Makasi has a long history at the turntable. At 18, he was already making mix tapes for friends using two Walkmans. It wasn’t long before he started entrancing the dance crowds in Antwerp and today he spins around the world, sharing stages with Flo Rida, T Pain, Nicole Scherzinger, Wil.I.Am., 50 Cent, NeYo, A Trak, Martin Solveig, Afrojack, R3hab and Sebastian Ingrosso.

Book your table at (082) 308 3246.

An Italian with your rum

DJ Angemi from Italy is one of the DJs spinning at the Bacardi House Party at Demo in Sukhumvit Soi 55 (Thonglor) on Saturday.

Angemi is one of the fastest rising producers on the EDM scene. His professional career began in 2014 when he released his album track on Spinnin’ Records. He shot to fame with the viral diffusion of his “What If” videos where he managed to reproduce every EDM subgenre, showing people his impressive skills inside and outside the studio.

Find out more by calling (096) 387 4569.

They’ve got the moves

More than 100 performers are taking part in the khon (masked drama) production of “Kumphakan Throws A Mokkasak Spear” being staged at Museum Siam’s outdoor amphitheatre on July 21 starting at 6.30pm.

Admission is free. Find out more at (02) 225 2777 extension 407 or visit http://www.MuseumSiam.org.

Perfect pampering

Melt away those stress pains in your shoulders and lower back with the twohour signature Salt Pot Muscles Melter treatment available for the special price of Bt3,500 (net) per person at Spa Cenvaree of Centara Grand at Central Plaza Lat Phrao until December 30.

This treatment is based on an ancient Thai remedy, and uses a pot containing a blend of coarse salt and medicinal herbs that is heated and then used as a compress to release tension in the shoulders and lower back muscles.

Book your session by calling (02) 541 1234 extension 4292 and 4567 or email: spacenvareecglb@chr.co.th.

“Last Reel” unspools again

Film fans have a second chance to catch the Cambodian film “The Last Reel” tomorrow night at 7 at River City Forum’s second floor auditorium.

The much-awarded movie by the country’s first woman filmmaker, portrays contemporary and old Cambodia, both connected by the last reel of a film that escaped the genocide. It stars Dy Saveth.

For reservations, email rcbfilmclub@gmail.com

The shows take place from October 5 to 7 and again from October 9 to 14 at the Thunder Dome, Muang Thong Thani.

In 1999 and 2005, more than 100,000 Thai fans were left stunned at the jaw-dropping feats of the Guangzhou acrobats and this year promises to be even better as they perform stunning moves based on “The Legendary Swordsman” or “Dej Khamphee Thevada” as it’s known in Thai.

The story uses political satire and a hint of romance to recall the time China was going through drastic social changes under the Communist party. The novel has been adapted into a number of movies, TV series as well as cartoons.

As always, audiences will be left in awe at the phenomenal acrobatic performances as well as the elaborate costumes, stage sets and lighting.

There will be two performances daily, one at 2.30 and the second at 6.30pm. Tickets cost from Bt700 to Bt 1,500 and are already on sale at ThaiTicketMajor counters and online at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com.

“Little Miss Giggles” knows how to make you laugh and believes a smile is the best accessory; “Little Miss Lucky” is a magnet for good fortune and good vibes; and “Little Miss Multi” and “Little Miss Champion” can be mixed and matched for any mood or outfit.

A gentle touch

French skincare expert La Roche-Posay introduces its new Toleriane Caring Wash facial cleanser (Bt1,100 for 400 ml) which ensures a gentle and effective cleaning and make-up removal for even the most sensitive skins. Its natural origin of cocobetaine makes cleansing more efficient without drying or irritating the skin and cleans without drying or irritating the skin. It is enriched in glycerine and in niacinamide for moisturising after cleaning and is with fragrance free, soap free, and preservative free.

Fashions for every age

ICC International recently introduced its newest collections at “The Forgotten Show 2018” project. Models from the Face Thailand strutted gracefully and playfully along the catwalk showcasing looks from the latest collections of the company’s 18 renowned brands, namely Arrow, BSC Bag, BSC Lingerie, Daks, Elle Boutique, Elle Shoes, Excellency, Enfant, Easy Wear by St Andrews, Felix Buhler, Jean Louis Scherrer, Guy Laroche Bag, Guy de Guy Laroche, Itokin, Little Wacoal, Naturaliser, Wacoal, and Wacoal Blouse.

