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Brexit negotiations could destabilise insurtech investment
 Startupbootcamp InsurTech and PwC report also shows start-ups are becoming more sophisticated, with more insurers looking to collaborate.

InsurTech has reached a crucial stage, with more investment and an increasing number of start-ups being created, according to Startupbootcamp InsurTech and PwC’s 2017 trend report.

According to the research InsurTech start-ups are becoming increasingly sophisticated, tackling more complex problems that are more closely aligned to insurers’ needs.

Brexit

In terms of Brexit, Startupbootcamp noted in the report that the UK’s decision to leave the EU had so far had a limited effect on InsurTech

Output: Brexit has had little impact so far on insurtech start-ups, which have focused increasingly on mid- and back-office operations in 2016, while the number of firms looking into different approaches to underwriting risk and predicting loss rose four-fold, according to a trend report by Startupbbootcamp InsurTech and PwC. However, the study found the Brexit negotiation stage could present disruption issues, though the long-term effects are hard to estimate. There remain "question marks as to whether talent and investment will still be drawn to British shores to the same degree that they are currently", according to the report.


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Stanford researchers develop arrhythmia-spotting algorithm
 While not all arrhythmias are fatal or even dangerous, it's still a cause for concern. Some, after all, could cause heart failure and cardiac arrest, and a lot of people with abnormal heart rhythms don't even show symptoms. A team of researchers from Stanford University might have found a way to effectively diagnose the condition even if a person isn't exhibiting symptoms and even without a doctor. They've developed an algorithm that can detect 14 types of arrhythmia -- they also claim that based on their tests, it can perform "better than trained cardiologists."

See, an ECG doesn't always show the presence of arrhythmia, so doctors sometimes order patients to wear a wearable ECG device to monitor their heartbeat for two weeks. The researchers took advantage of that practice to create their algorithm. They used the massive dataset provided by heartbeat monitor company iRhythm to train a deep neural network for seven months until it's capable of detecting 14 types of arrhythmia by looking at ECGs.

To ensure the results' accuracy, the team had six cardiologists look at the data and diagnose each individual. They found that the algorithm was able to compete with the cardiologists, and in some cases, it was even able to differentiate between two very similar types of arrhythmia, something that could mean the difference between life and death.

Pranav Rajpurkar, the paper's co-lead author, said:

"The differences in the heartbeat signal can be very subtle but have massive impact in how you choose to tackle these detection. For example, two forms of the arrhythmia known as second-degree atrioventricular block look very similar, but one requires no treatment while the other requires immediate attention."

The scientists are hoping for their creation to lead to a diagnostic tool people in developing nations and remote areas can use if they don't have immediate access to a doctor. They also believe it could be used on a wearable device to pick up signs of stroke, heart failure or cardiac arrest in at-risk patients.

Output: Researchers at Stanford University have developed an algorithm capable of diagnosing an irregular heartbeat and distinguishing between 14 different types of arrhythmia. The team used vast datasets from heartbeat monitor company iRhythm to create the algorithm, which was then tested against the diagnostic skills of human medics. The scientists hope to develop a diagnostic tool that can be used by people in remote locations who don't have access to a heart specialist.


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Ethereum crash causes a sell-off of GPU mining equipment
 Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price crashes below $150

Will GPU prices be returning to normal soon?

| Source: Ethereum Price Author: Mark Campbell

Used GPUs flood the market as Ethereum's price crashes below $150

Over the past few months, there has been a GPU shortage, forcing the prices of mid-range graphics cards up as cryptocurrency miners from across the world purchased hardware in bulk in search for quick and easy profits.

This has forced the prices of most modern AMD and certain Nvidia GPUs to skyrocket, but now these GPUs are starting to saturate the used market as more and more Ethereum miners sell up and quit mining. Some other miners are starting to look at other emerging Cryptocurrencies, though it is clear that the hype behind Ethereum is dying down.

difficulty spike, making the currency 20% harder to mine and significantly less profitable. This combined with its decrease in value has made mining Ethereum unprofitable for many miners, especially in regions with higher than average electricity costs. Earlier this week Ethereum's value dropped below $200 , as soon as the currency experienced a new, making the currency 20% harder to mine and significantly less profitable. This combined with its decrease in value has made mining Ethereum unprofitable for many miners, especially in regions with higher than average electricity costs.

Now Ethereum is valued at less than $150, with the currency costing $134.97 at the time of writing, which is less than half of the currency's peak value. The currency has the potential to bounce back, though it is difficult to see the currency go back over £250 in the near future.

On second-hand sales websites like eBay and Gumtree, we have seen a lot of new GPU listing appear in recent days, with plenty of used AMD RX series GPUs appearing over the weekend. More hardware is expected to hit these sites over the coming days as some miners wind down their operations, though many will simply move to a more profitable currency or to invest their computing power into an emerging Cryptocurrency that has the prospect of high values in the future.

These developments will decrease demand for new GPUs from miners and will flood the used market with mining hardware, which should allow GPU pricing to return to normal levels in the near future. Sadly there remains the possibility for Ethereum to make some form of resurgence, or for another cryptocurrency to take its place.

In recent weeks websites like eBay and Gumtree have been relatively bare of GPUs, with this week seeing a huge uptick in the number of new AMD RX listings, though pricing is still sitting well above AMD's MSRP. It is worth noting that we see more GPUs listing appearing in the EU than the US, potentially due to differing electricity costs and other variables that affect the profitability of mining.

The sad fact of the matter is that this situation will likely happen again and again moving forward, with Bitcoin and Ethereum setting up an irritating trend for the gaming market. The drive for greater GPU efficiency will only make mining easier and newer, smarter cryptocurrencies will continue to be developed, which means that GPU-based mining will never truly die off in the foreseeable future.

You can join the discussion on Ethereum's declining price on the OC3D Forums.

1 - Will GPU prices be returning to normal soon? «Prev 1 Next»

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Output: The slump in ethereum's value has prompted small-scale miners to sell up, leading to a glut of graphics processing unit (GPU) equipment appearing on sites such as Gumtree and eBay. Where the recent shortage of GPUs available online had driven prices up, the influx of used units is likely to push the costs back down, until such time as another cryptocurrency takes ethereum’s place. These fluctuations are unlikely to stop within the foreseeable future.


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Investment app Stash generates another $40m in series C round
 Stash, a NYC-based fintech investment and education platform, raised $40m in Series C funding.

The round was led by Coatue Management and existing investors Breyer Capital, Goodwater Capital, and Valar Ventures.

The company, which has raised a total of $78m in less than two years, intends to use the capital to accelerate investments in technology and data analytics, to better serve its community with more personalization, educational tools, and new products.

Started in February 2015 by Wall Street veterans Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson, Stash allows its customers, including freelancers, military personnel, and teachers, to invest in funds in a secure way, guided by smart and effective strategies.

The company, which is to launch Stash Retire, a simplified retirement platform for iOS and Android, this summer, is presently servicing over 850,000 accounts, 86% of which are first-time investors. In 2017 alone, it added over half a million new investors to its platform, with over 25,000 new customers joining every week.

Stash is an SEC Registered Investment Adviser.

FinSMEs

13/07/2017

Output: Stash, the online investment app that allows customers to invest in exchange-traded funds for as little as $5, has raised a further $40m in a series C funding round. The fresh capital has boosted investment in the New York company to $78m. The service is popular with millennials and freelancers, and there are plans to launch a retirement scheme later this year. The company said it will use the financial injection to develop its technology and analytics.


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Researchers identify toxic chemicals in mac and cheese products
 A new study found traces of phthalates in store bought mac and cheese products, specifically in the cheese powders. Phthalates are chemicals that keep plastics flexible, transparent and durable. Past research has linked these chemicals to lower sperm count and hormone disruption.

The study, which was conducted by The Coalition for Safer Food Processing & Packaging, found that 29 out of 30 packages tested had contained the chemicals. Although phthalates aren’t intentionally added to the food, they can slip in pretty easily through the process. Since discovering this, the coalition has launched a #KleanUpKraft petition to get rid of “toxic industrial chemicals” completely. Although these chemicals have been found in all kinds of store bought mac and cheese, including organic labels, Kraft sells the most.

You Might Also Like: Taking Too Much Of This Vitamin Can Cause Serious Health Issues

In the letter, the coalition explained that young children’s and pregnant women’s number one source of phthalates is through food.

Kraft released a statement to Time explaining that they don’t add phthalates to any of their products. “The trace amounts that were reported in this limited study are more than 1,000 times lower than levels that scientific authorities have identified as acceptable,” the company stated. “Our products are safe for consumers to enjoy.”

Output: Traces of phthalates have been discovered in the cheese powders of store-bought macaroni and cheese mixes, according to a report by The Coalition for Safer Food Processing & Packaging. Phthalates are chemicals used to enhance the durability and flexibility of plastic, but have been linked to hormone disruption and diminished sperm count if consumed. The recent study found that 29 out of 30 products tested contained the toxic chemicals, which can migrate into the food during the manufacturing and packaging process.


