Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Enter the age of the age-friendly health system
 For the Triple Aim goal to be met, IHI had to confirm the best ways to provide care. “We studied all of the major successful, evidence-based interventions for older adults,” Mate says. And what they found were the 4Ms — what matters to the patient, medications, mobility and mentation or mental activity. “The 4Ms were considered the absolute most important, most-evidenced and most impactful changes that could be made for improving the lives of older adults,” he says.

Mate admits that the 4Ms are not “terribly surprising or particularly innovative,” but they are what works. Simplicity is often the best course to take and Fulmer says medical providers love the reductionism of four elements. “We don’t want to add work,” she says. “We want [clinicians] to measure these elements and put in place common-sense best practices that move care in the right direction.”

The way they do this is through bundles — strategies used to ensure reliable implementation of, and attention to, the 4Ms. Rather than have a standard set of procedures for treatment, as is the case in the volume-based structure, bundles incentivize physicians to compile approaches and treatments that are necessary and sufficient for that patient and their condition, putting the focus on quality, not quantity. That’s why providers working at ACOs and alternative payment model care systems often find it much easier to follow the 4Ms, especially what matters. When put into action like this, wasteful costs that may come from repeated and unnecessary tests and hospital readmissions are reduced. What’s more is that the patient often experiences a faster and more complete recovery.

“ We have to make sure this work translates into streamlining what [hospitals and health systems] are already doing. As we shift from fee-to-service to value-based payments, health services will shift. This is a new day and we have to make sure we are using all the talent we have and releasing all the waste we can. ” Terry Fulmer, President, The John A. Hartford Foundation

The 4Ms translate to the patient’s understanding, too. “I [used the 4Ms] this morning,” Fulmer says. “The patient I saw has been post-operative for several days, has a colostomy and a number of other problems with that. She’s not giving up. She wants to go home and go back to dog walking.” When you think about what’s best for her, what matters most to her, you can tailor her care to best meet her goals, Fulmer says.

By focusing on the 4Ms, hospitals and health systems can begin reducing the amount of money that is wasted through inefficient care. An estimated one-third of what the U.S. spends on health care each year is wasteful, according to Fulmer. When adopted, the 4Ms can free up that waste so it can be put toward more useful avenues. This translates to better care at home, better attention to related services, better communication throughout the health care system and ultimately, a reduction in repeat hospital visits. Although the focus of the AFHS initiative is on the aging population, a reduction in wasteful health care spending saves money for every population.

Putting the initiative to work

U.S. health care costs account for 17 percent of our GDP, and that number is expected to rise to 20 percent in the next three years. At the same time, the Foundation and IHI are geared up to have the AFHS initiative in 20 percent of U.S. hospitals and health systems — that’s roughly 1,000 hospitals across 40 states — by 2020. Today, The John A. Hartford Foundation and IHI partner with five health systems, Anne Arundel Health System, Ascension, Kaiser Permanente, Providence St. Joseph Health and Trinity Health, on creating age-friendly health systems.

Fulmer says that 20 percent is an audacious goal.

Output: The future of the United States is old. And this old future isn’t that far off. By 2026, the majority of baby boomers, the most populated generation in our nation’s history, will be in their 80s. Twenty-four years on, 20 percent of the U.S. population will be older than 65.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Finding out what matters most at the end of life
 When Ellen Goodman and her mother would speak about end-of-life wishes, it was always in the most general terms. “My mom would see somebody in a terrible condition and she’d say, ‘If I’m ever like that, pull the plug,’” says Goodman.

It wasn’t until her mom developed dementia in her 90s and her health began declining that Goodman realized it was too late for a more detailed conversation on the topic. “She basically couldn’t decide what she wanted to have for lunch, let alone what she wanted to have for health care,” says Goodman, who went on to make all of the health decisions for her mother, including turning down various unnecessary tests that doctors suggested and medications they offered. “It put a huge amount of stress on me because I was making these decisions and I always wished that I could hear her voice in my ear,” says Goodman.

Looking back, Goodman wishes someone had told her about a specialty of medicine called palliative care, which aims to reduce the pain and stress associated with serious illness or the end of life, while putting the person and his or her wants front and center.

“ We need to change from a death denying culture to one that supports people to live as well as possible with serious illness straight through the end of life. ” Amy Berman, Senior Program Officer, The John A. Hartford Foundation

Amy Berman, a senior program officer with The John A. Hartford Foundation, an organization helping to improve the care of older adults, works to educate people and shift discussions to focus on living well in the face of serious illness and dying with dignity. Her goal is to make an experience like Goodman’s the exception, rather than the rule, when it comes to palliative care. Berman believes that can happen by encouraging people to have conversations early in life with their families and clinicians about their wishes for care. Should they become seriously ill, they would receive care that matches their goals and preferences. In many cases, this means families receive support and health costs are lowered by limiting unwanted medical interventions.

“We need to change from a death denying culture to one that supports people to live as well as possible with serious illness straight through the end of life,” says Berman.

Treating the person, not the disease

People frequently confuse palliative care with hospice, or end-of-life care, says Berman, or they assume that it means someone has given up. That’s simply not the full picture. Palliative care can relieve symptoms and pain and address the stress that comes with serious illnesses such as cancer, congestive heart failure, lung disease, dementia and more. When opting for palliative care, a person will express to palliative doctors, nurses, social care workers and other specialists what he or she wants in life and at the end of that life, and that team can work to create a more dignified, personalized and humane course for the patient and their family. Palliative care can be provided alongside curative care at any stage in a serious illness or towards the end of life.

The John A. Hartford Foundation The John A. Hartford Foundation is a private, nonpartisan philanthropy dedicated to improving the care of older adults. Since 1982, they have awarded $565 million in grants to partner organizations. Learn More

“Palliative care should be viewed as the best friend of the seriously ill,” says Berman. “When it becomes part of care early on, whether somebody is going to get better or live with a chronic condition or at the end of life, the outcomes really shift because it focuses on the whole person, not just the disease.”

In the United States, life expectancy has gotten longer, but with advances in medical treatment, it may also be more painful, filled with medical procedures that go against a person’s own goals. According to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, 90 million Americans are living with serious illnesses — a number that will only rise as the baby boomer generation ages. The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice found that 32 percent of total Medicare spending goes to pay for patients with chronic illness in the last two years of living. They also found that in the last six months of life, people in the United States spend, on average, 7.9 days in the hospital.

32% 32 percent of Medicare spending pays for patients with chronic illness in the last two years of living

Aggressive intervention in the late stages of an illness can bring more harm than good, and no evidence exists that says spending more money on health care and medical procedures results in a better quality of death. In fact, evidence points to the contrary. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared outcomes of newly diagnosed patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer-related death globally. Of the 151 patients, one group received palliative care and the other received standard care. Those who received palliative care reported better quality of life, lower rates of depression and they lived 2.7 months longer than those receiving aggressive treatment.

Output: When Ellen Goodman and her mother would speak about end-of-life wishes, it was always in the most general terms. “My mom would see somebody in a terrible condition and she’d say, ‘If I’m ever like that, pull the plug,’” says Goodman.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Supporting America's modern heroes
 Halima Amjad, MD, MPH, recalls a time when her father wandered into the kitchen as her mother prepared dinner, snatched a piece of raw chicken and put it in his mouth. Her mother, and his wife of 37 years, yelled and ran toward him, ignoring the pain in her arthritic knee, and quickly yanked the chicken out of his mouth. The now-retired dentist was living with frontotemporal dementia.

At the time of her father’s diagnosis in his late 50s, Amjad was about to graduate medical school. While she had seen many cases of caregiving and too many cases of dementia, her father’s experience is the only case she had experienced so completely. “As a doctor you learn about dementia, but you don’t expect it to occur in your family, especially that early,” says Amjad, now an assistant professor of medicine and geriatrician at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Amjad, her sister and brother all help take care of their father, but the brunt of the care falls to their mother.

The John A. Hartford Foundation The John A. Hartford Foundation is a private, nonpartisan philanthropy dedicated to improving the care of older adults. Since 1982, they have awarded $565 million in grants to partner organizations. Learn More

“Seeing my mom go from happy-go-lucky to having a baseline level of stress isn’t easy,” Amjad says. “At this point, the disease is quite advanced. We have to feed and clean him. My mom is basically his brain. He can’t talk anymore. She feels lonely. As children, it’s hard to watch my mom struggle and it’s hard for us to figure out where we belong in all of this. Mom wants us to go out and build our careers and families. But we also have to balance her health. It’s physically and mentally exhausting having to take care of someone with dementia.”

“ I have been brought to my knees in tears trying to get my mom to the right provider, understanding a medication change, doing 3 a.m. internet research because the diagnosis she received did not align with what I was seeing day in and day out. ” Rita Choula, Senior Advisor, AARP Public Policy Institute

Taking care of a loved one and facing the demands of dementia is no simple task. Help can be hard to come by. Sometimes, where one lives determines access to programs and services, admits Rita Choula, senior advisor with the AARP Public Policy Institute. “Unfortunately, some zip codes have access to more or better programs than others,” she says.

18 M Americans are caregivers

of older adults

Choula’s 16-year experience caregiving for her mother and grandmother has been a bit of an uphill battle, even for someone whose work revolves around promoting the development of policies to address our common need for economic security, health care and quality of life. “It can be difficult for a family caregiver to navigate the infinite internet universe to track down what they need,” Choula says. “One of the most frustrating things for me was going into a local aging office and being handed a 50-plus page book of resources for things I didn’t know I needed.”

