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Long-term Care: Investing in Models That Work | Investing in long-term care models can lower spending and improve citizens’ health, a fact that has not translated into recent legislation promises in the United States. The Trump administration and Congress have pledged to reduce the level of federal spending, but have focused on reducing Medicaid and Medicare spending. As the proportion of those aged 65 and older is predicted to nearly double to reach 87 million by 2050, daily assistance and long-term care will become an expensive burden. However, models have been proposed that could improve quality of life and reduce the burden on medical services. The Altarum Institute Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness has suggested a new model named MediCaring communities, designed to help elderly citizens to continue residing in their local communities but also reducing the usage of medical services. The model utilizes a person-centered approach that includes long-term services (LTSS) and blends it with medical and nursing care. The model covers care coordination, meal delivery services, training programs on dementia for home health aides, home modification and maintenances, and personal care. Altarum’s financial analysis of four MediCaring communities found that per-capita costs were reduced, with savings potentially being used for LTSS services that are underfunded. The system could also be used for older adults who are not yet classified as frail, or to those with significant disabilities. The existing Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) could offer a MediCaring community program, if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulation was more lenient and would allow PACE programs to offer Medicare-only patients the option, depending on their health issues. The model is a “no-new-dollars approach”, says Anne Montgomery, the deputy director of Altarum’s Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness. The CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders) program could also help to extend the MediCaring community model by helping older citizens to remain in their homes. Originally enabled via a grant from CMS, CAPABLE offers Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries the assistance of registered nurses, occupational therapists, and handymen for maintaining independence. The program has been shown to lower the burden on emergency departments and hospitals, as well as lowering patient depression. However, there are issues in implementing these programs. States may be looking to reduce services if federal Medicaid funding is cut by Congress, despite the fact that investment in these type of models could reduce Medicaid spending on long-term care. At present, some states have not opted into the PACE program, despite its proven reduction in cost. Additionally, funds will be needed to create the MediCaring communities that use the PACE model at first, as it requires significant preparation for service networks to be set up. Regulatory barriers for Medicare and Medicaid could also prove to be an obstacle, allowing the Trump administration to take advantage of this “deregulatory opportunity”. PACE could be expanded to disabled people under the age of 55 and to older adults not yet eligible for nursing homes under the current PACE Innovative Act, but no regulation has been put into place.
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2658304 | 2017-10-25 17:13:09.907000 | President Trump and the US Congress have promised to reduce federal spending, through tactics that include cutting Medicaid and Medicare. What they fail to take into account is that sometimes investing in programs that work well can reduce spending while improving the health and well-being of people. A case in point: programs that help older adults and those who are disabled remain in their homes and out of long-term care facilities.
American Medical Association
The proportion of the US population 65 years or older is expected to almost double by 2050, to more than 87 million, when surviving baby boomers will be older than 85 years and likely frail. Older adults’ needs for assistance in activities of daily living will increase, challenging both care delivery systems and costs. With the average annual cost of a private room in a nursing home now more than $100 000, keeping people in their own homes and communities could dramatically reduce federal Medicaid spending. But how can this be accomplished?
Several mature demonstration projects have been shown to prevent nursing home admission, but scaling them up will require start-up funding in communities nationwide, removing regulatory barriers, and embracing a social model of health.
Models That Keep Older Adults at Home
The Altarum Institute Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness has proposed a model called MediCaring communities for keeping frail elders in the community while enhancing quality of life and reducing the use of medical services. It requires a person-centered approach that integrates long-term services and supports (LTSS) with medical and nursing care. These services may include care coordination, home-delivered meals, dementia training programs for home health aides, home maintenance and modification programs to help with disability, and personal care.
Altarum conducted a rigorous financial simulation of 4 diverse MediCaring communities and found that they all reduced per-capita costs, and the savings could be used to shore up underfunded LTSS. The model also could be extended to older adults who are not yet frail and to those who are significantly disabled.
Altarum suggests that the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) could launch a MediCaring community program if Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rules were more flexible, for example, by allowing PACE programs to serve Medicare-only patients according to their health status. PACE started in San Francisco in 1973 with On Lok (Cantonese for “peaceful, happy home”), an organization serving an Asian American community. There are now 233 PACE centers in 31 states serving about 40 000 nursing-home eligible people older than 55 years. With capitated payments from Medicare and Medicaid (if approved by states), PACE programs assume financial risk and provide comprehensive social, medical, and nursing services. Services include adult day care, transportation to and from the center, food programs, home care, primary care, social services, and other preventive services, all at a lower cost than institutionalization.
Anne Montgomery, MS, deputy director of Altarum’s Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness, says, “Expansion of PACE to Medicare-only beneficiaries who have LTSS needs—both those who are already nursing-home eligible and those who are not—makes enormous sense as we try to retrofit our existing care system to be more comprehensive and to include LTSS. This is a no-new-dollars approach.”
The CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders) program could augment the MediCaring community model by building older adults’ capacity to remain in their homes. Initially tested with a grant from CMS, CAPABLE uses registered nurses, occupational therapists, and handymen to provide Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries with home repairs, coaching on self-management to maintain independence, and making referrals, as needed. It reduces disability by improving ability to perform activities of daily living, and lowers rates of emergency department use, hospital readmissions, and depression. Sarah Szanton, PhD, RN, professor of nursing at Johns Hopkins University and founder of CAPABLE, reports that the documented cost savings are sufficient to prompt some home care agencies, 5 cities in Michigan, accountable care organizations, insurers, and others to adopt CAPABLE or integrate it into other models of care.
These and other demonstration models suggest that we can reduce costs by helping people stay at home as they age. But services must also include support of family caregivers, notes Claudia Beverly, PhD, RN, professor of nursing at the University of Arkansas and former director of the Arkansas Aging Initiative. “Family caregivers burn out when urinary incontinence and dementia set in, so they need training in complex caregiving, use of a well-trained home health aide, help with shopping and cleaning, or respite care.”
Barriers to MediCaring Communities Nationwide
There are several barriers to implementing these and similar models.
First, states may look for ways to cut services if Congress deeply cuts federal Medicaid funding, even if investing in these models would control Medicaid spending on long-term care. Not all states have opted into the PACE program, despite the documented Medicaid savings.
Second, many communities are likely to need funds to create MediCaring communities based on the PACE model. PACE requires substantial preparation to establish a network of services, including housing for the day center, transportation, connections with medical and nursing care professionals, and administrative infrastructure. Peter Fitzgerald, MSc, executive vice president of policy and strategy for the National PACE Association, says, “PACE is not easy. You have to establish provider capacity, and that takes time.”
The Money Follows the Person Rebalancing Demonstration and the Balancing Incentives program authorized by the Affordable Care Act show that state incentives can increase the proportion of older and disabled people on Medicaid who can move out of institutions into home settings, with some of the savings going to support services.
For example, Balancing Incentives provided states with enhanced federal funding over 5 years for improving and expanding home and community-based services through an equitable, user-friendly, consistent process. The enhanced funds helped states create enrollment systems with “No Wrong Door”/Single Entry Point for all people in need of information about and access to LTSS, core standardized assessments, and conflict-free case management services. In an evaluation of the program, Mathematica found it successful in increasing the proportion of Medicaid beneficiaries in community settings at no detriment to their health and with increases in quality of life.
Third, regulatory barriers for Medicare and Medicaid get in the way, providing a “deregulatory opportunity” for the Trump administration. Certain regulations can facilitate the expansion of PACE, for example, such as expanding PACE to disabled people younger than 55 years and to older adults who are not yet nursing home eligible. This was authorized under the PACE Innovative Act but doesn’t have implementing regulations yet. The Bipartisan Policy Center has proposed, among other things, that Medicare’s payment risk adjustment incorporate a measure of functional impairment because it drives health care use and nursing home placement, and that Medicare pay for supportive services that can reduce the need for institutional care.
Peter Fitzgerald has a theory as to why we haven’t scaled up effective programs such as PACE: “We got so taken with the idea that we needed something new that we didn’t look at what has worked.” But this is changing, he adds, as caring for the boomer generation becomes a reality. I hope he’s right.
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Corresponding Author: Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN ([email protected]).
Published Online: September 13, 2017, at https://newsatjama.jama.com/category/the-jama-forum/.
Disclaimer: Each entry in The JAMA Forum expresses the opinions of the author but does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of JAMA, the editorial staff, or the American Medical Association.
Additional Information: Information about The JAMA Forum, including disclosures of potential conflicts of interest, is available at https://newsatjama.jama.com/about/.
Note: The print version excludes source references. Please go online to jama.com. |
Nearly Half of All Medical Care in the US Is in Emergency Departments | Emergency department use in the US now accounts for half of all medical care provided and is critical to health care delivery in the nation according to a recent study by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The researchers focused on data from 1996 to 2010 and the 3.5 billion health care interactions that took place during this time relating to emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and outpatient visits. In 2010 there were a total of 39 million inpatient visits, 101 million outpatient visits, and 130 million emergency department visits, a rise of 44 percent over the course of the 14-year study. These increases in the use of emergency room cases can be accounted for by the groups most likely to use the service. Primarily this included women, African Americans, Medicare and Medicaid enrollees, as well as residents from the South and West. In addition to this, the research also demonstrated that there were significant demographic distinctions in the use of emergency care. Alongside those classed as being without any type of health insurance, African Americans were the most likely to use the emergency department and the authors believe that their statistics indicate that health care inequalities impact primarily upon the most vulnerable populations. A key recommendation of the paper is that more should be done to connect the care services offered in emergency departments with care delivery systems across the rest of the health network.
| http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/nearly-half-of-all-medical-care-in-the-us-is-in-emergency-departments | 2017-10-25 16:08:14.110000 | The percentage of care delivered in emergency departments has increased with nearly half of all medical care in the United States occurring there, according to a study.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) were able to quantify the contribution of emergency department care in reference to overall US healthcare. The study examined public data from 1996 to 2010 from national health databases. A paper explaining the findings was published in the International Journal for Health Services.
For 2010, the researchers found that there were nearly 130 million emergency department visits, while there were 101 million outpatient visits and almost 39 million inpatient visits. Throughout the full 14-year study period, 3.5 billion healthcare contacts occurred—emergency department visits, outpatient visits, and hospital admissions. The emergency care visits increased by nearly 44% during that time.
“I was stunned by the results," David Marcozzi, an associate professor in the UMSOM Department of Emergency Medicine, and co-director of the UMSOM Program in Health Disparities and Population Health, said in a statement. "This really helps us better understand health care in this country. This research underscores the fact that emergency departments are critical to our nation’s healthcare delivery system."
The study also noted that certain demographics were more likely to use the emergency department for healthcare. African American patients and those who were considered “other” for their health insurance category—such as those without any type of insurance—were found to be significantly more likely to use the emergency department.
The increase in emergency room cases were able to be accounted for by certain groups including African Americans, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, residents of the South and West, and women. The authors suggested that this further reveals the vulnerable populations that potentially face healthcare inequalities.
“Patients seek care in emergency departments for many reasons. The data might suggest that emergency care provides the type of care that individuals actually want or need, 24 hours a day,” Marcozzi said.
The paper recommends working to connect the care delivered in emergency departments with the level of delivered care in the rest of the healthcare system. |
China seeks to challenge dollar's global dominance | China is seeking to disrupt the power of the dollar with a new method of pricing oil using gold-backed futures contracts in yuan. If the benchmark is adopted, it could help to push the value of the yuan past that of the dollar, given China's position as the leading global oil importer. Both China and Russia plan to curtail their dollar dependency to reduce currency risk. Gal Luft, a co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, said the move could be the "beginning of the glacial … decline of the dollar". | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/petro-yuan-china-wants-to-dethrone-dollar-rmb-denominated-oil-contracts.html | 2017-10-25 13:31:29.937000 | China is looking to make a major move against the dollar's global dominance, and it may come as early as this year.
The new strategy is to enlist the energy markets' help: Beijing may introduce a new way to price oil in coming months — but unlike the contracts based on the U.S. dollar that currently dominate global markets, this benchmark would use China's own currency. If there's widespread adoption, as the Chinese hope, then that will mark a step toward challenging the greenback's status as the world's most powerful currency.
China is the world's top oil importer, and so Beijing sees it as only logical that its own currency should price the global economy's most important commodity. But beyond that, moving away from the dollar is a strategic priority for countries like China and Russia. Both aim to ultimately reduce their dependency on the greenback, limiting their exposure to U.S. currency risk and the politics of American sanctions regimes.
The plan is to price oil in yuan using a gold-backed futures contract in Shanghai, but the road will be long and arduous.
"Game changer it is not — at least not yet," said Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington based think tank focused on energy security. "But it is another indicator of the beginning of the glacial, and I emphasize the word glacial, decline of the dollar."
Beijing faces skeptical global oil markets and global perceptions it exerts too much state control. Those factors will hinder its drive to build a viable oil pricing benchmark that's able to compete with more established benchmarks like or (both dollar-denominated).
The architects of the "petro-yuan" face an uphill struggle in dislodging the "petrodollar" and, with it, more than four decades of U.S. dollar-priced oil. Attracting interest from entrenched and active markets in Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East — used to price more than two-thirds of the world's oil worth trillions of dollars – poses another major challenge.
"Many, many futures contracts are launched because they make some sense from a logical market point of view and they get a lot of attention. But then they die because the key is liquidity," said Jeff Brown, president at FGE, an international energy consultant.
There are really only a handful of truly global oil contracts from which all else is based, Brown explained, adding: "It will be extraordinarily difficult to change that." |
Elon Musk attacks Way of the Future AI religion | A religion called Way of the Future has been founded by Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the centre of a Silicon Valley autonomous car lawsuit. Its declared aim is to "develop and promote the realisation of a godhead based on artificial intelligence” by 2042, reported Leslie Hook in the Financial Times. Elon Musk has attacked Levandowski's idea, warning that such people should not be allowed to create a machine that is more intelligent than people.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/elon-musk-slaps-down-talk-of-ai-gods.html | 2017-10-25 13:31:12.847000 | Experts who talk of artificially intelligent (AI) robots reaching divine status should "absolutely not be allowed" to create a machine smarter than humans, Elon Musk warned on Twitter.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO was addressing an article from tech news site VentureBeat about the possibility of an AI "god" emerging by 2042.
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One of the experts cited in the feature, former Google self-driving car engineer Anthony Levandowski, established a nonprofit religious organization called Way of the Future. The firm's mission statement reads: "To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society."
Levandowski was at the center of a lawsuit between Uber and Alphabet's Waymo unit, the latter of which accused Levandowski of stealing trade secrets related to autonomous vehicles and taking them with him to Uber.
Another expert, Vince Lynch, said there was a "commonality" between AI and religion. Lynch's company IV.AI demonstrated a model whereby a computer could write new verses from the Bible. |
California's Project Frog integrates tech into prefab building kits | San Francisco firm Project Frog has cut labour costs by up to 80% and reduced construction times by two-thirds, after integrating technology into its prefabricated buildings, according to CEO Drew Buechley. He said using cloud design applications to design prefab kits offered "architectural freedom", while its automation engine examined site conditions against their kits, allowing the creation of "fabrication-level detail". Project Frog has several projects under way across California and has completed a net-zero energy facility in Hawaii.
| http://news.theregistrysf.com/tech-view-project-frog/ | 2017-10-25 13:15:38.787000 | Thank you for your interest in The Registry. You must Subscribe or Log In to read the rest of this content. |
Publiq Foundation launches content platform for unbiased news | Switzerland's Publiq Foundation has set up a blockchain-based platform where journalists, bloggers and writers can publish quality content. The blockchain technology allows content to be cryptographically sealed, rendering it tamper-proof, while the merit-based payment system, based on audience engagement, will be paid in the platform's PBQ tokens. Publiq said advertisers using the platform would benefit from an artificial intelligence algorithm that facilitated personalised targeting.
| https://coinjournal.net/publiq-blockchain-content-platform/ | 2017-10-25 12:37:21.813000 | Swiss non-profit the Publiq Foundation has launched a blockchain-based content platform that aims to fight “fake news” and bias reporting.
The organization uses blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to build an ecosystem operated by authors, journalists, bloggers and advertisers that’s censorship proof and where all profits gained through the platform are distributed between content providers. It also introduces a reputation-scoring system based on readers’ views and feedbacks intended to allow authors to be more fairly rewarded.
Publiq said its goal is to “overcome the massive flow of poor, fake and fabricated news” by offering a transparent rewarding process that incentivizes members to write quality content. It said it aims to solve the numerous problems that have plagued the media industry including over centralization, unfair remunerations, poor customer experience and lack of quality content.
“By creating a content distribution platform, we’re trying to tackle the tabloid journalism that is consumed daily,” said Alexandre Tabbakh, CEO of the Publiq Foundation.
“Propaganda and fake news are some of the main problems the media industry faces. We are creating an ecosystem of accredited authors with trusted reputations, and guarantee that only high quality content will be promoted over the platform. The merit-based distribution will result in a paradigm shift by unchaining the creative power of an individual to become a full participant of the economy of the future.”
Publiq is a distributed media environment owned, governed and operated by a global independent community, the organization said.
Content on Publiq’s blockchain-based platform is cryptographically sealed, distributed, and published, preventing any third parties from tampering with the author’s work.
Authors are rewarded in PBQ tokens, the in-house token, according to their Publiq Score, which is calculated by the previous engagement their pieces have earned and which is based on feedbacks from readers.
This introduces a mechanism of community governance and removes the need of intermediaries or traditional publishing houses from the chain of creation and distribution, Publiq said.
Advertisers can use the platform as well for a more targeted advertising process. The AI algorithm provides an advertisement platform mechanism based on readers’ preferences.
Publiq is amongst the numerous startups that are leveraging blockchain technology to transform the media and news industry. Copenhagen-based startup Media Shifter is using blockchain and the wisdom of the crowd to change the way we consume news.
Media Shifter’s news aggregator is built on top of a community that validates aggregated content through blockchain-powered user consensus, enabling readers to better “navigate through the noise and bias of the current media landscape.”
Another venture, called Userfeeds, is building a content ranking and reputation system for blockchain communities. |
Legal firms pre-emmptively open bitcoin wallets in fear of hacks | Legal firms should focus on beefing up their security to prevent cyber attacks, rather than having bitcoin wallets on standby to pay off ransomware users, according to Richard Delaney, writing for NewsBTC. He said companies which set aside cryptocurrency as a pre-emptive measure did little more than "paint a huge target" on the industry, and criticised the use of unencrypted e-mails to send sensitive information which could be highly attractive to cyber criminals.
| http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/10/25/law-firms-open-bitcoin-wallets-response-ransomware-attacks/ | 2017-10-25 12:24:59.530000 | In response to a spate of hackings, some law firms have made the decision to preemptively open Bitcoin wallets to pay their attackers. John Sweeney, president of IT and cyber security advisory company LogicForce claimed that accounts would be used to settle ransoms as a “last resort” and the measure should be part of a wider contingency plan.
For Sweeney, the decision is proactive rather than reactive. However, what exactly is proactive about waiting to get hacked and then paying a ransom is unclear. There aren’t even any guarantees that the criminals will release the breached data following settlement of demands. According to the cyber security expert himself, it has taken some firms months and multiple ransoms to even recover data from hackers. Even then, the data may already be compromised, rendering confidentiality agreements between clients and companies useless and potentially exposing sensitive details.
The latest security breach was announced earlier today. An offshore law firm catering to super-rich clients was hacked by a criminal group. Those served by Appleby in Bermuda will be awaiting the criminals’ next move which likely be either blackmail or straight up exposure. This highlights a major issue with law firms’ security which Sweeney says needs to be tackled. Data is often sent via unencrypted emails and thus risks being breached by any hacker savvy enough to get around the often-scant security procedures in place. Certain data obtained via such a practice is understandably extremely valuable to the parties concerned. Sweeney commented about the growing trend within the industry:
We are predicting there are going to be more sophisticated attempts to intrude at firms that work with highly visible clients whose IP or business information is extremely valuable.
Exacerbating the problem is the fact that cyber-criminals’ can often cover their own tracks impeccably. This makes it unlikely that they’ll be caught and for Sweeney, it represents a risk/reward proposition that’s “totally in the cyber criminals’ favour.”
However, the decision to announce that some firms will have a digital wallet loaded with funds to pay off hackers seems to do little else than paint a huge target on the law industry. Clearly, by having the money ready, the implication is that firms are willing to settle ransoms, leaving them further exposed. Sweeney does however urge firms to do more to enhance their security and eliminate potential online attack vectors. There are no shortage of funds within the law industry, so in reality, there is no excuse for not employing the most up-to-date encryption techniques for sensitive data, as well as suitable backup solutions. Prevention, as they say, is much better than cure. |
Belgium's Bancontact rolls out contactless mobile payments | Belgian payments provider Bancontact has launched contactless smartphone payments for the general public, allowing Android mobile users to make contactless payments without a PIN for amounts under €25 ($29). The Bancontact app has support from 20 banks across Belgium and deals with one million payments per month.
| https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/31244/bancontact-switches-on-contactless-mobile-payments?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=finextrafeed | 2017-10-25 12:23:11.280000 | Belgian payment scheme Bancontact has rolled out contactless smartphone payments to the general public.
Supported by 20 banks across Belgium, the Bancontact app currently processes one million payments a month on behalf of users.
The contactless functionality has been enabled for Android phone users only and enables payments without a PIN for sums below EUR25 with just a tap at the terminal.
"The smartphone is steadily becoming a genuine extension of our wallets," says Boncontact CEO Kim Van Esbroeck. "Every cardholder can benefit from this technology, regardless of who they bank with or which bankcard they have." |
Alipay partners with JPMorgan to offer PoS mobile payments in US | Online and mobile payments provider Alipay is working with JPMorgan Chase to enable Alipay Mobile Wallet PoS transactions at Chase merchant clients. The move will allow Chinese consumers to use Alipay across North America, with up to four million Chinese visitors predicted to visit North America this year. Merchants will be searchable through a geolocation-based feature and can send promotional information through push notifications.
| https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/news-briefs/alipay-partners-with-chase-to-expand-mobile-wallet-footprint | 2017-10-25 12:16:12.300000 | In another move designed to simplify transactions for the growing number of Chinese consumers traveling in North America, Alipay has partnered with JPMorgan Chase. Users of the Alipay app will be able to pay using their Alipay Mobile Wallet at the POS of many Chase Merchant Services clients. As many as 4 million Chinese consumers are expected to visit North America in 2017 alone.
With the proposed Alipay-Chase relationship, Chinese travelers will be able to locate nearby merchants via the app’s geolocation-based “Discover” function and receive promotion information via push notifications. Local merchants will be able to better target and connect with these consumers.
Alipay has been steadily expanding its capabilities in the North American market since its initial announcement at the NRF Big Show in January 2017. The third-party payment platform, which is operated by Alibaba’s Ant Financial Services Group, has:
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• Integrated local content from Yelp and entered into a joint venture with Marriott Hotels in August;
• Allowed consumers to use their wallets in Rebecca Minkoff stores and web sites in September; and
• Earlier this month, partnered with Verifone to allow Chinese consumers to use Alipay for taxi rides in New York and Las Vegas. |
Electric cars emit half the total greenhouse gas of diesels | Electric cars emit half as many greenhouse gases over their lifetime as diesel engines, even when powered by carbon-intensive energy, according to a study by Belgium’s VUB University. In Poland, electric vehicles were found to produce 25% fewer emissions than diesel cars, while emissions in Sweden, which has the cleanest grid in Europe, fell by 85%. Reductions of around 50% were found in other countries, including the UK. The study also found that improvements in battery technology and increased use of renewables could cut battery production emissions by 65%. | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/25/electric-cars-emit-50-less-greenhouse-gas-than-diesel-study-finds | 2017-10-25 12:07:25.020000 | Electric cars emit significantly less greenhouse gases over their lifetimes than diesel engines even when they are powered by the most carbon intensive energy, a new report has found.
In Poland, which uses high volumes of coal, electric vehicles produced a quarter less emissions than diesels when put through a full lifecycle modelling study by Belgium’s VUB University.
CO2 reductions on Europe’s cleanest grid in Sweden were a remarkable 85%, falling to around one half for countries such as the UK.
“On average, electric vehicles will emit half the CO2 emissions of a diesel car by 2030, including the manufacturing emissions,” said Yoann Le Petit, a spokesman for the T&E think tank, which commissioned the study.
“We’ve been facing a lot of fake news in the past year about electrification put out by the fuel industry but in this study you can see that even in Poland today it is more beneficial to the climate to drive an electric vehicle than a diesel.”
The new study uses an EU estimate of Poland’s emissions – at 650gCO2/kWh – which is significantly lower than calculations by the European commission’s Joint Research Centre science wing last year.
But its findings will likely be welcomed in Brussels, where a new emissions standard for 2030 is set to be unveiled in November, along with some potentially more radical proposals.
Speaking in the European parliament this month, the EU’s climate commissioner, Miguel Canete, said: “One option we’re looking at is a mandate to ensure a minimum share of low – for manufacturers it could be zero – emitting vehicles.”
Today, just 1.7% of new vehicles sold in Europe are electric, and some EU officials question whether Europe has access to enough lithium to create a 5-10% market share for electric cars anytime soon. Its capacity to scale up construction of battery plants may also be in doubt.
“You can’t have a massive explosion of electric cars as there’s no plants here to build the batteries,” one EU source said. “In any case, when you take into account the emissions from battery manufacture and electricity supply, their GHG emissions are not so attractive.
The VUB study says that while the supply of critical metals – lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite – and rare earths would have to be closely monitored and diversified, it should not constrain the clean transport transition.
As battery technology improves and more renewables enter the electricity grid, emissions from battery production itself could be cut by 65%, the study found. |
Security awareness firm KnowBe4 pulls $30m in funding | KnowBe4 has capped 18 consecutive quarters of growth with a $30m series B investment from Goldman Sachs. KnowBe4 provides cybersecurity awareness training and phishing simulations to help companies recognise and avoid cyber attacks, and boasts Kevin Mitnick, regarded as the world's most famous hacker, as its chief hacking officer. The market for security awareness training is set to explode, amid estimates that by 2030, 90% of the world's population will be using the internet. In 2017, global ransomware attacks are set to cost $5bn, a 15-fold increase on the 2015 figure of $325m.
| https://www.csoonline.com/article/3234690/security/kevin-mitnicks-ransomware-defense-firm-lands-30m-investment.html | 2017-10-25 11:45:06.097000 | KnowBe4, a fast-growing security awareness training and phishing simulation provider, announced they have closed on a $30 million Series B investment led by Goldman Sachs. The funding comes on the heels of 18 consecutive quarters of growth, which resulted in the company landing at No. 231 on the Inc. 5000 annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America.
Kevin Mitnick, an internationally recognized computer security expert and KnowBe4’s chief hacking officer — often referred to as the world’s most famous hacker — helped design KnowBe4’s cybersecurity training.
Cyber threats and need for employee training continue to grow
Helping organizations combat the burgeoning ransomware threat by training their employees is a huge market opportunity.
A whopping 91 percent of cyber attacks and the resulting data breaches begin with a spearphishing email, according to numerous sources. KnowBe4 states that this conclusively shows end users really are the weak link in IT security.
A growing percentage of phishing emails, when clicked by users, inject ransomware into computers and mobile devices.
Further, global ransomware damage costs are predicted to exceed $5 billion in 2017, up from $325 million in 2015 — 15x in just two years. And the impact is expected to worsen, especially for healthcare organizations, which have been attacked the most and may see ransomware attacks quadruple by 2020.
The human attack surface is growing exponentially year over year at a time when people have moved ahead of machines as the primary targets for hackers. There are 3.8 billion internet users in 2017 (51 percent of the world’s population of 7 billion), which is up from 2 billion in 2015.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts there will be 6 billion internet users by 2022 (75 percent of the projected world population of 8 billion) — and more than 7.5 billion internet users by 2030 (90 percent of the projected world population of 8.5 billion, 6 years of age and older).
The total addressable market — or T.A.M. as venture capitalists call it — for the security awareness training market is exploding. One report predicts the market for training employees on how to detect and defend against spearphishing emails, ransomware attacks and other cyber threats will reach $10 billion by 2027, up from $1 billion in 2014.
Goldman Sachs: KnowBe4 platform is a must-have
“KnowBe4 has separated itself as a leader in the cybersecurity awareness training market, with their platform becoming a 'need to have' for businesses across sectors and geographies in the fight against cyber threats,” said Hans Sherman, a vice president in Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division who will join the KnowBe4 board of directors in connection with the investment.
Institutional investors and VC firms may view the Goldman Sachs investment as a call to action. There’s a solid lineup of security awareness training companies — each bringing their own unique programs and tools to turn employees into cyber defenders.
If there’s one thing for sure, it’s that a whole lotta employees need to be trained on security. The security awareness market will be an interesting one to watch.
Visit SteveOnCyber.com to read all of my blogs and articles covering cybersecurity.
Follow me on Twitter @CybersecuritySF, or connect with me on LinkedIn. Send story tips, feedback and suggestions to me here. |
Health experts demand minimum alcohol price in UK | The UK should introduce minimum unit alcohol pricing to reduce the physical and economic damage of alcohol abuse, according to a letter from 50 health professionals and campaigners, including the British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Public Health. The letter, sent to The Guardian, claims that alcohol misuse costs the UK between £21bn ($28bn) and £52bn ($69bn) each year. On Monday, the Welsh government announced plans to follow the example of Scotland, which fixed a minimum unit price in 2012. The Scottish law has yet to be introduced due to legal challenges.
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/25/campaigners-call-minimum-alcohol-price-introduced-uk | 2017-10-25 11:35:11.120000 | The UK government should follow Wales and introduce minimum unit alcohol pricing to reduce harm and the economic cost of abuse, health professionals and campaigners have said.
On Monday the Welsh government announced plans to follow the lead set by Scotland in 2012 for a minimum unit price of alcohol, although it has yet to be introduced north of the border because of legal challenges.
Ministers in Westminster have defied calls to embrace the policy, citing a lack of evidence, but are facing fresh pressure to change tack.
In a letter to the Guardian, 50 signatories, including the Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston and representatives of bodies including Alcohol Health Alliance UK, the British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Public Health, wrote: “Minimum unit pricing is a highly effective tool to reduce the number of deaths related to alcohol, crime and workplace absence.
“The Welsh government continues to demonstrate its firm commitment to tackle the problem of cheap alcohol and the devastating effect this has on our communities, especially its most vulnerable members.”
It added: “With alcohol misuse costing £21bn-52bn per year, the UK government must now follow Wales and Scotland by implementing a policy that will save lives, relieve pressure on our NHS and fulfil its commitment to even out life chances.”
The letter, also signed by representatives of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Liver Trust and the UK Health Forum, said it was unacceptable that three litres of white cider, containing the equivalent alcohol of 22 shots of vodka, can be bought for just £3.49. It stated that the legislation would not impact prices in pubs but would target “pocket money-priced alcohol”.
In 2014, research on the impact of introducing a 50p minimum unit price (the level set by Scotland) in Wales estimated there would be 53 fewer deaths and 1,400 fewer hospital admissions in Wales each year, saving the NHS more than £130m over 20 years.
The Welsh government has not stipulated its minimum unit price but the public health minister, Rebecca Evans, said: “There is a very clear and direct link between levels of excessive drinking and the availability of cheap alcohol.”
The UK government has previously resisted calls to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol despite its health advisers throwing their weight behind the policy. In a review commissioned by the government, published last year, Public Health England found that drink was the biggest killer of people aged between 15 and 49 in England, accounted for 167,000 years of lost productivity each year and was a factor in more than 200 illnesses.
The coalition government pledged in March 2012 to bring in minimum pricing but made a U-turn in July 2013 after intense lobbying by the alcohol industry.
The Scotch Whisky Association has challenged the Scottish legislation, arguing it is in breach of EU law because it restricts free trade and is anti-competitive. The supreme court is expected to give its judgment within the next few weeks, in the latest stage of the long-running legal battle.
A government spokesman said: “Minimum unit pricing in England and Wales remains under review pending the outcome of the legal case between the Scottish government and the Scotch Whisky Association, and any subsequent introduction in Scotland.
“The UK government will assess the legislative competence of any Welsh government legislation that is introduced, as is standard practice with all Welsh assembly bills.” |
Health experts demand minimum alcohol price in UK | The UK should introduce minimum unit alcohol pricing to reduce the physical and economic damage of alcohol abuse, according to a letter from 50 health professionals and campaigners, including the British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Public Health. The letter, sent to The Guardian, claims that alcohol misuse costs the UK between £21bn ($28bn) and £52bn ($69bn) each year. On Monday, the Welsh government announced plans to follow the example of Scotland, which fixed a minimum unit price in 2012. The Scottish law has yet to be introduced due to legal challenges.
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/25/uk-wide-minimum-alcohol-price-would-save-lives-and-ease-pressure-on-nhs | 2017-10-25 11:35:11.120000 | We unequivocally endorse the Welsh government’s adoption of a minimum unit price for alcohol (Wales reveals plan for minimum alcohol price, 23 October).
Minimum unit pricing is a highly effective tool to reduce the number of deaths related to alcohol, crime and workplace absence. The Welsh government continues to demonstrate its firm commitment to tackle the problem of cheap alcohol and the devastating effect this has on our communities, especially its most vulnerable members.
This decisive action will not impact prices in pubs or bars but target pocket-money-priced alcohol. It is simply unacceptable that three litres of white cider, containing the equivalent alcohol of 22 shots of vodka, can be bought for just £3.49.
With alcohol misuse costing £21bn-£52bn per year, the UK government must now follow Wales and Scotland by implementing a policy that will save lives, relieve pressure on our NHS and fulfil its commitment to even out life chances.
Prof Sir Ian Gilmore Chair, Alcohol Health Alliance UK
Dr Andrew Yeoman National clinical lead, Wales Liver Disease Delivery Plan
Dr Sarah Wollaston MP
Liam Byrne MP
Fiona Bruce MP Chair of the APPG on Alcohol Harm
Clive Brooke Labour, House of Lords
Ilora Finlay Crossbench, House of Lords
Katherine Brown Chief executive, Institute of Alcohol Studies
Dr Richard Piper Chief executive of Alcohol Research UK and Alcohol Concern
Prof Jonathan Shepherd Director, Violence Research Group
Dr Andrew Furber President, Association of Directors of Public Health
Rob Poole Professor of social psychiatry, Centre for Mental Health and Society, Bangor University
Dr Adrian Boyle Consultant emergency physician, Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust
Dr Kieran Moriarty British Society of Gastroenterology
Dr Peter Rice Chair, steering group, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems
Prof Roger Williams Foundation for Liver Research
Prof Nick Sheron Head of clinical hepatology, University of Southampton
Alison Douglas Chief executive, Alcohol Focus Scotland
Dr Eric Carlin Director, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems
Prof Paul Lincoln CEO, UK Health Forum
Dr Ranjini Rao Consultant psychiatrist in addictions, and chair of addictions faculty in Wales, Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych)
Prof Parveen Kumar Chair, board of science, British Medical Association
Dr Gerry Lynch Consultant psychiatrist, chair of RCPsych in Northern Ireland and vice-president of RCPsych
Richard Gardner Chief executive, British Society of Gastroenterology
Prof Matthew Cramp President, British Association for the Study of the Liver
Shirley Cramer Chief executive, Royal Society for Public Health
Dr Linda Bauld Deputy director, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies
Prof John Middleton President, UK Faculty of Public Health
Catherine Robinson Professor of social policy research, Centre for Mental Health and Society, Bangor University
Prof Jennifer Mindell Chair, Health Improvement Committee, UK Faculty of Public Health
Dr Ewan Forrest Consultant hepatologist and honorary clinical associate professor, Glasgow Royal Infirmary
Judi Rhys Chief executive, British Liver Trust
Dr Linda Harris Lead for substance misuse, Royal College of General Practitioners
Dr Dominique Florin Medical director, Medical Council on Alcohol
Dr Zul Mirza Consultant in Emergency Medicine
Helen Donovan Royal College of Nursing
Prof Keith Lloyd Chair of RCPsych in Wales and vice-president of RCPsych
Dr Helen Toal Consultant psychiatrist, and chair of addictions faculty, RCPsych in Northern Ireland
John Jolly Chief executive, Blenheim
Dr Clementine Maddock Consultant psychiatrist
Dr Ahmed Khan Chair of the RCPsych in Scotland Addictions Faculty
Professor Robin Touquet Emeritus professor of emergency medicine, Imperial College London and St Mary’s hospital, Paddington
Nigel Bongard Trustee of Alcohelp
Terry Martin Trustee of Alcohelp
Dr Chris Record Consultant hepatologist
Dr John Crichton Chair of RCPsych in Scotland and vice-president of RCPsych
Dr Bruce Ritson
Prof Frank Murray Consultant gastroenterologist
Diane Goslar Patient representative, Royal College of Psychiatrists
Professor Woody Caan Faculty of Public Health alcohol special interest group
Join the debate – email [email protected] |
Catholic Church considers contactless payments for donations | Catholic parishioners in London may be able to use contactless payments to make donations, according to the diocese of Westminster. It said it was one of several options being considered to help both churchgoers and visitors in the city, who wished to support the church. The diocese said all parishes have been offered a code to enable the payments and a few have already begun to do so.
| http://www.itv.com/news/london/2017-10-24/catholic-church-in-london-considers-taking-contactless-payments/ | 2017-10-25 11:14:10.947000 | The Catholic Church in London is considering contactless collections to make donations easier.
The move is one of a number of possible options to help parishioners and visitors in an increasingly "cashless society", officials said.
Several Catholic parishes in the Diocese of Westminster have already taken up the chance to allow parishioners to donate via text message on their mobile phone.
All parishes have been offered a code to allow them to do this, and the diocese said a few had already begun using this technology. |
Daimler shows off E-Fuso Vision One prototype EV truck | Motor manufacturer Daimler has demonstrated the protype of its first heavy-duty electric truck, which it is developing under its Fuso brand. The E-Fuso Vision One can carry 11 tons of cargo, has a range of 220 miles, and could be on the market in Europe, Japan and the US within four years. The announcement comes just weeks before electric vehicle specialist Tesla is planning to launch its own new truck, and the timing by Daimler is being seen as a sign of increased rivalry between the companies. | https://electrek.co/2017/10/25/daimler-heavy-duty-electric-truck-concept/ | 2017-10-25 11:07:00.607000 | At the Tokyo Motor Show today, Daimler’s Mitsubishi Fuso Truck division launched a new product brand entirely dedicated to electric trucks & buses.
