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Disposable patch offers alternative to traditional flu injections
 A small, dissolvable patch boasting an array of tiny needles could offer a safe relatively painless alternative to traditional injections for vaccination against flu, researchers have found.

The approach is likely to be welcomed by those who shudder at the sight of a needle, but it could also provide other benefits.

Not only do the patches offer a low-cost procedure and reduce dangerous waste, but they can be applied by the patient and do not need to be kept cold since they are stable at 40C for a year. Researchers say that is a valuable bonus when it comes to providing vaccines to populations in developing countries.

“I think this product would greatly simplify access to vaccines and perhaps improve coverage as well,” said Nadine Rouphael, a co-author of the research and associate professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.

In the UK complications from seasonal influenza alone kill about 600 people a year while in the US it has been found to account for tens of thousands of deaths a year.

While dissolvable microneedle arrays are already used in the cosmetic industry, including for the delivery of botox, the new study looked at their potential in flu vaccination.

The team compared traditional needle-and-syringe methods with the use of sticky patches made from sucrose and polyvinyl alcohol, each containing an array of 100 micro-needles – tiny protrusions less than a millimetre in height.

For the study, 100 adults aged between 18 and 49 who had previously chosen not to have the flu vaccine were recruited and randomly sorted into four groups, one of which received a traditional injection into the muscle of the arm.

In the first human trial of its kind, those in the other three groups all applied a patch to the wrist for 20 minutes, allowing the microneedles time to dissolve before the backing was removed and disposed of. One group received a placebo and the other two groups received the flu vaccine, the patch administered by a healthcare worker in one case and by the patient themselves in the other. A snap system was incorporated into the device to let users know when enough pressure had been applied to the patch.

All participants were then assessed for 180 days, and adverse events and antibody levels measured.

Published in the Lancet by Rouphael and colleagues at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, the results reveal that none of the participants in any of the groups showed any serious adverse events and the mild side effects seen were similar for all of those vaccinated, regardless of method.

Both approaches were found to cause tenderness in some patients, but 96% of those vaccinated with the patch said they found the technique pain-free.

Antibody response to three different strains was just as good with the patch, and 70% of those vaccinated by microneedles said they preferred the method to traditional injections or intranasal methods.

“It is easy to administer, people are comfortable doing it for themselves, it dissolves very nicely,” said Rouphael.

The team caution that the study’s participants were potentially less keen than the average person to have a traditional flu shot.

Further, larger-scale trials are now needed, said Rouphael, adding that it will still be a few years before the patches will be available for flu vaccination.

She mooted a situation where, in the case of a flu pandemic, microneedle patches could be distributed en masse, offering individuals a method of vaccination that did not require to visit a doctor or clinic, which would risk exposure to the virus.

Linda Klavinskis, an immunobiologist at King’s College London, said the research was a step forward but challenges still remain, including how to elicit a stronger immune response from elderly patients and how to increase the potency of the vaccine used – an important consideration in the case of a pandemic, when supplies are stretched.

John McCauley, director of the Worldwide Influenza Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said the research could lead to higher uptake rates of vaccines. “I think it is really quite a promising way forward,” he said, adding that further studies are needed to show that the approach offers benefits in the event of an influenza epidemic.

“If you can make [vaccination] easier, more people will take it. With more people taking it there is better ability to control infection at the population level,” he added.

Output: A small dissolvable patch could offer a low-cost, pain-free alternative to traditional injections for vaccination against flu, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia have found. The patches can be applied by the patient and are stable at 40C for a year, so do not need to be chilled. They also help reduce dangerous waste. Populations in developing countries stand to benefit from the patches, which can be distributed more effectively than traditional vaccinations, the researchers said.


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Uber allows people to book rides for friends and relatives
 Uber recently pledged to be friendlier to its employees and its drivers. As of Tuesday, it plans to be friendlier to senior citizens, too.

The ride-hailing company launched a feature in more than 30 countries on Tuesday that lets users of the Uber app book a ride for someone other than themselves. Given that many people over the age of 65 either don’t use a smartphone or the Uber app, this feature lets their friends and loved ones book rides on their behalf.

While some Uber customers have found ways to book rides for others informally, the new feature is specifically designed to accommodate such requests.

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When an Uber customer opens the app and chooses a pick-up address that differs from what their phone’s GPS detects as its current location, the app will ask the customer whether they are booking a ride for someone else. Customers can then select a rider from their address book, set a destination and request the ride. Riders will not need to have an Uber account. Uber will then share the passenger’s contact details with the driver, and the passenger will receive a link to track the driver’s route, as well as a text message with information such as the driver’s name and license plate number. The person requesting the ride will also be able to track it within the app.

Previously, drivers could communicate only with the person who booked the ride, and the passengers being picked up had no way of contacting the driver. Rides are charged to the credit card of the person who requested the ride.

Only the person who requested the ride can rate the driver once the ride is over. And when the driver rates the trip, that score goes toward the rating of the person who requested the ride, rather than the passenger.

Both Uber and its competitor Lyft have in the past taken steps to make their apps more accessible to seniors. Uber partnered with Los Angeles firm 24Hr HomeCare and Lyft partnered with GreatCall last year to allow customers to book rides through a phone operator, bypassing the smartphone apps entirely. Customers do not need Uber or Lyft accounts to use those services. The GreatCall service is available only to GreatCall members, while 24Hr HomeCare’s “RideWith24” service is available to the public via a toll-free number ([800] 522-1516).

A third-party service, GoGoGrandparent, lets passengers book an Uber ride and use other on-demand services such as Instacart (grocery delivery), Munchery (dinner delivery) and Postmates (shopping) by dialing a phone number ([855] 464-6872) and speaking to an operator.

The announcement comes as Uber tries to bounce back from months of scandals and the resignation last week of its chief executive, Travis Kalanick.

tracey.lien@latimes.com

Twitter: @traceylien

UPDATES:

9:30 a.m.: This article was updated with information about how trip ratings work.

This article was originally published at 6 a.m.

Output: Uber has released a tool aimed at serving older people, who are less likely to have a smartphone or to have the Uber app installed on one. The tool allows those with an Uber account to book a ride on behalf of someone else who does not have an Uber account. Users enter the other rider's details from their address book, while the passenger will be sent a text message with information such as the driver’s name and licence plate number. Whoever initially books the ride pays the fare. The feature is available in more than 30 countries.


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OpenDoor wins $10m backing for niche bond trade platform
 OpenDoor

A new trading platform focused on hard-to-trade segments of one of the most important markets has raised $10 million from private investors.

OpenDoor Securities will use the funds to improve its connectivity to current customers, according to a statement.

The platform is auction based and is what's called an all-to-all marketplace for off-the-run Treasurys and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). In plain English, that means the platform hosts auctions for instruments at a particular time.

The startup is trying to tackle challenging trading conditions in what is arguably the world's most important market. The US government bond market makes up around 30% of the fixed-income market, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and American Bankers Association. In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, they said the Treasury market is "the most important global benchmark for pricing and hedging spread asset classes and is a key transmission mechanism for US monetary policy."

However, liquidity in the Treasurys market is divided between on-the-run Treasurys, or the most recently issued bonds and therefore the most liquid, and off-the-run bonds. Off-the-run bonds represent 98% of the total outstanding issuance in the US Treasury market, according to OpenDoor, but account for less than a third of average daily trading volume.

The platform launched April 25, and the firm has seen more than $60 billion in orders placed since then. The firm has matched "multiple billions in US off-the-run Treasuries and TIPS orders with seamless settlement," OpenDoor said in a statement.

Output: All-to-all marketplace, OpenDoor Securities, has raised $10m from private investors, which will be used to improve the start-up's connectivity to its existing customers, according to a company statement. The platform holds auctions for off-the-run US government bonds and has had more than $60bn in orders placed since its April 2017 launch.


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MakerBot launches digital classroom platform for 3D printers
 3D Printing

MakerBot Debuts 3D Print Manager for Schools, Educator Guidebook

My MakerBot

This week at the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference in San Antonio, TX, 3D printer company MakerBot launched a new cloud-based platform for educators, My MakerBot, and the MakerBot Educators Guidebook.

Compatible with Chromebooks, My MakerBot is designed to make it easier for students to use printers and for instructors to manage them. The platform connects a user's networked 3D printers, Thingiverse account, orders and support cases and allows users to upload and prepare files, print and monitor print jobs from any device. My MakerBot will also allow users to import designs from Autodesk's design tool for K–12, Tinkercad.

The new guidebook is designed to support educators as they begin to use 3D printers in their classrooms.

"Featuring a crash course in 3D design and printing, as well as nine classroom-ready 3D printing lesson plans, the new MakerBot Educators Guidebook is the definitive how-to on 3D printing in the classroom," according to information released by the company. "We wrote the guidebook in collaboration with over 80 MakerBot educators, all dedicated leaders in STEM education, in order to deliver the ultimate resource for learning the basics, best practices and for finding high-quality lesson plans."

