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11 days and counting: Why hasn't Congress renewed health insurance program for 9 million children? | We know that Congress is just unimaginably busy right now, so perhaps it’s understandable that 11 days after funding for a crucial children’s healthcare program expired, the lawmakers still haven’t gotten around to restoring it.
| http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chip-delay-20171011-story.html | 2017-10-12 09:04:07.527000 | We know that Congress is just unimaginably busy right now, so perhaps it’s understandable that 11 days after funding for a crucial children’s healthcare program expired, the lawmakers still haven’t gotten around to restoring it.
We’re talking about the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a state-federal program serving 9 million children and their mothers. We reported earlier, as the Sept. 30 deadline for federal reauthorization of CHIP was closing in, that delay was placing state programs in dire jeopardy.
There’s still no schedule for a vote on CHIP in either chamber on Capitol Hill.
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What has Congress and the Trump administration been tied up with, while CHIP renewal has languished?
Let’s see. There was the tax cut proposal, mooted on Sept. 27, and discussed endlessly since, even though the drafters didn’t bother to fill in a multitude of blanks covering who gets the tax cuts and who gets hammered. (Spoiler alert: The rich get almost all the tax breaks, and everyone else gets shortchanged.) That has sucked up a lot of congressional mind share.
Over at the White House, President Trump has been fuming over the collapse of the Senate’s Obamacare repeal bill and about the National Football League players’ taking a knee during the national anthem. That who-cares issue prompted Vice President Mike Pence to take time out of his busy weekend to fly halfway across the country for a symbolic show of support for the flag, so he could fly halfway back across the country immediately for a California fundraiser. Pence’s theatrics cost taxpayers nearly $250,000.
Meanwhile, Trump spent his time picking fights with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and NBC. He also stopped in Puerto Rico, where he praised his performance in disaster relief without apparently noticing that half the island still is without power or water. The Washington press corps kept its eye on whether Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron” and if so, what variety of moron.
CHIP was enacted in 1997 with bipartisan support, which it has continued to enjoy more or less since. So nothing should have interfered with its reauthorization. What did, as we reported, was the Senate’s preoccupation in the last week of September with one more fruitless attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. By the time that measure was dead and buried, there was no room left to enact a CHIP measure that already had been agreed on by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of CHIP’s original sponsors, and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The House was poised to vote on a CHIP reauthorization this week but put it off because Democrats complained about terms inserted by the GOP, which included taking money from a public health fund under the Affordable Care Act.
Congress may be sanguine about renewing CHIP because most states have enough in their budgets to continue the program until the end of the year or the first quarter of 2018. But some are on the brink. They include Utah — Hatch’s home — which warned legislators that it would have to start rolling up its program almost as soon as the deadline passed without a vote.
Minnesota Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper warned the state’s Washington delegation that its money would run out virtually on deadline day, and followed that up with a public warning that on Oct. 1, the state would have to start taking “extraordinary measures” to keep the program moving along, even if on one cylinder. Among other steps, she said, “pregnant women covered by the program [will] be cut off altogether, losing coverage for prenatal and postpartum care.”
Few other states can rest easy. The longer Congress dithers, the more uncertain every state program becomes. CHIP operates with long-term planning, and without assurances that the funding will appear eventually, services will be pared back, professional contracts canceled and enrollments slashed.
It should go without saying too that the longer Congress dithers, the greater the chances that some other priority will elbow CHIP out of the way, as the remaining legislative days dwindle. Between now and the end of the year, Congress will be taking three weeks off for holidays; the Senate also will take a knee on four of the remaining 12 Fridays and eight of the remaining Mondays. The House will be in session for only four more Fridays and four Mondays. Think of that the next time a federal politician tells people they need to work harder.
Somewhere in its busy schedule Congress surely can find the time for a routine reauthorization of health insurance for sick children and mothers. In video game terms, this is a move with the lowest difficulty level one can imagine. What does it say that Congress can’t get even that much done?
Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email [email protected].
Return to Michael Hiltzik’s blog. |
Facebook releases $199 stand-alone version of Oculus VR headset | Facebook has released a stand-alone version of its Oculus virtual reality (VR) headset, which doesn't require connection to a smartphone or computer. The device, Oculus Go, will be priced at $199, significantly cheaper than the company's previous headset, the Oculus Rift, which originally retailed at $599, but has since been discounted to $399. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the "accessible" device will help towards achieving his goal of one billion people experiencing VR. The total number of all VR headsets sold worldwide is expected to rise from 16 million to 22 million this year.
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/11/oculus-go-virtual-reality-facebook | 2017-10-12 09:03:58.767000 | Facebook has unveiled a stand-alone virtual reality headset designed to extend the appeal of the company’s Oculus technology to the masses.
The headset, called Oculus Go, won’t require plugging in a smartphone or a cord tethering it to a personal computer like Oculus Rift or its competitor HTC’s Vive do.
“I am more committed than ever to the future of virtual reality,” said Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to a crowd of computer programmers gathered in San Jose, California, for Oculus’s annual conference.
“This all-in-one device makes VR more accessible than ever and represents a huge leap forward in comfort, visual clarity, and ease-of-use,” added Oculus in a blogpost.
The headset is lightweight and features a high-resolution LCD screen and speakers built in to deliver “spatial audio”.
When it hits the market next year it will cost $199, which is a big drop from the Rift, which originally sold for $599 and required a powerful computer costing at least $500 to power the virtual reality experiences and games. Recent discounts lowered the Rift’s price to $399 at various times during the summer, a markdown Oculus now says will be permanent.
“The strategy for Facebook is to make the onboarding to VR as easy and inexpensive as possible,” said Brian Blau, an analyst with the Gartner research company. “And $199 is an inexpensive entry for a lot of people who are just starting out in VR. The problem is you will be spending that money on a device that only does VR and nothing else.”
The Oculus Go will straddle the market between the Rift and the Samsung Gear, a $129 headset that runs on some of Samsung’s higher-priced phones. It will be able to run the same VR as the Samsung Gear, leading Blau to conclude the Go will rely on the same Android operating system as the Gear and probably include similar processors as Samsung phones.
The Gear competes against other headsets, such as Google’s $99 Daydream View, that require a smartphone. Google is also working on a stand-alone headset that won’t require a phone, but the company hasn’t specified when that device will be released or how much it will cost.
Zuckerberg promised the Oculus Go would be “the most accessible VR experience ever” and help realize his new goal of having 1 billion people dwelling in virtual reality at some point in the future.
Two days earlier, a cartoon version of Zuckerberg visited hurricane-damaged Puerto Rico, in a livestream that was part disaster tourism, part product promotion. He and Facebook’s head of social virtual reality, Rachel Franklin, appeared as avatars within the broadcast from his profile as they “teleported” to different locations using Facebook’s “social VR” tool Spaces. In reality they were at the company’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters wearing virtual reality headsets.
After many people criticized the VR broadcast in the comments on his Facebook profile, Zuckerberg apologized.
“One of the most powerful features of VR is empathy. My goal here was to show how VR can raise awareness and help us see what’s happening in different parts of the world,” he said, adding that he intended to publicize a partnership with the Red Cross where Facebook helps create population maps that can be used by rescue workers.
“Reading some of the comments, I realize this wasn’t clear, and I’m sorry to anyone this offended.”
Facebook and other major technology companies such as Google and Microsoft that are betting on VR have a long way to go.
About 16m head-mounted display devices were shipped in 2016, a number expected to rise to 22m this year, according to Gartner. Those figures include headsets for what is known as augmented reality.
Zuckerberg, though, remains convinced that VR will evolve into a technology that reshapes the way people interact and experience life, much as Facebook’s social networks and smartphones already have. His visions carry weight, largely because Facebook now has more than 2 billion users and plays an influential role in how people communicate.
But VR so far has been embraced mostly by video game lovers, despite Facebook’s efforts to bring the technology into the mainstream since buying Oculus for $2bn three years ago.
Facebook has shaken up the Oculus management team since then in a series of moves that included the departure of its founder, Palmer Luckey, earlier this year.
The former Google executive Hugo Barra now oversees Facebook’s VR operations. |
The Washington Post paints a false picture of elderly Americans | Last week the Washington Post offered a harsh portrait of the “new reality of old age in America.” Its reporters described the pinched circumstances of older couples searching for temporary work in order to top up their meager Social Security checks. A 74-year-old tells readers “I’m going to work until I die, if I can, because I need the money.” The Post reports the stories of these struggling job seekers with warmth and compassion
| https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-washington-post-paints-a-false-picture-of-elderly-americans/ | 2017-10-12 09:00:56.017000 | Last week the Washington Post offered a harsh portrait of the “new reality of old age in America.” Its reporters described the pinched circumstances of older couples searching for temporary work in order to top up their meager Social Security checks. A 74-year-old tells readers “I’m going to work until I die, if I can, because I need the money.” The Post reports the stories of these struggling job seekers with warmth and compassion.
The stories reflect a bleak reality facing some aged Americans, those whose retirement incomes are scanty and whose retirement years are anything but golden. The broader reality, however, is that economic deprivation in old age is increasingly rare. Over the past several decades the material circumstances of America’s elderly have improved, both absolutely and relative to the circumstances of the nonelderly. Contrary to the implication of the Post story, the current reality for most older Americans is that old age is more comfortable and longer lasting than it was for earlier generations.
Over the past several decades the material circumstances of America’s elderly have improved, both absolutely and relative to the circumstances of the nonelderly.
Careers nowadays last beyond age 65 for an increasing number of workers, but the evidence suggests delayed retirement is more common for those with college degrees and advanced diplomas than it is for the less educated. Many of us remain employed later in life as a result of choice and conviction rather than necessity. As a result, the surge in late-career earnings has tended to boost the incomes of the most affluent elderly, thereby increasing old-age inequality.
To be sure, public and private institutions that should assure workers a comfortable old age leave big holes in worker protection. Several of these receive well-deserved criticism in the Post’s story. Too few wage earners are given the opportunity to save for retirement at their workplace. Many employers offer retirement plans with inadequate incentives to save or a lousy menu of saving options. On the whole, however, both public and private retirement programs have delivered steadily rising living standards and falling poverty rates to the population past 65.
According to Census statistics, the inflation-adjusted income of the median family headed by an older American increased 64 percent between 1979 and 2016. In comparison, among households headed by someone between 35 and 44, median income edged up just 9 percent. Over the same period, the poverty rate of older Americans fell almost 6 percentage points, while poverty rates among children and nonaged adults increased. Under the official poverty guidelines, the poverty rate among the elderly (9.3 percent) is now noticeably lower than it is among children (18.0 percent) and nonelderly adults (11.6 percent). While the Post article describes a tough, hand-to-mouth existence for the aged workers it profiles, the story fortunately describes the situation of a shrinking percentage of older Americans. A better piece of reporting would have alerted readers to this key fact.
The incomes of the aged are actually higher and improving faster than Census statistics suggest. The best known income and poverty numbers are based on an annual Census Bureau survey. Unfortunately, respondents’ answers in the survey give a misleading picture of the incomes flowing into families headed by retired breadwinners. The problems of the interview responses have been known for some time. The Census survey gathers reasonably accurate information about income from wages and Social Security, but it collects much less reliable data about interest and dividends, workplace pensions, and withdrawals from retirement savings accounts. Further, pension underreporting has grown worse over time, leading to a growing understatement of retirees’ incomes.
Two Census Bureau statisticians, Adam Bee and Joshua Mitchell, recently compared household income reports in the Census survey with the income records compiled by the Social Security Administration and IRS. Their paper compares interview responses on the Census Survey to administrative income reports for five key income sources – earnings, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), interest and dividends, and income from workplace retirement plans (including IRAs). They find that earnings and Social Security benefits are well reported in the survey while the other three income sources are seriously understated. In 2012, respondents past 65 failed to report more than one-quarter of their SSI benefits, about one-third of their interest and dividend income, and over half of their workplace pensions and retirement savings plan withdrawals.
The underreporting of workplace pensions and other income items has grown worse in recent years. According to the Census Bureau’s income survey, only 40 percent of Americans past 65 received a workplace pension or withdrew funds from a retirement savings account in 1990, and this percentage shrank to 36 percent in 2012. In contrast, the IRS administrative records show that the fraction of aged respondents receiving pensions and savings withdrawals climbed from 45 percent to 61 percent over the same period. One reason that so many observers are gloomy about the workplace retirement system is that they accept without question the income amounts reported on Census surveys. When the erroneous income reports are corrected, both the income levels and the income trends are much more encouraging.
As colleagues and I also discovered in an earlier research project, Bee and Mitchell find that income underreporting is a worse problem for respondents past 65 than it is for younger respondents. The reason is simple: Income items that tend to be underreported account for a bigger percentage of older respondents’ total incomes. This implies that the relative well-being of the nation’s elderly is much closer to that of the nonaged than one would conclude based on Census survey estimates.
Bee and Mitchell’s new analysis allows us to pinpoint the population groups for which underreporting is a major problem. When corrected income amounts are substituted for incorrect survey responses, the median income of aged households increases by similar percentage amount across all races and ethnic groups.
While income underreporting is significant at both the top and bottom of the old-age income distribution, its biggest impact is in the middle (Chart 2). The two analysts find that, when incorrect survey responses for 2012 are replaced with more accurate Social Security or IRS reports for the same year, the median cash income of aged households increased from $33,800 to $44,400, a rise of 30 percent. Measured income at the bottom of the distribution increased, too, but by a smaller proportional amount. Even so, Bee and Mitchell find that the estimated old-age poverty rate in 2012 fell by more than 2 percentage points when incorrect survey responses are replaced by correct income amounts derived from administrative records.
Over the past half-century trends in the well-being of America’s elderly have been more favorable than has been the case for any other age group. The income poverty rates of the aged have declined sharply, their health insurance coverage is broader and more secure than it is among the young, and their incomes have continued to improve, even as the incomes of many younger age groups have stagnated. Fueling the income gains of Americans past 65 have been increases in their employment rate and an improvement in their weekly pay relative to that earned by young and prime-age breadwinners. Whether the gains of the elderly can be sustained is an open question. Nonetheless, their relative and absolute economic gains in recent decades are impossible to deny. |
Guest Commentary: A value-based case for collaboration to keep patients at home | Our healthcare delivery system is transforming faster than ever imagined, with organizations aggressively taking new approaches to improve patient outcomes and lower costs.
| https://home.modernhealthcare.com/clickshare/authenticateUserSubscription.do?utm_medium=social&title=Guest+Commentary%3A+A+value-based+case+for+collaboration+to+keep+patients+at+home&CSProduct=modernhealthcare-metered&CSTargetURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernhealthcare.com%2Farticle%2F20171011%2FNEWS%2F171019962%3Futm_campaign%3Dsocialflow&AID=%2F20171011%2FNEWS%2F171019962&utm_source=twitter&com.clickshare.servlet.AuthRequestObject=CSAuthReq-0g5dpcj104srgt89l5pgp0ehit6 | 2017-10-12 08:59:31.187000 | Our healthcare delivery system is transforming faster than ever imagined, with organizations aggressively taking new approaches to improve patient outcomes and lower costs. Value-based initiatives in particular are spreading farther and wider, with no sign of that trend changing.
Yet the healthcare delivery system is often too slow in introducing the innovations needed to get us where we all need to go. We need to embrace change, look for innovations and work together to achieve better quality and higher savings.
A case in point is the attitude toward healthcare being delivered at home. The concept of people aging in place is popular, and demand continues to grow. With Americans living longer and more patients suffering from chronic illness, services provided by the home health sector are often misunderstood, underused, undervalued and, as a direct consequence, overlooked.
Why the reluctance to follow a course that has demonstrated its value repeatedly over the decades? The answer is that under fee-for-service, providers and payers focused largely on episodic care, based on the acuity of a condition. Before the push to reward value over volume, no strong financial incentives existed to motivate healthcare organizations to think long-term and make sure care is continuous rather than piecemeal.
Providers, particularly physicians, hospitals and health systems, should take note of the advantages home health offers. Payers, ever on the lookout for efficiencies and synergies among healthcare players, also should recognize the benefits both clinically and financially. To cite one example, consider a 2016 study by UCLA researchers published in the February issue of the journal Medical Care: it found that patients who were referred to home healthcare following hospital discharge experienced better outcomes and incurred lower costs.
Demographics combined with strong consumer preference demand this shift to healthcare at home. According to HHS, 70% of people turning 65 can eventually expect to use some form of long-term care. No fewer than 90% of seniors say they want to stay at home as they age, not in an institutionalized setting, according to an AARP survey. With 85% of Medicare home health patients suffering from at least three chronic conditions, maintaining continuity as care moves from acute to chronic will be even more essential.
Compounding matters, the average length of a hospital stay is growing ever shorter. The rigors of discharge planning and transitions of care have assumed new complexity and importance.
Indeed, home healthcare increasingly pioneers new approaches to monitoring, managing and treating chronic illness. Clinicians ranging from nurses to therapists are leveraging point-of-care technology, implementing telehealth initiatives, and deploying predictive modeling and analytical capabilities to ensure high-quality care in the home. And we must continue to build on those capabilities.
At Amedisys, we recently rolled out new protocols for patients with heart failure and COPD. Those programs encourage patients to participate more in taking care of themselves, a key element in the home-health equation. Concurrently, we've broadened and deepened our efforts to train clinicians in the latest techniques and technologies. We're also developing analytical capabilities that enable us to predict the risk of re-hospitalizations. These programs and tools should help divert low-acuity hospitalizations, increase the home health option for sicker patients and be proactive with patients who we know have a high risk of bouncing back into institutions.
Only recently has Medicare introduced a system for rating home healthcare, with ratings of one to five stars assigned to care centers. These performance evaluations, made public for all to see, hold the industry strictly accountable for its work, all while keeping caregivers, families, providers and payers fully informed.
No individual or organization can go it alone in healthcare, and that's certainly true for the professionals delivering services directly to patients at home. Responsibilities are shared. Care needs to be coordinated to meet population health needs and the challenge of affordability. All the players that provide post-acute care–from health systems to health plans and accountable care organizations–need to forge strategic partnerships with home-care providers.
Let's come together sooner rather than later. Let's take on risks together, align incentives together, demonstrate creativity together and, above all, serve patients well together–and at home, where they most want to be.
Paul Kusserow is president and CEO of Amedisys, a national home health, hospice and personal care services provider. |
Working to Disarm Women’s Anti-Aging Demon | A couple of years ago I had a light bulb moment. So many women color their hair to cover the gray. Many resent the effort and expense, and it’s a major way in which we make ourselves invisible as older women. When a group is invisible, so are the issues that affect it.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/style/women-looks-ageism.html?_r=0 | 2017-10-12 08:59:01.573000 | A couple of years ago I had a light bulb moment. So many women color their hair to cover the gray. Many resent the effort and expense, and it’s a major way in which we make ourselves invisible as older women. When a group is invisible, so are the issues that affect it. Suppose the world saw how many we are, and how beautiful, I mused. Suppose we morphed together, in solidarity: the Year of Letting Our Hair Go Gray! It would be transformative!
I posted the idea on my This Chair Rocks Facebook page. I got a ton of blowback. I deserved it. “You go first,” was one notable comment, so I did, bleaching my whole head. (I keep part of it white, partly as an age-solidarity dye job and partly because I figure no one believes the brown is real.) Mainly I learned an important lesson: Who was I to be telling women how they should look or what they should do? To each her own. We each have to age in our own way on whatever terms work for us.
One thing we can all agree on, though? Aging is harder for women. We bear the brunt of the equation of beauty with youth and youth with power — the double-whammy of ageism and sexism. How do we cope? We splurge on anti-aging products. We fudge or lie about our age. We diet, we exercise, we get plumped and lifted and tucked.
These can be very effective strategies, and I completely understand why so many of us engage in them. No judgment, I swear. But trying to pass for younger is like a gay person trying to pass for straight or a person of color for white. These behaviors are rooted in shame over something that shouldn’t be shameful. And they give a pass to the underlying discrimination that makes them necessary. |
As a matriarch’s days draw to a close, a vision comes calling | In the winter of 2010, 90-year-old Helen Budzinski described what she saw, which no one else could see. A blond girl, age 5 or so, at the foot of her bed. Then twin girls. Then a pair of boys named Michael and David.
| https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/10/visions-end-of-life/ | 2017-10-12 08:58:13.157000 | In the winter of 2010, 90-year-old Helen Budzinski described what she saw, which no one else could see.
A blond girl, age 5 or so, at the foot of her bed. Then twin girls. Then a pair of boys named Michael and David.
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Helen’s stroke in October sharpened what had been a slow decline. Her granddaughter, Jocelyn Pappas, whom she raised, now served as Helen’s full-time caregiver at Jocelyn’s home in rural Connecticut.
On Monday morning, Dec. 20, with darkness shrouding the woods outside the window, Jocelyn placed a hand on the back of her grandmother’s blue floral nightgown and eased her upright.
“Oh, you work so hard for me, Jocelyn,” Helen said.
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“I only work hard for you, Nana.”
“You only have to work five more days,” she said. “I got my ticket.”
“What do you mean, your ticket?”
Helen said she would be leaving this world at 4 a.m. on Friday. “They’re coming for me.”
“She was so absolutely convinced,” Jocelyn said.
Jocelyn called her grandmother’s hospice nurse, who explained that nothing on Helen’s chart suggested she was near death.
The hospice team may have disagreed with Helen’s self-administered prognosis, but did not discount the value of the vision. The dying often talk of death not as a character clothed in reaper garb but as one rendered in the visage of a loved one or kind stranger offering safe passage.
While hospice workers understand this, many families, patients and non-hospice clinicians do not. And so patients keep quiet about what they see.
That, said Dr. Christopher Kerr, one of the few researchers to venture into this territory, strips patients of what is often a great gift. “Patients need permission to experience and express this, because it often carries profound meaning and very much lessens the fear of dying,” he said. “Dying is isolating enough — to deny them this is even more isolating.”
Helen was no champion of the supernatural. She was a deeply beloved family matriarch who lavished attention on the youngest members of her vast family. She was active through her 80s, opting for a walker only as she approached 90.
Still, as Christmas that year approached, Helen’s visions grew more vivid: Her husband John, dead for nearly 20 years, began visiting, and a door materialized on the wall near her bed. Helen frantically searched for keys to open it, until Jocelyn found a spare set to placate her.
Jocelyn said she didn’t share these newer visions with others. She was consumed by the swirl of taking care of her grandmother and her own family.
Helen’s condition began slipping in the three days after she spoke of her impending departure: She was eating and drinking less and sleeping more. Jocelyn exhorted family members to pay their last respects.
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Her cousin Bennett MacKinney, who had come east from Phoenix, arrived Thursday afternoon and joined the chorus of family members who were, by now, joking with Jocelyn about Helen’s prediction.
Helen had grown largely unresponsive, and the family suspected that she may indeed be close to dying. But when she woke, her family said, she showed no signs of emotional distress.
By 10 p.m. on Thursday night most of the relatives had departed; MacKinney and Jocelyn chatted past midnight, at which point she moved to Helen’s bedside. MacKinney slept on a downstairs couch for about three hours, and when he woke, he recalled a vivid dream.
In it, MacKinney saw Jocelyn leaning over Helen’s bed, which was now angled toward the wall. Two children were playing on the floor and a third stood at the head of the bed. Moving closer, he saw his grandfather with his arms around Helen, pulling her toward the wall.
MacKinney said he began weeping in the dream, and Jocelyn appeared. She hugged him and said she knew why he was crying. She said: “If I tell you that I am seeing the same thing that you are seeing, then you will know this is really happening.”
At 3:45 a.m., MacKinney heard Jocelyn’s cellphone alarm. He went upstairs, where she and Helen were sleeping peacefully.
Jocelyn’s cat was nearby. McKinney sat and turned on his iPad. “When it said 3:59, I looked at the cat as if to jokingly say, ‘Ok, here it comes.…’”
Nothing happened.
MacKinney went back to the iPad. At 4:05 he looked up at Helen again.
“She made two little coughs,” he recalled, “and her breathing stopped.”
He checked her pulse and her breathing. “I teared up and said, ‘Goodbye, Nana.’”
MacKinney woke Jocelyn. They called the relatives, then traded more stories about their grandmother. Jocelyn told him about Helen’s visions during the week. She talked about the children, and Helen’s husband, and, finally, she mentioned the door Helen had described.
He asked Jocelyn where Helen had seen that door, and Jocelyn nodded toward the wall where, in MacKinney’s dream, their grandfather was carrying their grandmother.
MacKinney paused a long moment. Then he took a deep breath and told his cousin about a dream he’d had. |
Aging in America: Land of the Free, Home of the Gray | Getting old isn't what it used to be. At least, that's what Bob Lowry has found in recent years as he's blazed a trail through what many would consider to be an early retirement. In 2001, at the age of 52, Lowry stepped away from his job running a management consulting company for radio stations.
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-10-11/aging-in-america-how-states-are-grappling-with-a-growing-elderly-population | 2017-10-12 08:57:38.400000 | Getting old isn't what it used to be.
At least, that's what Bob Lowry has found in recent years as he's blazed a trail through what many would consider to be an early retirement. In 2001, at the age of 52, Lowry stepped away from his job running a management consulting company for radio stations. His wife, Betty, left her teaching job not long after, and the two began to figure out exactly what to do with the rest of their lives.
But retirement – and, more broadly, getting older – hasn't played out exactly as Lowry expected. In fact, through his effort to spread awareness about aging and retirement through his blog, A Satisfying Retirement , Lowry's found there's a lot of confusion out there as to what getting older actually looks like in the 21st century.
"The biggest misconception is that at the age of 65 you retire and go to Florida. That was really the generation before mine. Very few of my readers are content to sit on a lawn chair and play 18 holes of golf a day," says Lowry, who opted to remain in Scottsdale, Arizona, when he retired rather than uproot and move away from family. "They want to be engaged and involved and do a lot of volunteer work."
Much ado has been made about the baby-boom generation reaching retirement age and either leaving the workforce en masse – in part straining the country's Social Security funds – or remaining in their jobs long after the historically standard retirement age. A Gallup poll earlier this year found that 74 percent of U.S. adults said they planned to work in some capacity beyond age 65.
This changing attitude toward work is only one cultural shift the nation and its 50 states will need to grapple with as an aging America becomes less of a far-off prediction and more of a full-blown reality. Changing attitudes toward health care – and the increasingly common desire for the elderly to age and die in their own homes – and lifelong learning experiences will force states to adapt their budgets more to the needs of the post-50 generation and less to those just starting out in life.
A brief glance at elderly employment statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals this dynamic is already playing out. More than 9.2 million Americans over the age of 65 held either a full- or part-time job in August – a 64 percent increase from the 5.6 million elderly workers the U.S. maintained a decade prior.
"In the past 30 years or so, there has been a steady incremental increase in the percentage of workers … 65 and over who are in the workforce," David Nathan, a media relations manager at the AARP, told U.S. News in an email. "The figure in 1985 was 10.8 percent – a little more than one in 10 of those 65 and over. With only one or two exceptions, the percentage has gone up every year since then and now stands at nearly one in five – 19.2 percent. That percent is expected to continue to increase in the coming years."
Part of older Americans' reluctance to leave the workforce comes from the fact that people are living longer today than they were decades ago. Per the Social Security Administration , the average 65-year-old man today can expect to live at least another 19 years. The average 65-year-old woman, meanwhile, can expect at least another 21.5 years. One in four 65 year olds can expect to live past age 90, and one in 10 is expected to reach 95.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the average 65 year old in 1960 would be lucky to make it to 80. And while the CDC in 2015 identified a slight downtick in average U.S. life expectancy – from 78.9 years to 78.8 – expectancy is still considerably higher than it was decades ago.
"Personally, I think that's a healthy change. While people have been living longer, they've also been generally healthier in old age, more vital, disability rates have gone down and so on over the course of the 20th century," says Ronald Lee, a demography professor at the University of California—Berkeley's economics department. "It doesn't seem intergenerationally fair that older people who are living longer and are healthier should be retiring earlier and earlier and receiving support from working-aged people who are struggling themselves."
But the ability to – or, in the case of many whose nest eggs were walloped by the Great Recession, the necessity of – working later in life only scratches the surface of the demographic and economic upheaval associated with America's aging population, which is starting to put a considerable strain on many state budgets in the form of elevated health care burdens and lower tax revenues as Americans tend to pay fewer taxes as they get older – in part because of retirement and in part because they naturally tend to spend less than younger adults, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A report published earlier this year by the Urban Institute noted that the demographic shift "puts pressure on both sides of the ledger, lowering some tax revenue sources while pushing up the need for spending on services, especially health care." And, indeed, a separate study from the National Association of State Budget Offices in June found that 33 states reported fiscal 2017 revenue collections were lower than they'd forecasted. Aging populations are believed to be one of several factors exacerbating individual states' budget situations.
In an effort to get a more hands-on look at how individual states are faring under a demographic shift expected to play out for decades to come, U.S. News put together the Best States for Aging ranking.
The U.S. News Best States for Aging ranking measures states' efforts to effectively serve their senior citizens by keeping them healthy, financially secure and involved in their communities. States are scored relative to each other in 12 factors that average into one overall score.
The factors are:
Colorado took the top spot in the rankings, followed by Maine, Hawaii, Iowa and South Dakota to round out the top five. The Centennial State ranked in the top 10 across several subcategories, including nursing home quality, life expectancy, overall health and senior unemployment.
But Colorado was also among the more expensive states in terms of health care costs – a status that has not been lost among the state's budget-conscious as its population ages rapidly. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs last year pegged it as the third-fastest growing state in terms of population growth among those at least 65 years of age. Among the complications associated with that distinction was a tighter job market and "an expected decline in per capita tax revenues to the state and many local governments."
And given the combination of lower per capita tax revenues and higher state burdens for programs such as Medicare, Colorado officials are looking at ways to head off the potential costs associated with the state's ongoing demographic shift.
"If we don’t get out ahead of [rising health care costs], it’s just going to take a greater and greater proportion of each state's government economy. And it’s gonna squeeze K-12 [education funding]. It’s gonna squeeze higher ed, our universities. It’s gonna squeeze transportation," says Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, indicating that he's determined to "really ... go aggressively after cost" to make health care more affordable to citizens and less of a burden on the government.
Still, Colorado was among the 10 youngest states U.S. News profiled, with just 14 percent of the state's population at least 65 years of age. In states such as Maine, West Virginia and Florida – where the elderly population accounts for 20.5 percent, 19.1 percent and 18.7 percent of the population, respectively – the population shift is even more acute.
(Deidre McPhillips for USN&WR)
But it's not just individual states that are concerned about rising health care costs. Lawmakers across the country have expressed concerns as their constituents' health care burdens continue to rise and cash-strapped retirees try to figure out how to cover their medical bills.
"The biggest fear is not the overall financial situation, it's health costs. Medicare is great, but it only covers 80 percent if you're lucky. And the way Congress acts, nothing is guaranteed," Lowry says of interactions he's had with readers and other elderly Americans through his blogging and book writing. "You can go to the gym 12 hours a day, but you're still going to get old, and you're still going to fall apart. It's going to cost a very pretty penny."
Indeed, Fidelity Investments in August estimated the average 65-year-old couple retiring this year would need $275,000 stashed away to cover health care costs over the rest of their lives. That's up 6 percent from just a year ago.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index, meanwhile, shows nursing home and adult day services have seen costs rise 37.2 percent across the country over the past 10 years. Broader medical care costs, meanwhile, have gone up 35 percent.
The index estimates prices included in its calculations have climbed only 18 percent over that period. So medical care costs are essentially doubling the country's broader rate of inflation.
"The health care side is where the big concern is for the U.S., and really, it's probably underappreciated in many other countries as well," Lee says. "Right now, Medicare and Medicaid are still relatively modest compared to GDP, but they're going to be increasing fairly rapidly."
Still, physical therapy, in-home care and medical employment as a whole have soared along with prices. Affording quality care has become a concern for many, but millions of others have found themselves new job opportunities in industries such as health care and retirement planning as baby boomers transition into their golden years.
Outside of these aging-adjacent industries, though, much of the private sector stands to benefit from the introduction of products that may not have seemed marketable years ago. Gillette recently unveiled the new TREO razor designed to make shaving another person easier – potentially a boon for the growing pool of adult children tasked with looking after their parents as they age.
"That can be seen as, 'Wow, that is great social responsibility.' But it's also fantastic business. It's a great analysis of an unmet need in the marketplace that they can fill," says Michael Hodin, CEO of the Global Coalition on Aging. "The global number is there's about a $15 trillion silver economy, which is what we call this."
States such as Florida and Maine naturally enjoy stronger silver economies than younger and more spread-out states like Utah and Alaska, where just 10.9 percent and 11.3 percent of the already small populations are at least 65 years of age, respectively. But the advent of remote monitoring technology through screens and in-house tools could completely revolutionize how health care is practiced in these areas, allowing older workers to either remain at home or in areas where immediate access to a physical caregiver isn't as much of an issue as it is now.
"Aging in place is all the rage now, and globally, too. [Remote patient monitoring] is about to really take off," says Hodin, who notes that Intel and Phillips, in particular, are at the forefront of some of these elder-focused technological innovations. "The opportunity to transform the delivery of health care, where remote monitoring becomes the standard of care and where, instead of having to run to the physician's office or a hospital, is phenomenal."
Hodin's coalition partners with a host of private sector companies such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, Intel, Deloitte, Pfizer and others as they aim to raise awareness about the global aging trend, prepare companies to maintain older payrolls and potentially identify new business opportunities to better connect with that older demographic.
This effort to make corporate America more elderly-friendly is crucial, he says, if companies want to attract older customers and ultimately take advantage of the glut of older workers remaining in the workplace longer. He likens the potential impact of a more accepting corporate environment for older Americans to the rise of women in the workplace decades ago.
"We opened up an entire part of society that has added trillions of dollars in economic impact and has been a driver of growth through the women's movement. And you can do the same thing with a 55-plus category," he says. "I think that's the model from a societal point of view."
In some sense, that model may be a necessity for many companies as they struggle to attract younger workers in the years ahead. America's aging trend is twofold in that folks are living longer while birth rates have diminished. According to the CDC, the number of U.S. births fell 1 percent in 2016 alone, dropping the general fertility rate to 62 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44.
"When you look at the trend line, particularly from a public policy point of view, it's the low birth rates that have the biggest impact, because it profoundly transforms the character of society," Hodin says. "There are more old than young around the world. The U.S. is less dramatically involved in that at this moment, but it's coming to us very rapidly."
But the story of aging appears to have taken on a more negative connotation in recent years than was the case a few decades ago, Lee says. Concerns about health care funding, Social Security viability, state pension burdens and tax revenue reduction have become the new norm, and elderly health in some sense appears to have plateaued.
"It’s also disturbing that the people just before the threshold of getting older, say, between 50 and 65, they’ve had rising disability rates, increasing obesity, increasing diabetes, and as they start turning 65, they may well be in worse health than earlier generations," he says. "That’s a cloud on the horizon."
Still, Lowry says aging and retirement in the 21st century isn't all doom and gloom. He describes his own experience as "extremely positive" and notes that, even though recent studies have suggested middle-aged Americans aren't the pinnacles of health that they once were, the country's older individuals today are largely more mobile and healthy than they were in decades past. In some sense, he says, 65 is the new 75.
"It's an extremely positive experience now, but I remember at my parents' age, they did just kind of sit. They really didn't do anything," Lowry says of the aging process. "It's really been reinvented; the idea of moving to Sun City and driving around in a golf cart all day is just not acceptable anymore."
Casey Leins and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this story. |
Colorado Is the Best State for Aging | Colorado's burgeoning young population is not the only group to benefit from the state's flourishing economy and resulting culture boom: Colorado is the Best State for Aging, according to a new U.S. News ranking.
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-10-11/colorado-is-the-best-state-to-age-in-america | 2017-10-12 08:57:13.147000 | Colorado's burgeoning young population is not the only group to benefit from the state's flourishing economy and resulting culture boom: Colorado is the Best State for Aging, according to a new U.S. News ranking.
At a time when the nation is aging rapidly, presenting challenges to care for the 65-and-older population, Colorado has made it a priority to ensure it serves its older residents well. As a result, Colorado has one of the healthiest 65-and-older populations of any state, and it provides its residents with some of the best Medicare and nursing home quality in the nation.
Colorado's older population is growing faster than most others: In 2010, 10.9 percent of Colorado residents were 65 or older, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates . In 2016, that percentage jumped to 13.4 percent, though still lower than the national average of 15.2 percent.
By 2030, the Colorado State Demography Office predicts the 65-and-older population will rise to 1.27 million, a 77 percent increase from 2015. Much of this growth comes from the state's residents who are aging in place. A majority of older residents have lived in Colorado for more than 20 years, and many say they don't plan to leave.
Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who has been in office since 2011, attributes the state's No. 1 ranking in part to a strong collaboration among the government, the private sector and local municipalities.
In September, for example, Hickenlooper's office announced the state would create a senior adviser on aging position to lead Colorado's aging-related efforts, funded by a grant from the Next Fifty Initiative, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve community services for the elderly population and caregivers. And Hickenlooper says the state is working with the private sector by providing incentives for private nursing home facilities to improve their quality.
Nursing home quality is one of the areas where Colorado performed the best in the Best States for Aging ranking, earning the No. 6 spot. And quality nursing homes are key to controlling overall health costs, according to the governor.
Colorado also performed well in many health-related categories. New Hampshire and Hawaii are the only states with a greater share of older people who say their health is good or better. About 2 in 3 older people in Colorado are able-bodied, and just 5 percent of Colorado's older people say they are experiencing frequent mental distress, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
The active lifestyle in Colorado could contribute to better health outcomes for seniors, says Mindy Kemp, director of Colorado's Division of Aging and Adult Services. Just 22.3 percent of older people have had no physical activity in their leisure time in the past month; fellow outdoorsy states Washington and California are the only two to rank higher than Colorado for this metric, according to CDC data.
