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Apple Macs increasingly targeted by malware attacks
 Malwarebytes has warned Apple Mac users that the days of their devices being relatively safe from malware are long over.

The security specialist analysed data from millions of its users worldwide and it discovered that Mac and Android ransomware and malware attacks have risen significantly in the past year.

Indeed, Malwarebytes found that more Mac malware had been detected in Q2 2017 than in all of 2016.

Mac Malware

According to the security vendor, the “rapidly rising rates of malware” targetting Mac devices should disperse the popular belief that Macs are impenetrable.

It cited the recent outbreak of the FruitFly surveillance malware as an example.

Fruitfly creates a backdoor that allows attackers to take screen captures and remotely control the Mac system.

“More malware families have emerged in 2017 than in any other previous year – and we’re only in August,” warned Malwarebytes. In fact, more new malware families have appeared this year than in any other previous year in Mac history.

To this end, Malwarebytes has introduced ‘Malwarebytes for Mac‘, which offers real-time protection for Mac users to automatically block and remove cyber threats, including malware, adware and potentially unwanted programs.

“We carefully designed Malwarebytes for Mac to protect all Mac users from cyber threats and potentially unwanted programs so that they can feel safe and have a Mac that performs like it should,” explained Marcin Kleczynski, CEO, Malwarebytes.

“Antivirus and security awareness is no longer enough defence for Mac users, the growth of Mac malware has made that very clear. We hope that more and more Mac users will come to this realisation and begin to seek out additional defences.”

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Malwarebytes for Mac includes a real-time anti-malware protection scanner that allows for “ultra-fast proactive scanning for malware and spyware in real-time, in addition to flagging potentially unwanted programs and adware.”

And Malwarebytes for Mac can either completely replace an existing antivirus solutions or can run alongside any antivirus program. It also boasts a small system footprint that utilises minimal system resources to ensure that Macs run smoothly.

“Mac threats are not taken seriously enough in the security community today,” added Thomas Reed, Director of Mac and Mobile, Malwarebytes. “Adware and potentially unwanted programs are becoming a major problem for Mac users. Some very popular apps have been known to carry these threats and despite protections in place, the App Store is not immune to these threats.

“For example, the recent Proton Remote Access Trojan that plagued Mac users fooled many experienced, security-minded people who became infected. This perpetuates a crucial lesson that, despite what many Mac users think, they are not safe even if they are careful about what they download.

“Being security-savvy is no longer enough, all Mac users need dedicated protection against malware, adware and potentially unwanted programs.”

Android Security

There was equally grim news for those in the Android community, as ransomware here increased more than 100 percent between Q1 and Q2 2017. Indeed, Malwarebytes data showed that incidences of Android malware increased more than five percent since the start of the year.

And to make matters worse, incidents of Android ransomware increased 138 percent in Q2 2017 (April to May) over Q1 (January to March) 2017. Malwarebytes found that Jisut, SLocker and Koler ransomware collectively accounted for nearly 95 percent of these detections.

And although Android ransomware is growing at this rapid pace, Trojans and potentially unwanted programs still remain the biggest headaches for Android users.

Android Trojans accounted for more than 48 percent of all Android malware detections in the first half of 2017 and potentially unwanted programs accounted for 47 percent of all detections.

Quiz: Do you know all about security in 2017?

Output: Security specialist Malwarebytes has warned of a rapid rise in malware targeting Mac devices after analysing data from millions of its users worldwide. According to the security vendor, the “rapidly rising rates of malware” targeting Apple devices should disperse the popular belief that Macs can't be hacked. “Antivirus and security awareness is no longer enough defence for Mac users… We hope that more and more Mac users will come to this realisation and begin to seek out additional defences,” commented Marcin Kleczynski, the CEO of Malwarebytes.


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Research riches of $1.35bn p.a. may be up for grabs post Mifid II
 MiFID II’s unbundling rules will see brokers battle to capture a share of the $1.35 billion a year equity research and advisory market in Europe, according to research.

Greenwich Associates’ latest study revealed European institutional equity investors generated roughly $2.9 billion in cash equity commissions for the 12 months ended Q2 this year.

Of the $2.9 billion, Greenwich estimated 46% was used to compensate brokers and other providers for equity research and advisory services.

This suggests once services are unbundled as required by MiFID II, brokers will find $1.35 billion worth of the equity research cash up for grabs.

Greenwich Associates consultant Satnam Sohal, explained capturing a share of that revenue is more important than ever for brokers, “since both the total amount of commissions generated on European equity trades and the proportion of that total used for research are shrinking”.

Market participants have implied MiFID II’s unbundling requirements will see brokers forced to specialise in either research or trade execution.

A panel at this year’s TradeTech event agreed the move will have a positive impact on the industry as brokers will increasingly demonstrate trade performance and invest specifically in those services.

The head of investment services at Man Group, Alison Hollingshead, told delegates: “You need to be an expert in either research or execution because brokers will no longer be paid for both services.

“You can’t be trading with people to pay for their research anymore, there must be a clear differentiation.”

Output: Greenwich Associates has valued the equity research and advisory market in Europe at about $1.35bn p.a., giving an indication of the sums at stake when Mifid II regulations force companies to break down the cost of analysis in their charges from next year. The company based its estimate on calculations it said showed institutional investors pulled in around $2.9bn in cash equity investment commissions in the year ended 30 June 2017, 46% of which would have been accounted for by research and advisory services.


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Petya attack highlights gaps in transport industry cyber coverage
 A TNT truck travels a highway. The company recently was hacked. (Graham Richardson/Plymouth Transit)

The cyberattack that befell FedEx Corp.’s TNT Express unit earlier this summer highlights an ever-increasing risk that many trucking fleets are up against — and which may not be insured under the typical coverages they carry, insurance industry experts say.

Never was this clearer than in the June cyberattack that hit TNT, a European parcel carrier that FedEx has owned since last year. TNT fell victim to the so-called “Petya” attack, which FedEx said involved the spread of an information technology virus through a tax software product in Ukraine, one place where TNT operates. And the company, by FedEx’s admission, was unprotected.

“We do not have cyber or other insurance in place that covers this attack,” FedEx said in a statement July 17. “We are still evaluating the financial impact of the attack, but it is likely that it will be material.”

As it turns out, FedEx is not alone, said Dan Cook, principal and practice leader at insurance broker TrueNorth Cos., adding that most fleets carry standard coverages to include auto liability, general liability, cargo, crime and workers’ compensation. “Some may also secure crime coverage, to include computer fraud and funds transfer coverage,” he said, but he added that these coverages generally are not intended to provide defense costs and/or indemnity payments if a cyberbreach or malware attack occurs.

Born

In a malware or ransomware attack, the goal of a hacker is to shut down a motor carrier’s operating system to extort a payment either to turn the system back on or to prevent the hacker from releasing any personally identifiable information on employees, drivers or clients, Cook said. “This is essentially what was attempted at FedEx-TNT.”

Cyberattacks also are not covered under traditional business interruption insurance in property policies, said Michael Born, vice president and account executive in the cybertechnology practice at insurance broker Lockton Cos.

Business interruption insurance covers specific perils such as wind, fire, tornadoes and floods — perils that would physically affect a company’s operations, Born said.

Lopilato

Michelle Lopilato, director of cyber and technology solutions at insurance broker Hub International, said that the rise and success of ransomware such as Petya “has provided malicious actors the ability to monetize data that is not protected, sensitive and confidential.”

For trucking companies, many of which are relying more and more on their computer systems to manage the transportation of goods, the data could include information on where a driver must go to pick up the next load. That is a risk not only to the carrier’s business but to the shipper’s business as well, Born noted. “Every company that has a computer system has cyberexposure,” he said.

One fleet executive, however, said he doesn’t see the value in buying cybercoverage because this type of risk at his fleet is very low.

“Cybersecurity is different,” said James Burg, president and CEO of James Burg Trucking Co., noting that such coverage is for when somebody breaks into a system to steal another person’s information. “We don’t do e-commerce, so we don’t keep anybody’s information.”

Fleets Need Security Peace of Mind

Other fleets may need the coverage because they may have sensitive information about their customers and drivers on their servers that could be hacked, said Burg, who also is chairman of American Trucking Associations’ Insurance Task Force.

But he does not have coverage for someone stealing his employees’ files “because I don’t keep it on my server. It’s not there for them to find. They can’t get through my server into a filing cabinet.”

Burg said he does have business interruption coverage and that cyberinsurance hasn’t been raised as an agenda item on the task force.

Cyberinsurance is a growing area of focus for some insurers, Born said, noting it’s among the newer types of coverage.

Policies for cyberbreach and ransomware or malware attacks “continue to evolve, and they are significantly better than even policies of 18 months ago,” Cook said. If fleets are relying on an older policy form, for example, “they are likely not covered for cyberextortion or many of the new cybercrime coverages needed.”