Each project in the book offers step-by-step instructions, information about standards alignment and author notes to help guide teachers. Nearly 300 additional lesson plans are also available at the Thingiverse Education site.

More information is available at makerbot.com. Visit MakerBot in booth 600 this week during ISTE 2017.

Output: MakerBot, the 3D printer company, has launched a cloud-based platform to teach students to use 3D printers and help instructors manage printer use. Called My MakerBot, the platform enables users to upload and prepare files, and monitor print assignments from a range of devices. The accompanying MakerBot Educators Guidebook provides crash courses and lesson plans in 3D design and printing to support educators as they integrate 3D printers into their classrooms.


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Google promotes coding education in public libraries
 LIBRARIES WHO CODE: Computer-science education, now heavily promoted in public schools, is entering public libraries. Last week the American Libraries Association announced a $500,000 competitive grant program, sponsored by Google, to help libraries build computer-science education centers.

The grant is part of an initiative called Libraries Ready to Code, where libraries bring in resources and research to help staff members teach youth and families computer science in informal learning settings.

Representatives from the American Library Association say 25 to 50 libraries will receive funding from the ALA and consulting expertise and operational support from Google. The project’s leaders hope that libraries, often utilized by low-income families who do not have technology at home, will give young people and their relatives new opportunities to learn that they otherwise would not have.

Output: The American Libraries Association (ALA) has announced a $500,000 competitive grant sponsored by Google, as part of ALA's initiative Libraries Ready to Code. The funds are set to help public libraries establish computer-science education centres, in which young people and families can get to grips with computer science in informal surroundings. The ALA states that 25 to 50 libraries will receive support from Google. It is hoped that the centres will facilitate the development of skills and opening up of opportunities for low-income families that do not typically have access to technology at home.


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Telecoms companies challenge ruling in AT&T data throttling case
 by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, June 27, 2017

Breaking ranks with AT&T, four other large Internet service providers are asking the 9th Circuit to rule that the Federal Trade Commission has the authority to prosecute AT&T for allegedly duping wireless consumers who purchased "unlimited" data plans.

"At first glance, [our] position might seem surprising," Charter, Comcast, Cox and Verizon write in papers submitted Monday to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "On closer inspection, however, this position aligns with the companies’ desire to reinstate a predictable, uniform, and technology-neutral regulatory framework that will best serve consumers and businesses alike."

The four broadband companies are asking the 9th Circuit to reverse a decision issued last year by a three-judge panel, which ruled that the FTC couldn't prosecute AT&T due to its status as a "common carrier."

That ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the FTC against AT&T in October of 2014, when the agency alleged that AT&T misled consumers by selling them unlimited data, but throttling their broadband connections after they used between 3 and 5 GB a month. The alleged deception occurred between 2011 and 2014 -- before mobile broadband was considered a common carrier service.

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The appellate judges said in their initial ruling that the FTC can't sue common carriers like AT&T -- even when the complaint centers on a non-common carrier service. Those judges suggested in their opinion that AT&T's longstanding role as a telephone carrier gave the company common carrier service for all purposes.

The FTC -- backed by consumer groups, and the Federal Communications Commission -- urged the 9th Circuit to reconsider the ruling. Last month, the court agreed to do so.

Charter, Comcast, Cox and Verizon are now siding with the FTC. The companies argue in papers submitted Monday to the 9th Circuit that Internet service providers like themselves should be subject to the FTC's authority.

"If the FTC is divested of jurisdiction over certain non-common carriage activities, it is likely that a variety of federal, state, and local government agencies that lack the appropriate reach, perspective, and experience in consumer protection matters will attempt to fill the perceived 'regulatory gaps,' thereby creating a patchwork of unreasonable, duplicative, and inconsistent rules," the companies write. "This will make it less likely that consumers are adequately protected and more likely that businesses will operate in an uncertain and uneven regulatory environment."

The broadband providers' move appears to reflect their preference to be subject to FTC authority rather than FCC rules, says Matt Wood, policy director at the advocacy group Free Press.

"They like the idea of uniform privacy rules at the FTC," Wood says. He adds that the FTC -- unlike the FCC -- lacks the authority to pass regulations about matters like privacy. Instead, the FTC can only target companies that engage in deceptive or unfair practices, such as failing to follow their privacy policies.

"Cable companies and phone companies other than AT&T seemingly prefer what they consider to be weaker oversight by the FTC, rather than either the strong rules the FCC adopted last year or various state bills instead," Wood adds. (Last year, the FCC passed rules prohibiting broadband providers from drawing on consumers' Web-browsing histories for ad targeting without their opt-in consent. Congress invalidated those rules earlier this year, sparking state lawmakers in at least 10 states to introduce new broadband privacy regulations.)

Many observers interpreted the appellate court's initial ruling as effectively depriving the FTC of authority to police any practices of broadband providers -- including their billing methods and privacy policies. Observers also said the initial ruling could leave broadband providers without federal regulatory oversight, if the FCC follows through on Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to scrap the 2015 decision classifying broadband access as a "Title II" common carrier service. That's because, the ruling suggests that even if Internet access is no longer regulated as a utility, many ISPs would nonetheless be outside the FTC's authority.

Comcast and the other ISPs may now hope to weaken the argument that Pai's plan to de-classify broadband as a utility will leave the companies without federal oversight, according to Blake Reid, director of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic at Colorado Law.

"My take on it is that it they're trying to head off at the pass an argument that the efforts to declassify Internet service providers under Title II will result in this regulatory gap," he says.

He adds: "It's pretty striking nevertheless to see a bunch of Internet service providers arguing that a federal regulator should have authority."

Output: Telecoms providers Comcast, Charter, Verizon and Cox have asked the Ninth Circuit to challenge an appeal court judgment that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lacks authority to prosecute AT&T. The judgment derived from a case brought against AT&T for allegedly misleading wireless customers on unlimited data plans whose broadband was allegedly "bottlenecked" once their usage exceeded 3 GB or 5 GB a month. The companies believe the FTC should be able to prosecute AT&T, despite its status as a “common carrier” in the name of customer and business protection. The appellate judges had said common carriers are exempt from being sued by the FTC.


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WPP hit by cyberattack that could be bigger than WannaCry
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A huge cyber attack that initially hit Ukraine has spread across the world, causing major disruption.

The hack was already the biggest in Ukraine's history but it has now affected other countries – including the UK, Spain and India – and may be functioning like the massive "Wannacry" attack that crippled the NHS, according to cyber security experts.

The attack is hitting major infrastructure in the countries where it has spread and has also affected companies ranging from Danish shipping giant Maersk to the British advertising company WPP.

The British National Cyber Security Centre said that it was "aware of the global ransomware incident" and is "monitoring the situation closely".

Maersk said that it didn't yet know the cause of the outage but that it suspected it could extend across all of its global operations.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 / 25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at California’s Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

Some security experts have suggested the attack could be even bigger than the Wannacry attack, which spread across the world in May. That was most famous for locking down computers across hospitals and doctors surgeries, but it also hit other major international companies.

At the time, cyber security professionals warned that a repeat attack could be launched that would be even bigger than that crippling hack.

Recommended Ukraine state infrastructure hit by massive cyber attack

Initial reports had suggested that this was a coordinated hack being launched at Ukraine and Russia at the same time. It's not clear how it began, or how it made its way to other countries.

Russia's top oil producer Rosneft said a large-scale cyber attack hit its servers on Tuesday and computer systems at some banks and the main airport in neighbouring Ukraine were also disrupted.

Britain's WPP, the world's biggest advertising agency, said it had been hit by a cyber attack, one of many major corporations to face major disruption.

A hospital in the US and pharmaceutical company Merck also fell victim, and Cadbury owner Mondelez International said it had experienced a "global IT outage" which it was working to resolve.

The State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management said Chernobyl's radiation monitoring system has been switched to manual and is operating normally.

The current ransomware is known as GoldenEye, according to Bogdan Botezatu, a senior e-threat analyst at Bitdefender.

Victims of the malware are asked to pay a 300-dollar ransom after their hard drive is encrypted, crashing their computer.

Mr Botezatu, who warned against paying any money, said on Tuesday night that the malware operators received 27 payments totalling almost 7,000 dollars in digital currency in around five hours.

A spokesman confirmed it had been affected without giving any further details. The company's website was not available.

Seventeen shipping container terminals run by APM Terminals have been hacked, including two in Rotterdam and 15 in other parts of the world, Dutch broadcaster RTV Rijnmond reported.

APM Terminals is a subsidiary of shipping giant Maersk, which has confirmed it is suffering from a cyber attack.

