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Ecobank unveils mVisa-based Scan+Pay cashless payments in Africa
 Ecobank launches mVisa in 33 countries across Africa

Ecobank Scan+Pay with mVisa delivers instant, secure cashless payment for goods and services by allowing customers to scan a QR code on a smartphone or enter a unique merchant identifying code into either a feature phone or smartphone

How to make payments with mVisa. (Image source: Visa)

The strategic tie-up signals interoperability on a cross-border level, and potentially huge gains, as it affords consumers with the ability to use their mobile phone to directly access the funds in their bank accounts to pay person-to-merchant (P2M) or person-to-person (P2P).

Ecobank Scan+Pay with mVisa delivers instant, secure cashless payment for goods and services by allowing customers to scan a QR code on a smartphone or enter a unique merchant identifying code into either a feature phone or smartphone. The payment goes straight from the consumer’s bank account into the merchant’s account and provides real-time notification to both parties. This serves to accelerate digital commerce and combat some of the challenges merchants have faced using traditional point of sale systems, including the cost of installation coupled with the requirement of electricity and internet connectivity.

Ecobank mVisa solutions also enable customers to send money instantly to any Visa cardholders worldwide. This is a major innovation that serves the needs of Africans in the diaspora by enabling them to simply link their Visa card to the Ecobank unified mobile app to send money home to another Visa cardholder quickly and securely.

“We are fulfilling our commitment to give every African the right to participate effectively in the global economy at an affordable price and in a convenient manner. Ecobank Scan+Pay with mVisa helps merchants – particularly small and micro merchants – to grow their sales without the risks of carrying cash whilst also giving consumers the ability to pay for goods and services in a cashless manner from their phones. Consumers can also conduct person-to-person payments and instantly transfer money to their friends and family via their phones at very low cost,” said Ecobank Chief Executive Officer Ade Ayeyemi.

The partnership demonstrates both Ecobank and Visa’s continued commitment to provide financial services to the banked and unbanked in Africa by leveraging digital platforms to offer convenient and affordable payment mechanisms.

Andrew Torre, President for Visa Sub-Saharan Africa said, “We are glad to partner with Ecobank to bring mVisa into the market, a mobile payment solution with real benefits to drive digital transformation backed by advantages of Visa’s global network - security, reliability and global acceptance, allowing consumers to make payments both domestically and internationally.”

Output: Ecobank has partnered with Visa to launch its Scan+Pay secure mobile payment solution throughout 33 African nations. Users can make instant payments for goods and services, as well as peer-to-peer and international transfers, to any other Visa cardholder via a mobile phone. Also, businesses using the system as a point of sale don't need to install additional, expensive hardware. Ecobank said its Scan+Pay with mVisa solution, which is built on QR code technology, is aimed at bringing digital financial services to Africa's banked and unbanked populations.


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Retailer Jumia launches Nigeria's first e-commerce chatbot
 Jumia introduces Nigeria’s first e-commerce robot, Jumia Bot

The Jumia Bot works by asking customers what they’re looking for and then using their answers to find the best offers

Jumia Bot, Nigeria's first e-commerce bot. (Image source: Jumia)

Jumia introduced JumiaBot on 2 October, Nigeria’s first e-commerce Bot. Using Jumia Bot, shoppers can order food, find fashion or electronic items and book hotels and flights by simply having an online conversation with the bot.

This innovation, powered and hosted by Facebook Messenger, will offer Nigeria’s 18 Million Facebook users the ability to get their own personal Jumia shopping assistant directly on Facebook Messenger. For example, to get access to the best hotel and airfare deals on Facebook Messenger, a user can simply provide his or her preferred date and destination to the bot in order to see the top recommendations.

Once a user’s criteria is selected, Jumia Bot will remember and use the research for his or her next order. The bot, developed by Jumia with support from Facebook, uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and natural learning process to hone in and learn users’ preferences over time in order to make recommendations that are personalised, timeline and useful to the shopper. The shopper’s post-order experience is also integrated into Jumia Bot. As a result, shoppers can track their orders and contact the Customer Service team for follow-up questions.

"When we launched Bot for Businesses on Messenger, our goal was to help companies make meaningful connections with their customers in order to meet their business goals.” said Emeka Afigbo, Head, Platform Partnerships, Middle East and Africa at Facebook. “We are excited to be part of the story in providing technology solutions to one of Africa’s leading e-commerce websites.”

In a statement on the significance of this new service, Juliet Anammah, CEO Jumia Nigeria said, “Jumia Bot has a very simple yet important objective: to help our customers get to personalised deals on Jumia Nigeria. We are pleased to unveil this new dimension of e-shopping for the Nigerian customer, and excited about helping to pioneer the next wave of local content and tech tools within our ecosystem.”

Output: Nigerian online retail firm Jumia has launched Jumia Bot, the country's first-ever e-commerce chatbot. Operating via Facebook's Messenger app, the bot is aimed at the 18 million users of the social media platform in Nigeria, and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to offer an increasingly tailored shopping service over time. "JumiaBot has a very simple yet important objective: to help our customers get to personalised deals on Jumia Nigeria," said Juliet Anammah, CEO of the retailer.


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Starling bank follows rival Revolut into business banking
 Starling Bank has followed rival banking challenger Revolut into business banking. The fintech disruptor will target entrepreneurs, sole-traders and small business owners.

Starling is now accepting registrations from interested businesses, and will open to a group of closed testers towards the end of the year. It plans to take the product live in early 2018.

Key features of the service will include same-day set up (free of charge), round the clock customer service availability and access to Starling’s marketplace, which is comprised of an integrated array of technology services. Via the marketplace, businesses will be able to link their bank account to their invoicing and accounting services. Businesses will also be able to categorise transactions. Payment services, including real-time Faster Payments and international payments, will also be included.

“At the heart of Starling Bank is an understanding of our customers and their passions,” said Anne Boden (pictured), founder and CEO of Starling. “For a large number of our customers, that passion is a side hustle or small business that they run alongside their nine-to-five. What’s therefore become apparent is that a hugely underserved group of people exist who need more than a personal current account but aren’t quite a small business.”

Starling’s closest competitor in what Boden terms the “side hustle” space will be Curve, which caters to business owners, directors, freelancers and contractors across Europe. The firm raised $10m in a series A fundraise in July, with global banks Santander InnoVentures and Investec participating in the round. Starling is backed by $70m in venture funding from a single Bahamas-based investor named Harald McPike.

Revolut launched its business-facing service in June, landing a number of FTSE 100 companies, including two international airlines. Revolut’s business banking service costs between £25 and £1,000 per month, depending on the package, and is compatible with 25 currencies.

Starling and Curve appear to be going after smaller business operations, leaving Revolut to battle it out with incumbents.

“We are focused on sole traders and small businesses because the banking industry hasn’t offered something tailored for them,” said Sarah Guha, product director at Starling Bank.

Output: London-based disruptor Starling Bank is set to offer business banking to entrepreneurs, sole-traders and small business owners. CEO Anne Boden wants to target a "hugely underserved group of people who need more than a personal current account but aren’t quite a small business". Starling is looking to offer services including 24/7 customer service availability, access to the bank's marketplace and same day, free set-up. The company will test the product on a small group at the end of this year with a view to going live in 2018.


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Study tests whether robots can influence insects to help humans
 Robots help ants with daily chores so they can be accepted into the colony. Credit: Dr Bertrand Collignon

Tiny mobile robots are learning to work with insects in the hope the creatures' sensitive antennae and ability to squeeze into small spaces can be put to use serving humans.

With a soft electronic whirr, a rather unusual looking ant trundles along behind a column of its arthropod comrades as they march off to fetch some food.

While the little insects begin ferrying tiny globules of sugar back home, their mechanical companion bustles forward to effortlessly pick up the entire container and carry it back to the nest.

It is a dramatic demonstration of how robots can be introduced and accepted into insect societies.

But the research, which is being conducted as part of the EU-funded CyBioSys project, could be an important step towards using robots to subtly control, or work alongside, animals or humans.

'The idea is to be able to solve (a) problem with a better solution than they (the robots and insects) can produce individually,' said Dr Bertrand Collignon, who is leading the research at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland.

The robots, which 'live' with the ants, pick up signs that food has been discovered through a camera mounted inside the nest. The camera alerts the robots when it detects an increasing numbers of ants are departing – a sign that food has been found.

The robots – reprogrammed off-the-shelf Thymio bots managed by simple Raspberry Pi computers – then use sensors to follow the columns of exiting ants. Once the ants have led their robotic counterparts to their discovery, the robots take over, using their superior muscle power to lug it home.

Dr Collignon described this as a 'cyber-biological system', which improves both on the natural order, and on what robots could achieve on their own. By getting ants and robots to collaborate, each community plays to its strengths, he says.

'The ants are good at exploring the environment very efficiently, with many scouts patrolling the vicinity of the nest at the same time,' said Dr Collignon, who is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie action fellow. 'But individual ants are not able to transport large amounts of food and some can get lost between the food and the nest.'

Robots are like pack animals in comparison, carrying an order of magnitude more food than an ant can, and accomplishing in a few minutes what would have taken the ants hours.

Dr Collignon believes it is the first project to consider an insect swarm as a biosensor and then embed in a robot the ability to extract data from the colony.

