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Researchers create graphene battery that charges in seconds
 Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-23 21:15:29|Editor: Zhou Xin

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HANGZHOU, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- A team of researchers from Zhejiang University have developed a new type of aluminum-graphene battery that can be charged in seconds, instead of hours.

The team, led by professor Gao Chao, from Department of Polymer Science and Engineering of Zhejiang University, designed a battery using graphene films as anode and metallic aluminum as cathode.

The battery could work well after quarter-million cycles and can be fully charged in seconds.

Experiments show that the battery retains 91 percent of its original capacity after 250,000 recharges, surpassing all the previous batteries in terms of cycle life.

In quick charge mode, the battery can be fully charged in 1.1 seconds, according to Gao. The finding was detailed in a paper recently published in Science Advances.

The assembled battery also works well in temperatures range of minus 40 to 120 degrees Celsius. It can be folded, and does not explode when exposed to fire.

However, the aluminum-ion battery cannot compete with commonly-used Li-ion batteries in terms of energy density, or the amount of power you can store in a battery in relation to the size, according to Gao.

"It is still costly to make such battery. Commercial production of the battery can only be possible until we can find cheaper electrolyte," Gao said.

Output: Scientists from Zhejiang University have developed an aluminium-graphene battery that can be charged in seconds, rather than hours. The battery is able to maintain 91% of its original capacity after 250,000 charges and could be fully charged in 1.1 seconds. The researchers also claimed the battery can work in temperatures ranging from minus 40C to 120C. However, they added that the battery does not have the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and is at present too expensive for commercial production.


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Insurtech Urban Jungle raises €1.1m in funding round
 Urban Jungle, a London-based FinTech startup revamping insurance for young people, has secured €1.1 million seed funding from a group of top angel investors, in order to build a better home insurance experience for the growing population of renters. The financing round was led by Rob Devey, ex CEO of Prudential UK and HBOS insurance. This capital injection will support the startup’s plans to launch several new products, including one targeted at the growing number of house and flat shares.

Urban Jungle was founded in 2016. The founders Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth looked at the insurance industry, and noted both that poor tech was making it difficult to buy and use, and that young people were being excluded from insurance because it was failing to keep pace with their changing lifestyles. They believe they can transform the insurance experience by completely rebuilding the tech stack, using modern technologies, for example through smartphone-first design, and using machine learning to improve risk scoring.

Jimmy Williams commented: “This investment marks a big step towards our mission to build an insurance provider that customers love. Through 2017, we focused on building a business that our customers can rely on 100% when something goes wrong. In 2018 we’ll vastly increase the choice of products for our customers, and make all of our products even easier to use.”

Rob Devey, who led both this, and the business’ previous round of funding commented: “I’m very excited about the huge opportunity to transform the insurance industry using technology, and think this team is superbly well placed to capitalise on that. They have proven their ability to execute to a very highly quality over the past year, and I’m confident that they will only accelerate from here.”

Output: UK fintech Urban Jungle has raised €1.1m ($1.3m) in seed funding towards its tech-driven insurance service for young renters. The investment, led by Rob Devey, former CEO of Prudential UK and HBOS insurance, will help the London-based start-up increase the choice of products available to its customers, such as one targeted at house and flat shares. Urban Jungle was founded in 2016 by Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth, who felt young people were excluded from the insurance market as it failed to keep up with their changing lifestyles.


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Researchers train robots to respect human personal space
 Scientists teach robots how to respect personal space

by Staff Writers

Beijing, China (SPX) Jan 02, 2018

Robots have a lot to learn about humans, including how to respect their personal space. Scientists at the Institute of Automatics of the National University of San Juan in Argentina are giving mobile robots a crash course in avoiding collisions with humans.

The researchers published their methods in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (JAS), a joint publication of the IEEE and Chinese Association of Automation.

"Humans respect social zones during different kind[s] of interactions," wrote Daniel Herrera, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Automatics of the National University of San Juan and an author on the study. He notes how the specifics of a task and situation, as well as cultural expectations and personal preferences, influence the distance of social zones.

"When a robot follows a human as part of a formation, it is supposed that it must also respect these social zones to improve its social acceptance."

Using impedance control, the researchers aimed to regulate the social dynamics between the robot's movements and the interactions of the robot's environment. They did this by first analyzing how a human leader and a human follower interact on a set track with well-defined borders.

The feedback humans use to adjust their behaviors - letting someone know they're following too closely, for example - was marked as social forces and treated as defined physical fields.

The human interactions (leading and following), including the estimated social forces, were fed to a mobile robot. The programmed robot then followed the human within the same defined borders, but without impeding on the social forces defined by the human interactions.

"Under the hypothesis that moving like human will be acceptable by humans, it is believed that the proposed control improves the social acceptance of the robot for this kind of interaction," wrote Herrera.

The researchers posit that robots are more likely to be accepted if they can be programmed to respect and respond like humans in social interactions. In this experiment, the robot mimicked the following human, and avoided the leader's personal space.

"The results show that the robot is capable of emulating the previously identified impedance and, consequently, it is believed that the proposed control can improve the social acceptance by being able to imitate this human-human dynamic behavior."

Research paper

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 15, 2017

Lockheed Martin and NEC Corp have announced that Lockheed Martin will use NEC's System Invariant Analysis Technology (SIAT) in the space domain. SIAT's advanced analytics engine uses data collected from sensors to learn the behavior of systems, including computer systems, power plants, factories and buildings, enabling the system itself to automatically detect inconsistencies and prescribe resol ... read more

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Output: Researchers in Argentina have developed systems to teach robots to respect humans' personal space. The team at the National University of San Juan devised techniques to replicate the social signals given by humans when they feel their personal space is being invaded. These were then set as defined physical fields for the robot as it followed a human's movements. The experiments showed the robot was able to successfully emulate the behaviour and movement of a human. Scientists claim this will help increase future social acceptance of robots.


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UK campaign urges parents to reduce children’s sugar intake
 Children’s snacking habits are setting them up for obesity and poor health, Public Health England has warned, calling on parents to take a tougher line on sweets and cakes and fizzy drinks between meals.

Children in England are eating on average at least three unhealthy high-calorie sugary snacks and drinks every day, says PHE, and about a third of children eat four or more. It is urging parents to draw the line at two and make sure they are not more than 100 calories each.

The diet of the average child can contain three times more sugar than recommended, says PHE. Half the equivalent of seven sugar cubes a day they consume comes from unhealthy snacks and drinks. Each year that includes almost 400 biscuits, more than 120 cakes, 100 sweets, 70 chocolate bars and 70 ice creams, washed down with more than 150 juice drink pouches and cans of fizzy drink.

The slogan of a new campaign under the Change4Life banner is: “Look for 100 calorie snacks, two a day max”.

That could lead to a significant change in diet. An ice-cream contains about 175 calories, a pack of crisps contains about 190 calories, a chocolate bar contains about 200 calories and a pastry contains about 270 calories, says PHE.

There will be a drive to encourage healthier snacking, with signposting at supermarkets and special offers on fruit and vegetables. Parents can sign up on the Change4Life website to get vouchers for money off snacks PHE identifies as healthier, such as malt loaf, lower sugar fromage frais, and drinks with no added sugar.

Other snack foods PHE says are healthier include fresh or tinned fruit salad, chopped vegetables and lower fat hummus, plain rice cakes, crackers, lower fat cheese, small low-fat, lower sugar yoghurt, sugar free jelly, crumpets and Scotch pancakes.

Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: “The true extent of children’s snacking habits is greater than the odd biscuit or chocolate bar. Children are having unhealthy snacks throughout the day and parents have told us they’re concerned.

“To make it easier for busy families, we’ve developed a simple rule of thumb to help them move towards healthier snacking – look for 100 calorie snacks, two a day max.”

The campaign will include a new TV advert from Aardman Animations as well as leaflets in schools.

Justine Roberts, CEO and founder of Mumsnet, said: “The volume of sugar kids are getting from snacks and sugary drinks alone is pretty mindblowing, and it can often be difficult to distinguish which snacks are healthy and which aren’t.

A third of children are leaving primary school obese or overweight. Recent figures from the National Child Measurement Programme in schools show the number of obese children in reception year has risen for the second consecutive year (to 9.6%) and has shown no improvement in year 6 (20%).

A quarter of children (24.7%) suffer from tooth decay by the time they turn five. Tooth extraction is the most common cause of hospital admissions in children aged 5 to 9 years.

Output: Public Health England (PHE) has called for parents to limit their children to two sugary snacks of no more than 100 calories each per day, as part of a new Change4Life campaign. At present, children in England are consuming a daily average of at least three high-calorie sweet snacks and drinks, with a third of children eating four or more. PHE said that children’s food intake can contain three times the recommended amount of sugar on average. The campaign will include money-off vouchers for healthier snacks, a TV advert by Aardman Animations and leaflets in schools.


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'Big food' is acting like big tobacco, says campaigner
 A former advertising executive who spent two decades working with “big food” corporations has revealed how they are still working to persuade us to eat more sugar and junk food in spite of the obesity epidemic.

