Digit - June 2016

The Static Page

15 minutes of fame

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f you haven’t already figured out from the cover, I couldn’t be happier to shout it out one more time: it’s our anniversary issue this month! Not many of you know this, but beneath the excitement and glossy pages of every anniversary issue is the toil of a countless tired Digitians. A bunch of extremely stressed out writers, editors, and interns spend every waking moment that month (apart from a few CS:GO sessions) trying to figure out how best to give our readers the maximum in this one mega issue. Right from the brainstorming at the start of the month to the very last days of closing when we are barely able to keep our bleary eyes open, we are constantly trying to answer questions like “What can we do different this time?”, “Are readers ready for yet another CTC?”, “Could we squeeze in another poster or DVD?” and many other such heated discussions. This time we upped it a notch further, for this isn’t just any anniversary, it’s the fifteenth year since the first-ever Digit rolled off the presses in 2001! That’s a loooong time – almost an entire generation ago some would say; after all, many of our readers are exactly as old as the magazine is. Even younger perhaps. A lot has happened over the years, not just in technology but also in the lives of the people who’ve been working here at Digit. Those of you who are regular readers will know from Digit Diary that many of us do what we do as a passion; it’s not ‘just a job’. As a result, many of the columns this month are likely to be nostalgic. Can you really blame us? Another thing you’ll notice is the “15” theme in the entire magazine and package. Right from the stories in Digit and SKOAR! to the minibooklet and even the columns – it’s all to do with the number 15. For mine, I’ve decided to go with the often overused phrase “15 minutes of fame” that’s attributed to Andy Warhol. Andy supposedly said it when a bunch of bystanders were trying to get into the frame when he was being photographed. With the rise of social media, ordinary folks don’t have to rubberneck their way into celebrity photographs to get their 15 minutes of fame. Sure, they can do it to photobomb their pictures, but that’s an entirely different motivation. For a quick rise to nebulous stardom, technology has enabled just about anyone to have their 15 seconds or even 15 nanoseconds of fame - sometimes even

accidentally, like Zeddie Little the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy who was caught smiling at the camera while running a marathon. He became an overnight sensation and a full-fledged meme. Those seeking their 15 minutes today have several avenues brought to you through technology – social media, YouTube, Podcasting, Vines, Instagram, and what have you. Of course internet fame isn’t new, but what’s new is that now it’s not limited to just people like you and me. Even companies and startups have their flash-in-the-pan limelight moments too before fizzling out. Change, especially in the world of technology, is the only constant. Nothing is forever. Forget startups, even established companies and monopolies fall or at the very least undergo a metamorphosis. Nokia, Blackberry, Apple, Microsoft – just about any name you can think of – have found this out the hard way. If Google’s antitrust lawsuit and the recent tax evasion raid in the EU and Facebook’s misguided Free Basics foray are anything to go by, I’m pretty sure those two giants could have their brush with this phenomenon soon enough. Historically, there have been some companies and entities that have bucked this trend like the great motor companies of the world, but they will also undergo a transformative phase in the years to come, thanks to upstarts such as Tesla Motors. What about Digit? I am fortunate enough to at least be a part of more than half of this 15-year illustrious history and while it’s a good time to reflect on what Digit has achieved so far, what is more important is to look at the next 15 years. Digit has already been the tech navigator to at least one generation (mine included obviously), but will Digit be around when your kids are 15? I’m certain it will. The medium would have changed (Us paper toting luddites will be shunned by then probably), the kind of stories we do might be different, I might not be around, but Digit surely will be there, guiding yet another generation through the tech minefield.

Siddharth Parwatay Managing Editor [email protected]

“Many of the columns this month are likely to be nostalgic. Can you really blame us?”

Let me know at: facebook.com/staticsid | @staticsid | [email protected]

Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 1

Big Bytes

15 years ago, I went all in…

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Jayesh Shinde Technical Editor – Test Centre [email protected]

“Yes, I didn’t build my first PC with my own bare hands, but by the mere fact that it was assembled by parts bought separately had a huge impact on me at the time."

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: facebook.com/jayesh.shinde | @jshinde | [email protected]

2 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

ostalgia can be a nice little escape from the present reality. It’s a happy place where everything’s hunky dory, life becomes simpler, more exciting and innocentseeming than everyone’s current predicament. Memories that are largely unaltered, yours alone for eternity. And I have a lot of fond memories from 15 years ago. It was a defining year of my life for more reasons that one. Technology, obviously, played a big part in it. For it was in the summer of 2001, right after my SSC results came out and there was no doubt in my parents’ minds that I had spent myself completely in the great academic rat race, managing to not fail any subjects and actually doing really well in quite a few, that they decided to give in to my one and only request. I had to upgrade the home PC and get rid of the old abomination that sat in my father’s room, which even the friendly, neighbourhood electronics guy wouldn’t dare to touch anymore. After half a decade spent playing with the rejected old PC from my father’s office, finally, I was going to get my first PC, and I had been given a budget to toe. The moment that I’d dreamt of every night for the past couple of years had finally arrived. So many thoughts raced through my head, but raising a mental middle finger in the faces of all my colony and school friends is the only spontaneous reaction I remember. I was laughing at their loathing and misery, literally feeling on top of the world. As I dialled the number of a PC assembler from a now defunct shop on Mumbai’s Lamington Road, I knew what I had to do. You see, my best friend’s father had gifted him a HP Pavilion 8750 desktop PC (http://dgit.in/HP8750) the previous year. While I enjoyed playing games on his PC and watching movies on CD drives, I knew deep down in my heart that my PC would have to be more powerful than his pre-configured, off-the-shelf HP machine. The stakes were high, but settling for an inferior machine was just not an option. I had to pull out all the stops. Which meant tears. Crying was a price I was willing to pay to nudge my father into widening his budget by a smidge, as the PC assembler tasked with besting my friend’s PC configuration proved to be a shrewd businessman. Within a couple of days, he came bearing gifts.

I won’t ever forget that moment when I cold booted my very own PC to life for the very first time – how naive was I, right? I saw the boot screen fly by, the loading screen of Windows 98, and the system’s final sprint to the GUI desktop accompanied by beeping sounds and flashing LEDs. I was bewitched under a spell. I noticed that this wasn’t a barebones install of Windows – it came with bonus gifts like a ton of popular games pre-installed (pirated, of course). As I turned around to shake the “Good Guy PC assembler’s” hands, I think I may have let a solitary tear of joy run down my cheek. I was in heaven! I didn’t sleep that night. There was so much to do on my new PC, so many games to play – Need For Speed II Special Edition! The next day was a special one, too. As I called my best friend into my room, booting up my PC to show him the components inside, his jaw literally hit the floor. He was dumbstruck. My PC’s configuration (Intel Pentium 4 running at 1.3 GHz, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, RIVA TNT2 graphics with 32MB dedicated memory space, 40GB SATA hard drive, and a 3.5-inch floppy drive) was much better than his HP Pavilion 8750’s (Intel Celeron 633 MHz, 64MB of DDR SDRAM, onboard AGP graphics, 20GB SATA hard drive, and a 3.5-inch floppy drive). Now it was his time to cry and throw a fit at his dad. What fun! Yes, I didn’t build my first PC with my own bare hands, but by the mere fact that it was assembled by parts bought separately had a huge impact on me at the time. To show off even more of my new love of computers, I realized something – I had to convince my father to get me a VSNL pack that would let HyperTerminal connect to the Internet. Oh, and one other thing. Later that year was also the first time I ever picked up a Digit issue. The thought of playing the latest game demos bundled in the CD on my spanking new PC was just too hard to resist for my teenage self. And look where it led to!

Contents JUNE 2016

VOLUME 16 \ ISSUE 06

QUICK

NAVIGATOR 001 ENTER 024 DGT Desire Greed Temptation

SMART 082 STREET Agent 001 Killer Rigs Top 3

086 TRIED&TESTED Comparison Test Bazaar

103 WORLD VIEW 107 DEVWORX TECH 111 SCI Tomorrow’s Tech

Top mobile phones of the past 15 years 48 15 Here’s a look at the most unique phones of the past decade that defined our mobile addiction

Space Age

117 ESC Unwind Community

TRIED & TESTED


15 Indian startups that fizzled out

A number of startups emerge everyday but not many can face the heat. Here are the ones that dissipated with time

100

95 KINDLE OASIS

96 CHROMECAST 2

For a more premium experience

98 SAMSUNG GALAXY S7

A better streaming dongle

Incrementally improved

ON THE DVD Android Studio

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (32/64-bit)

Android Studio Plugins

Gaming Clients

Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Android platform development.

24 Garmin Forerunner 735XT The watch for your multi-sporting needs

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Step 3

111 Exoskeletons

Is the Iron Man suit meant only for comic books? Think again

.ignore Autoscroll Save BashSupport Builder CodeGlance ErLang Grep Console IdeaVim JFormDesigner Material design icons Scala

Essentials

Avast Antivirus Malwarebytes Anti-Malware OpenOffice VirtualBox VLC Media Player

Reverse Engineering

Alarm Clock Radio Coffee Maker Digital Camera DVD Player Universal Remote Control

Ubuntu is a complete desktop Linux operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. Desura Game Jolt Origin Play Fire GOG Galaxy Uplay

Gaming Tools

GameSave Manager TeamSpeak 3 Open Broadcaster Software MSI Afterburner

Games

Brawlhalla Crazy Killer Creativerse Dirty Bomb Unturned Worm.is

NVIDIA Special Event Pascal GTX 1080/1080 Ansel

114 James Webb

Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope’s successor is sure worth looking

ANDROID STUDIO AND PLUGINS

DVD

GAMING CLIENTS GAMING TOOLS

100 JAYS U-JAYS

101 ASUS ROG G501

Unmatched comfort & great sound

A thin and light gamer


June 2016 • Volume 16 • Issue 06 TO ADVERTISE

Bazaar

Email: [email protected] Sales Director: Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-9582262959 Managing Director Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh Publishing Director Vikas Gupta Chief Operating Officer - 9.9 Tech Krishna Kumar Editorial Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay Multimedia Co-ordinator Abhijit Dey Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Nikhil Punjabi Intern Mehul Bhagwani, Manish Rajesh Ankush Maiti Test Centre Technical Editor Jayesh Shinde Senior Reviewer Mithun Mohandas Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco Assistant Vikas Patil digit.in Editor Soham Raninga Assistant Editor Prasid Banerjee, Sameer Mitha Features Editor Adamya Sharma Design Creative Director Tharakaram G Sr. Art Director Anil VK Associate Art Director Anil T Visualiser NV Baiju Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi Peterson PJ, Manjith PB & Pradeep G Nair Contributing Designer Vijay Padaya Online & Marcom Design Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi Sr. Designer Manoj Kumar VP Photography Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi Contributors Writers Paanini Navilekar, Ashwin Krishnan, Dhinoj Dhings, Vishvesh Jatain, Ronak Gupta Production and Logistics Sr GM - Operations Shivshankar Hiremath Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay Asst Production Manager Vilas Mhatre Manager Logistics Vijay Menon Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari Brand Product Mgr Soham Raninga Asst Product Mgr Sourabha Shakya Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh Circulation Sales Head - Circulation Samir Mehta Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Norbert Joseph Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh Reader Services Team Leader Sudhir Patel Executives Poonam, Bhishm, Nilesh & Narendra +91-22-67899678 / [email protected] Cover Illustration & Design Peterson PJ


PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH

South: Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961 West: Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247 North: Debleena Majumdar, Mobile: +91-98101 19492 East: Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Mobile: +91-93318 29284

Kindle Oasis Pebble Time Round Chromecast 2 Smartron t.book Lenovo Zuk Z1 u-JAYS Asus ROG G501 ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming ITX/ac Samsung Galaxy S7 Circle Gaming Adroit X7C Comparison Test - Camera Phones:

ADVERTISING INDEX

LeEco Le 1s Eco

Brand .................................................. Page No.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3

Seagate .......................................................................IFC

Moto G4 Plus

Toshiba ........................................................................IBC Gigabyte........................................................Back cover Bajaj................................................................................... 3 iBall ........................................................................... 7, 83

HTC Desire 828 Dual SIM HTC Desire 728G OnePlus X Moto X Play Lenovo Vibe Shot

Kingston........................................................................... 9

Vivo V3 Max

D-Link ............................................................................. 11

Xiaomi Mi 5

SBI Cards ..............................................................13, 17

HTC One A9

Mediatek ........................................................................15 LIC ..................................................................................19

Oppo F1 Plus LG Nexus 5X Huawei Nexus 6P

Cooler Master.............................................................. 21 MSI..................................................................................23

Apple iPhone 6S Plus Samsung Galaxy S7

TP-Link...........................................................................31 RDP..................................................................................33 Circle ...............................................................................35 Corsair ............................................................................27 India Antivirus .................................................117, 119 Quantum..................................................................... 120

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Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of the owners, M/s Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published at A-262, 2nd Floor, Defence colony, New Delhi-110024 and printed at International Print-O-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U..P.) INDIA. Editor : Kanak Ghosh. “We do not endorse or recommend any product or service DOWNLOAD adverBLIPPAR tised in the magazine. The advertisement’s in this magazine are for information purposes only. We do not, expressly or impliedly, warrant or assume any liability or responsibility for the quality, accuracy, completeness, legality, reliability, usefulness or claims of any product or service advertised in the magazine. Our readers FILL SCREEN WITH IMAGE are strongly advised to carry out their own independent assessment of the product or services advertised in the magazine.” DOWNLOAD BLIPPAR

Disclaimer For every Digit contest, there will be only one winner, unless specified otherwise. In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall be final.

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Column

15 Men & 1 woman I

Adamya Sharma Features Editor [email protected]

“The guys I work with everyday, ‘The boys’ as I call them, are up to all sorts of shenanigans all day"

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: Twitter: @Adamya_s


f the title of my piece is making your thoughts stray in all different directions, let me put your mind to rest. Yes, we writers sometimes use such underhanded methods to grab your attention. If you are reading this, you’re most likely a man, or at least on your way to becoming one. You may be wondering who these 15 men are, and what is the deal with this 1 woman I’m talking about. To quench your curiosity, let me first introduce you to myself and my life. Have you ever met a girl who can sit through multiple hours of gameplay just watching the screen with wonder and even occasionally picking up that controller to play? Do you know women who wake up in the morning to the sound of Tech YouTube videos playing discreetly in the adjacent room? Ever had a long conversation with a woman about the difference between active and passive 3D, or about the company making the next iPhone’s processor? Well, that’s me. And, that is probably the reason why I found myself, the only girl, working in a tech publication with a team of 15 extremely geeky guys. “Will you be intimidated by so many guys in the team?” A question that was asked when I first dared to interview with Digit, left me struggling to answer for a split second. My mind said “YES!” But, that little voice inside suddenly found its strength and answered, “No, in fact I’m afraid it could go the other way around.” Truth be told, I was petrified! Although I did know my sh*t, so to speak, I was overawed by those whose words I read even as a child. Nevertheless, what has followed since then is an experience few of my kind would have had. If you saw us, in our zone, the cozy space we share with posters from our gaming mag SKOAR! scattered across the walls, it would be very easy to point the odd one out (female and maybe the one with the cleanest desk). The guys I work with everyday, ‘The boys’ as I call them, are up to all sorts of shenanigans all day. There’s Shrey who is always eagerly scouring for news every morning, after taking an unimaginably long metro ride, full of relentless commuters and inter-

esting smells. He always has a story to tell. Then there’s Hardik, the official jester of the office, who has an inter-office Slack group named after him. We call it ‘Sh*t Hardik says’. Prasid is hard to miss with a mountain of smartphones and empty boxes surrounding what he likes to call ‘his corner’ – the one he called dibs on. If you see a small head with giant headphones on it, that would be Souvik. He’s usually occupied wrapping his brains around our stories as he edits with electronica blasting in his ears. Sameer is the king of the ‘that’s what she said’ jokes, and you might have spotted him way too many times on our YouTube channel (or making people jump up in their seats with his incessant antics). Bossman Soham is working the clock all day, while he stays tuned to the buzzing conversation in the room and occasionally breaks out that brilliant one-liner, which leaves us all in splits. And then...there’s me. My long-distance colleagues, the lords of the Digit Magazine and the guys publishing this column right here, work out of maximum city. If you think Bombay (what veterans call it) and Delhi are two cities always competing with each other, you are right. But In our case, the arguments that usually ensue revolve around disagreements on the best smartphone of the year, or who gets to review a game or how it’s so unfair that some of us have mind blowing gaming rigs at work (That’s the ‘Bombay boys’) while other make do with standard issue PCs, laptops and tablets (That’s us). Sound like a handful. Don’t they? Be that as it may, I think I’m finally where I wanted to be. A place where I am constantly challenged yet, when I need to, I can throw some punches around (literally). The geeks that surround me daily remind me of why I love my profession in the first place. Because, there’s no better job than that where barriers of gender are broken, where men and women can together wonder like children at the marvels of modern innovation, where everything is always a possibility, you just need to find the right app to do it. A place governed solely by tech. A place like no other. A place called Digit.

Column

15 years to smartphone saturation, and beyond

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Prasid Banerjee, Assistant Editor, Digit.in [email protected]

“Electronic Blood, VPUs, rollable displays, 3D chips, are all examples of innovation that are going to happen sometime in the future"

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: https://www.facebook.com/ jefferson.hope/ @undertecher/ prasid@ digit.in


n 2001, a friend of mine used to carry the famed Moto Razr v3i. By 2007, he had changed phones twice, and was now using a Fly Hummer. Me? I had progressed from a Nokia 1600b, to a Moto Flip, to the Sony Ericsson R306i radio, all quintessential utility devices. That last one lasted me all the way till my first smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Y. This was around 2009, and I had a touch screen Fly phone in there somewhere, that I ignominiously lost. Around the same time, another friend went from a Nokia N96 to the Samsung Galaxy Fit. I bought my phone a few months after him, and it didn’t take us much time to come to a realisation -- our phones looked nearly the same. It didn’t really matter to me, but to him, he’d spent about 40% more, to get a similar device. “This would never have happened with my N96,” said he, disgusted and feeling betrayed by Samsung. He had a valid point. Smartphones were destined for saturation, first in terms of design, and eventually other hardware. Processors don’t double in power as easily as they used to, and cameras aren’t always better. First, there was innovation in design, then, innovation in hardware, and finally, innovation in pricing and market strategies. It’s all done and dusted now, and you have multiple OEMs, making the same device, with different branding. Even Apple is out of ideas. For each new phone that’s launched, the most common question asked, is why? Yes, everyone’s reading about phones, but they’re always wondering what’s new. Why are companies launching new phones that are barely upgrades to their original versions? Well, they of course have to make money, but won’t it be easier if they had truly “advanced” devices each year? The answer would surprise you. You see, the death of Moore’s Law has led to a lull. A lull that has chip makers, OEMs and consumers, in a fix. They find it difficult to sell stuff, and you find it difficult to buy. But this isn’t the end. Innovation will make you wait this time, but it is happening. There are things like Elec-

tronic Blood, which Dr. Bruno Michel, from IBM Research, explained in an interview in the last issue. Electronic Blood allows power delivery and cooling of a processor simultaneously. There was another story in that issue, about Vision Processing Units. We all hear about Augmented Reality, Google’s Project Tango, and DJI’s intelligent drones, but few hear what’s actually powering them. VPUs are responsible for essentially bringing eyes to machines, allowing them to see and intelligently interpret what’s around them. The same technology can, and will eventually be used in smartphones as well. Electronic Blood, VPUs, rollable displays, 3D chips, are all examples of innovation that are going to happen sometime in the future. So, let’s talk about what you can look forward to in the nearer future. The answer to that is the IoT. If you consider the smartphone as a “thing” in the Internet of Things, you’re on the right track. Historically, smartphones have evolved due to a need, increased utility, and more things to do. You had a better camera because they were planning to implement augmented reality eventually. You got better processors because they meeded the power to do wjat you do with phones today. You get the drift. With IoT, you get that new utility, but not if your smartphone is a medium to connect other devices. If you want Iron Man’s phone, you have to actually “need” it. It’s not about using a phone to control a TV, rather, make the TV an extension of the phone. You see shades of this in Android TV. Smartphone innovation has been stagnant for a couple of years now, but it’s not the end. In fact, we’re far from it. We’re in a temporary stasis. I used to be an on-field reporter when I bought the Galaxy Y. It quickly replaced my notepad, my recorder, and the traditional reporter’s jhola. I quickly realised I needed more power, RAM and a better camera. Over the years, smartphones provided almost all the things I need, and it’ll happen again. It’ll just take longer.

Column

15 years from now, the world will be dominated through video games!

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Sameer Mitha Assistant Editor, Digit.in [email protected]

“Don’t you think it would be awesome to see Nathan Drake on the big screen? "

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: @sameermitha


ounds scary doesn’t it? Video games have come a long way since their inception and the journey hasn’t been a pleasant one. There were a number of studies which state that video games make people violent; and on the other hand there are stories which talk about how video games are good for health and increase hand-eye coordination. This topic is a debate for another day. What I’m talking about is the domination of video games as a medium of entertainment. Video games have gone from floating pixels on a screen to swashbuckling set pieces that could give the likes of Hollywood a run for their money. And isn’t that something that’s happening? To give you a perspective, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 grossed $550m, in its opening weekend. That puts it ahead of Jurassic World, which managed $512 million global weekend take. Get the picture? Sure, people will argue that video games are for children and have in the past 15 years have tried to capture the 28+ age audience and I would agree with them. I would also agree with those who believe that beyond 34, people lose interest in gaming because they start a family life and can’t invest 100 hours to finish games like the Wither 3 or Elders Scroll. But, I would counter that by saying – “videogames will fuel the entertainment of the future on the big screen 15 years from now.” We have seen the release of a few awesome movies that don’t have action, adventure or super heroes such as Money Monster, The Danish Girl and more. On opening night (at least in India) its easy to walk to the counter at the theatre and get a ticket for films like these. But when it comes to movies based on popular culture, like X-Men Apocalypse, I had to fight for the ticket online just as I would for a tatkal railway booking. For how long will this super hero trend continue? How long will people enjoy the Marvel vs DC movies and how many times will you watch a different actor get bitten by a spider and become the legendary web slinger. The action will fizzle out sooner or later and video games will be the go to medium for entertainment. Video game stories already are and will be adapted on the big screen and we will

see video game stories reign supreme success on the big screen in the next 15 years. Sure, you will say that we have seen the likes of Street Fighter, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Doom, Resident Evil and more and all these moves have been lackluster. I would agree. If you remember, the Captain America movie that released in 1990 was really bad. So were the movies based on Spiderman, Thor and the hulk that were released in the 80’s and 90’s. We can’t blame technology and special effects for the failure of these films. We also got Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman and Superman films in the same years that were awesome and culture defining. In the next 15 years, the success of a movie will not be served because of the superhero it has, but because of the video game it is based on. Don’t you think it would be awesome to see Nathan Drake on the big screen? Or enjoy the emotional moments of the Last of Us being played by real actors? Or even Dishonored for that matter. These are the games that are driven by their stories and that’s why they are so engaging. Its needles to say that with the advancement in technology, these games will be brought to life very well on the big screen. Needless to say, the debate that ensue after the release of such films will be even more entertaining – the game vs the movie fight. Isn’t the book vs movie battle too familiar? Even if we look at sound, video games have come a long way from simple beeps to orchestral scores. I know so many people that enjoy morning playlists with background scores of popular games rather than pop culture music. I’m sure you know someone that has the signature Mario tune as their smartphone ringtone. This trend will only grow in the years to come. In short, what I’m trying to say is that in the next 15 years, video games will have total domination over the entertainment industry to the same level if not more, compared to what we have seen from Marvel and DC. Sure, it will take time to mature, but the seeds of this domination have already been sown. Its just a matter of time before the D-Pad, analogue sticks, keyboard and mouse become mightier than any other medium of entertainment.

Column

15 years down the drain

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Mithun Mohandas Senior Reviewer [email protected]

“I’m no Intel fanboy, but the lack of competition in any technology sphere irks me"

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: @mithun_mohandas


tarting off my first column on a negative note might seem a bit off-putting, especially in a culture that places a lot of emphasis on mythological elements like Apshakun in everyday life. But those who’ve known me, know that I like to rant a lot and I like to rant about almost everything. So here it goes… The number 15 holds a significant position for those in the computational sciences. It’s the highest single digit number depicted by the Hexadecimal number system – the peak, the zenith, the pinnacle, the apex. If I were to don the garb of a numerologist (I know, pseudoscience) then I’d claim it signifies the Future. Alas, we’re talking about Failure here. Before you start wondering what I’ve been smoking, let me put things into perspective. Intel, the semiconductor giant, recently announced that they’re axing the upcoming Atom series of SoCs for smartphones, thus, putting an end to a decade long battle of trying to gain a foothold in the smartphone SoC arena which is dominated by the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm, all of whom manufacture chips based off technology licensed from ARM. This isn’t the first time that Intel has shot itself in the foot. A decade ago, i.e. in 2006, Intel sold off its own XScale chip division which made ARM based chips owing to poor returns. A little after that, in 2008, they decided to pass on making chips for Apple’s smartphones which in hindsight, wasn’t a smart move. Its struggles began much earlier as some like to argue and over the course of roughly two decades, Intel has spent billions of dollars to enter this arena but never managed to see success. It all started 15 years ago in 2001 when Intel started an industry consortium comprising of Intel, Motorola, AMD and Micron which made for one of the largest collaborative R&D agreements. The aim was to develop Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography which would be key towards building smaller semiconductors. Work progressed from that point on till 2008 when they came out with the Silverthorne architecture, whose Atom chips had a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 2-3 W which

was a remarkable achievement at that time. However, not much attention was paid to the Atom division since, under fear that their primary desktop/server lineup would be affected. It’s outright wrong to assume that nobody at Intel knew that mobile would be the next big thing. After all, this was 2008, Apple’s iPhone had everyone’s attention as the next big thing. Turtlenecks were in vogue and so had begun a race to build the smallest, coolest and most powerful SoCs. However, the Atom lineup was largely relegated to a corner and while the desktop lineup raced ahead by leaps and bounds. The Atom lineup wouldn’t even get an architectural refresh until 2013. I’m no Intel fanboy, but the lack of competition in any technology sphere irks me. AMD dropping the ball with Bulldozer and with subsequent architectures is another of my pet peeves. But AMD’s showing hope with the upcoming Zen architecture keeping alive the competitive spirit in the desktop environment all the while maintaining a stronghold over the console business. Qualcomm’s Atheros being the only major player in the wireless technology sphere is another such case, but I’ll reserve my rant on that for later. What has me all worked up is that we’re now at the precipice of another leap in technology. Quantum Computing is right around the corner, some would say it’s already arrived, and you could say it’s anybody’s game at this point. Such moments are akin to MotoGP races, the leading two racers are literally neck-and-neck with the leader position jumping between the two racers at each bend. And at one such bend, Intel, one of the forerunners has decided to quit. And thus, 15 years of work that started off with the EUV consortium goes down the drain.

The RSS Feed

2001: A tech odyssey

F

ifteen years ago – more than a few lifetimes in tech terms – a little upstart of an Indian tech media brand decided to venture on a journey, alone, without established foreign backing. Yes, Digit was always run by a bunch of crazy Indian geeks, who decided that although India certainly wasn’t anywhere close to the centre of the technology world, it didn’t need to be. India was India, it was different, it was unique, and had unique needs. You have to remember that this was an age where Internet connectivity was still a luxury in India, and even PCs were not something just anyone could afford. Digit blew away all the established magazines, and has the distinction of being India’s top selling IT magazine for all 15 years of its life! Online is where the real challenge was, especially in the last 5 years, because everyone and his uncle has a tech blog, and all major media houses started up tech web sites and threw money around to try and grab all the eyeballs – it reminded us of the dot com boom actually. We recently got some more good news: in a competitive tech field that consists of some very big players – Times of India, NDTV, Network 18, etc. – Digit actually blows them all away by engaging with more of you than all of them combined (and then some!). If you watch world football, we’re like Leicester City from the EPL, except we’re the underdog that’s been champions for 15 years straight. So what’s our secret sauce? What magical witchcraft allows us to win against these Goliaths, and stay number 1 for 15 straight years? It’s not really as big a secret as people think, actually… because the secret to our success is, quite simply, you. We owe it all to you, because without your support, we’d be crushed out of existence by the aforementioned Goliaths. So before anything else, thank you for your continued support and keeping this dream alive. When I said India was unique, I was also talking about the Indians that make up India. Indians pride themselves on knowing more than others – we learn, we thirst for knowledge and we give undue respect to no brand. As technology enthusiasts, you are at the top of that pyramid; you’re the tech elite.


I use the word “you”, but that also includes all of us here. The people who make up Digit are pretty much you – we love tech, and this isn’t just some “job”. Almost all of the people who work here don’t want to work anywhere else because this just feels like home. All of us came from boring jobs, or college degrees, and the only thing we have in common is a love for all things science and tech; plus, all of us were readers and fans of Digit before we came here. What’s in store for the future? Well, our goal was always to be the honest and unbiased voice of reason in tech. We wanted to tell it like it is, no matter who it pissed off, and we want to continue doing so. Many of you would have sampled our regional language initiatives. We want to get tech to people in India in their mother tongue – a special shout out to our publishing director, Vikas Gupta, and the vernacular teams for making this happen. Apart from languages, we will also find newer platforms and ways to interact and connect with you more often, be it via social media, the website, apps or even the e-mag (if we ever get it out of beta!). We just want to show as many people as we can the wonder of technology, and how it can raise not just them but this country to higher levels. We want more billion dollar tech companies to be founded in India, by young Indians. We hope that you will continue to support us by keeping on reading, and spreading the word – give your old copies of Digit to people who haven’t heard of us, share our stories that you like on social media, attend our live video sessions, and most importantly, keep sending us your brutally honest feedback to help us improve. Here’s looking forward to 2031: Odyssey 2 – the next 15 years of this epic journey that we’re on together, where hopefully, we can play our small bit-part role in taking India (and you) to the very top of the science and tech world!

Robert Sovereign-Smith Executive Editor [email protected]

“So what’s our secret sauce? What magical witchcraft allows us to win against these Goliaths, and stay number 1 for 15 straight years?”

Liked or hated this column? Let me know at: facebook.com/raaabo | @raaabo | [email protected]

DGT

Enter

24

All the latest lifestyle technology, gadgets to drool over and gizmo porn like never before. Desire, Greed and Temptation ahead...

) Being a CSE student I was introduced

to this magazine long ago – the 'F**k you Consumers' one. It shocked me, but I understood Robert's view. My favourites: Blippar | TED videos | Awesome FT | Encyclopedia | Videos of tested products | PDF archives | App suggestions. My Expectations: Focus on Windows phone apps too. I am a blogger since 2013, and I own a website where I make sufficient money thanks to you. Digit's FT ebook editions have helped me prepare for interviews, and I have three offers – Embedded Engineer, App developer and Network Engineer; I’m opting for app developer. Happy Anniversary Digit and keep feeding our minds with awesome stuff. –Chaitanya We do add in Windows Phone apps when they’re exclusive, but because of market realities, we have to focus on iOS and Android. We’re thrilled that we were in some small way able to help you get started on your road to geekdom, still going on. Keep the flame burning, don’t forget to recommend us to your friends. – Robert ) Hey guys! I want to get help from you

regarding a JavaScript book. I also want to learn command prompt in Windows, so an article please. Also articles on hardware hacking/making? The DVD UI is outdated. Also, can you feature articles from labnol? I like his tips and tricks. –Adityan Singla Thanks for your feedback. We will update the DVD UI soon, and work is already underway. We don’t publish articles that are published elsewhere, as we have a strict requirement of all articles being original, however, we might point you to relevant content on other sites as and when applicable, the same for books. – Siddharth ) Hello to all. First I want to thank you for a wonderful magazine. I’m Ankit, I’m 12 years old and the biggest fan of Digit. I am interested in gaming and I like SKOAR! very much. I have a request. Can you 20 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

Steam games on PS4

A combination of jailbreak, Arch Linux and some software libraries lets you play PC games on the PS4. http://dgit.in/PS4hack

Feedback for the May 2016 issue of Digit

please give the free version of Unity Game Engine in the next DVD? Please. And again thanks for a wonderful magazine. Ajoy Kr Das We are regular with distributing such tools in our DVDs. We had included the Unity 5 Game Engine in our April 2015 DVD. If there's a major update, we'll surely add it in our DVD. Keep an eye out. – Abhijit ) I am a final year electrical engineering

student, preparing for my IES exams, but I still read every single line of your magazine. I love the way you present your ideas. 1. Your YouTube channel is very dull and monotonous and lacks the flair and humour of the magazine. 2. Your editorial pages are wonderful –they are like the birthplace of ideas. 3. Manga and anime page was completely unexpected and being a fan of Naruto I liked it. I was wondering if you can drop some anime posters too. 4. I love to review movies, series as well as anime for you. Can I? 5. About the DVD, who cares about the UI, what matters is the top-notch content! Thanks for your time and hard work. –Himanshu Singh

Our YouTube channel is actually getting better (slowly). We’re writers, not video guys, but we’re trying. We will try and include non-gaming posters as well. We encourage all readers to write in with original articles that aren’t published elsewhere. We may not be able to publish everything, but we will certainly reply to all mails with our feedback. Thanks for understanding that the content is what’s important, not the interface, but even we have to admit that a change is needed; badly! – Jayesh ) To the tech demi-gods, I have been

buying Digit for the past two and half years since I can’t subscribe (or can I?) because I am your friendly neighbour from Nepal. I absolutely loved the April issue. I liked the Awakening , who wrote it? Could it be Robert? I always love to read Siddharth’s (love your beard, gonna grow one just like it), Jayesh’s and Robert’s section. I enjoyed reading SKOAR! and dmystify too, but I didn’t touch the Fast Track because I don’t really like the topic Big Data. I love Linux, and am using Arch Linux. Thanks to you, I have started to learn python programming. Now for suggestions and demands. I want Linuxrelated content in every DVD. Can you have a separate section for Open Source

Touchscreens everywhere Inbox

The Lazertouch projector turns any flat surface into a touchscreen. http://dgit.in/touchscreenx

Software and Hardware and touch on it every month? I want the ‘Security Watch’ section back. Where is the rest of the Digit novel that you published with just the first chapter? Can you do a workshop on how to compile a source code in Linux and Windows? Also a Fast Track on Kernel development? Lastly, your website takes really long to load for me. –Asbin “Andrien” Dahal Thanks for your detailed mail. We love receiving letters that make great demands and suggestions. If your mail had come a few days ago, we would have been able to include it in the May issue Inbox section, but we will put it in the Anniversary issue. It’s good to know that Digit helped you along in your journey towards learning programming languages. As for your suggestions – yes we need to show some FOSS and Linux love in our DVDs. Abhijit (the DVD guy) just gave me a thumbs up. And your guess is correct - Awakening was indeed Raaabo (but shhhh...). – Siddharth ) I'm a die hard fan of digit since past few

years. I came to know about digit when I went to a local book store, enquiring about any technology mag. Because I live in a rural area, I can't buy it every month, but I buy it whenever I get a chance to go to the city nearby. Digit has helped me gain knowledge about the latest technology. It makes me happy just to read your mag. I have two questions: I love coding and I've learnt HTML, PHP, CSS and Javascript. I've written class 12 exams this year. I want to start web designing as a freelancer so that I could collect some money for my future, but where do I start? Since I was 10, I wanted to make video games. Now that I'm 19, I know it can be done, but I'm still confused about which languages I need to learn. I have an idea about an online game, but I’m losing hope as I feel it can’t be done without a team. Can you help me? – Parth Chaudhari

iPhone with better ears!

