Audi activesphere concept out
December 16, 2022-Dusseldorf: Audi is about to introduce the next member of a family of four concept cars: the Audi activesphere concept. The electric crossover coupe will celebrate its world premiere during the “Celebration of Progress” on January 26, 2023.
The Audi activesphere concept provides ultimate freedom and is the perfect companion for ambitious outdoor adventures. Whether it’s water sports, skiing, golfing or challenging mountain roads — the activesphere concept offers ultimate variability for all activities. While the concept car combines extraordinary elegance with outstanding off-road performance, its communication technology creates a unique experience — beyond the car itself.
The four members of the Sphere family – skysphere, grandsphere, urbansphere and activesphere – present Audi’s vision for the premium mobility of tomorrow. The concept vehicles are united not only by a fascinating design, but also by the electric drive and the design for the possibility of automated driving.
BLCKBOX by Tier One Entertainment to Launch its Flagship Store in the Philippines
BLCKBOX collaborates with internationally renowned artists Quiccs and Egg Fiasco to create bold new jersey designs for Blacklist International’s Mobile Legends team
16 December 2022, Manila, Philippines–Tier One Entertainment has opened the first-ever flagship store for BLCKBOX, its official apparel and merchandise division.
Tier One’s first merch offering dates back to Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit (ESGS) 2019, where they released their first limited collection called the “FIRST DROP,” which paved the way for a new business venture for Tier One Entertainment. June 2021 marked the official launch of BLCKBOX in the e-commerce space through Lazada and Shopee. This established BLCKBOX’s presence as a new gaming lifestyle brand, providing fans with high-quality fashion items for gamers.
2022 was also a big year in terms of moving merchandise for Tier One Entertainment. BLCKBOX was an ever-present fixture in its events, and also in various conventions and gatherings throughout the year, including CONQuest Festival 2022, ESGS 2022, and the Mobile Legends Professional League Philippines (MPL-PH) playoffs among others.
BLCKBOX also collaborated with internationally renowned artists Quiccs and Egg Fiasco, to create bold new jersey designs for Blacklist International’s Mobile Legends team. BLCKBOX also had the Philippine Esports Organization as their official merchandise and apparel partner; clothing the athletes that would represent the Philippines in various international competitions.
Located on the 3rd floor of Bellagio Square, 119 Scout Fuentebella Street, Laging Handa, 1103 Quezon City, the launch of the physical store aims to emulate the BLCKBOX’s online success by pushing the brand as a leading esports fashion brand in the local and global market.
As to highlight this concept, the launch will include the Day One collection which commemorates the 5th year anniversary of Tier One Entertainment. This collection will be an annual release showcasing the history of Tier One Entertainment and provides an opportunity for the fans to be immersed in the culture and iconic moments of Tier One.
Other fresh drops at the store launch include the SIBOL 2022 line, a new BLCK cap, and the MLBB Championship Jersey. The launch will also feature a freedom wall where fans can leave words of encouragement for Blacklist International’s Mobile Legends team before they compete at the M4 World Championship.
Coinciding with the physical store launch is the launch of BLCKBOX’s official Instagram account, where fans can expect news about upcoming drops, lookbooks, and more.
The BLCKBOX flagship store will open its doors on December 15, 2022, at 11AM to 7PM. Regular store hours after the 15th will be from 10AM to 7PM.
Direct Agent 5 Inc. (DA5), secures VASP, EMI, and EPFS licenses from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
Direct Agent 5 Inc. (DA5) received the approval of its request to operate as a Non-Bank Electronic Money Issuer (EMI), Virtual Assets Service Provider (VASP), and Type A Advanced Electronic Payment and Financial Services (EPFS) from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). With this approval, DA5 is the 20th entity to have a VASP License; the 43rd Non-financial banking institution (NFBI) to have an EMI License, and the 9th entity to have both VASP and Non-Bank EMI licenses based on publicly available documents.
DA5 is one of the leading authorized direct agents of Western Union in the Philippines. Since its inception in 2006, DA5 has an established 1,800 location footprint across the Philippines. In addition to the newly acquired licenses, it already operates as a Remittance and Transfer Company through its existing Remittance Agent License (RA), and Money Changing / Foreign Exchange Dealing License (MC/FXD) from the BSP. Taken together, DA5 secures the title as the only Money Service Business (MSB) to offer remittances, foreign exchange, crypto exchange, and e-money facilities.
Raymond Babst, the CEO and President of DA5, has expressed interest in fully utilizing the company’s newly acquired licenses to make remittances cheaper and more secure through blockchain technology. “After 16 years of servicing the OFWs, DA5 can further help our modern-day heroes by bringing down the cost of remittances at a fraction of what banks and traditional remittance companies are currently charging. We hope to empower more Filipino communities by enabling them with financial convenience and accessibility.”
