Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Marathon drops $1.05bn of assets into master limited partnership
 Oil refining and marketing giant Marathon Petroleum Corporation MPC recently divested some of its pipelines and storage assets to MPLX LP MPLX . The move helped Marathon Petroleum to garner proceeds of $1.05 billion from its master limited partnership, which it had spun off in 2012.

Marathon Petroleum has offloaded its entire stake in four jointly owned properties including Explorer Pipeline Co., Lincoln Pipeline LLC, MPL Louisiana Holdings LLC and LOCAP LLC. In each of these properties the company carries 24.51%, 35%, 40.7% and 58.52% interests, respectively. These assets are expected to generate $138 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2018.

The proceeds of the sale will consist of $630 million in stock and $420 million in cash. The equity portion of the deal will see Marathon Petroleum receive common units of MPLX and general partner units. This will enable Marathon Petroleum to maintain its 2% general partner interest in its master limited partnership. The cash portion of the payment will be drawn from MPLX's $2.25 billion revolving credit facility.

The divesture is in sync with Marathon Petroleum's strategic objectives. To accelerate value accretion for shareholders and boost growth, Marathon Petroleum is actively engaged in drop-down transactions lately. In March, the company divested of some of its terminal, pipeline and storage assets to MPLX for $2.02 billion. The company also plans to streamline portfolio and enhance core competencies. For the same, it is soon to a take a final call regarding the spinoff of its retail network unit - Speedway LLC. Marathon Petroleum intends to disintegrate into three standalone businesses - retailing, midstream and refining, thereby optimizing shareholder's value and improve focus in each individually unit. The acquisition of assets is also likely to enhance MPLX's scale and diversity and increase its distributable cash flow per unit.

Zacks Rank and Key Picks

Findlay, OH-based Marathon Petroleum is a leading independent refiner, transporter and marketer of petroleum products. Shares of Marathon Petroleum have gained 8% year to date, significantly outperforming the industry 's 5% decline. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked players in the same industry are Galp Energia, SGPS, S.A. GLPEY and Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. PARR . Both the companies carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here .

Galp Energia expects year-over-year growth of 191.67% in earnings in 2017.

Par Pacific Holdings recorded positive earnings surprises in three of the last four quarters, with an average beat of 195.26%.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Output: Marathon Petroleum has dropped $1.05bn of assets into its master limited partnership MPLX, follow pressure from activist investor Paul Singer's Elliott Management. The assets in the deal include interests in Explorer Pipeline, Lincoln Pipeline, MPL Louisiana Holdings and Locap. The deal is expected to generate about $138 million in 2018 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
French school uses tech instead of instructors to teach coding
 Paris

When you walk into École 42, a teacher-less coding school in Paris, a few things leap out at you: a killer collection of provocative street art, including an illustrated condom machine at the front desk; iMacs as far as the eye can see; and a palpable buzz from the roughly 1,000 students bustling around the building.

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It is week two of la piscine (the “swimming pool”), a one-month, Hunger Games-like test students must endure to get a place at the school. No degrees or special skills are required to apply, and those who are accepted attend for free for three to five years. Around 80% of students get jobs before they finish the course; 100% are employed by the end.

The school is the brainchild of Xavier Niel, a French billionaire who has so far spent about €48 million ($57 million) on the Paris campus and an additional $46 million on a school in Silicon Valley. Niel founded Free, France’s second-largest internet service provider, among other ventures. He is a serial entrepreneur who is always looking for the best and brightest talent. In 2013, struggling to find it, he declared that France’s education system was broken and set out to fix one part of it.

The result is something unlike any other school in France, or elsewhere.

“We don’t teach anything,” says Nicolas Sadirac, head of École 42. “The students create what they need all the time.”

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At 8:42 every morning, students get digital projects to complete. They have 48 hours to complete them, so they are always juggling various projects, sort of like in real life. (The name comes from the “answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” in the comedic novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The answer is 42.)

Since there are no teachers, it is up to students to figure things out. Everything is graded by peers. Students “manage their time how they want,” says Sadirac. “It’s totally self organized.” In education-speak, École 42 is both project-based learning and peer-to-peer learning, on steroids.

The school is 100% merit based: In the most recent batch of students, 64,000 took a basic online logic test to qualify for entry. More than 20,000 passed, but the school only accepted the top 3,000 due to space constraints. Those 3,000 compete in pools of 1,000 for a month to see who best completes the digital projects; the top third of performers are then admitted. Of those, 5-15% drop out.

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While the school used to require that students master a set of skills before leaving, it has now ditched that requirement. It used to have year-long groups: it tossed aside that idea too, because students work at different paces.

The curriculum is gamified: Sadirac describes it as World of Warcraft, but where dungeons have been replaced it with digital projects. There are modules (tech integration, algorithms, AI) and languages (Python, C, Java, Docker-tech). According to Wired:

…to get projects corrected, students must spend “correction points” – which they earn by correcting someone else’s project. If there’s a disciplinary breach, they have to spin a wheel to learn their punishment: “Take orders at the coffee machine”, or “Clean the windows with a toothbrush”. Good behaviour earns “wallet points” which can be spent.

And in a twist on the assumption that all great innovations start in Silicon Valley, École 42 launched in France before California—its campus in Fremont opened last year, three years after the Paris flagship.

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A day in the life

On a recent Tuesday, the ground floor of École 42 on Boulevard Bessières in the north of Paris is bustling with students—alone, with headphones, in pairs and groups—hovering around iMacs. Many have colds; it is freezing inside and few have slept properly in the past week.

Downstairs, students are strewn about on air mattresses with sleeping bags, trying to catch a nap; dozens of towels hang on railings along the walls.

Nicolas, 22, has been working for up to 12 hours a day. “The first week I went fast and tried to do too much,” he says, sitting at his computer alongside Celeste, 25, who used to work in infographics. “The second week I slowed down and tried to think more about what I was doing,” he adds, coughing.

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This self-directed approach is the point of the school. I ask Celeste if she wouldn’t prefer a teacher, or at least some guidance. “Sometimes I want a teacher so I can get to the solution faster,” she says. “But when I get the answer myself its more self-gratifying.”

There’s a food truck out back, where students gather and smoke cigarettes. Like everything else at the school, this was organized by the students themselves (orders are placed electronically), along with activities like Game of Thrones screenings and more mundane things, like sleeping arrangements. Even the elevator has not escaped the attention of the assembled hackers; it is like a very cramped nightclub, with hip-hop blaring from the speakers and blue and green lights piercing the darkness. “They hacked it last year so you couldn’t get to any floor,” Sadirac says. “We just fixed it.”

Visitors to the school have included everyone from former French president François Hollande (who walked amidst sleeping students) to PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Evan Spiegel of Snapchat.

Who cares about another coding school?

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Schools around the world, from kindergarten up, are scrambling to figure out what skills kids need to thrive in the future. Disagreement abounds about which skills should be prioritized, and how they should be taught, but opinions coalesce around some mix of collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and initiative (or agency). While many schools incorporate this into legacy teaching systems, few are built with them in mind from the start.

Niel wanted to address two problems: the lack of coding talent in France and the country’s entrenched inequality, which precludes poor kids who do not attend the country’s Grandes Écoles—elite universities—from the best job opportunities. In addressing those issues, he ended up creating a school built around collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and agency. In other words, a school for the future.

“Whether you have a criminal record, suck at math, say dumb shit, we don’t give a damn,” Niel told Venture Beat. “We don’t take that into account, we only care about two objective criteria.” Those criteria are logic and motivation.

This school is different

When Sadirac describes École 42, it is easy to forget it is a school he is talking about.

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“I would mainly say it’s not about learning.”

“We think we are an art school.”

“Knowledge is un-useful, dangerous, and removes your freedom.”

All of this must be put in the context of programming, and how information technology has changed. École 42 is not about learning because learning has traditionally been about mastering a body of content, or set of skills.

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“We should not try to learn and memorize stuff,” Sadirac says. “It’s dangerous, it makes you less agile.”

Getting information to stick in your brain is complicated and hard. Getting it out, to make way for new way things, can be even harder. Sadirac’s previous job, as it happens, involved retraining adults. The biggest impediment to them learning new things was often unlearning what they already knew. Case in point: around 30% of the students in the swimming pool come with coding experience. After one month, those with experience perform no better than those without it.

Around 30% of the students come with coding experience. After one month, they perform no better than those without it.

He considers École 42 an art school because programming is more art than science, he says. Two myths that persist about coding is that you have to be good at math and that it is a solitary endeavor. These myths, he argues, are part of what keeps women away from programming. Only 10% of students at École 42 are women; it has started a program to bring in female high-school students during holidays to teach them coding and dispel these ideas.

