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US pharmacy chain CVS buys insurer Aetna for $69bn
 It’s Amazon’s world—we just live in it.

The retail behemoth has already transformed the way the world shops. Now Amazon’s moves to enter the health care industry have led two major US companies to make one of the biggest deals of the year, signaling major changes to come in the way Americans buy drugs and otherwise manage their health.

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The pharmacy chain CVS Health agreed today (Dec. 3) to buy Aetna, one of the biggest health insurance companies in the US, for roughly $69 billion. It’s an acquisition that could create a new model for the healthcare industry, with CVS likely to start offering primary-care services and medical follow-ups directly from its drugstores and walk-in clinics.

The deal is a direct consequence of Amazon’s penchant for disruption. Analysts say CVS snapped up Aetna to stay competitive with Amazon, which has made several moves this year that have pharmaceutical companies atremble. In May, CNBC reported that the company was looking to hire a general manager to develop a strategy for getting into the pharmaceutical business. Then word spread that Amazon had acquired pharmacy licenses in a dozen states. The company said it did so to sell medical supplies, but the move positions Amazon to sell drugs down the line, should it decide it wants to. And just last week, reports circulated that Amazon had held preliminary discussions with generic drugmakers Mylan and Sandoz.

It’s unclear whether Amazon is interested in selling drugs to consumers or acting as a drug wholesaler. Either way, the company’s recent actions have made the pharmacy industry nervous.

“CVS would never admit it, but this sort of pivot is Amazon’s doing,” Trip Miller, managing partner at Gullane Capital Partners, a minor shareholder in Amazon, told The Street. “What they’re doing now is definitely based on Amazon’s interest.”

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The fact that CVS snapped up Aetna without a clear sense of Amazon’s plans is a testament to the tech giant’s track record of shaking up industries ranging from books to clothes, TV, and groceries. Industry players know when Amazon eyes a new business, those who wait too long to react will wind up sitting ducks.

Output: US pharmacy chain CVS has agreed to buy major US insurer Aetna for $69bn, which could create a new model for the healthcare sector, with CVS potentially offering primary care services and medical follow-ups directly from its pharmacies and walk-in clinics. This move by CVS is seen as a response to its concerns about possible plans by Amazon to make a disruptive entry into the industry.


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BBC launches website to teach children about online safety
 Tony Hall, the director-general of the BBC, has said the corporation can help “minimise the risks” for children in the digital world, as he announced its new website for nine to 12-year-olds.

The site, called Own It, is the first product to be launched as part of the corporation’s £34m investment in children’s programming over the next three years.

Hall said the BBC’s intervention would “maximise the amazing opportunities for children growing up in a fully connected world – but we must also take steps to minimise the risks”.

Own It will be delivered in partnership with a range of organisations in the field of child internet safety, and is supported by an “engine room” of expert advisers, doctors and academics.

Hall said there were many important issues facing children today. “Is there a right age for children to give informed consent for their data to be used online? What responsibility should organisations have to make sure their platform is right for the age range that are really using it?”

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat require users to be at least 13. To create an account, users are asked for their date of birth, although Hall said the restriction was often flouted. On Snapchat, under-13s are redirected to a children’s version, called SnapKidz.

“Two-thirds of 10-year-olds in this country have a social media account – but we all know that’s not supposed to happen until they’re 13,” Hall wrote.

Own It, which will be available from 6 December, covers everything from online privacy and avoiding malware, to dealing with everyday dilemmas children face online. It will sit alongside CBeebies and CBBC and quick links to charities and organisations like Childline will also be available.

The BBC was asked in March by Ofcom to produce more UK-commissioned programming for children. According to Ofcom, £77m was spent on first-run UK-originated children’s programming in 2015, down from £140m in 2005. The BBC is responsible for 97% of original UK-produced children’s programming.

Hall wrote in the Guardian: “Children’s programming helps define our identity as a nation, and while there are many imports we all enjoy from the US, no one wants our children’s culture defined in the west coast of America.

“That’s why we’re renewing our focus on creating programmes and other content for children across the UK, reflecting their own lives and experiences back to them.”

The BBC has saved £30m annually after scrapping the BBC3 TV channel aimed at 16 to 34-year-olds in favour of an online-only offering.

Output: The BBC has launched a new website for children, which will be delivered in partnership with groups working on child internet safety, and which will be supported by advisers and doctors. The Own It site is part of a broader £34m ($45.5m) investment by the BBC in children’s programming over the next three years. BBC Director-General, Tony Hall, said that the corporation needed to “minimise the risks” to children “growing up in a fully connected world”. The site, which will be available from 6 December, will deal with issues including malware and online privacy.


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Delhi Test match halted due to polluted air
 A cricket Test match between India and Sri Lanka was repeatedly interrupted on Sunday with claims players were “continuously vomiting” due to hazardous pollution levels in the Indian capital.

Commentators said it was the first recorded instance of an international match being halted due to the toxic smog that afflicts much of north India year-round but worsens to hazardous levels during winter months.

Airborne pollution levels 15 times the World Health Organisation limits confronted players on the second day of the third Test at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi on Sunday.

As the haze worsened, many Sri Lankan players returned from lunch wearing face masks before complaining to umpires, who halted play for 20 minutes to consult with team doctors and match officials.

The match resumed but was interrupted twice more as bowlers Lahiru Gamage and Suranga Lakmal left the field mid-over with breathing difficulties.

“We had players coming off the field and vomiting,” the Sri Lanka coach Nic Pothas told reporters after the match.

“There were oxygen cylinders in the change room. It’s not normal for players to suffer in that way while playing the game.”

A paramedic speaks to Sri Lanka’s Lahiru Gamage after he complained of shortness of breath. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

Pothas said Lakmal was “continuously vomiting” in the changing room. “I think it’s the first time that everybody has come across that situation,” he said.

“There aren’t too many rules regarding pollution. What we are going to do tomorrow is in the hands of the match referee. They will have meetings tonight to put in some sort of a precedent if it happens like this tomorrow.”

The Indian bowler Kuldeep Yadav was also seen sporting a face mask as he brought drinks to teammates on the field.

Umpires were awaiting Lakmal’s return to the field when the Indian skipper, Virat Kohli, elected to declare with his side cruising on 536 runs with three wickets in hand.

The interruptions drew boos from the crowd for Sri Lanka’s opening batsmen as they made their way to the crease, where they played without masks.

The acting president of India’s cricket board was also unimpressed and said he would write to his Sri Lankan counterpart about the incident.

“If 20,000 people in the stands did not have problems and the Indian team did not face any issue, I wonder why the Sri Lankan team made a big fuss?” CK Khanna said.

It is the latest professional-grade match in Delhi to be affected by air pollution after two matches in the domestic Ranji Trophy tournament were abandoned in the city when it was engulfed in smog in November 2016.

Some Indian fans accused the Sri Lankan side of being melodramatic but the cricket writer Ayaz Memon said the episode sent an “unedifying message” about pollution in the city.

Sri Lanka’s captain Dinesh Chandimal fields in a mask. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

Schools were shut and doctors declared a public health emergency in Delhi last month as pollution levels spiked to levels 40 times the WHO safe limits, likened to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a day.

United Airlines briefly halted flights into the capital and foreign diplomats voiced fears the city could become a “non-family” posting due to the polluted environment.

Doctors warn against physical activity in the smog but around 30,000 runners still participated in an annual half-marathon in the city in November.

Delhi officials have been accused of not preparing for what has become an annual crisis each winter, while the Indian government has played down the urgency and health risks associated with the problem.

The extremely poor air in the city is the result of a combination of road dust, open fires, vehicle exhaust fumes, industrial emissions and the burning of crop residues in neighbouring states. Indian weather agencies also blame dust storms that originate in the Gulf.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Output: Hazardous pollution halted a cricket test match in Delhi between India and Sri Lanka on Sunday, as players reputedly vomited due to the toxic air. The disruption was the first recorded instance of play being halted due to smog. Airborne pollution levels during the match were 15 times the recommended World Health Organisation limits, prompting members of the Sri Lanka team to adopt face masks and complain to the umpires. Although play resumed, it faced two further interruptions as bowlers experienced breathing difficulties. Last month, doctors in Delhi declared a public health emergency due to high pollution levels.


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Younicos to 'train' batteries at Hywind floating wind project
 German-American energy storage company Younicos will deliver a 1MW/1.3 MWh energy storage system for the 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm as part of a project that aims to “teach” the battery how to behave.

Statoil, which holds 75% in the Hywind Scotland offshore wind project, explained in a press release on Tuesday that the goal of the so-called Batwind storage solution project is to understand how an energy storage system can help boost the value of the electricity generated at the site and how the work of a battery together with the wind farm and the grid can be optimised.

Two modular battery containers will be placed at the onshore substation in Peterhead, with operation of the battery planned to start in the second quarter of 2018.

“There is limited knowledge of how to make a battery act based on dynamic information, in order to maximize value of renewable energy,” says Sebastian Bringsvaerd, head of Hywind Development in Statoil. The Batwind partners, Statoil and Abu Dhabi renewable energy company Masdar, want the battery to automatically know when to store electricity, and when to release it out to the grid.

