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Chinese clean energy forced off grid by competition from coal | China is wasting vast amounts of renewable energy as coal-fired capacity continues to provide high levels of competition, a new study has found. Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that the curtailment rate for solar power in China reached 10% in 2016, with that for wind power being 17%. These are the highest rates in the world and are a consequence of the country's energy market being oversupplied by 35% by the end of last year. The cancelling of a number of new coal-fired plants could help ease the situation, researchers found, as could improvements in power transmission. | https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/26/bnef-shines-light-on-chinas-solar-curtailment-problem/ | 2017-10-30 09:06:05.147000 | Clean energy is competing with coal-fired generating capacity for priority dispatch in the country more than ever before, says Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). However, the consultancy — which has just released its new China Renewable Curtailment and Coal Stranded Assets Risk Map, in cooperation with the ClimateWorks Foundation — also says that factors such as rapidly rising power demand, hefty clean-energy subsidies and tough industrial competition at the regional level are creating “unprecedented” uncertainty for owners of coal-fired plants.
“The world’s largest power system will face serious challenges in the next few years,” BNEF says. “Renewable power generators face the worst curtailment rates in the world.”
At the national level, the average curtailment rate for solar reached 10% in 2016, as the country’s electricity market was oversupplied by 35% by the end of last December. And the situation remains precarious, as developers are now building about 24 GW of new solar capacity in regions where renewable energy is still being curtailed, as well as 30 GW of wind, according to BNEF.
In addition to losses arising from idled renewables capacity, China stands to lose as much as $237 billion from its threatened coal-fired plants, as more than 120 GW of new coal generation capacity is still being built throughout the country. With its new data-backed risk map, BNEF aims to shine a light on the criteria that Chinese energy regulators are using to guide the transformation of the country’s power market. The map offers a look at the cross-industry, provincial factors that will shape the development of the country’s energy sector through the end of this decade.
BNEF believes that the national curtailment rate will fall nationally in the years to come, as the pace of construction slows and more long-distance transmission capacity is brought online. In particular, it says that curtailment pressure will ease in Gansu province, as well as the Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia regions. However, solar and wind curtailment may start to become an issue in the southern part of the country by the end of the decade, particularly in provinces such as Fujian, Guizhou, Sichuan and Hunan.
That said, BNEF believes that through 2020, coal risk will remain an issue areas in which coal-fired generation is still widespread, such as the Inner Mongolia region, as well as Gansu, Shanxi, Jilin, and Yunnan provinces. “All will see their coal risk worsen or stay high going into 2020,” it argues. “Wholesale market liberalization will have a profound impact on the performance of coal power plants, especially in over-supplied provinces with significant competition from non-coal base-load capacity, such as hydro and nuclear.”
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BNEF sees the completion of new long-distance transmission projects, as well as power market reforms, as the key to easing renewable curtailment risks. “Ultra-high voltage transmission lines will help alleviate curtailment risks,” it says. “But the risk mitigation will depend highly on line utilization.”
For example, provinces that might be positioned to bring electricity in from other parts of the country may ultimately decide not to hurt local generators by importing power, it explains.
“Besides technical constraints, China's pre-set allocation dispatch mechanism is one of the most critical causes of renewable curtailment,” BNEF says. “The liberalization of (the) power market will significantly help curtailment alleviation if a spot market and ancillary market are successfully established.”
Despite the ongoing build-out of coal-fired plants, none of the provinces in China actually need to bring any new capacity online, based on the current supply/demand balance, it argues.
“Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Hebei are the only provinces where local generation fleet, de-rated for availability, is not equal to or higher than the peak demand load,” BNEF says. “However, these provinces can rely on imports as well as cleaner new build (like nuclear) to meet the shortfall. These regions are also severe air pollution control areas, so should not be building more coal-fired capacity for that reason.” |
Index funds could face future ownership limits: Bogle | Among the risks posed to index-tracking funds are the potential adjustment to regulations surrounding their holdings, Vanguard founder Jack Bogle has said. Current rules specify funds cannot own more than 10% of a company's voting shares. The likes of Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors, all of which have substantial indexed assets, have swerved this requirement in the past by launching new funds. With the continued growth of passive funds, it's possible regulators either look to increase the 10% limit or potentially apply the limit to an entire fund family, Bogle noted.
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/vanguards-bogle-says-asset-management-giant-he-founded-42-years-ago-is-almost-too-big-and-successful-2017-10-26 | 2017-10-30 09:02:08.403000 | Has Vanguard, the asset-managing giant that has dominated its competition as investors trend toward the kind of low-fee and passive products it specializes in, become too big for its own good? A perhaps-unexpected expert says it is nearing that point: Jack Bogle, Vanguard’s founder, who is often considered the father of passive investing.
“The economies of scale just can’t keep going on much longer,” Bogle said during an interview with Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance. Bogle suggested that if Vanguard hit $4.7 trillion in assets, that might be too large. It currently manages $4.08 trillion. Bogle retired as Vanguard’s chief executive officer, and he noted he doesn’t advise the firm’s management team.
“I don’t decide anything, I don’t have to take the consequences—but I do think that when you get down to these kinds of issues, one of the things I would say was, let’s take the foot off the accelerator and ease it gently over to the brake,” said the 88-year-old investment luminary, in the interview that was published last week.
Bogle said any scaling back of the investment behemoth, if it were to even happen, wouldn’t happen soon and would be fraught with challenges. “That’s a hard thing to do. We all know it’s going to have to be done sometime. I mean, maybe 25 years from now,” he said (Check out the full interview below).
Vanguard has been massively successful, with the assets it manages ballooning in recent years, as investors increasingly move into both passive funds and low-cost funds. Passive funds track the performance of an underlying index like the S&P 500 SPX, +0.27% , as opposed to actively managed funds, which look to outperform the index by picking stocks.
Related:Why the latest round of rock-bottom ETF fees may be a nonevent for investors
Thus far this year, Vanguard has seen a staggering $276.2 billion in inflows, by far the most of any asset manager, and as much as its closest eight competitors combined, according to data from Morningstar Direct.
In second place is iShares, the suite of exchange-traded funds sponsored by BlackRock BLK, -0.15% , which has had $156.5 billion in inflows. Flows drop off dramatically from there. Dimensional Fund Advisors, the firm with the third-highest flows, had a comparably paltry $24.3 billion flow into its funds in 2017, or nearly 9% of Vanguard’s haul.
Over the past month, nearly $28.1 billion have gone into Vanguard’s passive funds; only $2.8 billion have flowed into its passive offerings. Even that demonstrates Vanguard’s dominance, however, as actively managed funds as a category saw broad net outflows over the month. Only Pimco, which focuses on fixed income, an asset class where active management is seen as delivering more value than stocks, had higher active inflows, at $3.2 billion.
Read more:Investors flock to Vanguard funds, dump Goldman, Wells Fargo, and others
Data have repeatedly shown that passive funds outperform a vast majority of actively managed products over times. This is a cornerstone belief of Vanguard’s business model, which emphasizes passive investments. Another one has been rock-bottom fees. The average expense ratio, a measure of how much the fund charges customers to cover operating costs, for a Vanguard fund was 0.12% in 2016, according to the company’s own data, compared with an industry average of 0.62%.
Opinion:Jack Bogle is right: Don’t be a passive investor, be a frugal investor
Don’t miss:The reason Jack Bogle doesn’t fly first class says everything about his investing legacy
However, Bogle suggested there wasn’t much room for fees to go any lower. “We’ve only got 12 basis points to go, and let me say it: There’s an irreducible minimum, no matter how big you are.” He said it costs “a lot of money to run this business,” and said that if the average fee was eight basis points (or 0.08%, amounting to $8 for every $10,000 invested), that might not be tenable. “I just don’t think it’s worthwhile, hyping and trying to bring in more and more money,” he said.
Another factor Bogle said could be on the horizon, as pertaining to Vanguard’s size and popularity, involved the regulatory environment. He noted that the Investment Company Act of 1940 essentially prohibits a mutual fund from owning more than 10% of the voting shares of any security.
“If you had an index fund that owned 10% of the company, they’d have to stop buying it,” he said. “They couldn’t own any more.” He suggested that if such a case were to occur now, the manager could simply create another index fund to bypass this issue. Such a workaround is “totally legal right now,” he said, though this could be changed, speculating that the limit could be raised above 10%, or that it could even apply to “all the holdings of a given management company or fund sponsor,” which he said would be “a limiting factor.”
According to data from ETFGI, a research firm, Vanguard holds 18.7% of the ETF industry’s market share, with some $835.8 billion in ETF assets. That puts it behind iShares, which has $1.66 trillion in ETF assets, and 37.2% of the market share, but above State Street, which sponsors the SPDR suite of ETFs. SPDR funds have 13.6% of the market, and $607.7 billion in assets, nearly half of which are in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, +0.21% , which has more than $250 billion as the largest ETF on the market.
Courtesy ETFGI
The popularity of both ETFs and passive instruments—each of the “big three” ETF providers focuses on index funds—has created a three-firm oligopoly, Bogle said.
“Oligopolies are not attractive to U.S. governments or world governments,” he said, adding that “this phenomenon for exchange-traded funds, and index funds generally, is all over the world.” It is at its strongest in the U.S., “but it exists almost everywhere, and I don’t see how it’s going to back down.” |
Molten salt may challenge li-ion batteries in storage | Molten salt technology could become the energy storage medium of choice, potentially replacing lithium-ion batteries. According to two separate reports molten salt outperforms batteries in terms of both thermal and volume storage, and its low cost makes it more attractive to investors than lithium-ion equivalents. China is on track to become the biggest market for molten salt storage, with 1.3 GW in planned projects, while the Middle East, South Africa and Australia are also emerging as strong players. | https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/will-molten-salt-outdo-batteries-for-grid-tied-storage#gs.RltJmP0 | 2017-10-30 08:52:33.353000 | Thermal storage hasn't garnered the level of industry attention lately as battery storage, which is experiencing quickly falling prices and rising deployments.
But thermal storage, and molten salt in particular, actually exceeds the capacity of battery storage in operation so far, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency. A recent resurgence in concentrated solar power development promises to increase that advantage.
Molten salt technology represents three-quarters of the thermal energy storage deployed for electricity applications worldwide, the study says. These applications typically support CSP projects, letting them dispatch electricity outside peak sunshine hours.
Grid-tied molten salt storage volumes beat those for batteries by mid-2017, according to U.S. Department of Energy figures cited in the report. Although the data is for power output only, it shows molten salt weighing in at 2.5 gigawatts versus 1.9 gigawatts for all forms of electrochemical storage.
In energy terms, though, the difference is expected to be much greater, since the bulk of large-scale battery applications to date have tended to be in the seconds-to-minutes range, while molten salt is rarely used for less than 30 minutes of storage.
In 2016, commissioned parabolic trough plants featured either 7- or 9-hour duration storage, according to the International Energy Agency’s Renewables 2017 report.
Parabolic trough is the most commonly used technology for CSP, but it is rapidly being superseded by power towers. These typically offer even longer storage durations.
SolarReserve’s 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes power tower, for example, has 10 hours of storage. The company’s 100-megawatt Redstone power tower project, due in 2020, will have 12 hours of storage and the 260-megawatt Copiapo plant, scheduled for 2022, will have 13 hours.
These are not exceptional: a plant in Chile, Cerro Dominador, is planned to have 17.5 hours of molten salt storage if its owner EIG Global Energy Partners can find $800 million to restart the project after its original joint venture partner, the distressed Spanish firm Abengoa, pulled out.
In energy terms, the storage volumes involved are massive. Crescent Dunes, which is beginning to look small compared to some of the upcoming projects in the industry, theoretically has 1.1 gigawatt-hours of storage capacity.
That dominates Tesla’s 129-megawatt-hour battery project in South Australia, which will be the largest lithium-ion system when it's completed.
And the demand for long-duration storage with CSP is growing, said SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith.
“Bulk storage, not 10 or 15 minutes but more like 8 to 12 hours, is quickly becoming a valuable attribute for renewable energy projects,” he said.
Markets such as Chile, Australia, the Middle East and South Africa are regularly mandating these levels of storage to be attached to CSP, he said.
Even California is discovering that bulk storage will be needed to achieve its goal of reaching 50 percent renewable energy by 2030, he added.
“They won't get there by just deploying intermittent wind and PV, and are already experiencing periods where the value of energy generated off-peak is going to zero during some times of the year, and on-peak prices are climbing,” he said.
But perhaps the biggest upcoming market for molten salt storage could be China. The country is taking a major interest in CSP development, joining forces with companies bidding in the Middle East and planning 1.3 gigawatts of capacity across 21 projects.
These projects are designed to give China the expertise it needs to install 5 gigawatts of CSP capacity by 2020. And they are “mostly with storage,” said Cedric Philibert, senior energy analyst in the International Energy Agency’s Renewable Energy Division.
China’s 2020 build-out deadline might end up being ambitious, Philibert said, but at the same time, “We might see Chinese companies coming in and reducing costs for everyone.”
These cost reductions are not much of a concern for molten salt. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which are expected to achieve significant cost reductions through economies of scale, molten salt storage is cheap and probably won’t get much more so.
“Prices are not driven by the demand in CSP, but by the conditions of the fertilizer market, which is the main application of this type of salts,” said Giuseppe Casubolo of Chilean salt vendor SQM.
However, CSP plants cost a lot more than PV or wind projects. Recent tenders have seen these costs falling dramatically, and there are developments in the works that could make CSP cheaper still.
If these developments succeed and the Chinese can do for CSP what they did for PV, then molten salt’s contribution to grid-connected energy, in sunbelt markets at least, could end up being much greater than many expect.
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GE digital grid ambitions powered by deal with NY energy utility | US multinational General Electric (GE) is looking to its digital grid business to help overcome disappointing earnings results. It recently made a deal with the New York Power Authority to increase its use of GE software, while its industrial internet of things unit, Predix, has been adopted or is being tested by 78 companies, with Q3 orders increasing by 50% year on year. Further endorsement for Predix has come from GE Digital's partnership with leading power supplier Exelon, through which the two firms will develop applications for the platform. | https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ge-locks-down-major-grid-data-deal-with-exelons-utilities#gs.fhGeEmE | 2017-10-30 08:41:50.267000 | GE’s companywide earnings fell short of expectations last week, but its digital grid business keeps on growing.
Descended from Thomas Edison’s electrical appliance enterprise, GE still has its fingers in a nearly unfathomable number of pies. It continues to lead in conventional power applications, like wind turbines and gas generators, but it’s also been building out Predix, an industrial internet-of-things business that pairs on-the-ground sensors with local and cloud computing.
In Q3 2017, GE Digital orders grew 50 percent year over year, the company said. In previous quarters, power was the fastest-growing segment within the digital category.
That momentum continued this week thanks to a new partnership with Exelon, one of the biggest power providers in the U.S. and a flagship customer for GE Digital. In a separate deal, the New York Power Authority will expand its use of GE software and analytics as well.
Exelon had already adopted Predix across its fleet of competitive generators, which includes the largest nuclear capacity in the U.S. Now, the company is rolling out the industrial internet service to its portfolio of six regulated wires utilities, it announced at GE’s Minds and Machines conference Wednesday.
The goal is to work with GE to improve the cost-effectiveness of electrical distribution and prepare for regulatory grid overhauls coming to Exelon’s various markets.
"What we want to do is use the analytics to allow us to be prepared to pivot and support any of the models that may come up," said Brian Hurst, VP and chief analytics officer for Exelon Utilities.
The expansion marks an evolution from the initial Predix application of monitoring the health of discrete generating assets, said Ben Kellison, director of grid research at GTM Research.
"This is one of the first large extensions of a cloud-architected analytics platform in the utility industry, and it’s a strong endorsement from one of the largest companies in the space that there’s value to be had from investing in digitization that crosses functional and business-unit boundaries, in this case generation, transmission and distribution."
A smarter way to keep the lights on
The deal will focus on five key grid modernization efforts: storm preparation, network connectivity, outage prediction, grid asset health and historical outage analysis.
The old way of preparing for a major storm, Exelon Utilities CFO Carim Khouzami explained, would be to split a service territory into large segments and allocate resources ahead of time based on “gut feeling and experience.”
The live data-crunching from GE’s service allows the utilities to pre-emptively dispatch crews based on more granular indicators, like vegetation data, detailed barometric readings and the health of the wires.
The historical outage data can be used to inform decisions about where to harden wires or put them underground, based on an understanding of trouble spots over time.
Putting all the wires underground would protect them from the elements -- at great expense and disruption. GE's data platform can allow a more nuanced cost-benefit analysis.
"We need to invest more in the system, so we can continue to make performance better, but we also have to lower people's bills at the same time," Khouzami said. "Being able to leverage data to find ways to be more cost-effective with how we do the activities we have to do -- to be smart about where we invest our dollars -- that can help us achieve the goals we're trying to achieve."
Regulators across the nation are examining new models for more efficient grid utilization, but the outcomes of those investigations won’t be clear for months or years to come. Operational analytics across the transmission and distribution network will make it easier to benchmark asset utilization and show regulators where new investments make the most impact.
Not just a customer
The agreement goes beyond a conventional vendor/customer relationship, because GE and Exelon will work together to develop new applications for Predix.
The platform remains young. GE fleshed out the initial core applications -- or bought or partnered with other companies that did -- but it still has limited insight into how its customers could customize the platform for their needs day in and day out.
Companies like Exelon are starting to develop their own applications for Predix based on internal IP, and to work with GE to co-develop projects. The new arrangement includes both the traditional vendor relationship and a more collaborative research and development component.
Exelon became an early adopter for its generation fleet and began developing applications for things like nuclear plant operations. If an app they develop could be useful to others, GE can pitch it elsewhere.
"We are out there with lots of other energy companies, and we can say, 'Here's a solution that Exelon helped us develop -- want to buy it?' And Exelon would get a cut of the revenue," said GE Chief Digital Officer Ganesh Bell.
The new deal suggests that if Exelon figures out promising ways to use Predix to reduce storm outages, for instance, that tool could find its way into other utilities' portfolios. That helps them grapple with a shared problem, and it helps GE bring more customers onto its platform
One platform to rule them all
GE has no trouble communicating its breadth of expertise. The main-stage programming at Minds and Machines (the conference it hosted about itself) featured a steady stream of executives talking up the visionary achievements that Predix unlocks for everything from wind farms to gas pipelines.
The challenge is matching that lofty rhetoric with the reality of deployment, which can be slow. The company, though, has bet on its breadth and legacy as a key selling point.
"GE has privileged access to information on a very large set of generation assets,” GTM's Kellison said. “That said, companies need to partner and incorporate asset models outside of their own, as different utility asset managers subscribe to different methods and utilities rarely only use one vendor’s assets, even in one product class."
The transformation from an equipment manufacturer to a tech-savvy service provider didn't happen overnight.
"There are plenty of legacy players; we're the new player," Bell said. "We've gone through the pain of having to transform ourself over the last five years. Now we have a unique set of software capabilities that nobody else has."
The key difference, he said, is not just having cloud-based analytics or services or control software, but linking them all up. GE offers what they call "outcome as a service," where it uses the sensing, analytics and operational controls to produce outcomes like lower fuel use or reduced operations and maintenance costs. Then it sells a subscription service.
"All of those things are outcomes that customers can measure, and we track and deliver those values," Bell said. "If we don't deliver those values, customers will fire our software."
At Minds and Machines two years ago, there were a handful of power producers and utilities that had bought into Predix. Last year, the number rose to 25. This year, 78 utilities were either pilot-testing or moving forward with fleetwide adoption.
This scale is notable in the embryonic world of grid management software, but it's still a tiny sliver of the overall GE pie. New CEO John Flannery will need to consider how much the rest of the company should learn from the digital initiative.
"We're generating new sources of revenue that we didn't generate before," Bell said. "As a business, at the end of the day, for shareholders, we've got to create new value, and here we're showing that it's not the old GE -- we're building a whole new franchise for GE."
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Australia reaches 6.1 GW of small-scale renewable energy capacity | Small-scale renewable energy capacity in Australia has reached 6.1 GW, according to regulators. The figure represents the total at the end of September, with other data released showing that the country installed 6,927 small-scale systems, with generation capacity of 36.3 MW, during that month alone. This brings the total number of such systems across Australia to around 2.8 million, with the vast majority being solar plants, and a smaller number of hydropower facilities and wind parks. | https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/small-scale-renewables-capacity-in-australia-reaches-61-gw-588731/ | 2017-10-30 08:35:54.613000 | The cumulative small-scale renewable energy capacity in Australia reached 6.1 GW at the end of September, the Clean Energy Regulator said Friday.
The country now has 2.8 million small-scale systems, of which 1.7 million are solar photovoltaic (PV) plants with a combined capacity of just below 6.1 GW. There were also 18 hydropower facilities and 418 wind parks, as well as 1.07 million solar water heater installations, including air source heat pumps.
In September alone, Australia installed 6,927 small-scale systems with a total generation capacity of 36.3 MW. The state of Queensland was the leader in small-scale capacity additions with 2,153 systems installed, as well as in the small-scale commercial PV systems category of between 10 kW and 100 kW, with 149 of new installations. New South Wales ranked second with 1,574 new small-scale facilities totalling 8.2 MW followed by West Australia with 7.8 MW of plants.
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Farmers Bank has created 'systematic risk' for Bangladesh finance | Bangladesh's entire financial sector faces a 'systematic risk' because of irregularities in the operation of a bank run by a former government minister. The Farmers Bank was given its license in 2013 and its Chairman is Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, the country's former home affairs minister. The Bangladeshi finance ministry has now released a report outlining issues of malpractice at the bank, including making loans to its directors and to organisations that do not exist. It is experiencing a serious liquidity crisis and the ministry warns that the bank does not have the ability to repay its liabilities. | https://bdnews24.com/business/2017/10/29/farmers-bank-putting-bangladesh-s-financial-sector-at-risk-govt-report-says | 2017-10-30 08:25:27.373000 | It says the Farmers Bank is experiencing liquidity crisis for a year and it has deepened to such a level that the bank is failing repeatedly to fulfil cash reserve requirement or CRR at the Bangladesh Bank. |
Drax takes stake in renewables firm Aggregated Micro Power | UK power company Drax is taking a 4.1% stake in renewables firm Aggregated Micro Power Holdings (AMPH), which delivers biomass-based energy projects and sells wood fuels. Drax had earlier sold AMPH to Billington Bioenergy. The deal is in line with Drax's aim to gain access to the small-scale distributed energy market and reinforces its strategy of serving small to medium-sized companies. Drax owns the Drax power station in Yorkshire, which used to be coal-fired but now is 70% biomass-fired.
| https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/drax-to-take-stake-in-distributed-energy-co-amph-588462/ | 2017-10-30 08:08:19.643000 | Drax Group plc (LON:DRX) will take a stake in distributed energy firm Aggregated Micro Power Holdings (AMPH) after selling to it 100% in UK wood pellets supplier Billington Bioenergy (BBE).
AMPH will buy BBE from Drax for GBP 400,000 (USD 527,000/EUR 448,000) in cash and GBP 1.6 million in stock. It will issue a bit over 1.624 million shares to the UK energy group. After the transaction, its issued share capital will be 39.4 million, so Drax’s stake will be about 4.1%.
In a statement today, Drax said the deal is in line with its retail strategy, currently focused on the industrial and commercial and small medium enterprise (SME) energy markets. By taking an interest in AMPH, the company will gain access to the small-scale distributed energy market.
Drax is the operator of the Drax Power Station, originally a coal-fired power plant. Now it is 70% biomass-fired. The plant has six turbines capable of generating 645 MW. The company has shifted its focus to low-carbon energy in recent years.
AMPH sells wood fuels, and it delivers distributed energy projects using biomass boiler, stand-by power generation systems and battery storage installations. Billington, on the other hand, supplies around 40,000 tonnes of wood pellet to commercial customers annually. In 2016 it reported a pre-tax loss of GBP 0.43 million on revenues of GBP 6.8 million.
(GBP 1 = USD 1.32/EUR 1.12)
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Bidders sought to build, manage 100 MW solar power farms in India | Bids are being invited for two 100 MW solar power plants in India's Madhya Pradesh state. Solar Energy Corporation India (SECI), working on behalf of Coal India Limited (CIL), is offering tenders to design, construct and commission the projects. The winning bidders will undertake 10 years of operations and maintenance. SECI and CIL have agreed to install 1,000 MW of solar parks across the country as part of India's aim to install 175 GW of solar capacity by 2022.
| https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/27/conventional-energy-seeks-renewable-energy-in-india-coal-india-launches-200-mw-solar-tender/ | 2017-10-30 07:56:32.850000 | The Northern Coalfields limited (NCL) & South-Eastern Coalfields limited (SECL) – subsidiaries of Coal India limited (CIL), have envisaged the execution of green energy by way of 200 MW installation at Neemuch and Mandasur Solar Park, in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
SECI, therefore, on behalf of Owner (CIL and subsidiaries) has invited bids from eligible bidders to participate. The tender is for Design, Engineering, Supply, Construction, Erection, Testing & Commissioning of two-100 MW (AC) solar PV Power plants, using domestically made cells & modules. The winning bidder should take care of O&M for 10 years.
SECI also scheduled a pre-bid meeting at Coal India limited, Coal Bhawan, Kolkata for clarifications, to be held on November 13.
The installation sites will be Northern Coalfields limited (NCL) and another one for Southern coalfields limited (SECL) respectively. The bidders are required to bid for one of the 100 MW block capacities only.
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This comes in the backdrop of an MoU signed between Coal India and SECI to install 1000 MW in solar parks in different parts of India.India has set an ambitious target to be achieved by 2022 of 175 GW of solar installations and is rapidly increasing its installations year by year to meet the target.
Author: Ajinkya Waradpande |
Japan Renewable Energy builds 10 MW PV facility | Japan Renewable Energy (JRE) has completed work on its first facility in the Shikoku district, a photovoltaic plant set to generate 12.86 million kWh and offset 8.4 tonnes of CO2 per year. Output from the JRE Kochi Kami Solar Power Plant will be purchased by local utility Shikoku Electric Power Company and, when operational, will take JRE's portfolio to 34 facilities.
| https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/jre-completes-10-mw-pv-plant-in-kochi-588719/ | 2017-10-30 07:39:58.940000 | Japan Renewable Energy announced last week that it has completed a 9.8-MW photovoltaic (PV) plant in Kochi prefecture.
The JRE Kochi Kami Solar Power Plant, as it is named, is expected to generate some 12.86 million kWh of electricity per year, enough to meet the annual demand of about 3,574 local households.
Local utility Shikoku Electric Power Company Inc will be purchasing the output. With 35,000 solar panels, Kochi Kami plant is also estimated to offset around 8,376 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. This is the first power plant JRE has in the Shikoku district, according to the company's press release.
With the start of operation of this facility, JRE is running 34 power plants throughout the country including wind parks, the firm noted.
Earlier this week, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pvt Ltd announced that it has made an investment of an undisclosed size in the parent company of JRE.
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China's water tunnel to 'turn Xinjiang into California' | China is developing plans to build the world's longest tunnel to turn a desert in Xinjiang "into California". Engineers are testing ways of building a 1,000 km tunnel to bring water from Tibet to the Taklimakan desert. The project is likely to generate protests by environmentalists but its benefits will be difficult for policymakers to resist, said Zhang Chuanqing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics in Wuhan. He said the water shortage in Xinjiang was similar to that of California before a water diversion project turned the state into a rich agricultural area. | http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2116750/chinese-engineers-plan-1000km-tunnel-make-xinjiang-desert-bloom?mc_cid=169dcf61a9&mc_eid=a37072368a | 2017-10-30 07:31:26.403000 | The desert sun shines above the Taklimakan Desert east of Hotan in Xinjiang in October 2006. Photo: AFP |
Nikon to close camera factory in China due to rise of smartphones | Japan's Nikon is closing a digital camera factory in China because of the increased competition from smartphones. The global market for compact digital cameras has plummeted to a 10th of its peak within the past 10 years, and Nikon has warned of another sharp drop in the sales of compact cameras this year. The plant employs 2,500 workers.
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update/Nikon-to-close-digital-camera-plant-in-China?n_cid=NARAN1507&mc_cid=169dcf61a9&mc_eid=a37072368a | 2017-10-30 07:22:50.543000 | TOKYO -- Nikon plans to shutter a digital camera factory in China as increasingly sophisticated smartphone cameras undercut the market for cheaper compact models.
The Japanese precision equipment manufacturer will make an official decision at a board meeting Monday. The Jiangsu plant, which employs some 2,500 workers, turns out entry-level compact digital cameras and interchangeable lenses for single-lens reflex cameras. Some production will be outsourced and Nikon will continue to sell cameras in China, where it controls nearly 30% of the market. |
Generate Capital raises $200m in equity for clean energy projects | San Francisco-based cleantech firm Generate Capital has secured $200m in equity funding, in a round led by the state-managed Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. Generate invests in and acquires alternative distributed energy projects, including Lagunitas Brewing Company's water treatment and biogas generating systems, and Minnesotan community solar farms. Co-founders Scott Jacobs, Jigar Shah and Matan Friedman claim to have done $500m in deals since Generate's launch in 2014, while the new funding will enable them to work with firms that have ambitious customer pipelines.
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/generate-capital-raises-200m-led-by-alaska-permanent-for-distributed-energy#gs.HLYy5sg | 2017-10-30 07:18:40.723000 | A massive Alaskan fund created by oil revenues is funneling millions of dollars into a young company that finances and owns clean energy projects.
Generate Capital -- a company launched in 2014 and based in San Francisco -- announced today it has raised $200 million in equity funding to provide capital for energy, water and food infrastructure assets. The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the U.S. and valued at $62 billion, led the round.
The move shows how as clean energy technologies drop in price and grow in scale, major institutional investors are increasingly being attracted. While there’s no shortage of investors for solar and wind projects these days, Generate Capital finances and owns more alternative and smaller distributed energy assets like battery projects, biogas installations, and community solar farms.
The company’s success also shows how innovations in financing can lead to the deployment of clean technologies, whereas other forms of financing, like venture capital, have fallen short.
Generate Capital puts up the capital to get an energy infrastructure project installed and also owns the asset. As the infrastructure delivers revenue over time (as a community pays its solar bill, for example) and potentially saves the customer money (the community has a smaller energy bill), Generate Capital makes a return off of the cash flow.
The company’s investors can get monthly dividends. One day, Generate could potentially exit by going public or getting acquired.
Entrepreneurial investors Scott Jacobs, Jigar Shah and Matan Friedman launched the company in an effort to create a new way to fund emerging energy infrastructure. In just three years, the partners say they've done $500 million in deals.
Generate has worked with partners like solar companies, battery project developers and fuel cell makers. It can issue various types of financing from equity to debt to loans. Since Generate was formed as a company, instead of a fund, it isn't restricted by the typical VC type of 10-year timeline.
They’ve backed community solar farms in Minnesota, water treatment and biogas generating systems at Lagunitas Brewing Company in Northern California, and investments in fuel-cell-powered forklifts at Walmart. Generate Capital is also one of the largest non-utility investors in battery energy storage projects and has worked with battery project developers like Stem.
Shah founded solar project developer SunEdison, and more than a decade ago helped spearhead the business model of investing in what the industry started calling solar-as-a-service. Generate Capital is moving that model beyond solar and into other forms of distributed energy, which the company calls “infrastructure-as-a-service.”
Jacobs, co-founder of EFW Partners and McKinsey’s cleantech practice, described the company as “a mega balance sheet for distributed energy.” Generate Capital chose the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation as one of its lead investors because the fund’s “vision and values aligned," said Jacobs.
With the new financing, Generate Capital is looking to work with partners that have a bigger pipeline of customers, said Jacobs. The $200 million in equity can unlock $1 billion in investment capacity for distributed energy projects, he said. The company’s original financing came from foundations and endowments.
The Alaska Permanent Fund was created in the mid-1970s by a state constitutional amendment that called for a quarter of the state’s oil money to go into a fund to be used for future generations. That was around the time that the Alaska pipeline was nearing construction.
That such a large state-managed fund has chosen to invest in Generate’s model suggests it has reasonably low risk and stable returns. “It’s a very lucrative place to be if you have the expertise, the mandate, the business model and the right partners,” said Jacobs.
Generate Capital has 27 employees, two-thirds of which make energy infrastructure investments. Jacobs said the “eclectic group” is made up of a mix of former investors in private equity, credit and hard asserts, as well as tech companies.
Over the past few years, cleantech entrepreneurs and investors have been trying to create new models to help deploy technologies to fight climate change. Financing innovation has proven to be one of the more successful. |
Tesla announces $340m in bonds for distributed solar | Tesla is set to launch one if its biggest solar securitisations to date, with the issuance of two tranches of bonds worth a combined $340m. The notes are backed by $483m in lease payments and power purchase agreements, according to the Kroll Bond Rating Agency, which offered an A- rating for the first class of $265m. The second $75m class has not been rated at this time, and no interest rates have been assigned. Tesla anticipates the 30-year bonds will be repaid by 2028. | https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/25/teslasolarcity-plans-340-million-securitization-of-distributed-solar/ | 2017-10-30 07:16:31.223000 | Even while Tesla has backed off of the aggressive growth pattern that SolarCity was on, the company is still showing its dynamism in financial deals, and continuing to provide a vision for the future.
On the same day that Tesla announced that it has provided electricity to a hospital in Puerto Rico, the Kroll Bond Rating Agency issued a report on what may be the largest solar securitization yet from the company that pioneered the practice in 2013.
According to the report, Tesla/SolarCity is preparing to issue $340 million through two tranches of bonds, backed by leases and power purchase agreements on distributed solar assets.
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The bonds formally mature in 30 years, but Tesla expects to repay them by April 2028. Kroll provided an A- rating for the first class of $265 million in notes, but has not yet rated $75 million worth of bonds in the second class. No interest rate has yet been assigned.
These notes will be backed by $483 million in forthcoming payments on leases and power purchase agreements, with leases making up 57% of that balance. Kroll estimates that the bonds are around 16% over-collateralized. |
PEG Africa raises $13.5m for off-grid solar in Africa | Ghanaian solar finance firm PEG Africa has partnered with SunFunder and six other lenders to raise $13.5m in a series B funding round, adding to the $7.5m secured previously. The money will be used to offer solar systems to up to 500,000 low-income people across Ghana and Ivory Coast, using PEG's pay-as-you-go system. Off-grid solar projects have also been funded in Kenya and Uganda, and a recent report revealed 120 million people across the world now have access to off-grid solar. | https://www.pv-tech.org/news/peg-fundraise-usd13.5-million-for-off-grid-home-solar-in-west-africa | 2017-10-30 07:11:51.403000 | Solar finance company PEG Africa has raised US$13.5 million for household solar systems in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which is expected to reach up to 500,000 people.
Customers on US$5-US$10 income per day can access loans for off-grid solar home systems through PEG using pay-as-you-go technology. Small incremental payments are made over a period of time allowing energy access to people who may typically find it unaffordable.
PEG partnered with SunFunder in a multi-currency syndicated loan with six other lenders participating.
The fund was raised through a combination of debt and a series B equity financing, the first round raised US$7.5 bringing the total up to US$21 million.
Hugh Whalan, CEO of PEG Africa, said: “PEG Africa will be able to reach a major milestone of extending energy and financing to half a million people. We are excited that we can now accelerate our growth plans in key West African markets.”
With the growth of the African solar market off-grid finance and syndication is becoming increasingly popular.
In August the World Bank provided US$150 million in credit for off-grid solar for marginalised communities in Kenya. The project is expected to reach 1.3 million Kenyans in 277,000 homes.
More recently, Ugandan PV firm SolarNow received a US$6 million syndicated off-grid financing facility to deliver solar home systems to a wide-range of off-grid communities also through pay-as-you-go.
A recent Global Off-Grid Semi Annual Market report covering the first half of 2017 reported over 120 million people worldwide now have access to off-grid solar. The report showed 3.52 million product sales from January – June 2017 with 1.77 million (50%) accounted for in Sub-Saharan Africa. |
World Bank approves $35m for energy-grid and renewables in Haiti | More than two million Haitians may receive access to renewable electricity, following the approval of two Climate Investment Fund grants, totalling $35m, by the World Bank. The projects, aimed at simplifying private investment in clean energy on the island, have already been launched. The World Bank said Haiti had potential in solar power, as well as wind, hydropower, biomass and off-grid sectors. According to data from the World Bank, around one third of Haitians have access to electricity. | https://www.pv-tech.org/news/world-bank-approves-us35-million-for-renewables-and-energy-access-in-haiti | 2017-10-30 07:04:07.513000 | The World Bank has approved two grants of US$35 million in total to improve access to electricity for more than two million Haitians, and to scale-up investments in renewable energy.
The bank noted that more than five million people could be reached through solar PV, adding that only one in three Haitians has access to electricity and access is limited in rural areas.
Anabela Abreu, World Bank’s country director for Haiti, said: “Haiti has significant untapped sources of renewable energy. The country is taking an important step in creating the enabling environment for private investors and in boosting access to electricity. The World Bank Group will continue to support the country in providing sustainable renewable energy to increase access for families, businesses and community services in underserved areas, diversify its energy mix, and reduce electricity cost.”
The World Bank noted potential in multiple renwable energy sources such as solar, hydropower, wind and biomass, as well as off-grid electrification. As part of the grants, two project have been launched: ‘Renewable Energy For All’ and ‘Haiti Modern Energy Services for All’.
These will improve the environment for private investment in clean energy, expand access for rural households through leveraged investments in micro and mini-grids, and finance private operators, NGOs and Community Organizations to provide solar lanterns, and individual and home-based solar systems.
Both projects will be implemented by the energy cell of the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communications (MTPTC).
Both grants are from the Climate Investment Fund (CIF).
A Gogla report on the off-grid solar market recently revealed that there has been a 7% drop in off-grid solar and home system product sales worldwide yet the market remains “buoyant”. |
Greencoat UK raises £340m to pay to expand portfolio | Investment company Greencoat UK Wind intends to expand its 617 MW portfolio of 24 wind farms after securing £340m ($447m) during a recent share issuance. The oversubscribed offering saw 290.6 million new ordinary shares sold, while chairman Tim Ingram said the proceeds would used to pay down debt and take advantage of an "attractive pipeline of opportunities".
| https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/greencoat-uk-wind-secures-gbp-340m-for-new-acquisitions-588508/ | 2017-10-30 06:53:39.990000 | Greencoat UK Wind Plc (LON:UKW) has raised gross proceeds of GBP 340 million (USD 450.6m/EUR 381.7m) from the first offering under its latest share issuance programme, announced in September.
The firm sold 290.6 million new ordinary shares at a price of GBP 1.17 apiece, Greencoat UK Wind announced on Wednesday. Both new and existing shareholders took part in the oversubscribed offering.
The fund that invests in UK wind farms will use the proceeds to pay down debt and “take advantage of an attractive pipeline of opportunities,” said chairman Tim Ingram. After paying borrowings under its revolving credit facility, the fund will have outstanding borrowings of GBP 65 million under the revolver and GBP 100 million under its long-term debt agreement.