Still, Amjad and Choula’s stories are hardly unique. Most Americans will become caregivers at some point in their lives. According to a 2016 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, an estimated 18 million friends and family members provide care for an older person, whether it is help with daily activities like bathing and eating, medication management or other types of medical tasks and wound care. That same study, which was done in partnership with The John A. Hartford Foundation and other organizations, also found that 36 percent of caregivers reported moderate to high levels of financial strain.

36 percent of caregivers experience moderate-to-high levels of financial strain

Yet, while they’re vital to our health system and represent a large portion of our population, family caregivers are often overlooked.

Through grant-making and partnerships with mission-aligned organizations like AARP, The John A. Hartford Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving care for older adults, is committed to transforming our health care system, long-term services and other support systems to meet the needs of this 18 million-member caregiving workforce. This has included funding major national studies, programs that are linking family caregivers to support and creative efforts to raise public attention to the role of family caregivers such as a multi-media window display at New York’s Rockefeller Center.

“One of the most exciting results of the 2016 study for us has been the ability to use it as a focal point to bring together a network of leaders interested in supporting the vital role caregivers play in a variety of ways across differing settings, geographic locations and populations,” says Rani Snyder, program director with The John A. Hartford Foundation.

The high societal cost of family caregiving

Few family caregivers can or would put a price tag on what it means to care for their loved one during their time of need. Either through a sense of obligation or few available options, families cobble together finances, time and space in their homes without necessarily realizing the inherent costs. Beyond the costs of care, losses in lifetime earnings for caregivers age 50 and up amount, on average, to over $300,000, according to AARP.

Many caregivers complain that while it’s nice to see companies touting flextime as company policy, it’s often frowned upon in practice as these employees manage everything from doctor appointments to picking up prescriptions. According to research conducted by AARP and the nonprofit Respect A Caregiver’s Time (ReACT), employers offering benefits to support family caregivers can expect a return of between $1.70 and $4.34 for every dollar invested in flextime. And every dollar invested in a telecommuting option saw a return of between $2.46 and $4.45, the report revealed. Family-friendly policies have been typically reserved for new parents, but these can also be the cornerstone of human resources support for employees providing care to loved ones affected by dementia.

Output: Halima Amjad, MD, MPH, recalls a time when her father wandered into the kitchen as her mother prepared dinner, snatched a piece of raw chicken and put it in his mouth. Her mother, and his wife of 37 years, yelled and ran toward him, ignoring the pain in her arthritic knee, and quickly yanked the chicken out of his mouth. The now-retired dentist was living with frontotemporal dementia.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Engie issues $1.5bn green bond to finance renewable push
 French energy group Engie (EPA:ENGI) said today it has issued a EUR-1.25-billion (USD 1.5bn) green bond "to support its ambitious development strategy in renewable energies and energy efficiency".

This is the company's third green bond, bringing its total green bond issuance since 2014 to EUR 5.25 billion. Proceeds from the latest bond will be used to finance renewable energy, energy efficiency and natural resources preservation projects, as well as research and development (R&D) in these areas and equity investments in projects of Engie's social impact fund Rassembleurs d'Energies.

Engie has a target of a 25% share of renewables in its energy generation portfolio by 2020, up from 18% in 2015.

The green bond was issued yesterday and consisted of two tranches -- EUR 500 million with a duration of five years and five months and an annual coupon of 0.375%, and an eleven-year-five-month tranche of EUR 750 million with a 1.375% annual coupon. In addition, the company issued a 20-year, EUR-750-million bond for general purposes. It said it is taking advantage of the current favourable rate environment to lengthen the duration of its debt at attractive terms.

(EUR 1 = USD 1.200)

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Output: Engie has raised $1.5bn through the issue of its third green bond in order to finance its "ambitious development strategy in renewable energies and energy efficiency". The proceeds will be used to fund its R&D efforts as the company looks to provide 25% of its energy generation using renewables by 2020, up from 18% in 2015. The offering was made up of a EUR500m five-year note with a coupon of 0.375%, and a EUR750m 11-year bond that pays 1.375%.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Geneva Airport pushes for biofuel adoption by late 2018
 In Switzerland, Geneva Airport has partnered with Neste to introduce sustainable and renewable jet fuel for aircraft operations, with a target of at least one percent of the annual jet fuel consumption starting late 2018.

This collaboration marks Geneva’s transition into the implementation phase of the Carbon War Room/SkyNRG-initiated project. CWR and SkyNRG first brought their Airport Approach to Geneva Airport in 2015 with a mission to help airports play a more active role in accelerating the uptake of SAF.

The aviation backstory

The International Civil Aviation Organization has set a target that from 2020 onwards the growth in aviation is carbon-neutral. Currently, the only viable alternative to fossil liquid fuels for powering commercial aircraft is sustainable renewable jet fuel, which is one the most efficient means of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. It can be adopted immediately without the need for additional investments in new fuel distribution infrastructure.

For Neste, the development of Neste MY Renewable Jet Fuel has been a long journey taking several years: from building proof of concept to ensuring the quality and performance that fully meet the aviation industry’s expectations. Neste’s renewable jet fuel technology and quality is proven in thousands of commercial flights by e.g. Lufthansa and is now ready for commercialization.

We reported last mopnth that Bergen became the second Norwegian airport to offer aviation biofuels. The fuel provider, AirBP, made its first biofuel delivery the night before the opening. Biofuel can be mixed directly with conventional fuel and no adjustments to the aircraft engines or distribution system are required. This follows Air BP’s successful introduction of biojet at Oslo Airport in January 2016.

And we reported in July that Air BP extended its biofuel footprint in the Nordics with the supply of commercial jet biofuel (biojet) now available at Halmstad Airport, Sweden.

The company has collaborated with Halmstad Airport (HAD/ESMT) and Swedish domestic airline, BRA (formerly Braathens Regional) to make this possible. The first batch was delivered to Halmstad Airport on June 29th and was successfully uplifted by BRA when it refueled its ATR 72-600 aircraft. It is available to all airlines that refuel at the airport, initially for a period of one year. Air BP has since continued to work towards growing its biojet footprint in the region and has supplied airlines and airports on an ad-hoc basis at Stockholm Arlanda (ARN/ESSA), Stockholm Bromma (BMA/ESSB) and Göteborg Landvetter (GOT/ESGG).

The Neste backstory

Neste is the world’s leading renewable diesel producer from waste and residues, and with its renewable diesel it has helped to decarbonize traffic by 33 million tons over the past 10 years. This is equivalent to 2 years’ emissions from the Swiss transport sector. Now this expertise and renewable solution is available for aviation.

The Airport Approach backstory

The Carbow War Room and SkyNRG Airport Approach model, which was first developed by the partners in 2015, engages airports as key stakeholders in the future of SAF. The model introduces an airport-wide SAF blend utilizing existing fueling infrastructure, making SAF standard for all flights refueling at the airport. CWR and SkyNRG also collaborate with partner airports to identify and secure appropriate mechanisms to cover the cost premium of SAF based on the financial profile of the airport. This can include non-aeronautical airport revenues, operational cost savings from energy efficiency projects, government subsidies, policies, grants and sponsorship by local businesses.

We reported in October 2016 that CWR and SkyNRG joined with the Port of Seattle to announce recommendations for long-term funding mechanisms that could supply all airlines at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with SAF. This is the next step in a process that began late last year by the Port of Seattle with a $250,000 Biofuel Infrastructure Feasibility Study, in partnership with Alaska Airlines and Boeing, that will assess costs and infrastructure necessary to deliver sustainable aviation fuel to aircraft at Sea-Tac. That study is expected to be released in early 2017.

Reaction from the stakeholders

“Geneva Airport is exemplary in sustainability with its ambitious goals to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. We are very excited to collaborate with Genève Aéroport and their airline partners to show the way to the aviation sector. We both share the common view that decreasing CO2 emissions in aviation is crucial in combating climate change.

This is an important step for Neste in implementing our growth strategy for renewables in applications outside road traffic fuels. Neste MY Renewable Jet Fuel is Neste’s sustainable solution for reducing CO2 emissions in aviation,” says Kaisa Hietala, Executive Vice President in the Renewable Product business area in Neste.

André Schneider, CEO of Geneva Airport, commented: “As aviation is growing, airports have a crucial role in taking initiatives which aim at reducing environmental impact. Genève Aéroport is particularly pleased to work in this very ambitious project together with Neste, the Swiss authorities, airlines operating from Geneva, and locally established fuel companies in our pursuit of fossil neutral growth. We would not have reached this milestone without the vision of Carbon War Room and SkyNRG, who have supported us with project initiation, development and pursuit of funding during the preparatory phase of this project. We credit them for their pioneering contributions and practical guidance during that phase.”

“We congratulate Geneva Airport on demonstrating great leadership with respect to decarbonising aviation and for being the first to actualise our Airport Approach model, said Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute-Carbon War Room. “These efforts are critical as the industry continues to grow in a world where we must limit temperature rise to well below 2 degrees. We wish Geneva Airport and Neste the best of luck in their collaboration and look forward to their success.”

“We’re proud that together with Carbon War Room we’ve built a unique model, The Airport Approach, that will now help Geneva Airport to reach their ambitious 1% target. We congratulate Geneva Airport reaching the next phase of this exciting project. Now it is up to the locally established fuel companies to integrate renewable jet fuel into their supply chains in the most sustainable and cost-effective way.” says Theye Veen, CFO SkyNRG.

