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Stanford, EDF seek mobile methane-leak monitoring solutions
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Stanford University and the Environmental Defense Fund have launched the Mobile Monitoring Challenge (MMC), inviting scientists and engineers to send in their ideas for mobile technology to detect methane leaks by 31 October. The move follows the success of the Methane Detectors Challenge, which led to the pilot testing of a static device developed by Quanta3. The MMC aims to spotlight ideas for "low-cost, reliable, and valid" technologies that can be used on the move and off-site. ExxonMobil is among the advisers to the MMC project.
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https://www.spe.org/en/ogf/ogf-article-detail/?art=3514
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2017-10-23 08:50:13.360000
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It takes only 3 days for an LNG carrier or oil tanker to reach India from East Africa where Tanzania is destined to become an LNG exporter together with its neighbor Mozambique and a transit point for Ugandan oil exports.
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China buys assets in Australia to cater to its middle class
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Chinese investors have massively upped the amounts of Australian assets they are purchasing, with investment in agriculture more than tripling in volume to $1bn over the past year. China looks to Australia to produce goods like fruit, meat, wine, dairy and minerals, to cater to its booming middle class. Despite lowered incentives for overseas buyers to protect Australia's assets, Credit Suisse believes demand from China will remain high.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/22/heres-why-china-is-buying-up-assets-in-australia.html
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2017-10-23 08:28:08.917000
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Chinese investors are buying up assets in Australia from housing to ports to agriculture. One area where that trend is particular noticeable: Chinese investment in Australia's agricultural sector went from $300 million to more than $1 billion over the past year. Part of what's driving that trend is Chinese investors looking to Australia as fertile ground to produce goods that they'll sell back in China. There's heavy demand from China's booming middle class for Australian-produced fruits, meats, wine, dairy and minerals. In fact, those shoppers have grown to trust "Made in Australia" on the whole. After outbreaks in China from tainted infant formula, Australian-produced formula has been a market winner for Chinese consumers.
China's wealthy impact Australian housing
Home prices in Sydney are up 98 percent since the global financial crisis, and in Melbourne they're up 84 percent, according CoreLogic, a data, information, analytics and services provider in Australia. Concurrent with rising prices is increased Chinese activity in the market. Last year, was the biggest year for Chinese investment in Australian residential real estate, according to Juwai.com, an international property website. In New South Wales, the Australian state in which Sydney is located, foreign buyers (87 percent of whom were Chinese) acquired a quarter of new property supply, according to a recent report by Credit Suisse.
Not everyone is happy about the trend
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Facebook unveils tool to help publishers sell subscriptions
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Facebook is partnering with 10 global publishers to launch a new feature aimed at selling online subscriptions to mobile app users. A limited number of free articles will be offered from titles such as Washington Post and Bild, with the option for readers to sign up for more via a link to the publisher's website. While the likes of Le Parisien and The Telegraph have also signed up, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times are among major publishers who declined.
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http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/facebook-introduces-subscription-system-for-publishers-news
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2017-10-23 08:11:41.707000
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Facebook is rolling out a new solution for news publishers that will give mobile app users access to a limited number of articles every month, and then provide them with the option to subscribe via the publishers' own websites.
The solution was announced with 10 publishers signed up, including the Washington Post, The Economist, Bild and The Telegraph, but lacked some major names including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the New York Times.
According to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal objected to Facebook's one-size-fits-all approach, while the Financial Times wanted a registration process in place so that it could access reader data directly in exchange for providing free articles.
The new solution marks a departure for Facebook, which has previously used platform like Instant Articles as a method of keeping users within its own ecosystem. However, in the wake of the fake news scandal which has plagued the social network, it makes sense that the company would try to restore trust and respectability by partnering with established news organisations.
"We're listening to news publishers all over the world to better understand their needs and goals, and collaborating more closely on the development of new products from the beginning of the process," said Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships at Facebook.
"Over time, we'll continue investing in new ways to enable publishers' subscription businesses - including working with publishers to remove friction from the conversion flow to subscribe, leveraging data to better target content and offers to likely and existing subscribers, and improving our marketing tools to make them better suited for publishers' needs. We're looking forward to working with our partners to help support an important business model for the news industry."
The full list of partners and news titles also includes The Boston Globe, Hearst (The Houston Chronicle and The San Francisco Chronicle), La Repubblica, Le Parisien, Spiegel, and tronc (The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and The San Diego Union-Tribune). The platform will initially only be available on Android, and Facebook plans to test different variations using factors like how many free articles are available before subscribing.
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.
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Australia insurtech lobby wants more access to regulatory sandbox
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An Australian industry lobby, focusing specifically on insurtech, is asking for an extension on the regulatory framework allowing certain companies to use a "sandbox" to test their products without running afoul of restrictions. The newly-formed Insurtech Australia group is urging the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to adjust regulations around the sandboxes to fit insurtech characteristics; in particular, the body is requesting that the regulator increase the limits of personal lines.
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https://www.rfigroup.com/australian-banking-and-finance/news/new-insurtech-group-lobbies-regulatory-change
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2017-10-23 07:58:25.350000
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Amazon wins patent for always-on home monitor for video chats
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Amazon has been awarded a patent to connect households via video screens that continually monitor homes to offer signals when a contact might be free for a video chat. Users would be able to see into each others' premises through scrambled visuals and audio that would clear only when a video chat is initiated. Amazon wants to duplicate "spontaneous face-to-face conversations", but to do so would also allow it access to significant data on users’ homes, social groups, communication methods, and potentially facial recognition, pulse detection and more.
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https://www.cbinsights.com/research/amazon-video-chat-patent-blurred-screen/?utm_source=CB+Insights+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f62ffa9a88-Top_Research_Briefs_10_21_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9dc0513989-f62ffa9a88-89546677
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2017-10-23 07:36:14.580000
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The video would be blurred and voices muffled but the idea is for people to be able to guess whether friends and family are available in order to hop on spontaneous video calls.
Where is this data coming from? Start your free trial today Email Where is this data coming from? Start your free trial today Email
In a patent granted to Amazon today, the tech giant proposes connecting households via video screens that would monitor the users’ rooms continuously, and let their friends or family tune in to access blurred visuals and muffled audio to determine when might be a good time for a video chat.
For example, when you arrive home from work your mother (if you granted her access) could start to hear muffled audio coming from your kitchen and would then know you’re home and could request an immediate video chat. If you verbally accept, the screen will automatically clear to enable the chat.
Amazon says it hopes this technology can help in “replicating the spontaneous face-to-face conversations that arise from living in the same place.” It also, of course, would capture huge amounts of data on consumers’ living spaces, social connections, communication habits, and even facial recognition.
Get the PDF: The Amazon Strategy Teardown Download our 63-page deep dive into the acquisition, investment, and research strategy of Amazon. Email
Using this sort of always-on visual and audio tracking, the patent lays out a long list of data sets Amazon could capture, including facial expressions, “smile detection,” body movement and gestures, biometric analysis such as pulse detection, eye movement, and more.
The patent also says that the technology could identify furniture and other objects in your home, and compare them to “reference databases” that could help it figure out which brands you’ve bought and how much you’ve paid for them.
To further ease ordering, the device could even potentially visually identify specific products and add them to your cart. You could hold up an empty box of cereal, for example, and the device could note the brand and size and automatically order a refill.
More generally, visual monitoring could help Amazon better understand users’ brand preferences, disposable income, daily habits, and more.
For example, Amazon was previously granted a patent for using drones to observe consumers’ houses from the outside, and offer product suggestions and home improvement tips based on its visual data capture.
Further down the line, we know Amazon may be interested in healthcare services — technology to track users’ pulses and other biometric data in the home through countertop devices, as mentioned in this patent, would open up new possibilities.
Amazon’s Echo Show, which debuted in May 2017, could provide a prototype for the technology in this patent.
The Show, a video touchscreen with Alexa voice control, gained attention for its “Drop In” feature, which would let designated users launch a video call with you at any time. The capabilities described in today’s patent seem like the next step in the development of an Echo Show-type device.
By adding always-on, continual visual and auditory monitoring, however, it would deepen users’ connections to each other and also to Amazon.
Beyond the blurring and unblurring video chat capabilities, the device in this patent could display “active” content (requested by the user) or “passive” content (content it would pull up automatically, making assumptions about what’s most relevant for the user it “sees” in the room).
Amazon says the device could display calendar information, weather, reminders, email, recipes, videos, home automation information, delivery tracking information, and more. Users could interact with voice, touch, and even gestures — for example, swiping through calendar appointments with a wave of the hand, as shown below.
Gathering new offline data streams — especially in shoppers’ homes — could have huge implications for Amazon. Supply chain and logistics, including drone delivery tools, are another high-momentum area for Amazon patents, which we’ve previously discussed here.
If you aren’t already a client, sign up for a free trial to learn more about our platform.
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WHO tries to contain untreatable Marburg virus in Uganda
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The rare Marburg virus, which has a high mortality rate and for which there is no specific treatment, has been found in Uganda. One person has died and several hundred more may have been exposed to the virus. The ministry of health has sent a rapid response team, supported by the World Health Organisation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the African Field Epidemiology Network. "Uganda has previously managed Ebola and Marburg outbreaks but international support is urgently required to scale up the response as the overall risk of national and regional spread of this epidemic-prone disease is high," warned WHO's Ibrahima-Soce Fall.
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http://www.africanews.com/2017/10/22/rare-marburg-virus-disease-kills-at-least-one-on-uganda-kenya-border-as-who/
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2017-10-23 07:27:21.027000
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The World Health Organization has said it is working to contain an outbreak of Marburg virus disease (MVD) that has appeared in eastern Uganda on the border with Kenya.
At least one person is confirmed to have died of MVD and several hundred people may have been exposed to the virus at health facilities and at traditional burial ceremonies in Kween District, a mountainous area 300 kilometres northeast of Kampala.
The first case was detected by the Ministry of Health on 17 October, a 50-year-old woman who died at a health centre of fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea on 11 October. Laboratory testing at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) confirmed the cause of death as MVD.
We are working with health authorities to rapidly implement response measures.Uganda has previously managed Ebola and Marburg outbreaks but international support is urgently required to scale up the response as the overall risk of national and regional spread of this epidemic-prone disease is high.
The woman’s brother had also died of similar symptoms three weeks earlier and was buried at a traditional funeral. He worked as a game hunter and lived near a cave inhabited by Rousettus bats, which are natural hosts of the Marburg virus.
One suspected and one probable case are being investigated and provided with medical care. An active search for people who may have been exposed to or infected by the virus is underway.
The Ministry of Health has sent a rapid response team to the area supported by staff from the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFNET).
WHO is providing medical supplies, guidance on safe and dignified burials, and has released US$500,000 from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies to finance immediate response activities.
“We are working with health authorities to rapidly implement response measures,” said Ibrahima-Soce Fall, WHO Regional Emergency Director for the Africa region. “Uganda has previously managed Ebola and Marburg outbreaks but international support is urgently required to scale up the response as the overall risk of national and regional spread of this epidemic-prone disease is high.”
Marburg virus disease is a rare disease with a high mortality rate for which there is no specific treatment.
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Los Angeles Times podcasts boost sign-ups to email newsletter
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The Los Angeles Times's podcast and editorial series Dirty John, which launched at the start of the month, has resulted in a fivefold increase in subscriptions to its newsletter, Essential California, according to Mark Campbell, the senior vice-president of digital acquisition at Tronc, the owner of the LA Times. The Times published teasers for the series in its print and digital editions, and carried future broadcast information for the podcast in the newsletters. Although it hasn't seen an uptick in subscriptions for the Times, Dirty John has amassed more than five million listens in a month.
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https://digiday.com/media/los-angeles-times-used-hit-podcast-dirty-john-drive-newsletter-sign-ups/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171023
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2017-10-23 07:25:46.037000
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It turns out hit podcasts can help drive newsletter sign-ups. The Los Angeles Times used interest in “Dirty John,” a podcast and editorial series that the Tronc-owned title produced in partnership with Wondery, to get an additional 21,000 email subscribers to Essential California, five times the total it has accumulated in the months leading up to the launch of “Dirty John.”
While the podcast hasn’t yet accounted for a noticeable surge in paid subscriptions to the Times, its marketing and audience-acquisition operation used a simple offer — subscribe to the newsletter to find out when new episodes of the show are posted — to grow sign-ups.
“It was kind of marketing 101,” said Mark Campbell, Tronc svp of digital acquisition. “I’ll take opportunities like these all day.”
While many people think of “Dirty John,” a story of a grifter who meets a victim in Southern California, as a podcast principally, it had a written component, too, with a series of pieces that ran in the print and digital editions of the Times.
Two weeks prior to the series’ debut at the beginning of October, the Times ran teasers for the series across its print issues, along with digital house ads, telling readers they should download the Essential California newsletter to find out when new episodes of the show would be available. Anybody that visited “Dirty John’s” written components on the Times’ site also got a Bounce Exchange notification calling for people to sign up for the newsletter.
The campaign generated over 21,000 new sign-ups, more than five times the total that the newsletter had attracted since the beginning of 2017 when it launched. The podcast itself was also a big success — its episodes have amassed over 5 million listens in less than a month.
At the start of every episode, the show’s host, Christopher Goffard, read an ad offering readers the chance to sign up for a subscription to the Times, too. That didn’t drive many immediate subscriptions, with Campbell calling the overall subscriptions during that period “fairly average.” But Campbell is confident there will be chances to convert them later; email, Campbell said, is a top-three subscription channel for Tronc, which reported 220,000 digital subscriptions across its titles in its most recent earnings report. Essential California has gathered over 250,000 signups since 2014.
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BMW headquarters searched by EU amid collusion allegations
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Car manufacturer BMW said its headquarters in Munich had been searched by European Union antitrust officials as part of a probe into allegations it and other German manufacturers colluded on technology. The investigation was launched after Daimler reported a possible cartel, taking advantage of EU whistleblowing protections to do so. Competition officials are investigating if cooperation between Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Audi and Porsche is being mistaken for illegal activity. EU antitrust regulations ban cartels and restrictive business practices.
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https://phys.org/news/2017-10-bmw-offices-preliminary-collusion-probe.html
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2017-10-23 07:15:40.220000
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BMW said Friday that European Commission staff conducted an "inspection" at company offices in Munich earlier this week in connection with news media allegations that German carmakers colluded on technology including diesel emission controls.
BMW said it was assisting the European Union's executive arm in its work and that the inspection did not mean a formal antitrust investigation had been opened.
Der Spiegel magazine has reported that German car companies cooperated on issues including limiting the size of tanks holding fluid intended to reduce diesel emissions. The issue is getting attention because testing has shown that many diesel cars exceed pollution test standards in everyday driving.
BMW says its cars' exhaust emissions were never manipulated and that it has complied with all legal requirements.
The Commission said in a statement that it had conducted an "unannounced inspection" at a German automaker. Both the Commission and BMW statement avoided use of the word "search." The EU has said it is evaluating the media reports about collusion as a preliminary step to the possible opening of a full-fledged anti-trust probe.
The Commission said the inspection, which took place Monday, was "related to commission concerns that several German car manufacturers may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices."
© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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TalkTalk Which? finds 53% of UK households dissatisfied with broadband
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Consumer group Which? has discovered that 53% of UK households have had issues with their broadband service. Customers of Virgin Media, Sky, BT and TalkTalk came out as the most likely to have difficulties with their service. Only one in 10 households receive the broadband speeds providers promise in advertising, the watchdog found, with one-third of TalkTalk's customers stating that they had "very slow" connectivity. TalkTalk stated its disappointment in the findings and said recent investment has reduced faults and hastened repair times.
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/21/half-of-all-uk-broadband-users-get-a-bad-deal-says-which
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2017-10-23 07:05:08.033000
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Half of all broadband users in the UK are getting a raw deal from their supplier, with slow speeds, rising prices and router failures exasperating customers, according to a damning assessment of Britain’s internet services.
Consumer group Which? found that 53% of households have had difficulties with their broadband, with customers of Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Sky and BT the most likely to experience an issue.
As few as one in 10 households receive the super-fast broadband speeds promised in adverts, said Which?. One third of TalkTalk’s customers complained about “very slow” broadband speeds, as did 22% of BT internet users.
Connection drop-outs were a frequent problem for 17% of broadband users, with 8% of households reporting that they suffered from no connection at all for hours or days at a time.
Price hikes for landline rentals have spurred widespread customer dissatisfaction. BT introduced its third price rise in 18 months at the start of the year, forcing it to deny that it was squeezing customers after paying £1.2bn for Champions League football rights.
Virgin customers’ top complaint was about price increases, said Which?, with 38% of users angry over increased line rental costs.
Which? surveyed 1,709 telecoms customers between June and July. Alex Neill of Which? said: “Far too many people get a poor deal from their broadband provider, with problems ranging from very slow speeds to going days without any connection at all, which just isn’t good enough.
“The regulator must now deliver on its plans to improve the information that customers get about speeds when they sign up to a provider, and allow them to easily exit a contract if they’re not getting what they’ve been promised.”
Ofcom, which regulates broadband suppliers, said: “We completely agree that broadband providers must up their game.”
It recently ordered suppliers to give more realistic information about speeds, and later this year will introduce a new compensation deal for households that suffer delayed repairs, late installations and missed engineer appointments.
The UK lags behind countries including the US, the Netherlands and Japan for 4G and broadband speeds, according to a report last week by the National Infrastructure Commision.
Andrew Adonis, chairman of the commission, said: “Today’s findings [from Which?] demonstrate the scale of the problems customers are having with the current level of broadband service, but also the challenge we face if we are to have the best possible connections in future.
“The UK risks falling behind our international competitors if we don’t invest in the latest ultrafast and fibre technology – broadband providers must also step up to the plate and improve the services they currently deliver to our homes and businesses,” added Lord Adonis.
A study published this month by the Social Market Foundation thinktank found that landline rental and broadband is among the least competitive of all consumer markets in the UK.
“The lack of competitive pressures in the landline-only space means there have been few incentives for companies to compete on price … while wholesale costs of providing a landline service fell by 26% in real terms in recent years, line rental charges faced by consumers increased by 25-49%.”
TalkTalk said it was disappointed by the Which? findings and that recent investment had led to fewer faults and quicker repair times. Virgin Media said it was one of the least-complained about broadband providers and the majority of customers got their advertised speed.
There was support for the broadband suppliers from comparison site cable.co.uk. Its telecoms expert Dan Howdle said: “It’s easy to complain about broadband in the UK, but on international comparisons we are not doing that badly. We are 31st in the world out of 200 countries on speeds and in the cheapest third when it comes to the cost of broadband.”
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Tesla to build wholly owned China factory in landmark deal
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Tesla is to build a wholly owned factory in Shanghai's free-trade zone, marking a landmark deal in a nation where overseas automakers are normally required to work with a local partner. While this will allow for lower production costs, the US company is also likely to face a hefty 25% import tariff. China has recently shifted policy to encourage development of its electric vehicle market as it looks to phase out fossil fuels to reduce its carbon emissions.
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https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/22/16516064/tesla-reached-deal-factory-china-shanghai-electric-vehicles-cars
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2017-10-23 07:02:43.790000
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Tesla has made an arrangement with Shanghai’s government to built a manufacturing plant in the city’s free-trade zone, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cites reports from people briefed on the company’s plans.
The WSJ reports that Tesla will own the factory, rather than partner with a local manufacturer, as it typically the case. Chinese officials have recently begun to consider relaxing some of the more stringent rules concerning local partners, as a way to encourage electric vehicle manufacturers. The arrangement would be the “first of its kind for a foreign auto maker,” but will likely not allow Tesla to avoid a 25 percent import tariff.
In June, Tesla confirmed that it was in talks to build a factory in Shanghai, ending months of speculation about the company’s plans. At the time, a spokesperson explained that while the company anticipated keeping most of its production in the US, it did “need to establish local factories to ensure affordability for the markets they serve.”
The world’s largest market for automobiles, China has recently worked to encourage the development of a robust market for EVs. In September, Xin Guobin, the country’s vice minister of industry and information technology, noted at a forum that the country is beginning to phase out sales of fossil fuel vehicles as it works to cut its carbon emissions, and that existing manufacturers will need to begin building more EVs in the coming years. As such, establishing a factory in China will be a major deal for Tesla as it works to ramp up its production around the world.
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Tesla offers discounted car insurance for self-driving vehicles
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Tesla has launched an insurance package, called InsureMyTesla, in the US. InsureMyTesla offers cheaper rates than typical car insurance, thanks to the vehicles' autonomous capabilities. The package has already been rolled out in other countries, beginning with Australia and Hong Kong in February 2017. Tesla partnered with Liberty Mutual to bring the package to the US. Accidents involving Tesla vehicles fell 40% following the implementation of the company's self-driving technology, according to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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http://uk.businessinsider.com/tesla-liberty-mutual-create-customize-insurance-package-2017-10?r=US&IR=T
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2017-10-23 06:50:14.043000
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Tesla has created a customized insurance package, InsureMyTesla, that is cheaper than traditional plans because it factors in the vehicles' Autopilot safety features and maintenance costs.
InsureMyTesla has been available in 20 countries, but Tesla just recently partnered with Liberty Mutual to make the plan available in the US.
InsureMyTesla shows how the insurance industry is bound for disruption as cars get safer with self-driving tech.
Tesla struck a deal with Liberty Mutual to create a customized insurance package — and the move shows how the electric automaker is intent on disrupting the insurance industry.
The new plan is called InsureMyTesla and was designed specifically for Tesla vehicles. Its benefits include replacing Teslas damaged beyond repair within one year. Tesla launched the package on October 13 in the US in all 50 states, but it already exists in 20 other countries, a company representative confirmed.
Electrek first reported on the news.
Tesla started quietly rolling out the InsureMyTesla program in February in Hong Kong and Australia. The electric car maker partners with different insurance companies across the globe to offer InsureMyTesla, which lowers overall insurance costs by factoring in the vehicles' Autopilot safety features and maintenance costs.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that insurance agencies should adjust their prices for Tesla vehicles because the cars come with Autopilot, the company's advanced driver-assistance feature.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that crash rates for Tesla vehicles have plummeted 40% since Autopilot was first installed. Electric vehicles also generally require less maintenance then traditional, gas-powered vehicles.
"If we find that the insurance providers are not matching the insurance proportionate to the risk of the car then if we need to we will in-source it," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in February.
Tesla's partnership with Liberty Mutual marks the first time the InsureMyTesla package has been available in the US. The US launch comes a few months after AAA said it would raise rates for Tesla owners after seeing a high frequency of claims among Model S and Model X owners.
AAA based its decision based on data provided by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an analysis that a Tesla spokesperson said was "severely flawed" at the time.
The deal with Liberty Mutual shows how US agencies are starting to realize that they must adjust their prices as cars get safer with advents in self-driving tech.
Insurers like Cincinnati Financial, Mercury General, and Travelers have noted in SEC filings that driverless cars could threaten their business models, according to a 2015 Bank of America and Merrill Lynch report.
The personal auto insurance sector could shrink to 40% of its current size within 25 years as cars become safer with autonomous tech, according to a report by the global accounting firm KPMG.
Tesla hopes to one day bundle the price of insurance and maintenance into the price of future vehicles.
"It takes into account not only the Autopilot safety features but also the maintenance cost of the car," Jon McNeill, Tesla's vice president of sales and services, has said of InsureMyTesla. "It’s our vision in the future we could offer a single price for the car, maintenance, and insurance."
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MicroSeismic develops real-time evaluation asset-modelling tech
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Completions evaluation provider MicroSeismic has released a real-time evaluation system, providing fracture models, dynamic SRV estimates, end of stage EUR and drainage estimates, and rapid stress analytics. The system will allow for quicker recovery and better rates of production. Real-time monitoring will improve operators' decision-making by tracking hydraulic stimulation effects on reservoirs in real time from any location.
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https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/digital-oilfield/10102017/microseismic-launches-real-time-completions-evaluation/
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2017-10-23 06:42:58.967000
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MicroSeismic Inc. has announced the release of real-time completions evaluation – on-the-spot fracture modelling, dynamic SRV estimation, end of stage EUR and drainage estimation, and rapid stress analysis.
These new real-time advances in microseismic monitoring will now give operators the opportunity to increase production rates and recovery factors.
“MicroSeismic’s Completions Evaluation workflow is rapidly gaining traction in the industry as our clients realise the benefits of this analysis. Bringing this analysis into the realm of real-time allows a more comprehensive picture of the frac and expected well performance while the treatment is underway. This kind of insight at the time of completion means better decisions, earlier, and that goes to our client’s bottom line,” said Dr. Michael Thornton, Chief Technology Officer, MicroSeismic, Inc.
Using Automatic Moment Tensor Inversion (Auto-MTI), the dynamics of the rock failure are captured in real-time as the fracture events are detected. The moment tensors provide a rich source of information about the geometry of fractures and the stresses that produced them. Combining the microseismic information with the real-time pump information enables a number of analyses:
Real-Time Fracture Modelling helps determine fracture size and orientation as data are acquired, allowing for a realistic real-time visualisation of the fracture treatment.
Real-Time Dynamic SRV Estimation models fracture intensity and induced permeability to allow for real-time analysis of SRV and Productive-SRV.
Real-Time End-of-stage EUR and Drainage Estimation generates permeability models and type curves for rapid assessment of induced drainage area and overall productivity.
Real-Time Rapid Stress Analysis allows for more detailed moment tensor data for rapid analysis of the interaction of the stress regime and the treatment.
Real-time microseismic monitoring has allowed operators to make better and more economic decisions as they see the impact of hydraulic stimulation on the reservoir in real time from anywhere in the world. Up until now, this analysis was limited to the location of the fracture, i.e. the microseismic event, leaving other factors such as the fracture orientation and size, location of proppant, and stage productivity to additional analysis after the job was completed. With Real-time Completions Evaluation operators now have the ability to change completions activities faster and with more confidence than ever before.
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Soaring obesity puts India on track to top world diabetes list
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India is on track to become the world's most diabetic country by 2025 as obesity soars. Despite being a nation where 40% of its children are underweight, rapid economic growth, cultural changes, huge socioeconomic shifts and a surge in new wealth has resulted in sedentary lifestyles and wider availability of processed foods. Increased obesity has been accompanied by an alarming rise in diabetes and hypertension cases.
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http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/10/health/i-on-india-childhood-obesity/
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2017-10-23 06:42:28.033000
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India, notorious for malnutrition, is now a land of obesity
— In the bedroom Gagan Juneja shares with his twin sister, a small unit above the window blasts chilled air with storm force. Outside, the temperature on this day in Delhi has soared to 108.
These days, middle-class families in India can afford air conditioning. It wasn't that way when I was growing up; much of the time, we didn't even have electricity when demand outpaced supply.
Our house was dark and hot, and as soon as the sun began its descent, I ran outside to play with the neighborhood girls. I liked kabbadi, a team sport that is physically exhausting.
Gagan tells me kids don't do that anymore. Why would they, he asks, when they have the comfort of AC and a variety of electronic entertainment at hand? Besides, it's too polluted -- Delhi generally vies with Beijing for top billing as the world's most polluted city.
"Everyone has a scooty," Gagan says, referring to a popular electric bike. "There is no walking at all. No outdoor activity at all."
Though they are twins, Gagan and his sister Muskan don't look alike except in one way: They are both overweight. They are part of a disturbing trend in my homeland: India is getting fatter by the day.
Like many of their peers, the 17-year-old Juneja twins have been struggling with body fat. Not only are their lives sedentary, but they also love to eat. And their mother, who by all accounts is a tremendous cook, loves to oblige.
They also eat out with their friends -- something I never did in my youth. Back then, snacking meant buying cheap Indian street food, which usually came in small portions and was made fresh.
I ask the Juneja siblings about their favorite restaurant foods. Gagan likes the rich Indian preparation of butter chicken and McDonald's chicken burgers. Muskan prefers Domino's cheese burst pizza. I think about a half page ad I saw on the front page of the Hindustan Times: Dunkin' Donuts touting its "Big Joy" burger.
"They are fattening foods," Muskan says, laughing. "That's why I love them."
The idea that my homeland has a weight problem is difficult for me to digest. India, after all, is notorious for its high malnutrition rates -- higher than even sub-Saharan Africa. But lately, it's also a place where obesity has skyrocketed into a national crisis.
I had noticed India's growing girth on recent trips home and wanted to know more. That's what brought me to the Juneja twins. And why I sought out one of India's leading experts in drastic weight-loss measures.
Dr. Pradeep Chowbey performs bariatric procedures on obese patients as young as 13.
From famine to obesity
Dr. Pradeep Chowbey's office, in a hospital not far from the Juneja home, is decorated with photographs of the Dalai Lama. One of his specialties is gall bladder surgery, and he performed it successfully on His Holiness a while ago. But that's not what keeps him occupied these days.
Chowbey stays busy because of India's obesity crisis.
Like some of India's other problems, obesity partly stems from the country leapfrogging generations in industrial development. American industrialization took more than a century; India is trying to catch up within a few decades.
I read a research paper in the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism that says: "For developing countries like India, morbid obesity has not yet become a public health priority."
"Why is this so?" the researchers ask. "Well, the reasons are still far from clear. Probably, India is, in our own eyes, still a country of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Yet, statistics suggest otherwise."
Chowbey tells me about a "disturbing" survey of 10th, 11th and 12th graders in public schools that found 33% of them were obese. Another study of 4,000 children in Delhi found 22% were overweight and 6% qualified as obese.
This, in a country where more than 40% of children are underweight, many to the point that their futures are compromised.
This peculiar problem affecting both ends of the nutritional spectrum is one reflection of India today, a nation that experienced rapid growth and with it, massive socioeconomic and cultural changes.
Fast food has become a staple at malls and shopping centers in Indian cities.
On the one hand, India remains the developing nation of my childhood still struggling to end poverty, illiteracy and disease.
On the other hand, India today is a fast-rising global power that's home to vast amounts of new wealth.
Childhood obesity is mainly a problem of modern India, teeming with American-style malls, fast food outlets and newfound luxuries like cars and air conditioning that have dramatically changed the lifestyles of families with money to spare.
Kids are far more sedentary than they used to be -- the pressure to study and do well in school is more intense than ever -- and whatever little spare time they have is spent these days on video games, mobile phones or Facebook.
The problem is so prevalent that there's even an Obesity Foundation of India -- which also blames the prevalence of television commercials promoting unhealthy foods and poor eating habits. It estimates children's consumption of sugary sodas has increased by 300% in the last two decades.
But obesity is not just affecting the urban well-to-do. Indian researchers have found it's also an issue in India's villages, where 3 out of 4 Indians still live.
Increased automation, better transportation and improved standards of living have resulted in less active lifestyles and access to processed foods. A study in the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism says the percentage of rural Indians who were overweight grew from 2% in 1989 to 17.1% in 2012.
More and more young people are putting on the pounds, and as a result, gyms and fitness centers are doing booming business, as are more radical paths to weight loss. Chowbey performs gastric bypasses and other bariatric procedures on desperate patients as young as 13.
In 2001, India had four or five bariatric surgery cases, Chowbey tells me. Last year, that number rose to 30,000.
Obesity has led to a host of other health woes growing at an alarming rate in India, including hypertension and diabetes. India is on track to own the unenviable title of diabetic capital of the world as soon as 2025 with more than 65 million Indians already suffering from the disease. Sadly, "diabesity" has become a common term in the Indian vocabulary.
Chowbey says he was shocked when he first discovered how widespread obesity had become, especially among young people. He warns that India will soon end up as not only the world's most populous nation but also its fattest.
"Obesity," he says, "is the mother and gives birth to so many children who are sinister for longevity. We have gone from under-nutrition to over-nutrition."
Twins Gagan and Muskan Juneja say their lifestyles have left them struggling with their weight.
Study, study, study
Back at the Juneja twins' home, Muskan walks into their bedroom carrying a tray full of aloo parathas, a type of flatbread stuffed with potatoes. Except today's meal is made with olive oil instead of ghee, the highly caloric, clarified butter used in many Punjabi dishes. It's part of a family effort to get fit.
Muskan went on a diet that allows her salads, soups and boiled eggs. Gagan, who is 5 feet 8, shot up to 222 pounds and began working out at a nearby gym. He normally works out around 9 p.m. but tells me he has not gone lately because of upcoming exams.
He guesses 80% of his friends are overweight.
By the time they get back from school on their scooty, eat lunch, take a siesta in the hottest part of the day, do their homework and study with tutors, it's almost 9 at night. Most of their day has been without physical activity.
I hear that a lot from Indian youth: There's intense pressure to "study, study, study." India lacks enough good schools for its massive population, and so from a very young age, kids are conditioned to study and excel in class. It was that way in my youth as well, except it's even more intense now.
Madhulika Sen, the principal of Tagore International School in Delhi, concedes Indian kids have an enormous amount of pressure on them. But she also blames parents and even the kids themselves for not recognizing the importance of physical health.
"There cannot be so much academic pressure that they can't take out half an hour, one hour, for exercise," she says. "The parents also find it very convenient -- when they see their child sitting with books ... or that the child is on the computer, because then they're less troubled by the child."
I leave Gagan and Muskan's house to visit Monika Mahna, a 39-year-old Delhi mom who decided she had to get proactive about her family's health.
She tells me they were all overweight until she decided to take charge of her life and hooked up with a personal trainer. She lost about 45 pounds, her husband traded his jelly belly for washboard abs and her eldest son, Sparsh, is 20 pounds lighter.
Sparsh, 17, says his parents inspired him to get fit. Monika's younger son, Mudit, 14, is still overweight.
"I am obese," he readily volunteers. "I eat a lot and play video games a lot."
He attends a well-known private school in Delhi where physical exercise is limited to only one hour a week.
Monika chimes in and says soon she will get after Mudit to lose weight.
"Indian mothers -- we love to stuff our kids. It's as though if you don't keep feeding your children, you don't love them. That's our culture."
I think back to my childhood. Our main social activity was lunch or dinner at a friend or relative's house. Food was a way to shower love. Women were judged by how well they fed their guests. And there was no saying "no" to seconds or thirds or leaving food on our plates -- not when so many people could not afford to eat in India.
But we also didn't have processed, high-fat foods in our diets. There was no McDonald's or KFC in India back then. We didn't even have television in my hometown of Kolkata until 1975.
Sparsh tells me KFC is his fast food of choice but that he only eats it now on his "cheat day." Otherwise, he watches what he puts in his mouth. Then, as his mother gets dinner ready, he goes off to study. His physics tutor has arrived.
Fitness expert Chirag Sethi describes India's weight problem as a dangerous epidemic.
Uniquely Indian
I met the Juneja and Mahna families through Chirag Sethi, a nutritionist and fitness expert who manages gyms and fitness programs in Delhi. He describes India's weight problem as a dangerous epidemic.
Sethi says kids like Gagan and Muskan just don't move enough. Middle class Indians live more sedentary lives than Americans and average only 4,000 steps a day. That's 6,000 fewer steps than my daily count here in Atlanta.
It saddens me to hear that Sethi often sees mothers encouraging their children to take elevators instead of stairs or grabbing a taxi or tuk-tuk to travel just half a mile.
And then there is an added problem of genetics. South Asians are more prone than others to convert excess food into body fat, says Chowbey, the bariatric surgeon. He calls it a "thrifty gene" that was helpful when food shortages and poverty meant starvation in India. But now, it's an enemy.
In the last few years, Sethi has seen an explosion of gyms and fitness centers in the Delhi area but he wanted to do more. He realized there was a dearth of fitness education and founded Classic Fitness Academy, which offers classes for trainers and nutritionists.
At one of his south Delhi gyms, I notice quite a few kids huffing and puffing on treadmills and stationary bikes. It was rare to see obese children when I attended school in India.
The few chubby children I knew were called "healthy." In my circles, being thin was considered "common" or lower class -- understandably so in a country that was then still reeling from famine.
Things are different in a poor nation. Having meat on your bones has always been a sign of status and prosperity in my homeland. It means you are rich enough to eat well.
That's what is uniquely Indian about the country's weight problem, Sethi tells me.
If things keep going the way they are, one day soon there might be more obese people in India than anywhere else on the planet.
"The attitudes and habits of the people need to change," Sethi says.
It's as though India is where America was three decades ago, before people started to count calories and get into fitness regimens, before nutritional information was mandatory on food labels and a collective consciousness formed around being healthy.
But even after all that, more than one-third of Americans are obese. So what does that bode for India and it's 1.2 billion people?
Sethi and I ponder that question as we sit down for lunch at a popular south Delhi restaurant known for parathas, the buttery Indian bread the Juneja twins love.
I look big-eyed at the plates of aromatic preparations and think: Good thing the gym is nearby.
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Snap plans to inject more programmatic ads within Snapchat shows
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Snap's attempts to sell ads during shows made by media partners are coming up short, prompting the owner of Snapchat to turn to programmatic ads to fill the gaps, according to several sources. One unnamed executive said Snap's inexperience at selling in-show ads combined with a lack of viewing figures to show how successful shows were, contributed to the company's difficulties. In addition, the social media site has struggled to find an appealing pricing structure for its ads. Snap is currently searching for a head of brand integration.
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https://digiday.com/media/snap-plans-to-introduce-programmatic-ads-within-snapchat-shows/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171023
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2017-10-23 06:31:13.403000
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Snap has told Snapchat shows partners that it plans to bring in more programmatic ads after struggling to fill space inside the programming.
According to three sources, including two media executives who have aired shows on Snapchat Discover and one ad buyer who has knowledge of Snap’s plans, Snap plans to inject more programmatic ads within Snapchat shows. Advertisers can already buy Snap Ads programmatically through the company’s ad manager, which gives advertisers the option to run ads inside Snapchat shows. However, during the first round of Snapchat shows, Snap was hesitant to run ads bought in the auction, according to the two media executives. This “depressed revenue dramatically,” said one source, which has led Snap to promise to open up the programmatic doors even more.
Currently, advertisers can make programmatic buys on Snap Ads — 10-second vertical video units — across the app’s public user stories, Snapchat-curated live stories and Discover publisher channels and Snapchat shows. Advertisers can make make these buys through Snap’s ads application programming interface partners such as 4C, Kenshoo and Videology. Advertisers can also use Snap’s self-serve platform, which the company launched in the summer.
For Snapchat shows, Snap has mostly sold the inventory directly. In some cases, Snap has worked with major media giants, including NBCUniversal and Viacom, to co-sell advertising within shows produced by those companies.
So far, these efforts have yielded mixed results. For instance, a review of the six shows available on Snapchat on the afternoon of Oct. 20 found that three of the six shows — CNN’s “The Update,” NBA’s “Versus” and E! News’ “The Rundown” — featured no commercials. Of the three shows that did — NBC’s “Stay Tuned,” Barstool Sports’ “5th Year” and B17 Entertainment’s “Nail the Look” — sponsors included Wendy’s, TD Bank and Tresemmé.
A new show from E!, “Face Forward,” premiered on Oct. 21 with Abercrombie & Fitch as a sponsor. (It’s E!’s third show on Snapchat, following “The Rundown” and “Ask Kylie.”)
Snapchat shows typically have three to four ad breaks within each episode.
One Snapchat shows partner said Snap, which was responsible for selling advertising within its program, had a difficult time filling inventory. The show was popular, too, with total views far exceeding 50 million, he said. For future editions of the show, the media partner is taking the lead on selling advertising, with Snap promising to use programmatic ads to fill any remaining space.
Another media executive said Snap has struggled to fill ad inventory because of two reasons: inexperience with selling this type of content and a lack of data to show advertisers how successful the program was.
When reached for comment, a Snap spokesperson did not provide additional details on Snap’s plans for programmatic advertising within Snapchat shows.
One of the issues media companies face in producing shows for Snapchat is that Snap is not fronting them any cash to make the content. The media partner is responsible for funding the show, after which they can make their money back through advertising — with Snap taking a 50 percent cut of all ad revenue.
That could be easier to justify to some of the bigger media companies, which can treat Snapchat as a marketing experiment, but might be a tougher for digital publishers that don’t have the same level of resources as an NBC, Turner or Viacom. But even one TV network executive said their network won’t make more shows for Snapchat if it “can’t make any money.”
Getting more revenue from Snapchat shows is a growing priority for Snap, which is also searching for a head of brand integration who can sell brand and product placements inside the programming.
One issue has been pricing. As Digiday previously reported, Snapchat has high price tags for series sponsorships. A second ad buyer told Digiday the price for a 33 percent share of voice on one show was $350,000. The price then dropped to less than $200,000 for a sponsorship of just one episode.
