Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Google announces Gradient Ventures, an early-stage AI fund
 AI-powered technology holds a lot of promise—from improving patient health to making data centers more efficient. But while we’ve seen some amazing applications of AI so far, we know there are many more out there that haven’t even been imagined yet. And sometimes, these new ideas need support to flourish.

That’s why we’re announcing Gradient Ventures, a new venture fund from Google with technical mentorship for early-stage startups focused on artificial intelligence. Through Gradient, we’ll provide portfolio companies with capital, resources, and dedicated access to experts and bootcamps in AI. We’ll take a minority stake in the startups in which we invest.

Many members of our team are engineers, so we’re familiar with the journey from big idea to product launch. The goal is to help our portfolio companies overcome engineering challenges to create products that will apply artificial intelligence to today’s challenges and those we’ll face in the future.

Our portfolio is already growing, and our first companies are making progress, including Algorithmia, a marketplace for algorithms and functions, and Dyndrite, a compute and development engine for additive manufacturing solutions.

Through AI, yesterday's science fiction is becoming today's nonfiction. There's everything to reimagine as we usher in this new era of technology—and we're excited to work with entrepreneurs to start building it.

Output: Google has announced a new venture fund named Gradient Ventures to provide technical mentorship to artificial intelligence start-ups. The tech firm will take a minority stake in its chosen companies and offer funding, resources and expertise to encourage the startups to flourish. Google is already mentoring Algorithmia, an algorithms and functions marketplace, and Cogniac, a range of visual model management tools.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Swimming robot takes second trip inside Fukushima reactor
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Images captured by an underwater robot showed massive deposits believed to be melted nuclear fuel covering the floor of a damaged reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

The robot found large amounts of solidified lava-like rocks and lumps in layers as thick as one metre (three feet) on the bottom inside of a main structure called the pedestal that sits underneath the core inside the primary containment vessel of Fukushima's Unit 3 reactor, said the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

On Friday, the robot, nicknamed "Little Sunfish," spotted suspected debris of melted fuel for the first time since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused multiple meltdowns and destroyed the plant.

The three-day probe of Unit 3 ended on Saturday.

This image captured by an underwater robot shows massive deposits believed to be melted nuclear fuel covering the floor of a damaged reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Okuma town, northeastern Japan (International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning via AP)

Locating and analysing the fuel debris and damage in each of the plant's three wrecked reactors is crucial for decommissioning the plant.

The search for melted fuel in the two other reactors has so far been unsuccessful because of damage and extremely high radiation levels.

During this week's probe, cameras mounted on the robot showed extensive damage caused by the core meltdown, with fuel debris mixed with broken reactor parts, suggesting the difficult challenges ahead in the decades-long decommissioning of the destroyed plant.

Remote controlled camera reveals hole in Fukushima nuclear plant

Experts have said the fuel melted and much of it fell to the chamber's bottom and is now covered by radioactive water as deep as six metres (20 feet).

The fuel, during meltdown, also likely melted its casing and other metal structures inside the reactor, forming rocks as it cooled.

TEPCO spokesman Takahiro Kimoto said it would take time to analyse the debris in the images to figure out debris removal methods.

Inside the twisted remains of Fukushima nuclear plant Show all 2 1 / 2 Inside the twisted remains of Fukushima nuclear plant Inside the twisted remains of Fukushima nuclear plant 6-Fukushima-1-EPA.jpg EPA Inside the twisted remains of Fukushima nuclear plant 6-Fukushima-2-EPA.jpg EPA

The submersible robot, about the size of a loaf of bread, is equipped with lights, manoeuvres with five propellers and collects data with two cameras and a dosimeter.

It is controlled remotely by a group of four operators.

It was co-developed by Toshiba Corp, the electronics, nuclear and energy company charged with helping clean up the plant, and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, a government-funded consortium.

Associated Press

Output: Tokyo Electric Power Company has sent its swimming robot into the remains of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant for a second time, in a bid to assess the damage to the three reactors. The robot has found large deposits of potential melted nuclear fuel, some as much as a metre deep, inside "the pedestal", a structure that sits beneath the reactor core in the plant's primary containment vessel. The deposits, which are mixed in with broken reactor debris, are now submerged in highly radioactive water.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
StreetEasy property site loses rental listings after charging fee
 If StreetEasy wanted to test the loyalty of the city’s rental agents, they have their answer.

Within 24 hours of introducing a new $3-per-day fee for rental listings, the number of rentals posted on StreetEasy’s platform plummeted 55 percent from 30,967 on Monday to 13,978 on Tuesday, according to inventory data obtained by The Real Deal. The figure rebounded slightly by Wednesday morning to 15,880 rental listings, according to an analysis by brokerage Triplemint.

In Brooklyn, the number of listings fell from around 10,721 on Monday to 4,078 on Tuesday — a 62 percent decline, Triplemint’s data shows. Manhattan dropped 45.5 percent from 15,531 rental listings on Monday to 8,469 on Tuesday. Queens experienced a 69 percent drop, with the number of listings falling from 3,852 on Monday to 1,192 on Tuesday.

Although the fall in listings was expected, the purge reflects that it’s largely up to individual agents to decide whether to feed their listings to StreetEasy, whether or not their firm sends listings en masse.

Compass’ Gabriele Sewtz said she was withholding her rental listings on ethical grounds. “I don’t feel that one player in a market should have the power to decide what a consumer is going to see and what a consumer is not going to see,” said Sewtz, who is marketing a Crown Heights two-bedroom for $2,500 and a unit in Dumbo asking $8,500. She added that StreetEasy’s language around the fee — opting in — put the onus on agents when, in fact, the website took listings down if they didn’t receive payment.

“StreetEasy decided from one night to kick almost 50 percent of the inventory to the curb,” she said. Her sales listings still appear on StreetEasy.

But Nest Seekers International’s Jessica Campbell — whose listings include a $7,500-a-month penthouse in Chelsea and a three-bedroom in Turtle Bay asking $32,000 — said she’ll fork over the $3 a day per listing because her clients deserve maximum exposure.

“I simply had no other option, though I don’t appreciate being backed into a corner so I am not pleased by this per-day fee,” she said. “Getting that notice felt like a ransom note and I had no option but to pay it.”

Corcoran Group agent Brian Meier will also opt in. “I’ll stop paying StreetEasy when it’s not worth it anymore,” he said. Meier predicts that could happen soon. “Renters understand that StreetEasy is not a platform to see the whole market,” he said.

For those tracking StreetEasy’s listings on Tuesday, the numbers dipped early in the day but ticked up with each passing hour — presumably as agents got on board with the “NYC Rental Network.” As of 6 a.m. Wednesday, there were 15,885 listings on the website, a number that climbed to 16,005 by noon.

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In a statement, Susan Daimler, general manager at the Zillow-owned StreetEasy, said they’d anticipated a drop in listings. StreetEasy said a key goal for the new network — which offers a single point of entry for agents’ listings — is to “wipe the slate clean” by removing stale or inaccurate listings from the portal. Agents who opted in to the program over the past 24 hours have done so across price points and boroughs, StreetEasy said.

Not everyone thinks StreetEasy will rebound after losing such a large number of listings. “Consumers will now have access to less inventory,” said Philip Lang, COO of Triplemint. Others, remembering the backlash against Craigslist when the website introduced a paywall, predicted StreetEasy wouldn’t survive with a pay-to-play model for the rental market.

Many of the city’s biggest firms are pushing back against StreetEasy. They’ve described the new per-diem fee as a “tax on agents.”

On Tuesday, the Corcoran Group and Citi Habitats — both owned by Realogy’s NRT — stopped sending their feeds to StreetEasy, Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman said.

Individual agents may spend their own money sending their listings to StreetEasy, but on Tuesday less than 7 percent of Corcoran’s rental listings were on the website, Liebman said. Around 20 percent of Citi Habitats’ rental listings were posted, she noted.

Douglas Elliman, however, chose to break away from the pack and support the program by letting agents use their ad budgets to pay for it,

“StreetEasy is our biggest driver of traffic, other than our own site, to our listings,” Elliman COO Scott Durkin said last week. “There was no way we were going to let that feed be interrupted. It was a smart business decision.”

Sensing an opening in the market, the startup Leasebreak sought to capitalize on the drama Tuesday and bought up a domain “breakupwithstreeteasy.”

“StreetEasy assumed it could take advantage of real estate agents because of the traffic to its website,” said Phil Horigan, founder of Leasebreak. “It grossly miscalculated and it will pay the price.”

Output: New York-based estate agents aggregator StreetEasy saw a 55% drop in the number of rentals listed on its site in the 24 hours following the introduction of a $3-a-day fee for property listings. The number of rentals dropped from 30,967 to 13,978, according to data obtained by the Real Deal publication. Although a slight drop was expected, the significant loss indicates the reluctance of agents to submit their listings for an additional fee, with the charge being described as a "tax on agents".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Mayo Clinic and software developer to reduce inpatient deaths
 Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Jvion, a cognitive software developer, released a cognitive computing tool to help reduce preventable inpatient deaths.

The bedside patient rescue tool identifies patients at risk and in need of intervention by measuring data such as patient frailty and other hospital system metrics.