Dan Parker, who was a successful advertising executive earning his living promoting Coca Cola and McDonalds, told the Guardian in his first interview that the food industry is behaving like Big Tobacco. “I think what the food industry does now will define where it lands. If it behaves like tobacco it will end up being treated like tobacco. And I think it is behaving like tobacco,” said the former industry insider.

Parker’s life changed when he was diagnosed with obesity-related type 2 diabetes, the disease that killed his father. In a “lightbulb moment”, he realised he could help save people’s lives by using his skills to try to help curb the junk food we eat.

Parker founded a charity called Living Loud, bringing on board others from marketing and advertising. In their first year of existence, they have helped anti-obesity campaigners like the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation understand the industry and communicate their messages.

Q&A Share your tips on managing snacks for children Show We’d like to hear how you are trying to limit the amount of snacks and sugary foods your children eat.

You can share your story using our encrypted form here. We will feature some of your contributions in our reporting. Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback.

Asking the industry, supermarkets and advertising agencies to voluntarily dial down what they do will not work, he says. They need limits imposed by government so that everyone is on a level playing field. Parker cites the shrinking size of chocolate bars to illustrate how voluntarism is not working. Manufacturers have produced smaller portion sizes, but they have not cut the prices.

“This has made people angry. People are howling with rage about the fact that their single chocolate bar is smaller but the same price,” he told the Guardian. And their response is to buy the bigger bar which looks like better value for money – while the industry is now advertising the family size as something one person can eat by themselves.

“What you’re seeing is a lot of advertising for the bigger bar. You are seeing a lot of promotion of the bigger bar at point of purchase,” he said. “In WH Smiths you get thrust a £1 chocolate bar if you go in there for anything.”

Figures published in The Grocer magazine showed that single chocolate bar sales were down year on year in 2016 by about 5% to around £130m whereas sales of the tablet bars of around 100g were up 7.6% to £420m and the share bags were up 2.7% to about £300m. “What’s happening is this massive migration from the single bar to the bigger bar,” said Parker.

The chocolate companies are promoting this choice with adverts like the Audrey Hepburn Galaxy video, showing a digitally recreated Hepburn figure deciding to sit in the back seat of the car of a handsome admirer so she can eat a large bar of chocolate by herself, says Parker.

Sales of single chocolate bar are down – but that has been countered by a rise in sales for larger bars. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

“What that’s doing is normalising the idea that 100g bar is an individual portion of chocolate – although it will say on it you shouldn’t eat more than 30g in tiny little writing on the bottom, the advert says that for Audrey it’s a single portion,” he said. The same is true of an advert showing Gary Lineker in hospital with a large bag of crisps, which he refuses to share with his children.

“Both those adverts are formalising a larger portion size. I don’t think that’s very healthy,” he said.

Parker was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes four years ago, a result of obesity and long working hours spent at a desk. “I closed down my business and I decided that I would try and do something about it. I felt a need to redeem myself in some ways but also I guess I felt an immense sadness that the suffering that’s happened in my own family probably should have been avoided,” he said.

He reversed his diabetes through a strict diet with the help of Dr David Cavan, with whom he now has a commercial venture, offering a programme called “Diabetes Turnaround”.

He was on Brighton beach when he realised he could be part of the solution. “ If you want to boil obesity down, the single most important issue is what we put in our mouth. And nobody knows more about why people put in their mouth what they put in their mouth than the people who sit around the table at Coca Cola and McDonalds and Asda and these companies. I sat round that table. I got paid a lot of money because I was pretty good at this. So I suddenly realised that not only did I have this huge great desire to do something but I kind of went – you know what – I think I might be part of the answer here.”

The food industry, Parker says, is at a crossroads. “If [the food industry] continues to sit there saying we’re great, there’s no problem, it’s all to do with everything else, eventually suddenly there will be a switch in public will and then there will be an awful lot of bad regulation happening,” he said.

“What’s clearly happening at the moment is the food industry’s working hard to drag its heels,” he said. It funds research showing obesity is about lack of exercise or other factors. “It’s all about deflecting it away from being about what we eat.

“The very inconvenient truth that nobody wants to talk about is that to resolve the obesity crisis, we need to eat less food. And we need to particularly eat less unhealthy food which generally comes in a packet and has a logo on it and is generally owned by a very large multinational corporation.”

As a nation, we probably need to reduce the total amount of food we consume by 10-20% and we need to reduce the amount of unhealthy food we eat by 20-30%, he believes.

“There are an awful lot of people not very interested in seeing the size of the packaged food industry drop by those kind of figures. The amount of money involved is billions of pounds.” That includes the food industry, the supermarkets, the exchequer and also the media. “Parts are almost entirely propped up by advertising for those unhealthy products. Early Saturday night TV, for example, would struggle without pizzas and fishfingers.”

He thinks his charity can help bridge the gap between the academics and institutions who know about obesity but argue over nutrients and technicalities on the one hand, and the large numbers of people suffering poor health on the other, who are told by the NHS they are in trouble and are in despair – which is the space, he says, between fear and knowledge.

They are not communicating, Parker says, and the messages are uninspiring. He thinks he and his colleagues can change that. “We’ve taken pension plans and credit cards and cars and all sorts of complicated and dull and boring things and we turn them into simple and persuasive messages. That’s what we do.”

Output: A former advertising executive who promoted Coca-Cola and McDonald's has claimed that "big food" is copying the tactics of large tobacco companies. In an interview with the Guardian, Dan Parker, the founder of the Living Loud charity, which supports anti-obesity campaigns including those by the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, said that voluntary codes would not succeed and that government regulation is required. Parker cited the example of companies reducing the size of chocolate bars without lowering the price. Such moves led to a 7.6% increase in sales of larger 100g bars and a 5% decrease in single bars in 2016.


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JPMorgan tool ensures its ads avoid unsavoury YouTube content
 JPMorgan Chase has created an internal tool to make sure its ads don't end up next to unsavory content on YouTube.

The company's proprietary algorithm plugs into YouTube's API to select "safe" channels for it to advertise on.

From more than 5 million channels the brand has winnowed the list down to 3,000 YouTube channels that its ads appear on.

"The model that Google has built to monetize YouTube may work for it, but it doesn't work for us," said Aaron Smolick, executive director of paid-media analytics and optimization at JPMorgan Chase.

When some brands' ads ended up next to troubling videos on YouTube last March, JPMorgan Chase responded by pulling its ads from the platform.

Dissatisfied with YouTube's slow response, the bank decided to take matters into its own hands and create an internal tool to make sure that its ads don't end up next to unsavory content on YouTube, only going back to YouTube after testing the tool.

The company developed its own proprietary algorithm in-house, and it plugs into YouTube's application programming interface (API) to select "safe" channels for its ads to appear on at scale. The algorithm was built by its internal programmatic and media-buying teams.

"When news broke about ads finding their way next to horrific pieces of content, we paused our efforts and pulled our ads from YouTube," Jake Davidow, the executive director of media and channel strategy at JPMorgan Chase, told Business Insider. "We wanted to figure out a scalable solution and make sure we got it right."

The technology consists of 17 layers or filters, which allow the bank to separate what it deems as good or safe YouTube channels from the bad or unsafe ones. One of the filters, for example, looks at the total video count on a channel, which automatically sifts out channels with one-off viral videos. The bank also looks at channels' subscriber counts, the general topics channels focus on, language, and even the comments on different channels' videos.

"The model that Google has built to monetize YouTube may work for it, but it doesn't work for us," said Aaron Smolick, executive director of paid-media analytics and optimization at JPMorgan Chase. "The attention of protecting a brand has to fall on the actual people within the brand itself."

The move reflects an increasing skepticism among major marketers regarding digital advertising, with issues of ad fraud, transparency and brand safety coming to a head in 2017. With their ads ending up next to dicey videos or being viewed by bots instead of humans, many advertisers have begun taking charge themselves by bringing advertising in-house and slashing the number of sites and channels they advertise on.

YouTube in particular has been a conundrum for advertisers. The platform came under fire in 2017 for a spate of incidents where ads ended up next to questionable videos, and brands were not exactly happy with its tackling of the problem. But YouTube is too big for most global advertisers to turn away from, even if they don’t have full confidence in it. Users watch an average of 40 minutes a day on YouTube globally.

The bank started white-listing — or pre-approving sites that its ads run on — in March, culling the number from 400,000 down to 5,000, and about 10,000 at present.

It began working on the YouTube algorithm in August and rolled it out in October. From over 5 million channels, it says that it has winnowed the list down to 3,000 channels on YouTube that its ads appear on. The bank says the algorithm has a success rate of 99.9%. The brand also continues to conduct regular manual checks on its channels as well as develop the tool further to make sure that it is foolproof.

"The biggest lesson for us was that we realized that it wasn't a black-and-white conversation with good guys or bad guys, but a gradient," Smolick said. "It isn't necessarily about brand safety, but rather brand appropriateness. That's the next evolution of the debate, with each brand deciding what's appropriate for them and what's not."

