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Quest to Build First Industry-Supported Digital Bridge between Web2 and the Web3 Blockchain: Dot Hip Hop, LLC Partners with The Cortex Network

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3 years ago

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The Hip Hop community may soon unlock new avenues for ownership, monetization, and control by connecting their .HipHop websites to Blockchain domains.

POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Aug. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Dot Hip Hop, LLC, the domain name registry that operates the Top-Level Domain (“TLD”) extension .HipHop, has partnered with Web3 content network, The Cortex Network (“Cortex”), to develop a watershed integration between traditional Web2 domain names and Web3 blockchain domain names. Once completed and launched, this solution will afford creators, for the first time ever, opportunities for connection with users and additional revenue streams through new kinds of digital objects enabled by a registry.

The Dot Hip Hop/Cortex partnership was first announced on July 19 at a private rooftop party in NYC hosted by Nolcha Shows and attended by top Web3 movers and shakers. The project has since made tremendous strides, kicking off Hip Hop’s 50th Anniversary with elements of its planned integration of Web2 with the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) marked completed. Through this partnership, .HipHop domain owners will be able to register a Web3 domain that would ultimately work as a digital wallet address for blockchain transactions, giving .HipHop registrants the ability to seamlessly register a ‘like named’ Web3 domain name that is integrated with the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).

Additionally, through the minting of full non-fungible token (NFT) subdomains, domain owners can create an NFT namespace that will allow them to create new kinds of digital objects like music, concert tickets, merchandise and more. Finally, these integrated domains will enable publishing on the user-controlled Web3 Cortex Network with content hosted on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), a decentralized peer-to-peer file system for managing data.

On these integrated Web3 blockchain domains, users will be able to publish just about anything they’d typically publish on a traditional Web2 website or social media platform, but within the blockchain framework, granting new opportunities for monetization, ownership, and community-building. By tying physical real-world experiences to digital environments and assets, creatives from all trades can provide unique and engaging experiences for fans.

Let’s say that two iconic artists announce that they’re performing a one-night show. They can sell NFT tickets as subdomains to the concert that unlock exclusive merchandise and other perks just for the superfans in attendance, stirring up unmatched levels of hype. This idea translates to other trades too. For instance, a fashion designer or painter can embed a digital identity into each of their works–kind of like a link that can only be accessed through a QR code on the artwork itself.  Each person who comes in contact with it can add their signature and a note to the link, documenting their part in the piece’s journey. This creates a provable history of the piece that anyone can access, creating buzz and turning the otherwise static work into an interactive experience for fans of the creator and their art.

“We are thrilled to be teaming up with Dot Hip Hop to provide a scalable foundation for user-owned content,” says Leonard Kish, Co-founder of The Cortex Network. “Both of our teams value ownership in the hands of the creator, and we look forward to seeing the collaboration and creativity that the online Hip Hop community unlocks with access to Web3.”

“There is a clear need for a solid community-owned home for Hip Hop culture. As my partner Monte Cahn will often stress, .HipHop Websites, .HipHop email addresses and now other types of .HipHop digital assets in Web3, offer creators more control and full ownership over content, user data, and fan interaction,” explains Ajene Watson, Managing Director of Dot Hip Hop, LLC.  “The .HipHop domain extension is an immediate identifier that a platform and its creator are part of the community and global multinational culture of Hip Hop. The web3 layer would provide users of the .HipHop extension with an additional financial tool to generate, collect and protect the money earned from their talents.  Web3 tools like this further support artist independence while advancing the community’s effort to reclaim Hip Hop as its birthright.”

Cortex estimates the launch of this digital bridge to occur before or during October 2023.

About DotHipHop, LLC
Dot Hip Hop, LLC was founded in 2021 to serve as the exclusive ICANN Accredited domain name registry for the .HipHop top-level domain. Its mission is to give artists, entertainers, musicians, athletes, brands, the culture and community of Hip Hop, the ability to further brand their identity with domain names that fully represent and encapsulate who they are. Hip Hop is, and has always been, more than music. Hip Hop represents an eclectic culture, which has defined several generations around the world for nearly 50 years, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

About Cortex
The Cortex Network, a project of YouBase, Inc., takes on a multifaceted mission, pioneering the way Web3 content is published and distributed. Cortex is focused on addressing privacy concerns, enabling ease of use for Web3 tools, facilitating individuals and businesses in their adoption of Web3 technologies, creating provable history/record for data, and resolving existing architecture challenges in the transition from Web2 to Web3. As a critical feature of a digital identity stack, Cortex proves to be the underlying safety/validation layer to authenticate and identify a living history.

