Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
ReNew Power to acquire three wind power parks in India
 Indian independent power producer ReNew Power Ventures Pvt Ltd will acquire three fully operational wind parks in Andhra Pradesh totalling 103 MW from the KC Thapar Group, The Economic Times (ET) reports.

Kailash Vaswani, deputy chief financial officer at ReNew Power, unveiled the purchase for the newspaper, but gave no financial details regarding the transaction. Unnamed sources, though, told ET that the acquired assets are valued at about INR 10 billion (USD 153m/EUR 130m).

The transaction includes 79 MW at Molagavalli in Kurnool district and 24 MW at Borampalli in Ananthapur district. The wind farms are selling power to local discoms at INR 4.80 per kWh under 25-year contracts, according to ET’s sources.

The sale process for the plants was initiated four months ago and attracted a dozen strategic and financial investors, Kotak Investment Banking, which advised the KCT Group, told the newspaper.

With this acquisition, ReNew Power will expand its portfolio of commissioned wind farms to 1,600 MW from about 1,500 MW.

(INR 10 = USD 0.153/EUR 0.130)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Indian firm ReNew Power Ventures will expand its existing 1,500 MW wind power portfolio by more than 100 MW after it acquires three wind parks in Andhra Pradesh from KC Thapar Group, according to ReNew Power CFO Kailash Vaswani. Although he gave no financial details, anonymous insiders believe the deal to be worth around INR10bn ($153m). The wind parks are all operational, and are selling power to local discoms at INR4.80 per kWh under 25-year contracts.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Phase II of Oman's 1 GW of solar thermal project expected in 2019
 Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) expects to complete the first phase of its 1,021-MWp Miraah solar thermal park project in Oman next year and to proceed with phase two in 2019, an official told The National.

GlassPoint Solar Inc is currently building the complex for PDO, whose plans for the site is to produce 6,000 tonnes of steam per day for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Just recently, the partners announced that the first out of 36 standard glasshouse blocks housing parabolic trough collectors was completed safely on schedule and on budget.

The first of nine modules, each including four glasshouse blocks, should be completed by the end of 2017, Abdul-Amir Al Ajmi, PDO’s External Affairs and Value Creation Director, told the newspaper. By the start of 2019, a further two modules should be finalised so that the project could enter phase two, according to the director.

The companies are currently using aluminium made in China to build mirrors for the USD-600-million (EUR 509m) project, but in phase three they anticipate to produce the aluminium in Oman.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.849)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: The first stage of the 1,021 MWp Miraah solar thermal park installation from Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) should be complete in 2018, with the second phase due in 2019. The thermal park is currently being constructed by GlassPoint Solar, with the installation due to generate 6,000 tonnes of steam daily for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The first of nine modules of four glasshouse blocks are due to be complete by the end of the year, with two more due to be finished by the beginning of 2019. The project, worth $600m, is being completed with Chinese aluminium, though it may require material from Oman in future.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Power and utilities deals reach more than double to $74.3bn in Q3
 Power and utilities (P&U) deals globally reached USD 74.3 billion (EUR 63m) in the third quarter of 2017, which is a two-year high and a surge of 141% from the second quarter, consultancy firm EY calculates.

The Americas accounted for 71% of the total, or USD 53 billion, shows EY’s Power transactions and trends Q3 2017 report. The quarter-on-quarter increase of 798% was due to five megadeals, representing 96% of the deal value in the Americas. Renewables deals, however, fell by 94% from the second quarter to just USD 180 million. Most were conducted by corporate investors.

P&U deals in Europe also jumped, by 60% to USD 16.9 billion, amid better-than-expected economic activity. There were 35 renewable energy deals for a total of USD 3.2 billion. In the quarter under review, deals in wind energy assets surpassed those in solar. There were 15 wind deals, including one in combination with solar, with a total value of USD 2.8 billion.

In the Asia-Pacific there was a 68% quarterly drop in deal value to USD 4.3 billion. At USD 3.3 billion, deals in renewables accounted for 77% of the region’s total. M&A in geothermal energy led the list with USD 1.3 billion in value, while solar and wind farm deals together contributed USD 1.4 billion.

According to the biannual EY Power and Utilities Capital Confidence Barometer (CCB), strong activity is set to continue. The consultancy said that 79% of executives are expecting the global economy to improve in the next 12 months, with 51% preparing to actively pursue acquisitions.

The US and Germany are the most attractive P&U investment destinations and Brazil, Australia and China complete the top five.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.85)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Global power and utilities deals rose 141% QoQ to a two-year high of $74.3bn in Q3, helped by a nine-fold increase in activity in the Americas to $53bn, according to EY. In Europe, power and utilities deals increased 60% to $16.9bn, while in Asia they fell 68% to $4.3bn. The EY Power and Utilities Capital Confidence Barometer predicts continued strong performance in the sector and said more than half of executives were preparing to "actively pursue" acquisitions in the next year.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Engie and Heliatek install world's largest organic PV rooftop
 French energy group Engie (EPA:ENGI) and Heliatek GmbH on Wednesday announced the inauguration of what is described as the world's largest building integrated organic photovoltaic (BiOPV) installation on a roof.

The roof of the Pierre Mendes France middle school in La Rochelle, France was covered with 500 sq m (5,382 sq ft) of Heliatek's solar films. The project was carried out in response to a call for tenders by the Charente-Maritime Department, Engie, which has been an investor in Heliatek since 2016, explained.

With a capacity of 22.5 kWp, the system will produce about 23.8 MWh per year, which will be used directly by the school, covering 15%-20% of its electricity demand.

The aim of the pilot project is to open the way in the longer term to large-scale development of the technology, Engie said. OPV films are suitable for lightweight roofs, which can not support conventional solar panels. Their advantages include fast installation, no need for piercing the roof and being easy to recycle.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: French energy firm Engie and solar equipment provider Heliatek have completed the world's biggest building-integrated organic photovoltaic (BiOPV) installation, on the rooftop of the Pierre Mendes France school in La Rochelle. The school's rooftop has been equipped with 500 sq metres of solar film, and has a capacity of 22.5 kWp. The installation should generate approximately 23.8 MWh annually for the school, providing 15% to 20% of its total energy needs. The pilot will help to develop further larger-scale installations for the technology, which provides a lighter alternative to solar panels.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
IRENA and ADFD announce $50m funding for developing countries
 The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) today said a funding round of USD 50 million (EUR 42m) in concessional loans for renewable energy projects in developing countries is now open for applications.

This is the sixth funding round under the USD-350-million IRENA/ADFD Project Facility, which is funded by the ADFD.

The first four rounds provided USD 189 million to 19 renewable energy ventures, which will create over 100 MW of renewable energy capacity and improve the energy access for over a million people. Located in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Small Island Developing States, the projects include wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass technologies and use different systems such as hybrid, off-grid, mini-grid and on-grid including back-up storage.

The deadline for applications is February 15, 2018. The successful projects in the fifth round will be announced in January 2018.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.850)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Businesses behind renewable energy projects in developing countries are being invited to apply for a share of $50m in concessional loans offered by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD). It is the sixth round led by the $350m IRENA/ADFD Project Facility, which has already backed 19 renewable energy schemes to the tune of $189m, creating more than 100 MW of capacity across Africa, Asia and smaller emerging nations. The deadline for round six applicants is February 2018, while the projects selected from round five will be revealed the month before.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Carnegie increases flagship wave device capacity by 0.5 MW
 Australia's Carnegie Clean Energy Ltd (ASX:CCE) said today it has redesigned its CETO 6 wave energy device, increasing its nominal capacity to 1.5 MW from 1 MW previously.

The company announced in a statement that it had won a US patent on November 6 that confirms the additional features of the new design as state of the art.

The redesigned CETO 6 will incorporate multiple moorings instead of just one in order to boost the amount of power that can be absorbed by the wave energy device. This means that multiple foundations will be required for each unit. The firm noted it has developed a networked arrangement for foundations for large-scale wave farms that allows foundation sharing.

Carnegie expects the upgraded and more cost competitive device to be able to compete with other mainstream renewable energy technologies, once it is manufactured in high volumes and deployed as part of large projects.

“Carnegie Clean Energy is determined to make our mark on the global renewable energy market with our CETO 6 wave energy technology,” said CEO and managing director, Michael Ottaviano.

The company intends to install the CETO 6 off Albany during the 2019-2020 summer weather window. It said last week it has deployed a wave buoy at the specific offshore site to measure metocean conditions.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Australian firm Carnegie Clean Energy has completed a redesign of its CETO 6 wave energy system, raising its capacity from 1 MW to 1.5 MW. The company has gained a US patent for the technology, which will encompass more than one mooring to increase the level of power that can be absorbed. The firm's foundations can now be shared as part of a new network arrangement between wind farms. The device is due to be installed off the coast of Albany during the summer of 2019 to 2020. Carnegie is hoping to provide the new version of the device as a cost-effective competitor to rival technology.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Stina looks to buy vanadium electrolyte R&D firm Pure Vanadium
 Stina Resources Ltd (CNSX:SQA) of Canada in acquiring compatriot research and development (R&D) company Pure Vanadium Corp as part of efforts to become the first vertically integrated producer in North America of vanadium electrolyte for the energy storage industry.

