Instagram now bigger than Twitter

Instagram has told Newsbeat it has the potential to "change the world" as it announced it has overtaken Twitter with 300 million users.

The company's CEO Kevin Systrom described the milestone as "exciting" and said the company would "continue to grow".

Twitter claims to have 284 million users accessing the network each month.

Facebook, which boasts 1.35 billion monthly active users, bought Instagram in 2012.

Speaking to Newsbeat ahead of the announcement, Kevin Systrom said: "Instagram is about seeing a live pulse of the world right now, it's not just about taking a photo of a cute baby or a cute dog."

Instagram is also introducing verified accounts similar to the blue tick symbols used by Facebook and Twitter.

Newsbeat understands regular users who have been impersonated could be verified, alongside celebrities, sports stars and brands.

"We want to be all about authentic users and you making sure that you know you're following real people not bots, not spam accounts, not fake accounts." Mr Systrom added.

In an attempt to get rid of fake accounts or those breaking the company's rules, Instagram said it is deleting "spammy" accounts.

The company has warned that some users may find they have fewer followers as a result.

Instagram's co-founder hinted the company would soon be adding new features based around specific events.

"You're literally getting a view of what's happening in the world right now.

Kevin Systrom wants to kick out bots and 'spammy' accounts

"What we need to do is figure out how to take the fact that everyone's contributing in the world and broadcast that more globally.

"If you're interested in what's happening at the World Cup, you can peer in, see the football players and see what they're thinking and doing before they go onto the field.

"Those are the types of things that I want to enable over the next year."

Since it was set up by co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in October 2010, Instagram has grown rapidly.

In February 2013, the company announced it had reached 100 million active monthly users.

Recently Instagram introduced advertising, with "sponsored posts" allowing brands to reach the app's growing number of users.

"Early on I would review and approve every single ad before it went on," Kevin Systrom said.

Although some users were not happy about seeing adverts on Instagram, he said that adverts were needed to allow the company to grow and cope with its increasing size.

"The reason why we're doing this is as a growth engine for Instagram.

"When you get to 300m users it's not cheap to run that service and you need to make sure to be able to hire more people."

The company responded to Twitter's Vine app with a video-sharing feature of its own and introduced direct messaging to compete with rivals WhatsApp and Snapchat.

In June 2014 Instagram defended its rules on nudity as "fair" after criticism for removing photos of topless women.

Kevin Systrom told Newsbeat that Instagram's close relationship with Facebook had allowed it to learn from its mistakes.

"We're absolutely paying attention to the pitfalls companies have faced before and trying our best to avoid them."

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube and (of course) find us on Instagram by searching for BBCNewsbeat

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'Giant spider dog' tops YouTube

9 December 2014 Last updated at 18:24 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A Polish film maker's short horror film featuring his pet dog in a tarantula costume was the biggest "trending" video on YouTube in 2014, parent company Google has announced.

With over 113m views since it was posted in September, Mutant Giant Spider Dog was the most shared and discussed online, according to YouTube.

Katy Perry's Dark Horse music video was the most popular with 715m views.

Facebook recorded over 3bn interactions about the Brazil World Cup this year.

The football tournament was "the most talked about event" on Facebook since the firm began measuring event-based chat, the company said, with over 350m people posting about the game.

However Brazil's presidential election attracted even more chat on the social media platform, with 674m interactions recorded by 48m people.

In the UK, the Scottish Referendum proved to be the year's biggest talking point with 3.3m interactions recorded on polling day alone.

The most played games on the Facebook platform were Bubble Witch 2 Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga.

The most "checked in" place in the UK was the Warner Brothers Studio in London - home of the Harry Potter movie tour.

Google has released lists of the most watched material on YouTube in a blog post.

Swedish games commentator Felix Kjellberg, aka Pewdiepie, gained the most subscribers for his YouTube channel for the second year running, with over 32m subscribers.

"It's reassuring that the likes of YouTube and Facebook can reconnect us with both the lowest and highest forms of cultural content," said Simon Collister, senior lecturer in social media and communications at the London College of Communication.

"Despite that we need caution about relying too much on these platforms," he added.

"There's a whole debate about algorithms - particularly with news consumption - we have to be careful that we don't let the platforms themselves dictate too much to us what we should and shouldn't be watching."

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Pirate Bay goes offline after raid

10 December 2014 Last updated at 12:21 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The Pirate Bay, arguably the most well-known website for accessing pirated content, has been taken offline following a raid in Sweden.

Swedish police seized servers in Stockholm after a complaint was filed by a group targeting internet crime.

It is the first time in several years the site has been taken offline rather than simply blocked by filters.

Unexpectedly, the site's co-founder Peter Sunde - who is no longer involved - called for its permanent closure.

