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Insurtech Insurdata raises $1m in funding round
 Insurdata, an insurtech firm that provides re/insurance underwriters with property-specific data to support their pricing, underwriting and portfolio management decisions, announced it has raised over $1 million in seed financing from investors including Menlo Ventures, Anthemis Group, and Plug and Play.

London-based Insurdata said it specializes in high-resolution, peril-specific exposures and building-level risk data, using technology that includes mobile augmented reality and 3-D model creation, providing both desktop and mobile solutions.

A range of property-specific data is developed at point of underwriting, including peril-relevant attributes, dimension and elevation measurements, and is made immediately available throughout the risk transfer process, Insurdata explained.

“The quality of exposure data available to the insurance industry for underwriting purposes as well as overall portfolio management is simply not accurate enough,” said Jason Futers, CEO of Insurdata. “At Insurdata, we want to bring greater clarity to the underwriting process through providing the industry at large with access to much more granular and peril-specific data, and ensuring exposure data is always relevant and up-to-date.”

“We are at an early stage, but we’re moving rapidly, and the market reaction has been phenomenal. We already have re/insurers piloting our solutions and benchmarking their data resolution against that provided via our technology,” he added.

“Insurdata is one of our first investments in the insurtech space,” said Venky Ganesan, partner at Menlo Ventures. “It is clear that what the firm offers to the insurance industry through providing data at a level of resolution multiple times higher than currently available will be a game changer for both insurers and reinsurers.”

Ruth Foxe Blader, director at Anthemis, said: “The lack of high resolution data on individual exposures has long been a major stumbling block for the insurance industry in terms of its ability to price risk accurately. What Insurdata provides is the data depth to support a much more refined and precise pricing approach.”

“What is truly ground-breaking about the Insurdata approach is that it offers insurance underwriters the ability to carry out a virtual walk-through of their property portfolios,” said Saeed Amidi, founder and CEO of Plug and Play. “No other insurance technology allows insurers to get this close to the risks they cover.”

Source: Insurdata

Topics InsurTech Tech Underwriting Market Funding

Output: London-based insurtech Insuredata, which provides property data to reinsurers, has raised $1m in a recent funding round. The likes of Menlo Ventures, Anthemis Group, and Plug and Play participated in the round. The firm aims to aid insurers in their underwriting and portfolio management activities through providing data. Insuredata also provides 3D-imaging and augmented reality services to clients.


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Premia Partners introduces China A shares ETFs
 About US$17 billion to US$18 billion of inflows from asset managers, pension funds and insurers into the mainland equity markets are expected this year as a result of changes in the Emerging Markets Index put out by the MSCI. Photo: AP

Output: Hong Kong-based Premia Partners is taking on the likes of BlackRock by launching Hong Kong-listed exchange-traded funds investing in mainland Chinese companies. The funds are being billed as the first Hong Kong-listed smart-beta products focusing on Chinese equities, as well as being the first Hong Kong products to gain exposure to stocks via the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Connects. The launch comes as index provider MSCI prepares to include Chinese equities in its indices next year. That move is predicted to drive between $17bn and $18bn towards Chinese-listed stocks.


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Redrow Redrow opens doors to two further show homes at Amington site
 More to see at Amington Garden Village

As the first residents move in and work on a landmark garden village in Staffordshire progresses, Redrow is preparing to open the doors to two further show homes.

From November 10, buyers will be spoiled for choice at the Tamworth development. In addition to the four show homes at Amington Fairway, they will also be able to view professionally styled and fully furnished examples of the three-bedroom Sherbourne and four-bedroom Shrewsbury house types at nearby Amington Green.

The two phases form part of the wider Amington Garden Village, which will eventually see up to 1,100 new homes built across 60 hectares.

Pauline Turnbull, sales director for Redrow Homes (Midlands), said: “We only launched Amington Fairway in the summer but, because the homes look very traditional and are being built in a leafy location with lots of mature trees, it already has the appearance of a well-established neighbourhood. This, despite the fact that we’ve only just begun welcoming the first residents into their new homes.

“People love the show homes they’ve seen so far and with the help of interactive 3D technology we’ve been able to give them an insight into the scale of the wider development. We can’t wait to be able to give them a further taste of life at Amington Garden Village with the opening of two more show homes.

“We anticipate that downsizers, or rightsizers as we like to call them, will be drawn to the Sherbourne, while the Shrewsbury will appeal to families. But there’s no hard and fast rule – there’s a home for almost every buyer at Amington Garden Village.”

Between them, Amington Fairway and Amington Green offer a good choice of two, three, four and five-bedroom properties from Redrow’s Arts & Crafts inspired Heritage Collection with current prices from £249,995.

The Sherbourne is surprisingly spacious for a three-bedroom home and perfect for those who want plenty of living space, but fewer bedrooms.

At its hearts is an inviting and sociable open plan kitchen and dining room, with adjoining utility. A relaxing lounge, with feature bay window, is at the front of the property; while a convenient cloakroom completes the ground floor.

Upstairs, all three bedrooms have an en-suite, with the master also enjoying the glamour of a dressing room.

The ground floor of the Shrewsbury is similar in that there’s a combined kitchen and dining room, with handy utility and cloakroom to the rear of the property, and lounge at the front. Journey upstairs and there are four bedrooms, including master with en-suite, plus the family bathroom.

Along with new homes, plans for the wider Amington Garden Village include a retail and commercial area, school and community woodland, all in the green surroundings of a former golf course.

Redrow has committed to invest £14 million in the local area for the benefit of existing and new residents.

For more information about Amington Fairway see redrow.co.uk/amington.

To find out more about Amington Green see redrow.co.uk/amingtongreen.

Output: Housing developer Redrow is opening two more show homes at one of its developments in Staffordshire. The company has opened the properties at its Amington Green site near Tamworth and is using interactive 3D technology to help potential buyers visualise the completed development. The properties are being sold with prices from £249,995 and form part of the wider Amington Garden Village project, where 1,100 new homes will eventually be built on 60 hectares of land. The new show homes join four existing ones at the nearby Amington Fairway site.


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The Guardian talks with European publishers about ad fraud issues
 The Guardian is in talks with European media owners Axel Springer and Schibsted over how to throttle ad fraud and other opaque practices occurring in the programmatic advertising supply chain.

Speaking at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe in Berlin this week, Danny Spears, programmatic director at the Guardian, appealed to publishers to challenge the status quo in which buyers invest in high volumes of cheap inventory through secondary markets like ad exchanges. The “audience-buying narrative” results in advertisers and publishers becoming exposed to unknown tech fees and ad fraud.

Over the last six months, the Guardian has discussed with Axel Springer and Schibsted how to address these issues. Spears stressed that the aim is not to form any kind of official publisher consortium but to discuss together what meaningful action can be taken to ensure everyone in the digital ad supply ecosystem is accountable for the role they play.

“Our shared vision is to redefine digital advertising, to catalyze its evolution from a fractured, opaque and inefficient marketplace to a competitive ecosystem that delivers unparalleled value to advertisers and publishers alike,” Spears added.

The Guardian has staked out a vocal and assertive position on the side of premium publishers fighting back against what it sees as unfair treatment in programmatic. In 2016, the publisher ran an investigation on its own inventory and found it only received 30 pence for every pound an advertiser spent with it programmatically. Data merchants were siphoning off the rest. In March, that culminated in the Guardian suing former vendor partner Rubicon Project for allegedly not disclosing its fees — an ongoing lawsuit.

“Buying from a secondary market is high-risk and a Russian-roulette approach to media buying,” said Spears. In short, he said, programmatic advertising has spawned “the art of buying crap,” which has shown up in the array of brand misplacement disasters over the last year, including advertisers like BMW appearing on so-called hate-speech sites like Breitbart and others finding their ads next to extremist content on YouTube.

“Today, ad tech wants to control our ad stack, while competing for our customers’ ad spend,” he said. “In short, publishers are being eaten alive from the inside out. Our belief is media sales is our prerogative, and technology should be a mere enabler. Publishers need to restore control of their supply chain and ensure sovereignty over their revenue decisioning.”

The Guardian has been working with its customers to pull its transaction data and map its shared supply chain. That’s helped it overcome some of the market opacity, identify unnecessary costs and friction in the supply chain and allowed it to introduce more pricing rules to create tax-efficient routes for buyers. This has increased its customers’ working media by 30 percent, according to Spears.

The Guardian has also developed a standardized approach to its ad tech contracts that lays out all its terms of engagement for vendors, leading to increased transparency and stronger partnerships. That in turn has converted directly to higher yields and media revenue, unlocking 10 percent incremental net programmatic revenue over the past 10 months, Spears said.

“Despite fraud being derided, we’re yet to hear any real cries of zero tolerance from the middle of the market — I suspect because that will cost volume and margin. But we need to be clear with partners on zero tolerance to fraud. Publishers need change, and so do advertisers,” said Spears. “Publishers must collaborate to build a vision that we are proud to be a part of. That’s where programmatic can finally deliver on its promise.”