More background slides

DOE, DOD aim for take-off: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to Biofuels in Defense and Aviation

Ready for take-off: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to Honeywell’s UOP and aviation biofuels

Sustainable aviation fuels: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to United Airlines

Output: Geneva Airport has partnered with Finnish renewable diesel producer Neste to bring sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to its planes, starting next year. The airport has set an ambitious target: a minimum of 1% of jet fuel used will be SAF by the end of 2018. The move is part of a project proposed by Carbon War Room and SkyNRG in 2015, which aims to make SAF the standard for all flights refuelling at the airport. Over the past decade, Neste has helped to reduce the carbon emissions of traffic by 33 million tons.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Decentralised healthcare system needs real estate: Colliers
 The Shift to Outpatient Care by Healthcare Providers and Cost Constraints Increases Emphasis on Real Estate

Healthcare providers are dealing with a myriad of challenges in the face of softening admissions, changing consumer expectations about healthcare, tight operating margins, shrinking budgets, and shifting policies. While facing these challenges many health systems are looking to expand their access points to capture more patients and drive referrals. This translates into a more distributed real estate footprint with a goal to bring convenient access closer to patients driven by advancements in technology, cost, and consumer-driven care.

According to their 2017 State of Cost Transformation in U.S. Hospitals from Kaufman Hall: 96 percent of hospital executives surveyed agreed to transform costs was a “significant” to “very significant” need.

However, more than half of organizations haven’t implemented adequate cost reduction goals. Part of the solution is ensuring that patient care is delivered in the most appropriate setting by providing routine care and simple procedures in lower-cost ambulatory facilities rather than directing large volumes of outpatient services through high-cost medical centers. Reconfiguring portfolios and service lines will generate an increased amount of real estate activity for healthcare providers.

Care Shifts Away from the Hospital Setting

Outpatient clinics are more important than ever before as they become the primary delivery vehicle for care. The traditional hub and spoke model in healthcare, which puts hospitals at the center of care delivery, is changing to focus more on ambulatory care.

The total number of outpatient visits has grown by 1.9 percent per year from 1994 to 2014. Over the same time period, inpatient admissions declined at an annual rate of 0.64 percent.

As healthcare delivery continues to shift to an outpatient setting, the volume of new medical office development continues to expand. A total of 35.7 million square feet of medical office buildings (MOBs) and other outpatient projects were started or completed last year, according to a recent survey from Revista.

According to data from the Advisory Board, 92% of hospital systems are planning new construction or a renovation project for an Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC), MOB or Urgent Care clinic and 37.8% of hospital systems are planning a new Micro-Hospital or Free Standing Emergency Department.

Care delivery and reimbursement are shifting to a more integrated, streamlined, and cost-effective approach, and rather than just prioritizing large costly hospital facilities, healthcare systems will allocate more capital to multiple, smaller, lower-cost outpatient facilities.

Output: The US healthcare system's shift towards an ambulatory network of clinics and out-patient facilities has spotlighted the need for real estate skills in the sector, according to Coy Davidson, senior VP of Office and Healthcare Services at Colliers International. In a blog post, Davidson said the decentralised healthcare model required expert analysis of where primary care clinics, ambulatory centres and micro-hospitals should be located to capture the most patients, and that site selection "required some of the disciplines of the retail sector".


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AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio says tech giants have become too big
 Yoshua Bengio, the artificial intelligence pioneer, says the centralization of wealth, power and capability in Big Tech is "dangerous for democracy" and that the companies should be broken up.

Why it matters: Bengio is a professor at the University of Montreal and a member of the three-man "Canadian Mafia" that pioneered machine learning, the leading method used in AI. His remarks are notable because of his influence in the AI community and because he or his peers all either directly lead or consult for Big Tech's AI programs. Says Bengio: "Concentration of wealth leads to concentration of power. That's one reason why monopoly is dangerous. It's dangerous for democracy."

The AI pioneers: Bengio consults for IBM and his colleagues Geoffrey Hinton consults for Google and Yann LeCun for Facebook. Ruslan Salakhutdinov, a protege of Hinton's, runs Apple's AI research effort.

Benigo said the concentration of resources, talent and knowledge among giant tech companies is only increasing and governments must act. "We need to create a more level playing field for people and companies," Bengio told Axios at an AI conference in Toronto last week.

In recent years, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have amassed a towering lead in AI research. But now, they are subject to growing scrutiny because of their outsized influence on society, politics and the economy. I asked Bengio if the companies should be broken up. He harrumphed and responded that anti-trust laws should be enforced. "Governments have become so meek in front of companies," he said.

"AI is a technology that naturally lends itself to a winner take all," Bengio said. "The country and company that dominates the technology will gain more power with time. More data and a larger customer base gives you an advantage that is hard to dislodge. Scientists want to go to the best places. The company with the best research labs will attract the best talent. It becomes a concentration of wealth and power."

When some of the young people gathered around him looked a bit dejected, Bengio responded, "Don't despair — fight."

Output: A machine learning pioneer has spoken out against big tech companies, suggesting they are "dangerous for democracy". Speaking at an AI conference in Toronto last week Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal and a consultant for IBM, suggested that giant tech companies are increasingly monopolising resources, talent and knowledge, and governments should step in and enforce anti-trust laws. "AI is a technology that naturally lends itself to a winner take all," Bengio commented. "The country and company that dominates the technology will gain more power with time.”


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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NZ price comparison site calls for greater insurance transparency
 Technology entrepreneur Michael Speight has said that rules need to be introduced to force motor and home insurers to disclose their premium rates, for improved transparency and promote competition.

Output: Providers of motor and home insurance in New Zealand should be forced to offer greater transparency around pricing, according to Michael Speight, co-founder of price comparison website Glimp.co.nz. Such a measure may make the New Zealand insurance market less concentrated, Speight argues. Two companies, IAG and Suncorp, account for three-quarters of the motor and home insurance market, according to Speight.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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LV= discontinues legal service offering
 Leading insurance company LV= has ditched its legal services offering, less than two years after starting it, Legal Futures can reveal.

In January 2016, it launched a joint venture with Bristol-based law firm Lyons Davidson to offer fixed-fee advice for wills, powers of attorney, probate, conveyancing, personal injury and employment law.

LV= is the country’s largest friendly society and said at the time that it saw legal services as an added benefit “that fits our mutual values”, rather than a revenue stream.

However, it has now shut down LV= Legal Services. A spokeswoman said: “While feedback from our customers on the services we provided was very good, the sustainability of LV= Legal Services required scale and significant investment.

“To ensure we continue providing our customers with great products and quality customer service, it was decided that we’d instead focus on strengthening our capabilities in our core businesses of general insurance and life & pensions and any necessary investment is being put into these specific areas.

“As such, we’ve decided to no longer provide legal services. However, while it won’t be available to new customers, we will fulfil any services which existing customers have already purchased.”

Unlike other arrangements between law firms and insurers, LV= Legal Services was not an alternative business structure. Rather, the services were explicitly provided by Lyons Davidson, with Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Ltd permitting the firm to use the LV= brand in doing so.

Mark Savill, managing director of Lyons Davidson, added that “We are very pleased with the positive feedback we received on the quality of the service that we provided.

“We are continuing to provide services under the Lyons Davidson brand to customers of LV= who are looking for a consumer legal service.”

Liverpool Victoria is a shareholder in Lyons Davidson. According to Companies House, it has a class of non-voting shares that entitle the company to dividends as determined by a specific formula, and to capital to the extent of a return of amounts paid up on the shares.

The LV= spokeswoman said: “We have a broad commercial relationship with Lyons Davidson under which they provide a range of services to us and our customers and our decision to not continue providing consumer legal services does not affect this wider relationship.”

Lyons Davidsons’ other shareholders include ZPC Capital – part of Zurich Insurance – and telematics car insurance business Insure The Box.

It also has joint venture alternative business structures with Admiral and the AA. It was involved in Saga Legal Services too but the over-50s insurance and travel business closed that down a year ago.

Output: Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society has discontinued offering clients legal services as a value-add service. Instead, the company said it will focus on strengthening its core business of providing general insurance as well as life insurance and pension services. The firm also said continuing to offer the legal services would have required significant scale and investment.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Vanguard takes in £2m a day from UK investors
 Vanguard is a titan in the fund management industry, but the vast majority of its $4 trillion assets are in the US. As its chief investment officer Tim Buckley prepares to become CEO next year, the company is eyeing global expansion. It’s off to a strong start in the UK, taking in almost £2 million ($2.71 million) a day from British customers since it launched there in May.

Vanguard became the second-biggest global asset manager, after BlackRock, thanks to its ultra-low fees. It’s bringing a similar approach to Europe, threatening to spark a price war among asset managers. Vanguard’s direct-to-customer UK service will charge 0.15% per year, which is about a third of the fee at Hargreaves Lansdown, Britain’s biggest provider, according to The Times (paywall). Vanguard’s fees for customers are capped at £375 per year.

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The Malvern, Pennsylvania-based company has been one of the biggest winners from the shift to low-cost passive investments, but its European push also features actively managed funds that are prevalent in the region.

Brokerage Liberum has projected that Vanguard will take in £5 billion per year within three years through its online offering, according to the Financial Times (paywall). That would be about 25% of the new money invested by UK retail customers every year.

