Agoracom Blog

Tetra Bio-Pharma $TPB.ca Pursues Its Research Priorities Accelerating Other Drug Development Plans

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 2:29 PM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019
  • Announced change in their Drug Development Plan (DDP) priorities.
  • This will allow Tetra to rapidly leverage the PANAG pipeline and expertise and align its research programs on indications with unmet medical needs or a higher return on investment (ROI). 

Last Week’s Agreement to Acquire PANAG Establishes Exhaustive Dermatology and Ophthalmic Product Portfolios

ORLEANS, Ontario, Feb. 07, 2019 – Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. (“Tetra” or the “Corporation“) (TSX VENTURE: TBP) (OTB: TBPMF), a global leader in cannabinoid-derived drug development and discovery, today announced a change in their Drug Development Plan (DDP) priorities. This will allow Tetra to rapidly leverage the PANAG pipeline and expertise and align its research programs on indications with unmet medical needs or a higher return on investment (ROI).  Through an expanded and focused pipeline, the Corporation intends to maintain its position as a leader in cannabis and cannabinoid drug development with a clear objective to generate value for shareholders.  In addition to its DDP in oncology and neuropathic pain programs, Tetra will pursue the development of prescription products in ophthalmic, dermatology as well as other pain segments.

Tetra Bio-Pharma Drug Development Plans address key therapeutic sectors which address the medical needs of millions of patients and represent substantial potential revenue. Priorities are summarized below:

“Immediately following the PANAG closing we held an Executive Team Meeting to prioritize our solid and robust prescription product pipeline and ensure we maintain our lead in the cannabis prescription drug market,” stated Dr. Guy Chamberland, CEO and CSO of Tetra Bio-Pharma. “The products in this pipeline address high potential unmet medical needs, such as uveitis, corneal neuropathic pain, interstitial cystitis, fibromyalgia and glioblastoma.  Some of these products will come from PANAG’s pipeline and medical and scientific expertise. These innovative products target disease indications with global unmet medical needs and where we are confident that cannabinoid-derived products can play an important role in alleviating pain, discomfort and associated symptoms.”

Dr. Chamberland further stated, “The news on Tuesday is a reality in the world of drug development.  The safety and wellness of patients is always Tetra’s number one priority.   We also kept in mind the importance and responsibility of taking a first cannabinoid drug to the market.  Our responsibility was to ensure timely and accurate disclosure of the events subsequent to the results of the mycotoxin analyses of the clinical trial lots which arrived on January 22nd and February 1st.  Tetra, and its Executive Team is engaged in a rapid transformational change with the PANAG acquisition which will enable Tetra to mitigate the risk that comes with developing a pharmaceutical drug while creating value for shareholders.  As some of our peers have demonstrated, a single approved drug, even for a rare disease indication, can play a significant role in our valuation.”  

Dr. Chamberland goes on to say, “It was my responsibility to rapidly adjust our research priorities while we address the impurity issue and risk to cancer patients. Although our DDP in Advanced Cancer Pain is temporarily suspended, we had been assessing our PPP001 research data and planned to accelerate DDP programs that address more diseases or health conditions with a larger ROI.  Down the road this transformation will provide us with a more sustainable and robust product pipeline. The Leadership Team is engaged to stay focused on these research priorities, and rest assured that we will deliver value to our shareholders.”

About Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Tetra Bio-Pharma (TSX-V: TBP) (OTCQB: TBPMF) is a biopharmaceutical leader in cannabinoid-based drug discovery and development with a Health Canada approved, and FDA reviewed, clinical program aimed at bringing novel prescription drugs and treatments to patients and their healthcare providers. The Company has several subsidiaries engaged in the development of an advanced and growing pipeline of Bio Pharmaceuticals, Natural Health and Veterinary Products containing cannabis and other medicinal plant-based elements. With patients at the core of what we do, Tetra Bio-Pharma is focused on providing rigorous scientific validation and safety data required for inclusion into the existing bio pharma industry by regulators, physicians and insurance companies.

For more information visit: www.tetrabiopharma.com

Source: Tetra Bio-Pharma

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking statements
Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding potential acquisitions and financings) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words “may”, “will”, “should”, “continue”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “estimate”, “believe”, “intend”, “plan” or “project” or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company’s ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, the inability of the Company to obtain sufficient financing to execute the Company’s business plan; competition; regulation and anticipated and unanticipated costs and delays, the success of the Company’s research and development strategies, including the products mentioned in this release, the applicability of the discoveries made therein, the successful and timely completion and uncertainties related to the regulatory process including the applications for Orphan Drug Designation, the timing of clinical trials, the timing and outcomes of regulatory or intellectual property decisions and other risks disclosed in the Company’s public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. While no definitive documentation has yet been signed by the parties and there is no certainty that such documentation will be signed. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.