Sean Donahue, assistant vice president and underwriter at XL Catlin, a top writer of cyberinsurance, said that XL Catlin created a stand-alone product for “specific cyber-related incidents and coverages.” It provides business interruption insurance related to a hacking event, he said, noting the catalyst for coverage would be “malicious software.”

XL’s cyberinsurance policy provides coverage for data protection and privacy risks, both for third-party claims and first-party mitigation costs after a technology or cyberevent, Donahue said.

With Cyberpolicies, One Size Does Not Fit All

Cyberpolicies tend to have various insuring agreements. Business interruption due to a hacking event is part of an insuring agreement under XL’s cyberpolicy as a whole, Donahue said. These agreements also offer coverage for data restoration, cyberextortion and crisis management, such as a company’s public relations efforts after a cyberattack, he said.

Lopilato said many fleets should be concerned about cyberrisk losses because they rely on logistics networks to ensure management of their supply chain.

“Hacking, malicious software, ransomware and even system failures can target and affect the logistics network and cause a disruption to business operations, resulting in a loss of income, extra expenses paid to get the logistics network up and running again and costs associated with additional time to restore, recollect or re-create lost, stolen or corrupted data assets,” she said.

However, cybercoverage, and the terms used on each insurer’s form, can vary, Lopilato said. In addition, cyberrisk policies “can contain exclusions for war and terrorism.”

Cyberpolicies must be customized to a motor carrier’s risks, the experts said.

“Fleets should understand the distinction between first- and third-party claims and assess their exposure based upon the number of records they have, their own internal IT platform and backup or disaster recovery plan, and then work to customize their coverage accordingly,” TrueNorth’s Cook said.

Memphis-based FedEx said that the June cyberattack caused lost revenue and higher costs for Netherlands-based TNT, which FedEx bought for $4.8 billion last year.

“Although we cannot currently quantify the amounts, we have experienced loss of revenue due to decreased volumes at TNT and incremental costs associated with the implementation of contingency plans and the remediation of affected systems,” the company said in the statement.

TNT Facilities Recovering — Gradually

FedEx said in July that all TNT facilities were running, but many tasks were being performed manually and customers were experiencing delays.

The insurance coverages that would apply to the TNT cyberattack, XL Catlin’s Donahue said, are business interruption, data restoration and forensics “due to the type of ransomware that attacked them and the outages caused by that ransomware.”

He added that the incident at TNT severely slowed down the processing of packages and shipments. From a business interruption standpoint, that is a third-party exposure because if they’re being relied upon to deliver shipments in a timely manner and are unable to, “that potentially opens them up to liability.”

FedEx also noted in its July statement, “While TNT operations and communications were significantly affected, no data breach or data loss to third parties is known to have occurred.”

FedEx had no additional comment beyond the July statement, a representative told Transport Topics on Aug. 16.

Output: Most logistics companies are not insured against cyber attacks, said Dan Cook, principal and practice leader at insurance broker TrueNorth. Despite the disruption the Petya ransomware attack caused Fedex's TNT Express in June, crime and fraud coverage held by haulage companies generally doesn't provide for defence costs and indemnity payments that arise from a malware attack. Fleets should customise their coverage in line with the number of records they hold and their existing data backup and recovery plan, said Cook.


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Singapore's NTUC claims first with road accident-reporting app
 SINGAPORE - NTUC Income unveiled on Wednesday (Aug 16) what it says is an industry-first - a mobile application (app) for its motor insurance policyholders to file an accident report remotely.

The app will be useful to those who may be hard-pressed for time to file the report in person within 24 hours of an accident as required, said Income.

Motorists in Singapore must do so or risk having their no-claim discount penalised upon renewal of their motor insurance.

With the app, motorists can connect to Income's 24/7 accident response team, Orange Force, to seek assistance at the accident scene.

The app also guides users step by step through the accident-reporting process, indicating clearly the specific details required for the submission.

"Increasingly, customers are embarking on mobile-first lifestyles... It is, thus, important for Income to stay relevant to our customers and to steer ahead as Singapore's leading digital insurer," said Mr Pui Phusangmook, Income's general manager for general insurance and group business.

Through the app, users are required first to verify the date, time and location of the accident. They are then asked to submit a series of photographs, which include:

Those of the accident scene by capturing the vehicles involved in the surrounding areas;

Those that show the damage to user's own vehicle, including the damaged parts and licence plate; and

Those that show the damage to the other vehicle or property, including damaged parts and licence plate.

The photographs submitted through the app will be watermarked with the time, date and location stamp of the accident in Income's system to authenticate the incident and to legitimise the accident report.

Income said that to enhance road safety and to mitigate the stress faced by motorists at the accident scene, users of the app can file the remaining information, such as details of the drivers (such as name, NRIC number and mobile number) and other passengers or witnesses where applicable, away from the accident scene.

Upon successful submission of the accident report, a reference number will be given to the user via the app and a copy of the accident report e-mailed to the user by the next working day.

The app cannot be used to report accidents where motorists or passengers have sustained injuries. In such cases, policyholders should make a police report and go in person to one of Income's accident reporting centres.

Also, policyholders who want to make an "Own Damage or Third Party" claim upon submission of the accident report will need to bring a copy of the accident report to Income's motor service centre or any of its workshops.

Android phone users can download the app, called Accident Reporting by Income, from the Google Play Store. The iOS version will be available next month.

Output: Singaporean insurance cooperative NTUC Income has launched what it claims is an industry first - a mobile app for its motor insurance policyholders to file an accident report remotely, provided no injuries are sustained in the accident. The app is expected to appeal to time-limited and mobile-first-orientated policyholders that might find it difficult to file a report in person within 24 hours, as is required in Singapore to preserve no-claims discounts. It also allows motorists to connect to Income's accident response team to seek assistance.


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London landlords leaving the mainstream rental market for Airbnb
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An increasing number of rental properties in London are being used for short-term holiday lets using websites such as Airbnb and are no longer available for long-term renting.

The claim comes from the Residential Landlords Association which says there has been a 75% increase in the number of multi-listings on Airbnb between February 2016 and March 2017.

Multi-listings are classed as individuals advertising more than one property on Airbnb.

Further evidence of the change in letting comes from the analysis showing that the number of whole properties and rooms advertised on Airbnb in London available for more than 90 nights a year increased by 23% between February 2016 and March 2017.

This is despite Airbnb launching a crackdown to better enforce the 90-day rule at the start of the year.

A UK-wide survey by the RLA of almost 1,500 landlords has found that 7% reported that they have now started to offer properties as holiday/short-term lets through Airbnb or a similar platform.

These are properties that they would have previously been let longer term in the private rented sector.

The RLA says this could mean some 134,400 private rented homes have moved from the traditional private rental market to holiday or short-let accommodation.

Of those landlords who have moved over to short-term letting, 36% report this is because of the changes to mortgage interest relief which mean landlords being taxed on their income instead of their profit, and tax relief only being available at the basic rate.

One landlord who has made the move to holiday lets commented: “I didn’t want to do this, but the tax changes have forced me down this route.

“Selling is not an option due to CGT, and this iniquitous tax which is effectively retrospective is unjust in that my buy-to-lets are a business, just like any other. There will be fewer properties available to rent as a result.”

The RLA is calling on the Government to end what it calls the “perverse incentive” landlords have to move to holiday lets by scrapping the mortgage interest relief changes.

RLA policy director David Smith said: “With London and the country as a whole in desperate need of new homes to rent in the long term, it is crazy that recent tax changes encourage landlords to move to the short-term holiday let market.

“By skewing the market, Government policy will serve only to hit the hardest those young people and families who most need a growing private rented sector to meet their needs.”

Change in number of Airbnb multi-listings between February 2016 and March 2017 February 2016 June 2016 March 2017 % change (February 16 – March 17) Entire home/apartment listings 6,934 9,305 11,595 +67% Private room listings 5,576 7,978 10,342 +85% Shared room listings 234 310 411 +75% TOTAL 12,744 17,593 22,348 +75%

Output: A rising number of properties in London are disappearing from the mainstream rental market as landlords are attracted to Airbnb. Research by the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) suggests a 75% increase in the number of multi-listings, and a 23% rise in the number of whole properties and rooms advertised for more than 90 nights, on Airbnb London between February 2016 and March 2017. The RLA has called on the Government to end what it calls the “perverse incentive” landlords have to move to holiday lets by scrapping mortgage interest relief changes.


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Money app Revolut to offer cryptocurrency
 Revolut has announced that it is soon to release phase one of its cryptocurrency offering to its customers.

The London-based start-up has claimed that it has received a lot of feedback on its banking platform, with the possible introduction of cryptocurrencies –digital currency – repeatedly cropping up.