As part of this new brand, the company unveiled a new all-electric heavy-duty concept truck at the show.
The new concept vehicle is called the E-FUSO Vision ONE.
Fuso says that it’s a Class 8 truck that has a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of 23.26 tons and a payload of 11.11 tons, which is only 1.8 tons less than its diesel counterpart, and a range of up to 220 miles (350 km) with a single charge.
The truck maker claims that the range is enabled by a 300 kWh battery pack.
Daimler already released a smaller all-electric truck called the FUSO eCanter, which is meant for urban routes with a range of only 100 kilometers (62 miles) and a load capacity up to three and a half tons.
The E-FUSO Vision ONE would instead aim at enabling longer routes with bigger loads:
“The E-FUSO Vision One represents FUSO’s view on the near future of electric trucks, extending the usage beyond the urban city limits. This prototype illustrates the possibilities of extending the current usage of all-electric trucks from the inter-urban centers to highways. The technology addresses medium-duty today and is developing for tomorrow’s longer-haul semi, class 8 trucks.”
Electrek’s Take
That’s an interesting move emphasizing Daimler’s commitment to electric trucks, which is especially important considering it is the biggest truck maker in the world across all its brands.
It’s not clear if they have a working prototype of the new Class 8. Daimler was offering test drives with the eCanter, but not the Vision ONE.
But that’s not even the most important missing piece of the puzzle. We know that Daimler can make an electric truck powertrain, but trucks are all about the economics.
It would have been nice to have some details on that front in order to estimate the cost per mile of operation, which is by far the most important thing for fleet operators and independent drivers.
Cummins, VW, and several others have also been developing electric trucks. Tesla was first supposed to unveil its own electric truck, Tesla Semi, this week, but it has been pushed to next month. It’s not clear which one is closest to production, but it would be interesting start seeing some real numbers.
Some analysts suggest that electric trucks could be 70% cheaper to operate than diesel-powered trucks. |
Amazon Key will let couriers into your home – under surveillance | Amazon is launching delivery service Amazon Key. Using a technology bundle featuring the company's new wireless Cloud Cam and a smart lock provided by Kwikset or Yale, customers can have orders not just delivered to their doors, but placed inside their homes, as couriers use the technology to enter properties, with their movements recorded by means of the camera. Amazon said only its own staff will be trusted to make these deliveries and the service will initially only be available in the 37 US cities where Amazon Logistics does home deliveries. Amazon Key retails for $249.99.
| https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/25/16538834/amazon-key-in-home-delivery-unlock-door-prime-cloud-cam-smart-lock | 2017-10-25 11:02:14.740000 | Twelve years ago, Amazon launched Prime, a subscription service that entitled members to free two-day shipping in the United States. Since then, it has added a number of options to make delivery faster and more convenient. Prime customers can get same-day delivery, and drop off with an hour or two on some items. Of course, customers aren’t always home to receive their packages. So Amazon started putting lockers in nearby convenience stores and building lobbies. It even showed off drones that could drop the package right into your backyard. Today it’s taking the obvious next step and introducing a service that will allow Amazon couriers to open your front door and put your package safely inside your home.
The service is called Amazon Key, and it relies on a Amazon’s new Cloud Cam and compatible smart lock. The camera is the hub, connected to the internet via your home Wi-Fi. The camera talks to the lock over Zigbee, a wireless protocol utilized by many smart home devices.
When a courier arrives with a package for in-home delivery, they scan the barcode, sending a request to Amazon’s cloud. If everything checks out, the cloud grants permission by sending a message back to the camera, which starts recording. The courier then gets a prompt on their app, swipes the screen, and voilà, your door unlocks. They drop off the package, relock the door with another swipe, and are on their way. The customer will get a notification that their delivery has arrived, along with a short video showing the drop-off to confirm everything was done properly.
The Amazon Cloud Cam and compatible locks Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
The system works with locks from Yale and Kwikset, two well-known brands. But the other piece, the connected camera, is made by Amazon, and that’s a really big deal. Amazon is pushing even further into the smart home space, a market it’s made big strides in, thanks to the huge popularity of its Alexa devices. Amazon’s Cloud Cam is a central piece of its Key service, but it’s also just a straightforward home security camera, one that can respond to voice commands and integrates with other Alexa devices. Amazon is planning to sell them in bundles and offer a subscription service for customers who want video archives and advanced home monitoring, putting the product in direct competition with Alphabet’s Nest brand and others in the smart home space, like Ring and Logitech.
Prime customers can preorder the camera today. The Key app and actual delivery service will become available November 8th.
Will Prime customers trust Amazon with entry privileges?
All this raises a big question, however: will Prime customers trust Amazon to monitor their homes around the clock, and to know when it’s okay to unlock their doors for a stranger? And will the benefit of having your packages delivered quickly and securely outweigh any concerns about privacy and security customers might have?
For $249.99, Amazon will sell you a bundle that includes a smart lock, the connected camera, and free installation. Once you have the system in place, in-home delivery will begin to appear as an option every time you order something on Amazon. There is no additional charge, and Amazon says the in-home delivery will be available on over 10 million items (anything that isn’t too big and bulky). The one caveat is that, for now, Amazon only trusts its own delivery team to handle this work. So Amazon Key is only available in 37 cities across the US where Amazon Logistics handles the drop-off. But the company says it hopes to expand the service more widely in the future. It will be interesting to see if it eventually allows third-party delivery companies to handle this sensitive process.
Cloud Cam streaming on an Echo Show Photo: Amazon
Amazon knows that it’s asking a lot of consumers with its new Key service. You have to really trust a company to let it record what’s going on inside your home at all times, and even more to unlock your door for strangers. So it tries to make sure the process is minimally invasive and totally transparent. Customers will get a notification the morning of a delivery, with a window of time when they should expect Amazon to arrive. They will get another notification when the delivery van shows up. That means you can start watching a live stream of the delivery on your camera if you want to keep an eye on things.
Even if you choose in-home delivery, couriers are instructed to ring the bell or knock on the door first. That’s meant to let people inside know someone is entering, and also give the delivery person a chance to check for potential hazards like angry dogs. Couriers are instructed to open the door as little as possible, slide the packages in, and not enter the home if possible.
While Amazon isn’t going to allow any third-party delivery services to get inside your house with Key (at least not at launch), the company is hoping that you’ll use Key when ordering stuff like dog walking or kitchen cleaning from its Amazon Home Services division. In the coming months, it says Key will be integrated with over 1,200 service providers across 60 professions. You’ll log on to the website or app of a service like Rover.com or Merry Maids, and there will be a button offering the option for in-home service through Amazon Key.
Amazon’s Cloud Cam and a compatible smart lock are essential ingredients for in-home delivery. But the company is hoping you’ll use these devices for other things as well. The Key app is designed to make it simple for you to grant access to trusted friends and family. You can give permanent access, a one-time pass with a time limit, or recurring access that works on certain days and at certain times. You can grant access through the app or send permissions via a simple SMS message.
Individual Cloud Cams cost $120, but Amazon says it will be much cheaper if you buy them in bulk. Its forthcoming subscription service will allow you to archive and review footage and activate high-end features like motion detection, people detection, and zone monitoring. It’s integrated with Alexa, so if you were down in the basement, you could ask Alexa to show you who’s at the front door. For now, it’s billed as an indoor security camera, and won’t work if left outside in the rain.
While Amazon’s foray into smartphones flopped, it staged a coup with the introduction of Alexa, vaulting to the front of the pack when it comes to smart home gadgets. Alexa was the star of the show at CES for the past two years, finding its way into a wide range of products. Amazon has been aggressively pushing out more Alexa devices this year, everything from wardrobe assistants to alarm clocks. The Amazon Look is probably its most daring product; a camera that’s meant to live in your closet and watch you change clothes requires a very high level of trust. But so far, Amazon has limited access to this device, which is still available for purchase by invitation only.
That makes Amazon Key a crucial stepping stone in Amazon’s quest to manage your home life and integrate itself into your daily routine. Prime customers, of which there are now an estimated 85 million, may sign up for the service because they’re interested in the convenience and security of having their deliveries left inside their homes. But in the process, they would be positioning Amazon to know a lot more about their lives and habits, like when they leave the house in the morning, how often they go on vacation, and when they get back from work at night. |
P2P parking space platform AirGarage wins Phoenix hackathon | Two Arizona State University students have won this year's annual Phoenix Smart City Hack competition with their online platform AirGarage. It connects people who have spare parking spaces with drivers seeking a spot. AirGarage collected a $3,000 prize, and will go on to represent Arizona in the international Smart City Hack competition in Barcelona next month.
| http://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/parking-network-airgarage-wins-phoenix-smart-city-hack/508031/ | 2017-10-25 10:45:46.283000 | Dive Brief:
AirGarage, a marketplace that links homeowners or commercial properties that have unused parking spaces with drivers looking for a parking spot, won the third Phoenix Smart City Hack competition, according to Phoenix Business Journal.
The startup was launched by two Arizona State University students who were awarded with $3,000 and a trip to Barcelona to represent Arizona in the international Smart City Hack competition.
Six other startups joined AirGarage in the finals. IoT Supercomputer, a platform capable of harnessing idle CPUs across the internet to turn idle computers into supercomputers, took second place. Life 365, a kit distribution service that connects hospital resources to the home, took third.
Dive Insight:
The Ideathon challenge was announced in June, calling on innovators with focuses on transportation, health, education and sustainability. Competitors had fairly large shoes to fill — the winners of the previous years' Hacks were Grand Canyon University startup Storage Together, a mobile app that connects homeowners with extra storage space to people who need it, and ParkX, a parking payment startup that began at University of Arizona and was eventually acquired by Passport Inc.
As evidenced by the three winners of this competition, events like Smart City Hack give students the opportunity to showcase ideas in a high-profile setting where opportunities for engagement are higher than they would be elsewhere. ParkX, for instance, began as a four-person operation called Park Genius, only to be successfully acquired and expanded to 2,000 locations thanks to the Hack exposure. It is likely that following this year's competition, AirGarage will grow in a way that two students may not have had the capacity to achieve on their own.
The objective of AirGarage — to provide affordable parking in congested areas — addresses a problem that is troubling cities nationwide, and the solution is one that falls in line with a bigger smart city trend of utilizing shared space. As demonstrated with apps like Storage Together or ride-share services, optimizing available space is becoming increasingly crucial, especially in the wake of growing populations. |
'Of course it's a bubble': Ethereum co-founder | Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin has confirmed that cryptocurrencies are a "bubble", but said that he hopes it is "one in a series of larger bubbles" that could be good for long-term growth. The bubble effect attracts interest and increases the Ethereum ecosystem's value, said Lubin. He made assurances that the volatility in cryptocurrency value would decrease as the monetary base increases, stating that many fiat currencies have suffered worse than ether.
| https://qz.com/1111123/of-course-its-a-bubble-ethereum-cofounder-joe-lubin-isnt-worried-about-a-crash/ | 2017-10-25 10:44:24.770000 | For Wall Street analysts and investors trying to figure out whether cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether are destined to deflate, Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin has an answer for you: yes.
But just because a bubble pops doesn’t mean it’s the end, he says. It actually might be better for the technology’s long-term growth.
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“Of course it’s a bubble. Hopefully it’s one in a series of increasingly larger bubbles,” Lubin said at an event hosted by Quartz and Retro Report yesterday (Oct. 24) launching their What Happens Next series. “These bubbles bring attention, they bring value into the ecosystem. That value is recognized by software developers and business developers, and they create fundamental value and projects that grow the new architecture.”
Lubin says that a Gartner analyst recently pegged Ethereum’s developer base at 30 times larger than IBM-backed Hyperledger Fabric, a competitor in the blockchain space that enjoys all the benefits of having the support of a legacy computing company that has already won the trust of business.
Ether’s price hovers just below $300 at time of press, but in recent months has been struggling to recover to its all-time high of $414. Ether serves as a currency which users of Ethereum pay to keep their programs on the service’s decentralized computing service. A lower price means less bang for each ether.
Speaking to the volatility of cryptocurrencies, Lubin says that it’s just a matter of fewer people using them compared to traditional currency systems, and that it’s an addressable problem.
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“As they get a larger and larger monetary base, I think the volatility will decrease significantly. There are many state-issued currencies on this planet that are as volatile or more volatile than bitcoin or ether,” he said.
Analysts from Credit-Suisse have noted that bitcoin is 11 times more volatile than the post-Brexit exchange rate between the British pound and US dollar, and three times more volatile than the price of oil. |
Autonomous vehicles could cut insurance premiums: UK minister | As the market adjusts to autonomous vehicles, insurance premiums for auto policies could trend downwards, as greater use of autonomous technology leads to fewer accidents, according to England's transport minister John Hayes. Pricing may, however, remain flat following the initial introduction of autonomous cars as consumers and insurers adjust. The government is also not planning to get involved in determining how insurers should price coverage for self-driving cars, Hayes added. | https://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2017/october/driverless-cars-could-cut-motor-insurance-premiums-says-transport-minister/ | 2017-10-25 10:12:46.087000 | John Hayes, transport minister in England, highlighted the potential savings for owners of driverless cars in a parliamentary session in which proposed new legislation to encourage growth in the development and commercialisation of driverless cars was discussed by MPs. The Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill was introduced before the UK parliament last week.
"My guess is that initially, as the marketplace develops and new products emerge, prices will be much as they are now; but that as the record becomes established and insurers’ calculations about the likelihood of claims are affected by the greater safety provided by autonomous vehicles, prices may well fall," Hayes said.
The minister qualified his comments by stating that the pricing of motor insurance policies for driverless cars would be "a matter for insurers" and was "not something that the government can stipulate, dictate or even, with any certainty, predict".
However, Hayes referred to comments made by David Williams, chief commercial underwriter at AXA who has predicted "substantially reduced premiums" in future as a result of driverless cars "making our roads safer" and reducing "the costs of claims".
Hayes said: "It seems to me that if the safety of autonomous vehicles means fewer accidents, insurers will find that out. As they do so, the ability to insure a vehicle will grow and the price of doing so will fall. That is, as I say, a matter for the future and not for now."
According to the new Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, insurers would generally be liable for damage stemming from an accident caused by an automated vehicle "when driving itself" where the vehicle is insured and "an insured person or any other person suffers damage as a result of the accident".
Where driverless cars are not insured, owners would be left liable for the damage stemming from accidents.
Insurers would be able to exclude or limit their liability for damage if insured individuals make "software alterations" that they are prohibited to make under their insurance policy, or if they do no install "safety-critical software updates" that they at least "ought reasonably to know" are "safety-critical".
Where insurers are liable to make payment for damages to those impacted by an accident, they would have a right to raise a claim against those responsible for the accident for recovery of the money they have paid out.
Hayes said insurers' rights to recover costs from "the liable party" under the Bill would apply under "common and product law".
"Automated vehicles, together with an effective insurance framework, as the government propose in the Bill, could deliver significant financial and safety benefits for road users," the minister said. |
Tech integration key to growth for oilfield services companies | Schlumberger, the world's biggest oilfield services company, is developing complete systems that consolidate the technology used in the exploration and production industry. CEO Paal Kibsgaard said digital offerings, such as its analytics and machine learning tool Delfi, would increase efficiency, while combined software and hardware systems underpin Kibsgaard's vision of the "rig of the future". Schlumberger reported Q3 revenues of $7.91bn and a 65% uplift in profits year on year. It recently signed a deal with Borr Drilling to offer performance-based contracts to offshore jackup rigs. Other oilfield services companies, such as Halliburton, are also investing in digital technology.
| https://www.epmag.com/hardware-software-integration-key-schlumbergers-technology-strategy-1664656#p=full | 2017-10-25 09:54:07.133000 | Hardware ownership has become a critical part of Schlumberger’s (NYSE: SLB) technology strategy as it expands its digital offerings, but don’t expect the world’s largest oilfield service company to start taking full ownership of rigs, floaters and other equipment.
Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard sees the E&P industry like an outdated and cluttered computer hard drive. Information is spread out and separated by artificial dividing lines, creating slowdowns and inefficiency.
Schlumberger’s goal is to upgrade hardware and software into “complete technology systems.” In projects such as its “Rig of the Future” the company is developing “streamlined and redefined end-to-end workflows,” Kibsgaard told analysts Oct. 23.
The company wants relationships with jackup providers and potentially floater providers, but its focus now is on jackups.
“We have no intention whatsoever of going back into full ownership of offshore rigs,” he said.
Kibsgaard spoke about Schlumberger’s technology efforts following the release of the company’s third-quarter 2017 earnings report that brought news of a $581 million increase in profit—a 65% improvement from a year ago—and revenue of $7.91 billion, up from $7.02 billion.
Oilfield service companies, which suffered massive profit losses and headcount reductions during the downturn, have been ramping up their offerings with an increasing focus on digital technologies as the industry reaps the benefits of improved efficiency and growth from technology advances in general. The industry’s largest service companies—Schlumberger; Baker Hughes, a GE company; Halliburton and Weatherford—have all expanded their technology offerings.
Baker Hughes released IntelliStream upstream enterprise software, which the company said: “provides analytic-driven insights and continuous learning across reservoirs, wells, networks, facilities and people, continues to gain interest in the marketplace.”
Halliburton teamed up with Microsoft in a quest to “drive digital transformation across the oil and gas industry,” making DecisionSpace 365 available on Azure for real-time data streaming and deep-learning applications.
Weatherford released this month its PressurePro control system, which was described by the company as “a fully integrated rotating control device and choke system for wellbore pressure management on land.”
Schlumberger, which also released new technology, is in pursuit of technology system integration, and Kibsgaard says hardware ownership is a critical element of its strategy.
“Today the broad and complex E&P industry workflows are still predominately enabled by discrete and fragmented products and services with the dividing lines between the various work packages defined by our customers’ contracting framework, which was established decades ago,” Kibsgaard said. “These artificial dividing lines made sense at the time of creation when technology systems were made up of a limited number of isolated hardware building blocks and the value of software and data was still nascent.”
However, “For the complexity of data’s oilfield operations and the advances made in other industries in terms of total system performance it is clear that replacing the industry’s fragmented approach with a new focus on complete technology systems holds a massive performance upside,” he added.
Kibsgaard said Schlumberger sees potential in creating hardware technology with a broader scope, a smaller footprint and fewer interfaces. He added the company believes the next step-change for the industry will come in the form of complete technology systems that integrate software and hardware components—an example being the Rig of the Future. The land drilling system is a cognitive drilling rig that incorporates a software platform driven by data.
RELATED: Drilling In A Digital World
But maximizing the performance of E&P industry workflows will require leveraging the latest technological advances, Kibsgaard added. “We achieve this by making these enabling technologies an integral part of the new hardware and software technologies systems as opposed to attaching them on the outdated and fragmented technologies of yesterday. What we’re doing with DELFI, which was introduced at the SIS Global Forum, during the third quarter is an example of this.”
The DELFI cognitive E&P environment utilizes digital technologies such as security, analytics and machine learning, high-performance computing and the Internet of Things to improve operational efficiency and deliver optimized production. Schlumberger also released DrillPlan digital well construction planning solution that the company said is the first step in the DELFI cognitive E&P environment. DrillPlan enables operators and service companies to have access to all data and science needed in a single, common system.
“We have also deployed an E&P data lake on Google Cloud platform comprising more than 1,000 3-D seismic surveys, 5 million wells, 1 million well logs and 400 million production records from around the world demonstrating a step-change in systems scalability,” Kibsgaard said. “DELFI will ultimately cover all industry workflows; however, the initial focus is on drilling and well construction.”
Technology played an important role in driving revenue growth for Schlumberger for the third quarter with the production group, for instance, seeing a 15% rise in revenue attributed in part to gains in the North American hydraulic fracturing market, more unconventional activity in the Middle East and new several technology deployments.
Third-quarter highlights also included Schlumberger and Borr Drilling signing an agreement earlier this month to offer integrated, performance-based drilling contracts in the offshore jackup market. Schlumberger Oilfield Holdings Ltd. has a 20% ownership in Borr Drilling, which recently agreed to buy nine jackup drilling rigs from Sembcorp Marine subsidiary PPL Shipyard (PPLS) in a $1.3 billion deal.
In an earnings preview, analysts at Barclays noted Kibsgaard’s focus “is to flex technology up or down in their service offerings to align performance with how much SLB will be rewarded for it. This sentiment is clearly echoed in its recent agreement with Borr Drilling.”
The analysts added that Kibsgaard, who presented at a Barclays conference in September, is “confident that he can scale technology in either direction all while delivering incrementals and believes the issue of technology gets ‘over-emphasized.’”
Barclays added, “Kibsgaard noted this strategy aligns with SPM [Schlumberger Production Management], and E&Ps will start paying for technology again once they start experiencing stagnant results.”
Velda Addison can be reached at [email protected]. |
Instagram allows users to add a friend into split-screen live video | Social media site Instagram is aiming to capitalise on the growing popularity of video by unveiling a tool allowing users to stream live video with a friend using a split-screen option. Users broadcasting video can invite another person to join them by clicking the dual-livestream icon, while others are notified of the dualstream by an icon featuring two stacked circles in the Stories bar. Completed videos can also be posted to Stories. | http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/instagram-live-video-with-friend | 2017-10-25 09:25:57.077000 | Now you can broadcast live alongside a friend on Instagram, wherever they are
Instagram has introduced a new video feature as it looks to capitalise on the ever-increasing production and consumption of video content on its app. Now, users are able go livestream at the same time as a friend in split-screen.
To go live alongside a friend, Instagrammers start broadcasting alone, before inviting a friend to stream with them through the new dual-livestream icon at the bottom of screen. Once the invitation is accepted, the screen splits in two both users stream the shared live video to their respective followers.
The guest can be removed from the shared stream at any time and replaced with another person, or they are free to exit on their own accord. As normal, live videos can be added to stories once the broadcast has ended, or discarded.
When someone is streaming live with a friend, two circles are stacked together in the Stories bar. This can be tapped to watch, and can be liked and commented on just like any other live video.
Join us at the 2017 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony, taking place in London on Thursday 16 November, to mix with the industry's best and brightest, and raise a glass to the year's best campaigns and solutions. To find out more, and to book your place, click here. |
Fully virtual clinical trial performed by Science 37 | An acne clinical trial has become the first in the world to be conducted entirely through a smartphone app. AOBiome Therapeutics ran the 16-week, randomised, placebo-controlled study using Science 37’s mobile Network Oriented Research Assistant (NORA) platform. As well as halving the enrolment period, the virtual study also saw more non-white participants involved than traditionally managed trials. Science 37's NORA model is seeing use in trials exploring cancer, diabetes, liver disease and headaches.
| http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/science-37-concludes-its-first-fully-virtual-clinical-trial | 2017-10-25 09:16:40.767000 | Los Angeles-based research company Science 37 announced the completion of a clinical study for AOBiome Therapeutics conducted entirely through a smartphone app.
The Phase 2b study ran on the back of Science 37’s mobile Network Oriented Research Assistant (NORA) platform, which allows for real-time video chat, customized self-photography models, data collection, and electronic consent. Science 37 Cofounder and CEO Dr. Noah Craft said that this study marks the first time an interventional, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of this kind has been conducted completely in the virtual space.
“Over the last three years we have had great success using our ‘Metasite’ approach to complete portions of larger trials; this is the first time we have run an entire trial virtually from start to finish,” Craft, who was also the study’s principal investigator, said in a statement. “With this technology, we were able to accelerate enrollment, capture on-the-ground results as they occurred, and ensure a greater diversity of participants in this truly patient-centered study.”
Through the platform, researchers screened more than 8,000 people and enrolled 372 participants within seven months to participate in the study of AOBiome’s acne treatment. Science 37 said this is approximately half the time that would have been necessary with a standard enrollment, and also noted the increased recruitment of non-white participants compared to most studies.
“We originally estimated that the Phase 2b acne study would take significantly longer, requiring numerous clinical sites to complete,” AOBiome President Todd Krueger said in a statement. “We are proud to have innovated the study design with the Science 37 team. This is truly an industry-first and we are excited about the results of the partnership.”
Enrolled participants were loaned an iPhone and data plan, and self-administered the spray-based intervention twice a day over 12 weeks with an additional four weeks of follow-up. With their devices, participants were able to connect with investigators 24-7 without having to visit any particular study site. In their own statement, AOBiome announced positive safety and efficacy findings based on the data collected through NORA.
"The completion of the AOBiome study is a great demonstration of efficacy and the ability to scale and run entire trials remotely through Science 37's Metasite model without the need for brick-and-mortar facilities,” Craft told MobiHealthNews. “We believe that at least half of trials today can be done [virtually] with the right expertise and logistics behind them."
Currently, Science 37’s model is also being implemented in trials investigating headache, liver disease, cancer, and diabetes. Earlier this year, the company raised an additional $29 million after receiving an even greater amount in its previous round last year. It currently reports approximately $67 million in total funding. |
Jiangte Motor to take AUD20m stake in lithium miner | A unit of Jiangte Motor plans to buy 57 million shares in Australia-listed lithium miner, Tawana, for AUD20m ($15m) as it seeks to ensure lithium concentrate supply for a company in which it owns 50%. Jiangte will own 11.45% of Tawana after the transaction. | http://www.miningnews.net/markets/capital-raisings/more-backers-for-tawana-and-bald-hill/ | 2017-10-25 09:10:41.440000 | The funding from Jiangte Special Electric Motor Co, which comprises $20 million in equity and $5 million in debt, means Tawana is now all set to begin production next quarter.
The equity was priced at 35c per share, a 5.4% premium to Tawana’s recent trading levels.
Tawana also said it had renegotiated a lower repayment rate for the repayment of a $12.5 million pre-payment by offtaker Burwill Commodity – from 20% per shipment to 15% - the result of which means increased cashflow will be heading Tawana’s way.
Burwill has a downstream lithium joint venture with Jiangte, with the Chinese company described as a “veteran special electric motor manufacturing company … (that) has been actively participating in the development of the new energy - lithium battery industry in recent years”.
Jiangte owns Weier Antriebe und Energietechnik, a German company said to be an electric motor specialist formed in 1945.
Tawana owns 50% of Bald Hill, with its interest being earnt from Singapore listed Alliance Mineral Assets in return for funding development of the venture – with processing infrastructure previously established at Bald Hill for a tantalum mining venture.
Tawana and Alliance executed offtake agreement in April for the supply of lithium concentrate over a five-year term with pricing for 2018 and 2019 of US$880/t (FOB Esperance) for 6% Li2O.
Bald Hill is 50km south east of Kambalda.
Shares in Tawana were up 8% to 39c in midday trade, capitalising the company at $172 million.
The stock is up about 1800% from 18 months ago. |
Homelyfe closes $2.4m seed funding round | Homelyfe, an insurtech firm offering homebuyers policies which protect against gazumping, has closed a funding round having raised $2.4m in seed capital. Tallis Capital and Peterson Ventures led the round. The firm is planning on using the funding to further develop its technology. The firm's online service allows consumers to both find and purchase policies while also serving as a management tool for customers with multiple policies relating to their home. | https://www.uktech.news/news/insurtech-startup-homelyfe-closes-2-4m-seed-20171025 | 2017-10-25 08:57:50.667000 | InsurTech startup Homelyfe has raised £2.4m in a Seed round led by Tallis Capital and Peterson Ventures.
Homelyfe will use the money to continue developing its proprietary technology and to grow its team.
“Our vision for Homelyfe is to build an insurance solution around the needs of the modern consumer,” said CEO and co-founder of Homelyfe, Peter Goodman.
“The insurance industry has seriously fallen down on customer centricity, not interacting with people on the technology they want to use, or with the solutions they expect and not being wholly transparent around pricing. Homelyfe is giving the insurance industry a much-needed update; making insurance simpler to help consumers get the right policy, at the right price, 24/7,” he added.
Homelyfe was co-founded by Goodman and Andrew Craven, serial entrepreneurs who previously set up Brighten Option, now Social.com, which sold to Buddy Media and then Salesforce in 2012.
They launched Homelyfe to enable consumers to do everything from getting insurance quotes and purchasing, to managing and renewing multiple policies and initiating a claim using the smartphone app.
Vasile Foca, managing partner of Talis Capital, said: “At Talis, we believe in combining cutting edge technology with conventional business, and Homelyfe’s modern and consumer-centric approach to insurance fits perfectly with that ideal.”
“InsurTech is an area we continue to monitor closely, especially as it’s a sector experiencing monumental shifts in technology. Peter and his team have built an extremely scalable solution, and we’re delighted to back a company that promises to change the attitudes and experience of the insurance industry.”
Randall Lloyd, of Peterson Ventures, concluded: “When we invest, we’re on the lookout for outstanding entrepreneurs to back. The Homelyfe team has an impressive track record that is supported by a compelling business idea, which addresses a notable gap in a market that is ripe for disruption and improvement.”
Check out our UK tech investment tracker for the latest industry deals. |
World first as woman receives 3D-printed jaw | Surgeons at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital in Wales have used 3D printing to reconstruct a cancer patient's jaw, in a first-of-its-kind procedure. Using detailed CT scans of the patient's face, anatomically precise, 3D-printed titanium plates held a piece of fibula in place to create a replacement jaw, with no adjustments required. The technique, which takes two hours less than the traditional surgery to complete and resulted in improved patient recovery, has proved so successful it was subsequently carried out a further five times, with a sixth operation being planned.
| http://www.3ders.org/articles/20171024-meet-the-welsh-woman-with-the-first-3d-printed-jaw-in-the-world.html | 2017-10-25 08:46:45.247000 | Oct 24, 2017 | By Julia
A woman from Swansea in Wales has become the first person in the world to be fitted with a 3D printed jaw.
Retail worker Debbie Hawkins had developed a tumour in her lower jawbone that was growing at an alarmingly fast rate, to the point of nearly breaking the bone. After a lengthy consultation process at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, it became clear that conventional techniques wouldn’t cut it. A more innovative approach was needed.
Putting together all the resources they could muster, the Hospital’s surgical team developed an ingenious method of reconstructing Hawkins’ jaw via 3D printing—the first of its kind in the world.
Using 3D scanning technology to plan the operation in precise detail, doctors set to work rebuilding Hawkins’ jaw bone through a combination of traditional bone grafts and 3D printed titanium plates customized to fit the Swansea patient’s individual anatomy.
“When they told me what the procedure involved I was scared at first,” Hawkins told press. “I really didn't know what to expect. But what they have done, and the aftercare I have received, has been absolutely amazing.”
After spending two weeks in the hospital after the operation, Hawkins was sent home. She was then able to return to work within three months.
Said to be the first of its kind ever performed, the Morriston Hospital technique is a vast improvement over traditional methods, which involve removing a length of fibula from the patient’s leg in order to replace sections of jaw. Despite its widespread use, this traditional method can comprise the shape of the patient’s jaw line, resulting in the jaw being set too low to accommodate dental implants.
Morriston’s technique, on the other hand, used Hawkins’ CT images to engineer an anatomically precise 3D printed titanium plate which holds the fibula bone in place, maintaining the natural aesthetic shape of the jawline. Cutting guides created by the team ensured that the bone taken from the fibula matched the removed jaw section exactly.
According to Peter Llewelyn Evans, Maxillofacial Laboratory Services manager at Morriston Hospital, "The titanium implant fits the patient's jaw perfectly without the surgeon having to do any adjustment."
The technique proved so effective that the Hospital team has since adopted it into its roster of treatments. Hawkins’ consultant surgeon Madhav Kittur noted that five procedures have already been carried out at Morriston, with a sixth currently in the planning stage.
“It has taken away the uncertainty,” Kittur added. “We know exactly what is going to happen before we go into theater as everything is computer planned.”
Efficiency is among the many benefits of the new procedure: where the traditional operation would take between eight and 10 hours, Morriston’s new technique saves up to two hours of that time. “This is a big advance,” said Kittur. “It’s better aesthetically, the patient is under anaesthetic for less time, and recovery is better.”
Hawkins agrees. "Now and again I do have a few problems with my speech because I'm having to make certain jaw movements," she added. "But I'm feeling much better. I get my odd days but otherwise I'm getting stronger all the time."
Previous 3D printed jaw procedures have involved making prostheses from 3D printed molds. Hawkins is the first patient to have actual 3D printed parts fitted to her face.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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Adam wrote at 10/24/2017 8:14:39 PM:I think Xilloc has been 3d printing HA scaffolds for a few years now and could also have been used here. It's hard to replace such a large chunk of bone, maybe she wasn't a good candidate. The traditional approach may still fare better over time, even if the initial results were better.
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Bank of America submits data transfer blockchain patent | Bank of America has filed the latest in a series of patents covering blockchain technology, focusing on a solution which aims to improve the management and processing of large quantities of data. The US's second-biggest bank has been filing patents for blockchain and cryptocurrency technology since 2014, alongside rivals such as JPMorgan, which is looking to blockchain to help speed up dollar transactions.
| http://usethebitcoin.com/bank-america-presented-patent-blockchain-based-processing-system/ | 2017-10-25 08:33:39.130000 | Stay up to date with news and updates on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and all the cryptocurrencies with us. |
Russia, Angola pass Saudi Arabia as China's biggest oil suppliers | Russia is still ahead of oil rivals such as Saudi Arabia as the biggest supplier of crude oil to China, with imports surging 61% year on year to 6.35 million tonnes in September. Angola now the second largest seller, followed by Saudi Arabia. Russia is now set to be China's primary supplier for 2017 as well as last year, following years of Saudi Arabia being the main supplier.
| https://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/russia-angola-top-saudi-arabia-as-biggest-oil-suppliers-to-china-1.669894 | 2017-10-25 08:12:02.723000 | Russia continues to pull ahead of its oil rivals including Saudi Arabia in China, the world’s biggest energy user.
The Asian nation’s imports of Russian crude jumped 61 per cent to a record 6.35 million tonnes in September from a year earlier, according to general administration of customs data. That helped Russia retain the top spot for the seventh straight month. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, supplied about 10 per cent more at 4.28 million tonnes, while retreating to the third-biggest. Angola was the second-biggest seller.
Russia is on a path to become the top supplier for the full year again, after last year surpassing the kingdom that has been a dominant supplier for years. Russian shipments during the first nine months were 45 million tonnes, the biggest volume among suppliers, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Angola shipped 39.9 million tonnes and Saudi 38.5 million tonnes.
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Russia is dominating amid heightened competition for major markets including China and India as Opec and other producers such as Russia implement output cuts to clear a glut and lift oil prices. The nations that are part of the deal will meet on November 30 in Vienna to discuss prolonging the curbs beyond March.
The Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday that compliance with a global output cut deal in the past nine months had been 102 per cent.
He said compliance by Opec countries had been 100 per cent and compliance by non-Opec countries 106 percent.
Speaking at a business forum in Moscow, Mr Novak said it was too early, however, to take a decision on whether the output deal should be extended beyond the end of March. |
Adelphi buys autonomous vehicle technology firm Nutonomy for $450m | Car parts maker Delphi has bought autonomous vehicle technology company Nutonomy for $450m. Delphi's chief technology officer, Glen De Vos, said the acquisition of the Boston-based outfit was part of the automotive supplier's plan to lead the race in developing autonomous vehicles, although he said that they were unlikely to be for personal use. “The market for consumer vehicles is going to be slow-moving, and that’s going to take some time for the cars you and I buy,” De Vos said. Delphi is based in the UK; however, the Nutonomy team will stay in Boston. | https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16533534/delphi-nutonomy-acquisition-450-million-self-driving | 2017-10-25 08:10:02.717000 | Delphi, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, is acquiring Boston-based self-driving car startup NuTonomy for an upfront purchase price of $400 million as well as $50 million in earn-outs, the companies announced today.
Delphi isn’t as well-known in the self-driving space as its much bigger rivals Uber, Waymo, and Tesla. A GM spinoff now based in the UK, the company has been showing off its autonomous technology for over three years, mostly in Pittsburgh and Singapore. And NuTonomy, which spun out of MIT in 2013, has also been operating autonomous taxis in Singapore since 2016, and recently received permission to test its self-driving vehicles in Boston.
The acquisition is the latest in a series of big-dollar deals in the automated driving sector, as huge automakers and suppliers funnel millions of dollars into tiny startups with the goal of being first to deploy fully self-driving cars. NuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma said today’s deal puts his company and Delphi on the path to winning that race.
“We have, between us, really outstanding technical expertise.”
“We have, between us, really outstanding technical expertise — on the scientific side, on the algorithmic side,” he said during a conference call with reporters today. “We have now deep and long-standing expertise on the automotive engineering side. And we have conduits, pathways, to selling it to all the various businesses that autonomous driving can impact, through traditional OEM channels, and through mobility services.
Iagnemma added, “So I feel great about the fact that this acquisition puts the combined team in the pole position to be one of the winners in the global automated driving race.”
Glen De Vos, chief technology officer at Delphi, said the acquisition will help speed the company’s efforts to bring a fully self-driving car to market — even if that vehicle isn’t one for personal ownership. “The market for consumer vehicles is going to be slow-moving, and that’s going to take some time for the cars you and I buy, that we drive,” he said. “There’s no question that in commercial sector, that automated mobility on demand, logistics on demand, commercial services, transportation services — this is an area where automated driving has really accelerated.”
“The market for consumer vehicles is going to be slow-moving.”