For further information, please contact Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.
Robert (Bob) Bechard                                     
Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Licensing
514-817-2514
[email protected]       

Media Contact 
energi PR
Carol Levine
[email protected]
514-288-8500 ext. 226
Marissa Zanti
[email protected] 
416-425-9143 ext. 204

North Bud Farms Inc. $NBUD.ca – Canada’s top marijuana enforcer stands by Liberals’ new pot policy $ACB $WEED.ca $HIP.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 12:26 PM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019

SPONSOR: North Bud Farms Inc. (NBUD:CSE) Sustainable low cost, high quality cannabinoid production and procurement focusing on both bio-pharmaceutical development and Cannabinoid Infused Products. Click Here For More Information

NBUD: CSE

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Canada’s top marijuana enforcer stands by Liberals’ new pot policy

By Kory Dragon

  • A former police chief and narcotics enforcement officer, federal Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair is convinced Canada has done the right thing with its new marijuana decriminalization and regularization laws.
Martin C. Barry

As the federal minister responsible for the implementation and enforcement of Canada’s new marijuana legalization and regularization laws, there’s no mistaking the fact Bill Blair stands one hundred per cent behind the Trudeau Liberal government’s groundbreaking policy.

If anybody might be in a position to question the government’s stance, it could easily be Blair. The veteran policeman and former chief of the Toronto Police Service spent years fighting on the front lines against drug-related crime as a narcotics squad officer.

Former narcotics cop

“As a police officer for 40 years, I was involved in drug enforcement,” Blair, who is Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction, said in an interview with Newsfirst Multimedia while on a ministerial stopover in Montreal.

As chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s Organized Crime Committee, he said he was “well aware of the impact that illegal drug trafficking as controlled by organized crime was having in all of our communities.”

Drugs and violence linked

While noting that the link between organized crime and illegal drug trafficking had a lot do with an escalation of violence in Canadian cities these past few decades, Blair also pointed out that organized crime was earning billions of dollars in profits each year being the sole purveyors of a range of illegal substances that included marijuana.

Since the only means of controlling the situation available to society was criminal sanction, young people got swept up in the overall enforcement of the country’s drug laws, “which was disproportionate,” added Blair, “and was actually causing in many cases more harm. We wanted to discourage their use of the drug. But we also did not want to saddle that child with a criminal record for the rest of their life.”

Approached by Trudeau

According to Blair, all of this transpired long before he was asked by Justin Trudeau to run in the suburban Toronto riding of Scarborough Southwest in the October 2015 election. Blair and the future Prime Minister discussed the possibility of radically changing Canada’s cannabis laws.

“We talked about Canada’s control of cannabis. And he said ‘What do you think of legalizing it?’ And I said if we lift the criminal prohibition it gives the opportunity to get the situation back under control. Because currently the situation we were in was we had the highest rates of use among our kids in the world. And this is a dangerous drug for children. This is a drug that can have very serious implications for children.”

One third were breaking law

Leading up to the changes last October by the Liberal government to the country’s longstanding prohibition on cannabis, more than a third of Canada’s population had been breaking the law, Blair added. As such, “we began the process of looking at how do we reduce the harm of this drug.

“Some people say to me, ‘Well you’ve legalized cannabis.’ And I say no – we’ve regulated the daylights out of it. We’ve brought in all sorts of new rules – enforceable, proportionate, sensible rules – that control every aspect of its production, its sale and its consumption.

Says no to other drugs

“Whereas before we had only one tool and it was like a sledgehammer and we were trying to drive a nail. And no one wanted to swing the sledgehammer. But now we have the right suite of tools to control the system. And I believe it’ll result in a healthy situation for our children and a safer situation for our communities.”

Blair insisted that neither he nor the Liberal government would ever consider going down the same route with other street drugs as it has done with marijuana. “Cannabis is not a drug that kills people,” he said.

“But unfortunately with other more serious drugs which are deadly – the opioid crisis, for example, crystal methamphetamine, which is ravishing some of our prairie and northern communities – those drugs represent such a significant risk. And we don’t have a system of regulated production and control.

Meth and fentanyl out

“There is no alternative. We can go to a Health Canada-regulated production facility for marijuana, for cannabis. But we’re not going to create a similar thing for crystal methamphetamine. So there will be no other source other than the criminal source.” For drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl, Blair said an important of the approach for dealing with them is to “interdict the supply to keep those drugs out of our country. We need to be very effective at restricting the supply. But we also have an enormous amount of work to do – and we have embarked as a government on this – to reduce the demand for those drugs. And that’s to prevent people from beginning to use them in the first place.”

Source: https://www.lavalnews.ca/2019/02/06/bill-blair-marijuana/

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX to Launch New #Blockchain – Powered Digital Exchange $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 11:16 AM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX to Launch New Blockchain-Powered Digital Exchange

  • Switzerland‘s principal stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange will test blockchain integration for its forthcoming parallel digital trading platform SDX in the second half of this year.

By Marie Huillet

Switzerland‘s principal stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange will test blockchain integration for its forthcoming parallel digital trading platform SDX in the second half of this year. The news was reported by Cointelegraph Deutschland Feb. 4.

SIX Swiss Exchange sees roughly 5.19 billion Swiss Francs (CHF) (~$5.18 billion) in daily turnover, and has a market capitalization of over 1.67 trillion CHF ~($1.6 trillion).