But he also believes this research could be combined with other work teaching robots to communicate with animals. Instead of relying on top-down instructions—like a shepherd dog herding sheep—this would work by subtly influencing them from a position as one of the group.

As many social insects such as ants and bees can form aggressive colonies that normally do not respond well to outsiders, influencing them from within may offer a new approach.

In a previous EU-funded project, LEURRE, a team pioneered the creation of small mobile robots that could interact with cockroaches and influence their collective behaviour.

When kept in a pen together, cockroaches will gradually gather under the same dark shelter. They achieve this simply by following two rules: stay close to other cockroaches, and head for somewhere dark.

But when the researchers released small robots into the pen programmed with slightly different rules—stay close to other cockroaches but prefer a lighter refuge—in time the cockroaches, along with the robots, gathered in the lighter shelter instead.

Dr Collignon believes that the two types of robotic work – collaboration and communication – could find applications in search and rescue, exploring environments too dangerous or inaccessible for humans. Eventually, small animals could be used to get into restricted environments such as collapsed buildings.

By integrating artificial systems, such as robots, into more natural ones – such as a warehouse full of chickens – it could lead to new solutions to help control animal behaviour on farms. An example might be preventing deadly mass panic attacks amongst intensively reared animals by using robots that can detect the early signs of an impending stampede and diverting one by behaving in a different way.

'The first step is to be able to track what natural agents are doing and react appropriately to that,' he said. 'That's already a tricky thing. Once you have sensed what nature is doing, you can then interact. The robotic agent can do what it has been designed for and then act on the system.'

Output: Researchers at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne are deploying tiny robots in insect colonies to see whether machines could be used to subtly alter group behaviour to the benefit of humans. The team placed reprogrammed Thymio bots in a colony of ants to see if ant and machine can work together when finding food. The experiment is part of the European Union-funded CyBioSys project, and scientists said future applications could include search-and-rescue scenarios.


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YouTube changes algorithm after Las Vegas shooting fake news
 SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube has changed its powerful search algorithm to promote videos from more mainstream news outlets in search results after people looking for details on the Las Vegas shooting were served up conspiracy theories and misinformation.

YouTube confirmed the changes Thursday. It didn't say how it decides which news sources are authoritative.

In the days after the mass shooting, videos abounded on YouTube, some questioning whether the shooting occurred and others claiming law enforcement officials had deceived the public about what really happened.

Searching for "Las Vegas shooting" on YouTube led many people to these videos, some of which claimed it was a "false flag," a term conspiracy theorists use to refer to mass shootings they believe were staged by the government to promote gun control.

Law enforcement officials say Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone, opening fire Sunday from the 32-second floor of the hotel. The attack killed 58 people and injured nearly 500. Paddock shot and killed himself as police tried to break into the room.

Jake Morphonios, who runs the End Times News Report, championed the theory of a second shooter on the fourth floor of the Mandalay Bay casino. He says he presented a "fact-based analysis of the evidence" and insists "there is nothing offensive in my videos." But Morphonios says he received a strike from YouTube for violating its community standards. YouTube takes down accounts that get three strikes in three months.

As a result, Morphonios told YouTube viewers he deleted all of the Las Vegas videos.

"I hated to do it, but if I get any more strikes, my entire channel is going to be deleted," he said in a video explaining the decision.

More:Portrait of a killer: Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock remains an enigma to police

More:Las Vegas shooting: Answering 4 common questions

More:We don't know Stephen Paddock's motive. Does it matter?

More:Vegas killer's girlfriend: He was 'a kind, quiet caring man'

Public outcry over YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories is just the latest online flap for the major U.S. Internet companies. Within hours of the attack, Facebook and Google were called out for promoting conspiracy theories, with one anonymous message board misidentifying the shooter and claiming he was an anti-Trump Democrat.

Paddock's motives still aren't clear. He was a retired accountant with a taste for high-stakes poker. His brother, Eric Paddock, said he wasn't aware of any religious or political affiliations.

More:Google search spread wrong info from 4chan on Las Vegas shooting suspect

More:Google looks for Russian meddling in election after Twitter slammed

More:Facebook political ads are coming out of the shadows — why you should care

This isn't the first time fringe content has plunged YouTube into controversy. Major brands pulled spending on YouTube earlier this year after reports surfaced that their ads were running next to extremist videos.

YouTube is one of the Internet's most popular destinations for video. People now watch more than 1 billion hours of videos a day on it.

Helping drive that popularity is the "Up next" column which suggests additional videos to viewers.

The Wall Street Journal found incidents this week in which YouTube suggested videos promoting conspiracy theories next to videos from mainstream news sources. YouTube acknowledged issues with the "Up next" algorithm and said it was looking to promote more authoritative results there, too.

More:Las Vegas survivors have been through hell. And it's not over.

Output: YouTube has made changes to its search algorithm after people attempting to learn about the Las Vegas shooting on Sunday, that resulted in the deaths of 58 people, were directed to conspiracy theories and fake news. The changes will seek to promote more mainstream news, but YouTube has not indicated how it will determine which sources are authoritative. Facebook and Google have also been criticised for promoting conspiracy theories about the shooting. Earlier this year, brands removed ads from YouTube after it merged that they were running alongside extremist videos.


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Insurtech Pie Insurance launches in US following $4.3m fundraise
 Pie Insurance, a direct distribution workers’ compensation Insurtech business, has launched today at InsureTech Connect. Pie Insurance said it had closed on a $4.3 million seed round led by Sirius Group, Moxley holdings and Elefund.

Sirius Group, is a global specialty insurer and reinsurer with $2.9 billion in capital and an A.M. Best “A” rating; Moxley Holdings os an early stage VC for data-enabled businesses; and Elefund, is an early stage VC with seed investments in FinTech businesses such as eShares and Robinhood.

Pie Insurance’s co-founder and CEO is John Swigart, who was part of the executive team that led Esurance from start-up to $1.3 billion in premiums and sale to Allstate for $1 billion in 2011.

The company’s initial service is an interactive Price Predictor tool that allows SMEs an improved insight into their workers’ compensation insurance rates. In 2018 Pie expects to begin offering its own A.M. Best “A” rated insurance policies.

The tool is said to be a “tangible demonstration of Pie’s commitment to innovative and transparent insurance solutions for U.S. small business owners.” The company states that 90% of small businesses in many industries are overpaying for workers’ compensation.

The Pie Price Predictor tool is said to be the first of its kind to be tailored for SMEs, assessing the range each business should be paying for insurance and the market average from a few user-submitted pieces of information. It leverages Pie’s pricing algorithms and is powered by Valen Analytics, an Insurity company.

“The SMB market is often overcharged and underserved when it comes to meeting their commercial insurance needs,” stated Swigart. “The traditional high-touch approach agents and underwriters use in commercial lines lead to high prices and a protracted customer experience. Yet, the profitability in this sector indicates that small accounts are subsidizing larger accounts at most insurance companies. By focusing exclusively on small businesses with a digitally enabled solution, Pie will solve this problem at scale.”

Joel Moxley, General Partner with Moxley Holdings, said he believes Pie can become a meaningful player in the $100 billion SME insurance market.

Output: Pie Insurance, an insurtech focusing workers' compensation, has launched following the closing of its seed funding round. The firm raised $4.3m from the round, which was led by Sirius Group, Moxley holdings and Elefund. The firm will initially offer a service to small and medium-sized businesses allowing enterprises to monitor workers' compensation insurance rates. It plans to offer its own insurance policies by 2018.


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China's Guirenniao to buy a part of Prince Global Sports trademark
 Chinese sportswear maker Guirenniao Co. Ltd. plans to acquire part of the trademark rights of U.S.-based Prince Global Sports LLC for $20 million.

The deal will give Guirenniao the rights to Prince trademark assets, including its websites and social media, the rights to develop and sell Prince-branded products in Greater China, including in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, as wells as in South Korea.

Prince is a famous manufacturer of tennis rackets, footwear and apparel. However, the private company has undergone financial challenges and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012.

The deal can help the Chinese buyer diversify its brands and markets, the company said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Saturday.

Guirenniao, which is popular in smaller cities in China, said it will make use of Prince’s assets and will target high-end consumers in first- and second-tier cities.

Trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, where Guirenniao lists, is closed during the week-long national holiday between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.

Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com)

Output: China's Guirenniao is to buy a portion of the trademark rights of struggling US-based Prince Global Sports, which would give the Chinese sportswear maker the rights to Prince trademark assets such as its social media, websites and rights to develop and sell Prince products in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and South Korea. Prince, famous for its tennis rackets, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012.


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Severe turbulence to increase due to climate change
 Climate change is set to increase the amount of severe turbulence on planes by 2050 to 2080, according to a study.

Researchers at the University of Reading in England analyzed supercomputer simulations of the future atmosphere, focusing on clear air turbulence. As it is invisible, clear air turbulence is seen as being especially problematic.

For nervous fliers, the numbers contained within the research do not make for comfortable reading.

The study projects that severe turbulence at a typical cruising altitude of 39,000 feet is set to rise by roughly 181 percent over the North Atlantic; 161 percent over Europe; 113 percent over North America; 92 percent over the North Pacific; and 64 percent over Asia.

Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) describes severe turbulence as being characterized by large and abrupt changes in altitude or attitude (relating to an aircraft's orientation), as well as "large variation in indicated airspeed." During severe turbulence, an aircraft "may be temporarily out of control," the CASA adds.