The BPR tool will be installed in Jvion's Cognitive Clinical Success Machine, which measures internal and external factors in a patient to identify risks and recommendations.

"Working in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic team, we have developed something that is positioned to help countless patients and the clinicians who care for them," Shantanu Nigam, Jivion's CEO, said.

Jvion partnered with Mayo Clinic after winning the Think Big Challenge competition at Transform 2016, an annual conference in Rochester. The challenge was designed to identify a company that could advance and commercialize a Mayo Clinic technology solution.

Output: Healthcare provider Mayo Clinic and software developer Jvion have launched the bedside patient rescue (BPR) tool, which uses cognitive computing to reduce the number of preventable deaths of hospital inpatients. BPR measures hospital data to determine which patients are in the most danger. The new tool will form part of Jvion's Cognitive Clinical Success Machine, which will take various measurements of patients. BPR will then analyse these measurements in order to highlight risks and make recommendations.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Suppliers of Pepsico, Nestlé, Unilever linked to deforestation
 Pepsico, Unilever and Nestlé have been accused of complicity in the destruction of Sumatra’s last tract of rainforest shared by elephants, orangutans, rhinos, and tigers together in one ecosystem.

Plantations built on deforested land have allegedly been used to supply palm oil to scores of household brands that also include McDonald’s, Mars, Kellogg’s and Procter & Gamble, according to a new report.

“If more immediate action is not taken to enforce ‘no deforestation’ policies, these brands will be remembered as the corporate giants responsible for the destruction of the last place on earth where Sumatran elephants, orangutans, rhinos and tigers roamed side by side,” says the study by Rainforest Action Network (RAN).

Using satellite data, photographic evidence and GPS coordinates, the research builds on evidence gathered earlier this year to show ongoing illegal forest clearances across swathes of the 2.6m hectare Leuser ecosystem, despite a moratorium announced last June.

The palm oil reaches major brands via a twisting supply chain that stretches from the PT Agra Bumi Niaga (ABN) logging company, which delivers to a processing mill owned by PT Ensem Sawita (ES), which then sells the palm oil on to some of the world’s largest traders. PT is an abbreviation that denotes a limited liability company in Indonesia.

PT ABN declined requests for comment but after extensive Guardian inquiries, PT ES admitted using ABN’s palm oil – due to confusion after the logging firm changed its name – and said that it “regretted this failure”.

The company promised to “strengthen our traceability practices by exchanging information to relevant stakeholders who have palm oil plantation data.”

However, Gemma Tillack, RAN’s agribusiness campaigns director, said that ABN’s name change had been reported, and the continued inability of palm traders and food brands to source the palm they used back to the plantations showed a wider failing of due diligence systems.

“Relying on NGOs to uncover the truth is simply not good enough,” she said. “If RAN, with our relatively limited budget, can figure it out, then multibillion dollar, multinational corporations certainly can. The fact that they haven’t demonstrates that it is not a lack of ability holding them back, but a lack of will.”

Leuser’s vanishing ecosystem is already have a devastating effect on critically endangered elephants which use it as a migratory corridor. At least 35 elephants were killed in Leuser between 2012-2015, and human-animal conflicts are fast increasing as palm plantations fragment animal habitats.

Many species such as tigers, clouded leopards and sun bears are becoming more vulnerable to poachers, as their environment disappears. Leuser is still Sumatra’s largest rainforest and its Unesco world heritage status was reaffirmed this month, despite Indonesian government protests.

But its deforestation rate is among the world’s highest. In the 2015 haze disaster, Sumatran wildfires, often linked to plantation activity, destroyed 8,000 sq miles of rainforest, contributing to the early deaths of an estimated 100,000 people and emitting more CO2 than the whole of the UK that year.

Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo responded with a moratorium on new palm oil permits last April. Two months later, Aceh’s governor, Zaini Abdullah ordered palm oil companies to halt all forest clearing, even where valid permits existed.

But RAN’s research shows that ABN continued clearing another 336 hectares of Sumatran rainforest after Abdullah’s instruction, with 12 hectares of new deforestation since February.

In just one district of the Leuser, nine other suppliers to milling companies continued logging activities since last June across concessions with a combined area of more than 26,000 hectares, according to RAN’s research.

Tillack said: “We believe that there was a rush to clear land because the [logging] companies knew that there would be government intervention to stop forest clearances.

“Global brands like Pepsico can no longer hide behind paper promises and simply blame their international partners for forest crimes. The Leuser ecosystem will die a death of a thousand cuts if brands don’t start taking urgent action to address the root cause of this crisis.”

A spokesman for Pepsico, singled out by RAN as “the ultimate snack food 20 laggard”, said “We take this issue very seriously, and we are making significant investments to improve every aspect of our palm oil supply chain. After being informed of the allegations, we immediately initiated a thorough investigation. While we do not source directly from the mills in question, we identified direct suppliers who had the mills in their supply chains. We have been assured that these suppliers are taking corrective actions to address the allegations.”

Unilever admitted that it had indirectly bought palm oil from PT ABN through its suppliers, Wilmar and Musim Mas, and said that it had requested “a response and an action plan” from them soon.

Nestlé also said that it was investigating the allegations with Wilmar – which told the guardian that it was sending a team to the region to assess whether other sources in its supply chain were using palm oil sourcing back to PT ABN’s 2,000 hectare concession.

Mars and Kellogg’s stressed their sustainable palm oil policies, while Procter & Gamble said that it had told suppliers about its responsible sourcing policy. McDonald’s denied any links to PT ABN.

Of the palm oil traders which supplying the food brands, IOI said that that it had “registered recent deliveries from PT ES in our supply chain” but that the firm had “confirmed that they no longer source from PT ABN”.

Golden Agri-Resources said that its exposure to PT ES was “relatively small” but that it would visit the company in the next weeks to find out if it was indirectly selling on palm oil from PT ABN. Cargill and Musim Mas both said that they were investigating the reports.

However, the companies had been warned about ‘conflict palm oil’ entering the supply chain through PT ES’s third-party suppliers since 2014, and engagement with the firm had not changed its behaviour.

“Brands and traders tend to hide behind supply chain complexities,” she said, “but consumers need to know whether or not the palm oil they use is connected to the destruction of rainforests.”

Output: Major brands including McDonald’s, Pepsico, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Nestlé have been accused of using suppliers that are complicit in the deforestation of Sumatra’s final rainforest, in a report by Rainforest Action Network (RAN). The study claimed that palm oil plantations that indirectly supply the brands have been established on deforested land formerly inhabited by elephants, orangutans, rhinos and tigers. RAN’s research used GPS coordinates, satellite data and photographs to reveal illegal clearances across the Leuser ecosystem despite last year’s moratorium on such clearances. The palm oil is obtained by the brands from traders via a supply chain that stretches from logging company Agra Bumi Niaga.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Lyft sets up autonomous driving division in California
 Conventional wisdom on self-driving used to go like this: A smart tech company, like Google's Waymo, writes the self-driving software. A smart chip company, like Nvidia, provides the computing power. A smart automotive supplier, like Delphi, brings the car parts. A smart carmaker, like GM, furnishes the cars—and everything runs on the platform created by a smart ride-hailing company, like Uber or Lyft. This line of thinking explains why players in this industry are partnering up like their survival depends on it. In the stage production that is getting you from A to B in a robocar, everyone plays a role.

But some of these companies want bigger parts than others. Today, Lyft announced it’s getting into the self-driving business, launching its own unit to build autonomous vehicle software and hardware. “It’s too strategic an area for us to not be a player,” says Luc Vincent, the ex-Google StreetView-er who will head up the initiative's technical side.

Until today, Lyft's strategy seemed to hinge on hopping between carmakers like General Motors and tech companies like Waymo, striking deals that would put autonomous vehicles on the Lyft platform. (The company did say it'll maintain these partnerships, including one with self-driving car company Nutonomy that's slated to bring self-driving taxis to Boston.) But Lyft's strategic play to tackle autonomy on its own suggests that business models for this booming industry are far from settled.

Self-Driving Strategery

Lyft is entering the self-driving race an underdog’s underdog. Waymo has been testing self-driving vehicles in the Bay Area since 2010, collecting more than 3 million miles' worth of data on public roads and the vehicles that traverse them. Arch-rival Uber poached top-notch robotics talent from Carnegie Mellon University to create its self-driving unit back in 2015.

And dedicating hard-won money to self-driving tech is riskier for a company like Lyft than an auto-making incumbent. Just look at the money those other companies have to burn: $19.8 billion for Ford, $16.6 billion for General Motors. Lyft is valued at $7.5 billion. "Not only is does General Motors have cash on hand, but its cost of capital is a lot lower than Lyft’s," says Erik Gordon, who studies tech entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. The biggies have less to lose.

Lyft's move might be defensive. "I think what Lyft is worried about is envelopment," says Evan Rawley, who teaches entrepreneurial strategy at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. "Say Waymo becomes the dominant autonomous vehicle company. Then it’s very easy for Google to attach a ride-hailing service to that and make it hard for Lyft to compete in their core business."