Output: US bank JPMorgan Chase has developed a solution that prevents its ads being placed near unsuitable content on YouTube. A proprietary algorithm with 17 layers of filters that plugs into YouTube's programming system enables JPMorgan to whitelist or pre-approve the channels on which its ads are placed. Launched in October amid dissatisfaction with YouTube's own filters, the in-house software has reduced the number of pre-approved sites from five million to 3,000, with a 99.9% success rate. Aaron Smolick, executive director of paid-media analytics and optimisation, said the problem facing companies wasn't brand safety, but brand appropriateness.


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Sweden welcomes automation while the US fears it
 Two-thirds of Americans believe robots will soon take over the majority of tasks currently done by humans. Swedes, on the other hand, are not concerned about new technology. “No, I’m afraid of old technology,” the Swedish minister for employment and integration, Ylva Johansson, told the New York Times. “The jobs disappear, and then we train people for new jobs. We won’t protect jobs. But we will protect workers.”

A recent survey by the European Commision found that 80 percent of Swedes have a positive view of robots and AI. Why such enthusiasm? Swedish citizens tend to trust that their government and the companies they work for will take care of them, and they see automation as a way to improve business efficiency. Since Swedish employees actually do benefit from increased profits by getting higher wages, a win for companies is a win for workers.

As the Times points out, the American tendency to worry about robots’ replacing human workers is driven by the severe consequences of losing a job in the U.S. The risk of losing health insurance and a steady income makes people reluctant to leave jobs in favor of new career options or training.

Sweden’s free health care, education, and job transition programs dampen the risk of such undertakings—which may be why people in the country are mostly happy to pay income tax rates of up to nearly 60 percent. The U.S., by contrast, provides almost none of these services. The difference is especially stark in the area of employment assistance: the U.S. spends only about 0.1 percent of GDP on programs designed to help people deal with changes in the workplace (see “The Relentless Pace of Automation”).

Output: A majority of Swedish people have a positive view of the rise of robots and artificial intelligence, while the majority of Americans are concerned about it. The European Commission published a survey which found that 80% of respondents from Sweden had a positive view of such technology, higher than the European average of 61%, and lower only than Denmark (82%) and the Netherlands (81%). A separate survey from the Pew Research Centre in the United States found that 72% of adults there were worried about the technology.


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Huawei, Baidu sign AI mobile agreement
 Huawei has announced signing a strategic agreement to build an open mobile artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem with Chinese search engine giant Baidu.

The strategic cooperation agreement covers AI platforms, technology, internet services, and content ecosystems, Huawei said.

The open ecosystem will be built using Huawei's HiAI platform and neural network processing unit (NPU); and Baidu's PaddlePaddle deep-learning framework and Baidu Brain, which contains Baidu's AI services and assets. It will allow AI developers to make use of the technology.

Under the partnership, Baidu and Huawei will also work on improved voice and image recognition on smart devices, and will built a consumer augmented reality (AR) software and hardware ecosystem.

Content and internet services being explored by the two companies will "strengthen cooperation in areas such as search and feed to bring consumers a wealth of quality content with a more intuitive and convenient service experience", Huawei added.

"The future is all about smart devices that will actively serve us, not just respond to what we tell them to do," said Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu.

"With a strong background in R&D, Huawei will work with Baidu to accelerate innovation in the industry, develop the next generation of smartphones, and provide global consumers with AI that knows you better."

Baidu CEO Robin Li said the search giant is "dedicated" to exploring AI, having last week announced the availability of its AMD EPYC-powered AI, big data, and cloud computing (ABC) services.

Also working on developing autonomous driving and autonomous vehicles, Baidu is hoping to utilise Huawei's large customer base for the mobile AI project.

"Interactive technologies including voice, machine vision, and AI will drive the [mobile phone] industry forward. Originally developed to be personal tools, mobile phones will become a natural extension of the human body and AI-powered assistants for consumers," Huawei added.

"Huawei and Baidu will continue to prioritise consumer needs and leverage each other's strengths to form a partnership that benefits everyone."

Huawei head of Consumer Software Engineering and director of Intelligence Engineering Felix Zhang had last month said the addition of AI capabilities to smartphones will bring the next shift in technology, comparing AI to the advent of steam engines in terms of its capacity to fundamentally change people's lives.

Mobile AI will change two key aspects of the smartphone, he said: User-machine interaction, and "context-personalised openness".

The first aspect will improve efficiencies between the user and their phone across text, voice, image, video, and sensors, while the second will actively provide services and aggregated information across apps, content, third-party features, and native features, he explained.

"If you look at the whole ecosystem, the AI will fundamentally change the phone from the smartphone to the intelligent phone," Zhang said.

Huawei had unveiled its Kirin 970 chipset with built-in AI in September, at the time calling it the "future of smartphones". Its new mobile AI is made up of a combination of on-device AI and cloud AI.

"Huawei is committed to developing smart devices into intelligent devices by building end-to-end capabilities that support coordinated development of chips, devices, and the cloud," Yu said at the time.

"The ultimate goal is to provide a significantly better user experience. The Kirin 970 is the first in a series of new advances that will bring powerful AI features to our devices and take them beyond the competition."

Limitations in cloud AI necessitated improvements across latency, stability, and privacy, Huawei said, with on-device AI providing this as well as adding sensor data to the offering.

Its new flagship smartphones, the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, come kitted out with the AI-focused Kirin processor, which has the dedicated NPU that is able to process 2,000 images per minute via image-recognition technology.

Huawei additionally provided the Kirin 970 as an open platform for mobile AI developers and partners in order to drive further developments.

This followed Huawei saying in August that AI would play a critical role in driving its smartphone innovation, with the tech giant predicting the advent of the "superphone" two years ago, saying it would be developed by 2020 and take advantage of advancements in AI, big data, and cloud computing.

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Output: Technology firm Huawei has agreed to construct an open mobile artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem in partnership with Chinese search engine company Baidu. The strategic cooperation will encompass AI technology, internet services, including search, and content ecosystems. The product will be made using the Huawei HiAI platform and corresponding neural network processing unit, as well as Baidu's deep-learning framework Baidu Brain. The partnership will also include the creation of better image and voice recognition for smart devices, as well as the generation of software for augmented reality.


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Rise in bitcoin's value could boost Japan's GDP by 0.3%
 Investors should be wary of the stock market's ongoing rally because it's reminiscent of the time that led up to the 2008 financial crisis, Bob Michele said.

Output: Japan's one million bitcoin holders could pour up to JPY96bn ($851m) into the country's economy, adding 0.3% to GDP, according to Nomura analysts Yoshiyuki Suimon and Kazuki Miyamoto. The duo forecasted that the sharp rise in bitcoin prices last year will spur an increase in economic activity as holders of the cryptocurrency feel richer and spend more. About 40% of all bitcoin trades are in yen, suggesting the huge increase in the asset's value will particularly affect Japan. To date, many economists and analysts have believed bitcoin's rise in value will have little effect on the overall economy.


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Theresa May preparing for cabinet reshuffle with possible new Brexit role for Johnson
 Theresa May is preparing a new year reshuffle that could see a number of cabinet figures losing their positions in an attempt to refresh the Conservative front bench.

The prime minister is said to be considering offering the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson a move to a Brexit delivery role based in another department, but he is likely to resist such a move.

May’s decision to shake up her team comes after fierce disagreements within Downing Street about how sensible such a move would be.

Some of those around the prime minister, including her former chief whip, Gavin Williamson, have urged caution because of the ramifications of placing sacked ministers on the backbenches. Others could also feel aggrieved at being overlooked.

But May’s chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, has received the backing of Williamson’s successor, Julian Smith, about the benefits of promoting younger MPs.

Rumours circulating in Westminster include the idea of Justine Greening being moved out of education, with one source suggesting that she had sided too strongly with the trade unions instead of embracing Tory reforms.

The Sunday Times suggested that Andrea Leadsom could be sacked as leader of the House of Commons, and it also named Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, who ran May’s leadership bid.

Greg Clark is liked by Downing Street but has not always impressed as business secretary and could also be in line for a move to another department.

Patrick McLoughlin is expected to be removed as party chair, with the immigration minister, Brandon Lewis, likely to be named as his successor.

May will also have to replace her ally Damian Green at the Cabinet Office after he was forced to resign for failing to be honest about pornography found on his work computer. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has been suggested as a replacement, although perhaps without the title of first secretary of state.

Those who could gain promotions into the cabinet include Dominic Raab and Damian Hinds, and May could also be looking to promote Amber Rudd – as foreign secretary if Johnson does step aside – and Karen Bradley.

Other female ministers who may be in line for promotion include Anne Milton, Claire Perry, Sarah Newton, Margot James and Harriett Baldwin.

Reports suggested the chancellor, Philip Hammond, was safe, although there could be rumblings of discontent among Brexiters if May tries to move Johnson without a change at the Treasury.

Previous moves have been overshadowed by the desire to maintain a balance among remainer and pro-leave MPs, but some have called on May to stop worrying about the issue.

