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Poland could be fined €100,000 per day over deforestation
 Poland has been given two weeks to stop illegal deforestation in the Unesco-protected Białowieża forest or face fines of at least €100,000 a day.

In a precedent-setting ruling that will echo across the EU, the European court of justice ordered Poland to show it was acting lawfully in the ancient woodland, or face a €36.5m (£32m) annual penalty.

Agata Szafraniuk, a lawyer for the green law firm ClientEarth, said that the court was acting after Poland’s environment minister, Jan Szyszko, showed “complete contempt” for an earlier emergency ban on logging in the ancient woodland.

“Financial penalties are, unfortunately, an essential tool to ensure that the best-preserved primeval forest in Europe is protected from further harm,” she said. “Trees are still being cut down every day, so the court prescribed this measure to guarantee the full protection of this unique forest, and to avoid irreparable damage.”

The court move will ratchet up pressure on Poland, which is already facing a suspension of its EU Council voting rights over a clampdown on the country’s independent press and judiciary.

Women’s groups have also been targeted for police raids, and rights to protest have been curtailed, adding to concerns about the rule of law in the east European country.

Donald Tusk, the EU Council president, condemned Poland’s nationalist-right Law and Justice party government on Sunday, suggesting it was following the “Kremlin’s plan”.

The Polish government maintains that it always behaves lawfully and that logging in Białowieża is necessary to staunch a spruce bark beetle outbreak.

“In the western media, everything is based on disinformation,” a Polish government spokesman told the Guardian. “We are doing everything right by law. We are using EU law. We are using Polish law, and we are doing nothing against decisions made by the European court of justice.”

Greenpeace says that it has logged photographic evidence of violations to the court’s “public safety” condition for logging in 16 out of 30 areas of Białowieża surveyed .

Szyszko though, has previously accused the EU of “spreading lies” by using photos of extensive logging in Białowieża that he claimed were “manipulated” in a cyber-attack.

While the EU’s case on illegal logging was “without any arguments, ours are based on facts and documents,” the Polish official said. “Białowieża is not the last primeval forest, because it was made by local people, and we have facts and books that show that people were there from the beginning.”

Output: Poland faces fines of a minimum of €100,000 ($117,000) per day if it does not stop illegal deforestation in the Bialowieza forest, which is protected by Unesco, within two weeks. The ruling by the European court of justice, which establishes a legal precedent, requires Poland to prove that it is acting lawfully or receive a €36.5m annual fine. The Polish government claims that logging in the forest is essential to combat the spruce bark beetle. However, Greenpeace states that it has photographic evidence of breaches of “public safety” conditions for logging.


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Cajutel sees blockchain widening internet use in West Africa
 Cajutel believes blockchain technology can help Africa gain better internet access.

November 21, 2017, Bissau, Guinea — Blockchain implementation is a broad subject when applied to matters of innovation and development. Using the Blockchain to achieve developmental goals is a phenomenon that is gaining popularity among the developing countries of the world, where basic infrastructure is still a primary need of citizens.

Two most important elements of technology

In most parts of Africa, infrastructure such as electricity, potable water, access roads, Internet among others are unavailable, not because of a lack of resources, but due to the absence of honest, transparent and secure technical and administrative processes.

Leveraging the Blockchain is enabling a lot of companies to achieve developmental goals, by eliminating the hitherto human and bureaucratic obstacles that have slowed down these regions so far.

Along with electricity, Internet service is one of the most important technological elements needed for any nation to keep up with global advancement, yet many developing countries are still left out of this opportunity of economic advancement.

Blockchain enables global participation

High speed Internet provider, Cajutel, is using Blockchain technology as a tool to raise capital for the development of Internet services in Guinea Bissau and Guinea.

The CEO of Cajutel, Andreas Fink, explains that his company has embraced the Blockchain and ICO methodology of raising capital, in other to open up opportunities for investment to smaller investors.

This has become necessary due to the existing difficulty in getting huge investors and venture capitalists to embrace the project using existing traditional processes.

According to Fink, his company’s ICO is different from most other token sales because in Cajutel’s case, company shares are exchanged for cryptocurrencies.

Unlike other ICOs where tokens bought by investors exist afterwards as independent entities in the cryptocurrencies marketplace, Cajutel’s tokens are tied directly to the project as shares.

This implies that investors are offered the opportunity for long term investment benefits, as purchasing such shares automatically qualifies an investor as a shareholder of the company.

Fink says:

“In our case, we are using the ICO in a more traditional way, which means that we are raising funds against the shares of the company, because at the end of the day you will have investors who put money down and expecting a return, they want to participate in your revenue which you are giving up.”

Giving the nation a whole new outlook

For what it is, Internet service stands out as a platform upon which numerous aspects of human and regional development must rely.

From financial services to other basic processes of data storage and management, the role of the Internet has become very crucial, especially over the last three decades.

As a tool for national development, Cajutel is looking for an investment of $30 mln to cover Guinea-Bissau and Guinea (the big plan), or a minimum of $12 mln for a slower building plan to only cover Guinea-Bissau.

This is a target that the company plans to use in achieving what it describes as a revolutionary nation-building procedure, considering the fact that its present competitors are just two mobile operators MTN and Orange, offering Internet speeds that are limited to 256kbps ($60/month) while business offerings go up to 1Mbps ($1400/month).

Cajutel’s vision is to build the most cost effective broadband access network, and to provide state of the art communications for its customers – thus creating a big boost to the education and economy. The company also plans on delivering affordable, reliable Internet communication to the local market, and is focused on providing the best performing mobile data network for Guinea-Bissau and Guinea.

Another key area where Cajutel plans to improve in serving the nation, is improving the speed of Internet to a level that has never been achieved in the region.

“Catujel will be the fastest Internet provider in the area for the public, outperforming existing operators offering by a factor of 10x to 100x with an at least 30 percent cheaper price. This enables Internet technologies not currently present in West Africa simply due to lack of bandwidth and too high prices. It makes it affordable for the general public to get access to the Internet. That is why only less than 2 percent have access today. So there’s 98 percent available to be grabbed by us”, says Fink.

Africa is making progress

Internet service is a real world project that cuts across all parts of the globe. The globalization phenomenon is essentially lubricated by Internet technology, therefore for purposes of national and regional growth and development, the Internet is an essential tool.

Africa and the rest of the developing world are implementing the Blockchain as a tool to enable them to catch-up with their peers, in terms of infrastructural development. This is largely achieved by reducing the level of human and faulty administrative interference, as the Blockchain guarantees transparent, secure and trustless working processes.

Website — http://www.cajutel.gw/

White paper — https://cajutel.gw/whitepaper.pdf

Cajutel is the source of this content. This press release is for informational purposes only and should not be viewed as an endorsement by CoinIdol. We take no responsibility and give no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy. Readers should do their own research before investing funds in any company.

Output: Guinea-Bissau internet provider Cajutel will use blockchain technology to help it raise funds for its ambitious aim of bringing the internet to the 98% of West Africans currently lacking a service. The company plans to build a cost-effective broadband and mobile phone network, and has launched an initial coin offering (ICO) to raise between $12m and $30m. CEO Andreas Fink said tokens purchased during the ICO would be automatically turned into company shares, offering a long-term investment.


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China recruits leading companies for AI 'national team'
 Zhang Tong, the head of Tencent’s AI Lab. The company has been selected as one of four members of China’s AI national team. Photo: Handout

Output: Baidu, Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings and iFlyTek have been called on by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology to spearhead the development of new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and create open innovation platforms. Specifically, Baidu will focus on self-driving cars, Alibaba's cloud computing unit will explore AI solutions for urban life, Tencent will examine computer vision for medical diagnosis and iFlyTek will focus on voice intelligence. While supporters have underscored the open-source nature of the initiative, some have questioned the elevation of big firms as "national champions", claiming smaller start-ups will be crowded out.


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Garmin Pay goes live in US and Australia
 Garmin vívoactive 3: More ways to beat yesterday

The tech company has just announced that Garmin Pay is now live in the United States and seven other countries, including Australia, for the Vivoactive 3. So if you’re out running without your phone and cash, there’s a chance you’ll be able to pay for sustenance with a simple flick of the wrist.

We say “a chance” because at launch you can only add Mastercards issued by a limited number of banks. In the U.S., the list currently includes BECU, Bank of America, Capital One, First Tech Federal Credit Union, and U.S. Bank. Support for more banks is coming “soon,” the company promised, and Vivoactive 3 owners with Visa cards will also be able to use Garmin Pay before long. For updates on compatibility, as well as support information for outside the U.S., check out this page on Garmin’s website.

Recommended Videos

Similar to Apple Pay and Android Pay, Garmin’s system, which is powered by the FitPay payment platform, also utilizes NFC (near field communication) technology, allowing users to make a payment without having to reach for their handset or wallet.

Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales, said in a release that Vivoactive 3 wearers “now have the freedom to leave their phone and wallet at home when they go to run or work out, and still be able to make purchases wherever their day takes them.”

The Vivoactive 3, which starts at $300, was announced by Garmin at the IFA tech show in Berlin, Germany in August.

The successor to the Vivoactive HR features a round-faced Chroma color display with a single side-facing button. The GPS-enabled device also incorporates heart sensors for constant monitoring during workouts. Impressively, the battery is said to last for a whole week, though with GPS on this figure is cut dramatically to 13 hours.

An interesting feature on the Vivoactive 3 is Side Swipe. This lets you swipe the side of the watch to scroll through the menus if your don’t want to get your sweaty hands on the display.

To find out more, check out how the Vivoactive 3 fares against the latest Apple Watch and the Fitbit Ionic.