The move is similar to what Google did with Android, he says. The search giant didn't want Apple to own everything related to smartphones: the hardware, the software, all the nutty stuff that goes on in the App Store. So it built Android, an operating system, and kept its hardware cheap, hoping to ensure their role in the smartphone universe even if Apple kept on killing it with the iPhone. Now lots of hardware companies use Android as their operating systems, and Google phones are still around. Lyft, like Google, is hedging its bets.

The worst case scenario is that Lyft gets stuck selling to one, monopolistic self-driving giant. The company wants to keep the autonomous vehicle space a little messy, and wants lots of friends with whom to horse trade. "We want to take a proactive approach in pushing the industry into more of an open environment," says Raj Kapoor, Lyft's chief strategy officer. Now it can offer partners years of knowledge about how passengers behave, and some gadgets to help the cars get around. Bolt it on and go.

Output: Ride-hailing company Lyft has signed a lease for a 50,000 sq feet facility in Palo Alto, California, with the aim of developing its own open self-driving technology. The company plans to hire hundreds of staff for the new division of the company, with the aim of bringing a fleet of autonomous vehicles into the ride-hailing network. It is understood that Lyft itself will not manufacture the cars.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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TalkTalk Free nuisance call services make TalkTalk £180 p.a. cheaper than BT
 Caller display will be switched on for all customers free of charge

Customers can now block up to 100 numbers through their handset

Customers will save up to £180 vs BT over 12 months

Provider blocked more than 100 million scam calls last month

Thursday 20th July - TalkTalk is today announcing improvements to its call features to further protect customers from nuisance and scam calls.

TalkTalk customers can now block ten times as many numbers via its Last Caller Barring service, which has been activated for all customers as standard. After a nuisance call, users can dial 14258 (or 1HALT for ease) to block up to 100 numbers. Customers can also report scam calls to TalkTalk directly through their handset by pressing 1 after it has been blocked. Caller Display has also been activated for all customers this month, allowing everyone to see who is calling before picking up the phone.

Whilst other providers will often charge for such added value features, TalkTalk remains committed to making these improvements at no extra cost to customers, saving them up to £180 a year vs BT, Sky and Virgin Media.

Donna Moore, Head of Scam Prevention at TalkTalk said: 'Scammers are constantly updating their techniques, so we are committed to evolve our call features to protect our customers. Unfortunately phone scams are a serious and growing problem affecting UK business and customers and we are determined to beat the scammers and provide these features at no extra cost.'

As the first UK telecoms provider to block nuisance calls at a network level, TalkTalk continues to combat the industry-wide issue and blocked over 100 million scam and nuisance calls before the phone even rings in the last month alone.

One million customers have also taken up TalkTalk's innovative TalkSafe service after it became the first UK telecoms provider to roll out voice biometric technology. Since its launch in 2016, TalkSafe has reduced customer verification time by 80 per cent to just 12 seconds, improving the efficiency of the customer service experience while providing one of the most secure forms of identification.

Today's announcement is just the latest example of TalkTalk's long-term commitment to protecting its customers from the industry-wide problem of scam and nuisance calls. Back in 2016, following research that showed almost half of Britons (42%) said they wouldn't be able to spot a scam and a further one in five (20%)* didn't know what to do in the heat of the moment, TalkTalk launched Beat the Scammers a nationwide campaign to help people better protect themselves against the growing threat of online and telephone scams. TalkTalk was also the first Telecoms provider to produce a series of NEVERS, a set of specific guidelines outlining information it will never ask customers for.

For more information visit: talktalk.co.uk/beatthescammers

Output: TalkTalk is to add new features to protect customers from nuisance and scam calls, enabling them to block up to ten times as many numbers through it Last Caller Barring service. Caller Display has also been activated for all customers. Offering the services free reportedly saves TalkTalk customers up to £180 compared to what they would pay for BT's equivalent services.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
HCL [4]: UK councils tripled overseas hires of social workers between 2012 and 2016
 Picture: giorgos245/fotolia

Last year more than 450 social workers from overseas came to work in the UK from places like Zimbabwe, Romania, Portugal, Australia and India.

This group marks a small but important part of the overall social work workforce – there are more than 26,000 children and families social workers in England alone. But it is also growing, with figures obtained by Community Care from the UK social work regulators showing the numbers of annual overseas registrants more than tripled, from 113 to 473, between 2012 and 2016.

The most significant increase has been in England, where the number of overseas social workers registered with the HCPC rose from 79 to 416 over the four-year period, partly due to some local authorities stepping up efforts to recruit from abroad after finding it difficult to attract experienced social workers.

Harrow council, for instance, recently hired 20 children’s social workers from India. The most recent official statistics on the local authority’s workforce show it had around 115 children’s social workers in 2016, and recruited around 40 that year.

A report to the council’s overview and scrutiny committee said the new staff hired from India was helping ease the pressure on children’s services. But the council, which had a third of its children’s social work posts filled with agency staff last year, also says the recruits bring extra skills needed in the local community.

“The project has recruited 20 very experienced, well-qualified practitioners,” a council spokesperson says, flagging up the “excellent worldwide profile” of Indian accreditation. Importantly, they add, “social workers from India come with a range of linguistic skills that meet the profile of the community in Harrow”.

It’s a similar story in Herefordshire, which took on 10 social workers from Romania during 2015 at a time when its vacancy rate was running at 37%. Jo Davidson, who was until recently Herefordshire council’s director for children’s wellbeing, says the authority had been looking “at all angles” to get a mixture of new and experienced workers through the door.

“Our research showed a lot of similarities [with the UK] around how workers are trained; we also had quite a number of Romanian families so were looking at Eastern Europeans,” Davidson says. In total our FOI requests picked up 179 Romanian social workers registered across the UK between 2012 and 2017, with 150 in England – the second-largest nationality, after Australia (which contributed 284 workers).

Getting up to speed

Some social work recruitment agencies specialise in sourcing practitioners from overseas. Laurence Lennon, director at Tripod Executive, has worked for various major suppliers in this area. He says there are plenty of advantages to councils in recruiting talent from abroad.

“There is a workforce argument that you know you have X number of starters on a given day, which only tends to happen in the UK market with academy programmes, when people graduate or with [schemes like] Frontline and so on where there’s specific sponsorship,” Lennon says. “[Overseas recruitment] enables councils to plan and do a full induction, and get a number of people up to speed at the same time.”

The recognition that ‘getting up to speed’ with UK legislation and culture is crucial, says Lennon, adding that both councils and agencies have become much better at ‘aftercare’ to help workers settle into a new country. “This can’t be seen as a quick fix,” he says. “If you fling 15 experienced social workers into a chaotic structure, or into fire-fighting, they will struggle like anyone else.”

Davidson says that at Herefordshire, Romanian recruits were “treated like NQSWs” and put into the council’s social work academy; other councils we speak to say they have done similarly. “It was a good six months before many were ready to take on a full caseload,” Davidson says. “But if you’re looking for permanent staff [you have to ask], are you in it for the long or short game?”

A question of loyalty

Questions of longevity also inform perceptions of non-UK social workers. Lennon says that in his experience, practitioners from countries such as Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand are more likely to take jobs in the UK to gain short-to-medium-term work experience that will better their employability back home.

By contrast, he goes on, “recruiting from countries where it’s a life-changing opportunity to work overseas, people are committed to bringing their families over for a better quality of life and greater opportunity”.

Interestingly Zimbabwe, which Lennon points out has recently adopted a child-focused social work model, saw its numbers of HCPC registrants soar from nine in 2015 to 68 in 2016 – making it the largest nation that year.

Rachael Wardell, workforce lead for the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, says recruitment trends always go through “ups and downs”. She cautions against assuming that staff recruited from overseas will be automatically be any more loyal than UK social workers, and feels that working conditions for all social workers is what ultimately makes the difference.

“What makes people loyal is good working environments,” she says. “In the end, if you’re not a local authority who can retain staff, you might keep an overseas worker because they depend on your sponsorship – but that’s not loyalty, it’s an obligation.”

Sarah Hammond, Kent council’s assistant director of children’s services for West Kent, admits that in her experience the council’s sponsorship – essential for its non-EU/EEA nationals’ work visas – plays its part in retaining social workers. But she argues that there would be nothing to stop another council from taking the sponsorship on, and says that “development opportunities” at large councils like Kent are just as important in terms of holding onto good staff.

Direct dealing

Kent is unusual in that, having previously gone through agencies to source overseas staff, it has now begun direct recruitment drives in South Africa.

“We had two South African team managers here who had been working long-term and used their expertise to think about where we should explore, where we know academic qualification is very good, and we might get some interest,” she says. A fringe benefit has been an increase in the number of male recruits – always in short supply in children’s social work – at the council.

Hammond adds that for Kent, overseas recruitment is a “long-term” element of its recruitment strategy. “The best outcomes for children are achieved through permanent staffing so that’s what the driver is really,” she says.

Kent’s experience, Lennon says, reflects one of “two schools of thought” around international recruitment. Pointing out that, five or 10 years ago, the approach of many councils and agencies was less well-thought out in terms of supporting workers, he says quite a number of authorities have had bad, costly, historical experiences and “won’t look again”. But he cites others, including some London boroughs, where international workers have risen through the ranks to senior management positions.

“Done properly, there are so many new skills and different practice approaches [that can be added to workforces],” Lennon says.