"It's hard to tell where [staying healthy at an older age] is an individual's choice or the services provided to them," Kemp says. "In communities like Boulder, there's a lot of outdoor activities, great recreational activities, community engagement, senior centers and things like that. So I'm sure that helps, but you also need people to be willing to take advantage of that."
The state also offers a Regional Care Collaborative Organization, which connects members of Colorado's Medicaid Program with providers. "[The program] does a really good job of very cost-effectively providing a medical home for people of lesser means," says Hickenlooper, who has been at the forefront of a bipartisan governor resistance to the two Affordable Care Act replacement bills proposed by Republicans in recent months.
Hickenlooper, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and a handful of other governors say the GOP bills would threaten their states' abilities to provide health insurance to residents. And in Colorado, which expanded Medicaid under Obamacare, seniors could be adversely affected because they account for a large percentage of the state's Medicaid costs. People with disabilities and seniors accounted for 59 percent of the program's cost in 2014, though they only made up 20 percent of enrollees.
Colorado's top-notch health care comes with a hefty price tag: The state's health care costs, and cost of living, are higher than in most other states.
Colorado places in the middle of the pack for assisted living facility costs, at an average of $4,900.17 per month . The problem is exacerbated in growing metro areas such as Denver, where housing affordability is a major challenge. As young people move to the state and "are getting paid pretty well to work in this economy," housing prices are jumping, according to Hickenlooper.
"Denver is growing, and there's a huge need for housing, so you see people who could potentially lose their rental housing, and that's a problem," says Angela Cortez, communications director for AARP Colorado, which serves roughly 340,000 members who are 65 or older. "Those are the challenges of a growing community, and yes, if they go into nursing care [or assisted living], it is very expensive."
While stakeholders and advocates agree that affordable housing is a pressing issue for the state, Colorado's leadership has introduced initiatives to help older residents stay in their homes longer, including a property tax break for residents who are 65 and older and have lived in their homes for at least 10 years. The state already has one of the lowest property tax rates in the country.
Jill Clark, a 65-year-old Colorado Springs resident, and her 72-year-old husband have benefited from the property tax break for several years, and she estimates that about half her neighborhood also enjoys the tax break.
Conversely, the state's fast-growing economy prevents seniors from being pushed out of the workforce. The unemployment rate for people over 65 is lower in Colorado – 2.5 percent – than the national average of 3.8 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
"We need every able-bodied worker we can get," Hickenlooper says. The state has programs to make sure people with varying levels of disabilities get training to take their place in the economy. "Sometimes those are older people," he adds.
In addition to its economic challenges, Colorado must address the needs of its senior residents who live in less-accessible areas.
"What's interesting about Colorado is we have some urban and some rural and frontier areas, so the needs are different when we go around the state and ask about the challenges," Kemp says, citing the difficulty of serving larger populations in metro areas and getting home-delivered meals to older people in more remote areas.
Kemp and Jody Barker, chair of the Colorado Commission on Aging, say the state's agencies have worked with Colorado's local municipalities to "do more with less" and creatively address age-related challenges. For example, Kemp's department is considering an initiative to help older people who no longer drive get to doctor's appointments, the grocery store or anywhere else. A driver who volunteers to take the older person to their destination would receive a voucher from the senior, which they could then exchange for cash from the department.
"When we have that level of support already at that upper level, then it enables us … to move forward doing the work that serves the seniors in our community. It's been fantastic," says Barker, who also directs the Central Colorado chapter of the national Alzheimer's Association.
Colorado's 65-and-older population is also benefiting from the fact that the state's young population is growing rapidly. Over the last 10 years, Clark says her neighborhood has become significantly younger and more eclectic, adding that "millennials are looking to live in places that aren't cookie cutter." Now, she enjoys a brewery down the street and an arts scene downtown that "adds to the quality of life."
Hickenlooper says he thinks some older people are moving to Colorado to be with their grandchildren, and is proud how fewer people are moving away from Colorado for retirement than from other states.
"One of the things that helps you [live] longer is to be part of a community and to know your neighbors and have relationships with them," Hickenlooper says. "What that really tells you is that should be a primary goal for any state government to try to encourage as many seniors as possible to age in place." |
Emerging Technology Looks to Help Older Americans Age Better | Americans once wanted to live to an old age. Now, as people are living longer than ever, they want to age well. Each day, more than 10,000 adults are turning 65, and by 2060, nearly one in four Americans – 98.2 million people – will be 65 or older. (Florida and Maine are nearly there.) And a sizable chunk of those older U.S. residents across the country – almost 20 million – will be at least 85 in 2060, according to U.S. Census projections.
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-10-11/emerging-technology-looks-to-help-older-americans-age-better | 2017-10-12 08:56:41.567000 | Americans once wanted to live to an old age. Now, as people are living longer than ever, they want to age well.
Each day, more than 10,000 adults are turning 65, and by 2060, nearly one in four Americans – 98.2 million people – will be 65 or older. ( Florida and Maine are nearly there.) And a sizable chunk of those older U.S. residents across the country – almost 20 million – will be at least 85 in 2060, according to U.S. Census projections.
With that shift has come an increasing focus among researchers, health care professionals and commercial brands alike on how to help older Americans age healthily and comfortably in their own homes.
At the forefront of that movement have been high-tech companies with innovations designed to look after older adults and improve their quality of life, with inventions ranging from a smart refrigerator that orders food from the grocery store after sensing there is not enough, to remote monitoring devices and apps that allow people to check in on their older family members.
At the same time America is graying, older generations are using technology in increasing numbers. Forty-two percent of the nearly 50 million adults 65 and over today own smartphones , a sharp jump from the 18 percent who had smartphones in 2013, a survey from Pew Research Center found. And 79 percent of older adults say the lack of internet access is a serious disadvantage.
"Older adults don't adopt new technologies quite as quickly as younger people," says Elizabeth Zelinski, a technology and aging expert at the University of Southern California . "But one of the ideas we have with technology adoption is that if people find it useful, and it's accessible – meaning it's cheap enough, it's easy enough, it's ubiquitous enough – people will adopt it."
Over the next two decades, overall spending by people 50 and older is expected to increase 58 percent, while spending by Americans 25 to 50 will grow by only 24 percent, according to a 2013 investment report from the AARP . And because baby boomers – Americans born between 1946 and 1964 – spend the most across all categories, particularly health care, "this market is too big to ignore," the report said.
Within the burgeoning movement to create high-tech products geared toward older Americans, there's an emphasis on health, social well-being and safety. And the nation's $3 trillion-per-year health care industry is closely monitoring tech innovations that could prevent falls or other accidents and alleviate health risks, particularly as the number of health care workers has dwindled in recent years.
Falls are the leading cause of injury and death among older Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , contributing to about 27,000 deaths annually. In 2014 alone, older Americans' 29 million falls resulted in 7 million injuries and cost about $31 billion in annual Medicare costs.
Fall-detection wearables that can call for help are nothing new – think Life Alert's "Help, I've fallen" pendants that have been around since the late 1980s – but implementing the same technology into sleeker, more attractive devices may entice older Americans who find the pendants stigmatizing and unattractive, says Laurie Orlov, who has been analyzing industry trends since 2009 for her blog, Aging in Place Technology Watch.
Sensosafe , for example, recently released a smartwatch that monitors the wearer's heart rate, step count and can even call a designated family member if he or she falls. The watch allows family members to monitor an older person's safety while maintaining their privacy and independence. While only a small share of adults 65 and older owned wearables in 2016, according to an AARP survey , those rates will likely increase as the devices become more commonplace.
"A lot of older people feel that their children are worrying about them too much, and the younger people are saying, 'Well, I want to make sure Mom's OK,' but the difficulty is getting to the right balance between privacy and security," Zelinski says.
As older Americans increasingly live alone, concerns arise regarding their security and health. About one-third of Americans 65 or older live alone, according to the Institute on Aging. Women are twice as likely as men to live on their own – nearly half live alone by the time they hit 75. Social isolation and loneliness contribute to poor health outcomes, including depression and declining mobility, according to a report published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Branding its product ElliQ as the "active aging companion," Intuition Robotics hopes to alleviate some of those social and health problems. ElliQ, a tabletop robot that uses artificial intelligence and speaks with a female voice, is designed to simplify communication and other social interactions for older Americans.
Rather than waiting for the user to start the interaction, ElliQ suggests activities to keep older Americans engaged and active. If Grandma has a game of bridge on the calendar, for example, ElliQ will offer to practice with her, or if the weather is nice, ElliQ will suggest going for a walk. Intuition Robotics plans to commercially release the robotic companion in 2018.
"If you look at [Apple's] Siri or something like that, the goal for us as users is A) for us to initiative the conversation, and B) for it to be completed as quickly and efficiently as possible," Intuition Robotics CEO Dor Skuler says. "ElliQ has much more of a persona attributed to her, whether it's her ability to show body language to communicate … or her ability to personalize her approach to different people based on what she learns about them."
Skuler says ElliQ's use of emotional intelligence and body language make the device feel more natural for older Americans who may be tech-averse. ElliQ's proactiveness is what makes the device an asset for older users, Skuler says, because older people often fall into routines of passivity and inactivity. Research suggests that remaining physically active and social can help older Americans fend off health issues such as Alzheimer's disease and high blood pressure, and can even increase longevity.
But Orlov says ElliQ and other tabletop robotic assistants designed specifically for the elderly may be missing the mark. Older people just need popular devices to allow for more personalization and easier-to-use interfaces, such as the "easy mode" on Samsung Galaxy phones that enlarges icons and simplifies the home screen, she says.
"Having standardized hardware and configurable software is what would make these devices simpler to use. There doesn't need to be an entirely separate product," Orlov says, citing controls that parents of young children can enable on their smartphones.
"Alexa," the digital assistant built into the Amazon Echo , is an example of how a universal device can be tailored to meet the needs of its user. Older Americans can ask Alexa to remind them to take their medicine and adjust lights and temperature, for example, and their adult children can use the accompanying app to check in. The newest version of the device, the Echo Show, also includes a screen, allowing people to check their home security cameras and make video calls.
Orlov says that for older Americans to adopt new tech devices en masse, they must be affordable and unobtrusive, so another major draw for existing digital assistants is the price: The Amazon Echo starts at around $180, while the Google Home is even cheaper. There is no set price for ElliQ yet, but Skuler says his team is "targeting the product to be as affordable as other sophisticated consumer electronics products."
American workers' top retirement fear is outliving their money – not declining health or loneliness – according to a 2015 survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies , which may make older Americans wary of new products with high price tags. Still, Americans may find that the higher price tags of some tech devices are worth the splurge if they seem to make Grandma's life easier – and their own by default.
"I think there's a lot out there that can be very helpful," Zelinski says. "And the older people who are most responsive to that have money." |
Spider-imitating drones fire string to perch or park from mid-air | A drone that can shoot string at walls in order to perch against structures has been developed by engineers in London. The "SpiderMAV" craft has been developed by researchers at Imperial College London, and takes its inspiration from the way spiders shoot silk to spin their webs. The drone's stabilising system works by firing a magnetic anchor on a string at metallic surfaces while in mid-air, then reeling it in to keep the line taut, before slowing or shutting off its motors to save energy.
| https://techxplore.com/news/2017-10-drone-perching-stabilizing.html | 2017-10-12 08:35:24.397000 | (Tech Xplore)—Getting a drone up in the air is only one step ahead for those who work on and study drones. The feats to accomplish further rest in how well they fly, self-balance, perch, land and, if used in numbers, how they may move in formation.
No surprise, then, that researchers, in engineering drones to last longer and navigate around obstacles, look to nature's creatures such as birds, bats, insects to explore how their mechanisms help for energy-efficient, precise flight control.
A new drone takes its inspiration from spiders and the results are most interesting.
Introducing SpiderMAV: a micro aerial vehicle, specifically, a DJI Matrice 100 drone with customized perching module mounted on top, said IEEE Spectrum, and stabilizing module at the bottom.
The perching module consists of a magnetic anchor launcher and an actuated spooling system using polystyrene thread, the report said.
The drone is from Imperial College London's Aerial Robotics Laboratory. Their work was presented at IROS 2017.
Their paper is titled, "SpiderMAV: Perching and Stabilizing Micro Aerial Vehicles with Bio-inspired Tensile Anchoring Systems," by K. Zhang, P. Chermprayong, T. M. Alhinai, R. Siddall, and M. Kovac.
What's special about the drone and how does it mimic spiders? The answer is that the little vehicle shoots webs for perching and stabilization—such that it can hang from ceilings and perch.
And it does so wherever it needs to. "The SpiderMAV can shoot actual silk strings at walls in order to stabilize itself to perch against structures wherever necessary or convenient." said Marco Margaritoff in The Drive.
Evan Ackerman in IEEE Spectrum stepped readers through that process.
"When SpiderMAV finds a magnetic surface (a metal ceiling or beam, ideally) that it wants to perch beneath, the launcher uses compressed gas to fire the anchor, which trails the thread behind it. With the anchor attached, SpiderMAV reels in the thread to keep it taut, and then can slow or shut off its motors, hanging securely from the ceiling."
This is all being done while the drone is mid-air. And the feat is not limited to perching but to building infrastructure for it. "By using tensile anchors to support structures made of silk, spiders can create custom-stabilized perching locations that would otherwise not exist, because they're in mid-air."
The inspiration came from Darwin's bark spider. "It's inspired by the Darwin's bark spider that spins a circular web with anchor lines up to 25 meters (82 feet) long," said Steven Dufresne in Hackaday.
The perching aspect of their drone is quite important for those who explore drone endurance. Ackerman discussed this in his article.
"Perching is turning out to be a very desirable skill for aerial robots. The ability to land on walls or ceilings, rather than having to go to the ground, gives a drone the advantage of being high up in the air (probably why you're using a drone in the first place) without the disadvantage of having to spend a lot of energy not falling."
IEEE Spectrum posted videos earlier this month of the 1-SpiderMAV Outdoor Stabilization Test and 2-SpiderMAV: Micro Aerial Vehicles With Bio-inspired Tensile Anchoring Systems.
Why their work matters: According to Ackerman, "The researchers conclude by saying that SpiderMAV 'opens up a new trend in the field of robotics on investigating string-driven systems with active moving platform.'"
Moving forward, Marco Margaritoff in The Drive said "this drone is still very much in its early stages of development, with all of the aforementioned capabilities functioning well yet in preliminary testing phases."
More information: SpiderMAV: Perching and Stabilizing Micro Aerial Vehicles with Bio-Inspired Tensile Anchoring Systems, IROS 2017. ras.papercept.net/conferences/ … ontentListWeb_4.html Abstract
Whilst Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) possess a variety of promising capabilities, their high energy consumption severely limits applications where flight endurance is of high importance. Reducing energy usage is one of the main challenges in advancing aerial robot utility. To address this bottleneck in the development of unmanned aerial vehicle applications, this work proposes an bioinspired mechanical approach and develops an aerial robotic system for greater endurance enabled by low power station-keeping. The aerial robotic system consists of an multirotor MAV and anchoring modules capable of launching multiple tensile anchors to fixed structures in its operating envelope. The resulting tensile perch is capable of providing a mechanically stabilized mode for high accuracy operation in 3D workspace. We explore generalised geometric and static modelling of the stabilisation concept using screw theory. Following the analytical modelling of the integrated robotic system, the tensile anchoring modules employing high pressure gas actuation are designed, prototyped and then integrated to a quadrotor platform. The presented design is validated with experimental tests, demonstrating the stabilization capability even in a windy environment.
© 2017 Tech Xplore |
Reddit unveils partnership with Time Magazine to unearth stories | Social news aggregation site Reddit is partnering with Time magazine to compile the best-performing posts on its site and use them to create a weekly article that will be distributed on Time's properties. The move is seen as an ideal way for the chalk-and-cheese sites to diversify their audiences, and followed Reddit partnerships with publishers including the Washington Post. Reddit has been a major source of referrals to publishers for some time. While any financials behind the deal have not been revealed, Time's parent company, Time Incorporated, is battling to reduce costs across its portfolio.
| https://digiday.com/media/reddits-unlikely-first-edit-partner-time-magazine/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171012 | 2017-10-12 08:21:42.177000 | Time magazine has a new, formalized source of inspiration for stories. On Oct. 12, the Time Inc. flagship is announcing an editorial partnership with Reddit, the community and platform that has helped and flummoxed publishers for years.
Through the partnership, Reddit staffers will help find and flag original stories written by Reddit community members for Time editors, who will tell those stories and compile the results in an article series that will publish every Thursday. The posts will be distributed on Time’s owned and operated properties, its Reddit profile page and Apple News.
In the past year, Reddit has formed partnerships with companies including CrowdTangle and Taboola, as well as publishers including The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Time’s parent, Time Inc., is scrambling to cut costs, reportedly planning to cut the publishing frequency of titles like Fortune and Sports Illustrated, while also trying to offer digital publishers the chance to create print editions of their own products. Neither side would comment on whether there is a financial dimension to the partnership.
“We have opportunities to grow each other’s audiences,” said Alexandra Riccomini, Reddit’s director of business development and media partnerships.
Publishers big and small have spent years mining Reddit for stories. Gawker famously feuded with Reddit’s community over the perception that Gawker staffers relied too heavily on the platform to surface stories they later aggregated. To this day, most digital journalists are constantly prowling Reddit’s 140,000 active subreddits looking for viral story fodder, Alexis Ohanian said on a recent Digiday podcast.
This partnership is different. Rather than surfacing stories from other websites or posts from ill-lit corners of the internet, members of Reddit’s community team will help flag top-performing original posts published by Reddit users, with a special focus on content that does not fit into any of the established lists that Time’s competitors might access through CrowdTangle. Those community specialists will also connect those Reddit users to Time editors to help the editors secure permission to use photographs or other media created by those Reddit users.
“We really wanted to find a way to leverage the user-generated content from their community,” said Brittany Robins, engagement editor for Time Inc.’s Time, Fortune and Money.
For much of the past decade, Reddit has played a unique role in the digital media ecosystem. It has long been a top-10 source of referral traffic for publishers globally, according to Parse.ly data, routinely topping much larger platforms like LinkedIn. Historically, Robins said, it has been a top-five source of social traffic for Time.
Yet overall, the flow of referral traffic has been unpredictable for publishers. Unlike other platforms where publishers can set up their own accounts and pump as much content into the platforms as they wish, Reddit’s community would actively police publishers that tried to spam its ecosystem, either by downvoting the content or getting the publisher’s user accounts banned.
That has begun to change. Over the summer, it created the option for publishers to create profile pages on its platform, a program it launched in open beta with Time, The Washington Post and AL.com. It also began allowing users to upload native video to its platform, an opportunity Time has embraced: A video it uploaded this summer about the history of solar eclipses remains one of Reddit’s most popular uploaded videos.
Reddit’s partnerships with Taboola and CrowdTangle also give publishers greater visibility into how content performs inside Reddit’s labyrinthine ecosystem. “We’ve been making an effort, holistically, to engage more with publishers,” Riccomini said.
While Time’s coverage of national affairs has historically defined the brand, its current audience seems more interested in stories that emerge from the internet. A recent story, which happened to be sourced from Reddit, about a grandmother who bears a striking resemblance to actress Scarlett Johansson became one of the publisher’s top-performing posts of the year.
As two websites looking to diversify their audiences, Reddit and Time are an excellent match. The former’s audience is 62 percent male, and more than two-thirds of its visitors are under the age of 34, while the latter’s audience is 60 percent female, and nearly two-thirds of its visitors are over the age of 35. Both sites attract 47 million unique U.S. visitors per month, all according to comScore data; Reddit claims a global audience of 330 million.
As the partnership develops, Robins said the stories Reddit unearths could serve as the raw material for a video project or another multimedia effort. “This is our passion project,” she said. “We’re just going to see where it goes.” |
Robots, 3D printing combine in spinal operation for first time | A spinal operation on a child has been completed using robots for the first time. Medical staff at France's University Hospital of Amiens used a robot called ROSA for part of the procedure, which involved inserting screws into the spine. Before it took place, specialist surgeons had spent a year preparing for and simulating the operation using a replica of the patient's spinal column produced using 3D printing technology. After the success of the operation, four other children are due to undergo the same procedure. | https://3dprint.com/190514/robotic-spinal-surgery/ | 2017-10-12 08:11:38.197000 | If you thought an autonomous robot dentist implanting 3D printed teeth into a patient’s mouth was astoundingly innovative and maybe a little scary, buckle your seat belt – for the first time, a robot has completed spinal surgery on a child with severe progressive scoliosis. The groundbreaking surgery took place at the University Hospital of Amiens (CHU d’Amiens) in France.
6-year-old Louis is handicapped with a genetic disorder known as infantile spinal amyotrophy – his back was bent at an extreme angle, which has caused him some breathing trouble. Rehabilitation, back braces, and orthopedic corsets were not helping, and he has spent the last six months lying flat in bed.
A robot named ROSA was tasked with completing a very important part of the obviously necessary surgery: the installation of ilio-sacral screws into the patient’s spine.
“It was a question of placing illio-sacral screws and hooks at the top of the back, connected by arched rods to straighten the back,” explained Professor Richard Gouron, the patient’s head of surgery. “The installation of the screws seven millimeters in diameter in a bone corridor of eight millimeters near the roots nervous system remains very complex and rare, they are voluminous in view of the small size of the child’s bones.”
Over the past year, Professor Gouron, pediatric orthopedic surgeon Dr. François Deroussen, and neurosurgeon Dr. Michel Lefranc have been working tirelessly to simulate the robotic operation before it took place.
Dr. Lefranc said, “The surgeon plans the operation, the robot carries the instruments, and takes into account the movements of the patient. He brings the precision and three-dimensional vision.”
Thanks to 3D printing technology, a reproduction of the young patient’s spinal column was added to a mannequin for simulation purposes, so that the 15-person surgical team could practice ahead of time, and even simulate the entire operation twice before even attempting it on Louis.
“This is two firsts in one. A first in simulation, and a first surgery, the placement of ilio-sacral screws with the help of a robot,” explained Professor Gouron.”The incisions are smaller thanks to the robot, there is less post-operative pain and the patient can sit more quickly.”
We’ve seen studies that show 3D printed surgical models can save on costs, but more importantly, they can also reduce the amount of time patients have to spend on the operating table, because it gives surgeons the chance to practice complicated procedures ahead of time.
The successful surgery took place on September 28th, and it only took three hours to place screws in the pelvis and hooks at the top of the back, which were then connected by rods. Louis has recovered very well – not only can he breathe better, but he can also sit up correctly again.
Dr. Deroussen, who originally initiated the project, said, “This is a great victory.”
Due to the success of this first robotic spinal surgery, four other children will soon have identical surgeries to fix their spines.
Among the partners contributing technologies to the procedure were:
Novaspine: processing of the scanner image
Creaplast: realization of moldings based on thermosetting resins (modeling and 3D printing)
Spinevision: supplier of ilio-sacral screws
NuVasive: manufacturer of MAGEC spinal equipment and distraction system
Stryker France: supplier of implants
GE Healthcare: scanning
Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com, or share your thoughts below.
[Sources: CHU Amiens France Bleu / All Images: CHU Amiens]
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Twitch launches humorous video channels, cutting out YouTube | Live streaming and video platform Twitch is offering two additional channels after forming partnerships with their creators. FailArmy and The Pet Collective both feature content submitted by fans and include commentary from viewers. The channels are also available on the likes of YouTube. The first shows humorous footage of everyday mishaps and the second animal videos uploaded by owners. The move is aimed at helping Twitch, owned by Amazon subsidiary Twitch Interactive, to be seen as more than a streaming platform for gamers.
| https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/12/twitchs-failarmy-pet-collective/ | 2017-10-12 07:55:04.523000 | Twitch is becoming more and more well-rounded with every announcement. It hosted various marathons just this year, including Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Carl Sagan's Cosmos. In another bid to break free from its established image as a streaming platform for games, Twitch has announced two new funny channels you can watch: FailArmy and The Pet Collective. FailArmy publishes viral clips submitted by its millions of fans, while The Pet Collective publishes trending animal videos. You might know one or both of them from their other homes online, but if Twitch is your platform of choice, then you no longer have to venture to YouTube to watch their new uploads.
Twitch Director of Business Development Jane Weedon explained why the company decided to form a partnership with the shows' creators:
"The meteoric rise of IRL vlogging category on Twitch is a clear sign that our community loves commentating on everyday activities. We have also witnessed the appeal of shared experiences when it comes to watching programmatic TV marathons together. FailArmy has the top collection of IRL viral clips from all over the world and The Pet Collective is representative of the Internet's love for cute animals. Bringing their programming to Twitch breathes new life into the content by adding commentary from viewers, while tapping into their love of collective viewing."
Both FailArmy's and The Pet Collective's channels are now live. The former will also debut a "Fails of the Week" series exclusively for Twitch later today, October 12th, at around 4:53PM ET. |
AI start-up Neurensic acquired by Trading Technologies | Trading Technologies has acquired artificial intelligence start-up Neurensic. Terms of the deal were not reported. The trading firm will initially use Neurensic's technology to survey and monitor markets, identifying trends in trading activity across a number of markets. Neurensic also allows firms to understand compliance risks associated with their trading activities. The firms have plans for more applications of the technology. | https://www.thetradenews.com/Technology/Trading-Technologies-buys-AI-start-up/?elqTrackId=b31dcf6921f84ac9be63ab0b21852f02&elq=f60f5b8fa68a41799696a748f659d26a&elqaid=2510&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2059 | 2017-10-12 07:53:35.517000 | Trading Technologies has acquired artificial intelligence (AI) and market surveillance specialist Neurensic.
The deal will enable Trading Technologies to integrate its execution platform with AI-led compliance and surveillance systems.
Neurensic was founded in 2015 and has developed AI that can identify complex patterns on trading behaviour on a large scale across multiple markets in near real-time. It utilises big data processing and machine learning technology to provide firms with a continuous assessment of their compliance risk associated with trading.
Rick Lane, CEO of Trading Technologies, said: The ability to provide literal pushbutton access to advanced machine learning surveillance capabilities, with zero infrastructure investment and zero integration cost, will allow our partners to further benefit from the value of our platform and network.”
Trading Technologies said the market surveillance functionality of Neurensic was just the first of “several solutions” it would offer using the technology, but did not provide details of what it is developing.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. |
Blackstone, Lone Star, Paulson face losses over Puerto Rico storm
| Investors such as Blackstone, Paulson and Lone Star, who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Puerto Rican real estate, are at risk of major losses following Hurricane Maria. The damage caused by the hurricane could add up to around $95bn, and has left the island's already struggling economy in tatters. “We sustained a lot of damage, and we’re facing very significant losses”, said Brian Tenenbaum of the Morgan Reed Group.
| https://therealdeal.com/2017/10/09/paulson-others-could-lose-millions-in-puerto-rico-real-estate-bets/ | 2017-10-12 07:30:15.887000 | Deep-pocketed investors like Paulson & Company, Lone Star Funds and the Blackstone Group pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Puerto Rico real estate in recent years. In hindsight, that doesn’t look like such a great idea.
The island’s economy is in tatters in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Storm damages could add up to $95 billion, according to one estimate.
“We sustained a lot of damage, and we’re facing very significant losses,” Brian Tenenbaum of the Morgan Reed Group, a major office landlord, told the New York Times.
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Hedge funder John Paulson, famous for betting against the U.S. housing market in 2007, flew to Puerto Rico on his company’s private jet days after the storm to inspect the damage. Two of the company’s hotels were slightly damaged. A third shut down for now. In a statement the firm said it looks “forward to welcoming guests as early as the winter season.”
CPG Real Estate had to charter a private plane carrying canned goods, diapers and batteries to open part of an outdoor shopping mall in San Juan.
Some investors see light at the end of the tunnel: federal funding. “I think a lot of money will be spent fixing Puerto Rico, and that should be better for everyone,” Marc Lasry, of Hedge Fund Avenue Capital Group, told the Times. [NYT] — Konrad Putzier |
WhatsApp signals payments service to be rolled out in India | WhatsApp users in India could be the first to make instant payments with the messaging app. A beta version of WhatsApp Payments was uncovered by WABetaInfo and if confirmed, could mean that up to 200 million users in the country would have access to the service. WhatsApp has said it's testing bank-to-bank transfers "with UPI", the Reserve Bank of India's Unified Payments Interface. It is not clear when WhatsApp Payments would be rolled out in other countries. | http://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/whatsapp-set-add-payments-messaging-app/ | 2017-10-12 06:55:12.567000 | To access this post, you must purchase September/October 2017 |
AI start-up Petuum raises $93m for app-building platform | Pittsburgh-based start-up Petuum has raised $93m in a series B funding round led by SoftBank and featuring participation from existing investor Advantech Capital, among others. Petuum, staffed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, is developing tools to enable companies to use machine learning and artificial intelligence, and is currently working on solutions for the healthcare and manufacturing sectors. CEO Eric Xing said the new funds would be used to hire engineers, salespeople and marketers to help commercialise its software.
| https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/10/softbank-leads-93-million-round-in-petuums-ai-platform/ | 2017-10-12 06:49:49.710000 | Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More
Petuum, a startup that aims to provide enterprises with the tools they need to deploy machine learning, announced today that it has raised a whopping $93 million series B funding round, led by SoftBank.
The funds will be used primarily to hire engineers, salespeople, and marketers, as Petuum works to commercialize its software, according to Eric Xing, the company’s founder and CEO.
Petuum is working to create a platform for building machine learning and deep learning applications through its own custom virtualization and operating system. The company is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is staffed by people from Carnegie Mellon University, where Xing is a tenured professor of Computer Science.
The company’s location has been a boon, Xing said. Petuum relies on engineers with rigorous training and discipline, and CMU’s history of artificial intelligence research means that Petuum has qualified technical talent available to it.
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What’s more, the location doesn’t seem to be an impediment to fundraising. Xing said that multiple investors came calling just months after the company closed its $15 million series A last year.
In addition to SoftBank, the round included participation from returning investor Advantech Capital, and others.
This investment wasn’t part of SoftBank’s famed $100 billion Vision Fund, but rather comes as part of the company’s normal investing activities.
The move is consistent with SoftBank’s other venture investing activities — the company is not averse to putting large amounts of money into businesses it sees as working on the cutting edge of emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence.
Right now, Petuum is working with a group of customers to beta test its product and help shape the software it’s building. Xing wouldn’t name names, but he said his company is working toward building solutions for the health care and manufacturing sectors, among others.
Details on Petuum’s customers might be available later next year, Xing said. The company is in the process of building out an office in Silicon Valley, in addition to its headquarters in Pittsburgh. |
Hurricane Ophelia touted to batter UK and Ireland | Weather reports suggest Hurricane Ophelia could deliver a storm with winds of up to 70 mph to the UK and Ireland in the coming days. Whilst it is not expected to carry hurricane status if it makes landfall, its potential for destruction is being likened to the Great Storm that occurred around the same date in 1987, causing billions of pounds worth of damage. As we reported in September, AccuWeather warned that the UK is at greater risk of being battered by hurricane-based storms this autumn, which could cause flooding and transport disruption. | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4973004/Could-HURRICANE-coming-Britain.html | 2017-10-12 06:46:00.993000 | Advertisement
Britain could be hit by 70mph winds from a hurricane crossing the Atlantic Ocean that is forecast to arrive on our shores on the 30th anniversary of the 1987 Great Storm.
Hurricane Ophelia was upgraded from a tropical storm overnight and the US National Hurricane Center warns it could strengthen over the coming days, with the remnants looking set to reach the UK on Sunday and Monday.
The volatile weather system could bring heavy downpours and gusts of up to 70mph when it hits Britain's shores at the start of next week, with the Met Office warning that the unsettled weather is expected to cause disruption.
This graphic shows the percentage chance of tropical-storm force winds above 39mph hitting parts of Britain by next Monday
The US National Hurricane Center has plotted the probable path of Hurricane Ophelia across the Atlantic Ocean into Britain
The storm system is expected to track across the Atlantic over the next few days and arrive in Britain on Sunday into Britain
Ophelia is not expected to be strong enough to be labelled as a hurricane when it hits Britain, but will still pack strong winds
Ophelia is the tenth hurricane of the 2017 Atlantic season. On average there are six hurricanes in the Atlantic basin a year
The west of Britain will see the worst of the weather, with winds of 60mph to 70mph forecast. The NHC said last night that Ophelia was 760 miles south west of the Azores and packing maximum sustained winds of 75mph.
Its arrival in the UK will coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Great Storm of 1987, which hit southern England overnight on October 15 and caused damage estimated at £1billion as well as claiming 18 lives.
The strong winds are expected to arrive after a possible 77F (25C) heatwave this weekend that will see hot air pulled up from southern Spain that will bring conditions more associated with summer from tomorrow.
The warmth is also being fuelled by the remnants of Hurricane Nate and will provide a respite for North West England which was under a weather warning yesterday, with up to 4in (100mm) of rain forecast to fall in Cumbria.
Pleasant conditions are expected for most parts of Britain today, although there will be rain in Scotland and Northern Ireland
Much of the country will enjoy plenty of sunshine and clear skies - but this satellite image shows cloud is waiting in the wings
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The Great Storm of 1987 (pictured) hit southern England overnight on October 15 and caused damage estimated at £1billion
18 dead, £1bn damage and 15m trees toppled The Great Storm on October 15, 1987 saw devastating hurricane-force winds tear across Britain, killing 18 people and causing £1billion of damage. Some 15 million trees were uprooted, trains derailed, and parts of the country plunged into darkness as pylons were toppled. The storm involved an unusual combination of forces, including a kink in the jet stream funnelling air through a narrow corridor high in the atmosphere and pockets of high-speed wind known as 'jet streaks'. It also featured a very rare violent event known as a 'sting jet' that was only recognised in 2004 by scientists. The strongest gust was 115mph in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. The storm, which left hundreds of thousands of homes without power, was the most damaging since 1703. In addition to the lives lost in the UK, it killed another four people in France. In his lunchtime BBC broadcast on October 15, forecaster Michael Fish famously said: 'Earlier on today apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she'd heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you are watching, don't worry, there isn't.' Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/news/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->
Met Office forecaster Alex Burkhill said today: 'Ophelia became a hurricane overnight and the forecast track takes it eastwards towards Iberia for the weekend.
'After that, indications are that by that point it will then have weakened and be no longer a hurricane or tropical storm, it will be extratropical.
'But then it will continue its way towards the British Isles, probably reaching us very early next week.'
Mr Burkhill said cold sea temperatures mean Ophelia will not be strong enough to be categorised as a hurricane when it hits Britain.
But he added: 'It's definitely something that we are keeping an eye on, for the possibility of some disruptive weather early next week.'
The unsettled weather looks likely to continue into Tuesday due to a separate band of low pressure, and will remain changeable throughout the rest of the week.
Yesterday. flash flooding caused chaos in parts of Cumbria after more than half of the month's predicted rainfall hailed down in less than 24 hours - leaving parts of the village of Blennerhasset almost completely submerged.
Forecasting the high temperatures, Grahame Madge, another forecaster for the Met Office, told MailOnline yesterday: 'We've got warmer air being pulled up from Iberia.
'As we go into the weekend, we'll be looking to see those temperatures creeping up to the low-20s. For Saturday we're looking at probably a 20C (68F) for most, possibly creeping up to 22C (72F) for some
'On Sunday, a bit more of a range - we could still see temperatures in the low 20s, but there could be the odd isolated 24C (75F). On Monday there is a possibility of temperatures even higher than that.'
Mr Madge said that the average maximum for Middlesex in October is about 15.3C (59.5F), based on records from 1981 to 2010, so London could potentially be up to 10C above the average that would be expected.
The maximum UK temperature for October recorded last year was 22.2C (72F), in Trawscoed, near Aberystwyth in West Wales, on the 31st - while the top reading in 2015 was 22.7C (72.9F) at Braemar in Aberdeenshire on the 1st.
In 2014 an October maximum of 23.6C (74.5F) was recorded at Gravesend in Kent and Kew Gardens in London on the 31st, while the top reading in 2013 was 23C (73.4F) in Skegness, Lincolnshire, on the 8th.
Following the predictions of warm weather this weekend, bookmaker Coral has cut the odds on Halloween this year being the hottest on record in the UK from 10-1 to 5-1. The current record is the 23.6C (74.5F) from 2014. |
UK ad blocking loses publishers more than £2.9bn yearly | More than a third of UK consumers use adblockers, resulting in revenue losses of more than £2.9bn ($3.8bn) for publishers during 2017, according to an OnAudience.com report. This represents a 15% increase on the previous year's figure of £2.5bn. The study also revealed a significantly higher percentage of UK adblocker users than earlier surveys carried out by eMarketer, the IAB UK and PageFair, which reported levels of 20.9%, 22.1% and 16%, respectively. Maciej Sawa, CCO at OnAudience.com called on the advertising industry to ensure ads were "relevant, contextual and meaningful". | http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/10/11/uk-publishers-lose-nearly-3bn-revenue-annually-due-adblocking | 2017-10-12 06:42:09.823000 | The UK has one of the highest rates of adblocking worldwide, with over a third (39%) of page views blocking ads, resulting in a loss of more than £2.9bn in publisher revenue in 2017, according to report by OnAudience.com.
The UK has one of the highest rates of ad blocking worldwide, according to OnAudience
The revenue gulf has increased 15% from the £2.5bn loss UK publishers suffered in 2016. Internationally, the loss of publisher revenue from ad blocking has risen by a third to $42bn (£32bn), indicating that the threat of adblockers on sites reliant on advertising for revenue is becoming a more pressing issue.
However, the figures represent a marked increase from other adblocking reports. In June eMarketer's report claimed that more than one-fifth (20.9%) of UK internet users will use adblocking software this year, with the total number number forecast to hit 11.4 million. IAB UK's figures put the proportion of internet users using adblocking software at 22.1%, but the association has said that some of those claiming to use an ad blocker cited their anti-virus software as their ad blocker, meaning the actual figure drops to 18%. Page Fair's report puts the proportion of UK adblockers at 16%, while comScore's puts it at 18%.