The alternative bank is now preparing to introduce the first phase of its cryptocurrency offering on to its platform in the next few weeks.

[caption id="attachment_2194" align="alignnone" width="350"] The Revolut app and different cryptocurrencies[/caption]

In phase one, Revolut customers will have the opportunity to buy, sell, send and spend bitcoin, ether and litecoin.

Customers will be able to instantly exchange any of Revolut's 16 fiat currencies (currency that is legal tender and whose value is backed by the government) into crypto and back at the touch of a button.

The value of the cryptocurrency will be stored in the customer's Revolut wallet in exactly the same way as the fiat currencies.

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Initially, there will be two key limitations with Revolut's offering, which are:

• No external loads in crypto?—?you can, however, continue to instantly top-up via your debit/credit card and exchange into crypto.

• No external transfers in crypto?—?you can instantly send crypto to your peers on Revolut, but your balance will be first converted into fiat if you wish to transfer the balance externally.

Revolut hopes to support external transfer in the near future.

“Internally at Revolut, we've always been fascinated by the possibilities of bitcoin itself, and cryptocurrencies in general,” said Edward Cooper, chief mobile officer at Revolut.

“As early as 2015, we had actually prototyped several bitcoin solutions.

“The challenge in implementing crypto was not so much a technical challenge, but one of dealing with how bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are perceived in the financial space, and how this affects partner relationships.

“We developed our approach to bitcoin and crypto in order to make sure that none of our partners are exposed in any way to the risks traditionally associated with crypto, and to increase awareness and usage among normal users, not just crypto enthusiasts.”

Cryptocurrency is an online currency that is decentralised (not controlled by the government or authority).

Cryptocurrencies are built on top of a technological layer more commonly known as the blockchain – a distributed public ledger which securely records and facilitates irreversible peer-to-peer transactions which cannot be (easily) amended.

Output: Online banking start-up Revolut will begin supporting cryptocurrency within the next few weeks. The platform will begin by adding bitcoin, ether and litecoin to the 16 currencies currently available. Customers will be able to convert money instantly into the digital currencies and complete transactions with them. External balance transfers will not initially be possible, although the company expects to introduce this function in the near future.


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CRISPR Therapeutics to offer cancer treatment tests in hospital
 A Promising Future

In a recent development, CRISPR Therapeutics, the subsidiary of CRISPR AG, has signed onto a two-year research collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), to research the use of CRISPR/Cas9 in T cell cancer therapies.

This comes on the heels of a seemingly-endless list of advances. Two weeks ago, the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool successfully removed genetic disorders from human embryos and additionally, successfully extracted HIV from a living organism. It was used to develop semi-synthetic organisms, targeted the "command center" of cancer, and even coerced superbugs to kill themselves on the genetic level.

Image Credit: وب گردی

Fighting Cancer With Gene Editing

The application of CRISPR/Cas9 to T cell therapies is expected to address unmet needs in hematologic and solid tumors, masses which from the cells are typically extracted and 'programmed' to recognize and attach to. Leading the scientific work at MGH is the director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program, Marcela V. Maus, MD, Ph.D. Anticipating the benefits of the collaboration, head of Immuno-oncology Research and Translation at CRISPR Therapeutics, Jon Terrett, Ph.D., told GlobeNewswire:

It is becoming increasingly clear that CRISPR/Cas9 can play a major role in enabling the next generation of T cell therapies in oncology. By combining our gene editing capabilities with Dr. Maus’ pioneering expertise in T cell therapy, we hope to accelerate our progress toward making these therapies a reality for patients suffering from cancer.

This partnership is CRISPR Therapeutics' latest step toward advancing immuno-oncology. Terrett was brought aboard in February of this year as the company's leader in this regard.

Maus added:

We have already seen the profound benefit that T cell therapies can have for certain patients with a specific set of tumor types. Now the potential with gene editing, and specifically CRISPR/Cas9, exists to create improved versions of these cells that may work for a wider variety of patients with a more diverse set of tumor types. I’m glad to see the commitment CRISPR Therapeutics is making to this area, and am excited to collaborate with them.

Expect to see CRISPR/Cas9 expand its applications to include a more diverse spectrum of tumor types and molecular targets, as the revolutionary medical technology carries on.

Output: CRISPR Therapeutics will collaborate with Massachusetts General Hospital to research the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool in T cell cancer therapy. Its application will address deficiencies in hematologic and solid tumours which T cells commonly attach to. By creating improved versions of these cells that work for a variety of patients and tumour types, CRISPR intends to make gene editing for T cell cancer therapies a standard practice, said Jon Terrett, head of Immuno-oncology Research and Translation at CRISPR.


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High-performance AI hardware Brainwave unveiled by Microsoft
 Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11-12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More

Microsoft made a splash in the world of dedicated AI hardware today when it unveiled a new system for doing high-speed, low-latency serving of machine learning models. The company showed off a new system called Brainwave that will allow developers to deploy machine learning models onto programmable silicon and achieve high performance beyond what they’d be able to get from a CPU or GPU.

Researchers at the Hot Chips conference in Cupertino, California showed a Gated Recurrent Unit model running on Intel’s new Stratix 10 field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip at a speed of 39.5 teraflops, without batching operations at all. The lack of batching means that it’s possible for the hardware to handle requests as they come in, providing real-time insights for machine learning systems.

The model that Microsoft chose is several times larger than convolutional neural networks like Alexnet and Resnet-50, which other companies have used to benchmark their own hardware.

Providing low-latency insights is important for deploying machine learning systems at scale. Users don’t want to wait long for their apps to respond.

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“We call it real-time AI because the idea here is that you send in a request, you want the answer back,” said Doug Burger, a distinguished engineer with Microsoft Research. “If it’s a video stream, if it’s a conversation, if it’s looking for intruders, anomaly detection, all the things where you care about interaction and quick results, you want those in real time,” he said.

However, some previously published results on hardware-accelerated machine learning have focused on results that optimize for throughput at the cost of latency. In Burger’s view, more people should ask how a machine learning accelerator can perform without bundling requests into a batch and processing them all at once.

“All of the numbers [other] people are throwing around are juiced,” he said.

Microsoft is using Brainwave across the army of FPGAs it has installed in its data centers. According to Burger, Brainwave will allow Microsoft services to more rapidly support artificial intelligence features. In addition, the company is working to make Brainwave available to third-party customers through its Azure cloud platform.

FPGAs let programmers configure hardware optimized to execute particular functions prior to runtime, like doing the math necessary to serve insights from neural networks. Microsoft has deployed hundreds of thousands of FPGAs in its data centers on boards that are slotted into servers and connected to the network.

Brainwave loads a trained machine learning model into FPGA hardware’s memory that stays there throughout the lifetime of a machine learning service. That hardware can then be used to compute whatever insights the model is designed to generate, such as a predicted string of text. In the event that a model is too big to run on a single FPGA, software deploys and executes it across multiple hardware boards.

Microsoft isn’t the only company investing in hardware that’s supposed to accelerate machine learning. Google announced the second revision of its Tensor Processing Unit — a dedicated chip for machine learning training and serving — earlier this year. There are also a slew of startups building dedicated hardware accelerators for use with machine learning.

One of the common criticisms of FPGAs is that they are less fast or less efficient than chips made specifically to execute machine learning operations. Burger said that this performance milestone should show that the programmable hardware can deliver high performance as well.

In addition, the performance displayed today is running on brand new hardware, and Burger said that there’s room for Intel and Microsoft to further optimize both the hardware’s performance and Brainwave’s use of it. With further performance improvements, it should be possible for Microsoft to hit 90 teraflops with the Intel Stratix 10.

Right now, Brainwave supports trained models created using Microsoft’s CNTK framework and Google’s TensorFlow framework. Burger said that the team is working on making it compatible with other tools like Caffe. Microsoft hasn’t given a roadmap for when it will make Brainwave available to its customers, but is working towards a future when third parties would be able to bring any trained model and run it on Brainwave.

Output: Microsoft has unveiled a system called Brainwave at the Hot Chips conference in Cupertino, California that will enable the deployment of machine-learning models that achieve higher performance than they would on CPUs or GPUs. The key to Brainwave is its lack of batching. Instructions are handled by the hardware as they arrive, in real time, allowing for very low latency and very fast return of requests such as a predictive interpretation of a voice command or video stream. The model was demonstrated running at 39.5 teraflops using an Intel field programmable gate array chip.


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New cancer drug surpasses highest price to date
 Adapted from scanning electron micrograph of cytotoxic T cells attacking a cancer cell (white). Photo via cdc.gov

When doctors talk about a new leukemia drug from Novartis, they ooze enthusiasm, using words like "breakthrough," "revolutionary" and "a watershed moment."

But when they think about how much the therapy is likely to cost, their tone turns alarmist.