New buzz from Burt’s Bees

To make the skin look naturally retouched by nature, not a computer, Burt’s Bees, a leading natural personal care and skincare brand from the US, presents the latest skincare line designed for Asian skin. Formulated with natural ingredients to bring radiance and brightness to the skin, Burt’s Bees Brightening collection formulated with daisy extract, brings a brighter and more radiant look to every face, The range also contains Summer Snowflake to help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, Tonka Bean Bioferment which brightens the skin and reduces lines, and Indian Gooseberry, which is rich in vitamin C and can reduce hyper-pigmentation for more even skin tone.

POPULAR with anyone whose work relies heavily on the Internet as well as with frequent travellers who value being able to work no matter where they find themselves, co-working spaces have become the offices of choice for start-ups and the self-employed.

Local supply has more or less kept up with demand but now two of the largest co-working operators from Singapore are attempting to change the way people feel about work with the launch of The Great Room and JustCo.

“The prediction is that by 2030 some 30 per cent of office space and commercial real estate will be devoted to co-working,” says Jaelle Ang, co-founder and chief executive of the Great Room.

“Thailand has just started and its co-working business currently stands at maybe two percent. That’s a long way to grow to 30 per cent, meaning there are a lot of opportunities. Singapore is just ahead at three per cent and the US is at five per cent. So it’s getting exciting. My expectation is that it will be very fast in Thailand and that’s why we’ve come here early with a very good partner and landlord.”

The Great Room takes inspiration from the world’s best offices, luxury hotels and business clubs and has put considerable effort into changing the way its members feel about work since its successful launch in June 2016. It now has spaces in three prime Singapore CBD locations and in Thailand occupies just under 2,800 square metres across two floors at the newly built Gaysorn Tower in the heart of downtown Bangkok.

Designed in collaboration with Michael Fiebrich Design, The Great Room at Gaysorn Tower is sophisticated and luxurious, boasting plenty of natural light as well as terrific views of Bangkok’s vibrant cityscape. There is space for private focused work and corporate entertaining settings, a variety of meeting rooms and communal nooks for what it calls “casual collisions for grown-ups”.

The business club and co-working space is structured by a layout made up of “streets” and intimate spaces. The atmosphere is warm and inviting and brings to life what The Great Room terms “the new corporate neutral”. The marble floor, made up of eight different types of stones, creates varying intensities and the curved timber walls, dark timber desks, fresh celadon hues and ambient lighting make it businesslike yet relaxing.

“The Great Room is the heart of the house, where members of the family spend time, It is very much part of your life, both to work and play. I think the co-working space will be something that Thais will take to and love,” Ang continues.

“A high level of technology infrastructure and design is very important in nurturing the creative spirit of start-ups. We always work with a hotel designer rather than a workplace designer because they understand the technical needs in the workplace and are able to combine this with comfort and energy.

“We have great brands and services from the hotel business, but we never use them in the office environment where we spent at least eight hours of our days,” says Ang, who has lived in Bangkok for the last eight years.

“This is how we started. We want to create the Four Seasons of co-working.”

The Great Room experience begins at the Drawing Room, where first impressions are formed, and rapport built with like-minded people. It is also the perfect backdrop for evening cocktails and large-scale chats. Gatherings of anything between six to 120 people can be accommodated in the various meeting spaces, namely the State Room, an elegant boardroom for 14, the Studio, which can take up to 50 people, and the Study for groups of four.

Hot desks and hot offices are available for members who like to work alone or with perhaps with one or two others.

Ang emphasises the importance of community networking, saying that the openness of the space encourages grabbing a coffee and chatting with other members.

“We believe that the lighting and even the floor tiles affect your mood, even if you don’t notice it, and make it easier to say hello. It facilitates those ‘casual collisions’. We enlarge on that by installing a coffee machine that isn’t automatic. Many fruitful conversations start at the coffee machine. It’s our job to design the perfect backdrop,” she says.

