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Public Health Emergency Declared In San Diego County Over Hepatitis A Outbreak
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The Board of Supervisors Wednesday unanimously ratified a declaration of a public health emergency in San Diego County related to an outbreak of hepatitis A that has sickened nearly 400 people, 15 fatally.
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http://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/sep/06/san-diego-county-supervisors-declare-public/
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2017-09-07 10:58:15.717000
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The Board of Supervisors Wednesday unanimously ratified a declaration of a public health emergency in San Diego County related to an outbreak of hepatitis A that has sickened nearly 400 people, 15 fatally.
The emergency was declared by the county's public health officer, Dr. Wilma Wooten, on Friday to gain further public awareness of the problem.
In a presentation to the supervisors, Wooten said about two-thirds of the cases have been among people who were homeless and/or illicit drug users. Laboratory testing traced the first cases to last November, and county health officials recognized the outbreak in March, she said.
RELATED: Officials Fumbled With Permits, Pilot Project As Deadly Hepatitis Outbreak Surged
Since then, around 19,000 hepatitis A vaccinations have been given, including more than 7,300 provided to people considered to be at-risk of contracting the disease, which attacks the liver, according to Wooten.
Vaccinations for hepatitis A are a two-shot regimen, separated by six months, so it will be a challenge to locate members of the at-risk groups to give them their second inoculations, she said.
Supervisor Greg Cox said the outbreak is just a symptom of the much larger issue of homelessness, which has worsened considerably in San Diego County in the last few years.
"By taking this action today, we will hopefully be in a position to work with the city of San Diego and other 17 cities to make sure that they're taking the steps that they need to take, that we will be taking the steps we need to take in the unincorporated area, to try to make sure that we provide clean and sanitary facilities for people to wash their hands," Cox said.
"It just kind of re-emphasizes the fact that we need to do a better job as a region — and I include the county and all 18 cities — in dealing with the homelessness crisis that we have," Cox said.
Over the weekend, the county installed 40 hand-washing stations around San Diego, including in downtown, Balboa Park and near the San Diego River. City officials are putting together a sanitation plan for streets and sidewalks in areas where the homeless congregate.
RELATED: Number Of Hepatitis A Cases In San Diego County Continue To Rise
San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez urged the supervisors to help open public facilities, and especially restrooms, to the homeless.
Alvarez, who plans to run for supervisor in 2020, criticized city officials for a lack of urgency on the hepatitis A matter.
Wooten said health officials were talking with counterparts in El Cajon and planned to meet with officials in other localities where a significant number of people have been sickened with the disease — Escondido, National City and Vista.
Additionally, information about sanitation procedures have been sent to food facilities, and fitness and recreation centers that have public pools. She said the disease spreads through contact with microscopic amounts of fecal matter and by sexual contact.
The county has also distributed 2,400 hygiene kits, she said.
County health officials said the number of those sickened by the outbreak is likely to grow because the disease has a long incubation period. Another 44 cases — including an August death — are suspected of being hepatitis A, but haven't been confirmed by laboratory testing.
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Hacker group 'Dragonfly 2.0' penetrates US power companies
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Hacker group Dragonfly 2.0 has gained access to the systems of several utility companies from the US, Switzerland and Turkey. The power companies have been hacked in a large-scale attack, in a first for the US sector. Security firm Symantec revealed it has also found evidence of sophisticated attacks in Europe and the US targeting national electricity grids and utility companies. There are concerns that Dragonfly 2.0 could potentially gain access and control over power stations.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/6/hacker-group-dragonfly-20-has-breached-dozens-of-p/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS
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2017-09-07 10:53:32.607000
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A sophisticated hacker group has successfully penetrated dozens of utility companies responsible for supplying power in countries including the U.S., Turkey and Switzerland, a renowned cybersecurity firm warns in a new report.
Symantec said Wednesday that a hacker group being called “Dragonfly 2.0” has infiltrated power companies in the U.S. and abroad at an unprecedented scope and poses the risk of potentially sabotaging the Western energy sector.
A hacker group known as Dragonfly began targeting the energy sector as early as 2011 but significantly scaled back its activities after being detected in 2014, according to Symantec. It remerged in late 2015, however, and has ramped-up its operations in 2016 and 2017 as evidenced by recently breaching dozens of targets using the same hacking tools deployed exclusively in the initial attacks, Symantec said.
“This is the first time we’ve seen this scale, this aggressiveness and this level of penetration in the U.S., for sure,” Eric Chien, technical director of Symantec’s Security Technology & Response Division, told BuzzFeed News.
“What we’re seeing is them getting into dozens, as far as we know, likely more, of organizations who are basically energy companies. We’re talking about organizations who are supplying power to the power grid,” Mr. Chien added.
Dragonfly 2.0 launched its latest wave of attacks in December 2015 by sending malicious emails disguised as an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party to multiple energy sector targets, according to Symantec. The group conducted similar attacks in 2016 and 2017, the report said, and recipients who opened the malicious emails may have inadvertently allowed the hackers to glean sensitive network information useful in future attacks.
“The original Dragonfly campaigns now appear to have been a more exploratory phase where the attackers were simply trying to gain access to the networks of targeted organizations. The Dragonfly 2.0 campaigns show how the attackers may be entering into a new phase, with recent campaigns potentially providing them with access to operational systems, access that could be used for more disruptive purposes in future,” Symantec said in a blog post.
“There’s a difference between being a step away from conducting sabotage and actually being in a position to conduct sabotage … being able to flip the switch on power generation,” Mr. Chien told Wired. “We’re now talking about on-the-ground technical evidence this could happen in the U.S., and there’s nothing left standing in the way except the motivation of some actor out in the world.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is aware of the attacks and said there’s no indication at this time of any threat to public safety, BuzzFeed reported.
Symantec declined to attribute Dragonfly to any specific nation-state but said the group is “clearly an accomplished attack group … capable of compromising targeted organizations through a variety of methods.”
“What is clear is that Dragonfly is a highly experienced threat actor, capable of compromising numerous organizations, stealing information and gaining access to key systems. What it plans to do with all this intelligence has yet to become clear, but its capabilities do extend to materially disrupting targeted organizations should it choose to do so,” Symantec said.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at [email protected].
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Google and Bertelsmann open 75,000 tech scholarships via Udacity
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Google is teaming up with German mass media firm Bertelsmann to fund 75,000 scholarships with online education platform, Udacity. Bertelsmann will fund 15,000 specialising in data science while Google will open 60,000 places on programmes aimed at Android and web development, following the success of a similar initiative last year. The scholarships are targeted at bridging the skills gap in Europe, and into Egypt and Israel, as demand for digital skills and IT expertise in continues to grow.
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http://www.businessrevieweurope.eu/technology/1427/Google-and-Bertelsmann-to-educate-the-next-tech-workforce-through-75000-Udacity-scholarships
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2017-09-07 10:51:52.623000
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How to choose a Pos system for your business?
Whether you are starting a new business or expanding an existing one, choosing the right POS system can make all the difference. In the past, your POS system was a cash register and a credit card machine. Now, however, POS systems contain much more than basic transaction functionality.
Determine Your Needs
Honestly, assess the size of your business and how large you plan to grow it over the next few years. If you own a small restaurant and never plan to open a second location, then you don’t need multi-location support and you also likely do not need an inventory system that can handle 500,000 unique identifiers. If you are running a small restaurant, chances are, you would be just fine with a POS system that provides basic inventory functionality, timesheet integration, and a table map in addition to basic transaction functionality.
The reverse is also true; if you own a local chain of restaurants, then you will need multi-location support if you want to be able to manage all of your locations together, rather than running all of the sites separately.
What Are The Main Differences Between Small and Large Business POS Systems?
First, price is going to be a factor to consider. A POS system designed for a medium or large business is going to demand a premium that is often more than a small business owner can afford or is willing to pay. For larger companies, this cost is worth the extra functionality that these systems offer.
POS systems designed for small businesses are often robust enough to manage your daily needs, but they are also simple enough that you will not have to dedicate several hours a week to just maintaining your POS system. When you start getting into POS systems for medium and large scale businesses, the initial setup, as well as maintenance, complexity grows immensely. The main sectors for POS systems are Retail and Restaurant business.
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Lyft to offer self-driving rides in San Francisco area
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Ride-hailing firm Lyft is partnering with self-driving start-up Drive.ai for a pilot programme to put a fleet of autonomous vehicles – including human back-up drivers at the wheel – on to the streets of San Francisco. Although no details about precisely when or exactly where the self-driving cars would take to the roads, it was confirmed customers using them would be offered free rides. The pilot will begin with about a dozen vehicles, before being scaled up, and both Lyft and Drive.ai would collect customer data via in-app reviews.
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https://www.wired.com/story/lyft-self-driving-cars-san-francisco-bay-area
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2017-09-07 10:39:08.510000
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If Uber's scandals, lawsuits, and federal investigations haven’t already driven you into the backseat of its competition just yet, maybe this will: Lyft is launching a fleet of self-driving cars and select customers in the San Francisco Bay Area will be offered free rides in autonomous cars developed and operated by self-driving outfit Drive.ai. (With a human at the wheel for backup, per California law. And common sense.)
Lyft and Drive.ai haven’t revealed certain key details about the pilot program—like when it will start (“soon”), how long it will run, how riders will be selected, or how the time of day, weather, and location will determine when to deploy the AV—but the new service provides an opportunity for Lyft to explore how it could fold this new way of moving into its existing service, and secure its place in the future of transportation. “We really want to understand, what are all the pieces that need to come into place?” says Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft’s product chief. For Drive.ai, a two-year-old self-driving startup, it's a chance to test out its tech and see how real customers interact with its product. “We’re excited to utilize Lyft’s network of customers,” says Carol Reiley, Drive.ai’s co-founder and president.
To start, the program will include about a dozen AVs (drawn from Drive.ai’s mixed fleet of Lincoln MKZ and Audi A4 sedans), but that number will grow as the company starts spending the $50 million it recently raised in a Series B funding round led by VC firm New Enterprise Associates. Both companies will collect data from customers (mostly through in-app reviews) about their experience, in the hopes of making sure they’re comfortable, or at least not terrified.
Drive.ai isn't the first autonomous driving developer to start testing with real live customers. Uber started a pilot program in Pittsburgh last year, which it has since expanded to Tempe, Arizona. Google spinoff Waymo launched 100 self-driving Chrysler minivans in Phoenix in April. Nutonomy, a startup that spun out of MIT, is testing cars in Singapore, via a partnership with ride hailing company Grab. Last month, Cruise, a GM-owned company, launched a robo-taxi service in San Francisco for its own employees.
Drive.ai also isn't the first autonomous driving developer to partner with Lyft. The company announced in January 2016 it would work with General Motors to develop self-driving cars. It also hooked up with Waymo and landed a $25 million investment, plus a fleet of cars for self-driving testing from Jaguar Land Rover. In June, the Uber rival partnered with Nutonomy. And in July, it revealed it is developing its own self-driving software and hardware.
Missing out on the shift away from human drivers could easily cripple its future, so Lyft is likely wise to throw an egg into every basket it sees. “We don’t think a single provider is going to win here,” says Matthiesen. “We want to work with the best, and work their tech into our platform.”
And for San Franciscans tired of their Lyft drivers missing turns and chatting too much, that may be good enough.
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New York-based finance firms must now have cybersecurity policy
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Banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions in New York state now have to comply with pioneering cybersecurity regulations, which took effect on 28 August. The laws, which are the first of their kind in the country, require firms covered by the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) to have a board-approved, written cybersecurity policy or policies and a chief information security officer in place. In addition, companies must submit an annual Certification of Compliance, with the first due in February 2018. The DFS also requires companies to submit details of cybersecurity events within 72 hours of them happening.
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http://centerforfinancialstability.org/wp/2017/08/31/ny-department-of-financial-services-cybersecurity-regulation-now-effective/
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2017-09-07 10:01:27.283000
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New York State’s “first-in-the-nation” cybersecurity regulation became effective on August 28, 2017.
The New York Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) cybersecurity regulation requires banks, insurance companies and other institutions regulated by the DFS (“covered entities”) to implement a cybersecurity program to protect consumer data (see previous coverage). A covered entity is required to have (i) a written cybersecurity policy or policies approved by the entity’s board of directors or a senior officer, (ii) a “Chief Information Security Officer” in place to protect data and systems, and (iii) other relevant “controls and plans” intended to fortify the safety of the financial services industry.
Firms also will be required to submit a Certification of Compliance annually that concerns the firm’s cybersecurity compliance program. The first such Certificate must be submitted by February 15, 2018. The DFS now requires covered entities to submit notices of certain cybersecurity events to the DFS Superintendent within 72 hours of any occurrence. Covered entities will be able to report cybersecurity events through the DFS online cybersecurity portal. Institutions also will be able to use the portal to file notices of exemption.
DFS Superintendent Maria Vullo commented on the program:
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Tesco deducts £3.4m from plastic bag charity funds
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UK supermarket Tesco deducted £3.4m ($4.5m) in administrative costs from the funds for charitable donations raised through the plastic bag tax introduced in England in 2015, according to government statistics. The deductions equate to over 10% of the £31.9m raised from bag sales in the year to March 2017. No other supermarket in the top ten such companies made deductions. The tax has led to an 83% reduction in plastic bag use, equivalent to 9 billion fewer bags. Tesco ended the sale of 5p bags in August and is now offering only reusable 10p bags.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/07/tesco-criticised-for-deducting-34m-from-plastic-bag-tax-charity-donations
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2017-09-07 09:41:59.267000
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Millions of pounds in administration costs were deducted from the charitable donations made by Tesco using funds generated from the plastic bag tax, government data has revealed. No other major supermarket made any such deductions, leading senior MPs to urge Tesco to follow their lead.
The 5p charge for plastic bags was introduced in England in October 2015 and has led to an 83% reduction in their use, equivalent to 9bn fewer bags. It is also credited with a drop by nearly half in plastic bags found littering beaches.
The government is clear that it expects shops to donate the proceeds of the 5p plastic bag tax to good causes. The latest official statistics, covering the year to March 2017, show that Tesco sold 637m carrier bags, raising £31.9m in proceeds. But the supermarket giant deducted £3.4m to cover the “cost of administering donations”, equivalent to more than 10% of the total.
Tesco topped the list of plastic bags sales but no other company in the top 10 made administration deductions, including Asda, Morrison, the Co-op, Marks and Spencer, Aldi, Iceland and Waitrose.
“The legislation for the 5p plastic bag charge is clear that the money raised should go to good causes,” said Mary Creagh MP, chair of the environmental audit committee. “Five years after the horsemeat scandal and three years after a false accounting scandal, Tesco finds itself again in the spotlight for doing the wrong thing. They should drop this ridiculous charge immediately.”
Neil Parish MP, chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, said: “As much money as possible from the plastic bag tax should be going to charitable causes. It would be great to see Tesco follow the lead of other retailers and not deduct admin costs. That would be a very positive step for Britain’s biggest supermarket to take.”
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “There is clear expectation to donate the proceeds of the plastic bag charge to good causes. We know that £95m raised has been donated to good causes so far and by publishing the data on donations, along with the number of bags distributed, this has the added effect of encouraging retailers to donate to good causes.”
Tesco’s spokesman said: “Since launching in 2015, our Bags of Help initiative has provided more than £33m to over 6,400 local community projects. A small proportion of the money raised is used to run and administer the scheme in partnership with the charity Groundwork, who help distribute the money to good causes.”
Companies can deduct a portion of the revenue to cover “reasonable costs” of administering the donations. The spokesman said Tesco’s administration costs included customer communications and the provision of voting tokens and booths which customers use to choose the charities that are supported. The spokesman said Tesco did not profit from money retained for administration.
Tesco stopped selling 5p “single-use” plastic bags on 28 August, instead offering a “reusable” 10p bag, which will be replaced free of charge if damaged. The company said the proceeds of the 10p bag sales would continue to fund community projects.
All employers with more than 250 staff are required to charge customers in England for disposable plastic bags. Legally, retailers can choose whether to donate their bag tax revenue to charity. The government data lists the revenue of some, including Poundstretcher (£250,000), as “retained by company”. Companies can deduct a portion of the revenue to cover “reasonable costs” of administering the donations.
England was the last nation in the UK to implement a plastic bag tax following Wales (2011), Northern Ireland (2013) and Scotland (2014), all of which subsequently saw big declines in bag use.
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Tesco deducts £3.4m from plastic bag charity funds
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UK supermarket Tesco deducted £3.4m ($4.5m) in administrative costs from the funds for charitable donations raised through the plastic bag tax introduced in England in 2015, according to government statistics. The deductions equate to over 10% of the £31.9m raised from bag sales in the year to March 2017. No other supermarket in the top ten such companies made deductions. The tax has led to an 83% reduction in plastic bag use, equivalent to 9 billion fewer bags. Tesco ended the sale of 5p bags in August and is now offering only reusable 10p bags.
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https://data.gov.uk/dataset/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-charge-data-for-england
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2017-09-07 09:41:59.267000
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These datasets provide the information submitted to government about single use carrier bag charging in England, including the number and proceeds of single-use plastic carrier bags issued/charged by retailers. It includes mandatory data on bags sold under the charge and voluntary data on submitted by retailers.
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Researchers develop catalyst to improve synthesis of amines
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Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have made a major breakthrough in the large scale production of biofuels and bio-oils, according to a study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The researchers used a ruthenium-based catalyst to improve the synthesis of primary amines. The team found the ruthenium-based catalyst produced a yield of 93% from a glucose biomass, with virtually no by-products observed.
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http://biofuels-news.com/display_news/12856/rutheniumbased_catalyst_could_be_biomass_gamechanger/
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2017-09-07 08:53:49.413000
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Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed a new catalyst to improve the synthesis of primary amines (derivatives of ammonia).
It is claimed that in the future the newly developed ruthenium based catalyst could also impact the development of biofuels and bio-oils.
Primary amines are industrially important compounds which are used in the preparation of a wide range of dyes, detergents and medicines. Many attempts have been made to use platinum, nickel or palladium catalysts to improve the synthesis of amines, but few have been successful in reducing the formation of tertiary amines and other undesired by-products.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the team from Tokyo describe how they’ve developed a ‘highly selective’ catalyst consisting of ruthenium nanoparticles supported on niobium pentoxide (Ru/Nb 2 O 5 ). The team have demonstrated that the catalyst is capable of producing primary amines from carbonyl compounds with ammonia (NH 3 ) and dihydrogen (H 2 ), with negligible formation of by-products.
After discovering the ruthenium based catalyst consistently produces yields of over 90% when converting furfural to furfurylamine in a process known as reductive amination1, Michikazu Hara of Tokyo Tech's Laboratory for Materials and Structures and his team explored how effectively the catalyst could break down biomass in the form of glucose into 2,5-bis(aminomethyl)furan, a monomer for aramid production.
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Basketball highlights account wins 6.8m Instagram followers
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An Instagram account that shares US basketball highlights has become one of the most popular on the sharing platform, with 6.8 million followers. House of Highlights, which was acquired by Turner Sports' website Bleacher Report 18 months ago, has attracted 3.5 billion views in the past year, making it one of the top 40 most-engaged-with Instagram accounts, beating Fox News and Bleacher Report itself. It posts a combination of professional basketball highlights and footage submitted by users of their own trick shots. It enables Bleacher Report to reach a younger audience and now carries sponsored videos.
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https://digiday.com/media/bleacher-report-house-highlights/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170907
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2017-09-07 08:20:05.177000
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A week after the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics, the popular Instagram sports account House of Highlights posted an NBA clip featuring Irving and then-teammate LeBron James with the caption: “When Kyrie got the first flagrant foul of his career defending LeBron.” Irving’s trade ended a tense summer during which the point guard had demanded a trade, reportedly due to a desire to not play with James anymore. And yet, shortly after the clip was published, James endorsed it himself.
Naturally, people noticed. It’s a testament to how popular House of Highlights, a professional and amateur sports highlights factory run by 22-year-old Omar Raja and owned by Turner’s Bleacher Report, has become on Instagram. House of Highlights’ 6.8 million followers include big names such as James, fellow NBA superstars Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul, and even Drake — who probably wishes he played in the NBA.
Those big-name followers, along with the views and engagement House of Highlights gets, are exciting, said Doug Bernstein, vp of social for Bleacher Report. “LeBron, Westbrook, Chris Paul, people in hip-hop, they engage with this account, which is impactful,” he said. “It’s curated cool, a place where you can collect interesting and cool sports videos and put them in one spot. That’s what’s creating culture.”
House of Highlights aligns with Bleacher Report’s push to become a lifestyle brand, as CEO Dave Finocchio said on the Digiday Podcast.
House of Highlights netted more than 400 million views on Instagram in July, according to CrowdTangle, a social analytics tool owned by Instagram parent Facebook. In the past 12 months, House of Highlights has accrued 3.5 billion views, surpassing competitors such as the individual accounts for ESPN, Fox Sports and Bleacher Report.
The account got 500 million interactions in the past 12 months and gets an average of 225,000 engagements per post today, making it one of the top 40 most-engaged accounts on Instagram, according to CrowdTangle.
Bleacher Report acquired House of Highlights 18 months ago, but Raja still runs the account. He gets as many as 400 submissions daily from users showing off their latest trick shots and impressive athletic feats. Raja also has access to NBA, MLB, college basketball and college football clips that Bleacher Report — through Turner — has digital rights to.
“Bleacher Report has a highlights team that’s ready to cut clips whenever we see them during the games,” Raja said. “So if I see something I like, I message the highlight room and ask them to cut a specific clip for me from the game. I do not have to clear with anything with Bleacher Report first. They let me be me.”
If Raja wants to use a highlight clip that wasn’t submitted directly to him by a user or one that Bleacher Report doesn’t have the rights to, Bleacher Report seeks permission from the clip’s owner before posting, Bernstein said.
Some of House of Highlights’ popularity can be tied to the fact that the NBA is huge on Instagram, something Bleacher Report and ESPN have cashed in on for well over a year. According to Bleacher Report, 60 percent of House of Highlights posts this year have been NBA-related, with these posts averaging roughly 150,000 more video views and 15,000 more engagements per post than NFL posts. (This could partially be because the volume of NBA-related posts far exceeds NFL-related posts on the account.)
“NBA players all have their own personal brands,” said Raja. “Russell Westbrook could have a normal dunk, but the videos perform well because they’re active on Instagram.”
In the past 12 months, Bleacher Report has also started to make money off House of Highlights, distributing sponsored videos by brands such as Netflix (for its football documentary “Last Chance U”) and Jordan Brand. Here, Raja decides which footage makes the most sense for the account.
Editorially, House of Highlights remains distinct from the Bleacher Report brand and tends to reflect Raja’s own perspective and can be less polished, owing to its user-submitted content.
The accounts do share content, though. Bernstein estimated that 25 percent of House of Highlights clips make their way to the main Bleacher Report Instagram account, and House of Highlights shares roughly 5 to 10 percent of Bleacher Report posts.
The distinction between the two accounts has helped Bleacher Report reach a younger audience through House of Highlights. Fifty-two percent of House of Highlights’ followers are 24 and under, compared to 43 percent for Bleacher Report’s main Instagram account, according to Bleacher Report.
“At Bleacher Report, we always want to be the upstart to ESPN, and I’ve always worried about who the upstart to Bleacher Report would be, and to me, that was House of Highlights,” Bernstein said. “That was the main impetus in acquiring the account.”
We’ll recognize the best multi-platform video campaigns at this year’s Digiday Video Awards. Learn more about entering here.
Image via A.RICARDO / Shutterstock.com
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US studies offer empirical support for personalised learning
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A study of 62 US schools by Rand Corporation showed personalised learning improved most students’ maths and reading levels, and 90% of district leaders said it helped with engagement. On average, personalised learning contributed to growth of 130% and 122% in reading and maths respectively in the NWEA MAP test performance, according to separate study by Education Elements, which involved five US districts and 36,000 students over 2-3 years. Alabama’s Piedmont City School District stood out, with 72% of grade 3-8 students achieving target scores on a standardised test, compared to 28% the previous academic year.
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https://www.businessinsider.com.au/study-backs-bill-gates-favorite-education-style-personalized-learning-2017-9
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2017-09-07 07:53:51.467000
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Third grade students study on computers using online learning in the lab at Rocketship SI Se Puede, a charter, public elementary school, on February 18, 2014 in San Jose, California. Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images
Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has said repeatedly that one of his favorite ways of teaching kids is by letting them guide their own education, typically with laptops or tablets, and moving the teacher more into the role of coach.
The style is known as "personalized learning," and a study involving 36,000 students just upheld it as a major driver of improvement in reading and math skills.
Since personalized learning has had scant formal evidence showing its success as a teaching method, the new study also adds some empirical support that Gates and many other techies have been on the right track in their endorsements.
Conducted by the education consulting company Education Elements, the study spanned five districts across the US for 2-3 years, tracking how students performed on the NWEA MAP test. On average, personalized learning led to 130% growth in reading and 122% growth in math.
Certain districts saw outsized improvement from the new method. In Alabama's Piedmont City School District, for instance, 72% of students in grades 3-8 hit their target scores on the ACT Aspire standardized test compared to 28% in the 2014-2015 school year.
Personalized learning has won favor with Silicon Valley types because it blends traditional education with cutting-edge technology. Schools often use both hardware and software to help kids learn at their own pace and in the style they prefer most.
There's the literacy app Newsela, which is in 75% of US schools and helps kids build reading skills by automatically adjusting the difficulty of the language on each kid's tablet, depending on their reading level. There's also DreamBox, the math education tool backed by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings that performs a similar function for multiplication and division and is used by 2 million kids nationwide.
Both have research behind them suggesting that kids make noticeable gains in proficiency when they don't feel rushed to keep up with their peers.
Kids who use Newsela for four months jump up to 12 percentile points on in-app reading quizzes, regardless of the student's initial ability. DreamBox, in use by 2 million kids, helps kids make bigger improvements in math the longer they use it, a 2016 Harvard study found.
Personalized learning more generally has seen early validation from researchers.
One study from the RAND Corporation found that among 62 schools using personalized learning, the majority of kids scored higher in math and reading comprehension compared to kids with teachers who stood at the head of the class and lectured to students all at once. Many who were below-average scorers ended up above-average.
The study offered evidence that teachers seem to be adjusting to the new style, too, as 70% of teachers said they were more effective having adopted the method. And district leaders seemed to be noticing: 92% of them said teachers were more effective in helping students grasp new material.
But most importantly, the study found personalized learning helped students: 90% of district leaders said students were more engaged with their education.
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GSK and Propeller collaborate further to help asthma sufferers
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Propeller Health, which makes sensors and digital software for monitoring respiratory illnesses, will deepen its partnership with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Through the partnership, Propeller will make its sensor for GSK's Ellipta inhaler commercially available. Additionally, the companies will develop commercial pilots outside the US for the first time. Propeller has already launched more than 55 commercial programmes with major healthcare systems, payers, employers, and other commercial providers across the US. Propeller's sensor records medication use for illnesses such as asthma and COPD, helping doctors to monitor adherence to drug regimes.
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http://mhealthspot.com/2017/08/propeller-health-gsk-expand-collaboration-improve-management-asthma-copd/
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2017-09-07 07:44:41.070000
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Propeller Health, which provides a digital solution for respiratory medicine, and pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are expanding their collaboration, which started in 2015, to prepare for and undertake commercial activities using the Propeller clip-on sensor and software platform for use with GSK’s ELLIPTA Inhaler. Said sensor automatically records medication use, which the Propeller platform analyzes and presents to patients and physicians through its data-driven digital interfaces, providing an in-depth view into adherence.
The two companies will continue ongoing R&D efforts to collect evidence from the Propeller clip-on sensor and software platform used in conjunction with GSK’s respiratory medicines for asthma and COPD.
“We are excited to be working closely with GSK to make the sensor for the ELLIPTA inhaler available in our commercial programs, and for the first time, as part of commercial pilots with GSK outside the US,” David Van Sickle, CEO and co-founder of Propeller, said in a statement. “Companion digital experiences simplify and personalize the management of chronic respiratory disease, and help ensure individuals and their physicians realize the benefits of inhaled medicines.”
The Propeller platform has been used by patients and physicians in over 55 commercial programs across the United States, including major healthcare systems, payers, employers and other commercial partners. It is compatible with the majority of commonly used asthma and COPD inhaler devices including controller and reliever metered dose inhalers (MDIs), and other inhaler devices — including dry powder inhalers (DPIs) and soft mist inhalers (SMIs).
This latest announcement comes on the heels of recent successful CE marking and US FDA 510(k) class II clearance of the Propeller sensor and software program for the ELLIPTA Inhaler, in late 2016.
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Cara raises $2m for digestive health 'poop-tech' app
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Digital health start-up Cara has raised $2m in seed funding in a round led by Atlantic Labs, with participation from undisclosed investors. The Berlin-based company, which launched its Cara app in 2016, aims to help people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, reflux and food intolerances, ailments that affect 20% of the world's population. The app tracks and treats symptoms by analysing factors such as nutrition, physical activity levels and medication use. The data is used to adjust users' Cara Biotics remedy to suit their health needs. "'Poop tech' is the next big thing,” said Jesaja Brinkmann, a medical co-founder of Cara.
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http://hitconsultant.net/2017/09/06/cara-poop-tech-app-funding/
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2017-09-07 07:40:49.637000
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Cara, a Berlin-based digital health startup has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Atlantic Labs along with a group of undisclosed angel investors. Known as “poop-tech”, the company has launched the first precision medicine solution for digestive health.
In 2016, HiDoc Technologies launched the Cara app with the aim to help people with chronic digestive disorders. Today, more than 20% of the world’s population suffer from the Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), reflux and food intolerances. What most of these people have in common, is that they receive conventional one-size-fits-all treatments which only work in some cases or might be ineffective.
Sometimes they cause unnecessary side effects. This leads to frustration among patients who are already in a crisis. One-size-fits-all solutions fail because everyone responds differently to the treatments, due to differences in the individual gut microbial fingerprint, lifestyle and environmental factors. Hence, precision medicine is needed to make treatment more effective, reduce side effects and non-responder rates. Last but not least, it will also save costs.
The team of medical doctors and data scientists at Cara talked to hundreds of patients to figure out the best solution. Together with experts in the field of gastroenterology, some of which have joined the scientific advisory board, they started to understand what is missing in the current system. They launched the food and symptom diary Cara, an app that allows people to track their nutrition, symptoms and other factors like medication and activity. It also provides analysis and actionable insights which empower the user to understand their own body and regain control including a Cara probiotics solution.
By using the Cara App, the Cara algorithms know how your symptoms evolve and can adjust the probiotic formula. After knowing where the journey should go, Cara will see how an individual’s microbiome is adjusting with every bottle of Cara Biotics. Using symptoms and all other factors tracked in the Cara App, Cara can make an up to date personalized estimate if your microbiome is evolving in a healthy direction.
In June 2017, Cara was featured on the App Store in Canada, UK, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway in ‘Hot this week’ and ‘New apps we love’. Currently, Cara is featured on the App Store homepage in the US, Canada and the Netherlands.
During the last few months, the team have been preparing to bring Cara to the next level. Cara will match the right digestive remedies to the right patient by combining microbiome insights with AI and treatment response data.
“Poop tech is the next big thing. Digestive issues are still a taboo topic but we are now making them visible to the public. Digestive diseases are widespread. There are so many people out there suffering from bloating, diarrhea, constipation or stomach pain on a daily basis,” said Jesaja Brinkmann, medical cofounder at Cara in a statement. “Unfortunately, many health practitioners are not up to date with the state-of-the-art treatment options. Also, conventional treatments don’t work for everyone. None of our competitors combine the patient’s individual microbial, lifestyle, environmental and treatment response data as well as predictive treatment outcome algorithms which are needed to learn and offer individualized and appropriate digestive remedies for microbiome optimization and symptom reduction” added Brinkmann.
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Indian publishers rely on data and innovation to fend off rivals
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The number of internet users in India is set to hit 829 million in 2021, up from 373 million in 2016, according to Cisco, and insiders are warning publishers to be nimble in response to the digital revolution, lest they be edged out by Facebook and Google. Using a combination of innovative ad units and proprietary datasets to help target customers, publishers can more closely match inventory to audience. In addition, the increased use of programmatic ads will result in cost savings, with GroupM estimating total ad spend in India will grow by 10% to reach INR61,204 crore ($9.6bn) this year.
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http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/09/07/publishers-are-turning-data-and-innovative-ads-stay-ahead-google-and-facebook-india
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2017-09-07 07:38:32.750000
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Publishers are already facing stiff pressure from media giants Facebook and Google in India but they have data and innovative new ad formats to woo brands, say experts.
Facebook recently hit the 2bn mark and India became it's largest market in Asia Pacific by share (32.6%) of users, according to an eMarketer report. According to Cisco, India’s internet users on a whole will rise from 373 million in 2016 to 829 million in 2021 as a result of digital transformation, which will further empower these companies. Publishers quick enough to adapt to digital transformation will be able to attract audiences and brands. This is, however, in the shadow of the omnipresent duopoly, as an IPG Media brands report stated that Facebook and Google are impervious to any advertising recession.
Therefore, to stay relevant, publishers are using technology to get better value for brands for the ads spent online. To find out how, The Drum spoke with Kabir Kochhar, managing partner and business head at The Glitch. He said: “In a mobile-first India, publishers must use two critical tools to gain a competitive edge - data and innovate ad units. Innovative ad units (such as those provided by companies such as m-canvas) help publishers garner branding budgets especially in a time where its tough competing on performance campaigns with the big boys.
Meanwhile, proprietary datasets can be pooled to better define high value cohorts. Combining this with innovative ad units can allow publishers to increase revenues by segmenting their customer base to best match this high-impact inventory with high value audiences. This allows them to better define their sales strategy splitting direct sales vs. programmatic allocation, efficiently to maximise revenues."
The Drum earlier spoke with Times Internet's Gulshan Verma who said that advertising will follow India's shift to digital. However, despite massive digital penetration, print, press and TV have been the mainstay for marketers in India for many years. It is mainly because of the mass reach they offer and the tried and tested effectiveness.
John Thankamony, head of programmatic at Mindshare India, said Indian publishers were using new strategies and technology, including the adoption of header bidding.
"On the end user front, publishers have been working on content personalization to improve and customize user experience and using tools such as AMP to ensure faster page loads.
On the adtech front, many publishers are rolling out header bidding, allowing better price discovery across all their buyers, compared to earlier methods. Using their own audience data collection and segmentation practices has allowed publishers to price existing media in distinctive tiers based on the value of these audiences to advertisers. On the operational end of things, programmatic execution, which is picking up in India, allows for streamlined execution, allowing for more efficiencies.”
Publishers are further using data to enhance the value of their inventory online. In the past, they would price their inventory based on the content section in which the ad is situated, and that section, be it sports, lifestyle or news, would attract a certain demographic of users.
Joe Nguyen, SVP of Asia Pacific at Comscore, said being more sophisticated allowed publishers to build up more valuable ad propositions.
"With technology, publishers can now link the user cookie to other data sources that can inform on other behavioural traits associated with that user cookie. Or they can enrich that ad unit with interest segments derived from the context of the article. These methods help publishers build more scalable, precise and valuable targets, and hence achieve higher cost per mile (CPMs) for their digital inventory. At the same time, advertisers are willing to pay higher CPMs to reach relevant audiences with more relevant messaging in a brand-safe context – to drive a stronger return on investment," he said.
Advertising expenditure in India is expected to grow at 10% to reach INR 61,204 crore in 2017 over 2016, according to a forecast by GroupM in its report 'This Year Next Year (TYNY)'. It further stated a steady 4.5% growth rate for print ad spends in 2017 which highlights its popularity among publishers.
According to Joy Chakraborthy, president of revenue at TV18 & CEO Forbes India, programmatic ads in digital and diversification of solutions, along with targeted ads and content, will lift ad value.
He said: "It’s not just the advertisers who are giving it greater attention, but also media owners and publishers. We can safely say that more variety of advertisers will be testing or diving deeper into digital and all round technological advances are and will continue to be the backbone for this. So a continued engagement with technical advances is the way to move ahead together. In the India context, digital will continue to be used as complement TV and print media, as these continue to dominate.”
While India's publishers share the same concerns as publishers globally; creating better value for its inventory and fighting increased competition, the potential for growth is still sizeable as more Indians go online. The key will be how quickly publishers can adapt to the digital needs of brands and create value from the data it has on its sought-after audiences.
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NCI grants $3.8m to develop advanced cancer screening tool
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The National Cancer Institute has granted $3.8m to researchers at the University of Utah Health, the Huntsman Cancer Institute and Intermountain Healthcare. The funds will allow the scientists to work on developing a cancer screening tool, which will combine clinical decision support techniques with EHR technologies. The tool will be able to effectively and consistently identify those at high risk of developing colorectal or breast cancer.
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http://medcitynews.com/2017/09/university-utah-health-intermountain/?rf=1
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2017-09-07 07:33:41.707000
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The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $3.8 million grant to researchers at the University of Utah Health, Intermountain Healthcare and the Huntsman Cancer Institute, enabling them to develop an advanced cancer screening tool.
Their creation will marry EHR technologies and clinical decision support (CDS) techniques to screen patients for breast cancer and colorectal cancer.
The tool will pinpoint those who are at high risk for these types of cancer. It will also offer individualized evidence so clinicians and patients can understand proper screening strategies.
Researchers from the Salt Lake City-based organizations will rely on assistance from oncologists, primary care physicians and genetic counselors.
“The goal of the CDS project is to enable a standards-based and scalable CDS platform for individualized cancer screening to be used across healthcare organizations,” Guilherme Del Fiol and Kensaku Kawamoto, assistant professors of biomedical informatics at University of Utah Health, noted in a statement. “To achieve this goal, our team of researchers will extend and solidify two well-established open source CDS Web services based on rule logic and information retrieval.”
Such a vendor agnostic solution seeks to address issues with extant screening techniques. For example, some EHRs don’t have CDS capabilities, and other clinical decision support systems have closed architectures.
Scott Narus, Intermountain’s medical informatics director and chief clinical systems architect, said the project will have a positive impact on oncology research.
“With the collaboration between the University of Utah and Intermountain Healthcare, and the support of the National Cancer Institute, we have the potential to produce a CDS platform that has significant impact on individualizing cancer screening according to the best available evidence,” he said. “Our aim is to improve patient care and outcomes through evidence-based medicine.”
With assistance from Intermountain, University of Utah Health will develop the tool and demonstrate its effectiveness. Then Intermountain will test it to prove it’s transferable to another organization and EHR system.
Intermountain is no stranger to the evidence-based oncology game. In 2013, it partnered with Syapse, a precision medicine software company, to launch Intermountain Precision Genomics.
Photo: mathisworks, Getty Images
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Bayer provides $60,000 funding to four digital health start-ups
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The four start-ups that will be receiving €50,000 ($60,000) in funding and mentoring via Bayer’s Grants4Apps Accelerator programme have been revealed. They are New York-based Oratel Diagnostics, which has developed a non-invasive test to detect endometriosis; London firm Aparito, which combines wearable technology, an app and a dashboard to improve data capture during clinical trials; South Korean firm Sky Labs, which has developed a device that diagnoses atrial fibrillation; and ThinkSono from London, which uses software to diagnose deep vein thrombosis.