APM's website was difficult to reach and phone calls to its headquarters in The Hague and offices in Rotterdam went unanswered.

Man who accidentally halted global cyber attack: 'I'm no hero'

A spokeswoman for the company in Copenhagen confirmed its systems were "impacted" as part of Maersk's IT infrastructure.

The RTV report said computers were infected by ransomware that encrypted their hard drives. The broadcaster published an image of the screen of an affected machine with a message demanding a $300 payment.

Following last month's WannaCry incident some of the blame was directed at US intelligence agencies the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) who were accused of "stockpiling" software code which could be exploited by hackers.

Dr David Day, a senior lecturer in cyber security at Sheffield Hallam University, said he believed the latest attack was the "tip of the iceberg" and said he is frustrated at how it has been able to unfold.

He said: "Basically what they (the NSA) have done is they have created something which can be used as a weapon, and that weapon has been stolen and that weapon is now being used.

"And I think it underlines the whole need for debate over privacy versus security.

"The NSA will argue that the tool was developed with a need to ensure privacy, but actually what it's being used for is a weapon against security."

Additional reporting by agencies

Output: A fresh ransomware attack has hit a range of targets, including British advertising firm WPP, Danish shipping company Maersk and Ukraine's government. Called "Petya", the ransomware encrypts users' data until a ransom is paid to the hackers in bitcoin. The attack could be more widespread than the WannaCry ransomware attack that hit the NHS seven weeks ago, said Bogdan Botezatu, an analyst at Bitdefender. On Tuesday night, malware operators received 27 payments totalling almost $7,000, he added.


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Facebook advertisers will be able to target entire families
 Facebook ads are going to get a little creepy this holiday season. The social media giant just announced new tools for advertisers as they finalize strategies for the holiday season this December — one of them includes displaying relevant ads to your entire household.

Facebook’s consumer research report found mobile shoppers aren’t exclusively from one, young generation — in fact, parents made up more than “50 percent of mobile-first shoppers last year.” That’s why one of the company’s latest tools will allow retailers to display relevant ads to family members in the same household. This data is based on you and your family’s Facebook and Instagram usage.

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“[We utilize] the explicit relationships that people declare in Facebook … but we also leverage a handful of other signals,” Graham Mudd, product marketing director at Facebook , said in a media briefing in New York City. “For example, we look at shared check-ins, we look at where you access the internet — and if that happens to be from the same location everyday, then that tells with a pretty high degree of confidence that you are in the same household.”

Household marketing works in three ways: If your family is planning a trip to Canada, a hotel company may start displaying ads to everyone in the family — trying to get its brand on everyone’s radar. The second way is by offering gift ideas for other people in the same household. If your son wants a Sonos speaker for Christmas, rather than advertising the speaker to him, retailers can show the ad on Facebook to the rest of his family. The third method deals with reducing wasted ad spend. If a product is typically bought once per household, and if a customer in a household has purchased it — like a Netflix subscription — the company will stop advertising it to the rest of the family.

Facebook said it hides sensitive purchases, so things like alcohol, engagement rings, and the like will not be displayed to everyone in the household. You can opt out of household marketing by going into your Facebook Settings > Ads > Ad Preferences and remove yourself from the “member of a family-based household” category.

The social network launched dynamic ads last year, which are basically a carousel of static product images retailers can use. Now retailers can add product videos, as well as “overlays,” which are banners over ads that can show price, discounts, and more in various styles, colors, and placements. These will be rolling out in the next few months.

The household marketing tools are available now in the U.S., and will expand to other regions next year. The social network unveiled ad breaks for on-demand and live videos earlier this year, and is also offering more ads in Instant Articles.

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Output: Facebook will enable retailers to display relevant ads to family members in the same household in time for Christmas, the social media giant has said. The move followed Facebook research that indicates more than 50% of mobile-first shoppers last year were parents. To determine whether Facebook users occupy the same household, the company checks explicitly declared relationships, as well as the location of shared check-ins, said Graham Mudd, product marketing director at Facebook. The advertising will display ads to everyone in a family and offer gift ideas for people in the household. Families can also opt out of household-based marketing.


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Major ransomware attack hits nearly all sectors globally
 Many organizations in Europe and the US have been crippled by a ransomware attack known as “Petya”. The malicious software has spread through large firms including the advertiser WPP, food company Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper and Danish shipping and transport firm Maersk, leading to PCs and data being locked up and held for ransom.

It’s the second major global ransomware attack in the past two months. In early May, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was among the organizations infected by WannaCry, which used a vulnerability first revealed to the public as part of a leaked stash of NSA-related documents released online in April by a hacker group calling itself the Shadow Brokers.

The WannaCry or WannaCrypt ransomware attack affected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries, with the NHS, Spanish phone company Telefónica and German state railways among those hardest hit.

Like WannaCry, “Petya” spreads rapidly through networks that use Microsoft Windows, but what is it, why is it happening and how can it be stopped?

What is ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks access to a computer or its data and demands money to release it.

How does it work?

When a computer is infected, the ransomware encrypts important documents and files and then demands a ransom, typically in Bitcoin, for a digital key needed to unlock the files. If victims don’t have a recent back-up of the files they must either pay the ransom or face losing all of their files.

How does the “Petya” ransomware work?

The ransomware takes over computers and demands $300, paid in Bitcoin. The malicious software spreads rapidly across an organization once a computer is infected using the EternalBlue vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (Microsoft has released a patch, but not everyone will have installed it) or through two Windows administrative tools. The malware tries one option and if it doesn’t work, it tries the next one. “It has a better mechanism for spreading itself than WannaCry,” said Ryan Kalember, of cybersecurity company Proofpoint.

Is there any protection?

Most major antivirus companies now claim that their software has updated to actively detect and protect against “Petya” infections: Symantec products using definitions version 20170627.009 should, for instance, and Kaspersky also says its security software is now capable of spotting the malware. Additionally, keeping Windows up to date – at the very least through installing March’s critical patch defending against the EternalBlue vulnerability – stops one major avenue of infection, and will also protect against future attacks with different payloads.

For this particular malware outbreak, another line of defence has been discovered: “Petya” checks for a read-only file, C:\Windows\perfc.dat, and if it finds it, it won’t run the encryption side of the software. But this “vaccine” doesn’t actually prevent infection, and the malware will still use its foothold on your PC to try to spread to others on the same network.

Why is it called “Petya”?

Strictly speaking, it is not. The malware appears to share a significant amount of code with an older piece of ransomware that really was called Petya, but in the hours after the outbreak started, security researchers noticed that “the superficial resemblance is only skin deep”. Researchers at Russia’s Kaspersky Lab redubbed the malware NotPetya, and increasingly tongue-in-cheek variants of that name – Petna, Pneytna, and so on – began to spread as a result. On top of that, other researchers who independently spotted the malware gave it other names: Romanian’s Bitdefender called it Goldeneye, for instance.

Where did it start?

The attack appears to have been seeded through a software update mechanism built into an accounting program that companies working with the Ukrainian government need to use, according to the Ukrainian cyber police. This explains why so many Ukrainian organizations were affected, including government, banks, state power utilities and Kiev’s airport and metro system. The radiation monitoring system at Chernobyl was also taken offline, forcing employees to use hand-held counters to measure levels at the former nuclear plant’s exclusion zone. A second wave of infections was spawned by a phishing campaign featuring malware-laden attachments.

How far has it spread?

The “Petya” ransomware has caused serious disruption at large firms in Europe and the US, including the advertising firm WPP, French construction materials company Saint-Gobain and Russian steel and oil firms Evraz and Rosneft. The food company Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper, Danish shipping and transport firm AP Moller-Maersk and Heritage Valley Health System, which runs hospitals and care facilities in Pittsburgh, also said their systems had been hit by the malware.

Crucially, unlike WannaCry, this version of ‘Petya’ tries to spread internally within networks, but not seed itself externally. That may have limited the ultimate spread of the malware, which seems to have seen a decrease in the rate of new infections overnight.

Shipping company Maersk’s IT system was impacted by the cyber-attack. Photograph: Mauritz Antin/EPA

So is this just another opportunistic cybercriminal?

It initially looked like the outbreak was just another cybercriminal taking advantage of cyberweapons leaked online. However, security experts say that the payment mechanism of the attack seems too amateurish to have been carried out by serious criminals. Firstly, the ransom note includes the same Bitcoin payment address for every victim – most ransomware creates a custom address for every victim. Secondly, the malware asks victims to communicate with the attackers via a single email address which has been suspended by the email provider after they discovered what it was being used for. This means that even if someone pays the ransom, they have no way to communicate with the attacker to request the decryption key to unlock their files.

Who is behind the attack?

