Ritwick Jaiswal, Author at Exhibit Tech

How To Secure Your Digital Currency

The popularity and surge in prices of digital or cryptocurrencies in the last decade have made it more susceptible to malicious attacks and hacks. The economics of hacking suggests that cybercriminals would gravitate towards cryptos since they are increasing in value and becoming more relevant.

When your cryptocurrency account is hacked, it becomes a big challenge for you since these coins are not regulated by the government or central bank, leaving the investor’s discourse legally unviable. According to ‘Anti-Money Laundering (AML)’ reports from the blockchain security firm CipherTrace, cryptocurrency crimes hit over $4.5 billion worldwide in 2019. The numbers have only exaggerated since.

Most of these threats come through cryptocurrency wallets or digital wallets, but let us first understand what these wallets exactly are.

Crypto Wallets

No, the crypto wallets do not store your digital coins; instead, they store your private keys and allow you to send, receive, and spend cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Crypto wallets keep your private keys – the passwords that give you access to your digital currencies.

Unlike a regular wallet that holds cash, a crypto wallet does not hold cryptocurrencies. The cryptos live on the blockchain and can be accessed only by the key present in the wallet. If you lose your private keys, you lose access to your money. Yes, there you have your answers; this is why securing your wallet is so important.

How do you use a crypto wallet?

Crypto wallets can range from just a simple-to-use app to a complex security solution. There are two types of blockchain wallets based on private keys- hot wallet and cold wallet. Hot wallets are user-friendly wallets that we carry for day-to-day transactions, whereas cold wallets are like vaults that store cryptocurrencies with a high level of security. These can be further broken down into paper wallets, software wallets, and hardware wallets.

Let’s understand how crypto wallets work with a simple example. For Mark’s 23rd birthday, Frado wants to send him some money. Mark has a cryptocurrency wallet app on his phone, and he gives Fardo his public address. Following that, Frado sends one Bitcoin to the public address. Once the transaction is authenticated on the blockchain, Mark becomes the owner of the Bitcoin. Later, Mark wants to book a flight, and fortunately, his travel agent accepts the payment in bitcoin. He directs the precise amount from his crypto wallet to the travel agent and receives the ticket in return.

How to secure your cryptocurrency?

Cybercriminals use sophisticated techniques to compromise digital wallets and steal assets without the user’s knowledge. Here are some of the ways to secure your cryptocurrency.

Take a Hybrid Approach

More physical or offline wallets should be used for storing the majority of the cryptocurrency, and only a bit should be stored in the online wallet. The physical wallets should be stored securely, such as in a deposit box. The private and the public keys should be separated and secured with strong passwords and multiple authentications.

Work with Reputable Wallets, Brokerages, and Apps

Before selecting the investment platform, investors should clearly and carefully understand the platform’s security features and how their data will be protected. The platform you choose should incorporate best security practices such as requiring multifactor authentication, SSL/TLS encryption, and air-gapped devices. Whether you use one or more than one platforms, it is important to maintain a secure password manager to ensure that the password is not lost.

Be Aware

The cybersecurity provided to your wallet is only as good as your understanding of it. A crypto wallet is a piece of data and code that holds a great value for you and others. Cyberattacks are staged to establish a foothold first and expand before attacking your wallet. You need to be aware of the processes of how it is used in transactions so your networks are not compromised.

Avoid Sharing the Key

The secret key is used to validate whether the person sending or receiving the digital coins is the owner of the wallet being used. The secret or private key should never be shared and should be stored using cold storage. You should physically print out your key and remove all digital traces of it. The reason is, that attackers can hack into your devices or digital storage applications, so it is unsafe to keep a digital copy of your key.

Say No To Providers

Different providers host wallets on their servers. This is the worst choice you can make because you allow them to store your private key on their servers, which they can access anytime. This is common since it requires the least technical knowledge and effort. Instead, you can use a hardware wallet, which is a USB-based device that encrypts and stores your private key and other information.