Output: UK newspaper The Guardian and European publishers Schibsted and Axel Springer have been discussing how to address issues of tech fraud and excessive fees in the programmatic ad industry, according to Danny Spears, programmatic director at The Guardian. Speaking at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe in Berlin, Spears said the three firms want to "redefine digital advertising", and that using secondary markets was a "Russian-roulette approach to media buying". The UK publisher has increased pricing rules and standardised tech contracts since the 2016 discovery that it received just 30p for every pound spent on programmatic advertising.


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Saudis plan $500bn green megacity where robots outnumber humans
 Robots may outnumber humans in a new pioneering city billed by Saudi Arabia as "a new blueprint for sustainable life", which would be entirely powered by renewable energy, and served by driverless vehicles and vertical farms.

The city called Neom is to span an area of 10,000 square miles, stretching across the borders of northwest Saudi Arabia into Jordan and Egypt. It is designed to operate as an independent economic trade zone with its own laws, and is to become the first private business zone to span three countries.

Saudi Arabia will pump $500 billion (£382 billion) from its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, into nine key investment sectors in the city: energy and water, mobility, biotech, food, technological and digital sciences, advanced manufacturing, media, and entertainment.

A website dedicated to the Neom concept states the fields will attract "high-caliber human resources" and that mundane or repetitive tasks will be carried out by robots.

"Repetitive and arduous tasks will be fully automated and handled by robots, which may exceed the population, likely making the Neom's GDP per capita the highest in the world," it reads. "All these elements will put Neom at the world's forefront in terms of efficiency, which will make it the best destination in the world to live in."

Plans for Neom were announced at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday. At the same conference, an intelligent humanoid robot called Sophia announced she had been granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia – the first time in history that an AI device has been awarded such status.

The city would be be solely powered by renewable energy harvested by the sun and wind via fields of solar panels and windmills, creating a pollution-free environment. The population would be fed from the produce of vertical farms and solar-powered greenhouses.

The development of new "disruptive" infrastructure would see citizens travelling in automated vehicles, having access to free internet and online education, and living in zero-carbon homes.

"The focus on these sectors will stimulate economic growth and diversification by nurturing international innovation and manufacturing, to drive local industry, job creation, and GDP growth in the kingdom," said His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, chair of the Public Investment Fund.

The news for the new sustainable city comes as details of the country's Zaha Hadid Architects-designed King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre in Riyadh are unveiled.

"Future technologies form the cornerstone for Neom's development," he added, "disruptive solutions for transportation from automated driving to passenger drones, new ways of growing and processing food, healthcare centered around the patient for their holistic well-being, wireless high-speed internet as a free good called 'digital air', free world-class continuous online education, full scale e-governance putting city services at your fingertips, building codes that make net-zero carbon houses the standard, a city layout that encourages walking and bicycling and all solely powered by renewable energy just to name a few."

"All services and processes in Neom will be 100 per fully automated, with the goal of becoming the most efficient destination in the world, and in turn be implemented on all activities such as legal, government, and investment procedures among others."

The plans are part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, which aims to see the country become an investment hub connecting Asia, Europe and Africa.

The positioning of the city across the borders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan will give it a 468-kilometre waterfront to the Red Sea to the south and west – a key trade route.

Plans to make use of the waterfront will include a marina surrounded by sports, performance and art venues, as well as shops and restaurants, and the creation of a waterpark with a wave machine for training the next generation of olympians.

An image of Singapore's Gardens by the Bay is included in a promotional video for the project, giving a suggestion of what Neom may look like.

The first phase of construction is expected to complete by 2025, but details of what that will entail have yet to be released. By 2030, the city is expected to have received $100 billion (£76 billion) in investment from the Public Investment Fund.

Output: Saudi Arabia has revealed ambitious plans to establish a $500bn city that will spread to Jordan and Egypt, measuring 26,500 sq km in total. Part of the Saudi Vision 2030 scheme, the NEOM development is designed to refocus the Saudi economy, and will be powered entirely by renewable energy. The Saudi Arabia Public Investment fund, which will provide the cash, has said that "all services and processes in NEOM will be 100% fully automated", with the aim of becoming the "most efficient" city in the world.


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Redrow New show homes open at Alconbury Weald in Cambridgeshire
 Three new show homes inspire Cambridgeshire buyers

Space craving Cambridgeshire buyers can enjoy a taste of life at Alconbury Weald where new Redrow show homes are now open.

Dozens of people attended the launch weekend and were treated to afternoon tea ‘on the house’ by the award-wining homebuilder.

Those who viewed the properties were particularly complimentary about the spaciousness of the designs.

Tonia Tyler, sales director for Redrow Homes (South Midlands), said: “There’s a real sense of curiosity amongst buyers who are keen to learn more about the homes we’re building at Alconbury Weald and the new community taking shape. Now that we have show homes open, visitors can really visualise what life here could be like.

“We’ve had lots of positive feedback from potential purchasers and one of the recurring themes is that people can’t believe just how spacious our homes are. The higher ceiling heights and well planned, family friendly layouts have really captured buyers’ attention.

“Many of those who’ve visited the show homes in the first few days have homes of their own to sell and we’re now working with them to explore how they could use our Mastermove service, or perhaps even part exchange, to become part of the new community.”

The show homes at Alconbury Weald are professionally styled and fully furnished examples of the four-bedroom detached Stratford, Cambridge and Balmoral designs, each with a different look, style and layout.

Redrow currently has three-bedroom properties available from £332,950 and four-bedroom homes from £345,950.

A Cambridge style property, similar to one of the show homes and priced at £402,950, will be ready to move into in December.

The Cambridge features a lounge to the front and an expansive kitchen, dining and family room overlooking the back garden through extra wide patio doors. There’s also an adjoining utility room.

A cloakroom to the ground floor and en-suite to master bedroom help minimise the morning rush for the family bathroom.

With Mastermove, Redrow handles the sale of the customer’s home for them, arranging valuations and appointing an estate agent to market the property at an agreed price so that they can then proceed with the purchase of a beautiful brand new home and become part of the new neighbourhood.

“One of the things that visitors tell us they love about Alconbury Weald is that the new community has so many facilities in place already,” Tonia added.

“It’s perfect for those with children as there’s a primary school and community park, with plans for secondary and special schools. Residents will be able to enjoy a spot of lunch in the café, pick up essentials in the community shop or workout in the gym. Plus, while there’s business space locally at the Enterprise Campus, it’s also a great base for commuters as Peterborough, Cambridge, Northampton and even London are all easily accessible and could be even more so when Alconbury Weald’s very own station opens. Cambridge, for example, is currently around 30 minutes away by car.”

The Redrow show homes at Alconbury Weald are now open daily from 10am to 5.30pm.

For more information see redrow.co.uk/alconbury.

Output: Developer Redrow has opened show homes at a new housing development in Cambridgeshire. The company marked the occasion with a launch weekend that included offering free afternoon tea to visitors who viewed the properties at Alconbury Weald. The development includes properties priced from £332,950 ($439,255), with one of the largest four-bedroom style being priced at £402,950.


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Panasonic makes it easier for customers to opt out of its marketing
 Consumer marketers may have their headaches with the coming General Data Protection Regulation, but business-to-business marketers have challenges of their own.

For Panasonic, the task is to make it easier for its 330,000 B2B customers to opt out of its email and telephone marketing. B2B marketers do not have to ask everyone on their databases for permission to use their data under the regulation in the same way their business-to-consumer counterparts might have to.

This is a good example of where consent is not required under the GDPR. An electronics firm like Panasonic sending marketing materials to its corporate customers about related products can reasonably rely on “legitimate interests” as the legal basis for processing corporate customer data. As long as those corporate customers who ask for an opt-out option receive one, Panasonic’s email and telephone promotions will be within the law.

Accessing the B2B customer data can be tricky if, like it is at Panasonic, it is held in different parts of the business such as marketing, sales or warranty registration. Working with martech firm Marketo, Panasonic is creating a central system of record for businesses that consented to have Panasonic store and process their data (a move that builds on an older automated system that ensured its marketers could not flout local interpretations of existing EU privacy laws). If an enterprise customer asked Panasonic to reveal all the data it has on them after the GDPR enforcement starts in May, the system would not only show them what Panasonic has and where it is held within the company but would also allow the electronics brand to cease communications if needed.

Legally, it would have been OK for Panasonic to give the customer a disjointed view of how their data exists across all its databases. However, it’s a “pretty horrible experience,” admitted Stephen Yeo, the brand’s marketing director for its enterprise business in Europe. “What we’re trying to do is to make it as easy as possible for customers to tell us if they don’t want to hear from us again, and we’ll look after the rest with our systems.”

With opt-in becoming mandatory for companies under the GDPR, Panasonic is tweaking how it convinces prospective customers to share their data. That’s where it gets sensitive. Panasonic has to say to potential customers, in effect, “If you’re interested in us, could you subscribe because we won’t contact you unless you do,” Yeo said. “Marketing is going to have to become less pushy, which I think is a positive thing.”

The hardest aspect of complying with the GDPR is the governance of data across different regions and offices, Yeo said. If one contract record is non-compliant, the whole business is subject to penalty. And while Panasonic’s lawyers have advised Yeo and his team that only repeat GDPR offenders will be fined, the risks to the brand’s reputation are enough for it to scrap some of the customer data it owns. Yeo’s team is sifting through customer data to identify those Panasonic has not heard from in six years or more and plans to purge them from its databases.