The report has been run by OnAudience.com, a part of Cloud Technologies Group, and supported by PHD Media Direction, a part of Omnicom Group. It represents the scale of ad blocking in 60 markets across the world to raise awareness of the issue across the entire industry.
The study compares key market research concerning the scale of ad blocking, with display market value and the estimated loss due to ad blocking, as well as e-commerce turnover generated by ad blocking users.
The results from the UK reflect a broad trend across the European market where consumers are more likely to block ads, with almost a third (32%) of internet users in the region utilising ad blocker plugins. Poland was found to have the highest ad blocking rates at 46%, followed by Greece (44%), Norway (42%), Germany (41%), and Denmark (40%). The Netherlands and Ireland were identically ranked to the UK, with 39% of page views blocking ads.
However, the adoption of ad blockers across the globe is not so prevalent. The USA and Japan recorded ad blocking rates of just 26%, where education and awareness of ad blockers is high, but consumers choose not to use them, the report suggested.
The lowest rates were found in Latin America, with Paraguay recording the lowest rates of ad blocked page views (5%), while Peru and Venezuela scored the second and third lowest ad blocking rates globally (13% and 10% respectively).
The OnAudience.com report also demonstrates the impact of ad blocking on the e-commerce industry, reporting that a third (32%) of consumers visiting e-commerce sites in Europe have an ad blocker installed.
In total, almost two in five (38%) of online shoppers who complete an online transaction do not see an ad before purchasing.
Maciej Sawa, chief commercial officer at OnAudience.com, said: "There has been much discussion calling for advertising to provide a better user experience, but this report clearly shows that not enough is being done as ad blocking rates continue to rise – causing a significant loss for publishers and the advertising industry as a whole.
“Ultimately user experience is key, so it is extremely important for the entire digital marketing industry to keep the consumer in mind and ensure that their journey is relevant, contextual, and meaningful – if we are to ever convince them not to install ad blockers." |
Cortana comes to Skype | Android and iOS users in the US can now access Microsoft's artificial intelligence assistant Cortana via Skype. Although it doesn't have voice or video functionality, Cortana will appear as a permanent contact on Skype users' lists, and will answer queries with images, as well as offering suggested replies to broader queries. The addition of Cortana follows Skype's redesign for iOS and Android devices in June, which included giving it access to third-party chatbots.
| https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/09/microsoft-brings-cortana-to-skype/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=vbdaily&bt_ee=nzFRSp72jv5EjlcZLI7FAEHzvCf20mg0kzt1dFOMXoF9UgECDp31lxMdagmZoVa3&bt_ts=1507644696625 | 2017-10-12 05:39:18.693000 | Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More
AI assistant Cortana is now available on Skype, Microsoft announced today. Cortana on Skype can chat either one-on-one, like you would with any friend, or be summoned into conversations to handle tasks like scheduling events, finding nearby restaurants, or sharing IMDB movie reviews. Cortana for Skype will begin to roll out today for iOS and Android users in the United States, according to a blog post.
Cortana will now appear as a permanent contact in every Skype user’s contact list. When chatting one-on-one, Cortana can answer questions the same way she can elsewhere: Ask for things like directions or a weather forecast and Cortana will deliver answers via visual cards.
In addition to doing things like making restaurant reservations, Cortana on Skype can serve up suggested replies like “I’m doing ok” when someone asks “How are you?” or “Create reminder” when you’re making plans with friends. Reminders will then be sent to other devices you have authorized to use Cortana.
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Cortana on Skype does not yet work in voice or video calls. Also yet to come are Skype video bots, which launched in preview earlier this year.
At launch, Cortana on Skype has many features similar to the Facebook Messenger intelligent assistant M and in some ways is similar to how Google Assistant functions in the lesser known Allo chat app. In each instance, the AI assistant listens to words used in your conversation in order to anticipate the needs of a user or group of users.
The Skype announcement comes ahead of the widely expected release of the Harman Kardon Invoke this fall, a smart speaker with Cortana inside, and follows a Skype redesign that took place in June for iOS and Android devices. The redesign gave Skype the kind of stories that disappear in 24 hours now common on Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as access to third-party bots.
With Cortana in Windows 10, 500 million devices have access to Cortana. About 140 million users speak with Cortana at least once a month, according to Microsoft VP Jordi Ribas. |
Redrow Public enquiry hears 160 home could destroy feeding grounds | UK housebuilder Redrow's controversial development of 160 homes on the old Allerton Priory site in Liverpool would destroy a "mosaic of habitats which are of ecological value", according to Rachael Rhodes, an ecologist from Merseyside Environmental Advisory Service. Speaking during an ongoing public inquiry, launched after Redrow appealed against Liverpool Council's rejection of the development, Rhodes said the land qualified for designation as a wildlife site.
| http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/business/redrow-housing-plan-could-destroy-13748865#ICID=nsm | 2017-10-12 05:27:56.873000 | Redrow’S plan to build 160 homes on the old Allerton Priory site could destroy the feeding grounds for owls and other birds of prey, a public enquiry heard today.
A wildlife expert also said the 33-acre field was also home to small mammals and had enough different species of butterflies to nominate the land as a designated “wildlife site.”
The public inquiry is being held because Redrow appealed against Liverpool Council’s decision to oppose its housing scheme for the land.
Today the inquiry heard from achael Rhodes, an ecologist from Merseyside Environmental Advisory Service. She said:“The proposal represents an inappropriate and unjustified form of development within designated Green Wedge which will cause an intrusive and urbanising impact on the landscape, affecting the predominantly open character of the Green Wedge and will physically and visually reduce the Calderstones/Woolton Green Wedge between existing built up areas.”
Species of bird including song thrush, cuckoo, dunnock, house sparrow, starling, herring gull, cinnabar moth, noctule bat, soprano pipistrelle bat have all been seen on the site.
Mrs Rhodes added: “The site provides a mosaic of habitats which are of ecological value.
“Development will result in the loss of five individual mature trees and three groups of trees from the woodland to allow the formation of access to the site.
“The semi-natural, unmanaged nature of the appeal site provides greater habitat diversity which supports a greater range of species than managed amenity sites.
“Woodland and scrub on site provides nesting sites for bird species whilst the associated tall herb and grassland habitats provide foraging areas for these bird species.
“The woodland provides a habitat corridor for bird, small mammal and invertebrate species to move through the site to adjacent sites within the Green Wedge.
“Unmanaged grassland and tall herbs such as thistle and scrub provide nectar for invertebrate species such as butterflies which in turn provide food for other species.
“Seed and berries provide food sources for birds and small mammals.
“A total of 12 butterfly species have been recorded on site which is reflective of the range of habitats present and the unmanaged nature of the site.
“The grassland has been unmanaged and unmown for approximately ten years, this has allowed the biodiversity value of this site to develop.”
The housing plan has met with fierce local opposition and since the inquiry has been underway the council has had to remove graffiti daubed on a listed wall of Allerton Priory.
The message - “Say No to 160 Houses” - was plastered in white paint - but the Save Allerton Priory campaign group insisted it was nothing to do with them.
Spokeswoman Sue Earle told the ECHO: “We totally condemn this sort of behaviour.”
The Allerton Priory application does not form part of the council’s £205m deal with Redrow as their preferred housing partner to build 1,500 homes and bring up to 1,000 properties back into use over the next five years.
The inquiry continues. |
Hong Kong probes 'substandard work' by 15 firms on IPOs | Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is investigating "substandard work" by 15 firms that acted as sponsors for IPOs in Hong Kong, said SFC's Thomas Atkinson. 136 active fraud cases are under investigation, of which 28 were "particularly serious", said Atkinson. The regulator believes that poor work by these investment banks and securities firms resulted in billions of dollars in losses. Citigroup, Standard Chartered, CCB International and UBS are among those under investigation and facing fines. This comes as the Hong Kong Monetary Authority investigates eight banks for anti-money laundering. | http://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/hong-kong-regulator-probing-15-firms-for-substandard-ipo-sponsorship-work | 2017-10-12 05:24:54.103000 | HONG KONG (REUTERS) - Hong Kong's securities regulator is probing "substandard work" by 15 firms in their roles as sponsors for initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Asian financial hub, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Thomas Atkinson, who heads enforcement at Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), told the Thomson Reuters Pan-Asian Regulatory Summit that the regulator was currently investigating 136 "active fraud cases", of which 28 were "particularly serious".
The sloppy work from the 15 unnamed sponsors, as investment banks and securities firms that underwrite listings are called, caused billions of dollars in investment losses, he added.
The shortcomings included checking basic issues such as verifying customers or revenue data for listing candidates, Atkinson said, adding that some of the behaviour could be considered "reckless".
"Quite a number of these serious cases involve gross overstatement of revenue and circular financing, many facilitated by related parties and false customers," Atkinson said. "Of course, one of the risk management tools that's essential for preventing this kind of fraud is our IPO sponsorship regime."
In October 2013, the SFC introduced a strict new regime to hold sponsors of IPOs to higher standards and said it would hold banks liable if listing prospectuses were found to have misled investors.
In January, the regulator filed a suit against Standard Chartered, UBS Group and four other parties over the 2009 IPO of timber company China Forestry Holdings Co Ltd. |
Redrow Community Group calls for comment on Chester housing scheme | Westminster Park Residents’ Association is calling for Chester locals to attend a public meeting to discuss a 1,400 home development proposed by UK housebuilders Redrow and Taylor Wimpey. Redrow lodged its application for more than 500 homes with Cheshire West and Chester Council in June, but locals argue the development will have a negative impact on traffic in the surrounding area. The meeting is set to be held at Westminster Park Community Centre on 18 October.
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A residents' group is urging the people of Chester to comment on plans for a massive housing scheme for up to 1,400 homes alongside Wrexham Road .
Westminster Park Residents’ Association is also inviting locals to go along to a public meeting next week to discuss the project with traffic concerns likely to be high on the agenda.
In June Redrow Homes lodged an initial application with Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWaC) for 509 homes and associated infrastructure including a shopping centre with supermarket, restaurant and pub plus a health centre, nursery and primary school with playing fields.
The new neighbourhood will be created on farmland removed from the green belt when the Local Plan was adopted by CWaC, as planning authority, to make provision for future growth.
Redrow and Taylor Wimpey will deliver the majority of the homes.
Also submitted is a linked plan showing a proposed ecological area where great crested newts will be relocated. Two more planning applications will follow to include the rest of the housing plus more detailed proposals around the infrastructure.
Current plans can be viewed online or in hard copy at Lache library.
A number of responses have already been received, particularly in relation to the effect the development will have on traffic in Chester and the surrounding area.
Pauline Brown, chair of Westminster Park Residents’ Association, said: “A lot of people have still not woken up to the fact that this development will go ahead and it will have a huge impact on the traffic both south and north of the River Dee.
“This new estate will be almost twice the size of Westminster Park and the number of vehicle journeys that it is going to generate will be enormous.
“Quite apart from people commuting to work, in the early stages of development, while there is no school, shops or health centre on the estate, people will need to reach all of these facilities via the Wrexham Road on a daily basis.”
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The association is keen to put forward a response to the council that is ‘representative’ of residents’ views’ and hopes they will go along in force to a public meeting taking place at Westminster Park Community Centre at 8pm on Wednesday, October 18.
Pauline added: “Although traffic impact is a big issue, there are also other aspects of these plans that people need to look at including how the development will affect the provision of education and healthcare in the area, how the drainage and ecology of the area will be managed and how the archaeological assets of the site will be conserved.”
The plans can be searched on the planning section of the council website under the following reference numbers: 17/02453/OUT (housing) and 17/02444/FUL (newt mitigation area). |
Former Asda CEO calls for end to plastic packaging | The former CEO of Asda has called on supermarkets to abandon plastic packaging. Andy Clarke said that investing billions of pounds in recycling has failed to solve the growing problem of plastic waste and that the only option was for retailers to adopt packaging made from more sustainable alternatives including aluminium, glass, paper and steel. Clarke added that, despite recycling, “virtually all plastic packaging will reach landfill or the bottom of the ocean sooner or later”. Clarke expressed support for the A Plastic Planet campaign, which is calling for the creation of plastic-free aisles in supermarkets. | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/supermarkets-stop-using-plastic-packaging-former-asda-boss-andy-clarke | 2017-10-11 22:00:00 | The former boss of Asda is calling for supermarkets to stop using plastic packaging saying billions of pounds of investment in recycling has failed to resolve the world’s plastic proliferation crisis.
Andy Clarke, CEO of one of Britain’s biggest supermarket chains for six years, said the only solution was for retailers to reject plastic entirely in favour of more sustainable alternatives like paper, steel, glass and aluminium.
“Go into any supermarket in the country and you will be met by a wall of technicolour plastic,” Clarke said. “Be it fruit and veg or meat and dairy, plastic encases virtually everything we buy.
‘All plastic packaging will reach landfill or the bottom of the ocean sooner or later,’ says Andy Clarke. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images
“Regardless of how much is invested in Britain’s recycling infrastructure, virtually all plastic packaging will reach landfill or the bottom of the ocean sooner or later. Once there, it will remain on the earth for centuries.
“It is vital that the UK packaging industry and supermarkets work together to turn off the tap.”
Efforts to recycle more plastic and “a neverending stream of initiatives” – many of which Clarke oversaw while at Asda – has failed to stem the plastic flow and it is clear a more radical approach is needed, said Clarke, who stood down as Asda CEO last year.
“We want a future for our grandchildren which is as far as possible plastic-free,” he said. “We also know that consumers want the same thing and with heightened public awareness of the dire consequences of unfettered plastic pollution, they are fully in support of the industry’s efforts to make a meaningful change.”
Clarke said supermarkets should create plastic-free aisles to cater for their customers’ demands and to showcase the wealth of alternatives to plastic including innovations like grass paper. He also backed the campaign A plastic planet as a measure to spread the use of alternative packaging.
The world’s plastic binge shows no signs of halting. A Guardian investigation this year established that consumers around the world buy a million plastic bottles a minute and plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years and quadruple by 2050.
In the UK less than a third (29%) of the 5m tonnes of plastic used each year is recovered and recycled. Across the world more than 8m tonnes of plastic leaks into the oceans and a recent study found that billions of people globally are drinking water contaminated by plastic.
Clarke said he has witnessed how much supermarkets have done to try to promote recycling, investing billions to try to increase the amount of recycled plastic they use, but still these measures have failed to reduce the scale of plastic pollution.
Attempts to use thinner plastic milk bottles containing more recycled material at Asda, he said, led to bottles bursting and creating more food waste. In the end the supermarket went back to the original bottles.
“Unlike materials like aluminium and glass, plastic packaging cannot be recycled ad infinitum. Most items of plastic packaging can only be recycled twice before they become unusable,” he said.
Clarke highlighted a Populus poll earlier this year which showed four out of five people questioned were concerned about the amount of plastic packaging thrown away in the UK and 91% wanted plastic-free aisles in supermarkets.
He called for Asda and other supermarkets to use the host of new products coming on the market to cut plastic pollution. “Despite more than a decade of concerted supermarket action on this issue, globally we are still dumping in excess of 8m tonnes of plastic in the ocean each year,” said Clarke.
“We have been able to recycle plastic for decades yet it remains a scourge on the planet. Recycling will never offer a durable solution to the plastic crisis – we simply have to use less plastic in the first place.”
Greenpeace Oceans campaigner Tisha Brown said: “With ocean plastic pollution ending up in everything from sea salt to sea gulls to our seafood, and many shoppers frustrated with the amount of unnecessary plastic packaging they encounter at their local supermarket, now would be a very good time for Asda, or any supermarket, to give shoppers the option of opting out.
“The great thing about a plastic-free isle is that it could encourage innovation in packaging many different products, and save environmentally minded consumers the hassle of hunting for environmentally friendly choices across the store.”
Between 5m and 13m tonnes of plastic leaks into the world’s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms, and by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish, according to research by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium recently calculated people who eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year. Last August, the results of a study by Plymouth University reported plastic was found in a third of UK-caught fish, including cod, haddock, mackerel and shellfish. |
Aviation biofuels plan could wipe out rainforests, say eco groups | A proposal to accelerate the production of biofuels for use in passenger planes has been criticised by environmental campaigners, who claim that the crop requirements of such fuels could necessitate clearing most of the world’s rainforests. The aviation industry has pledged to achieve carbon neutral growth by 2020. The new plan would increase use of aviation biofuels to 5 million tonnes annually by 2025, and 285 million tonnes by 2050. Almost 100 environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and T&E, are protesting the proposal. A petition opposing the proposal has also received 181,000 signatures.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/new-airplane-biofuels-plan-would-destroy-rainforests-warn-campaigners | 2017-10-11 22:00:00 | A new plan to accelerate production of biofuels for passenger planes has drawn stinging criticism from environmentalists who argue that most of the world’s rainforests might have to be cleared to produce the necessary crops.
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, with an 8% leap reported in Europe last year and a global fourfold increase in CO2 pollution expected by 2050.
To rein this back, the industry has promised carbon neutral growth by 2020 – to be met by biofuels, if a blueprint is approved at an International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao) conference in Mexico City tomorrow.
The “green jet fuel” plan would ramp up the use of aviation biofuels to 5m tonnes a year by 2025, and 285m tonnes by 2050 – enough to cover half of overall demand for international aviation fuel.
But this is also three times more biofuels than the world currently produces, and advanced biofuels are still at too early a stage of development to make up the difference.
Environmentalists say that the most credible alternative fuel source would be hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), even though this would probably trigger a boom in palm oil plantations and a corresponding spike in deforestation.
Klaus Schenk of Rainforest Rescue said: “Citizens around the world are very concerned about burning palm oil in planes. The vast use of palm oil for aviation biofuels would destroy the world’s rainforests, the basis of life for local people and the habitats of endangered species such as orangutans. We urge Icao to scrap its misguided biofuels plan.”
It is impossible to quantify the precise extent of deforestation that the proposal could cause, but based on the Malaysian Palm Oil Council’s crude palm oil yields and Total conversion figures, Biofuelwatch estimate that 82.3m hectares of land (316,603 sq miles) would be needed to meet the target, if it were sourced from palm oil alone. That is more than three times the size of the UK.
Carlos Calvo Ambel, a spokesman for Transport and Environment, said: “Most biofuels are worse for the climate than jet fuel. Quality should always go before quantity. Establishing a goal even before the rules are set out is putting the cart before the horse. The European experience has been that biofuels targets sucked in palm oil exports whose emissions were far greater than those of fossil fuels.”
T&E, Oxfam and Friends of the Earth are among nearly 100 environmental groups protesting the proposal, while 181,000 people have signed a petition calling for the initiative to be scrapped.
Inside the conference hall, several states are also opposing the biofuels pitch which, if passed, is expected to go on to an Icao assembly for formal adoption within two years.
Brazil and Indonesia strongly support the plan but China has questioned its feasibility, the EU wants more robust sustainability criteria, and the US says it will not support globally coordinated emissions reductions targets.
An industry proposal to limit the biofuels target to 2025 is one possible compromise, but others may emerge before the plan is put to a vote.
Almuth Ernsting, a spokeswoman for Biofuelwatch, said the current proposed target was “so huge that it would be unlikely to be fulfilled – but you could still have massive negative impacts from much smaller uses of palm oil”.
Within four years of the EU setting a binding target to source 10% of its transport fuel from renewable sources in 2009, studies show that European investors had bought 6m hectares of land for biofuels production in sub-Saharan Africa.
The EU took very little of its biofuel feedstock from Africa in the end, but the use of palm oil from elsewhere for biodiesel had soared 500% by 2014, according to industry trade figures. |
Less than one in five alternative assets employees are female | Just 19% of employees at fund management firms are female, according to research by data analysts, Prequin. Women constitute 29% of junior employees, but just 11% of senior alternative assets staff. The highest levels of women, sometimes up to 53%, are found in investor relations and marketing teams. Investment teams have the smallest number of women, ranging from 18% at natural resources firms to 10% at hedge funds. Women also comprise on average just 5% of board members at alternative assets funds. At just 9%, private equity has the lowest rate of women in senior positions.
| https://www.hedgeweek.com/2017/10/12/257078/women-represent-19-cent-alternative-assets-employees | 2017-10-11 22:00:00 | Preqin’s latest overview of women in alternative assets finds that just under one in five employees at fund management firms is female. This rate varies widely by role, and consistently declines according to seniority.
The highest proportion of women is seen among junior employees, where they constitute 29 per cent of the workforce. However, in each asset class the representation of women falls according to seniority, and overall senior alternative assets staff consist of 11 per cent women. In the same way, women are best represented in investor relations/marketing teams, as high as 53 per cent at venture capital firms. The rate of women in investment teams is much smaller, as low as 10 per cent at hedge funds. The board of directors for an average alternative assets fund, meanwhile, only comprises 5 per cent female members.
According to Preqin’s research, women constitute an industry-wide average of 18.8 per cent of alternative assets fund management staff. This varies by asset class, from 17.9 per cent among private equity firms to 20.6 per cent at venture capital firms.
Across all asset classes, the proportion of female employees falls according to seniority. Women make up 29 per cent of junior alternative assets staff, but 23 per cent of mid-level staff and 11 per cent of senior staff.
By role type, the highest proportions of women are all in investor relations/marketing teams. Fifty-three percent of IR staff at venture capital firms and 50 per cent at private equity firms are women, with representation in other asset classes in the forties. By contrast, in almost all asset classes investment teams have the smallest proportion of women. Representation ranges from 18 per cent at natural resources firms to 10 per cent at hedge funds.
Among senior staff, the average proportion of female employees does not rise above the 11 per cent seen at venture capital firms. Private equity has the lowest rate of senior women, at 9 per cent. This is mirrored in the proportion of women sitting on the boards of directors at alternative assets firms. Across the industry, 5 per cent of firm directors are women.
Amy Bensted (pictured), Head of Hedge Fund Products at Preqin, says: “The low representation of women at alternative assets firms is an issue that has seen increasing attention over recent years. Traditionally a male-dominated industry, the proportion of female employees across the industry is significantly less than 50 per cent, with only investor relations teams in some asset class approaching or surpassing a rate of equal representation. It is notable that women are best represented in client-facing or finance roles, while the deal making and operations teams are the most male-dominated. Beyond this, what is most striking is that even where women are well-represented among junior staff, this is not translating to more women in senior roles. ”
“The disparity in the rates of junior and senior female staff shows that progression through the industry remains rarer for women than for men. This contrasts sharply with institutional investors; women constitute one in five senior staff at public pensions, and more than one in three at foundations. The industry has some way to go before achieving true parity between genders, and this issue will continue to be closely monitored by commentators and industry bodies over the coming years.” |
Salesforce launches Lead Analytics for Facebook | Salesforce has integrated its Marketing Cloud platform with Facebook, letting clients use the social media giant’s B2B digital ad channel. The system offers engagement stats from the Facebook and Instagram, and can provide performance visualisations for marketing automation metrics. The integration is available immediately for all Salesforce Pardot and Marketing Cloud Advertising Studio Enterprise Edition users.
| http://www.zdnet.com/article/salesforce-rolls-out-new-marketing-cloud-integration-with-facebook/#ftag=RSSbaffb68 | 2017-10-11 17:00:26.567000 | Salesforce is rolling out a new Marketing Cloud integration with Facebook that aims to help businesses take advantage of Facebook's B2B digital advertising channel.
It's called Salesforce Lead Analytics for Facebook, and as the name suggests, it lets marketers measure the effectiveness of targeted ad campaigns. The system can pull engagement stats from Facebook, Instagram and the Facebook Audience Network and create performance visualizations against key marketing automation metrics.
Previously, marketers have only been able to capture customer information from Facebook ads up until the form fill, Salesforce said.
"The Facebook lead ads API helps businesses grow by allowing them to form more meaningful relationships with business decision-makers," said Louis Moynihan, MarTech Partnerships Lead at Facebook.
"A solution like Salesforce Lead Analytics for Facebook is a great tool that leverages the power of our API to help B2B marketers better understand how their campaigns drive leads, opportunities and ultimately business outcomes."
Salesforce said the integration is available today for new and existing Salesforce Pardot and Marketing Cloud Advertising Studio Enterprise Edition customers.
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Former-PM David Cameron joins electronic payments firm First Data | Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron has been hired by electronic payments company First Data Corporation to advise its board and speak on its behalf at public and private events. In his first significant private-sector role since ending his political career last year, Cameron will work two-to-three days per month providing insight on international, contextual and geopolitical issues. First Data, which posted $11.6bn in revenue last year, enables credit and debit transactions and manages ATMs globally.
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/09/david-cameron-takes-job-with-us-electronic-payments-firm-first-data?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3ByH9QiQ1RTIKqhdaT5%2FG3lA%3D%3D | 2017-10-11 15:42:45.890000 | David Cameron has taken a job with the electronic payments firm First Data Corporation, his first major private sector job since leaving office.
The former prime minister will work two or three days a month for the US company, which handles credit and debit card transactions and cash machines around the world. The company made revenues of $11.6bn last year, processing 2,800 transfers a second across more than 6m merchant locations.
In a press release, First Data described Cameron as one of the “most prominent global influencers of the early 21st century” and said he would help “expand the company’s footprint in new and existing markets”.
Cameron said: “I am incredibly proud that during my time as prime minister the United Kingdom became a global force in fin-tech [financial technology]. I remain passionate about the opportunities that exist for British and international companies that are developing exciting technologies both for businesses and consumers – technologies that have the potential to revolutionise the way we all live our lives.”
His job was signed off by the advisory committee on business appointments (Acoba), which makes recommendations on new positions for ministers after they leave office.
Because he stepped down as an MP in September last year, Cameron will not have to declare how much he is paid.
Cameron is understood to have signed a deal worth a reported £800,000 for his memoirs, which are due to be published next year. The deal was substantially less than the £4.6m advance received by Tony Blair for his memoirs after leaving office.
Since leaving Downing Street, Cameron’s wife, Samantha, has set up a clothing design company, Cefinn.
Cameron will sit on First Data’s advisory board, helping the chief executive and other senior figures with “international, contextual and geopolitical advice and analysis”.
The former prime minister will also speak “at private and public events for and on behalf of First Data.”
According to the Acoba advice, he must not lobby the government on behalf of First Data for two years from July 2016, when he stepped down as prime minister.
In a letter to Cameron, Acoba notes: “You stated the role is not likely to include contact with government, you have no commercially sensitive information about First Data or its competitors and you did not have previous official dealings with First Data.”
Given Cameron’s former position, Acoba asked the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, John Manzoni, about the role. Manzoni confirmed that the government had no links with First Data, which is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
First Data was taken over by the private equity firm KKR in 2007, one of the biggest private equity deals undertaken. The company was hit hard by the financial crisis but has since bounced back under the chief executive, Frank Bisignano, and was taken public again in 2015.
In 2015 First Data supported the UK launch of Apple Pay, which allows consumers to “tap and pay” with their mobile phones. Last year First Data processed more than 79bn electronic transactions worth a total of $2.2tn.
KKR was co-founded by the influential businessman Henry Kravis, who has an estimated worth of $4.2bn, according to Forbes magazine. Kravis, who was rumoured to be the inspiration for the Gordon Gecko character in Wall Street, remains on the board of First Data. Kravis and Cameron have attended some of the same major financial conferences, including Davos in 2011 and the Bilderburg meeting in 2013.
Since stepping down from parliament, Cameron has become a member of the global board of advisers for the Council on Foreign Relations and taken on various speaking roles.
The former chancellor George Osborne has taken on a wider range of jobs, including becoming the editor of the Evening Standard and an adviser to BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager. Osborne is paid £650,000 a year by BlackRock for one day’s work a week. |
Jupiter bucks passive investment trend, taking in more money | Despite investors flocking to passively managed fund products, Jupiter Fund Management has managed to attract fresh fund flows via its actively managed suite of products. The firm pulled in £1.2bn ($1.6bn) during Q3 2017, taking its assets under management to £48.4bn, a new record high for the firm. Jupiter charges higher fees than some of its competitors, noted CEO Maarten Slendebroek, but is also currently delivering outperformance. | https://www.standard.co.uk/business/jupiter-fund-management-profits-from-going-against-the-tide-a3656276.html | 2017-10-11 15:23:19.680000 | J upiter Fund Management showed on Wednesday it is defying the fashion for cheap index-tracking funds, winning clients thanks to its skill as a stock picker.
It took in another £1.2 billion of client money in the past quarter, taking total assets under management to a record £48.4 billion, and suggesting there is still life in active fund management.
Jupiter chief executive Maarten Slendebroek describes the company as a “high conviction active asset manager”.
Its charges are higher than some rivals, but customers reap the benefit in better returns, he insists, resisting the trend for lower fees.
A note from broker Cenkos, titled Not Reading the Script, said: “Revenue margins are declining… costs are rising and active management is dead.
“Or so it is said in some quarters, and Jupiter was meant to be the eye of the perfect storm according to some commentators.”
Cenkos analyst Rae Maile added: “There is no sign that manage-ment is paying attention to the siren voices of doom. We expect that consensus for this year and next will edge higher, again.”
Not all stock pickers can claim to be doing so well. Yesterday it emerged that Jupiter has pulled more than £300 million from the flagship income fund run by Neil Woodford (pictured) in alarm at its poor performance.
Woodford has seen several of his top share picks — notably Provident Financial — suffer this year. He has also lost money on AstraZeneca and Allied Minds, leading him apologising to investors.
Jupiter shares were today up 4.5p at 558p. |
Munich Re and INSHUR enter into auto insurance partnership | Munich Re will begin to offer commercial auto insurance policies through a partnership with New York-based rideshare insurance company INSHUR. INSHUR uses its mobile platform to allow ridesharing drivers to access quotes on-demand, rather than by visiting brokers' offices and filing lengthy paperwork. The firm launched in 2016 and has so far written $5m in premiums. “Having a global forward thinking organization backing us, provides tremendous advantages and allows us to scale our digital platform much quicker", said INSHUR co-founder Dan Bratshpis.
| https://coverager.com/inshur-announces-strategic-partnership-to-further-grow-its-business-in-the-1bn-rideshare-insurance-market/ | 2017-10-11 14:52:46.887000 | INSHUR (www.inshur.com) today announced a strategic partnership with Munich Re’s Digital Partners to design and distribute innovative commercial auto insurance products through INSHUR’s mobile technology platform.
INSHUR opened for business in 2016 focusing on New York City’s rideshare market; an insurance sector expected to be soon worth more than $1bn. INSHUR is the industry’s only mobile-first, digital platform for commercial auto insurance focused on rideshare drivers. The NYC startup, founded by Dan Bratshpis and David Daiches, has been quietly building a following among drivers.
Traditionally, purchasing insurance coverage could take days, as a driver had to visit a brokers office, sign, and file paperwork and often make repeat visits. INSHUR’s mobile platform automates the whole process; now it can take as little as 171 seconds to get a quote on INSHUR.
Since its launch, INSHUR has underwritten $5M in gross written premiums, converting 26% of drivers quoted into customers. The insurtech startup has focused on organic growth and is now looking beyond New York’s quickly expanding passenger transportation insurance market. Having been privately funded up to this point, the digital insurance platform is setting its sights further afield.
Speaking about INSHUR’s story, Dan Bratshpis, said: “INSHUR responds to a growing demand from a new type of insurance customer. Drivers in the rideshare landscape are already mobile-first operators. When it comes to obtaining commercial auto insurance, this new generation is seeking a digitized insurance experience that aligns with how they do business. We’ve developed a mobile platform which helps solve these existing problems, by digitizing insurance, we can become more customer-centric and responsive to this new type of buyer.”
Andrew Rear, CEO of Digital Partners, said, “We are delighted to be able to support INSHUR’s ride-sharing proposition. We’ve been impressed by the energy and expertise in the INSHUR team and look forward to a successful launch.”
Dan Bratshpis added: “Having a global forward thinking organization backing us, provides tremendous advantages and allows us to scale our digital platform much quicker. We are looking forward to expanding our offering to new geographic territories and broader industry sectors.”
About INSHUR
INSHUR is the only mobile-first provider of commercial auto insurance for TLC drivers.
The mobile app allows TLC drivers to quote, purchase and service their insurance policies at their convenience. The FREE app is available for Android and iOS devices. Founded in October 2016, the management and technical team are based in offices in New York and London. INSHUR provides customers with the ability to get on-demand quotes and cover in minutes and not days. INSHUR means no more calling around for brokers, waiting for a quote, finding parking, mailing checks and coming back with missing paperwork. Owner-operator drivers in NYC that work for black car bases like Uber, Lyft, Gett and car service/taxi bases will find many benefits.
Twitter: @inshur_NYC
For more information, please contact:
Partnerships: [email protected] |
Indian state seeks $1.5bn to fund IoT development | An Indian state is aiming to encourage the development of smart device technologies by investing in the internet of things (IoT). The government of Telangana is aiming to attract $1.5bn of business investment and create 50,000 jobs with the creation of new business clusters in three districts that will develop IoT technology applications. The focus will be on developing smart cities, medical health technologies, agri-tech and logistics. The state is also promoting a number of recycling initiatives, with subsidies announced for investment in waste recycling in the region.
| http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/telangana-announces-e-waste-programme-aims-to-create-50k-jobs-with-new-iot-policy/articleshow/61032757.cms | 2017-10-11 13:16:17.920000 | HYDERABAD: The Telangana government on Tuesday announced two new policies focussing on Internet of things and e-waste , which are part of the 10 major focus areas of the state's IT policy launched last year.The IoT policy is designed to attract Rs 10,000 crore worth of investments and the creation of five clusters each in three districts.The government aims to provide employment for 50,000 people in five years. Also, the state's e-waste policy calls for earmarking industrial space or sheds for dismantling and recycling e-waste in existing and upcoming industrial parks, estates and industrial clusters.Industries minister KT Rama Rao said: “We aim to develop world-class infrastructure to promote the development of IoT products and IoT-based solutions. Hence, we will create five zones each in Hyderabad, Warangal and Sricilla districts for deployment of points of contact (PoCs) in the IoT space“.The IoT policy is focussed on developing smart city solutions, medicalhealth IoT, smart logistics and agri-tech.These will be propelled by TWorks, a hardware prototyping centre being developed by the state government. The centre will partner with corporates and laboratories to access testing tools and other prototyping equipment specific to IoT.“We plan to promote manufacturing and procurement of IoT-based solutions through government procurement of products and services and having a customs facilitation centre to reduce the time to importexport parts for IoT-based solutions,“ said Rao.He said the government would promote management of ewaste through collaborations with bulk consumers of electronic products, major industry organisations and other stakeholders.The government would also provide incentives to boost refurbishing and recycling centres. A subsidy of Rs 1 crore will be provided for a minimum investment of Rs 5 crore for the first five recyclers and refurbishers. Apart from that, it also plans to give 25% subsidy on lease rentals for every company for the first three years of operation and provide Rs 1,000 as training subsidy per person every month for 1,000 people. |
Millions of plastic pellets enter UK seas from sewage plants | Sewage plants are releasing millions of tiny plastic beads into seas around the UK, according to a study by environmental group the Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition (CPPC). At least 55 wastewater treatment plants in the country use pellets known as Bio-Beads, which are just 3.5mm wide, to remove chemical and organic contaminants from sewage. The Bio-Beads, which pose a risk to marine life and can enter the food chain, are hard to see and almost impossible to remove from the oceans once released. South West Water said there was no evidence that its sites were releasing Bio-Beads.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/11/sewage-plants-are-leaking-millions-of-tiny-plastic-beads-into-britains-seas | 2017-10-11 11:49:17.553000 | Sewage plants are contributing to plastic pollution in the oceans with millions of tiny beads spilling into the seas around the UK, according to a new report.
Dozens of UK wastewater treatment plants use tiny plastic pellets, known as Bio-Beads, to filter chemical and organic contaminants from sewage, according to a study from the Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition (CPPC).
The report found that many millions of these pellets, which are only about 3.5mm wide, have been spilled and ended up in the environment.
The author of the report, Claire Wallerstein, said once the Bio-Beads had been released they are hard to spot and almost impossible to remove – yet can cause significant harm to marine wildlife.
“We are learning more all the time about the environmental impact of consumer microplastics in wastewater such as laundry fibres, cosmetic microbeads and tyre dust,” said Wallerstein.
“However, it now seems that microplastics used in the wastewater plants’ own processes could also be contributing to the problem.”
However, South West Water said there was “no evidence that Bio-Beads are currently being released into the marine environment” from any of its sites. It said only nine of its 655 plants use Bio-Beads but did accept there had been spills in the past that “were subsequently cleaned up”.
A spokesperson added: “We worked with the authors to encourage evidence-based rigour to this well-intentioned report. However, in parts, it remains anecdotal rather than factual, some of its conclusions are not supported by evidence and it insufficiently differentiates between nurdles [tiny pellets that form the basis of most plastic products] and Bio-Beads.”
However, Wallerstein said samples had been analysed by a plastics expert who had been studying nurdles for 20 years and he had confirmed they were Bio-Beads.
The Bio-Bead system is used in at least 55 wastewater treatment plants around the UK, according to CPPC.
Wallerstein said the scale of the subsequent pollution could be far-reaching adding that in Cornwall Bio-Beads account for the majority of industrial plastic pellets found littering the beaches.
“We know that these Bio-Beads have now reached the coast of northern Europe as well as the beaches here in the UK. What we need is more research into the scale of this problem and for a concerted effort by water companies to do something about it.”
Industrial pellets and small bits of plastic such as Bio-Beads are mistaken for food by birds, fish, and other marine animals. These particles can kill animals, not only by causing digestive blockages, but also as a result of the high concentrations of pollutants, such as DDT and PCBs, which adhere to them in seawater.
Plastic pollution can also enter the food chain. Last August, the results of a study by Plymouth University reported plastic was found in a third of UK-caught fish, including cod, haddock, mackerel and shellfish.