Stina, which has vanadium reserves and resources in Nevada, on Thursday announced a definitive agreement for the purchase of Pure Vanadium, a developer of vanadium electrolyte for grid-scale vanadium redox flow batteries. The deal follows the signing of a Letter of Intent (LoT) in July a review of the company's technology.

"The development of battery technology is progressing rapidly throughout the world with vanadium redox flow batteries being one of the main new technologies for grid-scale energy storage," said Stina president and chief executive Brian Stecyk. "The combination of our vanadium resources in Nevada and new applications for vanadium in battery technology will progress Stina towards its goal of being a leading vertically integrated producer of vanadium electrolyte," Stecyk added.

Stina will acquire Pure Vanadium through the issuance of 17 million Stina common shares to Pure Vanadium shareholders. The buyer will also provide CAD 250,000 (USD 196,000/EUR 166,000) to continue development and testing of Pure Vanadium's technology.

(CAD 1 = USD 0.784/EUR 0.665)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Canadian firm Stina Resources has moved a step closer to becoming North America's first vertically integrated producer of vanadium electrolyte, with the purchase of Pure Vanadium Corporation. The deal, which follows the signing of a letter of intent in July, will see Stina acquire all outstanding share capital via the issuance of 17,000,000 common shares to Pure Vanadium shareholders. In addition, $196,000 will be set aside for R&D and continued testing of Pure's technology.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Iberdrola sells €1bn hybrid green bond to refinance UK renewables
 Iberdrola (BME:IBE) has issued EUR 1 billion (USD 1.18bn) worth of green hybrid bonds, seeking funds to refinance investment in renewable energy projects in the UK.

Bearing a fixed coupon of 1.875%, the bond was 3.3 times oversubscribed. It was issued on the Euromarket. According to the Spanish utility’s press statement on Tuesday, Iberdrola is the first Spanish company that issues a green hybrid bond and the second internationally.

The banks that assisted the issuance are Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Barclays plc (LON:BARC), BNP Paribas (EPA:BNP), Credit Agricole CIB, HSBC (LON:HSBA), ING Bank NV, JP Morgan (NYSE:JP), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Banco Santander (BME:SAN) and Unicredit Bank AG.

Iberdrola will have the rights to buy back the new bond at the offered rate within five and a half years. The hybrid bonds will be half-debt and half-capital, it said.

As part of its strategy to ensure that a large portion of its liabilities have “a green format”, in February Iberdrola announced a “green loan” deal amounting to EUR 500 million, the proceeds of which were allocated mainly for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.181)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Iberdrola has become the first Spanish utility to issue green hybrid bonds after selling €1bn ($1.18bn) of half-debt and half-capital securities with a fixed coupon of 1.875%. Barclays, Credit Agricole, HSBCand JPMorgan were among the institutions participating in the oversubscribed issue, while the funds raised will be used to refinance investment in UK renewable energy projects. The bond follows the launch of Iberdrola's €500m green loan deal in February.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
WSE aims to produce wave energy in Tasmania for $76/MWh
 Australian company Wave Swell Energy Ltd (WSE) plans to install a 200-kW wave energy device on the eastern side of King Island in Tasmania, where the wave climate is “more benign”.

The move is part of preparations for the deployment of a full-sized, 1-MW version of the device on the west coast of the island.

The firm said on its website that it expects to install the 200-kW unit by the end of next year to bridge the gap between the tank testing and commercial phases of the technology's development. It will use the data from the smaller project to validate whether the technology is able to generate power for under AUD 100 (USD 76/EUR 64.4) per MWh when 1 MW of units are installed as part of a multi-device wave farm.

The project also gives WSE the chance to fine-tune the operation of the device in an easily accessible location, it said.

(AUD 1.0 = USD 0.760/EUR 0.644)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Australian energy firm Wave Swell Energy plans to install a 200 kW wave energy system on the east of King Island in Tasmania before deploying a full-size 1 MW device on the west side. The initial installation is due to be completed by the end of 2018 and to start pre-commercial testing. The project will determine if the technology can generate power for less than AUD100/MWh ($76/MWh) when the 1 MW project is completed.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
India mulls tender for 20 GW of solar capacity
 India intends to launch a tender for up to 20 GW of photovoltaic (PV) capacity, seeking to promote domestic manufacturing and lower the tariffs for solar power, Mint reports.

According to a government official who preferred to remain anonymous, consultations for the ambitions plan have already started but the authorities are facing some problems related to land and power transmission. The idea for such “mega” auction may lead to a “substantial reduction” of solar tariffs in the country, he added, as cited by the newspaper.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is still working on conceptualizing the plan that will see developers install the awarded capacity in phases, a second person aware of the development informed Mint.

The government of India has set a target for the country to reach 175 GW of renewable power capacity by 2022. The goal for solar is 100 GW.

The lowest bid for solar power in India so far stands at INR 2.44 (USD 0.037/EUR 0.032) per kWh, received in May in a 500-MW tender in Bhadla, Rajasthan.

(INR 10 = USD 0.153/EUR 0.131)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is pondering inviting bids to build as much as 20 GW of photovoltaic solar power, according to anonymous government officials. It's hoped the project, to be tendered piecemeal, will substantially reduce tariff prices and boost manufacturing. However, officials said issues over land and power transmission were proving problematic. India aims to have 175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Australian state invites bids to build 650 MW of renewables
 The Australian state of Victoria on Tuesday opened a reverse tender for the addition of up to 650 MW of large-scale renewable energy capacity that is seen to attract up to AUD 1.3 billion (USD 985m/EUR 834m) in investment.

The formal tender documents were published on Victoria government’s website, inviting companies with an existing planning permission to take part in a competitive bidding process for winning 15-year support agreements with the state, which are seen to ensure revenue certainty. Under these agreements, successful proponents will be paid through a Hybrid payment mechanism, including a combination of a fixed-price payment and a variable contract-for-difference (CfD) payment.

The 650 MW of capacity targeted in the auction will be split into two categories -- one seeking up to 550 MW of large-scale renewable energy projects, including wind, solar and other energy technologies, and another one, of up to 100 MW, for large-scale solar projects. The deadline for submitting proposals is February 14, while developers are required to launch commercial operations of their plants by 2020.

Those projects are expected to create some 1,250 construction jobs over two years plus 90 ongoing jobs, according to the official statement.

The auction, initially unveiled in August, is part of the Victorian government’s efforts to create investment certainty, enhance investment and lower electricity prices. “Renewable energy is key to Victoria’s future and we’re not wasting a minute – to drive new investment, create jobs and cut electricity prices,” said Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio.

Last month, the Legislative Council in Victoria passed the Renewable Energy (Jobs and Investment) Bill 2017 under which the state will aim to reach a 25% renewable energy share by 2020 and 40% by 2025.

(AUD 1.0 = USD0.758/EUR 0.642)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Firms with existing planning permission are being invited to bid for up to 650 MW of large-scale renewable energy capacity by the Australian state of Victoria. The capacity will be split into 550 MW of mixed renewable energy projects and 100 MW of exclusively large-scale solar. The tender, which features 15-year support agreements, is part of the state's ambition to reduce electricity prices and create investment certainty in the sector. The deadline to submit proposals is 14 February, with a 2020 deadline for commercial operations to begin.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Eelpower brings 10 MW Leverton energy storage facility online
 UK firm Eelpower Ltd said today it has brought online its 10-MW Leverton battery storage facility near Lincoln, England.

The system, a stand-alone energy barn using lithium-ion technology from China's BYD Co Ltd (HKG:1211), will provide frequency response balancing services to National Grid (LON:NG) from the start of 2018. The company said it secured a firm frequency response contract in October 2017 and had already signed a 15-year T-4 Capacity Market contract beginning in October 2020.

This is Eelpower's first storage project to be commissioned in the UK. Chief executive Mark Simon said it is the first of a pipeline of battery projects that the company plans to build and operate over the next three years.

The facility was built in 18 weeks by contractor Anesco.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Hampshire-based renewable energy firm Eelpower has brought its first UK battery storage facility online. The 10 MW standalone energy barn, near Lincoln, will supply frequency balancing services to the National Grid, using lithium-ion technology supplied by China's BYD, and is the first of a series of battery projects Eelpower aims to build and operate in the coming three years. The company signed a frequency response contract in October this year, as well as a 15-year T-4 Capacity Market contract which begins in October 2020.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Qualcomm, ZTE and China Mobile partner on 5G network testing
 Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.

Qualcomm Technologies, ZTE, and China Mobile have created a data testing system for 5G networking, which promises to provide wireless data at multiple gigabits per second.

