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US landlords of illegally used properties could become liable
 UPDATE 8/28/17 @ 10 p.m.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- The city of Huntington is one step closer to adopting a rule that would crack down on landlords who look the other way when their properties become havens for drug activity.

City Council had the first reading of the drug house ordinance at their meeting Monday night.

Under the proposal, landlords could be charged with a crime if their property is involved in two felonies in the span of a year.

The city would notify landlords and give them the opportunity to evict the problem tenant, but if the landlord or property owner fails to do so, they would face a fine between $100 and $500 per day the nuisance remains in place.

Some property owners have expressed concern that they can't observe or control everything that goes on with the people they rent to, but Chief Joe Ciccarelli emphasized this is meant to be a tool to target a handful of landlords who're just interested in making money and don't care about the problem they're contributing to.

The second reading of the ordinance is expected to take place in a couple weeks.

ORIGINAL STORY

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Landlords and property owners in Huntington may soon have to pay steep fines in an effort to hold them more accountable in the city's drug problem.

The proposed new rule was discussed at Huntington City Hall by the Public Safety Committee Monday.

"There's a small handful, less than a half dozen chronic problem landlords who continue to rent to drug dealers and are interested only in the money," Chief Joe Ciccarelli said.

If the ordinance is adopted, following the second felony offense to occur at a property within the span of a year, the landlord or property owner would be looking at paying a $100 to $500 fine per day that tenant is not removed or the property is not cleaned up.

"These landlords are part of the problem, and to the extent that we can induce compliance with an ordinance like this, I think it would be very helpful," the chief said.

Councilman Charlie McComas is a landlord himself and believes this method could be highly effective.

"This is an excellent way to get the drug dealers out of those houses," McComas said.

Owners of vacant properties would be subject to the same penalty if felonies occur on their locations twice a year.

City council's first reading of that ordinance is expected to take place at their next meeting in two weeks.

City Attorney Scott Damron says a similar ordinance has been on the books in Martinsburg for a couple years and has been effective there.

Output: City councillors in Huntington, West Virginia are trying to crack down on landlords who rent houses to drug dealers and users and choose to look the other way. In an effort to curb the city’s drug problem, landlords in Huntington may soon face steep fines of between $100 and $500 a day if their properties become havens for drug activity and they fail to evict the problem tenant. Under the proposed drug house ordinance landlords could also be charged with a crime if their property is involved in two felonies in a year.


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Climate scientists say Storm Harvey offers warning for future
 Scientists say Harvey may be the soggy sign of future storms

Volunteer rescue boats make their way into a flooded subdivision to rescue stranded residents as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rise Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, in Spring, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Volunteer rescue boats make their way into a flooded subdivision to rescue stranded residents as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rise Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, in Spring, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

WASHINGTON (AP) — By the time the rain stops, Harvey will have dumped about 1 million gallons of water for every man, woman and child in southeastern Texas — a soggy, record-breaking glimpse of the wet and wild future that global warming could bring, scientists say.

While scientists are quick to say that climate change didn’t cause Harvey and that they haven’t determined yet whether the storm was made worse by global warming, they do note that warmer air and water mean wetter and possibly more intense hurricanes in the future.

“This is the kind of thing we are going to get more of,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. “This storm should serve as warning.”

There’s a scientifically accepted method for determining if some wild weather event has the fingerprints of man-made climate change, and it involves intricate calculations. Those could take weeks or months to complete, and then even longer to pass peer review.

In general, though, climate scientists agree that future storms will dump much more rain than the same size storms did in the past.

That’s because warmer air holds more water. With every degree Fahrenheit, the atmosphere can hold and then dump an additional 4 percent of water (7 percent for every degree Celsius), several scientists say.

Global warming also means warmer seas, and warm water is what fuels hurricanes.

When Harvey moved toward Texas, water in the Gulf of Mexico was nearly 2 degrees (1 degree Celsius) warmer than normal, said Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters. Hurricanes need at least 79 degrees F (26 C) as fuel, and water at least that warm ran more than 300 feet (100 meters) deep in the Gulf, according to University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.

Several studies show that the top 1 percent of the strongest downpours are already happening much more frequently. Also, calculations done Monday by MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel show that the drenching received by Rockport, Texas, used to be maybe a once-in-1,800-years event for that city, but with warmer air holding more water and changes in storm steering currents since 2010, it is now a once-every-300-years event.

There’s a lot of debate among climate scientists over what role, if any, global warming may have played in causing Harvey to stall over Texas, which was a huge factor in the catastrophic flooding. If the hurricane had moved on like a normal storm, it wouldn’t have dumped as much rain in any one spot.

Harvey stalled because it is sandwiched between two high-pressure fronts that push it in opposite directions, and those fronts are stuck.

Oppenheimer and some others theorize that there’s a connection between melting sea ice in the Arctic and changes in the jet stream and the weather patterns that make these “blocking fronts” more common. Others, like Masters, contend it’s too early to say.

University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass said that climate change is simply not powerful enough to create off-the-chart events like Harvey’s rainfall.

“You really can’t pin global warming on something this extreme. It has to be natural variability,” Mass said. “It may juice it up slightly but not create this phenomenal anomaly.”

“We’re breaking one record after another with this thing,” Mass said.

Sometime Tuesday or early Wednesday, parts of the Houston region will have broken the nearly 40-year-old U.S. record for the heaviest rainfall from a tropical system — 48 inches, set by Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978 in Texas, several meteorologists say.

Already 15 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on a large area, and an additional 5 trillion or 6 trillion gallons are forecast by the end of Wednesday, meteorologist Ryan Maue of WeatherBell Analytics calculates. That’s enough water to fill all the NFL and Division 1 college football stadiums more than 100 times over.

Output: Tropical storm Harvey, which has caused severe flooding in Houston, was not caused by climate change, according to scientists. However, researchers warn that it is too early to ascertain whether or not the storm was made worse by global warming and note that rising air and water temperatures are likely to lead to more intense hurricanes in the future. “This storm should serve as warning”, said climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University. Over 15 trillion gallons of rain have fallen in Texas during the storm, with an additional 5 or 6 trillion expected by Wednesday.


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Gilead to pay $11.9bn for Kite Pharma's CAR-T cancer therapy
 Pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences has just put up a cool $11.9 billion to acquire Kite Pharma, which has developed a genetic engineering approach for treating cancers.

The investment is a clear sign that gene therapy applied to cancer is a powerful—and commercially attractive—new technology. Kite, which is one of our 50 smartest companies of 2017, has developed a pioneering treatment for use against blood cancers such as lymphoma. It takes some of an individual's immune cells, known at T cells, then reprograms their DNA so that they can attack the disease. The resulting CAR-T therapy, as it’s known, is one of several being developed by the likes of Novartis and Juno Therapeutics to treat cancer, and they all appear to show huge promise for curing the disease.

The move is a clear sign that there’s huge commercial interest in the new form of cancer therapy. But the staggering valuation of Kite also hints at a potential problem for patients wishing to make use of the treatment in the future: cost. Just last week, Kaiser Health News ran a report on the potential pricing of the Novartis version of the therapy, and sources told it that it would "cost a fortune," proving to be "a quantum leap more expensive than other cancer drugs." No official pricing for such therapies has yet been published, but a figure of $649,000 for a one-off treatment has been deemed justifiable for young patients with leukemia by the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

That may change over time, though, especially if the the same technique is successfully used to develop treatments for other forms of cancer. The latter is certainly what Gilead is hoping will happen. “We see it as a nice, sustainable oncology platform for decades to come,” says Gilead CEO, John Milligan, to the Wall Street Journal.

Output: Pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences has agreed to buy Kite Pharma, a company that has developed a gene therapy for treating cancers. Through the deal, Gilead will obtain rights to Kite's CAR-T therapy, a treatment for blood cancers such as lymphoma. The therapy reprogrammes the DNA within individuals' immune cells to attack the disease. Although no official pricing for such therapies has been published, the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has said that $649,000 for a one-off treatment for a young patient with leukaemia is justifiable.


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Smartphone camera used to self-screen for pancreatic cancer
 Researchers at the University of Washington have developed an app that could let people self-screen for pancreatic cancer and other diseases via a smartphone selfie. BiliScreen uses a smartphone camera, computer vision algorithms and machine learning tools to detect increased bilirubin levels in a person’s sclera, or the white part of the eye.

Jaundice is an early symptom of pancreatic cancer and other illnesses. Jaundice is a yellowing of the skin and eyes from a buildup of bilirubin in the blood. By spotting the build up before it’s detectable by the naked eye, apps like BiliScreen offer a new avenue for screening program to those at risk. In an initial clinical study of 70 people, the BiliScreen app identified cases of concern 89.7 percent of the time, compared to the blood test currently used.

The app works in conjunction with a 3D printed box that controls the eye’s exposure to light.

Said lead author Alex Mariakakis: “The problem with pancreatic cancer is that by the time you’re symptomatic, it’s frequently too late…. The hope is that if people can do this simple test once a month, in the privacy of their own homes, some might catch the disease early enough to undergo treatment that could save their lives.”

Currently doctors use a blood test to track bilirubin levels. It is seldom given to adults unless there’s outward reason for concern, and administering the test requires a health care professional. That mkes it inconvenient for frequent restesting.

BiliScreen is meant to overcome these challenges, and help determine if a doctor’s visit is in order.

