After almost four months of investigation on opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s poisoning incident last August, another finding has surfaced recently, this time from investigative website, Bellingcat. The latest report from the investigative site detected that Russia’s Federal Security Service has been trailing and spying on Navalny for four years prior to the flight in August. Bellingcat’s investigation also shows that Navalny was probably poisoned by a tainted Nigroni which he drank at Xander Hotel in the Siberian city of Tomsk. Bellingcat found relevant documents such as telephone records, passenger manifests and residential data that verifies communication between FSB and SC Signal, a company believed to be involved in the development of nerve agents. Due to the latest findings, Navalny considers this as case closed since he claims he already knows who is behind the poisoning.

Read: New Findings Unfold On Alexei Navalny’s Poisoning

New York Post: Navalny said he now believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the hit against him

NY Post disclosed that according to a bombshell investigation, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny — who fell gravely ill on a domestic flight in Russia — was likely poisoned by a tainted Negroni in an assassination attempt by the country’s spy agency.

Investigative website Bellingcat, claims the prominent opposition leader had been trailed and spied on for four years by Russian intelligence agents before the fateful flight in August.

Bellingcat report reveals that Russia’s FSB security service agents who “have specialized training in chemical weapons, chemistry and medicine” had followed the opposition leader more than 37 times over the last four years.

“Given this implausible series of coincidences, the burden of proof for an innocent explanation appears to rest purely with the Russian state,” Bellingcat adds.

The Hill: Putin has reportedly suggested to other world leaders that the poisoning was staged by Navalny.

The Hill disclosed a  a report from Bellingcat, an investigative journalism group that specializes in open source information, that Russian spies with knowledge of poisons were near opposition leader Aleksei Navalny when he was exposed to toxins.

Bellingcat found telephone records with geolocation data, passenger manifests and residential data that indicated communication between SC Signal, an entity believed to be involved in the development of nerve agents, and the FSB.

The report indicates that three officers from the FSB followed Navalny to Siberia in August. Telephone records show that they trailed him to the city of Tomsk where further data indicated one of the agents was not far from the hotel where Navalny and his team were staying on Nov. 20.

Source: TG Daily – Probe Finds Russian Federal Security Service Near Navalny Prior to Poisoning

Shortly after the Electoral College formally announced Biden’s victory on the 2020 Presidential elections, Trump posted on Twitter that US Attorney General William Barr will step down from his post on December 23. People close to the incumbent US President have purportedly been anticipating Barr’s termination after he publicly contradicted Trump’s election fraud claims earlier this month. Although Trump has openly said on his Twitter post that his relationship with Barr “has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job”, sources say that he has been seriously contemplating firing the Attorney General after the latter rejected the President’s unfounded fraud conspiracies. Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen will become Acting Attorney General, replacing Barr.

Read: US Attorney General Bashed for Refuting Trump’s Election Fraud Claims

CNBC: The shake-up, in the twilight of Trump’s tenure in the White House, also followed weeks of public clashes between Barr and the president.

According to CNBC, the widely anticipated announcement of Barr’s departure came just moments after President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump was formalized by the Electoral College. The shake-up, in the twilight of Trump’s tenure in the White House, also followed weeks of public clashes between Barr and the president.

Trump, in the tweets, implied he bore no ill will toward Barr, despite his recent criticisms.

Barr in early December directly contradicted Trump when he revealed that the Department of Justice had not found any evidence of large-scale voter or election fraud that would overturn Biden’s projected victory.

That admission undercut the president, who has refused to concede to Biden and is falsely claiming he won the election, citing an array of unproven fraud conspiracies and asserting the race was “rigged” against him.

CNN: Despite Trump’s upbeat message, he had been seriously considering firing his attorney general as recently as Sunday

Meanwhile, in a related news, CNN reports that despite escalating tensions between Trump and Barr that had burst recently into public view, the President framed Barr’s departure as amicable.