It’s one more step in a years-long process to get us all faster mobile broadband and more reliable calls. The companies created an end-to-end 5G NR test system that demonstrates a data connection based on the 3GPP R15 standard. That means that the companies are making progress trying to test the quality of transmission of data on 5G networks, which could replace the existing 4G LTE networks for mobile calls and data.

The 3GPP standard is important as it is a global 5G radio technology, and this is the first time that a compliant data connection has been made across multiple vendors. Multi-vendor interoperability is a milestone on a path to standard-compliant trials in 2018 and commercial network launches in 2019.

The demo took place at China Mobile’s 5G Joint Innovation Center and used ZTE’s 5G NR pre-commercial base station and Qualcomm’s 5G NR sub-6 GHz prototype chip (which would go in a future mobile device). The system operates in the 3.5 GHz spectrum and supports 100 MHz bandwidth.

“Achieving the world’s first end-to-end 5G NR interoperable data connection is true testament to our 5G leadership, driving toward the timely launch of standard-compliant commercial networks,” said Cristiano Amon, executive vice president at Qualcomm Technologies, in a statement. “Qualcomm Technologies is committed to the

continued success of China’s wireless industry and we are excited to collaborate with ZTE and China Mobile to accelerate the path to 5G in China.”

Image Credit: Qualcomm

The system is designed to efficiently achieve multi-gigabit per second peak data rates at significantly lower air interface latency than 4G networks. Once put in place over the next few years, 5G networks will be able to handle mobile broadband tasks such as streaming high-definition video and immersive virtual reality and augmented reality experiences, as well as provide reliable services for autonomous cars, drones, and industrial controls.

“China Mobile has been committed to promoting the unified global 5G standard with industry partners,” said Li Zhengmao, vice president of China Mobile Communications, in a statement. “The achievement of end-to-end 5G NR interoperable connection testing, compliant with the 3GPP 5G NR standard, is an important milestone of 5G to productization and pre-commercialization from standard. China Mobile is willing to cooperate with partners including Qualcomm and ZTE to promote that the 5G products continue to mature and the 5G industry marches to success.”

Output: China Mobile, Qualcomm Technologies and ZTE have tested the world's first end-to-end 5G NR interoperable data connection, based on the 3GPP R15 standard. The test came ahead of next year's standard compliant trials and predicted commercial network launches in 2019. The 5G system aims to offer multi-gigabit-per-second peak data rates with much lower latency than 4G, enabling the streaming of high-definition video and virtual and augmented reality experiences. In addition, a 5G network would also provide a more efficient service for autonomous cars and drones.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Driving simulator teaches autonomous cars to drive properly
 In each of these circumstances, a self-driving car must make good decisions, even though the likelihood of coming across them is small. And that raises an important question: how can carmakers train and test their vehicles when these events are so rare?

Today, we get an answer of sorts thanks to the work of Alexey Dosovitskiy at Intel Labs and a few pals at the Toyota Research Institute and the Computer Vision Center in Barcelona, Spain. They’ve created an open-source driving simulator that carmakers can use to test self-driving technologies under realistic driving conditions.

The system, called CARLA (Car Learning to Act), simulates a wide range of driving conditions and repeats dangerous situations endlessly to help learning. The team has already used it to evaluate the performance of several different approaches to autonomous driving.

Driving simulators are not new. There are numerous realistic driving and racing simulators, many designed for gaming. Various autonomous driving groups have used them to test their technologies.

But none of these simulators provide the kind of feedback that autonomous driving systems need to train effectively. Neither do these systems allow significant control over driving conditions or the actions of other agents.

Racing simulators do not usually have crossing traffic or pedestrians. And city simulators such as Grand Theft Auto do not give control over the weather, the position of the sun, the behavior of other cars, traffic signals and pedestrians, cyclists, and so on.

And these proprietary systems do not give the kind of technical feedback that autonomous driving systems need to learn.

Output: An open-source driving simulator has been launched that automakers can use to test their autonomous vehicle technology in realistic environments. CARLA (Car Learning to Act) repeatedly retests vehicles against certain criteria, increasing the performance of the technology by forcing it to evaluate scenarios in different ways. Researchers at Intel Labs have collaborated with the Toyota Research Institute and the Computer Vision Center in Spain to create the technology.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
China Everbright taps German firm to offer robo-advice
 Neither firm has provided details of products or services they plan to offer to Chinese clients.

Ginmon is a fintech company based in Frankfurt, Germany. Its robo-advisory technology automates asset allocation and construction of portfolios using ETFs. The company stresses on its website that it invests only in physical-replication ETFs. It has previously worked with DAB BNP Paribas Bank in Munich.

The company opened a Shanghai office in order to target Chinese business.

Beijing-based China Everbright chose Ginmon as the partner for their investment solutions based on “high level of investor protection and attractive investment solutions”, said Lingwu Xia, director of internet finance at China Everbright, in a statement. The two institutions will cooperate “through various channels”.

China Everbright Group is a financial conglomerate offering banking service, asset management, and securities trading. It owns an investment arm, China Everbright Limited in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong unit, listed on the local bourse, provides asset and wealth management services. As of the end of 2016, China Everbright Limited managed HK$10.8bn ($1.4bn) of assets.

By entering China’s robo-advisory space, China Everbright will face several incumbents. China Merchants Bank, launched a robo-advisor service in December 2016 called Machinegene Investment, or Mojie. The lender’s app has gathered RMB3bn of assets in a few months’ time.

In May 2016, Creditease launched its service Tuomi RA. Another firm, robo-advisor Xuanji, plans to go global with a foreign partnership and expansion beyond Asia.

Although the robo-advisory discussions have became more active, difficulties remain in the region due to regulatory fragmentation, lack of scale and investors’ preference for human contact. Nonetheless, China’s domestic retail investor base presents an enormous opportunity for robo-advisory services.

Output: Chinese financial conglomerate China Everbight has teamed with German robo-adviser Ginmon. Ginmon, which has now opened an office in China, generally provides customers on its robo-advice platform access to model portfolios constructed using exchange-traded funds. Asset allocation and portfolio construction is automated for users of the platform. While a number of Chinese banks have introduced robo-advice capabilities, there are still regulatory hurdles and scaling obstacles to overcome for new entrants to the marketplace.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Amazon's Echo Show now shipping in the UK
 Amazon has today (16/11/2017) announced that Echo Show, the first Echo to include a display, is now shipping in the UK.

Echo Show is available now for £199.99 from Amazon and pre-orders are arriving with UK customers as of today.Echo Show’s display is designed to add to Alexa’s voice responses with useful, glanceable information you can see from across the room. The display combines with an all-new 8 microphone array along the top of the device, Amazon’s beam-forming technology, and noise cancellation, so Echo Show can hear you from any direction–even while music is playing. Powered by Dolby, Echo Show’s speakers are fine-tuned to deliver crisp vocals with dynamic bass response and immersive sound, says the release. And, with multi-room music, you can play music across multiple Echo devices simultaneously.With the addition of the screen, Alexa can obviously now show you things. Flash briefings now include video content from news providers like BBC News, The Telegraph, MTV and more. You can start a kitchen timer and see it count down, easily see and manage your family’s calendar, or ask to see your to-do and shopping lists. Ask Alexa to show you photos, movie show times, and movies and TV shows from Amazon Video. Plus, as you listen to music from Amazon Music, you’ll also see song lyrics and album art. Customers can also use Echo Show to see a live camera feed from the nursery or your front door, or to control smart home devices from brands like Ring, Arlo, Philips Hue, Hive, TP-Link, Netatmo, WeMo, Smart Things, and Tado.Echo Show also features Alexa calling and messaging. Just ask Alexa to call mum, for instance, and you’ll be connected via video to her Echo Show or Alexa app. You can also enable a feature called Drop In for when you want to quickly connect with your closest family and friends or other Echo devices in your home. For example, you can drop in to ask what time dinner will be ready, see the family room, or check in with a close relative.Alexa – the brain behind Echo Show – is built in the cloud, so she (it?) is always getting smarter. Alexa connects through the cloud automatically and is continually learning, adding new functionality and skills. Like Echo and Echo Dot, customers using Echo Show can access thousands of Alexa skills, with new skills from OpenTable, Just Eat, National Rail, Mercedes, BBC News, The Telegraph, Evening Standard, LBC, MTV, 7Digital, Recipedia, Mail Recipes, Sky Sports Super 6, Liverpool FC, Arlo, Ring, and more – all optimised for the display.Echo Show is available in black or white for £199.99. Customers can also choose a 2-pack—buy 2, save £100.00.More information is available at www.amazon.co.uk/echoshow . Echo Show is also available at retailers including Argos, Dixons, John Lewis and Tesco.

Output: Amazon's Echo Show is now available in the UK. Echo Show's display is designed to complement Alexa's voice responses with visible information users can see from across the room. The screen has multiple uses, including playing TV shows and films from Amazon Video, a kitchen timer countdown, and flash briefings from news providers. Echo Show also features an eight-microphone array on the top of the device, noise cancellation, and beam-forming technology, meaning it can hear a user from any direction.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Ireland could face snap election after motion of no confidence
 Ireland is on the verge of a snap election after the party that props up the country’s minority coalition government threatened to pull down the administration over a police whistleblower scandal.

