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According to the ISTAT analysis, published on “I Numeri del Vino”, 28.6 millions of Italian people consume wine. The survey of 2017 is based on occasional wine consumers and it has emerged that the 65% of the population over 11 years consumes wine, of which 25% women and 31% men.

Drinking Wine Culture

It is spreading a new trend that celebrate the consumption of wine linked to quality more than quantity. The wine world is changing and the new trend is to enjoy the wine not only to drink it.

“Life is beautiful if you drink good wine (La vita è meravigliosa se bevi buon vino)” is Stefano Milioni’s book who identify four wine consumers classes and each of them represents a different way to appreciate a glass of red or white wine: Illiterate, Literacy, Graduate and Acculturated which represent the various stadiums of wine knowledge, from the illiterate to the graduated one.

The Acculturated figure seems to be that one more in fashion. He symbolizes the classical person who goes over the taste and wine cellars and wine's firms, revolutionizing their own core business, help him to feel with all his senses and to live places and gastronomy through a unique sensory experience.

Wine&Senses, the wine and the five senses

Wine is a magnet for the “oenotourist” who combines a good glass of wine to the food that is tasting, to the emotions and the feelings that he is living.

Oh yes is true, the wine combines all five senses and this is the aim of Wine&Senses project: activity far from massive tourism to live regions and places enjoying visits and excursions, tastings in unique places, visits for wine cellars and vineyards, showcases in historical buildings to be enjoyed in augmented reality involving all the senses to offer sensorial experiences to the wine lovers.

Hi-tech solutions for business

We have been participated to the COS-TOURCCI-2017-3-03 – COSME "Supporting the promotion and development of transnational thematic tourism products linked to cultural and creative industries" - EASME - European Commission call, to develop ICT solutions, among which mobile app, augmented reality, gps track, that helps to discover and to promote W&S regions, products, events and runs in innovative way equipping the oenoturist with tools to live unique sensorial experience.

We are going to collaborate with other partners coming from areas with an important cultural and wine heritage to offer innovative solutions developed for wine tourisim: Italy with Ente Parco CinqueTerre, Portugal with RESEAU EUROPEEN DES VILLES DU VIN - Recevin, Spain with AGRUPACION EMPRESARIAL INNOVADORA PARA LA CONSTRUCCION EFICIENTE - Aice and CULTUR VIAJES PATRIMONIO SL  - Cultur, Czech Republic with NARODNI PAMATKOVY USTAV - NPU and Hungary with MADI KOR BOR-EREDETVEDELMI KOZHASZNU EGYESULET - Mad circle.

Aims

The project is just begun but soon it will guarantee to tourists and wine lovers to bathe totally in the wine and to wine’s firms the possibility to communicate the proper brand with an enthusiastically marketing tool.
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In Italy digital payments are a conversation topic in the last years. This type of payments represents a bridge between who pay and who gets money, like the system behind e-commerce, ePayment, Mobile pos, and contactless payments. A new mode that wowed millions of Italians.

Payments made comfortably, without pulling out the wallet to count banknotes and coins are growing fast. Just think of all online payments from shopping to buy furniture, from coffee to airfare, we could say that there are no limits.

Digital payments thought for enterprises and consumers

The reasoning behind the "digital" concept is to simplify consumers and businesses lives in term of time and money by decreasing the gap between who pays and who gets money. Nowadays to complete a transaction is very easy, you have just to use your smartphone and download an app.

Thanks to apps you can monitor your transactions, set max amounts and be alerted when exceeding the pre-set threshold, get the expense note automatically and so many other options that make the management of your credit card easier and in a totally digital way.

Open banking and PSD2

With the entry into force on 13 January 2018 of PSD2, Payment Services Directive, begins the so-called "digital transformation" of the banking world. PSD2 allows users, who use a current account to carry out payments or to access to the bank reports  using a software achieved by authorized third parties like PISPs (Payment Initiation Service Providers) and AISPs (Account Information Service Providers); that means it is possible to make a transaction from your own account without using a credit card and to aggregate information about personal bank accounts on a unique instrument handling your own wallet easily.