There will always be an extra training investment involved, Lennon says. But he points out that tools such as Skype mean interviewing can be done more cheaply and flexibly these days, and that pure recruitment costs of taking on an international staff member need not be vastly more than for a domestically trained one. Most authorities we speak to say overseas social workers are offered similar relocation packages to UK ones.

Whether the numbers of overseas registrations continues to rise remains to be seen. The HCPC was the only regulator to disclose 2017-specific figures to us, which run to the end of April. But during those four months, 63 social workers from abroad were registered into the largest market, England. If extrapolated across the year this would bring registrations back below 2013 levels. The drop-off among European registrants is even sharper.

It’s too early to say whether Brexit uncertainty – which in any case won’t affect markets for workers from places like India or African countries – is having an effect. Two councils, Harrow and Buckinghamshire, tell us that having taken on 20 and 33 overseas workers respectively, they will simply have no need to look abroad any time soon.

And as homegrown NQSWs fostered by many councils mature into a sector where tax changes are making going locum less financially attractive, there may simply be more experienced UK workers looking for permanent roles. Either way though, international workers are likely to be continue to play an important part in the workforce.

Register now for Community Care Live London for two days of free and essential learning to boost your CPD, sharpen your legal knowledge and improve your practice, on 26-27 September.

Output: Difficulty attracting experienced social workers has led local UK authorities to look abroad to recruit, with 450 social workers coming to the UK last year from countries including Zimbabwe, Romania, Portugal, Australia and India. Harrow council recently hired 20 children’s social workers from India. Official statistics reportedly showed that for 2016; the council’s workforce had 115 children’s social workers, recruited around 40 that year, a third of its children’s social work posts were filled with agency staff. In addition to experience, linguistic skills and cultural fit with certain community profiles was also noted as a benefit of overseas hires.


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Rising global life expectancy will cause huge pensions shortfall
 Photo: Thierry Zoccolan/AFP/Getty Images

A few generations ago, the average global life expectancy at birth was only 34 years. Today, thanks to falling poverty rates and expanding global wealth, the average life expectancy has more than doubled to 71—meaning roughly half of the babies born in the developed world in 2017 are expected to live past 100.

That individuals will now live well beyond life expectancies of just fifty years ago is undoubtedly a positive development. But, as we well know, the existing global patchwork of long-term savings systems and schemes is woefully ill-equipped to support current and future generations into old age. This was highlighted in a recent report from the World Economic Forum (WEF), We’ll Live to 100—How Can We Afford It?

Among the eight countries included in the WEF report (Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Netherlands, UK, and U.S.), the current gap between aggregate savings and expected annual retirement income needs stands at $70 trillion today—one and a half times the combined GDP of the countries studied. Without immediate and concerted action, these eight countries are on course to face a combined shortfall of $400 trillion by 2050—a growth in the gap of $28 billion each day.

The problem is not just a retirement issue. It is a broader financial wellness issue that is undermining productivity and placing people in financial jeopardy at many points throughout their lives. Although individuals today have increasing responsibility for managing and funding their own long-term savings (largely due to the move from defined benefit, employer-provided pensions to defined contribution accounts), most are ill-equipped to take up this burden. According to Mercer’s Inside Employees’ Minds research, individuals often lack the confidence to tackle difficult, long-term financial decisions, resulting in costly inaction.

Bold Action Needed to Close Savings Gap

As a result, governments, organizations, and individuals must take bold steps to mend the long-term savings gap. That begins with a consumer revolution in “financial fitness.” It’s time to transform employee saving into an engaging consumer experience, rather than a daunting financial task. That means presenting it not as something difficult and unpleasant, but as something achievable and interesting—through simplified language, useful tools, and the ability to track progress in real time. Such a change could create the same explosion in the savings industry that we’ve seen over the past several decades in the area of physical fitness, as exemplified by the popularity of the Fitbit and other wearable devices for tracking fitness levels.

While the financial services industry must help lead such a revolution, employers have a critical role to play, given their ability to bring vetted products and services to their employees. They also have a vested interest in easing their employees’ financial worries in order to reap significant productivity gains. Mercer’s recent Inside Employees’ Minds survey found that workers spend, on average, 13 hours a month at work worrying about their financial situations, and that 38 percent of people in the U.S. could not cover an unexpected $400 expense. As a result, productivity takes a hit. Younger generations in particular are coming into the workforce carrying a lot of financial stress due to student debt.

But if their employer can help them develop a clear financial plan, they are going to be more confident knowing that they’re on track for financial success and an end to debt. As they think about their long-term financial goals, including saving for retirement, they’ll be better prepared. Indeed, in our work with clients who have begun to implement new financial wellness programs, we have already seen demonstrated improvements in productivity.

Government, too, must help spur the revolution by expanding pension coverage and individuals’ access to savings programs and products. Both governments and employers have much greater capacity to assess products, gather information, and discriminate among financial service providers than individuals do. It’s time to expand and enhance employee access to smart tools, default options, and advice that can help them achieve retirement success.

Still, achieving financial fitness takes commitment. It can be difficult for people to get a clear picture of where they stand at any given moment, because their finances may be fragmented—they may have some employment-related pension, some individual retirement savings, and they may or may not be eligible for some safety-net provision. If employers can help people pull all those pieces together, with access to third-party advice and support, they can face the challenge of saving and planning effectively.

We have made a great deal of progress in facing those facts by developing innovative tools to calculate retirement savings. And we’ve encouraged employees to take more responsibility and become more engaged in their financial decisions. But the future of financial success for today’s workforce calls for more—and it will take nothing less than the urgent commitment of governments, organizations and individuals to give birth to a new era of financial fitness.

Output: The increase in global life expectancy will put a strain on the world economy, with the gap between aggregate savings and the average necessary retirement income currently $70tn in the eight countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum. By living to 100, the global populace will experience a shortfall of about $400tn by 2050, and will experience financial difficulties in that time. The WEF has recommended that there be a revolution in “financial fitness”, transforming personal finance into a more manageable task and with access to smart tools and advisory options provided to ensure that the gap does not cause hardship.


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Facebook offers video playback with sound on in News Feed

Facebook isn’t necessarily thought of as a video platform, yet it does provide a massive portal to video content. Facebook is aware of this, and is broadening its rollout of new video playback features on its mobile app — and notably, videos in the News Feed will now autoplay with the sound turned on by default. In addition, audio will fade in and out as you scroll past, and the company is introducing another app for TVs.

Facebook first listed the video-focused updates in a post on its Newsroom blog in February. A few weeks ago, the social media giant made good on that promise in earnest, as an increasing number of people are seeing a message that reads, “We’re always working to make Facebook a better place to watch videos. That’s why videos now play with sound on automatically. Use the volume icon on any video to make the sound right for you.”

Recommended Videos

Apparently, Facebook decided to make the change back in February because users expected to hear sound as they scrolled through their News Feed. “After testing sound on in News Feed and hearing positive feedback, we’re slowly bringing it to more people. With this update, sound fades in and out as you scroll through videos in News Feed, bringing those videos to life,” Facebook noted in a blog post.

But don’t worry — if you don’t want the sound automatically on in Facebook, you have the option of turning it off, both on the iOS and Android versions of the app. Just select the menu button and make your way over to account settings and sounds, and turn off “News Feed Start With Sound.”

Facebook’s decision will likely help it become a major player in video, encouraging people to watch more of them and allowing advertisers to more easily reach people. But advertisers might want to tread carefully before hitting Facebook users with lots of loud videos on the popular social media network. According to the Coalition For Better Ads, an industry group seeking to push less annoying advertisements, videos with autoplay sound are among the least popular ad formats around.

“This ad experience is especially disruptive because it catches the reader off guard and often compels them to quickly close the window or tab in order to stop the sound — especially if they are on their mobile device and in a public place, where such noise can be a public nuisance and personal embarrassment,” the group said in its report on a recent survey.

A more welcome addition might be the larger preview for vertically formatted videos. Facebook notes it has been testing this layout for some accounts as well, and soon it will roll out to all iOS and Android users. The new viewing experience also sports a smoother animation to scale to full-screen more seamlessly, as well as a redesigned progress bar with thumbnails to make navigating videos much more convenient.

Finally, Facebook is adding watch-and-scroll functionality similar to what Google implemented quite a while ago in its YouTube app. Users can now minimize video to a picture-and-picture view while continuing to browse their News Feed. On Android, videos even continue to play outside of the app — similar to how the social network’s Chat Heads messaging feature operates.

In addition to the update for mobile, Facebook also announced it is making the move to bigger screens with a video app for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung Smart TV. The new app allows for easy viewing of videos shared by pages and friends, and also recommends content based on interest. It expands upon a feature the social network rolled out last fall, which introduced the ability to stream videos straight to a TV from any device. Facebook says it is working to bring the app to additional platforms in the future.

Download for iOS Download for Android

Update: Added information relating to the decision to autoplay sound.

Editors' Recommendations

Output: Facebook has rolled out its auto-play video feature in its News Feed, with videos now playing without prompting with the sound turned on. The audio will continue and discontinue as users scroll past, with feedback having shown that users expected sound to come on automatically. The move will enhance Facebook’s status as a video platform provider and offer further advertising opportunities to those using the platform.


