March 24th, 2020
Wirecard’s expanded e-commerce offering for WeChat Pay will enable European merchants to enjoy fast access to the Chinese market.

Wirecard and its partner SwissPost will offer a complete package including technical integration, payment processing, customs and logistics.
Chinese consumers will be able to check out with WeChat Pay on the online shops of European merchants.
As a result, shoppers will enjoy a smooth and familiar payment flow.
The integration meets the needs of a key target audience, leading to significantly increased revenues.
More details below from the press release.
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Tags: China, e-commerce, Fintech, payments, shopping, SwissPost, WeChat, Wirecard
Posted in Announce, Business IT, Enterprise IT, Fintech, Press Release, Shopping, Wirecard | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2020
The mid-tier smartphone with quad cameras will be available in Singapore from 27 March at S$299, with promotional flash sales price at S$249.

The Redmi Note 9S will be available in three colours – Interstellar Grey , Aurora Blue and Glacier White.
Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 9S globally via an online stream from the company’s headquarters in China.
The Redmi Note 9S is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset, which consists of an octa-core CPU with a 2.3GHz maximum clock speed, Adreno 618 GPU and 8nm process technology.

Xiaomi also launched a series of ecosystem products.The Mi Smart Compact Projector (S$699) will be available from Authorised Mi Stores and via Lazada for shoppers in Singapore starting from 20 April.
The user experience is bolstered through its AI technology and power-efficiency improvements.
More details below from the press release.
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Tags: Android, launch, Lazada, Note, phablets, prices, projectors, Redmi, Singapore, smartphones, stream, Xiaomi
Posted in Android, Announce, events, Gadgets, gadgets, Launch, newArrivals, Phones, Press Release, Prices, Projectors, Redmi, smartphones, Specifications, Xiaomi | No Comments »
March 22nd, 2020
Co-created by athletes, the in-ear headphones has been designed specifically for runners and is now available in Singapore (S$249).

“Wired wireless” in-ear sports earphones from adidas: FWD-01.
Launched jointly by adidas and Stockholm-based Zound Industries – the earphones combines the latter’s audio technology with the former’s knowhow in sports ergonomics.
My Take
A little bit pricey, the adidas FWD-01 is a pair of solid wireless in-ear headphones for runners, boasting decent audio quality, a long 16-hour battery life and the ability to quick-charge. What I liked a lot was its IPX4 rated sweat resistance.
On first looks, I like the ergonomic and minimalist design of the sweat-proof FWD-01, which weighs 26g and has a tangle-free cable that’s 47.5cm long.
The knitted fabric gives the earphones a nice shoelace appearance consistent with the fabric on some of adidas’ sports shoes.
The control buttons on the cord is easy-to-find and enables full control of all the basic functionalities of the earphones viz. play/pause, volume up/down, answer/end phone calls, power on/off or pair.
Three control buttons on the right and an Action button on the left of the adidas FWD-01 wireless in-ear headphones.
An Action button is programmable (using the companion app) as a shortcut for up to three different actions, triggered by either 1, 2, or 3 clicks.
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Tags: Adidas, audio, earphones, headphones, reviews, TC Acoustic, wireless, Zound
Posted in Accessories, Audio, audioVisual, earphones, Entertainment, Gadgets, gadgets, headphones, Lifestyle, Music, Opinion, Prices, Review, reviews, Specifications | No Comments »
March 21st, 2020
Hand washing is one of the most effective preventive measures against COVID-19 – the disease ravaging the world now. Google Doodles is recognising Ignaz Semmelweis – the Hungarian physician who discovered the medical benefits of handwashing.
* This story first appeared on Haleness Me.

Google Doodles celebrates Ignaz Semmelweis and handwashing. Click to watch the video.
Dr Ignaz Semmelweis was appointed Chief Resident in the maternity clinic of the Vienna General Hospital 173 years ago in 1847, where he deduced and demonstrated that requiring doctors to disinfect their hands vastly reduced the transmission of disease.

Print out this poster on proper handwashing techniques.
Semmelweis had noticed that a mysterious and poorly understood infection known as “childbed fever” was leading to high mortality rates in new mothers in maternity wards across Europe in the mid-19th century.
Semmelweis deduced that the doctors were transmitting infectious material from prior operations and autopsies to susceptible mothers through their hands.
He required doctors to wash their hands with chlorinated lime water before examining pregnant women.
As a result, the documented mortality rate plunged from 18% to 2.2% over a period of a year.
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Tags: COVID, Doodles, Google, handwashing, health, hygiene
Posted in Google, Holiday, Infographic, infographics, Medical, Tips, Wiki, YouTube | No Comments »
March 20th, 2020
Here are some tips from Google on digital wellbeing and how our devices can contribute to our daily happiness.

The first step toward digital wellbeing is often understanding more about how you interact with technology in the first place. Tools like the Digital Wellbeing Dashboard in Android 9 Pie and YouTube’s Time Watched offer ways to keep you more informed about your habits.
Despite being one of the wealthiest nations globally, research has shown that Singaporeans are amongst the unhappiest people in the world.

Disconnect when you need to. Take advantage of tools that help make it easier to take a break from your devices, and switch off at the end of each day.
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Tags: Android, Google, happiness, health, Pixel, tips
Posted in App, Apps, gadgets, Google, Holiday, Infographic, infographics, Internet, Opinion, smartphones, Tech Focus, Tips | No Comments »
March 19th, 2020
Dell Technologies successfully completed live field trials of its first 5G-ready Latitude notebook on the Orange 5G network in Paris.