Said senior author Shwetak Patel: “The eyes are a really interesting gateway into the body — tears can tell you how much glucose you have, sclera can tell you how much bilirubin is in your blood…. Our question was: Could we capture some of these changes that might lead to earlier detection with a selfie?”

BiliScreen uses a smartphone’s built-in camera and flash to collect pictures of a person’s eye as they snap a selfie. The team developed a computer vision system to automatically and effectively isolate the white parts of the eye, which is a valuable tool for medical diagnostics. The app then calculates the color information from the sclera — based on the wavelengths of light that are being reflected and absorbed — and correlates it with bilirubin levels using machine learning algorithms.

To account for different lighting conditions, the team tested BiliScreen with two different accessories: paper glasses printed with colored squares to help calibrate color and a 3-D printed box that blocks out ambient lighting. Using the app with the box accessory — reminiscent of a Google Cardboard headset — led to slightly better results.

Said co-author Jim Taylor: “This relatively small initial study shows the technology has promise…. Pancreatic cancer is a terrible disease with no effective screening right now. Our goal is to have more people who are unfortunate enough to get pancreatic cancer to be fortunate enough to catch it in time to have surgery that gives them a better chance of survival.”

Output: Researchers at the University of Washington have created an app that allows users to screen themselves for pancreatic cancer by taking a photo with their smartphone's camera. Called BiliScreen, the app uses computer vision algorithms and machine learning tools to detect increased bilirubin levels in a person's eye. In tests, BiliScreen identified increased bilirubin in the blood 89.7% of the time. Pancreatic cancer is usually malignant by the time symptoms are visible; however, BillScreen's monthly test will help identify the cancer while treatment can still be effective, said Alex Mariakakis, the study's lead author.


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Amazon gives 1,600 Echo devices to US engineering students
 In Amazon’s latest push into education, the tech giant is encouraging colleges to experiment with its Echo smart speakers and add the devices to their curricula.

The company is working with Arizona State University, for instance, where it gave 1,600 Echo Dots to engineering students living in a new dorm called Tooker House.

“ASU’s main motivation was to develop an opportunity for its engineering students to gain skills in voice technology, an emerging field,” says John German, an ASU spokesperson. The engineering school at ASU has added "a little bit" of voice technology to the curriculum of three existing courses this semester, German said. However, the students who received the Echo Dots will "not at all" be required to take these courses. The dots are "literally a gift," German says.

The Amazon Alexa team “met frequently” with the university, and “offered advice,” says John Rome, ASU’s deputy chief information officer.

The company also recently set up the Amazon Alexa Fund Fellowship, which so far includes four colleges—Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Waterloo, the University of Southern California, and Johns Hopkins University. The year-long program will give selected students “funding, access to Alexa devices, and mentoring from an Alexa Science team member to develop an undergraduate or graduate curriculum around one or more of these disciplines,” according to a company blog post.

And the company is also running a research competition for universities called the Alexa Prize, in which it will dole out $2.5-million in prizes to teams developing new ideas in conversational artificial intelligence.

Amazon officials imagine a world where their devices are woven into student life, used for things like “ordering transportation and setting homework reminders,” says an Amazon spokesperson, who asked not to be named.

The company has been encouraging developers of edtech software to add support for their smart speakers as well. The company brought a giant inflatable Echo to the annual conference of Instructure, which makes the learning-management system Canvas.

Phil Hill, an edtech consultant and blogger for eLiterate, says he believes Amazon is “playing the long game” with its Echo strategy, just as many big tech companies do in education.

Photo Credit: Phil Hill

“Amazon’s strategy is much more about establishing Alexa and the mechanisms and the way that people interact with the virtual world, almost becoming the front end of the next generation of internet access,” Hill says. “They’re looking to say, people won’t be doing this much on the browsers anymore, they’re going to be interacting with natural language and voice, and we want that to go through us.”

Hill says Amazon wants to beat its competitors in the smart-speaker space, Google and Apple, “to the punch” and become the default way people use this type of technology.

Some colleges are experimenting with Echo technology even without direct encouragement or investment from Amazon. At Utah State University, for instance, officials installed an Echo Dot in one classroom that is used by a visually impaired instructor, according to Kevin Reeve, the university’s director of teaching and learning technologies. The devices will connect to hardware in the classroom so instructors can do things like turn on projectors on and lower screens at the front of the room using voice commands.

"So we decided about a year ago that we wanted to see if we could write our own Alexa Skill to control the classroom technology," Reeve says, referring to the ability to add features to the Echo devices. “We had no idea who to contact at Amazon.”

But Rice University’s Dan Wallach, a professor of computer science, says he does not see "anything really substantial" when it comes to using smart speakers to do things that can easily be done manually, like dimming the lights and lowering the audio. "I mostly see these things as gimmicks," Wallach says.

Wallach says he can talk to his phone and wristwatch already, and does that "very infrequently." He adds that he thinks these types of devices will have the most impact in the car, where drivers need to focus on driving as they interact with technology.

He says that he doesn’t see the devices adding “very much to anything” in his classroom unless there’s an engineering project doing design for cars.

Szymon Machajewski, who teaches at Grand Valley State University's School of Computing and Information Systems, feels differently.

He says he wrote a skill for the classroom that focuses on computer flashcards. It has students speaking with Alexa, and quizzing themselves based on the definitions Alexa provides. Students have to say the words that are part of the course’s glossary, Machajewski says.

Machajewski even thinks this type of technology can influence human speech and expand vocabulary.

Hill says when he first heard Amazon was going to be doing demos at conferences with Alexa, he “personally thought it was going to be a gimmick.” But he says once he saw the demos, he started thinking about how the technology could help faculty and students manage “their academic lives much easier.” Getting targeted information without having to sit down in front of a computer is where Hill sees the initial efforts. He says if managing daily life becomes easier for people, they will “start to get hooked on Alexa.”

Devices like the Echo Dot have gotten criticism when it comes to privacy concerns, since the devices are constantly listening in when they are activated.

“It raises the question, ok, you have to say, ‘Alexa, tell me this,’” says Hill, the edtech consultant. “That doesn’t mean the device is not listening at all times. It just means it uses the Alexa keyword to trigger a command. Where does that information go? Does Amazon store it? Does it get thrown away?”

Hill says then it raises the question: “What if a faculty member has one in their office they end up using, and a student comes in to talk to them, but the student doesn’t know that there’s an Alexa device listening?”

German, of ASU, says in the discussions the university has had with students so far, the university is “more concerned than the students are.” He says students are used to mobile technology, and voice devices are not really different from, say, Siri.

German says ASU did give students some advice when it comes to using an Echo Dot in a residence-hall environment. For instance, telling them that using purchasing apps without a pin number is “probably not a good idea,” and telling them how to set their Wake Word so they aren’t interfering with a roommate’s Echo Dot.

Reeve, of USU, says he thinks where the biggest privacy concern could come in is if there’s an educational app built that can reveal students’ information that’s protected under FERPA, without them okaying it.

German says when ASU students received their Echo Dots, they signed an acknowledgment that like with other digital devices, they need to adhere to the student code of conduct and ASU’s acceptable use policies for campus technology.

But Wallach, who also manages Rice's computer-security lab, says companies like Amazon “desperately” try to avoid the problem of their devices “recording something that you didn’t mean.” He adds that Amazon’s devices are supposed to only pay attention when prompted.

“The listening is supposed to happen locally, nothing over the internet, until you say ‘hey Alexa,’” Wallach says.

Output: Amazon has gifted 1,600 Echo Dots to engineering students at Arizona State University. The tech giant has also set up the Amazon Alexa Fund Fellowship, a one-year programme that will give selected students “funding, access to Alexa devices, and mentoring from an Alexa Science team member to develop an undergraduate or graduate curriculum around one or more of these disciplines”, according to a company blog post. An Amazon spokesperson also suggested that the devices could be used in everyday student life, for “ordering transportation and setting homework reminders”. The university wants students to gain skills in voice technology development.


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Submarine commerce may open up Arctic trading route
 Recent years have seen a rapid increase in surface shipping operations in Arctic regions but nothing has been done for the subsea commercial shipping. New submarine technology to open up the Arctic Ocean's northern passage for year-round commerce is now technically feasible.

The voyage above the ice is extremely difficult exacerbated by extreme low temperatures, short warm season, thick icing of exposed topside equipment, changing ice cap movements, and a lack of suitable rescue search operations.

Faster cargo submarines, using direct routes across the Arctic Ocean would require less power and fuel could provide a greater economic advantage than larger more powerful surface ships.

There is a beautiful, relatively warm ocean just under the thin ice cap that covers the Arctic Ocean that could be used for many types commercial transportation possibilities. Transporting petroleum products such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) would be ideal for this type of shipping.

Output: Surface shipping in the Arctic has increased dramatically in the past few years, but sub-sea commercial shipping has failed to keep pace. However, newly developed submarine technology could open up the Arctic Ocean’s northern passage to year-round commercial transport. Sub-sea travel is preferable to travelling above water in the region, given sub-zero temperatures, icing problems, ice cap movements and difficulties rescuing ships in distress. Cargo submarines could sail directly across the Arctic Ocean, using less power, making them more economical in terms of fuel usage, and ideal for transporting goods like liquefied natural gas.


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Allianz trio given jail sentence for selling client data
 Kayleigh Underhill, Andrew Clarke and Reace Bowenwere were approached by brothers Sajaad and Shaiad Nawaz.