Smartphones are excellent for video, but not so much audio. Shure has a few solutions to make audio recording better on an iPhone http://dgit.in/MV88x12

LETTER OF THE MONTH ) I’m starting with columns of Sid, Rob

and Jay in the May ‘16 issue. This trio is absolutely wonderful! This mail goes out to Rob bro, because he made us feel nostalgic – not only me but also some of the other “similar-aged children”. Here are my suggestions and feedback: • Being nostalgic was awesome in May – because it rekindled many of my childhood memories, including the TV-based cassette utility game; (my first so called console). Maybe a poster based on the classics? Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Contra, Duckhunt, Gunman...the list is huge! • Include themes of games such as Roadrash, Mortal Kombat 4, Quake III , Project IGI, Alladin, Lion King, Mid-town madness, NFS; it might get some of the new generation to love the old games. • A huge round of applause for yourself highlighting your skills with these programming, scripting and markup languages. Work with pure code or modify a CMS to your liking. Write plugins for popular CMS’, and you will get recognised. Don’t just stop there, go after your friends and relatives. Maybe someone has a business that will benefit from an online presence. Put yourself out there. Creating a game is actually easier. Game engines and IDEs have come a long way. Check out the March issue of SKOAR!, in which we’ve used one such software to make a game. Once you get the hang of a tool, you’ll start understanding the nuances of developing games and soon you’ll want to modify individual components. Soon enough you’ll learn your way around game development. Remember to tell us when you create your first game. – Mithun

SKOAR!’s BEAM THY GAME. It would be great if you provide information about suitable apps or games to try when reviewing a phone. Oh, one more message to Rob bro, since I have seen many people commenting on your hairstyle, you should try some tattoo work (tribal one). Keep the good work up! Rock on! – Apurv B •

Similar-aged children! That was a good one. I guess we’re all just big babies in some way or the other! As you can see we didn’t go with the retro theme as you suggested, but that’s not to say that we might not in the future. We have been mulling over a retro issue (not just retro gaming, but technology as a whole). If that’s an idea that appeals to anyone reading this, write in and vote and suggest what you’d like to read in such a retro issue. – Robert The cover depicts a cross between Hitler and a genetically created "perfect baby". The idea was to suggest that genetically modifying our offspring to have only desired traits is really not much different than what Hitler had imagined. That said, beauty (or the lack of it) lies in the eye of the beholder. There is no way that we can ever argue with the fact that you found this cover ugly. We will certainly try and take your feedback and improve from it. – Robert ) I am a 12th standard student. My friend

give me a dmystify to read and I found it to be very interesting. Where can I get all the editions of dymstify? I have read the one’s on String Theory and The Solar System, and want to read the others too. –Rehan

) I cannot understand why you choose this

Where do you start? You start with yourself. Put the skills you’ve learnt to work by creating a profile website for 22 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

ugly picture of child for your May 2016 cover page. Please don’t do such things. Biswanath Biswas

You’re in luck Rehan, the PDFs are included in this month’s DVD. Enjoy. – Abhijit

SECTION

SUBSECTION

GREED

TEMPTATION

For those who just want more than should be humanly allowed, we have enough to satisfy your hunger...

If you’re wondering what to do with yourself or how to spend some time getting cultured, this section is for you...

THIS MONTH: Blueair Sense+, Kyocera DuraForce XD, Infocus M888, F.lens, EYSE, Jaybird Freedom Headphones and a lot more...

THIS MONTH: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, and App Watch with Laws of Cricket, Flock and Fitastik apps you must try...

TECHNOLOGY WITH STYLE DESIRE

SHOWCASE

Garmin Forerunner 735XT The watch for your multi-sporting needs

T

It also comes with a feature that lets you automatically change sports profiles whenever you switch sports, such as with triathlons where you switch between running, swmming and cycling. If all this is not enough, another notable feature that comes with the Forerunner is the Strava Live Suffer Score app, which will come preinstalled with the watch. Your Suffer Score is determined by calculating your heartbeat and telling you how intense your workout session was. This watch, like every Garmin watch, is water resistant. As it should be, since it’ll be worn while swimming as well. The Forerunner 735XT is priced at $450 (`30,300 approx).

he Forerunner 735XT is Garmin’s latest sports watch which is designed for athletes who play multiple sports, specifically triathlons. The Forerunner features a built-in optical heart-rate sensor, a tracker which tracks things like the number of steps you’ve taken and the number of calories you’ve managed to burn all day, and an active GPS. The Forerunner can show you notifications on your Android smartphones or your iPhones as well. You can access all of Garmin’s third party apps at their app store, the Connect IQ, which will let you download watch faces, widgets, and apps for the watch. What makes the Forerunner 735XT stand out

is that it can track cycling, swimming, hiking, cross country skiing, strength training, paddle boarding, and cardio in addition to running.

SkyBell HD Wi-Fi

GE PB911SJSS

Pocket-VR Viewer Boosted Board

At the $200 (`13,500 approx) price tag this Video Doorbell comes with 1080p clip recording, and additional storage space. It comes with an IFTTT channel as well as integration with third-party services.

The GE PB911SJSS is quite the cooking station. At the $1,100 (`74250 approx) price range, this electric cooking range performs better than most similar products that cost twice as much.

Speck’s Pocket-VR is a thin, foldable viewer that’s far more affordable than its pricier counterparts. This $70(`4700) alternative is designed only for the iPhone 6 and 6s or the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Hover Camera Beijing-based startup Zero Zero Robotics have come up with the Hover Camera. As the name suggests, this drone is primarily meant for aerial photography and video making. In addition to being foldable for extra portability, it also has the “Follow me” feature which is new in drones. Thanks to the strong carbon fiber frame that enclose the propellers, this drone is extremely safe. The device should be around the $600(`40,400 approx) price tag when it releases.


Boosted’s second generation Skateboards boast of increased power, extended distances, and water shielding, providing for a smoother, revamped ride. All at the price of $999 (`67,300 approx).

DESIRE

SHOWCASE

ELAC Uni-Fi UB5 Speakers

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he ELAC Uni-Fi UB5 Speaker reportedly has deep bass, deeper than any other at this price range, which is amazing on speakers of this build and size. It boasts superb midrange tonality and clear voices. In comparison to it’s cheaper predecessor, the ELAC Debut B6, the Uni-Fi UB5 aims to outclass it in every way, with deeper, better defined bass, clearer midrange, and treble. At the $500 (`33,800 approx) price tag, you’re getting a three-way design, quality hi-fi performance, and all packed up in a nice compact package. With a 5.25-inch aluminum cone the bass is likely to be decent obviously, but not just that you also have a 1-inch tweeter and 4-inch mid range driver. If you’ve got a decent amplifier (at least 40 watt RMS) or receiver to go with this beaut you’ve got yourself a true highfidelity performance and extraordinary sound quality.

Nerf N-Strike Elite Terrascout

N

erf’s new N-Strike Terrascout Battle Tank is every boy’s wet dream. It looks like a Mars rover with a gun attached to it, right out of some science fiction movie. The N-Strike uses a wireless remote with a live video feed from the tank’s camera, so you can remotely snipe at your friends and family from the safety of well, wherever you feel safe. The tank itself is powered by a rechargeable battery while the wireless controller is powered by four AA batteries. This beast can traverse over almost any terrain as long it’s not wet. You can remotely fire the 18-shot cannon which can be aimed independently and doesn’t rely on the direction the tank is driving. Footage shot by the 720p camera can even be recorded on an SD card, so you can relive the best moments of your sneaky, or maybe not-so-sneaky attack. The Nerf N-Strike Terrascout will be out later this year and at the $200 (`13,500 approx) price tag, well, it better be a ton of fun.

Xiaomi Mi Box

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he Xiaomi Mi Box is a new Android TV-powered 4k set-top box. It comes with an array of new apps in addition to the Android TV makeover which was announced at Google’s I/O. The Mi Box supports 4k Ultra HD content as well as all the latest HDR standards. Popular apps such as Netflix and Hulu will be available for download. The Mi Box can also mirror your phone or tablet’s screens with its in-built Google Cast feature. The Mi Box comes with a Bluetooth remote control that has voice search capabilities. The Xiaomi Mi Box specifications include a Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a USB port, HDMI 2.0a, and DTS Surround Sound to name a few. The official pricing and release date for the Mi Box have not yet been announced but it will soon be available in global markets.

Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

DESIRE

SHOWCASE

Prizm T

he Prizm is a music player which can be plugged into any speakers. What the Prizm does is, it searches its proximity for devices with playlists from major music-streaming services, such as SoundCloud for example, after which it compares the playlists and attempts to play the common denominator, hopefully keeping everyone in the vicinity happy with the music that’s playing. The Prizm has a heart and a cross on two of its three-faced sides, which do exactly as they indicate. Press or tap the heart to have the song currently playing added to your playlist and press the ‘X’ if you don’t want it added and want to move on to another song. The Prizm is unique in the sense that it tries to assess your taste in music and pick the best music based on your preferences and the current mood. It also eliminates the need for you to use your smartphones or other smart devices in order to listen to the music you like, since the Prizm does that for you. The Prizm will start shipping by the middle of the year, but you can get your own Prizm early by requesting an invite at their site. Price 149€ (`11,300 approx).

Arris Surfboard SBR-AC3200P Wi-Fi Router T

he Surfboard WiFi router is part of a new line of products from Arris, called RipCurrent. Arris is a company that only made cable modems prior to this and are now seemingly moving on to the Wi-Fi router market. Basically what a RipCurrent router does is, it lets you extend the range of your home network without needing to lay down any extra network cables, or any extra lines. You simply plug in a RipCurrent router into one power outlet, which turns that outlet into the first end of a “power line” connection. Then a RipCurrent power line extender, or a RipCurrent Wi-Fi hotspot extender is plugged into another power outlet. The network is then instantly extended to that area of the house. With this method you can effectively connect multiple Wi-Fi clients to the network through that distant Wi-Fi hotspot extender. You can do this multiple times with several Wi-Fi extenders, which you


can plug in all around your house at any available outlets, extending the network to reach every corner of your home.

The Arris Surfboard SBR-AC1200P Extender costs $300 (`20,200) with $100 (`6700) for each extender.

Premium Looks Premium Space Toll free no: 18004255464 Email: [email protected]

DESIRE

SHOWCASE

Knocki W

hat the Knocki intends to do is rid you of the trouble of constantly having to switch between apps, buttons and voice control devices that you have in your home. The Knocki is a puckshaped gadget which can go pretty much anywhere inside your home. Under the table, inside a cupboard, on the wall, it’s up to you. It comes with an adhesive tape and also a more permanent mounting hardware if you feel tape isn’t too reliable. All you need to do to get this baby rolling is download the companion app on your iPhone or Android phone and put in your Wi-Fi details. Once you’re done with that, you can assign a total of ten custom gestures or actions to a single Knocki. Knocki supposedly supports the likes of IFTTT, Google Nest, Belkin WeMo, Philips Hue and many other smarthome brands that are currently available in the market now. The Knocki can also supposedly tell the difference between deliberate and accidental gestures. Even without smart home products, the Knocki should still be able to find your phone and control music. The Knocki is available for preorder on Kickstarter, starting at $69 (`4,600 approx).

Wayv Adventurer D

on’t judge a book by its cover. While on the surface the Wayv Adventurer looks like a simple thermos flask, it’s actually a fully-functional 200 watt microwave oven. That’s right, a microwave oven. Wayv’s intended purpose for the Adventurer was as a backup cooker for use in between transit, outdoor activities such as trekking and camping, and even for defense or humanitarian purposes if so needed. This 200w microwave oven houses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery which works for about 30 minutes per charge. It can efficiently heat up to 500ml of liquid or solids in roughly 4 minutes. The reason your usual microwave oven takes up all that space is because of the vacuum tubes, or magnetrons that are normally used in them. The Adventurer uses neither of those, it instead uses laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor transistors to generate heat. These are thin enough to be built right into the Adventurer’s walls. Additionally, they’re relatively light as well, so the weight of the Adventurer comes to around 1.2 kilograms. Priced at the $200 (`13,500) mark, it’s not a bad buy for outdoor enthusiasts, or even someone who may want to save some space in the kitchen, if they aren’t too pressed for time.


GREED

EXAMINED Really cool products come to the Digit Test Centre which don’t really fit into the standard product categories that we review in the Bazaar section. We write about them here mostly to make you turn green with envy.

Motion sensor control You can control the airflow speed of the purifier through three steps by swiping your hand over the panel. The panel also notifies you when it’s time to change the filters.

Blueair friend app The app connects to your purifier and gives information about the air quality inside and outside. You can also remotely check if your air purifier is working, check the room temperature, humidity and other sensor data.

Wide range of colours Available in six different colour variants, the Sense+ gives you options to fit your preferences. The grille design ensures a wider airflow while maintaining a decent and wraparound design.

Blueair Sense+ Monitor the air quality inside your house from anywhere The previous month we had received our first air purifier from Crusaders and we have more lined up at our test labs. This month, Blueair sent over the Sense+ that filters out particulate pollutants using the HEPASilentPlus filtration method, capable of blocking harmful particles down to the size of 0.1 micron. The added benefit of the Blueair Friend app gives you wireless connectivity to the purifier letting you control the airflow speeds and several other features. The app also shows you air quality data from more than 150 countries. Ideal for rooms under the size of 200 sq. ft., the purifier is capable of filtering out smoke, dust and pollen through the two particle filters with activated carbon filtration. It isn’t power hungry as well, drawing in around 7W at the lowest fan speed while scaling to about 46W at its highest. All these features inside the purifier helps to keep the room’s air quality pure at a price of `45,000.

To remove the filters you’ll need to turn the device upside down and pull out the two filters using the handles. This way you could replace the particle filters when notified by the device. These handles have rubber padding that act as its feet when kept upright.


GREED

MOBILE WATCH Stylish, glamorous and interesting smartphones are always on the horizon. We take a closer look at what’s hot in this space...

Infocus M888

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Kyocera DuraForce XD I

f you’re looking for a phone which you can be careless with, the Kyocera DuraForce XD is the one for you. It’s built like a tank, and it sure can take a beating. Or even a bathing. The build quality is rugged, and it is more than capable of handling rough usage. Although it is very large, and heavy, the phone treats rough weather and abuse like nobody’s business. The build materials, obviously, include a number of toughened plastic, rubberised materials, and glass. It sports a 720x1280 display, and runs Android. It is also IP68 certified water and dust resistant, and Military grade shock, radiation, and vibration resistant. This baby can take a rough, rough ride, and it’ll come out mostly unscathed.

nFocus is set to release a phone on the 30th of may, but the benchmarks for a new phone, codenamed “InFocus M888”, showed up on the Antutu benchmarking website. The phone runs TencentOS 2.0 powered by Android 6.0.1. TencentOS is an OS designed by Tencent Holdings limited, who are also the creators of WeChat. The display size isn’t revealed yet. But, it boasts a full HD (1920 x 1080) display. It is rumored to be powered by a deca-core Mediatek CPU, and a Mali-T880 GPU, and also has 3GB of RAM. According to the leak, it has a 16MP back camera, and 8MP front camera. The Antutu benchmarks scores are quite good. Nothing is known about pricing yet.

OnePlus Three

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Pictured here, InFocus M370


he OnePlus Three is the company’s flagship phone for the year. OnePlus is a brand which is known to push the specifications of flagship phones and its invite only sale system. The full specifications of the phone aren’t announced yet, but what we could glean from some of the leaks was that the OnePlus three will be running Android 6.0, and will be sporting a 1080x1920 full HD display. It will be powered by a Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820 chipset, and an Adreno 520 GPU. It will come in 32GB, and 64GB storage variants, and 4GB and 6GB RAM variants. It’ll have a 16MP front camera, with dual LED flash, and an 8MP front camera with 1080p video recording. It will also come with a USB Type-C port.

GREED

TAKE MY MONEY! Here is where we keep an eye on crowdfunded projects that will make you go ‘Shut up and take my money!’

EYSE

3

D cameras are the talk of the town right now, but many of these 3D cameras are just run of the mill cameras. EYSE is something entirely different. It’s a Wi-Fi 3D camera but it brings a lot more to the table. This device comes with two 5MP cameras capable of recording dual-perspective video and broadcasting live feeds. So with a companion VR device you can transmit your sensory perception to someone else, like a 3D telepresence experience. You can also record videos and store them in an in-built storage of 16GB. The device is highly customisable with different covers and lenses. The designers have given durability a considerable thought. The device has a rugged design and the expensive variants are even waterproof. The EYSE can be mounted on any drone and any action cam without any hassle. As for the VR compatibility is concerned you can rest assured that the EYSE is compatible with most devices . EYSE supports Qi charging (wireless charging) and has GPS Tracking too. Phew!

F.lens

F

lashlights are a pure necessity for us and the need can arise at any time, but is your smartphone’s flashlight powerful enough? f.lens is the first ever flashlight booster accessory which will work with all major Apple devices and some selected Android devices. It’s capable of boosting your device’s in-built flash by 10 times as promised by the company and with that provide you with a tight focused flashlight. This product is compact and very easy to attach to the smartphone. F.lens is magnetic and attaches itself to the phone seamlessly. The design is quite premium and the device is features a full glass and aluminium construction. With f.lens your night pictures will be of comparatively better quality. F.lens collects the light emitted by the smartphone’s integrated LED flash, and generates a brighter and tighter beam able to light up distant objects. We’re eagerly awaiting an attachment that’ll let you shoot high power lasers next! More info: http://dgit.in/flensProj

More info: http://dgit.in/EYSEProj

Portal W

i-Fi is almost ubiquitous these days but it isn’t without its flaws. With Portal coming into the equation, the user’s Wi-Fi experience will apparently be enhanced 300 times. The major cause of poor Wi-Fi connectivity is invisible traffic jams or what we call congestion on the network. Portal aims to overcome this problem with the help of “spectrum turbocharger technology” which apparently gives it access to 300% more of the radio airwaves than any other router. This device is capable of covering a range of approximately 2,500 sq. ft. Two Portals can be daisy-chained to extend rage to 200 ft or more.

More info: http://dgit.in/PortalProj


GREED

SPOT LIGHT The odds and ends, the strange and fanciful, the downright absurd to the uniquely useful – you’ll find it all covered in this section.

Dyson V8 Cordless Vacuum T

he old Dyson DC59 Motorhead has long been considered the first cordless vacuum that could be a replacement for a full sized vacuum. However, the DC59 was not without problems; for example limited battery capacity. After two years it looks like Dyson have finally addressed those issues with their new Dyson V8. The DC59 had only 20 minutes of run time, so cleaning the house was a race against time,

literally. The V8 features an improved battery that almost doubles the capacity to up to 40 minutes, without losing any power on suction as your battery nears empty. You have an optional ‘Max’ mode that boosts the suction for dealing with particularly resilient dirt. Of course, boosting the suction will reduce the overall run time, but the V8 also has an indicator to show you how much juice you’ve got left. The V8 includes a more powerful motor than its predecessor and redesigned airflow so it’s half as loud. The dirt collection bin is also larger so you don’t need to constantly empty it. The Dyson V8 is expected to release later this year at a price of around $500 (`33,700 approx).

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Intel, Intel Atom, Windows are trademarks of the respective companies in the respective countries. the above shown Price is with FreeDos, With windows 10 Licensing Cost Extra. The above shown images are display purpose, the actual Pictures may vary..

GREED

SPOT LIGHT

Jaybird Freedom Headphones T

he Jaybird Freedom Headphones made some much needed improvements to their previous sports headphone, the X2. In addition to improved sound quality, noise cancellation, and an overall better and more comfy fit, the Jaybird Freedom’s biggest draw is its new design. The buds have been trimmed down considerably. Instead of the usual bulge of the earbuds, the earpieces now curve downward and sit against the lower part of your earlobe. What this means is you can now wear helmets and other headwear that would normally cover your ears while using these headphones. Most of the techy electronic stuff has been moved to a remote that hangs a little below the right earpiece.

It’s larger and heavier than its predecessor, the X2’s remote, but it’s hardly noticeable. The Freedom Headphones are sweatproof, as should be expected of sports headphones. The Jaybird Freedom comes with Bluetooth 4.0, which can be paired with upto 8 devices. The headphones also allow for making phones calls with its inbuilt microphone. The Jaybird Freedom is currently priced at $200(`13,500 approx), which may seem a tad pricey but they’re worth every penny if you’re looking for a good wireless, sports headphone.

TEMPTATION APP WATCH

CRITIQUE In this section, we put stuff through the grinder and closely examine what comes out; everything except gadgets, because there’s more to life than just that

BOOK REVIEW

Guns, Germs, and Steel Things that shaped the modern world

T

hroughout history if there is one thing we’ve seen repeated over and over, it’s that whenever a superior technologically advanced civilisation comes in contact with a primitive one, the latter usually finds itself subjugated or exterminated. Without delving into the moralistic analysis of why this happens, a more interesting question to tackle is figuring out how some human societies


develop distinct technological advantages over others. Why, for example, did European nations develop guns and other technologies and those of say the far east or the new world, or Africa, did not? Why were did Native Americans die from European diseases and not vice versa? These are some of the questions Jared Diamond tries to answer by analysing the trajectories of early human societies from the very dawn of civilisation around 13000 years ago. Food production, animal domestication, geography, development of the written word and a few other surprising factors hold the key to unravelling these questions. Although this book is not as breezy as A Brief History Of Everything it is every bit as informative and worth picking up for anyone even remotely interested in technology, history and the evolution of human societies. Rating: – Siddharth Parwatay

Laws of Cricket Locally, it’s almost blasphemous not to like or follow cricket. If you’re among the fringe minority who genuinely wants to follow the sheeple and learn about the gentleman’s sport, there’s an app for that. The Marylebone Cricket Club that owns the Lord’s Cricket Stadium has released the Laws of Cricket app, aiming to broadcast the rules and laws of the game to everyone. The laws are categorised in eight sections covering every aspect of the game. Few of them, 15 to be specific, have been narrated by writer and actor, Stephen Fry. There are additionally 18 videos to explain the umpire’s gestures in the game. App Store: http://dgit.in/LoCiOS Play Store: http://dgit.in/LoCAnd

Flock Several workplace chat applications have been flooding the market. Such group chat applications aim to facilitate better communication within the team using the in-built features such as file sharing, video conference calls etc. Flock is the new kid on the block who is trying to take on the big players such as Slack, Asana and the recent, Facebook at Work. Although it doesn’t try to overdo with a horde of features, the UI is kept simple similar to WhatsApp, keeping the feel closer to an IM application. Flock is a multiplatform tool so your team members can communicate with the team from any device out there. App Store: http://dgit.in/FlockiOS Play Store: http://dgit.in/FlockAnd Windows Store: http://dgit.in/FlockWin

Fitastik Fitastik analyses all the medical records and data fed by you into their system and accordingly, classifies them into different sections. The graphs and charts will ensure that you don’t get muddled by the deluge of numbers present in your medical records The graphs also serves as a health monitoring system for you and your family members. All these features are available for free but if you wish to have unlimited conversion of medical records to a digital form, or receive health analysis, you have to opt for their paid membership. App Store: http://dgit.in/FitastikiOS Play Store: http://dgit.in/FitastikAnd

ILLUSTRATION: PETERSON PJ

Cover story


Cover story hunting - nobroker, Zenify 1House

One relocates to a new city or house for various reasons, ranging from a new job to the beginning of a ‘happily’ married life, but irrespective of how positive the reason might be, the vicious circle of brokers, restrictive landlords and changing terms make the whole experience one of the worst landmarks of your life. Thanks to startups like NoBroker and Zenify, you have a few ways out of that web now, with the help of broker free listings and detailed property characteristics. This is a great relief for all young professionals who have to move cities to advance their careers!

Local household services Taskbob, 4Mr.UrbanClap, Right

Travel - Ridesharing, cab car rentals, driver 5forservices, hire, bus bookings

Trying to find a household help or a local repairman through your building’s security guard or neighbours might be harder than you think. You have no way to tell the quality of their services, other than word of mouth. Enter services like UrbanClap, Taskbob and Mr. Right, who have taken up the job of connecting you with professionals for tasks ranging from cleaning to repairs. So, instead of hiring a full time caretaker, you can actually go for the per-requirement approach and save your money along the way.

If there is one sector that has clearly benefited the most from India’s startup boom, it is travel. On demand Cab services like Uber and Ola have become second nature to us, and ridesharing services like sRide and BlaBlaCar are catching up really fast. And if you are planning a long drive and need a driver for the same, try Zuver, a driveron-demand app. Just in case you want to drive yourself but lack the wheels, car rentals like Zoomcar and JustRide have your back covered.

2Food - Swiggy

Food ordering startups are not entirely new to the Indian market. With Foodpanda and TinyOwl already in the same sector, it was quite a surprise when Swiggy climbed up the ranks rapidly. A big factor in this is the ease of use. Website or app, just log in, let the app detect your location and show you the restaurants and eateries around you. With no minimum order amount, the options range from local juice centres to premium eateries.

- rentomojo, furlenco 3Furnishing

The price difference between renting a furnished and unfurnished house has prompted a significant rise in furniture rental services. Rentomojo and Furlenco

are your best options if you’re looking to do the same. These rentals have free installation and free relocation services, along with a wide array of options from furniture to appliances to home decor. One of the best features on these sites are their package offerings which are good enough for an overall furnishing of your room or house. 38 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

APPS AND WEBSITES TO ACCOMPLISH EVERYDAY TASKS

FROM FOOD TO HEALTH CARE, 15 EVERYDAY TASKS THAT YOU CAN NOW DO VIA APPS OR WEBSITES BY ARNAB MUKHERJEE [email protected]

Cover story TV - hotstar, voot, netflix 6Watch

10Paying bills - Paytm

12News - Nuzzel

Smartphone/tablet repair Like new 7Just

Salon - purplle, Vyomo, 11vanitycube

13File your taxes - ClearTax

Watching TV has become a rarity nowadays, with most of the young audience switching to web series and international shows. With that in mind, video-ondemand and online TV services like hotstar, Voot and the global giant Netflix are growing everyday. In fact, hotstar has been live streaming most ongoing tournaments and even the Academy Awards this year.

T

hat feeling of dread when a smartphone slips from your hand can be the worst. You probably already calculated the repair costs and the hassle you’d have to go through before the phone even hit the ground. Not anymore, with JustLikeNew and Bigfix

offering pickups and repair services for your smartphones and other electronics at your doorstep.

Gone are the days when you had to stand in queue at some old office to pay your bills. With a number of mobile and online payment solutions available, we recommend Paytm due to its well integrated mobile wallet along with the many cashbacks that you can use for several things from cab services to online shopping. You can opt to permanently discontinue paper bills and save a lot of paperwork in this approach.

If Practo was your medical assistant, purplle is your grooming assistant. It lets you book appointments at beauty salons and spas around you, and contains details of the services offered at these places along with pricing. But if you still don’t want to step out of the house to feel groomed, try Vanitycube or Vyomo to call beauticians and grooming specialists to your doorstep and get your haircuts, styling, pedicures and all other grooming needs satisfied in the comfort of your own home.

8Grocery - Grofers, Big Basket

Not everybody likes to lug their monthly rations and groceries back home from the store. Due to lazy people like me, Grocery delivery startups like Grofers and Bigbasket have overcome the initial scepticism and have started widespread usage in metros. With slotted deliveries, store choices and same-day delivery options, you can consider your grocery needs satisfied.

9Doctor - Practo, Portea, netmeds

An apple a day may not necessarily keep the doctor away, but there’s apps like Practo and Portea that make the whole experience more bearable! Through Practo you can find doctors based on specialisation, experience, and more. It lets you book appointments and also has a doctor’s side which lets them share prescriptions and reports directly. Netmeds delivers medicines directly to your home.

It’s no breaking news that newspapers are in decline. And don’t even start with television news. This situation with news mediums has led the newer generation to switch to apps and websites for information. Nuzzel is one such app that integrates news reading with social media by analyzing your timeline for the in-trend and breaking news to bring relevant news stories to your

Many of you might have torn your hair apart trying to file your taxes on time. After all, nobody likes paperwork, right? ClearTax has been around for a while and is an easy solution for your woes. They also launched a mobile app recently that is optimized to work on 2G networks and even allows offline filing.

14Tutoring - Vedantu, BYJU

Even if you are not a student yourself, you might know someone who is. Edutech startups like Vedantu and BYJU are coming up with ways to bring students closer to learning. Vedantu offers oneon-one tutoring on a proprietary platform whereas BYJU’s offers quality content with the student’s learning process in mind.

15Fitness

Using all the above services while sitting comfortably on your couch will make you an unfit couch potato. We absolutely don’t want that to happen. Fitso is an exercise tracker which will keep track of your workout. You can even enroll a coach to guide you. HealthifyMe provides you with detailed information about the food you’re consuming, after a manual entry of the same. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 39

Cover story

1Fast Food workers

None of you might consider a career as a burger flipper, but those of you willing to do it whilst in school or college for pocket money might need to find a new option. Small restaurants might not be able to afford automation, but big chains will definitely want to reduce headcounts. Machines are cheaper and make less mistakes. We expect perfectly cooked and mass made manufactured fast food.

2Pilots and army grunts

JOBS THAT WILL BE OBSOLETE IN THE NEXT 15 YEARS

Drones are already grabbing the headlines in warfare, and we expect this trend to continue. People are expensive – they need to be fed and protected in battle. When mass made, machines are cheaper, and with new technologies, they’re getting smarter than ever before. Pretty soon, wars are going to be won by geeks piloting machines from far away, using virtual reality headsets.

technicians 3Semiconductor

Pretty soon the machines won’t need us to make them. Well, at least in part. The thing with machines is that they’re built with precision, and precision is what machines also happen to be best at. Stands to reason that they will excel at building themselves.

THE JOBS FOR WHICH ‘JOBGUARANTEE’ IS JUST NOT A PHRASE THAT’S APPLICABLE!

5

Designers / average artists

We’re not going as far as writing off skilled artists just yet, but we certainly think that automation (especially software-based) will make a designer irrelevant. This is already happening with so many apps and sites

4Construction jobs

Again, this is a job that is pretty repetitive and requires precision. Now, architects are creative, and until machines get creative, those jobs are safe. However, everything from brick laying to mixing and pouring concrete, and even carpentry and electrical work is really a precision job that can be automated. Plus, pre-fabrication of homes and buildings (Ikea style) will also make this field perfect for automation.


being built by novices. Software will cut out the middle man, and give complete control to the creators. if you think this will result in ugly apps, sites and designs in general... you are probably a designer, and our sympathies for your upcoming redundancy!

BY ROBERT SMITH [email protected]

6Retail clerks

This one is a no-brainer if you’ve been abroad to a first world country. Selfservice is the name of the game, and retail have only skeleton staff. Sure, your corner shop isn’t going to invest in self-checkout machines, but then between online shopping giants and large retail chains, the days for the corner shop are numbered anyway. You hate it now, but soon you will miss the person walking up to you going, “May I help you”.

Cover story

7Air Traffic Controllers

We’ve all seen busy ATC towers, with controllers juggling the lives of thousands every minute of every day... this isn’t really the case anymore. Computers do most of the work now, and humans only supervise. Although we may never see the end of a human in an ATC tower (to keep us passengers reassured), technology is seeing to it that the number of people will see a drastic decline for sure.

13Assembly line employees

This one is already happening, and we expect it to get worse over the next 15 years. Machines are just better at repetitive assembly, and don’t tire. There’s going to be a huge upheaval in skilled but noncreative fields, and those of you still in school or college looking ahead at careers

8Bank tellers

Seriously, who goes to a bank anymore anyway? Old people? 15 years from now and most of the old people will be people who are used to using technology, and the young people will never have known another way... who’s going to want to go to a bank and stand in line then, when everything you want can be done online? For better or worse, bankers are going to have to find different ways of being useful soon.

office jobs 9Simple

If you have a job being a postal sorter, a data entry “specialist”, or a receptionist, etc., sadly, you better start finding a new career. These are the jobs we expect will get axed really early on in the next 15 years. Why? Because automation will do the job with ever decreasing errors, and make it absurd for companies to hire people to do these anymore.

10Uber / taxi drivers

Perhaps this will take longer than 15 years for India, but we certainly expect the job of drivers abroad to be under threat towards the end of the next 15 years. There is just too much R&D being done in this field, and the results are just way too promising. Machines never tire, never fall asleep at the wheel, and never speed or drive drunk. The only driving that people will do will be for fun.

