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Deal with Dalian Wanda raises Sunac's financial risk: Moody's
 Sunac China Holdings's proposed deal to acquire assets from Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties, could keep Sunac's debt leverage at an elevated level, Moody's Investors Service said.

The transaction will not immediately impact Sunac's B2 corporate family rating, its B3 senior unsecured rating or the negative outlook on the ratings, the agency said.

"The proposed acquisition – Sunac's largest ever, equivalent to 81 percent of its gross land bank at end-2016 – will substantially increase its operating scale and land bank. However, the transaction will also raise its financial risk and keep its debt leverage elevated, as it plans to partly fund the transaction with debt," said Franco Leung, a Moody's vice president and senior credit officer.

Sunac's negative outlook reflects its high-growth business strategy that exposes it to financial risk. The company's ratings could come under pressure if it liquidity deteriorates materially or if its debt leverage remains high, Moody's said.

If the acquisition is successfully completed, Sunac's debt leverage as measured by revenue to adjusted debt and including adjustments for its joint ventures and associates is expected to deteriorate to 30 percent to 38 percent over the next 1-2 years, from 40 percent to 45 percent as forecast by Moody's previously.

Its debt leverage was around 31 percent in 2016 and 64 percent in 2015 – levels that

are weak for its B2 corporate family rating.

Moody's expects that Sunac will assume a sizable amount of debt as part of the acquisition, including a 29.6 billion yuan 3-year loan from Wanda and consolidation of debt at the project company level.

"The proposed transaction does not immediately affect Sunac's rating, as the company should have sufficient liquidity to support the acquisition and its high-growth business strategy," added Leung.

Sunac will need to pay around 33.6 billion yuan in cash to Wanda within 90 days once the agreement is signed, or 48 percent of Sunac's cash balance of about 69.8 billion at end-2016.

But Moody's expects Sunac has sufficient liquidity to support the acquisition.

On July, 11 Sunac announced that it had entered into a framework agreement with Wanda for the acquisition of a 91 percent equity interest in 13 cultural and tourism project companies, and a 100 percent interest in 76 hotels from Wanda for a total consideration of 63.2 billion yuan.

Output: Sunac China Holdings' proposed acquisition of assets from Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties could have the effect of keeping Sunac's debts at an elevated level, Moody's has warned. "The proposed acquisition … will substantially increase its operating scale and land bank. However, the transaction will also raise its financial risk and keep its debt leverage elevated, as it plans to partly fund the transaction with debt," said Moody's Franco Leung. Ratings for the property developer may come under pressure if its liquidity deteriorates or if its debt leverage remains high, added Moody's.


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Solera raises $18.3m to expand into chronic disease prevention
 Solera Health, the Phoenix-based company that has created a marketplace for digital and in-person diabetes prevention programs, has raised $18.3 million in a round led by Adams Street Partners, with additional participation from Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Partners, Sandbox Industries and SJF Ventures. The round, Solera's largest to date, brings its total funding to $30.3 million.

Solera makes a platform that connects community organizations with digital chronic disease prevention programs such as the CDC's National Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). The technology makes referrals to the programs easier, helps customers manage payments and reimbursement, and aggregates data from the programs. This makes it easier for community groups to enroll people in the prevention programs. Solera works with Weight Watchers, Lark, Retrofit, Noom, Canary Health, health app MyDietician, the Michigan Health Improvement Alliance, Black Women's Health Imperative, WellCoaches, and Jenny Craig. It has 40 million covered lives.

With this new round of funding, the company is beginning to look to other chronic disease management and prevention programs that could benefit from the same infrastructure. In the past, the company has indicated depression and hypertension as possible target areas for the future.

“Solera Health has created the preventive care benefits manager category and for the first time is now enabling non-clinical providers to be integrated into healthcare,” CEO Brenda Schmidt said in a statement. “This investment allows us to further scale our model to positively impact the enormous health and financial burdens of chronic disease.”

The funding will also support expansion of Solera's existing programs to the demand created by Medicare's decision to reimburse for DPPs.

“Solera Health was immediately compelling as they had such a unique vision and approach for addressing challenges typically related to preventive services administration,” Tom Bremner, a Partner at Adams Street Partners, said in a statement. “Brenda and her team saw a need for a DPP integrator who could manage engagement, enrollment, billing and reporting, and they built a company around bridging this gap in the healthcare ecosystem. This round of funding will support the company’s ongoing efforts to alter an antiquated approach to the administration of preventive benefits and transform the healthcare delivery model as we know it.”

Output: US-based Solera Health has raised $18.3m in a funding round led by Adams Street Parnters, bringing its total funding to $30.3m. The platform offers a marketplace for in-person and digital diabetes prevention programmes and connects patients with community organisations, like the CDC's National Diabetes Prevention Program. The platform makes it easy for customers to manage payments and monitor data, and works with various plans such as Weight Watchers, WellCoaches and Jenny Craig. Solera wants to expand its platform to manage other chronic diseases and has previously suggested hypertension and depression could be explored in the future.


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University study finds there are four types of Facebook user
 Anyone who uses Facebook can safely assume that to the company we are all one type of one thing: bundles of sellable data. The massive social network is more than one thing to its customers, however. Some of us use it to keep tabs on distant friends, for instance, and others to promote their creative works, or “literally” too-cute toenails. Still others see Facebook as a passive medium, a television channel made up of shows starring everyone they know and some they don’t.

Now a new study, published in the International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, confirms that Facebook has a Rashomon effect: various user groups interpret the experience of using it very differently. Surprisingly, however, the researchers also found they could easily categorize users into four broad types: “relationship builders,” “window shoppers,” “town criers,” and “selfies.”

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The study authors, from the School of Communication at Brigham Young University, say these four categories emerged from a survey that asked subjects to respond to a list of 48 statements. These included phrases like, “Facebook is a source of stress, and it depresses me” and “Facebook is an instant way to ask for help or something I need from people.” Subjects ranked each statement on a scale from “most like me” to “least like me,” and were later interviewed by the researchers who gathered additional insights and qualitative data.

Notably, only 47 subjects were involved in this study, but the authors argue that, because they employed Q methodology, an approach to investigating divergent perspectives on subjective topics using sorting, statistic, and factor analysis, the small sample size is sufficient to reveal solid patterns.

As you read through the profiles of the key types below, however, you may see yourself reflected in more than one category. The authors acknowledge that we aren’t all easily pigeonholed, but say that we’re likely to find we’re mostly like one type. That is, at least among American young adults; the study only involved Americans aged 18 to 32, so global populations and older demographics may include other types. What’s more, your attitudes about Facebook and your online behavior might change over your life.

Here’s a closer look at the types revealed by the survey:

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Relationship builders

This cohort uses Facebook much the way humans once used actual mail and landline telephones: to strengthen existing relationships with friends and family. In fact, Facebook is an extension of their offline life, according to Tom Robinson, associate director of BYU’s Graduate School of Communication and a professor of advertising. A sample statement that relationship builders identified with was “Facebook helps me to express love to my family and lets my family express love to me.”

As the researchers explain in the study, this gang does not consider Facebook an “open virtual social society but rather a mini-hub site for personal storytelling, where information freely flows between friends and family.” In the interview phase, one subject who fell into this category said she didn’t call her family, so Facebook was “just an easy way to say ‘hi’ and share a bit of love.”

Relationship builders also tend to be heavy posters and viewers of pictures and videos; they commonly comment on the images and updates others have shared, and engage in conversations.

Window shoppers

Driven by “a sense of social obligation” to be on Facebook, window shoppers see Facebook as an inescapable part of modern life, but they very rarely divulge personal information, share photos, or write updates. Nor do they do much liking or commenting.

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Clark Callahan, one of the paper’s co-authors, who is also a specialist in research methods and the director of the undergraduate school of communication at BYU, called Facebook window shopping, “the social-media equivalent of people watching.” Men and women in this group most identified with statements such as: “I can freely look at the Facebook profile of someone I have a crush on and know their interests and relationship status,” or “I have to use Facebook in order to stay connected with people.”

One window shopper told the researchers, “I would rather live my life outside Facebook.” Another said that Facebook was not a place to “post things about myself or just about my daily life, or what I did on Saturday—because I think people who want to know me will be around doing it with me.”

Town criers

These are the self-styled or professional journalists, activists, and event organizers who see Facebook primarily as a soapbox. Unlike relationship builders, their virtual world does not resemble their real life. They might broadcast information they feel compelled to share to a wide range of close and distant connections, but they’re not looking for a follow-up—or not online anyway. “Sometimes they post things and they don’t even care if someone likes it or not,” Kris Boyle, a BYU professor of journalism who was also a co-author, tells Quartz.