JustCo co-working space, which spans two floors and 3,150 sqm of AIA Sathorn Tower and will soon have another branch at Capital Tower in All Seasons Place on Wireless Road, has a totally different ambience. It boasts vibrant interiors along with quirky and playful elements. The design incorporates industrial furnishing and raw materials, communal tables and swing chairs, with pops of vivid colours highlighting the cosy corners.

Additional highlights include an in-house cafe for a morning jolt or a late afternoon pick-me up, a futsal and golf corner for members to relieve stress, quiet pods designed for personal space, as well as hot-desk areas, meeting studios, event spaces and more.

This co-working space aims to build up a community of the like-minded through various events and collaborations to connect businesses of all shapes and sizes.

“We have partnered with Sansiri to establish our presence in Bangkok, which is our first step into regional expansion,” explains its founder and chief executive Kong Wan Sing.

“Thailand is one of the key business hubs in the region and continues to show steady economic growth. Right now we have about 20 centres and by the end of 2020, we hope to have about 100 all across Asia.

“Local and international individuals and companies alike can now benefit from JustCo’s co-working space in Bangkok, allowing us to continue providing resources, networks and connectivity to our ever-growing community,” he enthuses.

Founded in 2015, JustCo is Singapore’s largest premium co-working space provider and aims to continually challenge and redefine collaborative working.

“Co-working space is very popular in Singapore and any good building has at least one co-working space provider,” he continues. “It’s already a mature industry compared to Thailand. I see Thailand’s co-working space market like that of Singapore three years ago. The main reasons for sharing are flexibility and cost. If you are alone or are starting a business with another person, finding an office is difficult so you end up working at home. Co-working is hassle-free and offers contracts of one month to as long as three years. And if you choose to set up your start-up here, you will be mingling with other creative people. We are also targeting multinational companies. One of our strategies is to host events that everybody can join and be inspired.”

Whether or not co-working spaces do live up to expectations and take up 30 per cent of all available office space by 2030, one thing is certain: work cohabitation does encourage cross-pollination of ideas and connections, bringing people together for meaningful collaborations and business opportunities.

SPACE TO DREAM

– The Great Room charges Bt950 for a day pass per person to Bt15,000 per month per person for Dedicated offices. See more at http://www.TheGreatRoomOffices.com

– JustCo locations start at Bt990 per day for JustDesk Basic to Bt6,900 per person per month for JustDesk Dedicated. See more at http://www.JustcoGlobal.com.

FOR RICH corporate executives, fine food, expensive wine and five-star hotels come as standard.

But one discerning top boss with a spare $300,000 (Bt9.97 million) will give up creature comforts for a night in the cramped prison cell that was Nelson Mandela’s home for 18 years.

That is according to organisers of the annual CEO sleepout, an initiative which raises money for various charities.

South Africa’s first democratic, black president was kept on South Africa’s Robben Island prison off Cape Town for much of his 27-year incarceration.

A night in his iconic 2.4 metres by 2.1 metres concrete cell will now be auctioned for charity to mark the centenary of prisoner No 46664’s birthday.

A candle burns in the former cell of Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, Cape Town. Now a local charity is auctioning a night in the cell as part of the annual CEO Sleepout initiative. /AFP

“The suggestion was to auction the cell to raise money to fund the Prison-to-College Pipeline… educating incarcerated people in South Africa,” says Liane McGowan, spokeswoman for the CEO SleepOut South Africa, adding that details of when the one night only fundraiser will take place, had not been finalised.

Online bidding started at $250,000 and has already attracted three bids, reaching $300,000 with the sale set to close on July 16.

The winner will spend one night in Mandela’s cell number seven, while up to 66 other bidders will sleep elsewhere in the island prison that is now a museum and World Heritage site.

The Museum’s management could not be reached for comment. The Nelson Mandela foundation said it was not a part of the initiative and could not be responsible for the usage of Mandela’s cell.

Sixty-seven was chosen as Mandela dedicated 67 years of his life to the fight against the racist apartheid system that governed South Africa until Mandela won the first democratic non-racial elections in 1994.

The initiative is part of the CEO SleepOut movement which auctions nights in unusual locations to wealthy business leaders to raise money for charitable causes.

The Robben Island event will raise funds for the Prison-to-College Pipeline (P2P), a scheme that began in New York to help prisoners access university-level education. The P2P initiative will be launched in South Africa on July 18, Mandela’s birthday.