Call centre / 11telemarketeers

We’re sure that each one of you has already received an automated call from some provider that was just playing back a pre-recorded message. Right? Even call centres are set to be totally automated. Almost all services try and give you an app that allows you to try and self-solve problems, this is repeated even when you call the call centre – self-serve, self-solve is the future, and we’re not missing the people at all.

12Sex workers

This one is going to raise a few eyebrows, but like it or not, there’s a reason why it’s considered the world’s oldest profession. If anything, we should rejoice that it will soon be a thing of the past, as will all the evils that accompany it. The Japanese are leading the game for this, and if history has taught us anything, the world is quick to get on the bandwagon of anything that helps it get off...

should take serious note of all the stuff in this article. We may be trying to make it sound funny, but we’re dead serious.

14Accountants

With most purchases being done online or by swiping cards, it’s no surprise that there’s more tranparency in all things financial. Add to this the increasingly efficient automation of accounting and book-balancing packages, and the future for accountants really does seem very bleak. Of course you can always diversify into investments and find creative tax loopholes as a consultant, but that’s not something a majority of the lower level accountants can achieve sadly.

/ translators 15Interpreters

With natural language processing improving a lot over the past few years, and a focus on personal assistants by all major tech companies (especially in your mother tongue), this really should come as no surprise to anyone. Computers are just getting better every day at translation, and 15 years is a really long time in tech. We totally expect our smartphones to be capable of on-thefly, near-perfect translation of any language to ours by 2031. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 41

Cover story

1BroApp

You can’t go wrong with an app that calls itself “Your clever relationship wingman”. The app sends out automated text messages to your girlfriend or significant other on a set schedule, freeing up time for your manly pursuits, like playing football with your bros, getting a beer with your bros or even going shopping with your bros (it’s totally cool, bro). You can enter a list of custom messages and a time, and the app will send out a random message from the list around the set time. It sends out the message at a slightly different time every day, lest she get suspicious, and you can even disable the messages when you’re connected to your girlfriend’s WiFI network to avoid awkward situations. The devs claim that users have responded with a “99% Bro satisfaction rating and a 3 fold increase in Bro happiness”, even resulting in one marriage proposal, so you know it’s legit, bro.

iOS: http://dgit.in/BroAppiOS

3Li.st

Remember B.J. Novak? He played the inimitable Ryan Howard on The Office while also being a writer and an executive producer on the show. B.J. Novak loves lists, so he brought out an app that’s built around lists. Now, before you go all “Not another list app” on us, Li.st is not a to-do list, neither is it an app to help you remember things. Think of the app as an Instagram for lists. Users can create lists about practically anything that interests them, and can follow their friends, celebrities or companies to see what they’re listing. These lists can include text, pictures and location data, with celebrities like Mindy Kaling posting some hilarious ones like “Things I Love About Broad City”, “A Few Great Beards” and “Actors That Will Make Me More Likely To See A Movie”. Of course, you can also use the app to get expert recommendations for books, movies, restaurants etc. by following accounts such as The New Yorker, Slate magazine or Cracked.com.

iOS: http://dgit.in/ListiOS Android: http://dgit.in/ListAndroid

Android: http://dgit.in/BroAppAndroid

2Blinkist

We like to think that we’re well read, with the ability to have intelligent and engaging discussions on economics, philosophy, science and technology. Our non-fiction reading lists are growing longer every day, just as our attention spans are dwindling - which makes one wonder, just how much longer can we keep up the charade? That’s where Blinkist comes in. By distilling the essence of over 1000 popular works of non-fiction into 15 minute-long snippets, the app is a lifesaver for those of us without the time or discipline to sit through an entire book. The curated selection includes an eclectic mix of bestsellers and lesser-known titles, spanning neuroscience, cognitive economics, startups and technology, politics, and self-help. You also have the option to listen to an audiobook version of the snippet, and the app has an offline mode so you can read without an active internet connection. Interesting passages can be highlighted, and you can take notes and export them to Evernote. Plus, if you prefer doing your reading on the Kindle, you can have your daily ‘blinks’ delivered directly to your device or the Kindle smartphone app.

iOS: http://dgit.in/BlinkistiOS Android: http://dgit.in/BlinkistAndroid 42 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

LITTLE-KNOWN APPS EVERY PHONE SHOULD HAVE A SMARTPHONE IS ONLY AS SMART AS ITS APPS. LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT SOME LESSERKNOWN APPS YOU OUGHT TO BE USING. BY PAANINI NAVILEKAR [email protected]

Cover story

4Skiplagged

Using a technique known as the ‘hidden-city’ rule, Skiplagged finds you cheap flights that other flight search apps can’t (Airlines HATE this app!). Skiplagged exploits algorithms that determine airfares by booking a flight which includes your desired destination as a stopping point. Once there, you simply hop off and “forget” to reboard. This fare can be up to 80 per cent cheaper than what you would have ended up paying for a direct flight.

iOS: http://dgit.in/SkiplaggediOS Android: http://dgit.in/SkiplaggedAndroid

5Wakie

Waking up in the morning is probably the hardest part of our day, and no amount of sleep is going to change that. You know the drill - wake up confused to the sound of your alarm, snooze it while trying to steal a few precious minutes of sleep, only to wake up groggy with little time left for breakfast. Wakie is an app where you set the time you want to be woken up, and another user from across the globe will call you, in the hope that a conversation with a complete stranger will be stimulating enough to rouse you from your slumber. In addition to using it as an innovative alarm app, you can also use Wakie to have anonymous phone conversations about any topic - just select the topic you’re interested in, and Wakie will match you with someone who’s willing to talk (or listen). iOS: http://dgit.in/WakieiOS Android: http://dgit.in/WakieAndroid

6BodBot

The easiest thing to do in the world is to come up with excuses to not get in shape. Be it a lack of time, resources or just laziness. None of them are valid when it comes to taking care of your body. BodBot is an all-in-one fitness trainer app, that will help you design a customized workout plan, whether you’re just looking to lose some weight, improve your stamina, or build muscle. It adapts to your schedule, so you can use it effectively even if you’ve just got a few hours every week. You can set goals for yourself and track your progress as well. The app adapts your workout regime depending on your performance. The killer feature is a built in nutrition planner that provides detailed nutritional information, a meal plan in line with your fitness goals and a meal tracker to keep your calories in check. iOS: http://dgit.in/BodBotiOS Android: http://dgit.in/BodBotAndroid

7Zombies, Run

Being chased down by zombies who’re out for your blood isn’t something new - after all, games like Temple Run shot to popularity on the back of this concept. But take the same concept, and adapt it to real life, and you’ve got quite a game going. Zombies, Run is a game that motivates you to run by chasing you with virtual zombies, and rewarding you with virtual supplies and weapons as you complete your tasks. Put on your earphones, and let the game talk you through a mission - you’ll have to speed up if you’re being chased, slow down to catch your breath, and you can even collect supplies along the way to build a base. You can even create your own missions if you have a specific type of workout in mind, or challenge your friends to a mission.

iOS: http://dgit.in/ZombiesRuniOS Android: http://dgit.in/ZombiesRunAndroid

8Unf**k your habitat

A messy home impresses no one, and if you’re looking to have some company over, a tidy room is going to make a great first impression. If you still need some reason to keep your surroundings clean, this app is for you. The app guides you using small intervals of time - 5, 10 or 15 minutes a day, to make sure your habitat remains clean. It goes into some interesting details, including doing the laundry, the dirty dishes, making your bed and even a section on “emergency cleaning” - for when you only have a few minutes to tidy up your place before an imminent visit. A fun aspect of the app is the “Challenge”, where you’re tasked with cleaning up traditionally messy areas of your house such as the front door, your shoe rack, your stash of unread letters and flyers, or your fridge, within a given time. iOS: http://dgit.in/HabitatiOS Android: http://dgit.in/HabitatAndroid

9Buddhify

Mental health has garnered a great deal of awareness in recent years, bringing to light the danger of a lot of mental illnesses. One effective way to maintain mental hygiene, is to dedicate a few minutes every day to the act of meditation. Meditation can seem daunting at first, but it doesn’t have to be. Being mindful of oneself is a great skill, and Buddhify will help you develop that skill through a set of guided meditation sessions. It has more than 80 guided-meditations, suited to accompany daily activities such as waking up, eating, commuting to work or just generally feeling stressed out. iOS: http://dgit.in/BuddhifyiOS Android: http://dgit.in/BuddhifyAndroid Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 43

Cover story

13TripIt

101 Second Everyday

The idea of keeping a personal journal is really appealing, except when you realize it’s going to take discipline to update it everyday. 1 Second Everyday is a really unique concept - you use your phone’s camera to take a video clip everyday, exactly 1 second long. Do this for a few months, and the app will stitch all your 1 second moments into a video that will serve as a wonderful, nostalgia-filled video diary of your life. Use it to document your life, watch your little one grow up, or even as a gift for a loved one. It’s a really neat idea that requires literally one second of your day, but the results are sure to bring a smile on your face.

iOS: http://dgit.in/1SecondiOS Android: http://dgit.in/1SecondAndroid

11Places I’ve Pooped

Everyone poops. Whether you love it, loathe it, or just prefer not to talk about it, the fact remains that we spend a significant portion of our lives on the pot. What if you could mark off the places you’d pooped on a map? What cities, countries or continents would it include? You’ve got to admit, that would be a pretty cool graphic to look at. You can even follow your friends to see where they’ve pooped - the “Poop Feed” shows live updates from your friends. One handy feature of the app is it allows you to attach a photo and rating of the location, so you’ll know which are the best pooping spots!

As much as we all love to travel, planning a trip can be quite an exhausting process - you’ve got to keep track of flight bookings, hotels, taxi bookings and also take into account changes in schedule or cancellations. Managing all this info can be daunting, particularly if you’re travelling in a group. TripIt simplifies the entire experience, by automatically creating a trip itinerary for you that you can share with your friends. Sign in with your Gmail account, and the app automatically forwards all travel-related information to an email address and builds your itinerary, notifying you in case of flight delays, changes in bookings, or cancellations. The app will also provide you with maps and directions when you arrive at your destination, and for a fee of $49/year, provide real time flight tracking and seat tracking.

iOS: http://dgit.in/TripItiOS Android: http://dgit.in/TripItAndroid

14RunPee

Runpee is one of those apps that’s so simple and useful that you’ll wonder how you got by without it before. The app has a list of movies, each with a few “carefully selected peetimes” - short intervals of time in the movie that don’t contain any major scenes that you can’t afford to miss. Use these peetimes to answer nature’s call, without the fear that you’ll miss out on some major plot twist or hilarious scene, sparing your friends from having to explain the part that you just missed. The app has a timer that you can set at the start of the movie, and it will gently vibrate at the start of each peetime, sparing you from checking your phone every few minutes. One killer feature of the app is that it also tells you if there are any extra scenes after the end credits that you’ll want to stick around for.

iOS: http://dgit.in/RunPeeiOS Android: http://dgit.in/RunPee_Android

15Mixlr

We get it - you’ve worked hard all week, so you’ve earned that drink (or five). Or maybe you detest cooking, and would rather stuff your face with a 3 course meal. But if you find yourself staring at a depleted bank balance (urban poor, anyone?), you’ll want to check out CrownIt. This app rewards you with cashbacks on your spends at approved restaurants and bars in the form of ‘crowns’. These crowns can be redeemed on online shopping sites like Flipkart and Amazon, or used to pay your mobile and telephone bills. Just snap a photo of your bill within 30 minutes of your meal and upload it using the app to be eligible for a cashback.

Podcasts are great - you can learn about a wealth of topics while you commute, or just while doing chores at home. It’s pretty easy to start your own podcast, but if you find the entire process of finding the right equipment, software and platform daunting, Mixlr is as easy as it gets. The app’s main function is to let you create audio streams, and broadcast them live - you can choose to have the app automatically list your station on TuneIn Radio, or you can embed the link to your stream within Soundcloud, Facebook or Twitter, and Mixlr will automatically create a ‘Livepage’ for your stream. This will let you engage with your audience in real time. Apart from regular talk shows, you can also live-stream a radio show or a DJ set using Virtual DJ and a MIDI controller. Mixlr’s desktop app also lets you live-stream a Skype call to your listeners.

iOS: http://dgit.in/CrownItiPhone

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/mixlr/id583705714

Android: http://dgit.in/CrownItAndroid

Android: http://dgit.in/MixlrAndroidApp

iOS: http://dgit.in/PoopiOS Android: http://dgit.in/PoopAndroid

12CrownIt


Cover story

1Indiaplaza.com

K Vaitheeswaran founded Indiaplaza.com in 1999. Launched as Fabmall.com, it was one of the first e-commerce websites in India, seeding $3 million between 2004 and 2011. In 2013, it decided to wind up due to severe lack of funds. Analysts say that the startup was ahead of it’s time, but later fell behind to adopt latest technology, especially COD. More info here: http://dgit.in/IndPlza

2Guruji.com

INDIAN STARTUPS THAT FIZZLED OUT

Founded by IIT Delhi alumnus, Guruji. com was a search engine for the ‘desi’ users. With an initial seeding of Rs.322 million in 2006, Guruji went on to add several search features like news, images, movies etc., out of which the music search received the most popularity. Later, the music search got sued for providing pirated music content, which went on to become the reason for its shutdown.

JewelsKart and WatchKart 3BagsKart,

Founded in 2008, Valyoo technologies started it’s ‘4 sites - 1 cart’ model with JewelsKart, WatchKart, BagsKart and LensKart portals. But, due to severe traction and financial crisis, it decided to shut down everything except LensKart.

4Lumos

Closing its shutters in less than a year, Lumos, catering to the IoT space, was founded in order to automate any electrical appliance into smart appliances that could be controlled via a smartphone in order to make your home a ‘smart home’. After shutdown, one of the main reasons they cited leaving the market was because of lack of expertise in the field.


A NUMBER OF STARTUPS EMERGE EVERYDAY BUT NOT MANY CAN FACE THE HEAT. HERE ARE THE ONES THAT DISSIPATED WITH TIME. BY NIKHIL PUNJABI [email protected]

5DoneByNone

Gurgaon based online fashion store for women DoneByNone.com, which was founded in 2011, went inactive in late 2014 with an apology on Facebook. Earlier that same year, DoneByNone was seen hitting the ten million mark in its overall sales. So why go inactive? The Facebook post mentioned that they had let down their customers and had been going through a tough time, and that they were working to fix it. That was the last piece of communication received from the company. The founders were later seen moving on to newer projects. The exact reason of DoneByNone’s inactiveness is still unknown, but various reports suggest that the company’s existing investors were no longer interested in the venture.

6TalentPad

Having founders from IIT and IIM, TalentPad (earlier known as TalentAuction) aimed to find candidates for its client companies by incorporating a curated recruitment marketplace model. Despite raising investment in October 2014 from Helion Venture Partners, and the acquisition of a rival – OptimizedBits,

to boost its analytical capabilities, TalentPad joined the list of dead startups less than a year later. The reason for their shutdown, according to the founders, is that they were unable to scale their business for a market as big as the one they were dealing in.

Cover story

7Zeppery

Founded in 2015, Zeppery offered the option to browse food menus and pre-order food to avoid long queues. However, Zeppery shut down just six months after launch. The reason for failure, according to one of the founders is that the model was ahead of its time for Indian markets. This, along with competition from fellow food-tech startups and high retention costs. Zeppery is the latest startups on this list to shut down, on date of writing this article in fact.

8AmberWellness

Following PepperTap, AmberWellness, an online beauty startup founded in August 2015, ceased providing services in all three cities it was operating in. They had raised funding of close to $1million from an angel investor but pulled out of the market in May 2016, making a conscious call to step out of the business due to the low margins, according to the founders.

9PepperTap

Based on a similar model as that of BigBasket and Grofers, PepperTap was the third most funded hyperlocal grocery startup in Q3 2015, operating in 17 cities. In April 2016, the startup decided to cease their operations after 17 months of rapid expansion, identifying major discounting as one of the main reasons for excessive cash burn and lack in ability to scale their technology as rapidly as demanded.

10Bonafide

A two year old Bitcoin startup – Bonafide.io, was founded with the aim to provide data to Bitcoin companies along with exchange and wallet services. It ceased its operations in 2015. Bonafide was listed in the Silicon Valley’s 500 startups incubation program and managed to raise around $850,000 in 2015. But all was in vain when the founders realised that the idea was ahead of its time and saw little chance to be able to generate revenue.

13DeliverWithMe

To meet logistics challenges in India, DeliverWithMe came up with a crowd-sourced e-commerce delivery platform that would get your parcel delivered with its peer to peer network by people travelling between same routes. In return, users were rewarded vouchers from partnered brands. The service caught good traction at first, but the founders soon went on to realise that the entire model had several drawbacks, especially security. In addition to excessive cash burn and differences between the cofounders, DeliverWithMe ceased in 2014. Read more here: http://dgit.in/DwmSD

11Trevo

14AdMagnet

12SchoolGennie

15Dazo

Young IIT and IIM alumni minds ventured into the bus pooling space with Trevo, an app for intra-city travel. The service was operational in Gurgaon and Delhi but within a month, Trevo halted its operations. Reports and experts say that the inability to raise fresh funding was the reason for Trevo’s shutdown. Interestingly, the minds who founded Trevo were the same ones that launched TalentPad earlier, which has also made it on to this list.

Founded in 2013 with the aim to create an online ERP tool for schools, the founders of SchoolGennie spent over 15 lacs in 11 months before quitting their jobs. They ended up with a product that couldn’t find any buyers and taught the founders an important lesson – know your product and customers before you invest. Read the story here: http://dgit.in/SchlGne

Founded in 2008, AdMagnet was backed by major seeders like Sequoia Capital. This digital advertising network used to provide data related to ad impressions across various categories and audience segments, helping advertisers to reach their target users. In October 2015, AdMagnet ceased its operations with undisclosed reasons. Although reports already hinted at it, the likeliest reason cited is one of the cofounders leaving the company with many other executives in tow.

Founded in 2014, Dazo received funding from big names such Rajan Anandan (MD, Google India), Amit Agarwal (Country CEO, Amazon) and various others, but that still wasn’t enough to save the startup. Dazo still had to shut down due to lack of funds in October – just within a year of its launch. According to reports, the reason Dazo shut down was due to its inability to scale its customer base and partner restaurants, as compared to its competitors. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 47

Cover story

1Nokia 3310

You remember the Nokia 3310, don’t you? Those who had this, haven’t been able to break or destroy it yet. Moreover, the Nokia 3310 was full of incredible features for its time, the best of which is of course, Snake! Nokia sold some 126 million units of this phone, and it was followed by the Nokia 3315, another iconic device.

2Nokia 1100

TOP MOBILE PHONES OF THE PAST 15 YEARS

If smartphone OEMs are indeed yearning for better battery life, this is the phone to look for. The iconic device was one of the best in that respect. Nokia launched this phone, back in 2003, and Wikipedia says it has since sold 250 million units of this. It may not actually have sold as much, but it was still popular.

3Moto Razr V3i

On a personal note, would you disagree if we called this the best looking phone ever made? The Razr V3i had 8x digital zoom, which was kind of a big deal at the time. You could also add an external SD card upto 1GB.

4Nokia N-Gage

The Nokia N-Gage and N-Gage QD weren’t very successful products, but they are iconic for being the original phone for gamers. The N-Gage gave rise to the N-Gage platform, which was later used in the Nokia N81 smartphone, based on its own Symbian OS. We know of many, us included, who still remember this phone, fondly.


HERE’S A LOOK AT THE MOST UNIQUE PHONES OF THE PAST DECADE THAT DEFINED OUR MOBILE ADDICTION 9500 5Nokia

From gaming to business, Nokia once had a phone for everyone. If the 1100 and 3310 were consumer devices, and the N-Gage a gamer’s, then the 9500 Communicators, were meant for the business user. Equipped with a QWERTY keyboard, this wasn’t a device you buy for entertainment, although, it allowed plenty of that too. In fact, Nokia took its time to launch this one, but when it did, competitors were nowhere close. A defining phone in everyone’s Nokia handset journey, the 9500 Communicator was a trend-setter in so many ways, not least in its high productivity quotient. No phone came close to matching its prowess and unique allure. And combine it with the wide availability of the device, it was bound to be a sensational hit for everyone thirsty for a distinctive phone.

BY PRASID BANERJEE [email protected]

6Nokia 6600

This odd looking device is perhaps the best known Nokia phone in India, after the 3310 and 1100. Symbian was slightly sluggish, but it had a decent camera for its time. It had an integrated voice recorder, supported Bluetooth connectivity, and an IR port. It had enough options for the tinkerers to enjoy it, and a personality that made others notice it too. We remember a lot of college kids using flaunting this phone for its multimedia and productivity capabilities, back in the day. It’s a special phone from a special era can’t be forgotten.

Cover story

7Nokia 5200

This funky looking smartphone was aimed specifically at youngsters, and current OEMs, launching phones for the young ‘uns could learn so much from it. It was comparatively cheaper, and being a music device, had a dedicated button for playback on the side. The 5200 was somewhat bulky, but its small form factor helped you ignore that aspect.

8Sony Ericsson W800

Music phones, like the 5200, that Nokia launched, were meant to counter Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series. The W800 was the first one, and it wowed a lot of people. It had a fully functional MP3 player, and delivered great sound quality for its time. There was also a great camera to boot!

Sony Ericsson 9 K750i When 2MP primary cameras were a big deal, the Sony Ericsson K750i had the best one. At its time, this was the only phone that a camera enthusiast would have appreciated. It took great photos, and used some of the features from the Walkman series, to deliver good sound as well.

Curve 10BlackBerry

They’re all but done with smartphones now, but BlackBerry had a big role to play at a time. The Curve took the business-focused BlackBerry phones, to the masses. It had a dedicated button for the company’s, then popular, BBM Messenger, and the trademark QWERTY keyboard, that many still love, and miss. Will the golden BB era ever fully return?

13Samsung Galaxy Note

What the iPhone was to smartphones, the Galaxy Note was to phablets. The Galaxy Note reintroduced styluses for touch screen devices, and created an entire category within smartphones. While we expect the Galaxy Note 6 in a few months, this imperfect phone, is one of Samsung’s biggest contributions to the smartphone market.

14Moto G

This is where it all started for Android. Google bought a company called Android Inc, back in 2005. A few years later, the Search giant launched its first phone, called the Google G1, which was better known as the HTC Dream. Being the first phone to run Android, it kick started the revolution. And the rest, as they say… is history. Effectively, this was the first Nexus ever.

At a time when a good smartphone usually meant spending tons of cash, the Moto G changed the game. Motorola took the market by storm with this Snapdragon 400-powered wonder. It didn’t put a huge dent on your pocket, and performed like a phone well beyond its price range. When we say today, that the sub-15K market is uber competitive, it is because the Moto G made it so. Even now, after four generations of the device, the Moto G series hasn’t really lost its appeal in the eyes of the customer. It still continues to go strong, from strength to strength.

12iPhone

15Xiaomi Mi 3

11HTC Dream

To many, writing the word ‘iPhone’ simply means Apple’s entire phone portfolio. But, we’re talking about the first iPhone. Why? Because it is the reason you have the phones you use today. It was a phone that an entire industry tried to replicate and ‘copy’. Today, when Tim Cook is gallivanting around India, one must look back to the phone that started it all.

While this phone sold in India for a few weeks, it is relevant for two reasons. The first, because it put Xiaomi on the map in the Indian context. Second, and more importantly, because it pushed every other OEM to up its game. The Xiaomi Mi 3 was a Nexus 5 at the price of a Moto G, and that’s saying something! Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 49

Cover story there is a world market for maybe computers.” 1“Ifivethink —Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. Here’s some food for thought—there are three computers within my line of sight as I write this. To further put things in perspective, 83 million computers have already been sold just this year so far, with the total numbers of personal computers in use having already crossed the 2 billion mark. And while it took 27 years to reach the 1 billion sales mark, it only took 7 to grow from 1 billion to 2 billion. Now let’s be fair, I don’t

think anyone in 1943 had any idea that the personal computing industry would blow up the way it has in the last few decades. And when Thomas Watson said “five computers”, he probably wasn’t talking about the advanced portable computers we know now so much as “five vacuumtube powered number adding machines that could fill up three rooms and consume an entire city block’s worth of electricity supply”; still, as far as predictions go, this isn’t particularly well-advised.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a 2message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio, the 1920s And David Sarnoff’s associates were never invited to a conference table again. In the US radio penetration currently stands at 59% of the population, behind only TV, and ahead of internet and print. Between 2009-2019, the advertising revenue generated from radio is expected to be around $17bn in the US and around $31bn globally. Closer to home, the radio industry in India is expected to be worth between `5000-6000 crores by 2020. Not too bad for a “wireless music box” with “no imaginable commercial value” that “no one would pay for”, right? Alas, if only David’s associates were a little wiser, they would have struck the deal of the century. 50 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS THAT FAILED SOME OF THE BIGGEST GAFFES, EXAGGERATIONS, AND MISFIRINGS FROM THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY BY VISHVESH JATAIN [email protected]

Apple down and give the money back 3to“I’dtheshutshareholders.”

— Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, 1997 When you’re a competitor, you’re sort of forced to take a contrary position by default. But Michael would have never imagined the ways in which this statement would come back to haunt him. Steve gave Michael some instant karma by mocking the living hell out of him in one of his media appearances following the latter’s statement, adding a prophetic, “We’re coming after you, buddy,” towards the end, and came after him, he did. The rest, as they say, is history: Apple eventually not only crushed Dell, but the entire PC industry as a whole. You can watch the video on YouTube by searching, “Steve Jobs hammers Michael Dell.” In recent years, Michael has repeatedly tried to backtrack on his statement, How ironic that Dell had to go private, after taking a $2 million loan from Microsoft and Michael Dell. Ouch!

Cover story won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first 4six“Television months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box.”

— Daryl Zanuck, film producer, co-founder of 20th Century Fox, 1946 Daryl Zanuck was one of the most iconic Hollywood film producers of his era, having produced over 165 films, over the course of his career. Though his scorn for this disruptive, incumbent technology is somewhat understandable, the prediction itself is so off the mark that you can’t

help but be amused by it. Let’s get some perspective on this. In 2010, an average American spent well over 5 hours sitting in front of the idiot box, suffice to say no one is tired of it—yet. In terms of commercial success, the estimated revenue generated by the US television industry between 2014 and 2015 was around $134bn. Even though TV may finally be witnessing some decline in popularity, thanks largely to the Internet, I think we can all agree that it has had quite a run.

5

“Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”

— William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899 It’s almost as if someone jokingly challenged Lord Kelvin to intentionally poke fun at three of the greatest scientific ideas of the 20th century, then some rookie journalist jumped the gun and went to press without context, and the noble Lord has been misquoted ever since. It’s won’t be a stretch to say that one could write an entire book on just the applications of radio technology alone; oh wait a minute, someone already has, It’s called the Handbook of Radio and Wireless Technology and happens to be 640 pages long. Coming to the subject of planes, about 102,700 commercial flights are undertaken every day according to rough estimates, and we’re not even talking about the role of airplanes in military strategy around the world. As for X-rays, they happen to be the mainstay of primary diagnosis in the field of medicine worldwide. Severely misinforme? You betcha.

around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use 6it, “Fooling ever.” — Thomas Edison An unfortunate statement to make, certainly, but Edison had his reasons for making it. Back in the day, two current systems were competing neck and neck for mass adoption in the market: Thomas Edison’s direct current (DC), being promoted by his own Edison Electric Light Company, and Nikolas Tesla’s alternating current (AC), whose patent was sold to George Westinghouse, owner of Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Edison’s commercial rival. The long drawn struggle between the two competing companies and the people behind them came to be known as the “War of currents.” The story gets complicated but the bottom line is that AC won over DC, mainly because the voltage of AC can be modulated to extremely high levels (“Danger: 11000 Volts” signs anyone?) and later stepped down at the point of delivery unlike DC—allowing it to be transmitted over longer distances using thinner, and therefore less costly wires, making the distribution much cheaper. Even though DC is still extensively used in modern electronic devices such as computers, telephones, automotive systems, and more, Edison would have found little comfort knowing that AC is how the power is really reaching all these devices across the world in the first place.

“Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will be a reality within 10 years.” 7probably

— Alex Lewyt, President of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company, I honestly have so many questions for Mr. Lewyt about this one, but since he’s not alive anymore, I think I’ll have to just throw them out in the open and hope someone else can answer. But first, let’s assume that it is, in fact, possible to make vacuum cleaners that run on power generated by nuclear fission; complete with radioactive fuel, control rods, a cooling chamber, a pressure vessel, and a steam generator. Okay. Now that the little technicalities are out of the way, who or where are the buyers for these fun-size vacuum cleaners? Let’s try to answer this question. Just what kind of stains are they dealing with that regular electric current from the household supply just won’t cut it anymore? Is it worth risking incinerating a few cities by accident just because you don’t want to scrub a little harder to remove the wine from the carpet? Could there be intelligent life right here on earth? So many questions, but not one satisfactory answer. Oh this wait for discovering the riddles of the universe is killing all of us in the inside. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 51

Cover story “Before man reaches the moon, your mail will “Two years from now, spam will be be delivered within hours from New York to solved.” 8Australia 10 by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.”

— Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General, 1959 Well, SpaceX is only just figuring out how to reverse land rockets, so I don’t know—maybe we’ll have rocket mail after all. When I first came across this statement made by the then U.S. Postmaster General, I thought he was just indulging in some good old wishful thinking. Then I found a Wikipedia page on “rocket mail” and found out that for a while, they were actually testing rockets to deliver mail, and at one point, even the US Navy got involved. Upon further thought, one could argue the case for rocket mail: It’s possibly the fastest physical way to deliver mail. There’s just one minor concern, rockets do this thing where they can sometimes lose their trajectory and end up levelling an entire city block, at which point you have to stop and ask yourself: “How important is the expedited delivery of mail really?” The idea was finally dropped when they realized that the cost of rocket fuel and the expense of running the operation would never justify the incremental gain in the speed of mail delivered—something even a slightly clued in high school science student would tell you long before you go testing those rockets. The silver lining in this cloud is that eventually Rocketmail did happen, and it was instant, and it was delivered over the Internet, and as far as I can tell, no one’s life was put at risk.

“The subscription model of buying music is 9bankrupt.”

— Steve Jobs, 2003 Not too visionary, Steve, not too visionary at all. In 2014, an estimated 41 million people paid for music subscription services, the number having gone up from 8 million in just four years. Last year, the total annual revenue from streaming music hit a record $2.4bn. And streaming music is now the largest contributor of revenue to the music industry at 34.3%, ahead of both downloads (34%) and physical (28.8%). Apple launched its own subscription service called Apple Music last year, which has already acquired one-third the number of subscribers that the market leader Spotify has. In fact, the buzz is that the subscription model is working out so well for Apple that it may soon be discontinuing iTunes digital downloads entirely in favor of the Apple Music subscription model. I guess Apple couldn’t afford to miss the gravy train, even though their supreme deity had publicly spoken it over a decade ago. Must be hard.


— Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum, 2004 Hey Bill, I know you’re smart and everything, but please tell that to the Nigerian prince who just emailed me this morning requesting my bank details because he just inherited a few hundred million dollars that he needs to redistribute in multiple accounts across the world to hide it from his own predatory government. I shouldn’t be mocking, I must be getting my share of $7 million any minute now. The mandatory Nigerian prince spam joke aside, spam is still pretty much alive and kicking, although intelligent spam filters try to keep us protected from it. Kaspersky Labs recently estimated that almost as much as 70% of all email is spam. The reason why spam is so pervasive and often difficult to track is because a majority of spam is not sent by the spammer, but by infecting and hijacking the computers of other people like you and I using malware.

“Within the next two decades, autos will be with folding wings.” 11made

— Eddie Rickenbacker, pilot, 1924 Just coincidentally, this is the exact same thing I told my dad two decades ago when I was a kid, so I totally get you, Eddie, and I know exactly where you’re coming from. Unfortunately, the world is yet to deliver on our dreams. At that time, Eddie probably had no idea that the world had a probably the most devastating war, in store. All of the research then went into making bombs, and even car manufacturers joined the war effort, and made guns and tanks, instead of luxury cars, and nobody really spent any time into thinking up a flying car. Even today, we have cars faster than the speed of sound, amphibious cars, but we still don’t have a car with wings. One would think that manufacturers would concentrate all research on flying cars, and completely ignore measly issues like global warming, and the possibibility of species-wide exitinction. A few small form factor, light-capable machines do exist now, the Akoya amphibious aircraft for instance, which can land on ground, water, and snow without adaptation, has a length of 6.9m, wingspan of just 11m, cruising speed of 210 km/h, and a range of 1250 kms—pretty damn cool!—but it’s still more a plane with wheels than a car with wings. Can someone please explain to me why we’re building hyperloops and particle colliders and exploring Mars when we can’t even give the masses the simple luxury of a flying car? It’s 2016 already! Come on!

Cover story soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.” 12“We’ll

— Clifford Stoll, astronomer and author, 1995 It’s one thing to wrongly predict the success or failure of something and completely another thing to sound delightfully snide while doing so. This statement comes from an article published in Newsweek in 1995, very descriptively titled: “The Internet? Bah!”. In the article, Clifford goes on to debunk the hype behind the coming “information superhighway” as “baloney”. However, as an author of a few acclaimed books on hacking and technology, astronomer, and general mad-scientist type—Clifford’s scathing tone was probably rooted more in concern and experience rather than maliciousness. He believed that the Internet was too disorganized and chaotic a database to be of any practical purpose and that online shopping could never replace the personal touch and salesmanship you get in a retail shop. Of course, there were a lot of other things he failed to predict, including the emergence of trackers and algorithms that would keep throwing products in your face all across the Internet till you bought the product out of desperation just so it would leave you alone—who says the Internet doesn’t have salesmanship?

no chance that the iPhone is going get any significant market share.” 14to“There’s

— Steve Ballmer, former chief executive of Microsoft, 2007 One thing you can never blame Steve for is not being entertaining enough. There are literally thousands of articles, videos, and memes online with names like “Steve going crazy on stage” and “the greatest hits of Steve Ballmer”—which is exactly what it sounds like, a compendium of not so smart things Steve has said over the years. Steve also isn’t particularly known for mincing words, though sometimes one wishes he did. After the launch of iPhone 3G, tech analyst Charles Wolf noted that “Apple’s iPhone 3G, introduced in July, is the only reason smartphone growth did not slow in September.” At the time, iPhone represented 16.6% of the entire smartphone market worldwide, second only to Nokia. You were saying, Steve?

