Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Children should be encouraged to develop cyber skills online
 Parents should be encouraging their children to spend more time online in order to “save the country,” the former head of GCHQ has said.

Robert Hannigan, who was head of Britain’s surveillance agency between 2014 and 2017, said that the UK was struggling to keep up with competitors when it came to cyber skills.

He said parents should not feel guilty if teenagers spend hours of their summer holidays in front of a screen.

“The assumption that time online or in front of a screen is life wasted needs challenging,” Hannigan said. “It is driven by fear.”

The call comes days after the children’s commissioner warned parents that they should intervene to stop their children overusing social media and consuming time online “like junk food”.

In an interview with the Observer, Anne Longfield said that parents should “step up” and be proactive in stopping their children from bingeing on the internet during the summer holidays.

Writing in the Telegraph, Hannigan disagreed. “If you are spending a disproportionate amount of your holiday unsuccessfully attempting to separate your children from wifi or their digital devices, do not despair.

“Your poor parenting may be helping them and saving the country.”

The opinions come after a report said that children in all age groups are spending ever-longer periods online, according to Ofcom. Children aged five to 15 are spending 15 hours a week online.

Hannigan argues that young people need to explore the digital world just as they explore the physical world, in order to fully develop the kinds of skills both the country and they as individuals will need in the future.

He said: “This country is desperately short of engineers and computer scientists, and lacks the broad ‘cyber skills’ needed now, never mind in the next 20 years. The baseline of understanding is too low and often behind our competitors.

“If we are to capitalise on the explosion of data that will come through the ‘internet of things’, and the arrival of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we need young people who have been allowed to behave like engineers: to explore, break things and put them together.

“Arguably that is what children always did in their summer holidays. The difference today is that they will want to explore, experiment and break things digitally.”

He also said that parents should attempt to catch up and improve their own cyber skills, suggesting they buy a Raspberry Pi.

“You could build it with your children and learn at least the concept of computer coding; there are plenty of free guides on the web,” he said.

Output: Robert Hannigan, former head of GCHQ, has called on parents to let their children spend hours of the summer holidays online, and said the skills teenagers learn could one day benefit the country. "This country is desperately short of engineers and computer scientists, and lacks the broad ‘cyber skills’ needed now, never mind in the next 20 years," he said. His comments fly in the face of children's commissioner Anne Longfield, who called for parents to minimise the time their children spend online.


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Google makes publishers aware of failing ads
 Publishers that have fretted about Google’s plans to unleash an ad-blocking version of Chrome in 2018 can now see if their own sites’ ads will be blocked by the tech giant.

On June 1, Google rolled out its Ad Experience Report, a tool it’s using to evaluate and score websites based on their ad creative and design. It provides screenshots and videos of ads that have been identified as annoying to users, such as pop-ups and autoplaying video ads with sound, and “prestitial” ads with countdown timers.

So far, Google has identified about 700 sites as warranting corrective action out of around 100,000 sites it’s reviewed so far. Half of the roughly 700 got a “failing” status and the other half a “warning.” Pop-ups were the most common problem Google found, accounting for 96 percent of violations on desktop and 54 percent on mobile.

Most of these sites are out of the mainstream, such as entertainment sites checkthesevideos.com and full-serie.biz. But a couple dozen are a who’s who of traditional media. Those listed as failing include Forbes; Tronc-owned Orlando Sentinel, Sun-Sentinel and Los Angeles Times; Bauer Xcel Media’s Life & Style and In Touch Weekly; The Wrap; Chicago Sun-Times; Tribune Broadcasting’s Fox 13 Now; and Sporting News.

A similar number of mainstream sites got warnings. They included Kiplinger, Gizmodo Media Group’s Lifehacker, The Jerusalem Post, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Cox Media Group’s WSB-TV in Atlanta, Tronc’s Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, the U.K. Independent, The Daily Caller, Reader’s Digest, All You, Smithsonian, New York Daily News, Salt Lake Tribune and CBS News.

Google underscored that it hasn’t hashed out all the enforcement details yet. One aspect of the plan that may raise alarms with publishers is that Google hasn’t ruled out filtering all of a failing site’s ads — not just the offending ads. Google also didn’t specify what exactly would lead a site to be labeled “failing.” It said “warning” would apply to publishers with “two or more violations” but that these sites wouldn’t be blocked.

Once the new version of Chrome with the ad filter launches next year, Google said it would pull ads from failing publishers’ sites if they don’t fix the violations within 30 days. Google is using the Better Ads Standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads, an alliance of heavy-hitters in advertising and media such as Unilever, GroupM and The Washington Post that was formed to clean up digital advertising. Google is a founding member of the coalition.

The tool is meant to give publishers a way to fix their sites well before Google launches its Chrome ad blocker and to give advertisers and their representatives a way to avoid having their ads run on sites that have a poor user experience. Google also said publishers can use the tool to request a new review after they fix their sites and report if they think they were unfairly identified as having violations.

Along with Google’s ad blocker news, Apple recently said it would update its Safari browser to block video ads that autoplay and stop ad tracking. The platform giants’ moves are seen as a response to users and a way to ward off ad blocking, but publishers see them as a way to solidify control over the platforms’ own digital ad market share, which has grown at the expense of publishers.

Critics also say Google shouldn’t be the arbiter of how publishers monetize their sites (while protecting its own revenue by leaving alone its ads on YouTube and by paying the popular ad blocker AdBlock Plus to make sure its own ads aren’t blocked). No one would argue that users enjoy autoplay video, but the concern is that clamping down on it has a disproportionate impact on independent publishers. It’s worth noting that many of the flagged sites belong to single-title companies or are legacy publishers that are struggling to modernize. Tronc’s digital ad revenue has been dwindling. The Daily News is said to be losing millions a year.

So far, publishers would seem to have little choice but to do what Google wants, though. Ben Gerst, Tronc’s svp of product development, said the company was focused on a better experience for users and advertisers and that it was working with Google and implementing changes to meet the Coalition’s standards. Grant Whitmore, evp of digital at the Daily News, said the paper’s warning status was related to an ad tech partner and in-image ad that was supposed to meet industry ad standards but was somehow getting flagged, and that the publisher was working with Google to resolve it.

A spokesman for Lifehacker, meanwhile, raised the specter of misidentification, however, saying: “Our Kinja publishing platform has always taken a very audience-centric approach to how we integrate advertising and we believe that practice will ultimately benefit our sites ahead of any upcoming changes in the market, including the new version of Chrome. We don’t believe Lifehacker.com is currently out of step with existing U.S. better ad standards.”

All publishers are embracing the user experience mantra, but getting there is another matter. Paul Likins, vp of revenue operations at American Media Inc., whose Men’s Fitness and National Enquirer sites were cited for violations, said it’s not always clear from Google’s tool what the violation is, making it confusing for publishers trying to fix them. And fixing them means replacing the revenue generated by offending ads, which isn’t easily done. Google’s approach feels “heavy-handed,” but publishers have to comply, lest they risk not just repercussions from Google but advertisers, who used to clamor for “disruptive” ads, he said.

“We’re all trying to fix this, but we’re moving from a vendor-based business model,” he said. “It takes time, money and resources.”

Paul Vincent is founder of Neuranet, a tech company that helps publishers comply with Interactive Advertising Bureau specs for fast-loading, non-invasive ads. He said an unintended consequence of a company like Google being the arbiter of the web is that small publishers may just throw up their hands and hand over more of their tech needs to Google, thinking that’ll at least ensure their sites won’t be blocked.

“It’s gotten too much power over what’s acceptable,” he said of Google. “When it makes these releases, it can have a massive effect across the industry and sometimes contributes to its dominance because of the confusion.”

Output: Tech giant Google is allowing publishers to see which of their ads will disappear on the new ad-blocking version of Chrome. The Ad Experience Report tool allows publishers to see how their website fares in terms of ad creative and design, taking into account irritating ads, like pop-ups. Google found that of the 100,000 sites it reviewed, 700 sites are failing or have been given a warning on ad quality, with pop-ups being the most common offender. Those failing include traditional media outlets such as Forbes, the Los Angeles Times and InTouch Weekly, amongst others.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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JTC launches first regulated crypto-denominated fund in Jersey
 We value shared ownership We operate around the principle that if our people have a stake in the business, they will do a better job for our clients.

We invest in people Over 83% of our employees hold a relevant professional qualification or are working towards this through our dedicated JTC Academy.

We embrace technology We operate a variety of best-in-class systems to deliver and maintain an impeccable standard of administration and use technology to innovate in both service delivery and efficiency.

Output: Wealth services firm JTC Group has launched the world's first regulated cryptocurrency-denominated fund in Jersey for the trade of virtual currencies and participation in initial coin offerings. Established in partnership with offshore law firm Carey Olsen and Jersey-based investment manager Global Advisors, the specialist fund will only be open to professional investors and high-net-worth individuals. The fund is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission under the new Jersey Private Fund regime. Jersey treats cryptocurrencies as an asset class, rather than a currency, and requires JTC to carry out due diligence on investors as part of its regulatory regime.


