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Sony wireless speakers

Sony has launched the SRS-RA5000 and SRS-RA3000, its latest premium wireless speakers. Equipped with Sony’s unique spatial sound technologies and packed with smart features, the speakers fill your room with your favorite background music. The ambient room-filling sound creates a calm atmosphere, allowing you to relax as if you were at your favorite café. Perfect for everyone, these speakers allow you to immerse yourself in your favorite music and create a calm and unobtrusive atmosphere where music is your perfect companion every day.

Unlike most speakers that spread sound horizontally, these speakers spread background music both horizontally (wallto-wall) and vertically (floor-toceiling) with Immersive Audio Enhancement and Sony’s 360 Reality Audio content playback.

The RA5000 and RA3000 provide Immersive Audio Enhancement (IAE) based on Sony’s unique algorithm, transforming 2-channel stereo tracks into ambient room-filling sound. Whether you’re cooking, cleaning, working or catching up with friends, the speakers diffuses sound both horizontally and vertically to envelop you in all directions, while recreating a soothing atmosphere.

NOKIA 5.4

Championing speed and performance at amazing value, the Nokia 5.4 is the perfect partner for budding photographers. The signature quad camera stamps out shutter lag completely and has been upgraded to 48 megapixels – that’s 162 times better than the first Nokia camera phone (the Nokia 7650). This means you’ll never miss a moment – whether your capturing your passion project or precious family moments.

Treasured videos will look richer than ever with professional colour grading for a cinematic feel to your home and work movies. As for that all-important performance, the Nokia 5.4 promises a faster and smoother experience.

The impressive combo of a 48MP quad camera and 16MP front camera allow you to take stunning photos and videos. Capturing incredible detail at any time and in any place has never been easier – be it in the light, dark, at home or on the move. The main camera’s ultra-wide lens takes in the bigger picture and is perfect for expansive landscape shots. Meanwhile, the depth and macro cameras will get those portraits and close-up snaps just right. Shutter lag is so often the ruin of that on-the-move, once in a lifetime shot – for the Nokia 5.4, this has been reduced to zero, meaning you won’t miss that neveragain moment.

Thales doublesided ID reader

Thales has announced the world’s only doublesided ID card reader, the first to be able to examine ID cards or driving licenses in the cloud in less than four seconds. The design of the intelligent reader allows to speed up the process, while guaranteeing a high security level, and offering cost benefits to the operators. It simplifies the process of ID verification and offers a touchless check, which is all the more important in the Covid-19 era.

The Thales Gemalto Intelligent Double-sided ID Card Reader CR5400i enables fast, secure and remote identity document verification. The reader protects Fortinet announced the FortiGate Rugged 60F with built-in LTE next-generation firewalls, the industry’s first secure SD-WAN appliances certified to perform in operational technology (OT) environments. Built for non-environmentally controlled sites, these new ruggedized versions of the FortiGate platform enable the easy deployment of Fortinet’s industry leading Secure SD-WAN solution in locations never before possible for OT organizations in industries such as utilities and energy, manufacturing, and transportation.

In addition to being the only Secure SD-WAN appliance certified for operational technology environments, the FortiGate Rugged 60F platform delivers the industry’s highest security and networking performance. Powered by Fortinet’s patented SOC4 SD-WAN ASIC, the FortiGate Rugged 60F platform delivers low-latency protection, including SSL decryption, and higher IPsec VPN scale on top of integrated SD-WAN capabilities that are all managed by Fortinet’s intuitive SD-WAN orchestrator. Fortinet’s solution is also backed by industry validation. businesses (airports, casinos, hotels, stores, etc.) from fraud and forgery thanks to sophisticated mechanisms for superior document authentication. The “i” version permits multiple intelligent readers to be centrally connected via WiFi – ideal for organisations that need to deploy a fleet of readers such as retail stores and financial institutions. The compact device can also be set up, managed and serviced remotely. Using the device is very easy: the user simply inserts their ID card into the reader which reads both sides of the card simultaneously. Once this action is complete, a LED changes from blue to green and the ID is ejected and returned to its owner with no physical interaction between the user and operator. It provides a better customer

FORTIGATE RUGGED 60F

experience while capturing and authenticating scanned data.

Belkin SOUNDFORM audio

Belkin, has unveiled two new products across its SOUNDFORM audio portfolio and BOOST↑CHARGE mobile power collection, adding new device location features utilising Apple’s Find My network, and expanding its lineup of MagSafe compatible products.