It is not clear, but it seems likely it is someone who wants the malware to masquerade as ransomware, while actually just being destructive, particularly to the Ukrainian government. Security researcher Nicholas Weaver told cybersecurity blog Krebs on Security that ‘Petya’ was a “deliberate, malicious, destructive attack or perhaps a test disguised as ransomware”. Pseudonymous security researcher Grugq noted that the real Petya “was a criminal enterprise for making money,” but that the new version “is definitely not designed to make money.

“This is designed to spread fast and cause damage, with a plausibly deniable cover of ‘ransomware,’” he added, pointing out that, among other tells, the payment mechanism in the malware was inept to the point of uselessness: a single hardcoded payment address, meaning the money can be traced; the requirement to email proof of payment to a webmail provider, meaning that the email address can be – and was – disabled; and the requirement to send an infected machine’s 60-character, case sensitive “personal identification key” from a computer which can’t even copy-and-paste, all combine to mean that “this payment pipeline was possibly the worst of all options (sort of ‘send a personal cheque to: Petya Payments, PO Box … ’)”.

Ukraine has blamed Russia for previous cyber-attacks, including one on its power grid at the end of 2015 that left part of western Ukraine temporarily without electricity. Russia has denied carrying out cyber-attacks on Ukraine.

What should you do if you are affected by the ransomware?

The ransomware infects computers and then waits for about an hour before rebooting the machine. While the machine is rebooting, you can switch the computer off to prevent the files from being encrypted and try and rescue the files from the machine, as flagged by @HackerFantastic on Twitter.

If machine reboots and you see this message, power off immediately! This is the encryption process. If you do not power on, files are fine. pic.twitter.com/IqwzWdlrX6 — Hacker Fantastic (@hackerfantastic) June 27, 2017

If the system reboots with the ransom note, don’t pay the ransom – the “customer service” email address has been shut down so there’s no way to get the decryption key to unlock your files anyway. Disconnect your PC from the internet, reformat the hard drive and reinstall your files from a backup. Back up your files regularly and keep your anti-virus software up to date.

Output: Asian, European and US businesses, port operators and government systems have been hit by a new cyber attack similar to WannaCry, dubbed "Petya". It is the second major global ransomware attack in two months, after WannaCry. This malicious software, which started in Ukraine, spread through large firms including advertiser WPP, food company Mondelez and Danish shipping firm Maersk, causing PCs and data to be locked and held for ransom. Since Ukraine was particularly badly hit, there is a higher possibility it came from Russia. The attack revealed that investors are not sufficiently pricing in the rocketing threat to financial and economic market stability from these geopolitical risks.


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Instagram right to make sponsored posts more transparent: Opinion
 Native Instagram posts—those paid for by brands but posted by influencers—are about to look a bit different, and that’s a good thing.

An update introduced by Instagram earlier this month provides brands and influencers with the option to call out that posts are sponsored. Influencers can now tag brands in their posts and, if the brands confirm the relationship, the post will be marked accordingly.

The callout will appear at the top of the post (where you’d tag a location) and within Instagram Stories, noting that the content was “paid in partnership with …” This feature is a response to recent transparency issues surrounding the practice of native advertising.

Previously, there was no official way for people to distinguish between a native sponsored post and an organic one, which led to questions about the ethics behind native advertising strategies: Is native advertising potentially deceiving consumers?

The Federal Trade Commission says yes.

Output: Instagram will highlight sponsored posts from influencers in a bid to boost transparency on the platform, a step in the right direction, according to an opinion piece in Adweek. Earlier this year, the US Federal Trade Commission warned dozens of brands and influencers over their failure to make clear their relationship with products they are promoting. A recent Instagram update enables influencers to tag brands in their post, and if brands confirm the link, marks the post accordingly.


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Finnish company unveils VR headset with 'human eye' definition
 One of the biggest limitations of current virtual reality technology — whether you’re talking about Samsung’s mobile Gear VR or a full home system like the Oculus Rift — is resolution. And progress toward solving this problem is slow, because companies making VR headsets are at the mercy of advances in display technology.

A new company led by former Nokia and Microsoft product managers aims to slash that wait by using a clever crossing of existing hardware and carefully executed software. Today, they’re opening up for the first time about the company they’re building, called Varjo.

70X better resolution

Urho Konttori, the CEO and co-founder of Varjo, used to work on flagship products like the Nokia N9, and Microsoft’s Lumia phones. Varjo’s imaging lead used to worked on camera technology for both Nokia and Intel. Another co-founder was once Nokia’s head of imaging. So it’s no surprise the first goal for Varjo is to make a physical product: a high-end headset capable of both virtual and augmented reality.

That might not sound unique when Facebook, Samsung, Google, and other giant technology companies are already working on VR and / or AR headsets. What will set Varjo’s version apart is how it will enable what the company is referring to as “human eye resolution” — what they say is some 70 times the clarity of current VR headsets.

Above, a camera snapshot of the high-resolution display. Below, the same virtual scene as seen through a typical modern VR display. Photo: Varjo

Varjo uses that phrase with two meanings in mind. For one thing, the company’s headset will offer resolution in the center of the screen that is good enough to hide individual pixels. But the headset’s display will also mimic how human vision works in general.

Smaller, high-density displays will occupy the center of your field of view in Varjo’s headset, and they’ll be surrounded by lower-resolution displays at the left and right edges. Similar to how your brain and your eyes filter out detail that’s outside your focus, the Varjo headset will use eye tracking and software to better render where you’re looking inside a virtual scene, creating the illusion that you’re always looking at a high-resolution display.

Looking through the small high-resolution window was a relief

Selectively rendering for where a person is looking in VR isn’t a completely new idea. But Varjo’s take is much more specific. And it will be asking a lot of the limited amount of tech that can fit inside a corded headset, even if Konttori says aiming the product at the highest end of the current VR market allows his team to use high-quality components.

Konttori says Varjo has a working prototype of the final headset, but he didn’t bring it to the US as he met with press outlets ahead of the company coming out of stealth mode. Instead, Varjo offered a demo that bridged the gap: the company retrofitted the current consumer version of the Oculus with two full-HD Sony microdisplays (one for each eye).

The result of this combination was that the center of my field of view in the headset (maybe about 15 percent of the screen real estate) was a rectangular window with crystal clarity, while the rest of what I saw in the periphery was the typical fuzzy “screen door” view of VR.

Above, a camera snapshot of the high-resolution display. Below, the same virtual scene as seen through a typical modern VR display. Photo: Varjo

The most striking thing about the demo was how much detail is lost in the translation to the fuzzy modern VR headsets. Konttori ran me through a few different setups that illustrated this. The first was a virtual room with furniture, the second a VR desktop with floating windows, and the third was the cockpit and main cabin of a computer-generated private jet — all scenes that could be impressive demonstrations if it was your first time using VR. But these are rather dull if you’ve spent more than a few minutes with an Oculus or HTC Vive.

Looking at them through that window in the center gave each of these scenes new life. Textures that were obscured by the Oculus’ dual 1080 x 1200 displays could now be seen in more lifelike detail. I could read individual filenames in the folders on the virtual desktop. The cockpit of the plane was especially striking. Looking at it through the Oculus displays surrounding Varjo’s tech, I couldn’t understand any of the labels on the many knobs and switches at my virtual fingertips. Looking “through” those microdisplays, though, I was able to read all of them.

Even though this window of ultra clarity was small, it felt like a massive relief. I was able to resolve detail I thought I’d otherwise have to wait years to see in VR, and it didn’t strain my eyes as much, either.

There were shortcomings, like the extra cabling, and an obvious boundary separating the microdisplay and the Oculus’ screens. The different screens also had competing frame rates, which created jitter at the seams where they met. Konttori says this won’t be a problem in the final version of the headset since the company will have full control over the display and the software that powers it. He also says that they’ll be able to more seamlessly blur the edges of where you’re focusing, again mimicking how human vision works.

The team plans to release an early version of the headset compatible with Steam VR to industry partners for free later this year. Then, in 2018, the company is planning a full consumer launch, where the headset will cost somewhere in the thousands of dollars. Konttori and his team are betting that professionals who are already using or thinking about VR — whether they’re architects, designers, or people who create VR experiences — will care enough about extremely high-resolution experiences that the price tag won’t scare them away.

Free preview headsets will be released to industry partners this year ahead of a 2018 launch

The team wants the Varjo headset to handle AR at human eye resolution, too. But they don’t plan to build a see-through heads-up display like HoloLens or Google Glass. Rather, they want to use cameras on the face of the Varjo headset to re-create the outside world on the display. That’s a challenge in its own right, especially because of the limitations of mobile cameras. Konttori showed me a video of an early version of this tech working, but I wasn’t able to demo it.

