Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Baidu's move into AI fails to shore up its market share
 Baidu has long been one of China’s technology pioneers, but as the search giant transitions into an AI first company, is it losing relevance to marketers?

As China’s leading search company, Baidu has often been compared to Google, but in recent years as the company’s mission has become so much more than search, it has become clear that Baidu wants to be Alphabet.

When a change in Chinese ad regulations in 2016 delivered a withering 16% decline in advertising customers and with Baidu losing serious ground in the search market to rivals like Alibaba and Tencent, a shift was inevitable.

In recent years, Baidu has realigned its strategic focus away from search and mobile advertising, towards technology – most notably AI.

Baidu controls 80% of China’s mobile search and 60% of PC search, which means it has a lot of data, so the obvious first step for the company is predictive search, powered by AI.

Baidu has reportedly invested 20 billion RMB ($2.9 billion) in research and development in recent years, with the majority of this money going to AI. Last year alone, Baidu allocated $200 million to AI and AR development through its Baidu Research arm, which includes dedicated research divisions the Big Data Lab, Silicon Valley Lab, Institute of Deep Learning, and the Augmented Reality Lab, which it launched in February.

In a further show of the company’s AI focus, Baidu hired Microsoft’s EVP responsible for AI Qi Lu, appointing him as Baidu's vice chairman, group president and chief operating officer.

Baidu’s chairman and CEO Robin Li said recently "Baidu's strategic evolution from a mobile-first to an AI-first company continues to gain momentum.”

“While our investment in AI is a long-term proposition, we are already seeing the powerful benefits of AI bear fruit across our existing platform. With AI set to play an increasingly important role across all major industries, we are confident that Baidu's technology advantage positions us to both enable and participate in the growth and transformation of China's AI-powered industries," said Li.

Baidu achieved early successes with its speech recognition technology Deep Speech 2 and autonomous car projects. This year it unveiled its voice controlled home robot / assistant Xiaoyu or ‘little fish’ which it hopes to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Google Home. It has also launched a medical assistant chatbot Melody, partnered with a Chinese charity to use its facial recognition technology – which reportedly has 99.77% accuracy - to find missing persons, and revealed its text-to-speech system.

In April, Baidu opened its self-driving car platform to the public in a bid to help car manufacturers develop autonomous cars. The move is a strategic play which also aims to give the company a leg up over Tesla and Google.

However, Baidu’s AI ambitions were served a blow with the departure of Baidu’s chief scientist Andrew Ng, who is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading thinkers in AI, was seen as a significant blow to the company and impacted stocks immediately.

Baidu was quick to appoint a replacement, Wang Haifeng, to led its 1,300 strong AI team but with the race to AI supremely more competitive than ever, as Alibaba and Tencent bolster their own divisions, Baidu has been keen to ensure the company maintains a show of strength.

New launches such as an investment arm, Baidu Capital have aimed to ensure the company maintains a show of strength.

Baidu also notched up a major win via its video streaming site iQiyi, which has inked a deal with US streaming giant Netflix, that would see the company’s content finally arrive in China via a deal with Baidu.

However, industry observers question whether Baidu is losing ground and influence in China’s fast moving market, many observers believe the brand is losing relevance, particularly for advertisers.

“Whichever way you look at it, Baidu are on the decline,” says Kenneth Tan, chief digital officer, Mindshare China. “Financial return, financial momentum, financial potential, consumer platform, relevance to consumers and therefore relevance to marketers, it is on a decline, they are not going to fall over a cliff anytime soon but there’s only one word and that is decline.”

He’s not alone in this thought with many experts questioning the future relevance of Baidu’s search engine which, unlike Google in western markets, is losing ground as the bulk of Chinese search moves to other platforms, such as Tmall, Taobao or WeChat.

MediaCom China’s head of digital Christian Solomon says, “Whether it’s travel, movie tickets, dining, whatever – Google still does a respectable job as a one stop search shop. Baidu never did that. Strategically they went out and built branding assets as opposed to the user experience.”

“Over the last 18 – 24 months we’ve seen specialist apps come in and decimate that portion of the traffic. C-trip has been doing it years, the most recent ones has been food delivery apps, movie tickets went a while ago. Then there’s the rise of WeChat, and everyone is staying within Wechat and ecommerce, obviously if I am in the process of buying there’s no way I am Baidu-ing anything, I’m just going straight into Tmall and I’ll do my business there. That’s the reality from a consumer standpoint so the relevance of that platform is on a decline and therefore marketing dollars can only follow.”

The shift to AI is seen by many as the most logical play for Baidu but it is a long-term strategy for the company with the industry still too nascent to determine success.

Major Lin, managing partner and chief digital officer at OMD China, says, “Baidu are facing a bottleneck of the growth of their advertising business and they need to find ways to invest in the future of the business, AI is the direction they have chosen. If you look at current forecast of AI, it is focused on automated driving and medical services, it is all very early stages though, so I cannot see when that will actually happen.”

Humphrey Ho, managing director of Hylink Digital, China’s largest independent agency says, “The only playing field left for Baidu in the world of advertising is predicting what users want and serving them creative ads for that.

“Baidu is sitting on a lot of data, search is still the best indication of what people want and AI will allow them to predict what people want. It helps solve the issue of what does the user want and enables them to fill that.

“They plan to be the best tech company because they own user intent. By owing user intent they have the best chance of honing in on AI and predictive applications. They can do this very well. They are one step short of calling themselves Alphabet, as they are so much more than a search company.”

As Baidu doubles down on AI, it faces increased competition from Alibaba and Tencent. In recent months, a power battle has emerged between the big three as they scramble to open new labs, poach staff and generally tussle for dominance.

It is still very early days for this emerging technology, and media experts remain sceptical about the AI applications that are currently launching to market.

“AI in China is a lot of hot air,” says Tan. “There are really good things coming out of china in the R&D space. However, a lot of what is happening in our industry is fluff.”

“At best, what is happening in artificial intelligence is correlational analysis with some form of predictive capability. At worst, it is just rule based decision making. That is the extent of it, but I guess our industry is used to marketing PR-able fluff.

“When Baidu come out and say [they are focused on AI], it is a long play and I can’t for the life of me see how that is going to make the users come back. Because ultimately what can Baidu do to attract users back to the table?,” says Tan.

Solomon agrees, “At the moment the advertising that has been AI has really been better versions of programmatic. There’s still a way to go for AI. It’s going to be clunky for a while but when it does eventually kick off we don’t know what’s going to happen it could speed off in a direction that we don’t know yet.”

And with Baidu tying its fortunes to AI, its future is hard to predict.

This article is the second in The Drum’s series looking at the three leading tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT). The first article look at their latest big bets on global growth.

Output: Chinese tech giant Baidu's decision to tie its future to artificial intelligence (AI) has not yet allowed it to become the new Alphabet, as AI technology and applications are still in their infancy. The search giant, which has notched up several lucrative deals, including one with streaming site Netflix, is struggling to remain relevant as consumers flock to rival platforms such as Tmall, Taobao or WeChat. "The relevance of that platform is on a decline and therefore marketing dollars can only follow," said Christian Solomon, MediaCom China’s head of digital.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Ether hit hardest in cryptocurrency market correction
 Cryptocurrency traders woke up to a sea of red this morning, as 92 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap experienced a marked price ...

Cryptocurrency traders woke up to a sea of red this morning, as 92 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap experienced a marked price decline. The bitcoin price led the retreat, falling over 6% toward $2,400. Bitcoin has declined almost $600 since it pierced the $3,000 barrier two weeks ago.

The sell-off prompted this gif to surface on /r/bitcoin.

Don’t be surprised if you see the same gif rotated 180 degrees once the bitcoin price recovers.

No Flippening Today

Bitcoin price declines always increase discussions about the “Flippening,” the potential future event when another cryptocurrency (presumably Ethereum) will supplant bitcoin as the largest cryptocurrency by market cap. However, Ethereum has been dealing with its own problems. On June 22, it experienced a flash crash on GDAX, although it quickly recovered. More worrisome is the fact that Ethereum is experiencing network congestion and has yet to implement a long-term solution.

Consequently, the ethereum price has fared even worse than bitcoin. In the past 24 hours, the ethereum price fell 13% to $285.23. Ethereum too has been experiencing an elongated price decline, having fallen nearly $130 since it hit $410 on June 12. Significantly, ethereum’s ~$26.5 billion market cap is now only 63% of bitcoin’s ~$41.8 billion market cap.

Massacre Extends to Altcoins

The Monday Massacre did not stop with bitcoin and ethereum; altcoins are down across the board. Not even litecoin, which has experienced a price resurgence over the past several months, could swim against the current. The litecoin price fell 9.87% to $41.29. It has fallen nearly 20% since it topped out at $50 leading up to its listing on BitStamp.

As this CoinMarketCap chart demonstrates, every top-10 altcoin declined at least 6%. Of these, the downturn hit Iota the hardest, as the token plummeted 20% to $.4172.

But the massacre did not stop there Only eight of the top 100 cryptocurrencies managed to avoid the bloodbath. Thirtieth-ranked Byteball was the largest cryptocurrency to experience a price increase, just barely moving the needle 1.84% to $781.20. Tether, MCAP, LEOCoin, OBITS, and Mooncoin each managed to tread water or increase slightly.