“That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is 15 suggested by the fact that during the past year

no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.” — Scientific American, 1909

bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.” 13“The

— Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project Except that the bombs did go off, Mr. “Expert”, collectively unleashing a blast yield equivalent to 36,000 tons of TNT on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. In Hiroshima, almost everything within a blast radius of 1.6 km was completely destroyed due to the immense shock waves generated by the heated X-ray fireball, except for about 50 heavily reinforced, earthquake-resistant buildings—only the frames of which remained standing. Things that escaped the fury of the shockwaves were engulfed by the firestorm that followed and covered an area of 3.2 km. And in case all that wasn’t destructive enough, there was also a burst of intense neutron and gamma radiation that irradiated directly from the fireball at impact. That’s a lot of wreckage created by a bomb that wasn’t even supposed to go off in the first place. As satirist Peter Cook once said, “Experts are the last people to come up with the solution to anything. It would be far better to set up a team of five old idiots to probe matters.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa… calm down, Scientific American! It’s just 1909 for crying out loud, the days are young for the automotive industry and the future is still out there. You’re going to have things like rear-mounted radar and multi-angle camera systems for hassle-free parking, night vision with pedestrian detection, automatic high-beam control, in-car Internet (you’ll know what the “Internet” is when you get there, it’s great, I promise!), GPS vehicle tracking, the capability to detect whether the driver is fit to drive and initiate vehicle lockdown if needed; and I haven’t even started about the more run-of-the-mill things like anti-lock braking system, electronic brakeforce distribution, carbon fibre car bodies, crumple zones, and automatic transmission. Also, we now have electric cars that not only work well but are crushing the tradition internal combustion engine market. Also, there are driverless cars. Also, there’s a car called Bugatti Chiron that goes up to 464 km/h. I rest my case. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 53

Cover story

1Vint Cerf

Vint Cerf is popularly known as the “Father of the Internet”, and shares the credit for this invention with Bob Kahn. He began his work at the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and played a significant role in the development of the Internet and internet related packages. He is currently a vice-president at Google and is responsible for identifying new enabling technology that has the potential to take the Internet to the next level. Apart from doing all that he’s done, Cerf continues to play a pivotal role in keeping the Internet safe and secure at the protocol level.

4Bram Cohen

You don’t have to be a pirate with vast plundered treasures to know about the wonders of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing. After working for a number of dot com companies in the 90s, Cohen ultimately landed up at Mojonation, a software not unlike BitTorrent, but only for encrypted files. Quite soon, in 2001 he left to create BitTorrent and shared it with the world at the first CodeCon conference, organised by him and his roommate Len Sassaman. Little known fact, Cohen also worked at Valve during late 2003 to create Steam. Extra love coming his way from all the gamers in our team!

5Sarah Allen

It might surprise you to know that there was a single person leading the development of Adobe Flash, Shockwave as well as the company that created Adobe After Effects. Surprising, isn’t it? Sarah Allen attended Brown University on Rhode Island, majoring in computer science and visual arts. She also founded two startups mobile startup Mightyverse, where she is also the CTO, and the San Francisco based Ruby on Rails consultancy, Blazing Cloud. A lot of modern day graphics designers and video editors owe their allegiance to this understated genius of the editing software world!

2Ajay V Bhatt

Do you use a pendrive? A keyboard? A mouse? A printer? If they aren’t ancient and have USB ports, you have Ajay Bhatt from Intel to thank for that. Also credited with the invention of the PCI/E slot that you happily plug your graphics cards into, Ajay Bhatt’s invention came through his own frustration with the large number of ports and compatible connectors needed for them. He holds 31 US patents and several more are in the process of approval.

Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim 3Steve

One of the most casually used services today that we take for granted had its roots in another startup, believe it or not. Youtube was co-founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, all former Paypal employees. Although there are multiple stories of how the idea originated - ranging from the difficulty of sharing video files at a dinner party to being unable to find clips of certain events online - but we can surely say that the origin has worked out quite nicely into what it is now. Youtube is fast becoming all of our go-to destination for watching or hosting videos for free, and our addiction of the website and its service is only going to grow.


UNDERRATED NAMES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CELEBRATING THE HIDDEN GENIUSES FROM THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY! BY ARNAB MUKHERJEE [email protected]

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6Jaap Haartsen

Short range radio technology was being developed at Ericsson since 1989, with the purpose of developing wireless headsets. It was ultimately Jaap Haartsen, tasked with developing the technology in accordance to the communication protocol, who is credited with making Bluetooth a reality. So now you know whom to thank for those Bluetooth gadgets.

10Grigori Perelman

Clay Mathematics Institute posed seven mathematical problems in 2000, and a $1million prize for even one solution. Grigori Perelman met the criteria to receive the prize for his work on the Poincare conjecture. He however refused the million dollars as he found it unfair. He also turned down the Fields medal in 2006, stating that he wasn’t interested in money or fame.

Dr John O’Sullivan, Dr Terry Karlheinz Brandenburg Percival, Mr Diet Ostry, Mr 7Graham 11 Daniels and Mr John Deane

Dr. Sullivan and his colleagues from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation(CSIRO) are responsible for discovering something that led to the development of Wi-Fi. CSIRO still receives licensing fees and lawsuit settlements for patent infringement on Wi-Fi till date.

Pull out your earphones and pause that track on your phone. The person you have to thank for the most widely used music format on the internet, the Mp3, is Karlheinz Brandenburg, a German electrical engineer and mathematician. Along with this, the results of his Ph. D dissertation have formed the basis of AAC and most other modern audio compression schemes. Needless to say, he has received multiple awards in the field of technology, and our unspoken gratitude.

8Rachid Yazami, Akira Yoshino, John Goodenough While Rachid Yazami discovered a graphite electrode that is most commonly used in present day Li-ion batteries, Akira Yoshino assembled a prototype cell that used Lithium cobalt oxide for safety. With these developments in place, John Goodenough demonstrated the higher voltage generating capabilities of polyanions.

9Henry Cavendish

He is credited for discovering Hydrogen and weighing the earth (discovering the gravitational constant G), but he deserves credit for a lot more. Most of his work was discovered by James Clark Maxwell in 1879. They included significant theorems like Ohm’s law, Dalton’s law, Coulomb’s law, Concept of electric potential, dielectric constant, Charles Law and many more such theorems.

12Abraham E Karem

One of the deadliest weapons in 21st century warfare, particularly in the Middle East, was developed and perfected by Abraham Karem, a Baghdadborn aerospace engineer. He emigrated to the US in the 70s, founded Leading Systems Inc. where he would manufacture Amber, which eventually evolved to the Predator, earning him the title of “dronefather”.

13Andrew Wiles

The Guinness Book states Fermat’s Last Theorem as the “most difficult mathematical problem”. The person who solved it, is Andrew Wiles, a British mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford.

14Edward Witten

The first and only physicist so far to win the Fields medal, Edward Witten‘s research ranges in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories and more. He also united the five different consistent versions of string theory as different limits of a single theory, called the M-Theory.

15Joe Viskocil

Joe Viskocil is credited with the special effects and visual effects of more than 80 films. This includes films like Independence Day, Terminator and Terminator 2, Godzilla, Armageddon and more. Sadly, before he could make the world of Hollywood movies even more explosive, this VFX veteran passed away on August 2014. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 55

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1Social Awkwardness

Social media is gradually making us all socially awkward. It’s true. We’re far too comfortable talking to people online. There’s no need to leave the confines of our homes anymore, or interact with people physically. Granted that social media is a great way to connect people,, but at the same time, it could also be the reason that people drift apart.

2Selfies

Oh dear god, the Selfie. It’s beyond us how the selfie phenomenon became as big as it did, but here we are. Everywhere you look there’s someone or the other taking a selfie. With their food, with their “SO”, in their vehicle, at the zoo, at the movies, the list goes on. It’s gotten to the point where people are actually dying while taking a selfie. Definitely ruinous for society.

rather record than experience 3We’d

People are obsessed with sharing everything they do, on social media.. Everyone wants to impress their friends and followers, make them jealous. It’s gotten to the point where people are so focused on capturing the moment on camera or in video that they completely forget about the experience itself. People on vacation at the beach are too focused trying to capture the perfect picture of their feet and the beach than actually enjoying the waves themselves.

4We’re in front of screen 24x7

WAYS TECHNOLOGY HAS RUINED US FOREVER TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN A MAJOR PART OF OUR LIVES. HERE’S 15 WAYS IN WHICH IT HAS BEEN SECRETLY RUINING US.

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We’re chained to sockets (chargers)

We’re slaves to our technology. Literally. We are shackled to electricity sockets by chargers and power cords. It’s like phone companies today want us to stay at home with the tiny battery life phones have these days.If you see a gathering of teenagers, staring into their phones, you can safely assume that there’s a power source near by.

No matter what time of the day it is, or wherever it is that you are, you always have some sort of the screen or gadget on you. No matter what be reason, for making calls, or passing the time, or playing games etc. At our homes as well, we’re always either in front of a desktops, laptops, or our tablets. Fact of the matter is we’re always glued to our screens.


BY MANISH RAJESH [email protected]

Cameras EVERYWHERE (somebody’s always 6watching) We don’t mean in the NSA sense, not that that’s any better. In addition to selfie crazed people taking pictures left right and centre, there’s video cameras, surveillance cameras, something-or-theother cameras etc everywhere. Even consoles come with webcams now. You never know who’s watching. While these are mostly for security purposes and in some cases it’s more than justified, there is such a thing as overdoing it. And just like that, privacy is a thing of the past. Well not entirely but we’re almost there. Sigh.

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7Spoilt for options

This is the era of choice. With the reach we have thanks to technology, there’s no limit to the number of choices one has when to comes to, well, literally anything. Online shopping has taken over the world by storm and we can buy absolutely anything online. There’s options for everything, from food to order, clothes to buy, people to go out with *cough*Tinder*cough*. There’s a bazillion brands to choose from now and everything is right at our fingertips. Yep, definitely spoilt rotten.

8Online Stalking

If you’re someone from the 80s, you’d be shocked at the amount of the information you could get about someone and get away with it. Online stalking has become quite a common term. Infact we use the word quite laxly these days. It’s scary how much information one can get, from your social media.

You need passwords 9 for everything You need a password for everything, today. Passwords are primarily a safety measure. Being able to log into anything with Facebook or Google is a good and bad thing. You can log into either one, and all your accounts which are linked to that account are open for you. Although, if you forget one, you lose access to all accounts linked to that account.

10Spoilers

People who share spoilers are the scum of the internet. We all love watching our favourite serials. We enjoy the excitement and anticipation that comes with waiting for the next episode. Then we decide to take a break and maybe chill on a social networking site for a while, and someone or the other has to ruin the entire experience for us by giving us their “opinion” on the latest episode. We don’t want it.

11A Lazy generation

Let’s face it people, technology is making us lazy. It won’t be long till we’re all fat people on automated chairs like the kind we see in Wall-E. Everything is at our fingertips, everything comes right to our doors. We don’t have any reason to leave our houses anymore. We can talk from home, eat at home, buy stuff from home, order groceries from home. You see what we’re getting at. Start going outdoors! Live a little!

12We’re getting dumber

Why learn anything when you can just Google it? We know that we can look up whatever we need online and therefore we don’t bother learning new stuff anymore. Even for simple things like word meanings and calculations we rely on technology. In most cases, we don’t seem to realise or even bother if the information is true or false and continue with our lives believing that what we just read is the absolute truth.

turning into insufferable know-it-alls 13We’re

On the flip-side of things, technology has made it possible for us to have access to an abundance of informations. So someone who frequently has access to portals of information is very likely to pick up on lots of new information, in the form of tiny tidbits of information or maybe the person was just curious and watched a documentary or something. Anyway, the kind of people who like to keep pointing out your mistakes and correcting you, those are the insufferable ones. These are the kind of people who can never be wrong. Get into an argument with them at your own risk.

14FOMO

FOMO stands for the Fear Of Missing Out. We need to be constantly connected. We need to know what’s happening at all times. We NEED to know what this person was doing that time. We can’t miss out on anything. Because if we do, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it. Hey wait, it actually won’t. In fact, I don’t think anything bad will come out of missing on a few things. Huh. Guess I was anxious for nothing.

from tech is now considered weird 15Disconnecting

Say you’re a nature lover and want to go on a camping trip, disconnected from the world. If someone doesn’t know about this and tries to connect with you, well they’re pretty much going to assume you died or something, if you don’t respond. It’s come to the point where if you don’t have some kind of tech, you’re weird. The simple things in life like sitting on a park bench are considered absurd. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 57

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1Feature phones

They are rare to find these days, but if you find one, you could use it as a dedicated alarm clock or a mobile device that doesn’t run out of charge easily. You can also repurpose it to use it as a travel charger. Make yourself a portable battery pack, using your old feature phone, or even your old smartphone by following these steps: http:// dgit.in/MkePortCh

2Smartphones

If your smartphone is just lying around, you can consider using it for simple tasks, such as a dedicated VoIP, or videocalling, or as a music streaming device. One way to reuse it is to use it as a GPS for your car. You could also repurpose your device to use it as a universal remote, if it has an IR blaster. If you want to turn your old phone into a smart mirror, here is how: http://dgit.in/SmrtMirr

3

Tablets

If your outdated tablet is just lying forgotten, after you got your new tablet, you can use it as a digital photo frame. You can also stream content onto your smart television, or hook it up to a USB typewriter: http://dgit.

WAYS TO REPURPOSE OLD TECH WONDERING HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY GIVE OLD GADGETS A NEW LIFE? READ ON AND LET YOUR CREATIVE JUICES FLOW.

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Gaming Consoles

Gamers always have special memories of their consoles and when they get old, instead of adding it to the number of showpieces at your home, you can consider repurposing it and using it as a phone dock (http://dgit.in/PSiDock

in/USBTypew

4Routers

While installing your new router, you can reuse your older one by using it as an access point or an amplifier to cover areas where the signal tends to get weak. Flashing it and installing a custom firmware, like OpenWRT, will enable you to unlock it. You can also make it an smart hub by following these steps (http://dgit.in/IoTRtr)


and http://dgit.in/NCtrliDck) or put some life in your dead NES by attaching a RasberryPi (http://dgit.in/NESRbPi). You can use one of the controllers to make your own night lamp http://dgit.in/NesNgtL. In case you want to geek out and have an Arduino around, connect it to your old NES to make yourself a music player http://dgit.in/NesMP or a toaster (http:// dgit.in/NesToaster) or even a wireless light switch http://dgit.in/WLtSwtch.

BY NIKHIL PUNJABI [email protected]

6Monitor

If you have a couple of CRT monitors or TVs lying around, it can become your pet’s new home or a even fish aquarium! You can also get rid of everything inside the monitor shell and use it as a bookshelf, to show off your geeky, but creative side. If it is still working and you are willing to tinker with it, you can try converting it into a private monitor by following these steps http://dgit.in/PrvcyMn.

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7Old Desktop/Laptop

Old, but functional laptops, as well as desktops can prove to be quite useful. Along with them being your backup systems, one of the best ways to use these old devices is to use them as your dedicated download centre and a media server using FreeNAS. If you happen to do this on a laptop, you will be able to use it even in the time of power cuts!

8VHS

One of the most unique way of reusing a VHS tape is to convert it into a USB hub that can even glow! Just a few DIY steps http://dgit.in/VhsUSBH and you have your own customised LED USB hub! You can also use VHS tapes and its covers to store away your internal as well as external hard drives to give it a retro look.

boards 9Circuit

When it comes to repurposing circuit boards, there is very little you can do, unless you let your creative juices flow. Circuit boards can be cut, desoldered and flattened and can be used as on a visiting card holder, cufflinks, dog tags and even to make a geeky notebook cover, lampshades and even pen holders. Still wondering how? http:// bit.ly/RcycleCB.

10CDs

You would have heard and seen how CDs can be arranged in various ways to look fancy (http://dgit.in/CDCrft) but how about a simple DIY which turns several CDs along with some other stuff into a night lamp? http:// dgit.in/CDLamp. You can also make your own disco ball using several pieces of a CD, or choose to convert into a cool looking phone charging station. http:// dgit.in/CDDock.

11HDD

In case of a fully functional laptop or desktop internal hard drives, salvage them by converting them into external ones http://dgit.in/SalvHDD. If the hard drive is a dead, you can make yourself a clock by grabbing some tools and following these steps http://dgit. in/HDDClck and http://dgit.in/HDDClck2. The magnets used inside an HDD are neodymium magnets, which are useful too! http://dgit.in/HDDMagn.

12Floppy

These may be rare to find, no doubt. But if one of these are lying around your house, they can be pretty useful. You can cut out a slit on the side and slide in a pen drive to give your pen drives a cool look http://dgit.in/USBFlpy. Using a floppy disk, you can also build a mini camera that takes some amazing washed out pictures just by following a few simple steps: http://dgit.in/ FlpyCam.

13PSU

If you have a PSU around which may or may not be working, you can choose to make yourself a flashlight using the switch, wiring, and power port that come with the power supply. Follow these steps http://dgit.in/PSUFlshlt and make yourself a handy lantern for your PSU. You can also salvage one of your PSUs by converting into a benchtop power supply unit in case if it works just fine. Result? You will have a PSU that can output 3.3V, 5V, 12V and -12V, just as you would want. Full steps here: http://dgit.in/BnchPSU.

14Cassette tapes

Found some cassette tapes around? You can try your hand at creating some cassette tape art just like Bruno Mars http://dgit.in/CassetteArt. The outer covers of a cassette are one of the best and cheapest phone holders available out there. If you could get your hands on to a few transparent cassette tapes you could also make yourself an LED Cassette tape lamp that looks uber cool. http://dgit.in/ CstLmp.

15Gadget sculpture

In case you have a little of everything and none of it is functional, you can try your hand at gadget sculpturing. Using various bits and parts to make something unique is definitely a great option http://dgit.in/NeonTbl. Before you already start planning your sculptures, check out these links for some inspiration: http://dgit.in/GadScul1 and http:// dgit.in/GadSculp2. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 59

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1Weili Dai

Dai is the co-founder of Marvell Technology Group. Marvell’s a giant of the networking semiconductor chips, with ethernet and Wi-Fi controllers found everywhere. The first iPhone’s Wi-Fi chip, for instance, was made by Marvell. Dai’s been instrumental in not only co-founding a successful company but mentoring upcoming startups, too.

2Susan Wojcicki

Did you know that Larry Page and Sergey Brin first set up shop inside Susan Wojcicki’s garage? She has played a critical role in the launch of Google Images, Books, Video, the Youtube purchase, the deployment of Analytics, AdSense and AdWords, and currently serves as the CEO of Youtube. Need we say any more?

3Lucy Peng

When you hear about AliBaba, you only hear about Jack Ma. You don’t hear of Lucy Peng, a co-founder of the company. Peng was head of human resources and marketing, and also served as CEO of Alipay (Chinese version of PayPal), which has been instrumental in driving AliBaba’s success.

4Safra Catz

Since Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle, the limelight has been on Catz, the company’s co-CEO. She isn’t exactly a techie, but Catz is a street smart executive that has helped propel Oracle to its current peak in the IT software universe. Thanks to her, Oracle is now running on more devices globally than all the other popular operating systems combined!


WOMEN DOMINATING THE TECH INDUSTRY Whitman 5Meg

MEET THE WOMEN WHO PRACTICALLY RUN THE TECH INDUSTRY, AND YET YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD OF THEM. LET’S CHANGE THAT.

In an industry dominated by male doyens, Whitman stands alone and proud – a true titan among lesser gods. Apart from currently serving as the CEO of HP, Meg Whitman sports one heck-of-a CV. She has degrees from Harvard and Princeton, has a wealth of experience while working in strategic executive roles at large companies like Walt Disney, toy-manufacturer Hasbro, and several others. As if all this wasn’t enough, Whitman’s career’s defining moment came during her decade spent at eBay, where between 1998 and 2008, she took eBay from a small service provider into a multi-billion dollar global ecommerce platform with tens of thousands of employees. Nothing she does is short of world-changing in the tech industry.

BY JAYESH SHINDE [email protected]

6Ginni Rometty

If there’s one person that’s synonymous with their company, similar to Steve Jobs at Apple, it has to be Ginni Rometty, the current CEO of IBM. Ever since graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and electrical engineering, Rometty joined IBM in 1981 and rose through the ranks, never looking back. She played an instrumental role in the purchase of PwC and became senior vice president of IBM’s sales, marketing and overall company strategy. She’s the one who’s steered IBM towards cloud computing before the term was even invented and is currently thinking of ways to commercialize IBM’s Watson.

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7Ursula Burns

Probably the best kept secret at Xerox, Ursula has been a guiding force behind Xerox’s fortunes ever since she joined the company back in 1981. She’s taken up several strategic executive roles at the company, finally becoming Xerox’s CEO in 2009 – the first African American CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Serving on the board of several big corporations and prestigious universities, Ursula Burns continues to break stereotypes and do a splendid job of dominating the global technology scene.

8Padmasree Warrior

Warrior’s a rockstar of technology landscape, having assumed high-ranking executive positions at Motorola (CTO) and Cisco (CTSO). She’s currently serving as the US CEO of NextEV, a company that’s into electrical vehicles, but whose motto proudly proclaims that they’re more than just a car company. With the current global push towards electric cars, Warrior and her company are leading from the front.

Tabriz 9Parisa

A self-proclaimed “Security Princess” at Google, Tabriz leads a team of internal hackers that searches for holes in Google’s Chrome browser, which is used by over a billion users all over the world. Tabriz also mentors kids and wannabe whitehackers at hacking conventions.

10Mitchell Baker

Long before Google Chrome came along, Firefox challenged IE’s monopoly in the late ‘90s. As the executive chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation, Baker is responsible for rallying a worldwide employee base with a huge base of volunteers contributing towards Mozilla’s Firefox, Firefox OS, and other new software and services initiative. Under her leadership, the Mozilla team’s going from strength to strength.

13Angela Ahrendts

Ahrendts came into the tech universe from a career spent in the fashion industry, where she served as the CEO of Burberry. Under the stewardship of Tim Cook, however, Ahrendts moved into Apple as the senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores. In 2014, she earned the highest salary in Apple (more than Tim Cook’s even) – US $70 million (`47 crores). With Apple’s increased India focus and intended retail push, Ahrendts’ role becomes even more crucial to Apple’s fortunes in the near future.

14Marissa Mayer

The current COO of Facebook, Sandberg’s tasked with keeping FAcebook’s network fresh and exciting for 1.7 billion active monthly users! No pressure. Before joining Facebook and becoming the first woman on its board, Sandberg used to work at Google. She has also served as the chief of staff to the US Treasury Secretary in the past. She is an inspiration to women across the globe.

Once upon a time one of Google’s top executives, Mayer was employee number 20 and Google’s first female engineer in 1999. She held various senior executive roles at Google, green lighting several key initiatives, before becoming the CEO of Yahoo! in 2012 – when Mayer was arguably at her peak. While at Yahoo!, she successfully completed Tumblr’s acquisition, one of the fastest growing social networking sites at the time, and is looking for new ways to enhance Yahoo!’s products and company profitability.

12Ruth Porat

15Amy Hood

11Sheryl Sandberg

Widely regarded as one of the most powerful women in tech, Ruth Porat served as a high-level advisor to the US Treasury (like India’s Finance Ministry) and held an executive post at the US Fed (like India’s Reserve Bank), before she decided to change careers. She went from high-profile Wall Street heavyweight to CFO of both Google and Alphabet. No pressure, eh?

As the CFO of Microsoft, Hood’s been on a rampant acquisition spree in the recent past. A successful investment banker before she joined the Redmond giant, Hood has ensured the software giant’s profitability while also trying to buy out interesting prospects – Yammer, Skype and Minecraft, among others. Hood plays a key role in one of the largest and most influential tech companies on the planet. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 61

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1District 9

You would think that a film nominated for Best Picture among other Oscars in 2009 would be popular, but District 9 remains one of the most criminally under watched films of any genre. Directed by Neil Blomkamp, who later went on to make Elysium and Chappie and is attached to the Alien series, District 9 is a sci-fi classic tackling themes like xenophobia and social segregation, themes that are too heavy for the usual campy popcorn science fiction film. Set in an alternate Johannesburg in the 1980’s

where a group of aliens have curiously decided to settle, District 9 tells the story of a man, Wikus who is sent to the impoverished alien slum for carrying out a relocation. The film features the most harrowing portrayal of aliens, far from the traditional trope we see in other popular franchises. The movie is smart, thrilling, and has tons of heart. That’s more than we can say for most movies.

UNDER WATCHED SCI-FI GEMS OF THE LAST 15 YEARS SCIENCE FICTION HAS ALWAYS BEEN A GENRE THAT HAS CAUGHT THE FANCY OF PEOPLE, OCCUPYING A PLACE LIKE NO OTHER IN PEOPLE’S IMAGINATION. HERE ARE SOME MOVIE GEMS YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD OF... BY RONAK GUPTA [email protected]

2Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer is Korean auteur director Bong Joon-ho’s first film in English, and he does a fantastic job of adapting this film from a French graphic novel. It follows a rebellion featuring the downtrodden end section of a train and the privileged rich people at the head section of the train. The train is no normal train, but a seemingly perpetual motion machine carrying all of what is left of humanity after a climate engineering experiment to counter global warming erased most of mankind. Far from the traditional apocalyptic depiction, the film instead uses the genre to elevate ideas of class structure and evolution. It features a brilliant performance by Chris Evans who leads the tail section rebellion and is visually stunning. There is one action sequence in particular that almost feels like poetry on screen, so visceral is it’s choreography. Watch Snowpiercer if you enjoy intelligent films that use the medium of film not only for thematic and visual exhibition, but for social and cultural commentary as well.


328 Days Later

Much before Danny Boyle became popular with Slumdog Millionaire he made an underrated post apocalyptic thriller called 28 Days Later. The movie centres around a group of four people trying to survive amidst the outbreak of a lethal virus. You could call this film a zombie adventure but the treatment makes it stand out among other popular zombie fare like Resident Evil. This movie is actually credited with starting the zombie boom in cinema. Written and shot in a unique style, 28 Days Later features scenes of the usually bustling London stripped of all activity. It’s an extremely entertaining movie, horrifying and thrilling in equal measure. But unlike usual horror movies, it’s not content with just giving you chills but also functions as a human drama. 28 Days Later is a unique film that blends elements of horror, adventure and futurism with a stamp of artistic beauty that Danny Boyle has made his own.

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4Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is a complex psychological drama. No wonder it flopped when it released way back in 2001. However, over the years the film has formed a cult following among movie lovers who enjoy a film with a blend of supernatural and humane elements. Sure, the movie might be too strong, for lack of a better word, for some. But there is no denying that beneath the confusion lies a story that keeps you thoroughly invested. Donnie

Darko follows a certain teenager Donnie who frequently sees visions of a rabbit Frank, who informs him of an impending doomsday. The film builds on this tension with such subtlety that a feeling of eerie dread keeps mounting. Donnie Darko with its cocktail of time travel science fiction and teen drama is a bright spot on science fiction genre classics. Watch it. It’s a film experience unlike any.

5Children of Men

Children of Men is easily one of the best science fiction films of the last decade. Sadly though, the film never received it’s fair share of eyeballs. The film follows the journey of a man who rallies to save a woman who is pregnant, a miracle in a post apocalyptic Earth ravaged by two decades of infertility. It is exquisitely detailed and the action scenes are shot with such technical artistry that you are transported right into the moment. Children of Men has an intriguing premise and it complements that intrigue with breakneck pace and visual brilliance that makes for mandatory viewing. Expertly crafted and loaded with visual metaphors, ultimately, Children of Men is a film about the triumph of hope over a sense of futility. Oh, and by the way, Children of Men is directed by Alfonso Cuaron who made Gravity and shot by master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who won a hat-trick of Oscars for Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant.

6Moon

Moon is the kind of smart and ingenious film that comes very rarely. The director of Moon, Duncan Jones, is David Bowie’s son. The movie does have some serious science fiction pedigree! The setup is fairly simple. Sam Rockwell plays the last employee of a mining operation on the moon, accompanied only by a robot. But when he discovers something out of place on the surface of the moon things take a turn for the worse. The storytelling is so impressive and the visual effects so minimalist and hence timeless,that the film feels like the unfolding of a classic Asimov book. On the outside, even though the plot feels too thin to fill out an entire feature film, the director uses the struggle of a single man to tackle a variety of sci-fi concepts. The film stays with you and remains a fulfilling experience partly because of Rockwell’s incredible and understated performance and partly because of how human and personal his character’s story is, despite the science fiction underlining. Moon is a brilliant film, sci-fi, drama, whatever category you want to bracket it as.

7The Man from Earth

If you are the kind of person that enjoys dialogue heavy films full of insightful discussions and lacking any visual razzmatazz than Man from Earth is just the right film for you. The film tells the story of a Professor who at his impromptu farewell party claims to be have been alive for more than 14 millenia. What follows is a to and fro discussion involving the Prof. and his colleagues each of whom contribute questions and views from his/her field of expertise. There is a historian, an anthropologist, a psychiatrist, a biologist

and even an archeologist, so there is a real breadth of knowledge on display. Man of Earth is a sharply scripted, engaging, and intelligent film, one that demands your attention and intellect. The film might not be everyone’s cup of tea but there is no denying that Man from Earth demands to be watched. It manages to be a compelling film, without a single recognizable actor, or any effects or grand sets. That’s no mean feat! Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 63

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10Idiocracy

Mr. Nobody is the last surviving mortal, 118 years of age, in a world where mankind has achieved a sort of quasi immortality. Naturally he is a sought after man, asked to recount his memories of a life on earth plagued by mortality. It’s a novel premise that is made even more refreshing by the fact that Mr. Nobody recounts not one but multiple versions of his history. Making use of a nonlinear screenplay to bring forward elements of a classical many worlds - many lives construct, Mr Nobody is a deeply satisfying film bolstered by a great performance by Jared Leto as the lead, nifty visual effects, and a beautiful soundtrack. The film functions as an ode to the role of choice and randomness in life, how a small split in your timeline can lead to infinite possible futures. It’s as much a visual and musical treat as it is a brave film and a worthy addition to the many science fiction installments that have tackled the subject of chaos.

Probably the only sort of comedy on this list, Idiocracy is what people would call a sci-fi satire. Basically, it uses a story set in the future, throws in some sci-fi elements and ridicules current society. But not in the laugh out loud way, but in a smart, subtle and razor sharp way that famous filmmaker and writer Etan Cohen infuses in all of his projects. Directed by Mike Judge of Silicon Valley fame, Idiocracy tells the story of two people who participate in a hibernation experiment and wake up 500 years in the future only to find that idiocracy has ravaged the Earth leading to a complete collapse of cultural and social ideas that once existed. In today’s World of Trump, Idiocracy is the kind of movie that shows you a bleak future and at the same time induces a weird sense of deja vu. It’s hardly a science fiction film in that sense. It derives it’s entertainment by making fun of it’s audience, extending the current state of Earth’s occupancy to present a nightmarish future. In Idiocracy the Earth isn’t hit by an Ice Age, Global Warming or any other apocalyptic event. Rather it’s a manmade driven disease that plagues the world : stupidity.

9Serenity

11Coherence

8Mr. Nobody

Much before Joss Whedon made the Avengers he made a critically acclaimed but under watched sci-fi adventure called Serenity. Following after the abruptly canceled TV series Firefly, Serenity follows the story of the crew, in particular the captain (Mal) of a spaceship - Serenity, after the arrival of a psychic occupant (River) with dangerous government secrets disrupts their way of life. The movie charts the adventures of Mal as he is involved in a constant struggle to save River from the man hired by the government to capture her. It sounds like a traditional Good vs Bad tale set in space but Whedon loads the movies with loveable characters which remain relatable. The CGI might be garrish in places, but Serenity has its heart in the right place. It’s a human story, punctuated with frequent humour and bordering on light political satire. Sometimes films with major themes can be slow, boring even, but Serenity keeps its pace brisk and strikes a fine balance.


According to Quantum Mechanics, multiple realities exist but don’t interact, each evolving independently from a branch point. Coherence is a film built over the foundation of this theory, called the many worlds interpretation. In this film, the passing of a comet opens up a window for another reality, allowing the characters of the movie to interact with their alternate selves. It leads to a whole lot of pandemonium and makes for a thrilling drama. The film is basically about how people react when faced with people issues but add to it the complication that comes with having to interact with alternate versions of themselves, from an alternate universe possibly, and it makes for an interesting premise. The film keeps you engaged with its grippping narative without ever resorting to heavy handed philosophy or exposition. Coherence is a little known gem of a movie that must be on the must watch list of any film buff.

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12Pandorum

Pandorum didn’t receive much love from either the critics or the mainstream audience when it first released but the film has enough potential to act as film deserving of your time. The world building, characters and design are impressive. The film is about a group of people on a spaceship venturing into deep space. When a certain crew member wakes from his sleep chamber not only does he suffer from a mental disorder called Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome, frequently descending to paranoia, but the crew also has to contend with alien creatures that eat people, which are on the ship for some inexplicable reason. Although ridden with plot holes the film’s portrayal of a space crew suffering from acute psychosis is unsettling, horrifying and even scary at times. You can stay for the cheap thrills provided by screeching aliens feasting on people, or you can ignore that failing and be hooked to the pure dread of the crew, all of what’s left of humanity, stranded on a ship on a mission doomed to fail.