Output: Finnish company Varjo — a stealth start-up created by former managers at Microsoft and Nokia — has unveiled its forthcoming 20/20 virtual reality (VR) headset, which it claims presents images to the viewer at 70 times the resolution of current models. Varjo mimics human vision by only using the highest density rendering where the eye is directly looking, and using lower density rendering at the periphery of the visual field. The company plans to bring the VR headset to consumer markets in 2018 at a cost in excess of $1,000 per unit.


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MIT trials system of autonomous drive-and-fly drones
 Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are aiming to develop robots that can both maneuver around on land and take to the skies. In a new paper, the team presented a system of eight quadcopter drones that can fly and drive through a city-like setting with parking spots, no-fly zones, and landing pads.

The problem is that robots that are good at one mode of transportation are usually bad at another. Airborne drones are fast and agile, but generally have too limited of a battery life to travel for long distances. Ground vehicles, on the other hand, are more energy efficient, but slower and less mobile.

Being able to both walk and take flight is typical in nature — many birds, insects, and other animals can do both. If we could program robots with similar versatility, it would open up many possibilities: Imagine machines that could fly into construction areas or disaster zones that aren’t near roads and then squeeze through tight spaces on the ground to transport objects or rescue people.

“The ability to both fly and drive is useful in environments with a lot of barriers, since you can fly over ground obstacles and drive under overhead obstacles,” says PhD student Brandon Araki, lead author on the paper. “Normal drones can't maneuver on the ground at all. A drone with wheels is much more mobile while having only a slight reduction in flying time.”

Araki and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus developed the system, along with MIT undergraduate students John Strang, Sarah Pohorecky, and Celine Qiu, and Tobias Naegeli of ETH Zurich’s Advanced Interactive Technologies Lab. The team presented their system at IEEE’s International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Singapore earlier this month.

How it works

The project builds on Araki’s previous work developing a “flying monkey” robot that crawls, grasps, and flies. While the monkey robot could hop over obstacles and crawl about, there was still no way for it to travel autonomously.

To address this, the team developed various “path-planning” algorithms aimed at ensuring that the drones don’t collide. To make them capable of driving, the team put two small motors with wheels on the bottom of each drone. In simulations, the robots could fly for 90 meters or drive for 252 meters, before their batteries ran out.

Adding the driving component to the drone slightly reduced its battery life, meaning that the maximum distance it could fly decreased 14 percent to about 300 feet. But since driving is still much more efficient than flying, the gain in efficiency from driving more than offsets the relatively small loss in efficiency in flying due to the extra weight.

“This work provides an algorithmic solution for large-scale, mixed-mode transportation and shows its applicability to real-world problems,” says Jingjin Yu, a computer science professor at Rutgers University who was not involved in the research.

The team also tested the system using everyday materials such as pieces of fabric for roads and cardboard boxes for buildings. They tested eight robots navigating from a starting point to an ending point on a collision-free path, and all were successful.

Rus says that systems like theirs suggest that another approach to creating safe and effective flying cars is not to simply “put wings on cars,” but to build on years of research in adding driving capabilities to drones.

“As we begin to develop planning and control algorithms for flying cars, we are encouraged by the possibility of creating robots with these capabilities at small scale,” Rus says. “While there are obviously still big challenges to scaling up to vehicles that could actually transport humans, we are inspired by the potential of a future in which flying cars could offer us fast, traffic-free transportation.”

Output: Researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are developing a system of eight quadcopter drones that can both fly and drive autonomously. In tests, the robots successfully navigated a predetermined path along the ground and through the air without collision. The robots' algorithm for mixed-mode, large-scale transport shows it can be applied to real-world challenges, said Jingjin Yu, a computer science professor at Rutgers University, on seeing the research.


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Dentsu Aegis make leadership changes in digital overhaul strategy
 Dentsu Aegis Network has augmented its top leadership team with the appointment of Nick Brien as chief executive officer of DAN Americas and the promotion of Nigel Morris to the newly created position of chief strategy and innovation officer.

The appointments are designed to further Dentsu Aegis’ ambitions of transforming itself into a 100% digital economy business by 2020 by drawing on the best available talent from the advertising and digital marketing sectors.

Brien boasts 30 years of high-level experience within the industry, most recently as global CEO of iCrossing and president of Hearst Magazines but also as CEO of McCann Worldgroup. He commented: “It is a real honour to be taking the Americas CEO role, leading 13,000 people in 45 agency brands across 19 countries. I see great opportunity to build on the strengths of the Dentsu Aegis Americas team to innovate the way brands are built across the region.

“The future of Dentsu Aegis’ business is founded on the new marketing world where marketing is planned around people, and not just product. Bolstered by strategic acquisitions, including Merkle, and in the context of a transforming digital economy, Dentsu Aegis is at the forefront of this shift in our industry to people-based marketing. I’m excited to lead the Americas to achieve this ambitious agenda where sophisticated data analytics and real-time insight, enable us to imagine the best creative, experiences, engagement and addressability to deliver the best results for our clients.“

Morris meanwhile will be tasked with delivering innovative and strategic practices having previously served as CEO EMEA. He said: “The pace of change and transformation required, has become central to the role of marketing in our clients’ business models and growth strategies. There is a need for a new level of expertise from Agency groups, taking a consultative approach to drive new streams of revenue and value to our clients’ businesses and brands. This new role will enable us to work even closer with clients in the transition to a demand-led digital economy.”

Both appointees will take a seat on the Dentsu Aegis executive committee, reporting directly to CEO Jerry Buhlmann.

Dentsu Aegis US chief Rob Horler departed a fortnight ago after 17 years in charge of the group.

Output: Dentsu Aegis Network has made top leadership changes as part of its digital overhaul strategy. Nick Brien, global CEO of iCrossing and president of Hearst Magazines, has been appointed CEO of DAN Americas. Meanwhile, Nigel Morris has been promoted from the position of CEO EMEA to the newly-created role of chief strategy and innovation officer. Both will sit on Dentsu Aegis's executive committee and report directly to CEO Jerry Buhlmann. The changes come as part of Dentsu Aegis' plan to transform into a fully digital economy business by 2020.


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US steakhouses hit by skyrocketing prime beef prices
 These are lean times for America’s steakhouses.

Prime cuts of beef have skyrocketed in price since May, with some meat sellers blaming a new trade deal with China — and that’s eating into the bottom line at high-dollar chophouses.

Steak mongers are seeing red over price hikes of as much as 30 percent during the past month alone from meat distributors. They’re already feeling more pressure to absorb the costs as the steak season enters its annual summer slowdown.

“We’re absorbing it right now,” said Bobby Van’s Steakhouse owner Rick Passarelli. “It’s hard to pass along.”

Bobby Van’s, which charges $59 for a bone-in rib eye at its Central Park South location, has lately been buying its steak for about $13.50 a pound — up from $10 at the beginning of the year, Passarelli said. His restaurants buy about 50,000 pounds of beef a month.

Accordingly, Passarelli lately has been encouraging waitstaff to push more pasta and chicken, which carry better margins despite the fact they’re lower-ticket dishes.

Some business owners blamed a trade deal with China that the Trump administration announced last month, which immediately opened up US beef, poultry and natural gas to China’s exploding middle class.

“China just agreed that the US will be allowed to sell beef, and other major products, into China once again,” Trump — who prefers his steak burned to a crisp and covered in ketchup — tweeted May 12.

Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue said the deal would bring “access to an enormous market.” But steak purveyors gripe that it has had the unintended effect of slamming meat lovers here in the US.

“American beef companies have been gearing up for this [trade deal with China] — they have been putting product aside and freezing it,” Pat LaFrieda Jr., owner of Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, told The Post. “There is much less available on the market.”

Still, US Department of Agriculture economist William Hahn believes it may be too early for the China deal to have directly affected beef prices. Restaurant owners may feel the pinch more because prices had decreased last year, he said.

LaFrieda, who says his restaurants are now paying about 20 percent more for beef, said he’s already seeing more demand for cheaper cuts, including hanger steaks, flat iron and chuck.

“If a skirt steak was $5 a pound a couple of months ago, my customers are paying about $6 a pound now,” he said, quoting wholesale rates. “You will see less rib eye, filet mignon and NY strip on restaurant menus.”

Nationally, the price of wholesale beef rose to $3.71 per pound for all types of beef in May — up more than 13 percent from $3.27 the month before, according to the most recent USDA figures.

One high-end San Francisco restaurateur confirmed that he hadn’t been hit with the same price increases because he used smaller purveyors that already charged a premium.

“The New York market gets hit the hardest,” Richard Femenella, chief financial officer of the Charlie Palmer Group, which operates 14 restaurants and bars in multiple states, told The Post.

Output: US steakhouses have been hit by a surge in the price of prime cuts of beef, with prices rising as much as 30% in the past month, according to The New York Post. Some businesses have placed blame on a recent trade deal with China, which has opened up the country's booming meat market to imports of US beef. In response, some restaurants and meat sellers have been putting cuts of beef aside in anticipation of a shortage. "There is much less [beef] available on the market," claimed Pat LaFrieda Jr of supplier Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors.


