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KCFI AND PCTA “RENEWS VOW” TO SUPPORT LEARNERS AMID PANDEMIC

Knowledge Channel Foundation, Inc. (KCFI) and the Philippine Cable and Telecommunications Association, Inc. (PCTA) signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to benefit more learners as they study at home while distance learning is being implemented. This formal partnership will help extend the reach of Knowledge Channel to more cable-connected homes nationwide, especially in remote areas with limited to no internet connection. Prior to the ABS-CBN franchise denial in July 2020, Knowledge Channel was in over 7 million households via ABS-CBN TVplus, SKYdirect, SKY and a number of cable service partners. When classes were prematurely terminated in March this year, it aired curriculum-based video lessons with its Stay at Home, Learn at Home program that helped children catch up with their lessons while “enhanced community quarantine” was enforced in many parts of the country. Knowledge Channel’s reach shrunk to 1.8 million households because of the franchise denial.  This renewed coll

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Lenovo ThinkSmart Collaboration Solutions for ZoomEmpowera Distributed Workforce

At Zoomtopia, Lenovo announced in cooperation with Zoom Video Communications, Inc. that ThinkSmart Hub and ThinkSmart View will be offered with Zoom Rooms and Zoom for Home respectively. The new Hub announced last month offers smarter collaboration for conference rooms of all sizes with richer audio featuring full duplex speakers and four omnidirectional microphones integrated into a sleeker all-in-one compute device.Built on the Zoom Rooms platform, the Hub lets participants communicate via video or voice and content can be easily shared in real time. ThinkSmart View is a dedicated personal business collaboration device announced in January this year and is designed to enhance a home office setup. View is now available with Zoom for Home to help unlock individual productivity by enhancing the Zoom experience in a purpose-built solution. Always ready to start ad-hoc or scheduled video meetings, View can sync with a user’s calendar and status, share content and includes a whiteboard fun

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Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub reach 10 million engaged learners globally since announcing digital skills initiative

More than 1.5 million people across 21 markets in Asia Pacific reached, including 53,000 in the Philippines Last week, Microsoft Corp. announced the progress made since launching its ambitious global skills initiative aimed at helping 25 million people worldwide gain more digital skills in 2020. In the three months since the launch of the initiative, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub have reached 10 million learners in 231 countries and territories through opportunity.linkedin.com. Across 21 markets in Asia Pacific, there have been close to 1,552,000 learners reached through the initiative. Philippines ranked 27th globally in its skilling progress, having reached close to 53,000 learners. Globally, the most popular in-demand learning paths are Software Developer, Customer Service Specialist, and Data Analyst. “COVID-19 has accelerated the need for upskilling and transformed the future of work for communities in the Philippines. Addressing and closing the skills gap is an urgent task,

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Open Payments Coalition Opens More Doors for Developers

Earlier this summer, Ripple joined global companies and nonprofits as a member of the Open Payments Coalition to launch PayID, the universal payment identifier. Today PayID has the potential to reach 125 million consumers through nearly 50 members of the Open Payments Coalition which includes new partners AirTM, Atomic and CoinPayments. As part of the Open Payments Coalition, we are committed to enabling an open and inclusive future of digital payments. To achieve our vision, known as the Internet of Value (IoV), one of the first steps is to make PayID more accessible for developers worldwide. In order to continue to build on the momentum, today we announce updates and new features for PayID.  PayID Bolsters Security with Verifiable PayID As digital payments continue to rise in use, it is important that end-to-end encryption and security continues to be a priority for payments. That’s why PayID has now been updated as of version 1.3.0 with Verifiable PayID. This means non-custodial

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Fund Instant Cross-Border Payments With a Line of Credit From RippleNet

Today, Ripple launched Line of Credit, a new beta service on RippleNet that allows customers using On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) to source capital on demand to initiate cross-border payments at scale using the digital asset XRP. Limited access to working capital is one of the biggest barriers to growth for many companies. Unlike incumbents who have large balance sheets that allow them to scale their business quickly, many fintechs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack the capital and resources to compete. Faced with stalled growth, customers turn to creating bespoke credit arrangements – with each partner, in each destination market. Each arrangement requires additional overhead and management, making it a slow, burdensome and an ultimately inefficient process.Ripple’s Line of Credit solves this problem for our customers by providing upfront access to capital for every market through one simple credit arrangement – simplifying access to financial solutions that accelerate bus

