Mastercard and Dream Payments speed up insurance payments

Mastercard  announced a global partnership with Canadian-based Dream Payments aimed at getting insurance customers paid quickly, simply and securely. Northbridge Financial, a Fairfax company, will be the first insurance provider in Canada to use the Mastercard Send platform through the Dream Payments Hub, followed by international markets.

Mastercard Send is a global push payments platform designed to work with banks, businesses, digital players, governments and money transfer services, helping them to modernize the way they send money, both domestically and cross-border.

Both Mastercard and Dream Payments share a vision where insurance policyholders will receive fast payments into any payment card or account, when they need it most.

Sonos One speaker now has Amazon Alexa assistant enabled

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Owners of the Sonos One smart speaker are getting a delightful surprise today as the Amazon Alexa smart assistant is now enabled and offers a variety of welcome features. Users who are also subscribed to services like Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, TuneIn Radio and other streaming music services can simply ask their Sonos One to find and play music by song, artist, genre or playlist.

For users who have the Sonos One as part of a multi-room, multi-speaker setup, the $249 CAD smart speaker can now ask Alexa to play music on specific speakers or rooms which simplifies the process of managing a variety of sources and playback devices.

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Drone invasion at Dolce & Gabbana show

And by invasion, we mean drones took to the runway at the fashion house’s show in Milan on Sunday. Dolce & Gabbana used drones to show off their latest handbag collection. The Italian luxury fashion house had its audience members turn off Wi-Fi and personal hot spots during the show. There were around seven or so drones that carried leather and jewel-encrusted handbags that are part of the fashion house’s Fall/Winter 2018/19 collection. Is this the end of models? Well, the models did make a comeback to show off the clothes. So, that is a no for now.

Source: The Verge

Sony launches Xperia Ear Duo

Launching alongside the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact is the new “open-ear” stereo wireless headset from Sony: the Xperia Ear Duo. Sony equips this pair of headset with what it calls Dual Listening technology. This allows you to listen music and receive notifications while also being able to hear environmental sound or conversation happening around you. This is possible with the use of a Spatial Acoustic Conductor developed by Sony’s own in-house technology incubator Future Lab Program. It lets the sound generated behind the by the unit’s driver be directly transmitted into your ears.

The Xperia Ear Duo also has a Daily Assist feature that can recognize time, locations, and other activities and relay important information to you throughout the day. It makes use of the company’s ultra-low power consuming processor, the CXD5602, and a multi-sensor platform. As expected, it also supports Google Assistant and Siri. It comes with quad-microphone beam forming for clearer voice, four-hour battery life, its own charging case, and IPX2 splash proofing. It’s coming to the US in March and will be available in black and gold.

Source: YugaTech