Greencoat UK has a portfolio of 24 wind farms with a net generating capacity of 617 MW, the combined output of which is enough to meet the electricity demand of over 560,000 households. The fund will look to expand this portfolio with more high quality assets, according to the statement.
Greencoat UK Wind will apply to list the newly-issued stock on the London stock exchange’s main market with effect from October 27.
(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.325/EUR 1.123)
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Saudis, Softbank look to develop 3 GW solar/storage facility | Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has signed a memorandum of understanding with SoftBank Vision Fund (SBVF) to develop around 3 GW of solar power-generating capacity and storage in the country in 2018. The venture, part of its Vision 2030 initiative to generate 9.5 GW of renewable power a year, would be carried out by the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), and would involve both PIT and SBVF taking a stake in SEC, though the utility would continue to be state-controlled. Due diligence on the agreement is set to be completed by the end of February next year. | https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/funds-consider-3-gw-solar-plus-storage-partnership-in-saudi-arabia-588387/ | 2017-10-30 06:45:18.947000 | Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and SoftBank Vision Fund (SBVF) are plotting to develop about 3 GW of solar power generating capacity, coupled with energy storage, in the Kingdom next year.
The pair seeks to do so through Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), according to a SEC statement on Tuesday. Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SBVF that outlines the plan.
The MoU, which is non-binding and subject to due-diligence, stipulates that the parties involved would evaluate SBVF taking a “significant equity stake” in SEC. They would also seek to build solar power and energy storage manufacturing facilities in Saudi Arabia.
In any case, the government of Saudi Arabia would continue to control SEC.
The move would be part of a so-called New Solar Energy Plan 2030. The parties expect to conclude due diligence under the MoU by February 28, 2018.
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PV manufacturer Tongwei opens unmanned solar cell production line | Chinese photovoltaic solar cell manufacturer Tongwei Group has unveiled its S2 plant, which boasts the first unmanned monocrystalline solar cell production line in the world. The company chose its 35th anniversary to unveil the facility, which has a starting nameplate capacity of 2 GW and will bring Tongwei's monocrystalline capacity to about 3.4 GW. Rival firm GCL System Integrated Technology also recently established a facility to test 4.0 fully automated manufacturing. | https://www.pv-tech.org/news/tongwei-opens-the-worlds-first-intelligent-manufacturing-4.0-solar-cell-pro | 2017-10-30 06:39:55.317000 | China-based integrated and merchant PV manufacturer Tongwei Group recently opened its completed high-efficiency solar cell plant (S2), which includes the world’s first technically unmanned monocrystalline solar cell production line under the intelligent manufacturing term, 4.0.
The S2 plant in Chengdu, China has an initial nameplate capacity of 2GW, which brings Tongwei’s monocrystalline cell capacity to around 3.4GW. The company also has around 2GW of multicrystalline solar cell capacity. The 4.0 cell line is completely unmanned to test intelligent fully automated manufacturing tools and software systems.
Tongwei chose to officially launch the new facility in tandem with a massive ceremony celebrating the company’s 35 years of business operations.
The company has also recently completed a 5,000MT polysilicon plant expansion, bringing nameplate production capacity to 20,000MT. However, the company is also undertaking the construction of a new 50,000MT polysilicon plant.
Recently, GCL-SI (GCL System Integrated Technology) established a module assembly workshop that was completely unmanned to test intelligent fully automated manufacturing tools and software systems under its own manufacturing 4.0 initiative. |
JinkoSolar achieves PERC efficiency record of 22.78% | The battle between Chinese photovoltaic firms Longi Solar and JinkoSolar is hotting up after the latter firm recorded a conversion efficiency of 22.78% from its P-type monocrystalline silicon solar cells. The announcement followed Longi Solar's achievement of 22.71% conversion efficiency with its mono-PERC cells mere days ago. In a statement, JinkoSolar attributed the increased efficiency to various techniques, including "the application of the selective emitter structure and fine-finger metallisation". The company recorded net profits of around $7m in Q2 2017, and shipped 2.9 GW of solar panels in the same period, an increase of 68.1% over the previous year. | https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/25/jinkosolar-claims-new-22-78-perc-efficiency-record/ | 2017-10-30 06:38:15.960000 | Several weeks ago, the Chinese PV group said that it had reached a conversion efficiency of 22.04% with its P-type multicrystalline silicon solar cells. And its latest announcement comes mere days after rival PV module supplier Longi Solar revealed that it had achieved a 22.71% conversion efficiency record with its mono-PERC cells, as certified by Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE CalLab.
Kangping Chen, the chief executive of JinkoSolar, said that the company remains committed to R&D. It scored its latest P-type PERC advancements by utilizing a number of advanced methods, including P-type silicon wafer and bulk passivation technologies, selective emitter technologies and fine-finger metallization technologies.
“Among the various techniques utilized, the application of the selective emitter structure and fine-finger metallization significantly minimized the energy losses caused by recombination,” the company said in an online statement. “The open circuit voltage and conversion efficiency of the solar cell was also greatly improved as a result. The utilization of advanced multi-layer ARC technology, an innovation developed by JinkoSolar, made further contributions to the efficiency increase.”
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The Shanghai-based group recorded a net profit of about $7 million in the second quarter of 2017, as revenue hit $1.17 billion. It shipped roughly 2.9 GW of solar panels in the April-June period, up 68.1% year on year. A recent report by China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) showed that the company is now competing with Longi Solar for the title of China’s leading PV module supplier this year, based on shipment data from the first half. |
FORESEA to support six ocean energy projects | The six renewable energy projects comprising the third call of the €11m ($13m) Funding Ocean Renewable Energy through Strategic European Action (FORESEA) programme have been announced. Blackfish, Scotrenewables, which specialises in floating tidal stream and run-of-river turbines, and Bombora, which develops high power wave energy converters that operate on the sea floor, will lead projects at Scotland's European Marine Energy Centre. France's SEM-REV test centre will host project leaders Ideol, a floating wind turbine company, and Interdrones, while Kornwerderzand BV, which integrates tidal power facilities into sea defences, will head a project at the Netherlands' Dutch Marine Energy Centre. FORESEA's fourth call was launched in October. | https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/six-ocean-energy-projects-to-get-foresea-support-588461/ | 2017-10-30 06:36:59.030000 | Six ocean energy demonstration projects will be financed under the third call of the FORESEA (Funding Ocean Renewable Energy through Strategic European Action) programme.
The announcement was made today by Scottish energy minister Paul Wheelhouse at the Ocean Energy Europe 2017 Conference and Exhibition in Nantes. Three of the six projects will be tested at Scotland's European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). These are led by technology developers Blackfish, Bombora and Scotrenewables. The test centre SEM-REV in France will host two projects, led by Ideol and Interdrones. The remaining project, led by Kornwerderzand BV, will be carried out at the Dutch Marine Energy Centre in the Netherlands.
The EUR-11-million (USD 13m) FORESEA programme, financed by the the Interreg North West Europe programme, is designed to help commercialise offshore renewable energy technologies by providing their developers with free access to a network of test centres. Its fourth call was launched earlier this month.
(EUR 1 = USD 1.178)
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Enel buys EV charging station firm in flexible grid push | Italian utility Enel is pushing to further e-mobility and grid flexibility, buying intelligent EV charging station firm eMotorWerks in the US. Through its JuiceNet platform, eMotorWerks operates and manages the distributed loads of thousands of EV chargers to balance the grid. JuiceNet can also aggregate distributed storage facilities beyond EV batteries, suggesting that Enel may be looking into non-EV storage as well as vehicle-to-grid functionality. The acquisition was made via energy software firm EnerNOC, another recently-acquired Enel subsidiary. | https://cleantechnica.com/2017/10/26/emotorwerks-acquired-enel/ | 2017-10-30 06:34:26.153000 | Enel has acquired eMotorWerks, an intelligent EV charging station (EVSE) manufacturer and operator of the JuiceNet EV charging network.
The move speaks to the coming of age of electric vehicles and the infrastructure required to support them as major market players across various segments shape up efforts to move into the space in a big way. eMotorWerks has one of the leading intelligent EVSEs on the market, which allows customers to bill for charging. It also has the powerful JuiceNet platform, which ties the EVSEs to the eMotorWerks cloud and allows for some truly mind-bending capabilities.
Formally, the acquisition of eMotorWerks was executed under Enel’s US-based subsidiary EnerNOC, which was only recently acquired by Enel itself, in August 2017. EnerNOC is an energy software company that, similar to the eMotorWerks functionality through JuiceNet, consolidates distributed grid demand resources and offers dynamic demand response capability to utilities.
At the beginning of the year, Enel also acquired Demand Energy Networks, which builds intelligent energy management software that “enables real-time optimisation of energy management, with the potential to revolutionise the way electricity is generated, stored and consumed.” These moves make it clear that Enel sees renewables mandating grid-level flexibility so that operators can easily balance intermittent solar, wind, and hydro with utility-scale storage and distributed storage. Demand response has the potential to play a key role in the mix and Enel wants to own the space.
As we shared last year, eMotorWerks’ JuiceNet pulls together the distributed loads that thousands of EVs utilizing its chargers represent, which can then be dynamically throttled to balance the grid. That functionality was validated last month with the announcement that eMotorWerks is partnering with utility EDF to tie JuiceNet into EDF’s grid management network.
Enel clearly sees that the future of transportation is electric and the future of grids is dynamic. As such, it is moving aggressively to build the infrastructure required to make that vision a reality.
“Electric vehicles have the potential to be one of the most disruptive technologies the modern electricity grid has faced in the last one hundred years,” said Francesco Venturini, Head of Enel’s Global e-Solutions division. “The electric mobility revolution is leading utilities, grid operators, and consumers to rethink traditional business models, invest in new infrastructure, and roll out new solutions to provide flexibility and resiliency to the grid. Our mission is to be on the cutting edge of this paradigm shift, where consumers can play a more active role in energy generation and use. This acquisition enriches our e-mobility offering and integrates a highly sophisticated smart EV charging solution within our portfolio of grid flexibility services, which includes the world’s largest demand response network, distributed energy management systems and battery storage solutions.”
The Enel announcement shared that JuiceNet also has the ability to aggregate distributed storage facilities “including but not limited to electric vehicle batteries” to balance the grid, meaning they are exploring vehicle-to-grid functionality as well as non-EV storage units.
This is an exciting move in the world of EVSEs and shows both the visionary work done by the team at eMotorWerks to build functionality to use EVs to balance the grid and the potential for innovation to solve the challenges faced by utilities in light of the influx of renewables.
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Global Infrastructure Partners looks to acquire Equis Energy | Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) is set to make the renewable sector's biggest-ever purchase, with the $5bn acquisition of Singapore firm Equis Energy. The sale includes $1.3bn of liabilities and is set to close in Q1 2018. Equis Energy's 11 GW of renewable assets include solar, wind and hydroelectric power operations, notably featuring one of Australia's largest solar plants, which is still currently under development. Insiders have speculated that, as governments replace existing tariff structures, scale will be a determining factor in ensuring the renewable sector remains profitable.
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-biggest-renewable-energy-acquisition-ever#gs.=U8Gb6A | 2017-10-30 06:32:53.157000 | Global Infrastructure Partners' $40 billion portfolio includes the Edinburgh Airport, the Port of Melbourne, a leading shipping container terminal operator, and the largest rail company in Australia.
It will soon include one of the largest Asian renewable energy developers, too.
GIP plans to acquire Equis Energy for $5 billion -- a record-high acquisition price for the renewables sector. The agreement was announced early Wednesday morning.
The purchase will give GIP a strong presence in the Asian market. The infrastructure investor owns coal, natural gas and oil assets all over the world. It is increasingly pushing into renewables, most recently by acquiring a 50 percent stake in a 330-megawatt offshore wind farm in the North Sea.
According to GTM Research, Equis has nearly 5 gigawatts of wind and hydro assets under operation. It also has a growing queue of solar projects across the Asia-Pacific region.
"The company has focused less on solar PV developments to-date, but has a significant project pipeline, including one of the largest projects in Australia, the 1-gigawatt Wandoan South project. Equis has late-stage solar PV project developments totaling almost 1.5 gigawatts and an additional 4 gigawatts of early-stage potential projects," said Tom Heggarty, a senior analyst for global solar markets at GTM Research.
That makes Equis Energy the 11th largest global solar developer, said Heggarty.
"Equis Energy is a unique success story in the APAC region, as it has systematically executed its growth strategy since its founding five years ago," said Adebayo Ogunlesi, chairman of GIP, in a statement.
According to Equis, it has more than 11 gigawatts or project in operation or under development.
The chart below shows where Equis' expanding solar pipeline is located.
The transaction is also notable for its size. At $5 billion, it's the single-biggest renewable energy acquisition in history. Bloomberg New Energy Finance confirmed the record size in its deal tracker.
It's also yet another signal that traditional energy and infrastructure companies are forcefully pursuing renewables. They're not just experimenting anymore.
In September, Shell bought MP2, a Texas-based company with 1.7 gigawatts of solar, wind, landfill gas and natural gas projects. MP2 also has 550 megawatts of demand response assets under management. Shell now invests $200 million per year in renewables, according to Wood Mackenzie, GTM's parent company.
The French oil major Total is also getting deeper into renewable energy and efficiency, by setting up a solar development arm and making strategic equity investments. Last year, it bought battery-maker Saft for $1.1 billion. It also owns a majority stake in SunPower.
Large global utilities, including Enel, Engie, Centrica and EDF, are also investing in distributed energy platforms across the U.S. Most recently, Enel bought the demand response company EnerNOC for $250 million.
Heggarty said that many leading energy companies were eyeing Equis as an acquisition target.
"This is a really significant transaction for the renewable energy industry. Alongside Global Infrastructure Partners, it had been rumored that a number of the world's largest energy companies, including Shell, Engie and Adani, were looking to acquire Equis," he said. "Equis was also a particularly attractive proposition due to its portfolio of recently commissioned Japanese solar projects with generous 20-year feed-in tariffs."
Expect more of this kind of activity in the coming months.
"Solar and wind developers with strong project pipelines, particularly in key emerging markets like Australia and Southeast Asia, could be future acquisition targets for some of these players," said Heggarty. |
Blockchain-based energy companies spike in popularity | The number of energy start-ups developing and marketing blockchain solutions is growing, with companies across the globe finding funding. South African outfit Sun Exchange recently secured $1.6m in seed funding, while the much-hyped Texan start-up Grid+ raised $40m from a token sale. UK firm Electron and New York-based LO3 Energy have both been backed by Siemens, while Australian company Power Ledger's October token sale raised $24m. | https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/leading-energy-blockchain-firms#gs.hUtDN0g | 2017-10-30 06:30:20.870000 | This week a South African blockchain startup called Sun Exchange raised $1.6 million in seed funding to launch a solar power crowdsale platform. It is hardly unique, though.
Recent weeks have seen new blockchain-based energy hopefuls cropping up like mushrooms after the rain. Here are 15 of the top names making headlines.
Conjoule
Conjoule offers a blockchain platform designed to support peer-to-peer trading of energy among rooftop PV owners and interested public-sector or corporate buyers. The company was hatched in Innogy’s Innovation Hub in 2015 and pulled in $5.3 million in funding from Tokyo Electric Power Company and others in July. Conjoule has been running a pilot in Germany for the past year.
Drift
Seattle-based Drift is leveraging distributed ledger technology, machine learning and high-frequency trading to create a differentiated competitive retail energy provider. It raised $2.1 million in May and is currently operating in New York City.
Greeneum
Greeneum revealed this month it is running test nets and pilots for its peer-to-peer energy trading platform “in Europe, Cyprus, Israel, Africa and the U.S.” It expects to have a viable product platform out by mid-2018.
UPDATE: GTM originally reported that Greeneum is being developed by the same team as SolarCoin, which is incorrect. On October 25, the SolarCoin Foundation issued a statement clarifying that Greeneum is a stand-alone project and that none of SolarCoin's founders "has a role or formal knowledge of the project specifics." Previous statements suggested otherwise.
Grid+
In one of the most hotly hyped launches in the energy blockchain world, Grid+ last month raised $29 million through its token pre-sale, which will fund the development and launch of its blockchain-based competitive retail provider in Texas. The hype was partly a result of Grid+’s origins: It was created by top New York blockchain shop ConsenSys.
UPDATE: Initial reports show that Grid+ raised $40 million through its token pre-sale. However, the firm said it actually raised $29 million from the pre-sale, which amounts to 36,422,909 GRID tokens. GTM has updated this story to reflect the correct dollar amount.
Grid+ acknowledged it made some errors in its pre-sale calculations, but they had no bearing on the total dollar amount raised. With the pre-sale complete, that leaves 53,577,091 GRID tokens for sale in Grid+'s public token sale taking place October 30.
Grid Singularity
Grid Singularity is an Austrian startup developing a blockchain purpose-built for the energy industry, backed by a team of experienced energy market professionals and leading blockchain and smart contract developers, according to its website (see also: Energy Web Foundation).
Electron
U.K. startup Electron began with a blockchain-based solution to help customers in the U.K. switch energy suppliers, but has since been communicating a vision of leveraging its platform to support broader energy trading and grid-balancing solutions. Last month, with help from Siemens and National Grid, it won U.K. government support to scale up its platform.
Energy Web Foundation
Established in February by Grid Singularity and the Rocky Mountain Institute, Energy Web Foundation is not so much a startup as an alliance body aimed at introducing an open-source blockchain designed for the electricity market, identifying use cases and helping build an ecosystem of participants. Big-name energy firms pumped $2.5 million into the foundation in May.
ImpactPPA
While most energy-based blockchain players offer a token for trading, Manhattan Beach, California-based ImpactPPA has two: one to fund projects and one to consume energy. The company is targeting the estimated 16 percent of the world population that lacks a reliable source of energy.
LO3 Energy
As well as backing Electron in the U.K., Siemens last year announced a tie-up with New York peer-to-peer blockchain developer LO3 Energy. The promising startup this month pulled in an unspecified amount of funding from Braemar Energy Ventures and Centrica Innovations.
MyBit
MyBit is designed to help crowdfund solar panels by distributing the ownership of each system across several owners. The company raised the equivalent of around $2.7 million in a token sale in August.
Power Ledger
Australia’s star energy blockchain player, Power Ledger, had pulled in more than $24 million from around 15,000 supporters by the time it completed a token generation event earlier this month. The company is rolling out pilot projects for its blockchain platform, built to support a broad range of energy market applications, in Australia and New Zealand.
SolarCoin
SolarCoin was launched in 2014 as a rewards program for solar electricity generation, with one of its coins equaling a megawatt-hour of production. The scheme is set to reward 97,500 terawatt-hours of generation over 40 years, but for now its value remains low.
Sun Exchange
Sun Exchange’s motto is “solar-powered money.” Founded by U.K. utility-scale solar pioneer Abraham Cambridge, the company aims to let supporters around the world crowdfund PV down to the level of an individual solar cell and lease them to schools and businesses in Africa. The company's marketplace is focused on funding and building new generation systems, rather than trading power. Sun Exchange has been operational for several years and has successfully funded four solar projects. The company recently raised $1.6 million in seed funding, which will go towards expanding its business and global capabilities.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this article stated that Sun Exchange is a "peer-to-peer solar energy trading platform." This entry was updated to clarify that Sun Exchange does not trade power, and is focused instead on funding new solar projects.
Veridium Labs
Veridium is a financial technology firm aiming to create a new asset class called “EcoSmart Commodities.” “Veridium will provide a new vehicle for corporations to embed environmental replacements into the cost of their products,” co-founder Todd Lemons told GTM.
WePower
WePower is developing an Ethereum-based platform to fund renewable energy projects through the sale and trading of the “tokenized” energy produced by those systems. The company is looking to raise $30 million from an ICO next month.
--
GTM will host an entire panel session on Blockchain at the first annual U.S. Power & Renewables Conference in November. You'll get an in-depth look at how the renewable energy market will interact with the U.S. power market, and how those interactions can impact overall industry development and market growth. Curated by GTM Research, MAKE, and Wood Mackenzie energy analysts, we’ll take an expansive view of key issues and timely topics, bringing together a diverse group of energy experts and stakeholders to discuss demand dynamics, economics and business model shifts, and policy and regulatory implications. |
Climate change damages health of millions | Climate change is already harming millions across the globe, according to international research published in The Lancet. The study reaffirms the claim put forward in a 2009 report that climate change constitutes the worst danger to global health this century. The number of people over 65 exposed to extreme heat, to which they are vulnerable, has risen by 125 million between 2000 and 2016, according to the report. Dengue fever is also spreading more easily due to increased mosquito breeding, air pollution is causing millions of premature deaths, and hunger is set to increase due to crop damage.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/30/climate-change-already-damaging-health-of-millions-globally-report-finds | 2017-10-30 00:00:00 | The health of hundreds of millions of people around the world is already being damaged by climate change, a major report has revealed.
Heatwaves are affecting many more vulnerable people and global warming is boosting the transmission of deadly diseases such as dengue fever, the world’s most rapidly spreading disease. Air pollution from fossil fuel burning is also causing millions of early deaths each year, while damage to crops from extreme weather threatens hunger for millions of children.
The findings, published in the Lancet journal, come from researchers at 26 institutions around the world, including many universities, the World Health Organization, World Bank and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO reported on Monday that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere made a record jump in 2016 to hit a concentration not seen for more than three million years.
“Climate change is happening and it’s a health issue today for millions worldwide,” said Prof Anthony Costello, at the World Health Organization and co-chair of the group behind the new report. It follows a related report in 2009 that warned that climate change was the biggest danger to global health in the 21st century, an assessment repeated in the new report.
But Costello said acting to halt global warming would also deliver a huge benefit for health: “The outlook is challenging, but we still have an opportunity to turn a looming medical emergency into the most significant advance for public health this century.”
“Our scientists have been telling us for some time that we’ve got a bad case of climate change. Now our doctors are telling us it’s bad for our health,” said Christiana Figueres, who as the UN’s climate chief negotiated the Paris climate change agreement and also co-chaired the new report.
“Hundreds of millions of people are already suffering health impacts as a result of climate change,” she told the Guardian. “Tackling climate change directly, unequivocally, and immediately improves global health. It’s as simple as that.”
One of the most striking of the 40 indicators assessed by the researchers was a huge increase in the number of people over 65 exposed to extreme heat. This rose by 125 million between 2000 and 2016 and worries doctors because older people are especially vulnerable to heat.
“There is no crystal ball gazing here, these are the actual observations,” said Prof Peter Cox, at the University of Exeter, UK. He said the 70,000 deaths that resulted from the 2003 heatwave in Europe looked small compared to the long-term trends: “We were alarmed when we saw this.”
Most of the increase in exposed people resulted from rising temperatures, but the number of older people is also rising, creating a “perfect storm”, Cox said. The report also found that hotter and more humid weather was increasingly creating conditions in which it is impossible to work outside. In 2016, this caused work equivalent to almost a million people to be lost, half in India alone.
The report also found that climate change has increased the ability of dengue fever to spread, because the mosquitoes and the virus they carry breed more quickly. Dengue is also known as “breakbone fever” due to the pain it causes and infections have doubled in each decade since 1990, now reaching up to 100m infections a year now. Dengue was used as an example in the report and the researchers suggest global warming will also increase the spread of other diseases such as schistosomiasis.
Patients queue for treatment following an outbreak of dengue fever in Bhopal, India this month. Photograph: Sanjeev Gupta/EPA
Air pollution is known to cause millions of early deaths every year but the new report highlights the 800,000 annual deaths related solely to coal burning. The good news here, said Prof Paul Wilkinson, is that coal production peaked in 2013 and is now falling. “We are seeing the first turn [in the trend] but we have a long way to go,” he said. “It is a health dividend we are ignoring if we do not act.”
The impacts of climate change are not limited to poorer nations, said Dr Toby Hillman, at the Royal College of Physicians, but also affect developed nations like the UK. He said air pollution kills about 40,000 in the UK each year and criticised low government funding levels for cycling and walking. Hillman also noted other impacts, such as sharp increases in mental health problems after extreme weather events like flooding.
The new report highlighted imminent threats as well, such as the loss of crops to increasingly hot and extreme weather. “We are going to see millions more undernourished children as a result of that,” said Prof Hugh Montgomery, at University College London (UCL).
Montgomery said the potential benefits of climate change appeared to be small in comparison to the damages: “We are not ducking the potential benefits, we just find it hard to see what they are.”
Nearly 700,000 persons have been internally displaced in Somalia as a result of the drought and food crisis, reports say. Photograph: Peter Caton/Mercy Corps
Cox said it was not clear that global warming will actually reduce winter cold spells, which cause early deaths in higher latitude countries, because changes happening in the Arctic can exacerbate cold snaps. Prof Georgina Mace, also at UCL, said the evidence for a warmer climate increasing food production was often very localised and short term: ”Overall the overwhelming pattern is negative.”
Clare Goodess, a climate researcher at the University of East Anglia and not part of the Lancet report, said: “The indicators reveal some stark warnings for human health, as well as some glimmers of hope, [and] the key messages appear robust. The attribution of [climate change] temperature trends to human activities is now unequivocal, so the urgency of addressing the issues raised by this report is not in doubt.” |
UK supermarkets sell salmon 20 times over sea lice limit | Scottish salmon carrying up to 20 times the acceptable amount of sea lice are being sold in UK supermarkets, including the Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Each farmed fish is expected to carry no more than one louse, but data from the Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland indicates that most farmed fish carry an average of at least three lice. Suppliers known to exceed lice limits include Grieg Seafood Shetland, Marine Harvest and the Scottish Salmon Company. The infected fish pose environmental risks, but are no threat to consumers.
| http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/scottish-salmon-uk-sea-lice-acceptable-limit-20-times-a8026481.html | 2017-10-30 00:00:00 | Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email 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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Scottish salmon sold by a range of supermarkets in the UK has sea lice up to 20 times the acceptable amount.
The maximum number of the parasites is expected to be no more than one louse per farmed fish but data obtained by the Salmon and Trout Conversation (S&TC) Scotland shows that there was an average of at least three lice per farmed fish at Salmon farms.
Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-op are among those who have stocked salmon from the worst affected farms and Co-op’s supplier, The Scottish Salmon Company, recorded lice numbers that exceeded acceptable levels at six of its 10 farms, for an entire year.
At one of the farms, each fish was found to have 23 sea lice for a period of seven weeks.
Tesco salmon supplier Grieg Seafood Shetland was found to have an average of 22 lice and Marine Harvest, Sainsbury’s supplier was also on the list.
Those fish who are infected pose no risk to consumers as they are either discarded or treated with pesticides.
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. 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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. 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Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor for S&TC Scotland, told the Daily Mail: “We now call upon Scottish ministers to rethink radically their approach to the salmon farming industry, to end the knee-jerk support of the industry in the face of frankly awful environmental performance, and to stop trying to protect it from legitimate criticism.
“We have shared our ideas for change with Marine Scotland and hope Scottish ministers will now work with environmental and conservation bodies to map out a sustainable future for the industry that no longer damages the precious Scottish marine environment and the species within it.
“We also call upon the industry itself to end both its tobacco-industry style denials about the damage it causes and the "tit for tat" accusations it repeatedly makes, in favour of embracing the positive change that must now come.” |
City regulator the FCA moves backwards on diversity targets | UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has moved further away from achieving its own diversity targets. The body’s senior leadership team was just 36% female at the end of March, down from 39% in 2016. The regulator’s average gender pay gap was 19%. The proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic staff on the senior leadership team also fell from 3% last year to 2%. The FCA has set a goal of 45% of its senior leaders identifying as female by 2020, rising to 50% by 2025 under its commitment to the Women in Finance charter.
| https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-publishes-data-progress-toward-diversity-targets-and-gender-pay-gap | 2017-10-30 00:00:00 | The FCA has set a target of 45% of its senior leadership team identifying as female by 2020 and 50% by 2025 as part of its commitment to the Women in Finance charter. Progress towards the target is reported annually as at 31 March. For 2017 the FCA’s senior leadership team is 36% female, which has fallen from 39% in 2016.
Under new legislation organisations must publish gender pay gap information on an annual basis. Using the required legislative calculation, the FCA’s mean gender pay gap is 19.28% and the median gap is 20.91%. This reflects relatively fewer women in more senior technical and managerial roles and the higher proportion of women at administrator level. This is not an equal pay issue; the FCA’s clear position is that women and men who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value are paid equally.
The FCA has set a target of 8% of its senior leadership team identifying as Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) by 2020 and 13% by 2025. As of 31 March 2017 the FCA’s senior leadership team is 2% BAME which is down from 3% in 2016.
Since March 2017 the FCA has been making better progress towards its targets and anticipates this will be reflected in the 2018 figures.
Christopher Woolard, Chair of the FCA’s Executive Diversity Committee said:
‘Having a diverse workforce helps us make better decisions and judgements as a regulator and it is important that as a regulator we reflect the society which we represent. People who join us say our strong commitment to diversity and inclusion is a major reason for wanting to work at the FCA.
‘We are obviously disappointed that the number of people identifying as female and BAME in senior leadership roles fell slightly in the year ending 31 March 2017. However, we are taking positive steps to ensure that we achieve a better balance across the organisation. This includes improving our gender balance throughout the organisation which will help reduce the gender pay gap.
‘We already know that recruitment to our senior team is beginning to increase the representation of women and BAME colleagues. We have set an ambitious aspiration for greater diversity in the FCA and are determined to meet it.’
The FCA has set out a number of actions that the organisation will take in order to achieve its targets. These steps include:
all senior leaders have an objective around the promotion of diversity and inclusion
senior leaders are focusing on ensuring that diversity and inclusion is considered when allocating work
expecting hiring managers and agencies to produce balanced shortlists which will give the FCA the best candidates for all roles
training sessions demonstrating the importance of diversity and inclusion to the organisation. Those taking part will make a commitment to change by taking positive action through their management decisions
establishing a number of mentoring schemes which include an internal mentoring scheme for women and participation in the 30% Club mentoring scheme and Race for Opportunity Cross Organisational Mentoring Circles
The FCA will report again in 2018 on its progress towards its targets.
Christopher Woolard has also today given a speech to City and Financial LGBT event discussing the important of diversity.
Notes to editors |
UK supermarkets sell salmon infested with lice | Co-op, Tesco and Sainsbury's have been found to be selling salmon from Scottish farms where sea lice infestations are up to 20 times accepted levels, according to Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland. Furnace Quarry farm, which supplies Co-op, Score Holm farm, run by Tesco supplier Grieg Seafood Shetland, and Marine Harvest, which supplies Sainsbury's, are on the list of premises that carry a major infestation. The Scottish government has been accused of playing down the problem. Salmon and trout farmers globally have said sea lice is now the biggest threat to their business. | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5028945/Scottish-salmon-sold-supermarkets-infested-sea-lice.html | 2017-10-29 18:18:47.817000 | Leading supermarkets have been called on to stop selling salmon reared by Scottish farms, where sea lice infestations are up to 20 times the recommended levels.
Co-op, Tesco and Sainsbury's all stock salmon from the worst affected farms, as revealed in new data obtained by the Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland (S&TCS).
Salmon farms are expected to keep numbers of the parasite - which can cause loss of fins, scarring, secondary infections and death - to no more than one louse per farmed fish.
Leading supermarkets have been called on to ban salmon reared by Scottish farms, where sea lice infestations have been revealed as up to 23 times the recommended levels (file picture)
Data obtained by S&TCS lists the farms that reported an average of at least three lice per farmed fish.
Co-op supplier, The Scottish Salmon Company, recorded lice numbers that exceeded acceptable levels at six of its 10 farms, for 52 weeks.
At the firm's Furnace Quarry farm, each fish was found to have 23 sea lice for a period of seven weeks.
Meanwhile fish at Score Holm farm, run by Tesco salmon supplier Grieg Seafood Shetland, were found to have an average of 22 adult female lice.
Marine Harvest, which supplies Sainsbury's, was also named on the list.
Fish infested with sea lice are discarded or treated with pesticides and pose no health risk to consumers.
S&TCS had asked the Scottish government repeatedly since last year to make public the farms that had breached recommended sea lice levels, before the Scottish Information Commissioner agreed to their request last month.
THE SEA LICE THREAT The tiny parasite can cause loss of fins, scarring, infectionc and ultimately death Sea lice belong to a group of tiny crustacenas called copepods, and have colonized almost every aquatic habitat on Earth. Its like cycle is a series of molts - at the 'napulii' stage the sea louse is free swimming, relying on its own internal yolk reserves. But at its intermediate copepod stage, the lice use their hooked atennas and frontal filaments to arrach themselves to fish; they are still too small to cause any real damage as they feed on the young salmon. As the lice near the adult stage, they attach to the fish by suction and can become lethal. They're able to move on the host fish's body, targetting the head, back and perianal areas - preferring to feed on mucusm blood and skin. There are two species found on salmon, Caligus elongates and Lepeophtheirus salmonis. The former affects many types of fish, while the latter is found only on salmon and related fish. Source: Alaska Department of Fish and Game Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/news/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->
Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor for S&TC Scotland, said: 'We now call upon Scottish Ministers to rethink radically their approach to the salmon farming industry, to end the knee-jerk support of the industry in the face of frankly awful environmental performance, and to stop trying to protect it from legitimate criticism.
'We have shared our ideas for change with Marine Scotland and hope Scottish Ministers will now work with environmental and conservation bodies to map out a sustainable future for the industry that no longer damages the precious Scottish marine environment and the species within it.
'We also call upon the industry itself to end both its tobacco-industry style denials about the damage it causes and the "tit for tat" accusations it repeatedly makes, in favour of embracing the positive change that must now come'.
He added: 'The data that Scottish Government didn’t want anyone to see shows that salmon farms have been permitted to operate with breathtakingly high lice numbers for weeks or months on end.
'To date, no meaningful enforcement action, such as the ordering of culls or immediate reductions in fish-farm biomass, has been taken against serial offenders.
'The Scottish Government has a legal duty to protect and conserve wild salmon and sea trout, but this data shows it is failing to rein in the biggest threat [them].”
A Scottish government spokesman said it would work alongside the aquaculture industry to tackle 'major problems' including disease and sea lice.
Scotland is not the only affected region, as parasitic sea lice are disrupting salmon farms around the world.
The lice are actually tiny crustaceans that have infested salmon farms in the US, Canada, Scotland, Norway and Chile, major suppliers of the high-protein, heart-healthy fish.
Experts say defeating the lice will take a suite of new and established technology, including older management tools such as pesticides and newer strategies such as breeding for genetic resistance.
The innovative solutions in use or development include bathing the salmon in warm water to remove lice and zapping the lice with underwater lasers.
Farmers worldwide consider sea lice the biggest threat to their industry and say the persistent problem is making the fish more expensive to consumers.
The lice can grow to about the size of a pea and lay thousands of eggs in their brief lifetime.
Atlantic salmon have held their own with sea lice in the wild for centuries, and fish farmers managed them in aquaculture environments for many years.
The price of salmon has rocketed as sea lice has become a problem for farms around the world
Farmers in Canada identified the lice as a problem around 1994, said Jonathan Carr, executive director of research and environment with the Atlantic Salmon Federation.
Feeding fish a pesticide with the active ingredient of emamectin benzoate became the tool of choice to control lice.
But around 2009, the lice appeared to become resistant to the pesticide, and they have spread globally since.
The worldwide supply of salmon fell almost 10 percent last year, with Norway, the largest producer in the world, especially hard hit. |
China plans around 1,800 electric car charging points | Almost 1,900 electric vehicle (EV) charging ports will be installed in Beijing over the next three years, with more than 1,600 of those located in the city's Tongzhou District, as part of a study looking at the phasing out of fossil fuel-dependent cars. China wants to follow France and the UK in banning the manufacturing and sale of petrol and diesel cars, but has no timeline for such a ban. In 2016, China sold 507,000 new energy vehicles, a rise of 53% since last year, while sales of pure EVs rose 65.1% to 409,000.
| http://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/china-to-set-up-1800-charging-points-for-electric-cars-in-its-capital-city-beijing-4182103.html | 2017-10-29 17:14:16.780000 | PTI
About 1,800 charging ports for electric cars would be set up in Chinese capital as part of a study to work out a plan to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles. About 1,615 of these 1,895 charging ports will be installed in the area of administration offices in Beijing citys Tongzhou District, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
By 2020, Tongzhou plans to build a charging port every two kilometers to provide better service to electric vehicles in the suburban district of Beijing. Currently, Tongzhou has 53 charging stations at expressway service areas and shopping malls, and another two for the districts 510 electric taxies. Beijing will move many of its administration offices out of the city center to the eastern suburbs, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning in 2016.
Building the new administrative center will draw approximately four lakh urban residents from the city center to the suburban district, the commission said.
The Chinese capital has sought to address its severe "urban diseases", such as congestion and pollution, by curbing population growth and moving facilities to nearby regions.
Earlier a Chinese official said China, the worlds top automobile market, wants to ban the manufacturing and sales of cars running on traditional fuels as done by the UK and France.
Xin Guobin, Chinas vice minister of industry and information technology said that Beijing had started research on a timetable to phase out production and sales of fossil fuel cars.
While Xin gave no details on the timeframe, he said, "the measures would surely bring profound changes to the sectors development". Many Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, have already imposed severe restrictions on sale of new cars to contain air pollution and to restrict traffic congestion. The ministers statement followed similar moves of several countries to end the era of gas-powered vehicles to cut emissions and reduce pollution.
In July, French Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot announced that France would end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040 as part of the countrys plan to meet its targets under the Paris climate accord. The same month, the British government followed suit with a similar plan eyeing 2040 as a deadline to stop sales of new fossil fuel cars. China has been implementing a slew of measures, including tax exemptions, discounts for car purchases and an order for government organisations to buy more new energy vehicles (NEVs).
Last year, China sold 507,000 NEVs, an increase of 53 percent year on year. Sales of pure electric vehicles surged 65.1 percent year on year to 409,000, accounting for 80 percent of new energy vehicle sales, the report said.
An earlier guideline by the State Council said China would build more than 12,000 new charging stations before 2020 to fulfil the demands of over 5 million NEVs. According to a roadmap compiled by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, the share of NEVs sales should reach more than 40 percent of total auto sales by 2030. |
BrainCo to use brainwave data measuring student engagement | Edtech firm BrainCo has secured $15m in funding to develop headsets recording students' brainwave activity. The firm plans to monitor brainwave data to determine when students are most and least focused during lessons. BrainCo also says it plans to develop other functions for the headsets, such as software that would enable thoughts to be converted in to text. The firm also aims to use the headset for ADHD therapy. | https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-10-26-this-company-wants-to-gather-student-brainwave-data-to-measure-engagement | 2017-10-29 09:27:36.807000 | If Blade Runner had a classroom scene, it might look something like the promotional video by BrainCo, Inc. Students sit at desks wearing electronic headbands that report EEG data back to a teacher’s dashboard, and that information purports to measure students’ attention levels. The video’s narrator explains: “School administrators can use big data analysis to determine when students are better able to concentrate.”
BrainCo just scored $15 million in venture funding from Chinese investors, and has welcomed a prominent Harvard education dean, who will serve as an adviser. The company says it has a working prototype and is in conversations with a Long Island school to pilot the headset.