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JCDecaux's Essie Wake begins role as CMO
 Essie Wake

JCDecaux is ramping up its digital marketing offering, promoting Essie Wake into the newly created chief marketing officer position.

Wake previously held the role of marketing director, and has worked with the company since 2011.

JCDecaux chief executive Steve O'Connor says the move will help "steer the business in a broader marketing sense".

“Essie has moved well beyond her initial remit, and the new CMO roles recognises that, and more importantly acknowledges the increasingly important role that marketing, and all it now encompasses, will aid in the growth of the company over the coming period,” he adds.

During her time at JCDecaux, Wake has been instrumental in new partnerships, including the most recent alignment with Data Republic.

Most recently, Wake developed and launched Orbit, the company's geospatial tool that allows marketers and media planners to map out sites and audiences.

She also established Pigeon Project, an online research community of consumers who provide insights on JCDecaux campaigns.

Wake has worked in the media industry for more than 18 years and prior to joining JCDecaux was research and strategy director at Initiative.

Wake says the company's commitment to innovation and design, as well as the investment in digital and data capabilities makes it an exciting time to lead its marketing.

The appointment follows the promotion of Max Eburne to the newly-created role of chief commercial officer last year.

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au

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Output: Outdoor advertising company JCDecaux has promoted Essie Wake, former marketing director, into the role of chief marketing officer. The promotion will help to guide the business in a new direction, emphasising the importance of marketing in its future. Wake was behind the company’s geospatial tool Orbit and the consumer community Pigeon Project.


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National University announces $20m project to help students
 National University President David Andrews is interviewed about the new Precision Institute. Courtesy National University

National University announced a $20 million initiative Wednesday to personalize higher education for individual student needs through the use of advanced technologies.

The San Diego-based university, which serves 28,000 students, launched the Precision Institute and funded a four-year Precision Education initiative.

“We are entering a new era of opportunity and innovation in higher education with the development of advanced technologies and data analytics tools that can better aid us in creating adaptive learning platforms on a very precise and individual level,” said Dr. David Andrews, president of the private, not-for-profit institution.

The idea is to adapt education to individual student needs and interests with the intent of better serving a diverse student population and ensuring graduation from college.

“The Precision Institute at National University will contribute to ongoing research in this field as we foster a culture of collaboration with other institutions and organizations that share our mission to better adapt to the unique needs of diverse student learners so that they can more effectively reach their academic and career goals,” Andrews said.

Officials said National University is uniquely positioned to house the Precision Institute since it was founded more than 45 years ago to serve the needs of adult and diverse learners through personalized approaches such as evening classes, convenient campus locations, a “one class per month format” and online education.

Output: The San Diego National University has introduced a $20m initiative for personalising higher education through technology, called the Precision Institute. The centre will provide a four year Precision Education initiative, which will explore educational research and innovation in the student learning arena. The facility will focus on personalised approaches and diverse student learning to offer better chances of graduating.


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TalkTalk TalkTalk revenues down 3% in Q1, full year expectations unchanged
 TalkTalk adds 20,000 customers during last quarter

TalkTalk has published its trading figures for the Q1 in the financial year 2017/2018 and they reveal some interesting purchasing decisions from the public.

The switch from losing customers to a net add of 20,000 in the quarter will make management at TalkTalk happy, but group revenue was down -3.2% so not everything is rosy just yet. TalkTalk has seen the anger caused by price rises in the landline and broadband marketplace and is trying to corner this price sensitive segment with its fixed price plans which are guaranteed no price rises during the minimum term, with people able to choose from 12/18 or 24 month plans. The operator now has some 1.3 million customers on one of these plans, which goes someway to explaining why churn is down, i.e. lots more people in a fixed term. The VDSL/FTTC/fibre take-up is apparently running at 40% of those on the fixed price contracts.

TalkTalk is of course bigger than just the retail face people are familiar with, it provides wholesale services to a number of other operators including Post Office and growth there may also be accounting for some of the turn around.

Looking at our speed test data for Q2/2017 which lines up with the Q1/2017 financial year, we saw 42% of TalkTalk tests on a VDSL2/FTTC based connection and 52% were on the entry level up to 38 Mbps download with up to 2 Mbps upload product. This is is lower than usual and is explained by some people opting for the Fibre Large service which offers the higher upload speeds of up to 19 Mbps (line length being the limiting factor on upload speed).

The fixed price contracts may as Ofcom mandate reduced prices for MPF (full LLU - most recent at start of July) and the GEA-FTTC 40/10 price reduction due in 2018 allow TalkTalk to enjoy a higher margin on a good number of customers. Price cuts are far from new for the line rental elements at the wholesale level but other costs such as billing/customer service/increasing bandwidth utilisation have seen a steady annual increase. 2018 may be when the fairly large drop in the 40/10 product price trigger real consumer level price cuts and this might also see TalkTalk switch to the 40/10 service for its entry level product.

TalkTalk customers in a fixed price plan can extend their contract and sign up for new price offers, so if prices do drop people can recontract and have the peace of mind of a fixed monthly bill.

One new element in the price rise game will be the ruling on surcharges for debit card and credit card payments, which while the headlines was all around booking flights does impact on some broadband customers, and what we'd expect is for operators across a range of industries to review the revenue levels and rather than some customers paying the extra fee, this revenue will be retrieved by everyone paying a little more and be hidden amongst annual inflation.

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Output: TalkTalk's revenues fell over 3% in Q1 2017, as a decline in consumer revenues offset what the company referred to as “strong growth” in its wholesale and corporate divisions. Around 20,000 customers were added during the quarter. The company said full-year expectations, which were scaled back in May, remain unchanged.


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Redrow [2]: Owners apply to demolish pub surrounded by Redrow's Morello development
 Addiscombe councillors and residents who want to keep The Glamorgan on Cherry Orchard Road as a pub serving the community now face a race against time, after the building’s owners yesterday submitted a planning application for the demolition of the Victorian boozer.

Sean Fitzsimons, a Labour councillor for the ward, has arranged for an open meeting at the Town Hall from 7pm on Monday to measure the depth of local feeling for The Glamorgan, which closed its doors last November after nearly 150 years as part of the fabric of the local community.

The meeting will consider applying for the building to be made an Asset of Community Value, perhaps to be run by a local co-operative on a model similar to the successful Hope pub, which the community in Carshalton rescued with such success. Fitzsimons yesterday held a meeting with the people who run The Hope.

And at least one London-based pub operator is known to be interested The Glamorgan, sited close to East Croydon Station and now surrounded by hundreds of new flats and apartments being built as part of Redrow Menta’s (slow-to-ripen) Morello developments.

“I’m hoping the council’s new pub policy will give us the breathing space,” Fitzsimons told Inside Croydon. “Or at least give us enough to stop the demolition.

“The emerging planning policy means we have 18 months to raise the cash, if necessary. Plus, the owner has to sell at public house market price.”

Fitzsimons was a key figure in drafting the council’s pub policy.

At the moment, it looks like this:

Policy DM22: Protecting public houses The Council will not grant planning permission for the demolition or change of use of a public house, unless the Council is satisfied that there is not a defined need for a public house.

Even where the Council is satisfied that there is not a defined need for the public house, the Council must be satisfied that:

a. The loss of the public house would not result in a shortfall of local public house provision of this type;

b. That the public house is no longer considered economically viable when considered against the CAMRA’s Public House Viability Test; and

c. The public house has been marketed as a public house, at a market rate for public houses, for a consistent period of 18 months. How the policy works 7.18 Proposals involving the loss of a public house will need to demonstrate that there is not a defined need for a public house. 7.19 A defined need can be demonstrated in no particular order of preference by:

a. The public house being statutorily Listed;

b. The public house being Locally Listed;

c. The public house being a non-designated heritage asset;

d. The public house having other local contextual significance;

e. There being sustained and documented local objection to the loss of the public house; and

f. The public house being used for a wider variety of ancillary uses such as functions, social events and other community activities. 7.20 The Council will resist the loss of these facilities unless it can be demonstrated that is no longer required in its current use. Evidence will be required to show that the loss would not create, or add to, a shortfall in provision for the public house and demonstrate that there is no demand for such a use on the site. This would include the submission of evidence of suitable marketing activity for a period of eighteen months. In the event that a public house is listed on the Assets of Community Value register and is offered for sale, the local community is given six months to prepare a bid to buy it. In such circumstances

the marketing statement could be reduced to a period of a minimum continuous period of twelve months in addition to the six months that the community has to prepare a bid to buy it. This evidence should demonstrate that the existing use is no longer financially viable through the submission of financial evidence.

Marketing details need to include a site description, photographs and reasonable terms commensurate with public house use. In cases where a public house use has ceased it has to be successfully demonstrated that there is no local need or demand.

That policy is still being moulded, as part of the recent inspection meetings over the Croydon Local Plan. According to one council official, “The planning inspector has indicated that the policy will be modified to emphasise more strongly the social value of pubs.” That ought to favour the Addiscombe locals who want to save their local.

And the main thrust of the policy – that the building will need to be marketed for 18 months and to have been considered against the Public House Viability Test, as laid out by the Campaign for Real Ale, will not change.

You can see CAMRA’s viability test here.