A similar event will be held on July 11 at the Liliesleaf Farm in northern Johannesburg which was used as a safe-house by several anti-apartheid fighters including Mandela.

The base was raided by apartheid security forces in 1963 and several anti-regime leaders faced the courts at the so-called “Rivonia Trial” which resulted in Mandela being jailed for life.

Executives have previously spent the night under the Mandela Bridge in central Johannesburg to raise awareness of poverty and homelessness.

The event was criticised online and in the media by some who accused it of mocking those forced to sleep rough.

Shown to be safe in humans, the candidate vaccine has now advanced to the next phase of the pre-approval trial process, and will be tested in 2,600 women in southern Africa to see whether it prevents HIV infection.

While the results so far have been encouraging, the research team and outside experts warn there are no guarantees it will actually work in the next trial phase dubbed HVTN705 or “Imbokodo” — the isiZulu word for “rock”.

“Although these data are promising, we need to remain cautious,” study leader Dan Barouch, a Harvard Medical School professor, told AFP.

Just because it protected two-thirds of monkeys in a lab trial doesn’t mean the drug will protect humans, “and thus we need to await the results of the… study before we know whether or not this vaccine will protect humans against HIV infection,” he said.

The results of the Imbokodo trial are expected in 2021/22.

“This is only the fifth HIV vaccine concept that will be tested for efficacy in humans in the 35+ year history of the global HIV epidemic,” added Barouch.

Only one so far, RV144, yielded some protection. RV144 was reported in 2009 to reduce the risk of HIV infection among 16,000 Thai volunteers by 31.2 percent — deemed insufficient for the drug to be pursued.

For the latest study, published in The Lancet medical journal, Barouch and a team tested the candidate drug on 393 healthy, HIV-free adults aged 18 to 50 in east Africa, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States.

The participants were randomly given one of seven vaccine combinations or a placebo “dummy” alternative. They received four shots each over 48 weeks.

– Needed ‘badly’ –

The study used so-called “mosaic” vaccine combinations.

These combine pieces of different HIV virus types to elicit an immune response — when the body attacks intruder germs — against virus strains from different regions of the world.

The vaccine “induced robust (high levels of) immune responses in humans,” said Barouch.

The tests also showed the vaccine was safe. Five participants reported side-effects such as stomach pain and diarrhoea, dizziness, or back pain.

In a separate study, the same vaccine offered complete protection from infection in two-thirds of 72 trial monkeys each given six injections with an HIV-like virus.

“I cannot emphasise how badly we need to have a vaccine… to get rid of HIV in the next generation altogether,” said Francois Venter of the University of the Witwatersrand Reproductive Health and HIV Institute in South Africa.

Approached for comment on the study, which he was not involved in, Venter urged caution.

“We have been here before, with promising candidate vaccines that haven’t panned out,” he told AFP.

“This one is novel in many ways so it is exciting, but we have a long way to go.”

Could be ‘phenomenal’

Jean-Daniel Lelievre of France’s Vaccine Research Institute said the vaccine was likely not the “definitive” version, but may represent “a phenomenal advance.”

An estimated 37 million people live with HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.

There are about 1.8 million new infections and a million deaths every year.

Almost 80 million people are estimated to have been infected since the virus was first diagnosed in the early 1980s.

About 35 million have died.

A vaccine has proven elusive as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) mutates easily and can hide away in cells, evading the immune system, only to reemerge and spread years later.

For now, people infected with HIV rely on lifelong virus-suppressing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to stay healthy.

Condoms are still at the frontline of efforts to prevent infection — mainly through sex and blood contact — though more and more people use ART as prophylaxis.

The latest results come ahead of the International Aids Conference to be held in Amsterdam from July 23 to 27.

IN THIS fast-paced, cut-throat life, most of us experience moments of extreme stress. While not necessarily life threatening, such responses to stress as a rapid heartbeat and nausea can be controlled by focusing on our breathing for a few seconds.

Longer lasting benefits come with a few hours at a spa and while the traffic build-up and frustrating navigation through cars, motorbikes and pedestrians on Sukhumvit Soi 11 ramps up my personal stress levels, I can feel my heart slowing as I draw up to Divana Nature Spa, Thai Retreat and Longivity.