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Bill Gates-backed battery start-up returns from bankruptcy
 Another UK company installing the batteries touted its advantages on Energy-Storage.News by saying it “costs the same” as lithium-ion, but can be cycled twice as many times as the majority of those more commonly available batteries.

Aquion announced just before last weekend that operations had resumed at the company and that it had emerged from Chapter 11 status, the bankruptcy protection law under which it had been compelled to file agreements.

With deployments into off-grid markets and “strategic” projects in territories like Japan starting to appear, the company had been tipped for big things before the Chapter 11. Founder and CTO Jay Whitacre was even awarded half-a-million dollars that came with the Lemelson-MIT Prize, which honours technological innovations that can “improve the world” from mid-career inventors for the AHI battery.

Some commentators argued that Aquion had been unprepared for a market in which lithium-ion prices had fallen even more rapidly than forecast and was simply unable to compete, despite the technological strong points of its devices and systems.

New owner is unnamed US-majority investor

Output: Pittsburgh-based company Aquion Energy, which counted Bill Gates among its original backers, has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and resumed manufacturing of its energy storage batteries. The firm, which filed for bankruptcy in March, has developed a battery using a novel electrolyte which has a chemical composition similar to salt water. It has been described as the "safest, cleanest, and lowest cost" battery technology in the world.


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Binary options business slumps as regulators tighten control
 The latest benchmark created by the Finance Magnates Intelligence Department and CPattern reveals that binary options deposits and withdrawals have dropped by more than 50% during the first six months of 2017.

In what seems to be the lowest point in almost a year, the average trader deposited $309 in June, compared with $1388 in January – a 78% slide. When comparing with February’s data (this year's strongest month), the slide is even more evident - 85%.

The slide in the first deposit benchmark (FTD) – the average first-time deposit by new traders – is a little less dramatic, remaining at 30%. However, compared to the end of 2016, the drop is almost 50%.

A similar trend can also be seen in the average withdrawal of funds from the binary options accounts. During June, traders withdrew some 57% less than they did during January this year.

It’s safe to assume that these conclusive figures are a product of the continuing decline of the binary options industry. This trend came to a head around the last two quarters as a result of new regulatory frameworks in the European Union, Australia, Israel and other jurisdictions. This has already knocked out some of the industry’s strongest players, such as Banc De Binary, 24option and IQ Option.

In the retail Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term industry, the same indicators remained roughly at the same level, and sometimes even spiked, during these six months. The average first time deposit and the average withdrawal grew by more than 27% and 8%, respectively, from January to June 2017. The average deposit slightly declined by 11% in the same period.

The research and analysis work conducted for preparing this index was powered by the retention automation firm CPattern.

This is the latest publication from the FM Traffic Indices – a new cross-industry benchmark. In today’s business world, big-data analysis and access to objective information sources are crucial to success. Unfortunately, until now it has been very difficult and costly, if possible at all, to find any reliable benchmarks for operations in social, FX, binary options and CFDs trading.

For this reason, the Finance Magnates Intelligence Department has launched a new project, creating a set of indices encompassing various aspects of the Online Trading Online Trading Online trading represents the trading of fiat currencies, digital currencies, commodities, stocks and indices, where traders and investors intend to make a profit, via the purchase or sale of the aforementioned products. This is done through an electronic network, made accessible by brokers in the form of an online trading platform or hub.Online trading continues to see a rapid growth year on year, due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the number of brokers offering their services, with more mone Online trading represents the trading of fiat currencies, digital currencies, commodities, stocks and indices, where traders and investors intend to make a profit, via the purchase or sale of the aforementioned products. This is done through an electronic network, made accessible by brokers in the form of an online trading platform or hub.Online trading continues to see a rapid growth year on year, due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the number of brokers offering their services, with more mone Read this Term industry. These indices will provide you with unique data points gathered by our analysts that will serve as a valuable knowledge base for your decision making.

Output: The Finance Magnates Intelligence Department and retention automation firm CPattern have reported that binary options withdrawals and deposits have both fallen by more than 50% in the first half of this year. In June, the average trader deposited just $309, a drop of 78% from January's $1,388. The first deposit benchmark (the average first deposit from a new trader) slumped by 50% compared with the end of 2016. In June, traders took out 57% less than they did in January. The decline in the binary options industry is partly attributable to new regulatory frameworks in the EU, Israel and Australia.


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Lightstone app tells brokers when a car accident has happened
 The designers say the app has been developed to improve information gathering after an accident and speed up any subsequent claim.

UK software company Lightstone Systems has launched a new app that sends the details of a driver’s motor accident directly to their broker in real time.

Called Mercury Incident Reporter, the app delivers information such as damage to vehicles, injuries, persons involved, witnesses and police attendance coupled with notes, photographs and video recordings direct to the broker.

The information is stored on a cloud-based dashboard platform called Aurora.

According to the makers, to help and

Output: UK software company Lightstone Systems has launched Mercury Incident Reporter, an app that delivers information on drivers' car accidents to their insurance provider in real time. Details of damage to vehicles, injuries, people involved, witnesses and police attendance are stored on a cloud platform called Aurora, along with notes, photographs and video recordings of the incident. To save time and minimise effort, the app automates data collection and enables data to be input in whatever order is most convenient for the user.


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UK should ease stamp duty for first-time buyers: Localus
 Three steps to reform of Stamp Duty for first-time buyers

09/08/2017

In response to today’s report on Stamp Duty by the London School of Economics and the VATT Institute for Economic Research, the think-tank Localis has issued the following statement, ahead of publication of its own report into ‘Disrupting the housing industry’ which will be released in October.

Jack Airey, senior researcher at Localis writes:

The issue of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) as a bottleneck on the housing market has been framed as one affecting pensioners.

In reality there is a need for greater reform of this levy in support of first-time buyers, for whom these liabilities – often unexpected and in need of payment within a month of purchase – can, alongside estate agent fees, represent a serious barrier to home ownership.

The average purchase price of a home bought by a first-time buyer is £205,170 which brings a SDLT liability of £1603.[1] In London the equivalent figures are £402,692 and £10,134.

We believe there is a good case for government to ease the burden on first-time buyers and assist those who need support in the buyer market in three main ways.

Firstly, first-time buyers could be allowed to transfer liability to their point of onward sale. Assuming their home gained value, this would result in a higher amount payable in tax. They would also have to pay SDLT if purchasing another home. However, it removes the upfront burden to home-ownership.

Secondly there is scope to waive for first-time buyer’s SDLT liability on the first £250,000 of the property cost. Although the tax is a substantial revenue raiser for government, raising £11.7bn last year, the proportion paid by first time buyers is relatively low.

Last year nearly one third (29%) of new homeowners bought properties below the £125,000 threshold for paying tax, almost half (45%) bought homes within the £125,000 to £250,000 threshold with around a quarter (26%) taking ownership of properties in the £250,001 to £925,000 range. We estimate the cost to the Exchequer of waiving SDLT liability on the first £250,000 for first-time buyers would be £596m, or 5% of last year’s total Stamp Duty take.

Thirdly, the government could introduce a mechanism by which SDLT is paid in instalments. Spreading the cost of the tax over a longer period would greatly reduce the initial upfront costs to the first-time buyer.

Assuming a residential property is being bought freehold as an individual (i.e. not as a company or trust), we have calculated in the table below what spreading the tax liability over five, ten and fifteen years would mean to a first-time buyer.

Cost of home Upfront SDLT due Annual cost if paid in equal instalments over five years Paid over ten years Paid over fifteen years £100,000 £0 £0 £0 £0 £200,000 £1,500 £300 £150 £100 £300,000 £5,000 £1,000 £500 £333 £400,000 £10,000 £2,000 £1,000 £666 £500,000 £15,000 £3,000 £1,500 £1,000

______________

[1] Author’s calculations using HMRC’s SDLT calculator, using average purchase prices from Halifax (2017) – Number of first-time buyers reaches 10-year high

Output: The UK government should consider easing the burden of stamp duty tax on first-time buyers, according to think-tank Localis, following the publication of a report by London School of Economics and the VATT Institute for Economic Research. In a statement, Localis suggested allowing first-time buyers to transfer the cost onto the point of onward sale, waiving the duty altogether for the first £250,000 of the property cost, or allowing payment in instalments.


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Modern Fertility to release comprehensive fertility test
 Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More

Modern Fertility is trying to spark a conversation about fertility. The young San Francisco-based startup wants to educate women about their bodies and hormonal levels, and today announced funding of $1 million, led by First Round Capital, with participation from Box Group, Y Combinator, and angel investors.

“The main problem that we are trying to solve is that women don’t have good information about their fertility,” said Modern Fertility cofounder and CEO Afton Vechery, in an interview with VentureBeat. “It’s something women think about and often stress about, but there’s no good way to ‘check in’ and understand your ability to have kids in the future.”