The next steps in developing the battery storage solution will depend on the learnings and testing of the system at Hywind Scotland.

“Batwind has the potential to add value by mitigating periods without wind – and by that making wind a more reliable energy producer year around. This could expand the use and market for wind and renewables in the future,” Bringsvaerd added.

Hywind Scotland, the world's first floating offshore wind farm, was opened in October by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. It uses five 6-MW Siemens Gamesa machines. It is Statoil's ambition to cut the costs of energy from the Hywind wind farm to EUR 40-60 (USD 48-71.5) per MWh by 2030.

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Output: Statoil has commissioned German-American energy storage firm Younicos to build a battery-storage system at its 30 MW floating wind farm off the coast of Scotland, Hywind. The Batwind energy-storage project aims to "teach" the battery when to store electricity and when to send it to the grid to maximise the value of the power. The 1 MW/1.3 MWh will be based in two 10 ft containers by at the onshore substation at Peterhead with operation due to begin in Q2 2018.


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Mexican record setting solar bid is in fact for wind power
 PV watchers are in for a disappointment after it emerged that an auction result reported as the cheapest price for solar ever was actually a price for wind.

News outlets, including GTM, rushed to celebrate what Electrek reported was a record low price of $17.70 per megawatt-hour for solar energy on the release this month of the preliminary results of Mexico’s latest auction for energy, power and clean energy certificates.

The preliminary results announcement from Mexico’s National Energy Control Center (Centro Nacional de Control de Energía or CENACE in Spanish) listed the price among four lots adjudicated to Enel, the Italian energy giant, but did not specify technologies.

Wind analysts were quick to note that the figures for clean energy certificates (certificados de energía limpia or CELs) figures didn’t make sense for solar.

“When CENACE published its initial press release, it was evident that these four sites were likely wind power,” said Brian Gaylord, senior analyst for Latin America and Southern Europe at MAKE Consulting.

“In order to add up the amount of power and CELs sold per the figures, these four projects with Engie's eolica [wind]-labeled site yielded a matching sum," he said.

Further confirmation came with the publication of detailed information from CENACE and a press release from Enel.

“Enel, through its renewable energy subsidiary Enel Rinnovabile, has been awarded the right to supply energy and clean certificates with four wind projects for a total capacity of 593 megawatts in the country’s third long-term public tender,” the energy company stated.

The win consolidates Enel’s position as Mexico’s leading renewable energy developer, said the firm. Enel will be investing $700 million in Mexico to help complete the plants, which are expected to enter operation in the first half of 2020.

Three of them, Amistad II, III and IV, are due to be built in Acuña, in the northern state of Coahuila. Amistad II and III are 100-megawatt plants, while Amistad IV is slated to be 149 megawatts. Enel started building the first Amistad wind farm in March.

A fourth plant, the 244-megawatt Dolores project, is planned for the China municipality in Nuevo León, a state in northeastern Mexico.

The projects will almost double Enel’s existing 675 megawatts of wind power in Mexico, but represent only a fraction of the renewable energy capacity the company has in its pipeline for the country.

Enel already also operates 53 megawatts of hydro power in Mexico, and aside from the Amistad and Dolores projects is developing an additional 293 megawatts of wind and 992 megawatts of solar generation capacity, including Latin America’s second-largest PV plant.

The developer is planning to put all of its renewable energy projects into a special-purpose vehicle that will be 80 percent owned by the Canadian institutional investor Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec and the Mexican pension fund CKD Infraestructura México.

The confirmation that all of Enel’s winning bids in the latest auction round were for wind projects means the lowest price achieved by solar in Mexico was actually $19.70 per megawatt-hour, for an 80.3-megawatt plant from Neoen. (A previous version of this article incorrectly reported that Mitsui-Trina secured the lowest bid)

The price represents a new record for Latin America after the most recent auction in Chile saw Enel bidding $21.48 per megawatt-hour of solar power on one sub-block of capacity. It isn’t quite the cheapest worldwide, though.

That honor still belongs to a tender for 300 megawatts of solar power in Saudi Arabia, in October, which saw Abu Dhabi developer Masdar offering a price of $17.86 per megawatt-hour. Nevertheless, solar carried the day in Mexico in terms of capacity granted.

The technology took more than 55 percent of capacity on offer, totaling 992 megawatts, in nine out of 14 energy lots.

The auction, Mexico’s third, was the first to include a pre-qualification process, which GTM Research Americas solar analyst Manan Parikh said was likely a sign that the country was tightening up on renewable energy procurement. “It’s a way to keep people honest,” he said.

“Initially they had this permitting scheme, which has since been scrapped, and anyone could come in and say, ‘I want a permit,’" he said. "People would just sit on these permits and do nothing with them.”

The move to auctions seems to have brought a new level of integrity to the proceedings -- even if there is still the possibility for confusion about who is bidding for what.

--

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Output: The cheapest price ever reported for solar power ($17.70) has turned out to be the figure for wind power, after confusion following Mexico's National Energy Control Center's preliminary price publication for Enel's lots. Enel Rinnovabile, is able to supply 593 MW of wind over four projects after winning the November tenders. The company will invest $700m into Mexico to complete the plants, due to begin operation in H1 2020. Enel presently has 675 MW of wind capacity in Mexico.


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Five countries set to cross 1 GW threshold in 2018
 When this year comes to a close, GTM Research expects eight countries will top the 1-gigawatt mark in annual PV installations. By the end of 2018, that number will grow to 13 countries.

According to GTM Research’s latest Global Solar Demand Monitor, the next five countries to cross the 1-gigawatt annual threshold will be Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, the Netherlands and Spain.

Source: GTM Research Global Solar Demand Monitor

A new European renaissance

GTM Research expects a 35 percent increase in European demand in 2018 -- a welcome change in a region where installations fell by more than triple their peak in 2011.

Leading that charge is Spain. The report points to a temporary revival in Spain with 3.9 gigawatts of PV contracted through a recent technology-neutral auction, which is set to be delivered between 2018 and 2019. There is potentially more to come, though future tenders have not yet been confirmed and the country now looks on track to meet obligations set forth in the Europe 2020 agreement.

According to the report, Spain’s annual solar market will balloon from 40 megawatts in 2017 to 1.4 gigawatts in 2018.

Looking to the north, the Netherlands will also surpass 1 gigawatt in 2018. Annual growth in the Netherlands has been strong since 2011; the Stimulation of Sustainable Generation scheme has provided a more recent boost.

“The European market is entering a phase of sustainable growth, no longer driven by the feed-in tariff boom and bust cycle,” said Tom Heggarty, a senior solar analyst at GTM Research.

Europe is moving toward a subsidy-free market, he said. Examples include merchant projects commissioned in Italy, subsidy-free plants in development in the U.K., and German PV auction prices moving closer to wholesale power prices.

Latin America is heating up

Led by Mexico and Brazil, Latin American solar demand is expected to more than double in 2018.

“Brazil is about to become a 1-gigawatt annual market on the heels of developing several large utility-scale projects tendered in 2014,” said Manan Parikh, GTM Research senior analyst. “The cancellation auction didn’t achieve the desired results, leaving almost 80 percent of canceled capacity (800 megawatts) in play to still be developed or flipped with a penalty.”

Mexico currently has the second-largest demand for electricity in the region and is home to favorable renewable energy targets. According to the report, Mexico will make up the bulk of Latin American demand share out to 2022, with 60 percent coming from utility projects and 40 percent distributed.

A great Egyptian buildup

GTM Research expects Egypt’s annual solar market to grow fivefold between 2017 and 2018, reaching 1.4 gigawatts.

“After a challenging few years following the initial award and subsequent cut of feed-in tariffs, over 1,500 megawatts of utility-scale projects in Egypt have now reached financial close, driven almost entirely by a large international development bank financing consortium led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation, which to date has committed nearly $2 billion USD in loans," said GTM Research solar analyst Ben Attia. “We expect the majority these projects to be realized in late 2018 and early 2019.”

These five countries and other forthcoming gigawatt-scale markets, especially those with regularly cadenced competitive reverse auctions, are diversifying the market in a way that will help stabilize the global supply-demand balance. GTM Research anticipates a cumulative 606 gigawatts to be installed globally between 2017 and 2022.

***

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Output: Eight nations will surpass the 1 GW mark for yearly photovoltaic installations by the end of the year, with that number rising to 13 by the end of 2018, according to research from market intelligence firm GTM Research. The next five nations to exceed 1 GW will be Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, the Netherlands and Spain, with a 35% rise in the demand for solar in Europe predicted for 2018. GRM predicts that 606 GW will be installed worldwide between 2017 and 2022.


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Australia mulls plan to export renewable energy to Indonesia
 An ambitions 6-GW wind and solar project in Western Australia that would export power to Indonesia has moved on after developers, among which Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH:VWS), submitted the scheme for environmental review in Australia.

The complex in the East Pilbara region is planned to include at least 4 GW of wind and 2 GW solar power facilities. According to the project website, a final investment decision could be taken in 2020.