14Sunshine

Danny Boyle’s underrated science fiction film follows a group of scientists sent on a mission to reignite the dying sun by using a nuclear bomb. It’s a seemingly impossible mission with a high chance of death, fraught with dangers all the way. Boyle highlights these dangers and along with powerful acting performances across the board, crafts a space film that is supremely entertaining and visually engaging. As with most successful movies, the film hands its emotional core to the struggle of the crew, building the entire premise around that setup. Every failure and decision - emotional or technical - is heightened and keeps you invested. It is precisely this sense of involvement that makes Sunshine such a fulfilling film experience. Directed with Boyle’s typical visual splendour and featuring CGI that never feels out of place, Sunshine is one of the best films set in space, ever.

13Primer

Primer is one of those films that doesn’t pander to the audience by dumbing down it’s content. It goes all out with its complex time travel plot and nonlinear screenplay. Shot at a measly budget of just 7000$ by Shane Carruth, an engineer with a degree in mathematics, Primer tells the story of a duo that accidently discover a means of time travel and try to use it to make profitable stock market trades. But as it is with time travel, the timelines soon begin to mess up, the degree of chaos is amplified by even a small event in the past or future. It’s as intelligent a film as any and demands repeated viewing just to fully appreciate its bizarre complexity and tie all the loose ends that crop up in your head after the film ends. As far as time travel films go, Primer knocks it out of the park. It’s a deeply technical and demanding film, but all that work you put in is worth it as the film rewards you with a brilliant story and firmly occupies its place as an indie classic and cult sci-fi gem.

15Ex Machina

One of the more recent films on this list, Ex Machina deals with a question that has plagued our minds for a long time : Can machine intelligence ultimately beat humans at their own game? The question lies at the heart of the Turing Test, a test that is used to determine if an artificial form of intelligence can hide from a human interrogator the artificial nature of its intelligence. Ex Machina deals with this very question. Caleb, an employee at a large software firm is called upon by his firm’s secretive CEO to administer the Turing Test to an intelligent android he just created. Ex Machina has a slick, cool and modern feel to it. It keeps its story grounded and doesn’t indulge in showing too many futuristic concepts. The story only has two humans, mostly interacting with a single humanoid, and yet the film succeeds in building tension, guiding the viewer to its shocking climax. In keeping with its realistic feel, Ex Machina’s visual effects are similarly minimalistic. The film however bagged an Oscar for visual effects in 2016, beating heavyweights like Mad Max : Fury Road, The Martian and Star Wars Episode VII : The Force Awakens. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 65

Cover story multiple subreddits at once 1View

When we start browsing Reddit, we completely forget the time spent online. And

yes, most of us open multiple subreddits in different tabs, which can totally clutter your browser, making it extremely messy and ruining your surfing experience. With this little trick you can relieve yourself from this annoying problem and you’ll be able to open two or more subreddits on the same page. Steps to follow: Just add two different subreddits in the url after ‘/r/’ added with a ‘+’ sign. Example: http://www.reddit.com/r/ android+androidapps+google

4Put reddit on steroids

To greatly enhance your reddit experience there is a brilliant Chrome extension available online which will unlock never before experienced tweaks such as an infinite scrollable

front page, logging in as multiple users and much more. So just download this Reddit Enhancement Suite and Enjoy Redditing!

Access you subreddits 5quicker

Everyone remembers their favorite subreddits and go through the pain of typing in the forward slashes ‘/’ every time, but with this simple trick you won’t have to deal with that hassle any more, making your reddit experience much better and faster. Steps to Follow: Add the subreddit name at the front, just before reddit in the url separated with a full stop. Example: www.pics.reddit.com

a slideshow made up of all pictures in a subreddit 2Create

Some of us visit reddit just to browse pictures. But the pages are usually filled with comments which can be a real turn off. What if we told you with this small tweak you could create a slideshow of all the images present on that subreddit? Steps to follow: Just add a ‘p’ at the end of ‘reddit’ in the URL. Example: http://redditp.com/r/earthporn

View comments as a continuous chronological 3stream Don’t you hate it when following a live event (AMAs) on reddit, all you see is the most upvoted comments on top? Usually when following a live event, you want everything showing up in chronological order, how do we sort this? By using Reddit Stream, you’ll be able to see all comments as they come in, similar to a chat log. Steps to follow: Just add ‘-stream’ after reddit in the url. Example: http://reddit-stream.com/ comments/4im67s/ 66 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

15 WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR REDDIT EXPERIENCE ARGUABLY ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR WEBSITES IN THE WORLD, THERE ARE SEVERAL TIPS AND TRICKS TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR REDDIT EXPERIENCE BY MEHUL BHAGWANI [email protected]

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6Cheat Sheet to Formatting

10Unblock a subreddit

unexpected gems 12Discover

Make reddit your search 7engine

11Find Subreddits in Imgur

reddit in your native language 13Browse

Follow this cheat sheet and you can start commenting on reddit like a boss. Even after redditing for years, many users still wonder how to stylise their comments, simply refer to the cheat sheet below and flaunt your tailored comments in the drab comment thread.

Going through many steps to reach your subreddit can be a pain. But you can accomplish this in a single step by using Chrome. Steps to Follow: Go to browser settings, “Manage search engines”, put in ‘reddit.com/r/%s’ in the space for URLs, give it a name and keyword. Enjoy the experience!

Everyone likes redditing. And everyone likes freedom. What if your favourite subreddit were banned in your office? Just knowing this small hack will let you bypass that ban and get to your desired subreddit. Just follow the steps mentioned below and let nothing come between you and your favourite subreddit. Now now one can come between you and your love of reddit! Steps to Follow: Just add a ‘+’ symbol in the url after your subreddit. Example: reddit.com/r/android+

Most of us, after redditing constantly for over year now, are used to this format and find it very convenient. With this tip you will unlock a new world of photo reddits, where you can browse imgur just the way you browse reddit and search for all your favourite subreddits on imgur itself. Who would’ve thought, right? What are you waiting for? Follow this step... Steps to Follow: Just replace reddit with imgur in the url. Example: http://www.imgur.com/r/android

8View reddit as RSS Feeds

We recommend you try this trick which will allow you see subreddits as rss feeds, thus enhancing your experience. You can use a website like http:// dgit.in/Fdly to access your subreddits which will accumulate all the posts of the subreddit in a very neat way making it very attractive and readable. Steps to Follow: Just add ‘.rss’ at the end of your subreddit url. Copy the URL and paste it in Feedly link provided above.

9Readr for Reddit

The Readr Google Chrome extension provides you with a minimalistic experience of longer posts, this is generally very helpful in subreddits which have long reading posts, AskScience for example. Just install this extension and start redditing on a distraction free reading page. Link the Extension: http://dgit.in/RdtRead

Do you have nowhere to go after having skimmed through all your favourite subreddits? Click the ‘Random’ button on reddit and a new random page will unveil which might or might not interest you but will definitely keep you occupied. Steps to Follow: Click on the Random button on the subreddit menu.

Just like Facebook or Google, reddit also provides native language support. Not everyone is comfortable with reddit in English. With this small tip you’ll be able to browse reddit in your prefered language. Steps to Follow: Click on ‘English’ (The default language) and choose your desired language.

comments for maximum swag 14Link

Want to link to a comment thread on reddit, and the URL is too long? Or maybe you want to link to a particular redditor? Use the permanent link option present on their comments to quote them, when you want to link a comment thread, use the short link option which can be found on the right sidebar.

a Redditor like a Boss 15Quote

Want to quote another redditor in the comment section while replying? Just start by highlighting the quote in question before hitting the reply button, now you have the quote in the comment box, analysed and ready to be used for your reply. Use this trick and start quoting redditors like a boss. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 67

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1Pocket

5Session Buddy

view it any time, from any device. For people on the go, this is a superb extension because you can access all previously saved content offline.

clutter if you have a tendency to keep a million tabs open at a point of time. Session Buddy also helps restore tabs if your system or browser crashes.

Use this extension to save articles, videos, recipes and webpages and other links for later. Makes for one convenient extension, because any content saved goes to one place, which means you can

A session manager that allows you to save open tabs and restore them later, this extension can potentially free up a great amount of memory and clear up

2StayFocusd

6Readability

If you feel the need to zap out clutter from webpages so you can have a better reading view, Readability is a great extension to have in your arsenal. The app promises to ‘provide a better way to read

online, turning any web page into a comfortable reading view right in your web browser’. Moreover, you have a few extra features such as being able to configure font color and size, and being able to save content for reading later.

A lifesaver for those prone to wasting hours on end surfing unnecessary websites, StayFocusd works by imposing a time limit on the time spent on these websites. Once your allotted time has been used up, the sites will be inaccessible for the rest of the day. “It is highly configurable, allowing you to block or allow entire sites, specific subdomains, specific paths, specific pages, even specific in-page content”, say the creators of this genius extension.

3ColorZilla

For most web developers, this extension comes as a gift from the heavens. If you’ve ever wanted to pinpoint a colour on a webpage for one of your own personal projects, with ColorZilla you can get a color reading straight from your browser. ColorZilla also provides color palettes for any site.

4

PanicButton

If you’re someone who tends to browse questionable websites a lot, or spend office hours on social networking sites, then you’re probably going to need the Panic Button. What this extension does is with a single click of a button (or a hotkey), you can hide all your current tabs and replace them with a custom set of tabs (blank or new tab by default). Pretty nifty if someone decides to sneak up on you.


MUST HAVE CHROME EXTENSIONS THESE EXTENSIONS WILL TRULLY AMP UP YOUR CHROME BROWSING EXPERIENCE BY ASHWIN KRISHNAN [email protected]

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7Evernote web clipper

The Evernote Web Clipper sends web pages to Evernote with the app’s Web Clipper. Websites, articles and notes can be read later with the save button. You can even highlight text from any website or article, and highlight text to draw attention.

11Mailtrack

According to the creators of this extension, “MailTrack.io is an email tracking app that lets you know if the

messages you send have been read or not.” At the moment, it works only with Gmail and Google Apps for Work. The extension allows you to see which messages have been read, how long ago, how many times and which device they were opened on.

8StumbleUpon

A great way to discover new material and diversify what you view on the web, allow StumbleUpon to recommend content to you, based on your interests

and preferences. Makes for a great extension if you want to get as much juice as you can from the interwebs.

12Adblock Plus

One of the most popular adblockers on the Chrome web store, AdBlock Plus blocks ALL annoying ads, malware and tracking, and also supports websites by not blocking unobtrusive ads by default (configurable). A winwin situation.

9

HTTPS Everywhere

Sometimes, the easiest hacks are the ones we tend to forget the most. If you’re huge on privacy and security and want to make sure your data is encrypted before being delivered across the internet, just add “https://” before the URL. Or, let HTTPS Everywhere do that for you. And since the Tor Project is a collaborator in this, you know it’s an important extension to have.

10TunnelBear

If you’re big on Spotify but can’t access it because your nationality gets in the way, TunnelBear provides a secure VPN to help you work around the restrictions. It’s a big boon for those worried about using public networks or being tracked online. And considering this extension has a full 5 stars on the Chrome Web Store, it’s a trusted extension that never fails to deliver.

13Todoist

If you’re an OCD freak and need to have clear lists maintained at all times, the Todoist extension can be the miracle you’ve been looking for. The extension allows you to create, add, delete, organize and modify lists from the comforts of your browser. You can even share your

lists or tasks with others, such as family members or friends, for ‘collaborative task accomplishment’. It even doubles up as a Pocket replacement, though with lesser functionality (allows only websites to be saved as tasks at the moment).

14Keepa

Keepa simplifies tracking product prices listed on Amazon. The extension adds a small graphical chart directly on Amazon’s product listing page itself. This chart gives you detailed information about price history, price drops, trends

etc. Don’t be put off by the not-so-great design of the graphs, they in no way compromise on the data that Keepa provides. You can also set up availability and pricing alerts for it to track and notify you of a product when its price drops below your desired price.

15Grammarly

Get a helping hand with your writing from Grammarly, a dictionary plug in that claims to find and correct up to 10 times more mistakes than a normal word

processor. The Grammarly extension vets your spellings and grammar on nearly any website which involves writing, ensuring a mistake free write up. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 69

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1Knoword

(www.knoword.org)

We all like to believe we’ve got rich vocabularies, amassed over decades of diligent reading. If you want to combine some clever word games with your ninja keyboard skills, check out Knoword. The website lets you test your vocabulary skills by guessing a word based on its dictionary definition (and the first letter of the word), while a timer ticks away in the background. For every word you answer correctly, you win a few seconds; make a mistake or skip a word, and you lose a few. The game ends when the timer runs out. You can also choose to play with world capitals instead for some extra nerd cred. Go ahead, give this a try!

2Got Rhythm?

4Drinkify

(http://drinkify.org/)

Few things in life go as well together as a good drink and a good song. Drinks here don’t necessarily mean alcohol, of course, it can be soft drinks, too. Having your favourite band playing at a night out at the bar makes the drink taste that much better, so it’s only fitting that we have a guide on the best drinks to accompany your favourite bands. Drinkify does exactly that – enter the name of a band in the search box, and the site will suggest the best drink to go along with the music, even giving you the exact recipe for the cocktail. As a bonus, the site will also start playing a playlist of the artist’s songs in the background as it shows you its recommendation. We tried entering a few bands and met with some interesting results – the site recommended a bottle of box wine to go with Pink Floyd and a Macallan neat to go with John Mayer!

(http://www.concerthotels.com/got-rhythm)

Being the drummer of a band is probably the coolest job there is (sorry, lead guitarists), but it’s not all about pounding every surface in your vicinity. Keeping correct time is the most crucial part of a drummer’s job - the whole band depends on it! Take a sneak peek into what it means to be a drummer with “Got Rhythm?” - a webapp that tests how well you can maintain a steady beat. You have to click your mouse in response to a metronome that plays a beat at 120bpm.

3Listen to Wikipedia (http://listen.hatnote.com/)

The ‘Listen to Wikpedia’ project though, is the most innovative one we’ve seen so far - it shows you Wikipedia being edited in real time (a feat in itself), and generates a

unique musical sound for each edit, or every time a new user joins the site. Wikipedia receives a few every edits every second, and each such edit is represented by a ripple, with the size of the ripple depending on the length of the article being edited. It’s a strange and beautiful concept that results in some relaxing music. 70 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

TIME-WASTING WEBSITES YOU SHOULD KNOW OF THE INTERNET IS THE GREATEST TOOL FOR PROCRASTINATION THERE IS, AND IF YOU’D RATHER KILL TIME STARING AT YOUR SCREEN THAN BE PRODUCTIVE, DIGIT’S GOT YOUR BACK. HERE’S A LIST... BY PAANINI NAVILEKAR [email protected]

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5Virtual Bubblewrap

8Find The Invisible Cow

(http://www.virtualbubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml)

(http://www.findtheinvisiblecow.com/)

The best things in life are free - and the simple, guilt-free joy of popping bubblewrap lives up to the adage. Of course, the joy is hindered by its availability - you’re limited to those times when you buy a product or an appliance that comes wrapped in layers of bubblewrap, waiting to be popped. This website eliminates that problem and lets you indulge in that pleasure virtually, replete with that soft ‘pop’ sound that’s produced every time you pop one. All out of bubbles to pop? No problem, you can ‘order’ a fresh sheet with the click of a button.

6Now I Know

(http://nowiknow.com/ archives/)

They say you never stop learning, and Now I Know takes the advice to heart, sending you a daily email digest, containing an article that presents an interesting fact with a little story or explanation behind it. The real treasure here, though, are the archives dating back to more than 6 years. That’s a compendium of nearly 1500 articles, covering a diverse selection of stories, including ones about a man who’s been arrested 1000 times, how Google uses goats to mow its lawns and why the Tower of Pisa leans. If you spend enough time on this website, you will be a genius in general knowledge!

72048 Tetris

(http://www.prat0318.com/2048-tetris/)

We all remember 2048, the addictive tile game that took the world by storm a few years ago. Well, as it usually happens, the viral nature of the 2048 game inspired a number of clones, includes ones that used the Fibonacci series instead of simple math, sub-atomic particles instead of numbers and even one that combined the game with another classic, Flappy Bird. Among the more interesting of the clones is one called 2048 Tetris, that infuses some features from the age-old classic Tetris into the now-familiar 2048. It’s a delightful mating of two well-loved games in a way that almost feels natural. Give it a try, if you have time to while away!

This is one of those internet games that’s fun to play for the sheer idiocy of it. The objective of the game is to find a hidden cow on your computer screen. When you start the game, you’re presented with a blank page, and the word “Cow” being repeatedly muttered in the background. With a concept similar to ‘hot or cold’, the volume of the voice chanting ‘Cow’ increases as you move your mouse pointer closer the cow, and decreases as you move away from it. Using the level of the voice as a cue, locate the cow by clicking on its approximate location. As you advance through the levels, you unlock different animals to play with.

9Top Documentary Films

(http://topdocumentaryfilms.com)

“It’s not a movie, it’s a documentary” is a great way to convince people that you’re actually learning something instead of whiling away your life in front of the television, and Top Documentary Films lets you adapt the same excuse to your YouTube binge-sessions as

well. The site is home to thousands of free documentary movies, spanning genres from history, politics and economics to conspiracy theories and biographies. It can be a great substitute for movie night, and you end up learning something in the process.

10You Are Not So Smart

(https://youarenotsosmart.com)

You consider yourself a rational person - so much so that a lot of careful thought and planning goes into something as mundane as choosing a restaurant to eat at. Our minds though, are far less credible than we give them credit for, and the biggest culprits are our cognitive biases. These are systematic errors in judgement

that creep in surreptitiously, compromising our ability for rational thought. These biases affect our everyday decisions, whether it’s choosing which item to order off the menu, how we approach a problem of. Luckily, the systematic nature of the bias (meaning that they occur every time, to the same extent) allows us to be aware of it and work towards mitigating its negative effects. You Are Not Smart is a collection of these biases that spells out how to identify and control them, resulting in smarter decisions, a clearer thought process and increased likeability among your peers! Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 71

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114Chan

(https://www.4chan.org)

Sure, 9GAG provides you with your daily doze of lulz, and you also get to feel superior to those who get their meme fix through Facebook or (gasp!) WhatsApp. But if you truly want to up your meme-cred, your quest will take you to the birthplace of all that is k3wl on the Internet, 4Chan. The simple image-based bulletin board allows you to share and discuss images on a range of topics, including Japanese culture, Technology, DIY (Do It Yourself) or Television. Scratch the surface though, and you’ll unlock a deep (and sometimes dark) corner of the internet that revels in its anonymity and ephemerality – posters aren’t required to create an account, and threads aren’t saved, so discussions can disappear off the internet in a matter of hours. The site has given birth to the infamous ‘troll face’, our modern, image-macro, version of internet memes, and even the phrase ‘Epic Fail’. Fair warning though, there are parts of the site that are home to explicit content and abusive behaviour, so you might not want to be caught surfing it at work.

12Reddit

(www.reddit.com)

A website that calls itself the “Front Page Of The Internet” and boasts over 200 million unique visitors every month isn’t exactly unheard of, but its true beauty lies in some of its lesser-known, esoteric subreddits that offer a mixture of information, humour, shock or just mild bemusement. PhotoshopBattles (https://www. reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles) is one where users are invited to use their image-editing skills on photographs to create hilarious

13Draw a Stick Man

(http://www.drawastickman.com)

This is a fun little adventure game where you draw your character (A stick man), arm him with weapons of your choice and guide him through an epic journey, battling dragons and saving cats stuck in trees. You can get really creative with your character, drawing him as a six-legged monster (a-la Kafka’s Gregor Samsa), add a pair of wings (a-la Icarus), or just draw him as a humanoid robot. The best drawings get featured in their gallery, with the game being featured on Google Play as well as on Xbox One.

14HP Companion

(https://hpcompanion.com)

The Harry Potter series of books are among the widest selling books of all time, and you’re right - the movie didn’t do justice to the books at all. You could wait around for some years before the movies are remade, or you could hop on to the HP Companion site, which has some delightful watercolour illustrations for every chapter of each of the seven books. Whether its hilarious stuff like watching Aunt Marge bloat up like a balloon or the heartbreak involved when a certain character(s) dies, the illustrations will delight every Harry Potter fan. Also on the site are some character portraits and detailed essays discussing each of the seven books, which should keep you busy until the rumoured sequel to the series is released (You didn’t hear it from us!)

15Sporcle

(http://www.sporcle.com)

results. HistoryPorn (https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn) and ColorizedHistory (https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory) are great for anyone with even a casual interest in history, and frequently throws up some rare and amusing photographs. WhoWouldWin (https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/) is our go-to site to settle questions like who’s stronger – Batman or Superman, or who would win a wizarding duel – Albus Dumbledore or Gandalf? The subreddit even conducts an annual Game of Thrones tournament with users voting on the outcome of a 64 character-strong fight to the finish! 72 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

The best way to kill time is to challenge yourself to some engaging (but ultimately pointless) trivia. Before Buzzfeed and QuizUp, there was Sporcle - a home to hundreds of thousand of user-submitted quizzes and trivia games covering every topic you can conceive of. From knowing your capitals to keeping up with celebrity gossip, quoting lines from your favourite TV show to indulging in mindnumbing word games, this site has it all. With a slogan that goes “Mentally Stimulating Diversions”, the site makes no attempt to conceal its true intentions, and is extremely popular with college students who claim it helps them study (Yeah, right).

Cover story and be sure again) industry 1Beaboutsurethe(double-check Okay, this is technically something that you ought to think of way before you come to the decision of beginning a venture, but it never hurts to have a re-think and evaluate all your options once more, does it? Especially if rethinking could mean the difference between the success and failure of your business venture. So, here’s the deal: one of the most important things to think about when starting your own business is the industry

that you are thinking of getting into. The industry should be one that has good growth potential, not to mention enjoying some traction in the current scenario – it wouldn’t do anything for your parents’ peace of mind if every time they ask you how the business is doing, the only answer you have to give is, ”Just waiting for the industry to pick up ma/da.”

2Study the competition

This is something that you should be doing all the time – not just when starting the business. For there are two things that are definitely going to help you keep afloat in the long run – knowing your enemy and drinking a whole lot of coffee. To begin with, you can visit your competitor’s store or establishment and check out the processes that they follow and the type of customers they serve. Of course, you’d have to do so in stealth mode, meaning you should be able to derive some excitement out of it, provided you’ve read enough John Le Carre novels. Also, sign-up for newsletters etc. that the competitor sends out and keep track of their marketing activities, both online and offline. You’ll have plenty of worry-filled moments after seeing their strengths in various departments. But once these moments pass and relative calm settles in, you can begin to seek out their weak points. And these are the areas you can try and strengthen for your own business, possibly giving your brand strong USPs that the competition can’t compete with.


THINGS TO KEEP A CHECK ON WHILE STARTING A STARTUP DISREGARD THESE AND YOU ARE LOOKING AT A BAD START-OFF TO YOUR STARTUP! BY DHINOJ DINGS feedback.digit.in

3The funding

When starting a business, an important factor that one needs to keep in mind is the funding. If you can’t manage to somehow fund yourself, you can look for funding from other sources. While ideally funding yourself is the safest bet, it’s not unheard of for businesses and startups to look for and get funding from other businesses and organisations. However, in this case, funding could be a double-edged sword. Being funded here could actually mean that some other organisation practically owns you – taking away a lion’s share of your profits. You may even receive cryptic mails with subjects like “Concerns” and “Future?”. While their funding does indeed fuel your growth, you’ve gone from being the boss of your own startup to a stressful employee of some other much larger organisation. So try as much as possible to fund yourself, and only fallback on other options as a last resort.

Cover story

4Do your market research

The thing about running a business – especially a startup, is that it requires a whole lot of humility. The reason being the fact that you are bound to make mistakes, a LOT of mistakes. Even the smartest of the smart Joes tend to screw up every now and then. They think that they can do no wrong and the idea that they have is amazing and foolproof. However, in the real world, they’ll find that it’s far from amazing. Almost always, the initial idea requires a fair amount of refining. If you want your product to sell, you’ll have to do some market research. You need to read the market, figure out what’s selling and what isn’t, see which demographic likes what, and apply that to your product. It all takes a fair amount of research and it’s no walk in the park. Say your idea is to start a company that’s into T-Shirt printing. Now, when you say T-shirt printing to people, they’re thinking “Well there’s plenty of other brands that do the same thing, why should we come to you?”. Now that is a very fair point they’re

5The Name

The naming of a brand is both a fun aspect as well as an extremely important aspect in the whole starting-a-business deal. Names which stand out gain a whole lot more attention in the market. The name is the first thing anyone will notice. It’s as good as a first impression, and in the world of business a first impression is extremely impor-

tant as it can determine whether or not a customer will come back. Therefore, it is key that you opt for a name that will enable you to stand out and at the same time represent you and your business or company. When it comes to naming, try not to sound too similar to already existing names, or try not to mooch off of the success of already successful companies and call yourself something like foogle or Macebook, which probably already exist. At the same time, try not to make it too long, or a mouthful for someone to say, you want a name that is easy to say so that people can spread the word!

making. Add to that the fact that these brands might even be able to give the customer greater cost-advantage than you. But maybe you find that there’s hardly any competition in printing T-shirts with messages which are exclusively expressive of the attitude of the office-crowd, such as the kind working in administrative jobs (don’t take this seriously, it’s just an example). By being the first, or among the first to pounce, you have created a viable niche for yourself. And that’s the kind market research that will catapult you from being just another dime-a-dozen brand, to a unique one the people can’t do without.

6The marketing strategies

Unless your business idea is as fresh and unique as, say, teleportation, you are definitely going to devote a fair amount of attention to marketing. The good news is that you can build a good customer base without spending too much money if you are savvy enough. The bad news is that getting savvy about marketing isn’t exactly easy. For one thing, it involves learning and getting accustomed to the plethora of social platforms and other online avenues where people hang out – even the ones that you don’t use or haven’t even heard of. Then, there’s the matter of knowing how to push relevant content to the prospective customer without being intrusive. Of course, you needn’t be an expert about all these things yourself. You can hire a good marketing manager. But the thing is, marketing is very significant when it comes to startups, and the insane number of startups has given rise to clutter in the market place. It’s better to have at least an overall understanding of the scenario. If you aren’t careful, the marketing budget will skyrocket without you getting the results you need to justify the costs. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 75

Cover story

7Test run

Admittedly, test running a business won’t be as much fun as test driving a car, but it’s definitely essential to the health and wellbeing of your business in the long run. Test runs are used not just to check the functionality of your business, but to get a hang of the kind of customers and businesses that it best resonates with. This means that you may have to go through multiple test runs.

But as a potential business starter-uper, you must overcome hurdles like these. The good news is that investing your time in multiple test runs today, will help you decide on which types of customers and businesses to target, right from the get go. It also gives you the necessary insights to make the business model more suited for the customer group. Multiple test runs will help you avoid having to repurpose the business entirely at a later time – saving you both, time and resources. That also means that you may get rich faster.

8Searching for future talent

Even though you are in the very early stages of developing your company, you should keep an eye out for talent. You may only have positions to fill in the future but it’s always a good idea to have a talent pool to choose form. Most entrepreneurs – whether successful ones or those who have failed and moved on to founding successful startups after initial failures – will attest to how important it is to have the right kind of talent. Not only can a good team can make or break a startup, it is the pillar upon which your startup will be able to scale eventually. It is therefore very important to pick the right kind of talent. A team that is cohesive is necessary but as they say conflict is important so gather people with differing backgrounds and thought processes. As long as they function productively under a good leader even wierdos are great.


9Legal advice

Many things could go wrong while running a business. And while many take precautions and preventative measure, things can still go wrong despite everything. When this happens it’s usually a storm of paperwork, and other insurance and legal issues. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is waiting for something to go wrong before they seek out legal advice. From a mishap befalling one of your employees to a post falling on your office building, some things are just beyond your control. Now in these cases it’s not unlikely for an employee to file a legal claim for injuries or damages they may have taken.

This would be the appropriate time for you seek legal advice from (preferably your own) a legal team. Listening to all that legal advice and lawyer jargon might seem like an earful but this is all important stuff, so try to pay attention. All this information will be handy when you and your startup are actually in a pickle. And get yourself a legal team. Or at least a legal advisor.

10Have plans for way beyond your launch date No matter how good thinking on your feet is as a talent, most great leaders and entrepreneurs will vouch for the value of meticulous planning. Imagining all possible outcomes and scenarios isn’t really practical or possible but contingencies and plans for likely outcomes should be made. If you have a playbook of sorts, no matter what the challenges might be, you have a bag of tricks to delve into when the going gets tough. The value of a Plan B can never be underestimated. Plan even for failure. The idea is to hope for the best but plan for the worst. Have a long term plan – a plan for the duration by which you are fairly confident that you can start raking in profits. While planning, make sure that you have a contingency plan for the worst case scenario laid out. It’s best to have a sales and marketing budget earmarked for at least the first two years of running the business.

Cover story a good website(not just a decent one, but a GOOD one!) 11Build

The fact that we need to give out such advice in an age where everything revolves around the Internet and Google is as good as God, frankly it’s absurd. But it needs to be mentioned because of the key role a good website plays in the success of a business. You have every reason to reach out to as many people as you can. And a website is one of the cheapest, and not to mention most efficient means by which you can accomplish that. Only, make sure that you start the website on a healthy platform using an affordable host. It needn’t be fancy, but that doesn’t mean that the landing page of your site has to look like an over-sized visiting card. Creating a good website isn’t all that hard these days, neither is it expensive.

12Government Funding

The central government is showing a lot of initiative to promote entrepreneurship in the country. Take, for instance, the Startup India initiative which has cut down a lot of red-tape experienced by people trying to start a business. There are new RBI norms to give risk-taking startups a larger safety net, in case their idea doesn’t fly and they happen to run into financing problems. Under a special initiative called Standup India, banks have been instructed to lend a fixed amount to SC/ST and women entrepreneurs to get their business idea off the ground.

14Timing

If you’ll look elsewhere in this cover story you’ll find a story that chronicles the reasons for the downfall of many startups in India. Among the most common reasons cited for their failures you’ll find founders stating timing as one of the most important factors. Timing in the entrepreneurial context is as important as important as timing is to a joke. Screw up the timing and a joke falls flat. Similarly, if your idea is ahead of its time or a little behind the curve it will fall flat. Say for example you were trying to start a digital game distribution application or platform. If you did it before internet speeds were up to the mark you’d most likely have failed. Or on the flipside say you were trying to establish yet another fashion apparel startup in today’s crowded market place, would your chances of success be high? If you aren’t bringing anything new to the table we highly doubt it. So timing is everything. Too late or too early both will illicit lukewarm adoption from your target audience.

15Set specific sales goals

We daresay that you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single person working in a sales department without some stress-related issue. Of course, that can be said about folks from other professions as well – like teachers, lawyers, and fruit vendors but it’s most applicable to sales people. For theirs is a job that perennially revolves around targets. When you start your business, you will have sales targets. If you haven’t set them already, don’t waste any more time. We mean it, you can read the rest of this article after you set those

13Exit strategy

Go ahead, laugh all you want. We’ll wait until you’re done. “Thinking about exiting even before you’ve started, what a joke”. Things can go wrong despite your best efforts. It’s always great to hope for the best and act accordingly but it’s also wise to have some exit strategy in place for when things don’t work the way you wanted them to. An exit strategy could be something as simple as selling all the inventory you purchased for your business to minimise the overall loss. Or it could be something as simple selling the business.

goals. Make sure that you set the targets in such a way that you can minimise the time it requires to start making profits but without alienating your employees by putting too much pressure on them. If your employees find the going tough, they will most likely quit and that will only increase the time it’ll take for you to rake in the profits. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 77

Team Digit:The Unbeatable Team It’s not just the folks who write the magazine that count. Through these pages, meet the faces and teams that work in sync with edit to ensure you get your magazine on time every month. LEADERSHIP

Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha

Vikas Gupta

Kanak Ghosh

Asheesh Gupta

Anuradha Das Mathur

Mitin K Kumar

Shauvik

Sourabha

Jai Bhagwan

Sunny Rajan

Sudhir

Ashwin B

Nirmal S Kartha

Himanshu

Bhaskar

Kishan

Bhismpal Singh

Ram Sarangi

Suvarna

BRAND

SALES

Poonam Das 78 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

Nilesh

Narendra

Lalit Arun

DESIGN

Tharakaram G

Anil VK

Shokeen Saifi

Baiju NV

Anil T

Peterson PJ

Robert Sovereign-Smith

Siddharth Parwatay

Jayesh Shinde

Mithun Mohandas

Soham Raninga

Hardik Singh

Abhijit Dey

Nikhil Punjabi

Arnab Mukherjee

Adamya Sharma

Sameer Mitha

Prasid Banerjee

Souvik Das

Shrey Pacheco

Joyeeta B

Ashvani

Hari P

Poonam Rane

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL INTERNS

Kulveer

Anoop K

Manish Rajesh

UNKNOWN

Mehul Bhagwani

Ankush Maiti

Agent001

Digit | June 2016 | www.www.digit.in 79

PHOTOGRAPHY

VIDEOGRAPHY

Jiten Gandhi

Apurva C

Waquar Ahmed

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS

Sunil Kumar

Sunil Sharma

Raj Kishore

CIRCULATION

Rakesh Upadhyay

M P Singh

Vijay Menon

Samir Mehta

Jayanta Bhattacharyya

Norbert Joseph

Dharmendra Singh

Sandeep Bhandari

Sushil Tripathi

G Chandrasekaran

Sampath Kumar

M Ansari

Sandeep Jain Sr.

Deepti

Dinesh

Sandeep Jain Jr

Vinod

Sonu

Sucharita

Mukund Jha

Vijay

Saru R

Satish C

FINANCE


IT

Zameer Ansari

Pranav

Durgesh

Ramesh Kumar

Mayank

Nazakat

IT INFRA

Ajay Jha

Himahshi

Sonam

HR

Neha

Manish Karan

Jitendra Bhadana

Rupali

Murgeson Swami

ADMIN

Kamal

Priyanka Pandita

Garima Yadav

Amit Singh

Virender

Mahesh

Satish

Bijender

And that’s a wrap. We love bringing this magazine to you every single month. From the bottom of all our hearts, thanks for the support. Enjoy the ride! Digit | June 2016 | www.www.digit.in 81

Recommended buys

Killer rigs

Street smart

84

We tell you about the best components to look for at various PC rigs at different budgets

85

The very best products you can buy right now spanning across 10 popular tech categories. Have a fun time buying!