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https://pharmaphorum.com/news/bayer-2017-grants4apps/
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2017-09-07 07:29:09
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The digital health start-ups selected for funding via Bayer's Grants4Apps Accelerator programme have been revealed.
The Grants4Apps programme has been running since 2014, making it one of pharma's most well-established digital health funds.
This year the scheme will foster four start-ups focused on medical adherence, endometriosis, atrial fibrillation, deep vein thrombosis, and ultrasound diagnostics by providing mentoring and 50,000 Euros in funding.
Those selected include London-based firm aparito which combines wearable technology, an app and a dashboard for professionals to transform data capture during clinical trials.
Aparito’s tech has been used in rare disease and oncological trials in the past.
New York-based Oratel Diagnostics has also been selected for its non-invasive test to detect endometriosis – a debilitating disease causing severe pelvic pain and infertility in girls and women of a reproductive age.
In most countries, endometriosis is commonly diagnosed using surgery which can take up to seven years for disease confirmation. Oratel’s solution looks to cut the diagnostic time dramatically.
South Korean firm Sky Labs has been selected for its device that diagnoses atrial fibrillation (AF) called CART (Cardio Tracker).
AF is a chronic disease that affects one in four over-40s and, if left undetected, can lead to stroke.
The CART resembles a ring and is worn on the finger. Inbuilt sensors can track heart rate and identify any signs of abnormal activity with the use of software algorithms.
Sky Labs is currently working with Seoul National University Hospital to fine tune its algorithms using clinical data from 1000 atrial fibrillation cases.
The final startup to be selected is London company ThinkSono which uses software to diagnose deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
Across the EU and US, DVT-related issues cause around 800,000 deaths per year – more than breast cancer, prostate cancer, AIDS and car accidents combined.
ThinkSono’s solution is a portable ultrasound scanner equipped with deep neural network technology that allows for diagnosis of DVT at the point of care.
[caption id="attachment_31319" align="alignnone" width="302"] Bayer's Reinhard Franzen[/caption]
“We recognise the huge creative potential outside of Bayer and we believe that combining expertise is key to innovation and success,” said Reinhard Franzen, head of Bayer Pharmaceuticals commercial operations Europe, Middle East and Africa. “The Grants4Apps Accelerator offers new partnership opportunities in the digital health area with its vibrant development in the past years. We are very excited to welcome the four new startups for 2017.”
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Jaguar Land Rover to add electric motor to every vehicle from 2020
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UK-based car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it is to end production of solely petrol and diesel vehicles from 2020, and will focus on hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). The move follows the Scottish government's plans to eliminate petrol and diesel cars by 2032, eight years earlier than the UK and France. Dr Ralf Speth, CEO of JLR, warned of the unintended consequences of electrification on the trucking industry, the impact of EVs on the oil industry, and the need for privacy protection with the rise of self-driving cars.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/07/jaguar-land-rover-electric-hybrid-cars-2020
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2017-09-07 07:28:48.597000
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Jaguar Land Rover has become the latest large carmaker to say it will stop launching new models solely powered by internal combustion engines, two months after Volvo pledged to do so.
The UK-based manufacturer promised that all new models from 2020 will be fully electric or hybrid, a year later than Volvo’s target, but a big step beyond its unveiling last November of a single electric concept car.
The plan comes after the Scottish government said it would phase out the need for petrol and diesel cars by 2032, eight years earlier than the UK and French targets of banning sales of new cars with internal combustion engines.
Dr Ralf Speth, JLR’s chief executive, said: “Every new Jaguar Land Rover model line will be electrified from 2020, giving our customers even more choice.”
But Speth also warned of the unintended consequences of the electrification of cars and arrival of autonomous vehicles. The UK’s 250,000-plus lorry drivers are at risk from driverless technology, with knock-on effects for the UK’s social fabric, he said.
“In the UK, there are currently more than a quarter of a million lorry drivers. What happens to our society if these lose their jobs? Who pays for them? What happens to the social fabric of the country?”
Furthermore, electric cars’ impact on petrol and diesel demand could hurt oil-producing nations, Speth said. “Many could be forced to impose substantial spending cuts within the next five years, straining living standards and so creating unrest in areas already suffering from instability,” he added.
Protecting privacy in an era of self-driving cars would also be vital, he said. “The very technology that could liberate us, autonomous vehicles, could become a method of insecurity and enslavement … Big freedoms could end up creating the big brother state.”
While Speth has said he sees battery-powered cars as a way to grow its global workforce of 40,000, the high emissions of the carmaker’s petrol and diesel vehicles mean it has to go electric to meet stringent new European carbon targets.
Average CO2 emissions from JLR cars were 164g (5.8oz) per kilometre in 2015, well above the UK average of 121.4g. More importantly, they are a long way from the 95g target a manufacturer must hit by 2021.
Prof David Bailey, an automotive expert at Aston University, said the company had been slow to wake up to electric vehicles.
“Jaguar are playing catchup – Tesla has stolen a chunk of their lunch, BMW are way ahead as well,” he said.
“The premium end of things is moving more quickly [towards electrification] in part because electric car costs are higher at the moment because of battery costs, so they can absorb that. It’s also because they are heavily dependent on diesel and the market is moving away from diesel.”
JLR, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate Tata, makes no electric cars but plans to begin building production versions of its battery-powered SUV next year.
The I-Pace will have a range of 310 miles (500km), putting it on a par with competition from US-based Tesla but ahead of cheaper options such as the new Nissan Leaf, unveiled on Wednesday.
JLR has indicated that it would like to build an electric car plant in the UK, similar to Nissan’s Sunderland facility, where the Leaf is built, but it has yet to make a concrete commitment. The Leaf is the UK’s bestselling electric model, and this week Nissan revealed its new design and an extended, 235-mile range.
Such a move would be a significant boost to the British car industry and follows BMW, which in July pledged to build its electric Mini in Oxford. Jaguar sold more than 583,000 cars in 136 countries last year.
Industry watchers had spotted earlier this year that JLR had trademarked a series of car names that suggested an electric future, although the company will continue to build existing petrol and diesel models beyond 2020.
Speth told an audience in London that JLR could not pursue its electric ambitions alone, questioning whether the government was doing enough on infrastructure. “Where is the network of charging points that [electric cars] will require to function? Indeed, where is the power grid that will allow us to build them?” he said.
Ministers on Thursday announced the launch of a new industry-and-government-backed brand to develop driverless vehicles in the UK. The Meridian hub will coordinate research and development into the technology, paid for by carmakers and £100m in public funding.
BMW, which has sold 8,000 electric cars in the UK, said on Thursday that it plans to have 25 electrified vehicles on sale by 2025, a dozen of which would be fully electric. The German carmaker boasted that the models would have a range of up to 435 miles, more than double the range of most current electric vehicles.
Governments keen to tackle air pollution and cut carbon emissions are driving electric car production, alongside falling battery prices.
However, a report found that on average, 1.7% of carmakers’ sales were electric vehicles, compared with their own target of 3.6%.
The Nissan Leaf, the UK’s top-selling electric car. The new model launched this week has a range of 235 miles. Photograph: Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
The state of electric cars
How many electric cars are there?
While electric cars make up less than 1% of new car sales worldwide, there are now more than 2m on the road. Most of them – 90% – are sold in China, the US and the EU, although some countries are racing ahead, such as Norway, where nearly a third of new cars sold are electric. The key thing is the rate of growth. In the UK, sales of fully electric cars are up 51% this year to date, compared with registrations in 2016.
What is driving their growing popularity?
Government policy, such as European targets for new cars’ carbon emissions and Chinese subsidies for electric cars, as leaders attempt to solve urban air quality problems and tackle climate change. In November, the EU will discuss tough new carbon targets for 2025, with some campaigners calling for manufacturers to be set a target on the proportion of battery-powered cars they sell.
The other big reason is that the cost of car batteries has fallen fast. Costs dropped from $1,000 (£763) per kilowatt-hour of capacity in 2010 to around $300 last year, with some companies edging towards $150, according to Dutch bank ING. Finally, there is now real competition between carmakers trying to outdo one another – expect more rhetoric and pledges at the Frankfurt motor show next week.
What’s the state of the technology?
“The technology is ready. The ranges are getting longer and new models are being put on the road,” said Julia Hildermeier of campaigners Transport & Environment. The group counted 20 fully electric models on sale in Europe last year, rising to 48 if plug-in hybrids are included. However, there were more than 400 petrol and diesel models. The new generation of electric cars can also go further between charges – around 200 miles, or more than 300 in the case of premium models. Next up are lorries and freight. Later this month, the US-based Tesla is reportedly planning to announce an electric truck with a range of up to 300 miles.
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US text message project aims to help Asian men give up smoking
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A team of researchers at Georgia State University have secured more than $1m in funding for a five-year programme aimed at encouraging China and Vietnam's 300 million smokers to quit. The initiative will use text messages and China's popular WeChat platform, which are more prevalent than anti-smoking programmes, to deliver culturally appropriate information and support. In China and Vietnam more than 40% of men smoke, compared with 17% of men in the US. The project will begin with researchers devising culturally appropriate smoking cessation messages to be delivered by text, with the help of focus groups in Hanoi and Shanghai.
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https://www.news-medical.net/news/20170906/Georgia-State-receives-grant-to-developc2a0mHealth-interventions-for-smoking-cessation-in-China-Vietnam.aspx
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2017-09-07 07:20:51.863000
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Researchers at the Georgia State University School of Public Health have received more than $1 million to develop cellphone messaging programs to help smokers kick the habit in China and Vietnam, countries where smoking rates among men are among the highest in the world.
The five-year project, titled "Cultural Adaptation and Evaluation of mHealth Interventions for Cessation in China and Vietnam," is funded by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health.
The lead investigators of the project are Dr. Michael Eriksen, dean of the School of Public Health, and Dr. Jidong Huang, associate professor of health management and policy.
Smoking is an overwhelmingly male habit in the two Asian nations. In Vietnam and China, more than 40 percent of men smoke, while only about 2 percent of women are smokers. By contrast, slightly more than 17 percent of U.S. men and 14 percent of U.S. women smoke, according to the latest edition of The Tobacco Atlas. Combined, China and Vietnam have more than 300 million smokers.
"This work provides us with an important opportunity to help millions of smokers in these countries to quit," said Eriksen. "And millions of their family members, friends and co-workers stand to benefit from reduced exposure to the dangers of second-hand smoke."
Access to smoking cessation programs is limited in China and Vietnam. However, mobile phones and texting technologies are increasingly popular in the two countries and offer a cost-effective way to reach large numbers of people with so-called mHealth (mobile health) applications.
In the early phases of the project, researchers will conduct focus groups in Shanghai, China and Hanoi, Vietnam, to develop culturally appropriate and effective smoking cessation messaging. Researchers will test messaging that will be delivered in the Hanoi area via text message services, and in Shanghai via WeChat, a social media application popular in China.
Also working on the project are public health researchers Dr. Matt Hayat, associate professor of epidemiology & biostatistics, Dr. Claire Adams Spears, assistant professor of health promotion and behavior, and Pam Redmon, executive director of the China Tobacco Control Partnership housed at Georgia State.
"We have been working to change social norms of tobacco control in China for the past nine years through the China Tobacco Control Partnership, and this project allows us to build upon our previous mHealth cessation interventions in China," Redmon said. "With this project, we will expand the collection of effective anti-smoking messages by including mindfulness concepts, use the innovative platform 'WeChat' to deliver messages in China and expand the cessation intervention to Vietnam."
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The Economist discovers messaging app matches Facebook's referral traffic
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London-based publication The Economist has revealed it receives as much referral traffic from popular Asian app Line as it does from Facebook, where it has more than 8 million followers, according to The Economist's newsletter editor, Sunnie Huang. She said although the amount of content posted to Line is the same, the content is more diverse, while push notifications send up to 10 times the referral traffic to its site on Line than homepage links. Huang said it was too early to determine the impact of Line on subscriptions.
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https://digiday.com/media/economist-shifted-line-strategy-grow-nearly-1-million-followers/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170907
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2017-09-07 07:13:11.980000
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Since starting to post to the popular Asian app Line in January 2016, The Economist has grown its following to nearly 1 million in several countries.
As with The Economist’s approach to other social platforms, the goal of posting to Line was to build audiences in new markets and ultimately drive loyal readers to subscribe. Line wasn’t meant to be a huge traffic driver for the publisher, but it’s finding popular posts drive as much referral traffic to its site as Facebook does, where it has over 8 million followers.
“Some publishers are busy chasing traffic through Facebook and Twitter; it’s not uncommon for these more niche platforms to become an afterthought,” said Sunnie Huang, who recently became the publisher’s newsletter editor after serving as social media writer. “For us, [Line is] so interesting because of the mix of readers; it’s definitely been worth investing [in it].”
The Economist’s social media team of 10 people usually all contribute to posting to each social platform. But Line has a dedicated team of two or three people working on it because its audience is more global, and the content needs to be formatted for Line.
While the amount of content The Economist posts to its homepage on Line remains the same — roughly six pieces a day, one every four hours so the global audience will always see something fresh — the breadth of content has expanded. It has started publishing links on Line from the digital edition and the magazine; now, the Line homepage reflects a more diverse range of content the publisher offers, such as pictures from its image desk, videos from Economist Films or lifestyle articles from its sister magazine 1843. More stories from the Asia section are posted to Line than other social platforms.
The Economist has increased the number of Line push notifications it sends from three a week to one a day, usually opting for stories related to Thailand or Indonesia, where Line has a big following. Stories about technology also perform particularly well. Some of these are behind the paywall, so they encourage readers to subscribe, but Huang said it was too soon to share how Line directly influences subscriptions.
Push notifications direct users to a small card linked to the story. The cards are created from a template and can feature news photos, charts and illustrations, but the graphics require more design effort than posting links to the publisher’s Line homepage. But the effort pays off, according to Huang, who wrote in a Medium post that these push notifications drive up to 10 times the referral traffic to its site than the homepage links. This works out to roughly the same amount of referral traffic as Facebook and Twitter, but Huang declined to share specific numbers.
“You can’t compare a push of a story about Thailand (where we have a large following) and a homepage story on something from the archive,” she said. “Push notifications are the most attractive feature for us on Line.”
Elsewhere, the publisher uses push notifications in its own app, where it can segment the audience to tailor the pushes, something other publishers are finding useful. No such feature exists for The Economist on Line.
While tapping into an Asian market to grow The Economist’s reach was the goal, the platform is gaining ground in the States and the U.K., too, according to The Economist’s readership. The publisher frequently sees the U.S., Canada and the U.K. in the top 10 countries driving Line referral traffic. Further down that list are Syria and Iran, new markets for The Economist.
“We have found out where [Line followers] come from,” said Huang. “The next step is to find out who they are and how they consume content differently.”
Image courtesy of The Economist via Facebook
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Ripple opens Indian office, targets remittance markets
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San Francisco-based firm Ripple has opened a bureau in Mumbai, India, to be headed by Navin Gupta, formerly of HSBC and Citibank. Ripple offers frictionless payments to customers via Axis Bank and YES Bank. India receives around $71bn in corporate and retail remittances, and Gupta said the company's blockchain-powered payments have the potential to be "a transformative component of India’s economy".
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https://coinjournal.net/ripple-opens-new-office-india-eyes-multibillion-dollar-remittance-market/
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2017-09-07 07:10:54.090000
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Ripple has opened a new office in Mumbai, India as the company looks to build its presence in the world’s largest recipient country of remittances. Navin Gupta, who worked for two decades in transaction banking, product management and global strategy roles at HSBC and Citibank, has been appointed country manager got Ripple India.
“India is the largest recipient of corporate and retail remittance worldwide, totaling close to US$71 billion,” Gupta said. “The businesses and Indian expatriates sending money into the country want their cross-border payments to be as fast and seamless as payments made within India’s domestic digital payment network.”
He said Ripple’s instant and cost-effective blockchain-powered payments have the potential to be “a transformative component of India’s economy,” and help bring payments services to the unbanked.
Banking in India is in the midst of a major digital revolution. Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised in 2014 to end “financial untouchability” with a scheme to improve financial inclusion. Since this government program was implemented, almost 300 million households have opened formal bank accounts for the first time.
The Digital India program, launched by the government in 2015, intends to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, notably by promoting cashless transactions and converting the country into a “less-cash society.”
In order to support the enormous increase in banking customers, accounts and transactions, the Indian economy has become ripe for growth in the fintech industry. Areas such as mobile banking, payments services, digital lending, point-of-sale, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are all seen in “hyper-growth phase” in the country, according to IBM.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said the new Mumbai office will allow the company to “respond to the rapidly-growing demand for frictionless payments by our current customers Axis Bank and YES Bank, as well as other banks and non-banks across the country.”
In addition to working with Ripple for real-time cross-border payments, YES Bank, one of India’s largest private banks, is also using the Hyperledger Fabric in a blockchain-powered vendor financing solution.
Besides the private sector, the Indian government too is exploring the use of blockchain in various areas, including land registries, government-recorded data security, and banking services. A research group founded by India’s central bank is currently developing a model platform for blockchain technology, which it said will be suitable for different applications relevant to banking
Meanwhile, in the cryptocurrency space, Bitcoin wallet provider Blockchain announced today a partnership with Bengaluru-based bitcoin exchange Unocoin to enter the Indian market by bringing its software platform through its new Indian partner.
Unocoin has around 400,000 users and added 50,000 last month. It has partnered with 1,900 businesses and sees 500 transactions a day with an average value of Rs 30,000 (US$468).
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Influencers pay up to $7,500 for fraudulent Instagram blue ticks
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Influencers who want to obtain Instagram verification – one of the site's coveted blue ticks – are paying thousands of dollars to get the symbol on the black market. Anonymous insiders team up with Instagram and Facebook contacts, who secretly fill out the required submission forms before attempting to verify the account themselves. The practice is regarded as an open secret among Instagram influencers, who have found that gaining verification through the proper channels can be elusive. Advertisers spend $1bn annually on influencer marketing on Instagram.
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http://mashable.com/2017/09/01/instagram-verification-paid-black-market-facebook/#BbxpYYevHqqB
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2017-09-07 07:04:04.557000
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"I mean if Mashable wants to pay for it, I can get you a blue check over night," reads a recent Twitter direct message.
This is a guy who knows a guy, a middleman in the black market for Instagram verification, where anyone from a seasoned publicist to a 22-year-old digital marketer will offer to verify an account—for a price. The fee is anywhere from a bottle of wine to $15,000, according to a dozen sources who have sold verification, bought verification for someone else, or directly know someone who has done one or the other.
"These guys pay all their bills from one to two blue checks a month," another message from the middleman added later.
The product for sale isn't a good or a service. It's a little blue check designated for public figures, celebrities, and brands on Instagram. It grants users a prime spot in search as well as access to special features.
More importantly, it's a status symbol. The blue emblem can help people gain legitimacy in the business of influencer marketing and bestows some credibility within Instagram's community of 700 million monthly active users. It cannot be requested online or purchased, according to Instagram's policies. It is Instagram's velvet rope.
But it's clear from people who spoke on the condition of anonymity, many of whom have their own blue checkmarks, that a black market for Instagram verification is alive and well.
And it's an open secret in the influencer community.
"It all comes down to money and who you know," said one seller, who agreed to go by his first name, James. "It’s sad, but it’s kind of how life is, you know?”
Instagram has helped create this underground market. While anyone can apply for verification on Facebook(opens in a new tab) and on Twitter(opens in a new tab), Instagram has made itself exclusive and therefore rather elitist. Influencers who have press clippings and work with big brands on sponsorship deals often can't manage to get that elusive blue checkmark, according to several verified and unverified influencers and people who have sold verification.
James said he got into the market for verification via an Instagram direct message. Previously, he had been buying and selling Instagram accounts that had popular or one-word names, and he decided to message someone with an interesting handle (a.k.a. username). That someone said they were able to take over that account because he worked at Instagram.
And that was the start of a side-business. James would find people who would pay for verification, and his friend on the inside of Instagram would make it happen.
His contact at Instagram charges $1,200 per blue checkmark, and then James will tack on another fee based on the user's apparent interest or other needs.
"I’ve sold verifications anywhere from $1,500 to $7,000," James said.
James, whose day job is running an internet startup, has sold five badges since he started earlier this year with the help of his friend who works at Instagram. His contact at Instagram charges $1,200 per blue checkmark, and then James will tack on another fee based on the user's apparent interest or other needs.
Only three of his submissions have been approved, however. James and his contact at Instagram have to submit an official form, and they do not want to get caught.
Instagram is aware of this kind of thing.
“You are responsible for any activity that occurs through your account and you agree you will not sell, transfer, license or assign your account, followers, username, or any account rights," reads a section of Instagram's terms of use(opens in a new tab).
James said he has heard of several employees getting fired for selling verification or accounts. When Instagram decided to shutdown about 30 accounts related to cannabis(opens in a new tab) last year, a former employee tried charging people up to $7,500 to reactivate them since he still had access to the feature. He was found out, and his access was officially terminated, according to James.
Instagram declined to comment.
A source who was directly connected to a seller said he was not comfortable with sharing the name or any other details about the person he knew in fear of ruining his side-business.
"He's actually a good friend and legit makes his income this way," he said. He personally has been pitched between $3,000 to $7,000 for a blue checkmark.
Getting that blue check is getting harder. Just a year ago, James said his contact at Instagram was able to do five name transfers a week. Now, it's more like two per week and "maybe one to two verifications," he said.
James isn't the only person that interested Instagram users can go to. One entrepreneur pointed us to Alejandro Rioja. According to Rioja's personal website(opens in a new tab), he's an "internet entrepreneur, digital marketer, and computer geek." His website suggests to connect with him on Facebook Messenger(opens in a new tab), where after the first prompt a user sees he does account verification:
Credit: facebook messenger screenshot
As described in the thread above with Rioja's Messenger bot, Instagram verification costs $6,000 per account.
"I work with 2-3 people [at Instagram] depending on their availability. The price is $5k-$8k, which varies depending on how easy it is to verify, i.e. they already have press and are somewhat of a known figure. The Instagram employee takes most of it, 60-80%," Rioja wrote in a Twitter direct message.
The cost for verification is the highest on Instagram because it's the most coveted.
The cost for verification is the highest on Instagram because it's the most coveted. That's in part because it is the strictest, several sources told us. Business on Instagram can be big. Advertisers may be spending more than $1 billion per year on influencer marketing on Instagram, according to a study by Mediakix(opens in a new tab). An easy way to identify an influencer is via that blue checkmark. It's immediate legitimacy.
Instagram verification is granted through a form that is not publicly available, but is accessible to some people in the tech and media industries. Former employees, current employees, big media and entertainment companies have a portal where they can request name changes and verification, according to several sources.
They must submit the user's actual name and accounts along with a form of identity (like a passport) and the name of a contact at Facebook or Instagram. That's one way Instagram can hold employees accountable to not misuse their privileges for things like paid verification, according to several sources.
Credit: SCREENSHOT OF INSTAGRAM VERIFICATION FORM
Attachments can be used to show press clippings, which are an important part of getting through the process. Rioja also offers media placement in various publications that also costs thousands of dollars.
While someone like Rioja may be the seller, someone at Instagram still needs to approve the request. That's why Rioja says there's a "money-back guarantee."
"I've verified 12 accounts. I can't share the usernames as my clients don't like this," Rioja said.
Here's a step-by-step process of how it works, according to one source who has sold verification and corroborated by two other sources who have bought it:
There's usually an employee at Facebook/Instagram who is willing to take a bribe or just be a friend. A middleman will be the seller. The middleman receives cash, which may or may not be split with the Facebook/Instagram employee. The friend at Facebook/Instagram submits a verification request and crosses their fingers it gets approved.
The black market for verification is an open secret among Instagram influencers. The people who have bought verification might not want to admit it to a reporter, but people aren't afraid to share to other social media influencers.
"I had a friend that did it," a tech founder told me. He then texted his friend and asked if they wanted to comment for the story with guaranteed anonymity. The friend confirmed that they paid for verification but declined to comment further.
Once users have a blue checkmark they also join an exclusive club of people who repeatedly get asked for one, according to several sources who have been asked.
"It's more bragging about how they can get anything, I guess."
"You end up getting a ton of messages from people asking 'How you got that check mark, bro?'" said Adam Rose(opens in a new tab), an actor who is verified on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He got his verifications through the formal processes, without paying any middlemen.
There are plenty of people who may not be able to help but do love chatting about their blue checkmark.
"It's more bragging about how they can get anything, I guess," said someone who runs a popular YouTube channel and is verified.
And anything has its price.
If you know more about the Instagram black market, send an email to Kerry Flynn at [email protected]
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First 'plot shop' of land for self-builds opens in Oxfordshire
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The UK's housing and planning minister, Alok Sharma, has opened the country's first "plot shop" in Bicester, where people who want to build their own home can purchase land on the Graven Hill site in Oxfordshire. Sharma said the government was "committed to doubling the number of custom and self-build homes by 2020", and creative ways of building housing were needed to achieve that aim. When complete, Graven Hill will become a community of 1,900 properties, the largest of its kind in the UK.
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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/launch-of-the-uks-first-plot-shop
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2017-09-07 06:59:07.797000
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The UK’s first ever ‘plot shop’ has been officially opened today (7 September 2017) in the town of Bicester by Housing and Planning Minister, Alok Sharma.
Located right on the high-street, this one-of-a-kind outlet will sell plots of land on the Graven Hill site in Oxfordshire to those wishing to build their own home – whether from scratch or through customised design.
Once complete, the Graven Hill development will be the largest of its kind in the UK, delivering up to 1,900 new self and custom build homes.
By making it easier to access land and expert advice, Graven Hill’s plot shop promises to pioneer custom and self-build as a mainstream choice for aspiring home owners.
Housing and Planning Minister, Alok Sharma said:
We need to get creative with how we build our housing in this country, to deliver more of the right homes in the places people want to live. With the opening of the UK’s first ‘plot shop’, the journey to building your own home can now start on the high-street. As confirmed in our housing white paper, we are committed to doubling the number of custom and self build homes by 2020 – so that anyone who wishes to design their dream house can do so. Through diversifying the housing market in this way, we can give people greater choice over the homes they live in – whether that’s buying on the open market or by commissioning and building their dream home.
Karen Curtin, Managing Director of Graven Hill said:
We are delighted to welcome Alok Sharma in officially opening the Graven Hill plot shop. The shop’s town centre location has proven to be integral to its success since our soft launch this summer, and we invite anyone thinking of building or customising their next home to visit the shop for an informal chat on the options available or arrange a visit to site. The official opening of the shop is significant, not only because the government is recognising the importance of our unique development, but because we are also able to announce that purchasers opting for a Tailored Finish home may be able to access the government’s Help to Buy scheme. Graven Hill is pioneering in the sense that for the first time, new home-buyers have the flexibility to choose between building their own house and custom designing one that meets their individual requirements. To date, over 81% of plots released in Phase 1a have been sold and over the course of the next 10 years, Graven Hill will become a community of 1,900 properties. We are still at the beginning of our journey but with the first occupations imminent there has never been a more exciting time to be involved with self and custom building.
Peter Rogerson, Virgin Money’s Director of Mortgages said:
The custom build market is a really exciting area of new house building that offers significant growth potential, providing a supply of high-quality homes specifically designed to buyers’ individual requirements. Virgin Money is committed to helping more people achieve their dream of home ownership and we are proud to be the only mainstream mortgage lender offering a custom build proposition. We worked closely with the team at Graven Hill to develop our proposition, and we are delighted to see the new ‘plot shop’ open to highlight to potential buyers the attractive opportunities available to them.
Custom build
Custom build gives aspiring homebuilders the tools to design the house of their dreams, whilst leaving it to the professionals to build it into reality. The result is your home how you want it – without the burden and risk traditionally associated with a full self-build project.
The scheme is hugely popular overseas in Holland and Germany, and has the potential to deliver over 40,000 homes a year in the UK.
Since April 2016, every council across the country has been required to hold a register of those seeking to build their own home. Over 18,000 aspiring custom and self-builders have now signed up to their local registers.
Local authorities will use their registers as a measure of demand for self and custom build in their areas. The legislation requires local authorities to find and commission sufficient land to match the demand on their registers.
Building more homes is at the heart of the government’s plan to fix the broken housing market, as set out in their housing white paper.
Supporting people to design and build their own homes is part of a range of measures introduced to help more people onto the housing ladder and increase housing supply. Since 2010, government-backed schemes have helped over 400,000 households onto the housing ladder.
The government’s Home Building Fund, launched in October 2016, targets £1 billion in short term loan finance to support small and medium-sized enterprise builders, innovation and custom build.
Further information
Visit www.gravenhill.co.uk to receive the latest news or to register your interest in the Graven Hill project.
The Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill was first presented to Parliament in 2016 by Richard Bacon MP and placed a duty on local authorities to keep a register of those seeking an interest in bringing forward self and custom build projects.
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Diageo prepares for voice-controlled online shopping
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UK drinks company Diageo is laying the groundwork for a future in which customers use voice search instead of typing a query into a search engine, and is eyeing Amazon's Alexa technology. "We’ve already seen in certain results how things like cocktail recipes work with the combination of voice-triggered search and visual stimulus, and are positioning our content in the right way to show up there", said Benjamin Lickfett, Diageo's head of digital innovation. Voice is predicted to make up 50% of all search activity by 2020, but is currently used by only 15% of UK adults.
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https://digiday.com/marketing/diageo-planning-voice-based-search/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170907
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2017-09-07 06:48:19.270000
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Despite early bets on Amazon’s Alexa, Diageo doesn’t have a voice strategy. The alcohol maker is, however, shifting some of its focus to conversational, long-tail search terms.
Diageo is laying the groundwork for when a large part of its search buying is for voice rather than text, or rather based on the meaning behind a query instead of a specific keyword. Much of Diageo’s early voice search efforts involve brainstorming what naturally spoken questions may be asked about its brands, especially because there’s a chance that cost per click could rise if there is only room for one paid search placement.
Bidding strategies aside, Diageo is also considering the feasibility of producing variations of ad copy that deliver the best possible answers. If someone asked for a Moscow mule, for example, not only would Smirnoff need to have copy in place to answer the query, it might also need copy ready if the next question were “What vodka should I buy?” or “What ingredients are in it?”
There will come a time when many search queries won’t be “mai tai” in text form; instead, it will be “how to make a mai tai” as a verbal query, said Benjamin Lickfett, head of digital innovation at Diageo. When that happens, Lickfett believes it will be a “winner-takes-all” market in the sense that searching using personal tools such as Apple’s Siri or Alexa provides instant answers rather than a page with a list of results.
Speaking to Digiday at an iProspect event on Sept. 6, Lickfett said Diageo was “making sure they get the basics right” for voice search. “We’re looking at the long tail of how voice-based search is different,” he said. “We’ve already seen in certain results how things like cocktail recipes work with the combination of voice-triggered search and visual stimulus and positioning our content in the right way to show up there.”
Lickfett stressed it is still early for Diageo’s brands in voice search, which comScore predicts will account for 50 percent of all search activity by 2020. Even Google says it’s years away from being able to monetize those queries in the same way it does search, apps, ads and online transactions.
Yet Diageo believes that when voice searches are ubiquitous, it will better be able to monetize people’s queries. The brand has long tried to bridge the gap between its online ads and sales, most recently with the launch of shoppable films on Amazon Prime. But for all the bets Diageo has made on e-commerce, it has never had anything it deemed successful enough to scale, which is why there’s so much internal excitement around the potential for voice search.
“It’s hard to talk about voice search without talking about conversational commerce, which is an incredible opportunity,” said Lickfett. “For us, having conversational offerings based on Alexa skills or people creating cocktails around occasions that they might need our brands for is a really interesting area for us to play in.”
Lickfett is eyeing Amazon’s Echo Show, an Alexa-powered device with a display, in particular. He said the Echo Show is of interest because it’s specifically designed for the kitchen, meaning potential opportunities exist for brands like Johnnie Walker and Guinness to appear on the device’s screen.
Although the predominant voice behavior is broad information seeking, 25 percent of voice searches have purchase intent (for example, buying or ordering something), according to an iProspect study of over 1,000 respondents across the U.K. It is likely to take time before that translates into any meaningful return on investment for advertisers like Diageo, with only 15 percent of adults in the U.K. using voice search today, per iProspect.
Mobile devices are where Simon Tokumine, senior product manager of search at Google, believes voice search will dominate in the coming years. Indeed, more than half (57 percent) of voice searches happen in the U.K. on smartphones, while 13 percent of them occur on smart-home devices, according to iProspect.
Media analysts have questioned whether voice search could pose a threat to Google’s grip on online media, given it would require an overhaul of how the company makes money from advertising. “Mobile devices, for all their successes, are not as easy to use for complex tasks as desktop,” said Tokumine, speaking at the same iProspect event. “In those situations, it’s about thinking how you can leverage voice to effectively short-circuit all this complexity.”
Photo courtesy of Addison Group
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China buys US mine, consolidates control of rare earth elements
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US non-profit organisation the Coalition for a Prosperous America is calling on the country's government to block the $20.5m sale of the nation's only rare earth elements (REE) mine in California to a Chinese-led coalition. REEs are used in every form of modern electronics, from smartphones to guided missile systems. In 2015, the Mountain Pass Mine yielded 5% of global REEs, whereas China extracts between 85% and 95% of the world's supply.
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https://www.seeker.com/tech/materials/chinas-monopoly-on-rare-earth-elements-tightens-with-purchase-of-us-mine
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2017-09-07 06:47:26.727000
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While rare earths aren’t actually that rare — there are more REEs in the ground than copper or lead — they are extremely difficult to mine economically. China has dominated rare earth mining since the 1990s, extracting 85 to 95 percent of the world’s REEs from large clay deposits in the country’s south. When China cut back sharply on REE exports in 2010, it triggered a global price spike, exposing the superpower’s monopolistic grip on materials that are critical to dozens of high-tech industries.
Now a Chinese-led coalition threatens to further tighten control of the rare earths trade with the purchase of the only operational REE mine in America. The Mountain Pass Mine in the California desert south of Las Vegas was a powerhouse producer of REEs from 1965 to 1985, at which point China took over global production and never looked back. Mountain Pass was shuttered from 2002 to 2012 because it couldn’t compete with the low prices coming out of China. After a brief revival from 2012 to 2015, Mountain Pass closed for good in 2016 and its owner, Molycorp, filed for bankruptcy.
This past June, an investor group with alleged ties to the Chinese government bought the mine for $20.5 million, beating out American bidders including entrepreneur Tom Clarke of ERP Strategic Minerals.
“I think it would be extremely foolhardy to let a Chinese-linked organization go ahead and buy this mine,” said Jeff Ferry, research director with the Coalition for a Prosperous America. Ferry’s group is calling on the US government to block the Mountain Pass sale on both national security and economic grounds.
RELATED: The Secret to a Better Battery Might Just Be Floating in Thin Air
It’s true that rare earths are critical to US military technology. Elements like yttrium are used in the atomic batteries that power guided missiles. The electrical systems in manned and unmanned aircraft are powered with rare earth magnets. And the lightweight, space-age materials used to make modern jet engines and rocket noses all rely on compounds stabilized with REEs.
CIA director Mike Pompeo told a Senate committee in May that foreign control of REEs was “a very real concern.”
Ferry says that the federal government should act “right now” to block the Mountain Pass deal through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, better known as Cfius (pronounced sih-fee-us). Cfius is an interagency committee charged with protecting vital national security interests from foreign control. It recently blocked the sale of an American semiconductor company to Chinese investors and is considering taking similar action with the Chinese purchase of MoneyGram.
If the government doesn’t stop the Mountain Pass deal on national security grounds, Ferry thinks that Cfius should expand its mandate to protect American industries from the potential economic harm created by foreign monopolies on these essential raw materials.
“The fact is, rare earths are used in almost every form of modern electronics, whether it’s smartphones, large motors in wind turbines, or small motors in the latest generation of electric cars,” said Ferry. “We’re talking about tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars worth of industries that are potentially affected by rare earths.”
RELATED: Seaweed Could Provide a Powerful Boost to Next-Gen Batteries
Rare earths are prized for a host of unique properties including magnetism, luminescence, and lightweight strength. Ana de Bettencourt-Dias is a rare earth chemist at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she studies the light-emitting properties of REEs. The very first color TVs used rare earths like europium and terbium to create red and green light, and today’s LED and OLED displays are built with REEs that emit light efficiently and with very high color purity.
But Bettencourt-Dias says that the biggest and most important industrial application of REEs has to do with magnets, particularly neodymium-based magnets, which are the strongest in the world. Wind turbines use huge neodymium magnets for their power generators, and smaller neodymium magnets are found in computer hard drives and just about every part of your car, from electric windows to audio speakers.
There are alternatives to REEs for high-tech industrial applications, but they’re less efficient and more expensive. Bettencourt-Dias said that large-scale recycling of electronics could be an alternative source for rare earths, but the cost of physically disassembling smartphones and TVs, and the difficulty of chemically separating rare earths, is still far greater than buying raw materials from China.
The reality is that too many current and future technologies rely on rare earths — particularly the engines and batteries for electric vehicles — to put the genie back in the bottle.
“If people stop wanting to use things that are powered by electricity, then yes, we can stop using rare earths,” said Bettencourt-Dias, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
RELATED: Artificial Intelligence Is Poised to Revolutionize Warfare
According to the US Geological Survey, America imported around 12,600 metric tons of rare earth compounds and metals in 2016, and nearly all of it originated in China. Although the US buys certain compounds and components from countries like Japan and France, the raw minerals for most of those imports come from China.
Global mining production of rare earths in 2016 was 126,000 metric tons. The USGS reports that China mined at least 105,000 metric tons or 83 percent of the total. But that doesn’t take into account illegal — and environmentally destructive — REE mines operating all over China. Of the official tally, Australia comes in (a distant) second at 14,000 metric tons or 11 percent of total production.
When the Mountain Pass mine was operational in 2015, the US extracted 5,900 metric tons, less than 5 percent of global REE production. But even that small fraction of rare earth production could give the US the independence it needs to protect the vital defense and economic interests of itself and its allies, said Ferry, if the Mountain Pass mine is in American hands.
“I don’t think the one mine solves all of our problems,” said Ferry, “but it’s a step in the right direction.”
WATCH: Why We Need Rare Earth Elements
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US hurricane risk models are 'inadequate and out-of-date'
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Changing climate conditions have rendered US flood zone maps and planning policies, building patterns and codes, as well as insurance policies "dangerously out of date". "There is a growing suspicion that the US may be creeping over a meteorological tipping point," warned Nicholas Pinter, associate director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Experts have warned the static approach to flood and storm risk, which assumes current and future events will be similar to those of the past, needs to be scrapped in favour of a system taking into account possible climate change.
