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Tuesday, April 3, 2018

This Could Be the Year Virtual Reality Conquers the Tech World

NetworkNewsWire Editorial Coverage: Ever since it was introduced five years ago, virtual reality (VR) technology has been underwhelming due to the lack of content and the exuberant costs of headsets like Oculus. But this year, the VR market could grow by 25 percent, according to the Consumer Technology Association, thanks to new products announced by Google and others in the tech world. VR enthusiasts are also predicting that Steven Spielberg’s newest film, which depicts a futuristic VR universe, could push the technology into mainstream. However, the biggest boost to VR technology potentially comes from the integration of blockchain technology. This is where blockchain companies could bring the true potential of VR into life. Companies at the forefront of this technology include Victory Square Technologies, Inc. (OTC: VSQTF) (CSE: VST) (VSQTF Profile), 360 Blockchain, Inc. (CSE: CODE), Hashchain Technology, Inc. (TSX-V: KASH), BTCS, Inc. (OTC: BTCS), and Marathon Patent Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA).

At the recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, tech giants such as Facebook, Sony and Google all advocated for VR technologies. According to Forbes (http://nnw.fm/RyP8D), the biggest takeaway from this conference is that there was less talk about experimental VR and more about commercial VR, such as in advertising. Clearly, the VR market is on a trajectory into a new era. Based on reports from Business Insider, it is estimated that the VR market will grow from $2 billion to $27 billion between 2016 and 2022 (http://nnw.fm/Fc44G).

Recognizing that VR could finally become a mainstream consumer technology, Victory Square Technologies landed a arrangement last week to acquire 49% (percent) of Flo Digital Inc., a VR advertising experience platform with access to over 200 million monthly viewers across North America. Flo Digital’s VR network already spans several platforms, including HTC VIVE, Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, IOS, Android and Web VR. One of its latest VR projects was a collaboration with Chrysler Canada, which allowed users to virtually test drive the all-new Challenger.

Blockchain Unlocks Unreal Potential in Advertising

In the realm of advertising, the promise of VR-based marketing like the Chrysler campaign and its potential integration with blockchain — an area in which Victory Square Technologies (OTC: VSQTF) (CSE: VST) is already an expert in — have unreal potential. The company has already invested and incubated numerous businesses in the blockchain tech space, but it also has an existing VR project in the fast-growing VR gaming industry, so it’s no stranger to either technology. Victory Square chose Flo Digital, because it’s currently building out the first-ever blockchain-based VR advertising technology platform.

According to experts, a VR-blockchain combination could spark a digital advertising revolution by solving many common problems encountered in this space such as data transparency, ad fraud and misuse of money spent on advertisements. A possible solution is for platforms to record and measure people’s interaction with VR ads and make payments to content owners accordingly. The whole process could be done on blockchain’s secure, accurate and transparent curation of data, saving money for all involved.

Procter & Gamble made headlines last year for threatening to pull $2.4 billion in ad spending because of ongoing ad fraud and transparency issues, even calling out its partner Facebook.

P&G’s chief brand officer Marc Pritchard stated at the time: “There is, we believe, at least 20 percent to 30 percent of waste in the media supply chain because of lack of “viewability,” non-transparent contracts, non-transparent measurement of inputs, fraud, and now even your ads showing up in unsafe places.” The solution to this is a combination of VR (better user experience) and blockchain (transparency).

Google is already encouraging developers to work with a VR prototype to replace traditional advertising, and so have Apple and Microsoft. This presents a big opportunity for companies such as Victory Square Technologies (OTC: VSQTF) (CSE: VST) with strong footprints in both VR and blockchain to make a technological breakthrough with its potentially first-of-its-kind Flo Digital platform.

Commenting on its newest VR-blockchain acquisition, Shafin Diamond Tejani, Victory Square CEO, said: “Flo Digital has a proven track record of providing cutting-edge and immersive VR/AR experiences to leading brands that include Chrysler Canada, Warner Bros. and Rogers Wireless, to name a few. It is this calibre of customers and execution that makes the entire team at Victory Square eager to work with Flo Digital on their next stage of growth.

“This represents another investment in the VR/AR industry and further illustrates our thesis that blockchain technology will disrupt the existing landscape in ad tech and ultimately change the way brands will connect with their customers,” Tejani added.

Other Players in the Blockchain Space

360 Blockchain (CSE: CODE) is building an all-round blockchain ecosystem that includes cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and data management. In December, the company announced its intention to invest in Arcology, a platform that uses machine learning and pattern recognition technology to create hierarchical blockchain structures. Recently, 360 Blockchain completed its acquisition of a 60 percent stake in SV CryptoLab, a Silicon Valley-based crypto facility.

Hashchain Technology (TSX-V: KASH) is the first public cryptocurrency mining company to file a final prospectus in Canada supporting highly scalable and flexible mining operations across all major cryptocurrencies. Last month, the company completed the acquisition of NODE40 LLC, which comprises a team of experienced blockchain experts and software engineers.

