hello this is bbc news with ben brown. the headlines: the labour leader, jeremy corbyn, has apologised to supporters for his party's heavy defeat in the general election.

as boris johnson prepares for thurday‘s queen speech, the government is to enshrine in law a commitment to raise spending on the nhs in england. nicola sturgeon has renewed her call for a second referendum on scottish independence, saying the people of scotland mustn't be kept in the union against their will. the longest united nations climate talks on record have finally ended in madrid with a compromise deal on the key question of increasing the global response to curbing carbon. a british man has been killed and his son wounded after being shot during a suspected robbery outside a five—star hotel in buenos aires. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week: tiktok‘s troubled, wechat‘s winning, and can robots high—five? give me five! no, maybe not.

theme music silicon valley, the home of google, facebook, twitter and all those other big social media companies that dominate our lives. world—changing in their day, but more recently it's all getting a bit samey, don't you think? some say social media silicon valley—style has stopped innovating. but new rival companies are emerging that are starting to shake things up, and they're coming from china.

tiktok is the 15—second looping video app that's captured the hearts of teenagers across the world. and with one billion users, it's firmly on the radar of big tech. and while silicon valley may be worried about its huge number of users, it also argues that the company's home country should also give the west cause for concern. in china, things are happening, and happening fast. innovation is rife and silicon valley is starting to look over its shoulder. as part of the bbc rivals season, we're taking a look at whether china is about to change the global power dynamics of the internet. nowadays, silicon valley has a genuine rival in chinese internet companies. we're now seeing genuinely

innovative products coming out of china, things that the west is now looking on quite enviously and saying "we would like to be more like that." technology supremacy between beijing and washington, it is not only about technology — about innovation in itself — it's also about who writes the rules of those technologies in the future. and that currently the united states has been able to enjoy that exorbitant privilege of having technology standards set up by themselves, and followed by the chinese companies as well as the american companies. the internet in almost every country outside of china has been defined by american platforms with strong free expression values. but there's no guarantee that these values will win out. so what we can expect to see is facebook wanting to emulate something like china's wechat. which is, notjust the messaging component, but also all of the financial activity that

you can do via that platform. facebook would love to enrich its business model, to take its dependence away from just advertising on our facebook feeds and towards, for example, internet—based payments. they are looking very enviously at wechat in china. the software is there to basically do everything. it's all on wechat. and it's — chinese doesn't really have to get out of the wechat app to get many things done. so for example, i can order food delivery, i can buy a concert ticket, i can book an airline ticket, i can hire a car, hire a bike and i can do online shopping, and i can pay everything on wechat pay. which allows individuals in china to live their entire lives on wechat. there's going to be all sorts of different percentages that you might be able to take, so instead ofjust advertising, you might actually get commissions if you can start linking advertising to shopping habits.

you know, from the ad itself to the point of purchase, and you can track it all through, there's all sorts of ways that you would be able to grow and monetise that. and right now facebook isjust making its money from ads. this is a way of building forward. but if you look at tiktok... tiktok, it's a chinese company. but that's gone into the heartlands of the global battle and faced off with instagram, youtube and the facebooks of the world and succeeded. you know, it's very popular among teens, for instance, in the united states, so, right in silicon valley's backyard. here's the problem — it's owned by a chinese company. and under chinese law, that means the communist party has access to all of the data that tiktok scoops up and it scoops up a lot. so tiktok is changing the rules, because this is the first time

a chinese social media company has gone genuinely beyond its borders. and that changes the rules, because these issues around how is this data being used, becomes an issue that it wasn't before. is china censoring the content that is created and broadcast and disseminated through tiktok? and that we saw recently. this was about a young girl who very cleverly was mimicking a make—up tutorial, and while she was doing her curling of her eyelashes, was actually narrating quite subversive content. curl your lashes obviously, then you're gonna put them down and use your phone that you're using right now to search up what's happening in china, how they're getting concentration camps, throwing innocent muslims in there. shortly after posting the videos, feroza's tiktok account was suspended. had there been a scenario in the future where there is a potential clash between the operations

of the company and the bottom line of chinese national values, the national interest, i think these companies would go for a preservation and safeguarding of chinese national values, there is no doubt about that. but i think it's not deliberately the chinese government that tell them what to do, but i think it's the natural awareness of those companies in the field. if they want to be at the right side of the trench, they have to, somehow, to show their loyalty to the party. as the big us silicon valley—based companies look at chinese companies, there's some envy, there's some fear. they see those companies with seemingly very deep pockets to invest in the technologies of the future, often with a complicit government. without the same need to make profit that they as western companies have. and that makes them incredibly nervous. because they don't feel that those chinese companies are playing with exactly the same