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https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608800/our-hurricane-risk-models-are-dangerously-out-of-date/
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2017-09-07 06:39:06.100000
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This, in part, underscores the rare severity of the storm that hovered over the Texas coastline for days. But it also arguably highlights inadequacies in our federal flood risk assessments, since by some calculations Harvey “represents the third ‘500-year’ flood in the Houston area in the past three years,” as the UC Davis researchers note.
That “basically refutes suggestions that Houston has just suffered from random ‘bad luck,’” said Nicholas Pinter, associate director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, in an e-mail. “We scientists are ultra-cautious about reading climate change in any single weather event, and that caution is appropriate. But there is a growing suspicion that the U.S. may be creeping over a meteorological tipping point.”
The crucial problem is that flood-zone maps are based on historical patterns that are increasingly divorced from the current dangers under changing climate conditions. That, in turn, means that planning policies, building codes, insurance programs, and building patterns based on these assessments can often be dangerously out of date as well. In many cases, we’re constructing cities and flood protections based on the climate of the past rather than the conditions of the future—or even the present. That’s subjecting citizens to ever greater dangers, and society to far higher costs for disaster relief and reconstruction in the aftermath of events like Harvey or, as is looking increasingly likely, Hurricane Irma.
Some scientists have been sounding this warning for years, arguing that flooding and storm risk analysis need to move beyond the “stationary” approach, which assumes that the statistical distribution of events in the past will remain constant moving forward.
“We can’t extrapolate the past into the future because of changes going on in the system,” says Paul Milly, research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, and lead author of a 2008 Science paper titled “Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management?” “Climate change needs to be considered as a possible factor in the changing risks of floods and other hazardous events,” he says.
A 100-year hurricane rainfall event before 2000 could become a roughly one-in-10-year occurrence by 2081.
Among other factors, warmer air holds more moisture, and higher sea levels increase the height of storm surges, all of which can amplify the magnitude and destructive capacity of storms.
Progress toward new methodologies, however, has been slow and uneven, in part because of political complexities—and in part because it’s a challenging science. The climate system is highly complex, our knowledge is incomplete, and projection models generally include broad ranges of potential impacts, dependent on future greenhouse-gas emissions, environmental tipping points, and other factors.
But some scientists are certainly trying to update our understanding of the growing dangers from climate change. Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane researcher and professor of atmospheric science at MIT, recently evaluated the future risk of hurricane rainfall in Boston—and found a stark shift in threat levels as climate change increases the frequency of storms and amount of rain per storm.
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Watchtower seeks to streamline employer benefits process
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Chicago-based start-up Watchtower Benefits has developed a platform that standardises and streamlines the employer-sponsored insurance market. Co-founder Ryan Sachtjen said the current system is "a time-consuming, error-prone process". The Watchtower platform uses text extraction software to extract and translate different sections of insurance programmes, and is working on using machine learning to increase standardisation as the business grows. Currently, the firm offers life and disability insurance, but plans to expand into health, dental, vision and accident insurance.
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http://www.builtinchicago.org/2017/08/22/watchtower-make-employee-benefits-better
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2017-09-07 06:37:43.520000
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For most of us, the quality of our health and insurance benefits is determined by behind-the-scenes transactions between insurance companies, brokers and the HR person down the hall.
Watchtower Benefits, a Chicago-based startup, wants to make the employer-sponsored insurance market more efficient.
Co-founder Ryan Sachtjen said the process today is entirely manual, requiring brokers to collect data on employee demographics, current policies and how much the insurance company paid out in benefits. The broker sends that data to insurance companies, who use it to put together bids for the upcoming year’s plan.
Those bids come as extensive, text-based documents, and the broker manually extracts the most important insights into a spreadsheet to help employers choose the best plan.
According to Sachtjen, it’s a time-consuming, error-prone process that often leaves decisionmakers with incomplete information — ultimately landing you with a less-than-perfect plan.
“We want to be a recommendation engine that can help brokers give advice to employers,” he said. “We want to help companies understand how their benefits compare to those of other employers they’re competing against for good talent.”
The biggest challenge to making it all happen, said Sachtjen, is a lack of data standardization across the industry.
“These insurance programs are hyper-customized in how they are built for employer groups,” he said. “That makes it very difficult for consumers to compare offers. Companies even have different terms to explain the same types of coverage within their plans.”
To standardize the information, Watchtower uses text extraction software to pull out, translate and compare sections directly. The startup is also developing a strategy for using machine learning to aid in standardization as new insurance companies start using the platform.
Right now, Watchtower supports life and disability insurance, but its plan is to move into health, dental, vision and accident insurance as well.
Watchtower’s five-person team combines experience from the insurance industry as well as from tech companies like TurboAppeal, Gogo, SpotHero and Retrofit. The company is currently recruiting for an additional engineer, and expects the team to grow over the next year.
“The nice thing about our business is that contracts are big enough that we don’t need a ton of new customers to start building revenue,” said Sechtjen.
Photo by 1871/Gregory Rothstein.
What's your startup's story? Drop us a line or tweet us @BuiltInChicago
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Financial fraud on the rise with US elderly at most risk
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Around 37% of US senior citizens have fallen prey to financial scams, a figure that has almost doubled since 2014, according to a survey from Allianz Life. It revealed the average loss incurred by older people was around $36,000, with sufferers of dementia accounting for around 45% of victims. Further, the survey found that older victims of scams felt "anger, depression, guilt, and anxiety" and became more isolated as a result.
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https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/09/06/financial-abuse-is-on-the-rise-and-seniors-are-mor.aspx
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2017-09-07 06:37:00.540000
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Fraud is a concern for people of all ages, but it's especially hazardous to older adults. In fact, American seniors lose over $36 billion each year as a result of financial abuse, according to a 2015 study by True Link Financial.
You might assume that only a small minority of elderly Americans are taken by fraudsters, but Allianz Life recently found that roughly 37% of seniors are victims of financial abuse -- a figure that has nearly doubled since 2014. Although seniors suffering from dementia or other forms of mental decline are easier targets, they only account for 45% of the victims.
Among the people who have been affected by financial abuse, the average loss was about $36,000. For many of these victims, though, losing money is just one of many consequences of financial abuse. In the Allianz survey, caretakers reported that the seniors they cared for expressed anger, depression, guilt, and anxiety after they realized they were victims of fraud, and many of them become more isolated after the incident.
Fortunately, there are some warning signs seniors can look for to protect themselves from fraud.
If you don't trust someone entirely, don't let them near your money
In fact, most of the time, the scammers are close to their victims. According to the National Adult Protective Services Association, 90% of people who commit financial abuse are family members, friends, or caretakers of their victims.
These scams can take many forms, but thieves typically start out by acting like they're "helping" you. They may say, for example, that they want to open a joint bank account so they can help to manage your finances. Of course, this gives them unrestricted access to your money. They may also ask for your ATM PIN in case you forget it, or they could suggest carrying your credit or debit cards for you so you don't lose them.
Sometimes, these requests are legitimate, and the friend or family member can be trusted. But if you have any concerns about this person's trustworthiness, consider it a red flag.
Don't respond to emails asking for money
Getting duped by a stranger is still a risk many seniors face, although it's less common than financial abuse by a friend or family member. Some of these scams are more obvious than others. Most people know not to respond to suspicious emails from princes in Nigeria, so thieves have gotten sneakier.
Other forms of fraud, though, are more difficult to detect. For example, you may receive an email asking for donations to a good cause -- which is common after any type of disaster. The email may even look like it's from a legitimate source, and you may have no way to tell that it's fake unless you look closely at the address it came from. If you're unsure whether the request is legitimate, or if you want to be extra safe, go to the charity's website and donate there, rather than through the email.
Don't let scammers scare you into sending money
Another common scam is when you get a call from an impostor pretending to be a family member -- typically a grandchild -- who's in trouble and needs you to send money to help. This one is so common it even has a name: The Grandparent Scam.
The scammer will research your family and learn as much as they can, including names, occupations, and city of residence. You could get a call from someone who claims to be your granddaughter Emily, saying she needs $1,000 because her car broke down on her drive back home to Wichita from Kansas State. In a more frightening version of this scam, "Emily" might say that she's been arrested and needs you to send money for bail. Not only might the scammer's story sound pretty believable, but your concern for your grandchild might override your judgement.
In this scenario, always be listening for clues as to whether the person on the other end of the line is a phony. Ask a lot of questions that only the real family member could answer, such as their favorite childhood toy or their mother's birthday. And if you have another phone handy, give your loved one a call. If they answer, you'll know within seconds whether they're actually in trouble.
No one likes to think they could be the victim of financial abuse. But the truth is that it can happen to anyone, and older adults are often prime targets. To avoid putting yourself at risk, use common sense, ask a lot of questions, and enlist the help of someone you know you can absolutely trust when you're questioning your judgement.
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Mexico seeks closer ties with Alibaba as Trump threatens Nafta
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Mexico is looking for closer ties with Alibaba and is seeking a better trade relationship with China, just as the US, Canada and Mexico renegotiate the $1.2tn North American Free Trade Agreement, possibly to Mexico's disadvantage. Alibaba and Mexico's ministry of economy are setting up a partnership to get more Mexican products on to Alibaba's e-commerce platforms. "By partnering with Alibaba, we can expand Mexico's export options in China and in Asia more broadly, while enhancing Mexican [small and medium-sized enterprises'] knowledge of e-commerce and cross-border trade," said the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. The US accounts for 80% of Mexico's exports.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/trump-may-have-pushed-mexico-into-the-arms-of-chinas-alibaba.html
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2017-09-07 06:30:46.773000
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The three countries are currently re-negotiating NAFTA, which underpins Mexico's economy — the U.S. accounts for 80 percent of its exports.
The deal comes as Pena Nieto closes a trip to China on trade and investment, and is part of efforts to open new opportunities for Mexico, as President Donald Trump has threatened to kill the $1.2 trillion North American Free Trade Agreement, the foundation of trade for the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
"By partnering with Alibaba, we can expand Mexico's export options in China and in Asia more broadly, while enhancing Mexican [small- and medium-sized enterprises'] knowledge of e-commerce and cross-border trade," said Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto of the memorandum of understanding inked with Alibaba.
Mexico's Ministry of Economy and Alibaba will partner to get more Mexican products onto the tech firm's popular e-commerce platforms. The move aims to help Mexico's small- and medium-sized enterprises expand internationally and in China — the world's largest consumer market with a growing middle class. Alibaba, in turn, will provide its technological expertise on logistics and payments, and it will share analytics to help Mexican firms market better to the Chinese.
"The idea behind Mexico's current diversification efforts, including going to China, is that, in the event President Donald Trump eventually backs out of NAFTA, we have to be ready to start implementation of plan B, and plan B is China," said Adrian Cisneros Aguilar, a lawyer and director-general of Chevaya, a firm that specializes in helping Mexican firms expand in China.
For a long time, Mexico didn't need to look beyond the U.S. when it came to trade. But on the campaign trail, Trump said he would slap tariffs on both Mexico and China, something that appears to have pushed the two nations closer together. China reiterated during Pena Nieto's trip that it's open to signing a free trade agreement directly with Mexico. Mexican officials have previously echoed similar sentiments.
More trade with Mexico is something consumers will likely welcome, as many in China have developed a taste for avocadoes, beer and tequila. Avocado exports from Mexico to China, for example, have shot up to more than 10,000 metric tons of the green fruit from 17 metric tons back in 2009, according to Mexican government data cited by ChinaAg, a market research firm.
While growing trade with China can offset some of Mexico's reliance on the U.S., there's still a long way to go for replacing the U.S. as the main trade partner — Mexican exports to China are around $7 billion a year, a far cry from the $300 billion in goods the country sends across the border to the U.S.
But experts say there are a number of challenges when it comes to a broader economic relationship between China and Mexico. One detail that complicates further trade ties between the two nations is that both are competing for more business with the U.S. The physical distance is also an issue, as China has no shortage of trading partners closer to home.
On top of that, while a free trade agreement could be a step in the right direction, many Mexican businesses are still inexperienced when it comes to dealing with China's tough business environment.
"Companies that have never mentioned China are approaching me to say they see, suddenly, it's an option," said Cisneros Aguilar.
But success in the world's second-largest usually requires time and effort — what works for Mexican companies in Spain won't translate in China, he explained.
Understanding the environment is very "important when it comes to a country like China, which is so culturally different from us," Cisneros Aguilar said.
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Huawei global sales overtake Apple for first time
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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei has overtaken Apple in worldwide smartphone sales for the first time, according to Counterpoint Research. Huawei now stands behind only Samsung in terms of global sales figured. Despite the success of the brand overall, no individual phone models ranked among the bestsellers. The release of Apple's new iPhone is imminent, which could put Apple back on top of worldwide sales in September.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/huawei-has-surpassed-apple-as-the-worlds-second-largest-smartphone-brand.html
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2017-09-07 06:26:13.783000
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An attendee uses her smartphone to take a picture of her selfie on the camera app of a P9 smartphone launched by Huawei in India.
Huawei, China's leading smartphone maker, surpassed Apple's global smartphone sales for the first time in June and July, according to analysis by consulting firm Counterpoint Research.
Huawei is now only behind Samsung in sales, and Counterpoint says that's thanks to the company's consistent investment in R&D and manufacturing, as well as aggressive and creative marketing (including this KFC phone).
Figures haven't been released yet for August, though Counterpoint indicates sales for that month also look strong. However, it's worth noting that with Apple's new iPhone releases just around the corner, the iPhone maker is almost certain to get back on top in September.
Researchers at Counterpoint also point out that Huawei has a weak presence in the South Asian, Indian, and North American markets, which "limits Huawei's potential to the near-to-mid-term to take a sustainable second place position behind Samsung." Its strongest market is China, and it's also popular in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Huawei's phones have become popular, thanks to designs with large displays and advanced camera functions. Still, Apple doesn't have much to worry about; Counterpoint says the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus remain the world's best-selling smartphones, while Oppo's R11 and A57 claimed the third and fourth spots, respectively, followed by Samsung's Galaxy S8, Xiaomi's Redmi Note 4X, and Samsung's Galaxy S8 Plus. Surprisingly, despite overtaking Apple in global sales, none of Huawei's phones appear on the Top 10 list.
"While Huawei climbed to be the world's second largest brand overall, it is surprising to see none of its models breaking into the top rankings," said Counterpoint Research senior analyst, Pavel Naiya in a statement. "While Huawei has trimmed its portfolio, it likely needs to further streamline its product range like Oppo and Xiaomi have done — putting more muscle behind fewer products."
According to IDC, Apple shipped 41 million iPhones in the second quarter of 2017, compared to Huawei's 38.5 million. We've reached out to Counterpoint Research for further details on the number of devices shipped in June and July.
More from The Verge:
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Risk of war with Pakistan and China, warns Indian army chief
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India should prepare for a potential two-front war with China and Pakistan as the standoff in the Himalayas could develop into a larger conflict with China, which Pakistan would use to its advantage, Indian general Bipin Rawat has said. “We have to be prepared. In our context, therefore, warfare lies within the realm of reality,” he said.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/07/india-army-chief-we-must-prepare-for-simultaneous-war-with-china-and-pakistan
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2017-09-07 06:12:02.077000
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India’s army chief said on Wednesday the country should be prepared for a potential two-front war given China is flexing its muscles and there is little hope for reconciliation with Pakistan.
General Bipin Rawat referred to a recent 10-week standoff with the Chinese army in the Himalayas that ended last week. He said the situation could gradually snowball into a larger conflict on India’s northern border. Rawat said Pakistan on the western front could take advantage of such a situation.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted Rawat’s remarks at a seminar organised by the Center for Land Warfare Studies, a thinktank in New Delhi.
India fought a war with China in 1962 and three wars with Pakistan, two of them over control of Kashmir, since securing independence from Britain in 1947. All three countries are nuclear powers.
Rawat said credible deterrence did not take away the threat of war. “Nuclear weapons are weapons of deterrence. Yes, they are. But to say that they can deter war or they will not allow nations to go to war, in our context that may also not be true,” the news agency quoted him as saying.
India last week agreed to pull troops from the disputed Doklam plateau high in the Himalayas, where Chinese troops had started building a road. The 10-week standoff was the two nations’ most protracted in decades, and added to their longstanding strategic rivalry.
Warfare lies within the realm of reality. Bipin Rawat, Indian general
“We have to be prepared. In our context, therefore, warfare lies within the realm of reality,” Rawat said.
His comments came a day after India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, agreed on a “forward-looking” approach to Sino-India ties, putting behind the Doklam standoff.
Xi and Modi met on the sidelines of a summit of the Brics emerging economies in the south-eastern Chinese port city of Xiamen. The Brics nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
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Deutsche CEO Cryan warns of robots taking bankers' jobs
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Many banking jobs will be lost to robots, Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan has warned, identifying accountancy as ripe for transformation by technology. “The sad truth for the banking industry is, we won‘t need as many people as today,” Cryan told a conference in Frankfurt. "In our bank we have people doing work like robots. Tomorrow we will have robots behaving like people." Cryan also said technology would take the drudgery out of accountancy, enabling staff to concentrate on analysis.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/06/deutsche-bank-boss-says-big-number-of-staff-will-lose-jobs-to-automation
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2017-09-07 06:11:42.577000
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The chief executive of Deutsche Bank has issued a stark warning about the impact of technology, saying a “big number” of his staff will lose their jobs as robots take over.
John Cryan told an audience in Frankfurt: “In our bank we have people doing work like robots. Tomorrow we will have robots behaving like people. It doesn’t matter if we as a bank will participate in these changes or not, it is going to happen.”
He also referred to accountants inside the bank who “spend a lot of time basically being an abacus”, who would also be replaced by machines.
In remarks reported by German publication Handelsblatt at a conference in Frankfurt, Cryan added: “The sad truth for the banking industry is, we won‘t need as many people as today.”
Cryan, a Briton who took the helm of Deutsche in June 2015, is in the process of restructuring the bank, which employs 100,000 staff around the world.
Cryan is the latest business leader to make predictions about the impact of automation on on banking roles. In 2015, the former chief executive of Barclays described how the industry was facing an “Uber” moment, with hundreds of branches closing and a potential halving of the number of jobs in the sector.
Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, has also warned that robots will be able to take on more work with up to 15m jobs in Britain at risk – not just from the low-skilled jobs traditionally impacted by machinery but also more skilled roles such as administrative, clerical and production tasks.
Others though have been circumspect. Kallum Pickering, an analyst with Berenberg, has said: “Producers will only automate if doing so is profitable. For profit to occur, producers need a market to sell to in the first place. Keeping this in mind helps to highlight the critical flaw of the argument: if robots replaced all workers, thereby creating mass unemployment, to whom would the producers sell?”
Cryan also said that automation might lead to an improvement in jobs. “If you take an accountant at the bank, a large part of their job is to produce numbers. It takes them three to four weeks to produce an account and then they move to the next one. Wouldn’t it be great, if machines could produce those numbers in just a few hours? Then accountants could analyse the numbers, form valid opinions what those numbers mean and not just produce them,” he said.
Cryan also spelt out the opportunity for the Germany financial capital to benefit from Brexit, pointing out the city has the regulatory capability, law firms and consultants and an international airport to take business from London. “These are all arguments in favour of a move to the banks of the Main when faced with relocating from the banks of Thames,” said Cryan. His colleagues have warned up to 4,000 of Deutsche’s 9,000 roles in the UK could leave after Brexit.
Cryan told the conference that Germany and Frankfurt had to decide how much they wanted to benefit from Brexit. “For months there have been discussions regarding which location is set to profit the most once London is no longer within the European Union. I cannot fully understand this debate because as I see it, the race had already been won before it even began,” he said.
While new finance jobs will be created in Dublin, Amsterdam and Paris – all vying for business leaving London – none of these have the infrastructure to take on the business. “There is only one European city which can fulfil these requirements and that city is Frankfurt,” said Cryan.
The choice was not between Dublin, Paris or Frankfurt but New York, Singapore or Frankfurt. “What determines who gets what piece of the cake?” said Cryan. It was not about changing laws or tax subsidies, he added. “In truth, it is its infrastructure that makes London unique in Europe. In this respect, this is where Germany needs to catch up if wants to take over a large share of the business performed in London.”
He said Frankfurt needed “more attractive, urban residential areas, enough international schools and a dozen additional theatres and a few hundred restaurants”.
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Boeing bumps up forecast for China's aviation purchases by 6.3%
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Boeing has estimated the Chinese aviation market will need to add $1tn worth of commercial aircraft by 2036. The forecast, which is 6.3% above its earlier prediction, is part of the company's 20-year outlook, which expects to see demand for 5,420 new single-aisle aircraft and 1,670 new wide-body planes over the two decades. "China's continuous economic growth, significant investment in infrastructure, growing middle-class and evolving airline business models support this long-term outlook," said Randy Tinseth, VP of marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. By 2024, China will have overtaken the US as the world's largest aviation market by passengers, according to the International Air Transport Association.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/boeing-says-china-to-buy-1-point-1-trillion-worth-of-planes-over-next-two-decades.html
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2017-09-07 05:42:13.240000
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Boeing has forecast that Chinese airlines will buy 7,240 commercial aircraft worth $1.1 trillion between now and 2036.
The fresh 20-year outlook, released Wednesday, is a chunky 6.3 percent larger than the plane maker's previous estimate. Boeing said it reflected a firm belief in China's prospects.
"China's continuous economic growth, significant investment in infrastructure, growing middle-class and evolving airline business models support this long-term outlook," said Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in the report.
"China's fleet size is expected to grow at a pace well above the world average, and almost 20 percent of global new airplane demand will be from airlines based in China," Tinseth added.
Boeing sees the need for 5,420 new single-aisle airplanes through 2036, accounting for three-quarters of total deliveries. For wide-body planes, Boeing forecasts China will require 1,670 new airplanes over the same time period.
It says passenger airlines will likely focus on smaller and medium sized wide-body aircraft while larger planes will be snapped up by freight operators.
Boeing has estimated that China's outbound travel market will soon reach 200 million passengers annually.
And worldwide, Boeing projects the need for 41,030 new commercial airplanes over the next 20 years valued at $6.1 trillion dollars.
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Africa, China unite to advance green policy
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Scientists from China and Africa have partnered to promote environmentally sustainable living by sharing knowledge and research on habitat protection, climate change mitigation and waste management. "We are looking at a pragmatic cooperation with our Chinese colleagues to strengthen research that could rejuvenate action on climate change, hunger, water scarcity and pollution", said Salif Diop, a member of the African Academy of Sciences.
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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/06/c_136589429.htm
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2017-09-07 05:30:39.593000
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Source: Xinhua| 2017-09-06 21:00:58|Editor: Yurou
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by Christine Lagat and Lu Duobao
NAIROBI, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Scientists drawn from prestigious Chinese and African research institutions on Wednesday approved a joint communique to advance green agenda through knowledge sharing in habitat protection, waste management and climate change mitigation.
The scientists said in a draft communique released after a three-day conference in Nairobi that joint research programs, capacity building and skills transfer will be the building blocks of their future collaboration.
"Scientists of Africa and China, with the involvement of many national and international partners have taken important steps on an important journey. It will make great contributions to prosperity for the people of Africa and the whole world," the scientists said.
More than 70 scientists and policymakers from ten African countries and China attended the three-day conference to brainstorm on new strategies to promote sustainability agenda in line with objectives of South-South cooperation.
The conference on climate, ecosystems and livelihoods for Africa was sponsored by United Nations Environment, World Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Delegates agreed that a robust Sino-African partnership in scientific research, technology transfer and innovations will unleash mutual benefits that include climate resilience, food security and improved human health.
"Participants agreed that future cooperation should be based on existing institutions, networks and ongoing programs in both China and Africa including centers of excellence," said the joint communique.
It added that that both Chinese and African research institutions should partner to promote awareness on climate, ecosystems and livelihoods while building the capacity of communities to advance the green agenda.
The joint communique underscored the role of the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative (B&R) in facilitating robust collaboration between Chinese and African scientists in diverse areas like climate research, health, agriculture, energy and habitat protection.
"The B&R initiatives, following those under the Forum on China-Africa cooperation, have brought China and Africa closer together, with joint research initiatives to explore sustainable development and adaptation to climate variability," noted the communique.
Both African and Chinese scientists are optimistic that their future cooperation will be fruitful given the goodwill from their respective governments.
"We have invested enormous resources to support capacity building and research in diverse areas like climate change, ecosystems conservation, solid waste and chemicals management across Africa," said Feng Feng, Director General of Bureau of International Cooperation at the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Salif Diop, a member of African Academy of Sciences, was upbeat that strategic collaboration in climate research, agriculture and food security, water, energy and health will unleash prosperity at both ends.
"We are looking at a pragmatic cooperation with our Chinese colleagues to strengthen research that could rejuvenate action on climate change, hunger, water scarcity and pollution," Diop told Xinhua.
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eHealth teams with Square to develop business health insurance
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Private US online health insurance exchange eHealth is integrating its services into Square's dashboard, enabling more than two million small businesses to access a range of health insurance solutions. The collaboration allows Square customers to receive personalised help and advice from licensed eHealth agents, while also fast-tracking some small group health insurance applications. “We are incredibly excited to work with Square and introduce their small business customers to the great health insurance options available to them and their employees”, said Scott Flanders, CEO of eHealth.
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http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170822005051/en/eHealth-Works-Square-Small-Businesses-Find-Health
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2017-09-07 05:26:39.720000
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH), which operates eHealth.com, a leading private online health insurance exchange, announced today that it is now providing Square’s small business customers with access to a broad range of health insurance solutions as well as eHealth’s innovative plan comparison tools and robust customer support.
Square’s point-of-sale service offers tools for every part of running a small business, from accepting credit cards and tracking inventory to real-time analytics and invoicing. Through the Square dashboard, the more than two million small businesses using Square now have access to a co-branded eHealth website offering brand-name small business and individual & family health insurance options.
By accessing eHealth through the Square dashboard, small businesses can compare health insurance plans online from multiple insurance companies and get customized quotes for their business. At no cost, small business owners can also get personalized help and useful advice from licensed eHealth agents. eHealth has also expanded its offering to enable online applications for small group health insurance with select insurance companies, which enables health insurance applications to be approved in as little as 24 hours in some instances.
“We are incredibly excited to work with Square and introduce their small business customers to the great health insurance options available to them and their employees,” said eHealth CEO Scott Flanders. “Whether they’re purchasing coverage only for themselves or for their employees as well, a quality health insurance plan is an investment in any small business’s future – and eHealth has the comprehensive selection and tools they need to find the best plan for their needs.”
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements that are forward-looking statements as defined within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding eHealth’s partnership with Square. These forward-looking statements are inherently subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made, including risks associated with: our ability to maintain and perform under the agreement for this partnership; our ability to realize, enroll, service, and retain customers from this partnership; and other factors that could cause operating, financial, and other results to differ, which are described in eHealth’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K or Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on the investor relations page of eHealth’s website at http://www.ehealthinsurance.com and on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at www.sec.gov. eHealth undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to conform to actual results or changes in intentions or expectations.
eHealth
eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH) owns eHealth.com, a leading private online health insurance exchange where individuals, families and small businesses can compare health insurance products from leading insurers side by side and purchase and enroll in coverage online. eHealth offers thousands of individual, family and small business health plans underwritten by many of the nation's leading health insurance companies. eHealth (through its subsidiaries) is licensed to sell health insurance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. eHealth also offers educational resources and powerful online and pharmacy-based tools to help Medicare beneficiaries navigate Medicare health insurance options, choose the right plan and enroll in select plans online through Medicare.com (www.Medicare.com), eHealthMedicare.com (www.eHealthMedicare.com) and PlanPrescriber.com (www.PlanPrescriber.com).
For more health insurance news and information, visit eHealth's Consumer Resource Center.
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Terror attacks spur active shooter insurance expansion
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Recent "mass casualty events", including terror attacks, have prompted a growth in the speciality active shooter insurance market. Beazley launched its product, which has a maximum capacity of $20m per risk, in February 2016, while XL Catlin launched its active shooter coverage in the same month, with up to $35m available. Hiscox unveiled its policy in October 2016, but recently included knife or vehicle attacks in its definition, while Ironshore launched its Terrorism Crises 360° management response service and active shooter coverage in September 2016.
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http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/00010101/NEWS06/912315547/Mass-casualty-events-spur-product-development
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2017-09-07 05:06:21.707000
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The specialty active shooter insurance market has grown and evolved over the past 18 months as mass casualty events continue to plague a growing list of cities worldwide.
Beazley P.L.C. is providing liability coverage while Hiscox Ltd., Ironshore Inc. and XL Group Ltd., which does business as XL Catlin, are writing property cover with business interruption. The policies are triggered by an event, and a policyholder does not have to suffer property damage to make a claim.
Beazley launched its product in February 2016, writing business via a consortium with other Lloyd’s of London syndicates managed by Talbot Underwriting Ltd. and Liberty Specialty Markets, said Chris Parker, political violence kidnap and ransom underwriter, political accident and contingency, at Beazley in London.
Maximum capacity is $20 million per risk, and all underwriting and pricing is done by Beazley, which binds on behalf of the other syndicates. The insurer uses a broad definition of weapons, ranging far beyond firearms, and its policy can even be triggered by the brandishing of a weapon without the completion of an attack or bodily injury or property damage.
XL Catlin launched its active shooter coverage in February 2016, the result of two years’ development, according to Ben Tucker, head of U.S. terrorism and political violence insurance for the insurer in New York.
Available worldwide, it is written through XL Catlin’s Lloyd’s syndicate, as well as in foreign markets including Singapore and Australia, and it is written in the U.S. on a surplus lines basis. Limits up to $35 million per risk are available, Mr. Tucker said.
Hiscox launched its active shooter product in October 2016 and recently broadened its definition of attack in August to include knife and vehicle attacks.
Limits are based on individual clients and submissions, but Hiscox “has the appetite to go up to a $50 million maximum,” said Jennifer Rubin, vice president for war, terrorism and political violence for Hiscox in New York. The policy is available in the U.S. and Europe, including the United Kingdom, and is written on a surplus lines basis through Hiscox’s Lloyd’s syndicate, Ms. Rubin said.
The Hiscox policy does not have a property damage trigger, so a policyholder can be compensated if it suffers lost business due to an attack on an adjoining business, for example. Coverage also includes a loss of attraction cover, allowing a claim if there was business and income lost due to a police cordon and investigation or other lack of egress or access, Ms. Rubin said.
Ironshore’s active shooter coverage was launched in September 2016 along with the company’s Terrorism Crises 360° crises management response service, which is provided to all clients of the company’s stand-alone terrorism coverage.
The product is written on nonadmitted paper, and policyholders electing the active shooter add-on typically buy limits in the $1 million to $5 million range, mainly to cover the cost of business interruption and expenses such as temporary office or work facilities, said James Dover, New York-based senior vice president for war and sabotage at Ironshore Inc., a Liberty Mutual Insurance company.
Ironshore follows the U.S. government/ Department of Homeland Security definition of an active shooter situation, which is “an individual or group of people actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined or populated area,” according to Mr. Dover. The company does not seek to define the weapon or mode of attack, he added.
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Plans in China to build 100,000 industrial robots p.a. by 2020
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China wants to go from being a "low-cost labour source to a high-tech labour source", thanks to its Made in China 2025 initiative and the Robotics Industry Development Plan. By 2020 the country wants to manufacture 100,000 industrial robots annually and it is already the world's largest market for them. By 2019, 40% of total worldwide robot sales are forecast to be in China, up from 27% in 2015. The country is increasing investment into the sector, as well as offering subsidies, low-interest loans and rent-free land to Chinese robotics companies.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/chinas-blueprint-to-crush-the-us-robotics-industry.html
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2017-09-07 04:51:33.760000
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Industrial robots 'dance' at a booth at the China International Industry Fair at National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai. VCG | VCG | Getty Images
About four years ago Jeff Burnstein attended his first China International Robotics Show, the annual Shanghai-based expo now in its seventh year. At the time, Burnstein, president of the Robotic Industries Association, a Michigan-based trade group, wasn't impressed. He said he walked around the show and thought many of the robots on display looked like copies of what American companies were already doing. In today's China a different picture is taking shape, courtesy of a blueprint known as the Made in China 2025 plan. Announced in 2015, the initiative is China's massive government-backed push to be a world leader in a number of high-tech industries, such as medical devices, aerospace equipment and robotics — the key piece of the country's desire to automate sectors of its economy: automotive manufacturing, food production, electronics and more.
But to do that, China needs more robots. In addition to the Made in China 2025 plan, the government has also released the Robotics Industry Development Plan, a five-year plan to rapidly expand the country's industrial robotics sector. By 2020, China wants to be able to manufacture at least 100,000 industrial robots annually. The country is racing full steam ahead to a robot-powered future in a push to not only remake its own economy but also to transform into the world's robot capital — overtaking Japan, Germany and the United States in the process. "The Chinese are the fastest-growing and largest user of robotics in the world by now," said Burnstein. "The 2025 plan will only accelerate it." According to the International Federation of Robots, China is already home to the biggest share of robots, a global market worth about $30 billion. It is currently ranked the No.1 sales market for industrial robots, with the United States coming in at No. 4. (South Korea and Japan are two and three, respectively.)
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While the United States is arguably the worldwide leader in automation in vehicle manufacturing, China is quickly making gains to outstrip the U.S. and other global competitors. Over the first half of this decade, China installed 90,000 industrial robots, or one third of the world's total, compared to 80,000 industrial robots installed between 2010 and 2015 elsewhere in Asia, Europe and the United States combined.
A heated race
"To reduce the threshold of innovative entrepreneurship, the government provides appropriate financial subsidies for rent, broadband access and public software for new businesses," said John Rhee, general manager of the Los Angeles office for UBTECH, a Chinese robotics company headquartered in Shenzhen City that makes humanoid robots for the home.
Fast-forwarding market domination
UBTECH is one such company currently benefiting from the Made in China 2025 plan. In April the company signed a "strategic cooperation agreement," Rhee said, with the municipal government of Kunming City in the southwestern province of Yunnan, which will aid the company in robot building and developing artificial intelligence capabilities in Yunnan province for the purpose of making Kunming and other municipalities A.I.-enabled "smart" cities. But how quickly China can get itself up to speed in the globally competitive robotics field is still a question, as is the overall effectiveness of the Made in 2025 plan on growing China's robotics industry. "China can manufacture simple robots but nothing complicated, like the six-axis ones by Japan, Germany and the U.S.," said Zi Yang, a China analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Jamestown Foundation. "It's hard to close the gap due to several reasons, mainly because of China's lack of innovativeness due to its weak intellectual property laws and government-led projects that focus on quantity over quality." Indeed, that push for quantity is one of the aggressive goals China has set for itself in its Made in 2025 plan. By the end of next decade, the country wants to be producing 400,000 industrial robots annually. That's a tall order, considering just a little more than 250,000 industrial robots were sold the world over in 2015 alone, according to the IFR. Some Chinese companies are actively buying the expertise in robotics that has been developed elsewhere. One such company, Midea, closed a $4 billion deal earlier this year to acquire Germany-based Kuka AG, a leading, global robotics supplier for plant and automotive robots with a research and development center in Austin, Texas.
China's Midea recently acquired Germany-based Kuka AG, a global robotics supplier for plant and automotive robots with a research and development center in Austin, Texas. Source: Kuka Industries
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Redrow Redrow becomes official partner of Worcester Warriors rugby team
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UK housebuilder Redrow has been named the official sponsor of the Worcester Warriors, following the news that the Premiership club was seeking additional investment. Last year, Redrow sponsored the club's mascots. The company is "keen to team up", said Sales director for Redrow Homes Pauline Turnbull, adding that clubs like the Warriors played a "vital role in the local community".
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https://www.insidermedia.com/insider/midlands/redrow-partners-investment-seeking-warriors
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2017-09-07 04:37:47.980000
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Midlands Business Jon Robinson
Housebuilder Redrow has become the official partner of Premiership rugby side Worcester Warriors.
The new deal comes after the club revealed that it was seeking new investment to help support its shareholders.
Redrow supported the club by sponsoring their mascots last season.
Sales director for Redrow Homes (Midlands), Pauline Turnbull, said: "We've built hundreds of homes across Worcestershire in recent years and are currently selling homes at The Orchards in Droitwich and Maple Gardens in Evesham. Clubs like Warriors play a vital role in the local community and so we were keen to team up.
"We believe children of all backgrounds should be able to enjoy the fantastic experiences of a rugby matchday so we're looking forward to being able to give local youngsters that opportunity through the schemes we'll be running with the club."
Warriors head of commercial, Leyton Williams, added: "We are delighted to secure yet another major, successful organisation to the growing family of Warriors partners.
"We already have an excellent working relationship with Pauline and her team and this new partnership will help to raise the profile of Redrow Homes even further."
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Limitations in processes to detect chemicals in oilfield wastewater
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Chemical detection processes commonly used by the oil industry are not designed to work with fresh water, researchers at the Colorado School of Mines have found. In order to manage wastewater's high salt content, chemists have to dilute the sample. But by doing so, they may also be diluting chemicals. It's therefore difficult to understand the impact of harmful chemical byproducts from wastewater, such as benezene, on source waters. The researchers propose using several "under-utilised approaches" to manage the complexity of analysing flowback and produced waters.
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https://www.wateronline.com/doc/chemicals-in-oilfield-wastewater-may-be-going-undetected-0001
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2017-09-07 04:33:48.203000
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By Sara Jerome,
@sarmje
Methods to assess chemicals in oilfield wastewater may not be sufficient, researchers say.
A new study from researchers at the Colorado School of Mines highlights limitations in chemical detection processes used in the oil sector. Published in Trends in Environmental Analytical Chemistry, this area of study is significant to drinking water utilities, advocates, and regulators who seek to understand the ways that energy industry activity may pose a threat to drinking water.
“We assessed current trends and emerging technologies in analytical chemistry and reviewed their applicability to flowback and produced waters. In addition, we propose under-utilized approaches that may serve as potential solutions to address the issues created by the complex matrices inherent to flowback and produced waters,” the study said.
The Environmental Defense Fund explained the meaning of the findings in a blog post.
“Oilfield wastewater is extremely salty and can contain multiple combinations of many potentially harmful chemicals (approximately 1,600 on a national basis). However, most standard or approved analytical methods available to regulators were designed to work with fresh water. Because oil and gas wastewater is so salty — sometimes 10 times saltier than seawater or more — chemists often have to dilute wastewater samples to manage the high salt content,” the blog said.
Diluting the samples may also be diluting chemicals, the blog explained.
Benzene, a cancer-causing petroleum byproduct, is one example.
“It has a drinking water standard of 5 parts per billion — that’s 5 cents in 10 million dollars. It really doesn’t take much dilution of a sample to lose that level of precision,” the blog said.
The upshot is that flawed methods for analyzing chemicals in oilfield wastewater make it difficult to understand what impact it may have on source waters.
The United States Energy Association, in its materials, notes that the oil and gas industry plays a major role in the global energy sector. Advocates point out that the industry is a major employer.
For similar stories visit Water Online’s Produced Water Treatment Solutions Center.
