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Laos Receives Accolades at ASEAN Tourism Standards Awards Ceremony

Laos Receives Accolades at ASEAN Tourism Standards Awards Ceremony
The ASEAN Tourism Forum was held in Vientiane Capital from 22-27 January. (Photo:
Laos received 20 ASEAN Tourism Standard Awards at a ceremony held in Vientiane Capital on 26 February to officially seal the end of the ASEAN Tourism Forum. In total, 192 entities in the bloc received this award.

At Trendy Japanese Cafés, Customers Enjoy Cuddling With Pigs

At Trendy Japanese Cafés, Customers Enjoy Cuddling With Pigs
Customers play with a micro pig at a minpig cafe, Wednesdat, 24 January. (Photo: AP)

TOKYO (AP) — First there were cafés that allowed pets. Then came cat cafés, where lattes took second place to feline interaction. The latest craze in Japan: The pig café.

Lao Midwives Celebrates 1st Anniversary After Historic Accreditation

Laos Celebrates First Internationally Accredited Midwifery Schools in Asia-Pacific
(Photo: UNFPA)

Laos has achieved a significant milestone by becoming home to the first internationally accredited midwifery schools in Asia and the Pacific.

Alibaba Cloud Unveils Serverless Solution to Harness Gen-AI Capabilities for Enterprises

Empower global customers with LLMs to develop customized AI applications

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 30 January 2024 – Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, unveiled a serverless version of its Platform for AI (PAI)-Elastic Algorithm Service (EAS), designed to offer a cost-efficient solution for model deployment and inference to individuals and enterprises.

It also announced the latest integration of its vector engine technology into more product offerings, including its data warehouse Hologres, search services Elasticsearch and OpenSearch, during its inaugural AI & Big Data Summit in Singapore. The integration is designed to make it easier for enterprises to access various large language models (LLMs) and build customized generative AI applications.

The PAI-EAS platform allows users to tap into computing resources as needed, eliminating the need to oversee the management and upkeep of physical or virtual servers. Furthermore, users will be billed only for the computing resources they employ, resulting in a 50% reduction in inference costs when compared with the traditional pricing model.

The serverless offering, which is currently undergoing beta testing, is accessible for image generation model deployment. In March 2024, the serverless version is scheduled to expand its capabilities to support the deployment of prominent open-source LLMs and models from Alibaba’s AI model community, ModelScope. This includes models tailored for tasks such as image segmentation, summary generation, and voice recognition.

With LLMs serving, training services and the vector engine technology, Alibaba Cloud is able to support a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) process, enabling enterprises to enhance LLMs with their knowledge bases for improved outcomes. This translates to improved accuracy, accelerated retrieval of relevant information, and more nuanced insights for enterprises, contributing to heightened efficiency and decision-making capabilities across a wide range of applications.

“Alibaba Cloud continues to remain at the forefront of AI and cloud technology innovation. Our technology updates underscore our commitment to empowering enterprises with the latest Intelligence-driven solutions for heightened efficiency and performance. This marks a significant stride in our mission to provide innovative solutions that redefine the possibilities of artificial intelligence in diverse applications,” Zhou Jingren, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Alibaba Cloud, commented during the summit.

Make model training more easily

Alibaba Cloud also announced an upgrade on its big data service, called MaxCompute MaxFrame, a distributed Python data processing framework, to tap into growing demand for data preprocessing and data offline/online analysis in AI-related computing tasks. It allows users to process massive amounts of data more efficiently and flexibly with launching AI task such as LLM training.

To foster enhanced creativity among designers, Alibaba Cloud has introduced PAI-Artlab, a comprehensive platform for model training and image generation. This solution empowers designers to quickly produce professional-grade designs and unlock greater creative potential.

Designers can leverage the platform to generate design images for a variety of applications, including interior home design, product promotional posters, gaming character creation, and gaming scene development. The platform also provides a rich ecosystem of ready-to-use tools to enable designers with no coding background to develop and train custom models that generate images tailored to their specific requirements. Currently, the platform is operational within mainland China and is slated for operation in the Singapore region in the upcoming months.

In a landmark move last year, Alibaba Cloud elevated its entire range of database solutions, including the cloud-native database PolarDB, cloud-native data warehouse AnalyticDB, and cloud-native multi-model database Lindorm, integrating its proprietary vector engine technology to significantly enhance performance and capabilities.

Vector engines transform text and data into a high-dimensional space, optimising AI performance by embedding large volumes of structured and unstructured context in a complex yet efficient manner. This facilitates and streamlines tasks like similarity comparisons and semantic analysis, particularly benefiting LLMs and advancing various advanced AI functionalities.

