Content Tech

Emerging trends in AI Usage

13:30:00

OnePlus EarBuds with OnePlus 7 Pro

14:30:00

OnePlus Buds with OnePlus 7 Pro - Pic Credits : Content Tech

Was little hesitant to buy the product, but some intuition and belief in the brand made me purchase OnePlus Buds as I already use OnePlus 7 Pro.

After the first use of OnePlus Buds for over 5hrs here's my review :

To put it in single line - OnePlus Buds are the best TWS Earbuds (compared to the once available in market within the same price range).

Pic Credits - Content Tech

Pocket friendly carry case and cute earbuds, in one angle they resemble Airpods.

Used it with iPhone XR and OnePlus 7 Pro, very much impressed on the audio quality and these buds seem to be like an affordable Apple AirPods. OnePlus Buds are nothing less than AirPods.

All the controls worked on iPhone XR except the one's we customize and there's no option we can customize controls of earbuds over iPhone. Customizing can be done only on OnePlus mobiles with versions from OnePlus 6 and above.

I still did not recharge the earbuds along with case after the usage of ~1.5hrs , not sure how long will they last more till earbuds are out of power, but observed little distortion in usage so I have put them back into case so they can recharge.

During the above said 1.5hrs usage , I used the earbuds during running and workouts. Quite happy as they perfectly fit into my ear and no pain in usage. Anyway when you ask about how they fit, I say it depends on an individual's ear, they can be a perfect for it some and for others it might not be. The same applies for Apple AirPods.

OnePlus Buds are not for the people who are all time music listeners looking for huge bass. These buds are decent enough to take you into trance with the music you listen. For example they sounded great when listened to David Guetta's Album, Linkin Park 8D Tunes and many others.

Here are some shots taken during unboxing and usage and my review video. I'm not proficient in doing unboxing videos but some how this product made me record something because of my excitement towards this product. I did not do a video during my unboxing or usage of Apple AirPods.

OnePlus Buds out of charging case

OnePlus Buds inside the case with Box and OnePlus 7 Pro

OnePlus Buds

If you are happy buy them from Amazon.in

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15:39:00

UK and Europe be ready to have more secured payment processes . Learn what is 3-D Secure 2.0 and Payment Service Directive 2

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UK and Europe be ready to have more secured payment processes . Learn what is 3D Secure 2.0 ? Payment Service Directive 2 and Strong Customer Authentication.

UK and Europe regions are going to see a huge difference in the way they make payments. UK citizens can expect the changes fully implemented across UK by March 2021 and Europe by December 2020. We believe many of the common people have no idea on how the security is implemented for them to take care of their payment processes done at a store or online.

There are some simple common security procedures instructed by banks or financial institutions to their customers while using their credit/ debit cards , bank accounts and they are like :

1. Never tell your password and account details to anyone over phone, online , text message or directly.

2. Never share your account login details online to any person.

3. Use customized / strong passwords which you can remember, rather than a simple and easy to predict kind of passwords.

4. Use second factor authentication process if available.

5. May be few more procedures might be instructed depending on the region where you live .

Apart from above, one has to know standards prescribed in this new generation for password creation, usually the standards can be as follows :

1. Password Policy - Read here

2. Password creation process from Stanford - Read here (understand the logic on how to create a strong password , do not use same 4 words mentioned in the given link)

Apart from the above easy to understand details , if you like to know more on how payments are secured go ahead and read below.

To safe guard our payment processes and transactions done across various platforms like POC machine or online via payment page or via eWallets .. you should have knowledge about 3DS and below are the details on it.

EMV 3-D Secure Three-Domain Secure (3DS) is a messaging protocol developed by EMVCo to enable consumers to authenticate themselves with their card issuer when making card-not-present (CNP) e-commerce purchases. The additional security layer helps prevent unauthorized CNP (Card not present transaction) transactions and protects the merchant from CNP exposure to fraud. The three domains consist of the merchant/acquirer domain, issuer domain, and the Payment Systems.

EMV originally stood for "Europay, Mastercard, and Visa", the three companies that created the standard and are now managed by EMVCo, a consortium of financial companies. The most widely known chips of the EMV standard are:

VIS – Visa
Mastercard chip – Mastercard
AEIPS – American Express
UICS – China Union Pay
J Smart – JCB
D-PAS – Discover/Diners Club International.
Rupay – NPCI
Verve

Visa and Mastercard have also developed standards for using EMV cards in devices to support (CNP) card not present transactions over the telephone and Internet. Mastercard has the Chip Authentication Program (CAP) for secure e-commerce. Its implementation is known as EMV-CAP and supports a number of modes. Visa has the Dynamic Passcode Authentication (DPA) scheme, which is their implementation of CAP using different default values.

In February 2010, computer scientists from Cambridge University demonstrated that an implementation of EMV PIN entry is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack but only implementations where the PIN was validated offline were vulnerable.

Hence 3D Secure xml based protocol over SSL connections with client authentication was introduced to avoid online frauds. It has been years passed and payment systems have changed a lot to support payment services across multiple devices. With respect to support and improve security on online payments, In 2013 ECB - European Central Bank requested for strong customer authentication. Hence an updated payment services directive was introduced [PSD2 SCA] and made it a requirement.

PSD2 SCA: Payment Service Direct 2 and Strong Customer Authentication, next generation 3D Secure Protocol : 3D Secure 2.0 . In 2016, Visa criticized the proposal of making strong customer authentication mandatory, on the grounds that it could make online payments more difficult, and thus hurt conversion rates / sales at online retailers.

Better intelligence on 3D Secure 2.0:

3D Secure 2.0 delivers 10 times more data such as device channel, payment history , than a preivous version to speed up authentication and boost security, giving shoppers a fast pass through checkout.

By Visa

Most European countries, starting 14 September 2019, will be using SCA solution for all digital transactions, as part of PSD2. All digital transactions will require 2-Factor Authentication under the new PSD2 regulations. Moreover all card issuers and merchants/acquirers must support an SCA solution, which requires two of the three types of identification listed below.

These are the 30 countries that will be complying with the PSD2 SCA requirement in next 1 year from now:

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Cyprus
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom

The Reserve Bank of India mandates strong authentication for online transactions. Bulletin , Reference 1 , Reference 2 and are already implemented.

Architecture of 3D Secure 2.0 protocol:

By Visa

Architecture of 3D Secure protocol:

By GPayments

When 3D Secure protocol was enabled, the conversion rates effected for most of the countries and below is an analysis on few:

By Fibonatix

Benefits of 3D Secure 2.0:

By Visa

Let us see how 3-D Secure 2.0 would effect conversion rates in the coming days.

Most of the information is taken from Visa to make sure the readers are confident enough to understand the process , make themselves ready for the new security standard to follow during payment process.