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Bot-promoting of porn growing across Twitter through affiliates
 Last month KrebsOnSecurity published research into a large distributed network of apparently compromised systems being used to relay huge blasts of junk email promoting “online dating” programs — affiliate-driven schemes traditionally overrun with automated accounts posing as women. New research suggests that another bot-promoting botnet of more than 80,000 automated female Twitter accounts has been pimping the same dating scheme and prompting millions of clicks from Twitter users in the process.

Not long after I published Inside a Porn-Pimping Spam Botnet, I heard from researchers at ZeroFOX, a security firm that helps companies block attacks coming through social media.

Zack Allen, manager of threat operations at ZeroFOX, said he had a look at some of the spammy, adult-themed domains being promoted by the botnet in my research and found they were all being promoted through a botnet of bogus Twitter accounts.

Those phony Twitter accounts all featured images of attractive or scantily-clad women, and all were being promoted via suggestive tweets, Allen said.

Anyone who replied was ultimately referred to subscription-based online dating sites run by Deniro Marketing, a company based in California. This was the same company that was found to be the beneficiary of spam from the porn botnet I’d written about in June. Deniro did not respond to requests for comment.

“We’ve been tracking this thing since February 2017, and we concluded that the social botnet controllers are probably not part of Deniro Marketing, but most likely are affiliates,” Allen said.

ZeroFOX found more than 86,262 Twitter accounts were responsible for more than 8.6 million posts on Twitter promoting porn-based sites, many of them promoting domains in a swath of Internet address space owned by Deniro Marketing (ASN19884).

Allen said 97.4% of bot display names had the pattern “Firstname Surname” with the first letters of each name capitalized, and each name separated by a single whitespace character that corresponded to common female names.

The accounts advertise adult content by routinely injecting links from their twitter profiles to a popular hashtag, or by @-mentioning a popular user or influencer on Twitter. Those profile links are shortened with Google’s goo.gl link shortening service, which then redirects to a free hosting domain in the dot-tk (.tk) domain space (.tk is the country code for Tokelau — a group of atolls in the South Pacific).

From there the system is smart enough to redirect users back to Twitter if they appear to be part of any automated attempt to crawl the links (e.g. by using site download and mirroring tools like cURL), the researchers found. They said this was likely a precaution on the part of the spammers to avoid detection by automated scanners looking for bot activity on Twitter. Requests from visitors who look like real users responding to tweets are redirected to the porn spam sites.

Because the links promoted by those spammy Twitter accounts all abused short link services from Twitter and Google, the researchers were able to see that this entire botnet has generated more than 30 million unique clicks from February to June 2017.

[SIDE NOTE: Anyone seeking more context about what’s being promoted here can check out the Web site datinggold[dot]com [Caution: Not-Safe-for-Work], which suggests it’s an affiliate program that rewards marketers who drive new signups to its array of “online dating” offerings — mostly “cheating,” “hookup” and “affair-themed” sites like “AdsforSex,” “Affair Hookups,” and “LocalCheaters.” Note that this program is only interested in male signups.]

Allen said the Twitter botnet relies heavily on accounts that have been “aged” for a period of time as another method to evade anti-spam techniques used by Twitter, which may treat tweets from new accounts with more prejudice than those from established accounts. ZeroFOX said about 20 percent of the Twitter accounts identified as part of the botnet were aged at least one year before sending their first tweet, and that the botnet overall demonstrates that these affiliate programs have remained lucrative by evolving to harness social media.

“The final redirect sites encourage the user to sign up for subscription pornography, webcam sites, or fake dating,” ZeroFOX wrote in a report being issued this week. “These types of sites, although legal, are known to be scams.”

Perhaps the most well-known example of the subscription-based dating/cheating service that turned out to be mostly phony was AshleyMadison. After AshleyMadison’s user databases were plundered and published online, the company admitted that its service used at least 70,000 female chatbots that were programmed to message new users and try to entice them into replying — which required a paid account.

“Many of the sites’ policies claim that the site owners operate most of the profiles,” ZeroFOX charged. “They also have overbearing policies that can use personally information of their customers to send to other affiliate programs, yielding more spam to the victim. Much like the infamous ‘partnerka’ networks from the Russian Business Network, money is paid out via clicks and signups on affiliate programs” [links added].

Although the Twitter botnet discovered by ZeroFOX has since been dismantled, it not hard to see how this same approach could be very effective at spreading malware. Keep your wits about you while using or cruising social media sites, and be wary of any posts or profiles that match the descriptions and behavior of the bot accounts described here.

For more on this research, see ZeroFOX’s blog post Inside a Massive Siren Social Network Spam Botnet.

Output: A botnet flooding Twitter with links to porn-based sites was traced back to affiliates of online dating company Deniro Marketing in California, according to cybersecurity firm Zerofox. The botnet, which injects links from adult content Twitter profiles into popular hashtags or @-mentions influencers or users on the social media site, abused short link services from Twitter and Google. Zerofox researchers reported that the bot had generated 30 million unique clicks between February and June this year.


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Europcar investigated by SFO over 'fraudulent' repair costs
 The car hire industry was thrown deeper into crisis last night after it was revealed a major firm was facing an investigation over 'fraudulent' repair costs.

Europcar, one Europe's biggest rental companies, said customers may have been overcharged by as much as £30 million.

The Serious Fraud Office is understood to be planning a criminal inquiry following reports that more than 500,000 customers may have paid for repairs inflated by up to 300 per cent.

Europcar is facing a criminal probe into claims that it overcharged customers for repairs with bills inflated up to 300 per cent

It comes on the back of a Daily Mail investigation which found that customers were being forced to pay up to £2,200 in insurance excess if they damage a hire car abroad.

The Daily Telegraph reported last night that the Europcar customers may have paid over the odds for repairs over the course of a decade.

The National Body Repair Association said the problem was widespread and warned of 'an increasing trend towards large corporates pressurising small firms to work with opaque practices and poor commercial terms'.

Alex Neill, from Which?, added: 'If Europcar is found to have inflated costs for repairs, people will be outraged.

The company says customers may have been overcharged a total of £30million over the course of a decade, with industry watchdogs warning the practice is 'widespread' (file)

'There should be an immediate investigation to ensure others aren't doing this and customers who have been left out of pocket are compensated without delay.'

A spokesman for Europcar said 'the implications of the investigation will be somewhere in the region of £30million'.

Thousands of customers could seek compensation and the company could be fined 10 per cent of its annual turnover if found guilty.

The Mail revealed last week that British travellers face an average excess of more than £1,000 on a holiday hire car, with some firms charging more than £2,000.

When a hire car is damaged, the driver must usually pay the first few hundred pounds of repairs – known as the excess – before the rest is covered by their standard insurance.

But experts said excess charges were spiralling 'out of control' as car rental desks use the high prices to persuade drivers to buy additional 'excess waiver' cover.

Output: One of Europe's largest car rental companies, Europcar, is to be investigated by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) following reports that more than 500,000 customers may have paid for repairs inflated by up to 300%, with overcharges potentially totalling as much as £30m ($39m). If the company is found guilty, thousands of customers may be able to seek compensation and Europcar could be fined 10% of its annual turnover. British travellers face an average excess of at least £1,000 on a holiday hire car, with some firms charging more than £2,000.


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Moon Express raises $45m to robotically mine moon rocks
 Private money is chasing moonshots Moon Express

A permanent robotic mining outpost on the moon could be on the cards as early as 2020. The Florida-based company Moon Express has raised over $45 million in funding for three expeditions that will culminate in a mission to mine moon rocks and return them to Earth.

Because the laws governing usage of resources in space are vague, a profit-driven mission of this kind could cause international controversy. “It’s something that is being discussed internationally now, but there is no agreed-upon answer, and I’m not sure there’s going to be,” says Henry Hertzfeld at the George Washington University Space Policy Institute in Washington, DC.

Moon Express was founded in 2010 with the aim of winning the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a $20 million award for the first privately funded vehicle to land on the moon. The launch deadline is the end of 2017, so Moon Express hopes to launch Lunar Scout, its first planned expedition, this year.

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The engines for the company’s landers have been built and are being tested, but other parts are still being developed and manufactured. The Electron rocket, made by private spaceflight company Rocket Lab, is slated to carry Lunar Scout but has never yet reached orbit.

“We have a lot to do in a very short time frame, and Rocket Lab has a lot to do in a very short time frame,” Moon Express chief executive Bob Richards told a press conference yesterday.

Never mind the prize

Even if the launch doesn’t happen by the end of the year, Richards said the mission will go ahead – the prize money is not an absolute requirement.

That debut Lunar Scout mission will carry a small telescope and a laser array to the moon’s surface. In 2019, the company plans to land a second craft at the moon’s south pole, where it can prospect for water and any potentially useful minerals.

The aptly named third expedition, Harvest Moon, would begin Moon Express’s mining operation. If all goes to plan, this first commercial mission to return moon rocks to Earth will launch in 2020. The lander may have the capability to send a capsule full of samples back to Earth (illustrated below) while it remains on the moon to continue mining.