The headband raises questions from neuroscientists and psychologists, who say little evidence exists to support what the device-and-dashboard combination aims to do. It also raises legal questions, like what BrainCo will do with students’ biometric data.
BrainCo has some big ideas. The company’s CEO has said that BrainCo aims to develop a tool that can translate thoughts directly into text, or “brain typing.” To support that work, the company plans to use data collected from students using its headsets to compile “the world’s largest brainwave database.”
Theodore Zanto, a professor of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco, had two words when he first read through the company’s website: “Holy shit.”
The brains behind BrainCo
The founder and CEO of BrainCo is Bicheng Han, a PhD candidate at the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University. In 2015, his Somerville, Mass.-based startup was incubated in the Harvard Innovation Lab, and last year the company received $5.5 million in seed funding in a round led by the Boston Angel Club, with participation from Han Tan Capital and Wandai Capital, to develop BrainCo’s first product: Focus 1.
Teachers have an innate ability to know when their students are engaged, but we want to give them a superpower so they can track and quantify that over time. Max Newlon
Max Newlon, a research scientist at BrainCo, adds the company is also studying if the headset could help students and families “train their brain” to improve attention skills. Focus 1 is a headband that aims to detect and report brain activity through EEG, or electroencephalography, which measures in the brain. To advertise the device to schools, BrainCo packages the headset as Focus EDU, which essentially is the headset plus a dashboard where teachers can view all of their students’ EEG data. According to the video, a high numerical score for the EEG signal suggests that a student is paying attention; a low score is interpreted as a distracted or unfocused student.
BrainCo is hardly the first company to sell so-called “brain-training”—or even EEG headsets. Similar devices include Muse, a “personal meditation” headband intended to guide relaxation based on real-time EEG readings. There are also Neurocore Brain Performance Centers, clinics that “empower you to train your brain” also using EEG readings. (Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is among Neurocore’s investors.)
Focus EDU, by contrast, is among the first EEG products that will be marketed directly to teachers and schools.
“We are trying to be the first company to quantify this invisible metric” of student engagement, says Newlon. “Teachers have an innate ability to know when their students are engaged, but we want to give them a superpower so they can track and quantify that over time.”
The idea was enough for BrainCo to win awards including “Most Innovative” at a pitchfest during the 2017 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) national conference.
But the company has also faced less enthusiastic reviews. At the 2016 CES conference, an electronics and consumer tech tradeshow, BrainCo’s Focus 1 device flopped in a live demo, which attempted to use human brainwaves detected by the headband to control a robotic hand. The Daily Dot called it the most “cringeworthy demonstration” at the event. “That’s a mishap that calls into question the overall function of the device,” the reporter wrote. “Was it ever actually reading the brainwaves at all?”
When BrainCo returned to CES in 2017, the company arrived with an even bigger robot—which the site WearableZone reported was a success—along with a strategic “pivot” towards education.
More recently, BrainCo has chalked up some big wins: It signed education superstar, James Ryan, Harvard’s dean of education, as an adviser. And now it’s closed a $15 million Series A funding round, bringing the the company’s total funding to nearly $20.5 million. The funding was led by Chinese investors Decent Capital and the China Electronics Corporation, which on its website describes itself as “one of the key state-owned conglomerates directly under the administration of central government, and the largest state-owned IT company in China.”
image credit: BrainCo
Making it ‘official’
Increasing engagement in class isn’t the only way BrainCo plans to sell its product. According to Newlon, the startup hopes to secure approval from the US Food & Drug Administration to use the headset for ADHD therapy.
BrainCo aims to rely on neurofeedback (using EEG metrics) to do “brain-training.” According to UCSF’s Theodore Zanto, brain-training involves repeating a specific task, such as playing a videogame, until the individual is considered focused. Advocates contend that improving focus on a specific task can help individuals better their ability to pay attention to other activities.
Even in resting EEG, there are different subgroups [of brain activity]. It’s not just ADHD; there is variability in normal kids. Sandra Loo
Companies that claim to offer similar brain-training options, like Neurocore, frequently cost more than $250 just for an evaluation. BrianCo wants to offer a cheaper, take-home version. “We are hoping to provide an alternative to lower the cost to make it happen in home,” says Newlon.Newlon says BrainCo is also working on a smartphone game that will rely on EEG measurements from the headset to help people improve focus. Students could play the game for 20- to 30-minute sessions and earn points when they are in a focused state.
Several scientists have concerns about at-home “brain-training,” however, as well as about asking teachers to use EEG to inform pedagogical practices.
Sandra Loo, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, says EEG technology is not sophisticated enough to accurately factor in important variables such as neurodiversity. That, she says, can yield misleading assumptions about how an individual student is doing or what he or she needs.
“Even in resting EEG, there are different subgroups [of brain activity]. It’s not just ADHD; there is variability in normal kids,” says Loo, who also directs pediatric neuropsychology at UCLA. “No one is paying attention to that, [instead] the approach is one-size-fits-all—’Do this and it will work for your child.’”
Zanto, who directs UCSF’s neuroscience program, doesn’t believe there is any physical danger in wearing the headset and administering EEG without a doctor present. What does concern him are errors in recording EEG signals—which are sensitive to muscle movement—as well as incorrect interpretations of the data.
“I haven’t seen any data indicating you can dissociate [in an EEG scan] if someone is paying attention to the teacher or their phone or just their own internal thoughts and daydreaming,” says Zanto. Students wearing the headset “might be incredibly focused, but focused on the wrong thing, and you could get the same EEG measures.”
Even if the EEG is accurate, Loo worries that teachers without medical training might not know how to analyze the data—something that could lead to improper uses of it. “Mental-health professionals undergo a lot of training to make an accurate diagnosis,” says Loo. “I wouldn’t go in and try to do what the teachers are doing without their training.”
image credit: BrainCo
Research questions
When EdSurge asked to see some of the scientific findings that BrainCo was using as evidence of their efforts, the company pointed to a meta-analysis (a study of other studies) suggesting neurofeedback can be an effective treatment for ADHD.
I haven’t seen anything indicating neurofeedback of this sort can improve outcomes [for people with] ADHD Theodore Zanto
“The scientific evidence doesn’t support neurofeedback as a treatment for ADHD,” says Loo. “I have done research on EEG and ADHD for my whole career, and we just don’t know yet.”To be sure, Zanto, Loo and other EEG experts who spoke with EdSurge say there is scientific evidence that correlates EEG activity with attention. But using EEG data to parse what a student is actually paying attention to or using neurofeedback to improve attention is more difficult to confirm. What’s more, there’s scant evidence that neurofeedback can be used to treat learning disabilities, say scientists.
“I haven’t seen anything indicating neurofeedback of this sort can improve outcomes [for people with] ADHD,” echoes Zanto. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but that just means more research needs to be done.”
Marketing claims related to neurofeedback products have attracted regulatory concern before: Last year, the Federal Trade Commission leveled a $2-million fine on Lumosity for "deceptive advertising" about the effectiveness of its brain-training games.
Researchers at BrainCo seem to be at least aware of the research gap. Included in the email with the meta-analysis, BrainCo shared a WebMD article noting “that we still need more research.”
Big data plans
BrainCo’s goal of treating ADHD—and helping educators in general—is related to another interest for company, as stated by its CEO in an interview that ran on the Forbes website in May. In the Q&A, Han said that the company wants to use artificial intelligence to create a brain typing tool—something that turns thoughts into text. Data collected from students using the devices would be key to informing the development of that technology.
BrainCo says that a company in China has ordered 20,000 devices already.
“Our goal with the first 20,000 devices, each of which will be used by multiple students in schools, is to capture data from 1.2 million people,” Han said in the interview. “This will enable us to use artificial intelligence on what will be the world’s largest database to improve our algorithms for things like attention and emotion detection.”
But BrainCo has not yet established any policies that guide (or prevent) the company from using data collected from U.S. students. The company intends to “use [headset] data for a number of different things,” according to Newlon.
“The hope is when we have this really big database, we will do some analysis that others haven't been able to do yet,” Newlon adds. “If we have a big database, we might do more interesting research along the lines of something like brain typing.”
Privacy unknown
The headband’s potential for ADHD therapy isn’t currently mentioned on BrainCo’s website. To date, the company hasn’t yet gone through a clinical trial to approve the product for medical purposes.
But a lack of transparency on the company website about data privacy policies could trigger other troubles.
For instance, Bill Fitzgerald, director of privacy review programs at Common Sense Media, points out that BrainCo does not have any publicly-available privacy statement, ethical review or any information about how students’ data will be stored or used. If a parent wishes to have their child’s information deleted, BrainCo doesn’t offer information on how that happens or how it will prove to families that the biometric information is indeed removed. There is also no public-facing process on how families will be notified if their child’s biometric data is breached.
Our goal with the first 20,000 devices, each of which will be used by multiple students in schools, is to capture data from 1.2 million people. Bicheng Han
Newlon says that BrainCo’s privacy policies are still being “ironed out.” He stresses that the company has not yet started collecting data—though it plans to do so.In many cases, safeguarding student privacy is required by law. Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Emily Tabatabai, a privacy lawyer, says “a provider needs to have procedures in place to address the collection of data, the deletion of data, how it will be used and shared.”
While FERPA, the federal student privacy law, doesn’t mandate that privacy policies are posted on a company's website, some state laws do. Tabatabai says “at the very least, the company must have data protections in place and describe its privacy policies to the school.” The lawyer also underscores that determining which privacy laws may apply to any company is dependent upon factors such as whether or not information is collected online, or if a student's educational records are being shared with the company.
BrainCo declined to name the Long Island school that it says is considering to pilot its device. When EdSurge began reporting for this story, BrainCo claimed that the pilot was slated to begin on Oct. 31. Since then, the company has backed off that timeline and says the trial will be delayed.
Newlon wrote in an email: “We will not be running any pilot study without the proper data privacy procedures in place.”
Newlon also points out that the company is an Institutional Review Board (IRB) organization, which gives it permission “to review and monitor biomedical research involving human subjects,” according to FDA rules. But an IRB doesn’t make BrainCo immune to data breaches, or malpractice. “If they are looking at the details of a pilot and they don't have these [privacy] questions answered, they should stop every single thing they are doing until they do,” says Fitzgerald.
Loo, the psychologist at UCLA, adds that by using medical records—namely, EEG recordings made in a classroom—may also mean that BrainCo will have to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which lays out privacy regulations for medical data.
“Any time you have medical biological materials, a lot of safety measures come into play,” says Loo. “Is there confidentiality there? Can the company release [data] to insurance companies? Who knows.”
Blurry vision
Can the company release [data] to insurance companies? Who knows. Sandra Loo
Meanwhile, BrainCo’s CEO did not respond when asked in an email about the lack of privacy regulations in place. And when EdSurge asked to try out one of the Focus EDU headsets, BrainCo also declined.Ryan, the company’s adviser and Harvard’s dean of education, is aware that BrainCo wants to pilot Focus EDU on students. But as for any data and privacy protections underway at the company, he says “I don’t know, I haven’t had a conversation with Max [Newlon] about it.”
The wild ambition of selling brain-reading headbands to schools—which are charged with protecting students—seems to raise a range of concerns, including deeply philosophical ones. How far should schools go to “train” students? |
Nestlé, Hershey and Mars 'deceived' customers over palm oil: RAN | Hershey, Nestlé and Mars have been accused of breaking commitments to end their use of “conflict palm oil”, taken from deforested land in Indonesia, by the Rainforest Action Network. The environmental group claims that the companies have “deceived” consumers by failing to improve their supply chains. Nestlé has not met its target of “no sourcing from areas converted from natural forests after 1 February 2013”. Hershey’s pledge to source all palm oil to plantations by 2016 has been deferred to 2020. Campaigners claim that Mars’ promise to stop using conflict palm oil by 2015 has also not been met.
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/27/nestle-mars-and-hershey-breaking-promises-over-palm-oil-use-say-campaigners | 2017-10-27 22:00:00 | Nestlé, Mars and Hershey have been accused of breaking pledges to stop using “conflict palm oil” from deforested Indonesian jungles, just days before the annual Halloween confectionery frenzy.
The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says consumers have been “deceived” by promises from the brands to clean up their supply chains which were subsequently delayed, revised or watered down.
Laurel Sutherlin, a spokesman for the group, told the Guardian: “For too many years, Nestlé, Mars and Hershey have cherry-picked their [palm oil] targets and then moved the goalposts when they don’t achieve them. There’s just no further room for error to prevent the extinction of tigers, orangutans and elephants.”
The last parcel of Sumatran rainforest in which these three species all roam – along with rhinos, clouded leopards and sun bears – is vanishing at a dramatic pace as lucrative palm oil plantations illegally eat into tropical forestland.
The brands source palm oil from this 2.6m hectare Leuser region, via complex supply chains, some involving traders linked to suppliers illegally logging in the region.
Nestlé promised to end deforestation in its supply chain by 2015 in response to Greenpeace’s KitKat campaign of 2010. After Ran’s “Snack food 20” report, this was upgraded to a pledge of “no sourcing from areas converted from natural forests after 1 February 2013”. The target was missed.
“Four years later we can now trace over 90% of our palm oil back to the mill of origin and almost two thirds back to the plantation level,” said Nestlé spokeswoman Peggy Diby. “Our ambition is to raise this figure to 100% by 2020, back to plantation.”
In July, Nestlé told the Guardian it could only source 47% of its palm oil to plantations, suggesting a big improvement in the last three months.
Hershey’s said in 2014 that it would source all of its palm oil back to the mill level by 2015, and to plantations by 2016. But its plantation level sourcing actually fell in 2016 from 27% to 14%, and the commitment has been deferred until 2020.
Greenpeace protestors dressed as orangutans demonstrate against palm oil harvested from rainforest destruction outside a Nestle shareholders’ meeting. Photograph: Antoine Antoniol/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Jeff Beckman, Hershey’s communications director said: “While we remain deeply committed to pushing all stakeholders to accelerate traceability and bring full transparency to this supply chain along with our supplier partners, we realised it would take more time to achieve this goal than originally anticipated.”
Mars had promised to cut conflict palm oil out of its supply chain by 2015. A spokesperson said: “Our traceability levels remain high. In the year to date, 97% of our palm oil is traceable to mill level and 40% traceable to the plantation. The evidence of the challenge in Leuser is clear, and we are already taking steps toward action.”
Gemma Tillack, Ran’s campaign director said: “It is our view that the brands have deceived consumers by continually claiming to be tackling deforestation when they have not executed the actions required to achieve a moratorium on the forest frontlines of their global supply chains.” |
London needs to build 66,000 new homes each year: Mayor | London must increase the number of homes constructed each year from 29,000 to 66,000, with 65% of this stock being classified as affordable, compared with the current rate of 38%, according to the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. The plans would necessitate a change in focus from building luxury apartment blocks in the city centre to constructing higher numbers of family homes in suburbs. Analysts expect that Khan will ultimately set a target of 50% for affordable housing, defined as that which can be rented for a third of average earnings or which is available through shared ownership.
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/27/sadiq-khan-to-raise-target-for-affordable-housing-in-london | 2017-10-27 13:21:20.087000 | The mayor of London has accused property developers of constructing “too many luxury penthouses that only the very wealthiest investors can afford” and insisted the rate of affordable house building has to significantly increase.
In a new assessment of housing need, Sadiq Khan said the pace of construction should increase from 29,000 homes a year to 66,000, adding that 65% of these homes needed to be affordable, far higher than the current rate of 38%.
“The housing crisis is a major factor in the high cost of living in the capital, as well as putting home ownership out of the reach of many young Londoners who fear they will never get a foot on the property ladder,” Khan told the Guardian. “In the worst cases, it can affect social cohesion, cause poor health and plunge residents into poverty. I cannot overestimate how terrible a situation we inherited.”
City Hall calculates that a new approach will require a major shift in strategy, switching the emphasis from building blocks of luxury apartments in central London to constructing more family housing in the cheaper suburbs.
Between 1997 and 2016, London’s population increased by a quarter – an extra 1.7 million people – but only 370,000 homes were added to the stock. One result has been a rise in the number of families sharing with other families, which now affects 470,000 households.
The figures are contained in a stark assessment of housing need that will form the basis of the London Plan, a five-year planning strategy due to be published next month.
Khan said: “Successive prime ministers have failed to invest anywhere near enough in building new affordable homes. The previous mayor [Boris Johnson] stopped investing in homes for social rent altogether and cut the number of new affordable homes he funded to the lowest level since records began.”
Khan revealed that no homes for social rent – the cheapest available – were built in London in the last year of Johnson’s mayoralty. Just 29,000 homes a year of all types were built between 2013-14 and 2015-16.
The mayor is using the figures to pile pressure on the chancellor, Philip Hammond, to include in next month’s budget a dramatic increase in state subsidies for affordable housing in the capital from £500m to £2.7bn a year.
The new strategy is set to focus on building more homes in outer London and will include a presumption in favour of development on small sites in suburban town centres. Khan is also pushing for greater powers from the government to force unused sites, including public land, into use for housing, including speeding up compulsory purchase orders.
Despite City Hall’s assessment that 65% of all new homes must be “affordable” – which Khan defines as being rented for no more than a third of average earnings, or under shared ownership schemes – insiders concede this is unlikely to be possible. Khan is expected to set the target for affordable housing at a more achievable, but still highly ambitious, 50% in the London Plan.
St George Wharf in Vauxhall. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
There has been a growing anger at the number of luxury developments, especially among people struggling to afford starter homes or to rent cheaply. One totemic example is the 50-storey St George’s Wharf tower beside the river Thames at Vauxhall where two-thirds of homes were last year revealed by the Guardian to be in foreign ownership, with a quarter held through secretive offshore companies based in tax havens.
Concern spread to the suburbs earlier this month when it emerged that the London borough of Redbridge had agreed to allow the supermarket firm Sainsbury’s to build 683 homes, only 4% of which are guaranteed to be affordable.
Last month, Theresa May announced an extra £2bn for council housing nationwide, but was accused of tinkering when it emerged that it would only result in an extra 5,000 homes a year being built.
In common with town halls across the country, Khan is lobbying for councils to be allowed to borrow to invest in homes. The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, said on Sunday that the government might authorise extra public borrowing to fund infrastructure to deliver more housing. According to some reports, his department believes £50bn is needed. However, Hammond told the Commons this was not government policy.
Andrew Boff, the Conservative deputy chair of the London assembly’s housing committee, warned that Khan’s approach of increasing the proportion of affordable homes needed in each development was putting developers off building any housing.
He believes increasing the whole housing supply would result in lower prices and therefore greater affordability. “He would see more homes built if he had a lower figure for affordable homes,” Boff said. “If you increase the number, the price will go down.“Despite the rhetoric, he has managed to start 20% fewer homes a year than his predecessor after 18 months in office. This directly goes against his promise in his manifesto that each year would be an increase in the number of homes being built.”
City Hall insiders point out that this is a result of the low number left in the pipeline by the previous Conservative administration.
Jonathan Seager, the executive director of housing at London First, the business lobby group, said: “These new figures show us that the housing crisis is worsening. It is now one of the most serious challenges facing business, preventing firms from recruiting and retaining the talent they need to grow and succeed.” |
The Economist attracts over 7 million Snapchat viewers a month | The Economist has drawn more than seven million Snapchat viewers a month in the year since its launch on the social media app. The news publisher educates Snapchat's largely youthful audience with Snapchat Discover packages on serious topics such as the war on drugs. These editions are put together by New York-based Snapchat editor Lucy Rohr, along with teams in Bucharest and London.
| https://digiday.com/media/day-life-economists-snapchat-editor-speaks-young-audience/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=daily&utm_content=171027 | 2017-10-27 11:34:22.470000 | This week, The Economist celebrated its one-year anniversary as a Snapchat Discover partner. The news heavyweight may stand out on the youthful social media app, but it has drawn over 7 million viewers per month, according to the publisher, with editions that educate readers on serious topics like globalization’s losers or the war on drugs.
Those editions are built by Lucy Rohr, a veteran digital producer and editor at The Economist. “I don’t think we’ve come up with the Economist Snapchat secret-sauce recipe yet,” Rohr said. “It would be boring if we had.” Here’s a lightly edited look at what Rohr does in a typical day.
6:30 a.m.: I wake up and resist the urge to check my email, and check the weather instead. I then head out for a run. Prospect Park never ceases to delight me, but I often catch myself thinking about work and ideas for editions while I’m running.
8 a.m.: On the way to work, I check my emails and take care of anything that doesn’t require too much thought. I read the Axios newsletter and, Wi-Fi permitting, look at the headlines elsewhere. I find it interesting to compare the front pages of The New York Times with what Fox has up.
8:30 a.m.: Our Snapchat team is based in Bucharest, Romania, and London, so I spend much of my morning in New York online with them before they log off. Today, I spend an hour or so fine-tuning Snaps with our animators and then speak with Charlie Wells, our Snapchat deputy, about a script on e-commerce that he’s working on. I check in with our designer and tell him I’ve decided to nix an edition we were thinking of doing on coal. We discuss what he’ll be working on instead.
10 a.m.: I have my weekly call with Tom Standage, one of The Economist’s deputy editors and the inexhaustible force behind our digital strategy. Tom is closely involved with the Snapchat team, a bit like an executive producer. We discuss how the current edition (on [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping]) is performing (middle of the road), a better treatment for the first three Snaps of a forthcoming edition on plastic and the Snapchat department’s content plan for the rest of the year.
10:40 a.m.: I hop on a call with the animators who have been frustrated with bottlenecks in our production process. We agree to experiment with a few changes that will hopefully improve things. I find these calls hard, but also essential for ensuring that everyone in the department feels like their voices are being heard.
11:30 a.m.: Charlie and I go over the video for the coming week’s edition, then talk more about the e-commerce script. Scripting is central to the success of an edition. Our audience on Snapchat is intelligent and discerning. If we don’t get the framing right, we tend to get punished for it. Scriptwriting isn’t just about writing copy for 14 Snaps. We read widely before putting together what we think is the most important and relevant content for this audience. Our Snaps vary. Some feature a simple question or statement written with the intention of compelling the viewer into swiping up to read an article. Others are “top-Snap only” content. These often have lots of text on them. They’re intended to be shareable/screenshot-able primers on a topic. We are thinking constantly about how design and other visuals will bring the Snaps to life.
Noon: Every second week we review the performance of our editions. Often, we focus on one particular detail. This week, we look at cover tile, the images and text that appear on the Discover front page. We’re interested in understanding the types of images and copy that have performed best and worst over time.
1 p.m.: I grab a shrimp poke bowl from Urbanspace. While I eat, I read the FT.
2-4 p.m.: Most of the team is now offline for the evening. I try and respond to any email I missed in the morning, and turn my attention to writing a script for an edition on globalization’s losers. Then, I write some feedback on Snaps that one of the animators has put up for my review. I jot down a few notes for an upcoming meeting on staffing.
4:30 p.m.: I meet someone from another news organization for a coffee. We talk about running marathons, Filipino food and challenges facing publishers as they try to adapt their content for different platforms.
6 p.m.: I go home and cook dinner. It’s my meditation!
8 p.m.: I do another pass of the script I’m working on, then email the team to confirm what they’ll be working on tomorrow before I get online. I look at my calendar for the following day to make sure I’m prepared for any meetings.
10 p.m.: In an ideal world, I am in bed with my book! |
Netflix and Snapchat team up for Stranger Things AR promos | Netflix and Snapchat have launched augmented reality (AR) experiences to promote the start of online TV series Stranger Things 2. Snapchat's portal Lens lets users enter an "upside down" version of the Byers' family living room. The pair have also teamed up with Shazam for a face Lens that mimics Eleven's nosebleed. In addition, users can activate the lens by scanning the Stranger Things theme tune. A third, UK exclusive, world Lens of the swimming pool where Barb went missing became available via a Snapcode on 27 October, which gives viewers the illusion of walking around the pool.
| http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/netflix-snapchat-stranger-things-2-portal-world-lens-joyce-byers-eleven-shazam-barb-topshop-oxford-street | 2017-10-27 11:34:22.470000 | Netflix has teamed up with Snapchat to create a ‘first-of-its-kind’ World Lens to promote the launch of the highly-anticipated Stranger Things 2.
Snapchat has created a portal Lens, which enables users to walk into another world through their smartphone. This first use of the technology gives users the chance to enter the ‘upside down’ version of Joyce Byer’s living room.
Within the AR experience, Snapchatters can move around, encounter surprises, and see out the door back into the real world.
The portal World Lens is only available on iPhone 6S and above with iOS 11 installed. Those without an iPhone can turn their camera around to see Byer’s living room through an interactive ‘gyroscope’ Lens, meaning they can experience the portal without walking through the door.
All Snapchatters, regardless of phone or OS, will have access to a face Lens that mimics Eleven’s nosebleed, however.
As part of the campaign, Netflix and Snapchat have also linked up with Shazam for another first. Using Shazam, users can unlock the Lens by scanning the Stranger Things theme song whenever it plays.
Finally, a third Lens will be made available exclusively in the UK via a Snapcode at 8am today (27 October). This will coincide with Shannon Purser, who plays Barb, taking part in a Stranger Things binge watch party with fans at Topshop’s Oxford Street store. This World Lens will enable UK Snapchatters to place the swimming pool where Barb went missing in Season one onto the floor and walk around it.
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. |
AMOpportunities gets $1.1m to support overseas medical students | Chicago-based start-up AMOpportunities has secured $1.1m in seed funding, in a round led by HealthX Ventures and OCA Ventures. AMOpportunities, which won this year's University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge, has developed an online platform connecting medical students around the world with information about job vacancies and links to host clinics in the US. The company said it has helped 1,600 students in the past three years. The funds will be used to expand the company's staff, hire more advisers and increase marketing at international medical schools.
| http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-bsi-amopportunities-seed-funding-20171026-story.html | 2017-10-27 10:38:55.337000 | Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.
Health care startup AMOpportunities, which won the University of Chicago's New Venture Challenge in June, has raised $1.1 million in funding. (Robert Holly / Blue Sky)
AMOpportunities, a Chicago-based startup that helps connect international medical students to short-term training programs in the United States, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding, the company announced Thursday.
The startup, which won the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge in June, was founded in 2013 from a dorm room at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The company aims to help alleviate a shortage of doctors across the United States by helping international medical students join the U.S. health care system, co-founder Benjamin Bradley said.
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“The United States has a huge shortage in specialties like internal medicine and primary care, primarily in rural and underserved areas,” Bradley said. “These students see that and know that they can come here and get a job and fill that opportunity.”
However, the American Medical Association says international students are strongly encouraged to complete short-term training, in the form of clinical rotations, before applying for residencies in the United States.
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AMOpportunities’ “one-stop-shop” site offers students information and applications for almost 400 host clinics. If a student applies through the site, AMOpportunities vets their identity and then helps package their application, secure housing and request the necessary travel documents. They also have advisers on staff part-time to guide the students through their application.
The company says it charges between $1,100 and $4,000 per four-week training program, depending on the number of hours the student works and the popularity of the site. About $500 to $1,000 of that fee is given to the participating clinic.
Foreign-educated physicians usually set up their rotations by contacting American physicians directly, AMOpportunities CEO Kyle Swinsky said.
Although this option is typically free of charge, students generally do not receive help finding housing or obtaining visas.
“It’s more of one physician or one practice that sets up a website,” said Swinsky, who co-founded AMOpportunities with Bradley. “Nobody really does it on the scale we do it.”
Hopefuls can also receive the training through U.S. medical schools. But less than half of the country’s schools accept international students, according to the Association of American Medical Schools.
AMOpportunities says it has earned $2.5 million helping 1,600 international students travel to the United States for training in the past three years. An additional 38,000 students have registered on the site, but have not completed an application. The users have come from more than 65 countries, primarily in South America, South Asia and the Middle East, Bradley said.
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The company says it rarely faces challenges when helping students apply for the nonimmigrant visas. Swinsky added that the travel bans enacted by President Donald Trump haven’t impacted their business because it hasn’t had any applicants from the restricted countries since the ban was ordered. However, he said he’s not sure if the company will be affected in the future.
The startup moved its staff of seven from health-tech incubator Matter to its own office in River North this week. They plan to use the funding to hire five more employees by the end of the year. They also intend to increase marketing at international medical schools and expand their network of advisers.
Chicago-based OCA Ventures and Madison, Wisconsin-based HealthX Ventures led the funding round. Other participants include M25 Group, Wildcat Capital, China Innovation Venture Partners, and Techra Investments, according to AMOpportunities. Also included in the round is $100,000 the startup received as the winners of the New Venture Challenge, Swinsky said.
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San Francisco pledges to build fibre-optic network | San Francisco's patchy data connectivity could become a thing of the past after mayor Ed Lee and supervisor Mark Farrell released a report containing a blueprint to bring fibre connectivity to every home and business in the city. The study by consultants CTC Technology & Energy details how fibre planning needed to be split into "dark" (the infrastructure) and "lit" (internet services) fibre. San Francisco's authorities would tender in a private firm to set up the publicly controlled dark fibre network extending to every home and business, while third-party outfits would win leases to provide the lit fibre: connecting users.
| https://www.wired.com/story/san-francisco-municipal-fiber/?mbid=social_twitter | 2017-10-27 10:35:22.510000 | Last week, San Francisco became the first major city in America to pledge to connect all of its homes and businesses to a fiber optic network.
I urge you to read that sentence again. It’s a ray of light. In an era of short-term, deeply partisan do-nothing-ism, the city's straightforward, deeply practical determination shines. Americans, it turns out, are capable of great things—even if only at the city level these days.
[#image: /photos/5947e0146c638b3847cde2a7]|||||| Susan Crawford is a columnist for Backchannel and a professor at Harvard Law School. She is also the author of The Responsive City and Captive Audience. --------- Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
You might think: Big deal, San Francisco is our tech capital, the last place that needs this. But for years, San Francisco has had a major problem. True, it’s the tech capital of the country and a progressive leader among US cities, but before last week it had no plan to ensure that it had world-class data connectivity for its residents at a reasonable price. Techies frequently bemoan this fact, showing one another screenshots of spinning wheels. San Francisco’s dilemma is a compact form of the crisis in communications facing the rest of the country: Although fiber is the necessary infrastructure for every policy goal we have—advanced healthcare, the emergence of new forms of industries, a chance for every child to get an education, managed use of energy, and on and on—the private sector, left to its own devices, has no particular incentive to ensure a widespread upgrade to fiber optic connections.
Comcast dominates access in the city, but has no plans to replace its cable lines—great at downloads, not so great at uploads, no opportunity to scale to the capacity of fiber thanks to the laws of physics, and expensive to subscribe to—with fiber. And its planned enhancements to its cable lines have, in other cities, resulted in a product costing $150 per month. AT&T will say it’s upgrading to fiber in San Francisco, but so far its work in many other US cities has been incremental, confined to areas where it has existing business customers to serve or where it already has fiber in place. Other, smaller providers similarly have no plans to do a city-wide upgrade, leaving San Francisco with a deeply uneven patchwork of connectivity.
Just as in the rest of the country, poorer and less-well-educated San Franciscans tend not to subscribe to a wire at home, but instead rely wholly on smartphone data plans—no substitutes, given their expense and throttled capacity, for what’s possible using a wired connection.
It’s taken San Francisco a number of tries to get to the point of suggesting a city-controlled utility fiber network that private-sector retail operators can use as a neutral platform. Like Bill Murray's Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, the city has been steadily learning. 10 years ago, the failure of a much-hyped city partnership with Google and Earthlink for a city-wide wifi network was caused by inexperience on all sides: No one was up to the job of accounting for the number of hotspots and the amount of backhaul that would be necessary for a wifi network to serve San Francisco’s data-hungry citizens in their homes and businesses. Eight years ago, a city-commissioned report recommended a fiber network, but plans didn’t proceed because of lack of leadership and the absence of a concrete plan.
The city has finally gathered both sufficient expertise and the political will to move ahead. Last week, Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Mark Farrell released a substantial report from expert consultant CTC Technology & Energy that essentially provides a detailed, thorough blueprint for a fiber network connecting every home and business in the city. (Disclosure: I’m the co-chair, with Supervisor Farrell, of the unpaid advisory committee he convened to look at the issue. I have no clients or consulting arrangements, and receive no income or other compensation, direct or indirect, from any telecom-related company.) |
Ebay offers visual search tools for mobile users | Mobile shoppers can scour auction site eBay for purchases using images, following the launch of two features: Image Search and Find It On eBay. Image Search, available on iOS and Android, allows customers to use a photo from their smartphone to search for items on the eBay site. Meanwhile, Find It On eBay, which is only available to Android customers, allows an image from any social platform, blog or website to be used to find products on eBay.
| http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/ebay-find-it-on-image-search-ai-visual-search | 2017-10-27 10:34:22.470000 | Following the announcement of its visual search tools back in July, eBay has finally launched them, enabling mobile shoppers to use their camera to search for products on the auction site.
The image-recognition features, which are called ‘Find It On eBay’ and ‘Image Search’, are available on eBay’s mobile apps.
With Find It On eBay, consumers are able to able to search for a product from any social platform, blog, or website by sharing an image from the platform with eBay. The eCommerce giant’s app then provides similar listings to the product featured in the picture.
Through Image Search, users click on the in-app camera button and take a photo, or use an existing photo from the phone’s gallery. Once again, eBay surfaces visually similar listed products for the shopper to consider purchasing.
“Moments of shopping inspiration can come at any time, whether you’re walking down the street or browsing your social media feed,” said Mohan Patt, VP of buyer experience at eBay, in July. “At eBay, we’re focused on creating new complementary technology that helps our millions of shoppers easily find the things they love at the best value. eBay Image Search and Find It On eBay make it possible for people to shop eBay using any image or photo that inspires them.”
Find It On eBay is only available on Android, while Image Search is available on both Android and iOS.
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. |
LG smartphones available at discount with Amazon lock screen ads | LG has become the latest addition to Amazon’s Prime Exclusive Phone programme, the first time premium phones have been available on the discount scheme. In November, LG's G6 and G6 Plus will both be available to buy with ads on the lock screen and will cost $399.99 and $499.99 – about $200 cheaper than versions without ads. LG's lower-end Q6 and X Charge phones are also included in the programme, which features models from Nokia, Motorola and Alcatel as well.
| https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/26/16552414/lg-amazon-prime-phone-discount-ads-g6 | 2017-10-27 10:34:22.470000 | The two G6 models are the nicest phones to enter Amazon’s discounted lineup to date. Naturally, they sell for substantially more than most other phones available, at $399.99 and $499.99. That’s only a $50 discount on the standard G6, but it’s almost $200 under what Amazon plans to sell the G6 Plus for without ads — though neither will be available for another two weeks, and it’s very possible the standard G6 Plus will quickly see a discount.
There are some legitimately good phones in Amazon’s discount program
Until today, Motorola had offered the nicest phones through this discount program. The Moto X4 is currently available for $329.99, which is a good price on a good midrange phone.
LG’s other two models, the Q6 and X Charge, are on the less-expensive end of the spectrum. The Q6 will sell for $229.99, down from $299.99, and the X Charge will sell for $149.99, down from $199.99. LG doesn’t tackle any prices lower than that, leaving the very low end to Alcatel, which offers phones discounted to just below $60. |
YouTube reaches over 100 million hours of daily watch time on TV | TV viewing accounts for 10% of all YouTube watch time, while the video streaming site is racking up 100 million hours a day on living room devices, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a Q3 earnings call. CFO Ruth Porat also revealed YouTube's ad viewability rate was 95%, compared with an industry average of 60%. Pichai also brushed off the recent problems of ads being placed near extremist content. He said YouTube was focusing on improving the customer experience and increasing its subscriptions business.
| http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/youtube-living-room-100-million-hours-1202600341/ | 2017-10-27 10:34:22.470000 | YouTube is now seeing over 100 million hours of watch time on living room devices every single day. The new data point was revealed by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during the company’s Q3 2017 earnings call Thursday, where executives also once again called out the video service as a major revenue driver. “YouTube continues to see phenomenal growth,” said Pichai.
This was the first time Google specifically referenced the total watch time on smart TVs and other living room devices. Earlier this year, the company revealed that it now sees more than 1 billion hours of watch time across all devices.
This means that viewing on TV is accounting for roughly 10 percent of all YouTube watch time. The company previously said that more than half of its views come from mobile devices. Altogether, YouTube has more than 1.5 billion users watching an average of 60 minutes of videos every day. For reference: Back in 2012, YouTube streamed just 100 million hours per day to all devices, period.
Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat used Thursday’s earnings call to once again point to YouTube as a key revenue driver for the company, without specifically breaking out YouTube’s revenue. She also pointed out that YouTube has a 95 percent ad viewability rate, compared to an average 60 percent across the industry.
However, Porat also singled out YouTube content licensing as one of the reasons for growing costs in Google’s balance sheets. YouTube continues to invest in original programming, and just this week announced that it had bought the rights for “Origin,” a Sci-Fi show from Left Bank Pictures, the production company behind Netflix’s “The Crown.”
Asked about a backlash YouTube suffered earlier this year, when some brands found their ads near inappropriate content, Porat suggested that things have vastly improved. “We have been doing a lot to protect the ecosystem and doing the right thing for advertisers,” she said, adding: “The vast majority of advertisers never left.” Out of those who did take their business of the service, many had already returned.
Pichai said that Google’s three major focus areas for YouTube going forward would be improving the community experience, driving further growth to the platform and growing its subscription businesses. Part of these efforts is also YouTube TV, the company’s internet-based TV subscription service that it launched earlier this year. “Given where we are, I’m really excited about the initial reception,” Pichai said about YouTube TV. |
Yoti launch digital identity verification app | UK-based start-up Yoti has launched an encrypted identity verification app for Android and iOS which combines biometric and documentary proof. CEO Robin Tombs said the secure system enables people to confirm their identity without giving away personal information, and can even be used as a peer-to-peer service. The three-year-old company is working with early adopters including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and claims to have had 140,000 downloads to date. By summer next year, Yoti aims to have one million users and a presence in India, the US and Europe. | http://www.zdnet.com/article/yoti-aims-to-provide-everyone-with-a-biometric-digital-identity-that-works-via-a-smartphone-app/ | 2017-10-27 10:13:50.977000 | Yoti, a British start-up, is trying to establish a global identity system that protects users from both identity theft and having their data collected and exploited. All personal data remains within the Yoti ecosystem, where different elements - name, gender, date of birth etc - are encrypted and stored separately. Only the individual user can tie it all together.
Yoti - derived from Your Own Trusted Identity - requires a smartphone, and there are apps for both Apple iOS and Android. The potential audience is in the billions.
Yoti requires each user to create a digital identity. This involves providing biometric identifiers such as video and speech, plus an image of a government-backed identification document, such as a passport or a driving licence. Yoti discards these after the ID has been created. Yoti's co-founder and CEO Robin Tombs says passport images are deleted after seven days.
Users who have Android phones with NFC can read the chip in their digital passport. Tombs says Apple doesn't allow this at the moment.