Wallerstein said: “We understand that Bio-Bead plants have been good at improving the quality of the effluent discharged by our wastewater plants – but this should not involve the risk of polluting our seas and waterways with microplastics, which could have long-term and far-reaching consequences.”
Bio-Beads are used in the last step of the sewage cleaning process before treated effluent water is released back into rivers or straight into the sea. There is currently no mechanism in place to trap lost Bio-Beads in the event of a spill and the CPPC report details several spills and near misses in recent years.
Wallerstein said: “We believe that the Bio-Bead system is far too vulnerable to losses. We are calling for a range of safeguards to be put in place at all plants using it, and ultimately for water companies to phase out its use altogether.”
South West Water said it welcomed the report but called for more research.
“We commend the report’s authors in raising this subject but they insufficiently acknowledge other potential sources of small plastic pellets on south-west beaches such as plastic manufacturing plants in the UK and abroad, or spills from container ships, all of which are worthy of further investigation.” |
CoinShares adds ethereum ETN for trading on Nasdaq Stockholm | Just over two years after trading began on bitcoin exchange traded notes (ETNs), Swedish firm CoinShares has launched two ETNs tracking the price of ether. COINETH and COINETHE trade on the Nasdaq Stockholm, and are denominated in SEK and EUR respectively, while their index rate would be based on the daily average from the three most liquid of a select group of exchanges. CoinShares MD Laurent Kssis said the move was a "major win for European investors".
| https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/71086/coinshares-trades-ethereum-etn-on-nasdaq-stockholm | 2017-10-11 10:57:58.027000 | Source: CoinShares
Investors seeking exposure to the price movement of ether, the native token of the Ethereum platform, just got a new, but familiar option: two Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) which track the price of Ether - Ether Tracker One (COINETH:SS) and Ether Tracker Euro (COINETHE:SS).
XBT Provider by CoinShares, the issuer behind the world’s first bitcoin ETNs, is announcing that the first Ether ETNs are now available for trading on Nasdaq Stockholm.
“The listing of these two Ether ETNs is a major win for European investors who have been requesting these products for over a year now. As of today, if investors want hassle-free exposure to the price movements of ether, they simply call their broker or trade on their normal brokerage platform - that’s truly remarkable. We are thrilled to be able to deliver on investor demand via a safe, familiar route in Nasdaq,” says Laurent Kssis MD of XBT Provider by CoinShares.
The two ETNs, COINETH and COINETHE are denominated in SEK and EUR respectively. In similar fashion to the group’s bitcoin ETNs, the ether ETNs are structured to track the price of ether, as determined by an index rate comprising the average of the 3 most liquid of a select group of exchanges, daily. The ETNs are traded during normal market hours on Nasdaq Stockholm.
“We are happy to be able to provide investors with this new investment opportunity. Given the high interest we have experienced for the previous listings from XBT Provider it is exciting to now expand the offering into this unique exchange traded certificate. While it is important to acknowledge that exposure to an asset in its early stage of development, such as a digital currency, comes with a risk, trading Ether on Nasdaq Stockholm provides investors with the protection provided by a regulated infrastructure, well-known marketplace and accessibility through their ordinary brokers,” says Helena Wedin, head of ETP Services Europe at Nasdaq.
This is the second major crypto-asset ETN Nasdaq has listed for the CoinShares group, noteworthy as this listing makes Nasdaq Stockholm the only European exchange to offer investors exposure to two of the leading crypto-assets (bitcoin and ether) in a familiar structure.
“Today is a historical moment for Ethereum and ether as an asset; and for the future of crypto-assets. It was a little over two years ago that the bitcoin ETNs began trading - offering investors exposure to bitcoin via an established exchange for the first time. Today, we are able to bring ether to the market and mark another major first. It is important to remember how far and how fast the space has matured in the less than 8 years since this revolution began,” says Ryan Radloff, Co-Principal at CoinShares.
CoinShares, which has been called the ‘iShares® equivalent for Crypto-finance,’ now represents six professional grade crypto-investment vehicles, all of which are pioneering products in their category. With the addition of ether to the platform, CoinShares represents the most diverse investment product line-up available in professional crypto-finance; and notably, the only way for European investors to add ether to their portfolio via an established exchange.
“We’ve stated before that as a group, CoinShares is committed to delivering world-class research and professional-grade access to crypto-assets. Today marks a critical step in delivering on that mission. This launch is the result of a tremendous amount of hard-work from the CoinShares team, key partners and our counterparts at Nasdaq. We could not be more proud to bring this latest set of pioneering product to the market,” says Daniel Masters, Co-Principal at CoinShares. |
Ripio raises $31m for ethereum micro-lending | Argentinian blockchain start-up Ripio has raised $31m in pre-sale funding from private investors, including Steve Nerayoff and Blocktower Capital. The company, formerly known as BitPagos, will now focus on its initial coin offering, due to begin on 24 October, to fund its ethereum-based Ripio Credit Network (RCN). The micro-lending platform aims to bring together borrowers and lenders, using fiat currency and its own RCN token. The platform's goal is to bring financial services to developing countries, where 65% of the population are unbanked, said CEO Sebastian Serrano.
| https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/micro-lending-startup-ripio-ico-raises-31-million-in-presale/ | 2017-10-11 10:51:06.437000 | Latin American micro-lending startup Ripio Credit Network concluded its initial coin offering (ICO) presale, raising $31 million from accredited investors. Following the public Ripio ICO, the startup hopes to have raised a total of about $40 million.
Ripio (formerly BitPagos) has been operating within the crypto space since 2013 and established a blockchain-based lending service to help unbanked Latin American residents obtain loans. Now, the startup aims to expand the service into developing markets outside of Latin America through the creation of the Ripio Credit Network (RCN), an Ethereum-based micro-lending platform.
Using cosigned smart contracts, the network connects borrowers, lenders and co-signing agents. Significantly, both lenders and borrowers can interact with the platform using fiat currency, while the cosigner and corresponding wallet providers settle the contract using RCN tokens. This makes the platform much more accessible to people who are not familiar with cryptocurrency. The settlement process will require fees, but Ripio says they will be far lower than those charged by conventional lenders.
The presale, which was limited to accredited investors, raised $31 million from investors across the world, including significant contributions from Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. Notable investors included Blacktower Capital, Blockchain Investors Consortium, and FBG Capital. Ripio notes that presale participants did not receive a discount, although they did have an opportunity to purchase tokens in much larger quantities than are available in the public Ripio ICO.
“Our goal is to widen financial inclusion by extending credit lending globally, and for implementing it we need worldwide support,” said Ripio founder Sebastian Serrano. “With vast experience on the blockchain market and a willingness to provide developing countries with fair lending conditions, our team is certain that this product will be welcomed by the community and help us democratize the digital economy in developing countries, offering digital payment alternatives within everyone’s reach in these regions where up to 65% of the population remains unbanked.”
The public Ripio ICO is scheduled to begin on October 24 and has a hard cap of 21,250 ETH, worth about $6.4 million at current exchange rates. Based on the success of the presale, it is likely the public distribution event will reach this cap, bringing the Ripio ICO’s fundraising total to about $37 million.
Featured image from Shutterstock. |
Coffee shops criticised over UK disposable cup waste | Coffee shops are failing to respond adequately to the problem of disposable cup waste, according to the UK parliament's environmental audit committee. Each year, 2.5 billion cups are discarded in the UK, with this number expected to increase to 3 billion by 2025. The plastic lining of the cups, of which just 1% are recycled, means that they must be processed in specialised mills. The committee considered the option of banning disposable cups, a move opposed by Costa Coffee and the packaging industry. Martin Myerscough of Frugalpac told the committee that his company produced fully recyclable cups.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/10/coffee-shops-not-doing-enough-to-combat-huge-increase-in-wasted-cups | 2017-10-11 10:43:20.507000 | Coffee shops are not doing enough to deal with the billions of disposable cups that are thrown away in the UK each year, an influential committee of MPs has been told.
The environment audit committee heard that the phenomenal growth of on-the-go coffee meant that 2.5bn disposable cups are thrown away annually in the UK, a number expected to rise to about 3bn by 2025. Only 1% are recycled.
The committee’s chair, Mary Creagh, said this “massive increase” was having a damaging environmental impact and insisted it was time the big coffee chains did more to address the waste they produce.
“These coffee shops have a big responsibility under the the producer responsibility obligations to provide proper recycling facilities and they are in breach of them.”
The runaway popularity of coffee shops shows no sign of slowing down. There are currently about 20,000 outlets in the UK and the committee heard that figure is likely to increase to 30,000 by 2025. This would result in millions more coffee cups being thrown away each day.
Although the majority of people believe that any disposable cups put into a recycling bin will be broken down and the material reused, the committee heard that is not the case. The plastic lining in cups means they cannot be recycled in normal depots and have to be put in special bins and sent to one of three dedicated recycling mills.
The Green party MP Caroline Lucas said the key was to encourage the use of reusable cups.
“It seems to be that [reusable cups] are the best solution if we can get to that and I know some coffee shops offer an incentive if people bring a reusable cup but uptake stands at only 2%.”
The committee raised the possibility of banning the current disposable cups to encourage more easily recyclable alternatives or charging more to use them. These suggestions were opposed by a representative from Costa Coffee and the packaging industry who insisted they were working towards creating a system that would allow consumers to recycle the existing cups.
The committee also heard from Martin Myerscough, the founder of Frugalpac, which claims to make fully recyclable coffee cups.
“We decided it was the cup that was the problem not the recycling system,” said Myerscough. “So we have designed our cup so it can go in any bin and be recycled in any mill.”
He said the company was just completing its first high-speed machine that would make fully recyclable cups at the same speed and for the same price as the existing ones.
“It’s a completely scaleable solution. The cups are the same price, they look the same and they taste the same,” he told the committee. |
Researchers make sodium-based battery that may challenge lithium | A sodium-based battery capable of storing the same amount of energy as present lithium-ion batteries but costing less than 80% of a lithium-ion battery has been developed by researchers at Stanford. Due to a lack of material abundance, lithium-ion batteries cost a significant amount of money to produce, with lithium costing roughly $15,000 a tonne to mine and refine. The researchers are basing their battery on a sodium-based electrode, which is $150 a tonne. With a sodium cathode, and phosphorous anode, the Stanford team improved how sodium and myo-inositol enable that electron flow between the two electrodes, significantly improving the efficiency of the battery. | https://news.stanford.edu/2017/10/09/sodium-based-batteries-cost-effective-lithium/ | 2017-10-11 10:35:43.017000 | As a warming world moves from fossil fuels toward renewable solar and wind energy, industrial forecasts predict an insatiable need for battery farms to store power and provide electricity when the sky is dark and the air is still. Against that backdrop, Stanford researchers have developed a sodium-based battery that can store the same amount of energy as a state-of-the-art lithium ion, at substantially lower cost.
Stanford researchers are developing a sodium ion battery based on a compound related to table salt. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Chemical engineer Zhenan Bao and her faculty collaborators, materials scientists Yi Cui and William Chueh, aren’t the first researchers to design a sodium ion battery. But they believe the approach they describe in an Oct. 9 Nature Energy paper has the price and performance characteristics to create a sodium ion battery costing less than 80 percent of a lithium ion battery with the same storage capacity.
“Nothing may ever surpass lithium in performance,” Bao said. “But lithium is so rare and costly that we need to develop high-performance but low-cost batteries based on abundant elements like sodium.”
With materials constituting about one-quarter of a battery’s price, the cost of lithium – about $15,000 a ton to mine and refine – looms large. That’s why the Stanford team is basing its battery on widely available sodium-based electrode material that costs just $150 a ton.
This sodium-based electrode has a chemical makeup common to all salts: It has a positively charged ion – sodium – joined to a negatively charged ion. In table salt, chloride is the positive partner, but in the Stanford battery a sodium ion binds to a compound known as myo-inositol. Unlike the chloride in table salt, myo-inositol is not a household word. But it is a household product, found in baby formula and derived from rice bran or from a liquid byproduct of the process used to mill corn. Crucial to the idea of lowering the cost of battery materials, myo-inositol is an abundant organic compound familiar to industry.
Making it work
The sodium salt makes up the cathode, which is the pole of the battery that stores electrons. The battery’s internal chemistry shuttles those electrons toward the anode, which in this case is made up of phosphorous. The more efficiently the cathode shuttles those electrons toward and backward versus the anode, the better the battery works. For this prototype, postdoctoral scholar Min Ah Lee and the Stanford team improved how sodium and myo-inositol enable that electron flow, significantly boosting the performance of this sodium ion battery over previous attempts. The researchers focused mainly on the favorable cost-performance comparisons between their sodium ion battery and state of the art lithium. In the future they’ll have to look at volumetric energy density – how big must a sodium ion battery be to store the same energy as a lithium ion system.
In addition, the team optimized their battery’s charge-recharge cycle – how efficiently the battery stores electricity coming in from a rooftop solar array, for instance, and how effectively it delivers such stored power to, say, run the house lights at night. To better understand the atomic-level forces at play during this process, postdoctoral scholar Jihyun Hong and graduate student Kipil Lim worked with Chueh and Michael Toney, a scientist with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. They studied precisely how the sodium ions attach and detach from the cathode, an insight that helped improve their overall battery design and performance.
The Stanford researchers believe their Nature Energy paper demonstrates that sodium-based batteries can be cost-effective alternatives to lithium-based batteries. Having already optimized the cathode and charging cycle, the researchers plan to focus next on tweaking the anode of their sodium ion battery.
“This is already a good design, but we are confident that it can be improved by further optimizing the phosphorus anode,” said Cui.
Other members of the team included Stanford researchers Jeffrey Lopez, Yongming Sun and Dawei Feng. The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Battery Materials Research (BMR) Program. X-ray measurements were carried out at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), a national user facility operated by Stanford University on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. |
UK has made no progress in gender equality over past decade: EU | The UK has made no progress in combating gender inequality over the last decade, according to the latest European Union (EU) league table. The UK performed worse in this area than Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. Across Europe, the overall score for gender equality increased by just four points between 2005 and 2015, to a total of 66.2 out of 100. The greatest improvement was seen in the corporate sector, with the proportion of women on the boards of major listed companies in the EU rising from 10% in 2005 to 22% in 2015. | https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/oct/11/uk-no-further-forward-on-tackling-gender-inequality-eu-league-table-shows | 2017-10-11 10:11:24.897000 | Britain has made zero progress in tackling inequality between the sexes in the past decade and lags behind Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and France in the EU’s latest gender equality league table.
The UK joins Slovakia and the Czech Republic among the EU’s 28 member states in having made no significant advances in reducing levels of inequality when taking into account a range of fields including the workplace, income, education, health or political engagement.
Britain’s performance declined in the field of educational attainment between 2005 and 2015, according to the Gender Equality Index, although the country remains one the EU’s three best performers in that area.
The UK results fit into a picture of slow progress towards gender equality across Europe between 2005 and 2015. The overall score for gender equality, when a matrix of data is taken into account, rose by just four points, to 66.2 out of 100, with 100 signifying complete gender equality.
The gender gap in employment in the EU is “wide and persistent”, the index report says, with the full-time equivalent (FTE) employment rate of 40% for women and 56% for men. Income gaps have narrowed, but on average women still earn 20% less than men, and the average masks huge disparities across the EU.
Only every third man in the EU engages daily in cooking and housework, compared with nearly eight in 10 women. Almost every second working woman spends an hour or more caring and educating children or grandchildren, elderly or disabled people during the day, compared with only about a third of working men.
The report says: “As the life course of women often involves economic inactivity, part-time work, unpaid work, lower wages and an average of five years’ shorter working life than men, they face a significant risk of poverty in old age. In the EU, 18% of women and 12% of men aged 75-plus are at risk of monetary poverty.”
In education, men still dominate the fields of science and technology (66%). Women represent about three-quarters of tertiary students in education (78%), health and welfare (71%), and humanities and the arts (65%).
The report says: “Segregation in educational choices leads to further gender divisions in the labour market and reinforces the undervaluation of work, skills and competencies traditionally attributed to women.”
It says gender equality in decision-making in political, economic and social areas is “progressing at the fastest rate, but continues to have the lowest score of all domains”.
The advances are sharpest in the corporate setting, where the proportion of women on the boards of the largest listed companies in the EU has more than doubled, from 10% in 2005 to 22% in 2015. However, women account for only 7% of board chairs and presidents and 6% of chief executives in the largest companies.
Vĕra Jourová, the commissioner in Brussels responsible for gender equality, described the results as “embarrassing” and vowed to publish an EU-wide action plan by November.
Vĕra Jourová described the results as ‘embarrassing’. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters
She said: “The numbers we see today tell a sad story. A story of stagnation, slow progress and prevailing gender inequality across Europe. We cannot think of our societies as modern when we let so many people down, every year and every day.
“This backwards or stagnating trend I find truly embarrassing. Equality is not about women becoming like men, but tapping the full potential of our society by creating an environment of choice.
“Women are discriminated against when it comes to their career paths and access to jobs. Men are discriminated against their private lives and put under huge pressure to focus on their career and making money.”
The top-scoring country in the EU is Sweden (82.6), followed by Denmark. Greece holds the lowest score (50). Hungary is the second-worst performer. The most improved country is Italy, up 12.9 points in the past 10 years to reach 14th out of 28.
Åsa Regnér, the minister for gender equality in Sweden, said the results in general were depressing.
She said: “Gender equality doesn’t happen automatically. It happens because of leadership, political decisions, because of the allocation of resource or not. It is because politicians fight in debate or not … This is all about political leadership. There are governments and leaders who don’t want gender equality.”
Joanna Maycock, the secretary general of the European Women’s Lobby, who is from the UK, said “critical action” was needed to deal with the issue, and the European commission’s promise of an action plan was not enough.
She said that among the necessary measures, all national governments should offer free childcare, examine their tax practices, review national budgets for gender disparities and apply legal measures to address the “shocking levels of discrimination” against women returning to work after having a baby. |
UK has made no progress in gender equality over past decade: EU | The UK has made no progress in combating gender inequality over the last decade, according to the latest European Union (EU) league table. The UK performed worse in this area than Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. Across Europe, the overall score for gender equality increased by just four points between 2005 and 2015, to a total of 66.2 out of 100. The greatest improvement was seen in the corporate sector, with the proportion of women on the boards of major listed companies in the EU rising from 10% in 2005 to 22% in 2015. | http://eige.europa.eu/gender-equality-index | 2017-10-11 10:11:24.897000 | Achieving equality between women and men makes everyone better off. We have come a long way, but there’s still more to do. Let’s shape an economy where gender equality, social fairness and prosperity go hand in hand. #3StepsForward is how policymakers, business leaders and individuals can unite to build a fairer future. We all have a role to play. Join our #3StepsForward campaign and do your part! |
Chance The Rapper partners with Lyft to 'Round Up & Donate' | US artist Chance the Rapper has partnered with ride-hailing firm Lyft to launch Round Up & Donate, an initiative aimed at raising money for Chicago's public schools. Lyft users in the city will see a Round Up & Donate button in-app; those who activate the feature will have their fare automatically rounded up to the nearest dollar, with the extra funds donated to the rapper's New Chance: Arts & Literature Fund.
| http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/7990610/chance-the-rapper-helping-chicago-public-schools-lyft-partnership-round-up-donate | 2017-10-11 10:05:35.677000 | In 2017, Chance the Rapper’s altruism has been unmatched. From donating $1 million to Chicago Public Schools to even working the grill at Nando’s for charitable reasons, he hasn’t disappointed. For his latest endeavor, Chance has partnered up with Lyft starting Tuesday (Oct. 10) to help underfunded Chicago Public Schools.
Explore See latest videos, charts and news Chance the Rapper Lifestyle See latest videos, charts and news
For Chicago riders using Lyft, you can round up your fare and donate to Chance’s arts enrichment fund program for kids in struggling CPS. Simply tap ‘Round Up & Donate’ on your Lyft app, which will automatically round up your fare to the nearest dollar and the difference will be donated to New Chance: Arts & Literature Fund.
“Through the New Chance Arts & Literature Fund, I’m committed to giving the kids in Chicago as much as I can,” Chance says. “And now with Lyft’s Round Up & Donate, we can give them much more because the more we ride, the more we raise to bring more arts programs to Chicago Public Schools.”
To join, Chicago residents must tap on the ‘Settings’ tab on the app, select ‘Round Up & Donate,’ choose CPS: The New Chance Fund and take your ride from wherever in the Windy City. |
YouTube tests subtitled auto-play for videos on app homepage | Video-sharing site YouTube is testing a new feature on its Android app that enables users to assess auto-play video content they encounter while browsing to decide if they want to watch it. Videos on the app homepage will play automatically with subtitles rather than sound, stopping immediately if a user continues scrolling, with the same process continuing for the next video that comes into view. The move follows Google's August launch of video previews in search results, which offer six-second silent clips of a video.
| http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/youtube-play-as-you-browse-homepage-autoplay-android | 2017-10-11 09:42:43.700000 | Android Central
YouTube has begun testing a feature that auto-plays videos that appear on its app’s homepage to get a gauge of what a video is about before watching.
Through the feature, users can choose to watch full videos, however the videos are played with subtitles overlaid and not without sound. If the user scrolls up or down past a video, it stops playing and instead the next video in view plays.
The auto-play homepage feature, which was first spotted by Android Central, is currently only on the Android app. It has been dubbed ‘Play as you browse’ and can be disabled through Account -> Settings -> General -> Play as you browse. In addition, if the user doesn’t want to entirely disable the feature, they can choose to only have it work when they are connected to a wi-fi network.
In August, YouTube parent Google rolled out video previews in mobile search results. Unlike the YouTube’s play as you browse, this feature only plays six-second silent clips to provide the gist of a 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. |
Oranj launches software platform to cut down investors' fees | US-based Oranj has launched a software platform for financial advisers aiming to provide additional technology and access to products while not increasing fees which could be passed on to clients. The platform, called MAX, will provide aggregation and rebalancing tools alongside model portfolio options. Firms such as BlackRock, Direxion and Morningstar, among others, will have model portfolios hosted by the platform. The firm says the direct access to these asset managers will serve to cut down some layers of fees investors may encounter. | http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Oranj-Seeks-to-Modernize-Advisers-Businesses-by-Developing-Industry-s-First-Free-Wealth-Management-Software-1003673078 | 2017-10-11 09:41:19.813000 | CHICAGO, Oct. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Oranj has developed MAX (Manage, Advise, eXperience), the first open-access, end-to-end wealth management software providing financial advisers with direct access to a powerful solution that can help reduce some product and technology fees—helping advisers adopt new technology without increasing their cost of doing business, and in some cases, making investing less expensive for investors.
MAX will combine Oranj's client-facing engagement and account aggregation tools with institutional-grade trading and rebalancing functionalities from TradeWarrior Software, Inc., in which Oranj acquired a majority stake earlier this year. In addition, prominent investment management firms such as BlackRock, Direxion, Morningstar Managed Portfolios, ETF Securities, and Frost Investment Advisors will host model portfolios and funds on MAX, enabling advisers to seamlessly utilize investment solutions within their business on a single software platform. Unlike similar solutions in the marketplace, MAX is custodian-agnostic, and can integrate seamlessly with all major custodians and brokers. In addition, Shareholders Service Group and Liberty Partners Financial Services have agreed to offer MAX to the advisers in their respective networks, which cumulatively reach more than 1,500 advisers across the country.
Many investors are unaware that their investment costs include multiple layers of product and technology fees along with advisers' fees. The direct access to investment managers, and powerful portfolio construction and management tools, on MAX can remove some of these fees, which advisers are often forced to pass on to their clients—reducing both business expenses for advisers and the overall cost of investing for investors. To learn more about MAX, or reserve a spot for access, please visit www.maxadviser.io.
"As a former adviser myself, I know first-hand the value that advisers provide for their clients at every stage of their lives. MAX is a groundbreaking solution that not only reduces the friction associated with connecting and collaborating with an adviser, but can also slash the costs of both doing business as an adviser and investing as an investor," said David Lyon, CEO and Founder of Oranj. "By offering advisers free world-class technology and direct access to best-of-breed investment managers, MAX can eliminate some of the product and technology fees that, in many cases, are factored into the cost of investing with an adviser—giving advisers the power to help more Americans avoid the DIY investing approach which often leads to underperformance and emotion-based decisions."
MAX features will include:
Adviser/Client Portal offering an unlimited number of clients and prospects a user-friendly experience when working with an adviser, and eliminating lengthy meetings and cumbersome delivery of financial statements.
offering an unlimited number of clients and prospects a user-friendly experience when working with an adviser, and eliminating lengthy meetings and cumbersome delivery of financial statements. Account Aggregation tools providing access to accounts at over 25,000 financial institutions— enabling advisers to obtain holistic insight into an investor's overall financial profile, and helping clients understand the financial impact of important life decisions and adapt accordingly.
tools providing access to accounts at over 25,000 financial institutions— enabling advisers to obtain holistic insight into an investor's overall financial profile, and helping clients understand the financial impact of important life decisions and adapt accordingly. Online Account Opening/Transfer capabilities allowing advisers to seamlessly work with clients to complete online account openings and transfers.
capabilities allowing advisers to seamlessly work with clients to complete online account openings and transfers. eSignature Powered by DocuSign , which decreases the time and effort required to execute and deliver documents by allowing advisers and clients to electronically sign documents within MAX.
, which decreases the time and effort required to execute and deliver documents by allowing advisers and clients to electronically sign documents within MAX. Institutional-Grade Trading and Rebalancing software which can streamline the trading and rebalancing of accounts, saving advisers time and costs for both their clients and their business, especially during market corrections.
software which can streamline the trading and rebalancing of accounts, saving advisers time and costs for both their clients and their business, especially during market corrections. Risk Assessment and Alerts from the software, which will monitor and notify advisers when accounts have drifted past their appropriate risk profile.
from the software, which will monitor and notify advisers when accounts have drifted past their appropriate risk profile. FIX (financial information eXchange) Trading connection which allows trades to be sent electronically from MAX to any custodian for execution.
connection which allows trades to be sent electronically from MAX to any custodian for execution. Investment Marketplace complete with asset allocation models, enabling advisers to evaluate a wide variety of strategies and model portfolios from recognized investment managers and move ahead with incorporating these strategies into investor portfolios.
complete with asset allocation models, enabling advisers to evaluate a wide variety of strategies and model portfolios from recognized investment managers and move ahead with incorporating these strategies into investor portfolios. Real-Time Net Worth/Balance Sheet calculations for every client which can be easily accessed by advisers.
calculations for every client which can be easily accessed by advisers. Secure Document Vault which stores important documents and communications going back to the prospect stage, and can be easily accessed by advisers and their clients through the adviser/client portal.
"We are excited to offer Morningstar® Managed PortfoliosSM on Oranj's MAX platform," said Nicholas VanDerSchie, Head of Managed Portfolios at Morningstar Investment Management LLC. "Our managed portfolio services allow advisers to tap into the investment expertise of our global team, freeing up their time to focus on value-added activities like financial planning and behavioral coaching."
About Oranj
Oranj is focused on creating the world's best digital experience for enabling financial advisers to help clients effectively manage their financial lives and personal goals, and empowering investors to make smart financial decisions, connect with financial professionals, and pursue better investing outcomes. To achieve this, Oranj builds software for servicing, collaborating, managing, and connecting, which utilizes user-friendly applications for a fully interactive human-driven, technology-assisted experience. The Oranj platform offers a secure document vault, client collaboration tools, aggregated data from more than 25,000 institutions, online account opening/transfer capabilities, real-time activity notifications, extensive data analytics, and an archive of adviser/client communication going back to the prospect stage. Oranj also offers access to institutional-grade trading and rebalancing solutions from TradeWarrior Software, Inc., in which Oranj acquired a majority stake in April 2017. For more information about Oranj, please visit www.runoranj.com or follow @runoranjdotcom on Twitter.
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Pearson to contest testing contract awarded to rival in Iowa | UK-based education services company Pearson has appealed against a state decision to award a $31m testing contract to the American Institutes for Research (AIR), alleging "preferential treatment and bias". In papers filed with the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, Pearson called for the proposals to be resubmitted and judged "openly, impartially, and without bias". AIR, which has locked horns with Pearson previously, recently won three contracts worth a combined $84m, but would not comment on Pearson's claim, as the contract had not been finalised.
| https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/pearson-fights-award-iowa-testing-contract-rival-vendor/ | 2017-10-11 09:34:56.873000 | Pearson is fighting to halt a decision by the state of Iowa to award a $31 million testing contract to the American Institutes for Research, arguing that the scoring of bids was riddled with “preferential treatment and bias.”
The giant education corporation filed its appeal as a petition to stay the award with the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, arguing that the state failed to follow the parameters of its request for proposals for the work.
Appeals of state testing awards by losing vendors are not uncommon. Assessment companies are known to dispute the scoring processes and rationale of state officials when competing for contracts worth many millions of dollars.
In 2015, Pearson and AIR engaged in a memorable and high-stakes battle over a potentially enormous contract issued for testing work overseen by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, a common-core state testing consortium. Pearson, which had won that contract, ultimately prevailed in that fight, when a district court judge ruled against AIR’s lawsuit.
The Iowa contract was one of three state assessment contracts that the AIR, a nonprofit vendor based in Washington, D.C., had tentatively secured over the past few weeks, worth a combined $84 million. The vendor was also poised to win deals in Indiana and North Dakota. All three awards were not yet final, until other vendors were given the opportunity to challenge the awards.
The Iowa contract called for a vendor to complete work over a period of more than five years. It covered new state assessments in English/language arts, math, and science, Iowa officials have said. The five other vendors who pursued the contract were Pearson; ACT Inc.; Data Recognition Corporation; Questar; and the University of Kansas, according to the state.
Some Iowa legislators had urged the state Department of Education to use an Iowa-based exam instead of one provided by an out-of-state vendor.
In a statement to Marketplace K-12, Pearson spokesman Scott Overland said that Pearson is a “proud employer of hundreds of Iowa residents” and that its bid was “predicated upon using local employees and facilities to develop, administer, and report the assessments.” As a result, when judged by the “overall impact to Iowans,” Pearson offered a better deal, he argued.
The Iowa Department of Education referred questions on the Pearson appeal to the state’s department of administrative services. An official for the administrative services agency said no decision on Pearson’s appeal or stay has been made.
The American Institutes for Research declined to comment on Pearson’s filing, saying that doing so was not appropriate since the Iowa contract had not been finalized.
In its appeal, Pearson asks that Iowa state officials rescind the award to the AIR and re-score the proposals–or that the an entirely new RFP be put forward and bids be judged “openly, impartially, and without bias.”
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Moving toward a pay-for-value model of prescription drug pricing | One of the health care issues about which seemingly all Americans agree: Prescription drug prices have skyrocketed. And they keep going higher. How do Americans get better value for their health care dollars?
| https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-10-pay-for-value-prescription-drug-pricing.html | 2017-10-11 09:31:12.570000 | Credit: Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
One of the health care issues about which seemingly all Americans agree: Prescription drug prices have skyrocketed. And they keep going higher. How do Americans get better value for their health care dollars?
One answer may be novel pricing models that more closely link a drug's price to its value, rather than paying for volume. Drug manufacturers, however, argue that Medicaid's "best-price rule" inhibits their ability to enter into these new pricing arrangements.
Not so fast, says an expert on drug pricing and regulation at Washington University in St. Louis.
"The best-price rule is not as serious a problem as drug manufacturers might perceive it to be," said Rachel Sachs, associate professor of law and co-author of "Innovative Contracting for Pharmaceuticals and Medicaid's Best-Price Rule," recently published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.
The best-price rule essentially states that Medicaid is entitled to the best price for any drug that's paid in the private market. If a drug company wants to give a big discount to a private insurer, Medicaid is entitled to that discount as well.
"The rule does not apply to a wide range of payers—drug manufacturers can enter into innovative contracting models with Medicare Part D or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs without running afoul of the rule," Sachs said. "It only applies when the discount it would trigger exceeds the statutorily required Medicaid discount, which is already quite large. And manufacturers can structure their contracts with payers ahead of time to minimize its impact."
The rule, argue Sachs and co-authors Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan and Darius N. Lakdawalla of the University of Southern California, should not be an obstacle to pricing innovation alternatives, including indication-based pricing, outcome-based pricing, drug licenses and drug mortgages. Where it is an obstacle, drug manufacturers can often restructure their contracts to avoid or mitigate the rule's impact.
"Pharmaceutical companies and insurers have expressed interest in a number of different innovative pricing models, chief among them outcome-based pricing and indication based pricing," Sachs said. "Many people find an intuitive appeal in the idea behind outcome-based pricing—if a drug doesn't work for a patient, why should they have to pay for it?"
Sachs said she is looking forward to more indication-based pricing deals, where manufacturers charge different prices for the same drug depending on the indication for which it is being prescribed.
"If the indication-based price is tied to how much value that drug provides for the particular indication, shifting to indication-based pricing systems could begin to move our payment system for drugs more in the direction of value, not volume," she said.
"The best-price rule is not as serious a problem as drug manufacturers sometimes make it out to be," Sachs and her colleagues write in the paper. "But it is also not simply a convenient excuse for refusing to try something new. The law here is complex, and fostering the adoption of new pricing models will require close coordination among manufacturers, payers and regulators. |
Are Prescription Drugs Next On Amazon’s Agenda? | The investment community was abuzz Tuesday following word that Amazon might be considering a move into the prescription drug business. Speculation about such a move began surfacing around the time Amazon acquired Whole Foods in June, but analysts at investment firm Leerink fueled the flames on Friday when they commented that Amazon “almost certainly” will get into prescription drugs within a couple of years.
| https://www.pharmpro.com/news/2017/10/are-prescription-drugs-next-amazons-agenda | 2017-10-11 09:30:33.903000 | The investment community was abuzz Tuesday following word that Amazon might be considering a move into the prescription drug business.
Speculation about such a move began surfacing around the time Amazon acquired Whole Foods in June, but analysts at investment firm Leerink fueled the flames on Friday when they commented that Amazon “almost certainly” will get into prescription drugs within a couple of years.
Critics countered that, while it’s hard to rule out Amazon’s will to disrupt another part of the business environment, the online service hasn’t fared as well when dealing with highly regulated industries, including alcohol distribution.
“The highly regulated drug business has never been particularly transparent,” journalist Emma Court wrote in a MarketWatch report on the subject Tuesday. “At best, U.S. drug pricing is complex; at worst, it’s dysfunctional.”
Still, pharmacy benefit management and mail order firms like Express Scripts could become particularly vulnerable if Amazon jumps into the arena. Some speculate that the powerful online retailer, with its robust cash, may even look to enter into the space via acquisition.
Following last Friday’s Leerink report, Express Scripts stock fell 2.5 percent, while the CVS and Walgreens chains fell about 5 percent, according to a CNN Money report, which noted that all three stocks fell further in trading on Monday, even as Amazon and the major stock markets were up.
In midday trading Tuesday, Express Scripts and Walgreens were down again, while CVS stock was up slightly.
In, perhaps, unrelated news, Express Scripts announced Tuesday that it is buying eviCore for $3.6 billion. The Bluffton, SC-based eviCore contracts with health plans and commercial clients to manage health care services.
For its part, Amazon said it had no comment on the speculative market reports.
(Sources: CNN Money; MarketWatch) |
California doesn't have enough doctors, and this bad law isn't helping | California doesn’t have enough doctors. By 2025, the state will be short about 4,700 primary-care physicians, according to a recent report from the UC San Francisco Healthforce Center. This will result in more people turning to costly emergency-room visits for routine care, it predicts.
| http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-california-nurse-practitioners-20171010-story.html | 2017-10-11 09:29:59.663000 | California doesn’t have enough doctors.
By 2025, the state will be short about 4,700 primary-care physicians, according to a recent report from the UC San Francisco Healthforce Center. This will result in more people turning to costly emergency-room visits for routine care, it predicts.
One solution is to expand the role of well-trained nurse practitioners, who can meet the basic healthcare needs of our growing population at a fraction of the cost of doctor visits. That’s what many other states are doing.
But this obvious remedy is opposed by a powerful interest — doctors. As a result, the Legislature has repeatedly failed to give greater independence to nurse practitioners, or NPs for short.
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I wasn’t even aware of this issue until I stopped by a CVS MinuteClinic the other day to get my annual flu shot (which you should do as well; about 36,000 people in this country are killed by the flu every year).
The clinic’s nurse practitioner and I chatted as she prepped my injection. I asked if she could do most things a doctor could do. Could she prescribe medicine?
Yes, she replied, she could prescribe meds and do pretty much everything a family practitioner can do.
So why aren’t there more clinics like the one at CVS, serving as the affordable front line in our battle for wellness?
“The law doesn’t allow it,” she answered.
Really?
Theresa Ullrich, president of the California Assn. for Nurse Practitioners, clarified that the law does allow for greater use of NPs, but it contains language that makes an expanded role challenging if not impossible.
“We’re a good answer to the need for cost-effective and high-quality care,” she told me. “But we’re hamstrung by the state’s regulatory language.”
First, many people might not know the difference between a nurse and a nurse practitioner. In California, a registered nurse needs at least an associate’s degree in nursing, which takes about two years to obtain, often from a community college.
A nurse practitioner, meanwhile, must have at least a master’s degree and must receive advanced training in his or her specialty, such as family medicine. Unlike a nurse, a nurse practitioner can order tests, diagnose medical problems and manage a patient’s overall care.
Think of an NP falling between a nurse and a doctor. The typical nurse practitioner receives up to eight years of postsecondary education, whereas a doctor receives an average 12 years of postsecondary education and training, often more.
An NP focuses on wellness — keeping patients fit and addressing routine medical needs, such as checkups and health-maintenance programs. More complicated issues would require a doctor’s care.
For years, healthcare advocates have been pushing for a greater emphasis on nurse practitioners, and that makes a lot of sense. Many medical issues don’t require the expertise of a physician.
NPs, who earn about half what the typical California doctor makes, are in a position to offer treatment at a much more reasonable cost.