Output: Climate change will raise the amount of severe turbulence experienced on aeroplanes by 2050 to 2080, according to a study by the University of Reading. For aircraft cruising around 39,000 ft, it suggests potential increases of 181% over the North Atlantic, 161% over Europe, 113% over North America, 92% over the North Pacific, and 64% over Asia. Severe turbulence, large and abrupt changes to altitude, causes hundreds of passenger injuries annually and is a well-known risk for flight attendants. Lead researcher, Professor Paul Williams, said the study "highlighted the need to develop better turbulence forecasts".


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MassMutual introduces data-powered mortality risk system
 SPRINGFIELD, Mass., and OAKLAND, Calif.,, Oct. 04, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) announced today the launch of LifeRisk 360 – an exciting new digital initiative that will utilize cutting-edge data science techniques to create the first individual mortality risk scoring system of its kind for the life insurance industry.

The LifeRisk 360 initiative is headed by Sears Merritt, MassMutual’s Chief Data Scientist, and draws on machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies, as well as hundreds of millions of data points that characterize the health and behavior of millions of individuals spanning nearly two decades.

Among the anticipated benefits to life insurance carriers: significant improvements in the application process and a substantial improvement in the ability to deliver rapid assessment of individual life insurance risk relative to current industry best practices.

“We are excited to introduce LifeRisk 360 – an innovative and distinct life insurance risk assessment platform designed to bring new intelligent insights into a largely manual process,” Merritt said. “By leveraging linked data elements and machine learning methodologies, our objective is to further reduce underwriting decision time and improve mortality risk selection.”

Importantly, MassMutual and Captricity, an Oakland, Calif.-based intelligent automation provider for insurance, announced today that they are exploring a potential partnership in which Captricity would make the LifeRisk 360 scoring service broadly available to the U.S. life insurance market on a fee-for-service basis. MassMutual utilized Captricity’s distinct solution to create a proprietary dataset, which underpins the new LifeRisk 360 product.

“Our planned partnership with LifeRisk 360 rewards our insurance carriers and their customers by reimagining underwriting as a modern, digital process,” said Kuang Chen, CEO of Captricity. “This solution enables insurers to eliminate many of the manual steps and friction associated with underwriting. This solution will be an industry pivot point, giving carriers the ability to accelerate their own data-driven underwriting initiatives to deliver minimally invasive decisions faster.”

Pending completion of the final agreement, the new solution is expected to be available to life insurance companies beginning in the first quarter of 2018.

About MassMutual

MassMutual is a leading mutual life insurance company that is run for the benefit of its members and participating policyowners. MassMutual offers a wide range of financial products and services, including life insurance, disability income insurance, long term care insurance, annuities, retirement plans and other employee benefits. For more information, visit www.massmutual.com.

About Captricity

Captricity’s AI-powered intelligent automation solution extracts and enhances data at 99.9% accuracy from any customer channel — including handwritten documents — and delivers it seamlessly into downstream systems and workflows. Thirteen of the top 20 US life insurers use high-quality, normalized data from Captricity to deliver business insights that increase revenue, lower costs, and drive a deeper understanding of risk. Captricity is headquartered in Oakland, CA. For more information, visit www.captricity.com.

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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6daba31c-f2b2-4509-a4cf-461ca11f62ab

Output: MassMutual is launching a platform using data to devise a mortality risk scoring system to be used by its life insurance arm. The platform, dubbed LifeRisk 360, will reportedly be able to use data and machine learning to assess the health and lifestyles of millions of potential clients. The firm says the platform will allow for greater individual assessment when providing life insurance policies. MassMutual worked with California-based Captricity in launching the platform. Captricity provided the underlying data for LifeRisk 360 and the two firms also announced the data service may be made available to external clients.


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Google Assistant is twice as smart as Siri
 Google's artificial intelligence technology has a considerably higher I.Q. than Apple's Siri virtual assistant, according to a new academic paper attempting to compare the smarts of various artificial intelligence systems.

The paper — written by a trio of Chinese researchers, including Yong Shi, executive deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Research Center on Fictitious Economy and Data Science — says that in 2016 Google's AI had an IQ of 47.28. It came out ahead of Chinese search engine Baidu (32.92) and Microsoft's Bing (31.98) and had almost double the IQ of Siri (23.94).

Notably, none of these systems had a higher IQ than a 6-year-old (55.5), much less an 18-year-old (97), the researchers found.

But the Google and Microsoft systems have been getting smarter. In 2014 Google's IQ score was 26.5, while Microsoft's was 13.5. At that time the researchers were not yet analyzing Baidu and Siri.

Apple, Google and Microsoft have all been , which can yield improvements in speech recognition, image recognition and other areas. These techniques can be applied to revenue-generating processes like serving ads.

But comparing companies' existing AI systems — and seeing how they stack up with human beings — has been difficult, and that's one reason the researchers have attempted to create a comparison method. The researchers have taken into consideration the systems' abilities around "knowledge mastery, learning, use and creation."

The new paper, published on Sunday, does touch on , the system for playing the Chinese board game of Go from Google parent company Alphabet's DeepMind group. While the researchers didn't give it an IQ score, they did conclude that its intelligence is below that of humans.

Google declined to comment. Apple was not immediately available to comment on the study.

Output: Google's virtual assistant is twice as intelligent as Apple's Siri, according to Chinese researchers studying the artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities of a number of platforms. The findings showed Google's app had an IQ of 47.28, nearly double Siri's score of 23.94. Chinese search engine Baidu and Microsoft's Bing also scored higher than Apple's assistant, but none of the AI systems tested could match a typical six-year-old's IQ of 55.5. All the systems had shown significant increases in intellectual capability between 2014 and 2016, the researchers found.


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Preview of Halo game to debut on Microsoft VR headsets
 Microsoft is bringing Halo to its Windows Mixed Reality headsets later this month. Halo Recruit will be available as a free download on October 17th, and it’s designed to be a VR environment of characters in the popular game. 343 industries has created the experience, and it looks like it will be similar to the lightsaber VR experience available on the HTC Vive last year. It’s not a full game of Halo, nor will you be running around as Master Chief, but it’s a first attempt at how Halo could look in virtual reality.

Output: Players of the popular video game Halo will be able to experience it in virtual reality (VR) from later this month. Microsoft is releasing a free download called Halo Recruit on 17 October, which will be available on its Windows Mixed Reality headset. While not a full version of the game, it will provide a virtual reality environment of characters from it and give a preview of what it would look like in VR. Microsoft is increasing its support for VR gaming, giving developers access to support and allowing them to test games on its headsets.


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Leak suggests UK safety standards could be weakened after Brexit
 M inisters are looking for “quick wins” to move away from the European safety standards regime, according to a leaked email.

A Brexit official in the Business Department also suggested in the message that Amazon reviews could replace the “CE European standards mark” in the eyes of online shoppers. The revelations immediately sparked concerns that the system for ensuring the safety of electrical equipment, toys, machinery, medical devices and other products could be watered down after Britain quits the EU.

The CE marking shows that a manufacturer has checked that their products meet EU safety, health or environmental requirements, indicates compliance with EU legislation and allows the free movement of products within the European market. In the email, the Brexit official asks for any “evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that businesses are saying they don’t want divergence”.

She then adds: “Similarly, any sectors who are suggesting they would like early divergence (we are also looking for quick wins!)”.

The message then discusses the shift in shopping trends to online.

“I actually wonder, given the UK consumer penchant for internet shopping, the extent to which an Amazon review will supersede any mark to demonstrate conformity with safety requirements,” the official says.

Labour expressed alarm at the remarks in the email, which were made in response to a document by the techUK trade body on the CE marking system.

Shadow Brexit minister Matthew Pennycook said: “This comment from a Government official should concern us all. The safe use of medical equipment and children’s toys cannot be guaranteed in the same way as one would review the latest blockbuster or episode of Game of Thrones.

“Ministers should ensure that after Britain leaves the European Union consumers remain certain that the products they buy are safe, and that our exporters can continue to easily sell their products abroad.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “Until we leave the EU, the UK Government continues to implement European regulations.

“This correspondence does not indicate future policy direction, but was part of a normal engagement process with industry stakeholders.”

Ministers have been pushing for a deal with the EU in the “divorce talks”, including a multi-billion bill which the UK is expected to have to pay, so we can move on to negotiations over future trade deal.

However, it appears increasingly likely that the departure talksnegotiations will not have progressed sufficiently for EU leaders to agree at a summit later this month for trade talks to start.

Theresa May has also outlined British proposals for a transition period of around two years from when Britain formally quits the EU in March 2019.While t

The Government has warned Brussels that if it seeks to punish the UK for leaving the EU Britain could become a low-tax, low-regulation economy which could threaten their social market economic model. @nicholascecil

Output: UK safety standards could be threatened after Brexit by ministers looking for “quick wins,” according to a leaked email from an official in the country's Business Department. The email also suggested that CE markings, which indicate that products comply with European Union safety, health or environmental requirements, and which apply to items including electrical equipment, machinery, medical devices and toys, could be replaced by online Amazon reviews.


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Oracle introduces AI self-maintenance to its 18c database
 If you can’t trust humans to update your software, teach it to do the job for itself. That’s the thinking at the enterprise software firm Oracle, anyway, which has just announced that its 18c database system now uses machine learning to “automatically upgrade, patch, and tune itself while running.”