Inside Croydon is Croydon’s only independent news source, still based in the heart of the borough. In April-May 2017, we averaged 32,000 page views every week

If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, a residents’ or business association or a local event to publicise, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com

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Output: The new owners of The Glamorgan pub, which is closed on the back of the "slow-to-ripen" Redrow Menta Morello development in Croydon, have submitted a planning application to demolish the building. Addiscombe councillors and residents trying to rescue the pub, are hoping the council’s Policy DM22: Protecting public houses, will give them breathing space or at least enough to stop the demolition. At least one London-based pub operator is said to be interested.


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Esure [2]: 2017 Interim Results for eSure to be released on 3 August
 This website is for Private Investors*

I am a Private Investor

*A Private Investor is a recipient of the information who meets all of the conditions set out below, the recipient:

Obtains access to the information in a personal capacity; Is not required to be regulated or supervised by a body concerned with the regulation or supervision of investment or financial services; Is not currently registered or qualified as a professional securities trader or investment adviser with any national or state exchange, regulatory authority, professional association or recognised professional body; Does not currently act in any capacity as an investment adviser, whether or not they have at some time been qualified to do so; Uses the information solely in relation to the management of their personal funds and not as a trader to the public or for the investment of corporate funds; Does not distribute, republish or otherwise provide any information or derived works to any third party in any manner or use or process information or derived works for any commercial purposes.

Please note, this site uses cookies. Some of the cookies are essential for parts of the site to operate and have already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but if you do, parts of the site may not work. To find out more about the cookies used on Investegate and how you can manage them, see our Privacy and Cookie Policy

To continue using Investegate, please confirm that you are a private investor as well as agreeing to our Privacy and Cookie Policy & Terms.

Output: Esure announced that its 2017 Interim Results are to be released on 3 August 2017 at 7.00 am (GMT). A presentation for analysts and investors will be hosted by the management at 11:00 am (GMT) on the same day.


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IOTA blockchain joins F6S accelerator platform
 We launched the IOTA Ecosystem Fund in May and have received over 100 applications already. Since then the monetary size of the fund itself has grown several fold in conjunction with the growth of IOTA, which means we can expand its reach. Now we are happy to announce that we are partnering with F6S, the world’s largest platform for founders, start-ups and accelerators, to bring the IOTA Ecosystem Fund to their vast network and community with over 2 Million start-ups and developers, with particular focus on Internet-of-Things.

Through this collaborative effort we expect IOTA’s ecosystem and community to grow significantly, as well as boosting adoption from start-ups and founders that can benefit greatly from exploring and implementing the new opportunities that the IOTA platform provides.

We are naturally very excited about this partnership and look forward to the results of having a whole new passionate community merge with our own.

Decentralized, trustless systems have the potential to disrupt the world we live in today. The IOTA protocol is infrastructure that will shape the way developers build new IoT technology all the way through to innovative services within the sharing economy.

F6S’ mission is to support the growth of tech founders and we’re extremely excited to be partnering with IOTA to help developers leverage their platform and provide a launchpad for this groundbreaking technology.

F6S’ mission is to support the growth of tech founders and we’re extremely excited to be partnering with IOTA to help developers leverage their platform and provide a launchpad for this groundbreaking technology.

Apply here!

Output: Open source blockchain IOTA's Ecosystem Fund is partnering with F6S in the UK, the platform for start-ups and accelerators. The move will bring IOTA's 2 million members, consisting of developers and start-ups, to the F6S platform with the aim of expanding the community further and exploring new opportunities.


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Kahoot! raises $10m for its game-based learning tools
 Most students associate Kahoot with its addictive, funky theme song. Today the Norwegian company is groovin’ to a different tune: ka’ching!

Based in Oslo, Kahoot is adding another $10 million to its Series A financing, pushing that round total to $20 million. In total the company has raised $26.5 million, according to chief executive Erik Harrell. New investors include local angel investors and private family offices in Norway (the names of whom he declined to disclose). Existing investors Microsoft Ventures, Creandum and Northzone also chipped in.

The funding will be used to grow the company’s staff of 55 employees, particularly its product development and engineering teams, he tells EdSurge in an interview.

Kahoot now also boasts one of the biggest brand names in the world as a backer. Last week it was picked as one of 11 companies selected to the Disney Accelerator, which makes an undisclosed equity investment in each participant and provies guidance from its network of entertainment, technology and business executives. Harrell kept tight-lipped about details of Kahoot’s participation in the three-month program, citing Disney’s strict communication polices.

It’s the latest milestone for a company that touts more than 50 million unique users each month, with the majority in U.S. K-12 classrooms. Kahoot’s popularity lies in its game-based educational tool that allows anyone to create multiple-choice quizzes and race with one another to get the most number of correct answers in the shortest amount of time.

The web-based platform was used primarily in the classroom—until now. Last month, Kahoot unveiled the beta version of a mobile app that allows users to create quizzes and challenge “anyone, anywhere, anytime,” in the words of Harrell. Teachers can also assign after-school games as homework. Upon setting up a game, a player will get a unique link that he or she can share via email, WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS or other mobile services. The goal, he adds, is to “extend Kahoot beyond the physical walls of the classroom.” The free app will be publicly available in September.

Kahoot has earned no revenue to date, but later this year it will release an annual subscription service for corporate users who want to use the product for professional training and staff development. Already there are more than a million users who hail from companies, Harrell notes. This “premium” offering will include features such as branding, user account management and advanced data reporting.

In a previous interview, Harrell committed to keeping Kahoot free for schools and teachers.

Output: Norwegian company Kahoot! has raised $10m in a Series A round, increasing its total financing to $26.5m. The company provides game-based learning tools to over 50 million users in the K-12 educational range. Kahoot! will use the funding to expand the company’s staff of 55, with a focus on product development and engineering. The business was recently chosen as one of eleven companies to go through the Disney Accelerator, which offers an equity investment and guidance in a three month programme.


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First Block Capital and FrontFundr create Canadian bitcoin trust
 VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--First Block Capital Inc. today announced it’s launching the Canadian Bitcoin Trust, which can be accessed through FrontFundr, providing eligible investors with a convenient way to invest in Bitcoin.

"The Canadian Bitcoin Trust is an open-ended unit trust that enables investors to get exposure to the price of Bitcoin without having to worry about buying and securing Bitcoin, which has been a challenge for investors," said Sean Clark, co-founder of First Block Capital.

Launched by Vancouver-based entrepreneurs Sean Clark and Marc van der Chijs, First Block Capital has partnered with FrontFundr, Canada’s leading online investment platform, allowing all levels of investment into the trust starting at $500. An investment in units of the trust is available on a private placement basis to eligible Canadian investors pursuant to exemptions from applicable prospectus requirements (specifically, the “offering memorandum” exemption under National Instrument 45-106).

“With crypto-currency poised to become a new asset class, Canadian Bitcoin Trust is the first opportunity for all Canadians to be able to invest in Bitcoin securely,” said Peter-Paul Van Hoeken, CEO of FrontFundr. “FrontFundr is thrilled to bring this opportunity to the larger investor community, democratizing investment in crypto-currency for all Canadians.”

The value of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies increased from $30 billion in December 2016 to over $100 billion in June 2017. Previously, buying Bitcoin required a seasoned level of knowledge to navigate the technical transaction process. Investors were also required to securely store the Bitcoin they purchased. First Block Capital’s partnership with FrontFundr simplifies the process by allowing investors to buy units of the Canadian Bitcoin Trust. This removes barriers for investors who simply want to get into the market through traditional investment channels.

Bitcoin and Blockchain technology have grown in popularity partly because they give power back to the investor by removing third parties that require authentication, verification, settling and record keeping. Many investors like that transactions are handled peer-to-peer directly with no additional bank fees and arbitrary transfer limits.

Some key advantages of the Canadian Bitcoin Trust are exposure to a new digital currency asset class and to an asset class that is non-correlated to traditional markets. First Block Capital aims to help investors capture the value of disruptive technologies based on the Blockchain through FrontFundr. To buy into the trust, which launched today visit FrontFundr.

About First Block Capital:

First Block Capital Inc. is a unique Canadian investment firm founded by global entrepreneurs committed to providing investment exposure to the emerging digital currency asset class based on Blockchain technology.

About FrontFundr:

FrontFundr is a fintech company that enables entrepreneurs to raise capital from all Canadians. Investing in private companies was previously limited to angel investors and venture capitalists, but after recent regulatory changes, private investing is now open to a wider spectrum of investors. FrontFundr operates its online investment platform as a fully registered Exempt Market Dealer (EMD) in eight provinces in Canada.

Output: Investment firm First Block Capital has partnered with crowdfunding platform FrontFundr to launch the Canadian Bitcoin Trust. Rather than directly buy and secure bitcoin, Canadian investors can buy units of the trust, starting at CAD$500 ($400). The option is likely to be popular among investors who want to enter the market through traditional investment channels without needing the technical knowhow that buying bitcoin can require.


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Homes with park view can cost more than double, finds HouseSimple
 House buyers pay an average premium of 32%, or £78,415, for a property close to or overlooking a park in a major town or city, according to a new report.