In spite of Trump’s upbeat Twitter message, he had been seriously considering firing his attorney general as recently as Sunday, people familiar with the matter said, though officials did not believe he would go through with dismissing Barr immediately.

Over the past several months aides have discouraged Trump from firing Barr.

Source: TG Daily – Staunch Trump Ally Attorney General William Barr Resigns

Some things about customer service never change — but some things are always changing. In a high-tech, information-driven world, customer expectations and desires are constantly changing, more so now than ever before.

Not only that, but the global pandemic has brought unprecedented and unexpected changes to the modern workplace. More brick-and-mortar businesses are closes, more people are working from home, and more customers are shopping remotely rather than in-person. Far from a passing fad, some if not all of these trends may be here to stay.

What does this mean for you? The same thing it means to any savvy business owner: you change with the times and use this shifting landscape to get an edge over your competitor, who may not be as eager as you to embrace change.

Omni-Channel Service

Delivering an omni-channel experience to users means offering a seamless, consistent solution across all sales channels, whether it’s social media, email, phone service, in person, or your website. Customers are happiest when they know what to expect from their shopping or customer service experience — and with businesses losing a staggering $494 billion in revenue yearly from poorly handled customer service, it’s in every business owner’s best interest to make sure their visitors get top-flight service across the board.

One of the best ways to start providing an omni-channel experience, if you haven’t already, is to implement some help desk software as a central point for incoming customer problems and inquiries. This way, you can start creating a consistent, convenient customer interface across all channels.

Real-Time Messaging

When it comes to communicating with your customers, snail mail is entirely dead, the phone is dying, and email may eventually follow suit, though email still has surprising longevity.

Social media and a constantly-connected world has put pressure on individuals and businesses alike to be available 24-7, no matter what. When they have a problem or an issue, customers don’t want to wait days, hours, or even minutes to get help — they want assistance right now.

What does this mean for you? It means finding ways to deliver that experience to your customers. Fortunately more employees and freelancers working from home means more flexibility when it comes to scheduling. But you can fill in any gaps with a chatbot AI for those times when a human being may not be available.

Not only are chatbots always available when a customer needs them, but they can also reduce the burden on staff and help customers solve common problems without ever having to get another human involved. Plus, customers simply like it better. Live chat allows customers to go about their day without being on hold, waiting for an email, or being tied up when they could be doing other tasks. It has some of the highest satisfaction ratings of any customer channel — and if you haven’t gotten on board yet, the time is definitely now.

Speaking of Remote Work…

Employees working remotely has always offered unique challenges, and for some business owners, it’s been considered impractical or impossible. But attitudes are changing. The changes brought by the pandemic, along with an increasingly mobile and connected world, means remote work is rapidly losing its stigma — and smart business owners can take advantage of that change.

Business messaging software and cloud-based solutions have already brought new flexibility to the workplace. Business owners can further leverage that trend by freeing up customer service from the boundaries of call centers and offices. Embracing remote work means potentially saving big on office space and maintenance — and in a time when so many businesses have taken a big financial hit, that’s not nothing.

Social Media: More Important Than Ever

In 2020, your social media presence is probably more important than your website. With customer decisions being more data-driven than ever before, people want brands and businesses they can trust — and that means they want something they can feel a personal connection to; a voice instead of just a logo.

Like any point of interface with customers, your social media must be carefully managed — after all, social media is a tool for instant feedback, and that can be negative as well as positive. We’ve all seen that one customer service experience that went viral and made the business in question famous for all the wrong reasons.

Fine-tuning your social media accounts to handle inquiries and problems is just another means of providing an omni-channel experience that your customers will appreciate.

In the past, no one would have thought about using social media as a means of customer support — but it’s getting more and more common, and if you choose not to embrace it, not only will your competitors get there ahead of you, but you may not be ready the day a customer encounter goes viral. And just as with the rest of these developing trends and technologies, it pays to be prepared.

