Zoella says she's quit the internet

Zoella has temporarily quit the internet.

The YouTuber, who has more than six million followers, is taking a break from her online world "for a few days" because she says it is "clouding up" her brain.

The news comes the same week that she admitted she had "help" from her publisher in writing her debut novel, Girl Online.

Zoella "worked with an expert editorial team" said a spokesperson from Penguin.

It also said it was part of a publisher's role to "help" new talent.

Zoella's boyfriend, Alfie Deyes, has also said he is quitting the internet and thanked fans for their "understanding".

He said the pair plan "to have some time to ourselves" during their break.

Earlier this year Alfie, who runs Pointless Blog, released his own book.

YouTubers celebrate "vlogmas" in the run-up to Christmas, where the stars post videos every day during Advent.

Because of their break, it seems Alfie and Zoella won't complete the series of videos.

In a post previously shared on Twitter, Zoella said of the revelations about her novel: "Of course I was going to have help from Penguin's editorial team in telling my story.

"The story and characters of Girl Online are all mine."

Another writer, Siobhan Curham, who is thanked in the book's acknowledgements, has been responding to Twitter comments about the Girl Online revelations.

Zoella, whose real name is Zoe Sugg, is also thought to have recognised the author's contribution during promotion for the book.

Ms Curham has yet to respond to Newsbeat's request for a comment.

A spokesperson for Penguin said: "As publishers our role is, and always has been, to find the very best talent and help them tell their story and connect them with readers.

"Talented You Tube entrepreneurs such as Zoe are brilliant at understanding and entertaining their audience.

"For her first novel, Girl Online, Zoe has worked with an expert editorial team to help her bring to life her characters and experiences in a heart-warming and compelling story."

Penguin added: "We are proud to be have been able to help Zoe tell her story and that the book is proving so successful in getting young people reading."

Many of Zoella's fans sent positive messages to the YouTube star after her announcement, saying that they still "loved" the book.

More than 78,000 copies of Girl Online were sold in its first week of publication.

After the figures were released, Zoella, whose real name is Zoe Sugg, tweeted: "I'm legit blown away by this. I never in a million years thought that so many of you would pick up a copy of Girl Online. Almost want to cry."

The record is the highest since Nielsen BookScan began collecting information on the book market in 1998, according to The Bookseller.

It is the first of a two-book deal Zoella has with Penguin.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube

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N Korea denies 'righteous' Sony hack

7 December 2014 Last updated at 07:53

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North Korean TV denied involvement but praised the attack on Sony - who produced a comedy film about the country's leader Kim Jong-un

North Korea has denied hacking into the computer system at Sony Pictures in retaliation for a film depicting the country's leader - but has praised the attack itself as a "righteous deed".

The attack crippled computers at Sony and led to upcoming films and workers' personal data being leaked online.

North Korea said its "supporters and sympathisers" may have carried out the hack - but said it was not involved.

It has described the film, The Interview, as an "act of terrorism"

The comedy, made by Sony Pictures, features James Franco and Seth Rogen as two journalists who are granted an audience with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

The CIA then enlists the pair to assassinate him. The film is due to be released over Christmas.

An article on North Korea's state-run KCNA news agency, quoting the country's top military body, said suggestions that Pyongyang was behind the attack were "wild rumour".

However, it warned the US that "there are a great number of supporters and sympathisers" of North Korea "all over the world" who may have carried out the attack.

In the article, Sony Pictures was accused of "abetting a terrorist act" and "hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership" of North Korea by producing the movie.

Last week a North Korean diplomat had responded to questions over whether his country had conducted the attack by saying, "wait and see".

According to the BBC's Stephen Evans in the South Korean capital Seoul, the latest statement comes closer to a denial - but is ambiguous about whether the country's supporters did it.

This would not be the first time North Korea has been mischievous with the West, our correspondent says, adding that the trailers for the film are - bafflingly - not that insulting to the North Korean leader.

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Alastair Leithead says N Korea is furious about the new film

California-based Sony Pictures' computer system went down last week and hackers then published a number of as-yet unreleased films on online download sites.

They also released salary and Social Security numbers for thousands of Sony employees - including celebrities. The film about North Korea does not appear to have been leaked.

On Monday, Sony Pictures said it had restored a number of important services that had to be shut down after the attack.