In an effort to accomplish this, DA5 will launch its own hybrid digital wallet — SurgePay — within the first quarter of 2023. SurgePay aims to be the most innovative Web 3.0 wallet to hit the Philippine market. It boasts an alternative method of conducting seamless money and asset transfers that fully utilizes blockchain technology. This means that users can send and receive money and claim their remittances in seconds from any DA5 outlet nationwide.
DA5, having been a regulated entity for the past 16 years, is poised to lead the Philippine Financial Ecosystem by marrying blockchain technology with government regulation. By doing so, it positions the Philippines as a progressive country that embraces blockchain, tokenization, and Web 3.0 development putting it on par with its Asian neighbors like Singapore, Hongkong, Indonesia, and Korea.
Zoho launches blended conversations for Zoho desk
Manila, Philippines – December 16, 2022 – Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, today launched new tools for Zoho Desk, the company’s flagship customer service platform, to help customer service teams evolve with the changing needs of customers and meet heightened business expectations. Zoho Desk, which has achieved 45% year-over-year revenue growth for the past five years, now serves more than 100K businesses globally. New capabilities include Blended Conversations, a seamless combination of human-driven and bot-powered conversational service experiences, as well as several refinements to the user interface. These developments enable customer service agents to improve engagement and deliver higher-value customer experiences, removing the guesswork for agents and drastically minimizing friction that often results in bad customer experiences.
“During these challenging economic times, the best companies are doubling down on customer retention while simultaneously trying to do more with less,” said Gibu Mathew, VP and GM, Zoho APAC. “Great service experiences address this by forming the bedrock of sustainability through economic downturns. Blended Conversations in Zoho Desk addresses exactly this outcome by cleverly combining human and bot agents while also reducing friction, frustration, and costs-to-serve.”
Blended Conversations for Zoho Desk allows customer service agents to deliver the best experience in the moment by delegating the majority of manual and transactional tasks to bots, while remaining in control of the overall service experience. With fast and easy deployment that does not require external help, Zoho Desk allows brands to scale their conversational service experiences through higher agent productivity without compromising on the quality of CX. This experience is a culmination of Zoho’s Instant Messaging (IM) Framework and Guided Conversations, a low-code builder for self-service experiences. The IM Framework allows organizations to integrate any messaging service they use with Zoho Desk, and comes pre-integrated with services like WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, WeChat, Messenger, and Instagram. Guided Conversations for Zoho Desk allows business users to build powerful self-service flows that are useful throughout the customer journey, and help customers quickly and securely manage their relationship with the organization. It offers service teams tighter collaboration and integration with other Zoho marketing apps at no extra cost, including Zoho’s CX Platform Zoho CRM Plus, for example.
In addition to Blended Conversations, Zoho also announced a technological overhaul of the user interface to make it simpler, faster, and more accessible to users with a wide spectrum of different needs — the company’s biggest steps towards improving digital accessibility to date. Updates include options to support: cognitive and dyslexia challenges; visual impairments including astigmatism; animation reduction for those with seizure disorders; customization capabilities for color-blindness.
Zoho continues to build a system of experiences that focuses on every aspect of the customer journey, giving every stakeholder greater ability to add value to CX, from planning and creating diverse customer experiences to delivering and evolving them for the future. Zoho’s CX offerings help organizations of all sizes enable employee productivity, improve stakeholder collaboration, and increase customer success. Specifically, Zoho Desk’s integrated omnichannel approach supports entire service teams to connect with customers and with one another. On the business side, it enables high-quality consistency and reliability. Customers, in turn, have better overall end-to-end experiences with the brand, which ultimately drives loyalty and trust.
“As we’re seeing a rise in engagement via a variety of channels, it’s important that we can lean on Zoho Desk to help our agents connect the dots and meet customers on whatever form of communication they prefer,” said Kyle Kurdle, Global Vice President, Service Delivery at Shiji Group, a modern technology stack provider for hospitality brands. “The recent Zoho Desk update, including its impressive and intuitive UI, enables our agents to quickly and accurately address questions or concerns to minimize any operational disruption for our brand customers. This means providing 24/7/365, multi-language assistance–and the potential upside of Blended Conversations is high.”
“Adoption of Zoho Desk was very smooth as the implementation team were very familiar with the product and were able to complete the set up quickly. My team is able to use the information collected on the platform to take a closer look at issues. By summarizing top tickets every month, we focus on resolving issues with a view of decreasing the frequency of tickets in the long-term. Zoho Desk is easy to use and customisable, businesses who have the capabilities to utilise and action on the wealth of data from the system will find Zoho Desk an important tool to improve their business processes,” shares Mr. Earl Ferrer, First Vice President – Digital Transformation for Pioneer Insurance in Manila.