Research conducted by online estate agents HouseSimple.com has found that in five of the 30 cities featured in its survey – Sheffield, Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow and Middlesbrough – some properties near parks are valued at double the average property price for that area.

The highest premium was in Sheffield, where average house prices for properties near Endcliffe Park were found to be 121% higher (£415,230) than the city average (£187,757).

Elsewhere, average house prices for properties surrounding London’s largest royal parks were £1.33m, more than £650,000 higher than the London average (£673,344).

Alex Gosling, CEO of HouseSimple.com said: “In large urban sprawls where many properties don’t have a garden or access to a communal garden, living near public parks or green spaces is often one of the top wishes among buyers.

“That high demand inevitably impacts on the price people will pay, but many buyers may not realise just how much of a premium they could be paying.

Poll As a broker, do you currently quote 'green' loan options alongside standard loan quotes for property development finance? Yes No Vote Results

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t good value properties around some of the UK’s urban green spaces, but for real value it’s probably worth looking at roads that are a short walk away.”

Output: UK house buyers looking for a property in a major town or city with a park view pay an average of a third more for their home, according to a survey by HouseSimple.com. In Sheffield, average house prices for properties near Endcliffe Park were 121% higher at £415,230 ($539,591) against the city average of £187,757. In London, homes situated near the biggest royal parks cost an average of £1.33m, more than £650,000 above the average in the capital of £673,344.


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Students, co-living and hotels come together at The Student Hotel
 Several months ago we wrote about the new emergence of innovative co-living solutions: development projects where shared living spaces and amenities are attached to private sleeping areas to create a more communal (and affordable) urban housing experience. Many responded that it sounded like grown-ups living in a college dormitory, so it’s only natural that new names in the student housing market are taking this concept one step further.

The Student Hotel is one such project that is using a new model for delivering housing solutions for students globally. With six locations in The Netherlands, France and Spain, they offer a hybrid of long-stay student accommodations with the look and feel of a boutique hotel. The branding and design of public spaces are by cutting edge design firm ...,staat | Amsterdam.

The private bedrooms are fully furnished and arranged in suites around communal kitchens, along with various shared spaces such as social lounges, game centres and study areas which encourage greater student interaction and collaboration. Not affiliated with any specific universities, students from various learning institutions and fields of study can make connections in an environment that fosters co-habitation and a greater sense of community.

Blackstone Residence Hall, Image © Gensler

This concept not only provides an upgrade to the current offerings in temporary student housing, but may also prove to be disruptive in the hotel industry. The Student Hotel company uses public-private partnerships to fast track development, going from property acquisition to facility opening in as little as a year. Properties range from 350-700 units, and with the announcement of Perella Weinberg Real Estate’s capital investment of €150 million dollars, the Amsterdam-based company aims to expand to over 10,000 rooms across Europe by 2020.

On a student housing project in London, Gensler has developed a room design that is clean and simple, allowing the students space to work privately, providing a larger than average size bed and all fit into 14 square metres, with natural ventilation, in a London high-rise this is quite a feat.

Gensler is working with this client to develop unique spaces to provide the students opportunity to explore their chosen career path in a real-world environment. This space pictured below is designed for students studying fashion to have a space to work outside their room and exhibit their work, where they could meet with professionals and even produce a fashion show. We are calling this space the fashion HUB.

Today, the number of international students are increasing, and their expectations for academic living are not limited to the four walls of the bedroom. They desire a higher quality of hospitality. They want a space to meet people, collaborate, learn and play, spaces that will enhance the social living experience to support and improve academic and personal growth.

In another Gensler project at Biola University, these shared spaces were geared not just to socializing but to social learning, an important shared space for academic purposes.

At the same time, higher education curriculum is changing in recent years. There’s a higher demand on additional courses and degrees. Curriculums are going online and there’s an increase in distance learning and short courses. Student accommodations are changing to cater to those circumstances. The Student Hotel can provide a flexible period of short or long stay to meet the needs of different groups of students and user groups – it is not one size fits all.

The Student Hotel’s concept not only targets students, but also business travellers and tourists. It offers the right mix of hotel, office and living spaces. This platform also acts as a knowledge exchange space that offers the potential for students to meet their future employers. After graduation, it becomes a place for transition with affordable luxury accommodation and facilities. The mix of students, professionals and travellers creates a unique and exceptional experience – the key ingredient for building a vibrant community.

About the Authors:

Jonathan Breen is an architect with 15 years of experience working in the residential, hospitality, retail centers, and mixed-use sectors. He joined Gensler’s Los Angeles office in 2011 and has played a leading role on large retail and entertainment driven mixed-use projects throughout world. Now in London he is currently researching the London residential market as part of a Firmwide initiative RESIDE. Contact him at jonathan_breen@gensler.com.

Diana Lee works closely with architects and engineers on projects from London to the Middle East, developing schemes from small private courtyard design to city-scale master planning. These projects often range from concept design stage to construction design stage. Diana is now part of the London Museums research team focused on the challenges museums and cultural institutions are facing and how these are being tackled and approached. Contact her at diana_lee@gensler.com.

Output: The student accommodation sector is being disrupted by firms offering innovative, co-living solutions that encourage social development and academic growth, as the rise of online courses changes the way people learn at university. The Student House has used public-private partnerships to develop six locations across Europe, offering flexible, boutique hotel-style accommodation with no links to specific universities, while London-based student housing project Gensler's spaces enable residents to "explore their chosen career path in a real-world environment".


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Deutsche Bank could be subpoenaed over Trump investigation
 Executives inside Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump’s personal bankers, are expecting that the bank will soon be receiving subpoenas or other requests for information from Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is investigating possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

A person close to the matter who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity said Mueller’s team and the bank had already established informal contact in connection to the federal investigation.

There were signs this week that any effort by Mueller to to pursue documents about Trump’s personal finances will be met with intense criticism by the White House. When asked by the New York Times whether he believed Mueller would be crossing a red line if he expanded his inquiry to include an examination of Trump’s personal finances, the president said: “I think that’s a violation.”

Deutsche’s relationship with Trump and questions about hundreds of millions in loans have dogged the German bank and the White House for months. They have also been the subject of intense scrutiny among some Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have demanded the bank turn over detailed information about the president’s accounts.

The requests for information from Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House financial services committee, have focused on whether any Russian entities may have provided financial guarantees for the loans that were made to the president or his immediate family members.

The Guardian reported in February that the bank launched a review of Trump’s account earlier this year in order to gauge whether there were any suspicious connections to Russia and did not discover anything suspicious.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser in the White House; her husband, Jared Kushner, who is also a presidential adviser; and Kushner’s mother, Seryl Stadtmauer, are all clients of Deutsche Bank.

US media outlets have reported that Mueller’s investigation into possible Russian collusion with the Trump campaign will include a close examination of the president’s finances and businesses. While Deutsche Bank did engage in banking transactions with Russian banks as late as 2005, including some loan activity, a person familiar with the matter said the activity was not related to Trump’s accounts or his family.

The president has decried the investigation into his campaign as “fake news” and has vociferously denied that the campaign ever colluded with Russian government officials to try to gain an edge in his 2016 race against the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Any move by Mueller’s team to pursue Trump’s personal financial records comes as the bank continues to negotiate a settlement with the Department of Justice over its so-called mirror trading scheme, in which the bank’s former Moscow branch is alleged to have allowed $10bn to flow out of Russia. Democrats on Capitol Hill have been demanding answers about who might have benefited from the scheme.

Deutsche has been fined more than $6bn in connection to compliance failures since 2015.

According to an analysis by Bloomberg, Trump now owes Deutsche, his biggest creditor, about $300m. He has four large mortgages, all issued by Deutsche’s private bank. The loans are guaranteed against the president’s properties: a new deluxe hotel in Washington DC’s Old Post Office building, just around the corner from the White House; his Chicago tower hotel; and the Trump National Doral Miami resort.

A person close to the matter said other financial institutions with ties to Trump, including Bank of America, would also probably receive requests for information from Mueller’s team.

Lawrence Grayson, Bank of America spokesman, declined to comment on whether the bank had received or was anticipating any subpoenas for records from Mueller’s investigation.

Deutsche Bank did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Mueller did not respond to a request for comment.

Output: Deutsche Bank could soon receive subpoenas or requests for information from Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating links between President Trump’s election campaign and the Kremlin. An anonymous source confirmed to The Guardian that Mueller’s team had already established informal contact with Deutsche with regard to the investigation. Deutsche has faced questions about its relationship with and loans to Trump for some months. Members of the Democratic Party have also requested that the bank release information about Trump’s accounts.


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London first-time home buyer deposits have risen 140% since 2007
 F irst-time buyers make up the biggest segment of the London property market, despite being faced by unprecedented affordability challenges and soaring deposits, according to exclusive data compiled for Homes & Property.

Londoners buying their first home accounted for 45 per cent of all property buyers in the first three months of this year, the highest proportion since 2001.

However, the Countrywide research for Bairstow Eves found that while the proportion of buyers who are first timers is rising, the actual number of first-time buyers is falling year on year, from a high of 48,100 in 2014 down to 42,000 in 2016, with even fewer expected this year.

Rising house prices, combined with post-credit crunch affordability tests imposed by lenders, have pushed the average deposit paid by London first-time buyers to almost £80,000, a 139 per cent increase from 2007, before the financial crisis.