The prime minister, Leo Varadkar, faces the prospect of going to the polls as early as next month, in the middle of a crucial summit on the EU, Britain and Brexit at which the stakes are high for the Irish Republic.

The prospect of an election emerged over the last 24 hours following a row about emails from the deputy prime minister, Frances Fitzgerald, into how police deal with a whistleblower alleging corruption and malpractice.

Fianna Fáil submitted a no confidence measure in Fitzgerald on Friday, which will be voted on next Tuesday.

Timeline Ireland's police scandals Show An Garda Síochána, Ireland's national police service, has faced a series of scandals in recent years that have led to the resignations of two Garda commissioners, played a key part in former prime minister Enda Kenny stepping down, and now threaten to bring down the Irish government. November 2012 Police whistleblowers allege misconduct Then justice minister Alan Shatter receives an interim Garda report on allegations that drivers' penalty points were being cleared, with no reasons given. Two officers described as whistleblowers - former Garda John Wilson and Sgt Maurice McCabe – had raised the issue, alleging misconduct and corruption within the force. September 2013 Report supports some allegations A report from the Comptroller & Auditor General supports some of the whistleblowers' allegations, finding "operational weaknesses" in the fines system, and saying the Garda had lost significant revenue from irregularities. 25 March 2014 Garda commissioner resigns Martin Callinan, then Garda commissioner, announces his retirement amid calls for his resignation, after he said he found the whistleblowers' allegations "quite disgusting". 7 May 2014 Justice minister resigns Alan Shatter, who had also criticised the whistleblowers, steps down after receiving a critical report into how his department handled McCabe's allegations. The government launches an inquiry into the scandal, led by the former high court judge, Kevin O'Higgins. 10 May 2016 O'Higgins report released The 362-page report identifies serious flaws and failures but finds no evidence of Garda criminality or corruption. It upholds many of McCabe's complaints, but also says some of his claims were overstated. The report also finds Shatter "did his work well". October 2016 Another whistleblower emerges Supt David Taylor, former head of the Garda press office, says he was directed by senior officers including Callinan and his replacement Nóirín O'Sullivan to discredit McCabe. Commissioner O'Sullivan denies any involvement in the alleged smear campaign. 24 February 2017 The Disclosures Tribunal The first public investigation into the alleged smear campaign against McCabe begins, chaired by Supreme Court judge Peter Charleton. It is ongoing. 23 March 2017 More allegations of police misconduct Senior Garda officers reveal that almost one million drink-driving tests recorded by the police did not take place, and a separate error caused almost 15,000 wrongful traffic convictions. The Gardaí apologise, but the mistake could cost Irish taxpayers millions. 18 May 2017 Prime minister resigns Enda Kenny resigns after party pressure over his failure to secure a majority government in the general election in 2016 and his handling of the crises in the Irish police. 10 September 2017 Second police commissioner steps down Nóirín O’Sullivan announces her retirement, saying she had faced an “unending cycle” of investigations into the Garda Síochána. New Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, says her decision ensures the police can now focus on reforms. 24 November 2017 Fianna Fáil threatens snap election The party propping up Ireland’s minority coalition government submits a no confidence motion against deputy prime minister, Frances Fitzgerald, over her handling of the police whistleblower scandal. It threatens to pulls its support for the government, unless she resigns. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.

Varadkar, leader of the Fine Gael party that heads the minority government, has ruled out the resignation of his deputy Frances Fitzgerald. But opposition Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin said Fitzgerald “should step aside in our view and that would avoid a general election”.

Varadkar met Martin in Dublin on Friday evening and agreed to further contact over the weekend to try and defuse the crisis.

The focus is on an email from May 2015, which outlined how legal teams for Nóirín O’Sullivan, then the police commissioner, and Maurice McCabe, a police officer and whistleblower, clashed at an inquiry into the latter’s allegations of police malpractice. The email related to a strategy Sgt McCabe’s supporters claim was drawn up by the police high command to discredit him.

Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, Mary Lou McDonald, accused the deputy prime minister of having “clearly failed in her duties” when she learned about a strategy via the email that was “so utterly malicious and designed...to ruin Sgt McCabe’s life.”

Fitzgerald had claimed that she did not remember the email, and that, in any event, she could not have legally intervened. Her defenders in Fine Gael party have said there is a judicial inquiry into the handling of the way Sgt McCabe was treated and that should be allowed to run its course.

The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, on Friday said the last thing Ireland needs is a general election in the middle of crucial Brexit negotiations.

Fine Gael relies on Fianna Fáil’s support through a confidence and supply arrangement under which the opposition props up the minority government in key votes required to keep it in power. Senior sources in Fianna Fáil said the deal was “dead in the water” if Fine Gael continued to insist Fitzgerald remain in office.

Quick Guide Ireland's political parties Show Fine Gael Forged in the Irish civil war as the side that accepted the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, Fine Gael has a centre-right, pro-market and pro-European outlook. The party has two distinctive wings: a socially liberal, urban and professional base, and a rural grassroots following with strong links to the farming community. Fianna Fáil Initially comprising opponents of the Anglo-Irish treaty, Fianna Fáil is also seen as centre right. It dominated Irish politics for much of the 20th century and used to enjoy a predominantly working-class membership. An archetypal pragmatic political force, the party now has strong links to builders and property investors. Sinn Féin Once umbilically linked to the Provisional IRA, Sinn Féin has benefited enormously from the Irish peace process, with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness becoming internationally renowned political figures. The party takes a populist and pragmatic approach to economic issues. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.

“There is no longer any trust. Leo Varadkar could have averted this much earlier if he had called Michael Martin in earlier this week to discuss our concerns over the leaked email. It’s 50-50 if Fitzgerald goes, only that will save us from a Christmas election,” one told the Guardian.

“But if she does fall on her sword this weekend this arrangement is only going to last a few months to let Leo negotiate Brexit in Brussels in December. There will be an election in February or March if we get through this weekend.”

Varadkar’s predecessor, Enda Kenny, resigned in May this year after coming under growing internal party pressure over his failure to secure a majority government in the general election in 2016 and his handling of the crises in the Irish police.

Output: Ireland could be on the brink of a general election after Fianna Fáil tabled a vote of no confidence in the deputy prime minister, Frances Fitzgerald. The motion is scheduled for a vote on 28 November. Fianna Fáil supports Fine Gael's minority government and without that support a new election would be likely. The controversy concerns Fitzgerald's knowledge of emails exchanged in 2015, when she was minister of justice, about the legal strategy deployed against garda Maurice McCabe. A general election would come at a critical time in Brexit negotiations.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Suzuki and Toyota to sell electric cars in India by 2020
 NEW DELHI: Japanese automakers Suzuki Motor and Toyota Motor finalised an agreement to manufacture and sell electric vehicles in India by the turn of the decade.The move, particularly the involvement of Suzuki that sells one in every two passenger vehicles in India through local unit Maruti, gives further credence to the government’s vision of switching to full electric mobility from 2030 and boosts its ‘Make in India’ initiative.According to the memorandum of understanding signed on Friday, Toyota will provide technical knowhow for the project while Suzuki will manufacture the vehicles for the Indian market and also supply some to Toyota.“The MoU concluded is part of the overall agreement being firmed up between Suzuki and Toyota. Since this (India’s EV push with a 2030 deadline) was a more urgent issue, it has been addressed first,” Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava told ET. “It will surely prove beneficial for all involved. We have to make sure that not only the cost, but the performance of the vehicle is such that it meets customer expectations.”Toyota, the No. 2 automaker in the world, and Suzuki, the thirdlargest in Japan on local sales, have been holding talks since February to forge a partnership in shared procurement, green vehicles, IT and safety technologies.India, one of the fastest-growing automobile markets, was a key target market and manufacturing hub of those discussions, as the companies sought to leverage Suzuki’s large low-cost manufacturing capability and supplier base here as well as the government’s push to electric mobility.Friday’s announcement underlines their India focus. It didn’t mention any global plans, which they are expected to unveil at a later stage.The companies will launch activities to promote widespread acceptance and use of electric vehicles in India. These will include setting up of charging infrastructure, human resource development including training for after-sales service technicians and systems for appropriate treatment of end-of-life batteries, they said in a joint press statement. “Toyota Motor Corporation and Suzuki Motor Corporation have concluded a memorandum of understanding on moving forward in considering a cooperative structure for introducing electric vehicles in the Indian market in around 2020,” the statement said.In line with the agreement, batteries, electric motors and major components for manufacturing electric vehicles will all be procured locally, “helping the Indian government fulfil its ‘Make in India’ initiative, even in the field of EVs”, the press statement said.LEVERAGING INDIAIn September, Suzuki chairman Osamu Suzuki announced that the automaker, along with Japanese partners Toshiba and Denso, would invest about Rs 1,150 crore to set up India’s first lithiumion battery manufacturing facility at Hansalpur in Gujarat. Suzuki at the time said their joint venture would leverage India as a base for manufacturing these batteries, which would be mounted on hybrid vehicles and shipped to markets overseas.VG Ramakrishnan, managing partner at consultancy firm Avanteum Partners, views the new partnership as a win-win for both companies. “On its own Suzuki does not have the resources to invest in development of alternative fuel technologies. The partnership with Toyota enables Suzuki to be future-ready.”