Editors' Recommendations

Output: Kansas-based tech firm Garmin has rolled out its digital wallet, Garmin Pay, to the US, Australia, and six other countries. Garmin Pay allows users of the Vivoactive 3 smartwatch and other forms of near field communication technology to pay for goods quickly and easily. However, only MasterCards issued by Bank of America, Capital One, First Tech Federal Credit Union, BECU and US Bank can currently be added to the wallet. More institutions are expected to be added to the roster soon.


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State Bank of India to begin testing smart contracts
 State Bank of India is to begin testing the use of smart contracts next month, with blockchain-enabled know your customer processing to follow.

Speaking to the Economic Times, India's largest lender took the wraps off the work conducted by the BankChain consortium, a coalition of 27 Indian and Middle East banks who have been collaborating with vendor PrimeChain to explore and create new applications for banking and finance.

"By next month, we should have two beta production solutions ready for use by the 27 banks," SBI's head of innovation Sudin Baraoker told the paper. "We will also invite further participation."

Baraoker sees plenty of potential for the use of smart contracts at the bank: "Smart contracts can be used for simple things like non-disclosure agreement... rather than signing forms. A lot of internal processes can be contracted. We do a lot of IT procurement, a lot of it can be implemented using blockchain."

Output: The BankChain consortium, which has been working on applications for smart contracts in banking and finance, is set to begin beta-testing two solutions next month with India's biggest lender, the State Bank. The trial will also test blockchain-enabled "know your customer" processing at a later date. The consortium consists of a collaboration between almost 30 Indian and Middle Eastern banks and vendor PrimeChain Technologies.


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Shipping container hotel, flats planned for Waterloo Station
 Because shipping containers are designed to move and these ones might have to.

TreeHugger emeritus Bonnie sends in a photograph of a pile of shipping containers on Lower Marsh behind London's Waterloo Station, which turns out to be a new "Apart-Hotel" for Stow, a London property developer. Stow-Away is "a new brand of design-led extended stay hotels" offering "a fun, distinctive and eco-friendly stay experience."

© Bonnie Alter

There is nothing new about shipping container hotels; they have become so trendy that in China, they have made fake shipping containers to cash in on the trend. But this one is particularly interesting because of the reason shipping containers are being used.

London SE1/via

The site is, in fact, owned by the railway, and provides access to the viaduct behind. According to conservation documents, it was vacant because of "enemy action during the Second World War."

© Doone Silver Kerr

According to the architects, Doone Silver Kerr, "The proposed development uses 30ft shipping containers as the building system in order to meet the requirements of Network Rails asset protection agreement, which requires the scheme to be dismantled within 28 days."

© Doone Silver Kerr

Shipping containers are a bit narrow for decent hotel rooms; as you can see in the rendering here, there is not really enough room to get around the side of a queen-sized bed. Given the choice, most hotel designers would want a little more width. But if you have to vacate the site on 28 days notice, they make a lot of sense.

The Architects' Journal 26 March 2012/Screen capture

People who rave about the speed of shipping container construction should also remember that the biggest time suck in real estate is not necessarily the construction but also the approvals and financing and all the other stuff that goes into a building; this project was originally approved in 2012 with Will Alsop as architect. The new project is not identical; according to a local London site, "Doone Silver Architects say that plans for a roof terrace have been removed 'due to anti‐terrorism concerns'."

You can have the fastest construction system in the world and it can still take years to make a building.

Output: London architects Doone Silver Kerr plan to turn stacks of shipping containers into apartment and hotel rooms behind London's Waterloo Station. The firm chose the cargo boxes as they are cheap and easy to dismantle, essential on railway land with covenants that stipulate any construction must be removable within 28 days. The boxes will form a so-called apart-hotel for property developer Stow. The trend is not new: shipping-container hotels are popular in China.


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Bayer and Bosch target precision herbicide application
 New technology which will apply state-of-the-art weed detection to apply herbicide more accurately could be available for use by 2020.

As part of a three-year research partnership between two German agricultural and tech giants, Bayer and Bosch are developing smart spraying technology.

Using camera sensors, it can differentiate between crops and weeds and target weeds with pesticides – at lightning speed, in a single process. It is hoped the technology will be available by 2020.

“Smart spraying sustainably clears fields of weeds. This safeguard yields while minimising environmental impact,” Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management, said.

The rise of such technology is seen as an important step forward as agriculture leaders advance innovations that are climate-friendly, to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.

World hunger is also a growing problem for the industry. According to predictions made by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), farmers will have to sustainably generate around 50% more yield by 2050 in order to feed the global population.

“We want to venture together with Bosch into new territory, combining different technologies to ensure that herbicides are only applied in areas where they are really necessary,” Tobias Menne, head of digital farming at Bayer, said.

'Field manager'

The technology solution will offer a digital “field manager” which assesses the field and recommends the best time to treat weeds.

Weeds can be difficult to identify, but by using camera sensors, the technology can determine what is growing in the field and then adopt a targeted application technique to spray crop protection agents specifically on weeds.

The multiple camera sensors, which are spread across the entire width of the crop sprayer, take a continuous series of pictures, identifying the different weeds and allowing the optimum treatment to be defined.

While the crop sprayer is still crossing the field, the herbicide is sprayed in the required quantity and mixture using the appropriate application parameters.

While the relevant weeds are targeted, weedless areas remain untouched. All this occurs within milliseconds.

'Quantum leap'

“Smart spraying is a quantum leap in the fight against weeds,” said Björn Kiepe, head of agronomy at Bayer’s digital farming unit.

“We are combining modern weed identification technology with the ability to apply different active substances as the situation demands. This process is very precise, with a spatial resolution of well under one meter. This will make it even easier for farmers to practice sustainable crop protection.”

Bosch has been transferring its automotive technology to the agriculture industry, and is already generating sales worth 1 billion euros as a result.

By the middle of the next decade, it plans to double sales of technologies for agriculture. “Bosch can do more than cars and cordless screwdrivers. We are bringing high tech to farms, opening up a market worth billions,” said Dr. Markus Heyn.

Output: Bosch and Bayer have collaborated on the development of a smart spray system that targets weeds but leaves main crops untouched, and it could be on sale as early as 2020. The system, the product of a three-year partnership, has been called a "quantum leap" by Björn Kiepe, head of agronomy at Bayer’s digital farming unit. It uses multiple camera sensors to continuously take images, automatically applying the correct treatment when a weed is identified. The entire process takes less than a second. Technology giant Bosch has generated €1bn ($1.18bn) from its agri-tech arm.


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AISense seeks total recall with conversation-transcription bot
 Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More

There’s a new machine learning company on the block, with big ambitions to help people remember every conversation they’ve ever had. Called AISense, the company operates a voice transcription system that’s designed to work through long conversations using machine learning and provide users with a full text record of what was said.

At first, the company is tackling meeting notes through a partnership through videoconferencing service Zoom. The two parties will bring a commercial product to market next year that will allow Zoom customers to get automatic transcriptions of their conversations.

Voice transcription isn’t anything new in the machine learning field, with companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all providing their own prebuilt systems for recognizing speech and turning that into text. But AISense CEO Sam Liang said in an interview that he believes his company has an edge because of its focus on long-form conversations.

AISense isn’t planning to stop with meeting transcription, however. Liang said that the company’s overall goal is to provide ambient transcription of every moment of users’ lives.

Event Transform 2023 Join us in San Francisco on July 11-12, where top executives will share how they have integrated and optimized AI investments for success and avoided common pitfalls. Register Now

“Conversations can happen at any time, unplanned and unscheduled,” he said. “If I run into somebody in the hallway and I talk for ten minutes, there’s a huge amount of information there being exchanged. I don’t want to lose that, actually.”

It remains to be seen if that’s something people are actually keen on using, however. One of the key concerns from consumers about smart home speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home — which only record and respond to users’ utterances after the use of a trigger word — is that they’re always listening.

AISense actually wants to be always listening, which raises a host of potential problems when it comes to matters like wiretapping laws that prohibit recording without the consent of all parties involved. Liang said that the company plans to comply with all of the legal obligations related to its work.

Interestingly, AISense doesn’t use the conversations it records to improve the accuracy of its speech system. The company employs other sources of training data, like conversations posted publicly to the web.

The company announced today that it raised a $10 million round of series A funding led by Horizons Ventures. Other participants in the round included Draper Associates, Draper Dragon, David Cheriton, and Bridgewater Associates.

Right now, AISense’s transcription system is in beta with a small number of users, but the company is working towards both its completed integration with Zoom as well as a consumer application that would allow anyone to get conversations transcribed.

While Liang thinks that the company’s future lies with ambient transcription, at the moment it’s focused on more task-oriented use cases like business meetings and classroom lectures.

Output: California start-up AISense is beta-testing voice-recognition software that can transcribe long conversations. In partnership with videoconferencing service Zoom, AISense is focusing on meeting minutes, with both firms aiming to launch a product next year and, eventually, enable full text records of people's conversational lives. CEO Sam Liang said the system uses conversations on the internet as training data and added that while AISense is always "listening", it will be fully compliant with wiretapping legal requirements. The company recently raised $10m in a series A funding round led by Horizons Ventures.


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MIT starts urban R&D program for China's smart cities
 MIT has launched a unique new urban research and innovation program that looks to advance city life in China through an ambitious range of academic and entrepreneurial activities.

The China Future City Lab, created with university, corporate, and governmental partners, has officially taken flight following a two-day conference, launch event, and signing ceremony late last week.

“We want to be a pioneer,” said Siqi Zheng, the MIT urban studies associate professor who heads the new lab, speaking at the launch event last Friday. The China Future City Lab, she also noted, will have “a clear focus on China’s sustainable urbanization.”