The members of this faction are often sounding alarms on big issues, and passing along the latest memes, and see Facebook as the easiest way to do that. One has to wonder whether, in a year of political upheaval in the US and elsewhere, their constant posting of online articles—for which Facebook, as a powerful distributor, takes home the biggest slice of the ad revenue pie—hasn’t most helped the tech giant while further weakening the newspaper industry. But if the newspapers can successfully fight back through a legal battle, as they hope to, the town criers will be the first to tell you about it— through Facebook.

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Just don’t ask them to share personal details. Although keenly focused on pushing out alerts (whether real or invented news) and inviting people to events (whether protests or church brunches), town criers tend to reveal little “private” information in their Facebook activity.

Their lack of sharing and interacting does not represent a lack of interest in their acquaintances. “I don’t talk to my family on Facebook,” one town crier explained to the paper’s authors, adding, “They are more important than that.”

Most town criers would rather pick up the phone, text, or direct message someone for an actual conversation.

Selfies

The final group, the selfies, is the one we’re all too familiar with—and that’s the way they like it. Their ways have spawned a thousand essays on the problem with social media, and contributed to the myth of the narcissistic Millennial.

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Selfies routinely use the same Facebook features as relationship builders—posting pictures, videos, and status updates—but they do it primarily to call attention to themselves, say the researchers behind this study. Energized and validated by likes and comments, the selfies agreed with statements like: “The more ‘like’ notification alarms I receive, the more I feel approved by my peers.”

Speaking in a study interview, one selfie explained that: “Taking [a] picture and letting it sit on my phone makes it nothing and useless, but once I post something on Facebook, it shows I’ve done something.”

Although the selfies were found to be least concerned about the accuracy of the self they presented online, says Boyle, that tendency could exist in any category. “Even relationship builders could look like they have a loving relationship with someone on Facebook, and when they get together, it’s a different story,” he says. Among town criers, the computer may provide a protective barrier for those who don’t necessarily feel comfortable sharing their ideas or opinions in real life.

One seductive quality of online interaction generally, Boyle notes, is that people are able to create a better—or different—versions of themselves.

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To share our darkest truths, we prefer the perceived anonymity of a Google search.

Output: A study featured in the International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking has found there are four distinct kinds of Facebook user, highlighting the marked variation in people's experience of the platform. The four broad categories are "relationship builders", who use Facebook as a "mini-hub" to reinforce existing close relationships; "Window shoppers", who regularly observe Facebook activity but rarely participate or disclose much personal information; "town criers", who actively spread politically-charged news, memes and events on the platform, but rarely share private information; and 'selfies', who tap into the archetype of the narcissistic millennial, posting lots of attention-seeking material.


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M&C Saatchi Australia appoints Mandi Bateson as head of social
 M&C Saatchi has appointed Mandi Bateson to the role of Head of Social. Bateson comes armed with over 12 years of industry experience, most recently Head of Social at Mindshare.

Starting July 10, Bateson will be responsible for the continued growth and expansion of M&C Saatchi’s social and content offering. She will spearhead strategies for key clients and also play a role in new business development.

Bateson is one of Australia’s most highly respected social media marketing specialists. Her portfolio spans across tourism, insurance, financial services, telecommunications and FMCG. Award-recognised, Bateson has received accolades for spearheading the social media strategy for Foxtel’s ‘Home of Thrones’ campaign.

General manager of M&C Saatchi Mim Haysom said: “Mandi is the best in the business. She has a proven track record of building and leading the best in class social capabilities and teams. Her impressive skillset will further cement the strength of our integrated media and creative offering. We’re excited to have her on board.”

Bateson said: “I’m thrilled to be joining some of the industry’s sharpest minds to produce brilliant work. M&C Saatchi is at the forefront of innovation and creativity across digital and social – I can’t wait to hit the ground running.”

Output: Mandi Bateson, one of Australia’s most highly respected social media marketing specialists, has begun her role as head of social at M&C Saatchi, based in Sydney. Formerly head of social at Mindshare, Bateson will be responsible for strategies for key clients and will also play a role in new business development as she oversees the growth and expansion of M&C Saatchi’s social and content offerings.


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Middlemen mainly to blame for video ad fraud, finds DoubleVerify
 Where there’s great demand, there’s also great incentive for fraud. That’s a problem for ad buyers looking for new sources of video ad inventory.

While bots and domain spoofing remain a threat to programmatic, there’s another type of fraud scheme eating up video ad dollars. Middlemen — typically ad networks and unscrupulous publishers they work with — are making money by arbitraging the difference between display and video CPMs. These same middlemen are also mimicking video tags to convince exchanges that they’re offering video inventory, even though they’re just making a markup on reselling display space.

Video ad fraud is about twice as common as display ad fraud, according to a June study by DoubleVerify. The reason: there’s more money in video, and fraudsters go where the money is. Here’s a breakdown of some of the wonkier tactics that fraudsters use to reap video ad dollars.

Misleading pre-rolls

One of the most common forms of video ad fraud is simple and long-running: videos ads are mislabeled as pre-roll in the exchange. Instead of being shown in a video player (which are usually at least 400 pixels wide) before a piece of editorial video content, these ads get squeezed into 300 x 250 pixel display ad slots. Although this type of video fraud has existed for years, it has become acutely irritating for advertisers as the demand for video continues to soar. A study Integral Ad Science and demand-side platform Rocket Fuel conducted in April found that up to 70 percent of video ad inventory is misrepresented in this manner.

This type of fraud is difficult to trace because the ads are indeed video, they are shown to humans, they appear on the correct website the advertiser is trying to reach and they usually have high viewability, said Travis Lusk, vp of analytics at IAS. What makes the ads fraudulent is that they’re much smaller than what the advertiser thinks it paid for, and they don’t appear against the type of video content the advertiser anticipates. An autoplay video ad in a banner isn’t exactly a Hulu pre-roll.

Here is a peek into the ad tech abattoir where the sausage gets made. An ad network will buy $5 display CPMs in an exchange, repackage the inventory and sell it as video inventory for a $20 CPM in another exchange. Ad buyers purchase $20 video inventory thinking it is pre-roll against editorial content, but instead their video ad gets shrunk down and shown against video footage the ad network supplies. Sometimes the networks will license, and perpetually reuse, videos from news services like Reuters or The Associated Press. The networks also pirate video from the publishers’ sites that the ads will show up on to give an appearance of legitimacy, Lusk said.

To accommodate for the difference in aspect ratios between the video ad and the display slot, the network will add black bars to the sides of the ad, similar to how DVD players adjust between widescreen and full-screen formats. When reselling the display inventory, the ad network attaches its video content to the display ad impression so that when the exchange it’s reselling to checks the inventory, it will appear as video.

“The video ad exchange isn’t complicit in this,” said John Murphy, vp of marketplace quality at ad exchange OpenX. “They think they are getting a request for video. They won’t be aware that the video is being stuffed into a display unit.”

Static video ads

Video ad-serving template and video player ad-serving interface definition tags have recently become popular because these tags provide performance data to advertisers, and they help video players and ad servers speak the same language, which publishers need to scale their video ads. But the popularity of these tags has been accompanied by a rise in fraudsters mimicking the tags so they can pass display inventory off as video and pocket the difference between the CPMs, said ad fraud researcher Shailin Dhar.

Once the fraudster has sufficiently cloned a VAST or VPAID tag, it doesn’t have to go through the trouble of attaching generic video content to its display ad slots to trick some video exchanges. If the ad unit has VPAID status, the fraudster can send a static image through the exchange even though it is selling video inventory. Exchanges with more sophisticated fraud tools can detect this trick, but exchanges centered around low-quality (and thus cheaper) inventory do not have strict enough ad-quality standards to prevent this practice, Dhar said.

“They aren’t doing this on YouTube,” Dhar said. “They do this on the bottom-of-the-barrel video exchanges.”

How to avoid the fraud

Ad buyers can do a few things to avoid display-to-video fraud. For instance, if a unit that’s labeled as pre-roll is only around 300 pixels wide, don’t buy it. And since there isn’t enough supply of video to meet the demand, buyers should also be careful of hypertargeting with video because it’s unlikely there will be enough supply to meet the demand for a niche demographic, said Chris Wexler, executive director of media and analytics at ad agency Cramer-Krasselt.

“Just because a terminal in front of you says it’s possible doesn’t mean a buyer can turn off their critical thinking and accept it as fact,” Wexler said.

Another indicator is poor completion rates. If pre-roll video ads are almost always stopped within a few seconds, that indicates users weren’t actually trying to watch the video content the ads ran against. “Any DSP worth its salt” should provide this reporting, said Ian Monaghan, special operations consultant at Adobe Advertising Cloud (formerly known as TubeMogul).

If buyers use an ad measurement service, they can also examine if a particular ad slot flips back and forth between display and video. The networks won’t arbitrage the same display slot 100 percent of the time, so if that slot shows a mix of both video and display, that’s an indication video ads are being squeezed into display units, Lusk said.