Of Mice and Gamers Gaming mice have started advertising insane specifications but do you really need that much? Agent 001 [email protected]

“I

simply cannot tolerate my mouse going below 3,600 DPI” – Random Guy on the Train. My head immediately turned to see who had uttered that phrase, a phrase that just reeked of ignorance. I’m pretty sure that Douglas Engelbart probably twitched in his grave each time something akin was said. I had to get down at the next stop so spinning up a conversation about mice with a complete stranger was out of the question. So here we are, about to dispel a few misconceptions about mice. DPI or CPI or PPI? There have been numerous phrases to describe sensor sensitivity through the ages. The correct term is CPI (Counts Per Inch) and it refers to the number of steps a sensor will report when it moves one inch. Dots Per Inch, pretty much refers to the same thing but isn’t technically correct. The same can be said of Pulses Per Inch (PPI) when optical sensors were first implemented. Jargon aside, this metric simply tells you how sensitive the mouse sensor happens to be. So a 12,000 DPI mouse simply means that the sensor can generate a lot more data – unwanted data – that can be used to produce motion. This raw data is then processed to produce whatever DPI that the software has set. Here’s what the operating system uses to move the mouse cursor around the screen: Movement(vertical/horizontal) = mouse.sample(dt, dpi) x sensitivity Essentially what most people do, is that they ramp up DPI and drop sensitivity to get accurate tracking. So what remains to be seen is the sweet spot that is favourable for the player. Most profes-


sional players hardly ever go above 800 DPI. So those ultra-super-premium-holylord-of-gaming mice with 12,000 DPI are not favoured by professional players. In fact, most people prefer reducing the sensitivity to such an extent that they like moving their mice across a greater surface. So while they may navigate the usual OS window at 3,600 DPI with the mouse hardly ever moving an inch from a spot, they’ll be all over the mouse mat while gaming. Another idiotic thing is mouse acceleration. Basically, the faster you flick the mouse the faster your cursor gets. So if you were to flick the mouse an inch to the right very slowly, you’ll trace an inch, but if you flick faster, your cursor will probably move 2-3 inches. Most professional players turn off mouse acceleration. And then there’s angle smoothing or just plain smoothing. The way a mouse tracks, it compares pictures of the surface to figure out which direction the mouse moved. Now, depending on what kind of algorithm comes into play, there will be certain moments when the algorithm gets confused and tracks in the wrong direction. This manifests as a minor blip, let’s say you were tracking your mouse horizontally in CS:GO and you notice that your cursor moved up a little, by about a pixel or two. This is a blip or a

ripple. Angle smoothing, disregards these blips. So you might be wondering, isn’t that a good thing? Well, if you are using Photoshop to trace something, it is actually beneficial. But in game, let’s say you are sniping your enemy and you want to move your cursor down by just one pixel to hit him square in the head. Angle smoothing will consider that one pixel to be an anomaly and will not move your cursor vertically. The sheer frustration that ensues can hardly be described. Lastly, there is the much debated issue of laser vs optical sensors. Firstly, the two sensors are both optical CMOS sensors if we are to be technically correct. It’s that they are illuminated differently, LED illuminated mice don’t pick up much detail but laser goes all the way and gives you much higher resolution. So if the surface is smooth, laser works much better, but the moment the surface gets soft, the laser picks up a lot more of the undulations. This is unwanted information which when processed would result in a lot of blips and ripples that the sensor then skips over, resulting in “acceleration”. Acceleration is the incorrect term, hence the quotes, this is actually an error with image resolution. This is why LED illuminated mice track much better than laser illuminated mice. Also, the error in optical mice is less than one per cent.

Android pay in the UK

Google launches Android pay in the UK, allowing people with compatible credit and debit cards to link their accounts to their phone. http://dgit.in/AndroidPayx

Intel Core i3 6100 or AMD A8-7600? Hi, I am planning on buying a new computer and was checking out different PC configurations. It seems I’ll be going with the Intel Core i3 6100 or the AMD A8-7600 but I’m not sure which one to buy. This is going to be used for little bit of everything so I need an all-rounder computer. What are your thoughts? –Shikar Bhatia Hey Shikhar, We totally understand your concern and we’ve looked at the two CPUs from both aspects – IGP and CPU performance. The Integrated Graphics Processor on the Intel Core i3 6100, i.e. the Intel HD 530 performs better than the R7 IGP on the AMD A8-7600. The Intel Core i3 Intel Core i3 6100 6100 is ahead in terms of single-core and multi-core performance as well. The only downside is that Skylake processors don’t come with their own coolers and you’ll have to invest in a third-party CPU cooler.

Agent 001

processor, 8 GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 980M graphics with 4 GB GDDR5 will eat up more battery compared to a 13-inch laptop with a Core i3 processor, 2-4 GB RAM, and NVIDIA GTX 920M graphics with 2 GB GDDR3. As a thumb rule, if you’re comparing two laptops’ specifications, more often than not the higherspecced laptop of the bunch will be a higher battery consumer. Before I suggest you the two best laptops (one each from Dell and HP, as per your preference), let me tell you about another peculiarity of the laptop buying process. See, there’s a sizeable difference in the laptop model numbers between online and offline stores. There is no guaranteed way for us to tell you which laptops are being sold at an electronics store near you. The vast number of laptops, across hardware generations, are now without a doubt sold online through stores like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Ebay, etc. Why? Because these websites have hundreds of different sellers who’re all competing against each other (across geographies) in terms of offerings and discounts. The consumer – which is you – benefits as a whole when you buy from an online store.

Firepower and batterypower Hi Agent001! Greetings from Noida! I am a student of class 9th. I want to buy a laptop in the range of `30-40k for my personal use. Please guide me to the best possible buy which may include 4-8 GB RAM, DVD reader, num pad, 14-15 inch HD/FullHD, Windows 10, good battery backup, good gaming in this range. I had in mind HP or Dell models. Please suggest a laptop which is easily available in stores and please do not suggest a Chinese OEM laptop. –Bhavya Aditya Hi Bhavya, Let’s get some misconceptions cleared, Bhavya. You’re asking for a laptop with good battery backup and good gaming performance. These are two polar opposite elements of any laptop, in the sense having a laptop with the firepower (hardware) required to play games directly impacts its battery life. For e.g., a laptop with a 15-inch screen, Core i5

HP 15 Laptop

With that being said, here are your two laptop recommendations: First, the HP 15. It doesn’t have a discrete GPU, but comes with latest 6th generation Intel Core i3 processor (lowpowered) which should help maximize your battery life to the maximum. Second, the Dell Inspiron 15 5558. This one has a slightly better GPU with an NVIDIA 920M, but its processor is 5th generation Intel Core i3. It also costs `3k more than your budget.

KILLER RIGS

Everything you’ll ever need to build your own PC. Whatever your budget.

Basic rig = 30,631

Entry-level gaming = 51,213

Mid-range gaming = 77,233

BASIC RIG

High-range gaming = 123,866

Ultra high-end = 2,61,643

Digit Test Rig= 4,40,591

ENTRY-LEVEL GAMING

Processor Motherboard

Intel Core i3 - 6100 ASRock H170A-X1/3.1

8,650 8,969

Processor Motherboard

AMD FX8320 Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3

RAM

G-Skill Value F4-2133C15S4GNT

1,309

RAM

ADATA AD3U1600C2G11-B 1600 MHz (2x 2 GB)

HDD Graphics Card PSU Speakers Optical Drive Mouse Keyboard Sound Card Sub-total Monitor Cabinet Total

Toshiba 1 TB DT01ACA100 Intel HD Graphics 530 Corsair VS450 None None Logitech MK120 Wireless (Bundle) Logitech MK120 Wireless (Bundle) None (Excluding Monitor) Acer P168HQL OEM Cabinet

HDD Graphics Card PSU Speakers Optical Drive Mouse Keyboard Sound Card Sub-total Monitor Cabinet Total

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB Sapphire R7 360 2GB Corsair CX430 V2 Philips MMS4040F - 2.1 Channel LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer Logitech MK200 (Bundle) Logitech MK200 (Bundle) None (Excluding Monitor and Cabinet) BenQ RL2240HE

3,385 0 2,375 0 0 843 0 0 25,531 4,100 1,000 `30,631

Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Graphics Card PSU Speakers Optical Drive Mouse Keyboard Sound Card Sub-total Monitor Cabinet Total

15,749 8,969 2,915 6,307 17,790 4,340 4,990 1,050 1,879 0 0 63,989 9,738 3,506 `77,233

ULTRA HIGH-END GAMING CPU + Cooler Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speakers Optical Drive Mouse Keyboard Sound Card Total

Intel Core i7-6700K + Antec Kuhler H2O 650 ASRock Z170 Extreme6 Corsair Vengeance (2x 8 GB) CMK8GX4M1A2400C14R WD WD30EZRX 3TB + Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD Acer XB270HU 27-inch 144Hz 4K G-Sync GALAX GTX 980TI HOF 6 GB Cooler Master MasterCase 5 Corsair RM1000i 1000W Logitech Z906 5.1 LG Blu-ray WH14NS40 RW Logitech G502 Proteus Core Steelseries APEX RAW ASUS XONAR Essence STX


1,760 3,731 9,680 3,031 3,033 1,050 730 0 0 39,015 9,299 2,899 `51,213

HIGH-RANGE GAMING

MID-RANGE GAMING Intel Core i5 - 6400 + Cooler Master Hyper TX3 ASRock H170A-X1/3.1 Corsair Value Select (2x 4 GB) Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1 TB + Kingston SSD UV300 120 GB Gigabyte GTX 960 N960WF2OC Antec VP650P V2 Sony SRS-D9 2.1 LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer Logitech G100s (Bundle) Logitech G100s (Bundle) None (Excluding Monitor and Cabinet) Viewsonic VX2263Smhl Corsair Carbide SPEC 01

11,800 4,200

Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Graphics Card PSU Speakers Optical Drive Mouse Keyboard Sound Card Sub-total Monitor Cabinet Total

Intel Core i5 6600 + Cooler Master Hyper TX3 MSI Z170A PC Mate Kingston DDR4 2133 MHz HX421C14FB/8 16 GB (2x 8 GB Western Digital WD20EZRZ 2 TB + Kingston UV300 SSD 240 GB Gigabyte GTX 980 N980WF3-4GD Seasonic M12II-750 EVO Sony SRS-D9 2.1 LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer CM Storm Devastator (Bundle) CM Storm Devastator (Bundle) None (Excluding Monitor) BenQ GL2460HM Corsair Carbide 400R

18,549 11,934 5,400 10,097 44,889 8,750 4,990 1,050 2,499 0 0 108,158 10,009 5,699 `1,23,866

PRIMARY DIGIT TEST RIG 32,386 16,499 6,000 17,689 61,300 58,000 9,249 13,298 17,990 5,999 3,689 8,824 10,720 `2,61,643

Intel Core i7 - 5960X (Extreme Edition) ASRock X99E-ITX/AC Motherboard Apacer Panther 2666 MHz 32 GB RAM (4x 8 GB) Western Digital WD40EFRX HDD SanDisk Extreme II 240GB SSD Intel 750 NVMe + Kingston HyperX PCIe SSD Predator 480 GB Graphics Card Gigabyte GTX 980 Ti Extreme Gaming Cabinet+ Cooler Cabinet (NA) + Noctua NH-D15 Corsair RM1000X PSU LG 29UC97C Monitor NA Optical Drive Mionix Castor Mouse Corsair STRAFE Keyboard Total Processor

87,800 22,500 15,840 13,050 34,000 119,275 68,400 8,199 13,899 40000+Tax NA 4,700 12,490 `4,40,591

RECOMMENDED BUYS

From smartphones to graphics cards, here’s what we recommend for your next purchase!

TOP 3 GRAPHICS CARDS

TOP 3 G-SYNC MONITORS Brand Acer Asus BenQ

Model XB270H-G PG278Q XL2420G

Price (in `) 46,500 62,299 57,750

Brand NVIDIA AMD NVIDIA

Model Galaxy S7 Edge Galaxy Note 5 iPhone 6S

Price (in `) 56,900 42,695 66,470

Brand Fitbit Jawbone Withings

TOP 3 GAME CONTROLLERS Brand Microsoft Thrustmaster Logitech

Model Xbox One Wireless HOTAS Warthog G920

Model D5 645Z 1D X Mark II

Price (in `) 4,050 37,999 50,505

Brand Apple Apple HTX

Model EH-TW8200 VPL-HW40ES W1070

Price (in `) 12,990 11,999 48,119

Model iPad Pro 12.9" iPad Air 2 Nexus 9

Price (in `) 1,03,900 48,900 39,990

TOP 3 GAMING LAPTOPS Price (in `) 4,15,000 5,85,500 4,50,000

Brand MSI Acer MSI

TOP 3 HOME CINEMA PROJECTORS Brand Epson Sony BenQ

Model Charge HR UP3 Activite

TOP 3 TABLETS

TOP 3 DSLRs Brand Nikon Pentax Canon

Price (in `) 63,799 1,20,270 54,000

TOP 3 SMARTBANDS

TOP 3 HIGH-END SMARTPHONES Brand Samsung Samsung Apple

Model GTX 1080 R9 295X2 GTX 980 Ti

Model GT80 2QD Predator 15 Ghost Pro 6QE GS60

Price (in `) 2,62,900 1,79,000 1,09,990

TOP 3 BUDGET SMARTPHONES Price (in `) 1,90,000 1,78,000 1,69,000

Brand Xiaomi Meizu Coolpad

Model Redmi Note 3 M2 Note Note 3

Price (in `) 9,999 9,999 8,499


Bazaar

Tried & Tested

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All the latest and greatest products tested and reviewed so you make an informed buying decision

Mitashi launches Smart TV Mitashi adds a new 65-inch Smart LED TV to its range of smart televisions that is priced at Rs.98,990.

Picture

Perfect

We compare 15+ smartphones from all the top manufacturers compared to tell you which one can take the best photos

Prasid Banerjee

T

[email protected]

hese comparisons should start the way those Honest Trailers on YouTube do. Over the past few months, our Facebook and Twitter feeds have literally been filled with questions about the best camera phone to buy. There are a ton of them, but determining ‘the best’, calls for a full blooded Digit comparison, and what better time than the 15th Anniversary, right? So, to take a page out of the YouTubers’ playbook, “Ok, ok! We’ll do best camera phones!”


Smartphone cameras have come a long way, but choosing one amongst the sea of devices remains a herculean task, of sorts. Unlike processors and RAM, the camera specs give you precious little information, unless you’re an expert of the field. Even so, a camera, especially the one on your handheld device, is best described by the final photo it clicks. In smartphones, cameras are quite dependent on the algorithm each company uses. That is not to say that hardware doesn’t matter; just that products are usually differentiated for the algorithm they come with. You would know a lot of people who buy a particular brand simply because of “how

good their camera app” is. You may even be one of those people yourself. To determine the best camera, one needs to of course test it, but when looking for the best camera phone, there’s more to test. It must have a good camera, but it also needs to be a good enough phone, right? After all, what’s a good camera without sufficient storage, or enough power? Let’s begin...

LeEco Le 1s Eco Its 13MP rear camera is perhaps the weakest part of this phone. That said, the Le 1s camera will get you by in outdoor sunlight. It can take satisfactory shots in daylight, but quality starts deteriorating as the light

For the lulz

There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

New planets discovered!

Nasa has announced the single largest group of new validated plantes, to date. 1284 new planets discovered, using the Kepler space telescope. http://dgit.in/NwPlnts

Phone cams

All these photos were taken in studio conditions, with bright white lights and a white background. The Samsung Galaxy S7 (Pic 1) and iPhone 6S Plus (Pic 2), both manage the shadows well, but colours look more vivid from the Galaxy S7. The Moto G4 Plus (Pic 3), on the other hand, takes a good photo, considering the price.

goes down. Under low light, for example, outdoors in the evening, the phone more or less fails, as far as photography is concerned. There’s too much noice and most of the details are lost. The phone has an iSOCELL sensor from Samsung, and while the image quality is satisfactory for a budget device, that’s all there is to it. Under white lights, the white balance went off, turning a white background almost into blue.

It can take shots that are satisfactory, if not absolutely good. Images aren’t very sharp, but the colours look fine. The main weakness of this camera is in reproducing details. Taking macro shots, of flowers, plants etc. doesn’t work out very well. While processing time and shutter lag aren’t an issue, you can’t always depend on the auto focus on this camera. This means that while taking quick shots, you’ll often

find that the camera couldn’t focus right, or hasn’t exactly judged the scene very well. It’s expected from a budget smartphone, but the Le 1s is definitely not the best camera phones we’ve seen in this range. The Le 1s Eco runs on a MediaTek Helio X10 SoC, which gives it pretty good performance for multi tasking. That said, its performance, with respect to gaming, is nothing compared to the Redmi Note 3. While the

How We Tested O

ver the years, we’ve seen many phones that can take good images, but have other, major weaknesses. The Sony Xperia Z5, for example, had one of the best cameras in its time, but it took too long to focus and shoot images. So, the first few things to test, included the focus time, processing and shutter delay, and the app launch times. You will barely find a good camera phone that doesn’t get these parts right. You could find one in 2014, but not in the current generation. Moving on, image quality is of course, the primary concern for anyone interested in a phone’s camera. We took five common light conditions -- bright sunlight, indoor tube lights, bright white studio lights, yellow lights, and the dreaded low light conditions. The goal was to represent your camera usage, for everything from an outdoor picnic, to an unevenly lit club. Only few shall pass all of these tests. From here, we moved on to determine the specs and hardware used for the camera. This includes the type of sensor used, and the

aperture. To explain, a Back Side Illiminated (BSI) sensor, is usually preferred, but not always the only option. Samsung’s ISOCELL technology is quite popular, and there are some other sensors that OEMs have used in the past. At this point, you’re probably wondering why we’re not talking about the megapixel count. That’s because while companies would have you believe otherwise, to benefit sales, it doesn’t really play as big a role. Sure, higher megapixel counts can be great, but this test essentially proves that the best cameras don’t always have the highest megapixel count. To be clear, the numbers did play a role in this comparison, but they weren’t the determining factor. The most emphasis was given to the image quality, followed by the speed and other factors mentioned above, and then came the megapixel count. So, with about 70 percent weightage being given to the camera, we moved on to determining the quality of the phones. This includes

testing performance, rating the looks, judging the build quality and a lot more. We ran the usual benchmarks, including, AnTuTu 6.0, Geekbench 3 and GFX Bench. While AnTuTu gives you a peek at the phone’s overall system performance, GFXBench is a very graphic centric benchmark. Geekbench, on the other hand, is good at determining the single core and multi-core performance of these phones. We’ll be honest with you, it’s an exhausting endeavour, especially when one accounts for how clumsy we humans can be. Nevertheless, all of these tests were then combined with real world performance and usage, to come to our final conclusions. sixteen phones entered the fray, and they all fought hard. Our competitors include, the LeEco Le 1s Eco, Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Moto G4 Plus, HTC Desire 828 Dual SIM, HTC Desire 728G, OnePlus X, Moto X Play, Lenovo Vibe Shot, Vivo V3 Max, Xiaomi Mi 5, HTC One A9, Oppo F1 Plus, LG Nexus 5X, Huawei Nexus 6P, Apple iPhone 6S Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S7.


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LeEco Le 1s Eco

phone is really good at this price range, it plays second fiddle to the Redmi Note 3, in terms of performance. The Le 1s Eco however, has one of the best designs in this price segment. The phone’s metal body feels really premium and solid. It looks good, and the fingerprint sensor on the back is easy to reach. The phone is also slim and light, making it feel even more premium for its price range.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is uber powerful, way beyond its price point. But its camera

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 88 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

pretty much belongs here. The 16MP camera looks good on paper, and it can do well in bright sunlight and well lit conditions, but images deteriorate pretty radically in lower light conditions. Under good lighting, the Redmi Note 3 produces well balanced colours, and it’s really fast to focus and process images. In low lights, though, the details start deteriorating, and images aren’t very sharp either. Like the Le 1s Eco, this phone also has a Samsung sensor, and it’s not the best when it comes to dealing with uneven or low lights. The Redmi Note 3, though, is one of the most powerful smartphones in the market right now, and that’s across the board. The Snapdragon 650 is incredibly fast, and can handle anything that you throw at it. The Redmi Note 3’s gaming performance is also really good, and app launch times are kept to a minimum. It’s possibly the best phone we’ve seen from Xiaomi since it entered India with the Mi 3. While the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 isn’t the best phone in terms of camera, it is still ahead of the LeEco Le 1s or Honor 5X.

Moto G4 Plus Motorola promised, once again, that the new Moto G4 Plus has a best-in-class camera. The phone has a 16MP shooter, with both PDAF and laser auto-focus. It seems Motorola’s claims are finally true this time. The Moto G4 Plus, does indeed beat both the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and LeEco Le 1s, and by extension the Honor 5X and Lenovo K4 Note. In comparisons we’ve done online, we found that the Redmi Note 3 had a better camera than the Honor 5X and Lenovo K4 Note. The Moto G4 Plus can take sharp images in bright sunlight, and is quite fast to focus as well. When shooting close-up images, the laser auto-focus kicks in to focus quite fast. In well lit conditions, the phone is suitable for anyone looking for a good camera in this budget. In fact, we saw shades of this in the Moto G Turbo last year, but it seems Lenovo’s inputs have raised the bar quite a bit for Motorola this time. The Moto G4 Plus’ weakness lies in the fact that its camera is much slower than the

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Moto G4 Plus

Redmi Note 3. While the camera is as fast in sunlight, indoors and in low light, the Moto G takes more time to focus and process images. That said, the image quality remains better. In low light, images taken by the Moto G4 Plus come out brighter, and with more detail. Under indoor tube lights, the Redmi Note 3 tends to wash out images often, while the Moto G’s colour representation is much better than the Xiaomi device. In terms of regular performance though, the Moto G4 Plus is considerably weaker than the Note 3. The Snapdragon 617 is a stable and pretty fast SoC, and Motorola’s enhancements do make the phone feel smooth, but it’s still not the same as the Note 3. The Redmi Note 3 is nearly 40% faster than the Moto G4 Plus.

HTC Desire 828

Typing on thin air?

18 years in space

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After almost 18 years, the International Space Station completed its 100,000th orbit of circling Earth. NASA’s video breaks down what these trips around the planet mean. http://dgit.in/18YSpSt

HTC Desire 828

Phone cams

it has a lot going for it, from its camera’s point of view. If you’re shooting in well lit conditions, then images are very sharp and well detailed. While image quality does drop under low light, it’s still better than the OnePlus X’s. The details are better, and the Moto X Play’s camera is really sharp to focus and process photos. Further, this is perhaps the best phone powered by a Snapdragon 615 SoC. Motorola has made its tweaks to draw the most out of the SoC, and the Moto X Play feels really good to use. It’s already on Marshmallow as well, which improves performance a bit more. It’s not the most powerful phone out there, but between this and a Xiaomi Mi 4i, the Moto X Play is definitely better.

The HTC Desire 828 turned out to be a disappointment, especially in terms of its camera. While the phone can do satisfactorily under sunlight, the white balance is not good on most other settings. Under low light, the camera loses both white balance and details, compared to the much cheaper Moto G4 Plus and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. The octa-core MediaTek MT6753 chipset is no match for the Snapdragon 617 and 650 on the Moto G4 Plus and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 respectively. On top of that, the Desire 828 costs considerably more than the two other devices. Overall, it’s not a very good buy.

OnePlus X

ditions. While images taken by the phone aren’t as good as Moto X Play’s, the difference is very little. Under bright sunlight, the OnePlus X is fast, takes sharp photos, doesn’t overexpose and delivers well balanced colours. In lower light, though, the phone can’t reproduce the same details that the Moto X Play does. Also, 16GB internal storage on the OnePlus X is too limiting. While you can expand the storage, 16GB is still too little. Further, the phone runs on a Snapdragon 810 SoC, which is somewhat outdated. While its performance is smooth enough, a newer processor would have been preferred. HTC Desire 728G

Moto X Play

HTC Desire 728G The Desire 728G, however, is worse than the 828. It takes too long to focus, and its camera’s image quality is even lower than the 828. Under low light, images are too dark, and there’s a lot of noise. While images are better under bright lights, they lack sharpness, making this perhaps the worst choice where camera is concerned. The same can be said about the performance. The phone has the same processor as the Desire 828, but lesser RAM.

OnePlus X The camera is the OnePlus X’s strongest suit. The phone is pretty fast to focus, and can take very good photos, in most light con-

JUNE 2016

The Moto X Play has the best camera in the sub-20k smartphone segment. It may not be the best phone, overall, but Moto X Play

Oppo F1 Plus

Oppo F1 Plus The Oppo F1 Plus is actually more about its 16MP front camera, than the one on the back. Nevertheless, in this comparison, it holds its own. The 13MP rear camera isn’t the best in terms of sharpness, but you’ll be taken by the punchy colours that it delivers, as long as the light is good. Under low light, the F1 Plus is acceptable, but not the best. It costs `26,990, which means much better is expected of it. Colours, under low light, are dull, while a lot of noise creeps in as well. The Oppo F1 Plus is also not the best in dealing with shadows. It runs on the Helio P10 SoC, from MediDigit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 89

Google keyboard

Disney Infinity cancelled

Google released a new keyboard with in-built search features. http://dgit.in/keyboardiOS

Phone cams

Disney shut down it’s gaming division, reveals a shocking blog post. http://dgit.in/disneyinfinityx

LeEco Le 1s Eco

Xiaomi Moto G4 Plus HTC One A9 Redmi Note 3

HTC Desire 828

HTC Desire 728G

OnePlus X

`10,999

`11,999

`14,999

`29,990

`18,990

`17,990

`16,999

Rear camera

13MP

16MP

16MP

13MP

13MP

13MP

16MP

Front camera

5MP

5MP

5MP

4MP

4MP

5MP

8MP

CPU speed

1.8GHz

1.8GHz

1.5GHz

1.5GHz

1.5GHz

1.3GHz

2.3GHz

CPU cores

8

6

8

8

8

8

4

Aperture

f/2.2

f/2.4

f/2.2

f/2

f/2

f/2.2

f/2.2

RAM

3GB

3GB

3GB

3GB

2GB

1.5GB

1GB

Display (in inches)

5.5

5.5

5.5

5.2

5.5

5.5

5

Display resolution (pixels)

1080

1080

1080

1080

1080

720

1080

Pixel Density (ppi)

401

401

401

424

401

267

424

Camera Sensor Type

ISOCELL

ISOCELL

PureCel

CMOS

BSI

BSI

ISOCELL

Built-in Storage

32GB

32GB

32GB

32GB

16GB

16GB

16GB

Image quality

5.5

6

6.5

6.5

5.5

5.5

7

Low light perforamance

4

4

5

3.5

3.5

3

4.5

Focusing speed

6

6.5

5

5

3.5

2.5

5.5

Video recording

6

6

6

5.5

5

4.5

6

Processing/Shutter Time

4

4.5

4

5

3

2.5

6

Price Hardware

Test Results Camera (Score on 10)

Performance (Higher is better) Geekbench 3 Battery Test

3729

6566

3061

2986

3122

3674

2848

Antutu X

54694

76289

45569

66886

37981

36084

40305

Geekbench 3 Single Core

957

1515

716

744

701

627

930

Geekbench 3 Multi Core

4796

3577

3072

3084

3106

2627

2594

GFX Bench Manhattan 3.1 OnScreen

590.5

887

434.5

420.2

279

560.1

850

Overall Performance Scores 32.6416

37.5622

31.9595

30.993

25.4373

23.716

34.1153

Final Scores (all things considered)

66.534

59.626

59.326

52.812

50.077

61.837

60.322

aTek, and draws good performance from it. That said, at `26,990, the Oppo F1 Plus seems overpriced against the likes of the Xiaomi Mi 5 and even the Smartron t.phone now. It has good cameras, but as an overall package, Oppo may be asking too much off the consumer. 90 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

Lenovo Vibe Shot The Lenovo Vibe Shot has a 16MP rear camera, which is its primary focus. The phone comes with a dedicated camera button, and another, to change between auto and Pro modes. It offers a lot of control over the camera as well, and can take very

good photos. The phone was launched at around `25,000, but has since dropped to `18,599. For a camera centric phone though, the Vibe Shot isn’t very good at low light imaging. The Moto X Play outperforms this one. The Vibe Shot shows quite a bit of noise under

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Phone cams

JUNE 2016

JUNE 2016

JUNE 2016

Moto X Play

Oppo F1 Plus Lenovo Vibe Shot

Xiaomi Mi 5

Vivo V3 Max

Apple iPhone 6S Plus

LG Nexus 5X Huawei Nexus 6P

Samsung Galaxy S7

`17,499

`26,990

`18,599

`24,999

`23,980

`92,000

`27,160

`34,499

`49,990

21MP

13MP

16MP

16MP

13MP

12MP

12MP

12MP

12MP

5MP

16MP

8MP

4MP

8MP

5MP

5MP

8MP

5MP

1.7GHz

2GHz

1.7GHz

1.8GHz

1.8GHz

1.8GHz

1.8GHz

2GHz

2.3GHz

8

8

8

4

8

2

6

8

8

f/2

f/2.2

f/2.2

f/2

f/2.2

f/2.2

f/2

f/2

f/1.7

2GB

4GB

3GB

3GB

4GB

2GB

3GB

3GB

4GB

5.5

5.5

5

5.15

5.5

5.5

5.2

5.7

5.1

1080

1080

1080

1080

640

1080

1080

1440

1440

401

401

424

428

326

401

423

518

577

CMOS

CMOS

BSI

CMOS

CMOS

BSI

BSI

BSI

CMOS

32GB

64GB

32GB

32GB

32GB

128GB

32GB

64GB

32GB

7.5

6

7

7

6

9

8

8.5

9

7

4.5

4.5

4.5

4

8

7

7.5

9

6

5.5

5

6

5

6

6

6

6

7

6

6.5

6.5

6

8

7.5

8

9

7

5.5

5.5

6

5.5

8.5

8

8

10

3524

4011

1

5531

4640

3766

4554

3315

6100

43758

51373

39165

114215

78336

140099

53944

50867

114275

706

875

718

1895

1462

2529

1239

1242

2100

2622

3274

2543

4650

4546

4398

3528

4246

6391

380

437.2

348.9

845.6

341

2387.61

1024

660

1555

38.9508

33.1813

30.202

40.9894

34.0847

53.0475

43.5062

43.5498

55.0032

69.311

62.375

60.507

70.919

62.209

83.2

72.006

75.355

86.669

low light, and colours are slightly dull, while the details are also lost. Shooting under good light, the Vibe Shot can deliver good photos, that are sharp, with good colours. Another downside to the Vibe Shot is that it doesn’t really perform well in other departments. The phone’s Vibe UI isn’t well

optimised and Snapdragon 615 doesn’t do as well as it does on the Moto X Play.

Xiaomi Mi 5 In terms of performance, the Xiaomi Mi 5 is one of the most powerful smartphones that you can buy today. Its camera isn’t in

the same league, though. The 16MP Sony IMX298 sensor doesn’t do very well under low light on this phone. While the Mi 5 can take some very sharp and well balanced photos in brightly lit outdoor conditions, the image quality deteriorates under lower light levels. Even in indoor conditions, under Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 91

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Phone cams

Lenovo Vibe Shot

tube lights, the Mi 5’s camera tends to wash out photos, while it loses details and shows a lot of noise under lower light. We’d choose the Moto X Play over this, when camera is of paramount importance. The Snapdragon 820 chip on this device, though, is uber powerful. Even at the lower 1.8GHz clock speed, heat management is great and so is the performance. At the highest clock speeds, this phone barely goes beyond 40 degrees. The Mi 5 has a great display, and is compact and comfortable to carry around.

Android comes to PC!

Jide, the creator of the Remix OS, a desktop oriented version of Android, put their software in an AIO for the first time. http://dgit.in/AndroidPCx

wise when you put them on a different screen. Under low light, the V3 Max suffers from more noise than phones in this price range. The Lenovo Vibe Shot and Xiaomi Mi 5 are better than this. It can take decent photos in sunlight, but in well lit indoor conditions even photos are not quite satisfactory.

HTC One A9 Perhaps the best phone by HTC in a long time, the HTC One A9 runs on a Snapdragon 617 SoC. It’s not the most powerful phone available, nor is it the most innovative. This is a phone that’s all about the user experience. Barely ever does it lag, and its 3GB of RAM is enough for all the multitasking that you’d want to do.

Vivo V3 Max They sponsored the IPL this time, and have spent crores of rupees to establish the brand in India. Their first phone after all these efforts, is the Vivo V3 Max, and it is powered by a Snapdragon 652 processor. This makes it really fast. The V3 Max isn’t as fast as the Xiaomi Mi 5, but it’s no slouch either. From gaming to multitasking, this phone can take almost anything you throw at it. That said, its camera can be described as decent, at best. Photos look good enough on the phone’s own, but you’ll realise other-

HTC One A9

somewhat blue. There’s also quite a bit of noise in low light images.

LG Nexus 5X Google’s Nexus devices have never been known for their cameras, until this year. The Nexus 5X, like its bigger cousin, is amongst the best camera phones you can buy. For one, the camera is fast, and it has an iPhone-ish quality to it. That is to say that colours are really true to source on the Nexus 5X, irrespective of what lights you’re clicking under. Laser auto-focus helps it to enhance image quality when shooting close-up photos. The quality does dip in low light, and there’s some noise. That said, colours remain intact, and unless you’re in very extreme low light conditions, many won’t complain about this phone’s camera.

Vivo V3 Max

Xiaomi Mi 5 92 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

The camera isn’t quite the strong suit for this phone, but the A9 still has the strongest camera we’ve seen from HTC, yet. The good thing about the camera is that it’s really fast, both to focus and process images. Under bright light, or outdoor sunlight conditions, the One A9 takes good photos, if not the best. It lacks the details that we want from phones in this price range, but it’s respectable nevertheless. It’s weaker under low light, though. The white balance goes off, with whites turning

LG Nexus 5X

Sold for $350 Mn

Emoji your face!

