Close ties to political power turn the Malay academic sphere into an echo chamber and allows for bold claims backed by bad or no research.

Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have been hit by flooding and landslides after days of torrential rainfall. The death toll rose sharply in southern Thailand, with at least 145 now reported dead.

YouTube video by Buletin TV3

A year-long investigation reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors

YouTube video by SMTOWN

ALT: gumball and darwin from the amazing world of gumball are standing in front of fireworks

Augmented reality (AR) integrates virtual content into consumers’ physical environment. Although research suggests that consumers’ perceptions of augmentation quality—the perceived merge of the virtual and real world—affect relevant consumer variables, the literature has not developed a comprehensive measure that adequately captures the construct nor integrated it meaningfully with theory-relevant outcomes. Grounded theory and standard scale development procedures are applied to understand what comprises perceptions of augmentation quality and how to measure it to distinguish low- from high-quality AR-marketing attempts. The findings suggest that quality perceptions in AR consist of a second-order factor, augmentation quality, represented by three first-order factors (design, interaction, and embedding quality). In addition, this research demonstrates that high augmentation quality creates a sense of local presence, i.e., the sensation that the augmented object experienced with AR is real and present to the consumer. The research then theoretically integrates these factors into a more comprehensive model, tying it firmly into the nomological net. In particular, augmentation quality—mediated by local presence—affects utilitarian and hedonic outcomes as well as behavioral actions. Managerial implications for understanding and using AR marketing are presented.

YouTube video by Big Think