Vechery and her cofounder, Carly Leahy, created a personalized fertility test women can take at home. Customers prick their finger, put four drops of blood on the included card, and ship it to CLIA-accredited labs. Results are available online after five to seven days through Modern Fertility’s personalized dashboard. These results are reviewed by a medical practitioner who provides a layer of interpretation to help women understand what their hormone levels mean.

The startup measures up to 10 fertility hormones, including the anti-mullerian hormone (AMH), which is generally a good indicator of a woman’s ovarian reserve (how many eggs she has), and prolactin, which can impact the embryo’s ability to implant. If a woman is taking a contraceptive, Modern Fertility will vary the hormone panel accordingly.

Image Credit: Modern Fertility

Women can preorder the test starting today for $149 — it is expected to ship by the end of this year, according to the cofounders. In the meantime, if customers want to take the test now, they can do so in approved labs. “These are the same tests that are used in clinics today as part of an initial consult,” said Vechery.

There are many other fertility startups out there, which shows how important femtech, or female technology, is becoming. Whether it’s fertility tracking apps like Clue, Glow, or Natural Cycles, or at-home fertility monitoring devices like Ava, the market is there.

But Modern Fertility claims to be addressing a different segment. Rather than focusing on women who are actively trying to conceive by tracking their ovulation peaks, the startup comes in much earlier, before these women start trying to have children.

“We spend our lives talking about prevention rather than preparing for pregnancy,” said Leahy. “The concept should be introduced early on, like your pap smear.”

But what about women who don’t want to have kids? “Some women still really want to know more about their bodies and how these hormones affect them,” said Vechery. “Some of the hormones we test are specific to fertility but also women’s health more broadly.”

After all, we track our fitness and our food, so why not track our fertility and hormones?

Founded in 2017, Modern Fertility is part of Y Combinator’s current batch and will be pitching its concept in less than two weeks at YC’s demo days. This initial round of funding will be used to build up the team in San Francisco.

“There is a huge movement towards personalized medicine and patient empowerment in health care,” wrote First Round Capital partner Phin Barnes, in an email to VentureBeat. “And yet, state of the art advice around one of the most important decisions a woman can make is, ‘just have them before you are 35…’ Modern Fertility will provide the information women need to map out their lives in their own, modern way.”

While direct-to-consumer health care does empower patients, it can also be a very slippery slope. After several FDA smackdowns, highly publicized startups like 23andMe and Theranos have become cautionary tales for those in the health tech world.

Modern Fertility isn’t concerned about those kinds of pitfalls, as it only carries out FDA-approved clinical tests that are reviewed by a medical practitioner. But the conversation about what a patient should do with the results is still missing. Finding out you might be infertile can be devastating, no matter how clear and explicit the results are on your computer screen. So encouraging women to discuss their results with a doctor or gynecologist will hopefully be a top priority for Modern Fertility and others in the field.

Output: Start-up Modern Fertility wants to help women learn more about their hormones and bodies, and has just raised $1m in funding led by First Round Capital, with Box Group, Y Combinator and angel investors. CEO Afton Vechery believes that women "don't have good information about their fertility". Modern Fertility, which was founded earlier this year, can measure up to 10 fertility hormones, which can aid women in finding out more about their hormones and level of fertility. The test costs $149 and can be pre-ordered now and are also available in approved labs.


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Parents urged to limit children's social media consumption
 The children’s commissioner has warned parents that they must intervene to stop their children overusing social media and consuming time online “like junk food”.

As web use reaches record highs among children, Anne Longfield has attacked the new methods social media giants are using to draw them into spending more time staring at tablets and smartphones. In an interview with the Observer, she said that parents should “step up” and be proactive in stopping their children from bingeing on the internet during the summer holidays.

Launching a campaign to help parents to regulate their children’s internet use, she said time online should be balanced in the same way that parents regulate their children’s diets. “It’s something that every parent will talk about especially during school holidays – that children are in danger of seeing social media like sweeties, and their online time like junk food,” she said.

“None of us as parents would want our children to eat junk food all the time – double cheeseburger, chips, every day, every meal. For those same reasons we shouldn’t want our children to do the same with their online time.

“When phones, social media and games make us feel worried, stressed and out of control, it means we haven’t got the balance right. With your diet, you know that, because you don’t feel that good. It’s the same with social media.”

Her warning comes after a report said that children in all age groups are spending ever-longer periods online. The internet overtook television as the top media pastime for British children last year, according to the media regulator Ofcom. Children aged five to 15 are spending 15 hours a week online.

Last year the time three- and four-year-olds spent online increased from six hours 48 minutes to eight hours 18 minutes a week, while 12- to 15-year-olds now spend more than 20 hours online.

Facebook Photograph: Thomas White/Reuters

Longfield said children should be helped to understand that sites encourage them to click on another game or video based on what they had just played. She had been pressuring Facebook to make it easier for children to report things they are worried about or switch off certain features.

She also criticised a feature on Snapchat, known as the Snapstreak, that she said encouraged children to increase their internet use. A streak is created when friends share photos over three consecutive days, but it is destroyed if a day is missed. Longfield compared the feature to a chain letter.

“You find children saying to parents that they have 30 people that they have to do every day and if they don’t, they drop the streak, and everyone will see,” she said. “And then – does that mean they don’t like me any more? It’s almost like chain letters. There are children who say they can’t not be online, and I think that’s really worrying.

“I want Facebook and all the other social media companies to be as proactive as they can about creating a good place and a safe place for kids to be. At the same time I want them to stop using the algorithms and the targeting that get kids addicted – all those things that we know can be very stressful and very destructive. However, it doesn’t mean that parents themselves can step aside and wait for that to happen.”

Longfield said it was not helpful to recommend an absolute time limit on how long children should be online. Instead, she is announcing a “digital five-a-day” campaign, designed to advise parents and children on a healthy online diet. Rather than switching off the wifi, parents should help children to use their internet time to learn new skills, interact positively with friends and be creative.

“We’re not saying it’s parents’ fault, or that they should tell their children what to do, because ultimately this is part of life. All of those kids will have grown up with that being the normality. But we do think there is a role here for parents to step up, to stop waiting for others to come up with the solution, be that government or [social media] companies. We want [children] to feel informed, confident and empowered, and have the confidence to say, ‘no, I’m not going to do that’. That same confidence we want for children, we want for parents, too.”

She said Facebook and other social media giants “are not coming forward at quite the speed I would like them to” on making it easier to protect children.

“There is so much more they could do,” she said. “These are clever, clever people, who know their industry well, their tech abilities well. They can do things if they want that I don’t even know exist, and there are some very good examples of them using their expertise, for example by spotting people who have suicidal tendencies. But they are not doing [enough] yet.”

Snapchat and Facebook declined to comment.

Output: The UK's children's commissioner Anne Longfield has called on parents to do more to limit youngsters' internet access. Longford has launched a campaign called "digital five-a-day”, which aims to encourage parents to find educational and informative things to do on the internet. A recent report by Ofcom found that children between the ages five and 15 spend 15 hours a week online. Longford compared excessive internet use to junk food, and said she wanted social media sites to "stop using the algorithms and the targeting that get kids addicted".


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Countryside Properties to buy back freeholds sold to E&J estates
 Hopes of a breakthrough for householders trapped in the leasehold scandal are rising after a major developer agreed to buy back some freeholds and axe ground rent clauses.

Countryside Properties, which sold some of the freeholds on its houses to the ground rent company E&J Estates, has agreed to buy a number of them back with a view to releasing homeowners from clauses where ground rents double every 10 years.

E&J Estates has also “resolved not to purchase any further leasehold houses” following recent media coverage.

Two weeks ago the Guardian revealed the scale of E&J Estates’ ground rent business, with companies controlled by one man, James Tuttiett, holding the freehold to as many as 40,000 homes around England and Wales.

A letter dated 4 August from E&J Estates tells leaseholders that it has sold the freehold to their leasehold house back to the developers. It says: “We are writing to you with regard to recent media coverage … and concerns that have been raised on leases with 10-year doubling ground rent clauses.

“We have been working with Countryside to resolve the issue. As a consequence, we have completed the sale of the freehold on your property back to Countryside.”

E&J also issued an apology to worried householders. In the letter, it said: “We are sorry for any concerns that your leasehold may have caused you and the time it has taken for us to put in place the mechanism for resolution.”

One householder on an estate built by Countryside shared the letter with others on the National Leasehold Campaign Facebook page. “Brilliant news for our estate today … long way to go but a step in the right direction.”

Another said: “Developers are in a state of complete confusion and disorder.”

Countryside said in a statement: “We have conducted a comprehensive review of properties we have sold on a leasehold basis and have concluded that the vast majority of these homes carry little or no financial risk to the occupier. However, for a small number of leases, we recognise that the 10-year doubling of ground rents increases too quickly and have taken action to address this issue.”

However, campaigners said the deal did not go far enough. Sebastian O’Kelly, of Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, said: “It seems the deal only applies to four to five sites where E&J Capital Partners are the freeholders and where ground rents double every 10 years only.

“Those Countryside Properties sites where ground rents double every 15 years appear to be excluded from the deal. Also, the deals have not been done where the freeholder is Adriatic Land.”