CONTACT: Scott Pruitt, scott@get.hiphop

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SOURCE Dot Hip Hop, LLC

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commercetools Named a Leader in 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce as AI Reshapes the Market

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33 minutes ago

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October 22, 2026

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commercetools is a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce for the seventh consecutive year.commercetools has been driving AI innovation on how enterprises build, operate and sell, including capabilities like Sphere, Commerce MCP and commercetools for Builders.commercetools is helping global enterprises modernize complex commerce operations and prepare for a future where both people and AI agents discover, shop and transact.

BOSTON, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — commercetools, the digital commerce AI company, today announced it has been positioned as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce. This marks the seventh consecutive year commercetools has been recognized as a Leader in the report.

As AI reshapes commerce, commercetools is expanding how it supports the enterprises who build and operate commerce experiences, and the shoppers who use them. Global enterprises including JD Sports, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Chemist Warehouse and Mirion Technologies are using commercetools to modernize complex digital commerce, accelerate growth and adopt new AI-powered ways of operating and selling.

“Commerce is moving from systems that simply respond to human instructions toward systems that can increasingly understand, decide and act,” said Doug McNary, Chief Executive Officer at commercetools. “We’re proud to be named a Leader for the seventh consecutive year. Enterprises shouldn’t have to choose between the flexibility they need today and the autonomy they’ll need tomorrow. Our focus is giving them the technology to support both.”

Over the past year, commercetools has introduced new products and capabilities designed to bring AI across the commerce lifecycle:

Sphere: Brings together commercetools’ AI-native infrastructure and agent governance through Commerce MCP into a unified platform for enterprises to build, operate and sell with AI.commercetools for Builders: Helps anyone build, extend and evolve enterprise commerce faster with AI.AgentSphere: Lets enterprises build and manage AI agents to run commerce operations and agentic shopping, with appropriate guardrails to do so safely and at scale.Modular commerce offerings: Gives enterprises the flexibility to start with the capabilities they need and expand over time, accelerating time to value without requiring a full commerce transformation upfront.Commerce Integration Layer: Centralizes integration logic behind customer-facing experiences. Storefronts, mobile apps and AI agents connect through a unified layer hosted and maintained by commercetools.Smart Data Modeler: Uses AI to accelerate product data modeling, helping teams build the right foundation faster and reduce time-to-launch.

commercetools’ customers include large enterprises across retail, manufacturing, life sciences, healthcare and telecommunications in markets around the world.

To learn more about commercetools’ position as a Leader, download your complimentary copy of the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant report today.

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce Platforms, Aditya Vasudevan, Penny Gillespie, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Mike Lowndes, 19 October 2026

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About commercetools

commercetools, the global digital commerce AI company, helps enterprises transform commerce for the AI era. Built API-native from the start and AI-first by design, our technology enables agentic shopping experiences, automates commerce operations and gives businesses the agility to modernize faster, innovate continuously and operate more intelligently.

More than 500 global brands, retailers and enterprise companies rely on commercetools to power their digital commerce. Together, they process more than $100 billion in annualized GMV, over 700 million orders and more than one billion customer records on our platform.

Media Contact: comms@commercetools.com 

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SOURCE commercetools

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Phylo’s Biomni Lab to expand the use of AI agents in scientific research at Bayer

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33 minutes ago

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October 22, 2026

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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Phylo, Inc. announced today a partnership with Bayer to deploy Biomni Lab, Phylo’s agentic AI platform to accelerate scientific research and evaluation. 

Under the agreement, Phylo will provide Bayer with full access to its agentic platform that helps Bayer scientists bring together scientific literature, biomedical data, and analytical methods in one environment, reducing the manual effort required to assemble and assess evidence. The platform’s inspectable workflows preserve the context behind each result, allowing researchers to review the underlying sources, methods, and execution and apply their own scientific judgment. Bayer scientists will gain access to Biomni Lab for workflows focused on assembling literature and omics evidence for drug discovery.