If a company wants to verify a user, it presents them with a QR code that they can read with the Yoti app. They can verify their Yoti ID by entering a 5-digit pin or their biometrics: that is, by videoing themselves and by speaking random words displayed on the smartphone screen. If you're holding your smartphone in the usual way, the video is easily captured: the app just turns on the front-facing camera.
Tombs says the system isn't completely foolproof because some people may have fake passports or fake driving licences. However, it's more secure than alternatives such as database lookups based on names and addresses, electoral rolls, birthdays, mothers' maiden names and similar pieces of information.
One advantage for users is that they can verify their identities without divulging extra information. For example, if you proffer a driving licence or passport to prove that you are over 18, you're revealing a lot of personal information, not just your date of birth.
Another advantage is that people can use a single Yoti ID for multiple purposes, such local clubs, supermarkets, banks or whatever. It even works as a peer-to-peer system that you could use when meeting people you don't know.
Also, of course, Yoti works online, globally. It can be used as a website log-on, and includes a password manager.
Yoti doesn't need to collect or sell personal information or advertising space because it makes money by charging companies for its ID service.
"We have a mature business model," says Tombs. "Most businesses already pay to do background checks where they might only get 80 percent matches. That's not as good as being able to offer a 100 percent match... and we're cheaper than a database match."
Obviously, there's a chicken-and-egg problem with getting a service like Yoti off the ground. Most users won't make the effort to set up a digital identity on Yoti if they don't need one, and most companies won't ask for "a Yoti" if none of their users have them.
That problem would be solved almost instantly if, say, Facebook or a large government department mandated Yoti. Being adopted by a bank or a national supermarket chain - which is possible, if NCR backs the system - would be a major breakthrough. Even Twitter would be great step forward, and Twitter desperately needs a system like Yoti. (As it is, verified users may be asked for passport or driving licence images to prove their IDs,)
At the moment, Yoti is working with a couple of dozen early adopters. These include the NSPCC, the UK's national children's charity, NCR, Reed, a large recruitment agency, and Deltic, the UK's largest nightclub chain.
People who use the Free-ads website to buy and sell things can also use Yoti to confirm their IDs and get a Trusted Member badge. That approach would work on eBay, Gumtree or Craigslist, and also on online dating sites.
Whether Yoti will take off is anyone's guess, but the increase in identity theft suggests there's a market need.
Yoti says it has had 140,000 downloads so far, with about 95,000 of those being UK users.
The company was founded in 2014 and now has about 180 staff, mostly in London. Yoti aims to have more than a million users "by summer 2018, expanding into India, the US and Europe". The service can already accept passports from 140 countries. |
Redrow Redrow donates thousands to community groups in Chester | UK housebuilder Redrow is supporting 10 community groups in Chester after the company set up a £5,000 ($6,606) fund during the summer, and invited local groups to apply for a share. Among those set to benefit are Tattenhall's bowling, bridge, cricket and tennis clubs. Redrow is currently working on a development at Meadow Brook in Tattenhall.
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Community groups in Tattenhall are celebrating after Redrow Homes announced the successful applicants to its community fund.
Redrow set up the community fund of £5,000 at the end of the summer and invited local causes to apply for a proportion of the funds.
After a fantastic response, the housebuilder has chosen the causes they would like to support and is linking up with 10 local community groups.
The beneficiaries, and how they will be spending the funds, are:
2nd Tattenhall Rainbows – items for engineering challenge
Tattenhall Bowling Club – contribution to outdoor boards and path
Tattenhall Tennis Club – new benches and gazebo
Tattenhall Heritage Trail – funding of new leaflet
Tattenhall Bridge Club – funding of advertising campaign to attract new members
Tattenhall Junior FC – new tops
Tattenhall Community Association – catering supplies
Tattenhall Park Primary Out of School Club – new table games
Tattenhall Park Primary School Council – planters and raised beds
Tattenhall Cricket Club – new caps and shirts.
Redrow is currently building a collection of three, four and five-bedroom homes at Meadow Brook in Tattenhall following the success of its Chestnut Grange venture in the village.
Jason Newton, sales director for Redrow Homes (NW), said: “We were thrilled by the reaction to the community fund and the variety of causes and ideas that came forward.
“It was incredibly hard to make a decision as to who we should support but 10 causes were chosen and we can’t wait to see the impact the donations make on the local community.”
Louise Gibson, who applied on behalf of the Rainbows group which, along with the funds for their engineering badges, will also be treated to a special visit to Redrow’s site, said: “We’re really grateful for the funds and time Redrow has donated to our group, it will make a huge difference and will hopefully spark an interest in engineering, science or construction.
“The girls in the group range from five to seven-years-old and we are always trying to find unusual and new experiences so they are very lucky to be able to get this opportunity from Redrow. They are really excited about seeing the badge put into action and learning how science and engineering can be used in housebuilding.” |
Maersk continues to suffer in cyber attack aftermath | Q3 results released by Merck & Co have revealed the continuing impact of the hack it suffered in June this year, withthe pharmaceutical company reportedly losing revenue worth $135m. Merck & Co admitted that the cyber attack disrupted its supply chain, while efforts to remedy the situation negatively affected its Q3 gross margin. A recent report by ControlScan revealed that 49% of firms do not employ skilled cybersecurity staff, while almost one quarter said they had no idea how long it would take to recover from a cyber attack. | https://www.securingindustry.com/pharmaceuticals/cyber-attack-cost-merck-135m-in-lost-sales/s40/a6045/#.WfNEVtOGNmA | 2017-10-27 09:36:13.467000 | Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co says a recent cyber-attack resulted in production shutdowns and cost it around $135m in lost revenue.
Merck – known as MSD outside North America – said the attack had a particular impact on its ability to supply its human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, used to prevent cervical and related cancers.
The cost of implementing remediation measures in the wake of the attack also caused related costs of $175m, pegging back its gross margin in the third quarter, and forced Merck to borrow $240m-worth of Gardasil from US government stockpiles. And the costs look set to be repeated in the fourth quarter, driving up the impact even further.
Merck revealed it was hit by a massive cyber-attack in June, just a few weeks after a senior executive at the firm revealed the vulnerability of the sector at a US government committee meeting, pointing to more than a million health records exposed by breaches in recent years.
It said after the event that “on June 27 the company experienced a network cyber-attack that led to a disruption of its worldwide operations, including manufacturing, research and sales operations,” and affected both finish product and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing.
Other companies affected by the attack included UK consumer healthcare company Reckitt Benckiser, Cadbury chocolate manufacturer (part of Mondelez, formally Kraft Foods), freight logistics company FedEx, Danish shipping company AP Moller-Maersk, German mail and logistics firm Deutsche Post DHL Group and retailer Metro AG. The costs of these has run into billions of dollars, with Maersk alone estimating that the company took a hit of $200m-$300m.
A recent report from McAfee Labs said that in the first quarter of 2017 cyber-attacks directed at private healthcare organizations outstripped those against public organizations, with most of these attributed to the WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware attacks.
Social media users were also increasingly targeted though attacks such as the Faceliker Trojan that hijacks Facebook accounts, it said.
It is apparent that many companies are unprepared for the threat of this type of ransomware attack. A recent ControlScan report suggested that nearly half (49 per cent) do not employ people with the necessary cybersecurity skills and/or training, and only 39 per cent are using an advanced endpoint security solution to combat ransomware.
The August report also found that about one-quarter of firms (23 per cent) admit they have no idea how long it would take their organization to recover from a cyber-attack, and just 10 per cent use threat intelligence to educate their workforce about the risks. |
Amazon's ad business grows to $1.12bn in Q3 | Amazon has reported Q3 ad sales, which make up most of its "other" revenue, as $1.12bn, a 58% year-on-year increase, with the company said to be "generally pleased" with the business. Amazon's investment in advertising has gone up and it has gone on a hiring spree, with 2,000 jobs based in New York City announced. Research by Merkle revealed 82% of spend on Amazon was on sponsored ads. The online retailer has also turned to programmatic to persuade brands that don't sell on its platform to advertise with it. Net sales in the quarter were $43.7bn. | https://digiday.com/marketing/amazon-now-1-billion-ad-business/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=daily&utm_content=171027 | 2017-10-27 09:34:22.470000 | Amazon is making good on its promise to eat advertising.
In its third-quarter earnings report today, the e-commerce giant said it saw “other” revenue, which is mostly composed of ad sales (and to a much smaller extent, its credit card business), grow 58 percent year over year to $1.12 billion. That’s a slight increase from the growth rate in the prior second quarter, when it grew 53 percent year over year.
(For comparison’s sake, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which also reported third-quarter earnings today, reported ad sales at $24 billion. Facebook’s second-quarter ad sales were $9 billion; the company reports third-quarter earnings on Nov. 11.)
“Ad revenue continues to grow very quickly,” Dave Fildes, director of investor relations said on the company’s earnings call. “We’re generally pleased with the ad business. Our goal is to be helpful to consumers and help them make better shopping decisions… while also giving them targeted recommendations, making it helpful for customers instead of intrusive.”
Fildes added that advertising is an important part of the company’s “flywheel” strategy: “The traffic and customers and Prime customers who come to site are the ones who we can help [to] select items and use advertising to help them make decisions and be more informed.”
Amazon’s head count, boosted by Whole Foods and hiring, grew to 541,900 from 382,400 in the second quarter and 306,800 a year ago.
Also in the third quarter, Amazon’s net sales from physical stores was $1.2 billion, the first time it has reported this number.
Amazon’s ad investment has increased significantly quarter to quarter across all of Amazon’s ad formats. With the tech giant hiring heavily for advertising, including announcing 2,000 jobs in New York City that will focus on its ad offerings, brands and buyers have told Digiday they’re hearing from the company more.
According to recent research by Merkle, Sponsored Products Ads are the most heavily targeted format and accounted for 82 percent of all Amazon ad spend, though Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads did grow faster quarter over quarter in terms of spend.
Amazon has also invested in programmatic, growing its self-serve offering and trying to get more “non-endemic” brands into its platform so it can lessen reliance on retail. That’s involved courting advertisers from brands that don’t sell on Amazon, such as auto brands or wireless and telecom companies.
Amazon’s pitch is that it can offer advertisers a “total wallet” perspective — connecting what people are searching for with what they’re buying online — and with its increasing brick-and-mortar retail presences, also what people buy in person. Amazon’s third-quarter filing showed that it now has 12 bookstores across the U.S. with more planned, and with its purchase of Whole Foods, has more than 460 stores from that brand across the U.S. as well.
Amazon’s net sales this quarter were up 34 percent to $43.7 billion. |
Rise in Google ads helps Alphabet beat sales and earnings projections | Third-quarter sales and earnings have allowed Alphabet to surpass expectations, thanks to a surge in Google ad volume. Sales for the quarter were up to $22.7, increasing 6.5% sequentially and 21.9% year over year. Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages is one of the key reasons the numbers look as promising as they do, as more publishers across the world begin to use the service. Google also claims that Google Cloud is generating solid revenue growth.
| http://www.nasdaq.com/article/alphabet-googl-beats-earnings-revenue-estimates-in-q3-cm867135 | 2017-10-27 09:34:22.470000 | Alphabet Inc. 's GOOGL third-quarter diluted non-GAAP earnings of $9.57 exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $8.43. Also, earnings increased 91.0% sequentially and 32.0% year over year.
The Internet powerhouse reported decent top-line numbers. Net revenues, excluding total traffic acquisition cost or TAC (TAC is the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners and amounts paid to distribution partners and others who direct traffic to the Google website), came in at $22.27 billion, increasing 6.5% sequentially and 21.9% year over year. The top line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $21.94 billion.
On the Other Bets front, most of the businesses included there are in early stages. However, it is gradually picking up.
Following strong third-quarter earnings, share price jumped 2.78% in the after-hours trading. Also, Alphabet's shares have returned 65.3% year to date, outperforming the industry 's gain of 46.3%.
The primary drivers of the Google business haven't changed. Pricing remains under pressure both on account of nagging FX concerns as well as continued strength in mobile and TrueView. However, volumes are encouraging as total paid click growth of 47% remains a reassuring number.
Google continues to enjoy strength in the mobile platform. One of the drivers is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which is being accepted by a number of publishers and sites across the world. Management is focused on driving mobile experiences and the company is well positioned to pick up strong intent-to-buy signals by studying mobile searches from its huge database. As a result, direct response marketers continue to show interest in it.
The company also said that Google Cloud is generating substantial revenue growth, reflecting the ongoing momentum in the business.
The company has greater control on the browser through Android as well as distribution agreements with Apple AAPL . However, upcoming threats should not be ignored. Apple might not renew its agreement. Also, Microsoft MSFT Windows 10 has been increasing its overall search market share. Facebook FB graph search and the social network could also take away advertising dollars and Amazon AMZN already takes care of most product searches.
YouTube continues to remain a strong contributor, benefiting from growth in online video consumption. More than a thousand creators are currently engaged with the platform, bringing in a thousand subscribers every day.
Finally, Google platforms like Android, Chrome and Daydream continue to help it in drawing more users and selling more ads.
The Numbers in Detail
Revenues
Gross total revenues of $27.8 billion were up 6.8% sequentially and 23.7% year over year (up 24% in constant currency or CC). The increase was primarily driven by strength in core advertising business.
Google Segment
The segment includes search, advertising, Play, hardware and Cloud & Apps.
Coming to the search business, revenues from Google-owned sites increased 7.0% on a sequential basis, while that from partner sites increased 2.2%, resulting in an increase of 6.1% in total advertising revenues. However, Google-owned sites and partner sites grew 22.6% and 16.3%, respectively, year over year, and accounted for 71% and 16% of quarterly revenues.
Management said that mobile search continued to benefit from improvements in ad formats and delivery initiated in the third quarter of 2015 as well as remained optimistic about search revenue growth on both tablets and desktops.
Other revenues increased 10.2% sequentially but increased 40.0% year over year, accounting for 12.3% of third-quarter revenue.
Other Bets Segment
Alphabet broke up the segment in the March quarter of 2016. The segment includes Fiber, Verily, Calico, Nest and incubation activities in X Labs. Revenues were up 21.8% and 53.3% year over year.
This segment is gaining momentum and has performed well in the second quarter.
Total traffic acquisition cost, or TAC was up 8.1% sequentially and 31.6% year over year.
TAC paid out to network partners increased 1.9% sequentially and 18.2% year over year. Given that mobile search carries higher TAC, the increase in mobile search revenue is driving related TAC according to management.
TAC for distribution arrangements was up 17.2% sequentially and 54.0% year over year.
Net advertising revenues, excluding TAC was up 5.6% sequentially and 18.7% year over year.
Margins
Gross margin of 59.9% decreased 20 bps sequentially and 140 bps from the year-ago quarter.
Price declines remained negative in both sequential and year-over-year comparisons as the mix continued to move toward lower-margin business.
Cost per click (CPC) was up 1% but down 18%, respectively, from the previous and year-ago quarters. On a sequential basis, CPC was up 1% on Google sites but remained flat on network sites. On Google sites, CPCs were down 21% from the year-ago quarter, while network CPC declined 5%.
Paid clicks grew 6% sequentially and 47% year over year, driven partly by growing volumes of mobile and TrueView ads on YouTube. Google sites paid clicks grew 7% and 55%, respectively, from the previous and year-ago quarters. Network paid clicks increased 2% sequentially and 10% from the year-ago quarter.
Operating expenses of $8.84 billion increased 0.8% sequentially and 10.7% year over year. The operating margin was 28.0%, up 162 bps sequentially and 233 bps from the year-ago quarter.
Alphabet reported net income of $6.73 billion compared with $3.52 billion in the previous quarter and $5.06 billion in the year-ago quarter. GAAP earnings of $9.57 per share were up from $5.01 in the previous quarter and $7.25 in the year-ago quarter.
Balance Sheet
Alphabet has a solid balance sheet, with cash and short-term investments of around $100.1 billion, up $5.43 billion from the second quarter. The company generated around $9.87 billion of cash from operations in the third quarter and spent $3.5 billion on capex, netting a free cash flow of $6.3 billion.
Alphabet also spent $130 million on acquisitions and $2.7 billion to repay some debt.
Zacks Rank
Alphabet carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here .
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Twitter sees rise in monthly users and better-than-expected sales | Twitter has recorded better results than expected from third-quarter sales with revenue of $590m. While the revenue figure was down 4% year on year, the number of monthly average users has risen 4% up to 330 million, with daily users up 14% year on year. Twitter's 100 largest advertisers increased their spending by 23% globally and 7% domestically. | https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/309353/ | 2017-10-27 09:34:22.470000 | Along with a healthy bump in monthly users, Twitter reported better-than-expect third-quarter sales on Thursday.
While quarterly revenue of $590 million was down 4% year-over-year, it was still better than what analysts had predicted.
From the second quarter of the year to the third, average monthly active users (MAUs) were up 4% to 330 million, while daily active users (DAUs) were up 14%, year-over-year.
A proud Jack Dorsey said Twitter hit all the key notes, this past quarter.
“We grew our audience and engagement, made progress on a return to revenue growth and achieved record profitability,” Twitter’s second-time CEO stated. Ned Segal, Twitter’s CFO, said the company’s momentum was driven by improved execution from its sales team and strength in video and direct response ad formats.
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Segal added Twitter’s data business experienced its third consecutive quarter of accelerating year-over-year growth.
Analysts seemed pleased with Twitter’s performance, on Thursday.
“Underlying revenue trends provided confidence that the company is on track towards a resumption of top-line growth,” Brian Wieser, a senior analyst at Pivotal Research, said in a research note.
Wieser was particularly impressed by the fact that Twitter’s largest 100 advertisers increased spending on the platform by 23% globally, and 7% domestically.
“This reinforces our observation that many advertisers like and value Twitter as a marketing platform and continue to use it,” Wieser noted.
Casting a cloud over the strong earnings report, Twitter on Thursday was forced to restate the audience estimates it reports to advertisers and investors. In a letter to shareholders, the social giant said it overstated MAU counts for three years.
The restatement was due to incorrectly recording “1 million to 2 million users per quarter” from certain “third-party applications” to Twitter’s MAU count, it said.
The readjustment does not impact its DAUs, Twitter said. Due to its “data retention policies,” Twitter said it could not “reconcile periods prior to the fourth quarter of 2016.”
Of course, poor measurement isn’t Twitter’s only problem. The company continues to struggle with trolls, bullies, sexual harassers and fake-news spreaders.
In its latest response to this problem, the company recently outlined a fresh set of rules designed to curb bad actors.
This past quarter, Twitter also addressed the presence of Russian agents on its platform -- and their efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
To encourage more tweeting, Twitter finally budged on its long-held 140-character limit, this past quarter. Rather than a sweeping change, the company is testing a more lenient 280-character limit among a “small group” of users.
Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Twitter said on Thursday it is expecting an adjusted EBITDA between $220 million and $240 million, and adjusted EBITDA margins between 35% and 36%. |
Corlnnova raises $6m for robotic heart-failure treatment device | Houston-based medical company CorInnova has raised $6.1m in funding from the Wellcome Trust to develop its EpicHeart soft robotic device that's hoped to restore cardiac function to heart failure patients. The collapsible, pneumatic machine uses air to gently squeeze the heart and elevate cardiac output. Chronic heart disease affects about 6 million people in the US, and EpicHeart's non-blood-contacting device, described as "innovative and groundbreaking", could increase the number of patients eligible for treatment by up to four times.
| http://www.massdevice.com/corinnova-raises-6m-epicheart-soft-robotic-heart-failure-treatment/ | 2017-10-27 09:28:55.633000 | CorInnova said today that it raised $6.1 million from Wellcome Trust for the EpicHeart device it’s developing to treat heart failure.
Houston-based CorInnova said EpicHeart is a direct cardiac compression device that uses a collapsible, thin-film, pneumatically actuated soft robotic device to surround both ventricles of the heart. It’s designed to use air to inflate and increase cardiac output by gently squeezing the heart.
Founded to commercialize technology developed at Texas A&M University’s Cardiac Mechanics Laboratory by Dr. John Criscione, CorInnova is backed by a group of private investors, the National Heart Lung Blood Institute and National Science Foundation, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and now the Wellcome Fund, a charitable foundation. CorInnova is also a resident at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS @ TMC, a life science incubator in Houston.
“Our EpicHeart technology is innovative and groundbreaking. We believe it will lead to a new paradigm for heart failure treatment,” CEO William Altman said in prepared remarks. “We are honored to have our work recognized by the Wellcome Trust. We are further honored to have been chosen by JLABS as one of a limited number of companies to be invited to join its life sciences incubator. Due to its minimally invasive nature and its potential for reduced adverse events from blood contact, CorInnova’s non-blood-contacting soft robotic cardiac assist device could potentially triple or quadruple the number of heart failure patients who could be eligible for such a life-saving device therapy.”
“Wellcome is pleased to support the development of this innovative technology for the treatment of congestive heart failure,” added Dr. Philip Jordan of Wellcome’s Innovations team. “Congestive heart failure is a chronic condition that affects roughly six million people in the US alone and is a leading cause of death and disability. A significantly less-invasive medical device that could restore a certain level of heart function would be potentially transformative for patients.”
Last month CorInnova won a $50,000 award at the annual Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium.
“We are pleased that the compelling advantages of CorInnova’s technology for heart failure treatment in adults is equally compelling for treatment for children,” product development VP Boris Leschinsky said. |
Regtech firm Templum raises $2.7m for compliant ICO exchange | Regtech firm Templum has raised $2.7m in seed funding to expand its regulatory-compliant ICO trading platform. Raptor Group, Blockchain Capital, Galaxy Investment Partners and firstminute.capital led investment and the proceeds will also be used to develop products and hire new staff. Templum recently signed a deal with broker-dealer Liquid M Capital to create a US regulation-compliant turn-key product for the issuance and secondary trading of ICOs.
| https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/10/26/sec-compliant-ico-platform-templum-raises-2-7-million-seed-round-funding/ | 2017-10-27 09:20:38.750000 | Templum LLC, a company offering regulatory compliant solutions for ICOs as securities and subsequent secondary trading, a competitor to the ICO platform being developed by Overstock’s tZERO, today announced that it has closed a seed funding round totaling $2.7 million. The seed round was led by Raptor Group, Galaxy Investment Partners, Blockchain Capital, and firstminute.capital.
The funding follows Templum’s recent strategic partnership agreement with broker-dealer Liquid M Capital, to launch a US regulatory compliant turn-key solution, known as Templum, for the initial issuance and secondary trading of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) as securities. Templum will use the seed capital for operational expansion, product development, and talent acquisition.
Chris Pallotta, Templum Founder, and Chief Executive Officer stated:
“ICOs offer innovative organizations an efficient alternative for raising capital. However, ICOs in their current form can be highly risky for issuers and investors. Templum will provide the necessary transparency, accountability and investor protection to reduce risks and encourage more widespread acceptance of ICOs.”
Bart Stephens, Blockchain Capital Co-Founder, and Managing Partner said:
“Templum has entered the ICO market at the ideal time when compliance and investor protection are top of mind for industry participants. Their solutions provide much needed certainty regarding regulatory obligations, safeguards to protect investors and a vital secondary marketplace for liquidity. We’re excited to partner with Templum to further democratize access to digital assets while bolstering overall market integrity.”
Until recently, the U.S. ICO market has operated in a manner that did not focus on compliance with the U.S. and foreign securities laws. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released an investigative report on July 25, 2017, concluding that offers and sales of digital assets that are securities by “virtual” organizations in the U.S. are subject to the requirements of the federal securities laws.
Subsequently, some ICOs conducted prior to the SEC’s investigative report could be deemed to have violated securities laws and ICO issuers could be held liable for these violations. In response, Templum and Liquid M Capital recently submitted a letter asking the SEC to grant ICO issuers a grace period of 180 days to remediate any possible violations related to their past ICOs, except those that may have involved fraud.
Summarizing on the letter, Mr. Pallotta said:
“We will continue to advocate for the advancement of the digital asset community that is balanced with the need for regulatory compliance and investor protection. We believe narrowly tailored remedial relief solution for these issuers and investors will support the innovative ICO model while helping issuers meet the necessary regulatory requirements within an established securities framework like the one we offer.” |
Intel widens DLT business via coin-storage tie-up with Ledger | Chipmaker Intel has taken another step into the distributed ledge technology space through a partnership deal with digital currency hardware provider Ledger that will see them offer cryptocurrency storage products. The tie up will incorporate Ledger's Blockchain Open Ledger Operating System into Intel's Software Guard Extension (SGX) secure storage product. The companies will develop an “enclave” to store private keys and to generate and sign transactions.
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/intel-partners-with-ledger-to-introduce-cryptocurrency-holdings-storage-system | 2017-10-27 08:42:18.263000 | Technology major Intel has partnered with virtual currency hardware startup firm Ledger as of late October 2017 in a bid to introduce new solutions for storing cryptocurrency holdings. Under the collaboration, Ledger’s Blockchain Open Ledger Operating System (BOLOS) will be integrated into Intel’s Software Guard Extension (SGX) secure storage product line.
According to Ledger chief executive officer (CEO), Eric Larchevêque, the partnership allows them to provide innovative solutions for digital currency and Blockchain applications to their growing client base.
"Following the launch of a line of hardware wallets based on our operating system integrated in a secure chip, working with a leading player like Intel is a unique opportunity to keep providing our growing client base with innovative solutions for cryptocurrency and Blockchain applications.”
Brief details of the partnership project
Under the partnership, Intel and Ledger will focus on developing a so-called “enclave” wherein private keys are stored and where transactions are both generated and signed. The project is similar to the deal focusing on secure storage that was signed by Ledger and Gemalto in early October 2017. The Ledger/Gemalto collaboration involved Ledger’s BOLOS and Gemalto’s Hardware Security Module (HSM) cryptographic key storage system.
The collaboration is also part of Intel’s focus on hardware under its distributed ledger technology (DLT) strategy. One example of this strategy is the technology giant’s collaboration with startup company 21 Inc. on the distribution of Bitcoin mining chips in consumer electronic devices.
The plan is to integrate the mining chips into Intel’s products like desktop personal computers (PC).
Based on the press release issued by the partners, there are already several cryptocurrency wallets that are scheduled to use their proposed virtual currency holdings storage system. Among them are provider services MyEtherWallet and Electrum.
Intel has also built alliances with Tencent earlier this year and other Blockchain companies for the former’s bid to become one of the leading providers of commercial Blockchain applications. |
Amazon pharmaceutical distribution licensed in 12 states | Stock prices of some of the biggest pharmaceutical firms in the US fell after it was revealed Amazon had been granted wholesale drug distributor licences by 12 states, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch. It followed weeks of speculation about the online retail giant's intentions toward the sector. According to researcher Nicodemo Fiorentino, Amazon must obtain a pharmacy licence to sell directly to consumers. The company declined to comment.
| https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/27/amazon-drug-distribution-licenses/ | 2017-10-27 08:40:17.670000 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch found more hints that Amazon is truly thinking of getting into the prescription drug biz, which was first reported earlier this month. The publication reviewed public records and found that the e-retail giant has received licenses to become a wholesale drug distributor in at least 12 states. Nevada, Arizona, North Dakota, Louisiana, Alabama, New Jersey, Michigan, Connecticut, Idaho, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee have already approved the company's application, whereas Maine is still thinking about it.
Boston-based Leerink Partners analyst Ana Gupte told St. Louis Post that the discovery "strengthens [their] conviction on the likely entry into the drug supply chain." A lot of people must have thought the same, because the stock prices of some of the biggest names in the industry, including CVS, plummeted after the publication published its piece.
Even so, only Amazon can say for sure whether it'll start selling prescription meds itself in the future. It might have secured the licenses as part of a partnership with another company, or it might be for another purpose altogether. Nicodemo Fiorentino, the drug supply chain researcher who tipped the Post about the news, said Amazon must first secure a pharmacy license to be able to sell directly to customers. Unfortunately, Amazon refused to talk to the Post about "rumors and speculations," but we might not have to wait that long for anything more definitive anyway -- according to the earlier report by CNBC, it has to decide if it wants to enter the pharmacy biz before Thanksgiving. |
China to pass US as largest air travel market sooner than guessed | China will bypass the US as the world's biggest air travel market by 2020, two years sooner than formerly predicted, according to the International Air Transport Association. It suggests there will be 7.8 billion passengers travelling by air by 2036, almost double the 4 billion expected to fly in 2017, with half of the new passengers living in Asia. Also, it predicts the UK, which is currently the third largest market, will fall to fifth place behind India in 2025, and Indonesia in 2030.
| http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/27/news/china-biggest-air-travel-market-iata-forecast/index.html | 2017-10-27 08:36:30.427000 | China is going to surpass the U.S. as the world's largest air travel market in the next five years -- sooner than expected.
In its annual forecast, the International Air Transport Association shifted its expectations about the center of gravity of world air travel eastward, away from the U.S. and Europe.
The global airline industry group anticipates that 7.8 billion passengers will travel by air by 2036. That's nearly double the 4 billion it anticipates will fly this year.
The IATA forecast, released Tuesday, said it expects that half of the new passengers who will fly over the next 20 years will live in Asia. While IATA predicts significant changes over the next two decades, the most dramatic shifts will happen in the next five years.
China will displace the U.S. as the world's largest aviation market by 2022, two years sooner than previously expected, the IATA forecast predicts. An aviation market is defined as traffic to, from and within a country.
Related: India's airports will be at breaking point by 2022
Chinese airlines have been rapidly expanding their international destinations in recent years. Air China and Hainan Airlines this week announced three new routes to the U.S., including Shenzhen to Los Angeles, and Chongqing and Chengdu to New York.
Emerging markets in Asia will dominate the next 20 years, according to IATA. The U.K., today the third largest market, will drop to fifth place, falling behind India in 2025 and Indonesia in 2030, it said.
Related: China's 1st big passenger jet completes maiden flight
Europe's influence will continue to wane, as Thailand and Turkey will also enter the top 10 largest markets over the next 20 years. France and Italy, meanwhile, will fall in the rankings to 11th and 12th respectively, according to IATA.
Both India and Indonesia have been at or near the top buyers of new jetliners from Airbus (EADSF), Boeing and others as budget airlines improve the affordability of traveling by air.
Airbus and Boeing (BA) are accelerating production of their most popular single-aisle and twin-aisle jetliners to meet demand for growth and to replace older, less-efficient airliners. Boeing on Wednesday said airlines were putting "upward pressure" on it to increase production of its single-aisle 737 jetliners, in large part due to demand from countries like India and China.
Related: Airbus takes control of Bombardier jet Boeing tried to kill
Boeing anticipates China will need more than 7,200 new airplanes worth more than $1 trillion dollars.
Both companies have established industrial presences in China to court buyers who need the blessing of the central government. Airbus assembles its competing A320s in Tianjin, and Boeing is opening a new factory near Shanghai where its 737s will have their interiors installed prior to delivery to Chinese carriers.
While Airbus and Boeing focus on China, the country this year began testing its own homegrown C919 airliner from the Commercial Airplane Corporation of China, or Comac. |
German startup Medigo targets medical tourism market | Berlin-based start-up Medigo is aiming to capitalise on the growing medical tourism market with its innovative online platform. It has so far connected more than 60,000 patients with with medical professionals across 178 different countries, with all doctors, dentists and clinicians vetted by Medigo staff. The three-year-old company also offers support via its Care Team Assistance service, which can help with issues including travel arrangements and post-surgical treatment. The medical tourism market is set to be worth $46.6bn by 2021.
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When he hit 146kg, Neil Adamson decided to do something about his weight. The 49-year-old chef from Newcastle was based in Qatar at the time and as an ex-pat, it would have been difficult to get the surgery through the NHS. He started researching so-called hospital holidays to Thailand, but found them more expensive than he was expecting. Then he came across another option: Medigo.
“The NHS won’t do surgery unless they believe you have a psychological danger to yourself, or unless there’s a concern about your obesity becoming critical to your health. But I wanted to deal with it before it got to that stage,” Adamson says.
People have travelled for medical treatment for thousands of years, ever since Greek pilgrims set out for the Saronic Gulf, which was believed to be the sanctuary for the healing god Asclepios. But cheap flights and Google mean it’s never been easier. The industry was worth $19.7bn (£14.9bn) in 2016, according to Orbis research, and it is estimated to be growing at 18.8 per cent a year, with a forecast value of $46.6bn by 2021.
Medical tourism hasn’t been the most obvious industry for entrepreneurs. But its growth rate has attracted increasing numbers of startups hoping to act as the gateway between doctor and patient. Medical Departures, based in Hong Kong, secured $2.5m in series A funding in March 2016 for its plan to become “the Airbnb for medical tourism”. Oxa Medical, which started in Hyderabad in December 2016, has been funded by an undisclosed amount by a UAE-based venture capital. Singapore has DocDoc, and Malaysia has BookDoc.
Ugur Samut, who founded Medigo in Berlin in 2014, thinks it has the edge. To date, Medigo has connected over 60,000 patients with doctors in 178 different countries for procedures ranging from brain surgery and cancer treatment to breast implants and tummy tucks. It has secured over €10m (£8.96m) of investment, most recently through an extension round of €3.5m in January 2106 from CL Ventures, based in China.
“We are there to help people,” Samut said. “We don’t charge the patient and we insure the patient in case something goes wrong.” So far they have not paid out, but Samut says it could happen. The insurance lasts for six months after treatment and is taken out in the patient’s home country, so if an Australian has dental work in Thailand, their insurance is in Australia.
Medigo does not want to be the Airbnb for medical tourism. “Unlike Airbnb, capacity is not the issue: we just want the best hospitals,” Samut says. “We’re not listing hotels, we’re asking people to go and get surgery that might be life-threatening.” In the beginning, Medigo spent most of the €2.2m raised from seed investors like Atlantic Internet on checking records.
“If there are 1,000 hospitals in Poland, our goal is to find the best 10 or 15,” he says. Medigo’s team of researchers start by checking public health records and evaluating its findings with doctors in each destination. It takes eight weeks to list a dentist, Samut says, by way of example, from the the first contact to the listing.
Professor Dr Philip Schöttle works with several medical tourism facilitators to reach patients for his bone surgery in Munich. “Medigo’s level of professionalism and service is comparably one of the highest,” Schöttle says. “Patient referrals are highly professional and all necessary information is provided before I see a patient.”
People come to him from all over the world because he specialises in novel orthobiological medicine, which involves reconstructing damaged tissues or organs, involving stem cells. Some of his patients didn’t know such procedures were an option before they found out on the Medigo website.
“Our institute gives patients access to proven, innovative treatments that aren’t yet available in many parts of the world. That can only be a good thing,” Schöttle says.
Yet he recognises that not everyone will be able to afford to pay out of pocket for innovative treatment. And another downside is the lack of industry regulation, which allows for some untrustworthy players in the market: “But they usually don’t last long,” Schöttle says. “In today’s globalised world, there’s nowhere to hide and patients are increasingly informed about their healthcare options.”
Samut is from Istanbul, where he studied for an undergraduate degree in business before moving to Barcelona for a masters in marketing. He started working for Rapid Internet, one of Europe’s biggest startup companies, in Berlin, where he first got interested in the travel industry. At the time, medical travel was growing at 25 per cent year-on-year.
He has since learned that medical tourists come in two groups. There are the wealthy patients from what Samut calls “emerging markets”, often in Asia, seeking better quality treatment in Germany, Switzerland and the UK especially. And then there are those from Western nations who travel to avoid high costs or waiting lists. The Americans and Australians travel to avoid high costs. Waiting lists are mostly the preserve of Canadians and the British.
While the average wait time for a patient on the NHS has been quite stable since 2008, data shows that there has been a steady increase in patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment.
Once Adamson decided to do something about his weight, he wasn’t prepared to wait any longer. He did some research and found good reviews for Dr Hussam Trabulsi, a Syrian surgeon based at Zulekha Hospital in Dubai, just one hour by plane from his home in Qatar. Through Medigo he made the connection. They assigned him an agent from their Care Team who was on hand to answer questions and offer support throughout the process. He says: “The type of surgery I had would probably have taken me a long time on the NHS, and as you get older you realise, ‘It’s time I do something about this’.”
On the morning of the surgery, Adamson arrived at Dubai airport at 6.30am and went straight to the hospital, where he waited for the doctor to start his day. The surgery went well, and he stayed in the hospital for three nights to recover.
Now Adamson weighs 95kg. “Undoubtedly the best money I ever spent,” he says. ”[It] saved my life and indeed, changed my life. I have recommended Medigo to many people.”
Samut says Medigo hopes to make a profit by next summer, after which it will seek further funding to expand either in the US, or in Asia.
“Crossing borders has never been easier for most people in the world, and it’s never been more common,” Schöttle says. “Crossing borders for medical care gives patients options they may not have had before.” |
MIT team create AI that's capable of writing horror fiction | MIT researchers have created "Shelley AI", a deep learning algorithm that uses inspiration from original horror stories published online and Twitter suggestions to create short fiction in the horror genre. Named after the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, the programme can identify terror-inspiring words from existing text "seeds" and reuse them in original tales. | https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/oct/31/horror-fiction-ai-collaboration-shelley-mit | 2017-10-27 08:27:39.137000 | Cue a lightning flash and some portentous music: I have written with a robot.
The robot is Shelley, who isn’t really a robot, but actually an artificial intelligence developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Over the past couple of weeks, Shelley has been posting on Twitter the start of a horror story, and inviting users to continue it.
So, in the time-honoured question directed at any writer, where does Shelley get her ideas? No lofty explanations of the author’s craft here; Shelley has been trained to scour the Reddit online community sub-forum /r/nosleep, where users share their own spooky stories.
Learning the language of terror, Shelley – named and gendered for the godmother of horror, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley – puts together eerie little vignettes and, crucially, aims to continue them from the replies posted by Twitter users in a kind of round-robin collaborative writing exercise.
With a new story started every hour, you certainly can’t doubt her prolificness. But are the stories actually any good? Here are a couple of Shelley’s recent efforts:
I was standing right across the street, when a ghost stood behind me. I was so scared I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t able to move my eyes, I was screaming.
My body was pulled into the room by the presence of someone who was standing somewhere in the hallway. I looked around once and there they were, standing in the corner of the room, as they stared at me, unmoving.
The screen flickered, and everything went black. I closed my eyes, and sat up. The darkness had subsided, and the page was the same as the one before, and the one in the middle of the message. I clicked the link, and the first few minutes, then black. I woke up this morning, screaming and crying.
Nothing, perhaps, to give Stephen King sleepless nights, but you can – and probably have – read far worse on the internet written by flesh-and-blood beings. The real magic of Shelley is more apparent when people reply, using the hashtag #yourturn to indicate to the bot to put her thinking cap on and continue the story. The tale Look Away, co-authored by Shelley and several Twitter users, hangs together enough to make you forget that one of the participants isn’t human.
So would Shelley play with me? It’s actually more difficult than you’d think to get involved: Shelley’s algorithms look for replies from Twitter users that have collected favourites or retweets to help her decide who to respond to. Mine didn’t get many thumbs-ups … either that, or Shelley just didn’t like me.
I tried to follow up on several of her stories, at one point throwing my takes on every story she posted on the hour. She has deigned to work with me once, so far. The story begins:
I started to breathe again. The chains in my ankle twitched and the shadow continued to stare. A silent cry and a few signs of life began to form.