The deal from Countryside will increase pressure on other developers to offer compensation to householders. Many complain that their properties have become virtually unsaleable because of onerous clauses in their ground rents.

The government is in the early stages of a consultation on the future of leasehold, with plans to ban the sale of leasehold houses and reduce ground rents on new flats close to zero.

Meanwhile, horror stories of homebuyers with extraordinary ground rent clauses continue to emerge, with many of the worst cases being secondhand apartments rather than new-build leasehold houses.

One buyer of a ground-floor conversion flat in east London, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted the Guardian after discovering that his ground rent will rocket.

He bought the leasehold flat just two years ago, with a ground rent set in 2004 at £250 a year. “Due to the doubling, the final 10 years of the lease will incur £128,000 per year.” He requested to buy out the freehold but has been given a quote of more than £100,000.

“Annoyingly, we have only discovered the true extent of this problem because we are selling our flat. We were at no point told by our original solicitor that this clause existed or would be a problem. Neither did they inform our lender (who almost certainly would have refused our mortgage application had they known).

“We have accepted a good offer, but I suspect it’s all about to fall through. Once the purchaser’s solicitor noticed the clause, they asked us to inquire with the freeholder as to whether we could remove the clause via a deed of variation. The freeholder quoted a premium of £100,000 to do so. We’ve just passed this information onto the purchaser. I expect they will run a mile.”

Output: UK developer Countrywide Properties has agreed to purchase a number of freeholds it sold to E&J Estates with exorbitant ground rents, liberating homeowners from a clause which would see their ground rent double every decade. While the move has been welcomed, others say it does not go far enough, as homeowners with ground rents that double every 15 years are not covered, nor are deals between Countrywide and freeholder Adriatic Land.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Home rental insurtech firm Jetty raises $11.5m in series A
 Jetty, a NYC-based provider of finance and insurance products products, raised $11.5m in Series A financing.

The round was led by Valar Ventures, with participation from original seed investors Ribbit Capital, SV Angel, BoxGroup, and Red Swan.

Co-founded by President Luke Cohler and CEO Mike Rudoy, Jetty initially provides a suite focused on solving the problems both consumers and landlords experience during a home rental process. Jetty Passport Deposit, Jetty Passport Lease, and Jetty Renters Insurance products enable consumers to meet the requirements of posting an expensive security deposit, finding a lease guarantor, and obtaining renters insurance.

Through Jetty, consumers can protect their collections, accessories, and electronics, as well as can insure themselves from the risks of bed bugs, or theft that may occur during a home-sharing experience.

The company today offers all three products in 131 states; Jetty Renters Insurance and Jetty Passport Deposit products are available in California. Jetty Passport Products are available in 25 states; and the company is in the process of making the all three products available nationwide by the end of the year.

FinSMEs

08/08/2017

Output: Insurance and financial products provider Jetty has raised $11.5m in series A funding to make its products available to all US states. Jetty's products help customers to provide security deposits, find a lease guarantor and obtain renters' insurance. Customers of the New York City-based company can insure their possessions and their health from events that may occur during a home-sharing experience. The round was led by Valar Ventures.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Buyers can now initiate real estate bankruptcy in India
 NEW DELHI: You can now initiate bankruptcy proceedings against the developer in certain cases if you don’t get your commercial property or service apartment on time.A recent judgment against AMR Infrastructure has upheld that buyers are entitled to be recognised as financial creditors , wherein the developer had promised ‘assured returns’ as a part of the deal.However, the matter has raised questions about initiating bankruptcy proceedings, given that financial creditors have a say in negotiating the debt recast. In the case of real estate projects, there could be thousands of eligible financial creditors.Most experts are of the opinion that it will be difficult to hold a committee of creditors as required under the bankruptcy law if even 1% of these buyers attend any meeting. Souvik Ganguly of Acuity Law said, “If such creditors can collectively account for even 25% of claims, they could potentially interfere with the functioning of the committee of creditors. That has implications for the extent of influence lenders can exercise.”An email sent to AMR Infrastructure did not elicit a response till press time. The judgement in case of AMR was passed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), which set aside previous verdicts of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Delhi and upheld considering realty buyers as financial creditors.The NCLAT said, “The claim should be considered by the interim resolution professional (IRP) and the committee of creditors, in accordance with provisions of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016.”

Output: India's National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has ruled that, in certain situations, buyers of real estate are recognised as financial creditors and can begin bankruptcy proceedings against developers. The judgement overturned previous decisions by the the National Company Law Tribunal, and could open the floodgates to thousands of eligible creditors. "If such creditors can collectively account for even 25% of claims, they could potentially interfere with the functioning of the committee of creditors", said Souvik Ganguly of Acuity Law.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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MGM COTAI appoints OMD, Xaxis to head up media strategy
 MGM China has appointed a combined team from OMD and Xaxis to handle its media strategy for the company’s new US$3.3 billion integrated resort in Macau, MGM COTAI, which will be launched during the fourth quarter of this year.J Walter Thompson, which was appointed as agency of record in January, led the selection of the two media specialists, and will oversee the partnership as the integrated agency lead.OMD will be responsible for integrated media strategy, planning and buying in Guangzhou and Hong Kong and also oversee all ATL, search and social assets across Hong Kong and China.Xaxis will handle all programmatic display and video advertising across targeted territories in Asia Pacific.“The strong team we have assembled with JWT, OMD, and Xaxis will bring the innovation and creativity behind MGM COTAI to life throughout the launch campaign”, said Sarah Rogers, senior vice president of strategy & corporate responsibility of MGM.“In OMD, we have a highly experienced integrated entertainment resorts partner with a geographic footprint that suits the MGM challenge,” says Rollo Gwyn-Jones, group account director at J. Walter Thompson Hong Kong. “Using the Xaxis platforms, we are able to take an extremely calculated and qualified approach to achieving not just reach, but targeted lead qualification and conversion.”“We are delighted with the opportunity of working closely with JWT and Xaxis to launch MGM COTAI which promises to be one of the most innovative and creative luxury destinations in the region. We will leverage the power of the collaboration to deliver ground-breaking work for MGM COTAI, driving their growth and visibility,” said Deric Wong, CEO OMD Hong Kong.“We are extremely honored to have been selected by MGM COTAI to play a big part in the launch of its exciting new integrated resort. Having our outcome-based programmatic media solutions paired with the audience-led dynamic creative approach designed by JWT, we look forward to driving the highest return of investment for our client partner,” said Andy Chung, MD Xaxis Hong Kong.

Output: Integrated communications agency OMD and digital media platform Xaxis have been selected to manage MGM China's media campaign for the MGM COTAI, a $3.3bn integrated resort set to launch later this year in Macau. While Xaxis handles video advertising and programmatic display, OMD will deal primarily with integrated media strategy. "We will leverage the power of the collaboration to deliver ground-breaking work for MGM COTAI, driving their growth and visibility”, said OMD CEO Deric Wong.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Redrow Redrow helps Newport Pagnell FC's prospects for promotion
 Redrow Sales Consultant Loriana Dirienzo-White with Ian Ford - Newport Pagnell FC Head of Football.

The Willen Road based non-league side plays in the United Counties Premier League but has an ambitious five-year growth plan which could see the club jump up two levels, but to reach that goal, it needs to upgrade its home ground.

Redrow Homes is building new homes at Priory Mews on Tickford Street, less than two miles from the club and has offered home town support, covering £1,000 in architect’s fees to design the upgraded facilities.

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Head of football, Ian Ford, said: “Newport Pagnell Town FC has big ambitions for the future and aim to improve the stadium and win promotion to the Southern League this season.

To be eligible for promotion, improvements need to be made to the club’s ground, including a new stand, new turnstiles and a new toilet block.

Ian added: “The project is a five year one – the hope is by next April we can get the ground ready to play at the next level and then next season strengthen the team with a higher playing budget, to get up a division and start the journey.”

Output: Redrow Homes has offered to pay the £1000 architect's fee for designing and upgradeing Newport Pagnell Football Club's stadium. The team plays in the United Counties Premier League, but has ambitious goals of two promotions within 5 years. This will require improvements to the stadium, including a new stand, new turnstiles and a new toilet block.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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AI talent shortage targeted by Andrew Ng's online learning course
 Andrew Ng is a soft-spoken AI researcher whose online postings talk loudly.

A March blog post in which the Stanford professor announced he was leaving Chinese search engine Baidu temporarily wiped more than a billion dollars off the company’s value. A June tweet about a new Ng website, Deeplearning.ai, triggered a wave of industry and media speculation about his next project.

Today that speculation is over. Deeplearning.ai is home to a series of online courses Ng says will help spread the benefits of recent advances in machine learning far beyond big tech companies such as Google and Baidu. The courses offer coders without an AI background training in how to use deep learning, the technique behind the current frenzy of investment in AI.

“This sounds naive, but I want us to build a new AI-powered society,” Ng tells WIRED. “The only way to build this is if there are hundreds of thousands of people with the skills to do things like improve the water supply for your city or help resource allocation in developing economies.”