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Knowledge is “dangerous,” Sadirac says, because of the way technology has changed. Companies first applied digital technology to transform existing processes, which required high levels of organization and knowledge, but not a lot of creativity. Today, as companies reinvent themselves around everything digital, it is programming that reinvents processes. That requires people to work together and think broadly about how to solve real-world problems.

How it all began

Before École 42, Sadirac founded Epitech, one of France’s leading programming schools. A foundation approached the school and asked if it would teach coding in some poor areas of Paris.

One of the students from the coding program ended up at Free, Niel’s internet service provider, which Sadirac says is known for being extremely intellectually demanding. The woman wowed everyone and Niel asked her where she went to school. “I was selling hamsters two years ago,” she said. He recognized that too many people were kept from programming because they weren’t born into the right families. Indeed, according to the OECD, French students report some of the lowest levels of belonging in the developed world, thanks to a highly stratified education system.

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He teamed up with Sadirac to build École 42.

École 42 is one of many innovative institutions cropping up around the world. In the US, there’s Coursera, Udacity, and Udemy; China has 17zuoye; and the Minerva Project, a highly selective university, educates kids around the world.

One question, of course, is whether these new models can scale.

If Niel he can make the École 42 model work in the US—his goal is for the Silicon Valley campus to take in 10,000 students—he will consider opening a branch in China. He told Quartz it’s scalable because it’s a non-profit; he also said starting a school was less stressful than a business, because it is a non-profit.

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Other outposts of 42 have cropped up around the world independently, in Romania, South Africa, Ukraine, and Bulgaria (with two more coming soon in Tunisia and the Netherlands). These schools have to ascribe to the philosophy of free tuition and no prior academic requirements, raising enough money to educate more than 150 kids. If they do that, they get access to the school’s curriculum.

Running costs for École 42 in Paris are about €7 million a year, and a bit less than that in the US. Niel says he’ll foot the bill in Paris for a decade; after that, he’s hoping a Mark Zuckerberg-type graduate from the school will take over and pay for things.

So the model is scalable, if someone very rich is behind it.

Kyle Peck, a professor of education and co-director of the Center for Online Innovation in Learning at Penn State, admires École 42, but questions its scope: “They want to compete at the top rather than offering something for everyone.” Peck also wonders whether the model would benefit from more coaching or expert input. “It is novices helping novices,” he says about the peer-to-peer system. “There’s wisdom from experts, and sharing that at appropriate moments” could help optimize learning.

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“There is no issue at all for our students to find a job. We could have 10 times more students.”

That École 42 is free for those accepted is clearly a plus. But three years is a long time to forego a salary, even if students get internships along the way. In the US, there are around 95 coding boot camps, according to Course Report, where the curriculum is typically much shorter—about 14 weeks—but the cost much higher, at about $14,000. This more traditional model also has its flaws: the report notes that eight coding bootcamps closed this year, including Iron Yard and Dev Bootcamp, both of which had significant financial support. New York Code and Design Academy recently hiked its tuition, but graduates of two of its campuses who don’t get jobs after graduation don’t have to repay the school; those who get jobs pay 8% of their earnings until they settled the $15,000 tuition bill.

The ultimate gauge of success, of course, is jobs. Niel has been described as a cross between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg à la française. In Paris, he is a household name; École 42 is also well known. As a result, companies know to come looking for talent at the school. “There is no issue at all for our students to find a job,” Niel said. “We could have 10 times more students.” In fact, employers submit digital projects for the students to complete: the French culture ministry wants ideas about how to build a digital museum; the French government wants advanced thinking around cybersecurity; and PSA, the parent company of Peugeot, has asked students to imagine how self-driving cars will change our lives.

Coming to America

Last year, Niel opened School 42 in Fremont, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. A video on the school’s website features a who’s who of Silicon Valley saying it is just what’s needed, including Spiegel of Snapchat, Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square, and Stuart Butterfield of Slack. “It takes away the walls,” raved Peter Fenton, a partner at Benchmark Capital. “It allows for mobility for people with aptitude and potential and motivation.”

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In an interview with Bloomberg’s Decrypted, Niel said a major challenge in the US has been that people distrust anything that is free. “When it’s free they think there’s something behind it; there’s a trick,” he noted. When École 42 opened, 70,000 kids between the ages of 18 and 30 applied; in the US, it was just a few thousand, Brittany Bir, School 42’s COO, told Ars Technica. When I asked Niel how he planned to make deeper inroads, his response was “help us,” a plan which somewhat lacks detail.

There are a few factors, beyond a suspicion of free stuff, that is working against School 42 in the US. It is not accredited and can’t help students with visas. Students tend to be older and already have university degrees, so the lack of accreditation means they can’t put student loans on hold while they’re at School 42. (And American graduates carry staggering debt loads.)

The biggest challenge, though, will come when School 42’s first crop of graduates try to get jobs. Competition in Silicon Valley is fierce, and Niel does not have the clout he does in France, where he is singlehandedly putting Paris on the map as a global tech hub.

But for thousands of young people who have limited options, School 42 offers a wealth of opportunity: an education, a community, and real-life skills that are in high demand among employers.

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Back in France, Sébastien Faucher, 25, dropped out of high school and worked in factories around Limoges, earning about €1,100 a month. “My life status was not that good,” he said, smoking a Camel, draped in an oversized parka in Paris in July. He came to the swimming pool in hopes of gaining a place at École 42 as a springboard to his dream career: video-game designer.

It has not been easy. “I wanted to surrender two days ago,” he said. “I cried and cried and cried.” He even went to the train station with a friend, and bought a ticket. But then he realized, “When will I have this chance again?” He went back, and got to work.

Output: École 42 in Paris offers a free merit-based course where students teach themselves coding. Students are assigned 48-hour projects and are expected to manage their own time. Although 20,000 of the most recent batch of students passed the logic test required to enter École 42, the school only accepted the top 3,000. The school sets out to address a lack of coding talent in France and the country's inequality. However, the school is not accredited so can't help students with visas. It was founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel who spent $57m on the campus.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Adaptive learning firm Adaptemy unveils ambitious expansion plans
 Secondary school students in Slovakia and Mexico will this month start using digital workbooks which have been created using technology developed by Dublin startup Adaptemy.

One of only a small number of companies in the world to have developed personalised, adaptive learning technology for use in schools, its software is now being used in five countries and the company is in the process of raising €1.5m in order to develop global sales.

Since setting up in 2015, Adaptemy has signed contracts with four large educational publishers — including one in Germany and one in Spain — which add content to the Dublin company’s technology to create digital workbooks used to supplement textbooks.

“We estimate that our digital workbooks are now being used by tens of thousands of students in several hundred schools,” said chief executive and co-founder Conor O’Sullivan.

In Ireland, Adaptemy has partnered with Folens Publishers to create a specific maths product for Junior Certificate called Build Up, which is now being used by 158 secondary schools across the country.

Adaptemy is finalising contracts with two more educational publishers, one in Europe and one in Africa, and is also in advanced negotiations with a publisher in the US. “We are talking to publishers in 60 countries and have plans to develop sales in Latin America and Europe and also to move in to Asia,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

He said this type of product marks a significant advance in the use of technology in schools.

“We are bringing artificial intelligence to the classroom. Our digital workbook provides immediate and personalised feedback to students on their homework and makes suggestions about what to focus on next.”

Believing this is the way forward in education for the future, Mr O’Sullivan said it has been speculated that the global adaptive learning technology market could be worth €1.25bn in the next five to 10 years.

Mr O’Sullivan and fellow co-founder Conor Flynn originally began working on the technology for a digital workbook while working for Folens’ e-learning company Apierian. “At that time, nobody really spoke of artificial intelligence in education and the predominant use of technology in classrooms was for digital copies of textbooks,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

Some universities had begun using adaptive learning technology and the two men, one with experience in digital educational publishing and the other a teacher who had worked as a curriculum consultant, were tasked with developing a similar product for schools.

When Apierian closed in 2015, they decided the idea for the personalised digital workbook was worth pursuing.

Setting up Adaptemy in 2015 with a staff of five, they raised €3m. Recognised as a High Potential Start Up company by Enterprise Ireland, they raised an additional €250,000 and have now increased the staff size to 15.

“Our business model involves partnering with education publisher in each country and adding adaptive and personalised learning technology to their products,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

The first product was Build Up for Folens, and it was followed by a software product allowing publishers to customise the app for each country and curriculum. This year, Adaptemy launched a product which allows publishers integrate the technology into their existing products across multiple subjects.