The China Future City Lab consists of three foundational elements. First, the lab will support a wide range of basic research in China, investigating many aspects of urban social and economic life.

Second, the lab will house a program known as the MIT-Tsinghua Future City Innovation Connector (FCIC), which will support startup teams applying ideas to China’s urban areas. The FCIC will also aim to identify innovative concepts and technologies that could be implemented in China.

As a third element of its activities, the China Future City Lab will engage with Chinese cities that will serve as “living labs” or testing sites where MIT researchers will have a unique opportunity to examine their urban-focused ideas and innovations.

The development of the new lab comes at a time when China has been rapidly urbanizing. Over half of the country’s population now lives in urban areas, up from roughly 20 percent in the early 1980s. As Zheng noted in her remarks on Friday, lessons from this rapid change can be applied to other countries and regions, since the global population is also urbanizing markedly, albeit at a slower pace than in China.

“The new knowledge should have implications everywhere,” Zheng said.

Fitting the global strategy

The creation of the China Future City Lab fits closely with a new framework for global activities that MIT released last spring. As detailed in a preliminary report, “A Global Strategy for MIT,” this approach calls for, among other things, enhanced efforts to cultivate collaborative projects in different regions of the world, including China.

“Our intention is to bring the best of MIT to China, and the best of China to MIT, and I know the China Future City Lab will be a key building block of that strategy,” said Richard K. Lester, the associate provost of MIT overseeing the Institute’s international activities, in remarks at the launch on Friday.

China’s urbanization, Lester added, is “of enormous intellectual and practical interest to the MIT community, to our faculty, to our students, across a wide range of disciplines.” The areas of research that figure to be directly involved in the subject, Lester suggested, include urban studies, economics, architecture, management, computer science, artificial intelligence, transportation systems, and civil and environmental engineering.

In turn, he noted, those disciplines will need to tackle a variety of large-scale problems common to China and other societies, including climate change mitigation and the deployment of clean energy technologies, access to clean water, access to affordable health care, and new challenges brought about by aging populations.

A tradition of engagement — and a renewal of it

As Lester detailed in his remarks, MIT also has a lengthy history of engagement with China. The first Chinese student at MIT arrived in 1877, just 16 years after the Institute opened, and, as shown in an ongoing campus exhibit, “China Comes to Tech,” curated by MIT professor of history Emma Teng, over 400 students from China studied at MIT over the next half-century.

More recently, MIT has been building a more extensive network of institutional ties with China, including parterships within academia. One of those agreements is with Tsinghua University, which is MIT’s partner in the Future City Innovation Connector component of the new lab.

The China City Future Lab also builds upon the precedent established by the Beijing Studio, a 30-year partnership the School of Architecture and Planning established with Tsinghua University that enabled hundreds of MIT students to evaluate urban studies issues in China.

The China Future City Lab is also launching with the help of eight corporate founding members, comprising six private companies and two state-run property firms, that have interests spread across China and Hong Kong. They are:

Hongkong Land, founded in 1889, which is one of Asia’s oldest established property groups;

Zall Group, a major developer in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province;

Fosun Property, an international conglomerate and investment company based in Shanghai;

China Resources Land, a state-run property developer with headquarters in Shenzhen;

Tusincere Science City Investment Group Co., Ltd., a firm that builds business parks;

Nash Work, China’s largest operator of co-working spaces, with sites in several major cities;

ChengYu Construction Investment Group, a development firm located in Zhengzhou; and

Tianyi Holding, a property firm with interests in investment, planning, design, development, and management, located in Tianjin.

Executives from the group of founding partners appeared and gave remarks at a launch event on Friday in MIT’s Samberg Conference Center.

A separate symposium for the China Future City Lab, on Thursday, featured talks by several MIT faculty members, as well as remarks from Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, and Eran Ben-Joseph, head of the school’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP).

Zheng is the Samuel Tak Lee Associate Professor of Real Estate Development and Entrepreneurship in DUSP and the Center for Real Estate.

On Friday, Lester lauded Zheng’s work, as both a researcher and a program-builder at the Institute. Zheng has formally been an MIT faculty member for less than a year, but, as Lester noted, she has quickly assembled the kinds of institutional and international support needed to launch a major new project.

“In that short time, she has established herself as a real force, and a builder of new educational and research programs in the very best tradition of MIT,” Lester said.

In her remarks, Zheng emphasized the open-ended nature of the new lab’s work. Set against an urbanizing population and the rapid economic growth of China this century, the nature of urban studies, she suggested, means that scholars need to be open-minded about the kinds of issues they will study and the methods they will use to examine them.

“I’m sure we can explore more and more opportunities,” Zheng said.

Output: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is partnering with university, corporate, and governmental bodies to launch urban research programme, the China Future City Lab. It aims to support research, find and back start-ups working on urbanisation in the country, and connect with cities deemed testing sites. China's increased urbanisation offers opportunities for MIT students to learn in several fields, from civil engineering to artificial intelligence, while the China Future City Lab is the latest in a long series of collaborations between the country and MIT.


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Leeds construction firm fined for silt pollution of watercourse
 A Leeds-based house building company has been fined £120,000 for illegally polluting a watercourse from a Huddersfield construction site.

Harron Homes Limited was sentenced yesterday (20 November) at Leeds Magistrates’ Court after admitting one charge of causing illegal discharges from its Farriers Croft estate in 2015.

The Environment Agency prosecuted the firm after investigating reports of contaminated run-off which was entering a tributary of Grimescar Dyke.

Rosalind Emsley-Smith, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court that an officer visited the site on 20 November 2015 and saw polluted water flowing out of the entrance of the construction site. The company was also pumping silt contaminated water from site excavations which also entered the watercourse.

Following the Environment Agency’s visit, Harron Homes attempted to control the silt run-off by setting up settlement tanks. However, further incidents of pollution were reported in November and December 2015 and subsequent inspections revealed that this system was inadequate. Silty water was found to be discharging, resulting in further pollution.

Samples taken from the discharges showed that they were having a significant impact on the water quality in the watercourse up to three kilometres further downstream. Some samples showed there to be nearly 35,000 milligrams of suspended solids per litre of water, whereas a healthy watercourse is expected to have a concentration lower than 30 milligrams per litre.

The firm's attempt to contain the muddy water was inadequate; silt was seen flowing off the site

Mark West, environment management team leader at the Environment Agency, said:

These pollution incidents had a significant impact on the water environment over a number of weeks, and were entirely avoidable. In West Yorkshire there has been a worrying increase in the number of pollutions incidents reported to us that on investigation are attributable to the construction sector.

Construction companies should consider the potential environmental impact of developments they undertake at the initial planning stage and must adhere to environmental permitting rules and invest in appropriate management systems to prevent their activities from affecting the local environment.

If anyone spots pollution of this kind, they are urged to contact the Environment Agency’s incident hotline on 0800 807060 so we can investigate.

In mitigation, Harron Homes told the court that it had now put procedures in place to prevent future pollution incidents.

In addition to the fine, the company was ordered to pay £8,706.71 in legal costs and a £120 victim surcharge.

Output: A housing construction company in Leeds has been fined for polluting a watercourse. Harron Homes was prosecuted by the Environment Agency for allowing contaminated water to flow from its site at Farriers Croft near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. Silty water was discharged into a tributary that flows into Grimescar Dyke, a local river, over several weeks. The company was fined £120,000 for the offence, which had a significant measurable effect on water quality up to two miles downstream from the site.


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WeWork weighs South Korean expansion