The problem is a state law requiring all drug-prescribing nurse practitioners to have a “supervising physician,” even though this doctor might play little if any role in the NP’s day-to-day practice.
“If I opened my own clinic, I would need a physician to supervise me,” Ullrich said, “and I’d need to put him on the payroll.”
The law also stipulates that each supervising physician oversee no more than four nurse practitioners.
“So if the clinic was going to expand,” Ullrich said, “I’d have to bring on more supervising physicians, and I’d have to pay them as well.”
The California Medical Assn., which represents doctors, insists that patients benefit from having physicians oversee nurse practitioners — even if a doctor isn’t physically present or isn’t terribly engaged with an NP’s activities.
“Physician-led, team-based care is one of the best avenues to quality, low-cost healthcare,” Joanne Adams, a spokeswoman for the trade group, said in a statement.
She cited the “collaborative relationship between physicians and other healthcare practitioners,” and her organization’s support for “efforts to expand the productivity of these teams.”
That’s a lot of team spirit. But it’s hard not to suspect that doctors are just trying to make sure they keep getting a piece of the action for relatively little work.
Nearly two-dozen states have waived the requirement that nurse practitioners have a supervising physician. More than dozen others allow NPs to diagnose and treat patients (but not prescribe drugs) on their own.
California is the only Western state that still requires a supervising physician for nurse practitioners to diagnose, treat and prescribe medicine for patients.
“I could move to Nevada or Oregon and open my own practice without having to pay a physician to oversee what I’m doing,” Ullrich said.
State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), an optometrist before he turned to politics, has introduced bills seeking to follow other states in granting NPs more freedom. Each bill has collapsed amid fierce opposition from the doctors lobby.
“Organized medicine — the California Medical Assn. — doesn’t want anyone infringing on their business,” Hernandez told me.
He said there’s no evidence that giving nurse practitioners more latitude to practice medicine endangers the public or undermines the integrity of the healthcare system.
“In fact, there’s decades of evidence showing that they’re safe and that patients like them,” Hernandez said.
He emphasized that for many rural and inner-city communities, NPs may be the only healthcare providers willing to open local clinics and to take Medi-Cal.
While a third of Californians rely on the state-federal insurance program for coverage, a recent study found that 36% of California doctors refuse to see Medi-Cal patients because of relatively low reimbursement rates.
The state has a population close to 40 million people. By 2050, California could have 50 million residents, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Not having enough doctors to meet the healthcare needs of that population is frightening.
Not taking steps to address this shortfall with a greater number of nurse practitioners is simply foolish.
David Lazarus’ column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to [email protected].
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Hepatitis death count hits 18 in San Diego outbreak | Another death was connected to San Diego’s ongoing hepatitis A outbreak Tuesday even as the number of confirmed cases and hospitalizations showed their smallest increases in weeks. The county Health and Human Services Agency released its weekly update on the outbreak, bumping the number of deaths from 17 to 18. The number of confirmed cases grew by nine, reaching 490.
| http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/hepatitis-crisis/sd-me-hepatitis-18-story.html | 2017-10-11 09:29:04.497000 | San Diego County Public health nurse Summer Leal puts a Bandaid Terrie Woolever’s upper arm after giving her a hepatitis shot at the City of San Diego’s new tent city at 20th and B streets Monday.
Another death was connected to San Diego’s ongoing hepatitis A outbreak Tuesday even as the number of confirmed cases and hospitalizations showed their smallest increases in weeks.
The county Health and Human Services Agency released its weekly update on the outbreak, bumping the number of deaths from 17 to 18. The number of confirmed cases grew by nine, reaching 490.
The latest death occurred in September and the public health department had been awaiting confirmation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before adding it to the outbreak total.
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Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, said Tuesday that another death has since been reported, starting the multi-week wait for confirmation that the death was caused by one of the 15 strains detected in San Diego’s outbreak which has now spread to other locations in California as well as Arizona and Utah.
Wooten went before the county Board of Supervisors Tuesday to request that the local public health emergency she declared on Sept. 1 be renewed for another two weeks. She said the county and local health providers have now delivered 68,500 hepatitis A vaccination doses, including 53,869 to those considered at-risk — homeless residents, drug users and those with liver diseases and compromised immune systems.
As of last Saturday, Wooten said 501 “foot team” missions have been conducted, taking the vaccination effort to sidewalks, street corners and riverbeds where many who are at risk sleep and socialize.
Dr. Nick Yphantides, the county’s chief medical officer, took a moment at Tuesday’s meeting to debunk what he said has become belief among some in the public that the outbreak is being caused by tainted water near where homeless are camped.
“There (are) absolutely no established cases that are isolated to be associated with any water sources in the outbreak,” Yphantides said.
The county’s vaccination efforts, which have been bolstered by sanitation improvements from hand washing stations to periodic sidewalk cleaning, are about to enter a new phase.
Dr. Robert Schooley, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said Tuesday that his organization, and other local health providers, are gearing up for a big outreach effort in San Diego’s many single-room-occupancy hotels.
“We’re trying to figure out how best to configure the teams and to interact with the folks who run these facilities so that we’re efficient and not intrusive,” Schooley said.
The San Diego Housing Commission’s current list of single-occupancy hotels in the city includes 101 different properties with 5,068 rooms. Capacity ranges from the seven-room Gibraltar Lodge on Clay Avenue to the 325-room Golden West Hotel on 4th Avenue downtown.
These properties tend to rent one room per individual at prices far below the cost of an apartment. They often have shared bathroom facilities.
It was not clear Tuesday when the additional vaccination efforts might start. County health officials did not respond to requests for more information on the effort or on the overall trend in local case counts.
For the first time in many months, the number of new cases and hospitalizations added to overall totals rose by less than 10. Last week, by comparison, those same counts jumped by more than 20 in a week.
Does this mean that the outbreak is losing steam?
Wooten told the supervisors Tuesday that about 20 new cases per week were reported from May through August but, more recently, the trend has been “two to three per day.”
If the current new-case rate is closer to two per day than three then that would seem to indicate that the outbreak’s spread is slowing a bit. Health department officials did not respond Tuesday to a request for more information.
Schooley, the UC San Diego infectious disease chief, said the outbreak is not currently producing the level of urgency that it did a few months ago.
“It does look as if things are not increasing as rapidly as they were in the spring. Over the last number of weeks things seem to be stabilizing,” Schooley said.
But he cautioned that, especially with a disease that has a five- to 50-day incubation period, it’s too soon to make definitive statements about the outbreak.
“While the trends we’ve seen are very good, it’s too early to say we’re seeing an end,” Schooley said.
UC San Diego hospitals had treated 115 hepatitis A patients, including seven who died, as of Sept. 22.
Wooten told the board that there were still 47 suspected cases under investigation, the same number that a county official cited last week.
Because it takes weeks for the CDC to confirm that each case was caused by the same hepatitis A strains identified in the county’s outbreak, the official number of confirmed cases always lags behind preliminary totals.
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Andela gets $40m to connect African STEM talent to tech companies | New York-based Andela has raised $40m in a series C funding round led by CRE Venture Capital, and featuring participation from existing investors, including the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. As part of the round, former Australian prime minister and board partner of investor Amplo, Julia Gillard, will join Andela's board. The platform brings together global technology firms and up-and-coming African software developers, and counts Mastercard Labs and GitHub among its partners. The new funds will be used to double Andela's developer base to 1,000 and launch in two additional African countries over the next year.
| http://www.finsmes.com/2017/10/andela-raises-40m-in-40m-in-series-c-funding.html | 2017-10-11 09:28:34.203000 | Andela, a New York-based platform that connects Africa’s engineering talent with global technology companies, secured $40M in Series C funding.
The round was led by pan-African venture firm CRE Venture Capital with participation from DBL Partners, Amplo, Salesforce Ventures, and Africa-focused TLcom Capital and existing investors Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV, and Spark Capital.
The round, which brings total venture capital funding to just over $80M, will use the capital to accelerate its expansion plans. In conjunction with the funding, Pule Taukobong of CRE, Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime Minister and Amplo Board Partner, and Omobola Johnson, Senior Partner at TLcom and former Minister of Communication Technology in Nigeria, will be joining Andela’s board.
The company intends to use the funds to launch offices in two additional African countries over the next year, doubling its developer base from 500 to 1,000.
Launched in 2014 by Jeremy Johnson, CEO, Andela supports more than 100 partner companies in building engineering teams by investing in African software developers. Partners include Viacom, Mastercard Labs, Gusto and GitHub, among others. Beyond recruiting elite development talent, the company is catalyzing the growth of tech ecosystems across the continent by open-sourcing its content and partnering with organizations including Google and Pluralsight to provide resources and mentorship to developers.
Andela, which has offices in Lagos, Nigeria, Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda, has hired 500 developers to date.
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MedPAC pushes for MIPS repeal | The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has suggested ending the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which is one of the payment tracks in MACRA. Nearly all members of MedPAC backed scrapping MIPS at its meeting late last week.
| http://www.healthcaredive.com/news/medpac-pushes-for-mips-repeal/506791/ | 2017-10-11 09:26:14.363000 | Dive Brief:
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has suggested ending the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which is one of the payment tracks in MACRA. Nearly all members of MedPAC backed scrapping MIPS at its meeting late last week.
MIPS, which allows providers to earn performance-based payment adjustments to Medicare payments, is too burdensome and won’t improve care, they said.
In place of MIPS, the commission suggested a new program by which a portion of payments (perhaps 2%) is withheld. Providers not in an advanced payment model (APM) could join a group of physicians whose claims data is reviewed on certain population-based health measures to see if they qualify to have the withheld funds returned. Providers who do not participate in an APM or the new model would forfeit the withheld portion.
Dive Insight:
MedPAC members said MIPS doesn't focus enough on patient care, but instead on whether providers order tests and follow clinical guidelines. MedPAC’s suggestions do carry some influence, but it doesn't create policy. It’s a nonpartisan legislative branch agency that offers analysis and policy advice to the Congress.
Payment adjustments from MACRA are set to begin in 2019, and providers are in the process of choosing their track and making sure they are ready to report their quality metrics. Scrapping the program could bring relief to some providers, but it's late in the game for such a major change.
Providers generally have mixed feelings about MIPS. Most want to push toward value-based payment models, but find flaws in MIPS, particularly the heavy reporting requirements. In response, a recent MACRA proposal would exempt more small providers from the program, leaving about 36% of clinicians eligible for participating next year. In comments to this proposed rule, provider groups suggested tweaks like allowing more advanced alternative payment models to quality for MACRA.
A recent Medical Group Management Association survey found group practices feel MIPS is too complex and doesn't benefit patient care. Nearly three-fourths (73%) of those surveyed said MIPS doesn't “support our practice’s clinical quality priorities” and the same percentage called MIPS either “very” or “extremely” complex. MIPS’ complexity may get worse in 2018.
Michael Abrams, managing partner at Numerof & Associates, recently told Healthcare Dive that he's concerned about the greater flexibility in MIPS in 2018. “MACRA in its original form was extremely flexible, maybe even more flexible than it needed to be or than was actually wise,” said Abrams. “If the point is to minimize the burden on physicians, keep it simple.”
In addition to the complexity, a recent Avalere analysis found that Medicare payments to some specialists could rise or fall by as much as 16% for the 2018 performance year if CMS finalizes its plan to change how MIPS adjustments are calculated.
Some in the industry, however, fear rolling back value-based payment initiatives will be a major setback for the overall movement. AMGA, for example, opposed the increased exemptions to MIPS, saying the move "fails to recognize the significant investments made in preparation for participation" in MACRA. |
Educapital launches $45m fund for European edtech startups | French investment group Educapital has launched a €45m ($53m) fund aimed at investing in 15 European and Israeli K12 corporate edtech companies. Educapital's leaders, Marie-Christine Levet and Litzie Maarek, said the fund would be modelled on US equivalents Learn Capital and Rethink Education.
| https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-10-10-educapital-closes-45m-fund-for-european-israeli-edtech-companies | 2017-10-11 09:25:51.897000 | EDUCAPITAL, an investment group based in France, has launched a €45 million fund (approximately US $53 million) for K-12 and corporate education companies. Led by a female duo—Marie-Christine Levet and Litzie Maarek— the fund aims to invest in 15 European and Israeli edtech companies. The team claims to be “modeled similarly to successful US funds Learn Capital and Rethink Education,” according to the announcement.
Backers for Educapital include French investment bank Bpifrance, the publisher Hachette Livre, and Education for the Many, the education investment arm of the Leclercq family (best known for its sports retail chain, Decathlon). |
In New Test for Obamacare, Iowa Seeks to Abandon Marketplace | With efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act dead in Congress for now, a critical test for the law’s future is playing out in one small, conservative-leaning state.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/health/obamacare-iowa-premiums.html | 2017-10-11 09:24:48.763000 | Neither C.M.S. nor the White House would comment on whether Mr. Trump had pushed for the application to be denied. A spokeswoman for C.M.S. said only that the plan remains under review.
In Des Moines on Tuesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters that her team was in constant contact with the White House and C.M.S. about the plan, including a call with Ms. Verma this week, trying “to get to yes.” She said the administration has been “very receptive” to the plan as a solution to the “unaffordable,” “unworkable” health law until it can be repealed.
Iowa calls its request a stopgap plan that would allow the state to opt out of the federal health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov, for 2018 and create a state-run system that its insurance commissioner says would lower premiums for the 72,000 Iowans who currently have Obamacare health plans, including 28,000 who earn too much to get subsidies to help with the cost.
But the cheaper premiums would come with a big trade-off: higher out-of-pocket costs. The only option for customers would be a plan with deductibles of $7,350 for a single person and $14,700 for a family. The proposal would also reallocate millions of federal dollars that the health law dedicates to lowering costs for people with modest incomes and use the money for premium assistance to those with higher incomes, no matter how much money they make.
The individual insurance market is particularly fragile in Iowa, partly because the state has allowed tens of thousands of people to keep old plans that do not meet the health law’s standards. Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield, the state’s most popular insurer, are both withdrawing at the end of the year. The only insurer planning to remain, Medica, is seeking premium increases that average 56 percent, blaming Mr. Trump’s ongoing threats to stop paying subsidies known as cost-sharing reductions that lower many people’s deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. Wellmark has said it will stay if the stopgap plan is approved. |
If you miss this Medicare deadline, it could hurt your health | It's likely you've started hearing chatter about Medicare's open enrollment period, which begins Sunday and runs through early December. If you're like many older Americans, the question is whether you need to do anything. Put simply, it depends."
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/10/if-you-miss-this-medicare-deadline-it-could-hurt-your-health.html | 2017-10-11 09:22:24.777000 | It's likely you've started hearing chatter about Medicare's open enrollment period, which begins Sunday and runs through early December.
If you're like many older Americans, the question is whether you need to do anything.
Put simply, it depends.
"A lot of people won't need to do a darn thing," said certified financial planner Hans "John" Scheil, CEO and owner of Cardinal Retirement Planning in Cary, North Carolina.
In basic terms, the enrollment period, which lasts until Dec. 7, is for adding or changing coverage related to Medicare Part C (also known as an Advantage Plan) and Part D (prescription drug coverage).
WHAT ARE ALL THOSE MEDICARE PARTS? Part A. This covers inpatient stays at hospitals, skilled-nursing facilities and the like. As long as you've paid into the system by working the equivalent of about 10 years, you won't pay any premiums. If not, you'll have to pay for it. Part B. Everyone pays premiums for this coverage, which generally includes outpatient services and supplies. Higher incomes generate higher premiums: If you're single and have an income of more than $85,000 or are married with a joint income of at least $170,000, you will pay more. Part C. Also called Medicare Advantage, the program lets people choose from a Medicare-approved private insurance plan instead of Parts A and B. Each plan comes with differing variables, ranging from coverage to deductibles and co-pays. Part D. This is prescription-drug coverage. A voluntary option, it often ends up being included with an Advantage Plan. If you have Parts A and B instead of an Advantage Plan, you can purchase Part D coverage separately.
Here's a quick checklist to help you decide. (All changes take effect Jan. 1.)
1. You have a Medicare Advantage plan and want to change plans (or revert back to just Parts A and B).
2. You received a notice that your Advantage plan coverage is changing and you want to comparison shop.
3. You have Original Medicare (Parts A and B), and possibly a Medigap policy and want to switch to an Advantage Plan.
4. You want to join a Medicare prescription drug plan (Part D), switch to another, or drop this kind of coverage altogether.
If you're happy with your coverage or OK with any upcoming changes, there's no action needed. |
Aging slows perception of falls | Seniors need twice as long as young adults to realize they are falling, a delay that puts them at increased risk for serious injury, according to a new study from the University of Waterloo.
| https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/uow-asp101017.php | 2017-10-11 09:21:39.107000 | Seniors need twice as long as young adults to realize they are falling, a delay that puts them at increased risk for serious injury, according to a new study from the University of Waterloo.
The findings will help shape the development of wearable fall prevention technology and allow clinicians to more accurately identify at-risk individuals. Falls are the leading cause of death and hospitalization in Canada.
"Falling threatens one's survival," said Michael Barnett-Cowan, a kinesiology professor at Waterloo and senior author on the study. "When the nervous system's ability to detect a fall and compensate with protective reflexes diminishes, the risk of injury or death increases significantly.
"Age and associated delays will need to be seriously considered when designing any aids to help seniors mitigate this risk."
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada between 20 and 30 per cent of seniors fall each year. Seniors also make up the fastest growing segment of the global population. By 2040, more than one billion people will be over the age of 65.
"Measuring fall perception not only is important in prevention efforts, but also provides information about how the brain processes sensory information and how this changes with age," said Julian Lupo, a graduate student and the study's lead author.
To measure fall perception, researchers presented study participants with a sound at different times relative to a supervised fall. They found that young adults required the fall to happen about 44 milliseconds before the sound in order for both cues to be perceived as occurring simultaneously. But adults over 60 years old required fall onset to occur about 88 milliseconds before the sound.
"This lag means that by the time older adults realize they are falling, it's often too late for for them to consciously do anything about it," said Barnett Cowan. "Given that falls are often the catalyst for a transition to long-term care, these findings highlight both the importance of adequate assessement for older adults and the need to expediete new prevention technology."
Falls are a leading cause of overall injury costs in Canada, with a total economic burden of falls estimated to be $6 billion annually. Seniors who are hospitalized for a fall remain in hospital an average of nine days longer than those hospitalized for any other cause.
The study appears in the journal Gait & Posture.
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Virgin Galactic space tourism could begin next year: Branson | Richard Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, could start making tourist trips to space as early as next year, according to the veteran businessman. Speaking at the recent Nordic Business Forum in Helsinki, Branson said the company is "about three months before we are in space, maybe six months before I’m in space". The UK tycoon brushed off comparisons with SpaceX boss Elon Musk, saying he’s "more interested in big rockets going big distances". Branson aims to develop high-speed, point-to-point travel using Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceplanes. | https://futurism.com/richard-branson-virgin-galactic-will-start-conquering-space-tourism-by-early-next-year/ | 2017-10-11 09:20:47.583000 | A Different Focus
Last week, veteran entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson was among the guest speakers at the 2017 Nordic Business Forum (NBF) held in Helsinki, Finland. On stage, Branson spoke about how he started his record label some 50 years ago, and went on to explain how he ended up opening his own airline company, Virgin Atlantic. Since then, Branson has been in the business of flight and he hopes to bring his passengers to space soon.
For some time now, Branson's Virgin Galactic has been testing the capabilities of their ship, the VSS Unity, a commercial suborbital spaceplane developed in tandem with The Spaceship Company. Earlier this year, they tested the ship's re-entry system after successfully completing a couple of solo-glide flights in 2016.
Branson said back in May that he was confident the company would be able to send their first batch of tourists into space by 2018 — a goal he reiterated during his talk. “We are hopefully about three months before we are in space, maybe six months before I’m in space," he said, according to Business Insider.
Image credit: Nordic Business Forum/Business Insider Point-to-Point Orbital Travel Virgin Galactic, Branson told an audience of about 7,500 people, isn't like Elon Musk's SpaceX. Branson's commercial space venture, unlike Musk's, isn't aiming for Mars, which the British entrepreneur said "is an incredible challenge." Branson, however, added that he wants to do more than just send people into space for sightseeing. He's looking at using Virgin Galactic's spacecrafts for point to point travel at roughly 483 k/h (300 mph), an idea that seems similar to Musk's BFR Earth-to-Earth travel. “That is something we are going to be in the best position in the world to do," Branson said. As for Mars, Branson's leaving that to SpaceX. "I suspect Elon [Musk] will get there first. He’s more interested in big rockets going big distances,” Branson explained. “My love for space is about how much it can do for people back here on Earth." |
Start planning now to care for elderly parents | If you have an aging parent and want a glimpse of what the future holds, look no further than Leslie Glutzer. The 66-year-old from Chicago has a mom who is 92, dealing with dementia, now living in a local nursing home. Those costs are not covered by Medicaid, so Glutzer and her husband are spending more than $5,000 a month from their savings.
| http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/latestnews/2017/10/10/Start-planning-now-care-elderly-parents | 2017-10-11 09:19:13.750000 | NEW YORK (Reuters) - If you have an aging parent and want a glimpse of what the future holds, look no further than Leslie Glutzer.
The 66-year-old from Chicago has a mom who is 92, dealing with dementia, now living in a local nursing home. Those costs are not covered by Medicaid, so Glutzer and her husband are spending more than $5,000 a month from their savings.
"It really starts to add up," Glutzer says.
This financial struggle is one that is shared by many.
For nursing homes, in particular, the costs can be astronomical. A new study from insurance giant Genworth Financial found that a private room in a nursing home averages out to $267 per day or $8,121 a month, up 5.5 percent from the year before. Semi-private rooms are not far behind, at $7,148 a month on average.
Overall, long-term care costs rose by 4.5 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to Genworth's "Cost of Care" survey. That is the second-highest annual increase since the yearly survey began back in 2004.
Experts agree that it is important to start thinking about caregiving costs now. Waiting too long means you cannot stockpile resources, take out affordable insurance policies or plan ahead for a thoughtful drawdown of assets.
"At that point, your choices become very limited," says David O'Leary, president and CEO of Genworth's U.S. Life Insurance division.
So exactly how can you provide compassionate care for your parents without bankrupting yourself and sabotaging your own retirement? The following are five tips:
TAKE FINANCIAL INVENTORY
Have a family meeting and take stock of the financial resources available. Folks in their 70s or 80s may have a pension, as well as Social Security and personal investments, which could help soften the financial blow for adult children.
Figure out if all siblings are going to share eldercare costs equally, or if some who may not have the means can contribute in other ways, like arranging hospital appointments.
Be sure to find out what your parents envision for their future.
"As the child, we want to make the decision we think is right," O'Leary says. "But we really have to look at everything through the eyes of our parents."
HOME EQUITY
If your parents own a home, consider tapping it to pay for caregiving expenses.
"Think of it as an investment that can be used to pay for care," says Joy Loverde, an eldercare expert and author of the new book "Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old?"
That might mean selling it, downsizing elderly parents into a smaller space, and using those funds for long-term care. It might also mean that adult children buy the place, lease it back to the parents and potentially tap the home equity.
Or it might mean a reverse mortgage, which allows homeowners to borrow money against the value of their homes, receiving proceeds as a line of credit, fixed monthly payment or lump sum.
MEDICAID QUALIFICATION
Medicaid can cover long-term care costs like nursing-home admission, but only for those under a certain level of personal wealth. That might require shifting assets in a thoughtful (and legal) way.
"One of the most effective planning strategies has been to encourage our clients and their elderly parents to consider gifting their assets into irrevocable trusts, including their primary residence," says Ian Weinberg, a financial planner in Woodbury, New York.
GET COVERED
Long-term care policies can definitely help with eldercare costs, but only 8 percent of the population is currently covered by them, according to Genworth. The trick is to secure them while you are healthy and early enough - say, in your 50s - so that they are still relatively affordable.
"I have at least one client dealing with these costs for his parents, and thank God we had the good sense to buy LTC insurance," says Kashif Ahmed, a financial planner in Woburn, Massachusetts. "Otherwise, their assets would be depleted in no time."
CONSIDER LESS EXPENSIVE OPTIONS
Nursing homes are not the only option. These days it is more like a "continuum" of care. For instance, parents might move in with their adult children. Or they might prefer to stay right where they are, perhaps with a home health aide coming in occasionally.
The next level up might be an assisted-living facility, which should offer an array of services for independent living, and even different levels of care within the same facility. Those will not cost as much as nursing homes, at $123 per day or $3,750 a month on average, according to Genworth.
(Editing by Lauren Young and G Crosse) |
Older Americans Commonly Use Sleep Aids, Generally Unaware of Risks | Sleep problems are epidemic in older Americans, and even though clinical guidelines warn against prescription sleep medications in patients aged older than age 65 years, a substantial percentage of them often use drugs to help nod off.
| https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/older-americans-commonly-use-sleep-aids-generally-unaware-of-risks | 2017-10-11 09:18:48.413000 | Ann Arbor, MI—Sleep problems are epidemic in older Americans, and even though clinical guidelines warn against prescription sleep medications in patients aged older than age 65 years, a substantial percentage of them often use drugs to help nod off.
The poll was sponsored by AARP and Michigan Medicine and conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
That’s according to results of the National Poll on Healthy Aging, which also found that many of respondents had never discussed sleep issues with their physicians. A third of respondents reported sleep problems, yet half said they thought trouble dozing off was just a natural consequence of aging.The survey also identified a lack of understanding of the risks of prescription, OTC, and so-called “natural” sleep aids, finding that 8% use prescription sleep medicine regularly or occasionally.Nearly one quarter of those reporting interrupted sleep three or more nights a week said they used a sleep aid, and many of them had been doing so for years—even though the drugs usually only have FDA approval for short-term use.“Although sleep problems can happen at any age and for many reasons, they can’t be cured by taking a pill, either prescription, over-the-counter or herbal, no matter what the ads on TV say,” explained poll director Preeti Malani, MD. “Some of these medications can create big concerns for older adults, from falls and memory issues to confusion and constipation,” even if they’re sold without a prescription.“The first step for anyone having trouble sleeping on a regular basis should be to talk to a doctor about it,” Malani added. “Our poll shows that nearly two-thirds of those who did so got helpful advice—but a large percentage of those with sleep problems simply weren’t talking about it.”Almost half, 46%, of the older Americans polled reported that they had trouble falling asleep one or more nights a week, with 15% saying that sleeplessness plagued them three or more nights a week.Reasons provided for sleep problems included:• Pain, noted by 23%• Overall health being only fair or poor, 40%• Frequent bathroom visits, worry, and stress also were cited.Researchers warned that lack of sleep may worsen memory issues and depression, while increasing the risk of falls and accidents.“We know that sleep is a critical factor for overall health as we age, and this new research highlights sleep problems as both a significant health issue for older adults and an underacknowledged one both by patients and their providers,” said Alison Bryant, PhD, senior vice president of research for AARP. “We need to help people understand that lack of sleep is not just a natural part of aging.”The researchers polled a nationally representative online sample of 1,065 people ages 65 to 80 years, who answered a range of questions online. Laptops and Internet access were provided to poll respondents who did not already have it. |
A Look Into Older Adults’ State of Mind | Contrary to conventional wisdom, an increase in age can lead to an increase in happiness. In fact, older adults tend to be more satisfied with their lives than their younger peers. But, for those who need it, limited supply of and access to proper geriatric psychiatric treatment leave many older adults' mental health issues underdiagnosed and thus undertreated.
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-10-11/older-adults-struggle-to-get-adequate-mental-health-care | 2017-10-11 09:17:34.167000 | Contrary to conventional wisdom, an increase in age can lead to an increase in happiness. In fact, older adults tend to be more satisfied with their lives than their younger peers. But, for those who need it, limited supply of and access to proper geriatric psychiatric treatment leave many older adults' mental health issues underdiagnosed and thus undertreated.
One in four adults ages 65 and older experiences a mental health problem such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia or dementia, according to the American Psychological Association . And people 85 and older have the highest suicide rate of any age group, especially among older white males who have a suicide rate almost six times that of the general population, according to the National Council on Aging .
The issue of access to mental health care treatment will be further compounded as baby boomers – who carry a higher predisposition to suicide than earlier generations – enter the older adult stage of life. The number of Americans between the ages of 65 and older is projected to double from 46 million to more than 98 million by 2060, according to the American Psychological Association.
But there's a positive side to this ledger.
More health systems across the country are merging mental health care into primary care visits, which older people are more likely to take advantage of, says Dr. Yeates Conwell, director of the geriatric psychiatry program at the University of Rochester .
"Older people ... are not going to go to a mental health center or a mental health provider, but they will more likely accept treatment from their primary care practitioner," Conwell says.
Yet access to proper mental health care for older adults is hindered by modern culture perpetuating the stigmas and misconceptions of ageism and mental health issues; social isolation; high health care costs; and a dwindling supply of geriatric caregivers for America's growing older population.
"The way we treat and take care of people, especially older people, with mental health illnesses is certainly an embarrassment and a shame to society," says Dr. Dilip Jeste, director of the Stein Institute for Research on Aging at University of California–San Diego School of Medicine . "This is one of the most disenfranchised segments of our society."
Addressing the Stigmas of Ageism and Mental Health
Modern culture in America values the new and, in the process, pushes the old aside.
"Ours is a culture that values innovation, which is new knowledge, and devalues wisdom, which is old knowledge or eternal knowledge – knowledge that doesn't change every five years when a new iPhone comes out," says Dr. Renee Garfinkel, a clinical psychologist, author and radio host.
"But something's lost and something's gained in every choice that society makes," Garfinkel adds. "When you're in a society where speed is highly valued, then an old person will not be."
By adapting this mindset, experts say society could be contributing to social isolation and misconceptions surrounding older adults' mental health.
"When older people incorporate the view that they are 'over the hill,' that they are a burden on their families or on their communities, then that's a very dangerous situation," Conwell says, as social isolation has been proven to be as bad for one's health as smoking or lack of exercise.
The stigma of ageism includes negative attitudes, stereotypes and behaviors directed toward older adults based solely on their perceived age. In other words, as people get older, others assume that they have or are increasingly susceptible to mental or physical impairments that make them no longer able to contribute in a way they once were, decreasing their value to the community.
"People with mental illnesses in general get really poor care. There is a considerable amount of stigma against mental illness, and when you talk about aging, there is considerable stigma against aging," Jeste says. "So older people with mental illness have this double whammy: They are stigmatized because of mental illness and stigmatized because they're older."
(Deidre McPhillips for USN&WR)
Further, mental health services may be underutilized by older patients as they may be in denial, may not have adequate insurance coverage, or their other physical chronic conditions may take precedence during a primary care visit, leaving their mental health unchecked.
"I think that time is an issue for practitioners," says Eric Weakly, chief of state and community programs for the western branch of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.
"If you're coming and you only have maybe 15 minutes, and you have a person who has multiple chronic conditions – they may be presented with cardiac conditions or diabetes or other things – of the list of conditions, depression, anxiety or another mental illness may not be first on the list when they're doing their screens," Weakly, a social worker, continues.
And, while the number of older adults with mental health disorders is expected to nearly double by 2030, the number of geriatric psychiatrists and psychologists is projected to continue its decline, resulting in less than one geriatric specialist per 6,000 patients with mental health and substance use disorders, according to a 2013 Dartmouth University study.
More than 20 percent of adults aged 60 and over suffer from a mental or neurological disorder, and the most common neuropsychiatric disorders in this age group are dementia and depression, according to the World Health Organization .
Dementia – including Alzheimer's disease, its most common form – affects about 5 percent of individuals between 71 and 79 and 37 percent of the population above the age of 90, according to the American Psychological Association.
But, as Garfinkel explains, growing older doesn't mean you will suffer from a mental health issue. Rather, a longer lifespan exposes a person more, both in terms of mental and physical conditions, which may affect a person's overall psyche.
"The longer you live, the more chance there is for illness to target you, and depression is a risk factor for people who have chronic illness, especially when it's chronic pain," Garfinkel says. "Pain and depression are very highly associated, and a lot of the disorders that strike more often in older age – but not exclusively in old age – are painful."
While depression is not a consequence of getting older, the misconception that it is – either due to bereavement over lost loved ones or the physical pains tied to aging – leads to underdiagnosis and undertreatment by health care professionals and older adults themselves who may not recognize the associated physical symptoms.
A combination of the individual and the people around him or her making incorrect assumptions about depression as a normal part of aging further complicates diagnoses, Conwell says.
"Older people tend in general to be more satisfied with their lives than middle-aged people, and have lower rates of syndromal depression, even though depressive symptoms may be present. But when they are, clinical depression is a syndrome that's made up of a bunch of different symptoms – sadness is only one of them," Conwell continues.
Senior patients may not bring up emotional symptoms, though, opting instead to describe physical ones such as loss of energy, poor sleeping habits, loss of appetite and trouble concentrating, Conwell says, all of which are common with other chronic medical conditions in later life.
Yet mental health correlates with physical health, according to the World Health Organization .
"Older adults with physical health conditions such as heart disease have higher rates of depression than those who are medically well," the organization reported in April 2016 . "Conversely, untreated depression in an older person with heart disease can negatively affect the outcome of the physical disease."
Noticing the Spectrum of Mental Health – and Opportunities – for Older Adults
A 2016 study evaluating successful aging from ages 21 to 100 showed that mental health improved with increased age, contrary to the perceived stigma of ageism.
"What we found was that with age the physical health declined, as expected, the cognitive function declines in later life, but the mental health improved with aging in the sense that people seem to get happier, more satisfied, less depressed, less stressed out, in later life than when they were younger," Jeste, co-senior author of the study, says.
"Even people with mental illnesses can do better in later life if society helps them," Jeste says. "The problem is not so much biology; the problem is more what we provide as a society."
As a whole, the 65 and older age group tends to be happier than their younger peers , with reportedly fewer mental health disorders except for dementia as they age.
Like all generations, older adults experience positive mental health when they perceive that they have social support and that they add value to their communities, says Helen Kivnick, a professor of social work at the University of Minnesota.
Yet, she continues, there are fewer social supports and opportunities available for this older generation than for any other stage of the life cycle.
"We would never think about trying to grow a society of healthy kids without families or schools or playgrounds or friendship groups or things like that," Kivnick says. "It shouldn't really surprise us that older people show the ill effects of the absence of these supports, and the supports that we provide we think of as remedial supports rather than ordinary supports for psychosocial health."
Community and family support decline later in life, and loneliness is one of the biggest concerns for older people.
"People get old, and they get isolated, and depending on their social network or their history going into aging – they may have always been a very solo person to begin with – they may want to have control over who they interact with, who they don't interact with," says Dr. Brenda Reiss-Brennan, head of the mental health integration program at Intermountain Healthcare. "So you really have to understand what is their baseline, and where are they now, and what would be acceptable to them to have social contact because social contact is the key to aging well."
But living alone does not mean that a person of any age is lonely, says Dr. John Cacioppo, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago.
Every day, 10,000 Americans turn 65 years of age or older, Cacioppo says, so it should be no surprise that more are living alone as getting older increases the likelihood that one spouse will pass away before the other. As of 2015, there were nearly 16 million adults ages 60 and above living alone in the U.S., according to the Administration for Community Living's AGing Integrated Database .
"When it's perceived isolation instead of objective isolation, that's called loneliness," says Cacioppo, who is also the director of the university's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. Perceived isolation accounts for a 26 percent increase in mortality through biological and behavioral processes.
Living alone could lead to autonomy or independence with the right social support system. Maybe you're ready to form new relationships in new groups apart from the family, neighbors or community you spent years growing up with, or dependency forces you into assisted living as isolation is not going to work, Cacioppo says. On the other hand, it could lead an individual to feel uprooted.
"It isn't about objective isolation, moving or not, it's about the psychological impact of that to the individual," Cacioppo says. "One of the worst things you can do is give up all meaning for an older retired adult."
Trying to Fix a Broken System
The costs of health care – especially mental health care – prevent people from all age groups from receiving the treatment they need when they need it.
For older adults, though, the uncertainty of finances to cover health care costs is an enormous stressor, Garfinkel says.
"It is for younger people, but the older you get the fewer options for maneuvering and figuring out your way around it that you have," she says.
In 2016, Congress passed the $6.3 billion 21st Century Cures Act, which included the first major mental health care and substance-abuse legislation to be passed in 20 years. While the mental health portion of the bill did not include much extra funding compared to existing levels, it laid the groundwork to address mental health and requires health insurance companies to cover more mental health treatments.
Still, Jeste says, private insurance companies have found loopholes to avoid covering mental illness, making it less affordable even for patients that have Medicaid or Medicare insurance. Because of this restrictive coverage, physicians may not prescribe a patient the psychotherapy they need because it does not come with the same reimbursement as prescription drugs.
"It becomes a vicious circle," Jeste says. People who need mental health care don't receive it, their condition gets worse, and, as they get older, their access to care declines further as there aren't enough physicians in the geriatric field to provide that care.
"One problem with the health care system is that it is split, and it is very disorganized," Jeste says. "If you provided a unified, integrative, qualitative care, again the prognosis would improve a lot."
Some primary care health systems are attempting to tackle the stigma of mental health by integrating mental health care with physical checkups.
Intermountain Healthcare, with hospitals and clinics throughout Utah and southeast Idaho, is trying to normalize team-based primary care in which a primary care physician has a team of experts to call upon to check on a patient depending on both physical and mental screenings during a regular doctor's appointment.
Integrating the two establishes the connection between physical and mental health, says Dr. Brenda Reiss-Brennan, head of the health system's mental health integration program.
"People like to go to where they are comfortable, and they're comfortable in primary care," Reiss-Brennan says. "Mental health is normalized as a routine part of care, so the staff's more comfortable and confident in dealing with mental health."
Doing so has saved each patient $115 a year, Reiss-Brennan says, from more efficient use of specialists, earlier detection and treatment, and follow-up care plans to more efficiently use all available resources.