Until now, the technology, which is licensed to publishers on a SaaS (software as a service) basis, has mostly been used for maths and science, but Mr O’Sullivan said he expects to see this broaden. “We are working on a projects with Dublin City University to create a virtual science lab for schools — we will be showing the prototype for this at a conference in Bucharest next month.”

R&D is continuing and Adaptemy has started work on developing an adaptive learning solution which can be used by students to learn English.

The €1.5m now being raised will be used both for R&D and also to expand sales in new markets.

By the end of 2018, the company aims to have sales in 12 countries and to have grown the staff size to 20.

Output: Dublin-based edtech start-up Adaptemy provides students with artificial intelligence (AI)-driven software that offers immediate, personalised feedback on their homework. The software is used in five countries and the company plans to raise €1.5m ($1.79m) to develop sales in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Co-founders Conor Flynn and Conor O'Sullivan said they are talking to publishers in 60 countries, with the digital workbook currently being used by tens of thousands of students. In Ireland, Adaptemy has partnered with Folens Publishers to develop a maths-specific product called Build Up for students in 158 secondary schools in the Republic .


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Server, hosting file converter sites, hacked multiple times
 (Image: file photo; alternative: Twitter)

The server hosting dozens of free-to-use online file conversion websites has been hacked several times in the past year using a well-known, easy-to-use exploit.

The security researcher, who asked not to be named for fear of legal repercussions, told ZDNet that the attacker obtained "full root access" to the server and its contents.

The researcher said the level of access would allow an attacker to quietly exfiltrate any file uploaded to the sites, but said it was "impossible to tell" what the shells were for, or if they were in actively used.

The Paris-based server hosted sites -- including combinepdf.com, imagetopdf.com, jpg2pdf.com, pdftoimage.com, pdfcompressor.com, and wordtojpeg.com, among others -- that let users convert files and documents to other formats.

These are hardly the most popular sites in the world, but thousands of people use the sites each day, based on various traffic metrics and statistics sites. Key search terms like "pdf convert" and "image convert" bring up several of the affected sites in the first page of Google search results, giving them an edge over other conversion sites.

The server was vulnerable to a year-old set of bugs found in the ImageMagick library, a popular tool used to convert images. The bugs, known collectively as "ImageTragick," are extremely easy to exploit -- in one case, as simple as uploading an image file containing four lines of code to the server. The bug is so serious that Facebook paid a record bug bounty to a researcher who found that the social network was vulnerable, and Yahoo stopped using the software altogether. Countless servers and websites remain unpatched to this day.

As soon as the image is uploaded, the code runs, opening up a bind shell on the server, which listens for commands or code from an attacker's server.

According to the researcher, there were three other bind shells open on this vulnerable server.

"The impact of this incident is concerning to me," said the security researcher. "All data going in or out of the server was being tampered with for months on end without the server owner noticing it."

The list of affected domains includes:

booktitlegenerator.com

combinepdf.com

compressjpeg.com

compresspng.com

coollastnames.com

croppdf.com

cutecatnames.com

cutedognames.com

djvu2pdf.com

dragonnamegenerator.com

ebook2pdf.com

epub2kindle.com

exceltopdf.com

horsenamegenerator.com

html2pdf.com

htmlformatter.com imagetopdf.com

jpg2pdf.com

jpg2png.com

mobi2epub.com

odt2pdf.com

optimizilla.com

palettegenerator.com

pdf2kindle.com

pdf2mobi.com

pdf2png.com

pdfcompressor.com

pdfepub.com

pdfjoiner.com

pdfmobi.com

pdftoimage.com

pdftotext.com png2jpg.com

png2pdf.com

pngjpg.com

psd2pdf.com

pubtopdf.com

ringer.org

ringtonecutter.com

ringtonemaker.com

rtftopdf.com

shrinkpdf.com

summarygenerator.com

svgtopng.com

toepub.com

topdf.com

unminify.com

wordtojpeg.com

We tracked down and contacted the owner of the server, who did not provide his name, but he replied with an aggressive response when provided with details of his vulnerable server.

"That config file is half a year old. If you claim my server still has that problem with Image-f**king-Magick, please send me the new config file," said the server owner. "If you can't, well, you're too late."

The server owner later said he had updated his servers and rebuffed several claims about his server's security.

There's no easy way to determine if a server is vulnerable unless the server is actively exploited with a malicious image. The security researcher did not retest the server after ZDNet reached out to the server owner for fear of legal repercussions, so there is no way to verify that the sites have in fact been patched.

"The fact that he has control over sites that are so widely used for manipulating documents, even if they weren't compromised, is really worrying," the researcher said.

"This should be a lesson for all of us," the researcher said. "If you don't want something to be stolen, don't give it away, especially to sites that you don't trust."

Output: A Parisian server, playing host to numerous free-to-use file conversion sites, was hacked several times over the past year. The server hosted sites including combinepdf.com and pdftoimage.com, and was attacked using a simple, popular exploit, a security researcher said. The server's owner claimed to have updated his servers properly, dismissing claims about flawed security.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
ANZ and National Australia Bank launch mobile banking services
 Two Australian banks unveiled updates to their banking services with ANZ Bank launching a voice-based identity service for mobile banking and National Australia Bank (NAB) debuting a chatbot for its business banking service.

The Voice ID service, developed in partnership with biometrics firm Nuance, enables ANZ customers to make payments of more than A$1000 (or BPAY payments of more than A$10,000) via their mobile using voice recognition.

“Customers increasingly want the convenience of banking on their digital devices and this solution delivers that with the added level of voice biometric security," said managing director, Custoemr Experience and Digital Channels, Peter Dalton. "This will be particularly good news for our small business customers who regularly need to make payments of more than $1000 on the go and will only need their voice to authorise those transactions.”

Meanwhile NAB is piloting a chatbot described as a “digital virtual banker” for its business customers.

According to the bank, the virutal assistant can provide answers to more than 13,000 variations on 200 questions based on informaiton taken from genuine customer enquiries. It is currently focused on queries related to business credit and debit cards.

“Our research shows that two thirds of Australian SMEs cite dealing with administrative tasks as taking a lot of effort, and our customers desperately want to spend more time on their business and less time on dealing with admin tasks,” said NAB chief operating officer Antony Cahill.

Cahill said that the bank plans to continue developing its chatbot over the coming months and to add to the knowledge bank used to drive its decision-making.

Output: Australian financial institutions ANZ Bank and National Australia Bank (NAB) have launched mobile banking services features. ANZ Bank has created a vocal identity feature, while NAB now offers a chatbot for its digital business banking. ANZ’s voice ID service allows payments of more than AUD1,000 ($798) through mobile devices with the aid of biometrics tech from Nuance. NAB’s chatbot virtual assistant can answer over 13,000 variants of 200 common questions to help customers find the information they need more rapidly.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Ireland vulnerable to cyber crime post-Brexit: hacking expert
 When Brexit comes into effect, the island of Ireland could be left incredibly vulnerable from a cybersecurity and data protection perspective, warns the ICTTF president.

While Brexit has raised a lot of questions over a potential hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, infosec experts are warning that the discussions so far have been “light on detail regarding any implications or solutions for cybersecurity and data protection”.

Those are the words of Paul C Dwyer, president of the International Cyber Threat Task Force (ICTTF), who said to the The Irish Times that it is now crucial that both governments sit down, discuss and establish an Anglo-Irish taskforce on cybersecurity and data protection.

Dwyer said that the group would discuss the biggest data challenges that would arise from the new EU cyber legislation, and how it would then interact with the UK.

He also warned that businesses are quickly realising that when the deadline of April 2019 comes, the threat posed from a cybersecurity perspective is overwhelming.

“Many Irish and UK businesses don’t want to bet on the negotiations between the EU and the UK going well,” he said.

“The overwhelming array of sophisticated cyberattack techniques and the sheer amount of cyber-criminals, combined with a potential legal impotency post-Brexit, is a real concern for many businesses.”

A proposed model, he added, would look something like the ICTTF that he is a part of, which was formed seven years ago with 4,000 members to protect “children, individuals, small businesses, NGOs, enterprises and supporting the efforts of military and the global law-enforcement community”.

Elsewhere within the EU, a warning was issued last week (1 September) by Irish MEP Seán Kelly for a more rigorous EU cybersecurity strategy to prevent attacks on critical infrastructure, the commercial sector and governments.

Output: An Anglo-Irish taskforce on cybersecurity and data protection needs to be established post-Brexit, the president of the International Cyber Threat Task Force has warned. Paul Dwyer said the UK and Irish governments should set up a group to explore the data challenges arising from new EU cyber legislation and its consequences for the UK. He added that businesses faced an very high risk from cyber attacks after Brexit.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
'Locky' emerges as candidate for 2017's biggest malware campaign
 Locky rose to prominence in 2016 following a number of high-profile infections and at one point became one of the most common forms of malware in its own right. Locky rose to prominence in 2016 following a number of high-profile infections and at one point became one of the most common forms of malware in its own right.