Output: Panasonic has anticipated the hurdles of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), providing its 330,000 B2B customers with an opt-out feature for its email and telephone marketing. The feature will ensure that corporate customers are operating within the law on data protection. The electronics firm is working with marketing tech company Marketo to establish a central records system for customers that have given consent for Panasonic to store and process their data. Panasonic will be able to comply with GDPR enforcement and provide all data held if necessary.


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Drone delivery system 'Flirtey' delivers defibrillators
 DRONE delivery service

and community integrated emergency medical service provider

in the US have teamed up to launch the first automated drone service to deliver defibrillators to help first responders treat victims of cardiac arrest before an ambulance arrives.

The drones will be dispatched at the same time as ambulances when REMSA receives an emergency 911 call. The drones are able to fly directly to the scene, and are like to arrive more quickly than ambulances whose response time can vary depending on distance and other factors, such traffic congestion. This allows treatment to begin sooner, improving the victim's odds of survival, reported London's Air Cargo New.

A statement from Flirtey said: "Together, Flirtey and REMSA are developing an emergency response and 9-1-1-integration process to allow for the rapid drone deployment programme - including combining Flirtey's flight planning software into REMSA's highly specialised patient care and transport programmes."

Output: Nevada-based drone delivery company Flirtey is partnering with non-profit organisation the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority (REMSA) to bring defibrillator machines to cardiac arrest victims. Following a 911 call, the drones are dispatched at the same time as an ambulance, but their as-the-crow-flies method of travel means they are likely to reach a patient more quickly, potentially saving lives.


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Corals like the taste of plastic: Duke University
 Plastic in our seas is threatening coral, which scientists now believe may see it as tasty food.

There are fears for the future of coral, such as the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for 1,400 miles off the coast of Australia.

But plastic waste may be even more dangerous than originally thought, as chemicals it contains appear to be a delicious marine snack.

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Plastic in our seas is threatening coral, which scientists now believe may see it as tasty food. There are fears for the future of coral, such as the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for 1,400 miles off the coast of Australia

KEY FINDINGS The US researchers looked at microplastics measuring up to five millimetres, or a fifth of an inch. In the first experiment, corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast were offered eight different types of microplastics and other similarly-sized items such as clean sand. They ate every plastic type but mainly ignored the sand. The second experiment saw the corals offered clean plastic fragments or plastic covered in microbes, which are believed to be tasty and nutritious for the tiny marine organisms. Over a 30-minute period, the corals were three times more likely to choose to eat the plastic without the microbes. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->

Corals, unlike the seagulls, turtles and fish which swallow plastic, do not mistake it for prey because they have no eyes.

But a new study suggests it tastes good to them, with coral choosing to eat plastic ahead of sand and nutritious microbes.

The findings, by Duke University, raise concerns because plastic poses a risk of choking or intestinal blockages which could kill off areas of coral reef.

These reefs are important because they support populations of larger marine life like fish, which humans rely on for food.

Austin Allen, who co-led the study with Alexander Seymour, said: 'Corals in our experiments ate all types of plastics but preferred unfouled microplastics by a threefold difference over microplastics covered in bacteria.

'This suggests the plastic itself contains something that makes it tasty.'

Co-author Alexander Seymour added: 'When plastic comes from the factory, it has hundreds of chemical additives on it.

The findings, by Duke University, raise concerns because plastic poses a risk of choking or intestinal blockages which could kill off areas of coral reef. These reefs are important because they support populations of larger marine life like fish, which humans rely on for food

'Any one of these chemicals or a combination of them could be acting as a stimulant that makes plastic appealing to corals.'

The major threats to coral include 'bleaching', which turns coral white as a result of unusually warm ocean temperatures, overfishing and pollution - which includes plastic waste.

The US researchers looked at microplastics measuring up to five millimetres, or a fifth of an inch.

The Daily Mail has campaigned against these plastics, including microbeads found in cosmetics and plastic bags and bottles which form fragments when they break down in the environment.

REPORT REVEALS 95% OF PLASTIC POLLUTING THE WORLD'S OCEANS COMES FROM JUST TEN RIVERS Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research. The top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste. About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources - such as the Yangtze and the Ganges - could almost halve it, scientists claim. Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research. The top 10 rivers, including the River Niger (pictured) accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste Massive amounts of plastic bits that imperil aquatic life are washing into the oceans and even the most pristine waters. But how it all gets there from inland cities has not been fully understood. Now a study shows the top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for 88 to 95 per cent of the total global load because of the mismanagement of waste. The top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste The team calculated halving plastic pollution in these waterways could potentially reduce the total contribution by all rivers by 45 per cent. They analysed data on debris from 79 sampling sites along 57 rivers - both microplastic particles measuring less than 5 mm and macroplastic above this size. They said microplastics in particular can damage the health of marine life but cleaning it all up would be impossible. However stemming the tide could help reduce the potential harm. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_2 - ->

In the first experiment, corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast were offered eight different types of microplastics and other similarly-sized items such as clean sand.

They ate every plastic type but mainly ignored the sand.

The second experiment saw the corals offered clean plastic fragments or plastic covered in microbes, which are believed to be tasty and nutritious for the tiny marine organisms.

Over a 30-minute period, the corals were three times more likely to choose to eat the plastic without the microbes.

In the first experiment, corals collected from waters off the North Carolina coast were offered eight different types of microplastics (pictured in a seperate experiment) and other similarly-sized items such as clean sand

The researchers are calling for more research on how taste could make corals more eager to consume plastic.

While they pass the foods they eat, around eight per cent of the plastic stayed in their guts for 24 hours or more.

Plastic could kill corals by convincing the organisms they are full when they are not, so they do not eat the food they need.

WHO DUMPS THE MOST PLASTIC? So much plastic is dumped into the sea each year that it would fill five carrier bags for every foot of coastline on the planet, scientists have warned. More than half of the plastic waste that flows into the oceans comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The only industrialized western country on the list of top 20 plastic polluters is the United States at No. 20. The U.S. and Europe are not mismanaging their collected waste, so the plastic trash coming from those countries is due to litter, researchers said. While China is responsible for 2.4 million tons of plastic that makes its way into the ocean, nearly 28 percent of the world total, the United States contributes just 77,000 tons, which is less than one percent, according to the study published in the journal Science. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/sciencetech/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_3 - ->

It is also a choking and blockage hazard, while containing potentially gender-bending chemicals which can leach into corals or the fish which eat them.

On the findings, published in the online edition of the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, Mr Seymour said: 'Ultimately, the hope is that if we can manufacture plastic so it unintentionally tastes good to these animals, we might also be able to manufacture it so it intentionally tastes bad.

'That could significantly help reduce the threat these microplastics pose.'

Output: Corals ingest plastic because they like the taste, rather than because it resembles prey, according to a study by Duke University in the US. The research found that “unfouled microplastics” were three times more popular with coral than those polluted with bacteria, suggesting that the taste of the plastic itself appealed to the coral. Further research will now be needed to establish which of the hundreds of chemical additives in plastic are specifically attractive to coral. It might then be possible to manufacture plastic that tastes unappealing in order to reduce the threat it poses to marine life.


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NHS may rent rooms in private homes to counter “bedblocking”
 Patients recovering from surgery could be discharged from hospital to recuperate in private houses nearby as part of an NHS trial that could earn those renting out the rooms up to £1,000 a month.

The scheme, which is being piloted in Essex, aims to tackle bed shortages and save money but has been criticised by medical professionals and social workers who warn it would give too much responsibility to untrained members of the public.

A startup, CareRooms, is working with the NHS and councils in Southend and elsewhere in Essex to pilot the model and finalise how it will work. It says patients would benefit from “a safe, comfortable place to recuperate from hospital” as well as helping the NHS.

Hosts would be asked to welcome patients recovering minor procedures, cook three microwave meals a day and offer conversation, according to CareRooms, in a scheme targeting people who do not have a family able to care for them.

So-called “bedblocking” in the NHS has risen by 40% in the past year and is estimated to result in as many as 8,000 deaths annually. On some days 6,000 patients are taking up beds when they no longer require hospital treatment.

The Save Southend A&E campaign group, whose members include doctors and other clinicians, warned it “opens a huge can of worms for safeguarding, governance and possible financial and emotional abuse of people at their most vulnerable time”.

CareRooms, which is part of NHS England’s clinical entrepreneur programme, said its governance and quality would address such concerns. Hosts would be interviewed and be subject to disclosure checks and food hygiene tests. There will also be barring service checks of police criminal records – used by employers, often to avoid problems of employees working with children and vulnerable adults. They would also need to understand some care law, including the Mental Capacity Act, which aims to protect those who lack the ability to make their own decisions about treatment.

Harry Thirkettle, a part-time emergency registrar in Essex who is the medical director of CareRooms, told Health Service Journal: “Everyone’s immediate concern is, understandably, safeguarding. We are working hard to be better than standard practice.

“We are not going off half-cocked … We are not going to start taking on patients until we have satisfied all these different organisations’ governance procedures and committees [NHS providers, commissioners and councils]. We are really carefully considering this and making sure it is as safe as possible.”