Source: TG Daily – How Technology is Already Transforming Customer Service

Virtual and real world are often defined in opposition, to the point that they are presented as almost being hostile to each other. As non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or digital collectibles exist in a “virtual” world, their home must be kept separate from the physical world as much as possible, correct? Actually, this is not true of Terra Virtua’s Kolect token (TVK) which aims to bridge the gap between the digital collecting hobby and the real, tangible rewards you can claim for it in your physical reality. How do they do that? By bridging the gap between these two “realities” so as to benefit both of them.

Squeezing the Best Out of Both Worlds

In 2019, Formula 1 organized an auction of the NFTs which are integrated with its official blockchain-based game. In line with its theme, the collectibles within the game included unique cars, drivers, gear or equipment. By collecting these, the participants could receive utility tokens which opened doors to getting real-life rewards, such as money-based prizes. So, getting your hand on a unique piece of digital equipment such as a virtual tire from a game could earn you a place in the grand prix competition and a piggy bank full of good old money.

Terra Virtua, the world’s first mass-market NFT platform, goes beyond this in its mission to create an ecosystem which, instead of burning bridges with the real world, builds robust links with it while sticking to its virtual credentials. This is achieved by bringing together the fans, the digital art creators and intellectual property owners under one roof. This roof is held in its place by the beams featuring the logo of its Kollect token. Welcome to the TVK club at which loyalty and prestige are well-rewarded in both physical and virtual worlds.

Fandom Does Not Stop at Virtual Gates

Imagine a situation in which buying digital merchandise related to your favorite flick can get you a tour of the physical place at which the movie magic was created – a film studio, for example. Yes, getting hands on TVK tokens means more than using it as a virtual fuel which Terra Virtua’s ecosystem runs on. Here, you can earn tokens simply by being a fan and acting like one – having a big enough collection of, say, Top Gun or Pacific Rim memorabilia, can get you a trip to the film studio at which these movies were made, or a chat with your favorite artist. Or, you get to wear a real pilot helmet your favorite character wore in that key scene in the movie. The idea is to redefine what it means to be a fan in the world of intertwined realities, be those virtual reality, augmented or the physical one.

The system that distributes rewards across these realities is called ‘Terra Virtua Prestige’. Each time you set aside a handful of tokens for staking, you are getting closer to earning a membership in it. The word “prestige” should not fool you into thinking that this is a club with old gentlemen in frocks smoking (virtual?) cigars – its doors are open to anyone who wants to take their fandom to the level in which your digital FanCaves with unique collections will have a VIP door to the real-world treasuries. You do not even have to be a passionate digital collector – just taking place in competitions and trading can earn you valuable real-world prizes.

Tokenizing Your Artistic Muse

Kolect Tokens can provide you with more benefits from their invisible yet strong links with the so-called real world. Fortune favors the bold, they say, and Terra Virtua wants to do the same to the owners of Kolect tokens who want to reinvest in its business vision, or make use of it to monetize their own artistic impulses. What does it mean? 

Well, for some, being a digital collector may sound like a one-way street in terms of the nature of the interaction between the artist or IP and a fan. In that case, nothing stops you from tokenizing your own internal muse. Do you want to see your digital artwork on a piece of merchandise such as a t-shirt? You can make very real money from each physical item sold that way, too.  Do you want to offer special previews and rewards to TVK owners or even create your own fan tokens?  Terra Virtua and Kolect will lend you a friendly hand. 

You do not even have to be an artist to qualify. Actually, you can be just a person whose very brand is your reflection in the mirror. You can grow your brand and influencer status by creating something worthy of digital collecting and rewarding true fans with real-life rewards such as meetups, physical merchandise etc.

In all cases, the common language spoken between you as a fan or a creator will be TVK token, whose tireless circulation on the Terra Virtua platform will bring it closer to transforming the world of global artistry and fandom, both in digital and physical worlds we now equally inhabit. 

Source: TG Daily – How You Can Use Terra Virtua’s TVK Token to Buy Special NFTs