The treatment rooms boast a modern design along with a steam room, en-suite bathroom, and two large lotus motif baths.

As an effective preventive measure against the stressors of everyday life, Divana Nature Spa integrates traditional Thai medicine and oriental wisdom with a modern holistic approach to wellbeing. Elegant and tasteful in design, the spa offers treatments based on four fundamental principles of “Wellness Life”, both psychological and physical, by ridding the body of toxins and impurities and healing mind and spirit through natural methods.

The theme of this one-rai property is the lotus blossom, symbolising the bloom of youth and longevity. The mansion zone boasts a courtyard, an inner healing glass house called Anatta, an alternative treatment room called Arokaya, a reception area, product corner, and treatment rooms whose names represent the meaning of lotus. The villa zone meanwhile is detached from the main property and flanks the mansion on both sides. It has 16 double treatment rooms with 32 beds and an en-suite bathroom as well as a steam room.

The lotus motif, representing a harmonious blend of lotus flowers, petals, leaves and patterns, comes n forms and lines that depict the stages of unfurling (the abstract) and display (the concrete) throughout the compound. The furniture is contemporary Thai in design and reflects the subtle craftsmanship, which is particularly evident in the bas-relief walls in the interior and the baths.

The reception area

The features of the lotus flower are incorporated into the design of all 36 treatments, which range from 70 minutes to 210 minutes.

One of the recommended treatments, “Organic Golden Silk Royal Pampering” indulges guests with the ultimate luxury of natural skin nourishment – silk. The 210-minute journey start with a detoxifying Ashiyu Foot Soak and Refreshing Foot Toner using Divana’s organic products and is followed by the Prana lemongrass scrub that combines the citrusy scent of Siamese’s signature herbs (kaffir lime, ginger, galangal) with an Acupressure Point massage of the legs and feet.

For the body, the therapist uses organic tanaka to cover the whole body and then flicks the skin lightly with sericin silk thread. Thai silk is endowed with beneficial properties and this golden silk thread is rich in protein while the mulberry leaves, contain significant vitamins. The golden cocoons contain a total of 18 essential silk amino acids known to be good for the hair and skin. More fresh, natural and organic ingredients are added during the massage including a Milky Compress and a Honey and White Pearl body scrub.

Guests are then escorted to the steam room for a 15-minutes mulberry detoxifying treatment that stimulates circulation, drains lymph nodes, and opens pores.

Organic and fresh ingredients are used to rejuvenate body and mind. 

Back on the treatment bed, the therapist relaxes muscular tension with a massage using organic silk and warmed Korean ginseng oil. This is followed by a Golden Silk Moisturising Facial Mask to disperse the free radicals, nourish the skin, and reduce signs of ageing.

The treatment ends with a carefree soak in a flowery Golden Cocoon Luminous milk bath, leaving the skin smooth, healthy-looking and reinvigorated.

Each programme is an innovation in its own right. Thanks to the integration of traditional Thai remedies, warm herbal compresses and massage with acupuncture, yogi massage, ayurvedic massage and medical technology, you leave the spa feeling pampered, relaxed and ready to battle the traffic once more without getting stressed.

SMOOTH AS SILK

>> Organic Golden Silk Royal Pampering is priced at Bt6,950.

>> Other programmes cost between Bt1,450 and Bt9,850,

>> The spa is open from 11am-11pm on weekdays and from 10am on weekends. Bookings are accepted until 8pm.

>> Book your session by calling (02) 651 2916 or find out more by visiting http://www.DivanaSpa.com/NurtureSpa

FROGGIPEDIA, an iPad app, could help your kids get a head start in biology.

The app teaches youngsters about the life cycle of a frog and best of all it will let children perform a virtual operation to learn the intricate anatomical details.

The app is divided into three parts: Life cycle, AR Anatomy and Dissection.

The app lets kids observe the life cycle of a frog, such as how it turns from a single celled egg in water to a tadpole, which turn metamorphoses into a froglet and eventually a full-grown frog.

The life cycle starts with a picture of a fertilised egg on Day 1. It says the egg is encased in a gelatinous capsule that extends on coming in contact with water.

