5 trends in e-com in Europe.

How is e-commerce formed in Germany, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium? One of the largest European fintech companies, Mollie, surveyed almost 5,000 consumers to publish an entire e-commerce report for 2023. Mollie is a Dutch payment service, however, the conclusions relate to several European e-com markets at once.

According to the Mollie report for 2023, about 20% of European buyers will not order goods online if they are charged a refund fee if the item does not fit the style, color or size. 27% of consumers will order the product anyway. About 40% of the respondents will doubt whether it is worth overpaying.

Read more about European trends in e-com at the link.

The five major technology companies—Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, all of which have either headquarters or offices here—are investing huge sums in the development of artificial intelligence. They estimate they are budgeting $400 billion for capital spending this year, which will primarily go toward AI hardware and research and development.

Do you know, 31 October 2023 the TON Blockchain set the world record as the fastest and most scalable blockchain.

For the test, TON rented 256 servers from Alibaba Cloud for validator nodes and launched a separate TON Blockchain network.

Pavel Durov praises the hamster and promises to be listing on TON.

"Hamster Kombat has become the latest Internet phenomenon everyone's talking about. 239 million people have signed up for this Telegram mini app in just 3 months.

📈 It took Hamster only 73 days to reach 100 million monthly users. Each day, 4-5 million new users join Hamster Kombat, making it the fastest-growing digital service in the world.

As I said a few months back, a new wave of mini apps on Telegram is coming, and Hamster Kombat is now leading the pack. Its amazing growth shows the viral potential of the Telegram mini app platform.

Soon, Hamster’s team will mint its token on TON, introducing the benefits of blockchain to hundreds of millions of people. A new era is arriving, and we are witnessing its arrival in real time", - Pavel Durov said.

Meanwhile, in Russia, massagers for hamsters are being bought on marketplaces.

Amazon wants to get buyers of both luxury and ultra-low-cost goods.

In addition to its minority stake in Saks Global following Hudson's Bay's purchase of Neiman Marcus, Amazon plans to compete with Temu PDD Holdings Inc. and Chinese fast fashion giant Shein Group Ltd. with the help of a new store selling ultra-cheap goods.

A stake in Saks Global gives the US platform access to the luxury sector, where Bloomberg estimates it could be more successful than competing with Temu and Shein on their turf.

Toncoin has become the eighth largest project in the entire cryptocurrency.

With hundreds of millions of users, Telegram's TON, also known as The Open Network, is gaining momentum in simple, addictive and fun blockchain-based games. There are currently 500 million users on the TON network, according to the foundation. With a current market capitalization of $19.4 billion, Toncoin has become the eighth largest project in the entire cryptocurrency, overtaking pillars such as Polkadot, Cardano and NEAR.

How not to fall for the tricks of scammers in TON and Telegram.

Since the TON and Telegram ecosystem is rapidly gaining popularity, and now more than 38 million accounts are active, the increased interest carries with it great risks. Scammers and intruders are targeting the influx of new, inexperienced users, seeking to use the work done by TON and Telegram to make cryptocurrency accessible to everyone.

Although cryptocurrency offers exciting opportunities, it is important to keep in mind the potential risks, even in the most secure ecosystems. The most common fraud schemes and ways to protect against them - read here.

What are the most popular games on TON?

The TON blockchain has quickly turned into a dynamic ecosystem for decentralized gaming, featuring many modern games.

Let's take a look at some of the most popular examples defining gameplay in TON.

✅ Notcoin : A click-and-earn game that allows players to earn tokens by clicking
✅ Catizen : A Play-to-Airdrop game in which players breed cats to earn $Cats tokens.
✅ Fanton Fantasy Football: A "Play and Earn" game in which players assemble football teams and receive rewards.

Mercari will start accepting Bitcoin.

The Japanese e-commerce platform Mercari this summer allowed users to buy goods presented on flea market applications using bitcoin.

Bitcoin transactions are carried out through the Melcoin subsidiary crypto exchange located in Tokyo. The prices of the goods are displayed in Japanese yen, but payment will be possible in Bitcoin. Sellers will receive the paid bitcoins in the local fiat currency. Mercari is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Japan and has already introduced cryptocurrency to its platform through the Mercari Bitcoin cryptocurrency trading service and loyalty program.

Japan is a country that supports cryptocurrencies and has more flexible rules for dealing with them, which allows companies such as Mercari and Rakuten to actively implement cryptocurrencies on their platforms.

TON Storage Marketplace: an open ecosystem for everyone.

On the TON Storage platform, any participant can act as a host, providing their own disk space to store files of other users. This contributes to the formation of an open and competitive data storage market, where everyone can choose the most suitable offer in terms of price/quality ratio.

New TON features.

At a time when data storage costs are rising and data security is at risk due to centralization by large providers such as Amazon and Google, TON Storage represents a revolutionary solution.

This platform uses the principles of decentralization to create networks where everyone can not only store, but also actively participate in managing data.

AliExpress became one of the leading advertisers at EURO-2024.