BTCS (OTC: BTCS) is one of the first public companies in the United States to be involved with digital assets and blockchain technologies. The company plans to create a portfolio of digital assets including Bitcoin and other “protocol tokens.” It has an agreement in place to merge with Blockchain Global Ltd., an Australian blockchain company.

Marathon (NASDAQ: MARA) is focused on acquiring patents and patent rights from individual owners and Fortune 500 companies. The company monetizes its portfolio by entering licensing deals. Earlier this year, Marathon entered a purchase agreement to acquire four patents related to the transmission and exchange of cryptocurrencies between buyers and sellers.

Spielberg’s New Film Could Ignite a VR Tech Fever

Although VR technology is still at an infancy stage, it is also about to receive a big lift in the real world thanks to Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated ”Ready Player One” — centered around a utopian VR future — hitting theatres on March 29. Like previous Hollywood releases that have produced remarkable marketing results (i.e., The Blues Brothers was credited for boosting sunglasses sales in the 1980s), this film will give the audience a grandiose visualization of the infinite possibilities created by VR technology, which transcend real-life experiences, potentially helping to ignite a VR fever that already seems to be gaining traction.

This signals an ideal time for companies to delve deeper into this tech space, much like Victory Square Technologies has just done with the Flo Digital acquisition. Now that Spielberg’s next big release is set to become a big marketing campaign for VR, the next step is to realize the technology’s true potential in advertising through the help of blockchain.

Imagine a platform that charges advertisers solely on the amount of time consumers were immersed in the VR content and rewards content producers accordingly, with all transactions safely recorded on blockchain. A VR-blockchain integration could finally eliminate the 20 to 30 percent waste resulting from inefficient advertising, and Victory Square Technologies could be the one to bring that kind of platform into life.

For more information on Victory Square Technologies Inc. (OTC:VSQTF) (CSE:VST), please visit StreetSignals.com for a free research report.

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Monday, April 2, 2018

SmartCash ($SMART) and the Future Potential of SmartCard

Debit and credit card payments have arguably become the dominant way for many to carry out most, if not all, of their daily transactions. Adoption of card payments became increasingly simple for smaller businesses, and now quick and affordable smartphone-powered solutions are already a reality.

Just like any other complex system, however, this one is far from perfection. More recently, various cryptocurrency projects emerged offering to solve many of the problems facing traditional systems. While they do succeed in solving some of them, often they do so at the expense of creating new ones.

Now, the team behind SmartCash (Crypto: SMART) – powered by a self-governed, self-funded crypto community – is proposing their own blockchain-based solution that aims to improve on the digital payment card model. Their main goals are to streamline crypto transactions and make them practical for use in real-life payment scenarios. At the same time, they aim to drastically reduce fees and confirmation time frames over those found in current solutions.

Solving Major Challenges with a Simple Solution

As they currently stand, both traditional cards and crypto payment solutions leave a lot to be desired. Transaction fees of over 3% for some cards can add up to substantial losses over time for businesses of all sizes. For even small businesses, it’s normal for more than $50,000 a year to be lost in processing fees.

In addition to this, both buyers and sellers must have access to major banks and their services in order to facilitate these types of transactions; a major problem in many parts of the world. Also, traditional services inherently have long confirmation times of up to several days, which can themselves lead to other issues. Cryptocurrencies have indeed proposed solutions to many of these challenges, as it is easy to find many projects today that offer instant transactions and virtually no fees. But, this doesn’t change the fact that using this new technology in its current form is like trying to send an email in the 80s – too time-consuming to setup and operate to be practical for most everyday applications.

Using their new feature called the SmartCard, the developers of SmartCash are looking to improve upon and/or eliminate entirely the present limitations of payment cards. SmartCard is the crypto alternative to the debit card which uses the SmartCash blockchain to easily initiate and verify transactions of any size and frequency. As with many other cryptocurrencies, the fees are right around 0%; it costs just fractions of a cent to process a transaction, regardless of the amount. The payments will be instantly confirmed at the time of purchase, meaning there is no delay between authorization of the payment and the transfer of the actual funds.

In a way, the purchases made with SmartCard combine the best of cash, card, and crypto payments. The funds are moved between parties instantly, like cash, but the transaction is authorized by the buyer with a simple code that can be either digitally stored on a smartphone or printed and carried separately as a physical QR code. This makes the payment process just as convenient as regular card payments, and far easier than having to send cryptocurrency manually from a mobile app.

How It All Works

There are just two main applications: the card app for the consumer and the Point of Sale (PoS) app for the merchant.

The card app allows anyone to create a SmartCard with just a few taps. Each card has an associated public address which can be used to load more funds onto the card from any wallet or exchange that offers SmartCash. Also included into each one is a QR code which can be scanned by the PoS application from either a phone screen or from a simple piece of paper. Once loaded through this address, the card works very similar to a pre-paid debit card.