On the left side of the screen is a progress bar with seven dots. When each dot is tapped, the app shows each stage of the life cycle. These are, as displayed in the app, are Day 1, Day 3: Tadpole with external gills, Week 4: Tadpole with internal gills, Week 6: Tadpole with hind limbs, Week 9: Tadpole with forelimbs, Week 16: Froglet, and Week 17: Frog.

The app also provides a short description for each stage of the frog’s life cycle and also lets you rotate the frog at each stage to see it around. When I tested it on iPad Pro 10-inch, the rotation was smooth and fluid and the graphic was splendid and realistic.

The AR Anatomy lets the child observe seven layers of a frog’s anatomy, namely integumentary, muscular, skeletal, nervous, urogenital, respiratory, circulatory, and digestive. You need to use the iPad Pro’s camera to scan on a flat surface of your environment or room and the app will superimpose a frog’s photo as if the frog is the room with out.

With the dissection component, the child can virtually cut open a frog to see its internal organs. The app supports Apple Pencil for performing the virtual dissection. The app will guide the youngster to pin the frog’s forelimbs and hind limbs and guide him or her to use a finger or Apple Pencil as a knife to cut it open.

Once there, you can learn to identify the internal organs of the frog through a series of questions. You identify and drag the organ to the tray in accordance with a question. For example, the question says: “It is the largest digestive gland. Can you locate it?” You kid will have find and drag the liver to the tray. There are eight organs to be identified in this game. Froggipedia sells on App Store for US$3.99.

>> Seller: Designmate (I) Pvt. Ltd.

>> Size: 144.1 MB

>> Category: Education

>> Compatibility: Requires iOS 11.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, 12.9-inch iPad Pro, 12.9-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, 9.7-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (5th generation), iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (5th generation), 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2nd generation), 12.9-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular (2nd generation), 10.5-inch iPad Pro, 10.5-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular, iPad (6th generation), and iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (6th generation).

>> Languages: English

>> Age Rating: Rated 4+

A NEW and thoroughly modern modular tri-band Wi-Fi system, Linksys Velop Intelligent Mesh WiFi System is very easy to set up and guarantees strong Wi-Fi signal throughout your home.

The mesh system uses a node to function as a router to beam a strong wireless signal around a 185-square-metre area. If you have more space than that, you simply add more nodes to cover the entire house though the radius of each node must intersect with another node – the second node with the router node and the third node with the second node, for example.

You don’t need LAN or any knowledge of technology to set up the system, just a wall plug for each node and your mobile phone and the Linksys app.

Using the Linksys app, setting up Velop Intelligent Mesh Wi-Fi system is a piece of cake. You can buy more nodes to add if the 3-pack Velop system doesn’t provide enough signal coverage for the entire house.

Three packages are available – one-node pack, two-node pack and three-node packs, depending on the size of your house. For example, if you live in a condominium room, you buy the one-node pack. But if you live in a two-floor townhouse, you would be better opting for the two-node pack.

Each node is designed in such a way as to look like a compact speaker with a status LED on top. The nodes are small, measuring just 7.8 cm x 7.8 cm x 18.5 cm and look elegant placed on a shelf or desk. The white model I tested looked really cool with the blue LED status light when the system was online.

And each node has two auto-sensing Gigabit Ethernet ports hidden under it and a slot behind it for stowing cable.

Each Velop node uses Tri-band aC2200 with MU-MIMO technology. It operates with 2.4GHz + 5GHz + 5 GHz bands providing bandwidths of 400 + 867 + 867 Mbps respectively.

Linksys Velop Intelligent Mesh WiFi System is equipped with several technologies to make sure the Wi-Fi connection remains smooth with strong throughput and fast Internet connection speed, though that will of course depend on the speed of your Internet subscription.

Each Velop node is equipped with a powerful quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor that supports multiple, simultaneous activities across all its wired and wireless interfaces. Moreover, each node has 4GB of flash and 512MB of DDR3 RAM to provide more than enough resources to host a large variety of features and functionality, and to execute all its tasks efficiently and quickly.

The Velop system also supports MU-MIMO (multi-user multiple-input and multiple-output). The Velop system transmits to two MU-MIMO-capable clients simultaneously. This increased efficiency improves the Wi-Fi experience for all 5GHz clients.

The Velop system supports transmit beam-forming to deliver a better network range and faster Wi-Fi speeds in the home. This technology precisely adjusts, steers and monitors the direction and shape of Wi-Fi signals for better performance with any wireless device.