Output: Car manufacturers Toyota and Suzuki have agreed a memorandum of understanding to make and sell electric vehicles in India by 2020, according to a joint statement. In the deal Toyota will offer technical knowledge, Suzuki will manufacture the cars, while Indian suppliers will provide batteries, electric motors and major components. The agreement also covers charging infrastructure and developing systems for the appropriate treatment of end-of-life batteries. The partnership is set to give a boost to the Indian government's ambition of moving to full electrification on the roads by 2030.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Irish PM will block Brexit talks unless hard border is ruled out
 Ireland has issued a stark warning that it will block progress of the Brexit negotiations in December unless the UK gives a formal written guarantee that there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland.

In sharp remarks before a breakfast meeting with Theresa May, the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said Brexit-backing politicians had not “thought all this through” in the years they had been pushing for the UK to leave the EU.

His comments marked the start of a testing day for May that included a meeting with the European council president, Donald Tusk, which Downing Street said showed “there is more work to be done”.

Outside the Gothenburg social summit in Sweden, Varadkar suggested he would block any progress to negotiations about the future relationship with the EU unless the UK was prepared to take a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, in any form, off the table.

“We’ve been given assurances that there will be no hard border in Ireland, that there won’t be any physical infrastructure, that we won’t go back to the borders of the past,” Varadkar said. “We want that written down in practical terms in the conclusions of phase one.”

The taoiseach was scathing about UK politicians who he said had backed Brexit without real thought to the consequences of leaving. “It’s 18 months since the referendum. It’s 10 years since people who wanted a referendum started agitating for one,” he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem like they have thought all this through.

Q&A Why is Dublin opposed to the idea of a hard border? Show Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has been much more sceptical than the UK about the potential for avoiding border posts via virtual checks on importers. Whilst agreeing with British ministers and EU negotiators that it is inconceivable for there to be a return to a hard border with the north, Dublin argues that the best way for the UK to achieve this would be by permanently remaining in a customs union with the EU and seeking single market membership like Norway through the European Economic Area. The UK has conceded that some of this will be necessary in its interim phase after Brexit, but hopes clever technological solutions can allow it have looser economic links in the long run. Varadkar is not alone in being sceptical about whether such a cake-and-eat-it customs and trade strategy is viable. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.

“Britain, having unilaterally taken the customs union and single market off the table, before we move to phase two talks on trade we want taken off the table any suggestion that there will be a physical border, a hard border, new barriers to trade on the island of Ireland.”

Varadkar said it was still possible that EU leaders would agree that sufficient progress had been made on issues such as the Irish border by December to allow talks to move on to trade, but took a sceptical tone about May and other ministers’ approach.

“I think it’s certainly possible that we can come to conclusions in December allowing phase two talks to begin, but if we have to wait until the new year, if we have to wait for further concessions, so be it,” he said. “But I think it would be in all of our interests that we proceed to phase two if we can in December.”

A UK government source said it had been “clear from the outset there will be no hard border” but admitted there was more work to be done on the issue before the two countries would see eye to eye. Sources pointed to several official documents released by the UK government already that made commitments on the Irish border.

After the pair met for breakfast, an Irish government source told RTÉ that May had told Varadkar they were “almost there” on the Irish border with all sides on the same page, which the taoiseach rebuffed, with the source describing the prime minister’s words as “wishful thinking”.

A Downing Street spokesman said there had been “constructive discussions on Brexit” between May and Varadkar at the breakfast meeting. “On Northern Ireland, the PM was clear that the Belfast agreement must be at the heart of our approach and that Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances demand specific solutions.

“The PM said it was important to protect progress made in Northern Ireland over recent years. Both leaders agreed to work together to find solutions which ensure there is no return to the borders of the past.”

Theresa May (centre) sits behind the Hungarian PM, Viktor Orbán, and the Lithuanian president, Dalia Grybauskaitė, in Gothenburg. Photograph: Szilard Koszticsak/EPA

Earlier on Friday, the Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, met the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for talks in Dublin. Coveney said: “We all want to move on to phase two of the Brexit negotiations, but we are not in a place right now that allows us to do it.”

Johnson, on his first visit to Ireland as foreign secretary, insisted the reintroduction of a hard border between the two countries was “the last thing the UK government wants” and that it had “absolutely no interest in such an outcome”.

May met Tusk on the sidelines of the summit, as well as the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni.

Downing Street hinted May and Tusk had discussed progress on the financial settlement. “The two leaders spoke about the progress which had been made so far in the negotiations on citizens’ rights, Northern Ireland and the financial settlement,” a spokesman said.

The pair agreed there was “more work to be done and discussed how to take further steps forward together in advance of the European council in December”.

In a statement after their meeting, Downing Street said May and Macron had also discussed the need for further progress before the December council meeting.

France’s European affairs minister, Natalie Loiseau, said a no-deal Brexit had become a possibility but stressed unity among the EU27 was “rock solid” and deadlock in the talks was due to Britain’s failure to provide sufficient clarity.

“A British departure without an agreement with the EU cannot be excluded,” she told the French newspaper La Croix. “That would be bad news for Europe, and above all, without doubt, bad news for the UK.”

The Dutch parliament’s European affairs committee on Thursday warned the Netherlands to make contingency plans for a “chaotic no-deal” Brexit, blaming a lack of preparation and “unrealistic expectations” on the part of some British politicians.

Loiseau said the bloc was united on the necessity of settling all divorce issues before beginning discussions about the future trading relationship.

“The EU27 must now be firm, particularly since the negotiations are stalled because the British have failed to provide specific answers on a number of points,” she said, adding that the financial settlement remained the main stumbling block.

Entering the summit on Friday morning, May repeated her pledge that the UK would “honour our commitments”. It is understood she is preparing to offer an additional £20bn to settle the divorce bill in the first week of December before the talks.

“I was clear in my speech in Florence that we will honour our commitments,” she said. “But of course we want to move forward together, talking about the trade issues and trade partnership for the future.

“I have set out a vision for that economic partnership. I look forward to the European Union responding positively to that so we can move forward together and ensure that we can get the best possible arrangements for the future that will be good for people in the United Kingdom and across the remaining EU27.”

EU leaders must agree that “sufficient progress” has been made on three key areas before talks can move on to a future trade deal. The three areas are the so-called divorce bill, which is the financial settlement with the EU; the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in Europe; and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

If sufficient progress is not agreed to have been made at the summit on 14-15 December, it may mean no progress is guaranteed until the next scheduled European council meeting in March.

Output: Leo Varadkar, Ireland's Prime Minister, has demanded a formal written guarantee that there will be no hard border in Ireland following Brexit. He suggested he will stop the talks progressing until the matter has been formally addressed and "written down in practical terms". He also criticised politicians who fought for Brexit, saying the have simply not "thought all this through".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Facebook releases dynamic and lead ads for auto brands
 Facebook is gearing up to grab automotive advertising budget with dynamic and lead ads for auto brands, both released on Thursday.

Dynamic ads for auto, like Facebook’s other dynamic ad products for ecommerce and travel, allow advertisers –auto manufacturers and car dealerships, in this case – to retarget auto intenders and create lookalike audiences for targeting.

The ads, which were developed over the past several months, are available through Facebook and Instagram with plans to bring them to Audience Network in the near term, although there’s no set timeline.

It works like this: Brands upload their vehicle catalog, including details for make, model and year, and the ad creative is automatically generated and targeted based on user intent and a mix of psychographic and demographic data that Facebook pulls from its pixel on an advertiser’s website.

After the click, the ads redirect to vehicle info pages or mobile lead ads, which advertisers can use to collect user data and consumers can use to request more information or to take an action, like locating the nearest dealership or scheduling a test drive.

The lead ads are integrated with Canvas, Facebook’s full-screen mobile ad unit, and pre-populated with the user’s contact information, including email address.

For the moment, advertisers can set KPIs based on cost per lead or click-throughs on the dynamic unit.

What they can’t do, however, at least not yet, is tie dynamic ads or lead ads to dealership visits. That’s on the agenda.

Today, some auto advertisers use Facebook’s store visits tool, which tracks offline purchases, to get a sense of how many people visit a dealership after seeing an ad. But the store visits objective isn’t directly integrated with dynamic ads, which means advertisers can’t actually close the loop on a specific car purchase.

Facebook’s road map includes full attribution for auto dynamic ads.

But even without closed-loop attribution, auto brands still need to insert themselves into the research process as early as possible.

Because consumers only buy a new vehicle every seven years or so, it’s important for advertisers to clearly understand the car buyer’s journey, which increasingly takes place on a mobile device.