Lest one attribute the altcoin price decline to the fact that most altcoins rely on bitcoin as their major trading pair, the price charts look nearly as bad when you switch from USD to BTC. Nearly every altcoin declined against bitcoin.

The lone standout in the top 100 was 54th-ranked CloakCoin, whose price rose 41% to $10.09 (.0037 BTC). This is a new all-time high for CloakCoin, who previously rose to a high of .0033 BTC in late July 2014 before crashing in August and September.

A Bump in the Road or Cause for Concern?

Mainstream economists and news outlets rush to pronounce bitcoin’s impending doom every time it experiences a price decline, so don’t be surprised if you see some trigger-happy “Is This the End for Bitcoin?” headlines pop up in your newsfeed if the downward trend continues. Nevertheless, it is far more likely this market downturn is just a bump in the road for cryptocurrency prices.

That said, both Bitcoin and Ethereum are facing scaling difficulties and will need to implement long-term solutions. Bitcoin’s test will come with the upcoming Segwit2x activation. All signs indicate Bitcoin will avoid a network fork on August 1, but any unexpected developments could lead to price volatility.

Leatherface image from Shutterstock.

Output: Of the top 100 digital currencies by market cap, 92 have recently suffered significant price declines, with bitcoin and ether losing 6% and 13% respectively. This has effectively silenced talk of a "flippening", a term for bitcoin being supplanted by another cryptocurrency as the largest by market share. Litecoin was another casualty, down 9.9%, while every top 10 altcoin declined at least 6%. Both bitcoin and ether face troubling times. The latter recently endured a flash crash on GDAX and is suffering congestion problems, while bitcoin's forthcoming Segwit2x activation could lead to fresh volatility.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Corporate pressure preventing US plastic bans
 Local governments are being seduced by a petrochemical industry that's more lucrative than ever.

The plastic bag wars are getting fierce. As people become more aware of the extent to which single-use plastics are polluting the world’s oceans and hurting wildlife, there is increasing pressure on municipal governments either to ban outright or impose a small fee on items such as plastic bags, foam takeout containers, disposable water bottles, and straws.

These excellent progressive steps have been taken by cities such as San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as well as the states of California and Hawaii, among others. But there’s a less-impressive flipside to these bans, which are states and cities banning bans on single-use, disposable plastics.

The plastics industry is not happy about the growing environmental pressure and is pushing to prevent all bans and fees. It happened in Michigan last year, where a bill now “preempts local ordinances regulating the use, disposition, or sale of, prohibiting or restricting, or imposing any fee, charge, or tax on certain containers.” The governor of Minnesota did the same in May, killing a plastic bag ban that passed in Minneapolis the year before. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports, Pennsylvania is facing a similar corporate-backed ban on bans:

Output: US states and cities are prohibiting bans on single-use, disposable plastics due to pressure from the plastics industry. Whilst areas such as Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and California and Hawaii have introduced outright bans or imposed charges, Michigan last year introduced a bill outlawing such measures. Pennsylvania is now facing similar legislation. The corporate pressure can partly be attributed to the fact that companies including Dow, Exxon Mobil and Shell are constructing new factories designed to produce plastic from cheap by-products of shale drilling. At present, $185bn of new US petrochemical products are being planned or constructed.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Printed solar cells thinner than a human hair could power phones
 Nanotechnology could give us extremely thin solar panels that could power phones. Credit: Flickr/ Kārlis Dambrāns

Extremely thin printable solar panels could power your phone and are amongst a range of new ways nanotechnology is opening the door to a clean energy and waste-free future.

Nanotechnology, a science that focuses on understanding materials on an atomic scale, is helping researchers and businesses introduce new technologies that could transform our economy into a greener, less wasteful one.

"Nanotechnology as a field has an enormous role to play in moving our planet to sustainable and intelligent living," said Professor Martin Curley from Maynooth University in Ireland, speaking on 21 June at the EuroNanoForum conference, in Malta, organised by the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union and co-funded by the EU.

He explained to an audience of businesspeople and researchers that nanotechnology holds the potential to spark 'an explosion of innovation".

One area where this innovation could have its biggest impact is with how we generate, use and consume energy.

Speaking at a session dedicated to nanotechnology in clean energy generation, Prof. Alejandro Pérez-Rodríguez, from the department of electronics at the University of Barcelona, Spain, said solar energy and photovoltaic (PV) technology itself could be considered a nanotechnology sector.

"In all PV technologies and devices we put some nanotechnology … If we want to move to devices with higher functionality, lower weight, higher flexibility, different colours, then we need to integrate more nanotechnologies into their materials and architecture."

At the same session, Artur Kupczunas, co-founder of Saule Technologies, explained how his company is using nanotechnology to print solar panels using perovskite crystals, a cheap and highly sensitive mineral that was first found in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1839.

They produce thin layers of solar cells that are somewhere near one-tenth of the thickness of a single human hair. This innovation could greatly reduce the cost of producing solar energy while transforming any surface into a solar panel, from walls and road-side barriers to the surface of your smartphone.

"The most interesting factor is the (reduction of) overall costs," said Kupczunas, explaining that this means the technology could be easily scaled out across the market.

Fuel cell

At the same session, John Bøgild Hansen, a senior scientist from Haldor Topsøe, a Danish chemical engineering company, explained how they have been using nanotechnology to look at the atomic level of gases in order to better understand their properties.

This knowledge contributed to creating a fuel cell for greener biofuel production. Their process extracts pure hydrogen from plant materials while reusing any CO2 emissions created during the process to help power the production cycle, preventing any fossil fuels entering the atmosphere.

This, he believes, is a way to 'break the bottleneck' on biofuels which currently struggle to get public and private support.

"If we want the conveniences we have today from liquid energy carriers (oil, natural gas etc.) for transport … hydrocarbons (biogas) are the best," he said.

Storing wind and solar energy during unstable weather is another gap in our sustainable energy future.

Professor Magnus Bergen and his team at Sweden's Linköping University are looking into using nanotechnology to harness the molecular properties of a plastic conductive material called PEDOT:PSS. They combine this knowledge with nanocellulose, a product made from plants or oil, to create an organic material that stores energy.

"If we make a (PEDOT:PSS) battery the size of a refrigerator it can store (enough energy for) the needs of a family in a house or an apartment for a day," he said.

Because of its ability to charge quickly, it could be a way to compensate for the under- or over- production of wind and solar energy during calm or cloudy days. This, in turn, could break cities' dependency on fossil fuels.

"You need to store when you are over-producing and release when you are under-producing," Prof. Bergen explained.

Waste-free

Nanotechnology also has the ability to make technology smaller, extend the life-cycle of electronics, improve manufacturing processes, all of which would mean less waste has to go to the landfill.

Speaking at one of the sessions, Joe Murphy, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an association in the UK dedicated to promoting waste as a resource, explained nanotechnologies 'may enable us to create a new material palette' that allows future products to be recycled more easily.

"At the moment we have a lot of barriers to recycling … nanotechnology may enable us to do more," he said.

Output: Saule Technologies is using nanotechnology to print solar panels using perovskite crystals. They produce thin layers of solar cells that are somewhere near one-tenth of the thickness of a single human hair, potentially reducing the cost of producing solar energy while transforming any surface into a solar panel, from walls and road-side barriers to the surface of your smartphone. "In all PV technologies and devices, we put some nanotechnology", said Prof. Alejandro Pérez-Rodríguez, from the University of Barcelona. "If we want to move to devices with higher functionality, lower weight, higher flexibility, different colours, then we need to integrate more nanotechnologies into their materials and architecture."


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Redrow Redrow launches West Derby schemes
 The housebuilder has launched sales at two developments built on former school sites in West Derby, each acquired from Liverpool City Council.

Regency Manor, on the site of the former Holly Lodge girls’ school, which relocated in 2015, comprises 51 houses, with a further nine homes to come within two Regency period grade two-listed buildings, Fremont and Sandheys. Nearby Regency Gardens brings 17 market rate and 5 affordable homes to the former Ernest Cookson school site, which had been vacant since 2010.

Redrow has reported success with early sales, with eight properties reserved at Regency Manor over the first weekend.

The schemes fall within the Liverpool Housing Partnership umbrella. LHP was established in 2014 with Redrow, contractor Willmott Dixon and Liverpool Mutual Homes involved as partners as Mayor Joe Anderson set in motion a plan to deliver 1,500 new homes and bring a further 1,000 back into use.

Receipts from the land sales on projects such as these are directed into affordable housing.

Cllr Frank Hont, cabinet member for housing at Liverpool City Council, said: “We are excited about housing in the city and one of the things we are most excited about is this strategic housing partnership.

“With Redrow, Willmott Dixon and Liverpool Mutual Homes we are working together to bring better homes to the city and deliver more social housing.

“As a city council, providing quality new homes is a key priority and the fact the partnership can deliver homes like these which, in turn, means we are able to use the receipts to build new social housing is a fantastic result. It is a partnership of which we should be very proud.”

Other LHP projects include 21 new build houses recently completed at Knights Park, Woolton, and ongoing work to build 60 homes at Redbridge Park, Fazakerley. The 18-property Woolton Fields has also recently gone on sale in Woolton.