A nice feature that avoids Wi-Fi congestion in your home is Velop’s cross-channel solution. Normally, access points (routers, range extenders, etc.) and client devices (laptops, smartphones, etc) communicate on the same channel. But channel congestion and a busy collision domain can slow down Wi-Fi performance. Each Velop node connects to a downstream node on a different channel, reducing Wi-Fi collision and delivering more reliable Wi-Fi performance.

The beauty of the Velop system is that it provides seamless roaming. When you deploy two or more Velop nodes, they will communicate with each other to form a single, unified wireless network. No matter where you are in your home, you can move freely between each node’s coverage area and maintain a stable, uninterrupted connection.

The Velop system also uses Intelligent Wi-Fi Mesh Network to ensure the connection will remain as strong as possible. The nodes can connect to each other over wired or wireless links, and will choose the best path to route data between a client and the internet. If a node loses connection to another node, the remaining nodes will self-heal and re-establish internet connection through other nodes in the network.

Spotfinder technology recommends the best placement to reduce latency, maximise throughput, and improve range and signal strength.

I tested the Linksys Velop three-node system on True Online’s True Super Fibre 50/20 Mbps package and was impressed by the fast Wi-Fi speed throughout the house.

The set-up was a breeze too thanks to the app. First, I connected a LAN cable from True Online router/modem to a LAN port under the first node.

Then, the app guided me to connect to the Wi-Fi name of the node with the password printed under the node. The rest of the connection was done automatically. I then set the Wi-Fi router and password to be the same as those on my previous router so that all clients, my notebook computers and mobile phones, could reconnect in a blink without any hassle. The app then guided me to add the second node and third node – one at a time – without any trouble.

To add the second node, I simply plugged its power adapter into the wall plug and tapped a button on the app and the rest was done automatically. Likewise with the third node. I placed the second and third nodes in bedrooms on the second floor of my two-storey townhouse.

The test found that a Sony Android 4K TV could stream from YouTube and Netflix smoothly without a network bottleneck.

The Wi-Fi signals in bedrooms on the second floor were very strong.

Using Apple TV 4K box to stream movies from Netflix on the second floor was smooth. Likewise, I used an Android box to watch iflix movies on the second floor smoothly.

The Linksys app also comes with Speed Check function. I used it to measure the Internet connection speed and it reported that my download speed was 54 Mbps and upload speed 23 Mbps.

Linksys Velop Intelligent Mesh WiFi System’s one-node pack retails for Bt7,990, two-node pack Bt12,990 and three-node pack Bt17,990.

>> Wi-Fi Technology: Tri-Band AC2200 (867 + 867 + 400 Mbps)‡ with MU-MIMO and 256 QAM

>> Network Standards: 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ac

>> Wi-Fi Bands: Simultaneous Tri-Band (2.4Ghz + 5GHz + 5GHz)

>> Number of Ethernet Ports: 2x WAN/LAN auto-sensing Gigabit Ethernet ports

>> Antennas: 6x internal antennas and high-powered amplifiers

>> Processor: 716 MHz Quad Core Memory: 4 GB Flash and 512 MB RAM

>> Wireless Encryption: WPA2 personal

>> Security Features: WPA2 personal

Love & Co is affiliated with Singapore’s SK Jewellery Group and focuses on sparkling accessories for proposals, weddings, anniversaries and other romantic occasions.

“We’ve come a long way in our commitment to turn romantic experiences into modern jewellery and creating the perfect retail experience to celebrate our customers’ love journey,” says group CEO Daniel Lim.

“The opening of our CentralWorld store marks a significant milestone for us as we continue our expansion into new markets.”

For the grand opening, areas were set out evoking the different stages of a romance, from puppy love to dating, the proposal and the wedding, and finally the affectionate anniversaries. Models showed diamond engagement rings, wedding bands and glittering gifts.

The Lovemarque – billed as “the most romantic diamond in the world” – bears a perfect rose at its heart with an inscription invisible to the naked eye. It can only be seen with a special viewer.

Love & Co is the first jeweller in Asia to partner with the International Institute of Diamond Grading and Research, a De Beers Group company that certifies the excellent cut of each Lovemarque diamond. The institute adds its own ID number.