Mobile is starting to “replace the showroom,” said Stephanie Latham, Facebook’s auto industry lead. It’s where product research increasingly occurs, and auto brands need to be there, she said.

“The average car shopper today visits two dealerships per car sold and, in some cases, they visit zero dealerships,” Latham said. “And when they do show up at a dealership, they’re already well-prepared because they’ve done the research online.”

In fact, 56% of auto intenders conduct research on a mobile device, according to Cox Automotive – and one in every five minutes spent on a mobile phone in the US is spent on either Facebook or Instagram.

These interactions give automotive companies another chance to be part of the car buyer’s consideration, Latham said.

“It’s essential for manufacturers and dealers to make sure that they’re discoverable, even if the customer is not searching,” she said. “The biggest takeaway is that they need to reach the customer early in the process with more relevant and personalized content. If they do that, they can have influence before the customer makes their decision.”

Output: Facebook is seeking a greater share of automotive advertising by launching dynamic and lead adverts for the sector. The facility is available on both Facebook and Instagram in the US, and allows brands to generate bespoke adverts for different vehicles and have them automatically targeted using Facebook's demographic data. Users clicking on the ads can then be redirected to mobile lead ads, which are automatically filled out using the user's contact information. The push by Facebook reflects surveys showing more than half of those intending to buy a car conduct research on a mobile device.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Vast majority of insurtech investments a waste: Guidewire chief
 95% of investment in new insurtech distribution models will be wasted, claims Guidewire chief executive Marcus Ryu.

Addressing the press at Guidewire Connections 2017, Ryu said that recent investments in insurtech amount to a bubble and it had all happened “too fast”.

“We’ve seen this movie a hundred times before. It happens in every time in technology. You have a huge surge of early stage investment. Most of it gets wasted. It’s like a law of nature. It just always happens and that’s what’s happening here,” Ryu explained.

$3.5bn has been invested in insurtech over the past few years. It is not possible to spend that money productively, Ryu warned.

Ryu identified sensible areas of insurtech spending as satellite and commercial sensor data aggregation and photo based estimating, because they are useful and insurance relevant.

He was less confident that attempts to change insurance distribution models will be a disruptive force and worth the amount of money that has been funnelled into it. Two thirds of insurtech investment has gone towards companies with new distribution models.

“My personal view is 95-9% of that is going to be wasted. These are companies that utterly underestimate what it takes to be an insurance company,” Ryu continued.

Ryu gave the example of a lead investor in one of the better known insurtech companies – he did not specify which – using the metric of customer acquisition to show progress. While this is a good way for Snapchat and consumer internet firms to measure progress, it does not lead to a tangible benefit for an insurer.

“If you’re an insurance company it’s very easy to get customer acquisition. Any insurance company can acquire all the customers they want and lose money on every one of them. The fact that they were thinking in terms of consumer internet attitude [is telling], you have to spend a lot take lot of losses, but acquire a lot of customers and then figure out how to make money on them later. It does not work.”

Ryu said that interesting things were being seen in smaller volume markets, with companies like Slice, but success is likely because they tackle such a small segment of the overall market with niche products, lacking a wider reach that would threaten the industry as it stands.

He also discussed peer to peer (P2P) insurance risk sharing models, but said that they are also tiny and not consequential yet. Ryu said they should be viewed as experiments and they are all currently “significantly loss making”.

“The jury is out”, Ryu said, on whether one of these good ideas can become a strong player, though he would like to see it happen.

Output: As much as 95% of cash poured into insurtech could be a waste, according to Guidewire CEO Marcus Ryu. Noting that there's been a rush for investors to put money to work in insurtech firms, Ryu added that he's seen several scenarios where investors have been initially impressed by technology, but later came to realise their money was wasted after being deployed in a hasty fashion. Ryu suggested investments in data processing for insurance could be worthwhile, but warned trying to change the distribution model of the industry via technology could be futile.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Jaguar Land Rover begins testing autonomous cars on British roads
 The birthplace of Britain’s automotive industry today hosted another four-wheeled first with a trial of connected and autonomous vehicle technology on its streets.

UK Autodrive has taken its vehicles from test track to the streets of Coventry to trial a number of technologies that will help define vehicles that communicate with each other and their surroundings to improve safety and efficiency.

Project partners Jaguar Land Rover, Ford and Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC) have begun tests on a number of connected car features, with Jaguar Land Rover and TMETC separately trialling autonomous vehicle research technologies.

The connected car trials are exploring seven different concepts, including connected traffic lights, emergency vehicle warnings, and emergency braking alerts.

The Jaguar Land Rover and TMETC autonomous vehicle research technology trials are being used to develop self-driving vehicle technology in a real-world setting, but with test operators supervising the cars at all times.

Further trials are scheduled to take place in Coventry and Milton Keynes early next year followed by a final series of open road demonstration events in both cities during the second half of 2018.

“The fundamental purpose of UK Autodrive is to get connected and autonomous vehicle technology out onto UK roads, so the start of trialling on the streets of Coventry is clearly a major landmark both for the project and for the UK as a whole,” said Tim Armitage, Arup’s UK Autodrive project director. “Our previous private test track trials showed that the technology works but it is only on real roads that we will start to see the scale of the benefits that it can bring to the general public.”

“Autonomous and connected cars will be a reality in the near future and I am confident they will help to boost safety, reduce congestion and improve air quality.” Coventry City councillor Jim O’Boyle, cabinet member for jobs and regeneration. “Along with battery technology they will also help to create thousands of new jobs in the automotive sector and its supply chain.”

As well as the on-road testing of connected and autonomous cars in Milton Keynes and Coventry, UK Autodrive is also trialling a fleet of up to 40 self-driving pavement-based ‘pod’ vehicles in Milton Keynes, with both types of vehicle due to take part in the project’s final technology demonstrations next year.

Coventry's connected car features: Emergency Vehicle Warning (EVW) – Sends a signal directly from the emergency vehicle (e.g. ambulance, fire engine, police vehicle) to nearby connected cars. Driver is informed that the emergency vehicle is approaching and advised to make way for it Intersection Collision Warning (ICW) – Warns the driver when it is unsafe to enter an intersection, due to a high probability of collision with other vehicles In-Vehicle Signage (IVS) – Sends information about road conditions, congestion or other incidents directly to the in-car display, rather than having to rely on expensive gantry systems Electronic Emergency Brake Light (EEBL) – Alerts the driver when a vehicle in front suddenly brakes, providing advanced warning, especially when the driver is unable to see the lights of the braking vehicle due to weather conditions, road layout or other vehicles in between Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA) – Sends traffic light information to the connected car which is able to calculate the optimal speed for approaching the lights, potentially minimising the number of red light stops, improving traffic flow and reducing emission levels from idling vehicles Intersection Priority Management (IPM) – Assigns priority when two or more connected vehicles come to an intersection without priority signs or traffic lights Collaborative Parking – Provides real-time information about free parking spaces either in the vicinity or close to the driver’s final destination.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE NEWS

Output: Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors European Technical Centre have begun testing autonomous vehicles on the streets of Coventry. The vehicles have human drivers supervising them and follow previous trials on private tracks. Jaguar and Tata are also involved in a consortium with Ford called UK Autodrive, which has been testing "connected car" technology to improve road safety. More tests of both types of technology have been scheduled for next year in Coventry and Milton Keynes, including a fleet of new pavement-based self-driving "pod" vehicles.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Warner Bros considers IoT to be part of future content strategy
 Warner Bros. is exploring how to further sell ways to enjoy its entertainment content across multiple platforms in the new frontier known as the Internet of Things, or IoT.

The University of Southern California hosted its Intelligent IoT Integrator (I3) Consortium on Thursday at the Galen Center in Los Angeles to gather its founding members and officially launch the consortium. IoT is a concept that envisions the internet as more than just a way for people to communicate and share information, allowing for objects to interconnect via built-in sensors, camera and actuators.

“I3 is looking at this notion that the internet is more than just people, it’s about people becoming more aware of their surroundings,” said Bhaskar Krishnamachari, professor at the Viterbi school of engineering co-founder of I3. “The consortium is helping to make the conversation around IoT go beyond just one application and trying to allow third-party application developers to connect to data that’s coming from their communities and build a large number of useful applications for IoT.”

Warner Bros. is one of the founding members of I3, which was founded at USC with the support of the City of Los Angeles. In the new landscape of the Internet of Things, Warner Bros. is interested in developing ways for consumers to digitally purchase and personalize their entertainment experiences then integrate them into their daily lives via their digital devices.

“What we sell can be sold as as a digital right, the right to watch ‘Wonder Woman’ on your television, the right to walk into a theater to watch ‘Justice League,’ the right to play Injustice on your game console,” said Bryan Barber, VP of digital innovation at Warner Bros. “The Internet of Things is a development that can create millions and millions of internet consumer touch points. The devices you encounter could light up or respond in ways that are uniquely tailored to you as a fan of DC Comics, Harry Potter, or their own fandom.”