WeWork eyes massive expansion in Korea

Matthew Shampine, general manager of WeWork Korea, recently ditched his old American phone number for a Korean one and opened a local bank account. As an ethnic Korean adopted to the United States, he has been learning Korean from a tutor three times a week. He loves soju so much that the refrigerator at his new house in Yeouido, western Seoul is packed with the alcoholic beverage.All this happened in a matter of just three months after he was promoted to take full charge of the Korean unit in August. Having joined WeWork in January 2013, he spent two years as head of marketing and revenue for WeWork’s Asia Pacific market before the latest promotion, going back and forth between Korea and other Asia Pacific countries.His new role came after WeWork has actively expanded here since first opening a branch in Gangnam Station, southern Seoul in August last year. In just 15 months, the New York-based company has opened two more locations - Euljiro, central Seoul, the biggest in Asia, with a capacity to house 3,000 people, and Samseong-dong, southern Seoul - and two additional offices will soon open in Yeoksam, southern Seoul and Gwanghwamun, central Seoul.“We are going to aggressive keep expanding throughout Seoul this year and next year and every subsequent year to kind of build all around the city,” he said in a recent interview at WeWork Euljiro, where he keeps his office as well. “In a while it may seem like a cluster of buildings right now in Gangnam, but we do believe in expanding throughout the rest of the city as well for sure because Seoul is such a huge city in terms of distance.”He noted that WeWork is in fact looking at “everywhere” in Korea - be it Pangyo, Gyeonggi, or Busan.“I just personally transitioned my role to focus on Korea, so the first thing is trying to make sure we are adequately staffed for that scale and continuing to look for new locations.”The seven-year-old company, valued at about $20 billion, currently operates across 58 cities in 19 countries. On upbeat prospects for the fast-growing co-working giant, Japan’s SoftBank in August made a $500 million investment to help it expand its operations in Korea, China, Japan and Southeast Asia more broadly. Shampine declined to specify how much of that fund has been allocated to Korea.With the rise of the gig economy, also known as the sharing economy, and ever-increasing land prices, co-working spaces have been sprouting up across the capital recently. A handful of local businesses - such as Hyundai Card, a credit card issuer, Fast Track Asia, a local start-up, and Toz Business Center - have jumped on the bandwagon and most recently, Spaces, a Dutch co-working space operator, opened its first location at Gran Seoul building in Jongno, central Seoul, in September.With regard to the intensified competition for shared offices in the city, Shampine said he believes his company stands out from the others in that it offers a unique value - connecting people through the vast network of members across its offices around the world, from New York to Delhi to Melbourne and Shanghai and its brand value that has empowered it to attract diverse members.“I’ve been to a few [other local co-working spaces] but I don’t see competition that way,” he said. “How to provide value to members is much more important than what someone else is doing.”He went on to say that WeWork can be a good platform for Korean companies that need to go international because the domestic market is relatively small.“We can make it happen much faster by connecting them with the rest of the world.”He also mentioned that one upshot of WeWork is “connecting” members with varied personal and professional backgrounds.“It’s really hard to predict but really cool things happen when you put them all in the same building.”Members are not only entrepreneurs and start-ups but also people trying out the service space for the first time - lawyers and accountants as well as people working in PR, marketing and recruiting - teams from large companies such as Microsoft and Shinsegae and agencies that have recently broken off from larger companies to start on their own.They constantly bump into each other and develop ties through events and parties that take place five to seven times a week with themes ranging from yoga to Halloween to panel discussions and Demo Days. On the day of the interview, an event themed on women in leadership roles was scheduled for the evening.Shampine himself landed a job at WeWork after becoming a member at its initial location in Manhattan. While he was working as a web developer for Mercedes-Benz, he joined forces with four programmers there to launch their own digital agency and they moved into WeWork. There he went on to co-found WeWork Labs, an incubator for early-stage start-ups, with WeWork founders and has climbed the corporate ladder ever since.Asked to assess how competitive Koreans are in the global start-up scene, he mentioned several of their strengths as he is also actively involved in being an angel investor for companies in both the United States and Korea.“Korea has a lot of really smart, intelligent people and there are a lot of great universities. We are hosting the fourth ‘Be the Rocket’ program,” he said.“Be the Rocket” is Seoul National University’s start-up acceleration program and WeWork Korea has been supporting it since 2016 by renting a venue for the event and providing office space to the winners.He also cited other upbeat aspects of the Korean start-up environment.“China is China, but Korea is a great place where people can feel comfortable and meet a lot of people. Korea is a great hub for meeting and connecting people together. You also have an engineering talent for sure and a lot of great companies that are working on expanding themselves abroad.”With regard to the language barrier, the most common weakness cited by Korean entrepreneurs hoping to spread overseas, he said, “I have seen [Koreans’ English proficiency] significantly getting better every day over the last 10 years. Koreans in general are very international in terms of studying abroad and their connections.”Will WeLive, a co-living business launched by WeWork in New York and Washington D.C. last year, ever head to Korea?“From what I know, we will announce the project in the near term. I personally believe it would be very successful here,” he said. “But as of now we are very much focused on making sure we build a great WeWork Korea.”BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun@joongang.co.kr]

Output: Shared workspace provider WeWork is planning to expand into South Korea after opening its first three branches there over the last year. The New York-based company received a $500m investment from Japan's Softbank earlier this year to help grow its business in Southeast Asia. It will open two new offices in Seoul shortly, and plans further branches around the city, as well as in other locations across the country, such as Pangyo, Gyeoggi and Busan. Other co-working providers, including the Dutch company Spaces, have also recently opened offices in Seoul.


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Redrow Blake Tower wins best apartment gong at WhatHouse? Awards
 The WhatHouse? Awards 2017, UK housebuilding’s most prestigious event, took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Friday 17 November, culminating in the Berkeley Group being named WhatHouse? Housebuilder of the Year in front of over 1,500 industry figures.

Named Large Housebuilder of the Year at last year’s event and retaining the title this year, Berkeley Group also went one better, beating Small Housebuilder of the Year Metis Homes and Medium Housebuilder of the Year Hopkins Homes to the ultimate title. Swan Housing Association was named Housing Association of the Year.

It also won across other categories, picking up Golds for Best Partnership Scheme, Best Mixed-Use Development and Best Regeneration and a Bronze for Best Apartment Scheme. Part of the Berkeley Group, St James, also won two Golds, for Best Exterior Design and Best Public Realm, with another, St Edward, winning Silver for Best Development..

The celebrity host at this year’s Awards Gala Luncheon was comedian Jack Whitehall, joined on stage in the Great Room of the Grosvenor House Hotel by Lawrence Dallaglio, former captain of England’s rugby union team, who presented to winners of 21 Awards categories.

Among the wide range of new homes builders from across the country that won the other awards, there were a few who received more than one: Mount Anvil winning three Golds; Habitat First winning one Gold and two Bronzes; Hill winning three Silvers; Meyer Homes and Crest Nicholson winning one Gold and one Silver each; Redrow winning one Gold and one Bronze; 2014’s Housebuilder of the Year City & Country winning one Silver and one Bronze; and Altin, Countryside and McCarthy & Stone winning two Bronzes each.

Rupert Bates, editorial director of Whathouse.com and leading trade magazine Show House, and head of the judging panel, said, “The industry has many challenges ahead, but for now let us celebrate the best new homes in Britain. We would like to thank all the housebuilders, suppliers and other industry colleagues who have once again supported this great event, with special thanks to the Awards sponsors and judges.”

Here’s the full list of winners from this year’s WhatHouse? Awards, download the Judges’ Report for all the details or look at the summary here:

Housebuilder of the Year: Berkeley Group

Best Large Housebuilder – sponsored by Roca

Gold, Berkeley Group

Silver, CALA Homes

Bronze, Redrow; Countryside

Best Medium Housebuilder – sponsored by N+C

Gold, Hopkins Homes

Silver, Hill

Bronze, Churchill Retirement Living ; Mactaggart & Mickel

Best Small Housebuilder – sponsored by Jablite

Gold, Metis Homes

Silver, Freeman Homes

Bronze, Conservation Builders

Housing Association of the Year – sponsored by WhatHouse?

Gold, Swan Housing Association

Silver, Thames Valley Housing

Bronze, Aster Group

Best Build To Rent Project – sponsored by Thomas Gray

Gold, Legal & General Investment Management Real Assets, The Slate Yard, Salford

Silver, Be Living, be:here, Hayes, Middlesex

Bronze, Folio London, Royal Albert Wharf, London E16

Best Starter Home Scheme – sponsored by Q Assure

Gold, Network Homes, The Crescent, Hertford

Silver, Lovell Homes, Lymington Mews, Dagenham; St Modwen Homes, Locking Parklands, Locking, Somerset

Bronze, Higgins Homes, Clissold Quarter, Stoke Newington, Hackney

Best House – sponsored by Nolte Kitchens

Gold, Habitat First Group, The Habitat House, Lower Mill Estate, Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Silver, Meyer Homes, Gabriel Square, St Albans, Hertfordshire

Bronze, Altin Homes, The Place, Sale, Manchester

Best Apartment Scheme – sponsored by Warwick Estates

Gold, Redrow, Blake Tower, London EC2

Silver, City & Country Residential, The Iron Foundry, Bristol

Bronze, Berkeley Central London, Vista, London SW8

Best Luxury House – sponsored by New ID

Gold, Huntsmere, ‘Bewdley’, Alderley Edge, Cheshire ; Werner Capital, ‘Camp End Manor’, St George’s Hill, Weybridge, Surrey

Silver, Aspire Luxury Properties, ‘Kings Lodge’, Oxshott, Surrey

Bronze, Oakeve, ‘Hurlingham’, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

Best Renovation – sponsored by New Homes Law

Gold, Cubitt Greystock, Grange Hall, Stoke Newington

Silver, Hill, Anstey Hill Barns, Cambridge

Bronze, City & Country, St Osyth Priory, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex

Best Development – sponsored by Beko

Gold, Crest Nicholson Regeneration, Bath Riverside, Bath, Somerset

Silver, Places For People, Rousillon Park, Chichester, West Sussex ; St Edward, 190 Strand, London WC2

Bronze, Altin Homes, The Place, Sale, Manchester

Best Partnership Scheme – sponsored by Show House Jobs

Gold, Berkeley Homes, Hackney Council, Genesis, WDCO and MHDT, Woodberry Down, London N4; Mount Anvil with Clarion Housing Group, Lexicon, London EC1

Silver, Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes and the RSPB, Oakfield Village

Bronze, Countryside and L&Q, Acton Gardens

Best Luxury Development – sponsored by Laufen

Gold, Mount Anvil, Dollar Bay, Canary Wharf, London E14

Silver, Crest Nicholson Regeneration, Bath Riverside, Bath, Somerset

Bronze, Ama (New Town), The Crescents, Cramond, Edinburgh

Best Mixed-Use Scheme – sponsored by TCL Group

Gold, Berkeley Homes, One Tower Bridge, London

Silver, Quartermile Developments, Quartermile, Edinburgh

Bronze, Crest Nicholson, Harbourside, Bristol

Best Retirement Development – sponsored by Show House Jobs

Gold, Adlington, Adlington House, Otley, West Yorkshire

Silver, Hill, Woodside Square, Muswell Hill, London N10

Bronze, McCarthy & Stone, Bowes Lyon Court, Poundbury, Dorset

Best Sustainable Development – sponsored by Roca

Gold, Lendlease, Elephant Park, Elephant & Castle, London SE17

Silver, Fabrica by A2Dominion, Elmsbrook, Bicester, Oxfordshire

Bronze, Habitat First Group, Silverlake, Warmwell, Dorset

Best Regeneration Scheme – sponsored by Jackson-Stops

Gold, Berkeley Homes East Thames, Royal Arsenal Riverside, London SE18

Silver, Hopkins Homes, Prospect Place, Framlingham, Suffolk ; Notting Hill Housing, Royal Albert Wharf, London E16

Bronze, Bellway South London, Maida at Wellesley, Aldershot, Hampshire ; Churchill Retirement Living, Mount’s Bay Lodge, Penzance, Cornwall

Best Interior Design – sponsored by Green Lighting

Gold, Mount Anvil, Dollar Bay, Canary Wharf, London E14

Silver, Meyer Homes, Gabriel Square, St Albans, Hertfordshire

Bronze, Millgate Homes, Knowle Hill Park, Cobham, Surrey

Best Exterior Design – sponsored by Ibstock Bricks

Gold, St James, Riverlight, London SW11

Silver, Barratt London, Lombard Wharf, London SW11

Bronze, Habitat First Group, ‘The Lighthouse’, Silverlake, Warmwell, Dorset

Best Public Realm – sponsored by TCL

Gold, St James, Heritage Walk/Kew Bridge West, London TW8

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Output: Developer Redrow's Blake Tower project near the Barbican in London won the gold award for Best Apartment Scheme at the WhatHouse? Awards. Redrow also won a bronze award in the Best Large Housebuilder category.