Like with Snap’s other advertising products, the company is struggling to find the sweet spot for pricing its premium products, especially considering how cheap the media can be in the auction, ad buyers said.
“It’s inevitable that they open up programmatic,” said the first ad buyer. “The shows don’t have enough scale to begin with. Programmatic definitely makes Snapchat a buy that advertisers can just plug in for their existing campaigns.”
Shareen Pathak contributed reporting.
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Redrow Annie Williams appointed head of sales, Chris Rorstad head of land
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House builder Redrow has appointed Annie Williams and Chris Rorstad to the senior team at its west country office. Williams is now head of sales, being promoted from area sales manager at Redrow. Rorstad has been promoted to head of land from his prior position as senior land manager at the company.
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https://www.insidermedia.com/insider/southwest/south-west-appointments-round-up85
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2017-10-23 06:10:18.347000
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South West Business Stephen Farrell
A round-up of appointments from across the South West. This week: Brewin Dolphin, Francis Clark Financial Planning, Grant Associates and more.
Wealth management firm Brewin Dolphin has promoted experienced financial planner Tom Miller to head of its office in Bristol. Miller has been with the firm since 2012 and has more than 11 years' experience in financial services, focusing on understanding individual client needs and helping to manage their wealth. He is a chartered financial planner and fellow of the personal finance society.
Francis Clark Financial Planning has added to its team with two key appointments at its Exeter office. Chartered Financial Planner Andy Hammond has joined the senior management team from Nottingham-based solicitors Nelsons, where he was head of investment management. Matt Tonkin, a para planner who previously worked with the Tilney Group, has also joined the Exeter office, boosting the firm's technical services capability.
Andrew Grant, founder and director of Bath-based landscape architects' practice Grant Associates, has been appointed chair of Bathscape Landscape Partnership. Grant will help shape the future strategy of the partnership, which aims to benefit Bath's unique landscape for people, communities and heritage.
House builder Redrow has made two appointments to the senior team of its West Country division. Annie Williams has been appointed head of sales having previously worked as area sales manager at Redrow. Previously senior land manager at Redrow, Chris Rorstad has been promoted to head of land.
Commercial property consultancy CBRE has completed a series of appointment at its Bristol office. The asset services team has been boosted with the arrival of surveyors Natasha Kitson and Emma Stanbridge, plus senior surveyor Tom Stanley and associate director Peter Dawe. Also joining in Bristol are Bruce Stone, senior building services engineer in the building consultancy, and James Graham, director, UK Development, who has joined from CBRE's Canary Wharf office. Liam Garwood joins as an estate manager in the portfolio services team.
Marlborough-headquartered cyber security firm Foregenix has recruited nine new staff, bringing its headcount to 94. In the UK, the new hires include Giuliano Fasto who takes up the role of penetration tester, information security consultant Maya Majed, sales executive Mike Parker, marketing assistant Jake Dennys, management accountant Patsy Lee, incident response source analysts Alex Constantinou and Jade Hopkins. Raymond Simpson is heading up the new Australian office as regional director and Reinhard Behrens has joined the South African office as an information security consultant.
Plymouth-based brand communications agency Fuel has appointed an affiliate marketing expert. Severiano Catindig-Stagg has joined the agency with four years' experience in the affiliate channel and was named 'Rising Star' at the 2016 Performance Marketing Awards for his work with brands such as La Redoute, Moo and Snapfish across multiple networks and territories.
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Land Registry turns to tech startups for incubator partnerships
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The UK Land Registry will partner with three proptech start-ups as part of its year-long Geovation incubator, aimed at improving property transactions. The partnership includes Orbital Witness, which uses artificial intelligence to help assess risk at the conveyancing stage; AskPorter, whose facilities management chatbot is powered by machine learning; and property management platform GetRentr. They will work alongside three geotech firms - Explaain, Safe & the City, and FlowX - to develop new technologies that will help position the UK as a land and property market world leader.
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http://www.cityam.com/274216/land-registrys-tapping-tech-startups-make-property-more?inf_contact_key=2b1a01966aebe6359e5555f85a4a671925243ab552d91b3c0b5693dc50a5904a
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2017-10-23 05:20:18.893000
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The Land Registry’s tapping tech startups to make property more digital with artificial intelligence and chatbots
The government department in charge of the country's property and land records is turning to startups for technological innovation.
Land Registry will work with three property technology, or proptech, startups as part of a new programme aimed at improving property transactions
A startup using artificial intelligence to help conveyancers asses risk, Orbital Witness, and another with a chatbot powered by machine learning to improve facilities management, AskPorter, will join the year-long Geovation incubator.
Read more: Licence to innovate: Nine new startups chosen for GCHQ's accelerator
GetRentr, a property management platform, will also join the scheme, first launched in 2015 by the country's mapping agency Ordnance Survey and this year expanding to proptech with Land Registry for the first time.
"Building more affordable homes is central to the government’s commitment to creating an economy that works for everyone and the partnership between Land Registry and Ordnance Survey is a new and exciting chapter of this," said business minister Lord Prior.
"The Geovation programme encourages and supports the growing number of new startups driving innovation in the housing sector. Geovation is now supporting six new proptech and geotech companies to develop new technologies to propel the UK towards becoming a global leader in the land and property market."
A further three startups will join the latest cohort on the mapping technology, or geotech, side: FlowX, a congestion prediction tool, Safe & the City, an app which identifies the safest routes home, and Explaain, a media tool working on contextual alerts and reminder based on location.
Land Registry set out plans over the summer to make itself more digital, including exploring the used of blockchain and artificial intelligence technology
Read more: UK fintech startups are on track for a record-breaking year of investment
"Digitisation will allow us to provide our customers – citizens, firms, government, lawyers and conveyancers, and financial institutions – with information and data which are renowned for their accuracy and usefulness," said the body's chair Michael Mire in its annual report.
"Land Registry’s strategy is to make its part in developing, buying and selling land and property, and collateralising mortgages and loans to provide finance, almost totally frictionless."
By the end of the year it's aiming to get a new tool up and running that will allow mortgages deeds to be signed online.
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UK seeks to expedite home-buying process with ban on outbidding
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The UK government will attempt to expedite the home-buying process by banning underhanded practices such as "gazumping", where rival buyers can outbid people who have already placed an offer on a property. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid plans to make the property process “cheaper, faster and less stressful”. The government is also contemplating offering "lock-in agreements" to stop purchases falling through, a problem that afflicts 25% of all sales.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/home-sajid-javid-housing-crisis-government-gazumping-communities-a8012871.html
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2017-10-23 04:39:31.470000
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Ministers will launch a probe into unscrupulous home-buying practices where people who have already put down an offer on a property can be outbid by rival buyers.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has called for views on the custom – known as gazumping – as part of wider plans to make buying and selling a home “cheaper, faster and less stressful”.
The consultation will also consider boosting confidence in the housing chain through "lock-in agreements" to prevent purchases falling through, as official figures show a quarter of sales collapse each year.
Recommended More than a million London housebuyers gazumped
It comes amid growing speculation that housing will form a key plank of next month’s Budget as Philip Hammond has been urged by Tory colleagues to make a bold offer to voters.
The Chancellor is said to be considering moves to tackle the housing crisis by allowing the Government to free up public land and directly commissioning housebuilders, according to The Sun.
Mr Javid has been an outspoken critic of his party’s record on housebuilding, telling the Tory conference that its “failure on housing” had opened the door for Jeremy Corbyn.
Outlining the plans, he said: “We want to help everyone have a good quality home they can afford, and improving the process of buying and selling is part of delivering that.
The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Show all 10 1 / 10 The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Outer Hebrides The happiest places to live in Britain according to the latest well-being analysis released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Rex/Patrick Dieudonne / Robert Harding The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Mid and East Antrim The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Newark and Sherwood The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Purbeck The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Orkney Islands Chmee2/Creative Commons The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Winchester Wikipedia The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Fylde The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Antrim and Newtownabbey The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Lichfield The top 10 happiest places to live in Britain Fermanagh Rex
“Buying a home is one of life’s largest investments, so if it goes wrong it can be costly. That’s why we’re determined to take action to make the process cheaper, faster and less stressful.
“This can help save people money and time so they can focus on what matters – finding their dream home.”
Under the plans, ministers will also examine how digital solutions could speed up the process, and encourage buyers and sellers to gather more information in advance so homes are “sale ready”.
A new survey showed 69 per cent of sellers and 62 per cent of buyers report stress and worry due to delays in the process, while half of sellers were concerned about buyers changing their minds after making an offer.
Shadow Housing Secretary John Healey condemned the “feeble proposals” and insisted that ministers do not understand the scale of the problems facing buyers.
“This smacks of a political diversion from the hard facts of the Tories’ housing record,” he said.
Mr Healey added: “Home ownership is at a 30-year low and the number of younger homeowners is in freefall, but ministers can only come up with a ‘call for evidence’ on improving the home-buying process.
“This is a government out of touch and out of ideas. Conservatives know housing was a big part of why they did so badly at the election, but after seven years of failure, ministers still have no plan to fix the housing crisis.”
Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products and services, said: “The current home buying process is outdated and flawed.
“The Government must put consumers first, ensuring that estate agents deliver a better service for both home-buyers and sellers and that the conveyancing process is simplified.”
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US lowers social cost of carbon from $51 to $1
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The social cost of carbon dioxide, a measure of the environmental impact of one tonne of CO2 emissions in terms of future financial costs, has been lowered by the US Environmental Protection Agency from $51 to $1. The pricing is used by federal agencies to assess the climate impact of regulation. The downgrade comes as part of the agency’s attempt to repeal President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Some critics have claimed the new value overlooks the cost to future generations and restricts the scope of damages assessed. Other analysts have argued the previous estimate was too high.
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https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/article.aspx?CDID=A-42286458-11818&KPLT=4&utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=f8450c098f-The_Download&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-f8450c098f-154403165
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2017-10-22 23:00:00
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UK regulators demand end of child-targeted online gambling ads
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Online gambling operators have been told to remove games featuring characters designed to appeal to children, in a letter signed by UK regulators the Gambling Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority. Experts have warned that the games, some of which are free, could result in children developing a gambling habit. The letter, sent on Friday to over 450 operators including Bet365 and William Hill, warned that sanctions were possible if companies failed to comply with the Committee of Advertising Practice’s social responsibility code. Approximately 450,000 children are believed to gamble each week in England and Wales.
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/22/child-gambling-remove-unacceptable-online-ads-regulators-demand
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2017-10-21 22:00:00
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Regulators have launched a crackdown on child gambling by demanding online gambling sites remove “unacceptable” adverts featuring cartoon characters likely to appeal to children.
The Gambling Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority are among the signatories to a letter sent to online gambling operators that orders them to remove games promoted with characters with names such as Fluffy Favourites and Pirate Princess. Some of the games are free to play, which experts say presents a risk of children developing a gambling habit.
The letter, which was sent to more than 450 operators including William Hill and Bet365 on Friday, states: “We are writing to advise you to amend or remove immediately any ads on your website or in third party media that are likely to appeal particularly to people aged 17 or younger … and generally available to view.
“This relates particularly to freely accessible ads for play-for-free and play-for-money games and includes all graphics and images displayed on a website or in third party media.
“The use of particular colours, cartoons and comic book images, animals, child and youth-orientated references and names of games such as Piggy Payout, Fluffy Favourites, Pirate Princess and Jack and the Beanstalk are likely, alone or in combination, to enhance appeal to under-18s.”
The regulators said such adverts were unacceptable. The letter, also signed by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Remote Gambling Association, said sanctions were possible if sites failed to comply with the CAP code, which requires marketing communications for gambling to be socially responsible.
Around 450,000 children are thought to gamble in England and Wales every week.
The CAP code states that marketing communications should protect children, young people and others vulnerable to gambling from being harmed or exploited. It forbids marketing for gambling “likely to be of particular appeal to children or young persons, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture”.
Simon Blackburn, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: “Councils have previously called for greater restrictions on gambling advertising to protect children and we are pleased to see the steps taken by the Gambling Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority... It is vital our children and young people are kept safe and protected from the problems gambling can cause.”
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Solar securitisations to pass $1bn for first time this year
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The value of securitisations of US solar loans, leases and power-purchase agreements will pass $1bn this year for the first time if a $308m deal closes as expected this month. The numbers are growing each year because it gets easier for companies to carry out the transactions once the first one has been completed, according to GTM Research analyst Allison Mond. There are more loans available for securitisation because, as prices have fallen, more customers have been buying their solar systems, and third-party ownership has declined.
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https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-securitizations-expected-to-pass-1-billion-in-2017#gs.15KKzhg
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2017-10-20 15:40:08.037000
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UPDATE: On October 30, Mosaic announced the close of its second term securitization of residential solar loans -- which officially breaks the $1 billion milestone for asset-backed securitizations this year. With $307.5 million in bonds sold across four tranches, this marks the largest solar securitization to date.
The company reports the transaction was met with strong investor demand, generating more than $1.7 billion in investor orders. The deal was ultimately placed with 29 institutional investors based in the U.S. and Europe.
Solar loans are gaining market share as more consumers look to own, rather than lease, their solar systems. Mosaic has funded more than $1.3 billion in solar loans since the company launched in 2012, and expects to be a frequent issuer in the securitization market going forward.
"We are thrilled with the tremendous interest in this deal and what it means for the solar industry," said Billy Parish, co-founder and CEO of Mosaic.
This story has been updated to reflect the latest news.
***
2017 has set a record for solar securitizations, after several new players entered the field.
The combined asset-backed securitizations (ABS) for solar loans, leases and power-purchase agreements (PPAs) broke the $1 billion mark this year, following the close of a record-setting offering from Mosaic in late October. Solar financiers are demonstrating new levels of market interest in these products, which free up capital for new solar loans and leases.
This level of solar ABS activity surpasses all previous years, and there's reason to believe the numbers will continue to grow next year, said GTM Research solar analyst Allison Mond.
"The first ABS has a lot of procedural hurdles to overcome, so it can be a really time-intensive process," she said. "It’s a more streamlined process to securitize for a second or third time. Once a company has invested in doing it once, it makes sense for them to continue securitizing different assets as a way to raise capital."
Here's the year's tally so far:
SolarCity: $185 million (loans) in January
Mosaic: $139 million (loans) in February
Sunnova $255 million (leases and PPAs) in April
Dividend Finance: $129 (loans) in October
Mosaic: $308 million (loans) in October
This list doesn't include property-assessed clean energy securitizations that contain solar along with other types of assets.
SolarCity kicked off solar securitization with a $54 million lease and PPA offering in 2013 (note how the average deal size has increased since then). It conducted the first solar loan securitization in 2016. SolarCity no longer offers its own loans, so this year's securitization may be the company's last foray into this market, but it still offers leases.
Loan provider Mosaic has had an active year. Its $139 million securitization in February, comprising nearly 6,500 installations, was oversubscribed, indicating ample market demand. The company followed up with an agreement in September to sell $300 million of loans to Goldman Sachs, and closed a second oversubscribed securitization this month.
$308 million is now the number to beat for the title of largest solar loan securitization.
Residential financier Sunnova completed its first ABS in April, as part of a larger $615 million funding raise.
Dividend Finance focuses on servicing the long-tail installers, including newer and less established companies, Mond said. The company provides rigorous training to ensure quality among its installer partners. The October deal marked its first securitization.
Dividend saw growth in market share and loan volume this year. It captured 9 percent of solar loan market share, ranking fourth in that segment for the first half of 2017, according to GTM Research data. Mosaic takes the top spot, with 45 percent market share.
The increase in solar loan securitizations reflects the growing share of customer-owned systems relative to third-party owned. After a period of third-party-owned dominance in the market, the tables turned in Q4 2016, and now more customers buy their own systems.
Loans became more attainable as system prices fell and active loan providers proliferated. As financiers complete more loans, they gain a pool of assets they can sell to increase their liquidity and offer even more loans.
"It's too much paperwork to do a securitization for just a couple of megawatts," Mond said. "Now that solar lending is as popular as it is, it's possible to do this sort of financing."
Both the trend toward customer ownership and the growth of the solar lending community show little sign of stopping. That means that next year could be another big one for solar securitizations.
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Researchers should 'worry' about automation: Shell insights chief
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Market researchers should worry about the rise of automation in their industry, according to the head of global customer insights at Shell. James Johnson said those in traditional market research roles should be "very worried", but highlighted how the trend could be "empowering" if handled correctly. He described how at Shell his team is using the time freed up by automation to move from merely providing data to doing more strategic thinking.
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https://www.research-live.com/article/news/shell-insights-head-researchers-should-be-worried-by-automation/id/5029452
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2017-10-20 15:02:37.737000
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UK – Market research professionals should be worried about automation, according to Shell’s global customer insights head.
Speaking on a panel at Foresight Factory’s Trending 2018 conference in London on Thursday ( 19 October), James Johnstone, head of global customer insights at the energy company, said market researchers ought to be concerned by automation.
“If I’m honest I think some people should be really worried about it [automation] in consumer insights. People who sit in the more traditional market research piece – I think they should be very worried.”
He added that Shell is making steps in the area and that automating some processes is “empowering” for the insights division, enabling it to play a greater strategic role within the company.
“What we’re finding is we’re spending less of our time doing traditional project management and data provision, etc. We’re freeing up more of our time to do the strategic thinking piece that adds value within the business and elevates the insights function from a data provider to actually giving strategic direction.”
Johnstone also discussed Shell’s approach to the challenge of drawing insights from “a massive amount of data”, saying that the brand is changing its offer around the services available in petrol stations, such as new food and beverage options, as a result of consumers spending more time there.
“We’re doing a lot of investment in consumer needs beyond refuelling. People will always keep moving – how they do that might be different. Gone are the days when it’s a distress purchase of a sandwich and a sugary drink in a petrol station."
He added: "It’s about looking at how you can fill those consumer needs, beyond the last 100 years when you’ve traditionally only been able to offer one thing. Now we need to broaden that appeal of what we’re offering, and that’s an opportunity for us. People talk about electric cars, and it’s great, but the fastest recharge takes 20 minutes, so you are going to spend 20 minutes somewhere to do that. So what else can you have there? It’s about that consumer need and demand on their time and how you can fulfil that.”
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US thin film solar manufacturer Stion to close
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US manufacturer Stion, which produced thin-film solar PV modules, is to close its production facility in Mississippi. The company began production of the modules in 2012 using copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), and two years ago placed an order for tools to double capacity at the plant. However, a fall in the price of silicon has made most thin-film products uncompetitive, with global competition from Asian manufacturers adding to pressure on US firms. Stion is seeking a buyer for the plant, with the fate of its 200 workers unclear.
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https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/17/u-s-thin-film-pv-maker-stion-to-discontinue-operations/
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2017-10-20 13:40:17.437000
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In addition to the 26 module makers which the U.S. International Trade Commission reports quit U.S. manufacturing over the last five years, you can add one more name: Stion.
To be clear, Stion was a bit of a maverick to begin with. The company began commercial-scale production of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar PV modules in late 2012, at a time when most thin film companies were being wiped out by low-cost crystalline silicon. And with most manufacturing moving to Asia, Stion’s presence as a solar manufacturer in the Deep South was also unusual.
However, this has all come to an end. Stion is now planning to sell off its Mississippi manufacturing facility and discontinue operations, only months before the potential implementation of trade action which could raise prices in the U.S. module market. It is unknown if the company will succeed in selling the factory as a turnkey facility, as it plans to, or whether it will have to sell its tools individually. Either way the $226 million in funding which it has raised may be largely up in smoke.
It is also unclear when the company’s estimated 200 workers will be laid off.
This news comes only two years after Stion placed a tool order which would have doubled the capacity at its Mississippi factory, which is estimated between 60 and 75 MW. Stion blames the collapse in module prices which began last summer for its inability to continue, citing “intense, non-market competition from foreign solar panel manufacturers, especially those based in China and proxy countries.”
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However, others have different takes. SolarWakeup’s Yann Brandt notes that many thin film makers got into the business when polysilicon prices were high, but that the fall in silicon prices, including in late 2011, made most thin film products uncompetitive.
There is indeed a graveyard of former thin film makers. Outside of companies that manufacture and sell primarily within China, First Solar and Solar Frontier the only companies which can produce more than 1 gigawatt of thin film PV modules annually.
And while the trade actions proposed by petitioners in the Section 201 case would definitely raise prices in the U.S. market, thin film solar is outside the scope of the case. This means that Stion would still have to compete globally with thin film makers like First Solar, which has long been one of the lowest-cost producers and in recent years has increased efficiencies dramatically.
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Florence researchers say graphene can boost perovskite cells
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Italian scientists have published research suggesting that introducing graphene to perovskite solar cells could significantly improve their performance. Previous research had used graphene oxide on the cells, but the team from the University of Florence claim to be the first to have adopted optical measurements to investigate the positive effects. They found the introduction of graphene oxide doped with lithium atoms significantly improved the conversion efficiency of the cells.
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https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/19/italian-researchers-use-graphene-oxide-to-increase-efficiency-of-perovskite-cells/
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2017-10-20 13:36:23.170000
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A research team from the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Italy’s University of Florence has published a study on the international scientific review Advanced Energy Materials, that points out graphene oxide as a material that could significantly improve the efficiency of perovskite solar cells.
The researchers have shown, in particular, how the introduction of graphene and graphene oxide doped with lithium atoms (GO-Li) into a perovskite-based cell may increase its conversion efficiency, as both the carrier recombination dynamics and the defect density of the perovskite are considerably improved.
“Other research”, said the research coordinator Francesco Biccari, “had already used graphene oxide on perovskite cells, but we were the first that adopted optical measurements to investigate the positive effects of this use. The result is important not only for the increased efficiency achieved but also because the same technique can be experienced in other materials. Until now experiments have been carried out on perovskites consisting of an organic-inorganic hybrid compound, the organic part of which unfortunately degrades very rapidly in the presence of moisture. The upcoming future scenario is the use of graphene and graphene oxide on completely inorganic perovskite cells: this will allow new improvements and these new technologies will be closer to commercial production.”
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The scientists used graphene doped mesoporous TiO 2 (G+mTiO 2 ) with the addition of a lithium-neutralized graphene oxide (GO-Li) interlayer as ETL. They found that the carrier collection efficiency is increased by about a factor two with respect to standard mTiO 2 .
“Taking advantage of the absorption coefficient dispersion, the sensitized methylammonium lead iodide (MAPI) layer morphology is probed, along the thickness, finding that the MAPI embedded in the ETL composed by G+mTiO 2 plus GO-Li brings to a very good crystalline quality of the MAPI layer with a trap density about one order of magnitude lower than that found with the other ETLs,” the researchers said.
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Saudi team researches silicon alternatives in heterojunction cells
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Scientists in Saudi Arabia have published research into alternatives to silicon for producing heterojunction solar cells. The team from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has been investigating ways to avoid using vertical stacking configurations, which are complex to produce and risk contamination and defects. The lateral process they developed produced devices with conversion ratios greater than equivalent devices when exposed to simulated sunlight.
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https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/19/kaust-researchers-look-into-alternative-semiconductors/
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2017-10-20 13:31:32.567000
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Researchers at KAUST have published research into new heterojunction based configurations involving graphene, tungsten diselenide (WSe2) and Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2).
The team worked on alternatives to vertical stacking configurations, which while allowing for the creation of ultra-thin PV devices, also require highly complex steps and are hampered by defects and contamination in the processes.
“Devices obtained using these [vertical stacking] transfer techniques are usually unstable and vary from sample to sample,” says lead researcher Meng-Lin Tsai. Tsai added that contaminants during the transfer process can affect device qualiry, and that electronic properties prove difficult to control using vertical stacking techniques.
Aiming to solve these issues, Tsai’s team developed a lateral heterojunction monolayer of WSe2-MoS2, by consecutively depositing each material onto a sapphire substrate, and then transferring onto a silicon based surface to fabricate a PV device.
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Under a high-resolution microscope, the p-n junction showed clear separation between the two materials, with no discernible height difference. “Our structures are cleaner and more ideal than vertically stacked assemblies, explains Tsai, “because we didn’t need the multi-step transfer procedure.”
Research published in the journal Advanced Materials states that the devices achieved conversion efficiencies of 2.56% under simulated sunlight, and that this efficiency was reduced just 5% with angles of incidence up to 75°. Without offering further information, KAUST states that these efficiencies are greater than those of equivalent devices using a vertically stacked configuration.
Tsai and his team are convinced of the benefit of lateral heterojunction configurations in solar cells, and plans to continue research in this area. “We are trying to understand the underlying kinetics and thermodynamics of these heterojunctions,” says Tsai, “to design more efficient cells.”
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Virtual net metering in Greece under threat from EU rules
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Greece's fledgling virtual net metering market could be halted by a proposal by the German representative to the European Council that changes the definition of a self-generator so that it only applies to electricity generated in the “direct vicinity of the place of consumption”. A Greenpeace-backed 10 kW rooftop solar installation on the roof of a school in Thessaloniki sells electricity into the grid but the credits are claimed by a hostel for victims of domestic violence that is located far from the school. A similar scheme including a 15 kW solar project in Larissa is scheduled for completion in November.
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https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/19/virtual-net-metering-in-greece-at-risk-from-eu-reform/
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2017-10-20 13:27:54.927000
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While virtual net metering installations in Europe have made only a minor contribution to the overall growth of distributed generation (DG) solar, a couple of schemes in Greece have had a very positive impact on the communities that have been able to benefit from them.
However, a new challenge by the European Council to EU rules that currently allow virtual net metering threatens to outlaw it, putting in jeopardy a couple of Greenpeace-backed schemes that have helped a women’s and children’s hospital claim net metering credits.
Established earlier this year, Greece’s flagship virtual net metering project was a 10 kW rooftop array in Thessaloniki – funded by Greenpeace Greece – that was installed at a school in the city. However, while the solar power generated was fed as normal into the grid, the amount of electricity metered was claimed by the hostel. The scheme was the culmination of virtual net metering provisions that allow farmers and specific legal entities that undertake work of public value (such as schools, hospitals, councils etc) to install PV arrays far from the point(s) of electrical consumption.
Following this pilot scheme is a second project by Greenpeace Greece in Larissa. Scheduled for completion in November, a 15 kW solar system will be installed at a Larissa secondary school, with the saving distributed throughout the community and credited to a building that houses a day-care center for small children.
However, such projects could soon fall foul of proposed alterations to self-consumption laws laid out by the European Commission (EC). In documents passed to pv magazine by Greenpeace, it is argued by the German representative to the European Council that the definition of a self-generator should change, and can only be applicable for the production of electricity generated in the “direct vicinity of the place of consumption”.
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The European Commission’s proposals for reform to the EU energy system gives general support to individuals, communities and cooperatives keen on generating their own renewable energy. The problem is that there are no specific rules supporting virtual net metering, meaning that such a loophole could well be closed if the European Council enacts the proposal put forward by Germany.
The latest European Council literature on this now defines a renewable self-consumer as those that “consume or sell renewable electricity which is generated within the same site where it was consumed or sold” – an amendment to the previous wording, and a direct nod to the proposals outlined by the German representative.
According to Greenpeace, these proposals would scrap virtual net metering just as it is getting off the ground. “All Europeans should be able to produce their own renewable energy and be rewarded with a fair price,” said Greenpeace EU energy campaigner Sebastian Mang. “To resist the innovative inclusion of citizens in the energy system, for the benefit of dirty energy corporations, is shameful. EU rules on energy must put renewable energy in the hands of the many, not dirty energy in the hands of the few.
“These municipalities in Greece have shown that renewables can support vulnerable citizens and alleviate energy poverty. For the EU to pull the rug out from under these disadvantaged communities would be a disgrace.”
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Engie acquires US lease-to-own solar company Fenix International
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Engie is to acquire California-based small-scale rooftop solar firm Fenix International for an undisclosed sum. Fenix has brought solar power to more than 900,000 people in East Africa, and has 140,000 customers for its ReadyPay platform, enabling them to pay for their rooftop systems in instalments. More than 600 million people lack electricity across Africa. The deal follows Engie's acquisition of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) firm Sungevity and a share of Chinese PV developer Unisun.
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https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/19/engie-to-acquire-lease-to-own-solar-company-fenix-international/
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2017-10-20 13:21:49.133000
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ENGIE and Fenix International have agreed a transaction for ENGIE to acquire 100% of the latter, which specializes in selling small, off-grid rooftop systems to customers in East African nations, primarily in Uganda.
Financial terms of the transaction have not been revealed. According to ENGIE, Fenix has 350 employees, and more than 140,000 customers for its ReadyPay platform, which allows users to gradually build towards ownership of their rooftop system whilst paying for the power generated and building up a credit score.
“Fenix will be the agile growth engine for ENGIE’S SHS business in Africa and enable us to become a leading profitable off-grid energy services company on the continent, reaching millions of customers by 2020, stated Bruno Bensasson, CEO of ENGIE Africa. “We do believe that universal access is now reachable in a foreseeable future by the combination of national grid extensions, local microgrids and solar home systems.”
Across the African Continent, more than 600 million still lack access to electricity. However, new technologies and business models such as the one operated by Fenix make rooftop solar a viable option for many.
“To date, Fenix has delivered solar power to over 900,000 people in East Africa. By joining forces with ENGIE we will greatly accelerate the path to our vision,” said Lyndsay Handler, Fenix International CEO. “We will continue to relentlessly pursue an exceptional customer experience in all we do, and together we will make universal access to modern energy a reality.”
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The acquisition transaction now awaits approval from the relevant regulatory bodies.
One of the world’s largest energy companies traditionally active in the nuclear and natural gas sectors, ENGIE now has a stated aim to become the ‘leader of this new energy world’, and has made some big moves into the renewables sector in recent years. This takeover of Fenix International is the latest in a series of solar acquistions including The European business of bankrupt U.S. rooftop PV company Sungevity and a stake in Chinese PV developer Unisun.
Reports from earlier this year also stated that ENGIE is looking to acquire German renewable energy company Innogy, though no deal has yet been announced.
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CIP raises £250m to refinance UK straw biomass plants
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Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has secured £250m ($330m) in debt refinancing from investors including Investec, Aviva Investors and Royal Bank of Scotland, for its Briggs and Snetterton variable fuel biomass facilities. The operational sites have a combined capacity of 84 MW, and have gained 1.5 and 1.4 Renewable Obligation Certificates respectively.
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https://renewablesnow.com/news/cip-closes-gbp-250m-refinancing-of-uk-biomass-plants-587928/?utm_source=Renewables+Now_subscribers+and+newsletter&utm_campaign=5d0b84a013-Renewables_Now_The_Daily_Newsletter_15_06_15_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_990771841c-5d0b84a013-259643785
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2017-10-20 13:08:55.993000
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Fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners K/S (CIP) announced on Thursday it has concluded a GBP-250-million (USD330m/EUR 279m) refinancing of its interest in two straw-fired biomass power plants in the UK.
Royal Bank of Scotland, Investec, Aviva Investors and “one other major institutional investor” have provided senior debt to refinance the initial investment made by the fund Copenhagen Infrastructure I K/S (CI I) for the development and construction of the Briggs and Snetterton facilities. The fund has kept its ownership interest in the two plants with a combined capacity of 84 MW, which are now operational.
The 40-MW Briggs facility was built in Lincolnshire and started operations in January 2016, receiving 1.5 Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs). On the other hand, Snetterton has a capacity of 44 MW and has been operating at a site in Norfolk, East Anglia since April 2017. It is accredited for 1.4 ROCs.
Both facilities are capable of running on variable fuel mixes, co-firing straw with rape, miscanthus and woodchips. They are owned by a joint venture between Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (BWSC), CIP and PensionDanmark.
(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.318/EUR 1.116)
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Dutch electric scooter start-up Bolt Mobility raises €3m
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Three-year-old Dutch start-up Bolt Mobility has moved a step closer to launching its connected scooter next year, after it raised €3m ($3.5m). The fundraising campaign took in more than 2,000 investors across the UK and Netherlands, and positions the firm at the forefront of a market set to be worth £30bn ($39.5bn) annually. Bolt Mobility's AppScooter, which comes with 4G internet and smartphone connectivity, has a single-charge range of 245 miles, and CEO Bart Jacobsz Rosier aims to deliver more than 250,000 by 2020.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/indyventure/bolt-mobility-funding-dutch-scooter-startup-investment-a8007336.html
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2017-10-20 13:01:29.897000
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Dutch electric scooter startup, Bolt Mobility, has secured €3m (£2.2m) in a fundraising campaign led by more than 2,000 investors from the UK and the Netherlands.
Bolt Mobility plans to use the funds to bring the AppScooter, an electric scooter with 4G internet connection and smartphone connectivity, to the market in 2018.
The startup, which was founded in 2014, says the AppScooter can travel up to 245 miles (400km) on a single charge and is able to accelerate from 0 to 25 miles per hour in just over three seconds.
The AppScooter can also send automated text responses and answer phone calls from its handlebars and touchscreen.
“It’s exciting to see so much support from the UK market,” said co-founder and chief executive Bart Jacobsz Rosier.
“We aim to have delivered more than a quarter million scooters to customers by 2020. We are truly excited to be at the forefront of a lucrative market worth over £30bn a year”.
Edwin Berkhout, a Dutch venture capitalist and investor in Bolt, said: “Bolt Mobility’s approach is revolutionary, as our scooters will be powered by clean, renewable [electricity] and therefore potentially game changing on a global scale”.
As interest in electric cars grows, a number of European cities and countries have introduced legislation to tackle pollution from smaller-sized vehicles.
From January 2018, Amsterdam will ban scooters made before 2011, while the Mayor of Rome has banned drivers from using scooters on Sundays.
The UK Government announced in September that it will ban new diesel and petrol cars by 2040.
It is not yet clear whether they will expand the legislation to scooters and motorbikes, which emit a thousand times more toxic chemicals than larger vehicles, according to a study from the University of Cambridge.
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Egypt embraces renewable-energy auctions
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The Egyptian government will begin using auctions to attract investment into its renewable-energy sector, once the second phase of its feed-in-tariff scheme ends, according to the country's Minister of Electricity, Mohamed Shaker. After suffering from a peak-load energy deficit of 25% in 2014, the country hasn't suffered from a blackout since June 2015, he said. By 2025, more than 37% of Egypt's power will come from renewable resources, he said.
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https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/28109/Electricity-Ministry-will-shift-to-auctions-to-encourage-investment
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2017-10-20 12:49:29.823000
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Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker giving a presentation during BEBA event- Egypt Today photo
CAIRO – 17 October 2017: The Egyptian government will auction renewable energy plants after the end of the second phase of the feed-in-tariff (FiT) scheme, Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker said during an event organized by the British Egyptian Business Association (BEBA).
Power plants will be built with the help of private sectors. "We have many proposals to build plants under the BOO (build, own, operate) system... but we prefer to use auctions later on," Shaker said.
Reviewing progress made so far in the FiT scheme, Shaker said: "The first round wasn't successful, but the second one is more successful as we signed a number of 25 power purchase agreements (PPA) so far."
By 2025, around 37.2 percent of Egypt's power will be generated from renewable energy resources, Shaker noted.
The 14,400MW of capacity expected from three Siemens-led power plants in the New Administrative Capital, Beni Suef and Burullus, prompted the Ministry to delay implementation of projects.
"BOO projects in Ayoun Mousa, Luxor and Qena were shifted to 2022-2027 plan for example," the minister said.
As for the Dabaa nuclear plant, Shaker said contracts will be signed by the end of 2017, adding that the contracts will be followed by several studies.
"The first reactor of Dabaa is expected to be ready after eight years, the second reactor a year after that and the third and fourth reactors to be completed a year later," Shaker said.
The agreement with the Russian developer of the project, state-owned Rosatom, includes a 13-year grace period. "This means that the project will start operations and sell power before the end of the grace period," he said.
Shaker stressed that the electricity sector has seen improvements over the past three years. "In 2014, Egypt was suffering from severe power outages as there was a deficit of 25 percent of the peak load, and around 6,000MW of deficit," he said; highlighting that the country didn't suffer from power blackouts since June 2015 until now.
To reach that, Shaker said the ministry conducted maintenance operations for 70 percent of power plants, which resulted in generating 1,961MW of electricity.
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Indian wind power installations slumped 68% in H1
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Indian wind power installations fell to 421 MW in the first half of 2017 from 1,305 MW in the year earlier period. Industry insiders predicted full-year installations of no more than 1,200 MW, well short of the record 5,400 MW achieved in 2016/17. The decline is due to a shift from fixed tariffs set by state governments to competitive auctions carried out by the central government, which have pushed prices down to as low as INR2.64/kWh, compared with the lowest feed-in tariff of INR4.16/kWh in Tamil Nadu. State governments are yet to run their own auctions.
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http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/wind-power-installations-witness-steep-fall-in-h1-this-year/article9912481.ece
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2017-10-20 12:40:27.807000
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Installations of new wind power capacity in the first half worked out to 421 MW, compared with 1,305 MW in the corresponding period of last year, a trend that indicates that wind power capacity addition in the current year is likely to be far less than the record 5,400 MW achieved in 2016-17.
Wind industry insiders say they would consider themselves lucky if fresh installations this year would cross 1,200 MW.
With this, India has wind power machines of a total capacity of 32,700 MW.
Fresh capacity additions are falling because earlier this year, the central government brought in capacity auctions through a bidding process, where the power producer who quotes the least price would get to sign long term power purchase agreements.
Earlier, wind energy companies (developers) used to sell power to the various electricity distribution companies (discoms) at fixed tariffs determined by the respective state electricity regulatory commissions.
The competitive bidding had the effect of hammering down the tariffs, and in the first auctions that were concluded in February, threw up a surprise tariff of Rs 3.46 a kWhr. Comparatively, the least fixed tariff was Rs 4.16 in Tamil Nadu.
State governments, seeing that competitive bidding brings down the tariffs, have stopped signing power purchase agreements at fixed tariffs (aka ‘feed-in tariff’). But they are also not ready to follow the example of the central government and bring in their own competitive bidding programmes. With the buyers of the power not being ready to sign purchase agreements, the market for wind power has completely disappeared. Hence 421 MW in the first six months of the current year.
Meanwhile, the central government also came out with its second round of bidding, which was concluded earlier this month. The tariff discovered was yet another record low—Rs 2.64 a kWhr. And, the government has been dropping hints that there would be more capacity put on the auction block, perhaps as much as 4,500 MW in the next four months.
Not the benchmark
In this context, industry experts have cautioned against regarding the Rs 2.64 tariff as any benchmark. Such a low tariff happened due to notably two exceptional factors. One, the wind turbine manufacturers dropped prices by as much as 20 per cent, doing a distress sale of their inventories. “The manufacturers were stuck with huge stocks of machines that were in various stages of manufacture,” notes Ramesh Kymal, Chairman and Managing Director of Gamesa India, the Indian subsidiary of Siemens Gamesa, a wind power multinational. In supporting the developers to go as low as Rs 2.64, turbine manufacturers have agreed to take a loss, reckoning that such loss is cheaper than the carrying cost of inventory.
The second factor is, developers who are all private equity funded, have been sitting with funds that they need to deploy and were rather desperate to bag some projects. They have also agreed for much lower returns.
Neither of these two factors is likely to obtain in future.
The industry fears that the tariff of Rs 2.64 might become a psychological benchmark, driving state-owned discoms to refuse power purchase agreements at previously agreed tariffs. There have even been instances of states wanting to re-negotiate signed agreements – a move that is unlikely to stand in a court of law, but would nevertheless arm-twist developers to come to the negotiating table and accept a lower tariff than the one signed.
Kymal, who is also the Chairman of the National Committee on Wind and Biomass of the Confederation of Indian Industry, feels that tariffs will go up in the subsequent rounds of bidding, even if not to the levels of the feed-in tariffs. Many in the industry feel that wind tariffs would settle down at around Rs 3.70.
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Canadian Solar works with Israeli asset manager on solar projects
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Canadian Solar is forming a $60m joint venture with Israeli insurance and finance firm Menora Mivtachim to invest in the "development, financing, construction and ownership" of solar power projects, tendered out by the Israeli Electricity Authority.
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https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/canadian-solar-partners-with-menora-mivtachim-to-invest-in-solar-power-projects-in-israel-300537707.html
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2017-10-20 12:36:09.123000
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GUELPH, Ontario, Oct. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Canadian Solar Inc. (the "Company" or "Canadian Solar") (NASDAQ: CSIQ), one of the world's largest solar power companies, today announced that a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company and a few subsidiaries of Menora Mivtachim Holdings Ltd. ("Menora Mivtachim"), one of Israel's five largest insurance and finance groups, entered into a joint venture agreement with the aim to invest in the development, financing, construction and ownership of solar power projects in Israel.