The partners behind the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) plan are renewable energy project developers CWP Energy Asia and InterContinental Energy, in addition to Vestas. They have been engaged in development works and viability assessment for three years and are now looking for local partners in Indonesia for equipment manufacturing, construction and investment, Vestas said on Wednesday.

"The scale of the wind turbines, solar panels and related equipment needed for the Project would be large enough to justify building new manufacturing facilities in Indonesia [...]," Vestas said.

The plan is to use components made in Indonesia and, when the park is operational, export electricity to the country via subsea high-voltage transmission cables. The complex is expected to become fully operational by 2029, generating power for over seven million homes in Indonesia, according to the project's website.

The first phase of the ambitious development is estimated to require about USD 10 billion (EUR 8.42bn) in investment. Subsequent phases envisage the delivery of renewable power to other countries in South East Asia, apart from Indonesia, Vestas said.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.842)

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Output: Plans to transmit electricity via a 2,500 km (1,500 mile) undersea cable to Indonesia from a wind and solar installation in Western Australia have been submitted to authorities, with approval possible by 2020. Vestas Wind Systems, InterContinental Energy and CWP Energy Asia are among the backers of the proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH), which envisages a plant producing 4 GW of power of wind and 2 GW of solar. Indonesian investors are being sought for the project, which is hoped to start sending power across the ocean by 2029.


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Cap of €63/MWh set on German onshore wind tenders in 2018
 The auctions for onshore wind power in Germany next year will be open for bids below EUR 63 (USD 74.7) per MWh, the Federal Network Agency said today, and explained why this cap is higher than expected.

Based on the results of auctions in 2017, the ceiling price allowed in the tenders should have been EUR 50/MWh. This, however, is below the current value of wind power, EUR 56/MWh, and the network regulator has taken measures to ensure that the tenders will be able attract enough bids.

The Federal Network Agency, known in German as the Bundesnetzagetur, lifted the maximum price as it wants to see good competition in the tenders. They will award up to 2.8 GW in 2018, similar to the level in 2017.

This year the three tenders for German onshore wind resulted in average successful bids of EUR 57.1/MWh, then EUR 42.9/MWh, and finally EUR 38.2/MWh in the last auction, the results of which were revealed earlier in November.

(EUR 1 = USD 1.19)

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Output: German auctions in 2018 for onshore wind power will accept bids lower than €63 ($75) per MWh, the Federal Network Agency (the Bundesnetzagetur) has confirmed, as a result of the current value of wind power being above what should have been the ceiling price of €50 per MWh. The organisation will auction as much as 2.8 GW of capacity next year. This year, the winning bids across three tenders were €57.1 per MWh, €42.9 per MWh, and €38.2 per MWh. The value of wind power is €56 per MWh at present.


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Israel aims for 1,600 MW of capacity in first solar tenders
 The government of Israel has approved a new plan for the addition of 1,600 MW of solar power capacity in three years, mostly on rooftops, Globes reports.

The policy, unveiled by energy and infrastructure minister Yuval Steinitz, aims to lift Israel’s power generation in line with the country’s renewable energy goals. The quota for solar rooftop solar will be divided in two categories -- small residential photovoltaic (PV) facilities and large rooftop business projects. Capacity under the large rooftop scheme will be tendered by the Public Utilities Authority in what will be the first auctions of this kind in Israel.

Projects for small rooftop photovoltaic (PV) installations will not be competing in tenders. They will instead get fixed rates for power sent to the grid.

Contracts for small and large rooftop plants, as well as ground-mounted facilities, will be fixed for a 20- to 25-year period and will be higher for smaller installations, the Public Utilities Authority has said.

Israel has set a target to produce 10% of its total power from renewables by 2020 but currently the share of renewables generation is only 3%. At present, it has 700 MW of projects under construction.

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Output: The Israeli government has given its approval for expanding solar power capacity by 1,600 MW in three years, largely using rooftop facilities. The power generation will be split into smaller residential photovoltaic facilities with fixed rates and bigger rooftop installations, the latter of which will be offered in auctions held by the Public Utilities Authority, the first such auctions to take place in Israel. These contracts will be for 20 to 25 years. Israel aims to source 10% of its power from renewables by 2020, rising from 3% currently.


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Siemens Gamesa’s 8 MW offshore turbine to be tested by Fraunhofer
 The nacelle of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA’s (BME:SGRE) recently-launched 8-MW offshore wind turbine will undergo performance tests from April 2018 at the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES).

Siemens Games and Fraunhofer IWES have signed a contract for the comprehensive validation of the SG 8.0-167 DD, research institute Fraunhofer said on Thursday. The wind turbine maker announced the launch of the new direct drive (DD) offshore wind turbine, with a rotor diameter of 167 metres, earlier this week.

The prototype of the new machine will be subject to hardware in the loop (HiL) tests at IWES’ Dynamic Nacelle Testing Laboratory (DyNaLab) that will seek to validate the turbine’s performance and grid compatibility. Tests will be completed at the end of next year.

Siemens Gamesa and IWES have been collaborating since the start of the year in order to specify the test plan for the 8-MW turbine turbine.

As previously announced, the wind turbine maker installed and commissioned the first prototype in the 8-MW class in Oesterild, Denmark, at the beginning of 2017. It plans to erect an additional SG 8.0-167 DD prototype there next year to test its blades.

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Output: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy's 8MW SG 8.0-167 direct drive turbine is due to have performance tests in April, with the testing contract given to the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES). The direct drive offshore turbine prototype has a 167-metre rotor diameter, and will be tested with hardware in the loop at the IWES Dynamic Nacelle Testing Laboratory. The performance tests will be finished at the end of 2018.


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Moratorium on commercial fishing in Arctic agreed
 Sea ice is seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft in March, 2017, above Greenland, which is among parties to the Arctic Ocean commercial fishing moratorium

Arctic and major fishing nations, including China, announced Friday that they have agreed to a moratorium on commercial fishing in Arctic waters before a fishery in the icy region is even feasible.

The far north is warming at nearly twice the global average rate, causing changes in the size and distribution of fish stocks that may become more attractive to fishers in the medium to long term.

Canadian Fisheries Minister Dominic Leblanc said Canada, together with the European Union, China, Denmark—for Greenland and the Faroe Islands—Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Russia and the United States agreed "that no commercial fishing will take place in the high seas portion of the central Arctic Ocean while we gain a better understanding of the area's ecosystems."

They also agreed that before any fishing takes places, they must establish "appropriate conservation and management measures."

To that end, the parties committed to conducting joint scientific research and monitoring to try to better understand Arctic Ocean ecosystems and whether the region can support commercial fisheries in the future.

Karmenu Vella, EU Commissioner for the Environment, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, called the legally binding agreement "historic."

"It will fill an important gap in the international ocean governance framework and will safeguard fragile marine ecosystems for future generations," he said.

The agreement in principle must still be ratified by all 10 parties.

Greenpeace, praising the deal, said the moratorium is expected to endure for at least the next 16 years, covering an area of 2.8 million square kilometers (one million square miles).

© 2017 AFP

Output: A moratorium on commercial fishing in Arctic waters has been agreed by Canada, China, Denmark, the European Union, Iceland, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Russia and the US. The region is experiencing global warming at twice the average rate, resulting in changes in the distribution of fish stocks. The moratorium, covering 2.8 million sq km, is designed to allow time to gain “a better understanding of the area’s ecosystems” and for the introduction of “appropriate conservation and management measures”. Greenpeace welcomed the deal which, when ratified, is expected to be in place for at least 16 years.


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Google launches VR philanthropy initiative
 Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.

With its ability to transport users anywhere and give them any kind of experience, VR has huge potential as a tool for positive change. Google is highlighting that with its new philanthropy program, Daydream Impact.

This new initiative is designed to give organizations, non-profits and advocates the tools and training they need to make 360-degree experiences that bring people closer to their given topics. Google already worked with a handful of organizations on a pilot period for the program, producing the videos that you can see in this article.

Daydream Impact first provides groups with tutorials on making VR video content with a free Coursera online training course. It covers everything from pre to post-production, offering tips on getting the best shots and how to publish and promote your content. The other side of the program is a loaner service that provides qualified projects with a Jump 360-degree camera and a Google Expeditions kit as well as a Daydream View headset and Daydream-read smartphone. Groups will be given six months to create their projects and then showcase it.

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So far, the program has produced projects on the struggles of the Congo from the Eastern Congo Initiative, as well as a look at the changes in coastline environments, anti-bullying pieces and has even been deployed in hospitals to help minimize anxiety for cancer patients during treatment.

“We’ve already learned that VR, although still an emerging platform, has so many more applications than we originally thought possible,” the Eastern Congo Initiative’s Dane Erickson said of the program. “We thought of this as a film for our donors and supporters, but through the Google Expedition program we’re beginning to see how VR can be used for education. Obviously we love connecting to donors, but connecting with kids, showing them our work in a classroom setting, that opens up a whole new avenue for our advocacy priorities.”

This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com. Copyright 2017

Output: Google has launched a new philanthropy programme to provide organizations with tools and training in Virtual Reality. The Daydream Impact project offers tutorials on making VR video content, as well as an equipment loan service. Projects that have already been produced include work by the Eastern Congo Initiative on the region’s struggles; a project on changing coastline environments, and initiatives on anti-bullying and anxiety reduction for cancer patients.