PSD2 it’s going to change users habits and relationships between credit institutes and enterprises thanks to new marketopportunities that will includes:

• New actors: TTP (Third Party Provider) as AISP and PISP
• New services: Payment Initiation, Account Information e-Funds Checking (that should be subject to certain security procedures)
• New channels: contactless, digital wallet, mobile, bot…
• New payment instruments: phone bill, mobile payment, instant payments and virtual currency
• New platform: Blockchain Distributed Ledger Technology

What about banks? Most people think Psd2 has eliminated the role of banks. Maybe they ignore that banks can turn into TTP changing traditional ways of interacting with consumers and businesses.

New actors, new services, new Technologies, Mobile Payment P2B (person to business) are ensuring a steady growth which will lead New Digital Payment market to exceed 100 billion euros in 2020, according to the Observatory of the School of Management of Mobile Payment and Commerce Polimi.

Why people must invest in digital payments

Using an app users are able to pay without credit cards and cash. It is needed only a smartphone to make transactions immediately. The new application field that allow companies  to generate added value in a digital world is the Fintech, digitizing services and financial products.

The interest about digital payments system forces companies to provide better services to customers, developing a targeted business strategy.

Why users prefer digital payments

Simple, immediate and secure. The new services best meet customers because they provide speed in terms of purchase and payment, immediate access to the cards wherever they are, security in terms of usage, ease in directing and managing cost.

InformAmuse is working on a project regarding the development of a digital wallet. The wallet app “Vuolly” allows you to keep on your smartphone credits card, fidelity cards and personal documents. If you want to know more contact us.

“Data protection is a freedom right” this message was sent by the Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data that informs citizens about new content in defence of privacy. With the arrival of May anxiety increases. The Gdpr has undermined all, from SMEs to large multinationals, without exception.

GDPR Overview

The UE 2016/679 Regulation will enter into force on 25^th May 2018. The GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, introduces new methods for processing personal data with more decisions from users. You may have noticed the message launched by social networks communicating the changes provided in the regulation and inviting users to read and agree to the new terms within an established date in order to continue using the service.

The Regulation will provide many innovations for users, companies, public and private entities, free professions and associations, to put a brake on excessive use of data, more or less voluntarily given by the users, on the web.

Let see:

• Pseudonymisation: Data protection by design and by default. Data protection by design and secure by default belongs in article 25 of GDPR. The data controller must process the data in order to ensure and to clarify to the owner the modalities and purposes related to that specific data. Blockchain is the technology that can best support this claim as in the chain are stored data that are not related to the individual.
• Accountability: It is the main principle for public and private companies that have to communicate the violation of personal data to control authority (data breach) that could cause physical, material or immaterial damns to individuals; otherwise substantial penalties will be faced.
• Data Protection Officer: who works with the data controller. GDPR Art.37 established that the data protection officer intervenes when data processing is carried out by a public authority, when regular and systematic monitoring is needed on a large scale or when treatment involves special categories of personal data.
• Data portability. Your personal data may be transferred from one processor to another. Obviously not referring to personal data but to particular categories of data that may not be transferred to non-European countries or organizations which do not meet the safety standards for the protection.
• Right to be forgotten. Anyone can withdraw consent to use personal information when data are no longer needed for established goals or in cases where the person wants to delete personal data from archives and third-party database, with no exceptions.

These are just some of the changes introduced by GDPR which ensures the privacy of users with regard to the processing and free movement of personal data.

GDPR Checklist

There are several practices which public and private companies, small businesses and large corporations must adopt. First of all, the entities involved in processing of personal data must inform user about using the data collected, the methods and the purpose of treatment clearly and simply avoid leaving space to misunderstandings.

The data will no longer be visible only to a single machine so in order to be compliant a distributed system for GDPR and accessing data has to be defined, like a Cloud system that will avoid you to suffer penalties equal to 4% of turnover and to stumble in improvised solutions which do not meet the requirements.
Companies also must update their own Privacy Policy, review the forms, adapting all treatments and appoint a data protection officer to be ready for the new challenges of an increasingly technological future and quick to respond to needs of individuals, public and private entities.

April, 25th 2018, Palermo. Marco Di Marco, CMO of Blockchain Company InformAmuse, explained the reason why he decided to join Hyperledger  and the goals pursued by using Hyperledger Fabric technology.