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More than 5,000 ads from fake accounts identified by Facebook
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More than 5,000 ads designed to "amplify divisive social and political messages" were placed on Facebook’s network over a two-year period ended May 2017, according its chief security officer, Alex Stamos. Worth around $150,000, the ads, 25% of which were said to be geographically targeted, likely came from "inauthentic accounts" and Pages linked to Russia. Neither the 2016 US presidential election nor candidates were directly mentioned in the ads, Stamos said. Facebook is looking to crack down on “cloaking”, whereby ads redirect users to other sites, as part of its bid to prevent abuse and tighten ad review processes.
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https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-ties-more-than-5000-political-ads-to-bogus-russian-accounts/
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2017-09-07 03:26:54.023000
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Amid ongoing concern over the role of disinformation in the 2016 election, Facebook said Wednesday it found that more than 5,000 ads, costing more than $150,000, had been placed on its network between June 2015 and May 2017 from "inauthentic accounts" and Pages, likely from Russia.
The ads didn't directly mention the election or the candidates, according to a blog post by Facebook's chief security officer Alex Stamos, but focused on "amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum---touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights." Facebook declined to discuss additional details about the ads.
Facebook says it had given the information to authorities investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. "We know we have to stay vigilant to keep ahead of people who try to misuse our platform," Stamos wrote in the post. "We believe in protecting the integrity of civic discourse, and require advertisers on our platform to follow both our policies and all applicable laws."
Speculation has swirled about the role Facebook played spreading fake news during the 2016 election. Senator Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has gone so far as to wonder whether President Trump's tech and data team collaborated with Russian actors to target fake news at American voters in key geographic areas. “We need information from the companies, as well as we need to look into the activities of some of the Trump digital campaign activities," Warner said recently.
Brad Parscale, digital director of the Trump campaign, has agreed to an interview with the House Intelligence Committee, and maintains he is "unaware of any Russian involvement in the digital and data operations of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign."
Wednesday's revelation is a new wrinkle in the ongoing Russia investigations. In July, Facebook told WIRED it had found no indication of Russian entities buying entities during the election.
In the larger context of political ad spending, even $150,000 is a nominal amount. According to a report by Borrell Associates, digital political-ad spending totaled roughly $1.4 billion in 2016. And yet, this finding exposes what seems to be a coordinated effort to spread misinformation about key election issues in targeted states.
Facebook is remaining tight lipped about the methods it used to identify the fraudulent accounts and Pages that it has since suspended. One search for ads purchased from US internet addresses set to the Russian language turned up $50,000 worth of spending on 2,200 ads. Facebook said about one-quarter of the suspect ads were geographically targeted, with more of those running in 2015 than 2016. According to The Washington Post, some accounts may be linked to a content farm called Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg.
Facebook said it is implementing changes to prevent similar abuse. Among other things, it's looking for ways to combat so-called cloaking in which ads that appear benign redirect users to malicious or misleading websites once people click through. That allows bad actors to circumvent Facebook's ad review process.
But while Facebook may be able to limit what people can and can't buy on its platform, it doesn't change the fact that social media has created a stage for anyone looking to spread false information online, with or without ads. As the $150,000 figure indicates, this finding is but a small fraction of a much larger problem.
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PIMCO raises fees on fast-growing active fund
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PIMCO is raising the fees on its Income Fund, bucking the trend of asset managers slashing expense ratios for their fund products. The fund has been the fastest growing US active product over the last 12 months. In general, passive funds are still taking in assets at the expense of their active counterparts, pulling in more than $703bn in the US over the past year.
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http://www.pionline.com/article/20170901/ONLINE/170909987/pimco-bucks-trend-by-raising-fees-on-ivascyns-income-fund?utm_content=assetmgmt&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#utm_campaign=saxo_rss&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=rss
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2017-09-07 02:30:42.407000
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PIMCO Income Fund, the fastest-growing actively managed U.S. mutual fund, is raising fees at a time most money managers are racing to slash costs paid by investors.
The $92 billion fund will increase its fees 5 cents per $100 on Oct. 2 for most share classes, according to a filing Thursday, bringing expenses for the institutional-class shares to 50 cents per $100. The change in supervisory and administrative fees is attributed in part to the cost of managing dividends for the growing fund, which has about 5,500 securities in numerous countries and currencies, said Pacific Investment Management Co. spokesman Michael Reid.
"PIMCO Income Fund has delivered strong performance yet its total expense to investors remains lower than its peer group averages," Mr. Reid said in an email. PIMCO Income's peer funds average fees are $1.01 per $100 in assets, according to data on the Morningstar website.
Investors have been moving money to low-fee, passively managed index funds, raising pressure on money managers to compete by reducing costs. Shareholders added a net $703.4 billion to passively run mutual and exchange-traded funds while withdrawing $214.5 billion from active funds in the 12 months through July, according to Morningstar.
The average fee paid by investors fell to 57 basis points in 2016 from 61 in 2015 and 65 three years earlier, according to a May report by Morningstar.
On the passive investing side, big providers such as BlackRock, Vanguard Group, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab have cut fees on index funds and exchange-traded funds to as low as 3 or 4 cents for every $100 invested.
PIMCO CEO Emmanuel Roman has said his firm's strategy is to provide benchmark-beating risk-adjusted returns through active management, while charging "the right level" of fees.
PIMCO Income, managed by Dan Ivascyn and Alfred Murata, has added $23.5 billion in new investments in the past 12 months, more than any other actively managed U.S. fund, Morningstar estimates. It has returned an average of 7.6% annually over the past five years, outperforming 99% of its Bloomberg peer group.
PIMCO is increasing the Income Fund's Class D fees 11 basis points, according to the filing. The firm is also boosting fees by 5 basis points for Class D shares of the All Asset Fund and the All Asset All Authority Fund.
At the same time, the firm is lowering fees 11 basis points across share classes on its Unconstrained Bond Fund and 5 basis points on its Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund, Emerging Markets Full Spectrum Bond Fund and Global Advantage Strategy Bond Fund. For the PIMCO Total Return Fund, fees are being cut 5 basis points on Class A shares and increased 5 basis points on Class D shares.
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Africa urged to seek broad-based economic empowerment in China ties
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China is now the largest investor in Africa, writes Johan Hanekom, an expert on strategy, innovation and growth. However, Hanekom points to the fact Chinese nationals own 90% of the firms receiving investment. For the China-Africa partnership to thrive, and prevent economic colonisation, corruption and violence must be tackled, language and cultural barriers addressed, and better wealth distribution sought. He urged African countries receiving aid from China to develop political and economic structures and strategies that ensure broad-based economic empowerment, which will in turn promote political development and better international trade relations, he said.
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https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2017/09/06/china-really-helping-africa/
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2017-09-07 01:38:18.227000
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China has catapulted from being a relatively small investor in the continent to becoming Africa’s largest economic partner. Africa-China trade is poised to grow 20% year on year making it seem like dragons are the new king of the African jungle.
Investment in Africa has however been structured around Chinese ownership, with roughly 90% of firms either majority controlled or owned outright by Chinese nationals. There are estimated to be over 10,000 Chinese firms in Africa that have created work for several million Africans. This economic stimulus continues to have significant economic impact in communities riddled with historic economic disparities.
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Wind turbine makers partner with energy storage companies
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Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems' tie up with Tesla to add on-site energy storage to future wind installations is the latest example of wind energy companies looking to add storage to their developments. Deepwater Wind announced last month it was adding a 40 MWh battery storage system from Tesla to a planned offshore wind farm off New Bedford, Massachusetts. Acciona recently connected two Samsung lithium-ion batteries to a 3 MW turbine in Spain; Dong installed a battery on the UK coastline in June to store some offshore wind energy, and Statoil will add a 1 MWh lithium-ion battery to a floating offshore wind farm that will be completed in late 2018.
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https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2017/09/wind-turbine-manufacturers-are-dipping-toes-into-energy-storage-projects/
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2017-09-06 21:00:00
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Danish company Vestas Wind Systems is one of the biggest makers of wind turbines in the world, recently surpassing GE’s market share in the US. But as the wind industry becomes more competitive, Vestas appears to be looking for ways to solidify its lead by offering something different. Now, the company says it’s looking into building wind turbines with battery storage onsite.
According to a Bloomberg report, Vestas is working on 10 projects that will add storage to wind installations, and Tesla is collaborating on at least one of those projects. Vestas says the cooperation between the two companies isn’t a formal partnership, and Tesla hasn’t commented on the nature of its work with Vestas. But the efforts to combine wind turbines with battery storage offer a glimpse into how the wind industry might change in the future.
The news about Vestas is just one datapoint in a summer of news about wind and storage projects. In August, offshore wind developer Deepwater Wind announced that it would pair a 144MW offshore wind farm planned for the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts, with a 40MWh battery storage system from Tesla. Construction on that project is set to end sometime in 2022. According to GreenTechMedia, Spanish wind power company Acciona recently connected two Samsung lithium-ion batteries to a 3-megawatt turbine in Spain, Dong installed a battery on the UK coastline in June to store some offshore wind energy, and Statoil will include a 1MWh lithium-ion battery in its designs for a floating offshore wind farm that will be completed in late 2018.
The idea of onsite batteries isn’t new—GE’s renewables arm introduced short-term batteries integrated with wind turbines in 2013, and Vestas itself experimented with tying storage to wind turbines in 2012. But turbine manufacturers seem to be more willing to branch out of their wheelhouse lately and contact battery specialists instead of pushing to build batteries on their own.
The appeal of batteries seems self-explanatory at first glance: the cost of wind-generated electricity is falling fast, leading energy companies to install wind capacity at record rates in the US as well as in China and the EU. Although government subsidies for renewable energy have played a part in the wind boom, developers are just starting to submit proposals for wind projects that don’t need subsidies to be profitable. But in order for wind to become even more competitive, it needs to make up for one glaring drawback: wind turbines can’t generate electricity on demand.
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That’s where batteries come into play. Installations from AES Energy Storage and Tesla have already hit grids in California, but those systems aren’t tied to a specific renewable resource—they store electricity from coal plants and solar panels alike. But proposing a wind farm with onsite storage might make a grid operator consider that proposal a more reliable source of energy.
Still, the limiting factor is the price of storage. A post from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) explains why storage hasn’t been a big part of the equation historically.
The reality is that, while several small-scale energy storage demonstration projects have been conducted, the US has been able to add more than 60,000MW of wind power to the grid without adding any commercial-scale energy storage. Similarly, European countries like Denmark, Spain, Ireland, and Germany have successfully integrated very large amounts of wind energy without having to install new energy storage resources. In the US, numerous peer-reviewed studies have concluded that wind energy can provide 20 percent or more of our electricity without any need for energy storage.
That’s because, the AWEA says, flexibility in the form of fast-ramping gas plants or hydroelectricity already exists on most large grids, and “it is almost always much cheaper to use this flexibility than to build new sources of flexibility like energy storage facilities.”
But the economics of storage may be changing, or at least companies forecast enough of a change in the next five years to justify getting their feet wet on special projects like these. According to Lazard’s 2016 Levelized Cost of Storage report, forecasts show capital costs of chemical battery construction getting much cheaper out to 2020, while more traditional methods of storage, like compressed air and pumped storage, essentially stay flat.
And in a statement to Bloomberg on Friday, Vestas said as much, commenting that the impetus for its 10 projects was to find “sustainable energy solutions that can lower the cost of energy.”
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Drinks industry misleading public over cancer links
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The alcoholic drinks industry is misrepresenting the links between alcohol and cancer, according to a UK-led study by international researchers. The report claims that alcohol firms and the “responsible drinking” bodies funded by them, including the Portman Group and Drinkaware, are misleading the public through tactics of “denial, distortion, distraction” that parallel those used by cigarette firms. Such tactics are particularly used in relation to bowel and breast cancer, two of the most common and lethal forms of the disease in the UK.
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/07/alcohol-cancer-link-report-portman-group-drinkaware
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2017-09-06 21:00:00
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The drinks industry is misleading the public by downplaying and misrepresenting the link between alcohol and cancer – especially breast cancer – in a bid to protect its profits, new research claims.
Alcohol firms and “responsible drinking” bodies they fund are denying that drink causes cancer and distorting the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, in information they provide to consumers, according to the British-led team of international experts behind the findings.
Despite portraying themselves as socially responsible, many drinks producers are also trying to distract attention from alcohol’s well-established role as a key cause of cancer, confuse consumers and blame other factors, it is claimed.
Their “denial, distortion, distraction” tactics closely resemble those cigarette companies used to limit exposure of tobacco’s role as a main cause of cancer. They are being deployed in particular on bowel and breast cancer, two of Britain’s most common and most lethal forms of the disease, the academics allege.
“The alcohol industry appears to be engaged in the extensive misrepresentation of evidence about the alcohol-related risk of cancer. These activities have parallels with those of the tobacco industry”, according to a study by Professor Mark Petticrew, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and colleagues.
They analysed the accuracy of information about alcohol and cancer carried on websites and in publications produced by 26 drinks producers and “social aspects and public relations organisations” worldwide they use to advise consumers about alcohol and health. Many were guilty of manipulation of evidence, they concluded.
The Portman Group and Drinkaware, two UK bodies financed by the alcohol industry, are among those accused of being involved in what the researchers say is systematic “denialism” of the heightened risks of cancer from drinking.
“It’s extremely worrying that the UK public are not being given independent, honest information about the health risks associated with drinking,” said Katherine Brown, chief executive of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, a thinktank.
For example, of the 26 sources of material analysed by researchers, 20 either did not discuss alcohol’s role in causing breast cancer, or did so but included inaccurate or misleading information about the link.
More than 100 studies since 2007 have shown that alcohol, even in moderate amounts, increases the risk of breast cancer. Despite that, the research highlights how information published on Drinkaware’s website last December pointed to a range of other factors as possible causes, including a woman’s gender, age and family history, in what the authors say was a bid to deflect attention from alcohol’s role in increasing cancer risk.
The industry may be using such tactics because it hopes to increase the amount of alcohol drunk by women and does not want the public to learn about its link with the disease, suggest the authors, whose findings are published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review.
IARC, the World Health Organization’s cancer arm, and the UK government’s committee on carcinogenicity have both said the evidence showed alcohol increased the risk of cancers of the mouth and throat, larynx, oesophagus, upper aerodigestive tract, breast and liver as well as the colon, rectum and pancreas.
The findings also claim that both Drinkaware and the Portman Group have sought to play down alcohol’s potentially damaging role in causing cancer by claiming that risk only applies to heavy or binge drinking; confusing the relationship between alcohol and cancer by highlighting a range of other risk factors; and also by stressing the complexity of risk to suggest that there is little evidence of risk, when the opposite is true.
For example, the brewer SAB Miller’s talkingalcohol.com website “states inaccurately that there is no link between alcohol and most cancers except for ‘mainly cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract’ and the liver,” the paper says. Similarly, the Portman Group says that “the vast majority of cancer types are not associated with alcohol consumption”.
While there are more than 200 types of cancer, alcohol is recognised by key medical authorities as a cause of two of the commonest: breast and bowel cancer, which between them result in almost 100,000 new diagnoses a year in the UK alone.
The Portman Group denied the academics’ claims that it had misrepresented the evidence on alcohol and cancer in its response to the government consultation on updated safe drinking guidelines, unveiled in January last year. They promote responsible drinking and responsible marketing of alcohol, they said.
“It is vital that academic research and commentary about lifestyle risks is presented fairly, accurately and in context so that people can make rational and informed choices in their everyday lives.
“In the UK, producers and retailers support many charities and organisations that provide consumers with practical and evidence-based information about alcohol and their health and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking messages,” said John Timothy, its chief executive.
Drinkaware, which aims to educate the public about drinking and reduce alcohol harm, also rejected the claims made about it. “The Drinkaware website carries extensive information about alcohol and health, all of which has been approved by Drinkaware’s medical advisory panel, which is made up of senior and independent experts,” a spokesperson said.
“[The panel’s] recent review of Drinkaware’s cancer information, which is extensive, has confirmed that the information we are providing accurately reflects the most recent research evidence.”
Chris Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, accused the authors of cherry-picking quotes that did not fairly reflect scientific evidence. “This is a diatribe disguised as a study that seeks to create a false narrative in which businesses always lie and anti-alcohol campaigners always tell the truth,” he said.
The Department of Health rejected the academics’ suggestion that ministers should stop trusting alcohol bodies to inform the public about alcohol and cancer because the findings showed such large-scale distortion and omission of key facts.
“We are clear on the links between excessive alcohol consumption and cancer, supported by the UK CMOs’ [chief medical officers’] guidelines. Public Health England regularly promotes the message that you can reduce your risk of cancers by making lifestyle changes through national campaigns like One You,” a spokesman said.
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Fossil fuel trade associations sue Illinois over subsidies
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Two fossil fuel trade associations are pursuing a legal battle to have the Illinois Zero Emissions Credit (ZEC) ruled unlawful. The Natural Gas Supply Association and the American Petroleum Institute claim the state's programme infringes on the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and unfairly favours in-state nuclear generators with subsidies, discriminating against other suppliers. Other states such as Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania are reportedly looking at introducing programmes similar to ZEC, which the trade associations claim would have adverse consequences for the unbiased functioning of the US energy market.
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http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/111656-ngsa-api-say-illinois-program-discriminates-against-natgas-hurts-power-markets
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2017-09-06 21:00:00
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Two trade associations have filed a joint amicus brief in a federal appeals court in Chicago, arguing that the Illinois Zero Emissions Credit (ZEC) program unlawfully discriminates against natural gas and undermines competitive wholesale power markets.
On Tuesday, the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to reverse a lower court ruling to dismiss a legal challenge to block Illinois from implementing the ZEC program.
Specifically, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Electric Power Supply Association, Dynegy Inc., NRG Energy Inc. and Calpine Corp.
The plaintiffs argued that the ZEC program infringes on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s exclusive authority to regulate wholesale power markets.
“If allowed to stand, the district court’s decision would allow Illinois and other states to enact laws that change the wholesale rates received by electric generation suppliers participating in organized wholesale electricity markets, favoring uncompetitive in-state nuclear generators with subsidies, while discriminatorily depressing the prices received by other suppliers, with the express intention of protecting in-state industry and favoring one fuel source over another,” NGSA and API said in their joint filing.
The associations said Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were considering enacting programs similar to ZEC. “The district court’s decision would throw open the door to an ever-growing patchwork of discriminatory intervention in wholesale markets.”
NGSA CEO Dena Wiggins said the ZEC program “is not only discriminatory, it would have serious adverse consequences for the efficient and unbiased functioning of the nation’s energy markets.”
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) into law last December. FEJA authorized the Illinois Power Agency to award ZECs to electric utilities.
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Iberdrola issues €750m bond to finance Baltic Sea power project
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Spanish utility Iberdrola has issued a €750m ($896m) green bond on the Euromarket to finance the 350 MW Wikinger wind farm in the German Baltic Sea as well as onshore wind farms in the UK. Demand for the bond topped €2.2bn in the initial phase. More than 150 companies, including several socially responsible investors, are expected to take part in the issue. The bond matures in September 2027 and bears a coupon of 1.25%.
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https://renewablesnow.com/news/iberdrola-to-back-wind-investments-with-eur-750m-green-bond-582571/
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2017-09-06 20:00:00
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Spanish energy group Iberdrola SA (BME:IBE) on Wednesday issued a EUR-750-million (USD 895.5m) green bond on the Euromarket to finance and refinance wind power project investments.
More specifically, the proceeds will go for investments in onshore wind farms in the UK and in the 350-MW Wikinger wind farm in the German Baltic Sea. The offshore wind park is under construction with more than half of the 70 Adwen turbines installed already.
Demand for the green bond surpassed EUR 2.2 billion in the initial phase, which allowed Iberdrola to boost its size by 50% from the initially planned EUR 500 million. More than 150 investors will be taking part in the issue, including a large share of Socially Responsible Investors (SRI).
The bond matures in September 2027 and bears a coupon of 1.25%.
The Spanish company has an installed power capacity of 48 GW, of which 28.3 GW is from renewable energy sources.
(EUR 1 = USD 1.19)
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Sustainable clothing that expands as child grows wins Dyson award
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A range of sustainable children’s clothing inspired by origami, which expands as babies and toddlers grow, has won an international James Dyson award. Ryan Yasin, a 24-year-old designer based in London, used principles he learned during his aeronautical engineering degree to create the Petit Pli range, which is made from lightweight, pleated fabric and is machine washable, recyclable and waterproof. Each garment fits children aged three months to three years. According to Aviva, most children grow seven sizes in their first two years of life, with parents spending an average of £2,000 on clothes before a child reaches three.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/07/origami-inspired-clothing-range-that-grows-with-your-child-wins-dyson-award?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=a8ea6b5aab-The_Download&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-a8ea6b5aab-154403165
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2017-09-06 20:00:00
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An origami-inspired range of children’s clothing made from a durable pleated fabric that expands to fit growing babies and toddlers has won its 24-year-old designer a prestigious James Dyson award.
Ryan Yasin devised the material using scientific principles he studied for his aeronautical engineering degree, after noting the lack of sustainability in the clothing industry and being frustrated by how quickly his baby niece and nephew outgrew garments he bought for them.
The London-based postgraduate student aims to make so-called Petit Pli “the most advanced kids’ clothing in the world”. It is made from distinctive pleated lightweight fabric which is waterproof, machine washable and recyclable, with all garments fitting the three-month to three-year age group.
Most children grow by seven sizes in their first two years, and (according to a recent survey by Aviva) parents spend an average of £2,000 on clothing before their child reaches the age of three. As well as the high cost and limited lifespan, mass production of garments places huge pressure on the environment through waste, water consumption and carbon emissions.
Ryan Yasin, designer of Petit Pli clothing range that grow with your child. Photograph: Paul Grover/James Dyson Award
Yasin set out to combine technology with textiles in order to fashion durable and practical garments for youngsters to take them through their initial “growth spurt”. The babygrow, trousers and tops he has so far created resemble junior versions of sought-after clothing by legendary Japanese designer Issey Miyake.
Petit Pli works by employing the so-called negative Poisson’s ratio, which Yasin studied while at London’s Imperial College. When stretched, materials that have this ratio – known as auxetics – become thicker and can expand in two directions at the same time. The phenomenon is already used in stents and biomedical implants. Yasin has to date developed more than 500 prototypes for Petit Pli and plans to use his £2,000 prize money to continue discussions with potential investors and expand the business. Yasin says he is in talks with a major UK retailer and hopes the first clothing will go on sale in the UK within months.
The clothes are made to stretch to fit children as they grow between three and 36 months old. Photograph: Courtesy of Petit Pli
“It’s just great to have that backing and recognition of my solution,” he said. “The prize money is an added bonus, but I know how I will use it. In addition to supporting my R&D, it will help me form an interdisciplinary team of experts to take Petit Pli to the next level: putting it in the hands of parents worldwide and making a tangible difference to the way we consume resources in the fashion industry.”
Yasin has captured auxetic properties in Petit Pli through the use of permanent pleating. The pleats move in both directions, either folding together or expanding, and allowing the garment to move with the child. Heat treatment fixes these properties permanently in place, even through the wash cycle; the garments are designed to be long-lasting and can fold down small enough to tuck in your pocket.
Yasin says he will aim to keep the garments at a competitive price while ensuring everyone along the supply chain is paid ethically.
His invention will now be entered into the international running for the final leg of the James Dyson Award – announced in October – which will give the overall worldwide winner a further £30,000 in prize money.
The James Dyson award operates in 23 countries, and is open to university level students and recent graduates studying product design, industrial design and engineering. It recognises and rewards imaginative design solutions to global problems with the environment in mind.
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PE firm Clairvest invests in renewable energy for first time
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Private equity firm Clairvest Group has made its first foray into the renewables sector with a growth equity investment in Boulder-based Also Energy. The company provides software and hardware to monitor and control global power production and plant operations for commercial, industrial and utility-scale power plants. As part of the deal, Also Energy CEO Robert Schaefer and CTO Holden Caine will retain a "significant stake" in the company.
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https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/09/07/1114347/0/en/Clairvest-Announces-its-First-Investment-in-the-Renewable-Energy-Sector-Also-Energy.html
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2017-09-06 20:00:00
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TORONTO, Sept. 07, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clairvest Group Inc. (TSX:CVG) (“Clairvest”) today announces that it, together with limited partnerships controlled by it, made a growth equity investment in Also Energy, Inc. (“Also Energy” or the “Company”). Clairvest, together with limited partnerships controlled by it have partnered with the existing management team who will retain a significant interest in the business.
Also Energy is a solar monitoring company based in Boulder, Colorado. Also Energy provides software and hardware that enable the monitoring and control of power production and plant operations for commercial, industrial and utility-scale power plants in the United States around the world. The Company was founded by Robert Schaefer, Chief Executive Officer and Holden Caine, Chief Technology Officer who will retain a significant stake in the Company. The opportunity was originated through Clairvest’s domain work in the renewable energy sector.
“Our domain efforts brought us to this exciting company and we have been consistently impressed with this business throughout our diligence. We are committed to support the Company through potential near-term turbulence and we are excited to partner with Robert and Holden to support the next phase of the Company’s growth," said Ken Rotman, Co-CEO of Clairvest.
“Clairvest is an ideal partner to help us continue to grow. We sought to find a supportive partner to provide capital and expertise to fuel our expansion and we have found just that in Clairvest," said Robert Schaefer.
Also Energy is Clairvest’s 49th platform investment and the fifth investment by CEP V. The Clairvest / CEP V co-investment pool is capitalized at $600 million and focuses on equity investments in growth companies.
About Clairvest
Clairvest Group Inc. is a private equity management firm that invests its own capital, and that of third parties through the Clairvest Equity Partners limited partnerships, in businesses that have the potential to generate superior returns. In addition to providing financing, Clairvest contributes strategic expertise and execution ability to support the growth and development of its investee partners. Clairvest realizes value through investment returns and the eventual disposition of its investments.
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Shell commits to renewable energy with investments
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A senior executive at Royal Dutch Shell has outlined how the company sees the transition from fossil fuels to renewables as inevitable, and was investing significantly in renewables research. Harry Brekelmans, Shell's projects and technology director, told an audience at MIT that the company has concluded the transition will take several decades, and conceded that not all of the investments it has made in research have been successful. Shell's CEO also recently said that with the right mix of policy and innovation, demand for oil could peak in the early 2030s or sooner.
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http://news.mit.edu/2017/shell-executive-describes-transition-carbon-free-energy-0907
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2017-09-06 20:00:00
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Shell has long expressed its acceptance of the science of human-induced climate change and its determination to invest heavily in technologies to help enable a global transition to a world of drastically reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. As part of that commitment, Shell continues to fund a variety of research projects at MIT and elsewhere related to renewable energy, energy storage, and ways of capturing and storing carbon emissions from fossil fuel.
“For some years already we’ve been aware of the energy transition,” Brekelmans said. It’s accelerating, he said, and it’s clear that “it’s time to act, even more so than before.” Already, Shell has made “significant investments in wind, in solar, in biofuels — not all of them successful,” demonstrating the need to be careful about how one invests that research money. Because of the complexity of the world’s energy systems and demands, he said, “we have concluded that this will be a multidecade transition.”
In the discussion, titled, “If you had a billion dollars for energy-related R&D, where would you spend it?,” Brekelmans addressed that lofty question and many others about the company’s, and the world’s, energy future.
Harry Brekelmans, the projects and technology director for Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s leading oil and gas companies and a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), on Wednesday met with groups of MIT students and faculty members about their work before taking part in a public discussion about energy issues with MITEI co-founder and director Robert Armstrong.
In introducing the discussion Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, pointed out that Shell’s CEO Ben Van Beurden recently said that with the right mix of policy and innovation, he sees global demand for oil peaking in the early 2030s or sooner — and that his next car will be electric.
Zuber said that MIT’s Plan for Action on Climate Change calls for finding solutions for decarbonizing the world’s energy systems, aiming for a zero-carbon energy system by the century’s end. To achieve that, she said, MIT’s view is that “the best chance of success is if a broad range of stakeholders, from industry to government to civil society, engage with each other proactively to address it.” One way of doing that, she said, is through conversations such as this one.
Brekelmans said that Shell’s approach to energy R&D is two-pronged, working in parallel on both near-term and long-term strategies. For the near term, the emphasis is on finding technologies that already exist in other industries that can be adapted and scaled up to have a rapid impact on energy use. The longer-term work deals with new findings in laboratories, that have great potential but that may require many years of work to determine if they can be scaled up to meet a significant portion of the world’s energy needs or to improve the performance of existing energy systems.
While the company’s investments in low-carbon energy technologies goes back many years, the mix of research projects they support has evolved over time, he said. One change is that much more of the long-term research is now focused on energy storage systems. These are seen as a key enabling technology to allow for increased usage of energy sources that are inherently variable, such as wind and solar power. “It was not part of our portfolio 10 years ago,” he said, but is now a significant piece of it.
Another research area of increasing emphasis is capturing and storing carbon emissions from power plants to reduce their climate impact, he said. But other approaches don’t necessarily have to be high-tech, he said. “When we talk about offsets, we increasingly talk about simple things like reforestation,” he told students during his morning meetings.
Another change, he said, is “in the way we do R&D. Our collaboration with MIT is absolutely fundamental” to Shell’s efforts. “We know we can’t do it ourselves alone. Much of the progress is happening here and at other institutions.” With the company’s own technology campus in Kendall Square, bordering the MIT campus, “we are hiring people who have no prior experience in oil and gas but who have a knack for innovation,” he said. Shell’s investments, he said, include providing “seed investments in crazy ideas, to help bring them to the next stage.”
Despite the company’s ongoing commitment to working toward a transition away from greenhouse emissions, Brekelmans said that he and his colleagues “all conclude every year that we’re not moving fast enough,” and continue to redouble their efforts.
Emphasizing that their reach and their interests are global, he added that Shell has also recently opened a campus in Bangalore, India, that employs almost 1,000 technologists, as an incubator for new technologies and approaches. The world’s energy systems and needs are very different and highly localized, he said: “Almost every country is different,” in terms of its needs and the most effective ways of meeting them.
In the developing world, he said, the company provides aid through the Shell Foundation, helping to bring electricity and other energy supplies to some of the world’s 3 billion people who lack access to reliable power. Among other things, these grants are aimed at helping some developing nations steer toward the use of natural gas rather than coal, as a lower-carbon fuel.
Shell “wants to be a voice and a leader” in the world’s energy transition, he said. But along the way, he said, the company must “not abandon the economic process that made us a leader,” namely the production and distribution of oil and gas.
The company clearly recognizes the need for some kind of pricing on carbon fuels that reflects their real impact on the world, Brekelmans said. Already, the company “internally works with a price on carbon,” assuming that this will eventually be part of the economic reality.
As for what form that pricing should take, whether it’s a carbon tax, a fee-and-dividend, or a cap-and-trade system, he said, “we are relatively agnostic, as long as we have a price that we can then develop and evolve.” Having some such system in place, he says, is “preferable to the almost religious debate over what is the best system.”
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DOE invests $10m in fuel cell tech
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LG Fuel Cell Systems has been awarded the lion's share of $10.2m in funding from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy, to develop and advance solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology. LG has been granted almost $6m to test a 250 kW prototype integrated fuel cell system in Ohio, while 15 other groups, including Redox Power Systems and researchers at University of South Carolina, will receive around $300,000. SOFCs "facilitate high levels of carbon capture without substantial additional cost", according to the Office of Fossil Energy.
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http://www.utilitydive.com/news/fuel-cells-get-10m-funding-boost-from-doe/504432/
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2017-09-06 18:00:00
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Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy has selected 16 projects to receive $10.2 million in funding to advance solid oxide fuel cell ( SOFC ) technology.
) technology. LG Fuel Cell Systems — the largest grant recipient by far — will receive almost $6 million to deploy a 250-kW integrated fuel cell system on a site provided by Stark State College in North Canton, Ohio.
It is the second funding news out of the Office of Fossil Energy in as many weeks. In late August, the office promised $50 million for two large-scale pilots for "transformational coal technologies."
Dive Insight:
DOE's funding to advance solid oxide fuel cells falls under two categories: core technology development, where it will back 15 projects, and prototype testing, with one project.
"The applied research projects will address the technical issues facing the cost and reliability of SOFC technology and conduct field testing of an integrated prototype system project intended to validate the solutions to those issues," DOE said.
According to the agency, SOFCs are "ideal for carbon capture in that the fuel and oxidant (air) streams can be kept separate by design, thereby facilitating high levels of carbon capture without substantial additional cost."
LG Fuel Cell Systems will deploy the 250-kW integrated fuel cell system to operate on natural gas and connect directly to the electric grid. According to DOE, the prototype will incorporate current technologies and operate under "a range of environmental conditions for at least 5,000 hours to assess progress of system durability, performance, and operating cost."
DOE will provide $5.7 million in funding, while the company provides $1.4 million.
Of the 15 technology development projects, all will receive about $300,000 from DOE. Among those projects, Montana State University will seek to develop strategies that use secondary phase materials added to traditional nickel-based cermet electrodes to enhance SOFC anode durability and performance. Redox Power Systems in College Park, Md., will develop critical high-throughput, in-line metrology techniques for evaluating protective coatings for SOFCs.
And at the University of South Carolina, researchers will work to develop and evaluate "novel, lost-cost, durable cathode materials" to support SOFC commercialization."
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New NQF report considers how to evaluate telehealth initiatives
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A report from the National Quality Forum has been published. The report, commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services, was designed to create a framework for telehealth adoption. The NQF examined 68 telehealth studies to establish an efficacy measurement framework, studying access to care; patient, provider and community experiences; the cost and financial impact of telehealth; and on the efficacy of telehealth services, including technical, operational and clinical factors. The telehealth services include live video, store and forward sessions, remote monitoring and the use of healthcare apps. The assessment of telehealth’s efficacy must consider how the technology could improve the need for travel, the speed of care and the provision of useful caregiver data. It also requires the assessment of patient empowerment, the coordination of care, and the improvement of personalized medical treatment.
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http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/new-nqf-report-considers-how-evaluate-telehealth-initiatives
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2017-09-06 17:51:51.547000
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Increased investment in telehealth for providers, employers, and payers has become a reality, a forward momentum that is unlikely to be turned around. But even as adoption ticks up and state and national legislatures open the doors for more telehealth use and reimbursement, recent studies have shown mixed results about the efficacy of the technology.
About a year ago, in an effort to standardize the conversation around telemedicine efficacy, the Department of Health and Human Services commissioned the National Quality Forum to create a framework for telehealth measures. Now, after receiving and incorporating public comments, that framework has been published.
"The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiated this project, explicitly for the National Quality Forum (NQF) to convene a multistakeholder committee to recommend various methods to measure the use of telehealth as a means of providing care," NQF writes in the report. "The Committee was charged with developing a measurement framework that identifies measures and measure concepts and serves as a conceptual foundation for new measures, where needed, to assess the quality of care provided using telehealth modalities."
NQF looked at 68 existing telehealth studies to break down the different measurement possibilities. The resulting document covers live video telehealth, store and forward, remote monitoring, and health apps. It breaks measures down into four broad domains: access to care; cost and financial impacts; patient, provider, and community experience; and effectiveness, including clinical, operational, and technical effectiveness.
An assessment of telehealth should look at how the technology impacts the need for travel, how it affects the timeliness of care, and what actionable information it creates for caregivers. Other factors to consider include the impact on patient empowerment, care coordination, and the ability of remote monitoring to enhance personalized medicine efforts.
The 81-page report includes more details on the proposed measures, a series of case studies exemplifying the measures, and a discussion of how these measures interact with MACRA and with other NQF projects.
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China's $24bn online education market set to grow 20% annually
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China’s online education sector is predicted to grow 20% annually to reach $41bn by 2019. The education market across the world is due to hit $190bn by the same year. The surge is due to the increase in household spending capital, the lack of educational resources and the relaxing of the one-child policy. Online education firms in China have already seen 144m users join by June alone.
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http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2109612/chinas-online-education-market-grow-20pc-annually-bolstered-new
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2017-09-06 17:43:44.553000
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Analysts believe the best is yet to come for the US$24 billion market, with innovations such as live-streamed lessons enabling teachers to reach out to students in remote areas and smaller cities
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Spending on adaptive learning tech triples to $41m since 2013
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Adaptive learning technology spending by US school districts has tripled to reach $41m since 2013, according to education tech provider Noodle Markets. Of those funds, 9% was spent on the professional development of teachers. Adaptive learning tech provides students with tailored content, increasing personalisation and helping with self-guided learning. The new system does require increased input from educators in terms of time and assignment preparation; however, Summit Public Schools, which serves New Jersey, is hosting a residency programme to train teachers in the skills that they need.
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http://uk.businessinsider.com/inside-summit-schools-personalized-learning-residency-2017-8?r=US&IR=T
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2017-09-06 17:06:17.387000
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Summit Public Schools is banking on personalized learning as the wave of the future. Summit Public Schools
Over the past few years, Bill Gates, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have all endorsed a teaching method known as "personalized learning."
It involves students guiding their own lessons with the help of technology, while teachers take on more of a coaching role if problems emerge. For its apparent benefits in getting kids up to speed in reading and math, advocates have claimed it could — and should — become the future of US education.
But personalized learning is so new, many teachers still need to learn how it works.
Starting this academic year, one of the largest school networks using personalized learning, Summit Public Schools, is hosting a residency program to address that skills gap. Across eight locations in California, 24 teachers will spend one year learning the skills to personalize students' education in the future.
"We are modeling teaching through the student learning experience," Adam Carter, Summit's Chief Academic Officer, told Business Insider. This year, approximately 330 schools serving thousands of students in 40 states will use the Summit Learning Program in some capacity, whether online or in-person.
Summit residents will learn how to teach personalized learning in the same way kids learn from it. Summit Public Schools
Four days a week, each resident teacher will be paired with a teacher in a Summit school. They'll spend the remaining school day working on their own. All the while, they'll learn about the strategies that makes personalized learning so appealing, according to leaders like Gates and Zuckerberg: Socratic discussions, small group workshops, and self-guided coursework.
The teachers will also convene in similar groups to learn about the style of teaching they'll be relying on. In that way, Summit hopes to generate a group of teachers that understand personalized learning inside and out because they, themselves, have learned through the method.
"Not only does this experience build expertise," Carter said, "but is also builds empathy for students."
By putting teachers in the same position as students, Summit expects them to develop greater empathy. Summit Public Schools
Summit doesn't expect personalized learning to become the default mode of instruction in all schools, Carter said. Rather, the network wants to continually adapt to what research says is most effective for helping kids learn, even if that means abandoning personalized learning. Those kinds of insights are determined by things like the needs of a given school and its surrounding community.
The current research seems to support Summit's model for now. A study published last year found that kids in 62 schools using personalized education scored higher on reading and math standardized compared to kids learning without personalized instruction. Many who were below-average scorers ended up above-average.
In other countries with successful education programs, the personalized model seems to be a deciding factor in success. Students in Finland and Peru, for example, receive personalized learning through cleverly designed classrooms and mobile devices that allow students to work at their own speed.