rules as they are. we've heard how the giants of silicon valley are starting to take notice of chinese innovation. and what's being developed in china is unlike anything that we see in the west. stephen beckett is in china to find out how social media has advanced in very different ways. when it comes to social media, china is a world away from the west. that's in part due to long—term government blocking of us tech giants like google and facebook. and that's partially why the country has evolved its own completely distinct online ecosystem. alibaba is a bit like ebay, weibo was similar to twitter and wechat started life in much the same way as apps like whatsapp and facebook messenger. perhaps not a surprise, then, but for a time, china had the reputation of a copycat nation. yes, china in the past has had this reputation for copying from others, but now i think we are seeing the reverse. we are seeing american companies like uber copying

from chinese companies. so the pattern we saw 5—10 years ago is, you know, copy—to—china model. we copy everything from silicon valley, so i think if you are here like 5—10 years ago, almost every time we pitch, that we see, they always say, oh, i'm doing the china facebook or china twitter. china, with its huge population of over 1.3 billion people, has plenty of room for social ideas and the competition is intense. so, these are the head offices of kuaishou, they're one of the biggest social networks here, they've got over 200 million active users. but unless you're in china, you probably haven't heard of it. kuaishou has made a name for itself by targeting china's relatively untapped rural population, and that's a lot of people, around 40% don't live in cities. and that has led to a platform where the stars aren't necessarily what you'd expect. playing music kuaishou's secret sauce is the options that give

streamers to make their streams pay. translation: i'm a professional musician, i also give lectures via kuaishou in my spare time which teach people how to play the chinese suona. i try to popularise chinese traditional music and knowledge. between sales of recorded lessons and purchases of virtual gifts during livestreams, he says he makes around £15,000 a month and that's after kuaishou takes their 25% commission. i would say china is really good not just at products, but how to monetise products. in future, we probably will see more of these models which are driven by the livestreaming or the shorter videos. but kuaishou's 200 million users isn't quite so impressive when you compare it to china's social titan tencent, and their so—called mega app, wechat. translation: wechat is the largest and most popular social media platform. it has become a lifestyle in china. it was launched in 2011. we have now reached one billion unique

monthly users from over 200 countries and regions. our services include providing information, entertainment and e—payment, offering services on all aspects of life. and now wechat is becoming an even greater part of daily life, thanks to something called mini programmes. translation: wechat mini programmes are an app that doesn't require you to download and install, they are sub—applications within the wechat ecosystem and a new tool developed by wechat. mini programmes allow third parties to add new features to wechat on demand. it's a bit like having the entire app store already on your phone. the idea is that you can pretty much do everything you could ever want on your phone without ever closing wechat. so this convenience store is set up on the campus of wechat‘s head office. the idea is you canjust walk around, pick up whatever you like and then walk out the door, it will get automatically charged

to your wechat account. on the other side of guangzhou, another mini programme lets you find and pay for your parking. and if you register your numberplate in wechat, you can just drive out and be automatically charged to your account. wechat relies on users handing over big chunks of their personal data, and now that even includes yourface. these vending machines are set up to use wechat‘s new facial pay feature. the idea is you opt into it in the app and once you've done that you can use your face to buy anything from these machines. it basically links your face to your wechat account and your government id. but is the convenience worth the possible cost to privacy? in 2016, amnesty international awarded the parent company of wechat, tencent, zero out of 100 for their privacy practices. i think there's a perception that

people in china don't care about their privacy and that perception is completely false. the government, over the last few years, has been trying to roll out its own cybersecurity regulations and trying to educate consumers about the dangers of data being lost or leaked. wechat‘s privacy policy says it will provide the chinese government access to much of what you do in the app, when legally required, including the things you type, and data like your location. translation: wechat would not use user—sensitive data for our other products. we comply with local laws and regulations to protect users' privacy and data. it's hard to deny that social apps in china have taken on a life on their own. if not outpacing, then going in new directions to competitors in the west. the big question is whether more chinese apps can follow tiktok in going global, despite the concerns around privacy and censorship. or, if not, it could be the turn of tech companies in the west to play copycat themselves. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week amazon sued the us

department of defense claiming that president donald trump applied improper pressure to stop it winning a billion—dollar military contract. youtube banned clips that include malicious insults and veiled threats to prevent abuse based on race, gender identity or sexuality. and caitlinjenner, prince andrew and borisjohnson were among the most searched—for celebrities of the year, google has revealed. other popular searches concern tv‘s game of thrones, the viral dance craze flossing and, importantly, how to eat a pineapple. in the us, a tesla crashed into a police car while operating on autopilot — a mode the company says the car requires active driver supervision and should not be considered autonomous. the driver said the model three accident occurred while he was checking his dog in the back. fortunately, no—one was injured. bioshock, the first—person shooter game trilogy that sold more than 33 million units, is getting a fourth instalment. the game's creators 2k said industry veteran kelly gilmore will be leading the release.