“The main distinctive points of our Company are evolution and innovation. We invest constantly on Research & Development to guarantee better services for national and international market. This is why we decided to have a partnership with JujoTech, an American company that develop digital solutions and promote InformAmuse’s services in other countries. Our interest to Distributed Ledger Technology, as Blockchain, allows us to create a productive environment with the intent to offer innovative products to new niche markets, to identify the arising needs, and to have an important impact on the future challenges while Hyperledger is the future.”

InformAmuse e Hyperledger Fabric

Being  a part of The Linux Foundation increases the value of the company and offers the opportunity to provide new ICT Solutions with a great technological impact. We adopted a Permissioned Ledger technology because it’s efficient and protected: the author who inserts data is responsible for the management of his own data so it is not needed a mechanism for consensus. This system allows a rapid and elevated Smart Contract execution thus the technology is powerful, fast and closer to business needs.

We are proud and excited to be  part of The Linux Foundation and Hyperledger  because we can use the Hyperledger Fabric implementation for our Blockchain Meditchain, a complex system of clearing and settlement of transactions, network traffic and its industrial added value, a network and a consortium that triggers a virtuous process where the technological element is one of the major drivers to add value for all parties in the Consortium.

Hyperledger Fabric impacts traditional Business models

Hyperledger offers different software options headed for business applications that allows us to:

• create safe environment in which supply chains and companies are able to exchange product and/or services privately to create new business networks
• create encrypted channels visible and accessible only by a subset of nodes
• make 1.000 transactions every second to aggregate all the subjects of the system
• use Chaincode, a metalanguage written in Go or other programming language to manage Smart
• Contracts
• configure consensus and membership services

Different niches of the market are choosing private Blockchains to accelerate traceability and reduce the intermediary in different business models. Hyperledger Fabric and Meditchain represent ways to meet the challenges of the future using ICT Solutions with a great technological impact.

The  main goals are  to reduce business cost and complexity through decentralisation, to guarantee trust, transparency and accountability in a distributed world.

How to advertise a product or a service

A company must love its customers, in the digital era. It needs to adopt irresistible  behaviours so  customers cannot live without their particular brand. Each brand advertise its product with the aim to attract consumers' attention, using four different approaches:

• Referral Advertising: shows the real features of the product/service so users can identify himself with it and recognize it as a solution for his needs.
• Mythical Advertising: enhances the extreme product value using specific images and words which carry the consumer in a parallel world, in a dream.
• Substantial Advertising: enhances critical aspects of the product (quality/price or cost/benefits) by focusing on fundamental information for the consumer in his decision to purchase.
• Oblique Advertising: here stands the play, irony and passion. It is not important the product but the brand, as the brand manages to communicate directly with consumers.

Consumer. He must be the central point of every business strategy. Although brands use advertising with the aim to convince/engage the user in different ways, the secret to enter in the heart of users is to be ALWAYS at consumers’ disposal and to simplify their everyday life. And what is the best way to always be in the "Pocket" of customer and satisfy his needs at any time?

Mobile only. Mobile app in business strategy

There are people who are called mobile only. It means population who connect with global network only via smartphone, as Mexico or Indonesia, instead other populations use both smartphones and other devices. The main thing is that we use constantly applications to manage our personal, professional and financial life: app to mark our appointments, app for physiological needs, app to monitor our performances or to find out when eating or exercising, app for listening to music, app dedicated to our interests, to book a trip and so on. To meet our specifically needs we must be connected and use different apps, any time and with the maximum simplicity.

We can assert we are at one with apps and companies have to consider this reality because it will last. This is the reason why every company must have its own strategic and creative app developed for people that use to interact with other users instantly, directly and in a personal way.

In this scenario there are app like IM and chatbot, virtual assistant that helps keep the communication with user when he has something to ask about a certain topic or when he wants to just chat. On the other side using chatbot allows companies to cuddle their customers by offering an excellent customer care service, such as done by some major brands as Starbucks, H&M and Nordstrom that are studying chatbots to verify if it can be determining factors in the purchasing process.

App with augmented reality to engages users

Augmented reality is another technology being tested by companies. A Manatt Digital Media report estimates that, by 2020, augmented reality will generate a turnover of 120 billion dollars: in retail the 40% of users is willing to pay more if they have the possibility to try products using augmented reality before buying it and the 60% prefer shops that use augmented reality.