Supporting customer success

Global customers ranging from large companies and start-ups use Alibaba Cloud’s latest technologies to support their digital transformation journeys.

“There is an increasing demand for AI technologies among our global customers. By open-sourcing our proprietary language models, we are well-equipped to offer powerful computing solutions and cutting-edge AI innovations to support clients in developing customized generative AI applications, addressing their unique challenges and positioning them to harness the wave of opportunities emerging from the dynamic generative AI sector”, Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud, told the summit.

Utilizing the advanced capabilities of Alibaba Cloud’s Large Language Model (LLM), Tongyi Qianwen, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology, Haleon, a world-leading consumer health company, has introduced a specialized AI nutritionist for its Chinese consumers. This AI-powered nutrition expert excels at precisely interpreting consumer inquiries, engaging users with valuable nutritional guidance that is both comprehensive and delivered efficiently. The integration of Tongyi Qianwen’s robust functionalities and Haleon’s extensive internal nutritional knowledge base ensures that the AI nutritionist operates at the forefront of accuracy and relevancy.

Shivani Saini, Haleon‘s Global Vice President of Digital & Tech Business Units, emphasizes the importance of digital innovation in the healthcare domain: “As the role of digital services becomes increasingly critical in the consumer health industry, our collaboration with Alibaba Cloud to harness the potential of artificial intelligence reflects our commitment to offering personalized health advice to our Chinese consumers. Our aim is to empower our customers with the tools they need for enhanced diet and nutritional management.”

rinna, a Japanese startup specializing in the development of pre-trained foundation models adept at processing Japanese, has launched its latest innovation: the Nekomata models. These new models are based on the open-source Tongyi Qianwen LLMs, namely the Qwen-7B and Qwen-14B, developed by Alibaba Cloud. The Nekomata series has exhibited exceptional performance in the Stability-AI/lm-evaluation-harness, one of the prominent benchmarks for assessing Japanese language model capabilities. Furthermore, the comprehensive Qwen vocabulary significantly enhances the Nekomata models’ ability to process Japanese text with greater efficiency compared to the earlier series, which were based on the Llama2 architecture.

“We were impressed by the capabilities of Alibaba Cloud’s LLMs, which help us greatly enhance the performance of our models in a cost-effective way,” said Tianyu Zhao, Researcher from rinna. “We believe Alibaba Cloud’s contribution to the open-source community can help other SMEs and startups to accelerate their AI innovation as well.”

Hashtag: #AlibabaCloud

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud () is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT services. Alibaba maintained its position as the third leading public cloud IaaS service provider globally since 2018, according to IDC. Alibaba is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in U.S. dollars since 2018, according to Gartner.

President of the Philippines Holds a Meeting with Vingroup Chairman in Hanoi

HANOI, VIETNAM – Media OutReach Newswire – 30 January 2024 – As part of his state visit to Vietnam, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines held a private meeting with Vingroup Chairman Pham Nhat Vuong and the group’s senior executives in Hanoi.

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The meeting was attended by a high-level delegation from the Philippines, including Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique A. Manalo, Secretary of Trade and Industry Alfredo E. Pascual, Secretary of Agriculture Francisco T. Laurel, leaders of several government agencies and major Philippine companies.

During the productive meeting, Vingroup Chairman Pham Nhat Vuong introduced the member companies in the Vingroup ecosystem with plans to invest in the Philippine market. He highlighted VinFast, a global electric vehicle brand with a diverse range of products including full electric motorcycles, cars, and buses.

In addition to the electric vehicle business, the Vingroup Chairman also presented the prospects for cooperation in developing public services such as buses, taxis, and training students in artificial intelligence and medicine.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. welcomed Vingroup’s intention to invest in various Philippine industries and sectors, noting the alignment between Vingroup’s interests and the country’s development directions, particularly in electric vehicles and batteries.

The Philippines is revamping its transportation sector, phasing out aging combustion engine vehicles and implementing a modernization plan. Securing a source of electric vehicles is crucial. The country has already enacted laws that support electric vehicles and encourage importing EVs components, aiming to attract foreign investors for domestic assembly. This domestic production boost will add value to the nation’s economy

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In addition, the Philippines also hopes to participate in the electric vehicle battery supply chain. “The Philippines is fortunate to have all the necessary ingredients to produce batteries for electric vehicles, with abundant reserves of cobalt, copper and nickel. However, it has still been exporting raw ores. The government is working to increase the value of the Philippine economy by processing them domestically and expects to be able to establish a battery factory. This is in line with Vingroup’s vision”, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said.