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Adtech market cannibalising itself due to lack of transparency
 by Todd Garland , Op-Ed Contributor, June 27, 2017

There’s a cautionary tale about how the most toxic worker is the one who deliberately makes a workflow overly complicated to make them “indispensable.” They force tasks to run through a black box that only they have visibility into, which doesn’t make them indispensable; it makes them a parasite who is only hindering the company. The only way to ensure long-term health is to get rid of them.

Creating this black box is the exact behavior that ad tech engaged in for years, and signs are pointing to the truth that both publishers and brands have finally had enough. Instead of trying to find a natural fit that made the flow between publishers and advertisers seamless, ad tech bloated the gaps between publishers and advertisers; the only party that truly benefitted was the ad tech vendor. It’s understandable that this system can’t continue. Publishers are losing readers and revenue because of poor user experience, and brands are seeing their ads placed in inappropriate or offensive places — such as videos promoting terrorism — due to their lack of visibility into automated exchanges. The solution is publishers taking full control of their revenue streams.

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For those wondering why publishers need greater control, look no further than the current state of the ad tech market. Companies like Rubicon Project and Rocket Fuel grew very quickly because of the promises they made to publishers and brands. These promises, however, did nothing more than keep both parties at a distance from each other so vendors could skim as much off of the deals as they could. Ad tech vendors were the workers trying to make themselves indispensable, and in doing so they became a liability. Now big ad tech companies are hemorrhaging staff, their revenues are tanking, and the only positive thing one can say about the ad tech market is that it will likely see a lot of consolidation in its near future.

These are the organizations publishers are supposed to trust with their revenue streams? Truth be told, they’re more concerned with their own these days (and you know what they say about putting your own oxygen mask on first).

Publishers are responding by taking the reins. Time Inc., for instance, acquired both Viant and Adelphic to bring its ad tech in-house, and the increased overall demand for sponsored content is turning some publishers into full-fledged content agencies. Programmatic direct is another major part of this progression because its purpose is to close the gap between publishers and brands. Traditional automated programmatic exchanges serve as middlemen between publishers and brands, going back and forth between the two and taking a cut from both parties. Programmatic direct, on the other hand, empowers sales teams with the ability to work more efficiently. It doesn’t take the entire process out of their hands while saying “trust us, we’ll do you right,” but instead improves the process by putting all of the tools in the hands of the publishers’ sales and ad ops teams.

Brands also benefit because working more closely with publishers provides them with greater visibility into where their ads are going. Fake news sites (the actual fake kind) thrived because, due to a lack transparency, many brands didn’t know where their ads were placed, and now a growing number of brands are demanding their ads be pulled off of those kinds of sites. With programmatic direct, brands know exactly what they’re getting into because they have much more visibility into where their ads are going to go.

Bringing publishers and brands closer together also results in the most immediately beneficial outcome: reducing the dreaded bloat that comes from too much ad tech. When ad tech vendors wedge themselves into publishers’ sites, it takes a toll on the user experience that ends up slowing download times, adding a lot of noticeable cookies to a user’s browser, and obstructing the content that customers go to a publisher’s site to see. This results in ad blockers and abandoned pages. Taking these bloated ad tech vendors out of the equation is like pouring Drain-O down a clogged sink; suddenly everything runs quick and smooth, which is beneficial to all parties. Customers get a great user experience, publishers get happy, loyal readers, and brands get more exposure.

The results are a leaner, more profitable relationship for everyone.

Output: The adtech market is cannibalising itself due to a lack of transparency. Adtech could have made the flow between publishers and advertisers seamless, but publishers are losing readers and revenue due to poor user experience, with ads placed in inappropriate places due to a lack of visibility into automated exchanges. To address the issue, it is suggested that publishers need to take greater control of their revenue streams, at the expense of adtech vendors.


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Publishers buying Facebook traffic to keep ad prices low
 Buying traffic is one of those things that many publishers do but few admit publicly.

To bring clarity to this phenomenon, Digiday spoke to six publisher sources who said they buy traffic on Facebook. They do this, they say, to fill insertion orders they failed to reach on their own, promote new products and to make money through the murky world of arbitrage.

The rates that publishers pay to acquire traffic from Facebook widely vary. A news publisher said it usually paid under 1 cent per click. Another publisher said it pays between 2 cents and 5 cents per click, which means that its CPMs must be at least $20 to make its money back. Yet other publishers that pay for traffic on Facebook solely for the purpose of filling oversold inventory said they usually pay more than 5 cents per click.

“You need to be really good with your ad tech and attribution to be able to understand hour by hour how you’re getting charged; otherwise, you will lose a ton of money,” said an exec from a lifestyle publisher.

Rates vary so much because many variables determine what Facebook will charge publishers for paid traffic, and Facebook adjusts its rates in real time with its own formula. Facebook penalizes content that isn’t engaging by charging the publisher of that content more for its ads. To bring the costs down, publishers have to master targeting so they’re going after the audience that is most likely to engage with the ads. Facebook declined to comment for this story.

If the publisher’s website loads slowly, is full of ads or keeps users on-page for very little time, the ad rates will increase, said an exec from an entertainment publisher. If the publisher’s ad on Facebook prompts few shares, likes and comments, or has a low click-through rate, that also causes the CPC to rise. Ad rates are also cheaper if the landing page is for a Facebook Instant Article rather than an article on the publisher’s own website.

“But Instant Articles earn less, so it negates any wins on the cost,” the exec said.

Clark Benson, CEO of Ranker, said one way Ranker uses paid traffic is to boost its posts that are already performing well organically. He added that it’s possible to make money on paid Facebook traffic through arbitrage since publishers can A/B test their ad units until their landing pages bring them more revenue than what they paid Facebook for the ads.

However, Facebook can change its algorithms and formulas whenever it wants, so publishers that rely on arbitrage place themselves at the whim of the platform. Publishers that bought traffic for more than 5 cents per click viewed it as a loss leader that is necessary for them to fulfill big campaigns so that they don’t lose future business with the advertiser.

“The salesperson who has sold a big campaign realizes that they don’t have enough inventory to complete a campaign,” said an exec from a fashion publisher. “The editor gets a call and does what they can in terms of sending out a news email, writing a couple of extra stories, posting something to Facebook. And then the digital marketing person steps in and buys traffic.”

Four of the six publishers that spoke to Digiday for this story declined to share how much of their traffic they buy. A news publisher said it buys about 10 percent of its traffic. Benson said that over the past three months, Ranker got 23 percent of its monthly visitors from paid social, with almost all of it coming from Facebook.

Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar, which helps publishers scale native ads, estimated at least 90 percent of publishers use paid promotion for their editorial content. Although it’s common for pubs to buy audience, publisher sources were hesitant to discuss the topic because they were afraid it would associate their brands with the shady traffic buyers who try to trip verification filters.

“This is the steroid people use to hit their traffic numbers,” said Todd Sawicki, CEO of native ad platform Zemanta. “No one wants to admit they aren’t as big and strong as they otherwise might look. But there is nothing wrong with it if they are buying engaged human traffic. If you do it the right way, there’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

Max Willens contributed reporting

Output: Publishers are buying Facebook traffic in a bid to keep ad prices low. Six publisher sources said they buy traffic to fill insertion orders they fail to hit on their own, make money through arbitrage, and promote new products. The rates they pay vary greatly, with one news publisher saying it typically paid less than $0.01, while another publisher said it paid between $0.02 and $0.05 per click. Rates vary because a range of variables determine what Facebook charges publishers, and it adjusts fees in real time with its own formula.


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Tencent marks nearly $300m for original video content for streaming

Chinese holding firm Tencent is investing ¥2bn (£230m) to support the creation of original content that will be streamed over its Now Live platform. According to iResearch, the Chinese live-streaming market grew by 180 per cent year-on-year in 2016, and the firm is eager to take advantage of this.

The plan will see the internet giant invest both cash and resources to encourage the production of more original content by companies and individuals for its live-streaming service. While the firm is looking to generate a diverse range of quality talent, there will be a focus on content popular with young consumers, in particular entertainment, talent shows and tourism.

There are estimated to be around 325m live-streaming apps in use in China, although government authorities recently cracked down on three major web portals, including popular social media service Sina Weibo, due to violations of state rules governing streaming audio and video.

Despite this, Tencent will reportedly offer resources including WeChat and QQ to help broadcasters promote and distribute original content, as a way of encouraging more consumers to come aboard its various services.

Tencent boasts a diverse range of investments in a variety of tech areas, including eCommerce, AI, automotive manufacturing and digital marketing. It recently acquired Supercell, the firm behind best-selling mobile game Clash of Clans, from Japanese firm SoftBank.