And the federal government, under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Health Resources and Services Administration, is working to bring mental health care information into the primary care setting, says Weakly of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
"We know that most older adults are going to go to primary care physicians first," Weakly says, so fusing behavioral health into primary care will get necessary information to physicians.
Practitioners need to also look at care in different ways, Weakly says, such as going to where people are instead of expecting them to come into the office for therapy or treatment.
"As people in their 50s and 60s are more open about talking about their depression or their bipolar disorder, their schizophrenia, I think things are beginning to change," Weakly says. "People didn't talk about cancer 50 years ago. I think maybe we're getting to a place where people are more comfortable talking about their mental health diagnosis." |
38% of small UK businesses spent nothing on cybersecurity in 2017 | 38% of 10 UK businesses spent nothing on cybersecurity this financial year, while 45% believe they do not require protection, according to a survey of 1,009 small business decision makers by Duo Security and YouGov. The study also revealed that 36% could not afford to effectively protect their businesses from cyber threats, putting them below the security poverty line. Analysts said more needed to be done to raise awareness of government initiatives, such as Cyber Risk Aware and Cyber Essentials.
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2017 | 2017-10-11 09:11:26.457000 | The Government has surveyed UK businesses to find out they approach cyber security and help them learn more about the cyber security issues faced by industry. The research informs Government policy on cyber security and how Government works with industry to make Britain one of the most secure places to do business online.
Released
19 April 2017
Period covered
Respondents were asked about their approach to cyber security and any breaches or attacks over the 12 months before the interview. Main survey interviews took place between 24 October 2016 and 11 January 2017. Qualitative follow up interviews took place in January and February 2017.
Geographic coverage
UK
Further Information
The survey is part of the Government’s National Cyber Security Programme.
Cyber security guidance and information for businesses, including details of free training and support, can be found on the National Cyber Security Centre website and GOV.UK at: www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance and www.gov.uk.
The survey was carried out by Ipsos MORI and its partner, the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies (ICJS) at the University of Portsmouth.
The UK Statistics Authority
This release is published in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics (2009), as produced by the UK Statistics Authority. The UKSA has the overall objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. It monitors and reports on all official statistics, and promotes good practice in this area.
Pre-release access
The document above contains a list of ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours.
The responsible statistician for this release is Olivia Christophersen. For any queries please contact 020 7211 2377 or [email protected]. |
Robot masseuse takes first patients in Singapore | Patients requiring a massage at the NovaHealth Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic in Singapore can be treated by a robot, the first of its kind to be used on the public. Developed by local start-up AiTreat, the Expert Manipulative Massage Automation (Emma) uses sensors to establish muscle stiffness or tension and artificial intelligence to deliver the appropriate massage. Albert Zhang, the founder of NovaHealth, said Emma allows staff to focus on neck and limb joints, which the robot can't manage, and could provide a response to a shortage of masseurs, who are needed to treat Singapore's growing population of older people.
| https://phys.org/news/2017-10-singapore-robot-masseuse.html | 2017-10-11 09:07:51.093000 | Emma massaging a patient autonomously on the left while physician Calista Lim treats another patient on the right. Emma improves the productivity of the clinic as it can do the job of two massage therapists. Credit: Nanyang Technological University
A robot masseuse has started work in Singapore today. Named Emma, short for Expert Manipulative Massage Automation, it specialises in back and knee massages as it mimics the human palm and thumb to replicate therapeutic massages such as shiatsu and physiotherapy.
Emma started work on her first patients today at the NovaHealth Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic, working alongside her human colleagues – a physician and a massage therapist.
Emma 3.0 – the first to go into public service – is a third more compact than the first prototype unveiled last year, offers a wider range of massage programmes and provides a massage that is described by patients as almost indistinguishable from a professional masseuse.
Emma uses advanced sensors to measure tendon and muscle stiffness, together with Artificial Intelligence and cloud-based computing to calculate the optimal massage and to track a patient's recovery over a course of treatments.
Emma is developed by AiTreat, a technology start-up company incubated at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore).
Just two years old, AiTreat has a valuation of SGD$10 million (USD $7.3 million) after it recently completed its seed round funding, supported by venture capitalists from Singapore, China and the United States, including Brain Robotics Capital LP from Boston.
Founder of AiTreat and NovaHealth, Mr Albert Zhang, an alumnus of NTU Singapore who led the development of Emma, said the company's technology aims to address workforce shortages and quality consistency challenges in the healthcare industry.
Using Emma in chronic pain management has the potential of creating low-cost treatment alternatives in countries where healthcare costs are high, and where aging populations have a growing demand for such treatment.
Mr Zhang said that Emma was designed to deliver a clinically precise massage according to the prescription of a qualified traditional Chinese medicine physician or physiotherapist, without the fatigue faced by a human therapist.
"By using Emma to do the labour intensive massages, we can now offer a longer therapy session for patients while reducing the cost of treatment. The human therapist is then free to focus on other areas such as the neck and limb joints which Emma can't massage at the moment," said Mr Zhang, who graduated from NTU's Double Degree programme in Biomedical Sciences and Chinese Medicine.
Credit: Nanyang Technological University
In Singapore, a conventional treatment package for lower back pain consisting of a consultation, acupuncture and a 20-minute massage, would typically range from SGD$60 to SGD$100 (USD$44 to USD$73).
At NovaHealth TCM clinic, a patient could receive the same consultation, acupuncture but with a 40-minute massage from Emma and a human therapist for SGD$68 (USD$50).
Emma is housed in a customised room with two massage beds. Located in between both beds, Emma can massage one patient while the physician provides treatments for the second patient, before switching over.
This arrangement ensures Emma is always working on a patient, maximising the productivity of the clinic. It is estimated that staffing requirements to run a clinic can be reduced from five people to three, as Emma does the job of two masseuses.
How Emma works
Emma has a touch screen with a fully articulated robotic limb with six degrees of freedom. Mounted at the end of the limb are two soft massage tips made from silicon, which can be warmed for comfort.
Emma also has advanced sensors and diagnostic functions which can measure the exact stiffness of a particular muscle or tendon.
The data collected of each patient is then sent to a server in a cloud, where an Artificial Intelligence (AI) computes the exact pressure to be delivered during the massage procedure.
The AI can also track and analyse the progress of the patient, generating a performance report that will allow a physician to measure a patient's recovery using precise empirical data.
This proprietary cloud intelligence is supported by Microsoft, after Mr Zhang and his teammates won the Microsoft Developer Day Start-up Challenge last year. Credit: Nanyang Technological University
Once it has proved that Emma can improve the productivity and effectiveness of TCM treatments, Mr Zhang hopes it could be a business model for other clinics to follow in future.
AiTreat is currently incubated at NTUitive, the university's innovation and commercialisation arm.
The start-up is supported by the StartupSG-Tech grant, which funds up to SGD$500,000, as well as SPRING Singapore's ACE start-up grant and the Technology for Enterprise Capability Upgrading (T-Up) grant.
The development of Emma is also on the TAG.PASS accelerator programme by SGInnovate, which will see Mr Zhang tie up with overseas teams to target multiple markets such as in US and China.
Chief Executive Officer of NTU Innovation and NTUitive Dr Lim Jui said harnessing disruptive technologies such as robotics and AI to improve everyday life is what Singapore needs to keep its innovative edge.
"To remain competitive in the global arena, start-ups will need to tap on emerging technologies to create a unique product that can tackle current challenges, similar to what AiTreat has done," Dr Lim explained.
"We are proud to have guided Mr Albert Zhang in his vision to bring affordable healthcare solutions to the market for Singapore, which can alleviate some of the chronic pain problems which our elderly faces."
The official launch of Emma and the NovaHealth clinic today was attended by fellow entrepreneurs and industry leaders, including Mr Inderjit Singh, Chairman of NTUitive, NTU's innovation and enterprise arm, and a member of NTU Board of Trustees.
Mr Inderjit Singh said, "There is great potential for Emma to be of service to society, especially as the population ages. The massage techniques of experienced and renowned TCM physicians can be reproduced in Emma, giving the public easier access to quality treatment. I look forward to future studies which could improve the efficacy of such massages, using herbal ointments containing modern ingredients that improve wear and tear, such as glucosamine.
Running in parallel to Emma's work schedule is a research project to measure and benchmark Emma's efficacy, comparing it to those of a human masseur. |
Insurtech Root looks to gather data via automaker partnerships | Root, an insurtech focused on using telematics for auto coverage, is looking to forge more partnerships with automakers to glean more data around driver behaviour and habits. Such arrangements would allow the insurtech to better determine how much drivers use their cars. It would also see the start-up take advantage of autonomous vehicle data when the technology proliferates further. Root already has a partnership with Tesla, which sees it provide coverage when drivers make use of the manufacturer's semi-autonomous driving features. | https://www.dig-in.com/news/root-looks-to-partner-with-automakers-to-get-connected-car-data | 2017-10-11 09:07:48.433000 | Telematics insurer Root is in talks with auto manufacturers in search of alternative driver data from connected cars for claims and underwriting.
Company CEO Alex Timm says that together, vehicle and insurance data can better inform carriers about driving frequency in real time—taking the speculation of how much policyholders drive away from carriers.
Agreements with original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, will also ensure Root benefits from autonomous technology as it continues to mature, Timm says. The insurer currently sports a partnership with Tesla covering drivers when they turn on semi-autonomic features on the luxury vehicles.
“If you don’t have partnerships with OEM’s, you should,” says Timm, who was in Detroit discussing terms with automakers last week. “In traditional insurance, you don’t know how much people are driving until you see your losses.”
Despite its investment in the technology, Root believes full autonomy is far in the future as driverless has been approached with data science and is difficult to get right 100% of the time. Timm believes the auto industry is only 10% to 20% there. However he predicts as more autonomous features are churned out, “We will see fewer accidents. Semi-autonomous vehicles tend to drive safer.”
Focused on expansion
Root, launched in 2015, underwrites auto insurance based on 200 driver risk characteristics. Upon signing up, Customers drive for three weeks while the insurtech measures personal driving habits to conjure up quotes using its mobile app. Hard braking, speeding and turning are among the key metrics observed by the company.
This week the startup will announce Oklahoma as the sixth state in its distribution network joining Arizona, Indiana, Illinois, Utah and its home state of Ohio as states where policies are available to drivers.
Root’s growing team of 60 employees, consisting of mostly engineers and data scientists, has also been busy on the tech front. The company recently rolled out its texting and driving model, which uses the micro-vibrations of a phone to determine whether policyholders are looking at mobile devices while operating their vehicle. Root can now measure the duration of distraction and is implementing the data in its underwriting Timm says. The company will soon factor distracted driving data into pricing for premium discounts as well.
Additionally, Root has added a mobile option for customers filing first notice of loss reports. Drivers can now fill out accident information and send it directly to an adjuster via Root’s smartphone app. The insurtech however finds many of its policyholders still prefer to speak with customer service representatives at the time of a claim.
“There’s a lot of R&D around claims launching next year,” said Timm. “Including how to detect accidents with phone and decipher damage and close the claim without human interaction.” |
WSU scientists convert algal biofuel waste into useful products | Researchers at Washington State University have developed a way to turn waste products from the process of converting algae into biofuel into a usable commodity. Hydrothermal liquefaction, in which algae is exposed to high temperatures and pressure to produce bio oil, creates a significant amount of waste, resulting in roughly 25-40% of carbon, and 80% of nutrients from the algae being left to wastewater streams. The researchers discovered that using anaerobic microbes, the waste could be broken down and would become a bionatural gas without the use of harsh chemicals. The remaining solid substance can be used as a fertilizer. | https://news.wsu.edu/2017/10/06/biofuel-waste-to-commodity/ | 2017-10-11 09:04:46.897000 | By Maegan Murray, WSU Tri-Cities
RICHLAND, Wash. – A method of converting a biofuel waste product into a usable and valuable commodity has been discovered by researchers at Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Converting algae to biofuels is a two-step process. The first, developed by PNNL, applies high pressure and high temperature to algae to create bio oil. The second converts that bio oil into biofuel, which can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
It’s that first step, called hydrothermal liquefaction, that produces waste — approximately 25 to 40 percent of carbon and 80 percent of nutrients from the algae are left behind in wastewater streams.
Bionatural gas and fertilizer
The wastewater is generally hard to process because it contains a variety of different chemicals in small concentrations, said Birgitte K. Ahring, professor at WSU Tri-Cities’ Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory. But Ahring and her team have found that adapting anaerobic microbes — microbes that live without oxygen — to break down the remaining residue is a viable option. Through this process, the material becomes degradable and gets transformed into a bionatural gas without the use of harsh chemicals. The solid material that remains can also be applied as a fertilizer or recycled back into the hydrothermal liquefaction process for further use.
The results of the team’s research are published this month in Bioresource Technology. The team also consists of:
Keerthi Srinivas, WSU postdoctoral research associate
Sebastian Fernandez, WSU research assistant
Andrew Schmidt, of PNNL’s chemical and biological processes development group
Marie Swita, of PNNL’s chemical and biological processes development group
Don’t waste waste
“It has always been my mantra that we shouldn’t waste waste,” Ahring said. “We had an idea that we could turn this waste product into something useful, such as a fertilizer. Our findings revealed that we could use this waste product as something much more.”
The ability to convert a waste product into a usable commodity provides algal biorefineries with a solution to a large problem, Ahring said.
“After removing the solids, about 10 percent of the output is bio oil, with the remaining 90 percent being a waste byproduct,” Schmidt said. “The fact that we’ve developed an alternative method to recycle or treat the leftover material means it’s more economical to produce the bio oil, making the potential for commercial use of the process more likely.”
Sewage sludge and wastewater
Ahring said the team’s results were so promising that they are now partnering with PNNL on its conversion of sewage sludge to fuel using a similar strategy for the wastewater.
“Today, sewage sludge is found throughout the world,” Ahring said. “Creating a process to produce biofuels, bio-natural gas, and nutrients from this material would be of major importance. The current study has demonstrated that nothing should ever be regarded as a waste, but instead as a resource.”
Contacts: |
WSU scientists convert algal biofuel waste into useful products | Researchers at Washington State University have developed a way to turn waste products from the process of converting algae into biofuel into a usable commodity. Hydrothermal liquefaction, in which algae is exposed to high temperatures and pressure to produce bio oil, creates a significant amount of waste, resulting in roughly 25-40% of carbon, and 80% of nutrients from the algae being left to wastewater streams. The researchers discovered that using anaerobic microbes, the waste could be broken down and would become a bionatural gas without the use of harsh chemicals. The remaining solid substance can be used as a fertilizer. | http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2017/10/08/algae-wastewater-gets-new-life-as-valuable-commodity-thanks-to-microbes/ | 2017-10-11 09:04:46.897000 | In Washington, researchers at Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered a method of converting algae biofuel waste product into a usable and valuable commodity. Waste is produced during the first step of converting algae to biofuels via hydrothermal liquefaction. The wastewater is usually hard to process because it has so many different chemicals in tiny amounts, but researchers found that anaerobic microbes can break down the residue and converts it into a degradable bionatural gas. The remaining solid material can be used as a fertilizer.
“After removing the solids, about 10 percent of the output is bio oil, with the remaining 90 percent being a waste byproduct,” Andrew Schmidt of PNNL’s chemical and biological processes development group said in the WSU press release. “The fact that we’ve developed an alternative method to recycle or treat the leftover material means it’s more economical to produce the bio oil, making the potential for commercial use of the process more likely.” |
Bill.com raises $100m for cloud-based payments platform | California-based start-up Bill.com has raised $100m in a funding round co-led by recent partner JPMorgan Chase and Temasek, with participation from existing investors including August Capital and Scale Ventures. Bill.com's cloud-based payments software helps businesses reduce time spent on processing transactions, and its product will be white-labelled as a B2B offering by JPMorgan Chase next year. The new funds will be used to employ additional staff, develop the platform and invest in sales and marketing. Bill.com's software provides a dashboard that logs where bills are in the payment process, and the firm said it has about 100,000 customers.
| https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/10/bill-com-secures-100-million-to-digitize-business-payments/ | 2017-10-11 08:40:41.073000 | Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More
Bill.com, a cloud-based payments platform for U.S. businesses, announced today that it has raised an additional $100 million to digitize payments. JP Morgan Chase and Temasek co-led the round, with participation from returning investors August Capital, Scale Ventures, Napier Park, DCM, Icon Ventures, and Emergence Capital.
Founded in 2006, the Palo Alto, California-based startup works with businesses, accounting firms, and banks to reduce the time spent on financial back-office operations.
According to Bill.com founder and CEO René Lacerte, many more solutions have been rolled out for consumers in the digital payments space. “They can choose from Apple Pay, PayPal, and many others to make payments digitally,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat. “Businesses, however, are more complex, and the payments system hasn’t evolved much since the 19th century.”
For now, Bill.com claims to serve about 1 percent of U.S. businesses that are employers, which amounts to about 100,000 customers. When asked why the adoption of digital payments is taking so long, Lacerte stressed that there is a reassuring element to the manual process, as businesses feel like they understand the payments before committing to them.
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Prior to founding Bill.com, Lacerte founded online payroll services provider PayCycle, which he sold to Intuit in 2009.
Businesses use Bill.com to pay their bills but also to pay independent contractors who are not employees. Users can log on to Bill.com or use the app, which is available on both iOS and Android. A dashboard indicates which bills have been received, approved, and paid, and also highlights any payments that are overdue.
Bill.com charges customers a monthly subscription fee for its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, which ranges between $29 and $100. The startup also monetizes through transaction fees. Customers include Mozilla, Merchant e-Solutions, Tapingo, Gigya, and Highfive.
Partnerships with accounting firms and banks have also enabled Bill.com to expand its network of 2.5 million users. The startup recently announced a partnership with JP Morgan Chase — the bank will be white-labelling Bill.com’s product as a B2B payments solution, which will be rolled out next year.
Other startups competing in the online payments space include Intuit QuickBooks and Viewpost.
To date, Bill.com has raised approximately $200 million. It will use the new money to further develop its platform, increase its sales and marketing efforts, and grow its team of 250.
Disclaimer: VentureBeat uses Bill.com. Our coverage remains objective. |
MIT AI lab develops camera that can see around corners | Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed CornerCameras, which can see around corners. The camera uses an algorithm to pick up on subtle changes in the penumbra – a shadow cast by a small amount of light – to detect movement, and could form part of an early warning system in autonomous vehicles. The team said the technology still has a way to go before hitting the road as it struggles to work in low lighting conditions.
| https://futurism.com/a-camera-that-sees-around-corners-could-help-improve-self-driving-cars/ | 2017-10-11 08:38:52.113000 | Many of today's self-driving cars use automated systems that work in tandem with a collection of sensors and cameras. For example, Tesla's Autopilot relies on radar and other sensors as well as a suite of eight cameras. However, none of these cameras can tell the driverless car what's around a corner — an ability that researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed with a new camera system they call CornerCameras.
In a study published online, these researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) described the algorithm behind CornerCameras. Where regular vision, whether it be biological or mechanical, relies on light, CornerCameras captures subtle changes in lighting. Specifically, they spot what the researchers called "penumbra" — a shadow created by a small amount of light that's reflected on the ground directly at the camera's line of sight from objects obscured around a corner.
CornerCameras is able to piece together the subtle changes from these shadows into some sort of image, which it uses to tell the location of the object. “Even though those objects aren’t actually visible to the camera, we can look at how their movements affect the penumbra to determine where they are and where they’re going,” lead author Katherine Bouman said in a press release.
It's fairly obvious how such a system could improve the ability of autonomous vehicles to see on the road. “If a little kid darts into the street, a driver might not be able to react in time,” Bouman added. However, currently, CornerCameras needs to make some improvements. For one, the technology doesn't work in extremely low light conditions and the algorithm gets confused by changes in lighting. “While we’re not there yet, a technology like this could one day be used to give drivers a few seconds of warning time and help in a lot of life-or-death situations." |
Express Scripts' purchase of EviCore seen as response to Amazon | US medical company Express Scripts is set to acquire EviCore Healthcare in a deal worth $3.6bn. South Carolina-based EviCore Health pre-approves costly tests and scans for health plans. Industry insiders have speculated the deal is a signal Express Scripts is bracing itself for Amazon to enter the healthcare marketplace by expanding beyond the pharmacy benefit manager market into medical benefit management. Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth did not comment on Amazon's suspected interest in the sector but said the acquisition would "deliver value for our clients, patients, providers, and shareholders".
| https://medcitynews.com/2017/10/express-scripts-pays-3-6b-evicore-healthcare-amazon-make-pbm-blink/?rf=1 | 2017-10-11 08:32:44.983000 | Express Scripts plans to shell out $3.6 billion to buy eviCore Healthcare from a group of investors. It’s a deal that will see the company break free from the prescription drug benefits manager and expand into the wider realm of medical benefit management for insurers, media reports noted.
EviCore Healthcare pre-approves scans and other pricey tests for health plans covering 100 million people, according to Bloomberg. Of course, there is the flipside of saving health plans money, as Saurabh Jha, a radiologist with the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, noted on Twitter:
Imagine if you can make money for denying care with zero liability. No, this is not Disney. This is healthcare https://t.co/YgkTI91EMn — Saurabh Jha (@RogueRad) October 10, 2017
Pharmacy benefit managers, among other things, negotiate prices of covered drugs with pharma companies, use financial incentives to steer patients to lower-cost generics and manage high-cost specialty medications.
The deal could be a way for Express Scripts to protect itself against the intimidating competition Amazon could offer if it would move into the PBM sector, as CNBC reported earlier this year. But in a statement from Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth, it wasn’t clear that the move by the PBM was a reaction to Amazon, although he did suggest the deal would consolidate its power in the patient benefit management market.
“By further strengthening our independent model and creating numerous opportunities for growth, the acquisition of eviCore will deliver value for our clients, patients, providers, and shareholders,” he said in the statement.
In support of its medical benefits management business, eviCore acquired QPID Health last year. The business, which functions as a subsidiary of eviCore, produced a clinical decision support tool that works on top of providers’ electronic medical record systems. Its Q-Guide is designed to be used before high-cost, high-volume medical procedures to give physicians a better way to assess the need for a procedure with the patient’s risk factors.
The acquisition is expected to close by the end of year.
Photo: StockFinland, Getty Images |
GiveMeSport sees yields surge after rebuilding its ad technology | GiveMeSport, owned by Canadian firm Breaking Data, saw monthly ad yields rise more than a third in September after it rebuilt its ad technology from scratch. The digital sport publisher transformed its sales model and jettisoned vendors who brought in little revenue or who had complicated demands. The changes have also seen GiveMeSport's video inventory rise to 55% from 40% before June.
| https://digiday.com/media/one-u-k-sports-publisher-went-programmatic/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171011 | 2017-10-11 08:26:05.393000 | When most of a publisher’s revenue comes from programmatic advertising, the margin for error is razor thin. That’s why digital sports publisher GiveMeSport, which relies on programmatic for 95 percent of its revenue, rebuilt its ad tech stack from scratch and shed seven vendor partners four months ago.
The result: Ad yields jumped 35 percent in September, compared to the previous month, equating to hundreds of thousands of pounds in additional revenue, according to the publisher. A bigger surprise was the timing of the increase: August is typically a slower month for traffic because it’s the offseason for football — its core area of coverage — and there are no major sporting events. GiveMeSport’s site had 5.2 million monthly visitors in the U.K. in August, according to comScore. Naturally, its Facebook audience is far higher, particularly for video; it had 190 million views on the social platform in August, according to Tubular Labs.
Before the publisher took the wrapping off its new ad stack in June, the publisher relied on the open marketplace for 85 percent of its revenue, with two people manning all ad trading. The programmatic team has since increased to nine people, headed up by gm of programmatic Ryan Skeggs, who joined in the summer from Bauer Media, where he was head of programmatic, and was a programmatic director at MailOnline before that.
After Skeggs’ arrival, the former waterfall model was replaced with a unified auction model, with Amazon and Google as the two server-to-server partners and three other header bidding vendors. The publisher has also cut seven former partners plugged into its ad stack that weren’t contributing much revenue and were slowing page-load speed.
Some ad tech partners were dropped because they didn’t have unique enough demand — often visible if the revenue other demand sources contribute starts to erode, showing both vendors have the same demand. Others had strange terms and conditions around their fees. “One told us that their revenue share would be between 5 and 20 percent. We can’t work like that if we don’t know what our net revenue will be in a month,” said Skeggs. “It needs to be a static figure.”
Like many publishers that have been burned previously, GiveMeSport now has a strict checklist it uses for choosing ad tech partners, each of which are scored out of 1,200 points across five categories: unique demand, tech capabilities, support services, data output and future-proofing. For example, Skeggs asks potential vendor partners if they’re close to an IPO, and if they can’t instill confidence that they will exist in six months, the publisher isn’t interested in working with them. GiveMeSport requests full bid-stream visibility or logins as well so it can monitor the bid requests itself. Vendors must get a perfect score of 1,200 to become a partner.
The new ad stack also makes more of GiveMeSport’s video inventory, which now makes up 55 percent of its revenue, compared to 40 percent before June. Those are a mix of programmatic guaranteed and PMP deals, with the occasional direct deal. Open marketplace versus programmatic guaranteed and PMP deals are now at a 50-50 split, according to Skeggs.
Naturally, it’s easier for a digital native than a legacy publisher to implement changes quickly. GiveMeSport uses a pilot site that is an exact replica of its main site, rather than a single test page, for assessing new deployments, whether it’s integrating a new ad tech partner or testing new products. Ten percent of its traffic is directed to the pilot site at random on a daily basis. That means the publisher can test changes in a live environment that faces all the typical content and ad-loading burdens its main site does. The theory is that it can maintain a daily deployment strategy without risking major revenue drops that could occur if something goes wrong.
During tests, the team monitors 130 different data variables such as viewablity, video completion rates, page-load speed and eCPMs for fluctuations. If, for example, GiveMeSport adds another header bidding vendor partner on its replica test site, it can see within 24 hours whether the outcome is positive or negative to revenues, and react accordingly. If it sees anything more than a single percentage-point dip, the team will change course. This week, GiveMeSport rolled out Amazon’s server-to-server A9 product to its main site after testing it for a week, allowing more testing time than usual as some of the variables weren’t matching, according to Skeggs. |
50% of Sweden's retailers don't expect to take cash after 2025 | Half of Swedish retailers expect to stop accepting cash by 2025, according to a survey carried out by Niklas Arvidsson at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and Jonas Hedman of the Copenhagen School of Economics. The researchers predicted that cash, which currently makes up 18% of transactions, would no longer be used or accepted by 2023 at the earliest. However, the pair also found that, while the switch to cashless payments was consumer led, credit and debit cards were more popular than digital, with mobile apps making up 0.4% of payments. | https://futurism.com/reports-indicate-that-sweden-will-stop-using-cash-by-2023/ | 2017-10-11 07:50:01.587000 | Is Cash Dead?
Have you noticed that, over the years, you've begun to use your cards or mobile pay apps much more frequently than cash? You're not alone in this, and this trend has been on the rise in other countries around the world. In China, for example, cash is quickly on its way out, with mobile payments doubling in the last year. Sweden has also been forgoing cash an at increasing rate over the last several years, and experts predict that it's only a short matter of time before the country is entirely cashless.
In fact, Sweden may be completely digital in just a few years, if researchers Niklas Arvidsson of KTH and Jonas Hedman of Copenhagen School of Economics are to be believed. The pair estimate that cash will no longer be used or accepted by Swedish retailers by 2023, at the earliest.
Polling various Swedish retailers revealed that about half expect to stop accepting cash by 2025. Currently, 97 percent of all retailers accept cash payments, but only 18 percent of all transactions actually involve cash.
Card or Smartphone?
Interestingly, mobile payments are performing rather poorly. Credit and Debit cards are the primary way people pay, with mobile pay apps accounting for only 0.4 percent. It's unclear why only a small amount of people seem to use them; it could be a matter of convenience, trust, or simply knowing how. According to Arvidsson, people are generally comfortable with paying digitally in some way, even if they never see the money leave their hands.
"We are a small country that has had a very stable democracy for a long time," Arvidsson said. "For us, it's no problem that the money is only visible on an internet site - we trust it."
Consumers are largely facilitating the change, though banks have also done their part to push people away from cash, as they want to reduce the risk of robbery. Retailers share this sentiment.
"We wanted to minimise the risk of robberies and it's quicker with the customers when they pay by card," says bakery manager Victoria Nilsson, speaking with the BBC in September. "It's been mainly positive reactions." |
Robot revolution makes universal basic income a must: Branson | The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its effects on employment mean a universal basic income is "going to be all the more important", Sir Richard Branson has said. The billionaire founder of Virgin was speaking at an event in Finland, which has already introduced the policy, under which all citizens receive a minimum sum worth $660 a month from the government. He said AI could create more wealth, but also risked taking away jobs, making basic income important as a "safety net". The idea has previously been backed by tech entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, among others.
| http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/richard-branson-universal-basic-income-robots-taking-jobs-automation-threat-a7993006.html | 2017-10-11 07:30:35.853000 | For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the
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Richard Branson has backed the introduction of a universal basic income and said it is crucial to tackling the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
The billionaire said it could help protect people whose jobs will be lost as a result of new technology.
Support for a universal basic income has grown in recent months and a number of countries have launched trials of the idea.
Among them is Finland, where Mr Branson was speaking at the Nordic Business Forum.
Asked about the policy, which involves the state giving citizens a minimum amount of money each month regardless of their employment status, the Virgin founder said he thought it was an important element in preparing for increased automation in many industries.
He told the Business Insider website: “Basic income is going to be all the more important. If a lot more wealth is created by AI, the least that the country should be able to do is that a lot of that wealth that is created by AI goes back into making sure that everybody has a safety net.”
“Obviously AI is a challenge to the world in that there’s a possibility that it will take a lot of jobs away… It’s up to all of us to be entrepreneurially minded enough to create those new jobs.”
What is Finland's universal basic income scheme?
Mr Branson has previously joined other entrepreneurs, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, in backing calls for a universal basic income.
In August he said he had discussed the idea with global figures leaders including Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter.
At the time he said: “What I took away from the talks was the sense of self-esteem that universal basic income could provide to people. The hope is that policies like these can help people struggling just to survive and allow them to get on their feet, be entrepreneurial and be more creative.”
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 / 50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
Finland is currently trialling a scheme in which it is giving 2,000 citizens €560 (£473) every month for two years.
Initial research suggests the people receiving the money report reduced stress, a greater incentive to find work and more time to pursue business ideas.
However, some trade unions in the country have said the policy is too expensive.
Recommended Half of Britons back plan to pay all UK citizens basic income
“We think it takes social policy in the wrong direction,” said Ilkka Kaukoranta, chief economist of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), which represents almost 1 million workers.
Germany is also in the process of trialling a universal basic income, as is the US state of Hawaii and the Canadian province of Ontario, among others. |
Smartphones replacing cards for withdrawals from Wells Fargo ATMs | US consumers are using their mobile phones and wearables to withdraw money from Wells Fargo ATMs, following the spring launch of the bank's one-time access code technology. Users with digital wallets including Wells Fargo Wallet for Android, Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay, sign into the relevant wallet app, and hold their phone or device in front of an appropriate ATM scanner, input their PIN and near-field communications technology carries out the withdrawal. Almost three million card-free ATM transactions have been carried out since the launch.
| https://www.gizbot.com/apps/news/people-can-now-withdraw-money-from-atms-using-payment-app-a-new-beginning-044805.html | 2017-10-11 07:27:56.643000 | People can now withdraw money from ATMs using payment apps: A new beginning News oi -Samden Sherpa A customer can initiate an ATM transaction by signing into leading mobile wallet features, such as Wells Fargo Wallet for Android, Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay, found on mobile phones.
With the proliferation of technology, we have seen huge advances in the smartphone domain as well as app development. On the other hand, smartphones have in fact become an integral part of our lives and we use it to do a lot of things today.
Having said that, now Apple Pay users amongst others can actually withdraw money without even making use of their actual credit or debit card. The money can be withdrawn at over 5,000 Wells Fargo ATMs across the U.S. People living in U.S. might as well leave their wallets at home now.
However, if you are wondering how this can be done then users will basically have to activate the phone's wallet feature by using the Apple Pay app and the transactions will then be carried out via near-field communications (NFC) chips installed in those ATMs.
"This spring's launch of one-time access code technology at all Wells Fargo ATMs has resulted in nearly three million card-free ATM access code transactions. Card-free ATM use will take another leap as we introduce NFC functionality," said Jonathan Velline, Head of Strategy and Administration for Community Bank. "The NFC functionality is the second form of card-free access and is an extension of our promise to reach our customers wherever they are and provide value using the mobile option with which they are so comfortable."
As per the company, a customer can initiate an ATM transaction by signing into leading mobile wallet features, such as Wells Fargo Wallet for Android, Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay, found on mobile phones. They simply hold their phone or wearable device with mobile payment functionality near an NFC-enabled ATM terminal. Wells Fargo ATMs enabled for this feature will display a "contactless symbol" decal on the front of the ATM. The customer will then input their Wells Fargo Debit or EasyPay Card Personal Identification Number (PIN) and complete their transaction.
In any case, while the revolution in terms of mobile payments and transaction seems to have begun in the U.S. we see that the technology will likely come to other countries as well in future. Many people today are already using mobile to manage their finances and make payments all over the world. Moreover, financial institutions are also ever introducing new methods of payment and other services.
And basing our assumptions on the fact that mobile phones have actually become very smart, it further looks like mobile payments volume will only grow immensely in the coming days.
Source
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Regus Regus subsidiary Spaces negotiate 19,300 sq ft lease in Chase Tower | Office-sharing company Spaces has secured a deal to take over a 19,300 sq ft lease at Chase Tower, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The Dutch firm, which was acquired by Regus in 2015, has already acquired two other sites in the Washington DC area, with its office in Arlington, Virginia due to open in November. The Chase Tower is owned by property firm JBG Smith, and the deal with Spaces was negotiated by real estate firm Transwestern.
| http://dc.citybizlist.com/article/445913/spaces-a-regus-subsidiary-to-open-3rd-dc-metro-location-with-19300-sf-lease-in-chevy-chase | 2017-10-11 07:25:06.203000 | Transwestern Represents Building Owner JBG SMITH in Transaction
Transwestern today announces it has negotiated a 19,300-square-foot lease with Spaces, which provides offices, co-working spaces and meeting rooms, at Chase Tower, located at 4445 Willard Ave. in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Transwestern’s Phil McCarthy, Keith Foery and Mark Boyce represented property owner JBG SMITH in the transaction.
“Chase Tower is a vibrant mixed-use environment with ample restaurant and retail options at its doorstep,” said McCarthy. “Chevy Chase is an excellent location for Spaces, as it boasts one of the highest concentrations of professional and financial service firms in the Washington metro area and attracts a highly educated and diverse workforce.”
The building is one block from the Friendship Heights Metro Station, on the Red Line, and it is surrounded by a variety of retail amenities including Whole Foods Market, Lia’s, Starbucks, Sushiko, Capital Grille, J. Crew, Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus.
This will be Spaces’ third location in the Washington, D.C., metro area, with operations in the District’s NoMa neighborhood and another location slated to open in Arlington, Virginia’s Rosslyn neighborhood in November 2017. Spaces, which was represented by Mia Eglinton from JLL in the transaction, originated in Amsterdam and is a subsidiary of Regus.
ABOUT TRANSWESTERN
Transwestern is a privately held real estate firm of collaborative entrepreneurs who deliver a higher level of personalized service – the Transwestern Experience. Specializing in Agency Leasing, Tenant Advisory, Capital Markets, Asset Services and Research, our fully integrated global enterprise adds value for investors, owners and occupiers of all commercial property types. We leverage market insights and operational expertise from members of the Transwestern family of companies specializing in development, real estate investment management and research. Based in Houston, Transwestern has 35 U.S. offices and assists clients through more than 180 offices in 37 countries as part of a strategic alliance with BNP Paribas Real Estate. Experience Extraordinary at transwestern.com and @Transwestern. For updates from the Mid-Atlantic region, follow @TranswesternDC. |
Publishers turn to Twitter for live video as Facebook disappoints | Twitter's promotion of its live video service appears to be paying off as publishers flock to it amid some disappointment with rival Facebook Live. Insiders said Twitter is flexible, allowing shows to be cut into several clips and monetised with pre-roll ads -- a service not offered by Facebook. In addition, Twitter's decision to allow brands to have a say in selling and co-selling has been greeted warmly by publishers. "Twitter has the scale and the platform: the publisher has the content and brand trust. It's a nice marriage," said Scott Havens at Bloomberg Media, which has announced a streaming service with the platform. | https://digiday.com/media/facebook-live-video-dreams-fade-publishers-look-twitter/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171011 | 2017-10-11 07:15:21.223000 | Some publishers have been disappointed with Facebook Live video, but they are hopeful as Twitter embraces the format.
Twitter has been getting into live video in a big way. It’s already live streamed events and announced a streaming video service with Bloomberg Media, in addition to other live news, sports and entertainment programs from content creators including BuzzFeed, Vox Media’s The Verge and the WNBA.
The Verge has done a lot of live video and just launched a new live show, “Circuit Breaker,” on Twitter. The focus on Twitter comes as The Verge has dramatically scaled back the number of live videos it does on Facebook, where it used to do as many as four a week.
“It definitely seems like Twitter’s putting a ton of focus on it this year,” said Helen Havlak, editorial director at The Verge.
Havlak ticked off a number of benefits of Twitter’s live show approach. After each episode of “Circuit Breaker,” which run 60 to 90 minutes, The Verge can use a Twitter tool to cut the episode into several clips and publish them independently on Twitter, “things you can’t do easily on Facebook Live,” she said. Those shorter videos can get monetized with pre-roll ads, a format that’s absent from Facebook. Because live video on Twitter hasn’t reached a saturation point, these new shows are getting a lot of promotion from Twitter, while Facebook seems to have de-emphasized live video.
