WASHINGTON — A South Korean song became a worldwide hit in 2012 —
and prompted a YouTube upgrade.
Psy’s “Gangnam Style” exceeded YouTube’s view limit, and the site had to
upgrade
its counter, BBC News reports.
YouTube’s previous counter used a 32-bit integer, which BBC News explains is a
unit used to represent data in computer architecture. That counter meant the
maximum possible views the site could handle for a video was 2,147,483,647.
On Dec. 1, YouTube posted a statement saying
it now uses a 64-bit integer. The
site has now changed its maximum view limit to more than nine quintillion.
As of the morning of Dec. 4, the “Gangnam Style” video has been watched more
than 2.15 billion times.
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