Orange 5G tests of Dell’s first 5G-ready Latitude 9510 notebook reached speeds nearly 20 times faster than 4G.
The demo builds on Dell’s agreement with Orange, one of the largest operators of mobile and internet services worldwide, to help people experience the impact and power of 5G.
“5G opens a broad new frontier for businesses and consumers with the Always-Connected PC. This announcement is a clear example of how 5G can impact our daily lives. Downloading a large presentation or training video could take seconds instead of minutes. Enhanced broadband communications and lower latency enables new usage models and users to complete tasks much faster than 4G-enabled networks, which creates and drives new business models and new applications, like augmented and virtual reality, cloud-assisted gaming, real-time language translation and image processing,” said Liam Quinn, Senior Vice President and Senior Fellow for Dell Technologies.
The two companies aim to unlock the true power of enhanced broadband communications in creating new opportunities for bandwidth-intensive applications.
They hope to demonstrate an immersive and interactive experience that unlocks new business opportunities and boosts productivity anytime, anywhere with the Always-Connected PC
Dell’s first 5G-ready Latitude notebook was announced at CES earlier this year, and is the first PC to successfully pass the Orange 5G testing.
These first field trials, conducted on the Orange 5G network in Paris, demonstrate the promise of 5G with sustained download speeds over 900 megabits per second on an enterprise-grade mobile compute platform – surpassing 4G speeds that typically are under 60 megabits per second.
By deploying Dell’s 5G PC on the Orange 5G network, the two companies are demonstrating that they can create immersive and interactive environments that unlock new business opportunities, while delivering what employees demand with connectivity to help boost productivity and collaboration.
Below are more details from the press release.
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Tags: 5G, Business IT, DELL, laptops, Latitude, notebooks, Orange, technology
Posted in Announce, Business IT, Dell, Enterprise IT, News, Notebooks, notebooks, Press Release | No Comments »
March 18th, 2020
The Google Translate app has just launched Transcribe – a new feature that enables you to translate and transcribe audio in real time.

The redesigned home screen of Google Translate (left) and options to change the settings for a comfortable read (right).
Transcribe began its roll-out early this morning, and a full roll-out will be happening within the next few days.

Real time transcription in action in Google Translate.
The new feature will support any combination between the following eight languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.
Previously, Translate wasn’t well suited to translate lectures over video conferencing or in a classroom, longer discussions, or stories from grandparents who speak another language.
To address this gap, Google is introducing this new feature that transcribes audio into translated text.
While the feature is only available on Android devices currently, Google is planning to launch it on iOS in the future.
Here’s how Transcribe in the Google Translate app works:
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Tags: Android, Apps, assistant, features, Google, Internet, new arrivals, OS, software, transcribe, Translate, updates, upgrades, voice
Posted in Android, Announce, App, Apps, Google, Launch, newArrivals, Software, software, travel | No Comments »
March 17th, 2020
Canon will accept entries for its “New Cosmos of Photography 2020” (43rd edition) photo competition from 18 March to 20 May.

Last year’s winners. This year’s Excellence Award and Honorable Mention Award winners will receive prize money and display their works at this year’s exhibition of winning entries.
The Excellence Award Selection Committee will meet in June to choose seven Excellence Award winners and fourteen Honorable Mention Award winners.
Later, in October, the Grand Prize selection committee will meet to select one Grand Prize winner from among the seven Excellence Award-winning entries.

Judges for the 2019 competition. To promote the competition as a global photo contest, experts from outside Japan have once again been invited to judge the 2020 competition this year. This year’s seven judges include British Photographer Paul Graham, Japanese art critic Noi Sawaragi and Japanese photographer Mikiya Takimoto.
The Grand Prize winner of this year’s competition will receive JPY 1 million in prize money and a Canon product, as well as the opportunity to hold a solo exhibit the following year.
More details below from the press release.
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Tags: Canon, competitions, event forecast, events, photography
Posted in Canon, Contest, Event forecast, Photography, Press Release | No Comments »
March 16th, 2020
The new DS200j (S$269) is an entry-level 2-bay network-attached storage (NAS) unit built for data consolidation and management.

Personal cloud storage made simple, with easy data backup and multimedia streaming.
The new Synology Disk Station DS220j enables automatic photo backups on your mobile device for easy management of content.
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Tags: backup, NAS, storage, streaming, Synology
Posted in Accessories, Announce, Business IT, Gadgets, gadgets, Home, Launch, newArrivals, Press Release, Specifications, storage drive | No Comments »
March 14th, 2020
The payments partnership between Wirecard and the Southeast Asia super app Grab will drive cashless economy for MSMEs across the region.

Wirecard partners Grab.
Grab offers a variety of services to consumers in Southeast Asia ranging from ride-hailing and food delivery to digital financial products across payments, lending and insurance.
Wirecard will process card transactions made via the GrabPay e-wallet and integrate it as a payment method for its merchants.
More details below from the press release.
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Tags: cashless, e-wallet, finance, Fintech, Grab, GrabPay, payments, Wirecard
Posted in Announce, App, Apps, Business IT, Fintech, Grab, Press Release, Shopping | No Comments »