in the south. the uk. thunderstorms in the south. further north, icy stretches for parts of northern england and southern scotland. sub zero temperatures across the north of the uk, frost free further south. monday bring sunshine and showers but most of the blustery showers will be gci’oss of the blustery showers will be across northern ireland and western scotla nd across northern ireland and western scotland where they will fall as snow over higher ground. dry weather for england and wales, less windy than recent days. it will cloud over in the south—east, particularly on tuesday, with outbreaks of patchy rain after fog slowly clears from elsewhere. there should be some sunshine. still rather chilly, 4—9d. goodbye. hello this is bbc news with shaun ley. 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's 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. china's state broadcaster has dropped its plan to show arsenal's match against manchester city this afternoon in the wake of comments by mesut ozil, criticising the country's treatment of the uighurs. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week: tiktok‘s troubled, wechat‘s winning, and can robots high—five? high—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 is—second looping video app that's captured the hearts of teenagers across the world.

and with i 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 to, for example, internet— based payments. they are looking very enviously at wechat in china. the software 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. gonna 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 is just 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, 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 are 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 lead 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 is not just products, 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 1 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 programs. 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 programs 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.

0n 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 ride 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 misconception 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 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 the 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 requires active driver supervision and should not be considered autonomous. the driver said the model 3 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 when i was a kid, i wanted to be an astronaut. i ended up being a dentist.

i always used to fantasise about 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 '90s. 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 the 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 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. till rings money. $250 million sounds like a lot of money, but when you think the movie avatar cost $237 million to make, and most estimates put gta v 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 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.

run! $7,900?! 7,900 us dollars, yeah. now, we should say that you are a streamer. iam. 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...? someday 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 am 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 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're 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 till 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 skills 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, ourfitness 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 starts 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 roboticists 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. 0n 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. 0h, maybe not. 0oh, denied! that was lara and pepper, and that's it for this week. next week, it's the click christmas special, which means tons 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, it has been a blustery, chilly and showery weekend. some of the showers have been falling as snow over higher ground in the north. further south, we have had rain and hail. this is the picture from devon recently with some big showers, some heavy hail as well and the odd rumble of thunder which is pushing its way further east. through this week, still unsettled so a mix of sunshine and showers, wednesday looking like the drier day before things turn milder and windier once again towards the latter part of this coming week. into the evening, heavy showers with hill snow and hail, pushing east across the uk. there could be ice for parts of northern england and southern scotland in particular with further snow over the higher ground, too. temperatures across northern areas falling to freezing or a little below but staying above freezing further south.

you have enough of a breeze to keep things largely frost free to start monday morning. monday brings a day of sunshine and showers, fewer showers than we've seen around today. most of the windy showers will be pushing in across northern ireland and western scotland where once again it will fall as snow over higher ground. much of england and wales having a largely dry day, less windy than the weekend, some sunshine, but clouding over towards the south—east later in the day with the odd spot of rain possible thanks to this front which looks like it pushes its way north and east as we head into tuesday. elsewhere, tuesday morning, away from the south—east, we are likely to see conditions like this, mist and fog likely under clearer skies and lighter winds. mist and fog slowly clearing away through the day on tuesday, that area of rain also clearing from the south—east. it should be mostly dry with some sunshine by the afternoon. still rather chilly with temperatures stuck in single figures, 4—9 degrees for most of us on tuesday. into the middle of the week and a ridge of high pressure which will quieten things down as we move into wednesday. it could be a cold start

to wednesday morning, frost and the odd misty patch, so scenes a little like this first thing wednesday morning. the frost and mist should clear quickly, and a largely dry, sunny day in store on wednesday before it turns wet and windy from the west once again so rain for south—west england, wales and northern ireland later in the day. further north and east, you should stay largely dry. temperatures about 4—10 degrees, turning milder from the south—west. unsettled as we look towards the end of the week but not as windy and milder than it has been this weekend. bye for now.

this is bbc news. the headlines. jeremy corbyn apologises for his part in labour's performance at the general election — as wigan mp, lisa nandy — becomes one of those hoping to succeed him as party leader. the reason i'm thinking about it is because we've just had the most shattering defeat where you really felt in towns like mine that the earth was quaking, and we've watched the entire labour base just crumble beneath our feet. 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. the national health service is the number one focus of this government when it comes to domestic policy. nicola sturgeon renews her call for a second referendum on scottish independence, saying the people of scotland