Residents in Summit's new program will ultimately earn a California Preliminary Teacher Credential from Summit Public Schools. Summit may also offer teachers a full-time job if they excel in their position.
"The real barriers to personalized learning have always been structural," Carter said. "What we’re trying to do is provide new structures that are more about students and less about how things have always been done. The desire is there. The know how is there and the systems are there. This is possible."
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Spending on adaptive learning tech triples to $41m since 2013
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Adaptive learning technology spending by US school districts has tripled to reach $41m since 2013, according to education tech provider Noodle Markets. Of those funds, 9% was spent on the professional development of teachers. Adaptive learning tech provides students with tailored content, increasing personalisation and helping with self-guided learning. The new system does require increased input from educators in terms of time and assignment preparation; however, Summit Public Schools, which serves New Jersey, is hosting a residency programme to train teachers in the skills that they need.
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http://www.educationdive.com/news/adaptive-learning-spending-balloons-to-41m-since-2013/504014/
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2017-09-06 17:06:17.387000
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Dive Brief:
A report from Noodle Markets shows school district spending on adaptive learning technology has tripled to $41 million since 2013, with 9% of those funds spent on teacher professional development, according to EdTech: Focus on K-12.
Adaptive learning tech uses algorithms and data to present students with content matched to their current progress, with the idea being that it simplifies personalized and self-paced learning for teachers.
Some schools have developed simplified workarounds to more specific adaptive tech, using Google Forms and Google Sheets to deliver content to students based on how they respond to questions, and success with adaptive tools has also required some schools and districts to strengthen and expand their infrastructure.
Dive Insight:
The last several years have seen a push to provide students with educational experiences personalized to fit their needs and current progress. And while doing so has long proven effective in some private school models, like the Montessori system, it's been much harder to scale to the often-larger class sizes found in many public schools.
That's where adaptive learning tech has stepped in, serving as a means of gathering data on students' progress and presenting them with harder content when they're ready to progress or reviewing content at their current level if they're not at that point yet. Used in combination with a flipped learning model, for example — where the student engages with pedagogical content that would traditionally be delivered in class and engages in discussion or completes assignments or projects during class time — it has the potential to deliver on that promise.
Notably, however, this can require some additional time commitment on the part of educators, as the model can require additional preparation and deeper assignments on top of the extra one-on-one time with students. As a result, administrators will want to keep in mind the potential for teacher burnout and how to address it when considering such a model.
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Dentists to poor people: Drop dead
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The perception of dental industry providers is negative and likely to continue being so with the antagonism to providing better access to oral care. Dentists make more money per capita than doctors but have steadfastly refused to become Medicare providers due to low reimbursement rates. The main issue at present is the opposition to dental hygienists and dental therapists being licensed by states to deliver prophylactic care to children, the elderly, and to the poor, as well as to underserviced areas across the US. These “mid-level” practitioners could alleviate the coverage crisis and provide remote areas with cost-effective access to care, but dental associations across the US have posed significant opposition to the move.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/09/04/dentists-poor-people-drop-dead/8HgFbCFW1XdFOi85WrUEDI/story.html?event=event25
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2017-09-06 16:46:01.300000
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The women and men who fix your teeth now make more money per capita than doctors . To preserve their high incomes, dentists have historically refused to participate in Medicare because of low reimbursements, and ditto for Medicaid. Now dentists are resolutely — some would say fanatically — opposing efforts to let dental hygienists and dental therapists deliver prophylactic care to children, the elderly, and to poor and underserved regions in America.
Dentists, who seem like perfectly nice people when you meet them at after-school events or at the grocery store, are carving out a bizarre public persona that is a mixture of Simon Legree, Snidely Whiplash, and Dr. Evil.
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The shocking outcome of dentists’ apparent indifference to the less fortunate came in 2007, when 12-year old Deamonte Driver died of an oral infection in Maryland’s affluent Prince George’s County. How unpleasant for the nation’s lawmakers to read the next day’s Washington Post headline: “For Want of a Dentist: Prince George’s Boy Dies After Bacteria from Tooth Spread to Brain.”
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Staff writer Mary Otto wrote that story, and later left the paper to research her just-published book “Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America.” It’s an ungainly title, and it’s a subject that probably feels as foreign to you as it does to me. I bet that most Globe readers brush regularly and make sure their children show up for dental appointments, terrifying though they may be.
Otto’s book is about the other one-third of the country: the uninsured elderly (Medicare doesn’t cover dental check-ups), the tens of millions of children underserved by Medicaid (two-thirds of dentists don’t accept Medicaid patients), and the residents of the 400-plus rural counties that have no dentist at all.
Some dentists and public health types have a solution for these problems: They want to license lower-paid hygienists and dental therapists, so-called “mid-level” practitioners, to deliver baseline care to the needy. Dental associations have been fighting against them tooth and claw, forever.
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Earlier this summer, The Washington Post compared the American Dental Association to the National Rifle Association in its relentless, single-issue attack on state legislators who support mid-level care. The ADA worked hard (and unsuccessfully) to scuttle a plan to let dental therapists treat Alaska Native tribes. “They went after these Alaskan therapists like they were ISIS,” dentist Jack Dillenberg told the Post. “It was embarrassing.”
A similar scenario is playing out in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Dental Society is opposing Senator Harriette Chandler’s Senate bill 1169, which seeks to allow dental therapists to treat patients under the “general supervision” of a dentist, after 500 hours of training. The MDS is promoting a more restrictive bill that imposes limits on where therapists can practice, and on how they can be reimbursed.
“The battle going on in Massachusetts mirrors the battle going on in other states across the country,” says Otto, who will be speaking at the Harvard Dental School on Sept. 12, the same day that Chandler’s bill is scheduled for a joint hearing on Beacon Hill.
Last month the Boston City Council urged the Legislature to pass the Chandler bill. “More than 530,000 people in Massachusetts live in areas with a shortage of dentists,” Jamaica Plain councilor Matt O’Malley said in an accompanying statement. “Boston residents deserve better, and these mid-level providers can help bring cost-effective dental care to children, seniors, and people with disabilities currently going without it.”
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Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.
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Facebook VR kits sent to all Arkansas public high schools
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Facebook will build on its partnership with the Arkansas Department of Education by offering virtual reality (VR) educational facilities to every Arkansas public high school. Facebook has already donated 400 virtual reality kits to around 250 schools. The kits include Oculus Rift headsets, controllers, computers and other necessary equipment for the proprietary programme. "Facebook’s generous donation will provide Arkansas’ students with an exciting learning platform that will allow them to have fun while sharpening their computer science skills and exploring STEM careers", said Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
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https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/09/01/all-arkansas-public-high-schools-to-receive-facebook-vr-kits.aspx
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2017-09-06 16:29:22.323000
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Virtual Reality
All Arkansas Public High Schools to Receive Facebook VR Kits
Facebook has decided to expand an existing partnership with the Arkansas Department of Education and now plans to bring virtual reality (VR) education to every public high school in the state.
The original Arkansas Facebook and Techstart Partnership was announced earlier this year and entailed donating 500 VR kits to about 250 schools, educational co-ops and STEM education centers. The classroom VR kits include an Oculus Rift, touch controller, 30 VR viewers and other equipment necessary to participate in the Techstart program — which combines virtual reality instruction, curriculum support and professional development for educators to give students access to high quality computer science and VR education.
The Oculus Rift. Image: Oculus.
According to a state department news release, around 400 kits were distributed to date. Now, the company will send a kit to all public high schools in Arkansas (totalling around 360 schools).
“We are appreciative to Facebook for its continued efforts to generate excitement for STEM fields in Arkansas high schools,” said Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. “Facebook’s generous donation will provide Arkansas’ students with an exciting learning platform that will allow them to have fun while sharpening their computer science skills and exploring STEM careers. Students who utilize this incredible platform will be well-positioned to succeed in our increasingly technology driven economy.”
The long-term vision of Facebook’s Techstart program is to address the employment gap currently facing the technology industry, or the estimated one million programming jobs that will be open by 2020.
To learn more, visit the program site.
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Cruise industry fails to deliver on cleaner ships
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German environmental group Nabu accused the cruise industry of reneging and "having contempt” for customer health and those living near ports, after ships failed to adequately reduce their environmental impact over the past year. In the group’s survey of 63 ships, none made the recommend list and Costa, MSC and Royal Carribbean and Cunard were all “failed”, as some mid-sized diesel ships continue to emit particulate matter equivalent to that of one million cars each day. Promised soot filters on 23 ships were still missing and only Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd and TUI took steps toward cleaner ships, installing nitrogen oxide catalysts.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/05/cruise-ships-showed-contempt-for-customers-by-breaking-clean-air-pledge-report-says
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2017-09-06 16:04:57.727000
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The world’s cruise ships have done virtually nothing to reduce their pollution over the past year, with some still emitting as much particulate matter as 1m cars a day, a report says.
The annual survey of 63 ships, conducted by the German environment group Nabu, refused to recommend a single one for adequately reducing its environmental impact in 2017.
It accused the industry of having “contempt” for the health of its customers, saying companies had reneged on promises to clean up their fleets.
“Last year the sector claimed 23 ships would be operating with soot filters,” said Nabu’s Dietmar Oeliger. “The truth is not a single filter is working at present.”
The report’s authors say a mid-size cruise ship’s diesel engine can use 150 tonnes of fuel each day, which would emit as much particulate as one million cars. In December, the Australian government passed a regulation forcing cruise ships in Sydney harbour to use low-sulphur fuel, after residents complained emissions were negatively affecting their health.
The New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency had earlier warned that docked cruise ships posed a health risk to those who lived near them.
“Many cruise ships emit high levels of fine particles and sulfur dioxide, both of which can be harmful to human health,” it said.
Nabu is calling on all cruise ships worldwide to ban their use of heavy fuel and to install particulate filters on all ships.
However, it said the German companies Hapag-Lloyd and TUI were the only ones to have taken any steps over the past year.
“Hapag-Lloyd and TUI share the top position due to the installation of nitrogen oxide catalysts, a small but important step towards cleaner ships,” the report said.
Industry leaders Costa, MSC and Royal Carribbean were all handed fail grades, along with the British-American company Cunard, which owns the Queen Mary 2.
The world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Carribbean’s Harmony of the Seas, which can carry 6,3000 passengers, came equal last.
“No company comes recommended in Nabu’s 2017 cruise ship rankings, which show just how little progress companies have made towards cutting pollution,” the group said in a statement.
“The cruise industry’s contempt for the health of its customers and port citizens is underlined by the fact that not one company responded to a simple Q&A supplied by Nabu.”
In March last year a London residents’ group said the pollution from cruise liners could prevent the city meeting its EU legal limits on noxious emissions.
The Brussels-based Transport and Environment group estimates pollution from international shipping caused “approximately 50,000 premature deaths per year in Europe”.
“Through chemical reactions in the air, SO2 and NOx is converted into fine particles, sulphate and nitrate aerosols,” it said. “Tiny airborne particles are linked to premature deaths. The particles get into the lungs and are small enough to pass through tissues and enter the blood.”
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Wind turbine capacity factors rose 12% since 1993
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The average capacity factors of onshore wind turbines grew from 25% in 1993 to 37% this year as a result of incremental design improvements, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Median capacity has also risen from 2 MW to 2.4 MW during the past seven years, as a result of the increasing size of the turbines, BNEF said.
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https://about.bnef.com/blog/better-turbines-boost-harvest-wind-farms/
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2017-09-06 14:00:46.947000
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This article first appeared on the BNEF mobile app and the Bloomberg Terminal.
Improving wind turbine performance delivers cheaper power
Average capacity factors now around 37%, up from 25% in 1993
Improving onshore wind capacity factors
Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
The cost of energy from onshore wind has been tumbling in recent years, in large part due to ever-improving wind turbine designs. Average capacity factors have increased from 25% in 1993 to 37% in 2017. Turbines are getting bigger too, with median capacity increasing from 2MW in 2010 to 2.4MW today. The chart shows this inexorable march, with each dot representing a wind project. Dot size indicates generating capacity and its position on the y-axis its capacity factor. Results were produced from over 2,000 runs of the BNEF Wind Capacity Factor Tool, recently re-published with 87 new turbine specifications.
Clients can access the full report and tool here.
BNEF Shorts are research excerpts available only on the BNEF mobile app and the Bloomberg Terminal, highlighting key findings from our reports. If you would like to learn more about our services, please contact us.
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H2O-based lithium-ion batteries reduce explosion risk
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A research team from the University of Maryland and the US Army Research Laboratory have created a lithium-ion battery that utilises water-salt electrolyte solution that can hit 4 volts without risk of explosion. Non-aqueous lithium-ion batteries provide high energy but runs the risk of compromising safety. The researchers used a gel polymer electrolyte coating for the graphite or lithium anodes in its batteries, allowing for slower reactions should damage occur, preventing issues such as fire and explosive reactions.
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https://phys.org/news/2017-09-water-based-lithium-ion-batteries-explosive-reality.html?utm_source=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu
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2017-09-06 13:47:41.437000
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Water-in-salt electrolyte. Credit: Jhi Scott, ARL Photographer
Researchers at the University of Maryland and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory have developed for the first time a lithium-ion battery that uses a water-salt solution as its electrolyte and reaches the 4.0 volt mark desired for household electronics, such as laptop computers, without the fire and explosive risks associated with some commercially available non-aqueous lithium-ion batteries. Their work appears September 6 in Joule.
"In the past, if you wanted high energy, you would choose a non-aqueous lithium-ion battery, but you would have to compromise on safety. If you preferred safety, you could use an aqueous battery such as nickel/metal hydride, but you would have to settle for lower energy," says co-senior author Kang Xu, a lab fellow at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory specializing in electrochemistry and materials science. "Now, we are showing that you can simultaneously have access to both high energy and high safety."
The research follows a 2015 study in Science that produced a similar 3.0 volt battery with an aqueous electrolyte but was stymied from achieving higher voltages by the so-called "cathodic challenge," in which one end of the battery, made from either graphite or lithium metal, is degraded by the aqueous electrolyte. To solve this problem and make the leap from three volts to four, the first author, University of Maryland assistant research scientist Chongyin Yang, designed a new gel polymer electrolyte coating that can be applied to the graphite or lithium anode. The video shows how an interphase precursor water in salt GPE demonstrates extremely low reactivity with lithium metal. Credit: Yang et al.
This hydrophobic coating expels water molecules from the vicinity of the electrode surface and then, upon charging for the first time, decomposes and forms a stable interphase—a thin mixture of breakdown products that separates the solid anode from the liquid electrolyte. This interphase, inspired by a layer generated within non-aqueous batteries, protects the anode from debilitating side reactions, allowing the battery to use desirable anode materials, such as graphite or lithium metal, and achieve better energy density and cycling ability.
"The key innovation here is making the right gel that can block water contact with the anode so that the water doesn't decompose and can also form the right interphase to support high battery performance," says co-senior author Chunsheng Wang, Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering.
Water-in-salt gel electrolyte. Credit: Jhi Scott, ARL Photographer
The addition of the gel coating also boosts the safety advantages of the new battery when compared to standard non-aqueous lithium-ion batteries and boosts the energy density when compared to any other proposed aqueous lithium-ion batteries. All aqueous lithium-ion batteries benefit from the inflammability of water-based electrolytes as opposed to the highly flammable organic solvents used in their non-aqueous counterparts. Unique to this one, however, is that even when the interphase layer is damaged (if the battery casing were punctured, for instance), it reacts slowly with the lithium or lithiated graphite anode, preventing the smoking, fire, or explosion that could otherwise occur if a damaged battery brought the metal into direct contact with the electrolyte. This video shows how when punctured repeatedly with a nail, a four-volt aqueous lithium-ion battery initially maintains its voltage, and no fire, smoke, or explosion occurs. This contrasts with the instantaneous short-circuit and explosive risk of an analogous non-aqueous battery. Credit: Yang et al.
Though the power and energy density of the new battery are suitable for commercial applications currently served by more hazardous non-aqueous batteries, certain improvements would make it even more competitive. In particular, the researchers would like to increase the number of full-performance cycles that the battery can complete and to reduce material expenses where possible. "Right now, we are talking about 50-100 cycles, but to compare with organic electrolyte batteries, we want to get to 500 or more," Wang says.
The researchers also note that the electrochemical manipulations behind the jump to four volts have importance within battery technology and beyond. "This is the first time that we are able to stabilize really reactive anodes like graphite and lithium in aqueous media," says Xu. "This opens a broad window into many different topics in electrochemistry, including sodium-ion batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, multiple ion chemistries involving zinc and magnesium, or even electroplating and electrochemical synthesis; we just have not fully explored them yet."
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Ruling on UK code breach sees Asda paying back suppliers
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Walmart-owned Asda is to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds back to suppliers, after breaching the grocery supply code of practice that governs fair dealing. UK industry regulator, the Groceries Code Adjudicator, found Adsa charged disproportionate upfront fees, not necessarily those agreed in supplier contracts, and ousted some suppliers at short notice if they refused to oblige. It also made last-minute demands for cuts in cost prices on the back of its project renewal plan designed to cut costs, which it developed with consultancy firm Bain & Company. The grocer avoided both a fine and any formal investigation.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/05/asda-forced-to-reimburse-suppliers-after-breaching-fair-dealing-code
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2017-09-06 12:01:26.307000
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Asda has been forced to pay back hundreds of thousands of pounds to dozens of suppliers after breaching an industry code governing fair dealing.
The company, named as the worst supermarket in its treatment of suppliers earlier this year, was found to have demanded up front payments worth up to a quarter of the value of annual sales of particular products in order for suppliers to retain their place on the shelf.
Some of those who refused to make these payments, which were greater than those agreed in suppliers’ contracts, were given notice that they would be ousted within as little as four to eight weeks, according to the industry watchdog.
Other changes including cost price reductions were also demanded from suppliers with as little as 24 hours notice under the group’s project renewal plan, designed in partnership with the Bain & Company consultancy to save costs and help cut prices for shoppers.
The demands, reported by the Guardian last year, were in breach of the grocery supply code of practice – government-backed regulations that can attract a fine of up to 1% of UK turnover.
In a “code clarification” document published this week, the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), said it had not decided to launch a formal investigation into Asda’s behaviour or issue a fine.
However the regulator, which oversees a government-backed industry code of practice, said a review had found that the Walmart-owned chain had breached “the overarching principle of fair dealing” in the code with conversations “designed to carry an implication of detriment if any supplier declined to agree” to its demands.
The watchdog said there was no need to launch an investigation. Asda had “proactively engaged with suppliers to rectify any lump sum arrangements, which should not have been made” and put further safeguards in place to prevent any further breaches.
The GCA report added that the project renewal strategy had been designed by a consultancy commissioned by Asda to achieve cost savings, and it was clear that “the role of the third party consultants was closely bound up with the issues raised”, as they had been able to achieve bonuses based on the amount of money they were able to save Asda.
The supermarket said project renewal, launched in late 2015 under former chief executive Andy Clarke, had been Asda-led with support from Bain.
Asda’s current chief executive, Sean Clarke, said: “Our mission is to save customers money through low prices by always securing the lowest possible costs built on a foundation of strong, trusted partnerships with our suppliers and absolutely in line with the groceries supply code of practice (Gscop).
“The matter raised in the GCA’s case study occurred over a year ago and since then we have significantly strengthened our Gscop compliance programme. We have engaged openly and transparently with the GCA to support her enquiries in keeping with her collaborative approach.”
Bain said in a statement: “As per our company policy, we do not speak publicly about who may or may not be our client.”
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Sizmek completes takeover of Rocket Fuel
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Texas-based firm Sizmek has completed its acquisition of adtech company Rocket Fuel, according to newly-named CEO Mark Grether. The deal, first announced in July, was subject to investigation over whether it offered shareholders value for money. The integrated company now boasts 20,000 advertisers across 3,600 agencies in more than 70 countries, and will see Rocket Fuel chief Randy Wootton appointed as special advisor.
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http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/09/06/sizmek-closes-rocket-fuel-takeover-with-mark-grether-named-ceo
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2017-09-06 12:01:20.840000
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Sizmek’s proposed takeover of Rocket Fuel has been given the all-clear following the closure of the publicly-listed adtech outfit’s opportunity to seek alternative offers, with Mark Grether named chief executive officer.
The merger deal appears to have cleared recent legal objections from parties questioning the value it delivers to shareholders / SIzmek
In a statement announcing the closure of the deal Grether, claimed the renewed focus of the pair would see it combine data enablement, creative optimization and media execution.
“Sizmek’s unique ability to centralize data components in one place, across the entirety of the media plan, combined with Rocket Fuel’s AI-enabled decisioning provides our clients with robust data on the campaign, the consumer, the context, the creative, and the cost,” he added.
Prior to taking the reins at Sizmek, Grether served as its executive chairman after being appointed to the role in February, he was formerly one of the cofounders of WPP’s adtech hub Xaxis, holding the role of chief operating officer while there.
As Grether steps into the new role of president and chief executive officer of Sizmek, Rocket Fuel’s chief Randy Wootton will assume the role special advisor working with both sets of teams throughout the transition period.
The proposed takeover was initially announced in July, and approved by Rocket Fuel's board of director, with the consideration period (a stipulation in the deal) initially slated to close by the end of August, although this was later extended until September 5.
The terms of the deal initially prompted an investigation by law firm Levi & Korsinsky as to whether such a transaction (which saw Vector Capital-backed Sizmek offer $2.60 per share for Rocket Fuel and valued the company at $145m) delivered value for shareholders, although this objection appears to have been resolved.
Needham & Company, LLC served as financial advisor to Rocket Fuel during the process, with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation as its legal advisor during the process. Meanwhile, Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as Sizmek’s legal advisor.
At the time of the initial announcement, the two companies stated: "The proposed combination with Sizmek brings Rocket Fuel's media optimization and industry leading AI-enabled decisioning to Sizmek's omni-channel creative optimization and data activation platform, marking the next logical step in marketing automation."
With over 20,000 advertisers across 3,600 agencies, in over 70 countries, the combined entity will hope to pose as a preferred alternative to the established market leaders – a prospect that has been welcomed among some media buyers.
Commenting on the closure of the deal, Erica Schmidt, Cadreon, managing director, North America, and executive vice president, said: “We are constantly prospecting new ways to reach and impact key audiences.
“The integration of Sizmek and Rocket Fuel will create enhanced product offerings and enable us to truly optimize campaign performance.”
Rocket Fuel was one of the early adtech outfits to trade publicly, listing on the Nasdaq in 2013, and at its heights was valued at $2bn. Although it soon ran into troubles after being embroiled in a high profile ‘bot fraud’ media scandal, which negatively affected its share price, a blow it found difficult to recover from, as indicated by its axing of 11% of its headcount at the start of the year.
This was further negatively impacted with Wall Street investors' dulled enthusiasm for adtech stock, which also enhanced difficulties with such adtech outfits reducing their reliance on I/O-based revenue.
Sizmek, which was formerly listed on the Nasdaq, was itself purchased for $122m by Vector Capital a little over a year ago, in what was one of the early moves in a relatively recent trend of private equity players making moves in the ongoing mergers and acquisitions in adtech.
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Machine learning used to combat pipeline leaks
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Researchers from the Intelligent Systems Division of the Southwest Research Institute have trained artificial intelligence systems to recognise liquids involved in pipeline leaks. Using thermal and optical sensors, the Smart Leak Detection System (SLED) applies algorithms to detect and predict issues. The system can be used without human intervention, and can be fitted to pumping station platforms and drones, avoiding high-risk human monitoring.
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http://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/energy/machine-learning-applies-pipeline-leaks
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2017-09-06 11:42:52.950000
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The Keystone pipeline that would move crude oil from Canada through the U.S. to a refinery in Texas has been controversial, but it would only be a fraction of the more than two million miles of pipelines moving oil and gas around the country. Many existing and proposed pipelines spark the same concerns from people as Keystone: the potential for leaks, especially those that go undetected for long periods of time.
Existing detection systems mostly spot large problems, often visually by inspectors walking or flying over a pipeline. Internal systems commonly used in the oil and gas industry rely on computational pipeline modeling, which searches for anomalies in flow and pressure. That works well for large leaks, but falls short in finding smaller ones, of up to one percent of pipeline flow, says Maria Araujo, a manager in the Intelligent Systems Division of the Southwest Research Institute.
Even such a small percentage adds up quickly. She notes that one percent of the flow of the Keystone pipeline is in the neighborhood of 8,000 gallons per day. To improve the efficiency of detection systems, Araujo leads a team taking the technology to the next level using sensors, artificial intelligence, and deep learning. She came to the problem of leak detection while working with machine learning for autonomously driven vehicles.
Sensors, cameras and hardware can be fitted to drones for inspection flyovers. Image: Southwest Research Institute
“We’re not adapting technology,” she says. “We’re using existing technology as building blocks. The problem is very different. With cars, you’re looking for objects. Here, you look for liquids. Gasoline and diesel are transparent to the human eye. How do you differentiate between substances?”
Actually, the system looks for a variety of liquids. To begin tackling the challenge, the SWRI team tested four optical sensors: thermal, optical, hyperspectral and short wave infrared. They eliminated hyperspectral and short wave infrared, keeping off-the-shelf thermal and optical systems.
There’s nothing unusual about using sensors for detecting leaks, but Araujo wanted to improve accuracy. So the SWRI team set out to adapt machine learning techniques, ultimately producing a multiplatform dubbed SLED, Smart Leak Detection System, that uses new algorithms to process images and identify, confirm or reject potential problems. Using feature extraction and classifier training methods, they taught computers to identify unique features across a wide range of environmental conditions.
“These algorithms thrive on lots of data,” says Araujo. The team produced and collected thousands of images of data such as gasoline, diesel fuel, mineral oil, crude oil and water on various surfaces, including grass, gravel, dirt and hard surfaces such as concrete. The images were shot from numerous angles and under varying conditions from full sunlight to clouds and darkness. “It’s hard to operate under different environmental conditions,” she adds. “We found if you train [the system] under certain conditions, it gets tripped up in others, especially shading. Being able to work under shading and different temperatures was a big challenge in modifying algorithms.”
The ability of the system to provide a reliable fingerprint of small leaks as well as identify non-leak situations greatly increases its accuracy. That’s important because one of the biggest problems in the industry is a false alarm, says Araujo. Pipelines wind their way across long and often remote or underground rights of way. Sending work crews to remote areas and shutting a pipeline down costs a significant amount of money, and operators can dismiss alarms if there were previous false alerts, she says.
SWRI further upgraded the system using deep-learning techniques. The team developed a deep convolutional neural network to process the tremendous amount of data to identify the hazardous liquids. Such techniques have been impractical in most cases, but advances and improvements in multi-core processing hardware are making it more common, say researchers. The final product is a fully autonomous system that can be used without human oversight, says Araujo.
It can be fitted to pumping station platforms along pipeline routes, often a high-risk location because of the number of valves and equipment that can break. The SWRI team also has installed and successfully tested the system on drones that can fly over long reaches of a pipeline.
“We simulated pipeline leaks with a high degree of replication to the real world,” she says. The work was done at SWRI’s Forth Worth, TX, campus, using existing piping and systems. The initial goal was to identify the difference between water and hazardous liquids, but it exceeded expectations by differentiating between gasoline, crude oil, mineral oil and diesel, as well as water.
Araujo now is working to adapt the technology to detect pipeline methane leaks in a program with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. The team is using infrared cameras to detect the spectral response of the gas. The deep-learning algorithm also must be reworked, a task she says is much more than an adaptation.
“This is a very significant ‘tweak’,” she says. “Now you are trying to detect a plume, something that shifts with the wind. It is a different problem.”
The goal is to produce an automated small-scale gaseous leak-detection system along the entire natural gas supply chain, including extraction, storage, distribution and transportation.
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Help-to-buy scheme pushes Redrow Homes profits to record high
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Redrow Homes CEO Steve Morgan has called for the government's Help to Buy scheme to be extended beyond 2021 and revealed two in every five private house sales come via the scheme. The housebuilding firm has sold 5,882 homes through Help to Buy so far in 2017 and Redrow's profits rose by more than a quarter to a record £315m ($414m). Critics argue the scheme has done little to ease the housing crisis. "Look at the share prices, look at the profits. Developers have clearly done very well," said Duncan Stott, director of campaign group Priced Out.
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http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-4855152/Redrow-boss-gets-50m-payday.html
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2017-09-06 10:53:44.977000
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Windfall: Steve Morgan, pictured with third wife Sally Toumi
The boss of one of Britain's biggest housebuilders was nearly £50million richer last night as the company cashed in from Help to Buy.
Posting a 26 per cent rise in profits to a record £315million, Redrow chairman Steve Morgan revealed two in five private house sales now come through the Government's mortgage scheme.
The bumper figures sent shares in the company up 4.4 per cent – adding £29million to the value of the 29 per cent stake held by Morgan (pictured, right, with third wife Sally Toumi, 48).
The 64-year-old, who set up Redrow in 1974 and is one of Britain's richest developers, was also promised a dividend payment of £18.3million, taking his gains for the day to £47.3million.
With Help to Buy making up around 40 per cent of sales at Redrow, Morgan called for it to be extended beyond its current deadline of 2021.
'Help to Buy has boosted housing supply and we look forward to working with the Government to consider the future of the scheme beyond 2021,' he said. 'We certainly hope that it doesn't go away.'
But critics said the scheme, through which the Government ploughs taxpayers' money into the housing market, has done little to solve the chronic shortage of homes.
Instead, they argue, it has driven up property prices and lined the pockets of developers.
'Help to Buy is boosting the sales prices of houses that probably would have been built anyway,' said Duncan Stott, director of campaign group Priced Out.
'Look at the share prices, look at the profits. Developers have clearly done very well from the scheme.'
Help to Buy was launched in early 2013 to boost housebuilding in the wake of the financial crisis.
Under the scheme, families can buy new homes worth up to £600,000 with deposits of 5 per cent, with the Government providing a loan of 20 per cent interest-free for five years.
Redrow has sold 5,882 homes through Help to Buy, including a record 1,882 last year when revenues rose 20 per cent to £1.7billion.
Redrow proposed a dividend of 17p a share and the stock rose 27p to an all-time high of 647p, making Morgan's stake worth £695million.
The company is now targeting revenues of £2.2billion in 2020, profits of £430million, and a dividend of 32p a share – enough to earn Morgan more than £34million if his stake remains the same.
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German election forces Merkel to confront smog problem
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As the German elections edge closer, Angela Merkel is facing increasing pressure to deal with the toxic smog problems seen in over 90 cities across the country. Merkel could have to push for a court-enforced diesel ban if she fails to deal with the smog. This could have major repercussions from millions of drivers as there are roughly 15 million diesel cars in Germany. Speaking to the Bundestag this week, Merkel reassured motorists that the government is doing "everything in our powers to make sure there won't be such bans".
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/05/angela-merkel-under-pressure-tackle-toxic-smog-air-pollution-german-election-nears
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2017-09-06 10:36:09.740000
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With less than three weeks until the German elections, pressure is mounting on Angela Merkel to tackle the deadly smog in a large number of cities or face a court-enforced diesel ban and backlash from millions of motorists faced with plummeting resale values.
More than 90 cities with excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution could potentially outlaw diesel cars from their centres when the country’s federal administrative court rules early next year.
Addressing the Bundestag for the final time in the parliamentary term on Tuesday morning, the chancellor tried to reassure the owners of Germany’s approximately 15m diesel cars by promising to do “everything in our powers to make sure there won’t be such bans”.
The chancellor, who on Monday had also doubled the funds set aside to help cities improve air quality by a further €500m (£460m), said her party would pursue alternatives. “We Christian Democrats don’t work with bans but try to allow a reasonable transition,” she told the chamber.
Despite the potential scale of the damage to the German car industry, the diesel scandal had until this week played a relatively minor role in the election campaign.
Merkel at an election campaign rally in Heidelberg on Tuesday. Photograph: AFP/Getty
But amid looming judicial threats to ban cars from the most polluted city centres, such as Munich and Stuttgart, the government has been forced to demonstrate that it is taking concrete actions to avert a public relations disaster.
But legal experts warned the chancellor will probably be forced into an embarrassing U-turn if, as expected, she is re-elected on 24 September.
“The court cases are already in motion, and Merkel won’t be able to extricate herself from the process unless she takes drastic action,” said lawyer Remo Klinger, who is working with environmental group DUH to introduce the diesel ban.
“Germany only has two options: a hardware update to make sure that diesel cars are fitted with functioning filters, or an outright ban,” he told the Guardian. “All other proposals are not worth taking seriously.”
In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine over the weekend, Merkel ruled out a hardware update, arguing that it would “minimise the car industry’s financial scope for investing in modern technology”.
Green party co-leader Cem Özdemir accused Merkel of “shedding crocodile tears for German carmakers”, saying “it is your own inaction that is about to introduce a diesel ban by force”.
The Greens are pushing for a system of “blue plaques” for diesel cars with engines that meet EU emissions limits, which would amount to a ban on an estimated 30-40% of cars that do not. It could allow exceptions for workers who rely on diesel engines for their business.
Environmental experts have also criticised Merkel for stating that the air pollution affecting a large number of German cities is only indirectly linked to the emission-cheating software installed by companies which displayed false nitrogen dioxide levels.
Quick Guide Germany and the car industry Show Size and reach Germany often feels like a country set up to serve the car industry. Movers and shakers transfer smoothly between top government posts and car company boards while no fewer than one in seven jobs - around 800,000 - are dependent on the industry. Politicians Angela Merkel is often referred to as the Autokanzlerin - or car chancellor - for her efforts to protect the industry. Others are more closely linked: the governor of Lower Saxony, where Volkswagen is based, is a guaranteed board member. Her predecessor as chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was both. VW also allows Lower Saxony to hold 20% of its shares. Government and industry Former VW board members in politics include Sigmar Gabriel, the foreign minister, and Christian Wulff, the former president. The traffic goes the other way: when Eckart von Klaeden, a senior member of Merkel’s office, left to become Daimler’s chief lobbyist for Daimler, the move was so swift it prompted an investigation by Berlin prosecutors. In one illustration of the close linksStephan Weil, the current Lower Saxony governor, last month admitted sending a 2015 speech on the diesel emissions scandal to VW, on whose board he sits. He said he submitted it for fact checking but denied softening at the company’s request. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.
Merkel was accused of playing down the emissions scandal by saying that cities would still suffer from excessive pollution levels, even if the cars were not producing such high amounts of poisonous gas.
“Even if these cars pumped out emissions at approved levels, even if this break down of trust hadn’t taken place, we would still have the environmental problems we have,” Merkel said on Sunday during her televised duel against her Social Democrat rival, Martin Schulz.
During the debate, Merkel said she was “really angry” with the car industry, describing the scandal as “quite a shambles” – but experts accused her of trying to lessen the blame on the car industry.
“I have hardly ever heard such nonsense,” Axel Friedrich, an emissions expert at German Environment Aid, who previously worked for the government. He said Merkel was “out of touch” with the situation on German roads, saying he had tested cars that were pumping out up to 18 times the legal limit of nitrogen dioxide.
Friedrich told the Süddeutsche Zeitung he was convinced air pollution levels would fall by more than 60% to acceptable levels if action was taken. “Seventy per cent of air pollution problems in cities are down to diesel emissions,” he said.
The EU allows a maximum of 40 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic metre. In Stuttgart and Munich the figure is at least double that and in a further 51 cities the levels are above 40.
Merkel’s pledge to set up the sustainability fund to allow local authorities to take measures to reduce diesel-related air pollution is her most decisive move so far. With immediate effect she has announced the establishment of a coordination team of government ministries, states and municipalities to advise on projects that can be put in place.
Warning sign for particulate pollution on a busy road in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. Photograph: Getty/Westend61
But environmental groups and a number of mayors have been quick to criticise the plans as too little, too late and, apart from the sustainability fund, too vague.
Fritz Kuhn, mayor of Stuttgart, the worst-affected German city with emission levels double the limit set by the EU, said the industry – which had been due to contribute €250m to the fund – should be obliged to work with municipalities to solve the problems.
He said his city was keen to purchase electric buses “but, on the part of the car industry, no one has given us any offers”, he said. His only option was to refit old buses instead, he said.
Mayors have pinpointed buses as a big polluter. Though they make up only 1% of vehicles on the roads, they produce 20% of emissions.
The diesel car market has fallen significantly since the emission scandal erupted, and has been further affected by the threat of driving bans in cities.
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Scotland to introduce can and bottle recycling scheme
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The Scottish government plans to introduce a scheme for returning bottles and cans to shops to be recycled. Under the scheme, customers will pay a surcharge when purchasing bottles or cans, which will be refunded when they are returned to a shop. The Scottish government has been consulting waste management non-profit Zero Waste Scotland on how the scheme could be introduced. A total 79% of the Scottish public are in favour of the scheme, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/05/scotland-planning-deposit-return-scheme-for-bottles-and-cans
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2017-09-06 10:35:08.760000
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The Scottish government is planning to introduce a deposit return scheme for bottles and cans.
Customers would pay a surcharge when purchasing bottles or cans under the programme, which will be refunded when they return them to a shop.
The Scottish government has been consulting Zero Waste Scotland on the design of the deposit return scheme, which the organisation estimates could save local authorities between £3m and £6m on litter clearance alone.
Zero Waste Scotland reviewed schemes in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as part of the consultation.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We have already confirmed that we are looking at new ways to ensure we keep as many valuable materials in circulation for as long as possible and deposit return is one of those options. We have asked Zero Waste Scotland to model a deposit return system to help us assess impacts and benefits.”
Zero Waste Scotland received 63 responses in its call for evidence on deposit return scheme design, including those from Coca-Cola, major supermarkets and Scottish environment groups.
An opinion poll conducted by the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland revealed that 78% of the Scottish publish are in favour of the scheme, but some major drinks companies disagree.
AG Barr, the maker of Irn Bru, warned that “the cost to the consumer would be in the region of £150m extra per year” in its submission.
It added: “The scope for fraud in a Scottish DRS is huge. On a small scale we could see people scavenging in bins for containers, as is the US experience. On a medium scale there is the potential for local authority amenity centre looting. And on a larger scale there is the very real possibility of cross-border trafficking of deposit-bearing containers. It costs around £400 to move a lorry load of cans from England to Scotland. A single lorry could carry 160,000 crushed cans or £32,000 worth of deposits.”
AG Barr put an end to its own 30p deposit return scheme for glass bottles in August 2015, which had been in operation for more than 100 years.
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Indian edtech NEST Education gains $600,000 in funding
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Indian edtech firm NEST Education has raised $600,000 in additional funding to increase the number of learning centres it provides to underprivileged children in the country. The funding comes from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group. NEST currently runs three "Alphabyte" learning centres in Gurugram and Delhi, which use technology to deliver customised learning modules covering engineering, the English language, and pre-school teaching skills. The funding will help NEST open additional centres and reach its goal of educating 10,000 students by 2022.