A total of US$60 million is expected to be raised from Menora Mivtachim and Canadian Solar, with each party contributing an equal investment amount. The joint venture will finance the solar projects awarded by Israeli Electricity Authority under the solar power tenders and other solar projects to be developed under the partnership.
"Our partnership with Menora Mivtachim is a milestone achieved by Canadian Solar in this emerging market where the adoption of solar is growing rapidly. This partnership will leverage Canadian Solar's proven track record in developing and building solar power projects, with Menora Mivtachim's financial strength and credibility to create an industry leader in the local market," said Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar.
About Menora Mivtachim
Menora Mivtachim Holdings Ltd. is one of Israel's five largest insurance & finance groups. The group specializes in asset management, manages the largest pension fund in Israel - 'New Mivtachim', and is the No.1 General Insurer in Israel and the market leader in Motor Insurance sector. The group operates through its subsidiaries, in all sectors of Life Insurance, Long/Mid/Short -Term Savings, General Insurance and Health Insurance. In addition, the group is active in the capital markets and finance sectors, including Mutual Funds Management, Financial Portfolio Management, Underwriting and worldwide real estate investments.
About Canadian Solar Inc.
Founded in 2001 in Canada, Canadian Solar is one of the world's largest and foremost solar power companies. As a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy solutions, Canadian Solar also has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale power projects in various stages of development. In the past 16 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 22 GW of premium quality modules to over 100 countries around the world. Furthermore, Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar industry, having been publicly listed on NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.
Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release regarding the Company's expected future shipment volumes, gross margins, business prospects and future results, are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are made under the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "estimates," the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include general business and economic conditions and the state of the solar industry; governmental support for the deployment of solar power; future available supplies of high-purity silicon; demand for end-use products by consumers and inventory levels of such products in the supply chain; changes in demand from significant customers; changes in demand from major markets such as Japan, the U.S., India and China; changes in customer order patterns; changes in product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and declines in average selling prices; delays in new product introduction; delays in utility-scale project approval process; delays in utility-scale project construction; cancelation of utility-scale feed-in-tariff contracts in Japan; continued success in technological innovations and delivery of products with the features customers demand; shortage in supply of materials or capacity requirements; availability of financing; exchange rate fluctuations; litigation and other risks as described in the Company's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 27, 2017. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of today's date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
SOURCE Canadian Solar Inc.
Related Links
http://www.canadiansolar.com
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Powerhouse Ventures seeks fresh deals after HydroWorks failure
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New Zealand-based investor Powerhouse Ventures is hoping new investments in Australia can help draw a line under a troubled period, following the HydroWorks liquidation crisis, the biggest of several to plague the company. Powerhouse CEO Paul Viney said the company would "tighten up its business model", while chairman Russell Yardley said the focus would be on turning "exciting intellectual property into products".
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https://stockhead.com.au/tech/ghost-hydroworks-lingers-powerhouse-pitches-new-look/
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2017-10-20 12:27:20.407000
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Powerhouse Ventures is pitching itself as a turn-around story following a disastrous year.
Chief executive Paul Viney says the Kiwi venture capital firm is tightening up its business model and looking to expand its investments into Australia.
Powerhouse will start putting pressure on its investments to turn exciting intellectual property into products, says Chairman Russell Yardley.
This year, several crises have put pressure on Powerhouse (ASX:PVL) — arguably none more so than the $7 million liquidation of key investment turbine maker HydroWorks.
In an interview with Stockhead, Mr Viney and Mr Yardley were careful how they described the collapse.
Mr Viney said this was because a lawsuit could be on its way.
Path to collapse
HydroWorks began as a consultancy in 2001 before moving into designing its own hydropower turbine technology.
By 2013, after investment from Powerhouse and New Zealand government support through Callahan Innovation, it had won its first export orders in Australia and was eyeing the Solomons, the Philippines and New Caledonia.
The crunch point came in 2015 when it began winning big contracts in Australia.
There was an $8.5 million contract to refurbish a hydroelectric plant at Somerset dam in Queensland, and a $5 million contract with Melbourne Water to build a “mini-hydro” network generating electricity in suburban Melbourne — a project the Australian entity was still promoting in June.
Mr Viney, who joined the HydroWorks board in February, said the Melbourne Water contract was the most damaging as it transferred all risk to the New Zealand company.
Management had little understanding of the risks they had taken on and there was no clear idea how the business would get to the end of the contract, he said
Mr Viney would not go into further details, saying what goes on in boardrooms should stay in boardrooms.
Dominating the share register
Powerhouse usually operated by “dominating the share register” and installing their own board and CEO, Mr Viney said.
But HydroWorks was an anomaly. Powerhouse agreed to buy a minority stake of 23 per cent and work with the founder, Rik Hothersall, who by the end still owned 30 per cent of the business.
Ultimately Powerhouse ended up giving HydroWorks $1.3 million in emergency loans in November and December last year to help fund its projects. Interest and late fees added up to a 48 per cent tariff on top of that, but was never paid.
HydroWorks was supposed to pay these back from money raised during a listing in Australia this year, but that IPO was pulled as board members began to quit from February this year.
Stockhead has tried to contact former HydroWorks managing director Andrew Rodwell several times, without success.
Powerhouse put the company into interim liquidation in August. Deloitte was appointed as the permanent liquidator this month.
No ASIC involvement
Rumours have recently circulated in New Zealand media that Powerhouse might face an ASIC investigation over the valuation it placed on HydroWorks in its own IPO prospectus last year.
But an ASIC spokesman told Stockhead the corporate watchdog was not aware of any investigations.
If an investigation was underway the company’s shares would be suspended, he said.
Powerhouse shares closed up 3 per cent at 34c on Thursday after releasing its annual report.
The listed incubator gave HydroWorks a valuation of $NZ19.3 million ($17.3 million) in its August IPO prospectus last year — a value based on 2015 numbers.
HydroWorks was already in trouble by the time Powerhouse listed. Its value had fallen to $NZ7.7 million by August.
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Lithium-ion gigafactories crowd out new battery technologies
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Batteries using alternative technologies are struggling to get a toehold in the energy marketplace, because of the dominance of lithium-ion. Products such as those from Eos Energy Storage, which uses a zinc hybrid cathode design, Ecoult, with its advanced lead-acid battery design and Ambri's liquid metal battery, are being squeezed out by around 20 lithium-ion factories producing more than 1 GWh of batteries per year. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence says that global lithium-ion battery production stood at 28 GWh in 2016, and it predicts it will grow 521% to 174 GWh by 2020, with China and the US accounting for around 84% of the market.
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https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/switching-from-lithium-ion-could-be-harder-than-you-think#gs.cf5XL2U
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2017-10-20 12:18:48.947000
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Massive investments in lithium-ion battery production could thwart the search for other battery options based on lower-cost ingredients, despite the efforts of numerous lithium-ion contenders.
Already, “There are cheaper alternatives in terms of raw materials," said Benchmark Mineral Intelligence analyst Caspar Rawles. "But what we have had happen over the last three years is a huge investment in manufacturing infrastructure for lithium-ion.”
Worldwide, the number of lithium-ion ‘megafactories,’ which Benchmark Mineral Intelligence defines as cell-producing facilities with more than 1 gigawatt-hour of production capacity per year, has gone from just a couple three years ago to around 20 today.
About half of those are in China, Rawles said. At the end of 2016, global lithium-ion battery production capacity stood at 28 gigawatt-hours, with 16.4 gigawatt-hours in China.
Globally, this is set to increase 521 percent, to 174 gigawatt-hours, by 2020, according to BMI forecasts.
China will account for 62 percent of production, with almost 108 gigawatt-hours a year, followed by the U.S. with 22 percent (38 gigawatt-hours), South Korea with 13 percent (23 gigawatt-hours) and Poland with 3 percent (5 gigawatt-hours).
One Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology, is expected to be producing 50 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion battery storage capacity by 2020, overtaking Tesla’s projected 35 gigawatt-hours.
Even today, the infrastructure “represents billions of dollars in investment [and] huge growth in manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion,” said Rawles.
“You might have cell technology that would be cheaper in terms of raw materials theoretically, but to get to the cost that lithium-ion is at now would take huge investment and isn’t likely to happen," he said.
This may help explain the sluggish progress being made by a host of lithium-ion contenders banking on lower material costs to gain a competitive edge.
Eos Energy Storage, which claims it can provide utility-scale battery storage for $160 per kilowatt-hour thanks to a chemistry based on a zinc hybrid cathode design, has managed to win orders from utilities such as Engie and Con Ed, but is hardly shipping massive quantities.
It is doing better than most, though. Ambri, with a liquid metal battery made from inexpensive, earth-abundant materials, is still in the early stages of commercialization despite raising $50 million in venture capital.
Ecoult, which is touting an advanced lead-acid battery design, earlier this year announced its first steps in creating a global manufacturing network, but does not expect to have licensing deals in place in most energy storage markets until 2019.
And the saltwater battery maker Aquion ran into well-publicized problems earlier this year. In July, it seemed to be back in business after its brush with death. Only time will tell whether the company can grow under its new ownership, however.
Even established non-lithium-ion battery technologies, such as the sodium-sulfur chemistries sold by NGK and others, are having a hard time competing with lithium-ion’s vast market dominance.
Based on U.S. Department of Energy figures cited by the International Renewable Energy Agency, only 4.8 megawatts of sodium-based battery power capacity was announced, contracted or under construction as of this year, against more than 333 megawatts of lithium-ion storage.
Flow batteries face a similar problem. Only one chemistry, vanadium redox, has become established. But International Renewable Energy Agency data shows the chemistry accounted for less than 1 percent of global electrochemical storage power capacity by mid-2017.
Furthermore, some observers believe that if used widely the flow battery chemistry would run into similar supply chain problems as those being flagged for lithium-ion. “There are limits to vanadium,” commented Hugh Sharman, principal at energy consultancy Incoteco.
“The ores are already getting thinner, and if vanadium becomes a major component of energy storage systems, then the price would skyrocket," he said.
Because of this, some flow battery makers have swerved toward chemistries based on more common elements. Energy Storage Systems, for instance, makes a flow battery in which iron is the main component.
The concept looks great on paper but, yet again, is struggling against lithium-ion.
The only categories of energy storage that seem capable of holding their own in the face of lithium-ion’s electrochemical dominance are those that can deliver truly massive levels of capacity, such as pumped hydro, compressed air, molten salt or flywheels.
These rely on storage media that are so cheap they are practically free in some cases. And that might be the only thing that keeps them in the game as lithium-ion scales toward multi-gigawatt-hour levels.
After all, said Sharman: “Unless a cost-effective way is found to recycle the components, the practical limit for a lithium-ion battery will be materials-related. It won’t be related to economies of scale.”
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Peer-to-peer solar equipment marketplace raises $1.6m
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Californian peer-to-peer solar equipment leasing platform Sun Exchange has raised $1.6m in funding from investors including Techstars, Network Society Ventures and South African outfit Kalon Venture Partners. Sun Exchange uses blockchain and digital currency bitcoin to enable customers to purchase solar cells from its platform and lease them to installations in developing countries. The firm said the funding would be used for the "pipeline of commercial-scale solar power projects, located in the sunniest regions of the planet".
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https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/10/20/sun-exchange-raises-1-6-million/
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2017-10-20 12:15:12.130000
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U.S.-based peer-to-peer solar equipment leasing marketplace Sun Exchange announced it has raised around $1.6 million in financing from a group of investors comprising Network Society Ventures (New York City), Kalon Venture Partners (Johannesburg, South Africa) and three of the world's leading technology accelerators, BoostVC (San Francisco Bay Area), Techstars (Boulder, Colorado) and Powerhouse (Oakland, California).
The company said the funds will be used to meet the demand for “its pipeline of commercial-scale solar power projects, located in the sunniest regions of the planet”, without providing further details.
The company, which is mainly active in the African energy market and has now expanded with headquarters in the U.S. in California, and a regional operating office in Dubai, which gives retail customers around the world the opportunity to lease solar cells bought on their own platform to medium to larger scale solar installation in developing countries. “Solar panels are sold by the single solar cell, reducing the cost of solar plant ownership to below $10,” the company said in its press release.
Popular content
To reduce the costs of cross border transaction and to increase transparency, Sun Exchange leverages blockchain and bitcoin. The company claims that by presenting simple and accessible opportunity for anyone to join the solar economy, it can unlock the potential for the construction of environmentally sound and socially responsible projects that would otherwise not exist.
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LevelTen Energy raises $6.8m to help companies buy clean power
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Seattle-based utility LevelTen Energy has raised $6.8m in series A funding, with investors including Techstars Venture Capital Fund and Prelude Ventures. LevelTen, a graduate of Techstars' accelerator, has developed machine learning and artificial intelligence software that aggregates clean energy products. It then allows them to be sold in a similar way to mutual funds, spreading risk and offering small and medium-sized US businesses access to affordable renewable energy. LevelTen recently announced its first clean energy portfolio, amounting to 410 MW.
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https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/levelten-energy-startup-corporate-renewables-like-mutual-funds#gs.cf5XL2U
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2017-10-20 12:05:06.500000
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After years of work and billions of dollars of investment, Google recently announced that this year, 100 percent of its offices and data centers will be powered by buying wind and solar electricity. It’s a major feat for the search engine giant, which has led the way in buying renewable power.
But what about all of the other companies out there that don’t have anywhere near Google’s balance sheet, environmental commitment or energy bills?
For many corporations trying to buy clean energy, the process can be “brutal,” said Bryce Smith, founder and CEO of LevelTen Energy. “Only the largest corporate buyer can often participate and get a good deal,” he said.
Why? The projects that big companies like Google buy power from are generally large, 100-megawatt-sized wind or solar projects that aren’t yet built. Google and its ilk make a commitment to buy all of the power from the farm, the wind developer gets a guaranteed customer, and the company gets a good deal on the price of electricity.
Smaller companies can’t commit to buying such large amounts of power because they don’t need it. As a result, they can get boxed into buying electricity from smaller farms with higher prices.
In addition, corporate buyers need to be well versed in how wholesale power markets work in order to determine if a clean energy deal is economically viable or not. If a company buys energy from a wind farm in a region where, for example, many new wind farms are getting built, the electricity price dynamics -- and value proposition -- could change dramatically.
Rocky Mountain Institute calls this problem the “winner’s curse” -- where the price and the value of a renewable energy project don’t match, and the customer’s asset doesn’t deliver the expected return.
To find a solution for these problems, Smith, a 20-year clean energy veteran, created LevelTen Energy last year. The company, which completed the Techstars accelerator, has built software and data tools that aggregate clean energy projects and sell them in a manner similar to how mutual funds are created and sold.
“In the same way that mutual funds changed equity investing for individuals, for companies and clean energy it makes sense to have a more diversified portfolio and spread the risk over eight to 10 projects,” said Smith. LevelTen Energy uses analytics and wholesale market expertise to try to get corporate buyers the best deals possible.
On Monday, LevelTen Energy announced its first clean energy portfolio totaling 410 megawatts, which represents two wind and two solar projects in the Eastern U.S. territory of regional transmission organization PJM. Smith said the portfolio already has customers but declined to name who those customers are.
In addition to the first deal, LevelTen Energy announced that it's closed a Series A round of funding of $6.8 million to expand its outreach to new customers. Investors include Prelude Ventures, Techstars Venture Capital Fund, Founders’ Co-Op, Wireframe Ventures, Element 8 Fund and Avista Development, a subsidiary of Avista Corp.
Smith, who previously co-founded utility clean power developer OneEnergy Renewables, said when he first joined Techstars he “felt like a fish out of water,” given his long history in the energy industry. However, the tech focus quickly emerged as a crucial part of building the product, attracting customers and bringing in employees.
LevelTen Energy is riding the growing wave of clean energy procurements. There was 1.24 gigawatts' worth of corporate renewable energy procurements in the first half of this year, according to Rocky Mountain Institute, which has also built a service to help corporate buyers.
Close to 100 companies have committed to go 100 percent renewable as part of the RE100 campaign. But it is readily apparent that the bulk of those ambitious companies are some of the largest tech firms and industrial giants in corporate America, with small and medium-sized companies tending to be more hesitant about making such a pledge.
The proof of whether LevelTen Energy can help solve the growing pains of corporate clean energy buying will come down to if, and which, corporate customers sign up.
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Corporate funding for solar projects fell 20% YoY in Q3
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Corporate investment in solar projects totalled $2.4bn in Q3 2017, 20% less than the $3bn spent during the same period last year, according to Mercom Capital Group. It found corporate funding, which included venture capital funding, debt financing and public markets, during Q3 2017 was higher compared to the preceding three-month period.
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https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/corporate-funding-in-solar-sector-touches-2-4-bn-in-q3-report/articleshow/61105405.cms
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2017-10-20 12:00:47.043000
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Solar sector attracted corporate funding worth USD 2.4 billion in the third quarter of 2017, lower than the fund flows registered in the year-ago period, says a report.
Clean energy consulting firm Mercom Capital Group has said that the funding amount stood at USD 3 billion in the three months ended September 2016.
However, in comparison with the second quarter of this year, the amount rose in the latest third quarter.
"During Q3 2017, corporate funding in the solar sector grew 74 per cent compared to Q2 2017, with USD 2.4 billion raised in 45 deals. In Q2 2017, USD 1.4 billion was raised in 37 deals," Mercom Capital said in a release.
The figures include venture capital funding, public market and debt financing.
In the first nine months of this year, the total corporate funding in the solar sector reached USD 7.1 billion compared to USD 7.5 billion recorded in the same period a year ago. RAM SBT
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Unilever to refocus on media planning, produce less content
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Consumer goods brand Unilever has revealed it will focus on media planning, using its zero-based budgeting (ZBB) policy, to get the most out of its advertising without creating more content. CFO Graeme Pitkethly said in an earnings call with investors that Unilever customers were exposed to content "beyond the point of diminishing returns". The ZBB initiative, which had reduced the company's Southeast Asia media spend by 12%, would help maximise advertisement reach.
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http://www.marketing-interactive.com/unilever-to-spend-less-money-on-creating-ads-but-more-on-showing-them/
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2017-10-20 11:57:06.813000
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In an earnings call with investors, Unilever chief financial officer Graeme Pitkethly revealed that brand health measure remains “very strong”. However, there is a change in approach for the company which is spending more competitively than it was the year before. This is done in a more effective manner because zero-based budgeting (ZBB) allows it to put more of its investment back and cut waste out.“We have much more consumer media and promotional point of sale investment as part of that mix and less on non working media," he said, adding:Less money is being spent creating advertising and more money is being spent showing advertising in a more effective way to our consumers.Meanwhile, in July this year following its Q2 results, Unilever said its analysis found that it was producing too many “new” pieces of advertising, with more than 95% of its advertising films being replaced before it had reached maximum effectiveness. Pitkethly added that a result of this was the creation of “a lot of wasted work”, both internally and for Unilever’s agencies.Unilever had then revealed that it was able to reduce its media spend in Southeast Asia by 12%. This was through its new zero-based budgeting (ZBB) strategy and follows the company’s move to tighten its disciplines around media planning. Using the Southeast Asia market as an example, Pitkethly had then explained there was a tendency for Unilever to expose consumers to its advertising “beyond the point of diminishing returns”. Through ZBB, Unilever was able to focus on the quality of its advertising reach.This time around, Pitkethly explained that overall Unilever is making the right changes within its businesses through the various organisational changes and reshaping of its portfolio. He said this is the "more strategic response to the changes taking place within the consumer communications landscape"."I don't need to tell you that there is a lot of change and influx [in the new consumer landscape]. If you get it right, you get it very right, if you get it wrong, you get it very wrong,” Pitkethly added.Some initiatives the company is continuing to undertake include its Unilever Studios which builds its in-house digital and content capabilities which is now available in over 20 marketers.Another is Unilever’s people data centres which allows it to secure consumer insights from social and scraping data from around the digital landscape. These centres are now in 20 markets, covering 40 languages. Pitkethly said:All we can do is continue investing heavily in building capabilities in the new marketing space. As such, around a third of our investment, which may be the wrong distinction here, is on 'digital'.Addressing other capabilities such as programmatic, Pitkethly acknowledged ongoing efforts by CMO Keith Weed, along with the rest of the industry, in creating proper stewardships and leadership roles and basics such as viewability, verification, combating ad fraud and brand safety.Read also:Unilever buys Carver Korea for US$2.7 bn to strengthen Asia footholdUnilever accidentally uses North Korea leader’s initials KJU as shower gel name
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India's Azure Power raises $30m in debt from Dutch institution
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Dutch development finance institution FMO has invested INR200 crore ($30.5m) in debt issued by Indian solar energy developer Azure Power, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. Azure has a portfolio of 1,069 MW of solar power facilities across 18 Indian states, of which 771 MW is in operation and 298 MW is under construction. In October 2016, Azure became the first Indian renewable company to get listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
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http://www.livemint.com/Companies/pVvPXYWsSyERcslZ5TIyPI/Azure-Power-raises-close-to-Rs200-crore-in-debt-financing.html
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2017-10-20 11:55:04.280000
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Mumbai: Renewable energy firm Azure Power Global Ltd has raised close to Rs200 crore (approximately $30.5 million) in debt from Dutch development finance institution FMO, two people aware of the development said.
“Azure has recently raised debt financing from FMO to the tune of Rs200 crore. The funds will be used by Azure to invest in the development of its ongoing projects and those in the pipeline," said one of the two people cited above, requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to reporters. “The company has close to 300 megawatts (MW) of projects under development as of today."
FMO has a committed portfolio of €9.8 billion across emerging markets, making it one of the larger bilateral private sector development banks globally.
FMO, which invests in sectors such as agribusiness, infrastructure, manufacturing and services, energy, financial institutions and in multi-sector private investment funds, has a total Asia exposure of €2.7 billion.
Azure Power has a diversified portfolio of 1,069MW in 18 states, of which 771MW is operational and 298MW is committed and under construction, according to details available on the company’s website.
Majority of its portfolio has as counter-party government of India agencies such as NTPC Ltd and Solar Energy Corp. of India Ltd.
Emails sent last week to Azure Power and FMO did not elicit any response.
Azure Power became the first Indian renewable energy company to get listed on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2016. It sold 3.41 million shares in an initial public offering, including 2.24 million new shares and 1.16 million shares from existing shareholders. Azure raised $61.36 million through the IPO.
Ahead of Azure’s IPO, Canadian pension fund CDPQ picked up a stake worth $75 million as part of a private placement. CDPQ owns 20% in Azure.
For the year ended 31 March, Azure Power reported a revenue of Rs418.30 crore, as compared to a revenue of Rs262.62 crore in the previous financial year.
Loss narrowed to Rs148.3 crore in 2016-17 from Rs303.8 crore a year ago.
In August, Azure Power raised $500 million by selling green bonds for repayment of existing debt and for capital expenditure for under construction projects and future growth.
Azure Power is backed by World Bank arm International Finance Corp., venture capital fund Helion Venture Partners, German development finance institution DEG and a French development financial institution Proparco.
Founded by Inderpreet Wadhwa in 2008, Azure Power developed India’s first utility scale solar project in 2009.
In its other efforts in the energy sector in India, FMO along with development finance institutions DEG and Proparco signed an agreement with private lender Yes Bank Ltd to promote green finance in India in June.
FMO has also invested in other sectors such as financial services.
In 2013, it participated in a $53 million funding round of erstwhile microfinance firm Equitas Holding.
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Facebook Messenger enables payments via PayPal in US
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Messenger, Facebook's instant messaging service, has enabled payments with PayPal for in-app money transfers. The platform introduced the transfers service for credit and debit cards in 2015, advertising it as a handy way for friends to split their bills after a meal. PayPal has now been added as a payment method for transactions in the US, with the feature live on iOS, and soon to be available on Android.
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https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/20/facebook-messenger-paypal-payments/?sr_source=Twitter
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2017-10-20 11:50:06.447000
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Messenger started making it easier to pay your friends for dinner back in 2015 when it introduced the option to transfer money in-app with a credit or debit card. If PayPal has always been more convenient, though, you'll love this collaboration: Facebook and the payment service have teamed up to give you a new way to split the bill. You can access the feature the same way you'd pay with a card. Simply tap the blue plus icon and then tap the green Payments button to bring up the two existing options.
If you'd previously set up the feature to pay using your card, just tap the Change button and choose Paypal to connect your account with Messenger. The feature is now live on iOS and will soon be available on Android. Unfortunately, you can only use it if you're in the US -- everyone else will just have to find other ways to spend their PayPal balance.
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TalkTalk Executive chairman named one of London's most influential people
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Charles Dunstone, founder and executive chairman of TalkTalk, has been listed as one of the Evening Standard's Progress 1000 most influential people in London. Dunstone took the role of executive chairman after CEO Dido Harding left in February 2017. The businessman refocused the company's image and worked towards the low-cost style of sales the business was founded on, whilst also removing the dividend. However, the telecoms company is still reeling from the large-scale cyber attack it suffered in 2016.
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/the1000/the-progress-1000-londons-most-influential-people-2017-capitalisers-business-a3655286.html
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2017-10-20 11:28:07.247000
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Tina Fordham
Chief Global Political Analyst at Citi
When the stock market wants to know what to make of the latest bust-up in Washington or sabre-rattling in Korea, it turns to Fordham, the political-pundit-in-chief at US banking giant Citi. A single mother of two, the Columbia grad has sharpened her pencil at top-tier organisations like the Aspen Institute and the United Nations. She appears frequently on TV for broadcasters like CNN and the BBC.
Andrew Bailey
FCA Chief Executive
When Bailey assumed the chief executive role at the Financial Conduct Authority in July last year, he was regarded as a safe pair of hands having worked at the Bank of England for 30 years. At the helm of the City watchdog, which is the UK’s most prominent financial consumer protection body, he will be a powerful voice at a time when the City is making preparations for how business will cope in the aftermath of Brexit.
James Bardrick
Head of UK, Citigroup
He sometimes spends his weekends at sea level, racing a 100-year-old fishing boat with his friends, but for most of the year Bardrick is an extremely busy man. Not only is he heading Citi’s huge UK operations, but he also sits on the Banking Standards Board, which was set up in 2015 to improve banks’ behaviour. In addition, Bardrick is a trustee and deputy chairman of Career Ready, which helps young people enter the world of work.
Matthew Barnes
Chief Executive, Aldi UK and Ireland
Barnes is not daunted by the economic wobbles sweeping through Brexit Britain. Far from it: this year he increased his plans to open new stores to take the chain from 1,000 to 1,300 by 2022. That’s a huge expansion from its current position of around 700. Analysts question whether he’ll be able to find enough sites in London to hit his targets as rents here make its cut-price model hard to sustain. This year Aldi’s critics have accused it of losing sales growth. That is a claim he vehemently denies, declaring he doesn’t “lose a millisecond of sleep” over such talk, which he reckons comes from those with vested interests in Britain’s Big Four supermarket chains.
Inga Beale
Chief Executive at Lloyd’s of London
While best known as one of the biggest champions of boardroom diversity in the City, Beale added another string to her bow by banging the drum for the City to get a good deal from Brexit. Though the insurance market faces growing pressure, Beale has been busy stitching up fresh deals to face the growing storm. With new Lloyd’s chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown in place, she opened new offices in Brussels to cope with Brexit and Mumbai to help Lloyd’s chart a fresh course for the 21st century.
Colette Bowe
Chairman, Banking Standards Board
Latterly charged with clearing out the Augean stables of the banking industry, Dame Colette recently admitted that the sector was a “very, very long way” from being fully reformed. Through a lengthy career, the trained economist has had feet in public and private life as both civil servant and chairman of telecoms and broadcasting regulator Ofcom, as well as holding board seats at Thames Water and Morgan Stanley.
Alison Brittain
Chief Executive, Whitbread
One of British business’s livewires, Alison Brittain runs Whitbread, the Costa Coffee to Premier Inn empire. A banker for most of her career, she took over the helm at Whitbread early last year. It’s proved a tough gig for the Derbyshire-raised Cambridge graduate; she joined just as Costa’s sales growth was coming off the boil. However, investors have praised her stewardship so far and fellow business bosses made her Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year.
Matt Brittin
President of EMEA Business and Operations, Google
As Google’s European boss, Brittin is arguably the most important person in UK tech. He faced criticism this year for ads appearing on extremist content on YouTube, its video channel, but has vowed to do more to ensure big brands are not funding hate speech. Before joining Google, initially as UK boss, Brittin was in charge of commercial operations at Trinity Mirror, the owner of the Daily Mirror newspaper.
Claire Calmejane
Director of Innovation at Lloyds Banking Group
The French-born tech guru joined the 250-year-old British institution with a brief to shake-up old ways of doing business. A former visiting scientist at MIT, Calmejane had been studying how to disrupt traditional lending when Lloyds poached her to come in-house in 2012 and show them how it was done. Though she grew up in Paris, the 34-year-old says she enjoys nothing more than sitting down for a Sunday roast with her partner after a long week.
Mark Carne
Chief Executive, Network Rail
Running the country’s train network is never a simple task, but Mark Carne will be the first to admit it has been a tougher year than most. The Network Rail chief executive has endured lengthy strikes (and the wrath of commuters) this year, but has done his best to ease their pain with an ambitious £133 million upgrade plan to create an extra 170,000 seats.
Mark Carney
Governor of the Bank of England
The Canadian Governor of the Bank of England has committed to stay on in the job until 2019 and is now gently easing the UK towards its first interest rate rise in a decade. His considered interventions – particularly in defence of the City of London – have meanwhile reminded the politicians of what is at stake as the Brexit negotiations begin, particularly his urging that we should not cast ourselves adrift from Europe.
Stacey Cartwright
Deputy Chairman of Harvey Nichols
The glamorous former Burberry finance boss has tried to stay one step ahead of the consumer game this year in a bid to revive the flagging chain. An overhaul of womenswear, new in-store concepts and a push overseas are certain to keep the chain’s billionaire owner Dickson Poon happy and has earned her a promotion from chief executive to deputy chairman. When the Liverpool FC fan is not on the shop floor, she’s down at Richmond Park cycling with her ex-rugby-pro husband.
Vittorio Colao
Vodafone Chief Executive
Colao has been boss of the telecommunications giant since 2008. Earlier this year his company launched a crackdown on fake news and hate speech, saying that it will prevent its adverts from appearing alongside objectionable content. It is understood to have been the first policy of its kind anywhere in the world.
Iain Conn
Chief Executive at Centrica
In a year when energy prices have topped the political agenda, the straight-talking Scot has become one of the most articulate opponents of the energy price cap plan. Despite facing fire for a 40 per cent pay rise and the ire of British Gas customers, the veteran oil engineer has impressed shareholders by steering Centrica in the right direction. When not grappling with politicians and customers, Conn can be found fly-fishing or listening to his favourite rhythm and blues records.
Mike Coupe
Chief Executive, J Sainsbury
A year on from the merger of Sainsbury’s and catalogue-store Argos, chief executive Mike Coupe’s skills as a retailer are in no doubt. He has managed the merger adeptly, while showing he can respond creatively to the changing nature of the retail landscape. The jury may still be out on whether the combination will deliver long term value to shareholders, but the early signs are that it will work — both for the business and for shoppers.
Jim Cowles
Chief Executive Europe, Middle East and Africa, Citi
The smooth-talking senior banker has championed diversity at the US bank, which has signed up to the Women in Finance charter. The American is planning for a “hard Brexit” although Cowles is confident that he’ll be able to look after his clients come what may. “We have to plan for the worst case from a business point of view,” he says.
Bruce Daisley
European Vice-President, Twitter
Daisley, who has a lengthy tech and media CV spanning Google and Emap, was boss of Twitter’s UK arm before taking on his current role two years ago. Despite a difficult 2016, the profile of Twitter has arguably never been higher, with US President Donald Trump boosting users as well as the influential microblogging site’s push into live video-streaming attracting younger users.
Howard Davies
Chairman, Royal Bank of Scotland
Fresh from dealing with the thorny issue of expanding the UK’s airport capacity, the 66-year-old City grandee is now chairing the UK’s perennial problem bank salvaged by the taxpayer almost a decade ago. RBS could — fingers crossed — turn a profit next year but the firm’s recent $5.5 billion US fine for past misdemeanours merely underlines how big a job Sir Howard has clearing up past messes.
Pierre Denis
Chief Executive, Jimmy Choo
The well-heeled chief executive of Jimmy Choo is currently walking the luxury shoe-maker down the catwalk — as it looks for a buyer. The Frenchman has got the business in shape for a sale and the City has responded by sending the share price up over 70 per cent in a year. Before leading Jimmy Choo’s stock market float, Denis worked his way up through French luxury goods giant LVMH.
Michèle Dix
Managing Director, Crossrail 2
Dix is in charge of one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the UK. Crossrail 2 will run between Hertfordshire and Surrey, alleviating the overcrowding on commuter trains as more and more people commute into London. Her job is to get the funding to complete the £30 billion scheme. Before that, she was responsible for Transport for London’s strategic plans, future projects and policies.
Gillian Drakeford
UK and Ireland Manager, Ikea
Drakeford started her career at Ikea 30 years ago on the shop floor in Warrington. Now she runs the Swedish group in the UK and has probably done more than most retailers to shape the look of homes across the land. Ikea is adapting to new retail trends and wants to open more smaller, easily accessible stores as well as providing click-and-collect, creating 1,800 UK jobs by 2018. Typical of its evolution is a new virtual-reality kitchen store that opened in Shoreditch this summer. Drakeford is a retailer that wants to connect with her shoppers, as anxious to serve the home-owning middle-aged as the renting millennials.
Charles Dunstone
Executive Chairman, TalkTalk
It’s been a year of change for TalkTalk, the low-cost broadband and telecom provider, which in February lost its chief executive Dido Harding. Charles Dunstone, founder of the business and still its largest shareholder, has been parachuted in as executive chairman. Dunstone, one of the UK’s most-respected entrepreneurs, wasted no time in axing the dividend and refocusing the business back to its low-cost roots. But there is still a lot of work to make up the hit the business took from 2016’s massive hack. If anyone can put this telecom company back on track, it’s Dunstone.
Luke Ellis
Chief Executive of Man Group
The hedge fund exec has done more than anyone to overhaul the image of a misunderstood industry. As chief executive of Man, Europe’s largest listed hedge fund, Ellis has managed to juggle the twin demands of keeping clients and markets happy while also attracting new money into a sector often criticised for high fees. The former farmer — he took a break from the City in 2008 — emerged from the shadows of Man’s old boss Manny Roman this year as one of hedge-funding’s most articulate and passionate advocates.
Carolyn Fairbairn
Director-General, CBI
The former BBC executive and adviser to Sir John Major is an influential voice for the UK’s biggest companies as Brexit negotiations get under way, irking Brexiteers by calling for a “bridge” rather than a “cliff edge” for businesses when the country pulls out of the EU in 2019. As a leading female industry figurehead, she’s also been an advocate for more women in the boardroom.
Stephanie Flanders
Head of Bloomberg Economics
Stephanie Flanders / Daniel Hambury: Stella Pictures
Flanders has made a blockbuster return to media this year, in a job surely made for her — the first head of Bloomberg Economics. She comes from a sojourn in finance, where she was as a market strategist at J P Morgan for four years. Before that she was the well-respected BBC economics editor. Her father was Michael Flanders, of Flanders and Swann fame, but she has no need to sing for her gigs: Flanders has real economics and media chops.
Jayne-Anne Gadhia
CEO, Virgin Money
As the boss of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money, Gadhia is one of the financial services industry’s most senior women. She was named Personality of the Year at the Evening Standard Business Awards 2017, thanks to growing the company to be one of the UK’s main challenger banks. This year, she lived up to her straight-talking reputation with her memoir The Virgin Banker, in which she wrote about her own mental health problems and the old boys’ network at Royal Bank of Scotland under her former boss Fred Goodwin.
Martin Gilbert
Co-Chief Executive, Standard Life Aberdeen
As if managing one £11 billion deal wasn’t enough, Martin Gilbert is juggling two.
As well as merging Aberdeen with Scottish asset management rival Standard Life, he is also helping to steer the takeover of Sky, where he is deputy chairman, by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. Some question how he will cope with sharing the chief executive role with Keith Skeoch at Standard Life Aberdeen, but most in the City have been won round by the deal.
Richard Gnodde
Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs International
The South African-born banking guru has come a long way since joining the investment bank in London in 1987 in the merger department. He rose through the ranks to become co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International in 2006, and the firm put more faith in him last year when it was revealed that Michael Sherwood — the other co-chief — would be departing the business, leaving Gnodde in sole charge. He is now responsible for the mammoth task of getting the company ready for Brexit.
Gerard Grech
Chief Executive, TechCityUK
Grech has emerged as a key lobbyist for the UK’s tech scene amid worries that Brexit could stem the flow of talent heading to these shores. Grech, who has also worked for Orange, Nokia and BlackBerry before becoming Silicon Roundabout’s champion, has called for more tech visas and recently warned that with rivals such as Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Stockholm on the rise “the UK cannot take its position for granted”.
Doug Gurr
UK Country Manager, Amazon
The boss of Amazon in the UK has had a good year, with the online retailer continuing its voracious growth in the UK market. Since its parent company has snapped up Whole Foods, which already has a small presence in London, Gurr’s experience in the grocery market is going to be useful. Under Gurr, Amazon has added 5,000 people to the UK workforce this year, taking its total UK employees to 24,000 by the end of 2017. It moves into its new offices in Shoreditch this summer, underlining the retailer’s commitment to the capital.
Christian Hartnagel
Chief Executive, Lidl UK
The shock departure of Lidl UK boss Ronny Gottschlich after six years in the post last autumn meant Christian Hartnagel’s time had come. Although only 34 at the time, he had distinguished himself through a 13-year career at the discount retailer, including running the Irish operation. He started in a store in his native Germany after leaving school with no idea what he wanted to do. He lives in Raynes Park with his partner and three-year-old son.
Stephen Hester
Chief Executive at RSA Insurance
The former Royal Bank of Scotland chief has come into his own helming insurer RSA, slimming down its bloated operations. The 56-year-old Yorkshireman’s turnaround plan has propelled RSA to become one of the best performing insurers in the world this year. With the recovery sealed, the green-fingered Oxford alumnus — he has been a Royal Botanic Gardens trustee — is likely be drawing up plans for his next big target.
Michael Hintze
Founder, CQS
Visitors to see Hope the whale at the National History Museum will have noticed its grand new home is called the Hintze hall. Michael Hintze’s surname will be familiar to London culture vultures, as the hedge funder and philanthropist’s bequests are as numerous as they are generous. The Clapham resident’s hedge fund CQS is one of the world’s best known, investing a cool $12.7 billion of your and my pensions and other savings.
John Holland-Kaye
Chief Executive, Heathrow
At the head of the European hub that saw a record 77 million passengers in the year to September, Holland-Kaye is doing his bit to show that the UK remains open for business. The formal parliamentary vote on the controversial third runway is likely to take place in the first half of next year. Holland-Kaye, who was born in the Lake District, worked in the building industry before joining Heathrow in 2009.
Antonio Horta-Osorio
Chief Executive, Lloyds Banking Group
2017 was a landmark year for the Lloyds chief executive and for the taxpayer as the Government finally sold down its remaining stake, almost a decade after its £20.3 billion bailout of the bank. With Lloyds’ turnaround largely complete, Horta-Osorio has been linked with other big jobs, but Lloyds is adamant he’s staying put. There are still issues to sort out, but the Portuguese tennis-playing banker has got the bank back to a place where future earnings look secure and has gradually won back customer confidence too.
Jonathan “Jony” Ive
Chief Design Officer, Apple
The iPhone turned 10 this year but the sleekly iconic smartphone is still likely to remain the Chingford-born designer’s biggest contribution to consumer culture. Sir Jonathan, whom Apple founder Steve Jobs considered his “spiritual partner” at the US company, has a list of accolades as long as your arm but he made it longer still in July when he became chancellor of the Royal College of Art for a five-year term. Legend is not an understatement.
Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye
Helios Investment Partners
Soyoye and Lawani left successful careers in investment banking and management to pursue their dream of being the catalysts of promoting Africa as a destination for investment. Based in London, perfect for connectivity, Tope and Baba are driven to see the investment money used on projects that improve the lives of fellow Africans. So far their efforts have seen more than £2 billion invested in breakthrough business that’s spreading access to communications and banking services to a wider African population.