Swedish police have confirmed the raid, which took place after the complaint from the Rights Alliance.

Paul Pinter from Stockholm County Police, told the BBC that an investigation that had lasted "for years" led them to the location of the servers containing material related to the The Pirate Bay.

As well as servers being removed from the data centre for examination, he said several people were now being interviewed by police.

However, he would not confirm or deny if anybody had been arrested.

The police operation took place in an area in Nacka, south-east of Stockholm. The area's mountainous terrain is used as a natural cooling system for computer servers.

"We can confirm that the police has completed a raid in the facility which where we rent space for our data centre," hosting firm Portlane, which has servers located in Nacka, told the BBC.

"This raid was not for our company or any of our employees," a spokesperson said. It added: "It was partly directed at one of our customers."

According to Torrent Freak, a website that reports on news about piracy and copyright law, a number of smaller torrent websites, or sites related to the activity, had also gone down.

Various reports on Wednesday suggested that the site had returned with a Costa Rican web address.

However, this site appeared to be a "mirror" - meaning copy - of the real site, and search functionality did not work.

Cloud strategy

The Pirate Bay has operated for over 10 years, and in that time has become a focus for the creative industry's war on copyright infringement. It is one of the internet's most-visited websites, and the movie, music and software industries blame it for losses running into billions of pounds.

Despite The Pirate Bay's operators being convicted of copyright violations, authorities have struggled to stop the site from operating.

In the UK, internet service providers (ISPs) were ordered by the High Court to block access to the site in 2012. Other countries rolled out similar measures.

The effectiveness of such blocks has been disputed. Sites will evade them by changing domains, or users will utilise proxies to circumvent them.

The Swedish raid steps up the effort to stop people reaching The Pirate Bay by knocking the site itself offline, although for how long is unclear.

Prof Alan Woodward, a security expert who has been working with European authorities to shut down illegal sites, said: "There have been raids before from which Pirate Bay has recovered.

"Recently they have taken steps moving their infrastructure to be more distributed as a way of being more resistant to raids, so I would imagine they will reappear in some form."

In 2012, The Pirate Bay announced it was to move its site to the cloud - internet-based storage, which can be shared across a variety of locations - so that raids would apparently be ineffective.

Indifference

At the time, the site said: "The site that you're at will still be here, for as long as we want it to. Only in a higher form of being. A reality to us. A ghost to those who wish to harm us."

That confidence in the site's agility appeared misguided as it remained unreachable well into Wednesday.

But according to Peter Sunde, it will be indifference that closes the site, rather than police action.

"News just reached me that The Pirate Bay has been raided, again," he wrote in a blog post.

"That happened over eight years ago last time. That time, a lot of people went out to protest and rally in the streets. Today few seem to care. And I'm one of them.

"Why, you might ask? Well. For multiple reasons. But most of all, I've not been a fan of what TPB has become."

He bemoaned the level of advertising found on the site and criticised what he called a lack of "soul" in the community.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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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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McIlroy 'wiped data from devices'

9 December 2014 Last updated at 17:34

A court has been told Rory McIlroy deliberately wiped clean up to eight electronic devices that may have contained important data relating to his legal action against his former management firm.

Their lawyers said the "factory resetting" was also done to the devices of three other key figures in the case including his father Gerry.

They described this as "incredible".

Horizon Sports Management wants orders from court for further disclosure.

These include for documents and the inspection of electronic devices.

Senior counsel for Horizon told the High Court in Dublin his clients had to bring the application because Mr McIlroy had refused or failed to respond to requests for better disclosure.

He said Rory McIlroy and three others close to him had also wiped their devices before passing them on to others or to charity.

Mr McIlroy, in an affidavit sworn in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday night, said he has already provided significant amount of detail for the case, in compliance with a previous court order.

He said he had not been advised it was necessary to back up material before factory resetting his phones, which he changed regularly to have the most up-to-date model.

He used the internet-based "Icloud" storage system to transfer material from one phone to another, but he factory reset the phones before changing them to preserve his privacy and to avoid unsolicited calls from journalists.

Mr McIlroy is suing Horizon, along with Gurteen Ltd, with a registered address in Malta, and Canovan Management Services, also based in Dublin, claiming a representation agreement signed by him in December 2011 is invalid and unenforceable on a number of grounds including alleged undue influence.

The defendants deny the claims and have counter-claimed for around £1.9m (US$3m) allegedly outstanding under the agreement for off-course revenues.

The senior counsel said Mr McIlroy had given no satisfactory explanation for the destruction of electronic data on his devices.

He said it may be possible to recover some of the information sought or other information of assistance to the case.

He added that it was a very serious matter for the administration of justice where someone involved in court proceedings had failed to preserve material.

