Apple confirms USB-C is coming to iPhone

Washington [US], October 26: American tech giant Apple has directly confirmed that the iPhone will finally be switching over to a USB-C port.

According to GSM Arena, Apple marketing lead Greg Joswiak said, , in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the company will replace the Lighting port even if his team is not happy with the change. Along with Joswiak, software VP Craig Federighi was also involved in the interview but none of them revealed when exactly the move would happen.

The Apple executives said "the Europeans are the ones dictating timing for European customers" which is a sophisticated way of saying nothing about the timeline for the switch, reported GSM Arena. As per the outlet, Joswiak refused to answer whether Apple will ship a connector sold outside the EU, but that seems very unlikely.

The executives also talked about Apple's dedication of going its own way and trusting its engineers rather than complying with standards by lawmakers and adopting third-party hardware. He even brought up micro USB and how Apple has been pushed to meet ill-considered requirements.

As per GSM Arena, the marketing lead added that charging bricks with detachable cables solved the issue of standardization, claiming the switch to USB-C would create a lot of e-waste as people are pushed to buy new cables and discard the old ones.

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Do you know about in-car payment?

Mumbai [India], July 13: Technology, sure, is making our lives easier. After FASTag cut short our waiting time at toll plazas, more plans are afoot for similar experiments. Let us see what they are, in this report

Swati Bhat

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Thanks to FASTag, we now do not have to carry cash or cards to pay for tolls on highways. It is the first and the most successful example of in-car payment service in India.

The next step now is to enable in-car payments for many other services such as fuel, parking, maintenance, insurance, etc. Before we get to its advantages and disadvantages, let’s understand how the in-car payment system works.

The easiest and most common way to enable an in-car payment system is through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags.

For the uninitiated, RFID tag is a short-range wireless system that uses radio waves to communicate. These tags store a range of information, read by a specific device called reader. The beauty of RFID tag is it does not require power or internet connectivity to work, and can send data over-the-air.

The other method to implement an in-car payment system is through an embedded Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module. These modules are expensive and require an operating unit to work.

But they can transmit data at a higher range, which, in turn, lowers the chances of payment failure. Unlike the integrated systems such as RFID tags, this embedded system requires power to work.

Another way to implement an in-car payment system is through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). It is an advanced and most secure way among the available methods to enable in-car payments, but is expensive and complicated because of hardware and software compatibility issues. It requires both power and internet connectivity to work.

Coming on to the challenges with in-car payment systems, security is one and foremost because your personal and financial information may be compromised due to cyber attack irrespective of systems used -- integrated such as RFID tags or embedded such as BLE module/APIs -- to enable the payments.

Connectivity is another challenge, especially in embedded systems, because there still is a wide geographical area in the country where the internet has not reached as yet.

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Amsterdam to host metaverse festival with attendance from digital fashion brands

Amsterdam, June 06: A new metaverse festival is set to take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, between June 14 and 17, where attendees can dive into the cultural lens of the digital world in a bid to make it more accessible for everyone.

Pritish Bagdi

Over the four day period, Met Ams will host an array of events and evening entertainment throughout its conference, with attendance from professionals in the marketing, tech and crypto industries. Members of the cultural sector will also be present, including artists, musicians and designers, such as digital fashion house The Fabricant and non-fungible token (NFT) initiative Boss Beauties.

Among the immersive installations, workshops and networking events, visitors can attend panel talks and discussions that aim to provide insight into the metaverse and what it means for various industries, allowing attendees to experience the digital world first-hand.

“Developments within Web3 are moving at a fast pace,” said Peter Meere, co-founder of Met Ams, in a release. “Outside of Europe, there are many events and conferences that deal with the subject of the metaverse. We want to ensure that Europe doesn’t lag behind. Met Ams is there to keep Europe informed and ahead of developments within tech, the metaverse, NFTs and Web3.”

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