Dave Lewis
Chief Executive, Tesco
Lewis arrived at Tesco after a 2014 accounting scandal that shocked the City. Wiry and athletic, he worked tirelessly to simplify the dizzying varieties and ranges Tesco stocked, making it a simpler business with cheaper prices. Although the turnaround is nowhere near finished, this year he embarked on a mega takeover of Booker, the cash-and-carry giant. Tesco director Richard Cousins resigned over the deal, believing it to be too soon into the recovery programme, but recently remarried Lewis sees it as a way to prepare Tesco for a future where shoppers are ditching out-of-town superstores for Booker’s corner shop clients.
Alexander Mamut
Chairman, Waterstones
The billionaire Russian investor bought Waterstones for £53 million back in 2011 and brought in James Daunt to help turn around the struggling high-street book-seller. The turnaround of the 270-store retailer has been steady, but stores have enjoyed a revival in physical book sales as well as offering stationery and traditional games. A float may yet be on the horizon but Mamut has certainly helped the British high-street stalwart claw its way back to life, at a time when the Amazon giant seemed destined to destroy even the biggest book stores.
Charlie Mayfield
Chairman, John Lewis Partnership
Moving from the senior ranks of the army to the cut-throat battlefield of the City is not so uncommon, but Mayfield’s career has taken him from Northern Ireland during the Troubles to the touchy-feely world of the John Lewis Partnership. After stints selling Horlicks and Lucozade for SmithKline Beecham, followed by McKinsey, he started at JLP in 2000, becoming only the fifth-ever chairman in 2007.
Ross McEwan
Chief Executive, RBS
The Kiwi with the most difficult job in the City has finally cleared one huge hurdle — settling a $5.5 billion (£4.2 billion) claim over trading toxic mortgage-backed debt in the US in the run up to the financial crisis. The settlement is likely to be followed by a further $2.5 billion claim from the Department of Justice. 2017 has also seen some progress in cutting staff and settling with shareholders. It has taken some time to haul the taxpayer-owned bank out of its “lost decade”, and it’s not quite there yet, but McEwan finally seems to be making headway.
John McFarlane
Chairman, Barclays
The no-nonsense McFarlane — who lost no time in dispensing of the services of former chief executive Antony Jenkins in 2015 — is also keen to stick up for the Square Mile’s interests after Brexit as chair of TheCityUK lobby group. The 70-year-old banking veteran has been vocal in calling for a multi-year transition deal with the EU but remains confident that London will remain a key financial centre.
Nicola Mendelsohn
Vice-President EMEA, Facebook
Frequently referred to as the most powerful woman in UK tech, Lady Mendelsohn CBE has been leading Facebook’s unstoppable rise in Europe. Like Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, she is a champion of diversity in the workplace. One of Sadiq Khan’s business advisers, Lady Mendelsohn is also a director at spirits giant Diageo and co-chairs the Creative Industries Council, a joint venture between creative industries and the Government.
Peter Miller
Chief Operating Officer UK/ Europe Westfield
The place where 75 million Londoners shop a year, Westfield dictates to a great extent what the capital spends its money on and also how it spends its leisure time. Miller has been in charge since Westfield arrived in 2008 and its latest £1 billion development in Croydon and a new £600 million extension of Westfield London demonstrate how it is turning up the heat on rivals. A Knight Bachelor honour for company founder Frank Lowy in the Queen’s recent birthday honours list shows how significant Westfield has been in rebuilding the capital’s economy since the financial crisis.
Lakshmi Mittal
Chairman and Chief Executive, ArcelorMittal
The 67-year-old steel magnate who was born in India has reason to celebrate: he and his family were ranked number four in the Sunday Times Rich List 2017’s UK richest 1000. They added more than £6 billion to their £13.2 billion fortune. Mittal settled in London in 1995 and he is a shareholder in Queens Park Rangers FC, along with his son-in-law Amit Bhatia, who is its vice-chairman.
Dambisa Moyo
Economist
The Zambian-born international economist is a veteran of the World Bank and Goldman Sachs who currently sits on the board of Barclays. The Oxford and Harvard-educated academic is author of three New York Times international bestsellers including Dead Aid — on the folly of aid to Africa — and is a regular at Davos, arguing this year that workers need to “re-skill” to adapt to globalisation and the jobs of the future.
Marc Nachmann
Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Co-Head
The high-flying new head of investment banking in London originally joined Goldman Sachs in its corporate finance department in 1994 and had struck gold within 10 years by being promoted to partner. He is now seen as one of the “next generation” of leaders at the bank. The married father-of-two was educated at Wesleyan University in Connecticut after joining as an exchange student from Germany. He graduated in 1991 with a degree in physics and mathematics-economics.
Paula Nickolds
Managing Director, John Lewis
The first female boss of John Lewis is a lifer at the department store group beloved by Britain’s middle-classes. She joined 22 years ago in the haberdashery department in Oxford Street and enjoyed a stellar career but reaches the top in tough times for retail, with Brexit and rising inflation sapping consumer confidence. Retail is in her DNA, as some of her earliest memories are of accompanying father Clive Nickolds on store tours at Marks & Spencer where he was a senior director.
Gavin Patterson
Chief Executive, BT
Gavin Patterson / Daniel Hambury / Evening Standard
As the head of one of the UK’s biggest telecoms firms, Patterson has led a bold push into Sky’s backyard, snapping up a host of sports broadcasting rights including Premier League football. But 2017 has been an “annus horribilis” for the FTSE 100 chief executive so far; the lowlight was a shocking profit warning driven by an accounting scandal in Italy and slowing public sector contracts.
Franck Petitgas
Global Co-Head of Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley
The French-born City whizz gave £12,000 to the Remain side in the run-up to the referendum last year. But, with the Leave side winning, he now finds himself helping the Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley prepare for Brexit. Every chairman and chief executive will take his calls, which should help him.
Vis Raghavan
JPMorgan Head of Banking EMEA
Cricket devotee Raghavan grew up in India and studied physics at the University of Bombay before he came to the UK to do a postgraduate degree in electronic engineering and computer science at Aston University. He had fully intended to go into a technology role. But luckily for JPMorgan, he ended up in the financial sector. With that brainpower, it’s no surprise he is the top City bank’s most senior banker in Europe, having just been promoted from deputy to CEO of its Europe, Middle East and Africa division.
Jim Ratcliffe
Chief Executive, Ineos
Ratcliffe grew up in Greater Manchester and now runs one of the world’s biggest chemical companies, which employs around 4,000 people in Britain. He is a fan of adventure sports who has made expeditions to the North and South Poles, but Ratcliffe can also be found in Knightsbridge, where Ineos opened a new headquarters in December. His firm has now transferred a number of the functions from the group’s corporate headquarters in Switzerland to London.
Simon Robey
Co-Founder, Robey Warshaw
The City’s been quiet this year for the megadeals Sir Simon specialises in advising on. But where they have happened, he’s usually been somewhere in the background. This consigliore of the City, like his sidekick Simon Warshaw, is on the speed-dial of every chairman and chief executive in town. Their Robey Warshaw boutique advisory firm saw their profits double to £37 million in figures released at the start of the year. Not bad for a business only four years old. Robey, chairman of the Royal Opera House, became Sir Simon last year for services to music.
Xavier Rolet
Chief Executive at the London Stock Exchange
The French-born stock exchange chief played a pivotal role in one of London's most fraught takeover sagas last year, steadying the ship as the company's merger with Deutsche Borse collapsed. Rolet, who owns an award-winning winery in Provence with his wife Nicole, bounced back by boosting LSE sales and clinching a £500m US takeover. Retirement beckons for this busy bee however after he announced would step down in 2018.
Sacha Romanovitch
Chief Executive, Grant Thornton
Romanovitch has made waves since becoming the boss of the accountancy giant in 2015, with a focus on social responsibility. It is paying off: this year the firm came number one in the Government’s first-ever list of the top 50 employers to have promoted social mobility at work. Changes the company has made in recent years to its school leaver and graduate trainee selection include removing academic barriers to entry.
Peter Ruis
Chief Executive, Jigsaw
His first job was buying shell suits, but dashing 49-year-old Ruis’s latest accomplishment has been putting the pieces back together at Jigsaw. Sales leapt to £105 million in the last financial year, as the former John Lewis buyer steered the intelligent fashion brand off the rocks. Brexit means big challenges, but Ruis is spearheading Jigsaw’s ♥ Immigration campaign, because “none of us are the product of staying put”. That’s what we call fashion forward.
Keith Skeoch
Co-Chief Executive, Standard Life Aberdeen
Although he’s based in Scotland for much of the time, Keith Skeoch’s stewardship of Standard Life makes him one of the City’s biggest noises. And he’s only getting more powerful as he bashes the business together with Aberdeen Asset Management and his opposite number there, Martin Gilbert. Quieter and more contemplative than clubbable Gilbert, Skeoch is more of the details guy in the partnership. A keen fell walker and fly fisherman, he’s as comfortable in the Highlands as he is on Cheapside.
Martin Sorrell
Chief Executive, WPP
The advertising mogul, aka the Sage of Soho, has run WPP for more than three decades. Despite his pay packet plunging last year and his industry facing tough economic times, with relentless cost-cutting by large corporations that are scaling back on advertising, Sir Martin has given no hints that retirement is on his mind. He is more than a mere adman. Clients and the media rate, indeed rely on, his ability to see what’s coming next.
Michael Spencer
Chief Executive of NEX
City trading legend Spencer is prominent as ever in the capital, concentrating on NEX, the electronic division of the Icap empire. Earlier this year, the former Tory Party treasurer split off Icap’s traditional telephone broking arm and sold it to Tullett Prebon in a £1.3 billion deal. The fine wine-loving bigwig is famed for hosting star-studded charity days.
Jes Staley
Chief Executive, Barclays
The American banker who broke company rules trying to unmask a whistle-blower at Barclays and who fell victim to a flattering email prankster has had his reputation dented this year, but he still remains one of the most influential voices in the City. At least Staley will have some fans among the Government, where he has helped by playing down the implications of Brexit and also pledging that only a few hundred or so of the bank’s UK employees will transfer to Dublin to help build an HQ within the European Union.
Tim Steiner
Chief Executive, Ocado
The former bond trader for Goldman Sachs started Ocado 17 years ago with fellow Goldman colleagues and the online supermarket has been delivering Waitrose goods across the capital ever since. The business has finally started to turn profitable, delivers for Morrisons as well, and has even announced its long-awaited international supply deal with an as-yet unnamed overseas retailer. Ocado now pitches itself as a tech company and Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods has helped stimulate interest in it. The former banker looks set to hit a sweet spot.
Ian Taylor
Chief Executive, Vitol
The head of the world’s largest independent oil trader may be facing difficult market conditions, but in March he revealed that the behemoth, run from his millionaire factory in Buckingham Palace Road, had a “solid” performance in 2016. The Royal Opera House chairman said crude and product volumes increased by 16 per cent.
Francesco Vanni D’Archirafi
CEO Citi Holdings
The German-born head of Citi’s “bad bank” did such a good job managing zombie assets dating back to the financial crisis that it now makes a profit. The son of an Italian diplomat spent a peripatetic childhood in Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Buenos Aires. He has worked almost all his career at Citibank, joining in 1983 in New York and transferring to Lima in Peru the following year before taking on a series of more senior roles.
Nick Varney
Chief Executive, Merlin Entertainments
Britain’s biggest tourist operator, Varney is the chief executive of Merlin Entertainments which operates some of the world’s most-famous attractions including Madame Tussauds and the London Eye. Varney is a considered and thoughtful voice over the Brexit challenge to tourism and has also won fans for this humble and swift action in the wake of the Smiler accident at Alton Towers, which exposed terrible health and safety failings.
Willie Walsh
Chief Executive at International Airlines Group
The boss of British Airways owner IAG has faced down a cocktail of problems this year, from cabin crew strikes and IT meltdowns to Brexit threats and low-cost rivals. The 56-year-old Irishman — who once said he would retire at 55 — has come through it all intact, opening a new airline class, Level, to compete with budget rivals and bolstering his statesmanlike role in the industry by holding the chair at global airline body IATA.
Mike Wells
Chief Executive, Prudential
The man from the Pru is no longer an ageing English gent in a bowler hat knocking on your front door. Wells is a tall Canadian, now a US citizen, with Superman good looks. Now two years into the job, he rocked up to London from his beloved Nashville, where he’d built up an enviable collection of rare guitars. Little wonder his son Jackson is now enjoying success as a singer-songwriter in China, where he sings the blues in Mandarin. If country and blues is not your thing, Wells can wax lyrical about everything from cattle (he still owns a ranch outside Nashville), to US politics (he’s a conservative with a gun licence), or world travel.
Alannah Weston
Deputy Chairman at Selfridges
The Progress 1000, in partnership with Citi, and supported by Invisalign, is the Evening Standard’s celebration of the people who make a difference to London life. #progress1000
As the guiding light behind Selfridges’ Oxford Street flagship store, Weston has turned the building into a must-see for tourists and Londoners alike since she was named deputy chairman in 2014. The former Burberry press director was appointed as creative director of the Weston family department store in 2004, adding to her long-running connection with the brand. She is married to architect Alexander Cochrane. The couple have two daughters.
Mark Wilson
Chief Executive, Aviva
The rugby-loving New Zealand-born boss won high praise when Aviva was named Business of The Year at The Evening Standard Business Awards 2017. This firm is almost unrecognisable from the bedraggled insurer it was when he took over in January 2013. A textbook turnaround has been accomplished, with underperforming businesses sold, the structure simplified and core businesses strengthened. He is now looking to the firm’s future, investing heavily in all things digital.
Stewart Wingate
Chief Executive, Gatwick Airport
Stewart Wingate has spent most of the last year making the case to give Gatwick a second runway. The chief executive of the UK’s second-busiest airport is the public face of the airport’s vocal campaign and backed up his argument after increasing the number of long-haul flights from the airport — beyond what Sir Howard Davies predicted it would have. Before running Gatwick, he was managing director of Stansted.
Bill Winters
Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered
The Wall Street banker has spent much of the past two years trying to straighten out the pan-Asian bank and tighten up compliance and the job is certainly not over. There have been some small signs of progress following a restructuring of the bank’s business model, but there’s also lots of scepticism. Winters, who is something of a showman and is on the board of the Young Vic, favours a low-risk path to recovery but has made one significant decision. The bank’s EU headquarters will locate in Frankfurt, post-Brexit, a move which will probably influence other chief executives facing a similar dilemma.
Simon Wolfson
Chief Executive, Next
The Brexit-supporting chief executive of Next has had a tricky year in his retail empire as the company braces itself for rising prices, wage pressures and a slowdown in consumer spending. Online sales are faring better and rapidly becoming a big deal for the company and the closure of more physical stores seems inevitable. Next has not rediscovered its mojo in 2017 but Wolfson has laser-like scrutiny of the business and will not hesitate to make difficult decisions to win back the fickle British shopper.
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Halo Top ‘healthy’ ice cream outsells Ben & Jerry’s in US
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Halo Top, a Los Angeles-based ice cream company founded in 2011 which makes “low-calorie, high-protein and low-sugar” products, is providing serious competition to mainstream brands. A scoop of Halo Top’s Vanilla Ice contains just 60 calories, compared to 250 in an equivalent scoop of Häagen-Dazs. The company sold almost $50m of ice cream in the US last year, with pint pots now outselling those by Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs. Parent company Eden Creamery is reputedly considering a sale, valuing the firm at up to $2bn. However, some dieticians have expressed concerns about the brand’s use of artificial sweeteners.
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/20/introducing-halo-top-the-healthy-ice-cream-taking-over-america
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2017-10-20 11:23:23.357000
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“Everyone you love is gone. There is only ice-cream” is the darkly humorous sign off used in a recent ad for fast-growing American ice-cream brand Halo Top.
The Black Mirror-style commercial, which ran in US cinemas before films including the horror flick It, features an elderly woman being force-fed ice-cream by a robot in some dystopian future.
It was directed by Mike Diva, who has built a YouTube following with his advertising parodies, and who typifies the offbeat digital marketing aimed at millennials that has helped turn Halo Top into serious competition for bestselling brands such as Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs.
The somewhat noir US TV ad for Halo Top ice-cream.
The Los Angeles-based company was founded at the start of the decade by Justin Woolverton, a former lawyer who had a sweet tooth but was worried about sugar. So he bought a $20 ice-cream maker on Amazon and began trying to create healthier alternatives. “It was just something that I was making in my kitchen because I didn’t like sugar,” he told one interviewer about his Eureka moment.
Halo Top ice-cream. Photograph: Halo Top
While most ice-creams are a sugar and fat-laden treat, Halo Top bills itself as a “low-calorie, high-protein and low-sugar” alternative to mainstream brands, with flavours such as mochi green tea and rainbow swirls. Its recipe uses sugar substitute Stevia, which means a scoop of its Vanilla Ice contains 60 calories versus 250 in a similar sized dollop of Häagen-Dazs.
Reports in the US media have begun to question whether Halo Top is really as healthy as the marketing makes out, with some dieticians raising concerns about the use of artificial sweeteners.
Halo Top is now stocked in supermarkets across America, with the company shifting nearly $50m (£38m) worth of ice-cream in the US last year. Its sales accelerated in 2016 after GQ writer Shane Snow lived on Halo Top ice-cream for 10 days and the resulting article went viral.
The brand’s rise has been propelled by social media: it has 590,000 followers on Instagram and more than 700,000 on Facebook.
The social media buzz helped Halo Top chalk up another milestone in the summer when industry data showed its pint pots were outselling Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s and Nestlé’s Häagen-Dazs in US grocery stores for the first time. Halo Top’s parent company, LA-based Eden Creamery, is seizing the day with one recent report suggesting it is exploring a sale that could value the company at up to $2bn.
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Think tank NEF envisages driver-owned Uber rival for London
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A co-operatively owned taxi company, offering drivers better working conditions and operating in compliance with existing regulations could beat Uber at its own game, said Stefan Baskerville, a director at think tank New Economic Foundation's (NEF). NEF is working with taxi drivers in Leeds and Bradford to develop such a model that offers a secure and affordable service, and is taking the idea to London, where it aims to gain the backing of Mayor Sadiq Khan. Uber, which faces opposition in several global locations, recently lost its licence to operate in the UK capital.
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http://neweconomics.org/2017/10/putting-drivers-control/
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2017-10-20 10:52:41.057000
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Blog
A driver-owned alternative to Uber is not wishful thinking – we’re building it right now
Last weekend, Jeremy Corbyn raised an intriguing possibility. “Imagine an Uber,” he said, “run co-operatively by their drivers, collectively controlling their futures, agreeing their own pay and conditions, with profits shared or re-invested.”
Many have since dismissed this idea as wishful thinking. First, there is Uber’s undoubted popularity among its users – hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition protesting against Transport for London’s decision not to renew Uber’s licence. Then there is its market dominance, which only ever seems to intensify. How can any rival hope to compete in the increasingly monopolistic world of private hire?
Finally there is the factor which underpins both its popularity and its dominance. And that’s its price point. When Uber came on the scene, it undercut other taxi services by a huge margin. And it appeared to do so by spending vast amounts of venture capital in a bid to achieve global dominance of the market. Any co-operative, driver-owned alternative to Uber has to be competitive on price or it will never break through Uber’s grip on the market. How can they do that without spending vast amounts of capital? Where would that money come from?
We believe a driver-owned alternative could genuinely compete with Uber on price and convenience, especially if supported by the Mayor of London.
None of these arguments holds water. At the New Economics Foundation we recently called for ‘Khan’s Cars’, a mutually owned taxi platform for London which would give drivers real control over their working lives while still providing people with the cheap and convenient transport they need. We believe a driver-owned alternative could genuinely compete with Uber on price and convenience, especially if supported by the Mayor of London.
In fact, Uber isn’t as cheap as it seems. The company’s use of surge pricing, which inflates prices during periods of high demand, allows it to present cheaper prices at other times. Partly as a result of this, Uber makes a profit in the UK – suggesting the basic pricing model is financially viable without vast capital resources. So the gap to close isn’t as wide as it may look at first glance.
Furthermore, Uber takes between 20 – 25% of the fares it charges. Khan’s Cars could reduce that percentage since it will not have shareholders looking to extract profit.
If an alternative to Uber can compete on price and convenience, the prize is a taxi service which puts drivers in control of their working lives, with decent working conditions. And because it would not be motivated by the need to cut regulatory corners, it could offer improved safety for passengers.
It’s an idea which is attracting more and more support. We are already working with drivers in Bradford and Leeds to set up their own taxi service platform. Now we want to bring that effort to London. We’re working with drivers, tech companies, unions and civil society organisations to build the support and resources for a real alternative.
Uber is facing reputational problems not just in London, but all over the world. A co-operatively owned alternative would avoid that trap. As Uber struggles to stay on the right side of the law, perhaps the fanciful idea is not so much creating an alternative, but carrying on with the status quo.
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Publisher Bleacher Report increases UK profile through instagram
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Sports publisher the Bleacher Report has increased its profile in the UK through its Bleacher Report Football Instagram account, which generated 10.4m likes and comments from its 667,000 followers in April. Interest in branded content from advertisers has grown significantly, driven by visual campaigns such as Nike’s animated highlights reel from footballers. The publisher has said its 2017 engagement rate is 4.3%, almost five times that of competitors BBC Sport and Goal. Bleacher Report has appointed Gideon Reeves in the new role of international commercial director in the U.K to continue driving growth.
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https://digiday.com/media/bleacher-report-growing-uk-large-part-thanks-instagram/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171020
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2017-10-20 10:19:20.050000
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Bleacher Report is growing its U.K. presence on the back of its popular Bleacher Report Football Instagram account.
Bleacher Report Football, which has 667,000 followers, published 894 photos and videos on Instagram in April, according to NewsWhip data. In total, these generated 10.4 million engagements, a catch-all term NewsWhip uses for likes and comments. In September, the account posted just 39 more posts than in April, including a dozen carousels, but the engagements across these posts more than doubled to 26 million in total.
“Instagram we’re the most excited about,” said Lee Walker, global managing editor at Bleacher Report. “Across the board, it’s the platform where we get the most engagement. It sums up our mantra of elevated storytelling through great visuals and design. We are seeing increased interest in Instagram for branded content from clients right now.” The publisher was unwilling to share how much revenue this brings in, however.
For Nike in September, Bleacher Report Football created animated Instagram videos highlighting key moments from players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Leroy Sané and Robert Lewandowski. One post featuring Ronaldo had 23,000 engagements, according to NewsWhip; for comparison, its most popular editorial post on Instagram in September received 62,000 engagements. Bleacher Report Football has also run campaigns for Adidas, offering brands guaranteed views on Instagram.
“We see Instagram as a perfect way for some of our brand partners to connect with our fans,” said Walker. “There is a lot of potential here on both the revenue and audience side.”
This month, Bleacher Report appointed Gideon Reeves, formerly at 90min and Eurosport, to the newly created role of international commercial director in the U.K. to accelerate commercial opportunities in the U.K. and Europe. In total, the U.K. outfit is 32 people, with three in sales roles; the rest are editors, mobile and video specialists, social media editors and designers.
Bleacher Report Football’s content falls outside the commodity of scores and highlights, tapping into culture beyond sports, like film, TV, music and fashion. This makes the content more relevant and shareable, said Walker. Bleacher Report takes a distributed approach to content rather than using platforms to drive users back to its site. Its social team of 14 people, who work across platforms, publishes 30 pieces of content on Instagram a day. Instagram content is often video or animations with graphics and stop motion, like one putting football players into scenes from “Game of Thrones”.
The publisher said its engagement rate on Instagram — the number of likes and comments divided by follower count — is 4.3 percent in 2017, nearly five times that of competitors. Bleacher Report Football has 670,000 followers; in comparison, BBC Sport, whose coverage is broader, has under 1 million followers, and football site Goal’s global account has 1.8 million followers.
Bleacher Report is not alone in its Instagram high: NewsWhip analysts said they have seen engagement grow significantly across the board for publishers. It’s hard to pinpoint why, but the platform’s increase in users — it doubled monthly active users to 800 million in two years — plays a role. Publishers like millennial women-focused site Bustle is doing four times as many branded-content deals a month on Instagram versus a year ago, but in general, making money from platforms like Instagram outside of branded content is a struggle.
“What’s clear is that [Bleacher Report] is investing heavily in content specifically for social platforms, which is different to other sports networks,” said Katie Manor, head of paid social at MediaCom. She added that the publisher’s decision to rename its social media handles to “Bleacher Report Football” in March to reflect a focus on the sport, plus expand football beyond the U.K. in the vast category of sports publishing was a shrewd move. “This gives them a lot more opportunity to own the space and have an authoritative voice on their subject matter,” she said.
Walker will outline how Bleacher Report engages its audience in Berlin next week at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe.
Images courtesy of Bleacher Report U.K. via Instagram
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Lyft receives $1bn investment from Google-led consortium
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Ride-hailing service Lyft has secured $1bn in funding, in a round led by CapitalG, the growth investment fund of Google parent Alphabet. Earlier this year, Lyft announced a collaboration with Alphabet's self-driving outfit Waymo. This latest cash injection could put Lyft on a par with beleaguered rival Uber, which enjoyed early backing from Google Ventures, according to insiders.
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https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/alphabet-lyft-1-billion/?sr_source=Twitter
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2017-10-20 10:08:09.307000
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Last month, we reported on rumors that Alphabet, Google's parent company, was considering investing in Lyft. Now, Lyft has announced that CapitalG, which is Alphabet's growth investment fund, is leading a $1 billion financing round in the car-sharing company. This brings Lyft's total valuation to $11 billion.
Alphabet's interest in Lyft isn't that surprising, if you think about it. It's already clear that Alphabet is interested in self-driving cars, as the company owns Waymo. And back in May, Waymo and Lyft announced the two companies would work together on self-driving cars. Following that, Lyft announced it would develop its own autonomous driving technology, stating that it was "core" to its business. Of course, Alphabet could be hedging another bet, since its sister company Google Ventures is a large early investor in Uber to the tune of $258 million in 2013, as well as the failed rival service Sidecar.
As Uber has been plagued by woe after woe of its own making, Lyft has been quietly rising as an increasingly used alternative. This round of funding may help put the company on equal footing as Uber's rival, rather than constantly being thought of as a second-place finisher.
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Musicians look to terrorism insurance following recent attacks
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An increasing number of musicians and performers are looking to purchase terrorism insurance coverage following disruption of popular concerts by recent attacks. Such policies would cover artists in the event of terror-linked cancellations. Bloodshed at concerts in Las Vegas, Paris and Manchester have prompted more musicians to mull policies they may have considered too expensive in the past.
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http://nypost.com/2017/10/19/musicians-investing-in-terrorism-insurance-following-vegas-attack/
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2017-10-20 10:07:54.127000
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There’s been a high demand for terrorism insurance in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre — with artists from all music genres reportedly looking to invest in policies for their concerts.
“Now more than ever they are targets,” explained Steves Rodriguez, business manager for the all-girl pop group, Fifth Harmony.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter this week, he and other managers described how musicians were taking out terrorism insurance policies now — more than ever before — following the deadly mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival on Oct. 1.
“Not everybody believes it’s necessary,” said business manager Bill Tannenbaum, who specializes in representing touring artists.
“I’m pretty vocal about taking it with my clients, and luckily we had it with Ariana Grande.”
The “Into You” singer was forced to cancel multiple stops on her world tour back in May after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Manchester Arena where she was performing. Twenty-two people were killed in the attack and hundreds more injured.
The incident, coupled with the Vegas massacre and similar terror strikes — such as the Bataclan nightclub in Paris during an Eagles of Death Metal concert — has ultimately prompted artists to buy the insurance policies, which up until now, have been viewed by many as being too expensive.
“It’s usually a battle with the artist to buy it,” said Dina LaPolt, lawyer for singers Britney Spears and Steven Tyler.
“If you get paid a million dollars, all of your tour costs come out of that million,” she said. “So every penny counts.”
While standard nonperformance insurance policies typically cost about 2 percent of the artist’s guarantee — and pay a claim of around 80 percent of appearance fees if a concert is canceled — a political violence and terrorism policy will usually run them an extra half-percent more, THR reports.
Once a musician purchases the PVT insurance, they will be able to obtain their claim in the event that an unexpected crisis arises, or if there’s even the threat of an attack.
“The way [policies had] been written previously is, the threat had to be related to the venue,” explained John Tomlinson, head of the world’s largest privately owned, independent insurance brokerage firm, Lockton Companies.
“We have expanded that language to include threats made to bandmembers.”
In addition, terrorism insurance policies may also cover a concert or show that is affected by an attack or threat that takes place around the same time or within a 50-mile radius of the venue.
“If it’s a big tour and you’re a high-profile artist and you gather tens of thousands of people per show, you have to have it,” LaPolt said.
“Orange Is the New Black” creator Jenji Kohan, who recently took out a terror policy on her office building, added: “You’re always going to do something that someone doesn’t like…And you don’t know how crazy that someone is going to be.”
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Magic Leap seeks another $1bn, with no product yet released
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Augmented reality start-up Magic Leap is reported to be raising $1bn in investment for its technology, which has yet to be released into the market. The company’s initial Magic Leap One device superimposes images into users’ field of vision. Investors thus far have included Google, Qualcomm and Alibaba, with the company likely to be valued at $6.5bn if the financing goes ahead. The specifics of the device have yet to be unveiled.
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https://futurism.com/ar-startup-magic-leap-is-looking-to-raise-another-billion-dollars/
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2017-10-20 10:05:44.710000
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Magic leap has been touted as the future of augmented reality (AR). By superimposing advanced images into your "normal" field of vision, it has been adored and supported by many for it's promised "magic" quality.
It might become even more "magical" if it receives the $1-billion investment that the company is reportedly raising. Investors in this most recent development haven't been named, but previous investors like Google, Alibaba, and Qualcomm have helped to support the technology thus far.
This call for increased investment, which would put Magic Leap at $6.5 billion in valuation if this recent investment is solidified, is happening in advance of "Magic Leap One" — the company's highly-anticipated initial device. So far, no one really knows any specifics about the device, but many have made exciting claims of its ability to incorporate virtual imagery with vision. But it is possible, despite such hefty investments and impressive claims, that the hype will outweigh the final product. Hopefully, this is not the case. Consumers, and likely the high-level investors, anxiously anticipate the tech and hope that the billions of dollars used in support of its development will allow for the creation of a truly game-changing technology.
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Insurance consultant mulls data for coverage exchange
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Insurance companies in the future may be able to offer coverage in exchange for policyholders' data rather than cash premiums, according insurance consultant Michael Rabin. The concept would depend on an insurer's ability to monetise the collection of data, as well as to streamline the administrative process of buying insurance. Wearables and other connected devices, such as home monitoring devices or smartphones, could be used as data sources.
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https://blogs.sas.com/content/hiddeninsights/2017/10/20/free-insurance-return-data/
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2017-10-20 09:25:46.487000
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On the way to visit a customer recently, I heard a feature on the radio that made me stop and think. The feature was about a fitness chain that was about to open the world's largest gym in Germany. The difference was the membership model. Instead of a monthly membership fee, users would pay with data.
As an employee of a data analysis software producer, this raised a lot of questions in my mind: How would it work? What about privacy? How does this change visits to the gym? What are my data worth and what will happen to the data? How does the chain refinance through my data?
The radio feature answered most of my questions. The chain was not planning to resell personal data. Training results and evaluations of health records can already be used commercially, for example through targeted personalized advertising in the gym or at advertising events. These data are of course also of interest to other companies, such as health insurers or employers, for example. They use it to see if a customer or employee is actively doing anything to improve their health.
Some insurance companies already use this kind of data, such as Assicurazioni Generali, the insurance company. It rewards healthy living with discounts on risk insurance or occupational disability insurance using a telematics tariff. This simply means that the customer has to pass data to the insurer through fitness trackers or smartphones.
I asked myself whether I personally would sign up to that kind of membership to be able to visit the gym. I found I was still skeptical, but I was not really sure why. After all, I already know that I give away a great deal of data without much thought to companies like Google, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Was I skeptical because this new contract would put a price on my data in the real world?
Transforming business
Tech companies have managed to gather a lot of knowledge about users through the collection of data, and this has enabled them to implement a variety of offers. Google, for example, has transformed itself from a pure search engine provider into a much-used platform provider. This, in turn, collects even more data and generates more knowledge about its users. Amazon is similar. Originally an online bookshop, we now use Amazon for much more. We regularly buy at the world‘s largest mail order company and, as a matter of course, we store data in the Amazon cloud or use the integrated music and video portal as Prime customers. Some of Amazon‘s own productions have already acquired cult status. Based on its market power, Amazon is even considering an entry into the insurance industry.
Insurance cover given in return for data? Would it work? Insurers are already offering customers more services and tariff options — some even in non-insurance segments — and want to differentiate themselves from the competition, offer customers value and improve their own position. This might be through an app to improve home safety, a discount for prudent driving, the option to manage all private contracts (including outsourcing) on my insurer's portal, or the option to purchase cloud storage via insurance.
In other words, paying for insurance in data may only be extending an existing trend. But would it really be conceivable? What would it be like?
Let's do a thought experiment
At the very least, payment in data rather than Euros would attract the attention of potential new customers. So as not to lose these immediately because of a complicated application process with a lot of questions to enable risk assessment, it would be good to keep the application process short and simple. This would probably mean a uniform price as much as possible. InsurTech start-ups have already shown us what this might look like.
Insurance companies have a long tradition in the use of analytical methods. Where does the insurance industry stand in terms of modern analytics and artificial intelligence? This is what our industry experts found out in personal talks with insurers from all over Europe. Read the survey results.
As the contract continues, we will have enough information about our customers through the data they provide. We would probably prefer to form a single large insured collective than a lot of small ones. As a positive side effect, criticism about discrimination would be reduced. To ensure that the data gives enough value to cover future claims and losses, we would need to reduce closing and administrative expenses as much as possible. The product should therefore be a pure online product, which the customer can complete and manage themselves without much support. If any help is necessary, we could use chatbots as a first level response, and employees where necessary.
We would also have to consider what data we would like from customers, and what we would do with the data. Obviously we would want information that would provide us with sustainable, risk-bearing and monetizable knowledge, increase customer loyalty, and perhaps even enable us to create a gamification factor. Possible data sources could be fitness bracelets or other wearables, connected cars, smartphones, smarthomes or any other sensor connected to the IoT, especially if it could supply real-time data. Real-time data streaming is particularly interesting when we want to generate value in real-time, such as offer an additional service or product.
How to monetize data?
Finally, the most important question: How do I make money from the data and the associated additional knowledge? There are no limits to the imagination, but with the appropriate opt-ins and good legal advice about data protection law, most things should be feasible. From additional paid service offerings, through advertising and cross-selling, to cooperation, many options are conceivable. Whether this is in the end actually enough to justify offering insurance cover just for data, I cannot judge.
What do you think? Would you take up that type of insurance? What would you do with the data as an insurer? I look forward to your comments.
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Niche tokens seen helping to define and identify consumers
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Companies and organisations that issue their own digital currencies, or tokens, have the opportunity to personalise consumers like never before, giving a boost to the gaming and cryptocurrency industries, according to esports.com. The company said its ERT token, for instance, would allow it to offer specific deals and bespoke products to holders, incentivising demand for the currency and creating a new commercial ecosystem for marketers.
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https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2017/10/cryptocurrency-future-payments-esports-industry/
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2017-10-20 09:24:47.653000
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I am mining bitcoin and getting a bunch of it every day, so now what? That is the question some of the people probably asked themselves when they got acquainted with bitcoin in its infancy. We know exactly what happened with the finances of those who stuck with it a few years down the line. However, we tend to focus too much on that side of the cryptocurrency revolution while we gloss over a more fundamental change in the way economic ecosystems will emerge in the 21st century. It took years for the earliest bitcoin adopters to be able to spend their coins on a variety of products and services. Once bitcoin gained wider acceptance, the amount of goods and services that were available to bitcoin users, including those specially designed or engineered for bitcoin users, expanded tremendously. The same can happen now with niche coins such as eSports’ ERT.
The Kind of Tokens You Hold, Represent the Kind of Consumer You Are!
Although bitcoin is still the most dominant coin, a plethora of niche coins have emerged in the market, creating sub-economies within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. eSports’ ERT is a great example of how it is possible to develop such a niche coin that can become the pillar of an emerging industry. The advantage now is that after the advent of the bitcoin economy, it will take ERT a fraction of the time to develop an economy around it. This is due to the fact that it was designed with a specific set of goals in mind, and it plays a specific role within cryptocurrency markets. In a sense, any ERT holder, will automatically be identified with the gaming industry, pushing the notion that the tokens you hold say a lot about what kind of consumer you are. This will trigger the next stage of evolution within the cryptocurrency sphere.
The Relevance of Consumer Identity and Cryptocurrency
This evolution in consumer identity will generate economic efficiencies. Lower transaction times and costs were the kind of efficiencies that bitcoin brought to the market. With niche coins and custom tokens that can become one of the pillars of an industry such as eSports, it will be possible to achieve interesting economies of scale and an unprecedented level of integration between different actors within the industry. This will create a whole new set of efficiencies. If a token such as the ERT allows specific customers that are identified with the gaming industry, to get better deals and bespoke products and services, then the economy will enter a whole new era by going deeper down the cryptocurrency rabbit hole. Imagine the following:
Gamers start buying gaming related products with ERT tokens, such as gaming PCs, or perhaps special mice and keyboards.
The producer of these goods will have an incentive to market and retail within the eSports platform, which will allow them to spend less on marketing and distribution efforts through other platforms.
Buyers will become a consumer cluster, which will allow companies to sell at lower prices while keeping their margins higher.
This will jump start a small economy centered around the gaming industry, with the ERT and eSports playing a central role.
Precise Economies and eSports
This is not at all different from the economy that bitcoin created. New service providers, and innovative companies producing highly specialized goods and services for the bitcoin economy sprung eventually. Service providers such as cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, hardware wallets and even artists, owe their livelihood to the bitcoin economy. The ERT token and eSports can do the same for gamers and for the gaming industry, while it gives consumers advantages that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Once gamers acquire ERT tokens and the gaming economy starts developing around this new niche coin, just as other economies develop around other niche coins, the cryptocurrency ecosystem will advance further into the realm of precise economies. Within these, a myriad of new services will develop, mounted on platforms such as eSports. The shift will be evident in consumer behavior, because cryptocurrency users will no longer ask themselves what they can do with this new coin. They will start asking which coin will be the best to have to acquire the products and services they are looking for.
You love crypto & eSports? We want to get to know you.
Please join us here: https://facebook.com/esportsdotcom/
Telegram: t.me/esportsERT
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Snapchat's Placed and Snap Map help deliver 73% rise in ad spend
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The major social media platforms enjoyed an overall uptick in ad spend during Q3 2017 of almost one-third, but Snapchat was the clear winner in the quarter, with a rise of 73%, according to a survey from 4C Insights. It cited Snapchat's Placed and Snap Map features as big attractions for advertisers, and noted Instagram's Stories helped drive up its ad spend by 55%. Meanwhile, Twitter's Q3 results rose by more than a quarter, thanks to the travel industry, which upped its spend on the site by 250%, while ad spend on Facebook increased by 27%.
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https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2017/oct/19/real-world-measurement-features-send-snapchat-ad-soaring-73/
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2017-10-20 09:10:06.670000
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Colm is the editor of MarketingTech, with a mission to bring the most important developments in technology to both businesses and consumers.
A number of new offline features introduced by Snapchat have added value to advertisers, and led to the company having a mammoth Q3 2017.
According to data science and media technology firm 4C Insights, the social media company’s ad spend rocketed up by 73%. Instagram, which also implemented new features, saw its ad spend up 55% in the third quarter of the year.
4C analysed around $250 million in media spend from over 1,000 brands managed through its platform. Across the broad, there was a 31% increase in media spend on the major social media platforms.
So, what made Snapchat’s performance so extraordinary?
The company brought in a range of features that help advertisers better understand how consumers shop. Features like Snap Map, which allows users to share their location and see where their friends are, and geofilters, where people can add geographical information to their posts, are a hit with advertisers.
Of particular interest, though, is the ability to track users as they go into stores with ‘Placed’, which helps retailers understand how Snap Ads are actually affecting real-world business.
For Instagram, it is Stories that is driving ad spend growth. The feature has generated 220% year-on-year spend growth for the company.
"Vertical video provides brands with a full-scale canvas to test creative,” Emily Kramer, Senior Director, Media Services at Merkle said.
“Audience-driven optimisation becomes low-risk and high-reward, with lots of opportunity to scale learning across the media mix”,
The rise of integrated video
Facebook saw ad spend grow 27%. This was mainly driven by the platform’s detailed targeting and measurement capabilities, but also its growing video capability.