It said it was working closely with law enforcement officials to investigate the matter but made no mention of North Korea.

The FBI has confirmed that it is investigating. It has also warned other US businesses that unknown hackers have launched a cyber-attack with destructive malware.

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PlayStation hit by hack attack

8 December 2014 Last updated at 06:37

A hacker group has claimed responsibility for attacking Sony's online PlayStation store, which is down on Monday.

Visitors to the site are greeted with a message that says "Page Not Found! It's not you. It's the internet's fault".

A group called "Lizard Squad" has taken credit for the outage, posting "PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad" as their Twitter status.

The outage is the most recent in a series of attacks on tech giant Sony.

The Japanese firm's Hollywood film studios' corporate network was hacked into last month, followed by an online leak of unreleased movies, along with confidential information such as actors' salaries.

Sony Entertainment Network has responded by tweeting that they are aware of the issues that users are having in connecting to the PlayStation network.

"Thanks for your patience as we investigate," the company tweeted at about midnight GMT.

The disruption comes just days after the gaming console celebrated its 20th anniversary last week.

Lizard Squad attacks

Meanwhile, the outage on the PlayStation network follows one on Microsoft Xbox network, which was down for at least a day last week.

Lizard Squad also claimed it was behind the attack.

The Xbox network was hit with a DDOS, or a distributed denial of service attack, which overloaded the system, stopping users from getting online.

The hacker group had then said that its Xbox attack was just "a small dose" of what was to come over the Christmas season.

Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility for attacks that have taken high-profile targets like EA games and Destiny offline in the past.

Known as Lizard Patrol on Twitter, the anonymous collective has a Russian-based website.

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Video-game console pioneer dies

8 December 2014 Last updated at 13:07

Video-game pioneer Ralph Baer has died at the age of 92.

Mr Baer is widely seen as the "father of video games" for his pioneering work that led to the creation of the Odyssey games console.

The Odyssey, licensed to TV-maker Magnavox, went on sale in 1972 and inspired many other firms to make their own consoles.

Mr Baer also created the first peripherals for consoles and invented many popular electronic games.

Born in Germany, Mr Baer and his family fled the country before World War Two and emigrated to the United States. As a teenager he took up electronics and trained as a radio service engineer.

After the war, this background led him to a career in electrical engineering that, in 1966, saw him create a "brown box" console that let two people take each other on in several different games including a crude, by modern gaming standards, version of table tennis.

The brown box became the Odyssey and went on to become a huge hit. Its success helped to kick off the first wave of TV-connected gaming consoles and inspired an entire industry.

The Odyssey was the first of many game-related electronics devices that Mr Baer created. Among these was the first light gun that could be used to shoot on-screen targets. In later work, Mr Baer also helped Coleco develop some of its games consoles and did work on collaborative play via cable networks.

Mr Baer also came up with the electronics underpinning the Simon electronic game and by the time of his death had more than 150 patents to his name.

In 2004, he was awarded the US National Medal of Technology and in 2010 was inducted into America's National Inventors Hall of Fame.

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Ofcom: UK broadband coverage patchy

8 December 2014 Last updated at 14:25

Ofcom, the UK's telecoms regulator, says fixed broadband connections are now "almost universally available" throughout the UK.

Average download speeds are 23 megabits per second (Mbps), it said in a report on the UK's telecoms infrastructure.

But it admitted that 3% of premises do not have basic broadband of 2Mbps.

And 15% can't receive 10Mbps - the usual requirement for a typical household these days.

There is also a huge gap between the minimum and maximum broadband download speeds available in Britain, Ofcom finds, with some premises receiving just 0.1Mbps and others 350Mbps.

About 18% of households don't bother with any home internet access at all, Ofcom said.

"Things are improving," says Andrew Ferguson, editor of the Think Broadband website, "but there is still a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots.

"About three to four million households still don't have access to superfast broadband, while others don't realise it is available in their area."

The regulator has also launched an interactive map allowing consumers to assess the level of broadband, mobile and TV services in their areas and compare this against UK averages.

'Aggressive target'

The government's aim is to deliver superfast broadband to 95% of UK premises by 2017 - a target the regulator describes as "aggressive".

While superfast broadband of 30Mbps is now available to 75% of premises, just 21% have taken it up, Ofcom said.