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Amazon plans exploding drones to limiting injury during emergency
 One of the big worries about delivery drones is what happens if something goes wrong mid-delivery? We don’t want people’s parcels (or the drones carrying them) falling from the sky, causing damage and injury. Well, Amazon thinks this might not actually be a bad idea — as long as the drones fall safely. Earlier this week, the company was granted a patent for the “direct fragmentation for unmanned airborne vehicles.” In other words: a drone that takes itself apart midair if something goes wrong.

The patent describes how an onboard “fragmentation controller” would take charge in the event of a catastrophic failure, like a battery exploding or propellor failing. The computer would quickly study the drone’s flight path, weather conditions, and nearby terrain, before initiating a “fragmentation sequence,” where the drone slowly dismantles itself midair.

It sounds counter-intuitive as a safety protocol, but if a drone is going to crash anyway, it’s better that it hits the ground in small chunks, rather than as bigger, heavier intact aircraft. An illustration from the patent shows a drone dropping various components onto patches of empty ground and a small lake, before crashing itself safely in a tree.

An illustration from the patent shows a drone dismantling itself mid-air. Image: Amazon / USPTO

The patent reads: “During the fragmentation sequence, one or more parts or components of the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] can be released. In doing so, the weight, speed, air drag coefficient, and other factors related to the UAV can be altered.” The order in which parts are jettisoned could be selected based on their value, says the patent, and then detached using hooks, springs, or “small explosive charges.”

Of course, as with any patent, there’s no guarantee Amazon is doing anything more here than exploring a left field concept. In the past, the company has either patented or applied to patent concepts including parachutes built into shipping labels, drone beehives for distribution in big cities, and drone-carrying blimps. As tends to be Amazon’s style, it’s aggressively throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. All of these inventions would need to be approved by government regulators before they ever got off the ground.

Output: Amazon has been granted a patent for a drone that would dismantle itself in mid-air in the event of mechanical failure leading to a crash. The system would aim to reduce the potential damage or injury caused by drones failing in flight by allowing them to break into smaller pieces. Once a catastrophic failure occurred, it would use its onboard computer to analyse factors including its flight-path, weather conditions and nearby terrain before initiating a "fragmentation sequence" to minimise damage. This might involve dropping components onto empty ground or into a lake, then crashing itself into a tree.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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PNE Wind and VPC to create renewable 'energy islands'
 German wind farms developer PNE Wind AG (ETR:PNE3) has partnered with local engineering firm VPC GmbH to work on grid-independent and self-sustained renewable energy supply solutions for public and commercial use.

This future-oriented cooperation will be establishing the so-called "Energy Islands" both in Germany and abroad, according to an announcement on Friday.

The plan is to combine various renewable energy sources, including wind and solar photovoltaics (PV), with storage technologies or generators powered by biofuels. Advantages include cost-effective energy supply, long-term price stability and independent generation.

PNE Wind will be in charge of the approval, financing and participation models, as well as the construction and operation of wind farms. On the other hand, its partner will be responsible for the PV, biodiesel, storage and grid connection, as well as project management and operation of the overall system.

The move is part of PNE Wind’s strategy to become a "Clean Energy Solution Provider". In mid-November, the company said it wants to expand the range of services it offers, enter new markets and add solar, storage and other green technologies to its portfolio.

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Output: German wind farm developer PNE Wind has partnered with local engineering firm VPC to create grid-independent renewable energy solutions for residential and commercial customers, called "energy islands". As well as supplying wind energy, PNE will be in charge of the approval, financing and participation models, while VPC will be responsible for the PV, biodiesel, storage and grid connection, and overall operation of the systems.


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RCAM Technologies plans to 3D print 140-metre tall wind towers
 If you’ve ever driven alongside a truck hauling wind turbine components, the limitations are immediately obvious. The enormity of the blades and tower segments make it difficult to transport the materials on highways to the project site.

A California startup thinks it’s found a workaround. RCAM Technologies was recently awarded a $1.25 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to develop and test 3-D printing technology enabling the construction of concrete turbine towers in place at the project site.

The average tower height for turbines installed in the United States is just over 80 meters. RCAM Technologies, founded by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) alumnus Jason Cotrell, wants to use reinforced concrete additive manufacturing technology -- a form of 3-D printing -- to erect towers 140 meters or higher. Cotrell left NREL in May to pursue grant funding to develop the technology.

Based on estimates derived using NREL’s levelized cost of energy (LCOE) modeling tools, the company expects that a 140-meter tower would increase electricity production by more than 20 percent at a site with moderate wind shear. By enabling turbines to reach steadier, stronger winds, the ultra-tall towers would boost capacity factors and generate electricity at lower cost.

According to the grant request form submitted to the CEC, at scale, the market-ready 3-D printing technology envisioned by RCAM Technologies “will enable fabrication of a wind turbine tower onsite, in one day at half of the cost of conventional steel towers, and reduce the levelized cost of wind generated electricity in a low wind speed site by 11 percent.”

Digital concrete

“When you’re building a wind plant, you want to build the wind turbines as tall as you possibly can to capture the faster wind aloft,” said Cotrell in an NREL video. “However, when you’re building tall wind turbines, the tower diameters become so large that they’re difficult to transport over the roads. With this technology, what we’re able to do is manufacture those towers onsite using an automated concrete manufacturing process that allows us to bypass the transportation and logistics constraints.”

Under its agreement with the California Energy Commission, RCAM Technologies will design the lower half of two ultra-tall hybrid turbine towers between 140 meters to 170 meters. The upper half of the towers will use conventional tapered steel tower sections; the lower half of the towers will be constructed with reinforced concrete additive manufacturing technology. Prototype sections of the concrete towers will be fabricated using a robotic arm and 3-D printer, and will be tested at the University of California, Irvine.

In a real-world deployment, RCAM Technologies expects the large-diameter concrete tower sections to be fabricated onsite with concrete supplied by standard concrete trucks or an existing concrete batch plant such as the one used to prepare the tower foundations.

Potential to boost capacity factors

According to NREL, the best wind power sites in the Great Plains are posting annual capacity factors today of more than 50 percent with 80-meter towers. Taller towers would make wind power economically competitive in more regions.

“Outside of the centrally located wind belt, average performance does not yet meet the levels required to compete with low-priced natural gas and (increasingly) low-cost solar photovoltaics, particularly in an era of relatively low load growth,” said a team of NREL researchers in a presentation on tall wind turbine technologies delivered at an American Wind Energy Association conference in May of this year.

“To broaden the geographic reach of wind power, a continued evaluation of tall tower technology appears to be merited,” the team added. “Achieving higher hub heights can still drive significant improvements in capacity factor throughout broad regions of the country.”

Path to market, partnering with UC Irvine

“Concrete towers have quickly emerged as a cost-effective alternative to steel tubular towers for hub heights over 120 meters,” said Aaron Barr, a senior consultant with MAKE Consulting, in an email. MAKE Consulting is owned by Wood Mackenzie, Greentech Media’s parent company.

Barr noted that concrete wind towers have been deployed for a decade in Europe. But most of the concrete towers built there have used precast concrete sections manufactured elsewhere and shipped in multiple segments to the project site. RCAM Technologies’ process would avoid those logistical constraints by pouring concrete on site.

“Performing on-site pouring of concrete towers can present some cost savings in logistics and material cost,” he added, “and present one of the most promising applications of 3-D printing in the wind energy industry.”

Barr cautioned that 3-D printing could increase the time required to install turbines. “The specialized equipment and concrete curing times would significantly increase the construction cycle of a typical wind plant,” he said. “Most U.S. wind plants are able to install turbines at a pace of one turbine per day or faster, given that all turbine equipment has been delivered to on-site staging areas. Use of an in-situ concrete tower solution dramatically increases this installation cycle, adding cost and execution risk to the wind plant development.”

Can RCAM Technologies build 3-D-printed concrete turbine towers as fast and as cheaply as it estimates? Construction and testing of a prototype will be done in partnership with UC Irvine at the school’s civil engineering laboratory.

As part of a technology-to-market program at NREL called Energy I-Corps, Jason Cotrell and colleague Scott Jenne interviewed 75 wind turbine manufacturers and project developers.

“We found out,” said Cotrell in the NREL video, “that another wind turbine manufacturer had been exploring a very similar technology. We’ve been in contact with that manufacturer and expect to be partnering with that manufacturer going forward.”

In an email, Cotrell confirmed that RCAM Technologies is discussing partnership opportunities with several wind turbine manufacturers, including the unnamed company mentioned in the video.

RCAM Technologies’ agreement with the CEC notes that if the technology could increase the wind capacity deployment potential for new sites and repowered sites in California nearly tenfold -- from 6 gigawatts to 60 gigawatts.

Output: Californian start-up RCAM Technologies has received a $1.25m grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to test production of 3D-printed wind-turbine towers on site. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Alumnus and founder of the company, Jason Cotrell, wants to fabricate towers from reinforced concrete that are 140 metres higher, almost double the average height of towers in the US at present.