Didn’t make a huge amount of sense to me, but I had a go: “But the chains! The chains! How was I to get myself free?”
Shelley duly responded: “I was losing my mind! I couldn’t move. The creature was there with me. What was it doing?”
Which, to be honest, I didn’t feel moved the narrative on much. Still, I had another go: “Then I noticed something. The beast was chained also. We were both prisoners in this place. But why? Who was responsible for this?”
We will perhaps never know. Shelley has decided to work on new material rather than conclude our short-lived story together. Does the experiment work? I suppose she can make a decent fist of continuing narratives with a measure of logic. While some of her efforts make little to no sense at all, some of them, like the aforementioned Look Away, do actually stack up in a basic fashion. Perhaps Shelley’s available database of the Reddit forum is too limiting; the MIT boffins should give her access to the entire body of horror literature. Or maybe that way madness lies … |
HSBC launches elite luxury credit card for world travellers | HSBC has launched a premium credit card it says caters to the needs of the bank's globe-trotting clients. The black metal Premier World Elite Mastercard comes with no foreign transaction fees and up to 15% reductions at spas, restaurants and selected duty-free shops -- among many other perks. Pablo Sanchez, head of retail banking and wealth management for HSBC in the US and Canada said the card "represented the most valuable collection of features and benefits ever offered in an HSBC credit card".
| https://bankinnovation.net/2017/10/hsbcs-new-credit-card-seeks-to-allure-world-class-travelers/ | 2017-10-27 08:18:54.947000 | EXCLUSIVE – HSBC has a new credit card, the bank announced today.
The card is called the HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard Credit Card, and is designed deliberately to target travelers.
The bank describes the card as a luxury credit card. The new credit product is a black metal card, that weights noticeably more than a traditional plastic card. HSBC did not reveal the credit limit or range of this card.
An aspect of the credit card that seems to have garnered attention as the sweet spot from both fintechs and tradition financial institutions is in rewards space.
Other benefits and rewards include no foreign transaction fees, unlimited Boingo WiFi access at over one million hotspots, $85 application fee credit for TSA PreCheck, and $100 annual statement credits for Uber and Lyft rides, up to $100 in annual air travel statement credit benefit, in addition to other shopping and travel benefits.
The card is powered by Mastercard. |
PayPal's marketing tools show shopping behaviour and preferences | PayPal is offering marketers a suite of tools similar to Google Analytics, which provides anonymous, aggregated data about the behaviour of the online payment service's users. PayPal said the data would include information about sites' popularity, the percentages of mobile shoppers and the cost of what they bought. To access the analytics, marketers must install a PayPal access code, which will also enable the site's Smart Incentives – allowing users to check out using PayPal Credit and One Touch.
| https://marketingland.com/paypals-new-marketing-solutions-tool-sheds-light-shoppers-use-online-payment-platform-226918 | 2017-10-27 08:12:20.273000 | PayPal has launched a new suite of free marketing solutions for merchants that provide them with analytics around how shoppers use the online payment platform.
According to the announcement, the newly-released shopping insights tools will include aggregated and anonymous data tracking the behaviors and preferences of PayPal users.
“This includes things like how many shoppers are mobile shoppers; how many shop for big-ticket versus small-ticket items; how a particular merchant site attracts customers compared to other similar sites,” writes PayPal in its release announcing the rollout.
To use the tools, merchants will need to install a PayPal code snippet on their sites, which will collect information on PayPal web visitors and customers including:
cookies,
browser,
device and type,
IP address,
page impressions and clicks,
and URL.
In return, merchants will receive analytics data — similar to packages like Google Analytics — that they can employ to improve conversions and better serve their customers.
The code also allows merchants to enable PayPal’s “Smart Incentives,” a promotional messaging feature that informs users they can use PayPal Credit and One Touch checkout on the site, which PayPal says will help drive conversions from customers who like to pay using those methods. PayPal Credit provides 6-month interest-free financing for purchases over $99 and the company’s research found that 40% of users say they have spent more money online due to the program.
These new features are available to any merchants that use its payment processing, PayPal Credit and other PayPal solutions, including those who use them via third-party ecommerce platforms such as BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Shopify.
The online payment platform says it will soon provide recommendations for merchants to help them increase conversions based on the data it tracks. |
Tykn aims to give 'invisible children' identity via blockchain | Dutch start-up Tykn is developing a blockchain solution aimed at providing vital certification for the 230 million "invisible children" worldwide whose lack of proof of identity can prevent them from gaining access to services such as healthcare and education. Project Zero Invisible Children (ZINC) links the Hyperledger Indy platform to an app via the Sovrin Network. The solution would offer a permanently certified proof-of-existence without a subject having to provide sensitive information. The alpha release of the app is set for Q1 2018.
| http://siliconcanals.nl/news/startups/blockhain/dutch-impact-startup-tykn/ | 2017-10-27 07:53:29.540000 | Imagine: you don’t have any proof of your existence and therefore lack access to healthcare, education or insurance. This is the reality of the CEO of Dutch impact startup and Rockstart-alumnus Tykn, Tey El-Rjula. As an ‘invisible man’ – his birth certificate was destroyed during the Gulf War – the Kuwait-born entrepreneur conceived a solution that uses blockchain technology to identify children with similar difficulties.
Which problems are you solving?
“We are collectively tackling the issues of paper-based vital records systems, and with 230 million children worldwide without birth certificates, this became our primary focus with Project ZINC (Zero INvisible Children). Having said this, the birth certificate is also by far the weakest link in the identity chain. Where passports, ID cards, and driver’s licenses have just about thirty different security features, birth certificates are largely still a piece of paper, which you have to pick up at the municipality where you were born just to claim the proof of existence that serves as your ticket towards healthcare, education, insurance, etc.
Not to mention the fact that, in conflict zones, the fallible nature of these documents is even more threatening, since it can effectively turn people ‘invisible’ if a birth registry is destroyed; pair this with geographical immobility, lack of financial means and a significant knowledge gap, and you can start to see the hurdles to birth registration in LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Country, ed.) and conflict zones that we are trying to resolve.”
How are you using Blockchain technology?
“Even though we try to remain fully Blockchain agnostic, we are currently leveraging Hyperledger Indy (a ledger specifically tailored to accommodate identity solutions, ed.) through the Sovrin Network as the back-end to our APIs. By doing so we can permanently certify vital records and grant decentralized, digital identities, even to those without direct access to an electronic device through the use of Pure Decentralized Identifiers, for the purpose of authentication and verification. |
AR anatomy T-shirt shows wearers the workings of their body | UK start-up Curiscope has blended virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to develop an app that offers a glimpse inside the human body. An app-enabled smartphone scans a stylised QR code printed on to its Virtuali-Tee T-shirt to bring up a VR and an AR version of the wearer's internal organs. Curiscope has raised more than $1m in seed funding and shipped more than 3,000 T-shirts, while industry analysts predicted the firm's blurring of AR and VR could find applications in anatomy and biology education. | http://www.wired.co.uk/article/virtuali-tee-vr-startup-human-chest-cavity | 2017-10-27 07:30:14.980000 | Ed Barton in his Virtuali-Tee ILKA & FRANZ
When it comes to augmented and virtual reality, Ed Barton has been there and got the T-shirt. His Brighton-based startup Curiscope produces The Virtuali-Tee, a garment printed with a stylised QR code that resembles a rib cage. Hover your phone over it, and using its app, you can explore the human chest cavity and peer at the heart, lungs and veins. "We use a mix of VR and AR to see inside the anatomy," explains Barton, 28. "With positionally tracked AR, you can position VR experiences physically within your environment." Curiscope has sold more than 3,000 Virtuali-Tees. Barton (pictured) and co-founder Ben Kidd have raised almost $1 million (£780,000) in seed funding from LocalGlobe.
When the pair founded the company in 2015, they began making 360° YouTube videos. Their first upload in January 2016, featuring a shark dive, became one of the site's most-watched VR videos. But they felt something was missing. Surely there was more to VR than videos? For Barton, the solution was positionally tracked AR, which lets them overlay 3D imagery on to the material world. "YouTube is fantastic, but doesn't give us the scope to do transformative work with physical products," Barton says. With positional tracking, he says, "we have a blurring of physical and digital items, and an experience more tightly connected to reality". This was the birth of the Virtuali-Tee. Barton and Kidd conceived the product in March 2016 and went into production thanks to £74,000 in Kickstarter funding. "With the Virtuali-Tee, AR is your interface and VR is used to transport you somewhere else. The technologies should be merging."
Next up for Curiscope: the launch of the Great White Shark AR app, due to coincide with the autumn release of iOS 11. Barton and Kidd's book, All About Virtual Reality, is published by Dorling Kindersley and available now. And in November, the pair will launch Operation Apex, a VR experience with HTC Vive Studios in which people are placed in a virtual environment with sharks. "We began talking with Vive Studios in 2016 and realised there was a big opportunity to be at the centre of this technology," Barton says. |
Tesla builds solar-plus-storage facility in Puerto Rico | Tesla has installed solar panels and energy storage at the Hospital del Niño in San Juan for children in Puerto Rico. Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, has delivered on his promise in October that his company would help bring electricity to the island of Puerto Rico following the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Writing on Twitter, Musk said the facility was "first of many solar + storage projects" that would be installed on the island. | http://www.thedrive.com/tech/15434/tesla-restores-electricity-to-puerto-rico-hospital-with-solar-power-installation | 2017-10-27 07:25:40.437000 | After Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised earlier this month to help restore power in Puerto Rico, the company has brought electricity back to a hospital on the island, which was recently battered by Hurricane Maria. In a tweet Tuesday, Tesla posted photos of Hospital del Niño, where it just completed installation of solar panels and large battery packs to provide power even with the grid down. The batteries can store excess energy harvested by the solar panels, ensuring a steady flow of power even when sunlight isn't available.
Tesla first discussed sending energy-storage battery packs to Puerto Rico as a source of emergency power in late September, and Musk pledged to go all-in October 5. Not surprisingly for the Twitter-loving CEO, the relief effort was shaped by a series of tweets.
When asked whether Tesla could help restore power to Puerto Rico, Musk replied in the affirmative, saying the company had already undertaken electricity projects on smaller islands and that the technology could be scaled up. The final decision would be up to the Puerto Rico government, Musk noted. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló subsequently replied "Let's talk."
Even without the added impetus of compensating for hurricane damage, islands are particularly well-suited to renewable energy and electrical storage. They're not connected to the mainland grid, after all, and generating power locally can be difficult, as fuel must be shipped in. Prior to Hurricane Maria, most of Puerto Rico's power was generated by burning oil, which had to be imported. |
AI will bring autonomous cars within four years: Nvidia CEO | Jensen Huang, CEO of California-based chip manufacturer Nvidia, has said he expects to see the first fully autonomous cars on the roads in four years, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Nvidia has thrived after expanding from designing graphics-processing chips into AI and high-performance computing, with its shares rising 170% during the past year, giving the company a valuation of $116bn. However, Huang played down the importance of cryptocurrency mining, where people use computers to process cryptocurrency transactions and are rewarded with additional cryptocurrency, saying that it is not a market the company is targeting. | http://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/nvidia-ceo-says-ai-would-enable-fully-autonomous-cars-within-four-years-4178103.html | 2017-10-27 06:31:40.987000 | Reuters
NVIDIA Corp chief executive Jensen Huang said on 26 October that artificial intelligence would enable fully automated cars within 4 years, but sought to tamp down expectations for a surge in demand for its chips from cryptocurrency miners.
NVIDIA came to prominence in the gaming industry for designing graphics-processing chips, but in recent years has been expanding into newer technologies including high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and self-driving cars.
Its expansion has been richly rewarded with a 170 percent stock surge over the past year, boosting its market value to $116 billion. “It will take no more than 4 years to have fully autonomous cars on the road. How long it takes for the vast majority of cars on the road to become that, it really just depends,” Huang told media after a company event in Taipei.
Global tech firms such as Apple Inc, Facebook, Alphabet Inc, Amazon and China’s Huawei are spending heavily to develop and offer AI-powered services and products in search of new growth drivers.
Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said earlier this week that the firm sees its mobile devices as a major platform for AI in the future. “There are many tasks in companies that can be automated... the productivity of society will go up,” said NVIDIA's Huang.
But Huang joined peers taming expectations of strong revenue growth from a wave of interest in cryptocurrencies. Advanced Micro Devices Inc expected this week that there will be some levelling off of cryptocurrency demand.
“Revenue for us in crypto is over $100 million a quarter. For us, it’s a small percentage... It’s obviously not a target market,” Huang said. Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that use encryption techniques for security and can be traded. Miners use computers to process cryptocurrency transactions, and they are rewarded with additional cryptocurrency. |
Methane detector chip could significantly reduce emissions | A newly-developed methane spectrometer could help to monitor and prevent leaks of methane from pipelines covering large areas. The device, built by researchers from the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York, is smaller and more economical than its competitors, and can detect methane in as low a concentration as 100 parts per million. The device is made from silicon, the same material found in computer chips, making it easy and cheap to manufacture. Research leader William Green said the device could operate for years with almost no maintenance. | https://phys.org/news/2017-10-tiny-chip-based-methane-spectrometer-greenhouse.html | 2017-10-27 04:21:22.477000 | Artistic rendering depicts the new silicon photonic absorption spectrometer, which is smaller than a dime and can be manufactured using high-volume computer chip fabrication techniques. The portion of infrared light protruding outside the waveguide is absorbed by methane molecules, enabling spectroscopic measurement of the methane concentration. Credit: Joe Green, Beaverworks Canada
The process of extracting natural gas from the earth or transporting it through pipelines can release methane into the atmosphere. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a greenhouse gas with a warming potential approximately 25 times larger than carbon dioxide, making it very efficient at trapping atmospheric heat energy. A new chip-based methane spectrometer, that is smaller than a dime, could one day make it easier to monitor for efficiency and leaks over large areas.
Scientists from IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, developed the new methane spectrometer, which is smaller than today's standard spectrometers and more economical to manufacture. In Optica, The Optical Society's journal for high impact research, the researchers detail the new spectrometer and show that it can detect methane in concentrations as low as 100 parts-per-million.
Low maintenance, high impact
The spectrometer is based on silicon photonics technology, which means it is an optical device made of silicon, the material used to make computer chips. Because the same high-volume manufacturing methods used for computer chips can be applied to make the chip-based methane spectrometer, the spectrometer along with a housing and a battery or solar power source might cost as little as a few hundred dollars if produced in large quantities.
"Compared with a cost of tens of thousands of dollars for today's commercially available methane-detecting optical sensors, volume-manufacturing would translate to a significant value proposition for the chip spectrometer," said William Green, leader of the IBM Research team. "Moreover, with no moving parts and no fundamental requirement for precise temperature control, this type of sensor could operate for years with almost no maintenance."
Such low-cost, robust spectrometers could lead to exciting new applications. For example, the IBM team is working with partners in the oil and gas industry on a project that would use the spectrometers to detect methane leaks, saving companies the time and money involved in trying to find and fix leaks using in-person inspection of thousands of sites.
"During natural gas extraction and distribution, methane can leak into the air when equipment on the well malfunctions, valves get stuck, or there's a crack in the pipeline," said Green. "We're developing a way to use this spectrometer-on-a-chip to create a network of sensors that could be distributed over a well pad, for example. Data from these sensors would be processed with IBM's physical analytics software to automatically pinpoint the location of a leak as well as quantify the leak magnitude."
Methane is a trace gas, the classification given to gases that make up less than 1 percent of the volume of Earth's atmosphere. Although the researchers demonstrated methane detection, the same approach could be used for sensing the presence of other individual trace gases. It could also be used to detect multiple gases simultaneously.
"Our long-term vision is to incorporate these types of sensors into the home and things people use every day such as their cell phones or vehicles. They could be useful for detecting pollution, dangerous carbon monoxide levels or other molecules of interest," said Eric Zhang, a member of the research team. "Because this spectrometer offers a platform for multispecies detection, it could also one day be used for health monitoring through breath analysis."
Shrinking the spectrometer
The new device uses an approach known as absorption spectroscopy, which requires laser light at the wavelength uniquely absorbed by the molecule being measured. In a traditional absorption spectroscopy setup, the laser travels through the air, or free-space, until it reaches a detector. Measuring the light that reaches the detector reveals how much light was absorbed by the molecules of interest in the air and can be used to calculate the concentration of them present.
The new system uses a similar approach, but instead of a free-space setup, the laser travels through a narrow silicon waveguide that follows a 10-centimeter-long serpentine pattern on top of a chip measuring 16 square millimeters. Some of the light is trapped inside the waveguide while about 25 percent of the light extends outside of the silicon into the ambient air, where it can interact with trace gas molecules passing nearby the sensor waveguide. The researchers used near infrared laser light (1650 nanometer wavelength) for methane detection.
To increase the sensitivity of the device, the investigators carefully measured and controlled factors that contribute to noise and false absorption signals, fine-tuned the spectrometer's design and determined the waveguide geometrical parameters that would produce favorable results.
Side-by-side comparison
To compare the new spectrometer's performance with that of a standard free-space spectrometer, they placed the devices into an environmental chamber and released controlled concentrations of methane. The researchers found that the chip-based spectrometer provided accuracy on-par with the free-space sensor despite having 75 percent less light interacting with the air compared to the free-space design. Furthermore, the fundamental sensitivity of the chip sensor was quantified by measuring the smallest discernable change in methane concentration, showing performance comparable to free-space spectrometers developed in other laboratories.
"Although silicon photonics systems—especially those that use refractive index changes for sensing—have been explored previously, the innovative part of our work was to use this type of system to detect very weak absorption signals from small concentrations of methane, and our comprehensive analysis of the noise and minimum detection limits of our sensor chip," said Zhang.
The current version of the spectrometer requires light to enter and exit the chip via optical fibers. However, the researchers are working to incorporate the light source and detectors onto the chip, which would create an essentially electrical device with no fiber connections required. Unlike current free-space sensors, the chip then does not require special sample or optical preparation. Next year, they plan to start field testing the spectrometers by placing them into a larger network that includes other off-the-shelf sensors.
"Our work shows that all of the knowledge behind silicon photonics manufacturing, packaging, and component design can be brought into the optical sensor space, to build high-volume manufactured and, in principle, low cost sensors, ultimately enabling an entirely new set of applications for this technology," said Green.
More information: L. Tombez et al, Methane absorption spectroscopy on a silicon photonic chip, Optica (2017). DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.4.001322 Journal information: Optica |
Asia-Pacific bond ETFs more popular than equity counterparts | Exchange-traded funds focusing on fixed-income investments are proving more popular with investors in the Asia-Pacific region than their equity counterparts. Bond ETFs pulled in $835m during September, compared to $1bn leaving the coffers of equity products over the same period, according to figures from consultancy ETFGI. Both categories of funds have seen net outflows for the year to date. Vanguard Group, Samsung AM and Yuanta were the three firms with the greatest inflows during September.
| https://www.etfstrategy.co.uk/fixed-income-etf-inflows-outpacing-equities-in-asia-pacific-11001/ | 2017-10-26 20:39:38.663000 | Factor Investing Strategy Briefing - Thursday 29th June 2023 - The Connaught, Mayfair. Please join us for our annual smart beta and factor investing event, featuring Goldman Sachs Asset Management, FlexShares, First Trust, MSCI and WisdomTree. Please register now if you would like to attend.
ETFGI, an ETF industry consultancy, has reported that fixed income ETFs listed in Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) have proved significantly more popular with investors than equity ETFs during September. ETFs that track bonds have gained $835 million during the month compared to outflows of $1.0 billion seen by equity ETFs listed in the region.
Despite the strong inflows seen during the month, fixed income ETFs have struggled to attract assets in 2017, seeing net outflows of $127m in the year-to-date (YTD), compared to inflows of $2.9bn over the same period last year. Equity ETFs have experienced a similar fate, seeing YTD outflows of $1.6bn compared to outflows of $834m over the same period last year.
In total, ETFs domiciled in Asia Pacific gathered $262m in September. YTD inflows stand at $920m, well shy of the $7.9bn of net new assets gained over the same period in 2016.
Commodity ETFs have fared equally poorly, seeing net outflows of $60m during September. YTD outflows now stand at $398m compared to inflows of $942m seen over the same period last year.
Vanguard was the issuer that gathered the most new assets in the region during the month. The firm added $400m to its locally listedfunds, followed by Samsung AM with $336m and Yuanta with $220m.
YTD flows by issuer tells a similar story with Vanguard collecting $1.8bn, followed by Samsung AM with $1.3bn and Yuanta with $1.2bn. |
Health insurance start-up Oscar hedges against Obamacare | Health insurance start-up Oscar is looking to offer more policies to group plans through employers as it fears the marketplace for individual policies may be disrupted by changes to US health coverage policies. The firm is also increasing how closely it works with hospitals, a move that in the past has enabled it to keep costs down. Under the Affordable Care Act, Oscar has been able to offer its policies to individuals via government-supported exchanges. However, tweaks to legislation by the current administration may soon change how the firm is able to sell policies.
| https://www.cbinsights.com/research/oscar-health-insurance-strategy-teardown-expert-intelligence/ | 2017-10-26 19:12:13.557000 | Oscar has tried to disrupt health insurance with a focus on customer experience and technology, but success has been mixed. As the company changes tack, what does the future of a next-gen US health insurer look like?
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Oscar has raised more than $700M, with the aim of disrupting health insurance by building a direct relationship with customers.
In simple terms, the company’s goal has been to put a human face on private health insurance. It aims to make its customers love health insurance — as opposed to seeing it as a necessary evil — and put Oscar at the center of people’s health and wellness needs.
The company has weathered its share of challenges while burning through hundreds of millions of dollars: Oscar has struggled to find its footing in the US healthcare market for individual coverage, and has faced an uphill battle in assembling a network of doctors and hospitals.
As the company moves into its fifth year of operation, Oscar’s strategy is beginning to take a new shape.
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Our analysis shows Oscar is slowly managing to contain its costs by integrating with hospitals, bringing key functions like claims processing in-house, and improving the health of its customers.
The biggest risk to Oscar remains the uncertainty surrounding the health insurance marketplaces known as exchanges, which are operated by the states. The exchanges were the pillar of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, which sought to bring coverage to millions of Americans who did not have health insurance through their employers.
Health insurers including Oscar have found it difficult to eke out a profit from plans they offer on the highly regulated exchanges. At the same time, the current US administration is hostile to the Affordable Care Act and is taking steps to undermine it through legislation and regulatory tweaks.
In this landscape, Oscar has clearly begun to hedge against its former focus on individual plans and the exchanges.
Oscar has begun moving away from Obamacare in two ways: by integrating more directly with doctors and hospitals, and also by beginning to offer group plans through employers.
Meanwhile, it has also doubled down in care services, significantly expanding telemedicine and concierge teams as well as launching its own primary care clinics.
But while Oscar is beginning to control its costs and improve its tech and experience, will it be enough to win out against existing incumbents and bring the company to profitability? And will its strategy of tight integration with doctors and hospitals, while limiting the number of in-network providers, be appealing enough to consumers?
We examine Oscar’s strategy, numbers, partnerships, and future in this analysis using CB Insights data.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Enough of an Edge? Oscar’s Focus on Tech and Customer Experience
When Oscar began rolling out its product in 2014, the company touted simplicity above all else. Josh Kushner (one of the co-founders) said in 2014:
“Our ethos and mission is to create a good consumer experience. We wanted to create an experience like having a doctor in the family … The existing players don’t care about satisfying the customer.”
Competing on scale, price, and distribution was always going to be difficult due to the size of incumbents. However, Oscar saw its edge in customer satisfaction, where the health insurance industry as a whole has an ultra-low net promoter score (NPS) of 12 out of 100.
(NPS is a measure of how many customers would recommend a product or service to friends. For context, companies like Apple boast NPS scores of 70 or more.)
Oscar, unlike its peers, prioritized customer experience, brand, and simplicity. It outlined its rules for simplicity in a 2014 deck (excerpted below):
The same year, Oscar filed a patent for “Modeling Healthcare Costs” that showed preliminary views of the company’s user interface and experience. Again, this demonstrated its focus on simplicity, but also on price transparency. An oft-cited complaint against health insurers are their confusing statements, with murky information around reimbursements and payouts. Oscar’s UI sought to address that.
Oscar Mobile
Since then the company has maintained this focus on the customer experience. In its latest app overhaul, the company emphasized the fact that limiting options actually improves functionality and increases usage.
From the beginning, Oscar has highlighted its high-touch services, including telemedicine and “Ask your concierge,” a health insurance advice team. Oscar dedicates a team of 3 concierges and a nurse to each individual to help answer health questions and guide patients through the healthcare system.
The company sees this high-touch model as a way of gaining a competitive edge, stating 35% of all first-time doctor visits for members go through concierge teams. Oscar aims to be a patient’s first touch point with the healthcare system, as opposed to an afterthought — and is doubling down on this intiative, as we talk about later.
One recent addition to the Oscar home page is a step count tracker. Notably, Oscar gives up to $240/year to members that hit step tracking goals, boosting the company’s relationship with clients while simultaneously encouraging them to be more active.
The tracker also gives members a reason to visit the app more regularly, encouraging user engagement and allowing Oscar to remind its consumers of the insurance brand, even when they’re not seeking healthcare. Oscar claims a third of its total members used the app in September 2017.
Oscar announced its step-tracking reimbursement as one of its differentiators in partnership with Misfit Wearables in 2014. Today Oscar tracks steps using an assortment of step-tracking wearables as well as Apple’s built-in step tracker in the iPhone and Google Fit on Android.
Oscar has a high satisfaction rate for its app, receiving relatively high ratings, especially compared to competitors. While Oscar has an average app rating above a 4.0 since last August, UnitedHealth and Anthem’s were 1.9 and 1.5, respectively, during that time period.
Oscar Onboarding
Even beyond its app, Oscar boasts streamlined processes. Oscar’s online onboarding and price quote tools ask easy-to-answer, straightforward questions:
My zip code is _______ I’d like to cover _______ (yourself or dependents) I’m ______ years old I make $_________ with __ people in my tax household Tell us about your health and we’ll recommend a plan for you. Your answers will have no impact on rates. (see below)
Following the questionnaire, Oscar shows a selection of plans and their details (benefits, rates, etc.). Notably, everything within this onboarding process remains within Oscar’s website, in contrast with several other major insurers — like Aetna or UnitedHealth — that outsource parts of this process to third parties like healthinsurance.com and ehealth.
This idea of bringing everything in-house to fully control the patient experience is a recurring theme in Oscar’s strategic moves.
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Oscar’s Vertical Integration with Hospitals and Internalization of Functions
When Oscar began, it focused on the exchanges and geographic expansion, moving to multiple counties in New York, New Jersey, Texas, and California within two years. In order to do this, the company outsourced many back-office functions, including claims processing, and also turned to companies like MagnaCare for their networks of hospitals and providers rather than developing its own.
This turned out to be a more expensive strategy, and additionally made the customer experience worse, since Oscar had to rely on the legacy processes of third parties.
In the last couple of years, Oscar has spent a considerable amount of resources to instead create its own tools, networks, and primary care channels. This is actually outlined as part of the company’s 2012 internal deck, which discussed starting Oscar with a focus on the user interface and slowly expanding down the “healthcare stack,” incorporating wellness programs and later its own provider network.
Claims processing
One of the functions Oscar is bringing in-house is claims processing. Most health insurers outsource large parts of their claims and process them in batches, and Oscar did too in its early days. Now, to improve the customer experience, Oscar wants to handle claims in real-time.
The company’s goals for this system are stated below (taken from their blog):
Reduce errors
Better monitoring of data to ensure up-to-date information
Eliminate denied or delayed claims
Tighter fraud and abuse monitoring to prevent unnecessary bills for members
In its first few years of operation, Oscar received many complaints due to unexpectedly high bills and out-of-network surprises. Oscar’s new claims system seems geared to making sure members are not caught off-guard with bills, reduce billing errors that might cause sticker shock and resolving billing issues quickly.
The new claims system is also supposed to send information about patients in real-time, keep provider information up-to-date, and speed up authorizations. Considering some prior authorizations could take weeks, speeding up this process is necessary if one of Oscar’s key differentiators is to excel in user experience.
The company plans to roll out this new system in 2018.
Hospital Networks
The Affordable Care Act introduced a marketplace for insurance companies to sell plans directly to individuals. This provided a great opportunity for Oscar to instantly get in front of a significant number of individuals who were supposed to flock to the exchanges.
Since Oscar was only two years old at the time, it had to rent out a network of hospitals from provider network MagnaCare to be operational by the time the exchanges opened. This cost Oscar a 30% upcharge to use.
In 2016 the company announced it would be halving its network (when its MagnaCare contract expired), as it doubled down on the “narrow networks” model of providing patients with fewer choices, in exchange for a better experience and usually lower prices. This is also an extension of Oscar’s “simplicity” theme, i.e. less choices means a better experience.
The news of Oscar’s network shrinking was followed by its decision to pull out of the Dallas and New Jersey exchanges due to profitability concerns, leading to a surge of press scrutiny on whether Oscar was failing at its mission. We captured this increased media attention using our Trends tool, which mines millions of media articles to track tech and innovation trends. (More recent upticks have primarily been associated with major news around the Trump administration and ACA.)
As Oscar continues to expand into new geographies, building hospital networks (and avoiding the MagnaCare upcharge) is challenging. The company is striking some partnerships to do this.
Small group insurance for employers is a new product Oscar rolled out this year — allowing Oscar to diversify its product offering beyond just the individual exchanges. This has been the focal point for its advertising campaign in New York.
Another example is in Tennessee, where Oscar is partnering with Humana to offer small group insurance as a 50-50 partnership.
Through the Tennessee partnership, Oscar gets access to Humana’s network in the area, a method for the company to quickly enter a state without paying a premium to rent a network. Humana receives Oscar’s customer-facing support systems and can outsource the operations for small group insurance to Oscar.
In Ohio, Oscar is doing something analogous by partnering with the Cleveland Clinic and selling a co-branded individual plan on the exchanges in 2018.
Oscar offers the Cleveland Clinic its customer engagement platform, insurance expertise, and technology stack, and in turn receives the Cleveland Clinic’s brand and network of physicians. As more providers sponsor their own health plans, Oscar can act as an “insurance-as-a-service” provider, offering these tools to health systems.
There are several open questions about whether these partnerships will be successful, including:
How easily will Oscar be able to integrate into the Cleveland Clinic? Can it do this scalably with other health systems?
Many provider-sponsored plans burn money due to higher-than-expected claims costs and difficulties in population health management. How can Oscar’s tools remedy this?
Considering Oscar/Cleveland Clinic is one of the last plans to launch on the individual exchange in Ohio, what kind of population can be expected to sign up (i.e., will they be left with the least desirable patient pool)?
How willing are customers to stay exclusive to the Cleveland Clinic’s network?
This experiment could dictate how Oscar partners with providers going forward.
Telemedicine And Primary Care
While Oscar works with hospital networks, the reality is that the company wants to keep people out of the hospital completely. This is one of the reasons Oscar places its telemedicine functionality in the front of the app, claiming 23% of its members use the feature. Virtual care is also one of Oscar’s high priorities in terms of hiring, (which we’ll examine further in the jobs analysis below).
Oscar is also moving into brick-and-mortar primary care itself through opening the Oscar Center in conjunction with the Mount Sinai Health System. The center made its debut in Brooklyn in 2016, and is available to Oscar’s New York members.
The center has comprehensive primary care and basic mental health services and helps members who need to manage complex conditions. The facility also blurs the line between health and wellness, offering yoga, prenatal classes, and more. The company claims that 98.6% members who use the Oscar Center would recommend it.
This expansion into primary care rides two distinct trends:
The first is the trend toward tech-enabled primary care clinic networks, as evidenced by the financing of companies like One Medical, Forward, and Iora Health, among others. However, while these companies monetize through a subscription, Oscar would presumably monetize its offering by keeping its patients healthier.
The second involves companies moving to become more vertically integrated to provide their own healthcare services. Instead of needing to negotiate with each primary care clinic it partners with, Oscar can have better control of pricing by building its own. It can also build the clinics with tech that immediately integrates with its systems.
With Oscar bringing more of these functions and networks in-house, the company expects to contain its costs more effectively. As Mario Schlosser, CEO of Oscar, has claimed:
“In 2017, I feel for the first time that all of these pieces are in place in a way that you will see it flow through to the financial results as well.”
Oscar by the Numbers — Money & Membership
Oscar’s enrollment increased dramatically in its first 3 years, from fewer than 20,000 in the first year of enrollment to more than 8X that size two years later, as it expanded into more states and exchanges. However, in 2016 Oscar announced it was pulling out of New Jersey and Dallas, leading to a drop in total enrollment.
For 2018, the company has announced its entrance into new states (Tennessee, Ohio), a return to old states like New Jersey, and expansion for both its product offerings and geographic reach within other states like New York, California, and Texas — suggesting that Oscar’s enrollment numbers will increase in 2018.
However, Oscar’s enrollment is still extremely small compared to established players like UnitedHealth and Anthem, which have 47M+ and 33M+ medical enrollees respectively (which doesn’t even include their dental, Medicare, and other plans).
Alongside this geographic expansion, revenue has seen a similar trend, with a 238% revenue spike between 2015 and 2016. However, after Oscar pulled out of several markets, 2017 has been off to a much slower start, with just $72.8M in revenue across three markets in Q1’17.
Oscar’s losses have also mounted, topping more than $200M in 2016. This could in part be due to the cost of building out networks in new states, marketing, and high upfront costs associated with building tools Oscar used to outsource (such as claims processing).
Looking at Oscar’s expense reports for New York, California, and Texas, it’s clear that hospital costs and services eat up most of Oscar’s revenue. However, Oscar’s hospital costs have decreased by more than 43% between Q1’16 and Q1’17, which could be due to a combination of slashing the size of its provider network, dropping the number of enrollees generally, and also building its own network as opposed to renting one from MagnaCare, which included the 30% upcharge as stated above.
It’s also worth noting Oscar’s comparatively high expenditure on administrative costs. As a point of comparison, Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York spends about 9% of revenue on administrative costs and CareConnects spends approximately 16%. Oscar spent more than half of its revenue on administrative costs in Q1’16, though it dropped closer to 40% in Q1’17. Part of this large expenditure could be the cost of building out its own internal systems like a claims processor, while part of it could be Oscar’s focus on customer service which uses a higher touch system, such as its concierge teams.
Oscar appears to be getting control of its finances, with losses representing a small percentage of revenue in 2017. However, the company will have to raise a considerable amount of money going forward, with the company likely coming close to the end of its current runway.
So far, Oscar has raised more than $727M in disclosed funding since 2013, with its most recent $400M round raising at a $2.7B valuation. The company raised its Series C about 20 months ago, and will likely raise again as the numbers come in from next year’s enrollment period when people sign up for health insurance plans.
The company demonstrates the capital-intensive nature of starting a new insurance business. Its first round of institutional financing back in 2013 was for $40M, followed by $30M a year later as the company began rolling out its plans.
Will Oscar find investors to pony up the required capital for expansion? Brian Singerman of Founders Fund (one of Oscar’s big investors) talked about how optimistic he was for the company’s future and cash position. But will enough other investors feel similarly? |
Hood Group, Neos form insurtech partnership | Smart home-managing insurance company Neos has joined forces with brokering start-up Hood Group, in a deal which will see the latter firm provide administrative services to the former. As well as providing coverage, Neos also uses home monitoring to help homeowners avoid damage and security breaches to their properties. Policyholders can have information delivered to their smartphones, helping to prevent incidents like fires, leaks and burglaries.
| https://www.insuranceage.co.uk/broker/3168626/insurtech-futures-hood-group-partners-with-gary-lineker-backed-start-up-neos | 2017-10-26 18:46:56.537000 | Broker to provide administration services for Neos' smart home insurance proposition. Smart home insurance provider Neos has partnered with data and technology driven broker Hood Group. According to Neos, Hood Group will provide administration services supporting the Neos smart home insurance proposition, including sales support and customer services such as customer helpline, policy fulfilment, mid-term adjustments and renewals. Earlier this year the start-up managing general agent (MGA) launched a proposition which it said generates a home insurance quote in under 30 seconds
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SEC makes use of data analysis for fraud detection | The US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) retail strategy task force is using data analysis to identify cases where retail investors have been defrauded by advisers. The task force won't be doing the casework, but will pass on pertinent information to enforcement personnel and advise as to the best course of action. The force will look to uncover unsuitable product recommendations and fee disclosures through data analysis, while also poring over tips and complaints submitted to the SEC's website.
| http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20171026/FREE/171029952/sec-task-force-targets-retail-investor-fraud-at-the-adviser-level?NLID=daily&NL_issueDate=20171026&utm_source=Daily-20171026&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=investmentnews&utm_visit=683730&itx[email]=ef43bd21a4603c819bce402556d5c3796816f8b4cd73a5c873e539bd2365cb2f%40investmentnews | 2017-10-26 18:44:55.687000 | A new Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement initiative will target retail investor harm that occurs when clients work with investment advisers, an SEC official said on Thursday.
Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC Division of Enforcement, said that the agency’s retail strategy task force will use data analytics to find widespread problems involving inadequate fee disclosure and unsuitable product recommendations. It will parse data about products, types of fees and investors, advisory office locations and sales practices. In addition to market data, it will draw on the thousands of tips, complaints and referrals that come into the SEC as well as findings from adviser examinations.
“The goal of the task force is to find the problems [and] think creatively about potential solutions,” Ms. Avakian said at the Securities Enforcement Forum in Washington.
Established in late September, the retail task force won’t pursue cases itself but will advise its enforcement colleagues about where to focus their efforts.
Ms. Avakian said that areas of increasing concern include the sales of high-fee mutual fund share classes when less expensive share classes are available for the same fund, lack of transparency in wrap-fee programs, situations where investors hold inverse exchange-traded funds for the long term, non-disclosure of fees and churning and excessive trading.
“We’ll look to [the task force] to consider these issues broadly, to look for opportunities to send effective messages in a way that maximizes our efficiency and preserves our resources,” Ms. Avakian said.
It’s too early to tell when the first cases arising from the task force’s work will emerge, she said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. The group is still hiring its staff. But it intends to swing into action quickly.
“I would expect investigations to start in fairly short order,” she said.
In speeches and appearances on Capitol Hill, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has said that he is surprised about the amount of retail investor fraud that continues to occur and that cracking down on it is one of his priorities.
Ms. Avakian said that emphasizing retail enforcement won’t detract from the SEC’s efforts on other kinds of financial fraud or “policing Wall Street.”
“The premise that there is a tradeoff between Wall Street and Main Street enforcement is a false one,” she said.
At the same time that the SEC established the retail task force, it also launched a cyber unit that will target online threats to investors and financial firms. |
House building robots set to disrupt construction sector | Swedish manufacturer RANDEK has launched the ZeroLabor Robotic System, an automatic production system which can create wooden walls, roofs and floors for building houses according to customer requirements. The system creates the components, checks them for defects and even recycles its own waste. ZeroLabor is considerably more accurate, faster and less wasteful than its more human-reliant counterparts in the industry, leading to speculation that it, and automated systems like it, could soon become the industry norm.
| https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/your-next-home-might-be-built-robots-and-you-will-never-know.html | 2017-10-26 15:02:01.323000 | In Sweden, they build homes in factories with workers using sophisticated tools, and now RANDEK is adding robots.