Ng’s new courses cost $49 a month and are offered through online-education startup Coursera, which he cofounded in 2012 and where he still sits on the board. Ng says the project has left him enough time to start two other “cool” new projects in AI, so conjecture about what he’s up to continues.

With his new courses, Ng is offering a solution to a problem he helped create. His prominence comes from work on deep learning at Stanford and Google’s X Labs that helped prove machine learning could do transformational things for businesses. In a 2012 paper, he and coauthors described a system that learned to recognize cats in still images from YouTube without human help. Now there aren’t enough people with machine learning skills to go around.

A recent McKinsey report on the potential of artificial intelligence cited a shortage of talent as a problem for US companies. A study of job ads from April found more than 10,000 vacancies in the US for people with AI or machine-learning skills.

Ng isn’t alone in targeting the AI skills gap. Coursera rival Udacity will refund your tuition if you don’t get a job within six months of completing its machine-learning engineer course. More than 100,000 people have started a deep learning course offered by Fast.ai, a startup focused on widening use of AI. Large tech companies such as Google and Facebook offer free software and documentation to help people use machine learning.

Results from the frontiers of AI research may get more attention, but work on transforming machine learning from wizardry into plumbing has more immediate implications. “Deep learning is getting amazing results in just about every area it’s applied to, but there are a lot of areas where it hasn’t been applied much,” says Rachel Thomas, a cofounder of Fast.ai. If the burgeoning AI education industry enables more companies to use techniques like machine learning, it could change many parts of the economy.

Output: Artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Andrew Ng has launched an set of online courses that teach coders how to use deep learning. Called Deeplearning.ai, the courses cost $49 per month and are provided by edtech start-up Coursera. The courses aim to address a shortage of AI skills and build an "AI-powered society", Ng said.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Redrow Redrow site manager wins Pride in the Job Quality Award
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The site manager responsible for building a new community of up to 2,000 homes on what has been described as the last farm field in Ellesmere Port has scooped a quality award.

Redrow’s Ian Robertson, 33, gained a Pride in the Job Quality Award for his leasehold development.

Mr Robertson was among a record number of the housebuilder’s employees to receive the prestigious industry award from the National House Building Council (NHBC) for his work at Ledsham Garden Village in Little Sutton.

Mr Robertson, who lives in Liverpool, said: “I’m over the moon that we’ve managed to achieve this award at the first possible time we could for Ledsham Garden Village.

“I’ve been on this site since it launched last year and it’s an amazing development that the whole team work really hard on and it’s fantastic that it’s been recognised.”

Prior to working at Ledsham, he was site manager at a now sold out development elsewhere in Cheshire and before that an assistant site manager also in the county.

John Tutte, Redrow’s chief executive officer, said: “We’re very proud of all of our winning site managers and that a record number have been recognised for the second year running. The fact we count 27 of the industry’s best site managers amongst our colleagues is a reflection of the high standards we uphold across Redrow.

“It’s a rigorous judging process and only the best in the business achieve the Quality awards. The fact we continue to improve year-on-year demonstrates our commitment to continually improving the high build quality of our homes.”

The awards have been highlighting excellence in the field for more than 35 years and are dedicated to recognising site managers who achieve the highest standards in housebuilding.

Judging for the awards includes spot checks on the day-to-day running of sites plus an assessment across almost 40 areas of site management including each manager’s technical knowledge, consistency in the build process, leadership and organisational skills.

Mr Robertson will discover this autumn whether he has progressed to the next stage of the competition and won a Seal of Excellence which would put him in the top 130 elite. The flagship new development is set to cover 105 hectares off Ledsham Road.

Output: Ian Robertson, a 33-year-old site manager for Redrow, has received a Pride in the Job Quality Award from the National House Building Council for his work at Little Sutton's Ledsham Garden Village.


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Aon Benfield results add to catastrophe bond growth optimism
 Another insurance broker has concluded that insurance-linked securities are reaching record issuance levels.

Aon Securities, Aon Benfield’s investment banking division, determined that catastrophe bond issuance for the 2017 second quarter hit $6.38 billion across 20 transactions, a record for quarterly issuance. According to Aon’s update, the last record was $4.49 billion in the 2014 second quarter.

In July, Willis Towers Watson came to a similar conclusion. Willis Towers Watson’s investment banking business known as Willis Towers Watson Securities found that ILS issuance reached what it said was a record-breaking $6.3 billion in the 2017 second quarter, with property catastrophe bond capacity issued through 36 tranches. Like Aon Benfield, Willis Towers Watson said that the number surpasses the previous record set in the 2014 second quarter, which it also tallied at about $4.5 billion.

Aon Benfield said that the second quarter results, combined with the Q1 2017 issuance of $2.17 billion also broke a record. That $8.55 billion total beat any other previous first half for ILS issuance as well as any previous annual period, it said. Previously, ILS annual issuance hit a record in 2007 at $8.38 billion, Aon Benfield said.

What drove this surge? Aon Benfield said that the second quarter saw a surge in strong investor demand, and also different public entities came to market during the second quarter. Also, the market got much bigger.

“During the second quarter we saw a large amount of maturing limit being renewed, which contributed to the record-breaking issuance figures,” Paul Schultz, CEO of Aon Securities, said in prepared remarks. “However, there was still a significant expansion in the overall market as a result of new sponsors, favorable pricing, and the ability of alternative capital to provide high levels of market capacity.”

Many bonds issued during the second quarter were upsized from initial guidance, Aon Benfield said. That included Kilimanjaro II Re, which upsized to $1.25 billion, a jump of more than 100 percent that made it the quarter’s largest issuance and the third largest catastrophe bond ever.

Also, six different public entities came to market in the second quarter bringing with them $2.2 billion of catastrophe bond issuances, according to Aon Benfield.

Source: Aon Benfield

Output: Catastrophe bond issuance in Q2 2017 reached $6.38bn across 20 transactions at Aon Securities, Aon Benfield's investment banking branch. The figure smashed the firm's Q2 2014 record of $4.49bn. Growing investor demand and a rise in public entities coming to market underpinned the rising demand for issuances, Aon Benfield said. The overall market for catastrophe bond issuance also grew due to favourable pricing, new sponsors and the availability of alternative capital.


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AI's role at the wellhead 'will be limited'
 Production and reservoir engineers are well acquainted with the constant grind of firefighting that defines so much of well management. Effective operation of an asset is an ongoing, complex challenge that requires operators to navigate through an intricate web of process interdependencies to maximize production rates, maintain asset integrity and maximize ultimate recovery.

Until recently, the upstream industry has largely invested in development projects and drilling activities. However, at the current $50/bbl to $55/bbl price, growth through the drillbit can be less attractive. Capital projects have either been terminated in favor of acquisitions and divestitures or put on hold while operational headcount is reduced.

As a result, the pressure is on for engineers to anticipate production issues before they happen, to operate proactive and agile business processes and to have a clear and up-to-date view of the current state of producing assets to make more informed, on-target decisions faster.

But what tools will empower these engineers to get the job done?

In a time when operations are awash in disconnected data and engineers are continually asked to do more with less, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are claimed as a panacea for addressing operational inefficiencies. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can provide brilliant macro learning observation and insights. However, at the equipment/well level, they can be time-consuming to implement and lack resilience to change.

Additionally, there is always effort to build or train the models, a function today that is performed largely by data scientists due to the maturity and complexity of the available tools. Context, experience and tacit knowledge all still count. Even when an artificial intelligence solution is appropriate, the subject matter experts need to be part of the equation.

While artificial intelligence can be a source of information to the engineers, it is only one of many tools available (e.g., metering, well and subsurface models, production accounting, etc.). Rather than adding another gadget into an already-bulging toolkit, engineers need to simplify and consolidate what they do have to achieve something new: operational intelligence.

Operational intelligence

Data are everywhere. SCADA data, production accounting information, drilling and completions information, maintenance and reliability data, well header data, information from spreadsheets—the list goes on and on. Not only is there a ton of data that has a ton of value to any engineering function or optimization activity (the old adage of “you can’t optimize what you don’t measure”), but it also is disjointed in most cases because disparate systems are used to capture it.

Knowing what information to look for and how best to use it become immediate challenges for subject matter experts like production engineers and technicians. That’s why it is important to help engineers be more effective individually and as a team. Providing a centralized reference model of all relevant information relating to an asset gives engineers a rapid and reliable foundation for their workflows.

The industry then needs to provide the tools for interpretation (calculations), diagnostics (analytics) and surveillance (complex event processing and notifications). Adding value here means enabling engineers with self-service capabilities to leverage available data in context and capture their institutional knowledge and subject matter expertise (as opposed to it being stored in a spreadsheet) so that they don’t have to go back to IT to obtain and understand those data.

Shifting the paradigm from ad hoc or reactionary firefighting activities to proactive automated surveillance routines with self-service diagnostics opens up a new world of optimization opportunities.