VentureBeat reports that system administrators provide rules for the database, but then leave it to its own devices. The software learns what “normal” looks like, and then tries to stop anything that seems untoward, and does all that without the downtime that comes when humans peer under the hood. “If you eliminate all human labor, you eliminate human error,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, (pictured above) explained as he announced the new software yesterday.

That raises the specter of technological unemployment, of course. In Oracle's case, the theory appears to be that the AI will free up network administrators to help users, rather than having them spend their time patching software. But if, like at Equifax, they weren’t patching much software in the first place, there is always the chance that their presence is no longer required.

And Oracle isn’t alone in using AI to improve the security of software. Data science platform Kaggle is currently running a contest in which researchers build offensive and defensive AIs to improve software security. In other words: sysadmins of the world, look busy.

Output: California firm Oracle has announced that its 18c database now has the ability to "automatically upgrade, patch, and tune itself" without an interruption to service. The company said its software had learned what its "normal" behaviour was, thus enabling it to target anything out of the ordinary, with no human intervention required. Oracle said the move isn't likely to result in job losses, rather staff will be able to spend more time helping customers rather than patching software.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
All Londoners experience unsafe levels of particle pollution
 Created 6 years ago , updated 6 years ago

This report contains an introduction to PM 2.5 , summarises our current understanding of PM 2.5 concentrations and exposure, discusses the findings of research undertaken by the GLA and TfL into the extent of PM 2.5 pollution in London, and assesses the potential for meeting World Health Organisation guidelines by 2030. Our analysis found that at present all Londoners are exposed to concentrations higher than WHO air quality guidelines, but, if PM 2.5 reduction measures within the Mayor’s Transport Strategy and London Environment Strategy are accompanied by co-operation on a national and international level, the guideline limit is achievable by 2030.

Output: All inhabitants of London are breathing air exceeding global guidelines for toxic PM2.5 particles, according to data from the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. Every area in the city exceeds World Health Organisation limits for the particle, the report states, with almost 95% of the capital’s population living in areas that do so by at least 50%. Exposure to the particulates increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Half of PM2.5 in London's air comes from outside the city, according to the report. Within the capital, the main sources are construction, tyre and brake wear, and wood burning.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
All Londoners experience unsafe levels of particle pollution
 The scale of London’s air pollution crisis was laid bare on Wednesday, with new figures showing that every person in the capital is breathing air that exceeds global guidelines for one of the most dangerous toxic particles.

The research, based on the latest updated London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, shows that every area in the capital exceeds World Health Organisation (WHO) limits for a damaging type of particle known as PM2.5.

It also found that 7.9 million Londoners – nearly 95% of the capital’s population – live in areas that exceed the limit by 50% or more. In central London the average annual levels are almost double the WHO limit of 10 µg/m3.

The findings, described as “sickening” by London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, have serious health implications – especially for children – with both short- and long-term exposure to these particulates increasing the likelihood of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Health experts say that young people exposed to these toxic pollutants are more likely to grow up with reduced lung function and develop asthma.

Khan said: “It’s sickening to know that not a single area of London meets World Health Organisation health standards, but even worse than that, nearly 95% of the capital is exceeding these guidelines by at least 50%.”

London is widely recognised as the worst area for air pollution in the UK, although there is growing evidence that dangerously polluted air is damaging people’s health in towns and cities across the country.

Khan added: “We should be ashamed that our young people – the next generation of Londoners – are being exposed to these tiny particles of toxic dust that are seriously damaging their lungs and shortening their life expectancy. I understand this is really difficult for Londoners, but that’s why I felt it was so important that I made this information public so people really understand the scale of the challenge we face in London.”

The mayor’s office said approximately half of PM2.5 in London is from sources outside the city. However, the main sources of PM2.5 emissions in London are from tyre and brake wear, construction and wood burning.

Last week Khan unveiled plans to limit the use of wood-burning stoves in the capital from 2025 and tighten up regulations to make sure all new stoves from 2022 are as clean as possible.

He has also set out a range of plans to tackle pollution from diesel cars in the capital. The first stage, the new T-Charge, which will charge older, more polluting vehicles entering central London, starts later this month.

The figures were revealed as it emerged that the government has failed to bring down the number of regions across the UK with illegal levels of air pollution despite being ordered to by the courts.

According to figures submitted by ministers to the European Commission, 37 out of 43 zones across the UK are still in breach of pollution limits – the same number as in 2015 – despite the government being under a supreme court order to bring pollution down as soon as possible.

Clean air campaigners criticised the government’s inaction and welcomed Khan’s plans, which include the introduction of an ultra low emission zone in 2019.

But they called on the mayor to take more urgent, immediate action in light of the scale of the crisis.

Paul Morozzo, a clean air campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “London air isn’t safe to breathe. Every person in London is affected by this crisis – old or young, healthy or ill. The air you breathe in London is putting your health at risk now and in the future, whether you realise it or not.

“Restricting diesel will make a big difference to both PM and nitrogen oxide air pollution in London, which is why the mayor has no choice but to get tough on cleaning up our roads.”

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said: “Quite frankly, this research beggars belief and is deeply concerning for every Londoner. Toxic air is poisoning our children, making existing lung conditions worse, such as asthma. The mayor cannot solve this public health crisis without government support. We urgently need changes to taxation for new diesel vehicles and a diesel scrappage scheme.”

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green party, said: “The mayor needs to decide whether he is going to commit to take the air pollution epidemic seriously or not. And that means making the right choices over the big polluting decisions. Creating pollution with one hand and then trying to waft it away with the other is no solution.

“The mayor can’t credibly claim to be tackling London’s dirty air when he is actively contributing to it by building the Silvertown tunnel, backing City airport expansion and failing to bring in a moratorium on waste incineration.”

The mayor released the latest findings on Wednesday morning as he signed London up to the Breathe Life coalition organised by the WHO, the body UN Environment and the Climate & Clean Air Coalition, at the Child Health Initiative conference at City Hall.

The initiative aims to connect similar world cities, combine expertise, share best practice and work together to improve air quality.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, welcomed London’s support and Khan’s measures aimed at tackling air pollution.

“To ensure good health, every person must be able to breathe clean air no matter where they live. London’s plan to clean up their air means millions of people will be able to walk to work and walk their children to school without worrying about whether the air is going to make them sick. More cities around the world must also follow suit.”

Output: All inhabitants of London are breathing air exceeding global guidelines for toxic PM2.5 particles, according to data from the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. Every area in the city exceeds World Health Organisation limits for the particle, the report states, with almost 95% of the capital’s population living in areas that do so by at least 50%. Exposure to the particulates increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Half of PM2.5 in London's air comes from outside the city, according to the report. Within the capital, the main sources are construction, tyre and brake wear, and wood burning.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Interest in earthquake insurance rises in California post-Mexico
 Bill and Liz Barlak have carried earthquake insurance on their three-bedroom house in Burbank since the couple bought the property 30 years ago.

“It helps us sleep at night,” said Bill Barlak, 66, an engineer. “I wouldn’t buy a home without it.”

Which makes the Barlaks part of a minority in California.

The state’s population, housing stock, home prices and number of renters all have soared in the 23 years since the Los Angeles area’s last major earthquake, a magnitude 6.7 temblor centered in Northridge that left 57 dead and caused an estimated $44 billion in property damage.

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Nonetheless, the percentage of homeowners and renters who have earthquake insurance has dropped sharply.

That might change after the recent deadly earthquakes in Mexico, which were a reminder that California is considered overdue for another major quake of its own.

The Mexico quakes, and before that the hurricanes in the southern United States, sparked a “dramatic increase” in website visits and calls to the California Earthquake Authority. The CEA was created after the Northridge quake to provide earthquake coverage on behalf of the insurance companies that comprise its membership, spokeswoman Sarah Sol said in an email.

While policy sales figures for September aren’t yet available, “callers were asking for detailed information about earthquake insurance coverage,” she said.

Only 10.8% of Californians with residential insurance had earthquake coverage at the end of last year, compared with nearly 33% when the Northridge quake struck in the early morning of Jan. 17, 1994, according to the California Department of Insurance.

The figure has stayed below 11% for the last five years.

Renters as a group are even less inclined to have an earthquake policy, with only 5.24% carrying such coverage last year compared with nearly 10% a decade ago, the department said.

“It’s stunning,” said CEA Chief Executive Glenn Pomeroy. “The fact that 90% [of homeowners] are uninsured is a terrible thing for California to be resilient and survive the next big quake,” said Pomeroy, whose privately funded, not-for-profit organization handles about 80% of earthquake policies in the state and now has the ability to pay up to $15 billion in claims.

Theories as to why more residents don’t get coverage range from faded memories of earlier quakes to confusion over coverage and pricing.

The number of Californians buying earthquake insurance has actually risen steadily over the years. The CEA had 952,000 policies in force as of August, compared with 754,672 at the end of 2006.

But the population and number of houses in California has soared even more, leaving those covered by quake insurance a low percentage of the total.

There are now about 9.1 million detached houses in California, a 25% increase from the 7.3 million in 1994 when the Northridge quake hit, according to data from the California Department of Finance.

Home prices also have skyrocketed. The median price of a single-family house in Los Angeles County hit a record $580,000 in August, according to the data firm CoreLogic, more than triple the median price of $189,400 in mid-1994.