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Repowering ageing wind turbines can cut ballooning operation costs
 North America’s aging fleet of wind turbines could lead to a surge in operations and maintenance spending through 2030, according to a report released this month by IHS Markit. The report found cumulative O&M spending for the wind energy sector in the United States and Canada will top $40 billion from 2015 to 2025.

“The average age of the North American wind fleet will rise from 5.5 years in 2015 to 7 years in 2020, and to 14 years in 2030,” said Maxwell Cohen, senior research analyst at IHS Markit and co-author of the report, in a statement.

Cohen and co-author Ryan Siavelis gathered data from nearly one-third of the wind energy market in North America -- 300 wind projects comprising nearly 20,000 turbines -- to prepare the analysis.

According to the report, O&M costs average between $42,000 and $48,000 per megawatt during the first 10 years of a wind turbine’s operations. Over time, direct O&M costs related to turbine maintenance increase, while indirect O&M costs for site administration hold steady or decline.

By 2030, an older, larger turbine fleet in the United States and Canada -- estimated at more than 70,000 turbines -- will present service providers with ample opportunities for growth. “The age of that capacity in 2030 will make the O&M business very lucrative, which is why so many players are expanding into this sector of the business,” said Siavelis in a statement.

Cohen and Siavelis identified Suzlon, Siemens Gamesa, MHI and Vestas among the original equipment manufacturers that have entered the space in pursuit of wind O&M service agreements.

O&M’s emergence as a “strategic battleground”

Analysts at MAKE Consulting likewise see significant growth opportunities in wind turbine services. MAKE’s own wind turbine O&M report was published this month. By 2026, the report found, the global wind turbine services market could exceed $27 billion. MAKE Consulting is owned by Wood Mackenzie, Greentech Media’s parent company.

In an email, MAKE Consulting’s Aaron Barr noted that his firm’s O&M average for the U.S. market was lower than IHS Markit’s -- $28,000 per megawatt, compared to a range between $42,000 per megawatt and $48,000 per megawatt -- but he identified the same salient industry trends.

“The overall O&M market is growing primarily because the fleet continues to grow with new installations,” he said. “All of these new turbines coming online must be maintained for 20+ years.”

“Another factor contributing to the growing O&M market is the increasing age of the existing fleet,” added Barr. ”Older turbines face higher O&M costs due to legacy equipment, accumulated fatigue damage, and spare-part obsolecense.”

Seeking to control O&M costs, project owners have been forced to decide whether to keep turbine servicing in-house, and they are turning to digitalization to optimize project performance.

“The O&M segment has emerged as a key strategic battleground within the industry,” said Barr. “Asset owners are increasingly sensitive to O&M costs, and many of the largest owners are now performing their own maintenance. OEMs still maintain a majority of the global fleet, but they face competitive pressure from self-performing asset owners (their customers), independent service companies, and their OEM competitors.”

He went on: “The O&M market has also become one of the central focuses of technical innovation -- including application of data science, aerodynamic enhancements, and controls strategy R&D. The digitalization revolution the industry is going through is also primarily driven by the O&M market and associated operational improvements.”

Repowering potential

To address an aging wind turbine fleet and increasing O&M expenditures, project owners are increasingly turning to repowering -- replacing obsolete turbines with new more powerful turbines at the same project site, or replacing select components such as blades or gearboxes on existing turbines.

The Energy Information Administration recently published an update on the potential for wind farm repowering in the United States. EIA found that 12 percent of the turbines installed in the United States came on-line before 2000; those turbines account for just 2 percent of the country’s installed wind electricity generating capacity.

EIA cited data from GE, which has already repowered some 300 wind turbines, indicating that repowering can increase wind turbine fleet output by 25 percent and add 20 years to the life of the turbine.

Current tax law incentivizes owners to repower projects. Projects qualify for the federal Production Tax Credit if at least 80 percent of the property’s value is new. Qualifying repowering projects that meet the 2019 deadline established under the December 2015 PTC extension can then receive an additional 10 years of tax credits.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that annual repowering investment in the United States could reach $25 billion by 2030.

Output: The average age of the North American wind fleet will rise from 5.5 years in 2015 to 14 years in 2030, and ageing wind turbines will suck up about $40bn in operation and maintenance expenses in the US and Canada from 2015 to 2025, said a report by IHS Markit. To cut those costs, some projects owners have turned to repowering - upgrading turbines and replacing blades or gearboxes on existing turbines.


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Mushrooms contaminated with Chernobyl radiation headed to France
 Mushrooms containing traces of radiation, believed to be from Chernobyl, have been stopped from being imported into France.

The shipment of more than three tonnes of mushrooms from Belarus contained traces of cesium 137, a waste product of nuclear reactors, French authorities said.

It was discovered passing through Frankfurt, Germany but did not pose a health threat, according to the nuclear safety body IRSN.

The incident comes just a week after Russia denied a nuclear accident had occurred in the country after it recorded "extremely high" traces of a radioactive isotope.

Russia's weather service measured pollution of ruthenium-106 at 1,000 times normal levels in the Ural mountains.

Image: The abandoned, partially-completed cooling towers stand at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

An IRSN spokesman said the contaminated mushrooms had "no link with the ruthenium-106 pollution".

"As the mushrooms came from Belarus, it is very likely the contamination originated in Chernobyl," the spokesman said.

Chernobyl in Ukraine is just south of the Belarus border and was the site of a major nuclear disaster in 1986.

Cesium 137, which has a 30-year half-life, is still widely found in the areas around Chernobyl.

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The IRSN spokesman said eating tens of kilos of the Belarus mushrooms would expose a consumer to radioactivity levels similar to natural ambient radioactivity during a whole year.

He added that there had been no health risk for the customs officials, even if they had touched the mushrooms with their bare hands.

Output: A shipment of mushrooms containing radiation believed to come from Chernobyl has been discovered in Frankfurt, on its way to France. The shipment contained over three tonnes of mushrooms from Belarus, and showed traces of nuclear reactor waste product cesium 137. French nuclear safety organisation IRSN said that the mushrooms did not pose a threat to health. A week ago, Russia denied that it had experienced another nuclear accident following recordings of “extremely high” traces of a radioactive isotope.


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Purplebricks tasks Feefo with managing customer reviews
 Purplebricks Group plc (LON:PURP) has today announced a new partnership with customer review site Feefo, providing customers with even more opportunities to review the Purplebricks’ service.

Feefo is widely regarded as being transparent, independent and secure, and is trusted by consumers as a vocal advocate of honesty in the reviews industry. It is only available to genuine customers, who are provided with a unique review link, ensuring only authentic reviews.

Feefo works with over 4,000 corporate customers internationally, including many leading online and high street consumer brands, and helps consumers to make more informed decisions about what to buy and who to do business with.

The company is currently working on implementation and integration with the Feefo service and will launch early in 2018. It will remain in partnership with Trustpilot and the information gleaned from both review websites will give the company invaluable customer insight and build on the excellent service its people deliver for customers on a day by day basis.

Output: Online estate agent Purplebricks has partnered with Feefo, a web-based customer review site. The move aims to increase transparency in the sector and enable customers to make informed choices about property purchases. Purplebricks, which also partnered with Danish review site Trustpilot, is working to integrate Feefo's data service, with a launch set for early next year.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Global paying publishers for data to improve targeted audio ads
 Radio broadcaster Global is tapping traditional news publishers’ first-party data to provide better targeted audio ad campaigns for its advertisers.

Over the last year, Global has paid publishers, including ESI Media, Dennis Publishing, MailOnline and Haymarket, to overlay their first-party data into campaigns that run across its digital audio exchange Dax. These second-party data deals have been applied to roughly 15 of the 350 audio ad campaigns Dax runs a month, according to the broadcaster. Dax negotiates a flat fee with each publisher, according to Oliver Deane, director of commercial digital for Global, though he wouldn’t share additional details.

With radio stations like Heart, Capital FM and Classic FM, Global is not a direct rival to news publishers when it comes to competing for display ad revenue, making second-party data partnerships like these appealing to both sides. For news publishers constantly on the lookout for new revenue options, decoupling audience data from their inventory is becoming a more common way to monetize.

“This is becoming successful for us,” Deane said. “We have good relationships with publishers, and because we are an audio platform and a neutral business, for publishers we’re seen as an additional revenue source.”

During a recent campaign for the Royal Bank of Scotland, where the bank’s aim was to drive people to its online remortgaging application, Dax used data from real estate aggregator site Zoopla. People who had visited Zoopla and were in the market for a mortgage were targeted with audio creative. This led to a 68 percent increase in visits to its remortgage page, and 75 percent of those sent to the page completed the remortgaging application, compared to 43 percent for those who didn’t hear the ad, according to Global, which wouldn’t share specific numbers.

Last year, Dax worked with Audi to target users who had visited Haymarket magazine Autocar’s site. The campaign drove six times more visits than it would typically have to the Audi site and 13 percent of all traffic to the site during the campaign period, according to Global.

So far, campaigns that have incorporated the second-party data performed just as well for branding outcomes — like increasing purchase intent or brand awareness — as they did for direct-response campaigns, according to Deane.

