Health authorities in Thailand have issued a warning regarding the heatwave sweeping the country this week leading to maximum temperatures as high as 50 degrees.
Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2 enhances hybrid learning experience at The Education University of Hong Kong
The Education University of Hong Kong chooses Sennheiser’s TCC 2 for its e-learning Pedagogy Space (ePS) to provide a flexible and premium hybrid learning experience
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 6 April 2023 – Digital learning activities have always been an integral part of teaching innovations at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). With the challenges posed by the pandemic, there has been a pressing need to cater for the huge increase in demand for high quality hybrid learning. EdUHK realised there was a need to equip their classrooms with better audio solutions to enhance the hybrid learning experience and Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 (TCC 2) was the answer they were looking for. Installed in EdUHK’s new e-learning Pedagogy Space (ePS), the TCC 2 elevates the quality of teaching and learning experiences for both staff and students.
Located in Tai Po, Hong Kong, EdUHK is the largest tertiary institution for teacher education in Hong Kong. It is renowned for its diverse academic and research programmes that nurture future educators. EdUHK sits atop a 12.5-hectare campus, and caters to over 7,600 students, as well as more than 1,700 staff and faculty members.
The ePS is a new concept introduced by Prof Tsui Kwok-tung, Professor (Practice) of Department of Curriculum and Instruction at EdUHK. Prior to the renovation, the original room was a Learning and Teaching Lab for in-service and pre-service teachers. However, its effectiveness was limited by its audio set-up. With only one microphone available at any one time, people had to raise their voices or pass around the microphone to ask questions or deliver presentations.
The ePS incorporates both face-to-face and online learning in a synchronous class. However, audio delays and technical issues can stifle conversations and cause both online and in-person students to disengage. Prof Tsui felt that it is vital for the ePS to fulfil two requirements: first of all, it should enable teachers to create and maintain dynamic dialogue between in-person and online students; secondly, it should support different classroom settings. Be it a class, lecture, group discussion, or conference, there should be flexibility in the layout without affecting the audio quality. All in all, audio quality is crucial to the success of the ePS.
TCC 2 – a top of mind solution to meet the changing needs
Mr Chow Lap Tak is EdUHK’s Computer Officer at the Office of the Chief Information Officer. He was responsible for the AV systems in the upgrading of the ePS. Sennheiser’s TCC 2 was the first thing that came to his mind when he understood what the ePS needed. He had used TCC 2 before, and knew its powerful versatility.
Sennheiser’s TCC 2 proved to be the perfect audio solution for EdUHK. Its TruVoicelift, increases the speech intelligibility and ensures that students and lecturers can be heard clearly from every corner of the room. TCC 2’s automatic beamforming technology and its 28 inbuilt omnidirectorial microphone capsules can scan the entire room and automatically identify the position of the speaker. With Sennheiser’s TCC 2, users of the ePS can now enjoy clear, flexible, outstanding audio quality.
“TCC 2 delivers excellent audio quality. We are very impressed with its pick-up range, pattern, and response. It is also simple to use and does not require manual configuration each time. Paired with Sennheiser’s Control Cockpit software, we can now monitor and manage the microphones that are within the network,” added Mr Chow.
The Education University of Hong Kong: Taking hybrid learning experiences to the next level with Sennheiser
Another great advantage of TCC 2 is its compatibility with Zoom and other conferencing platforms. This greatly simplifies the process of setting up such apps. Teachers and students can now focus on their main goals – teaching and learning in a well-equipped environment.
“TCC 2 has made hybrid teaching and learning possible. It used to be a challenge to take care of both the needs of students in the ePS and those participating virtually. Previously, when the lecturer walked around the room, the students participating online were not be able to hear him clearly. However, if the lecturer focused too much on online students, the engagement level in the room suffered. With TCC 2, this is no longer an issue,” said Prof Tsui.
Mr Chow believes that lecturers and students are happy with the installation of TCC 2. “It has truly improved the learning and teaching experiences in the classroom.”