Moon Express

Those lunar samples would be the first to return to the US since 1972. Some of them will be used for scientific research, but others could be sold to collectors or other private companies. “We look forward opening up the opportunity for everyone to have lunar rocks,” Richards said.

Lunar samples from all of the prior US missions belong to the government. The Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (SPACE) Act of 2015 encourages commercial exploitation of resources in space, as long as they’re not alive. That means that if Moon Express finds aliens, it can’t keep them, but minerals and water are fair game.

Most other nations don’t have such clear laws, though. They rely on the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which vaguely states that the exploration of outer space and celestial bodies should be beneficial to everyone. Many people interpret the treaty to mean that space, including the moon, is common heritage that should remain unsullied by commercial interests.

“What becomes a hang-up is the profits that could be made by a private company,” says Hertzfeld. “Internationally, not everybody’s going to be happy with that. But can they do anything about it? Probably not.”

Output: Florida-based spaceflight firm Moon Express has generated more than $45m in funding for three trips to the Moon, with the final trip intended to be a mining expedition for lunar rocks. The privately financed company, which was formed with a view to winning the $20m Google Lunar XPRIZE, plans to launch Lunar Scout, its first expedition, this year. Although the lander's engines are in the testing phase, other vehicle parts are still being developed and manufactured. Even if the launch doesn't happen by the prize deadline, the company will proceed with its plans, according to Moon Express CEO Bob Richards.


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Q2 GDP expanded slightly more than expected in China
 Early last year, China announced a five-year plan to eliminate excessive capacity and lay off workers in the coal and steel industries, in a bid to restructure the world’s second-largest economy. This March, the government set a new goal of cutting steel capacity by 50 million metric tons (55 tons) and coal capacity by 150 million metric tons by year-end.

But reality is diverging from the rhetoric.

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China just announced its GDP expanded 6.9% in the second quarter of this year, from April to June, according to the latest official figure. That has beaten analysts’ consensus estimates of 6.8%, and continues the encouraging trend shown by the previous quarter’s data, after concerns that the economy could slow further than it already has. China has said it is aiming for GDP growth of around 6.5% this year; the International Monetary Fund in June revised its forecast up to 6.7%.

But the driver of upbeat activity “remains all the things that China was trying to get away from like coal, steel,” said Christopher Balding, a professor at Peking University’s HSBC Business School in Shenzhen.

China’s steel production hit a record high this June, breaking the previous record in April, as construction demand and prices picked up. Riding on an expected summer uptick in demand due to electricity use, May coal output jumped 12% from a year earlier, the fastest growth rate in at least two years. Growth in industrial output also accelerated in June, beating market expectations.

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China has said that it cut 65 million metric tons of steel capacity in 2016, and spent $4.4 billion on assisting the 726,000 workers affected by both steel and coal restructuring. The cuts are aimed at improving prices and industrial profits, as well as reshaping the economy.

It’s worth noting that you can cut production capacity without cutting production in China. A study commissioned by environmental nonprofit Greenpeace, published in February, showed that nearly three-fourths of the steel-capacity it recorded for China last year—85 million metric tons—came from mills that weren’t any longer in production to begin with. Meanwhile, the amount of restarted production and new capacity that came online came to 66 million metric tons, the report found.

In addition, the actual cuts that will occur this year could be in question too. The study reported more capacity reductions than China officially announced for last year. This could mean that a significant amount of capacity closure was not registered by the end of last year, noted Lauri Myllyvirta, energy analyst at Greenpeace in Beijing. The difference “could represent carryover to this year, making the actual amount of capacity that needs to be closed to meet the target smaller,” he said.

Meanwhile, a key indicator for Chinese blast furnaces that shows how much of the total operating capacity is in use is down from a year earlier, while steel output is up. How were steelmakers able to ramp up production while using furnaces less? One way would be if capacity, i.e. the number of blast furnaces that can be used, had gone up. “It certainly underscores that excess capacity remains and the industry isn’t out of the woods,” Myllyvirta said.

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One of the major reasons behind Beijing’s capacity cuts is to reduce government support for struggling industrial firms that are disproportionately state-owned. These companies are so-called “zombies” which rely on rolling over their debts in order to survive. The chart below, from Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics research group, shows an increasing gap between the returns generated by state and private firms in industry.

So far Beijing is reluctant to get to the root of the misallocation of credit—a key concern given China’s high debt, and as loans continue to grow. That would involve allowing more actual bankruptcies, and job losses. Currently, 1,879 bankruptcy cases are being reviewed by Chinese courts, according to official data (link in Chinese). Of those, only 236 are state-owned firms. Breaking down by industry, only 46 are steel companies.

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“Local politicians won’t get promoted for shutting down a loss-making steel firm, they get promoted for increasing GDP,” Balding said.

Because China’s Communist Party is slated to hold its 19th national congress, a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle event this fall, China watchers aren’t anticipating any major policy changes before that. Historically, uncertainty is the last thing the Party wants ahead of big events. Over the past weekend, China’s top leaders held a two-day financial work conference, but the results announced appeared much less exciting (paywall) than many had speculated.

Last week, China revised its GDP calculation method, but the change is not reflected in the latest figure, according to the national statistics bureau. In June, Beijing also announced plans to make its own calculations of local-level GDP after three provinces–including the rusty belt region Liaoning–were found to inflate their GDP figures.

Output: China economy beat growth expectations in Q2 2017, with GDP expanding 6.9% compared to analysts' consensus estimate of 6.8%. Among the biggest contributors was steel - an area where the Beijing government is trying to cut capacity - with production reaching a record high in June on the back of strong construction demand and price rises. Similarly, coal, another area targeted for capacity cuts, saw output surge by 12% YoY in May, the fastest growth rate in at least two years.


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Global cyber attack could cause $121bn in losses
 Lloyd’s of London has warned that a serious cyber-attack could cost the global economy more than $120bn (£92bn) – as much as catastrophic natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

Published two months after a ransomware cyber-attack that hobbled NHS hospitals and hit nearly 100 countries, a 56-page report from the world’s oldest insurance market says the threat posed by such global attacks has spiralled and poses a huge risk to business and governments over the next decade.

The most likely scenario is a malicious hack that takes down a cloud service provider with estimated losses of $53bn, according to Lloyd’s. This is the average estimate, but because of the uncertainty around calculating cyber losses it estimates the figure could be as high as $121bn or as low as $15bn.

At the upper end, the cost would outstrip the damage wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, estimated at $108bn (including $80bn of insured losses). Hurricane Sandy in 2012 is estimated to have caused economic losses of $50bn-$70bn.

Inga Beale, chief executive of Lloyd’s, said: “This report gives a real sense of the scale of damage a cyber-attack could cause the global economy. Just like some of the worst natural catastrophes, cyber events can cause a severe impact on businesses and economies, trigger multiple claims and dramatically increase insurers’ claims costs.

“Underwriters need to consider cyber cover in this way and ensure that premium calculations keep pace with the cyber-threat reality,” she said.

The second-most likely threat stems from attacks on computer operating systems run by a large number of businesses around the world, which could cause losses of up to $28.7bn (the “mass software vulnerability scenario”).

The majority of these losses are not insured, leaving governments and businesses vulnerable if cyber-attacks happen. The uninsured gap could be as high as $45bn for the cloud services scenario, and $26bn for the mass vulnerability scenario.

Trevor Maynard, Lloyd’s head of innovation and co-author of the report with the cybersecurity firm Cyence, said the global cyberattack in May “showed us that these sorts of attacks are absolutely possible”. Financial services is most at risk, followed by software and technology, hospitality, retail and healthcare.

Cyber cover is a relatively new type of insurance that has emerged in the last few years – Lloyds’s accounts for about a quarter of global premiums – and harder to model and understand than natural catastrophe cover.

Where people are involved, risk changes quite rapidly, Maynard said, from cyber-attacks to terrorism and political risk. However, climate change remains the biggest challenge in the long run.

“From year to year, risk varies relatively little but climate change in the end will be far larger as a risk,” he said. “It affects the global economic structure, food, water. [It’s like] trying to turn a supertanker around – we can’t start in 30 years when things are going bad, we have to start now.”

Output: A major cyber attack could result in damage to the global economy on a par with environmental catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, according to a report by Lloyd's of London. Lloyd's said a large-scale hack of a cloud services provider would likely lead to economic losses in the region of $53bn, but taking into account the unpredictability surrounding growing cyber risks and the difficulty making calculations, it warned actual losses could reach as high as $121bn.


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Bacon and sausage prices soar as Chinese demand bites
 Prices have shot up by as much as 20 per cent in a year and has led some firms to reduce the size of products but not the cost

SAUSAGE and bacon prices have shot up by as much as 20 per cent in a year, food industry experts say.

Rising pork costs have been blamed for the hike — while some firms have reduced the size of products but not the price.