“When we take this to advertisers, they are surprised another publisher has given us their first-party data to monetize, so we’re making advertisers aware of this,” Deane said. “It’s growing steadily.” Global claims that 90 percent of listeners hear the ads Dax serves all the way through, though that’s to be expected, partly because people are used to hearing ads within audio content.

Jeremy Sigel, global head of partnerships and emerging media at Essence, said audio is still often an afterthought for advertisers more seduced by video ad formats. In order for the industry to grow, other audio publishers must invest more in bespoke audio solutions like personalization and dynamic creative, formats that Dax caters to. “That will elevate the medium and make it more appealing to advertisers,” he said.

The growing interest in audio and voice-operated platforms is working in Global’s favor. People in the U.K. spend nearly 10 hours a week listening to digital audio, according to the latest Radio Joint Audience Research figures. Global is also expanding, recently acquiring AudioHQ in the U.S. for an undisclosed amount and opening offices in France and Germany.

With Amazon and Google creating potential new ad opportunities on voice-activated devices Alexa and Home, respectively, advertisers are thinking harder about how their brand comes across over audio. Research company Gartner estimates that 30 percent of people’s online browsing globally will be screenless by 2020. Radio advertisers have had to think about this for years, but more tools in digital audio have expanded the creative offering. Dax has an audio creative team of about 70 people, including producers and scriptwriters, who help advertisers create ads.

“Advertisers are getting their heads around what their brand sounds like, whether that’s a distinctive voice, the type of music, even having names that are easy to pronounce,” Deane said. “More thought is going into sonic branding.”

Output: Radio broadcaster Global is paying publishers including MailOnline, Dennis Publishing and Haymarket to use their first-party data to improve targeted ad campaigns on its Dax exchange. Such deals have been applied to about 15 of 350 ad campaigns the broadcaster runs each month, said Oliver Deane, Global's director of commercial digital. The partnership is proving successful for both parties, as publishers see radio as an additional revenue source, Deane added.


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Education start-up teaches Indian children about IoT and robots
 Fourteen-year-old Hargobind Khurana had always been fascinated with computers, electronics, and robots. Since his school curriculum didn’t offer much in this regard, he’d spend hours on the internet trying to learn the basics. But even online, the information was often unorganised, with no one to explain complex ideas to him.

Lately, though, Khurana has been learning more systematically after enrolling with SP Robotic Works (SPRW), one of the several educational tech startups in India. These firms work to bridge a critical gap in conventional education, teaching technologies such as robotics, the internet of things (IoT), and virtual reality (VR). “The course is very one-to-one,” his mother Meenu told Quartz, describing the structured online classes that include videos and other learning tools. “Although it is online, it is as if (a teacher) is teaching you.”

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Although robotics is a broad concept including areas such as automation, embedded systems, mechanical engineering, IoT, etc, these ed-tech startups start with the basics. They design small kits containing breadboards, wires, sensors, and other such components, and get children to play with them. They then move on to teaching the children basic programming and concepts in physics, and gradually help them develop their own robots. These could be ones that merely follow a line or react to light, or more complex mobile phone-controlled ones that can perform certain tasks.

And these courses could be either online, at school, or outside the classroom. Chennai-based SPRW, for instance, runs online-only courses, assisted by their AI-driven chat bot. ”The bot serves as a personal trainer and asks them questions, understands whether they’re having difficulties, repeats concepts in different ways,” said Sneha Priya, who started the company with her husband in 2012.

Students can register and purchase kits, priced between Rs5,000 ($77) and Rs15,000 ($230), and learn the basics through the videos provided to them. Since June 2016, when it began holding classes, SPRW has sold over 5,000 kits, racking up revenues of over Rs1.5 crore, Priya said. Backed by angel investor groups like Chennai Angels and the Indian Angel Network, SPRW will soon also begin teaching virtual reality and image processing.

While SPRW’s focus is on online training, there are others that prefer in-person sessions.

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“In the classroom, you get to mingle with 50-60 people from different backgrounds, and if you have an issue, someone is there with you. The community is very active,” said Pawan Gnanaraj, who heads the robotics and operations team at Chennai-based Lema Labs. The IIT Madras-incubated startup runs a six-month programme that includes six weeks of classes and four months of project work. It has trained over 4,500 persons, including school and college students, since 2013.

Pune-based Robokidz, on the other hand, partners with schools and sets up labs for a fee. Classes are conducted once a week in schools either by Robokidz trainers or by school teachers trained by it. Giving students such exposure early on also helps them make more informed career choices, said Sagar Sanghvi, founder of Robokidz. The five-year-old company is currently working with over 300 schools across India.

“IoT and artificial intelligence and robotics are now coming into (the) mainstream…so in that sense its important that children are knowledgeable about these things because tomorrow they’re going to drive cars that are intelligent and have buildings that are IoT-enabled,” Narayanan Ramaswamy, a partner at KPMG in India who focuses on education and skill development, told Quartz.

The end product

A major attraction of these courses is that the students’ work is often showcased outside the classroom, or sometimes even put to commercial use.

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“We thought if we can provide…industrial opportunities to people when they’re learning, their learning gets doubled,” Priya of SPRW said. Her startup lets students help with the projects the company takes on—some of the recent ones being creating robots for a farming company that helps weed agricultural fields, robots to clean solar panels for Tata Power Solar, and a warehouse robot used by firms like Qualcomm.

Students aged 12 years and above have also independently funded and built products, including a beach-cleaning robot called Swachh Bot and BOB, which helps serves dishes at a restaurant.

Robokidz, which teaches children aged between eight and 16, gets its students to make miniature cars with gear mechanisms, robots based on programming and sensors, or those that can be controlled using smartphones connected on wifi networks. It then invites students to participate in its annual competition, the Robotics Premier League.

However, challenges remain. Finding trainers, for instance. Also, to keep the children interested, they must ensure that the curricula is neither boring nor difficult. Then, there is the need for patience. “They (children) don’t want to listen to the theory and just want to jump to making the things,” Robokidz’s Sanghvi said. “So once they make it and are happy, we have to make them understand the science behind it.”

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Overall, though, the need for this start up-led exposure to robotics is clear. “Our schools lack technology while everyone out there is using a smartphone. Technology is rapidly changing and the education space has lot to catch up. The learning skills required for future innovators and researchers require seeding at a young age,” Prahlad Vadakkepat, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, told Quartz. “Technological literacy is essential to live in future societies.”

Output: An education start-up in India is giving children the opportunity to learn key skills in alternative technologies and put their learning to practical use. Chennai-based SP Robotic Works (SPRW) was founded in 2012 and now offers online one-to-one tutorials in subjects including robotics, the internet of things (IoT) and virtual reality (VR). Students register for the courses and buy kits containing electronic components for them to familiarise themselves with, while participating in the online tutorials. The kits cost between $77 and $230. SPRW also involves students in existing commercial projects and supports their own robot inventions.


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Amazon patents system for cutting prices as users watch ads
 User-generated Amazon reviews are one of the most important ways that consumers find products and decide what to buy. So much so that Amazon has consistently shown itself to be Google’s competitor in e-commerce search. Almost all Amazon product reviews are written but, as business research firm L2 wrote, Amazon is now pivoting to video.

It’s a broad strategy with Amazon inviting some of its 2 million merchant partners to join the test program, where videos will be posted to the site in mid-December. According to L2, “this feature is a logical step given how often consumers watch how-to and product review videos before making purchases. By adding the feature, Amazon clearly aims to keep shoppers on its own site, preventing them from migrating to YouTube or social media platforms.”

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There’s potentially another reason for Amazon to promote the use of video in e-commerce. It now has a way to offer customers discounts for watching ads. In October, Amazon was awarded a patent for “content-based price reductions and incentives.” The patent says that “customers in an electronic environment can be presented with the option to receive advertising, such as audio, video, or interactive content, in order to receive discounted pricing or similar benefits.”

One example of how Amazon sees this working is that a customer can watch a video ad on an item’s detail page, such as a product review. As the customer watches more of the ad, the displayed price for the item drops.

Depending on how strong Amazon’s patent is, no online retailer outside of Amazon’s ecosystem can offer this benefit to customers.

The background to this patent is informative as it helps explain how far reaching Amazon’s thinking could be, and how they plan to keep lowering prices for consumers. One major difference between e-commerce and in-store purchasing is that loss-leading—selling goods cheaper than what they cost—doesn’t work in e-commerce. When customers visit a physical store, they have invested their time to get there so stocking up on additional items is worth it. This doesn’t happen online. So this patent levels the playing field, allowing sellers to offer discounts to online customers based on their investment in time.

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With this patent, Amazon has signaled that it is taking on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, and other media platforms for digital ad spend. And customers will now also know the value of their time. And potentially whether their time gets more or less valuable depending on their purchasing behavior. One person’s time is inevitably more valuable than another’s, so with dynamic pricing, it’s not hard to imagine a personalized price based on a customer’s attention span and spending behavior.

Perhaps most importantly, Amazon had a lock on low-friction e-commerce with its original patent for one-click checkout, which has expired this year. The question is, with the shift to video-enabled e-commerce, is dynamically priced, attention-incentivized video advertising the next big thing that secures Amazon’s advantage for years to come?