Chris Wilkins, who was May’s director of strategy until the summer, said a reshuffle was important to show her current “position of strength”.

“It has two purposes: to show the country the depth of talent there is in the Conservative party and to show the party is united and is a broad church that welcomes all views and opinions,” he said.

“We need to stop asking ourselves where people voted on Brexit and just look for the best person for the job.”

Output: UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson is rumoured to be among the front-bench MPs relocated to other positions amid a cabinet reshuffle by prime minister Theresa May. Downing Street insiders have warned against moving Johnson to another Brexit-related department, while the leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, and transport secretary Chris Grayling have also been named among those who could be sacked; both campaigned for Leave in EU referendum.


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Bulgaria takes up rotating EU presidency on January 1st
 Sofia (AFP) –

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When Bulgaria takes up the rotating EU presidency on January 1, it will face the tough task of trying to reconcile the quarreling 28 member states and forge compromises on hot issues including migration and Brexit.

The European Union faces unprecedented challenges as it grapples with a record influx of migrants and Britain's divorce from the bloc in 2019.

Bulgaria has pledged to act as a mediator to heal rifts between eastern and western members, as well as smooth relations with Turkey, a key ally in tackling the ongoing migration crisis.

"The slogan of the Bulgarian presidency is 'United we stand strong': we must address the thorny issues together," Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva told AFP in an interview.

She urged EU countries "to prove their solidarity by protecting the EU's external borders instead of building fences inside the bloc".

Bulgaria also counts on its first European Council presidency to improve its image as the bloc's poorest and most corrupt country.

It wants to convince peers that after ten years in the EU, it is finally ready to join the visa-free Schengen travel area and move towards entering the eurozone.

The country with a population of 7.1 million went through turbulent political times after the fall of communism.

But it has enjoyed relative stability under the current conservative government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

The ex-bouncer with a black belt in karate won a third term last April and returned to power thanks to a coalition with the ultra-nationalist United Patriots.

Since entering government, the junior party has toned down its aggressive anti-migrant rhetoric and instead adopted a more pro-EU and pro-NATO stance.

Observers say Bulgaria has forged a reputation as a conciliatory EU member.

Unlike the so-called Visegrad Four -- the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia -- Bulgaria did not oppose a controversial EU plan created in 2015 to share migrants around the bloc members.

"Bulgaria is one of the few ex-communist EU member states, which is thankful for the EU aid funds that have ensured 66 percent of its growth since its accession in 2007," a European diplomat in Sofia said.

"It does not create problems, including on the policies about migration," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

- 'Busy agenda' -

Bulgaria's diplomatic skills will be put to the test when tortuous Brexit negotiations resume in March.

Britain's departure, along with the expected reduction of the EU budget in 2020, is a key concern for eastern countries -- the biggest recipients of EU funds.

The latest round of Brexit talks will focus on trade, after progress was achieved in December on key issues including EU citizens' rights in Britain.

"We'll have a busy agenda as 2018 is the last full year of the mandate of this European Commission," the European Commission's representative in Bulgaria, Ognian Zlatev, told AFP.

During its six-month stint at the EU helm, Sofia is expected to use Brexit as an opportunity to push for closer EU ties with Western Balkan countries.

Bulgaria hopes to reignite accession talks with Montenegro and Serbia, while helping Albania and Macedonia move closer to starting EU membership negotiations.

Zlatev said the presidency also aims to send "encouragement signals" to Bosnia and Kosovo in order "to include the whole region in the European perspective".

The campaign will not be easy as enthusiasm for more EU enlargement has waned among existing members.

- 'Normalise' Turkey ties -

In migration matters, EU leaders have set a June deadline to agree an overhaul of the so-called Dublin Regulation, which currently puts too much pressure on frontline states Greece and Italy.

To solve the refugee crisis, Sofia also insists that the EU needs to "normalise" its ties with Turkey, with which Bulgaria shares a 260-kilometre (160-mile) border

Relations have soured dramatically between the bloc and Turkey since a failed coup there in 2016.

But Ankara is an essential partner in helping the continent stem the migrant flow from the Middle East, and Borisov insists this needs to be maintained "with all possible means".

© 2017 AFP

Output: Bulgaria has taken up its European Council presidency, which began on 1 January, with Prime Minister Boyko Borisov keen to use the six-month tenure to forge closer ties between the European Union and western Balkan nations. However, Bulgaria's presidency will also have to deal with the UK's Brexit trade negotiations and the issue of the refugee crisis, which Sofia has said requires the EU to "normalise" relations with Turkey.


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UK wants transitional deal in event that no trade deal with EU is reached
 UK government wants the EU to give it a transition period even if talks on the future relationship break down.

This would prevent Britain from crashing out in March 2019 with no arrangements in place.

Talks on trade and transition will get underway this year.

LONDON — The UK government is reportedly seeking to negotiate a Brexit transitional arrangement that will take place even if negotiations fail to produce a deal on a future relationship.

Whitehall sources have told The Times that they believe the European Union will be willing to grant Britain a transition period following Brexit even if talks on future trade and cooperation break down.

This is because the European side is wary of the potential economic impact of a no-deal Brexit without transition, and also does not want a large hole to appear in its budget in 2019 and 2020, the report adds.

In guidelines published last month, the EU said that any transition will last up to 18 months and require Britain to comply with the bloc's trade and customs rules, as well as accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

This sort of deal has been described as "status quo" and "standstill" transition.

British negotiators are hopeful that their EU counterparts will allow transition to take place no matter what happens in future relationship negotiations, which will get underway later this year.

This would give the UK government and civil servants nearly two-years to prepare for a hard Brexit, should talks fail to produce an agreement on future trade and cooperation.

Britain and the EU will have to overcome some key sticking points regarding transition before they can move onto the question of the future relationship.

For example, the UK government wants to be able to negotiate new free trade deals with other countries during transition, and is reluctant to accept any new EU laws implemented during this time-limited period.

The EU side wants any final deal to be sent off to the EU Parliament for ratification at around October of this year.

This leaves both sides with 10 months to negotiate both transition and the principles of a future relationship.

Output: The UK government is said to be negotiating for a Brexit transitional arrangement, even if talks with the European Union (EU) result in no agreement, according to Whitehall insiders. The government reportedly believe that the EU, to mitigate any negative economic impacts of a 'no deal' scenario, would grant a "status quo" transition period, during which the UK would comply with existing trade rules and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Talks on trade and future relationships begin later this year.


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UK manufacturing stays strong through end of 2017
 IHS Markit's manufacturing PMI survey for December: 56.3.

Reading is significantly down from November's figure, suggesting the sector may be starting to stutter.

Manufacturing has been a rare economic success story in the UK since the vote to leave the EU in June 2016, thanks to the weakness of the pound.

LONDON — Britain's manufacturing sector slowed down at the end of 2017 but remained solid, according to the latest PMI survey released by IHS Markit on Tuesday.

December's reading for the sector came in at 56.3. That was down from 58.2 in November, which was the highest figure in more than four years, but still a solid performance.

The purchasing managers index (PMI) figures from IHS Markit are given as a number between 0 and 100. Anything above 50 signals growth, while anything below means a contraction in activity. So the higher the number is, the better things look for the UK.

"The UK manufacturing sector ended 2017 on a positive note," IHS Markit said in a statement. "Although December saw rates of expansion in output, new orders and employment slow from November’s highs, growth in all three remained solid and well above long-run trends."

IHS Markit

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Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in an email: "British manufacturers ... are failing to make the most of the rebound in global trade; note that the UK’s PMI now is four points below the Eurozone’s, the biggest under performance since June 2008.

"UK manufacturers have cut investment since the Brexit vote and are struggling to find skilled workers. As result, work backlogs are increasing quickly and supply chain delays are worsening."

While a slowdown is evident, IHS Markit's survey was largely positive, with Rob Dobson, a director at the firm noting that the sector "ended 2017 on a positive footing."

"Although growth of output and new orders moderated during December, rates of expansion remained comfortably above long-term trend rates. The sector has therefore broadly maintained its solid boost to broader economic expansion in the fourth quarter. The outlook is also reasonably bright, with over 50% of companies expecting production to be higher one year from now."

Manufacturing has been a rare economic success story in the UK since the vote to leave the EU in June 2016, thanks to the weakness of the pound since the vote.

The slump in the pound since the vote has made most British goods cheaper for overseas buyers, boosting manufacturing businesses as a result.

IHS Markit published manufacturing growth figures for other European countries on Tuesday. The Eurozone-wide figure came in at its highest level since the PMI survey began in its current form in 1997.

"The eurozone manufacturing sector ended 2017 on a high note. Strong rates of expansion in output, new orders and employment pushed the final IHS Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI to 60.6 in December, its best level since the survey began in mid-1997," IHS Markit said.

Output: The UK manufacturing sector capitalised on the weak pound following the Brexit result and gained a purchasing managers index (PMI) rating of 56.3 for December, according to figures from IHS Markit. The rating was lower than November's 58.2, a result which marked a four-year high. IHS Markit also revealed the Eurozone-wide manufacturing December PMI was 60.6, the highest since the survey began 20 years ago.