Output: Redrow has launched sales at two developments on former school sites in West Derby. Regency Manor consists of 51 houses built on the site of the previous Holly Lodge girls' school. Another nine homes will be developed within two Regency-era Grade II-listed buildings. Meanwhile, 17 market rate and five affordable homes have been built at Regency Gardens on the former Ernest Cookson school site. Redrow has reported successful early sales, with eight properties at Regency Manor reserved over the first weekend.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Cori supercomputer offers fastest seismic simulation to date
 Example of hypothetical seismic wave propagation with mountain topography using the new EDGE software. Shown is the surface of the computational domain covering the San Jacinto fault zone between Anza and Borrego Springs in California. Colors denote the amplitude of the particle velocity, where warmer colors correspond to higher amplitudes. Credit: Alex Breuer, SDSC

Record-setting seismic simulations run earlier this year on the Cori supercomputer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) were the subject of two presentations at the ISC High Performance conference in Frankfurt, Germany this week.

One of the presentations details a new seismic software package, developed by researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) in conjunction with Intel, that enabled the fastest seismic simulation ever run to date: 10.4 petaflops/s. The largest simulation used 612,000 Intel Xeon Phi Knights Landing (KNL) processor cores on the Cori KNL system. The simulations, which mimic possible large-scale seismic activity in Southern California, were done using a new software system called EDGE (Extreme-Scale Discontinuous Galerkin Environment), a solver package for fused seismic simulations.

"In addition to using the entire Cori KNL supercomputer, our research showed a substantial gain in efficiency in using the new software," said Alex Breuer, a postdoctoral researcher from SDSC's High Performance Geocomputing Laboratory (HPGeoC) who presented the findings at ISC17. "Researchers will be able to run about two to almost five times the number of simulations using EDGE, saving time and reducing cost."

This research was enabled by the NERSC Director's Reserve. The research team also helped NERSC test, debug and validate the Cori KNL system at scale soon after Cori was installed, noted Richard Gerber, head of NERSC's high performance computing department.

A second HPGeoC paper presented at ISC17 covers a new study of the AWP-ODC software that has been used by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) for years. The software was optimized to run in large-scale for the first time on the latest generation of Intel data center processors, called Intel Xeon Phi x200.

These simulations, which also used the Cori KNL system, attained competitive performance to an equivalent simulation on the entire GPU-accelerated Titan supercomputer, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and has been the resource used for the largest AWP-ODC simulations in recent years. Additionally, the software obtained high performance on Stampede-KNL at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Both projects are part of a collaboration announced in early 2016 under which Intel opened a parallel computing center (PCC) at SDSC to focus on seismic research, including the ongoing development of computer-based simulations that can be used to better inform and assist disaster recovery and relief efforts.

Such detailed computer simulations allow researchers to study earthquake mechanisms in a virtual laboratory. "These two studies open the door for the next-generation of seismic simulations using the latest and most sophisticated software," said Yifeng Cui, founder of the HPGeoC at SDSC, director of the Intel PCC at SDSC and PI on this research. "Going forward, we will use the new codes widely for some of the most challenging tasks at SCEC."

Output: Researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center have partnered with Intel to develop a seismic software package that has run the fastest seismic simulation ever recorded, at 10.4 petaflops/s. In a presentation at the ISC High Performance conference in Frankfurt, the researchers said the largest simulation used 612,000 Intel Xeon Phi Knights Landing (KNL) processor cores on the Cori KNL system and a solver package called EDGE, otherwise known as Extreme-Scale Discontinuous Galerkin Environment.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Machine learning predicts products from chemical reaction trials
 When organic chemists identify a useful chemical compound — a new drug, for instance — it’s up to chemical engineers to determine how to mass-produce it.

There could be 100 different sequences of reactions that yield the same end product. But some of them use cheaper reagents and lower temperatures than others, and perhaps most importantly, some are much easier to run continuously, with technicians occasionally topping up reagents in different reaction chambers.

Historically, determining the most efficient and cost-effective way to produce a given molecule has been as much art as science. But MIT researchers are trying to put this process on a more secure empirical footing, with a computer system that’s trained on thousands of examples of experimental reactions and that learns to predict what a reaction’s major products will be.

The researchers’ work appears in the American Chemical Society’s journal Central Science. Like all machine-learning systems, theirs presents its results in terms of probabilities. In tests, the system was able to predict a reaction’s major product 72 percent of the time; 87 percent of the time, it ranked the major product among its three most likely results.

“There’s clearly a lot understood about reactions today,” says Klavs Jensen, the Warren K. Lewis Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and one of four senior authors on the paper, “but it's a highly evolved, acquired skill to look at a molecule and decide how you’re going to synthesize it from starting materials.”

With the new work, Jensen says, “the vision is that you’ll be able to walk up to a system and say, ‘I want to make this molecule.’ The software will tell you the route you should make it from, and the machine will make it.”

With a 72 percent chance of identifying a reaction’s chief product, the system is not yet ready to anchor the type of completely automated chemical synthesis that Jensen envisions. But it could help chemical engineers more quickly converge on the best sequence of reactions — and possibly suggest sequences that they might not otherwise have investigated.

Jensen is joined on the paper by first author Connor Coley, a graduate student in chemical engineering; William Green, the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering, who, with Jensen, co-advises Coley; Regina Barzilay, the Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Tommi Jaakkola, the Thomas Siebel Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Acting locally

A single organic molecule can consist of dozens and even hundreds of atoms. But a reaction between two such molecules might involve only two or three atoms, which break their existing chemical bonds and form new ones. Thousands of reactions between hundreds of different reagents will often boil down to a single, shared reaction between the same pair of “reaction sites.”

A large organic molecule, however, might have multiple reaction sites, and when it meets another large organic molecule, only one of the several possible reactions between them will actually take place. This is what makes automatic reaction-prediction so tricky.

In the past, chemists have built computer models that characterize reactions in terms of interactions at reaction sites. But they frequently require the enumeration of exceptions, which have to be researched independently and coded by hand. The model might declare, for instance, that if molecule A has reaction site X, and molecule B has reaction site Y, then X and Y will react to form group Z — unless molecule A also has reaction sites P, Q, R, S, T, U, or V.

It’s not uncommon for a single model to require more than a dozen enumerated exceptions. And discovering these exceptions in the scientific literature and adding them to the models is a laborious task, which has limited the models’ utility.

One of the chief goals of the MIT researchers’ new system is to circumvent this arduous process. Coley and his co-authors began with 15,000 empirically observed reactions reported in U.S. patent filings. However, because the machine-learning system had to learn what reactions wouldn’t occur, as well as those that would, examples of successful reactions weren’t enough.

Negative examples

So for every pair of molecules in one of the listed reactions, Coley also generated a battery of additional possible products, based on the molecules’ reaction sites. He then fed descriptions of reactions, together with his artificially expanded lists of possible products, to an artificial intelligence system known as a neural network, which was tasked with ranking the possible products in order of likelihood.

From this training, the network essentially learned a hierarchy of reactions — which interactions at what reaction sites tend to take precedence over which others — without the laborious human annotation.

Other characteristics of a molecule can affect its reactivity. The atoms at a given reaction site may, for instance, have different charge distributions, depending on what other atoms are around them. And the physical shape of a molecule can render a reaction site difficult to access. So the MIT researchers’ model also includes numerical measures of both these features.

According to Richard Robinson, a chemical-technologies researcher at the drug company Novartis, the MIT researchers’ system “offers a different approach to machine learning within the field of targeted synthesis, which in the future could transform the practice of experimental design to targeted molecules.”

“Currently we rely heavily on our own retrosynthetic training, which is aligned with our own personal experiences and augmented with reaction-database search engines,” Robinson says. “This serves us well but often still results in a significant failure rate. Even highly experienced chemists are often surprised. If you were to add up all the cumulative synthesis failures as an industry, this would likely relate to a significant time and cost investment. What if we could improve our success rate?”

The MIT researchers, Robinson says, “have cleverly demonstrated a novel approach to achieve higher predictive reaction performance over conventional approaches. By augmenting the reported literature with negative reaction examples, the data set has more value.”

Output: MIT researchers are using machine learning to determine the most efficient and cost-effective way to mass-produce pharmaceuticals and other chemical compounds, reported the American Chemical Society journal Central Science. Although different reaction sequences can yield the same product, some are easier to run continuously, use cheaper reagents and operate at lower temperatures. Once trained to recognise thousands of examples of experimental reactions, the system was able to predict the major product of a reaction 72% of the time, while 87% of the time its prediction ranked within the top three most likely results.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Online platform Tradeweb to link China's debt market to the world
 Tradeweb has confirmed it will be the first firm to offer an offshore trading platform following the launch of Bond Connect in Asia.

It will connect with the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) and become the main trading interface for offshore investors to access the trading link.

First announced in March, Bond Connect will allow overseas funds to buy onshore bonds through Hong Kong in a bid to boost the economy and the city’s status as a global financial centre.

Lee Olesky, CEO at Tradeweb, described the liberalisation of the Chinese bond market as a ‘landmark event’.

“We are pleased to be the first trading platform to link to Bond Connect, an offering leveraging the familiar practices already used by foreign investors through Tradeweb across other market places.