Video content is rising across many of the social media platforms, with Facebook watch, Snapchat’s Show and Twitter’s 24/7 all allowing users to watch video content on their chosen platform.
Louis Guerrero, Supervisor, Social Media, Havas Media Group, said:
“Twitter is pushing aggressively into the video space in efforts to keep themselves top of mind when promoting any video assets. Twitter’s Pre-roll placements and partnerships with television shows are emerging opportunities for brands.”
Twitter ad spend grew 26% driven in particular by the travel industry, whose spend soared by 250%.
It is likely that video will continue to be an area of technological and revenue growth for social media companies.
“Understanding visual content through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will add a new level of consumer understanding and help brands be more relevant at the right time and place,” Aaron Goldman, CMO at 4C Insights said.
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Gibraltar leads way in regulation of distributed ledger practices
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The tiny British Mediterranean outpost of Gibraltar has become the first territory to provide a regulatory framework covering distributed ledger technology (DLT). Its nine-point governing principles, applicable to all DLT companies, enshrine such practices as protecting against customer losses with mandatory solvency plans and implementation of measures to prevent money laundering. Gibraltar, which has embraced blockchain and digital currencies, is positioning itself as a hub for the technology.
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https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2017/10/gibraltar-leading-way-new-dlt-regulation/
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2017-10-20 08:55:02.570000
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Global cryptocurrency markets are in constant states of shock and change, as large superpowers like China, Russia and South Korea each seek to change the apparent stance they have.
At this tumultuous time, however, it is the small nation of Gibraltar that has stepped forward as the first to provide a complete regulatory framework in which DLT firms can operate. Digital Ledger Technology, upon which blockchain is based, lends itself to a whole host of new financial challenges when it comes to regulation. As the evolution of blockchain technology is very recent and constantly changing, it is hard for current financial institutions to adjust, and many nations are unsure of how to properly introduce legislation.
Instead, many larger powers are turning to banning the use of cryptocurrencies rather than find a way to incorporate them. Without proper regulation in place, it becomes difficult for firms to operate, either because they are ousted by firms operating illegally, or that they are simply unable to identify legal grey areas. BTC-e is a prime example of a company who was able to operate illegally for six years and become responsible for more than $4 billion in laundered money. As a part of the regulation, the government has introduced nine governing principles by which all DLT firms must operate.
Examples of these include the need to ensure effective protocol to prevent money laundering, have solvency plans to protect against customer losses, and an overall understanding that a need to protect customer assets is vital. As such steps are still very recent, all new firms will be reviewed and prepared on their protocol on a case-by-case basis. Gibraltar hopes that these steps will create a safe zone in which innovative firms can operate. In fact, to further encourage adoption of blockchain technology in startups, the government is set to introduce an “Innovate and Create Team”. This team will be responsible for discussing new business opportunities and offering support in establishing themselves in the marketplace.
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Precision medicine boosted by gene sequencing improvements
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The latest generation of gene sequencers is driving innovation in precision medicine, according to Nazneen Aziz, executive director of Kaiser Permanente Research Bank. While the sector has come a long way, especially in the connecting of genomic data to electronic health records, Aziz believes that there is still much to be done, saying: "the interpretation of protein-coding parts of the genome is somewhat mature, but we still don't know how to interpret the parts that are in-between genes".
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http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/next-generation-sequencing-bringing-precision-medicine-clinical-realm
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2017-10-20 08:27:31.483000
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Genomic sequencing has come a long way in a short time, and its potential to drive even faster innovations in precision medicine is enormous.
To capitalize on that opportunity, however, health systems need data – lots of it, from all sorts of people. Kaiser Permanente has been building a biobank with genomic data and other health information from hundreds of thousands of patients from across its eight regions, and Nazneen Aziz, says it's already helping clinicians unlock insights into complex genetic challenges.
Aziz, executive director of Kaiser Permanente Research Bank, spoke during a HIMSS Learning Center webinar this past week, explaining the ways biobanks, with their data linked to electronic health record systems, are helping drive research discoveries at Kaiser and providing an opportunity for other health systems to collaborate.
A key catalyst for this innovation, of course, is the arrival of next-generation sequencing, which Aziz calls "the enabler of genomic medicine as it is today."
The Human Genome Project paved the way, and it seems hard to imagine a time, 13 years ago, when it cost $3 billion "just to get one human genome fully sequenced," she said. "Now, with next-generation sequencing, we're able to sequence individual genomes for under $1,000, and it's now come into the clinical realm."
Next-gen sequencing is "enabling large-scale scale sequencing very rapidly," said Aziz. And even in a U.S. healthcare system notoriously slow to adapt to change, it's being adopted fairly quickly, generating large volumes of increasingly complexity, from gene panels to whole exomes to whole genomes.
A challenge, however, is that "there is a big knowledge gap in clinical genomics," she said. "We know there are about 20,000 protein coding genes, and for about 5,000 of these genes we know their function — but we don't know the function of another 15,000 or so."
That, said Aziz, is "where population biobanks are critical."
More data from more people with more genomic profiles is essential if clinical researchers are going to be able to solve the mysteries — of which there are still many — of how genetics contribute to disease.
For instance, "we know that there are only about 667 validated drug targets," said Aziz. "And we know there are about 4,000 monogenic diseases, caused by mutation in a single gene."
But "while interpretation of protein-coding parts of the genome is somewhat mature, we still don't know how to interpret the parts that are in-between genes," she said. "Interpreting other parts of the genome is still in its infancy."
And recent years, for example, have revealed the importance of the intergenic region, DNA sequences between genes, which had previously been discounted or overlooked.
Indeed, the workings of monogenic diseases, caused by modifications in a single gene, such as sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis, versus complex or multi-genetic diseases (diabetes, obesity), which often develop in tandem with environmental or lifestyle factors, can be "hard for even physicians to understand sometimes," she said.
But the bigger and more diverse the data trove researchers can work with, the easier it is for them to arrive at genomic insights and develop new treatment strategies.
There are many biobanks around, the world, from the VA's Million Veteran Program, currently the largest in the world, to other large troves in the UK, China, Taiwan and Japan. But many biobanks are located at hospitals and health systems – not just at Kaiser Permanente, but Mayo Clinic, Geisinger Health System and more.
"Many hospitals are starting to do their own collection," said Aziz. "Now that the technology to sequence large numbers of patients has become so affordable and high-throughput, you are now able to connect the genomic sequence to the electronic health record and make great advances in understanding many diseases – not just the common ones, but also the rare ones."
Currently, Kaiser Permanente Research Bank is the second largest biobank in the U.S. (and the largest non-governmental biobank).
"About 5 percent of people in any healthcare system will be diagnosed to carry one or more of what are called clinically actionable diseases, meaning something can be done about their genetic variant and disease condition," said Aziz.
Many people have a genetic disease that has not been diagnosed and is not being managed properly because even the doctors don't know it's there.
"Through our biobank participant sequencing," she said, "we are able to identify the ones who have these undiagnosed disease and return it to the patient and the clinical care delivery site so it can be managed right."
Aziz said the biobank program is open for collaboration with other healthcare institutions. You can learn more at the HIMSS Learning Center webinar: How Genomic Data Banks Are Enabling Progress in Precision Medicine.
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Humans under threat as pollution said to kill 9 million annually
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At least nine million people die each year as a result of pollution, threatening the "survival of human societies", according to the fullest global analysis of the problem so far. The study commissioned by The Lancet said that one in six people across the globe dies from diseases caused by toxic air, soil, water and workplaces -- triple the mortality rate of Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The true number of deaths could also be far higher, given that the effects of many pollutants remain poorly understood. Treatment of illnesses and other costs linked to pollution run into trillions of dollars each year, the study found.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/19/global-pollution-kills-millions-threatens-survival-human-societies
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2017-10-20 08:21:18.843000
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Pollution kills at least nine million people and costs trillions of dollars every year, according to the most comprehensive global analysis to date, which warns the crisis “threatens the continuing survival of human societies”.
Toxic air, water, soils and workplaces are responsible for the diseases that kill one in every six people around the world, the landmark report found, and the true total could be millions higher because the impact of many pollutants are poorly understood. The deaths attributed to pollution are triple those from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
The vast majority of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. The international researchers said this burden is a hugely expensive drag on developing economies.
Rich nations still have work to do to tackle pollution: the US and Japan are in the top 10 for deaths from “modern” forms of pollution, ie fossil fuel-related air pollution and chemical pollution. But the scientists said that the big improvements that have been made in developed nations in recent decades show that beating pollution is a winnable battle if there is the political will.
“Pollution is one of the great existential challenges of the [human-dominated] Anthropocene era,” concluded the authors of the Commission on Pollution and Health, published in the Lancet on Friday. “Pollution endangers the stability of the Earth’s support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.”
Prof Philip Landrigan, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, US, who co-led the commission, said: “We fear that with nine million deaths a year, we are pushing the envelope on the amount of pollution the Earth can carry.” For example, he said, air pollution deaths in south-east Asia are on track to double by 2050.
Landrigan said the scale of deaths from pollution had surprised the researchers and that two other “real shockers” stood out. First was how quickly modern pollution deaths were rising, while “traditional” pollution deaths – from contaminated water and wood cooking fires – were falling as development work bears fruit.
“Secondly, we hadn’t really got our minds around how much pollution is not counted in the present tally,” he said. “The current figure of nine million is almost certainly an underestimate, probably by several million.”
This is because scientists are still discovering links between pollution and ill health, such as the connection between air pollution and dementia, diabetes and kidney disease. Furthermore, lack of data on many toxic metals and chemicals could not be included in the new analysis.
The researchers estimated the welfare losses from pollution at $4.6tn a year, equivalent to more than 6% of global GDP. “Those costs are so massive they can drag down the economy of countries that are trying to get ahead,” said Landrigan. “We always hear ‘we can’t afford to clean up pollution’ – I say we can’t afford not to clean it up.”
Children with respiratory diseases receive treatment at a hospital in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters
The commission report combined data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and elsewhere and found air pollution was the biggest killer, leading to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and other illnesses. Outdoor air pollution, largely from vehicles and industry, caused 4.5m deaths a year and indoor air pollution, from wood and dung stoves, caused 2.9m.
The next biggest killer was pollution of water, often with sewage, which is linked to 1.8m deaths as a result of gastrointestinal diseases and parasitic infections. Workplace pollution, including exposure to toxins, carcinogens and secondhand tobacco smoke, resulted in 800,000 deaths from diseases including pneumoconiosis in coal workers and bladder cancer in dye workers. Lead pollution, the one metal for which some data is available, was linked to 500,000 deaths a year.
Low-income and rapidly industrialising countries are worst affected, suffering 92% of pollution-related deaths, with Somalia suffering the highest rate of pollution deaths. India, where both traditional and modern pollution are severe, has by far the largest number of pollution deaths at 2.5m. China is second with 1.8m and Russia and the US are also in the top 10.
In terms of workplace-pollution related deaths, the UK, Japan and Germany all appear in the top 10. The report was produced by more than 40 researchers from governments and universities across the globe and was funded by the UN, the EU and the US.
“This is an immensely important piece of work highlighting the impact that environmental pollution has on death and disease,” said Dr Maria Neira, the WHO director of public health and the environment. “This is an unacceptable loss of lives and human development potential.”
A villager crosses a canal carrying highly toxic water contaminated with lead and other mining byproducts through the neighborhood of Chowa in Kabwe, Zambia. Photograph: Larry C Price/The Guardian
The editor-in-chief of the Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, and the executive editor, Dr Pamela Das, said: “No country is unaffected by pollution. Human activities, including industrialisation, urbanisation, and globalisation, are all drivers of pollution. We hope the commission findings will persuade leaders at the national, state, provincial and city levels to make pollution a priority. Current and future generations deserve a pollution-free world.”
Richard Fuller at Pure Earth, an international pollution clean-up charity and co-lead of the commission, said: “Pollution can be eliminated and pollution prevention can be highly cost-effective, helping to improve health and extend lifespan, while boosting the economy.” Since the US clean air act was introduced in 1970, levels of the six major pollutants have fallen by 70% while GDP has gone up by 250%, said Landrigan: “That puts the lie to the argument that pollution control kills jobs and stifles the economy.”
Gina McCarthy, former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, criticised the rollback of pollution controls under the Trump administration: “Now is not the time to go backwards in the US,” she said. “Environmental protection and a strong economy go hand in hand. We also need to help other countries, not only for the benefit it will bring them, but because pollution knows no boundaries.”
Rolling out new regulations, ending subsidies for polluting industries and deploying technology like smokestack filters could tackle pollution, the researchers said. But more research on the impact of pollution is also urgently required, said Fuller: “Available data does not include lead’s impact from toxic sites like Flint, in Michigan, US, or Kabwe, Zambia. Yet these populations experience enormous health impacts.”
Landrigan said his biggest concern was the unknown impact of the hundreds of industrial chemicals and pesticides already widely dispersed around the world: “I worry we have created a situation where people are exposed to chemicals that are eroding intelligence or impairing reproduction or weakening their immune system, but we have not yet been smart enough to make the connection between the exposure and the outcome, because it is subtle.” On Wednesday, a horrific plunge in the abundance of vital insects was reported, with pesticides a possible cause.
“Pollution has not received nearly as much attention as climate change, or Aids or malaria – it is the most underrated health problem in the world,” he said.
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Bosch-led internet of things incubator joins IOTA to promote DLT
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Internet of things (IoT) incubator The Chicago Connectory has launched a partnership with the non-profit IOTA Foundation to explore applications for the technology that underpins blockchains. The incubator, backed by manufacturer Bosch and Chicago's 1871 innovation centre, will join IOTA to promote the use of distributed ledger technology in bringing increased transparency, security and efficiency to the IoT. IOTA and Bosch are founding members of the Trusted IoT Alliance, and The Chicago Connectory is expected to expand on existing activities involving the German manufacturer.
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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/10/prweb14822551.htm
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2017-10-20 08:20:19.430000
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Our goal is to increase the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology throughout the Midwest region as IoT solutions and business models continue to grow.
On October 17, 2017, the Chicago Connectory, an Internet of Things (IoT) innovation space founded by Bosch and 1871, launched their new partnership with the IOTA Foundation. The IOTA Foundation is a not-for profit organization that aims to catalyze the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) to provide more transparency, security and efficiency for IoT solutions.
Bosch is a leading global supplier of technology and services and brings extensive experience in all three levels of the Internet of Things (IoT) with sensor technology, software and services, and also its own IoT cloud. This makes the company a one-stop shop for IoT in areas that include mobility and transportation, connected energy and smart cities, connected homes and smart buildings as well as connected manufacturing.
“There is great potential through Distributed Ledger Technologies to make each IoT project more secure, efficient and provide increased transparency to consumers of IoT solutions,” says Dennis Boecker, Bosch IT global innovation lead and responsible for the Chicago Connectory. “Our goal is to increase the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology throughout the Midwest region as IoT solutions and business models continue to grow.”
“IOTA and Bosch have been in dialog about the convergence between the Internet-of-Things and IOTA's Distributed Ledger Technology since late 2015 and built up a strong relationship,” says David Sønstebø, founder of the IOTA Foundation. “Our official collaboration on this laboratory for exploring this overlap cements both entities' goal of enabling an open and secure IoT ecosystem.”
Bosch and IOTA have already been working successfully together as partners in the Trusted IoT Alliance (TIOTA) of which they are also founding members. The Chicago Connectory, being founded by Bosch, benefits from the existing partnership and allows for an extension of the existing activities.
The main product of the IOTA Foundation to date is the IOTA Tangle, an open source Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that goes beyond blockchain. The IOTA Tangle resolves the scalability challenges of existing blockchain technologies and makes it possible to transfer value without transaction fees. IOTA is uniquely suited for business model innovation in the emerging Machine-to-Machine (M2M) economy.
IOTA has a strong ecosystem, which is one of the largest in the DLT community. Corporations, startups and independent developers are utilizing the technology to create new applications in a diverse number of areas, ranging from Internet of Things, Smart Cities, Mobility, eHealth and even Web Payments.
“Chicago’s innovation ecosystem is thriving and our partnership with the Chicago Connectory will further drive the adoption of the IOTA Tangle”, says Dominik Schiener Co-Founder of the IOTA Foundation.
The Chicago Connectory features a mix of community, technology and educational resources to help facilitate IoT partnerships with organizations such as the IOTA Foundation. The partnership with the IOTA Foundation is adding further mentors as well as related events, a strong ecosystem and project collaboration including the IOTA Foundation’s Development Fund to the Chicago-based IoT innovation space.
“The Chicago Connectory is the place to nurture and grow the IOTA ecosystem and to build the next great ideas and companies in IoT,” Schiener says. “We look forward to helping more organizations connect, grow and co-create as the Chicago Connectory becomes a key catalyst for the IOTA ecosystem in Chicago and the greater Midwest.”
---
About the Chicago Connectory
Covering nearly 20,000 square feet in Chicago’s historic Merchandise Mart, the Chicago Connectory is a co-creation space and IoT incubator boasting cutting-edge technology and security, expert programming, and mentorship from leading experts in IoT. More than a co-working space, the Chicago Connectory offers partners a co-creation model that fosters collaboration, networking, problem solving, and a new way of doing work in the age of connectivity. The Chicago Connectory is a partnership between Bosch and 1871. Together, 1871 and Bosch are empowering an ecosystem to drive the future of IoT.
Find more information online at http://www.chicagoconnectory.com.
About the IOTA Foundation
IOTA Foundation is a non-profit foundation with the purpose of developing, maintaining and standardizing new open source protocols based on distributed ledger technologies (DLT). The IOTA Tangle provides a revolutionary open source DLT which is scalable, lightweight and makes it possible to transfer value or data without any fees.
Find more information online at http://www.iota.org.
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Vanguard criticised over genocide proxy voting recommendation
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Vanguard Group is facing criticism from some of its investors after it recommended they vote against an item prohibiting the firm from investing in companies associated with genocide. Investors will vote on the proposal, made by activist investment group Investors Against Genocide, during a shareholders meeting on 15 November. Investors have taken to both social media and Vanguard's own company forums expressing distaste at the firm's management for recommending a vote against the proposal. Vanguard's management has stated such issues are better resolved through diplomatic and political resources, and reiterated it is fully compliant with all US law regarding its investments.
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vanguard-genocide-18-million-campaign-get-vote-181936727.html
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2017-10-20 07:57:04.550000
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Vanguard, genocide, and the $18 million campaign to get you to vote
On Nov. 15, Vanguard will hold an enormous shareholder meeting and proxy vote for the first time in almost a decade. If you’re a customer of the world’s largest mutual fund company, you’re also a shareholder, which is why you’ve likely been hounded by calls, emails, and paper mail to try to get you to vote.
Tucked into the ballot after boilerplate proposals is an interesting item — Proposal 7 — put forth by activist investor group Investors Against Genocide. The proposal moves to have Vanguard not invest in companies that, “in management’s judgement, substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity.”
“A shareholder proposal to institute transparent procedures to avoid holding investments in companies that, in management’s judgement, substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity, the most egregious violations of human rights. Such procedures may include time-limited engagement with problem companies if management believes that their behavior can be changed.”
An example cited in the proposal was PetroChina, which has a connection to the genocide in Darfur. Vanguard’s management advises investors vote against the proposal.
Vanguard investors are surprised and angry
To many Vanguard investors, not investing in companies that “substantially contribute to genocide” is about as low a moral bar as there is, and they are outright angry at what they see as the company’s callousness. As the vote nears, investors are airing their confusion on Twitter, Reddit, and Vanguard forums.
Victoria Santoro, a Boston-based trial lawyer and Vanguard investor, is one of them. “When I got to the genocide item, I assumed the board’s recommendation would be to approve it,” she told Yahoo Finance. “I was very disappointed to find the opposite.” Santoro said she picked Vanguard over others due to its reputation for ethics.
Vanguard’s proxy ballot may throw some investors. Its board asks investors to vote “against” restricting investing in companies that “substantially contribute” to genocide. (Yahoo Finance)
Dr. Beverly Tchang, a doctor from New York and a Vanguard investor, had a similar reaction. “I found the proposal to be timely and appropriate. Especially since there has been so much coverage on the Rohingya recently,” she said, referring to a group of refugees fleeing Myanmar.
Tchang said she didn’t know specifics about PetroChina and Sudan, but argued that transparency was a low standard. “I don’t think [transparency] is too much to ask for,” she said.
Why Vanguard needs your vote
Vanguard, unlike most public companies, doesn’t hold an annual vote and generally only holds them when really necessary.
“Last time we did this was in 2009,” Arianna Stefanoni Sherlock, Vanguard’s head of corporate public relations, told Yahoo Finance. “Every time we do this, it’s a lot of time and money so we try to do this as infrequently as possible.”
Desperate for a needed quorum of one-third of shareholders for each fund, Vanguard is spending $17.6 million on a campaign to get its 20 million shareholders to vote to install board members.
A paper ballot. Vanguard is encouraging online voting, since well over 90% of its investments come through the web. (Yahoo Finance)
When the last vote occurred, Vanguard had just a fraction of the assets it does now. The astronomic rise in passive investing has brought $3 trillion in new assets under the company’s management, bringing the total to $4.6 trillion. At that time, a similar measure appeared on the ballot but only earned between 7% and 17% of the vote, depending on the fund.
Those new assets mean a higher number of voters are required for a quorum. Should Vanguard fail to have a quorum, it would have to hold another vote until enough shareholders turn out — an expensive proposition and one that has happened before. Fidelity, a Vanguard competitor, had to postpone its meeting eight times from October to April. “We need investors to come out and vote,” Sherlock said.
Vanguard: ‘Divestment is an ineffective means to implement social change’
Vanguard’s detailed response in the proxy materials notes its concern for the issues but advises against Proposal 7 because it would, in the company’s view, handicap advisors’ fiduciary duty. Furthermore, the company maintains “divestment is an ineffective means to implement social change” and that the company is already “fully compliant with all applicable U.S. laws and regulations.”
“Constraints imposed by third-parties could impair the ability of portfolio managers to provide Fund shareholders investment returns that are competitive with similar funds,” the company’s statement reads.
Sherlock echoed these points to Yahoo Finance. “It is nuanced,” she said. “I’m hoping investors are really reading their materials. Our recommendation ‘against’ isn’t how we feel about the issue.”
Tchang and Santoro were both unimpressed with arguments set forth by Vanguard. “Vanguard’s position that [the measure] won’t change genocide is inarguable, and therefore useless, precisely because we don’t have that information,” said Tchang, pointing to the catch-22 of transparency.
“Hiding behind a justification that they are following U.S. law is the bare minimum,” Santoro said. “Everyone is supposed to follow U.S. law. I hope very much that the Vanguard board is extremely active in vetting their portfolio companies.”
Activism, symbolic policy, or the seeds for a lawsuit?
Within Vanguard’s rationale are some larger issues, perhaps artlessly hinted at — but not fully explained — by the company in the proxy documents.
“I don’t view it as, ‘oh Vanguard is insensitive to genocide’,” Jill Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Law School and an expert in corporate governance and litigation, told Yahoo Finance.“As a general rule, a recommendation against this type of shareholder proposal doesn’t reflect a fundamental disagreement.”
According to Fisch, an adopted vote could have hidden consequences and the Vanguard board wishes to be conservative. If the Proposal 7 passes, it could have an unpredictable effect. For example, should Vanguard shareholders identify and allege non-compliance, they may sue Vanguard and that could result in a court-ordered divestiture or damages paid.
“You don’t want the company to subject itself to litigation,” Fisch said. This legal exposure is why adopting measures to comply with policies that are already in compliance may not be as easy as it seems.
Jack Bogle, founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group, is widely lauded for bringing low-cost, user-friendly investing to millions through passive investing. (Reuters)
Tensie Whelan, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business who studies business and ethical concerns, said the generality of the measure might concern Vanguard further, even though it’s hedged by statements like “in management’s judgement” and “substantially contribute” — as if a small contribution to genocide would be kosher.
Instead of being held by a shareholder initiative, companies prefer to comply on their own terms. Whelan said companies often respond to these concerns with assurances that they are already in compliance, as well as showing they hear investors’ concerns by meeting with them and appropriate non-government organizations (NGOs).
A program like that, Whelan said, could benefit Vanguard. They could say, “here’s what we’re doing now, what else should we be doing? What standards can we comply with, what auditing can we do?” Ideally for a company, these steps happen so it doesn’t have to go to a shareholder resolution.
As to that solution, Vanguard’s Sherlock didn’t share specifics of such plans with Yahoo Finance but noted that the company is in touch with Investors Against Genocide and takes these matters seriously.
“We have a robust investment stewardship function at Vanguard,” she said. “We are actively engaging with the companies we hold and addressing and voting on other proxies for other companies when we see issues of concern, when it might affect long-term value.”
The last clause, however, gets to the heart of the concern for Vanguard customers like Santoro. “I think they can do much better in terms of responsible investing,” she said. “It’s not all about returns anymore.”
What has been done in the past
These types of proposals aren’t totally rare, but are relatively uncommon, especially the language in Vanguard’s Proposal 7. According to Whelan, about 1,000 shareholder resolutions are put forth each year to public companies, and are important means for investors to signal an issue’s importance. Most are on proxy access and a growing number concern climate change, but around 26 involve human rights.
Generally, proxy advisory services side with the board, though there can be flexibility, according to Whelan. Any coziness toward crimes against humanity could amount to a money-losing PR nightmare, which would be of fiduciary concern to shareholders.
ISS, a large proxy firm, advises these types of votes on a case-by-case basis, and they pointed to perhaps the most similar case from 2015. BlackRock, another index fund provider, was faced with an almost identical proposal brought on by the same activist group, Investors Against Genocide:
“Shareholders request that the Board institute transparent procedures to avoid holding or recommending investments in companies that, in management’s judgment, substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity, the most egregious violation of human rights.”
BlackRock justified recommending a vote against the proposal, contending the company is already required to comply with relevant laws and that these decisions are best left to management.
Egan Jones, another proxy advisory company, echoed ISS in a report on the Vanguard proposal. “Expecting a firm to abstain or avoid a line of legal business that might potentially result in moral negatives is, in general, a hopelessly costly endeavor doomed to failure or worse.”
Investors Against Genocide has put forth successful measures in the past, however. TIAA-CREF divested $58 million from Sudan-friendly oil companies including PetroChina after a successful campaign from the group, which withdrew a measure similar to Vanguard’s from a proxy ballot when the group’s divestment demands were met. T. Rowe Price also voluntarily adopted the group’s divestment demands.
The group has even managed to win a proxy vote when ING declined to take a stance, paving the way for a 59.8% victory. However, Investors Against Genocide’s website notes that ING has taken no action and investors want the company to disregard the vote.
First-time investors may throw a wrench into the situation
Vanguard’s $17.6 million effort to get shareholders out to vote may end up accidentally drumming up support for Proposal 7, because most individual investors usually do not vote. (Just 29% of shares owned by individual investors generally vote, according a study by PwC, and for mutual funds specifically the number is likely even lower.)
“Just by nature of growth we’ve seen in client base since 2009, I would say you could deduce that for lots of people it’s their first time doing this,” Sherlock said.
Thousands or millions of these new voters like Tchang and Santoro, who were brought to the ballot by Vanguard’s own efforts, may not react well to the board’s arguments or nuance. At the very least, they may find it difficult to vote against not investing in companies that “substantially contribute” to genocide.
“With increase of voting, you’ll have more people vote for [the measure],” Whelan said. “Generally voting is more by the institutions and they generally vote with management. An individual is more likely to vote for that.”
The rising popularity of index funds and passive investing and more socially-conscious millennial investors may significantly affect future voting on issues like this, said Whelan. While not every company needs to resort to expensive paid campaigns to get out the vote, the lack of participation of individual shareholder votes is something that may be addressed in the future. Policy changes or other measures will likely encourage these individuals to speak up on the ballot — not just through their traditional mode of selling. It’s important to remember: You can vote with your wallet, but you may also have a ballot.
Disclosure: Some of the author’s retirement savings are in Vanguard index funds. Vanguard’s cooperative business structure makes the author therefore a shareholder.
Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Confidential tip line: emann[at]oath[.com].
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Insurtech Lemonade caps maximum claims payments for gun owners
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Insurtech Lemonade has said it is capping claims payments for loss of firearms at $2,500. The firm said it considers this amount "adequate" in covering the loss or theft of such property. The company said social reasons are behind the introduction of the maximum payout. As an insurance company some responsibility should lie with Lemonade to help protect its clients from damage caused by firearms, Daniel Schreiber, the firm's CEO said in a company blog. He added while it's unlikely the firm's policy will have a significant impact, he wanted Lemonade's customers to be responsible gun owners.
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http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/10/17/467754.htm
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2017-10-20 07:19:25.447000
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Online home and rental insurer Lemonade has said it is limiting its coverage for gun owners as part of its commitment to “make insurance into a social good.”
Citing the recent Las Vegas mass shooting, Lemonade CEO Daniel Schreiber blogged: “Our company, like our community, includes gun owners as well as gun control advocates. Many are both. But while we respect gun ownership, we’re not into gun worship.”
The insurer said it will limit the amount it will pay out for the damage or theft of firearms to an “entirely adequate” $2,500.
“If you own more than $2,500-worth of firearms, we recommend trying one of our competitors. They seem to all offer additional coverage. We don’t,” Schreiber wrote.
Lemonade’s policy already excludes coverage for any illegal guns or gun use, but in its revised policy it plans to add more firearms provisions to exclude assault rifles and add requirements that firearms be “stored securely and used responsibly” or coverage could be voided.
“As an insurance company, it falls to us to shield our customers from damage to their guns, and by their guns. It stands to reason that we want members who take the responsibilities of gun ownership as seriously as we do,” Schreiber wrote.
He said the company recognizes that guns “can be a polarizing topic” but said Lemonade was founded to “make insurance into a social good.”
“We’re under no illusion that our industry, let alone our company, can solve gun violence. But being unable to change much doesn’t give us license to change nothing. Here’s to everyone doing their part,” he wrote.
The new gun policy comes just days after Lemonade made headlines by launching a public API (application programming interface), allowing anyone to offer Lemonade policies through their apps or websites.
Related:
Topics Carriers Gun Liability
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SparkLabs creates $100m fund for early-stage blockchain projects
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SparkLabs Group is set to double down on its investment in blockchain start-ups with the launch of a new $100m fund called SparkChain Capital. It will seek out early-stage companies working on blockchain and cryptocurrency projects around the world, though it will optimise its existing Asian network to find companies in China, Japan and South Korea. The company has several accelerator programmes and has previously invested in blockchain firms Blocko, Cryex and Sentbe.
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https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/19/sparkchain-capital-is-a-new-100-million-fund-for-blockchain-and-cryptocurrency-startups/
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2017-10-20 07:16:37
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Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.
Blockchain is one of the biggest tech buzzwords in recent times, with markets including music, travel, and car-sharing slowly succumbing to blockchain’s allure. Then there are cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum, which are now pretty much synonymous with blockchain technology.
Against this backdrop, a new $100 million fund has been set up to invest in early-stage companies operating across the blockchain and cryptocurrency spectrum. SparkChain Capital is a new venture courtesy of SparkLabs Group, a company that operates a network of accelerators across Asia, as well as a duo of VC funds.
Officially launching today, SparkChain Capital will be led by managing partner Joyce Kim, formerly a VC at Freestyle Capital and latterly cofounder of Stellar Development Foundation, an open source payment network protocol that just this week announced a tie-up with IBM to create a cross-border blockchain payments solution.
Kim will work alongside a number of other people at SparkChain Capital, including Net Jacobsson, who cofounded SparkLabs Global Ventures and also formerly served as director of international business development at Facebook.
“With the rapid pace of innovation moving in this space, it is crucial to have the most experienced advisors involved from the early outset,” explained Jacobsson. “At SparkChain Capital, we have prepared ourselves by carefully recruiting some of the best securities advisors and fund attorneys to make sure that we always will be SEC compliant no matter how the wind blows.”
The story so far
SparkLabs launched its first accelerator in Seoul back in 2012 with a general focus on South Korean startups, though around a fifth of all graduates hail from other countries. The company subsequently launched additional accelerators in Korea and China, while as of last month it also operates SparkLabs Cultiv8, an Australia-based global accelerator program focused on ag tech, food tech, and sustainability.
Additionally, SparkLabs also operates SparkLabs Ventures, which is a VC fund focused on Korean startups, and seed-stage SparkLabs Global Ventures, which — as its name suggests — seeks out companies around the world.
SparkChain Capital will be targeted at blockchain and cryptocurrency companies around the world, though SparkLabs’ existing network across Asia will be leveraged to its fullest in places such as China, South Korea, and Japan. Indeed, SparkLabs already has investments in blockchain startups through its Seoul accelerator, including enterprise-focused blockchain company Blocko and bitcoin remittance startup Sentbe. Elsewhere, SparkLabs Global Ventures has invested in Swedish bitcoin exchange Cryex.
So far, SparkLabs Global Ventures has invested around 50 percent of its resources in the U.S. (mostly in Silicon Valley), while the remaining 50 percent has been split between Europe and Asia. And SparkChain Capital will likely follow a similar investment model — it will basically look to invest in the next big thing, irrespective of where they are.
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SBI Holdings partners with Wirex to provide crypto payment cards
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Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment app provider Wirex has closed a deal with Japan's SBI Holdings to establish an Asia-centric joint venture named SBI Wirex Asia. The partnership will allow Wirex to gain support from SBI in terms of its presence in the Asian market, while SBI will gain access to the cryptocurrency payments card provider's expertise. SBI Wirex Asia will offer a Japanese cryptocurrency payment card and related services. SBI has invested $3m into Wirex to fund the expansion.
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https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/10/20/wirex-inks-deal-sbi-holdings-establish-japan-cryptocurrency-payments-card/
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2017-10-20 06:42:42.820000
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Wirex, a provider of bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments apps today announced that the company has signed a deal with Japan financial holdings company, SBI Holdings, to establish a new Asia focussed joint venture, SBI Wirex Asia. The collaboration means that Wirex benefits from SBI Holdings’ support, scale and Asian market relationships. SBI Holdings will benefit from the collaboration by gaining access to the popular cryptocurrency payments card provider and expert in the world of crypto-based finance.
SBI Wirex Asia will deliver a Japanese cryptocurrency payment card and joint businesses, which benefit from Wirex’s global expertise within the world of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), payments and cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, SBI invested $3 million into Wirex to support the expansion. Wirex and SBI Wirex Asia will work closely together to ensure Japanese customers benefit from Wirex’s global community and expertise with the support of SBI Wirex Asia.
Pavel Matveev, CEO, Wirex said:
“Our new relationship with SBI Holdings enables us to deepen our already market leading position in the country to offer new Japan and Asia focussed products and services. I look forward to working with the team at SBI.” “Japanese customers are our most enthusiastic supporters and use our VISA-backed cryptocurrency debit card more regularly than anywhere else in the world. They deserve a Yen denominated card soon and we will deliver it to them.”
Wataru Kojima, Wirex Japan CEO, said:
“I am pleased to see SBI Holdings enter into a relationship with Wirex, which will offer Japanese customers much improved choice and flexibility when it comes to cryptocurrency payments. “Japan leads the world in bitcoin regulation and our accountants are armed with the tools to accept bitcoin on balance sheets. I will ensure Japan maintains our preeminent position in this space though providing the most innovative and cost-effective technologies globally.”
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Health at Hand to launch Middle East telehealth service
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Telehealth start-up Health at Hand is set to launch its on-demand platform in the United Arab Emirates. Health at Hand recently raised $3.1m in seed funding, which will be used to expand the platform's services to include medication prescription, drug delivery and geolocation. The company also envisages a move toward a subscription-based model, as it seeks to capitalise on the Middle East's nascent telehealth sector.
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http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/telehealth-startup-health-hand-gets-31m-preps-uae-launch
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2017-10-20 06:31:54.350000
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Health at Hand, a telehealth startup targeting Middle East markets, announced that it has received $3.1 million in seed funding and will be launching its platform this Sunday in the United Arab Emirates. An unnamed regional family office anchored the funding round, which brings the company to approximately $4.1 million in total funding.
Founded in 2016, Health at Hand is a Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC)-licensed provider of patient-to-doctor video consultations that it says will be the first of its kind launched within the GCC. The company has relationships with Astrolabs, DMCC’s Google-partnered hub, and boasts Dr. Pat Basu, the former chief medical officer of leading US telemedicine platform Doctor on Demand, as a member of its board.
“We have a huge desire to help democratize primary health care in the Middle East, and unlike the US market where you see a prevalence of telehealth companies, this market is pretty immature, particularly in the regulator environment,” Health at Hand Founder and CEO Charlie Barlow told MobiHealthNews. “This funding is going to allow Health at Hand to become one of the first movers within these markets. It allows us to build out our proprietary technology as we look to move from on-demand telehealth, which is what we will launch on Sunday morning, into a more diverse range of options for patients.”
More specifically, Barlow said that the company will be using the funding to shift their platform toward a subscription model in the near future, which would then allow them to push into the Middle East’s corporate and insurance markets. During this time, the Health at Hand will also be building new features into their service, including geolocation, medication prescription, and drug delivery.
Barlow went on to explain that, unlike the US or other international markets, the Middle East’s telehealth landscape is relatively immature in terms of both regulation and competition. Even beyond telehealth, he said that on-demand technologies have only recently began to take hold in the region.
“It’s fair to say that in the Middle East over the past three to five years, there has been a huge increase in on-demand companies offering services in the Middle East [such as Uber],” he said. “What happened is that has led to an interest from the consumer and on-demand economy, but also a huge interest in family offices and venture capital businesses, private equity firms.”
The result, according to Barlow, is a market that is ripe for telehealth. The prevalence of so-called “diseases of affluence” such as obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes are all growing in the Middle East, and often can be addressed through video consultations. Further, data collected by Health at Hand indicates that digital healthcare delivery could reduce overall costs within the market by reducing high rates of unnecessary emergency and in-patient care. As such, Barlow said that his startup and its investors see a clear opportunity for the first telehealth provider able to offer a wealth of well-implemented features to establish itself in the region’s health care landscape.
“When we get to that point of being able to offer very high quality telehealth consultation with a wait time of no more than two minutes … we really do disrupt and change the whole face of primary health care in this region,” he said.
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Ulster Bank uses AI tech to improve service
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Ulster Bank has turned to artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand its customers and predict their future requirements. Partnering with French IT firm Atos, the Royal Bank of Scotland unit has employed Salesforce’s Einstein consumer relationship management platform. As well as offering insights into customers' previous actions, the platform also includes a next-best product recommendation engine, akin to those used by retail giants Amazon and Netflix. Damien Judge, head of business commercial excellence at Ulster Bank, said the AI platform was changing "the system, the culture and the way our people interact with customers”.
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/ulster-bank-turns-to-ai-to-understand-customers-better-1.3260966
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2017-10-20 06:06:36.103000
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Ulster Bank has started using an artificial intelligence platform to personalise future interactions with customers. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Ulster Bank, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland, has decided to use artificial intelligence (AI) to get closer to its customers.
The bank said on Thursday it has used French IT services company Atos to deploy US software giant Salesforce's Einstein consumer relationship management (CRM) platform for the bank. It is the first full-scale implementation of this system in the financial services industry worldwide, according to Atos.
The development means that Ulster Bank can now analyse past customer behaviour to be better able to understand and personalise future engagements with them.
It should enable the bank to more effectively predict and recommend the right product, including types of loans, savings accounts, and foreign exchange solutions to customers.
READ MORE
"With the new platform, we have changed the system, the culture and the way our people interact with customers," said Damien Judge, head of business commercial excellence at Ulster Bank.
Customer choices
The new system also includes a “next-best product recommendation engine”, similar to a tool used by companies such as Amazon and Netflix to predict what customers may want based on other similar customer choices.
While banks globally have lagged behind other sectors in the use of artificial intelligence, the industry is turning increasingly to AI solutions to cut costs and improve systems as they face rising regulatory compliance demands and costs.
A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers said that almost a third of large financial institutions internationally are investing in AI.
“Tomorrow, your bankers or wealth manager will coach you throughout your day to tackle appropriate financial decisions based on a combination of artificial intelligence and transaction and contextual data,” PwC’s global fintech report 2017 said.