As part of the deal, NuTonomy will combine more than 100 employees, including 70 engineers and scientists, to Delphi's more than 100-member automated driving team. After the transaction is completed, Delphi will have self-driving operations in Boston, Pittsburgh, Singapore, Santa Monica, and Silicon Valley; NuTonomy will continue to be based in Boston, where both companies currently operate pilot programs. By combining efforts with NuTonomy in Boston, Singapore, and other pilot cities around the world, Delphi will have 60 autonomous cars on the road across three continents by years end. |
Motor insurtech introduces insurability metric | The Zebra, an insurtech firm focusing on auto insurance, has introduced a metric allowing customers to see how insurable they are. The firm's Insurability Score tells consumers what is impacting their individual risk and how they can take steps to alter this. The company will use its own technology to analyse clients individually. According to a survey conducted by The Zebra, more than a third of customers believe there is nothing they can do to lower insurance rates. | http://markets.pettinga.com/pettinga/news/read?GUID=35151688 | 2017-10-25 07:58:50.483000 | Data & News supplied by www.cloudquote.io Stock quotes supplied by BarchartQuotes delayed at least 20 minutes.By accessing this page, you agree to the following Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions |
Insurtech Insurdata raises $1m in funding round | London-based insurtech Insuredata, which provides property data to reinsurers, has raised $1m in a recent funding round. The likes of Menlo Ventures, Anthemis Group, and Plug and Play participated in the round. The firm aims to aid insurers in their underwriting and portfolio management activities through providing data. Insuredata also provides 3D-imaging and augmented reality services to clients. | http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2017/10/24/469175.htm | 2017-10-25 07:56:59.017000 | Insurdata, an insurtech firm that provides re/insurance underwriters with property-specific data to support their pricing, underwriting and portfolio management decisions, announced it has raised over $1 million in seed financing from investors including Menlo Ventures, Anthemis Group, and Plug and Play.
London-based Insurdata said it specializes in high-resolution, peril-specific exposures and building-level risk data, using technology that includes mobile augmented reality and 3-D model creation, providing both desktop and mobile solutions.
A range of property-specific data is developed at point of underwriting, including peril-relevant attributes, dimension and elevation measurements, and is made immediately available throughout the risk transfer process, Insurdata explained.
“The quality of exposure data available to the insurance industry for underwriting purposes as well as overall portfolio management is simply not accurate enough,” said Jason Futers, CEO of Insurdata. “At Insurdata, we want to bring greater clarity to the underwriting process through providing the industry at large with access to much more granular and peril-specific data, and ensuring exposure data is always relevant and up-to-date.”
“We are at an early stage, but we’re moving rapidly, and the market reaction has been phenomenal. We already have re/insurers piloting our solutions and benchmarking their data resolution against that provided via our technology,” he added.
“Insurdata is one of our first investments in the insurtech space,” said Venky Ganesan, partner at Menlo Ventures. “It is clear that what the firm offers to the insurance industry through providing data at a level of resolution multiple times higher than currently available will be a game changer for both insurers and reinsurers.”
Ruth Foxe Blader, director at Anthemis, said: “The lack of high resolution data on individual exposures has long been a major stumbling block for the insurance industry in terms of its ability to price risk accurately. What Insurdata provides is the data depth to support a much more refined and precise pricing approach.”
“What is truly ground-breaking about the Insurdata approach is that it offers insurance underwriters the ability to carry out a virtual walk-through of their property portfolios,” said Saeed Amidi, founder and CEO of Plug and Play. “No other insurance technology allows insurers to get this close to the risks they cover.”
Source: Insurdata
Topics InsurTech Tech Underwriting Market Funding |
Premia Partners introduces China A shares ETFs | Hong Kong-based Premia Partners is taking on the likes of BlackRock by launching Hong Kong-listed exchange-traded funds investing in mainland Chinese companies. The funds are being billed as the first Hong Kong-listed smart-beta products focusing on Chinese equities, as well as being the first Hong Kong products to gain exposure to stocks via the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Connects. The launch comes as index provider MSCI prepares to include Chinese equities in its indices next year. That move is predicted to drive between $17bn and $18bn towards Chinese-listed stocks.
| http://www.scmp.com/business/money/stock-talk/article/2116497/chinese-equities-comprising-smart-beta-etf-slated-hong | 2017-10-25 07:43:04.247000 | About US$17 billion to US$18 billion of inflows from asset managers, pension funds and insurers into the mainland equity markets are expected this year as a result of changes in the Emerging Markets Index put out by the MSCI. Photo: AP |
Redrow Redrow opens doors to two further show homes at Amington site | Housing developer Redrow is opening two more show homes at one of its developments in Staffordshire. The company has opened the properties at its Amington Green site near Tamworth and is using interactive 3D technology to help potential buyers visualise the completed development. The properties are being sold with prices from £249,995 and form part of the wider Amington Garden Village project, where 1,100 new homes will eventually be built on 60 hectares of land. The new show homes join four existing ones at the nearby Amington Fairway site.
| https://www.easier.com/137481-more-to-see-at-amington-garden-village.html | 2017-10-25 07:42:07.573000 | More to see at Amington Garden Village
As the first residents move in and work on a landmark garden village in Staffordshire progresses, Redrow is preparing to open the doors to two further show homes.
From November 10, buyers will be spoiled for choice at the Tamworth development. In addition to the four show homes at Amington Fairway, they will also be able to view professionally styled and fully furnished examples of the three-bedroom Sherbourne and four-bedroom Shrewsbury house types at nearby Amington Green.
The two phases form part of the wider Amington Garden Village, which will eventually see up to 1,100 new homes built across 60 hectares.
Pauline Turnbull, sales director for Redrow Homes (Midlands), said: “We only launched Amington Fairway in the summer but, because the homes look very traditional and are being built in a leafy location with lots of mature trees, it already has the appearance of a well-established neighbourhood. This, despite the fact that we’ve only just begun welcoming the first residents into their new homes.
“People love the show homes they’ve seen so far and with the help of interactive 3D technology we’ve been able to give them an insight into the scale of the wider development. We can’t wait to be able to give them a further taste of life at Amington Garden Village with the opening of two more show homes.
“We anticipate that downsizers, or rightsizers as we like to call them, will be drawn to the Sherbourne, while the Shrewsbury will appeal to families. But there’s no hard and fast rule – there’s a home for almost every buyer at Amington Garden Village.”
Between them, Amington Fairway and Amington Green offer a good choice of two, three, four and five-bedroom properties from Redrow’s Arts & Crafts inspired Heritage Collection with current prices from £249,995.
The Sherbourne is surprisingly spacious for a three-bedroom home and perfect for those who want plenty of living space, but fewer bedrooms.
At its hearts is an inviting and sociable open plan kitchen and dining room, with adjoining utility. A relaxing lounge, with feature bay window, is at the front of the property; while a convenient cloakroom completes the ground floor.
Upstairs, all three bedrooms have an en-suite, with the master also enjoying the glamour of a dressing room.
The ground floor of the Shrewsbury is similar in that there’s a combined kitchen and dining room, with handy utility and cloakroom to the rear of the property, and lounge at the front. Journey upstairs and there are four bedrooms, including master with en-suite, plus the family bathroom.
Along with new homes, plans for the wider Amington Garden Village include a retail and commercial area, school and community woodland, all in the green surroundings of a former golf course.
Redrow has committed to invest £14 million in the local area for the benefit of existing and new residents.
For more information about Amington Fairway see redrow.co.uk/amington.
To find out more about Amington Green see redrow.co.uk/amingtongreen. |
The Guardian talks with European publishers about ad fraud issues | UK newspaper The Guardian and European publishers Schibsted and Axel Springer have been discussing how to address issues of tech fraud and excessive fees in the programmatic ad industry, according to Danny Spears, programmatic director at The Guardian. Speaking at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe in Berlin, Spears said the three firms want to "redefine digital advertising", and that using secondary markets was a "Russian-roulette approach to media buying". The UK publisher has increased pricing rules and standardised tech contracts since the 2016 discovery that it received just 30p for every pound spent on programmatic advertising. | https://digiday.com/media/art-buying-crap-guardian-wants-publishers-unite-clean-programmatic/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=daily&utm_content=171025 | 2017-10-25 07:28:25.183000 | The Guardian is in talks with European media owners Axel Springer and Schibsted over how to throttle ad fraud and other opaque practices occurring in the programmatic advertising supply chain.
Speaking at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe in Berlin this week, Danny Spears, programmatic director at the Guardian, appealed to publishers to challenge the status quo in which buyers invest in high volumes of cheap inventory through secondary markets like ad exchanges. The “audience-buying narrative” results in advertisers and publishers becoming exposed to unknown tech fees and ad fraud.
Over the last six months, the Guardian has discussed with Axel Springer and Schibsted how to address these issues. Spears stressed that the aim is not to form any kind of official publisher consortium but to discuss together what meaningful action can be taken to ensure everyone in the digital ad supply ecosystem is accountable for the role they play.
“Our shared vision is to redefine digital advertising, to catalyze its evolution from a fractured, opaque and inefficient marketplace to a competitive ecosystem that delivers unparalleled value to advertisers and publishers alike,” Spears added.
The Guardian has staked out a vocal and assertive position on the side of premium publishers fighting back against what it sees as unfair treatment in programmatic. In 2016, the publisher ran an investigation on its own inventory and found it only received 30 pence for every pound an advertiser spent with it programmatically. Data merchants were siphoning off the rest. In March, that culminated in the Guardian suing former vendor partner Rubicon Project for allegedly not disclosing its fees — an ongoing lawsuit.
“Buying from a secondary market is high-risk and a Russian-roulette approach to media buying,” said Spears. In short, he said, programmatic advertising has spawned “the art of buying crap,” which has shown up in the array of brand misplacement disasters over the last year, including advertisers like BMW appearing on so-called hate-speech sites like Breitbart and others finding their ads next to extremist content on YouTube.
“Today, ad tech wants to control our ad stack, while competing for our customers’ ad spend,” he said. “In short, publishers are being eaten alive from the inside out. Our belief is media sales is our prerogative, and technology should be a mere enabler. Publishers need to restore control of their supply chain and ensure sovereignty over their revenue decisioning.”
The Guardian has been working with its customers to pull its transaction data and map its shared supply chain. That’s helped it overcome some of the market opacity, identify unnecessary costs and friction in the supply chain and allowed it to introduce more pricing rules to create tax-efficient routes for buyers. This has increased its customers’ working media by 30 percent, according to Spears.
The Guardian has also developed a standardized approach to its ad tech contracts that lays out all its terms of engagement for vendors, leading to increased transparency and stronger partnerships. That in turn has converted directly to higher yields and media revenue, unlocking 10 percent incremental net programmatic revenue over the past 10 months, Spears said.
“Despite fraud being derided, we’re yet to hear any real cries of zero tolerance from the middle of the market — I suspect because that will cost volume and margin. But we need to be clear with partners on zero tolerance to fraud. Publishers need change, and so do advertisers,” said Spears. “Publishers must collaborate to build a vision that we are proud to be a part of. That’s where programmatic can finally deliver on its promise.” |
Saudis plan $500bn green megacity where robots outnumber humans | Saudi Arabia has revealed ambitious plans to establish a $500bn city that will spread to Jordan and Egypt, measuring 26,500 sq km in total. Part of the Saudi Vision 2030 scheme, the NEOM development is designed to refocus the Saudi economy, and will be powered entirely by renewable energy. The Saudi Arabia Public Investment fund, which will provide the cash, has said that "all services and processes in NEOM will be 100% fully automated", with the aim of becoming the "most efficient" city in the world. | https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/27/saudi-arabia-invest-500-billion-automated-sustainable-neom-city-egypt-jordan/ | 2017-10-25 07:06:02.673000 | Robots may outnumber humans in a new pioneering city billed by Saudi Arabia as "a new blueprint for sustainable life", which would be entirely powered by renewable energy, and served by driverless vehicles and vertical farms.
The city called Neom is to span an area of 10,000 square miles, stretching across the borders of northwest Saudi Arabia into Jordan and Egypt. It is designed to operate as an independent economic trade zone with its own laws, and is to become the first private business zone to span three countries.
Saudi Arabia will pump $500 billion (£382 billion) from its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, into nine key investment sectors in the city: energy and water, mobility, biotech, food, technological and digital sciences, advanced manufacturing, media, and entertainment.
A website dedicated to the Neom concept states the fields will attract "high-caliber human resources" and that mundane or repetitive tasks will be carried out by robots.
"Repetitive and arduous tasks will be fully automated and handled by robots, which may exceed the population, likely making the Neom's GDP per capita the highest in the world," it reads. "All these elements will put Neom at the world's forefront in terms of efficiency, which will make it the best destination in the world to live in."
Plans for Neom were announced at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday. At the same conference, an intelligent humanoid robot called Sophia announced she had been granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia – the first time in history that an AI device has been awarded such status.
The city would be be solely powered by renewable energy harvested by the sun and wind via fields of solar panels and windmills, creating a pollution-free environment. The population would be fed from the produce of vertical farms and solar-powered greenhouses.
The development of new "disruptive" infrastructure would see citizens travelling in automated vehicles, having access to free internet and online education, and living in zero-carbon homes.
"The focus on these sectors will stimulate economic growth and diversification by nurturing international innovation and manufacturing, to drive local industry, job creation, and GDP growth in the kingdom," said His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, chair of the Public Investment Fund.
The news for the new sustainable city comes as details of the country's Zaha Hadid Architects-designed King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre in Riyadh are unveiled.
"Future technologies form the cornerstone for Neom's development," he added, "disruptive solutions for transportation from automated driving to passenger drones, new ways of growing and processing food, healthcare centered around the patient for their holistic well-being, wireless high-speed internet as a free good called 'digital air', free world-class continuous online education, full scale e-governance putting city services at your fingertips, building codes that make net-zero carbon houses the standard, a city layout that encourages walking and bicycling and all solely powered by renewable energy just to name a few."
"All services and processes in Neom will be 100 per fully automated, with the goal of becoming the most efficient destination in the world, and in turn be implemented on all activities such as legal, government, and investment procedures among others."
The plans are part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, which aims to see the country become an investment hub connecting Asia, Europe and Africa.
The positioning of the city across the borders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan will give it a 468-kilometre waterfront to the Red Sea to the south and west – a key trade route.
Plans to make use of the waterfront will include a marina surrounded by sports, performance and art venues, as well as shops and restaurants, and the creation of a waterpark with a wave machine for training the next generation of olympians.
An image of Singapore's Gardens by the Bay is included in a promotional video for the project, giving a suggestion of what Neom may look like.
The first phase of construction is expected to complete by 2025, but details of what that will entail have yet to be released. By 2030, the city is expected to have received $100 billion (£76 billion) in investment from the Public Investment Fund. |
Redrow New show homes open at Alconbury Weald in Cambridgeshire | Developer Redrow has opened show homes at a new housing development in Cambridgeshire. The company marked the occasion with a launch weekend that included offering free afternoon tea to visitors who viewed the properties at Alconbury Weald. The development includes properties priced from £332,950 ($439,255), with one of the largest four-bedroom style being priced at £402,950.
| https://www.easier.com/137469-three-new-show-homes-inspire-cambridgeshire-buyers.html | 2017-10-25 06:35:37.410000 | Three new show homes inspire Cambridgeshire buyers
Space craving Cambridgeshire buyers can enjoy a taste of life at Alconbury Weald where new Redrow show homes are now open.
Dozens of people attended the launch weekend and were treated to afternoon tea ‘on the house’ by the award-wining homebuilder.
Those who viewed the properties were particularly complimentary about the spaciousness of the designs.
Tonia Tyler, sales director for Redrow Homes (South Midlands), said: “There’s a real sense of curiosity amongst buyers who are keen to learn more about the homes we’re building at Alconbury Weald and the new community taking shape. Now that we have show homes open, visitors can really visualise what life here could be like.
“We’ve had lots of positive feedback from potential purchasers and one of the recurring themes is that people can’t believe just how spacious our homes are. The higher ceiling heights and well planned, family friendly layouts have really captured buyers’ attention.
“Many of those who’ve visited the show homes in the first few days have homes of their own to sell and we’re now working with them to explore how they could use our Mastermove service, or perhaps even part exchange, to become part of the new community.”
The show homes at Alconbury Weald are professionally styled and fully furnished examples of the four-bedroom detached Stratford, Cambridge and Balmoral designs, each with a different look, style and layout.
Redrow currently has three-bedroom properties available from £332,950 and four-bedroom homes from £345,950.
A Cambridge style property, similar to one of the show homes and priced at £402,950, will be ready to move into in December.
The Cambridge features a lounge to the front and an expansive kitchen, dining and family room overlooking the back garden through extra wide patio doors. There’s also an adjoining utility room.
A cloakroom to the ground floor and en-suite to master bedroom help minimise the morning rush for the family bathroom.
With Mastermove, Redrow handles the sale of the customer’s home for them, arranging valuations and appointing an estate agent to market the property at an agreed price so that they can then proceed with the purchase of a beautiful brand new home and become part of the new neighbourhood.
“One of the things that visitors tell us they love about Alconbury Weald is that the new community has so many facilities in place already,” Tonia added.
“It’s perfect for those with children as there’s a primary school and community park, with plans for secondary and special schools. Residents will be able to enjoy a spot of lunch in the café, pick up essentials in the community shop or workout in the gym. Plus, while there’s business space locally at the Enterprise Campus, it’s also a great base for commuters as Peterborough, Cambridge, Northampton and even London are all easily accessible and could be even more so when Alconbury Weald’s very own station opens. Cambridge, for example, is currently around 30 minutes away by car.”
The Redrow show homes at Alconbury Weald are now open daily from 10am to 5.30pm.
For more information see redrow.co.uk/alconbury. |
Panasonic makes it easier for customers to opt out of its marketing | Panasonic has anticipated the hurdles of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), providing its 330,000 B2B customers with an opt-out feature for its email and telephone marketing. The feature will ensure that corporate customers are operating within the law on data protection. The electronics firm is working with marketing tech company Marketo to establish a central records system for customers that have given consent for Panasonic to store and process their data. Panasonic will be able to comply with GDPR enforcement and provide all data held if necessary. | https://digiday.com/marketing/gdpr-means-panasonics-b2b-marketing/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=daily&utm_content=171025 | 2017-10-25 06:35:31.280000 | Consumer marketers may have their headaches with the coming General Data Protection Regulation, but business-to-business marketers have challenges of their own.
For Panasonic, the task is to make it easier for its 330,000 B2B customers to opt out of its email and telephone marketing. B2B marketers do not have to ask everyone on their databases for permission to use their data under the regulation in the same way their business-to-consumer counterparts might have to.
This is a good example of where consent is not required under the GDPR. An electronics firm like Panasonic sending marketing materials to its corporate customers about related products can reasonably rely on “legitimate interests” as the legal basis for processing corporate customer data. As long as those corporate customers who ask for an opt-out option receive one, Panasonic’s email and telephone promotions will be within the law.
Accessing the B2B customer data can be tricky if, like it is at Panasonic, it is held in different parts of the business such as marketing, sales or warranty registration. Working with martech firm Marketo, Panasonic is creating a central system of record for businesses that consented to have Panasonic store and process their data (a move that builds on an older automated system that ensured its marketers could not flout local interpretations of existing EU privacy laws). If an enterprise customer asked Panasonic to reveal all the data it has on them after the GDPR enforcement starts in May, the system would not only show them what Panasonic has and where it is held within the company but would also allow the electronics brand to cease communications if needed.
Legally, it would have been OK for Panasonic to give the customer a disjointed view of how their data exists across all its databases. However, it’s a “pretty horrible experience,” admitted Stephen Yeo, the brand’s marketing director for its enterprise business in Europe. “What we’re trying to do is to make it as easy as possible for customers to tell us if they don’t want to hear from us again, and we’ll look after the rest with our systems.”
With opt-in becoming mandatory for companies under the GDPR, Panasonic is tweaking how it convinces prospective customers to share their data. That’s where it gets sensitive. Panasonic has to say to potential customers, in effect, “If you’re interested in us, could you subscribe because we won’t contact you unless you do,” Yeo said. “Marketing is going to have to become less pushy, which I think is a positive thing.”
The hardest aspect of complying with the GDPR is the governance of data across different regions and offices, Yeo said. If one contract record is non-compliant, the whole business is subject to penalty. And while Panasonic’s lawyers have advised Yeo and his team that only repeat GDPR offenders will be fined, the risks to the brand’s reputation are enough for it to scrap some of the customer data it owns. Yeo’s team is sifting through customer data to identify those Panasonic has not heard from in six years or more and plans to purge them from its databases. |
Drone delivery system 'Flirtey' delivers defibrillators | Nevada-based drone delivery company Flirtey is partnering with non-profit organisation the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority (REMSA) to bring defibrillator machines to cardiac arrest victims. Following a 911 call, the drones are dispatched at the same time as an ambulance, but their as-the-crow-flies method of travel means they are likely to reach a patient more quickly, potentially saving lives.
| http://www.shippingonline.cn/news/newsContent.asp?id=43328 | 2017-10-25 04:08:49.257000 | DRONE delivery service
and community integrated emergency medical service provider
in the US have teamed up to launch the first automated drone service to deliver defibrillators to help first responders treat victims of cardiac arrest before an ambulance arrives.
The drones will be dispatched at the same time as ambulances when REMSA receives an emergency 911 call. The drones are able to fly directly to the scene, and are like to arrive more quickly than ambulances whose response time can vary depending on distance and other factors, such traffic congestion. This allows treatment to begin sooner, improving the victim's odds of survival, reported London's Air Cargo New.
A statement from Flirtey said: "Together, Flirtey and REMSA are developing an emergency response and 9-1-1-integration process to allow for the rapid drone deployment programme - including combining Flirtey's flight planning software into REMSA's highly specialised patient care and transport programmes." |
Corals like the taste of plastic: Duke University | Corals ingest plastic because they like the taste, rather than because it resembles prey, according to a study by Duke University in the US. The research found that “unfouled microplastics” were three times more popular with coral than those polluted with bacteria, suggesting that the taste of the plastic itself appealed to the coral. Further research will now be needed to establish which of the hundreds of chemical additives in plastic are specifically attractive to coral. It might then be possible to manufacture plastic that tastes unappealing in order to reduce the threat it poses to marine life.
| http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5017133/Coral-ingesting-plastic.html | 2017-10-24 22:00:00 | Plastic in our seas is threatening coral, which scientists now believe may see it as tasty food.
There are fears for the future of coral, such as the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for 1,400 miles off the coast of Australia.
But plastic waste may be even more dangerous than originally thought, as chemicals it contains appear to be a delicious marine snack.
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Plastic in our seas is threatening coral, which scientists now believe may see it as tasty food. There are fears for the future of coral, such as the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for 1,400 miles off the coast of Australia
KEY FINDINGS The US researchers looked at microplastics measuring up to five millimetres, or a fifth of an inch. In the first experiment, corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast were offered eight different types of microplastics and other similarly-sized items such as clean sand. They ate every plastic type but mainly ignored the sand. The second experiment saw the corals offered clean plastic fragments or plastic covered in microbes, which are believed to be tasty and nutritious for the tiny marine organisms. Over a 30-minute period, the corals were three times more likely to choose to eat the plastic without the microbes. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->
Corals, unlike the seagulls, turtles and fish which swallow plastic, do not mistake it for prey because they have no eyes.
But a new study suggests it tastes good to them, with coral choosing to eat plastic ahead of sand and nutritious microbes.
The findings, by Duke University, raise concerns because plastic poses a risk of choking or intestinal blockages which could kill off areas of coral reef.
These reefs are important because they support populations of larger marine life like fish, which humans rely on for food.
Austin Allen, who co-led the study with Alexander Seymour, said: 'Corals in our experiments ate all types of plastics but preferred unfouled microplastics by a threefold difference over microplastics covered in bacteria.
'This suggests the plastic itself contains something that makes it tasty.'
Co-author Alexander Seymour added: 'When plastic comes from the factory, it has hundreds of chemical additives on it.
The findings, by Duke University, raise concerns because plastic poses a risk of choking or intestinal blockages which could kill off areas of coral reef. These reefs are important because they support populations of larger marine life like fish, which humans rely on for food
'Any one of these chemicals or a combination of them could be acting as a stimulant that makes plastic appealing to corals.'
The major threats to coral include 'bleaching', which turns coral white as a result of unusually warm ocean temperatures, overfishing and pollution - which includes plastic waste.
The US researchers looked at microplastics measuring up to five millimetres, or a fifth of an inch.
The Daily Mail has campaigned against these plastics, including microbeads found in cosmetics and plastic bags and bottles which form fragments when they break down in the environment.
REPORT REVEALS 95% OF PLASTIC POLLUTING THE WORLD'S OCEANS COMES FROM JUST TEN RIVERS Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research. The top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste. About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources - such as the Yangtze and the Ganges - could almost halve it, scientists claim. Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research. The top 10 rivers, including the River Niger (pictured) accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste Massive amounts of plastic bits that imperil aquatic life are washing into the oceans and even the most pristine waters. But how it all gets there from inland cities has not been fully understood. Now a study shows the top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for 88 to 95 per cent of the total global load because of the mismanagement of waste. The top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste The team calculated halving plastic pollution in these waterways could potentially reduce the total contribution by all rivers by 45 per cent. They analysed data on debris from 79 sampling sites along 57 rivers - both microplastic particles measuring less than 5 mm and macroplastic above this size. They said microplastics in particular can damage the health of marine life but cleaning it all up would be impossible. However stemming the tide could help reduce the potential harm. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_2 - ->
In the first experiment, corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast were offered eight different types of microplastics and other similarly-sized items such as clean sand.
They ate every plastic type but mainly ignored the sand.
The second experiment saw the corals offered clean plastic fragments or plastic covered in microbes, which are believed to be tasty and nutritious for the tiny marine organisms.
Over a 30-minute period, the corals were three times more likely to choose to eat the plastic without the microbes.
In the first experiment, corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast were offered eight different types of microplastics (pictured in a seperate experiment) and other similarly-sized items such as clean sand
The researchers are calling for more research on how taste could make corals more eager to consume plastic.
While they pass the foods they eat, around eight per cent of the plastic stayed in their guts for 24 hours or more.
Plastic could kill corals by convincing the organisms they are full when they are not, so they do not eat the food they need.
WHO DUMPS THE MOST PLASTIC? So much plastic is dumped into the sea each year that it would fill five carrier bags for every foot of coastline on the planet, scientists have warned. More than half of the plastic waste that flows into the oceans comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The only industrialized western country on the list of top 20 plastic polluters is the United States at No. 20. The U.S. and Europe are not mismanaging their collected waste, so the plastic trash coming from those countries is due to litter, researchers said. While China is responsible for 2.4 million tons of plastic that makes its way into the ocean, nearly 28 percent of the world total, the United States contributes just 77,000 tons, which is less than one percent, according to the study published in the journal Science. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_3 - ->
It is also a choking and blockage hazard, while containing potentially gender-bending chemicals which can leach into corals or the fish which eat them.
On the findings, published in the online edition of the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, Mr Seymour said: 'Ultimately, the hope is that if we can manufacture plastic so it unintentionally tastes good to these animals, we might also be able to manufacture it so it intentionally tastes bad.
'That could significantly help reduce the threat these microplastics pose.' |
NHS may rent rooms in private homes to counter “bedblocking” | Patients in the UK could be sent to recover from surgery in private houses, in a scheme similar to that operated by Airbnb, as part of a new NHS trial. The scheme, which will be piloted in Essex by startup CareRooms, is designed to combat bed shortages and save money. However, critics warn that it poses risks to patient safety. Hosts, who could earn up to £1,000 ($1,319) per month, will be required to provide meals and offer conversation. The NHS has seen a 40% rise in so-called “bedblocking” in the past year, resulting in up to 8,000 deaths annually.
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/25/nhs-to-pilot-airbnb-type-scheme-for-patients-recovering-from-surgery | 2017-10-24 22:00:00 | Patients recovering from surgery could be discharged from hospital to recuperate in private houses nearby as part of an NHS trial that could earn those renting out the rooms up to £1,000 a month.
The scheme, which is being piloted in Essex, aims to tackle bed shortages and save money but has been criticised by medical professionals and social workers who warn it would give too much responsibility to untrained members of the public.
A startup, CareRooms, is working with the NHS and councils in Southend and elsewhere in Essex to pilot the model and finalise how it will work. It says patients would benefit from “a safe, comfortable place to recuperate from hospital” as well as helping the NHS.
Hosts would be asked to welcome patients recovering minor procedures, cook three microwave meals a day and offer conversation, according to CareRooms, in a scheme targeting people who do not have a family able to care for them.
So-called “bedblocking” in the NHS has risen by 40% in the past year and is estimated to result in as many as 8,000 deaths annually. On some days 6,000 patients are taking up beds when they no longer require hospital treatment.
The Save Southend A&E campaign group, whose members include doctors and other clinicians, warned it “opens a huge can of worms for safeguarding, governance and possible financial and emotional abuse of people at their most vulnerable time”.
CareRooms, which is part of NHS England’s clinical entrepreneur programme, said its governance and quality would address such concerns. Hosts would be interviewed and be subject to disclosure checks and food hygiene tests. There will also be barring service checks of police criminal records – used by employers, often to avoid problems of employees working with children and vulnerable adults. They would also need to understand some care law, including the Mental Capacity Act, which aims to protect those who lack the ability to make their own decisions about treatment.
Harry Thirkettle, a part-time emergency registrar in Essex who is the medical director of CareRooms, told Health Service Journal: “Everyone’s immediate concern is, understandably, safeguarding. We are working hard to be better than standard practice.
“We are not going off half-cocked … We are not going to start taking on patients until we have satisfied all these different organisations’ governance procedures and committees [NHS providers, commissioners and councils]. We are really carefully considering this and making sure it is as safe as possible.”
The financial model is still to be finalised. Thirkettle said rooms would be rented out to funders at about £100 a night, with half going to the host. The rest would be used to pay for the care services required and a margin kept by the company as profit. He said the assumption was that it would be jointly funded by the NHS and councils. “We may also look to take self-funding patients who pay us directly.” For patients who are prepared to pay the option would be presented by a hospital’s discharge team alongside existing options such as nursing homes, he said.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said it wanted more details before making a full assessment but that the “model of care, as described, raises questions about whether the safety and wellbeing of the individual have been fully considered”.
A spokesman for Southend council said: “We want to make it clear that, at this early stage, the council has only agreed to continue exploring the viability of the project with other partners. We are awaiting further information on how the project will run and the preparation of a detailed business case before we can make any formal commitment or give support to the project.”
CareRooms has set up a stall in the restaurant at Southend hospital to find potential hosts.
Save Southend A&E said that in addition to its safeguarding questions, it was concerned about the way the company was pitching itself as a money-making venture for hosts, rather than emphasising care quality.
It said the company was handing out flyers in the public canteen at Southend hospital this month, which “headline with a financial opener offering people the chance to earn up to £1,000 a month renting out a spare room to accommodate someone needing to recuperate from hospital.
“We are shocked that an NHS trust is endorsing such a company … It is almost weekly that there are reports of abuse and poor care in registered residential and care homes, therefore the monitoring of such ‘placements’ in private homes would be a huge and risky task.”
The pilot involves Southend University hospital foundation trust; Southend and Castlepoint, and Rayleigh and Rochford clinical commissioning groups; Essex county council and Southend council.
The chair of the Mid and South Essex sustainability and transformation partnership, Mike Bewick, a former deputy medical director of NHS England, is an unpaid adviser to the company.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that its registration team did not have a record of CareRooms and could not say whether such a registration would be required. “The CQC will contact CareRooms to better understand their business model in case they are providing something that would fall within the scope of our regulation,” a spokesman said.
The Department of Health said: “As NHS England have made very clear- this is a locally organised pilot scheme for patients following minor operations, not national policy, and to suggest it is a cheap substitute for social care is simply untrue. Any schemes such as these are subject to the strictest quality controls and regulations.” |
Ripple update enhances scalability and reliability | The Ripple cryptocurrency network has released an update that brings increased security, scalability and reliability to the XRP Ledger. It also includes a feature allowing ledger entries to be sorted, which will be enabled in November. Ripple users were urged to adopt the update, as failure to do so could put processing transactions at risk and prevent nodes from participating in the consensus process.
| http://www.livebitcoinnews.com/ripple-team-improves-xrp-ledger-stability-scalability-new-update/ | 2017-10-24 12:18:13.613000 | Earn Your First Bitcoin Sign up and get $12 Bonus Referral bonus up to $3,000 Sign up
The Ripple ecosystem is constantly evolving behind the scenes. With the new rippled client being released, another milestone has been reached. This new version brings several enhancements to the table regarding reliability and scalability. Any server operator is advised to upgrade to this new version as soon as possible. Things are looking pretty promising for Ripple, right now, to say the least.
It is always good to see some more developments in the Ripple ecosystem. More specifically, the network itself is expanding quickly. Unlike regular cryptocurrencies, Ripple is doing things very differently. They mainly rely on the rippled software used by server operators. It is this piece of technology which provides valuable services to the XRP ledger. With a new update recently released, things are looking very promising right now.
A Major Ripple Update
In the new update, we see various enhancements and improvements. Reliability, scalability, and security of the XRP Ledger are all incredibly important. This new release brings some fixed in this regard. Moreover, there is also a SortedDirectories amendment to sort entries in ledger objects. This new feature is expected to be enabled in early November, but it is still advised to upgrade the client as soon as possible.
There are some downsides associated with not upgrading, though. More specifically, determining the validity of a ledger and processing transactions may be jeopardized without upgrading. Plus, non-upgraded nodes can’t participate in the consensus process or vote on future amendments. An interesting turn of events, but also one that makes a lot of sense in this regard. Mandatory upgrades should never be ignored by any means.
This new update will also be deployed to all rippled servers later today. This should take around 4 hours or slightly less. During this phase, the Ripple network will continue to operate without any problems. It is good to see real-time network updates still being a thing in 2017. This also shows how resilient the Ripple network really is. Another notch in the belt for the Ripple ecosystem, that much is certain.
Header image courtesy of Shutterstock |
US government urged to reverse easing of gas flaring regulations | The US government should stop relaxing regulations curbing gas flaring, wrote Mark Peplow in an editorial for Chemistry World. Oil fields can contain a lot of natural gas, but it is often not worth building a pipeline to transport it for sale, meaning the stranded gas is set alight. In addition to being a waste of natural resources, this practice also emits more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. A World Bank initiative aims to eliminate flaring but the Trump administration argues that would be too burdensome for industry.
| https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/extinguishing-the-burn/3008156.article | 2017-10-24 12:17:56.263000 | I’ve never seen a big gas flare up close. Anyone who has, though, could never forget its fearsome roar, like standing next to a jet engine running at full tilt. Then there’s the bludgeoning waves of heat, the intense brightness of the flame and the fine mist of oily droplets that drift from it. All over the world, thousands of these gas flares burn through about 150 billion m3 of gas each year.
Oil fields often contain a lot of natural gas, but a drilling site might be too remote, or the gas reserves too limited, to make it worth building a pipeline to transport the gas for sale. Instead, the cheapest way to deal with this ‘stranded gas’ is to set fire to it. This is not only a wanton waste of natural resources, it also emits more than 300 million tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere every year, accounting for about 1% of anthropogenic emissions.
The World Bank’s ‘Zero Routine Flaring by 2030’ initiative aims to persuade governments and oil companies to eliminate flaring and in recent years it has begun to gain serious momentum. Last year, for example, the US Bureau of Land Management announced new regulations that require oil and gas companies operating on public land to phase out flaring.
Now, President Trump’s administration is – surprise, surprise – trying to derail those regulations. In early October, its attempt to delay the rule’s implementation until 2019 was blocked by a federal judge. But the administration insists it will seek other ways to stymie the rule, arguing that it is too burdensome for industry.
On climate grounds alone, that is willfully perverse. Yet it also ignores the huge opportunities offered by burgeoning technologies that use clever chemistry to turn stranded gas into a variety of valuable products.
Reactor options
One way to make use of stranded gas is to convert it into liquid fuels, which are often easier to transport and use locally. Methane goes through a steam reformer to make a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called syngas, which is then converted into longer hydrocarbons through the Fischer–Tropsch (FT) process. This technology has been around for almost a century, but conventional FT plants need to produce at least 30,000 barrels per day to be economically viable, so they are not suitable to process modest reserves of stranded gas.
But several companies have developed small-scale gas-to-liquids processes that are a perfect fit. Velocys, based in Houston, Texas, makes a microchannel FT reactor that is profitable at production volumes as low as 1400 barrels per day. The reactors are 5m long, and boast millimetre-wide microchannels that dissipate heat more rapidly than a conventional FT reactor. This allows Velocys to pack the channels with a much more active cobalt-based nanoparticle catalyst, boosting the system’s efficiency.
In June, Velocys’ reactors started producing waxes, diesel and naphtha at a commercial plant in Oklahoma City. Those reactors feed on methane from a landfill site, but the technology could also tackle stranded gas at remote oil wells.
CompactGTL, based in London, UK, has demonstrated a similar FT reactor in Brazil that turns stranded gas into synthetic crude, and is planning a commercial plant in Kazakhstan. And GasTechno in Walloon Lake, Michigan, uses an alternative approach to turn methane directly into methanol, deploying its first commercial-scale plant last year. One of the key advantages of these systems is that they are modular – additional reactors can easily be added if gas supplies increase, and even moved to other wells when they dwindle.
Lighting the way
A slew of other technologies are in development. For example, Pallavi Chitta at the University of Utah is working on a molybdenum-zeolite catalyst that converts methane into benzene. Chitta now has funding from Alberta Innovates, a Canadian funding agency, to take the process to the pre-pilot stage by mid-2019.
In May, Jeroen van Bokhoven at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland reported that a copper-zeolite catalyst could produce methanol from streams of methane and water. And in September, Xin Tu at the University of Liverpool unveiled a plasma reactor that could couple methane and CO 2 at room temperature and pressure to form products such as acetic acid.
These are just a smattering of the chemical reactions – and innovative reactors – that could help to curb flaring. One of the major challenges that these technologies will face, however, is raising the capital needed to fund scale-up work and ultimately produce commercial demonstration units. Flaring reduction regulations in the US could nudge companies to invest in these technologies, spurring wider deployment.
Meanwhile, other countries are taking the World Bank initiative seriously. In Nigeria, which is the seventh-largest gas flarer in the world, gas flaring has caused huge damage to human health and the environment in the Niger Delta. Earlier this year, it committed to end routine gas flaring by 2020, and signed an agreement in August that will see stranded gas liquefied and transported to industrial users around the country.