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All this is complemented by overall fast performance. On paper, it is powered by a hexa-core Snapdragon 808, but no other phone churns out the performance from this SoC, the way the Nexus 5X does. It’s snappy, fast and powerful. The only downfall is the addition of just 2GB of RAM. Another issue is the Nexus 5X’s plastic body, which feels too old for today’s market.

A new patent filed by Facebook might allow them to use photos of you, instead of emojis. http://dgit.in/facebookx1

JUNE 2016

Apple iPhone 6S Plus

Huawei Nexus 6P

Huawei Nexus 6P The bigger cousin to the Nexus 5X, it’s easily the best looking Nexus till date. It has a full metal body and a unique design. It feels premium, and has everything that the Nexus 5X does, and more. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 810, without its heating issues. The Nexus 6P performs better than the Nexus 5X, and there are few phones in the market that can beat it. Further, if you liked the camera on the 5X, you’ll love this one. It has the same 12MP sensor as the Nexus 5X, but delivers better low light performance. There’s less noise, and more details, while colours remain just as good. In brightly lit conditions, you can depend on this phone with your eyes closed. The laser assisted auto-focus system is also retained.

Image Stabilisation helps, when shooting low light images, and the iPhone 6S Plus is one of the best in this department as well. There is little noise to speak of, and colours look good, irrespective of the light conditions. All this is accompanied by an A9 processor from Apple, and its famed vertical ecosystem. The iPhone 6S Plus is fast, of course, and amongst the best phones to buy today. It comes at a hefty price though, with the 128GB model going up to `92,000.

Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge The Galaxy S7 Edge and S7 are the best Android phones you can buy today. Samsung’s flagship devices have 12MP sensors, just like the iPhone and Nexus devices.

JUNE 2016

Apple iPhone 6S Plus Apple’s best, as far as camera is concerned, the iPhone 6S Plus is difficult to argue against, as far as imaging is concerned. If you like true to source colours, there is literally no camera in the market that can do as well as the iPhone 6S Plus, with Google’s Nexus 6P coming close. Further, Optical

Phone cams

They also come with Optical Image Stabilisation, to enhance low light image quality. Samsung seems to have worked hard on its algorithms, to provide photos that many would call the best possible, at the moment. Dual-pixel technology makes this camera almost as fast in low light, as it is in regular conditions. In addition, the S7 provides more vivid and bright images than the iPhone and Nexus devices. Where it excels beyond both the others, is in low light performance. The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is the best smartphone for low light imaging today. Further, even the Exynos 8890 variants of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, are really fast. We wish Samsung would bring the Snapdragon 820-powered versions to India, too, but there’s no reason to complain right now. The Galaxy S7 has 4GB of DDR4 RAM, along with UFS 2.0 storage, making it one of the smoothest and fastest smartphones in the market, and the fastest Android phone to buy.

BEST BUY Moto X Play When camera and budget are the most important factors, the Moto X Play should be your pick. For its price, the device shoots really good photos, and can beat even phones priced well over it. For example, the Moto X Play’s camera is much better than the HTC One A9 and even the Xiaomi Mi 5.

BEST PERFORMER Samsung Galaxy S7 Between the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6S Plus, the basic difference is in the fact that the former provides warmer images, to the iPhone’s more true to source colours. To many, these warmer images will look better than what the iPhone provides. That said, the reason the Samsung Galaxy S7 comes out to be the best performer, though, is that it’s visibly better under low light. Not only is it faster, it also takes brighter, and better quality photos.

EDITOR’S PICK Apple iPhone 6S Plus

Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge

While the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge/S7 may be the popular choice, Apple’s true to source colours can’t be ignored. The camera is fast, takes good photos in all light conditions, and the performance is beyond question. It is hence, the Editor’s Pick for this comparison. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 93

INSIDE Page 96 Pebble Time Round

Bazaar

Page 97 Smartron t.book

THE LATEST PRODUCTS REVIEWED FOR YOU

The Digit Test Centre receives hundreds of products every month. Each of these products is put through a series of tests and is finally given a score. The final score is arrived at after considering a number of factors and evaluating them in terms of features, performance, value for money, build quality, and, in the case of software, even ease of use.

Page 98

Samsung Galaxy S7

Page 100

u-JAYS

For better understanding of our ratings, here’s a quick guide to our overall score 10

to

30

Extremely poor product. Keep away!

31

to

50

Strictly OK.

51

to

70

Decent product.

71

to

90

Very good product.

91

to 100

Page 101 ASUS ROG G501

Not recommended

Go for it, but there may be better products out there.

Highly recommended.

Ground-breaking product.

We’ve never seen anything like it before. A definite must buy!


&MORE...

Page 99 Lenovo Zuk Z1

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Google AI can write its own novel!

In an effort to make it’s apps more conversational, Google fed it’s AI 2865 romance novels to improve it’s undersatnding of the language. http://dgit.in/AIromance

Bazaar

Kindle Oasis

For a more premium experience

W

ith the Oasis, Amazon has taken the existing Kindle Paperwhite and improved almost every aspect of it. The existing 6-inch screen comes out to be the ideal size so they’ve kept that the same while reducing the thickness of the plastic bezel. Another aspect they’ve left to remain is the screen resolution. Since anything over 300 DPI at reading distance is redundant, they’ve decided to not add more but rather focus on the illumination. A normal Kindle Paperwhite has 4 LEDs along the periphery of the screen on the bottom edge which is then dispersed evenly thanks to the Light Guide which allows light to enter from the side but only allows it to exit through optical features engrained in the Light Guide. This was improved when the Kindle Voyage added two more LEDs and an adaptive light sensor to modify light levels according to ambient light present. With the Kindle Oasis, they’ve moved the LED strip to the sides and increased its count to 10 LEDs for a more even dispersion. The screen texture has also been improved. Amazon has bought back the mechanical page turn buttons. And the buttons flip functions based on which way you’re holding the device so that whatever button is on the top will turn the page and the one on the bottom will turn it back. The buttons provide a minor tactile feedback. To reduce the size of the device, Amazon had to resort to some ingenious techniques. To begin with, they’ve separated the battery into two parts, one within the device and the major portion within the cover. The two come together thanks to a bunch of powerful magnets and the spring loaded contact points ensure that minor flexing doesn’t break contact. Taking out a huge chunk of the battery is what primarily reduced the weight down to 131 grams compared to the Voyage which was 49 grams heavier. Another significant construction improvement was that the EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) shield which used to be a separate mechanical part till now has been eliminated and in its place, they’ve metal-plated the rear plastic shroud. Thus, function has been retained while reducing weight. The dual battery design gives more cumulative battery life. The Kindle has an internal 245 mAh battery and the cover has a 1290 mAh battery. The two together result in a decent 1535 mAh setup which is a 16 per cent improvement over the Kindle Voyage’s 1320 mAh battery. This setup makes the Oasis last

Price99 23,9

for two weeks longer than the Voyage which only lasted 4 weeks per charge. However, the charging port only exists on the device and the cover gets its juice from the Kindle once it has been topped up. Also, when fused, the cover’s battery is first to be consumed so the cover will have to endure a lot more charge discharge cycles than a single part configuration. And we don’t need to remind you that erratic charge/discharge cycles affect battery life in the long run. Since this is a prolonged test, we won’t know about it for quite some time. Coming to the UI. An improved SoC and 500 MB additional RAM have definitely added to making the UI snappier. And that very UI has undergone a radical redesign which has been bought to other Kindles via software updates. You also have a new typeface called Ember which will remain exclusive to the Oasis for a few months. Ember makes text more readable when you have very narrow kerning and come across ligatures. The price of the Kindle Oasis has been under much debate. A price tag of `23,999 for the Wi-Fi version does seem a bit on the higher side. However, if you factor in the modular construction, increased battery capacity, leather cover, size reduction, improved SoC, higher RAM capacity and the new typeface; it soothes the price punch. The Oasis is the best ebook reader out there, expensive or not. Mithun Mohandas

83 Features ........................ 80 Build ............................... 85

Specifications

SoC: Freescale STMP3700; Memory: 4 GB; Battery: 245 mAh Li-Po; Screen resolution: 300 DPI; Pixel dimensions: 1440 x 1080; Screen size: 6–inches; Touchscreen: yes; Weight: 131 g; Warranty: 1 year

Contact

Amazon India Phone: 1800-3000-9009 Email: Customer Care form Website: https://www. amazon.in Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 95

VR Life!

Plants now charge phones!

Man sets Guiness world record by spending 25 straight hours in Virtual reality. http://dgit.in/VR_life

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Pebble Time Round

Chromecast 2

A good streaming dongle got a whole lot better

A really light smartwatch that looks cute and pretty

T

T

he Pebble Time weighs 28 grams making it extremely light to wear. There are times when you don’t even realize the device is on your wrist. The fact that its so light is one of the best features of the watch. The Pebble Time Round doesn’t have a touchscreen but has four physical buttons – three on the right and one of the left. The left button is the back button and on the right you have the up, down and action button. As the name suggests, it has a round display. The Pebble Time Round, it is very well built. It has a small footprint and feels light on the wrist. It isn’t as gorgeous as the LG Watch Urbane or the Moto 360 second gen. In fact, for some it may look like a toy. But the build and design is functional and that’s why I

70 Features ....................................68 Performance............................62 Value ..........................................75 Design ........................................71

Specifications

Thickness: 7.5mm; Band: 14mm or 20mm wide; Weight: 28 grams; Display: Always on Colour display; Splash resistant to IPX7 standard; Display: 2.5D gorilla glass display

Contact

Pebble Phone: NA E-Mail: [email protected] 96 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

Bioo lite, made by Arkyne industries harnesses photosynthesis to turn sunlight into electricty. http://dgit.in/photosynthesis_charging

Price99 13,5

like it. What’s more, the Pebble Time Round looks pretty good, striking an attractive pose on your wrist. Its wristband may not look very manly, At best, using the Pebble Time Round conservatively, I got about two and a half day’s battery life. This was with keeping the backlight on, brightness low, and timeout at 3 seconds. Changing these settings resulted in a reduced battery life and the device lasted for about one day (a little over 30 hours). The apps library is large and there are some games that you can play on the watch which is addictive. The smartwatch is compatible with Android and iOS. It doesn’t have voice functionality like Google Now or Siri but you can reply to messages using voice commands. If you don’t want to flaunt the smartwatches made by phone makers, then go for this one. Sameer Mitha

he Chromecast 2 has a circular design with the HDMI cord sticking out at one end making it a lot more convenient to place behind the TV. The Chromecast 2 is available in 3 colours – red, black and yellow (Google calls the yellow one lemon). The Chromecast 2 still needs external power to function. Overall the new design of the Chromecast is pretty attractive. A very cool thing about the Google Cast app is that it shows you all the apps that are compatible with the Chromecast. Surprisingly, the HotStar app doesn’t support the Chromecast and that’s a bummer. The Chromecast 2 boots up real fast, has better Wi-Fi range and connectivity than its predecessor and the apps load faster. But it still isn’t perfect. Mirroring an Android smartphone to to

78 Features ....................................70 Performance............................80 Value ..........................................85 Design ........................................75

Specifications

HDMI connection; MicroUSB for power; Compatible with iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, Mac and Windows laptops and Chromebooks.

Contact

Google India Phone: 1800-108-7879 E-Mail: https://apps.google.com/ intx/en_in/support/

Price9 3,39

showcase online content can be difficult. In particular, I tried to mirror my smartphones display and watch Game of Thrones via HotStar and apart from lagging, the mirroring kept crashing. Mirroring the smartphone to show local content worked smoothly. Coming to gaming, the game I tired to play was Injustice: Gods Among us. There was a noticeable lag during the screen mirroring of the game. The lag was under one second but it was well noticeable. There are some games recommended on the Google Cast app that will work smoothly, but rest assured that all apps & games aren’t supported. Overall, if you are someone that consumes a lot of content on your smartphone via entertainment apps and would like to seamlessly share photos you have clicked from your smartphone to the big screen, then the Chromecast 2 works like a charm. High end games and some mirroring issues aside, the device has good overall performance. Sameer Mitha

Flying car!

NVIDIA’s new graphic cards!

An electric, vertical take off and landing vehicle for personal use is under development by a German start up. http://dgit.in/flying_carx

NVIDIA claims the 1000 series GPUs have almost irresponsible amounts of power. http://dgit.in/gtx1080

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Smartron t.book An appreciable effort

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he Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and Apple iPad Pro have a lot going for them, but neither of these products were actually designed for India, and Indians. Enter, the Smartron t.book. Smartron is an India firm, which designs and engineers its products in the country. The company has already roped in Sachin Tendulkar as a strategic investor and brand ambassador. The company claims it wants to prove that Indian companies can do as well as global giants. By the looks of it, Smatron is on the right track. The t.book is its first product, and it takes on Microsoft and Apple head on. It costs `39,999, including the keyboard, which is less than half of what those tablets cost, but provides many of the same things, starting with the display. At this price, there are few laptops that can come close to the t.book’s display. It’s got a 2K resolution, and more than acceptable viewing angles. It’s not as bright as a Surface Pro 4, but it works well enough. The device is powered by an Intel Core M5Y10-C processor, which allows it to have a fanless design. It also makes it considerably weaker than a Surface Pro 4. But at this price, the performance is quite acceptable. Laptops that can come close to its performance and form factor usually cost more, and there are no tablets that can do the same. We wouldn’t call this zippy, like the Surface, but the performance difference can be best explained by the lock and unlock times. For example, when you press the unlock button, the screen turns off, and pressing it again, takes a few seconds for the screen to come back on. On the Surface, this is almost instantaneous. In terms of build and design, the t.book has made all the right moves. Its body is made entirely of metal, and feels premium. The silver and orange colours give it a distinct and noticeable look, but it’s heavier than a Surface. Also, the kickstand is not as flexible, so the t.book can’t do as many positions as the Surface does. Made of magnesium, the kickstand seems somewhat wobbly at times, and it isn’t well suited for using on your lap. Neither is the Surface, but it does better. The keyboard still needs work, though, especially the touchpad. At first, the touchpad was impossible to work with, but Smartron passed a firmware update, which made it slightly better. Still, the touchpad is a tad too sensitive and registers Windows gestures without provocation.

Price99 39,9 It’s also, too small to be supremely useful. On the other hand, the keyboard is better. The pitch is right, and typing is easy. Most of the essential buttons are there, but the lack of volume up/down buttons is annoying. Further, the Core M should ideally allow better battery life, but the Smartron t.book runs for about 4-5 hours. On streaming video continuously, the Smartron t.book lasted us between two to three and a half hours, depending on resolution and screen brightness. While typing and browsing, we were able to reach four and a half hours. Thankfully, the Smartron t.book charges using an USB Type-C port, and it can go from about zero to 100% charge in an hour, at best. The Smartron t.book’s other weakness is in audio performance. While the front facing speakers look good, they’re barely audible. We were able to really use these speakers only in completely silent rooms, as in the dead of the night. Usually, during the day, the tablet needed to be attached to a speaker or headphones, for it to be audible. The Smartron t.book has the audio jack on the right side, while there are two USB 3.0 ports on the left, along with a micro-HDMI port below them. There’s also a micro-SD card reader on the left side of the tablet. Overall, the Smartron t.book makes a lot of sense, and is a very good product to use. The company has passed two updates already, to fix issues with Cortana integration and the keyboard. We would have preferred a lower price, ished brand, we’d find it much easier to trust it. Prasid Banerjee

79 Features ........................ 81 Design ............................ 77 Performance................ 65 Value .............................. 91

Specifications

Display: 12.2 inch WQXGA, 2560x1600p; Processor: Intel Core M5Y10U 64-bit; RAM: 4GB; Storage: 128GB SSD; Camera: 5MP, 2MP; Operating System: Windows 10 Home/Pro

Contact

Website: www.smartron. com Email: tcare@smartron. com Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 97

A blending motorcycle!

Make the most amazing smoothies by using a chainsaw powered blender with a motorcycle throttle! http://dgit.in/chainsawblender

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Circle Gaming Adroit X7C

Incrementally improved

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You can remove the keycaps, for cleaning purposes, but expect considerable resistance every time. The typing experience is indeed close to mechanical keyboards minus the satisfying click and short key travel. The most exciting feature about the keyboard is its seven colour backlit mode supporting three levels of brightness and a breathing transition mode. The lighting doesn’t need a software and it can be controlled from the keyboard itself using the dedicated button that lets you shift through the seven colours and toggle between the breathing and lit colour mode. Due to the white surface below the keys, the LED light look brighter, something followed in the Corsair STRAGE RGB. It also features 19 key anti-ghost which means that the keyboard will be able to register up to 19 specified key presses simultaneously. Playing FPS games was a breeze with all key clicks registering. Overall, we think the Adroit X7C is suited for both gaming and typing, selling for a good price.

Price9 2,99

C

70 Features ....................................70 Design ........................................64 Build ...........................................68 Value ..........................................78

Specifications

Size: Standard, Numpad included; Keyboard backlighting: Seven colour LED; Switch type: Hybrid keyboard; Key-rollover: 19-key

Contact

Circle Phone: +(91)-22-66711234, 66712951 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.circlect.com/ 98 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

Opera has launched a more secure VPN for iOS, with unlimited data, and free usage. http://dgit.in/operafreevpn

Samsung Galaxy S7

When you can’t afford a gaming mechanical keyboard

ircle Gaming’s Adroit X7C follows such a hybrid design to ensure a considerable key travel and a mechanical feel to it. The design has a generic approach, making it reminiscent of other hybrid keyboards. The keyboard material has a matte soft touch finish so it’s not susceptible to fingerprints. It has six multimedia keys at the top which is really helpful but no macro keys.

Opera launches free VPN for iOS

Abhijit Dey

he Samsung Galaxy S7 is beaten by only one Android phone in the market today, the Galaxy S7 Edge, and that says a lot about the device, doesn’t it? While the Galaxy S7’s overall performance and camera quality remain the Price00 same, the major 48,9 changes in the handset are visible in the design departmennt. The Samsung Galaxy S7 is not as expensive than the Galaxy S7 Edge, but that doesn’t stop it from being pretty much the same phone. The curved back and smaller form factor, make the Samsung Galaxy S7 more That said, the Samsung ergonomic than the Edge. It’s Galaxy S7 doesn’t look as also easier to pick up off a striking as the S7 Edge. It’s table, because it doesn’t have the plain old Samsung design, the Edge display on the front – but more solid than last year’s thank heavens for that. Galaxy S6. Ah well, one can’t everything, can we? A smaller 5.1 inch QHD display allows the Galaxy S7 a 577 ppi pixel density. While this is higher than the 531 ppi on the S7 Edge, it makes Features ....................................88 no noticeable difference. For Design ........................................83 all intents and purposes, the Performance............................87 Galaxy S7 has the same disValue ..........................................87 play as the Edge variant. Sadly, the smaller display Specifications doesn’t lead to higher battery Display: 5.1 inch QHD; SoC: 2.3 life. The phone has a smaller GHz Exynos 8890 Octa; RAM: battery as well, leading to the 4GB; Operating System: Android same battery life. Marshmallow; Camera: 12MP, 5MP; Battery: 3000 mAh Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is as good a phone Contact as the S7 Edge. It’s just not as Phone: 18003008282, 18002668282 good looking, and doesn’t feel Email: Samsung website Live Chat/ as premium and unique. Email Website: www.samsung.com/in Prasid Banerjee

86

FBI buys iPhone hack!

The FBI bought a hack for the iPhone, but not the right to tell anyone how it works. http://dgit.in/FBIiPhonehack

Tesla plants easter egg in car! Tesla hides a rainbow in it’s a charging. The upstart in the automotive industry strikes yet again! http://dgit.in/Teslaeasteregg

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Lenovo Zuk Z1 A job well done

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n some ways, the Lenovo Lenovo has promised the MarshZuk Z1 doesn’t belong in the mallow update in June. This will Indian smartphone market. come with CyanogenMod 13. It has a Snapdragon 801 CM12 is the same as what we saw SoC, which is outdated on paper. on the Yu Yutopia, but a striking But this phone is more about the difference is in the fact that the experience than the specifications. OS is much more stable on this Its metallic frame goes well with device. Since the Zuk branded the polished plastic back, making phones by Lenovo are meant for the phone quite premium. It is of enthusiasts, the company also course big, but you’re probably allows you to root it without going to buy this phone because voiding warranty. you want a big device. CM12 has advanced settings Its strongest suit is the display, turned on by default, which and specifically, the colours. allows granular control over The 5.5 inch FHD display shows apps. The app permissions crisp colours, and that’s just on feature from Marshmallow is auto mode. If you want cooler or built into this phone. So, you warmer colours, CyanogenMod 12 can manually decide what apps allows you to tweak the display’s get what permissions, instead of e c i colour temperature. You can even granting them all at the time of r P 99 13,4 choose different colour temperadownload. tures for daytime and night time. The colour Another good thing about the Zuk Z1 is temperature settings doesn’t work on presets that it has a 4100 mAh battery, which lasts either, instead there are sliders that you can use, for quite long. On heavy usage, the phone was able to more granular control. last for a full day with ease, and for lighter users, Lenovo has used the same panel that was used it can go up to a day and a half, or more. On the on the Vibe X3 smartphone. The maximum brightGeekbench 3 Battery Test, the phone lasts for just ness can go up to 450 nits, which is fine, but the about 8 hours. sunlight visibility isn’t great. The weakest aspect of the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is its Coming to the performance, CyanogenMod is camera. The phone has a 13MP camera on the back, tuned for the Snapdragon 801 on this device. As a but it’s not something worth appreciating. It can result, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 performs better than a take good photos under bright sunlight, but lower phone like the OnePlus One. It’s not more powerful the light and pictures deteriorate. Even in indoor than the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, but the performance conditions, images lose sharpness and details are is still great. Apps load really fast, as long as you’re somewhat lost. They are of course, worse under low not playing very heavy games. Even then, while the light. Colours are acceptable across the board. loading time will be longer, gameplay doesn’t show Overall, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is a fine device. Yes, lags worth mentioning. the Snapdragon 801 is a concern, and the camera Temperature management is also well done. is no better than what you find on the Redmi Note Even when the processor reaches 2.5GHz, the 3. In fact, we wouldn’t even say that this phone temperature rarely goes above 40 degrees, is more powerful than the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, unless it is really being taxed. However, that still but it is better than the Honor 5X or Lenovo Vibe doesn’t change the fact that the Snapdragon 801 K4 Note. It’s a phone meant for the tinkerers, and is quite old. It’s not outdated yet, but it isn’t a those who like to try new ROMs on their phones. 64-bit SoC either, which means its life cycle will It’s what many loved about the OnePlus One, and soon be over. Even so, you should be fine with it, it’s what we liked about the Zuk Z1, at a nearly 40% for at least a year. lower price (the OnePlus One was originally priced Further, while the Lenovo Zuk Z1 runs on at `21,999). CyanogenMod 12, and by extension Android 5.1.1, Prasid Banerjee

75 Features ........................ 76 Performance................ 75 Design ............................ 86 Value .............................. 73

Specifications

Display: 5.5 inch FHD; RAM: 3GB; SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 801; Camera: 13MP, 8MP; Storage: 64GB; Battery: 4100 mAh; Operating System: CynogenMod 12.1, Android 5.1.1

Contact

Lenovo India Pvt Ltd Phone: 1-800-3000-9991 Email: NA Website: www.lenovo. com/in Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 99

Google pic comment

Next-Gen AI destroys Siri

People can now comment on your shared albums on Google+. http://dgit.in/googlephotosx

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Next gen AI, “Viv”, crushes all other current gen AIs. Developers eyeing a full release- not only limited to phones, but also home hardware. http://dgit.in/VivAIx1

u-JAYS

Unmatched comfort and great sound

T

he u-JAYS are a pair of artistically crafted on-ear headphones from a little known Swedish company called JAYS. Over the years they’ve made several headphones that follow a similar naming convention: the s-JAYS back in 2009, the c-JAYS in 2008 and so on. While I’ve never really tried any of their other products, the u-JAYS were a happy discovery. They’ve been designed to be simple, aesthetically pleasing, great sounding, long lasting and most importantly, exceedingly comfortable. While the headphones do hit most of the desirable points on that list, the most striking bit for me was the comfort. But before I start talking about the comfort I should probably make one of those full disclo-

did. That being said, it’s nowhere near being vicelike. I’d say it’s just right and most agreed. What about sound quality and performance? On first listen you feel the sound signature is slightly warm but you soon realise the slight bump in the lower end while certainly being present, isn’t very pronounced. This makes the headphones exceptionally well equipped to handle vocals. Stereo Love sounded brilliant even while being driven through a normal smartphone, which is great because they headphone is low impedance and its cables with its three button inline remote is specifically designed to work with either iOS or Android. Coming back to the performance, India Arie’s vocals on While My Guitar Weeps (cover) sounded

Price99 15,9

78 Features ........................ 80 Performance................ 80 Build ............................... 78 Value .............................. 70

Specifications

Frequency response: 10 20 000 Hz; Impedance: 32 Ohm @ 1 kHz; Sensitivity: 100 dB SPL @ 1 kHz; Driver size: 40 mm; Weight: 224 g

Contact

Headphonezone Phone: +91 7506646988 Email: direct@ headphonezone.in 100 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

sure statements. Here it is: I don’t like on-ear headphones. Whichever on-ear headphone I’ve used over the years, be it the Bowers & Wilkins P3, Creative’s flagship Aurvana, JBL’s Bassline, Harman Kardon’s CL etc, I’ve never really liked any of them when it comes to the comfort department. In fact the HK CL was by far the only one I could tolerate for extended periods of time. But the u-JAYS is something else. The “viscoelastic ear-cushions” feel truly comfortable. What’s more astonishing is that the usual sweatiness or warmth of on-ears that I abhor didn’t happen on this earphone specimen in spite of providing a brilliant seal. The passive isolation is great which means ambient noise is brought down considerably and at the same time what you are listening to won’t leak out. No point letting your co-workers know you’re listening to Major Lazer’s Lean On or some of your other guilty pleasures, right? The other materials used in the headphones feel premium as well. The headband is coated with this velvety material that feels comfortable when the headphones rest on the head. The clamping pressure was perfect for my rather small head size but some of the other guys in the office with bigger melons didn’t find the resistance as minimal as I

nicely textured. But when our test tracks traversed a couple of genres to finally end up at some of our most well worn test tracks such as No More Tears by Ozzy Osbourne and Pull Me Under by Dream Theater, I started noticing a few gaps. There was nothing wrong with the reproduction per se – the bass was present and the headphones produced great highs – but a few things were a little incongruous, for the lack of a better word. These tracks just didn’t sound like they usually do. Some bits somehow felt levelled off. Or the drums sounded flat like was the case with Selkies by Between the Buried And Me. The stereo separation was great but at times you felt like the audio is too upfront. Ok hold on... All this complaining might make you think I didn’t like the u-JAYS. In fact, I liked them a lot – the scores below say as much. They’re certainly better sounding than say the B&W P3 which costs nearly as much. My gripes only come up because I’ve kept the benchmark really high. It’s just that I’d have liked the audio to be as mind blowing as the comfort was. Overall the replaceable cables, minimalistic styling, great sound and unmatched comfort make them a worthy purchase for anyone looking for quality on-ear headphones. Siddharth Parwatay

WhatsApp roll out

WhatsApp rolls out native desktop versions for Windows, and Mac. http://dgit.in/WhatsAppx1

66 Features ........................ 56 Performance................ 61 Value .............................. 83 Design ............................ 65

Specifications

Processor: Intel Core-i7 6700HQ; GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5; RAM: 16GB 2133MHz DDR4; Internal Storage: 512GB PCI x 4 Display: 15.6-inch, 3840 x 2160p ; Keyboard: Island type; OS: Windows 10; I/O: 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI, SD card reader, 1 x USB 3.0 Type-C, 1 x Headphone/mic jack combo

Contact

ASUS India Phone: 1800-2090365 Website: asus.com/in

Now, surf on a smartboard!

Samsung has made a Galaxy smartboard, so you’re not disconnected at sea! It come with an LED display, and pairs with your Samsung galaxy S7. http://dgit.in/smartsurfboard

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ASUS ROG G501 A thin and light gamer

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aming laptops are immensely powerful, but with that power, comes great weight and generally bulky bodies. There are slimmer alternatives available, but none come close to the ASUS ROG G501, in terms of price. With a price tag of `95k and a 4GB GTX960M to boot, the G501VW is certainly one of the most affordable, slim and truly portable gaming laptops in the Indian market. Aesthetically, ASUS G501 features all the right stuff, red illuminated keyboard, black overall, and red accents. There is a 15.6-inch display on the ROG G501VW features 4K resolution which looks good in daily use. That said, the laptop is underpowered to let you play games in 4K. The GTX 960M powered machine can do 1080p at best in

gaming. The laptop can run all kinds of demanding tiles albeit at medium or low graphic settings. However, less demanding games such as Dota 2 and CS:GO ran at full chat. While the laptop does have a mousepad deactivation key, the start button does not, which seems like an oversight. While the performance was somthing as expected, the battery life is what impressed us the most. Posting a massive time of five and half hours on a single charge, the ROG G501 has one of the best battery life we have Price90 from a gaming laptop in recent times. 95,4 All in all, The ASUS ROG G501VW is a very good gaming laptop if your priorities include a slim and light device which you can take to LAN parties. At `95,490, you can’t get a slimmer or lighter gaming laptop in India. Hardik Singh

ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming ITX/ac ATX features in ITX form factor

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SRock’s Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ it supports 32 Gbps bandwidth and has mounting ac is quite an impressive board. For holes for 80 mm M.2 cards which is the most starters, the Fatal1ty series is part of popular length you get for M.2 at the moment. You ASRock premium gaming lineup with might have to use a spacer with certain cabinets quite a few features piled onto but it’s unlikely to be an issue. an ITX form factor. The board The ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ has the usual traits of an ITC ac comes with Wi-Fi+Bluetooth board which means there are which helps with making whatonly two RAM slots and one PCIe ever machine you build with x16 slot. Moreover, all the ports this board, more portable than point upwards as a lot of cases ATX builds. And with the focus designed for ITX form factor on gamers, they’ve included a boards expand vertically and not three-month XSplit license which horizontally. We’ve generally seen makes the deal all the more better. VRM heatsinks omitted from ITX The absence of POST LED Price99 boards but ASRock has kept them might be a downer should you 19,4 on in this one. ever need to troubleshoot the machine but Given the lack of real estate, ASRock ASRock has compensated well enough by has gone ahead and used the underside of the putting more features on an ITX board than usumotherboard to fit an M.2 port which is something ally present. we’ve only seen on another ASRock board. Also, Mithun Mohandas

70 Features ........................ 65 Build ............................... 75 Chipset: Intel Z170; Memory support: 4x4000 MHz upto 32GB; LAN: Intel I219v Gigabit Ethernet; Audio: ALC 1150 7.1; SATA: 6x SATA III; Expansion: 1x PCIe X16; Dimensions (LxWxD): 170 mm x 170 mm; Warranty: 3 years

Contact

Mediaman Infotech & WPG Phone: 022 - 43441111 Email: manoj_kriplani@ asrock.com.tw Website: http://www. asrock.com/ Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 101

OUR PICK OF THE BEST TECH ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

(MUST READS)

[ArsTechnica Corner] HIGH TECH BOARD GAMES

SOCIAL NETWORKING THEN Long before it was made accessible to the people or commercialised or even made smarter with AI, social networking meant being connected to a few hubs and a handful of nodes. Here’s the history of social networking from its birth to the internet boom, we share.

http://dgit.in/SNtHist

THE END OF CODE Coding has been the base of programming, but it requires logic as well as it is vulnerable to hacks. With the AI revolution just around the corner, is it about time to unlearn coding as we might not have to code but train the future programs and computers, just as we do to our pets.

http://dgit.in/EOCde

Old school board games have been reborn from the old and the golden age to this technology age with digitally augmented board games using your smartphone. Three game designers opine on the change that has been brought in with technology along with its pros and cons. http://dgit.in/ARGmng

DEEP LEARNING Identifying a dog in a picture by a machine is good, but if the machine can also tell what breed it belongs to along with various other minute details, only then a machine can be termed to be ‘intelligent’. Here’s everything you need to learn about machine’s deep learning.

http://dgit.in/DeepLrng

THE $5 MILLION RISK Many startups disappear, everyday. There is a lort of risk involved. Nathan Latka, founder of Heyo, put his $5 million startup at risk.

http://dgit.in/NthnLtka

UK VFX industry’s success London’s VFX industry grew exponentially, especially after the Harry Potter series. What went in to create this great industry along with talent and technological advances in the past three decades and one company’s decision to bank its entire future on it.

Journey to Windows OneCore Software giants are trying hard to create one common platform for app development, so apps could run on all their operating systems across platforms. Microsoft has taken a step forward and has somehow achieved what it had promised to.

http://dgit.in/VFXLon

http://dgit.in/Win1Cre

A year with the Apple Watch Revising a gadget and re-reviewing it after weeks or months of usage is common for reviewers, but not many go back to review a piece of technology that they have been using for 365 days in a year. Here’s everything you should know about the Apple Watch. http://dgit.in/iWtch365 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 103

(worldview)

SHORTS

THE EPIC EVOLUTION Epic Games, most widely known for its Unreal engine technology and the Gears of War series has evolved through four eras, re-evolving itself every time, to become what it is today. Hold back as we take you through their entire journey of epic–ness, since 1991. http://dgit.in/EpicG4

THE FUTURE IS NOT SO FAR

STORY OF AMAZON’S ECHO

There is no doubt that businesses need to go hand in hand with the ever evolving technology now. Tomorrow’s technology holds robots working for us. Meet these 25 intellectuals who are trying to get you the future of business sooner than ever. http://dgit.in/25Gems

Started as part of a secret augmentedreality project and ended up with building a talking speaker that people have adopted to make it a part of their homes, building the Echo was fun for everyone. Here’s how the Echo went on to become this surprise hit! http://dgit.in/AmznEch

YOU MAY ALSO ‘LIKE’ Why do we hit that like button? So what if my friends have liked it? Even if I hit that like button, what does a ‘machine’ conclude from it? The complex psychology of why people tend to hit the like button and how machines seem to know you better than yourself, explained. http://dgit.in/LikePsy

NVIDIA Ansel explained Ansel, NVIDIA’s latest graphics technology is all about getting that perfect screenshot. Instagram is about to really blow up now!