The trio were persuaded to illegally hand them information regarding Allianz Insurance customers who been involved in road collisions. The information was then sent by the brothers to claims management companies.

Once passed to claims management companies, the customers were cold called and persuaded to commence a personal injury claim.

In total the trio leaked more than 700 pieces of confidential data.

Underhill, aged 26, of Laxton Grove, Solihull, was given a 12 month jail term suspended for 18 months and told to pay £1,050 compensation to Allianz Insurance.

Clarke, 24, of Elmbridge Drive, Solihull, was given an eight month jail term suspended for 18 months and told to pay £150 compensation to Allianz Insurance.

Bowen, 23, from Birmingham, was also given an eight month jail term suspended for 18 months and told to pay £300 compensation to Allianz Insurance.

All three pleaded guilty to bribery offences in February and were sentenced in April when they were also ordered to pay £540 costs to the court.

Sajaad Nawaz, 36, of Brays Road, Birmingham, pleaded guilty in May and was sentenced last week to four months imprisonment suspended for 15 months.

His brother Shaiad Nawaz, 34, of Eastcote Road, Acocks Green, Birmingham, was also sentenced last week following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court. He was given a six month jail term suspended for 15 months.

The group’s criminal activity came to light when a report was made to Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime, in November 2015.

The report was referred to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) which used information from the report to identify the five offenders.

Detectives were able to gather evidence to show that Underhill, Clarke and Bowen had regular contact with the brothers via WhatsApp. While at work they would they would write customer data on their notepads, take photographs of this, and then pass the information via WhatsApp to both Nawaz brothers.

They would also discuss payment for this information in their WhatsApp conversations.

Underhill, Bowen and Clarke received approximately £250 per week for the information and their engagement with the bribers.

Detective Constable Daryl Fryatt, who led the case, said: “It is a criminal offence to leak customer data and any employee who is considering doing this should think twice. Underhill, Clarke and Bowen were all in a position of trust and now have a criminal record and will be unable to work in a range of industries.

“Whilst the Nawaz brothers thought they could make easy money by selling on data, they have now found that it is not that easy and they too have been sentenced as a result of their involvement.

“None of the offenders considered the consequences of selling this customer data and had no thought around the fact that people would end up receiving cold calls from claims management companies. They completely breached the trust of the customers and took advantage of the position they were in."

Graham Gibson, Chief Claims Officer at Allianz Insurance said: “We are extremely disappointed by the actions of these three individuals and we have worked in close co-operation with the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) during their investigations.

“Keeping our customers data safe from rogue Claims Management Companies is a priority for Allianz and we will work closely with the police to help prosecute those involved in this type of activity.

Output: Five people, including three Allianz Insurance workers, have been sentenced over taking £7,000 in bribes to pass on customer details. Kayleigh Underhill, Andrew Clarke and Reace Bowen were asked by brothers Sajaad and Shaiad Nawaz to illegally give them data about Allianz customers who had been involved in road crashes. The brothers then sent the information to claims management firms. The group were handed suspended sentences after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.


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US start-up builds tech that lets gamers dial down VR nausea
 Companies and researchers have been exploring a slew of potential solutions, from beefing up the resolution of the displays in headsets to limiting your field of view when there’s a lot of motion-related activity going on in the virtual world. And a very young startup called VRemedy Labs is working on an interesting fix of its own: a sort of software-based dial that you can turn up or down to raise or decrease the excitement level—and, it hopes, the resulting nausea—within VR games.

The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is building its own video game to test this out. The game-in-progress, which revolves around rescuing a group of superheroes, includes several kinds of locomotion that tend to make people feel sick in VR, such as flying around with adjustable rocket thrusters in your hands or pulling yourself from one place to another with grappling hooks.

For now, the startup founders are manually controlling the potentially uncomfortable effects that users experience as they try out the prototype. VRemedy Labs cofounder Richard Oates says one of the things they’re doing is starting players at the highest level of intensity and, if they feel sick, slowly dialing it down (over a period of about 10 minutes) to see if that helps. Then they ramp back up in hopes of finding a sweet spot for the player, adjusting things like your field of view and the number of obstacles that rush past when you’re moving. Eventually, they hope, players will be able to make the adjustments themselves.

To come up with different comfort levels, VRemedy labs first built a spectrum of nausea that takes into account existing research as well as best practices at the companies selling headsets, such as Rift maker Oculus and Vive makers Valve and HTC. Nish Bhandari, another cofounder, says they try to make the changes between different levels very subtle.

VRemedy Labs expects the game, which it’s calling I Hate Heroes, to be completed next year. Eventually, Oates says, the startup hopes to work with headset makers or release a software tool that game developers can use so their games can be adjustable as well.

“We want to break the mold of having [VR] experiences that are nauseating and awesome or comfortable and boring,” Oates says. “And instead make games everybody can play and play at their own pace.”

Output: Cambridge, Massachusetts start-up VRemedy Labs is developing a software tool that controls feelings of nausea by enabling virtual reality gamers to dial up or down the levels of motion experienced during activities such as flying around using handheld rocket thrusters. The company is using its own game-in-progress, I Hate Heroes, to refine the technology, with engineers currently controlling the intensity at which the game is played, with a view to users being able to do it themselves. VRemedy Labs is also hoping to work with headset manufacturers or launch a software tool for developers to add to their own games.


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Google offers refunds to advertisers affected by fraud
 Google is issuing refunds to marketers and ad agency partners who used the company’s DoubleClick Bid Manager, after it found evidence of ads running on websites with fake traffic.

Having informed hundreds of partners about the issue with invalid traffic, Google has offered to reimburse about 7% to 10% of the total purchase an advertiser pays on DoubleClick, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

To counter such issues, the internet giant is asking the 100-plus exchanges, ad networks and publishers that DoubleClick Bid Manager plugs into to display to ad buyers whether they are willing to refund the entire media spend if ad fraud instances occur.

It is also working on technology to ensure advertisers automatically receive a full credit back from Google and its partners if incidents of ad fraud occur.

A Google spokesperson told The Drum: “We can't comment on specific details of ad fraud but the vast majority is filtered in our systems before our advertisers are ever impacted or charged. Maintaining a healthy ads ecosystem and improving transparency in supply chain for our advertisers is an area we continue to invest in significantly."

"Some of those key initiatives include working with the broader industry to make it easier to spot counterfeit ads across the industry through ads.txt. In our own platforms, we’re working with our exchange partners to remove monetary incentives for spammers and increase transparency for buyers.”

According to the Bot Baseline report, economic losses due to bot fraud are estimated to reach $6.5bn globally in 2017. This is down 10% from the $7.2bn reported in last year’s study.

Google earlier warned a thousand online publishers over bad ads and introduced more ad filters to block content with 'violence, nudity and political satire'.

Output: Google has offered a refund to agencies and marketers, after DoubleClick Bid Manager ads were hosted on sites with artificially inflated traffic. The tech giant will reimburse between 7% and 10% of the affected parties' total DoubleClick spend. Google is also working on a tech solution to provide a full refund if ad fraud occurs. Around $6.5bn will be lost globally to bot fraud in this year alone, according to website analysts at Bot Baseline.


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China finds large gas field in Shanxi province
 Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-24 14:59:39|Editor: Yang Yi

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TAIYUAN, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- North China's Shanxi Province has discovered a large gas field with an estimated reserve of 545.6 billion cubic meters.

Shanxi is a major coal producer and has the country's second-largest known coal reserve. It also has estimated coal-bed gas and shale gas reserves of 12.7 trillion cubic meters.

Authorities discovered a large coal field in the area bordering Yushe, Zuoquan and Wuxiang counties in 2006. Further exploration found it contained high levels of gas.

Since exploration started in 2015, the field has been estimated to contain 241.5 billion cubic meters of coal-bed gas and 304.1 billion cubic meters of shale gas, said Zhou Jipeng, deputy director of the provincial land and resources department.

Shanxi is speeding up gas exploration while reducing coal output as China seeks to power its economy with cleaner energy to reduce pollution.

Output: North China's Shanxi Province has discovered a gas field with estimated reserves of 545.6 billion cubic metres. Shanxi has estimated coal-bed methane and shale gas reserves of 12.7 trillion cubic metres. A large coal field discovered in Shanxi in 2016 has been found to contain about 241.5 billion cubic meters of coal-bed gas and 304.1 billion cubic meters of shale gas. Shanxi, home to China's second-largest coal reserves, is speeding up gas exploration and reducing coal output as China seeks to reduce pollution.


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Saudi team uses light to split water and create hydrogen
 A nanostructured metamaterial with a sunflower-like arrangement can be immersed in water to generate hydrogen gas with superb efficiency. Credit: WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.

Hydrogen gas, an important synthetic feedstock, is poised to play a key role in renewable energy technology; however, its credentials are undermined because most is currently sourced from fossil fuels, such as natural gas. A KAUST team has now found a more sustainable route to hydrogen fuel production using chaotic, light-trapping materials that mimic natural photosynthetic water splitting.

The complex enzymes inside plants are impractical to manufacture, so researchers have developed photocatalysts that employ high-energy, hot electrons to cleave water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Recently, nanostructured metals that convert solar electrons into intense, wave-like plasmon resonances have attracted interest for hydrogen production. The high-speed metal plasmons help transfer carriers to catalytic sites before they relax and reduce catalytic efficiency.