“Given the strength of our investor network of over 2,000 clients globally, we are well positioned to help the evolution of this market,” he said.

Institutional investors will be able to trade directly with Mainland Chinese liquidity providers in the CFETS market using Tradeweb’s trading platform.

Once trades are executed through Tradeweb, investors can then use global custodians for the settlement process due to a holding arrangement by HKMA’s Central Moneymarkets Unit.

Charles Li, chief executive at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), explained the addition of Tradeweb will help China’s financial market connect with the world.

“Tradeweb’s deep fixed income experience and global client network are key to helping meet the Bond Connect objectives,” he said.

Output: Tradeweb is to launch an offshore trading platform that will link the world to China and Hong Kong's debt markets for the first time. The provider of online trading in fixed income, ETFs and derivatives will be the main access link for offshore traders into Bond Connect, a venture of China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing that will enable institutional investors to trade directly with liquidity providers in the CFETS market.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Online platform Tradeweb to link China's debt market to the world
 Tradeweb Markets, an online trading firm offering fixed income, ETFs, and derivatives, has launched its new offshore Trading Platform Trading Platform In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real Read this Term which is connected to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS). The company’s goal is to make this platform the main medium of offshore traders to join Bond Connect Company Limited, a CFETS and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) joint venture that will help with registration and admission.

The London Summit 2017 is coming, get involved!

[gptAdvertisement]

The People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) have publicized Bond Connect, an investment environment which allows bond trading in the markets of Mainland China and abroad. This medium has become available by using the connections of the infrastructure entities in Hong Kong and China for custody, settlement, and investing. Northbound Trading will be introduced to the platform first in its initial stage, with overseas traders being able to invest in the China Interbank Bond Market (CIBM).

Lee Olesky, CEO of Tradeweb Markets, commented: "We are pleased to be the first trading platform to link to Bond Connect, an offering leveraging the familiar practices already used by foreign investors through Tradeweb across other market places. We believe the liberalization of the Chinese bond market is a landmark event, and Tradeweb is excited to be acting as the first access link for this initiative. Given the strength of our investor network of over 2,000 clients globally, we are well positioned to help the evolution of this market."

Charles Li, HKEX’s Chief Executive, added: "The Bond Connect program leverages the expertise HKEX has had as a global exchange leader and Tradeweb's experience as the global industry leader in driving flexible, electronic solutions for fixed income trading. The extension of the Connect family furthers the goal to connect China's financial market with the world. Tradeweb's deep fixed income experience and global client network are key to helping meet the Bond Connect objectives."

Chuanzhi, President of CFETS, said: "We are pleased that Tradeweb, as an international trading platform, will connect with CFETS under the Bond Connect project, building a bridge for the global investor community to participate in the China Interbank Bond Market. We hope this arrangement will create value to both markets."

In March, Finance Magnates covered Tradeweb Markets' announcement that Citadel Securities, the brokerage arm of Ken Griffin's company, became a Liquidity Liquidity The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent Read this Term provider for the institutional U.S. Treasury marketplace following the venue's expansion to $14 trillion in the U.S. government's debt market.

Output: Tradeweb is to launch an offshore trading platform that will link the world to China and Hong Kong's debt markets for the first time. The provider of online trading in fixed income, ETFs and derivatives will be the main access link for offshore traders into Bond Connect, a venture of China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing that will enable institutional investors to trade directly with liquidity providers in the CFETS market.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Barclays pushes FCA to be more inclusive about digital currencies
 Barclays has been in discussions with regulators and financial technology – or fintech – firms about bringing cryptocurrencies like bitcoin "into play", the bank's U.K. chief executive told CNBC on Monday.

Ashok Vaswani revealed that the banking giant has met with Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) watchdog to talk about how to make bitcoin safe in response to a question about whether Barclays could support bitcoin.

"We have been talking to a couple of fintechs and have actually gone with the fintechs to the FCA to talk about how we could bring, the equivalent of bitcoin, not necessarily bitcoin, but cryptocurrencies into play," Vaswani told CNBC at the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"Obviously (it's) a new area, obviously an area we've got to be careful with. We are working our way through it."

Vaswani did not expand on to what extent Barclays could be involved with bitcoin. Barclays has recently been involved in the digital currency space. Last year the bank partnered with social payments app Circle. The start-up, which received a license from the FCA last year, allows users to send money to each other in messages, and supports bitcoin. Barclays provided Circle with an account to store sterling, as well as the payments network to transfer money.

Banks have typically been very cautious of being associated with any companies involved with bitcoin due to the cryptocurrencies bad reputation as being used to buy illegal items on the so-called "dark web".

But the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap has seen rising retail investor interest, as well as a major rally since the start of the year that has seen its price hit record highs. Even though the price has pulled back in recent days and there is still volatility, regulators are becoming interested in bitcoin, which is lending legitimacy to the digital currency.

Output: Barclays has discussed plans to bring cryptocurrency "into play" with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the bank's UK CEO, Ashok Vaswani, has said. Although Japan, for example, has made it legal for merchants to accept bitcoin payments, the FCA has been cautious about the digital currency, said Chris Woolard, the FCA's executive director of strategy. Banks have also been careful about backing companies involved in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which can be used to buy items online illegally. However, last year Barclays lent support to Circle, a peer-to-peer payment app that supports bitcoin use.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Sequoia backs Indian insurer of personal items OneAssist
 OneAssist, a company which allows users to insure their mobile wallets, credit cards and smartphones against loss or theft, has raised Rs 118 crore (~$18 million) in a Series C round, according to this Economic Times report. The round saw participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, US based insurance provider Assurant and Moonstone Investments. MediaNama has emailed the company asking where it plans to deploy the fresh funds; we will update the story once we receive a response. The company's fresh fundraiser comes at a time when telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone and mobile wallet companies like Paytm have started rolling out insurance options to its users. Previous Funding Till date, OneAssist has raised close to $30 million in 4 rounds, as per CrunchBase data. Its previous funding was in August 2015 when it raised $7.72 million from Assurant, Lightspeed and Sequoia. At that time, the company said it may venture into the online retail segment and claimed to have a subscriber base of 200,000. In June 2012, the company had raised $3.5 million from Sequoia and Lightspeed. Partnership and products The WalletAssist plan claims that users can block their bank cards with a single call, same for SIM cards. It offers card fraud protection from 7 days before the loss is reported and claims to cover skimming, phishing along with online, ATM and PIN fraud. It also offers free replacement of the PAN card and driving license. These plans cost Rs 1,300 and Rs 1,800 per year and Rs…

Please subscribe login to read the full story.

Output: Mumbai-based assistance platform OneAssist has raised INR118 crore (~$18m) in a series C funding round that included existing investors Sequoia Capital, Assurant, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The latest round brings investment in OneAssist to $30m, as it seeks to compete with rivals Paytm, Airtel, and Vodafone, which have all launched insurance options.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Canada's WealthSimple robo-advisory to expand into UK
 WealthSimple is taking its digital investing platforms overseas.

The robo-advisor announced Thursday that it is expanding its services to the United Kingdom. The service will have a full public launch in September, preceded by a beta version to be rolled out this summer.

“There are a lot of people in the UK who aren't getting the tools and advice they need to live their best financial lives, and in particular young and first-time investors,” WealthSimple Founder and CEO Michael Katchen said in a statement. “We’re really excited to introduce our first UK clients to the simple, smart, accessible service Wealthsimple is known for.”

The business will be led locally by financial services veteran Toby Triebel.

WealthSimple has already opened a waitlist for the beta service, which the company promises will mirror the North American platforms.

This is the second expansion outside of Canada for WealthSimple this year. The company launched in the United States in January after a $20 million investment from Power Financial Corp.

Output: Robo-adviser WealthSimple is expanding to the UK, launching fully in September, with a beta version out in the summer. This will be the second expansion for WealthSimple outside Canada this year, after launching in the US in January following a $20m investment from Power Financial Corp. The service is focused on the needs of young and first-time investors and aims to be "simple, smart and accessible".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Chinese exchanges crack down on ICOs as speculators pile in
 24th June, Shenzhen-BTC38, the Shenzhen-based cryptocurrency exchange, released a warning to investors of potential ICO scams. ICOs are going rampant in the last two months. There are quite a number of ICO projects named with “Chain” circulating in the socializing tools like QQ or Wechat group, some of which could not be found in any websites and could only be accessible to so-called insiders. This creates another illusion for newbies or “jiucai(leek)” in the Chinese cryptocurrency community: the fast-track for getting rich is not available for everyone and better to get on board ASAP.

Meme mocking ICO: Jiucai Coin, an Eth-based Jiucai harvesting system (source:internet)

BTC38 released a statement to disperse rumors concerning recent ICOs that promote using the name of the exchange. TLDR version of BTC38 announcement:

1. BTC38 will not list any newly-issued ICO assets. It’s one of the principle of BTC38 not to be the first exchange for any cryptocurrency or assets.

2. BTC38 has never been and will not get involved in the market-making of exchange and staffs are not allowed to get involved as well.

