10 Things In Tech, December 29

Good morning! It's another cold day in London. Here's 10 things in tech you need to know this Monday. 

1. "The Interview" has become the biggest online movie ever released by Sony, pulling in more than £9.6 million from over 2 million downloads. [1] Sony Pictures Entertainment originally said it would not release the film over terrorism fears following a suspected North Korea cyberattack on the company.

2. Variety has compiled a list of the top 10 most pirated movies of 2014 by using piracy-tracking firm, Excipio . The "Wolf of Wall Street," "Frozen," and the new "Hobbit" release are among the biggest illegal downloads. 

3.  Google's email service, Gmail, was blocked in China on Friday and it appears to still be down on Monday . Some believe the country's Great Firewall is to blame. 

4. Normality is resuming to Android's Twitter app after a malfunction caused users to be kicked out of their accounts [2] . Tweetdeck was also affected with new posts showing up as being over a year old. 

5. The cyber gangs that attacked PlayStation and Xbox services on Christmas Day have called a ceasefire on the event. A group called The Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for the hack. 

6. Bloomberg has named Bitcoin the worst currency of the year, calling it a "catastrophic 2014" for the virtual currency. [3] Its value has plunged 56% in the last 12 months. 

7. North Korea accused the United States on Saturday of being responsible for Internet outages it has experienced last week. In the statement, North Korea's National Defence spokesman criticized the internet outages as a "laughable" and cowardly attack.
[4]

8. The Yahoo Directory, the core part of the Yahoo first started in 1994, closed on Sunday, 5 days earlier than expected [5] . People trying to access the page will be directed to a webpage with a static logo. 

9. A leading UK professor says today's young generations can't mend gadgets or fix broken appliances [6] . Danielle George, a professor of radio frequency engineering at Manchester University, says under-40s expect things to "just work."

10. Facebook has said sorry for oversights in its new "Year in Review" feature [7] . It prompted users to look back on past photos  and "algorithmic cruelty" led some people to view pictures of their dead relatives. 

Links

1. ^{^} 1. "The Interview" has become the biggest online movie ever released by Sony, pulling in more than £9.6 million from over 2 million downloads. (www.bbc.co.uk)
2. ^{^} 4. Normality is resuming to Android's Twitter app after a malfunction caused users to be kicked out of their accounts (www.theverge.com)
3. ^{^} 6. Bloomberg has named Bitcoin the worst currency of the year, calling it a "catastrophic 2014" for the virtual currency. (www.bloombergview.com)
4. ^{^} 7. North Korea accused the United States on Saturday of being responsible for Internet outages it has experienced last week.  (www.businessinsider.com)
5. ^{^} 8. The Yahoo Directory, the core part of the Yahoo first started in 1994, closed on Sunday, 5 days earlier than expected (searchengineland.com)
6. ^{^} 9. A leading UK professor says today's young generations can't mend gadgets or fix broken appliances (www.telegraph.co.uk)
7. ^{^} 10. Facebook has said sorry for oversights in its new "Year in Rev iew" feature (gawker.com)

source: uk.businessinsider.com