The US government should halt its fight to enable flaring. Instead, it must seize the opportunity to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and start turning a wasted resource into useful products. |
GameCredits to share blockchain tech with Unity's game developers | Global blockchain company GameCredits has agreed a deal with Unity Technologies to bring blockchain solutions to the $100bn videogame industry. The deal includes the integration of GameCredits' GPlay platform into Unity's development software, a move that allows developers to publish directly on to the platform, and GPlay said it will share 90% of gross revenue, paid within 60 hours. Earlier this year, GameCredits raised $53m through a crowdsale. The companies are expected to focus on mobile gaming and eSports, both rapidly growing markets.
| https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/10/24/gamecredits-signs-deal-unity-technologies-bring-blockchain-game-developers/ | 2017-10-24 12:01:52.763000 | GameCredits Inc., a blockchain company driving innovation in the video gaming industry has announced the firm has signed a deal with Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s most popular creation engine, that will bring the benefits of blockchain to more than 3 billion devices and millions of game developers worldwide.
Through this deal, both companies will introduce novel forms of game distribution for the $100 billion* gaming industry, placing a particular focus on the fast-growing world of mobile gaming and eSports. GameCredits’ mobile game store, GPlay, will be integrated with Unity’s game-development ecosystem and developers will be able to effortlessly publish their games directly into GPlay. GPlay will share 90% of gross revenue (instead of the industry standard 70%), and will pay developers within 60 hours (instead of 60 days).
Unity exists to democratize development, solve hard problems and enable success — three core values that are the driving forces of Unity’s adoption by millions of creators. Unity powers more than 50% of all new mobile games and over 2/3rds of all AR and VR content. Interactive content made with Unity reaches nearly 3 billion devices worldwide.
Following a record-breaking $53 million crowdsale earlier this year, GameCredits has been developing a suite of blockchain products for the gaming industry, all under its GPlay initiative. GameCredits recently joined Hyperledger, a Linux Foundation blockchain consortium whose members include IBM, Intel, Cisco, American Express, JP Morgan and other leaders from various industries.
GamesCredits will introduce its blockchain solutions at Unite – the popular developers conferences in Melbourne, Singapore and India in the next few weeks. |
Ad targeting can be used to track a target's location for $1,000 | Ad-targeting technology, costing just $1,000, can track users' locations and other personal data with alarming accuracy, according to a report from security researchers from the University of Washington. Demand-side platforms enable ad buyers to input specific parameters, such as demographic, app choices and mobile model, which can be used to track users' phones within a range of 25 feet whenever apps are open. The team was able to follow a test subject over seven days, successfully locating the person's home and work addresses.
| https://www.wired.com/story/track-location-with-mobile-ads-1000-dollars-study/ | 2017-10-24 11:59:27.427000 | "If you want to make the point that advertising networks should be more concerned with privacy, the bogeyman you usually pull out is that big corporations know so much about you. But people don't really care about that," says University of Washington researcher Paul Vines. "But the potential person using this information isn't some large corporation motivated by profits and constrained by potential lawsuits. It can be a person with relatively small amounts of money and very different motives."
The research team used 10 Moto G Android phones for testing, a mobile banner ad they created, and a website that served as the landing page if someone clicked on the ad. Then they spent the minimum $1,000 deposit to place orders with a so-called demand-side platform—think Facebook, Google AdWords, MediaMath, Centro, Simpli.fi, and others—that allows ad buyers to specify criteria like where their ad appears, for which unique phone identifiers, and in which apps. (They declined to reveal which specific DSP they tested, arguing that nothing about that platform was more intrusive than many others in the industry.)
They then used that DSP to place a geographic grid of location-targeted ad buys around a 3-mile-square section of Seattle, which for their tests they set to appear on the popular ad-supported calling and texting app Talkatone.
Every time a target phone had Talkatone open near one of the coordinates the researchers had set on their grid of ad buys, the ad would appear on it, the researchers would be charged 2 cents, and they'd receive confirmation from the DSP of approximately where, when, and on which phone the ad had been shown. With that method, they they were able to follow their test phones' locations within a range of about 25 feet any time the phone user left an app open in one location for about 4 minutes or opened it twice in the same location during that time span. They registered just a 6-minute delay in the ad network's real-time reporting of the phone's location. Following a human test subject carrying each test phone over seven days, they were able to easily identify the person's home and work address, based on where their target stopped. (See the map above.)
"You’re using whether or not your ad gets served as an oracle to tell you whether or not an event happened: that this particular device was at this location," Vines says. They note that the DSP they used never flagged their behavior as unusual or cut off their account for attempting targeted surveillance.
That tracking method has a couple of serious limitations. The target would have to have a certain app open on their phone at the time they're being tracked, so that the ad can appear. And to track a specific phone, any ad-buying spy would have to know a unique identifier of the target phone, known as a mobile advertising ID, or MAID.
But to get around the first of those limitations, a spy could buy ads against a range of popular apps in the hope that one of them would show the ad. And for the second, the researchers suggest a variety of ways to obtain that MAID, including placing an "active-content" ad that uses javascript to pull the MAID from a phone at a certain location, then use that identifier to continue to track the phone with normal ads. Perhaps more simply, they point out, MAIDs can also be intercepted by someone on the same Wi-Fi network as the target phone. |
Netflix still has no plans to introduce ad breaks or live TV | Netflix has no plans to introduce advertising to its programming, according to a senior executive. The internet TV streaming platform now operates in 190 countries, with 100 million subscribers worldwide, and some industry figures have suggested the company may introduce advertising to boost its revenue. However, Cees van Koppen, Netflix public policy manager for Europe, Middle East and Asia, said remaining ad-free was "very important" to viewers, and that advertising would not be introduced "any time soon, if ever". | http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/10/24/netflix-reiterates-it-has-no-intention-introducing-ad-breaks-or-live-tv | 2017-10-24 11:38:59.093000 | Faced with a looming plateau in the numbers of subscribers Netflix can attract with a market penetration of 190 countries (only absent in China, North Korea and Syria), brands have been hoping the streaming service will open its platform to adverts.
Netflix has said it has no plans to introduce ad breaks "any time soon, if ever"
But Netflix’s aversion to traditional advertising remains unwavering for the foreseeable future, it was revealed today (24 October), as the media company focuses on protecting the customer experience.
Speaking at Westminster Media Forum in a rare appearance, Netflix, which called itself “the world’s leading internet entertainment network”, said its focus on being a personalised streaming service that “gives back control to the user” is an “ongoing effort”.
The internet TV service is constantly iterating its product “as result of user preferences”, said Cees van Koppen, manager public policy EMEA at Netflix, which includes more intelligent personalisation and the introduction of new technology like 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos.
However, when quizzed as to whether its experimentation in new formats would include live TV, as its rival Amazon Prime introduced in May this year with the launch of Channels, van Koppen inferred that broadcasters like the BBC are better placed to offer a ‘hybrid’ model of live programming and on-demand than an internet company would be.
“Live TV streaming, if you think about it, is only relevant when it is urgent and when it is eventful in our minds – like live sports, news, something like The Voice,” van Koppen said. “It is our company’s vision that most of the services that offer content will move into the internet world which means they will find a hybrid between live programming and on-demand. You will have that in one offer from the BBC itself. We are just a licenser of the BBC content and we like to be in business with them as far as co-productions go.”
“I don’t really see us soonish [sic] doing live events and carrying live content from the BBC,” he added.
While Netflix is 20 years old, it has only been a streaming service for half of its life. Von Koppen charted the tech company’s transition from a DVD-by-post service to a content company that has 100 million global members, operates in 190 countries, has 400 original titles and will spend a total of $6bn in original programming this year alone. On its recent earnings call, the company said it expected this budget to rise to between $7bn and $8bn in 2018.
But this investment in original content is not without a cost. The service has said it is expecting to raise $1.6bn in debt due to pouring money into content, and while it recently raised the price of its subscriptions, some in the industry feel that an inevitable stagnation in its growth will lead the service to look to advertising revenue to offset its losses.
That said, Netflix’s reluctance to introduce ad breaks did not waver today, as von Koppen said he didn’t see the streaming service introducing ad breaks to its folds “any time soon, if ever”, much to the chagrin of brands. The service does offer product placement and has made moves in the merchandising space with its popular show Stranger Things, but von Koppen said it is “very important” for its viewers not to have ad breaks, when the service has trained its viewers to expect Netflix content ad-free.
“On demand without ad breaks – you never go back to watching 20 minutes of ad breaks,” he said. |
Nicaragua to sign Paris accord, leaving US and Syria as outliers | Nicaragua is due to join the Paris Climate Accord, leaving the US and Syria as the only countries not part of the agreement. Nicaragua has already presented the required documents to the United Nations, according the country’s vice-president and first lady, Rosario Murillo. Nicaragua was the only country to reject the accord in 2015, calling for even stronger action against climate change. The accord, signed by almost 200 countries, seeks to curb emissions of the gases responsible for global warming. In June, President Donald Trump announced that he intended to withdraw the US from the pact.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/23/nicaragua-joins-paris-climate-accord-us-trump-syria | 2017-10-24 11:29:18.680000 | Nicaragua is set to join the Paris climate agreement, according to an official statement and comments from the vice-president, Rosario Murillo, on Monday, in a move that leaves the United States and Syria as the only countries outside the global pact.
Nicaragua has already presented the relevant documents at the United Nations, Murillo, who is also first lady, said on local radio on Monday.
“It is the only instrument we have in the world that allows the unity of intentions and efforts to face up to climate change and natural disasters,” Murillo said.
Donald Trump said in June he would withdraw the United States from the accord, and Nicaragua’s decision to enter the pact means only two countries will now be outside it – the world’s No 1 economy and war-torn Syria.
Nicaragua, which is often threatened by hurricanes, was the only country to reject the agreement in 2015, and has argued for far more drastic action to limit rising temperatures.
The Paris accord, agreed by nearly 200 countries two years ago, seeks to limit planetary warming by curbing global emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe drive global warming.
The administration of the former US president Barack Obama had pledged deep emissions cuts as part of the deal, but his successor, Trump, has said the accord would cost America trillions of dollars, kill jobs, and hinder the oil, gas, coal and manufacturing industries.
The island country of Fiji will preside over the next round of UN climate talks, from 6-17 November in Bonn, Germany, where environment ministers from around the world will work on a set of international guidelines for the Paris accord.
The latest round of negotiations take place after a string of powerful hurricanes ravaged Caribbean island nations and caused billions of dollars in damage along the Texas and Florida coastlines.
Climate scientists have said warmer air and water resulting from climate change may have contributed to the severity of the storms. The US Environmental Protection Agency has disputed such claims as an attempt to “politicize” natural disasters. |
Brunel researchers 3-D print world's first wearable 'battery' | Brunel University researchers have 3D printed the world's first wearable battery. The London-based team used to 3D printer to create stacks of silicone, glue and gel electrolyte pastes into a wristband, inside of which is a supercapacitor that stores energy like a battery but on its surface. The research, published in Materials Science and Engineering, also shows that the wearable can be produced using cheap supplies from a local hardware shop, rather than expensive metals or semiconductors. | https://techxplore.com/news/2017-10-3d-printer-wearable-battery.html | 2017-10-24 10:48:57.883000 | Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Imagine printing off a wristband that charges your smartphone or electric car with cheap supplies from a local hardware store.
That's the direction materials research is heading at Brunel University London where scientists have become the first to simply and affordably 3-D print a flexible, wearable 'battery'.
The technique opens the way for novel designs for super-efficient, wearable power for phones, electric cars, medical implants like pacemakers and more.
The printer squirts stacks of silicone, glue and gel electrolyte pastes like a layer cake, to make what looks like a clear festival wristband. Sandwiched inside is a supercapacitor, which stores energy like a battery, but on its surface and without chemical reactions.
"This is the first time a flexible supercapacitor including all its components has been produced by 3-D printing," said Milad Areir at Brunel's Cleaner Electronics Research Group. "The most popular way to produce them is screen printing, but with that you can't print the frame of the supercapacitor on silicone."
Researchers in many countries have found new ways to make flexible supercapacitators. But their techniques, which include 3-D laser selective melting machines are expensive and use different machines to print different parts.
"Our technique brings it all together into one process with one machine," said Milad. "It will definitely save time and costs on expensive materials."
The work, published in Materials Science and Engineering, shows the power wristband can be made using cheap products from a household shop instead of sophisticated expensive metals or semiconductors. What's more is that they stand up to stress tests without losing power.
"This has developed a novel 3-D printing method for manufacturing flexible supercapacitators, by one single continuous process using low-cost flexible silicone compatible with the electrode, current collector and electrolyte materials," the study says.
A simple open-source printer connected by USB to a syringe driver with a stopper motor can print the paste layers, with only three or four syringes based on the size of the supercapacitator. The wristbands are printed in a honeycomb pattern, which means less material needs printing, so they are quicker to make. But designers can also experiment with different complex shapes.
The process is easy to copy, the study says, and shows 3-D printing using paste extrusion can be used to develop more sophisticated electronic devices with different mixes of paste.
"In future it can be used for mobile phones," said Milad. "For example, if the phone battery is dead, you could plug the phone into the supercapacitator wristband and it could act as a booster pack, providing enough power to get to the next charging point."
More information: Milad Areir et al. 3D printing of highly flexible supercapacitor designed for wearable energy storage, Materials Science and Engineering: B (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.mseb.2017.09.004 |
Monzo bank now supports Android Pay but not yet Apple Pay | UK digital bank Monzo has made Android Pay available to its current account holders, with the aim of enticing further customers away from the high-street banks. Monzo is still in the process of switching its pre-paid card users to its own bank accounts after gaining regulatory approval to offer current accounts, and said it will allow customers to add its card to Android Pay from inside the Monzo app in the future. However, it has not revealed whether it will eventually support Apple Pay.
| https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/24/monzo-uk-digital-bank-android-pay/ | 2017-10-24 10:39:01.360000 | Monzo, the British "bank" with a coral-coloured card and a clever savings app, has added support for Android Pay. It's only available for users with current accounts, however. Monzo started with a simple pre-paid card, forcing customers to transfer money from an existing bank account to take advantage of its app-based smarts. In April, however, it was approved by the UK authorities to act, well, like a real bank and offer proper accounts. Since then, it's slowly been inviting pre-paid card owners to switch over (the company says all users should be transferred in the next six weeks.)
With Android Pay, Monzo is making it easier for Brits to switch away from high-street banks. (Heck, Barclays still doesn't support Android Pay.) To get started, you'll need to load up you Android Pay wallet and add a Monzo card by taking a photo or entering the relevant details manually. You can then take out your phone and make contactless payments as normal; Monzo will keep track of your spending and list transactions in the "spending feed" section of its app. In the future, the company says you'll be able to add your card to Android Pay from inside the Monzo app too.
The big question now is: What about Apple Pay? For now, that's unclear. We suspect it's on the company's roadmap, however. Some of Monzo's biggest rivals, such as Starling, already support both Apple and Google's payment platforms. It would be strange if Monzo, a startup that prides itself on being more tech-savvy than its competition, didn't do the same. |
UK could lose soil fertility within 30-40 years: Gove | The UK could experience “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” within three to four decades, according to the country’s environment secretary Michael Gove. Speaking at the parliamentary launch of campaigning network the Sustainable Soils Alliance, Gove said that farming “has damaged the earth” and that farmers needed incentives to combat declining soil fertility and biodiversity. The UK government has not carried out regular soil monitoring since 2007, and in 2012 ministers from the country helped block a European Union directive on soil health.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40-years-away-eradication-soil-fertility-warns-michael-gove | 2017-10-24 10:37:26.627000 | The UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” in parts of the country, the environment secretary Michael Gove has warned.
“We have encouraged a type of farming which has damaged the earth,” Gove told the parliamentary launch of the Sustainable Soils Alliance (SSA). “Countries can withstand coups d’état, wars and conflict, even leaving the EU, but no country can withstand the loss of its soil and fertility.
“If you have heavy machines churning the soil and impacting it, if you drench it in chemicals that improve yields but in the long term undercut the future fertility of that soil, you can increase yields year on year but ultimately you really are cutting the ground away from beneath your own feet. Farmers know that.”
Arguing that farmers needed to be incentivised to tackle both the loss of soil fertility and the decline in biodiversity, Gove said that he hoped the SSA, a new body formed with the mission of bringing UK soils back to health within one generation, would hold the government to account and bring him ideas and inspiration. “We are listening to you now and it’s critical that we do so.”
Gove’s speech on Monday afternoon came as UK farmers anxiously wait to see if Brexit will take them out of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, and if so, what will take its place. Defra is currently working on a new agricultural bill and is simultaneously drawing up a 25-year environmental plan. Gove promised both would reflect the concerns of the SSA.
There has been a spike in awareness of the impact that intensive farming techniques are having on the world’s soils and its biodiversity. In 2014 Sheffield University researchers said that UK farm soils only had 100 harvests left in them, and a year later a UN spokesperson warned that at current rates of degradation, the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years. “It feels as if soil is now a hot topic,” said Helen Browning, head of the Soil Association. Meanwhile a new German study has revealed that numbers of flying insects have fallen by up to three quarters. Intensive farming techniques that encourage the heavy use of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides are believed to be major factors in these problems.
The UK has a poor record in this area. The government has not been conducting regular soil monitoring since the last Countryside Survey in 2007, and in 2012 UK ministers helped block a critical EU soil health directive. Even a year ago, experts such as Peter Stevenson at Compassion in World Farming felt there was no real appetite for reform of intensive farming.
But environmentalists are now increasingly hopeful that, unlike his predecessors at Defra, Gove will take this issue seriously. In July he said that the UK would not move towards “US-style farming” and would prioritise “high environmental and animal welfare standards”. “There’s been quite a dramatic shift in understanding around what we’re doing to our soils,” said Browning. “Everyone is quite bowled over by some of the comments that Michael Gove is making.”
Gove said he hoped the Sustainable Soils Alliance, a body formed to bring UK soils back to health within a generation, would hold government to account. Photograph: Courtesy of NFU
Gove, as one of the leaders of the leave campaign, has a huge stake in making post-Brexit environment and agriculture policy a success, and key farming organisations appear to be shifting their positions on soil issues. The National Farmers Union, who were present at the event, have long been defenders of intensive farming. But three years ago they set up an environment forum, and yesterday its chair Mark Pope said that he is seeing a surge of interest and support for these issues from NFU members. In a blog published on the NFU website earlier in the week, Pope wrote: “We only get one lot of soil on our farms, so poor management could have major, irreversible impacts for many years to come.”
“There is a groundswell of interest in this, a terrific opportunity,” said Rebecca Pow MP, parliamentary private secretary to Michael Gove. Pow was brought up on a farm and worked as a journalist specialising in the environment, food and farming before becoming an MP in 2015, and she has been an energising force around the issue of soil and sustainable farming in parliament. “I voted remain,” she said yesterday. “But nevertheless, there is an opportunity here that we wouldn’t have had before.”
“The UK used to be the world’s leading agronomic centre, and could be again,” argued Tim Smit, the founder of the Eden Project. He wants to see “a new agricultural revolution”, elevating agronomy – the science of soil and crops – to a better respected profession, and turning the UK back into a world leader in soil and farming expertise. |
Fitbit smartwatch payments arrive in the UK | Fitbit has launched a contactless payment platform in the UK, following its launch in the US and other countries in recent weeks. The service is only available on the company's new Ionic smartwatches, and currently only supports payments from customers of the online Starling Bank, though more banks are expected to adopt the technology in the coming months.
| https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/24/fitbit-pay-ionic-uk/ | 2017-10-24 10:37:25.067000 | Fitbit's first smartwatch can now make payments in the UK Only Starling Bank customers can use the feature right away, though.
Convenient contactless and mobile payment options are a dime a dozen these days, but that isn't discouraging Fitbit from throwing its keys into the bowl. After launching in the US and elsewhere during recent weeks, Fitbit Pay is now live in the UK, if not with a few catches. For starters you're going to need one of Fitbit's new £300 Ionic smartwatches, the company's first wearable that isn't geared solely towards activity tracking. Then there's the fact that at launch, it only supports Starling Bank, one of the UK's relatively new, branchless outfits that digs into your payment data to help you better manage your money from your mobile.
Fitbit Pay is available now with Starling Bank!
Use your Fitbit Ionic to make purchases on the go without a wallet or smartphone. pic.twitter.com/H7VXI9oJpa — Fitbit UnitedKingdom (@FitbitUK) October 24, 2017
Provided you fit within this pretty strict criteria, you can start using your new Ionic smartwatch to make contactless payments sans wallet or smartphone. We expect plenty more banks, including some of the bigger names, to play nice with Fitbit Pay before too long. That said, Barclays was notably slow in adopting Apple Pay and shunned Android Pay entirely in favour of its own mobile app, so even among some of the larger financial players, it's not always obvious how these things shake out. |
Shift Technology raises $28m, plans fraud research programme | Insurtech Shift Technology is planning a research programme focusing on fraud detection following its latest funding round. The firm raised $28m. The firm says it can detect up to 75% of fraudulent claims due to its use of artificial intelligence and data analysis. Shift Technology says the industry average is identifying 31% of claims. | https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/fraud-buster-shift-technology-in-huge-series-b-funding-round/1425369.article | 2017-10-24 10:32:15.357000 | Shift Technology has raised $28m in its Series B funding round as it looks to take on new markets
Shift Technology will fund a research programme to change the claims space following a $28m (£21m) series B funding round. It will also boost its team and work on new fraud detection products as it looks to continue expanding internationally.
Machine learning, artificial intelligence and graph theory are used in Shift’s software to catch fraudulent claims. The company says it is able to spot three quarters (75%) of suspicious claims, while the industry average is only around a third (30-35%).
In two years it has processed over 100 million claims for property/casualty insurers across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Shift’s series B funding round was led by Accel and General Catalyst. Previous investors Elaia Partners and Iris Capital also took part. It follows a $10m Series A raise in May 2016.
Investor General Catalyst managing director Adam Valkin said: “Shift’s AI-driven fraud detection solution has quickly delivered impressive results for some of Europe’s leading insurers. We believe the company is positioned to have a significant impact on the insurance industry as it expands internationally and widens the scope of its offering.”
Shift Technology co-founder and chief executive Jeremy Jawish added: “We’ve seen strong demand globally since our launch, and we’re excited to be able to expand our offering further internationally. The U.S. and Japan are two of the biggest insurance markets in the world, and there is a huge opportunity to help their insurers detect fraud as effectively as possible.”
Shift will now look to open offices in Tokyo and New York in Q1 2018. |
Singapore to ban additional cars on roads from 2018 | Singapore will cap the number of private cars on its roads from February 2018. The growth cap, which covers passenger cars and motorcycles, will be reduced from its current 0.25% per year to zero, according to the country’s Land Transport Authority. The new cap will not apply to buses and goods vehicles, and the government has pledged to spend SGD28bn ($21bn) on public transport over the next five years. The city-state currently has 5.6 million inhabitants and just 600,000 private cars. In order to purchase a car, consumers are required to obtain “certificates of entitlement”, which permit ownership for ten years.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/singapore-no-more-cars-allowed-on-the-road-government-says | 2017-10-24 10:22:14.547000 | Singapore, one of the most expensive places in the world to buy a vehicle, has announced it will freeze the number of private cars on its roads from next year but vowed to expand public transport.
The growth cap for all passenger cars and motorcycles will be cut from 0.25% a year to zero with effect from February, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said.
The affluent city-state of 5.6 million people already imposes a quota on the number of vehicles sold and the number on its roads, and has avoided the massive traffic jams that choke other Asian cities.
Singapore makes it costly for those wanting to buy a vehicle, who must first get a “certificate of entitlement”, valid for 10 years – the average cost of a certificate is currently around Sg$50,000 (US$37,000).
A Toyota Corolla Altis, a five-door sedan, can cost up to around Sg$111,000 in Singapore, including the price of the certificate, or about four times what it costs in the US.
There were more than 600,000 private cars in Singapore at the end of 2016.
No timetable was given for the freeze but the number of buses and goods vehicles will be allowed to continue growing.
In a statement announcing the change Monday, the LTA said 12 percent of Singapore’s total land area was already taken up by roads and there was limited room for expansion.
However it said the government would spend Sg$28bn over the next five years to expand and upgrade the transport system, including the metro, which has recently faced criticism for a series of breakdowns. |
Contactless payments to replace New York subway MetroCard | New York is set to follow other world cities and introduce contactless payments to its transport network. The city's transport authorities have approved a $573m contract to implement the new payment network, replacing the existing MetroCard system of swipe cards. New electronic readers will be installed at subway stations and on buses, with customers able to use contactless bank cards as well as mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay. Similar systems already operate in other cities, including London and Tokyo.
| http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/10/new-york-city-replace-metrocard-contactless-payments/ | 2017-10-24 10:22:06.483000 | It is no secret that contactless payments are starting to become a more popular option compared to using cash or other older methods of payments, such as swiping cards. In fact in several parts of the world, contactless payments have become more or less standard and ubiquitous.
That being said the good news for residents of New York City is that it looks like the city’s subway is expected to start adopting contactless payments on a wider scale, according to a report from the New York Times. A committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has recently approved a $573 million contract for a new fare payment system that will allow contactless payments, such as Apple Pay where users can make payment using their iPhones or Apple Watch.
These new electronic readers will be installed in 500 subway turnstiles and on 600 buses in New York beginning late next year, and is expected to eventually cover the city’s entire subway and bus system by late 2020. This will also eventually replace the current method of using the MetroCard which can be prone to swipe errors, and could also save users time from having to top up their cards when it runs low.
Like we said, this is not the first time contactless systems are being introduced to public transport. Over in cities like London and Tokyo, similar systems have already been put into place.
Filed in . Read more about Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. |
Indian online exam prep start-up Toppr raises further $6.9m | Indian edtech firm Toppr has raised $6.9m in a series B funding round led by SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures and FIL Capital Management, taking its total funding to $12m. Toppr provides tailored educational content for children aged between five and 12, and exam preparation materials. Toppr has a presence in many cities in India and the funds will be used to increase user numbers and support plans to open centres in 30 cities by December. CEO Zishaan Hayath said he expected the investment would take the company to "full profitability". Toppr has more than two million registered users.
| https://inc42.com/buzz/elearning-toppr-funding/ | 2017-10-24 10:06:32.637000 | Toppr Will Use The Funding To Accelerate User Acquisition And Expansion
Mumbai-based personalised elearning solutions provider and online test preparation platform, Toppr has raised $6.92 Mn (INR 45 Cr) in its Series B funding, led by its existing investors SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures, and FIL Capital Management.
So far, Toppr has raised a total of $12 Mn funding. Last year in May, Toppr had raised about $10 Mn in the second round of funding led by Fidelity and its existing investors which includes Saif and Helion. Post that, in October, it had raised $2 Mn round from Venture Debt provider Innoven Capital. The startup has used the funds to fuel growth of the adaptive platform with over 2 Mn registered users and over 1 Mn app downloads.
Commenting on the funding round, Zishaan Hayath, CEO & Founder, Toppr stated, “This is the second round of series B funding by our existing investors. It is the reflection of our healthy unit economics and a reinforcement of the belief that the investors have in us. This capital will be used to expand the geographical footprint and accelerate user acquisition. We expect this capital to take us to full profitability.”
A brainchild of IIT alumni, Zishaan Hayath and Hemanth Goteti, the elearning platform was founded in 2013. It is personalising education for students from classes 5 to 12, across CBSE, ICSE, and various state boards. The startup provides tailored content that helps students learn better. It is also enhancing the way they prepare for board and competitive exams like IIT JEE and NEET, among others.
Till today, the platform’s community of 8000+ educators from across the country has contributed 1 Mn learning pieces, including questions, solutions, concepts, and videos for the students signed up on the app. Users spend nearly two hours a day on the elearning platform and 90% students renew their subscriptions when going to a new class, as claimed by the Toppr team. Toppr also claims to have cleared 1.1 Mn doubts, provided 9 Mn tests, and 110 Mn practice questions answered.
The elearning platform has a strong presence across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur, Jaipur, Kota, Vijayawada, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Gurugram, and Baroda.
In February 2016, Toppr also acquired edtech startup Manch. The company is pursuing aggressive expansion plans, to reach out to students across the country and open centres in 30 cities by December 2017. Toppr projects 20x growth in its junior grades and 15x growth in its senior grades subscription by 2021, making it a company with over $500 Mn in revenue in the next four years.
Other startups in the online test preparation space include Embibe, Examify, TestBook among others. Last year, Amazon India also announced launch of Exam Central bookstore, to provide exams related information, preparation books and other study material to students and job aspirants on its portal.
In India, elearning will see approximately 8x growth in the next five years, says a recent report by Google, KPMG. This will have a significant impact on the edtech market that has a potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from where it stands now i.e. $247 Mn. As per Ken Research’s report, during the period FY’ 2010 – FY’2015, the online test preparation market grew at an unprecedented CAGR of 17.8%. In the same report it was highlighted that the online test preparation market is expected to have around 19-26% share in the total market (about $100 Bn) by FY’ 2020-21. Thus, with the recent funding, Toppr has a great opportunity ahead to cash upon the burgeoning elearning market in India as well as globally. |
VR tech allows puppet-like control of rescue robot | Scientists from the University of Tokyo have enabled their Jaxon robot to perform movements such as walking and and stepping with a telepresence system. The team used an HTC virtual reality Vive system which sent mapped human movements as commands to the robot. The addition of extra software ironed out any wobbles or trembles, allowing the machine to move smoothly and in a stable manner. Researcher Ishiguro Yasushiro admitted there remain weaknesses in the system to be ironed out, but said it had greater "flexibility and responsiveness" than rival designs, and could find applications as a rescue robot. | https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16507456/rescue-robot-puppet-htc-vive-controllers | 2017-10-24 09:58:22.203000 | Rescue robots could be incredibly useful tools in the future, diving into situations too dangerous for humans. But if you’ve seen current-generation robots try to tackle these sorts of scenarios, you’ll know even the most advanced lack the coordination and flexibility of movement required. To fix this, a group of researchers from Japan are trying a new method of robot-control, letting a human operate a bot essentially like a giant puppet.
This sort of remote control system isn’t new, and usually comes under a branch of research known as “telepresence.” However, scientists from the University of Tokyo say their method (presented last month at the IROS conference) is more advanced than predecessors’. Earlier systems used smaller robots or only controlled the upper half of the bot; theirs controls an entire robot as big as an adult human, using controllers from HTC virtual reality Vive system.
The Vive’s “lighthouse” sensors are used to track its controllers in 3D space using infrared light. By strapping a controller to each foot and hand, the researchers were able to map their movements and send them as commands to their robot. The really clever part, though, is the intermediary software that ensures any motion sent to the robot are tweaked to fit its capabilities.
JAXON takes a few wobbly steps. Image: University of Tokyo
“For example, stepping at a walking speed is allowed, but running and jumping are forbidden,” researcher Ishiguro Yasushiro tells The Verge over email. Jerky movements are smoothed out, and fast ones slowed down, he says. “We force the robot to keep its gait always safe.” Yasushiro admits that the system still has “many weak points,” but claims its offers more flexibility and responsiveness than other designs.
The robot itself was built several years ago by the university and is known as JAXON. It previously competed in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, which is meant to test bots in disaster scenarios. Although these humanoid machines are currently too unwieldy to be used in the field, it’s hoped that they’ll be more convenient in the future. After all, if they have to navigate a space built for humans (with doors, and handles, and valves), it’s handy to be human shaped. |
Zelle partners with IBM to expand P2P payments service | US peer-to-peer payment app Zelle is set to grow beyond its current network of 50 financial institutions following a partnership with IBM. The deal means any bank using Big Blue's Financial Transaction Manager will have access to Zelle's service, enabling their customers to send and receive money in minutes, compared with the 24-48 hours it takes rivals. During Q3 2017, Zelle signed up an average of 65,000 users per day and enabled 60 million payments worth $17.5bn.
| https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/31235/zelle-partners-ibm-for-p2p-payments-push | 2017-10-24 09:24:00.393000 | As it reports soaring consumer take up, US bank-backed P2P payments app Zelle has teamed up with IBM to help bring the service to more financial institutions.
Launched a year ago, several of America's biggest banks already incorporate Zelle within their apps, while a recently introduced standalone app lets anyone access the service through the debit card accounts.
And customers are flocking to the network, with an average of 65,000 signups a day during the third quarter, resulting in 60 million payments worth $17.5 billion.
The network now claims more than 50 financial institutions and can expect to grow thanks to a new collaboration with IBM which will see any bank using Big Blue's Financial Transaction Manager get access to Zelle and the capability to send and receive customers' money in seconds.
According to IBM, the deal give banks the first solution to support the full lifecycle of P2P transactions, from the back office to the mobile device - without heavy IT spend or disruption to legacy systems.
"The integration of FTM with Zelle not only accelerates and simplifies payments through real-time processing between banks and consumers, it enables same-day deposits and bill pay, removes fees, and offers seamless cash flow, all while remaining compliant with regulatory requirements," says Alistair Rennie, GM, Watson Financial Services Products, IBM.
He adds: "For customers, this means being able to securely send and receive money in minutes, rather than waiting 1-2 days to 'cash out' which is standard among other providers such as Apple Pay and Venmo. This solution removes the friction typically experienced with other providers who essentially serve as a 'digital check' and not real time payments." |
Expro creates TCP gun for challenging fracturing and gravel projects | Oilfield services company Expro has launched a high-pressure tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) gun system for fracturing and gravel projects. Developed in collaboration with GEODynamics, the Extreme Pressure Series 30,000 PSI TCP gun system is designed for use in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. It offers the largest perforation hole area available for fracturing and gravel operations, and can perform equally well in extreme high pressure and lower pressure wells. | http://www.scandoil.com/moxie-bm2/news/technology_news/expro-launches-tcp-gun-system-for-extreme-high-pre.shtml | 2017-10-24 09:20:51.747000 | Edit page New page Hide edit links
Expro has launched a new extreme high pressure tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) gun system, delivering the largest perforation hole area available for frac and gravel pack completions (photo: Expro)
International oilfield services company, Expro, has launched a new extreme high pressure tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) gun system, delivering the largest perforation hole area available for frac and gravel pack completions.
Designed specifically for challenging deep water environments in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), the Extreme Pressure Series 30,000 PSI TCP gun system utilises super big hole charge technology, providing best-in-class area-open-to-flow (AOF) to support frac- and gravel-pack operations. Delivering 18-22 shots per foot using steel HMX charges, standard casing sizes of 7 inches through 7-3/4 inches, in combination with the 4-3/4-inch OD system, will achieve 6 to 7 inches AOF. However larger casing sizes of 9-5/8 through 10-3/4 inches, utilising the 6 5/8-inch OD system, will deliver 13 to 15 inches AOF.
Developed in collaboration with high performance gun system provider, GEODynamics, the system is complemented by Expro’s fully rated dual hydraulic firing heads and drill stem testing (DST) tools for underbalanced perforating applications. These systems offer cutting edge technology to deliver efficient completions, alongside optimal well performance.
Expro’s DST/TCP Product Line Director, Ron Fordyce says, “Expro has built a strong reputation as a leading TCP provider in the GoM, working with a range of major clients over the past 30 years. Following a growth in activity associated with deep wells in deeper waters, we knew it was important to deliver the right technology solution for this environment. GEODynamics has an unsurpassed reputation for their gun systems and associated products. Alongside our reputation for safety and service quality, the new Extreme Pressure Series, provided exclusively by Expro, can now deliver similar performance for extreme high pressure as it would for lower pressure wells.”
Expro’s DST/TCP Global Business Development Manager, Kerry Daly adds, “The 30,000 PSI TCP guns and associated equipment were specifically designed for the deep water environment, where operators typically frac or gravel pack wells after perforating and require the most AOF possible. Now fully field tested, they can deliver an industry leading perforating hole size for achieving optimal completions and subsequent performance from the well. It allows us to bring a key piece of technology to the market place, to support a range of clients due to spud their wells in 2018 – a key driver of this partnership from the outset.”
Expro’s TCP operations are supported from its service centre in Broussard, Louisiana, alongside the Company’s broader suite of subsea, well test, well intervention and fluid product lines across North and Latin America (NLA). |
Deloitte predicts robo-advice could be bigger than BlackRock | Robo-advisers could have $2.2tn in global assets under management by 2020 and had the potential to surpass the likes of BlackRock by 2025, according to a recent study from Deloitte. Investors' preference for passive investing is behind an increase in flows towards the platforms. The desire of wealth managers to digitise their offerings in the face of squeezed profit margins is also driving the growth of robo-advice.
| http://www.altfi.com/article/3623_robo_advice_to_be_bigger_than_blackrock_claims_report | 2017-10-24 08:24:10.767000 | The market for disruptive wealth management has exploded, but could it displace the world’s largest asset manager by 2025?
Assets managed by robo-advice platforms and digital wealth managers could surpass that of incumbent giants such as BlackRock within a generation, according to a new report.
Compiled by Deloitte, it forecasts a 2020 market size of $2.2trn for robo advisers, growing to $16bn by 2025. The current assets under management of the biggest incumbent in the market today BlackRock is less than this. Of course, BlackRock, for example, is also a huge beneficiary of the growth is passive investing brought about both directly and indirectly through robo advice. In addition, the firm has a chunky stake in one of the UK market leaders Scalable Capital.
While this all sounds very bullish for robo-advice, the report notes that total levels of assets managed by traditional players is likely to remain high as a percentage of total assets. Nonetheless, it says a broader process of ‘digitisation’ is occurring within the wealth management space.