Don’t forget to enter the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards. The Early Bird deadline for submissions is 22 July. More details here.

Output: Chinese internet giant Tencent is to invest CNY2bn ($294m) in original video content for its Now Live platform. Tencent is keen to take advantage of last year's 180% year-on-year growth in the domestic live-streaming market. It will invest both money and resources to encourage production, with a particular focus on content popular with young consumers.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Redrow EU workers must have 'transition period' post Brexit: Tutte
 A host of UK business leaders on Tuesday claimed that the Government’s new proposals on EU citizens’ rights after Brexit do not go far enough to ensure Britain will get the workers it needs to ensure growth.

Chief executives spoke out after Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled plans whereby all EU nationals who have been lawfully resident in the UK for at least five years from a date yet to be decided, will be able to apply for “settled status”. However, those who come after the date will have two years to “regularise their status” but with no guarantees.

John Tutte, the boss of FTSE 250 builder Redrow, welcomed the certainty for settled workers.

However, he said that UK construction “relies heavily upon a transient EU workforce”. “As a minimum, there should be a period — lasting for a number of years — where transitional EU workers can secure temporary visas,” he said.

“This will allow the UK’s construction industry more time to develop the skilled labour required to meet this country’s housing shortage.”

David Montague, chief executive of housing association L&Q, said: “If we want to build more homes we must welcome skilled construction workers wherever they come from.”

Luxury goods association Walpole — which counts Burberry and Jimmy Choo as members — said that a third of the British luxury workforce are EU nationals.

Chief executive Helen Brocklebank warned: “Walpole feels the current offer doesn’t go nearly far enough to help attract and retain the wide range of skills and talents the sector needs in the future.”

According to a report from Deloitte, a third of non-British workers are considering leaving the UK, with highly skilled EU workers most likely to leave.

Output: Redrow CEO John Tutte has called for a post-Brexit transition period for construction workers. Under current proposals, EU citizens lawfully resident in the UK for at least five years from a date yet to be decided will be able to apply for "settled status". Those who come after the date will have two years to "regularise their status", but with no guarantees. Tutte welcomed plans, but added the British construction industry relied heavily upon a "transient EU workforce". To address this, he called for a period of a number of years during which transitional workers can secure temporary visas.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Experts claim world has three years to avoid climate disaster
 Decarbonizing the world economy will require renewable energy generation from vast solar farms, such as this one in Nevada. Credit: Reuben Wu

In the past three years, global emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have levelled after rising for decades. This is a sign that policies and investments in climate mitigation are starting to pay off. The United States, China and other nations are replacing coal with natural gas and boosting renewable energy sources. There is almost unanimous international agreement that the risks of abandoning the planet to climate change are too great to ignore.

The technology-driven transition to low-carbon energy is well under way, a trend that made the 2015 Paris climate agreement possible. But there is still a long way to go to decarbonize the world economy. The political winds are blustery. President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris agreement when it is legally able to do so, in November 2020.

The year 2020 is crucially important for another reason, one that has more to do with physics than politics. When it comes to climate, timing is everything. According to an April report1 (prepared by Carbon Tracker in London, the Climate Action Tracker consortium, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut), should emissions continue to rise beyond 2020, or even remain level, the temperature goals set in Paris become almost unattainable. The UN Sustainable Development Goals that were agreed in 2015 would also be at grave risk.

That’s why we launched Mission 2020 — a collaborative campaign to raise ambition and action across key sectors to bend the greenhouse-gas emissions curve downwards by 2020 (www.mission2020.global).

As 20 leaders of the world’s largest economies gather on 7–8 July at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, we call on them to highlight the importance of the 2020 climate turning point for greenhouse-gas emissions, and to demonstrate what they and others are doing to meet this challenge. Lowering emissions globally is a monumental task, but research tells us that it is necessary, desirable and achievable.

After roughly 1°C of global warming driven by human activity, ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are already losing mass at an increasing rate. Summer sea ice is disappearing in the Arctic and coral reefs are dying from heat stress — entire ecosystems are starting to collapse. The social impacts of climate change from intensified heatwaves, droughts and sea-level rise are inexorable and affect the poorest and weakest first.

The magnitude of the challenge can be grasped by computing a budget for CO 2 emissions — the maximum amount of the gas that can be released before the temperature limit is breached. After subtracting past emissions, humanity is left with a ‘carbon credit’ of between 150 and 1,050 gigatonnes (Gt; one Gt is 1 × 109 tonnes) of CO 2 to meet the Paris target of 1.5 °C or well below 2 °C (see go.nature.com/2rytztf). The wide range reflects different ways of calculating the budgets using the most recent figures.

At the current emission rate of 41 Gt of CO 2 per year, the lower limit of this range would be crossed in 4 years, and the midpoint of 600 Gt of CO 2 would be passed in 15 years. If the current rate of annual emissions stays at this level, we would have to drop them almost immediately to zero once we exhaust the budget. Such a ‘jump to distress’ is in no one’s interest. A more gradual descent would allow the global economy time to adapt smoothly.

Harness momentum

The good news is that it is still possible to meet the Paris temperature goals if emissions begin to fall by 2020 (see ‘Carbon crunch’).

Credit: Sources: Stefan Rahmstorf/Global Carbon Project; <a href="http://go.nature.com/2RCPCRU">http://go.nature.com/2RCPCRU </a>

Greenhouse-gas emissions are already decoupling from production and consumption. For the past three years, worldwide CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels have stayed flat, while the global economy and the gross domestic product (GDP) of major developed and developing nations have grown by at least 3.1% per year (see go.nature.com/2rthjje). This is only the fourth occasion in the past 40 years on which emission levels have stagnated or fallen. The previous three instances — in the early 1980s, 1992 and 2009 — were associated with global economic predicaments, but the current one is not2.

Emissions from the United States fell the most: by 3% last year, while its GDP grew by 1.6%. In China, CO 2 emissions fell by 1% in 2016, and its economy expanded by 6.7% (ref. 2). Although it is too early to tell whether this plateau will presage a fall, the signs are encouraging.

In 2016, two-thirds of China’s 5.4% extra demand for electricity was supplied by carbon-free energy resources, mostly hydropower and wind2. In the European Union, wind and solar made up more than three-quarters of new energy capacity installed; coal demand was reduced by 10% (ref. 3). In the United States, almost two-thirds of the electricity-generating capacity installed by utility companies was based on renewables (see go.nature.com/2skv20g).

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that, by 2020, renewable sources could deliver 26–27% of the world’s electricity needs, compared with 23.7% of electric power at the end of 2015. But that underestimates the pace of change in energy systems.

Growth in electric vehicles alone could displace 2 million barrels of oil per day by 2025, according to a February report4. It suggests that, by 2050, this could reach 25 million barrels of oil per day — a stark contrast to expectations from the fossil-fuel industry that demand for oil will rise. And solar power alone could supply 29% of global electricity generation by 2050. This would remove the need for coal and leave natural gas with only a 1% market share. However, the oil firm ExxonMobil predicts that all renewables will supply just 11% of global power generation by 2040 (ref. 4).

Investors, meanwhile, are growing wary of carbon risks. BlackRock and Vanguard, the two largest fund managers, voted — along with many others — against ExxonMobil management at its annual general meeting on 31 May and instructed the company to report on the profit impact of global measures to keep climate change below 2 °C. Earlier this month, Norway’s US$960-billion sovereign-wealth fund declared that it will ask the banks in which it has invested to disclose how their lending contributes to global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Last year, the installed capacity of renewable energy set a new record of 161 gigawatts; in 2015, investment levels reached $286 billion worldwide, more than 6 times that in 2004. Over half of that investment, $156 billion, was for projects in developing and emerging economies5.

There is a strong headwind against the low-carbon transition in some places, which may impede progress. For example, the Financial CHOICE Act — a bill passed by the US House of Representatives on 8 June — would make it nearly impossible for investors to challenge companies on climate-risk disclosure through shareholder proposal processes, as at ExxonMobil. However, as the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, said in New York last month: “The sustainability train has left the station.” The fossil-free economy is already profitable6 and creating jobs (www.clean200.org). A report this year by the International Renewable Energy Agency and the IEA shows that efforts to stop climate change could boost the global economy by $19 trillion7. The IEA has also said that implementing the Paris agreement will unlock $13.5 trillion or more before 2050.

Recent geopolitical events, too, have galvanized activity in support of the Paris agreement. For example, the #WeAreStillIn campaign — involving more than 1,000 governors, mayors, businesses, investors and universities from across the United States — has declared that it will ensure the nation remains a leader in reducing carbon emissions.