This allows a single engineer to watch for multiple events customized to the current operating conditions. On notification of an important event, users can view their own diagnostic displays to further investigate the cause of the production issue. All of this allows engineers to understand and interpret data themselves, to see and identify leading indicators to mitigate risk, or reduce its duration in the worst case—and to do it faster.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are new sources of data, insights and events. All too often the people selling these solutions skip over the need to include the human intelligence that exists in the business.

Here’s where a single data environment and exception- based surveillance processes come in.

A single data environment brings together data from disparate sources and connects it to digital representations of the physical assets, giving production engineers and technicians a one-stop self-service environment for configuring rules and performing key analysis. Exception-based surveillance processes provide a 24/7 watch over company assets and trigger alerts and tasks when predefined events occur, allowing personnel to manage more wells and fix problems in less time.

A practical example: foreign materials. Salt, scale, paraffin and other materials have a tendency to build up in produced water wells. This buildup occurs slowly over time and can hinder production if an acid treatment isn’t mobilized in due course.

This is a scenario where operators could use field data capture information, an injection curve and SCADA data to monitor the pressure-flow correlation against the curve over time.

Using the derived operational intelligence, users could then create a rule that would provide prioritized notifications showing the event in context long before material buildup became a serious issue, giving them plenty of time to plan the intervention activities needed to keep production rates at their highest.

There is still much opportunity to be had in better enabling subject matter experts to optimize production or manage the constraints from the producing assets. Establishing an effective self-service operational intelligence program will deliver immediate benefits and reinvest the knowledge into a foundation that can enable any artificial intelligence program. There is no doubt that the ongoing application of artificial intelligence technologies brings about new perspectives and benefits to production within the oil and gas industry.

There are significant opportunities through self-service operational intelligence to consolidate, contextualize and capture subject matter expertise. By leveraging the connected data, calculations and events within the operational intelligence environment, the artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions will be more comprehensive and on target.

Improved profitability will happen when data from across the enterprise is brought together and presented to the right people and the right systems at the right time. Businesses should consolidate a strategy that better empowers subject matter experts to deliver benefits while establishing the data foundation for an artificial intelligence program.

In addition to the benefits provided by operational intelligence, artificial intelligence tools can adopt that same data foundation investment to identify incremental opportunities and provide insights to engineers and operators.

Output: Artificial Intelligence should be seen as one tool among many, rather than as a panacea for operational inefficiencies at the equipment/well level, according to Grant Eggleton of P2 Energy Solutions. The industry can use artificial intelligence to streamline processes and improve performance, but AI can be time-consuming to train and lack resilience to change, he said. Existing tools, such as metering, well and subsurface models and production accounting, can all be used to create self-service operational intelligence programmes, which would then provide a foundation for AI development, he said.


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Tencent credit check takes mobile payments battle to Alibaba
 More scores that rate your trustworthiness are coming to China’s internet—which is great for a quick discount, but concerning for civil liberties.

Tech giant Tencent is gradually testing and expanding its “social credit” system that will give users a numeric rating based on their spending habits and social connections, two years after rival Alibaba launched its own social credit system. A source familiar with the matter this week confirmed that Tencent expanded its pool of “beta test” users for Tencent Credit, the name of its social credit system. The beta test users were given access to the service on QQ, a Chinese chat app.

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According to media reports (link in Chinese), users must input their real names and Chinese ID numbers to reveal their scores, which ranges between 300 and 850. The company breaks down that score into five sub-categories: social connections, consumption behavior, security, wealth, and compliance. It’s very similar to Sesame Credit, the social credit system run by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, which was launched officially in 2015.

Tencent did not respond to Quartz’s inquiries about how its scores were calculated and how data for these categories was extracted.

For both Tencent and Alibaba, there are several incentives to launch social credit schemes. For one, China’s consumers are massively underserved in the financial sector—most financial services cater to large businesses, and no credit rating company has achieved ubiquity for individuals. It’s also a marketing opportunity—users who spend more time or money on Alibaba and Tencent services can increase their scores and get benefits. For example, Ant Financial recently launched a scheme with Ofo, a popular bike-sharing company, allowing users to ride bikes without first paying a deposit.

In the past two years, Tencent’s share of China’s mobile payments has skyrocketed thanks to swift adoption of WeChat payments, at the expense of Ant Financial, once the dominant online payments provider through the Paypal-esque Alipay.

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But there’s also a political component to social credit scores in China. Beijing has urged local governments and private companies to develop a social credit system, both to address underbanked citizens and to determine who is qualified to get loans, and also to “encourage trust.” Tencent and Alibaba were both part of a group of companies that in 2015 received government permission to launch social credit pilot programs.

For now Alibaba and Tencent’s credit score systems remain in their early stages. Yet the Chinese Communist Party’s strong hand in driving the initiative, coupled with its track record for online surveillance and censorship, has led some to fear that an Orwellian system (link in Chinese) is brewing—access to any number of goods, services, and privileges might be dependent on a single score.

But much, if not most, of its data for people will come from social media. Tencent’s chat apps, WeChat and QQ, have 938 million and 861 million users, respectively (pdf). They know who our friends are, what we read, what games we play, what we chat about privately, and what we post on public social feeds (Alibaba has some of this data too, but not to the same extent). One of the descriptions (link in Chinese) of how Tencent tracks “social connections” states it observes “notices from people in their network, primarily from social account information, to determine “whether social behavior is healthy.”

Output: Chinese mobile payments provider Tencent will create a credit scoring system to rival e-commerce giant Alibaba's Sesame Credit. Offered by Ant Financial, the payment arm of Alibaba, Sesame Credit uses data on customers' financial histories to judge their ability to pay back loans and other debts. Tencent will test a similar service before releasing it as part of its mobile payment services. Such credit scoring systems have become popular in China, where younger consumers lack a credit history that would enable them to pay for services such as hotel rooms without a deposit.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Hispania in talks to sell €500m office portfolio
 La Socimi participada por George Soros está a punto de cerrar la venta de una veintena de edificios de oficinas para centrarse en su negocio hotelero.

Todo listo para la venta de la cartera de oficinas de Hispania, una de las operaciones más esperadas por el mercado inmobiliario. A falta de cerrar los últimos flecos, la Socimi participada por George Soros está a punto de firmar un acuerdo con Swiss Life para la venta de una veintena de edificios de oficinas por unos 510 millones de euros, según indican a EXPANSIÓN fuentes del mercado.

La cartera de oficinas de Hispania está distribuida entre Madrid -donde se ubican 16 inmuebles, así como dos plantas de oficinas en dos edificios y un activo en desarrollo-, Barcelona y Málaga, con cinco y un inmueble, respectivamente.

En la operación, que podría cerrarse en las próximas semanas o, incluso días, han participado las consultoras CBRE, JLL y el despacho de abogados Freshfields, que han asesorado a Hispania, mientras que Swiss Life ha contado con el asesoramiento de Aguirre Newman y Garrigues.

Según la última información aportada por Hispania, la cartera de oficinas de la Socimi a cierre del semestre tenía un valor de 584 millones de euros. Esta valoración incluía el edificio de Aurelio Menéndez, vendido en junio a un family office por 37,5 millones de euros. Hispania mantiene el compromiso de finalizar la ejecución de la obra pendiente en este activo, que estima completar en noviembre, fecha en la que se ejecutará la venta del edificio.

Sin incluir el activo de Aurelio Menéndez, Hispania cuenta con casi 182.000 metros cuadrados de superficie bruta alquilable de oficinas, de los que casi 21.300 metros se ubican en el distrito financiero de Madrid. Además, tiene otros 116.852 metros cuadrados en edificios de oficinas en la zona prime secundaria. En Barcelona, cuenta con 39.506 metros cuadrados y en Málaga, con 4.288 metros cuadrados.

De acuerdo con la última información publicada por Hispania, el nivel de ocupación en estos edificios es del 84%, con una renta mensual media de 13,8 euros por metro cuadrado.

Hispania reconoció esta mañana en un hecho relevante al mercado que está negociando la venta de activos de oficina y añadió que mantiene contactos con, entre otros, Swiss Life, aunque matizó que todavía no ha alcanzado ningún acuerdo al respecto.

Desinversión

Con esta operación, la compañía gestionada por Azora da un paso más en su estrategia de desinversión en residencial y oficinas para centrarse en el negocio hotelero, en el que seguirá invirtiendo antes de ponerlo a la venta.

En este sentido, Hispania comunicó en febrero su intención de mantener su objetivo inicial de vender todos sus activos, de manera individual, en carteras o a través de una venta o cambio de control en la compañía, antes de marzo de 2020, fecha en la que se cumplen seis años de su salida a Bolsa. En el marco de esta estrategia, los accionistas decidieron extender el periodo de inversión hasta el próximo 31 de diciembre.

Además de George Soros, que controla un 16,7% a través de Soros Fund Management, participan en el capital de Hispania los fondos Fidelity Management and Research (7%), Tamerlane (6%), BW Gestao De Investimentos (3,6%), BlackRock (3,3%) y AXA Investments (3%).

