demonstrate why the NSA's activities are crucial.

The Wall Street Journal says the judge's ruling throws out a 34-year-old legal precedent that says Americans have no expectation of privacy in who they are calling.

The New York Times highlights Judge Richard Leon's record in wrestling with thorny congressional issues, including the rights of Guantanamo detainees.

Writing in Slate, Emily Bazelon says if the judge does not accept the the legal basis for the NSA surveillance, no-one should.

"If the NSA continues to do this, they're now on notice that it's illegal, and we will seek to have them held in criminal contempt of court."

Through Glenn Greenwald, a journalist with whom he has close ties, Mr Snowden issued a statement hailing the ruling.

"I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts," he wrote, according to the New York Times.

"Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights," he added. "It is the first of many."

Earlier on Monday, the White House rejected an amnesty for Mr Snowden.

Press secretary Jay Carney said the US government continued to press Russia - where Mr Snowden has been granted asylum - to return him to the US.

"There's been no change in our position," he told reporters.

On Sunday, Richard Ledgett, head of the NSA's task force investigating damage from Mr Snowden's leaks, discussed the possibility of an amnesty.

"My personal view is, yes it's worth having a conversation about," he told the US television channel CBS.

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Huawei under closer UK scrutiny

17 December 2013 Last updated at 09:47 ET

The government is to increase its oversight of Chinese telecom giant Huawei amid fears its equipment could be used for spying.

The company has become a major player in the UK telecoms sector, leading to concerns over compromised national security.

Intelligence agency GCHQ will be given a greater role at the firm's Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC).

A senior member of GCHQ will direct all senior appointments at the centre.

There have long been questions about links between Huawei and the Chinese government.

The concerns led Huawei to set up HCSEC to analyse equipment supplied by the firm to identify potential security vulnerabilities. It hoped the unit would allay concerns about cyber-espionage.

So far it has examined more than 30 types of product for both the mobile and fixed broadband networks.

But earlier this year the UK Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee voiced concerns about how independent staff at the unit were from Huawei headquarters.

It called for the unit to be staffed by employees of GCHQ.

It led to a review by national security adviser Sir Kim Darroch who has recommended closer involvement from GCHQ.

But he said that he was happy that in general HCSEC operated "effectively" and that vulnerabilities identified by the unit were "genuine design weaknesses or errors in coding practice".

Staff at the centre will continue to be employed by Huawei in order to safeguard the non-disclosure agreements that the firm has with hundreds of third party-suppliers, he added.

National infrastructure

"We are pleased that the model of the UK government, the telecom operators and Huawei working together in an open and transparent way has been recognised as the best approach for providing reassurance on the security of products and solutions deployed in the UK," Huawei said in a statement.

In July the firm denied claims from a former US CIA chief that it had spied for the Chinese government.

The same month the UK government confirmed it would be reviewing the firm's involvement in the UK.

Huawei has been supplying network equipment for Britain's critical national infrastructure since it was awarded a contract by BT in 2005.

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