“There’s a natural intersection between the entertainment industry and the Internet of Things. Warner Bros. is supporting the development of IoT and has joined and supported I3 because we’re excited by this organization and its ability to create an innovation platform,” he continued. “This is a new frontier and we don’t yet know all the possibilities for Warner Bros. in the Internet of Things. What we’re really want to do is to start trying things and start learning and is going to give us the innovation platform that allows us to do that.”

The I3 Consortium is was created as a collaboration between the USC Marshall School of Business and the Viterbi School of Engineering, although Krishnamachari said he hopes to one day expand the initiative to include the School of Cinematic Arts and the Rossier School of Education. Other presenters at the consortium included the City of Los Angeles and Tech Mahindra, an information technology company, that introduced the new Community Action Platform for Engagement (“CAPE,”) a new community-based digital platform that will help to build smarter, more sustainable and energy-efficient cities.

Output: Warner Bros is exploring how the internet of things (IoT) could offer a personalised entertainment experience, according to Bryan Barber, its vice-president of digital innovation. His comments followed the launch of the Intelligent IoT Integrator (I3) Consortium, of which Warner Bros is a founding member. Barber said the IoT could create "millions and millions of internet consumer touch points" and added Warner Bros wanted to "start trying things and learning, and I3 is going to give us the innovation platform that allows us to do that".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Researchers develop paper-thin, flexible motion sensors
 New York, Nov 19 (IANS) Researchers have developed new motion sensors that could herald a near future of ubiquitous, fully integrated and affordable wearable technology.

"For sensor technology, you need it to be flexible, you need it to be affordable and you need it to be scalable," said Richard Liang, director of the High-Performance Materials Institute and professor at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in the US.

"This new technology is versatile and the sensors are affordable to print. It's a big innovation that presents many possibilities down the road."

In a paper, published in the journal Materials and Design, engineers from FSU's High-Performance Materials Institute, in collaboration with scientists from Institut National des Sciences Appliqu?es in Lyon, France, detail the properties and cost-effective manufacturing process of an advanced series of motion sensors made using buckypaper -- razor thin, flexible sheets of pure, durable carbon nanotubes.

The low-profile design could be integrated into bedsheets to monitor quality of sleep, shoes to track step count and posture or workout clothes to measure intensity of exercise.

Researchers also foresee potential applications beyond the realm of wearable technology. In the field of soft robotics, the material could facilitate advances in the production of responsive, self-correcting artificial muscles, the researchers said.

Moreover, the scalable sensors represent another step toward the long-predicted future of an "internet of things," where virtually all of an individual's computers, devices, garments, furniture and appliances are digitally connected to freely exchange information in the cloud.

"Most projects don't have this many possible applications. This material could be used in structural health monitoring, wearable technology and everything in between. I'm excited because this is something that can affect a lot of people in their everyday lives," said the lead author of the study Joshua DeGraff.

The novel sensor structure combines a strip of seven micron-thin buckypaper with silver ink electrodes printed from a common, commercially available ink-jet printer.

While the technology might not be ready for prime time quite yet, researchers are energised by its promising future.

These new buckypaper sensors represent a marked improvement on current industry standards, with most sensors being either too crude or too inflexible to reliably monitor complex structures like the human body, the researchers added.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

About VDC Doraiah Chowdary Vundavally is a Software engineer at VTech . He is the news editor of SocialNews.XYZ and Freelance writer-contributes Telugu and English Columns on Films, Politics, and Gossips. He is the primary contributor for South Cinema Section of SocialNews.XYZ. His mission is to help to develop SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgement towards any.

Output: Researchers from Florida's FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and scientists from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Lyon, France have developed a scalable, low-cost, flexible motion sensor. According to an article in Materials and Design, the team created sensors from wafer-thin, flexible sheets of nanotubes, known as buckypaper, which then had silver electrodes printed on them, using an everyday inkjet machine. The team said the motion sensors had many applications, from sleep-monitoring bed linen to monitoring workouts to the internet of things.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
TalkTalk TalkTalk plans major overhaul of bloated IT infrastructure
 Embattled UK phone and broadband provider TalkTalk is planning to rip out around half of its IT in order to streamline its bloated infrastructure, IT Pro can reveal. The cull is intended to precede the adoption of modern technologies like microservices and containerisation.

"We've got quite a large amount of 'tech debt' in our estate, and it's really holding us back from being more efficient," TalkTalk tooling and environments manager, Gareth Watson, told IT Pro. "So in the next 12-18 months, we're going on quite a radical drive of simplification. We're looking to rip out almost 50% of our estate."

When TalkTalk performed a full audit of its estate earlier this year, the company discovered it's suffering from massive inefficiencies due to a gargantuan sprawl of applications and hardware, Watson revealed.

"We discovered that we have 84 million lines of code spread across 600 applications, across 3,000 servers, with 5,000 interdependencies," he said. "Some of it we've turned off already, because it's not being used - it's just on there doing nothing. It's ridiculous."

By Watson's estimation, around 60% of TalkTalk's codebase is unnecessary. "We've got twice as much [code] as the Large Hadron Collider. It's maybe a smidge more than we need, you know?"

Increased efficiency is something that the telco is currently in dire need of; it reported a 75 million pre-tax loss for the first half of this financial year earlier this week, thanks in part to a 31 million charge to write off assets in its mobile business, and a 59 million charge for an organisational restructure.

The company also suffered a catastrophic data breach in 2015 that compromised 150,000 customers' details.

But by streamlining its IT systems, TalkTalk hopes to transition to a much leaner and more agile approach, Watson told IT Pro. The company has already started using CA Technologies' release and testing automation tools to speed up internal testing, and has already condensed the number of development processes that can be used by its developers from 32 down to three.

TalkTalk is expecting efficiency gains of around 80% from deploying CA's automation software, derived from speeding up the way in which its engineers test and deploy code.

"It takes them 2.4 days to take an application from their development environment, through all the test environments and into production," Watson said. "Using CA's release automation, we're looking to reduce that down to half a day."

He added that while "2.4 days per application doesn't feel like a lot, we do 50 application deployments per release and eight releases a year - that's nearly 1,000 days a year, just wasted on people getting files moved between servers and things like that. By using CA's tools, we'll take that down to roughly 200 a year".

Output: Telecoms company TalkTalk is planning to streamline its IT operations, removing nearly half of its computer infrastructure in the process. The company has around 84 million lines of code across 3,000 servers, and estimates about 60% of this is unnecessary. It intends to address the "tech debt" over the next 12 to 18 months, and hopes that doing so will improve the company's performance. Implementing new automation software from CA Technologies is expected to lead to efficiency gains of up to 80%. TalkTalk reported a £75m ($99m) pre-tax loss for the first half of this year.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Insurtech At-Bay uses heuristics to asses cyber risk
 At-Bay, a new insurance company startup focused on cyber insurance and related risk management, came out of stealth mode on Nov. 17 with news of $6 million in seed venture funding.

LightSpeed Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Shlomo Kramer and LocalGlobe. Munich Re’s Hartford Steam Boiler is a primary backer of the startup, and the two have partnered to bring a cyber risk insurance product to market.

David Mercier, senior vice president for HSB, said that his company is “very excited about working with At-Bay.”

“At-Bay’s data- and knowledge-driven business model aligns with HSB’s own system of managing and underwriting cyber risk,” Mercier said in prepared remarks. “Their offering truly leverages the strengths of both companies.”

At-Bay describes its model as a new way of measuring risk by using in-depth risk research blended with an ability to adjust risk models in real time based on future expectations (known as heuristics). This goes beyond traditional methods of legacy insurance carriers, which use historical data to predict future risk. At-Bay said it also monitors risk continuously. The startup asserts that its methodology helps give clients an updated and future-forward assessment of risk.

“We match deep insights on a company’s IT security with financial exposure that cyber attack vectors create to enable insurance brokers and risk managers to more clearly and accurately assess and manage cyber risk,” At-Bay CEO and founder Rotem Iram said in prepared remarks. “Our insurance products and supporting risk management services provide organizations with the confidence that they can take on the challenges of tomorrow.”

California-based At-Bay also has a component for brokers, a digital platform that the startup says is intuitive and combines its insurance product with risk insights. This means that brokers are able to have more insightful discussions with clients about issues including security and financial exposure, case studies, and benchmark data, At-Bay said. The idea here, according to the company, is that “fast, digital and collaborative applications make for a low-friction sales process.”

Before At-Bay, Iram was chief operating officer for K2 Intelligence, a cybersecurity practice based in Israel. He also has prior experience as a consultant with McKinsey & Co., as a software engineer with RAD Data Communication and as head of the Techno-Intelligence Group for the Israel Defense Forces, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Source: At-Bay

Output: Insurtech At-Bay is using heuristics - the ability to adjust data-points in real time - to determine levels of cyber risk. The start-up assesses risk based on future predictions, a departure from the traditional method of determining cyber risk exposure, which usually makes use of analysing past incidents of security breaches. The firm has now raised $6m from a group of investors led by LightSpeed Venture Partner. The insurtech is able to bring insurance policies to market due to its primary backer being Munich Re’s Hartford Steam Boiler.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Facebook overtakes LinkedIn as B2B's most-used social channel
 This Is an ANA Member Exclusive

Access to this item is reserved for ANA members only.