Some brands developed augmented reality apps connected with shopping experience, such as Sephora whose app allows you to try makeup virtually or augmented reality like Ikea app designed for the study of the furniture in a house.

There is no doubt that the majority of our time spent on mobile is spent within an app and companies must develop a mobile application and implement it in their business strategy to:

• engage customers with Augmented Reality
• Revolutionize payment system with Fintech
• Communicate directly with customers
• Create an interactive Community that speaks on your brand
• Manage, enrich, personalize content and information to be sent with push notifications
• Locate the content guiding you towards your business

Each companies knows customers’ needs. Developing an app designed for their needs helps to solidify the link between company and user, increasing the business.

If you want to know more or how you can develop your own app contact us.

The modern society forced us to change the way we interact with objects, we have no time to focus on everything that's tangible in real dimension. Technology changed our life, we talk on and trough apps, smartphones, chats, wi-fi connections… 
Let us pause a moment. Think any product, item, tablet, smartphone, watch, bag and what comes into your mind. Where does the cover of tablet and how it manages to perfectly fit to the shape of your mobile device? What are the material used to produce it? Which quantity was used and how much was actually thrown? How much waste have been recycled and how much have been dispersed into the environment?

This represents the first step to understand how many passages are needed to pack a product in its entirety. Every step needs a defined number of actors to complete an object, from its production to its distribution on the national and international market. Each stage has his own standards and rules that, even though the technology at our disposal could avoid the various tampering which take place continuously,  are not always followed correctly. 
We often hear of sustainable development but production e consumption patterns are not so very sustainable and indeed, we constantly talk about  pollution, environmental crisis, natural resources depletion and so on.

We can read on the Brundtland Report of 1987: 

“Sustainable development is a kind of development which enables the present generation to meet their own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs ." 

Companies, workers, people should follow this conduct to enhance the surrounding ecosystem. In this scenario the Blockchain Technology has a major role to play. This new Protocol of Communication will revolutionize the financial system and not only. 

How does Blockchain work?

Blockchain Technology can be apply on many sectors, from patents to copyright, from contracts to cryptovalute,  from supply chain to insurance and the experimentation on the use of Blockchain in other areas of application take place continuously. Recently an experiment has brought the Blockchain on the system of industrial and recyclable waste, as a solution to protect the environment.

In this area Blockchain works like a verification system that may detect quality, quantity  of materials and origin, with the aim to trace all the historical chain by facilitating the relationship between the actors involved in terms of reliability and safety.

Blockchain trace industrial waste

The manufacturer prepares the lot to market that was certified by the company.  The certification tracks the origin, composition, quality and quantity on the register of the Blockchain.
We can obtain all information through a QR Code applied  on package before shipment. The consignee validates the QR Code and unlock the economic transition using a certified digital payment system. The lot, after being identified as safe in terms of quality and environment respect, can be re-use to produce other components or raw materials. 

The Blockchain Technology controls and certifies the actors’ activity guaranteeing the identity of the involved actors, sustainability, the traceability, the safety, the economicity, the fight against tax evasion and fraud in environment and community respect.

Blockchain’s  Expert will be in Denver, Colorado for a workshop completely dedicated to the new Blockchain Technologies, the technologies spoken around the world.

The event will last two days and 36 speakers will share their knowledge, tips, trends and insights about Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger, Supply Chain and Fintech. The summit 2018 is focused on women  diversity and equality in Blockhain.

Antonio Gentile, CEO of Blockchain Company InformAmuse, will participate to  Global Blockchain Summit in Denver to increase our knowledge about Blockchain, its history, its present and its future applications.

The Summit will allow us to intercept skills to offer new innovative ICT solutions to our customers able to cope with the global market and modern days.

The new Blockchain Technology  is built to create a direct bridge between farmer and consumer, a bridge fabricated on trust, honesty and transparency in monitoring food in all its phases. Climate change, overpopulation, modern consumerism, annulment of borders, the return of products at historic lows, are among the main factors causing agriculture collapse in quality. The amount of food required has led manufacturers to create looking good  but sometimes rotten to eat foods with negative consequences in economic, environmental and health terms.