The financial model is still to be finalised. Thirkettle said rooms would be rented out to funders at about £100 a night, with half going to the host. The rest would be used to pay for the care services required and a margin kept by the company as profit. He said the assumption was that it would be jointly funded by the NHS and councils. “We may also look to take self-funding patients who pay us directly.” For patients who are prepared to pay the option would be presented by a hospital’s discharge team alongside existing options such as nursing homes, he said.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said it wanted more details before making a full assessment but that the “model of care, as described, raises questions about whether the safety and wellbeing of the individual have been fully considered”.

A spokesman for Southend council said: “We want to make it clear that, at this early stage, the council has only agreed to continue exploring the viability of the project with other partners. We are awaiting further information on how the project will run and the preparation of a detailed business case before we can make any formal commitment or give support to the project.”

CareRooms has set up a stall in the restaurant at Southend hospital to find potential hosts.

Save Southend A&E said that in addition to its safeguarding questions, it was concerned about the way the company was pitching itself as a money-making venture for hosts, rather than emphasising care quality.

It said the company was handing out flyers in the public canteen at Southend hospital this month, which “headline with a financial opener offering people the chance to earn up to £1,000 a month renting out a spare room to accommodate someone needing to recuperate from hospital.

“We are shocked that an NHS trust is endorsing such a company … It is almost weekly that there are reports of abuse and poor care in registered residential and care homes, therefore the monitoring of such ‘placements’ in private homes would be a huge and risky task.”

The pilot involves Southend University hospital foundation trust; Southend and Castlepoint, and Rayleigh and Rochford clinical commissioning groups; Essex county council and Southend council.

The chair of the Mid and South Essex sustainability and transformation partnership, Mike Bewick, a former deputy medical director of NHS England, is an unpaid adviser to the company.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that its registration team did not have a record of CareRooms and could not say whether such a registration would be required. “The CQC will contact CareRooms to better understand their business model in case they are providing something that would fall within the scope of our regulation,” a spokesman said.

The Department of Health said: “As NHS England have made very clear- this is a locally organised pilot scheme for patients following minor operations, not national policy, and to suggest it is a cheap substitute for social care is simply untrue. Any schemes such as these are subject to the strictest quality controls and regulations.”

Output: Patients in the UK could be sent to recover from surgery in private houses, in a scheme similar to that operated by Airbnb, as part of a new NHS trial. The scheme, which will be piloted in Essex by startup CareRooms, is designed to combat bed shortages and save money. However, critics warn that it poses risks to patient safety. Hosts, who could earn up to £1,000 ($1,319) per month, will be required to provide meals and offer conversation. The NHS has seen a 40% rise in so-called “bedblocking” in the past year, resulting in up to 8,000 deaths annually.


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Ripple update enhances scalability and reliability
 Earn Your First Bitcoin Sign up and get $12 Bonus Referral bonus up to $3,000 Sign up

The Ripple ecosystem is constantly evolving behind the scenes. With the new rippled client being released, another milestone has been reached. This new version brings several enhancements to the table regarding reliability and scalability. Any server operator is advised to upgrade to this new version as soon as possible. Things are looking pretty promising for Ripple, right now, to say the least.

It is always good to see some more developments in the Ripple ecosystem. More specifically, the network itself is expanding quickly. Unlike regular cryptocurrencies, Ripple is doing things very differently. They mainly rely on the rippled software used by server operators. It is this piece of technology which provides valuable services to the XRP ledger. With a new update recently released, things are looking very promising right now.

A Major Ripple Update

In the new update, we see various enhancements and improvements. Reliability, scalability, and security of the XRP Ledger are all incredibly important. This new release brings some fixed in this regard. Moreover, there is also a SortedDirectories amendment to sort entries in ledger objects. This new feature is expected to be enabled in early November, but it is still advised to upgrade the client as soon as possible.

There are some downsides associated with not upgrading, though. More specifically, determining the validity of a ledger and processing transactions may be jeopardized without upgrading. Plus, non-upgraded nodes can’t participate in the consensus process or vote on future amendments. An interesting turn of events, but also one that makes a lot of sense in this regard. Mandatory upgrades should never be ignored by any means.

This new update will also be deployed to all rippled servers later today. This should take around 4 hours or slightly less. During this phase, the Ripple network will continue to operate without any problems. It is good to see real-time network updates still being a thing in 2017. This also shows how resilient the Ripple network really is. Another notch in the belt for the Ripple ecosystem, that much is certain.

Header image courtesy of Shutterstock

Output: The Ripple cryptocurrency network has released an update that brings increased security, scalability and reliability to the XRP Ledger. It also includes a feature allowing ledger entries to be sorted, which will be enabled in November. Ripple users were urged to adopt the update, as failure to do so could put processing transactions at risk and prevent nodes from participating in the consensus process.


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US government urged to reverse easing of gas flaring regulations
 I’ve never seen a big gas flare up close. Anyone who has, though, could never forget its fearsome roar, like standing next to a jet engine running at full tilt. Then there’s the bludgeoning waves of heat, the intense brightness of the flame and the fine mist of oily droplets that drift from it. All over the world, thousands of these gas flares burn through about 150 billion m3 of gas each year.

Oil fields often contain a lot of natural gas, but a drilling site might be too remote, or the gas reserves too limited, to make it worth building a pipeline to transport the gas for sale. Instead, the cheapest way to deal with this ‘stranded gas’ is to set fire to it. This is not only a wanton waste of natural resources, it also emits more than 300 million tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere every year, accounting for about 1% of anthropogenic emissions.

The World Bank’s ‘Zero Routine Flaring by 2030’ initiative aims to persuade governments and oil companies to eliminate flaring and in recent years it has begun to gain serious momentum. Last year, for example, the US Bureau of Land Management announced new regulations that require oil and gas companies operating on public land to phase out flaring.

Now, President Trump’s administration is – surprise, surprise – trying to derail those regulations. In early October, its attempt to delay the rule’s implementation until 2019 was blocked by a federal judge. But the administration insists it will seek other ways to stymie the rule, arguing that it is too burdensome for industry.

On climate grounds alone, that is willfully perverse. Yet it also ignores the huge opportunities offered by burgeoning technologies that use clever chemistry to turn stranded gas into a variety of valuable products.

Reactor options

One way to make use of stranded gas is to convert it into liquid fuels, which are often easier to transport and use locally. Methane goes through a steam reformer to make a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called syngas, which is then converted into longer hydrocarbons through the Fischer–Tropsch (FT) process. This technology has been around for almost a century, but conventional FT plants need to produce at least 30,000 barrels per day to be economically viable, so they are not suitable to process modest reserves of stranded gas.

But several companies have developed small-scale gas-to-liquids processes that are a perfect fit. Velocys, based in Houston, Texas, makes a microchannel FT reactor that is profitable at production volumes as low as 1400 barrels per day. The reactors are 5m long, and boast millimetre-wide microchannels that dissipate heat more rapidly than a conventional FT reactor. This allows Velocys to pack the channels with a much more active cobalt-based nanoparticle catalyst, boosting the system’s efficiency.

In June, Velocys’ reactors started producing waxes, diesel and naphtha at a commercial plant in Oklahoma City. Those reactors feed on methane from a landfill site, but the technology could also tackle stranded gas at remote oil wells.

CompactGTL, based in London, UK, has demonstrated a similar FT reactor in Brazil that turns stranded gas into synthetic crude, and is planning a commercial plant in Kazakhstan. And GasTechno in Walloon Lake, Michigan, uses an alternative approach to turn methane directly into methanol, deploying its first commercial-scale plant last year. One of the key advantages of these systems is that they are modular – additional reactors can easily be added if gas supplies increase, and even moved to other wells when they dwindle.

Lighting the way

A slew of other technologies are in development. For example, Pallavi Chitta at the University of Utah is working on a molybdenum-zeolite catalyst that converts methane into benzene. Chitta now has funding from Alberta Innovates, a Canadian funding agency, to take the process to the pre-pilot stage by mid-2019.

In May, Jeroen van Bokhoven at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland reported that a copper-zeolite catalyst could produce methanol from streams of methane and water. And in September, Xin Tu at the University of Liverpool unveiled a plasma reactor that could couple methane and CO 2 at room temperature and pressure to form products such as acetic acid.

These are just a smattering of the chemical reactions – and innovative reactors – that could help to curb flaring. One of the major challenges that these technologies will face, however, is raising the capital needed to fund scale-up work and ultimately produce commercial demonstration units. Flaring reduction regulations in the US could nudge companies to invest in these technologies, spurring wider deployment.

Meanwhile, other countries are taking the World Bank initiative seriously. In Nigeria, which is the seventh-largest gas flarer in the world, gas flaring has caused huge damage to human health and the environment in the Niger Delta. Earlier this year, it committed to end routine gas flaring by 2020, and signed an agreement in August that will see stranded gas liquefied and transported to industrial users around the country.

The US government should halt its fight to enable flaring. Instead, it must seize the opportunity to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and start turning a wasted resource into useful products.

Output: The US government should stop relaxing regulations curbing gas flaring, wrote Mark Peplow in an editorial for Chemistry World. Oil fields can contain a lot of natural gas, but it is often not worth building a pipeline to transport it for sale, meaning the stranded gas is set alight. In addition to being a waste of natural resources, this practice also emits more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. A World Bank initiative aims to eliminate flaring but the Trump administration argues that would be too burdensome for industry.