CEO Jos Dijsselhof told Cointelegraph Deutschland in an interview that the company had chosen the technology for the time efficiency and improved security it can offer across all stages of stock trading and settlement:

“The fact is, it takes two days for the buyer of a stock to become the owner. The trade itself only takes a fraction of a second, but after that payments have to be settled and titles transferred. If we put it all on our digital exchange, then the whole process takes only a few seconds. This makes the market more efficient, but at the same time also takes risks out of the system. “

Dijsselhof added that wholly digital, blockchain-powered stock trading will not only minimize risks, but widen the range of tradable titles, affirming his ambition that SIX would succeed in building “a whole new stock market on the blockchain with completely integrated trading, handling and custody of digital assets”.

In an interview with Reuters published Feb. 6, SIX exchange chairman Romeo Lacher noted that the exchange aims to finalize a launch date for the new platform in late summer — with the exact date remaining subject to legal and regulatory clarification with Swiss market watchdog the Financial Market Supervisory Authority.

Reuters further reported that SIX expects its blockchain-based SDX digital exchange to supersede its existing marketplace within a decade. Lacher said the company also has plans to launch its own Security Token Offering, which will offer investors an equity stake in exchange for capital.

Unnamed SIX officials told Reuters that SDX will begin by rolling out support selected stocks, followed by bonds, and possibly exchange-traded-funds (ETFs).

As Cointelegraph has previously reported, SIX listed a pioneering multi-crypto-based exchange-traded product (ETP) in November, which tracks five major cryptocurrencies.

Other major global exchanges are similarly looking to rehaul their platforms — in whole or in part — with blockchain. In January, major global securities marketplace Deutsche Börse reported it was “making significant progress” on its blockchain-based securities lending platform, which will use blockchain consortium R3’s Corda technology.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/major-swiss-stock-exchange-six-to-launch-new-blockchain-powered-digital-exchange

CLIENT FEATURE: GGX Gold’s 2018 Exploration Program at Gold Drop Demonstrates High Grade Potential $K.ca $GZD.ca $TUSK.ca $XIM.ca

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:18 AM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.agoracom.com/public/companies/logos/564602/hub/ggx_large.png

The 2018 Exploration program Returned Results Including:

  • The most significant gold drill intersections (core length) from the phase 3 diamond drilling on the COD vein are as follows:
    • COD18-3: 14.62 g/t Au over 2.1 metres;
    • COD18-26: 10.30 g/t Au over 1.4 metres recovered core (within 2.35-metre interval);
    • COD18-28: 11.30 g/t Au over 0.51 metre;
    • COD18-33: 8.65 g/t Au over 2.98 metres;
    • COD18-34: 6.16 g/t Au over 3.41 metres;
    • COD18-37: 8.23 g/t Au over 3.95 metres;
    • COD18-45: 50.10 g/t Au over 2.05 metres;
    • COD18-46: 54.90 g/t Au over 1.47 metres;
    • COD18-49: 9.52 g/t Au over 1.47 metres;
    • COD18-54: 7.60 g/t Au over 1.66 metres.

The 2018 drilling program also tested the continuation of the Everest vein, which is located southwest of the COD vein work site. Chip samples collected in 2017 across the approximate 0.4-metre-wide vein exposure returned up to 52.8 g/t gold and 377 g/t silver, while a grab sample of a quartz vein boulder broken off the outcrop by the excavator returned 81.8 g/t gold and 630 g/t silver (news release of Aug. 21, 2017).

The Everest vein 2018 drill holes are located approximately 350 to 800 metres south of the area of 2017 and 2018 COD vein drill holes. High gold intersections (core length) from the phase 3 drill program at the Everest vein include (news release of July 19, 2018, and Sept. 13, 2018):

EVE18-5: 10.55 g/t Au over 0.45 metre;

EVE18-12: 12.45 g/t Au over 0.85 metre.

GGX HUB HOME  / CORPORATE PROFILE

FULL DISCLOSURE: GGX Gold is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.

New Age Metals Inc. $NAM.ca – Honda secures battery supply contract for about 1 million electric vehicles with CATL $LIC.ca $LIX.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 4:50 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019

SPONSOR: New Age Metals Inc. (TSX-V: NAM) The company’s new Lithium Division has already made significant acquisitions in Canada and the USA. The company also owns one of North America’s largest primary platinum group metals deposit in Sudbury, Canada. Learn More.

NAM: TSX-V

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Honda secures battery supply contract for about 1 million electric vehicles with CATL

Fred Lambert Feb. 6th 2019 12:25 pm ET @FredericLambert

  • Honda hasn’t been one of the most active automakers when it comes to electrification, but it is now making some big moves,
  • securing a battery cell supply contract for about 1 million electric vehicles with CATL, one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world.

Yesterday in Tokyo, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL) and Honda signed “a cooperation agreement to formally cooperate to develop electric vehicles for the future market.”

The two companies had already been working together.

Last year, it was reported that Honda is working on an affordable all-electric Fit-based car with CATL for a global release.

Naosumi Tada, head of CATL’s Japanese subsidiary, commented:

“Customer-centered is the philosophy that CATL has always insisted on. We hope that we can establish more efficient communication channels, more timely response mechanisms, and establish a closer relationship for further cooperation. Honda and CATL have been worked closely on advanced and reliable battery solutions for Honda’s future electric vehicle applications. In the future, we will support Honda not only in China, Japan, but also to create world-leading electric vehicles that serves global consumers.”