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UK domestic M&A activity doubles as companies seek to bulk up for Brexit
 By Ben Martin

LONDON, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Companies seeking to "bulk up" to offset the uncertainty caused by Britain's looming EU exit helped to spur a near doubling of domestic mergers and acquisition activity this year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The volume of UK domestic deals surged to $68 billion from $34.3 billion in 2016 as the number of deals between British groups jumped from 1,480 to 1,681, the highest level since 2008, the data show.

They included online gambling company GVC's purchase of bookmaker Ladbrokes Coral for as much as 3.9 billion pounds ($5.24 billion) and Hammerson's 3.4 billion pound acquisition of rival shopping centre operator Intu Properties.

It comes against a backdrop of often fractious Brexit negotiations between London and Brussels this year, talks that are yet to provide businesses with clarity about Britain's future relationship with Europe.

Bosses at British companies have also been eyeing new U.S. President Donald Trump, whose decisions have repercussions for businesses around the world.

"At the beginning of 2017 there were a lot of questions about what was going to happen to the M&A market, given the global uncertainty caused by Brexit and the new U.S. president," said Nick Cline, a London-based M&A partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, who said the uncertain environment had acted as a driver for some deals rather than stifling activity.

"There are a lot of corporates out there in the UK and Europe who are seeing the changing landscape and as a result are even more focused on what they're going to do to be tomorrow's leaders."

The jump in domestic deal-making contrasted with falls in both inbound and outbound UK M&A volumes, the data show, with the former slipping 12.9 percent to $115.1 billion and the latter down 9.4 percent to $112.5 billion.

That meant overall M&A volumes with any UK involvement dipped 0.7 percent to $375 billon, a softer decline than the 1.4 percent slide in global deal volumes to $3.5 trillion, according to the data.

DEARTH OF BLOCKBUSTER DEALS

Philip Noblet, HSBC's co-head of global banking in the UK, said that "a lot of the obvious sector consolidation deals that people expected to happen" were struck this year and were "driven by the Brexit climate which is prompting companies to bulk up".

However, a dearth of blockbuster deals meant that overall M&A volumes involving any British companies remained much lower than in 2015, when they totalled $605.5 billion, swelled by Anheuser-Busch Inbev's $110 billion acquisition of FTSE 100 brewer SABMiller and Royal Dutch Shell's $53 billion tie-up with BG Group.

"It's hard to see how any more of the really big deals are going to happen going forward without there being quite significant competition issues," said Noblet.

Kraft Heinz's $143 billion attempt to buy consumer goods giant Unilever in February, which would have been one such megadeal, failed within days when the U.S. food company walked away after the FTSE 100 business rejected its offer.

Potential British government scrutiny of the deal was a concern raised during talks between the two companies, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.

Since Theresa May became prime minister in July 2016, Britain has taken a more cautious approach towards foreign acquisitions of British assets.

In October, the government proposed new rules to give it more say over deals in the defence and technology sectors, although Cline said the government's change of tack had not represented "a step-change this year in the way the UK looks at deals".

He said: "Occasionally a transaction comes up where there's a question about UK government intervention."

Cline forecasts that British M&A activity will remain strong in 2018, while Jan Skarbek, managing director of UK banking and broking at Citigroup, also thinks there will be an increase.

"Organic growth is very difficult in this environment and staying still is not an option for many companies," he said. "So I think there will be more deals next year, despite the geopolitical uncertainty." ($1 = 0.7446 pounds) (Reporting by Ben Martin; Editing by Adrian Croft)

Output: Uncertainty surrounding Brexit and US President Donald Trump ended up driving UK M&A activity during 2017, rather than hampering it, with UK domestic deals doubling from $34.3bn in 2016 to $68bn, according to data from Thomson Reuters. It revealed the number of deals between UK groups hit 1,681, the highest level since 2008, although inbound and outbound UK M&A volumes fell 12.9% to $115.1bn and 9.4% to $112.5bn, respectively. Despite the absence of megadeals, insiders predict a robust 2018 for the UK M&A sector.


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Flexible graphene sheets become harder than diamond on impact
 Researchers from The City University of New York (CUNY) describe a process for creating diamene: flexible, layered sheets of graphene that temporarily become harder than diamond and impenetrable upon impact. The material is fascinating as it is as flexible and lightweight as foil but becomes stiff and hard enough to stop a bullet on impact. Such a material may be beneficial for applications like wear-resistant protective coatings and ultra-light bullet-proof films.

The team worked to theorize and test how two layers of graphene could be made to turn into a diamond-like material upon impact at room temperature. The team also found the moment of conversion resulted in a sudden reduction of electric current, suggesting diamene could have interesting electronic and spintronic properties.

"Previously, when we tested graphite or a single atomic layer of graphene, we would apply pressure and feel a very soft film. But when the graphite film was exactly two-layers thick, all of a sudden we realized that the material under pressure was becoming extremely hard and as stiff, or stiffer, than bulk diamond" the team said.

The researchers used atomistic computer simulations to model potential outcomes when pressurizing two layers of graphene aligned in different configurations. They then used an atomic force microscope to apply localized pressure to two-layer graphene on silicon carbide substrates and found perfect agreement with the calculations. Experiments and theory both show that this transition does not occur for more than two layers or for a single graphene layer.

Output: Researchers at the City University of New York have shown that two flexible graphene sheets become as harder than diamond when under pressure. The material, diamene, could be used to create ultra-light bullet proofing or wear-resistant coatings. The team also discovered diamene experienced a sudden reduction of electric current at the moment of conversion, revealing potentially interesting electronic and spintronic properties.


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EU “cannot cherry pick” terms of the post-Brexit trade deal: David Davis
 LONDON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Britain wants to include financial services in a trade deal with the European Union which covers a full sweep of economic areas, Brexit minister David Davis said on Tuesday.

Davis said that any deal that left finance out would be "cherry picking", after the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier cast doubt on the inclusion of financial services in a free-trade deal.

"We are looking at the full sweep of economic cooperation that currently exists and determining how that can be maintained with the minimum additional barriers or friction," Davis wrote in the Daily Telegraph, adding that the principles of a trade deal in goods could be applied to services too.

"I do not believe the strength of this cooperation needs change because we leaving the European Union, so long as it is understood that this involves working together, not simply rule taking. These principles can be applied to services trade too."

Last month, Barnier said he was not aware of any free-trade deal the EU had concluded which included unfettered access for financial services. (Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

Output: UK Brexit minister David Davis has warned the European Union against omitting financial services from a trade deal, saying that to do so would be "cherry picking". Writing in The Telegraph, Davis said: "we are looking at the full sweep of economic cooperation that currently exists and determining how that can be maintained with the minimum additional barriers or friction". In December, EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said he was unaware of any potential EU trade deal which included "unfettered access for financial services".


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Facebook apologises after mistakes by hate speech moderators
 Facebook has taken plenty of criticism on the platform’s algorithms designed to keep content within the community guidelines, but a new round of investigative reporting suggests the company’s team of human review staff could see some improvements too. In a study of 900 posts, ProPublica reports that Facebook’s review staff was inconsistent about the posts containing hate speech, removing some but not others with similar content.

Facebook apologized for some of those posts, saying that in the 49 posts highlighted by the non-profit investigative organization, reviewers made the wrong choice on 22 of those posts. The social media platform defended 19 other instances, while eight were excluded because of incorrect flags, user deletions or a lack of information. The study was crowd-sourced, with Facebook users sharing the posts with the organization.

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Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s vice president of Global Operations and Media Partnerships, said that the social media platform will be expanding review staff to 20,000 people next year. “We’re sorry for the mistakes we have made — they do not reflect the community we want to help build,” he said in response to the ProPublica investigation. “We must do better.”

ProPublica said Facebook is inconsistent on the treatment of hate speech, citing examples of two different statements that both essentially wished death on an entire group of people, with only one of them removed after being flagged. The second post was later removed after the ProPublica investigation.

“Based on this small fraction of Facebook posts, its content reviewers often make different calls on items with similar content, and don’t always abide by the company’s complex guidelines,” ProPublica said. “Even when they do follow the rules, racist or sexist language may survive scrutiny because it is not sufficiently derogatory or violent to meet Facebook’s definition of hate speech.”

On the flip side, the report also found posts that were redacted that shouldn’t have been. In one example, the image contained a swastika, but the caption was asking viewers to stand up against a hate group.

The study is far from the first time ProPublica, a non-profit investigative organization, has called out Facebook’s practices this year. This fall, Facebook changed its ad targeting after a study showed that when enough users typed in their own answers into the bio fields, racial slurs could become a category for a targeted ad. Just a week ago, ProPublica demonstrated that employers could discriminate by age using those ad tools. In the first, Facebook apologized and immediately paused the ad tool until the slip up could be fully corrected, while in the second, Facebook defended its practices.