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Paris and Amsterdam to succeed London as hosts of key EU agencies
 Paris has been picked to succeed London as host city of the European Banking Authority once Britain leaves the European Union.

Paris beat out Dublin in the final round of voting Monday among the 28 EU nations minus Britain. Frankfurt, in a surprise, failed to be selected as one of the two finalists.

The European Banking Authority monitors the regulation and supervision of Europe's banking sector. It has a staff of about 180.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the choice of Paris for the banking regulator showed the "attractiveness of France".

Meanwhile, EU President Donald Tusk said on Twitter before the vote that "whatever the outcome, the real winner of today's vote is EU27. Organised and getting ready for Brexit."

Best of luck to all the candidates to host EMA and EBA.

Whatever the outcome, the real winner of today's vote is EU27. Organised and getting ready for #Brexit. — Charles Michel (@eucopresident) November 20, 2017

Earlier on Monday, EU members had tapped Amsterdam as the future home the European Medicines Agency.

The two watchdogs, with a total of 1,000 highly skilled jobs between them, are currently based in London's Canary Wharf district but must leave before Britain quits the EU in March 2019.

Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank and aiming to be the Union's primary financial centre after Brexit, suffered a blow when it was badly beaten in the second round of EBA voting.

In a third round, Paris overhauled Dublin, which had been just one vote short of a second-round majority. With the scores in the runoff tied again by abstention, Paris won when the Estonian minister chairing the meeting, Matti Maasikas, again had to draw lots.

_______________

Read more:

[ Amsterdam pips Milan to be host city of EU medical agency ]

[ Lobby group urges 'ambitious' Brexit trade deal ]

[ Frankfurt winning race for post-Brexit banking spoils ]

_______________

Mr Maasikas struck a more subdued note, calling the contest "a sad reminder of the concrete consequences of Brexit".

The battle for both agencies has been bitterly contested, with governments jostling to win the backing of other countries with "hot bargaining" behind the scenes, a diplomatic source told AFP.

There were eight bidders for the banking regulator. The agency is perhaps best known for its regular "stress tests" on the EU's financial sector in the wake of the global financial crisis. Meanwhile, a total of 16 candidates had thrown their cap into the ring to be the new home of the EMA.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, delivered an evaluation of the applications in September based on a range of criteria, from transport links to job prospects for spouses and schools.

But the staff of the agencies in question, already being forced to up sticks from London, had reportedly been nervous about some of the candidates, reportedly including Bratislava, Warsaw, Bucharest and Sofia.

Despite fierce competition, the 27 EU states were keen to avoid any protracted and bruising dispute over the matter as they see preserving unity as essential in facing Brexit, the biggest setback in the post-World War Two history of European integration.

Meanwhile, for Britain, the departure of the two agencies is an economic and political blow.

Labour MP Lyn Brown tweeted that it showed London's "loss of influence" in the wake of Brexit.

Meanwhile, the centre-right European People's Party, which is the largest group in the European Parliament, said: "For the UK, its loss is the first self-inflicted wound of Brexit."

Output: After the UK leaves the EU, Paris will host the European Banking Authority, while Amsterdam hosts European Medical Agency. Both agencies are currently based in London's Canary Wharf district, but cannot remain there after Brexit. Paris narrowly beat Dublin when the chair of the meeting was forced to draw lots, after the cities acquired 13 votes each. Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank, was "badly beaten" in the second round of voting. The Estonian minister chairing the meeting, Matti Maasikas, said the contests were "a sad reminder of the concrete consequences of Brexit".


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Bitcoin wallet defaults to bitcoin cash, risking user confusion
 The Bitcoin wallet provided by Bitcoin.com is defaulting to Bitcoin clone Bitcoin Cash (BCH) instead of Bitcoin (BTC). Users sending Bitcoins to a BCH address could potentially lose their coins.

The controversy was brought to light on a posting on Reddit’s /r/Bitcoin, where one user claimed that the Bitcoin.com wallet defaulting to a BCH wallet is a “scam”. The move is certainly confusing, as the Bitcoin.com wallet which defaults to Bitcoin Cash is called a Bitcoin wallet and not a Bitcoin Cash wallet.

Reddit user /u/Renben9 posted:

I share your concern. Lots of people will send BTC to the BCH address. To all the geeks who don’t think this is a problem, view it from the perspective of a newbe: Go to exchange and buy bitcoins

Download bitcoin wallet

Send your bitcoins to your bitcoin wallet

Nothing happens.

Deceptive Name

The controversial Bitcoin fork, Bitcoin Cash – or BCH, is a clone of Bitcoin which has already been described by The Keiser Report host Max Keiser as a “fraud“;

Bitcoin cash is an alt-coin that has its fans just like many alt-coins. I don’t think anyone who uses bitcoin’s name and applies it to an alt-coin like bitcoin cash does is adhering to acceptable business practices. In other words, bitcoin’s brand is being stolen by a competitor that calls itself bitcoin cash and this is outright fraud in my opinion, just like it’s fraudulent to use Coca-Cola and Nike’s name to sell soft drinks or shoes.

The naming confusion expands further with the newly forked Bitcoin Cash using the website Bitcoin.com, and the Bitcoin most are familiar with uses Bitcoin.org. The chance of buying or even reading about the “the wrong bitcoin” is therefore increased, especially to those only just beginning to dabble in cryptocurrency.

How Exactly is BCH different from BTC?

Bitcoin Cash’s main difference from the core Bitcoin code is the adoption of a larger blocksize, which was increased to 8mb in a move deemed as important in trying to help Bitcoin transaction processing speed and bottlenecking issues. The downside of this is that it will make it harder for those running their own nodes such as on Raspberry Pi’s, deemed essential to keeping Bitcoin decentralized, no matter how small their contribution it can make a real difference in poorer countries lacking internet infrastructure.

Bitcoin core’s (The Bitcoin) answer to transaction speed is not increasing blocksize but instead introducing off chain solutions such as those provided by the Lightning Network. While this solves transaction speed and bottlenecking issues, including being able to swap Bitcoin for other currencies such as Litecoin, it does mean that those mining Bitcoin will not make as much money processing lower fee driven transactions.

All can agree that the waters have been muddied, but with traditional investors and the world’s largest trading platform CME Group due to start trading Bitcoin futures, it would appear BCH has a lot of catching up to do which may explain some of it’s potentially dirty and brand confusing tactics.

At press time, the price of Bitcoin Cash currently sits at $1186, compared to Bitcoin’s $8240.

Are Bitcoin.com and Bitcoin Cash abusing users by misusing the Bitcoin name? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Bloomberg, Reddit,

Output: The Bitcoin.com wallet is defaulting to bitcoin cash (BCH), sparking concerns users could potentially lose their coins. BCH was created from a fork of bitcoin (BTC) and the change threatens to confuse users who assume the name Bitcoin.com wallet means it is for BTC, rather than BCH, and send their coins to the wrong wallet. The naming confusion also means new investors are more likely to research or buy the "wrong bitcoin".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Amendment that 'could have kept UK in Customs Union' defeated
 Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

Deep Labour divisions over Brexit were exposed in the form of a bizarre three way split last night, after party whips forced MPs to vote with the Conservatives against an amendment that would keep the UK in the customs union.

Former Shadow Cabinet member Ian Murray tabled a surprise amendment to the Taxation (Cross Border Trade) Bill, which would have prevented taxes being charged on imports to the UK after it leaves the EU, a move that, owing to WTO rules, would effectively have kept the UK in the customs union.

Labour whips ordered MPs to vote against the amendment, which was defeated by 311 votes to 76, and saw the unusual spectacle of Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell voting with the government.

Mr Murray, having tabled the amendment, voted against his own party whip. Other Labour MPs abstained almost by accident, having been granted permission to leave the Commons.

Prominent Labour backbencher Wes Streeting said this morning: “I would have voted for Ian's amendments, but we were told that we could go home because no important votes (!) and I had a work commitment off the estate. Not happy.”

Ian Murray, who brought the amendment, said: “It is disappointing that this amendment was defeated but the fight for Customs Union membership is far from over.

“The Government’s reckless, ideological decision to pull us out of the Customs Union will damage trade with the EU, our biggest economic partner, and risk chaos at our ports with lorries backing up motorways as they face reams of new red tape. And it will make a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland inevitable.

“Customs Union membership is simply the best economic option for our country. Leaving it for fantasy new trade deals which cannot replicate the trade we do with Europe is no solution.”