Now as part of the new agreement, CATL is guaranteeing Honda a supply of “about 56 GWh of lithium-ion EV batteries before 2027.”

Based on an average battery pack size of 55 kWh, it would be enough batteries to produce about 1 million electric vehicles.

When it comes to all-electric vehicles, Honda doesn’t have much going on right now, but they plan to change that starting at the end of this year with their first new standalone all-electric vehicle.

As for CATL, it is rapidly becoming an important player in the EV space.

CATL is primarily using LiFePo and NCM chemistries in prismatic cell formats and their batteries have been mostly going to electric bus production and plug-in hybrids. But they have been expanding their reach lately and announced several new battery factories to support major automakers.

They signed a supply contract with SAAB successor National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) in order to enable the production of hundreds of thousands of all-electric cars per year.

BMW also signed a $1 billion battery supply contract with them to support their future EV production.

Electrek’s Take

It may sound like a lot, but the way I read the statement, it sounds like 56 GWh through 2027, which means an average of 7 GWh secured per year over the next 8 years.

That’s not really a lot.

Tesla is already consuming at a rate of over 25 GWh of battery cells per year for its vehicles and it is expected to rapidly increase over the next few years.

Therefore, it’s a big investment for Honda relative to what they have been doing in the space before, but it’s not really aggressive compared to other players in the space.

Hopefully, we see them securing more contracts to support more ambitious EV programs.

Source: https://electrek.co/2019/02/06/honda-catl-battery-supply-1-million-electric-vehicles/

CLIENT FEATURE: CardioComm Solutions $EKG.ca – The heartbeat of Cardiovascular Medicine and Telemedicine

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 3:54 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
Logo large

The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine

  • Specializing in the software engineering of computer based electrocardiogram (heart monitoring) management and reporting software
  • Software permits physician interpretations of ECGs and supports private and public payer fee-for-service billings
  • ECGs are electrical recordings of the heart and performing an ECG is one of the most common diagnostic tests performed
  • Successfully launched technologies that enable the use of new medical devices and communication portals utilizing internet and cellular based technologies for the recording, transmission and viewing of ECGs

Recent Highlights

CardioComm Solutions’ HeartCheck(TM) Device Enters Final FDA Review Phase Read More

  • Completed a request for additional information from the US Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) for the Company’s premarket notification 510(k), Class II medical device clearance application for the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat and GEMS™ Mobile Application.
  • Company had submitted a letter of revocation of their supplementary information submission on December 26, 2018 in compliance with the FDA’s directive

CardioComm Solutions’ HeartCheck(TM) CardiBeat and Smart Phone App Enter Final Stage of FDA 510(k) Review Read More

  • Market Release of HeartCheck(TM) CardiBeat and GEMS(TM) Mobile Application Set For Early 2019
  • Completed its response to the USA Food and Drug Administration for additional information following the Company’s filing of its premarket notification 510(k)
    • Class II medical device clearance application for the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat and GEMS™ Mobile Application
  • HeartCheck™ CardiBeat is the second of several planned Bluetooth-enabled ECG recording devices to be marketed by the Company

Launched 12-Lead ECG Smart Wearable Garment Monitoring Solution Read More

  • Announced joint partnership sales plans for the commercial launch of its newest software release designed to support an innovative and easy to use wireless, 12 lead ECG, vital signs, arrhythmia and ischemia monitoring wearable smart garment manufactured by Israel-based HealthWatch Technologies Ltd.

Company to Receive Royalty Payments from Biotricity Read More

  • Confirmed progress on a royalty licencing agreement with Biotricty Inc.
  • Royalty payment phase became active following confirmation that all necessary clearance and software development pre-conditions have been achieved
  • Royalty fees are due from the use of the ECG software Cardiocomm developed, or any derivative products, on a per patient monitored basis

First Company to Receive Approval for ECG Product Sales Direct to Consumers Read More

  • CardioComm was the first company to be approved to sell an ECG product directly to consumers in North America as evidenced by OTC Class II medical device clearances by both the United States Food and Drug Adminstration and Health Canada in 2012
  • HeartCheck ECG PEN is currently available for OTC sales on the shelves of Canadian pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart.

Completed HeartCheck(TM) Clinical Validation for Long-Term, Self-Managed, Remote Monitoring of Atrial Fibrillation Patients Post-Ablation Read More

  • Moved into routine clinical use following completion of a long-term, remote arrhythmia monitoring pilot in high risk patients.
  • PACE cardiologists have been prescribing use of the HeartCheck™ ECG PEN and ECG Handheld Monitor to their patients to provide up to one year of enhanced remote patient monitoring for arrhythmias in addition to use of conventional but term-limited Holter and event monitoring.

Products

HeartCheck™ Pen

The HeartCheck™ PEN handheld ECG device is the only device of its kind cleared by the FDA for consumer use.


✓ Monitor For Arrhythmias Anywhere
✓ Web Access to a Qualified Physician
✓ No Prescription Required

 
The pocket-sized PEN allows you to take heart readings from anywhere, the moment symptoms appear.