3. BTC38 will publicize plans and open bidding for “renovating coins”.

The announcement also warns investors of fake Wechat or QQ chat log to fool the investors, which is echoed by Yunbi :

“In order to protect the benefit of the investors, YUNBI hereby declares: YUNBI will not promise to list any of the tokens from the ICO projects before the ICO ends. Any blockchain startups using YUNBI’s name to do advertisement, their behaviors would be considered as infringing acts. YUNBI will use legal means to ask for their accountability.”

As pointed out by Biqushi, 10x inflow of cryptocurrency investors are observed recently compared to that of last year as of 20th June.

Summary of new investors as of 20th June. credit:biqushi

Tempted by stories like : The Crazy World of ICOs: 200,000 CNY to 6 Million CNY in 2 Years , the newbies are busy trading instead of educating themselves and doing due diligence research.

In a report released in April by Chinatimes, one of the mainstream media in China, ICO has been more or less described as “raising fund without viable products and institutional backing” and a “shortcut for grey fundraising”. The story cited QTUM as a “deception to outsiders and investors”.

Despite that the authority may implement “regulatory sandbox” for ICOs, , it’s still too early to say that exception could be made amid the crackdown on illegal fundraising. The tolerance for ICOs may come to a sudden halt in China. According to a legal interpretation from a lawyer, illegal fundraising may face death penalty in China .

ICO may help blockchain startups to get much-needed funding for quick establishment and exploration of uncharted area in the realm of blockchain, which are generally helpful to the whole ecosystem. On the other hand, the lack of self-discipline and the lurking scammers may do much damage to the latest fundraising methods.

Output: An influx of novice Chinese investors seeking to profit from initial coin offerings (ICOs) is being targeted by a growing number of ICO scams. In response, Chinese exchanges BTC38 and Yunbi have clarified their trading practices and put a halt to listing newly issued ICO assets. Meanwhile, a report from mainstream news source Chinatimes has described ICOs as a means of "raising funds without viable products and institutional backing", suggesting the government's tolerance of ICOs is waning.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
IKEA claims Apple AR app will put virtual furniture in the home
 Tim Cook said in a recent interview that he was so excited about augmented reality that he wanted ‘to yell out and scream.’ He named furniture-buying as an example of something that can be completely changed by the use of AR, and gave a specific shout-out to Ikea – a company also briefly referenced in the iOS 11 keynote.

We’ve talked to Ikea, and they have 3D images of their furniture line. You’re talking about changing the whole experience of how you shop for, in this case, furniture and other objects that you can place around the home.

The company has now told a Swedish site a little about its plans …

Ikea’s digital transformation manager Michael Valdsgaard told Digital.di that it was working on the first AR app of its kind – and that it was going all-in on the technology.

This will be the first augmented reality app that allows you to make reliable buying decision […] When we launch new products, they will come first in the AR app.

The plan is for customers to take photos of their own homes, and to use the app to position photo-realistic renders of Ikea products wherever they want them in the home. Customers would be able to see what a sofa would look like in a living-room, for example, placing it in the exact position desired.

Valdsgaard says that Apple’s AR technology is so good that the positioning of products will be ‘millimeter precise,’ with sizes and lighting completely accurate. It’s expecting to have 5-600 products available at launch.

The company will have a head-start on other companies and it’s been using photo-realistic renders instead of product photos in its existing catalog for some time now. It will be able to drop these same 3D models into the AR app.

The company suggests that, in the first instance, this will be a tool for use in-store. You’ll wander round, spot a product you like and be able to view that product in your home. But it plans to go beyond this.

Ideally, you could place a sofa in your home using the app, and then click it in the shopping cart on the e-commerce site.

Valdsgaard says that while Ikea would like to have this ready for the launch of iOS 11, the timing may not permit this.

We have a tight deadline.

Earlier this month at WWDC, we got some hands-on time with Apple’s new ARKit framework arriving in iOS 11, and Apple happened to have a demo running that allows placement of digital pieces of furniture within a physical space:

We’d put money on seeing this app demo’d on stage at the iPhone 8 launch.

Ikea last month announced HomeKit compatibility for its range of low-cost smart lighting.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news!

Output: Furniture retailer IKEA is developing a first-of-its-kind augmented reality (AR) app, using Apple technology, which it said will allow customers to virtually position new furniture in their homes before buying, according to IKEA's digital transformation manager, Michael Valdsgaard. Initially an in-store tool, users take photos of their rooms and use the app to position new items. He said Apple's AR app is "millimetre precise" and aims to have 500 to 600 products available at launch, although it is unclear whether that will coincide with the release of iOS 11. "We have a tight deadline," Valdsgaard said.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
19 Crown Resorts staff plead guilty to 'gambling crimes'
 Nineteen Crown Resorts staff, including three Australians, have pleaded guilty to “gambling crimes” in a trial that lasted only a few hours at Shanghai’s Baoshan district people’s court.

Australian Jason O’Connor was sentenced to 10 months in jail and compatriots Jerry Xuan and Pan Dan each received nine months. All 19 have been detained since October, and their sentences will reflect time served.

Crown Resorts said in a statement to the ASX that 17 current and two former employees were convicted under article 303 and 25 of Chinese criminal law, which relate to deriving profit from gambling as a main income and organising gambling parties.

Sixteen of the 19 defendants were fined a total of 8.62m yuan (A$1.67m), which Crown said it would pay. It added: “Crown remains respectful of the sovereign jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China and does not intend to comment further at this time.”

Casino gambling and promoting gambling is banned in China. Organising a group of more than 10 Chinese for gambling trips is also illegal, although businesses often skirt these rules by offering tour packages instead. The former Portuguese colony of Macau is the only place on Chinese soil where casino gambling is permitted.

The employees were taken into custody by Chinese authorities last October and charged earlier this month. Three employees were bailed while the rest remained in detention.

A Crown Resorts media spokeswoman said the company would make no comment on Monday, but might release a statement later in the week.

China is in the midst of a crackdown on the promotion of gambling on the island of Macau, where Crown’s joint venture hosted businessmen, officials and high rollers from the mainland.

For several years, foreign casinos have been engaged in an increasingly high-stakes race to lure the lucrative Chinese VIP market, skirting Chinese law that strictly forbids the promotion of gambling.

Since the detentions, Crown has scaled back its Chinese ambitions, selling down its stake in the Macau-based joint venture Melco Crown, before offloading its final stake in Melco Resorts & Entertainment for $987m.

The James Packer-controlled gambling giant has also faced a number of changes with chief executive Rowen Craigie departing in February and director and former chairman Robert Rankin stepping down from the board.

Crown Resorts shares fell to a year-low of $9.71 following the detentions in October, but were trading at $12.65 up 0.79% at Friday’s close.

The Shanghai Baoshan district people’s court confirmed to the Guardian that five crown staff, including Jason O’Connor, have been given 10-month sentences. Another 11 defendants have been sentenced to nine months. The verdict will take into effect in 10 days.

With Australian Associated Press

Output: Employees of the James Packer-controlled casino group Crown Resorts who were detained in October have pleaded guilty to "gambling crimes" in China. The 19, including three Australians, were mostly handed sentences of nine to ten months, including time served. Sixteen of the 19 defendants were fined a total of CNY8.62m ($1.26m), which Crown Resorts said it would pay. Casino gambling and promoting gambling is banned in China, which is currently cracking down on the promotion of gambling on the island of Macau, where Crown’s joint venture was based.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
ABN Amro tests wearables for contactless payments
 ABN Amro in the Netherlands is testing wearables technology that would enable its customers to make payments directly from their current accounts using such devices, according to a press release.

A select group of users is currently testing various wearables, including a special Kerv ring and a watch with NFC technology. The test users will be able to use these wearables to make contactless payments at almost 40 million payment terminals around the world.

The bank is working with MasterCard Digiseq to ensure the products meet requirements for making reliable and secure payments, according to the release.

ABN Amro will work together with the first users to explore whether these payment options become popular among consumers. At the same time, the bank is looking to forge partnerships with other parties. After this pilot has been carried out, ABN Amro aims to make this payment technology available to clients at the end of this year, according to the release.

Output: ABN Amro has launched a pilot programme in the Netherlands to test payments made using wearables, including a contactless payment ring made by Kerv, and a watch equipped with near-field communication technology, according to a company statement. The tests will be overseen by Mastercard Digiseq to ensure the products meet security and reliability requirements and users will be able to make contactless payments at almost 40 million terminals globally. ABN Amro aims to roll out the technology at the end of the year.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
YouTube and Daydream unveil 180-degree VR format
 I just got off stage after a great conversation with Rhett and Link at VidCon, where we announced a number of exciting new updates. We spoke about VR, YouTube TV , new original series and a number of improvements to the core YouTube experience. Let’s talk about that!

Sharing is caring: We’re making it a whole lot easier for you to share your favorite YouTube videos with friends. Last year, we announced a new sharing feature that lets you share videos right from the YouTube app. In a couple weeks, it’ll be available in Latin America and then throughout the U.S. soon after that.

