My VST-706 3-in-1 car battery voltage monitor, digital thermometer and USB charger

I have just bought this VST-706 car gadget which plugs into the car cigarette lighter socket and function as 3-in-1:

• Battery voltmeter
• Digital thermometer
• USB 2.0 charger

This little car gadget cost less than RM30 and works with car using 12V battery or 24V battery.

The interpretation of its voltmeter reading is as follow:

Its thermometer measuring range is -9 ~ 80 degree Celsius.

The maximum output current of its USB charging port is 2.1A.

With it, you can always monitor the voltage of your car battery and be alerted of its faulty and timing for its end-of-life, before it went flat. The thermometer and USB charger are extra features that good to have too.

My SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0

The price of USB flash drive has eventually gone cheap. Nowadays, you can get a genuine 16GB SanDisk Ultra dual USB drive 3.0 with plug-and-play support to OTG-enabled Android devices at the price of less than RM20.

This SanDisk Ultra dual USB drive 3.0 has 2 connectors. At one end is a USB 3.0 connector that is able to transfer file to computer at a speed of up to 130 MBps (or about 1 Gbps).

Note that there is another product called "SanDisk Ultra dual USB drive" without the "3.0" behind, selling at slightly cheaper price, which the USB connector is a USB 2.0 connector and the data transfer speed is much lower than the 3.0 version.

At the other end is a micro-USB connector that can work on the fly with OTG-enabled Android devices.

Similar with the warranty period of most SanDisk Ultra range of products, this SanDisk Ultra dual USB drive 3.0 comes with a 5 years warranty.

Once plugged into the micro-USB port of the Android device, this USB flash drive is auto-detected by Android as one of the external storages and is immediately accessible by File Manager of Android system.

SanDisk also provides a free mobile app called SanDisk Memory Zone for user to access the USB flash drive and to transfer file between it and the device's internal storage or flash memory card installed in the device.

However, I found the function of this SanDisk Memory Zone app is very limited. It doesn't work with the folders in the USB flash drive so you can only copy file to its root directory, and the copying process is pretty slow.

The only Android app I found that can work with it without hassle is ES File Explorer Pro (or its free version ES File Explorer).

ES File Explorer Pro is able to detect and use this OTG drive upon plugged in, and all file operations of copying, moving, renaming, deleting, creating, opening with associated app, etc. can work well without problem.

ES File Explorer Pro works equally well to access my SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0 with my HTC One M8 smartphone running on Android 6.0 and my Samsung Galaxy Note 5.0 tablet running on Android 4.4.2.

OCBC Bank launched open API for developers to integrate apps with their open data

In line with Singapore Government's Smart Nation Initiative and the Monetary Authority of Singapore's vision to create a Smart Financial Centre and move toward an open API architecture, OCBC Bank has on 17 May 2016 launched their open Application Programming Interface (API) platform, namely CONNECT2OCBC,  that allows software developers to integrate their apps or websites with OCBC's open data related to their products and services.

OCBC claims to be the first in Southeast Asia to introduce such open API service, playing a bigger role in growing the FinTech ecosystem.

For a start, 4 APIs are made available:

• Branch Locator provides a list of OCBC Bank branches with their respective location details and operating hours.
• Credit Card Advisor provides credit card suggestions based on user's lifestyle.
• ATM Locator provides a list of OCBC Bank ATMs with their location details to facilitate users in finding them.
• Forex provides a list of updated currency exchange rates by OCBC, allowing the integrated apps to perform calculations across currencies.

Although these 4 APIs looks limited, it is deemed as a good start. Hopefully more APIs will be made available for broader and deeper usage in the near future.

Click here for more information about the CONNECT2OCBC APIs.

Besides, OCBC has also established a new business unit called The Open Vault @ OCBC, which is a FinTech innovation center aimed to incubate FinTech startups, helping them make products and services that the bank can add to its digital banking arsenal or bring to the market.

The 5 areas of interest of Open Vault @ OCBC are:

• Wealth management
• Credit and financing
• Insurance
• Cyber security
• Artificial intelligence

The center has partnered with Hong Kong venture capital firm Nest to run the OCBC FinTech Accelerator incubation program to provide selected start-ups with business and technical expertise mentorship.