There are many, including this TreeHugger, who think that wood is the best material for building; when sustainably harvested it is a renewable resource that stores carbon for the life of the building. Most of the attention these days is paid to Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), the sexy plywood on steroids; other mass timber products like Nail Laminated and Dowel Laminated timbers are also hot.
But these technologies use a LOT of wood, far more than is actually needed for structural reasons. For many low and mid rise applications it’s overkill. In many ways, wood framing with dimension lumber makes more sense;
the walls are lighter;
the insulation is in the wall rather than outside, so the assemblies can be thinner;
it is far more efficient in its use of materials- the wood goes a lot farther.
We have previously shown how they do it in Sweden, where companies like Lindbäcks Group use precision tools like those made by RANDEK to crank out wall panels for their flat-packed multiple family buildings, or in Canada where Great Gulf H+me Technology is building houses; In the States, Unity Homes, Ecocor and Katerra are doing it;
Here come the robots
The video above shows how it works for H+me Technology (Formerly Brockport) in Milton, Ontario, just west of Toronto. It’s pretty automated but you still see a lot of people running around placing 2x6s in jigs. But maybe not for long; RANDEK has just launched its ZeroLabor Robotic System, which they describe as: |
Lisk adds four developers to team | Blockchain application platform Lisk has added four people to its team: Yashar Ayari, Gina Contrino, Juan González and Nazar Hussein. Ayari has joined the Berlin team as front end engineer, with Contrino appointed as front end developer. González will be a devops engineer, and Hussain will take a position as a backend developer. Lisk has been working on expanding its online marketing activities with digital marketing agency Expand Online, and plans to rebrand Lisk in the near future. It has also recently released the latest version of its Lisk Nano wallet.
| https://blog.lisk.io/lisk-welcomes-four-new-team-members-bec5d504f720 | 2017-10-26 14:44:16.113000 | JavaScript is currently the most popular programming language in the world, yet when you think of blockchain development, it is typically not the first language that comes to mind. The reasoning behind this may partially be due to JavaScript often being thought of as a front-end technology, even with the continued development and use of Node.js. This misconception may lead developers to utilize other languages that they may be less familiar with and even less suitable for their blockchain applications than JavaScript.
The rationale behind this blog post is to provide you with various sources and Web3 tutorials centered around using JavaScript for blockchain. Our goal is that you will be able to utilize them to build your own blockchain application using JavaScript. |
AMD sees demand for crypto-mining hardware fall | Processor provider AMD has said the price of its video chips, such as its Vega 56 and Vega 64 models, has stabilised after a sudden spike due to cryptocurrency mining. Its Radeon chips and Ryzen processors were also bolstered by demand from miners. The CEO of the California company, Lisa Su, has said that the company predicts a “levelling off of some of the cryptocurrency demand” as entry into the crypto-mining industry becomes more expensive.
| http://ethereumworldnews.com/amd-ceo-demand-crypto-mining-gpus-falling/ | 2017-10-26 14:43:11.153000 | AMD tells that the price for its video chips, increased due to a sudden emergence of mining community, is now stabilizing, which might indicate the downfall of mining rush we have lately seen. As the CEO of the popular hardware company says, “we’re also predicting that there will be some leveling-off of some of the cryptocurrency demand”.
The decrease of cryptocurrency cards demand might come from the fact that the hype caused by a long-term bullish trend is fading. Another possible reason: most market players who wanted to establish mining rigs have already done so in previous quarters.
The company also noted the interest in Vega 56 and Vega 64, powerful video cards handy for mining. Strong sales of Radeon chips and Ryzen processors also indicate the demand for these components in the mining community. |
TripAdvisor lets restaurants reach customers via sponsored ads | TripAdvisor is enabling restaurant owners to advertise their businesses to potential customers through sponsored ads on the site through a new product, TripAdvisor Ads. The feature sends customers directly from ads to the restaurants' TripAdvisor pages, and will deliver ads to users searching in specific areas, as well as those looking for average meal prices, specific cuisine and booking times. The ads will be offered on a cost-per-click basis with a monthly spending limit, with owners charged at the end of the month based on click rate.
| http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/tripadvisor-ads-for-restaurants | 2017-10-26 14:23:35.973000 | TripAdvisor has launched an ad product that enables restaurant owners to promote their business to diners through sponsored placements on the travel and restaurant reviews site.
Through TripAdvisor Ads for restaurants, owners are able to buy targeted ad slots – which send customers directly to their restaurant listing – on desktop and mobile web. The ads target people who are actively searching in a specified area, as well as people based on their advanced search queries, such as average meal price, cuisine type, and timing of meals.
“We want to provide restaurant owners with the best possible suite of products and solutions to entice and convert potential diners into loyal customers,” said Bertrand Jelensperger, SVP of TripAdvisor Restaurants. “Now with TripAdvisor Ads, we are providing them with another way to increase their visibility through targeted sponsored placements.
“Whether you operate a Michelin star fine-dining restaurant or a popular neighbourhood deli, this solution ensures that your restaurant’s ad will be displayed to relevant diners at the optimal moment. Supported by more than 28 languages, both travellers and locals browsing TripAdvisor can be sure they are always able to find the perfect restaurant, whether at home or on-the-go.”
TripAdvisor Ads for restaurants work on a cost-per-click basis. Therefore, restaurant owners only need to set a monthly spending limit before activating their ad, and are only charged at the end of each month based on the number of clicks they received on the ad up to their maximum budget.
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. |
Hacks spur blockchain firms to seek decentralised data storage | Data breaches in recent months have led blockchain companies to initiate decentralised cloud storage and computing projects to increase cybersecurity. Unlike centralised data storage solutions, which have a single point of failure, decentralised options such as those of MaidSafe, Siacoin, Filecoin and Storj rent unused hard-drive space from private PCs and servers globally in exchange for their respective tokens. Costs are driven by supply and demand, rather than arbitrary pricing structures set by storage companies, and hardware redundancy is reduced because files are broken into sections, encrypted with private keys and stored across multiple user networks.
| https://www.influencive.com/the-decentralized-cloud-is-here/ | 2017-10-26 14:17:38.427000 | In light of the recent Equifax hack, exposing over 143 million Americans confidential information, one must ask, can we really trust these giant corporations with our most sensitive data? Equifax is just another number on the list of companies that have failed to keep their customer’s data safe. In July 2017, Verizon had a data breach and lost 14 million customers information.
The list goes on for 2017, going to show that storing data in a central location is very susceptible to being breached. The Verizon breach is a classic example of a company outsourcing data to storage providers, this one in Israel called Nice Systems. Nice Systems is a very reputable company, that boasts more that 25,000 customers in 150 different countries, but still they weren’t able to prevent a breach. The data accessed was the customers name, customer phone number, and PIN associated with the account; enough information to access a persons Verizon account. With this information, a user could take over a customers phone including social media and email accounts.
Centralized storage has the issue of single point of failure, that point being where the data is stored at the facility. Along with that, companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been known to abuse customers or rival companies data. Deep Roots Analytics was using an AWS server and due to a configuration error there was no protected access, so all someone had to do breach the sensitive information of 198 million Americans was navigate the six-character Amazon sub-domain. And that’s exactly what happened, exposing very sensitive information to the web and now there is a class action lawsuit against Deep Roots Analytics.
Big Data
For the short lifetime of the World Wide Web, corporate giants (Facebook, Google, etc.) have controlled a majority of the data and made a very handsome profit off our data.
We are going to create more data in 2017, than every year previous in human history. Data is everything now, whether it’s your smartphone counting the number of steps you took today or your car’s computer checking the engine or brake pads and analyzing data to suggest when maintenance is needed. A self-driving car can generate up to 1-gigabyte second, which after about three minutes is more data than the largest storage option on the iPhone currently, 256 GBs.
Currently, AWS, known as S3 (Simple Storage Service) is the main front runner in the cloud, with Dropbox, Google Drive, IBM, and Microsoft’s Azure behind them competing for their share of the market, which continues to grow.
These companies all charge a premium for storage in comparison to what the decentralized cloud options offer.
Decentralized Cloud
There are four decentralized cloud platforms: Filecoin, MaidSafe, Siacoin, and Storj. The idea behind these four is to rent out unused harddrive space around the world, which there is a lot of. Think about the desktop you have at home, you could turn it into a revenue-generating asset.
Sharing economy is the future. Market participants will drive market price via supply and demand for storage instead of arbitrary prices set by centralized cloud providers like S3, IBM, etc.
The advantage these provide is the redundancy across multiple nodes. Redundancy in data is simply extra copies of it stored or pieces of the copy stored in case of error in storing or transmission of data, as to prevent loss or partial loss of files.
Security and privacy of your files are better on decentralized network. Your files are broken apart and spread across multiple nodes. So even if a node wants to look at your file, it’s encrypted with a private key that only the file owner has. Along with the fact that it is only a partial file, meaning that it doesn’t matter if the host even gets into your file, it’s a fraction of its original self.
Another advantage decentralized storage offers is close proximity to the server, which means your data will be accessible quickly whether it is the website that is stored on it or simply files you are trying to recover.
Centralized storage units have to set up new facilities which are costly and take time and staff to maintain them. On top of that, you’ll never get the proximity to servers that a decentralized storage can offer as anyone who has a harddrive with free space can offer storage.
Recently human error caused US-East 1 of Amazon S3 to go down, leading to websites and services like Business Insider, Medium, Giphy, and others impacted. Simply due to an incorrect piece of code typed in, thus a larger set of servers were removed; the servers were down for around 4 and half hours.
These coins are similar for the most part, but there are key differences.
Filecoin
Filecoin made headlines recently when it raised $257 million in it’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) this August, the largest amount raised by an ICO to date. Filecoin was initially going to be open to U.S. investors, but due to a SEC statement that The DAO’s tokens may be considered securities, Filecoin postponed their ICO and left it open to accredited investors in the U.S. For those unaware, an accredited investor is a person who has an annual income of more than $200,000 or a net worth over $1 million.
These actions left many people out of their ICO and it shows for their community as well. They have 1,374 subscribers on their Reddit page, but the posts are very infrequent and lucky to have one post a day. This is generally frowned upon in the crypto community, when a coin lacks a community itself, never a good sign.
Filecoin is apart of Protocol Labs, which is the parent company to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Protocol Labs mission statement says:
We believe the internet has become humanity’s most important technology. We build protocols, systems, and tools to improve how it works. Today, we are focused on how we store, locate, and move information.
IFPS looks to replace HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol, that thing not many people understand but see in their search bar every day) to make a better and more efficient web. It liberates data from silos, survives network partitions, works offline, routes around censorship, and gives permanence to digital information. The reason I include IFPS is that it can work together via Filecoin providing the backbone storage layer for the IFPS if the product(s) come to fruition.
Protocol Labs has other three other projects under them too: LibP2P, ILPD, and Multiformat.
Filecoin offers a novel Proof-of-Storage:
Proof-of-Replication, allows storage providers to prove that data has been replicated to its own uniquely dedicated physical storage. Enforcing unique physical copies enables a verifier to check that a prover is not deduplicating multiple copies of the data into the same storage space
Proof-of-Spacetime, where blocks are created by miners who are storing data, which doesn’t require the computation power of Proof-of-Work (PoW). Filecoin protocol provides a data storage and retrieval service via a network of independent storage providers that does not rely on a single coordinator, where: (1) clients pay to store and retrieve data, (2) Storage Miners earn tokens by offering storage (3) Retrieval Miners earn tokens by serving data.
The following are the intuitions on how the Filecoin DSN (Decentralized Storage Network) achieves integrity, retrievability, public verifiability, and incentive-compatibility. This is from their whitepaper:
Achieving Integrity: Pieces are named after their cryptographic hash. After a Put request, clients only need to store this hash to retrieve the data via Get and to verify the integrity of the content received.
Achieving Retrievability: In a Put request, clients specify the replication factor and the type of erasure coding desired, specifying in this way the storage to be (f;m)-tolerant. The assumption is that given m Storage Miners storing the data, a maximum of f faults are tolerated. By storing data in more than one Storage Miner, a client can increase the chances of recovery, in case Storage Miners go offline or disappear.
Achieving Public Verifiability and Auditability: Storage Miners are required to submit their proofs of storage to the blockchain. Any user in the network can verify the validity of these proofs, without having access to the outsourced data. Since the proofs are stored on the blockchain, they are a trace of operation that can be audited at any time.
Achieving Incentive Compatibility: Informally, miners are rewarded for the storage they are providing. When miners commit to store some data, then they are required to generate proofs. Miners that skip proofs are penalized (by losing part of their collateral) and not rewarded for their storage.
Achieving Confidentiality: Clients that desire for their data to be stored privately, must encrypt their data before submitting them to the network.
Hosts storing data must verify that they have the data they are supposed to be storing otherwise they will be penalized. A noted downside is that clients must encrypt their data if they desire it be stored privately.
You can currently join Filecoin’s “Early Mining Program” on their website where you fill out a form and wait to hear back for access to the program.
So far, Filecoin is yet to release a product, which puts it in last place in my opinion behind Storj, Sia, and MaidSafe who all offer a working platform where you can mine, host and store data currently.
MaidSafe
Massive Array of Internet Disks – Secure Access For Everyone or also known as MaidSafe. Maidsafe’s goal is to be the world’s first Autonomous Data Network via blockchain based storage solutions that store a data identifier (e.g. hash) in a blockchain, but store the data ‘somewhere else’ do not improve the security of our data. That ‘somewhere else’ still needs to be secured, and if this data can be deleted, or our access denied these ‘solutions’ are not fit for purpose. The SAFE Network removes people from the management of our information to protect the world’s data.
What is SAFE?
SAFE is simply an Autonomous network, that keeps out human interference and alteration to protect the network from abuse. Here is a summary of the safe network from David Irvine, CEO of MaidSafe:
“SAFE at it’s core is an “Autonomous Network“, not a set of federated servers, or owned storage locations, or identifiable nodes, but actually an autonomous network. This means no human intervention, no humans setting prices, no altering configurations to make things work, no tweaking data on disk, no altering rules of the nodes, absolutely no human intervention apart from running a piece of self configuring, self healing software. The network decides prices, rewards and how to protect data, communications and calculations, not any human!”
Maidsafe currently runs off the Proof of Resource (PoR) algorithm. PoR on the Safe Network is similar to Zero Knowledge proofs, where in the farmer/miner doesn’t know the content on any data, but instead knows that the data is held and that it is held accurately.
Nodes that are either unreliable or are trying to game the network, by removing the previously provided resource, they are ‘deranked’ by the network if the node is unable to serve a chunk of data. A node, in this case, would be a farmer who is supposed to validate data.
Project Decorum
The Safe Network also has another project under it called Project Decorum, which the name decorum is originally derived from the original concept of DECentralized fORUM. Soon after starting this project they realized this project had more potential to extend across not just forums, but all social networks. As stated on their website, Decorum’s goal is to realize a decentralized social platform, fit for all kinds of digital social activity.
You can test out Project Decorum at the moment, they explicitly state to expect bugs and that it’s a ‘quick & dirty’ version and does not represent the future of Project Decorum.
Here is a quote from Project Decorum:
Limitations and known issues
The SAFE Network currently lacks a proper API for dynamic data. As a temporary workaround, the Proof of Concept makes unintended use of the SAFE Network DNS system. This means that a new public ID is registered for your account for every new post you make. A known issue with this approach is that after many posts (well over a hundred), the SAFE Launcher may bug out, preventing further activity with that account. Since the data for the current test net will be wiped, this is not a big problem, but be aware nonetheless.
Maidsafe Community
Maidsafe’s Reddit isn’t too active, but I joined their Slack channel which was quite active. One thing I noted about their slack channel was they made people state why they were joining and then had to be approved by a moderator beforehand. I liked this since many Slack channels are plagued with scammers trying to get naive investors to send them Ethereum.
Storj
Storj, formerly known as Storjcoin X (SJCX), is a project that made a key partnership recently. That partnership was with Filezilla, the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) storage client that allows people to access files online. This gives the 15 million users of Filezilla the option to use Storj as there option to store their files.
There is a caveat though since this is run through Filezilla, it means users won’t have to pay using Storj token. This means the Storj token won’t be necessary for the platform, which takes the utility away from the token itself. Though Storj has a nice incentive offering 25GB of free storage and bandwidth per month for new users who sign up with the platform.
Storj recently struck a deal with Cap Linked for storage; Cap Linked is an enterprise storage platform. Very promising news to see for Storj and decentralized storage in general. People are noting the future here.
Storj Labs service takes data as inputs and splits it up into multiple pieces distributing it across a peer-to-peer network of nodes. And because each part is privately encrypted, only the right key can unlock the files in full.
Cap Link is one of many enterprise storage offering cloud storage like Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, and more, except Cap Link is trying to set themselves apart by utilizing the decentralized storage; offering cheaper data storage than any other option currently.
Though it is unknown at the moment if users using CapLinked for storage will be utilizing the Storj token itself. I assume it will be the same case as with Filezilla where it wasn’t necessary to utilize the Storj token for data storage. This is important to note, as the utility in the token is not necessary for the platform itself, thus making the token more or less a security of the Storj company than a token utilized among their ecosystem.
Storj runs off Proof of Retrievability guarantee the existence of a certain piece of data on a remote host.
Below is a comparison of Storj pricing per gigabyte (GB)/month versus current centralized storage providers. As you can see, Storj cut’s your price in half if you are using Microsoft Azure and saves you 35% if you switch from AWS S3.
Here is a statement from F.A.Q. section on what Storj Labs is and differs from Storj:
Our corporate entity Storj Labs aims to bring decentralized cloud storage to the average business and consumer. With constant data breaches and high costs, users are becoming more aware that the current model of cloud storage is broken. Storj Labs provides DaaS (Data-as-a-Service), as well as help building tools and APIs for customers to be able to interface with this new cloud storage model.
Storj is the cloud platform itself, allowing decentralized apps to be built upon it, including an image viewer, .txt and .pdf viewer, a music player, and a video service. They are going for the whole pie, being the backbone layer of the internet, how AWS S3 is currently, hosting websites, and all their content.
One notable issue Storj went through was a leadership and management change in May and then another one in July. The Storj team blog said it was from startup pains, which caused the initial change in May, as Shawn Wilkinson the CEO stepped down from that position to CTO, to focus on the code base and working the community on the open source code.
In July the change was different, James Prestwich stepped down from his role as COO and CFO to pursue other opportunities. Shawn Wilkinson also transitioned to Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) to work on the companies strategy and vision. This left the Storj board to assume role as the CEO until a new CEO was put in place.
Storj Community
Storj’s reddit has 3,884 readers, though it is very active, with posts daily and community members responding to questions you ask. The Storj team is also active on their blog, keeping the community up to date with what the project is doing. Storj’s team does a very good job being transparent with their community, a big ‘plus’. This was shown throughout their management changes that happened between May and July.
Siacoin
I’m biased towards Siacoin, deal with it.
Siacoin has one goal, to be the backbone storage layer of the internet. Sia was conceived at HackMIT in 2013, with the idea of liberating unused storage space of the world and unite it into worldwide free market for data. Nebulous Labs is the parent company to Siacoin and is Venture Capital funded startup located in Boston, Massachusetts.
Sia offers complete privacy, by breaking up files into pieces, encrypting them, and distributing them across nodes. Since you hold your key, you own your data. No outside company or party can access or control your files, unlike traditional cloud storage providers. Siacoin has very high redundancy, as it stores your files across multiple nodes around the globe. And to recover a file you only need four of the forty pieces that are spread across the nodes.
The Sia team has been very transparent with its community throughout the whole process. A great example was when Sia announced they were building ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Miners for mining Siacoin to help secure the network. The reasoning behind this was to protect the network from a 51% attack, which is where a miner or pool of miners take control of the hash rate and can control what transactions are put through or denied. Also, they could reverse transactions, allowing them to double-spend coins.
This announcement caused many angry Reddit members to come out against Sia, but that wasn’t for long as David Vorick (Sia CEO) wrote an in depth Reddit post explaining why they went ahead with the ASIC miner. I highly suggest you read that Reddit post, it really shows their commitment to the longevity of the project.
The ASIC miner is called Obelisk, which is being worked on by a team separate of the Sia team, as to let them focus on the Sia platform. Currently there have been 1,960 ASIC miners sold at a price of $2,400 per unit. Obelisk has 100x the power of a GPU, allowing owners of them to secure the Sia network.
Sia crushes centralized storage providers when it comes to storage costs and download bandwidth costs. It’s not even in the same ballpark, Sia reduces costs by over 90%.
Siacoin has a caveat, which is for the better, it requires the use of the token to store data; thus giving the token utility. This is so the smart contract can be completed, and it ensures that the host followed through with the contract so the customer can access the data they store on it. If a host doesn’t follow through with the contract they are not paid, and the payment is not received until the contract is complete.
People tend to complain that Siacoin has too high of a supply of tokens, so it’s price is hard to move. That’s why many in the cryptocurrency avoid it as investment, but if you see what they are trying to accomplish, being the backbone layer of the internet, you can see the light at the end of tunnel. As I stated earlier we are storing more data in 2017, than every year previous in human history combined.
Siafunds
Siafunds is a second cryptocurrency to Siacoin. There are only 10,000 Siafunds and all of them are premined. Nebulous inc. currently holds 8,835 of them, the remaining were sold in a crowdfund to finance Sia’s development.
3.9% of all successful contracts get paid out to holders of Siafunds. If you can get your hands on one, I highly suggest you buy one. They are currently sold on Bitsquare, and their price is going for 2.37 BTC. They were originally priced around $10,000, but with Bitcoins recent run from around $4,000 to $5,800, they are not as cheap now. I assume the people who listed their Siafunds haven’t changed their BTC price to reflect the change in BTC to USD.
Here is a guide on how to purchase Siafunds.
Sia Community
Sia has a very active community, you can check out their Reddit or Discord, where there is frequent work on Sia by community members. This is something that sets Sia apart from the other decentralized storage providers, their strong community, which comes from their team which is very transparent and focused on being the backbone storage layer of the internet.
Sia Stats is a great example of community participation. A community member put this together for Sia, so you can check storage prices, active contracts, transactions, and more.
Future of Data
I just gave you the tools, now you just have to open your mind up, and see the future of data storage. It’s a sharing economy, where data is controlled by the original owners, not the corporations or service providers. This is one of the most promising segments of blockchain to come out.
The change in storage will likely not happen overnight, but in 5 years you will see it being used by everyone. Filecoin, Maidsafe, Storj, and Siacoin are very promising projects and have the ability to all coexist with each other in the future. With the way data storage is heading, the market will be so big, it’s conceivable to see more than one of these providing decentralized cloud storage down the line.
TL;DR Decentralized storage is the future of data storage and a free web.
Disclaimer:
This author has a stake in Siacoin.
This is not investment advice, always do your own research. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances. |
Singapore chooses hands-off approach to cryptocurrency regulation | Singapore has no intention of regulating cryptocurrencies, though it will curb money laundering and other risks associated with the assets, Monetary Authority MD Ravi Menon has said. The city-state requires virtual currency intermediaries follow money laundering and terrorism financing laws, which are due to be formalised in payment services regulations. Many central banks have decided against cryptocurrency supervision, though China and South Korea have banned initial coin offerings and Russia has called for oversight.
| http://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/singapore-wont-regulate-cryptocurrencies-remains-alert-to-risk-ravi-menon?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&xtor=CS1-10#link_time=1508889421 | 2017-10-26 14:14:29.400000 | SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - Singapore doesn't plan to regulate cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, but will remain alert to money laundering and other potential risks stemming from their use, the head of the country's central bank said.
"As of now I see no basis for wanting to regulate cryptocurrencies," Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Rather, the central bank's focus is to "look at the activities surrounding the cryptocurrency and asking ourselves what kinds of risks they pose, which risks would require a regulatory response, and then proceed from there," Menon added.
Bitcoin's rally and the proliferation of other digital assets is attracting the wary eyes of regulators globally, though many central banks have still refrained from supervising cryptocurrencies themselves. China and South Korea have banned initial coin offerings, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for regulation of the sector.
"Very few jurisdictions regulate cryptocurrencies per se. Most have taken the approach that the currency itself does not pose a risk that warrants regulation," Menon said in a separate Bloomberg Television interview with Haslinda Amin.
Singapore already requires virtual-currency intermediaries such as exchange operators to comply with requirements to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, Menon noted in the Bloomberg News interview. "This will be formalised in the coming payment services regulation which we are working on," Menon said. |
AI can pick out one voice among a crowd | An AI developed in the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory can distinguish between multiple speakers in real time. The tech utilises a machine learning technique called "deep clustering" to identify the vocal signature of various speakers, allowing it to distinguish multiple voices and to reconstruct what was said. The software was trained with 100 English-speaking subjects, but can separate voices speaking in other languages.
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2151268-an-ai-has-learned-how-to-pick-a-single-voice-out-of-a-crowd/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&campaign_id=RSS%7CNSNS- | 2017-10-26 13:58:46.027000 | Voiceprints can help make sense of what people in a crowd say Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos
Devices like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home can usually deal with requests from a lone person, but like us they struggle in situations such as a noisy cocktail party, where several people are speaking at once.
Now an AI that is able to separate the voices of multiple speakers in real time promises to give automatic speech recognition a big boost, and could soon find its way into an elevator near you.
The technology, developed by researchers at the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was demonstrated in public for the first time at this month’s Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies show in Tokyo.
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It uses a machine learning technique the team calls “deep clustering” to identifies unique features in the “voiceprint” of multiple speakers. It then groups the distinct features from each speaker’s voice together, allowing it to disentangle multiple voices and then reconstruct what each person was saying. “It was trained using 100 English speakers, but it can separate voices even if a speaker is Japanese,” says Niels Meinke, a spokesperson for Mitsubishi Electric.
Meinke says the system can separate and reconstruct the speech of two people speaking into a single microphone with up to 90 per cent accuracy. If there are three speakers the accuracy dips, but is still up to 80 per cent. In both cases, this was with speakers the system had never encountered before.
Read more: Speech recognition AI identifies you by voice wherever you are
Conventional approaches to this problem – such as using two microphones to replicate the position of a listener’s ears – have only managed 51 per cent accuracy.
In overcoming the “cocktail party effect” that has dogged AI research for decades, the new technology could help smart assistants in homes and cars work better. It could also improve automatic speech transcription, and be used to help law enforcement agencies reconstruct recordings of conversations that had been muddied by music, for example.
In preliminary tests the system was able to separate the voices of up to five people at once. “The system could be used to separate speech in a range of products including lifts, air-conditioning units and household products,” says Meinke.
Indeed, Mitsubishi is now in the process of building its voice recognition technology into lifts and air-conditioners, among other products.
Reference: arxiv.org/abs/1508.04306 |
Barclays to head off scammers with pre-payment pop-up questions | Barclays Bank has introduced a new anti-scam service in the UK that will send three fraud-prevention pop-up questions to owners of accounts involved in seemingly suspicious online fund transfers. The questions are designed to prompt customers to stop and think before fulfilling requests for money as the bank seeks to stop people being duped into making cash transfers. The bank is also hosting Embarrassing Fraud Clinics across the UK to give customers a digital health check and personal advice on cyber protection.
| https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/31253/barclays-introduces-pop-up-questionaire-for-unusual-online-funds-transfers | 2017-10-26 11:51:44.973000 | Barclays Bank customers making 'out-of-character' online funds transfers will first have to answer a battery of questions designed to make them reflect on whether they may be a victim of a scam
The pro-active fraud reduction effort comes as more and more UK consumers are being duped into sending money to fraudsters posing as legitimate business contacts.
In an initiative designed to stop fraudsters in their tracks, Barclays Bank customers will now be asked three fraud prevention questions immediately after making an unusually large or suspicious online payment. If the customer has any doubts about the payment after answering the questions, they are asked to call Barclays immediately using the number on the back of their card.
The bank says the questions are designed for customers to have a ‘stop and think’ moment to consider whether the request they have had to make a payment is genuine.
To help spread awareness of common criminal tactics, Barclays is also staging a series of 'Embarrassing Fraud Clinics' across the country where consumers can have a ‘digital health check’ alongside personalised advice on protecting against potential cyber threats.
Ashok Vaswani, CEO Barclays UK says: “The Embarrassing Fraud Clinic and our new online fraud intervention service makes up the next phase of our £10 million commitment to helping people stay safe in cyber space, launched earlier this year. With the average British person being targeted 12 time over the last 12 months never has it been more vital for us to lead the fightback against the fraudsters and increase the public’s resilience to cyber-attacks." |
WaveX joins ArabianChain for P2P smart contracts | Renewable electricity trading and solar panel finance platform WaveX will be the first UAE start-up to use blockchain-based smart contracts from open source provider ArabianChain. The move should increase the amount of energy traded and improve energy production businesses' environmental standards. ArabianChain helps start-ups to better use open source technology and innovate in the blockchain space. The partnership will "be a stepping stone in empowering start-ups to embrace blockchain" across the UAE, said ArabianChain founder and CEO Mohammed Alsehli. | https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/10/24/renewable-energy-platform-wavex-selects-arabianchain-smart-contracts/ | 2017-10-26 11:42:33.023000 | WaveX, a renewable electricity trading and p2p solar panel financing platform announced today it will be the first UAE-based startup to utilize ArabianChain’s blockchain based smart contracts and development studio. As a startup with a platform established to allow trade of energy between two entities, WaveX aims to increase the share of renewable energy and make energy production environmental friendly.
Additionally, this platform is also optimized to help utility companies reduce their continuous investment in accelerating their energy production. Through this collaboration with WaveX, ArabianChain endeavors to enable startups across the region to leverage their open source tools and foster innovation in the blockchain domain.
ArabianChain Technology is an open source, community-based project with the goal of building a decentralized, consensus-driven, peer to peer, open source, blockchain-based platform for distributed applications. ArabianChain tech will leverage and improve blockchain technology and build a full-featured application platform on top of it.
ArabianChain founder and CEO Mohammed Alsehli said:
“According to Markets and Markets, the global blockchain market is expected to reach USD 2,312.5 million by 2021. With an ambitious vision spearheaded by the UAE leadership, we believe this strategic partnership with WaveX will be a stepping stone in empowering startups to embrace blockchain and effectively innovate across the region. “As the field is rapidly evolving, many farsighted startups and organizations in the region are already exploring the potential of blockchain to not only enhance their capabilities but also process transactions and exchange information in an effective, secure and reliable manner. This is central to the UAE Blockchain Vision which aims to encourage paperless transactions, reducing approximately 100 million paper transactions annually.”
Based in the UAE and with operations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, ArabianChain is a leading Middle Eastern innovator in the blockchain sector. The company enables governments, enterprises, startups and individuals to use blockchain-based tools and languages and build their transactions and contracts on its platform, to record all kinds of transactions. |
Russian group claims Europe first with habitable 3D-printed house | A consortium of Russian companies has completed what it claims is Europe's first habitable 3D-printed house. The Moscow-based manufacturing group AMT-SPECAVIA, which includes 3D-printing specialists and machining companies, has been working on the construction project for two years. The finished house was built in Yaroslavl and has a total area of 298.5 sq m, with large structural sections 3D-printed from M-300 sandcrete over a period of one month. It has now been connected to utilities and is expected to be ready for habitation at the end of October.
| http://www.3ders.org/articles/20171024-amt-specavia-builds-europes-first-habitable-3d-printed-building.html | 2017-10-26 11:38:10.747000 | Oct 24, 2017 | By Benedict
AMT-SPECAVIA, a Moscow-based group of machining and 3D printing companies, says it has built Europe’s first habitable 3D printed house. The residence, located in Yaroslavl and reportedly spanning almost 300 square meters, may also be Europe’s largest 3D printed building.
It’s been around two years since AMT-SPECAVIA, a group specializing in construction additive manufacturing, started work on a livable 3D printed house in Yaroslavl, Russia. And although “livable house” might sound like a tautology, it was actually a highly ambitious project when you consider the current state of architectural 3D printing.
Because while 3D printing in the construction industry is a hot talking point right now, even the most advanced companies in the field have struggled to create buildings that are large enough or strong enough to be considered habitable.
Many predict that large, 3D printed apartment blocks will appear sooner rather than later, but at present the landscape is scarce. Just browse through our list of 3D printed buildings and construction projects from last year: many of the designs are spectacular, but many were made purely for show.
AMT-SPECAVIA wanted to do things differently, by building a residential building that not only grabbed some media attention, but which could actually house a local Yaroslavl family once finished.
“It was important for us to set a precedent—to show in practice that 3D construction technology is working,” commented Alexander Maslov, general director of the AMT-SPECAVIA Group.
Today, the project is indeed finished, with the group installing plumbing, heating, and electricity—ready for the first residents of the 3D printed house.
But it's obviously more than just an average Russian home. The Moscow 3D printing group claims that its 3D printed building, with a total area of 298.5 square meters, is the largest 3D printed building in Europe, as well as the continent’s only habitable printed residence.
From what we know about other 3D printed structures, both of those claims could be true, though many will of course debate what counts as a “3D printed building,” depending on how much of it is 3D printed and how much of it is made using other fabrication techniques. (Earlier today we saw just how impressive a 3D printed floor can be.)
Not every part of the Yaroslavl house is 3D printed, of course, but large internal sections of it are. These 3D printed sandcrete forms were fabricated off-site during a one-month period in 2015.
“We printed the building in parts (the walls of the house, decorative elements, the tower), took the parts to the construction site, and assembled them as a LEGO kit,” Maslov explained. “Since then, of course, the equipment has been improved: both the speed of printing and the quality. But even our first model proved to be reliable and efficient equipment.”
AMT-SPECAVIA used its own S-6044 construction 3D printer, a machine with a build area of 3.5 x 3.6 x 1 meters, for the house. Easily available M-300 sandcrete was used as the printing material for the large structural sections of the building, with each printed layer measuring 10 mm high and 30 to 50 mm wide.
The 3D printing group was able to do all its printing over a one-month period thanks to the S-6044’s printing speed of up to 15 square meters per hour.
With the 3D printed house expected to be fit for habitation by the end of October, Maslov evidently considers the project to have been a success: “To paraphrase the words of the famous Russian song, we managed to make a fairy tale come true.”
The SPECAVIA company was founded in 2009, and has been making construction 3D printers since 2015.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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Homebuyers deterred by unsightly, costly-to-maintain solar panels | Solar panels can make a home less desirable to buyers and reduce its value, according to new research in the UK by the National Association of Estate Agents. Potential buyers can be put off by the appearance of the panels and the fear of hidden costs, the study found. Despite initial savings on energy bills, the fact that the technology can quickly become outdated and need upgrading is seen as a negative factor in marketing a property. A similar sentiment was found with outdoor swimming pools and built-in kitchen appliances.
| https://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/solar-panels-outdoor-pools-likely-devalue-add-value-home-uk/ | 2017-10-26 11:28:58.663000 | Home owners looking to put their property on the market to sell often look at what will help them get a good deal but now new research reveals what is likely to have devalued the price of a home.
The things most likely to devalue a home include solar panels, bold interior design, swimming pools and dingy, dark rooms, according to a new report from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)
‘The house moving process is stressful, so it’s important to know what adds value to your home and what might detract or put off potential buyers. Sometimes the improvements you have made might not appeal to buyers, so even though you’ve spent money on them, they might not necessarily add any value,’ said Katie Griffin, NAEA president.
The NAEA says that while solar panels may save money on energy bills in the short term, and they’re environmentally friendly, they might not actually add any value to your home. The report says that the technology ages quickly and it can be expensive to upgrade.
The same applies to built-in kitchen appliances, which are great to start with, but within five years are out of date. Solar panels can also appear as unsightly and unattractive, and those more concerned with aesthetics than the environment don’t usually want them stuck on the side of their roof.
Particularly colourful or bold interiors could put off buyers and the NAEA says that it might be worth re-decorating before putting a property on the market. Estate agents say that typically, modestly decorated homes are most desirable as home owners can easily see how their own belongings would fit into the space, and how they could make it their home.
Although great fun for a weekend or two in the summer, outdoor swimming pools in Britain aren’t usually considered an attractive house feature. They’re expensive to maintain, use up a lot of space, and the weather means they cannot be used very often, often making them a lot more fuss than they’re worth.
Sellers should make sure that any planning permission and building regulations are in order before selling. Any work carried out such as extensions or conversions should have the appropriate planning permission and building regulations, and buyers need access to these documents.
Finally the report says that if there are two identical properties for sale and one is bright and airy while the other is dark and dingy, nine times out of the 10 the brighter one will be worth more, because it’s more desirable. Foliage around windows, and large trees should be cut back before marketing to give the impression of a light and spacious home. |
Regus WeWork adds gym to New York City co-working space | Abstract: WeWork has opened a gym at one of its New York City office spaces. The Rise by We gym is based at its space at 85 Broad Street in the city's financial district and is also open to non-WeWork members. The gym is divided into three areas: Fight for boxing and martial arts; Flight, for running and other cardiovascular activities; and Mindfulness, for yoga and meditation. A semi-private workout facility, with grass-like material on the floor, is available for members enrolled on the gym's tailored Turf programme.
| https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/15/rise-by-we-work-first-gym-financial-district-new-york/?inf_contact_key=3b9657e85a83ddf182b15c953a4e834534d9f9bc3616d1a8d1b92db8a2c61b04 | 2017-10-26 10:54:35.650000 | Co-working company WeWork is opening a gym in New York, which includes boxing and yoga studios, grassy flooring and a Roman-inspired salt bathing pool.
WeWork, which rents desks and office spaces around the world, has added the Rise by We gym to its FiDi office space at 85 Broad Street, in New York's Financial District. However, users do not have to be WeWork members for access.
Designed in-house and overseen by the company's head of interiors, Brittney Hart, the gym aims to provide members with a rounded health and fitness experience, including a spa and a cafe serving healthy fare alongside the gymnasium.
The gym forms part of the WeWork's progressive outlook on creating spaces that suit contemporary lifestyles. While first disrupting the workspace with its shared offices, last year it unveiled a concept for co-living apartments in New York.
In Rise by We, WeWork has divided the fitness space into three areas according to different exercises and the spaces they demand.
The first titled Fight is for boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts. In the studio, punch bags hang from black steel ceiling beams and are reflected in infinite rows in the mirrored walls. On one half of each bag, a paler material provides offsets the rest of the darkly finished space, which includes black walls and dark flooring.
The second studio, named Flight, designed for cardiovascular activities like running, rowing and functional training. Traditional equipment is arranged on one side of the room, leaving a large open area for gymnastic bands and ropes.
Contrasting the other two studios, calmer activities of yoga and meditation will take placed in the third studio, called Mindfulness. Dark wood panels cover the floor and paler wooden boards line the walls, while planting boxes hang from ceiling.