The record-setting prices have forced many Californians, especially millennials who are in their early earnings years, to rent rather than buy. Yet 95% of the renters don’t have insurance to cover the cost of replacing their possessions if a major temblor struck.

The renters’ landlords are responsible for covering their buildings in the event of a quake, but generally it’s up to renters to get coverage for their belongings.

“People are going to have difficulty recovering, particularly lower-income people and people with fairly high mortgages,” said Robert Hunter, insurance director at the advocacy group Consumer Federation of America.

Newly arrived or younger Californians may have no awareness of the trauma that follows a big quake. It’s been more than two decades since the Northridge quake, which was the costliest U.S. earthquake on record after adjusting for inflation, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry trade group.

“Earthquakes don’t happen very often so people have a hard time focusing on it when there are so many other things in their lives,” Pomeroy said. “A lot of people weren’t living here [in 1994] or weren’t living at all then, so they don’t internalize it.”

Dwellers often mistakenly believe earthquake coverage is part of their normal homeowners or rental insurance policies, or have the misconception that if the quake is big enough, the federal government will give them help.

But grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency under its individuals and households program are capped at $33,300.

There’s another reason cited for Californians’ resistance to buying earthquake insurance: lingering memories of high premiums immediately after the Northridge quake.

Insurers in California were required to offer earthquake coverage along with general homeowners insurance when the Northridge quake occurred. After Northridge, premiums for quake coverage soared, coverage was restricted and insurers balked at being forced to write new policies.

That led the state Legislature to create the CEA, whose participating insurers now include State Farm, Allstate, Mercury, Progressive, Farmers and Liberty Mutual.

Initially, the CEA’s policies were expensive and somewhat skimpy, including only $5,000 for replacing personal property (in addition to the replacement cost of the structure) and only one deductible of 15%.

Today, however, the CEA personal-property coverage is up to $200,000, and the “loss of use” coverage — for living expenses while a home is being repaired or rebuilt — is up to $100,000. Condo policies can cover damage assessments levied by homeowner associations.

Premiums vary depending on where the house is located, its age, style of construction and soil conditions, to name a few factors. But overall, the CEA says premiums on its policies have dropped by more than 50% since the authority was created. (The CEA website has a tool that shows coverage options and estimated cost.)

Also, the deductibles on CEA policies now range from 5% to 25%. And the CEA notes that another fear about earthquake insurance— that homeowners and renters must come up with the money to pay deductibles — is unfounded because the deductible is subtracted from the claim payment.

“There is no out-of-pocket requirement,” Pomeroy said. “If you have a home destroyed, we’ll pay the replacement cost, less the deductible, and they can choose how to rebuild.”

Hunter said every California resident “should go through a careful process and analyze what would happen if something like what happened in Mexico happened in your area.”

Mexico has experienced a series of earthquakes recently, capped by a magnitude 7.1 quake that struck near Mexico City on Sept. 19, leaving more than 325 dead and thousands of properties destroyed or damaged.

“You have to think the worst-case scenario,” Hunter said. “The longer it doesn’t happen [in California], the more people think it won’t happen.”

But Barlak — who pays an additional $648 a year for earthquake coverage on his homeowners policy, with a 15% deductible — says he doesn’t need to be persuaded to stay insured.

“I would question whether you can afford to not have it,” he said.

james.peltz@latimes.com

Twitter: @PeltzLATimes

ALSO

Fixing L.A. buildings vulnerable to collapse is vital before next big earthquake, Garcetti says

Here’s what earthquake magnitudes mean—and why an 8 can be so much scarier than a 6

Why some buildings crumbled and others survived the Mexico City quake: A sober lesson for California

Output: The recent earthquake in central Mexico has prompted many California residents to begin making inquiries regarding earthquake insurance. The California Earthquake Authority says it has seen "dramatic" increases in calls and website visits. While the number of policies covering earthquake damage has actually increased over the last 20 years, the overall percentage of Californians insured has dropped as the state's population has swelled. Since 1994, the percentage of homeowners insured has dropped from 33% to less than 11%. Almost 95% of California renters are also without coverage for damage to their possessions resulting from an earthquake.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Amazon must repay $294m after ‘illegal’ Luxembourg tax deal
 Amazon has been ordered to repay €250m (£222m) in illegal state aid to Luxembourg, as EU authorities continue their campaign against sweetheart deals that help the biggest corporations slash their tax bills.

The European commission also announced on Wednesday that it planned to take the the Irish government to the European court of justice (ECJ) over its failure to collect €13bn in unpaid taxes from Apple, in relation to an earlier ruling.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of competition, said Luxembourg’s “illegal tax advantages to Amazon” had allowed almost three-quarters of the company’s profits to go untaxed, allowing it to pay four times less tax than local rivals.

“This is about competition in Europe, no matter your flag, no matter your ownership,” Vestager said, dismissing suggestions she was targeting non-European companies. “Paying taxes is part of doing business in Europe.”

The commission said Amazon had benefited from an illegal tax deal granted by the Luxembourg authorities that allowed the company to artificially reduce its tax bill by €250m from 2006 to 2014. The company has been ordered to repay the full amount plus interest.

Amazon rejected the findings of the commission investigation. “We believe that Amazon did not receive any special treatment from Luxembourg and that we paid tax in full accordance with both Luxembourg and international tax law. We will study the commission’s ruling and consider our legal options, including an appeal.”

The country’s government said: “As Amazon has been taxed in accordance with the tax rules applicable at the relevant time, Luxembourg considers that the company has not been granted incompatible state aid.”

In a separate announcement, Vestager said she was appealing to Europe’s highest court to enforce an earlier ruling against Apple to ensure the iPhone maker repaid €13bn in back taxes.

Apple, which has appealed to Europe’s highest court to contest the decision, has neither repaid the money to the Irish government nor placed the money in an escrow account, a standard practice when court proceedings are under way.

Dublin said it disputed the commission’s ruling that it made the wrong decision in the Apple tax deal, but has promised to collect money owed as soon as possible. Citing its “intensive work” on recovering the funds, the Irish government described the decision as “extremely regrettable” in a statement.

“Irish officials and experts have been engaged in intensive work to ensure that the state complies with all its recovery obligations as soon as possible, and have been in constant contact with the European commission and Apple on all aspects of this process for over a year,” it said.

EU member states risk multimillion-euro fines when they fail to act on EU competition rulings. In 2015 the commission requested a €20m fine plus daily penalty payments against Italy over the country’s refusal to collect back taxes from Sardinian hotels that had benefited from special deals.

The commission acknowledged that Ireland had begun to work on the recovery of the back taxes, but deems the Irish deadline of “March 2018 at the earliest” not good enough.

The case against Amazon centred on two subsidiaries incorporated in Luxembourg and controlled by the US parent – Amazon EU group and Amazon Europe Holding Technologies. The latter was described by the commission as “an empty shell” that had no employees or offices, but was used to bring down the company’s tax bill.

Amazon EU group, which runs the internet company’s operations in the region, transferred 90% of its operating profits to the holding company, where they were not taxed. As a result, Amazon paid an effective tax rate in Luxembourg of 7.25%, compared with the national rate of 29%.

Amazon’s blueprint was Project Goldcrest, a tax scheme named after Luxembourg’s national bird, based on a 2003 deal with authorities in the Grand Duchy. Amazon changed its tax operations in June 2014, a year after Brussels began investigating tax rulings across the EU.

US authorities have also been investigating Project Goldcrest, but lost in court to the retail firm. In March a court ruled against the Internal Revenue Service, which had argued Amazon owed the US $1.5bn (£1.13bn) in unpaid taxes linked to its Luxembourg companies.

Luxembourg’s role in orchestrating tax avoidance deals for hundreds of global companies was revealed by the Guardian in 2014, raising questions about tax policy in one of the EU’s oldest member states.

The case continues to hang over Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, who served as Luxembourg’s prime minister from 1995 to 2013, and acted as finance minister for much of that period.

The commission launched the Amazon investigation in October 2014, just weeks before Juncker took office, while the fallout over the Luxleaks revelations clouded his early weeks.

Many European politicians and business groups argue generous tax breaks give Amazon an unfair competitive advantage over smaller rivals, prompting the recent announcement of a plan to rewrite EU tax rules. But investigations into unfair state aid run broader, with the EU authorities expected to conclude an inquiry into the fast-food chain McDonald’s in the coming weeks.

The commission has also ruled unlawful tax deals between Starbucks and the Dutch authorities, as well as Fiat’s arrangements with Luxembourg. The Apple case has generated the biggest furore, with the chief executive, Tim Cook, dismissing the claims as “total political crap”.

The commission said the sweetheart deal with the Irish government allowed Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of 1%, which fell to just 0.005% in 2014. The usual rate of corporation tax in Ireland is 12.5%.

If the UK leaves the EU single market, it will not be bound by European rules on fair tax competition. However, any free-trade deal with the EU is likely to constrain the government’s ability to turn the UK into a low-tax haven. Vestager said she was not expecting British government’s to pursue this course: “I don’t see why [UK policy] would change.”

Output: Amazon has been told to repay €250m ($294m) by the European Commission after the authority found the company to have received illegal and unfair state aid from Luxembourg. The commission stated that the deal had allowed Amazon to artificially reduce its tax bill from 2006 to 2014. The commission also announced that it would take action against the Irish government in the European Court of Justice in relation to its failure to collect €13bn in unpaid taxes from Apple.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Bermuda insurer of the year accolade awarded to XL Catlin
 Insurance industry trade publication Reactions magazine has named XL Catlin as the Bermuda Insurer of the Year.