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US retail sector will see $7bn of defaults in 2018: Fitch
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US retailers that fought through a stressful 2017 will face a gloomy 2018 after the sector was given a 10% default forecast -- which equates to $7bn -- by Fitch Ratings. The downbeat outlook has been blamed on the rise of online shopping and the dominance of Amazon. Fitch has compiled lists of primary and secondary loans of concern, including those of iHeartCommunications and J Crew Group. In September, the trailing 12-month retail default rate rose to 7.3% following the bankruptcy of Toys 'R' Us, compared with about 5% in the preceding two months.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/retailers-should-get-ready-for-another-stressful-year-in-2018-2017-10-19
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2017-10-20 05:35:45.467000
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The stress in the retail sector that has triggered a string of bankruptcies this year is unlikely to get much better in 2018.
The sector is expected to again produce the most defaults at up to $7 billion, resulting in a 10% default rate, Fitch Ratings said Thursday.
The September trailing 12-month retail default rate stood at 7.3% after Toys ‘R’ Us Inc.’s bankruptcy filing, up from just above 5% in July and August. The retail sector accounts for 30% of the defaults that have taken place in 2017 to date, with six issuers defaulting on debt totaling $5 billion.
The retail sector has been hit by a combination of factors, including competition from Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +1.46% , and a greater shift toward online shopping that has forced many to invest in technology at a time when sales are soft.
Consumer behavior has changed as the millennial generation comes of age, and retailers are now competing for dollars with smartphones, apps and electronics, as well as experiences such as travel and entertainment. Mall traffic has dwindled in many places, pressuring the anchor tenants that relied on them for sales.
The overall institutional leveraged loan default rate is expected to end 2018 at 2.5%, said Fitch, equal to about $27 billion of debt.
“Default volume will continue to be concentrated in retail and a couple of energy companies in 2018,” analysts led by Eric Rosenthal wrote in a note. “Excluding these two sectors, the 2018 default rate forecast is 1.5%. “
In case you missed it: J.C. Penney, Gymboree and J. Crew at risk -- and it’s not all Amazon’s fault
The average rate during a non-recessionary period is 1.7%.
Read also:Amazon isn’t the only reason Toys ‘R’ Us filed for bankruptcy
Fitch is now keeping a list of secondary loans of concern, identifying likely default candidates. The list includes Neiman Marcus Group Inc., J Crew Group Inc., Talbots Inc., Lands’ End Inc. and Cole Haan.
Other issuers that Fitch is monitoring for now include PetSmart Inc., Belk Inc., Ann Taylor parent Ascena Retail Group Inc. US:ASNA , Tailored Brands Inc. US:TLRD and J.Jill Group Inc. JILL, -0.80%
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Fitch’s primary loans of concern list is led by iHeartCommunications Inc. IHRT, which is battling creditors as it struggles to restructure a $15.5 billion debt load taken on as part of the 2006 leveraged buyout by Thomas H. Lee and Bain Capital.
Read: iHeartRadio parent may be shaping up for a bruising fight with its lenders
That list includes troubled department-store chain Sears Holdings Corp. US:SHLD, Nine West Holdings Inc., 99 Cents Only Stores LLC, NYDJ Apparel LLC and Vince LLC. VNCE, +3.36%
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HFI urges green belt use, fewer controls to solve housing crisis
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The Housing & Finance Institute has listed measures it says will help resolve London's housing crisis. Among them, it urges recognition that brownfield construction will not work alone and that raising house-building taxes will discourage construction. The report suggests using green belt land and allowing higher-density housing. Failure to release excess land for public use should be punished and planning conditions should be reduced, it also said, while recommending greater involvement of political leaders in local authorities.
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londons-housing-crisis-can-be-solved-by-reining-in-middle-class-nimbys-a3661871.html
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2017-10-20 05:27:39.390000
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L ondon's housing crisis can only be solved by a radical overhaul of the “deeply flawed” planning system to rein in selfish middle class “Nimbys,” a provocative new report argues today.
In comments that will anger conservation and resident bodies, former City of London Corporation supremo Sir Mark Boleat said current rules “give far too much weight to articulate groups who make a lot of noise” and not enough weight to young “have-nots” who are priced off the housing ladder.
Sir Mark, who chairs The Housing & Finance Institute, founded to boost house building, said knee-jerk opposition to development, rather than wealthy foreign investors, was the real reason for London’s chronic shortage of homes.
In a radical set of proposals, Sir Mark said that residents must have their influence hugely scaled back by excluding councillors representing residents affected by a planning application from the decision on whether it should go ahead.
Sir Mark Boleat who chairs The Housing & Finance Institute (NIGEL HOWARD) / NIGEL HOWARD ©
Sir Mark said: “On the face of it this might seem to strike against the concept of democracy and decisions being taken at the local level.
But in reality many councillors would welcome such an approach, as all too often they feel they need to be supporting the local prevailing view even if they know that a development is desirable.”
Radical change in policy is needed Commentary: Sir Mark Boleat In 1975 I wrote a paper which opened by saying the fundamental cause of Britain’s housing problems were policy makers — 42 years later, I hold to this conclusion. Between 1998 and 2015 the population of London increased by 21 per cent while the supply of housing rose by 12 per cent. It is commonly argued that developers are the problem, building too slowly, deliberately holding on to land so as to sell it as a profit. More recently the finger has been pointed at overseas buyers, the implication being that more homes sold to foreign buyers mean less housing and higher prices for Londoners. Both of these are myths. The really big problem is the planning system. Planning committees are made up of locally elected representatives, and elected members need to be responsive to the views of their constituents. Planning applications invariably meet strong resistance from neighbouring residents who put pressure on their elected representatives. There is accordingly a presumption against development. So what is the answer? More land must be made available for house building and then built on at higher densities. There should be a review of the green belt so that land not needed to prevent urban sprawl can be used for housing. Tougher penalties should be imposed on public sector bodies that hold on to land they do not need. We must change the planning system so the bias against development is reduced. This requires changes in how conflicts are managed between local government, planning departments and developers. At present the planning system makes it too easy for politicians who wish to restrict housing development and too difficult for those who want to increase it. A radical step-change is required.
The streamlined planning “panels” modelled on the Australian system should receive proper training to help them come to decisions, he added.
Sir Mark, who this year stepped down as chairman of the City’s key Policy and Resources Committee after five years in the role, said pressure from well-organised voters often put councillors “in a near-impossible position”.
He added: “They have been elected and need to be re-elected and therefore are responsive to their electorates, who invariably are opposed to developments. But their responsibility is not just to current electors but to future generations.” The recommendations will be welcomed by developers who increasingly complain that the planning regime has become hopelessly loaded against them, leading to years of delay.
Other proposals include:
A major review of rules on the Green Belt to make it easier for low-grade land to be built on in exchange for other more valuable open space being given more protection.
A system of penalties for public sector bodies that hoard land that could be made available for development.
An assumption that planning conditions have been met within seven days of a developer providing evidence that they have been fulfilled.
Allowing far higher density of housing in the form of five- or six-storey development similar to Paris.
A radical overhaul of the “expensive and time consuming” system for negotiating developers’ contributions to local infrastructure.
A rethink of the targets for affordable housing which “cannot be expressed as a percentage of housing built but needs to be an absolute number and with a clear strategy for achieving it”.
Sir Mark said: “Housing is the No 1 domestic policy challenge of our age. We must be radical.”
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Senators fail to protect Alaskan wildlife refuge from drilling
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Three US Democratic Senators have failed to prevent the granting of drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 19.3 million acre Alaskan wilderness which is home to numerous endangered species, and is sacred to the Gwich'in people. Last September, the Senate Budget Committee released a proposal that would obliquely have permitted such drilling. On Thursday, the senators attempted to remove the drilling plan from the proposal, but failed to achieve sufficient support. Despite this setback, committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives must consider the budget before drilling is permitted.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20102017/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-drilling-congress-senate-cantwell-collins-markey
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2017-10-19 22:00:00
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This story was updated Oct. 26 with the U.S. House voting.
Republicans in Congress have spent decades trying—and failing—to bring oil and gas development to one of the United States’ last truly untouched areas. Now, they appear to have the votes to make it happen.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge represents the final frontier of American wilderness. Its 19.3 million acres in Alaska are home to polar bears, caribou and thousands of bird species, and it is sacred to the Gwich’in people. Along its northern edge is a controversial swath of land called the coastal plain, and this is where the GOP has long fought to bring drilling.
This latest attempt to open the wildlife refuge to drilling began as the House and Senate rolled out their 2018 budget plans. In late September, the Senate Budget Committee released a proposal that includes instructions to senators who oversee energy and natural resources to find $1 billion in new revenue. It was a thinly veiled suggestion to allow drilling leases in the wildlife refuge, as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, confirmed on Thursday.
“It is not the only option, but I will tell you that it is the best option, and it is on the table,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor.
Three Senate Democrats—Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)—tried on Thursday to remove the refuge drilling plan from the budget bill, but their amendment failed, 48 to 52. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to join the ranks of Democrats who supported the amendment; Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted against the measure.
“Republicans are trying to use the budget process to ram through drilling in the crown jewel of America’s Wildlife Refuge System because they know they don’t have the votes to do so through regular order,” Markey said in a statement after the vote. “Republicans are moving forward with a budget that includes this poison pill to hand over the wildest place left in America to Big Oil. This is nothing more than fossil fuel folly.”
Drilling in the refuge is not yet a done deal. The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, which Murkowski chairs, will have to come up with a recommendation to meet the budget instruction. (When Murkowski joined the Senate in 2002, she picked up the mantle of fighting for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from her father, former Sen. Frank Murkowski, who had been fighting for it since 1980.) Because that recommendation will be voted on through the budget process, it will need only a simple majority to pass.
On the House side, a similar instruction attached to a budget bill asks the House Natural Resources Committee to find $5 billion in federal revenue. The budget bill passed on Oct. 26, and the two chambers will now have to negotiate a final number.
“This is and always has been largely a political issue, and not an economic one,” said David Hayes, who was the Interior Department’s deputy secretary and chief operating officer at points in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
“It’s being framed as a budget amendment that could potentially yield a billion dollars in revenue for the federal government. That’s fantasy. There’s no basis for that at all,” Hayes said. “But folks who don’t appreciate the economics are potentially drawn to that.”
Not the First Attempt to Open ANWR
The coastal plain—an area roughly the size of Delaware—lacks the federal “wilderness area” designation and could, with Congressional approval, be opened for drilling.
Congressional Republicans came close in 1995, when a provision recommending opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) made it through Congress before being vetoed by President Bill Clinton. Ten years later, a similar effort gained support in the Senate but ultimately failed.
Now, with a Republican Congress, a president who supports increased fossil fuel development in the Arctic and a potential route to passage that requires just a simple majority vote, ANWR may be more vulnerable than ever before.
“It’s gotten close before, but to date, the strong public recognition that this is not a place for oil drilling has prevailed,” said Hayes, who is now the director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law. “But one can’t count on anything these days.”
Turning the ‘Crown Jewels’ Over to Polluters
In 2005, the effort to keep drilling out of the refuge was also led by Sen. Cantwell. In a press conference earlier this week, Cantwell pointed out that previous efforts have also relied on legislative processes that tie ANWR to other bills. “It tells you something that this idea does not stand on its own,” she said.
“I hope that we’ll all fight very hard to make sure that, on our watch, we do not give up one of the crown jewels of the United States of America,” Cantwell said. “We will resist their unbelievable attempts to turn public lands over to polluters.”
Earlier on Thursday, more than 300 businesses and organizations from across the country sent a letter to Congress asking them to protect ANWR from drilling.
“We represent a broad and diverse constituency voice that proves that folks across this country deeply appreciate our nation’s wild spaces,” the letter says. “We urge you to continue to do all you can to enact the strongest possible protections for the Arctic landscape, its wildlife and its people.”
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BBC looks towards AI to help improve commissioned programming
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The BBC plans to use machine learning to optimise its online services and its commissioned programme selection through a five-year research partnership with eight UK universities. The Data Science Research Partnership will develop projects across Europe for media and technology companies, applying its discoveries to BBC products. The broadcaster hopes that machine learning can help it personalise its service through data analysis so it can make better commissioning and editorial choices. The company is also exploring “object-based broadcasting”, or breaking programmes into shorter segments that can be assembled into tailored broadcasting for viewers.
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https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/bbc-machine-learning-research-partnership/?sr_source=Twitter
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2017-10-19 15:56:11.610000
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The BBC wants to leverage machine learning to improve its online services and the programmes it commissions every year. Today, the broadcaster announced a five-year research partnership with eight universities from across the UK. Data scientists will help the best and brightest at the BBC set up the "Data Science Research Partnership," tasked with being "at the forefront of the machine learning in the media industry." It will tackle a range of projects not just with the BBC, but media and technology organisations from across Europe. The larger aim is to take the results, or learnings, and apply them directly to the BBC's operations in Britain.
The broadcaster, for instance, wants to use data to "better understand what audiences want from the BBC." The organisation could, of course, simply poll licence fee payers, but the idea presumably is to burrow down into TV and iPlayer viewing habits. With a wealth of hard data, it's possible that an algorithm could pick out larger trends and deduce whether the BBC is using its resources most effectively. To that end, the BBC hopes machine learning can help it build "a more personal BBC" with tools that could allow employees to make informed editorial and commissioning decisions.
The broadcaster is also interested in a concept called object-based broadcasting. At the moment, TV shows and news bulletins are broadcast as single pieces of linear media. But for years now, the BBC has envisioned media "objects," or blocks, that could be assembled in different ways depending on the user or end-hardware. Take the news, for instance: If every story or segment was cut-up, it could be personalised based on your tastes. Maybe you want the sport first, with more time dedicated to women's football. Or a shorter, snappier version of the local news. Machine learning could, in theory, help the BBC realise this abstract dream.
Machine learning is a buzzword at the moment, but with good reason. Engineers are teaching computers to learn, adapt and analyse based on relevant examples. It's led to improvements in voice recognition, translation, and if you're Google's DeepMind division, world champion 'Go' players. It's no surprise that the BBC wants to leverage this new area of AI development in its own business. Media companies like Netflix have embraced user data to shape every part of its services, from commissioning to thumbnail designs. The BBC needs to do the same, especially as it pivots to a model increasingly dependent on original, British programming.
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Bayern Munich finds augmented reality key to fan growth and sales
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German football team Bayern Munich has integrated augmented reality into its iOS app, enabling users to add team captain Manuel Neuer or forward Arjen Robben into selfies. The app is the team’s first move into commercial uses for the technology. E-commerce represents 50% of the club’s merchandising intake per year, worth around $58.9m. The feature was launched in response to the iOS 11 update that allows brands to add AR to their apps. Bayern Munich plans to monetise the AR after testing it as a growth tool for its following.
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https://digiday.com/marketing/bayern-munichs-ar-push-starts-app/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171019
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2017-10-19 15:19:06.443000
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It may be early days for augmented reality, but that hasn’t stopped German football team Bayern Munich from building it into its mobile app.
Fans who download the latest version of the team’s iOS app can use the AR feature to bring either team captain Manuel Neuer or forward Arjen Robben into their selfies. There’s an option to pick which of the club’s three jerseys this season (home, away and UEFA Champions League) Robben wears in the photos as well as a feature to personalize and then screenshot the number and name on the back of one of the jerseys. Fans can buy the personalized jersey directly from the club’s store.
While it’s not a full-blown sales drive, the app’s AR feature is the first step to discovering the technology’s commercial potential, according to Stefan Mennerich, Bayern Munich’s director of media, digital and communications. E-commerce accounts for 50 percent of the club’s annual merchandising turnover, which amounts to €50 million ($58.9 million), he added.
Beyond jersey sales, the club believes sponsorships could also be sold around its app’s AR feature. “We believe that AR could be key for us in the near future,” said Mennerich. “We’re already thinking about the merchandising experience via AR and how that could potentially work with sponsors when it comes to exporting the logos of our partners [to the feature].”
The club’s decision to jump on the AR trend now was triggered by Apple’s iOS 11 update that lets brands add the feature to their apps, which some believe will help push the technology to the masses. Prior to the Apple update, Bayern Munich’s AR efforts were limited, with one early trial allowing fans in its stadium to see exclusive content when they looked at certain parts of the stadium through their smartphone camera.
Fan engagement on mobile, in the stadium and on social media is where Mennerich believes the club will make early strides in AR. Like its approach to social media, Bayern Munich will take its time monetizing AR, instead focusing on how it can help grow the club’s following worldwide. Bayern Munich may be one of the most successful teams in football on the pitch, but off it, the club is noticeably behind its biggest rivals Real Madrid and Manchester United in commercializing its value.
The German club is fifth in the latest Deloitte Football Money League, an annual ranking of the richest teams in the world, while Real Madrid ranks third and Manchester United is first. Unlike those clubs, Bayern Munich doesn’t yet have the fan base to try to quickly turn its digital operations into a revenue generator.
Around 40 percent of the “reach” — Bayern Munich’s label for number of impressions — the club sells to sponsors comes from its online media. Most of that reach to date comes from its social media profiles, though the team is wary of that growing in the future at the expense of traffic to its own platforms.
“The main goal for us is to try to reach as many people as possible,” said Mennerich. “For example, on our Facebook page, 93 percent of our followers are not from Germany. They are from abroad. If those fans don’t like us, then there won’t be any successful commercial activity. The first step is reach and relevance for the club, which is what we’re trying with the app.”
Image courtesy of FC Bayern Munich
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Gene-altering cancer drug approved as immunotherapy surges
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The US Food and Drug Administration has given its approval for the Yescarta gene therapy from Kite Pharma to be used on aggressive forms of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The treatment genetically alters a patient's immune cells, turning them into a “living drug”, to destroy the cancer. The immunotherapy, the second such treatment to get FDA backing, has led to long remissions in some cases, leading to the approval for patients who have already had two failed courses of chemotherapy. The cost of the treatment is $373,000 for the single infusion required. Side effects include fever, blood pressure drops, neurological problems and lung congestion.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/health/immunotherapy-cancer-kite.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
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2017-10-19 14:45:59.957000
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The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the second in a radically new class of treatments that genetically reboot a patient’s own immune cells to kill cancer.
The new therapy, Yescarta, made by Kite Pharma, was approved for adults with aggressive forms of a blood cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, who have undergone two regimens of chemotherapy that failed.
The treatment, considered a form of gene therapy, transforms the patient’s cells into what researchers call a “living drug” that attacks cancer cells. It is part of the rapidly growing field of immunotherapy, which uses drugs or genetic tinkering to turbocharge the immune system to fight disease. In some cases the treatments have led to long remissions.
“The results are pretty remarkable,” said Dr. Frederick L. Locke, a specialist in blood cancers at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, and a leader of a study of the new treatment. “We’re excited. We think there are many patients who may need this therapy.”
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Facebook will roll out Explore Feed in the next few weeks
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Facebook's new Explore Feed feature is set to launch on desktop and mobile within a few weeks, following extensive testing by mobile users. The algorithm-based feature presents customised posts based on the user's previous likes, as well as those that are popular with users’ friends. There are presently no ads after extended scrolling available, but the feature could be used as a secondary news feed for monetisation purposes.
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https://www.siliconrepublic.com/gear/facebook-explore-feed-desktop
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2017-10-19 14:35:40.130000
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Will Explore Feed help burst our respective Facebook bubbles?
Facebook yesterday (18 October) confirmed to TechCrunch that users should see the new Explore Feed on both desktop and mobile in the coming weeks.
The feature had been tested on a small number of mobile users, but now everyone can try it out for themselves.
As is the norm with Facebook, the Explore Feed is algorithmically arranged based on your own previous likes, but the posts are from pages you may not have come across in your scrolling before. Posts may also be added to the feed based on their popularity among the people you’re connected to on the site.
Facebook's Explore Feed is now on desktop, huh? pic.twitter.com/mgXs6tpapH — 🟣 Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) October 17, 2017
Discovering new pages
Facebook said that the Explore Feed is a direct response to user requests to make it easier to discover pages that they aren’t already following.
“We are beginning to roll out a complementary feed of popular articles, videos and photos, automatically customised for each person based on content that might be interesting to them.
“We’ve heard from people that they want an easy way to explore relevant content from pages they haven’t connected with yet.”
The Explore Feed is accessible on the left sidebar of Facebook on desktop; on mobile, you can take a look via the More menu.
A secondary News Feed?
This feature could be viewed as a secondary News Feed for Facebook to monetise via advertising, though there are no ads after extended scrolling at present.
An increase in time spent on-site or in-app is partially the Explore Feed’s aim, as well as serving users posts they are likely to enjoy. The content won’t do that much to help burst your carefully curated feed, as adding pages that won’t interest users to Explore will mean they’ll leave the app or webpage sooner.
Facebook wants to connect users with a broad range of their interests through recommended content, and make it easier to follow news and trending topics (as many do via Twitter).
It’s not clear how users will adopt the new feature, though, particularly as the rocket icon is buried within both the app and website.
Facebook is making a change on both mobile and desktop. Image: weedezign/Shutterstock
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Micro-hospitals offer personalised community care
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Micro-hospitals – smaller facilities offering community services – are using telemedicine technology to provide more personalised care. The hospitals are equipped with short-stay beds and offer inpatient treatment, emergency care, imaging and lab services. The facilities are less expensive to build and can be constructed more quickly than normal hospitals, and can be designed to target specific community needs based on age range, economic profile and more. Care can be extended via telemedicine, with diagnosis and prescriptions completed through video conferencing, making community care in rural America more accessible.
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http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/why-telehealth-fueling-move-towards-micro-hospitals
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2017-10-19 14:27:57.207000
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The growth of micro-hospitals, where small neighborhood hospitals offer care tailored to the specific needs of a community, has been dramatic in recent years. And companies that are building and operating these facilities are relying on telemedicine to help them provide faster, more personalized service.
Cited as a new trend in healthcare in U.S. News and World Report, micro-hospitals -- sometimes called neighborhood or community hospitals -- typically have eight to 10 short-stay beds and provide the inpatient care, emergency care, imaging and lab services typically performed in larger hospitals. Some also offer outpatient surgery.
[Also: Almost all large employers plan to offer telehealth in 2018, but will employees use it?]
Cropping up in communities in more than a dozen states, micro-hospitals offer an appealing combination: They are cheaper and faster to build than larger hospitals; they can be tailored to the specific needs of a community depending on age, economic profile and other factors; and they offer a wider range of services than an urgent-care center. Not to mention the quick service.
Research indicates these hospitals may engender a symbiotic relationship with telemedicine, with the growth of one helping to fuel the other. This is especially true given the projected growth in the number of nurse practitioners and physician assistants: A report by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration estimates that by 2020, the supply of primary care NPs is projected to increase by 30 percent, from 55,400 in 2010 to 72,100; and the supply of primary care PAs is projected to increase by 58 percent, from 27,700 to 43,900 over the same period.
[Also: Are micro-hospitals the answer for systems looking for low-cost expansions? They might be]
The HRSA also reported a projected shortage of 20,400 primary care physicians against demand in 2020. A similar shortage of specialists like intensivists, pulmonologists, neurologists, cardiologists, psychiatrists and others, particularly in rural America, holds the door wide open for telemedicine to fill the gaps.
Telemedicine makes specialists available practically 24/7. A group of specialists who contract with the telemedicine provider handles calls, and can respond either by phone or text message. Or, if the situation warrants, the physicians can diagnose and prescribe treatment for the patient via two-way videoconferencing technology, a cart or robot equipped with diagnostic equipment and a monitor that provides for face-to-face communication with patients and staff.
The telespecialists might be in the same state and time zone, across the country or, in some instances, halfway around the world, but they must be licensed in the state and credentialed by the hospital at which they are practicing. Wherever they are, response time is usually fast. According to the research, teleneurology specialists typically achieve an average response time of 3.5 minutes and an average diagnosis and treatment time of 21.8 minutes.
A Nemours study recently supported the use of telemedicine to reduce costs for both the patient and hospital system, while maintaining high levels of patient satisfaction. Those who use telemedicine for sports medicine appointments saved an average of $50 in travel costs and 51 minutes in waiting and visit time, according to the study.
The research, which was conducted in a pediatric sports medicine practice, also found that the percentage of time spent with the provider was significantly greater for telemedicine than for in-person visits -- 88 percent versus 15 percent of visit time.
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: [email protected]
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KKR said to want to sell Acconia Energia stake
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US private-equity firm KKR is looking to sell its stake in the international unit of Spanish renewable energy business Acconia Energia, according to a report in El Econimista. KKR acquired 33% of Acciona Energia Internacional for EUR397m ($466m) in 2014. The stake is now valued at more than EUR600m. Acciona Energia operates almost 9 GW of power assets, including wind, photovoltaic, hydropower, concentrated solar power and biomass.
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https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/kkr-looks-to-exit-acciona-energia-report-587526/
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2017-10-19 14:06:03.960000
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US private equity firm KKR & Co LP (NYSE:KKR) is reportedly looking to sell its stake in the international business of Acciona Energia, the renewable energy unit of Spanish infrastructure group Acciona SA (BME:ANA).
El Economista reported yesterday that KKR has engaged investment bank Lazard to prepare the sale. KKR acquired 33% of Acciona Energia Internacional for EUR 397 million (USD 466m) in 2014. According to the article, the stake is now valued at more than EUR 600 million.
The newspaper said that KKR wants to take advantage of the liquidity on the market and favourable valuations of green energy assets to monetise the stake. There could be a deal before the end of the year.
Acciona Energia operates nearly 9 GW of own capacity, the biggest part of which is wind. It also has photovoltaic (PV), hydropower, concentrated solar power (CSP) and biomass power assets in its portfolio.
(EUR 1 = USD1.175)
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Lagerwey to build wind turbine that produces hydrogen
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Dutch wind turbine manufacturer Lagerwey said it will build a wind turbine that stores excess energy as hydrogen. Lagerwey has partnered with hydrogen supplier Hygro and research institute ECN to incorporate electrolysis technology into its 4.8 MW turbine. Once completed in 2019, the turbine will produce hydrogen for the Duwaal project, which aims to create sustainable hydrogen for at least five hydrogen fuel stations and 100 hydrogen trucks.
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https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/lagerwey-partners-to-build-pioneer-hydrogen-wind-turbine-587562/
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2017-10-19 13:50:29.807000
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Dutch wind turbine manufacturer Lagerwey said today it will build a wind turbine that will produce hydrogen, the first of its kind in the world, together with hydrogen supplier Hygro.
The project also involves research institute ECN, which will host the turbine on its wind turbine testing field at Wieringerwerf in the Dutch province of North Holland. The plan is for the turbine to be completed at the start of 2019. It will be a 4.8-MW Lagerwey wind turbine that will incorporate electrolysis technology.
Lagerwey said the integration of the two technologies will allow many components to be omitted, leading to “cheaper, more efficient and more robust” hydrogen production.
The wind turbine will produce hydrogen for the Duwaal project, an initiative of a Hygro-led consortium, which aims to create sustainable hydrogen production and distribution for at least five hydrogen fuel stations and 100 hydrogen trucks simultaneously.
Lagerwey said that transporting hydrogen by pipeline is cheaper than transporting electricity by cable and also pipelines serve as a buffer, avoiding the supply-demand imbalances related to “regular” wind and solar power. The project is therefore expected to provide insights into future energy infrastructure.
"In the future, wind turbines will ideally be connected up to a hydrogen gas network rather than an electricity grid," the company said.
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Drone company Nileworks raises $7m for crop-spray technology
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Japanese drone manufacturer Nileworks has raised $7m to develop technology enabling its automated crop-spraying drones to determine how much treatment each field requires. Investors include Kumiai Chemical Industry, the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan and the Japanese National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations. Nileworks said its drones can detect field shapes and spray crops from just 30 cm above the ground. The technology should allow the vehicles to calculate how much pesticide is required, based on the crop’s appearance. The product is due to go on sale in 2019 in Japan and the rest of Asia in 2020, targeting rice producers.
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https://agfundernews.com/japans-nileworks-raises-7m-automated-sprayer-drones.html
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2017-10-19 13:48:49.497000
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Japanese drone company Nileworks has raised a ¥800 million ($7.12 million) financing round to expand the capabilities of its automated crop sprayer drones.
The round, which the company expects to close later this month, includes a group of Japanese investors including public-private partnership the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, agricultural chemical maker Kumiai Chemical Industry Co., one of Japan’s largest companies Sumitomo Corporation and its subsidiary Sumitomo Chemical Co., the Japanese National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations, and The Norinchukin Bank.
Nileworks claims its multi-copter drones are able to see the shape of a field and spray just 30cm above, thereby reducing drift. Nileworks will use the new funds to accelerate improvements on its automated drone, refining its “crop health and growth diagnostic technology,” according to a press release. The company is also seeking to add diagnostic capabilities to the drones, enabling them to decide how much pesticide is necessary based on the appearance of the crop.
The Tokyo-based company, founded in 2015, will target rice farmers in Japan when the product goes on sale in 2019 but says it will move on to other rice-producing countries in Asia in 2020. The company plans to sell the hardware itself, as the drones are automated and do not require operators. Each drone can carry up to one liter of pesticide at a time and fly for 20 minutes, covering 1 hectare.
A similar group of investors, including the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations, the Norinchukin Bank and Sumitomo Corporation, all contributed to an investment round for Japan’s Farmnote, a Japanese startup manufacturing wearable technology to collect data from cattle, in May.
Agrifood tech deals in Japan have followed global trends over the last few years, according to AgFunder data, peaking in 2015 with $107.5 million of investment. Investment in Japanese agrifood tech startups dropped 77% between 2015 and 2016 to just $25 million of funding. Funding levels in the first half of 2017 suggest that the sector is unlikely to bounce back in 2017 as startups raised just $9.5 million in H1 2017.
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China's DMG Entertainment seeks to buy 10% of Forbes
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DMG Entertainment, the Chinese-founded media company, is reported to be seeking a 10% stake in US business magazine Forbes. Under a complex deal, DMG's affiliate Yinji Entertainment & Media would create a $256m investment fund with several partners to make the investment in Forbes through another new company. Forbes is currently 95%-owned by Whale Media Investments in Hong Kong, which acquired its controlling state for $415m in 2014. The price for the proposed deal hasn't been disclosed, and neither party has commented on the reports.
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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-dmg-offers-buy-10-percent-stake-forbes-1050299
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2017-10-19 13:44:35.377000
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DMG Entertainment’s Chinese affiliate has offered to buy a 10 percent stake in Forbes, the U.S. business magazine and media company.
Along with the minority stake, DMG would acquire “greater China rights” to the Forbes brand in the proposed deal, helping to fulfill the company’s vision of “creating a global, high-level concept entertainment brand,” according to a stock market filing from DMG’s mainland Chinese affiliate Yinji Entertainment & Media.
The filing, issued Tuesday, explains that Yinji is using a Hong Kong-based, DMG-branded entity to establish a $256 million investment fund with several partners. The fund would then be deployed to acquire full control of an entity called FBS Entertainment and Leisure, which in turn would make the Forbes investment, according to the filing. It wasn’t immediately clear how much it would spend on the Forbes deal.
Forbes’ current controlling stakeholder is Integrated Whale Media Investments, an asset management firm based in Hong Kong, which acquired 95 percent of the publisher for $415 million in 2014. Earlier this year HNA Group, the acquisitive Chinese conglomerate, made a failed attempt to buy a controlling stake in Forbes for over $400 million.
DMG and Forbes couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
DMG Entertainment, which began as a Chinese marketing company before diversifying into film and television, was reorganized in 2014, splitting into two parts. Yinji Entertainment & Media, which retained the company’s flagship advertising and marketing business, and remains its chief revenue driver, was brought to market on the Shenzhen stock exchange via a reverse takeover, with co-founder Peter Xiao taking the helm as chairman. The company’s American co-founder and CEO, Dan Mintz, meanwhile, assumed control of the company’s privately held U.S. entertainment assets, retaining the name DMG Entertainment and basing in Los Angeles.
Although technically separate, which allows them latitude in negotiating U.S. and Chinese financial and media regulations, the two companies operate under a contractual partnership agreement.
DMG Entertainment’s next U.S. film release will be Bastards, starring Owen Wilson and Ed Helms, and produced in partnership with Alcon Entertainment.
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Start-up Built raises $15m to develop robo-bulldozer tech
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Built Robotics, an autonomous-machinery start-up founded by ex-Google employee Noah Ready-Campbell, has raised $15m in an NEA-led funding round. The proceeds will be used to hire engineers to help bring Built's robo-bulldozer technology to market. The 10-person team can retrofit heavy machinery to use the technology.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/18/built-robotics-raises-15-million-from-nea-for-autonomous-construction.html
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2017-10-19 12:51:06.130000
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watch now
Noah Ready-Campbell's first job out of college was at Google . It was 2010, the year the company touted its plan -- or then, what seemed like a far-fetched dream -- to build self-driving cars. "They announced it and everyone looked at each other and we were like, why are we even talking about this," Ready-Campbell, who's now 29, told CNBC. "There's no way it's going to work." Seven years later, the technology is working. In fact, it's so far along that in California more than 40 companies have licenses to test autonomous vehicles, with the trucking industry not far behind. Ready-Campbell, whose dad was a general contractor, is getting in on the action and taking advantage of the dramatic advances in automation to go after construction. For the past two years, he's been developing software and sensors that can turn off-the-shelf excavators into robots that can dig holes with precision for hours without a break. From a small dirt field in a sparsely populated part of San Francisco, Ready-Campbell's 10-person start-up, Built Robotics, has been stealthily operating a retrofitted skid steer, directing it via a computer program to move around dirt.
Built Robotics co-founder Noah Ready-Campbell. Andrew Evers | CNBC
The software allows a contractor to geofence the project so the machine can't go rogue. Then you program in the exact parameters and where to move the dirt. If Built Robotics is a success, some job displacement is inevitable. But Ready-Campbell said there's currently not enough skilled labor to fulfill all the demand for new roads, dams and bridges, and much of the work is dangerous or tedious. "I've talked to some operators and they've said there are parts of my job that are really dangerous and there parts of my job that are really boring," Ready-Campbell said. "If you can have a robot do those things and I can focus on the parts that really take human judgment, then that's good for me."
Built Robotics geofence Andrew Evers | CNBC
Ready-Campbell said it's too soon to say how the technology will be priced. He's optimistic that there are multiple ways to make money, whether it's selling the sensor kits to companies like Caterpillar and John Deere for their machines, selling to contractors for retrofits or renting out the technology for projects. Carl Bass, the former CEO of Autodesk and a roboticist in his spare time, first checked out the Built Robotics technology about nine months ago, when he visited the start-up's headquarters. It's not much of an office. Rather, it's a white tent with a few work stations, a weight-lifting area, a couple couches and a coffee maker. "As somebody who's seen a lot of start-ups, this one may take the cake as far as the proverbial garage," said Bass, who's now a Built Robotics investor and board member.
'Better and cheaper'
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Shell starts offering EV charging on UK forecourts
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Shell has begun providing fast-charging points for electric vehicles at its forecourts in the UK. Batteries will charge 80% in half an hour at petrol stations in London, Surrey and Derby. It wants 10 of its 1,000 sites to be equipped with EV chargers by the end of the year. Last week, Shell acquired NewMotion, a Dutch company with 30,000 private charging points at homes and offices across Europe. Shell plans to have three stations with hydrogen refuelling by the end of the year.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/18/shell-to-open-electric-vehicle-charging-points-at-uk-petrol-stations
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2017-10-19 12:36:43.927000
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Shell is opening a first wave of electric vehicle charging points at its UK petrol stations, in a sign of the far-reaching changes under way in the transport and oil sectors.
Drivers will be able to recharge 80% of their battery in half an hour at forecourts in London, Surrey and Derby from this week, with a total of 10 service stations to be equipped with rapid chargers by the end of the year.
The move marks the Shell’s first step into the UK electric car sector and comes days after the Anglo-Dutch oil company bought NewMotion, a Dutch firm with 30,000 private charging points at homes and offices in Europe.
Shell said the forays into charging were spurred by the swift growth in battery-powered cars, which now number more than 115,000 in the UK, up from almost zero a decade ago.
“There’s no doubt the electric vehicle market is developing fast. And we want to offer customers choice: it doesn’t really matter what kind of vehicle they’re driving, we want them to drive into a Shell station, refuel in whatever capacity the fuel is,” said Jane Lindsay-Green, UK future fuels manager at Shell.
The NewMotion acquisition and service station charging points could prove an important hedge by big oil against the impact of electric cars, which experts said this week would cause petrol demand to peak by 2030.
“We want to make sure we are positioning ourselves for the future,” said Lindsay-Green, who described the two schemes as complementary.
Shell acknowledged it was taking baby steps into the market, with just 10 out of its 1,000 fuelling stations in the UK adding charging points to begin with.
“The market is very young. We are learning here. We’ve started very small. It’s 10 sites, it’s certainly not a mass market yet for us,” said Lindsay-Green.
The company is also catering for the tiny number of hydrogen cars on UK roads – believed to number as few as 50 – and this year installed a hydrogen pump at its Cobham services on the M25. Shell will have three stations with hydrogen refuelling by the end of the year.
With rapid electric charging points typically costing $30,000-$50,000 (£22,700-£38,000) each, the 10 electric charging stations mark a minuscule fraction of the $25bn Shell spends on oil each year.
But industry watchers said the infrastructure and recent acquisition were noteworthy.
Colin McKerracher, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “I think it is significant that a major oil company is investing in charging infrastructure and that they bought NewMotion.
“I wouldn’t say it spells the end of the pump as we know it, but we are on the way to a world with a broader mix of vehicles on the road, and Shell are making a play to keep their stations relevant.”
Greenpeace, which has previously protested at Shell’s UK service stations over its oil drilling plans, said the country needed more charging points.
Rosie Rogers, clean air campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “In order to really kick start the electrification of our road network, we need to see a lot more rapid charge points in petrol station all over the country, as well as in supermarkets, car parks and motorway services.”
Branded Shell Recharge, the charging points will cost a discounted 25p per kilowatt hour of power until next June, when the price will revert to its normal level of 49p per kWh.
At the normal price, that means recharging a Nissan Leaf from virtually flat to a full charge would cost nearly £20, while a top-end Tesla Model S would cost almost £50. Customers pay via a credit card registered to an app on a pay-as-you-go basis rather than the subscription basis that some electric car charging schemes operate on.
The initial locations, all but one of which is in or around London, were chosen based on how busy they are. “Locations that have a lot of through-traffic, and also locations where perhaps the existing electric vehicle infrastructure needs boosting,” said Lindsay-Green.
Shell said that in a handful of cases it paid for upgrades to the local energy grid, to make it capable of handling the rapid charging points. The UK is the first market where Shell is piloting the Recharge offering, which is to expand next to the Netherlands.
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Google's AlphaGo AI learns to play without human help
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Google’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence (AI) system, created to challenge human players at the ancient Chinese game of Go, has been updated to AlphaGo Zero. The new version is “arguably the strongest Go player in history”, according to the company, having learned how to play the game after challenging previous versions of itself. Within three days it had beaten the AlphaGo version that had won against 18-time world champion Lee Se-dol, and after 40 days had was victorious against the latest iteration, which had defeated another leading player. The AI software is also being used to determine how proteins fold, a study that's hoped to help in drug development.
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https://futurism.com/google-unveils-ai-learns/
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2017-10-19 12:33:52.277000
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Surpassing the Masters
We've written before about how Google is one of the most prominent tech companies leading the way when it comes to the development of artificial intelligence. As each month passes, its AI division, DeepMind, continues to reveal increasingly advanced AI capabilities, especially when it comes to AlphaGo.
This particular AI is most well-known for mastering the ancient Chinese game of Go...and subsequently defeating 18-time world champion Lee Se-dol, which happened just last year.
Since then, DeepMind has started adding imagination to its AI, and they also used gaming to teach the AI how to better manage tasks. AlphaGo even went on to defeat another top go player, Ke Jie, once again showing off its (potentially) unlimited potential to learn.
Now, a new development has just come to light.
This week, DeepMind unveiled the next iteration of the AlphaGo AI, dubbed AlphaGo Zero, saying it's "even more powerful and is arguably the strongest Go player in history." According to the company, Zero taught itself how to play Go on its own by playing games against itself — previous iterations of AlphaGo learned by studying data gathered from human players.
Zero began as a complete novice, but after just 3 days it beat the version of AlphaGo that bested Lee Se-dol, and it beat it by a staggering 100 games to 0. After 40 days, it proceeded to beat the superior version of AlphaGo that beat Ke Jie.
"AlphaGo Zero also discovered new knowledge, developing unconventional strategies and creative new moves that echoed and surpassed the novel techniques it played in the games against Lee Sedol and Ke Jie," said DeepMind in their press release.