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https://inc42.com/buzz/edtech-nest-education-funding-msdf/
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2017-09-06 10:32:18.043000
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The Michael And Susan Dell Foundation And Anand Mahindra Have Made A Follow-on Investment In NEST Education
Edtech company, NEST Education (Naandi Education And Support Training) has raised $600K in follow-on funding from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra, Chairman and MD of the Mahindra Group.
NEST Education has deployed Alphabyte – The Learning Centre, which are high-quality learning centres for less privileged children. According to an official statement, Alphabyte aims to significantly raise education quality across urban India. With this round of funding, NEST Education aims to grow its outreach to a larger number of students and achieve its goal of educating 10,000 students by FY 2022.
Commenting on the funding, Debasish Mitter, India Country Director, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation said, “NEST, through its blended learning model, is delivering best-in-class education content and solution to underserved students and preparing them to succeed in modern India. We find the ability of NEST to aggregate content from around the world and to deliver multiple products through their centres very appealing.”
NEST Education: Using Technology Physically To Upskill The Underprivileged
Rahul Ranjan is the founder and CEO of Gurugram-based Naandi Education and Support Training, NEST. The core leadership consists of Richa Hans who handles the academic development side and Harjot Bains who handles business ops.
NEST’s Alphabyte uses technology to fast-track the learning of every student through customised learning modules that are curated from the best knowledge providers. They have programs catering to IIT-JEE modules, English learning to become job smart, a training programme to teach pre-school internationally and ‘Genius learning.’
NEST Education is currently operational in three learning centres, two in Gurugram and one in Delhi. As per the website, the company counts entities such as ConveGenius (another startup backed by The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation) and Avanti as their learning partners.
“We at NEST work towards building an empowered society by creating learning opportunities for different teaching-learning age groups, leveraging best possible EdTech solutions globally. Continued support from our investors and their understanding of social challenges are definitely vital to our motivation and adds value to our operations,” said Rahul Ranjan, founder and CEO.
Queries sent to NEST Education awaited reply at the time of publication.
The Michael And Susan Dell Foundation And Edtech Funding Connect
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has recently expressed an interest in setting up an incubator for startups who are serving the underprivileged and underserved segments of India. Since 2006, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has invested more than $172 Mn (INR 1,100 Cr) in non-profit and social enterprises in India. In May 2016, Foundation earmarked an additional $50 Mn (about INR 333 Cr) towards investments in the country over the next three years.
The foundation has previously backed ConveGenius, an edutainment startup.
Edtech in India has been a relatively slumbering market as compared to fintech and other tech verticals. But, according to the ASER 2016 report, the market for K12 education is significantly higher, with 250 Mn students across 1.4 Mn schools. The next best viable market is vocational training, states a Unitus Seed Fund report on edtech with 16% entrepreneurs preferring the space.
The report states, “As of 2013, a dismal 7 per cent of India’s working population had received some sort of vocational training. Fortunately, the Government of India has acknowledged the need to address this issue, and has set itself on an ambitious target to up skill 500 million Indians by 2022 through the National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship 2015.”
While most investors are averse to taking risks in the vocational training space, with investors such as the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Anand Mahindra, companies such as NEST can hope to take on the mammoth task of skilling/upskilling India’s underprivileged population. As of now, NEST competes with heavily funded startups such as BYJU’s, Toppr, Coursera who have a significant online presence and hope to take a share of the edtech market that has a potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from where it stands now i.e. $247 Mn.
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How I Keep the Topic of Aging Fresh
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In 2009, when I took over as primary writer of a New York Times blog called The New Old Age, I figured I could probably keep it going for three years or so. Then, I’d run out of things to say about aging and caregiving.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/insider/new-old-age-column.html
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2017-09-06 09:59:41.313000
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Started in 2008 by the former Times reporter Jane Gross, The New Old Age has covered a slew of topics: various kinds of senior care facilities; health decisions from vaccinations (elders don’t get enough) to colonoscopies (elders get too many); and whether it makes sense to move into the same retirement community as your mother.
We look at broader social trends, like why older adults are getting arrested and shacking up more often, and why they’re not seeing dentists often enough.
Of course, aging ends only one way. So we also talk a lot about advance directives, hospice and other kinds of end-of-life care, and the slowly growing number of states with aid-in-dying laws.
Readers chime in via the comments section, sometimes in droves. Though we expected to hear mostly from caregivers, elders themselves — increasingly online — weigh in, too.
Column ideas come from all over. I read medical and gerontology journals and field suggestions from geriatricians and researchers. My physical therapist told me about an anti-vertigo maneuver. I hear directly from elders and caregivers via Facebook and Twitter. And I sometimes wrote about my father and his transitions, until his death in 2012.
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Karen Clarke devises hurricane claims risk model for insurers
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Specialist catastrophe risk insurer Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has created a system that allows insurers to track potential claims from hurricanes in real-time. The risk model, branded as RiskInsight-lite, is a slimmed-down version of the company's existing catastrophe-modelling platform, and will be operational in time for the approaching Hurricane Irma, which threatens the Caribbean and southeastern United States. It enables clients to build their own scientific models to predict the potential impact of an approaching hurricane, allowing decisions to be taken on buying additional insurance, and mobilising claims teams.
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http://www.artemis.bm/blog/2017/09/05/live-cat-hurricane-risk-model-launched-by-karen-clark-co/
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2017-09-06 09:58:14.367000
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Catastrophe risk modelling specialist Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has launched a new product designed to allow re/insurers to track potential claims and losses from hurricanes in real-time, while allowing them to analyse key exposure metrics.
The live cat (live catastrophe) risk model will help insurance or reinsurance companies and also ILS funds or ILS investors to better understand the potential impacts of approaching hurricanes and developing tropical storm catastrophes.
The new product is being called RiskInsight®-lite, and is essentially a slimmed down version of the KCC RiskInsight catastrophe risk modelling platform, designed to help re/insurers better analyse hurricane exposures in real-time.
As well as providing insights into potential claims and losses from hurricanes in real-time, the RiskInsight-lite platform will also offer re/insurers or ILS users a way to estimate their Exceedence Probability (EP) curves, including probable maximum losses (PMLs) and average annual losses (AALs) at location-level resolution.
KCC said that this product can be made available to users immediately and in time for the approaching major hurricane Irma, which is threatening the Caribbean and U.S. and has recently strengthened into a category 5 storm.
“RiskInsight is an advanced open loss modeling platform that our clients use to build their own scientific models and to customize the Reference Model components such as the damage functions to accurately reflect their actual claims experience,” commented Karen Clark, KCC CEO. “However, some companies haven’t yet licensed RiskInsight because they don’t believe they have the sophistication and/or the resources to fully leverage this powerful new modeling platform. With that in mind, we created RiskInsight-lite to provide only the capabilities of the other cat models plus RiskInsight’s unique real time event tracking capabilities.”
“KCC clients have been pleased and impressed with RiskInsight’s ability to provide accurate real time estimates of how many claims they’re likely to experience and average claim severity by location,” added Christopher Mossey, KCC Vice President of Client Development. “Boards and senior executives expect their modeling experts to quickly provide reliable information, so we’re very pleased to offer RiskInsight’s real time capability to more companies as this highly active hurricane season progresses.”
Having a way to view the potential impact from an approaching hurricane to their underwriting portfolios as early as possible is vital to reinsurance and ILS fund interests.
It can enable decisions to be taken on buying additional protection, such as live cat ILW’s or other products that can hedge a major hurricane impact.
Such insight on approaching storms can also help ILS investors to make trading decisions regarding which catastrophe bonds are most at risk and which they should attempt to sell on the secondary market.
Having access to robust storm analytics can also help re/insurers to make financial decisions, mobilise claims teams and better protect and inform their clients.
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Research secrets stolen from UK universities by cyber gangs
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British universities are being successfully targeted by hackers, leading to hundreds of data breaches each year. Freedom of Information requests show cybersecurity failures at several major institutions, including Oxford, have doubled in the past two years. Research into energy and military technologies have been high-priority targets. Hackers are also thought to have sought medical records at university hospitals. Experts say most universities have poor defences, which urgently need tightening, as they enable many attacks to go undetected.
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http://www.information-age.com/university-cyber-security-breaches-leak-military-secrets-123468364/
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2017-09-06 09:56:37.633000
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This morning The Times detailed how cyber security breaches at university institutions including Oxford, Warwick and University College London have doubled in the past two years to 1,152 in 2016-17, with cyber criminals targeting scientific, engineering and medical activities; including research into missiles, according to data released after a range of freedom of information requests.
To what end? Experts fear that this increased targeting of universities and the resulting access to sensitive data, like military and medical research, is being sold to foreign powers.
While successful attacks have doubled, thousands more have been thwarted, with one university receiving between 1,000 and 10,000 attempted attacks each month, according to the report in The Times.
>See also: Don’t play the data breach blame game
Data from the FOI requests found that the University of Oxford had experienced 515 cases of unauthorised access to accounts last year, while UCL faced 57 cyber attacks in 2016-17.
Paul Cant, VP EMEA at BMC Software, commenting on this, says: “With the number of cyber attacks on our universities known to have nearly doubled in the past two years, and, in this case, the data that some of them harbour being of critical importance to our national security, watertight digital defences are more essential than ever.”
The targeted files range in subjects, from medical record to military designs for ‘stealth fabrics’, which are thought to help ‘disguise’ military weapons and vehicles.
Carsten Maple, head of computing and director of cyber security at Warwick University, said hackers were targeting intellectual property that had been in development for years.
“If someone can get that very quickly, that’s good for them,’ Maple said. “Certainly somebody might attack a university and then provide that information to a nation state.”
>See also: Swedish Government’s major data leak: lessons for the enterprise
Maple also said he was concerned with the lack of secure defences concerning cyber-physical attacks, which target areas like hospital heating systems.
Henry Seddon, VP EMEA, Duo Security warns that “the challenge is that phishing attacks are increasingly sophisticated – a targeted spear phishing attack can be particularly difficult to spot – but they can ultimately compromise the security of the entire network. They open the doors to hackers, with stolen credentials, to access an organisation’s system virtually undetected, posing as an authorised user. Worryingly, phishing is now the most popular way of delivering ransomware onto an organisation’s network.”
Indeed, these more sophisticated attacks are a growing trend, with the GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre revealing earlier this year that Britain had faced 188 high-level security attacks in three months.
Ciaran Martin, director general of cyber security at GCHQ said many of these attacks “threatened national security” by trying to access foreign policy and defence secrets.
>See also: NHS staff personal data leaked in latest data breach
Commenting on the latest figures of the FOI requests, Shadow Home Office minister, Louise Haigh said that more security investment was needed
“There should be no compromise on cybersecurity but in difficult financial times many public sector organisations are being left with outdated operating systems.”
Cant agrees with Haigh, and says that “Across both the public and private sector, the threat from hackers is constantly on the rise. And, as prime sources of intelligence and information gathering, this data indicates the desperate need for far greater investment to be ploughed into the cyber defences of our educational institutions.”
“SecOps teams must also ensure they do not buckle under the pressure to patch known vulnerabilities, fortify any barriers to sensitive information, identify any threats, and prevent them from reaching crisis point before it’s too late.”
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Hackers hold 26,000 unsecured MongoDB databases to ransom
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About 26,000 MongoDB databases were wiped in a cyber attack carried out by three groups of hackers recently, who demanded between 0.05BTC and 0.15BTC (around $650) to restore the systems. According to Victor Gevers, who runs Netherlands-based non-profit security group GDI Foundation, an estimated 99% of the 21,000 MongoDB unsecured instances have been hacked, with more than 75,000 victims. The attacks began last December and in January, MongoDB warned users in an advisory to deploy protections, but the message appears to have been ignored.
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http://www.zdnet.com/article/mongodb-ransacking-starts-again-hackers-ransom-26000-unsecured-instances/#ftag=RSSbaffb68
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2017-09-06 09:53:29.853000
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Few victims in the latest wave of MongoDB attacks have paid the ransom to regain access to their databases. Image: MongoDB
Three groups of hackers have wiped around 26,000 MongoDB databases over the weekend and demanded victims to pay about $650 to have them restored.
The new wave of MongoDB ransom attacks marks a resurgence of the massive assault on unsecured instances of the open-source NoSQL database earlier this year. The attacks were discovered by security researchers Victor Gevers and Niall Merrigan.
The current attacks are being tracked by Gevers and fellow researcher Dylan Katz. According to the 'MongoDB ransacking' Google Docs spreadsheet that the pair are updating, one group using the address '[email protected]' has ransacked over 22,000 MongoDB instances.
The group left the same generic message for victims. "We have your data. Your database is backed up to our servers. If you want to restore it, then send 0.15 BTC and text me to email, just send your IP-address and payment info. Messages without payment info will be ignored".
At today's rates, 0.15 BTC is worth about $650.
Another group using the email address '[email protected]' has left its message on 3,500 wiped MongoDB databases.
"If you want to recover your data, then send 0.05 BTC to bitcoin-address and send your IP to our email. You don't want that your users/customers to know that you have a data leak, right?"
Few victims in the latest wave have paid the ransom. Cru3lty has received a total of 0.8 BTC for its efforts and is the only group to have received a payment.
Since the MongoDB attacks started in late December, victims have paid 24 bitcoin to over a dozen different groups that scan the internet for unsecured MongoDB instances and wipe vulnerable databases.
"So these attackers simply scan entire IPv4 internet for a MongoDB running on port 271017," Gevers told ZDNet. "When they detect these, they then simply try to get access it with a script that automatically deletes the database and creates a similar one with only one record holding the ransom note.
"The databases that get hacked were running with default settings and were completely exposed to the internet."
One group, called Kraken, which attacked several hundred victims in January and received 11 bitcoin, then sold their ransomware kit to other hackers, according to Gevers.
Gevers, who heads up Netherlands-based non-profit security group GDI Foundation, has now helped over 100 victims of these attacks. Despite the good work, this is a tiny fraction of more than 75,000 victims in total.
The victims who Gevers has been able to help asked him to log in into their servers remotely and even, in few cases, perform a restore or hardening.
"The most successful case was a database containing three years of leukemia patient data that was being recorded to do research for better treatment plans," he said.
MongoDB in January posted an advisory explaining how users should deploy security protections to prevent the attacks, but it appears many users have ignored this information and are paying the consequences.
According to Gevers, there are about 21,000 MongoDB unsecured instances and he estimates that 99 percent have been ransacked.
Gevers told Bleeping Computer it wasn't clear whether MongoDB users had botched a security setting or whether they were running older versions of MongoDB that don't have secure default settings.
Previous and related content
MongoDB ransacked: Now 27,000 databases hit in mass ransom attacks
Over a quarter of MongoDB databases left open to the internet have been ransacked by online extortionists.
First came mass MongoDB ransacking: Now copycat ransoms hit Elasticsearch
Hundreds of unsecured Elasticsearch servers have been wiped in the past few hours in what could be a repeat of the recent mass ransom attacks on MongoDB databases.
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AIG chief Duperreault sees insurtech lowering premiums
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Greater use of insurtech could help lower premiums for customers, according to the new CEO of American International Group (AIG), Brian Duperreault. He said using data and analytical tools is making insurers better at their jobs, but that buyers of insurance would always need some advice in making their decisions. He also said that underwriters will need to adapt to the challenges posed by insurtech in terms of becoming better at using and understanding data. Duperreault was appointed in May.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Insurtech-should-help-lower-premiums-AIG-chief
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2017-09-06 09:52:10.267000
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NEW YORK -- Big data and artificial intelligence should help insurers assess risk more efficiently, and that should help reduce costs and drive down premiums for clients, the new CEO of American International Group told The Nikkei recently.
Underwriters will need to adapt to the rise of insurance technology, or insurtech, said Brian Duperreault, who was appointed chief executive of the U.S. insurer in May. Edited excerpts from the interview follow.
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Personal details of 13,000 Perth TAFE students hacked
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Hackers have accessed the personal details of more than 13,000 students at North Metropolitan Technical and Further Education in Perth, according to education minister Sue Ellery. Ellery described the breach as "unsophisticated", and said there was no evidence that students' financial records had been compromised. Western Australia Auditor General Colin Murphy expressed his frustration at the lack of cybersecurity action taken, despite his repeated warnings.
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http://www.theage.com.au/wa-news/thousands-of-students-personal-details-hacked-at-perth-tafe-20170906-gybwdi.html
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2017-09-06 09:46:28.123000
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The state government has ordered an urgent review of the state's TAFE cyber security systems after hackers accessed the private details of 13,000 students at North Metropolitan TAFE.
Education minister Sue Ellery told Radio 6PR the breaches occurred on August 28 and September 5 when an unauthorised person gained access to the TAFE's IT system via remote access.
A cyber attack on one of Perth's TAFEs has exposed the state's poor cyber safety record.
The breaches come two months after the McGowan government announced a revised digital security policy aimed at addressing weaknesses in the security of public sector IT systems repeatedly identified by the state's Auditor General.
Ms Ellery said the hacker accessed staff and student details including names and addresses, some encrypted password files and internet protocol addresses.
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Verizon offers rewards to mobile customers in exchange for data
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US telecoms company Verizon has launched a rewards programme that it hopes will give it access to a rich seam of data from its 114 million Wi-Fi and mobile subscribers, and will boost its ad revenue, which fell by 2.7% in 2016 year on year. Verizon Up offers one credit for every $300 spent by customers, who can cash in the credits for concert tickets, movie premieres and phone upgrades. However, as a telecoms company, Verizon faces stricter regulatory controls over the data, which includes browsing history, app usage and location data, than rivals Facebook and Google.
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http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/05/verizon-wants-to-build-advertising-juggernaut-it-needs-your-data-first.html
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2017-09-06 09:43:26.677000
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A new Verizon Communications Inc. rewards program, Verizon Up, provides credits that wireless subscribers can use for concert tickets, movie premieres and phone upgrades.
But it comes with a catch: Customers must give the carrier access to their web-browsing history, app usage and location data, which Verizon says it uses to personalize the rewards and deliver targeted advertising as its customers browse the web.
The trade-off is part of Verizon's effort to build a digital advertising business to compete with web giants Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which often already possess much of the same customer information.
Even though Congress earlier this year dismantled tough privacy regulations on telecommunications providers, Verizon still wants customers to opt-in to its most comprehensive advertising program, called Verizon Selects. Data collected under the program is shared with Oath, the digital-media unit Verizon created when it bought AOL and Yahoo.
Since access to data from customers could make it easier to tailor ads to their liking, Verizon hopes the information will help it gain advertising revenue to offset sluggish growth in its cellular business. While it added more than 600,000 wireless subscribers last quarter, the gains came during a period of intense competition that forced it to revive unlimited-data offerings and sacrifice the revenue it generated from pricier plans and overage fees.
Verizon's core wireless business generated $89 billion in revenue in 2016 -- a 2.7% drop from 2015. Meantime, its digital advertising unit brings in roughly $7 billion a year. Verizon has about 4% of the U.S. digital advertising market this year, compared with 41% for Google and 20% for Facebook, according to eMarketer.
Wireless competitor AT&T Inc. faces similar challenges as it also tries building an ad-targeting program around its new video services.
Verizon, the U.S.'s largest carrier with more than 114 million subscribers, has been experimenting with targeted-advertising programs for at least five years. Verizon Up, launched in August, is the latest incarnation of its rewards program. Verizon doesn't say how many people have enrolled in Up or Selects.
For every $300 customers spend on their Verizon bills, they receive one Up credit, which can be used for rewards such as Uber rides, four free months of Apple Music or chances to win tickets to see performers such as Lady Gaga.
Verizon makes it clear during the sign-up process what data consumers are giving up: Information about their demographics and interests, what websites they visit, what apps and features they use, and their location.
The disclaimer quickly drew criticism in the tech world. Adam Levin, a consumer advocate and founder of data-security firm CyberScout, warned in a column on HuffPost that the "hidden cost of Verizon's 'free' rewards program is your data."
In an interview, he asked: "When you think about it, do you really want somebody to know that much about your life?"
Deli Meeks, a 26-year-old forklift operator in Atlanta, said he doesn't mind Verizon accessing his data. A lot of companies track information, and it helps make advertising more useful, he said. Mr. Meeks used his first reward to secure two tickets to a preseason NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills.
"As long as they keep it up, I think I'll stay" a Verizon customer, he said, "regardless of the price."
Google, Facebook and other internet firms possess similar data about their users and disclose it in their privacy policies. But Verizon must walk a more delicate line.
Telecoms are required by federal law to take precautions when it comes to customer data. Verizon doesn't want to risk a consumer and regulatory backlash, as it has in the past, for its data-collection methods.
"Some of our competitors, they have exactly the same thing, it's just buried in the terms and conditions of the service," Diego Scotti, Verizon's chief marketing officer, said of the information tech giants collect. "We are not hiding anything."
Google and Facebook declined to comment.
Verizon's program allows customers to opt out of data-sharing after they have signed up for Verizon Up, but it can keep the data for three years.
Mr. Scotti said he hopes customers will appreciate the up-front disclosures and that the rewards program will make Verizon customers more loyal.
But the extra precaution might stifle Verizon's ability to grow the program, said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC.
"This just highlights how thorny privacy issues can be for telecom operators," he said. "If they are going to be held to a higher standard than Google and Facebook, either by statute or simply by convention, then it will be very hard for them to effectively compete."
Write to Ryan Knutson at [email protected]
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 05, 2017 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
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Democratic Group Plans Attacks on G.O.P. Efforts to Undermine Obama Health Care Law
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For years, Republicans successfully battered Democrats for supporting the Affordable Care Act. But now, a coalition of Democratic organizations believes public opinion has swung their way, and they plan to spend the fall attacking President Trump and Republican lawmakers for attempting to undermine the success of a law that provides health insurance to millions of Americans.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/obamacare-protect-our-care.html
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2017-09-06 09:22:33.693000
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“For the first time, since 2010, we are on offense on health care and we are going to prosecute a campaign on offense to ensure the law never faces the threat of repeal,” said Brad Woodhouse, a veteran Democratic operative who is joining the group to oversee the day-to-day operations on behalf of the health care law.
Mr. Woodhouse said the Trump administration underscored the need for the group’s new mission last week, when officials announced that they plan to slash the government’s advertising budget for encouraging people to enroll in the health care marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services said the advertising budget for the open enrollment period that starts in November would be cut to by 90 percent, to just $10 million.
Democrats believe the reduction is an effort to destabilize the already shaky insurance markets by making sure that fewer people sign up for coverage. Officials countered that the spending was not necessary because most Americans already know about that the health insurance options that are available.
President Trump and Republicans have made no secret of their desire to get rid of the health care law. And they have repeatedly said they believe the insurance markets are failing. In March, Mr. Trump tweeted that “Obamacare is imploding. It is a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far!”
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The Real Reason the U.S. Has Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance
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The basic structure of the American health care system, in which most people have private insurance through their jobs, might seem historically inevitable, consistent with the capitalistic, individualist ethos of the nation.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html
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2017-09-06 09:11:29.857000
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The basic structure of the American health care system, in which most people have private insurance through their jobs, might seem historically inevitable, consistent with the capitalistic, individualist ethos of the nation.
In truth, it was hardly preordained. In fact, the system is largely a result of one event, World War II, and the wage freezes and tax policy that emerged because of it. Unfortunately, what made sense then may not make as much right now.
Well into the 20th century, there just wasn’t much need for health insurance. There wasn’t much health care to buy. But as doctors and hospitals learned how to do more, there was real money to be made. In 1929, a bunch of hospitals in Texas joined up and formed an insurance plan called Blue Cross to help people buy their services. Doctors didn’t like the idea of hospitals being in charge, so some in California created their own plan in 1939, which they called Blue Shield. As the plans spread, many would purchase Blue Cross for hospital services, and Blue Shield for physician services, until they merged to form Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 1982.
Most insurance in the first half of the 20th century was bought privately, but few people wanted it. Things changed during World War II.
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Insurtech start-up Finaeo raises $1.85m in seed funding round
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Toronto-based insurtech firm Finaeo has closed a CAD2.25m ($1.85m) seed funding round led by Impression Ventures and featuring participation from 500 Startups, iGan Partners and Robo Ventures. In addition, Christian Lassonde of Impression Ventures will join Finaeo's board. The company has developed software aimed at financial advisers, which uses a proprietary CRM engine to automate back-office tasks. The new funds will be used to employ engineers to develop the core platform.
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http://www.finsmes.com/2017/09/finaeo-closes-2-25m-seed-funding-round.html
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2017-09-06 09:10:43.667000
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Finaeo, a Toronto, Canada-based insurtech fintech company, closed its $2.25M seed funding round.
The round was led by Impression Ventures with participation from Toronto-based angel investors, 500 Startups, Robo Ventures and iGan Partners. In conjunction with the funding, Christian Lassonde, Founder and Managing Partner, Impression Ventures, will be joining the Finaeo Board.
The company intends to use the funds to hire engineers to continue development of the core platform and marketplace.
Led by Aly Dhalla, CEO, and Donald Chu, COO, Finaeo provides financial advisors with a software as a service based platform to automate their back-office administration via a digital assistant powered by a custom-built CRM engine.
The platform is built for financial advisors, particularly with a focus towards group benefits and individual/voluntary insurance.
FinSMEs
05/09/2017
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California, Other States To Extend Obamacare Sign-Up Beyond Federal Limit
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California and several other states will exempt themselves this year from a new Trump administration rule that cuts in half the amount of time consumers have to buy individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
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http://khn.org/news/california-other-states-to-extend-obamacare-sign-up-beyond-federal-limit/
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2017-09-06 09:05:16.593000
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California and several other states will exempt themselves this year from a new Trump administration rule that cuts in half the amount of time consumers have to buy individual health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
In California, lawmakers are contemplating legislation that would circumvent the rule in future years, too.
The Trump administration’s rule gives people shopping for 2018 coverage on the federal exchange 45 days to sign up, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15.
But in California and some of the other states that run their own exchanges — Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Massachusetts, as well as the District of Columbia — consumers purchasing insurance for themselves this year will have extra time to make decisions.
Use Our Content This story can be republished for free ( details ).
In Colorado, for example, the sign-up period is from Nov. 1 to Jan. 12. In Minnesota, it will start Nov. 1 and run through Jan. 14. In Washington state, it is Nov. 1 through Jan. 15.
Consumers shopping for coverage in California’s exchange, Covered California, will still have the full three months they’ve had in recent years, starting on Nov. 1 and ending Jan. 31. Californians shopping for individual market plans outside the exchange will have those same three months to make up their minds.
“We want to make sure our consumers have the time they need to find the best plan that fits their needs,” said James Scullary, a spokesman for Covered California.
The rule that truncated the enrollment period for the federal exchange, published in April by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), gives state-based exchanges the ability to extend the amount of time allowed by tacking a “special” enrollment period onto the 45 days set by the federal government.
Because that flexibility is limited to 2018 coverage, California legislators are taking an extra step to keep the three-month enrollment period for 2019 and beyond. Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) introduced legislation last week that would ensure a three-month enrollment window for consumers seeking coverage in 2019 and subsequent years.
“When the Trump administration issued its new … rules cutting the ACA’s open enrollment period in half, we knew we had to act,” Wood said. “Californians have enjoyed a three-month enrollment period for years, and this change could catch people off guard and not allow them to sign up in time. That would be a travesty.”
Health policy experts say the federal rule is a political attempt to undermine the viability of the Obamacare insurance exchanges.
“It’s no big secret that the Trump administration isn’t a big fan of the Affordable Care Act or the individual market that it created,” said Dylan Roby, associate professor of Health Services Administration at the University of Maryland. “There’s just this general intent of the administration to reduce enrollment, reduce … subsidies and make it a little bit harder for people to enroll.”
The shortened enrollment window was part of a so-called market stabilization rule rolled out by the Trump administration that also offers insurance companies concessions, including the flexibility to sell some health plans that cover less of the enrollees’ cost of care than currently required by the ACA.
California’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, expressed concern about the impact of a shortened enrollment period in a letter to the federal government in March, before the rule was finalized.
Jones’ letter cited research that shows younger people tend to sign up for health insurance toward the end of open enrollment, and that putting up barriers to their enrollment could reduce the number of healthy people in the insurance pool.
That would “needlessly destabilize the market” and would “result in increased premiums for those who do enroll in coverage,” the insurance commissioner said.
Shana Alex Charles, an assistant professor of health sciences at California State University-Fullerton, said the pushback by California lawmakers against federal attempts to shorten the enrollment period underscores the state’s commitment to having a marketplace that “actually makes sense.”
“If you want to maximize enrollment, you need to make sure people can get their paperwork together, and have the mindset and the time for people to complete the application,” she said.
This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
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To Insure More Poor Children It Helps If Their Parents Are On Medicaid
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Efforts by Republican lawmakers to scale back Medicaid enrollment could undercut an aspect of the program that has widespread bipartisan appeal — covering more children, research published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs suggests.
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http://khn.org/news/to-insure-more-poor-children-it-helps-if-parents-are-on-medicaid/
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2017-09-06 08:53:35.690000
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Efforts by Republican lawmakers to scale back Medicaid enrollment could undercut an aspect of the program that has widespread bipartisan appeal — covering more children, research published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs suggests.
The study focuses on the impact of Medicaid’s “welcome-mat” effect — a term used to describe the spillover benefits kids get when Medicaid eligibility is extended to their parents.
Children were more likely to be enrolled in public health insurance programs — specifically Medicaid, which in some states is administered as an expansion of the federal-state Children’s Health Insurance Program — if their parents were also able to enroll, explained Julie Hudson, a senior economist at the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the paper’s lead author.
Use Our Content This KHN story can be republished for free ( details ).
The findings highlight an underlying tension and a key relationship — parents’ insurance status and that of their kids — as Congress moves in coming weeks to reauthorize CHIP, before its funding expires at month’s end.
“Children’s health policy doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” said Benjamin Sommers, an associate professor of health policy and economics at Harvard University’s public health school. Sommers was not an author on the paper, but he did provide feedback on a preliminary draft. “We can’t discuss covering kids without considering what other policies are affecting parents.”
Among the most controversial aspects of the stalled Republican efforts to revamp the Affordable Care Act were provisions to limit Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for low-income people. But even if that effort is not revived, congressional Republicans have said they will continue their push to cut back the program.
In addition, many states are seeking waivers that would let them add other requirements to Medicaid — demanding beneficiaries undergo drug-testing or meet work requirements, for instance. Those, many analysts say, would likely reduce enrollment.
Such efforts could affect children who are eligible for Medicaid coverage.
The paper examines data collected from 2013 to 2015 by the Census Bureau’s nationally representative American Community Survey. It tracked kids up to age 18 who, based on family income, should qualify for Medicaid.
Researchers concluded that the children who benefited most from the welcome-mat effect lived in states that opted to pursue the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, where an estimated 700,000 kids who would have previously been eligible for Medicaid but were not enrolled gained coverage because their parents did, too.
“There’s no doubt that it’s the combination effect; when parents find out they’re eligible, it brings in the kids,” said Tricia Brooks, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, who was unaffiliated with the study. “I don’t think parents intentionally choose not to enroll their children. … It’s going back to that lack of awareness, of understanding that children would be eligible on their own.”
To be fair, the study did not account for all CHIP programs or attempt to differentiate the various ways children could gain access to health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP.
Rather, noted Sommers, it highlights a broader pattern: “Public coverage for children … increased as the Affordable Care Act took effect.”
That gets at a more fundamental issue, many analysts suggested. The end goal of insuring kids — generally popular across the aisle — is difficult. The more controversial policy choices around adult coverage matter a great deal, too.
For instance, the Health Affairs study suggests that, had every state expanded Medicaid, 200,000 more kids would likely have gained coverage during the two-year period examined. And previous research has suggested that parents and children often have similar insurance statuses.
Brooks also pointed to simplified insurance applications, enhanced outreach and a larger push to enroll parents in health insurance, associated with the ACA broadly and the Medicaid expansion specifically. Those efforts, she said, all could have helped raise awareness about children’s eligibility for insurance as well.
“Children still are missed, and therefore direct outreach to families may be a really good thing, especially in those situations where parents are also eligible,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a health policy and law professor at George Washington University, who was not involved with the study. “It’s like added value. It’s a booster.”
Meanwhile, the White House has cut its budget for promoting private marketplace insurance, which some say would add to declines in adult coverage.
If those changes hit parents, the research suggests, the implications don’t stop there.
“The authors make a good case here that policies that are helping parents under the Affordable Care Act improve kids’ access — and moving the opposite way would affect their children negatively,” Sommers said.
KHN’s coverage of children’s health care issues is supported in part by a grant from The Heising-Simons Foundation.
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ACS launches cybersecurity accreditation program
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The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has unveiled its Certified Professional and Certified Technologist cyber security accreditations. The qualifications offer employers a guarantee of certain skills, and can boost cyber defences, said ACS President Anthony Wong. ACS's programme would help end the "seagull-like approach" to employing cyber security professionals, said Alastair MacGibbon, special adviser to the Prime Minister on cyber security.
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http://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-specialisation-status-up-for-grabs-with-new-acs-accreditation-program/#ftag=RSSbaffb68
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2017-09-06 08:49:22.077000
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The Australian Computer Society (ACS) -- the association for the country's IT sector -- has launched a new cybersecurity accreditation program, allowing specialists in the security field to obtain two new certifications.
The new accreditations are an extension to the ACS Certified Professional and Certified Technologist schemes, and will see cybersecurity experts in Australia able to achieve Certified Professional (Cyber Security) and Certified Technologist (Cyber Security) accreditation.
The cybersecurity specialisation status will require applicants to demonstrate in-depth capability in a range of areas identified in the globally recognised Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), ACS president Anthony Wong explained.
"A key element of cybersecurity is trust. We trust business and government to protect our private and personal data. Establishing a professional certification where applicants must commit to a code of ethics, code of professional practice, and undertake continuing professional development helps provide a level of certainty and trustworthiness," Wong said, speaking at the ACS Cybersecurity event in Canberra on Wednesday.
The ACS expects the two new certifications to provide employers with a guarantee that the cybersecurity individuals they are hiring have the right skills for the role.
"By employing professionals with a [cybersecurity] certification, businesses and government are demonstrating to consumers that their cybersecurity professionals have undergone a rigorous assessment process, demonstrated a commitment to the highest principles, and are well placed to lift the cyber resilience of their organisation," Wong said.
Existing Certified Professionals and Certified Technologists are able to apply to have their certification upgraded through the ACS.
According to Australia's Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security Alastair MacGibbon, the accreditation program from the ACS will help remove the current seagull-like approach to hiring cybersecurity professionals, where government, the enterprise, and big business are all "fighting over the same chip".
Addressing the ACS in Sydney on Tuesday, MacGibbon said it makes sense that as Australia grows its cybersecurity skills and capabilities, it has the right people involved.
"It's widely recognised that there's a skills deficit in ICT broadly, but particularly when it comes to cybersecurity," he said, noting that the country is missing the point if only tertiary institutions are focused on.
"We also need to focus on vocational training, and indeed those that are self-taught."
He said Australia needs to create avenues for self-taught individuals to "come to the side of goodness and light" to actually protect the communities they operate in.
"Which is why initiatives like this one are so important for us, because it tries to make sense of the skills that we have and help to standardise those somewhat," he explained.
"A casual observer would say that there has been an awful lot of conflict, an awful lot of overlap, and often some confusion as to what certifications are best to have.
"Until we actually have the supply right of staff, the supply right of skilled people, we're always seagulls fighting after the same chip that government will sit there and say that it will grow some skills, the private sector might come and offer more money and steal the chip from us, big business will fight over that same person next, and we have this game of inflationary wages -- good for the individual, but bad for business generally -- and of course we have the deficit, we just don't have enough people to be doing the work that's there."
Speaking with ZDNet earlier this year, MacGibbon said he wants the understanding of cybersecurity to be a life skill children of today grow up with, which means taking the conversation to primary school classrooms.
While PhD, university, and even high school students should still be gaining powerful knowledge on the threat landscape, MacGibbon would argue that this kind of structure isn't enough to ensure the success of Australia when it comes to cybersecurity.
"For me, being a successful person in my generation was being able to read and write and do basic maths," he told ZDNet. "What is going to get our kids to be successful in this world is the concept of computation, coding, and communication.
"If we're going to win when it comes to protecting the Australian way of life, in terms of cybersecurity, then it indeed starts in primary schools."
He also wants those in IT to look at furthering their skills in the cybersecurity sector.
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The Perils of the Mid-Sized ED
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So much of what emergency departments see is really psychosocial. Anxiety, depression, suicidality, substance abuse. The numbers of these conditions seem to be exploding, and they can seldom afford primary care, much less mental healthcare. The all-night ED is the place they go.
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http://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/kevinmd/67703
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2017-09-06 08:48:22.197000
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This post originally appeared on
I know, I know, I spend way too much time ranting about work in the emergency department. But after some recent shifts, my box of rants is full once more. And what I want to point out is the enormous struggle of the mid-sized emergency departments in America today.
I know this is a problem; I work in them, and I know and talk with people who work in them. It's getting harder all the time. So what is a mid-sized ED? For purposes of my discussion, I'd say (depending on coverage) somewhere from 16,000 to 40,000 visits per year. Now that's not scientific, that's just for the sake of discussion, and based on personal experience.
I'd love to hear commentary from readers because I'm trying to figure it all out. But let me start with a story. When I was fresh out of residency, I worked at dear old Oconee Memorial Hospital in Seneca, S.C. Our volume, as I recall, was around 23,000 to 25,000 per year. We had pretty good coverage at first, with three 12-hour physician shifts a day. Patients were sick, but we moved them through. And when I worked nights, I remember that it wasn't unusual for me to lie down about 3 a.m. and sleep until 7 a.m.
Fast forward. Even at my current job where I see 19,000 per year, there's barely a night when patients don't come in all night long. So is volume spread out more? Maybe. Are patients sicker? Possibly. I think some of this may be that patients have no primary care, and so they don't even have an option to "wait 'till morning."
In addition, a large number of patients (in all EDs) are jobless. So in their defense, 3 a.m. is as good as 3 p.m. when you don't have to go to a job in the morning. (I'm not disparaging, but I do think this is true. Think about your teenagers who sit up all night in the summer if they don't have jobs!)
I also wonder if our patients are sicker. I mean, medicine is pretty amazing nowadays, and people who would certainly have died when I was in medical school now repeatedly survive significant heart failure, MI, stroke, pulmonary embolism, respiratory failure, various infections, and all sorts of problems. And when they do, they have to come back to the ED frequently.
For those with docs in the community, I'm sure the offices are crazy busy all the time. Even those docs have patients they just can't squeeze into appointments. They use the ED. And maybe, just maybe, our patients are much more "medicalized" than before.
So much of what emergency departments see is really psychosocial. Anxiety, depression, suicidality, substance abuse. The numbers of these conditions seem to be exploding, and they can seldom afford primary care, much less mental healthcare. The all-night ED is the place they go.
And there is a subset of patients who use the emergency department for entertainment or convenience; rides, snacks, a way to avoid arrest. "Officer, I ... have ... chest pain!" These also take time and space.