Patrick Tannock, XL Catlin Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of XL Bermuda Ltd, Insurance, was joined by team members Cathy Duffy, Underwriting Manager; Mark Flanagan, Chief Property Underwriter; Carla Greaves, Chief Excess Casualty Underwriter; Matt Irvine, Chief Underwriting Officer for Bermuda Professional Lines, and Kim Wilkerson, Head of Bermuda Claims for Insurance, as well as North America colleagues at the awards ceremony in New York City on September 28 to celebrate the achievement.

Reactions magazine conducted the awards nomination process throughout the spring and into the summer. They asked executives at brokerage houses in North America which insurance and reinsurance companies have stood out in their market as top performers for the period June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017 and why.

XL Catlin was selected as Bermuda Insurer of the Year because “it was mentioned by many of the North America brokers as a company with a very strong reputation in terms of consistent high-quality performance”.

The list of companies that are mentioned most by the brokers are then reviewed by a panel of highly-respected and independent industry judges who consider the nominations, along with their own thoughts, when deciding which companies and individuals to select.

According to Reactions, the prevailing comments from the judging panel were that “XL Catlin has committed significant resources in Bermuda [more so than others] and are willing to innovate in what is a traditional marketplace”.

They also noted that XL Catlin’s Bermuda Insurance platform offers “a broad range of products with well-rated capacity and has a consistent team of underwriters”. They added that it is “regarded as one of the key markets on the island for large corporate clients”.

Mr. Tannock, who accepted the award on behalf of the team, said: “We’re honored to receive this award which underscores our user-friendly, friction free and solution-oriented approach to addressing clients’ and brokers’ needs.

“It’s great to be acknowledged and helps to validate the hard work and contributions that our colleagues consistently make to the Bermuda market and beyond.”

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Category: All, Business, News

Output: XL Catlin was named Bermuda insurer of the year by trade publication Reactions. The firm was applauded for committing resources to Bermuda as well as its willingness to support innovation. The variety of products the insurer offers via its Bermuda platform was also lauded.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Chatbots may solve issues of patient engagement
 According to recent studies held by Google and Pew Research Center, today one in twenty Google searches is for health related information, with 80% of Internet users seeking online health information.

Healthcare technology across web, mobile, apps and wearables gains more active users yearly (see image 1). According to Accenture, engagement of medical apps and wearables doubled in two years. At the same time, the number of people that avoid addressing their healthcare needs to various technological solutions decreased in two during the same period. In other words, technology and electronic health management tools continue gathering momentum, with apps and wearables in the lead in terms of growth speed.

Image 1. Credit: Accenture

However, the same Accenture research shows that the growing audience of medical apps addresses health-related needs to digital in fitness or nutrition/diet related situations, while medication managers and chronic disease trackers are adopted at a much lesser scale (see image 2).

Image 2. Credit: Accenture

The most plausible reason of such gap is low patient engagement that has already became a buzzed issue in healthcare. In fact, it has got special attention from healthcare technology companies dedicated to develop efficient solutions to this problem.

Two-Sided Cause of Low Patient Engagement

1. Existing solutions are intuitive, but not intuitive enough

Take medical apps such as reminders and trackers. Despite being perfectly UI/UX designed, they still lack personalization and the sense of time. Creators might have thought through average behavioral and schedule preferences of app users – wake-up time, working hours, work-out itinerary, and adjusted pings and notifications respectively.

However, as everyone’s schedule is different, lack of in-app personalization results in low user response, hence, low patient engagement in the long run. It doesn’t matter how timely 9-o’clock notification to check blood sugar level is. When a patient is stuck in traffic, he or she won’t respond to the app’s ping and most probably miss the procedure.

2. Low patient activation

Another problem of patient engagement stands at the very start of patient’s adoption. Patient activation in one’s healthcare – interest and active involvement – directly determines further engagement.

Technology solutions such as apps, wearables and EHR play major role in increasing patient activation, as more healthcare information becomes available and manageable. However, current generation of technology solutions still has room for improvement. Up to this date, the problems of solutions unable to hook the attention of patients for long or simply helpless for patients with special needs (mental illness, speech or vision disorders) remain.

Future state of mHealth that brings further infusing AI-based technologies, shift to digital omnivores for omnichannel experience, as well as management and security of massive healthcare data is to contribute to the increase of patient activation. In the long run, new features of mHealth solutions will change the rates of patient engagement.

New Technology to Solve Patient Engagement

Apart from the development of existing mHealth, telemedicine and healthcare wearables, hardware and software, new generation of solutions steps in to solve patient engagement problem.

Chatbots that already have broad application in e-commerce, travel and hospitality are predicted to take active part in increasing patient engagement. Along with chatbots for education, chatbots for healthcare are not expected to be complex to diagnose or provide automated medical analysis. At least, not yet. However, there’s a number of cases where this technology will shine, probably, better than traditional apps or non-digital solutions.

4 Features of Healthcare Chatbots that Help in Patient Engagement

1. Chatbots skip activation gateway

Chatbots are mobile native, like apps. Unlike apps, most chatbots are placed into popular messengers. The main benefit in this case, apart from no-need-to-download, is instant activation and feedback, 24/7/365.

Bot operates inside familiar interfaces of existing apps that billions of people use daily. It’s the most valuable benefit for less tech savvy patients of different generations that find it hard to adjust to fast changing design trends on mobile. So as for patients with special needs who may require simpler and more intuitive interfaces to interact with.

2. Chatbots react to emergency fast

If a chatbot is integrated into an active healthcare system and connected to special institutes such as ER, it can promptly alarm and call for help in case of emergency. If a bot has proper functionality, it can even detect the case of emergency, for example, when the patient doesn’t respond to bot’s messages. Another bonus is chatbot interface – text and voice. In case of danger, chatbot provides better reaction to the command “call 911,” compared to app or traditional phone that requires at least activation or dial.

3. Chatbots are more personal

Personalization is a true gem of chatbot technology. Constantly collecting patient data, a personal virtual healthcare assistant adjusts to patient’s specifics in time.

For example, bots powered by NLP technology can adjust to the speech and auditory specifics of the patients with special needs. Recent development in computer vision, in turn, is of help to the patients with visual disability. In other words, chatbots can be more sensitive to individual needs, which moves them closer to medical robots. Still chatbots cost far less than ASIMO or similar robots.

4. Chatbots are omnichannel

Another advantage of chatbot technology is its scalability. This technology is adjustable to mobile environment when it inhabits messenger apps such as Slack, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Kik or Telegram, integrates to web if embedded to websites and lives in voice assistants such as Skills for Amazon Alexa devices or Google Home. Moreover, bots are easily integrated with third-party systems through various APIs.

As far as chatbot application in healthcare is concerned, scalability brings better availability and more consistent experience. For example, one chatbot can perform vitally important functions such as calling an ER in case of emergency across various devices, whichever is closer or on. It gives more intuitive notifications, for instance, on iPhone when a patient is on the move, via web when one is at work and in Alexa when a patient is at home.

These are the key features of chatbots that help to increase patient engagement. Personalization and leveraging of patient data allows bots to be timely and to the point. Text and voice interface helps chatbot technology adjust to specific patient needs and simplify interaction. While scalability and connectivity turns bots into a convenient point of contact across various devices.

However, these are not the only ones that matter. Further adaption of chatbot technology, development of various branches of AI and integration capabilities may help bots drastically change both the rate of patient engagement and the way patients apply healthcare solutions.

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Edited by Mandi Nowitz

Output: Chatbots could be the solution to low patient engagement with mhealth solutions, according to a study by google. The ability to constantly collect patient data allows for increased personalisation, while the ability to communicate using text or speech enables them to be used easily by patients with specific needs, according to the study. Chatbots can also integrate with multiple platforms, making them widely accessible. Artificial intelligence solutions could improve further improve mhealth technology in future.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
US Marines in Middle East use 3D printer to make drones
 Oct 2, 2017 | By Tess

A U.S. Marine Corps task force has set up a 3D printing lab on the ground in the Middle East, using it to 3D print quadcopter drones, tools, medical supplies, and more. Dubbed the “Ripper Lab,” the facility is allowing the task force to print devices and replacement parts on-demand and at a lower cost than shipping them in.

Over the past year, the U.S. Marine Corps has made significant strides with the adoption of additive manufacturing technologies, developing 3D printed components for future smart trucks, experimenting with 3D printed munitions, and perhaps most significantly, manufacturing low-cost drones.

Just months ago, a Marine Corps battalion evaluated the X-FAB system—a self-contained, mobile additive manufacturing lab which consists of four 3D printers, one 3D scanner, and CAD software. The X-FAB lab, which is still in development, would enable devices such as surveillance drones to be produced on-demand and, importantly, on the ground.

As another Marine Corps task force based in the Middle East has shown, 3D printing is already in use and is proving to be a critical technology in the fight against ISIS.

The Marines of Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Central Command recently established an on-the-ground 3D printing facility equipped with 3D printers, materials, CAD software, etc. in the Middle East.

Named “Ripper Lab,” the 3D printing test operation was set up to see how well 3D printing could support the troops. A first of its kind, the 3D printer lab is operated by a team of 48 and has been used to manufacture tools such as wrenches, medical supplies, various replacement parts, and a number of quadcopter drones known as “Nibblers.”