The only metric that really matters is revenue, though. Twitter is scoring points here, too. The revenue share for Twitter’s live shows varies by content creator. But Twitter’s monetization approach is far more favorable than other platforms, said Scott Havens, global head of digital at Bloomberg Media. Twitter is giving Bloomberg the option to do the selling as well as co-selling, which gives the creators more control over the sales process and revenue outcome. (He didn’t explicitly mention Facebook, but that approach is in contrast to Facebook, which is writing checks to just cover the costs and sharing ad sales revenue with publishers, but not much has materialized.)
“Twitter has the scale and the platform; the publisher has the content and brand trust,” Havens said. “It’s a nice marriage.”
Twitter’s live experiment is young; it’s too early to say how big the audience is for live video on the platform, so it’s too soon to tell what the effective ad rates will be. BuzzFeed has said its new Twitter live show, “AM to DM,” which started on Sept. 25, has averaged about 1 million unique viewers each day, with clips being viewed a total of 10 million times.
All platforms are looking for high-quality video content to attract TV-like dollars. Twitter, because it’s much smaller in audience than Facebook and Google and its user base has stagnated, has to make itself that much more appealing to creators than other platforms. “Facebook’s attitude has been much more, ‘We’re going to do it our way,’” said Bernard Gershon, president of GershonMedia, which consults to publishers. Twitter, meanwhile, threw publishers a big bone in 2016 when it agreed to let them keep 70 percent of the revenue from their video ads posted through Twitter’s Amplify program, in contrast with YouTube and Facebook, which share 55 percent.
One criticism of Amplify is the unpredictability. “We love syndicating our original video content across Twitter audiences and being able to monetize via Amplify ads, but publishers have a lack of insight into Twitter’s pipeline, which means we cannot predict ad fill or revenue against this syndication opportunity,” said Chris Pirrone, gm of sports digital properties at USA Today’s Sports Media Group.
“We are always in listening mode with our Amplify partners, and it is our goal to help them drive meaningful and consistent revenue,” Mike Park, vp of emerging content products at Twitter, said in a statement. “A healthy publisher ecosystem is an essential part of the equation as we continue to develop our video products and scale advertiser demand.” |
Pavegen to create 'selfie-tunnel' at Berlin Festival of Lights | London firm Pavegen has partnered with Google to create a "selfie-tunnel" at the Berlin Festival of Lights. The walkway – the largest energy-harvesting pathway of its kind – converts people's footsteps into off-grid energy to power a lighting display and a video camera. It uses 100 electromagnetic generators powering 176 coloured light panels, and is one of 200 projects completed by Pavegen, which counts Coca-Cola, Heathrow Airport, Shell and Adidas among its clients.
| https://startups.co.uk/young-guns/pavegen-and-google-partner-for-walkway/ | 2017-10-11 07:13:34.523000 | Footsteps of visitors to "first-of-its kind" selfie tunnel power 176 coloured light panels and generate video recordings of their experience
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Pavegen, the smart flooring company founded by 2017 Young Gun Laurence Kemball-Cook, has partnered with Google to create what is thought to be the largest ever energy harvesting walkway at Berlin Festival of Lights.
Described as a “first-of-its kind” selfie tunnel, visitors’ footsteps are converted into off-grid electricity that powers a synchronised lighting display and generates videos recording their experience. These are then shared with them as GIFS by a photo pod at the end of the array.
The 26-square metre installation uses Pavegen’s latest V3 flooring system, with 100-electro-manetic generators powering 176 coloured light panels.
The Berlin Festival of Lights was started in 2004 as a celebration of the visual arts, bringing dynamic light installations to the city’s most famous places. This year’s event runs from Friday 6 to Sunday 15 October from 7pm every night.
Founded in 2009, Pavegen’s flooring solution generates energy and collects data from footfall and can be used to power off-grid applications such as games, lighting, and environmental monitoring.
To date, it has delivered 200 projects in 30 countries and worked with some of the biggest brands and organisations in the world including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Heathrow Airport, Shell and Westfield.
Cook commented: “The Berlin project marks a pivotal moment for us during a year when we have delivered significant permanent installations in other important cities including Washington and London.
“Working with Google, we’re creating a highly immersive experience with which people can interact physically, showing how the cleaner smart cities of the future will also be fun and vibrant places to be.” |
Heads to roll as China gets ready to reshuffle Central Committee | China is set to reshuffle its Central Committee, with President Xi Jinping expected to expel at least eight full members and three alternate members from the 200-member body as part of his anti-corruption drive. A total of 17 full Central Committee members and 17 alternate members have been dismissed by the president since he took over in 2012, which is more than the total for the four previous Central Committees combined. Further overhauls to the Central Military Commission are deemed likely, following major recent personnel changes after reforms to the military. Two generals are under investigation and may also be expelled from the Central Committee.
| http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2114794/dirty-dozen-or-so-set-be-dumped-communist-partys-inner?mc_cid=edd5869633&mc_eid=a37072368a | 2017-10-11 07:03:38.840000 | At least eight full members and three alternate ones expected to be expelled when Central Committee meets this week |
Expert System and Lloyd's of London seal major AI deal | Lloyd's of London has agreed a deal to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into its business. The world's largest insurance market has partnered with Italian technology company Expert System, which will use its Cognito software to bring greater AI capabilities to Lloyd's. Similar technology is increasingly being used by the insurance sector, and the deal will assist the exchange in modernising in order to improve its members' productivity.
| https://www.carriermanagement.com/news/2017/10/09/171964.htm | 2017-10-11 06:54:00.917000 | Lloyd’s of London wants to infuse artificial intelligence technology into the daily business it does with its customers.
The world’s largest insurance market signed a global deal with Expert System that will bring on cognitive automation, via the company’s Cognito software, to modernize its business processes in order to support the needs of market participants.
Neither side disclosed financial terms.
Craig Civil, head of Data Innovation with Lloyd’s said the agreement will help boost the productivity of its market members.
“Artificial intelligence drives productivity by changing the way we benefit from data, and Lloyd’s continues its history of innovation,” Civil said in prepared remarks. “Expert System’s cognitive applications help meet our strategic objective and evolve business models through new applications.”
Nicky Singh, VP UK and Ireland for Expert System, said in prepared remarks that “a significant part of the insurance industry will be powered by AI” and “it is a reality that we need to embrace.”
Expert System markets its technology to insurers and banks, defense and intelligence agencies, public administration departments, the health and pharmaceutical industries, the energy industry, publishing and media and other sectors.
Source: Expert System/Lloyds |
Lemonade facilitates third-party adoption with API launch | Insurtech Lemonade has adopted an application programming interface (API), which will allow third-party companies to offer customers the firm's insurance policies as a value-add product. Start-ups focusing on areas like robo-advice, proptech and smart home products will be able to offer Lemonade insurance products by making use of the API. This should help such companies avoid the need to seek out licenses to offer insurance coverage via an app or online platform, something that can take several years and large amounts of money to achieve ordinarily. | http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lemonade-launches-insurance-api-650210233.html | 2017-10-11 06:52:04.037000 | NEW YORK, October 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Lemonade, the insurance company powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics, today launched its public API, allowing anyone to seamlessly offer Lemonade policies through their apps or websites.
Through its API platform, Lemonade will initially offer developers access to its renters, condo, and homeowners insurance, and expand the API as the company introduces new insurance products to market. Commerce sites, real estate apps, financial advisors, bots, IoT and smart home products will now be able to complement their offering with insurance, allowing their customers instant coverage and a hassle-free experience without ever leaving their app or website.
"It takes years to pull together the licenses, capital and technology needed to offer insurance instantly through an app, which is why it's almost nonexistent. Today's API launch changes that. Anyone with a slight familiarity with coding can now include these capabilities in their app, in a matter of hours," said Shai Wininger, Lemonade Co-founder and Chief Lemonade Maker. "We call on startups and entrepreneurs to use our platform to add insurance-related products and features to their apps and websites. We can't wait to see what entrepreneurs will create using our new API."
Lemonade's API is also ideal for established businesses such as real estate companies, mortgage originators, ecommerce sites and lifestyle brands to offer insurance to their customers, as a means to insure their residents or provide coverage for their valuable products.
Today's API launch comes on the heels of Lemonade's one year anniversary. Since its September 2016 launch in New York, the company has expanded to California, New Jersey, Illinois and Texas, and has been licensed - and will launch soon - in 15 more states, reaching more than 50% of the population. Most recently, Lemonade launched its Zero Everything product, offering new and existing Lemonade members a 'zero deductible' upgrade, so they can make up to two claims each year with absolutely no deductible payments and no rate hikes.
Customers can buy homeowners and renters insurance in seconds at lemonade.com, or through the Lemonade app, and choose a cause to 'Giveback' to. In addition to digitizing the entire insurance process, Lemonade reduces costs and bureaucracy through giving. In a reversal of the traditional insurance model, Lemonade takes a flat 20% fee and treats premiums as belonging to the insured, not the insurer, returning unclaimed money during its annual 'Giveback.' Giveback is a unique feature of Lemonade, where each year leftover money ('underwriting profit') is donated to a cause customers care about.
Users can apply for early access to become one of the first Lemonade API partners here: www.lemonade.com/api .
About Lemonade
Lemonade Insurance Company is a licensed insurance carrier, offering homeowners and renters insurance powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics. By replacing brokers and bureaucracy with bots and machine learning, Lemonade aims for zero paperwork and instant everything. As a Certified B-Corp, where underwriting profits go to nonprofits, Lemonade is remaking insurance as a social good, rather than a necessary evil. Lemonade is currently available in New York, California, New Jersey, Texas, and Illinois, and licensed in 14 more states, and looks to expand nationwide.
Stay in touch at http://www.lemonade.com, @lemonade_inc or http://www.facebook.com/lemonade.
Media Contact:
Jill Burkes
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Meet buy-side needs for profitable equity research post-Mifid II | Providers of equity research can still be profitable following the implementation of Mifid II, but they will need to focus on what buy-side clients actually value. One way this is possible is by focusing more on providing a service than individual stock reports, according to McKinsey & Company. Such services could include access to analysts and corporate management. Additionally, research providers may have success if they can provide buy-side firms with access to analysis making use of artificial intelligence and big data processing. | https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/reinventing-equity-research-as-a-profit-making-business | 2017-10-11 06:42:32.880000 | The traditional business of providing equity research to asset managers has been under pressure in recent years, as managers, challenged to deliver alpha to their clients, seek new forms of research and asset owners turn increasingly to passive strategies. Now, new regulation—specifically, the advent of MiFID II in Europe in 2018—is about to escalate these pressures.
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The result will be an increase in both the magnitude and the pace of change in equity research, reducing the scale of the research business and reshaping its economics. Nonetheless, equity research still offers an attractive business opportunity for banks and broker-dealers that can adapt to deliver the types of research the buy side values and also successfully transform their operating models.
The trigger for accelerated change in the equity research business is the January 2018 go-live of European MiFID II regulations, which call for the explicit unbundling of charges for execution services and investment research by banks and broker-dealers. While the new MiFID regulations may strictly apply only to European asset managers, the impact is likely to be broader, as asset managers extend the MiFID II model of separate payments beyond Europe to their global operations. The result could be a sharp decline in the demand for equity research: the consensus view of banks we surveyed calls for an industry-wide drop in equity-research revenues of 30 percent or more over the next three years, although other scenarios could well play out (exhibit).
For the first time, bank and broker-dealer equity research will operate as a free-standing profit center, forcing a transformation of the business. The buy side will pay broker-dealers for actionable research that adds investment value, but the demand will fall far short of the mountains of research that banks currently supply “for free.” For asset managers, as research becomes an itemized cost, profits could be sharply reduced—by as much as 15 to 20 percent for firms in Europe. The resulting change to research operations could be enormous.
To succeed in this transformed environment and meet asset managers’ more exacting standards, banks and broker-dealers will need to focus on the changing nature of the types of research the buy side finds useful and overhaul their offerings. Long-only active managers and hedge funds focused on equities are demanding less in the way of traditional products (that is, single-stock research reports) and more in services, such as access to analysts and corporate management. Moreover, investors are seeking new forms of information and analytics, through big data and artificial intelligence (AI), which can complement conventional fundamental research in portfolio decision making.
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Beyond producing quality, differentiated research, banks will also need to adopt new operating models for their equity research businesses. This calls for focusing on four strategic priorities:
Establishing a research footprint that capitalizes on strengths of coverage in sectors and regions, and extending reach through joint ventures. Understanding the scarcity and perishability of ideas, and what value clients place on research in different forms—reports, analyst and corporate-management access, conferences, and other forms of information and analytics. Translating client preferences and demands into informed pricing structures. Explicit prices must be assigned to research, whether item-by-item for individual products and services or through packages or broad subscriptions. Adopting new technologies to generate novel investment ideas and lower costs. The sell side can leverage AI to interpret high-frequency market data in real time, patterns in both supply and demand chains, and social media. They can reduce costs by automating basic financial analysis and maintenance research. For client coverage, analytical tools can discern clients’ preferred means of research delivery and service.
Analytics in banking: Time to realize the value
Five business models may evolve for the provision of equity research and execution services in the future:
A few global banks will lead the industry with both global execution services and high-quality, broad-based research coverage. Another cadre of two to three firms, likely market makers that are not banks, will be global leaders in execution but offer no research or only a limited, specialized array. A second group of universal banks will attempt to maintain their current broad research efforts, combined with global execution at a smaller scale than the leaders. In view of dwindling research revenues and the competition for low-cost execution, however, this model is not likely sustainable, although some firms could make up the shortfall in client revenue internally from banking and wealth-management units. Accordingly, many firms currently large in both research and execution will have to make significant cuts in one direction or the other. The majority of banks will rationalize their research and execution capabilities by focusing on their “home-field advantage” in local sectors and regional markets. Demand from local and global clients will likely support one to three such banks per region. Independent research firms offering little or no execution should see significant growth in the new landscape, as they reverse the past trend among many research boutiques of offering execution as a means for the buy side to pay for research.
These strategic shifts are likely to take time, however, given several barriers to exit. Research is an entrenched part of capital-markets operations and provides value to banks’ investment-banking, wealth-management, and equities units, as well the intangible benefits of burnishing the corporate brand. Some firms will want to keep a hand in research as an option to scaling back up. Evolution will come fastest to European banks, followed quickly by the United States, while the Asian market may be slower to change. |
Torrent site incentivises visitor mining | An invitation-only torrent site has offered its visitors the choice of enabling a cryptocurrency mining feature on their machines, in return for upload credits. The move follows the discovery that such mining was taking place without consent on sites such as The Pirate Bay. The torrent site's offer has sparked a debate over the issue of consent, with some users arguing that low-quality ads run on machines without permission, and background mining was no different.
| https://torrentfreak.com/private-torrent-sites-allow-users-to-mine-cryptocurrency-for-upload-credit-171008/ | 2017-10-11 06:41:53.287000 | As cryptocurrency mining becomes more closely associated with 'pirate' sites, some private torrent trackers are implementing an interesting solution to their own economic problems. Through the use of miners, users are able to generate revenue for a site but they're also given so-called 'upload credit' in return, which in itself is a virtual currency variant used to 'buy' content.
Ever since The Pirate Bay crew added a cryptocurrency miner to their site last month, the debate over user mining has sizzled away in the background.
The basic premise is that a piece of software embedded in a website runs on a user’s machine, utilizing its CPU cycles in order to generate revenue for the site in question. But not everyone likes it.
The main problem has centered around consent. While some sites are giving users the option of whether to be involved or not, others simply run the miner without asking. This week, one site operator suggested to TF that since no one asks whether they can run “shitty” ads on a person’s machine, why should they ask permission to mine?
It’s a controversial point, but it would be hard to find users agreeing on either front. They almost universally insist on consent, wherever possible. That’s why when someone comes up with something innovative to solve a problem, it catches the eye.
Earlier this week a user on Reddit posted a screenshot of a fairly well known private tracker. The site had implemented a mining solution not dissimilar to that appearing on other similar platforms. This one, however, gives the user something back.
Mining for coins – with a twist
First of all, it’s important to note the implementation. The decision to mine is completely under the control of the user, with buttons to start or stop mining. There are even additional controls for how many CPU threads to commit alongside a percentage utilization selector. While still early days, that all sounds pretty fair.
Where this gets even more interesting is how this currency mining affects so-called “upload credit”, an important commodity on a private tracker without which users can be prevented from downloading any content at all.
Very quickly: when BitTorrent users download content, they simultaneously upload to other users too. The idea is that they download X megabytes and upload the same number (at least) to other users, to ensure that everyone in a torrent swarm (a number of users sharing together) gets a piece of the action, aka the content in question.
The amount of content downloaded and uploaded on a private tracker is monitored and documented by the site. If a user has 1TB downloaded and 2TB uploaded, for example, he has 1TB in credit. In basic terms, this means he can download at least 1TB of additional content before he goes into deficit, a position undesirable on a private tracker.
Now, getting more “upload credit” can be as simple as uploading more, but some users find that difficult, either due to the way a tracker’s economy works or simply due to not having resources. If this is the case, some sites allow people to donate real money to receive “upload credit”. On the tracker highlighted in the mining example above, however, it’s possible to virtually ‘trade-in’ some of the mining effort instead.
Tracker politics aside (some people believe this is simply a cash grab opportunity), from a technical standpoint the prospect is quite intriguing.
In a way, the current private tracker system allows users to “mine” upload credits by donating bandwidth to other users of the site. Now they have the opportunity to mine an actual cryptocurrency on the tracker and have some of it converted back into the tracker’s native ‘currency’ – upload credit – which can only be ‘spent’ on the site. Meanwhile, the site’s operator can make a few bucks towards site maintenance.
Another example showing how innovative these mining implementations can be was posted by a member of a second private tracker. Although it’s unclear whether mining is forced or optional, there appears to be complete transparency for the benefit of the user.
The mining ‘Top 10’ on a private tracker
In addition to displaying the total number of users mining and the hashes solved per second, the site publishes a ‘Top 10’ list of users mining the most currently, and overall. Again, some people might not like the concept of users mining at all, but psychologically this is a particularly clever implementation.
Utilizing the desire of many private tracker users to be recognizable among their peers due to their contribution to the platform, the charts give a user a measurable status in the community, at least among those who care about such things. Previously these charts would list top uploaders of content but the addition of a ‘Top miner’ category certainly adds some additional spice to the mix.
Mining is a controversial topic which isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. But, for all its faults, it’s still a way for sites to generate revenue, away from the pitfalls of increasingly hostile and easy-to-trace alternative payment systems. The Pirate Bay may have set the cat among the pigeons last month, but it also gave the old gray matter a boost too. |
Alibaba to build smart petrol stations with robot attendants | China's Alibaba Group is set to begin construction on the world's first smart petrol stations that will use robots as attendants. A handful of garages will be built in Hangzhou, where Alibaba opened a pop-up convenience store manned by robots earlier this year. The smart petrol stations, set to open in 2018, will also document drivers' names as well as the make and model of their cars. | http://www.ibtimes.sg/alibaba-use-robots-gas-attendants-petrol-stations-17864 | 2017-10-11 06:34:30.430000 | Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group will venture into smart petrol stations wherein robots are the attendants. The plan is to construct the first few gas stations in the company's home city of Hangzhou.
Gas stations in China will soon become manned by computer-controlled human machines as Alibaba will build the world's first 'intelligent' petrol stations. Part of the move is the QR code scanning that customers will use when entering and shopping at convenience stores.
Also read: Singapore's e-commerce biz dominates despite Amazon, Alibaba invasion
Construction of the said petrol stations will begin by the end of October while the launching is expected to commence in 2018. According to Chinese publication Caixin, the gas stations will use smart technologies to automatically document details of drivers and their cars, such as name, vehicle model and the fuel used.
As a cloud business, Alibaba has a vast treasure trove of consumer data which it can leverage to push its new ventures. The e-commerce company has long been investing in new businesses outside of its industry.
This is not the first time Alibaba entered into unmanned physical establishments. It opened a pop-up convenience store in Hangzhou a couple of months back where attendants are robots. |
Facebook eyes emerging markets for sports streaming opportunities | The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has rebuffed Facebook's request to give it free rights to stream live football matches in emerging markets (EMs), like India or Colombia, where games are not broadcast. Insiders claimed such a deal, if agreed, could harm UEFA's future negotiations with TV broadcasters. Despite the decision, some say it is a matter of time before Facebook agrees a rights deal for a major sport, more than likely targeting EMs. It is suggested that while smartphone penetration could restrict efforts to monetise content in EMs now, longer-term, their demographics could see Facebook’s bet pay off. | https://digiday.com/marketing/facebook-looks-emerging-markets-streaming-rights-sports/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171011 | 2017-10-11 06:21:47.237000 | Facebook isn’t ready to make a high-profile bid for major sports like basketball, football or soccer in established markets, but it’s eyeing up rights in emerging markets.
One interesting example is Facebook’s move trying to convince UEFA’s media bosses to let it live stream Champions League games in countries where they aren’t shown on TV. Both tournaments are not shown on TV in Africa or countries like India and Colombia. One big fly in the ointment: Facebook wants the rights for free under the idea that it would give the Champions League and Europa League tournaments tremendous reach outside of Europe. Needless to say, UEFA declined.
UEFA cannot be seen giving away rights for free when it has a premium product for which other broadcast partners pay substantial sums. UEFA now finds itself in the same precarious situation as publishers when it comes to assessing the platform dilemma of reach versus monetization.
“It is indeed good to be broadcast on Facebook in a market where the matches aren’t shown on TV,” said the source. “But on the other hand, it could damage negotiations in the future with other TV channels.”
The UEFA pitch is curious since Facebook was willing to pony up $600 million to bring the Indian Premier League cricket matches to the more than 1 billion people who live in India and its surrounding countries.
It is unlikely UEFA’s initial rejection will sap Facebook’s appetite for the rights. With over 650 million people following an account for a sports team, player or news outlet on Facebook and 200 million of these fans on Instagram, Facebook knows it has strong bargaining power now that it is a primary destination for sports. Misha Sher, vp of sport and entertainment at MediaCom, believes it’s only a matter of time before the biggest soccer games air live on Facebook. “Rights holders will need to consider the value that someone like Amazon or Facebook can bring to the table, and explore what types of models will work moving forward without undermining any existing broadcast agreements,” Sher said.
Facebook has made no secret of soccer’s importance to its aspirations as a broadcaster. It aired over 3,500 different live sports events in the first six months of the year alone. Despite the breadth of sports it shows, from American football to college lacrosse, Facebook insists it doesn’t want to replace traditional broadcasters such as Sky and BT Sport as the home of live games. Instead, the social network has cited its deal with Fox Sports to live stream Champions League matches in the U.S. as an example of its intentions over the coming months. If Facebook were to be the sole broadcaster of the Champions League in the U.S. now, it would likely struggle to recoup the $60 million Turner Sports paid to secure the broadcast rights for 2018-2021.
Monetizing video is still a problem for Facebook, as seen by the number of soccer clubs and advertisers rethinking Facebook Live’s value alongside the emergence of Facebook Watch. Monetizing video in emerging markets, however, could be easier; of Facebook’s 5 million advertisers, 70 percent are outside of the U.S. Among the fastest-growing countries are India, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, none of which are set to broadcast Champions League matches on TV between 2018 and 2021.
But this path isn’t without its problems, said Dror Ginzberg, the CEO of video creation platform Wochit. In many emerging markets, smartphone adoption is roughly 30 percent, according to Gsma, the trade body for the telecommunications industry. This is much lower than the global average of over 50 percent. In the short term, this may mean monetization could be slow to happen in these markets, especially as premium content such as the Champions League, regardless of location, is expensive, explained Ginzberg.
Ginzberg said Facebook has “deep pockets” to mitigate this, however, and is making a “bigger bet” on the demographics in emerging markets, where 25 percent of consumers are 14 years old or younger, compared to 16 percent in developed markets. “In a couple of years, these consumers will be the economic engine of emerging markets, which will greatly help with Facebook’s monetization play in these regions.” |
Alibaba unveils $15bn global R&D plan to boost tech collaboration | Alibaba CTO Jeff Zhang is to lead a $15bn, three-year R&D programme aimed at increasing global technological collaboration and narrowing the global technology gap. The Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook (DAMO) Academy will set up labs in the US, China, Russia, Israel and Singapore, where researchers will focus on fintech, quantum computing and human-machine interaction. Alibaba said DAMO's long-term aim is to enable it to "serve two billion customers and create 100 million job opportunities in 20 years". | http://www.zdnet.com/article/alibaba-to-invest-15b-in-r-d-through-new-global-program/#ftag=RSSbaffb68 | 2017-10-11 06:12:09.727000 | Alibaba Group has announced the launch of a global research program and its plan to invest $15 billion in R&D through the program over the next three years.
The program, called Alibaba DAMO Academy, is aimed at increasing technological collaboration globally, advancing the development of "cutting-edge" technology, and making the world more inclusive by "narrowing the technology gap", it said in an announcement on Wednesday.
The DAMO Academy, short for "Academy for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum, and Outlook", will be led by Alibaba CTO Jeff Zhang.
In the initial phase of the program, Alibaba will open seven research labs in Beijing and Hangzhou in China; San Mateo and Bellevue in the United States; Moscow, Russia; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Singapore.
The labs will focus on research areas such as data intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), fintech, quantum computing, and human-machine interaction. Within those research areas, the labs will focus on machine learning, network security, visual computing, and natural language processing.
Alibaba is seeking to recruit 100 researchers worldwide to join the program, as well as to collaborate with established technology companies and educational institutions.
"Over the past 18 years, we have developed a robust technology infrastructure that supports the rapid growth of our business. With our global expansion, we have grown and refined our technology manifold," Zhang said in a statement.
"We are now looking for talented and driven researchers to join us in the quest for new disruptive technologies that would advance our everyday lives, benefit small businesses, and narrow the technology gap to make our world a more inclusive place."
Alibaba said the DAMO Academy has already established a partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, which will see the entities explore areas such as secured real-time computing through the RISE Lab.
"[DAMO] is the first major global initiative to focus on developing the global technological capabilities and infrastructure that will enable Alibaba to fulfil its commitment to serve 2 billion customers and create 100 million job opportunities in 20 years," the Chinese ecommerce giant said in an announcement.
Alibaba currently has around 25,000 engineers and scientists on its staff across its multiple businesses of ecommerce, cloud infrastructure, payment and financial services, logistics, marketing services, and digital media.
The DAMO Academy's advisory board members include professors from a range of educational institutions including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Beijing University of Technology, Peking University, and Zhejiang University.
In September, Alibaba announced that it would be setting aside 100 billion yuan over five years to boost its global logistics network as it pushes ahead with its "new retail" strategy. The aim of the investment is to fulfil online orders within 24 hours in China, and within 72 hours anywhere across the globe.
The Chinese ecommerce giant said that the funds will be used for research and development in logistics data technology, as well as for development of smart warehousing, smart delivery, and global logistics infrastructure. |
XL Catlin launches suite of coverages for HNW clients | XL Catlin has introduced a suite of coverage aiming to meet the needs of ultra high net worth clients. The suite, dubbed Private Clients, will allow the firm to write business covering multiple homes, motor vehicles, large art collections and jewellery within a single package. Coverage will be available via Catlin's panel of brokers. | https://www.insuranceage.co.uk/products/3157556/xl-catlin-launches-private-client-product-suite | 2017-10-11 06:07:46.747000 | The products will be distributed through an exclusive broker panel and are aimed at the ultra high net worth client.
XL Catlin has launched Private Clients, a suite of coverages specifically designed to address the complex insurance needs of Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) individuals and their families.
According to the insurer the product suite, which is available via a very exclusive broker panel, offers broad policy coverage with the ability to write multiple homes (including overseas), large collections of fine art, jewellery and motor all in one single package with one renewal date.
Simon Mobey, head of |
Speedy Hire Speedy Hire gets vote of confidence with bank facilities extension | Equipment and plant hire firm Speedy has been granted an extension to its bank facilities with improved terms, which CEO Russell Down said was a demonstration of bankers' confidence in the business. Speedy's £180m ($237m) asset-based finance facility will now mature in October 2022, instead of September 2019, while interest margin ranges have been reduced from 170 to 275 basis points to 150 to 250 basis points.
| https://www.digitallook.com/news/news-and-announcements/speedy-hire-secures-extension-to-bank-facilities--2907348.html | 2017-10-11 05:40:16.633000 | Tools, equipment and plant hire services company Speedy Hire has secured an extension to its existing bank facilities.
The group said on Wednesday that the £180m asset based finance facility, which was due to mature in September 2019, has been extended by a further three years, through to October 2022. In addition, terms have been improved, which will lower the cost of Speedy’s debt financing.
The additional uncommitted accordion of £220m remains in place through to October 2022, should further funding requirements be needed.
The facility is split equally between Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, HSBC and Wells Fargo and the interest margin ranges from 150 to 250 basis points, down from 170 to 275 basis points previously.
Chief executive Russell Down said: "We are delighted with this successful outcome which reflects our bankers' confidence in the business. At 30 September net debt is now expected to be less than £65m, and this revised facility, with significant headroom, gives us greater flexibility to support our strategy for growth, and lowers our cost of debt."
At 0930 BST, the shares were down 0.2% to 51.40p. |
World facing massive financial shock: Deutsche Bank | Another financial crisis is looming and central banks may be the cause, according to Deutsche Bank. It revealed financial crises have increased since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, and blamed current instability on the fiat money system. The institution also pointed out the $13tn of assets held between the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, and bloated levels of government debt, hitting 70% of GDP. Deutsche Bank said: "there is no natural point where a purge of the excesses is forced by a restriction on credit creation".
| https://qz.com/1096237/deutsche-bank-analysis-on-the-frequency-of-financial-crises/?mc_cid=edd5869633&mc_eid=a37072368a | 2017-10-11 05:17:55.027000 | Financial crises are happening more frequently, becoming almost a fixture of modern life, according to research by Deutsche Bank. While meltdowns remain difficult to see in advance, the next panic is almost certainly brewing, and it may well be provoked by the world’s major central banks.
The German bank’s study of developed markets uses this criteria to define a financial crisis: on a year-over-year basis, a 15% drop in stock markets, 10% decline in foreign-exchange, 10% fall in bonds, 10% increase in inflation, or a sovereign default.
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Deutsche Bank argues that crises have been increasingly frequent since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, which, after World War II, fixed exchange-rates and essentially linked them to the price of gold. That coordination ended in the 1970s when the US broke the dollar’s peg to the yellow metal. The link to a finite commodity helped limit the amount of debt that could be created.
As strategists at the Frankfurt-based lender see it, the resulting fiat money system has encouraged rising budget deficits, higher debts, global imbalances, and more unstable markets. At the same time, banking regulations have been loosened. In the US, the industry may soon have fewer restrictions and less oversight, a mere 10 years since the last worldwide crisis.
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Post-Bretton Woods, policy makers have the flexibility to create as much money as needed to sooth a financial meltdown. However, this can also provide the foundation for the next one, according to Deutsche Bank. A subsequent, potentially bigger, crisis is more likely because the problem has just been passed along to another part of the financial system. The Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, and European Central Bank now hold more than $13 trillion of assets on their balance sheets, up from less than $4 trillion in 2007, according to Yardeni Research.
The modern framework can allow credit stockpiles to climb: Global government debt is approaching 70% of gross domestic product, the highest since World War II and up from less than 20% in the 1970s, according to Deutsche Bank. The US has run an annual budget deficit for 53 of the past 60 years.
“We think this leaves the current global economy particularly prone to a cycle of booms, busts, heavy intervention, recovery and the cycle starting again,” Deutsche Bank said. “There is no natural point where a purge of the excesses is forced by a restriction on credit creation.”
Where will the next crisis come from? Deutsche Bank says there are plenty of things to worry about. Italy has a massive debt burden, a brittle banking system, and a dysfunctional government. China may have a property bubble on its hands and has long been fueling its growth with debt. Populist political parties could disrupt the world order as we’ve known it.
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But one of the most obvious problems is how to unwind central bank balance sheets of unprecedented size, during a time of record-high peacetime government debt, while bond yields are at multi-century low interest-rates. The bank’s strategists say they’re “quite confident” there will soon be another financial shock, a pattern that will be repeated until the world figures out a more stable financial framework. |
Researchers develop new way of gauging water content in solvents | Researchers from the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in Germany have developed a method to determine how much water is present in solvents using luminescent metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). They combined MOFs containing terbium and europium and, using a magnetic field, were able to calculate water levels according to the brightness of the MOFs. Unwanted water is a problem in many chemical processes. Possible applications include within the petrochemical, food and biomedical industries, and lead scientist Klaus Müller-Buschbaum said the method is suitable for use outside the lab. | https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/bright-future-for-trace-water-analysis/3008106.article | 2017-10-11 05:15:29.793000 | Researchers from Germany have devised a new way to detect trace water in solvents. Their technique combines luminescent metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with a magnetic core to give a system that users can see change colour then fish out of the sample once the test is complete.
Unwanted water is a big problem for some areas of chemistry. Many materials are water sensitive and must be kept in a dry atmosphere. And in some organic syntheses, water can initiate unwanted side-reactions, so it’s important that solvents contain as little water as possible.
‘There are two main molecules that can be addressed for sensing: water and oxygen. If you look at how many goods are transported worldwide, such as over the ocean, humidity sensing becomes very important,’ comments Klaus Müller-Buschbaum of the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, who led the work.
Müller-Buschbaum and his colleagues have made a material that combines two different MOFs, one containing terbium and one containing europium, with superparamagnetic Fe 3 O 4 /SiO 2 microparticles. Water quenches the luminescent Tb3+ and Eu3+ centres unequally and concentrating the composite with a magnetic field means users can add it to test solvents to quantitatively determine how much water they contain by measuring then analysing the ratios of the luminescence bands.
‘We have the benefit that the magnetic properties allow us to have an additional chance to remove the sensor. We think that this is one of the exceptional things that this composite can do,’ says Müller-Buschbaum. ‘You can first disperse them and then concentrate them via a magnetic field. This is very good for strong signal augmentation,’ he adds.
The composite is very sensitive, with a detection limit of 40μg/l. This is equal to the classic Karl Fischer titration method, which uses either colourimetric or volumetric titration to spot trace amounts of water in a sample. However, due to the equipment it requires, the Karl Fischer method is unsuitable for use outside of a laboratory. Müller-Buschbaum and his colleagues, however, are keen to emphasise that their new composites allow for ‘on-the-fly’ analysis.
Sujit Ghosh, who researches MOFs at the Indian Institute for Science Education and Research in Pune, India, is cautiously optimistic about the composites: ‘The crucial steps of sensitivity retention and cost-effectiveness are important hurdles to cross before such materials can compete with existing techniques. However, this work has the potential to overtake Fischer titrations.’
Raffaele Riccò, who researches MOFs and magnetic nanoparticles at Graz University of Technology in Austria, says that the composites have great potential: ‘Applications ranging from analytical methods to biomedicine can be foreseen.’ Ricco’s colleague, Paolo Falcaro, is also encouraged by the work: ‘Petrochemical and food industries could benefit from this exciting composite.’ |
Regus Regus completes deal for 13,621 sq ft in Almondsbury, near Bristol | Regus has completed a deal to lease space in a business park near Bristol, taking lettings at the development to 85% of its capacity. Brotherswood Court in Almondsbury provides 61,000 sq ft of high-quality office space in former farm buildings, and was acquired by M7 Real Estate last year. Since then, it has seen a string of lettings including that by Regus, which has taken 13,621 sq ft in Redwood House, completing the occupation of that building.
| http://www.commercialnewsmedia.com/archives/66486 | 2017-10-11 04:22:30.843000 | A string of recent transactions at an Almondsbury business park has resulted in 85% of the office space being let or under offer.
Brotherswood Court in Almondsbury, provides 61,000 sq ft of high quality office accommodation. It was developed in the early 1990s from three farm buildings and now comprises eight separate office buildings housed within an attractive and mature landscaped area. The office buildings, together with a restaurant, create an interesting and attractive alternative to more traditional office parks. It is located near to the M4 and M5 providing excellent transport links.
Since the acquisition by M7 Real Estate in 2016, a number of recent lettings has resulted in Brotherswood Court now being 85% let or under offer.
Regus has just completed a deal to take 13,621 sq ft in Redwood House, meaning that this building is now fully let. Regus are offering smaller starter suites to sub-tenants.
The first floor of Willow House is now also fully let with Schade Lagertechnik expanding across the entire first floor, doubling the amount of space they occupy. Opus Land has also recently committed to a new long term lease in Willow House.
Daikin has agreed a new long term lease in Maple House for 6,027sq ft.
Birch House (3,762 sq ft) has been put under offer on a long leasehold basis, leaving Cedar House (5,993 sq ft) and Laurel House (3,876 sq ft) available either for sale as a whole or for lease either as a whole or in part.
James Chasen, Asset Manager for M7 Real Estate, says, “We have eight separate office buildings which all have their own unique character set within a landscaped business environment. We’re happy to agree flexible terms with tenants who wish to join the existing businesses who already enjoy the location and facilities here at Brotherswood Court.”
Alex Riddell from GVA, joint agent on Brotherswood Court with Burston Cook, comments, “This is a sensitively designed office development that retains many of its farmhouse origins within its character. Located close to the M4 and M5, its strategic location for businesses who need to be close to transport connections, with excellent parking ratios, couldn’t be better.” |
Diversity recruitment sector emerging as major new industry | A new industry of diversity-recruitment has evolved from the failure of US firms to broaden the base of their workforces, with Fortune 500 companies spending a total of $16bn each year on hiring, equivalent to $32m per company. Firms spend $2.5m annually on recruiting minority candidates and this figure is expected to double, or even increase four-fold, in the near future. Over the past decade, companies have also shifted from viewing diversity as a social good to something that is imperative for business success, with McKinsey reporting that ethnically diverse companies outperform competitors by 35%. | https://work.qz.com/1092540/techs-diversity-failures-are-a-massive-business-opportunity-for-the-minority-recruitment-industry/ | 2017-10-10 22:00:00 | The birth of the modern diversity-recruitment industry can be dated to Oct. 11, 2013.