Using the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Tech Lab initiative ads.txt, which is a text file hosted on a publisher’s web server that lists all of the companies authorized to sell the publisher’s inventory, could potentially help buyers spot unauthorized sellers flipping display inventory into video, said Ari Levenfeld, chief privacy officer at Rocket Fuel. But ads.txt will only become a reliable check for buyers once publishers and exchanges widely adopt it, which could take awhile.

In the meantime, buyers should be more attuned to the realities of the economics of video advertising. If an exchange is offering $5 CPMs for pre-rolls, it’s probably too good to be true. But since cheap video is alluring, don’t expect buyers to change their habits overnight.

“Buyers continue to let people on their media plans that don’t play by the rules and rarely care about user experience,” said Marc Goldberg, CEO of fraud detection firm Trust Metrics. “Video is, and will always be, a target for the bad guys.”

Output: Video ad fraud has become twice as common as its display ad counterpart because it is more lucrative, according to a survey by DoubleVerify, posing problems for publishers and buyers. Unscrupulous middlemen using misleading prerolls or claiming an ad is video when it is in fact display are long-running issues that are plaguing the industry. Experts have urged buyers to be realistic about the economics of video advertising. "Just because a terminal in front of you says it’s possible doesn’t mean a buyer can turn off their critical thinking," said Chris Wexler, executive director of media and analytics at ad agency Cramer-Krasselt.


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Echo Dot is top seller in record Amazon Prime Day
 Amazon's Prime Day sets more records, up 60 per cent on last year

Yesterday’s Prime Day was Amazon’s biggest-ever day for sales – surpassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday, up 60 per cent on last year’s Prime Day, which broke records for Amazon at the time.

The sales event ran across 30 hours, in 13 countries, and led to a record number of sign-ups for Prime in a single day.

Amazon hasn’t revealed the exact sales figures from the day, but says ‘tens of millions’ of people made a purchase, up on 2016’s Prime Day by more than 50 per cent. Orders from the Amazon app specifically more than doubled.

The best-selling product from the sale was Amazon’s own Echo Dot, with seven times more Echo devices sold than last year.

“To those customers who tried Prime for the first time and our long time members, thank you for a great Prime Day,” said Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime. “Our teams around the world will keep working to add more and more to your membership, so Prime continues to make your life better every day. We are already looking forward to our Prime Day celebration next year.”

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

Output: Amazon recorded its biggest ever day for sales on its most recent Prime Day this month, with the 30-hour event racking up 60% more sales than in 2016. The day's best-selling item was Amazon’s own Echo Dot portable smart speaker, contributing to Echo devices posting seven times as many sales as the previous year's event. Held in 13 countries, the event also led to a record number of sign-ups for Prime.


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China teleports quantum particle into space in world first
 Today, the Micius team announced the results of its first experiments. The team created the first satellite-to-ground quantum network, in the process smashing the record for the longest distance over which entanglement has been measured. And they’ve used this quantum network to teleport the first object from the ground to orbit.

Teleportation has become a standard operation in quantum optics labs around the world. The technique relies on the strange phenomenon of entanglement. This occurs when two quantum objects, such as photons, form at the same instant and point in space and so share the same existence. In technical terms, they are described by the same wave function.

The curious thing about entanglement is that this shared existence continues even when the photons are separated by vast distances. So a measurement on one immediately influences the state of the other, regardless of the distance between them.

Back in the 1990s, scientists realized they could use this link to transmit quantum information from one point in the universe to another. The idea is to “download” all the information associated with one photon in one place and transmit it over an entangled link to another photon in another place.

This second photon then takes on the identity of the first. To all intents and purposes, it becomes the first photon. That’s the nature of teleportation and it has been performed many times in labs on Earth.

Teleportation is a building block for a wide range of technologies. “Long-distance teleportation has been recognized as a fundamental element in protocols such as large-scale quantum networks and distributed quantum computation,” says the Chinese team.

Output: China has teleported a photon into space. Chinese researchers sent the elementary light particle from a ground station in Tibet to a satellite built for quantum experimentation, thereby breaking the record for the longest distance for remote interaction between two particles, known as quantum entanglement. “This work establishes the first ground-to-satellite up-link for faithful and ultra-long-distance quantum teleportation, an essential step toward global-scale quantum internet,” said the Chinese team of researchers. What it also shows is China's dominance in a field that had been led by Europe and the US.


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Root to offer customers Lyft deal after road accident
 Startup telematics-based auto insurer Root is now offering rental coverage in partnership with ridesharing firm Lyft. For policyholders with short-term needs for alternate transportation after an incident, Root will now offer a choice between a rental car or a comparable amount of Lyft credits for free rides.

In addition to offering a new twist on rental coverage, Root also announced that it is expanding to Oklahoma and Indiana, after starting out in Ohio and Arizona.

Lyft is also piloting a rental coverage option with CSAA Insurance in California.

Roots, an Ohio-based company, targets good drivers using telematics and smartphone technology. To get a quote, drivers must download an app and take a two or three-week test drive, depending on how much they drive. Once complete, Root provides a quote and allows customers to request cancellation of their old policy, all through their mobile phone

With its Lyft rental option, the company said it is trying to improve the auto insurance claims process, which it says has “long been one of the auto insurance industry’s biggest pain points, and a big piece of that is the rental reimbursement experience.”

Under the Lyft program, customers who have a short-term need (a week or less) will have the option to choose a rental car or select Lyft credits worth a comparable amount. Policyholders can make the decision each time they file a claim.

“The claims experience is notoriously bad. You’ve just gotten into an accident and now you have a mountain of paperwork, agents with questions, and the added bonus of no car,” said Alex Timm, co-founder and CEO of Root. “We’re rebuilding the claims experience from the ground up, starting with rental coverage. Through our partnership with Lyft, we’re making sure we don’t add to the stress of an already bad day.”

With the option of Lyft, Root policyholders may choose to forgo the rental car process entirely and instead have Lyft credits added to their account to use over the period of the repair.

Root says its new rental coverage offer is in keeping with its “Lyft on Us” perk, which gave policyholders free Lyft credits on the most dangerous driving days of the year, helping keep them safe.

Root officially debuted last fall after it raised about $7 million in initial funding from venture capital firm Drive Capital and 20 employees. Munich Re, Odyssey Re and Maiden Re are providing reinsurance, and Silicon Valley Bank is backing Root’s reserves.

Source: Root

Output: Insurtech firm Root has joined forces with ride-sharing firm Lyft to offer policyholders travel credits with the Uber rival or a rental car after an accident or other incident. The telematics-based car insurer, which is also expanding operations in the US Midwest, said the offer will go to customers when they make a claim.


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Big Mobile expands ad business with Made Media acquisition
 Independent mobile ad tech company Big Mobile has fuelled its growth across the Asia-Pacific region by acquiring New Zealand mobile advertising business Made Media.

Made Media was founded by Michael Buhagiar in 2013, who said he was thrilled that the company was joining Big Mobile.

“By tapping into Big Mobile’s scale of 75 mobile professionals and their ad tech partnerships, we will be able to help advertisers and publishers better understand their audiences and how they engage with ads on mobile,” he said.

“For me, it was a case of going back to a great team to make sure I was still moving forward in this constantly evolving market.”

Big Mobile CEO David Green said: “After thoroughly testing our mobile ad tech with NZ premium publishers and the biggest brands in NZ, the results are indicating that the time is now right to expand our NZ operations with the acquisition of Made Media.

“Michael and Made Media clearly have a good reputation in the market, winning several awards and accolades in NZ. Michael is a known quantity in our business, as he helped to found Big Mobile NZ in 2011. He has the proven ability to build and grow mobile advertising businesses in NZ.

“We are looking forward to bolstering Michael’s mobile product set to offer NZ brands the best mobile ad tech from across the global, so its a perfect fit for both businesses.”

The Big Mobile product set in NZ will be centered around building brands and engaging audiences on mobile in brand-safe environments.

The acquisition comes after Big Mobile announced a partnership with Widespace in November 2016, and last month Big Mobile signed up a tier-one NZ publisher to integrate its ad tech directly into its sites and apps to offer the market a new mobile display and video proposition based on high viewability, no fraud, brand safety and transparency.

Big Mobile will continue to offer location-based platform Allspark from Near. It will also offer to the NZ market for the first time the largest programmatic audio exchange that its powered by audio ad tech company Adwizz.

“Big Mobile will aggressively grow in APAC via organic growth and possible acquisitions where it makes sense” Green said.

“We are seeing some great results from the new ad tech partnerships that have been localised in each market. We are focused on being market leader by driving the best outcomes for our clients across APAC, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia.”

Output: Mobile ad tech company Big Mobile has acquired New Zealand mobile advertising business Made Media, as part of the Australian firm's plan to expand in Asia-Pacific markets. The move follows Big Mobile's partnership with Widespace in November 2016. Big Mobile will offer the NZ market the largest Adwizz-powered programmatic audio exchange for the first time.