These 3D printed drones, of which there are already about 25, are designed for increasing “situational awareness” on patrols. The adaptable UAVs are capable of flying for 20 to 25 minutes at a time, and can be used to monitor and protect the U.S. military’s positions from drones sent by the enemy.

Of course, there are still a few setbacks with the technology. For one, the Nibbler drones cost about $2,000 each to 3D print, quite a bit more than their off-the-shelf counterparts (which reportedly go for about $500 apiece). But the cost difference doesn’t seem to outweigh the advantages of in-situ manufacturing and the easy and cheap production of replacement parts.

(Images: U.S. Marine Corps)

“Across the entire Marine Corps… it takes time to get the training and then the resources, i.e., money to buy the materials and 3D printers and things like that," said Col. Bill Vivian, the commander of the 7th Marine Regiment which led the 3D printing operation. "But 3D printers are coming to each installation in the Marine Corps and that’s starting to unfold now, so I think those possibilities are getting close."

Vivian added that since 3D printing has been adopted in the Marine Corps, he has seen a lot of interest amongst the troops: “Since we engaged and we let Marines at the lowest level know we’re wrestling with this new technology, we found out a lot of them were doing it anyway—several Marines had their own 3D printers. And so just taking advantage of natural talents we have out there, we were able to pull them in and use them to our advantage. It helped retention: Marines were very excited and we were able to do some things faster than we otherwise would have been able to."

Currently, Vivian and his task force are working on improving the 3D printed Nibbler drone by integrating higher-quality cameras and increasing the vehicle's flying time and range.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Output: US Marines in the Middle East are using 3D printing technology to manufacture supplies, including low-cost drones. They have set up the "Ripper Lab", which has 3D printers, design software and materials for the production of equipment, including tools, spare parts and quadcopter drones called Nibblers. The cost of production currently exceeds that of conventionally manufactured equipment, but the flexibility of being able to produce items on site has clear advantages, commanders have said. The Marines are also experimenting with a mobile 3D printing lab called the X-FAB system, which is still in development.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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DeepMind forms an AI ethics unit
 While little is known about the ruminations of DeepMind’s internal ethics and safety board, DMES is intended to be open and transparent. All its research will be published online in full and its six external fellows – who include economist professor Diane Coyle; philosopher and existential risk expert professor Nick Bostrom; international diplomat Christiana Figueres; and economist professor Jeffrey Sachs – have not signed any non-disclosure agreements.

“I can say what I like about anything, anywhere, there’s no constraining agreement,” professor Coyle tells me. She describes her role as a fellow to DMES as conducting academic reviews on research, taking part in workshops and giving feedback. She adds that concerns about DeepMind in-housing crucial AI research are broadly unfounded. “DeepMind is obviously owned by Google now. But you can be too cynical about it. I think they are sincere and genuinely want to achieve some understanding and do some very good research. And I think if a lot more companies did it we’d be in a better place.”

Such cynicism might be founded on DeepMind’s collaboration with the NHS Royal Free Trust to develop an app used to detect acute kidney injury. An investigation into the data-sharing agreement between the firm and the NHS by the Information Commissioner’s Office found that the Royal Free had failed to comply with the data protection act when it handed over details of 1.6 million patients to DeepMind. At the time, a DeepMind spokesperson said the firm “underestimated the complexity of the NHS and of the rules around patient data”. The ICO warned that such work should never be “a choice between privacy or innovation”.

When I raise the issue with Suleyman, he counters that DeepMind created a panel of independent reviewers to scrutinise its work with the NHS, adding the company took “serious measures” to be open and transparent. “There's so much more that we need to do when it comes to interacting with this kind of data in the NHS. And that is really, really challenging,” he says. “It is ambiguous, a lot of the texts are very tough to navigate when it comes to regulation and a lot of it is emerging and trying to catch up with the technology.” If it works as DeepMind hopes, one role for DMES could be to spot similar issues and tackle them in the open based on input from all parties.

“I think having a forum where you can bring a lot of disciplinary views to bear is one of the really attractive things about this” Professor Diane Coyle

The launch of DMES comes little-over a year after the launch of the Partnership on AI, a consortium of technology firms, activist organisations and academic institutions focussed on establishing best practises for developments in artificial intelligence. DeepMind was a founding member, alongside Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and IBM. For Suleyman, it was necessary to establish DMES alongside the Partnership to tackle the size of the challenge the industry faces. “The objective of DMES is to start to do the work ourselves that I don't see happening elsewhere. The more people doing this research the better. We want there to be lots of orthogonal approaches on this work.” One of the challenges for the Partnership, Suleyman continues, is persuading “all the companies and researchers to get on board with the direction of travel”.

As well partnering with organisations such as the Royal Society and Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, DMES will also work closely with the Partnership on AI. Such work will often involve funding interdisciplinary research. While the existence of DeepMind funding will always be made public, the amount of funding may sometimes remain secret. “I think DeepMind should be applauded for taking the initiative to extend its engagement with questions of ethics and social impacts of AI,” says professor Bostrom. “Of course, if there were only one voice speaking on these issues it would be concerning – and maybe equally concerning whether that one voice was a cooperation, a government, or some nutty academic. Fortunately that is not the world we are living in.” He describes DMES as an effort by DeepMind to expose itself to “a larger set of critical economic and ethical perspectives”. DeepMind will also launch “other initiatives” looking into the ethical and societal impacts of AI in 2018, Suleyman says.

Output: Google's artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepMind is forming new unit the DeepMind Ethics & Society (DMES) to analyse all aspects of AI technology, its impact on people and society. "We’re going to be collaborating with all kinds of think tanks and academics. I think it’s exciting to be a company that is putting sensitive issues… on the table for public discussion," said DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. He added DMES would be more transparent than DeepMind, which will launch a series of other initiatives next year to explore the ethical impacts of AI.


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Ikea uses augmented reality to let customers preview furniture
 For years, Ikea has relied on shoppers visiting its stores to sell furniture, but now, it’s hoping a smartphone will drive sales.

The retailer is using augmented reality to let customers preview how furniture looks on their smartphones before they buy. Customers use Ikea Place, one of the first apps to use Apple’s ARKit tech, to place the company’s furniture wherever they envision it in their homes.

In Ikea Place, customers can view 3-D renderings from different angles of over 2,000 products before reserving the ones they want in the app, which directs to the Ikea site to complete purchases. Currently, large furniture for living rooms such as sofas, armchairs and storage units are available to preview in the app, though more products are in the pipeline.

Seeing lifelike versions of Ikea’s products in rooms lets shoppers make a “reliable buying” decision, said Michael Valdsgaard, leader of digital transformation at Inter Ikea, the holding company for Ikea.

Ikea has struggled with e-commerce sales partially because of its slow adoption of digital. Allowing people to see what a product would look like in their house without embarking on a three-hour Ikea trip could help the company with online sales, said Daisy Pledge, founder of AR startup Surreal Studios.

Valdsgaard described potential uplift in sales from AR as a “dream scenario” for Ikea, which is targeting €5 billion ($5.9 billion) in online sales by 2020, up from the €1.4 billion ($1.6 billion) it generated in 2016. The business has around 340 stores in 28 countries, with e-commerce services in 14 countries.

“Most people postpone a purchase of a new sofa because they’re not comfortable making the decision if they aren’t sure the color is going to match [the rest of the room] or it fits the style,” he said. “Now, we can give them [those answers] in their hands, while letting them have fun with home furnishing for free and with no effort.”

The app launched in the U.S. on Sept. 19, coinciding with Apple’s iOS 11 update, and is rolling out to other markets over the coming weeks. Valdsgaard declined to reveal how many times Ikea Place has been downloaded but said the reaction has been “positive,” noting that people are sharing how they’re using it online.

Early feedback on social media for Ikea Place inspired its developers to introduce a search feature for people to find specific products, which they built and launched in five days, Valdsgaard said.

“The most important thing for us is that we’re not a tech company,” he said. “In order to sell furniture, we have to understand technology and try to move in the direction it’s moving.”

Better search, more furniture and the ability to buy directly from the app could all be added to future updates. For now, the retailer is focused on driving downloads on Apple devices because the Google AR developer kits are not ready for what it wants to do. Development is being handled by Ikea’s Copenhagen, Denmark-based innovation unit Space10 and AR agency Twnkls.

Ikea Place is also working with agency 72andSunny to build a long-term proposition for the app and AR, which could play as big of a role in Ikea’s ads as its catalog has previously, like in its “Experience the power of a bookbook” campaign in 2014, a satirical take on Apple’s product promotion style that pitched Ikea’s catalog as the latest gadget. To date, ads for Ikea Place encourage people to experiment with it and have revolved around a series of short films, GIFs, a blog post and social media posts.

Output: Furniture retailer Ikea has launched Ikea Place, anaugmented reality (AR) app which shows users what furniture would look in their home before they buy. The app is among the first to use Apple’s ARKit tech. Feedback so far had been "positive", said Michael Valdsgaard, leader of digital transformation at Inter Ikea. The company is already looking at improving the app with a better search function, more items available and the option of direct purchase, said Valdsgaard. Ikea is aiming for €5bn ($5.9bn) in online sales by 2020.