After the vote took place, Labour’s Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner said the amendment was impractical and would not have kept the UK in the customs union. “Amendment would have stopped Treasury from applying any tariffs or quotas to goods in or out of EU after Brexit. It did NOT keep us in Customs Union as EU could still impose tariffs on us!” he wrote on Twitter.

Conservative former minister Anna Soubry, and prominent Remainer said: "It can't be right that the overwhelming majority of honourable and right honourable members in this place agree that we should be in the customs union and the single market.

"And the only reason that that isn't even on the table anymore, and it's an uncomfortable truth, is because I fear my party is in hock to 30 to 35 hard, ideologically driven Brexiteers."

Output: Last night, former Shadow Cabinet member Ian Murray tabled an amendment to the Taxation (Cross Border Trade) Bill, which would have stopped tax on UK imports from the EU. According to WTO rules, this would have meant the UK would still be part of the Customs Union. However, Labour’s Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner disagreed, saying this would only have stopped the UK from imposing tariffs on all traded goods between the UK and EU. Labour whips ordered MPs to vote down the amendment. It was defeated, with 311 votes against to 76 for.


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Kepler telescope finds exoplanet with super-short orbit
 K2 light curve of C12_3474. Stellar activity is seen as the quasi-periodic, long period modulation. Transits are visible as shallow dips. The 5.3-day-long data gap, during which the telescope entered in safe mode, is clearly visible at ∼2/3 of the time series. Credit: Barragán et al., 2017.

(Phys.org)—NASA's prolonged Kepler exoplanet-hunting mission, known as K2, has revealed the presence of another "super-Earth" alien world. The newly found planet, designated EPIC 246393474 b (or C12_3474 b), is more than five times more massive than the Earth and orbits its parent star in less than seven hours. The discovery is reported November 6 in a paper published on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Kepler is so far the most prolific planet-hunting telescope. The spacecraft has discovered more than 2,300 exoplanets to date. After the failure of its two reaction wheels in 2013, the mission was repurposed as K2 to perform high-precision photometry of selected fields in the ecliptic. Since then, the revived Kepler spacecraft has detected nearly 160 extrasolar worlds.

Researchers have used K2 to detect so-called "super-Earths" – planets with masses higher than Earth's but lower than that of the solar system's gas giants. In September, astronomers have confirmed the discovery of three super-Earths orbiting a nearby star, which were first spotted by this spacecraft. Now, an international group of researchers led by Oscar Barragán of the University of Turin in Italyusing K2 has detected one more such planet.

"In this paper we present the discovery of EPIC 246393474 b (hereafter C12_3474 b), an ultra-short-period planet transiting a K7 V star," the astronomers wrote in the paper.

The Kepler spacecraft observed a K-type main sequence star known as EPIC 246393474 from December 2016 to March 2017 during its Campaign 12. The star is about 740 million years old with a radius and mass approximately 33 percent smaller than that of the sun.

As a result of these observations, the researchers identified a transit signal in the light curve of this star. The planetary nature of this signal was later confirmed by follow-up observational campaign using ground-based telescopes, including the WIYN 3.5-Meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

According to the study, EPIC 246393474 b has a radius of 1.54 Earth radii and is 5.3 times more massive than our planet, indicating a density of approximately 8.0 g/cm3 and suggesting a rocky-iron composition. The exoplanet has an equilibrium temperature of 2,039 K.

"The planetary density is consistent with a composition made of a mixture of iron and rocks. We estimated that the iron content of C12_3474 b cannot exceed about 70 percent of the total planetary mass," the paper reads.

What is most interesting about EPIC 246393474 b is that it has an ultra-short orbital period. Barragán's team found that it orbits its host every 6.7 hours at a distance of about 0.007 AU. This makes it the shortest-period planet known to date with a precisely determined mass.

The researchers noted that the close distance of EPIC 246393474 b to its parent star suggests that it has lost its entire atmosphere due to stellar irradiation. However, they added that further mass measurements of transiting ultra-short-period planets should be performed in order to confirm this theory.

More information: EPIC 246393474 b: A 5-M⊕ super-Earth transiting a K7 V star every 6.7 hours, arXiv:1711.02097 [astro-ph.EP] arxiv.org/abs/1711.02097 Abstract

We report on the discovery of EPIC 246393474 b, an ultra-short-period super-Earth on a 6.7-hour orbit transiting an active K7 V star based on data from K2 campaign 12. We confirmed the planet's existence and measured its mass with a series of follow-up observations: seeing-limited MuSCAT imaging, NESSI high-resolution speckle observations, and FIES and HARPS high-precision radial-velocity monitoring. EPIC 246393474 b has a mass of 5.31±0.46 M⊕ and radius of 1.54+0.10−0.09 R⊕, yielding a mean density of 8.00+1.83−1.45 gcm−3 and suggesting a rocky-iron composition. Models indicate that iron cannot exceed ∼70 % of the total mass. With an orbital period of only 6.7 hours, EPIC 246393474 b is the shortest-period planet known to date with a precisely determined mass.

© 2017 Phys.org

Output: NASA's K2 Kepler telescope has identified another "super-Earth" exoplanet. The planet is five times bigger than Earth and orbits its parent star in under seven hours. Kepler has discovered over 2,300 planets so far, including super-Earths – planets with higher masses than Earth but lower than that of the solar system's gas giants.


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Scientists develop cheap solution for Wi-Fi and wireless security
 New 3-D reflectors optimize wireless coverage in the home and the office

HANOVER, N.H. - November 8, 2017- A team of researchers led by Dartmouth College may have finally solved the problem of how to inexpensively improve wireless signal strength for indoor spaces with multiple rooms. The same technology for enhancing office and home Wi-Fi signals can also be used to strengthen wireless security.

The research, to be presented on Wednesday, November 8, at ACM's BuildSys 2017 in Delft, Netherlands, relies on 3-D printing to produce a cheap, customized reflector that directs wireless signals to where users need them most.

"Through this single solution, we address a number of challenges that plague wireless users," said Xia Zhou, an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth. "Not only do we strengthen wireless signals, we make those same signals more secure."

Customizing the coverage of wireless networks inside buildings is critical for users to improve signal reception in desired areas while weakening signals in others. By shaping signals, users can increase wireless efficiency through lessening the signal-deadening impact of building materials and interior layouts.

Such a system can also make it more difficult for attackers by adding to existing security measures like encryption through physically confining wireless signals to limited spaces. This also leads to reduced interference.

Achieving the goal of improved wireless performance is particularly challenging indoors because of the complex interactions of radio signals with the environment. Existing approaches to optimizing wireless signals rely on directional antennae to concentrate signals, but this equipment is either difficult to configure or beset by high cost.

Through experiments presented in the research paper, the team improves upon previous studies that placed an aluminum soft-drink can behind a Wi-Fi access point to strengthen signal in one direction. The current research generalizes this idea by presenting a systematic approach to optimizing reflector shapes for enabling a more developed set of signal distributions.

After assessing interior layouts and the target areas to strengthen or weaken signal strength, the Dartmouth research team placed a "computationally optimized" signal reflector around a wireless router. The reflector, composed only of plastic and a thin layer of metal, redirects wireless signals to the desired coverage areas.

After testing the approach in two different interiors for signal strength and speed, the researchers reported that optimized 3-D reflectors provide numerous benefits including: strong physical security, low cost, and ease of use for non-expert users.

The researchers tested the reflector with a variety of off-the-shelf Wi-Fi access points, including those using the latest Wi-Fi protocol 802.11ac.

"With a simple investment of about $35 and specifying coverage requirements, a wireless reflector can be custom-built to outperform antennae that cost thousands of dollars," said Zhou.

To create the technology, the research designed an algorithm that optimizes a reflector's 3-D shape to target wireless coverage. The team also developed an approach to simulating how radio signals spread and interact with objects in their environment.

With information on a specific interior space, locations of wireless access points and the desired target area, the system computes an optimized reflector shape in only 23 minutes. Researchers found that the reflectors can decrease strength by up to 10 dB where the signal is not wanted and increase strength by 6 dB where it is desired. The reflector is also relatively easy to place.

Because the current design is limited by its static shape, the research team will now study reflectors made of different materials so that the device can automatically adapt its shape when the interior layout changes. The team will also examine higher frequency bands such as millimeter waves and visible light.

###

The research is a joint effort by researchers from Dartmouth College, University of Washington, Columbia University, and UC Irvine.

A video demonstration of the research can be viewed at: http://www.dartgo.org/3dwifireflector

Output: A cheap 3D-printed reflector can improve both Wi-Fi signal and wireless security, according to Dartmouth College researchers. Scientists used 3D printing technology to build a customised reflector to increase wireless efficiency, by directing the Wi-Fi signal and lessening the impact of building materials and interior layouts. Confining signals to limited spaces can also make it more difficult for hackers to interfere in a network, according to the research presented at ACM's BuildSys 2017 conference in Delft, Netherlands.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
NASA's latest space telescope completes pre-launch freeze test
 NASA's James Webb Space Telescope sits inside Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston after having completed its cryogenic testing on Nov. 18, 2017. This marked the telescope's final cryogenic testing, and it ensured the observatory is ready for the frigid, airless environment of space. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

The vault-like, 40-foot diameter, 40-ton door of Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston was unsealed on November 18, signaling the end of cryogenic testing for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

The historic chamber's massive door opening brings to a close about 100 days of testing for Webb, a significant milestone in the telescope's journey to the launch pad. The cryogenic vacuum test began when the chamber was sealed shut on July 10, 2017. Scientists and engineers at Johnson put Webb's optical telescope and integrated science instrument module (OTIS) through a series of tests designed to ensure the telescope functioned as expected in an extremely cold, airless environment akin to that of space.