Hashtag: #Sennheiser #EdUHK #EducationUniversityOfHongKong #TCC2 #IT #BusinessCommunication #Education #classroom #sound #quality
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About the Sennheiser brand
We live and breathe audio. We are driven by the passion to create audio solutions that make a difference. Building the future of audio and bringing remarkable sound experiences to our customers – this is what the Sennheiser brand has represented for more than 75 years. While professional audio solutions such as microphones, meeting solutions, streaming technologies and monitoring systems are part of the business of Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG, the business with consumer devices such as headphones, soundbars and speech-enhanced hearables is operated by Sonova Holding AG under the license of Sennheiser.
www.sennheiser.com
www.sennheiser-hearing.com
“Love Casa Dream Casa” Casablanca hosts first-ever Bedding Design Competition in celebration of 30th anniversary
For the brand’s 30th anniversary, Casablanca is joined by Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Fashion and Textiles and Cotton Incorporated to organise the first-ever Bedding Design Competition. Through this unique collaboration, the three main organisers hope to motivate the knowledge practice of local students and create participation opportunities in product design within a platform that demonstrates their strengths and skill sets. Helping to enrich personal experiences, this competition also promotes healthy competition and, at the same time, maintains the continuous evolution of the fashion, textiles, and design industry by working with a younger generation for a more sustainable industry in the future.
A long-time leading brand within the industry, Casablanca has always been committed to pursuing continuous technological improvement and product innovation. This competition allowed Casablanca to allocate resources to design students to support the growth and enthusiasm of talents within Hong Kong’s home textiles industry. Held on 31 March, 2023, the competition showcased a selection of design works by participating students and named 6 students as competition winners in an official award ceremony. They include Sin Siu Shan awarded Gold, Wong Mei Wai awarded Silver, Chan Hong Ni awarded Bronze, along with 3 Honorable Mentions. Winners received cash prizes, with first place receiving HK$20,000 along with their design to be sold across all stores and online in October, second place with HK$10,000, third with HK$8,000, and HK$1,000 for all the honourable merit awardees.
Hosted under the theme of “Leading Sleep Technology, Transcending into a Sustainable New Generation”, the competition coincides with Casablanca’s 30th Anniversary. It keeps to the brand’s overarching concept of green living and protects the environment through the design and innovation of sleep products informed by big data analysis. The use of new materials or technology founded through professional development in the industry fortifies Casablanca’s position as a leading expert in sleep technology.
Hashtag: #Casablanca
https://www.facebook.com/CasablancaHK
https://www.instagram.com/casablancahk/
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Casablanca
Established in 1993, Casablanca is a leading home textiles company engaged in the design, production, distribution, and retailing of bedding products founded as Casablanca Group Limited (incorporated in the Cayman Islands). Casablanca Group Limited has been listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited since 2012 (Stock Code: 2223). The Group is headquartered in Hong Kong and adheres to the design concept of “Fashion, Creativity, and Functionality”, with a commitment to the research and promotion of healthy sleep. It operates mainly in three proprietary brands – Casablanca, Casa Calvin, and CASA-V – with a unique artistic Italian aesthetic to create stylish European-style homes.
About Cotton Incorporated
Cotton Incorporated is a non-profit organisation providing the resource and research needed to assist companies to develop and market superior, innovative, and profitable cotton products. The company’s efforts are focused across all areas of the cotton life-cycle, from fibre through to the finished product.
Casablanca and Cotton LEADS ℠ are long-time collaborators and share a close-knit relationship.
As a leading brand within the industry, Casablanca is committed to pursuing continuous technological improvement and product innovation. Taking initiative as the lead to introduce future trends in fashion and home textiles, Casablanca proudly partnered with Cotton Incorporated and Cotton LEADS℠ to launch Asia’s first laser-finished Cotton Iridescent Velvet Cushion in 2021, finished in a layered wavy pattern. Not only is the cotton-based material 100% skin-friendly and breathable, but the laser finishing technique also reduces environmental impact by lessening the use of water, energy, chemicals, and dyes compared to traditional sand-blasting, spraying, or sanding techniques that often contribute to health risks. It offers an alternative for your home that’s both stylish and environmentally friendly.
About Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Fashion and Textiles
The textile and fashion industry has long been an important economic pillar of Hong Kong. The School of Fashion and Textiles (SFT) at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), previously known as the Institute of Textiles and Clothing (ITC), officially upgraded last year to become the third flagship and an independent school within PolyU to actively addresses industry needs by offering more training resources.
Integrating fashion and textile education with innovative technology research in academic programmes, the revamped School of Fashion and Textiles enhances the competitive advantage for SFT graduates and Hong Kong’s fashion and textile industry, while simultaneously aligning it with the market development in the Greater Bay Area. With ambitions to lead the fashion industry and create societal impact, the School offers industry solutions through its outstanding research, innovation, and achievements.
With internationally recognised academic and research achievements, the School of Fashion and Textile enjoys a renowned world-class status with an international faculty specialised in various academic and research areas, including wearable and smart textiles, medical textiles and functional clothing, social fashion design, sustainable fashion, digital fashion marketing, and fashion supply chain management. According to a 2021 report by Stanford University, 13 ITC Scholars rank amongst the world’s top 2% of scientists. Furthermore, according to the international economic monthly publication CEOWORLD Magazine, the School ranked third in Asia and among the Top 50 World’s Best Fashion Schools in 2022. The School has consistently set and reached significant milestones in its pursuit of research excellence. SFT received high appraisal in the “2020 Research Assessment Exercise” by the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (UGC), particularly in areas of creative arts, performing arts, and design, leading as the best amongst the eight UGC-funded institutions.
UN Suggests Leveraging Public Debt for Development Gains
While the average government debt level in the Asia-Pacific region is at an 18-year high, this is not necessarily bad news, and it is time for a bold shift in thinking about public debt sustainability, according to the 2023 edition of the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific.
Launch of ixCrypto Stable Coin Index
The ixCrypto Stable Coin Index is launched to complement with the IX Digital Asset Industry Classification System (“DAICS® “) which was published in September 2022. DAICS® covers both cryptocurrencies and asset-backed tokens. On cryptocurrencies side, there is a three-tier system: Tier 1: Industries, Tier 2: Sectors, Tier 3: Sub-sectors that groups cryptocurrencies into 5 main industries and 12 sectors1.
The payment industry is the most heavily weighted of the 5 industries under the Cryptocurrencies Category of DAICS®. Stable coin being one of the sectors in the payment industry, is defined as cryptocurrencies where price is pegged to a / a basket of reference asset. IX Asia Indexes launches ixCrypto Stable Coin Index to (1) provide an effective way to monitor stable coins’ stability via facilitate market benchmark and (2) to provide a possibility for creation of financial product in the future that can hedge against stable coins’ instability risk.
The ixCrypto Stable Coin Index will be composed of stable coins that was excluded in the ixCrypto Index (“IXCI”) and fall under the definition of DAICS®. The selection will be based on the market capitalization in the past 90 days. The maximum weighting of each index constituent will be capped at 40%. The index’s inaugural launch comprises 4 index constituents, and Tether has the highest weight (For more details on weight adjustment, please refer to Appendix 1). For further information about DAICS®, please visit https://ix-index.com/daics.html .
The index will be available daily on the official website https://ix-index.com 7 x 24 at every 5-second interval.
1 as at 7 March 2023
Appendix 1
Weightings of the Constituents of ixCrypto Stable Coin Index
Stable Coin | Weighting within DAICS® (%) | Pre-adjusted Weighting (%) | Weighting after 40% cap (%) |
Tether | 7.53% | 55.59% | 40.00% |
USD Coin | 4.81% | 33.85% | 40.00% |
Binance USD | 1.74% | 6.53% | 12.38% |
Dai | 0.63% | 4.03% | 7.62% |
Total | 14.71% | 100% | 100% |
*As at 7th March, 2023, selection based on market capitalization and trading volume over the past 90 days. As at March 7, 2023, the 50 industry coins in the DAICS® represent 93.6% of the total market capitalization (excluding Wrapped Bitcoin coins and Terra Classic coins).