Output: Hispania is looking to sell its €500m office portfolio to Swiss Life in order to focus more on its hotel business. The portfolio includes 16 buildings in Madrid and others in Barcelona and Málaga, and the deal could close within weeks or even days.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Generic Drug Prices Are Falling, but Are Consumers Benefiting?
 This article was written through collaboration between The New York Times and ProPublica, the independent, nonprofit investigative journalism organization.

Not all drug prices are going up.

Amid the public fury over the escalating costs of brand-name medications, the prices of generic drugs have been falling, raising fears about the profitability of major generic manufacturers. Last week, Teva Pharmaceuticals reported that it had missed analysts’ earnings estimates in the second quarter and planned to lay off 7,000 workers. Its share price plummeted 24 percent in one day as investors worried there was no end in sight.

Share prices of other generic drugmakers also declined, as did those of wholesalers, which profit from the sales of generic drugs and have said they expect prices to continue declining.

Mylan, another large generic drugmaker, will report its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday. Mylan also sells the EpiPen, the brand-name allergy treatment whose price increases have stoked outrage over the past year, but the company’s primary business is as a seller of generic drugs.

Output: Not all drug prices are going up. Amid the public fury over the escalating costs of brand-name medications, the prices of generic drugs have been falling, raising fears about the profitability of major generic manufacturers.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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New FDA Working Group to Bolster Generic Competition
 ARTICLE | Politics & Policy

New FDA working group to bolster generic competition

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has created a working group of senior FDA staff who will look for ways to increase generic competition beyond the steps he has already set in motion. His idea is to reinvigorate FDA's enforcement of the Hatch-Waxman Act to ensure there is robust generic competition to branded drugs as soon as patents have expired.

In congressional testimony and at a public meeting in July, Gottlieb said some drug companies are "gaming the system" to maintain sales at premium prices long after generics should have lowered prices. Steps Gottlieb has initiated so far include crafting policies to prevent innovators from using REMS to block generic competition (see BioCentury, June 23). ...

Output: FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has created a working group of senior FDA staff who will look for ways to increase generic competition beyond the steps he has already set in motion. His idea is to reinvigorate FDA's enforcement of the Hatch-Waxman Act to ensure there is robust generic competition to branded drugs as soon as patents have expired.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Transparency struggles continue as few shop around for best prices, take advantage of transparency tools, studies show
 Two new studies published in Health Affairs show that while Americans support the idea of shopping around for the best prices on healthcare services, they aren't doing much of it.

In the first study, authors surveyed a national sample of 2,996 nonelderly adults who had received medical care in the past 12 months with the goal of finding out how frequently patients are shopping around for prices and the challenges they may face.

Results showed only 13 percent of those who had out-of-pocket costs at their last episode of care had sought information on the potential costs beforehand, and a mere three percent had compared costs across different providers.

[Also: Battle over price transparency rages in Ohio, where new laws like Ohio's Healthcare Price Transparency Law are in limbo]

However, the lack of shopping seemingly was not fueled by a rejection of the idea. Nor did there seem to be any widespread belief that higher costs meant better quality. Rather, the issues had to do with knowing how and where to shop around, and loyalty to their current providers. Constraints imposed by health insurance provider networks also factored in here. Results showed 75 percent said they didn't know of a resource that would let them compare costs among providers. However, 53 percent said they would be likely or very likely to use a website to shop for care if one was made available to them.

"If price shopping is an important policy goal, it will be necessary to increase the availability of information on price and decrease the complexity of accessing the information. Patients often must know specific procedure or diagnosis codes to obtain prices, and differentiating between professional and facility fees makes the process even more difficult."

[Also: Price transparency for inpatient labratory tests has little effect on clinician ordering behavior, JAMA says]

A separate study showed that simply offering a price transparency tool doesn't necessarily do the trick either. Authors for this study looked at claims data for California Public Employees' Retirement System beneficiaries as well as a control population consisting of non-CalPERS Californians who were commercially insured by Anthem.

Both populations were offered a price transparency tool in the form of a website and app that let patients compare prices and out-of-pocket spending for in-network healthcare providers. It also provided some quality information. The tool focused on shoppable services including lab tests, office visits and advanced imaging. Overall, the tool was not associated with lower spending, as only 12 percent of employees offered the tool actually used it in the first 15 months it was available. Also, using the tool was not found to be related to lower lab tests or office visits.

[Also: Barriers to improving cost transparency in cancer care identified by Penn Medicine]

The average price paid for imaging services rendered after a price search was done was 14 percent lower than the price for imaging services where no price search was done. However, only 1 percent of those who received advanced imaging conducted a price search, the study said.

"For price transparency tools to have a more substantive impact on spending, a much larger percentage of patients would have to use the tools, and there would need to be a broader array of services, in addition to imaging, for which patients could effectively use price information," the authors wrote.

Twitter: @BethJSanborn

Output: Two new studies published in Health Affairs show that while Americans support the idea of shopping around for the best prices on healthcare services, they aren't doing much of it.


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Input:
Taking A U-Turn On Benefits, Big Employers Vow To Continue Offering Health Insurance
 The shrinking unemployment rate has been a healthy turn for people with job-based benefits.

Eager to attract help in a tight labor market and unsure of Obamacare’s future, large employers are newly committed to maintaining coverage for workers and often their families, according to new research and interviews with analysts.

Two surveys of large employers — one released Aug. 2 by consultancy Willis Towers Watson and the other out Tuesday from the National Business Group on Health, show companies continue to try to control costs while backing away from shrinking or dropping health benefits. NBGH is a coalition of large employers.

“The extent of uncertainty in Washington has made people reluctant to make changes to their benefit programs without knowing what’s happening,” said Julie Stone, a senior benefits consultant with Willis Towers Watson. “They’re taking a wait-and-see attitude.”

That’s a marked change from three years ago, when many big employers — those with 1,000 employees or more — contemplated ending medical benefits and shifting workers to the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces.

Use Our Content This KHN story can be republished for free ( details ).

In 2014, only 25 percent of big companies were “very confident” they would have a job-based health plan for employees in 10 years, according to the Willis Towers Watson survey.

This year, 65 percent expected to offer health benefits in a decade. And 92 percent said they were very confident a company-based health plan would exist in five years.

Many managers once eyed Obamacare marketplaces as workable coverage alternatives despite the law’s requirement that employers offer health insurance, analysts said.

But problems with marketplace plans, including fewer offerings, rising premiums and shrinking medical networks, have made employers think twice, they said.

Another big reason to maintain rich coverage is “the strength of the economy,” said Paul Fronstin, director of health research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, an industry group. “Employers are doing what they have to do to get the right workers.”

Unemployment has fallen from 9.9 percent when Obamacare became law in 2010 to 4.3 percent last month, which equaled a 16-year low reached in May.

With such a steep decline, he added, “employers are thinking, ‘We need to offer this benefit for recruitment and retention.’”

Second Thoughts On High-Deductible Plans

Companies are even rethinking the long-standing expedient of shifting a portion of rising medical costs to employees through high-deductible plans and a greater share of the premium bill, other research shows.

“Employers are beginning to recognize that cost sharing has its limits,” said a June report from PwC, a multinational professional services network. Low unemployment and competition for workers mean “employers have less appetite for scaling back benefits and continuing with a plan design that has proven largely unpopular.”

At Fidelity Investments, a Boston-based financial firm with more than 45,000 employees, worker contributions have grown to about 30 percent of total health costs.

Jennifer Hanson, the company’s benefits chief who sits on NBGH’s board, doesn’t see that continuing.

As costs grow, “if you continue to shift more of a bigger number to employees, health care becomes unaffordable,” she said in an interview. “As employers, we really do need to pay attention less to who’s paying for what and more to how much everything costs.”

More than half of Americans with job-based insurance face deductibles — out-of-pocket costs for most care before insurance kicks in — of more than $1,000 for single-person coverage. Family deductibles can be much higher.

High On The To-Do List: Controlling Drug Costs

Big employers’ planned changes for next year focus on controlling drug costs and improving health results through telemedicine and steering patients to efficient, high-quality hospitals, noted the Willis Towers Watson report and the NBGH survey.

Employer health costs continue to rise, but not at the double-digit clip seen for many plans sold to individuals and families through the ACA marketplaces.

Employers expect health costs to increase 5.5 percent next year, up from 4.6 percent in 2017, according to the Willis Towers Watson report.

Companies in the NBGH survey predicted health costs will rise 5 percent next year, up from an average 4.1 percent increase for 2016.

That’s still far faster than inflation, which is less than 3 percent, and overall wage growth.

By many accounts, soaring costs for specialty pharmaceuticals used to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia and other complex conditions are the biggest factor.

“These are very expensive drugs,” said Brian Marcotte, NBGH’s CEO. “They cost thousands or tens of thousands per treatment.”

Often these drugs require infusion into the blood in a clinical setting, which can drive up their price tag.

For instance, hospital-based infusions have been found to cost as much as seven times more than those performed in, say, a doctor’s office.

Employers are working hard to steer patients to the least expensive, appropriate site, Marcotte said.