That’s the day Tracy Chou, an engineer at Pinterest, published a post on Medium laying bare her company’s poor record at hiring women engineers. Within a week, employees at dozens of tech companies followed. The next year, tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple formally issued reports showing they, too, had dismal results in hiring women, along with black and Hispanic workers. By 2016, 250 companies across a wide swath of industries were sharing their data.
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By going public with these numbers—and with their commitment to improve their hiring record—the companies challenged themselves. And when they failed to meet their own goals, they opened a window for a new set of businesses that saw an enormous, and lucrative, opportunity.
Fortune 500 companies spend a collective $16 billion annually on hiring, or roughly $32 million per company, according to Ryan Williams. He’s a co-founder of Jopwell, a startup that matches minority candidates with employers, via an online database. About $2.5 million a year is spent on recruiting minority candidates, a figure that will at least double, and could increase four-fold, in the next several years as employers scramble to catch up to a country where demographics are changing rapidly. By the 2040s, people of color will account for the majority of Americans, Williams notes. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg here, in terms of what companies are going to be (spending),” he says.
The potential size of the diversity-recruitment market is a reflection of the urgency felt by employers, and how much the conversation around diversity hiring has changed in recent years.
For decades, diversity recruitment was viewed by corporations as a worthwhile pursuit, but not essential, something companies did out of a sense of social obligation if at all. Efforts were mostly on a small scale, and the pipeline of prospective hires often was managed by nonprofits, like Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, that provided candidates with coaching and mentoring.
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That began to change as corporate America woke up to the growing buying power of US minorities. Hispanic consumers just in the US, for example, are projected to spend $1.7 trillion in 2020, almost eight times more than in 1990. Gradually, executives realized that marketing to black and Hispanic customers is more effective when black and Hispanic people are involved from the outset, and it helps companies avoid blunders like naming their coffee chain “Beaner’s,” a slur for Latinos, a mistake that cost more than $1 million to fix (it’s now called Biggby Coffee).
But the biggest shift from thinking of diversity as a public good to a business imperative came in the last decade, once it became clear how diversity improved group decision-making. Research showed that teams with more women outperformed male-only teams, and groups of students with diverse racial backgrounds did better than homogeneous teams with higher test scores.
Corporate America’s monochromatic executive teams weren’t just an embarrassment for progressive CEOs; they were a business liability. McKinsey reported that ethnically diverse companies outperform their peers by 35%. And in a Korn Ferry survey of 400 executives, 96% said diversity and inclusion could improve their bottom lines.
Nothing motivates business like a threat to its profit margins. At many companies, diversity and inclusion has now moved from an obscure corner of the HR department to become a corporate priority, opening the floodgates of spending on consultants and vendors eager to solve the problem.
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In theory, the diversity-recruitment industry is one that should spell its own demise. Once women and minorities are represented in significant numbers, there shouldn’t be a need for extra efforts to recruit them. But in a world where just 1% of Google’s engineers are black, and only 18% of Microsoft’s leaders are women, there’s no reason to believe Jopwell and its competitors won’t be in business for years to come. |
California’s governor blames climate change for wildfires | The Governor of the US state of California, which is experiencing wildfires that have killed at least 15 people and destroyed huge areas of the Napa Valley wine region, has said that global warming will increase the chance of future fires. Jerry Brown is a leading figure in the campaign against climate change. The economic impact of the fires remains unclear. Although most of the region’s grapes have already been harvested, the 20% that remain are some of the most valuable. At least two wineries are believed to have been destroyed and the smoke could affect surviving crops. | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/09/california-wildfires-wine-country-blaze | 2017-10-10 22:00:00 | At least 15 people have died in northern California after what officials are describing as an “unprecedented” wildfire that has already destroyed 2,000 structures and devastated large swaths of wine country.
“We often have multiple fires going on, but the majority of them all started right around the same time period, same time of night – it’s unprecedented,” Amy Head, the fire captain spokeswoman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection, told the Guardian. “I hate using that word because it’s been overused a lot lately because of how fires have been in the past few years, but it truly is – there’s just been a lot of destruction.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Sonoma sheriff’s office said about 150 people were still reported as missing.
About 20,000 people have been evacuated, including hundreds of senior citizens from nursing homes, and public schools in Napa and Sonoma counties were closed on Tuesday. Major fires in those regions remain completely uncontained, threatening thousands of homes and vineyards in the wine country north of San Francisco.
Still, calmer conditions on Monday night helped fire crews get a handle on the situation, said another Cal Fire spokeswoman, Heather Williams.
“The acreage isn’t going up drastically, and hopefully over the next few days we’re going to start to see those containment numbers go up.”
California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in eight mostly northern counties – Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Sonoma and Yuba counties. On Monday, during a visit to the state, Vice-President Mike Pence said he had spoken with Brown.
“The dryness of the climate, the strength of the winds – you all in California know much better than this midwesterner does,” Pence said. “But I can assure you, as I did the governor, that the federal government stands ready to provide any and all assistance to the state of California.”
Eleven of the deaths occurred in Napa and Sonoma counties, according to Cal Fire. Three were further north, in Mendocino county, and the last in the eastern Yuba county, officials said. Entire neighborhoods and a trailer park in the town of Santa Rosa, 55 miles from San Francisco, have already been razed, along with a Hilton hotel, according to local reports.
Years of drought in California, followed by an extremely wet winter, have meant that vegetation is thicker and more susceptible to the fires that tend to be at their worst in the autumn. Officials say the high winds are hampering firefighting efforts in the region about 140 miles (225km) north of San Francisco. To assist with the efforts the country’s largest firefighting aircraft – a converted 747 – has been deployed.
“It was an inferno like you’ve never seen before,” said Marian Williams, who caravanned with neighbors through flames before dawn as one of the wildfires reached the vineyards and ridges at her small Sonoma County town of Kenwood.
Williams could feel the heat of her fire through the car as she fled. “Trees were on fire like torches,” she said.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in counties north of San Francisco Bay and elsewhere after blazes broke out late on Sunday.
00:37 View from the sky reveals California wildfires devastation - video
Williams, said that 17 major fires had started in the past 36 hours in the California, burning about 115,000 acres, mostly in the northern part of the state.
She added that unusually high winds had made the fires spread so quickly. “Night-time is when humidity is the highest and temperatures are cooler, but that wind, fueled by denser vegetation, really pushed these fires so quickly.”
The high number of deaths in one series of connected fires is unusual. There have been, on average, 13 wildfire deaths a year in the whole of the US since 2014, according to figures collated by the National Interagency Fire Center.
Head, the Cal Fire captain, said the fires were probably linked to a warming climate. “It has been hotter, it has been drier, our fire seasons have been longer, fires are burning more intensely, which is a direct correlation to the climate changing,” she said.
With so many fires, residents of Sonoma County struggled to figure out which roads to take, finding downed trees or flames blocking some routes.
Fires also burned just to the east in the Napa County wine country as well as in Yuba, Butte and Nevada counties, all north of the state capital. Cal Fire tweeted that as many as 8,000 homes were threatened in Nevada County, which lies on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.
Smoke was thick in San Francisco, 60 miles (96km) south of the Sonoma County fire.
00:17 Family film their escape from California wildfire: 'even the road is alight' – video
Pillars of heavy smoke rose from the hills surrounding the town of Napa as the sun set on one of the deadliest days of wildfires in California’s history. As darkness took over, the hills around wine country glowed red.
“We’ve never had a fire like this before,” said Mike Willmarth, a Napa middle school teacher who has lived in the area for 30 years. “We’ve never had devastation like this.”
Margaret Beardsley, 92, sat in a wheelchair next to her husband, Robert, and daughter, Nora. Beardsley used an oxygen tank and wore a surgical mask – the smoke in the air had irritated her lungs.
Burned out wine bottles sit on a rack at the fire damaged Signorello Estate winery. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“It’s terrible,” said Beardsley, who has lived in Napa for 46 years and never been evacuated before. “When we left we had no idea if we would have anything to come back to. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed.”
The lack of information was frustrating George Bradley, 74, a retired cement mason who has lived in the Napa area for his entire life. He hadn’t been able to contact his mother, and was worried about the house he had evacuated at about 1.30pm.
“We just paid it off. We just got the deed,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s still standing or not.”
The fire’s economic impact is not yet known – the hundreds of wineries in Napa and Sonoma valleys are their lifeblood. Reports indicate that two wineries – Signorello Estate Winery and Paradise Ridge Winery – were destroyed and that portions of another, Stags’ Leap, were also burned.
Although most of this year’s grapes have been harvested, the remaining 20% are some of the most valuable, said Jennifer Putnam, executive director of Napa Valley Grapegrowers, the Napa Valley vineyard trade association. “It’s some of the best fruit that Napa produces, all of the cabernet sauvignon, so it will have a major economic impact if this last 20% can’t be picked,” she said. “We will have to see where we are tomorrow and next week to see how the grapes are metabolizing all this smoke.”
Agencies contributed reporting
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California’s governor blames climate change for wildfires | The Governor of the US state of California, which is experiencing wildfires that have killed at least 15 people and destroyed huge areas of the Napa Valley wine region, has said that global warming will increase the chance of future fires. Jerry Brown is a leading figure in the campaign against climate change. The economic impact of the fires remains unclear. Although most of the region’s grapes have already been harvested, the 20% that remain are some of the most valuable. At least two wineries are believed to have been destroyed and the smoke could affect surviving crops. | http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/10/11/gov-brown-climate-change-california-wildfires/ | 2017-10-10 22:00:00 | SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) -- California Gov. Jerry Brown warns that catastrophic wildfires will keep ripping through the state as the climate warms.
Brown told reporters Wednesday that more people are living in communities close to forests and brush that easily ignite because of dry weather. Blazes burning in Northern California have become some of the deadliest in state history.
ALSO READ: Complete Coverage of Wine County Wildfires
Wine Country Wildfires: How You Can Help
He said a warming climate has contributed to catastrophic wildfires. "That's the way it is with a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture." said Brown. "These kind of catastrophes have happened and they'll continue to happen, and we have to be prepared to do everything we can to mitigate."
The governor has positioned himself as a leader in the fight against climate change.
Brown says the federal government has pledged assistance but points out resources also are going to hurricane recovery efforts in Texas and Florida.
© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
Jamie’s Italian tops nutritional ranking for children’s meals | Jamie’s Italian and Strada have topped a league table produced by the Soil Association, which rates the nutritional value of children’s menus in UK restaurant chains. In conjunction with chef and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the environmental group found that progress had been achieved since its first ranking in 2013, with 13 chains including salad or vegetables with each meal and 12 using organic ingredients. However, some chains still served highly calorific meals and charged extra for vegetables. Beefeater and Weatherspoons were rated in the top five, while Prezzo and Nando’s received poor rankings. Burger King was bottom of the table.
| http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/childrens-menus-best-worst-uk-restaurant-chain-soil-association-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall-jamies-a7994111.html?_cldee=Y2xhaXJlLnBpY2thcmRAY3VyYXRpb25jb3JwLmNvbQ%3d%3d&recipientid=contact-91f5a5447205e61180c8005056ad0bd4-7659b9d5a32746a3aaaa7203d711c7c8&esid=9fc96498-1cb0-e711-8169-005056ad0bd4&urlid=0 | 2017-10-10 22:00:00 | Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the
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When it comes to healthy options on children’s menus, it’s historically been slim/chubby pickings, depending on how you look at it.
To mark World Obesity Day, the Soil Association have released a league table ranking the nutritional value of children’s menus at restaurant chains across the UK - and the results may surprise you.
In collaboration with TV chef and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall , the team have uncovered that a number of popular chains still fail to offer children healthy choices, with some serving hugely calorific dishes and charging extra for portions of vegetables.
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The campaign recruited 80 volunteer families as “secret diners” who were sent out to review more than 90 establishments. Restaurants and pubs were awarded points and subsequently ranked on the nutritional value of their children’s menus.
Jamie’s Italian was crowned the winner, followed by Strada (who serve a salad with every meal) while fast-food joint Burger King came last.
(The Soil Association (The Soil Association)
Surprisingly, popular chains such as Nando’s and Prezzo ranked poorly, whereas Wetherspoons and Beefeater scored in the top five thanks to their sustainable fish and organic offerings, despite being less known for their culinary delights.
At the lower end of the chart, some dishes were found to include additives such as E133, E120 (made from insects) and MSG, all of which have been linked to hyperactivity.
The most calorific dish on the league table was Harvester's chocolate cookie pizza - a cookie topped with chocolate sauce, marshmallows, strawberries, butterscotch sauce and chocolate buttons - which contains 721 calories.
Whilst there is clearly still room for improvement when it comes to children’s meals, the campaign notes that much progress has been made since it launched in 2013, with 13 chains now serving vegetables or salad with every meal and 12 using organic ingredients.
Plus, Pizza Hut and TGI Fridays have agreed to discontinue free refills of soft drinks from March 2018, whilst Harvester and Café Rouge will also be reducing the portion sizes of their children’s pudding offerings.
“Many restaurants are now prioritising child health and investing in healthier and more creative meal options,” said Rob Percival from the Soil Association.
“But there is still a national scandal unfolding in plain sight: 75 per cent of UK parents say they are worried by the portion size of children’s puddings when they eat out.
“We found that renegade chains are ignoring parent concerns by dishing up super-sized calorific junk, undermining national efforts to tackle childhood obesity,” he said.
The Out to Lunch campaign is using its findings to entice restaurant chains to improve their children's menus by reducing portion sizes and including vegetables with every dish. |
Jamie’s Italian tops nutritional ranking for children’s meals | Jamie’s Italian and Strada have topped a league table produced by the Soil Association, which rates the nutritional value of children’s menus in UK restaurant chains. In conjunction with chef and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the environmental group found that progress had been achieved since its first ranking in 2013, with 13 chains including salad or vegetables with each meal and 12 using organic ingredients. However, some chains still served highly calorific meals and charged extra for vegetables. Beefeater and Weatherspoons were rated in the top five, while Prezzo and Nando’s received poor rankings. Burger King was bottom of the table.
| https://www.soilassociation.org/outtolunch/ | 2017-10-10 22:00:00 | Our Out To Lunch 2022 campaign sent an army of “secret diner” parents out to assess the quality of food on offer at 16 UK visitor attractions.
We gathered the results and marked the attractions out of 100. We revealed how attractions are “slicing, dicing and ditching” children’s menus as they battle with rising ingredient costs and staff shortages. |
Battery-grade lithium made from spodumene concentrate in Mali | China-based lithium carbonate producer Shandong Ruifu Lithium said it produced a high-quality, low-impurity and battery-grade lithium carbonate using spodumene concentrate from Kodal Minerals’ Bougouni project in southern Mali. "The test work completed previously had demonstrated good metallurgical recoveries producing a high-grade spodumene concentrate, and these test results now confirm that this spodumene can be converted to a final lithium carbonate product that will be a premium product compared with many others in the market", said Kodal CEO Bernard Aylward. | http://www.miningweekly.com/article/kodal-confirms-battery-grade-lithium-carbonate-produced-from-bougouni-spodumene-concentrate-2017-10-09 | 2017-10-10 14:01:48.647000 | JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – China-based lithium carbonate producer Shandong Ruifu Lithium has produced a high-quality, low-impurity and battery-grade lithium carbonate using spodumene concentrate from Aim-listed Kodal Minerals’ Bougouni project, in southern Mali.
The chemical analysis of the final lithium carbonate product shows low levels of impurities, supporting its positioning as a premium product compared with many other products in the market.
Earlier test work had demonstrated the ability to produce spodumene concentrates ranging between 5.5% and 6.7% lithium oxide from Bougouni samples through flotation treatment of reverse circulation drill chips.
“The test work completed previously had demonstrated good metallurgical recoveries producing a high-grade spodumene concentrate, and these test results now confirm that this spodumene can be converted to a final lithium carbonate product that will be a premium product compared with many others in the market,” Kodal CEO Bernard Aylward said in a statement on Monday.
He added that Kodal was maintaining a busy exploration and definition programme at Bougouni.
The programme includes the extraction of a 5 000 t bulk sample to be shipped to China for further testing and review of potential plant design parameters.
“Our exploration drilling and definition work is scheduled to begin as soon as possible after the rainy season, with a drill rig contracted to undertake a large-scale programme testing our advanced prospects, as well as several high-priority new prospects.”
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TriForce Tokens, Coventry University form gaming services tie-up | UK blockchain gaming start-up TriForce Tokens has partnered with the commercial arm of Coventry University as it prepares to launch a cryptocurrency platform. The Coventry-based firm will hold an initial coin offering (ICO) next month with the aim of raising $40m, after a pre-sale on 14 October. The new token and the infrastructure being launched alongside it are intended to give independent games developers easier access to a range of features, helping them with player reach and retention, in-game purchasing, tournaments and peer rankings.
| https://themerkle.com/blockchain-gaming-platform-triforce-tokens-supported-by-coventry-university-enterprise-pre-ico-14th-october/ | 2017-10-10 13:20:18.810000 | About The Author
The writer of this post is a guest. Opinions in the article are solely of the writer and do not reflect The Merkle's view. |
Retailing brands in India accuse Amazon of 'ambush marketing' | Established Indian supermarkets have withdrawn a number of big name brands from their shelves, after accusing Amazon of "ambush marketing" to steal their customers. Amazon had bundled gift vouchers with packs of Nestle's KitKat chocolate and Coca Cola's Sprite and Fanta, among others. In response, retailers including Bazaar, D-Mart and Walmart's Best Price Modern Wholesale have returned the products and complained to the brands involved. D-Mart's CEO has described Amazon's move as an attempt to attract customers from within rivals' stores.
| http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/10/10/indian-retailing-brands-accuse-amazon-ambush-marketing-selling-bundled-coupons | 2017-10-10 12:49:12.027000 | Indian retailing brands Big Bazaar, Hyper-City, Star Bazaar, D-Mart, Walmart-owned Best Price Modern Wholesale, Big-Basket have accused Amazon of 'ambush marketing'.
As reported by Economic Times, retailers are now removing the items as they see this as a move by Amazon to acquire their customers. Packs of brands such as ITC’s Yippee Noodles, Nestle’s KitKat chocolate and Coca Cola’s Sprite and Fanta soft drinks are among the brands that are, or were, being retailed at offline stores along with Amazon gift coupons.
Kishore Biyani, founder of Future Group said: “We will not allow ambush marketing at any cost. We have started removing such products from the shelves and told brands not to supply us packs that have any promotional tie-up with a rival retailer.”
“The act of promoting a specific distribution channel through a cash incentive on products sold through traditional distribution is not good for the growth of the industry,” he said. “Small traders and retailers will be significantly impacted from a promotion, which is incentivising consumers to shop in a competing channel.”
D-Mart chief executive Neville Noronha referred Amazon's bundled coupon move as one “below the belt.” He said: “Principally, the brands should have spoken to us. Amazon is using us as a channel to acquire customers without any agreement with us. We’ve communicated our point of view to the brands.
An Amazon spokesperson said : “Amazon regularly runs various kinds of promotional activities with sellers and brand partners in keeping with its vision to make online commerce a part of everyday life."
Recently, Indian online companies form lobby to combat global rivals Amazon and Uber. |
Australian payments firm Mint joins with PoS distributor Sektor | Payment processing technology firm Mint Payments is set to expand its presence in Australia's retail and hospitality markets after signing a five-year agreement with Sektor, a distributor of PoS products, such as barcode scanners and PoS terminals. Sektor will acquire all Mint's hardware, manage its distribution and provide the firm with marketing and promotional support. Mint is hoping to use the deal to make further inroads into the enterprise mobility market, which comprises business users of mobile devices, wireless networks and mobile computing services. Mint currently has around 16,000 users and is eyeing distribution partnerships in the Asian sector.
| https://www.crn.com.au/news/sektor-adds-e-payments-provider-mint-to-portfolio-474757 | 2017-10-10 12:35:29.910000 | Retail and mobile computing distributor Sektor has signed a five-year distribution agreement with payment processing technology provider Mint Payments.
The agreement will see Mint’s payment products integrated into new and existing point-of-sales (POS) solutions sold by Sektor.
“Sektor is a great partner for Mint and the agreement gives us immediate access to a large SME market in Australia,” Mint Payments chief executive Alex Teoh said.
“Sektor’s well-established network of vendors’ services millions of businesses in this space and it gives us the capacity to ramp up users of our payment solutions beyond current levels.”
Mint said that this agreement will further ramp up user numbers, which currently sits at around 16,000 with a compound annual growth rate of around 106 percent.
The agreement aims to open up Mint’s offerings further into the retail, hospitality and enterprise mobility markets in Australia.
“Sektor is excited to have a full POS and payment offering for our integrator partners to take to market,” Sektor chief executive Rhys Warren said.
“It’s relevant for them to now be involved in these solutions, it provides additional growth for these partners, and the Mint solution is delivering many new benefits for their merchant customers.”
Sektor will acquire all of Mint’s existing hardware and manage the logistics of the payment solutions distribution, while also providing support for Mint’s marketing and promotion.
Mint said it will explore new distribution partnerships in Asia as well. |
Nokia Technologies to turn focus away from VR to digital health | Nokia Technologies is to abandon its Ozo virtual reality (VR) camera development programme and instead focus on digital health and licensing. The Ozo camera was aimed at professional film-makers and did generate investment from major companies, including Sony Pictures. Nokia said it's pulling the plug after slower-than-expected uptake of VR in the media industry. It stressed, however, it will maintain its commitments to existing customers.
| https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/10/nokia-to-halt-development-of-its-ozo-vr-business-as-it-focuses-digital-health-and-licensing/ | 2017-10-10 11:55:01.143000 | Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.
Nokia has announced plans to “halt” development of its Ozo VR camera, citing “slower-than-expected” virtual reality adoption in the digital media realm.
It was back in July 2015 that Nokia first announced the Ozo VR camera, a device that sported eight synchronized shutter sensors and microphones for stereoscopic three-dimensional video. With a starting price of $60,000, the camera was aimed squarely at professional filmmakers, though the price later dropped to a more palatable $25,000.
Image Credit: Nokia
Although some major media companies — including Sony Pictures — did invest in the Ozo VR camera, it seems the adoption rate hasn’t been what Nokia had hoped for, and now it’s pulling the plug.
“In digital media, the slower-than-expected development of the VR market means that Nokia Technologies plans to reduce investments and focus more on technology licensing opportunities,” the company said in a statement.
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Evolving
Ever since offloading its mobile phone division to Microsoft for $7 billion in 2014, and selling its Here mapping unit to a handful of German carmakers, Nokia has essentially consisted of two units: Nokia Networks, a broadband network infrastructure business, and Nokia Technologies, a division that seeks to keep the Nokia brand alive in the consumer realm. This has included digital health devices via a $192 million Withings acquisition and the Ozo VR camera. It’s worth noting here that Nokia has also been licensing its brand name out to a new standalone company called HMD Global, which has been bringing a growing number of Nokia mobile phones to market.
Moving forward, Nokia said that it will increase its focus on digital health and brand and technology licensing, in addition to maintaining its existing patent licensing business, which it says “is not in scope of planned changes.” By way of example, Apple and Nokia recently ended a long-running legal spat when they signed a multi-year patent agreement — Nokia’s arsenal of intellectual property (IP) patents is clearly a big money-spinner for the company.
Though Nokia said it will “maintain its commitments” to existing Ozo VR customers — after all, if you’d doled out $60,000 for a device you would expect nothing less — the company did warn that halting work on the camera will mean staff cutbacks. Nokia Technologies employs 1,090 people in Finland, the U.S., and the U.K., and the company suggested that around a third of those jobs are now on the chopping block.
Today’s news comes just four months after Nokia Technologies nabbed Gregory Lee, Samsung North America’s CEO, as its new global president. At the time of the hire, Rajeev Suri, CEO and president of Nokia and chairman of Nokia Technologies, gave no indication that the company’s VR business was on its last legs. “Gregory’s passion for innovation and operational excellence, along with his proven ability to build and lead global consumer technology businesses, make him well suited to advance Nokia’s efforts in virtual reality, digital health, and beyond,” said Suri.
But it seems that four months is a long time in technology, and a lot can change. When it comes to VR, Nokia clearly believes the writing is on the wall, and it’s quite possible that the world isn’t ready to embrace VR as Nokia had hoped.
“Nokia Technologies is at a point where, with the right focus and investments, we can meaningfully grow our footprint in the digital health market, and we must seize that opportunity,” noted Lee. “While necessary, the changes will also affect our employees, and as a responsible company we are committed to providing the needed support to those affected.” |
Lingerie brand Freya latest advertiser to get into podcasting | Japanese lingerie manufacturer Wacoal Group is considering using podcasts to promote its portfolio, following the success of its Freya brand's original content, When Life Gives You Melons. Laura Simon, Wacoal’s chief marketing officer for Europe, said the medium offered a chance to be "culturally relevant and resonate with potential shoppers", and move away from the "historical male gaze stuff". The group, which saw net sales of JPY203bn ($1.81bn) in 2016, also owns the Fantasie, Goddess and Elomi brands.
| http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/10/10/freya-betting-big-original-podcasts-it-seeks-redefine-lingerie-marketing | 2017-10-10 11:52:15.133000 | Wacoal-owned lingerie brand Freya is the latest advertiser to hedge its bets on original podcasts, with the group’s top marketer in Europe saying the medium is something the Japanese company – which also owns Fantasie, Goddess and Elomi – might now invest in across its portfolio.
The brand's podcast, When Life Gives You Melons, is hosted by TV presenter and radio host Maya Jama and aimed at busy young women. The eight-part series was created by PR agency The Romans and is poised to run through to the festive period, featuring weekly chats with celebrity guests around issues affecting young women, which includes everything from “from career advice to boobs”.
Laura Simon, Wacoal’s chief marketing officer for Europe, said the decision to produce original content with the power to weave its way into women’s everyday lives was a no brainer given that Freya’s target demographic of 25 to 34-year-olds counts for around 40% of the UK's podcast audience.
“The conversations women are having with friends around dating, relationships and work are very powerful. So, it’s about finding our place in that culture and doing something that connects with our audience in a way that is different within the [lingerie] category," she told The Drum.
From Wonderbra’s famous 90s ‘Hello Boys’ billboards to Curvy Kate’s body positive-centric campaigns, lingerie marketing has witnessed a significant shift in recent years, and for Simon this progression is something the Wacoal, which turned around ¥203bn (£1.37bn) in net sales last year, is throwing its weight behind.
"It’s really important that we move away from the historical male gaze stuff and go into being in the narrative of people’s lives and create something relevant. That’s what the podcast does," continued Simon.
What's more, she said, podcasts are personal; listeners have to make a conscious choice to download or subscribe, making them an attractive buy for advertisers seeking an alternative to potentially off-putting online ads which interrupt user experiences.
“We have a loyal consumer, but we want to think about attracting younger fans and establishing a clear tone of voice for the brand with a podcast that reflects our consumers,” she added, saying she believed podcasts give brands a chance to be culturally relevant and resonate with potential shoppers in a fresh way.
Freya’s timely choice to double down on podcasts comes amid similar moves from brands like Jaguar Land Rover which has been experimenting with immersive story-driven podcasts and eBay which is on the second series of its Open for Business how-to style show.
In the UK, Rajar figures from last winter claim that podcasts reach 4.7 million UK adults, but the US is arguably ahead of the curve. Earlier this year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) unveiled its first "podcast playbook" for brands looking to capture US listeners' ears while research conducted by PwC estimates podcast ad revenues in the States are set to top $200m (£151m) this year alone, an 85% leap on the previous year.
Freya's content sits alongside the likes of S-Town and BBC Women’s Hour, only recognisable as a branded podcast by the publisher name. Simon said the aim is to keep the conversation as natural as possible with the only mentions of Freya bookmarking the podcast at the start, middle and end – as any other sponsor would typically do.
The wider Wacoal group has undergone something of a marketing remodel since Simon joined in 2016, and while it's too early to measure results of the Freya podcast trials, anecdotal feedback has so far has been positive, she said.
The first episode peaked in the top 20 in the UK podcast charts, with Simon saying that across the wider group is now mulling further investment in the medium. |
Start-up takes full-page WSJ ad to tease Jamie Dimon over cryptos | Swiss cryptocurrency wallet firm Eidoo has poked fun at JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon by taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, which said: "Maybe Jamie will fire you. But you will be free to trade in the crypto world". The ad followed a recent comment by Dimon when he dubbed cryptocurrencies "worse than tulip bulbs" and threatened to fire any bank employees trading them. Eidoo recently raised $23.7m in an initial coin offering, while bitcoin's value has risen by more than 350% this year.
| http://uk.businessinsider.com/a-crypto-company-took-out-an-ad-in-the-wall-street-journal-to-poke-fun-at-jamie-dimon-2017-10?r=US&IR=T | 2017-10-10 11:31:08.153000 | Jamie Dimon called bitcoin 'a fraud' in September. REUTERS/Jason Reed
A cryptocurrency company took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday to fire back at JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who in September called bitcoin "a fraud."
The ad, taken out by Eidoo, a cryptocurrency wallet company, said "Maybe Jamie will fire you. But you will be free to trade in the crypto world."
That's alluding to comments made by Dimon on September 12.
While speaking at a Barclays financial conference, Dimon bashed bitcoin saying it is in a bubble "worse than tulips bulbs." Dimon added that he would fire anyone at the bank for trading the red-hot cryptocurrency for being stupid.
Bitcoin is up more than 350% year-to-date.
A full page ad in The Wall Street Journal can cost as much as $354,823, a high price tag for most startups. But Eidoo, which provides an app for cryptocurrency investors to store their various coins and tokens, appears to have cash to spare. So far, it has raised more than 79,000 ether tokens in an initial coin offering, according to its website. That's worth roughly $23,700,000.
ICOs allow startups to raise money by issuing their own cryptocurrencies. Recently, ICOs have come under scrutiny from regulators because companies can use them to raise quick money without having to disclose substantive information to investors.
They've become a darling of blockchain and cryptocurrency startups looking to raise cash without having to go through the traditional avenues of venture capital or an initial public offering.
Here's a picture of the ad: |
UK landlords would refuse tenants based on court, credit history | Almost half of UK landlords would reject a tenant with a previous county court judgement and a similar proportion said a poor credit history would be enough for them to reject an applicant. Research by tenant referencing and insurance agency Landlord Secure also found almost one-third of landlords would be troubled by tenants with debts such as credit cards or loans. Landlord Secure, which recently launched a tool enabling property owners to flag up payment histories to credit reference agencies, said the study results suggest a comprehensive credit check should form part of the tenant-application process.
| https://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/almost-half-british-landlords-reject-new-tenant-poor-credit-rating/ | 2017-10-10 11:02:56.417000 | Almost half of landlords in the UK would refuse to let to a new tenant with a poor credit score despite in depth credit checks not forming a part of the usual application process.
Some 46% said that they put weight behind credit history and 48% said they would refuse to take on a tenant with a county court judgement in the past while 42% would reject an application from a prospective tenant with past insolvency issues.
The research from tenant referencing and insurance agency Landlord Secure also shows that applicants with existing debts like credit cards or loans would raise red flags for 30% of landlords, while those in receipt of housing benefits would struggle to be accepted by 19% of landlords and those on universal credit would fail against 16% of landlords.
Although rent payment history does not form part of credit checks, there are increasing calls within the sector for this to become the norm, so those in rental properties can build a credit score based on regular and timely payments and have access to the same advantages as those with a mortgage.
The research report points out that usually letting agencies rely heavily on publicly available information like county court judgements or declarations of bankruptcy, which can give some insight into a person’s previous financial footprint, but not the full picture of their current situation.
The firm says that the fact that landlords would put so much weight behind credit scores suggests the market needs to make this comprehensive check a normal part of the application process.
‘Those in rental properties are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to building a credit rating because paying rent on time doesn’t count towards this score,’ said Steve Burrows, managing director at Landlord Secure and LateRent.
‘Given that landlords would put more weight behind a tenant’s credit score, those in rental properties should be given the chance to build a better credit score based on their history of paying rent on time,’ he added.
Landlord Secure has recently launched LateRent that allows landlords to report payment history to credit reference agencies, enabling them to carry out robust affordability assessments on potential tenants. It also allows tenants who pay on time to build up a good credit history. |
Mastercard opens fintech innovation lab in India | Mastercard has opened an innovation lab in Pune, India, its second in the Asia-Pacific region and ninth globally. The lab will collaborate with fintech firms, merchant partners and financial institutions to develop technologies covering digital payments, data solutions, financial inclusion, alternative payments and safety and security. The lab also aims to support start-ups working on next-generation technologies via Mastercard’s Start Path programme.
| http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/security-tech/technology/mastercard-sets-up-innovation-lab-in-india/articleshow/61021587.cms | 2017-10-10 11:01:48.167000 | PUNE: Mastercard today announced the launch of its first Lab in India, which will work with partners in the fintech industry to identify and experiment with future technologies. Mastercard Labs , which has been set up in Pune, is the ninth such lab for the company globally, and the second in the Asia Pacific region.In a statement, the company said that Mastercard Labs will work with financial institutions and merchant partners and the fintech community to identify and experiment with future technologies in a few key areas including digital payments, data solutions, financial inclusion, alternative payments and safety and security. The Lab will also support and work with startups developing next generation, breakthrough commerce solutions through Mastercard’s Start Path program.“Learning, innovation, and collaboration cannot exist in isolation. The launch of the first Mastercard Labs in India is evidence of our commitment to designing solutions that drive commerce and create more inclusive societies around the world,” said Ken Moore, executive vice president, Mastercard Labs. By bringing together a team of passionate individuals from diverse cultures and disciplines, we seek to further accelerate and enhance our ability to launch innovations that help us improve the lives of everyday Indians and help them move closer to our vision of a world beyond cash.”The lab will drive innovation for Mastercard in India, through collaboration and co-creation with academia, fintech experts, technologists and developers based in India. It will identify and experiment with future technologies and drive new concepts and innovations through incubation, proof of concept, pilot and commercialization, in order to deliver additional value to consumers and businesses of India.“The Mastercard Labs in India provides a significant opportunity to highlight the country’s standing as a world-class innovation hub, renowned for its entrepreneurial spirit and growing pool of science, technology, engineering and mathematics talent,” said Tobias Puehse, Vice President, Mastercard Labs, Asia Pacific. “By establishing the new lab in Pune, we are looking to deepen our active collaborations with governments, issuers and businesses in India and revolutionize the market’s digital payments ecosystem to drive greater acceptance and adoption of electronic payments, not just in India but around the world.”Mastercard Labs is the latest in a series of collaborations the company has undertaken this year. It has worked with the National Payments Corporation of India ( NPCI ) and other payments brands to develop Bharat QR, the world’s first interoperable Quick Response (QR) code acceptance solution, as part of a national push to streamline local electronic payments infrastructure. |
Amazon, Alibaba and JD.com experience above-average growth | Online retail giants Amazon, JD.com and Alibaba are significantly outperforming their global rivals in the industry. While the average growth rate for retailers worldwide in 2016 stood at just 4.3%, Amazon's sales surged by 27%, adding £23.5bn ($31bn) to its revenue. JD.com and Alibaba exceeded even that, recording increases of 41% and 33% respectively, although they posted smaller cash totals. These companies, both based in China, are also investing in physical stores across the country. | http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/10/10/amazon-ranked-number-one-global-retailer-jdcom-and-alibaba-are-closing | 2017-10-10 10:52:15.133000 | Amazon, Alibaba and JD.com continue to outperform retailers worldwide, with the three e-commerce giants experiencing an average revenue growth rate of 30% in 2016, compared with a 4.3% average growth rate for retailers worldwide.
Amazon is the number one retailer globally but Chinese ecommerce giants are hot on its heels
A report from eMarketer, using data from UK-based OC&C Strategy Consultants, revealed the top ten retailers worldwide ranked by the increase in sales in 2016. |
Copycat adblocker app downloaded by 37,000 people | A copycat version of Chrome's AdBlock Plus has been downloaded by 37,000 people. Google removed the fraudulent extension from the Chrome Web Store after SwiftOnSecurity tweeted about it, but thousands had already been tricked by the phoney listing. Users are advised to re-install Adblock Plus if they notice random ads after downloading it.
| https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/09/fake-adblock-plus-chrome-extension/ | 2017-10-10 10:45:00.347000 | If you use Adblock Plus with Chrome and downloaded the extension pretty recently, you may want to check what you've installed. Apparently, a fake Adblock Plus extension made it through Google's verification process and lived in the official Chrome Web Store alongside the real one. Google has taken down the phony listing after SwiftOnSecurity tweeted about it and put the company on blast, but by then, it has already been up long enough to fool 37,000 people. That's a drop in the bucket for a service that has 10 million users, but it sounds like trouble for those who were unlucky enough to download it.
Google allows 37,000 Chrome users to be tricked with a fake extension by fraudulent developer who clones popular name and spams keywords. pic.twitter.com/ZtY5WpSgLt — SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) October 9, 2017
Legitimate developers just have to sit back and watch as Google smears them with fake extensions that steal their good name pic.twitter.com/3Tnv4NtY9t — SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) October 9, 2017
I'm being mean to Google because there's no way their Chrome team is happy with this extension vetting/moderation situation. — SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) October 9, 2017
SwiftOnSecurity says the fake extension was created by a "fraudulent developer who clones popular name and spams keywords." Indeed, it's pretty hard to tell that it's fake, since its developer's name is "Adblock Plus," and it has a considerable number of reviews.
According to one of the fake Adblock's reviewers, he started getting invasive ads that open lots of tabs after he installed it. Unfortunately, it's unclear what else it can do or if it has even more detrimental effects that we still don't know of. We asked Google if it has unearthed anything about the fraudulent extension, but even if we never hear back, it may be best to re-install Adblock Plus if you notice getting random ads after downloading it. |
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