So what happens is all of this descends on departments with limited resources and staff. And all day, and all night, one physician or two, maybe a PA or NP, struggle to sift through five or six chest pains alongside two stroke alerts, a suicidal overdose, two septic senior citizens, a dialysis patient who missed two appointments and has a potassium of 10 and a femur fracture. Add to that the family of five with head colds.
Sure, this is what we do. We are emergency physicians and nurses and mid-levels. But into this mix, in the mid-sized department, recall that there is: no cardiologist, no neurologist, no psychiatrist or counselor, sometimes no available ICU beds, possibly no pediatrician and definitely no dialysis in the hospital.
The day is spent sorting, stabilizing, making phone calls, transferring and waiting for ambulance or helicopter to become available. All the while? Sifting through very cumbersome and inefficient computer documentation systems designed for billing, not for flow. And being scrutinized for throughput, time stamps, protocols, national standards, Medicare rules, re-admissions, and all that mess.
I really don't want to sound like a complainer. What I'm concerned about is 1) the safety of the patients and 2) the physical and emotional health of the caregivers. At the end of the day, we're all exhausted. And so much is going on that we can barely find the obvious stuff, much less the subtle things that can also kill.
It sometimes seems as if departments are intentionally understaffed to save money. I understand that it's expensive to have doctors, nurses, etc. But administrators get mad at folks "standing around," without realizing that in the chaos and suffering of the ED, sometimes it's really important to "stand around." To breathe, to think, to rest, to gather oneself, to look up a condition or problem, to debrief. To eat. To pee.
I think that the world of medicine has descended on the emergency department. I know that we handle it valiantly. But I don't think it's safe, and it's nowhere as unsafe as in the relatively under-staffed and under-equipped mid-sized community hospitals of the world.
I'm proud of what we do. But some days, most days, I wonder how we do it.
Edwin Leap is an emergency physician who blogs at edwinleap.com and is the author of The Practice Test and Life in Emergistan. This post appeared on KevinMD.com.
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LTC Nurse Residency Results in 86% Retention Rate
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Post-acute care has become an essential component of value-based care. By preparing new nurses through a long-term care residency program, facilities can improve nurse retention, confidence, and competency.
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http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/nurse-leaders/ltc-nurse-residency-results-86-retention-rate
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2017-09-06 08:45:10.173000
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Post-acute care has become an essential component of value-based care. By preparing new nurses through a long-term care residency program, facilities can improve nurse retention, confidence, and competency.
Accountable care organizations, value-based care, and new reimbursement models are changing the healthcare landscape, and with that the role of the post-acute care nurse is evolving as well.
"It's important that [patients] don't go back to the hospital. So these nurses have to have a different skill level than, maybe, what people perceived long-term care as previously," says Edna Cadmus, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, clinical professor at Rutgers University School of Nursing.
There are few structured programs, however, to help newly licensed RNs develop the expertise needed to successfully transition to practice in post-acute care.
To address this issue, the New Jersey Action Coalition, is focused on implementing the Institute of Medicine's (now the National Academy of Medicine) Future of Nursing recommendations. It is one of 51 groups doing this work across the country.
Cadmus is co-lead of the coalition, which falls under the umbrella of Campaign for Action partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the AARP.
"We felt there were acute care nurse residency programs in many hospitals, but for post-acute settings and, specifically, long-term care, there had been no evidence of any residency programs out there," she says.
"And we knew that there was a high turnover rate of nurses in long-term care facilities."
Turnover among RNs in long-term care facilities nationally was 50% and retention was almost 67%. After the New Jersey LTC residency program, the retention rate of participants was 86%.
Long-Term Care Competencies
The program launched in 2013 with funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and continued until 2016 with additional funding from the New Jersey Department of Health.
Though it wasn't a walk in the park, the coalition recruited thirty-six facilities to participate in the program.
"Knowing the financial situation of how long-term care is reimbursed, it really was a challenge for us to recruit, but once we explained the return on investment, that helped," Cadmus says.
The participating organizations sent 39 preceptors and 37 new nurses through the program.
Preceptors took five days away from their facilities for training to learn new skills to help them mentor new nurse residents. The new nurse residents were away from the facilities once a week to learn key competencies in geriatric care such as:
Fall prevention
Nutrition
Hydration
Managing pain
Pressure injuries
They also covered components of the Massachusetts Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competencies like:
Communication
How to use technology to leverage care
Leadership development
Patient-centered care concepts
Quality improvement
Both residents and preceptors obtained dementia care certification and all residents did a quality improvement project for their organization. "They were giving back but also contributing as a new nurse leader into the organization as a new nurse," Cadmus says.
The Residency Blueprint
The improvement in turnover was an obvious bonus. "If you have such a high turnover and you can [start to] keep people you're obviously saving money," Cadmus says.
But the residency had other benefits as well.
"We surveyed the nurses and found that their confidence as well as their competence increased," she says.
"Usually somewhere around six months is when a new grad is looking to leave their first level of employment. We felt we got them over that hurdle to really kind of get them stable for that first year."
Still there are challenges in developing residencies in post-acute care. Unlike acute care organizations which can hire a group of new nurses to go through a residency as a cohort, post-acute care organizations usually hire just one or two nurses at a time.
And the setting does not always have a robust career ladder for nurses to climb.
"When you're in a hospital situation there's a lot of opportunities to move up, to go into a clinical ladder, to try different departments to work in. It's not the same environment in long-term care," Cadmus says.
"So when you think about the new graduate, especially this new generation, they're looking to be able to not only make a difference, but also to have opportunities to change into different roles or to be promoted into different things. If you don't have those opportunities they're out the door."
Cadmus and her co-authors share their experience with developing and implementing the residency program in the book Developing a Residency in Post-Acute Care. They hope it can serve as a blueprint for others wishing to launch their own residency programs.
"We've gotten a lot of calls from people asking about how you do it. We're giving you everything you need to know about how to make this work," she says. "That was why we felt it was important to document how to do this. There's no reason why anybody should have to reinvent the wheel."
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Axel Springer pan-European news app grows to 13 million users
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Publisher Alex Springer has reported significant growth for its mobile news app UpDay, whose user numbers have increased to 13 million, up from 8.5 million in February. Launched in March last year under an exclusive partnership with Samsung, the Android service is now available in 16 European countries and employs about 50 editorial staff. The company said it works with 3,500 publishers and sends about 4 million visitors a day to their sites. Alex Springer is now focusing on increasing users' time on the app above the current five minutes a day.
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https://digiday.com/media/axel-springer-upday/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170906
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2017-09-06 08:44:01.777000
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One key plank in Axel Springer’s resistance to the duopoly: Upday, an 18-month-old pan-European news app that comes installed on Samsung phones.
In total, Upday claims it has 13 million monthly users, up from 8.5 million in February, according to its internal analytics platform Localytics. In Germany, Upday’s figures are verified by third-party organizations such as IVW, the German Audit Bureau of Circulation, and research firm AGOF, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Online Forschung.
This growth is partly because Upday is available in 16 European countries, where it now has eight editorial hubs, twice the number of hubs it launched with in March 2016. Upday has roughly 50 editorial staffers, double the amount in February, split across its eight European editorial hubs, who verify news and add a local editorial focus to the top global trending stories. Its Berlin headquarters employs around 25 developers and 25 sales and marketing workers.
The number of publishers it has worked with has nearly doubled to 3,500, too, according to the company. Collectively, Upday drives 4 million visits a day to its publishers, twice as many as it did in February; for some publishers, this amounts to between 5 and 20 percent of referral traffic, the company said. The Android-only app has also grown the number of handsets it’s available on from just the Samsung Galaxy S series to Samsung’s Galaxy A and lower-cost Galaxy J series.
“The unexpected figure was that retention rate and loyalty was high,” said Upday CEO Peter Würtenberger, adding that users are spending five minutes with the app per day. At launch, Upday claimed users spent two hours with the platform a month. This is respectable for a general news app, although not close to the 35 minutes per day users spend on both Facebook and YouTube, according to influencer agency Mediakix. Elsewhere, sports publisher Bleacher Report manages to get people to spend five minutes daily on its app, while women’s lifestyle publisher Bustle manages six minutes a day.
According to comScore, Apple News has 10.4 million unique monthly users in the U.K. (although it reported 70 million users via internal figures in November 2016). Upday has recently implemented comScore rankings, and its first full month of figures aren’t available yet, so it’s too early to accurately compare the Axel Springer platform directly to other news apps.
In the last four months, the platform has shifted focus from growing reach to increasing the time spent within the platform, achieving this by learning more about its users’ interests and tailoring content to them. When readers first use Upday, they are asked to select a number of topic categories. Now, a reader who chose to receive, say, lifestyle content on the platform is then asked whether she’s interested in topics like wellness or nutrition.
“On top of the explicit choice of categories, we have the implicit ways of understanding what the user is interested in through user behavior because the algorithm is learning,” said Würtenberger.
This also adds more value for marketers.
In the last two months, Upday has offered pan-European campaigns booked out of its local offices, which Würtenberger, who wouldn’t disclose revenue figures for Upday, said is a competitive advantage: Advertisers usually find local partners for each country. “Upday is small in comparison,” he said, “but it’s a great alternative as an active, European-wide platform for advertising, so it doesn’t all end up going to Google and Facebook.”
Spanish car manufacturer Seat recently ran a campaign in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain, booked through Upday’s office in Berlin, Germany. The centralized Berlin team tailored the creative to local markets and delivered it programmatically via mobile ad exchange Inneractive. Although, most of Upday’s other campaigns are delivered via independent ad tech firm AppNexus as part of the first implementation of Axel Springer’s global partnership announced in May.
The campaign, which included display and native formats in every 10 or so cards users swipe through, also drove above industry average on display ad click-through rates. The native ads, which included a number of articles like “5 ways the Seat Ibiza gets you moving,” performed the best, driving a 1 percent CTR, according to Upday. The company also said users spent one minute with the brand story — the landing page users clicked through from the native ad — 70 percent of users read 75 percent of the landing page brand story and 11 percent clicked on the call-to-action within it.
In the U.K., a campaign for Penguin Random House designed to encourage more reading among young children was targeted to parents. Two months ago, cross-country campaigns and these targeting capabilities were unavailable.
Upday campaigns typically run between a week and 10 days. So far, clients like Vodafone, Volkswagen and Seat have booked consecutive campaigns. The platform is popular with carmakers, with six out of the top 10 European car manufacturers booking campaigns, Würtenberger said.
“For me, the real value is having effective campaigns with good results,” he said. “It’s an effective way of combining central teams with local know-how.”
Images courtesy of Upday
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Content creators impacted by YouTube brand safety mission
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YouTube creators have suffered a severe cut in their advertising revenue as a result of the platform's action to address concerns over offensive and inappropriate content. The company began disabling ads in March, and some content-producers saw falls of 30% in the first month. By May, revenue for the top creators was recovering, but some with fewer subscribers still report significant reductions. The crude and inconsistent nature of YouTube's procedures for flagging inappropriate content and demonetising them have been blamed for the problems.
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https://digiday.com/media/advertisers-may-have-returned-to-youtube-but-creators-are-still-losing-out-on-revenue/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170906
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2017-09-06 08:39:42.587000
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This past May in New York City, YouTube held a summit for its top 100 or so video personalities, individuals and networks. It was a chance for these creators to get face time with senior YouTube executives and discuss what was happening on the video platform. One issue that some attendees felt YouTube needed to address: declining ad revenue.
A month earlier, YouTube had started using more of its artificial intelligence tools to flag offensive videos on the platform — a move driven by the so-called “YouTube adpocalypse,” during which many advertisers threatened to curb ad spending on the platform after discovering ads were being shown next to offensive, hateful and violent content.
Four months later, eight creators Digiday spoke with said they’re still feeling the impact of “demonetized” videos to this day. Some of these creators’ videos might have colorful language, but nothing unsavory, and yet with YouTube’s new ad policies their videos are being swept up with the real muck.
Creators are still hurting
When YouTube’s disabling of ads started in March, some top creators saw a significant hit to their ad revenue. Phil DeFranco, who has about 5.6 million subscribers on YouTube, saw ad revenue drop by 30 percent within the first month. H3h3Productions, which has about 4.7 million subscribers, said it was only making 15 percent of what it typically makes month to month on YouTube. (Tubefilter has a breakdown on how widespread and significant the issue was early on in YouTube’s crackdown.)
“We expect the third quarter to generally start lower due to seasonal trends, but this year, the drop was larger than in past years,” said Evan Bregman, director of programming at Rooster Teeth, which operates a network of owned and partner channels on YouTube including Rooster Teeth and Slo Mo Guys. Collectively, the network reaches 38 million subscribers.
By May, revenue for most top creators were getting back to pre-apocalypse levels. Of the 100 or so attendees of the creator summit, only four raised their hands when a YouTube exec asked if anyone’s revenue numbers were still taking noticeable hit, according to a YouTube spokesperson.
But that doesn’t mean the issue has gone away for all creators, especially those that don’t have several-million subscribers and invitations to private summits with top YouTube brass.
Take Hannah Rutherford, a gaming creator within the Yogscast network. Rutherford consistently gets 1 million views per month on her YouTube channel, which has 1.3 million subscribers, according to Tubular Labs. In a tweet, she said she’s now making twice the revenue on Twitch than she does on YouTube, primarily because her YouTube ad revenues have been “tanking” even though viewership has remained flat.
The issue is even more troublesome for news and social issues creators on YouTube. Real Women Real Stories, for instance, is a small YouTube channel that promotes women’s rights by producing testimonials in which women share stories of trauma. The charity project relies entirely on YouTube advertising to fund its productions. But since its content focuses on sensitive issues such as rape, sexual abuse and sex trafficking, the Real Women Real Stories channel made $10 in YouTube ad revenue in June, down from $2,000 the previous June, according to channel owner Matan Uziel.
“We want to make sure we bring as much women’s stories forward as we can, but our charitable project is nearly dead because we can no longer pay for productions,” Uziel said.
Flagging sensitive content
The situation has exposed flaws in how YouTube’s AI disables ads on videos. The general understanding among creators is that YouTube will automatically flag videos, titles and thumbnails that feature graphic, edgy or sensitive imagery and text. This is problematic for gaming creators, who frequently play games with graphic visuals and strong language. It’s also problematic for creators who want to talk about news and social issues. Just because a video covers topics such as terrorism, white supremacy or rape doesn’t mean it’s endorsing those ideas.
“When I reached out to YouTube to see why our videos were being demonetized, they said it’s because the videos are not advertiser friendly,” said Uziel. “They came to the conclusion that videos that cover topics such as sexual abuse, rape and women’s issues, in general, could not be monetized.”
This is a reality of platforms, which try to use technology to police matters that often need a human hand. YouTube’s not alone in this area: Facebook faced criticism when it removed an iconic Vietnam War photo that depicted a naked child running away from napalm bombs. Artificial intelligence doesn’t understand nuance yet, which means videos that cover sensitive topics are going to be swept up with the muck advertisers want to avoid.
The problem with YouTube is that the AI it’s using is also inconsistent. Rutherford has published 12 gameplay videos of the game “Hellblade,” and YouTube cleared 11 videos while disabling ads on one, with no clear explanation as to why. Uziel, meanwhile, found that while YouTube disabled ads on a Real Women Real Stories video titled “The Harmful Consequences of Objectifying Women,” a video from The Young Turks titled “Kidnapped and Sold: One Houseless Woman’s Tale” featured ads.
Uziel also found a workaround by reposting videos with the title and subtitles in different languages. For instance, YouTube disabled ads on a video titled “I Was a Sex Slave to Europe’s Elite at Age 6,” but the same exact video with the same title in French, “J’étais une esclave sexuelle pour l’élite mondiale à partir de l’âge de 6 ans” has ads running.
“I’m struggling to understand because they say they can’t monetize topics which relate to women’s issues, but there are videos of those topics that are being monetized,” Uziel said.
One YouTube rep proposed softening titles and language as a potential solution, Uziel added.
“Since some of the wording could be an automatic trigger for our system which is primarily text-driven, so you might like to try maneuvering the algorithm a little bit. However, we can’t guarantee that your videos will monetize with this change since the content within the videos are still of a sensitive nature. We also recommend that you use caution when describing assault situations in your videos,” said a YouTube channel rep in an email to Uziel.
YouTube’s appeals process is lacking
With 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, according to YouTube, it’s easy to see why most of the vetting is left to algorithms. But creators complain that YouTube has set up a slow and inefficient appeals system.
A recent 58-minute gameplay video Rutherford scheduled to post was flagged by YouTube before it even published. “There’s not going to be some guy [at YouTube] who goes, ‘Oh, I’ll watch it now and scan a 58-minute video and get back to you; it’s going to take a while,” Rutherford said in a video.
Though Rutherford has appealed more than 200 videos flagged by YouTube, only two of the videos have been approved by the system so far.
“Back in March we rolled out new controls for advertisers to help them better choose where their ads are placed, and we rely on machine learning to evaluate the millions of videos on our platform to implement those choices,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. “But no system is perfect, so we encourage creators to appeal for a human review when they feel we got it wrong, and every appeal helps our advertising systems get smarter over time.”
Ad-disabled videos on YouTube must get 1,000 views in the span of seven days to qualify for a review, which YouTube says is done so the AI is not slowed down by videos with only a handful of views. This approach hurts smaller YouTube channels, because it removes the ability for creators to make money on the most important stage of a YouTube video’s life cycle: the first seven days. Typically, videos receive 70 percent or more of their views in the first seven days, according to multiple creators.
Unfortunately, there isn’t one easy fix to this problem. YouTube could update its algorithm to factor in a video’s like-to-dislike ratio, which may improve the YouTube API’s ability to make a distinction between an offensive video and a piece that explores sensitive topics, said Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, CEO of WatchMojo. (Facebook, meanwhile, is hiring up to 3,000 human curators this year to scan for and eliminate extremist content.)
Ultimately, the creators’ situation points to the risk of publishing on someone else’s platform, whose own business goals may not be aligned with those who supply the content. YouTube’s goal is to get every advertiser comfortable with advertising on the platform, said a YouTube source. That would certainly benefit most creators on the platform, but not all — at least within the platform’s current ad guidelines.
“YouTube is trying to balance the needs of advertisers with the needs of creators. Do they always get it right? Of course not,” said Steven Oh, COO of The Young Turks Network. “It’s a very tough balance to strike, and just as advertisers push for their interests to be protected, creators should do the same.”
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BBC Worldwide puts sales staff on programmatic training scheme
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BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the UK's public service broadcaster, is investing in training its worldwide sales force on programmatic advertising. The training will be offered to the corporation's 100-strong sales team across the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific markets. It will include a 45-minute overview of programmatic trading and education on how WorldWide's centralised ad tech stack is structured. Last year the trading arm made just over £1bn ($1.3bn) in sales, of which advertising forms a part, although it does not break down the figures. The majority of this comes from sales of popular programmes overseas.
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https://digiday.com/media/bbc-worldwide-trained-global-sales-force-programmatic/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170906
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2017-09-06 08:36:58.017000
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BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is trying to increase its global salesforce’s knowledge on all things programmatic. Starting from last March, the media organization rolled out a rigorous programmatic training program to 100 of its sales staff across 12 markets. The goal: to boost programmatic know-how enough to spot new ways to drive deeper relationships with advertisers across its U.S., Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific markets.
The training program included a 45-minute online overview of programmatic trading, from its inception to current challenges around transparency and viewability. Staff then learned how BBC Worldwide’s centralized ad tech stack is structured and how the programmatic team uncovers new opportunities for clients, then packages and communicates them to clients. Details on how various programmatic deals are set up — either for private or open marketplace trading and across its audience extension network — were included. Staff were also educated on why BBC Worldwide hasn’t adopted the popular header-bidding technique predominantly linked to page-latency concerns. The media organization has held out for server-side bidding and began testing Google’s exchange bidding in Dynamic Allocation tool last week.
The global leadership team received the training first. The bulk of BBC Worldwide revenue comes from selling popular shows like “Doctor Who” and “Planet Earth” to international markets. Last year, the commercial arm made over £1 million ($1.3 million) in sales, of which advertising is a portion, though the company doesn’t break out specifics. The company also won’t break out what percentage of advertising revenue comes from programmatic, but by instilling the importance of programmatic trading’s role within its overall commercial business, signoffs on future strategy changes can occur more speedily. That’s the theory, at least.
“We’re constantly developing our ad stack, and that means leadership signoff is vital to enable the way we roll programmatic out across the board,” said David Goddard, global head of programmatic trading for BBC Worldwide. India is the final market due to receive the training.
Since the training’s rollout, programmatic revenues have increased, as have specific deal IDs in multiple markets, and the number of clients has increased, though Goddard wouldn’t provide specifics.
One of the benefits of having a centralized ad tech stack is that programmatic campaigns run in international markets with skinny local sales teams, and any blockages that can arise from fragmented, local ad tech technologies are reduced. The media organization already had eight dedicated programmatic specialists across 12 markets: three (soon to be four) in the U.K., two in the U.S., one in Canada, one in Singapore and one in Australia. But to scale its programmatic revenue beyond the double-digit growth it’s had so far, it needed to educate the rest of its international sales force and get everyone taking the same approach. That’s something that’s not always easy with products spanning 40 languages.
“Salespeople are our inventory discovery tool,” said Goddard. “Most [ad buyers] buy off data points and decide where media should go from that. But how do you whitelist for English-language BBC sites as well as our BBC Arabic site in the Middle Eastern markets? It comes from a BBC salesperson or expert identifying the right people in local offices and meeting with them to talk through how we’re right for their business.”
The role of the programmatic specialists will now be to ensure the training that the wider sales staff received is executed fully with clients.
“We need to ensure everyone who is client-facing has that ability to use the language correctly and understand our clients’ needs in the programmatic space,” Goddard said. “Our direct clients are now our programmatic clients, too; we want to give them that one-stop shop.”
Having lean but skilled teams in different markets has gone over well with agencies. Matt McIntyre, activation director at Essence, said despite the small size of the London programmatic team, it’s “skilled and knowledgeable in the workings of programmatic and [understands] how to use the opportunities the technology gives them to work with us in a collaborative fashion.”
McIntyre added that because BBC Worldwide is a well-known brand in nearly every market, pricing is often higher than local publishers, which is a consideration for buyers. “This may put some buyers off as it looks less efficient on a media plan,” he said, “but we believe it is important to properly measure your campaigns and understand the net value which BBC Worldwide is driving against your key performance indicators.”
Image courtesy of International Global Communications
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Next outperforms rivals with higher spend on paid search
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UK retailer Next won 25% of clicks for back-to-school search terms relating to stationary, school uniforms and school accessories from desktop computers, according to a report from research firm Adthena. The company outperformed its larger rivals Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and Tesco thanks to extensive ad spending on a range of keywords and phrases related to the back-to-school theme, said Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena. Next still lags behind rivals for mobile and organic searches, according to the report.
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https://digiday.com/marketing/uk-retailer-next-spends-paid-search-back-school-retail-rush/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=digidaydis&utm_source=uk&utm_content=170906
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2017-09-06 08:34:00.667000
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Learning from missing out on the online dash for uniforms in the back-to-school rush last year, U.K. retailer Next.co.uk spent more on paid search this year to outperform its larger rivals Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer.
Research from Adthena, an intelligence platform for search, revealed Next rose from the ninth-most-clicked retailer on Google and Bing for back-to-school terms during August 2016 to first in August 2017. It was top of the class for paid search on desktop, winning 25 percent of clicks for back-to-school search terms relating to stationery, school uniforms and school accessories.
Between July 26 and Aug. 22, Next consistently topped its rivals, though it suffered short-term dips every few days, according to Adthena. However, sharp rises followed each low in the period, which suggests the retailer’s marketers were constantly tweaking the keyword search terms the brand appeared alongside.
Next’s strategy worked because it spent highly on a wide range of keywords and phrases related to the back-to-school theme, said Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena. “This, combined with quality ad copy, helped to compel users to click through, making them the dominant force,” he added.
The majority of Next’s paid search activity for back to school was on desktop, with the retailer averaging fifth for the number of mobile clicks, according to Adthena. The focus on desktop was likely driven in part by the retailer’s limited experience on mobile, an issue it is trying to address. It plans to launch 12 international versions of its mobile site in markets such as the U.S. and Australia, which account for 70 percent of its revenue.
Interestingly, Next seemingly opted against building a strategy for organic search results in favor of one that took it to the top of the search-results page as quickly as possible. As a result, it secured less than 7 percent of organic clicks on desktop and mobile, per Adthena. Fletcher said the decision was motivated by the pressure Next would have felt leading up to the start of school to react to the shifting search habits of parents. “Organic search is a long-term gain where you really need to focus on broader searches to get the volumes, and I don’t think the retailers are nimble enough to prepare for something like that,” he said.
M&S was the dominant back-to-school retailer on desktop last year, yet its spend dropped from 21 percent in August 2016 to 9 percent in 2017, according to Adthena. Like Sainsbury’s, it appears the retailer has opted to push more budget into TV and outdoor ads to drive people to stores. Last month, M&S launched its bid for back-to-school sales with ads across TV, Facebook and YouTube. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s has pushed its own Tu clothing line with special offers.
Analysts took Next’s investments earlier this year as a sign that it struggles to respond to growth of online shopping. Its share price has halved since reaching a high in 2015, as the likes of Asos and Topman have harmed its sales.
The contrast in Next’s approach to the back-to-school seasons in 2016 and 2017 is emblematic of the investments it has made to build an online strategy that stands up to its brick-and-mortar one. The online retailer proactively manages its stores through a combination of profitable openings, extensions and closures. Since the turn of the year, it has introduced several major updates to its virtual store, including a homepage redesign, faster registration times and intelligent recommendations. Before year-end, it plans to quicken checkout times, reducing its checkout process from three pages to two, and further update its homepage and search strategy.
Next did not reply to requests for comment by the time this article was published.
Image courtesy of Next.co.uk
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Google rumoured to be building AI business in China
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Google is thought to be building a team of artificial intelligence (AI) specialists in China, after of job advertisements were noticed searching for key machine learning technicians in Beijing. In July, the Chinese government set out a plan to overtake the US and become the global leader in AI by 2030. China's AI application market is projected to grow 50% annually, compared to the 20% forecast across the global market, according to McKinsey. The sector is predicted to be worth CNY150bn ($23bn) by 2020, the Chinese government said.
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http://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/2109719/google-looking-build-its-own-team-artificial-intelligence?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=ca4afa470f-The_Download&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-ca4afa470f-154455665
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2017-09-06 08:32:46.237000
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As the country sets out its ambitious goals to be the world leader in the field by 2030, the US tech giant is quietly looking to get its own foothold established
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Dubai development accepting bitcoin for sales of off-plan flats
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Aston Plaza and Residences, an Isle of Man firm, has launched a £250m luxury residential development in Dubai with the option to buy properties in bitcoin. It claims to be the first major development to be priced in bitcoin. The partners, Baroness Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman, are keen on bitcoin and foresee investors wishing to ditch the volatility of bitcoin for a safe return and a real asset. The development is set to be completed in September 2019 and initial starting prices of the flats are $133,918, or 30 bitcoin. The development includes 1,000 flats and a shopping centre.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/05/dubai-real-estate-project-first-to-be-priced-in-bitcoin-michelle-mone.html
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2017-09-06 08:32:06.257000
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watch now
A 250 million pound ($325 million) luxury development has been launched in Dubai — and the people behind it don't mind if you pay in bitcoin. Announced Wednesday by British entrepreneurs Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman, Aston Plaza and Residences spans more than 2.4 million square feet and is split across two 40-storey residential towers. Its developers claim that it will be the "first major development" to be priced in the virtual currency bitcoin. "Being a designer for 21 years, it's a real passion of mine as the design side, and it's great to be partnering up together as well to launch this. And this is the first major global development where you can purchase in bitcoin," Mone told CNBC in an interview last week ahead of the announcement. "Previously there's been an apartment here and there's been a house here and there, but never a £250 million development, so it's really exciting to be involved in." Mone founded the lingerie brand Ultimo in 1996 through her company MJM International. She now owns the interior design firm Michelle Mone Interiors, which will be responsible for building main walkways and reception areas.
Aston Plaza and Residences
She is also a lawmaker in the U.K.'s upper chamber of parliament, and was appointed by former Prime Minister David Cameron two years ago.
Why bitcoin?
Mone's partner Barrowman, who is chairman of the Knox Group of companies, said that the pair chose bitcoin as part of the virtual token's emergence as a more "mainstream" means of investment. "I've been invested in the crypto world for the last couple of years really, and it's a sector I've watched grow and emerge," the venture capitalist told CNBC in an interview. "So I see it coming to that stage where the early adopters are giving way to a more mainstream application of cryptocurrency, and therefore it's a logical extension to take land and buildings and effectively offer people the opportunity to pay in cryptocurrency or bitcoin rather than just fiat currency." Barrowman said the "crypto world" would warm up to the property development as investors who don't wish to live in the property can receive a nine percent return on their investment after completion. "And that finds favor with how the crypto world operates, they like to be rewarded discounts, on ICOs (initial coin offerings), to allow them to buy into things. And I just think it's quite groundbreaking what we're doing," he added.
It's the currency of the future. Michelle Mone British entrepreneur and parliamentarian
Several governmental authorities have expressed concern over a lack of regulation for cryptocurrencies. On Monday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) was just one of several Chinese authorities to announce a clampdown on initial coin offerings (ICOs). ICOs are used by start-ups to raise funds by flogging off new digital tokens. But, addressing regulatory concerns about the virtual cash, Mone said that she would not be getting involved in bitcoin if it wasn't a trustworthy investment. She said: "It's the currency of the future. And I think because everything is logged and registered, everything's transparent, that I wouldn't be getting involved in it — especially from the House of Lords element, I'm a baroness — so I wouldn't be getting involved in it if it was a kind of 'dodgy' industry."
Aston Plaza and Residences
She referred to several laws which have been put in place to try and regulate cryptocurrencies. The Isle of Man, a small independent island between England and Ireland, introduced its own legal framework to force crypto businesses to fall into compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) laws in 2015. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in July that federal securities laws could apply to token sales.
'Not a gimmick'
Mone refuted the idea that the bitcoin-priced development was a "marketing gimmick". "It's not a gimmick. These people do want to buy things with their bitcoin," she told CNBC Wednesday morning. "So we're here, they can buy a studio apartment, a one bedroom, a two bedroom, they can go online right now … and buy that apartment within minutes." She added: "These people have had bitcoin right from the very start, years ago, and at the start of the year in January it was (worth) $800 a bitcoin. Now, yes it's dipped slightly, but it's around … $4,500 at the moment." The hit a low of $4,037 on Tuesday, down 20 percent from its all-time high of $5,000 over the weekend.
watch now
It managed to make a recovery Wednesday, currently trading at $4,519, according to CoinDesk's price index.
Project to be completed by September 2019
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Mercedes-Benz Van invests $50m in Uber competitor Via
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German car maker Daimler has invested an estimated $50m in on-demand shuttle bus service Via though its Mercedes Benz Van division. It plans to launch the service in London by the end of the year before a wider European roll-out. Volker Mornhinweg, the head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, said: "We are taking the next logical step in the context of our strategy for the future and are expanding our range of new mobility services." The move follows General Motors, Toyota, Ford and BMW, which have also launched or invested in vehicle-sharing services.
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http://uk.businessinsider.com/mercedes-invests-50-million-via-2017-9?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=referral&r=US&IR=T
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2017-09-06 08:11:06.947000
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Daimler
For almost a decade, Mercedes' parent company, Daimler, has been preparing for a future where fewer people buy a car.
In 2008, the German automaker launched Car2Go, a car-sharing service that amassed two million members in October 2016.
Last April, Daimler launched Moovel, a series of apps that allow users to book and pay for public transportation and see how well it integrates with other transit options, such as bike- or ride-hailing services, to get to a final destination.
And now Daimler is investing in Via in order to launch the ride-sharing service in London by the end of the year and other European cities to follow. Via and Daimler did not disclose the funding amount in its Monday announcement, but Mercedes-Benz Van will invest an additional $50 million in Via as part of the new partnership.
The Via partnership is just the latest in a series of Daimler investments geared at preparing for the decline of car ownership. Via is essentially an on-demand bus by allowing users to book a ride in a shuttle that's heading in the same general direction.
"By deepening our cooperation with Via, we are thus taking the next logical step in the context of our strategy for the future and are expanding our range of new mobility services," Volker Mornhinweg, Head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, wrote in a statement.
The percentage of households without a car has increased slightly in the last five years, the most recent data from the American Census Bureau shows. Experts in the auto industry expect the trend to continue as millennials increasingly elect to live in cities where it's expensive to own a car.
A recent study showed people use cars less frequently when a ride-hailing service is available.
Daimler got a head start on the pivot to mobility services, but other automakers have since followed suit. Toyota recently invested in Grab, an Uber competitor in Southeast Asia. General Motors, Ford, and BMW have all launched their own car-sharing services.
It's still unclear whether or not the death of car ownership is imminent or still a more distant reality.
Although no-car households are becoming slightly more common, a 2016 Strategic Vision Study found that millennials would still rather own a car than rely on ride-hailing services. In 2014, millennials bought more cars than Generation X for the first time.
Still, car companies seem to think the threat is big enough to warrant multi-million investments in mobility services. How these services will ultimately affect public transit, congestion, and car-spending habits in the long-term remains to be seen.
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Microsoft, Google patent tech for identifying trendsetters
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Microsoft and Google are investing in technology to help them identify and predict social media trends, patent applications have revealed. Google has applied to patent systems for spotting and rewarding "trendsetters" who spot and share content that then gets picked up more widely, which could help the company predict what will go viral. Meanwhile, Microsoft has applied to patent similar systems for identifying social media "experts" on different topics, based on their activity. Together, the two innovations provide new opportunities for users to be rewarded, and to more effectively monetise content.
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https://www.cbinsights.com/research/google-microsoft-influencer-viral-tech/?utm_source=CB+Insights+Newsletter&utm_campaign=19cb908cee-TuesNL_9_5_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9dc0513989-19cb908cee-88466961
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2017-09-06 07:32:15.087000
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New patents aim to identify and encourage online experts and influencers — with implications for brands and content creators.
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The CB Insights Patent Search Engine surfaced two patents this week that prove Google and Microsoft are eager to inject quantitative tech into the “Influencer Economy.”
Google applied for a patent focused on pinpointing, notifying, and rewarding “trendsetters” – aka early consumers of online content that ends up goes viral. In addition, this identification could ultimately help Google predict what content may go viral.
Microsoft applied for a patent focused on detecting, classifying, and scoring “experts” for their expertise on specific topics based on their online activity.
Both patents address common pain points of the social media ecosystem: Consumers want to be recognized for being first to notice and share videos, memes, or other content before they go viral. At the same time, brands want to be able to identify high-value influencers who they can tap into for their social-media marketing and business development efforts. And finally, a system for better predicting virality would also be extremely useful to content creators.
The new Google and Microsoft patents help put data behind identifying, rewarding, and encouraging social media influence.
Innovation Summit: (N+1) Trends Download this presentation from the CB Insights Innovation Summit to see the technologies, business models and distribution innovations that you should watch for in the next 5 to 10 years. Email
Google’s “trendsetter” patent was filed in May 2017 and published on August 17, 2017. The Microsoft patent was filed in February 2016 and published August 31, 2017. Both patents pose benefits for internet users and the platforms they utilize, but they have as many differences as similarities. We explore the patents in detail later in this post.
Both patents detail ways to “score” users for their trendsetting (in the case of Google) and expertise (in the case of Microsoft). Google’s patent makes mention of awarding a digital “trophy or badge” – or even a “coupon or cash” reward – to an early consumer of content that goes viral. Microsoft’s patent creates an Expert profile for a user once his or her expertise has been identified and classified.
Scores, badges, and the like are highly popular among social media users and active members of forums like Reddit and Quora. Much like Twitter’s “Verified” badge, Google’s and Microsoft’s patents could lead to sought-after identifiers for social media users as “Experts” or “Trendsetters.”
By building a system to identify and reward trendsetting and expertise, Google and Microsoft could also advance network-effect benefits that can help high-value people or content be identified sooner:
Google’s “trendsetter” patent incentivizes internet users to “seek out and share content that they think will become popular” because doing so boosts their potential to earn rewards, or to make said content go viral.
The Microsoft “expert” patent creates an Expert Profile for a user once an individual or entity hits a “topic score over a certain threshold” based on their online activity. If having an expert designation is desirable to the user, he or she could be incentivized to create and share more original content.
Once implemented, both innovations could also be leveraged for gamification and monetization opportunities around content creation, consumption, and data-sharing. Notably “influencer” startups saw a record high in investments this year.
Read on for explanations of the individual patents, and remember when you share this article that the Experts at CB Insights were the Trendsetters who gave these insights to you first.
Google Patent: Notifying Users That Were Early Consumers Of Popular Media Content
Google’s patent 20170238156 encompasses identifying, notifying, and rewarding individuals (based on historical data) for being among the first X% of users to access a content item of any type – video, document, image, etc. – once that item has been ranked as popular or viral, based on the number of times it has been accessed.
The patent notes two types of trendsetters that could be identified and notified – “trendsetters that were responsible for the rise in popularity of a popular content item can be differentiated from those who were merely early viewers of the content item.”
The diagram below shows how the system could be structured – envisioning a “trendsetter platform” and “notification system” that would be embedded into a content platform, with quotas set to issue notifications or awards at predetermined thresholds or times.
The system factors in different parameters for judging a user’s status around an interaction with a given piece of content. It also addresses several different use cases that could impact how a content provider rewards a Trendsetter:
Source – Did Tom introduce the link to the content into the social network, or was he among the first to click the link once it was already introduced?
Threshold – Is Tom one of the first content consumers to watch the video all the way through? Or one of the first to make it 75% of the way through it?
Demographics – Is Tom the first person in his city/state to watch the video? Was he among the first X% of men in the US to watch?
The patent notes that trendsetter status/notifications can be shared at the user’s discretion or if it aligns with the objectives of the content provider.
Notifications can also integrate with additional information on content consumption history to tell “Erin” other videos she should watch.
Further components address the integration of predictive functionalities – suggesting that ongoing identification and notification of trendsetters could ultimately help content providers predict or infer which ones will ultimately become viral.
Microsoft Patent: Expert Detection in Social Networks
Microsoft’s patent 20170249388 focuses exclusively on recognizing and classifying experts for their subject-matter expertise based on their online activity. It notes that social media has made individuals’ niche expertise far more valuable than in prior eras – making it crucial to ID experts with “high recall and high precision.”
In the patent, Microsoft outlines a system that collects and clusters linked topics to differentiate them, detect the type of content, and then process the domain of expertise it falls under.
Microsoft envisions the process as looking like the figure above, noting that the technology “may be applicable to any social network structure and should, therefore, work on any software that supports such user structure (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, email, etc.).”
Using the above structure, the expert detection process would:
Identify the expertise of a person or entity by analyzing online activity and then categorizing their expertise (or lack thereof) on a given set of topics
Create profiles that may include shared links, activity timelines, and so on, which are then configured to be searchable so users can be identified based on a granular understanding of their areas of expertise
Enable users to browse and search for expertise data via the “expert interfaces”
Based on the diagrams in the patent, the system appears to show expertise categories starting broad during the search process, then drilling down into more granular subject matter areas.