There is also "semi-private" workout facility, featuring a grass-like material on the floor, for those enrolled in the gym's Turf programme. These members undergo an assessment, including a 3D body scan, before being assigned a tailored programme.
A combination of pale stone wall tiles contrast black floors in the Rise by We "superspa", which features delicate lighting to create a moody atmosphere.
Envisioned as a modern take on the Roman bath, the spa includes a warm pool with mineral salts to reduce muscle soreness and cold showers, as well as a sauna and steam room.
In the reception, a white tiled desk extends to form staggered seating fitted with potted plants, and is reflected in the mirrored ceiling above. |
Precise gene-editing technique offers hope for inherited diseases | A modification to a gene-editing technique that enables scientists to more precisely recode genetic material could offer hope for currently untreatable inherited diseases. The CRISPR-Cas9 technique, created by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, uses “base editing” to change DNA and RNA molecules. The technique could be used to alter genetic mutations responsible for many diseases. The tool “rewrites” genetic code, rather than deleting and replacing whole strands of DNA. A team of Chinese researchers reported a world-first demonstration of the technique on a human embryo is September. | https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609203/crispr-20-is-here-and-its-way-more-precise/ | 2017-10-26 10:44:04.530000 | The human genome contains six billion DNA letters, or chemical bases known as A, C, G and T. These letters pair off—A with T and C with G—to form DNA’s double helix. Base editing, which uses a modified version of CRISPR, is able to change a single one of these letters at a time without making breaks to DNA’s structure.
That’s useful because sometimes just one base pair in a long strand of DNA gets swapped, deleted, or inserted—a phenomenon called a point mutation. Point mutations make up 32,000 of the 50,000 changes in the human genome known to be associated with diseases.
In the Nature study, researchers led by David Liu, a Harvard chemistry professor and member of the Broad Institute, were able to change an A into a G. Such a change would address about half the 32,000 known point mutations that cause disease.
To do it, they modified CRISPR so that it would target just a single base. The editing tool was able to rearrange the atoms in an A so that it instead resembled a G, tricking cells into fixing the other DNA strand to complete the switch. As a result, an A-T base pair became a G-C one. The technique essentially rewrites errors in the genetic code instead of cutting and replacing whole chunks of DNA.
“Standard genome-editing methods, including the use of CRISPR-Cas9, make double-stranded breaks in DNA, which is especially useful when the goal is to insert or delete DNA bases,” Liu said on a conference call with journalists on Tuesday. “But when the goal is to simply fix a point mutation, base editing offers a more efficient and cleaner solution.”
Liu said base editing isn’t meant to be a replacement to traditional gene editing with CRISPR, but rather another option for altering the genome in an attempt to correct disease. If CRISPR is akin to a pair of scissors, base editing is more like a pencil, he said.
Previously, researchers had created base editors capable of making the opposite kind of swap—changing a G into an A. Substitutions of a G for an A in certain parts of the DNA represent about 15 percent of disease-associated point mutations. In September, Chinese researchers reported that they used one of these editing tools in an embryo to remove the genetic mutation that causes anemia.
Working in cells taken from patients, Liu and his colleagues used their base-editing tool to correct a point mutation that causes hereditary hemochromatosis, a disorder that causes the body to absorb too much iron from food. This excess iron can build up over time and cause liver cancer and other liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, or joint disease. |
Precise gene-editing technique offers hope for inherited diseases | A modification to a gene-editing technique that enables scientists to more precisely recode genetic material could offer hope for currently untreatable inherited diseases. The CRISPR-Cas9 technique, created by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, uses “base editing” to change DNA and RNA molecules. The technique could be used to alter genetic mutations responsible for many diseases. The tool “rewrites” genetic code, rather than deleting and replacing whole strands of DNA. A team of Chinese researchers reported a world-first demonstration of the technique on a human embryo is September. | https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaap/ncurrent/full/nature24644.html | 2017-10-26 10:44:04.530000 | In 2016, David Liu and colleagues developed a DNA 'base editor'—a system that would make it possible to change C•G base pairs to T•A base pairs within DNA without introducing double-stranded breaks. This approach involves tethering of a cytidine deaminase to an inactive RNA-guided Cas9 complex that enables site selectivity. However, this system was unable to correct about half of the single nucleotide polymorphisms that are known to be pathogenic. Now, David Liu and collaborators describe the next step in genomic base editing technology, designed to tackle the conversion of A•T base pairs to G•C base pairs. Beginning with a bacterial adenosine deaminase that acts on RNA, they used seven rounds of selection and refinement to produce ABE7.10. This enzyme, again tethered to an inactive RNA-guided Cas9 complex, uses DNA as a substrate and resulted in an average correction efficiency of 53% across multiple sites and contexts in the genome, with a very low mutagenic background. Importantly, the system can be used both to correct disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms and to introduce disease-suppressing ones. |
Linux Academy raises $6.8m to expand edtech, training offering | Texas-based Linux Academy and its Cloud Assessments platform have raised $6.8m in series A funding from Arthur Ventures. The Linux Academy enables students to learn in live server environments, while Cloud Assessments delivers personalised training with the use of artificial intelligence. The new funds will be used to expand Linux Academy's content catalogue, and add training and hiring tools to the Cloud Assessments platform.
| http://www.finsmes.com/2017/10/linux-academy-and-cloud-assessments-secures-6-8m-in-series-a-funding.html | 2017-10-26 10:33:56.847000 | Linux Academy and Cloud Assessments, a Dallas, TX-based online Linux and cloud training platform and community, secured $6.8m in Series A funding.
Arthur Ventures made the investment.
The company intends to use the funds to continue expanding the Linux Academy content catalog, as well as to grow its Cloud Assessments platform with new training and hiring tools.
Led by Anthony James, Founder and CEO, Linux Academy offers a cloud computing education platform that tests students in live server environments. Through self-paced courses, hands-on labs, six cloud servers, personal access to expert instructors, and a learning library, the company caters to a range of skill levels from beginner to expert. Courses are geared toward Linux, AWS, Google Cloud Platforms, OpenStack, DevOps, Azure, Big Data, and Containers.
Cloud Assessments uses artificial intelligence to personalize cloud training based on a person’s current and changing skill set. It allows enterprises to test and train their IT teams, as well as prospective job candidates, on their cloud technology skills by taking hands-on Challenges in live environments. Cloud Assessments also offers Quests and Learning Activities so individuals can learn efficiently, earning badges of completion along the way to prove their skills.
More than 250,000 aspiring and expert engineers have developed new skills through Linux Academy, with more signing up every day. Many of the world’s finest technology companies and institutions also train at Linux Academy, including Rackspace, the Associated Press, MailChimp, the University of Alabama, the University of Arizona, Clemson University, and more.
FinSMEs
24/10/2017 |
Fintech Credit Sesame raises $42m | A Californian fintech company that offers personalised credit advice to its users has secured additional funding of $42m in its latest investment round. Credit Sesame gives users a free online tool which helps identify lending products and services that could help them manage their finances more efficiently. It was established in 2011, and now claims to have 12 million members. The company uses artificial intelligence 'robo-adviser' technology to turn customer information and analytics into practical advice. It will use the additional investment to hire staff and develop this technology further.
| https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2017/10/123653-fintech-startup-credit-sesame-secures-42-million-equity-venture-debt-funding/ | 2017-10-26 10:02:14.967000 | Credit Sesame, a personalized credit service and financial wellness company, announced on Wednesday it secured $42 million in equity and venture debt funding. According to the fintech startup, the funding comes from existing and new investors including Menlo Ventures, Inventus Capital, Globespan Capital, IA Capital, SF Capital, among others, along with a strategic investor.
Founded in 2011, the California-based company offers a free online personal finance tool that provides consumers a way to save money on loans and credit needs. The services also provide a free monthly credit score and a complete view of credit and debt all in one place. Credit Sesame has attracted over 12 million members.
“Our patent pending analytics engine automatically reviews all of your debt, home loans and credit, then evaluates thousands of lending products to bring you unbiased, personalized recommendations for maximum savings. Credit Sesame keeps working for you, delivering free credit and score updates and market monitoring for instant alerts and savings opportunities. Credit Sesame empowers consumers with bank level technology to manage their finances better.”
Credit Sesame also noted its robo-advisor technology leverages significant consumer data and analytics along with thousands of rules and insights that have been developed and proven over the past several years. The technology aims to simplify and automate the management of consumer credit and loans, addressing the liability side of the balance sheet and helping consumers achieve improved financial wellness. Adrian Nazari, Founder and CEO of Credit Sesame, stated:
“While many companies have spent the last few years catching up to our free credit score offerings for consumers, Credit Sesame has been developing and proving robo-advisor technology. This technology translates consumer financial and credit information into simple and actionable steps that consumers can easily understand and utilize to improve their financial profile and leverage their credit. As a result, 45% of our members are engaged monthly, helping us achieve an unprecedented relationship and engagement with our members.”
The equity and venture debt funds will be used to accelerate the company’s growth, hiring, and member acquisition, and to advance its analytics, robo-advisor, and machine learning technologies. Credit Sesame also revealed that it intends to add over 100 new employees to its offices in downtown Mountain View and its newly acquired office in San Francisco in the next 12 months.
Credit Sesame added that the new $42 million in funding consists of $26.6M in equity and $15.5M in venture debt, bringing the San Francisco-based fintech company’s total funding to over $77 million. Financial Technology Partners LP acted as an exclusive strategic and financial advisor to the company for this round. |
Robots with IQ's of 10,000 in 30 years: Softbank CEO | Artificial intelligence will significantly overtake human IQs in the next few decades, according to the Japanese CEO of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son. The billionaire told the audience at a tech conference in Saudi Arabia that he expects robots to develop an IQ of 10,000 within 30 years, compared to the average human score of around 100. He predicted the 'point of singularity' at which machines will become more intelligent than their creators is rapidly approaching, but that human brains will remain superior in their capacity for imagination. | https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/25/masayoshi-son-ceo-of-softbank-robots-will-have-an-iq-of-10000.html?__source=fincont&par=fincont | 2017-10-26 10:00:19.777000 | Billionaire Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Corp., shakes hands with a human-like robot called Pepper, developed by the company's Aldebran Robotics unit, during a news conference in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
Super artificial intelligence is coming, and sooner than you might expect. That's according to SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. The Japanese billionaire spoke from the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. In about 30 years, artificial intelligence will have an IQ of 10,000, Son says. By comparison, the average human IQ is 100 and genius is 200, according to Son. Mensa, "the High IQ society," starts accepting members with an IQ score of 130. The idea of machine learning becoming smarter than the human brain is often referred to as the "singularity." When exactly this will happen is oft-debated among the tech community. "Singularity is the concept that [mankind's] brain will be surpassed, this is the tipping point, crossing point, that artificial intelligence, computer intelligence surpass [mankind's] brain and that is happening in this century for sure. I would say there is no more debate, no more doubt," Son says. Son is particularly aggressive in his prediction of how soon the singularity will happen — in the "next 30 years or so," he says.
It is in Son's best interest to believe in the power of artificial intelligence. Not only is he the leader of a tech company, but he is heavily invested in the future of AI. Son is in charge of a $100 billion Vision Fund, which he expects to invest within five years, all in companies that have at least some relationship to AI. The tech executive believes that artificial intelligence will dramatically change every industry. Son, 60, remembers the first time he encountered the smartphone, a tool which has transformed the world we currently live in. "When I met with Steve Jobs, before he announced the iPhone, he told me, 'Masa, Masa, if you see what I'm developing, when I'm finished, I'm going to show you, you're going to piss off your pants.' And when I saw it, I actually almost did." Today, humanoid robots like SoftBank's Pepper, which can perceive human emotions, according to its website, impress most of us. In the future Son envisions, we will laugh at the capabilities of Pepper.
"Thirty years from now, they are going to learn by themselves, they are maybe going to laugh at you and us," Son says. "Today they look cute, they will stay cute, but they will be super smart." Currently, some robots are smarter than humans in some areas, says Son. "But 30 years from now, most of the subjects, they will be so much smarter than us. Because they are going to be a million times smarter than today, million times," says Son. "We mankind created tools, the premise was mankind were always smarter than the tool we invented so we control," he says. "This is the first time ... the tool becomes smarter than ourselves." One area where humans will always reign supreme over robots, though, is imagination, says Son. "If you have to envision, 10 years or 30 years later, at least some humans will have a better imagination than them. So, it's not the end. The power of the brain is no limit. The imagination that we can have has no limit. So we are also going to improve our imaginations and our feelings, gut feeling." See also: SoftBank's Masayoshi Son aims to control 90% of the chip market Elon Musk: Governments will obtain AI technology 'at gunpoint' if necessary In offices of the future, everyone will have a souped-up Amazon Echo-type robot assistant |
Agencies sidestep unresponsive Facebook go direct to advertisers | Advertising agencies have recorded a range of complaints about their relationship with Facebook, with many criticising the company for being unresponsive to their needs. Others have raised concerns that the social media platform is trying to circumvent agencies and build direct relationships with brands, whilst pushing its own content studio, Creative Shop. Responding to the criticisms, Facebook claimed it is committed to working with agencies, and suggested that direct contacts with clients were infrequent and related to services beyond advertising.
| https://digiday.com/marketing/unresponsive-reps-questionable-data-agency-gripes-facebook/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=daily&utm_content=171026 | 2017-10-26 09:44:08.013000 | A head of operations for a West Coast-based agency recently scheduled an internal training with a Facebook representative so her team of eight could learn best practices on the platform. But the Facebook rep canceled the meeting last minute due to a scheduling conflict. The agency exec emailed the rep every week to reschedule the training. Four weeks later, she finally got a response.
“I just thought that Facebook didn’t care about us because we didn’t spend enough with the platform,” said the agency executive over breakfast at the Digiday Agency Summit in Charleston, South Carolina, on Oct. 24. “Our clients combined spend at least $3 million on Facebook.”
The exec’s experience with Facebook is not unique. In a town hall-style meeting (where discussions are not for attribution) of around 60 agency executives at the agency summit, many identified Facebook as one of their biggest challenges. The common reasons given: Facebook reps are unresponsive and don’t have enough knowledge to help agencies with campaign-specific questions; Facebook aggressively circumvents agencies to work directly with brands; and Facebook keeps a tight hold on its data.
At the Digiday Agency Summit: We asked agency professionals to write down the challenges they’re facing today. Zoom in to read what’s keeping them up at night. #DigidayAgency A post shared by Digiday (@digiday) on Oct 23, 2017 at 2:42pm PDT
“Facebook constantly changes, while the rep we have over there doesn’t keep us updated on those changes,” said one agency attendee in the town hall meeting.
A bigger irritant is Facebook’s habit of going directly to brands, according to attendees. A media agency executive said Facebook does this because at the end of the day, the brands have the final say. Google does this, too, but Facebook seems to be more aggressive, according to agency attendees. In some cases, Facebook — and Google — representatives pitched their ad products to clients directly after her team already declined them on behalf of the clients, the media agency exec said.
“Facebook and Google believe that if they can present something new or win clients’ favor through fancy dinners, they will push clients to make business decisions,” said this person.
Underlying these gripes, of course, are fears that Facebook will put agencies out of a job. “When you have such a huge hole, it invites a client-direct relationship, meaning that agencies are not validated,” another exec said.
“Facebook has a compelling story to tell,” said a digital strategy head for a Philadelphia-based agency. “It has access to more data on people than we can imagine having. Facebook can present clients a closed-loop attribution — it is taking the lead for what consultants are doing much faster than agencies are.”
Agency executives also said that in some cases, Facebook suggests to clients that they should work with Facebook’s in-house content studio Creative Shop, rather than an external agency.
Patrick Harris, vp of global agency development for Facebook, responded to the agency complaints, saying Facebook is completely focused on its partnerships with agencies. Facebook has added people to its agency teams for the past six years and developed tools like online learning and certification program Blueprint to keep advertisers and agencies updated, Harris said.
“We are certainly not perfect, but we’ve demonstrated progress,” he said. “We take accountability if we don’t live up to our agencies’ expectations.”
As for the claim that Facebook goes around agencies to land brands on its own, Harris said Facebook is not trying to cut agencies out of the equation. “It’s not about pushing specific products and solutions. We want to make sure that the ad tools that clients and agencies use actually drive brand effectiveness,” he said. “From time to time, we have clients who want direct conversations with us because they want to extend the partnership beyond media [buying].”
Whether brands have the ability to manage Facebook on their own is a question, and agencies, perhaps self-servingly, said clients would get burned when they work directly with Facebook because nuances exist in how to market on the platform, and Facebook is just one piece of a company’s overall marketing strategy. “Facebook can’t keep up with email requests from an agency, let alone from a client,” said an agency executive in the town hall meeting. “That is where Facebook falls short.”
And as Facebook holds its data close, like other walled gardens, agency executives also question the reliability of the data. “It is a black box,” said an agency executive. “You can validate some leads, but not much else.”
Shareen Pathak contributed to this story. |
Trump executive order paves the way for delivery drone expansion | The White House has issued an order that allows local governments greater autonomy over the conduction of drone flight tests. Michael Kratsios, deputy assistant to the President at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said “our country needs a regulatory framework that encourages innovation while insuring airspace safety”. The order also allows greater exploration of delivery tests, drone air traffic systems, overcrowd flights and greater distances covered.
| http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20171025/TECHNOLOGY/171029936 | 2017-10-26 09:26:54 | Drone deliveries got a step closer to reality as the White House issued an order giving local governments more authority to conduct tests of the burgeoning new technology.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday is signing an executive order designed to speed the approval of drone flights over crowds and for longer distances. The administration says it wants to open new commercial uses for the aircraft and create jobs.
"In order to maintain American leadership in this emerging industry here at home, our country needs a regulatory framework that encourages innovation while insuring airspace safety," Michael Kratsios, a deputy assistant to the president at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a briefing with reporters.
Trump’s order, a response to calls from companies making and using drones, will allow local governments to apply to the Federal Aviation Administration for waivers allowing them to conduct tests of deliveries, drone air-traffic systems, long-range flights and other uses generally prohibited under current rules, Kratsios said.
The move is the latest attempt to jump start an industry in which technology has moved at a rapid clip—only to be held back by regulatory and safety concerns. The government adopted rules allowing routine commercial flights last year, but with rare exceptions it limited operations to short distances and ordered that they be kept away from people.
While U.S. companies have been among the industry’s leaders, some have complained that restrictive federal regulations have slowed their ability to move forward. Companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Project Wing have at times had to test their drone-delivery systems in other countries. Project Wing is now testing Mexican food delivery via drone in Australia.
In addition to deliveries, drones can be tested for such uses as rushing medical supplies to emergencies, performing inspections of pipelines and power grids, and filming news events. Earlier this month, CNN was granted an FAA waiver allowing routine drone flights over people.
This program will give state, local and tribal governments "a voice and a stake in the development of a federal regulatory framework for aviation," Kratsios said. Details of how far the local agencies could go to press the federal regulators weren’t released, but their programs must be approved by the FAA.
The new program helps resolve some of the tensions over which governmental agencies will ultimately control drone operations by giving the FAA and its parent, the Department of Transportation, the ultimate authority, said Michael Drobac, executive director of the Small UAV Coalition.
"This is a good step," Drobac said. "We needed to have some clarity and the administration needed to act."
In its announcement, the White House was at times critical of federal regulators and may pit Trump’s top officials against some of federal agencies, including national security offices and the FAA. Kratsios said uses of drones have grown rapidly and more than a million were registered with the government, far exceeding the number of traditional aircraft.
"However, our aviation regulatory framework has not kept pace with this change," he said.
One of the main reasons the FAA has moved slowly to allow expanded drone flights has been reservations by the FBI and security agencies concerned about them being used as terrorist weapons or for criminal activity. As a result, the FAA is trying to craft rules that would require at least some drones to broadcast their identity and position at all times.
Similarly, the FAA is grappling with growing safety concerns about drones. The first mid-air collision between a drone and a traditional aircraft occurred Sept. 21 near New York City. Earlier this month, the FAA cited growing numbers of reported safety incidents as justification for rapidly moving to a new system for approving flight waivers.
The data gathered in test flights will help with both this issues, according to the White House. |
WeWork takes 450,000 sq ft in California shopping centre | Office space provider WeWork has taken up a lease for 450,000 sq ft in a California shopping centre. The space in the Mountain View mall south of San Francisco, which is still under construction, was originally taken by business social media site LinkedIn. Lenny Siegel, vice mayor of Mountain View, said WeWork's move would help attract more start-ups to the region, which is dominated by technology giants Google, Symantec and LinkedIn.
| http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/WeWork-taking-over-large-LinkedIn-lease-in-12306801.php | 2017-10-26 09:22:39.217000 | WeWork, a shared-office space startup, has obtained more than 450,000 square feet in a Mountain View shopping center that is currently under construction.
The New York company will take over a lease from LinkedIn at The Village at San Antonio Center, according to May Chow, a LinkedIn spokeswoman. The center — which is set to be completed in late 2017 — will also feature cafes, restaurants, a boutique hotel and a movie theater, according to its website.
“LinkedIn has reassigned its lease at The Village at San Antonio Center, and will not be setting up offices there,” Chow said in an email.
WeWork could not be reached for comment.
WeWork, founded in 2010, offers flexibility to companies that are too small, or have too many remote employees, to justify leasing an entire office. Its business model involves renting out large office spaces and then leasing out smaller spaces to other companies.
Lenny Siegel, the vice mayor of Mountain View, applauded this move. He said it will open up more space for startups to grow in the city, which is dominated by tech giants such as Google, LinkedIn and Symantec.
“This is still the best place in the world for start a company, but the squeeze in real estate created by growth of our largest companies has made it difficult for companies to find space here,” he said.
“We’re looking for a diverse commercial ecosystem here,” Siegel added.
WeWork currently has more than 160 locations worldwide, 14 of them in the Bay Area.
On Tuesday, Hudson’s Bay, the company that owns retail giant Lord & Taylor, said it is selling its flagship store in New York City to WeWork, which will use the space for its headquarters. The Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is considered a landmark.
Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @TrishaThadani |
Kensington and Chelsea 'buy-to-leave homes' amass £85,000 in fines | Owners of long-term empty properties with a combined value of over £500m ($655m) in one of London's wealthiest areas, Kensington and Chelsea, incurred fines of just £85,000 last year, according to the Guardian. The figures came to light after the accidental release of a confidential database. A buyer for estate agent Savills said the buy to leave issue, in which owners leave their properties vacant to avoid renting costs, was "endemic" across London's most attractive areas. Polly Neate, the CEO of charity Shelter, said the government's buy to leave penalty – charging an extra 50% council tax – was "meaningless".
| https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/oct/25/london-buy-to-leave-fines-kensington-chelsea | 2017-10-26 09:20:12.473000 | The gains to London property investors from leaving homes empty has far outstripped the penalties they face doing so, a Guardian investigation has learned.
Owners of homes with a combined value of over £500m in the ultra-rich borough of Kensington and Chelsea were fined a total of just £85,000 for leaving them empty last year, a survey of vacant properties suggests.
The figures can be reported due to the accidental release earlier this year of a confidential database, which for the first time identified hundreds of properties left empty for at least two years, as well as their owners.
The single largest penalty imposed on any of the 89 properties examined for the survey was just £1,426, even though the property – a £9m, six-storey mansion in the Notting Hill area – has increased in value by approximately £1.1m since it was acquired three years ago.
Polly Neate, the chief executive officer of the housing charity Shelter, said the data revealed how the empty homes premium – a penalty measure of an additional 50% council tax for long-term empty properties – was effectively “meaningless”.
“It’s much easier for [owners] to just incur the penalty,” Neate said. “That’s actually the easiest option for them; it should be the hardest option. It should be harder for them to keep the home empty than to do something with it.”
'It should be harder for them to keep the home empty than to do something with it' Polly Neate, Shelter
The problem of buy to leave, whereby investors acquire property and deliberately leave it empty so as not to incur any of the costs of renting, is not limited to Kensington and Chelsea. A buyer for the property company Savills described buy to leave as “endemic” in the capital’s most desirable areas. During the leadup to London’s mayoral election last year, both candidates pledged to clamp down on the problem.
No official figures on the practice is compiled. However, it is in the city’s most expensive boroughs that house prices have risen most sharply. While UK house prices rose by an average of 20% over the last decade, according to the Office for National Statistics, prices in Kensington and Chelsea rose by 65% over the same period.
Earlier this month it was reported that only ten of the households left homeless by the Grenfell Tower disaster had been permanently rehoused.
Investors examine a scale model of London at Mipim, the real estate trade show in Cannes on 14 March 2017. Photograph: Yann Coatsaliou/AFP/Getty
To assess the scale of the potential profits earned by owning empty homes, the Guardian compared the purchase price of the list of empty properties accidentally released by Kensington and Chelsea council with Zoopla estimates for what those properties are currently worth. The estimates are based on recent sales from other properties in the local area. Both data points were available for 89 of the properties on the list.
The data also reveals how much the owners of the properties were charged in empty homes premium as a penalty for leaving them empty for longer than two years.
The properties, which were bought for a combined total of £395m at different times, are currently worth £504m. The average increase in value was £1.2m; those who owned larger properties, or held them for longer periods, enjoyed even more lucrative returns.
One flat, worth £99,000 in 2001, is now worth an estimated £1.5m. Yet the owner of the property, an apartment in the attractive ward of Courtfield, was charged just £1,077 last year for leaving it empty.
In another case, a four-storey property in the Campden ward worth £1.8m in 2001 is now estimated to be worth over £6m. Neighbours said the house, a few hundred metres from Kensington High Street, had been empty “for years”. The owner was fined £1,062 last year for leaving it empty.
In total, the owners of the 89 properties now worth an estimated half a billion pounds were charged just £85,373 in empty homes premium last year, or 0.02% of the properties’ current combined estimated value.
Kensington’s recently elected Labour MP, Emma Dent Coad, accused prime property buyers and developers of profiteering from the country’s housing crisis. “This is a deliberate thing, to inflate prices ever further while shoving people on low incomes out on to the edges, next to railways lines, next to busy roads and at the end of industrial estates,” she said. “That’s not right for anybody.”
Calls for tougher sanctions have been made for some time from both Conservative and Labour politicians. In 2014, then mayor Boris Johnson said he thought 1,000% tax rates should be imposed. A report for the Greater London Authority earlier this year also called for central government to permit larger fines.
Such calls have thus far been unsuccessful. The government’s position is yet to change from the one expressed in a 2013 letter from then housing minister Brandon Lewis to Camden councillor Theo Blackwell, implying that tougher sanctions would be too severe a penalty for owners of empty properties. “The government believes the current empty home premium is appropriate and has no plans to make the changes you suggested,” he wrote, before going on to criticise “the last government’s punitive approach to empty homes” as “counterproductive”.
Additional reporting by Niamh McIntyre
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Swiss insurer Elvia launches robo-adviser | Elvia has become the first Swiss insurer to launch a robo-adviser. The platform was developed with Swiss fintech company Additiv, and will use video recognition and electronic signatures to verify client information. The service, which uses exchange-traded funds, will cost clients 55 basis points, plus a 25 point fee for the ETF products. The minimum investment is CHF5,000 ($5,045).
| https://www.finews.com/news/english-news/29322-fintech,-allianz-suisse,-elvia-einvest,-robo-adviser | 2017-10-26 08:43:00.183000 | Elvia insurance company has launched a robo adviser in Switzerland, adding to the growing number of automated banking providers. Elvia eInvest’s CEO told finews.com what targets he aims to achieve with the new service.
Elvia eInvest is the first Swiss insurer to launch its own robo adviser. The unit of Allianz Suisse today announced that the service, which will be available online only, comes with a fee of 0.55 percent of the average deposit.
The fee also includes trading commissions, payment services and changes to the portfolio allocation. The cost of exchange traded products of 0.25 percent will be added to the basis 0.55 percent fee.
Cautious Forecast
Klaus Thaler (pictured below), in charge of Elvia eInvest since July, remains cautious in his forecast: «We aim to manage 1 billion Swiss francs in client assets within a ten year period,» he told finews.com in an interview.
His caution is understandable, given the difficulties that robo advisers in Switzerland had to acquire assets, despite the low fees charged. Part of the reason may be a certain skepticism about the reliability of the technology and a lot of potential investors have other priorities.
Cause for Optimism
Thaler still sees an «enormous» demand for simple and cheap investment solutions, not least for pension provisions.
The advantage of Elvia eInvest may be the large customer base of its owner Allianz Suisse. The company has more than 1 million clients in the country and a network of about 120 branches across Switzerland, making it easier to acquire customers for the new service.
ETF's First
Elvia developed the robot with Additiv, the Zurich-based fintech. The identification of a customer is video-based and contracts are signed electronically. The minimum deposit is 5,000 Swiss francs.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) provide the backbone of the service, which are divided up into nine categories covering bonds and equities across the world.
«We are investing client assets in the ETFs with the highest score in relation to cost and liquidity,» Thaler said. Each portfolio contains at least six ETFs for reasons of diversification. |
Groundbreaking DNA editor could have life-changing effects | A new technique in gene editing could allow scientists to cut out faults in the genetic code, thus removing thousands of serious inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis, genetic blindness and sickle-cell anaemia. "When targeted to certain sites in human genomic DNA, this conversion reverses the mutation that is associated with a particular disease," said Professor Liu at Harvard University. The new "base editor" is more precise than the current Crispr technology, according to Liu.
| http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/gene-editing-crispr-breakthrough-diseases-inherited-dna-a8019886.html | 2017-10-26 08:42:42.653000 | Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices 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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A new gene editing breakthrough allows scientists to easily snip out problems in genetic code, potentially removing thousands of deadly inherited diseases.
The new technique could allow doctors to make changes to people's DNA and alter the molecular machines that help create us – and bring about problems in the form of genetic diseases.
It would allow them to remove the mutations blamed for inherited conditions ranging from genetic blindness to sickle-cell anaemia, metabolic disorders and cystic fibrosis. And it could also be used to "write in" useful mutations, according to the scientists who made the discovery.
The "base editor" is a molecular machine that directly converts one building block of DNA into another. DNA sequences contain four "base" chemicals that pair up on the molecule's twin-stranded double helix in specific ways.
As such, edits made to the DNA using the new tools are far more precise than the leading and most famous technology, CRISPR. "CRISPR is like scissors, and base editors are like pencils," said David Liu, the chemical and molecular biologist who led the study.
Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 / 20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify “dangerous” humans from listening to each other’s warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or “contact calls” (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the “Goldilocks Zone” which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planet’s oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a “transient anus” that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Müller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the “interstitium”. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs José Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary
Together guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T) and cytosine (C) make up the letters of the genetic code. The new system converts the DNA base-pair A-T to G-C, a microscopically small effect that has massive implications for science and medicine.
Roughly half the 32,000 single-letter changes in the genetic code known to be associated with human disease involve a change the other way, from G-C to A-T.
The technique employs a modified form of the "molecular scissors" gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, which has transformed genetics research since its power was first demonstrated in 2012.
But unlike standard CRISPR-Cas9, it does not make changes by slicing through the double helix.
Professor Liu, from Harvard University said: "We developed a new base editor, a molecular machine, that in a programmable, irreversible, efficient and clean manner can correct these mutations in the genome of living cells.
"When targeted to certain sites in human genomic DNA, this conversion reverses the mutation that is associated with a particular disease."
The "machine", called an Adenine Base Editor (ABE), was tested in the laboratory by correcting the mutation responsible for hereditary haemochromatosis (HHC), a disease that causes iron overload in the body.
ABE was also used to install a beneficial mutation that protects against blood diseases including sickle cell anaemia.
The results are reported in the journal Nature.
Dr Liu said a lot more work needed to be done before the technique could be used to help human patients.
"We still have to deliver that machine, we have to test its safety, we have to assess its beneficial effects in animals and patients and weigh them against any side effects, we need to do many more things," he added.
British scientists called the research "exciting" and "incredibly powerful".
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, group leader at The Francis Crick Institute, London, said: "This is both clever and important science ..
"Many genetic diseases are due to alterations (mutations) where a single base pair has been substituted for another.
"This makes these new base editing methods of great value in both basic research to make disease models and, in theory, to correct genetic disease.
"Much more research will be needed to show the methods are entirely safe and, perhaps, to find ways to increase their efficiency, which is already at an impressive 50 per cent, but this is an exciting development."
Dr Helen O'Neill, reproductive science programme director at University College London, said: "The ability to now directly alter all four base-pairs with such specificity adds more ammunition to the genome editing artillery and will be incredibly powerful in the research of diseases and future restoration of disease-causing mutations."
Darren Griffin, professor of genetics at the University of Kent, said: "The work represents another step change in the Crispr story."
Another ground-breaking study reported in the journal Science showed how a new version of Crispr could be used to target and edit RNA, the molecule that carries genetic instructions to protein-making machinery in cells.
The system, called Repair, has the potential to render single-letter disease-causing mutations in DNA harmless.
David Cox, a member of the US team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Broad Institute, said: "Repair can fix mutations without tampering with the genome, and because RNA naturally degrades, it's a potentially reversible fix."
Additional reporting by agencies |
Oman's insurers may struggle with move to compulsory health cover | Oman's insurance industry will need to overcome operational deficiencies, including underdeveloped claims management infrastructure, in order to respond to incoming rules requiring mandatory health insurance for the country's population. If this can be achieved, however, gross written premiums in the country are forecast to increase by roughly 10% in the next two years, according to S&P Global Ratings. The health insurance rules will begin to be implemented in January and will be rolled out in phases, with expatriates the first to be enrolled.
| http://www.meinsurancereview.com/News/View-NewsLetter-Article/id/40669/type/MiddleEast/Oman-Mandatory-health-insurance-may-pose-operating-challenges | 2017-10-26 08:38:13.353000 | The implementation of a compulsory healthcare insurance scheme in Oman will boost growth in the country's under-penetrated insurance market, S&P Global Ratings says in a new report. But the market will need to address technical and operational weaknesses in order to bolster incomes and make the most of the growth opportunities, says the international rating agency. |
Huawei hires dedicated team of digital marketers to crack Europe | Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei is out to grow awareness of its brand in the UK and major European countries, and is putting together a team of digital marketers to get the job done. Positions advertised include social media strategists and analytics experts, while other roles are set to focus on artificial intelligence and the internet of things. In the past six months, Huawei has increased its PR campaigns in Western Europe by 300%, and signed stars including Scarlett Johansson and Lionel Messi to help raise its brand profile.
| https://digiday.com/marketing/huawei-building-first-digital-marketing-team-europe/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=daily&utm_content=171026 | 2017-10-26 08:35:45.260000 | Chinese mobile phone maker Huawei is hiring a dedicated team of digital marketers to boost its awareness in Europe, its first specialized marketing team outside China.
The team will report to Huawei Europe’s chief marketing officer, Andrew Garrihy, and be tasked with developing strategies in 10 markets, including the U.K., France and Germany.
Job descriptions are still being finalized, but Huawei is looking for performance marketers, analytics experts and social media strategists. Future roles will likely focus on the internet of things, artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity. Functions such as AI, which has been built into Huawei’s current flagship phone, could turn software rather than hardware into the differentiator for smartphone makers in the West, as it’s done for their counterparts in China.
“While we will try and do as much integration with the likes of Facebook and Snapchat via the team, its aim is to take advantage of how the way people use their phone is changing,” Garrihy said. “It’s about coming up with answers to questions like, ‘What does a site look like in 12 months from now when we have AI-enabled handsets that can do voice processing and recognition?’”
Creative is another skill Huawei wants to build in the team. While the company has no plans to ax its agencies by bringing in digital marketing and creative, it wants more control over creative. But whereas other advertisers have taken certain tasks in-house due to concerns over how their ads are bought, the smartphone maker’s desire for control is tied to its contrarian marketing strategy.
The most important part of Huawei’s marketing lies in its partnerships with the likes of Dazed Media for Project Possible and public relations campaigns rather than paid media. The company has spent millions to recruit top talent such as football star Lionel Messi and actress Scarlett Johansson to promote its high-end lines. It only pays to promote content that has already done well organically or has strong creative, though, which helps the company keep costs down and monitor success. Huawei’s Western Europe business has increased the number of PR campaigns it runs by 300 percent over the last six months compared to the same period in the previous year.
The investments appear to have worked to an extent. This year, the company surpassed Apple to become the second-largest smartphone manufacturer by shipment in countries such as Finland, Italy, Spain and Poland, according to research firm Canalys. In larger EU markets such as the U.K., the brand still has limited awareness.
YouGov BrandIndex data reveals that in terms of Impression score, which indicates whether or not someone has a positive impression of the brand, Huawei is around the +4 mark, comparable to brands such as Motorola (+5). Perhaps this is to be expected, as a smaller number of people have interacted with the brand, said Russell Feldman, director of digital, media and technology research at YouGov.
Garrihy said he expects awareness in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe to grow in the coming months, though, with “significant payback” in sales on the increased marketing it plans to do across Western Europe within the next two years.
Image courtesy of Huawei. |
Target uses mobile-based augmented reality tool to sell furniture | US retailer Target is set to take on Swedish rival Ikea with the launch of augmented reality tool See It In Your Space. The feature allows customers browsing Target's Project 62 line to see scaled, 3D representations of products and position them in their homes, using a mobile phone. Target currently has 200 Project 62 home products available for See It In Your Space, and is aiming to increase that figure to thousands by 2018. Ikea recently launched similar tool Place.
| http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/target-see-it-in-your-space-ar-furniture-mobile-web | 2017-10-26 08:29:35.727000 | Discount retailer Target has added AR technology to its mobile site, so customers can see how furniture will look in their home before purchasing the product.
With ‘See It In Your Space’, customers shopping with Target’s new Project 62 line can are able to select proper scale 3D versions of home products and move them around a room – through their phone’s camera – to see how well it goes.
The mobile web feature is currently available for 200 Project 62 Target home products. The retailer says it will roll the functionality out to hundreds more products by the end of the years and thousands more in 2018.
See It In Your Space follows in the footsteps of Swedish furniture store Ikea’s app of a similar nature. Ikea Place, built on Apple’s ARKit, enables customers to scan the floor of their home in the iOS app, then browse for products, and move them into the position they want it to sit in their home. It automatically scales products based on room dimensions.
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. |
The elderly as well as the young suffer from housing shortage | The UK government and media are both overlooking the serious shortage of suitable, affordable housing for older people, wrote Claudia Wood, the CEO of think-tank Demos. She warned the shortfall added to health and social care costs, cancelling out any savings made by the Department for Work and Pensions, while planning rules and bureaucracy have made it harder for developers to build sheltered or supported accommodation. Wood also criticised the government's plan to extend the housing benefit cap to take in supported homes (which it since dropped) and said sheltered housing saved health and care services £486m ($635m) annually.
| https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/oct/24/uk-housing-crisis-is-hitting-older-people-too-not-just-the-young | 2017-10-26 08:26:41.767000 | Britain’s housing shortage is never far from the top of the political agenda. But the narrative focuses almost entirely on first-time buyers when there is an even more serious and overlooked shortage in suitable housing for older people.