"After 15 years of planning, chamber refurbishment, hundreds of hours of risk-reduction testing, the dedication of more than 100 individuals through more than 90 days of testing, and surviving Hurricane Harvey, the OTIS cryogenic test has been an outstanding success," said Bill Ochs, project manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The completion of the test is one of the most significant steps in the march to launching Webb."

These tests included an important alignment check of Webb's 18 primary mirror segments, to make sure all of the gold-plated, hexagonal segments acted like a single, monolithic mirror. This was the first time the telescope's optics and its instruments were tested together, though the instruments had previously undergone cryogenic testing in a smaller chamber at Goddard. Engineers from Harris Space and Intelligence Systems, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, worked alongside NASA personnel for the test at Johnson.

"The Harris team integrated Webb's 18 mirror segments at Goddard and designed, built, and helped operate the advanced ground support and optical test equipment at Johnson," said Rob Mitrevski, vice president and general manager of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance at Harris. "They were a key, enabling part of the successful Webb telescope testing team."

The Webb telescope team persisted with the testing even when Hurricane Harvey slammed into the coast of Texas on Aug. 25 as a category 4 hurricane before stalling over eastern Texas and weakening to a tropical storm, where it dropped as much as 50 inches of rain in and around Houston. Many Webb telescope team members at Johnson endured the historic storm, working tirelessly through overnight shifts to make sure Webb's cryogenic testing was not interrupted. In the wake of the storm, some Webb team members, including team members from Harris, volunteered their time to help clean up and repair homes around the city, and distribute food and water to those in need.

"The individuals and organizations that have led us to this most significant milestone represent the very best of the best. Their knowledge, dedication, and execution to successfully complete the testing as planned, even while enduring Hurricane Harvey, cannot be overstated," said Mark Voyton, James Webb Space Telescope optical telescope element and integrated science instrument manager at Goddard. "Every team member delivered critical knowledge and insight into the strategic and tactical planning and execution required to complete all of the test objectives, and I am honored to have experienced this phase of our testing with every one of them."

Before cooling the chamber, engineers removed the air from it, which took about a week. On July 20, engineers began to bring the chamber, the telescope, and the telescope's science instruments down to cryogenic temperatures—a process that took about 30 days. During cool down, Webb and its instruments transferred their heat to surrounding liquid nitrogen and cold gaseous helium shrouds in Chamber A. Webb remained at "cryo-stable" temperatures for about another 30 days, and on Sept. 27, the engineers began to warm the chamber back to ambient conditions (near room temperature), before pumping the air back into it and unsealing the door.

"With an integrated team from all corners of the country, we were able to create deep space in our chamber and confirm that Webb can perform flawlessly as it observes the coldest corners of the universe," said Jonathan Homan, project manager for Webb's cryogenic testing at Johnson. "I expect [Webb] to be successful, as it journeys to Lagrange point 2 [after launch] and explores the origins of solar systems, galaxies, and has the chance to change our understanding of our universe."

While Webb was inside the chamber, insulated from both outside visible and infrared light, engineers monitored it using thermal sensors and specialized camera systems. The thermal sensors kept tabs on the temperature of the telescope, while the camera systems tracked the physical position of Webb to see how its components very minutely moved during the cooldown process. Monitoring the telescope throughout the testing required the coordinated effort of every Webb team member at Johnson.

"This test team spanned nearly every engineering discipline we have on Webb," said Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for the Webb telescope at Goddard. "In every area there was incredible attention to detail and great teamwork, to make sure we understand everything that happened during the test and to make sure we can confidently say Webb will work as planned in space."

In space, the telescope must be kept extremely cold, in order to be able to detect the infrared light from very faint, distant objects. Webb and its instruments have an operating temperature of about 40 Kelvin (or about minus 387 Fahrenheit / minus 233 Celsius). Because the Webb telescope's mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) must be kept colder than the other research instruments, it relies on a cryocooler to lower its temperature to less than 7 Kelvin (minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit / minus 266 degrees Celsius).

To protect the telescope from external sources of light and heat (like the Sun, Earth and Moon), as well as from heat emitted by the observatory, a five-layer, tennis court-sized sunshield acts like a parasol that provides shade. The sunshield separates the observatory into a warm, sun-facing side (reaching temperatures close to 185 degrees Fahrenheit / 85 degrees Celsius) and a cold side (minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit / minus 240 degrees Celsius). The sunshield blocks sunlight from interfering with the sensitive telescope instruments.

Webb's combined science instruments and optics next journey to Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, where they will be integrated with the spacecraft element, which is the combined sunshield and spacecraft bus. Together, the pieces form the complete James Webb Space Telescope observatory. Once fully integrated, the entire observatory will undergo more tests during what is called "observatory-level testing." This testing is the last exposure to a simulated launch environment before flight and deployment testing on the whole observatory.

Webb is expected to launch from Kourou, French Guiana, in the spring of 2019.

Output: NASA has taken its latest space telescope out of deep freeze -- a key test of the device's resilience to the cold temperatures of space before its launch in 2019. The James Webb Space Telescope was sealed inside Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on July 10 where scientists tested its telescope and science instrument module to ensure they functioned as expected in space-like conditions.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
ProShares launches bearish brick and mortar ETF
 A little more than a week before one of the year’s biggest shopping days, ProShares launched an exchange traded fund designed to capitalize on poor performance of brick and mortar stores.

The ProShares Decline of the Retail Store ETF (EMTY) provides short exposure to companies in a sector that has struggled and shows few signs of turning around. While shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and Foot Locker, Inc. both leapt to more than 25 percent last week after stronger than expected earnings reported—the future for many companies in the retail sector feels grim.

ProShares points to declining sales and bankruptcies by more than 30 major retailers in the last three years, including Toys “R” Us, RadioShack and Payless.

The apparel segment accounts for more than 28 percent of the index, followed by department stores, at 10.71 percent, and then similar weights across others within the sector. J.C. Penny Co. Inc., Sears Holdings Corp., Barnes & Noble Inc. and others that have made headlines in recent years for poor performance are also in the index. The 56 companies are equally weighted.

The short-only fund moves inversely to the Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index and includes companies that receive at least 50 percent of their revenue from retail operations and 75 percent of that retail revenue from in-store sales.

Only U.S. companies are included in the index. The firms must have a market cap of at least $500 million and a six-month daily average value traded of at least $1 million, and meet other requirements, according to ProShares. It is rebalanced monthly and reconstituted annually.

“Stories sell, as we all know,” said Rusty Vanneman, the chief investment officer at CLS Investments.

He said thematic ETFs account for only about 3 percent of all ETFs and less than 1 percent of ETF assets. The strategies behind thematic ETFs might not be as effective as others, but their names and issues are typically identifiable and easy to explain—which draws money from retail investors.

Vanneman said the opposite can occur too. A manager might have a highly effective strategy, but if the name isn’t eye-catching or the strategy requires significant unpacking, positive flows might be harder to come by.

Michael Sapir, co‑founder and CEO of ProShare Advisors, said in a statement that investors are “witnessing signs of trouble in the malls and falling stock prices in the markets” and for the first time “can turn these trends into a potential investment opportunity through an ETF.”

ProShares also launched another ETF that tracks an index of both online companies and stores. The ProShares Long Online/Short Stores Index (CLIX) has long positions in retailers and shorts companies that rely principally on in-store retail revenue.

Output: ProShares has launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) hoping to profit from the poor performance of brick and mortar stores. The Decline of the Retail Store ETF offers short exposure to firms in the struggling retail sector. The fund moves conversely to the Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Index, and includes US firms with at least 50% of revenue from retail operations, 75% of which has to come from in-store sales.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
PayPal inks partnership with micro-investing app Acorns
 PayPal is funding several new digital services lately. You can send cash to your friends via the money service using Facebook Messenger, Skype and even PayPal's own money cards. The company also makes it easy to pool money for gifts and tip Twitch streamers. Now you can fund your Acorn investment account with PayPal, too, making it easier to take care of your financial future.

Acorns is an app-based service that empowers you to invest your spare change in stocks, similarly to other apps, like Qapital. Once you connect your bank (or PayPal) account to Acorns, you can monitor it within PayPal, either online or in the PayPal app itself. You'll also be able to check the value of your Acorns account, monitor your contributions and see your investment transfers all without having to launch the Acorns app. You can make recurring or one-time investments using PayPal funds, or you can have Acorns "round up" any purchases you make with PayPal and invest that spare change.

Output: PayPal has partnered with the micro-investing app Acorns, which helps users invest their spare change. Under the deal, users will be able to link their Acorns account and monitor it via the PayPal app, allowing them to also make investments using their online funds. California-based Acorns works by rounding up payments made by users through the app to the nearest dollar, and investing the difference. These funds can then be topped up with other one-off or recurring payments.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Bank execs fleeing for cryptocurrency firms
 Executives tasked with exploring blockchain tech for banks and consulting firms are finding it harder and harder to resist going full crypto. Case in point: three executives at BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, and PWC well known for leading blockchain work at their firms have left to pursue their own blockchain projects in recent days. Their reason? They want to pursue blockchain ambitions outside the strictures of a corporate innovation lab.

The executives are now either directly employed by blockchain “venture studio” ConsenSys, or will work on their own projects with ConsenSys funding. Among them is Alex Batlin, who formerly led blockchain work at BNY Mellon, and before that at UBS. He’s now working on his own company, Trustology, with backing from ConsenSys. “I am a big believer in cryptoassets being super exciting, so being able to take these ideas to production in a timeframe that I want to do it in, it’s really tricky to do that in a bank,” he says. The other two execs are PWC’s Ajit Tripathi and Deutsche Bank’s Edward Budd.