Food Fraud

Some individuals use remedies opposed to food safety principles; prepare and store food in the wrong way increases the chance of contaminating and cause illnesses. What is the cause of food contamination? Let's see some food fraud cases in Italy:

• Sophistication: Add foreign substances improving the appearance and simulating the genuineness: for example using benzonile peroxide to bleach the mozzarella or the using of sulphur dioxide additives to give sausage a red colour;
• Adulteration: altering the structure of the food by adding or subtracting elements causing inconvenience to healthcare and trade: add water, subtract fat or add methanol as in the case of wine use to increase alcohol degree.
• Counterfeit: to form a food from scratch by replacing the original product's substances with different substances, for example use vegetable oil instead of the evo, glycerin or sulfur dioxide for carbonated soft drinks or making false Made in Italy products.
• Changes: the original product change due to degenerative phenomena caused by incorrect treatment or mode by long retention period or by alternating temperatures.

Blockchain and Smart Agrifood

The Blockchain is a chain of blocks in which transactions are permanently recorded. But how can it be used in agribusiness? With Bitcoin we exchange information about the possession of virtual currency. In the food industry instead you can obtain information about the production of an agricultural product, a simple process in which all actors in the food chain are connected. Farmers, suppliers, processors, distributors, retailers represent the nodes in the Blockchain who register and certify information accessible to everyone about the history of the product, from his birth to his deployment for a transparent supply chain.

Nowadays, due to its complexity, it’s impossible to guarantee the provenance of products; own this kind of data means trap and trace outlaw products which could cause food contamination. The Blockchain technology would record a series of information sheets, impossible to tamper with, that guarantee higher levels of food safety, traceability and control over the entire supply chain.

This is the correct way to add value to the food product in light of the growing demand for Made in Italy food. Made in Italy products have become such through the history and culture that have refine the “taste”. This is the reason way the EU released the “Label Quality” EU: PDO, PGI, PAT, SGT, DOCG, IGT,are a series of marks and labels  that not reassure consumers anymore.

Safeguard the typicality of a product certifying each phase, from seed to harvest, knowning the use/abuse of plant protection products used (as the use of glyphosate), from storage to transport, from temperature monitor of cold rooms for all trip duration, from distribution to consumption, intercepting date and place of possible contaminated food or allowing the consumer to know the history of the product becomes possible with the help of Blockchain Thecnology in the food sector, a secure and reliable certification. This help to restablish trust and security in a world mostly counterferit.

Advantages

• Farmers can use  IoT (Internet of Things) and sensors to produce quality products maintaining a high level of Made in Italy, and to monitor the first phase of life of the food.
• Real time data on transport, storage and delivery of food to ensure that food traceability and transparency.
• Consumers obtain information using a simple App for Smartphone that is able to see how the product you are purchasing or consuming was treated.

From America to Italy, multinationals and SMEs have already started to use Blockchain Technology in their industry, from agricultural to fish products, from milk to wine, from health to insurance companies, applications are endless because it is a technology that simplifies transactions favouring transparent relationship between all actors involved.

The Tecnology of the future already exist, contact us.

Geofence it’s an invisible boundary track to monitor the traffic of users who transit within that limit.

What is geofencing?

Geofencing is a service that uses geo-location within a large area to engage and communicate with people who are inside this bubble and to design tailored  business strategies. Unlike the beacon that can be used only for limited distances, geofencing works up to a distance of 200 meters. 

How can we use geofencing?

Three easy steps to operate:

1. The developer establishes into a specific distance limit in the GPS or RFID enabled software
2. Customers must download the owner’s geofence mobile app and they have to activate Wi-Fi, GPS and location services.
3. Companies are able to monitors user traffic within the defined area, to send push notifications, text messages, notices, advertisements on the major social networks, to get data and much more.

What kind of advantages can we get?

The advantages of geofencing are many and interrelated. Studies confirm that the conversion rate for campaigns sent via geofencing is superior to traditional marketing campaigns. 

More opportunities for engagement. Your real time messages sent become more relevant and engaging to users who are truly interested in your products/services. This is the reason your marketing strategy will be more effective spending less money. Monitoring only  the affected users you'll get specific data about the traffic, proximity to your place of purchase, the time spent and  you can send instant messages, coupons and targeted offers to your customers, creating more engagement. Geofencing represents the missing link between the campaigns and the effects on the consumer.

Do you want to know what's going on around your store and how can you attract more customers?