Locky ransomware’s re-emergence with new email distribution campaign has been touted as one of the largest malware campaigns in the latter half of 2017, the media reported. The ransomware, once considered almost defunct, sent over 23 million emails with the malware to the US workforce in just 24 hours on August 28, zdnet.com reported. It was sent with subjects such as “please print”, “documents” and “scans”.

Researchers at US-based cybersecurity firm AppRiver, who discovered the new campaign say it represents “one of the largest malware campaigns seen in the latter half of 2017”. According to the report, the malware payload was hidden in a zip file containing a Visual Basic Script (VBS) file, which once clicked, will download the latest version of Locky ransomware — the recently spotted Lukitus variant — and encrypts all the files on the infected computer.

Victims are presented with a ransom note demanding 0.5 bitcoin ($2,300) in order to pay for “special software” in the form of a “Locky decryptor” in order to get their files back. Instructions on downloading and installing the Tor browser and how to buy Bitcoin are provided by the attackers in order to ensure victims can make the payment.

Output: Hackers sent more than 23 million messages infected with Locky malware to the US workforce in 24 hours on August 28, according to cybersecurity firm AppRiver. The emails showed subject lines such as "please print" and "documents", and contained a file which, when opened, downloads the ransomware, infecting all files on the user's computer. Hackers then send users a ransom note which demands $2,300 to restore their files. Locky malware became well-known in 2016, after a series of high-profile infections.


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Protos plans ICO to raise capital for cryptocurrency fund
 LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management today announced its plan to hold an Initial Coin Offering (“ICO”) to raise capital for a data-driven crypto hedge fund that will invest solely in cryptocurrencies and tokens. Protos tokens will be a security issued under the exemption from registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation D.

The founders of Protos – Matthew Shaw, Philipp Kallerhoff, and Thomas Kineshanko – have significant experience in the funds and cryptocurrency space. They have over a decade of combined experience investing in cryptocurrencies, have managed funds of over $1 billion and Protos will be their third vehicle investing in cryptocurrencies. They have collectively managed funds/proprietary investments of over $1 billion, have founded and sold three tech startups for proceeds of $400 million and one investment bank at a valuation of more than $250 million. “We believe that Protos is taking a unique approach,” said Matthew Shaw, co-founder of Protos. “In addition to investing in new digital tokens as well as cryptocurrencies, we are among the first funds building a robust database of digital token and cryptocurrency market data and using advanced technical trading strategies.”

Protos intends to apply institutional asset management rigor to cryptocurrency and digital token investing and inform its strategy by capturing and analyzing the necessary market data. The firm intends to also invest in the digital assets of teams that solve difficult problems with highly technical solutions in defensible and scalable markets, building systems to evaluate the underlying data of these teams and their tokens.

The Protos [Cryptocurrency Asset Management] token will aim to accrue value based on the investment returns that Protos earns through its investments in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin, as well as existing and new blockchain-based digital tokens.

“We are unlocking the second major investing wave in cryptocurrency and once data on the market exists, we anticipate seeing an explosion in trading strategies similar to that experienced in stock trading,” said Philipp Kallerhoff, co-founder of Protos. “We are driving this second wave with the goal of benefiting our token holders through our crypto trading strategies.”

Protos will invest in the digital assets of the protocols it believes will be the foundational infrastructure and biggest applications in the third major computing revolution.

“The first revolution was the PC, the second was the Internet, and we feel the third is now distributed applications based on Bitcoin-like cryptographic technology,” said Thomas Kineshanko, co-founder of Protos. “To invest in the first two computing revolutions you’re required to buy shares in companies, but to invest in the blockchain revolution, you have to purchase tokens.”

The Protos token, unlike traditional hedge fund and venture capital limited partnership investments, has no lock-up (other than the 12-month holding period for Regulation D purchasers) and will provide liquidity once traded on exchanges. The token’s presale is scheduled for September 25, 2017 and the public ICO is expected to commence on October 17, 2017.

The offering is being managed by Argon Investment Management LLC, a unit of the Argon Group, a Los Angeles-based investment bank specializing in the field of cryptocurrencies and the ICO market, under the Regulation D Section 506(c) exemption from registration promulgated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

More details of the offering will be disclosed in the Offering Memorandum, which is expected to be published on or before October 17, 2017 at https://protos.tokenhub.com.

About Protos

Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management is one of the first data-driven hedge funds in the cryptocurrency and digital token space. The firm was founded by three partners, Matthew Shaw, Philipp Kallerhoff and Thomas Kineshanko, and is the third fund vehicle that the team has put together to invest in cryptocurrencies. The founders have extensive cryptocurreny market experience, in both investing and trading, and have been engrossed in the crypto market since inception. Protos will apply institutional asset management rigor to cryptocurrency and digital token investing and inform their strategy by capturing and analyzing the necessary market data.

About The Argon Group

The Argon Group (the "Group") is an investment bank with a focus on digital finance - the emerging cryptocurrency and token-based capital markets. The Group provides financial advisory, placement, and technology services to companies seeking to raise equity, debt, and non-dilutive capital. The Group develops technical placement solutions, including digital tokens powered by advanced smart contracts, which Argon operates through a digital asset placement platform TokenHub.com. For more information, please email info@argongroup.com, follow @theargongroup, visit www.argongroup.com.

About the Offering

The Protos tokens are being offered in the US on a limited basis to a maximum of 99 accredited investors under exemptions from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”) pursuant to Regulation D, Section 506(c) under the Securities Act, and the rule promulgated thereunder. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase the Protos Tokens, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation or sale of the Protos Tokens in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The Protos Tokens have not and will not be registered under the Securities Act, the Investment Company Act of 1940 or other applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the US absent registration or pursuant to an exemption from registration requirements of the Securities Act and under applicable state laws.

In any member state of the European Economic Area, the Protos Tokens are only being offered to qualified investors as defined under Directive 2003/71/EC (as amended, including by Directive 2010/73/EU, and includes any relevant implementing measure in each member state).

This communication is directed only to persons who (i) are outside the United Kingdom; (ii) are persons falling within Article 19(5) (Investment professionals) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (as amended, the “Order”), (iii) are persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) (High net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc.) of the Order, or (iv) are persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity may otherwise lawfully be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as “relevant persons”). This communication is directed only at relevant persons and must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not relevant persons. Any investment or investment activity to which this communication relates is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons.

Output: Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management is planning an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to generate money for a hedge fund that will invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin. The founders of Protos claim the rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain is the 'third major computing revolution', which will require investors to purchase tokens rather than traditional shares in companies. Presale of the Protos token is scheduled for 25 September, with the public ICO commencing on 17 October.


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Russia considers ban on cryptocurrency mining in apartments
 A law prohibiting the mining of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in apartments could soon be introduced in Russia. Creating new digital tokens increases electricity consumption and temperature in the room, which can be unsafe for residents, according to experts.

“Bitcoins are mined with the use of a set of electronic devices, including video cards. Electric networks at blocks of flats are unlikely to stand such consumption; ventilation systems are not able to handle the generated heat, either. This could trigger a fire,” said Presidential Council on the Internet member Ilya Massukh in an interview with RT.

Bitcoin mining is the process by which transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the blockchain. It is also the means through which new bitcoins are created.

Anyone with access to the internet and suitable hardware can participate in cryptocurrency mining. Graphics or video cards are more efficient at mining than CPUs.

"Virtually all computer capacities are not Russian, bitcoin itself is not allowed inside the country. Accordingly, the mined bitcoin tokens go to some external exchanges. All that remains inside the country is the waste of electricity. Quite a doubtful efficiency for the Russian economy," the expert said.

At the same time, some officials disagree, as Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev said cryptocurrency mining should be encouraged in Russia.

Such businesses would be better started away from Moscow, preferably in regions with a cold climate and excess electricity, he said.

The unofficial capital of Russian mining today is the Irkutsk region, where the price of electricity is much lower than in Moscow. Officials in the region told RT they are not afraid of bitcoin miners, as computer systems used to create digital tokens use far less energy than, for example, electric heaters.

Output: Russian authorities could ban people from mining bitcoin in apartment blocks, citing fears over the impact on local electricity networks. A member of the Presidential Council on the Internet said the number of electronic devices used in the process puts too much pressure on power supplies in blocks of flats, and the heat generated could be a fire risk. However, internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev has said the industry should be encouraged. Much of it takes place in the Irkutsk region, where electricity prices are low, and officials there say the associated computer systems are not a threat.