The HeartCheck™ ECG Device

The FDA-cleared HeartCheck™ ECG device is portable, easy to use and can store up to 200 thirty second ECG readings.

Whether at home, the gym or at the office, the HeartCheck™ ECG Device with SMART Monitoring can help detect and monitor arrhythmias from wherever you are.  

  Features & Benefits
✓ SMART Monitoring ECG Interpretations
✓ Cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
✓ Easy to use
✓ Accurate heart readings in only 30 seconds
✓ Store up to 200 ECGs

Company Accolades


FULL DISCLOSURE: CardioComm Solutions Inc. is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.

Esports Entertainment Group $GMBL – China recognizes #esports as a profession $ATVI $TTWO $GAME $EPY.ca $TCEHF

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 2:03 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
SPONSOR: Esports Entertainment $GMBL Esports audience is 350M, growing to 590M, Esports wagering is projected at $23 BILLION by 2020. The company has launched VIE.gg esports betting platform and has accelerated affiliate marketing agreements with 190 Esports teams. Click here for more information
GMBL: OTCQB

China recognizes esports as a profession

  • China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (CMHRSS) announced 15 new professions on Jan. 25, including “esports professional” and “esports operator.”
  • The world’s most populous nation has finally recognized esports as a legitimate profession, and the ministry has officially identified it in the courts.

Jerome Heath

China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (CMHRSS) announced 15 new professions on Jan. 25, including “esports professional” and “esports operator.”

The world’s most populous nation has finally recognized esports as a legitimate profession, and the ministry has officially identified it in the courts. It comes as news following last year, when the Chinese government issued its support and interest in the esports industry.

The term “esports professional” is defined as players who compete in esports tournaments, perform at esports events, or train with other professional players, according to the CMHRSS. While “esports operator” is explicitly classified as those who organize or develop content for esports tournaments.

Additionally, the CMHRSS noted that “account boosting” is one of the main jobs accompanying the esports profession. Account boosting and cheating are punishable offenses in League of Legends, Overwatch, and a number of other esports titles, and have caused controversy in the past. A lack of communication between the Chinese government and the esports industry could be the reason for the term account boosting being used, or it could just be a misunderstanding.

The term account boosting could have been used by the CMHRSS to reference players using their teammates’ account during professional play, but generally “account boosting” is defined as the act of one player logging into another player’s account with the intent of boosting their rank.

Former LMQ League of Legends player Yu “XiaoWeiXiao” Xian received a one-year ban for account boosting in Aug. 2015, Philadelphia Fusion player Su-min “SADO” Kim was suspended from the Overwatch League after accusations of taking part in a boosting scheme in Nov. 2017, and 1,400 Overwatch accounts were banned for boosting in Aug. 2018.

It is not clear yet if the ministry’s use of the word account boosting will be revised. However, the announcement of the inclusion of esports professional and esports operator as official jobs is a positive step for the growth of esports in China. It means that Chinese players will have extended working rights, giving them easier access to working visas, and allow them more freedom of movement.

Source: https://dotesports.com/business/news/china-recognizes-esports-as-profession

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – A Technical Breakdown Of Google’s $GOOG New #Blockchain Search Tools $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 12:34 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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A Technical Breakdown Of Google’s New Blockchain Search Tools

  • Google is now in the blockchain search business
  • Less than a day after Forbes broke the story that the internet search giant would be launching a suite of tools built by, and for, open source developers, those tools are live.

Michael del Castillo Forbes Staff

Google is now in the blockchain search business. Less than a day after Forbes broke the story that the internet search giant would be launching a suite of tools built by, and for, open source developers, those tools are live.

In addition to loading data sets for all the transactions and metadata in eight cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ethereum, Google Cloud developer advocate Allen Day and his team of open source developers from around the world are launching a number of tools designed to do to blockchain, what Google search did to the internet.

“I’m very interested to quantify what’s happening so that we can see where the real legitimate use cases are for blockchain,” said Day, who manages the cloud portion of the project. “So people can acknowledge that and then we can move to the next use case and develop out what these technologies are really appropriate for.”

Last year Day and lead developer Evgeny Medvedev discreetly loaded transaction data for the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains, along with some basic search tools, to Google’s BigQuery data analytics platform and have been studying how developers are using the software. As of today, they’re taking what they’ve learned and making data sets available for bitcoin cash, ethereum classic, litecoin, zcash, dogecoin and dash, along with an expanded suite of search tools.

Dubbed Blockchain ETL (extract, transform, load), the software, which was created by independent developer Medvedev with support from the rest the team, includes features such as integration with Google’s BigQuery ML (machine learning) tool, which was launched into a test, or “beta” version last year. By searching for patterns in transaction flows, the machine learning integration will automatically give the user basic information about how a cryptocurrency address is being used.

For example, the tool might be used to analyze transaction flows to determine whether an address is holding funds for a cryptocurrency mining pool, in which users contribute unused computer power to audit blockchain transactions in exchange for cryptocurrency. In the future, the BigQuery ML integration could also identify cryptocurrency addresses owned by a single entity, for example an exchange, and condense those addresses into a single data point, simplifying comparisons.