President Marcos Jr. also affirmed that the Philippine government is committed to creating a favorable business environment for foreign investors. He emphasized the ongoing administrative reforms aimed at streamlining procedures and reducing bureaucratic hurdles. The Philippine government agencies stand ready to provide Vingroup with all necessary support to ensure the success of its ventures in the country.

Vingroup Chairman expressed his gratitude to the President and promised to immediately assign the group’s member companies to engage with partners and relevant Philippine agencies to explore investment and cooperation opportunities. Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong also noted that the Philippines was a top priority market for Vingroup’s global expansion strategy.

As per the established plan, VinFast (VFS) will lead the way for Vingroup’s investments in the Philippines in 2024, commencing with the establishment of a network of electric car and motorcycle dealerships. This initiative marks the next strategic step in VinFast’s ambitious expansion plan, targeting a presence in at least 50 countries this year, with Southeast Asia designated as the key markets region.

Hashtag: #VinFast

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

OOm Secures Noteworthy Position in Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies 2024 List

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 30 January 2024 – Following the remarkable success of its prior achievements, OOm is proud to announce its inclusion in the prestigious Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies 2024 list. The company’s significant leap in ranking from the previous year reflects its commitment to digital marketing excellence and strong financial performance.

OOm Singapore's Fastest Growing Companies in 2024
OOm Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2024

A Rigorous Assessment by The Straits Times and Statista
Organised by The Straits Times and Germany-based global research firm Statista, the report on Singapore’s Fastest-Growing Companies has gained widespread recognition for highlighting companies with outstanding revenue growth annually. The team meticulously evaluated a myriad of companies, resulting in the compilation of an exclusive list of 100 top-performing businesses in Singapore.

To be eligible for inclusion, companies must meet stringent criteria, including a minimum revenue of SGD150,000 generated in 2019, a substantial increase to at least SGD1.5 million in 2022, independence from other entities, and a headquarters based in Singapore. Furthermore, the evaluation emphasised organic revenue growth, ensuring that the companies listed have achieved their success through internal development and enhancement.

OOm’s Leap in Ranking and Workforce Expansion
In the latest rankings, OOm is delighted to secure the 32nd position, showcasing a marked advancement from its previous standing in 2023 (47th). Notably, OOm’s success is not limited to financial metrics alone; the company has also experienced a significant increase in its workforce, demonstrating its promise to expand and strengthen its operations.

As OOm continues to strengthen its position as a leading digital marketing agency, this recognition in Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies list reaffirms its dedication to delivering value, driving organic growth, and achieving innovation in a highly competitive industry.

Ian Cheow, CEO and Co-founder of OOm, expressed his enthusiasm about the achievement, “Being recognised in Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies 2024 list is a testament to OOm’s resolve to achieve sustained growth and excellence, as demonstrated by our ascent in the ranking. We are proud of our team’s efforts in driving our success and look forward to even greater accomplishments in the future.”

Wyvan Xu, COO and Co-founder of OOm, added, “This achievement reflects the collective devotion of our team, and it motivates us to continue innovating and delivering exceptional results for our clients. We are grateful for the recognition and excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.”

Hashtag: #OOm #DigitalMarketingAgency #AwardWinningDigitalMarketingAgency #FastestGrowingCompaniesSingapore2024





The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About OOm

Since its establishment in 2006, OOm has emerged as a force in the realms of e-commerce and digital marketing, earning its position as one of the industry’s leading enterprises.

OOm also proudly achieved the prestigious status of being named a Premier Google Partner. This recognition places OOm in the league of the top 3% esteemed Google partners in Singapore and underscores its commitment to excellence for being at the forefront of the industry. As , OOm stands at the forefront of a dynamic SEO landscape backed by a team of seasoned SEO professionals. OOm is dedicated to deliver results-driven solutions that meet the unique needs of the client.

Additionally, OOm is a pre-approved PSG vendor for e-commerce PSG solution, providing businesses with the tools they need to thrive in the digital age. SMEs can tap into this funded support to kickstart their digital initiatives and propel their growth in today’s competitive market.

At its core, OOm is a full-fledged digital agency that specialises in crafting bespoke marketing campaigns for clients through services such as SEO, Google marketing solutions, website development, social media marketing solutions, and more.

