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BFF Talks links arts, business, and eco conservation

Meet Niccolo Jose and Jen Horn. One is an artist and woodworker; the other, a community engagement consultant and staunch proponent for sustainable lifestyle. Together, they are forest conservation advocates and certified BFFs of the Best Friends of the Forest Movement (BFF Movement). Faced with the combined threats of land development, logging activities, and mining projects in areas such as Palawan, Sierra Madre, Samar and Leyte, and Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental, the BFF Movement was launched last March 2018, to gather a community of young, action-oriented environmentalists, travelers, social entrepreneurs, and artists who aim to inspire people to be advocates of forest conservation and protection. The Movement held its very first BFF Talks entitled Creation, Conservation, and Communities, with the BFFs, Niccolo and Jen, exploring their roles as creators in promoting and empowering environmental efforts. Delving into this theme as the BFF representing the Arts & Culture passion p

NZXT announces acquisition of software firm Forge

NZXT announced the acquisition of San Francisco-based Forge, a pioneer in creating tools for capturing and sharing PC gameplay. Both companies were founded with the goal of developing the PC as the most immersive, most social gaming platform. Under the terms of the acquisition which closed on July 3, 2018, Forge’s staff is joining the NZXT team in a variety of engineering and management roles. Johnny Hou, NZXT’s founder, will continue in his current role as President and CEO. Jared Kim, founder of Forge, will assume the role of Vice President, Software at NZXT. Financial details of the deal are not available. A vision for the future NZXT has long been a proponent of the “smart PC” – a hardware platform driven by integrated software that removes the friction from building, managing, and using a PC. Setting up a gaming PC for optimal performance—everything from cooling to overclocking—has long been done manually, with knowledge gained through experience or study (or both). With the ad

Synology intros Active Backup and SRS in PH

Synology today introduced to the Philippine market its newest products that are primarily targeted toward SMBs and SMEs: the Active Backup Suite and Synology Replacement Service (SRS). Active Backup for Business Described as a complete business backup solution, the Active Backup Suite is comprised of Active Backup for Business, and Active Backup for G Suite and Office 365. The Active Backup for Business provides protection for various workloads from PCs, Windows and Linux servers, and virtual machines through one centralized console on a single Synology NAS. It supports incremental backup, global deduplication, and versatile ways of data restoration. Integrated with Synology Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), Active Backup for Business enables users to replicate a production environment for a temporary disaster site. Meanwhile, the Active Backup for G Suite allows businesses to control and protect corporate data stored on the G Suite by backing up and centralizing it to Synology NAS, w

IDC sees rise in AI adoption among ASEAN countries

A recent survey conducted by leading IT market research and advisory firm IDC titled IDC Asia/Pacific Enterprise Cognitive/AI highlights that AI adoption in the region is on the rise. Current AI adoption rates stand at 14% across Southeast Asia as compared to just eight percent last year, marking a clear move by companies to embed some form of AI/cognitive intelligence into their operations. Discovery of better business insights has become the most important adoption driver according to more than half (52%) of respondents, moving from third most important in 2017, revealing a maturity in the way the region is harnessing AI to enhance their business. Other top drivers this year are enhanced process automation (51%) and improved productivity (42%). With 24.6% of organizations in Indonesia adopting AI, the country leads the pack in terms of adoption. It is important to note that bimodal distribution is observed in Indonesia. While the country has the highest adoption rates amongst ASEAN

Work mingles with life at List Sotheby's The Office in BGC

Emerging from a former military base located in the heart of Metro Manila, Bonifacio Global City (BGC) today is a bustling hub of multinational corporations, luxury residential towers, and posh retail strips. These developments helped in appreciating the value of the entire property, which is now one of the most expensive in the Philippines. Adding to the wide portfolio of workspaces in BGC, List Sotheby's International Realty Philippines, one of the largest workspace solutions providers in the country and a subsidiary of the entity behind one of the oldest luxury auction houses in the world, recently introduced The Office. "The workspace industry is fast growing in the Philippines and with The Office in our portfolio, we are able to provide more and better options to our clientele. This allows us to provide our clients with cost-efficient solutions right in the heart of the growing financial capital of Metro Manila - BGC. With the cost of office space in the area continuously climbi