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YouTube-ripping site agrees to settlement after legal dispute
 Last year, record labels took the popular YouTube-ripping site YouTube-mp3.org to court seeking the pirating website's permanent shutdown and $150,000 per violation. Well, the labels, helmed by the RIAA, have, as of today, won with recent court filings pointing towards a settlement between the two parties.

These sorts of websites let users download audio and video files from YouTube and in their suit, the RIAA claimed that YouTube-mp3.org had around 60 million visitors and tens to hundreds of millions of illegal downloads per month. When the lawsuit was brought forth, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement, "It should not be so easy to engage in this activity in the first place, and no stream ripping site should appear at the top of any search result or app chart."

The website's owner has agreed to pay a settlement, though the details of that haven't been released, and a proposed injunction prohibits anyone associated with the website from having anything to do with a "streamripping" website in the future. The website domain name will also be given to one of the record labels.

The proposed judgement and injunction haven't been approved and ordered by the court yet and the website is still up as of writing, but similar sites and apps are already being taken down. As Mac Rumors reports, ProTube was removed from the App Store last week after multiple requests from Google for it to be taken down.

Output: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has succeeded in a legal battle to shut down content-ripping website YouTube-mp3.org. Court documents indicate a settlement between the parties, which will see the operators of the website pay damages, hand over the domain to one of the record labels, and desist from running any similar service in future. YouTube-mp3.org, which allows users to rip music and video from YouTube, was facilitating hundreds of millions of illegal downloads per month, according to the RIAA.


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Habito raises £18.5 in funding for online mortgage brokerage
 PropTech startup Habito has secured an £18.5m Series B funding round led by Atomico.

This brings the total amount raised by the London-based digital mortgage broker to over £27.5m.

While Atomico led the round, other participants included existing investors Ribbit Capital, Mosaic Ventures and Revolutionary (Ad)Ventures.

Habito, which raised a £5.5m Series A back in January of this year, uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human expertise to select mortgage deals for customers. It analyses over 20,000 mortgage products across 70 lenders in real time.

It claims to be working with several major retail banks and high street lenders to integrate its technology so it can facilitate real-time mortgage approvals, as well as applications.

The firm also plans to enter the home and life insurance spaces and is currently developing insurance products that are tailored to the needs of mortgage applicants.

Daniel Hegarty, founder and CEO of Habito, said: “We remain committed to rebuilding the mortgage industry with the customer at its centre. That means relentlessly improving our product and service, and providing the most convenient, straightforward, and elegant way to apply for a mortgage.”

He went on to say the new funding round has encouraged the team to accelerate its ambitions.

“We’ll continue to invest in an amazing team of engineers, mortgage experts and product designers, to deliver the best mortgage experience in the market,” he concluded.

Output: Proptech start-up Habito has raised £18.5m ($24.2) in Series B funding to develop its service for identifying mortgage products. The mortgage broker combines artificial intelligence with human experience to identify the best deals. Habito will use the funding to develop real-time mortgage approvals and applications capabilities in partnership with several major retail banks and high street lenders. It will also develop insurance products that suit the needs of mortgage applicants.


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Facebook maps hundred of millions of homes
 For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

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Facebook has managed to map hundreds of millions of people’s homes to within five metres.

The company has been using image-recognition technology, government census numbers and data gathered by space satellites to pinpoint every human-built structure in 23 countries.

It’s been trying to figure out how populations around the world are distributed.

How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Show all 9 1 / 9 How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Lock your profile down If you haven’t done this already, do it now. In Settings, hit the Privacy tab. From here, you can control who gets to see your future posts and friends list. Choose from Public, Friends, Only Me and Custom in the dropdown menu. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Limit old posts Annoyingly, changing this has no effect on who’s able to see your past Facebook posts. Instead, on the Privacy page, you have to click on Limit Past Posts, then select Limit Old Posts and finally hit Confirm on the pop-up. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Make yourself harder to find You can stop completely random people from adding you by selecting Friends of Friends from the dropdown menu in the Who can send you friend requests? section of the Privacy page. It’s also worth limiting who can find your Facebook profile with your number and email address. At the bottom of the page is the option to prevent search engines outside of Facebook from linking to your profile. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Control access to your Timeline You can limit who gets to post things on your Timeline and who gets to see posts on your Timeline too. In Settings, go to Timeline and Tagging and edit the sections you want to lock down. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Block people When you block someone, they won’t be able to see things you post on your Timeline, tag you, invite you to events or groups, start conversations with you or add you as a friend. To do it, go to Settings and Blocking. Annoyingly, you have to block people on Messenger separately. You can also add friends to your Restricted list here, which means they’ll still be friends with you but will only be able to see your public posts and things you share on a mutual friend's Timeline. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Review tags One of Facebook’s handiest privacy features is the ability to review posts you’re tagged in before they appear on your Timeline. They’ll still be visible on the News Feed while they’re fresh, but won’t be tied to your profile forever. In Timeline and Tagging, enable Timeline review controls. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Clean up your apps You can view a list of all of the apps you’ve connected to your Facebook account by going to Settings and Apps. The list might be longer than you expected it to be. It’s worth tidying this up to ensure things you no longer use lose access to your personal information. If you don’t want to log into websites and apps with your facebook account, scroll down and turn Platform off. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Change your ad preferences You can view a list of everything Facebook thinks you’re into and tinker with your ad preferences by going to Settings and Adverts. A lot more information is displayed on the desktop site than the app, so we’d recommend doing this on a computer. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Download your data Facebook lets you download all of the data it has on you, including the posts you’ve shared, your messages and photos, ads you’ve clicked on and even the IP addresses that are logged when you log in or out of the site. It’s a hell of a lot of information, which you should download to ensure you never over-share on the social network again.

Facebook’s goal is to get as many people connected to the internet as possible, and finding out where so many people live is a major achievement.

In a blog post published last year, Facebook Connectivity Lab communications systems scientist Tobias Tiecke said the people and homes being mapped in the 23 countries cover “about one third of the world population”.

These countries include Kenya, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Haiti and South Africa.

“From this preliminary analysis, we've determined that slightly less than 50% of the population lives in cities,” he revealed at the time.

“However, 99% of the population lives within 63 km of the nearest city. Hence, if we are able to develop communication technologies that can bridge 63 km with sufficiently high data rates, we should be able to connect 99% of the population in these 23 countries.”

The company is trying to determine the best ways to get different people in different places online.

“Short-range access networks such as Wi-Fi hotspots are suitable for people living close together, while cellular technologies are better for regions where people live farther apart, in isolated houses,” Mr Tiecke and Andreas Gros have explained.

“Additionally, knowing how communities are located in relation to one another is important for planning backhaul networks — the links to the internet backbone. Villages lined up along a river or road could be connected by a string of terrestrial point-to-point links, while scattered settlements might require an aerial backhaul solution such as unmanned aerial vehicles or satellites.”

CNBC reports that Janna Lewis, Facebook's head of strategic innovation partnerships and sourcing, seems especially keen on satellites.

“Satellites are exciting for us. Our data showed the best way to connect cities is an internet in the sky,” she said. “We're trying to connect people from the stratosphere and from space.”

Output: Facebook is mapping hundreds of millions of homes using image-recognition technology and satellite data, along with government census numbers. The project is part of an effort to understand how populations are distributed, to work out how best to get them online. The company has identified every human-built structure in 23 countries, showing that just under 50% of people live in cities, but 99% of them live within 63km of one. Bridging this gap may require a mixture of terrestrial internet links and satellite connections, which the company is calling an 'internet of the sky'.


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Maas Capital to give 100,000 UK homes free solar panels
 800,000 low-income UK homes to benefit from free solar panels The majority of them will be installed in the north west of England, saving households up to £240 a year.

One of the biggest ever green energy schemes in the UK is set to provide clean energy for as many as 800,000 low-income homes over the next five years, renewable energy provider Solarplicity has revealed. As part of a £160 million investment from Netherlands-based Maas Capital (part of the ABN AMRO Bank), the company will provide 100,000 households with free solar panels over the next 18 months and hopes to reach its target within five years.

The aim of the £1 billion project is to help individuals and families living in social housing by saving them an average of £240 a year. The harvested energy won't be free, but offered at a significantly reduced rate. If it meets its potential, the scheme could save tenants up to £192 million in total.

Already, 40 "social landlords" -- including many local authorities -- are on board, with the majority of them located in the North West. Over 290,000 homes in towns like Oldham and Bradford will benefit from the project, followed by the North East and the Midlands.

The deal is set to create over 1,000 new jobs for people who will be tasked with installing and maintaining the panels. Solarplicity says that many of the positions will be offered to military veterans, who will be retrained for new maintenance careers.