Not a Member?

You can still create a free account to access the latest from ANA's online publications in ANA Newsstand, receive content and special event offers through our newsletters, get breaking industry updates, and so much more.

The content you're trying to see is available to:

ANA Client-Side Marketer Tier Members

Platinum Tier Members

Gold Tier Members

Silver Tier Members

Individual Members

Discover everything the ANA can do to help drive growth for your organization. Connect with our membership team.

Output: Facebook is now the most used business-to-business social channel, with LinkedIn coming second, according to an annual study by Social Media Examiner. The study took in responses from 5,700 B2B marketers and found 43% regarded Facebook as their most important social channel, compared with 37% for LinkedIn and 12% for Twitter. The survey also found 39% have increased their Facebook posts in the past 12 months, while almost 70% planned to do so in the coming year. In Q3 2017, the social media giant posted ad revenues of $10.1bn, an increase of 49% on the same period last year.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Vertical video ads lack appeal to UK publishers and agencies
 Vertical video is often lauded as the future, but it’s stubbornly not so present in the U.K.

On the surface, there’s a lot of action, as publishers like News UK, Hearst and the BBC — not to mention big platforms like Facebook and Snapchat — have added vertical video capabilities. But many publishers have not, and agencies have been slow to create vertical ad campaigns, according to both publishers and agencies.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg situation,” said Chris Mumford, trading director at M&C Saatchi Mobile. “Smaller publishers will need to see ad dollars pushing into vertical video formats to justify making the technical changes on their side, and advertisers are always looking for scale. More content is needed to give advertisers space and scale to play. Low scale obviously drives up the cost of finite inventory. It’s a self-perpetuating mess.”

For now, most nonsocial vertical video inventory is bought directly from publishers and in private marketplaces, and self-serve through platforms. When inventory becomes available on exchanges and the process is less manual for agencies, there will be a shift, said Mumford.

“I believe we’ll get to a place where we just call it ‘video’ and ‘horizontal video’ in the next few months,” said Fariya Faiyaz, account director at Dentsu Aegis mobile agency Fetch, adding that the number of vertical videos brands see in social platforms will drive this.

There are signs of promise, however. The BBC, which rolled out vertical video in its app in November 2016, said the format drives visitors to watch more, with a 20 percent increase in video views per visit. Fetch is producing about 40 vertical video campaigns for clients, whereas a year ago, vertical video campaigns were in the experimental phase. Faiyaz sees promise now there are more format types within vertical video, like 360-degree video, dynamic creative or multiple videos within one unit.

The challenge, as with all campaigns, is in proving vertical video drives business results incremental to other video formats. Platforms need to try harder at this; otherwise, agencies won’t be able to justify the added costs, according to Deborah King, head of paid social at Essence.

“I haven’t seen specific case studies, apart from in the film entertainment sector, that validates vertical video drives X amount of sales or this much brand uplift versus horizontal video,” she said. The film entertainment sector has led the charge with vertical video ad campaigns, partly because it has a wealth of video content and expertise. The lack of clear proof of campaign effectiveness is pushing Essence to run A/B tests with clients to see which format delivers brand uplift. “If the user experience isn’t detrimentally impacted, there will always be slower adoption,” she added.

Advertisers under pressure to cut costs and keep to strict ROIs for clients will not have investment into new creative executions at the top of their priority lists. But rather than cost, the barrier to wider adoption for vertical video is time, said Mark Holden, global strategy director at Starcom. While agencies need to create upward of a dozen variations of different assets for formats and environments, the top three will almost always be TV broadcast, video-on-demand broadcast and Facebook and YouTube for scale.

“The intentions are there,” said Holden. “From a video-delivery point of view, nonvertical is good enough. It’s not ticking the box for investment versus impact yet.”

Output: Smaller UK publishers have been slow to adopt vertical videos, in what has been called “a chicken-and-egg situation” by Chris Mumford, trading director at M&C Saatchi Mobile. He said: "Smaller publishers will need to see ad dollars pushing into vertical video formats to justify making the technical changes on their side, and advertisers are always looking for scale." Deborah King, head of paid social at Essence, said she had seen little evidence that vertical video had a positive impact on sales or brand uplift relative to horizontal video. Nonetheless, Facebook, Snapchat and others have added vertical video capability.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Ørsted issues €1.25bn of green capital securities and bonds
 Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted A/S (CPH:ORSTED), formerly known as Dong Energy, is issuing EUR 500 million (USD 589m) in green hybrid capital securities and EUR 750 million in green senior bonds.

The settlement date for both issues, which have been heavily oversubscribed, is November 24, the company said Thursday.

The issuances will help extend the duration of Ørsted’s senior debt maturity profile and will allow it to refinance EUR 500 million in 4.875% hybrid capital securities issued in 2013. Earlier on Thursday the company said its new Green Bond Framework has received a second opinion with "a Dark Green shading" from CICERO.

Details on the issuances are available in the table.

Details green hybrid security green senior bond Nominal amount EUR 500 million EUR 750 million Maturity date November 24, 3017 November 26, 2029 Coupon 2.25% - fixed till 1st par call date Nov 24, 2024 1.5% - fixed until maturity Price 99.203% of nominal amount 98.840% of nominal amount Oversubscribed more than 5x more than 2.3x Listing Luxembourg Stock Exchange (official list) and inscribe on the Luxembourg Green Exchange Platform (LGX) London Stock Exchange

Ørsted noted that these transaction do not change its financial guidance for 2017 or the announced expected investment level for the year.

(EUR 1 = USD 1.18)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!

Output: Danish renewable-energy company Ørsted (previously Dong Energy) is issuing €1.25bn ($1.47bn) in green capital securities and bonds, allowing it to refinance securities issued in 2013. The offering is split between €500m of green hybrid capital securities, to be listed on the Luxembourg stock exchange, and green senior bonds listed on the London Stock Exchange. The settlement is 24 November.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Bluegogo's troubles suggest China's bike-sharing boom is over
 China’s third largest bike sharing company has reportedly run into financial trouble, amid a wave of busts and consolidations in an industry that took the country by storm this year.

Bluegogo burned through 600m yuan (£68m) in investor funding in the year since it was founded by its youthful CEO Li Gang, deploying 700,000 bikes across cities in China.

Commonly hailed as the “Uber for bikes”, cycle sharing companies saturated Chinese streets with a technicolour of orange, yellow and blue cycles, frequently crowding out pedestrians. Infamous scenes of derelict bicycles piled in mangled heaps have become common sights.

The companies let customers rent bike using their smartphone, and bicycles could be dropped off anywhere. Users pay a deposit fee of 99 to 299 yuan (£11.30 to £34.10) depending on the company and then are charged a fee for every 30 minutes of use.

But as reports emerged Bluegogo was in trouble, Chinese social media erupted with users complaining they were unable to get their deposits back, and rumours that Li had fled the country.

Bluegogo claimed it had 20m users across China at its height in an open letter written by Li this week. That would mean the company at one point had at least 1.98bn yuan (£226m) in deposits, although it is unclear how much the company is currently holding.

Rumors have also spread on Chinese social media saying Li had left China, prompting him to post on his profile: “I have always been in the country, fighting on the front lines for redemption”.

The company’s operations will be taken over by another bike sharing startup, Li said in the letter. Visits by Chinese journalists to Bluegogo’s offices found the doors locked and office space abandoned.

Bluegogo did not respond to e-mails and text messages seeking comment.

In the open letter, Li said the company’s problems began in June, “first with an advertising accident that affected a large investment and possible acquisition”.

The ad campaign ran over 4 June replaced the icons for some bikes with tanks, with users encouraged to take those bike to win prizes. The promotion coincided with the 28th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when Chinese soldiers killed thousands in an effort to suppress democracy protests, and tanks rolled through the streets of Beijing.

A company that supplies bikes to Bluegogo is reportedly still owed 10m yuan, saying Bluegogo suspended orders in April, citing financial problems.

At least three other bike sharing companies have also gone bust in recent months, although Bluegogo is by far the largest. The wave of consolidations may mean China’s bike sharing industry will soon be dominated by just one or two companies.

Bluegogo tried to expand into San Francisco earlier this year but was met by stiff resistance from local politicians. Less than four months later, the company suspended its US experiment. The company also supplied bicycles for an Australia-based bike sharing firm Reddy Go, although it is an separate entity.

Output: China's third biggest bike-sharing company, Bluegogo, is understood to be in financial difficulties, with users reporting an inability to get their deposits returned. The company's offices are locked and empty, and its founder, Li Gang, has said another bike-sharing start-up will be taking over its operations. At least three other bike-sharing companies have gone bust in China recently, which suggests a period of consolidation in the sector is beginning.