This paucity affects both older homeowners stuck in unsuitably large family properties and unable to find smaller homes, and people renting social housing when they need sheltered or supported accommodation. In both cases, government policy is stifling the supply of the kind of housing older people want and need, while at the same time increasing the bill for health and social care.
Developers specialising in housing for older people have to grapple with a planning system that works against them. These homes tend to have higher build costs, more communal facilities and support services to arrange, making it hard for developers to bid against mainstream house builders for plots of land. There is little recognition of the need for older people’s housing in local planning rules, and the outcome of planning applications varies from local authority to local authority. It’s a bureaucratic, volatile system that leaves developers and their investors uncertain about the future and struggling to expand.
To make matters worse, the government is set to draw supported housing into the quagmire of universal credit by extending a blanket housing benefit cap to everyone receiving it, regardless of whether they live in private, social or supported homes. This means that from April 2019, those living in supported housing, 70% of whom are older people [pdf], will have their housing benefit capped at local housing allowance levels. A ringfenced, top-up fund is intended to cover costs that go above this – likely to be about a third of the total amount. “Ringfenced”, however, is no guarantee of sustained funding. The previous supporting people fund lasted all of six years before the ringfence was removed [pdf] and some housing schemes lost 50% of their funding within a year. That experience has taught providers to be wary of promises of sustained financial support that are vulnerable to the whims of new governments and changes in priorities.
Less sheltered housing is being built, with the current shortage of 17,000 properties set to double by 2020. The uncertainty generated by the LHA proposals have exacerbated this, putting the brakes on investment and planned developments. Yet we know sheltered housing saves health and care services some £486m a year [pdf] by reducing falls, shortening inpatient stays and so on. Denying older people access to this type of housing makes it likely that whatever the Department for Work and Pensions saves in welfare spending will be outstripped by the increase in NHS and social care costs.
Any housing policy that looked beyond the plight of first-time buyers would recognise the self-defeating nature of the LHA policy. There have been reports that the government is considering a U-turn on plans to cap housing benefit for people in supported housing. But we seem a long way from tackling the chronic shortage of older people’s housing.
Claudia Wood is chief executive of the thinktank Demos and gave evidence to the Commons communities and local government committee inquiry on housing for older people on 22 October.
This article was amended on 24 October 2017, following a government announcement that it has dropped plans to cap housing benefit for social housing and supported accommodation
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Reality TV star Marnie Simpson breaches ad code on Snapchat | The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has criticised two Snapchat Story posts made by reality TV star Marnie Simpson for not being clearly labelled as advertising. Complaints were filed with the ASA in June, after Simpson, best known for her appearances on Geordie Shore and Celebrity Big Brother, endorsed a 50% off sale for Diamond Whites tooth polish, and showed off a forthcoming addition to Simpson's own range of coloured contact lenses. The ASA concluded both posts should have carried an '#ad' tag.
| https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/25/uk-unlabelled-snapchat-ads/ | 2017-10-26 08:18:26.977000 | The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has its work cut out for it as the line between legitimate online content and ads gets ever blurrier. Social media "influencers" regularly flout the rules and despite the sheer volume of posts across different platforms, the ASA occasionally issues slaps on the wrists for offending Tweets and Instagram campaigns. And today, the ASA has wagged a stern finger at Snapchat posts that weren't appropriately labelled as ads for the first time.
The ASA received complaints about the June 20th Snapchat Story of Marnie Simpson, of Geordie Shore and Celebrity Big Brother fame. In one update, the TV personality promoted a 50-percent off sale for Diamond Whites tooth polish. The company argued Simpson had been a brand ambassador for many years, and thus the commercial relationship was well established. Despite the post obviously being promotional in nature, the ASA effectively concluded that it didn't matter and it still needed an "#ad" tag, making it clear to her followers it was a paid-for post.
In a less cut-and-dry case, another update showed off a new, unreleased colour "coming soon" to Simpson's iSpyEyes brand of tinted and novelty contact lenses. On the basis that the product was not available to buy and the brand itself was not specifically mentioned, Simpson's PR agency argued it wasn't exactly promotional in nature. The ASA disagreed.
In cases like this, the ASA typically demands that offending posts are amended or deleted, but since Snapchat Stories self-destruct after 24 hours, there's nothing to be done at this point. Diamond Whites and Simpson's PR agency have graciously promised, however, to be stricter regarding their client's application of the #ad identifier in the future.
It's unlikely the ASA will be able to divert too much resource towards policing disappearing Snapchat posts. On the other hand, it's important complaints are followed up considering the social app has a primarily young and arguably impressionable user base -- as well as no built-in feature that clearly labels ads, as yet.
Earlier this year, the ASA complained that "hidden" advertising on social platforms was "taking up more and more of our time." And you'd have thought the lengths the regulator went to a few years ago to explain to vloggers what an advert was would've done the trick. |
Poor mental health costs 300,000 jobs and £99bn in UK each year | Approximately 300,000 people in the UK with long-term mental health issues lose their jobs each year, 50% more than do so due to physical health, according to a government-commissioned study. The Thriving at Work report, published on Thursday, estimates that poor mental health costs the UK economy up to £99bn ($131bn) annually, £42bn of which employers bear. The report calls for employers to support six core principles, including increasing awareness and monitoring staff well-being. Research by Deloitte suggests businesses could receive returns of between £1.50 and £9 for each £1 invested in health interventions.
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thriving-at-work-a-review-of-mental-health-and-employers | 2017-10-26 07:53:21.790000 | We published the government response to this independent review on 30 November 2017.
Thriving at Work sets out what employers can do to better support all employees, including those with mental health problems to remain in and thrive through work.
It includes a detailed analysis that explores the significant cost of poor mental health to UK businesses and the economy as a whole. Poor mental health costs employers between £33 billion and £42 billion a year, with an annual cost to the UK economy of between £74 billion and £99 billion.
The review quantifies how investing in supporting mental health at work is good for business and productivity. The most important recommendation is that all employers, regardless of size or industry, should adopt 6 ‘mental health core standards’ that lay basic foundations for an approach to workplace mental health. It also details how large employers and the public sector can develop these standards further through a set of ‘mental health enhanced standards’. The review also makes a series of recommendations to government and other bodies. |
Poor mental health costs 300,000 jobs and £99bn in UK each year | Approximately 300,000 people in the UK with long-term mental health issues lose their jobs each year, 50% more than do so due to physical health, according to a government-commissioned study. The Thriving at Work report, published on Thursday, estimates that poor mental health costs the UK economy up to £99bn ($131bn) annually, £42bn of which employers bear. The report calls for employers to support six core principles, including increasing awareness and monitoring staff well-being. Research by Deloitte suggests businesses could receive returns of between £1.50 and £9 for each £1 invested in health interventions.
| https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/public-sector/articles/mental-health-employers-review.html | 2017-10-26 07:53:21.790000 | Insert Custom CSS fragment. Do not delete! This box/component contains code needed on this page. This message will not be visible when page is activated.
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Poor mental health costs 300,000 jobs and £99bn in UK each year | Approximately 300,000 people in the UK with long-term mental health issues lose their jobs each year, 50% more than do so due to physical health, according to a government-commissioned study. The Thriving at Work report, published on Thursday, estimates that poor mental health costs the UK economy up to £99bn ($131bn) annually, £42bn of which employers bear. The report calls for employers to support six core principles, including increasing awareness and monitoring staff well-being. Research by Deloitte suggests businesses could receive returns of between £1.50 and £9 for each £1 invested in health interventions.
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/26/thriving-work-report-uk-mental-health-problems-forcing-thousands-out | 2017-10-26 07:53:21.790000 | About 300,000 people with a long-term mental health problem lose their jobs each year, a review commissioned by Theresa May has found.
The Thriving at Work report, published on Thursday, puts the annual cost to the UK economy of poor mental health at up to £99bn, of which about £42bn is borne by employers.
The authors – the Mind chief executive, Paul Farmer, and the mental health campaigner and a former HBOS chair, Dennis Stevenson – said they were shocked to find the number of people forced to stop work as a result of mental health problems was 50% higher than for those with physical health conditions.
Farmer said the evidence suggested it is still a taboo subject in many workplaces. “The picture is that there are very significant numbers of people in work with mental health problems but there are significant numbers who are not,” he said.
“We think that the reasons for that are a combination of a lack of support, lack of understanding within some workplaces and a lack of speedy access to mental health services. Sometimes in organisations people feel themselves excluded as a result of their mental health issues and sometimes people don’t necessarily spot that somebody is struggling.”
Farmer and Stevenson said that the challenge was bigger than they had envisaged when instructed by the prime minister, but that with action dramatic changes could be achieved over the next 10 years. They said they hoped that the number of people with long-term mental health problems who lose their jobs could be reduced to the same level as those with physical conditions.
They found that about 15% of people at work have symptoms of an existing mental health condition, which they said illustrates the fact that given the right support they can thrive in employment.
Farmer described the economic case as overwhelming and the authors link current failures to the UK’s relatively poor productivity. An analysis by Deloitte examining existing workplace interventions identified potential to generate a return to business of between £1.50 and £9 for every £1 invested.
Among examples of good practice highlighted by the report are the mental health first aid courses at Thames Water and, at Aviva, the promotion of e-learning modules to help identify and self-identify when people need support.
Farmer and Stevenson said they want all employers to commit to six core standards around mental health, including having a plan in place, increasing awareness among employees, stipulating line management responsibilities and routinely monitoring staff’s mental health and wellbeing. “What we feel is really important is that organisations take responsibility for the mental health of their staff,” said Farmer.
“As the stigma around mental health begins to shift, I think the area of mental health in the workplace is becoming much more visible. Employers are recognising that this is an issue, but they don’t know what to do. That’s why we’ve recommended these core standards.”
Highlighting further benefits for companies, he said that some young people were now asking employers about their mental health policies in the same way they might have asked about their green credentials a decade ago.
“The most progressive organisations in this area are already being quite open in terms of their internal reporting and what they put on their website in terms of how they support their staff,” he said.
Large employers are expected to go further and the report calls on the government and public sector to lead by example. It says the government should also ensure that the NHS provides high quality mental health services, quick and convenient to fit around employment, and consider enhancing protections for employees with mental health conditions in the Equality Act 2010.
The report makes 40 recommendations and Stevenson urged the government to accept them all. “We need the right leadership among employers in the public, private and voluntary sectors, and a mandate from policy-makers to deliver our ambitious but achievable plan,” he said.
Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors, welcomed the review which he said shows “mental health is not just a moral issue, but a business one too. Business leaders must put themselves at the frontier of addressing these challenges.”
Case study: ‘I was using work in a quite self-destructive way’
Andrew Omerod: ‘I’d been living with depression a very long time already; work happened to be the way it was expressed.’
Andrew Omerod, 35, from London, operations director at GrantTree, says he has experienced both sides of the coin when it comes to mental health problems at work. “When I was working for my previous employer, I was using work in quite a self-destructive way. Overworking is a way of acting out the pain you’re experiencing that you don’t know how to express. It’s also a way of escaping it in the short term – but it’s harmful in the long term.
“It was work that led to me having a breakdown. I’d been living with depression a very long time already; work happened to be the way it was expressed. I had to take time off, about a year.
“The thing that was disappointing for me more than anything else was that when I was ready to go to work my employer became quite disruptive. They basically said: ‘You can come back to us but rather than reporting directly to the MD [managing director] you’re going to have to report to someone else who we’ve promoted in your absence.’ So we agreed that I would leave.
“The experience at GrantTree has been very different. I am very passionate about my job, I get caught up in it and here I have colleagues who say to me: ‘You seem to be staying late and taking on quite a lot of stuff, is that sustainable?’ [They are] people who recognise I can fall into this kind of behaviour.” |
Superbug MRSA found to be spreading outside UK hospitals | Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), one of the superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, is spreading out of hospitals and into the UK population at large, according to research. Hospitals are the usual breeding grounds for MRSA; however, although patients are routinely screened for MRSA, the test is fairly inaccurate. Also, carriers of the bacteria can spread the disease, which is symptomless until it enters the bloodstream, unknowing, which allows it to be passed on through skin-to-skin contact. | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5016721/Antibiotic-resistant-MRSA-NOT-confined-hospitals.html | 2017-10-26 07:52:50.057000 | Antibiotic-resistant MRSA is spreading outside hospitals having left its usual breeding grounds, new research reveals.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which kills up to one-fifth of infected individuals, is affecting people throughout Britain by going undetected in communities, a study found.
Although the infection is typically associated with hospitals, many sufferers are unaware they carry MRSA, which is symptomless unless it enters the bloodstream. This allows them to spread the life-threatening bacteria through skin-to-skin contact when out and about, the research adds.
Despite patients being routinely screened for the bacteria upon hospital admission, the test is fairly inaccurate, which further encourages the infection to spread.
Dr Jonathan Pearce, head of infections and immunity at the Medical Research Council, who was not involved in the study, said: 'This study sheds light on MRSA transmission within and between hospitals and the community, which could help strengthen infection prevention and control measures.'
Antibiotic-resistant MRSA is spreading outside hospitals into communities (stock)
WHAT IS MRSA? Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of bacteria that is resistant to several widely-used antibiotics, which makes it particularly hard to treat. Catching the infection early could prevent it spreading and infecting others. Approximately 30 per cent of people carry the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria even in their nose, armpits, groin or buttocks without realising it. This can invade the body's bloodstream and release poisonous toxins that kill up to one-fifth of infected patients. MRSA is most commonly associated with hospitals. As well as being highly drug resistant, current screening methods are fairly inaccurate, which allows the infection to spread as a patient moves around both within and outside hospitals. Even when the infection is successfully treated, it doubles the average length of a patient's hospital stay, as well as increasing healthcare costs. The WHO recently classified MRSA as high priority on its list for the Research and Development of new drugs. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/health/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->
How the research was carried out
Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire mapped MRSA transmission rates among 1,465 people in eastern England over one year.
They sequenced the DNA of at least one MRSA strain from the study's participants based on samples that are routinely collected from infected individuals and sent to labs.
The lab involved in the investigation serves three hospitals and 75 GP surgeries.
Some 173 MRSA outbreaks were detected, which occurred in hospitals, the community, GP surgeries and people's homes.
Cases were linked by assessing the participants' hospital admissions, ward transfers and home addresses.
MRSA goes undetected in the community
Results reveal the infection is transmitted in the community after going unrecognised by doctors.
This contradicts the assumption MRSA infections solely occur in hospitals with outbreaks being confined to single wards.
Specific individuals are thought to help spread the infection if they frequently visit different healthcare-related buildings.
Earlier this year the World Health Organisation warned antibiotic-resistant superbugs pose an enormous threat to human health.
The researchers detected MRSA strains native to the UK, Taiwan and the US, which suggests their findings could apply to other regions around the world.
They aim to initiate a second study next year to investigate new MRSA cases and how it spreads to help improve treatments.
Study leader Professor Sharon Peacock said: 'Our study has shown sequencing all MRSA samples as soon as they are isolated can rapidly pinpoint where MRSA transmission is occurring.
'If implemented in clinical practice this would provide numerous opportunities to catch outbreaks early and target these to bring them to a close, for example by decolonising carriers and implementing barrier nursing.
'We have the technology in place to do this and it could have a really positive impact on public health and patient outcomes.'
Dr Jonathan Pearce added: 'Antibiotic resistance poses a global challenge to healthcare.
'To tackle it we need to prevent infections, preserve existing antibiotics and promote the development of new therapies and interventions.
'This study sheds light on MRSA transmission within and between hospitals and the community, which could help strengthen infection prevention and control measures.'
The findings were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. |
Chinese crypto-miner Bitmain to provide AI training hardware | Less than two years after first entering the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, Beijing-based Bitmain has unveiled its first AI hardware products. The advanced fan-cooled module and customised tensor computing Application Specific Integrated Circuit are fully compatible with several AI platforms, and can be applied to products ranging from autonomous vehicles and robotics to the internet of things. The company's experience building hardware for bitcoin enabled the smooth transition into AI, said Bitmain CEO Micree Zhan.
| https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/innovation/bitcoin-mining-giant-bitmain-launches-deep-learning-ai-hardware/ | 2017-10-26 07:45:17.050000 | Beijing-headquartered Bitmain, the world’s largest Bitcoin Bitcoin While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that Read this Termmining hardware producer, today announced its first products for accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Gadi Glikberg
Earlier this year Finance Magnates exclusively reported that Bitmain decided to enter the AI market after we visited the offices of Bitmaintech Israel - the company’s first R&D center outside of China. Today the head of Bitmaintech Israel, Gadi Glikberg, told us: "We are very proud to be part of the software development effort of the Sophon products. Our AI researchers are focused on creating computer vision and NLP solutions that are optimized for the Sophon platform."
The new products are a customized tensor computing ASIC ASIC The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the prime regulator in Australia for corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit. It is empowered under the financial service laws to facilitate, regulate, and enforce Australian financial laws. The Australian Commission was set up and is administered under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001. ASIC was initially the Australian Securities Commission based on the 1989 ASC Act. Initially, the The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the prime regulator in Australia for corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit. It is empowered under the financial service laws to facilitate, regulate, and enforce Australian financial laws. The Australian Commission was set up and is administered under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001. ASIC was initially the Australian Securities Commission based on the 1989 ASC Act. Initially, the Read this Term (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) optimized for training functions for deep learning networks and an advanced fan-cooled module that combines it into a compact, easy-to-integrate package. These can be applied in a variety of use cases including image and speech recognition, autonomous vehicle technology, enhanced security camera surveillance, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and more.
“Deep learning is very intensive computationally and our experience in creating high-performing hardware for Bitcoin has absolutely prepared us for this exciting area of computing,” notes Micree Zhan, Bitmain CEO. “AI hardware is an area that Bitmain is proactively developing to power the next generation of AI applications.
Bitmain saw trends in the AI business that were similar to the early days of Bitcoin, and so we started to explore AI toward the end of 2015. Now after only a year and a half, we have the mass-production chips in hand.”
The developers explain that the new products, called BM1680 and SC1, feature full compatibility with popular AI platforms, including mainstream Caffe, Darknet, Googlenet, VGG, Resnet, Yolo, Yoto2 and other models. |
Indian insurers should increase focus on female clients | Insurers and other financial institutions in India should adjust their outreach campaigns to reflect societal changes and an increased prominence of women making more financial decisions, according to Best Media Info. The number of women making investment decisions independently has risen from 37% to 52% between 2015 and 2016, according to a report from Nielsen. Institutions can no longer assume men are making the majority of financial decisions within a family, with some companies suggesting marketing should look to be inclusive of the whole family unit.
| http://bestmediainfo.com/2017/10/in-depth-banking-and-insurance-brands-should-gear-up-for-the-she-economy/ | 2017-10-26 07:45:16.157000 | In OTT
While Disney+ Hotstar is eyeing to double its reach during the World Cup and a 50% increase in viewership during the Asia Cup, marketers are expecting a 10-15% reduction in CPM along with improved demographic plus device price-based targeting |
No plans to charge pages to appear in news feed: Facebook | Facebook has denied that it plans to charge publishers to remain in its news feeds, despite having run tests of such a system. The company introduced trials of its new "Explore" feed in a number of countries including Sri Lanka, Bolivia and Serbia, but a senior executive has now said it will not be extended worldwide. The experiment relegates non-promoted page content to a separate, less-prominent feed, raising concerns amongst publishers that they will in future have to pay to maintain their visibility to users. | https://qz.com/1111583/despite-explore-tests-facebook-is-adamant-it-wont-charge-publishers-to-stay-in-news-feed/ | 2017-10-26 06:27:42.590000 | A controversial test of Facebook’s new feature in several countries has news publishers very worried about their business—but the company is adamant that there is nothing to fret about.
Facebook recently rolled a new feed called “Explore,” which aggregates content that it thinks you might like, but that you don’t necessarily follow (the results are…not great, at least for Quartz journalists). In Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia, the company pushed all content from Facebook Pages, which includes news publishers, into the hard-to-find Explore feed, leaving only posts from friends and sponsored content in its most read News Feed.
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A post on Medium from Slovakian journalist Filip Struharik, started the panic among news organizations, who have come to depend on Facebook to drive a large share of their traffic. He said that the organic reach of some news pages fell by two-thirds. Immediately, speculation began that Facebook would ask publishers to pay to stay within the News Feed, which could upend many business strategies in the industry.
Facebook denied this was the case, with the head of News Feed, Adam Mosseri, saying in a post: “There is no current plan to roll this out beyond these test countries or to charge pages on Facebook to pay for all their distribution in News Feed or Explore.” At a media event in New York Tuesday, he said Facebook runs thousands of tests every day, and this was just one of them, which would “inform” a number of ideas for Facebook. Still, the prospect of Facebook de-emphasizing news is looming over publishers worldwide.
The Explore test comes amid the social media’s newly tense relationship with legitimate publishers. Fake news has been crowding out real news—during the 2016 presidential election in the US, such posts got higher engagement than those of all top news outlets combined. Although more and more people access news from Facebook and it makes all its money from ad revenue, the company maintains it’s not a media company and, of course, shouldn’t be regulated like one. Yet, small changes in its algorithm, as seen earlier this year, can significantly affect traffic to news sites and, thus, publishers’ bottom lines.
Perhaps adding insult to injury, Facebook on Tuesday introduced new guidelines for publishers. Mosseri said that “clickbait and sensationalism are the number one complaint about News Feed.” In its guidelines, the company is encouraging publishers to post content that’s “meaningful and informative,” since that is what users value, rather than hyped-up headlines. |
Sea levels to rise by 1.3 metres unless coal power ends by 2050 | Coastal cities could be severely affected by a 1.3 metre rise in sea levels within this century, unless coal-generated electricity is all but eradicated by 2050, according to research from the University of Melbourne. The study drew on the latest understanding of the role played by Antarctica in sea level rises, combined with up-to-date emissions projections. The predicted rise is 50% more than that stated in previous estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The research suggested the majority of the newly predicted rise could be avoided by limiting global warming to less than 1.9C above preindustrial levels. | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/26/sea-levels-to-rise-13m-unless-coal-power-ends-by-2050-report-says | 2017-10-25 23:00:00 | Coastal cities around the world could be devastated by 1.3m of sea level rise this century unless coal-generated electricity is virtually eliminated by 2050, according to a new paper that combines the latest understanding of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise and the latest emissions projection scenarios.
It confirms again that significant sea level rise is inevitable and requires rapid adaptation. But, on a more positive note, the work reveals the majority of that rise – driven by newly recognised processes on Antarctica – could be avoided if the world fulfils its commitment made in Paris to keep global warming to “well below 2C”.
In 2016, Robert DeConto from the University of Massachusetts Amherst revealed that Antarctica could contribute to massive sea level rise much earlier than thought, suggesting ice sheet collapse would occur sooner and identifying a new process where huge ice cliffs would disintegrate.
But that paper only examined the impact of Antarctica on sea level rise, ignoring other contributions, and didn’t examine the details of what measures society needed to take to avoid those impacts.
The new paper by Alexander Nauels from the University of Melbourne and colleagues uses simplified physical models that allowed them to explore all known contributions to sea level rise, and pair them with the new generation of emissions scenarios which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will use in the next set of reports.
Under all scenarios we are going to have to adapt Sea level expert John Church
They found that if nothing is done to limit carbon pollution, then global sea levels will rise by an estimated 1.32m. That is 50% more than was previously thought, with the IPCC’s AR5 report suggesting 85cm was possible by the end of the century.
But the extra contribution from Antarctica would not kick in if warming was kept at less than 1.9C above preindustrial levels, the researchers found. Temperatures above that threshold risked triggering the additional processes in Antarctica identified in the 2016 paper, causing much greater sea level rise.
“The 1.5C limit in the Paris Agreement is a much safer bet to avoid this additional contribution than only achieving 2C,” Nauels said.
The work, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, showed that the current carbon reduction pledges which governments have made as part of the Paris Agreement by 2030 – their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – are so weak they would require very deep cuts between 2030 and 2050 to avoid triggering those extra processes in Antarctica.
Since the authors used the next generation of emissions scenarios (the “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways”), which include assumptions about socioeconomic factors that are driving emissions – such as energy demand, energy generation, population growth and GDP – they were able to examine what actions could be taken to avoid the sea level rise.
Those scenarios suggested coal could only make up 5% of the world’s energy mix by 2050 if sea level rise is to be limited to about half a metre.
Similarly, those scenarios suggested a global carbon price would have to be well over US$100 per tonne, since at that cost, sea level would rise by 65cm by 2100.
John Church, a leading sea level rise expert from the University of New South Wales who was co-convening lead author of the chapter on sea level in the third and fifth IPCC Assessment Reports, told the Guardian the work was further confirmation that the world needed to prepare now for substantial sea level rises.
“Under all scenarios we are going to have to adapt,” Church said. “We cannot stop all sea level rise.”
He said the research community was not in consensus yet about the accelerated contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise, identified in the 2016 paper and modelled in this study, but examining the implications of those findings was still important.
DeConto, the lead author of the landmark paper from 2016, said it was important to recognise the good news in his original findings and this extension of that work.
“In the aggressive mitigation pathways, where we assume that the global community gets its act together and we reduce emissions, it’s a much rosier picture. There’s a much reduced risk of dramatic sea level rise from Antarctica,” he told the Guardian. “This study fully reinforces that.”
Nauels said his team’s work assumed that Antarctica would contribute to sea level rise as was suggested by the 2016 paper by DeConto, but more work was needed to confirm those findings.
“We still have to find out what’s going on in Antarctica,” he told the Guardian. “We can’t base all future sea level rise projects on just one paper. And the Antarctic ice sheet community are frantically working on the new insights.” |
Twitter to stop accepting ads from Russia Today and Sputnik | Twitter will no longer accept advertising from accounts owned by Russia Today and Sputnik. The decision comes in the wake of allegations that foreign-sponsored fake news was used to interfere in the 2016 US Presidential election. The company will also donate the $1.9m it has received from these two sources to externally conducted research into the “use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections”. | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/twitter-bans-ads-from-russia-today-and-sputnik-over-election-interference | 2017-10-25 21:00:00 | Twitter has announced that it will stop taking advertising from all accounts owned by RT and Sputnik, effective immediately as US lawmakers continue to investigate the impact of foreign-sponsored fake news on the 2016 election.
In a blogpost on Thursday the company said it had taken the decision following its own investigations and the US intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government.
“We did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter,” the company said.
Russia’s foreign ministry vowed to retaliate, saying that the move flouted international and domestic laws on free speech, the RIA news agency reported.
“We see this as an aggressive move,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA Novosti agency.
“This is the result of pressure from the American establishment and intelligence services. Retaliatory measures will of course follow,” she said.
RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, attacked the move on Twitter, asking whether Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, would explain to Congress why the company had asked the Russian service to invest in advertising around the election.
“I never thought that Twitter is under the control of the US security services – it seemed like a conspiracy theory,” she was quoted as saying. “But now Twitter appears to have admitted it.”
RT called Twitter’s statement “groundless and greatly misleading” and said that it had “never pursued an agenda of influencing the US election through any platforms, including Twitter”.
The Russian news service said Twitter had pushed RT to “spend big” during the campaign and offered it access to exclusive tools to get its message across.
The company will donate the $1.9m it has received from the Russian news sources to support external research into the “use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections”.
Twitter, Facebook and Google have all come under pressure for their roles in propagating fake news ahead of Donald Trump’s election. The company had previously announced plans to make political advertising more transparent. Those changes come as a Senate intelligence committee investigates the Kremlin’s potential meddling in US politics.
Sputnik said on its website that Twitter’s move was regrettable, “especially now that Russia had vowed retaliatory measures against the US media.” It did not elaborate.
The news came as Twitter announced it is close to posting its first ever profit after making deep cuts to jobs and expenses and finding new sources of revenue.
But growth at the social media company loved by celebrities and Trump has remained sluggish and Twitter announced it had found an error in its accounting that had overestimated the number of its users.
The social media company has never had a profitable quarter but now believes it “will likely” be profitable in the fourth quarter of this year. The good news sent the company’s share price soaring over 12% in early trading.
For the third quarter, Twitter had a revenue of $590m, down 4% from $616m a year earlier, a fall the company blamed largely on the previously announced decision to wind down its TellApart advertising product.
But the good news on profits came as Twitter once again revealed disappointing growth in the US. Twitter had 330 million monthly active users (MAUs) in the quarter ending on 30 September, up just four million from the previous quarter.
In the US the number of users rose to 69 million from 68 million.
Twitter also said that it had uncovered an error in the way it has calculated the size of its user base since 2014 and has revised its estimates downward, but that the difference amounted to less than 1%.
Twitter said the error in past user estimates was caused when it wrongly counted people who logged into applications associated with the company’s Fabric software platform, which Twitter sold this year to Alphabet’s Google.
“Yes, they grew four million MAU sequentially, which is good enough for the stock to stay at current levels, but revenue growth remains a problem,” said Michael Pachter, managing director, equity research at Wedbush Securities.
Investors and analysts have at times criticized Twitter for how it describes the size of its user base, which is a key metric for social media companies. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not disclose how many daily active users it has.
Dorsey said in a statement that the business was making progress growing its audience and returning to revenue growth. “We’re proud that the improvements we’re making to the product continue to bring people back to Twitter on a daily basis,” he said.
Twitter’s net loss narrowed to $21m, compared with $103m, a year earlier.
The company has stepped up efforts to keep people hooked through live-streaming deals, including broadcasts of concerts, news and sports. Last month, Twitter began a test of tweets that are as long as 280 characters, double the existing cap, to allow people to better express themselves.
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The Reason Your Dental Work Isn't Covered by Medical Insurance | Why is dental care not under the jurisdiction of medical insurance, despite similar problems with eyes being covered? Oral health is “directly related” to general health, with the oral cavity being “a gateway to your body”, according to Dr. Gary Glassman, an endodontist. The first line of defense against cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, HPV and diabetes can start with dentists, but oral health has long been divided from general health. Dentistry in the 1800s was taken care of in barbershops, but teeth were treated in a similar way to hair and nails. In 1840, the University of Maryland in Baltimore rejected dentistry as a medical division. One reason why it has not been placed within the remit of health care may be because of the rarity of patients ending up in hospital beds as a result of tooth or gum issues, with risk a considerable factor. Dental treatment can often be delayed, not necessarily being life-threatening in nature. However, over 800,000 annual ER visits are caused by preventable dental issues, with 50,000 people likely to be diagnosed with oral cancer in 2017 alone. 10,000 of these patients will likely die, but earlier treatment can reduce that number. With dental insurance being unregulated and fairly limited, there is still a significant likelihood of being left with steep bills. Dental insurance is also relatively new, being introduced only 60 years ago. Reimbursement is poor, with an average annual maximum of $1,500. Dental insurance, then, is designed to be used as a preventative measure for routine maintenance, rather than dealing with serious issues. However, this is often not enough, leading to extreme situations where a relatively serious issue has escalated. Major dental procedures are not often covered by insurance, leading to larger problems down the line. If dental plans included further treatments and procedures, premiums would increase; but with this increase, dental plans would lose interest for many citizens, who prefer to pay a lower fee for a less comprehensive plan or have no plan at all. Around 74 million Americans did not have dental coverage in 2016, partly due to the fact that dental coverage in traditional Medicare benefits is limited. Adding preventative dental care to general health care insurance could reduce pressure on emergency departments and save lives, whilst also being more affordable.
| https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/reason-your-dental-work-isn-t-covered-medical-insurance-ncna813666 | 2017-10-25 17:15:29.233000 | I was at the dentist recently for a toothache. He snapped some X-rays, gave my mouth a quick lookover, said I appeared to have cracked the tooth (likely from my severe TMJ) and would need a root canal. He forwarded me to an endodontist. The endodontist discovered I had a strange mass in my jaw that appeared unrelated to the cracked tooth. He put me on antibiotics to prevent infection and forwarded me to an oral surgeon, who confirmed the mass was harmless. Now I’m going back to the endodontist for the root canal, and then back to the dentist for the crown. I have spent over $500 and about eight hours in dental chairs to get this far. It will be thousands more dollars and dozens more hours before I solve this problem. None of it is covered by medical insurance.
I should have gotten dental insurance, right? That’s what I kept telling myself, until I actually looked into the dental plans for which I qualify (more on that in a moment). But the real question here: Why is dental not covered under medical insurance? The same may be asked of vision, but at least there if you have a serious eye problem (like glaucoma or cataracts) you go to an ophthalmologist, which is covered by medical. Such isn’t the case with dental.
The oral cavity is a gateway to your body. A lot of stuff in the mouth can indicate kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, HPV, cancer, etc.
The partition between dental and medical makes little sense given that “oral health is directly related to general health,” says Dr. Gary Glassman, an endodontist based in Toronto, Canada who also practices in the U.S. “The oral cavity is a gateway to your body. A lot of stuff in the mouth can indicate kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, HPV, cancer, etc. Your dentist can be your first line of defense.”
The Barbaric History Of Dentistry
Despite it being a plainly medical issue, oral health has always been an outlier. Until the 1800s, dentistry was the domain of barbershops, practiced in the same chair and usually by the same guy who shaved your beard.
“How would you feel if you went to your hairdresser and they pulled your tooth or lanced your abscess?” asks Dr. Glassman.
It’s so bizarre and frightful an image that it’s almost comical, but the history of our teeth and jaws being treated as something as incidental as our hair and nails still haunts us.
“Dentistry has always had a disconnect to medicine,” says Dr. Michael Tischler who specializes in reconstructive dentistry and the implant editor for Dentistry Today. “In 1840 dentistry was proposed as a medical specialty to the University of Maryland in Baltimore and rejected.”
We may have since greatly evolved in how we regard and understand dentistry, but we haven’t embraced it as a primarily medical issue; if we had, it would be covered under medical insurance, or at least, things like a root canal would be, because if you need a root canal and don’t get one, you could end up with all kinds of lethal problems that lead to hospitalization. It is rumored that Queen Elizabeth died from blood poisoning as a result of an untreated tooth infection. That was a long time ago, but hey, it happens.
Why isn’t a health problem so serious it can be deadly, not considered medical? To an extent, it’s because it’s not that common to end up in the hospital as a result of a tooth or gum problem — not if you’re keeping up with preventative dental care.
The Insurance Game of Risk
“The reason dental is separate from medical is that the nature of the risk is fundamentally different as is the deferability of the care,” says Dr. Adam C. Powell, president of Payer+Provider Syndicate, a management advisory and operational consulting firm focused on the managed care and healthcare delivery industries. “If you’re having a heart attack you'll go to the ER right away. Dental problems can often wait and unfortunately often do. The problem may deteriorate, but often it’s not necessarily life-threatening.”
Yes, dental problems often do wait. Mine is waiting until my next paycheck (or three). But the argument that dental problems are less severe than “medical” ones doesn’t quite hold up, not when you look at the numbers of ER visits for which dental-related problems account.
“More than 800,000 annual ER visits arise from preventable dental problems,” says Dr. Allena Willis Kennerly, an orthodontist. Dr. Glassman adds that this year alone 50,000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer, adding, “Probably 10,000 of those people will die, but these are things that if caught really early can be better treated, before they spread and metastasize.”
Dental Insurance Is Like ‘Triple A For Your Mouth’
Now, let’s say you do have dental insurance. That’s certainly more favorable than the alternative, but it’s hardly ideal. If you undergo a serious procedure, you’ll likely still be left with a hefty bill.
“Dental insurance, unlike medical, is not regulated and it tends to be very constrained,” says Powell. “The annual maximum benefit is not that high, and there’s usually some sort of deductible.”
And it’s a relatively new type of insurance, with Dr. Bobbi Stanley, a dentist, noting that it was first introduced some 60 years ago. “Dental work was a fee for service agreement until the mid-50’s when dental insurance was introduced in California,” says Dr. Stanley. “[Plans] rose in popularity throughout the ‘60s and had a reimbursement of about $1000.”
Inflation may have catapulted the worth of the dollar over the decades, but the reimbursement rate for dental insurance hasn’t budged much. “Most dental insurance companies have an [annual] maximum of $1,500.00,” says Dr. Anil Dwivedi, a general dentist with a specialty in anesthesiology.
Clearly the purpose of dental insurance is not to cover dire issues, but to prevent them — by encouraging regular maintenance. Dr. Powell likens dental plans to “Triple A for your mouth," highlighting that "it's not like car insurance [which covers catastrophes], but it includes a few free oil changes.”
A few oil changes can go a long way (to stick with Powell’s disturbingly apt analogy), and preventative care does have a terrifically positive impact on one’s oral health. But it doesn’t prevent every problem. Take me for example. I need a root canal because I cracked a tooth from clenching and grinding — even though I wear a $600 bite guard at night (which was made for me by a dentist when I had dental insurance, and which was not covered by my dental insurance). Problems like mine are, evidently, not so rare.
“Unfortunately we see extreme situations like this all the time,” says Dr. Tischler. “So even though I preach prevention, prevention, prevention, it won't save you from serious dental emergencies. And that is compounded by the fact that while dental insurance will cover preventative aspects of dental care it doesn’t always cover major dental procedures for adults. This is something that people need to be aware of from a financial planning standpoint.”
Dr. Powell asserts that one major reason dental plans tend to be so minimal in what they cover, is because people don’t want to shell out higher premiums.
“If [dental plans] were more inclusive, that could be a problem because then premiums would be higher, and if premiums were higher, plans would be less appealing to people,” says Powell. “I buy the dental plan because it’s a good rate and it’s cheaper than paying directly out of pocket. If it started covering these high claims it would not be $400 a year dental plan, it would be a $700 a year plan, and then I wouldn't buy it.”
The Case To Merge Medical and Dental
There are still a lot of people not buying dental insurance, even when many plans costs less than a Netflix subscription. No judgments, people, I’m in the same camp.
“Some 74 million Americans had no dental coverage in 2016,” says Dr. Tischler. “The dentally uninsured rate has increased to about four times the medically uninsured rate — even with dental coverage expansions. In part, this is due to the lack of dental coverage in traditional Medicare. Those over 65 may still have coverage through an employer, be able to purchase individual dental coverage or obtain dental coverage as a supplemental benefit through a Medicare Advantage plan; however only 52.9 percent reported having dental coverage on the 2016 NADP consumer survey while virtually 100 percent of seniors have medical coverage under Medicare.”
Dentists are trying to decrease the separation between dentistry and medicine because we are doctors of oral medicine.
It doesn't look like interest in dental insurance will pick up in 2017, but someday we might not have to worry about it. There is a glimmer of hope that dental will eventually be covered under medical in the future.
“It's widely accepted that dental and medical are separate, but the gap is closing as we move forward,” says Glassman. “Dentists are trying to decrease the separation between dentistry and medicine because we are doctors of oral medicine.”
There’s also the mounting data that the healthcare industry could benefit from covering dental as part of medical. Consider those 800,000 ER visits per year for dental-related problems. Wouldn’t more people get the preventative dental care if it were covered by their medical insurance? Couldn’t medical insurance companies ultimately save oodles of money on emergency care if the problem were nipped in the bud free of charge?
Dr. Glassman certainly thinks so.
“It would be more affordable for medical insurance to include basic dentistry,” says Dr. Glassman. “Not only would it save a lot of lives, it would save a heck of a lot of money.”
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