2 Sausage prices have believed to have increased by as much as 20 per cent in a year Credit: Getty Images

2 It's not just sausages that have had a price hike, it's bacon too Credit: Getty Images

Analysts Brand View found the price of a 12- pack of Richmond thin pork sausages is up ten per cent to an average £1.71.

And a pack of eight Wall’s skinless pork sausages is up 20 per cent to an average £1.40.

A 300g pack of supermarket own-label smoked streaky bacon is up 12 per cent to a typical £2.22.

Trade magazine The Grocer said pig demand from China had hit the market.

It said: “Prices for bangers, bacon and fresh pork are surging.”

Output: Bacon and sausage prices in the UK have surged by up to 20% in a year primarily due to higher pork costs and stronger pig demand from China. This has resulted in some firms reducing the size but not the price of their products, according to food industry commentators.


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Tesco pledges to ban toxic chemicals from clothing supply chain
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Tesco joins fellow supermarket chains M&S, Aldi and Lidl in committing to the Greenpeace campaign, which calls on brands involved with clothing to remove the use of toxic chemicals from certain practices.

“Greenpeace endorses our plan to phase-out hazardous chemicals in our supply chain as part of the Greenpeace DETOX commitment,” Tesco’s category technical director Alan Wragg said in a blogpost.

“Tesco’s Responsible Sourcing Team has been working with Greenpeace to align all our textile products with the DETOX commitment, starting with clothing and footwear.”

The UK-based supermarket will work with Greenpeace and its “complete” supply chain to ensure zero discharge of hazardous chemicals into the environment by 2020.

From denial and opacity…

Greenpeace’s DETOX campaign was launched in 2011, to challenge brands to eliminate toxic chemicals from supply chains. Alongside supermarkets, the initiative has been backed by fashion brands including H&M and Levi Strauss. Transparency is a key focus of the campaign, and companies have until 2020 to implement measures and eliminate all toxic chemical releases.

“In only six years, forerunners of the textile sector went from total denial and opacity of their supply chain to transparency and the banning of all hazardous chemicals,” Greenpeace Germany’s project lead for the campaign Kirsten Brodde said.

“Tesco’s commitment shows the rest of the industry that using hazardous chemicals is not an option anymore. Tesco now has the opportunity to match the progress being made by other retailers and Greenpeace will monitor it closely to ensure they follow up their commitment.”

Recent research has revealed the extent to which toxic chemical practices can wreak havoc on the environment. Fashion retailers H&M and M&S have vowed to implement new supply chain management approaches, after a report linked them with highly-polluting facilities that were dumping toxic wastewater into local waterways.

At the other end of the value chain, Asia’s mountains of hazardous electronic trash, or e-waste, are growing rapidly because manufacturers are failing to remove all toxins from products and make them easier to repair and recycle.

Matt Mace

Output: Tesco has undertaken to remove toxic chemicals from its textile supply chains, starting with clothing and footwear. The supermarket followed in the wake of Aldi, Lidl and Marks & Spencer, which have already committed to the Greenpeace Detox initiative. The scheme, launched in 2011, calls on brands associated with clothing to eliminate toxic chemical releases from their supply chains by 2020. The campaign is also supported by H&M and Levi Strauss.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
UK sees 26% rise in intensive factory farming since 2011
 Nearly every county in England has at least one industrial-scale livestock farm, with close to 800 US-style mega farms operating across the UK, new research reveals.

The increase in mega farms – which critics describe as “cruel and unnecessary” – is part of a 26% rise in intensive factory farming in six years, a shift that is transforming the British countryside.

Only 12 counties in the UK now host no pig or poultry farms classified as intensive by the Environment Agency. To be classed as intensive, a farm must have warehouses with more than 40,000 birds, 2,000 pigs or 750 breeding sows.

Quick Guide Megafarms Show What is a mega-farm? There is no legal definition in the UK of a mega-farm. The Environment Agency, and its regional counterparts, classify livestock farms as "intensive" if they have hold at least 40,000 poultry or 2,000 pigs or 750 breeding sows. In the US, larger concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are defined as those housing 125,000 broiler chickens, 82,000 laying hens, 2,500 pigs or 700 dairy or 1,000 beef cattle. There are now 1,099 mega-farms of this size in the UK. Why are they controversial? Mega-farms and intensive farms are controversial because they require keeping tens of thousands of animals in a small space, which campaigners and independent experts say can hamper their ability to express natural behaviours, such as moving naturally and nesting. The animals are often kept indoors throughout their lives, though on some farms they are allowed access to outdoor areas at least part of the time. There are also concerns that animals on mega farms may be over-medicated with antibiotics, as if one gets sick the whole herd is generally required to be treated. Why do some people believe we need them? Mega-farms and intensive farms take up much less space than traditional farms, and they allow animals to be kept securely, away from predators and potential carriers of disease. Their conditions are tightly controlled, allowing farmers to monitor the amount of daylight, water and feed for the animals, and if disease develops the livestock can be treated quickly. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.

Herefordshire has more than 16 million factory-farmed animals, mainly poultry – which means the county has 88 times more factory-farmed animals than it does humans. Shropshire and Norfolk follow closely, with more than 15 million and 12 million animals respectively. Nearly every county in England and Northern Ireland has at least one mega farm, and they are also scattered across Scotland and Wales.

The march of US-style mega farms – defined in the US as facilities housing 125,000 broiler chickens, 82,000 laying hens, 2,500 pigs, 700 dairy or 1,000 beef cattle – has been revealed in an investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Most of these farms have gone unnoticed, despite their size and the controversy surrounding them, in part because many farmers have expanded existing facilities rather than seeking new sites.

Mega farms and industrial-scale farms (that count as intensive, but not “mega” under the US definition) have previously attracted attention because of concerns raised by local residents, over smells, noise and the potential for pollution or disease outbreaks, and by animal welfare campaigners, who argue that factory-style farming in which livestock are rarely or never permitted outdoors prevents animals from expressing their natural behaviour. They also worry that mega farms are pushing smaller farmers out of business, leading to the takeover of the countryside by large agribusinesses, with the loss of traditional family-run units.

Their defenders say that the close controls on industrial-scale farms mean that disease, pollution and the carbon footprint can be kept to a minimum. Such farms also produce for consumers at a lower cost than small-scale farms.

The government does not collate central statistics on mega farms, for which there is no recognised definition under British regulations, but farms classified as intensive need permits. Freedom of information requests and database searches have revealed 789 farms meeting the US mega farm (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) definition.

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), the pressure group, has compiled a map showing hotspots in areas such as Herefordshire and Shropshire, East Anglia and Northern Ireland.

Poultry farms tend to be biggest, with seven out of the 10 largest housing more than 1 million birds, and the biggest two capable of holding 1.7 million and 1.4 million birds. The biggest pig farm found holds about 23,000 pigs, while the biggest cattle farm, in Lincolnshire, houses about 3,000 animals.

Proposals for greenfield mega farms have received a rough ride from the public in recent years. One in Nocton, Lincolnshire, that would have housed more than 8,000 cows, had to be abandoned after local opposition. Another in Foston, Derbyshire, for more than 24,500 pigs was successfully derailed after protests.

For this reason, and for reasons of cost and efficiency, many farmers and large food companies have chosen to expand existing facilities, going under the radar of local opposition.

Emma Slawinski, director of campaigns at CIWF, the pressure group which created the hotspot map, said: “There is a worrying trend towards intensive farming. Bringing animals off the land and cramming them into squalid, inhumane factory farms is not only cruel to animals but also has far-reaching effects on human health, wildlife and the planet. Moving animals away from the countryside into cages and crowded sheds may seem like a space-saving idea, but this ignores the fact that vast amounts of land are used elsewhere to grow feed for them.”

She said animals are kept in “often barren, overcrowded and frequently filthy” conditions despite enough land available to keep them in a natural environment. “North Yorkshire has the highest number of indoor-reared pigs, with over 220,000 of them confined to the inside, unable to forage and explore. This is cruel and unnecessary when we can simply bring the animals outside and rear them on the land.”

However, independent farming experts and industry organisations argue that intensive farming doesn’t hinder animal welfare, and provides cheaper food for consumers. Charles Godfray, director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, said it was not possible to judge the welfare of animals based on the size of farms. “It’s much more about how you do it,” he said. “There are intensive operations which are horrible, and others which are good examples of how to look after animals well and get good outcomes.”

Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, said birds reared on intensive farms enjoyed good standards. “These are high health and welfare farms. The husbandry of the birds is the crucial element here – I think people think of hens roaming around a farm, but that image is no longer the case. That’s not how chicken is farmed any more.”

Penrhos Poultry Limited in Kington, England. Photograph: Rob Stothard

He added that pressure from consumers meant it was impractical to keep birds in free range or organic conditions for general consumption. “Last year, we grew almost a billion birds, 95% indoors and 3.4% free range and 1% organic. If we tried to grow a billion birds a year organically, that would be a lot of land. It’s a balancing act, and it’s demand-driven. I don’t think we’ll see a change in systems without consumer demand. At the moment, that demand isn’t there.”