Mr McIlroy had initially claimed he changed his devices regularly because of his "transient lifestyle".

However on Tuesday, he stated he changed them to avoid phone calls from journalists, the court was told.

The defendants believe he could not have changed phones and devices without backing up data and conversations, because it would mean, for instance, ongoing conversations about who would be on the Ryder Cup team would be wiped.

Commission

Earlier, the senior counsel said difficulties over the December 2011 agreement arose "when the ink was barely dry".

Mr McIlroy had set up his own company called Rory McIlroy Inc essentially to manage himself which was resisted by Horizon.

Around the same time, key figures who had worked for Horizon, including Mr McIlroy's personal assistant and a consultant, started working for the golfer's new firm, counsel said.

Senior counsel for Horizon said the amount of lost commission to his clients is now estimated at £5.7m ($9m).

Mr McIlroy, in his claim, says Horizon charged commission "many times greater" than is standard in the sports agency industry, including one agreement in which he must pay 20% of his sponsorship and 15% if the contract is renewed after 2017.

He also alleges that Horizon is not entitled to be paid certain fees into the future related to his £12.7m ($20m) a year sponsorship deal with sportswear giant Nike.

He says he has paid more than £4.3m ($6.8m) to Horizon based on commission rates of some 5% on his pre-tax on-course earnings and 20% for off-course.

He says this agreement was entered into when he was 22, with little business expertise and without the benefit of legal advice. The defendants say he freely entered the agreement.

The defendants are also seeking material from phones held by Donal Casey, former Horizon consultant and now CEO of the golfer's own management company Rory McIlroy Inc, the golfer's personal assistant Sean O'Flaherty and Mr McIlroy's father.

"It is beyond dispute, in our submission, that data has been deliberately destroyed," the counsel for Horizon said.

Senior counsel, for Mr McIlroy, said he wanted to make it clear his client had done nothing wrong. He said there was nothing unusual in him having a number of phones over three years, or for him to change his number to protect his privacy.

He did the most basic amount of transferring material from one phone to another and deleted the remainder "which is what we all do", counsel said.

The material involved all pre-dated the legal proceedings, counsel added.

To assert there was some sort of conspiracy between Mr McIlroy and others in the case "bore no scrutiny", he said.

The hearing continues.

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World Cup and 1D top UK Twitter list

10 December 2014 Last updated at 05:00

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BBC Breakfast takes a look at some of Twitter's best bits from 2014

Tweets by members of pop group One Direction - and about the World Cup - preoccupied UK Twitter users in 2014.

Six of the top 10 most mentioned tweets were about matches at the tournament, statistics from the company show.

Germany's 7-1 semi-final defeat of hosts Brazil was the most tweeted event, followed by Wayne Rooney's equaliser for England against Uruguay.

1D singer Harry Styles's tweet celebrating the band's fourth anniversary was the most retweeted.

The 23 July message - "4 years. Thank you to everyone who is involved in this. I feel so lucky to be part of it. Everyone who has worked with us thank you.." - has been retweeted more than 359,000 times.

In terms of news, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March was the most talked event by UK users in 2014.

It was followed by the Scottish independence vote; the inquest of Mark Duggan, who was shot by police in Tottenham, north London in 2011, and the deaths of US comics Robin Williams and Joan Rivers.

The third most tweeted event overall in the UK in 2014 list was Daniel Sturridge's equaliser for England in the team's eventual defeat against Italy, followed by new year celebrations and Germany's defeat of Argentina in the World Cup final match.

The other World Cup tweets to make the top 10 list were about Croatia scoring against Brazil, and the Netherlands' 5-1 victory over Spain in their opening match, while matches involving Manchester United and Real Madrid, and 1D's best video Brit Award win in February also attracted attention.

The statistics for 2014 showed UK Twitter users had similar interests to the previous year when football and 1D dominated the top 10.

Globally, the Brazil World Cup in June and July broke records to become the most tweeted about subject in 2014.

Twitter has dubbed 2014 the year of the selfie, with worldwide statistics showing users had mentioned the word 92 million times, an increase of 500% on 2013.

Ellen DeGeneres' star-filled Oscar photo taken on a mobile phone was retweeted more than three million times - a Twitter record.

Lewis Wiltshire, director of media partnerships at Twitter UK also highlighted the selfie of Prince William and Prince Harry with internet entrepreneur Jamal Edwards at a Buckingham Palace event.

Between them 1D have five of the most followed UK accounts.

Harry Styles has the most followers at 22.8 million. The top 10 most-followed list also includes Adele, Emma Watson, Coldplay, BBC News' @BBCBreaking, and Ed Sheeran.