Getting metal nanoparticles to respond to the entire broadband spectrum of visible light is challenging. "Plasmonic systems have specific geometries that trap light only at characteristic frequencies," explains Andrea Fratalocchi, who led the research. "Some approaches try to combine multiple nanostructures to soak up more colors, but these absorptions take place at different spatial locations so the sun's energy is not harvested very efficiently."

Fratalocchi and his team devised a new strategy using metal nanostructures known as epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) metamaterials that grow with random, fractal needles similar to a tiny pine tree. Inside the cavities formed by the protruding metal branches, the propagation of light slows to a near standstill. This enables the ENZ substance to squeeze all visible light colors to the same nanometer-scale locations.

However, optimizing the ENZ material for hydrogen generation proved a protracted process of months. Not every needle-like structure works the same way, which meant the team had to fine tune all fabrication parameters to find the correct disorder for efficient reactions. Then, choosing semiconducting titanium dioxide as a substrate to collect hot electrons required crystals with extremely high purity. Finally, the concentration and position of platinum nanoparticles used to catalytically split water molecules needed to be precisely controlled, depositions that are difficult with ENZ's complex geometry.

The result was worth the perseverance: experiments revealed the ENZ photocatalyst used broadband light to generate hot carriers within a narrow 10-nm interfacial region for an overall 300% gain in efficiency.

"Due to the possibility of controlling their absorption, the ENZ nanostructures are ideal candidates for solar-energy harvesting," says Fratalocchi. "We recently engineered an industrial prototype with impressive efficiency, which makes us very optimistic about the future possibilities of this technology."

More information: Yi Tian et al. Enhanced Solar-to-Hydrogen Generation with Broadband Epsilon-Near-Zero Nanostructured Photocatalysts, Advanced Materials (2017). DOI: 10.1002/adma.201701165 Journal information: Advanced Materials

Output: Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have developed water-splitters that use light to cleave water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas. The metal nanostructures trap solar electrons and convert them into plasmon resonances. In turn, high-speed metal plasmons help transfer electron carrying particles to catalytic sites where they split water particles. However, the process requires extremely pure crystals of titanium dioxide to collect hot electrons. Additionally, the concentration of platinum nanoparticles used to split water molecules must be precisely controlled.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Russia's BeOne uses blockchain for educational courses
 Russian blockchain start-up BeOne is implementing blockchain technology to online education and course delivery through the development of a distributed ledger backed platform. The BeOne platform is created with the intention of offering users with varying educational backgrounds, a range of online courses across a broad spectrum of domains.

The platform, currently undergoing closed alpha testing has announced the launch of its ICO campaign to raise funds necessary for building a comprehensive finished product.

Users of BeOne platform will be able to teach or learn a wide array of skills, including cooking and photography. The platform has been designed with the intention of keeping the needs of students and instructors at its core. The platform aims to simplify the process for online teachers to create and share informative, educational content of various types at a fraction of the cost while receiving higher returns than other similar platforms.

Another benefit is the massive pool of content available to online students at a comparatively small fee. Users of BeOne can participate in the webinars hosted on the platform, receive one-on-one consultations and get an immediate response to their queries. When it comes to courses, they can purchase a particular module of significance based on their needs, rather than being forced to buy an entire course that may not be of any use to them.

BeOne also enables its users to search for like-minded people and join interest groups to learn in teams. For instructors and course creators, BeOne has a broad range of monetization models that currently charge the lowest commission in the industry, with a cap of 10%.

The BeOne ICO is set to go live on August 28, 2017, at 12:00 (MSK). During the month-long crowd sale, investors can purchase the platform’s tokens by depositing BTC, ETH, LTC or DASH. The BeOne tokens serve as the mode of transactions on the platform. The platform has set a maximum cap of 10 million tokens out of which 9 million will be available for purchase during the crowd sale.

BeOne has a bonus option in place for early bird investors, with individuals who invest during the first three hours of the ICO receiving a 50% discount on the token purchase. After the first allotment, investors stand to get a 20% discount for the following 72 hours.

From all the raised ICO funds, BeOne will invest 50% in marketing, 20% for development, 20% for onboarding instructors and the rest 10% for operating expenses.

Output: Russian edtech start-up BeOne has held an initial coin offering to fund the development of its educational platform, which is backed by distributed ledger technology. The platform, currently in closed alpha testing, aims to keep the needs of students and instructors at its core, enabling online teachers to create and share educational content at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, while students can cherry-pick what they want to learn from a massive pool of content.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Bitcoin is a commodity not a currency, says Banco de Mexico
 Banco de Mexico (Bank of Mexico) Governor Agustín Carstens thinks the digital currency Bitcoin should be classified as a commodity rather than as a currency. The bank governor argued that Bitcoin does not meet the existing definition of currency because it is not supported by a government or central bank.

According to the report by local Mexican newspaper El Economista, Carstens argued further that since there is nothing to ensure its accounting in a financial system, the virtual currency should be considered as a commodity.

He also added that the cryptocurrency should be considered as an “issue of cybersecurity” due to its potential in anonymity and use in cybercrime activities.

As a reaction to economic woes affecting Mexico, as well as potential future problems as a result of US policy, alternative currencies like Bitcoin go up.

Digital currency exchanges in Mexico are thriving and ever-increasing trade is being witnessed.

Other arguments and developments over Bitcoin

Carstens presented his comments on Bitcoin during his lecture at the Mexican Technical University ITAM.

In his presentation, he also discussed the efforts by the government to regulate financial technologies (fintech) like digital currencies.

He argued that any technological development in the financial system cannot be the result of innovation alone, but should be implemented in tandem with regulation by the financial regulators.

Previous position by the Mexican government on Bitcoin

The Mexican government, through its central bank, has previously expressed its negative views on digital currencies, particularly Bitcoin. In 2014, the Bank of Mexico has announced that virtual currencies are not legal tender in the country, and therefore, illegal.

The central bank also prohibited the use of the cryptocurrencies by regulated financial institutions in the country due to the inherent risks that are associated with their use. The bank also cited the warnings issued by various central banks around the world on the link between the digital currencies and illegal activities like fraud and money laundering.

Output: Digital currencies such as bitcoin should not be considered a currency as they are not supported by a government or central bank, according to Agustín Carstens, the governor of the Banco de Mexico. The comments came during a lecture by Carstens at the Mexican Technical University, in which he also warned cryptocurrencies should be an "issue of cybersecurity" due to their use in cybercrime and the potential for anonymous use. In 2014 the Banco de Mexico declared virtual currencies were not legal tender. Nonetheless, digital currency exchanges in Mexico are thriving, possibly in part due to the country's economic difficulties.


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Maltese insurtech firm raises $2.3m ahead of UK launch
 Sherpa, a Naxxar, Malta-based insurtech startup, raised $2.3m in funding.

Backers included Mehrdad Piroozram, and other unnamed angel investors.

The company intends to use the funds to expand the team and invest further in proprietary IP.

Led by Chris Kaye, CEO, Greg McCafferty, CFO, and Lachlan Gillies, COO, Sherpa is building an interface that offers a single personalized insurance account for connected consumers covering all their personal risks coupled with a solution for personal risk management.

The solution will be launched in the UK later this year.

FinSMEs

28/08/2017

Output: Malta-based insurtech start-up Sherpa has raised $2.3m in funding from investors including Mehrdad Piroozram. Sherpa is developing a platform that offers a personalised insurance account for connected consumers covering all personal risks, as well as a solution for personal risk management, set to be released in the UK later this year. The company plans to use the additional funding to expand its team and invest further in proprietary intellectual property.


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Calif. Hits Kaiser With $2.2 Million Fine For Failing To Provide Required Medicaid Data
 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.

California officials have again slapped health care giant Kaiser Permanente with a multimillion-dollar fine for failing to provide data on patient care to the state’s Medicaid program.

The $2.2 million fine comes just months after a $2.5 million penalty in January against Kaiser, one of the largest nonprofit health plans in the country. The California Department of Health Care Services said these are the first fines it has imposed against a Medicaid managed-care plan since at least 2000.

The state agency uses this data on hospital admissions, doctor visits and prescription drugs to help set rates, ensure adequate care is available and monitor how tax dollars are being spent in the $100 billion program, known as Medi-Cal in California.

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

Kaiser isn’t appealing the latest fine, and the Oakland-based health plan said it expects to deliver the required information by September. (Kaiser Health News, which produces California Healthline, is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

The reporting lapses are surprising given that Kaiser is known industrywide for pioneering the use of electronic medical records and developing data-driven treatment guidelines. But Kaiser has said its systems and technology were not designed to collect information in the format required by the state. The company said the sanctions were in no way related to the quality of patient care.

“We have recently made significant investments in new technology to help us comply with the new administrative data reporting requirements,” Nathaniel Oubre, Kaiser Permanente’s vice president for Medi-Cal, said in a statement. “We are committed to full compliance.”

Jennifer Kent, Department of Health Care Services director, notified Kaiser of the latest fine in a May 25 letter. She wrote that the insurer was making efforts to resolve the deficiencies, but it still had not complied with state deadlines. One of her deputy directors, Sarah Brooks, said the agency has been trying to get Kaiser to comply with the rules since 2014.

The state “takes very seriously its commitment to ensure contract compliance from Medi-Cal managed-care health plans so members can get the care they need,” Brooks said.

Brooks said additional fines may be imposed depending in part on whether Kaiser’s violations put Medi-Cal out of compliance with federal rules. That could force the state to repay money to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which funds the Medi-Cal program jointly with the state.