Christine Nicol, professor of veterinary science at the University of Bristol, said the size of a farm was less important than the way animals were looked after, as livestock on small farms could suffer from neglect or poor conditions, particularly in winter. However, she added: “Generally, there is good evidence that very intensive forms of production do seriously constrain internally-motivated behaviours, particularly comfort movements such as stretching, grooming, netsing. That is either because not enough space is provided or insufficient resources are provided. Most animals need quiet resting areas separate from busy areas. These are not always provided, or are insufficient.

“It is not necessarily the case that outdoor access is needed to allow these behaviours. Spacious, protected, semi-indoor areas with natural light can often be better as they allow for the important behaviours while keeping disease risks low. More work needs to be done and much greater incentives offered [to farmers] to encourage improvement, and better public understanding is needed too.”

Zoe Davies, chief executive of the National Pig Association, said bigger farms allowed for better care of animals: “These larger units have more dedicated people – pig units will have specialist vets. There aren’t as many producers that farm pigs outdoors because there’s not a huge demand. The majority are trying to compete with everyone else and their European counterparts. There’s such intense competition.”

Andrew Wasley is food and agriculture reporter at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Madlen Davies is science and health reporter at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism

David Child is a freelance journalist

Fiona Harvey is the environment correspondent for the Guardian

Output: Almost 800 industrial-scale livestock farms now exist in the UK, with one in all but 12 counties, according to an investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The increase in such farms, viewed by critics as cruel, forms part of the 26% rise in intensive factory farming witnessed in the UK since 2011. According to Environment Agency classifications, farms must have warehouses containing 40,000 birds, 2,000 pigs or 750 breeding sows to be categorised as intensive. The expansion in mega-farms has often gone unnoticed as farmers have expanded existing operations rather than opening new sites.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
UK sees 26% rise in intensive factory farming since 2011
 A major Bureau investigation has revealed the changing face of British farming. The number of intensive farms in the UK has risen by a quarter since 2011, with many so big they fit the definition of a US mega-farm.

Below you can find all the data we obtained, analysed per country, county and type of livestock. It contains information on the five companies controlling nearly all poultry meat production in the UK. You will also find information on which of these companies operate mega-farms, and the supermarkets they supply.

Read the full investigation into the rise of intensive farms here

The Environment Agency - and its regional counterparts in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales - classify livestock farms as "intensive" if they have capacity for housing at least 40,000 poultry birds or 2,000 pigs grown for meat or 750 breeding pigs (sows).

These "intensive" farms each require a permit to operate that is issued by the relevant environment agency. Very large free range farms also need this licence but there are far fewer of them. This contains details of the farm operator, the number of livestock permitted to be housed and a detailed set of conditions that must be met for the farm to operate.

Existing farms can be issued with a new permit if changes to the original conditions are proposed- such as if a farm wants to increase the number of livestock it houses - or if it changes owners.

Output: Almost 800 industrial-scale livestock farms now exist in the UK, with one in all but 12 counties, according to an investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The increase in such farms, viewed by critics as cruel, forms part of the 26% rise in intensive factory farming witnessed in the UK since 2011. According to Environment Agency classifications, farms must have warehouses containing 40,000 birds, 2,000 pigs or 750 breeding sows to be categorised as intensive. The expansion in mega-farms has often gone unnoticed as farmers have expanded existing operations rather than opening new sites.


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Schroders unveils climate progress tool for investors
 The innovative dashboard, developed by Schroders’ Sustainability team, identifies the long-term temperature rise the world is on course for, according to a framework of indicators spanning politics, business, technological progress and energy. All of the 12 indicators* - identified as the key drivers and controls of climate change - evaluated by Schroders are currently exceeding the international target to limit global warming to below 2°C, set by the Paris Agreement in December 2015. On average, according to the dashboard, the indicators are pointing to a temperature rise around 4°C, double the Paris target. Efforts to reach this goal have been complicated by the US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the agreement last month. The Climate Progress Dashboard highlights the disparity in commitments across sectors and indicators. Whereas global political action points to a 3.6°C temperature rise, current oil and gas production is running at a level consistent with temperature rises twice that level, highlighting the risks that remain inherent in energy companies. Andy Howard, Head of Sustainable Research, Schroders, said: “Climate change is a major challenge for the global economy, industries and financial markets. However, too little attention is paid to developing the tools to manage the risks it presents. Understanding the speed of progress and the implications for investment values is critical. “We developed the Climate Progress Dashboard to provide a unique perspective into the pace of change. It tracks trends in key progress markers towards decarbonisation. It provides an objective and transparent view of change and should help investors base decisions on the outcomes we are likely to see, rather than those we would like to see. “An all-round view is important. There is no single measure of progress: reshaping the global economy as a carbon-light version of itself will require a range of markets to expand or contract rapidly in the coming decades.” Schroders’ Sustainability team will update the Climate Progress Dashboard on a quarterly basis, providing a real-time reflection of how successfully the world is moving towards the Paris target. It will help Schroders’ portfolio management teams to manage the risks climate change presents more effectively.

*The indicators are:

• Political Ambition

• Public Concern

• Political Action

• Corporate Planning

• Climate Finance

• Carbon Prices

• Electric Vehicles

• Renewable Capacity

• Carbon Capture & Storage

• Oil & Gas Investment

• Coal Production

• Oil & Gas Production Please click here to see the Climate Progress Dashboard in full.

Output: Schroders, the multinational asset management firm, has launched a Climate Progress Dashboard that provides investors with information about the progress made by governments and industries towards achieving the Paris Climate Agreement goals. The dashboard, developed by the firm’s sustainability team, uses indicators from the fields of business, energy, politics and technology to estimate long-term temperature rises on Earth. All 12 indicators used currently suggest that the temperature will rise by 4C, twice that agreed in the Paris Accord.


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General Electric and Noble to use digital rig to raise efficiency
 In today’s challenging business environment, cutting expenditure is crucial for the offshore sector. According to a recent report by Oil & Gas UK total expenditure on the UK Continental Shelf fell from a peak of over £26bn in 2014 to £17.2bn in 2016.

“We are living in a relatively uncertain environment at the moment in the offshore oil and gas industry,” says Andrew McKeran, marine executive at General Electric’s Marine Solutions. “There is oil price volatility and there is an expertise imbalance which has resulted in performance variability and variance.

“There are also other, longer running problems. Companies often face difficulties when it comes to troubleshooting because of the very nature of the offshore industry. And then we are seeing a lot of unplanned downtime and maintenance costs. This is no longer acceptable to the industry because of oil price instability and the drop in day rates that some of our partners and clients are now experiencing.”

Improving the operational productivity of drilling rigs is one way the industry can help tackle these problems. In March, GE and Noble Corporation announced plans to work on an advanced data analytics system for offshore drilling rigs called the Digital Rig.

Utilising the industrial cloud

For the project GE will draw upon its experience in both software and industry. “Before starting we took a step back to look at what we already have within the GE store that might be useful,” McKeran says. “We looked at the power business, the onshore oil and gas business, aviation and so forth.

“We also decided to look at our industrial cloud-based platform Predix, which offers us the ability to run analytics at scale. Of course, there are some limitations when you are dealing with the offshore business: the asset is not connected to a cloud in any way, shape or form, for example. That means you have to bring in the nuance of running analytics on the edge, and then using the minimal bandwidth connections that you have from the platform back to the shore.”

Real-time data

To create enhanced drilling process efficiencies, GE is looking to build new performance indicators. “This entails producing efficiency reports,” McKeran explains. “It is effectively about asking: how well did we drill? It is about looking at your well plan and comparing it with what you have actually done over the past 24 hours.

” GE is looking to build new performance indicators.”

“What we are offering here will be different from other systems that are out there. We will be doing it on board the vessel in near real time, rather than sending the information to the beach, having it processed and then sending it 24 hours later. Our philosophy here is that if you can get that information in near real time, you can avoid an operational disruption that may come 24 to 48 hours later or in a week’s time.”

GE is also looking to improve the drilling process through performance analytics which can predict deviations and forecast potential disruptions on-board the vessel.

“The idea is to reduce operational disruptions,” says McKeran. “For this what we have is zonal analytics, which is split into two elements: high-frequency signature analysis on drive systems and looking at usage intensity on some of the assets that are on-board the vessel.”

Predictive maintenance

Some information will be sent to the shore, McKeran adds. “Having created those zonal analytics on the vessel we will send information back for predictive analytics so that we can look at look-term pattern behaviours,” he says.

“We will feed the information into a cloud-type environment and will start running what we call smart signal. The idea is to offer somewhere between three weeks’ and three months’ notification for any pending issues. We will be looking for underlying patterns and deviations very early on. We can pick up things like potential vibration issues, temperature issues and so on weeks before they are picked up on an automation system.”

This part of the Digital Rig will make use of GE’s digital twin concept, where like-for-like digital representations of physical systems are created to help companies understand, predict and optimise the performance of their assets.