The companies involved will profit from the scheme by way of the government's feed-in tariff, which pays households that generate their own electricity via renewable methods. Tenants will contribute towards the energy cost, but they'll also be given low-energy LED bulbs and smart meter in order to better manage their consumption.

Output: Netherlands-based Maas Capital has announced plans to provide 100,000 British households with free solar panels over the next 18 months, with the aim of extending clean energy to as many as 800,000 low-income families in the next five years. The £1bn ($1.3bn) project is one of the biggest green energy schemes ever to be run in the UK, and is intended to help those in social housing save an average of £240 a year, with the energy generated offered at a discounted rate.


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Judge approves class-action settlement of Gmail privacy lawsuit
 by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, September 5, 2017

A federal judge has tentatively approved a class-action settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Google stemming from its prior practice of scanning email messages in order to surround them with ads.

The proposed settlement, which was submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh in July, calls for a three-year injunction that could affect Google's ability to send ads to people based on the content of their emails.

"The agreement appears to be the result of serious, informed, non-collusive negotiations conducted at arms’ length by the parties’ experienced counsel," Koh wrote. She added that the resolution resulted from two mediation sessions, and that the deal doesn't " improperly grant preferential treatment to any individual or segment of the class."

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Google said earlier this year that it will stop scanning emails for ad purposes. The resolution requires the company to "cease all processing of email content that it applies prior to the point when the Gmail user can retrieve the email in his or her mailbox ... and that is used for advertising purposes," but only for three years.

The deal doesn't call for individual users to receive monetary damages, but allows them to pursue their own lawsuits against Google. The class-action attorneys who brought the case could receive up to $2.2 million.

The settlement stems from a complaint filed in September 2015 by San Francisco resident Daniel Matera, who alleged that Google violates a California privacy law and the federal wiretap law by intercepting messages without people's consent.

Google's terms of service disclosed that it analyzed the contents of email messages for features including "tailored advertising." But Matera alleged that he didn't have a Gmail account, and therefore never agreed to those terms.

Koh rejected a previous settlement that would have required Google to make some technical changes to its scanning system. Koh said at the time that it wasn't clear how those prior terms would remedy the alleged violations of the federal wiretap law or California's privacy statute.

Although Google will no longer scan emails for ad purposes, the company still plans to send targeted ads to Gmail users based on data such as their search queries and YouTube viewing histories.

Output: A US federal judge has provisionally approved a class-action settlement of a Google privacy lawsuit. The proposed settlement relates to Google's practice of scanning Gmail messages to tailor ads to the email's sender, and calls for a three-year injunction. The deal does award individual users monetary damages, but could allow them to pursue their own lawsuits against Google. In 2015 Google faced allegations that it violates California privacy law and federal wiretap law by intercepting messages without permission.


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CodeClan delivers 150th graduate to employment
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Digital skills academy CodeClan has now placed its 150th graduate in an industry role within 18 months of placing its first.

CodeClan, launched in October 2015 with the aim of helping to create new software developers, said Euan Ramsay from Glasgow, now recruited by Registers of Scotland (RoS) as a junior software developer, is its 150th graduate to secure an industry job.

Ramsay, 37, who previously worked in freelance photography and video production, recently completed CodeClan’s 16-week software development course, which also saw him achieve a Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) Level 8 pass in Software Development.

He said: “I have got exactly the job I was looking for.

“I’ll be working with RoS to maintain their computer systems.

“From CodeClan’s networking events, to guest lectures and visits to tech companies, the connection with industry has been fantastic.”

The Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, Sheenagh Adams, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Euan to RoS.

“The skills and experience he has gained during his time with Code Clan will be invaluable as we work towards our goal of becoming a fully digital business by 2020.

“We are proud to support and nurture our staff, and it’s a pleasure to be welcoming Euan to his first position following his graduation.”

CodeClan launched the 16-week software development course in January 2017, which is being delivered in the Tontine business accelerator building in Merchant City, Glasgow.

Last year CodeClan also secured accreditation from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) for the Professional Development Award (PDA) in software development at three levels on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF levels 7, 8 and 9).

Adam Bannon, acting chief executive at CodeClan, said: “Our courses in Edinburgh and Glasgow exist to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully begin careers in the technology industry.

“We work with employers to ensure everything that is taught is relevant and fits in with what they are looking for in new starts.

“The fact Euan is the fifth graduate to be placed with Registers of Scotland shows how highly the courses are regarded in the industry and the benefits that each student is bringing to their respective employer.”

Output: CodeClan, the digital skills academy, has announced that its 150th graduate has gone on to employment, securing a position at the Registers of Scotland. Launched in 2015 with the goal of creating more software developers, CodeClan teaches students to become professionals through its 16-week software development course. “Our courses in Edinburgh and Glasgow exist to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully begin careers in the technology industry", said CodeClan chief executive Adam Bannon.


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Cornell Tech, Microsoft join up for cryptocurrency initiative IC3
 As Cornell Tech officially moves into its new location on Roosevelt Island, software giant Microsoft announced that it will be partnering with the Cornell Tech-based Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts, otherwise known as IC3.

IC3 involves faculty members from Cornell, Cornell Tech, and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, as well as faculty from UC Berkeley and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

According to its website, IC3 “uniquely meets the blockchain community’s urgent need for world-class expertise in computer science that spans cryptography, distributed systems, programming languages, game theory, and system security techniques.”

A blockchain is a digital collection where transactions made via cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, are publicly recorded.

IC3 collaborates with experts from areas such as finance, banking and entrepreneurship to carry out blockchain research and develop faster and more secure developments.

“IC3 was founded to advance blockchain science, technology and applications,” Co-Director of IC3 Prof. Ari Juels, told NewsWise. “We’re delighted to work more closely with Microsoft’s blockchain experts, who share our vision of blockchain-based solutions for next generation financial services.”

Microsoft has already done extensive work with blockchain technologies, working to “create enterprise tooling around existing open source blockchain solutions, making them more accessible to enterprise development.”

The news of the IC3 and Microsoft partnership came shortly after Microsoft announced its new blockchain endeavour, the Coco platform. According to Microsoft’s website, the platform is a “new blockchain framework designed to make it easier to build enterprise networks.”

“As we continue our journey in blockchain, we have watched and read the work of the IC3 team and are impressed with their thinking and the perspective they bring to the community,” said Yorke Rhodes III, global blockchain business strategist at Microsoft. “We are very aligned with the approaches IC3 blockchain experts are taking to address scale, simplification and other topics of interest for enterprise adoption.”

“The synergies in their research fit well with our visions for enterprise scale blockchain solutions,” Rhodes added. “We are excited to work more closely with IC3 through this membership.”

Output: Microsoft will partner with the Cornell Tech-based Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3) to develop blockchain technology for financial services. The organisations will develop methods to scale, simplify and prepare the technology for enterprise adoption, said Yorke Rhodes, a global blockchain business strategist at Microsoft. The software company recently announced it is developing Coco, a blockchain framework designed to make it easier for enterprises to build networks.


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Don't expect stamp duty reform in autumn budget: Savills
 Speculation that the Chancellor will take a fresh look at stamp duty charges in November’s Autumn Budget is again circulating the housing market, with some buyers reportedly putting decisions on hold in the hope rates will be cut. Savills view is that this is highly unlikely unless it is part of a much wider reform of property taxation.

While the stamp duty burden on buyers at the top end of the housing market has increased significantly since the first reforms in December 2014, triggering falls in the value of high-value homes and slowing decision-making in the prime markets, the tax is proving a nice little earner for the Chancellor.

Figures published by HMRC show that overall receipts from stamp duty continue to rise. In the second quarter of 2017 the Treasury earned £2.35 billion from stamp duty. 12 months ago that figure stood at £1.98 billion, meaning earnings are up by about 19 per cent year on year (see chart below). Three years ago, receipts stood at £1.82 billion.

At the same time, sales of homes worth over £1 million have remained remarkably robust, totalling 17,700 in the past year. Sales in the £1-2 million price bracket are actually 4 per cent higher than before the major changes of December 2014, though they have softened by 8 oer cent in the past year. Above the £2million mark, sales fell by -14 per cent in the past year but have definitely not collapsed as some suggest. In the immediate aftermath of the December 2014 reform there was surprisingly little change.

Finally, a high proportion of these top-end sales are paying the extra 3 per cent levied on ‘additional homes’, further boosting tax receipts from this end of the market. Between £1-2 million a third of sales incurred the 3 per cent surcharge and above £2 million that rises to 44 per cent.