Beyond the Game of Go
While AlphaGo Zero's Go capabilities are to be praised, it should be noted that playing a board game is much different than completing other tasks that have more variables. As Eleni Vasilaki, professor of computational neuroscience at Sheffield University, put it while speaking with The Guardian, "AI fails in tasks that are surprisingly easy for humans. Just look at the performance of a humanoid robot in everyday tasks such as walking, running, and kicking a ball."
When it comes to matching humans at more complex tasks, AI still has a long way to go — even AI like Siri and the Google Assistant have yet to surpass a fifth grader's level of knowledge.
But that doesn't mean that this development isn't utterly revolutionary.
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is also well aware of this gap between humans and AI, explaining how the development and growth of AlphaGo was more important than just mastering an ancient game, it was also "a big step for us towards building these general-purpose algorithms.”
Within the next decade, Hassabis believes AI will be working alongside people to advance development in fields like science and medicine — the latter of which can already be seen today.
For example, AlphaGo Zero is currently trying to work out how proteins fold, which is something that, if realized, could vastly accelerate drug discovery (the process through which new medications are discovered). This, in turn, could save countless lives and lead us into a new era in medicine.
"I hope that these kinds of algorithms and future versions of AlphaGo-inspired things will be routinely working with us as scientific experts and medical experts on advancing the frontier of science and medicine," Hassabis said.
Artificial intelligence may not be as smart and capable as us yet, but if AlphaGo Zero is an indication, AI are quick learners. Now it's just a matter of knowing what to do when the AI takeover inevitably happens.
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Netherlands to hold subsidy-free wind auction in December
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The Dutch government will hold a no-subsidy tender for phases I and II of the 700 MW Hollandse Kust Zuid zone wind farm between December 15 and December 21. The extend of offshore wind project experience of the bidders, offered capacity, quality of the design, measures to ensure cost-efficiency and social costs are in the list of criteria. The decision follows a German offshore wind tender earlier this year in which three of the four winning projects will be built without subsidies. If the subsidy-free competitive process is unsuccessful, the Dutch government will initiate a tender with subsidies.
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https://renewablesnow.com/news/dutch-subsidy-free-offshore-wind-tender-to-take-place-in-december-587729/
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2017-10-19 12:24:04.750000
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The Dutch government will be accepting applications between December 15 and December 21 in its subsidy-free offshore wind tender for phases I and II of the Hollandse Kust Zuid zone.
The projects will have a combined capacity of about 700 MW.
The economic affairs ministry has published a Ministerial Order outlining the needed documents and the ranking criteria which will determine the winners. The extent of offshore wind project experience of the bidders, offered capacity, quality of the design, measures to ensure cost-efficiency and social costs are in the list of criteria.
The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) will hold an information meeting on November 1 to discuss the tender procedure.
The decision to sound the possibility of realising offshore wind projects off the Netherlands without subsidies has been prompted by Germany’s first offshore wind tender, where three of the four winning projects will be built without subsidies. If the subsidy-free competitive process is unsuccessful, the Dutch government will initiate a tender with subsidies.
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UK's 'culture of low pay' keeps workers in badly paid jobs
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A "low-pay culture" in the UK pressures people to remain in badly paid jobs, according to a report by the government-supported Social Mobility Commission. The study found that just one in six workers earning less than two-thirds of the median hourly wage had succeeded in moving to higher paid roles in the last ten years, while the majority remained stuck in part-time or insecure work. A quarter of such workers remained permanently in low-paid positions, the report stated.
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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/low-pay-and-progression-in-the-labour-market
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2017-10-19 10:47:01.027000
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Low pay is endemic in the UK and there has been little progress in the number of people managing to escape from poorly paid jobs, a new report by the Social Mobility Commission reveals today (Thursday 19 October).
The ‘Great Escape?’ report, carried out by the Resolution Foundation, explores trends in low pay over recent decades and examines the factors linked to low pay and progression. It tracks individuals’ pay over 10 years and divides them into 3 groups:
‘stuck’ - those who are stuck in low pay every year
‘cyclers’ - those who move out of low pay at some point, but who have not consistently stayed above the low pay threshold by the end of the decade
‘escapers’ - those who earn above the low pay threshold in each of the last 3 years, suggesting they have remained in higher pay
The analysis finds that just 1 in 6 low-paid workers (17%) managed to permanently escape from low pay in the last decade. Meanwhile, a quarter of low-paid workers remained permanently stuck in low pay and nearly half (48%) fluctuated in and out of low pay over the course of the last 10 years.
The report finds that women are more likely to be low paid than men and are also far more likely to get stuck in low pay. It is particularly difficult for women in their early twenties to escape low pay, with the lack of good-quality, flexible work to fit alongside childcare responsibilities as the most likely barrier.
However, there has been some long-term progress for women. Excluding those who exit the data over the following decade, the proportion of women getting stuck has fallen from 48% in 1981 to 91 to 30% in 2006 to 2016. In contrast, the risk of long-term low pay has increased for men over the same period (from 20% to 25%). This is likely due to the increasing number of men working in low-paid, part-time work.
The report finds that nearly two-thirds (64%) of workers who are ‘stuck’ in low pay are working part time, while nearly three-quarters (71%) of people who escaped low pay were working full time.
Getting stuck in low pay carries a severe pay penalty. On average, people stuck in the low pay trap have seen their hourly wages rise by just 40p in real terms over the last decade, compared to a £4.83 pay rise for those who have permanently escaped.
Age is also identified as a factor, with older workers far less likely to escape low pay than their younger counterparts. The report finds that 23% of low-paid workers aged 25 or under escaped low pay over the following decade, compared to 15% of those aged 46 to 55.
The research also finds that in the last decade, low-paid workers were mostly likely to escape in Scotland and least likely to escape in the North East.
It adds that while the National Living Wage is reducing the number of people in low-paid work - last year saw the biggest fall in 40 years - there will still be around 4 million low-paid workers in 2020, highlighting the scale of Britain’s low pay challenge.
The Rt Hon Alan Milburn, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said:
Britain has an endemic low pay problem. While record numbers of people are in employment, too many jobs are low skilled and low paid. Millions of workers - particularly women - are being trapped in low pay with little chance of escape. The consequences for social mobility are dire.
Britain’s flexible workforce gives us global economic advantage, but a 2-tier labour market is now exacting too high a social price. A new approach is needed to break the vicious cycle where low skills lead to low pay in low-quality jobs. Welfare policy should focus on moving people from low pay to living pay. Government should join forces with employers in a new national effort to improve progression and productivity at work. Without concerted action, Britain will become more socially divided and social mobility will continue to stall.
Conor D’Arcy, Senior Policy Analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said:
Britain has one of the highest proportions of low-paid work in the developed work. And while three-quarters of low-paid workers did manage to move into higher paying roles at some point over the past decade, the vast majority couldn’t sustain that progress. This lack of pay progress can have a huge scarring effect on people’s lifetime living standards.
The National Living Wage is playing a massive role in reducing low pay, but it can’t solve the problem alone. Employers need to improve career routes for staff, while government should support them with a welfare system that encourages progression at work.
Notes for editors
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UK's 'culture of low pay' keeps workers in badly paid jobs
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A "low-pay culture" in the UK pressures people to remain in badly paid jobs, according to a report by the government-supported Social Mobility Commission. The study found that just one in six workers earning less than two-thirds of the median hourly wage had succeeded in moving to higher paid roles in the last ten years, while the majority remained stuck in part-time or insecure work. A quarter of such workers remained permanently in low-paid positions, the report stated.
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/19/uks-low-pay-culture-traps-people-in-poorly-paid-jobs-study-finds
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2017-10-19 10:47:01.027000
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Britain’s low pay culture traps people in poorly paid jobs and prevents them from escaping into full-time work with better pay, according to a major study by the government-backed body that tracks social mobility.
Only one in six workers on low pay managed in the last 10 years to push themselves up the pay ladder and stay there, while most remained stuck in a cycle of part-time and insecure jobs.
The analysis by the Social Mobility Commission found that a quarter of low-paid workers remained permanently stuck in low pay and nearly half (48%) fluctuated in and out of it over the course of the last 10 years.
Alan Milburn, the former Labour MP and health minister who heads the commission, said the study showed that successive governments had failed to reduce inequality between rich and poor despite two decades of interventions.
He described the situation as “endemic” and warned that without “radical and urgent reform”, the social and economic divisions in British society will widen even further, threatening community cohesion and economic prosperity.
His warning follows a stinging report earlier this week by the thinktank, the OECD, that accused the government of allowing regional and intergenerational divisions to worsen, leaving millions of people outside London and the south-east working in low-skilled jobs.
Milburn said workers on low incomes, defined as those earning below two-thirds of the median hourly wage, were caught in an “endemic low pay problem” that is “dire for social mobility”. The median hourly wage in 2016 was £13.59, defining those on low pay as earning below £9 an hour.
The study found that on average, people stuck in the low-pay trap have seen their hourly wages rise by just 40p over the last decade after inflation is taken into account, compared with a £4.83 pay rise for those who have permanently escaped.
The government has defended itself against claims that inequality has widened in the last 10 years by pointing to the Gini coefficient, which is an internationally recognised measure of income inequality that has remained constant in recent years.
But the Gini coefficient includes pensioners and those on benefits, while the commission’s research focuses on those in work.
Conor D’Arcy, a policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, which carried out the research, said: “Britain has one of the highest proportions of low-paid work in the developed world. And while three-quarters of low-paid workers did manage to move into higher-paying roles at some point over the past decade, the vast majority couldn’t sustain that progress. This lack of pay progress can have a huge scarring effect on people’s lifetime living standards.
“The national living wage is playing a massive role in reducing low pay, but it can’t solve the problem alone. Employers need to improve career routes for staff, while government should support them with a welfare system that encourages progression at work.”
Milburn added: “Britain’s flexible workforce gives us global economic advantage but a two-tier labour market is now exacting too high a social price. A new approach is needed to break the vicious cycle where low skills lead to low pay in low quality jobs.
“Welfare policy should focus on moving people from low pay to living pay. Government should join forces with employers in a new national effort to improve progression and productivity at work. Without concerted action Britain will become more socially divided and social mobility will continue to stall.”
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Gene therapies hold promise for treating blindness
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Gene therapies for ocular disorders are close to becoming a reality, with a number of firms testing new treatments, according to Dr Jay Duker, co-founder of Hemera Biosciences. His firm is carrying out the first human trials of HMR59, a gene therapy for advanced dry age-related macular degeneration, with results set to be available in the coming months. Additionally, Spark Therapeutics recently completed a phase 3 clinical trial of its product Luxturna, which aims to treat inherited retinal disease.
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https://www.healio.com/ophthalmology/retina-vitreous/news/print/ocular-surgery-news/%7Bfdf0d5e1-2331-4df4-808b-22a69fc6ebbe%7D/genetic-therapies-offer-new-pathways-for-ophthalmic-disorders
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2017-10-19 09:49:23.600000
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This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Genetic therapies offer new pathways for ophthalmic disorders
Biotechnology companies such as Hemera Biosciences, Spark Therapeutics and AGTC have several ophthalmic treatments in the clinical pipeline.
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Genetic therapies for ophthalmic disorders such as inherited retinal dystrophies are moving forward in the field and taking steps toward becoming a clinical reality.
The future of gene therapy in retinal disease is a bright one, with many gene therapy companies offering exciting possibilities, Jay S. Duker, MD, a co-founder of Hemera Biosciences, a privately held biotech company, told Ocular Surgery News.
“Gene therapy is being tested in many organ systems, but the retina is one of the best organs in the body to consider gene therapy for several reasons. First, the eye is relatively isolated from an immunologic view. This makes inflammation less of an issue. Second, the ordered topography of the retina is an advantage. Third, the eye volume is such that relatively small amounts of material are needed to treat an eye. Finally, we have many tests of structure and function that are safe and easy to perform in the office to determine the effectiveness of the gene therapy,” he said.
Therapies in the pipeline
Hemera Biosciences is developing anti-complement therapies delivered via gene therapy. Its lead product, HMR59, is an AAV2-based gene therapy designed to be injected intravitreally into the eye in an office setting to treat advanced dry age-related macular degeneration, according to Duker, an OSN Retina/Vitreous Board Member. This is the first gene therapy for dry AMD ever tested in humans.
Jay S. Duker
The therapy induces intraocular cells to produce a solubilized form of a naturally occurring protein blocker of membrane attack complex, “the final step in the complement cascade,” he said.
“The phase 1b dose-escalating trial of HMR59 in eyes with severe geographic atrophy from dry age-related macular degeneration is fully enrolled. Initial safety results should be available this fall or early winter. A phase 2 multicenter placebo-controlled trial of HMR59 is in the advanced planning stages,” Duker said.
Duker also noted that Spark Therapeutics is anticipated to receive FDA approval for Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec), a gene therapy treatment of confirmed biallelic RPE65-mediated inherited retinal disease.
Katherine A. High, MD, co-founder, chief scientific officer and president of Spark Therapeutics, told Ocular Surgery News that Luxturna has completed a phase 3 clinical trial. The therapy began a phase 1 clinical trial in 2007, she said, before the creation of Spark Therapeutics in 2013.
The gene therapy was developed when High was the director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Because the hospital was not in the business of licensing products, a decision had to be made for the future of Luxturna, she said.
PAGE BREAK
“We considered a number of options, including partnering with a biotech or a pharmaceutical company, but most had very little experience with gene therapies. This was an ultra-rare indication, and sometimes ultra-rare indications can be lost in the shuffle of a big company. After a lot of deliberation, we made the decision to spin out an independent company from our unit at CHOP. The unit employed about 80 people; when we spun out, we took a number of those people and added a number of other individuals. The company, even though it was formed in 2013, had a running start. When it was formed, we had an asset in phase 3. That’s unusual,” High said.
Targeting inherited retinal dystrophies
Spark Therapeutics has two additional ocular gene therapies in the pipeline. High said SPK-7001 has been advanced to an open-label, dose-escalated phase 1/2 trial to assess the safety and preliminary efficacy of subretinal administration for choroideremia. The company is also investigating a preclinical gene therapy for the treatment of Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy.
“Gene therapy has a great deal to offer in the area of inherited retinal dystrophies. This has been a target tissue that has really not been amenable, for example, for repeated protein administrations. It hasn’t been amenable for small molecule therapy, either. So, I think that presents a niche for gene therapy. It’s interesting to me because vision is one of the most complex mechanisms in the body, with over 250 genes involved. Of course, most of these don’t have treatments, and so I believe we should be able to leverage the work that we’ve done in RPE65 and take advantage of the lessons learned to shorten clinical development timelines,” High said.
Since its creation, Spark Therapeutics has secured $1 billion in financing to support the growth of its clinical programs and platforms, according to the company website.
Bright future
Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation (AGTC), a publicly traded company developing gene therapies for rare lung and eye diseases, also has several therapies in clinical trials. One, a phase 1/2 trial, will evaluate the safety and efficacy of recombinant adeno-associated virus vector expressing retinoschisin for the treatment of X-linked retinoschisis, according to the company.
According to a company investor presentation given in August, AGTC reported it had $148.7 million in cash and investments as of March 31 and $135 million to $140 million expected at the fiscal year end on June 30. This will allow the company to complete enrollment and analysis for the phase 1/2 trials of X-linked retinoschisis and achromatopsia.
PAGE BREAK
Gene therapy for ophthalmic disorders is bright, and the future offers some exciting advancements for retinal diseases, Duker said.
“As mentioned, we should have an FDA-approved gene therapy for one form of inherited retinal dystrophy soon. Other corrections of mutations will follow. Drug delivery via gene therapy will not be too far behind. The future will include more retinotrophic viral vectors, allowing for better gene delivery, as well as some non-viral vectors,” he said. – by Robert Linnehan
References:
Our scientific programs and platforms. Spark Therapeutics. http://sparktx.com/scientific-platform-programs/. Accessed Sept. 12, 2017.
Products. Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation. https://www.agtc.com/products. Accessed Sept. 14, 2017.
Russell S, et al. Lancet. 2017;doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31868-8.
Safety and efficacy of rAAV-hRS1 in patients with X-linked retinoschisis (XLRS). ClinicalTrials.gov. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02416622. Updated Aug. 31, 2017. Accessed Sept. 13, 2017.
Treatment of advanced dry age related macular degeneration with AAVCAGsCD59. ClinicalTrials.gov. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03144999. Updated May 16, 2017. Accessed Sept. 13, 2017.
Visionary Science for Life Changing Cures 2017. Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation. http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2H6BI7/5243637568x0x954037/4044D075-C3ED-483E-9DCC-466D012B14A7/AGTC_Summer_2017_Investor_Presentation.pdf. Published Aug. 15, 2017. Accessed Sept. 14, 2017.
For more information:
Jay S. Duker, MD, can be reached at New England Eye Center, 800 Washington St., Box 450, Boston, MA 02111-1533; email: [email protected].
Katherine A. High, MD, can be reached at Spark Therapeutics, 3737 Market St., Suite 1300, Philadelphia, PA 19104; email: [email protected].
Disclosures: Duker reports he is a co-founder of Hemera Biosciences. High reports she is co-founder, chief scientific officer and president of Spark Therapeutics.
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MIT to issue degree certificates using blockchain technology
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has partnered with blockchain firm Learning Machine to create the Blockcerts Wallet, an open-source app offering secure, verifiable digital versions of degree certificates. MIT is among the first institutions to use blockchain to offer digital certificates, which can reduce fraud and enable graduates to share their qualifications more easily. The University of Melbourne is using the Blockcerts Wallet app to pilot its own digital diploma scheme, while Johns Hopkins is working on a solution using a private blockchain.
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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/19/mit-introduces-digital-diplomas
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2017-10-19 09:33:10.630000
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is offering some students the option to be awarded tamper-free digital degree certificates when they graduate, in partnership with Learning Machine. Selected students can now choose to download a digital version of their degree certificate to their smartphones when they graduate, in addition to receiving a paper diploma.
Using a free, open-source app called Blockcerts Wallet, students can quickly access a digital diploma that can be shared on social media and verified by employers to ensure its authenticity. The digital credential is protected using block-chain technology. The block chain is a public ledger that offers a secure way of making and recording transactions, and is best known as the underlying technology of digital currency Bitcoin.
A news release Tuesday described how MIT has been thinking about using block-chain technology to secure digital credentials for the past two years. In 2015 Philipp Schmidt, the director of learning innovation at the MIT media lab, began issuing nonacademic digital credentials to his team, but he did not have a good way of managing these credentials digitally.
In collaboration with Learning Machine, Schmidt and his team began to develop an open-source tool kit, called Blockcerts, that any college can use to issue credentials using block-chain technology. With the addition of the Blockcerts Wallet app, this information can be encrypted, and students can prove ownership of their diploma through the generation of a unique numerical identifier.
The technology means that students can quickly share their virtual certificates with potential employers without involving an intermediary. Third parties can verify the legitimacy of the diploma by pasting the URL of the certificate into an MIT-hosted portal. This portal can instantly verify the legitimacy of the certificate, negating the notarization step often required in the verification of paper certificates.
Chris Jagers, CEO of Learning Machine, said that many of today's students expect to be able to just send digital copies of their academic credentials to employers and institutions, but that until now there wasn’t good technology to support this. “We heard of students trying to Snapchat their grades to admissions; they didn’t understand why they couldn’t just text a picture,” said Jagers. “It should be that easy to share records, and this generation of digital natives expects that. But before this technology came along, this wasn’t possible.”
Mary Callahan, university registrar and senior associate dean at MIT, said that a key motivation behind the pilot was to “empower” students to take greater ownership of their academic qualifications. She said the technology enables students to share their achievements with whomever they wish in a way that is secure, verifiable and efficient. “I think it’s got real potential,” said Callahan. “We wanted to lead the way, and we expect others to follow.”
The first cohort of 111 students who were able to take part in the pilot graduated this summer, with 43 choosing to take part. Callahan said that potentially all students graduating in February 2018 would be given the digital diploma option. Asked whether she thought this could one day replace paper, Callahan did not rule it out but said that the change would take time.
Aside from convenience for students, the technology also tackles another issue facing universities -- fake degrees. “There are a lot of people who pretend to graduate from MIT with fake diplomas,” said Jagers. “This provides a format that people can’t fake.”
Callahan confirmed that verifying authenticity was an important aspect of the technology for the university, which she said “definitely gets its fair share” of fraudsters.
While some students may struggle to understand the technology behind the app, understanding how the block chain works is not necessary to use it, said Jagers. He noted that there has been strong interest in the technology from dozens of academic institutions, as well as companies and governments. The University of Melbourne is already piloting digital diplomas with the app.
Though some companies are looking to sell their block chain-based products, Jagers said that keeping the Blockcerts app and tool kit free and open source is important. “If everyone is doing this in a proprietary way, then the records won’t be universally verifiable. The whole point is to create records that don’t have any dependence on an issuer or vendor.”
While MIT may be among the first institutions in the U.S. to use block-chain technology to award digital degree certificates, Thomas Black, assistant vice provost and university registrar at Johns Hopkins University, said that other institutions are experimenting. He noted that his institution was also looking to use block-chain technology to award degrees, but he would be taking a different approach than MIT.
Instead of working with third parties, Johns Hopkins is building its own system and creating a private ledger -- rather than using Bitcoin's public one, like MIT. “Universities are very protective of their authority to certify learning. I don’t know that we need to have this public ledger approach,” he said. “You can use block-chain technology very nicely by establishing a private ledger.”
Black noted that many institutions already use digital signing services to verify the authenticity of their PDF documents through Adobe. Companies such as Parchment and Paradigm also offer verified digital versions of diplomas, said Black. “The concept of digital signatures is nothing new,” he said. “But perhaps universities could start to replace Adobe and others in these roles.”
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Google to automatically update Shopping data in Amazon challenge
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Google is to enable the automatic updating of merchants' product prices and availability on its Shopping pages. The feature, which refreshes details via links into merchants' own websites, will be triggered on 31 October, whether sellers have the Schema.org markup in place or not. The move is seen as an effort to compete with Amazon. "The worst thing for a consumer is to see one price in a Google Shopping ad and then another price on the merchant's website," said Tien Nguyen, founder at CPC Strategy.
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https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/308979/
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2017-10-19 08:47:47.973000
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by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, October 18, 2017
Google has created technology that automatically updates price and availability in Google Shopping ads that will allow it to complete better with Amazon and other ecommerce marketplaces.
The "automatic item updates" feature, scheduled to launch October 31, will allow Google to automatically update a merchant's product price and availability in a Google Shopping ad based on the advertiser's website listing and other triggers without placing codes containing the schema.org markup that was previously required.
A combination of statistical models and machine learning detect and extract product data from a retailer's website to update a product's price and availability in shopping ads.
"The worst thing for a consumer is to see one price in a Google Shopping ad and then other price on the merchant's website," said Tien Nguyen, founder at CPC Strategy.
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Two emails sent from Google to merchants earlier this week describing the feature, "automatic item updates," left retail clients using Google Shopping a little confused. On Tuesday, search agencies began getting a flood of emails and calls asking about the change.
The first email from Google was sent to merchants that are not currently using automatic item updates, and the second email was sent to merchants currently using it.
Beginning at the end of the month, the feature will turn on by default, but merchants can opt-out. Google developed the technology to look for and identify coded signals on a website page that would determine price and availability. This way merchants are not required to have the Schema.org markup in place to function properly.
The feature isn't new, but the ability to trigger it without the Schema.org markup in place is new.
Nguyen said sometimes Google will reject the Shopping ad if it doesn't match the merchants' price and description on the webpage. Then the ad never serves at all.
The most current price and availability for the products will be determined by "structured data annotations" or additional information when structured data isn't available.
"It’s not anything to be alarmed about, but it can’t be completely ignored," said David Grow, digital media director, Chacka Marketing. "Advertisers can opt out."
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More efficient cellulose breakdown could lead to cheaper biofuels
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Scientists at the Graz University of Technology are investigating oxidative enzymes that utilise oxygen and work together with hydrolytic enzymes to break down cellulose more efficiently. Traditionally, biorefineries use a mix of hydrolytically active enzymes that utilise water molecules to break down plant materials, replicating the natural degradation process.
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http://biofuels-news.com/display_news/13009/a_better_way_to_break_down_cellulose/
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2017-10-19 08:36:58.323000
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Scientists have gained new insight into the functioning of hydrolytic enzymes, in a study that could pave the way to more competitive biofuels.
The current technical complexity and costs of obtaining biofuels from biomass restrict their cheap, efficient and sustainable production. At a time when oil prices are at record lows, this is hindering their ability to compete on the fuels market.
One of the major challenges is breaking down cellulose, a polysaccharide and plant constituent which is not water soluble and thus difficult to process.
Biorefineries use a mix of hydrolytically active enzymes which utilise water molecules to break down plant materials, replicating the natural degradation processes. Recently, oxidative enzymes were discovered which utilise oxygen and work together with hydrolytic enzymes to break down cellulose more efficiently. Scientists at the Graz University of Technology are now working to find out how this process works.
Using atomic force microscopy, the researchers were able to observe enzymes at work on the surface of cellulose particles for the first time and provide direct evidence of their activity. The insights gained have been published in the journal Nature Communications.
As well as observing the actions of the hydrolytically active enzyme Trichoderma reesei CBH I, the researchers were able to observe how the behaviour of the enzyme changed when oxidative enzymes, also known as LPMOs (lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases), were added to mix. The Graz scientists established both that the LPMOS generated more binding sites on the surface of the hydrolytically active enzymes, and that the enzyme dynamics on the surface increased considerably.
“This study will contribute to a better understanding of these processes at a basic research level, and in a further step will facilitate the production of biofuels. Usually, in chemistry we are focused on soluble products, which can be easily measured, to deepen the understanding of a reaction. However, for a reaction taking place on a solid surface such an approach is not feasible. We wanted to observe and document the step before that, that is, the process of cellulose breakdown," says Manuel Eibinger, lead author of the study at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering.
Bernd Nidetzky, head of the Institute of Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering at TU Graz: "The saying comes to mind 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. In this study we wanted to document the processes as they occur in time. And this is what we managed to do."
The team’s study is available from Nature Communications, here.
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YouTube claims AI tech now finds 83% of extremist videos
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Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube has said it automatically caught and removed 83% of extremist videos using its machine learning technology in September, compared with 75% in August, according to a report from the provider. The study also revealed YouTube has added 35 non-governmental organisations to its Trusted Flagger initiative to help create policies on hate speech and radicalisation, and is expanding its Creators for Change programme. In addition, content featuring "controversial religious or supremacist content" is stripped of comments, recommendations and monetisations, and is preceded by a warning.
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http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/youtube-says-its-tech-now-catches-most-terrorist-videos-before-humans-do
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2017-10-19 08:29:22.787000
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YouTube has published its second report on how it's dealing with extremist videos since announcing plans to deal with the problem back in June, after brand safety concerns caused a number of advertisers to pull their spend from YouTube.
It reports that 83 per cent of the extremist videos removed from the platform in September were automatically caught by the machine learning technology it introduced in June before they received a single human flag – compared to 75 per cent in August.
YouTube says the technology has been trained to recognise this content using over 1m videos, which have been manually reviewed by its staff to pick out examples of terrorist and violent content.
"Inevitably, both humans and machines make mistakes, and as we have increased the volume of videos for review by our teams, we have made some errors," reads YouTube's report. "We know we can get better and we are committed to making sure our teams are taking action on the right content. We are working on ways to educate those who share video meant to document or expose violence on how to add necessary context."
The company also provided updates on the other approaches it's using to tackle this problem. Videos that aren't illegal, but do contain 'controversial religious or supremacist content', have been kept on the platform, but with a warning interstitial beforehand, and with recommendations, monetisations and comments all turned off. YouTube is investing more in its Creators for Change programme, which supports the makers of videos attempting to tackle social issues, with new chapters opening in Israel and Spain.
Finally, the Trusted Flagger inititative has added 35 NGOs (Non-Government Organisations), including King's College London and Indonesia's Wahid Institute, to help advise YouTube on policies around issues like hate speech and radicalisation, and to improve the training of its systems by flagging content.
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.
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Jacobs signs sulphur recovery agreement with Shell JV
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Jacobs Engineering Group has agreed to licence sulphur recovery technology from Paqell, a joint venture between Shell Global Solutions and Paques. The technology, THIOPAQ O&G is a biological process that removes mecaptans and hydrogen sulphides from a gas stream.
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https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/12102017/jacobs-and-paqell-sign-sulfur-recovery-agreement/
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2017-10-19 08:27:23.800000
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Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has signed a sulfur recovery technology licensor agreement with Paqell, a joint venture between Shell Global Solutions and Paques BV, for use of its THIOPAQ O&G (oil and gas) technology in refineries and gas treating facilities across the globe. This agreement positions Jacobs as the only gas treating and sulfur recovery licensing company to license THIOPAQ O&G to low capacity sulfur facility owners, which eliminates the chemical waste produced by alternative technologies.
THIOPAQ O&G is a biological process which integrates gas purification with sulfur recovery in a single unit, resulting in high sulfur recovery levels at reduced installation and operating costs. This process involves sulfur components, such as mercaptans (R-SH) and hydrogen sulfides (H 2 S), being removed from a gas stream and converting them into biologically formed sulfur. Expanding Jacobs’ Comprimo® Sulfur Solutions technology, this process is becoming increasingly important to the industry as it looks for ways to reduce chemical waste, which poses both environmental and safety hazards.
“Refining and gas treating facility owners and operators require reliable technology that delivers low CAPEX and OPEX, provides high sulfur recovery efficiency, and minimises environmental impact,” said Jacobs Mining & Minerals and Specialty Chemicals Senior Vice President and General Manager Andrew Berryman.
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Progressive Insurance debuts AI-powered Facebook chatbot
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US insurance giant Progressive has launched Flo Chatbot, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot integrated with Facebook. The bot, named after the company's fictional spokeswoman, will be accessible via Progessive's Facebook page. It will offer prospective customers quotes, while also allowing existing policyholders to ask questions regarding their coverage. "By creating the Flo Chatbot for Messenger we are able to make the process of getting an auto quote as simple as possible by talking with [our customers] exactly where they are", said Customer Acquisition Leader Dan Witalec.
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https://www.dig-in.com/news/progressive-insurance-launches-ai-chatbot-on-facebook-messenger
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2017-10-19 08:27:20.613000
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The Progressive Corp. headquarters is seen in Mayfield Village, Ohio on Wednesday, January 18, 2006. John Quinn/Bloomberg News
Progressive Insurance has launched a Flo Chatbot on Facebook Messenger to communicate with policyholders and offer quotes to prospective customers on social media.
The artificial intelligence tool is now available to 1.4 billion monthly active Messenger users via Flo’s Facebook fan page, according to the company. A Progressive representative will also be available to carry on conversations through phone or private message in the event the AI bot cannot answer particular questions.
Progressive says it will continue to enhance its AI technology over time as it learns from customer inquiries. To begin with, Flo Chatbot will only answer basic questions around deductibles, claim status and the quoting process.
"We know our customers are busy and they're looking for convenient ways to access information about insurance," said Dan Witalec, customer acquisition leader at Progressive, in a statement. "By creating the Flo Chatbot for Messenger we are able to make the process of getting an auto quote as simple as possible by talking with them exactly where they are."
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Email platform created by insurance broker Worry + Peace
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Insurtech Worry + Peace has introduced bespoke email addresses for customers who use its platform as part of a beta testing phase. The UK firm said by doing this it will allow brokers also making use of its platform, dubbed Pouch, to generate more leads. Pouch is designed to allow policyholders to organise different insurance policies in one place. The new email platform will be developed further once feedback from the testing is received.
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https://www.insuranceage.co.uk/technology/3163436/insurtech-futures-worry-peace-creates-insurance-email-platform
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2017-10-19 08:21:29.810000
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Firm predicts new service will help generate leads for brokers.
Broker Worry + Peace has developed bespoke email addresses for customers who have signed up to use its insurance marketplace Pouch and claimed that brokers who use the system will be able to generate leads using the platform.
Founder James York explained that the emails will use the [email protected] format.
According to York, Pouch is a platform where customers can keep all of their insurance transactions – even those not bought through Worry + Peace – in one place. The email system
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US aerial imaging firm wins drone inspection patent
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US firm EagleView Technologies has won a patent for its drone-based property inspection system. The technology is intended for use by insurance companies' claims teams, to assess damage on structures before and after catastrophic events. EagleView's tech allows for the automatic generation of flight paths by enabled drones, without input from a pilot. The firm says it used its technology to generate "thousands" of images for claims adjusters following Hurricane Irma.
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http://iireporter.com/eagleview-granted-patent-for-drone-property-inspection-process/
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2017-10-19 08:14:57.150000
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(Image source: EagleView.)
EagleView Technologies (Bothell, Wash.), a provider of aerial imagery and property data analytics, reports that it has won an authoritative patent for property inspection using an unmanned aerial system (UAS), or drone. The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) granted EagleView Pat. No. 9,612,598, Unmanned Aircraft Structure Evaluation System and Method.
EagleView reports that its new technology automatically generates a flight path around a structure to capture imagery and data using the drone. The flight path is defined based on the characteristics of the drone camera and the known outline and height of the structure. A pilot is not needed to create the flight path.
“This patent enables us to continue streamlining our processes in the most advanced way possible to provide consistent imagery and information to our customers,” comments Rishi Daga, President, EagleView. “We will continue to invest in protecting our technology and capture capabilities as we advance our solutions.”
EagleView says that the patent has already been used by the USPTO to constrain other companies in the roof inspection industry from obtaining patent protection for UAS Rooftop Inspection applications, demonstrating the vendor’s leadership in the field.
EagleView’s OnSite solution, introduced earlier this year, creates property data and imagery from multiple camera sources, including drones, that can be accessed directly by claims adjusters. Through the EagleView OnSite Solutions network, field representatives are assigned to capture imagery of the property by drone. That imagery, combined with machine learning technology resulting from EagleView’s acquisition of OmniEarth, can identify damage and other anomalies on properties before and after the claim event.
Assisting in High-Volume Claim Events
“Following Hurricane Irma, EagleView captured thousands of drone images for claims inspections within the first week of being permitted into the airspace,” comments Kenneth Cook, Senior VP, EagleView OnSite Solutions. “This capability is essential for insurance carriers who receive high volumes of claims following a weather event. Drone inspection provides detailed imagery to help save claims adjusters time and ensure their safety after a natural disaster.”
EagleView reports that it holds more than 130 domestic and international patents related to its aerial image capture and measurement technology. The vendor says that its newest patent precludes its competitors from developing or implementing automated flight planning around a structure using an outline and the height of the structure for unmanned aircraft capture of imagery and data. EagleView says it is actively working with the USPTO to obtain even broader UAS flight path coverage.
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Qantas to use 50% biofuel mix from LA airport from 2020
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Qantas said it will begin using a 50/50 mix of renewable jet fuel produced from non-food plant oils and traditional jet fuel on all flights between Los Angeles and Australia from 2020. SG Preston will supply the biofuel, which emits half the amount of CO2 as regular jet fuel over its lifetime.
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http://biofuels-news.com/display_news/13013/biofuels_to_power_qantas_flights_between_la_and_australia/
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2017-10-19 07:55:32.487000
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Qantas has announced that its Los Angeles based aircraft will be powered by biofuels from 2020, in a bid to reduce the airline’s carbon emissions on its US to Australia services.
Over the next ten years, Qantas will purchase eight million gallons (30 million litres) of renewable jet fuel each year from US based biofuel producer SG Preston. The fuels will be used in flights from Los Angeles Airport (LAX) to Australia.
The fuel from SG Preston consists of 50% renewable jet fuel produced from non-food plant oils, blended with 50% traditional jet fuel. Compared to standard jet fuel, the biofuel emits half the amount of carbon emissions per gallon over its life cycle.
According to Qantas, the commercial biofuel agreement is the first of its kind in Australian aviation history.
“The partnership with SG Preston is part of our commitment to lowering carbon emissions across our operations and sees us becoming the first Australian airline to use renewable jet fuel on an ongoing basis,” said Gareth Evans, CEO of Qantas International and Freight.
“As an airline group we are constantly looking for ways to become more fuel efficient and embrace new technologies and this partnership is a significant step on that journey.”
“Our agreement with SG Preston allows us to secure a supply for our Los Angeles based aircraft where we have a large fuel demand and where the biofuel industry is more advanced.”
Evans continued: “Through our biofuel programme we are also exploring renewable jet fuel opportunities in Australia and continue to work with suppliers to develop locally produced biofuels for aviation use.”
Randy Delbert LeTang, CEO of SG Preston, said: “Qantas is showing great leadership in its commitment to biofuels. We look forward to providing a high-performances renewable fuel for one of the most important routes on their international network.”
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), has reacted positively to the news.
“IATA congratulates Qantas and SG Preston on this landmark agreement, being the first commercial biofuel offtake for an Australian airline.
“Deals such as these are critical to the development of an aviation biofuel sector globally and the achievement of the aviation industry’s climate goals.”
According to a statement announcing the biofuels switch, SG Preston’s biofuel is produced from renewable plant oils which do not compete with food production. These fuels meet Qantas’ “stringent” sustainability certification requirements.
Qantas Group carried out a series of successful biofuel trial flights in 2012.
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Influencer marketing bypasses traditional publishers
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Advertisers are turning to influencers as a means of exposure on social media networks, at a fraction of the cost charged by publishers. Megan Jones, senior director of strategy and service for January Digital, argued that publishers' pricing models hadn't kept pace with industry changes, and said: "if I can find the same audience through keyword targeting against a publisher, I don’t need the publisher’s platform anymore". Other agencies said they relied on influencers for cost-per-click or cost-per-engagement campaigns, but still used publishers for more high-profile ads.
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https://digiday.com/marketing/advertisers-start-placing-paid-media-behind-influencer-content/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=171019
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2017-10-19 07:10:03.930000
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Advertisers are known to use social stars as creative agencies, where media buyers send those active social media users RFPs and briefs, then have these individuals promote the content on their own channels. Now, advertisers are taking influencer marketing one step further by placing paid media to amplify influencer content beyond the individual’s social accounts. This turns to be a cheaper alternative to branded content purchased from major publishers, said agency executives.
The definition of “influencers” is subjective, as it depends more on how an agency executive evaluates a social user’s content than on the size of the person’s following, according to conversations with agencies. But the thinking is working directly with publishers on content creation and content distribution usually costs brands a fortune, so why not hire influencers to do it if they can produce equally good content? Advertisers can then place paid media behind the influencer content and find a similar audience to that of a publisher through ad-targeting tools.
Megan Jones, senior director of strategy and service for January Digital, said her agency has taken an approach she calls “syndication of influencer content” for a while, where her team promotes influencer content as an alternative to publishers’ ad offerings. Jones’ clients are mostly in the fashion and beauty category, and many can’t afford the $100,000 it costs for a branded video created by a big publisher, for instance. In comparison, video production by a social star typically costs between $20,000 and $30,000, said Jones.
In terms of content distribution, if a cosmetics brand wants to target BuzzFeed’s readers to promote its new lipsticks, for example, Jones’ team can run ad targeting on Facebook
against followers who liked BuzzFeed’s content and layer in targeting for those who are interested in lipsticks to find people in market for the product and are BuzzFeed readers. Or her team can run keyword targeting through programmatic platforms like TripleLift against the publisher to find a similar audience, Jones said. She added that boosted influencer content will either show up as sponsored posts in a social media user’s news feed or as native ads on a publisher’s website if the publisher has inventory to sell on open exchanges.
“Syndication of influencer content will continue to be a trend because it makes no sense to just pay influencers for content creation. Influencers are the new publishers, and we want to leverage that,” said Jones. “Publishers still have value, but their pricing model doesn’t evolve fast enough. If I can find the same audience through keyword targeting against a publisher, for example, I don’t need the publisher’s platform anymore.”
Ashley Banks, director of digital strategy and media for agency Iced Media, echoed Jones’ sentiment. Banks said her team often uses influencers to reach and connect with people at a more cost-efficient CPM compared to working directly with publishers.
“There are some benefits like content quality and relevancy when you work with publishers’ content creation arms,” said Banks, “but the partnership is usually turnkey, and native formats created by publishers’ content studios still feel like ads.” She added that influencer content usually receives audience interaction naturally, and clients can craft media contracts with influencers on their own terms.
Without a direct relationship with a publisher, though, Banks wouldn’t know the demographics of a publisher’s readers, as that is proprietary information. But she said advertisers can use Facebook Business Manager to target people who liked or shared the publisher’s content and further narrow down the target audience with people’s interests, like travel and food, based on the campaign strategy, for instance.