"It's going to cost a fortune," said Dr. Ivan Borrello at Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore.

[Also: Price explosion for heart drugs cost hospitals millions]

"From what we're hearing, this will be a quantum leap more expensive than other cancer drugs," said Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Switzerland-based Novartis hasn't announced a price for the medicine, but British health authorities have said a price of $649,000 for a one-time treatment would be justified given the significant benefits.

The cancer therapy was unanimously approved by a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee in July, and its approval seems all but certain.

[Also: Insurers, Medicaid's 'proof of progress' and pricing require more guidance from policymakers]

The treatment, CTL019, belongs to a new class of medications called CAR T-cell therapies, which involve harvesting patients' immune cells and genetically altering them to kill cancer. It's been tested in patients whose leukemia has relapsed in spite of the best chemotherapy or a bone-marrow transplant.

The prognosis for these patients is normally bleak. But in a clinical trial, 83 percent of those treated with CAR T-cell therapy -- described as a "living drug" because it derives from a patient's own cells -- have gone into remission.

CAR T cells have been successful only in a limited number of cancers, however, and are being suggested for use as a last resort when all else has failed. As a result, only a few hundred patients a year would be eligible for them, at least initially, said Dr. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.

[Also: Despite providers posting prices, patients still not shopping around for services]

The FDA is scheduled to decide on approval by Oct. 3. The agency is also considering a CAR T-cell therapy from Kite Pharma.

A third company, Juno Therapeutics, halted the development of one its CAR T-cell therapies after five patients died from complications of the treatment.

Rather than wait for Novartis to announce a price, an advocacy group called Patients for Affordable Drugs has launched a pre-emptive strike, asking to meet with company officials to discuss a "fair" price for the therapy. The Novartis drug has the potential to be one of the most expensive drugs ever sold, said David Mitchell, the patients group's president, who has been treated for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, since 2010. (The Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which provides some funding for Kaiser Health News, supports Patients for Affordable Drugs.)

"Many people with cancer look forward with great hope to the potential of your new drug," Mitchell wrote in a letter to Novartis. "But drugs don't work if patients can't afford them."

Cancer drugs today routinely cost more than $100,000 a year. A combination therapy for melanoma sells for $250,000. Such prices are particularly outrageous, given that taxpayers fund many drugs' early research, Mitchell said.

The federal government spent more than $200 million over two decades to support the basic research into CAR T-cell therapy, long before Novartis bought the rights.

The patients group urged Novartis to charge no more for the drug in the U.S. than in other developed countries.

Novartis has agreed to meet with the patients group. In a statement, Novartis said the company is "carefully considering the appropriate price for CTL019, taking into consideration the value that this treatment represents for patients, society and the healthcare system, both near-term and long-term."

Novartis made a significant investment in CAR T-cell therapy, according to the statement.

"We employ hundreds of people around the world who work on CAR-Ts, we are conducting ongoing U.S. and global clinical trials, and have developed a sophisticated, FDA-validated manufacturing site and process for this personalized therapy."

Soaring prices for cancer drugs have led many patients to cut back on treatment or skip pills, a recent Kaiser Health News analysis showed.

The effect of CAR T-cell therapies on overall health costs would initially be relatively small, because it would be used by relatively few people, Lichtenfeld said.

Health systems and insurers may struggle to pay for the treatment, however, if the FDA approves it for wider use, Lichtenfeld said. Researchers are studying CAR T-cells in a number of cancers. So far, the technology seems more effective in blood cancers, such as leukemias and lymphomas.

Hidden costs could further add to patients' financial burdens, Borrello said.

Beyond the cost of the procedure, patients would need to pay for traditional chemotherapy, which is given before CAR T cell therapy to improve its odds of success. They would also have to foot the bill for travel and lodging to one of the 30 to 35 hospitals in the country equipped to provide the high-tech treatment, said Dr. Prakash Satwani, a pediatric hematologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, which plans to offer the therapy.

Because patients can develop life-threatening side effects weeks after the procedure, doctors will ask patients to stay within two hours of the hospital for up to a month. In New York, even budget hotels cost more than $200 a night -- an expense not typically covered by insurance. Patients who develop a dangerous complication, in which the immune system overreacts and attacks vital organs, might need coverage for emergency room care, as well as lengthy stays in the intensive care unit, Satwani said.

Doctors don't yet know what the full range of long-term side effects will be. CAR T-cell therapies can damage healthy immune cells, including the cells that produce the antibodies that fight disease. Some patients will need long-term treatments with a product called intravenous immunoglobulin, which provides the antibodies that patients need to prevent infection, Lichtenfeld said.

Saltz, an oncologist who has long spoken out about high drug prices, said he applauded the patients group's efforts. But he said he doubts their efforts will persuade Novartis to set a reasonably affordable price.

"I'm not optimistic that this will have much effect on the company," said Saltz. "There's no market pressure for the company to respond to."

High drug prices don't just hurt patients, Saltz said. They also drive up insurance premiums for everyone.

"They affect each and every one of us," he said, "because these costs will be paid by anyone who has any kind of insurance coverage."

KHN's coverage of prescription drug development, costs and pricing is supported in part by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

Output: When doctors talk about a new leukemia drug from Novartis, they ooze enthusiasm, using words like "breakthrough," "revolutionary" and "a watershed moment." But when they think about how much the therapy is likely to cost, their tone turns alarmist.


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To Ensure The Doctor Is Always In, New Panel Tackles Health Worker Shortage
 About Capitol Desk Capitol Desk delivers the latest in health care policy and politics from Sacramento and around the state. Have an idea? Let us know.

Health and education leaders across California have joined forces with business and labor leaders to address workforce shortages in health care. The new group aims to create a blueprint for policymakers.

The California Future Health Workforce Commission, unveiled Wednesday, includes two dozen representatives from businesses, organized labor, schools and hospitals. It will meet throughout the year to discuss the state’s current and future health staffing needs and suggest ways to meet them. Its members hope their findings will lead to new policies and greater investment in training health care professionals. They also hope their recommendations will help other states grappling with similar problems.

Ensuring adequate health care staffing is increasingly important because more Californians are insured and schools cannot produce physicians, nurses and other providers fast enough to serve them, said Jeff Oxendine, a dean at the University of California-Berkeley’s School of Public Health and co-director of the commission.

A lack of qualified professionals can also drive health care costs higher by heightening the demand for their services.

The commission plans to focus on three areas: primary care, mental health and the aging population.

“We have a greater demand for health services now,” Oxendine said. “With the aging, increased diversity and the growth of the population, that is only going to put more strain on the system.”

California’s health care staffing shortages are well documented and projected to widen as the population grows and physicians retire. The state will lack about 4,700 primary care doctors by 2025, according to a recent report by the Healthforce Center at University of California-San Francisco. The Central Valley, Central Coast and southern border areas will be hardest hit, according to the report.

To ease the shortage of primary care physicians, for example, medical schools could accelerate training so students could graduate faster. To help seniors age in their communities rather than in nursing homes, the state could ensure that home care workers earn more than the current average of about $11 an hour.

“Those who provide this kind of care are for the most part paid a wage that doesn’t particularly command long-term job loyalty,” said Kevin Barnett, senior investigator at the Public Health Institute and co-director of the commission. “Looking at the demographics, we have to come to terms very quickly with that.”

Barnett also cited a growing need for more people to work outside the clinical setting, helping patients with housing, food, transportation and other services that can affect their health.

Many areas, particularly in rural parts of the state, also do not have enough psychiatrists and other behavioral health providers to serve their communities. That creates a burden for patients who may have to travel long distances for mental health care or substance abuse treatment.

“We still have a ways to go to ensure timely access to quality [behavioral health] services, particularly for our Medicaid populations,” Barnett said.

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In addition, the commission plans to address the lack of diversity among health workers. Latinos make up nearly 40 percent of the population but only 7 percent of doctors and 8 percent of nurses are Latino, according to the Medical Board of California.

Informing young people from underserved areas about health careers and providing opportunities to pursue them could help with recruitment and retention of a more diverse workforce, Oxendine said.

Health employers consider workforce sufficiency to be a “business imperative,” Oxendine said. Increased competition for a shrinking pool of medical professionals drives up costs, he said.

One of the commissioners, physician Hector Flores, said one of his priorities is to examine whether health care workers can provide services that are better, faster and cheaper. One way to do that could be to have more community health workers and medical assistants working alongside doctors and nurse practitioners, he said.

“Team-based care is not only better and friendlier for patients, but it also reduces costs overall,” said Flores, chairman of the family practice department at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles.

University of California president Janet Napolitano and Dignity Health president Lloyd Dean will co-chair the commission, which is scheduled to hold its first meeting next month and plans to issue research and recommendations throughout the year for state legislators, schools, health care employers and others.