“The Digital Rig will make use of GE’s digital twin concept.”

“Here we are looking at effectively modelling an asset,” says McKeran. “What we do is take from our standard library of assets and build a blueprint, a basic understanding of how that asset is literally, mechanically and electrically coupled together. This will be done shore-side either in the cloud or in an industrial performance and reliability centre within GE.”

For McKeran the shift to predictive maintenance will have a big impact on the industry. “We are looking to transform and redefine maintenance strategies by moving away from traditional OEM, calendar-based maintenance and towards a long-term, sustainable, adaptive philosophy of cost reduction for maintenance on board the vessel.”

While the partnership between GE and Noble was only recently announced, McKeran says work began in the first quarter of this year and progress is already being made.

“We have already delivered what we call ‘the data mile’ where we utilise a centralised historian and start looking at harmonising data across the vessel,” he says. “Progress is very fast and both companies are looking to accelerate the time to value to prove its effectiveness.”

Output: General Electric (GE) and drilling company Noble Corporation are to develop a data analytics system to improve the productivity of their offshore drilling operations. Running on GE's Predix cloud platform, the analytics system will create efficiency reports on drilling processes, enabling engineers to quickly identify and solve problems. Additionally, GE's analytics will provide information on long-term pattern behaviours. By reducing unplanned downtime and maintenance, the companies aim to achieve a 20% reduction in operational expenditure across all their rigs.


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Head of Twitter talent agency Niche leaves company
 What constitutes as celebritydom and internet fame has radically changed over the last few years thanks to social media. Now, one of the leading people in charge of fostering internet stars on Twitter has left.

Darren Lachtman, who co-founded the New York start-up Niche, connected popular personalities on social media to brands. The company was later acquired by Twitter for $30 million and together, stars created sponsored content on Twitter and Vine (the latter of which has since ceased in 2016).

Lachtman's departure was first reported by Recode. He announced his departure over (what else) Twitter, and said that Nick Millman and Kristen Lachtman will be the current heads of Niche US.

Twitter didn't immediately respond for a request to comment.

Output: Darren Lachtman, the co-founder of Twitter-owned marketing and branding agency Niche, has left the company. Lachtman had been influential in bringing together popular personalities and brands via social media. Nick Millman, a director of global content partnerships at Twitter, will lead Niche's global operations, while Niche's current head of content strategy, Kristen Lachtman, will head Niche's US business. Niche was acquired by Twitter for $30m in 2016.


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Apple App Store stops ad blockers from affecting other apps
 Update: When reached for clarification, Apple said “This is not a new guideline. We have never allowed apps on the App Store that are designed to interfere with the performance or capabilities of other apps.” It also said it would remove other apps that offer features that block advertising in third-party apps if they “may have snuck on to the App Store.” Apple added, “We have always supported advertising as one of the many ways that developers can make money with apps.”

Apple has seemingly recently shifted its policy regarding adblock apps on the App Store. The company, according to the developer of several major adblock apps that reached out to 9to5Mac after its app updates were rejected, has reversed its policy on VPN-based adblock applications, which install certificates on the device itself to block advertisements both in Safari and in other third-party applications.

The developer behind popular apps like Adblock and Weblock explains that Apple has stopped accepting updates to the applications on the grounds that they violate point 4.2 of the App Store Developer Guidelines. This requirement says that apps should be useful, unique, and provide some sort of value:

Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or “app-like,” it doesn’t belong on the App Store. If your App doesn’t provide some sort of lasting entertainment value, or is just plain creepy, it may not be accepted.

It seems that the policy change is specifically based on section 4.2.1, which says that APIs and frameworks should be used for their intended purposes. It’s likely that Apple doesn’t see adblocking as the “intended purpose” of VPN certificates:

Apps should use APIs and frameworks for their intended purposes and indicate that integration in their app description. For example, the HomeKit framework should provide home automation services; and HealthKit should be used for health and fitness purposes and integrate with the Health app.

Adblock and Weblock are both popular iOS applications, with the former having amassed over 1 million downloads and the latter over 750,000. When pressed for more details regarding the policy shift, Apple reportedly explained that it has “officially changed its policy regarding VPN/root certificate based ad blockers” and is not accepting updates to any existing apps that use this method.

With this policy shift apparently now in place, the only type of adblock apps that are now officially allowed on the App Store are ones that use the Safari Content Blocker. This is a more basic implementation of adblocking that only blocks ads in Safari, as opposed to VPN-based clients that block ads across all applications.

What’s somewhat notable here is that Apple hasn’t removed offending applications from the App Store, but rather says that future updates are not allowed. Whether or not these apps will remain on the App Store, however, remains to be seen. The change in policy comes as Apple continues to work to clean up the quality of apps on the App Store.

We’ve reached out to Apple for an explanation of this policy change and will update if we learn more. Update: Apple’s comment on the situation above.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news!

Output: Apple's App Store is said to be clamping down on ad blockers, stating it will remove apps that allow users to block advertising in third-party apps if they have "snuck on to the App Store". Apple has always been keen to offer support to developers by allowing advertising as one of the ways to monetise apps. Apple also seems to have altered its policy on VPN-based ad block apps that have allowed ads to be blocked in Safari and third-party applications. The only ad block apps now allowed in the store are those that use the Safari Content Blocker.


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AT&T to separate TV businesses after Time Warner acquisition
 AT&T is mulling major organizational changes following its proposed $85 billion takeover of Time Warner.

According to the Wall Street Journal, AT&T will separate its wireless and satellite TV business from newly acquired Time Warner media assets, which includes HBO, Warner Bros., CNN, and more.

Under the new structure, AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson will maintain his post and have two segment chiefs working beneath him, similar to the executive setup over at Comcast.

AT&T subsidiary DirecTV will be combined with the company's telecom business under AT&T veteran John Donovan. AT&T executive John Stankey will run the Time Warner business, according to the WSJ report.

AT&T first announced plans to buy Time Warner last October. At the time, AT&T said the combined company would strive to become the first US mobile provider to compete with cable companies nationwide with bundled mobile broadband and video. The telco also said the deal would usher in new forms of original content built for mobile and social platforms.

"This is a perfect match of two companies with complementary strengths who can bring a fresh approach to how the media and communications industry works for customers, content creators, distributors and advertisers," Stephenson said in a statement at the time the merger was announced.

AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 for $49 billion to become the nation's largest pay-TV subscriber.

Output: AT&T will separate its wireless and satellite TV business from its Time Warner media assets once its $85bn takeover of the company is complete, according to sources familiar with the matter. Last October, AT&T revealed plans to acquire Time Warner to provide a bundled mobile and video offering. It is suggested that AT&T Chief Strategy Officer John Donovan would combine satellite TV firm DirecTV, which was bought in 2015 for $49bn, with the company's telecom business. John Stankey would be in charge of the Time Warner business, and AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson will maintain his post after the restructure.


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Google New Release Radio to reinvent ad pricing model
 by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, July 14, 2017

Radio is continuing a transformation that will put the medium back in vogue. A move toward streaming radio on smartphones will likely make preferences, location-based data, and near-by triggers the next targeting options for audio ads.

Since it's no longer enough to stream radio on demand, Google Play Music on Friday rolled out New Release Radio. It serves new music culled from the user's personal tastes and preferences. The station uses machine learning to select releases from the past two weeks, based on listening history and musical preferences.

Google only serves ads on the free service, not on the paid subscription service.

NextRadio president Paul Brenner viewed the Google New Release Radio feature while in beta. He agrees it's a natural progression to use location-based targeting options and preferences to support advertisers.

He said location-based targeting, at least per ZIP code and near-by points of interest, will increase the value of the ad inventory.

advertisement advertisement

"Radio will need to reinvent itself," he said. "That's what the buying community expects."

As radio moves to personalization and people-based advertising in Google's world, the industry supporting radio ads will need to develop a new pricing model. Perhaps something similar to a cost per click, cost per action, or cost per thousands model as songs or audio ads get tagged on smartphones.

Even for mass-market radio, the media-buying cost structure will alter.

The value of the inventory during a moment in time will dictate change. The huge amount of data now available will let advertisers pinpoint the audience they want to reach, even in mass-market radio, he said.

"Call it paid search if you want, because you're searching for an audience," he said. "It's just that you can apply it to a mass-market media," he said.

Google managed to gain input through a Samsung partnership announced in July that made Google Music the default music player and music service on Samsung phones and tablets globally. The service launched on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.

The New Release Radio station, featuring country artists like Darius Rucker and Blake Shelton, as well as Coldplay, is available free to radio listeners and subscribers globally. Google said it will continually update the platform with the latest new releases.

Output: Google Play Music has introduced New Release Radio, which uses machine learning to collate recently-released tracks from the previous two weeks, based on the user's listening history and preferences. Adverts are included only on the free version, not the paid subscription option. The CEO of mobile streaming FM service NextRadio, Paul Brenner, sampled the Google New Release Radio in beta and sees a natural progression to using location-based targeting options to assist advertisers, thereby increasing the ad inventory value. Advertisers could eventually choose their target audience down to their postcode, with new pricing models expected.