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Mobile ad growth up 60% helped by better targeting and EM adoption
 Driven by a “mobile-first” consumer environment and improving marketing technologies, worldwide mobile advertising growth increased by 60.5% to $83 billion (€63 billion) in 2016, up from $52 billion in 2015, according to the latest analysis from IHS Markit, IAB Europe and the IAB.Shares of the $83 billion global total for 2016 breaks out, by region, as follows:North America: 46% ($38 billion) Asia-Pacific: 33% ($27 billion) Europe: 19% ($16 billion) Middle East & Africa: 0.8% ($0.7 billion) Latin America: 0.7% ($0.5 billion)The global mobile advertising market has not only benefitted from the rapid smartphone adoption in emerging markets but also better ad targeting capabilities in mature markets, said Qingzhen Chen, senior analyst at IHS Markit.“An influx of investments and partnerships for premium content, and data collaboration between broadcasters and leading online platforms were the key drivers for the strong mobile growth. The western markets were driven by several key markets but dominated by global players, whereas in APAC, local players accounted for most of the growth.”“High double-digit growth of 60.5% in global mobile advertising was also fueled by continued improvements in advertising technology,” said Kia Ling Teoh, analyst at IHS Markit. “Standardisation of measurement has helped to better capture consumer interaction with mobile ads as media consumption increasingly shifts to mobile devices. This is particularly important in emerging markets where, for many people, mobile is the first and only means of accessing the internet.”Mobile display continues to drive investment with the highest growth at 64.3%, with mobile search lagging slightly behind, up 61.1%.“The latest global mobile advertising revenue numbers confirm that we are now in a mobile-first media consumption and advertising environment,” said Townsend Feehan, CEO of IAB Europe. Messaging grew by 11.2%, as users continue to migrate from operator-owned messaging services to app-based messaging platforms.In 2016, display advertising increased its share to 54.0% of all mobile spend globally at $45 billion. Search-based advertising commanded a 42.8% share at $36 billion. Messaging-based advertising continues to decline, securing just a 3.1% share in 2016 at $2.6 billion.“These global figures reflect brands’ recognition that mobile is critical in reaching today's consumers around the world,” said Anna Bager, senior vice president and general manager, mobile and video, IAB. “With mobile taking this landmark lead in digital revenues in America, it is unsurprising to see an upward trajectory the world over.”(Photo courtesy: 123RF)

Output: Mobile advertising growth rose 60.5% to $83bn in 2016, compared to $52bn in 2015, with better targeting capabilities in mature markets and fast adoption in emerging markets among the reasons behind the boost, according to analysis from IHS Markit, the Industry Advertising Bureau Europe and the Industry Advertising Bureau. The data showed North America and Asia were biggest the growth areas, with 46% and 33% of the markets respectively, while Europe lagged behind with 19%.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Arriva to provide 18 biodiesel-powered trains for Dutch railways
 Arriva has been named as the winner of the next contract to operate regional passenger rail services in Groningen and Friesland, the Netherlands. The move will see 18 new biodiesel trains added to the busy rail network in the area, a precursor to eventually transitioning to an emissions free electrical network.

The new contract will run for 15 years from 13 December 2020, and is worth €1.6billion. Arriva is the incumbent operator in Groningen and Friesland.

“To be given the opportunity to continue operating the country’s northern train services for a further 15 years is testament not only to the strength of our bid, but also to the great service we are providing under the current concession to the 32 000 passengers who use the regional transport network every day”, said Arriva Group CEO Manfred Rudhart in an Arriva press release.

Arriva’s bid placed significant emphasis on delivering a more sustainable, more environmentally friendly transport network.

The current fleet of 51 Stadler GTW 2/8 and GTW 2/6 diesel multiple-units is to be refurbished. The trainsets will be fitted with batteries to enable braking energy to be recovered for reuse, ‘reducing emissions and cutting noise when accelerating away from stations’, according to the Railway Gazette.

18 new train sets added to the Leeuwarden – Groningen Europapark route will all be fuelled by biodiesel, increasing capacity and enabling the provision of more frequent weekend and evening services on key sections of the network. In the long term, a complete conversion to emission-free electrical operation is planned for the fleet of trains.

Output: European transport provider Arriva is to operate a regional passenger rail service in the Netherlands using 18 new biodiesel trains, with the aim of eventually creating an emissions-free electric network. Arriva's €1.6bn ($1.85bn) contract is for 15 years.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Global warming set to disrupt flights: Columbia University
 By Bobby Magill

Follow @bobbymagill

Imagine boarding a summertime flight at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, only to be told that the airline needs a dozen or so passengers to take a later flight because it’s too hot outside for the plane to take off fully loaded.

That could become a common scenario at 19 major airports worldwide as extreme heat caused by global warming disrupts an increasing number of flights departing during the hottest times of day, according to a new Columbia University study.

If human greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, global average temperatures are expected to rise by more than 4°C (7.2°F) by 2100. But high temperatures at the world’s busiest airports could rise even more — by up to 8°C (14.4°F), leading to more days each year that are hotter than average, especially at airports in the tropics, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Climatic Change.

A Boeing 787, an aircraft that may be vulnerable to rising temperatures.

Credit: RS Deakin/flickr

By 2065, LaGuardia Airport could see about 25 days each year that will be hotter than today’s average yearly high temperature, up from fewer than 10 days in 2025.

Extreme heat disrupted flights in Phoenix in June when American Airlines cancelled 50 flights aboard small commuter jets as temperatures soared above 120°F. Such summertime temperatures are likely to become more frequent as the climate changes. Air is less dense in extreme heat, preventing an airplane's wings from generating enough lift to take off unless the plane sheds weight.

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“Higher temperatures are going to mean more people having to be removed from flights, more delays on the ground,” said study co-author Radley Horton, a climate scientist at Columbia University.

The amount of weight and number of passengers a flight would have to shed depend on the type of aircraft and the airport’s altitude and runway length. LaGuardia could be affected by the heat more than New York’s Kennedy International Airport because its runways are nearly half the length of Kennedy’s longest runway.

Between 10 and 30 percent of annual flights departing at the hottest hours of the day from 19 major airports will have to fly with weight restrictions, the study says. On average, flights will have to cut their weight by up to 4 percent in order to take off on the hottest days after 2050.

An Airbus A320, one of the most common airliners flown worldwide.

Credit: Caribb/flickr

Some larger planes, especially those that fly long-haul international flights to mid-sized or small airports, could be affected more than smaller planes because they weigh more. However, the largest plane flying today, the double-decker Airbus A380, may not be affected as much by the heat because it can only fly to airports with the longest runways.

The study suggests that one way airlines could avoid heat-related flight disruptions is to schedule flights at night or in the morning when the air is cooler. But airplanes and airports may need to be designed differently in the future in order to deal with the heat as the globe warms.

“As it gets warmer, air expands,” said Lou McNally, an assistant professor of applied aviation sciences at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., who is unaffiliated with the study. “That means you need more of everything in order to get enough air molecules onto the wing and fly. It means more thrust — bigger or more engines — and more runway length for takeoff, or larger wings, or all of the above. And also more runway length and better braking because of higher landing speeds at the other end.”

McNally said that airlines could also adapt by moving major hubs to regions with a cooler climate. Many regional jets based at regional hubs cannot fly at temperatures above 120°F.

Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and aviation writer, said even some of the newest airplanes flying today are not designed to account for extreme heat. New airplanes take nearly a decade to develop, and it will take more than simple design tweaks to existing airplanes for the aviation industry to overcome the challenges extreme heat poses, he said.

“This is something that nobody’s really taken seriously,” Smith said. “Planes really aren’t yet being designed with this in mind. And for that to happen, because it takes so long to develop and build a new commercial airplane, this is something that’s pretty far out.”

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Output: Global warming could disrupt flights during the hottest times of day at 19 international airports, according to research by Columbia University. The study says that temperatures at the busiest airports could rise by up to 8C by 2100, resulting in greater numbers of days that are hotter than average. New York’s LaGuardia Airport could see the number of such days rise from fewer than 10 in 2025 to 25 per year by 2065. Higher temperatures will mean that planes will have to shed weight, meaning passengers will have to be removed. Planes and airports may also have to be redesigned.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Global warming set to disrupt flights: Columbia University
 Steadily rising mean and extreme temperatures as a result of climate change will likely impact the air transportation system over the coming decades. As air temperatures rise at constant pressure, air density declines, resulting in less lift generation by an aircraft wing at a given airspeed and potentially imposing a weight restriction on departing aircraft. This study presents a general model to project future weight restrictions across a fleet of aircraft with different takeoff weights operating at a variety of airports. We construct performance models for five common commercial aircraft and 19 major airports around the world and use projections of daily temperatures from the CMIP5 model suite under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 emissions scenarios to calculate required hourly weight restriction. We find that on average, 10–30% of annual flights departing at the time of daily maximum temperature may require some weight restriction below their maximum takeoff weights, with mean restrictions ranging from 0.5 to 4% of total aircraft payload and fuel capacity by mid- to late century. Both mid-sized and large aircraft are affected, and airports with short runways and high temperatures, or those at high elevations, will see the largest impacts. Our results suggest that weight restriction may impose a non-trivial cost on airlines and impact aviation operations around the world and that adaptation may be required in aircraft design, airline schedules, and/or runway lengths.