“Digital transformation of the wealth management industry is not a pure technological challenge. As the likelihood of returning to pre-crisis revenue margins is remote, wealth managers need to reinvent their business model to adapt to existing clients’ changing needs and to capture new clients while reducing operating expenses on a relative basis” the report noted. |
Self-managing artificial pancreas controls glucose levels | Researchers at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have carried out a 12-week trial on an artificial pancreas (AP) which uses an adaptive algorithm to automatically monitor and adjust glucose levels in patients with type 1 diabetes. In a report published in the journal Diabetes Care, the team's AP system linked an insulin pump, a continuous glucose monitoring receiver and a smartphone. The trial of 30 adult patients saw less than 10% of algorithmic insulin delivery recommendations overridden, and fewer adjustments to the algorithm were needed as the weeks passed. | http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/artificial-pancreas-automatically-manages-diabetics-glucose-levels?utm_source=The+Medical+Futurist+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ac2906de27-Newsletter_2014_07_177_17_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_efd6a3cd08-ac2906de27-420576665 | 2017-10-24 08:13:26.523000 | A novel artificial pancreas (AP) system with a smartphone backbone could automatically monitor and adjust patients' glucose levels with little to no hassle, according to a new clinical study published in the journal Diabetes Care.
Unlike previously examined AP systems, the newest iteration — which consists of an insulin pump, continuous glucose monitoring receiver, a Bluetooth-connected smartphone device — uses cloud-based algorithmic calculations to determine weekly adaptations to patients’ insulin delivery without requiring assistance from users or clinicians.
“A limitation of current AP systems is that patients must still input carbohydrate estimations for delivery of meal insulin boluses,” the researchers wrote in the study. “As a result, a number of recent AP studies have included a period of clinician-led optimization of open-loop insulin pump settings or continued clinician adjustments to these settings throughout their use … To help with this process, different degrees of automated adaptation are being developed. Yet how best to optimize adaptation to safely improve glucose control … remains to be determined.”
The researchers’ efforts to develop an adaptive algorithm are based on a previous strategy called “model-predictive control.” By targeting an acceptable glucose level range and building an algorithm that improves with repeated daily cycles, the system can handle basal control and variations due to meals without manual assistance.
To test the automated system, researchers enrolled 30 adult patients with type 1 diabetes in a multi-site clinical trial. Over the course of the 12-week study they observed patients’ hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels, a key indicator of blood sugar for diabetics, along with other secondary data generated by the continuous glucose monitoring device. The results, they wrote, were promising.
“This is the longest test we have conducted of our algorithm in an outpatient setting, hence it is a demonstration of the remarkable robustness of the algorithm,” Frank Doyle, professor and dean at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, told MobiHealthNews in an email. “It is also the first time we have tested a real-time algorithm with adaptation, showing the power of personalizing the solution to the individual.”
Along with significantly lower levels and a reduction in hypoglycemia, the researchers also noted that less than 10 percent of algorithmic insulin delivery recommendations were overridden through the course of the study. In addition, the greatest changes to delivery were made in the early weeks of the study, with lesser adjustments becoming necessary as the algorithm adapted. Despite some limitations in study design and population, the system “has the potential to deliver enormous benefits” and warrants continued study into adaptive AP systems, they concluded. |
California marijuana farms suffer from lack of insurance | Northern Californian marijuana farms damaged by recent forest fires in the region are bemoaning a lack of insurance coverage. Many facilities in the region have been unable to find coverage due to marijuana usage being illegal under US federal law. Adult usage of marijuana for recreational purposes is due to become legal in California in January, and the crop is already used medically and to produce products such as oil.
| https://www.marketplace.org/2017/10/23/business/devastated-northern-california-marijuana-farms-ineligible-insurance | 2017-10-24 07:49:35.890000 | As wine growers assess the damage from the Northern California wildfires, marijuana farms are also counting their losses. But unlike other businesses, they have little reprieve.
“We’ve lost millions of dollars of product for sure,” said Ned Fussell, CEO of CannaCraft. “And we have no insurance.”
Even though California will begin issuing licenses for commercial cannabis starting in January, farmers like Fussell do not qualify for crop insurance, because growing marijuana is still against federal law.
Fussell’s company — one of the largest cannabis manufacturers in California — grows marijuana plants and turns them into cannabis oil, which is used to create over 100 different products. Fussell owns about 20 farms in Northern California, but he’s been able to access only a few of them. The others are in fire zones, still burning.
“As bad as this looks, others are a lot worse,” Fussell said Monday morning. “A lot of them are just totally incinerated.”
Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, said many smaller farmers lost not only their farms, but also their homes.
“This all comes at about the worst timing,” Allen said. “October is harvest season, and many of these farmers have poured their life savings into this business.”
On Fussell’s farm in Santa Rosa, smoke still rises from what once was a 10,000-square-foot curing barn, where CannaCraft stored and dried marijuana before pressing it for oil.
Fussell points into the only thing left standing, a 40,000-square-foot greenhouse with hundreds of marijuana plants inside. There are dozens of heavy industrial fans blowing, and Fussell said there’s a 50-50 chance that even this crop has been ruined by the smoke.
“We’re just concerned about what contaminants might be in the air. We’ll have to test for all those things now,” Fussell said.
Fussell is using a gas generator to pump the wells for water to preserve what little crop is left. He said that while it is devastating, pot farmers are resilient, and they’ve already gone through a lot to get this far.
“We’ve been kicked down many times before, and I’ve always found it’s really important to just kind of keep a level head through it all and just try to, like, see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Fussell said. “And I look all around us, and see so many people have lost so much more. It’s sobering.”
Fussell’s company is now doing what it can to assist other farmers affected by the fires. They’re forming a nonprofit to collect donations for smaller farmers who were wiped out.
“Not everyone will survive this,” he said. “These fires will have profound effect on the industry.” |
Lifebroker launches insurance quote chatbot on Facebook Messenger | Australian life insurance comparison provider Lifebroker has teamed up with Jade Software to launch a Facebook Messenger chatbot. Known as Alfred, the bot will be able to answer customer questions and offer quotes on policies within five minutes, the company said. Alfred will use artificial intelligence and is being touted as responding more naturally to consumer questions, rather than simply providing stock responses. | https://itbrief.com.au/story/lifebroker-and-jade-software-launch-facebook-chatbot-life-insurance-quote-comparisons/ | 2017-10-24 07:28:56.423000 | Life insurance comparison service Lifebroker has announced the launch of Alfred, a Facebook Messenger chatbot that gives consumers 24/7 access to conversational quote comparison services.
Alfred is the Australian life insurance industry's first chatbot that compares life insurance options in real-time.
Built with the support of Jade Software, Alfred was designed to respond to customer questions and provide them with quotes for life insurance cover within five minutes of messaging.
Alex Homer, Lifebroker CEO, says Alfred was developed to deliver customer service improvements by providing them with better access via social media channels and enhanced access to the service out-of-hours that complements Lifebroker's existing channels. “Alfred provides an option for customers who need quick responses and who enjoy using messaging services to connect with companies. Our insights showed that product research is usually done outside of normal working hours, and a chatbot can be available instantly and at any time, giving consumers a convenient way to learn about their insurance options on their own terms.
“Conversations with Alfred can be paused and resumed at will throughout the day and consumers can book an appointment with one of our customer service representatives to discuss more advanced questions.
“Alfred is a very welcome addition to Lifebroker's team of customer service experts, working alongside our existing operations on phone, email and online chat. By integrating our digital and human interactions, we're providing a more engaging and seamless customer experience,” says Homer.
By leveraging artificial intelligence like natural language processing, Alfred has the ability to respond to consumers in context, and with a sense of humour, as opposed to providing stock responses.
Eduard Liebenberger, Jade Software digital head, says Alfred was made using a number of technologies that mirror the intelligence and interaction of human agents.
“User experience is what really makes this chatbot special. It creates the soft skills that make people want to interact with a chatbot and keep them engaged.
“Lifebroker has seen first-hand what people seeking to compare quotes look for online, and we've been able to take those learnings and integrate them into this experience.
“The goal of this project was to challenge the way things are done in insurance. Chatbots offer a new platform for insurers to interact with customers, and when customers can learn more about a business 24 hours a day, that's a good position to be in,” he said.
Alfred is currently live in-market following a three-month development period and customer pilot process. |
Chinese tourists can now use Alipay in Denmark | Alipay has launched in Denmark so as to cater to Chinese travellers coming to the country. The Alipay mobile app, which is operated by Ant Financial – an affiliate of Alibaba, allows Chinese visitors to book hotels, hail taxis, pay bills and purchase wealth management products and other goods and services. Chinese tourists are an important market for Danish retailers. Alipay has already launched in Finland, Norway and Sweden.
| http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2017-10/24/content_33640435.htm | 2017-10-24 07:28:34.457000 | COPENHAGEN — The world's leading mobile payment platform Alipay was launched in Denmark on Monday, enabling its Chinese users to enjoy its fast and convenient payment service when they travel to the Nordic country.
Operated by Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate company of China's Alibaba Group, Alipay users can hail a taxi, book a hotel, buy movie tickets, pay utility bills, make appointments with doctors, or purchase wealth management products directly from within the app.
"We are happy that Denmark and the Nordics are embracing Alipay for Chinese tourists. The adoption of Alipay services of both payment and marketing will not only enhance the experience of Chinese consumers but also help Danish businesses to reach out to their Chinese customers even before they depart from China," said Wang Li, head of Alipay EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Alipay was launched in Denmark by APay Nordic AS, in cooperation with 2paynow, the technology platform provider of Alipay in Europe.
"We are glad to see that APay Nordic is now introducing Alipay into Denmark, which will further strengthen the advantages of Denmark as a Chinese-friendly destination," said Miklos Bengtsen, CFO of ILLUM, a premium department store in Copenhagen, adding that China is a very important market for the Danish retail business.
According to Wang, Alipay's in-store payment service is covering more than 30 countries across the world, and tax reimbursement via Alipay is supported in 24 countries and regions.
Alipay has been launching its services in Europe since mid-2016. Denmark is the fourth Northern European country for Alipay to set foot in after Norway, Finland and Sweden.
Alipay now has over 520 million active users and over 450 financial institution partners globally. Over 10 million merchants accept Alipay across China. |
Conde Nast makes a profit turning magazine articles into films | Six years after its inception, Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE), the video division of the global publisher, is set to turn a profit this year from producing TV shows and making film adaptations of magazine articles. The company, which has 65 film and TV projects in production, will continue to adapt films from its publications, according to CNE president Dawn Ostroff, and will finance development to get projects greenlit, but will also earn revenue as a producer and take a slice of any back-end profits. CNE's digital division started making a profit last year.
| https://digiday.com/media/conde-nast-feature-films-tv/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171024 | 2017-10-24 07:21:55.773000 | On Oct. 20, “Only the Brave,” a film starring Josh Brolin and Jeff Bridges, premiered to rave reviews. The movie, based on a GQ article from 2013 titled “No Exit,” tells the harrowing story of a group of Arizona firefighters who perished battling the Yarnell Hill fire that year. Whereas in the past, film studios would buy the rights to articles in Condé Nast publications from the writers and turn them into hits — the Academy Award-winning “Argo,” adapted from a Wired article, is a famous recent example — Condé Nast is now making money off of such adaptations.
Today, Condé Nast’s 6-year-old entertainment video division has 35 feature film and 30 TV projects in development and production, the company said. This includes upcoming feature films “The Old Man and the Gun,” starring Robert Redford and Casey Affleck; and “King of the Jungle,” starring Johnny Depp; as well as TV series such as “Last Chance U” for Netflix and “Vanity Fair Confidential” for Investigation Discovery.
CNE overall is on track to be profitable this year, said Dawn Ostroff, president of Condé Nast Entertainment. Its digital division, where CNE functions as both a producer and distributor of video, has been profitable since last year. Digital still accounts for a majority of CNE’s revenues, but that’s expected to change in the next five years as the feature film and TV business picks up, Ostroff said.
“You have to remember, there’s a much longer lead time in film and TV — it usually takes three to five years to get a movie made; it takes two years to get a TV show made,” Ostroff said.
At a time when many digital media companies are vying to get on film and TV — and when few have actual deals and projects on air to show off — CNE is further along than most, if not all digital publishers.
“Only the Brave” is CNE’s third feature film and the first film to get a wide release — across more than 2,500 theaters in the U.S. alone. Next year, “The Old Man and the Gun” will premiere next year, and three other projects are expected to go into production.
On TV, CNE has aired five shows, including “Last Chance U,” which Netflix recently picked up for a third season; “Vanity Fair Confidential,” which Investigation Discovery picked up for a fourth season; and “Most Expensivest,” which will premiere on Viceland in November. CNE this year has also sold three scripted pilots, including an untitled project with comedian Bobby Bowman for ABC.
A quartet of executives with extensive backgrounds in film and TV spearheads CNE’s film and TV efforts. Ostroff was the former president of Warner Bros.-owned broadcast network The CW. Jeremy Steckler, former Imagine Entertainment executive, oversees feature films; former ABC executive Jonathan Koa leads on scripted TV; and longtime talent agent Joe LaBracio was hired for unscripted TV programming. Including support staff, CNE counts eight full-time people in its film and TV group.
“It’s a lean group of people, but they have vast and deep experience [in Hollywood]; they speak the language,” Ostroff said. “For us, it’s intuitive because we come from that part of the business.”
CNE’s feature films will focus on adapting stories from Condé Nast publications. That won’t always be the case for TV. Some shows, especially unscripted ones, might be adapted from articles, while others will be based on ideas from writers and filmmakers CNE has relationships with. The project CNE is doing with ABC, for one, was related to a story idea Bobby Bowman had, Ostroff said.
One of the benefits for CNE as it ventures deeper into film is the model it’s set up to finance projects and make money. In film, CNE will finance the early development of a project — scriptwriting, attaching actors and directors — to help make it attractive enough to get financed by a studio or an independent financier. Somewhere between financing and producing the movie, the studio or financing partner will find a distributor.
CNE gets paid as a producer when a film gets funded and then has the potential to make more on the back end if the film is successful enough. This approach mitigates the costs of having to put down millions and millions of dollars to fully produce a movie.
In TV, CNE is a more straightforward production company and sometimes will partner with a TV studio to fund the shows upfront.
“I’m not sure if the traditional business will ever be bigger than the digital video business — which is quite substantial — but we’re just getting going in film and TV,” said Ostroff. “We charted a course, and now, after [six] years, the seeds are finally coming to fruition.” |
Emerson offers update to reservoir management simulation software | Emerson Automation Solutions' newest iteration of its reservoir management software suite, Roxar Tempest 8.1, has been launched. "Tempest 8.1 brings reservoir engineers more tools to maximise the potential of their fields as well as enhanced field productivity, thanks to greater simulation performance, improved uncertainty analysis, and a truly integrated workflow from geosciences to production," said product development chief Kjetil Fagervik of Roxar. The Roxar software solution also includes a seismic to simulation package and its workflow integration allows for better decision making and reservoir management.
| https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/product-news/23102017/emerson-expands-reservoir-simulation-software/ | 2017-10-24 06:30:30.843000 | Emerson Automation Solutions has launched the latest version of its reservoir management software suite - Roxar Tempest™ 8.1, designed to provide robust and efficient numerical solutions to support reservoir engineers in maximising field recovery.
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Lyft partners with city of Phoenix to offer rides to bus stops | Ride-hailing service Lyft has partnered with the city of Phoenix to offer its customers a 20% discount on 10 rides to or from bus stops. Named First Mile Last Mile, the six-month pilot programme is part of the city's Transportation 2050 initiative and aims to fuse ride-hailing services with public transport services to encourage those who do not live within walking distance of a bus stop to use the services. | http://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/lyft-phoenix-partner-for-first-mile-last-mile-rides-to-bus-stops/507791/ | 2017-10-24 06:21:20.667000 | Dive Brief:
Phoenix has teamed up with Lyft to offer a 20% discount on 10 rides to customers who use the ride-share service to get to or from bus stops, according to a company blog post.
The 6-month pilot program is called "First Mile Last Mile" and includes trips between the customer's home and 500 bus stops. It could expand to other areas of the city if the pilot is deemed successful.
The measure is the latest in a string of transit-forward actions in Phoenix, which is in line with the city's 35-year "Transportation 2050" plan.
Dive Insight:
Phoenix voters approved moving forward with Transportation 2050 in 2015 and the initiative went into effect in January 2016. It committed Phoenix to investing in light rail construction, bus service improvements and street improvements such as bike lanes and new pavement. The initiative eventually will lead to adding 42 miles of light rail, which will triple the current system's miles.
Under Transportation 2050, bus service hours already have been extended and the frequency of buses has increased. That's credited with creating a 6% bump in bus ridership this year, at a time when most of the country is experiencing a downward trend, according to the American Public Transportation Association's most recent ridership report.
The partnership between Phoenix and Lyft goes against the often-held belief of animosity between public transit providers and ride-share services, which are blamed for stealing customers. The city recognized that the popularity of ride-sharing likely won't diminish anytime soon, so it chose to harness the trend instead of fighting it. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton has said that ride-sharing and public transportation both are parts of a modern and complete transit system, and they can complement each other and collaborate in a manner where both benefit.
Customers will benefit from the partnership because of the added convenience, especially those who do not live within walking or biking distance of a bus stop. They also win with cost, not just from the Lyft discount, but also because in many situations it might be cheaper to ride the bus for a portion of their trips instead of using a ride-share the entire time. The partnership adds to residents' multi-modal transportation options during a time when significant demand exists for flexible transportation, plus the exposure from the partnership's marketing campaign reminds residents of the many available forms of transportation that can be used for a single trip. |
Facebook could struggle to clean up political advertising | Social media giant Facebook may struggle to identify and verify all political advertising on its site, according to media analysts. Users placing slanted material on the site are employing increasingly sophisticated methods, including aligning content with users' TV preferences by using both Facebook and third party data. Such content is difficult to spot, but introducing human verification into the process will slow down ads' delivery to the site. The US senate recently introduced the Honest Ads Act, which would force digital platforms to publicise information about political ads on their sites.
| https://digiday.com/marketing/political-ads-facebook-will-still-slip-human-reviewers/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171024 | 2017-10-24 06:20:13.377000 | Facebook faces an uphill battle in cleaning up political advertising on its platform.
Facebook is making adjustments to how political advertisers buy ads on its platform. It’ll still be hard for the social media giant to identify all of the political ads running through its system, though.
Facebook can detect a political ad in two main ways. One is by looking at the creative of the ad itself; the other is by looking at who it’s targeted to.
As for the ad creative, Facebook can scan the creative to detect if political content is present, but some political advertisers release hundreds of versions of the same ad within minutes, which allows them to A/B test their creative until they find the right combination of text and imagery that slips by Facebook’s filters.
Those advertisers also use their own data to create nuanced proxy audiences that make it difficult to identify the true intent of their messages. For instance, if fans of a particular TV show are likely to want criminal justice reform, an advertiser advocating against private prisons could target fans of that show to obfuscate the political purpose of the ad. Creating so many permutations of the same ad and using unique data to indirectly target political messages are tactics that ad buyers can use to cloak the partisanship of their data targeting and ad creative.
“Advertising platforms would have to make a considerable investment to catch all political ads,” said Mark Jablonowski, chief technology officer of DSPolitical, an ad-targeting firm used by liberal advertisers. “And they almost certainly won’t catch everything, no matter the spend.”
The pressure Facebook faces for letting a Russian troll farm buy ads on its platform is leading the social giant to change its approach to political advertising. Earlier this month, Facebook announced it would hire 1,000 people to review ads on its platform and require politically targeted ads to be manually reviewed.
U.S. senators also recently introduced a bill called the Honest Ads Act that would require digital platforms to make public information about political ads they host. Facebook declined an interview request for this story.
The other way Facebook can identify a political ad is by looking at who it’s targeted to. Depending on the type of data that political advertisers use to buy ads on Facebook, it can be hard for Facebook to detect that the ad is political, which would trigger a human review by Facebook, said John Randall, vp of digital at ad agency Craft, which specializes in advocacy campaigns for politically conservative groups.
The first type of data is Facebook’s own audience data. This data would be used if someone wanted to target users who, say, self-identified on Facebook as a Democrat or liked Facebook pages related to Hillary Clinton. It is easiest to identify politically targeted ads when this type of data is used, Randall said.
The second type of data is third-party data that an advertiser uploads into Facebook. This data can come from a political database like The Data Trust or a nonpolitical data aggregator like Acxiom that’s used for political targeting.
Spotting when this data is used for political purposes is harder than spotting when Facebook’s own data is used to target political ads. However, the more popular data aggregators are frequently used on Facebook, so the social platform has a lot of experience identifying which data sets belong to which providers and how that information might be used to target users.
The third type of data is first-party data from an advertiser itself that’s uploaded to Facebook, and this data is the hardest to spot political association, Randall said. Advertisers can combine their own surveys with voter file and census data to create unique data sets coded and labeled however the advertiser desires. The various types of data are not mutually exclusive to a campaign. For example, an advertiser using its own first-party data might combine its data with Facebook’s geographic data.
With a unique data set, an advertiser can politically target ads without being obvious about it, said Ken Strasma, CEO of HaystaqDNA, an analytics firm that has worked on campaigns for former President Barack Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Rather than using Facebook’s data to simply target people who liked Hillary Clinton’s Facebook page or using third-party data to target young voters, who are more likely to vote for a Democrat, an advertiser trying to reach liberal voters can mine its proprietary data for patterns of particular policy positions aligning with nonpolitical criteria.
The data firm Deep Root Analytics helped the Trump campaign identity “NCIS” as being popular with anti-Obamacare voters and “The Walking Dead” as being popular with people who favor stricter immigration laws, for example. Political advertisers could theoretically combine their data with Facebook’s data to give the impression they are targeting “NCIS” fans, when in reality, they are subtly using a proxy audience to send a politically charged message.
At some point, the definition of political advertising becomes existential. Aside from using nonpolitical categories to target political messages, advertisers also use political criteria to target nonpolitical products, Strasma said. An example of this is that advertisers selling gold coins will target conservatives since they are more likely to mistrust the government and its currency.
Marketers say that adding human reviewers will indeed help Facebook flag more political ads. But beefing up the review process still won’t catch everything, and it could slow down how quickly marketers get their Facebook ads up and running.
“It’s a question of resources,” Strasma said. “If Facebook or other sites employ enough people and manually review every ad, they can catch most [political ads], but only at tremendous cost both in terms of salary and in terms of inconvenience to the advertisers who value quick turnaround.” |
City of Portland invests in smart lighting | The city of Portland will spend $8.5m buying its street lighting from the local power company, aiming to save $10m over a decade. In the first part of a two-phase plan, energy-efficient LED bulbs will be installed, along with WiFi at 100 locations around the city. The second phase continues the LED and WiFi installation, but could also include the deployment of digital information kiosks. The scheme is part of Portland's drive to become a smart city, and follows the launch of a campaign to promote multimodal transportation.
| http://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/portland-me-may-soon-install-wi-fi-in-its-street-lights/507624/ | 2017-10-24 06:11:03.053000 | Dive Brief:
The city council in Portland, ME voted unanimously last week to purchase its street lights from the local power company, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The investment allows the city to install more efficient LED lights. It also opens the door for installing smart technology, such as WiFi, to make the devices connected streetlights.
The $8.5 million purchase is expected to save Portland $10 million over 10 years, due to lower operating costs.
Dive Insight:
The project will roll out in two phases. During the first phase, more than 6,000 street lights will be retrofitted with LED lights, at a cost of $2.9 million. $1.8 million will go toward smart city projects such as installing Wi-Fi at 100 locations. Phase two involves $4 million worth of LED upgrades and Wi-Fi installations at more locations. Another idea being considered as part of the project is to install digital information kiosks in the downtown area.
Several municipalities near Portland have purchased their streetlights following a 2013 law change allowing them to do so. None have moved forward yet with installing Wi-Fi, though. The new LED lights in Portland could boost efficiency not just because of the LED bulbs — which can offer up to 80% savings in operating costs — but also through advanced technology to dim the lights or change their timing. Plus, owning the street lights reduces cities' costs because they no longer have to pay the power company a monthly rental charge. Portland estimates it will save up to $1 million each year once the streetlight project is paid for.
The street light project comes on the heels of Portland's announcement about launching a transportation marketing campaign to promote multimodal transportation. The city also was one of the seven in the running for a $50 million prize in the Smart City Challenge, although Columbus, OH eventually ended up winning. Portland continued forward with numerous plans for advancements, though, proving that being a smart city isn't about size, but rather committing to smart planning and technology.
Are you using smart streetlights? Take our survey» |
Redrow Steve Morgan retains second place in 2017 Wales Rich List | Steve Morgan, founder of UK housebuilding firm Redrow, has held on to second place in the annual Wales Rich List, behind the country's only billionaire, Sir Terry Matthews. Morgan made headlines earlier this year after he sold an 11.7% stake in the company to his charitable foundation.
| https://www.insidermedia.com/insider/wales/insider-reveals-2017-wales-rich-list | 2017-10-24 06:00:25.157000 | Wales Business Stephen Farrell
Insider has revealed its 2017 Wales Rich List with a series of new entries cracking the top 50 and a change inside the top five. The total wealth of the richest people in Wales' business community has also grown by 10 per cent on last year to £8.13bn.
The exclusive research for the latest issue of Wales Business Insider has also revealed that a fortune of £42m is now required to make the top 50, up from £35m last year.
Sir Terry Matthews, owner of the Celtic Manor Resort near Newport and chairman of the Swansea Bay City Region, remains in top spot and is still Wales' only billionaire. This is despite his estimated fortune dipping slightly to £1.08bn from £1.17bn last year.
Redrow founder Steve Morgan has also retained his second position, despite handing over an 11.7 per cent stake in the housebuilder to his charitable foundation early in 2017.
The only change in the top five is Bernard Rees-Smith, the founder of medical diagnostics group RSR, who moves into fifth position. Dixondale, RSR's parent company, doubled profits to £25.5m in 2016 and is now valued at more than £300m.
Among the new entries for 2017 is Nigel Broadhurst, managing director of Deeside-headquartered food retailer Iceland. The company's turnover grew by 8.6 per cent in the three months to January 2017, helping it to its highest market share since 2001.
He joins Malcom Walker, Iceland's founder of chief executive, and finance director Tarsem Dhaliwal. Former joint managing director Nicholas Canning, who left the business earlier this month after 15 years, is another new entry.
The highest new entry this year is Andrew Walters in 31st, founder of listed vehicle tracking and fleet management systems provider Quartix. Walters, together with members of his family, owns more than 37 per cent of the business, which has a market value of £168.5m.
The 2017 Wales Rich List top 50 can be found in the November edition of Wales Business Insider, out now. |
TalkTalk Broadband switchers fear losing phone numbers, study reveals | Almost one-third of respondents feared losing their phone numbers when changing internet service providers (ISPs), according to a survey by ISPreview.co.uk. The survey also found that 49% said the fear of not keeping their number put them off switching. In addition, 59% of 1,110 respondents did not believe Ofcom had done enough to improve number portability between ISPs.
| https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/10/uk-broadband-switchers-discouraged-fear-phone-number-loss.html | 2017-10-24 05:45:04.700000 | Tuesday, Oct 24th, 2017 (12:01 am) - Score 632
A new survey of 1,110 ISPreview.co.uk readers, which was conducted between 5th Sept and 19th October 2017, reveals that 31.6% of respondents lost their number while migrating to a new ISP and 49.4% said that the fear of losing their number had discouraged them from future switching.
The loss of a phone number during migration, especially if you’ve had it for many years, is hugely disruptive and can require a large amount of administration in order to correctly update all of your contacts. Suffice to say that most people would prefer to keep their number.
Ofcom’s General Condition 18 (“Number Portability“) rule imposes an obligation upon ISPs to offer number portability to their subscribers and to provide portability to other communications providers. Unfortunately such rules don’t cover every eventuality and problems can still occur.
Sometimes switching ISP means losing your current landline phone number. Does this discourage you from switching?
Yes – 49.4%
No – 47.3%
Unsure – 3.2% Have you ever lost your previous landline phone number while switching broadband ISP?
No – 61.4%
Yes – 31.6%
Unsure – 6.9% Do you think Ofcom is doing enough to improve number portability between providers?
No – 59.3%
Don’t care, I only use Mobile or VoIP! – 28.3%
Yes – 12.2%
Phone numbers are most often lost when moving into a new home (i.e. you have to get a new line and number installed), which typically occurs because you’ve either shifted to a completely different area code, never had a fixed line phone number before or you’re still in the same region but are being covered by a different telephone exchange.
We’ve also seen various examples where people have lost their number while moving between unbundled (e.g. TalkTalk) and / or BT based providers, even though they’re still in the same house and on the same overall Openreach network. This tends to occur due to a combination of poor communication between ISPs and / or the lack of an effective management system for handling such changes between providers.
For example, we’ve seen a few complaints where people have attempted to switch their phone service from TalkTalk (unbundled) to BT and run into problems. In some cases BT would complains that TalkTalk won’t release the number, while TalkTalk will say that they expect a written request from BT and yet BT allegedly claimed not to do this. Similar problems have also occurred when moving between other providers.
The good news is that more people are now viewing their Mobile number as a primary contact or using VoIP in order to maintain greater control, which affords the end use more flexibility due to not being so reliant on a specific fixed line number. Standalone broadband services are also set to become more common over the next few years, which could in theory help to make future switching even easier.
One caveat of using VoIP is that if you intend to switch your fixed line number to a related provider then the process can take awhile to complete (2-4 weeks according to Vonage), which might discourage some people from attempting it. In general, Ofcom could probably still do more to ensure that numbers are not lost unnecessarily.
Meanwhile this month’s new survey asks whether you currently have a “superfast broadband” connection and if the new ultrafast G.fast services will attract you? Vote Here.
NOTE: ISPreview.co.uk surveys are likely to receive a higher proportion of tech-savvy respondents than most, although the majority of our visitors are normal consumers (i.e. they come to this site for help and assistance with basic broadband problems / questions or when hunting for a new ISP). |
Australian government to ease fintech regulations | The Australian government has released a proposed legislative package enabling the creation of a two-year fintech sandbox, as the country seeks to cement its position as the Asia-Pacific's second-largest alternative finance market. Under the exposure draft legislation and regulations, which are open for consultation until 3 November and 1 December respectively, Australian fintech firms could test a range of innovative solutions. Although they would have to abide by disclosure requirements and consumer protections, participating companies would not face licensing costs or initial regulatory controls.
| https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/71314/australian-government-consults-on-fintech-sandbox | 2017-10-24 05:17:12.510000 | Source: Australian Government
The Turnbull Government has today released exposure draft legislation and regulations to create an enhanced regulatory sandbox to support innovation in financial services.
This proposed legislative package will be a game changer for competition in the financial services sector and continues the Turnbull Government's strong support of Australian FinTech which has helped Australia become the second largest alternative finance market in the Asia-Pacific.
As announced in the 2017-18 Budget, the FinTech regulatory sandbox will allow a broad scope of activities to be tested without the need to meet all the existing licensing requirements of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The enhanced regulatory sandbox will help firms overcome the initial regulatory burden and costs of licensing that may otherwise hinder innovative offerings.
This is an exciting opportunity that will further cement Australia's position as a leading FinTech hub in the Asia‑Pacific.
Under the Government's legislative framework, firms can test a wider range of new and innovative FinTech products and services, including:
providing holistic financial advice in relation to superannuation, life insurance and domestic and international securities;
issuing and facilitating consumer credit;
issuing non-cash payment products; and
providing a crowd-funding service.
The 24‑month testing timeframe will improve firms' ability to evaluate the commercial viability of new concepts, promoting greater competition and delivering more choice for Australian consumers.
Firms will need to adhere to robust consumer protections and disclosure requirements including responsible lending obligations, best interests duty, and the need for adequate compensation and dispute resolution arrangements.
The exposure drafts and explanatory material are available on the Treasury website.
Consultation on the draft legislation (and explanatory memorandum) is open until 3 November 2017, and on the draft regulations (and explanatory statement) until 1 December 2017. |
Global warming could cost the US $35bn per year: GAO | The US must develop a plan to combat climate change, or face severe economic consequences, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The report discloses that the US government spent over $350bn on natural disasters and flood and crop insurance over the past decade. An additional $300bn will be added to that total by this year’s hurricanes and wildfires. The study warns that costs will rise to $35bn per year by mid-century if global emissions do not fall. Non-profit the Universal Ecological Fund has warned that such costs could be closer to $360bn annually within the decade.
| https://feu-us.org/case-for-climate-action-us/ | 2017-10-23 22:00:00 | Climate change is happening now. It is already impacting our daily lives. It is also impacting the United States economy.
Action to address climate change is compatible and essential for economic growth. It also creates jobs.
However, the United States Federal Government under the Trump Administration decided to increase economic growth without climate action. In addition, against the world’s commitment to fight climate change, the United States has begun the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. These decisions were based on the claim that action to tackle climate change is against America’s domestic interests. As a result, energy production in the United States will continue to be primarily generated by burning fossil fuels –the major driver of the observed changes in climate.
The impacts of climate change affect many sectors, including agriculture, water, human health and ecosystems, among others. Although some of these impacts are positive, most are negative and affect lives and livelihoods. Using different indicators and assumptions, numerous studies have assessed the impacts of climate change in the United States. The majority of these assessments use the end of this century as a timeframe for the analysis.
This report specifically focuses on economic losses caused by extreme and frequent weather events influenced by human-induced climate change and on health costs due to air pollution exposure caused by fossil fuel energy production. It is thus a partial assessment of the economic losses and costs of human-induced climate change and fossil fuel use on the United States economy.
Climate is the average weather –temperature, precipitation and wind– over a period of time. Changes in climate are usually measured over a 30 year period, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. Thus, this report analyzes extreme weather events over three decades: 1980s (1980-1989), 1990s (1990-1999) and the last decade (2007-2016). Based on these past trends, a projection for the next decade is estimated. It also presents the opportunities to boost economic growth and job creation while taking climate action.
Sources used for the analysis presented in this report include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the American Meteorological Society, the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Lung Association, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Second Biennial Report of the United States of America under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Peer-reviewed research studies published in prestigious journals were used as sources for health costs.
Economic losses, health costs and economic growth figures are presented in 2017 dollars. To harmonize and compare, all figures were adjusted using the latest Consumer Price Index.
September, 2017 |
Global warming could cost the US $35bn per year: GAO | The US must develop a plan to combat climate change, or face severe economic consequences, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The report discloses that the US government spent over $350bn on natural disasters and flood and crop insurance over the past decade. An additional $300bn will be added to that total by this year’s hurricanes and wildfires. The study warns that costs will rise to $35bn per year by mid-century if global emissions do not fall. Non-profit the Universal Ecological Fund has warned that such costs could be closer to $360bn annually within the decade.
| https://www.ecowatch.com/government-accountability-climate-change-2500716868.html | 2017-10-23 22:00:00 | President Trump might think that global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s nonpartisan auditing arm, is urging the administration to craft a plan to confront climate change or else it will have to deal with its massive economic consequences.
According to a new report released by the GAO, the U.S. government has already spent more than $350 billion over the past decade on dealing with natural disasters and losses from flood and crop insurance. The tally does not even include the economic toll from this year’s horrific West Coast fires and successive hurricanes, which is estimated to cost at least $300 billion.
Costs will also soar—as much as $35 billion per year by mid-century—if global emission rates are not reduced, the study warns.
“The federal government has not undertaken strategic government-wide planning to manage climate risks by using information on the potential economic effects of climate change to identify significant risks and craft appropriate federal responses,” the study states. “By using such information, the federal government could take the initial step in establishing government-wide priorities to manage such risks.”
The report, which features interviews with more than two dozen scientific and economic experts and 30 studies, was requested by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
“The Government Accountability Office—if you will, the chief bean counter—is basically telling us that this is costing us a lot of money,” Cantwell told the New York Times. “We need to understand that as stewards of the taxpayer that climate is a fiscal issue, and the fact that it’s having this big a fiscal impact on our federal budget needs to be dealt with.”
The Senators hope that the study will prompt Congress and the administration to move towards a bipartisan solution to fight the effects of a warming world.
“My hope is the administration will take a look at this report and realize there is an economic impact here that is significant,” Collins told the Times. “We simply cannot afford the billions of dollars in additional funding that’s going to be needed if we do not take into account the consequences of climate change.”
Trump, however, has notoriously pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement and rolled back several Obama-era environmental regulations designed to address climate change, including the repeal of the Clean Power Plan. The president’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has close links to the fossil fuel industry and once said that carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of global warming.
Robert N. Stavins, an economist at Harvard University, cast doubt the study would convince the government to act.
“The GAO study is conservative, it’s not alarmist, it’s realistic and balanced and they go out of their way to point out all of the uncertainties involved,” Stavins told the Times. “I don’t see any likelihood it’s going to be taken seriously.”
Indeed, the price tag from the GAO’s study is drastically lower than estimates from other recent reports. The non-profit Universal Ecological Fund found that extreme weather and public health issues related to burning fossil fuels could cost the U.S. up to $360 billion annually—nearly half of annual U.S. economic growth—within the next ten years. |
Major global companies improving environmental record: CDP | The number of companies adopting targets in line with the Paris Climate Accord’s goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius is increasing, according to a survey by CDP. The survey, published on Tuesday, analysed 1,073 business representing 12% of global emissions. Of those companies surveyed, almost 90% have set carbon reduction targets. Around 14%, including Unilever and BT, have made reductions in line with the Paris agreement. A further 317 firms, or 30% of respondents, aim to introduce science-based targets within the next two years.
| https://www.cdp.net/en//articles/climate/picking-up-the-pace-tracking-corporate-climate-action-on-the-road-from-paris | 2017-10-23 22:00:00 | Two years ago, the Paris Agreement fired the gun in the race to a low-carbon economy.
Picking up the pace – the second annual edition in CDP’s Tracking progress on corporate climate action series – reveals how over 1,800 companies are responding to the historic Paris Agreement, signed by nearly 200 nations, and the recommendations of the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure.
Last year, we started tracking the climate action of a representative sample of 1,829 corporates, chosen for their significance in terms of market capitalization and environmental impact. By doing this we can consistently track progress by the companies of the implementation of the Paris Agreement. We found that many companies had begun the transition to a low-carbon world, but their actions were lacking long-term vision and ambition. This year’s follow-up analysis shows how global business is already starting to pick up the pace.
It confirms the low-carbon transition is happening, now, and it’s being driven by companies around the world that realize climate action represents a huge opportunity not to be missed.
Mapping out the transition
Firstly, this year we are seeing that more companies are setting climate targets. Those targets are extending further in time – showing companies are planning for a low-carbon future. And most importantly, there is a growing understanding that corporate targets and action plans need to be in line with the emissions reductions that are needed to prevent dangerous climate change.