Output: Amazon is developing a system that drops product prices as a reward for customers viewing adverts. The online retailer has patented the "content-based price reductions" system, which would allow users to receive discounts or other benefits in return for consuming video, audio or interactive content. The move comes as part of Amazon's efforts to compete with YouTube and various other social media platforms, which have seen it testing video content on the site.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Publishers want their own ads and sponsorships on Facebook Watch
 Facebook’s ambitions to produce TV-like content has a problem: Creators still aren’t happy with the money they’re making off commercials and sponsorships Facebook sells. As a result, show makers are pushing Facebook to let them do the selling — and say they’re willing to take their shows to other platforms if the terms don’t improve.

Sources at four companies that have sold shows to Facebook, including one major media conglomerate and three digital publishers, said they have pushed Facebook to make it easier for them to sell mid-roll ads. They’ve also pushed Facebook on being able to sell sponsorships for Facebook Watch shows. Facebook has been hesitant to open up these opportunities, these sources said. “The response is always: ‘We’re considering it, but we’re not there yet,’” said one Facebook-funded shows partner.

Facebook is selling mid-roll ad breaks programmatically, according to two ad buyers. The company is hesitant to open up these slots to publishing partners because it prefers to sell ads based on user targeting, rather than contextual placements made through direct buys, publishing sources said. Facebook has also been out pitching advertisers on show sponsorships, but they’re pitched as part of broader Facebook media buys, according to an ad buyer. If Facebook gave publishers the ability to sell sponsorships for funded shows, it could lose out on some ad revenue, some publishing sources speculated.

Right now, Facebook takes 45 percent of all ad revenue generated from video ad breaks (though, in many cases, this revenue split only comes up after Facebook has recouped the money it gives to publishers to make shows and other videos every month.) It’s unclear how the revenue split might be affected if publishers are given access to the ad slots, though many publishers would expect it to remain at the current revenue share — which is the same as YouTube’s. With show sponsorships, Facebook could request the same share.

It’s a crucial time for digital media as many digital publishers that placed bets on building big businesses by focusing on advertising revenue and video distribution on Facebook are still struggling to grow revenue. The hope that the reach provided by Facebook would eventually translate into consistent ad dollars is still largely unproven — and it’s creating more urgency inside these companies to turn their Facebook video efforts into viable businesses.

“Facebook has been pretty good about trying to create monetization opportunities for us: We were part of the live deal, we’re part of the mid-roll deal,” said one Facebook Watch and mid-rolls partner. “But when they don’t work, they need to help us come up with other answers on how we can make this into a business — that’s how we’re trying to put pressure on them.”

Multiple publishers said they’re increasingly pushing Facebook to improve its monetization products by pointing out that other social platforms have friendlier monetization terms. While Snapchat does not provide production funds for its shows, it does allow companies to sell ad slots inside the shows and evenly split the revenue. Twitter, meanwhile, is offering its Amplify video partners 70 percent of the ad revenue their videos generate on the platform.

“We’re at a point now with our Facebook strategy, where we’re thinking in some cases it makes more sense to get the second season of one of our [Watch] shows sponsored by an advertiser and then run it on Facebook or other platforms — and not have the show exclusively licensed by Facebook,” said one Facebook Watch partner with multiple shows. “Right now, Watch is not delivering a huge audience — the shows that do are because the publisher has built up a huge audience on their pages. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly clear that, where six months ago it wasn’t a question that we wanted to bring shows to Watch, now we’re questioning if we even should if [Facebook isn’t] bringing audience or monetization in any sort of efficient way.”

Facebook declined to comment on its future plans for selling into mid-roll ad breaks.

For publishers, Facebook’s rules have limited how much money they can make with Watch shows that are funded by the platform. Facebook’s original content partners, for the most part, have not been allowed to sell sponsorships and integrations for the programs, three sources said. Even when these sources had sponsors willing and ready to spend on their shows, Facebook rejected the deals.

“We’re barely making any money off of [Watch shows] — it’s all off the minimum [production] guarantees,” said one Watch partner. “From a money perspective, Watch could be good if you can sell sponsors on top of it; otherwise, it’s pretty meager.”

It’s important to note that while Facebook is subsidizing well over a hundred programs inside Watch, it’s not funding every show. Publishers can independently set up Facebook Watch show pages to distribute serialized programming inside the section. Facebook has previously said that publishers are welcome to create Watch show pages for branded series they’ve made for advertisers, but these are not shows directly funded by Facebook.

The big issue for Facebook’s Watch partners is the ability to sell into the mid-roll ad breaks that can appear inside shows. So far, Facebook’s ad breaks monetization program has yielded scant revenue for publishers.

“We have argued to Ricky [Van Veen] and others that they have to let us sell [some of the mid-roll ad inventory; our own sales team can sell our own product better than they can,” said one Facebook Watch original content partner.

“There are brands now who have seen these shows who want access to this type of programming,” said another partner. “At some point there has to be an answer to how am I going to make money on your platform.”

Some are optimistic that Facebook will eventually loosen its grip on mid-roll ad inventory and Facebook Watch show sponsorships. Of course, this will happen when publishers apply greater pressure on Facebook to do so.

“Facebook is very much long-term when it comes to how they plan to monetize video,” said one Facebook Watch and mid-roll partner. “That’s fine for Facebook, but publishers don’t have the luxury of being long-term in how they monetize their content today. That’s where Snap and Twitter are being rightfully aggressive with publishers.”

Output: Publishers want to sell their own ads and sponsorships on Facebook's video platform Watch, citing unhappiness with the current levels of revenue. Sources at four publishers, including one media conglomerate and three digital publishers, said they have put pressure on the social media giant to let them sell mid-roll ads and sponsorships. But Facebook prefers to sell mid-roll ads based on user targeting rather than through contextual placements, and could lose out if they let publishers sell sponsorships, according to publishing sources.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Facebook partners with Meetrics on viewability
 Facebook has chosen Meetrics as its first viewability partner from outwith the US as it continues to work on improving advertiser confidence in its figures following revelations that it had claimed an adverts reached more people than official census data.

Facebook counts on Meetrics as first international viewability partner

The verification firm will furnish advertisers with viewability metrics for Facebook display ad campaigns across desktop and mobile with a view to introducing video viewability measures in the ‘near future’.

Output: Facebook has partnered with the German analytics company Meetrics, which will provide the social media giant with data on the viewability of adverts. This marks the first time the Facebook has commissioned a company outside of the US to provide the service since it began collecting such data in 2008. The deal will help Facebook advertisers to gauge how many display ads reach their intended audience. The company plans to build on the service in future by verifying other forms of content, including video.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Commercial carriers urged to adapt to deliver on-demand insurance
 Our culture is rapidly evolving into one of instant gratification. As services like Uber, Amazon Prime Now, and TaskRabbit continue to grow in popularity, consumers expect to be able to order almost any product or service and have it delivered instantly.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 72% of American adults have used some type of shared or on-demand online service — a number that will continue to grow. In other words, it’s time for businesses to embrace on-demand products and services, including commercial insurance carriers.

Output: On-demand cover in the commercial insurance has largely been limited to events insurance, purchased through agencies, however, commercial carriers risk being left behind if they don’t adapt to cater to the on-demand model, writes Ted Devine in Property Casualty 360, as these policies, and opportunities in project-specific professional liability or contractor's liability areas, could easily be sold online. He suggests carriers need to rework processes of selling and binding insurance to compete with firms like Cuvva and Verifly, which are unencumbered by legacy systems and cost structures, like the annual cycle that underscores insurance procurement and servicing of commercial policies.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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German publishers taking data protection rules in their stride
 Germans are privacy fiends, but when it comes to the highly anticipated General Data Protection Regulation, they’re treating it as business as usual.

The reasons for this vary, including cultural differences and the country’s attitude toward different business threats like the ePrivacy Regulation. Germany’s stance on data privacy is singular in Europe due to its time under Stasi rule. Consequently, data transparency in media and advertising is highly valued and incorporated earlier into business practices than in other countries.

For German marketers, transparency in data use is the top concern, with 66 percent of marketers citing this as the area in which they expect transparency from ad tech vendors, according to a recent report from independent media-buying platform Iotec, which polled 250 senior marketers. By contrast, the top focuses for U.K. marketers are ad fraud and transparency on ad tech vendor pricing, according to a corresponding Iotec report that polled 500 U.K. senior marketers.

“There’s an air of calmness and pragmatism in Germany compared to elsewhere,” said Paul Wright, CEO of Iotec. “They’re used to this approach.”

Preparing for the GDPR hasn’t been easy in Germany, though. But transitioning to being GDPR-compliant has been less of a jolt for media and advertising companies there than it has in the U.K., for example.

While the majority of the U.K. market is awaiting final direction on how to obtain consent and share data from the Information Commissioner’s Office, German publishers are conducting business as if the law is already being enforced. Some U.K. data specialists at publishers have already pointed out that waiting on the ICO’s final guidance is naive — there are plenty of other ways to prepare, given the fundamentals of the regulation are set. Yet many have paused strategy changes until the final guidance arrives in December.