Monitoring content from the largest social media network with more than 2 billion monthly active users isn’t an easy task and one that Facebook approaches with both artificial intelligence algorithms and human reviewers. Social media networks generally attempt to find a balance between banning hateful content and prohibiting free speech. Osofsky says the platform deletes 66,000 instances of hate speech every week.

The move to a review staff of 20,000 is fairly significant — when Facebook reported in May that it would be adding 3,000 more review staff members that brought the team to 7,500 people.

ProPublica says the investigation is important “because hate groups use the world’s largest social network to attract followers and organize demonstrations.”

Editors' Recommendations

Output: Facebook has apologised for inconsistency among its human review staff in dealing with posts containing hate speech, and has pledged to increase its moderator team from around 7,500 people to 20,000. The move followed a study by non-profit organisation Propublica, which found the wrong decisions concerning hate speech had been made on 22 posts out of a highlighted 49. The study followed another ProPublica investigation, which revealed employers using Facebook's ad tools could use them to practise age discrimination.


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NYC passes 'algorithmic bias' bill to combat prejudices
 New York City has passed the algorithmic accountability bill, which will assign a task force to examine the way that city government agencies use algorithms.

Algorithmic bias is a critical issue in the justice system, which often relies on algorithmic risk assessments to inform criminal sentencing in federal court.

The bill is the first of its kind to be passed in the nation, and will attempt to provide transparency in the way that the government uses algorithms.

New York City has unanimously passed a bill that will attempt to provide transparency to the way that city government agencies use algorithms.

It's the first bill examining algorithmic bias to be passed in the country, and could spell out increased scrutiny in the government's use of algorithms nationwide.

The bill, which was signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, will assign a task force to examine the way that New York City government agencies use algorithms to aid the judicial process.

According to ProPublica, council member James Vacca sponsored the bill as a response to ProPublica's 2016 account of racially-biased algorithms in the American criminal justice system. The investigative story revealed systemic digital bias within judicial risk assessment programs that favored the release of white inmates on the grounds of future good behavior over the release of black defendants.

Algorithmic source code is typically private, but issues of bias have called for increased transparency. The ACLU has spoken out on behalf of the bill passing, and it described access to institutionalized algorithmic source code as a fundamental step in ensuring fairness within the criminal justice system.

New York Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Rashida Richardson describes the bill as a watershed moment.

“This bill is the first in the nation to take such a broad view of the problem and recognize that for algorithms to benefit society, they must be subject to public scrutiny...to remedy flaws and biases," Richardson said in a statement to Business Insider. "A flawed algorithm can lead to someone being trapped in jail for no good reason or not receiving a public benefit."

Algorithmic bias is a far-reaching issue in the criminal justice system. Bernard Harcourt, a law professor at Columbia University who has studied risk assessment programs extensively, told Business Insider that "algorithmic bias in government agencies is widespread and growing, especially in areas like policing and criminal adjudication that are getting cannibalized by the facile solution of predictive tools."

Harcourt says the New York City bill is a step forward for the American justice system, but recommends and even greater increase in algorithmic transparency.

"The source codes of all algorithms that directly affect New Yorkers have to be open to the public for us to evaluate their racial and other biases," Harcourt said. "This bill is a critical first step, but it is only a first step and needs to be supplemented with far greater transparency."

Output: New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has signed into law the first-ever US bill examining algorithmic bias. The bill allows for a task force to be appointed looking into how the city's justice system uses algorithms. The legislation was sparked by a 2016 investigation by ProPublica revealing systemic digital bias among judicial risk assessment programmes, favouring the release of white inmates over black counterparts. Bernard Harcourt, a law professor at Columbia University said the bill was a "critical first step" toward transparency and greater fairness within the criminal justice system, but more needs to be done.


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Paytm reaches 100 million downloads
 Indian Mobile Payments App Paytm Hits 100 Million Download Threshold

December 29, 2017 By: Steven Anderson

Just recently, Paytm—pretty much the biggest mobile payments tool in India—managed to land quite an achievement. It became the first mobile payments app in India to reach the 100 million downloads mark on the Google Play Store. It’s an industry first, actually, as no single app had ever reached that point in downloads to date.

The crucial ninth figure had been reached sometime in the second week of December, reports from the company noted, and came as Paytm had been actively working on plans to branch out from mobile payments. The company has been looking to become a more complete mobile-first financial services operation, offering not only payments functions, but also banking, insurance and lending options as well. Users can even buy movie tickets or book travel passes, among other opportunities.

Deepak Abbot, Paytm’s senior vice president, commented “We are overwhelmed with the 100 million downloads mark, reaching this milestone is a testimony to the efforts of the incredible team at Paytm. This achievement will offer us a strong boost as we work towards our goal of making India a digital-first economy.”

Paytm’s success owes to several factors; easily one of the largest is its sheer variety of services offered. That kind of variety likely makes it very appealing to potential users, and thus, a welcome addition to most Indians’ mobile operations. Its ease of acquisition and use is also another likely factor, though Paytm in general likely owes much of its success to the Indian government’s move to ban large quantities of currency from the country itself. The demonetization of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes may well have been the making of Paytm, at least on some level.

No matter what factor you chalk it up to, in the end, Paytm is a very big deal in India, which makes it a pretty big deal worldwide thanks to the sheer size of its user base. Where it goes from here, meanwhile, should be well worth watching.

Output: The Indian mobile payment app Paytm has become the first in the country to reach 100 million downloads. It reached the landmark on the Google Play Store in December, and the company's senior vice president welcomed the news as a boost to its efforts to make India a "digital-first economy". To this end, Paytm has been working on plans to diversify from mobile payments into wider financial services including banking, insurance and loans.


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Iceland becomes first country to outlaw gender pay gap
 Companies and government agencies employing at least 25 people will have to obtain certification of equal-pay policies.

A new law making it illegal to pay men more than women has taken effect in Iceland.

The legislation came into force on Monday, the first day of 2018.

Under the new rules, companies and government agencies employing at least 25 people will have to obtain government certification of their equal-pay policies.

Those that fail to prove pay parity will face fines.

“The legislation is basically a mechanism that companies and organisations … evaluate every job that’s being done, and then they get a certification after they confirm the process if they are paying men and women equally,” said Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind, a board member of the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association.

“It’s a mechanism to ensure women and men are being paid equally,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We have had legislation saying that pay should be equal for men and women for decades now but we still have a pay gap.”

{articleGUID}

Iceland, an island country in the North Atlantic Ocean that is home to approximately 323,000 people, has a strong economy, based on tourism and fisheries.

For the past nine years, it has been ranked by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the world’s most gender-equal country.

The Global Gender Gap Report uses markers such as economic opportunity, political empowerment, and health and survival to gauge the state of gender equality in a country.

Since the reports began in 2006, Iceland has closed around 10 percent of its total gender gap, making it one of the fastest-improving countries in the world.

The new legislation was supported by Iceland’s centre-right government, as well as the opposition, in a parliament where nearly 50 percent of all members are women.

“I think that now people are starting to realise that this is a systematic problem that we have to tackle with new methods,” said Aradottir Pind.

“Women have been talking about this for decades and I really feel that we have managed to raise awareness, and we have managed to get to the point that people realise that the legislation we have had in place is not working, and we need to do something more,” she added.

The Icelandic government plans to completely eradicate the wage gap by 2020.

Gender inequality worldwide

According to the latest WEF report, the top five best performers in the global gender gap are Iceland, Norway, Finland, Rwanda and Sweden.

Yemen, on the other hand, is currently the lowest-ranked of the 144 countries measured in the report.

The war-torn country has been low-performing in terms of economic participation and opportunity for several years.

Fifty-two countries fell below the global average in 2017, including China, Liberia and the United Arab Emirates, while 60 saw their overall gender gap decrease.

Hungary was the only European country to be ranked lower than the global average, having scored poorly on political empowerment.

Output: Iceland has become the first country to legislate equal pay between men and women. A law, which came into effect on 1st January 2018, means that companies and government agencies employing a minimum of 25 people must obtain official certification of equal pay policies. Those employers that cannot demonstrate pay parity could be fined. Although Iceland has had legislation calling for gender pay equality for decades, it still has a gender pay gap. However, the country, home to 323,000 inhabitants, has been ranked the world’s most gender-equal nation by the World Economic Forum for the past nine years.


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Google patents AI 'babysitter' using existing Google Home tech
 W eb-connected “smart” homes can already turn up your heating, dim your lights and see who’s at the front door — but would you trust a computer to look after your children?

Babysitters may be next for technological disruption, with Google now suggesting it can use its vast networks to help parents keep a digital eye on their offspring.

The search giant is working on a system for “protecting unattended children” inside homes that use smart gadgets. It says the invention could disable electrical sockets and digital door locks, and even text parents a warning if their child is in peril.

Features would include flashing lights and audio warnings such as: “Toddler unattended” in a certain room, “Your child is approaching an electrical outlet,” and “Your child is alone for 10 minutes.”