Fourteen per cent of responding companies in our sample have now joined the Science Based Targets initiative, thereby committing to setting emissions reduction targets aligned with the level of decarbonization required to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius and deliver on the Paris Agreement. That’s an increase from 94 to 151 companies in the last year, including AkzoNobel, EDP and Unilever. An additional 30% – that’s 317 companies – anticipate setting a science-based target within two years.
This is an important shift for companies, from doing what they think they can easily manage, to stepping up to do what’s needed. This is responsible – and smart – business in the age of climate change.
Take the Portuguese energy company EDP, for example, which joined the initiative earlier this year. EDP has committed to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions from electricity production by 55% per TWh by 2030, from 2015 levels, and to cut absolute scope 3 emissions by 25% over the same period. The company says that adopting a science-based target gives it a competitive advantage by clarifying its position to investors and key stakeholders, who expect companies – particularly those that are large emitters – to clearly elaborate how they are positioned for the low-carbon transition.
Thanks to this rising ambition, our sample is getting ever closer to being on track for a climate-safe world.
Achieving their current targets would take the companies in our sample 31% of the way to being consistent with a 2 degrees pathway. That’s a notable improvement on the 25% reported in 2016.
We’re not there yet, but these global companies are closing the gap – making significant headway in just one year. That is progress to be celebrated. And it bodes well for the kind of acceleration that’s required to bend the curve.
Innovating the next economy
As companies work to meet their goals, they are turning to innovative ways of doing business. Sweden’s first zero-energy neighbourhood, Solallén, is a perfect example of climate-smart innovation. Developed by multinational construction company Skanska AB, it is designed to generate more energy than it uses, saving both carbon and energy costs.
Since last year, there’s been a 20% increase in companies from our sample offering low-carbon products and services. From Nissan selling electric cars, to San Diego working with GE Current, AT&T and Intel to upgrade 25% of the city’s streetlamps to adaptive LEDs with data-collecting sensors, companies are capitalizing on the opportunities from the transition.
In fact, 75% of companies in the sample now say their products and services help others to reduce emissions – whether it’s from selling greener products or providing low-energy buildings. That’s up from 64% last year.
More and more companies are embracing renewable energy. The number with a renewable energy consumption target has increased by 23% in the last year, with companies like BT and Unilever committed to sourcing 100% renewable energy by 2030 as part of the RE100 initiative.
One of the things driving this shift in energy procurement is carbon pricing. While carbon pricing at the national policy level is on the horizon or already underway in many places, a growing number of corporates are storming ahead and setting their own internal price on carbon.
For example, AkzoNobel has an internal carbon price set at the level needed to drive the global transition to zero-net emissions. At a significant €50/tonne, the price is used to assess the company’s investment decisions. And it’s working: the carbon price has forced a rethink of proposed carbon-intensive investments.
As explored in our recent Putting a price on carbon report, this is a key lever for change. It internalizes the hidden cost of carbon pollution, making it show up on the balance sheet. This corrects a key market failure and naturally drives climate action.
Rising to the top
Underpinning this activity is enhanced accountability. Climate change is now firmly on the boardroom agenda. Nearly all companies in our sample – a huge 98% – have responsibility for climate action at board- or senior management-level. 90% have financial incentives tied to corporate climate progress.
And this board-level engagement is likely being driven by more and more investors asserting that climate risk is now a matter of mainstream fiscal responsibility.
“The burden of proof to explain why climate risk isn’t an issue has shifted to companies” explains Aviva Investors’ chief responsible investment officer, Steve Waygood. “The new norm is that companies should be considering climate risk at the board level”.
All this means we are on the cusp of a tipping point that is beginning to mainstream environmental action.
The transition is picking up pace. Winners and losers are already emerging, with the 112 companies on our 2017 Climate A List leading the charge. CDP’s vision – of a thriving economy that works for people and planet – is well within reach. But while many of the companies in this sample are acting ambitiously on climate, there are many that risk being left behind. To close the emissions gap and peak emissions by 2020, we need to move even faster. Ongoing measurement, transparency and accountability will be vital to tracking progress.
Now, it’s time to accelerate. |
Eradicating poverty could conflict with climate goals | Eradicating extreme poverty by raising incomes to above $1.9 purchasing power parity (PPP) per day would not compromise climate targets, even in the absence of effective climate policies and without major technological innovation, according to research from the University of Maryland. However, the research found that ensuring that people have a minimum $2.97 PPP would require an increase in climate mitigation efforts of 27%. A commitment to the eradication of extreme poverty by 2030 is the first of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00919-4?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=f8450c098f-The_Download&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-f8450c098f-154403165 | 2017-10-23 22:00:00 | Relationship to earlier studies
We use the consumption-based approach to carbon accounting. This is a different approach from earlier papers, say for example, by Chakravarty et al.71 and Chakravarty and Tavoni13 as our analysis is based on supply chain carbon emissions that go beyond household direct energy consumption, i.e., accounting for the carbon emitted during the production of consumption items and services, which are then allocated to the final consumer, and are based on very detailed information on income distribution and consumption patterns. This latter point also distinguishes our paper from Chancel and Piketty26 who use GTAP multi-regional IO (MRIO) for data on countries incomes and emissions. But then, in order to move from country average emissions to emissions of different individual (income) groups within countries they allocate CO 2 to different income quantiles using country-year average decile income/consumption data from the World Bank. This is a top-down approach and does not use the detailed consumer expenditure surveys at the household level for different income groups as proposed here. The only paper we are aware of that addresses within country inequality at the global level (Dennig et al.37) uses a modified version of RICE one of the standard integrated assessment models (IAM), which is based on 12 regions and World Bank data on national income, not detailed consumption surveys. Most IAMs are based on very large regional aggregation and do usually not account for income inequality between countries. For example, MESSAGE–MACRO focuses on detailed complex “bottom-up” energy supply sectors but still uses 11 world regions and does not have equivalent micro detailed consumption at different income levels and developing countries and is not set up to address poverty or inequality issues. The same holds for iPETS which has 31 regions, however very aggregated when it comes to poorer countries (for example sub-Saharan Africa is one region). In contrast, we use 90 developing countries provided by the World Bank’s Global Consumption Database and representative developed countries, including the US, 27 EU countries, Australia, and Japan (see below for more detail). That is not to discredit in any way the function and importance of the IAMs but they are built for other purposes and each of these approaches has its own strengths and weaknesses and each provides a different perspective on the policy options available to meet climate change targets. Extreme poverty is typically defined in terms of satisfying immediate basic needs such as food and shelter, needed for long-term physical well-being. Thus, we believe that our approach using detailed household expenditure data, with great detail for a large number of developing countries, contributes a different and useful perspective.
Carbon footprints and consumer expenditure surveys
We use multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis to compute household carbon footprints for different income groups for 189 countries. The carbon footprint includes direct emissions associated with a household’s activities such as heating, driving and using electricity as well as indirect emissions associated with the production of goods and services a household consumes24, 25 as well as assumed associated shares of required investments and government expenditure to support increase in production capacity. The consumption patterns of different household groups in 90 developing countries are provided by the World Bank’s Global Consumption Database21 and households in developed countries are based on national consumer expenditure surveys reported by the respective national statistical offices. The global MRIO table is collected from the Eora database38. Eora is a multi-region IO database that provides a time series of high-resolution IO tables with matching environmental and social satellite accounts for 186 countries. This study focuses on 2010 to be consistent with the World Bank’s Global Consumption Database.
In the World Bank’s Global Consumption Database, households in developing countries are categorized in four consumption segments: lowest, low, middle, and higher consumption groups. They are based on global income distribution data, which rank the global population by income per capita, which we use and scale up by actual global population shares for each income category. The lowest consumption segment (below $2.97 per capita a day) corresponds to the bottom half of the global population; the low consumption segment (between $2.97 and $8.44 per capita a day) to the 51th–75th percentiles; the middle consumption segment (between $8.44 and $23.03 per capita a day) to the 76th–90th percentiles; and the higher consumption segment (above $23.03 per capita a day) to the 91st percentile and above (Supplementary Fig. 1). The monetary values are in PPP39. Purchasing power parities tells us how many dollars are needed to buy a dollar’s worth of goods in a country as compared to the United States. In other words, PPP estimates the amount of adjustment needed of the exchange rate between countries in order for the exchange to be equivalent to each currency’s purchasing power.
The first of the UN SDGs, which we are exploring in this study, is to move people out of extreme poverty by 2030, defined as <$1.90 PPP per day. However, the World Bank global consumption database (WBGCD) provides only the consumption patterns for the group with consumption of <$2.97 PPP per day. To estimate the carbon emissions per capita associated with consumption for the people spending <$1.90 PPP per day, we first select the poorest countries with an average expenditure of <$1.90 PPP per day or $456 PPP per year and use their average per capita consumption data as representative of the poorest income category (<$1.90 PPP per day) at the global level.
While the WBGCD represents the consumption patterns of the low income categories it is less representative for consumption patterns of higher income categories which represents consumers from developed countries. Thus in addition to the consumer expenditure surveys for 90 developing countries included in the World Bank’s global consumption database (http://datatopics.worldbank.org/consumption/) we included consumer expenditure surveys from the US22, the EU23, Australia24, and Japan25. Population data for different consumer groups were collected from the World Bank Povcalnet4. According to the PovcalNet database, developed countries only have a share of about 1% of the global population in the <$8.44 consumption groups. In terms of global middle income ($8.44–23.03), developed countries’ share in this group accounts for about 19%, while their share of the global high consumer group (>$23.03) is 89%. Therefore, we use the World Bank’s 90 developing countries’ consumption data (accounting for 89% of total population in developing countries) to estimate per capita carbon footprint for the extreme poor (<$1.9 PPP per day), $1.9–2.97 PPP per day, and $2.97–8.44 PPP per day. To calculate the footprint for the $8.44–23.03 group, we split the countries into two groups. We use the consumption expenditure data of this consumer group of the 90 developing countries in the World Bank’s consumption database (representing 72% of the global total in that category; developing countries account for 81%) and consumer expenditure surveys from the US, Japan, Australia and EU to represent consumption patterns in developed countries (representing 16% of the global total in that category; developed countries account for 19% in this category); their combined share is 87% of the global total in that category. For the highest consumer group (>$23.03) we used the average expenditure for people falling in that consumer category from the 90 developing countries (representing 8% of the global total in that category), the EU, Japan, Australia and the US, which represent about 73% of the global population in that category.
The multi-regional input–output approach
In a MRIO framework, different regions are connected through inter-regional trade. The technical coefficient sub-matrix A rs consists of \(\left\{ {a_{ij}^{rs}} \right\}\) is given by \(a_{ij}^{rs} = t_{ij}^{rs}/x_j^s\), in which \(t_{ij}^{rs}\) represents the inter-sector monetary flows from sector i in region r to sector j in region s; x j s is the total output of sector j in region s. The final demand matrix is \(\left\{ {y_i^{rs}} \right\}\), where \(y_i^{rs}\) is the final demand of region s for goods of sector i from region r. Using matrix notation and dropping the subscripts, we have
$${\bf{A}} = \left[ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{11}}}}} & {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{1}}2}}} & \cdots & {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{1n}}}}} \\ {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{21}}}}} & {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{22}}}}} & \cdots & {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{2n}}}}} \\ \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{n1}}}}} & {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{n2}}}}} & \cdots & {{{\bf{A}}^{{\bf{nn}}}}} \end{array}} \right];{\bf{Y}}=\left[ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{\sum{\bf{y}}^{\bf{1r}}}} \\ {{\sum{\bf{y}}^{\bf{2r}}}} \\ \vdots \\ {{\sum{\bf{y}}^{\bf{nr}}}} \end{array}} \right];{\bf{x}} = \left[ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{{\bf{x}}^{\bf{1}}}} \\ {{{\bf{x}}^{\bf{2}}}} \\ \vdots \\ {{{\bf{x}}^{\bf{n}}}} \end{array}} \right]$$
Consequently, the MRIO framework can be written as:
$${\bf{x}}{\rm{ = }}{\left( {{\rm{I}} - {\bf{A}}} \right)^{ - 1}}{\bf{y}}$$ (1)
where x is a colum vector of sectoral total output for all countries; (I-A)–1 is the Leontief inverse matrix which captures both direct and indirect economic inputs to satisfy one unit of final demand in monetary value; I is the identity matrix with ones on the main diagonal and zeros everywhere else; y is a column vector of sectoral total final demand for all countries.
To calculate the consumption-based CO 2 -e emissions, we extend the MRIO table with a vector of sectoral CO 2 -e emission coefficients for all regions, k:
$${\bf{k}} = \left[ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{{\bf{k}}_1}} & {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {{{\bf{k}}_2}} & \cdots \end{array}} & {{{\bf{k}}_{\bf{n}}}} \end{array}} \right]$$
Thus, the total consumption-based CO 2 -e emissions for all regions can be calculated by:
$${\bf{C}}{{\bf{O}}_{\bf{2}}}{\hbox {-}}{\bf{e}} = {\bf{k}}{\left( {{\bf{I}} - {\bf{A}}} \right)^{ - 1}}{\bf{Y}} + {\bf{H}}{{\bf{H}}_{\bf{C}}}$$ (2)
where CO 2 -e is a row vector of the total CO 2 -e emissions (both supply chain emissions and household direct emissions) associated with total final consumption (Y), sum of household consumption, government expenditure and stock change and investment, in all countries; k is a row vector of CO 2 -e emissions per unit of economic output for all economic sectors in all regions. k (I-A) –1 Y, a row vector, captures supply chain emissions of final demand of goods and services in different countries; HH C is a row vector of household direct emissions of all regions, e.g., driving and house heating;
Household direct emissions for each consumption group in different countries are estimated based on their household fuel consumption from the consumer expenditure survey data.
Matching consumption survey to MRIO household consumption
In the WBGCD21, and the global multi-regional IO database38 have been developed to enable global analyses and are uniform across countries. To match the consumption categories provided by the Global Consumption Database with Eora economic sectors we follow a well-established approach (e.g., refs. 40, 41). We first assign consumption items from the WBGCD to different IO sectors and then scale the consumption survey data for each sector by four income groups to match the total household consumption of each sector from the global MRIO table (see Bridge Matrix in Supplementary Data). This method assumes that national consumption data is more accurate than the consumption survey data in terms of total consumption of each good or service. However, the survey date provides useful information about the distribution of goods and services to different income groups.
In the WBGCD database, all consumption items are categorized according to the International Comparison Program (ICP) classification, equivalent to the international Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP). To estimate the carbon footprints of different consumption groups, we first map the ICP classification of consumption items to aggregate Eora IO sectors. Three situations can occur:
One ICP category in the WBGCD corresponds to one Eora sector. In some cases there is a perfect match between an ICP category and an Eora sector. The mapping is straightforward.
Multiple ICP categories correspond to one Eora sector. For example, in the ICP category, “Processed fish and seafood”, “Cheese, butter and margarine”, “Other edible oil and fats” can only fit to Eora sector Food & Beverages. Given the more detailed ICP classifications than the Eora sector, this allocation is the most frequent case in the matching process. Mapping is also straightforward in this case.
One ICP category in the WBGCD corresponds to more than one Eora sector. There are some cases that one consumption item category may be produced from multiple economic sectors. For example, some food consumption categories can either be sold directly from the farm and thus would be linked to Eora sector “Agriculture” or have been processed and thus need to be linked to Eora sector “Food & Beverages”. However, there is no good reference to split the aggregate consumption categories, such as “Fresh or Chilled Vegetables Other than Potatoes”, into “Agriculture” and “Food &Beverages’ sectors”. And, the allocation of an aggregate consumption category might vary from country to country. Most studies ignore this problem42 and just equally distribute the aggregate category in consumption (as, e.g., done by the World Bank’s Global Consumption Database) or when linking environmental accounts to IO accounts (e.g., ref. 43), or numerous IO studies linking consumer expenditure survey to IO categories (e.g., refs. 41, 44). We followed this practice for this study but also added an uncertainty analysis using an allocation approach based on different possible “extreme” bridging matrices. We select the possible IO sectors that can be linked to the ICP sectors. For the maximum value, we assign the ICP category to the sector with the highest emissions multiplier, for the lowest possible value, we assign the ICP category to the sector with the lowest emission multiplier. We then take these extreme or maximum possible deviations from the allocation we had chosen and calculate the deviation for each household group and show the range through error bars for each household category (Supplementary Fig. 2). Our uncertainty analysis shows that re-allocation of the consumption categories that may fall into multiple economic sectors has a relatively small impact on per capita footprints of different household groups. The uncertainty range of the per capita CF for all household groups is <2% between the max and the min and even less of an issue for our scenarios only involving the lowest two income categories.
Other final demand sectors by consumer groups
In addition to household consumption we also include other two final demand sectors, government expenditure and capital formation, to accommodate the necessary expansion of production capacity required to produce the increase in household demand. We allocate capital formation and government expenditure column vectors from EORA MRIO database to the four consumer groups based on the share of household consumption by different consumer groups in the total household consumption. Equation (3) was used for disaggregation of capital formation and government expenditure.
$${\bf{Ca}}{{\bf{p}}_{{\bf{Disagg}}}} = {\bf{diag}}\left( {{\bf{Cap}}} \right){\rm{*}}{\bf{H}}{{\bf{H}}_{{\bf{share}}}}$$ (3)
where Cap Disagg is disaggregated capital formation by four consumer groups; Cap is a vector of capital formation by sectors; and diag(Cap) denotes a diagonal matrix with the elements of vector CAP on the main diagonal. HH share is a matrix showing the shares of consumption by different consumer groups in different sectors.
This method assumes that the higher the consumption for a certain product the higher the required capital formation in that sector. Lacking better information, we make the same assumption for government expenditure. For example, we allocate the government expenditure column to different consumer groups based on their consumption of other services from the consumer expenditure survey data.
Scenario analysis
In this study, we set up two scenarios for future additional carbon emissions due to moving poor people out of poverty by 2030 but these emissions are then continued until 2100 to be consistent with IPCC climate change projections. Scenario 1: lifting all people spending <$1.90 PPP per day (i.e., 840 million people45) to a higher consumption group spending between $1.90 and $2.97 PPP per day by 2030, equally spread over the years, with an average of 56 million people moving out of poverty per year. Scenario 2: lifting all people with a per capita income of <$2.97 PPP per day to a higher expenditure group spending between $2.97 per day and $8.44 per day by 2030 with an equal share of people annually moving to the next higher consumption group. We also incorporate population growth into the model. As population growth data for different consumption groups in different countries is not available, we use the UN population growth projection3 for this study. Then, we use population growth rates by different country classifications (low income, lower middle income, upper middle income, and high income) to represent different growth rates in different consumption groups. For instance, we use the average growth rate in low income countries (i.e., <$1045 per capita per year) for the <$1.90 and $1.90–2.97 PPP consumption groups, while we use the average growth rate in lower middle countries (i.e., $1046–4125 per capita per year) to represent the growth rate for the $2.97–8.44 consumption group. In terms of changing fertility rates associated with higher incomes we assume that people moving up to a higher consumption group will have the same fertility rates as their new income peers, otherwise we strictly stick with the UN predictions.
Since long-term climate impacts depend on cumulative carbon emission we add the additional emissions needed to achieve the SDGs of moving people out of extreme poverty to a baseline emission pathway. (By additional emissions, we mean the higher emissions based on the new expenditure group minus previous emissions in the lower expenditure group.) As baseline, we use one of the GHG emission trajectories, known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), adopted by the IPCC for its fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 201446. RCPs are concerned with GHG concentration trajectories but the database provides, as a supplement, emission trajectories calculated as inverse emissions, i.e., implied emissions corresponding to the scenario concentrations, using the MAGICC model (see below). These standardized scenarios emphasize not only the long-term emission stabilization level but also the trajectory that leads to that outcome. We use the scenario that is consistent with limiting temperature changes to below 2 °C above pre-industrial level, i.e., RCP2.6. The RCP2.6 (now referred to as RCP3PD in the database, where “PD” stands for Peak and Decline and 3 refer to radiative forcing, in watts per square meter units, predicted by the year 2100) emission scenario assumes that global annual GHG emissions peak sometimes before 2020 and decline substantially afterwards. Other scenarios include RCP4.5, RCP6, and RCP8.5. These are all plausible pathways. We chose RCP2.6 here because the research question we are addressing is whether meeting the SDGs can be achieved without affecting the climate goal47.
RCP scenario data contain reference GHG emissions. However, the database does not report socio-economic variables underlying each scenario. We present un-abated emissions. To convert emissions scenarios into global-mean temperatures we used MAGICC version 648. MAGICC is essentially a reduced-complexity model used in many scientific publications and integrated models. It is also often used by the IPCC, for instance, to facilitate integrated model comparisons. MAGICC integrates a set of simple models linking emissions to concentrations to global radiative forcing and to global changes in temperature and sea-level. For more details see refs. 49, 50. 50 and 66% confidence ranges are obtained in MAGICC by running the model 600 times using a slightly altered set of climatic parameters that are based on historical observations. Details of this approach are available in51.
Limitations
The United Nations52 in a resolution adopted by the Assemble set 17 goals focusing on poverty alleviation, hunger, inequality and inclusion, gender, education, access to water and sanitation. Many of these so-called UN SDGs are related to income but the selected examples already show that poverty goes beyond simply income. This multi-dimensionality of poverty is well reflected in the literature recognizing that income measure alone are a poor representation of poverty9, 10. Albeit true, many of these ailments are linked to income especially at the lowest level of consumption where people spend most of their money on basic consumption items such as food, clothing and shelter (see also Supplementary Fig. 1 based on consumer expenditure patterns of the World Bank (WP)’s poverty database). In this study we focus explicitly on the first SDG and look at the implications of moving people to a higher expenditure group.
The WB database is based on consumer expenditure surveys for 90 developing countries and four expenditure categories and here supplemented by consumer expenditure surveys from developed countries. In our scenarios we move people from one expenditure category to the next (crossing the poverty line) assuming the consumption patterns of the higher expenditure group. The carbon emissions are based on greenhouse gas emissions as represented in the global MRIO database captured through market exchange. We account for carbon emissions associated with burning fuels such as char coal, crop residues and other biomass for cooking and heating when captured through market transactions in the consumer expenditure surveys. These fuel sources can be a substantial part of the livelihoods (e.g., ref. 53). As incomes increase, biomass does not simple get replaced by other fuels but households tend to use a wide mix of fuels in their fuel transitions54, we capture those transitions only when reflected in the consumer surveys. If rural poor replace biomass with paid-for energy than we ignore the potential positive impact on reduced deforestation. Similarly, we do not deal with other land use related carbon emissions associated with subsistence agriculture. At these low levels of income any additional income would not replace these forms of livelihood income but rather would help diversify their livelihoods55.
In this study we do not account for land use related emissions. The literature on how poverty alleviation would change land use at a global level is quite inconclusive and really beyond what we could hope to achieve in this paper. Most of the studies that link land use to consumption patterns are at the regional scale56 or at best at the national level57, and frequently do not explicitly account for differences in income. The few global level studies show that land consumption seem to increase with higher income58.
A somewhat related problem is the different impacts of meat consumption versus other food intake, which have quite different environmental impacts in terms of land use, but are more relevant for our study in terms of methane emissions. While we do account for these differences in terms of emissions, we do not do this in the best possible way as meat consumption is subsumed as part of consumption of agricultural products. Higher income people would pay higher prices for agricultural products and thus cause higher carbon emissions. In this sense we have captured differences in meat versus vegetable consumption. A better way would have been to have a more disaggregated global model to better capture different types of food consumption. Part of the problem is the trade-off of sectoral detail and country coverage of different global multi-regional IO models. For a recent comparison of various global MRIOs see ref. 59.
In this study, we make the assumption that the consumption bundles of each expenditure group remains the same until 2030, in particular for the low expenditure group included in our scenario analysis. While there is a huge amount of literature focusing on consumption patterns within income/expenditure categories this is less so at the global level as discussed in this paper; but the goal of the paper is not to predict carbon emissions for the year 2030 or 2100 but to investigate the implications of two poverty alleviation scenarios (of moving people from a lower category to a higher one) by 2030 using available detailed data on consumption for different expenditure and income categories from the World Bank and other statistical agencies. We want to investigate these counter factual scenarios based on detailed available data and do not want to “dilute” these scenarios by modifying existing consumption bundles in all income categories other than moving people from one category and the associated consumption bundle to the next. Supplementary Table 1 shows that there is considerable stability in terms of expenditure patterns across the poor in that three quarters of the expenditure is for food, shelter and housing, and the remaining expenditure categories only make small contributions to the expenditure.
This is also reflected in the literature. The most important determinant of the carbon footprint is income (see e.g., Minx et al.; Ahmad et al.40, 60), which we consider explicitly in our two poverty alleviation scenarios but other determinants of per capita carbon footprints such as urban characteristics61, population density62, lifestyles (Baiocchi et al 41), and household size63, etc. are not considered in this study as these do not exist at the global level and most of the countries we include in our study, and are only available for specific countries or selected cities. In summary, the “constant consumption assumption” for the poor for the next decade or so is reasonable given that income and associated composition are the most important factors and we change them explicitly based on detailed available information; and that we are only interested in the counter factual poverty alleviation scenario and their carbon implications. Moreover, there is a lack of available studies for most countries considered in this study; and finally, we find a relative stability of consumption patterns of the poorest in poor countries.
Similarly, we use current emissions intensities (from Eora) until 2030, ignoring well-established hypothetical trends of reducing energy intensity and climate policy. This assumption would probably overestimate the poor’s future emissions. Rather than explicitly modeling various technological assumption as is done by Rao64 we calculate the additional carbon emissions of poverty alleviation and the required reduction in carbon emissions. These additional carbon emissions of poverty alleviation are added to the RCP2.6. The RCP are abstracted from possible socio-economic scenarios that can produce them in agreement with (e.g., Moss et al.65). According to the IPCC AR5: “The RCPs ARE NOT [emphasize added] associated with unique socioeconomic assumptions or emissions scenarios but can result from different combinations of economic, technological, demographic, policy, and institutional futures” (Wayne66, p. 8). “RCPs each describe an emission trajectory and concentration by the year 2100, and consequent forcing. Each trajectory represents a specific synthesis drawn from the published literature. From this “baseline”, researchers can then test various permutations of social, technical and economic circumstances.” (Wayne66, p. 9) And this is exactly how we are using the RCP as a reference emission trajectory to assess the carbon consequences of poverty alleviation. We do not make any assumption of whether innovations and technical change will deliver or not. We “just” assume, based on the IEA report, that in the next 12 years that might not be major changes in carbon intensity. We only calculate the additional gains in reduction required to offset the additional carbon emissions from poverty alleviation.
Another important component of the poverty alleviation scenario is the estimation of population growth. Estimation of population growth is ideally based on the population projections for each income group in each country until 2100. However, these data are not available. On the other hand, we understand that different countries may have different population growth rates and using the average growth rate for low income countries for the low consumption group may lead to relatively large uncertainty. Given the predictions available from the UN World Population Prospects3 we have two choices: (1) to use predictions that represent income segments and thus requires averaging across countries (the average population growth rate for countries within an income bracket) based on estimates by the UN, for example, we use the average population growth rate of low income countries to represent the population growth for the extreme poverty group and the consumption group of >$2.97 per day, and use the population growth rate of lower middle income countries for the consumption group of $2.97–8.44 per day; or (2) to use country specific predictions but ignore the changing composition of expenditure groups (population growth rate by country). Both estimates have shortcomings. Applying the national average growth rate to the low income group within a country may lead to an underestimation of population growth for low income groups as their growth rate might be higher than the national average67. However, using the average population growth rate across all low income countries may also lead to uncertainty because countries have different population growth rates even though they all fall into the low income country category. In this study, we use option (1) i.e., using the average growth rate of the respective country group mainly because the country specific predictions are not an option to us anymore after we introduce our poverty alleviation scenarios as these would significantly influence income and thus fertility and mortality rates of these low income countries and the country specific predictions by the UN would not be applicable to these countries anymore. When comparing the two approaches, we find that option 2 provides 13% lower carbon emissions under scenario 1 and 18% lower under scenario 2 than by using option 1.
The scaled investment and government expenditure is likely to have some benefits for the poor but it is hard to estimate which benefits they accrue. For example, one might argue that a lot of the infrastructure investment benefits more the middle class, who can extract greater benefit from such investments. A simple example is road-building which leads to increased vehicular mobility. Those in extreme poverty have little to benefit from this road-building. We thus see these expanded government expenditure and investment as accompanying the expansion in producing those additional goods and services associated with poverty alleviation but they are not the trigger of poverty alleviation. These initial transfer payments are not explicitly included in this study.
There are a number of ways that government expenditure can lead to poverty alleviation such as direct payment transfer (cash transfer) which are being trialed or implemented in Brazil68 and India69, and direct and indirect subsidies (e.g., fuel subsidies, food subsidies, poverty programs)72, 73. However, we did not include any such payment transfer and/or subsidies or similar mechanism to increase the income of the poor as outlined in these scenarios due to the complexity of these wealth distribution mechanism. However, this problem is partially mitigated by the use of expenditures instead of actual income, which is hard to measure in poorer countries. There is evidence that households in poorer countries have negative savings as they appear to spend more than they earn (see, e.g., Fesseau and van de Ven70). The fact that these types of transfer are implicit in the expenditure data is the standard justification for choosing expenditure over income in many studies.
Code availability
Programming code for MRIO analysis is available from the corresponding author on request.
Data availability
All data used in this study is from open access sources, including the World Bank Global Consumption Database, EORA MRIO database, the World Bank Povcalnet and the UN Population Prospects. The websites for data download are provided in the method section. |
Worker exploitation exposed in Italian tomato industry | Mutti and Conserve Italia, two of Italy’s largest food companies, have been accused of profiting from “conditions of absolute exploitation” in the country’s €3.2bn (£$3.7bn) tomato sector. The claims, made by prosecutor Paola Guglielmi, come in the wake of the death of a seasonal labourer. Although not arguing that the companies are liable for the death of Sudanese immigrant Abdullah Muhammed, Guglielmi tracked the supply chain from the exploitation of such workers to the very top of the tomato industry. Both Mutti and Conserve Italia supply UK supermarkets, and their products are purchased by thousands of European consumers each week.
| https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/24/the-terrible-truth-about-your-tin-of-italian-tomatoes | 2017-10-23 22:00:00 | Two of Italy’s biggest food companies have been implicated in labour abuses of migrant workers picking tomatoes bought by thousands of British and European consumers every week, according to court documents.
Italian prosecutor Paola Guglielmi has named food giants Mutti and Conserve Italia as benefiting from “conditions of absolute exploitation” in the country’s hugely lucrative tomato industry, as part of an investigation into the death of a seasonal labourer.
Both Mutti and the Conserve Italia brand Cirio [see footnote] supply major UK supermarkets with premium tinned tomatoes and passata, and are named in court documents signed by Guglielmi.
The case began with the death of Abdullah Muhammed, a 47-year-old legal Sudanese immigrant and father of two, who suffered a heart attack while working in the fields of Nardó, which sits on the heel of southern Italy, in July 2015. The allegation against his employer was that Muhammed’s life could have been saved if he had been allowed to go to hospital.
The Italian investigator used her powers to track the supply chain up to the very top of the country’s €3.2bn (£2.85bn) processed tomato industry. While the companies are not liable for the death, their link is significant.
Like thousands of other workers, Muhammed’s day would start at 4am and he would work until 5pm handpicking tomatoes in the fierce heat of the southern Italian summer. Labour abuses listed in the court documents include working for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, without breaks, with minimal pay and no access to medical staff.
Italian prosecutor Paola Guglielmi. Photograph: Courtesy of Corriere Salentino
“The person responsible for the crime by law was just the gangmaster,” Guglielmi told the Guardian.
“But in this case there was also manslaughter. That guy would not have died if there had been a doctor’s visit. The violation of the safety provisions on the job was flagrant.”
Through a far-reaching investigation, Guglielmi checked telephone records, tapped phone calls and conducted aerial surveillance to painstakingly link the exploitation of seasonal migrant workers to industrial giants.
While workers make an average of €30 a day in the Puglia region, they can expect to lose up to half of that just to pay for food, transport, water and a cut to their gangmaster.
The gangmaster or “caporalato” system is rife across the Italian agricultural sector where migrants – both legal and illegal – are organised into informal labour groups that are hired by Italian landowners to harvest their crops.
The file accuses Italian company owner Giuseppe Mariano and Sudanese gangmaster Mohammed Elsalih of manslaughter. The preliminary investigation has now concluded, and a judge will decide whether the case should go to trial.
The companies named in the file are not liable and stress the extent to which they encourage their suppliers to treat their workers ethically.
A spokesman for Conserve Italia, which produces the Cirio brand of tinned tomatoes that is sold by Tesco, said it requires all its suppliers agree to “respect” their workers and the company’s ethical code, and that the company cut ties with the supplier involved after they were made aware of Muhammed’s death.
“We know in the south of Italy there are some situations that are not in line but we can’t do the work – it’s not our responsibility to verify what happens in the region but we do ask our suppliers to respect human rights,” he said. “We don’t pay less than the normal price.”
Conserve Italia has since said in a statement that it plans to sue the suppliers for damages “to protect its reputation as the most ethical company in this business”.
Mutti also issued a statement. “Mutti has always been committed to fight any exploitation of workers’ systems by all means … ,” it said. “Mutti selects its farmers and agricultural partners with special care and maintains a constant dialogue with them along the entire supply chain. As far as the protection and security of workers is concerned, each contract involves specific requirements on work conditions (salary regularity as well as security in the workplace). Mutti will continue to foster its commitment to work in cooperation with its competitors, farmers associations and the Italian institutions to avoid accidents in fields.”
A member of Médecins Sans Frontières talks to an African worker in a makeshift camp in the countryside near the village of Rignano Garganico, southern Italy. Photograph: Tony Gentile/Reuters
Activists claim that the low production costs drive interests not to tackle the exploitation problem properly. Yvan Sagnet, 32, from Cameroon worked just five days in the fields near to where Mohammed died before leading a mass strike of the workers in 2012. Now he campaigns to end what he brands “slavery”.
“When I arrived in Puglia I discovered the gangmaster system – conditions were inhuman – they were ghettos that were like concentration camps,” he said.
“One day a guy got sick [in the fields], he couldn’t handle it and in those places there is no way to get first aid – there is no address. There is no cellphone signal. The workers don’t speak Italian so the gangmasters take advantage … The gangmaster insisted, ‘If you don’t pay me the 20 euros I will not take you. If you do you can go to the hospital tonight.’”
After years of campaigning and organising a mass strike against the gangmasters, a strengthened law outlawing the caporalato system came into effect last year.
But campaigners say very little has changed in isolated farms where authorities do not do enough to proactively crack down on the practice.
“The interests of these fields are linked with the interests of the politicians and people who own the most important companies in Italy,” said Valeria Sallustio, former president of Finis Terrae, an Italian NGO that worked closely with the workers in Nardó.
Zoe Maddison, spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents Tesco and Sainsbury’s among other major UK supermarkets, said: “This is a tragic case and we expect the Italian authorities to carry out a full investigation.
“The welfare of all people who work in our supply chains is of key importance to us, and BRC members will investigate any allegations of malpractice.”
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Lasers seen to significantly improve ethylene production | Laser technology has long been used in the manufacture of petrochemicals as an analytical tool, but it may be used to improve the production of ethylene. The chemical is a key organic compound used in industry and agriculture that is expected to be produced at a rate of 200 million metric tons per year by 2020. Refining ethylene to its required 99.99% purity could be made more effective by deploying laser absorption spectroscopy in a novel manner called the zero-gap design. The devices can detect impurities more effectively, a critical part of sustaining profitability. | http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/magazine/2017/october-2017/special-focus-process-control-and-instrumentation/optimizing-ethylene-production-with-laser-technology | 2017-10-23 13:16:46.063000 | Optimizing ethylene production with laser technology
Ethylene is one of the most valuable organic compound building blocks in the world.
IP: 178.170.195.243
The Authors
Gogates, A. - Emerson Automation Solutions, - Emerson Automation Solutions, Gunnell, J. - Emerson Automation Solutions, - Emerson Automation Solutions,
Related Articles
From the Archive |
UK government spends £370,000 on failed air pollution lawsuits | The UK government spent £370,000 ($488,000) on fighting two legal actions, brought by environmental lawyers ClientEarth, which argued that its efforts to counter air pollution were illegally weak. The disclosure, which comes as the result of a freedom of information request, also reveals that this sum included over £90,000 paid to ClientEarth after it won both cases. Critics have argued that the money should have been spent on anti-pollution action instead.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/23/revealed-government-spent-370000-losing-air-pollution-legal-battles-clientearth | 2017-10-23 13:01:47.677000 | The government spent £370,000 of taxpayers’ money unsuccessfully fighting court claims that its plans to tackle air pollution were illegally poor, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The money was spent battling two actions brought by environmental lawyers ClientEarth and included more than £90,000 in costs paid to the group after it won on both occasions. Critics said the government’s expenditure was “disgraceful” and should have been spent on cutting pollution.
Nitrogen dioxide pollution, mostly produced by diesel vehicles, has been illegally high in most urban parts of Britain since 2010. ClientEarth successfully argued that the government’s plans would not cut the toxic fumes in the “shortest possible time”, as EU law requires.
This forced ministers to produce a new plan, published in July, but this was condemned as “woefully inadequate” by city leaders and “inexcusable” by doctors. Air pollution causes an estimated 23,500 early deaths every year from NO2, rising to 40,000 when other pollutants are considered. In September, the UN’s special rapporteur on pollution said the government was “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens.
Earlier in October, ClientEarth sent a legal letter demanding that the environment secretary Michael Gove sets out a range of new measures to address air pollution. If the government fails to comply with this “letter before action”, ClientEarth will issue new proceedings and ministers are likely to face a third judicial review.
“It’s disgraceful that so much taxpayers’ money has been wasted by the government trying to avoid producing a proper plan to tackle air pollution,” said Tim Farron MP, the Liberal Democrat’s environment spokesman. “This money could have been spent instead on schemes to improve air quality in our towns and cities. We need radical action now to reduce the thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution each year.”