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French publisher Liberation favours Facebook for revenue
 While some publishers have found it challenging to monetize Facebook Instant Articles, French news publisher Libération remains a fan. According to the publisher, it makes more money through ads sold by Facebook via IA than on its own mobile webpages.

Libération has formatted all its 150 daily articles for Facebook’s fast-loading mobile pages feature since January 2016. CPMs have fluctuated: For the month of June, on average, CPMs for ads within the article on IA were $3.56; this figure dropped during the summer lull of July and August to $2.85. In September, it climbed to $3.19, according to the publisher.

Revenue from IA is nearly three times what Libération makes on its own mobile pages, where 96 percent of its ads are sold programmatically, fetching CPMs of around 36 cents, according to the publisher. This increases to $6 for direct ads, but with few of them making up Libération’s mobile webpages, IA revenue emerges on top.

“Facebook knows its ads better than others; it owns the data, so it can do a better job at targeting on its platform,” said Xavier Grangier, the publisher’s head of digital.

Grangier said revenue from IA, which is in the five-figure range, accounts for 55 percent of its mobile revenue (desktop revenue is still the majority). This IA revenue is modest, but it’s punching above its weight because IA accounts for just 10 percent of Libération’s mobile pageviews, he said. A number of factors would account for higher CPMs in IA, including publisher readership, seasonality or fewer pageviews. Grangier said the fill rate for IA is often above 94 percent and 98 percent on Libération’s own mobile site. IA fetches average dwell times of 3.24 minutes, compared to 2.17 minutes on the publisher’s own mobile site, he added.

For other publishers who monetize their own mobile pages more effectively than Libération, through more direct sales, for instance, the reasons for being on IA, while the user experience is good, are less clear-cut — leading publishers to withdraw from it — as most of the data and analytics lie with Facebook. While some publishers suggest that decline in Facebook reach is linked to IA, it’s hard to attribute traffic drops, there is no clear evidence that Facebook prioritizes IA.

Elsewhere in the French market, Le Parisien has been outspoken on the insufficient monetization of IA. Le Monde and Le Figaro decided to eschew the feature.

Facebook has been making more of an effort to offer publishers more monetization routes and data around IA. In June, it introduced more ad units, the company said early tests showed incremental increases in revenue for publishers. Other publishers are seeing IA revenue increase, albeit from low bases. Facebook has said that since the beginning of 2017, revenue per thousand impressions from Facebook Audience Network in IA has increased by over 50 percent. It also introduced call-to-action units for people to sign up for a newsletter or install an app to sweeten the deal for publishers.

Since February, Libération has offered newsletter subscriptions through IA, signing up 2,000 new subscribers a month to its morning briefing, which has about 200,000 subscribers. On its own site, it signs up roughly 500 people a month, but Grangier notes there are fewer email sign-up options on site. IA email sign-up is performing well for Bauer Xcel Media, where IA users are 50 times more likely to sign up for email newsletters than those who visit its own properties. This is partly because users don’t have to enter their email addresses, as Facebook automatically pulls them in.

Libération has 11,000 digital subscribers and gets half of its revenue from its subscriptions, according to Grangier. “For us [IA is] a good thing,” he said. “The problem is we don’t drive subscriptions, but revenue and visibility are important at the moment. This could change in time to focus more on subscriptions.”

Facebook is on the cusp of letting publishers sign up subscribers through IA, a feature Grangier said Libération is interested in using.

Output: French publisher Libération is succeeding where its rivals have failed by generating revenue from Facebook's Instant Articles (IA). According to Xavier Grangier, the publisher’s head of digital, IA is responsible for 55% of its mobile ad revenue, despite making up just 10% of Libération’s mobile page views. The tool has also enabled it to add 2,000 new subscribers a month to its newsletter since February. "Facebook knows its ads better than others; it owns the data, so it can do a better job at targeting on its platform", said Grangier.


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Chinese cinemas accused of not declaring US movie ticket sales
 Some Chinese theaters are shortchanging U.S. film studios whose movies are shown in the world’s most populous country, according to a person familiar with an audit conducted by the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

The MPAA, which is the lobbying arm for the six major movie studios, hired accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers last year to audit ticket sales from China amid concerns over the accuracy of reported box-office statistics coming out of the country.

The audit found that the Chinese ticket sales from 2016 were underrepresented by about 9%, amounting to roughly $40 million in lost revenue, according to the person with knowledge of the study, which has not yet been made public. The audit examined the business of a small portion of Chinese theaters and extrapolated the findings to account for the country’s entire marketplace.

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The schemes employed by the theaters included underreporting the number of tickets sold to screenings and not disclosing showings of movies, according to the person familiar with the audit who was not authorized to comment publicly about the findings.

China Film Group, the state-backed distributor of most films in the country, has been shown the results of the audit, the individual said, but has yet to comment on the findings.

The MPAA declined to comment.

The audit comes ahead of planned negotiations between the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and its analogous Chinese entity. The talks will center in part on a potential expansion of the quota that allows for U.S. films to be shown in China. Under the existing revenue-sharing pact, which was finalized in 2012, 34 movies from foreign studios can be shown each year in China. U.S. studios receive 25% of the box-office revenue from those pictures.

China is the second-largest film market in the world, behind the U.S. and Canada, and boasts more than 40,000 movie screens. According to MPAA data, China’s box office grew about 4% last year to $6.6 billion.

That actually represented a slowdown from explosive growth in recent years; the drop-off has been attributed in part to a weak film slate and the drying up of discounts from online ticket sellers such as Alibaba Group.

Still, the country is important to the success of major studios’ movies, which are sometimes tailored to appeal to Chinese audiences. Over the years, distinct versions of films including “Looper” and “Iron Man 3” have been created for China.

In some cases, U.S. movies perform better in China than they do domestically. “Transformers: The Last Knight,” the latest film in the Paramount Pictures action franchise, grossed nearly $120 million in China in its opening weekend, nearly triple the Michael Bay movie’s tepid $45 million stateside bow in June, according to Box Office Mojo.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm ComScore, said the Chinese market is “vitally important to the success of individual movies.”

Some films, he said, “often are able to become hits rather than misses when the China component is figured into the box-office equation.”

Ahead of the release of the findings of the audit, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Chinese authorities had already signaled a willingness to examine and crack down on the potential distortion of box-office data provided by companies operating there.

In 2016, the Beijing-based distributor of the Mike Tyson-starring martial arts picture “Ip Man 3” was barred from releasing films for a month after an investigation found the company had inflated the film’s opening-weekend box-office tally by nearly $5 million, the Times reported last year. Pumping up the film’s theatrical take allowed its producers to boast about the outsized success of the project.

daniel.miller@latimes.com

@DanielNMiller

Output: Chinese ticket sales on US films from 2016 are said to have been underrepresented by around 9%, worth roughly $40m in revenue, according to a person reported to have knowledge of a yet-to-be published study by the Motion Picture Association of America. The audit assessed a small percentage of Chinese cinemas and extrapolated the results to offer a countrywide estimate. State-backed distributor the China Film Group has not yet commented on the findings. The figures come as authorities are cracking down on the manipulation of box-office results, and ahead of talks between representatives from the US and Chinese government trade agencies.


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Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted swing states
 More details are emerging about the Russia-linked ads Facebook handed over to Congressional investigators just days ago. According to multiple sources who spoke to CNN, a number of the paid posts specifically targeted two states that were crucial to Trump's victory in November: Michigan and Wisconsin. Facebook has already revealed that the 3,000 ads (viewed by roughly 10 million people) focused on "divisive social political messages," including issues about race, LGBT topics, immigration, and gun rights. But, the latest info sheds light on the geographic and demographical targeting of the promotional messages -- two aspects Facebook has not discussed in detail.

Trump beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Michigan by just 10,704 votes. Wisconsin too was a tight race, with Trump grabbing victory by 22,700 votes. Just days after the results were announced, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg swiped back at his critics by claiming it was "crazy" to think that fake news on his platform swayed the election. He's since said he regrets those remarks. But, bogus articles were just part of the machinery used by nefarious forces, along with promoted events, and ads. The latter saw Facebook's comprehensive (and controversial) ad targeting tool utilized to target groups in key areas of Michigan and Wisconsin, people with knowledge on the matter told CNN.

Facebook is cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russia's alleged social media interference during the elections. However, it's not the only one in the dock. Twitter also recently handed over evidence of over 1,800 Russia Today accounts that posted targeted ads in the US. Total Spend on the advertisements, which were also created during the 2016 election, came to $274,100. Despite its willingness to hand over data, it seems the company has not shut down several accounts associated with the so-called propagandist news outlet. As Recode points out, the @RT_com, @RT_America, and @ActualidadRT are still fully active. What's more, they have not reportedly been banned from advertising on the platform.

Elsewhere, Russia Today has lost a powerful soapbox. Google -- which is also being rounded up as part of the Senate's extensive investigation -- just removed Russia Today from its premium YouTube ad program (known as Google Preferred). Facebook, Google, and Twitter will be questioned by Senate lawmakers on November 1st.

Output: Several of the ads paid for by Russia on Facebook during the 2016 US presidential campaign specifically targeted swing states Michigan and Wisconsin, where Donald Trump won by a few thousand votes, according to multiple sources cited by CNN. The ads have already been described as spreading "divisive social political messages", but this is the first information regarding demographic and geographic targeting to be revealed. Representatives from Twitter, Google and Facebook will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating alleged Russian meddling in the election on 1 November.