In global terms, singer Katy Perry is the most-followed person on Twitter (61 million), ahead of Justin Bieber (57 million) and Barack Obama (51 million).

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Uber taxi app suspended in Spain

9 December 2014 Last updated at 18:50

A judge has ordered taxi booking service Uber to 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 and accused the service of "unfair competition".

The move follows a complaint by the Madrid Taxi Association.

An Uber spokesman said the company was "still operating" in Spain.

The Madrid taxi association has to raise a €10,000 down-payment before the ruling can come into effect.

The BBC understands that Uber first heard of the hearing through media reports.

The technology firm described the Spanish ruling - which could suspend the UberPop ride-sharing service across the country - as "highly unusual".

"UberPop is our ride-sharing solution and is about sharing the costs of vehicle ownership and helping people give up their cars," an Uber spokesman said, "and we will continue to run the service".

"This ruling is inconsistent with broad political acknowledgement in Spain and across the European Union on the benefits of sharing economy services.

"Uber will continue to comply with Spanish law and is currently assessing its legal options under this sudden and unusual proceeding," the spokesman added.

Global restraints

The Spanish order 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 €100,000 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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VIDEO: Sir Paul: Pay young artists fairly

Sir Paul McCartney has spoken about how he got involved in creating a song for the video game Destiny, a process he likened to making a huge film score.

The science fiction first-person shooter sold over $325m (£207m) worldwide in its first five days of release earlier this year.

But despite there being a host of new ways to get music out there, the former Beatle warned that in the modern era it is harder for young artists to make money from their music due to piracy and streaming.

BBC Click's Spencer Kelly spoke to Sir Paul about how technology is changing the way artists deliver music.

Footage courtesy of Virgin EMI Records.

More at BBC.com/Click and @BBCClick.

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Uber faces more bans and lawsuits

10 December 2014 Last updated at 13:04

Uber's week of woes is continuing with authorities in San Francisco and Los Angeles taking legal action against the internet-based taxi firm.

It has been banned from operating in New Delhi following the alleged rape by a driver of a female passenger.

Meanwhile, a judge in Madrid has ordered a temporary halt to the service and Thai authorities say the firm lacks proper registration and insurance.

Uber is yet to comment on the latest legal cases against it.

District attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles claim Uber made "untrue or misleading representations" regarding the quality of its own background checks on drivers.

They also accuse the firm of:

• charging customers a one-dollar "safe rides" fee without justification, saying the money went to pay for background checks

• using the Uber app to calculate fares based on time and distance without obtaining approval from a California agency to do so

• conducting commercial operations at California airports without authorisation

• charging an "airport fee toll" to customers even though drivers were not paying the airport

District attorneys are seeking an injunction against Uber that could see its drivers temporarily banned from the two cities.

By contrast, rival firm Lyft has reached a settlement with the same district attorneys. It will submit its app to the authorities for accuracy checks as well as seeking authorisation to operate in airports.

It will also pay civil penalties of $500,000, half of which will be paid within 30 days while the rest could be waived if the firm complies with the terms of the injunction.

Badges issued

Other US cities have also begun legal action against Uber.

In Portland, Oregon, the firm is being sued for failing to seek consent on how it would be regulated.

Meanwhile, Max Tyler, a Colorado state representative, has questioned how it vets drivers, alleging that the firm does not run an FBI background check, something which other taxi drivers have to have.

Its process of recruiting new drivers is also being looked at by authorities in New Delhi after a driver, who was previously accused of raping a female passenger in 2011, was cleared to drive for Uber.

The driver has been arrested for another alleged rape and appeared in court on Monday. He had obtained a reference from the Delhi Police, but police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told Reuters that the certificate appeared to be fake.

Indian police also questioned an Uber executive about the checks run on drivers. Police said that Uber's drivers did not have the special badges that it issues to taxi drivers proving that they have cleared background checks.

They said that Uber and similar services that operate online platforms linking drivers with customers are registered in India as technology businesses rather than transport companies.

Huge expansion

In a statement Uber said it would work with the Indian government to "establish clear background checks currently absent in their commercial transportation licensing programmes".

It added that it would also partner with women's safety groups and "invest in technology advances to help make New Delhi a safer city for women".

Uber defended the way it checked drivers, saying it was a responsibility it took seriously. According to the firm, it is on track to complete more than two million background checks this year.

The company, which now operates in 52 countries, was recently valued at $40bn after an investment by venture capitalists.

But since its launch the business, which uses a smartphone app to connect riders with drivers, has proved hugely controversial. In Europe, registered taxi drivers' unions have staged strikes and protests against what they see as light regulation of Uber and similar services.

Uber's business practices have also been questioned and doubts raised over whether its tracking system breaks data protection laws.

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