At least one British institution may welcome Vanguard’s advance into the UK’s £6.9 trillion asset management industry. In June, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority said the sector suffered from a worrying lack of competition and inflated margins. If its US record is any indication, Vanguard’s arrival in Britain could provide the shakeup the regulator is looking for.

Output: US asset management giant Vanguard Group has pulled in almost £2m ($2.71m) a day from UK investors since May. The majority of Vanguard’s $4tn assets are in the US, however, as part of the company’s global expansion plans it aims to bring its ultra-low fee approach to Europe. Vanguard’s direct-to-customer UK service charges 15 basis points a year, a third of the fee at UK-based competitor Hargreaves Lansdown. Brokerage firm Liberum has projected that Vanguard will take £5bn per year within three years through its online offerings.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Sustainably sourced timber tower to be built in Brazil
 frequently called the capital of steel and concrete, são paulo will house a building completely made of brazilian timber. the project is an initiative by amata, a forest management company, and architecture studio, triptyque. the 13 story building allows for many different functional uses, such as co-working, co-living, and restaurant dining. both communal and private spaces interact with the city where one can live in tune with a new environmental consciousness.

both communal and private spaces interact with the city

each 1m³ of reforested wood has absorbed one metric ton of atmospheric CO² from the environment, helping meet the proposal signed by brazil during the 21st climate conference (COP 21) in paris, (promising to replant 12 million hectares of forest and reduce by 43% the green-house effect gas emissions until 2030). consequently, triptyque and amata’s project helps solve one of the long lasting problems with the construction industry.

the building will be made from cross-laminated timber

‘wooden framed buildings are an efficient solution and may serve as a boost toward a change in the environmental consciousness of our societies,’ explains dario guarita neto, cofounder and CEO at amata. ‘as we replace non-renewable resources with natural raw materials, we also help create a cleaner chain of production and we add value to certified forests. this can lower the pressure for deforestation.’

each 1m³ of reforested wood has absorbed one metric ton of atmospheric CO² from the environment

the 13 story building allows for many different functional uses

elevation of the project

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Output: A tower built of sustainably harvested Brazilian wood has been designed by Triptyque Architecture for Amata, a Brazilian forest management company. The environmentally responsible building is intended for multi-purpose use, such as co-working, co-living and restaurant dining. With deforestation and illegal logging a big issue in Brazil, Amata CEO Dario Guarita Neto commented: “Wooden framed buildings are an efficient solution and may serve as a boost toward a change in the environmental consciousness of our societies.”


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Sustainably sourced timber tower to be built in Brazil
 Brazil is often in Treehugger because of illegal logging and deforestation. Not this time.

We have shown a lot of wood buildings on TreeHugger, but this is the first design we have seen for tall wood in Brazil. It is designed by Triptyque architecture for Amata, a forest management company. Designboom writes that "the 13-storey building allows for many different functional uses, such as co-working, co-living, and restaurant dining. Both communal and private spaces interact with the city where one can live in tune with a new environmental consciousness."

© Triptyque architecture via DesignboomThere is a lot of illegal logging in Brazil, and deforestation is a huge issue, so there was a twinge of nervousness writing about this building; but Dario Guarita Neto, cofounder and CEO at Amata, tells Designboom:

Wooden framed buildings are an efficient solution and may serve as a boost toward a change in the environmental consciousness of our societies. As we replace non-renewable resources with natural raw materials, we also help create a cleaner chain of production and we add value to certified forests. This can lower the pressure for deforestation.

© Amata forest management

On their website, they make a very big deal about their purpose and their practices: "AMATA is a company that serves as a bridge between the forest and the consumer market, offering certified wood that is produced with social responsibility and guaranteed origin." They grow pine and eucalyptus and go "beyond compliance with environmental standards."

© Triptyque architecture via Designboom

And that's why it's in TreeHugger -- because every cubic meter of wood that they grow absorbs a metric tonne of CO2. That's why we love wood, even from Brazil. It's part of the solution, not the problem.

© Amata Manifesto

Output: A tower built of sustainably harvested Brazilian wood has been designed by Triptyque Architecture for Amata, a Brazilian forest management company. The environmentally responsible building is intended for multi-purpose use, such as co-working, co-living and restaurant dining. With deforestation and illegal logging a big issue in Brazil, Amata CEO Dario Guarita Neto commented: “Wooden framed buildings are an efficient solution and may serve as a boost toward a change in the environmental consciousness of our societies.”


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China complies with UN sanctions on trade with North Korea
 China said on Saturday it will ban exports of some petroleum products to North Korea , as well as imports of textiles from the isolated North, to comply with a United Nations Security Council resolution after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test .

Chinese vendors sell North Korea and China flags on the boardwalk in the border city of Dandong, China.

The announcement from Beijing came at the end of a week that saw tensions ratchet up between the United States and North Korea, with the leaders of both countries trading insults.

The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website that China would limit exports of refined petroleum products from Oct. 1 and ban exports of condensates and liquefied natural gas immediately to comply with the latest U.N. sanctions.

Imports of textiles from North Korea would also be banned immediately, the statement said.

Textile trade contracts signed before Sept. 11 would be respected if import formalities are completed before midnight on Dec. 10, the statement said.

The moves follow the adoption of a unanimous UN Security Council agreement on sanctions after the isolated North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3.

That resolution imposed a ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products and a cap on crude oil exports to North Korea at current levels.

On Saturday as well, China's General Administration of Customs reported the country's total trade with North Korea was $604.27 million in August, up from $456.16 million a month earlier.

Its total trade with North Korea was worth $3.61 billion in the first eight months of the year, up 7.5 percent from the same period a year earlier.

Russia urged calm on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a "madman". Kim had called Trump a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard" a day earlier after Trump said Washington would "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatened the United States or its allies.

Output: China has banned exports of condensates and liquid petroleum gas to North Korea, and from 1 October will also limit supply of refined petroleum products complying with UN sanctions over North Korea's nuclear and missile development. Furthermore, imports of textiles from North Korea have been banned. Crude oil has not yet been included in the roll call of banned products.


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Japan-based payment brand JCB adds Apple Pay functionality
 JCB Co (JCB), a Japan-based payments brand, has introduced J/Speedy functionality for Apple Pay users in Japan to enhance payment experience for its cardholders.

Based on EMV Contactless Communication Protocol, the new J/Speedy payment service provided by the JCB brand will enable the customers to use their smarphone to conclude J/Speedy transactions at merchants supporting J/Speedy in and out of Japan.

Apple Pay users can keep using existing Apple Pay features. J/Speedy functionality on Apple Pay is available from iOS 11.0 on iPhone 7, 7 plus and later, and Apple Watch Series 2 and later pairing to iPhone 5 or later.

According to JCB, J/Speedy provides a simple, fast, and convenient way to pay and is suitable for supermarkets, convenience stores, and fast food restaurants.

In order to use the new functionality, the customers need to simply wave their card or mobile phone on a reader to pay.

Output: Japan's only international payment brand, JCB, has launched J/Speedy for Apple Pay users, enabling them to use their smartphones to make payments at outlets wherever J/Speedy is supported, both domestically and abroad. JCB said the feature will be available on the iOS 11.0, as well as models upward of the iPhone 7, and would be paired with the Apple Watch Series 2 and iPhone 5 and up later.


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NFL is sitting on a litigation, financial and racial timebomb
 I am not certain if the owners of the National Football League understand the extent of the peril they face. The revenues and value of their teams have skyrocketed thanks to a bubble created by television revenues that radically increased as the number of bidders and the nights of football games both increased. That bubble has burst and future television contracts will bring in substantially less. The other part of the revenue bubble has been funded by private boxes, especially in newer stadiums built specifically to offer more of them, along with increasing ticket prices.

The tort lawyers are rubbing together their hands anticipating the lucre headed their way thanks to brain injury lawsuits argued in front of sympathetic juries. And now attendance and TV ratings are down quite a lot.

Quite obviously, the owners already have been scared by signs of racial discontent among the African American players that make up about 70 percent of their rosters. Should tensions escalate, the black players easily could shut down the league, and probably could stymie as racist any attempt to reconstitute the rosters without the protestors. They had been hoping that the kneeling controversy started by Colin Kaepernik would calm down on its own, but President Trump’s remarks in Hunstville threw it right back in their faces. Some of them are very unhappy and fighting back:

Giants owners John Mara and Steve Tisch had a harsh reaction to President Trump’s call for NFL owners to fire players who refuse to stand for the national anthem.

“Comments like we heard last night from the president are inappropriate, offensive and divisive,” Mara and Tisch said in a statement Saturday. “We are proud of our players, the vast majority of whom use their NFL platform to make a positive difference in our society.” (snip) His comment sparked criticism from commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, and several notable athletes, but Trump followed it up with a few the following Twitter posts:

If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

...our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU'RE FIRED. Find something else to do! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

Trump has once again shown himself to be a master flack, as Lucianne Goldberg puts it, completely in touch with mainstream America, and forcing clueless members of various elite bubbles into playing villain roles in the drama he is expertly scripting. Brian Joondeph explains this today elsewhere on this site.

Billionaire owners of NFL teams enjoy an extraordinarily pleasant social status, rich beyond the ability to spend, and in a position to bestow boons upon their local counterparts in elites across America’s major cities. They are celebrities of a sort. As such, they are most interested in what their peers think of them, and because the left has completely taken over elite culture, their peers want them to toe the progressive party line on race and everything else.