Output: Global warming could disrupt flights during the hottest times of day at 19 international airports, according to research by Columbia University. The study says that temperatures at the busiest airports could rise by up to 8C by 2100, resulting in greater numbers of days that are hotter than average. New York’s LaGuardia Airport could see the number of such days rise from fewer than 10 in 2025 to 25 per year by 2065. Higher temperatures will mean that planes will have to shed weight, meaning passengers will have to be removed. Planes and airports may also have to be redesigned.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Google funds academics to influence policy: CfA
 Google has spent millions funding academic research in the US and Europe to try to influence public opinion and policymakers, a watchdog has claimed.

Over the last decade, Google has funded research papers that appear to support the technology company’s business interests and defend against regulatory challenges such as antitrust and anti-piracy, the US-based Campaign for Accountability (CfA) said in a report.

“Google uses its immense wealth and power to attempt to influence policymakers at every level,” said Daniel Stevens, CfA executive director. “At a minimum, regulators should be aware that the allegedly independent legal and academic work on which they rely has been brought to them by Google.”

In its Google Academics Inc report, the CfA identified 329 research papers published between 2005 and 2017 on public policy that the company had funded. Such studies have been authored by academics and economists from some of the world’s leading institutions including Oxford, Edinburgh, Stanford, Harvard, MIT and the Berlin School of Economics.

Academics were directly funded by Google in more than half of the cases and in the rest of the cases funded indirectly by groups or institutions supported by Google, the CfA said. Authors, who were paid between $5,000 and $400,000 (£3,900-£310,000) by Google, did not disclose the source of their funding in 66% of all cases, and in 26% of those cases directly funded by Google, according to the report.The CfA is calling for Google-funded academics to disclose the source of their funding to ensure their work can be evaluated in context.

Google described the report as “highly misleading” as it included any work supported by any organisation to which it has ever donated money.

“Our support for the principles underlying an open internet is shared by many academics and institutions who have a long history of undertaking research on these topics – across important areas like copyright, patents, and free expression,” said director of public policy Leslie Miller in a blog post. “We provide support to help them undertake further research, and to raise awareness of their ideas.”

Miller said the company expected academics to disclose its funding and maintain their independence. Some of the academics listed in the report had criticised Google’s policy positions on antitrust, privacy and net neutrality.

Miller added that it was ironic that the CfA talked about accountability and transparency when it would not reveal its own financial backers, one of which is Oracle, a company “running a well-documented lobbying campaign against us”, funding hundreds of pieces of research and events.

“Whenever Google’s bad behaviour is exposed, it invariably points the finger at someone else,” said Stevens. “Instead of deflecting blame, Google should address its record of academic astroturfing, which puts it in the same league as big oil and big tobacco.”

Output: Google has been accused of spending millions on funding research in the US and Europe, in fields such as antitrust and anti-piracy regulation, in an attempt to influence policy and public opinion, according to a report by the US Campaign for Accountability (CfA). The Google Academics study identified 329 papers published between 2005 and 2017, which were funded by the company and produced by researchers from institutions including the Berlin School of Economics, Oxford, Edinburgh, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. The CfA is calling for academics to disclose such funding in order that research can be properly contextualised.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Google funds academics to influence policy: CfA
 Google has been inextricably associated with academia since its inception. The parents of both founders were academics and the company itself was conceived and born at Stanford University. Sergey Brin’s biography on Google’s site still states: “He is currently on leave from the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University.” The company has cultivated a college-like atmosphere, offering yellow bicycles for employees to ride around its sprawling campus. Its partnerships with Carnegie Mellon University are so extensive that a Google office is housed on the school’s campus.

Behind the scenes, however, Google has exercised an increasingly pernicious influence on academic research, paying millions of dollars each year to academics and scholars who produce papers that support its business and policy goals. An in-depth examination by the Google Transparency Project identified 330 research papers published between 2005 and 2017 on public policy matters of interest to Google that were in some way funded by the company. In more than half of those cases (54%), academics were directly funded by Google. The remainder worked for, or were affiliated with, groups or institutions that were funded by Google. In the majority of cases, readers of the papers would not have been aware of the corporate funding: Academics did not disclose the Google funding in nearly two-thirds of cases (65%). Authors failed to disclose funding even when they were directly funded by Google in more than a quarter (26%) of cases.

The academic papers examined encompassed a wide range of policy and legal issues of critical importance to Google’s bottom line, including antitrust, privacy, net neutrality, search neutrality, patents and copyright. They were also tied to specific issues that Google sought to influence. The number of Google-funded studies tended to spike during moments when its business model came under threat from regulators—or when the company had opportunities to push for regulations on its competitors.

For example: Google began to fund a barrage of academic studies on antitrust issues in 2011, a time when U.S. antitrust enforcers began to scrutinize the company’s practices. Overall, more than a third (113) of the Google-funded studies in our dataset focused on antitrust issues—the largest single category. The largest number of studies were published in 2012, coinciding with major antitrust investigations into its conduct by the Federal Trade Commission and European regulators. (See Fig. 2) Between 2011 and 2013, Google funded academics authored at least 50 studies on antitrust issues. Among others, studies included Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Case Against Google, authored by Geoffrey Manne with the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) and Joshua Wright from George Mason University and Search, Essential Facilities, and the Antitrust Duty to Deal by Marina Lao at Seton Hall University. The spike in competition-themed papers subsided after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation in early 2013. There was a second spike in 2015, when a potential settlement in Europe fell apart and the European Commission filed formal antitrust charges against the company.

Google-funded studies on copyright issues also surged in 2012, as the company fought anti-piracy bills in Congress. They peaked the following year amid continuing battles over whether it could be held responsible for distributing pirated books, music or movies. The Google-funded studies came from a wide variety of sources, and often blurred the line between academic research and paid advocacy by the company’s consultants. They were authored by academics, think-tanks, law firms, and economic consultants from some of the leading law schools and universities in the country, including Stanford, Harvard, MIT, University of California Berkeley, UCLA, Rutgers, Georgetown, Northwestern Law School, and Columbia. They weren’t confined to the U.S. Internationally, Google-funded studies were written by academics at some of the most prestigious universities in Europe, including Oxford (U.K.), Edinburgh University (U.K.), Berlin School of Economics (Germany), Heinrich Heine University (Germany), and KU Leuven (Belgium). Our inquiry included Google-funded scholarship regardless of whether it advanced Google’s policy agenda or not. While some individual papers offered criticisms of Google, the overwhelming majority tended to support the company’s policy or legal positions.

Some studies were authored by serious academics and appeared to employ reasonable methodologies, but many others lacked basic standards of academic rigor. Many of the Google-funded policy research papers examined were not published in peer-reviewed journals. Some were self-published on the Social Science Research Network, and many more appeared in publications that lack peer-review requirements. At the extreme, some were little more than thinly veiled opinion articles dressed-up as academic papers, outlining the beliefs of an author on Google’s payroll with little or no supporting evidence. Google’s paid policy research had broad reach and may have influenced policymakers unaware of its sponsorship. Google lobbyists and lawyers pushed the Google-funded research to journalists, the White House, Congress, journalists, regulators and agencies investigating its conduct, such as the Federal Trade Commission, often without disclosing that they paid for its production. (See: Google-funded Research Used for Lobbying.) For example, Eric Schmidt, then Google’s chief executive, cited a Google-funded author in written answers to Congress to back his contention that his company wasn’t a monopoly. He didn’t mention Google had paid for the paper.

More recently, Google-funded academics and speakers have dominated FTC conferences (also see: "PrivacyCon Update: More Disclosure of Google Funding") related to online consumer privacy and data security issues without disclosing the company’s funding to regulators or attendees. The company has also sent the research to journalists, policymakers, and other regulators and law-enforcement officials investigating its conduct. The reach of Google extends further still. Our analysis showed that Google-funded studies routinely cited each other. The practice helps obscure the original Google funding and creates the impression of a large and growing body of academic research that supports the company’s policy positions. This last point is ironic: It was Larry Page’s middle-of-the-night insight that hyperlinks could be used like academic citations to determine the usefulness of information that famously gave rise to Google. Now Google is creating a universe of paid-for citations with which to advance its policy interests.