Four organizations are funding the project: The California Endowment, California Health Care Foundation, The California Wellness Foundation and The Blue Shield of California Foundation. (Kaiser Health News, which produces California Healthline, has received support from each of these organizations.)

This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Output: Health and education leaders across California have joined forces with business and labor leaders to address workforce shortages in health care. The new group aims to create a blueprint for policymakers.


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Success Strategies for Managing Risk-Based Contracts
 Only 23% of net patient revenue comes from value-based payments. In three years, that that is expected to more than double to 48%. Managing financial risk is a must for healthcare organizations.

With the shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment on the upswing, most finance leaders in the healthcare provider industry are focused on adopting and operating risk-based reimbursement models for medical services. Providers must master essential competencies: assessing risk in patient populations and risk-based payment models, and controlling clinical risk through patient engagement strategies.

A May 2017 HealthLeaders Intelligence Report on Value-Based Readiness surveyed more than 150 providers on their current mix of fee-for-service and value-based payment methods. Currently, 74% of those providers are dependent on fee-for-service payment, while the remaining 26% depend on value-based payment. In three years, providers say that mix will change to 48% fee-for-service and 52% value-based payment.

The same survey found that 77% of net patient revenue in those provider organizations currently come from fee-for-service, with the remaining 23% being derived from value-based payment. In three years, those sources are expected to change to 52% and 48% respectively.

In a new HealthLeaders Roundtable Report, Success Strategies for Managing Risk-Based Contracts, learn about these strategies and how you might apply them to your own organizations.

FREE Report Download: Managing Risk-Based Contracts

Here are a few vital questions this report explores:

Do your physicians feel like stakeholders during this transition?

Are your ACO risk-sharing arrangements less predictable than arrangements made with commercial insurers?

Why did many pioneer ACOs fall by the wayside, and what lessons do they hold for your organization?

Are you using the correct mix of licensed and non-licensed case managers to most efficiently manage populations under risk-based contracts?

Patients face various risks, and this report describes some of the surprising ways these can impact the success or failure of an organization’s risk-based contract. Participants discuss the importance of risk stratification, allowing them to apply more resources to high-risk patients identified through the risk stratification process.

The panelists describe how data analytics play an important role, but require that organizations go well beyond merely merging claims data with EHR data. Learn how other, non-traditional data can provide the additional insight that could make the difference between success and failure.

Another hot topic: Medicare Advantage, in part because it has several elements in common with Medicare’s new reimbursement system for clinicians under MACRA. In this report, learn about the keys to success in Medicare Advantage contracting.

One element, important to any risk arrangement or global payment contract, is tight specialty referral, to control high specialty costs.

Finally in this report, learn how high-deductible health plans are impacting risk-based contracts.

Participants in this panel include:

Alan Lazaroff MD , co-founder and coding medical director, Physician Health Partners, Denver, CO

Louis Levitt MD , vice president and physician, The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, Bethesda, MD

Rick Lopez MD , senior vice president of population health, Atrius Health, Newton, MA

Kerri Schroeder , senior vice president and credit products executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Seattle, WA

Christopher Cheney (moderator), senior finance editor, HealthLeaders Media

Download the free report today to learn more.

Output: With the shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment on the upswing, most finance leaders in the healthcare provider industry are focused on adopting and operating risk-based reimbursement models for medical services. Providers must master essential competencies: assessing risk in patient populations and risk-based payment models, and controlling clinical risk through patient engagement strategies.


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Two studies support intensive blood pressure control for long-term health, quality of life
 A medical student checking blood pressure using a sphygmomanometer and stethoscope. Image: Wikipedia.

Two studies provide additional support for lowering systolic blood pressure to an intensive goal of 120 mmHg - far below the standard guidelines of 140 mmHg - to reduce the risk of heart disease in high-risk patients with hypertension. The new research shows that intensive blood pressure control is well-tolerated by patients and is cost-effective in terms of health-related quality of life and financial costs to the healthcare system.

Published online in the New England Journal of Medicine on Aug. 24, the findings address ongoing debates that have been simmering since results from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) were first reported nearly two years ago.

"Intensive blood pressure control improves health outcomes in high-risk patients, but it has been unclear whether the approach is cost-effective or if it's well-tolerated by patients compared to standard control," says Adam Bress, Pharm.D., M.S., an assistant professor of Population Health Sciences at University of Utah Health who co-led the first, cost-effectiveness study. Bress explains that treatment would not be sustainable in clinical practice if, for instance, it makes patients feel miserable or comes with an exorbitant price tag.

"Collectively, these results provide strong evidence that intensive control is worth considering in high-risk patients," says Bress.

Listening to Patient Perspectives

On average, patients on intensive therapy often took three to four anti-hypertensive medications to reach the lower blood pressure goal, raising concerns that side effects such as light-headedness, dizziness, or fatigue could make the regimen difficult to tolerate.

"In treating a chronic condition such as hypertension, it is important not only to prevent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality such as heart attacks and stroke, but also to ensure that people under treatment continue to feel well," says the second study's lead author Dan Berlowitz, M.D., Chief of Staff at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Mass., and a professor at Boston University.

The second study examined health-related quality of life by having the 9,631 SPRINT participants - about half of whom were on intensive therapy - answer standard questionnaires assessing their quality of life, physical and mental health, and satisfaction with their care during the clinical trial.

Participants on intensive therapy reported feeling as well as those receiving standard blood pressure control and were equally satisfied with their care. They were also just as likely to maintain their medication regimen, another indication that the treatment was well-tolerated.

A subpopulation considered particularly vulnerable to side effects from intensive therapy, frail participants age 75 and older, also fared well under the intensive approach.

"Frail, older participants began at lower measures of physical and cognitive abilities," explains Mark Supiano, M.D., a co-author on both studies and a geriatrician at University of Utah Health and VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. A total of 2,560 SPRINT participants were in this category.

"Importantly, intensive blood pressure control did not further decrease quality of life measures compared to standard control even in frail, older adults." Additional studies are being carried out to determine the long-term impacts of treatment.

Berlowitz points out that the results don't necessarily mean that everyone with high blood pressure should aim for a goal of less than 120 mmHg.

"In order for patients to have the future health benefits of intensive blood pressure control while maintaining their current health-related quality of life, clinicians and patients should work together to adjust medications as needed while keeping an eye on symptoms," he says.

Counting the Costs of Blood Pressure Control

Another worry plaguing intensive therapy has been that costs of intensive treatment might overwhelm an already strained healthcare system. Reaching the lower blood pressure goal requires more visits to healthcare providers, and additional medications and lab tests—all incurring expenses that add up over time. And if severe medication side effects land a patient in the hospital, that boosts the price tag even higher and could erode quality of life.

The cost-effectiveness study reports that the healthcare costs associated with intensive blood pressure control are balanced by gains in health, making it cost-effective over the course of a lifetime. Intensive control costs less than $50,000 for each quality-adjusted life-year gained, a measure of improvements in length and quality of life.

"The price is one that many experts believe U.S. society is willing to pay, making it a high value investment," says Bress.

A research team led by Bress and Brandon Bellows, Pharm.D., M.S., research assistant professor of Pharmacotherapy at U of U Health, modeled intensive and standard treatment in 10,000 hypothetical SPRINT-eligible patients to arrive at the conclusion. They gauged benefits and costs of intensive therapy in the face of uncertainties encountered in real life by incorporating over 250 variables, including a range of health histories and side effects.

"It's not possible to run clinical trials that last for decades for every type of patient," explains Bellows. "Simulation gives us a way to explore 'what if' scenarios and extrapolate short-term data to estimate a range of expected long-term outcomes."

Within 10 to 20 years after starting intensive treatment, the extra expenses were offset by the cardiac episodes and subsequent treatment costs that were prevented, simulations showed.

"Intensive blood pressure treatment prevents heart disease, but it requires extra effort from patients and health care providers," says co-senior author Andrew Moran, M.D., M.P.H., from Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "Our study showed that it is a very good value if the treatment is sustained long-term."

Co-author Lawrence Fine M.D., Dr.P.H., Chief of the Branch of Clinical Applications and Prevention at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), says that estimates indicate there are at least 17 million Americans who could benefit from lowering their blood pressure.

"This current study is important not just because it shows that the long-term benefits of intensive blood pressure treatment outweigh considerations about costs and side effects, but because of its population-wide implications," he says.

More information: "Cost-Effectiveness of Intensive Versus Standard Blood Pressure Control, "New England Journal of Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa1616035

"Impact of Intensive Blood Pressure Therapy on Patient-Reported Outcomes, "New England Journal of Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1611179 Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine

Provided by University of Utah Health

Output: Two studies provide additional support for lowering systolic blood pressure to an intensive goal of 120 mmHg - far below the standard guidelines of 140 mmHg - to reduce the risk of heart disease in high-risk patients with hypertension. The new research shows that intensive blood pressure control is well-tolerated by patients and is cost-effective in terms of health-related quality of life and financial costs to the healthcare system.