The owners should read Michael Walsh’s article, Farewell to the NFL” in order to understand how close they are to losing half or more of their revenues. They have been lulled by their success into thinking fans will stay with them through thick and thin.

Now that controversy surrounds NFL games, how many corporations are going to want to sign on to those lucrative corporate boxes? The last thing any host wants if for a political argument to break out among guests – perhaps business clients. But with players taking the knee and fans responding, isn’t it quite possible that conflicting passions could be ignited among those guests?

A lot of government agencies have sold a lot of municipal bonds to pay for lavish palaces for NFL teams, and repayment of those securities depends on revenues continuing strong.

I have never liked public subsidies for these billionaires, enabling them to pay millions to players. Maybe this will help end it.

Output: After riding a wave of booming revenues and team values, the National Football League's bubble appears to have burst, and Thomas Lifson in American Thinker believes the NFL is underestimating the extent of the risks it now faces. Brain injury lawsuits are building up and TV ratings have dropped substantially with less revenue expected from future contracts. Furthermore, there is racial discontent among African-American players; should this continue to escalate, these players could easily shut down the league since they make up around 70% of NFL rosters. And the kneeling protest, exacerbated by President Trump's hostility, continues to spread.


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Bittrex partners with South Korea's Kakao to open UpBit exchange

Kakao affiliate to open cryptocurrency exchange

A Kakao affiliate will launch the most comprehensive cryptocurrency exchange in Korea yet, enabling traders to buy and sell more than 100 different currencies in Korea.Dunamu, a local fintech company that runs Kakao Talk-based mobile stock trading app Kakao Stock, will partner with Bittrex to open a cryptocurrency exchange that can reportedly enable the trading of some 110 cryptocurrencies. Titled “Upbit,” the exchange platform will open next month.Bittrex is one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States. The platform handles transactions in over 190 different currencies. On Monday as of press time, Bittrex was ranked ninth in the world in terms of bitcoin trading volume.For cryptocurrencies that are considered minor in Korea and often not sold in local exchanges - such as tether and reddcoin - Bittrex was the top trading platform.“Bittrex does thorough legal and technological investigations on cryptocurrencies before they are listed in the market,” said a spokesperson from Dunamu.“Its founding members are security experts that worked in global IT companies such as Amazon and Microsoft so the company has an advanced security system.”During the initial stage of the service, Upbit will mainly handle bitcoin and other major alternative coins such as ethereum, ripple and litecoin with trading volume exceeding a certain amount. The platform’s ultimate goal is to enable the trading of 111 different tokens from 167 different markets.Right now, most cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea allow transactions of about six to eight currencies. Bithumb, Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, handles eight currencies - including bitcoin, ethereum, dash and litecoin - all of which are considered main stream and rank within the top 10 in terms of market capitalization.Through the partnership with Brittex, Upbit will allow Korean traders looking to trade currencies not found on local platforms to conduct direct transactions.Until now, Korean traders wanting to buy and sell currencies not listed on local platforms, had to buy bitcoins from Korean exchanges and use them to trade currencies unavailable locally through platforms outside of Korea such as Brittex.Even with direct purchasing centers, including the one run by Coinone, Korea’s second largest trading platform, Korean traders still had to go through this cumbersome process, which many local traders thought time-consuming and difficult to manage.Traders using Upbit will also be able to use Kakao apps, including Kakao Talk and Kakao Pay, the company’s mobile payment service, making it easier for first time traders.By offering more platforms for transactions, Upbit says it aims to make cryptocurrency trading as easy as mobile trading of securities, which has become a popular medium of stock exchange in Korea recently.BY CHOI HYUNG-JO, KO RAN [choi.hyungjo@joongang.co.kr]

Output: Fintech firm Dunamu, an affiliate of South Korean online consumer services provider Kakao, is partnering with major US cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex to launch Upbit, a comprehensive cryptocurrency exchange. The new platform, set to go live in October, aims to streamline direct digital currency trading in South Korea, which is seen as cumbersome by local dealers. Initially handling bitcoin, ether, ripple and litecoin, Upbit eventually aims to enable the trading of more than 100 cryptocurrencies from 167 different markets.


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Tactical Urbanism movement grows with the help of social media
 You've read the book; now watch the movie.

Tactical Urbanism has been defined as “the principle that citizens can undertake direct low-cost, high-reward actions that immediately improve some aspect of a community's public life and demonstrate to city leaders that there are opportunities for easy, successful changes to the status quo.” Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia wrote the book on it; Janette Sadik-Kahn blurbed that “it shows how, with a little imagination and the resources at hand, cities can unlock the full potential of their streets."

Transform Your City With Tactical Urbanism from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

But if they wrote the book, now Clarence Eckerson Jr. has made the movie, and for TreeHugger regulars, it includes some familiar names. There’s Doug Gordon of Brooklyn Spoke, who has been quoted on TreeHugger many times.

Jonathan Fertig/ how the modern flaneur dresses for walking/via

There’s Jonathan Fertig, who won my heart forever when he photoshopped vests onto Gustave Caillebotte’s painting of flaneurs in Paris in response to the post It's National Walking Day in America. Time to take back the streets.

©. Bikeyface with a message, photo by Jonathan Fertig

© Bikeyface with a message, photo by Jonathan Fertig

He is in the video for his work with Bekka Wright (AKA Bikeyface) to take back the streets of Boston.

Lloyd Alter/ Chris and Melissa Bruntlett/CC BY 2.0

There’s Melissa Bruntlett, partner with Chris in Modacity. There is even a quick glimpse of Brent Toderian in Vancouver’s Robson Square.

© Matt Jelly

Tactical urbanists use the power of social media to move quickly, and often get in a bit of trouble with the authorities.

These groups are showing their fellow citizens innovative visual solutions to make safer streets with quick strike executions -- which sometimes only last a few hours until they are removed by their government. But each week more empowered people are deciding they are fed up and joining the movement and not waiting for their agencies to act.

But sometimes, those authorities see that the solutions work and it sometimes causes real change. It works. So take back the streets with tactical urbanism!

Output: Members of the growing movement known as Tactical Urbanism are using social networks to mobilise quick strike actions on US streets. In a book written by Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia, Tactical Urbanism has been defined as “the principle that citizens can undertake direct low-cost, high-reward actions that immediately improve some aspect of a community's public life and demonstrate to city leaders that there are opportunities for easy, successful changes to the status quo”. The group uses innovative visual solutions and video shared on social media to attract attention to its cause. Examples are reclaiming roads for pedestrians and cyclists.


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Chinese takeover of Imagination may risk UK military secrets
 A former spy chief has demanded action on Chinese takeovers amid fears the sale of a top British technology firm could put military secrets at risk.

Imagination Technologies is being bought for £550million by private equity company Canyon Bridge, which is secretly backed by Beijing-controlled Yitai Capital.

Experts including former MI6 deputy head Nigel Inkster said Britain lacks a clear policy on China and called for deals to be carefully examined to protect national security and business.

Hertfordshire-based microchip maker Imagination’s technology is used in billions of devices worldwide, including many smartphones and computers.

Imagination Technologies, which among other things creates chips for iPhones (pictured), is being bought for £550million by private equity company secretly backed by Beijing-controlled Yitai Capital

Critics warned that its sale was part of an effort by the Communist dictatorship in Beijing to create a microchip monopoly that could endanger Western technology. They said this might force the British military to rely on Chinese components that could incorporate hidden features.

Earlier this month, the US government blocked Canyon Bridge from buying American chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor on grounds of national security. Pressure will now be piled on Theresa May to follow suit with Imagination.

Mr Inkster said Britain needs far more scepticism when approaching such deals. The former spy chief, who is now a director at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: ‘Quite a lot of UK policymakers have a somewhat Pollyannaish [over-optimistic] view of China.

‘There needs to be some recognition of this issue, and some systematic way of looking at these deals. When you’re dealing with a very powerful state like China that’s a practitioner of state corporatism rather than a genuine proponent of free trade, you don’t have a level playing field and you need to make allowance for that.’

Chips in millions of phones Imagination Technologies has long been a jewel in Britain’s technology crown – making microchips for billions of products from Apple smartphones to wireless speakers. Founded in 1985, it is one of the few firms outside Silicon Valley to play a leading role in the global computing industry. Apple, the company’s biggest customer, uses many of the 1.2billion chips produced every year in its iPhones and iPads. But this year Imagination’s share price crashed when the US tech giant said it wanted to make its own chips instead. It set the scene for a legal case that could drag on for years. Apple is also said to have poached several key staff from Imagination, which employs more than 1,000 people in 20 countries and has its HQ in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. Ministers have powers to block the Chinese takeover under the 2002 Enterprise Act, which lets the Business Secretary refuse bids that could damage national security. Advertisement !- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/news/none/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->

John Hemmings, of The Henry Jackson Society think-tank, said the deal has ‘all sorts of implications in the military sphere’.

‘If the military suddenly has to start buying semiconductors from China, there are very serious concerns,’ he said. Chinese firms might build ‘back doors’ into their chips which allow devices to be hacked into by the state. Consumer electronics could also be at risk, he added.

Mrs May has pledged to stand up to overseas predators. However, no objections were raised when British tech giant ARM Holdings was sold to the Japanese, and Chinese involvement in the Hinkley Point nuclear power station was allowed to proceed as planned after a short ‘pause’. Dr Hemmings said it was as if George Osborne – who wooed the Chinese while Chancellor – was still in power. ‘Osborne has gone, but it’s as if his ghost was still at the wheel of the ship,’ he said.