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It’s not the first time execs at big banks have defected to go all-in on blockchain. One well known example is Blythe Masters, who joined Digital Asset Holdings as chief executive, after leading commodities trading at JPMorgan. Others have turned to blockchain ventures after departing the C-suite, whether as founders or investors. There’s ex-Barclays head Antony Jenkins, the founder of data optimization fintech firm 10x Future Technologies who joined the board of Blockchain in 2016, and former UBS chief information officer Oliver Bussman, who promotes Switzerland’s “Crypto Valley” as a base for blockchain companies in the canton of Zug.

The blockchain specialists are leaving their corporate employers with valuable contacts. Last year three members of a blockchain team at Deloitte in Toronto left to form their own startup, with their ex-employers’ blessing. Batlin, the former BNY Mellon man, says he hopes the bank will be a client of his new project eventually.

Money is flowing into the crypto space. For instance, ConsenSys was started in 2014 by Joseph Lubin, a cofounder of Ethereum, which has gained 2,900% this year alone. “I believe ConsenSys pays a lot better than a bank,” says one executive working on innovation at a global bank who has been involved in the cryptocurrency space for years, who did want to be named.

The executives who are moving say money isn’t the reason. For Batlin, it’s the freedom to move quickly on a technology that he’s been covering for his employers for years. It’s the same story with Tripathi, who was until recently a director at PWC in charge of blockchain and fintech matters. He’s now joining ConsenSys as a partner, and will be in charge of delivering projects to corporate clients. “You can’t turn on a dime in big corporations,” Tripathi says. “There is a bubble right now, and the bubble drives innovation. Does it make it easier for [blockchain startups] to attract talent? Absolutely it does, because there is definitely a lot more runway. But it’s not about the money.”

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Budd, previously the chief digital officer for the global transaction bank at Deutsche, joined ConsenSys to help launch its new UK office, according to efinancialcareers.

For Batlin, a veteran of corporate innovation labs, the flow of talent from big banks and consultancies to blockchain startups is just part of the natural order. “In many ways, this kind of rotation is natural,” he says. “As you experiment in the lab you start getting ideas, but you can’t take stuff to production in a lab. That’s the definition of a lab.”

Correction [Nov. 20]: An earlier version of this post said 10x Future Technologies was a blockchain venture. It is a data optimization fintech startup.

Output: A number of bank blockchain specialists are leaving their roles and moving directly into cryptocurrencies. Alex Batlin, formerly of BNY Mellon, Ajit Tripathi, from PwC, and Deutsche Bank's Edward Budd have all recently left their jobs to pursue projects outside the restrictions of their previous organisations. All three are now directly employed by blockchain software company ConsenSys, or on schemes backed by ConsenSys. Batlin, now at Trustology, said he was excited about "being able to take these ideas to production in a time-frame that I want to do it in".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
AI creates a number of risks for insurers: Novarica
 The promise of artificial intelligence in the insurance industry is threefold:

To help insurers get deeper insights into their business and make better decisions.

To automate insurer processes and decision-making for increased efficiency and reduced cost.

To create a better customer experience that provides more immediate responses and requires less arduous data collection.

Parts for an ESP (electronic stability program) console sit in a premould machine inside the Robert Bosch GmbH manufacturing plant in Hatvan, Hungary, on Tuesday, August 23, 2016. Chief executive officer Volkmar Denner said Bosch has no plans to scale back U.K. capital expenditures and that it was too early to determine the impact of Brexit on the business. Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg Akos Stiller/Bloomberg

But with that promise comes risk – perhaps greater than the risks inherent with all new technologies – that the insurance industry needs to consider. The Financial Stability Board released a detailed report this month on the potential upsides and downsides of AI, most of which align with Novarica’s research of the technology.

Risk one: Reliance on external players

Many of the risks highlighted in the report stem from the increasing reliance financial services companies will have on outside technology companies for key business components. This results in several problems:

It creates an environment where the regulatory bodies overseeing banking and insurance may not have the same influence or access to those critical tech companies.

Outside players providing technology used for decision-making means limited auditability after something has gone wrong.

A single point of failure creates problems for the whole industry; if one technology player is hacked or goes out of business, it can impact a large percentage of financial institutions at once.

Risk two: Opacity of decision-making

Another source of risk is that the results of AI and machine learning may be too complex for humans to fully understand. As the FSB report puts it, “New trading algorithms based on machine learning may be less predictable than current rule-based applications and may interact in unexpected ways.” The FSB report is focusing mostly on how such opacity might mean volatility or instability in the financial markets due to AI-based trading, but this applies to the insurance industry as well.

Existing regulatory rules in the insurance space make this risk less likely in some areas of the business. Because insurers of admitted lines must file their rates with the state, there’s a limit to how much AI will be able to influence actuarial models. Insurers may use AI behind the scenes to determine new variables and tables, but that information will need to be translated into traditional rate models. Many insurers use predictive analytics in a parallel way, reducing scores into broad pricing categories (e.g., platinum, gold, silver status) for the same reason.

Another example is an insurer that piloted the use of AI for determining direct marketing campaigns. After IT ran its data through a neural network to come up with demographic priorities, the marketing organization ignored the results. That marketing team saw AI as a black box and didn’t understand the prioritization. When IT instead reverted to a simpler model with scores in fewer key factors, it was seen as a success, and the marketing team adjusted its direct marketing approach. Despite the less sophisticated model, the visibility into how the algorithm came to its conclusion meant humans could understand and buy into the results.

A combination of regulations and human resistance will likely slow down the adoption of pure AI-driven decision-making at many insurers. However, that won’t hold it off forever, and insurers will need to carefully watch areas where AI technology means humans no longer fully understand why certain decisions are being made.

Risk three: Implementing bias

An important finding from the report is worth repeating in full. “Even if innovative insurance pricing models are based on large data sets and numerous variables, algorithms can entail biases that can lead to non-desirable discrimination and even reinforce human prejudices.”

Machine learning algorithms utilize historical data to make future decisions. If insurers train AI systems using past decisions made by humans, then any human biases inherent in those previous actions will be part of the training. Without careful review, it’s possible (or likely) that AI systems will learn and unintentionally magnify human bias when making future decisions. Insurers, with their large stores of data – and their impact on human lives – have an obligation to work against such biases. If humans cede responsibility of decision-making to algorithms, it’s important to recognize that it does not absolve the industry of that responsibility.

Risk four: When AI is too smart

One existential threat is that AI and the access to big data may result in insurers getting too good at predicting risk for individual applicants. The insurance industry works because of the nature of a risk pool, where overall premiums cover the percentage of people and businesses that file claims. But when predictive abilities reach a certain level, the risk pool breaks down. Will AI become so intelligent that it creates entire classes of uninsurable people?

This is already a problem in the health insurance space, especially in terms of pre-existing conditions, which is why the government is involved. Insurers need to be wary of other lines going the same way, where suddenly state or federal regulators have to step in to make sure certain drivers aren’t excluded from auto insurance or certain businesses from liability coverage.

Insurers have a responsibility to do the best job they can in determining risk and setting rates. As such, it’s unlikely that the industry will hold off on applying new risk-predictive technologies when they become available. But more than any other industry, insurers hold their overall mission to help people and businesses above pure profit, and this threat is one they will eventually need to grapple with as AI technology matures.

This blog entry has been reprinted with permission from Novarica.

Output: The adoption of artificial intelligence within insurance is not without risks to the industry, according to Jeff Goldberg, SVP of research Novarica. Among the risks Goldberg notes is the opacity introduced when AI is utilised. Many AI systems are too complex for humans to get their heads around, which results in the output produced by the technology being rejected, discarded or overlooked. Another risk, according to Goldberg, is AI becoming too smart, potentially creating large pools of uninsurable parties it determines cannot be economically covered.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Enormous demand from businesses to offer Lemonade's coverage
 Digital insurer Lemonade reports that more than 400 businesses applied to sell its insurance within the first 24 hours after it offered to make its sales platform widely available.

On October 12, Lemonade announced it launched a public API (application programming interface), allowing anyone to offer its renters and home insurance policies through their apps or websites.

Within the first day, Lemonade said more than 400 businesses applied for early access. Writing on the company blog, CEO and Co-Founder Daniel Schreiber provided a breakdown of those applying:

43% real estate and property management firms

28% financial services

21% e-commerce

8% home security and IoT

The company told Insurance Journal that it is rolling out the API program slowly, using an automated system to distinguish among applicants. It is using various criteria to determine which businesses to work with including the target markets of the businesses applying, whether they are in the seven states where Lemonade currently sells insurance and whether offering renters and home insurance is compatible with their focus.

“Our natural first step is to look towards real estate partners and financial services, but the beauty of the API is that it will grow as Lemonade expands its product line as well, expanding its relevancy for other businesses,” the company said in an email reply to an inquiry.

Lemonade currently offer renters, condo and home insurance in New York, California, New Jersey and Nevada; renters and condo insurance in Texas and Rhode Island; and renters insurance in Illinois. It plans to enter additional states in the coming year.

Output: After launching a public API in October, insurtech Lemonade received more than 400 applications from businesses looking to offer its coverage as an add-on service with 24 hours. The majority of these firms were property management firms or real estate companies - the firm largely offers renters insurance. Financial service firms and e-commerce companies also had a heavy presence among applicants. Lemonade isn't allowing every to offer its coverage immediately. The firm says it will assess third-parties' target market. It also is restricted, at present, to the seven states it is licensed to sell insurance in.