and finally, wibbly wobbly robots could become much more commonplace, thanks to a breakthrough from scientists at mit. creating simulations of soft robots completing tasks has previously been a huge challenge, but researchers say their model understands how springy, stretchy forms can move in an infinite number of ways. their next step — bringing thesejiggly, jelly forms to life. star citizen combines elements of a massively multi—player role—playing game, spaceship sim and first—person shooter, all in a vast, persistent universe. thanks, wendy! it has a large, loyalfan base. previously, we could not have done a planet like this before. cheering and applause when i was a kid, i wanted

to be an astronaut. i ended up being a dentist. i always used to fantasise with being a spaceman, and that's what star citizen is. coming up behind you. star citizen is important because it's a chris roberts game. chris roberts started out the wing commander franchise in the '905. it's almost like he's the george lucas of space games. star citizen came around because chris roberts wanted to create the ultimate space sim that hadn't existed. he'd made wing commander and he wanted to make the biggest follow—up to that. but i don't want to build any old game. i want to build a universe. i want to build a game i always wanted to build, but i didn't have the tools to do until now. so when people then saw it, they saw what he was selling, they saw what he wanted to create, they wanted to invest in that. and invest, they have — so far in excess of $250 million, with $37 million was raised in the last year alone. all this for a game which is still in the testing phase and isn't a finished product. cloud imperium games has been developing star citizen since 2012.

it now has a team of 500 spread across five studios in the uk, germany and the united states. this is the la office. even though the team here is busy still making the game, it is playable, and being played by gamers at the moment. this game goes out every three months. but it's, of course, it is very, very early alpha so, to a degree, they're having the exact same experience as somebody that would be working on a game as, like, a qa guy or even as a developer. but this is a game which, from its inception, has proved to be controversial. since the original kickstarter campaign, its scale has dramatically increased, becoming a much bigger game in the process. as the crowdfunding grew, so did the scope. what began as an ode to wing commander gradually grew into this giant persisting universe, and, you know, that's a very different product. as a result of changes to the game, earlier this year,

roberts space industries, a subsidiary of cloud imperium, was taken to court by a backer seeking a refund of almost $4,500 — money he'd spent backing the game. a california judge dismissed the case without prejudice, due to a clause in the star citizen end user license agreement which prevents anybody from taking roberts space industries to court for a refund. the games company says it does issue refunds within a 30—day window. this brings us to the issue that seems to have generated the most headlines for star citizen. money. $250 million sounds like a lot of money, but when you think the movie avatar cost $370 million to make, and most estimates put gta five costing $265 million to make, it's not a crazy amount of cash to put into a game. from sunny southern california to grey, wintry manchester.

while development on the game continues, here in manchester, citizencon — which is a convention dedicated entirely to the video game — is kicking off. citizencon is where fans and backers of the game can meet each other, as well as the game's development teams. one of the aspects of the game which has attracted a lot of attention is the ships. there are a plethora of different ships in the game, big and small, that can be purchased with in—game currency, or backers can use real cash, which cloud imperium says goes towards further development. rumours are rife of some backers spending thousands on ships. most of the people i meet at citizencon have more modest budgets. how much money have you spent so far? it's only about $75—$100. probably invested about £250 into the game. maybe like £60 or something like that. there's always exceptions to the rule, though.

yep, that definitely doesn't look friendly! i've spent about $7,900 on the game. $7,900?! 7,900 us dollars, yeah. now, we should say that you are a streamer. lam. so this is yourjob — this is your living, isn't it? it is, yeah. we do these crazy battles, like 50 players going to war, sci—fi battles. like, that's what we do. what the...? somebody send the back—up! it's here in the midst of citizencon that i catch up with roberts. what's going on? well, i mean, we're trying to build a universe at, like, a level of detail that no—one‘s done before, and so it's taking, you know, longer than we were anticipating when we first announced it. there's an awful lot of online negativity around star citizen. why do you think that is? it's easy to be an armchair quarterback or an armchair developer. people aren't used — or don't really know how much work goes into making these games. i mean, there's been some, you know, stuff like red dead redemption 2 or — but, you know, that was seven—plus years. it takes time to build games of this

sophistication and simulation detail that gamers expect now. i mightjust have a gig that i could use you for. so, what's new? the new planet technology we have, which is much, much, much higherfidelity. we've been working on dynamic weather. the other really big thing that we'e showing — the first time we're going through a jump point, or a wormhole. basically, as we carry on, we'll be opening up more star systems. next year, we've been promised the release of squadron 42, the single—player campaign aspect of the game. but for now, development continues on the main star citizen experience. it seems this game's journey is far from over. that was star citizen marc. now, christmas is nearly here, which traditionally is the time when we all lay off the exercise and pile on the food. not lara, though. she's not waiting until january to get fit. she's getting on the case now, with a little help from a friend. right, i've got my gym kit, i've got my trainers.