Google Pixel with Google Lens advert

Data about the number of youngsters in a room would be beamed to a parent’s phone via motion, audio and touch sensors. These could be controlled by Google’s Home and Home Mini voice-activated artificial intelligence assistants. The system would “learn” who is a family member and could be linked to a webcam.

Google said its new “computing system” has been designed to take account of “a need for improved devices and methods for protecting unattended children in a home”.

The designers think it could be useful if a parent or guardian needs to dash out unexpectedly. But they also suggest it “may complement or replace conventional methods for protecting unattended children in the home”.

The design, revealed in a European patent, sparked a mixed response from parents and child protection campaigners. A spokeswoman for the NSPCC said: “Having a digital system like this in the home may offer peace of mind but there’s a danger it could lull some parents into a false sense of security about their children’s safety if they are being left unattended.

“Our advice is that parents think carefully before deciding if a child is ready to be left unattended, even for short periods. Babies and toddlers should never be left unattended. Older children shouldn’t be left if they are not happy with being left, or if they don’t know what to do in an emergency.”

Google's New £1 Billion King's Cross HQ - In pictures 1 / 14 Google's New £1 Billion King's Cross HQ - In pictures CGI images reveal the plans for Google's impressive new London HQ Hayes Davidson The plans include a rooftop running trail, garden and cafe Around 4,500 “Googlers” will work at the 870,000 sq ft building Hayes Davidson An interior view of desks inside huge Google office Hayes Davidson The building features a “wellness and fitness centre” which also includes a gym, exercise studio and a 32 metre long indoor “multi-use games area" Hayes Davidson The HQ will be in easy striking distance of London's King's Cross, making it easy for commuters to reach Hayes Davidson A close-up of the rooftop running trail and gardens The huge building will have floor to ceiling windows under the newly lodged plans Hayes Davidson

Sarah Hesz, founder of mothers’ meet-up app Mush, said: “If technology can help our kids be safe when they are out of sight then that’s fantastic.

“But until Google can calm a tantruming two-year-old, referee an argument between siblings or explain to a pre-schooler why they are only allowed to open one advent calendar window a day, there is no chance this is any sort of replacement to proper childcare.” Google designers suggest the system could also be used when a parent is in another room and wants an extra eye on their child. A child’s “status” could even be emailed to “trusted contacts” in a parent’s social network, and a webpage would provide “analysis or statistics” about what happened while a guardian was away.

The system could be linked to carbon monoxide sensors and household smart items that are hazardous to children, such as fireplaces or balcony doors.

It could even include “challenges/rules/compliance/rewards” for the child to help them “live safely”, according to the patent publication.

Google declined to comment.

Output: Google is developing a digital babysitter using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The company has filed a European patent for the system, which would use connected devices and sensors to provide greater protection for unattended children at home. It could monitor them and provide parents with warnings of potential dangers, using flashing lights and audio devices. It would be linked to Google's existing home AI systems and could be linked to a webcam, allowing parents to monitor their children remotely. The company has not released any details of when or if the technology will be released.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Amazon plans digital advertising push in 2018
 As internet advertising revenues increase in US, Amazon is reportedly all set to introduce new advertising products in its portfolio in 2018 as it grows as a force to take on Facebook and Google.

Amazon set to introduce its advertising products to combat Facebook and Google in 2018

CNBC reported that Amazon is planning to sell advertising beyond Amazon sites and products. Amazon is also working with third-party mobile advertising companies such as Kargo to pair advertising on television and on mobile screens.

Output: Online retailer Amazon is set to take on rivals Google and Facebook in 2018 with the launch of new digital advertising products, according to CNBC. It said Amazon will target television and mobile to sell ads outside of its site. As well as partnering with firms including Kargo, Amazon is rumoured to have bolstered its in-house advertising team, based in New York. US internet ad revenues hit $20.8bn in Q2 2017, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
LendLease to allocate 40-50% of capital to international growth
 Australian-born Hickey, 52, a potential candidate to eventually replace Lendlease group chief executive Steve McCann, says the US residential and commercial construction market has rebounded strongly in the last few years and the outlook is positive.

"Asset prices are full, debt is cheap but the underlying economics of those assets are sound."

And as for President Donald Trump's tax cut and deregulation agenda, Hickey sees it as a positive for the US economy.

"Our strategy is consistent and doesn't alter on macro decisions like that," he says.

Denis Hickey joined Lendlease in 2012 after a stint as chief executive of ING Real Estate, and shifted to the US nearly four years ago with his wife and four children. DAVID JOSHUA FORD

"On a personal front I think that tax reform will be good for the economy. "We are competing on a global landscape and it will make the US more attractive in terms of foreign capital coming into this market."

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Lendlease pays a US corporate tax rate of about 42 per cent including state and local business taxes, so slashing the 35 per cent federal corporate rate to 21 per cent may also help the company's bottom line.

Lendlease's Steve McCann has spoken to investors about capitalising on the trend of urbanisation in international "gateway" cities including London, Milan and Kuala Lumpur.

Yet the company's international expansion is not without risk.

Mark Waugh is hit by ball from Denis Hickey back in February1988. Photographer Unknown

Under previous senior management, the Australian construction and property multinational blew up nearly $1 billion 15 years ago on an aggressive US foray that ended in a partial retreat from the world's largest economy.

Separately, it was later reprimanded for a fire on a demolition site that killed two firefighters in New York in 2007 and fined in 2012 for overcharging clients for inflated-labour bills.

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After the 2008 financial crisis hit the global economy hard, Lendlease largely turned its focus inward on the safer local market by allocating about 80 per cent of its capital to Australia.

The company's more recent goal is to allocate 40-50 per cent of its capital offshore as the global economy picks up and Lendlease seeks to export its successful Australian integrated business model to the world.

Hickey, who has long been fascinated by the evolution of New York City since the 1990s, when he had a map of Manhattan pinned to his office wall, was the logical fit for the US job.

He joined Lendlease in 2012 after a stint as chief executive of ING Real Estate and shifted to the US nearly four years ago with his wife and four children.

Hickey understands the direction Lendlease needs to take and he says the company has learnt from its earlier expansion in the US.

"It is making sure we take our growth slow and measured and we make sure we embed local knowledge," he says.

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"As we've grown our development business we've been very conscious to build our capabilities with local people in the marketplace."

In the US the company is focusing on development and construction in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington DC.

About 95 per cent of Lendlease's 1800 US staff are American. There a just a few Australians such as Hickey who are embedded to "bridge" the culture and business links between the two countries.

One of the US executives, Melissa Burch, is overseeing the development of the $US470 million project at 277 Fifth Avenue in the NoMad (North of Madison Square Park) neighbourhood.

The under-construction 55 floor condominium building was designed by the famous Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly, including retail space at the base and a planned 130 luxury residences on the upper floors.

The project is on track to have lower-floor buyers move in during late 2018.

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A typical two-bedroom condo is selling for about $US3.7 million. Hickey says the condo [apartment] market has started to slow down a bit in terms of new construction because of tighter lending criteria.

"Melissa knows the market well and we can bring to her our armoury of what Lendlease does with global access to capital, product thinking and innovation," Hickey says.

Burch, who has worked in New York residential and commercial development for 15 years after beginning her banking career at Merrill Lynch, says she joined Lendlease in 2015 due to its global network in development, construction and funds management.

She was attracted to Lendlease's effort to build and grow a meaningful development business in New York City.

"For decades Lendlease has been known as a top-flight builder in New York, and we will look to leverage this local expertise along with a strong balance sheet and international experience to secure and develop our own projects in this market," she says.

Lendlease has operated under various brands in the US since the 1970s and worked on iconic projects at Grand Central Terminal station, the Statue of Liberty, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, Time Warner Center and Citi Field, home of the home field of the New York Mets.

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Since Hickey arrived in the US in 2014, Lendlease has been trying to transform its business beyond a "capital light" firm that was largely focused on construction of buildings for other developers and providing Defence Department accommodation to more than 100,000 military personnel in the US.

Across 50 military bases, Lendlease co-owns and manages about $US10 billion in assets comprising nearly 60,000 hotels rooms and houses, making it the largest joint venture accommodation partner with the US military.

The construction business, which turns over about $4 billion, will remain a steady, low-margin and high-turnover part of the Lendlease empire.

The recent expansion into originating US projects at the initial development stage offers potentially larger financial rewards, such as the company's Barangaroo development on Sydney Harbour.

Lendlease has active developments in Boston, Chicago and New York.

"We're moving from being a delivery-focused business to much more of an origination business," Hickey says.

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"The board in sending me here wanted to round out Lendlease's activities and bring a much more integrated approach with all the other things Lendlease does around development and investment management."

Lendlease's Manhattan development joint venture partner is local developer Victor Group.

A Chinese business partner, Shokai, has a preferred equity investment of $US100 million. Three banks from Singapore are providing debt financing.

The US accounted for $162 million, or 12 per cent, of Lendlease's total operating EBITDA of $1.4 billion in the 2017 financial year, compared with 79 per cent for Australia, 8 per cent for Europe and 2 per cent for Asia.