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Age Like a Former Athlete
 Being a world-class distance runner in your youth does not guarantee that you will be fit and healthy in retirement. But it helps, according to a new study that followed a group of elite American runners for 45 years.

The study’s findings raise interesting questions about how we can and should age and the role that youthful activity might play in our health later in life.

Aging is one of the great mysteries of life and science. Its chronology is clear: With each passing year, we are a year older. But the biology of the process is murky. Scientists remain uncertain about how and why our bodies change as we age and to what extent such changes are inevitable or mutable.

In other words, we do not know whether aging as most of us now experience it is normal for the human species or not.

Output: Being a world-class distance runner in your youth does not guarantee that you will be fit and healthy in retirement. But it helps, according to a new study that followed a group of elite American runners for 45 years.


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Vertical video gains popularity as an advertising format
 by Sarah Maloy , Op-Ed Contributor, August 24, 2017

As recently as five years ago, vertical video was the enemy of the internet. A “Say No to Vertical Videos” campaign was launched in June 2012, producing a meme, 8 million video views, and dozens of news articles that all seemed to agree on one thing: Vertical video was the worst.

“Not only are the thick black pillarbox bars on either side of the video extremely annoying, but the human eyes are designed to see the world in widescreen. That's why they sit side-by-side, and not on top of each other,” according to a Gizmodo post.

advertisement advertisement

Fast-forward two years, and CNET put out an article in defense of vertical video. Sort of. Titled “They're stupid, but it's not your fault,” the piece wasn’t so much in favor of vertical videos as sympathetic to users who insisted on capturing them. Still, the format was gaining ground.

Three years later, and we can’t imagine a world without vertical video. It continues to grow year-over-year, with advertisers embracing the video style that all of their customers are already using. Adoption has become vital for the advertising industry, as less than 30% of people will turn their phone to view a horizontal video ad. Even when they do, they’re only watching 14% of the ad.

The Rise of Vertical Video

Digital ad spend is growing, surpassing TV for the first time in 2016. That growth, which is expected to soar from $83 billion this year to $129 billion in 2021, is primarily driven by mobile. But 35% of annual ad budgets are still spent on TV. This is partly because advertisers haven’t found a format that will allow them to reach digital natives and cord-cutters with the same immersive video experience that TV offers -- until vertical video.

One of the reasons advertisers are so drawn to vertical video is that it offers 100% share of voice, similar to the experience of watching a commercial on TV. Ads get the full-screen real estate with vertical video, which brands see as a commodity in a world driven by never-ending feeds of content. More and more we’re seeing TV budgets shift to vertical video, where advertisers can retarget audiences and lookalikes, narrow in with interests and demographic targeting, and reach their target consumer at exactly the right time with personalized, relevant content.

Barriers to Entry

Although vertical video has many benefits, it’s not without its challenges. This is a new ad format for many marketers, and with that comes a learning curve that most brands are still figuring out.

One of the biggest barriers to entry for vertical video advertising is a lack of readily available creative in the right specs. For years, advertisers have been repurposing pre-roll and TV creative for social platforms, running video ads that are fine for desktop but not for the 80% of social media use that happens on mobile devices.

As it becomes clear that vertical video is the way of the present and future, brands are beginning to think of creative from a mobile-first point of view. This will only continue to grow as platform-optimized vertical video continues to outperform its repurposed counterparts.

Even if creative is shot originally for TV or another horizontal format, it can still be transformed to perform well as vertical video, by leveraging graphics and making new use of the screen real estate. Although less of an investment, this is still a barrier of entry for some brands, who may not have access to editing resources in order to optimize social creative.

The last challenge for marketers looking to take advantage of vertical video is a lack of benchmarks and best practices. This is a new format, and while it’s been shown to be 3x more effective than horizontal video, there are not many standards for success yet in place. There’s much testing to be done, but the brands that start testing now will be ahead of the curve, investing in more effective campaigns from day one.

What’s Next for Vertical Video

Smartphone users hold their phones vertically 94% of the time, and vertical views count for over 29% of total consumer view time (up from 5% in 2010). These are facts that marketers and advertisers can’t afford to ignore, and the industry is shifting more toward vertical video every day.

Entertainment brands currently lead the pack in vertical video adoption, acc ounting for nearly 40% of all vertical video ads online. Other industries have a lot of room to grow, with apparel and retail following at just 9% and 7% respectively.

In the months to come we’ll see even more brands and industries push into the vertical video market, and in the next few years it will become the dominant format for video advertising. Square videos have been the middle ground for more than a year, but with almost every platform now allowing -- and even encouraging -- vertical video, it’s just a matter of time before the improved mobile experience makes us all forget the “Say No to Vertical Video” PSAs.

Output: Vertical video – a format once considered annoying or divisive – is increasingly attractive to social advertising. Smartphone users hold their phones vertically 94% of the time, with vertical views accounting for over 29% of total consumer view time. Digital ad spend in the US is expected to soar from $83bn this year to $129bn in 2021, which will primarily be driven by mobile. As it becomes clear that vertical video is the way of the future brands are beginning to embrace the video style most of their customers are already using.


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Airbnb begins partnership with Jet Airways in India
 NEW DELHI: Community-driven hospitality company Airbnb announced its first airline partnership in India with Jet Airways . Airbnb said the announcement adds momentum to the growth of Airbnb's footprint in the Indian market by focusing on establishing a deeper connect with the new age Indian travellers who seek unique travel experiences."We are seeing that millenials are seeking newer interesting ways to travel and are keen to break away from the conventional means to seek authentic experiences. We thought of creating an eco system in India where by we can partner with like minded companies like Jet airways which is also an airline of choice when it comes to millenials in India to cater to their needs in a better form," said Amanpreet Bajaj, country manager- India, Airbnb.To announce this partnership, Jet Airways is running a contest on its website where 5 lucky winners have a chance to win free couple flight tickets from Jet Airways together with a stay coupon worth Rs 35,000 from Airbnb*. To be eligible for the contest, guests in India need to book a Jet Airways flight to any of the 64 destinations on its network between 23rd August and 01st September, 2017.In another inaugural offer, the first 100 Jet Airways’ guests booking their accommodation with Airbnb via the Jet Airways website, also receive 10% off. In a separate, limited period offer from Airbnb, travellers can get a 10% discount for their Jet Airways flight booking via a promo code.Bajaj added, "Jet Airways fliers who are also Airbnb travellers will be able to enjoy the added-value they receive from being associated with two dynamic brands."Jayaraj Shanmugam, chief commercial officer, Jet Airways said, "An increasing number of Indian travellers are embracing the fresh and highly personalised experiences that a platform like Airbnb offers. Our focus on being innovative and offering differentiated travel experiences enables us to anticipate the changing needs of our guests and recognise trends much earlier than the market, thus allowing us to offer exciting travel related initiatives. We are delighted to be the first Indian airline to partner Airbnb, and look forward to creating more of such innovative experiences for our guests."

Output: Airbnb will partner with Jet Airways in India to attract travel-hungry millennials, said Amanpreet Bajaj, the company's manager for the country. To launch the partnership, Jet Airways is running a contest giving customers the chance to win free flights and an INR35,000 ($547) voucher for Airbnb. The airline will also offer the first 100 customers to book accommodation with Airbnb via the Jet Airways website 10% off, while Airbnb will offer its customers a 10% discount for their Jet Airways flight.


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Brands reconsidering approach to cause marketing
 Dove, McDonald’s and Pepsi have all run ads in recent months that touched on hot-button issues including breast-feeding and protests, only to have them backfire. That’s left even those marketers with a long history of aligning themselves with causes worried that people have become too cynical to believe they’re for real.

Take Absolut. It’s been a steadfast supporter of the LGBT community for the past 30 years. Yet when it launched its latest BBH-created ad, which featured men and women — young and old, from all walks of life — taking part in a choreographed kissathon, its marketers wondered if the ad would be met with the same outrage Pepsi faced.

Fans of the brand who recalled Absolut’s other contributions to the community over the last three decades stood by it after the ad launched. Still, marketers now have to weigh these risks before deciding to link their own brands with social values. If Absolut makes social issues a bigger part of its marketing, it knows it has to back it up.

“Nobody knows that more than 40 percent of the glass we use is recycled or that we feed 40,000 cows and 250,000 piglets [with the wheat residue left over from the mash after distillation], but if tomorrow we were to talk about sustainability, then there’s a reason for us to do it,” Absolut’s global brand director, Gaia Gilardini, said.