ClientEarth’s lawyer Alan Andrews said: “The government’s insistence on fighting us in court, rather than cleaning up our air, is baffling. The plans produced in response to two court orders show a similar reluctance to get a grip. All we’ve seen is inaction and delay.”
“The sums recovered from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are a small fraction of the costs involved in bringing these cases, which we have brought in the public interest over the course of seven years to uphold the right to breathe clean air,” Andrews said.
A Defra spokesman said: “We have put in place a £3bn plan to improve air quality and reduce harmful emissions. We will also end the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040, and next year we will publish a comprehensive Clean Air Strategy which will set out further steps to tackle air pollution.” The costs revealed in the FOI document does not include the cost of the work done by Defra’s in-house lawyers.
London has the nation’s worst air pollution and on Monday a new “toxin charge” (T-charge) came into force, meaning drivers of the most polluting vehicles must pay a £10 charge on top of the congestion charge of £11.50 to enter central London.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “This is the time to stand up and join the battle to clear the toxic air we are forced to breathe. But I can’t do this alone. I urgently need government to step up and face their responsibilities by delivering a diesel scrappage fund and a Cleaner Air Act that is fit for purpose.”
A letter issued by a coalition of organisations including the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Child Health, Unicef, the British Lung Foundation, the British Heart Foundation and Asthma UK said: “Vehicle emissions, particularly from diesel, are a risk to everyone’s lung health. It can worsen existing conditions like asthma, and affect babies’ development before they’re born. It’s essential that the T-charge is used as a stepping stone to more ambitious plans to tackle toxic air.” |
HIVE agrees to finance Genesis mining expansion in Sweden | Canadian blockchain company HIVE has agreed upon a partnership to build a new cryptocurrency mining centre in Sweden. Genesis Mining, a specialist company which is HIVE's largest shareholder, will build and maintain the new $22m centre under the agreement. Adding to the company's existing facility in Iceland, the centre will increase HIVE's mining capacity, or "hashpower", by around 175%.
| https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/10/23/crypto-mining-company-hive-blockchain-adds-sweden-data-center/ | 2017-10-23 12:20:09.670000 | HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. announced today it has entered into a legally binding letter agreement dated October 23, 2017 with its largest shareholder Genesis Mining under which the company will finance the construction of a cryptocurrency mining data centre in Sweden.
The Sweden mining facility will be a newly constructed GPU mining facility with an anticipated completion date of December 2017. HIVE Blockchain’s cryptocurrency mining capacity or hashpower is expected to increase by approximately 175% with the addition.
The new facility will be constructed by Genesis for consideration of an estimated USD $22 million. Pursuant to the master services agreement between HIVE and Genesis, Genesis will be responsible for hosting, maintenance and related services for the new location for a monthly fee.
Harry Pokrandt, CEO and President of HIVE stated:
“With the help of Genesis, Sweden represents the next stage of growth for HIVE as we continue to build our portfolio of mining facilities. HIVE is acquiring a facility in a politically stable country with access to excellent infrastructure and complements our existing facilities in Iceland. We will continue to evaluate other opportunities to ensure we provide our shareholders the best exposure to the blockchain and cryptocurrency.” |
Maronda Homes offers customisation tools to potential buyers | US building company Maronda Homes has launched a number of online tools to enable buyers to visualise the look of their finished homes. The Florida-based company offers 360-degree tours of its homes, along with interactive floorplans that allow buyers to see the full layout and walk through, and add furniture to the virtual spaces. Users can also use an online visualiser to try out different materials and colours on internal and external walls and surfaces.
| http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/10/prweb14823355.htm | 2017-10-23 12:13:53.457000 | Maronda Homes has constantly been changing its approach to home building, Dream. Build. LIVE! is their tag line, but it could be moving towards Dream. Build your entire home online; from colors, to granite, to options and LIVE in the home that you designed. The Amazon approach has taken full grips throughout all tech companies and now is being seen in most verticals. Putting the customer first will not only make them feel like they are part of the process, now they are the whole buying process. Some tools and feature Maronda has brought to the table are 360 Tours, Exterior and Interior Color Visualizers and Interactive Floor plans. "The company (Maronda Homes) shows no signs of stopping," says Director of Digital Marketing Matthew Wilson. "With our products evolving in the home productions department, it only makes sense to continue to give the potential buyer more of a hands on approach leading up to their brand new home."
Home builders have provided a variety of options to their shoppers for a long time but showing a unique finished product to each and every customer was sometimes difficult. Maronda Homes is leading the online home shopping experience with the addition of the online visualizer tool, 360 tours and interactive floorplans to make home buying online easier.
Today’s buyers have a very specific picture of what their dream home looks like, this online visualizer gives them to chance to see their home come to life, make adjustments and build a home that is truly unique.
The three tools Maronda Homes has unveiled are:
Home Color Selections with Online Visualizers
Selecting from a bevy of options and available upgrades customizes can mix and match features to suit their needs, place furniture in their new home and virtually walk one of our models. Maronda Homes can now give a true feeling, both interior and exterior of what the finished home actually will look like. The visualizer will let you change exterior siding, brick, ,shutters ,interior flooring ,paint ,counter tops and cabinetry are just some of the features you can change and customize.
360 Tours
Walk Room by Room and See an Overview of the Home with the new 360 Tours. This gives any buyer the ability to virtually walk through their next home. You can mouse through room to room, view the floor plan and layout, get a "dollhouse" overview of the home. Making the homes come alive from anywhere.
Interactive Floorplans
Design the home with options to fully meet any needs. With interactive floorplans you can add furniture to see if that perfect couch will fit in the living room. Share the dream home that has been created, with friends or family.
The future for Maronda Homes being a tech/builder has risen to new heights. Look for more consumer friendly moves from this company in the future |
SAP Hybris using AI facial recognition to help target retail | German software giant SAP has integrated its Leonardo machine learning system with its Hybris Marketing Cloud to develop facial recognition software that enables retailers to personalise the in-store experience. The system captures data such as hair and eye colour and feeds it to a digital sign, which then displays targeted product suggestions. SAP's Hybris Marketing Cloud is fully GDPR compliant and sits alongside a suite of tools, including Hybris Customer Attribution, which measures marketing campaigns, and Digital Boardroom, aimed at CMOs. | http://www.eweek.com/cloud/sap-hybris-marketing-cloud-brings-facial-recognition-ai-to-retailing | 2017-10-23 12:06:28.233000 | SAP’s Hybris Marketing Cloud service is using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, machine learning particularly, to help retailers make more informed and targeted marketing decisions.
During the SAP Hybris LIVE: Global Summit event in Barcelona, the German business software giant announced on Oct. 17 an integration with SAP Leonardo that allows SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud customers to use facial recognition to help retailers promote in-store sales and bridge the gap between online and brick-and-mortar retailing.
Powered by SAP Leonardo’s machine learning, the facial recognition system provides a foundation for intelligent and personalized shopping experiences, according to Jackie Palmer, global vice president of Strategy and Solution Management at SAP Hybris.
“SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud analyzes clues about customers to provide personalized recommendations. When a customer enters a store, the technology will capture demographic data such as eye color, hair color, sex, age, etc. as well as other factors such as what they are wearing,” explained Palmer in an email exchange with eWEEK.
Capturing that data is just the start. SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud can then use that information to help shoppers find merchandise that fits their tastes and needs.
“This information is funneled into the digital kiosk/sign to offer customized product suggestions,” continued Palmer. “For example, a shopper with blue eyes and a tan cardigan would be guided towards blue sweaters to match their eye color and sense of style.”
The new facial recognition capabilities complement SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud’s other machine learning capabilities, which help provide personalized product and offer recommendations, Palmer said. They can also supply retailers with lead scoring, churn prediction and buying propensity information, among several other insights.
Ultimately, the product helps solve a problem that many brands face today.
Despite the wealth of data that can be generated by shoppers and their interactions, capturing it and using it to create more complete customer profiles is often a struggle. By digitizing the in-store shopping experience and making it trackable for businesses—plus adding a smattering of third-party data sources—SAP’s solution helps set the stage for contextually driven retail operations that are imbued with intelligence and help marketers make the right call at an opportune time.
Naturally, data privacy is a big concern, given the types and amount of data that today’s technology can collect on an individual. In that regard, SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud fully supports the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the company announced. GDPR is a set of stringent privacy regulations that goes into effect in May 2018 and applies to companies doing business in the region, even if they are based elsewhere.
Also new is SAP Hybris Customer Attribution (formerly Abakus), a solution that generates accurate measurement of marketing campaigns. A new Digital Boardroom tailored to the needs of CMOs (chief marketing officers) joins the portfolio. The solution is based on SAP Digital Boardroom, a business intelligence and data visualization product for C-level executives.
On the Internet of Things (IoT) front, marketers can now use consumer IoT devices to trigger campaigns and generate personalized offers. Finally, SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud now features a WeChat integration that extends its reach into the Chinese social media application’s 889 million users. |
Ocean acidification poses threat to marine life: Study | Ocean acidification, caused by burning fossil fuels, is increasing across the globe, with species losing their ability to adapt to the acidity due to plastic pollution and global warming, according to an eight-year study by Germany’s Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification group. The research found that, as acidification occurs quickly, only species with short generation times, such as micro-organisms, are able to adapt. Acidification could also reduce the size of Atlantic cod by 75% by the end of the century, according to the study. | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/23/ocean-acidification-deadly-threat-to-marine-life-finds-eight-year-study | 2017-10-23 11:29:06.447000 | If the outlook for marine life was already looking bleak – torrents of plastic that can suffocate and starve fish, overfishing, diverse forms of human pollution that create dead zones, the effects of global warming which is bleaching coral reefs and threatening coldwater species – another threat is quietly adding to the toxic soup.
Ocean acidification is progressing rapidly around the world, new research has found, and its combination with the other threats to marine life is proving deadly. Many organisms that could withstand a certain amount of acidification are at risk of losing this adaptive ability owing to pollution from plastics, and the extra stress from global warming.
The conclusions come from an eight-year study into the effects of ocean acidification which found our increasingly acid seas – a byproduct of burning fossil fuels – are becoming more hostile to vital marine life.
“Since ocean acidification happens extremely fast compared to natural processes, only organisms with short generation times, such as micro-organisms, are able to keep up,” the authors of the study Exploring Ocean Change: Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification found.
Marine life such as crustaceans and organisms that create calcified shelters for themselves in the oceans were thought to be most at risk, because acid seas would hinder them forming shells. However, the research shows that while these are in danger, perhaps surprisingly, some – such as barnacles – are often unaffected, while the damage from acidification is also felt much higher up the food chain, into big food fish species.
An unhealthy pteropod shows the effects of ocean acidification, including dissolving shell ridges on its upper surface, a cloudy shell, and severe abrasions. Photograph: Courtesy of NOAA
Ocean acidification can reduce the survival prospects of some species early in their lives, with knock-on effects. For instance, the scientists found that by the end of the century, the size of Atlantic cod in the Baltic and Barents Sea might be reduced to only a quarter of the size they are today, because of acidification.
Peter Thomson, UN ambassador for the oceans and a diplomat from Fiji, which is hosting this year’s UN climate change conference in Bonn, urged people to think of the oceans in the same terms as they do the climate. “We are all aware of climate change, but we need to talk more about ocean change, and the effects of acidification, warming, plastic pollution, dead zones and so on,” he said. “The world must know that we have a plan to save the ocean. What is required over the next three years is concerted action.”
The eight-year study was carried out by the Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification group (known as Bioacid), a German network of researchers, with the support of the German government, and involved more than 250 scientists investigating how marine life is responding to acidification, and examining research from around the world. The study was initiated well before governmentssigned a global agreement on climate change at Paris in 2015, and highlights how the Paris agreement to hold warming to no more than 2C may not be enough to prevent further acidification of the world’s seas.
Governments will meet in Bonn in November to discuss the next steps on the road to fulfilling the requirements of the Paris agreement, and the researchers are hoping to persuade attendees to take action on ocean acidification as well.
A scientist feeds coral in a lab to study the impact of multiple climate stressors on coral reef. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Ocean acidification is another effect of pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as the gas dissolves in seawater to produce weak carbonic acid. Since the industrial revolution, the average pH of the ocean has been found to have fallen from 8.2 to 8.1, which may seem small but corresponds to an increase in acidity of about 26%. Measures to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere can help to slow down this process, but only measures that actively remove carbon already in the atmosphere will halt it, because of the huge stock of carbon already in the air from the burning of fossil fuels.
Worse still, the effects of acidification can intensify the effects of global warming, in a dangerous feedback loop. The researchers pointed to a form of planktonic alga known as Emiliania huxleyi, which in laboratory experiments was able to adapt to some extent to counter the negative effects acidification had upon it. But in a field experiment, the results were quite different as the extra stresses present at sea meant it was not able to form the extensive blooms it naturally develops. As these blooms help to transport carbon dioxide from the surface to the deep ocean, and produce the gas dimethyl sulfide that can help suppress global warming, a downturn in this species “will therefore severely feed back on the climate system”. |
Ocean acidification poses threat to marine life: Study | Ocean acidification, caused by burning fossil fuels, is increasing across the globe, with species losing their ability to adapt to the acidity due to plastic pollution and global warming, according to an eight-year study by Germany’s Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification group. The research found that, as acidification occurs quickly, only species with short generation times, such as micro-organisms, are able to adapt. Acidification could also reduce the size of Atlantic cod by 75% by the end of the century, according to the study. | http://oceanrep.geomar.de/view/project/BIOACID.html | 2017-10-23 11:29:06.447000 | Number of items: 618.
Articles in a Scientific Journal - peer-reviewed
Articles in a Scientific Journal - without review
Books
Book chapters
Brander, L. M. , Hattam, C. and Rehdanz, K. (2014) In: An updated synthesis of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity. , ed. by Hennige, S. , Roberts, M. and Williamson, P. . Montreal Technical Series, 75 . Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Canada, pp. 62-70. ISBN 92-9225-527-4 and(2014) Impacts on ecosystem services, livelihoods and biogeochemical cycles. In: An updated synthesis of the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity. , ed. byand. Montreal Technical Series, 75 . Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Canada, pp. 62-70. ISBN 92-9225-527-4
Brander, L. M. , Narita, D. , Rehdanz, K. and Tol, R. S. J. (2014) Nunes, P. N. L. D. , Kumar, P. and Dedeurwaerdere, T. . Edward Elgar (EE), Cheltenham, UK, pp. 78-92. ISBN 978-1-78195-150-7 and(2014) The Economic Impacts of Ocean Acidification. In: Handbook on the Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity. , ed. byand. Edward Elgar (EE), Cheltenham, UK, pp. 78-92. ISBN 978-1-78195-150-7
Riebesell, U. (2011) Disconcertingly unique - the Anthropocene. In: The Ocean Is Our Future : Kiel Marine Scientists On a Time Trip To 2100. . Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean", Kiel, Germany, pp. 48-53. ISBN 978-3-00-036928-5
Pörtner, H. O. , Bickmeyer, U. , Bleich, M. , Bock, C. , Brownlee, C. , Melzner, F. Michaelidis, B. , Sartoris, F. J. and Storch, D. (2010) Riebesell, U. , Fabry, V. J. , Hansson, L. and Gattuso, J. P. . Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp. 137-166. and(2010) Studies of acid-base status and regulation. In: Guide to best practices for ocean acidification research and data reporting. ; Chapter 9 , ed. byand. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp. 137-166.
Pörtner, H. O. , Dickson, A. and Gattuso, J. P. (2010) Riebesell, U. , Fabry, V. J. , Hansson, L. and Gattuso, J. P. . Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp. 167-180. and(2010) Terminology and units for parameters relevant to the carbonate system. In: Guide to best practices for ocean acidification research and data reporting. ; Chapter 10 , ed. byand. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp. 167-180.
Conference papers
Presentations
Moreno de Castro, M. (2013) (2013) Separating direct acidification response signal from variability in plankton dynamics. [Talk] In: Understanding and Interpreting Uncertainty - Interdisziplinary Conference of Young Earth System Scientists. , 22.-25.09.2013, Hamburg, Germany .
Moreno de Castro, M. (2013) (2013) Uncertainties in models for ocean acidification. [Talk] In: 1. Workshop on Trait-based approaches to Ocean Life. , 26.-28.08.2013, Kopenhagen, Danmark .
Rehdanz, K. (2013) (2013) Socio-economic impacts of ocean acidification. [Talk] In: UNFCCC's Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). , 24.-25.10.2013, Bonn, Germany .
Bögner, D. , Bickmeyer, U. and Köhler, A. (2011) and(2011) Effect of Ocean Acidification on Fertilization Success of Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis. [Talk] In: Effect of Ocean Acidification on Fertilization Success of Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis Workshop. , 24.-26.11.2011, Xanten, Germany .
Hauck, J. , Gerdes, D. A. , Hillenbrand, C. D. , Hoppema, M. , Kuhn, G. , Nehrke, G. , Völker, C. and Wolf-Gladrow, D. A. (2011) and(2011) Distribution and mineralogy of carbonate sediments on Antarctic shelves. [Talk] In: 2. Young Scientist Excellence Cluster Conference on Marine and Climate Research. , 04.-05..10.2011, Bremen, Germany .
Conference posters
Hauck, J. , Völker, C. , Wang, T. , Hoppema, M. , Losch, M. and Wolf-Gladrow, D. A. (2013) and(2013) Response of carbon fluxes to the Southern Annular Mode: The role of export production and seasonality. [Poster] In: 45. International Liege Colloquium on Ocean Dynamics: The variability of primary production in the ocean: from the synoptic to the global scale. , 13.-17.05.2013, Liege, Belgium .
Theses - not published by a publisher
Reports - Cruise Reports
Reports - other reports
Broadgate, W. , Riebesell, U. Armstrong, C. , Brewer, P. , Denman, K. , Feely, R. , Gao, K. , Gattuso, J. P. , Isensee, K. , Kleypas, J. , Laffoley, D. , Orr, J. , Pörtner, H. O. , de Rezende, C. E. , Schmidt, D. , Urban, E. , Waite, A. and Valdes, L. and International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) (2013) andand International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) (2013) Ocean Acidification: Summary for Policymakers. . IGBP, Stockholm, Sweden, 22 pp.
Broadgate, W. , Riebesell, U. Armstrong, C. , Brewer, P. , Denman, K. , Feely, R. , Gao, K. , Gattuso, J. P. , Isensee, K. , Kleypas, J. , Laffoley, D. , Orr, J. , Pörtner, H. O. , de Rezende, C. E. , Schmidt, D. , Urban, E. , Waite, A. and Valdes, L. and International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) (2013) andand International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) (2013) Ozeanversauerung: Zusammenfassung für Entscheidungsträger. . IGBP, Stockholm, Sweden, 22 pp.
Videos |
Urban logistics in Europe must catch up with e-commerce growth | The continuing increase in e-commerce over the coming years will require more space to be given over to "urban logistics" – the facilities needed to handle goods ordered by customers for delivery. A report by commercial property company Cushman & Wakefield projects a 69% increase in the volume of parcels being delivered in Europe by 2021, with the space required to handle them doubling in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. London will need an increase in space of 42%, according to the projections. London is the most mature e-commerce market in Europe, the report said.
| http://postandparcel.info/83181/news/europe-needs-huge-increase-in-urban-logistics-space-to-cope-with-parcel-growth/ | 2017-10-23 11:26:43.167000 | Major European cities will need a “huge increase” in urban logistics space to cope with the expected growth in e-commerce-driven parcel volumes over the next few years, according to a new report from property company Cushman & Wakefield. The Urban Logistics report, published yesterday (18 October), forecasts a 69% increase in parcel volume in Europe by 2021.
According to Cushman & Wakefield: “In terms of population and buying power, London is the largest and most mature eCommerce market in Europe with a current urban logistics space requirement of 870,000 sq m. This total is expected to exceed 1.2 million sq m in 2021, an increase of 42%.”
In the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, the report forecast that the space requirement will more than double.
Commenting on the report, Lisa Graham, Head of EMEA Logistics Research & Insight, Cushman & Wakefield, said: “As more of us do our shopping online, it’s vital that our large cities have the capability to handle the increase in parcel capacity across Europe. Our Urban Space Model shows that substantial growth is expected across the board. The fact that a 42% rise in the UK is the smallest increase speaks volumes for the direction the market is heading.
“Looking ahead, it will be crucial for online retailers and parcel companies to use urban logistics space in order to meet rising customers’ expectations in terms of speed and reliability of delivery, while at the same time reducing costs in order to justify higher rents.” |
Facebook trials shift non-promoted posts away from news feed | Facebook is trialling a new version of its news feed which relegates almost all non-promoted posts to a secondary feed. Paid-for advertising through promoted posts still appear on the main feed along with posts from users' friends, but other posts are hidden. The system is being trialled in six countries, including Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka, and has led to some publishers seeing a fall of up to 80% in readership. Facebook says the trial is meant to allow users to see posts from friends and family more easily. | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/23/facebook-non-promoted-posts-news-feed-new-trial-publishers?CMP=twt_a-technology_b-gdntech | 2017-10-23 10:45:07.340000 | Facebook is testing a major change that would shift non-promoted posts out of its news feed, a move that could be catastrophic for publishers relying on the social network for their audience.
A new system being trialled in six countries including Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka sees almost all non-promoted posts shifted over to a secondary feed, leaving the main feed focused entirely on original content from friends, and adverts.
The change has seen users’ engagement with Facebook pages drop precipitously, with publications reporting a 60% to 80% fall. If replicated more broadly, such a change would destroy many smaller publishers, as well as larger ones with an outsized reliance on social media referrals for visitors.
According to Filip Struhárik, a journalist at Slovakian newspaper Dennik N, the change resulted in a drop in interactions across the country’s media landscape. “Pages are seeing dramatic drops in organic reach,” Struhárik said. “The reach of several Facebook pages fell on Thursday and Friday by two-thirds compared to previous days.”
Overnight, from Wednesday to Thursday, a broad cross-section of the 60 largest Facebook pages in Slovakia saw two-thirds to three-quarters of their Facebook reach disappear, according to stats from Facebook-owned analytics service CrowdTangle. For larger sites, with a number of different ways to communicate with their readers, that hasn’t had a huge effect on their bottom line, but it’s a different story for those with a reliance on social media.
The change does not affect paid promotions, which appear on the news feed as normal. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Smaller sites are reporting a loss of traffic and Facebook engagement, Struhárik told the Guardian. “Its hard to say now how big it will be. Problems have also hit ‘Buzzfeed-like’ sites, which were more dependent on social traffic.”
Struhárik noted that the trial has only been in place since Thursday, rendering it too soon to draw strict conclusions. “But if reach is radically smaller, interactions decreased and your site doesn’t have diversity of traffic sources, it will hurt you.”
In a statement, Facebook said: “With all of the possible stories in each person’s feed, we always work to connect people with the posts they find most meaningful. People have told us they want an easier way to see posts from friends and family, so we are testing two separate feeds, one as a dedicated space with posts from friends and family and another as a dedicated space for posts from Pages.”
Notably, the change does not seem to affect paid promotions: those still appear on the news feed as normal, as do posts from people who have been followed or friended on the site. But the change does affect so called “native” content, such as Facebook videos, if those are posted by a page and not shared through paid promotion.
Matti Littunen, a senior research analyst at Enders Analysis, said the move was “the classic Facebook playbook: first give lots of organic reach to one content type, then they have to pay for reach, then they can only get through to anyone by paying.”
Littunen said that many “premium” publishers had already cottoned on to the trend, and backed off relying too strongly on social media. But new media companies, who rely on social media to bring in traffic and revenue, would be wounded, perhaps fatally, by the switch. “The biggest hits will be to the likes of Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and Business Insider, who create commoditised content aiming for the biggest reach.”
Elsewhere, publishers who dived towards video content as Facebook began promoting that may also get burned, Littunen says. “The kind of video that is doing best has been quite commoditised low-value stuff that is often lifted from elsewhere and repackaged for Facebook.
“We don’t see that bonanza going on forever, and since the content isn’t what Facebook has been hoping for, it’s expendable. We’re expecting to see another repeat of this playbook, with organic reach being replaced by paid reach.”
For Struhárik, there is one last catch: he doesn’t expect the test to be a huge success. “Newsfeed without news. Just friends and sponsored content. People will find out how boring their friends are,” he said.
In a second statement issued after this article was published, Facebook added: “We have no current plans to roll this out globally.” |
Smaller cities at greatest risk from automation: MIT | The rise of automation in the US will have a greater effect on cities of less than 100,000 people than on larger ones, according to new research. The study, from the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), found that smaller cities have a greater proportion of workers in routine service roles, which are likely to be more vulnerable to automation. Larger cities, by contrast, were found to have a bigger proportion of workers in cognitive and analytical roles, which are expected to be more resilient.
| https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609076/in-these-small-cities-ai-advances-could-be-costly/ | 2017-10-23 10:40:17.313000 | Other researchers have attempted to measure the effect of technology on employment in cities, but the Media Lab authors, who have identified which jobs and skills tend to be more prevalent in smaller cities and larger ones, claim to be the first to explain why different U.S. cities are more susceptible (or resilient) to technological unemployment. (Though the authors did not define “small” and “large” in their paper, they say that cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants will experience more disruption.)
They say that bigger cities have a disproportionately large number of jobs for people who do cognitive and analytical tasks, such as software developers and financial analysts—occupations that are less likely to be disrupted by automation. Smaller cities have a disproportionate amount of routine clerical work, such as cashier and food service jobs, which are more susceptible.
This interactive map shows how automation is expected to affect jobs in individual U.S. cities.
The five U.S. metropolitan areas that are expected to experience the least job impact from automation are San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara, California; Washington, D.C., and Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia; Trenton, New Jersey; Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. All of those regions have large populations and high proportions of skilled technical and managerial occupations, particularly technology jobs. The metro areas deemed most at risk (among them Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Elkhart County, Indiana; and Punta Gorda, Florida) rely on industries, such as agriculture and tourism, that have already been disrupted by technology and will probably continue to be.
“Big cities provide greater opportunities for synergies among creative, highly technical people, and that’s why they attract them,” explains Iyad Rahwan, an associate professor at MIT and the corresponding author of the paper. “The other dynamic is that cashiers and waiters are less idle in big cities than small cities, so large cities need fewer of them in proportion to their size.” As a result, he says, large cities have fewer routinized occupations that are more likely to be automated and relatively more technical and managerial occupations, which are less likely to be impacted by automation.
There are, of course, outliers. Warner Robins, Georgia; Ithaca, New York; and Corvallis, Oregon, have fewer than 75,000 inhabitants each, but all rank in the top 15 metropolitan areas in terms of lowest expected automation impact. Morgan Frank, an MIT researcher who co-wrote the Media Lab report, says these cities are surprisingly resilient to the costs of automation because they house (or are located very close to) major institutions that employ skilled workers, such as an Air Force base, Cornell University, and an HP research lab.
The study is likely to draw comparisons to other recent high-profile economic analyses of automation and jobs. A 2013 University of Oxford paper estimated the susceptibility to “computerization” of more than 700 occupation types and forecast that 47 percent of U.S. employment was at “high risk” of automation, and a 2017 MIT paper gauged how much use of industrial robots reduced manufacturing employment and wages across U.S. “commuting zones” between 1990 and 2007.
The Media Lab study differs in making relative comparisons rather than absolute predictions. Rahwan says the approach reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the Media Lab, which aims to meld research in the media, arts, and sciences. Though the study uses the same occupation-level predictions as the Oxford paper (as well as another set of predictions from a 2016 OECD analysis), it offers an “expected job impact” percentage for 380 cities rather than calculating an overall technological unemployment number for the entire U.S. (“Job impact,” says Frank, could refer to workers having to seek new employment or to the costly retraining of workers.) The Media Lab study also attempts a broader analysis of automation than the other MIT paper, which was written by two economics professors.
“For us, the question is: How can we anticipate future changes, not just related to robotics but also machine learning, algorithms, chatbots, and voice recognition, which are going to disrupt people who are in white-collar occupations as well [as in blue-collar jobs]?” says Rahwan. |
Understanding how animals digest bamboo boosts biofuel production | Scientists at Agriculture Canada are studying the digestive habits of beavers and pandas, in an attempt to learn more about how the animals break down bamboo. It is hoped that the results will be applicable to the improvement of biofuel research. The team wants to know how enzymes in the creatures' gut work to dissolve plant material, and whether the process can be applied to ruminant digestion to help produce biofuels from plant cellulose.
| http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2017/10/21/pandas-and-beavers-digestion-of-bamboo-and-trees-can-help-biofuel-production/ | 2017-10-23 10:32:35.187000 | In Canada, scientists in Ottawa with Agriculture Canada are looking at how pandas digest bamboo to better understand the fungi and microbes that help them digest the branches and twigs. This builds on another recent study about how beavers digest trees and how the enzymes in their gut help break down the material to get nutrients. The hope is that the digestion and microbiomes of beavers and pandas can help researchers apply that knowledge to ruminant digestion and help with biofuel production from plant cellulose.
Wen Chen told Western Producer, “What we’re seeing in the lab is really exciting. Imagine the possibilities that exist in reducing our reliance on petrochemicals by improving the way we make biofuel.” |
Keyless tech investment on the rise | More than $200m has been invested this year in Silicon Valley start-ups and technologies relating to locks, keys and building accesses. Some companies are offering tools for copying and tracking traditional keys, though most of the funding has gone towards digital alternatives, such as smartphone apps that control keyless entry systems. “Locks are anachronistic and inconvenient in today’s digital age”, said August Home CEO Jason Johnson. | https://www.gizmocrazed.com/2017/10/the-keys-to-your-house-belong-to-startups/ | 2017-10-23 10:30:56.983000 | Silicon Valley may be the techiest place on earth, but even here, the way people open the front door hasn’t changed much in a century. Most of us still get in by turning a flat metal key in a lock. Visitors ring doorbells, and we peep at them through peepholes. If we’re out, keyless guests are out of luck.
If investors have their way, that status quo will look quite primitive in a few years. So far this year, venture investors have poured more than $200 million into an assortment of companies with businesses and technologies tied to keys, locks and building access. To date, those companies have more than $500 million, according to an analysis of Crunchbase funding data.
Several startups have business models tied to traditional keys, including offering tools to more easily copy and keep track of them. Most of the funding, however, has gone to companies offering digital alternatives to metal keys, including systems that tie in smartphone apps to monitor and control who gets through the door.
“Locks are anachronistic and inconvenient in today’s digital age,” Jason Johnson, CEO of August Home, a developer of smartphone-enabled keyless entry systems, told Crunchbase News. “People shouldn’t have to carry their keys with them all the time when they are only used one to two times a day.”
Moreover, Johnson says, virtual keys give users more control. They get more information about who accesses their home and when. Users can also revoke virtual keys instantly, eliminating some of the worries that come with sharing physical keys.
Why now for keyless entry?
Timing of investments seems tied to projections for consumer adoption more than major technological breakthroughs. Card access systems for buildings and keyless entry for cars, after all, have been around for decades. Smartphone apps for security monitoring are also nothing new. While funded startups are developing proprietary technologies, market timing is motivating backers to put money into scaling operations now.
The biggest round this year went to Ring, a developer of connected doorbells and security systems that closed a $109 million Series D financing in January. August closed a $25 million funding round in July, and KeyMe, which lets people make copies of physical keys using a digital image, closed on $25 million in September. (See a full list of funded startups here.)
Pitches about the virtues of virtual keys hold particular appeal in the e-commerce age. Deliveries become much more convenient when one doesn’t have to wait at home to open the door or worry about leaving stuff outside. The ability to allow limited or one-time access, along with an electronic record of entry, also offers some measure of security.
The growth forecasts look enticing. To a large degree, lock and building access-related investments are an extension of the connected home space, with startups and tech giants alike eyeing everything from doors to appliances to thermostats to sprinkler systems. Forrester Research projects that U.S. adoption of smart home devices will grow at a 42 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years.
Growing adoption of connected home systems provides a key entry point for key and door tech. As Amazon and Google compete to sell more Alexa and Google Home devices, they’re partnering with a host of companies developing compatible devices. Buyers of connected home systems are also looking for ways to get value from their purchases, and the front door is an obvious place to look.
Traditional meets technical
It’s not clear whether startups will dominate in key and home access innovation. Old-school lock makers, security system providers and tech giants are all competing for market share.
Traditional lock makers, in particular, are investing to keep up with the times. Schlage, a lock maker founded in 1920, has been developing add-ons for locks and smart deadbolts that offer compatibility with Apple, Android and Amazon Alexa. Yale Locks, with a history dating back to the 1840s, also sells smart door locks and alarms and a digital door viewer.
Google’s also planning a big play for the front door. Its Nest smart thermostat subsidiary plans to roll out a video doorbell called the Nest Hello early next year. Amazon has also been exploring smart doorbells to provide controlled access for deliveries.
Startups, however, may derive some strategic benefit from having no legacy product lines to sustain or proprietary platforms they’re obligated to support. Moreover, smart lock systems don’t necessarily require giving up traditional keys.
“The best digital solutions have analog fallbacks,” says August’s Johnson, who says his system is designed as an addition to existing locks, not a replacement.
So maybe we won’t be throwing away the keys just yet. But we will have the option of using them a lot less. |
Countrywide to launch online mortgage broker Mojo Mortgages | Countrywide is to launch an online mortgage broker service Mojo Mortgages early next year. The UK property services group is developing the service with venture capitalist firm Blenheim Chalcot, which will include digital tools for advisers. Countrywide also plans to increase the number of advisers in the field and strengthen its telephone team in a bid to offer a multichannel service.
| http://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2017/10/19/countrywide-unveils-online-mortgage-broker-mojo-mortgages/ | 2017-10-23 10:15:56.303000 | Countrywide is launching an online mortgage broker called Mojo Mortgages early in 2018.
The property services group, which includes the largest mortgage broker in the UK, has partnered with venture capital investor Blenheim Chalcot to build the business.
The launch of Mojo Mortgages will extend Countrywide’s mortgage channels to include online offerings. Countrywide said it would continue to invest in its face-to-face, telephone and online offerings.
As part of the launch it is also producing a set of digital tools for advisers.
Countrywide managing director for financial services Peter Curran said the business was pleased to be forming the joint venture with Blenheim Chalcot.
“This year already we have strengthened our telephony mortgage sales channel and invested in technology to support our mortgage advisers,” he said.
“We plan to continue to grow all three channels as we offer a truly multi-channel proposition. This includes increasing our adviser force in the field, further strengthening our telephony team in Camberley and now, through our partnership with Blenheim Chalcot, we’re able to offer digital tools to our advisers and launch a consumer-facing online mortgage proposition to further enhance the choice we give our customers.”
Blenheim Chalcot managing partner for fintech Dan Cobley added that Countrywide had unprecedented understanding of the mortgage industry.
“Combining that with our 20 years’ experience of building digital platforms and businesses is a winning formula. Together we will build the best possible customer journey through any channel,” he said.
In 2016, Countrywide exchanged on over 60,000 homes, representing £19bn worth of property, while it’s broker arm completed more than £15bn of mortgages. The company also manages more than 90,000 properties.
Blenheim Chalcot was founded in 1998 and specialises in building digital businesses. It has portfolio sales of more than £300m with more than 3,000 employees. |
Home monitoring device recognises home's inhabitants using AI | US start-up Cherry Lab has developed a home monitoring device, called Cherry Home, that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to keep tabs on a property's inhabitants. The system is capable of mapping a room, recognising the people in it, determining what they are doing and telling the owner if anything happens. The first 100 units will be shipped in February, with another 1,000 units released in May. A starter pack of two sensors and a processor will cost $900.
| https://www.cnet.com/products/cherry-labs-cherry-home/preview/ | 2017-10-23 10:13:34.837000 | This is how Cherry Home identifies people. Cherry Labs
Startup security company Cherry Labs wants its system of cameras with built-in sensors to be the eyes and ears of your smart home . The system, called Cherry Home, uses a separate processor and advanced AI to not only see what's going on, but map the room it's in, recognize the people in the room, tell you what they're doing, and notify you if something goes wrong.
Cherry Labs and Cherry Home officially launch today. The company will ship out its first 100 Cherry Home units in February. Those customers will still technically be beta-testing the product. The next 1,000 units will roll out in May.
We've seen cams with some level of AI before. The Netatmo Welcome and the Nest Cam IQ recognize faces. An upcoming cam called Lighthouse can even distinguish actions and notify you if someone is running.
The cam/sensor of the Cherry Home system. Cherry Labs
The ambitious Cherry Home smart home system promises capabilities well beyond what any of its competitors can do. That's because Cherry Home won't just use facial recognition to tell who's who. The cam also learns the length of your arms and legs, the clothes you wear, the sound of your voice, the color of your skin and hair, and even the way you walk.
Cherry Home triangulates its position in the room through a variety of sensors and creates a diagram of the space you can see on the app. Thanks to all of the info it tracks, the Cherry Home knows who's in the room, where that person is within the room, and what they're doing.
How Cherry Home maps a room. Cherry Labs
At launch, Cherry Labs promises that its system will send an alert when a person falls down. The system will also know if someone is screaming, crying or just laughing. Cherry Labs service will include professional monitoring, so if the system senses something wrong, it can call emergency services.
In the future, Cherry Labs wants to offer even more advanced smarts. For example, you could tie it into your smart home so it could automatically turn on your reading light when you open a book. And the coolest innovation is still a work in progress for the team but could be a significant step forward for the actual smarts of the smart home -- Cherry Labs is working with pharmaceutical companies to understand the body language of a person when they're about to have a stroke. The company isn't promising this feature any time soon, but at some point, this smart home cam could recognize when you're in the early stages of a stroke and call 911.
How is all of this possible?
To make all of this happen, Cherry Home's cams pack in a bunch of sensors: It has a binocular camera with a 165-degree field of view and an infrared sensor for night vision. Each cam also includes a motion sensor, an accelerometer, a compass and an altimeter so it knows how high it is off the ground and which way it's facing.