Kaiser is among 22 health plans that participate in the Medi-Cal program. About 80 percent, or 10.8 million, of Medi-Cal’s 13.5 million enrollees are in managed-care plans. Kaiser serves about 700,000 Medi-Cal enrollees.

In addition to being an insurer, Kaiser runs 39 hospitals across the country and hundreds of clinics. Kaiser operates in eight states and the District of Columbia, but about 70 percent of its 11.8 million members are in California. For 2016, the company had net income of $3.1 billion on revenue of $64.6 billion.

A consumer advocate said it’s disturbing that Kaiser has defied state rules for so long.

“We’ve seen Kaiser use their unique model as an excuse for putting themselves outside the law in the past,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. “This demonstrates their hubris.”

In Medi-Cal managed care, the state pays insurers a fixed amount per enrollee to provide comprehensive care. That’s different from the traditional fee-for-service system, in which the state pays medical providers directly for services rendered.

Kaiser has faced other fines from California regulators. In 2013, the California Department of Managed Health Care fined the insurer $4 million for problems with patient access to mental health treatment. In June, the managed-care agency criticized Kaiser again for failing to address long delays in treatment, and it said additional fines were possible.

Output: California officials have again slapped health care giant Kaiser Permanente with a multimillion-dollar fine for failing to provide data on patient care to the state’s Medicaid program.


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Lastminute.com launches Travel Insights to allow targeted ads
 Lastminute.com has launched a new tool called Travel Insights that promises to help brands target people with market research surveys within display ad formats that will be served on both its own site and those of third-parties.

It’s part of the brand’s wider investment into its in-house media business, which opened up to the market last summer under the steerage of Alessandra Di Lorenzo, chief commercial officer of media and partnerships, as a way to protect its revenues against the threat of the digital giants, namely Google but increasingly Facebook.

Dubbed The Travel People, it’s effectively an ad tech offering that services both the sell-side businesses of the Lastminute.com group as well as the buy-side for advertisers (its clients).

Revenues for that division are up 30% year-on-year, with some 1500 campaigns from over 300 different advertisers now under its belt.

“It’s going really well,” Di Lorenzo told The Drum. “What we’re doing now is building out different things that play on our data strength because at the end of the day, as a publisher, our biggest asset is data. So, we’re taking that and rolling out the Travel Insights product.”

The Insights tool was born from the group’s acquisition of social travel network WAYN, which used similar technology to gather over 25 million user-generated ideas to enhance its own content offering.

In this iteration, it will use the Lasminute.com group’s rich first-party data on its 43 million monthly users as well as partnerships with key third-party data providers to provide brands with what it claimed is “unique and valuable insights about their customers.”

Where Facebook and Google can deliver data against relatively broad categories, Di Lorenzo said that her big pitch to potential clients is “boutique travel data” that can’t be found on the mass market (especially on the hard to reach young, affluent audience).

A “gamified survey” in the form of an ad, hosted in standard IAB formats, will deliver feedback from a cross section of this audience. Participation is encouraged through incentives like automatic entry into a 'Win a Holiday' prize draw or discounts on a trip.

“If you think about a classic market research study what [a marketer] would do is go out, find people to sign up and [respondents] would give you answers to questions. But we’re using cookie technology [to find the right people] and creating display advertising units with engaging creative and questions which we run on our site or third-party sites. And we do the profiling based on programmatic technology. Which means we have infinite scale,” she explained.

“Asking questions is the most humble and mature way to run a business and every business should be humble enough to ask the right questions. If a marketer thinks they know everything about their customers… that’s a bit worrying.”

Depending on the client, Lasminute.com anticipates that it will receive between 800 and 2000 responses that are “statistically relevant” over an average two-week campaign.

The “cool factor,” Di Lorenzo said, is the competitive pricing which will be priced based on advertising metrics such as number of responses.

“I work closely with the chief marketing officer on planning and buying. So, we buy media for our own brand as well as on behalf of clients. That comes back to the pricing, which is based on response, but the underlying cost for us is the CPM.”

In the first months of launch it is aiming to sign up tourism bodies, which Di Lorenzo said are lagging when it comes to how they can use digital for consumer insight.

Travel Portland – the marketing organisation for the city of Portland, Oregon, which has recently received a bump in its marketing budget – is one of the first organisations to pilot the Insights tool.

It’s using a survey to provide greater insight into the demographic of potential UK travellers to Portland and to inform its future strategy to increase the number of Brits who visited the city in 2016.

“But this product could be interesting to any brand that’s trying to sell products or services to travellers," she continued.

"It’s just a different way of actioning and using the data we have at hand. It’s helping brands get information rather than sitting in an office and assuming things."

Output: Lastminute.com is introducing Travel Insights, which will allow brands to target users via market research surveys. These will appear within display ad formats on third party sites as well as Lastminute.com. It represents an investment into the company's own media business, protecting against the likes of digital leaders Google and Facebook. The new venture offers competitive pricing based on metrics and response data.


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Why Medicare and Medicaid Can Outmatch Private Plans on Cost
 “What kind of insurance you have does affect your access to health care,” said Carrie Colla, associate professor of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice and the lead author of the study. “But once you’re in front of the doctor, by and large you’re treated the same way as any other patient.”

One apparent exception found in the study involved the seventh service it examined: cardiac testing before low-risk, noncardiac surgery. This service was provided to 46 percent of Medicare beneficiaries and 26 percent of privately insured patients. The large difference could reflect the fact that cardiac problems are more prevalent among older people. So a doctor with equal concern for all her patients might test Medicare patients at a higher rate for that reason. Nonetheless, such testing is considered low value even for the Medicare population.

Another recent study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, also found little relationship between insurance status and low-value care. The study found no difference in the rates at which seven of nine low-value services were provided to patients on Medicaid versus those with private coverage. Six were also provided at the same rates for uninsured and privately insured patients.

Moreover, the study found that physicians who see a higher proportion of patients on Medicaid provide the same rate of low- and high-value services for all their patients as other physicians do. This is an important finding because Medicaid pays doctors less than private plans do, raising concerns that higher-quality doctors would tend not to participate in the program.

“Despite concerns to the contrary, Medicaid patients don’t appear to be seeing lower-quality doctors,” said Dr. Michael Barnett, lead author of the study, a physician with the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Though raising the prices Medicaid pays doctors may increase physician participation, enhancing enrollees’ access to care, it isn’t likely to change the quality of care patients receive once they are in the doctor’s office.”

Output: In recent days, Democrats have stepped into the health policy vacuum created by the Republicans’ failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Proposals making the rounds include allowing Americans to buy into Medicare at age 55 or to buy into Medicaid.


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Majority of Voters Support Medicaid Work Requirements
 A majority of voters back the idea of tying Medicaid eligibility to employment status as the Trump administration weighs whether to give more states the power to impose work requirements on the government health program.

In an Aug. 10-14 Morning Consult/POLITICO poll, 1,997 registered voters were asked whether they generally support requiring individuals to have a job in order to be eligible for the program. Fifty-one percent of voters said they support that proposal, while 37 percent said they oppose it. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Republicans in Congress have long sought to reform welfare programs with policies that encourage beneficiaries to be employed. Including welfare-to-work policies in other federal assistance programs, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, has had bipartisan support — but many Democrats oppose adding a work requirement to Medicaid because it is a health care program.

No state Medicaid program currently has work requirements on the books, as the policy is illegal under federal law. But the Trump administration is reviewing applications from four states to waive federal law to adopt work requirement programs.

Drew Altman, who, as noted in a 1987 New York Times story, spearheaded groundbreaking work incentive reforms as commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Human Services in the 1980s, said Americans generally back policies that encourage people to work. The split is over whether they should apply to Medicaid, said Altman, who is now the chief executive officer and president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“Liberals and Democrats tend to view Medicaid as a government insurance program and conservatives and Republicans view it as a welfare program, and as a welfare benefit for which there should be a reciprocal obligation,” he said in a Friday interview.

Voters’ views on Medicaid work requirements reflected the ideological divide among policymakers. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans surveyed said they support requiring Medicaid beneficiaries to have a job, while 52 percent of Democrats opposed the idea. A plurality of independents (46 percent) backed work requirements and 36 percent opposed them.

Altman was quick to note that the work requirement programs under consideration are much broader than simply requiring Medicaid enrollees to be employed. Programs requested in the four states — Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania — would require enrollees to work a certain number of hours per week, or be enrolled in other activities, such as an educational, job training or employment search program.

“It could be working, it could be looking for a job, it could be training for a job, it could be getting a GED, and there are also a long list of exemptions from those work requirements,” Altman said.

The actual impact of adding work requirements would be small, Altman suggests, because they would only apply to a small number of Medicaid enrollees. A Kaiser Family Foundation study published in February said 78 percent of beneficiaries belong to families with at least one worker, and 59 percent of enrollees are employed themselves. Most Medicaid enrollees who do not work would be exempt from the requirements because they have a disability or care for a family member.

“It’s actually a very small number of people who would be affected by work requirements, so this is more an ideological debate than it is something that will have a significant effect on the program,” Altman said.

Output: A majority of voters back the idea of tying Medicaid eligibility to employment status as the Trump administration weighs whether to give more states the power to impose work requirements on the government health program.