Big employers are also offering more on-site nurses and doctors; setting up accountable care organizations with incentives for doctors and hospitals to control costs; and striking deals with particular hospitals for high-cost operations such as transplants and joint replacements, the NBGH survey found.

Job-based insurance covers some 160 million people younger than 65, according to Census and Labor Department data, far more than the 10 million or so insured by plans sold through Obamacare marketplaces.

Government employers and companies with at least 500 workers, which historically have been more likely to offer health benefits than smaller employers, cover more than 90 million employees and dependents.

Willis Towers surveyed 555 large employers with about 12 million workers and dependents. NBGH surveyed 148 large companies with more than 15 million employees and dependents.

Output: The shrinking unemployment rate has been a healthy turn for people with job-based benefits. Eager to attract help in a tight labor market and unsure of Obamacare’s future, large employers are newly committed to maintaining coverage for workers and often their families, according to new research and interviews with analysts.


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Input:
What happens when you introduce four year olds to an eldercare home
 Lying on the floor pretending to roar like a lion can do wonders for an elderly man's well-being. That's not a scientific fact, but it was one of the surprising and memorable moments we observed while making a television program which introduced a group of very young people with residents of a retirement village.

The two episodes of Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds set out to explore the increasing isolation of older people within our communities.

The impact of young children and older people sharing daytime care facilities has already been shown to be generally positive. But this was the first time an experiment was undertaken within the UK to measure the impact of inter-generational interaction on the health and happiness of the older group.

Ten four-year-old children and 11 people in their late 80s were brought together for six weeks in a new nursery set within a retirement community in the city of Bristol. Before we started, the elderly participants were measured on their cognition, mood and depression, as well as physical abilities including balance and the ability to get up and walk ("Timed Up and Go"). These measurements were taken again at three weeks and once more at the end of the six-week programme.

The programme consisted of a timetable of activities in which the two generations were given time and space to engage physically and socially. It included games, occasionally requiring individuals to get down on and off the floor, walking outdoors, picnicking and participating in indoor activities using a variety of craft and art work. The final week also included an inter-generational sports day and a short theatrical production.

After three weeks, the halfway point, there were noticeable improvements in the residents' measurement scores. Final measurements revealed significant improvements in the majority of metrics, with 80% percent of residents showed improvement in the "Timed Up and Go". Grip strengths were up generally and activity tracker scores showed that the residents had become increasingly active over a 24-hour period. On sports day, one woman who could not recall the last time she ran, was seen sprinting off with her companion four-year-old in order to beat the competition.

At the start of the experiment, nearly all of the residents were identified as depressed, two of them severely. After six weeks, none of them was registered as depressed. They had completely changed their outlook on life and in their hope for the future. Even the most sceptical person within the group, who had been heard to say "I can't really see it making any great difference to us", admitted that the children had brought "great joy".

Lifting spirits

This was not a scientific trial or a traditional academic research project. It was a social experiment involving a very small group of people. But the results showed marked changes in the residents' physical ability and mood.

When you get very old you become less mobile, friends die, and you can't get out to meet people. If you live in a care home, the only younger people you see every day are staff. That's why depression is the epidemic of old age – and it's important for us to present opportunities for them to meet young people.

Children are open minded. They love attention and take an interest in adults. At the same time, children learn quite mature skills from adults, so this inter-generational engagement is reciprocal.

You can't cure arthritis completely, but you can increase confidence and, with the help and encouragement of the children, we saw our older folks doing things they never imagined they'd do again – jumping, dancing and rolling around on the floor.

As a consequence of our television experiment, significant developments are underway within the trust which took part in the program. Contact with the children and their families has been encouraged and continued. They are investigating additional ways to increase socialisation of the residents with surrounding communities. And plans are even in place to build a permanent nursery in one of the trust's homes.

Many older adults live depressed lives in isolation with sadness, hopelessness, and negative feelings toward the self. This experiment has shown that, within a short timeframe – and where people share a similar vision of intergenerational mixing – it is possible to bring about significant enhancement in the well-being of older people.

Output: Lying on the floor pretending to roar like a lion can do wonders for an elderly man's well-being. That's not a scientific fact, but it was one of the surprising and memorable moments we observed while making a television program which introduced a group of very young people with residents of a retirement village.


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Input:
Employer-based US health insurance likely to stay despite ACA row
 Are employees worried about losing their health insurance from their employer? The ongoing political turmoil around “Obamacare” all but guarantees they’ll still be able to do that.

Ask Walt Rowen, whose business is etching glass but whose experience managing century-old, family-owned Susquehanna Glass makes him something of an expert on health care. He’s provided coverage to employees, then canceled it, steering them to the health insurance exchange. But with those premiums rising, Rowen this year is again covering his 70 or so workers under the umbrella of employer-sponsored health insurance.

Employer-provided health insurance is so ingrained in the American workplace that people expect it to continue even as politicians thrash out the role of government in health care. That’s according to polling, business owners and consumers. And in a nearly saturated labor market, employers don’t want to give workers a reason to work somewhere else.

“I think a company — any size company — would be incredibly afraid to just cancel its insurance policy and say the hell with it,” says Rowen, whose company is located in Columbia, Pennsylvania. He said that could result in employees fleeing, especially in states where the Affordable Care Act insurance markets are weak.

With the GOP crusade to repeal and replace “Obamacare” failing, the federal mandates that people have insurance and that employers with more than 50 workers provide it seem likely to stay in place in the foreseeable future. The Trump administration on Tuesday pledged to keep working with Congress on a rewrite. “Obamacare’s mandates saddled many with health care costs they simply couldn’t afford,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

For now, the Trump administration is considering whether to continue paying the law’s cost-sharing subsidies, which have helped lower premiums. Without those subsidies, it’s estimated that premiums will rise and insurers will leave markets.

The ACA requires companies with 50 or more full-time employees to provide insurance to employees and their dependents. The Kaiser Family Foundation says nearly 96 percent of companies of that size already were offering coverage before the law took effect in 2014. Nearly 35 percent of companies with fewer than 50 workers also were offering insurance.

Removing the employer mandate wouldn’t sit well with a wide swath of the American public.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research says 61 percent oppose revoking the requirement, including 58 percent of Republicans.

Workers have been getting their health insurance through their employers for decades, since the U.S. government exempted employer-paid health benefits from wage controls and income tax during World War II.

Nearly 90 percent of workers are in companies that provide health benefits, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/HRET annual survey in 2016. Taking into account dependents, roughly half of Americans are covered by employer-based insurance.

Large companies “need to attract and retain employees and they’d be at a competitive disadvantage if they stopped offering health benefits,” said William Kramer, executive director for national health policy for the Pacific Business Group on Health.

As a result, human resource consultants say it’s likely that businesses will remain committed to offering coverage. Some experts question whether the ACA’s employer mandate makes much, if any, difference when there’s a solid business case for providing health care: With unemployment low and the labor market tight, benefits give employers an advantage in recruiting and retaining the best workers.

“What kind of message are you giving to employees if you say, ‘I’m going to take this away?’ Are you really willing to risk losing people?” asks David Lewis, CEO of OperationsInc, based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Even if the employer mandate had been repealed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that larger companies would have been hard-pressed to cancel their health benefits, although some smaller firms would have done so.

“As soon as you take it back, you cause massive employee dissatisfaction,” said Jay Starkman, CEO of Engage PEO, a human resources provider whose clients include many small and mid-sized businesses.

Rowen, the glass business owner, says his health insurance decisions had less to do with the employer mandate than with cost and employee retention.

In the four years before the ACA took effect, Susquehanna Glass had fewer than 50 employees and saw its premiums rise between 15 percent and 20 percent a year. “We were fiddling all the time trying to keep our health care costs for our employees as affordable as possible,” Rowen recalls.

He hired an expert to help his employees find insurance on the exchange in Pennsylvania. Lower-paid employees qualified for subsidies, while higher-paid workers could afford plans or went on their spouses’ plans, he said. In some cases, Rowen gave bonuses or raises to help workers afford insurance.

He says he owed a penalty of about $40,000 for not providing insurance — less than the six figures he thinks he would have paid to provide group insurance.

But by 2016, he said, his workers were complaining that their premiums were increasing. Susquehanna Glass by that time had grown to about 70 employees — enough to qualify for less-expensive group plans joined by medium-sized businesses. Many of his new employees were younger and less expensive to insure. He found that purchasing group health insurance would cost just over $100,000 — not as much as he’d feared.

“If they were not able to get an affordable one with me and they found another company that does offer one,” he says, “They might be forced to make the decision to leave me.”

Rosenberg reported from New York. Associated Press Writers Michael Rubinkam and Emily Swanson contributed to this report.

Copyright 2023 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Output: The political row in the US over the future of Obamacare is unlikely to bring an end to employer-based health insurance provisions, according to polls, business owners and consumers. A strong jobs market will mean employers will be reluctant to pull any perks that might see them lose staff. Proposals to end employers' roles in health insurance are opposed by a majority of Americans, aligning with a 2016 poll which showed that almost 90% of US workers are enrolled in such schemes.