Also included in the launch, the blockchain data sets have been standardized into what Day calls a “unified schema,” meaning the data is structured in a uniform, easy-to-access way. By ensuring this level of consistency across data sets, Day hopes to make it easier for data scientists, auditors, and investigators to make comparative statements about transactions in the supported blockchains. “And others going forward will use the same architecture,” Day adds. 

Another new search feature is what Day calls a “double entry book view,” designed to simplify the way users can search for the cumulative balance of an account over a particular time, accurate to the eight decimal places, which is the smallest possible bitcoin denomination, called a satoshi, named after the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous inventor.

Data sets that fall into what is called the “Satoshi family,” meaning they structurally resemble bitcoin, will be searchable by two criteria: block and transactions. Whereas support for the ethereum and ethereum classic blockchains, with their more complicated smart contract functionality, includes five additional tables designed to enable more sophisticated searches.

The first terabyte of inquiries for these and other data sets are free each month, with additional fees charged per byte or a flat $40,000 monthly rate for high-volume users. Amazon, Google’s biggest cloud computing competitor, entered blockchain last year in a big way, and fellow cloud leader Microsoft is now considered a seasoned veteran of the burgeoning space. As startups like Storj and Perlin aim to use cryptocurrency as a way to incentivize users to adopt their decentralized versions of cloud computing, Day says the industry, expected to reach $411 billion next year, is primed to experience a blockchain renaissance.

“Some people are more theoretical, and the importance of their work becomes fully manifested decades after they’re dead,” says Day. “I guess I’m just more interested in seeing things play out in front of me, as opposed to doing anything deeply theoretical.”

To incentivize as much participation as possible, Medvedev and Day have partnered with the nonprofit Ethereum Community Fund, which is in turn offering cryptocurrency rewards to developers who find and fix bugs in the code. “There are around ten core contributors that helped implement various components of the system,” says Medvedev, who leads the developers and was previously the lead data engineer at cryptocurrency intelligence firm Coinfi. “They are spread around the globe: some live in Russia, others in Singapore or China.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Day’s role as customer zero means his interest in helping create the blockchain search features goes beyond theory. He believes the tools will enable more advanced econometric calculations including the Gini coefficient, which measures the distribution of wealth in a given system, and could eventually be used to understand which nations are using the cryptocurrency. While blockchain data doesn’t natively include information about where a transaction occurs, Day is personally exploring how BigQuery ML might be leveraged to reveal transaction locations.

“This is not some kind of dependency on government agency reporting,” says Day. “We have all the data, and we can pull metrics and and look at them and reason about them over time.”  

To show how Blockchain ETL could result in improvements to the cryptocurrency economy, Day is also using the suite of tools to examine a number of cryptocurrencies, most notably bitcoin cash and ethereum classic. While both the cryptocurrencies resulted from a dispute about how to enable smaller, cheaper transactions, Day found, according to the report published today, that the cryptocurrencies are being hoarded in much the same way as their predecessors.

From the report:

“Bitcoin Cash was purportedly created to increase transfer-of-value use cases through lower transaction fees, which should ultimately lead to a lower Gini coefficient of address balances. However, we see that the opposite is true—Bitcoin Cash holdings have actually accumulated since Bitcoin Cash forked from Bitcoin. Similarly, the Ethereum Classic currency was rapidly accumulated post-divergence and remains so.”

And it’s not just Day who has been using the cryptocurrency data sets. So far, the largest group of users are coming from within Google itself. In March 2017 Google purchased data science collaboration startup Kaggle for an undisclosed amount. Comprising a community of data scientists, including Day, Kaggle is now hosting more than 500 bitcoin projects and 16 ethereum projects, many of which are for educational purposes. Projects include Day’s own effort to track the bitcoin transactions of the 10,000-bitcoin pizza purchase widely believed to be the first ever use of bitcoin to buy goods, and some early work to calculate the Gini coefficient for ethereum.

“We saw a very warm reception from that community,” says Day.

Such successes are giving Day a cult following of sorts. In December 2018 Day met Tomasz Kolinko, a computer scientist and creator of the Eveem software for analyzing code, called smart contracts, designed to transparently and immutably execute any number of tasks. The two were attending the EthSingapore hackathon when Kolinko expressed his frustration at having to wait for hours to get results from some of his searches.

Within a month of the two meeting, Kolinko published the results of his analysis using BigQuery, showing the potential benefits and dangers of putting such tools in the hands of the public. Kolinko used the Google BigQuery ethereum dataset to look for a smart contract feature called a “selfdestruct” designed to limit how long a contract can be used. In 23 seconds he was able to search 1.2 million smart contracts and found that almost 700 of them had left open a selfdestruct feature that would let anyone instantly kill the smart contract, regardless of who might be using it. “The scary part is,” said Kolinko, “if there is a new vulnerability, in the past you couldn’t just easily check all the contracts that were using it.”

That same month Day reached out to engineer Will Price, whose work using Google BigQuery to classify the 40,000 richest ethereum addresses with 25 criteria he had seen online. Using the basic search tools previously made available, Price identified ten distinct patterns for how ethereum addresses are being used, but was only able to classify three of them into what he called “archetypes”: exchanges, miners and initial coin offering (ICO) wallets. “The other archetypes are just as valid,” says Price, who is now listed as a member of the developer team. “But I don’t have enough information to say what they are.”