We’re making it a whole lot easier for you to share your favorite YouTube videos with friends. Last year, we announced a new sharing feature that lets you share videos right from the YouTube app. In a couple weeks, it’ll be available in Latin America and then throughout the U.S. soon after that. More markets for YouTube TV: We are really excited about YouTube TV and pleased that it will be expanding to ten more markets in just a couple of weeks, including: Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne and Charlotte. YouTube TV was built for the YouTube generation that loves live TV but wants it delivered in a way that suits their mobile and flexible lifestyles. In fact, we see more Millennials using YouTube TV than any other generational group. Now - with this expansion - millions more people will be able to stream their favorite live sports and must-see shows from top broadcast and cable networks. Sign up to find out when we launch in your market.

We are really excited about YouTube TV and pleased that it will be expanding to ten more markets in just a couple of weeks, including: Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne and Charlotte. YouTube TV was built for the YouTube generation that loves live TV but wants it delivered in a way that suits their mobile and flexible lifestyles. In fact, we see more Millennials using YouTube TV than any other generational group. Now - with this expansion - millions more people will be able to stream their favorite live sports and must-see shows from top broadcast and cable networks. Sign up to find out when we launch in your market. New slate of YouTube Red Originals: To date, we've launched 37 original series and movies on YouTube Red, and they've generated nearly a quarter billion views. We are excited about working with our partners to help them create incredible content that delights their fans. Today, we shared details on 12 new projects coming to YouTube Red—here's the preview: Watch the latest shows from YouTube's biggest stars.

I always have an incredible time at VidCon and this year is no different. I met amazing fans and inspirational creators and I experienced, first-hand, the wonderful sense of community and belonging between them. I hope some of these features and announcements will make their YouTube experience—and yours—better than ever.

Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube recently watched Good Mythical Morning — What’s All Over My Body (CHALLENGE)

Output: YouTube and Daydream have developed a 180-degree virtual reality (VR) format known as VR180, along with more affordable cameras for VR content creators, according to a blogpost by the site's CEO, Susan Wojcicki. The video-sharing firm has also partnered with camera manufacturers, including LG and Lenovo, to create devices to be sold to consumers for a few hundred dollars. "We want to make VR more accessible and more affordable for viewers and creators," Wojcicki wrote.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Irish Senator introduces bill to limit Airbnb rentals
 A NEW BILL which limits the time a person can rent their property on platforms such as AirBnb to six weeks has been drafted by Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys.

It aims to follow in the footsteps of other major cities such as Berlin, Amsterdam and London, which have all clamped down on the use of Airbnb.

This week, the Oireachtas Housing Committee heard that short-term rental companies are having an “adverse effect” on the rental market in Dublin.

There was criticism of Airbnb, which allows people to rent rooms or entire homes for short periods of time, and which is seen as further reducing the supply of rental properties for people living in Dublin.

In figures presented by Dr Daithí Downey of Dublin City Council (DCC), it was shown that almost half (48%) of the Airbnb rentals within the Dublin city limits are available to be booked for more than 90 days of the year.

These 2,581 listings are identified as ‘high availability’. Of these, 1,375 are listed as entire homes or apartments. DCC says that it will now commission a study to report in October to make recommendations on the issue.

Shutterstock / Madrugada Verde Shutterstock / Madrugada Verde / Madrugada Verde

Six weeks per year

Humphreys’ Bill stipulates property owners will only be permitted to let their apartment or house for short-term use for a period of six weeks during the year.

It will also make it mandatory for all short-term letting companies to sign up to a register which will list all the properties they have on the books. Similar regulations are being discussed in Toronto, while some UK councils have said restrictions have been ineffective to date.

“The maintaining of a register is essential as it will prevent homeowners from jumping from one letting platform to another, which will allow people to supersede the regulations. It will also allow planning enforcers easy access to what properties are being let,” said Humphreys.

The Labour senator said this is the only way to ensure owners will not simply use multiple platforms to rent out their properties for longer than the allowable time.

Companies that don’t maintain a property register will be subject to a “Class A fine” not exceeding €50,000, states the Bill.

Humphreys was critical of the Housing Department for proposing short-term rental companies should merely sign-up to a “memorandum of understanding”, stating that this self-regulation has been introduced in other countries and failed.

Advertisement

Memorandum of understanding

The Housing Department told the committee this week it is in ongoing discussions with Airbnb about establishing such a memorandum.

“In the discussions with the department, Airbnb expressed its concern at the potential loss of supply to the rental sector and have shown willingness to work with the department to develop a collaborative plan,” the Department of Housing’s Earnán O’Cleirigh told the committee.

“Discussions in this context are ongoing and if successful are intended to form the basis for putting similar arrangements in place with other online platforms. The department’s joint commitment with Airbnb is to co-develop protocols and processes to facilitate home sharing while preventing unwelcome and unauthorised rentals being advertised on the Airbnb platform,” he added.

Humphreys, who has been campaigning for the industry to be regulated, told TheJournal.ie that he has been “chasing [Minister] Simon Coveney for over a year to regulate and legislate”.

The issue with regulating the sector is due to short-term lets not being defined under the law. Humphrey’s new Bill does include such a definition, he said.

Sam Boal Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys Sam Boal

Legislation needed

Seven months ago, An Bord Pleanála upheld a ruling that a property owner in Temple Bar required planning permission to continue renting the property out for short-term lets. The Housing Department sent out a circular to all local authorities urging them to enforce the regulations.

However, it was confirmed in the meeting that nobody has been prosecuted under the same laws used to make the ruling against the Temple Bar property owner.

The Bord Pleanala decision was to be welcomed, said Humphreys, but added that legislation should have been introduced to underscore the court’s decision.

“The government hasn’t moved on it.” he said.

When other countries, such as Berlin, introduced similar laws almost 40% of housing stock returned to the market, claimed the senator.

“We could get over 2,000 units back in use in a relatively short space of time,” he said.

He said the reason why the issue has not been tackled to date is because the short-term rental market and the likes of Airbnb have been filling a gap due to the shortage of hotel rooms around the country.

However, he said it was time to make a choice between the tourism sector taking a hit (which Humphreys admits this Bill could do) or to get families into apartments and houses.

With the number of properties to rent at an all time low, he said: “I think it is far better to make sure that families have a place to live.”

Coveney failed to deal with this during his time as Housing Minister and I am now calling on Eoghan Murphy to find a way to act quickly.

The Labour senator said he is open to his Bill being taken on as a Government Bill, stating that he “is not precious about who pushes the Bill through the Dáil”.

From London to Berlin, they all had to take steps to control the short-term let market. We have to ensure that if it’s zoned as residential, it stays as residential.

Output: Irish Senator Kevin Humphreys has drafted a bill seeking to limit the short-term rental of Dublin properties on sites such as Airbnb to six weeks, with a fine for non-compliance, amid an all-time low in the number of homes for rent. The legislation would also force homeowners to list all their properties available for rent, offering "planning enforcers easy access to what properties are being let," said Humphreys.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Europe's fastest growing mobile payments app Yoyo raises $15.3m
 Yoyo Wallet, Europe's fastest growing mobile payments app, raised £12 million ($15.3 million) in a Series B round, it announced on Monday. The deal was led by German retail giant Metro Group, and awaits approval from the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority.

The U.K.-based fintech app began life four years ago, servicing dozens of U.K. and Irish universities. It now allows its 400,000 registered users to pay for goods using their smartphones in over 1,700 outlets, including Caffé Nero and Planet Organic.

"Yoyo is now delivering proven benefits to a rapidly growing number of merchants and their customers in universities, corporate campuses and the High Street," Alain Falys, Yoyo Wallet's co-founder and chief executive officer, announced on Monday.

"This new funding will allow us to provide the benefits of customer identification and mobile engagement to a wider array of retailers, large and small, in the U.K. and across Europe. We could not have found a better combination of Investors to support us through this next stage of growth."

The app is one of many mobile payment apps replacing physical payment, with its own personalized loyalty and rewards programs. It uses customer data to help retailers tailor rewards programs that appeal to individual consumers.

"Consumers are spending more than three hours a day on their smartphones and 40 percent buy more when subject to a personalized shopping experience," Falys added. "Yoyo simply provides all retailers with an accessible way of tapping into these behaviors."

Output: Mobile payment and customer engagement platform Yoyo Wallet has raised £12m ($15.3m) in a series B round led by German retailer Metro Group. The UK-based fintech - the fastest-growing mobile payments app in Europe - enables its 400,000 registered users to make payments using their smartphones, and offers tailored rewards based on customer data. CEO Alain Falys said the funding would help the company take its product to a "wider array of retailers, large and small, in the UK and across Europe".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Daimler expands into Romania to compete with Uber
 LONDON -- Mytaxi, the ride-hailing app owned by Daimler, has agreed to buy a Romanian rival as part of efforts to create a pan-European service to take on Uber.

Mytaxi CEO Andrew Pinnington said the company was paying an "eight figure" sum to buy Romanian market leader Clever Taxi, which operates in 20 cities across the country.

Earlier this year, Hamburg-based mytaxi bought Greece’s Taxibeat, and Pinnington said he expected more acquisitions to help to expand the service in eastern Europe.

“The major driving factor is strategic, to grab market share and extend into more geographic territories,” he said in a telephone interview.

The growth of ride-hailing services and the prospect of driverless vehicles has led to predictions that people will switch to paying for individual journeys rather than buying their own cars.