Hashtag: #IXAsiaIndexes
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About IX Asia Indexes and IX Asia Index Advisory Committee
IX Asia Indexes is an award-winning index company, providing real-time digital asset and innovative indexes, disseminated 7×24 globally and built on robust infrastructure. Since the launch of the first crypto benchmark index (“IXCI”) launched in Hong Kong in December 2018, the ixCrypto index series expand into 22 indexes designed for exchange futures product, mark to market and fund managers’ portfolio construction purposes. To ensure the professionality and impartiality of the index methodologies and operations, IX Asia Indexes has established its index advisory committee with representation from different industries, including fund management, exchanges, brokerage, financial blockchain experts, crypto service providers, etc. The committee will meet quarterly a year to discuss matters relating to the IX Asia Indexes, including to review and to comment the data sources, methodologies, and operations of IX Asia Indexes, to provide guidance to the future development of new IX Asia Indexes and to handle other issues and decisions on an as-needed basis.
IX Asia Indexes was awarded the Fintech Award (wealth investment and management) 2019 and 2021 organised by ETNet. It as well won an award for Startup of the Year and Basic Technology (Big Data) from Hong Kong Fintech Impetus Awards 2022 by Metro Broadcast and KPMG.
IX Asia Index Advisory Committee: https://ix-index.com/committee.html
IX Asia Tokenization Advisory Committee: http://ix-index.com/tokenization-committee.html
About IX Crypto Indexes
The ixCrypto index (“IXCI”) is the first crypto index launched in Hong Kong. It was launched on 12 December 2018. It is denominated in USD with a base value of 1000 and a base date on 3 December 2018. Designed to be easy to understand while providing a good representation of the crypto market, ixCrypto index aims to cover the top 80% of the cumulative free-float adjusted market capitalization in the crypto universe and, at the same time, the crypto currencies should fall within the top liquid cryptos ranked by trading volume in the 90 days preceding the review date. The index is to be reviewed quarterly and with a fast entry rule. Real time indexes are disseminated every 5-second for 7X24 since 23 June 2022. Real time index data together with ixBitcoin Index and ixEthereum Index can be obtained from IX Asia Indexes Data Services. For IXCI, IXBI and IXEI, the indexes are also available through Nasdaq Global Index Data Service (GIDS) with the tickers “IXCI”, “IXBI” and “IXEI”, with dissemination interval kept at 15-second unchanged.
About DAICS®
The launch of the IX Digital Asset Industry Classification System (“DAICS®“), aiming to provide the professional worldwide with a transparent and standardized classification scheme to determine sector and exposure of particular digital assets. It also serves as a tool for asset allocation and portfolio analysis for digital assets market as well as product development. DAICS® complements IX Asia Indexes to develop their own competitive digital asset indexes and index products from a robust global standard.
DAICS® covers both cryptocurrencies and asset-backed tokens (“ABT”), to be reviewed semi-annually at the end of June and December. On cryptocurrencies side, it is a three-tier system that groups cryptocurrencies into 5 main industries: 1) Payment, 2) Infrastructure, 3) Financial services, 4) Technology & Data and 5) Media & Entertainment. These industries are further divided into 13 industry sectors and sub-sectors to be introduced in the future. Under asset-backed tokens, there are 6 asset types and 30 branches. They are: 1) Culture, 2) Real Estate, 3) Financials, 4) Entertainment, 5) Natural Resources and 6) Green Economy.
DAICS®: https://ix-index.com/daics.html
Student Contest Reveals Mekong Innovation in River Monitoring

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) on Monday announced the winners of its first-ever River Monitoring Technology Competition for university students.
Traffic Police to Ensure Road Safety During Lao New Year Celebrations
The Traffic Police Department of the Ministry of Public Security has announced plans to ensure safety and protect road users during the upcoming Lao New Year holiday from 11-17 April.
Celebrate Pi Mai Lao At Pullman Luang Prabang
Celebrate the Lao New Year at Pullman Luang Prabang, the largest resort in Luang Prabang offering a wide range of facilities. Prices start from USD 238 per room, per night. Experience the thrill of water fights, traditional processions, games, and dancing – as we welcome the New Year together.