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Robot caregivers for the elderly could be just 10 years away
 The anthropomorphic robot named hitchBOT sits on the shoulder of Highway 102 to begin its 6000 kilometer cross country journey outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 27, 2014. REUTERS/Paul Darrow

Despite innovations that make it easier for seniors to keep living on their own rather than moving into special facilities, most elderly people eventually need a hand with chores and other everyday activities.

Friends and relatives often can't do all the work. Growing evidence indicates it's neither sustainable nor healthy for seniors or their loved ones. Yet demand for professional caregivers already far outstrips supply, and experts say this workforce shortage will only get worse.

So how will our society bridge this elder-care gap? In a word, robots.

Just as automation has begun to do jobs previously seen as uniquely suited for humans, like retrieving goods from warehouses, robots will assist your elderly relatives. As a robotics researcher, I believe artificial intelligence has the potential not only to care for our elders but to do so in a way that increases their independence and reduces their social isolation.

Personal robots

In the 2004 movie "I, Robot," the robot-hating protagonist Del Spooner (played by Will Smith) is shocked to discover a robot in his grandmother's house, baking a pie. You may have similar mental images: When many people imagine robots in the home, they envision mechanized domestic workers doing tasks in human-like ways.

In reality, many of the robots that will provide support for older adults who "age in place" — staying at home when they might otherwise be forced to relocate to assisted living or nursing homes — won't look like people.

Instead, they will be specialized systems, akin to the Roomba, iRobot's robotic vacuum cleaner and the first commercially successful consumer robot. Small, specific devices are not only easier to design and deploy, they allow for incremental adoption as requirements evolve over time.

Seniors, like everyone else, need different things. Many need help with the mechanics of eating, bathing, dressing, and standing up — tasks known as "activities of daily living." Along with daily help with cooking and managing their medications, they can benefit from a robotic hand with more intermittent things such as doing the laundry and getting to the doctor's office.

A robot hands medicine to a worker at the Interactive Robotics and Language Lab, at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. University of Maryland Baltimore County

That may sound far-fetched, but in addition to vacuuming robots can already mop our floors and mow our lawns. Experimental robots help lift people into and out of chairs and beds, follow recipes, fold towels, and dispense pills. Soon, autonomous (self-driving) cars will ferry people to appointments and gatherings.

The kinds of robots already available include models that drive, provide pet-like social companionship, and greet customers. Some of these technologies are already in limited trials in nursing homes, and seniors of course can already rely on their own Roombas.

Meanwhile, robot companions may soon help relieve loneliness and nudge forgetful elders to eat on a regular schedule.

Scientists and other inventors are building robots that will do these jobs and many others.

Pepper

Round-the-clock care

While some tasks remain out of reach of today's robots, such as inserting IVs or trimming toenails, mechanical caregivers can offer clear advantages over their human counterparts.

The most obvious one is their capacity to work around the clock. Machines, unlike people, are available 24/7. When used in the home, they can support aging in place.

Another plus: Relying on technology to meet day-to-day needs like mopping the floor can improve the quality of time elders spend with family and friends. Delegating mundane chores to robots also leaves more time for seniors to socialize with the people who care about them, and not just for them.

And since using devices isn't the same as asking someone for help, relying on caregiving robots may lead seniors to perceive less lost autonomy than when they depend on human helpers.

Interacting with robots

This brave new world of robot caregivers won't take shape unless we make them user-friendly and intuitive, and that means interaction styles matter. In my lab, we work on how robots can interact with people by talking with them. Fortunately, recent research by the Pew Research Center shows that older adults are embracing technology more and more, just like everyone else.

Now that we are beginning to see robots that can competently perform some tasks, researchers like Jenay Beer, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina, are trying to figure out which activities seniors need the most help with and what kinds of robots they might be most willing to use in the near term.

To that end, researchers are asking questions like:

Do robots need to understand and convey emotion to be accepted?

How can robots provide social support?

Is it best when machines simulate eye contact with us?

Does it help if they can converse?

But the fact is we don't need all the answers before robots begin to help elders age in place.

Looking ahead

After all, there's no time to lose.

The Census Bureau estimated that 15% of Americans — nearly one in six — were aged 65 or older in 2016, up from 12% in 2000. Demographers anticipate that by 2060 almost one in four will be in that age group. That means there will be some 48 million more elderly people in the US than there are now.

I believe robots will perform many elder-care tasks within a decade. Some activities will still require human caregivers, and there are people for whom robotic assistance will never be the answer. But you can bet that robots will help seniors age in place, even if they won't look like butlers or pastry chefs.

Cynthia Matuszek is an assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Output: Despite innovations that make it easier for seniors to keep living on their own rather than moving into special facilities, most elderly people eventually need a hand with chores and other everyday activities.


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Elder Abuse: ERs Learn How To Protect A Vulnerable Population
 Abuse often leads to depression and medical problems in older patients — even death within a year of an abusive incident.

Yet, those subjected to emotional, physical or financial abuse too often remain silent. Identifying victims and intervening poses challenges for doctors and nurses.

Because visits to the emergency room may be the only time an older adult leaves the house, staff in the ER can be a first line of defense, said Tony Rosen, founder and lead investigator of the Vulnerable Elder Protection Team (VEPT), a program launched in April at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center ER.

The most common kinds of elder abuse are emotional and financial, Rosen said, and usually when one form of abuse exists, so do others. According to a New York study, as few as 1 in 24 cases of abuse against residents age 60 and older were reported to authorities.

The VEPT program — initially funded by a small grant from The John A. Hartford Foundation (a Kaiser Health News funder) and now fully funded by the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation — includes Presbyterian Hospital emergency physicians Tony Rosen, Mary Mulcare and Michael Stern. These three doctors and two social workers take turns being on call to respond to signs of elder abuse. Also available when needed are psychiatrists, legal and ethical advisers, radiologists, geriatricians and security and patient-services personnel.

This KHN story also ran in USA Today . It can be republished for free ( details ).

“We work at making awareness of elder abuse part of the culture in our emergency room by training the entire staff in how to recognize it,” said Rosen. It’s easy for the ER staff to alert the VEPT team and begin an investigation, he said.

A doctor interviews the patient and conducts a head-to-toe physical exam looking for bruises, lacerations, abrasions, areas of pain and tenderness. Additional testing is ordered if the doctor suspects abuse.

“Unlike with child abuse victims, where there is a standard protocol in place for screening, there is no equivalent for the elderly, but we have designed and are evaluating one,” said Rosen.

The team looks for specific injuries. For example, radiographic images show old and new fractures, which suggest a pattern of multiple traumatic events. Specific types of fractures may indicate abuse, such as midshaft fractures in the ulna, a forearm bone that can break when an older adult holds his arm in front of his face to protect himself.

When signs of abuse are found but the elder is not interested in cooperating with finding a safe place or getting help, a psychiatrist is asked to determine if that elder has decision-making capacity. The team offers resources but can do little more if the patient isn’t interested. They would have to allow the patient to return to the potentially unsafe situation.

Patients who are in immediate danger and want help or are found not to have capacity may be admitted to the hospital and placed in the care of a geriatrician until a solution can be found. Unlike with children and Child Protective Services, Adult Protective Services won’t become involved until a patient has been discharged, so hospitalization can play an important role in keeping older adults safe.

During the first three months of the program, more than 35 elders showed signs of abuse, and a large percentage of them were later confirmed to be victims. Changes in housing or living situations were made for several of them.

“It’s difficult to identify and measure appropriate outcomes for elder abuse victims, because each patient may have different care goals,” said Rosen, “but we are working on making a case that detection of elder abuse and intervention in the ER will improve the patients’ lives. We also hope to show that it will save money, because when an elder is in a safe place, expensive, frequent trips to the ER may no longer be needed.”

The team’s ultimate goal is to optimize acute care for these vulnerable victims and ensure their safety. They plan to work at continually tweaking VEPT to improve the program and to connect to emergency medical, law enforcement and criminal justice services. Eventually, they hope to help other emergency departments set up similar programs.

KHN’s coverage related to aging & improving care of older adults is supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation.

KFF Health News' coverage of aging and long-term care issues is supported in part by The SCAN Foundation.

Output: Abuse often leads to depression and medical problems in older patients — even death within a year of an abusive incident. Yet, those subjected to emotional, physical or financial abuse too often remain silent. Identifying victims and intervening poses challenges for doctors and nurses.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Safer Cars Help Keep Older Drivers on the Road
 For example, as someone with arthritic hands (among other body parts), I’m aided by power seats that can be preset two ways: one for my best driving position and the other to ease entry and exit from the car. Other useful features include power windows and mirrors, a thicker steering wheel that is easier to grip, keyless entry, an automatic tailgate closer and a push-button to start (and stop) the engine.

However, Mr. Nelson warned drivers of all ages about one feature now in most new cars: the backup camera. While great for older adults with flexibility issues and short people like me who can’t see objects directly behind the car, it won’t detect anything in the blind spot. That is, it cannot see people, vehicles or bicycles approaching the car from the side. The camera is meant to supplement, not replace, a driver’s visual checks. You must still check your mirrors, turn your head if possible and proceed with caution.

The AAA has created a very useful computerized site to help older drivers identify the makes and models of vehicles within various price ranges that may best suit their particular issues. At SeniorDriving.AAA.com/SmartFeatures, drivers can use drop-down menus to choose among categories like diminished vision, limited upper body range of motion, short stature or overweight, and decreased leg strength.

For those with various vision problems common among the elderly, for example, features like a high-contrast instrument panel with large number and letter displays, an auto-dimming rearview mirror and glare-reducing side mirrors can enhance driver safety.