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GameCredits to share blockchain tech with Unity's game developers
 GameCredits Inc., a blockchain company driving innovation in the video gaming industry has announced the firm has signed a deal with Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s most popular creation engine, that will bring the benefits of blockchain to more than 3 billion devices and millions of game developers worldwide.

Through this deal, both companies will introduce novel forms of game distribution for the $100 billion* gaming industry, placing a particular focus on the fast-growing world of mobile gaming and eSports. GameCredits’ mobile game store, GPlay, will be integrated with Unity’s game-development ecosystem and developers will be able to effortlessly publish their games directly into GPlay. GPlay will share 90% of gross revenue (instead of the industry standard 70%), and will pay developers within 60 hours (instead of 60 days).

Unity exists to democratize development, solve hard problems and enable success — three core values that are the driving forces of Unity’s adoption by millions of creators. Unity powers more than 50% of all new mobile games and over 2/3rds of all AR and VR content. Interactive content made with Unity reaches nearly 3 billion devices worldwide.

Following a record-breaking $53 million crowdsale earlier this year, GameCredits has been developing a suite of blockchain products for the gaming industry, all under its GPlay initiative. GameCredits recently joined Hyperledger, a Linux Foundation blockchain consortium whose members include IBM, Intel, Cisco, American Express, JP Morgan and other leaders from various industries.

GamesCredits will introduce its blockchain solutions at Unite – the popular developers conferences in Melbourne, Singapore and India in the next few weeks.

Output: Global blockchain company GameCredits has agreed a deal with Unity Technologies to bring blockchain solutions to the $100bn videogame industry. The deal includes the integration of GameCredits' GPlay platform into Unity's development software, a move that allows developers to publish directly on to the platform, and GPlay said it will share 90% of gross revenue, paid within 60 hours. Earlier this year, GameCredits raised $53m through a crowdsale. The companies are expected to focus on mobile gaming and eSports, both rapidly growing markets.


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Ad targeting can be used to track a target's location for $1,000
 "If you want to make the point that advertising networks should be more concerned with privacy, the bogeyman you usually pull out is that big corporations know so much about you. But people don't really care about that," says University of Washington researcher Paul Vines. "But the potential person using this information isn't some large corporation motivated by profits and constrained by potential lawsuits. It can be a person with relatively small amounts of money and very different motives."

The research team used 10 Moto G Android phones for testing, a mobile banner ad they created, and a website that served as the landing page if someone clicked on the ad. Then they spent the minimum $1,000 deposit to place orders with a so-called demand-side platform—think Facebook, Google AdWords, MediaMath, Centro, Simpli.fi, and others—that allows ad buyers to specify criteria like where their ad appears, for which unique phone identifiers, and in which apps. (They declined to reveal which specific DSP they tested, arguing that nothing about that platform was more intrusive than many others in the industry.)

They then used that DSP to place a geographic grid of location-targeted ad buys around a 3-mile-square section of Seattle, which for their tests they set to appear on the popular ad-supported calling and texting app Talkatone.

Every time a target phone had Talkatone open near one of the coordinates the researchers had set on their grid of ad buys, the ad would appear on it, the researchers would be charged 2 cents, and they'd receive confirmation from the DSP of approximately where, when, and on which phone the ad had been shown. With that method, they they were able to follow their test phones' locations within a range of about 25 feet any time the phone user left an app open in one location for about 4 minutes or opened it twice in the same location during that time span. They registered just a 6-minute delay in the ad network's real-time reporting of the phone's location. Following a human test subject carrying each test phone over seven days, they were able to easily identify the person's home and work address, based on where their target stopped. (See the map above.)

"You’re using whether or not your ad gets served as an oracle to tell you whether or not an event happened: that this particular device was at this location," Vines says. They note that the DSP they used never flagged their behavior as unusual or cut off their account for attempting targeted surveillance.

That tracking method has a couple of serious limitations. The target would have to have a certain app open on their phone at the time they're being tracked, so that the ad can appear. And to track a specific phone, any ad-buying spy would have to know a unique identifier of the target phone, known as a mobile advertising ID, or MAID.

But to get around the first of those limitations, a spy could buy ads against a range of popular apps in the hope that one of them would show the ad. And for the second, the researchers suggest a variety of ways to obtain that MAID, including placing an "active-content" ad that uses javascript to pull the MAID from a phone at a certain location, then use that identifier to continue to track the phone with normal ads. Perhaps more simply, they point out, MAIDs can also be intercepted by someone on the same Wi-Fi network as the target phone.

Output: Ad-targeting technology, costing just $1,000, can track users' locations and other personal data with alarming accuracy, according to a report from security researchers from the University of Washington. Demand-side platforms enable ad buyers to input specific parameters, such as demographic, app choices and mobile model, which can be used to track users' phones within a range of 25 feet whenever apps are open. The team was able to follow a test subject over seven days, successfully locating the person's home and work addresses.


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Netflix still has no plans to introduce ad breaks or live TV
 Faced with a looming plateau in the numbers of subscribers Netflix can attract with a market penetration of 190 countries (only absent in China, North Korea and Syria), brands have been hoping the streaming service will open its platform to adverts.

Netflix has said it has no plans to introduce ad breaks "any time soon, if ever"

But Netflix’s aversion to traditional advertising remains unwavering for the foreseeable future, it was revealed today (24 October), as the media company focuses on protecting the customer experience.

Speaking at Westminster Media Forum in a rare appearance, Netflix, which called itself “the world’s leading internet entertainment network”, said its focus on being a personalised streaming service that “gives back control to the user” is an “ongoing effort”.

The internet TV service is constantly iterating its product “as result of user preferences”, said Cees van Koppen, manager public policy EMEA at Netflix, which includes more intelligent personalisation and the introduction of new technology like 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos.

However, when quizzed as to whether its experimentation in new formats would include live TV, as its rival Amazon Prime introduced in May this year with the launch of Channels, van Koppen inferred that broadcasters like the BBC are better placed to offer a ‘hybrid’ model of live programming and on-demand than an internet company would be.

“Live TV streaming, if you think about it, is only relevant when it is urgent and when it is eventful in our minds – like live sports, news, something like The Voice,” van Koppen said. “It is our company’s vision that most of the services that offer content will move into the internet world which means they will find a hybrid between live programming and on-demand. You will have that in one offer from the BBC itself. We are just a licenser of the BBC content and we like to be in business with them as far as co-productions go.”

“I don’t really see us soonish [sic] doing live events and carrying live content from the BBC,” he added.

While Netflix is 20 years old, it has only been a streaming service for half of its life. Von Koppen charted the tech company’s transition from a DVD-by-post service to a content company that has 100 million global members, operates in 190 countries, has 400 original titles and will spend a total of $6bn in original programming this year alone. On its recent earnings call, the company said it expected this budget to rise to between $7bn and $8bn in 2018.

But this investment in original content is not without a cost. The service has said it is expecting to raise $1.6bn in debt due to pouring money into content, and while it recently raised the price of its subscriptions, some in the industry feel that an inevitable stagnation in its growth will lead the service to look to advertising revenue to offset its losses.

That said, Netflix’s reluctance to introduce ad breaks did not waver today, as von Koppen said he didn’t see the streaming service introducing ad breaks to its folds “any time soon, if ever”, much to the chagrin of brands. The service does offer product placement and has made moves in the merchandising space with its popular show Stranger Things, but von Koppen said it is “very important” for its viewers not to have ad breaks, when the service has trained its viewers to expect Netflix content ad-free.

“On demand without ad breaks – you never go back to watching 20 minutes of ad breaks,” he said.

Output: Netflix has no plans to introduce advertising to its programming, according to a senior executive. The internet TV streaming platform now operates in 190 countries, with 100 million subscribers worldwide, and some industry figures have suggested the company may introduce advertising to boost its revenue. However, Cees van Koppen, Netflix public policy manager for Europe, Middle East and Asia, said remaining ad-free was "very important" to viewers, and that advertising would not be introduced "any time soon, if ever".


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Nicaragua to sign Paris accord, leaving US and Syria as outliers
 Nicaragua is set to join the Paris climate agreement, according to an official statement and comments from the vice-president, Rosario Murillo, on Monday, in a move that leaves the United States and Syria as the only countries outside the global pact.

Nicaragua has already presented the relevant documents at the United Nations, Murillo, who is also first lady, said on local radio on Monday.

“It is the only instrument we have in the world that allows the unity of intentions and efforts to face up to climate change and natural disasters,” Murillo said.

Donald Trump said in June he would withdraw the United States from the accord, and Nicaragua’s decision to enter the pact means only two countries will now be outside it – the world’s No 1 economy and war-torn Syria.

Nicaragua, which is often threatened by hurricanes, was the only country to reject the agreement in 2015, and has argued for far more drastic action to limit rising temperatures.

The Paris accord, agreed by nearly 200 countries two years ago, seeks to limit planetary warming by curbing global emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe drive global warming.