Victorinox launches sustainable luggage for Eco-conscious business and leisure travellers

Victorinox is a global company that deals in Swiss Army knives, Household, and professional knives, Travel Gear, Watches, and fragrances that are manufactured in Switzerland. Victorinox launches sustainable luggage for its eco-conscious, style-oriented business and leisure travellers by making the travel easy yet eco-friendly.

With the launch, Victorinox takes its iconic Spectra trolley collection to the next level with functionality, and innovation and introduces pioneering new sustainability. The iconic Spectra 3.0 is the first Victorinox suitcase made of a recycled, next-generation polycarbonate shell material. This material provides sustainability without compromising on strength, performance, and impact resistance. This consideration also allows for a lower emissions footprint thanks to fewer replacements and fewer reproductions.

The Frequent Flyer Carry-On enables quick access to store a laptop, documents, and other valuables without needing to open the main case area. The compartment features an organization panel and can be locked independently from the main luggage storage thanks to a four-slot TSA approved lock.

The new Spectra 3.0 collection offers the expandable sizes Global Carry-On, Frequent Flyer Carry-On, Frequent Flyer Plus Carry-On, Medium Case and Large Case and additionally introduces a new Trunk Large Case which comes with two packing cubes for advanced organization. The Spectra 3.0 collection offers a global 1+10-year warranty and is available in speciality shops, Victorinox.com.

Mr Debraj Sengupta, CMO, Victorinox India said, “Over the past two years, we have all realized how essential it is that we create a sustainable world. The consumer community has also become more open to supporting sustainable products. Spectra 3.0 is a beautiful fusion of effortless style and eco-consciousness. Victorinox’s sustainable travel gear is a first-of-its-kind product line that offers sustainability without sacrificing strength, performance or impact resistance. I’m looking forward to hearing about our clients’ experiences.”

The Victorinox Spectra 3.0 collection offers travellers a choice of 4 size variants as follows:

Victorinox Spectra 3.0 Hardside Trunk Large Case Travel Trolley Suitcase: 99 Ltrs INR 54,120

Victorinox Spectra 3.0 Hardside Expandable Medium Case Travel Trolley Suitcase: 81 Ltrs INR 50,460

Victorinox Spectra 3.0 Hardside Expandable Global Carry-On Travel Trolley Suitcase: 39 Ltrs INR 41,700

Victorinox Spectra 3.0 Hardside Expandable Frequent Flyer Carry-On Travel Trolley Suitcase: 37 Ltrs INR 41,700

10 Perfumes & Fragrances to cool off the Indian Summer

There is a saying that you are not fully dressed without a smile. While the previous statement holds true, it is also essential to consider how good you smell.

Each perfume or cologne consists of different ‘notes’. These notes consist of three different layers; base note, top or headnote, and middle or heart notes. They all work synergistically and create different scent notes like rose, gardenia, masculine notes, or even leather-based ones.

How to choose a concentration?

Fragrances come in four different levels of concentration. And with each increasing level, the price increases. Usually, colognes with high concentration have a much more powerful scent and last longer.

The highest concentration is called perfume or parfum, which lasts all day with just a single application on the wrist. The lower level is referred to as Eau de parfum, which typically lasts about 6 hours of application. The third level of concentration is called eau de toilette, which is affordable and something you find in retail stores.

10 Best Perfumes For Indian Summer

The Versace Eros

Synonymous with the word rich, Versace stands true to the brand’s representation. Eros is considered the Greek God of love. Versace Eros has the top notes of mint, green apple, and lemon that would calm you during the summers. Base notes have the hint of tonka bean, geranium, and lighter scents, and once the base notes settle down, you get the smell of Vanilla, vetiver, and oakmoss.

The Creed Island Water

The Creed Island Water is one of the most amazing perfumes with unique notes. The top note packs a strong coconut scent with lime, bergamot, and oranges. The heart note boasts of ginger and jasmine. The base note includes sugar cane, white musk, and rum.

Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue Eau Intense

This one is a woody aquatic fragrance for both men and women with marine notes, making it one of the best Indian summer options. The scent reminds you of a cool breeze with a lot of salty accords, giving it a distinctive feel and aroma. The heart note has grape and mandarin orange with a fresh fruity opening.

Acqua Di Parma

This perfume is known for its floral and citrusy fragrance and gives you a breeze-like feel as soon as you spray it. The base and the top notes are dominated by oranges and lemons and rounded off by lavender and rosemary. It is a must-have in your summer perfumes collection.

Versace Eau Fraiche

This is one of the best-known and most used summer fragrances in India. Versace Eau Fraiche has an aquatic woody fragrance that opens up with bergamot and carambola, giving it a sparkly fresh fragrance. The added cardamom gives it a pinch of sweetness which is excellent for Indian summers.

Calvin Klein Eternity EDT

Calvin Klein is one of the most premium perfume brands in the market currently, and its Eternity Fragrance is the best. It features a singularly captivating scent that makes for a fresh and woody fragrance. The perfume packs a top note of Sage that creates instant fascination, and the base note consists of Mandarin and Amber.

Snake by Villain

This mysterious and mystical perfume brings out the wicked in you with the unique fragrance of a villain snake. It has combined notes of mandarin, bergamot, amber, and white musk. Be it Summer, winter, or fall; the fragrance will definitely turn some heads toward you.

Hugo Boss Red EDT

This will prove to be the best companion for you whenever you hit a party, date, or social event. Hugo Boss Red features a top note of grapefruit, a headnote of rhubarb, and a base note of cedarwood. It comes in a classic red bottle and will make for a good perfume collection.

Davidoff Cool Water

Besides its cool brand name, this is a unique and popular choice of fragrance for all men. It has a top note of mint and lavender, and the headnote throws down sandalwood, jasmine, geranium, and neroli, to cool you down. The base note consists of tobacco, cedar, and oakmoss masculine scents.

Amouage: Epic Man

This one has a rich fragrance and woos all your senses in a certain way. Epic Man has a woody fragrance with a headnote of geranium and bergamot. It is perfect for dinner dates and social gatherings where all the heads would be turning towards you with fascination.

Sennheiser CX Plus TWS Earbuds – What I Love and What I Don’t

Sennheiser is a brand that has a lot of reliability and sells big time as far as headphone space is concerned. The new Sennheiser CX Plus True Wireless is a reasonably priced device that is supposed to be an upgraded variant of the Sennheiser CX model that was released last year.

What does one really look for when buying wireless earbuds? Good connectivity, light and not too heavy, high music and voice quality, and most importantly should fit very well in your ears. I have tried the AirPods and Galaxy buds, but I figured that while I like those TWS buds for their superior music and voice quality, they make me feel a little insecure for running and workout purposes.

Sennheiser CX Plus Design

Let’s talk about the design first. The box is not too big but is wide enough. This makes it difficult and uncomfortable to carry it around in our pockets with that uncomfortable bulge. The case looks clean and premium, with the Sennheiser logo at the top, the front charging indicator, and the backside port.

Sennheiser CX Plus is visually identical to the previous CX model and comes with many similarities, which is not a bad thing. They are lightweight and come with four different-sized ear tips. However, the only negative point here is that they are very bulky.

Sennheiser CX Plus Features

Sennheiser has included Active Noise Cancellation in this one which is a serious upgrade from their previous model. ANC in this one is pretty good, and it manages to curb the outside noise. I usually travel by local trains and often get stuck in traffic jams. Answering calls with regular earphones in these situations is a big task. Sennheiser CX Plus did a great job here by providing clear voice quality and easy delivery of my voice to the receiver.