The cams send all of the data they collect to a central processor with the computing power of a high-end PC, according to Cherry Labs. That processor will save and analyze all data locally to increase turnaround time on its responsiveness and for added privacy . The cams and processor talk to each other using a mesh Wi-Fi network. The processor only talks to the cloud when it needs to send you an alert or if you're using an app to watch a live feed from a room.
You'll be able to customize alerts and when you want Cherry Labs to save clips. You'll get a daily summary of the activities it spotted and who it saw. And the processor has a backup battery should the power fail.
The cams are battery powered by coin batteries that last about three months. Fortunately, the processor can recharge those batteries, and houses two extra, so you can swap in those once a quarter.
Will this actually work?
Because Cherry Labs is promising smarts well beyond what's currently available, I'm skeptical that Cherry Home will ever be a reliable consumer product you can pick up at your local electronics store. Even the more limited facial recognition in cams like the Netatmo Welcome is hit-or-miss.
What you'll see in the app. Cherry Labs
And as you might have expected, the Cherry Home's price will be prohibitive for curious smart-home shoppers. A starter pack of two sensors and a processor will be $900. A pack with four sensors will cost $1,200. An eight-pack kit is $1,400. (Cherry Home will ship overseas. The US prices convert to approximately £680/AU$1,150 for a two-pack, £900/AU$1,500 for four, and £1,000/AU$1,800 for eight.)
For comparison, a Nest Cam IQ can work on its own without a processor and costs $300. Cherry Labs will also charge $14 per month per sensor for its insights and monitoring (£10/AU$18), or $10 per month per sensor if you sign up for a full year (£8/AU$13). You can still use the cams as cams without this subscription, but you lose almost all of the AI advantages. Nest's AI service, called Nest Aware, starts at $10 per month, but doesn't include monitoring.
I also have privacy concerns about Cherry Home. The cams don't have a physical shutter, so you can't manually keep it from keeping an eye on you short of killing its power.
But Cherry Home's promised features sound possible given all of its sensors and the computing power of a high-end PC. It might also be more reliable than the facial recognition we've seen simply because it's not just relying solely on facial recognition.
Plus, the company is being upfront about what it'll be able to do from the start and what it's hoping for in the future.
Obviously, Cherry Home isn't for you if you're looking for an affordable and simple upgrade to your home's security. If you want to preorder Cherry Home, get ready to live on the cutting edge, for better and for worse. That said, I'm fascinated by Cherry Labs' ambitious goals. If the company can pull off all of its lofty promises, the AI of Cherry Home could act as the brain of a more proactive smart home. |
Google denies planning to offer publishers revenue-sharing deal | Google has strongly denied claims that it will offer new publishers subscription deals in return for a share of their revenue. The social media giant is thought to have been exploring ways of using its data algorithms to help publishers customise their online subscription offers as print readerships decline. But Google said speculation that it had already approached several media organisations with such offers was "totally wrong".
| http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/10/23/google-denies-floating-revenue-split-model-with-publishers-exchange-subscriber-aid | 2017-10-23 09:34:57.573000 | Google has strenuously denied reports that it has been angling to soften up publishers into accepting some form of revenue split, in exchange for using its muscle to attract potential new subscribers, following a spate of weekend reports.
Google denies floating revenue split model with publishers in exchange for subscriber aid
The Financial Times had suggested that several media organisations had been approached by the internet firm with the offer of a subscriptions lifeline in exchange for a share of the spoils but Google itself has described the speculation as ‘totally wrong’. |
Australian AI firm Flamingo raises $3.8m for virtual assistants | Sydney-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Flamingo has raised AUD5m ($3.8m) in less than 15 minutes in an oversubscribed funding round, according to CEO Catriona Wallace. The funding will enable the rollout of Flamingo's flagship products, virtual sales and inquiry assistants Rosie and Maggie, aimed initially at the "highly commoditised" insurance sector. Wallace said Flamingo was "a good year ahead" of rivals Microsoft and Watson, and added the company was working on "five big client go-lives across Australia and the US".
| http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/startup/artificial-intelligence-company-flamingo-raises-5-million-in-12-minutes-20170921-gym23p.html | 2017-10-23 09:31:30.867000 | Two artificial virtual assistants called Rosie and Maggie are set to become more ubiquitous after artificial intelligence start-up Flamingo raised $5.1 million last month to fund their rollout.
Chief executive Catriona Wallace, who founded Flamingo in 2014, says she is "super pleased" with the raise after it was opened and closed within 12 minutes with $10 million bid on the book.
Catriona Wallace says the successful capital raise is an endorsement of artificial intelligence. Credit: Ben Rushton
"We were well oversubscribed," she says. "It was one of the fastest capital raises that [lead investment partner] Bell Potter had ever conducted, which I believe is testament to Australia's growing interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning."
More than chatbots |
UAE appoints 'minister for AI' in global first | Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama has been named as the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) first-ever minister of state for artificial intelligence (AI) following a cabinet reshuffle. Al Olama, 27, formerly led the UAE AI strategy, which seeks to streamline the government and increase efficiency using AI.
| https://arabianmarketer.ae/in-a-global-first-uae-appoints-minister-for-artificial-intelligence/ | 2017-10-23 09:29:54.633000 | After appointing a Happiness Minister for the state, in another global first, UAE has now named a State Minister for Artificial Intelligence (AI). The decision was announced post the reshuffling of the UAE cabinet indicating that the country is focusing on the new era of future skills, future sciences and future technology.
27 years old Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama has been appointed the Minister of State for Artificial intelligence, who had earlier lead the UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy. This development comes following the UAE’s announcement of its UAE 2031 AI strategy, which aims to make the government more efficient and streamlined by relying on AI technologies.
“We want the UAE to become the world’s most prepared country for artificial intelligence,” His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said on his Twitter account.
Mr Al Olama has been on the Executive Committee of the World Government Summit since 2014. He has a BBA from the American University of Dubai, and a diploma of excellence and project management from the American University in Sharjah. |
Netherlands comes up with novel uses for empty prisons | The Netherlands is putting its many empty prisons to good use by offering them as business premises. As a result, the Bijlmerbajes penitentiary has been transformed into the country's first Syrian hammam, offering work for locally based asylum seekers, the Leeuwarden’s Blokhuispoort in the north of the country runs prison-themed children's parties, while the De Lik restaurant in Utrecht’s Wolvenplein prison is a hit with diners, despite council plans to sell the venue. However, the schemes have been criticised for using former jails to house vulnerable migrants, although one, the Lola Lik in Amsterdam, offers a refugee radio station.
| http://www.citymetric.com/fabric/netherlands-has-too-many-prisons-so-what-it-s-doing-them-3405 | 2017-10-23 09:21:20.980000 | A decline in the prison population of the Netherlands, coupled with one of the lowest incarceration rates in Europe – almost half that of the UK – has led to the importing of foreign prisoners and some surprising uses for empty Dutch jails.
Here are some of the wackiest ways in which unwanted prisons are being repurposed.
A School
Parents enrolling their children at the €14k+ a year British School of Amsterdam can be sure that their offspring will be taught in secure surroundings, although the word ‘detention’ is likely to bring back murky memories. The school’s new building is a former prison and is due to reopen its once heavily-bolted doors in 2020.
The Havenstraat campus, in Amsterdam’s expat heartland to the south of the city, is one of several new schools being built to address a shortage of international education for an expanding international workforce. In a statement on its Union-Jack-emblazoned website, principal Paul Morgan promises that the 13,500 m2 former jail with its 1,200 pupil capacity, will still have a “small-school, family feel”.
A Hammam
The Bijlmerbajes penitentiary is still a good place to get clean, even though the inmates have all been moved on. A total of 15 cells within the vast jail have been converted to a Hammam complex, providing facilities to steam, enjoy a full-body scrub, bathe and get a massage.
Image: Bijlmer Hammam.
It is the country’s first Syrian hammam and provides work opportunities for refugees from the asylum centre which occupies a neighbouring wing. The graffiti from the previous occupants remains as a reminder of bitter times past.
Guests can complete the luxury experience – and support other refugee workers – by dining in the prison’s new pop-up restaurant A Beautiful Mess or overnighting in the newly-opened Movement Hotel (see above for a pic). You might be sleeping in a converted cell, but you do have custody of the keys to your room.
A Children’s Party
The kids at the parties held at Leeuwarden’s Blokhuispoort prison in the north of the Netherlands are unlikely to be running wild. Caronen Entertainment lock up the little mischief-makers as part of their jolly prison-themed birthday celebrations. Children get a tour of the building and make their own robber’s mask in one of the cells. The medieval prison, which closed in 2007, has been extensively renovated and remodelled over the years, but the gothic spires and moated entrance remain a formidable sight.
An Escape Room
Wannabe criminals can don a boiler suit and step into their own adrenalin-filled prison drama with Prison Escape’s interactive escape room concept. Set in Breda’s dramatic Boschpoort prison, with its epic turrets and dome, the aim of the game is to escape and players have just three hours to work out how. The challenge begins in your cell with an unknown cellmate and ends, if you are successful, with freedom.
Image: Prison Escape.
At almost £60 a ticket, Prison Escape is not cheap, but then how many escape rooms involve an authentic setting, a cast of 80 actors, and up to 400 participant inmates?
A Restaurant
The chefs at the De Lik restaurant in Utrecht’s Wolvenplein prison won’t be doing porridge these days; instead diners can now expect a five-course meal.
Opened in March 2017, the restaurant prioritises organic, native ingredients and offers a surprise menu based on what’s seasonal and fresh.
Image: Restaurant De Lik.
The long waiting list is a testament to the success of this unusual dining experience, which is available just three times a month and likely to be short-lived as the council has plans to sell the building.
The tables butt up against cell doors in the long prison corridor and the galleried floor overhead creates an unsettling view, as if – at any minute – a group of detainees might emerge from the cells above. Speaking to news platform GreaterVenues.com in March, operational manager Freek van Kooten said the caterers hoped to create “a casual, laid-back atmosphere” with the new restaurant.
An Asylum Centre
For refugees new to the Netherlands, the long wait for your residency permit can feel a lot like serving time, and all the more so if you are being temporarily housed in a former jail.
Facilities to accommodate newcomers have been improvised from several of the country’s disused prisons, creating – In the best cases – pop-up communities offering language support, apprenticeships and even – at the Lola Lik in Amsterdam – a refugee radio station.
Residents who violate the centre’s rules or intimidate members of the community, risk being moved to yet another ex-jail, the Amsterbaken, in Amsterdam, a former juvenile detention centre for 14-23 year-olds.
Like the experimental prison which preceded it, the centre for troublesome asylum-seekers has a strict regime but allows residents to come and go.
Housing traumatised migrants in prisons has provoked debate in the Netherlands, and the Amsterbaken initiative, in particular, has come under attack from some refugee organisations. Speaking in the Volkskrant earlier this year, Vluchtelingen Werk Nederland argued that it was not a case of simply “weeding out a few rotten apples” but instead improving the poor living conditions in these makeshift centres, which, they say, create a breeding ground for violence.
What Next?
As crime rates continue to drop in the Netherlands, the conversion of jails is likely to continue. The new uses are creative, clever and often controversial. But perhaps most innovative of all is the Netherlands’ progressive approach to law and order, which has made so many prisons defunct.
With the long-term trend showing a steep increase in incarceration in the UK, further investigation into the Dutch model and alternative strategies for both the prevention and treatment of crime seem the sensible way forward. Besides, Wormwood Scrubs is a great name for a hammam.
Deborah Nicholls-Lee is a British journalist based in the Netherlands. She tweets at @DebNichollsLee. |
Data indicates China has room to cool off real estate sector | Economic data suggests China's authorities have the legroom to continue efforts to curb escalating property prices. With Q3 2017 economic expansion coming in at an expected 6.8% and China's National Bureau of Statistics reporting that property-price growth tapered to 0.2% in September, authorities can allow the property market to relax a little, said analyst Phillip Zhong at research firm Morningstar. The figures give officials the "confidence to continue the tightening policy without the fear of a slowing property sector dragging down the entire economy", Zhong said. China's property market contributed 6.5% to overall GDP last year, according to state-owned China Daily.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/23/china-property-market-now-is-the-time-to-cool.html | 2017-10-23 09:18:57.670000 | A porter walks on a bridge in Chongqing, China with new residential buildings in the background.
China's escalating property prices have long been a concern for Beijing as it balances growth targets with social stability. Now, economic signals are giving the go-ahead to authorities for sustained efforts to cool off the real estate market.
On Monday, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported average new home prices in the country's 70 major cities rose 0.2 percent in September, Reuters calculations show. That comes after the last two years saw substantial increases.
Compared with the year-ago period, new home prices rose 6.3 percent in September, cooling from an 8.3 percent increase in August, Reuters calculations show.
This tapering off in price increases came after a series of government measures in the last year to cool the red-hot property market amid fears of an asset bubble.
Last Wednesday, President Xi Jinping signaled that the state is likely to continue managing the property market. At the opening of a once-every-five-years leadership confab, Xi said "housing is for living in, not for speculation."
For their part, Chinese authorities will now have room to let the property market relax after good growth data in the last week, said Phillip Zhong, senior analyst at research firm, Morningstar.
On Thursday, China reported third-quarter growth data at 6.8 percent that met expectations.
The "strong GDP number will give policymakers the room as well as confidence to continue the tightening policy without the fear of a slowing property sector dragging down the entire economy," Zhong told CNBC.
Real estate contributed 6.5 percent to overall GDP in China in 2016, state-owned China Daily reported in January, citing the country's National Bureau of Statistics.
Last week's third-quarter data revealed China's property sector grew 3.9 percent against the year-ago period — down from a 6.2 percent on-year increase for the second quarter. Meanwhile, year-over-year growth in construction activity slowed to 4 percent in the third quarter from 5.4 percent in the second quarter.
The services sector, however, expanded 8 percent year-over-year in the third quarter compared to a 7.6 percent year-over-year second quarter rise — picking up some of the economic slack from the real estate market. |
Levi's to implement AI tech on website | Denim brand Levi's has become the latest retailer to embrace artificial intelligence with the UK and Netherlands launch of its Virtual Stylist service. The chatbot interacts with online shoppers, asking questions about their preferred fit and wash, and offers user-generated images of how previous customers styled the clothing. VP of e-commerce for Europe Claudia Roggenkamp admitted the technology behind the Virtual Stylist was built for speed rather than perfection, but said early results indicated customers using the feature were "more likely to convert".
| https://www.drapersonline.com/business-operations/levis-adopts-artificial-intelligence/7026667.article | 2017-10-23 09:16:25.637000 | Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of retail’s hottest topics. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are experimenting with the potentially transformative powers of AI. Earlier this month, outgoing Shop Direct CEO Alex Baldock warned that ready or not, AI will shake-up every retail business in the UK. Fellow etailer Net-a-Porter, which leads the charge on AI, also recently unveiled new tech that can select products for consumers based on their future plans.
But how are heritage brands making sure they are staying ahead? Drapers talks to Levi’s vice-president of ecommerce for Europe Claudia Roggenkamp about the denim brand’s technology strategy and how its Virtual Stylist service, which launched on Levi.com and Facebook Messenger at the end of August, is improving the customer journey.
Claudia Roggenkamp
Talk us through Levi’s Virtual Stylist and how it works
Trying jeans on and how they fit is often the most personal part of a customer’s journey. We wanted to take the network of stylists we have in store into the online world. The virtual stylist can be accessed through our website if customers are on their laptops, or through Facebook Messenger if they are on mobile. It is a structured artificial intelligence-empowered bot, which can also recognise natural language.
We ask a set of questions around how customers like their jeans, such as fit, style, and wash. There’s also a “see it styled” option. Customers can see user-generated content on how other customers have styled the same item. It is designed to speak to customers in a very natural, easy way, as if they were shopping with a friend. It went live in the UK and the Netherlands in September and we’re looking at which other markets it could work in.
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What challenges did Levi’s face when creating the Virtual Stylist?
This is a very different way of working – it is more like working in a start-up than the way big companies normally approach things. The tech is new, the partners you’re working with are often young and there was a focus on speed, so there were some barriers. The truth is a lot of these tech partners aren’t funded to survive the next five years and don’t have much experience, so you’ve got to make brave decisions. We had to do a lot of screening in the market to see who we could potentially partner with and spend time with the guys to see how they worked. (The chatbot is powered by Mode.ai and personalised fit data is from True Fit.)
How will you develop the technology further?
Levi’s “virtual stylist”
It’s very early days, so we’re still collecting data on how people interact with the stylist, where customers drop out of the process and how we can optimise it further. I’m not sure if the “see it styled” feature is prominent enough, but we have to see if and how people interact with. What we have seen so far is that consumers using the stylist are more likely to convert.
What impact do you see artificial intelligence having on the retail industry?
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It is going to be massive for everybody and lots of people are talking about it, but we still don’t really know which areas AI will impact the most. That’s why our approach was to build something fast, rather than something perfect. We got the budget in April and in September it was live, which is pretty quick for a company our size. For us, that was the right thing to do because we wanted to get something out there in front of consumers quickly. That’s how you learn. |
China's online education boosted by growth in usage and investment | Investors are flocking to back China's online education companies, attracted by the sector's mature infrastructure and strong growth in firms such as RISE Education Cayman and VIPKID. China had 144 million users of online learning solutions at the end of June 2017, a rise of 6.62 million on the year-end 2016 figure. Insiders cited the importance placed on education in China, along with increasingly wealthy households and the rise of augmented and virtual reality technologies, as drivers of the industry's success.
| http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/tech/2017-10/23/content_33606764.htm | 2017-10-23 09:16:16.250000 | Yang Zixuan, 8, a student at Beijing No 2 Experimental Primary School learns English through VIPKID online courses. [Photo provided to China Daily]
China's online education sector has been eyed by the capital market as emerging and promising, Securities Times reported Monday, citing multiple industry sources.
An unidentified analyst with a Shanghai broker said since 2014, online education companies have been "hot cakes", valuations of which were pushed higher by investors who just wanted to grab a slice of this sector, but in 2016, investors turned more cautious.
However, investors have turned their eyes back to this sector quickly as companies with good performance have surfaced and this sector's profitability model is becoming more clear, said this analyst, adding that investors' enthusiasm have again been ignited as several online education companies even got listed on stock exchanges and those already listed posted remarkable growth.
China's after-school English lessons provider RISE Education Cayman Ltd made its debut on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday.
RISE Education priced its initial public offering of 11 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at $14.50 per ADS, above the range of $12 to $14 given by the company, for a total offering size of about $160 million. Each ADS represents two ordinary shares. The company started trading at $16.00 per share on Friday, jumping 10.3 percent from its pricing.
In August, online children English education startup VIPKID announced that in its D round of financing it has raised $200 million from investors including Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holding.
Founded in 2013 and incubated by Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, VIPKID focuses on teaching English through one-on-one video courses, connecting language teachers from North America with Chinese children aged between 4 and 12.
Chen Zongzhen, an executive with Shenzhen-based RC Investments, attributed online education sector's boom to mature infrastructure, income increase in households, high importance that the Chinese attach to education and various technological means such as AR/VR which online education could resort to.
The number of online education receivers reached 144 million in China by the end of June, an increase of 6.62 million, compared with the end of 2016, according to China Internet Network Information Center's data cited by the Securities Times.
Online audience research company iResearch predicted that online education sector will maintain a 20 percent compound annual growth rate between 2017 and 2019, by when, the market size might be close to 270 billion yuan, up from 150 million yuan in 2016, Securities Times reported. |
Insurtech Wrisk launches equity crowdfunding campaign | Insurtech Wrisk is looking to raise £500,000 ($659,000) via an equity crowdfunding Seedr campaign after collecting £3m in a funding round earlier this year. The insurtech firm aims to launch in Q1 2018. It will provide potential clients with a so-called Wrisk Score that allows them to see the level of risks they are exposed to and pick insurance coverage accordingly.
| http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/insurtech-wrisk-crowdfunding-500k-macroinsurance-2552688/ | 2017-10-23 09:16:13.847000 | Insurtech start-up, Wrisk is on the warpath against the usual customer pain-points the insurance industry fails to address. The start-up plans to shake up the industry with a smartphone app, which will bring buying, maintaining and claiming on different types of insurance into the digital age. After closing a “super-seed” funding round of £3,000,000 earlier this year, Wrisk has launched a £500,000 equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs today.
Wrisk will offer all types of insurance, from motor to travel, home to health on its mobile app. The team calls the approach of covering multiple types of insurance in a single plan “macroinsurance”, something that should start to catch on as customer demand for simpler, streamlined policies increases.
According to co-founders Niall Barton and Darius Kumana, the concept of insurance, “the idea of sharing the loss of one against many” is great in theory but poorly executed. “We believe that consumers deserve better, so we’re giving insurance a much-needed digital upgrade,” they said. “Wrisk will truly transform the user’s experience of buying, updating and claiming on their insurance. And while it’s no easy task, we’re delighted that household names such as Munich Re, Hiscox and BMW are willing to lend their support and help us realise our vision. We are also extremely excited to offer our future customers the opportunity to own shares in Wrisk through Seedrs, and to play a part in shaping our ambitious future.”
The team is made up of 12 technology and insurance experts who have worked with actuaries and data scientists to develop a unique ‘Wrisk Score’, a similar concept to that of a credit score for personal risk. The idea is to allow customers to really understand the risks they face and how these risks can be reduced to bring premiums down.
As well as targeting consumers who already buy insurance, Wrisk is also eyeing an untapped market; those who avoid buying insurance in the first place because the process is so painful. This includes 61 per cent of UK renters who don’t have contents insurance and 31 per cent of millennials who have never bought travel cover.
Wrisk’s previous funding round was led by VC Oxford Capital, and supported by investment from angels and insurers including QIC and Hiscox. The business has partnered with the likes of Munich Re, Hiscox and QIC, and last year, Wrisk was selected to join the 2016 BMW Innovation Lab – the first ever fintech business incubator in the automotive sector.
The app will launch in Q1 2018, starting with contents insurance, followed by motor later in the year. |
London’s anti-pollution T-charge comes into force | The new central London T-charge, which imposes a daily charge of £10 ($13) on drivers of heavily polluting and diesel vehicles, has come into operation. The charge will be levied on top of the congestion charge of £11.50, which was introduced in 2003. The scheme is part of an attempt to improve the quality of the capital’s air, which regularly breaches legal limits on pollution. The charge applies to pre-Euro 4 vehicles, typically those registered prior to 2006, but is also applicable to some vehicles registered prior to 2008.
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/23/london-10-pound-t-charge-comes-into-effect-toxic-car-fumes | 2017-10-23 09:13:24.027000 | Drivers of the most polluting vehicles must from now on pay a daily charge of up to £21.50 to drive in to central London.
From Monday, people driving older, more polluting petrol and diesel vehicles will be liable for the £10 T-charge, on top of the congestion charge of £11.50, which has been in place since 2003.
The charge has been introduced in an effort to improve air quality in the capital, where legal pollution limits are regularly exceeded. The mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he wanted to prepare Londoners for the ultra-low emission zone being introduced in April 2019.
“As mayor, I am determined to take urgent action to help clean up London’s lethal air. The shameful scale of the public health crisis London faces, with thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution, must be addressed,” he said.
“Today marks a major milestone in this journey with the introduction of the T-charge to encourage motorists to ditch polluting, harmful vehicles.
“London now has the world’s toughest emissions standard with older, more polluting vehicles paying up to £21.50 a day to drive in the centre of the city. This is the time to stand up and join the battle to clear the toxic air we are forced to breathe.”
The charge came into effect at 7am on Monday. It is applicable to pre-Euro 4 vehicles in the zone, which covers all of central London to the south of King’s Cross station, to the east of Hyde Park, west of the Tower of London and north of Elephant and Castle.
Pre-Euro 4 vehicles are typically those registered before 2006, but Transport for London suggests that anyone who has a vehicle registered before 2008 checks if it is liable for the charge. The total daily levy can be reduced by £1 if drivers register to pay the congestion charge automatically. People living within the zone and driving cars covered by the new charge are eligible to pay as little as £11.05 a day in total for the two.
Speaking to Sky News on Monday morning, Khan said the T-charge would cost about £7m a year, which he said was a “price worth paying”. He added that the ultra-low emission zone, once introduced, would make money that would then be ring-fenced for clean air initiatives.
And he defended the plan against claims it would do little to solve the problem because relatively few vehicles are covered by it, saying it was part of series of measures, including the forthcoming introduction of the ultra-low emission zone.
Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers, said: “Industry recognises the air quality challenge and wants to see London and other cities meet their targets.
“Investment made by the industry into new diesel and petrol technologies has resulted in the most recent cars being unaffected by this new charge in London and, indeed, exempt from any other charges across the UK.
“This new T-charge will affect a very small number of older vehicles so the impact on air quality will be marginal whereas bigger improvements could be achieved by policies which incentivise the uptake of the latest, lowest emission vehicles.” |
Digitisation of health care threatened by cybersecurity fears | The shift to electronic health records in the US comes with a significant increase in the possibility of cyber attacks, with potentially life-threatening information at risk of being stolen, according to a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force laid out six recommendations in a report, which included improving the sharing of information concerning threats and weaknesses. The JAMA authors said smaller hospitals could also take preventative steps, including the use of strong passwords and ensuring software was regularly updated.
| http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/cybersecurity-is-a-major-risk-during-the-transition-to-ehrs | 2017-10-23 09:11:11.520000 | Technology, specifically the electronic medical record, is becoming more prevalent in the healthcare industry; however, there are significant cybersecurity risks due to the major information shift.
A paper published in JAMA discussed the risks involved in the transition from paper medical records to electronic, and the prevention methods that are needed to avoid the consequences of potential viruses and hackers.
Congress had established the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force (HCIC) in 2015 to protect from 2 malware viruses—WannaCry and Petya. The HCIC was made up of 21 members including representatives in the federal government, patient advocates, and information technology (IT) specialists. In its report, Report on Improving Cybersecurity in the Health Care Industry, the HCIC suggested 6 critical recommendations for the healthcare industry, including:
Identify and streamline leadership, governance, and expectations for healthcare cybersecurity. Increase the security of medical devices and health IT. Create the healthcare workforce capacity needed to prioritize and guarantee cybersecurity awareness and technical capabilities. Increase the industry’s readiness by improved cybersecurity awareness and education. Identify mechanisms to protect the research, development efforts, and intellectual property from attacks. Improve the information sharing of threats, weaknesses, and mitigations in the industry.
The development of electronic health records has produced a new risk for patients that potentially have more severe consequences. For example, ransomware—a software that permanently blocks access to records unless a ransom is paid—has the potential to isolate large data files that can limit patient care for extended periods.
“This stolen information not only can be sold for financial gain, but also can be used by other individuals to receive medical care, providing an opportunity for intermingling of medical information that can alter an allergy history, medication list, or other critical elements of a patient’s history,” the authors wrote. “This vulnerability can undermine public trust and prompt patients to withhold sensitive but needed information about medical history.”
Not all small hospitals and practices have access or the resources to protect against certain cybersecurity risks, and therefore should practice cyber hygiene, according to the authors. This can be accomplished by regularly changing passwords, ensuring their passwords are strong, and being aware of certain vulnerabilities, including non-updated software.
Despite the benefits of improved access that electronic health records and technology advancements provide, the healthcare industry should make an effort to prevent negative consequences that come with these new technologies through promoting awareness. |
Court scrutinises value of graffiti art in New York property row | The issue of whether graffiti as an art form has a positive effect on US property values is set to be discussed in a New York federal court. A lawsuit will see a group of muralists argue their work on property owner Gerald Wolkoff's 5Pointz building in Long Island City helped elevate the district's profile, enabling him to profit from redevelopment after he demolished the site in 2013. They also claim it was of such importance that they should have been given the chance to protect the paintings before the building was pulled down without "permission and proper notice".
| https://qz.com/1107031/new-yorks-5pointz-graffiti-artists-are-suing-a-real-estate-developer-for-destroying-their-work/ | 2017-10-23 09:06:13.770000 | Graffiti’s transformation from a kind of vandalism to a high art form is almost complete. In the last half century, street art has evolved from a stain on neighborhoods to a tourist draw and the toast of museums and galleries, embraced in pop and high culture.
As its market value rises, the controversial art form is also increasingly the subject of legal disputes with developers and property owners about its preservation and value as intellectual and cultural property. This week, a group of 20 New York street artists are in federal court, fighting developer Gerald Wolkoff, who in 2013 whitewashed 5Pointz, his iconic building in Long Island City (LIC), a neighborhood in Queens just across the East River from Manhattan. The building’s facade served for years as an outdoor aerosol-art exhibit space and had become known as a graffiti-Mecca for its many murals.
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Wolkoff granted permission to artists to paint on the building in 1993, when Long Island City wasn’t hot property. In 2000, PS1 in LIC, a nonprofit started in 1971 to use derelict buildings for art (PS1 stands for “Public School 1”; the nonprofit was housed in a former public school building), became affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, turning into MoMA PS1. That made the location more attractive to artists. By 2002, this part of western Queens was becoming cool, and Wolkoff gave an artists’ group his blessing to make 5Pointz a hub, along with keys to office space in the building.
Fast forward to 2013, New York real estate was exploding. The building’s location was highly desirable; Brooklyn and Queens were flourishing and New Yorkers needed to expand into new territory. They chose the old manufacturing hub, LIC, which by 2016 was “home to New York’s building boom,” according to the Financial Times (paywall). The New York Times in 2015 wrote (paywall) about LIC “for the good commute.” It was also attracting the fashion industry “for its price and proximity.”
Wolkoff saw the change happening and wanted to cash in. But he knew the artists were attached to the building. In October of that year, he stealthily whitewashed 5Pointz at night. Soon after, the building was demolished and Wolkoff’s companies began work on two luxury-apartment high-rises that would capitalize on the locale’s street cred by referencing the graffiti and incorporating street art into the decor.
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In the lawsuit—a consolidation of two cases brought by various artists against the developer’s companies—the muralists argue that their work contributed to the improvement of LIC. They claim 5Pointz was of such prominent international stature that Wolkoff should not have destroyed it without permission and proper notice, providing time for them to salvage what they could, based on the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990.
That law grants artists “moral rights” to works of prominent stature. Basically, it gives artists the ability to sue for damages if prominent creations are mutilated or destroyed—even if those artworks are owned by someone else. A Harvard Law School guide on the statute explains that the legal remedies available for moral-rights violations include $500 to $20,000 in damages per artwork.
The 5Pointz muralists are suing over the destruction of at least 350 paintings, so there’s a lot of money at stake, apart from the case being significant to the street-art movement, the contemporary art market, and property developers. The artists say that they should have been allowed to salvage what they could for museums and sales.
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Whether the 5Pointz murals are “prominent artworks” qualifying for legal protection is a question a jury must resolve. To convince the panel of 12, each side in the case will present dueling art experts who will explain the current state of street art.
The art expert called to the stand by the artist group will no doubt point to the prominence of Banksy and Shepard Fairey, household names whose works are displayed in museums, and whose contributions to building facades and retaining walls, at this point, drive up property values. Perhaps he or she will mention the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, who began as a graffiti artist in New York’s Lower East Side in the 1970s before becoming famous; one of his paintings sold at a Sotheby’s auction in March 2017 for $110.5 million.
Meanwhile, Wolkoff’s expert will surely try to distinguish these stars from the muralists in the suit, arguing that their work doesn’t reach the dizzying heights of great street artists. For example, Jonathan Cohen, who organized the 5Pointz artists in 2002, goes by the tag Meres1. He isn’t a household name. But, Cohen insists on his website, Banksy knows of his “selfless efforts” at 5Pointz. Cohen’s site also notes prominent corporate connections, including Louis Vuitton, Nikon, Nespresso, Fiat, Facebook, Google, Samsung, and Smartcar.
The trial will take place in a New York federal court, presided over by Frederic Block, who is something of a renaissance man with a feel for the streets, or at least that’s the impression I got when I read his book and spoke to him last month.
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On Oct. 10, Block released his first novel, Race to Judgment, a “reality fiction” about the complex interactions between Brooklyn’s racially, ethnically, and economically diverse citizens vying for power and space in the city. The judge also recorded songs to go with the book, providing a soundtrack for his protagonist. When Block and I spoke, we didn’t discuss this case, but it’s safe to bet he has some appreciation for the efforts of the visual artists involved.
Indeed, last April, Block denied Wolkoff’s attempt to dismiss two different 5Pointz cases. In his decision, Block cited the expert who testified on behalf of the artists, who noted that many of the muralists were internationally known and supported by museums, academics, celebrities, the media, and the public. Block did reject the artists’ attempt to sue for damages based on claims of emotional distress, writing that developers “did no more than raze what they rightfully owned” and didn’t engage in “outrageous or uncivilized conduct.” However, he also allowed the case to proceed to a jury trial.
At the time, Wolkoff told the New York Times the decision to allow the case to continue was “mind-boggling.” Graffiti isn’t created for preservation, he said, and the artists couldn’t have expected their works to stay up forever since they were constantly getting covered up anyway. Wolkoff claimed to have developed an expertise in street art through his relationship with the 5Pointz artists over the decades, and oferred his view of the form:
They call it bombing, and the next artist goes over someone else’s work, They painted over their own work continually, and it goes on for years. That’s the idea of graffiti. There were tens of thousands of paintings there, over the years, and they’d last for three or six or nine months.
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Wolkoff feels betrayed by the artists he thought he was helping by lending them his wall to bomb. He cried when the building came down, he confessed, and said he would bring back more street artists to paint at the location after the renovation—just not those who sued.
There have been similar cases before but they have settled. Katherine Gibbs created “The Illuminated Mural” in Detroit’s North End with a hundred gallons of technicolor paint and $33,000 in grant money in 2009. A few years later, the development company Princeton Enterprises acquired the building and planned to mar the massive painting with new windows. In 2016, Gibbs sued, claiming that federal law protected public artists’ work from mutilation or destruction.
Gibbs’ mural had become a prominent piece of public art and her lawsuit drew publicity. Like the 5Pointz muralists, Gibbs argued that her work helped make the neighborhood more attractive to city dwellers and tourists alike, thus making it more valuable to developers. In 2017, the parties settled amicably without disclosing the exact terms of their agreement—but did agree publicly that the painting would be preserved and incorporated into future development.
Of course, it’s already too late for that kind of solution at 5Pointz. But it’s not too late for a settlement. In 2008, Los Angeles muralist Kent Twitchell sued the federal government and others for destruction of an iconic six-story painting on a government-owned property in downtown LA. Although the mural is gone forever, Twitchell got $1.1 million in the settlement. At the very least, that covered buying supplies for his next epic work. |
Phillips 66 and Square Robot develop storage tank inspection robot | Phillips 66 and Boston-based start-up Square Robot have teamed up to develop an autonomous robot that can inspect petroleum product storage tanks. The untethered robot will be certified for use in a range of products, including inspecting storage tank floors while the tanks are in use so that tanks would not need to be drained and cleaned before inspections. The robot is expected to enter service in the middle of next year and offer significant cost savings by being able to operate while tanks are in use. | http://investor.phillips66.com/financial-information/news-releases/news-release-details/2017/Phillips-66-and-Square-Robot-Team-Up-to-Develop-Storage-Tank-Inspection-Robot/default.aspx | 2017-10-23 09:00:35.940000 | Autonomous robot would enable petroleum storage tanks to remain in service for tank floor inspections
BOSTON & HOUSTON --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX), an energy manufacturing and logistics company, and Square Robot, Inc. are advancing into the unmanned robotics inspection market through the joint development of an autonomous robot that would have the capability to inspect petroleum product storage tank floors while product remains in the tank. The untethered robot is being designed and will be certified for use in a wide range of petroleum products. The robot is expected to enter service in mid-2018.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171019005775/en/
Aboveground storage tanks are routinely removed from service to be drained, opened and cleaned at great expense in order to evaluate tank bottoms. The new robot is being developed to automatically survey and map obstacles within a tank -- while the tank remains in static service -- creating a specific route map allowing maximum coverage of the tank floor. Using the non-destructive testing (NDT) data gathered, a certified inspector will produce a floor thickness map allowing for a more accurate prediction of a tank floor’s remaining life.
“Our collaboration with Phillips 66 provides access to a significant team of experts in NDT inspection, safety, procedures and operations,” said Eric Levitt , Square Robot co-founder. “As a start-up, we would not have access to these tremendous resources outside of our core business of developing autonomous robots for confined spaces.”
“Ensuring the integrity of our equipment is one of our top priorities and we are always looking for innovative new technologies to help us achieve this,” said Todd Denton , general manager, Midstream Operations, Phillips 66. “Our collaboration with Square Robot presents a unique opportunity to develop technology that will enable us to maintain our equipment and minimize disruption to our customers.”
About Square Robot, Inc.
Square Robot was started by three Subsea Robotics professionals in May 2016 , specifically to address the growing need for swimming autonomous robots for Oil and Gas applications. Aside from terrestrial tanks, the same autonomous hovering technology will have broad ranging applications for subsea infrastructure inspection. The rapidly growing Boston based start-up has recently completed a first round of fundraising and currently employs 12 engineers. The company intends to launch a tank floor inspection service business in Houston during the summer of 2018.
About Phillips 66
Phillips 66 is a diversified energy manufacturing and logistics company. With a portfolio of Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties businesses, the company processes, transports, stores and markets fuels and products globally. Phillips 66 Partners , the company’s master limited partnership, is an integral asset in the portfolio. Headquartered in Houston , the company has 14,600 employees committed to safety and operating excellence. Phillips 66 had $52 billion of assets as of June 30, 2017 . For more information, visit www.phillips66.com or follow us on Twitter @Phillips66Co.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE “SAFE HARBOR” PROVISIONS OF THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or outcomes and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein include statements regarding Square Robot’s efforts to develop and commercialize the technology with the capabilities, and Phillips 66’s ability to use the technology, as described in this press release. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, technical or legal issues that may arise in the development, protection or commercialization of the technology, as well as the possible introduction by others of competitive technology. These factors could, among other things, delay or prevent the development of the technology and Phillips 66’s expected benefits therefrom. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as of the date of this press release and neither Square Robot nor Phillips 66 undertake any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171019005775/en/ |
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