The administration of the former US president Barack Obama had pledged deep emissions cuts as part of the deal, but his successor, Trump, has said the accord would cost America trillions of dollars, kill jobs, and hinder the oil, gas, coal and manufacturing industries.

The island country of Fiji will preside over the next round of UN climate talks, from 6-17 November in Bonn, Germany, where environment ministers from around the world will work on a set of international guidelines for the Paris accord.

The latest round of negotiations take place after a string of powerful hurricanes ravaged Caribbean island nations and caused billions of dollars in damage along the Texas and Florida coastlines.

Climate scientists have said warmer air and water resulting from climate change may have contributed to the severity of the storms. The US Environmental Protection Agency has disputed such claims as an attempt to “politicize” natural disasters.

Output: Nicaragua is due to join the Paris Climate Accord, leaving the US and Syria as the only countries not part of the agreement. Nicaragua has already presented the required documents to the United Nations, according the country’s vice-president and first lady, Rosario Murillo. Nicaragua was the only country to reject the accord in 2015, calling for even stronger action against climate change. The accord, signed by almost 200 countries, seeks to curb emissions of the gases responsible for global warming. In June, President Donald Trump announced that he intended to withdraw the US from the pact.


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Brunel researchers 3-D print world's first wearable 'battery'
 Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Imagine printing off a wristband that charges your smartphone or electric car with cheap supplies from a local hardware store.

That's the direction materials research is heading at Brunel University London where scientists have become the first to simply and affordably 3-D print a flexible, wearable 'battery'.

The technique opens the way for novel designs for super-efficient, wearable power for phones, electric cars, medical implants like pacemakers and more.

The printer squirts stacks of silicone, glue and gel electrolyte pastes like a layer cake, to make what looks like a clear festival wristband. Sandwiched inside is a supercapacitor, which stores energy like a battery, but on its surface and without chemical reactions.

"This is the first time a flexible supercapacitor including all its components has been produced by 3-D printing," said Milad Areir at Brunel's Cleaner Electronics Research Group. "The most popular way to produce them is screen printing, but with that you can't print the frame of the supercapacitor on silicone."

Researchers in many countries have found new ways to make flexible supercapacitators. But their techniques, which include 3-D laser selective melting machines are expensive and use different machines to print different parts.

"Our technique brings it all together into one process with one machine," said Milad. "It will definitely save time and costs on expensive materials."

The work, published in Materials Science and Engineering, shows the power wristband can be made using cheap products from a household shop instead of sophisticated expensive metals or semiconductors. What's more is that they stand up to stress tests without losing power.

"This has developed a novel 3-D printing method for manufacturing flexible supercapacitators, by one single continuous process using low-cost flexible silicone compatible with the electrode, current collector and electrolyte materials," the study says.

A simple open-source printer connected by USB to a syringe driver with a stopper motor can print the paste layers, with only three or four syringes based on the size of the supercapacitator. The wristbands are printed in a honeycomb pattern, which means less material needs printing, so they are quicker to make. But designers can also experiment with different complex shapes.

The process is easy to copy, the study says, and shows 3-D printing using paste extrusion can be used to develop more sophisticated electronic devices with different mixes of paste.

"In future it can be used for mobile phones," said Milad. "For example, if the phone battery is dead, you could plug the phone into the supercapacitator wristband and it could act as a booster pack, providing enough power to get to the next charging point."

More information: Milad Areir et al. 3D printing of highly flexible supercapacitor designed for wearable energy storage, Materials Science and Engineering: B (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.mseb.2017.09.004

Output: Brunel University researchers have 3D printed the world's first wearable battery. The London-based team used to 3D printer to create stacks of silicone, glue and gel electrolyte pastes into a wristband, inside of which is a supercapacitor that stores energy like a battery but on its surface. The research, published in Materials Science and Engineering, also shows that the wearable can be produced using cheap supplies from a local hardware shop, rather than expensive metals or semiconductors.


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Monzo bank now supports Android Pay but not yet Apple Pay
 Monzo, the British "bank" with a coral-coloured card and a clever savings app, has added support for Android Pay. It's only available for users with current accounts, however. Monzo started with a simple pre-paid card, forcing customers to transfer money from an existing bank account to take advantage of its app-based smarts. In April, however, it was approved by the UK authorities to act, well, like a real bank and offer proper accounts. Since then, it's slowly been inviting pre-paid card owners to switch over (the company says all users should be transferred in the next six weeks.)

With Android Pay, Monzo is making it easier for Brits to switch away from high-street banks. (Heck, Barclays still doesn't support Android Pay.) To get started, you'll need to load up you Android Pay wallet and add a Monzo card by taking a photo or entering the relevant details manually. You can then take out your phone and make contactless payments as normal; Monzo will keep track of your spending and list transactions in the "spending feed" section of its app. In the future, the company says you'll be able to add your card to Android Pay from inside the Monzo app too.

The big question now is: What about Apple Pay? For now, that's unclear. We suspect it's on the company's roadmap, however. Some of Monzo's biggest rivals, such as Starling, already support both Apple and Google's payment platforms. It would be strange if Monzo, a startup that prides itself on being more tech-savvy than its competition, didn't do the same.

Output: UK digital bank Monzo has made Android Pay available to its current account holders, with the aim of enticing further customers away from the high-street banks. Monzo is still in the process of switching its pre-paid card users to its own bank accounts after gaining regulatory approval to offer current accounts, and said it will allow customers to add its card to Android Pay from inside the Monzo app in the future. However, it has not revealed whether it will eventually support Apple Pay.


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UK could lose soil fertility within 30-40 years: Gove
 The UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” in parts of the country, the environment secretary Michael Gove has warned.

“We have encouraged a type of farming which has damaged the earth,” Gove told the parliamentary launch of the Sustainable Soils Alliance (SSA). “Countries can withstand coups d’état, wars and conflict, even leaving the EU, but no country can withstand the loss of its soil and fertility.

“If you have heavy machines churning the soil and impacting it, if you drench it in chemicals that improve yields but in the long term undercut the future fertility of that soil, you can increase yields year on year but ultimately you really are cutting the ground away from beneath your own feet. Farmers know that.”

Arguing that farmers needed to be incentivised to tackle both the loss of soil fertility and the decline in biodiversity, Gove said that he hoped the SSA, a new body formed with the mission of bringing UK soils back to health within one generation, would hold the government to account and bring him ideas and inspiration. “We are listening to you now and it’s critical that we do so.”

Gove’s speech on Monday afternoon came as UK farmers anxiously wait to see if Brexit will take them out of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, and if so, what will take its place. Defra is currently working on a new agricultural bill and is simultaneously drawing up a 25-year environmental plan. Gove promised both would reflect the concerns of the SSA.

There has been a spike in awareness of the impact that intensive farming techniques are having on the world’s soils and its biodiversity. In 2014 Sheffield University researchers said that UK farm soils only had 100 harvests left in them, and a year later a UN spokesperson warned that at current rates of degradation, the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years. “It feels as if soil is now a hot topic,” said Helen Browning, head of the Soil Association. Meanwhile a new German study has revealed that numbers of flying insects have fallen by up to three quarters. Intensive farming techniques that encourage the heavy use of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides are believed to be major factors in these problems.

The UK has a poor record in this area. The government has not been conducting regular soil monitoring since the last Countryside Survey in 2007, and in 2012 UK ministers helped block a critical EU soil health directive. Even a year ago, experts such as Peter Stevenson at Compassion in World Farming felt there was no real appetite for reform of intensive farming.

But environmentalists are now increasingly hopeful that, unlike his predecessors at Defra, Gove will take this issue seriously. In July he said that the UK would not move towards “US-style farming” and would prioritise “high environmental and animal welfare standards”. “There’s been quite a dramatic shift in understanding around what we’re doing to our soils,” said Browning. “Everyone is quite bowled over by some of the comments that Michael Gove is making.”

Gove said he hoped the Sustainable Soils Alliance, a body formed to bring UK soils back to health within a generation, would hold government to account. Photograph: Courtesy of NFU

Gove, as one of the leaders of the leave campaign, has a huge stake in making post-Brexit environment and agriculture policy a success, and key farming organisations appear to be shifting their positions on soil issues. The National Farmers Union, who were present at the event, have long been defenders of intensive farming. But three years ago they set up an environment forum, and yesterday its chair Mark Pope said that he is seeing a surge of interest and support for these issues from NFU members. In a blog published on the NFU website earlier in the week, Pope wrote: “We only get one lot of soil on our farms, so poor management could have major, irreversible impacts for many years to come.”

“There is a groundswell of interest in this, a terrific opportunity,” said Rebecca Pow MP, parliamentary private secretary to Michael Gove. Pow was brought up on a farm and worked as a journalist specialising in the environment, food and farming before becoming an MP in 2015, and she has been an energising force around the issue of soil and sustainable farming in parliament. “I voted remain,” she said yesterday. “But nevertheless, there is an opportunity here that we wouldn’t have had before.”

“The UK used to be the world’s leading agronomic centre, and could be again,” argued Tim Smit, the founder of the Eden Project. He wants to see “a new agricultural revolution”, elevating agronomy – the science of soil and crops – to a better respected profession, and turning the UK back into a world leader in soil and farming expertise.