Lauren Tetuan, evp and media director for Deutsch, on the other hand, said her agency doesn’t necessarily use influencers for lower CPMs. Since her clients want to balance performance and reach, her team usually pays influencers on a cost-per-click or a cost-per-engagement basis that is typically unavailable from big publishers. But her team still works with publishers when a brand needs more immediate scale or higher-quality custom production, she said.
“We often produce our own custom content in house, which influencers are willing to help us distribute — not all of the larger publishers will distribute a brand’s own content,” said Tetuan. “We typically start with the influencer’s organic channels. We can then place paid media and do our own targeting through Facebook’s or Instagram’s ad tools.”
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AlphaPoint, Intel launch smart contracts solution
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Global fintech firm AlphaPoint has partnered with Intel to launch smart contract solution TrustedVM. Using Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) technology, TrustedVM ensures the security of smart contracts or blockchain data subsets. Rick Echevarria, the vice-president of the software and services group and general manager of the platforms security division at Intel, said the SGX technology would help increase security for illiquid assets such as art, collectibles and property, areas AlphaPoint is expanding its blockchain use cases to cover.
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http://finovate.com/alphapoint-teams-intel-launch-secure-smart-contracts-solution/
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2017-10-19 06:56:02.587000
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One way to make a smart contract even smarter is to enhance document access and security. Digital currency exchange platform AlphaPoint has achieved that with today’s partnership with Intel. The two have teamed up to launch TrustedVM, a solution for secure smart contracts that enhances AlphaPoint’s Asset Digitization solution.
TrustedVM leverages Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) technology to enable smart contracts and any set or subset of blockchain data to remain confidential. The data is protected against access by intermediaries and network participants to boost the security of AlphaPoint’s Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP).
“Our collaboration with AlphaPoint aims to deliver enterprise-ready blockchain solutions to the financial services community,” said Rick Echevarria, Vice President of Software and Services Group and General Manager of the Platforms Security Division at Intel. “AlphaPoint is expanding blockchain use cases to include illiquid assets; art, collectibles, and real estate, and [the] use of Intel SGX will help increase the security and privacy of those transactions.”
AlphaPoint’s President and COO Igor Telyatnikov noted that the company’s customers seek the benefits of the blockchain but don’t want the security and privacy issues that typically come with existing blockchain solutions. Since smart contracts execute inside TrustedVM, the hardware layer ensures that unpermissioned parties never have access to the data.
Founded in 2013, AlphaPoint powers digital asset networks and maintains the AlphaPoint Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP), the platform on which the asset issuance and custody solution is based. The ADLP interoperates with more than 20 ledger technologies. Earlier this year, the company launched a crowdfunding capability on the ADLP, which enables users to host ICOs. The ICOs issue newly created digital assets on the exchange, which is hosted on AlphaPoint’s infrastructure.
At FinovateFall 2017, the company showcased the ADLP Reconciliation Platform, which combines blockchain-based asymmetric access controls and machine-enforced domain compliance for order management and other activities. The Reconciliation Platform reduces time and cost associated with manual, post-trade reconciliation processes. The company was recently selected by Capital Trust Group and W Ventures to create a blockchain infrastructure for Trust City. AlphaPoint is headquartered in New York, has raised $3 million, and has 30 employees.
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3D printer capable of building rockets on Mars
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Los Angeles-based firm Relativity Space is developing what it claims to be the world's largest 3D printer, capable of producing complete rockets. The printer, called Stargate, can transform proprietary alloys into a working rocket in 60 days, and the company said it is "constantly getting smarter and faster by using sensors and intelligent learning". Relativity Space's ultimate vision is to use Stargate on Mars, where it said: "compact 3D printing would be a fundamental technology to quickly build a new society with scarce resources".
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http://www.3ders.org/articles/20171019-stargate-3d-printer-could-help-relativity-space-build-rockets-on-mars.html
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2017-10-19 06:45:39.813000
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Oct 19, 2017 | By Benedict
Orbital launch company Relativity Space plans to use “Stargate,” which it says is the largest metal 3D printer in the world, to fabricate rockets on Mars. The 3D printer uses multiple print heads to process strong proprietary alloys.
Founded in 2015, Los Angeles-based Relativity Space is shooting for the stars. Or Mars, for that matter.
After receiving $10 million in funding from various high-profile backers, the ambitious orbital launch company is developing a giant metal 3D printer called “Stargate,” which the company says is the largest metal 3D printer in the world—and perhaps the galaxy.
This monstrous 3D printer consists of multiple Kuka robotic arms mounted with lasers, and uses metal wire feedstock as a 3D printing material. As you can imagine, it’s a very complex machine.
“Stargate is constantly getting smarter and faster by using sensors and intelligent learning,” Relativity Space says. “We are creating an entirely new type of evolvable production line.”
Relativity Space says Stargate is the largest metal 3D printer in the galaxy
And perhaps a "production line" is a more appropriate way to think of the Stargate than just a 3D printer. After all, most printers don’t utilize giant robotic arms.
But then again, most 3D printers aren’t made to fabricate rockets, which is exactly what Stargate has been tasked to do.
According to Relativity Space, the Stargate 3D printer can turn raw materials (proprietary metal alloys) into a viable rocket in less than 60 days. These materials are made at an in-house metallurgy and material characterization lab.
Relativity Space has test fired the Aeon 1 engine more than 70 times
The huge 3D printer also features intelligent process and quality controls, including cloud-based simulations, advanced imaging and detection sensors, and more.
In terms of printing hardware, the Stargate printer utilizes multiple print heads for a faster build rate, while in-situ machining allows parts to be made with highly complex geometries. The printer also has a “flexible” and “scalable” system architecture.
All of this enables the giant 3D printer to make an entirely 3D printed rocket. That rocket is dubbed the Terran 1, and reduces vehicle part count from nearly 100,000 to under 1,000 components.
The Terran 1 rocket could be 3D printed on Mars
The Terran 1 is propelled by oxygen and methane, and uses 10 Relativity Space Aeon 1 engines (nine for first-stage propulsion; one for second-stage propulsion), which offer 19,500 lbf of thrust. Relativity Space says it has carried out over 70 test fires of the Aeon 1.
Perhaps the most exciting area of Relativity Space’s grand strategy is where it intends to carry out its ultra-fast 3D printing of rockets. If the company can someday take the Stargate 3D printer to Mars, the printer will be capable of fabricating multiple Terran 1 rockets there.
“In the early days of settlement, there will be few people living on Mars,” the company explains. “Intelligent automation and lightweight, compact 3D printing are fundamental technologies needed to quickly build a new society with scarce resources—and the most scalable means to get back home.”
The Los Angeles company has the experience to back up its bold ambitions. CEO and co-founder Tim Ellis worked as a 3D printing specialist at Blue Origin for two years, while CTO and co-founder Jordan Noone worked at SpaceX.
Blue Origin, headed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is using 3D printed parts in its BE-4 rocket engine, while SpaceX has also carried out important additive manufacturing work.
Find out more about Relativity Space, its giant Stargate 3D printer, and its mission to take rocket-building to Mars here.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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Redrow Hedgehog preservation scheme wins biodiversity award
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UK housebuilder Redrow West Country has won a Big Biodiversity Challenge Award for its role in a scheme aimed at keeping hedgehogs safe as they move around one of its housing estates. Hedgehog Highways, created in partnership with the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, saw the introduction of square marked holes in fences, allowing the creatures to travel freely between plots on the Devon development.
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https://www.theexeterdaily.co.uk/news/business-daily-local-news/award-win-hedgehog-highways-national-biodiversity-awards
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2017-10-19 06:16:47.523000
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Hedgehog Highways, a scheme developed by Redrow West Country, has won a prestigious award at the Big Biodiversity Challenge Awards 2017.
Providing a simple way of making gardens hedgehog-friendly, the scheme was announced as the winner of the Small Scale Permanent Award.
Redrow worked closely with the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, who have been running the nationwide campaign Hedgehog Street since 2011, to introduce small, square marked holes into the new garden fences in phase two of their popular Barnstaple development, Glenwood Park. Hedgehogs can roam up to one mile a night, so these holes allow hedgehogs to move freely between gardens whilst they forage for food and mates.
Redrow committed to the scheme after learning that since 2,000, it is estimated that between a third and a half of all hedgehogs have disappeared from Britain with impermeable fences being criticised as one of the main reasons for the decline. Workers and staff have been engaged in the project from planning and designing the fencing to promoting the scheme to prospective buyers in the sales centre.
Every year, The Big Biodiversity Challenge Awards which are run by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA), recognise businesses that go beyond normal business practice to incorporate biodiversity enhancements into construction projects.
Rob MacDiarmid, Group Sustainability Director at Redrow commented: “We are delighted the Hedgehog Highways scheme has been acknowledged at the national Big Biodiversity Awards. Since its launch, the scheme has been met with such enthusiasm from residents and prospective buyers at Glenwood Park. It is a simple yet innovative concept which can make a huge difference to the hedgehog community.”
Emily Wilson, Hedgehog Officer at Hedgehog Street, commented: “Redrow are the first developer in the south-west to consider hedgehogs. With careful planning there is no reason why new residential developments cannot have thriving hedgehog populations, and we hope this cheap, easy and attractive feature becomes the norm for all gardens.”
Redrow creates thriving communities by building responsibly and valuing people. Biodiversity plays a key part in this approach and enhancing natural habitats which are easily accessible for local families and communities to enjoy.
For more information on Redrow’s approach to sustainability visit: www.redrowplc.co.uk/sustainability. For more information on the Big Biodiversity Challenge visit: http://www.bigchallenge.info
For more information about Hedgehog Street and how you can help hedgehogs in your garden, visit www.hedgehogstreet.org
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Climate change and warmer oceans threaten global reef ecosystems
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Ocean life on reef ecosystems is at risk of "tropicalisation", due to rising sea temperatures as a result of global warming, according to research by Australia’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. Scientists said warmer waters would encourage fish, which perform better as predators in such conditions, to hunt in regions further from the equator that are home to large invertebrates such as crabs and lobsters, putting a delicate ecological balance in jeopardy. The study's lead author Professor Graham Edgar said tropicalisation had already begun in southeastern Australia and Tasmania but had not yet affected New Zealand.
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http://newz.ug/climate-change-warmer-oceans-set-to-hit-global-marine-diversity/
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2017-10-19 06:00:17.800000
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Climate change and warmer oceans are likely to change reef ecosystems worldwide, reducing the diversity of invertebrates such as crabs, lobsters and sea urchins, a latest Australia-led research has found.
As the oceans get warmer, fish, which seem to be better predators in warmer waters, will extend their range from the equator to feed in colder latitudes where the number of large invertebrates is higher, Australia’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies said in a media release on Thursday.
The findings were made using data collected by a research team under the institute, which is based at the University of Tasmania.
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“As fish extend their range further from the equator with warming water, their advantage as predators will affect the abundance and diversity of large mobile invertebrates,” the institute quoted the study’s lead author, Professor Graham Edgar, as saying.
“Broad changes will likely spread across the ecosystem, affecting human activities such as fishing.”
The “tropicalisation” of marine life is already happening in southeastern Australia and Tasmania, “but similar effects have not yet been detected in New Zealand,” he said.
The southern island state of Tasmania exports much of Australia’s seafood, including crustacean and mollusk products, to Asian consumers, industry figures showed.
Source: Xinhua
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Regus Regus partners with Powermat wireless charging in Israel
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The Israel office of global flexible workspace solutions provider Regus is partnering with Powermat to offer customers the ability to wirelessly charge smartphones and other devices. Einat Dzigan, regional marketing manager for Regus, called the move an "innovative way to bring added value to our customers". PowerMat will be installed at forthcoming Regus locations in Sarona and Or Yehuda.
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https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/regus-innovate-with-powermat-wireless-charging-300538211.html
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2017-10-19 05:28:20.300000
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TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Powermat has partnered with Regus Israel, supplying wireless charging services to Israel co-working offices. Business customers at Regus & Spaces live busy lives; they are on the road and work long hours. Now they can trust Regus & Powermat to wirelessly charge their smartphones seamlessly, even if they forgot their charger at home. Powermat will also be installed in Regus's two new locations expected to open soon (Sarona & Or Yehuda).
Regus Innovate With Powermat Wireless Charging
"We at Regus strive to stay ahead-of-the-curve and always bring innovation into all of our office spaces in order to improve our customers' connectivity and efficiency," said Einat Dzigan, Regional Marketing Manager for Regus. "Powermat's wireless charging services is an innovative way to bring added value to our customers, providing them with the power they need so much throughout their day."
"We are happy to work with Regus, market leader in co-working offices," said Elad Dubzinski, Powermat CEO. "We are continuing to deploy wireless charging across public venues, materializing our vision for Life at 100% - seamless wireless power accessible throughout your day."
About Regus
Regus is the world's largest provider of flexible workspace solutions, with customers including some of the most successful entrepreneurs, individuals and multi-billion dollar corporations.
Our network includes almost 3000 business centers, spanning almost 900 cities across 120 countries. Through our range of office formats, as well as our growing mobile, virtual office, and workplace recovery businesses, we enable people and businesses to work where they want, when they want, how they want, and at a range of price points.
About Powermat
Powermat is the leader and pioneer of the wireless power industry. Enjoyed by millions of consumers worldwide, Powermat's technology is the platform of choice for such global leaders as Starbucks, Samsung, General Motors and Flex. To find out more, visit www.powermat.com.
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Pharmaceutical sector lobbying fuels US opioid crisis
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Lobbying by pharmaceutical companies in the US has had a major impact on the opioid epidemic in the country, according to The Guardian. The sector spends more than any other on political lobbying, and has committed $2.5bn to lobbying and funding members of Congress over the past decade. All but three of the 100 currently serving US senators have received contributions from drug companies, as have nine out of 10 Representatives. While opioid deaths have quadrupled between 1999 and 2015, the pharmaceutical industry has sought to blame addicts rather than mass prescription of the drugs.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/19/big-pharma-money-lobbying-us-opioid-crisis
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2017-10-18 22:00:00
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Donald Trump was not wrong. Hours before his nominee for “drug czar” withdrew from consideration over his part in a law limiting the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to crack down on pharmaceutical distributors feeding the US’s opioid epidemic, the president took a shot at the influence of drug companies over Congress.
“They contribute massive amounts of money to political people,” he said, standing next to Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader.
“I don’t know, Mitch, maybe even to you,” he added.
Q&A Why is there an opioid crisis in America? Show Almost 100 people are dying every day across America from opioid overdoses – more than car crashes and shootings combined. The majority of these fatalities reveal widespread addiction to powerful prescription painkillers. The crisis unfolded in the mid-90s when the US pharmaceutical industry began marketing legal narcotics, particularly OxyContin, to treat everyday pain. This slow-release opioid was vigorously promoted to doctors and, amid lax regulation and slick sales tactics, people were assured it was safe. But the drug was akin to luxury morphine, doled out like super aspirin, and highly addictive. What resulted was a commercial triumph and a public health tragedy. Belated efforts to rein in distribution fueled a resurgence of heroin and the emergence of a deadly, black market version of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The crisis is so deep because it affects all races, regions and incomes Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.
Trump was right on both counts. Pharmaceutical companies spend far more than any other industry to influence politicians. Drugmakers have poured close to $2.5bn into lobbying and funding members of Congress over the past decade.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to McConnell – although he is hardly alone. Nine out of 10 members of the House of Representatives and all but three of the US’s 100 senators have taken campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies seeking to affect legislation on everything from the cost of drugs to how new medicines are approved.
Trump’s nominee for drug czar, the US congressman Tom Marino, was forced to withdraw after a report by the Washington Post and CBS’s 60 Minutes highlighted his role in forging legislation that hinders the DEA’s ability to move against drug distributors or pharmacies recklessly dispensing the opioid painkillers at the heart of the epidemic, which claims more than 100 lives a day.
Marino’s acceptance of substantial donations from those same companies compromised his nomination to head the federal agency charged with tackling the opioid crisis.
But for Congress, the process was nothing unusual. Hundreds of millions of dollars flow to lobbyists and politicians on Capitol Hill each year to shape laws and policies that keep drug company profits growing. The pharmaceutical industry, which has about two lobbyists for every member of Congress, spent $152m on influencing legislation in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Drug companies also contributed more than $20m directly to political campaigns last year. About 60% went to Republicans. Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House of Representatives, was the single largest beneficiary, with donations from the industry totaling $228,670.
The impact of so much drug company money coursing through the veins of Congress is often incremental or largely unseen by the American public, such as the industry’s efforts to block competitors in India from making generic versions of HIV/Aids medicines that are more affordable to developing countries.
But on occasion it has a hugely visible impact.
In his comments alongside McConnell, Trump was vocal in his criticism of what he said were pharmaceutical manufacturers “getting away with murder” by charging much higher prices in the US than other countries. That is the result of a 2003 law, in effect written by the industry, preventing the federal government from seeking bids for the manufacture of drugs and medical devices – a process used in other areas, such as defence spending.
Instead, the pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever price they want for drugs bought for the publicly run Medicare and Medicaid programmes – and the federal government has no choice but to pay up.
Tom Marino, second left, at a Trump rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 2016. Marino faced scrutiny over donations from pharmaceutical companies. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP
Meanwhile, the drug companies say that to allow foreign imports would endanger the quality and safety of medicines in the US. But that justification has been widely scorned in the face of escalating and sometimes opportunistic pricing, such as the surge in the price of EpiPen antidotes to allergic reactions last year, to $600.
Britain’s National Health Service negotiated a price of about $70 for the same product. Scores of attempts by some members of Congress to introduce legislation to bring down the price of prescription medicines or to let people buy them from Canada, where they are often cheaper, have failed to make it out of committee.
While lobbying shapes medical policy across the board, it has had a profound impact on the opioid epidemic as deaths quadrupled between 1999 and 2015. The pharmaceutical industry poured resources into attempting to place blame for the crisis on the millions who have became addicted instead of on the mass prescribing of powerful opioids.
The relatively small number of members of Congress who led the charge against the epidemic years before it became a significant political issue have struggled to push through legislation.
Representatives Hal Rogers and Mary Bono saw repeated efforts to pass laws curbing the mass prescribing of opioid painkillers fail amid concerted campaigns by the drug makers. Rogers and Bono founded the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse in 2010 and proposed several pieces of legislation over a number of years.
Bono, who was alerted to the opioid crisis after Chesare, her son with the late singer Sonny Bono, became addicted, said there was a false but effective campaign by companies profiting from the epidemic to portray any attempt to rein in the mass prescribing of painkillers as depriving millions of people of legitimate treatment for chronic pain.
“We were getting tremendous pushback from the industry. It was a massive, well-organised effort,” she said. “Of course we felt it, maybe indirectly at times. We didn’t have an awful lot of people lining up to help us.”
Some of the pressure came through industry-funded groups such as the Pain Care Forum, which spent $740m over a decade lobbying in Washington and state legislatures against limits on opioid prescribing and similar issues, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Among those who received political contributions from the group were Senator Orrin Hatch, who took $360,00. The senator introduced legislation intended to head off one of the bills put forward by Rogers and Bono by proposing a federal study of pain treatment. Hatch, who is running for Senate again in 2018 even though he previously said he would not, is the recipient of the most political donations from the pharmaceutical industry so far this year, at $208,000.
Bono said the American Medical Association was instrumental in blocking another law, the Ryan Creedon act, to require doctors to get training on the risks of opioids. The AMA objected to it as a burden on physicians.
Drug companies gave more than $200,000 in campaign contributions to Jason Chaffetz (who recently left Congress), acting as the single largest donor to his re-election fights. Chaffetz, as chair of the committee on oversight and government reform, led an effort against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce opioid prescribing by recommending that doctors first seek alternative treatments for chronic pain.
Lobbying by the wider healthcare industry also had an important impact on the shape of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), widely known as Obamacare.
The chair of the committee drafting the ACA legislation, Senator Max Baucus, was at the time the single largest recipient of health industry political donations, with $1.5m given to his political fund over the previous year. Baucus led votes in the committee against the inclusion in the legislation of public insurance strongly opposed by private insurers who saw a threat to its profits.
Baucus was known within the health industry for annual fly-fishing and golfing weekends in his home state of Montana that lobbyists paid handsomely to attend. Other members of the committee received hundreds of thousands of dollars, including Senator Pat Roberts, who at one point tried to hold up the bill by claiming lobbyists needed three days to read it. The drafting of large parts of the ACA was done by a former vice-president of a major health insurer, Wellpoint.
In his attack on drug company money in American politics, Trump failed to mention that the companies were among the leading donors to his inauguration alongside tobacco and oil companies.
Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, was the largest pharmaceutical donor, giving $1m.
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Frail elderly patients comprise 44% of potentially preventable Medicare spending
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Frail senior citizens represent 44 percent of the Medicare spending that could be preventable, even though they account for only 4 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. High-need, high-cost patient spending could be preventable. The researchers tried to identify non-essential spending across six types of “high-cost” patient, or those that are in the highest 10 percent of standardized individual spending. These types include the nonelderly disabled; the frail elderly; the simple chronic, the minor complex chronic, the major complex chronic and the relatively healthy. The study examined fee-for-service claims in 2012 from across 6,112,450 high-cost Medicare recipients. Potentially preventable spending was calculated using the Billings algorithm, and found that the proportion of spending that could be prevented was 4.8 percent, with 73.8 percent.of that amount caused by high-cost patients. Frail elderly persons represented 43.9 percent of total potentially preventable spending, at a value of around $6,593 per patient. Most of the total expenditure spent on urinary tract infections, heart failure, dehydration and bacterial pneumonia admissions was spent on this group. A value-based framework could benefit Medicare, given that it could resolve many of these high-cost issues. The Harvard team concluded that health care culture needed to shift rapidly towards value-based care, as well as collecting new data and forming treatment planning that focuses on social determinants of health and patients’ function. The team also recommended a new payment and patient assignment model be implemented.
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https://www.healio.com/internal-medicine/practice-management/news/online/%7B31380aad-f52a-444f-bb8e-a7b52b421698%7D/frail-elderly-patients-comprise-44-of-potentially-preventable-medicare-spending
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2017-10-18 16:22:32.097000
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This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Frail elderly patients comprise 44% of potentially preventable Medicare spending
High-cost frail elderly individuals accounted for 44% of total potentially preventable Medicare spending, despite only comprising 4% of the Medicare population, according to findings published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
“For clinical leaders, finding areas of care where money can be saved and quality improved is an imperative but has often proved difficult,” Jose F. Figueroa, MD, MPH, from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and colleagues wrote.
“One approach that has received substantial attention recently has been focusing on high-need, high-cost patients. By definition, this population is very expensive to care for; however, we know less about whether their spending is preventable,” they wrote.
Figueroa and colleagues sought to identify potentially preventable total spending across six distinct subpopulations of “high-cost” patients, or those in the highest 10% of total standardized individual spending: nonelderly disabled, frail elderly, major complex chronic, minor complex chronic, simple chronic and relatively healthy. The researchers reviewed fee-for-service claims from 2012 for 6,112,450 high-cost Medicare beneficiaries.
They calculated potentially preventable spending using the Billings algorithm and inpatient and associated 30-day post-acute costs for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions to sum costs for avoidable ED visits. Then, Figueroa and colleagues compared the amount and proportion of potentially preventable spending across the high-cost subpopulations, as well as individual ambulatory care-sensitive conditions.
The researchers found that the proportion of Medicare spending that was potentially preventable was 4.8%, most of which (73.8%) was incurred by high-cost patients. Only 4% of the Medicare population consists of high-cost frail elderly persons; however, they accounted for 43.9% of total potentially preventable spending ($6,593 per person). Nearly 15% ($3,421 per person) and 11.2% ($3,327 per person) of potentially preventable spending was attributed to the high-cost nonelderly disabled group and the major complex chronic group, respectively. Most spending for urinary tract infections, dehydration, heart failure and bacterial pneumonia admissions was incurred by frail elderly individuals.
“We found large variations in potentially preventable spending across Medicare subpopulations,” Figueroa and colleagues concluded. “Frail elderly persons were at particularly high risk for incurring potentially modifiable costs. Therefore, as we continue to move toward value-based frameworks, interventions that focus on frail elderly patients may be particularly valuable.”
In an accompanying editorial, Bruce Leff, MD, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Arnold Milstein, MD, from Stanford University School of Medicine Clinical Excellence Research Center, wrote that these findings expand knowledge of the high-need, high-cost population.
They noted that the health care culture needs to shift toward value-based care under the Affordable Care Act. This shift requires rapid acceleration, as well as new data collection and analysis and treatment planning that focuses on the social determinants of health and patient functional status, according to Leff and Milstein. There is also a need for new payment and patient assignment models, they wrote.
“This all needs to happen as our health system addresses the critical challenges of lack of universal access to health care, underinvestment in primary care, administrative inefficiency, and disparities in delivery of care,” Leff and Milstein concluded. “Studies like that of Figueroa and colleagues can help point the way to ‘coolable’ hot spots. The onus is now on organizations and systems to shift culture and learn to implement the care and contracting methods used by their ‘coolest’ peers.” – by Alaina Tedesco
Disclosure: Figueroa reports receiving grants from The Commonwealth Fund. Please see the study for other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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H&M denies burning 60 tonnes of waste clothing since 2013
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H&M has burned 60 tonnes of unsold clothing since 2013, equivalent to 15 tonnes a year, according to Danish TV programme Operation X. The items were burned by Danish disposal company Kara/Noveren. H&M has denied the allegations, claiming that the clothes were mouldy, or failed to comply with chemical regulations. However, critics said that the burning was due to excessive production.
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https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2017/10/hm-denies-claims-it-has-incinerated-tonnes-of-unsold-usable-clothing/
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2017-10-18 12:27:46.920000
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H&M has been accused of burning tonnes of unsold items every year, flying in the face of its widely-publicised sustainability drive.
According to Danish TV programme Operation X, H&M has burned 60 tonnes of unsold clothing since 2013, totaling around 15 tonnes a year.
Journalists from the TV programme began investigating what the retailer did with clothing it didn’t sell, and were led to a Danish disposal company called Kara/Noveren where they reportedly saw over 1500kg of garments being delivered before being destroyed.
Else Skjold, a professor of sustainable design at the Kolding Design School in Denmark, told Operation X that the incineration was due to large-scale overproduction.
“It’s dramatic if we’re talking about fashion because the trends in fashion are temporary. If something is not in fashion, then it can’t be sold anymore,” he said.
H&M have denied the accusations, telling FashionUnited that they were “of course not true” and that the garments featured could not be sold to the public.
“The clothes featured in the program are stopped orders that have been sent to incineration because of mold or not complying with our strict chemical restrictions, which is according to our routines for stopped orders,” a spokesperson said.
“Circularity is at the core of our sustainability strategy and we work hard to ensure that we maximize the use and the value of our products in line with the principles of the circular economy and waste hierarchy.
“Incineration is, therefore, the very last option that we only allow under very special circumstances when re-use or recycling is not an option, such as when our products are contaminated by mold or not complying with our strict chemical restrictions.”
Despite this, Operation X took two garments from the incineration plant and had them independently tested, stating that they found no harmful levels of bacteria and normal deposits of bacteria.
In response, H&M published their test findings on the garments.
“The products media refers to have been tested in external laboratories. The test results show that one of the products is mold infested and the other product contains too high levels of lead,” the retailer told FashionUnited.
“According to the test we have, the test for lead performed by the Danish programme didn’t include the whole garment and not the part affected by too high levels of lead. The other test performed by the Danish program didn’t include tests for mold. This is the reason why our tests differ.
“We are puzzled why some media is suggesting that we would destroy other products than those required. There is absolutely no reason for us to do such a thing.”
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87% increase in data stolen during cyber attacks on UK businesses
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The cost to businesses of data breaches resulting from cyber attacks has risen in the last year, with the number of records stolen increasing by 87%, according to research by online security analysts the Ponemon Institute. The average total cost of a cyber attack on an SME is over £1m ($1.32m), and the number of records stolen has risen from 5,000 last year to over 9,000 this year, according to the reports. More than half of those who responded to the survey reported that the main cause of such breaches was poor password security by employees.
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http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450428246/SMEs-more-vulnerable-than-ever-to-cyber-attacks-survey-shows
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2017-10-18 12:27:20.990000
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The overwhelming majority of cyber attacks on small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) result from poor password management, a study of 1,000 UK and US SMEs by the Ponemon Institute shows.
Despite this fact, SMEs are doing very little to boost visibility into the password practices of their employees, according to the study sponsored by password management firm Keeper Security.
The study report said employee negligence is the top root cause of successful data breaches.
“Survey respondents believe cyber attacks are becoming more targeted, more severe in terms of consequences, and more sophisticated,” said Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute. “So you would think things would be getting better in terms of protecting themselves, but they are really trending to worsening.”
According to the survey – 61% of respondents reported a cyber attack, up from 55% a year ago – while 54% reported a data breach, up from 50% a year earlier.
Ransomware attacks were reported by 52% of respondents, with 53% of those reporting they were hit by more than one ransomware attack.
The total costs associated with successful cyber attacks on SMEs now total well in excess of £1m, meaning a single attack could bring an SME to its knees financially.
Amount of stolen records on the increase Not only has the cost of data breaches risen to an average of just over £1.2m including all attack mitigation and business disruption costs from £717,909 a year ago, but the average number of records stolen has soared from just over 5,000 per attack last year to 9,350 this year – an 87% increase. While 54% of respondents say the root cause of the attacks are negligent (not malicious) employees, a full third of the companies surveyed could not even determine the root cause. An ongoing lack of attention to password usage underlies much of the cyber security woes at SMEs, the study said, referring to the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, which noted that 81% of all cyber attacks result from poor password management practices. Read more about SME security SMEs are failing to address cyber threats despite the risks.
The UK government has announced initiatives aimed at boosting SME cyber security, promoting the cyber security profession and supporting cyber security innovation projects.
SMEs typically face the same threats as bigger organisations, but lack the same level of expertise and other security resources.
The London Digital Security Centre has been set up by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime as part of the mayor’s business crime strategy. The latest Ponemon research shows that 59% of respondents said they have no visibility into their employees’ password practices, which is unchanged from a year ago. Among the bad practices cited are using the same passwords for access to multiple accounts and servers; sharing passwords in highly insecure ways; and failing to use strong passwords, settling instead for 123456 or other very easily compromised passwords. Less than half – 43% – of SMEs surveyed have any sort of password policy in place. And of those that do have such a policy in place, 68% (up from 65% last year) said they either do not strictly enforce the policies or are unsure if they are enforced. “SMEs can respond to this overall situation by quickly establishing mobile device and BYOD [bring your own device] internal control policies,” said Darren Guccione, Founder and CEO of Keeper Security. “Then implement software that controls the information being protected and transacted via these and other devices. The combination of password management software and enterprise mobility management tools can mitigate up to 80% of the cyber risk those devices pose,” he said.
Greater data protection implementation needed According to the study, SMEs need to implement greater data protection beyond the “traditional” protection tools, with two-thirds of respondents reporting cyber attacks that evaded the company’s intrusion protection defenses, up from 57% a year ago, and 81% reporting such attacks evading traditional antivirus defences, up from 76% last year. The Ponemon study shows that the top barriers to adopting better cyber defences are: a lack of trained security staff (73%) and inadequate budget (56%). However, the report said given the enormous costs associated with a data breach, failing to protect against today’s dynamic threat environment could prove disastrous, and the costs associated with doing so may not be as high as imagined. “There is more great protection software targeting SMEs today than ever before,” said Guccione. “The cost-to-benefit spread in terms of value to what the real risks are, and in consideration to how productivity can actually be enhanced with the right software solutions, puts better protection well in reach of SMEs.” For example, he said, by implementing a comprehensive password management system, many organisations have experienced a marked decline in helpdesk calls related to lost or forgotten passwords.
SMEs targeted through phishing The Ponemon research into the rising incidence of ransomware attacks on SMEs noted earlier found the attacks were unleashed 79% of the time through phishing or other social engineering, most notably burying harmless looking clickable URLs into a scam email. A prime defense against this, said Guccione, can be ongoing phishing simulations to try to educate negligent employees. Organisations polled also exhibited high levels of concern over security breaches caused by internet of things (IoT) devices. They notoriously lack security mechanisms and typically come with no mandate or set of requirements regarding password length or strength or whether they should have single or two-factor authentication. Nearly a quarter of respondents reported an IoT-related data breach, with two-thirds reporting feeling “concerned or very concerned” about their lack of security. In fact, 56% said IoT and mobile devices represent the most vulnerable endpoints in their organisations. London is taking the lead in the UK by helping to make the city’s small businesses, which number more than one million, safe from cyber crime through the London Digital Security Centre (LDSC). The centre was set up as a not-for-profit organisation in 2015 by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) and is run as a joint venture between the mayor of London, the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police. The LDSC provides a free cyber security assessment and improvement programme for SMEs and created a “marketplace” of selected products and services to help London’s businesses protect themselves.
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Clearbanc offers Chrged loans to Facebook advertisers
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Clearbanc, which specialises in providing financing to online businesses, has partnered with Facebook on a new service offering loans of up to $500,000 to companies that advertise on the social media site. The Chrged programme uses sales and ad buying data from companies' Facebook accounts to decide whether to offer the funds, which are then repaid from sales revenue. The model allows companies to raise capital for investment for a flat fee of 10%, without giving up equity.
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http://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-clearbanc-chrged/
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2017-10-18 12:16:09.827000
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You have to spend money to make money, and financial technology company Clearbanc now has a way to get some of that money to brands on Facebook.
Clearbanc and Facebook teamed up to launch the Chrged program, which gives advertisers on Facebook that connect their ad accounts on the social network and their payment processors access to:
Custom financing of up to $500,000, with flexible repayment options
Financial support
Cross-border resources
Learning tools via the Facebook Blueprint e-learning initiative
Clearbanc said in a release introducing Chrged that it will establish affordable, fixed fees for businesses, adding that credit checks are unnecessary as advances of financing are based on companies’ business data.
Facebook
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Call to end use of vaginal mesh implants in UK as scandal grows
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The UK Labour Party has called for an immediate end to the use of vaginal mesh implants and the launch of an independent inquiry into an ongoing scandal around their use. There have been growing reports that the implants, used to treat women suffering from urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse, have caused complications including chronic pain and perforated organs. A report from NHS England in July declared the use of mesh implants “a safe option”. However, evidence that complications have forced one in 15 women with the most common implant to have it removed, has since emerged.
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/labour-calls-for-immediate-end-to-use-of-vaginal-mesh-implants
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2017-10-18 11:19:34.590000
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Labour has called for an immediate halt to the use of vaginal mesh implants and urged the government to launch an independent inquiry into the “ongoing public health scandal” surrounding the treatment of women for urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse.
Sharon Hodgson, the shadow public health minister, said the government must stop allowing the use of mesh implants before a debate in parliament about their safety, after reports that some women have suffered debilitating complications including perforated organs and chronic pain.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) is due to publish updated guidance for the use of mesh implants in January, after NHS England said in a report in July that the treatment for urinary incontinence and prolapse “is a safe option for women”.
Q&A What is a vaginal mesh implant? Show The implants have been widely used as a simple, less invasive alternative to traditional surgical approaches for treating urinary incontinence and prolapse, conditions that can commonly occur after childbirth. For the majority of women the operation is successful.
However, concerns are mounting over the severe complications suffered by large numbers of patients, including chronic pain, mesh cutting through tissue into the vagina and being left unable to walk or have sex. Johnson & Johnson, whose subsidiary Ethicon produces one of the most widely used mesh products, is fighting a major class action in Australia. The Guardian revealed in August that thousands of women have undergone surgery to have vaginal mesh implants removed during the past decade, suggesting that about one in 15 women fitted with the most common type of mesh support later require surgery to have it extracted due to complications. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.
However, since then further evidence has emerged about apparently high rates of complications, and the issue is gaining political momentum. The Guardian revealed in August that thousands of women have undergone surgery to have vaginal mesh implants removed during the past decade, suggesting that about one in 15 women fitted with the most common type of mesh support later require surgery to have it extracted due to complications.
Hodgson said the issue had become a “public health scandal” as mesh implants have left some women in permanent pain, unable to walk and unable to work.
“This is an ongoing public health scandal and the government need to do much more to support those affected,” she said. “Mesh implants should be taken off the market now until we know more about the threat they pose to women’s safety.
“The government have failed to answer big questions about the extent of this public health scandal, including how many women have been affected and why a product with such terrible risks was allowed into the market in the first place.
“Labour is calling for a full inquiry to uncover the extent of the harm done by mesh implants so we can be sure that this never happens again.”
However, some leading gynaecologists have warned that a ban would risk depriving women of the option of a treatment that, for incontinence at least, has been shown to be effective.
The debate in Westminster Hall has been called by the Labour MP Emma Hardy and the issue has also been repeatedly raised by Owen Smith, a shadow cabinet minister, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on surgical mesh implants.
Hardy said her email inbox has been filling up with people telling her their horrific stories after having mesh implanted.
“I was first alerted to the issue of mesh complications after a constituent contacted me who had been suffering in silence for years. I hope that the government will take action and heed Labour’s call for a public inquiry into the use of mesh,” she said.
Smith also said mesh injury was “one of the worst medical issues” he had come across as an MP.
“Since working with Sling the Mesh campaign, I have been contacted by
countless women from right across the UK who have shared their heartbreaking
stories of their suffering following mesh surgery. The government must immediately review all mesh surgery and suspend the use of mesh until more is known about its risks,” he said.
Kath Sansom, a campaigner at Sling The Mesh, said: “People are waking up to the global scandal that is surgical mesh implants and at last it is on the political agenda at Westminster.”
Last week, the health minister Jackie Doyle-Price told MPs she was aware women had suffered complications, but added that it was “equally the case that many women also experience considerable relief from symptoms”. Doyle-Price said: “I think it’s very important that the work that Nice are doing should be allowed to be undertaken so that we can actually make a very clear view of this.”
Sohier Elneil, a consultant urogynaecological surgeon at University College Hospital, London, is calling for the use of mesh procedures for incontinence and prolapse to be stopped for two years. “The time has come for us to truly revisit everything we know about both these clinical states,” she said. “Clearly, the knowledge we have had to date has been limited both in scope and relevance. A change needs to happen now.”
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UK businesses cut cybersecurity budgets
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The amount of money UK businesses spend on cybersecurity has fallen by a third since last year, according to a PwC survey. The research showed average spending has fallen from £6.2m last year to just £3.9m, and that one in five companies have no preparation drills for cyber attacks. However the reported cost of such attacks has fallen from £2.6m to just £857,000, although more than a quarter of firms didn't know how many attacks they had suffered, compared with 18% the year before.
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http://www.cityam.com/274036/uk-businesses-have-slashed-their-cyber-security-budgets
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2017-10-18 11:07:41.963000
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UK businesses have slashed their cyber security budgets by a third
Businesses in the UK have cut the amount of cash they are spending on cyber security despite the growing threat of attacks.
Budgets for security are a third of what they were this time last year, down to £3.9m on average, compared to £6.2m according to research from PwC.
The cost of attacks has fallen, however, down to £857,000 compared to £2.6m a year earlier. But the impact of attacks were felt more widely across the business in areas such as operations and data, while the uktimate cost can be hard to quantify.
Read more: Iran has been blamed for the cyber attack on Parliament over the summer
Firms experienced 19 hours of down-time from incidents while 23 per cent had customer records compromised.
The findings come from PwC's annual Global State of Information Survey which surveyed nearly 10,000 senior executives from over 100 countries.
It also found that more than a quarter of firms don't know how many cyber attacks they suffered in the past year, up from the 18 per cent who said the same last year, shedding light on how businesses are handling the cyber threat.
And one in five firms were found to have no kind of preparation drills for cyber attacks. It comes in the wake of several high profile attacks which have hit business this year, including massive breaches at Equifax and Yahoo. WPP, Reckitt Benckiser (RB) and Maersk were also affected by ransomware earlier this year while a similar attack shut down some NHS services.
Read more: Hot UK cyber startup Digital Shadows has raised $26m
“Cyber attacks could happen to any organisation at any time, so it’s important that all businesses and public sector organisations are getting the basics right and continually testing their approach to prepare themselves in the right way," said PwC cyber security partner Richard Horne.
"In that critical moment when an attack hits, the ability to act quickly and effectively is key to minimising business disruption and reputational harm.”
Just two in five businesses in the UK were found to have formal partnerships with others in their industry to improve security and reduce risks, fewer than those across the rest of Europe and globally.
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