To ensure they do not become providers of low-margin commoditized hardware to companies like Uber in the future, Daimler and rivals are investing in ride-hailing app companies such as mytaxi, Lyft, Grab, Gett and others which connect drivers and passengers.

Volkswagen Group has taken a $300 million stake in Gett and General Motors invested $500 million in Lyft. Like Uber, mytaxi links drivers with passengers in return for a share of the fare paid. But mytaxi focuses on metered taxis, while Uber relies on unmetered cars and drivers who are not formally registered as taxi drivers.

Uber’s approach allows it to charge lower fares but has led to frequent battles with local and national authorities, especially in Europe where the taxi market is heavily regulated. Restrictions on its service have prompted it to pull back from some markets and led some analysts to question the sustainability of its model in continental Europe.

Pinnington said mytaxi’s model was to offer its service within the existing regulatory framework, and to charge a lower commission to drivers – around half the 20-25 percent Uber takes.

Output: Daimler-owned ride-hailing app Mytaxi has agreed to acquire Romanian rival Clever Taxi for an "eight-figure sum", as it seeks to outpace Uber in Europe, according to Mytaxi CEO Andrew Pinnington. The move follows the Hamburg-based firm's purchase of Greece’s Taxibeat. Mytaxi, which uses metered vehicles and charges a lower commission to drivers, is one of several ride-hailing firms that have seen investment from big car manufacturers.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
UK energy industry most concerned about risk of cyber attacks
 Concern over the threat posed by cyber-attacks on power stations and electricity grids is “off the scale” in the UK energy sector, according to a leading industry figure.

No other country in the world has an energy industry as worried about the risk from cyber threats, such as the WannaCry ransomware attack that recently hit the NHS, the former chief of National Grid told the Guardian.

“The UK stands out uniquely on cyber threats. Nowhere else is as worried as the UK about cyber threats: we are just off the scale on our energy system concerns on cyber,” said Steve Holliday.

He said the danger posed to energy systems was coming to the fore now because of the trend away from well-protected, centralised large power stations and towards decentralised power, such as lots of small, flexible gas power plants and solar panels on homes.

There were also a growing number of web-connected devices in energy technology, he added.

One obvious target is the smart meters that are being installed in every home by the end of 2020, to automate meter readings. The Capita-run body set up to handle the data, the DCC, is being treated as critical national infrastructure and the company’s chief technology officer insists the data is safe.

“We don’t hold personal information [on energy supplier customers], we don’t see any form of sensitive data and we are not connected to the internet,” Matt Roderick told a recent industry conference.

Holliday’s warning comes as the UK parliament reels from a “sustained and determined” cyber-attack which left MPs unable to access their emails.

Industry trade body Energy UK said there was a central system for logging threats, to help rapidly counter them. “Maintaining the highest level of security against cyber threats is a top priority for the industry,” a spokeswoman said.

Security experts from the National Cyber Security Centre and companies including Siemens also recently attended a summit on cybersecurity and energy infrastructure, hosted by Energy UK and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The issue is not just a concern for the power sector, but for oil and gas producers too. BP said recently that “we are a target for this activity” when asked by shareholders about how seriously it was taking cybersecurity.

“Cyber is high on the agenda. It is one of the key risks the company identifies,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, chairman at BP. “We were not affected luckily by this [Wannacry] attack, primarily because everybody had followed procedures of continuous updates.”

Brian Gilvary, chief financial officer at BP, said the firm did not share specific information on the number of attacks it faced. However, he said the company had a strategy of repelling what it could, detecting what got through and then cleansing when cyber-attackers had breached defences.

The World Energy Council, a global network of energy leaders, said cybersecurity in the energy sector had been high on the agenda of a security conference in Munich earlier this year. The issue was also raised in May by the Scottish parliament.

PricewaterhouseCoopers recently found that 65% of UK businesses were “significantly concerned” over cyber risks to energy technology. Three in five businesses would switch energy supplier if they suffered a cyber breach, according to a survey of 500 businesses by the professional services firm.

Output: The UK's energy sector shows the most concern about the risk of cyber attacks on power generation and grid infrastructure, according to Steve Holliday, the former CEO of National Grid. Holliday told The Guardian that perceived threats were coming to the fore as the country has stopped relying on large centralised power stations and started deploying smaller gas-fired plants and home-generation technologies, such as solar panels. Some 65% of UK firms are "significantly concerned" over cyber attacks on energy infrastructure, according to a survey of 500 businesses by PwC.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
FCI develops next-generation flowmeter for heavy industry use
 FCI’s breakthrough MT100 Series Air/Gas Flow Meters combine state-of-art electronics technology with application-proven precision flow sensors in a rugged package designed for the most demanding plant operating environments.

Process and plant engineers in heavy industrial facilities responsible for optimising combustion or pre-heated air to large boilers, stack emissions monitoring and reporting, or flue gas/scrubber balancing, will find the next generation MT100 Series Multipoint Thermal Mass flowmetres from Fluid Components International (FCI) set a new standard in performance accuracy, reliability, ease of use and value.

The flowmeters provide temperature-compensated direct mass flow measurement of air and gases for precise, repeatable measurement with low maintenance requirements in large diameter pipes, stacks and rectangular duct installations.

In electric power generation, petrochemical refineries and other heavy industries, large diameter pipes and ducts present unique challenges to achieve successful flowmeter installation and performance. Hot, moist and/or dirty gases along with lack of pipe straight-run, distorted flow profiles, low flowrates and wide turndowns rates are common performance challenges for many flow metering technologies.

FCI’s thermal mass MT100 Series air/gas flowmeters are available with two to eight flowrate sensing points to overcome these issues. Multiple sensors are inserted at various depths within a pipe or duct and their outputs are multiplexed and averaged to produce the flowrate within the process line.

The MT100 meter’s sensors can be installed either across a mast or can be inserted at multiple points around the process line in a single plane. In large stack applications, this means that the instrument installation can be done at a single platform location to achieve a major cost savings over other technologies such as ultrasonic meters, which require installing transducers at precise offset angles.

In hot, dirty and/or moist or corrosive stack gases, the MT100 Flow Meters also excels because there are no moving parts, orifices or glass windows to foul or clog. The instrument can measure air/gas processes operating up to 850 °F (454 °C).

The MT100 Series flowmeters can measure flowrates over a wide range from 0.25 to 1000 SFPS (0,07 to 305 NMPS) with 100:1 turndown and with excellent accuracy of ± 0.75% of reading, ± 0.5% of full scale. They are also dual-function and can provide temperature measurement capability from -50 to 850°F (-45 to 454 °C), with accuracy of ± 2 °F (± 1,1 °C).

The state-of-art transmitter for the MT100 Series flowmeter is both full-featured and rugged. It comes with an extensive choice of output options to interface with virtually any DCS, PLC, SCADA, or recorder. Dual, isolated, high resolution 4-20mA outputs compliant with Namur NE43, HART (Fieldcomm Group™ certified), Modbus, 0-1kHz frequency/pulse and a USB port are all included, standard. Optionally available are Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus-PA bus communications.

Its best-in-class large colour touch-screen LCD readout provides comprehensive process information to users with both analog and digital displays of flowrate, temperature and totalised flow, a user time-base selectable strip-chart of flowrate and sensor status diagnostics. The transmitter’s enclosure is superior, corrosion resistant stainless steel and carries a NEMA 4X/IP64 rating.

MT100 Series electronics also include a user programmable data logger feature to which flowrate, temperature and totalised flow as well as fault codes can be recorded on a removable, 8GB microSD card. The instrument also features a calibration drift check, which can be initiated on user demand or programmed to run automatically. Results of the test are provided with simple pass and fail messages presented to the operator on the LCD readout, and, if run automatically, the results are recorded to the on-board data logger.

Available with an optional Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) package, the MT100 Series Flow Meters meet the requirements for US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) CEMS and Continuous Emissions Rate Monitoring System (CERMS) applications. The MT100 CEMS option includes an automated and on-demand self-checking of calibration drift (CD) and sensor interference. The results of the CEMS tests are presented as a simple pass or fail message on the LCD readout. The CEMS option also includes two relay outputs for connection to external devices, one to signal test in progress and the other to signal a fail-test mode.

All MT100 Series flowmeters have been independently tested and verified to meet and comply with IEC safety directives for EMC and LVD, and carry the CE marking. Optionally available for process installations with hazardous, potentially explosive gases and/or dust, MT100 meters can be ordered with FM/FMc, ATEX or IECEx agency approvals for Division II/Zone 2.

Output: California-based Fluid Components International (FCI) has developed the MT100 Series Multipoint Thermal Mass flowmeters, aimed at electric power generation plants, petrochemical refineries and other heavy industries. Flowmeters optimise combustion and delivery of pre-heated air to large boilers, among other applications. The next generation flowmeters combine state-of-art electronics technology, including two to eight flow rate sensing points to provide temperature-compensated direct mass flow measurement of air and gases for precise, repeatable measurement in large-diameter pipes, stacks and rectangular duct installations.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Publishers turn to advertising subscriptions to hike revenues
 Swiss tabloid Blick is bullish on Google’s hosted mobile webpages initiative, known as AMP.