Output: The UK could experience “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” within three to four decades, according to the country’s environment secretary Michael Gove. Speaking at the parliamentary launch of campaigning network the Sustainable Soils Alliance, Gove said that farming “has damaged the earth” and that farmers needed incentives to combat declining soil fertility and biodiversity. The UK government has not carried out regular soil monitoring since 2007, and in 2012 ministers from the country helped block a European Union directive on soil health.


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Fitbit smartwatch payments arrive in the UK
 Fitbit's first smartwatch can now make payments in the UK Only Starling Bank customers can use the feature right away, though.

Convenient contactless and mobile payment options are a dime a dozen these days, but that isn't discouraging Fitbit from throwing its keys into the bowl. After launching in the US and elsewhere during recent weeks, Fitbit Pay is now live in the UK, if not with a few catches. For starters you're going to need one of Fitbit's new £300 Ionic smartwatches, the company's first wearable that isn't geared solely towards activity tracking. Then there's the fact that at launch, it only supports Starling Bank, one of the UK's relatively new, branchless outfits that digs into your payment data to help you better manage your money from your mobile.

Fitbit Pay is available now with Starling Bank!

Use your Fitbit Ionic to make purchases on the go without a wallet or smartphone. pic.twitter.com/H7VXI9oJpa — Fitbit UnitedKingdom (@FitbitUK) October 24, 2017

Provided you fit within this pretty strict criteria, you can start using your new Ionic smartwatch to make contactless payments sans wallet or smartphone. We expect plenty more banks, including some of the bigger names, to play nice with Fitbit Pay before too long. That said, Barclays was notably slow in adopting Apple Pay and shunned Android Pay entirely in favour of its own mobile app, so even among some of the larger financial players, it's not always obvious how these things shake out.

Output: Fitbit has launched a contactless payment platform in the UK, following its launch in the US and other countries in recent weeks. The service is only available on the company's new Ionic smartwatches, and currently only supports payments from customers of the online Starling Bank, though more banks are expected to adopt the technology in the coming months.


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Shift Technology raises $28m, plans fraud research programme
 Shift Technology has raised $28m in its Series B funding round as it looks to take on new markets

Shift Technology will fund a research programme to change the claims space following a $28m (£21m) series B funding round. It will also boost its team and work on new fraud detection products as it looks to continue expanding internationally.

Machine learning, artificial intelligence and graph theory are used in Shift’s software to catch fraudulent claims. The company says it is able to spot three quarters (75%) of suspicious claims, while the industry average is only around a third (30-35%).

In two years it has processed over 100 million claims for property/casualty insurers across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Shift’s series B funding round was led by Accel and General Catalyst. Previous investors Elaia Partners and Iris Capital also took part. It follows a $10m Series A raise in May 2016.

Investor General Catalyst managing director Adam Valkin said: “Shift’s AI-driven fraud detection solution has quickly delivered impressive results for some of Europe’s leading insurers. We believe the company is positioned to have a significant impact on the insurance industry as it expands internationally and widens the scope of its offering.”

Shift Technology co-founder and chief executive Jeremy Jawish added: “We’ve seen strong demand globally since our launch, and we’re excited to be able to expand our offering further internationally. The U.S. and Japan are two of the biggest insurance markets in the world, and there is a huge opportunity to help their insurers detect fraud as effectively as possible.”

Shift will now look to open offices in Tokyo and New York in Q1 2018.

Output: Insurtech Shift Technology is planning a research programme focusing on fraud detection following its latest funding round. The firm raised $28m. The firm says it can detect up to 75% of fraudulent claims due to its use of artificial intelligence and data analysis. Shift Technology says the industry average is identifying 31% of claims.


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Singapore to ban additional cars on roads from 2018
 Singapore, one of the most expensive places in the world to buy a vehicle, has announced it will freeze the number of private cars on its roads from next year but vowed to expand public transport.

The growth cap for all passenger cars and motorcycles will be cut from 0.25% a year to zero with effect from February, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said.

The affluent city-state of 5.6 million people already imposes a quota on the number of vehicles sold and the number on its roads, and has avoided the massive traffic jams that choke other Asian cities.

Singapore makes it costly for those wanting to buy a vehicle, who must first get a “certificate of entitlement”, valid for 10 years – the average cost of a certificate is currently around Sg$50,000 (US$37,000).

A Toyota Corolla Altis, a five-door sedan, can cost up to around Sg$111,000 in Singapore, including the price of the certificate, or about four times what it costs in the US.

There were more than 600,000 private cars in Singapore at the end of 2016.

No timetable was given for the freeze but the number of buses and goods vehicles will be allowed to continue growing.

In a statement announcing the change Monday, the LTA said 12 percent of Singapore’s total land area was already taken up by roads and there was limited room for expansion.

However it said the government would spend Sg$28bn over the next five years to expand and upgrade the transport system, including the metro, which has recently faced criticism for a series of breakdowns.

Output: Singapore will cap the number of private cars on its roads from February 2018. The growth cap, which covers passenger cars and motorcycles, will be reduced from its current 0.25% per year to zero, according to the country’s Land Transport Authority. The new cap will not apply to buses and goods vehicles, and the government has pledged to spend SGD28bn ($21bn) on public transport over the next five years. The city-state currently has 5.6 million inhabitants and just 600,000 private cars. In order to purchase a car, consumers are required to obtain “certificates of entitlement”, which permit ownership for ten years.


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Contactless payments to replace New York subway MetroCard
 It is no secret that contactless payments are starting to become a more popular option compared to using cash or other older methods of payments, such as swiping cards. In fact in several parts of the world, contactless payments have become more or less standard and ubiquitous.

That being said the good news for residents of New York City is that it looks like the city’s subway is expected to start adopting contactless payments on a wider scale, according to a report from the New York Times. A committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has recently approved a $573 million contract for a new fare payment system that will allow contactless payments, such as Apple Pay where users can make payment using their iPhones or Apple Watch.

These new electronic readers will be installed in 500 subway turnstiles and on 600 buses in New York beginning late next year, and is expected to eventually cover the city’s entire subway and bus system by late 2020. This will also eventually replace the current method of using the MetroCard which can be prone to swipe errors, and could also save users time from having to top up their cards when it runs low.

Like we said, this is not the first time contactless systems are being introduced to public transport. Over in cities like London and Tokyo, similar systems have already been put into place.

Filed in . Read more about Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Output: New York is set to follow other world cities and introduce contactless payments to its transport network. The city's transport authorities have approved a $573m contract to implement the new payment network, replacing the existing MetroCard system of swipe cards. New electronic readers will be installed at subway stations and on buses, with customers able to use contactless bank cards as well as mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay. Similar systems already operate in other cities, including London and Tokyo.


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Indian online exam prep start-up Toppr raises further $6.9m
 Toppr Will Use The Funding To Accelerate User Acquisition And Expansion

Mumbai-based personalised elearning solutions provider and online test preparation platform, Toppr has raised $6.92 Mn (INR 45 Cr) in its Series B funding, led by its existing investors SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures, and FIL Capital Management.

So far, Toppr has raised a total of $12 Mn funding. Last year in May, Toppr had raised about $10 Mn in the second round of funding led by Fidelity and its existing investors which includes Saif and Helion. Post that, in October, it had raised $2 Mn round from Venture Debt provider Innoven Capital. The startup has used the funds to fuel growth of the adaptive platform with over 2 Mn registered users and over 1 Mn app downloads.

Commenting on the funding round, Zishaan Hayath, CEO & Founder, Toppr stated, “This is the second round of series B funding by our existing investors. It is the reflection of our healthy unit economics and a reinforcement of the belief that the investors have in us. This capital will be used to expand the geographical footprint and accelerate user acquisition. We expect this capital to take us to full profitability.”

A brainchild of IIT alumni, Zishaan Hayath and Hemanth Goteti, the elearning platform was founded in 2013. It is personalising education for students from classes 5 to 12, across CBSE, ICSE, and various state boards. The startup provides tailored content that helps students learn better. It is also enhancing the way they prepare for board and competitive exams like IIT JEE and NEET, among others.

Till today, the platform’s community of 8000+ educators from across the country has contributed 1 Mn learning pieces, including questions, solutions, concepts, and videos for the students signed up on the app. Users spend nearly two hours a day on the elearning platform and 90% students renew their subscriptions when going to a new class, as claimed by the Toppr team. Toppr also claims to have cleared 1.1 Mn doubts, provided 9 Mn tests, and 110 Mn practice questions answered.

The elearning platform has a strong presence across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur, Jaipur, Kota, Vijayawada, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Gurugram, and Baroda.

In February 2016, Toppr also acquired edtech startup Manch. The company is pursuing aggressive expansion plans, to reach out to students across the country and open centres in 30 cities by December 2017. Toppr projects 20x growth in its junior grades and 15x growth in its senior grades subscription by 2021, making it a company with over $500 Mn in revenue in the next four years.

Other startups in the online test preparation space include Embibe, Examify, TestBook among others. Last year, Amazon India also announced launch of Exam Central bookstore, to provide exams related information, preparation books and other study material to students and job aspirants on its portal.