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Cornwall geothermal project launches crowdfunding bond
 A pioneering project to produce power from hot rocks several kilometres under the ground in Cornwall will begin drilling early next year, if a multimillion-pound fundraising drive succeeds.

Abundance, a crowdfunding platform overseen by the main City regulator, will this week launch a bond to raise £5m for the UK’s first commercial geothermal power station, located near Redruth.

Iceland is the world leader in geothermal power, where deep holes are drilled to reach hot rocks, water is pumped down, heated and returned to the surface to generate electricity or provide heating.

Energy independence for Cornwall is a realistic, cost-effective objective for the county council Chris Goodall, energy expert and author

Cornwall’s extensive granite means it has long been seen as the most promising part of the UK for the technology, which one study found could provide a fifth of the country’s power.

However, previous plans for geothermal plants in the county have faltered because of problems with financing and risk-averse investors.

The Eden Project, for example, has wanted to exploit the rocks beneath it since 2009, but failed to win European funding.

The £18m United Downs Deep Geothermal Power project near Redruth, by contrast, has already secured £13m in public funding, £10.6m from the European Regional Development Fund and £2.4m from Cornwall county council.

Ryan Law, managing director of Geothermal Engineering Ltd, the UK company behind the project, said: “The big problem is because nothing has been done in the UK before, it’s quite high risk. Finding funding for that risk is extremely difficult.”

Abundance is confident it will raise the final £5m needed, having raised £50m from individuals for renewable energy projects since it started five years ago, and £7m in the last two months alone.

Investors can expect a 12% return on the bond, which has an 18-month term, and will have their capital returned to them if the geothermal plan does not go ahead.

Bruce Davis, the investment platform’s managing director, said: “Geothermal technology is proven to work in Italy and Iceland but hasn’t so far been used in the UK to generate electricity. This is a groundbreaking project.”

Drilling should begin in the first quarter of 2018 and take around five months as Geothermal Engineering Ltd drill a well 2.5km down, followed by a second deeper one of 4.5km, creating a circuit for water to be pumped down the shorter well and return up the other.

If all goes as planned, the Redruth operation could be operational in 2020.

The amount of power the wells are expected to produce will be small, at a capacity of 1-3 megawatts (enough to power 1,500-4,500 homes), similar to a single onshore wind turbine, but geothermal has one big advantage: unlike wind and solar, it can provide constant power if needed, like a nuclear power station.

Chris Goodall, an energy expert and author, said that geothermal would add to the rich renewable energy resources that the county already enjoys. “Energy independence for Cornwall is a realistic, cost-effective objective for the county council. This is a first-rate project,” he said.

Perhaps most importantly, the project, if successful, could pave the way for geothermal power finally taking off across Cornwall.

Tony Batchelor, known as the grandfather of geothermal in Cornwall for his test research and drilling in the county during the 1970s and 1980s, told the Guardian: “This £18m is basically our chip in the game. Then we look at delivering bigger and better projects.”

Ultimately, geothermal could provide as much as 1,000 megawatts of capacity, said Batchelor, an adviser to Geothermal Engineering Ltd and chairman of Earth sciences consultancy Geoscience. While not a huge amount nationally, it would be significant for Cornwall.

“It’s great that geothermal in Cornwall can at last get going,” a spokesman for the Eden Project said of the United Downs project.

Previous efforts by the council and the Department for Communities and Local Government had put in place the conditions for several Cornish geothermal plants, the visitor attraction said. Eden said that several plants would “greatly reduce risk” and added that it hoped to make an announcement of its own within two months.

The Jubilee pool in Penzance, which will be heated partly through geothermal energy from 2019. Geothermal Engineering Ltd will begin the work in September. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

However, Goodall cautioned that this latest effort at making geothermal work in Cornwall was by no means guaranteed.

“Pretty much everyone agrees there is a lot of heat down there. But one of the reasons projects have struggled to get funding is that it’s highly fractured and it’s not a given [that it will work]. No one has yet been prepared to put in the highly risky capital to do this,” he said.

Bob Egerton, a Cornwall councillor, said he was sceptical about how big the resource actually was – but it was important to try to exploit it.

“It is a bit of a gamble, but ultimately we hope it will pay off,” he said. “The more we can produce from these sort of resources rather than hydrocarbons has got to be a good thing.”

Output: The United Downs Deep Geothermal Power project, which hopes to generate energy from rocks in Cornwall, is attempting to raise millions of funds through Abundance, a crowdfunding platform overseen by a City regulator. The platform will this week launch a bond which aims to secure £5m ($6.5m) for the project, which would establish the first commercial geothermal power station in the UK. If the bid is successful, drilling could begin early next year. The extensive amount of granite in the county means that Cornwall is a prime site for the operation, which could provide up to 20% of the UK’s power.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Climate impact on staple crops underestimated: Met Office
 Governments may be seriously underestimating the risks of crop disasters occurring in major farming regions around the world, a study by British researchers has found.

The newly published research, by Met Office scientists, used advanced climate modelling to show that extreme weather events could devastate food production if they occurred in several key areas at the same time. Such an outcome could trigger widespread famine.

The scientists, led by Chris Kent, of the Met Office, focused their initial efforts on how extreme weather would affect maize, one of the world’s most widely grown crops. Heat and drought were the prime risks, although flooding was also included in the analysis.

The group found there is a 6% chance every decade that a simultaneous failure in maize production could occur in China and the US – the world’s main growers – which would result in widespread misery, particularly in Africa and south Asia, where maize is consumed directly as food.

“The impact would be felt at a global scale,” Kent told the Observer. “This is the first time we have been able to quantify the risk. It hasn’t been observed in the last 30 years, but the indications are that it is possible in the current climate.”

An example of the kind of disaster that could occur is provided by the maize harvests that failed last year in Africa. Communities in Zambia, Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar were affected and six million people were left on the brink of starvation. A joint failure of China and America’s maize harvest would have a far greater impact.

Drought-damaged corn stalks at a farm in Missouri Valley, Iowa. Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters

Having studied the risks facing maize production, the group is now following up this work by studying climate impacts on the world’s other staple crops – in particular rice, wheat and soya beans – in order to assess how weather extremes could affect their production.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, maize, rice and wheat together make up 51% of the world’s calorie intake. Billions of people rely on these crops for survival. Any disruption to their production would have calamitous consequences.

The trouble is that crop-growing methods and locations have changed considerably over time, as has the climate and the probability of extreme events, Kent told the Observer. “This means the number of relevant observations to the present-day growing of stable crops has been reduced, and that limits our ability to have useful estimates of the risks to the growing of these crops.”

To get round this problem, the team ran 1,400 climate model simulations on the Met Office’s new supercomputer to understand how climate might vary in the next few years and found that the probability of severe drought was higher than if estimated solely from past observations. The scientists concluded that current agricultural policies could considerably underestimate the true risk of climate-related shocks to maize growing and food supply.

The particular risk outlined by the study envisaged simultaneous catastrophic disruptions in China and the US. In 2014 total world production of maize was around 1 billion tonnes, with the US producing 360 million tonnes and China growing 215 million. If production in these two countries were hit by simultaneous extreme weather events, most likely droughts, more than 60% of global maize production would be hit.

A double whammy like this has never happened in the past, but the work by the Met Office indicates that there is now a real risk. In addition, there may be risks of similar events affecting rice, wheat or soya harvests. These are now being studied by the Met Office, which is also working with researchers in China in a bid to understand climate risks that might affect agricultural production.

“We have found that we are not as resilient as we thought when it comes to crop growing,” said Kirsty Lewis, science manager for the Met Office’s climate security team. “We have to understand the risks we face or there is a real danger we could get caught out. For now we don’t have the means to quantity the risks. We have to put that right.”

Output: The threat of simultaneous crop failures across the globe resulting from extreme weather events has been underestimated according to research by the UK's Met Office. The study deployed advanced climate modelling to examine the impacts of drought, flooding and heat on the production of maize, one of the world’s most widely grown crops. If crop failure occurred simultaneously in China and the US, widespread famine could ensue. The study is the first to quantify the threat of such simultaneous failure, estimated at 6% every decade. Researchers will now study climate impact on other staple crops including rice and wheat.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Redrow [3]: Redrow replaces kitchen for Royal British Legion Club reno
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An Ellesmere Port housebuilder has cooked up a dream kitchen for the Royal British Legion Club.

The Little Sutton club will soon be able to prepare and sell food after developers Redrow stepped in with a major boost to renovations.

The Legion, on Chester Road, is the only one in the area and, sadly, over the years it has fallen behind in decoration and is in need of repairs.

With the wish to bring the club back to its former glory, club president Kathleen Friday made an approach to Redrow for assistance with the renovations after hearing about the housebuilder’s community fund.

(Image: Google Street View)

Kathleen, who is from Little Sutton, said: “The club is self-funding and we do not make enough profit for refurbishment.