Telecommunications firm O2 is dealing with the risk by taking a closer look at its marketing. In April, it launched the O2 Planning Hub to help its agency teams in part plan for public backlash to its marketing. This hub includes brand, media and CRM specialists and works together from one office three days a week. O2 also is scrutinizing its campaigns more closely to identify the consumer benefit, said Ian Cafferky, director of brand and marketing communications at O2. “At every stage of the campaign-planning process, we are asking, ‘What is the benefit to the customer?’ and KPIs are set accordingly. We seek to balance rational and trading KPIs with higher-order ones around brand love.”

Brands can misfire. Between 2011 and 2014, Diageo tried to associate its Baileys brand with “female empowerment.” It soon found people didn’t want Baileys to empower them: Baileys is now back to being sold as an indulgence. Diageo recently elevated its director of culture and entertainment role to help avoid such mistakes, hiring Anne Nosko, who operates at a director level across the company and has media responsibilities.

Mindshare’s strategy director Rosie Kitson and client director Robert McFaul, who make up the agency’s brand purpose consultancy, are increasingly meeting with the agency’s clients who have concerns about consumer backlash. The issue is that some brands still align themselves with causes that have no actual connection to their business operations, making consumers increasingly likely to turn on them.

That disconnect extends to the marketing messages themselves, said Sam Conniff, co-founder and chief purpose officer at youth-led creative network Livity. “My criticism of some very vocal brands when it comes to purpose is that they’re trying to suggest that this is a new kind of marketing, but these external narratives are not providing sufficient cover to the ground troops of these organizations who are still in a retail ground war, and they are fighting it out on price and promotion,” he said.

Output: Brands are reassessing marketing campaigns that align them with social causes after adverts for Dove, McDonald's and Pepsi were widely criticised. For example, telecoms firm O2 has introduced a planning hub that prioritises customer benefits to help its agency teams plan for public backlash to marketing campaigns. However, brands that align with causes that have no connection to their business operations may tarnish cause marketing for brands with a long history of supporting social causes.


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Medicare Is in Deep Trouble: Here’s How to Rescue It
 Medicare’s trust fund will run out of money in just over 10 years, according to a new report from the program’s trustees. Once that happens, the federal government won’t collect enough in payroll taxes to cover beneficiaries’ hospital bills.

Congress could hike taxes to cover the shortfall. Or it could ration care to save money.

Or it could modernize and restructure Medicare — by giving beneficiaries means-tested vouchers to buy private insurance. Doing so would protect taxpayers now, preserve the program for future generations and even provide higher-quality care to seniors.

Medicare actually consists of multiple programs that pay for health care for 57 million seniors and people with disabilities.

Beneficiaries don’t pay premiums for Part A, which covers inpatient hospital care. It’s funded primarily by payroll taxes.

For much of the program’s history, the government collected more in payroll taxes than it paid out to hospitals. These surpluses went into a “trust fund,” where they were invested in U.S. government bonds.

But with Part A spending per beneficiary rising 3.5 percent annually — faster than tax revenue is growing — those surpluses have turned into deficits. Since 2010, Part A has spent $105 billion more than it collected in taxes. The trust fund has covered these deficits.

By 2029, the fund will be exhausted. Payroll taxes will only cover about 88 percent of Part A costs.

Costs in Medicare Part B, which pays for doctors’ visits, are also surging. The trustees estimate that Part B spending per beneficiary will increase 5.2 percent annually for the next decade.

Unlike Part A, beneficiaries pay premiums for Part B coverage. But these premiums account for only 23 percent of the program’s costs. The rest comes out of the federal Treasury.

Last year, Medicare cost $349 billion more than it collected in payroll taxes and premiums. This spending squeezes funding for other priorities, like defense and scientific research.

These deficits will explode in the future. Medicare faces $65 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Despite its astronomical price tag, Medicare actually underpays health care providers. It reimburses hospitals at just 60 percent of private insurers’ reimbursement rates. In 2016, hospitals lost 9 cents for every dollar they spent treating Medicare beneficiarie s, according to the Medicare Payments Advisory Commission.

By 2040, half of doctors will lose money treating Medicare patients. Seventy percent of skilled nursing facilities and 80 percent of home health agencies will be in the same position.

That doesn’t bode well for patients. The trustees’ report notes that providers will either have to “withdraw from serving Medicare beneficiaries ” or “shift substantial portions of Medicare costs” to other patients — like those with private insurance.

Medicare desperately needs a revamp. Its biggest problem is that seniors have no incentive to control their health care spending, since the government picks up most of the tab.

Vouchers would enable poor and middle-income seniors to pick from a variety of private health plans, with different premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. They’d have an incentive to choose wisely, since they’d be spending their own money on top of whatever they received as a voucher.

And by means-testing the vouchers, the government would no longer waste billions subsidizing health insurance for the rich, who don’t need taxpayer-funded assistance.

This idea has attracted bipartisan support in the past. Indeed, three decades ago, a group of congressmen from both sides of the aisle proposed the concept — but were one vote short of being able to make a recommendation to Congress. The Bipartisan Policy Center and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have also voiced support for a voucher system.

Furthermore, it’s already working in another part of Medicare — the Part D prescription drug program. Under Part D, seniors shop for the privately administered drug coverage that meets their needs and budget. Competition among insurers helps keep costs low. The federal government subsidizes the plans to keep them affordable for beneficiaries.

From 2004 to 2013, the program cost $349 billion less than initially projected. Ninety-five percent of seniors report that their Part D coverage meets their needs.

Medicare‘s spending isn’t sustainable. Congress can stave off massive tax hikes and benefit cuts by voucherizing the program — and injecting some much-needed competition into the health care market.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute.

Morning Consult welcomes op-ed submissions on policy, politics and business strategy in our coverage areas. Updated submission guidelines can be found here.

Output: Medicare’s trust fund will run out of money in just over 10 years, according to a new report from the program’s trustees. Once that happens, the federal government won’t collect enough in payroll taxes to cover beneficiaries’ hospital bills.


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Regus Regus set to open a new office in Leeds Pinnacle Building
 Yorkshire Property Joshua Hammond

International workspace provider Regus plans to open a new Leeds office in The Pinnacle building.

Regus will expand its footprint in the city to five locations by opening in the 18th and 19th floors of The Pinnacle, creating available space of 10,200 sq ft.

Over 150 workstations and a range of flexible working options will be available, including co-working space, several offices of varying sizes, virtual office services and meeting rooms.

Regus expects the facility to be popular with a wide range of users including local small businesses, start-ups and remote workers as well as national firms opening satellite offices.

Richard Morris, UK chief executive of Regus, said: "Sandwiched between the business and shopping districts of Leeds, the Pinnacle places any size of business in a peak, strategic position in the city.

"As such, it’s the perfect fit for our flexible workspace proposition which appeals to businesses of all sizes.

"We know that more and more professionals in Leeds are working flexibly and we are opening a new centre here in response to increased demand for workspace on flexible terms, to fit in with this new way of working."

Output: Workspace provider Regus is looking to open a new office in Leeds, in the Pinnacle building. The decision would see Regus extend to five locations in the city. Richard Morris, UK chief executive of Regus, said: "Sandwiched between the business and shopping districts of Leeds, the Pinnacle places any size of business in a peak, strategic position in the city".


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YouTube still dominates Facebook for live streaming views
 The explosion of live video means anyone can become a broadcaster, which often results in varying degrees of quality. While still nascent, live-streaming video is becoming more cluttered as more platforms join the fold. Here’s a look at how live streaming is changing.

Facebook Live grabs headlines, but YouTube is still the front-runner

Facebook’s massive reach and financial incentives meant that a lot of brands and media companies charged headfirst into live streaming in 2016. But YouTube is still the No. 1 platform where people view live streams, according to the Media Futures report from research consultancy Magid, with 45 percent of respondents using YouTube to view live-stream video, compared to 24 percent on Facebook Live.

Facebook is responsible for much of the growth in the format, though. A UBS Evidence Lab report via eMarketer from January 2017 found that the amount of live-stream video viewed on Facebook increased from 14 percent to 17 percent over six months. Other platforms have experienced drop-offs; 21 percent of respondents watched live-stream video on YouTube, compared to 16 percent six months later. EMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna suggested this is because the market is still in its infancy, rather than due to poor platform performance.

Live news is more popular than long-form video on video platforms

The number of places where viewers can live stream is exploding. Reuters Digital News Report split the environments into feed-based social networks like Facebook and Twitter, search-based platforms like YouTube and news websites and apps. It also categorized content as short-form (less than five minutes), long-form (more than five minutes) and live.

Short-form video is the most popular format, according to the report. Live video is more popular than longer-form video on platforms like YouTube, where in a given week, 15 percent of respondents watch live news and 12 percent watch longer news video. On news websites and social media platforms, longer-form news video is more popular than live.