The average price of a first home in the capital has increased by 50 per cent to £330,000 since 2007, but rising house prices are only partly to blame for the soaring size of first-time buyer deposits, according to David Fell, research analyst at Countrywide.

“Back in 2007, the deposit issue wasn’t there. If you were a first-time buyer it wasn’t that uncommon to get a 100 per cent loan-to-value mortgage – they accounted for about 10 per cent of the market. Now, no one gets 100 per cent mortgages and lenders are setting affordability a bit more tightly than they did,” he says.

“That’s reflected in levels of activity in the market. There are fewer first-time buyers than there were in 2006/07.”

REGIONAL VARIATIONS

House price recovery after the financial crash also varied in different parts of the capital, with house prices in north London rising 66 per cent in 10 years to £402,000, while prices in east London hit £300,000 this year, up 45 per cent compared to 2007.

“Generally cheaper places fall further when there’s a crash and take longer to recover than more expensive areas,” explains Fell.

However, as London’s house price boom has pushed first-time buyers into new areas, Fell suggests that there is significant price growth potential still to be realised in parts of south and east London.

“Bits of London like Stratford and Crystal Palace are substantially nicer than they were 10 years ago,” he says. “As long as there’s aspiring first-time buyers in those areas, I think it will support prices should there be another crash. They won’t necessarily be hit as hard as they were in the last crash.”

EAST LONDON LOOKS FORWARD

Steve Watkins, owner of Ellis and Co in Leyton, agrees that the “Olympic effect” has seen east London’s fortunes change, with the past five years pushing such areas as Leyton, Stratford and Leytonstone into a new league.

“There’s been huge regeneration of the areas around here, with coffee shops opening up and buyers who can’t afford Hackney are moving out. Connections into London are better than they used to be and Crossrail is coming, too.

“Prices aren’t going down, there’s still a shortage of stock because anyone who owns a property can’t afford to move on. The main difference is that whereas before the recent stamp duty changes about 70 to 80 per cent of our sales were to landlords, now it’s probably about 10 or 15 per cent. They’ve been replaced by first-time buyers.”

Output: First-time buyers in London are having to come up with deposits of £80,000 ($104,000) on average, a rise of 139% over the past 10 years, according to data from estate agents Bairstow Eves. It cited tougher affordability tests and higher house prices as the reasons, but added east and south London offered the best areas for price growth. The study also found that while the proportion of first-time buyers among purchasers is going up, the actual number of first-time buyers has dropped, from 48,100 in 2014 to 42,000 in 2016.


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Plastic Free Coastlines campaign launched in UK
 Communities across the UK are being urged to spread grass roots resistance to single-use plastic to reduce the millions of tonnes of it seeping into the oceans.

Local councils, schools and businesses will be targeted in the Plastic Free Coastlines campaign that aims to ape the movement to end the use of plastic bags.

In a film released today by Surfers Against Sewage, narrated by the actor Imelda Staunton, the scale of the plastic waste which coalesces in five major ocean circulation currents in the world is compared to a global nuclear security threat. The UN estimated this year there were 51tn microplastic particles in the ocean today – 500 times more than the number of stars in the galaxy.

Hugo Tagholm, from Surfers Against Sewage, said: “Plastic persists in the environment for hundreds of years – hence the nuclear comparison. The ‘fallout’ from single-use plastics today will most probably still be felt in 500 years. Whilst controversial, we think it’s a powerful metaphor for how plastics are attacking all of our environments. The sheer scale of plastic production is terrifying.”

The call to resist plastic use comes as new figures show more than 8.3bn tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s – resulting in a “near permanent contamination of the natural environment”, according to a report by US academics.

In June, United Nations secretary general António Guterres called for a global step change to reduce plastic pollution in the marine environment, from local and national initiatives to an urgent, coordinated international effort.

“As individuals and communities, we’ve never had so many opportunities to respond,” said Tagholm.

“We are not powerless ... we are calling on people to unite to tackle plastic pollution and #JoinTheResistance for Plastic Free Coastlines.”

Individuals are being asked to adopt a five point plan to help create single-use plastic free towns and cities.

The plan includes:

urging local government to lead change within their areas,

get at least three single-use plastic items, such as straws, plastic bottles or condiment sachets, removed from local businesses and replaced with sustainable alternatives

get other organisations to adopt the plastic free message; from Scouts groups to churches and schools

arrange community events, for example street or beach cleans and

set up a steering group to coodinate the actions.

In north Wales, Aberystwyth town council will discuss a motion on Monday to reduce plastic in the area. Councillor Alun Williams has put forward a motion supporting the campaign and calling on the council to minimise the use of throwaway plastic by shops and vendors in the town.

Williams said: “One of the things we are looking at is trying to get the local traders to stop selling thowaway plastic in their takeaways – already some of them don’t have plastic but its a question of getting everyone on board.

“I hope and believe there will be a lot of support for this motion on Monday.”

Towns and cities who act to carry out the five point plan can become Plastic Free Coastlines certified areas – similar to the fair trade towns movement worldwide.

Output: A Plastic Free Coastlines campaign aims to build grass roots opposition in the UK to single-use plastic. The initiative, which will target businesses, councils and schools, outlines a five-point plan to eradicate single-use plastic in communities. Proposals including calling on local government to lead change, asking local businesses to replace a minimum of three single-use items with sustainable alternatives, encouraging local groups to promote the plastic free message, organising community street and beach cleans and establishing local steering groups. Adoption of the plan will lead to certification as a Plastic Free Coastline area, similar to the fair trade towns designation.


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Intel said to be axing smartwatch and fitness wearables division
 When TechCrunch reported last year that Intel is getting out of wearables, the tech titan vehemently denied it. Now a new report by CNBC indicates that the company is indeed leaving the business behind: the publication says Intel has axed the whole division working on smartwatches and fitness trackers two weeks ago. The New Technologies Group, which is in charge of the chipmaker's cutting-edge businesses, has now reportedly shifted its focus to augmented reality. If true, this is the second project the company has scrapped in recent months: it also canceled the development its Raspberry Pi competitors in June.

According to CNBC's source, the tech giant actually laid off 80 percent of the division's employees in November 2016, so it let fewer people go this time around. A lot of employees in Intel's wearables division came from Basis, the wearable maker it acquired back in 2014 for $100 million. While their division is now dead, they were apparently given the chance to be reassigned to other parts of the company.

Intel purchased Basis in an effort to make a big splash in the wearables space a few years ago. Unfortunately, it had to recall the Basis Peak smartwatch due to overheating concerns, and things never really picked up after that. When we talked to Dr. Jerry Bautista, Intel's wearables VP, at CES earlier this year, it became pretty clear that the corporation had no intention of releasing another Basis-branded smartwatch or fitness tracker.

Needless to say, the division's shut down (if true) didn't come out of left field. Intel hasn't confirmed the report yet, but we might hear something about it during its Q2 earnings call scheduled to take place on July 27th.

Output: Tech giant Intel is rumoured to have shuttered its smartwatch and wearables division, as it changes focus to augmented reality, according to reports by CNBC. It is believed employees were offered the chance to move to other parts of the company. Intel's foray into the wearables market nosedived after it recalled its Basis Peak smartwatch following overheating issues. While Intel has not confirmed the reports, the report is expected to come up in this week's Q2 earnings call.


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BMW said to be launching i3 electric car with 200-mile range
 On the new electric vehicle front, BMW had nothing to offer since launching the i3 and i8 almost 5 years ago and they are not expected to have a new EV built from the ground up to be electric until the end of the decade.

But they could be releasing updated versions of their current EVs in order to compete with new longer range electric cars coming to market.

The BMW i8 is already expected to feature a decent refresh with the 2018 model year, which the German automaker has been teasing recently.

As for the BMW i3, it already got a significant update with the 2017 version and its 33 kWh battery pack, which enables a range of about 114 miles.

It’s a significant upgrade compared to the previous version with a 22 kWh battery pack, but it doesn’t compete in term of range with the Chevy Bolt EV or the upcoming Tesla Model 3.

According to an inside source talking to BMWBlog, that could change with an upcoming new version for 2018-2019. They wrote:

“According to a source, BMW is likely preparing another tech update in late 2018 which will bring the capacity of the battery expressed in ampere hour (Ah) to 120. The pure electric driving range will be further increased by at least 60 percent.”

We would recommend to take this report with a grain of salt, but it’s not impossible considering BMW’s strategy is low in new EVs and could instead rely on existing models to stay relevant.

There have been a lot of rumors lately about BMW’s electric vehicle offering. Officially, the German automaker only plans to build a fully electric MINI in 2019, a fully electric BMW X3 in 2020, and the upcoming “fully electric BMW iNEXT” should follow in 2021.

But a long rumored all-electric 3 Series, which could actually cannibalize the i3, is rumored to be also in the plans and it could be unveiled as soon as in September.

Output: German car maker BMW is rumoured to be releasing updated versions of its all-electric vehicles to compete with rival models with longer ranges arriving on the market, according to a source at BMWBlog. The source said BMW is preparing for a tech update in 2018 that would increase the battery range of its i3 model by 60% – on top of this year's update, which took it to 114 miles.