In India, elearning will see approximately 8x growth in the next five years, says a recent report by Google, KPMG. This will have a significant impact on the edtech market that has a potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from where it stands now i.e. $247 Mn. As per Ken Research’s report, during the period FY’ 2010 – FY’2015, the online test preparation market grew at an unprecedented CAGR of 17.8%. In the same report it was highlighted that the online test preparation market is expected to have around 19-26% share in the total market (about $100 Bn) by FY’ 2020-21. Thus, with the recent funding, Toppr has a great opportunity ahead to cash upon the burgeoning elearning market in India as well as globally.

Output: Indian edtech firm Toppr has raised $6.9m in a series B funding round led by SAIF Partners, Helion Ventures and FIL Capital Management, taking its total funding to $12m. Toppr provides tailored educational content for children aged between five and 12, and exam preparation materials. Toppr has a presence in many cities in India and the funds will be used to increase user numbers and support plans to open centres in 30 cities by December. CEO Zishaan Hayath said he expected the investment would take the company to "full profitability". Toppr has more than two million registered users.


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VR tech allows puppet-like control of rescue robot
 Rescue robots could be incredibly useful tools in the future, diving into situations too dangerous for humans. But if you’ve seen current-generation robots try to tackle these sorts of scenarios, you’ll know even the most advanced lack the coordination and flexibility of movement required. To fix this, a group of researchers from Japan are trying a new method of robot-control, letting a human operate a bot essentially like a giant puppet.

This sort of remote control system isn’t new, and usually comes under a branch of research known as “telepresence.” However, scientists from the University of Tokyo say their method (presented last month at the IROS conference) is more advanced than predecessors’. Earlier systems used smaller robots or only controlled the upper half of the bot; theirs controls an entire robot as big as an adult human, using controllers from HTC virtual reality Vive system.

The Vive’s “lighthouse” sensors are used to track its controllers in 3D space using infrared light. By strapping a controller to each foot and hand, the researchers were able to map their movements and send them as commands to their robot. The really clever part, though, is the intermediary software that ensures any motion sent to the robot are tweaked to fit its capabilities.

JAXON takes a few wobbly steps. Image: University of Tokyo

“For example, stepping at a walking speed is allowed, but running and jumping are forbidden,” researcher Ishiguro Yasushiro tells The Verge over email. Jerky movements are smoothed out, and fast ones slowed down, he says. “We force the robot to keep its gait always safe.” Yasushiro admits that the system still has “many weak points,” but claims its offers more flexibility and responsiveness than other designs.

The robot itself was built several years ago by the university and is known as JAXON. It previously competed in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, which is meant to test bots in disaster scenarios. Although these humanoid machines are currently too unwieldy to be used in the field, it’s hoped that they’ll be more convenient in the future. After all, if they have to navigate a space built for humans (with doors, and handles, and valves), it’s handy to be human shaped.

Output: Scientists from the University of Tokyo have enabled their Jaxon robot to perform movements such as walking and and stepping with a telepresence system. The team used an HTC virtual reality Vive system which sent mapped human movements as commands to the robot. The addition of extra software ironed out any wobbles or trembles, allowing the machine to move smoothly and in a stable manner. Researcher Ishiguro Yasushiro admitted there remain weaknesses in the system to be ironed out, but said it had greater "flexibility and responsiveness" than rival designs, and could find applications as a rescue robot.


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Zelle partners with IBM to expand P2P payments service
 As it reports soaring consumer take up, US bank-backed P2P payments app Zelle has teamed up with IBM to help bring the service to more financial institutions.

Launched a year ago, several of America's biggest banks already incorporate Zelle within their apps, while a recently introduced standalone app lets anyone access the service through the debit card accounts.

And customers are flocking to the network, with an average of 65,000 signups a day during the third quarter, resulting in 60 million payments worth $17.5 billion.

The network now claims more than 50 financial institutions and can expect to grow thanks to a new collaboration with IBM which will see any bank using Big Blue's Financial Transaction Manager get access to Zelle and the capability to send and receive customers' money in seconds.

According to IBM, the deal give banks the first solution to support the full lifecycle of P2P transactions, from the back office to the mobile device - without heavy IT spend or disruption to legacy systems.

"The integration of FTM with Zelle not only accelerates and simplifies payments through real-time processing between banks and consumers, it enables same-day deposits and bill pay, removes fees, and offers seamless cash flow, all while remaining compliant with regulatory requirements," says Alistair Rennie, GM, Watson Financial Services Products, IBM.

He adds: "For customers, this means being able to securely send and receive money in minutes, rather than waiting 1-2 days to 'cash out' which is standard among other providers such as Apple Pay and Venmo. This solution removes the friction typically experienced with other providers who essentially serve as a 'digital check' and not real time payments."

Output: US peer-to-peer payment app Zelle is set to grow beyond its current network of 50 financial institutions following a partnership with IBM. The deal means any bank using Big Blue's Financial Transaction Manager will have access to Zelle's service, enabling their customers to send and receive money in minutes, compared with the 24-48 hours it takes rivals. During Q3 2017, Zelle signed up an average of 65,000 users per day and enabled 60 million payments worth $17.5bn.


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Expro creates TCP gun for challenging fracturing and gravel projects
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Expro has launched a new extreme high pressure tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) gun system, delivering the largest perforation hole area available for frac and gravel pack completions (photo: Expro)

International oilfield services company, Expro, has launched a new extreme high pressure tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) gun system, delivering the largest perforation hole area available for frac and gravel pack completions.

Designed specifically for challenging deep water environments in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), the Extreme Pressure Series 30,000 PSI TCP gun system utilises super big hole charge technology, providing best-in-class area-open-to-flow (AOF) to support frac- and gravel-pack operations. Delivering 18-22 shots per foot using steel HMX charges, standard casing sizes of 7 inches through 7-3/4 inches, in combination with the 4-3/4-inch OD system, will achieve 6 to 7 inches AOF. However larger casing sizes of 9-5/8 through 10-3/4 inches, utilising the 6 5/8-inch OD system, will deliver 13 to 15 inches AOF.

Developed in collaboration with high performance gun system provider, GEODynamics, the system is complemented by Expro’s fully rated dual hydraulic firing heads and drill stem testing (DST) tools for underbalanced perforating applications. These systems offer cutting edge technology to deliver efficient completions, alongside optimal well performance.

Expro’s DST/TCP Product Line Director, Ron Fordyce says, “Expro has built a strong reputation as a leading TCP provider in the GoM, working with a range of major clients over the past 30 years. Following a growth in activity associated with deep wells in deeper waters, we knew it was important to deliver the right technology solution for this environment. GEODynamics has an unsurpassed reputation for their gun systems and associated products. Alongside our reputation for safety and service quality, the new Extreme Pressure Series, provided exclusively by Expro, can now deliver similar performance for extreme high pressure as it would for lower pressure wells.”

Expro’s DST/TCP Global Business Development Manager, Kerry Daly adds, “The 30,000 PSI TCP guns and associated equipment were specifically designed for the deep water environment, where operators typically frac or gravel pack wells after perforating and require the most AOF possible. Now fully field tested, they can deliver an industry leading perforating hole size for achieving optimal completions and subsequent performance from the well. It allows us to bring a key piece of technology to the market place, to support a range of clients due to spud their wells in 2018 – a key driver of this partnership from the outset.”

Expro’s TCP operations are supported from its service centre in Broussard, Louisiana, alongside the Company’s broader suite of subsea, well test, well intervention and fluid product lines across North and Latin America (NLA).

Output: Oilfield services company Expro has launched a high-pressure tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) gun system for fracturing and gravel projects. Developed in collaboration with GEODynamics, the Extreme Pressure Series 30,000 PSI TCP gun system is designed for use in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. It offers the largest perforation hole area available for fracturing and gravel operations, and can perform equally well in extreme high pressure and lower pressure wells.


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Deloitte predicts robo-advice could be bigger than BlackRock
 The market for disruptive wealth management has exploded, but could it displace the world’s largest asset manager by 2025?

Assets managed by robo-advice platforms and digital wealth managers could surpass that of incumbent giants such as BlackRock within a generation, according to a new report.

Compiled by Deloitte, it forecasts a 2020 market size of $2.2trn for robo advisers, growing to $16bn by 2025. The current assets under management of the biggest incumbent in the market today BlackRock is less than this. Of course, BlackRock, for example, is also a huge beneficiary of the growth is passive investing brought about both directly and indirectly through robo advice. In addition, the firm has a chunky stake in one of the UK market leaders Scalable Capital.

While this all sounds very bullish for robo-advice, the report notes that total levels of assets managed by traditional players is likely to remain high as a percentage of total assets. Nonetheless, it says a broader process of ‘digitisation’ is occurring within the wealth management space.

“Digital transformation of the wealth management industry is not a pure technological challenge. As the likelihood of returning to pre-crisis revenue margins is remote, wealth managers need to reinvent their business model to adapt to existing clients’ changing needs and to capture new clients while reducing operating expenses on a relative basis” the report noted.

Output: Robo-advisers could have $2.2tn in global assets under management by 2020 and had the potential to surpass the likes of BlackRock by 2025, according to a recent study from Deloitte. Investors' preference for passive investing is behind an increase in flows towards the platforms. The desire of wealth managers to digitise their offerings in the face of squeezed profit margins is also driving the growth of robo-advice.