Consumers and businesses in rural areas are still under-served, the report concludes, largely because of the expense of providing high-speed networks in areas of low population.

If the length of fibre cable from the household to the nearest junction cabinet is too long, download speeds of 30Mbps are not possible.

But technologies are being developed to rectify this issue for remote households.

Small businesses also lose out compared with households when it comes to access to superfast broadband, says the report.

And with average UK upload speeds of just 3Mbps, business applications such as video conferencing and large file sharing, can become difficult.

The end of the landline?

As more people rely on their mobiles for voice calls and broadband penetration increases, network providers will increasingly move towards voice-over-broadband services, Ofcom believes.

This could ultimately lead to "the switching off of the traditional landline network", known as PSTN - public switched telephone network.

About 16% of households already have no voice landline, relying on mobile for calls.

But as with broadband, fast 4G mobile services are not evenly spread throughout the country, and vary a lot depending on where people are trying to ring or connect from.

For example, for people in cars, 4G is not available at all in 71% of areas.

While nearly three-quarters of premises have access to 4G, only 35% are served by Vodafone, O2 and EE, said Ofcom.

EE has the best outdoors coverage, reaching 68% of the country, it said.

As mobile use and connectivity speeds grow, so does data usage, up 53% between 2013 and 2014.

But mobile data usage - at 0.5 gigabytes (0.5GB) a month - is still tiny compared to fixed broadband usage, currently 58GB a month on average.

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Ex-Apple employee faces year in jail

8 December 2014 Last updated at 17:39

A former Apple executive who made millions by selling information about the firm to its suppliers has been sentenced to a year in jail.

Paul Shin Devine must also repay almost $4.5m (£2.8m) of the money he made.

Manufacturers paid Devine to find out about Apple products and practices to help them negotiate better deals.

Devine was sentenced in California more than three years after pleading guilty to charges relating to wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

Devine was Apple's global supply manager from 2005 to 2010 when he was arrested for running the scheme.

According to information published by the Department of Justice, Devine's kickback scheme began in 2007 after which he agreed to pass on product forecasts, pricing targets and product specifications to manufacturers in return for cash. Some of the payments were tied to the size of the deal the supplier or manufacturer managed to sign with Apple.

Devine set up a shell company called CPK Engineering to launder the cash he received from suppliers.

Investigations into his behaviour started after emails were found in which he agreed to hand over inside information in return for payment.

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President Obama writes Frozen code

9 December 2014 Last updated at 13:09

American President Barack Obama has written a line of computer code to help animate a character from the film Frozen.

He joined a group of pupils taking part in the "Hour of Code" project, a 60-minute introduction to computer science set up by the group code.org.

A drive to widen access to introductory computer science lessons in schools across the US was announced yesterday.

In the UK, pupils are now taught coding in schools from the age of five.

"While no-one is born a computer scientist, becoming a computer scientist isn't as scary as it sounds," President Obama said in a YouTube video.

"With hard work and a little math and science, anyone can do it.''

More than 48 million people signed up to get involved with Computer Science Education Week, currently running in the US, the president added.

"Don't just consume things, create things," he said.

An Hour of Code class was also held at the prime minister's residence in Downing Street, London, yesterday.

"There's no secret to success in the modern world. If countries are going to win in the global race and children compete and get the best jobs, you need mathematicians and scientists - pure and simple," said David Cameron, announcing extra training for maths and science teachers in England's schools.

"It will take time but it's absolutely vital for the success of our country that we teach maths and science and computing in the modern way, because that will be one of the things that will determine whether we succeed or not," he said.

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Amazon warns US over drone rules

9 December 2014 Last updated at 14:04

Amazon has said it may conduct more of its drone research outside the US because of strict regulation of the unmanned aircraft.

The firm has been waiting since July for approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test drones near Seattle, reports Reuters.

Amazon announced proposals for a drone delivery service called Amazon Prime Air in December 2013.

The FAA has been contacted by the BBC for comment.

"Without approval of our testing in the United States, we will be forced to continue expanding our Prime Air R&D footprint abroad," wrote Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, in a letter to the FAA.

Amazon wants to use small drones to deliver packages up to 2.3kg (5lb) in weight.

The service would enable customers to receive a purchase within 30 minutes of placing an order.

Six drone operators were approved by the US to carry out commercial flight tests at around the same time as Prime Air was announced but Amazon was not among them.