The CX Plus has a capacitive touch panel that controls calling and playback with single, double and triple taps. Here is what controls what-

One Tap on the right side – play/pause
One Tap on the left side – Transparency mode
Two Taps – Next or previous song
Three Taps – ANC
Hold – Volume up/down

The Sennheiser Smart Control App is an easy and well-laid-out app that easily connects to your earbuds once they are paired with your mobile device. Through this app, you can adjust your earbud’s EQ, where you can raise or lower your frequency line. You can also set different presets for later purposes.

The Sennheiser CX Plus connects with your phone using the Bluetooth 5.2 firmware, which is a lower latency codec. The earbuds claim to last up to 8 hours with a single charge, and our testing reveals that it runs a little short of that but not too much. The CX Plus holds a charging capacity of 16 hours but lacks fast charging.

Sennheiser CX Plus Voice Quality

These earbuds are amazing for music. The sound quality is as good as you’d expect out of Sennheiser. In fast-paced pop songs, you could hear all the instruments and the separation is crisp and rich, and full, with a nice, warm, and capable bass that does not sound very overpowering. For most of the genres, the sound is very well balanced and with EQ, it delivers exactly what you want. I am a really big fan of classical music and there is this song called ‘Dastaan by Tajdar Junaid’, and the sound of the instruments felt heavenly to my ears with Sennheiser CX Plus.

With ANC, you feel like you have left the world backstage. After a long day at work, when I am sitting in an auto-rickshaw towards my home, Active Noise Cancellation plays its part in helping me relax to the tunes of Jazz while the honks and the chaos just slips back into void.

Conclusion

Honestly, Sennheiser CX Plus is a good buy for a price tag of Rs 14,990, mainly if you like listening to music. Also, one thing that holds me back is its disability to pair fast, which is a turn-off. Overall, I would rate it 3.5 out of 5.

OnePlus Launched OnePlus 10 Pro Along With OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z2

OnePlus has launched its latest flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 10 Pro, an extension of its Never Settle product philosophy. What does one expect from a flagship device? A top of the line processor, more than enough RAM and storage, a great camera, and a premium design. And this is exactly what the OnePlus 10 Pro has to offer.

Design

It’s very difficult for a smartphone to stand out in the market since most of them look just the same. OnePlus 10 Pro is anything but a routine looking smartphone. It comes in two distinct colours – Volcanic Black and Emerald Forest and comes with a not-so-regular glass back. The back of the Volcanic Black model has micro-crystals that make the smartphone look like glittery grains of sand are boxed in it. The camera unit is the star aspect of this smartphone. The camera effortlessly blends into the metal frame of the smartphone and flows to the side of the phone.

Specifications & Price

The OnePlus 10 Pro has a 6.7 inch 2K AMOLED display with a 120hz refresh rate and comes with dual-colour calibration, a one-of-a-kind technology that ensures the delivery of natural and accurate colours. The triple camera setup consists of a 48 MP main sensor, a 50 MP ultra-wide sensor and an 8 MP telephoto sensor.

The smartphone runs on OxygenOS and is based on Android 12. The phone has a 5,000 mAh battery which can easily go through a day of heavy usage. In addition, you get an 80W SuperVOOC charger in the box. OnePlus 10 Pro runs on Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. The 8 GB RAM /128 GB Storage variant is priced at ₹66,999, while the 12 GB RAM + 256 GB Storage is priced at ₹71,999.

Conclusion

The OnePlus 10 Pro manages to deliver better performance, camera, and other aspects than the OnePlus 9RT, which was released last year. It also stands out from other smartphones in terms of design which is one of the major challenges for most smartphones.

Love and Lust For Sneakers

As we move into 2022, we often reflect upon our habits in the form of new year resolutions. And when it comes to sneakers, ‘hype beasts’ and ‘sneakerheads’ have their priorities set. I have always wondered why I am naturally driven to buy new sneakers, but I wonder how some people do not care much about their shoes.