The US currently has about 8 per cent of the company's capital allocation, at the lower end of a target range of 5 to 20 per cent.

"The shift to international regions is significant, but I don't want to overstate its importance," McCann said the company's profit result in August.

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"Australia is expected to remain the dominant region for the foreseeable future."

Elsewhere in the US, Lendlease and longstanding business partner, Japan's Softbank, have both injected $US200 million in equity to develop and own telecom infrastructure assets across the US.

The telco joint venture, Lendlease Towers, will seek to develop a portfolio of geographically diverse rooftop and tower assets to capitalise on the explosion in digital data use.

"When you look at what's going to happen with data use across the world and in the US, the rollout of 5G, the internet of everything, driverless cars, the quantum of data that is going to be used is exponential," Hickey says.

"The infrastructure to transport that data needs to be vastly upgraded."

Output: Lendlease is allocating 40-50% of its capital offshore as the Australian property and construction multinational seeks to export its integrated business model abroad. After an aggressive foray into the US that ended in a partial retreat from the market, and the 2008 financial crisis, Lendlease earmarked about 80% of its capital to Australia. Now it's again seeking to expand in the US, focusing on major cities including Boston, Chicago and New York. Lendlease's CEO in the Americas, Denis Hickey, said the company will make sure growth is "slow and measured" and built up with "local people in the marketplace".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Chinese micro-learning industry set for boom
 Every day Huang Wei does a 10-minute economic study course, as she wants to increase her business savvy to engage more farmers in protecting ancient kiln sites.

The ceramic expert has set up an eco-agriculture cooperative called "The Porcelain Farmer" in Jinkeng, a village 8 km east of Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital, in Jiangxi Province.

As sustainable farming is eco-friendly and good for the protection of porcelain kiln sites dating back to the Song Dynasty more than 1,000 years ago, Huang wants to encourage local farmers to grow organic farm produce.

"Using small gaps in my day to learn more about economics, I feel like someone practicing a martial art. Day by day, you become more capable," Huang said.

Self-empowering through online study by making use of small time slots is becoming a trend among young Chinese, as a large number of educational entrepreneurs venture into e-learning.

Purchasers of e-learning programs are expected to more than double from 98 million in 2016 to 188 million by the end of 2017. In 2018, the figure is expected to reach 292 million in China, according to a report from iiMedia Research.

Xue Zhaofeng, a professor from Peking University, has uploaded a 10-minute audio course on economics to his column on iGet, a mobile learning app with 10 million users.

Charging 199 yuan (about 30.5 U.S. dollars) for one year, Xue's column has attracted over 170,000 subscribers within half a year.

Xue said some of the audience listened to this program when they went out to buy breakfast.

Another report released by Alibaba forecasted that the online study market would reach 50 billion yuan by the end of 2017.

Chen Liteng, an analyst from China E-Commerce Research Center, said that the ever-accelerating pace of work and life had made the time for learning more fragmented.

To compete for the audience's time, content providers need to help users learn in a more effective way, by selecting high quality content, according to Chen.

The programs cover a broad sphere of topics from public accountant certificate exams to driving license tests, and have been well received.

Jiakaobaodian, for example, an app aiming to help users pass the driving license test, had been downloaded over 66 million times, according to data from Vivo, a smartphone producer.

"Nowadays, people favor personalized learning more and tend to learn in a flexible way," said Chen Li, vice president of Beijing Normal University.

Analysts attribute the rapid growth of paid online study programs to the country's increasing number of Internet users, convenient mobile payments and government efforts in protecting the copyright of Internet works.

To cater to the needs of online study, China will build a digitalized educational system to provide more personalized education programs, according to Du Zhanyuan, vice minister of China's Ministry of Education.

"Innovations based on artificial intelligence and big data technology as well as smart-teaching methods also boosted the immersive self-learning market," said Xiang Bibo, a technician with an online English learning platform.

Output: Growing numbers of Chinese entrepreneurs are turning to personalised, online micro-courses to fill their knowledge gaps, building an industry said to be worth an estimated CNY50bn ($7.7bn) at the end of 2017, according to a report by Alibaba. The boom has been attributed to convenient mobile payments and the growth of web users, as well as government efforts to protect internet copyright. Chen Liteng, from China E-Commerce Research Center, said content providers needed to tailor high-quality material to users with very limited time or fractured schedules.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
VR, AR could benefit from full-spectrum metalens breakthrough
 This flat metalens is the first single lens that can focus the entire visible spectrum of light -- including white light -- in the same spot and in high resolution. It uses arrays of titanium dioxide nanofins to equally focus wavelengths of light and eliminate chromatic aberration. Credit: Jared Sisler/Harvard SEAS

Metalenses—flat surfaces that use nanostructures to focus light—promise to revolutionize optics by replacing the bulky, curved lenses currently used in optical devices with a simple, flat surface. But, these metalenses have remained limited in the spectrum of light they can focus well. Now a team of researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has developed the first single lens that can focus the entire visible spectrum of light—including white light—in the same spot and in high resolution. This has only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses.

The research is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Focusing the entire visible spectrum and white light - combination of all the colors of the spectrum—is so challenging because each wavelength moves through materials at different speeds. Red wavelengths, for example, will move through glass faster than the blue, so the two colors will reach the same location at different times resulting in different foci. This creates image distortions known as chromatic aberrations.

Cameras and optical instruments use multiple curved lenses of different thicknesses and materials to correct these aberrations, which, of course, adds to the bulk of the device.

"Metalenses have advantages over traditional lenses," says Federico Capasso, the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at SEAS and senior author of the research. "Metalenses are thin, easy to fabricate and cost effective. This breakthrough extends those advantages across the whole visible range of light. This is the next big step."

The Harvard Office of Technology Development (OTD) has protected the intellectual property relating to this project and is exploring commercialization opportunities.

The metalenses developed by Capasso and his team use arrays of titanium dioxide nanofins to equally focus wavelengths of light and eliminate chromatic aberration. Previous research demonstrated that different wavelengths of light could be focused but at different distances by optimizing the shape, width, distance, and height of the nanofins. In this latest design, the researchers created units of paired nanofins that control the speed of different wavelengths of light simultaneously. The paired nanofins control the refractive index on the metasurface and are tuned to result in different time delays for the light passing through different fins, ensuring that all wavelengths reach the focal spot at the same time.

"One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard achromatic lenses."

"Using our achromatic lens, we are able to perform high quality, white light imaging. This brings us one step closer to the goal of incorporating them into common optical devices such as cameras," said Alexander Zhu, co-author of the study.

Next, the researchers aim to scale up the lens, to about 1 cm in diameter. This would open a whole host of new possibilities, such as applications in virtual and augmented reality.

More information: A broadband achromatic metalens for focusing and imaging in the visible, Nature Nanotechnology (2018). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41565-017-0034-6 Journal information: Nature Nanotechnology

Output: Virtual- and augmented-reality (VR and AR) applications could benefit from research that managed for the first time to focus the whole visible spectrum of light onto one spot in high resolution using a single flat metalens. Harvard researchers revealed in Nature Nanotechnology how they used nanofins to overcome the different wavelengths of each colour of light to ensure they hit the same focal point at the same time. Metalenses, which are cheap and easy to make, could be used in cameras and other optical devices.


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Input:
KUKA arm robot DJ performs in Prague nightclub
 A club in Prague named Karlovy Lazne has recently introduced a robot DJ that alternates with a human to program music for the dance floor throughout the night, as reported by Reuters. Now in rotation for a few weeks, the robot has software that allows it to choose songs, select CDs from a rack, insert them into CDJs, and then play the songs. It also has some pretty sweet dance moves.

The club employed a robotics firm to have the robot specifically made for DJing. It’s an adaptation of a KUKA arm primarily used in the automotive industry. Rigged with software that helps it choose songs, the robot’s pincers grab CDs, and then show off some moves before placing them in one of the two CDJs in front of it. It’s unclear from the article if the software helps the robot consider songs based on things like key, BPM, genre, or other factors that would determine how well two tracks might sound together. It’s also unclear if the robot does more complex skills, like adjusting the speed of a song, EQing, or conducting the actual transition between songs. It is shown in the video hovering above knobs on the mixer and appearing to tap buttons on the CDJs, suggesting it does conduct some of these finer movements. We have reached out to Karlovy Lazne for details.

KUKA arms have a history of being adapted for musical purposes. A 2009 school project shows one attempting DJ movements with vinyl, and another 2009 video shows one selecting and rotating records on turntables to create ghostly scratching sounds. There was also this Nigel Standford music video from 2017, but it turned out to be sort of a party trick — the robots were doing the movements, but didn’t produce any of the music.

Output: Clubbers at Prague nightclub Karlovy Lazne have been dancing the night away to music chosen by a robot DJ, according to Reuters. The club's owners asked a robotics firm to repurpose a KUKA arm, previously used in car manufacturing, fitting it with software that allowed it to choose and change CDs, as well as dance. The robot, which alternates with a human DJ every hour, has been in service for several weeks.