‘We need trained lawyers and civil servants to really have time to look into these deals and to make sure we’re not selling the future of defence.’

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable, a former business secretary, said the government has ‘done nothing to put in place a more satisfactory regime for corporate takeovers’.

Labour MP Wes Streeting, a member of the Treasury select committee, said: ‘It’s something the Government ought to take a close interest in.’ A spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said it could not comment on the ‘commercially sensitive’ case.’ Imagination could not be reached for comment.

Output: Chinese takeovers of British firms, such as the £550m ($743m) purchase of Imagination Technologies, may put military secrets at risk. Action must be taken to carefully examine Chinese deals so as protect the UK's national security and business, according to former MI6 deputy head Nigel Inkster. Chinese corporations can construct their tech products with "back doors", which grant the state access to the devices, according to John Hemmings, of The Henry Jackson Society think-tank.


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MailOnline is opening up more audience data to advertisers
 MailOnline is joining the ranks of a growing number of publishers keen to deepen partnerships with brands and agencies by offering more strategic — and valuable — services. The publisher has started offering key clients access to its live on-site surveying tool, Pulse, to help them make more sense of its digital audience of 29 million monthly uniques in the U.K. (over half of the U.K.’s digital population), according to comScore.

In the last few months, MailOnline has run hundreds of reader surveys on topics like views on brands or current events. The publisher will soon make its real-time analytics available to clients so they can see which articles are trending. It will also profile specific reader groups, so clients can ask questions like, “When are people most likely to read about mortgages?” or “What content are mothers reading apart from content about babies?” before spending money on campaigns.

“We’re pivoting our business; we want to be seen as a strategy and insights resource to clients,” said Bedir Aydemir, product marketing and insight director at MailOnline. “The idea is that we’re adding value before the client has spent any money.”

Digital advertising has been moving away from targeting based on broad demographic segments to more granular, interest-based targeting. Mail Advertising, the commercial division for Mail Newspapers and MailOnline within parent company DMG Media, is the driving force behind becoming an insight partner. According to SimilarWeb, over a third of MailOnline’s visitors come to it directly, making the publisher somewhat less vulnerable than others to the duopoly’s dominance. This also gives MailOnline a rich, enticing data set.

Speaking on stage at One Vizeum in London this week, Roland Agambar, CMO at parent company DMG Media said that the publisher has profiled 3.5 million of its readers. In this database, each customer has around 300 fields of data, including first-party data related to their viewing habits, engagement and transaction data — it sells everything from home goods to travel cruises — enhanced with third-party data from partners like Netmums and Nectar. The publisher is close to having a single-customer view, and the business is starting to make use this database, said Agambar.

Database customers are separated into three segments depending on how valuable they are. MailOnline has a few thousand high-value customers, each of which spends about £4,000 ($5,400) a year with the publisher. It has a million customers in the low-value bucket. Messages are tailored to different levels accordingly; for instance, the publisher is in the process of understanding what message would nudge someone who visits the site infrequently to make a purchase or sign up to one of its newsletters.

Aydemir said MailOnline is starting to build what it calls a “next-best action engine,” which will automatically serve readers an action aimed to resonate best with them, whether that’s an ad from an ad client or an ad directing them to its property search service. “It might be serving them fewer ads, even though that’s counterintuitive,” he said, “but we want them to communicate with us more regularly.”

According to Aydemir, because MailOnline has scale, it offers guarantees of 1 million on-platform views for branded-content video, and it hasn’t had to buy traffic from social platforms or media distribution on other sites to match clients’ reach goals. Aydemir said clients are increasingly asking for more social distribution. This week in the U.S., it launched DailyMailTV, opening up another potential distribution channel for advertiser content.

Audience data is the backbone of any publisher, but using it for more commercial advantages is nascent, according to Dan Chapman, head of digital at Mediacom. “With a publisher’s understanding of their customers through analytics and research panels, they are in a great space to start stealing share in insight-driven creative concepting and production,” he said. A growing number of publishers are using this data commercially: Recently, ESI Media started delivering real-time article engagement data to advertising agencies.

MailOnline’s whole business is understanding the monetary value of customer data in ways that weren’t possible five years ago, said Agambar. One way this plays out is that Aydemir and memebers of his team now move around the company, collaborating with different departments to help them understand the value of customer data.

“We want to work in a partnership type of way with clients, but we need to be flexible,” said Dominic Williams, chief investment officer at Mail Advertising. “We’re a brand that still needs to evolve.”

Image courtesy of Daily Mail, via Facebook

Output: MailOnline has offered key clients access to its live onsite surveying tool, Pulse, to help advertisers gain greater insights into its digital audience. “We want to be seen as a strategy and insights resource to clients,” said Bedir Aydemir, product marketing and insight director at MailOnline. “The idea is that we’re adding value before the client has spent any money.” Digital advertising has been moving away from targeting based on demographics towards more interest-based targeting. To this end, MailOnline aims to deepen its partnerships with brands and agencies by offering more strategic and valuable insight services.


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Pentagon launches $700m programme to counter Isis drone attacks
 WASHINGTON — At the vast, windswept White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico earlier this year, nearly a dozen military contractors armed with laser guns, high-tech nets and other experimental systems met to tackle one of the Pentagon’s most vexing counterterrorism conundrums: how to destroy the Islamic State’s increasingly lethal fleet of drones.

The militant group has used surveillance drones on the battlefield for more than two years. But an increase in deadly attacks since last fall — mostly targeting Iraqi troops and Syrian militia members with small bombs or grenades, but also threatening American advisers — has highlighted the terrorists’ success in adapting off-the-shelf, low-cost technology into an effective new weapon.

The Pentagon is so alarmed by this growing threat — even as it routs the Islamic State from its strongholds in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria — that it has launched a $700 million crash program overseen by two senior Army generals to draw on the collective know-how and resources of all branches of the armed services, Silicon Valley and defense industry giants like Boeing and Raytheon to devise tactics and technology to thwart the menace.

One important piece of that effort was the contest in New Mexico. It amounted to a Pentagon counter-drone bake-off, called the Hard Kill Challenge, to see which new classified technologies and tactics proved most promising. The results were decidedly mixed, and underscore the long-term problem confronting the Pentagon and its allies as it combats the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in a growing number of hot spots around the world beyond Iraq and Syria, including Yemen and Libya.

Output: The Pentagon has set up a $700m programme aimed at developing technology capable of tackling the growing threat of Isis drones. In the US, authorities have warned about a possible attack on infrastructure, while drone experts have been sent to help protect troops in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The Pentagon programme combines experts from Silicon Valley, Boeing, Raytheon and across the military. It also funded the recent Hard Kill Challenge in New Mexico, which tested classified and proprietary technology, with mixed results after some targets proved resistant to attack.


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Expectations and contractual obligations increase for influencers
 Influencer marketing is moving from a sidelight to a major part of marketing strategies, leading to tighter expectations and contractual obligations that guarantee social stars’ rights and advertisers’ needs.

Agency Digital Brand Architects updated its influencer contracts around two weeks ago to clear up gray areas like post timing and content rights, said Reesa Lake, partner and svp of Digital Brand Architects, at a panel discussion hosted by Women in Influencer Marketing on Sept. 19.

The agency’s new contracts specify the social stars’ time zones and they should post, and they require brands to provide comprehensive creative briefs — if the talent follows the brief, they are not required to reshoot the content. The new contracts also specify where and for how long brands can use or reuse influencer posts, according to Lake.

“It’s important to make sure that the brand and the influencer are on the same page,” she said. “For example, a brand may say to an influencer, ‘We trust you [in your creativity] because you have so many followers.’ But the content may not turn out the way the client hoped, so a comprehensive creative brief from the brand is necessary.”

Meanwhile, Jessy Grossman, talent agent for Don Buchwald & Associates, said the talent agency updated its partnership contracts around two months ago — many brands initiate deals with their own media contracts as well — to include a clause restricting edits once a piece of content is created, and the contracts require briefs from brands or agencies.

“My clients are always looking for repeat business and want to nail the deliverables the first time around. The clause is both to save my clients from extra work but also to ensure the [brand] is happy or the middle person looks good,” said Grossman. “I’m going to add the time zones [of the influencer and the client] into my contracts.”

Joe Gagliese, co-founder and managing partner for talent and marketing agency Viral Nation, said that a year ago, many of his clients didn’t give social stars detailed instructions, so content was often reshot. As a result, his team has put together comprehensive contracts over the past year. For instance, each influencer has a customized brief detailing the storyline, deliverables by platform and by post, estimated posting times based on the influencer’s optimal timing, minimum performance guarantees and FTC compliance, among other items, according to Gagliese.

“There’s also more clarification of the language used,” he said. “For instance, we tell the influencer that brand X wants an Instagram Story consisting of four segments, instead of just saying that the brand wants an Instagram Story.”

Updating influencer contracts is nothing new for some companies. Steve Ellis, CEO for influencer marketing firm WhoSay, said his company addressed the above issues, which many smaller influencer agencies face, early on. “You are seeing some clearing up in the industry where smaller players are adopting a more disciplined process, and they will need a more disciplined measurement [approach],” he said.

Ellis added that one change WhoSay made recently to its media contracts was giving advertisers more options to use influencer content beyond social media, such as in their TV, radio, out-of-home and e-commerce advertising. Of course, there are additional usage fees when the content is used elsewhere beyond what the original contract specifies, he said.