Sometimes features that auto engineers consider helpful are annoying or distracting for some drivers. Several of the visual or audible warnings in my new car can be turned on or off by the driver.

Ms. Schold Davis urged people to “plan to spend time choosing a car and select the latest built-in safety features you can afford.” Noting that “not all safety features are alike car-to-car,” she said choosing the right car should be individualized according to each driver’s needs. The ultimate goal: “Decrease the likelihood of a crash and cushion against serious injury should a crash occur,” she said.

With the exception of dementia or certain conditions like serious visual impairment, “the diagnosis of a medical condition should not determine whether it’s safe for someone to drive,” Mr. Nelson said. “What does matter is how you manage your condition — whether, for example, you have diabetes and keep your blood sugar under control to prevent a blackout.” Manage your health issue properly, and chances are there is a car available that is safe for you to drive.

Output: More than three decades ago, I fell in love with the first minivan I spotted parked in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Though I was never a “soccer mom,” I travel as if there were no stores at my destination, and here was a car that could carry half a household. And I loved sitting up high, able to see beyond the car in front of me.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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AI-based app picks emojis based on your facial expression
 Marcin Kmiec, one of Polygram’s cofounders, says the app’s AI works by capturing your face with the front-facing camera on the phone and analyzing sequences of images as quickly as possible, rather than just looking at specific points on the face like your pupils and nose. This is done directly on the phone, using the iPhone’s graphics processing unit, he says.

When you look at a post in the app (for now the posts seem to consist of a suspicious amount of luxury vacation spots, fancy cars, and women in tight clothing), you see a small yellow emoji on the bottom of the display, its expression changing along with your real one. There’s a slight delay—20 milliseconds, which is just barely noticeable—between what you’re expressing on your face and what shows up in the app. The app records your response (or responses, if your expression changes a few times) in a little log of emoji on the side of the screen, along with those of others who’ve already looked at the same post.

The app is clearly meant to appeal to those who really care about how they’re perceived on social media: users can see a tally of the emoji reactions to each photo or video they post to the app, as well as details about who looked at the post, how long they looked at it, and where they’re located. This might be helpful for some mega-users, but could turn off those who are more wary about how their activity is tracked, even when it’s anonymized.

And, as many app makers know, it’s hard to succeed in social media; for every Instagram or Snapchat there are countless ones that fail to catch on. (Remember Secret? Or Path? Or Yik Yak? Or Google+?) Polygram’s founders say they’re concentrating on using the technology in their own app for now, but they also think it could be useful in other kinds of apps, like telemedicine, where it could be used to gauge a patient’s reaction to a doctor or nurse, for instance. Eventually, they say, they may release software tools that let other developers come up with their own applications for the technology.

Output: Polygram has launched an app that uses artificial intelligence to analyse users' facial expressions and transform them into emojis in a matter of milliseconds. The app is currently only available for free on iPhone. Users can monitor the reactions to each photo, as well as details of who looked at the post, the duration of the view and location of the viewer. Polygram said the app could be used in telemedicine, and is considering opening it up to third parties.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Intel's new Myrius X vision chip incorporates deep learning
 Today, Intel subsidiary Movidius is announcing the Movidius Myriad X vision processing unit (VPU), a low-power system-on-chip (SoC) intended for deep learning and AI acceleration in vision-based devices such as drones, smart cameras, and VR/AR headsets. This follows up on last month’s launch of the Myriad 2 powered Movidius Neural Compute Stick. As for the Myriad 2, the Myriad X will coexist alongside its predecessor, which was first announced in 2014. Movidius states that the Myriad X will offer ten times the performance of the Myriad 2 in deep neural network (DNN) inferencing within the same power envelope, while the Myriad 2 will remain a lower performance option.

Under the hood, the Myriad X SoC features what Movidius is calling a Neural Compute Engine, an on-chip DNN accelerator. With it, Movidius states that the Myriad X can achieve over one trillion operations per second (TOPS) of peak DNN inferencing throughput, in the backdrop of the Myriad X’s theoretical 4+ TOPS compute capability.

In addition, the Myriad X has four more C-programmable 128-bit VLIW vector processors and configurable MIPI lanes from the Myriad 2, as well as expanded 2.5 MB on-chip memory and more fixed-function imaging/vision accelerators. Like the ones found in the Myriad 2, the Myriad X’s vector units are proprietary SHAVE (Streaming Hybrid Architecture Vector Engine) processors optimized for computer vision workloads. The Myriad X also supports the latest LPDDR4, with the MA2085 variant equipped with only interfaces to external memory. In an accompanying launch video, Movidius locates the Myriad X functions on a stylized dieshot.

Another new function in the Myriad X is 4K hardware encoding, with 4K at 30 Hz (H.264/H.265) and 60 Hz (M/JPEG) supported. Interface-wise, the Myriad X brings USB 3.1 and PCIe 3.0 support, both new to the Myriad VPU family. All this is done within the same <2W power envelope as the Myriad 2, cited more specifically as within 1W.

Movidius Myriad Family VPUs Myriad 2 Myriad X Compute Capacity >1 TOPS >4 TOPS Vector Processors 12x SHAVE Processors 16x SHAVE Processors CPUs 2x LEON4 cores

(RISC; SPARC V8) 2x LEON4 cores

(RISC; SPARC V8) On-chip Accelerators ~20 image/vision processing accelerators 20+ image/vision processing accelerators

Neural Compute Engine (DNN accelerator) Neural Network Capability 1st Gen DNN Support

(Up to 100 GFLOPS) Neural Compute Engine

(Up to 1 TOPS) On-chip Memory and Bandwidth 2 MB

(400GB/sec) 2.5 MB

(450GB/sec) DRAM Support Max: 8Gb

LPDDR2 (533MHz, 32-bit)

LPDDR3 (933MHz, 32-bit) Max: 16Gb

LPDDR4 (1600MHz, 32-bit) DRAM Configurations 1Gbit LPDDR2 (MA215X)

4Gbit LPDDR3 (MA245X) No in-package memory (MA2085)

4Gbit LPDDR4 (MA2485) Encoder/Codec VGA, 720p, 1080p, H.264 (software encoder) M/JPEG 4K at 60Hz encoder

H.264/H.265 4K at 30Hz encoder Key Interfaces 12x MIPI lanes (DPHY 1.1)

USB 3

SPI

I2S

SD

1GbE 16x MIPI lanes (PHY 1.2)

USB 3.1

Quad SPI

I2S

2x SD

10GbE

PCIe 3.0 Process 28nm HPC+/HPC/HPM (TSMC) 16nm FFC (TSMC) Package 6.5mm x 6.5 mm (MA215X)

8mm x 9.5 mm (MA245X) 8.1mm x 8.8mm (MA2085, MA2485)

At a glance, much of the Myriad X’s extra performance at the same Myriad 2 power appears to come from its new 16nm FFC TSMC process node. In shrinking from a 28nm planar process to 16nm FinFET, Movidius was able to invest the power savings into higher performance as well as more SHAVE processors, accelerators, interfaces, and memory, all in a relatively similar package size. While Intel indeed has its own fabs, Movidius stated that the Myriad X was in development well before Intel acquired Movidius in 2016, and thus 16nm FFC was the technology of choice. This 16nm FFC iteration comes after the Myriad 2’s incarnations on three of TSMC's 28nm process variants: HPM, HPC, and HPC+.

While specifics were not disclosed, the Myriad X VPU comes with an SDK that includes a neural network compiler and “a specialized FLIC framework with a plug-in approach to developing application pipelines.” In any case, like the Myriad 2, the Myriad X will be programmable via the Myriad Development Kit (MDK). At this time, there were no details about the reference kit hardware.

As mentioned earlier, the Myriad 2 will not be replaced by the Myriad X. Last January, the Myriad 2 was described as costing under $10; based on the higher cost FinFET process and additional hardware features, the Myriad X will likely command a higher price for the higher performance.

Update (8/28/17): An Intel representative has given an update stating that 8.1mm x 8.8mm are the correct dimensions for the Myriad X VPUs. The original specifications (8.5mm x 8.7mm) that were given out were incorrect. The press kit photo has been updated.

Output: Intel has announced the Movidius Myriad X vision processing unit (VPU), a low-power system-on-chip designed for use by systems like drones and AR/VR-headsets that require AI-enhanced visual performance. The chip incorporates what Intel calls a "neural compute engine", an accelerator that can speed up the deep neural network capabilities of the Myriad X to over one trillion operations a second, all in a footprint of 8.1mm x 8.9mm, with a power consumption of around 1 watt.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Facebook bans advertisers who spread fake news
 Facebook is continuing its crackdown on fake news.

The social network Monday announced Facebook Pages will no longer be able to advertise on the site if they repeatedly share news articles that are marked as false by third-party fact-checking organizations. Page owners can win back the ability to run ads if they later choose to act responsibly.

The move would limit one of the big ways that fake news spreads, since paying to boost posts is a big way for publishers to get stories in front of more people.

"We want people to stay informed on friends, family, and topics they care about on Facebook, and false news damages trust," said Rob Leathern(opens in a new tab), product manager at Facebook. "This is mostly about removing incentivizes for the creation of false news."

This update limits a user's ability to growth hack a Facebook Page, as in gain followers (or Facebook "likes") by sharing fake (but highly-engaging) news articles. Paying for Facebook ads allowed these fake news articles to appear in users' News Feeds.