“We host many local societies here such as Weight Watchers, Hooton Pigeon Club, an allotment, military groups, firemen, the women’s section of the Legion and the branch to name just a few who all rely on us staying open.

“We also have a concert room which is used for parties and celebrations and so with new people moving into the area the club will be a focal point for many more people too.

“We’ve been reliant on donations and fundraising to replace various parts of the club such as seating and carpets but something which was in most need of replacement was our 25-year-old kitchen which had no cooker.”

Redrow initially stepped in with a donation towards new carpets just before Christmas. Then after hearing how difficult it was proving to replace the tired kitchen they decided to cook up a new one.

Team effort

Through a team effort which has included site staff, sub-contractors, suppliers and apprentices over the last couple of months Redrow has now provided and installed the sparkling new feature.

A delighted Kathleen added: “The kitchen is looking fantastic and we are so excited. We are now applying for a licence to enable us to prepare and sell food on the premises.

“Everyone has been absolutely amazing and we are so grateful for Redrow’s support.”

Paul Cromby, area construction manager for Redrow, oversaw the project from start to finish. He said: “Thanks to the community fund we have been able to lend a big helping hand by installing the new kitchen along with appliances, a new floor, lighting, tiling and outdoor sockets.”

“It’s been fantastic to see the room brought bang up to date and we are pleased to play our part in supporting the ongoing success of the Royal British Legion in Little Sutton.

“It has also been a great opportunity for our talented apprentices Sam Wainwright, Joe Nowak and Travis Wade to be a part of such a worthwhile project and we couldn’t have done it without the generosity of our suppliers too.”

Redrow says it is ‘extremely grateful’ to the ‘many’ firms who offered their time, materials and expertise completely free of charge to the project.

It is currently building Ledsham Garden Village in Little Sutton at two neighbouring housing collections, Oaklands and Sycamore Green which are separated by a central boulevard.

The development is said to be a flagship venture for the housebuilder, set to cover 105 hectares off Ledsham Road which will eventually become a new community of up to 2,000 homes.

When completed the overall scheme will have nearly 100 acres of open space which will include playing fields, a park and allotments.

The community fund is in addition to Redrow’s contribution, as part of the planning process, of over £13.3m to Little Sutton and the surrounding area which will go towards a new primary school, off-site school provision, new and improved bus routes, better playing fields and play facilities and improvements to local shops and health facilities. It will include 500 affordable homes.

Output: Redrow has stepped in to provide a kitchen for the Royal British Legion Club on Chester Road, Little Sutton. Club president Kathleen Friday sought help from Redrow with the renovations after hearing about the housebuilder’s community fund. Redrow made a donation towards new carpets just before Christmas, and has now replaced the kitchen. The housebuilder said it was ‘extremely grateful’ to the ‘many’ firms who offered their time, materials and expertise completely free of charge to the project.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Karamba wants to protect connected cars from hackers
 Cars represent a fundamentally different sort of security challenge from laptops, servers, or mobile phones, in which corruption or theft of data is the hacker’s objective. A cyber-attack on a moving vehicle may create a deadly safety hazard, and conventional antihacking software could be too slow or ineffective to avert an incident.

“Dealing with consumer safety, and not just with data security, requires different security methods to protect our cars, in contrast to technologies that protect servers and enterprise networks,” says David Barzilai, executive chairman and cofounder of Karamba Security, a two-year-old startup based in Hod HaSharon, Israel, with an office in metropolitan Detroit.

“Using machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify malware after hackers infiltrate the car is too late,” he says. “The approach must be to prevent an attack when hackers attempt to hack.”

The field of automotive cybersecurity is small but expanding rapidly as new threats are discovered to emerging technologies such as vehicle-to-vehicle wireless communication. Harman International, maker of the Uconnect system in the hacked Jeep, acquired TowerSec, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, in early 2016. Argus Cyber Security, another Israeli competitor, recently discovered and demonstrated a way to penetrate a car’s electronics with a “dongle,” an innocent-looking piece of hardware resembling a flash drive that operates software via a car’s USB or other port. Tesla and Fiat Chrysler both offer monetary “bug bounty” rewards for hobbyists and amateur hackers who find and report software vulnerabilities.

Given the skill, motivation, and creativity of hackers, it is unclear that any one approach can comprehensively block their entry to a vehicle’s electronic architecture. “Vulnerabilities will be inadvertently designed into systems,” says Sam Abuelsamid, a senior analyst for Navigant, a marketing research firm based in Boulder, Colorado.

A premium car may come equipped with a hundred or more electronic control units, or ECUs (in actuality, small computers), connected to one another as part of the vehicle’s electronic architecture. Only a handful, such as the infotainment system and the remote keyless entry, are connected wirelessly to the outside world, offering openings for attackers. Karamba focuses on blocking intrusion at these points, as one critical layer of a larger security design.

Karamba’s antihacking software is embedded in an ECU when it is manufactured, so it is incorporated into the device’s factory settings and not subject to change. Its role is to block spurious code at the point of intrusion, sealing the ECU and denying entry to any code that does not comply explicitly with the factory settings.

Using software monitoring programs to find and destroy malware, Barzilai maintains, is too slow and requires constant updates by developers; that can promote an arms race with hackers, who try to outwit security programs as they grow more sophisticated. Such programs can also generate false positives, he says, which are dangerous in cars because they may impede safe operation.

Output: The "find and destroy" techniques used to protect servers and enterprise networks are unsuitable for safeguarding connected vehicles, which need to have threats stopped before they enter the system, according to Israeli cyber security start-up Karamba Security. While a high-end vehicle may have more than 100 tiny computers, known as electronic control units, only a few, such as the infotainment system and the remote keyless entry, are connected wirelessly to the outside world, and it is those vulnerabilities that are the focus of Karamba security solution.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Sinclair Pharma [2]: Dr. Eppley responds to query regarding Sculptra granulomas
 Sculptra Granulomas

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am interested in your suggestion as to whether micro fat injections might be able to break up Sculptra granulomas. I developed Sculptra bumps about 15 months after initial injections. My doctor has been injecting them with a mixture of Kenalog and 5 FU. They are improving slightly after 3 months of multiple injections but,they are still quite visible. Have you had success breaking up Sculptra granulomas with fat injections? Thank you.

A: Breaking up fSculptra granulomas with fat injections can be effective in some by two mechanisms. First you have to mechanically break up the granulomas with a small cannula. That is the first step in their treatment by fat injections in the procedure. Then the fat injections are placed to prevent the scar tissue from reforming or the granuloma recoalesing. So technically the fat injections do not break up the granulomas per se. But are the prequel to the fat injections.

But in looking at your pictures you have far too many garnulomas on the one side of your face for any form injectable therapy to be effective. The best approach in your case is to have them excised through an anterior facelift approach. One could also argue that a layer of allogeneic dermis (Alloderm) could applied over the excised area to ensure maximal contour smoothness.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana

Output: Dr. Barry L. Eppley in Indiana claims Sculptra granulomas can be treated with fat injections by breaking them up with a small cannula and then using fat injections to prevent the scar tissue from reforming or the granuloma recoalesing. However, if there are too many garnulomas he suggests the best approach is to have them excised using an anterior facelift approach or possibly applying a layer of allogeneic dermis over the excised area to ensure maximal contour smoothness.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Esure Demand for domestic cleaners up 25% in 5 years: Esure
 Nearly half of all millennials are hiring cleaners because they are "too busy" to clean their own flats.

And this has contributed to a 25 per cent rise in demand for domestic cleaners over the past five years, according to insurer Esure. The company claims that most of this demand is coming from young professionals living in one or two-bedroom properties.

Cleaning site Helpling.com backs up these figures claiming that four in 10 25-34 year olds either currently uses a cleaner or is looking for one - up from a third two years ago.

"We are seeing more young adults looking for a cleaner, mainly because they value their time and would rather spend money than lose time they could be spending with friends or family," said Helpling director Sam James. "The sharing economy has also played a big part in the trend."

Marketing manager of Housekeep Liam Dickerson believes the surge in demand is partly because many young people today work long hours. "They're also living in smaller dwellings with more people and less storage space which means they are likely to spend more time tidying up," he said. "They therefore feel that they're better off getting someone else to do their cleaning."

Helpling and Housekeep are among a new wave of digital housekeeping firms that cater for the rise in demand for cleaners among young professionals. Companies such as these enable millennials to order cleaners using their smartphones as easily as they would book an Uber cab.

The term "millennials" is generally used by demographers to describe young people born in the 1980s and 1990s who have a high level of familiarity with communications, media and digital technologies.

Output: Demand for domestic cleaners has risen by 25% over the past five years, according to insurer Esure, which claims that the bulk of the demand is being driven by millennials looking to hire cleaners as they are "too busy" to clean their own flats. Figures from cleaning site Helpling.com supported the findings, and claimed that the sharing economy "played a big part in the trend." Digital firms like Helpling and Housekeep allow users to order cleaners using their smartphone just like they might book a ride in an Uber cab.