A publishing executive who prefers anonymity said that in influencer marketing, content usage fees can be pegged to the size of the ad spend, but more often, they are simple flat fees broken out by media type or posting medium. “There is a lot of precedent for these types of usage tiers from the older world of modeling and photography agencies, where usage is where they make most their money,” he said.

Output: Influencer marketing has become big business, with many advertisers updating their contracts with social media stars to reflect higher expectations and more detailed contractual obligations. Companies are also moving towards providing influencers with better defined creative briefs that specify the social stars’ time zones, when they should post and how content should be presented. As influencer marketing becomes a major part of brands’ marketing strategies, Steve Ellis, the CEO of influencer marketing firm WhoSay, suggested that influencer agencies, especially smaller ones, should adopt “a more disciplined process”.


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Volvo makes XC40 SUV available for a monthly all-in fee
 The Volvo XC40 may be just another small SUV for people who wouldn’t be caught dead in a sedan these days, but the company’s approach to sharing and selling the car might be how they get potential customers to pay attention.

The XC40 will compete with cars like the Audi Q3, BMW X1 and Mini Countryman, as well as higher-end versions of the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. Volvo’s been on a bit of a hot streak lately, turning out strikingly cool cars, but the XC40 adds trendy stuff like a contrasting roof / body color scheme that the company says will be available in 17 different combinations.

When it reaches showrooms next year, the XC40 will be available with a 2.0-liter turbocharged gasoline four-cylinder engine with 250 horsepower. A plug-in hybrid will be offered later, Volvo officials said Thursday at the Milan event where the car was revealed. Also expect a fully electric model of this size from Volvo in the next couple of years.

Volvo is into screens these days, so all XC40s will come with a 12.3-inch TFT display behind the steering wheel, where conventional dials and gauges have lived. In the middle of the dash, there’s the 9-inch touchscreen that we liked a lot in the V90 Cross Country; it controls most of the audio, air, and vehicle settings. Qi wireless charging is now included as well — just in time for your most recent iPhone purchase.

The Swedes are big on safety, so all XC40s will get Volvo’s Pilot Assist semi-autonomous driving assistance that includes automatic emergency braking and pedestrian and cyclist detection. A 360-degree parking camera will also be offered.

Because this is Volvo’s smallest vehicle aimed at a more tech-aware and city-dwelling audience, the XC40 is being introduced with some new services. As part of the Volvo On Call app, you can now add trusted friends or family to use the car through the app. The app, like ones offered by a number of automakers, allows you to unlock and start the car, control the air conditioning or heating, and set the vehicle destination.

Volvo recently acquired pieces of Luxe to further its concierge services for things like fueling and service appointments, so expect that to be rolled into the XC40 once those programs are expanded outside of the San Francisco area.

Along with the full details of the XC40, Volvo also announced its Care By Volvo service, which will allow people who want to lease an XC40 to roll all of the costs associated with owning a car (aside from fuel) into one monthly payment. The price is non-negotiable, which is likely meant to dissuade those who enjoy haggling with car salespeople, but it makes for a less dramatic experience for those who wish buying a car were like buying a phone. What’s more, Volvo says you can get a new car every year under the plan.

Output: Swedish car manufacturer Volvo is set to launch its XC40 compact sports utility vehicle in Europe for a non-negotiable flat fee of €699 ($824) per month. The two-year plan covers insurance, taxes and basic maintenance, and in some cases a concierge service for fuel and cleaning, while customers will be offered a new car every year under the scheme. The XC40 will be available across Europe from the end of September and will be a rival to BMW’s X1 and Mercedes-Benz’s GLA.


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Economists claim Ontario rent controls reduce supply incentives
 RioCan and Allied Properties cite the Ontario government’s new rent controls as the reason why the REITs converted 133 planned rental units to condominiums at the Kingly development in Toronto. Share

More than 1,000 planned purpose-built rental units have instead been converted to condominiums in the Greater Toronto Area since Premier Kathleen Wynne's government expanded rent control in the spring, according to a new report that warns the region's rental supply crisis is poised to worsen.

The report, which is to be released on Monday and was obtained by The Globe and Mail, says that already-low vacancy rates will plunge further unless the government enacts policies that encourage developers to build an average of at least 6,250 additional new apartment units a year for the next decade in Ontario.

Read also: Toronto housing market feels effect of foreign-buyers tax

"We need more supply," said Jim Murphy, president of the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO), which commissioned the study. "When the government brings in policies that sort of act as a deterrent or, at best, just get people thinking about putting things on hold pending the election, that's not good."

The report is the first to measure the impact of extending rent control by tracking the conversion of planned apartment projects to condos. As part of a wide-ranging package of housing policy changes announced in April, Ms. Wynne, who is preparing to go to the polls next year, announced that all rental units in the province would be subject to rent control to improve affordability. Previously, the policy applied only to buildings constructed before November, 1991.

While the measure was popular among renters, some of whom had received huge monthly increases as Toronto's housing market got ever tighter, many economists warned that expanding rent control would choke supply by reducing incentives for developers to launch new apartment buildings. Under the policy, rent hikes for all private apartments are now capped at around inflation to a maximum of 2.5 per cent a year.

The government's policy change reduced "growth prospects for rental" and contributed to a decision by RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust and Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust to convert 133 planned rental units to condominiums at the Kingly development on King Street West in Toronto, said Jonathan Gitlin, senior vice-president of investments and residential at RioCan.

"The legislation caused us to review our rental projects across the GTA," Mr. Gitlin said by e-mail. "The impact of the legislation will be to mute growth through limiting rental growth and enhance risk that will accompany inflation as a landlord will need to absorb increased expenses."

The FRPO found in a survey of its members, who are mostly large property owners and management companies, that about 20,000 of more than 28,000 planned purpose-built rental units in the GTA were under review as a result of the government's housing measures. The organization is tracking unit conversions and cancellations and is also launching a campaign on Monday to push the government to amend its rent-control legislation.

After the government's announcement, the number of purpose-built rental units proposed for the GTA continued to rise in the second quarter of 2017. However, the increase was at a much slower rate than in previous periods – 1,719 units were added to the planned inventory from April to June compared with 2,453 units in the first three months of this year and 5,645 units in the second quarter of 2016, according to Urbanation, a real estate consulting firm that prepared the report for the FRPO.

That figure doesn't include more than 1,000 planned apartments in four projects that have already been converted to condos – an "early and conservative" estimate that will likely soon double, according to Shaun Hildebrand, senior vice-president at Urbanation.

Even with expected levels of new apartment starts, the report projects that demand for rental units in the province will far outweigh supply. It urges the construction of at least 62,500 additional new purpose-built apartments over the next decade, or 6,250 a year on average, which would raise the vacancy rate to between 2.5 per cent and 3 per cent in Ontario. The majority are needed in the GTA. The vacancy rate was 2.1 per cent in the province as of last year and 1.3 per cent in Toronto.

The report cites high real estate prices, tighter mortgage policies and rising interest rates as contributing factors to surging interest in rentals and notes strong demand from new immigrants, millennials and baby boomers.

While most of the growth in the current rental supply comes from the so-called secondary market of investors who rent out their condos, such units are not as stable as purpose-built apartments, given they can be sold at any time. In addition, the report says investors will likely not hold onto their condos for as long because rent control will limit their ability to cover increases in carrying costs.

The report also warns that 85 per cent of the province's existing stock of purpose-built rental buildings are more than 35 years old and will require higher levels of investment to maintain.

Output: Rent control policies in Ontario are reducing the supply of new rental properties in the Greater Toronto Area, according to a report from real estate consulting firm Urbanation. The province's Premier Kathleen Wynne announced measures in April to cap rent increases at 2.5% a year for all private apartments. The rate of increase in new purpose-built rental units has since slowed, from 2,453 units added to the planned inventory in Q1 2017 to just 1,719 in Q2, according to the report. 1,000 planned rental developments have been converted into condominiums in response to the rent controls, the report states.


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Didi Chuxing puts $200m into used-car trader Renrenche
 The logo of Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing. The company is seeking a bite of the lucrative Chinese market for second-hand cars with an investment in used-car platform Renrenche. Photo: AP

Output: Chinese ride-hailing business Didi Chuxing has put $200m into peer-to-peer secondhand car trading platform Renrenche, and is expected to allow it to sell vehicles via Didi's app. This will give Renrenche access to Didi's customer base of around 17 million drivers and 400 million passengers. The secondhand car market is of increasing interest to Chinese companies since authorities began to ease restrictions on it last year.


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Weatherford HPHT V0-qualified well barrier goes on sale
 Weatherford International plc has announced the commercial release of the ISO Extreme retrievable well barrier, which is qualified to ISO 14310 V0 standards for gas-tight isolation.

The barrier has a large operational envelope: it is capable of withstanding pressure differentials up to 10 000 psi (68.95 MPa) and temperatures between 40 and 325°F (4 and 163°C), which reduces the loss-of-containment risk in extreme environments. ISO Extreme well barriers are available for tubing sizes from 3.5 through 7 in. The variety of deployment options — including electric line, slickline, tubing and coiled tubing — further increases operational flexibility.

Unlike comparable technologies available for the high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) market, the ISO Extreme barrier does not require any nipple profiles and is retrieved by first shifting down to equalise the pressures then jarring up to release. This safety feature reduces the risk of trapped pressure below the plug prior to releasing. Additionally, the small diameter of the plug enables passage through typical wellbore restrictions for easy deployment and removal even in challenging environments.