Facebook introduced a partnership with third-party fact-checkers, months after CEO Mark Zuckerberg belittled the impact of fake news on the 2016 presidential election. Shortly after the election, Zuckerberg wrote(opens in a new tab) "more than 99% of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes."

Since that claim, Facebook has taken several steps to lessen the abundance of fake news on the network. Other moves include shutting down the bot networks used to defraud advertisers and suppressing links from websites with bad ad experiences.

Facebook has broken up its fight against fake news into three buckets: disrupting economic incentives, building new products, and helping people make informed decisions.

The most recent change falls into the first category. Still, Facebook remains steadfast against being an arbiter of truth. Pages can regain the ability to advertise and are not banned.

"It is possible that someone could inadvertently share something, so we want to make sure that it is a repeated behavior," Leathern said. "We want there to be an incentive: good maintenance. If they no longer are sharing [fake] stories, they can regain the ability. A repeated pattern of this occurring has a consequence."

Facebook declined to share an exact estimate of the financial impact. The company earned $9.32 billion in the second quarter of 2017, the majority of which comes from mobile advertising

"I think overall the order of magnitude of the size of this is relatively small," Leathern said.

Output: Facebook will ban advertisers who regularly spread false news stories on its site. Users of Facebook Pages, the company's ad platform, will be banned from advertising if they are found to be regularly sharing content flagged as false by third-party fact-checkers. Facebook brought the fact-checkers on board as part of its efforts to combat the spread of 'fake news' on the site. The social network is seeking to reduce economic incentives for the creation of false stories, with measures including shutting down bot networks which defraud advertisers, and suppressing links from websites with bad records.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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BuzzFeed shifts towards banner ads and away from native content
 Since 2013, BuzzFeed has sidestepped the much-maligned banner ad in favour of native content however, the company is now bringing the format back onto the site to more effectively monetise audiences.

Buzzfeed native ads

Business Insider reports that banner ads will now run atop the story and home pages online and in the dedicated app. These will be served up globally through the Google DoubleClick Ad Exchange and Facebook Audience Network.

Output: Buzzfeed has changed its digital advertising policy and is introducing banner adverts to its homepage and above stories on the site and mobile app. This represents a shift away from its reliance on promoted posts and came despite banner ads being more vulnerable to ad blocking software. Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti said the quality of programmatic ads has increased and loading times are shorter, and the move would help monetise global audiences. Buzzfeed reached more than 75 million unique users as of July and is expected to go public with an IPO next year.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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TerraPay and Instant Cash launch cross-border payments in Africa
 TerraPay and Instant Cash are teaming up to enable real-time cross-border money transfers to mobile wallets, according to a press release.

Powered by TerraPay's global clearing and settlement service for mobile wallets, the partnership will make cross-border money transfer faster and convenient for migrants.

Instant Cash's global agent network expanded their services by offering cross-border transfers to mobile wallets, according to the release.

In the initial rollout, TerraPay has enabled Instant Cash customers to send remittances to mobile wallets in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

In Nigeria, migrants can send money to any mobile number as well as bank accounts.

In Tanzania, migrants will be able to send remittances directly to Vodacom M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa, Airtel Money and Zantel Ezy Pesa wallets.

In Uganda, the friends and families of the migrants can receive money in their MTN and Airtel Money wallets.

The service is expected to expand shortly in other countries in Africa which have a significant adoption of mobile money, according to the release.

"Our strategic partnership will bring the convenience of mobile wallets to the global customer base of Instant Cash, making cross-border remittances faster, accessible and cheaper for the consumers," Ambar Sur, founder and CEO of TerraPay, said in the release.

Output: TerraPay and Instant Cash have launched cross-border cash transfers to mobile wallets in parts of Africa. In its initial rollout, TerraPay lets Instant Cash customers send payments to mobile wallets in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. In Nigeria, users can also send money to any mobile number while in Tanzania, customers can transfer funds to directly to Vodacom M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Tigo Pesa and Zantel Ezy Pesa wallets. Ugandan customers can receive cash in MTN and Airtel Money wallets. The companies hope to expand the service to other African countries.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Chicago firm offers payments made with a wave of the hand
 Keyo Simplifies Mobile Payments to a Hand Wave

August 28, 2017 By: Steven Anderson

I think we can all agree that mobile payments in their current form aren’t exactly complex. Pull out your phone, tap a few commands, maybe even just tap a device against a point-of-sale terminal. A new Chicago firm, as related to the Chicago Tribune, details how mobile payments can be effectively reduced to the wave of a hand.

The firm behind this advance is Keyo, and it works using biometrics to connect to a credit or debit card. The user’s palm print is the primary focus here, so users can scan their hand and have the card in question charged. Since there’s no personal payment information transmitted to the stores, a potential point of failure in security is removed from the equation, and that makes the process safer. Perhaps most interesting of all, the palm scan is deleted if the account isn’t used in a year, so that helps reduce the chances of inactive account fraud.

The whole concept started, reports noted, when the company’s CEO Jaxon Klein and his wife went shopping one day, but forgot their wallet. They had a huge list but had to come home empty handed, which led Klein to the notion of an unforgettable wallet. Biometrics made the perfect alternative.

It’s not out of line to suggest that this would work. After all, you can forget to bring your wallet, you can forget your smartphone, but good luck forgetting your hand. The best part is that this can be just an option, an add-on to a mobile app or the like that makes it an easy backup for those times when you forget your wallet or phone.

There’s a lot of potential in a platform like this. While biometric payments suffer from a bit of a PR problem thanks to the whole “mark of the beast” concept, as long as these are just an option in a field that includes mobile payments, cash, checks and everything else, it’s just one more advancement like the internal combustion engine or the internet itself.

Keyo has a noteworthy idea here, and it’s already started showing up in some Chicago-area firms. It may well catch on before too much longer, and making payments may be as easy as a wave of the hand.

Output: Mobile payment company Keyo has developed a palm scanning point-of-sale terminal that enables users to make a purchase by waving their hand. By connecting their palm print to their credit or debit card, customers are able to authenticate transactions without their wallet or smartphone. If a user's account isn't used in a year, the palm scan is deleted to reduce the chance of account fraud. Several Chicago-based firms have adopted the technology.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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The latest Alexa killer - a robotic tablet called Temi
 Yossi Wolf, the CEO of robot-maker Roboteam, almost didn't want to call his newest product a robot. When people think of robots, he says, they expect the stuff of science fiction—machines with faces and personalities indistinguishable from humans. Temi, the rolling robot Wolf hopes you'll soon have in your home, looks more like a tablet on wheels.

Wolf knows a thing or two about robots, though. For years, his company has built them for the military—the kind of all-terrain bots that can maneuver into sensitive areas, climb through sand and over rocks, help safely defuse explosives. Now, he hopes to bring that expertise into your living room with Temi.

The easiest way to describe Temi is as a moveable version of Amazon's Echo Show. Summon Temi from across the house and it'll find its way to you, using the same path-planning tech Roboteam built for the Air Force. It uses facial recognition to identify and track you, and plugs into Google's artificial intelligence tools to mimic Google Assistant's functionality. Temi also gives you a hands-free way to video chat, watch TV, or listen to music while you amble around the house.

Roboteam

Wolf's not trying to build an artificial best friend or a robo-sidekick; instead, Temi was designed to be a video chat and music machine. Let's say you want to video chat with your grandma. Temi uses voice recognition to make sure it rings your grandmother, facial recognition to keep your face in frame, and a microphone array to make sure you're heard. Right now, Temi mostly works like one of those telepresence robots. But long-term, Roboteam will open up Temi's Android-based software to developers, who can build all sorts of crazy things into the machine.

The actual robot, Temi, stands 3 feet tall and rolls on four small wheels. It has a 10-inch tablet for a head and a thin, curved body on top of a base that looks like an industrial vacuum. It can roll around for eight hours on battery power, and connects over Wi-Fi, LTE, and Bluetooth. It doesn't have eyes or look human, like Pepper and Kuri and other robots. Temi looks more like a portable massage station, or one of those rolling standing desks.

"We tried hard not to provide Temi a face," Wolf says. When you talk to Temi, your words show up on the screen with a typed response below. That's it. "Many of the robots, they’re not so much in focus," he says. "They try to be companions, friends, eyes, and hands, and whatever. And I don’t believe the technology is mature enough to replace humans."

For now, Temi is still very much a work in progress. Roboteam's running a small beta test, with plans to expand to 1,000 users this fall and become widely available in late 2018. When it does launch, Wolf says he's committed to selling Temi for less than $1,500. That sounds steep for a tablet on wheels (one that doesn't even vacuum for you!) but Wolf believes Temi can help provide people a better relationship with their technology.

"We are working so hard, and we are spending so much time looking into a smartphone, we forget to spend time with our family and important people," he says. "I knew that only a robotic device will be able to put you at the center. Only a moving device will really be able to serve you, to come when called." Robots may be invading your home, but you're still in charge.

Output: Israeli start-up Roboteam has developed a device for the home that uses facial recognition technology to track and follow human owners, according to CEO Yosi Wolf. The company, which also makes robots for military use, initially created Temi, which has a tablet interface, to be a video chat and music machine. It uses Google's artificial intelligence tools but Wolf said the company eventually plans to open the technology up to third parties. The current small beta test will be scaled up to 1,000 participants with a view to launching late next year.