Chinese companies have become the leading advertisers at the European Football Championship currently taking place in Germany. Five of the thirteen official sponsors of EURO-2024 are companies from China.

These are the AliExpress marketplace, the AliPay payment service, the smartphone manufacturer Vivo, the electronics manufacturer Hisense, and the BYD automaker. Largely thanks to their efforts, revenue from the sale of commercial rights at the tournament amounted to €600 million. This is 15% more than at EURO-2020 and 24% than at EURO-2016.

Themed T-shirts appeared on sale on foreign marketplaces after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Just 2 hours after the Associated Press published a picture of Donald Trump wounded in the ear on July 13, T-shirts with a historical photo appeared on the Internet. The first batch of goods went on sale on the popular Chinese platform Taobao. Similar T-shirts are already being sold on popular marketplaces in Southeast Asia - Lazada and Shopee. The price is about $15.In addition, the HodgeTwins twin bloggers posted photos of T-shirts on the social network X (formerly Twitter), stating that "100% of the profit from the sale of goods goes to the Trump campaign."

Another American online store of trending T-shirts, Potoshirt, offers clothes with similar images. For example, one T—shirt says "Undefeated" in Russian, and the other one says "Shooting makes me stronger."

More than 70 products with a "loud print" are on sale on the Redbubble trading platform. Among the new products are hoodies, caps, bags, mouse pads, laptop and smartphone cases, watches, notebooks, even bed linen, shower curtains, aprons with the image of the wounded ex-head of the White House Donald Trump.

OpenAI is developing a secret AI called "Strawberry" that can think and reason like a human.

This will significantly improve its ability to handle requests compared to existing models. "Strawberry" is supposed to be the long-awaited general AI (AGI). The project was previously known under the AGI-focused codename Q*.

Other details are being kept under wraps for now, but according to Reuters, the beta version is ready and was shown at an internal meeting.

Amazon now has its own AI chatbot Rufus.

Amazon has launched its AI chatbot Rufus into beta for all US customers via its mobile app. After an initial testing phase that began in February, Rufus is now available to more users. Rufus primarily helps users with their shopping needs by offering product recommendations and answering specific questions about product options.

Some users find the bot functional, but somewhat "boring". Fortunately, at this stage, he refrains from promoting promotional products in his recommendations. Armed with information from Amazon's extensive catalog of products, customer reviews and various online sources, Rufus strives to "provide accurate information tailored to the individual needs of users," the press service writes.

It can also handle queries related to upcoming deliveries and other account-specific details.

Elton John decided to sell his luxurious wardrobe on eBay.

The corresponding material is published by People. Тhe 77-year-old artist is putting up for sale a collection of his favorite items from luxury brands. Thus, buyers can purchase hundreds of items of clothing, shoes and accessories. These include Gucci jackets, Versace robes, custom Prada loafers, and historic concert T-shirts and baseball caps.

“The Rocket Man Resale eBay store gives everyone the opportunity to have access to unique pieces that have a wow factor, like my favorite robe designed by my incredibly talented friend Donatella Versace,” - John said.

The New York Times presented a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

First place went to the novel “My Brilliant Friend” by Italian writer Elena Ferrante.

The newspaper published the list gradually, and now the full top is available on the publication’s website. To create the rating, the NYT editors surveyed more than 500 writers, poets, and literary critics. Each of them had to offer 10 works. Stephen King, John Irving, Sarah Jessica Parker and others took part in the selection of books (you can see each person's choice here).

Do you remember that the online giant Amazon started out as an online store selling books.

Chinese authorities are testing AI models for compliance with socialist values.

The country's Cyberspace Authority ordered Alibaba to test its developments. Their AI models will have to answer many questions, some of them related to politics and ideology. A year ago, the same regulator developed rules for chatbots.

They say that China supports innovation and popularization of technology, but the content created by chatbots should not contradict the norms of public morality, and also: “contain calls to undermine state power, overthrow the socialist system, incite the division of the country, and undermine national unity.”

Amazon now tracks the time employees spend in the office.

Several Amazon teams, including retail and cloud computing divisions, have been informed in recent months that at least two hours spent in the office can be considered a visit. Individual teams were told that they must stay at their workplaces for at least six hours per visit.

Last year, Amazon began requiring most employees to be in the office three times a week, without limiting the time of the visit itself.

Amazon spokeswoman Margaret Callahan said the company has started "communicating directly" with employees who don't spend enough time in the office. "More than a year ago, we asked employees to start coming to the office three or more days a week because we believe this will bring the best long-term results for our customers, business and culture. And so it is. The vast majority of employees stay in the office more often, show more energy and establish cooperation. Now that more than a year has passed, we are starting to communicate directly with employees who do not regularly spend a significant amount of time in the office to make sure that they understand the importance of spending time with their colleagues," - she said.

Amazon is flooded with hamster products.

Amazon sells products with the Hamster Kombat logo. Here you will find T-shirts, sweatshirts, and smartphone cases with the popular hamster.