I fall in love with sneakers anywhere and everywhere – in elevators, where my introverted eyes shyly glance downwards, in subways where I rethink the entire purpose of my existence and dimly lit bars. I have always had this fetish of being the best dressed in the room, and some readers move with the same mindset. It’s a sort of dopamine for our kind of people.

I have always believed there are two kinds of sneakerheads: one that lives for the hype, i.e. they buy and collect only those sneakers that are hyped in the market either for their history or for their hot collaborations. Another group doesn’t submit to the hype and buy whatever they think would fit their style.

The people who collect sneakers for the hype and history appreciate the culture as much or maybe even more than those who buy it just for the sake of wearing it. I remember visiting a friend’s place, and the first thing he showed me was his wardrobe filled with Jordans and Dunks. Upon asking why most of the sneakers were left unworn, he said something that stayed with me, “few things are not to be touched but observed.” The subtle thread connecting each exhibit element is a scattering of disparate experiences of self-professed “sneakerheads” and the artistic ways their stories are told.

Sneakers have always been an essential part of the black culture, and many of these observations come from the African-American community. The Rise of Sneaker Culture is educational – acknowledging how the black community interacts with the modern world. The culture has now spread across every corner of the world, and you can now find at least one of your friends who claim to be a ‘sneakerhead’.

Every sneaker is unique, and maintaining a pair of kicks is seen as more of an investment as the value of specific models such as signature Jordans and rare Air Max models continue to climb up even after we wear them a few times.

Is it just an impulsive decision?

Sneakerheads were thought to be a fad group that embraced compulsive and impulsive buying behaviour upon their first introduction. However, the community has had a positive economic impact within the marketplace with their resell activity over the years. Sneakerheads seek out rare sneaker collections and exclusive celebrity collaborations and create a sense of scarcity to sell them at a relatively higher price.

Where did it all start?

Most sneakerheads credit the origin of street style and sneaker subculture to the late 1970s/early 1980s with the introduction of the hip-hop era. During this time, sneakers became synonymous with street culture, and some of the most iconic sneakers like Puma Clydes, Adidas Shell Toes, Converse Chuck Taylors were introduced to the streets.

But this wasn’t it. The real boost to the sneaker industry came with the introduction of Nike Air Jordan 1s in 1985, arguably one of the most significant introductions ever, which changed the sneaker game completely. The shoe gained its notoriety because it collaborated with one of the biggest athletes of the generation Michael Jordan. The shoe has a great history since the NBA initially banned it after Jordan wore it to the court.

The Air Jordans have continued to gain popularity since its introduction and now accounts for half of the basketball shoe market. The series currently has several shoe drops and has sold over 100 million pairs. Brands like Adidas and Reebok tried to strike the lightning twice. They tried to recreate the aesthetic of Air Jordan, even mixing in exotic colors developing new comfort technologies like ‘the pump’ that would fill your shoe with air for a better fit. In the mid-80s and 90s, the footwear seen across schoolyards and city streets could say a lot about your social status.

Present Love For Sneakers

It’s not that Nike days are over, but Kanye West created a new wave of fashion that has somewhat a cult following. The sneaker world goes into a frenzy whenever a new Adidas Yeezy is released. I don’t think that anybody besides Virgil Abloh had that sort of effect. Whether you miss the old Kanye and love the new Kanye, who is more bold and outspoken, there’s no denying the impact he had on every corner of fashion and pop culture.

In my opinion, Kanye’s genius shaped the state of the sneaker world we live in today. In 2015 when the Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 was released, people could wear it every day. It opened up a world of possibilities and opted for a much sleeker silhouette overall. It became a massive success right from the start, and Since then, it has only ever released Yeezy shoes in minimal supply.

The Future

Something that began as a humble rubber company invention is now a juggernaut of the apparel industry. The sneaker industry today brings nearly $60 billion annually and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in its research, development, and branding. The iconic fashion presence of sneakers shows no sign of slowing down in the future as well.