The 330 Google-funded articles that we identified were cited nearly 6,000 times in more than 4,700 unique articles. Overall, our analysis suggests that Google is using its sponsorship of academic research, not to advance knowledge and understanding, but as an extension of its public relations and influence machine. Google is not the first company to fund academic research to advance its policy goals. But our analysis suggests that Google is among the companies that have most enthusiastically embraced the practice in recent history—particularly noteworthy for a company that ostensibly places such a high value on real research. In so doing, Google has joined a list of business sectors that have exercised a corrupting influence on academic research, including the tobacco industry over the effects of smoking and the fossil fuel industry over the science of climate change.

Methodology

Output: Google has been accused of spending millions on funding research in the US and Europe, in fields such as antitrust and anti-piracy regulation, in an attempt to influence policy and public opinion, according to a report by the US Campaign for Accountability (CfA). The Google Academics study identified 329 papers published between 2005 and 2017, which were funded by the company and produced by researchers from institutions including the Berlin School of Economics, Oxford, Edinburgh, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. The CfA is calling for academics to disclose such funding in order that research can be properly contextualised.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Germans building world's biggest battery in old salt cavern
 What do you do with an old salt mine? Turn it into a huge battery of course. We're all familiar with lithium-ion batteries like those in our phones, but on a utility scale, they are simply impractical. German company Ewe Gasspeicher GmbH has announced plans to build what could be called the world's biggest battery. The system, dubbed "brine4power" will be housed in huge underground salt caverns that were previously used as a natural gas storage facility. They each have a volume of 3.5 million cubic feet and will give the battery a capacity of up to 700MWh at an output of 120MW.

If you want energy storage on the scale of an electrical grid, there are currently two main options. The first and most common is pumped storage. It works like a standard hydroelectric power plant but in reverse. Pumps move vast amounts of water uphill to a holding pond thus storing energy in the form of gravitational potential energy. When you want to "discharge" the battery, you simply let the water run downhill and run the hydroelectric plant like normal.

The other main technology, and the one planned for the German project, is called a redox flow battery. It works by storing energy in the form of liquid electrolytes. There is a positive catholyte and a negative anolyte which are separated by a membrane that only allows ions to pass through. When charging, the ions move to the anolyte side and when discharging, they move back. This process takes up about 100 times the space per unit of energy compared to a lithium ion battery, but is much more environmentally friendly.

Rather than storing the electricity in another form like pumped storage does, the brine4power system stores it directly in the liquid. The system can theoretically supply a day's worth of power to about 75,000 homes. In other news, Elon Musk recently announced Tesla's plan to build the world's largest lithium-ion battery in Australia. Representing its true scale, this redox flow battery will be more than 5 times larger.

Output: German engineers are building the world's biggest battery in an old salt mine. Ewe Gasspeicher is constructing the "brine4power" redox flow battery, which works by storing energy as liquid electrolytes, in large underground caverns previously used for storing natural gas. Each cavern has a volume of 3.5 million cubic ft and will give the battery a capacity of up to 700MWh, with an output of 120MW.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Honda signs hydrogen supply contract for charging stations
 ITM Power has signed a fuel contract with Honda (UK), which will purchase hydrogen at £10/kg (US$12.91/kg). The contract covers fuel dispensed across ITM Power’s hydrogen refueling network. The refueling network has been financially supported by Innovate UK, Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU).

(The Honda Fuel Cell Clarity has a hydrogen tank capacity of 5.46 kg.)

This is the seventeenth fuel supply contract for refueling fuel cell electric vehicles ITM Power has signed. Honda joins Toyota GB PLC, Hyundai Motor UK Ltd, Commercial Group, Skanska, UlemCo Ltd, Arval UK Ltd, UK Government Car Service, Arcola Energy, Johnson Matthey, Europcar, The Science Museum, JCB, Anglo American, Green Tomato Cars, Yorkshire Ambulance Service and Northern Gas Networks as a fuel customer.

ITM Power is currently rolling out a network of 10 hydrogen refueling stations in the UK of which 4 are now open for public access. Each station produces hydrogen on site via ITM Power’s rapid response electrolyzer system, and can refuel a fuel cell electric car in three minutes, providing 300 to 420 miles of clean emission driving, without compromise to drivers’ normal refueling routine.

Output: Honda has signed a fuel contract with ITM Power for hydrogen supplies at £10 per kilogram. ITM Power has signed 17 fuel supply contracts for its system, which is supported by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), Innovate UK, and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV). The company aims to expand its network of four publicly accessible hydrogen refuelling stations to 10.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Toyota launches $100m artificial intelligence venture capital unit
 TRI launches the venture by contributing initial investments it has made in three technology companies: Nauto , SLAMcore and Intuition Robotics . The venture will also cultivate select start-ups by offering them mentorship and support on-site at TRI's Silicon Valley headquarters. Investment will focus in the areas of Artificial Intelligence; Robotics; Autonomous Mobility; and Data and Cloud Technology.

Toyota has a history of disruptive innovation in the service of mankind, moving from textile machinery to automobiles in the late 30s, to the broad electrification of the automobile with Prius in the 90s, to autonomous mobility and human-assist robots. TRI is growing quickly, and we recognize the critical importance of expanding our collaboration with the world’s brightest entrepreneurial talent. This venture is a major step towards our mission to empower talented entrepreneurs who share Toyota’s commitment to enhancing the quality of human life. —Gill Pratt, CEO of TRI

Early-stage start-up investment is inherently high risk, with the potential for high reward, so the new venture will feature quick decision-making by a dedicated management team of investment professionals and entrepreneurs, operating separately from TRI’s R&D operation. Unlike venture capital funds that exclusively identify investment targets by considering unsolicited pitches by entrepreneurs, this new venture will also pursue a “call and response” model, identifying key research challenges and then supporting the creation of new companies offering to solve them.

Jim Adler, TRI’s vice president of data and business development, takes the role of managing director of Toyota AI Ventures.

Toyota AI Ventures represents an expansion of TRI’s investment mandate and assumes TRI’s positions in three startup investments:

Output: The Toyota Research Institute will invest an initial sum of $100m to create Toyota AI Ventures, a new subsidiary aimed at offering early-stage funding for technology start-ups. The venture will be powered by the investments that Toyota has already made into autonomous algorithm company SLAMcore, social companion tech provider Intuition Robotics and driver monitoring software creator Nauto. Start-ups chosen for mentorship and support will be in the AI, robotics, autonomous mobility, and data and cloud tech sectors.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
JuiceNet connects solar arrays with EV charging stations
 San Francisco-based eMotorWerks provides a variety of cloud-connected smart-grid charging solutions. The newest release of the company’s JuiceNet platform enables owners of solar arrays to coordinate smart EV charging with their solar generation. JuiceNet Solar “uses algorithms and charging controls to match the charging speed of any number of JuiceNet-connected EVs to second-by-second solar production.”

JuiceNet Solar can also be configured to work with a distributed collection of energy sources, providing balancing services to local renewable generation. For example, it can be used at workplace sites where EV charging is linked to production from both on-site and off-site solar panels. According to eMotorWerks, this “virtual aggregation” allows utilities to reduce the amount of solar energy backfeed through their transformers.

JuiceNet Solar requires a JuiceNet-enabled EV charging station (including stations from eMotorWerks, AeroVironment and ClipperCreek), as well as a JuiceNet-enabled energy meter. Users with no JuiceNet-enabled EVSE can use JuicePlug, a universal charging adapter that adds JuiceNet capabilities to any third-party station or charging cord.

“Many solar array owners also drive EVs, so JuiceNet Solar combines the power of both of these activities to maximize their contribution to a decarbonized grid by getting the most out of their solar generation, especially if living in regions that have yet to institute net metering policies,” says Dr. Valery Miftakhov, CEO of eMotorWerks. “By utilizing JuiceNet Solar, users keep the solar generation local, which saves them money and maximizes their use of renewable energy. At the system, grid-wide level, our technology paves the way for higher penetration of intermittent renewable generation in electric grids worldwide.”

Source: eMotorWerks

Output: eMotorWerks, a smart-grid charging solution provider, has released the latest version of its platform for smart EV charging through solar power. JuiceNet utilises algorithms and controls to match the charge speed of electric vehicles to solar production. The technology can be used to “virtually aggregate” solar arrays to reduce energy "back-feed".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Data accounts for 20% of sales as exchanges widen income streams
 LONDON and NEW YORK, July 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global exchange revenues totaled a record $28.3 billion in 2016, rising 6.83% as strong revenue gains in exchange market data businesses drove industry growth according to Burton-Taylor International Consulting's (a division of TP ICAP's Data & Analytics group) latest report published today. Industry revenues were driven by a 29.2% increase in exchange market data businesses, with the segment reporting record revenues of $5.4 billion in 2016.

