The Hair Laboratory with L'Oréal Professionnel's Style My Hair App

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L'Oréal Professionnel launches the Style My Hair app, eliminating pre-hairstyling jitters for good.

We've all had this hair dilemma: we spend months pining over a hairstyle and hair color we want to try, until salon day comes and the crippling fear of making a mistake forces us to stick to the usual. For women, a new 'do gone wrong is almost as good as fatal—it's enough to jolt them out of being adventurous and going for what they know works. However, the non-commitment to new hair may finally change as L’Oréal Professionnel launches its newest hairstyling app, Style My Hair.

It's the stuff hair dreams are made of: Style My Hair contains an extensive catalog of hairstyles and hair colors that users can virtually see on themselves as they upload a photo to which their chosen hairstyle and hair color is digitally rendered. Simply put, women can see the result of their chosen hairstyle and hair color even before they proceed with having them done, totally eliminating the fear of choosing a look that doesn't end up suiting them well. The Style My Hair app is more than a hairstyle and hair color test lab, however, as its social media and hair maintenance components make it an all-around go-to resource for all things hairstyle. Users can share all their looks in their very own hair gallery, and view the necessary L’Oréal Professionnel hair care products to help them maintain their chosen look.

The vast collection of looks featured on the Style My Hair app are powered by French fashion and beauty website PureTrend, who also provides a substantial in-app discussion of each look. Looks are trend-based, and can be personally curated by users through an accessible "like" button. The Style My Hair app virtually simulates the salon experience, as users can also modify their choices based on cut, color, color intensity, and hair length. Finally, users can simply tap on the Find My Hairdresser option to locate the nearest L’Oréal Professionnel hair expert that could execute their virtual hair look in real life.

The Style My Hair app is the first step to a total L’Oréal Professionnel in-salon experience. L’Oréal Professionnel hair experts are geared to fire up the app as they meet their salon clients, taking them through discovering possible hair looks they can do for their styling session. This makes each salon experience a new and exciting one, where women no longer dread a new hair look that doesn't end up suitable for them.

The Style My Hair App is available for download in Android 4.0 phones and on the App store, for IOS 7.0 and above. The app will also be used to aid L’Oréal Professionnel hair experts in prescribing looks for their clients.

Rise in Online Rental Fraud: A Global Concern

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Online rental fraud is now a rising concern for tenants and property investors all over the world. In England, the police recorded a 44 percent increase in scams reported with 3,200 unfortunate house hunters affected.

Indeed, this only represents a fraction of the total fraud numbers, as victims of fraud hold a certain stigma.

“Nobody wants to admit that they were fooled by an online fraud,” said Dr. Paul Hermann, cofounder and managing director of Lamudi—the global online property portal. “The property market going online made everything easier for everyone, and that includes fraudsters,” Hermann added.

A survey by YouGov—the international Internet-based market research firm—recorded more than 1 million cases of rental fraud in 2013 in England. And this is in a country where the real estate market has been online for more than 20 years. Companies like Rightmove, established in the early 21st century, have matured into public limited companies and have all but ironed out any fraud vulnerabilities.

Naturally, the problem is just as much of a concern in the emerging markets. Property renters and buyers operating overseas are the most common victims, because in most cases they cannot travel onsite to inspect the property. In certain situations, a con artist will gain access to the incoming mail account of an agent or homeowner through a phishing scam. In some unfortunate cases, a buyer will make a deposit, and the con artist will disappear leaving no trace.



So how does it work?

The initial step for the scammer is to complete a fake inquiry for an online listing. The inquiry template will have an outbound link that appears to send the advertiser back to their account but in reality, it will send the unsuspecting victim to a fake log-in prompt to retrieve information to phish. At this point, the scammer now has access to the advertiser’s email account and can intercept new emails. To cover their tracks, the con artist will delete the original email and reply from a new email account. Each scam will involve three victims: the phished advertiser, the second advertiser who acts as a pawn, and, of course, the potential renter or buyer.



How can you mitigate the threat of fraud?

However, it is not all bad news for online home-hunters. New online sites like Lamudi have the latest anti-phishing software making their website and email accounts impenetrable. Moreover, they only allow vetted and verified agents and owners to list on their classified website.

“Building trust is a core pillar on which we built our property platform business,” said Hermann. “Realizing that fraud is a real issue, we ensured that our website has the latest anti-fraud technology and Rocket Internet, our parent company, provided the capital investment for us to get the best technology in the business,” Hermann added.