Increasingly, it’s not just cryptocurrency data sets loaded by Day that are being used on Google BigQuery. In November 2018 independent Dutch developer Wietse Wind followed Day’s lead and uploaded his own data set, and similarly gave it away to the open source community. Best known for building the XRP Tip Bot, which has 5,500 active users. Wind invested $20,000 to buy two of his own “bare metal machines”—meaning he’s not using cloud for this work—and helps validate data about XRP transactions. Then, in November, he loaded that data to Google BigQuery; he regularly updates it for public use.

In what is perhaps one of the most visually striking uses of Google BigQuery to analyze cryptocurrency data, graphic designer Thomas Silkjaer exported Wind’s data to a special graphical database, called Neo4J, that visually renders data in ways that make patterns more apparent. By merging his skills as a graphic designer for Bibles with Wind’s data, Silkjaer gives a glimpse of what is possible. His graphs show simple transactions between wallets but give what is perhaps the most memorable answers to the question, what is a blockchain?

“You now have public access to view all transactions on a payment network,” said Silkjaer, “We have never had that before with banks, because each bank is secretive.” Silkjaer is now working to classify the transaction clusters into categories and visually paint a picture of which addresses are being used for trading, for making purchases, or for sending collateral to loan providers. Day sees Silkjaer’s work as an example of things to come. “That’s what I’m actively working on right now,” he adds. “Getting the data available in graph data structures to enable those types of queries.”

While Day’s job as Google Cloud developer advocate puts him in a unique position to build bridges between the search giant and developers, he is not alone in his blockchain interest at the company. Going back to at least to September 2016, Google has reportedly filed more than 20 patents for blockchain-related technology, including one in 2018 for using a “lattice” of interoperating blockchains to increase security. Among Google’s earliest forays into blockchain were a number of high-profile strategic investments, including Blockchain Inc., Ripple, and Veem.

Then, in July 2018, Google revealed it would be supporting development internally using the ethereum blockchain and Hyperledger Fabric and that it had formally partnered with financial infrastructure provider Digital Asset, which counts the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) among its customers, and enterprise ethereum app developer BlockApps, which was an early partner with Microsoft, and recently started working with Amazon Web Services and Red Hat, now owned by IBM.

BlockApps CEO Kieren James-Lubin says that while Google was relatively late to publicly commit resources to blockchain, the company will benefit from watching from the sidelines as the cryptocurrency market collapsed in 2018. To help make up for that lost time James-Kiernen says his team is working “in the trenches” with Google to help their sales and pre-sales teams understand the value proposition of enterprise ethereum applications.

In the meantime, Google has amped up its presence in the global event space, hosting a number of private events that nonetheless attracted standing room only audiences. In August 2018, Aya Miyaguchi, the president of the Ethereum Foundation, joined Day and others on stage at Google’s Asia headquarters in Singapore and discussed how Day’s work might be used to help businesses make better decisions about how customers are using—or not using—their crypto products.

“Allen’s work helps by providing public data sets for businesses or products to make decisions for their implementations,” says Miyaguchi. In December, Google hosted its first blockchain on Google Cloud event in New York City, with startups on stage including partners BlockApps and Digital Asset as well as enterprise blockchain developer Blockdaemon and ethereum investor ConsenSys Ventures. At the next Google Cloud NEXT event in April 2019 partner Digital Asset plans to reveal a number of new developments related to the partnership.

As for Allen, he’s working to put together a cash prize for a contest to use Google BigQuery to calculate cryptocurrency Gini coefficients around the world, and is continuing his work using BigQuery ML to seek out new artificial intelligence in blockchain data, and trying to identify what exactly those seemingly coordinated robots are actually up to? 

“This is the general trend that you’re going to be see going forward,” says Day, referring to the most sophisticated forms of search. “The community that I’m building around this is mostly machine learning people, and they’re thinking about all kinds of other stuff, and it’s gonna start coming out.”

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/02/05/google-launches-search-for-bitcoin-ethereum-bitcoin-cash-dash-dogecoin-ethereum-classic-litecoin-and-zcash/#41e5d4a4c789

CLIENT FEATURE: Applied Biosciences $APPB Investment in JUUL Labs Paying Dividends for Shareholders $HTIM $JUUL $WMD

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:19 AM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.agoracom.com/public/companies/logos/564626/hub/APPB_logo.png
  • Received a capital distribution of approximately $186,000 from its investment in JUUL Labs, Inc. (JUUL)
  • The investment remains on the balance sheet under Equity Investments, the company has begun a strategic review of options for the remaining equity stake. 
  • Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) on December 20, 2018 announced it had invested $12.8bn in vaping company Juul Labs, a 35% stake valuing JUUL at $38 billion.
  • APPB also recently acquired a majority stake in Trace Analytics, Inc., a leading testing and analytics company with proven revenues
  • Applied BioSciences early stage investment in Hightimes Magazine is valued at approximately $1.75 Million at assumed IPO Pricing of $11.00
  • APPB has a market cap of $15m US & 10m S/O

About Applied BioSciences Corp.
Applied BioSciences Corp. (www.appliedbiocorp.com), is a diversified company focused on multiple areas of the medical, bioceutical and pet health industry. As a leading company in the CBD and Pet health space, the company is currently shipping to the majority of US states as well as to 5 International countries.  The company is focused on select investment, consumer brands, and partnership opportunities in the recreational, health and wellness, nutraceutical, and media industries.