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Is “Water” Enough?: Disinfecting your facility need not be harmful to health, environment

Prevention is better than cure, they say. That is why amid these uncertain times during a public health crisis, it is integral to clean and disinfect your facilities regularly to help stop the spread of COVID-19. When someone infected with COVID-19 coughs or exhales, that person releases droplets of fluid, which could last on surfaces and objects, such as desks, tables, and telephones, for hours. The World Health Organization (WHO) noted that people could contract the virus by touching these contaminated objects and then their eyes, nose, or mouth. They can also get the virus if they breathe in the droplets, especially if they stand close to a person with COVID 19. To avoid these circumstances, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that cleaning surfaces followed by disinfection are the best practice for preventing the spread of viral illness. Cleaning refers to the removal of germs, dirt, and impurities from surfaces, especially the high-touch ones, such as light

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Filipino Uses COVID-19 Lockdown to Create Game About Vietnam War

There’s a bright side to being stuck at home. The global lockdowns spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic have given many people the rare opportunity to finish their personal projects. For a game developer with zero programming experience in the Philippines, it was a videogame about the Vietnam War which took almost 20 years to complete. “I was always interested in history and the Vietnam War in particular,” says game developer Tiger Yan. “I started creating The ‘Nam: Vietnam Combat Operations way back in 2003 but work and life were more important, so the project was mothballed for 17 years. Like everyone else, the COVID-19 outbreak forced me to stay home most of 2020. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to learn basic programming and finally finish what I started.” Yan, who photographs people and animals in wild and rural areas around Asia, created the game as a free learning tool for people to experience commanding soldiers during the Vietnam War. He used his field experience investi

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SAMSUNG achieves top spot in Campaign Asia’s Top 100 brands in the Philippines

Samsung has once again achieved the top spot in both the Philippines’ Top 100 brands and Asia’s Top 1000 brands of 2020 based on Campaign Asia’s reports on consumer opinions surveyed across 14 markets in Asia-Pacific. Innovation at its Core Samsung’s brand philosophy of pushing beyond its limits, to “Do What You Can’t”, always puts innovation through design and function at its core. This philosophy has consistently been the driving force behind Samsung to never shy away from big ideas and for their immense contributions across multiple industries over the years. Innovation comes in many forms. From thoughtfully addressing opportunity areas and needs of their consumers, to reimagining and elevating the quality of everyday needs, Samsung has had a hand in nurturing Filipinos and their families through their innovations. “We at Samsung are thankful for all the Filipinos who believe in us. This only proves how far putting innovation at the core of a business can go. Innovation is not j

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SASE is All About Delivering Security Everywhere

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is an emerging enterprise strategy that incorporates multiple solutions to enable secure remote access to on-premises, cloud-based, and online resources. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of hype that has left some organizations wondering what exactly SASE is. Understanding the basic concepts and components of SASE is important, as the benefits can be significant for many organizations. Fortunately, getting to the bottom of this is easy, as many of the fundamentals of SASE – such as bringing networking and security together– are trends that customers have been gravitating to for years. However, it is still critical to properly define SASE up front in order to avoid adding complexity or worse, missing the true value of SASE at all. Security Everywhere Today’s organizations require immediate, uninterrupted access to the network and cloud-based resources and data, including business-critical applications, no matter where their users are located. The r

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Leading Luminaries and Asia-Pacific Attendees Converged at the Universal Robots “Meet the Cobot Leaders” Keynote

Collaborative Robots leaders and practitioners connected online to share insights on future-proofing manufacturing in Asia-Pacific Universal Robots, the global leader in collaborative robots (cobots), has successfully completed the first “Meet the Cobot Leaders” session in Asia-Pacific, a ‘live’ online interactive congress on cobots and their encompassing role in the future of manufacturing throughout Asia-Pacific. The event ran on 6 October 2020, from 1:00 to 1:45 hours (GMT+8).  Leading cobot luminaries, Mr Jürgen von Hollen, President of Universal Robots, Mr James McKew, Regional Director of APAC, Universal Robots, and Dr Che Fai YEONG, Director of DF Automation and Robotics and Associate Professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, expounded industry insights and answered important questions from industry practitioners and attendees online, with visionary and practical insights on post-pandemic manufacturing, and how manufacturers in Asia-Pacific can be future-ready. Dr Yeong, a

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