Ads have arrived in live video in Europe

The number of ads within live video formats is growing, albeit from a low base. A FreeWheel report on Europe showed 4 percent of ad views occur in live-stream video content, up 11 percent year over year. The report defines video as clips, which are less than five minutes long, and full episodes, which are longer than five minutes.

This growth in Europe follows the trend in the U.S. and has been mostly driven by live sporting events, but live news video is growing as a content vertical, according to FreeWheel. In the U.S., 78 percent of live video covered live sporting events; 16 percent was news. In 2016, news made up just 9 percent of live video content.

Streaming services overload

Without a clear way to monetize live streaming through advertising on social networks, subscriptions and owned and operated platforms are the most viable monetization route. Here, younger people are likely to pay for one, possibly two, different streaming services, of which Netflix remains the dominant player, according to a recent poll on U.S. views from research company Morning Consult.

According to the same report, 67 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds subscribe to Netflix, with 28 percent of young people paying for Amazon Prime. The Morning Consult poll found 42 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds believe they are paying too much for streaming services — 21 percent spend from $11 (£9) to $20 (£16) a month — while 57 percent of young people agree there are too many streaming services.

Output: YouTube is still the main platform where people view live streams, according to a report by research consultancy Magid, which found 45% of respondents use YouTube to view live stream video compared with 24% on Facebook Live. However, Facebook is responsible for much of the increased popularity of the format. A UBS Evidence Lab report from January found that the amount of live stream video viewed on Facebook increased from 14% to 17% over six months, while other platforms experienced drop-offs.


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Sparkling wine under threat from climate change
 First it wreaked havoc on our tea, then coffee. Now sparkling wine—both cava and champagne—is under threat from climate change.

A new study in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology looked at grape varieties in northeastern part of Spain, which is famous for producing cava. They found that, as global temperatures continue to rise, it’ll lead to warmer and drier conditions in the region. In turn, grapes will ripen more quickly and that could negatively affect the flavor and aroma of the wine.

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To arrive at this conclusion, authors used rainfall data between 1998 and 2012 and created mathematical models to predict how three varieties of grapes used in making cava—Macabeo and Paralleda from Spain and Chardonnay from France—would be affected. An earlier ripening period makes cava less acidic and more sugary. Some of that sugar turns into alcohol during fermentation, and makes the drink more alcoholic, too.

Similar changes are likely to happen to grape harvests in France. Grapes in the region of Champagne that help create the cherished wine are being harvested two weeks earlier than they were 20 years ago. They are also bigger in size, have more sugar, and thus produce a more alcoholic drink.

If temperatures rise by as much as 5℃ by the end of the century, as some models predict, “it could change the fundamentals of the grape varieties,” Thibaut Le Mailloux of the Champagne Committee, a trade association, told the The Telegraph. “It is absolutely essential to start research now because in 25 years it will be too late.”

It’s not doom and gloom for all. If Spain and France can’t produce as much excellent sparkling wine, wineries further north, such as in England, are readying to pick up the slack.

Output: Climate change is putting sparkling wine - both champagne and cava - under threat, according to a study in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. Rising global temperatures could change harvest time and the taste of grapes so dramatically that sparkling wine as we now know it could become extinct.


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P2P exchange out to change global property ownership with bitcoin
 Post navigation

A new global property exchange platform has launched, looking as though it could be the ultimate in proptech.

It will enable the sale and purchase of UK homes with the digital currency Bitcoin, and create a new type of online land registry.

For property owners, it offers a type of equity release – and a way of leveraging the value of their property to the maximum; for property buyers, it offers the possibility of home ownership at half price – as long as they don’t mind sharing the title deeds. For investors, it gives a way of buying and trading part ‘shares’ in individual homes.

Theoretically UK homes can now become a globally tradable asset on a peer-to-peer platform which utilises blockchain technology from a firm called TrustMe.

Blockchain is a new type of digital ledger that is said to make it easy to track assets securely.

One application of this new technology is that property can be virtually ‘broken up’ into parcels that can be traded on an exchange platform.

The advantage for home owners is that they can unlock more equity from their homes as they can sell up to 49% of the property whilst retaining occupancy.

The advantage for buyers is that it greatly lowers the barrier to property ownership – purchasers can potentially gain occupancy for the purchase of only 51% of the property value.

TrustMe™ Property Exchange and Blockchain Land Registry will enable home owners to trade shares (‘property certificates’) in their property on an open market.

Clients on the property exchanges will be able to purchase with Bitcoin or fiat currency – legal tender backed by the government which issued it, but not backed by a commodity – whilst the 51% owner-occupier continues to live in and manage the property.

The first exchange is due to happen in London in October, with the next to be launched in Toronto and New York.

London is said to have been chosen for the first exchange, as it is host to a buoyant £2 trillion market and has well established property laws, rights and processes.

Antony Abell, co-founder and managing director of TrustMe™, said: “The London property market, which has, for many people, long been prohibitively expensive, needs to be democratised.

“The TrustMe™ Property Exchanges will allow existing home owners to unlock the value of their own house or properties and to use these assets as a form of stored liquid wealth, similar to a 30-90 day bank account, by trading as much or as little of their asset as they wish in an efficient, transparent and auditable manner.

“It has only been the recent advent of the public blockchain that has enabled the trust that people need to be able to allow the most valuable assets that most will ever have in their lives to be leveraged in this way.”

Will it work? Will the public go for it? Is it a gimmick and what could go wrong? Time will tell.

Output: Proptech firm TrustMe has unveiled its property exchange platform, which will enable shares of UK homes to be bought and sold with bitcoin. The platform allows home owners to release equity by selling up to 49% of their property whilst retaining occupancy. For buyers, barriers are lower, offering the chance to occupy a property by purchasing only 51% of its value. TrustMe will launch its first exchange in London in October, with exchanges in Toronto and New York to follow.


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Uber reforms aim to improve choice and flexibility for drivers
 Uber has introduced its latest steps in trying to convince its drivers, and the world, that it’s not a bad place through its 180 Days of Change.

The latest raft of changes is aimed at improving choice and flexibility for drivers. Drivers can now add up to six personal destinations per day, so they can take fares on their way to places they personally need to be, and they can now set an arrival time for each of their destinations to avoid running late.

On top of those changes to destinations, drivers will now get ‘long trip notifications’ – which let them know if a trip is estimated to take 45 minutes or longer before they accept or decline the journey. In addition, when the jobs aren’t coming in as fast as a driver would like, they can switch between giving rides and delivering food on UberEats – if they update their driver app and sign up to be an UberEats delivery partner.

Finally, Uber has updated it acceptance rate policy so that declining trips doesn’t impact on driver’s Quest promotions or their account standing.

“From more Driver Destinations to innovative ‘Arrival Time’ settings that get you where you need to be when you need to be there, these features represent a big step forward for work that fits around your life,” said Uber. “We want everyone who drives with Uber to truly feel that their day belongs to them?that they can earn when and how they want, and that Uber is always there for them.”

Output: Uber has introduced changes to improve driver choice and flexibility as part of its 180 Days of Change initiative. Drivers can now add up to six personal destinations per day, get "long trip notifications" and switch between giving rides and delivering food on UberEats. Uber has also updated its acceptance rate policy so that declining trips doesn’t affect drivers' Quest promotions or the state of their account. “We want everyone who drives with Uber to truly feel their day belongs to them, that they can earn when and how they want, and that Uber is always there for them,” said Uber.


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Apple drops plans to build its own self-driving car
 SAN FRANCISCO — As new employees were brought into Apple’s secret effort to create a self-driving car a few years ago, managers told them that they were working on the company’s next big thing: A product that would take on Detroit and disrupt the automobile industry.

These days, Apple’s automotive ambitions are more modest. The company has put off any notion of an Apple-branded autonomous vehicle and is instead working on the underlying technology that allows a car to drive itself. Timothy D. Cook, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview with Bloomberg in June that Apple is “focusing on autonomous systems.”

A notable symbol of that retrenchment is a self-driving shuttle service that ferries employees from one Apple building to another. The shuttle, which has never been reported before, will likely be a commercial vehicle from an automaker and Apple will use it to test the autonomous driving technology that it develops.

Five people familiar with Apple’s car project, code-named “Titan,” discussed with The New York Times the missteps that led the tech giant to move — at least for now — from creating a self-driving Apple car to creating technology for a car that someone else builds. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about Apple’s plans.

Output: Apple has shifted its attention away from developing commercially available autonomous vehicles, according to an article in the New York Times. Apple is now looking to work with car makers in order to offer its autonomous vehicle technology and has shelved plans to build its own self-driving car. The company is planning to use conventional vehicles fitted with autonomous technology to ferry employees back and forth at its Silicon Valley offices in both Palo Alto and Cupertino.