“This partnership reflects our belief that AI should expand scientific curiosity, not just speed up routine work. Giving our scientists an AI partner that brings rigor to every step lets them explore more ideas, ask bolder questions, and find the insights that move drug discovery forward, ultimately accelerating the pace at which we can bring new medicines to patients,” said Sai Jasti, Senior Vice President, Head of Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Bayer Pharmaceuticals R&D.

“For agentic AI to matter in research, it has to earn the trust of the scientists doing the work. Bayer’s selection of Biomni Lab is a strong endorsement of the scientific rigor and AI capabilities we’ve built into the platform,” said Kexin Huang, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Phylo. “Our vision is an AI-native operating system for biopharma, where every scientist can direct a team of AI agents to pursue complex research questions. With Bayer, we aim to show what becomes possible when AI capabilities meet deep scientific expertise: more hypotheses explored, more discoveries made, and new possibilities for medicine.”

About Phylo

Phylo’s mission is to bring the best agentic intelligence to every biomedical scientist. Its enterprise-grade AI platform, Biomni Lab, is the first Integrated Biology Environment—a unified workspace where scientists collaborate with AI agents across literature research, experimental design, biological data analysis, and scientific decision-making.

Biomni Lab is now used by leading global biopharma, including Bayer, Chugai Pharmaceutical and Ono Pharmaceutical. Phylo is based in South San Francisco, backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Menlo Ventures.

For more information, visit phylo.bio. To learn more about Biomni Lab, visit biomni.phylo.bio.

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SOURCE Phylo, Inc.

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Sandler Partners Welcomes Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region

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33 minutes ago

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October 22, 2026

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New Hire Announcement | Independent Technology Distributor Sandler Partners grows its Sales Engineering team, adding Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region.

REDONDO BEACH, Calif., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sandler Partners, the leading independent Technology Solutions Distributor, announces the addition of Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region, further strengthening its dedicated sales engineering team and the technical support available to Partners in the West Region.

Bryan brings more than two decades of experience designing and delivering complex technology solutions, including enterprise and Cloud architecture roles at Lumen/Savvis and IBM focused on infrastructure modernization and customer success. His expertise spans automation, edge computing, disaster recovery, application performance monitoring (APM), and DevSecOps. In his role, Bryan will support Partners across the West Region, aligning early with them on strategy and leading thoughtful discovery to help them find the right fit for each client.

For Bryan, strong relationships and solid values guide his life and form the foundation of his professional success, a perspective that fits naturally within the Sandler Partners community. When he is not working, Bryan spends time with his family, including his wife, three sons, and a grandson, RVing, boating, and biking, along with pursuing his passion for freediving.

“Bryan brings the kind of hands-on experience our Partners value: he’s been in the room on complex deals and knows how to turn a customer’s needs into the right solution,” says Justin Marano, Chief Revenue Officer, Sandler Partners. “He came to Sandler for the freedom to work across best-of-breed Providers, and our Partners in the West will feel that right away. He’s collaborative, grounded, and focused on helping Partners win. I’m excited to have him on the team.”

“I’m excited to get to work alongside our Partners, helping them navigate complex opportunities and bring clarity to technical decisions,” says Bryan. “For me, it all comes back to relationships. When you build them on trust and shared values, the results follow for our Partners and their clients. That’s something that the Sandler community really embodies, and I look forward to getting to work with our Partners!”

About Sandler Partners
Sandler Partners helps empower its network of leading independent Sales Partners to deliver a comprehensive range of technology solutions to organizations worldwide, including Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Connectivity, Cloud, Colocation, Mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), and Continuity. Its community-focused approach enables Partners to identify the right solutions for customers quickly and objectively from a diverse portfolio of 220+ Providers. Partner sales agents, VARs, and MSPs gain access to an innovative suite of sales tools within the Sandler Portal—including SCOUT, Solutions Finder, Scout for Solutions, and the Marketing Center—several of which are AI-powered, all backed by a robust support network, dedicated Sales Engineering expertise, and rich marketing resources. Together, these tools and resources empower Partners to focus on what they do best: delivering quality, value, performance, innovative solutions, unmatched expertise, and exceptional service to their clients. Members of the Sandler Partners community also benefit from the industry’s strongest negotiated agreements and a dedicated team committed to ensuring commissions are accurately identified, tracked, and paid. For more information, visit www.sandlerpartners.com.

Sandler Partners – Media Contact
Tina S. Dyksterhouse
tina@sandlerpartners.com
310-861-2295

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SOURCE Sandler Partners

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