Six milestones

To prioritize actions, we’ve identified milestones in six sectors. Developed with knowledge leaders, these were reviewed and refined in collaboration with analysts at Yale University, the Climate Action Tracker consortium, Carbon Tracker, the low-carbon coalition We Mean Business, the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), advisory firm SYSTEMIQ, the New Climate Economy project and Conservation International.

These goals may be idealistic at best, unrealistic at worst. However, we are in the age of exponential transformation and think that such a focus will unleash ingenuity. By 2020, here’s where the world needs to be:

Energy. Renewables make up at least 30% of the world’s electricity supply — up from 23.7% in 2015 (ref. 8). No coal-fired power plants are approved beyond 2020, and all existing ones are being retired.

Infrastructure. Cities and states have initiated action plans to fully decarbonize buildings and infrastructures by 2050, with funding of $300 billion annually. Cities are upgrading at least 3% of their building stock to zero- or near-zero emissions structures each year9.

Transport. Electric vehicles make up at least 15% of new car sales globally, a major increase from the almost 1% market share that battery-powered and plug-in hybrid vehicles now claim. Also required are commitments for a doubling of mass-transit utilization in cities, a 20% increase in fuel efficiencies for heavy-duty vehicles and a 20% decrease in greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation per kilometre travelled.

Land. Land-use policies are enacted that reduce forest destruction and shift to reforestation and afforestation efforts. Current net emissions from deforestation and land-use changes form about 12% of the global total. If these can be cut to zero next decade, and afforestation and reforestation can instead be used to create a carbon sink by 2030, it will help to push total net global emissions to zero, while supporting water supplies and other benefits. Sustainable agricultural practices can reduce emissions and increase CO 2 sequestration in healthy, well-managed soils.

Industry. Heavy industry is developing and publishing plans for increasing efficiencies and cutting emissions, with a goal of halving emissions well before 2050. Carbon-intensive industries — such as iron and steel, cement, chemicals, and oil and gas — currently emit more than one-fifth of the world’s CO 2 , excluding their electricity and heat demands.

Finance. The financial sector has rethought how it deploys capital and is mobilizing at least $1 trillion a year for climate action. Most will come from the private sector. Governments, private banks and lenders such as the World Bank need to issue many more ‘green bonds’ to finance climate-mitigation efforts. This would create an annual market that, by 2020, processes more than 10 times the $81 billion of bonds issued in 2016.

Further, faster, together

If we delay, the conditions for human prosperity will be severely curtailed. There are three pressing and practical steps to avoid this.

First, use science to guide decisions and set targets. Policies and actions must be based on robust evidence. Uncensored and transparent communication of peer-reviewed science to global decision-makers is crucial. Academic journal articles are not easily read or digested by non-experts, so we need a new kind of communication in which Nature meets Harvard Business Review. Science associations should provide more media training to young scientists and hold communication boot camps on how to make climate science relevant to corporate boards and investors.

Those in power must also stand up for science. French President Emmanuel Macron’s Make Our Planet Great Again campaign is a compelling example. He has spoken out to a global audience in support of climate scientists, and invited researchers to move to France to help accelerate action and deliver on the Paris agreement. To encourage others to speak, scientists should forge connections with leaders from policy, business and civil society. The Arctic Basecamp at Davos in January, for instance, brought scientists into high-level discussions on global risk at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland.

The fossil-free economy is already profitable.

Second, existing solutions must be scaled up rapidly. With no time to wait, all countries should adopt plans for achieving 100% renewable electricity production, while ensuring that markets can be designed to enable renewable-energy expansion.

Third, encourage optimism. Recent political events have thrown the future of our world into sharp focus. But as before Paris, we must remember that impossible is not a fact, it’s an attitude. It is crucial that success stories are shared. Demonstrating where countries and businesses have over-achieved on their targets will raise the bar for others. More-ambitious targets become easier to set.

The upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg is the perfect moment for heads of state to integrate the six milestones into their discussions on how to ensure a resilient, prosperous, inclusive and interconnected global economy. This would pave the way for a year of raised ambition in 2018, when nations take stock of progress and revise national commitments under the Paris agreement.

The G20 is due to adopt the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, on how the global finance system will manage the risk of climate change. It requires financial institutions to design, disclose and implement a transition strategy with a view to full decarbonization of operations, value chains and portfolios by 2050. National governments and financial regulators must enact these recommendations swiftly.

Cities and provincial governments must help to drive the ambition of national governments on climate change, particularly through smart infrastructure and transport policy. C40 Cities, a network of megacities committed to addressing climate change, has adopted a strategy called Deadline 2020 that aligns its emissions-reductions plans with the Paris agreement. Other cities now have an opportunity to follow suit, for example through the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.

Our co-signatory list, which includes eminent scientists, business leaders, economists, analysts, influencers and representatives of non-governmental organizations, is an example of the strength of radical collaboration across unusual partners, who all share a mission to seize this opportunity to improve people’s lives, the planet and the global economy.

Output: Dangerous climate change can still be avoided if unprecedented action on carbon emissions is taken in the next three years, according to a letter from experts including former UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in the journal Nature. The authors argue that the fact that emissions have remained stable over the past three years, despite a rise in global temperatures, means that some of the most devastating effects of climate change can still be averted. The letter outlines six goals designed to permanently reduce emissions by 2020.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Experts claim world has three years to avoid climate disaster
 Avoiding dangerous levels of climate change is still just about possible, but will require unprecedented effort and coordination from governments, businesses, citizens and scientists in the next three years, a group of prominent experts has warned.

Warnings over global warming have picked up pace in recent months, even as the political environment has grown chilly with Donald Trump’s formal announcement of the US’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement. This year’s weather has beaten high temperature records in some regions, and 2014, 2015 and 2016 were the hottest years on record.

But while temperatures have risen, global carbon dioxide emissions have stayed broadly flat for the past three years. This gives hope that the worst effects of climate change – devastating droughts, floods, heatwaves and irreversible sea level rises – may be avoided, according to a letter published in the journal Nature this week.

The authors, including former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argue that the next three years will be crucial. They calculate that if emissions can be brought permanently lower by 2020 then the temperature thresholds leading to runaway irreversible climate change will not be breached.

Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, under whom the Paris agreement was signed, said: “We stand at the doorway of being able to bend the emissions curve downwards by 2020, as science demands, in protection of the UN sustainable development goals, and in particular the eradication of extreme poverty. This monumental challenge coincides with an unprecedented openness to self-challenge on the part of sub-national governments inside the US, governments at all levels outside the US, and of the private sector in general. The opportunity given to us over the next three years is unique in history.”

Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, added: “The maths is brutally clear: while the world can’t be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence [before] 2020.”

Scientists have been warning that time is fast running out to stave off the worst effects of warming, and some milestones may have slipped out of reach. In the Paris agreement, governments pledged an “aspirational” goal of holding warming to no more than 1.5C, a level which it is hoped will spare most of the world’s lowest-lying islands from inundation. But a growing body of research has suggested this is fast becoming impossible.

Paris’s less stringent, but firmer, goal of preventing warming from exceeding 2C above pre-industrial levels is also in doubt.

The authors point to signs that the trend of upward emissions is being reversed, and to technological progress that promises lower emissions for the future. Renewable energy use has soared, creating a foundation for permanently lowering emissions. Coal use is showing clear signs of decline in key regions, including China and India. Governments, despite Trump’s pronouncements, are forging ahead with plans to reduce greenhouse gases.

The authors called for political and business leaders to continue tackling emissions and meeting the Paris goals without the US. “As before Paris, we must remember that impossible is not a fact, it’s an attitude,” they wrote.

They set out six goals for 2020 which they said could be adopted at the G20 meeting in Hamburg on 7-8 July. These include increasing renewable energy to 30% of electricity use; plans from leading cities and states to decarbonise by 2050; 15% of new vehicles sold to be electric; and reforms to land use, agriculture, heavy industry and the finance sector, to encourage green growth.

Prof Gail Whiteman said the signs from technical innovation and economics were encouraging: “Climate science underlines the unavoidable urgency of our challenge, but equally important is the fact that the economic, technical and social analyses show that we can resoundingly rise to the challenge through collective action.”

While the greenhouse gases poured into the atmosphere over the last two centuries have only gradually taken effect, future changes are likely to be faster, scientists fear. Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre said: “We have been blessed by a remarkably resilient planet over the past 100 years, able to absorb most of our climate abuse. Now we have reached the end of this era, and need to bend the global curve of emissions immediately, to avoid unmanageable outcomes for our modern world.”

Output: Dangerous climate change can still be avoided if unprecedented action on carbon emissions is taken in the next three years, according to a letter from experts including former UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in the journal Nature. The authors argue that the fact that emissions have remained stable over the past three years, despite a rise in global temperatures, means that some of the most devastating effects of climate change can still be averted. The letter outlines six goals designed to permanently reduce emissions by 2020.