“We are pleased to add the first V0-qualified and field-proven HPHT well barrier to our industry-leading portfolio of wellbore isolation technologies,” said Mark Hopmann, Vice President of Completions at Weatherford. “With this addition, we now have a comprehensive offering of well barriers for diverse applications and environments.”

Output: Weatherford International has released its ISO Extreme retrievable well barrier. The V0-qualified barrier can operate in temperatures between 4C and 163C, withstands pressures up to 10,000 psi, and can be deployed via slickline, electric line, tubing and coiled tubing. Weatherford also said the ISO Extreme barrier does not require nipple profiles and is easily retrieved.


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LIDAR system uses continuous light to improve accuracy
 The company’s name, Aeva, is a play on “Eve,” the name of the robot in the Pixar movie “WALL-E.”

The market for autonomous vehicles will grow to $42 billion by 2025, according to research by the Boston Consulting Group. But for that to happen, the vehicles will need new and more powerful sensors. Today’s autonomous cars are ill prepared for high-speed driving, bad weather and other common situations.

The recent improvements in self-driving cars coincided with the improvements offered by new lidar sensors from a Silicon Valley company called Velodyne. These sensors gave cars a way of measuring distances to nearby vehicles, pedestrians and other objects. They also provided Google and other companies with a way of mapping urban roadways in three dimensions, so that cars will know exactly where they are at any given moment — something GPS cannot always provide.

But these lidar sensors have additional shortcomings. They can gather information only about objects that are relatively close to them, which limits how fast the cars can travel. Their measurements aren’t always detailed enough to distinguish one object from another. And when multiple driverless cars are close together, their signals can become garbled.

Other devices can pick up some of slack. Cameras are a better way of identifying pedestrians and street signs, for example, and radar works over longer distances. That’s why today’s self-driving cars track their surroundings through so many different sensors. But despite this wide array of hardware — which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per vehicle — even the best autonomous vehicles still have trouble in so many situations that humans can navigate with ease.

Output: Silicon Valley start-up Aeva has joined in with efforts to build more effective sensors for autonomous vehicles. Driverless cars under development today track their surroundings using cameras, radar, GPS and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) devices that measure distances using pulses of light emitted individually. However, the Aeva prototype sends out a continuous wave of light, enabling a more precise and reliable view of the world around autonomous cars. Founded by two ex-members of Apple’s special projects group, the Aeva prototype is still under development, but the company hopes to start selling devices next year.


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Prisa changes stance on header bidding to cut page latency
 Running programmatic ad operations across multiple countries can be an operational nightmare. Spanish- and Portuguese-language media group Prisa, which owns major national newspapers like El País and spans 22 markets, thinks it’s found the answer with server-to-server integration.

Programmatic advertising accounts for between 25 and 40 percent of Prisa’s advertising revenue, depending on the markets and titles. For example, programmatic ads across its flagship Spanish national newspaper El País and football site As.com account for between 30 and 40 percent of those titles’ ad revenue, but that number is closer to 25 percent in Prisa’s Latin American markets.

The group deployed header bidding a year ago and generated yield increases of between 30 and 50 percent across different titles. But the trade-off between yield and page latency caused by header bidding is no longer sustainable, according to Matthias Mondini, yield management and business insights director at Prisa. Plus, operating header bidding with different systems across the nine markets in which it has sales and ad operations was becoming unwieldy, overly complex and difficult to scale.

“We want transparency [of the bid streams] and to be able to manage and control incoming ad quality via one platform,” he said. “For header bidding to work at its best, you need between five and 10 different interfaces — we wanted to reduce that technology fragmentation and make our operations more nimble.”

That’s why it turned to Switch Concepts’ server-to-server platform, which provides a transparent and unified overview of a publisher’s live bid streams across all its exchanges simultaneously, while facilitating a unified auction off the publisher’s own header.

That additional visibility of the bid streams shows the publisher who is winning and losing bids, opening up valuable insights into who would make suitable programmatic-direct partners, which it can feed to sales teams. Programmatic-direct deals are on the rise everywhere. Around 30 percent of Prisa’s programmatic revenue now comes from direct deals, compared to less than 10 percent two years ago, according to Mondini. While agencies are still pushing for open marketplace auctions, large advertisers that want brand-safety guarantees are actively pushing for programmatic direct, he added.

Prisa is also bullish about managing ad quality, but doing so across the some 12 billion monthly impressions across its portfolio of titles, with fragmented systems in each market, has been challenging, to say the least. The Switch platform should help alleviate that. Previously, ad quality was managed via 10 different platforms, with staff manually screening sites for bad ads, figuring out their sources and then blocking them. “Operationally, it was far from perfect, and reporting was equally difficult and costly,” said Mondini.

Server-side auctions have been welcomed by publishers for their ability to allay page latency caused by header bidding. Content loads separately from ads across Prisa titles, and it wasn’t a great user experience to have them appearing on page at different times. “We want to reduce the ad-load time from 700 milliseconds to 100-200 milliseconds, which we believe is more acceptable,” said Mondini. Prisa also expects yields to grow as a result of the additional bid density that server-side bidding can offer.

Prisa has also tested Google’s server-side option, exchange bidding in dynamic allocation, and has seen decent yield lifts compared to what Google’s ad exchange is generating, according to Mondini. But there are drawbacks. “The product itself is a bit limited still. You can’t set up programmatic-direct deals outside of Google AdX, so you can’t use other third-party platforms,” he said. “Google’s auction mechanics with AdX and EBDA are still a black box — we don’t know how they work. Ultimately, we want to work with agnostic tech providers.”

This is a reason why it hasn’t investigated Amazon’s server-side solution more, as questions around Amazon’s potential conflict of interest in buying and selling media haven’t yet been answered. That said, given Amazon’s unique demand, Prisa won’t close the door on header bidding entirely. “We want to reduce client-side header bidding integration as much as we can,” Mondini said. “However, we may not be able to reduce it to zero, as there is some uncertainty around demand partners like Criteo and Amazon, which want publishers to use their own products and may not be willing to integrate with third-party platforms.”

While page-latency issues have dogged header bidding, reduced user matching has cast a shadow over server-side bidding. Prisa isn’t immune to the risks. “We want to manage the risk we see in terms of lower cookie-syncing rates,” said Mondini. “So far, we haven’t seen a huge difference, but it’s true that cookie-syncing rates can potentially negatively impact yield.”

However, Mondini stressed that chasing yield increases is not Prisa’s only objective in opting for server-side integration. The ultimate aim is to have a single system from which it can better manage and control its digital ad trading across all its markets.

Output: A year after adopting header bidding, Madrid-based media group Prisa is moving to Switch Concept's server-to-server platform, according to Matthias Mondini, the company's yield management and business insights director. He cited unsustainable page latency as the reason behind the decision, and said although he was aware of the risks of reduced user matching with server-side bidding, the platform also presented more opportunities for programmatic-direct deals, which have grown to make up 30% of Prisa's programmatic revenue.


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Aire drone can scan homes for insurance purposes
 The Aire drone is one of the most ambitious home robotics projects I've ever encountered. If I hadn't seen it fly in person, I wouldn't even believe it's real. But Aire is real. It actually flies. And I actually asked it to take a photo of me using Alexa.

On Kickstarter, Aire is advertised as a "self-flying robotic assistant for the home." The basic idea is that the drone is smart enough to keep itself upright in the air and avoid obstacles, so you can safely fly it indoors without crashing into too many lamps or small dogs. You can remotely control the drone with your phone to check a suspicious situation when you're away from home, or to video conference with your family (there's a built-in microphone and speaker).

Aire doesn't sound or move like a typical drone, which is a big point of emphasis for its creators. It sounds a bit like a vacuum cleaner or hair dryer, instead of that mosquito-in-your-ear sound you get from most drones. It's also really safe to interact with. For instance, when we were asking Aire to take a photo, it was totally cool to grab the drone and position it in the desired spot — once you let go it stabilizes and keeps flying like nothing happened.

The technology that makes this stable flight possible is what makes Aire so interesting. The prototype I saw had stereo cameras for vision, a 3D depth camera for obstacle avoidance, a downward facing camera for positioning, and sonar sensors all around for more obstacle avoidance. There's an Nvidia TX1 chip processing all this sensor data. Right now that mostly just means Aire is stable in the air, can land automatically, and can carry out very basic Alexa and IFTTT commands.

But there's enough technology here to do some very interesting things if Aire is successful. For instance, you could ask Aire to scan your entire home for insurance purposes, or create a 3D map of your home for help with a remodel. Aire could search your home for a specific person, or patrol your home for anomalies. These are all features that could set it apart from a traditional security camera setup, or a traditional drone, but who knows if they'll ever get built. Aire's autonomous skills are very limited right now: it can take off and land from a wireless charging dock if it can see the dock, and it can take a photo when you ask it to over Alexa.

Aire is supposed to ship in December of next year, with a beta model out that September. The retail price is supposed to be $1,499, but the Kickstarter price is $749 if you're willing to put your money down right now.

Output: A new drone that uses artificial intelligence to avoid objects around the home, allowing it to be flown indoors, could be used to scan homes for insurance coverage. The Aire drone, which is being funded by a Kickstarter campaign, can be flown remotely when a user is away from home. It can also take basic Alexa voice commands.