About Trace Analytics Inc.
Trace Analytics Inc. is a leading cannabis science and technology company with significant footprints in lab testing, research and development and licensing. Trace Analytics was started by a group of scientists who specialized in analytical chemistry, genetics and molecular biology.  The focus of the team is to ensure compliance with public safety standards and end user safety. Trace Analytics is in the process of expanding throughout the United States, and globally. With the goal of helping the rest of the world adopt “best practices” in cannabis and hemp testing, the company also provides expert consulting services to legislators and regulators in many countries, states and municipalities around the world. For more information, please visit: http://traceanalytics.com

Contact
Email: [email protected]  or [email protected]

To be added to the Applied BioSciences email distribution list, please email [email protected] with APPB in the subject line.

Official Website:www.appliedbiocorp.com / www.traceanalytics.com

Brands:
www.remedishop.com
www.herbalpet.com
www.canagel.com

Follow us:
Facebook @remedicbd & @HerbalPetMeds
Instagram @remedishop & @herbal_pet
Twitter @remedishop & @herbal_pet

Link to AppliedBioSciences Hub

FULL DISCLOSURE: Applied BioSciences is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.

Kuuhubb $KUU.ca Announces New Cross Marketing Partnership Agreement with a Global Toy Brand $TCEHY $ATVI $CYOU

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:54 AM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
  • Announced a new cross marketing promotional partnership with a global toy brand
  • Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Recolor Oy, Kuuhubb has signed a promotional partnership with a worldwide leader in toys and family products design, manufacture, marketing and content creation

TORONTO, Feb. 06, 2019 – Kuuhubb Inc. (“Kuuhubb” or the “Company”) (TSXV: KUU), a technology company focused on developing, acquiring and distributing lifestyle and mobile game applications for the female audience, is pleased to announce a new cross marketing promotional partnership with a global toy brand.

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Recolor Oy, Kuuhubb has signed a promotional partnership (“Partnership”) with a worldwide leader in toys and family products design, manufacture, marketing and content creation (“Partner”). The Partnership covers a series of campaigns to be prepared for the Partner’s properties and executed in Kuuhubb’s Recolor app. The first of these campaigns went live on the Recolor app in the first week of February and the initial user engagement results are excellent.

Recolor, a leading global coloring and art community app, has successfully executed similar campaigns partnering with leading, globally-recognized brands in the consumer goods, retail and entertainment segments.  Engagement metrics have been exceptional, showing active users spending an average of over 10 minutes in branded suites consisting of unique colouring images and videos, creating content that is shareable across the app and a variety of social networks.  These collaborations have independently generated millions of unique colouring tasks and hundreds of millions of total impressions.

Recolor expects to generate similar success with this Partnership, as the Partner’s properties provide an ideal match for Recolor’s millions of users.  Many of these users have grown up playing, learning and engaging with the Partner’s properties for years. These campaigns will allow the Partner to interact with their target audience in a creative, fun and meaningful way through unique coloring images and videos.

“Kuuhubb continues to expand its collaboration with global brands by offering them creative and innovative channels to access their target audience, while providing interesting and engaging content.  We are very excited to partner with one of the largest and best-known brands in the toy industry, with iconic properties that are perfectly suited to the Recolor community,” said Kuuhubb COO, Pasi Piipponen.

About Recolor
Recolor is one of the highest quality mobile coloring apps with a catalogue of over 3,000 coloring images. Recolor has the most active in-app coloring community with over 10 million images posted, and is a unique platform for brands to interact with their target audiences in a creative, fun and engaging way. You can download Recolor from Apple Store or Google Play: http://www.recolor.com

About Kuuhubb
Kuuhubb is a publicly-listed mobile game development and publishing company focused on lifestyle and mobile applications for the female audience.  Kuuhubb’s mission is to become a top player in the female mobile game space with a strategy of creating sustainable shareholder value through the acquisition of proven, yet underappreciated, assets with robust, long-term growth potential.  Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Kuuhubb has a global presence with a strong focus on developing U.S. brand collaborations and Asian partnerships.

Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains forward-looking information. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements relating to expected benefits from the promotional partnership announced in this press release, future revenue and products and the development and growth of the Company’s business) are forward-looking information.  This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, the possibility that results from the promotional partnership announced in this press release will not be consistent with the Company’s expectations, risks related to the growth strategy of the Company, the possibility that results from the Company’s growth and development plans will not be consistent with the Company’s expectations, the early stage of the Company’s development, competition from companies in a number of industries, the ability of the Company to manage expansion and integrate acquisitions into its business, future business development of the Company and the other risks disclosed under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company’s annual information form dated November 8, 2018 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is provided and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information contact:

Jouni Keränen
CEO – Kuuhubb Inc.
Email: [email protected]

Bill Mitoulas
Investor Relations – Kuuhubb Inc.
Tel: +1 (416) 479-9547
Email: [email protected]