The PoS app is equally responsible for this convenience. The merchant only has to specify the transaction amount in the local currency, and the app automatically initiates a transaction in the equivalent amount of SmartCash. The merchant uses the app to scan the code and requests the buyer to enter a confirmation pin. After entering it on the merchant’s smartphone, the app connects to the blockchain to submit the transaction. If the code and pin match, and there are enough funds in the card address, the transaction is instantly verified and recorded on the blockchain. The process of scanning a card and entering a pin to confirm is already well familiar to current debit card users, and so it would be easy for everyone to get used to.

A Revolutionary Payment System Everyone Can Love

This ease of use and familiarity present the key advantage of this system over other crypto payments, which require both parties to be online for a transaction. Once the card is created and loaded, only the merchant is responsible for having a live connection to the internet and the consumer can take her funds anywhere without worrying about a dead battery or lack of signal in remote areas. No need for fumbling with mobile wallet apps, nor any memorization beyond the simple numerical pin just like the ones used for debit purchases. In addition to this, it also offers the advantage of being usable in places where traditional banking services are only partially available, or even absent entirely. Whereas other mobile payment solutions require bank accounts for both parties to send/receive the funds, this one uses the SmartCash blockchain instead and is thus accessible to anyone who wishes to use it.

This is of particular interest to the 2 billion or so “unbanked” people currently living in parts of the world lacking any traditional banking resources. At the same time, smartphone ownership and cell coverage are both on the rise around the world. Smartphone adoption in developing nations almost doubled in recent years with well over 1 out of every 3 people owning a smartphone. This trend will likely continue, as new technology continues to lower or eliminate barriers to entry. Using the tools developed by the SmartCash team and planned for release in the next 2-3 months, countless smartphone users worldwide will soon have the power of debit card transactions and the convenience they provide. And, as a bonus, they will do so at virtually no cost and with a confirmation speed measured in fractions of a second instead of days. And we haven’t even compared how much faster and easier it will be for a merchant to start accepting SmartCash vs. the long process involved with accepting credit card and debit card payments.

Naturally, these benefits would also be quite attractive to buyers and sellers in more developed nations as well. Other crypto solutions fall somewhat short of their promises. Crypto debit cards suffer from the same fees and transaction delays as any other current plastic card, and sending money through current mobile wallets requires a lot of time and effort to make the payments. Compared to these options, SmartCard payments are in a league of their own in convenience and speed. Add to this the fact that the SmartCash community is actively seeking, recruiting, and sponsoring business owners and entrepreneurs globally, and it is easy to imagine how the SmartCard could increasingly gain global adoption across a wide range of markets and economies.

To learn more about SmartCash, visit: SmartCash on Crypto Spotlight

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First Cobalt Corp. (TSX.V: FCC) (OTCQB: FTSSF) Announces Positive Cobalt Mineralization in Assay Core Samples

Company is largest landowner in historic Cobalt Camp, with more than 50 past-producing mines and a mill
Worldwide demand for cobalt, an essential component in renewable batteries, expected to become critical
Assay results indicate potential zone of cobalt mineralization tracked across more than 100 meters

Positive assay results from exploratory drill holes taken from a prospective zone of cobalt mineralization near a mine owned by First Cobalt Corp. (TSX.V: FCC) (OTCQB: FTSSF) are seen as ‘significantly promising’. First Cobalt president and CEO Trent Mell announced the assay results, retrieved from samples taken near the Kerr Mine in the Cobalt North area of the Cobalt Camp in Ontario, Canada, in a news release (http://nnw.fm/zLa6b). The region is laden with more than nine past-producing underground mines that once offered up to 37 million ounces of silver and more than 900,000 pounds of cobalt.

“Cobalt North showed significant promise during the 2017 surface sampling and mapping work,” Mell stated in the news release. “These initial results confirm some of the early ideas we have for the structural setting for this area that make it highly prospective.”

The assay samples were retrieved from two drill hole locations that were selected based on core mineralization measurements. First Cobalt geologists believe that the assay results, which show both cobalt and silver, indicate a potential network of mineralization across more than 100 meters, which can be visualized as roughly the length of an American football field.

Three additional holes have been drilled and logged, with assays now pending. Preliminary results have so far shown significant copper, lead and zinc intersecting the mineralized zone, indicating a more easily targeted follow-up drilling area than individual veins would offer.

“Indications of both disseminated and vein styles of mineralization across a network for more than 100 metres make this an attractive target for a future bulk tonnage operation,” Mell continued. “With zones of mineralization now identified in Cobalt South and Cobalt North, we are seeing multiple opportunities in the Cobalt Camp for future primary cobalt sources to supply the North American battery market.”

Demand for cobalt is expected to increase considerably over the next few decades as countries around the world begin to incentivize a shift to electric vehicles, according to an article in Chemistry World (http://nnw.fm/p34K3). As an essential element of the renewable batteries that power mobile devices, laptops and electric vehicles, cobalt will likely continue to be in huge demand. First Cobalt is focused on creating the largest pure-play cobalt exploration and development company in the world. The company’s First Cobalt Refinery is the only permitted facility in North America capable of producing battery materials.

For more information, visit the company’s website at http://nnw.fm/FTSSF

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