“In Germany, we’re [Iotec] signing data-processing agreements, which clarify what we do with data and is signed by us and the client. We put pixels on publishers’ sites, and they want to know how we use that data,” said Wright. Having those terms written into contracts makes it clear to the publisher who is liable for the sharing of customer data, which will be critical under the GDPR, given the severity of the fines. “We’re not as used to that in the U.K., where we’re less clear who is liable,” he added.

Another reason German media businesses seem way ahead of the rest of Europe in their readiness for the GDPR is because the ramifications of the regulation have been major topics in the press there for nearly two years, unlike in the U.K., where widespread coverage has only happened recently.

Added to that, Germany took a firmer approach to enforcing the ePrivacy Directive (due to be overhauled into the ePrivacy Regulation next year) than the U.K. and other European markets. Users that visit a publisher website in Germany are opted out of having their data stored by default. Only once they opt in do publishers store their data. In the U.K., it’s the other way around.

Internal GDPR workshops are common at German publishers, during which long lists of ad tech suppliers are vetted with the aim of crushing any risk, and contracts are adjusted accordingly to ensure suppliers or ad networks are accountable for their own sharing of data.

“There’s still a way to go on that,” said Oliver von Wersch, a publisher consultant and former managing director of growth projects and strategic partnerships at German media house Gruner + Jahr. “Many publishers here now have a more clear picture and are addressing vendors with new contracts. I expect in the first quarter we will start seeing the active removal of vendors from the supply chain.”

Businesses have been advised to appoint data protection officers to get in line with the new law. In the U.K., these roles are still rare, whereas in Germany, most publishers already have them, according to von Wersch. “Publishers [in Germany] understand there is a lot of homework to do around [GDPR] documentation, having the right security guidelines in place and defining data processes,” he added. “Many of them are well underway.”

That’s not to say the Germans are immune to anxiety. Rather, their energy is firmly directed to the ePrivacy Regulation due to be enforced next year. The terms of this law are still being determined in Brussels, but if the current proposal for the law stands, the potential ramifications are far more alarming than those of the GDPR, according to German publishers. Axel Springer is among those lobbying against the changes.

“The [GDPR] itself is balanced in terms of what the rights of the publisher are and what the rights of the user are,” von Wersch said. “But if you look at ePrivacy, it becomes very different — it’s very much on the side of the user and opposes many things publishers are reliant on for monetization.”

Output: German publishers and media companies are unflustered by the forthcoming European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as many are behaving as though the rules are already being enforced. Germany has long been a wide adopter of data transparency, including the soon-to-be-overhauled ePrivacy Directive. Its companies have been implementing measures such as signing data-processing agreements ahead of GDPR, while the UK and other European Union countries have lagged behind in drawing up plans to meet the directive's requirements.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Poorer children have 5 times higher exposure to takeaways
 Increasing numbers of fast food takeaways are springing up close to schools in England, with pupils in the most socially deprived areas exposed to five times as many outlets as their richest peers.

Data provided to the Guardian by Cambridge University’s Centre for Diet and Activity Research (Cedar) shows more than 400 schools across England have 20 or more fast food takeaways within a 400-metre radius, while a further 1,400 have between 10 and 19 outlets within the same distance.

Public health experts have warned that heavy exposure of children to fast food outlets and increased consumption of high-fat nutrient-poor food leads to greater risk of childhood obesity, as well as heart disease and stroke in later life.

The number of fast food shops close to schools is increasing in all English regions, the Cedar data reveals, with growth highest in the north of England. In June 2014 the average English school had 2.3 takeaways within 400 metres. By September 2017 it had risen to 2.6.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, this week highlighted the problem when he published draft planning rules designed to prevent new takeaways opening within 400 metres of schools in the capital, part of a package of measures he said would “tackle the ticking timebomb of childhood obesity and help us all lead healthier lives”.

But the Cedar figures show that the areas around schools in many parts of London are already saturated with fast food outlets. Of the 20 English local authorities with the highest average number of takeaways near schools, 17 are in the capital.

Schools in London have an average of six fast food outlets within a 400-metre vicinity, although this rises to more than eight in the poorest areas and falls to fewer than two in the wealthiest.

According to Public Health England (PHE), a third of children aged two to 15 are obese or overweight. In London, 40% of children are overweight or obese when they finish primary school, the highest proportion in England.

Before the mayor of London’s announcement, only about 20 local authorities in England had adopted planning regulations designed to limit the number of fast food outlets. While some have succeeded in capping numbers, there is no clear evidence it has delivered public health dividends.

Seven of the 10 schools with the highest density of nearby fast food outlets are in London. At the top of the scale is the Soho Parish primary school in the heart of the West End, which has 94 fast food restaurants within a 400-metre radius, up from 82 in 2014, a rise of 15%.

Outside the capital, schools surrounded by dense clusters of fast food outlets include Middle Street primary in Brighton, which has 67 outlets within a 400-metre radius, St Anne’s in Blackburn, with 46, Hope House in Barnsley (42), and Grafton House in Tameside (42).

Martin Caraher, a professor of food policy at City, University of London, welcomed the mayor’s plans, but warned that they may be undermined by cuts to local council public health budgets. “All credit to Sadiq Khan, this is a brave move,” he said. “But it comes with a cost, and council public health budgets have been squeezed and staff are leaving. Who is going to monitor and implement this plan?”

The mayor’s draft plan, which came into force on Wednesday, bans new takeaways within a 400-metre walking distance of a primary or secondary school. There are no powers to operate planning rules retrospectively, meaning the measure will stop additional outlets opening but will not close existing ones.

It also requires new takeaways to sign up to a healthier catering commitment, which encourages owners to make simple changes to food preparation methods, such as grilling rather than deep frying, and using less salt.

Soho Parish primary in central London has 94 fast food outlets within a 400-metre radius, according to Cedar. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

However, the restrictions will apply only to shops classed under planning laws as A5 use, which applies to outlets selling hot food for consumption off the premises. This does not include chains such as McDonald’s, which operate as restaurants with takeaway capacity and are classified differently.

Nor does it include operators such as Greggs bakeries whose primary business is not as a hot food takeaway. The Cedar figures do include such shops as well as McDonald’s-style outlets.

A Guardian investigation in July revealed that the fast food retail industry was booming. Cedar analysis found that there were 56,600 hot food takeaways in England in 2017, an 8% increase in three years. The heaviest concentrations of fast food outlets were to be found in the most economically deprived areas, such as the north-west.

PHE called this year for all councils to introduce planning restrictions on fast food into their local planning schemes. Currently, about 20 local authorities in England have implemented planning strategies to limit takeaway numbers. While some claim the new rules have kept a lid on overall A5 outlet numbers, it is not clear if any of the councils have managed to stop the rise of obesity.

Experts have warned that planning restrictions may be of limited use, partly because they do not stop the expansion of other shops selling high fat, low nutrient food, such as supermarkets or newsagents.

The restrictions may also be bypassed by developments in the hospitality industry such as the rise of online ordering of fast food, often prepared in “dark kitchens” off the high street not covered by A5 class planning rules.

Output: Pupils in the most socially deprived areas in England are exposed to five times as many fast food outlets as their wealthiest peers, according to data from Cambridge University. Over 400 schools in the country have 20 or more takeaways within 400 metres, and an additional 1,400 have between 10 and 19 within the same radius. Health experts warn that such heavy exposure results in greater risk of childhood obesity, heart disease and stroke in adulthood. In September 2017, the average school had 2.6 fast food outlets within 400 metres, up from 2.3 in June 2014.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Singapore scientists develop ethylene using solar energy
 An artificial photosynthesis device developed by a team of of scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) could provide a greener alternative to current ethylene production, employing a completely renewable energy source, while simultaneously converting CO2 with the help of copper catalysts.

According to the findings published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, NUS achieved an unprecedented 1.5% solar-to-ethylene energy efficiency (the total solar-to-carbon-fuels energy efficiency is 2.9%).

Current industrial production of ethylene employs steam cracking of saturated hydrocarbons at 750°C to 950°C, which translates to an enormous consumption of energy, emitting about two tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of ethylene produced.The process, developed by the NUS team, takes place at room temperature and pressure, with only the use of benign chemical reagents.

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The researchers have also added a battery to store excess solar energy, thus ensuring stable and continuous production of ethylene, and are now developing suitable catalysts that can be used in similar systems to produce liquid fuels such as ethanol from CO2 and H2O.

“We believe that our work, which is a product of efforts for the last two years, will play a crucial role to address key challenges in the realization of a scalable artificial photosynthesis system to produce clean fuels sustainably,” said assistant Professor Jason Yeo Boon Siang.

Output: Scientists at the National University of Singapore's Department of Chemistry have developed a low-cost, energy-efficient way to produce ethylene from carbon dioxide and water. In an article published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, the team simulated photosynthesis using benign chemical reagents at room temperature and pressure, achieving an unprecedented 1.5% solar-to-ethylene energy efficiency. The team said its work would further the development of "a scalable artificial photosynthesis system to produce clean fuels sustainably".