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Teaology: The Clean Beauty Tea Infusion Skincare from Italy launches in Watsons Singapore

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 30 January 2024 – Teaology is thrilled to announce its highly anticipated launch in Watsons Singapore. Since its inception, Teaology has embraced the clean beauty ideology, introducing Clean BeauTEA as their foundational philosophy which encapsulates the brand’s core values and ethics, serving as daily inspiration for the brand. Teaology marks the advent of a skincare revolution powered by its patented Tea Infusion Skincare technology. The innovative process involves replacing water in cosmetic formulas with genuine tea infusion, effectively preserving antioxidant properties inherent in tea leaves. With its unique formulation comprising 0% water and 100% tea infusion, Teaology features clean ingredients, sustainable packaging, clinically tested efficacy, commitment to vegan and cruelty-free practices, and has been certified by B CORP.

Teaology Header Banner

Clean beauty is a burgeoning trend that has gained remarkable traction in recent years, placing a strong emphasis on the use of products that are free from harmful chemicals and toxins, opting instead for the inclusion of natural and safe ingredients. This movement is fueled by consumers’ increasing awareness of potential hazards associated with some cosmetic ingredients, driving them to seek alternatives without compromising on the product quality and effectiveness.

Brand Icons

Teaology Brand Icons

1. Matcha Tea Ultra-Firming Face Cream ($86.70) [SHOP NOW]
An ultra-firming anti-wrinkle face cream infused with organic Matcha tea infusion and a potent complex of 9 botanical ingredients, designed to deliver redensifying, corrective, and lifting effects. The velvety texture of this innovative cream instantly enhances skin, leaving it softer and more radiant. Its natural green hue along with special mineral pigments promotes corrective action on chromatic imperfections and creates a smoothing “soft focus effect” for an even complexion. Beyond its anti-aging properties, it serves as an intensive treatment that redensifies, illuminates, and refines your skin.

2. Matcha Tea Ultra-Firming Eye Cream ($60.45) [SHOP NOW]
Infused with Organic Matcha Tea, Hyaluronic Acid, Caffeine, and Vitamin C, Matcha Tea Ultra-Firming Eye Cream brightens eye contour, reduces puffiness, and promotes toning. It features an ophthalmic applicator for a more targeted and precise application. The matcha green texture minimises redness, providing an ideal flawless base for makeup. Enriched with double-dose Vitamin C, Acerola, and Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, it also combats free radicals and offers effective anti-wrinkle benefits.

3. Serum Infusion ($40.25) [SHOP NOW]
A collection of unique serums infused with real antioxidant organic tea and the most powerful skincare ingredients. Super-concentrated and clean formulas with biocompatible pH that can be used alone, layered under any face cream or mixed to create the perfect cocktail for a healthy and happy skin.

4. Bancha Oil ($55.40) [SHOP NOW]
When a silky oil meets the Japanese Bancha Tea leaves in infusion, the result is an elixir of beauty for face, body, hair and a thousand other uses. An antioxidant, nourishing and illuminating concentrate with 99% of natural origin ingredients. This versatile oil is your beauty essential for various needs, including nourishing body, protecting chapped skin, enhancing foundation with added nourishment, highlighting cheekbones, nose, and cupid’s bow, serving as a pre-shampoo treatment, reducing hair frizz, and more!

5. Happy Skin ($60.45) [SHOP NOW]
Introducing the multifunctional beauty balm, a revitalizing solution for face, neck, and eye contour. Enriched with Blue Tea Infusion, ceramides, and niacinamide, this all-in-one treatment repairs stressed and dehydrated skin. Comprising 95% natural ingredients and plant ceramides, it restores the skin’s balance, enhancing tone, elasticity, and luminosity. This versatile balm serves as a daily nourishing cream, regenerating mask, and provides instant relief for dryness and inflammation.

Teaology is solely distributed at Watsons stores and online. For a limited time, enjoy 2 for 20% off on all Teaology products and receive a complimentary travel-set valued at $55 with a minimum purchase of $60, while stocks last.

Shop now: [LINK]

Hashtag: #Teaology #WatsonsSingapore

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Teaology

Teaology founder, Cecilia Garofano, embarked on a journey in the romantic landscapes of Italy that would blend her years of experience in the cosmetics industry with her unwavering love for tea. Teaology believes in the mantra “What is good for you is good for your skin”, with its products enriched with real tea infusions and extracts, harnessing the antioxidant power of tea leaves to protect and rejuvenate the skin. For more information on Teaology and its products, visit

About Watsons

Watsons is Asia’s No. 1* Personal Care and Beauty Offline+Online Retailer, with close to 100 stores islandwide and the flagship health and beauty brand of the AS Watson Group. It continually sets the standard in health, wellness and beauty by providing personalised and related advice and counselling to customers and a market-leading product range in their offering, so that they can ‘LOOK GOOD, DO GOOD, FEEL GREAT’ every day.