For the last four months, the publisher has been formatting content from its news, sports and entertainment verticals for the search engine’s faster-loading-page initiative. It’s having the desired effect: Blick’s AMP pages load in 168 milliseconds, whereas on Blick’s mobile site, the article content loads within 2.35 seconds. With ads in the equation, this slows it down even further to 13 seconds.

AMP is pulling in 800,000 monthly pageviews, but Blick expects this to increase dramatically as it rolls it out to the rest of the site.

“In four weeks, we’ll have 50 percent AMP traffic, 50 percent mobile traffic,” said Björn Beth, head of SEO at Blick publisher Ringier, at Digiday’s Publishing Summit in Lisbon. “As AMP is hardly cannibalizing with regular mobile site traffic, we really need to start considering that AMP will be a new Blick Platform, in particular for Search users,” he said. Where some publishers might format a few AMP pages to entice new readers with speedy page loading and then link back to their own mobile site where they can more easily monetize readers, Blick is seeing this as its own ecosystem. “Hopefully this will take over our mobile site,” he told Digiday.

AMP traffic is eating Blick’s regular mobile traffic, but Beth doesn’t see this turning into an an over-reliance on Google’s algorithm, partly because the initiative is open-source but also because users are engaging with it: It’s finding twice as many people are clicking on its AMP pages than its mobile pages.

And as pageviews have grown, so has revenue. Beth estimates AMP is bringing in 50,000 Swiss Francs ($49,500) a month (at 5 cents per impression).

So far the publisher is only using static image ads on AMP, although it supports other formats like video and sticky ads, but Blick is wary of ruining the user experience. “For our advertisers, AMP is still a tiny percentage of traffic so the focus is still on the desktop sites. There’s not much demand for it yet, so we need to really push this.”

And as a new platform, it’s attracting new audiences: 80 percent of Blick’s AMP readers are new visitors, and 20 percent are returning visitors. As such, the bounce rate for Blick’s AMP articles are between 80 and 90 percent. Arguably, this is because people have more brand loyalty visiting direct sites, while AMP strips out much of a publishers branding. Still, for news brands whose goal it is to be first, the initiative is a no-brainer.

The next stage is implementing a navigational structure on AMP to convert these fly-by readers into those who will stay for longer or sign up for newsletters, increasing the time on site and lowering the bounce rate.

“People searching on Google don’t want to go to a particular brand,” said Beth. “They want to get the answer to their question and then move on.”

Output: Publishers are increasingly turning to advertising e-commerce subscriptions as a way to shore up revenues and keep giants such as Amazon at bay. Mashable, Gizmodo Media Group, Ziff Davis and Purch have all advertised subscriptions for the fashion, food and tech sectors, and the boom in start-ups means there is plenty of demand. "If you get a company with 100 million readers emailing you, that’s music to their ears,” said Ryan Brown, senior vice-president of commerce at Gizmodo Media Group.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Facebook adds more control for branded content tagging
 Facebook added a new feature to the Page Roles section of the admin panel for page administrators , giving them more control options over branded content .

Reader Chris Ruberg, digital marketing specialist at Affinitiv, shared the screenshots above and below with Social Pro Daily, in which a popup appeared in his Page Roles menu, reading:

New feature: Control which creators can tag your pages as their business partner.

Clicking on the popup brought him to this Facebook Business help page, which provided the following instructions for how to ensure that only authorized creators tag pages in branded content posts:

Output: Facebook has added a new tool offering businesses greater control over which content creators can tag them as business partners. Any advertiser wishing to tag a business as a partner in branded content posts must first gain approval. Once granted, creators must then be added to a business partner’s approved list before they can successfully be tagged.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
China's insurers to benefit from tighter regulation long term
 There is a trend for Chinese to reallocate their wealth from traditional investments in property and banking in response to an ageing population. Photo: AP

Output: Tighter regulation of China's insurance industry will benefit Chinese insurers in the long term but create uncertainties for those based in Hong Kong, Credit Suisse analysts have said. The China Insurance Regulatory Commission will cooperate with Hong Kong's new Insurance Authority to crack down on the sale of foreign insurance products on the mainland after the practice was made illegal last year. To reduce outflows of the yuan, authorities also closed websites and social media accounts selling overseas insurance products. However, the tightening rules do not pose a systemic risk to China's insurance sector, the Credit Suisse analysts added.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Drug overdose now leading cause of death in US under 50s: Op-ed
 About as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

For more than 100 years, death rates have been dropping for Americans — but now, because of opioids, death rates are rising again. We as a nation are going backward, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.

“There’s no question that there’s an epidemic and that this is a national public health emergency,” Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore, told me. “The number of people overdosing is skyrocketing, and we have no indication that we’ve reached the peak.”

Yet our efforts to address this scourge are pathetic.

We responded to World War II with the storming of Normandy, and to Sputnik with our moon shot. Yet we answer this current national menace with … a Republican plan for health care that would deprive millions of insurance and lead to even more deaths!

Output: Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death in Americans under the age of 50, with opioids expected to kill as many Americans this year as died in the Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam wars combined. The opioid epidemic has contributed to a reversal in death rates in the US, which had been falling for over 100 years. "The number of people overdosing is skyrocketing, and we have no indication that we’ve reached the peak", warns Dr Leana Wen, health commissioner of Baltimore. As previously noted, drug manufacturers are being investigated to see if they might have played a role in the addiction epidemic.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Former Disney chairman creates short-form TV for mobile devices
 Cannes, France

Jeffrey Katzenberg is making a $600 million bet on the future of television. The former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and co-founder of DreamWorks started a new company, WndrCo, and raised a big chunk of change at the start of the year.

Advertisement

To what end? Katzenberg is on the hunt for partners that will help him build what he describes as “new TV.” That is, the writers, directors, producers, and platforms that will help him create shows with short episodes—six to 10 minutes—intended to be watched primarily during “in-between times” on mobile devices.

The time people spend on their phones is fast approaching the time they spend in front of televisions, so it’s an understandable move for an ambitious Hollywood mogul looking to reach big audiences. The other inspiration Katzenberg cites is, surprisingly, the novels of Dan Brown.

The Da Vinci Code featured 400-odd pages split into more than 100 short chapters. Brown, and other authors like James Patterson, “reinvented the consumption of a novel—they didn’t reinvent the novel,” Katzenberg told Quartz and a small group of journalists on the sidelines of the Cannes advertising festival. “They changed the consumption habit by their technique.”

Advertisement

The Hollywood mogul is in Cannes this week talking through his idea on stage and setting up meetings with potential partners, especially platforms to distribute the content. “They run from A to V,” he told Quartz and a small group of journalists on the sidelines of the Cannes festival. (Katzenberg had dinner with Viacom CEO Bob Bakish last night.) The company’s first acquisition is reportedly imminent, but he would not be drawn out on the details.

What will set his content apart, he said—be it scripted sitcoms, reality shows, or whatever else his team dreams up—is that the creators will retain more rights to their shows, and he won’t skimp on budgets. His company will pay creators—the likes of Vince Gilligan, JJ Abrams, and Ron Howard, among other A-list directors Katzenberg says he has pitched—the same they would get from traditional networks. Total production costs can run from $100,000 per minute for sitcoms to as high as $300,000 per minute for premium shows like Game of Thrones, Katzenberg said. These sums are orders of magnitude more than what is being spent to produce mobile content today.

“We call that ‘north of Sunset’ money,” said Michael Kassan, the MediaLink CEO and industry matchmaker acting as Katzenberg’s sherpa in Cannes. (In Los Angeles, some of the most exclusive, star-studded neighborhoods in the city are found north of Sunset Boulevard.)

“If you want people to do something new, you have to make it really rewarding for them, creatively and financially,” Katzenberg says. “Ron Howard is a great filmmaker and also a great storyteller in 60- and 30-minute shows, so why isn’t he going to be a great storyteller in 10-minute pieces?”

Advertisement

“From Happy Days to Happy Minutes!” Kassan interjected (referring to Howard’s child acting career on the sitcom).

For something he says has the potential to grow several times larger than the $200-billion-plus global television industry, “new TV” is a rather prosaic descriptor. “I don’t have a name for it yet. But you can’t just say ‘it’,” Katzenberg explains. “At least, in a lame way, it frames the idea.”

And who is going to pay for it all, once his initial funds are spent? Katzenberg says he’s working on the assumption of a wholly ad-funded model, but could entertain a Spotify-like subscription aspect some time down the line. The impracticality of putting 30-second ads in six-minute shows will also require a radical rethink of how to incorporate advertising in shows. More product placements, perhaps? Katzenberg says only that “everything is on the table.”

Few boast his track record or the resources and connections he can draw upon as he embarks on his latest reinvention. But success in a new medium depends upon more than money and experience. “I don’t know the model yet,” he admits. “We’re right at the moment here where that’s about to reveal itself.”

Output: Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg has created WndrCo, a company that aims to create short-form television content to be consumed on mobile devices. Using the model typified by novelists Dan Brown and James Pattinson, whose books include short chapters, Katzenberg said his company would offer shows of between six and 10 minutes. WndrCo would also pay A-list directors, including Vince Gilligan and JJ Abrams, the same amount of money offered by traditional networks. Funding for the platform could come from ads or a subscription-based service, Katzenberg told a small audience at the Cannes Lions advertising festival.