Successful applicants included the University of Alaska, Griffiss International Airport in New York and North Dakota's Department of Commerce.

The FAA said it considered "geography, climate, location of ground infrastructure, research needs, airspace use, safety, aviation experience and risk" in selecting the operators.

Amazon already has a drone R&D lab in Cambridge in the UK.

Google and DHL are also exploring the use of drones as couriers.

During the summer, Google demonstrated its service using a fixed-wing craft and in September DHL started a regular drone-delivery service to an island in the North Sea.

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India Uber 'rape' prompts taxi ban

9 December 2014 Last updated at 14:59

India's home ministry has advised all states to ban unregistered web-based taxi firms after a driver for the Uber service was accused of raping a passenger in the capital Delhi.

Delhi has banned Uber and several other web-based taxi firms for failing to carry out adequate driver checks.

The order means taxis from these services will now attract a fine or even be impounded, officials say.

The Uber driver accused of rape has been arrested and remanded in custody.

The 26-year-old woman had used the Uber smartphone app to book a taxi home on Friday night but said she was taken to a secluded area and raped.

Although the driver has not yet given a statement, police say he has confessed to the crime.

"Following the incident of a heinous crime... the government of Delhi has banned Uber to provide any transport related service in Delhi," the home ministry said in a message to state governments around the country.

All internet-based taxi services which are not licensed with the government are also prohibited from operating until they get registered, the letter says, adding that all other states and federally-administered union territories are advised to do the same.

In an order issued late on Monday, the Delhi government said only six registered radio taxi companies were being allowed to continue to operate in the capital.

"All other transport/ taxi service providers through web-based technology, who are not recognised, are prohibited from providing such services... till they get licence/permission from the transport department," S Roy Biswas, Delhi's deputy commissioner of transport, said.

Media reports said the ban could hit a number of taxi services in the city, and thousands of drivers would be out of work.

A BBC correspondent in Delhi says Uber is still accepting bookings on its app and it is not yet clear how the ban will be enforced since Uber taxis do not carry any visible branding.

Uber has not yet commented on the ban.

On Monday, the company described the incident as "horrific" and said it would do everything "to help bring this perpetrator to justice".

The latest allegation of rape has again put the spotlight on the issue of sexual violence against Indian women, following a series of recent incidents.

It comes days before the second anniversary of the gang rape and murder of a student on a bus in Delhi, which prompted global outrage and a tightening of the laws on sexual violence.

Meanwhile, #DelhiShamedAgain and #Uber are among the top Twitter trends in India with many people taking to social media to express their outrage at the incident.

Natasha said banning all online taxi companies was "ridiculous":

Dr Munish Raizada said although India has a new government now, nothing really had changed:

Siddharth Jain said banning Uber was "no solution":

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Uber taxi app banned in Spain

9 December 2014 Last updated at 15:16

A judge has ordered taxi booking service Uber to immediately stop operating in Spain, after a series of protests by taxi associations.

In his ruling on the temporary ban, the judge said Uber drivers didn't have official authorisation to drive their cars and was "unfair competition".

The move follows a complaint by the Madrid Taxi Association.

The Spanish ban comes just a day after Uber was blacklisted in the Indian capital Delhi.

Drivers "lack the administrative authorisation to carry out the job, and the activity they carry out constitutes unfair competition," the Spanish court services said in a statement after the ruling.

The company does not own cars or employ drivers, but connects customers and vehicles through its app, bringing what it says is much needed competition to the taxi industry.

It is the latest blow for the San-Francisco based firm, which has faced strong opposition globally from some governments and established taxi firms, including London's "black cab" drivers.

On Monday, Uber was banned by officials in Delhi after a driver allegedly raped a female passenger.

On the same day, judges in The Netherlands banned its UberPop ride-sharing service, which was launched as a pilot project in Amsterdam between July and September and subsequently extended to The Hague and Rotterdam.

"Drivers who transport people for payment without a licence are breaking the law," said the decision from the Hague-based Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal.

In a statement on Monday, Uber said it would "continue to offer UberPop", despite the threat of a fine of up to €100,00 for itself, and one of up to €40,000 for drivers.

Uber has expanded rapidly since its 2009 launch and now operates in more than 250 cities across 50 countries.

Earlier this month Uber was valued at $40bn (£25.5bn), following its latest round of fund raising.

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