now it's just time to meet the robot that i've got an appointment with. hello! yep, it's putting me through my paces on the treadmill. the idea here is that i am going to be trained by ai, with a spot of help from pepper here. this bristol robotics lab trial aims to teach a robot the empathy and motivational skill of a human personal trainer. ok, i'm not quite sure what it's got in store for me. think about getting ready to start running. speed up now and run for one minute. along with reacting to participants‘ heart rate data and facial expressions whilst they try to build up to running 5k, it considers personality type in its quest to perfect its patter. that robot, to begin with, knows nothing. and then don, our fitness instructor, he tells the robot, in real—time, "right, now it's time to have a joke" or "now it's time to sympathise" or "now it's time to challenge."

and every time he does that, the robot learns from that example. so after a few sessions, the robot then start suggesting things. the estimated speed of a t rex is 27 miles per hour. i can't go as fast as that! i had to write what kind of behaviours the ideal robotic personal trainer should have, yet still keeping that as simplistic as possible for the robot assists and coders to implement. it's quite unnerving when it leans forward. ifeel like i'm in trouble. the key human aspects in psychology go in to analysing what that client needs at a given time. ten people took part in the trial, some totally at ease with the concept. on the day of a session i would be thinking "0k, well pepper's standing there, waiting for me." kind of the longer you do this, the kind of — you get used to it a lot more. and probably if i was to run on the treadmill now, i'd be wondering

"where's the robot?" they didn't just see it as a tool, as an object. it wasn't just a robot. each of them developed, i would say, a relationship. they would talk to it in different ways. the bot could be trained by different people, giving it different personalities and styles. but the general idea is that the gym of the future could be a very different place. nice work! well done for today! thank you. i hope to see you again soon! goodbye. give me five. oh, maybe not. ooh, denied! that was lara and pepper, and that's it for this week. next week, it's the click christmas special, which means tonnes of serious journalism and sensible outfits. in the meantime, you can get in touch with us on social media on facebook, youtube, instagram and twitter at @bbcclick. thanks for watching and we'll see you at clickmas.

hello. we have seen snow working on overnight, particularly across the high ground in the north of the uk, but we have seen some snow at sea level across north—east england. this was the seen first thing this morning in redcar in cleveland. it isa morning in redcar in cleveland. it is a day of sunshine in blustery showers. the satellite picture shows the extent of the shower clouds we have seen moving in across the uk, with the next batch waiting to move in. showers are most frequent across wales and southern coastal counties of england. there will be rain across the central belt of scotland, some wintry showers across hills.

some areas will completely miss the showers, parts of nottinghamshire, lincolnshire, eastern parts of scotland. chile in the north, 3—5dc. 7-9d scotland. chile in the north, 3—5dc. 7—9din scotland. chile in the north, 3—5dc. 7—9d in england and wales. overnight, the south—westerly winds continue to drag in westerly winds. —— continue to drag in showers. scotla nd —— continue to drag in showers. scotland is cold enough for patches of frost, so the risk of icy patches through the night. in the week ahead, we start off with sunshine and showers, quite cool as well. it turns drier on wednesday, before milderair turns drier on wednesday, before milder air works in later in the week, with outbreaks of more general rain on the way. the showers will be less frequent, the wind is not a strong, and there will be bigger gaps between the showers, more in the way of sunshine. the exception will be in western scotland, where the showers merged together to give longer spells of rain. it will be

cold enough for snow in the scottish hills. things could turn quite icy here. low pressure pushes north out of france on tuesday night. that will bring rain to central and eastern areas of england. sunshine and showers elsewhere. the showers will be fewer and further between, a bit more dry weather around. it will be cold for most, four or five celsius widely, around eight or nine with rain and cloud across east anglia and south—east england. beyond that, it turns milder. it also turns wetter, temperatures up to 12 celsius in london on thursday.

good afternoon. jeremy corbyn and john mcdonnell have apologised over labour's "catastrophic" defeat in thursday's election, which saw them lose 59 seats. mr corbyn said he was "sorry that they came up short", while mr mcdonnell told the bbc he "owns this disaster". speaking to the bbc‘s andrew marr, he said it was unfortunate the party hadn't been able to articulate its message more effectively. he also blamed the media's portrayal ofjeremy corbyn — insisting that he'd been demonised "for four years solid, every day".