EasyDebit successfully completes EMV migration

Irish International fintech company, Fexco has successfully completed migration to EMV - Europay, Mastercard, and Visa - processing in the Philippines for its EasyDebit microATM solution ahead of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas deadline. The transition to EMV processing comes amidst industry-wide challenges on the migration from the less secured Magstripe (magnetic stripe) technology to the global industry standard of EMV chip technology. EMV ensures the safer and more secure processing of card transactions reducing the prevalence of fraud for card present transactions. EasyDebit has been at the fore of this industry change as one of first platforms to provide full EMV transaction activation on all of its terminals providing safe and secure banking to Filipinos across the country. EasyDebit is a ‘plug and play’ solution requiring minimal installation for merchants who simply download the EasyDebit Mobile App. EasyDebit is available in over 450 locations across the Philippines throug

Globe, Nexmo ally to bring new voice solutions to SEA

Globe Labs, the innovative developer community of Globe Telecom, in partnership with Nexmo (part of Vonage (NYSE:VG), a global business cloud communications leader, have teamed up to deliver powerful voice solutions to the Philippine market and the rest of Southeast Asia. These readily-available and highly-reliable voice solutions will enable businesses and enterprises to boost operational efficiency and customer support functions; increase their customer engagement and loyalty with automated, contextual and personalized messaging; and, ultimately deliver much better business results. Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform, connects with more than 1600 carriers worldwide. Nexmo is also integrated with Vonage's global network which terminates 15 billion minutes of global voice traffic and more than 5 billion API calls annually. The combination of a vast carrier network and powerful APIs provides a high quality programmable voice experience. “We’re excited to partner with Globe Labs to offer

Kaspersky's game simulates cybersecurity scenarios

Kaspersky Lab conducted its first Kaspersky Interactive Protection Simulation Online training (KIPS Online) with the local technology media recently to highlight the importance of teamwork in corporate cybersecurity. KIPS Online is a valuable addition to the previously available and highly regarded KIPS Live offline cybersecurity training. Both KIPS Live and KIPS Online versions offer actionable security intelligence training for top-level business executives around the world. Not your average Monopoly-style game KIPS Online brings cybersecurity awareness and real, actionable insight where it is needed most: to top-level management of large corporations. Based on 20 years of Kaspersky Lab’s cybersecurity experience, Kaspersky Interactive Protection Simulation solves two essential senior management awareness challenges: the need to be prepared for swift, high-level reaction on cybersecurity incidents and a lack of time. Mutual effort brings down recovery costs According to Kaspersk

Ecommerce spending in PH to reach >PhP 121B this year

Digital payment and Ipsos leader PayPal released the PayPal Cross-Border Consumer Research 2018 for Philippines. The report, which investigates the online shopping habits of approximately 34,000 consumers in 31 countries, including 1,006 participants in the Philippines, reveals a healthy e-marketplace with over half of Filipinos looking to increase their online spending in 2018. Coupled with the optimistic e-commerce outlook in the Asia Pacific region, the report presents new opportunities for Filipino merchants to expand their international sales. Online spending to rise In line with 55% of Filipinos expecting to increase their online spend, the total online spend of Filipino shoppers is predicted to increase by 32% from an estimated PhP 92.5 billion in 2017 to PhP 121.9 billion in 2018. Cross border, which refers to international trade, spend in the Philippines is also expected to grow by 47% in 2018 from an estimated PhP 41.5 billion spent in 2017. The key motivating factor for t

British Council Learning Hub for IELTS launches in PH

The British Council, one of the co-owners of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), recently launched the Learning Hub, a new center for learning the English language and preparing for English tests, particularly IELTS. "The British Council Learning Hub is a creative and inclusive space for individuals to gain new knowledge and skills that help improve their performance in the IELTS test, in turn enabling them to reach their goals," said Nick Thomas, Director for British Council in the Philippines. "It makes use of the British Council's 75 years of experience in English language teaching and assessment to provide a world-class facility for improving one's English proficiency." The new Learning Hub is located at the British Council's new office on the 7th Floor of The Curve at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. Among the Learning Hub's offerings include the following: IELTS One-day Preparation Workshop - it familiarizes takers with the test IELTS Exceed Writing

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BFF Talks links arts, business, and eco conservation

NZXT announces acquisition of software firm Forge

Synology intros Active Backup and SRS in PH

IDC sees rise in AI adoption among ASEAN countries

Work mingles with life at List Sotheby's The Office in BGC

EasyDebit successfully completes EMV migration

Globe, Nexmo ally to bring new voice solutions to SEA

Kaspersky's game simulates cybersecurity scenarios

Ecommerce spending in PH to reach >PhP 121B this year

British Council Learning Hub for IELTS launches in PH