We don’t believe that autumn will bring a change to stamp duty. Rather, we think that buyers will have to continue to factor the higher rates into their budgets and sellers will have to continue to price realistically to achieve a sale as we go into the autumn market.

Quarterly Stamp Duty Receipts for Residential Property

Output: While some property buyers may be holding out with the anticipation that stamp duty in the UK will be reduced in the autumn budget, Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, said that it's unlikely unless it's part of wider property taxation reform. HMRC figures reveal that overall receipts from stamp duty are still increasing, with the Treasury earning £2.35bn from it in Q2 of 2017. Sales of homes over £1 million remain robust with HMRC receiving a large portion of revenue from these sales.


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Property management software firm Arthur raises $1.48m
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A little known property management software firm, Arthur, has just raised £1,136,000 in its first round of funding, which was oversubscribed.

The fundraising was managed by chairman Mark Jones who brought in five individual investors. London Business School investor group introduced 11 and the Deloitte Investor group brought in another five, resulting in a total of 21 external backers.

Arthur was established in 2014 and has users both in the UK and overseas. It is currently used to manage over 50,000 units by some 4,500 property managers across 27 different countries.

However, relatively few agents may have heard of it, as there has so far been almost no marketing spend, no advertising and no PR.

Jones said the software was “well ahead of the competition”.

He said: “I have watched Arthur’s development since its inception and have been deeply impressed with the firm’s use of innovative technology to build a ground-breaking software platform for property managers.

“Over the last 12 years I have worked in the digital sector, heading up blue chip companies such as Ladbrokes and Lastminute.com, and more recently I have become an investor in Fintech and recruitment businesses. But I have not been this passionate or excited about an investment for a long time.

“I look forward to seeing the highly talented development and management team achieve their ambitions to dominate the property software sector.”

Rochelle Trup, one of the founders, said: “The property software market is changing rapidly, and unlike many of our competitors, Arthur was designed with the 21st century in mind.

“Arthur is specifically designed from the ground up to work on as many digital platforms as possible and we are able to do this by not being what is often described as ‘legacy software’. This also gives us flexibility when improving our system.

“Arthur provides a suite of apps that allows property professionals to manage their portfolio from anywhere in the world, where they can connect to the internet. Automated actions can be set for almost everything, from sending a tenant a late rent notice, to a reminder that a gas safety certificate is about to run out.

“The forecast growth and expansion of Arthur in the UK and internationally will create great returns for our shareholders over the next two to three years.”

Arthur was quietly launched in 2014 by David Cummin, and husband and wife team Rochelle and Marc Trup. Currently offering agents a free trial, it integrates with Zapier, which in turn allows integration with many other apps including Facebook and Dropbox.

Output: UK property management software company Arthur has raised £1.14m ($1.48m) in seed funding through an oversubscribed round with 21 backers. Founded in 2014, the company manages more than 50,000 properties for about 4,500 property managers in 27 countries. The business is predicted to grow in the UK and further afield over the next three years despite a low-key approach to marketing and PR. The software is available as a free trial and is integrated with app task automation software Zapier, which itself integrates with Facebook and Dropbox.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
UK TV property presenter seeks £50m for 600 sustainable homes
 Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud is seeking to raise up to £50m to build about 600 “beautiful and sustainable” houses a year in a challenge to the soulless, identikit estates built by conventional developers.

McCloud’s firm, HAB (Happiness, Architecture, Beauty) is hoping to raise the money through a bond for private investors, promising a return of 4.8% a year over a five-year period.

The money will be used to buy land and start construction on houses, mostly in the south-west of England, that McCloud promises will be “a pleasure to live in”.

The bond issue marks a big step-up in housing development by McCloud, now filming his 18th series of the homebuilding and renovation television programme.

Until now, McCloud has been behind several small projects, with 42 homes built in Swindon, 78 in Stroud and 50 in Winchester. The £50m will help to finance a tenfold increase in development, with sites for 675 homes identified around Bristol, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire with a gross value of about £170m.

McCloud’s investment scheme comes with a lengthy list of wealth warnings. The bond is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, so investors could lose all their money. The money is locked away for five years, and investors will not find it easy to transfer or sell their holdings during that period. The HAB Bond will be quoted on the Gibraltar stock exchange, which, although governed by EU regulations, means it can be sold only to sophisticated investors, with the minimum investment set at £10,000.

McCloud said he had spent a decade evolving the concepts his TV viewers are familiar with – green and sustainable homes, individually designed, from the grand to the sometimes eccentric – and translating them into homes for a much broader market.

“I sincerely believe grand designs are not the preserve of the one-off or that you have to use straw bales in their construction. The challenge of the next 30 years is for us to build new, and retro-fit old, homes in a socially and environmentally responsible way. We can only do that with critical mass.”

The challenge of the next 30 years is for us to build new homes in a socially and environmentally responsible way Kevin McCloud

He said all his schemes would include social housing and designed to have shared public amenities and social spaces. Homes would have “high thermal mass” so they do not lose heat easily, and estates would include electricity micro-generators, he said.

McCloud added that he had learned from the small-scale developments built by HAB so far.

“I’ve learned that as much as you can be ambitious and wave the flag for sharing and sustainability, the reality is that most people lead very busy lives. It’s important to put in place professional management and keep it modest.”

He said there would be no “McCloud premium” on the price of the planned homes, although every scheme so far had been a sellout and “unlike other developers we have never had to discount our homes”.

The first £10m of the cash raised by McCloud will finance the construction of Elderberry Walk in Southmead, Bristol, which is scheduled to begin later this year.

It will consist of a range of homes from one-bedroom flats to four-bedroom houses designed around a central, 20-metre-wide “green street” linking the surrounding housing to the neighbouring park. HAB aims to turn a derelict city site into a sought-after residential location, with more than 30% of the homes earmarked as affordable to those on lower incomes.

This is not McCloud’s first fundraising exercise. In 2013, HAB raised £1.9m of equity crowdfunding from 649 investors, and in January this year picked up another £2.4m with a ”mini-bond” offering a much higher rate of interest, at 8%.

Investors may wonder why HAB is returning to investors so soon after the earlier bond. “Whilst the HAB Land mini-bond was a great success and raised around £2.4m, the potential new sites require a significant increase in funding,” he said.

Output: TV presenter and property developer Kevin McCloud's company, Happiness, Architecture, Beauty (HAB) will issue a bond for private investors, to raise £50m ($65m) to construct around 600 “beautiful and sustainable"homes in Bristol, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire, over five years. The bond, which features warnings that it will not be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and will be quoted on the Gibraltar stock exchange, among others, is expected to return 4.8% per year. McCloud said the HAB developments would include social housing and shared amenities, but would not come with a 'McCloud premium' on the price.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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CBRE to advise University of Manchester development strategy
 CBRE’s UK Development team in Manchester has been appointed to advise The University of Manchester on the development strategy for its North Campus. The team will build on the existing Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) and advise on the transformation of the strategically important 11.8 hectare site.

The University of Manchester is one of the UK’s largest academic institutions, with 39,700 students. It is also one of the largest employers in Greater Manchester with more than 12,000 staff. Since 2004 the University’s commercialisation activities have contributed £500 million to the UK economy. More than £300 million of this has come from investment in intellectual property and ventures, and nearly £200 million from economic benefits generated by its 38 spin-out companies and more than 300 licences.

The University has embarked on one of the largest capital programmes in UK higher education. This £1 billion, ten-year plan will transform the campus and create world-class facilities for staﬀ, students and visitors in support of its global ambitions.

CBRE has been instructed to advise the University on how to maximise the development value of its assets at the North Campus. The regeneration of the site heralds significant opportunities for office, residential, retail, leisure, hotel, research and development, and improved green infrastructure, whilst integrating key heritage assets to create high quality public realm.

CBRE will consult with key stakeholders to develop a vision for the site, using its market-leading team to provide advice on appropriate uses to create a world-class scheme. They will also undertake soft market testing with developers, investors and occupiers to inform the delivery strategy, as well as provide short and long-term strategic advice to appraise the future development.

CBRE has a 100-strong UK Development team combining its market-leading transactional land and advisory specialists across the country. For the first time in the UK, there is a single integrated team capable of providing the full range of advisory and transactional services for developers and investors at every single point of the property life-cycle across all asset classes.

The University of Manchester’s vision is to be one of the world’s top 25 universities by 2020.

Alistair Chapman, CBRE’s Director of National Land and Development, commented:

“To be involved in the delivery of the North Campus strategy is an enormous personal and professional privilege. With a major presence in Manchester, we see ourselves as stakeholders in the city and this piece of work provides the building blocks for a truly exciting scheme.