Other accolades and awards received include Omnichannel Strategy of the Year 2023 – Singapore and Health & Beauty Retailer of the Year – Singapore consecutively from 2021 – 2023 by Retail Asia Awards and ‘Best HR Digital Transformation Strategy’ at the prestigious Employee Experience Awards 2023.

*Campaign Asia-Pacific’s ‘Asia’s Top 1000 Brands’

Two Studies from Milano-Bicocca and SUPSI Highlight Long-Term Consequences of Early Smartphone Use in Children

A group of researchers from the University of Milano-Bicocca and SUPSI, by means of longitudinal data provided by INVALSI (Italian Institute for the Evaluation of the Education System), has confirmed that early smartphone usage before the age of 12 does not bring benefits. Instead, it is associated with lower digital skills, higher problematic smartphone use and can, in fact, diminish the academic performance of students.

MILAN, ITALY – Newsaktuell – 29 January 2024 – The intensive and premature use of smartphones among children and pre-adolescents shows negative relationships with learning, digital skills, problematic smartphone use and active use of social media. In particular, it diminishes the academic achievements of a substantial portion of the student population. Two studies from Milano-Bicocca and SUPSI substantiates these findings using INVALSI data, also moving beyond mere correlations.

The first study, titled “The Age of the Smartphone: An Analysis of Social Predictors of Children’s Age of Access and Potential Consequences Over Time” and published in “Youth&Society”, investigates the associations between the age of access to the device and selected life outcomes in a representative sample of 3,247 Italian students in grade 10. While showing that females and students from less-educated families are more likely to receive smartphones earlier, the study finds that early smartphone access is negatively associated with adolescents’ well-functioning at the age of 16 (even controlling for a number of socio-economic variables). Deferring access also reduces the gender gap in language proficiency, digital skills and life satisfaction. The study was conducted by Tiziano Gerosa, a researcher at the University of Professional Studies of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Marco Gui, Director of the Digital Transformation and Wellbeing Lab at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Department of Sociology and Social Research) and Lucilla Losi, postdoc and research assistant at the Department of Business Development and Technology, Aarhus University.

The second study, titled “Earlier Smartphone Acquisition Negatively Impacts Language Proficiency, but Only for Heavy Media Users. Results from a Longitudinal Quasi-Experimental Study” – authored by Tiziano Gerosa and Marco Gui – tested the main theoretical hypotheses regarding the role of smartphones in the learning process (both those positing benefits and those anticipating negative effects) using longitudinal data.

“This study is one of the first to delve into the impact of early smartphone use on learning levels using a more sophisticated counterfactual design and nationwide standardized tests,” says Tiziano Gerosa. “It is, in fact, a quasi-experimental study that uses longitudinal INVALSI data on children and pre-adolescents transitioning from primary to lower secondary school. This methodology allows us to approach, albeit with certain assumptions, a causal interpretation of the results.”

The research encompassed an age range of 10-14 years, comparing those who acquired the device at 10 and 11 years old, during the transition from primary to lower secondary school, to those who received it in later years, specifically at 12, 13 and 14 years old. The total sample consisted of 1,672 italian students from lower secondary schools, with administrative information collected over time by the National Institute for the Evaluation of the Education System (INVALSI).

The results do not indicate any benefits at the end of the lower secondary school for those who obtained smartphones early, even for the most academically motivated students. However, participants who built intensive media usage habits before owning a smartphone (more than two hours per day of TV and video games) experienced a significant negative impact on their Italian language learning. At the time of data collection, students with intensive screen use – and therefore subject to the potential negative effect of smartphones – comprised 23.5 percent of the Italian student population.

“These results not only confirm the existence of negative relationships between early smartphone use and life outcomes in the long-run – says Marco Gui – but also show that behind such correlations lies a direct negative impact, which becomes visible for those with a reduced ability to limit screen time due to family context or specific psychological characteristics.”

There has long been a significant debate about the impact of digital media use on the development of minors. The literature has already identified a negative relationship between early and excessive smartphone use and academic results, but often, there have been complaints about the absence of more robust scientific evidence beyond mere correlations.

Further research on this topic is ongoing at the Milano-Bicocca ‘Digital Transformation and Wellbeing Lab‘, in collaboration with the University of Brescia and local associations (Sloworking and Socialis). In particular, the EYES UP project (EarlY Exposure to Screens and Unequal Performance) aims to analyze the impact of a range of early online devices and experiences on learning levels throughout students’ academic careers, from primary to upper secondary school.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.