Other key findings include:

Intercontinental Exchange accounted for 15.9% of total industry revenues, with 2016 revenue reaching $4.5 billion , up 34.78% from 2015 primarily a result of an 127.1% surge in market data revenues.

, up 34.78% from 2015 primarily a result of an 127.1% surge in market data revenues. CME Group remained the next largest exchange in 2016, accounting for 12.7% of total industry revenues, supported by an industry leading 9.1% growth in trading revenues.

Deutsche Boerse was the largest exchange in the EMEA region accounting for 25.1% of the region's revenues, followed by the LSE Group with 16.8% of the total.

Hong Kong Exchange Group was the largest exchange in Asia with a market share of 15.8%, while Japan Stock Exchange was second with a share of 13.6%.

with a market share of 15.8%, while Japan Stock Exchange was second with a share of 13.6%. The exchange industry continues to enjoy enviable operating margins, with our analysis indicating average operating margins of 51.63% in 2016. The Australian Stock Exchange generated the highest margin at 71.90% for calendar year 2016, followed by CME Group at 66.15%.

In terms of business segments, the report found:

Trading, Clearing and Settlement revenues remained the largest business segment, generating $18.1 billion in industry revenues and accounting for 63.4% of all exchange revenues.

in industry revenues and accounting for 63.4% of all exchange revenues. Market Data & Index revenues have surged in recent years, representing the second largest industry, accounting for 19.18% of total global exchange revenues. Exchange market data revenues have grown at a CAGR of 11.99% since 2011.

Listing and issuer service revenues stagnated as the weak IPO environment resulted in a 1.29% increase in revenues to $2.3 billion . Deutsche Boerse and the Japan Exchange Group bucked the trend, reporting revenue increases of 7.75% and 6.98%, respectively.

. Deutsche Boerse and the Japan Exchange Group bucked the trend, reporting revenue increases of 7.75% and 6.98%, respectively. Market Technology and Access revenues totaled $1.5 billion in 2016, rebounding 4.97% after two years of revenue declines. Nasdaq led the segment in terms of both total revenues and YoY growth, reporting an increase in revenues of 11.8% to $541 million .

"The global exchange industry continues to undergo a steady transformation, as exchanges evolve their models to diversify away from a dependency on transactional businesses. The combination of weak trading volumes and emerging competition is forcing incumbent exchanges to dramatically expand their focus on new business segments," says Andy Nybo, Director at Burton-Taylor. "Market data and index businesses are the current target of these expansion efforts but exchanges are constantly searching for new opportunities to expand their offerings, especially as new competition threatens to erode existing operating margins and profitability."

Free extracts from the report can be accessed by visiting: http://www.burton-taylor.com/research.html with the sample code EXCHANGE2017, or you can purchase the full 89 page Burton-Taylor Exchange Global Share & Segment Sizing 2017 - Key Competitors, Global Market Share 2017, Global Segment Sizing 2017, Global Market Trending 2012-16, Global Segment Trending 2012-16 report by visiting https://burton-taylor.com/exchangereport/ or by contacting [email protected], +1 646 201-4152.

About Burton-Taylor International Consulting (www.burton-taylor.com)

Burton-Taylor International Consulting, part of TP ICAP group, is the recognised leader in information industry market research, strategy and business consulting. Burton-Taylor Exchange, Credit, Risk, Compliance, Media Intelligence, PR and Market Data share figures are seen as industry benchmark standard globally. Burton-Taylor clients command an estimated 80% share of global revenue in the Market Data space and include the world's largest information companies and exchange groups, key government organisations and regulatory bodies on multiple continents, the largest advisory firms serving the industry and more than 30 of the most active private equity and investment companies around the world.

About TP ICAP (www.tpicap.com)

TP ICAP brings together buyers and sellers in global financial, energy and commodities markets. It is the world's largest wholesale market intermediary, with a portfolio of businesses that provide broking services, data & analytics and market intelligence, trusted by clients around the world. We operate from offices in 31 countries, supporting award-winning brokers with market-leading technology. For further information see www.tpicap.com.

Media Contacts

Douglas B Taylor

[email protected]

+1 646 201-4152

SOURCE Burton-Taylor International Consulting

Related Links

https://burton-taylor.com

Output: Data fees earned by global exchanges rose to a record high last year, accounting for a fifth of total revenues, according to a report from international consultancy Burton-Taylor. While the traditional activities of trading, clearing and revenue settlement remained the backbone of earnings – posting $18.1bn of exchanges' $28.3bn total revenue for 2016 – data and index revenues increased by almost a third to $5.4bn. "The combination of weak trading volumes and emerging competition is forcing incumbent exchanges to dramatically expand their focus on new business segments," according to Andy Nybo, director at Burton-Taylor.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Which advisers profits are under threat from robo-advice?
 The highest-margin part of the financial advice business is safe from being carried out by automated services because customers value the personal touch most in these areas, a global survey has suggested.

Output: Fund and stock pickers face the greatest threat from robo advisers while financial planners and pension sales firms are safest, according to a report from Legg Mason, writes Rosie Murray-West in the FT Adviser.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
LeEco woes continue as Vizio sues and Leshi is investigated
 Among the seven divisions of LeEco, only LETV and Le Vision Pictures are profitable, according to media reports on Tuesday.

According to a due diligence report by a financial institution, by the end of September 2016, the total assets of LeEco were about 67 billion yuan ($9.8 billion) and total liabilities were 63 billion yuan ($9.25 billion).

In the first three quarters of 2016, LeEco recorded total revenues of 40 billion yuan ($5.87 billion) with an overall loss of 9.73 billion yuan ($1.43 billion).

LeMobile, the smartphone business, posted the biggest loss at 5.66 billion yuan ($831 million), followed by LeSports at 2.63 billion yuan ($386 million) and LeSEE, the group's vehicle unit, at 1.34 billion yuan ($196 million), 21st Century Business Herald reported on Tuesday.

Monday was payday for LeEco employees, but by the end of the day, no staff in Le Holdings and its divisions were paid, domestic news site huanqiu.com reported on Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, an interviewee from Le Holdings confirmed that the company is dealing with financial strain and planned to postpone the payroll for one month, although it would pay employees' social insurance and housing funds in full, according to huanqiu.com.

LeEco founder Jia Yueting on Tuesday posted on his microblog that "the FF91 high-end factory" will be moved to a new site, to prepare for mass production.

On Thursday, he stressed his commitment to the dream of reforming the auto industry, and said that all debtors would be paid in time, despite the current financial difficulties.

However, Faraday Future, an U.S.-based electric car startup backed by Jia, has given up on plans to build a $1 billion factory in Nevada for its forthcoming FF91 vehicle, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Its first production vehicle, the FF91, which was unveiled in January, is currently scheduled for launch next year, BBC reported.

Output: Chinese technology conglomerate LeEco, reeling after founder Jia Yueting had his financial assets frozen, has been sued by US TV maker Vizio over its failure to acquire the US firm for $2bn. Vizio has demanded $60m in damages, claiming LeEco only paid $40m of a $100m termination fee. Chinese regulators have also begun reviewing the finances of LeEco's main listed business Leshi Internet. Alongside these troubles, some other LeEco divisions, including LeMobile, LeSports and LeSEE have been losing money.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Regulations are taking trading chiefs from the trade front lines
 Global heads of trading at major asset management firms are spending less and less time actually trading. After conducting in-depth interviews with eight heads of desks, The TRADE discovered that those occupying these roles are seeing more of their time taken up by new regulations rather than trading.

It is no surprise that the all-encompassing MiFID II is challenging the role of the global head of trading. Despite requiring extensive experience in trading to rise up through the ranks, it is usually the case that the bigger the team, the less time required to trade.

Being a head trader now means keeping up with market structure changes and regulation, rather than with what is going on in the markets. This has meant a dramatic reduction in the amount of time devoted to trading.

Of eight global head traders interviewed by The TRADE, half said trading takes up on average between 0% and 5% of their time on a weekly basis.

One global head trader says: “I deal myself on average between 2% and 5% of the number of equities and fixed-income every month, with more concentration on end-of-momnth for fixed-income and quarterly earnings season for equities.”

While this has been a theme for traders over the last five years, 2017 is shaping up to be a crucial year for the buy-side to get to grips with MiFID II in Europe.

Where’s my Bloomberg?

One head trader explains: “Regulation is very important and takes a lot of my time up, not only in making sure we adhere to the latest rules but also figuring out how we need to adapt to the new ways of trading that have evolved to cope with the regulatory changes.”

Speaking to The TRADE in its Q4 2016 issue, sources suggested that some senior traders have voluntarily opted to leave their roles – and in some cases the industry – because they do not want to face the barrage of regulatory scrutiny coming their way. Over the last two years, The TRADE has counted no fewer than 20 buy-side heads of desk or senior traders from big name European asset managers leaving their jobs.