“The North Campus development represents a once in a life time opportunity for The University of Manchester to further enhance its global reputation, whilst revitalising a major part of the city totalling 11.8 hectares. We are absolutely delighted to be involved with a project of this magnitude and look forward to using our global network to help the University formulate its long term development strategy,” continued Alistair Chapman.

Diana Hampson, Director of Estates and Facilities at The University of Manchester said: “We are pleased to be working with CBRE on this strategically important initiative as part of our Campus Masterplan.”

Output: CBRE has been chosen to advise on the development strategy for the University of Manchester's North Campus. The university, one of the UK's largest, has launched a £1bn ($1.3bn) 10-year programme to transform the campus. CBRE will consult with stakeholders over the site, which offers significant professional, residential and retail opportunities. The University of Manchester aims to be one of the world's top 25 by 2020.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Donors shower UC San Diego with record $261 million in gifts
 UC San Diego raised $261 million in private donations over the past year, breaking the previous mark by nearly $49 million as the school begins one of the largest expansions in campus history.

The university has generated about $950 million through the midway point of a $2 billion, 10-year capital campaign.

The campaign is helping to fuel historic growth. The campus has added about 6,700 students since 2012, and will add another 4,000 within the next few years, pushing enrollment past 40,000.

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The campus will begin the fall quarter on Sept. 25 with an estimated 36,400 students, which would be a record.

“We’ve gotten better at raising money because we’re telling our story better,” said Pradeep K. Khosla, the university’s chancellor. “My goal is to raise $350 million in a single year by the time the campaign ends.”

The campus works on a fiscal year that ends on June 30.

Khosla said he is particularly proud of a $10.5 million gift that the university received from the Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation of Switzerland. The money will be used to study the composition of human breast milk, which isn’t fully understood even though its known to be a great source of nutrition for newborns, infants and premature babies.

UC San Diego also received $70 million last year from the Tata Trusts of Mumbai to help explore ways to use gene editing to fight insect-borne diseases and make crops more resistant to drought. About half of that money will be spent in La Jolla. The other $35 million will be devoted to a similar program in India that UC San Diego will help shape.

The campus will have to continue raising large sums to underwrite an expansion that includes major new classroom and laboratory buildings, and thousands of units of student housing.

Science Playlist × On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

Twitter: @grobbins

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com

Output: UC San Diego raised $261 million in private donations over the past year, breaking the previous mark by nearly $49 million as the school begins one of the largest expansions in campus history.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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County declares health emergency for hepatitis outbreak
 San Diego County declared a local health emergency early Friday night, adding a new level of urgency to a hepatitis A outbreak that has hit the homeless population hardest, killing 15 people and hospitalizing hundreds.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, the region’s public health officer, signed the declaration shortly after lawyers finished writing it, bolstering the county Health and Human Services Agency’s ability to request assistance from the state and providing legal protections for a slate of actions that began unfolding across the city earlier in the day.

Working on a county contract, a private company began delivering portable hand-washing stations Friday morning in locations where homeless residents tend to congregate. Twenty stations were in place by the end of the day and 20 more, a county spokesman said, were scheduled for installation Saturday.

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That effort is to be followed by street-cleaning crews shooting high-pressure water spiked with bleach to remove “all feces, blood, bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces,” according to a sanitation plan included in a letter delivered to city government Thursday.

The cleansing plans, Wooten said, are modeled on similar efforts used to control hepatitis A infections in Los Angeles.

“We know that L.A. has had no local cases of hepatitis A related to the strain that we’re seeing here in San Diego,” she said. “It makes sense that, if they’re doing it there and they haven’t had any cases, it could be beneficial here as well.”

It has been clear for some time that the local outbreak is far beyond ordinary. With 378 cases confirmed to date, it’s the largest surge seen in at least 20 years.

The first cases linked to the outbreak occurred in November 2016, but there weren’t enough of them until about March for local epidemiologists to know for sure that infections were spreading more quickly than usual. Most hepatitis A outbreaks are associated with specific foods picked or processed under unsanitary conditions. The virus that causes the condition lives in human feces and is spread when people don’t wash their hands thoroughly enough after using the bathroom.

From the outset, the public health response to the outbreak has been vaccination and education. Though thousands of doses of vaccine have been distributed to date, that effort has not appreciably slowed infection rates while the number of deaths reported in recent weeks has accelerated.

Because infections are most common among the homeless who often have no access to sanitary facilities, the county’s efforts began to turn toward hand washing and street cleaning in early summer.

But that transition has been painfully slow.

An article earlier this week published by Voice of San Diego pointed out bureaucratic hurdles which have delayed sanitation improvements even as public health nurses pursued a countywide vaccination campaign which targeted the homeless at shelters, while mobile teams explored the more remote locations where those without homes tend to go.

Thursday’s letter was the first time the health department gave pointed and unequivocal direction to the city, stating that the municipality should take “immediate action” to “address the unsanitary living conditions of the at-risk population.”

The city responded early Friday morning with a press release that indicated it would work with the county to follow its guidelines, however, it may take 10 days to comply with the street-washing request due to a lawsuit that requires 72-hours notice before the spraying begins.

The sudden action begs a simple question: Why didn’t all of this start back in late June or early July when the county first talked about hand-washing stations?

San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez fired off a memo to Mayor Kevin Faulconer Thursday demanding a crisis declaration, expressing his dissatisfaction that the outbreak has continued to claim lives while the city continues to wait for resolution to provide temporary housing which would presumably bring with it better access to the bathrooms and showers necessary to alleviate the current mess on city streets.

“I just assumed the county was doing everything that they could do and that the city was facilitating what the county needed, but that has not been the case,” Alvarez said. “It just infuriated me that the bureaucracy was getting in the way of doing the right thing.”

Criticism has also come from state Sen. Ben Hueso and the Service Employees Union International which have both said they do not believe the county employs enough public health nurses to meet the demands of the hepatitis A investigation while also handling large children’s health and foster care programs. On Wednesday the state legislature’s Joint Committee On Legislative Audit approved Hueso’s request to determine whether or not the amount of health resources available are adequate. Committee members approved the audit request 10-3, and it is expected to take between four and five months to complete.

There was a lot of finger pointing between City Hall and the County Administration Center Thursday and Friday. Both sides insisted they were doing what they could in a situation that is unique.

“There is no precedent for this,” Wooten said. “We will definitely have a playbook for if we have something like this in the future, but this is the first time we have had something of this nature happen.”

She added that, in the coming days and weeks, the hand-washing and street-sanitizing efforts underway in San Diego will spread to other cities.

“We were talking to El Cajon already, and we will be talking to Escondido, Oceanside, National City and Chula Vista soon,” Wooten said.

Correction

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported one additional victim and the month the outbreak was determined. The story has been updated.

paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsisson

Output: San Diego County declared a local health emergency early Friday night, adding a new level of urgency to a hepatitis A outbreak that has hit the homeless population hardest, killing 15 people and hospitalizing hundreds.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Nurses threaten strike against Tri-City
 Nurses at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside are threatening to strike over what they describe as policies that have caused the hospital to hemorrhage more than 300 experienced nurses over the last two years.

The California Nurses Association, a union which represents about 700 registered nurses at the facility, held a rally in front of the hospital Thursday to speak out against hiring practices described as favoring temporary nurses and new nursing school graduates over those who live in the area and who have longer track records of patient care.

“It’s like a revolving door. Some people come, stay for a little bit, and then they leave. The Tri-City board has passed an enormous budget for travel and registry nurses when so many veteran nurses have left,” said Sara Gurling, the union’s chief negotiator for the Tri-City bargaining group.

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Tri-City did not respond to a request for comment on the union’s statements Thursday.

Though some nurses connected with the rally made statements that made it seem as if a strike is imminent, that’s not the case. Federal law requires health care workers to give 10 days of notice before walking off their jobs so that hospitals have ample opportunity to bring in temporary replacements and make sure that hospitalized patients are not harmed by a work stoppage.

Gurling said that the union’s membership has not yet voted to strike, and no 10-day strike notice has been provided to hospital management or to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

San Diego County has been no stranger to strike talk among health care workers. On Nov. 28, 2016, Sharp HealthCare’s 4,800 nurses nearly hit the picket line decrying what they said were below-market wages but called the whole thing off with just hours to go when a satisfactory pay deal materialized.

Earlier that month, Teamsters Local 2010, which represented 218 support employees such as electricians, carpenters and painters at UC San Diego Health, staged a strike over wage disagreements.

Gurling declined to say how much of a pay increase Tri-City nurses are seeking during ongoing contract negotiations.

Health Playlist × On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life

paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsisson

Output: Nurses at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside are threatening to strike over what they describe as policies that have caused the hospital to hemorrhage more than 300 experienced nurses over the last two years.