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Redrow Redrow keen to work with government on future of help-to-buy scheme
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Redrow Homes is looking forward to working with the UK government to outline the future of help-to-buy schemes beyond 2021, the homebuilder has said. The government has already spent £4.6bn ($6bn) on subsidies for those seeking to buy their first home, and will soon decide whether or not to continue the programme. Since the scheme was introduced in 2013, Redrow has reported record profits each year and dividends are up by 70%. The company's profits will rise again to about £430m by 2020, it said. About 40% of Redrow's sales are help-to-buy purchases.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2017/sep/05/help-to-buy-scheme-buyers-builders-subsidy
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2017-09-06 07:13:49.573000
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Housebuilder Redrow says it’s looking forward to working with government to consider the future of the help-to-buy subsidy scheme beyond 2021. You bet it is. Since former chancellor George Osborne in 2013 committed to helping homebuyers purchase new properties with a deposit of only 5%, Redrow has reported record profits every year.
The latest annual numbers – and a share price that has improved threefold since 2013 – shows how wonderful life has become for big housebuilders. You’d almost think Redrow was producing high-tech consumer gadgets. Operating margins are running at 19% and return on capital employed has hit 26%. About 40% of its private sales are to help-to-buy purchases, which is typical for the sector.
After an improvement of a quarter in pre-tax profits to £315m, the company hiked its dividend by 70% and said there’s plenty left in the tank. Profits will rise to about £430m by 2020 and the dividend can be almost doubled again “subject to market conditions remaining unchanged”.
The obvious question is why on earth the government, having spent £4.6bn already, would wish to continue with help to buy after 2021. Yes, the scheme has allowed some people to buy homes who would not otherwise have been able to do so, but the clearest beneficiaries of the stimulus to prices have been housebuilders’ shareholders and executives.
Back in 2013, one justification was the limp state of the mortgage market. That no longer applies. The banks are well-capitalised, high loan-to-value mortgages have returned and the Bank of England these days frets about too much lending, not too little.
Osborne’s other argument was that more demand for houses would increase supply. The numbers suggest modest success, even if some of the increase would have happened anyway. But the point now is that withdrawing help to buy overnight wouldn’t obviously cause the housebuilders to down tools for fear that non-subsidised houses would sell for slightly less. A return of capital of 26% is splendid but it is still worth getting out of bed for 15%.
Before ministers commit to renewing help to buy on the same terms, they should recall the warning by Lord King, former governor of the Bank of England, in 2014: “This scheme is a little too close for comfort to a general scheme to guarantee mortgages. We had a very healthy mortgage market with competing lenders attracting borrowers before the crisis, and we need to get back to that healthy mortgage market ... We mustn’t let this scheme turn into a permanent scheme.”
Ditching help to buy outright in 2021 may be undesirable since there is a fair case that first-time buyers still deserve a leg-up. But, as even wiser housebuilders concede, too many houses qualify for help to buy. Current ceilings are set at £600,000 and 20% of the value of mortgage. Both figures could usefully be cut in half before the scheme becomes an addiction.
No embarrassment of riches for Bell Pottinger
There’s an intriguing detail to the Bell Pottinger tale, which we have just reported: the now-disgraced PR outfit is understood to have inserted an “embarrassment clause” in its contract with the Guptas to the effect that it expected to be compensated if other clients defected as a result of its work in South Africa.
The clause suggests somebody at Bell Pottinger was dimly aware of the risk in running a campaign that stirred racial tensions and was deemed unethical and unprofessional by industry trade body, the Public Relations and Communications Agency.
How, though, did Bell Pottinger ever expect to make a claim? Quantifying the lost earnings would be almost impossible and, as the firm is now discovering, exposure was bound to cause a stampede to the exit by clients. The chance of getting a penny out of the Guptas in these circumstances was always roughly zero.
Hellawell slow out of the blocks at Sports Direct
If Keith Hellawell, chairman of Sports Direct, was serious about the commitment he gave a year ago to earn the respect of outside shareholders, there was one easy course of action open to him: he could have met a few rebels.
It is amazing, therefore, that one complaint from Hermes echoes last year’s grumble. The fund manager is “greatly concerned about the lack of one to one engagement” and the “missed opportunities to build positive and constructive relationships with interested third party minority investors”.
Hellawell may still survive Wednesday’s vote, but it doesn’t sound as if he has tried terribly hard to save his job.
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UTC-Rockwell deal at risk from Boeing's opposition threat
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The proposed $30bn merger of United Technologies (UTC) and Rockwell Collins could be at risk due to strong opposition from aerospace giant Boeing. Boeing said the deal between industrial conglomerate UTC and aviation supplier Rockwell Collins would not be its best interests and warned it could pursue regulatory options to scrutinise the deal. UTC CEO Greg Hayes said the deal would "enhance customer value".
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https://www.enca.com/technology/boeing-objects-to-united-technologies-rockwell-collins-tie-up
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2017-09-06 05:32:30.950000
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WASHINGTON - Aerospace giant Boeing raised concerns Tuesday about the merger of US-based industrial conglomerate United Technologies and aviation equipment supplier Rockwell Collins, saying it could use its weight with regulators to scrutinize the deal.
Boeing said it was concerned the deal announced Monday would not be in the best interests of the company.
"We intend to take a hard look at the proposed combination of United Technologies and Rockwell Collins," Boeing said in a statement.
The company said it is "skeptical" whether the deal between two major suppliers to the aerospace industry "would be in the best interest of -- or add value to -- our customers and industry."
If Boeing decides the merger is "inconsistent with those interests, we would intend to exercise our contractual rights and pursue the appropriate regulatory options to protect our interests."
Both companies are significant suppliers to Boeing and "their first priority should be delivering on existing cost, schedule and quality commitments for their customers and ours."
In the $30 billion deal, including debt, United Technologies (UTC) will offer $140(R1812.45) per share Rockwell Collins, or $23 billion in addition to debt recovery.
UTC Chairman and CEO Greg Hayes said the deal would "enhance customer value."
United Technologies, headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut, has an annual turnover of $58 billion and employs more than 200,000 people.
UTC's aerospace activities represent a total turnover of $14.5 billion. It already owns Pratt & Whitney which makes aircraft engines and had revenue of $15.1 billion.
Rockwell Collins, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, manufactures electronic equipment for cockpits and cabins. It has annual turnover of $6 billion and employs 19,000 people. Last year it acquired the American group B/E Aerospace for $6.4 billion.
This latest deal comes after the acquisition of France's Zodiac Aerospace by its compatriot Safran in May.
The industry changes come as aircraft manufacturers are pressuring subcontractors to lower prices on equipment.
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Third of parasites could be eradicated by climate change
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A third of parasite species could be eradicated by climate change, according to the most comprehensive study of the subject so far. Such an extinction could cause “a potential massive destabilisation of ecosystems” and could make a “significant contribution” to the ongoing sixth global mass extinction. The research used collections at the Smithsonian Institution to map the global distribution of 457 parasites and then applied a range of climate models. The average level of extinctions was 10% by 2070, rising to a third if loss of host species was also included in the calculations.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/climate-change-could-wipe-out-a-third-of-parasite-species-study-finds
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2017-09-05 22:00:00
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Climate change could wipe out a third of all parasite species on Earth, according to the most comprehensive analysis to date.
Tapeworms, roundworms, ticks, lice and fleas are feared for the diseases they cause or carry, but scientists warn that they also play a vital role in ecosystems. Major extinctions among parasites could lead to unpredictable invasions of surviving parasites into new areas, affecting wildlife and humans and making a “significant contribution” to the sixth mass extinction already under way on Earth.
The new research, published in Science Advances, used the collection of 20m parasites held at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of National History in the US to map the global distribution of 457 parasites. The scientists then applied a range of climate models and future scenarios and found that the average level of extinctions as habitats become unsuitable for parasites was 10% by 2070, but extinctions rose to a third if the loss of host species was also included.
“It is a staggering number,” said Colin Carlson at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the new work. “Parasites seem like one of the most threatened groups on Earth.” The severity of the impact varied with the different climate scenarios. For example, a 20% loss of parasite native ranges in scenarios where carbon emissions are rapidly cut in the future rises to 37% if emissions continue unchecked.
“Parasites are obviously a hard sell,” said Carlson. “Even if you are grossed out by them – and there are obviously downsides for individual hosts and for humans – parasites play a huge role in ecosystems.” They provide up to 80% of the food web links in ecosystems, he said. Having a wide range of parasites in an ecosystem also means they compete with one another, which can help slow down the spread of diseases.
“If parasites go extinct, we are looking at a potential massive destabilisation of ecosystems [which] could have huge unexpected consequences,” Carlson said, with other parasites moving in to take advantage. “That doesn’t necessarily work out well for anyone, wildlife or humans.”
One example of the complex role parasites can play is a hairworm that lives in grasshoppers in Japan and tends to lead its host to jump into water, where the grasshoppers become a major food source for rare fish. “In some subtle ways, parasites are puppeteers,” Carlson said.
The research analysed more than 50,000 records of the 457 parasite species, which the researchers believe provides a representative picture. But, with more than 300,000 species of parasitic worms alone known to exist, working out the specific impact of parasite extinctions on diseases is complex and remains to be done.
“It is difficult to summarise the net consequence, as we know so little about most parasites,” Carlson said. “Climate change will make some parasites extinct and make some do better. But we would argue the overall phenomenon is dangerous, because extinctions and invasions go hand in hand.”
Anna Phillips, the curator of the Smithsonian’s parasite collection, said: “As long as there are free-living organisms, there will be parasites. But the picture of parasite biodiversity in 2070 or beyond has the potential to look very different than it does today based on these results.”
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Tap water across the world contaminated with plastic
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Plastic fibres have been found in tap water from across the world, according to research by scientists for non-profit Orb Media. Of the samples from over a dozen countries, 83% were found to be contaminated by microplastics. The US was the country with the worst contamination rate, at 94%, followed by Lebanon and India. European countries including France, Germany and the UK had the lowest levels at 72%. The study led to calls from scientists for research into the impact of contamination by microplastics, which contain toxic chemicals which animal studies show are released in the body, on human health.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/plastic-fibres-found-tap-water-around-world-study-reveals?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning+briefing&utm_term=242455&subid=18211254&CMP=ema-2793
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2017-09-05 22:00:00
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Microplastic contamination has been found in tap water in countries around the world, leading to calls from scientists for urgent research on the implications for health.
Scores of tap water samples from more than a dozen nations were analysed by scientists for an investigation by Orb Media, who shared the findings with the Guardian. Overall, 83% of the samples were contaminated with plastic fibres.
The US had the highest contamination rate, at 94%, with plastic fibres found in tap water sampled at sites including Congress buildings, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters, and Trump Tower in New York. Lebanon and India had the next highest rates.
European nations including the UK, Germany and France had the lowest contamination rate, but this was still 72%. The average number of fibres found in each 500ml sample ranged from 4.8 in the US to 1.9 in Europe.
The new analyses indicate the ubiquitous extent of microplastic contamination in the global environment. Previous work has been largely focused on plastic pollution in the oceans, which suggests people are eating microplastics via contaminated seafood.
“We have enough data from looking at wildlife, and the impacts that it’s having on wildlife, to be concerned,” said Dr Sherri Mason, a microplastic expert at the State University of New York in Fredonia, who supervised the analyses for Orb. “If it’s impacting [wildlife], then how do we think that it’s not going to somehow impact us?”
A magnified image of clothing microfibres from washing machine effluent. One study found that a fleece jacket can shed as many as 250,000 fibres per wash. Photograph: Courtesy of Rozalia Project
A separate small study in the Republic of Ireland released in June also found microplastic contamination in a handful of tap water and well samples. “We don’t know what the [health] impact is and for that reason we should follow the precautionary principle and put enough effort into it now, immediately, so we can find out what the real risks are,” said Dr Anne Marie Mahon at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, who conducted the research.
Mahon said there were two principal concerns: very small plastic particles and the chemicals or pathogens that microplastics can harbour. “If the fibres are there, it is possible that the nanoparticles are there too that we can’t measure,” she said. “Once they are in the nanometre range they can really penetrate a cell and that means they can penetrate organs, and that would be worrying.” The Orb analyses caught particles of more than 2.5 microns in size, 2,500 times bigger than a nanometre.
Microplastics can attract bacteria found in sewage, Mahon said: “Some studies have shown there are more harmful pathogens on microplastics downstream of wastewater treatment plants.”
Microplastics are also known to contain and absorb toxic chemicals and research on wild animals shows they are released in the body. Prof Richard Thompson, at Plymouth University, UK, told Orb: “It became clear very early on that the plastic would release those chemicals and that actually, the conditions in the gut would facilitate really quite rapid release.” His research has shown microplastics are found in a third of fish caught in the UK.
The scale of global microplastic contamination is only starting to become clear, with studies in Germany finding fibres and fragments in all of the 24 beer brands they tested, as well as in honey and sugar. In Paris in 2015, researchers discovered microplastic falling from the air, which they estimated deposits three to 10 tonnes of fibres on the city each year, and that it was also present in the air in people’s homes.
This research led Frank Kelly, professor of environmental health at King’s College London, to tell a UK parliamentary inquiry in 2016: “If we breathe them in they could potentially deliver chemicals to the lower parts of our lungs and maybe even across into our circulation.” Having seen the Orb data, Kelly told the Guardian that research is urgently needed to determine whether ingesting plastic particles is a health risk.
The new research tested 159 samples using a standard technique to eliminate contamination from other sources and was performed at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. The samples came from across the world, including from Uganda, Ecuador and Indonesia.
How microplastics end up in drinking water is for now a mystery, but the atmosphere is one obvious source, with fibres shed by the everyday wear and tear of clothes and carpets. Tumble dryers are another potential source, with almost 80% of US households having dryers that usually vent to the open air.
“We really think that the lakes [and other water bodies] can be contaminated by cumulative atmospheric inputs,” said Johnny Gasperi, at the University Paris-Est Créteil, who did the Paris studies. “What we observed in Paris tends to demonstrate that a huge amount of fibres are present in atmospheric fallout.”
Plastic fibres may also be flushed into water systems, with a recent study finding that each cycle of a washing machine could release 700,000 fibres into the environment. Rains could also sweep up microplastic pollution, which could explain why the household wells used in Indonesia were found to be contaminated.
In Beirut, Lebanon, the water supply comes from natural springs but 94% of the samples were contaminated. “This research only scratches the surface, but it seems to be a very itchy one,” said Hussam Hawwa, at the environmental consultancy Difaf, which collected samples for Orb.
This planktonic arrow worm, Sagitta setosa, has eaten a blue plastic fibre about 3mm long. Plankton support the entire marine food chain. Photograph: Richard Kirby/Courtesy of Orb Media
Current standard water treatment systems do not filter out all of the microplastics, Mahon said: “There is nowhere really where you can say these are being trapped 100%. In terms of fibres, the diameter is 10 microns across and it would be very unusual to find that level of filtration in our drinking water systems.”
Bottled water may not provide a microplastic-free alternative to tapwater, as the they were also found in a few samples of commercial bottled water tested in the US for Orb.
Almost 300m tonnes of plastic is produced each year and, with just 20% recycled or incinerated, much of it ends up littering the air, land and sea. A report in July found 8.3bn tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s, with the researchers warning that plastic waste has become ubiquitous in the environment.
“We are increasingly smothering ecosystems in plastic and I am very worried that there may be all kinds of unintended, adverse consequences that we will only find out about once it is too late,” said Prof Roland Geyer, from the University of California and Santa Barbara, who led the study.
Mahon said the new tap water analyses raise a red flag, but that more work is needed to replicate the results, find the sources of contamination and evaluate the possible health impacts.
She said plastics are very useful, but that management of the waste must be drastically improved: “We need plastics in our lives, but it is us that is doing the damage by discarding them in very careless ways.”
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UK councils to fine parents breaching school parking bans
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UK councils are imposing restrictions, including fines, on parents driving children to school gates in an attempt to improve safety and reduce pollution. Many councils are enforcing laws prohibiting parking immediately outside gates and are using CCTV cameras and mobile monitoring vehicles to identify those breaching such rules. Some councils are also closing roads in the immediate vicinity of schools and imposing potential fines of up to £130 on those who violate bans. Various health bodies have recommended the introduction of “no-idling zones,” enforced by fines.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/parents-face-fines-for-driving-children-to-school-in-push-to-curb-pollution
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2017-09-05 22:00:00
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Parents across the country face tough restrictions – and even fines – over driving their children to the school gates, in a push by councils on road safety and pollution.
As the new academic year begins, a survey of councils shows many are enforcing laws preventing parking immediately outside the school gates, using CCTV cameras and mobile monitoring vehicles to crack down on parents flouting the rules.
But some are going further with schemes that close the roads in the immediate vicinity of schools to most traffic during the school run.
In some cases, parents could face fines of up to £130 for driving in the restricted zones.
Other local authorities are considering “no-idling” zones with fines for parents and carers who leave engines running outside schools.
In Solihull, West Midlands, a “school streets” pilot is restricting traffic on streets around three schools at the start and end of the school day, preventing parents and carers driving children to the gates.
Ted Richards, cabinet member for transport and highways, said: “We know that most people do drive responsibly, but it can often be chaotic outside schools at drop-off and pick-up times.
“The aim of school streets is to create a safer and more pleasant environment for everyone around schools.”
Croydon in south London has also brought in traffic restrictions on roads outside three schools for the morning and afternoon school runs.
Automatic numberplate recognition cameras scan vehicles passing through the zones and those without permits – which are free for residents and their visitors – face a £130 penalty charge, or £65 if paid within a fortnight.
Stuart King, cabinet member for transport and environment, said: “The temporary numberplate cameras will help our officers make a fair decision on who can drive through the pedestrian zones and who can’t, allowing residents, their visitors, school staff and delivery drivers to go about their business as usual.”
Elsewhere in London, Hackney is planning a school streets trial around five schools, while Camden is piloting a scheme which closes the road outside a school with bollards at the start and end of the school day.
Edinburgh started restrictions around a number of schools in 2015.
And in the wake of guidance from health bodies suggesting parents should face fines for breaching “no-idling zones” to protect children from pollution, Sheffield city council is consulting on whether to bring in idling fines outside schools.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said many parents had to make the school run by car on their way to work, and many schools and surrounding roads were not equipped for this reality, leading to congestion, pollution and road safety issues.
But he said: “Fines are often a blunt tool for councils to use, and can drive a wedge between parents and schools even though headteachers have no role in administering them.
“Councils must work with schools and local communities to ensure that roads around schools work for everyone,” he said.
Friends of the Earth air pollution campaigner Aaron Kiely described schemes to reduce traffic outside schools as “a positive step towards protecting our children’s health”.
He said there are “plenty of imaginative ways” to get children to school, including walking buses and riding scooters.
Steve Gooding, director of motoring research charity the RAC Foundation, welcomed children being encouraged to walk to school, but noted: “Many parents juggling the school run and their own commute to work have little choice other than to do the school drop off by car, particularly since fewer and fewer children automatically go to the school nearest to their home.”
Sam Jones, campaigner at Cycling UK, warned that without sufficient investment in cycling and walking routes, fining parents represents an “all stick and no carrot” approach.
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Mars launches $1bn sustainability and climate plan
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Mars, the global confectionery and pet food company, has launched a $1bn sustainability plan, incorporating a campaign to promote renewable energy centred around its M&M’s brand. The scheme is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the company’s value chain by 67% by 2050. It will also support poverty reduction and sustainability initiatives for farmers and suppliers, while increasing food safety and security measures. The family-owned firm, responsible for brands including Skittles, Snickers and Twix, has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/mars-counters-trumps-climate-stance-with-1bn-sustainability-plan
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2017-09-05 21:00:00
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The corporate backlash is growing against Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, with Mars launching a $1bn sustainability plan and an M&M’s campaign centred on renewable energy.
It is the latest climate move by the family owned firm, which emerged as a vocal critic of the US president’s decision to pull out of the 2015 climate pact, saying it was “disappointed” with the withdrawal and stressing that corporations could not go it alone when it came to tackling climate change.
Mars is now rolling out a $1bn (£771m) investment to help cut greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 67% by 2050, run a poverty reduction and sustainability programme for farmers and suppliers, and ramp up food safety and security efforts.
Chief executive Grant F Reid said: “This plan is about not just doing better, but doing what’s necessary. We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do but also because it’s good business.
“We expect to have a competitive advantage from a more resource-efficient supply chain, and from ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is doing well.”
The Snickers, Twix, Milky Way and Skittles maker has also revealed plans to champion renewable energy through its M&M’s brand, featuring images of things such as wind turbines alongside its red and yellow candy characters.
Its sustainability investments and M&M’s campaign were announced ahead of the UN general assembly and climate week which will run from 18 to 24 September in New York.
Reid said: “If we are to help deliver on the targets agreed in Paris and the UN sustainable development goals, there has to be a huge step change.
“While many companies have been working on being more sustainable, the current level of progress is nowhere near enough.”
The Paris agreement aims to prevent the Earth from heating up by 2C since the start of the industrial age.
Since the world has already warmed about 1.1C since the Industrial Revolution, the accord aimed at making sure the threshold was not breached with each nation curbing heat-trapping emissions.
All but a very small number of scientists say warming is a result of human activity.
The chief executive added: “Mars has been in business for four generations and intends to be for the next four generations.
“The only way that will happen is if we do things differently to ensure that the planet is healthy and all people in our extended supply chains have the opportunity to thrive.”
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Goldman Sachs to sell 1.78% stake in Dong Energy
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Goldman Sachs-Controlled New Energy Investment has cut its stake in Dong Energy by 1.78% after selling 7.5 million shares in the Danish company to institutional investors. The shares were sold for DKK321 ($51.34) each. New Energy Investment retains 2.7% of Dong's share capital.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-sachs-cuts-stake-in-dong-energy-again-2017-08-31
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2017-09-05 20:13:58.130000
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS, +0.18% on Thursday reduced its stake in Denmark's Dong Energy A/S (DENERG.KO) further after agreeing to sell 7.5 million shares in the energy group to institutional investors.
The shares--equivalent to 1.78% of Dong's existing capital--are being sold at 321 Danish kroner ($51.34) each by Goldman Sachs-controlled New Energy Investment S.a.r.l.
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Air Liquide acquires majority stake in Norwegian biogas firm
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Air Liquide said it is to acquire a majority stake in Skagerak Naturgass, a unit of Skagerak Energi for an undisclosed amount. The deal will allow Air Liquide to enter the Scandinavian biogas market.
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https://bioenergyinternational.com/markets-finance/air-liquide-enters-norwegian-biogas-market
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2017-09-05 20:08:13.477000
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France-headed global gases, technologies, and services provider Air Liquide has announced its acquisition of majority equity in Skagerak Naturgass AS, a subsidiary of Skagerak Energi AS, which is majority owned by Statkraft AS, Europe’s largest renewable power generator. Skagerak Naturgass AS operates a distribution network delivering natural gas to industry and 100 percent biomethane to the Norwegian transport sector through four bio-NGV refueling stations installed in the Oslo region.
According to a statement, the new joint venture (JV) allows Air Liquide to pursue its business development in the Scandinavian biogas market, “firmly aligned” with its aim of harnessing renewable technology for clean transport.
Scandinavia constitutes one of Europe’s key markets in the development of sustainable mobility. In Norway, the government has declared targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is committed to phasing out fossil fuel-powered vehicles altogether by 2030.
In 2014, Air Liquide purchased FordonsGas, a Swedish biogas distribution company that owns and operates a network of 50 compressed biogas (CBG) stations providing customers with fuel from one of the world’s largest biogas liquefaction facilities, which chiefly produces CBG for the Swedish transportation market.
In February 2017, Air Liquide expanded its presence in the UK market with the acquisition of ENN Clean Energy UK.
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North Carolina gas peaker delayed as renewable options weighed
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Opponents of a proposed gas-fired peaker plant in North Carolina have won a partial victory after it was announced construction of the Lake Julian coal-powered facility would be delayed by three years. Owner Duke Energy said the project was not being scrapped altogether, but it would "allow time for other resources to be examined". A year ago, staff at the North Carolina Utilities Commission concluded advances in energy technology may render the peaker plant redundant before completion.
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http://www.utilitydive.com/news/duke-gas-peaker-plant-project-postponed-in-north-carolina/504306/
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2017-09-05 20:00:00
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Dive Brief:
Duke Energy will delay for three years a proposed gas-fired peaker plant that would be built at the site of the Lake Julian coal-powered facility in North Carolina. The development has been pushed back from 2023 to 2027.
According to the Citizen-Times, the change is largely the result of lobbying by the city of Asheville, Buncombe County, N.C., and other groups, as part of an Energy Innovation Task Force (EITF) that pressed Duke for more clean energy resources.
(EITF) that pressed Duke for more clean energy resources. More than a year ago there were signs the plant could face issues: Staff at the North Carolina Utilities Commission concluded the plant might not be necessary when completed, given advances in energy technology.
Dive Insight:
It is a partial win for clean energy and environmental advocates — Duke isn't scrapping the project but instead will delay it for three years. But that will allow time for other resources to be examined, something local stakeholders have advocated.
“It’s great news that they’re postponing this project, but the better course is not to build this plant at all," Kelly Martin, EITF task force member and associate director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said in a statement.
The task force also included local businesses, nonprofits and environmental groups, including Sierra Club. Members "recommend ways to reduce peak load in the region through demand response, energy efficiency and clean energy solutions," the group explained.
Martin also pointed to North Carolinas large solar potential, and pressed Duke for more energy efficiency programs.
When considering the project last year, staff wrote its report that rejecting the plan would allow for "advances in generation, transmission, and storage technologies" to fill any potential power needs in the next eight years.
A pair of combined-cycled units being developed at the same site is still on track, according to the Citizen-Times. Those two units are planned to begin generating 560 MW in about two years.
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French government sells 111 million shares in Engie
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France's state investment agency has said the country's government has sold 111 million shares in utility company Engie, raising €1.53bn ($1.82bn) to be used in employee savings plans. The move has reduced the state's stake in the company to 24.1% and its voting rights to 27.6%, but it remains the company's majority stakeholder and will continue to offer guidance during Engie's strategic transformation.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/france-reduces-states-stake-in-engie-to-241-2017-09-06?mg=prod/accounts-mw
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2017-09-05 20:00:00
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The French government said late Tuesday that it sold 111 million shares in Engie SA (ENGI.FR) to institutional investors and the company itself for 1.53 billion euros ($1.82 billion).
The shares represent 4.56% of Engie's total capital.
France's state investment agency said it placed 99.9 million shares at EUR13.80 each to institutional investors and sold 11.1 million shares to the energy company at the same price.
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Lithium Exploration Group may buy two battery patents
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Lithium Exploration Group is in discussions with the owner of two lithium-ion battery patents with the aim of developing a lithium technology development company. The inventor of the technology will become CTO of the new company, which will be a subsidiary of Lithium Exploration.
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http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lithium-exploration-group-in-discussions-to-acquire-two-lithium-battery-design-patents-642239253.html
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2017-09-05 19:41:18.897000
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PHOENIX, August 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Lithium Exploration Group Inc. (USOTC: LEXG) announced today that it is engaged in discussions with the owner of two lithium battery patents to partner on the establishment of a lithium technology development company. LEXG intends to establish a subsidiary entity that will hold this intellectual property (IP) as well as others that come available. Currently the discussions center on appointing the inventor to be Chief Technology Officer of the subsidiary entity in order to evaluate market penetration of future IP acquisitions, as well as to support the research and development of new patents in the industry.
"At our core, we are a technology development company and we want to be on the forefront of the lithium industry. We feel strongly that the SonCav technology will change the way that lithium is extracted from the earth. The SonCav technology is on a great path and, with the visibility of success with our oil and gas investments, we will be able to reinvest those dollars to support emerging technologies across the industry," commented CEO Alex Walsh. "Over the past year, we have begun looking at novel intellectual property that we can assist in bringing to market. The important part for us is building a foundation now from which we can grow. I hope to be able to announce an agreement with this inventor as early as next week."
About Lithium Exploration Group
Lithium Exploration Group is a US-based exploration and development company focused on the acquisition and development potential of lithium brines and other precious metals that demonstrate high probability for near-term production. Currently the company is focused testing the Sonic Cavitation Ltd. technology and the acquisition of oil and gas related assets in the US and Canada. Lithium Exploration Group is traded on the OTC Markets under the symbol LEXG.
Website: http://www.lithiumexplorationgroup.com .
Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains "forward-looking statements". Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future testing of the ultrasonic technology.
Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with mineral exploration and difficulties associated with obtaining financing on acceptable terms. We are not in control of lithium prices and these could vary to make development uneconomic. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements.
Although we believe that the beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our most recent annual report for our last fiscal year, our quarterly reports, and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Contact Info:
Shanon Chilson
+1-480-641-4790
[email protected]
SOURCE Lithium Exploration Group Inc.
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Iceye raises $13m for energy-focused satellite system
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Finnish technology company Iceye has raised $13m in a funding round led by Draper Nexus, and featuring participation from True Ventures, Space Angels and Lifeline Ventures. Iceye's synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) technology and microsatellites offer reliable imaging of Earth, with applications including detecting oil spills, following shipping traffic or helping develop smart cities. The funds will be used to continue growing operations, said CEO Rafal Modrzewski.
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https://www.iceye.fi/press/press-releases/iceye-raises-usd-13m-additional-financing-to-develop-sar-microsatellite-constellation
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2017-09-05 19:00:00
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Finnish-based SAR microsatellite technology leader on track for 2017 orbital missions.
Helsinki, FINLAND – August 23, 2017 – ICEYE, the leader in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) technology for microsatellites providing expanded access to reliable and timely Earth observation data, today announced $13M in new funding, including an $8.5M financing round led by Draper Nexus. ICEYE will use the latest funding to scale up operations, including manufacturing of the company’s SAR technology built from off-the-shelf components, and launch additional satellites. ICEYE plans to launch the first three microsatellites equipped with SAR sensors over the next 12 months, delivering Earth observation data to select customers shortly thereafter.
This $8.5M round also included participation from True Ventures, Lifeline Ventures, Space Angels, and Draper Associates. Additional funding was received from Finnish Funding Agency for Innovations, Tekes. Since starting its operations in 2015, ICEYE has secured a total of $18.7M in financing, including investments from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program.
“Having the support and insight from our investors will not only help ICEYE execute on our vision to democratize access to data worldwide, but it will also allow us to build out brand-new capabilities for our customers and partners,” said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and co-founder, ICEYE Oy. “ICEYE will use this capital infusion to continue growing operations, readying our technology for the next generation of SAR microsatellite constellations.”
With darkness or clouds covering two-thirds of the planet at any given time, SAR technology delivers reliable imaging where optical imaging cannot. Finland-based ICEYE has developed a unique SAR sensor to offer imaging services anywhere around the globe, anytime, with response times measured in a few hours from acquisition. By enabling economically viable microsatellite constellations, ICEYE’s goal is to expand access to SAR data at a cost and time efficiency that has never before been available to commercial and government entities.
“ICEYE has a disruptive value proposition of making Earth observation data and insights available at a refresh rate and cost that is orders of magnitude better than any system out there today. Rafal and his team are unleashing efficiency and innovation across wide sectors of our economy - insurance, construction and transportation to name a few,” said Q Motiwala, managing director of Draper Nexus who will be joining ICEYE’s board. “We are excited to partner with this incredible, passionate team that is bringing this game-changing technology to market.”
The commercial Earth observation data that ICEYE provides, underpins value-added services in various industries and can be used across different industries to track changes around the world at any time. ICEYE’s SAR microsatellites can be used in the maritime industry to follow port traffic, in the oil industry to detect oil spills or by the government to monitor illegal logging, as well as fast disaster relief.
# # # # #
Media Contact:
[email protected]
About ICEYE
ICEYE aims to provide democratized access to reliable Earth observation data through developing efficient SAR sensors and microsatellites, enabling everyone to make better decisions. Through an imaging service available anywhere around the globe, anytime, and with response times measured in just few hours, ICEYE helps clients resolve challenges in segments such as maritime, disaster management and security and intelligence. ICEYE is on track to be the first organization in the world to launch SAR microsatellites and expects to commence its commercial data operations in the first half of 2018. ICEYE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme via the SME Instrument. For more information, please visit: www.iceye.com
About Draper Nexus
Draper Nexus is an early stage venture capital fund focusing on Enterprise Tech and Hardware/Industrials. We bring a collaborative approach to work with entrepreneurs who are harnessing technology and data to transform and unlock value in established industries. We leverage our Corporate LP/industry relationships in Japan and the global reach of the Draper Venture Network to create a customer development advantage for our portfolio companies. For more information, please visit: www.drapernexus.com
About Draper Associates
Draper Associates is an early stage venture capital firm that encourages entrepreneurs to drive their businesses to greatness, to transform industries with new technologies, and to build platforms for extraordinary growth, jobs, and wealth creation. For more information visit: www.draper.vc
About True Ventures
Founded in 2005, True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups. With capital under management in excess of $1.4 billion, True provides seed and Series A funding to the most talented entrepreneurs in today’s fastest growing markets. The firm maintains a strong founder community and offers innovative educational opportunities to its portfolio, helping entrepreneurs achieve higher levels of success and impact. With more than 200 companies funded and multiple companies acquired, the current True portfolio has helped create over 8,500 jobs.
For more information please visit: www.trueventures.com
About Lifeline Ventures
Lifeline Ventures is a Finland-based early-stage venture capital firm founded by serial entrepreneurs. We invest in strong founders in sectors we know by heart from our experience as entrepreneurs. Due to our background, we often start working with founders before they have launched their first product. Our goal is to be the first person the entrepreneur reaches out to in times of trouble and joy. So far, we have invested 70 companies including category-leaders such as Applifier, Enevo, Moves app, Supercell, uBiome, Valkee and ZenRobotics. More information: www.lifelineventures.com
About Space Angels
Space Angels is the leading source of capital for early-stage space ventures. Founded in 2007, our portfolio includes many of the most prominent entrepreneurial space companies in the sector. Through a robust and streamlined web platform, Space Angels provides unparalleled deal access and comprehensible intelligence to its accredited investor members, making it easy to discover, select, and invest in the best space startups. For more information, please visit: www.spaceangels.com
Assets:
Other assets available at https://www.iceye.com/press .
Download by clicking:
"An ICEYE render of the first SAR microsatellite deployed in orbit."
ICEYE logo.
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Iceye raises $13m for energy-focused satellite system
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Finnish technology company Iceye has raised $13m in a funding round led by Draper Nexus, and featuring participation from True Ventures, Space Angels and Lifeline Ventures. Iceye's synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) technology and microsatellites offer reliable imaging of Earth, with applications including detecting oil spills, following shipping traffic or helping develop smart cities. The funds will be used to continue growing operations, said CEO Rafal Modrzewski.
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https://www.cleantech.com/cleantech-meets-space-a-months-worth-of-deals-changing-how-we-see-the-planet/
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2017-09-05 19:00:00
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Cleantech Meets Space: A month’s worth of deals changing how we see the planet
Here at CTG, it is our goal to keep our network of investors and corporates up to date with the latest trends, and share our perspective on the industries we cover that are simply doing “more with less.”
As an example of one such industry, we are looking at spacetech, satellite networking, and geographic information systems (GIS) as specific areas where venture capital has become increasingly utilized, with significant cleantech relevance.
Through the billionaire-backed efforts of SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, the space sector has been recapturing our imaginations. But beyond these headlines, there are satellite & GIS companies working on solutions for core cleantech areas, such as agriculture & food, energy efficiency, and water security. This technology is helping to revolutionize changes in these industries, providing access to higher quality data and leading to strategically impactful adaptations.
This area warrants much more of an in-depth study than this blog (which we will provide in our upcoming October edition of CTG Insights), but in the spirit of “sharing what we are seeing,” I want to highlight a few of the satellite companies with cleantech applications that have raised funding in the last month alone (August 2017).
Geospatial analytics company Descartes Labs announced $30 million in Series B funding last month. The round was led by Santa Monica-based VC March Capital, with participation from energy-focused VC Crosslink Capital, agriculture-specialist Cultivian Sandbox, and agricultural commodities giant Cargill.
Descartes Labs’ machine-learning-powered satellite analysis has initially been built around an agricultural forecasting package, with applications ranging from imaging solutions for precision agriculture to macro-level food security predictions. For example, using spectral imaging, the imaging software can measure chlorophyll levels, which are invisible to the human eye, but represent a strong proxy for the health of crops. Despite the current focus, the Descartes Labs data platform can have applications far beyond the agriculture sector, in areas such as shipping & logistics, forestry, and energy infrastructure.
Finland-based ICEYE has raised $13 million in funding, from a cast of investors including both Draper Nexus and Draper Associates, True Ventures, Lifeline Ventures, Space Angels, and the Finnish governmental innovation agency, Tekes. ICEYE’s satellites provide huge amounts of data, which can currently be applied to crucial areas such as preventing illegal logging in South America, port monitoring for increased efficiency in maritime industries, and monitoring crop health.
Yet perhaps one of the most tangible areas that this technology can be felt is in smart city planning, where the ways in which cities are changing and growing can be understood instantaneously via satellite data. Armed with this knowledge, city planners can address issues before they become unmanageable, and infrastructure implementation can be introduced accordingly. For example, identifying bottlenecks from road congestion can ease both the environmental footprint of idle motors, or the identification of localized energy usage can provide invaluable information to keep the grid up and running efficiently, reducing the need for coal-powered backup generation.
On the banks of Lac Leman in Switzerland, Lausanne-based Astrocast is a developer of a low-cost network of nanosatellites for connecting the billions of IoT devices that are proliferating the ”Industry 4.0” revolution. The company raised a $3 million round of seed funding in August from the venturing arm of aeronautical multinational, Airbus, and has also received backing from the European Space Agency and the Swiss government.
With the recent funding, the company is planning the launch of its 64-satellite constellation (which will potentially be facilitated by another recent venture-funded space company, RocketLabs). When this constellation is in place, it will focus on attracting IoT/M2M systems integrators as customers, with a broad spread of sector applications, including automotive and fleet monitoring, maritime, industrial manufacturing, and water metering companies.
Munich-based CloudEO also raised funds this month, in the form of $2.4 million in seed funding from unnamed investors. The company leverages existing satellites to mine geodata for a range of industries, including forestry, land planning and telecommunications.
Interestingly, the start-up has also launched an independent project, the Cloudeotoken cryptocurrency for geodata, which will enable crowdsourcing, M2M communication, and the exchange of geospatial information through automated smart transactions.
Thanks for reading. If you have comments, or want to know more about these companies or the space/cleantech intersection at large, feel free to get in contact with [email protected]. It’s also worth noting that this format of recent funding roundups is something I send out on a weekly basis to CTG Monitor subscribers – again, if you want to get this kind of detail on a weekly basis, do get in touch.
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