The SOUNDFORM Freedom True Wireless Earbuds offer an enhanced listening experience with custom-built drivers, 8-hour non-stop play time, environmental noise cancellation, and Qi wireless charging with an additional 20 hours of charge. The new True Wireless Earbuds are also built with finding capabilities through Apple’s Find My network, an advanced crowdsourced finding network with uncompromising privacy built in, that will allow customers to use the Find My app to locate them in case they are lost or stolen.

Belkin’s signature sound with custom drivers deliver powerful bass and exceptional clarity. Together with the Qualcomm QCC3046 Bluetooth SoC, Belkin’s clear call technology delivers the best possible call quality without the distraction of background noise, said the firm.

WAYS OF WORKING IN 2021 AND BEYOND ASSAAD EL SAADI, REGIONAL DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST, PURE STORAGE, SAYS WE SHOULD RETHINK, REFRESH AND REVISE HOW WE WORK

To say that 2020 has been a tumultuous year would be an understatement. We’ve faced disruption and upheaval to every facet of our personal and professional lives, including routines that we have relied on for years if not decades, right down to buying groceries and exercising. Understandably, many of us have been left wondering when things might go back to normal. With vaccines now available, there are early signs that we may be on the road back to normality.

However, just because we may be able to return to the status quo in 2021, who’s to say that we should? I speak in the context of our professional lives. This year has presented us with an opportunity to take pause and rethink the way we live and work, as well as the chance to establish a new sense of balance moving forwards. 2020 has been a challenging year but the optimist in me sees the silver linings. For example, many of us have eliminated long or costly commutes and traded non-essential meetings and international travel for tele-working and Zoom calls, resulting in more time spent with our families, room for hobbies, a lower carbon footprint and a decrease in global emissions to name a few.

In particular, over the last several months I have spent a lot of time thinking about how we have navigated this change, how to apply key learnings, and how to help my colleagues and their teams adapt to the new normal that’s set to arrive in 2021 and beyond. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1Empathy comes first – at this time, more than ever, empathy must come first in every conversation. “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood” – Stephen Covey

2Energy stores are generated by Self, Family, Work in that order

– Focus on your own health and your family bond in order to supercharge your energy available at work.

3Perspective helps people process

change – maximise your exposure to a wide array of opinions, including ones that conflict with what you believe. Challenge your thinking and create new opinions. Share your learnings with your teams.

4Remote meetings – evolve your format - Don’t simply leverage Zoom as a platform for your meetings, evolve the way you conduct meetings to drive engagement, participation and most importantly collaboration – think about breakout rooms, post-it notes and whiteboard functionality to really change the experience.

5Integrate podcasts to break-

through monotony of webinars. In my opinion thoughtful dialogue delivered via podcast provides a different forum than conference calls or webinars and within my organisation, overall knowledge and learnings have dramatically improved. One of the things I love best about the podcast format is how easy it is to access them on my mobile device and having the choice to listen to just the audio, or to get a richer experience with video for those shows that are also filmed.

6Ruthlessly Prioritise – Focus on what is important, eliminate “busy work” with no tangible outcomes and help your teams prioritise outcomes over activity. Inspect the outcomes, not the tasks.

7Get beyond the walls of your

office – Get out of your home office, enjoy nature, listen to a podcast, or even take a call the “old school” way while walking around the neighborhood. Video conferencing is an incredible technology but it is not intended to replace every other form of communication.

8Communicate to your teams with

an emphasis on ‘why’ – Help your teams connect every announcement or corporate change with the relevance to your organisation and why it matters. You should also make the connection clear as to how changes and developments will help employees deliver a better service/experience to your customers.

9Cut yourself some slack – This is hard and not every idea you try is going to work. Be honest with yourself and your teams about what is working and what is not. Don’t be afraid to show humility. We are going through 10 years of change in less than 12 months and there are bound to be bumps along the road.

There are countless other lessons to be learned from this year, but if you can integrate some of these learnings into your work life you’ll soon see the benefits. Your colleagues will appreciate a conscious effort to lead by example through compassion and a laser-focus on outcomes. Indeed, companies and managers who place physical and mental health of employees first and foremost are set to attract and retain the best talent. Those leaders who champion empathy, an innovative way of doing business and an understanding and recognition of their employees’ unique personal lives will get the most out of their staff, regardless of whether this is in-person or remote. It will be interesting to see which companies get it right, and whether new companies emerge to take market share from those unable to adapt to this uniquely challenging environment.