Two global head traders told The TRADE that they have even given up their Bloomberg terminals, and another says, “I’m trying to organise myself to avoid such a situation.”

One former senior equities trader, who asked to remain anonymous, has said the impact of regulation has diminished the global head trader role in daily trading activities, in which “due to previous regulatory creep the role of hands-on head of trading has been diminishing to the point where that role is basically a quasi-compliance/client sales role.”

“Most traders are pretty self-sufficient these days and the head of trading role is just a go between...clearly as we are seeing in a climate of cost cutting and margin squeeze it makes sense to have traders interacting directly with the gate keepers,” adds the former trader.

MiFID II is perhaps having the greatest impact on global head traders, as they look to get to grips with the mountain of work required to be compliant from January 2018. One global head trader commented that around 20-30% of his time is taken up attending meetings on MiFID II and compliance, while another said MiFID II and EMIR has accounted for between 35-40% of his time. The majority of head traders surveyed by The TRADE said around a quarter of their time is spent on MiFID II since January this year.

Another reason cited by global head traders has been scale. As trading teams expand as a result of consolidation, it has become more common for global heads of trading to take a step back.

One head trader says: “As my team has expanded and my involvement in projects has increased, it is very rare for me to execute order flow.”

Another told The TRADE: “We trade infrequently, but when we do it generally needs ‘all hands on deck’. The trading is split approximately 50/50 but I can see my share shrinking as we get busier. If we hired a third trader, my time would be better spent on higher level tasks.”

Redefining the role

Certainly the role of the buy-side trader has become significantly more complex and carries far more responsibility than it may have done in the past, requiring a broader range of analytical skills to scrutinise their sell-side counterparts.

On the one hand, regulation has diminished the trading abilities for global head traders, but on the other it has made their role more encompassing.

“Regulation has actually shown how important the head of trading is now, as they can own a significant amount of responsibility for oversight of execution, team management, budgets, processes and everything else that provides a service to portfolio managers and external clients,” says Paul Squires, global head of trading and securities financing, AXA Investment Managers. “It is completely natural in that structure therefore that the head of trading doesn’t do any execution which generally requires full concentration on markets.”

“I have a global team of 70 with 38 traders, executing over €750 billion notional of assets per year. The appropriate execution platform is increasingly about scale, operational efficiency, technology, workflow and strong governance, and that is what the global head of trading is responsible for. So should they be responsible for trading? It really depends on the size of your execution team and arrangements.”

This is not to say that the head traders are totally absent from the trading process.

For some asset managers that break down their management structure by regions and/or asset classes, those head traders are more involved in the physical execution process.

Those head traders interviewed said that regulation has become a duty that has become incorporated with their day-to-day trading responsibilities. One head trader argued that he has to trade in order to understand the challenges his team are facing.

“If you don’t get under the bonnet you can’t fully appreciate the challenges your team face,” one head trader highlights. “That could be technological, regulatory, flows, coverage etc. you have to have exposure. The trading landscape changes so fast that if you are not close to the detail of the business it can get away from you,”

Another head trader comments: “Head traders are, to some extent, expected to be market structure experts. However, time spent ‘at the coalface’ is invaluable in helping understand the challenges that traders face on a daily basis. Getting the best price for the end client is paramount, but finding liquidity to get the trade done, in what seems to be an ever changing trading landscape, is also highly important.”

Another explained that dealing with regulation should not be solely dealt with by the head trader.

“Given that the regulation issue affects many areas of an asset manager it cannot be solely the preserve of the trading head to deal with in my view,” says a head of trading for UK and Ireland. “Compliance, investment control, PMs and legal among other functions all have vested interests.”

“I would argue that given the cost pressures being experienced by asset managers and the amount you still need to be able to provide an all-round service of which an increasing part is linked to regulatory issues. ”

Asset managers are now hoping to attract a different kind of candidate that has high-level analytical skills and an interest in technology as a way to assist the head trader with this changing landscape.

“I’ve hired a new talent who helps me for various topics, data analysis, post-trade reporting, drafting of procedures, writing of internal notes on MiFIDxs II, etc. My young colleague has a fixed-term contract and does not need a Bloomberg terminal today,” a global head trader explains.

Certainly the regulatory impact won’t last forever. Once MiFID II comes into force next year, staying compliant will be a large component to the global head trader role, but with systems and preparations in place there could be a greater focus on trading.

The role largely has an emphasis on market structure, but with a new breed of buy-side traders and regulatory experts making their way through the ranks, head traders will revert back to what they enjoy the most, making money.

Output: Regulatory compliance is increasingly forcing head traders away from the front lines, according to The Trade. It spoke to eight global heads of desks who revealed trading made up 0% to 5% of their weekly work, while the rest was spent on regulations, such as MiFID II in Europe. While one head trader said the pivot had diminished his role to that of "a quasi-compliance/client sales person", another said trading was still a vital part of their job. "If you don’t get under the bonnet you can’t appreciate the challenges your team faces," he said.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Fake brand ads growing on Instagram raising brand safety concerns
 Long gone are the days when Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom vetted every ad on the platform. Now, ads for fake shoes, clothes, electronics and even real estate are proliferating on Instagram.

What makes these ads even more egregious is that some of them, like one claiming to sell Adidas’ Yeezy sneakers for $109, feature doctored brand logos, which raises concerns about reputation both for the brands and Instagram.

For example, this ad, a sponsored post by “Summer discount” with a “Shop Now” link, features the Adidas logo as its profile image.

Blake Ricciardi, founder and CEO of streetwear retailer Popular Demand and a brand consultant, said he’s seen a number of these types of ads.

“I’m in the industry and knowledgeable enough to know that these are bootleg sneakers, but unfortunately, most consumers won’t be able to tell the difference,” he said. “Most consumers will assume this advertising is legitimate because it’s on Instagram, in your feed and has an Adidas logo. This is very harmful to the Adidas brand.”

Another ad, spotted by Engadget, also featured the Adidas logo and claims to sell Yeezy Boost 750s and 350s for “70 percent off.”

These ads typically lead to sites like ShoesoffSale.US or classicboost.com, which sell fake shoes and are usually flagged as being unsafe.

An ad from earlier in the year that appeared in the U.K. had a similar M.O.: An account named Apple Store UK ran a sweepstakes to win an iPhone. The ad got attention from ISBA, the trade body in the U.K. representing advertisers; it was eventually pulled.

Instagram pitches a brand-safe environment as a high-end, visual platform that boasts beautiful photos and visuals. Displaying criminal ads runs counter to that. A raft of straight direct-response ads from brands in the dating app, virtual gambling and game promotion world hit the platform right after it opened its application programming interface.

Instagram ads, both on Stories and in the feed, are bought via the company’s self-serve function. The scale advantages of automation are clear — Instagram boasts over 1 million advertisers — but the downsides in loss of control are just as apparent.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen that,” said Chris Harihar, director at Crenshaw Communications and a self-professed sneakerhead who said he gets targeted with ads like this all the time. “The branding of the ad itself is disingenuous — you know Yeezys aren’t sold for that price. It feels like a violation.”

Julie Zerbo, a lawyer and the founder of The Fashion Law, wrote about the issue of counterfeits sold on platforms in a post on her site. She said that according to federal law, website operators like Instagram that do post counterfeit items can be liable, but providers that take steps to remove copyright infringements are protected, even if that happens on an ad hoc basis.

“We do not allow counterfeit goods to be sold on Instagram. When we catch this type of activity, we move quickly to stop it and remove the violating account,” an Instagram spokesperson said. Instagram reviews millions of ads per week, but it is a game of whack-a-mole and difficult to police.

Having retailers sell directly on the platform is important for Instagram. With 700 million monthly users, the platform’s magazine-style layout makes it a natural for retail as long as it’s done right and not too overtly. The issue of counterfeit is a big one, particularly in the sneaker world, where coveted lines are common and counterfeit products are everywhere. Nike, which two weeks ago said it would sell directly on Amazon in an effort to grow sales and remove counterfeit Nike items from the retail giant’s site, also now plans to sell directly on Instagram.

Bad ads appear on Facebook, Twitter and most other platforms. Even on Snapchat, the opening of self-serve led to a rash of new advertisers that couldn’t be properly vetted, resulting in in-Story ads from companies like LowerMyBills.com.

“Instagram is essentially validating [the ads] by featuring [them] in consumers’ feeds,” said Ricciardi. “Just like Facebook has to get a better handle on fake news, Instagram needs to get a better handle on advertisement of fake products.”

Output: Adverts for fake brands are rising in number on Instagram, using counterfeit brand logos, leading to concerns about brand safety on the social media site. Instagram poses as a brand-safe platform for sales, with the revelation about the counterfeit goods causing consternation amongst advertisers. Instagram has stated that it removes any offending material once it is detected.