“A lot of companies see this self-defense expenditure as a cost they are unwilling to incur,” Hermann noted. “For us, it was point one on our priority list, and our international property investors have responded favorably to the enhanced security we can offer them,” said Hermann.

Nevertheless, the responsibility not only lies with online real estate platforms to counteract this fraud threat, but on financial institutions also who in some cases allow new users to create bank accounts online without due diligence. This potentially opens up a window of opportunity for cyber criminals. In Germany, for example, where Lamudi is based, it is next to impossible to open up a bank account without proof of residence and identification.

What is clear is that a collaborative approach needs to be taken by all stakeholders to counter the problem, and that includes the education of end users on how to safely use online property sites.

Enabling Startups to Thrive In Co-Working Spaces

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Leading the efforts to support and empower small, start-up businesses to be productive in the workplace, Microsoft and Penbrothers showcase what the latest cloud technology combined with a new working environment can offer.


Co-working space jam

Think community, openness, collaboration, sustainability – in a shared working environment where the coffee shop meets the office cubicle – that is what a co-working space is, basically. But in a deeper sense, co-working spaces are the result of a goal to come up with strategies to better deal with risks and problems of new, more flexible types of work.

One of Microsoft’s dream is to reach out to everyone, to have inclusivity that can open experiences to a wider range of people and businesses. Not only is Microsoft for big, established enterprises, it also empowers the growth of small, start-up businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers by offering them tools and technology that can help in opening opportunities and expanding horizons.

From the data gathered through their “New World of Work’ survey, Microsoft ventures that as enterprises adapt to the changing business landscape, they must simultaneously adopt new ways to communicate with their workforce and associates that are grounded in available and inexpensive technologies and spaces.

The good news is, with Office 365’s improved cloud technology, files, documents, and data can be created, edited, and shared through any device – be it a PC, Mac, an iOS device, Android, or Windows – with anyone in real time. This helps businesses connect better with customers and co-workers with a wider range of communication tools. Space is not a problem, as 1 TB per user will provide plenty of space for files. Because the files are stored online, it can be shared with people in or outside a company, wherever, whenever. 

Eshna Esu, Operations Manager Penbrothers

Flexible solutions for flexible productive spaces

Penbrothers is one co-working space that not only offers a ‘space’ for renters but also finds and manages services to help companies reach new goals and solve current problems. It seeks to help businesses in the Philippines tackle operational needs and reach their goals, whether it is to expand internationally, grow the company or simply need consulting from an outside expert.

With many co-working spaces now cropping up in the metro, Penbrother’s main differentiation from the rest is its top operational services that provides a full suite of human resources services and strong legal assistance that helps companies in their day to day business. And now, with their partnership, where Microsoft applications are showcased in Dell laptops and devices to offer a better office technology experience for their renters, Penbrothers steps up the game in the co-working business. 

Frank Rich - Commercial Marketing Lead Microsoft Philippines

Tovia Va'aelua - Microsoft Innovative Enterprises Lead Microsoft Philippines

John Erwin Magno - IT Trainer

Microsoft’s partnership with Penbrothers aims to enable employees with the right technology, support and work environment that empowers them to be more productive and efficient and thus preparing them for a new world of work.

One tool that Microsoft offers to Penbrothers residents is the Windows 10 Pro for Business, an upgrade from the Windows 10 Home that enables businesses to do great things from anywhere, has the built-in security and flexibility to keep up with business growth. It is safer and more secure, with enhanced encryption that protect companies from modern security threats. Windows 10 Pro Business gives agile, cost-effective features that helps companies better manage and protect systems and data.

Showcasing Microsoft’s cloud, productivity, and collaboration via Dell’s newest line of gadgets, companies residing in Penbrothers are given access to new capabilities that will not just do work faster, but also reinvent how things are done and communicated. As Office 365’s intelligent cloud and other features can be used in different devices such as computers, tablets and mobile phones, this helps workers with their need to seamlessly connect, interact, and share with one another, highlighting the essence of an effective co-working.

But this is just the beginning. With the growth of entrepreneurship and startups in the country, Microsoft is looking forward to enabling more co-working space partnerships and thrive in this innovative space.

Know more about Microsoft and its Windows 10 Pro for Business, Office 365, and Cloud offering, log on to https://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/.