N

VIDIA announced quite a few interesting technologies at their recent Pascal GPU unveiling and one technology in particular, Ansel managed to grab quite a few eyeballs. So what’s all the hype about? Read on to know more.

– By Mithun Mohandas

goal you’ve just scored from every single angle possible, just like what your favourite sports channel does in highlight reels. All of these situations require 3D free roam for the in-game camera and only few games had that provision, provided

NVIDIA Ansel Features

you knew the appropriate console commands. Well, not anymore, at the recent unveiling of NVIDIA’s latest GPU architecture – Pascal, the graphics technology company introduced Ansel, a tool to do just that. This may well be that moment in history when gaming suddenly became all the more attractive to the Instagram generation. Because in the most simplest of words, that’s what Ansel is, a free roam camera with Instagram filters. We aren’t trying to be patronising by any means, and there’s a lot more to Ansel than just what we’ve mentioned. Let’s take a look at its features in greater detail.

where all your character can move, if you were to stand upon a cliff, there’d be no way to take a screenshot from the free space overlooking the cliff unless you had a jetpack on a secondary character. Ansel allows you to move the camera around in 3D space with complete freedom. You could very well be looking at your character from far above in the cloud or peeking up straight into his/ her nostrils.

Free Camera

Game characters generally traverse the map in 3D space but with very less movement along the Y-axis. And even if you can move the character around, you are limited by

NVIDIA ANSEL Not every studio indulges in rampant reuse of video game assets, there are plenty who put a lot of effort into making their game into a truly immersive experience. And every now and then, you’ll come across a breathtaking view ingame, such as this one. I, for one, am not in favour of ogling at Geralt’s behind (not that there’s anything wrong with it). I’d rather enjoy the scenery and get Geralt out of the way. So far, unless the game had a provision for removing the character model from within the view cone, this wouldn’t have been possible. And it’s not just Witcher 3’s beautiful world that we’re talking of here, you could be playing the latest football arcade game (FIFA / PES) and you’d want to experience that


Post Process Filters The Instagram part. Instead of having to rely on a third-party software which will considerably require more time to be expended, you

(worldview) GONE FOR GOOD

THE SNAPCHAT STORY

THE CREATIVE BOTS

THE E-WASTE TRACKER

Shuddle– dubbed as ‘Uber for Kids’ and after receiving $10 million in its early stages had to join the increasingly long list of on-demand startups to cease operations, even though they had millions in venture capital. Analysts try hard to know, how ondemand startups crash suddenly. http://dgit.in/ShuddleSD

We keep refreshing the stories tab on Snapchat to see what our friends are up to, every minute. Snapchat founder– Evan Spiegel’s story is by far the most interesting snapchat-story that you will come across, after all, it’s where we all keep snapping in! http://dgit.in/SnapStry

Machine learning is what the future holds and along with the algorithms and data analysis capabilities, machines might gain the potential to surpass human creativity, putting their jobs in danger. Or are we just overthinking and the human race, with their AIs, will revolutionise the world? http://dgit.in/CreativeAI

The United States produces more E-waste than any other country with dead electronics contributing the maximum. Already at an alarming stage, watchdogs tried to investigate the recycle procedure of the non-degradable E-waste and ended up tracking them down in developing countries, with e-waste traveling across borders. http://dgit.in/EWstGPS

Super Resolution

now have the ability to apply post process filters onto your freshly shot screenshots and upload them straight away into whatever game client you may be using. While the entire list of post process filters haven’t been released, we know that the following are definitely available – Film grain, Black & White, Hue Shift and Sepia.

When Maxwell was launched a year and a half back, NVIDIA had announced DSR or Dynamic Super Resolution where scenes were rendered at a higher resolution and scaled down to provide for much higher level of detail. With Ansel’s Super Resolution, they’ve taken it a step further by rendering static images by a scale of 32 to capture images that are up to 8 Gigapixels in size. Imagine a DSLR with a image sensor that’s as big as your face taking pictures, Super Resolution does pretty much that in the video game world. If they ever decide to use this to create a

Ansel supported video games In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, Ansel isn’t just a driver upgrade. Game developers have to incorporate the Ansel API into their games before the destined driver update enables Ansel on your NVIDIA powered

EXR Capture If you’ve ever seen those super saturated images like the one below then you probably know what HDR is. For the uninitiated, HDR or High Dynamic Range is the equivalent of combining a multitude of images shot across varying exposure levels. So the level of detail in darker and brighter regions are preserved, this is not possible using normal photography. With HDR in games, you will be able to capture game screenshots with a really wide colour spectrum that what is normally visible during your gaming run. Here’s a screenshot from Witcher 3,

‘Where’s Waldo?’ (Where’s Wally?) video game, then you’re pretty much destined to never find Wally.

gaming machine. All you need for Ansel to work is any NVIDIA GTX graphics card upwards of the 600 series.

360 Camera

Ansel supported graphics cards

The name pretty much gives it away, this feature of Ansel allows you to capture 360 degree photospheres ingame. You can then export these images to your PC or your mobile phone and view them at your pleasure. NVIDIA has released a new app called the NVIDIA VR Viewer (link) for Android smartphones and if you happen to be among the lucky few who’ve actually received their pre-ordered VR HMDs then you can fire up Steam and install Virtual Desktop (link) to view your photospheres.

• NVIDIA GTX 600: GTX 650, GTX 650 Ti, GTX 660, GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, GTX 680, GTX 690 • NVIDIA GTX 700: GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti, GTX 760, GTX 760 Ti, GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 780Ti, GTX TITAN, GTX TITAN BLACK, GTX TITAN Z • NVIDIA GTX 900: GTX 950, GTX 960, GTX 970, GTX 980, GTX 980 Ti, GTX TITAN X • NVIDIA GTX 1000: GTX 1080, GTX 1070 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 105

(worldview) (worldview) SIXTY SYMBOLS Sixty Symbols is run by experts from The University of Nottingham and consists of videos to give you your daily dose

of astronomy as well as physics, that will make you go ‘Today I Learned’ with every video of theirs. http://dgit.in/60Symb

(PRODUCT LAUNCHES) NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 HP ELITEBOOK 1030

YI 4K ACTION CAMERA

The new GPU king has arrived and that is based on Nvidia’s new Pascal architecture and built on TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process. The card is clocked at 1607 MHz and comes with 2560 CUDA cores, 9 TFLOPs and 8GB VRAM. Price: `63,250

YI 4K action camera comes with a 12MP Sony IMX377 sensor that canrecord 4K videos at 30fps FHD videos at 240fps. It also features a 155-degree viewing angle and f/2.8 aperture lens and a 1400mAh battery. Price: $249 (`17,000]

The new EliteBook 1030 features a slim, fanless design with a 13.3-inch 2K touchscreen display that can back you with a 13-hour battery. The laptop runs on a 6th Gen Core M processors with up to 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM. Price: $1249 (`85,000 approx)

ABSOLUTE

P I C TURE PU Z Z L E

Top 3

To get all these links in one easy to read page, make sure you blip this page from your smartphone.

Digit||June June2016 2016||www.digit.in www.digit.in 106 106 Digit

Picks

TIMEPASS

Make sure your boss doesn’t catch you goofing off with one of these videos playing on your screen

The first Apple store

All about the Universe

STAR WARS: Drones edition

Duration: 04.14

Duration: 04.15

Duration: 04.33

Back in 2001, Apple launched its first ever retail store. Watch Steve Jobs at this tour of one of the original stores. http://dgit.in/AplStre

If Space has always been one of your interests, you should watch how this video expalins everything, in over 4 minutes. http://dgit.in/Univ4YT

Drone Star Wars features an epic X-Wing dogfight with CorridorDigital’s trademark special effects. Watch it here: http://dgit.in/SWDEd

> code / creativity / community > Target=“_blank” is a major vulnerability http://dgit.in/TgtBlnk

Everything you wanted to know about PHP 7 >>The omnipresent PHP moved to version 7 directly from version 5. The update came out in December and we’ve allowed more than enough time for the initial set of kinks to be ironed out. Here’s what you need to know - by Vishal Kumar More

A

s per W3Techs, of all the websites in the world whose server side language is known, PHP powers 82.2% of the websites. Of these 82.2%, 80.72% of the websites are using PHP 5. The best of the CMS (Content Management System) available today – be it WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or Magento are all built with PHP. PHP 5 was released back in 2004 and since then minor releases kept on adding many exciting features to PHP, including support of OOP (Object-Oriented programming) and many other features associated with that. Until recently, the latest stable release version of PHP was 5.6 which was released in mid-2014. Recently, the PHP community marked the release of its latest version – PHP 7. This new version of PHP brings along with it – dynamic performance improvements, minimal memory consumption, and a series of unparalleled language features to let you take your app to the next level. PHP 7 has brought along with it the all new Zend Engine 3.0 (not Zend Framework!). In comparison to PHP 5.6, apps built with PHP 7 turn out to be twice as fast in performance

and consume 50 per cent less memory. Thus, you can now serve more users concurrently, without upgrading your hardware. All thanks to Zend Engine. Aren’t we already in love with it?

*Coding Matters

*“Microsoft censors VB6 Open Source Petition >> Microsoft looks the other way as the VB6 community pleads the software giant to open source the aging programming language.

http://dgit.in/VB6Open

*“Cryengine now availalbe on Github

>> The popular game engine which powered the Crysis video game series among many others is now available on GitHub.

http://dgit.in/GitCryEngine

*“Declaring code is not code

>> Google CEO Larry Page testifies that Google never sougth permission for using Java in Android as it was free and open.

http://dgit.in/GooglevsOracle devworx> | June 2016 | www.devworx.in 107

But why PHP 7, not PHP 6? Well, things didn’t turn out very good with Unicode. The PHP fraternity previously had goals to release a new major version back in 2005. The new version was supposed to implement Unicode and a whole lot of other features. Most of those other new features were added in the subsequent PHP version 5.3 and later, except the Unicode. In the meanwhile, PHP 6 always existed as an experimental project and a lot was talked and

a) If the left value is less than the value the right value, the operator will return -1. b) If the left value is equal to the value the right value, the operator will return 0. c) If the left value is greater than the value the right value, the operator will return 1. Note: If you were to do the same in PHP version 5.6 or below, we would have to write the following piece of code – left < right? return -1 left = right? return 0 left > right? return 1 Null Coalesce Operator (??) If you have even tried learning PHP, there is no way you wouldn’t have come across the isset() function and later you might have also realized that using this function repeatedly to check if a value is set or null is way too old school. The Null Coalesce Operator brings an alternative to isset() function. It provides us with a shorthand alternate to what isset() does with inline comparison.

Performance improvement with PHP7 published about it, but it could never make it up to the production phase. Thus, considering the name as PHP 7 was always a viable option to avoid confusion and hindrance to the mass regarding the contents and features of the newest version. A lot being already discussed about the basic advantages and naming pattern, it’s time we look into the new features and functionalities that PHP 7 brings along with it. 1. New Operators Finally, PHP brings in two new operators and these operators are definitely going to make your life much easier. The Spaceship Operator (<=>) This operator goes by the official name of Combined Comparison Operator. The notation of this operator looks kind of like a spaceship (if you have ever seen one). The spaceship operator is built up by combining three different operators - less than, equal, and greater than. Although, these operators are combined together, each of these operators is checked individually from left to right. left <=> right Consider the above line of PHP code which uses the spaceship operator -

SIX Big Features in PHP 7 Engine Exceptions

Null Coalesce Operator

Generators Improvements

108 devworx> | June 2016 | www.devworx.in

$source = $defined ?? “Undefined”; Consider the above line of PHP code which uses the null coalesce operator. The above line of code first checks if the variable defined is set or null. If defined is set, it will assign its value to the variable source. If variable defined is not set i.e. null, it will assign “Undefined” to the variable source. Note: If you were to do the same in PHP version 5.6 or below, we would have to write the following piece of code – if (!empty($defined)) $source = $defined; else $source = “Undefined”; Shouldn’t you be thanking PHP 7, already? 2. Awesome Error Handling In PHP 5.6 or below, error handling was such a pain. In case there was a fatal error, the framework wouldn’t even invoke the error handler and consequently stop the script from processing. Thus, the white screen of incredibility. Well, gone are the bad days. In PHP 7, if there is a recoverable or fatal error, an exception will be thrown. Yes, no more white screens. Fatal errors also include errors such as running out of memory and an uncaught exception. In PHP 7, Errors and Exceptions work pretty much in a similar way. Both implement the Throwable class. Yes, that means that now you can use Throwable in try/catch blocks for both Errors and Exceptions. However, in PHP 7 for Error, we now have some more specific error – AssertionError, ArithmeticError, DivisonByZeroError, TypeError and ParseError. Consider the line of PHP code below as an example which uses Throwable to handle Errors and Exceptions -

Bind Closure on Call

Group Use Declarations

Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax

//Error as Throwable try { someFuntion(); } catch (Throwable $t) { echo “Throwable: “.$t->getMessage().PHP_EOL; }

//Exception as Throwable try { throw new Exception(“Something”); } catch (Throwable $t) { echo “Throwable: “.$t->getMessage().PHP_EOL; } 3. Accurate Type Declarations PHP has always been a weak typed language. It has never been mandatory to declare the type of variable; PHP would get it done for you by itself based on the value you assigned. But, at times, this would also result in some unintended and unexpected return values. To overcome this scenario, PHP 7 brings in Type Declarations so that you can specify the type of variable being set instead of depending on PHP to set it automatically for you. PHP 7 has added two types of declarations for this purpose – Scalar Type Declarations and Return Type Declarations. Scalar Type Declarations Scalar Type Declarations comes in two forms – coercive and strict. Scalar types are available in four flavors - int, float, string, and bool. Scalar type-declarations, by default, are coercive. In case of coercive, PHP would change the original type of variable to match the one specified by the type-declaration, by itself. This gives you, as a developer, less control over your code and can make the code difficult to understand.

*pointers >>Interesting PHP developer videos

*Introduction - Action Domain Responder

>>A refinement of the MVC which is tuned for the web. Here’s how Action-Domain-Responder is better than MVC.

http://dgit.in/PhpADR

*Build durable APIs >>How do you build stable, evolvable and durable APIs for your PHP web application that’ll last you for years.

http://dgit.in/DurableAPIs

Consider the above line of PHP code which uses strict scalar type declaration. In the above piece of code, for the first parameter PHP will widen the int variable by adding a .0 after the int and for the second parameter PHP will produce a Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Argument 2 passed to sum() must be of the type float, string given. Return Type Declaration Like Scalar type, Return Type Declaration also comes in two forms – coercive and strict. Return type declaration lets you specify the type of value which will be returned. In the coercive mode, returned values will be modified to the correct type. In strict mode, if the returned value is not of the correct type, it shall throw a TypeError. function sum(float $a, float $b) : float { return $a + $b; } sum(2,1); The above piece of code is in coercive mode and note that though the parameters passed to the sum method are of int type, PHP would modify the values to return the result in float type. declare(strict_types=1); function sum(float $a, float $b) : float { return $a + $b; } sum(2,1);

function sum(float $a, float $b) { return $a + $b; } sum(2, “1abc”); Consider the above line of PHP code which uses coercive scalar type declaration. What would you expect the sum method to return? Go ahead, try this piece of code and you will be amazed with the result returned. Because, it is coercive, PHP would change int(2) to float(2.0) and string “1abc” to float(1.0) and return a certain notice. The sum method would return float(3) as the output. You can overcome this situation in PHP 7, with strict scalar type declaration. Strict mode is enabled on per-file basis by a single declare directive at the top of the file.

*App level caching

declare(strict_types=1); Note that, this directive would also affect the function’s return type.

*OWASP Top 10

declare(strict_types=1); function sum(float $a, float $b) { return $a + $b;

} sum(2, “1abc”);

>>Here’s how you can implement an efficient and easy to use Application level caching for your PHP web applications.

http://dgit.in/PhpCacehe

>>OWASP releases it’s list of Top 10 security flaws each year. Here ar some of the top issues that you should be aware of.

http://dgit.in/PHPOWASP

This piece of code is in strict mode and note that because the parameters passed to the sum method are of int type and the expected type is float, PHP would return you with Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Return value of sum() must be of the type float, integer returned. 4. Adds Anonymous Class Other languages in the league of PHP, like C# and Java already had a big support and usage of Anonymous classes. PHP introduced the concept of Anonymous Classes with its latest edition. Anonymous classes are basically classes without names. These are generally used in scenarios where you need to use a class just once during execution or don’t need the class to be documented. The object instantiation for an Anonymous class is same as instantiating an object for a names class. However, the best part about Anonymous classes is that you can instantiate an object and define a class in a single line. devworx> | June 2016 | www.devworx.in 109

$bar = new class { public function bar() { return “foo”; } }; var_dump($bar,$ bar -> bar ());

random_bytes The random_bytes method returns random byte (generally string) of a length specified by the user. Consider the example below – random_bytes(5); The above piece of code would generate a random byte of length 5.

5. The Integer Division Function The Integer Division ( intdiv ) function is not much of a significant addition, however worth mentioning. This method promises to return an int value always, for all the division operations performed. A regular division operation generally leads to a float result being returned. So earlier, in case, if you had to round off your result to get the int value…this method is a life saviour for you.

7. Import from the same namespace PHP 7 has brought along with it another great new feature – Group use Declaration. This feature is a bliss for all those who want to import multiple classes from the same namespace. The new features cut out wordiness, and lets you import same namespace classes inline, thus making your code look cleaner. Use lib\namespaceA\{ClassA, ClassB, ClassC as C};

var_dump (intdiv (4,3),(4/3) ); This piece of code would return 1 instead of 1.34. 6. Enhanced CSPRNG Functions CSPRNG stands for Cryptographically Secure Pseudo Random Number Generator. PHP 7 has brought in a set of CSPRNG to generate random numbers in a secure way. Though, PHP already had methods like rand() to generate random data, but these methods weren’t secure. In PHP 7, a system interface is tied along with the operating system’s random data generator and because of this the security of the random data generated through PHP is as secured as the operating system. This can be very useful in case of random passwords and salts. CSPRNG introduces two new functions random_int and random_bytes. random_int The random_int method basically returns a random number between a maximum and minimum range specified by the user. Consider the example below – random_int(15,20); The above piece of code would generate a random number between 15 and 20, including the number 15 and 20.

Consider the above line of PHP code which uses the Group use Declaration. The above line of code declares ClassA, ClassB and ClassC which belong to same namespace namespaceA in a single line of code. Note: If you were to do the same in PHP version 5.6 or below, we would have to write the following piece of code – use lib\namespaceA\ClassA; use lib\namespaceA\ClassB; use lib\namespaceA\ClassC as C; Move on to PHP 7 PHP 7 looks very promising. There are a lot of other features added in PHP 7 like Unicode support for international characters and emoji too! The performance improvement is tremendous and the security enhancement is remarkable. There are also a lot of features which have been removed in PHP 7. However, these features where already deprecated since PHP 5, so maybe you weren’t using them at all. If your site is built using WordPress, there is a good news for you. WordPress Core is already getting ready for PHP 7. So, its high time you started considering upgrading your servers to PHP 7 for better performance and an easier life.

*Facts about PHP

*Unlucky 6

>>Apparently, in the world of programming languages version 6 is considered to be highly unlucky. Eg Perl 6, PHP 6 and MySQL 6.

110 devworx> | June 2016 | www.devworx.in

*True majority

>>PHP powers 82.2% of all the websites which are dynamically programmed. Of these 80.72% of the websites are using PHP 5.

*Twice as fast

>>PHP 7 is 2x faster than PHP 5 i.e. it can handle twice as many requests per second. That’s a 100% performance improvement.

Space age

Sci-Tech

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Can the James Webb Space Telescope surpass the Hubble space telescope? Find out more

Pants that track fitness!

Lumo Run shorts and capris feature a tracker embedded in the shorts lining that plays coach after collecting your running data. http://dgit.in/fit_pants

Exoskeletons Do you think Iron Man’s suit is meant only for comic book pages? Think again.

Arnab Mukherjee [email protected]

W

hether it be from the Iron Man movies, or from yesteryears animated series Mobile Suit Gundam, or even the highly popular game Crysis, exoskeletons and armored suits have been portrayed to us in the form of extremely advanced sci-tech that can only be the brainchild of the most intelligent billionaires on the planet. While some of that might be true, exoskeletons are already more real than you think.

Some form of exoskeleton tech has been showing up in the news since the last five years, in the form of limb augmentations and locomotion assistance. It is only recently that power and speed enhancing exoskeletons are not only being announced, but also launched and used. And with the inhibitions regarding using technology to enhance our human abilities reducing everyday (check out last month’s cover story), now is the right time to know more about what exoskeletons can do. Contrary to what it may seem like, we have been trying to build exoskeletons for quite a while now. Way back in the late Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 111

Brainy boffs make quantum computers! Tomorrow’s tech

Engineers at Yale have devised a process to create a silicon chip that contains all the components needed for a quantum information processor. http://dgit.in/quantum_computerx

19th century and the early 20th century, there were a couple of efforts to build gas and steam powered movement assisters. But these weren’t really eligible for being classified as exoskeletons. The first true mobile machine which integrated with human movements was developed almost 50 years later by General Electric and the US Military in the 1960s. The suit was named Hardiman, and it enabled the user to lift weights up to 680kgs. It effectively reduced weights to their 25th portion, i.e., a person lifting 25kg would feel like the weight is 1kg. Ultimately, the size and weight (almost 1500kgs) with the power supply and other control issues never let Hardiman go beyond the prototype stage, and it was declared too unsafe to use. A number of further projects did spring up over the next 40 years. The Pitman suit designed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists never left the drawing board. Even in the 90s, efforts by the US Army to build an iron-man like suit met the same fate. The limitations of the technology available had stymied the possibilities of exoskeletons for the entire duration of the last century. Fast forward to 2000, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) kickstarted a number of human exoskeleton projects under the banner of “Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation” project, with over $75million in funds. Their requirements defined a suit that would let a soldier carry a

The Solotrek XFV is the exoskeleton that can fly 112 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

TAKE TO THE SKIES! The Solo Trek XFV (eXoskeletor Flying Vehicle) is actually a work in progress flying exoskeleton that has promised a range of 125 miles, vertical takeoff and landing, hovering ability at 8000 metres and a cruise speed of almost 130kmph.

heavy load for days without tiring, be able to operate heavy weapons single-handedly, to jump significantly high and be immune to enemy fire. Or one could say, they wanted Iron Man. Needless to say, there were not many takers for the adventurous proposal. And from the ones that did take it up, only few have stayed in the project so far. Out of these, a few of the noteworthy ones were the XOS series from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin’s HULC and Millennium Jet’s Solo Trek XFV. In 2010, Raytheon, an international defense contractor demonstrated XOS2, a wearable body armor guided by muscle contractions, that could lift almost thrice the weight as a normal human being. The XOS series was actually the brainchild of a company called Sarcos, which even went on to get approval from the military for their design, before it was taken over by Raytheon which continued its original undertakings. Their original design detected the contraction of human muscles and in turn pumped high pressure hydraulic fluid to joints on the setup, which in turn moved cylinder actuators attached to cables that acted as tendons for the mechanical muscles. This was closest to what the military had envisioned. HULC, which had its origins in the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) from UC Berkeley’s Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory, has been developed to be powered by fuel cell power to make it a completely untethered military exoskeleton. Berkeley had already been working on reducing the energy consumption from the limbs of the suit and it did so with some success, since the Human Load Carrier (HuLC) could reportedly work for 20 hours without recharging. Apart from all these military advancements, exoskeletons can also be put to

Gaming sneakers!

Nintendo and Vans team up to start a chain of retro gaming sneakers. http://dgit.in/gaming_sneakers

use for medical purposes. People with spinal injuries or partial disabilities could get around with as much ease as fully abled people with powered exoskeletons enabling them to do what their own bodies can’t. In fact, initial versions of such devices are already in the market. Take Argo Medical Technologies’ Rewalk device, a $150,000 exoskeleton that detects the shift of weight from the wearer and uses the motors at the hip and knee joints to essentially let them walk. It is actually in its sixth generation now and is claimed by the creators to be the most researched exoskeleton. Around the same time as XOS2, Japan’s Cyberdyne Inc. (yes, we hear you screaming “Judgement day”) developed

A man wearing the Cyberdyne Hybrid Assistive Limb suit (left)

HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb), something that could finally be called a robotic suit. Contrary to the muscle contraction detection seen in the XOS series, this model has been developed to detect brain signals which would otherwise be meant for corresponding muscles only. Theoretically, this meant that the wearer only needed to think about moving to move. The exoskeleton itself is made up of a combination of sensors, actuators and controllers. This suit was actually used by relief workers after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown and can be purchased by Japanese hospitals for qualified patients for $20,000. Also in the medical exoskeleton domain is the Phoenix exoskeleton

SpaceX lands another rocket!

SpaceX successfully landed their satellite, JCSAT-14, on their falcon 9 rocket. The company soft landed the first part of the rocket on their drone ship. http://dgit.in/Space_X1

designed by California based robotics company suitX, which designs and makes medical and industrial exoskeletons. For a sum of $40,000, you can get an exoskeleton that is different from other exoskeletons that are being designed and prototyped in labs right now. It is operated via buttons on the attached crutches and the walking gait can be adjusted via an android app. But the most unique feature is the fact that this suit is modular and can be adjusted for tall people or children. suitX claims that this can last for 4 hours on continuous usage. Along with this, On 10th May, 2016, Ekso Bionics announced that it will be demonstrating the EksoGT robotic exoskeleton, the first and the only exoskeleton to be cleared by the FDA for usage with stroke patients

Your own Exoskeleton If what we’ve been telling you so far has made you believe that you can’t really get your own exoskeleton right now, think again. Kuratas, from Japanese tech

A warmer, fuzzier reddit! Fired reddit exec quietly starts, “Imzy.” Focuses on healthy, positive communities. http://dgit.in/redditnewx

THE GREAT ROBOT DUEL CHALLENGE Pretty soon, America will once again battle Japan. It’s just that this time, the battle is between America’s Megabots and Japan’s Kuratas. Almost one year ago, Megabots had challenged Kuratas to a duel which was accepted almost immediately. Megabots is no small challenger and packs a heavy punch with it’s arm cannon that can shoot paintballs at 120mph. Well, June, the promised month, is almost here. The question is, will they deliver?

company Suidobashi Heavy Industry, is a 120,000 Yen or `7 crore worth robot/ armoured suit that is both maneuverable as well as weapons ready. Developed by artist Kogoro Kurata and roboticist Wataru Yoshizaki, this machine is heavily inspired from the artist’s childhood fascination with mecha featured significantly in anime.

The Kuratas looks like it jumped right out of a mecha anime series

Tomorrow’s tech

The machine/vehicle weighs about 4,000kg and stands at 4 metres tall. It can be operated by a person seated inside the body of the vehicle, and also remotely via almost any connected device. The onboard pilot interface is in fact a Kinect based device that incorporates motion sensing into the controls. There are several additions listed on the official website, namely twin 6000 round per minute BB rotor canons, a water bottle or fireworks launching LOHAS canon, a humanoid hand called the “iron crow” that is used to lift heavy objects, and even a “Kuratas handgun” and a “Pilebunker”. Rather than us explaining each of these additions, go to http://dgit.in/KuratasExo and finally design your own mecha (Cue Gundam opening theme!). If you do order one from the above link or from http://dgit.in/ AmznKuratas, remember, good kids share their toys.

Should you suit up? As it is with any piece of technology or science that augments human abilities or alters them, there is a question of ethics with exoskeletons as well. The positives are quite obvious, and somehow they manage to lead you to the negatives as well. The neural interfacing and muscle movement detection are opening new doors towards accepting human augmentation, and with the world coming to terms with genetic code alteration, the acceptance of exoskeletons in everyday life might act as the catalyst towards pushing cyborg research into full steam. Most of the progress has been achieved by military and weapons research into exoskeletons. The power and impact that seems awesome inside an anime or a science fiction movie immediately looks dire and destructive when you imagine it being used in real life. We have already seen what some of the most powerful armies in the world have done to weaker nations in the last few decades, periods of relatively less global international conflict in human history. Consider this, if exoskeletons that are light and easy to use are finally developed, they will probably lead to an invincible army. The important question at that moment would no longer be how to make an exoskeleton, but rather, who made it first. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 113

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A full scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope on display in Austin, Texas in 2013

HOW WILL THE

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE

HELP US PEER BETTER INTO THE DARKNESS OF SPACE? The Hubble’s successor sure is worth looking at. Ronak Gupta [email protected]

E

ven if you don’t work in astronomy, cosmology or any other allied branch of physics or engineering, odds are that you might have heard of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), such has been the magnitude of its success. HST has been NASA’s flagship mission for a very long time now, gathering critical data from regions in the cosmos light years away from the earth and helping scientists unravel the many mysteries of our universe. But, believe it or not, even though the Hubble is a landmark feat of advanced engineering, it too can become obsolete. HST has been on mission for more than two decades now, and while it still has functioning capabil-


ity many scientists believe that the HST is now incapable of pushing the limit of astronomical observations. Astronomers love data. Colorful images are great for public relations but scientists need hard data to study the workings of the Universe. They want to capture light from the early universe, study structure formations that currently can’t be studied and in general push the envelope for what we can see and what is in the dark, as of now. Enter, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hubble’s worthy successor, NASA’s next flagship mission, a ~9 billion $ beast of a device and a telescope of unprecedented versatility and sensitivity.

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based telescopes and limited their range. While scientists still routinely employ the HST (it is usually overbooked) for their studies, the JWST opens up new avenues for more detailed measurements. What gives the JWST the edge? For starters, the JWST has a much larger mirror than the HST. The primary mirror of a telescope serves as a light collecting device, making it an extremely critical component. The larger primary mirror of the HST allows it to have greater area for collection (7 x HST) and effectively a larger field of view (~15 x HST) for the camera at the heart of the device. This in turn enables the JWST to have extremely high spatial resolution. While we are on the subject of the primary mirrors, the one installed in the JWST is arguably the largest to be ever launched into space. A significant amount of innovation has gone into fabricating mirrors of such dimensions and sophistication. Another complication that had to be accounted for is that the mirrors had to be kept cold, really cold, at a cryogenic state of around -220 Degree Celsius! The mirrors in the HST, while coated with reflective materials, still face heat from the sun continuously, increasing their temperature. This imposes a limitation on the range of wavelengths the telescope can ‘see’. The higher the temperature of the mirror the more vigorous the random jiggling motion of its atoms. If light coming from an observed galaxy happens to be at the lower end of the energy spectrum (high wavelength), this light signal might get lost amidst all that ‘noise’. This is the limitation imposed by the design of the HST, and the JWST is made to overcome that very limitation. Not only is the JWST proposed

JWST: HST 2.0? There is no denying that the HST ushered us into a new age of science. It gave theorists data points to fit their theory and allowed experimentalists to make observations without worrying about the many obstacles that hampered earth

Pictorial comparison of the primary mirrors in the HST and JWST

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after starting out as a UV ray, it bypasses the visible spectrum and falls into…you guessed it, the IR range! The JWST has the ability to sense light falling in the IR and near IR range, which means that it can look further back in time, farther out in space, and thanks to its giant mirror, with much greater clarity. The long wavelength of IR has certain benefits. It is not obscured by dust as much as smaller wavelengths of radiation. The birth of stars, planets and many planetary Images captured in Infrared can capture detail not visible if captured using light in the visible spectrum bodies are seeded by dust clouds filled with granular particles that block radiation falling in to operate much farther away from the the visible spectrum. A telescope like the Earth than the Hubble operates, it also JWST that is optimized for picking up IR has a massive solar shield (the size of a radiation however, can sense the IR radiatennis court!) that keeps the mirrors and tion that these bodies glow with, giving the instruments at optimum functioning scientists the ability to study the formation temperature. The combination of a distant of planets and stars with such detail that orbit and an efficient sunshield gives simply isn’t possible with any other space the JWST a massive advantage of being or Earth Bound telescopes. able to sense light of higher wavelengths (~4 x HST), falling in the infra-red (IR) spectrum. This means that while signals What can and what does the falling in the visible range of wavelengths JWST want to achieve? will lead to images equally sharp as that In the previous passage we established captured by the HST, the JWS, with its that the JWST can collect data from bodenhanced sensitivity and larger mirror will ies in the early universe. How far back are produce more detailed images when a we talking about? The HST with its limited signal falls in the IR spectrum. sensing capabilities can observe galaxies that are close to 500 million years old. The JWST can detect light coming Why is the JWST’s IR sensing from a galaxy that is almost 13.5 billion capability such a big deal? years old. These galaxies would have Our Universe is expanding, stretching formed at a time when the universe was space time along the way, moving galaxies just about 1-2 per cent of its current age. away from us. Light coming from these That is a phenomenal advance! In fact the fast moving heavenly bodies is ‘stretched’ primary goal of the JWST is to study the by the time it reaches our telescopes. early universe which is also the distant Light coming from a galaxy that formed universe. Its ability to look through large very early (and is deeper out in space) dust dominated clouds means that it can will hence be more stretched than light study objects that were till date primarcoming from a galaxy only recently ily obscured due to our limited ability to formed. This ‘stretching’ effectively serves sense IR. These regions include molecular to increase the wavelength of light in a clouds which are usually where stars take phenomenon called the Doppler shift. If birth, disk shaped regions that seed planet we want to look at a galaxy that formed formation and even the core of galaxshortly after the birth of the universe our ies. More importantly it can study these telescopes need to be able to capture light regions when they first formed, at the very that is stretched to such an extent that

Space Age

infancy of our universe! The JWST can not only image these regions but also analyze the chemistry surrounding these interstellar systems by doing an advanced spectral analysis and breaking down an incoming signal into its constituent wavelengths. Using this tool the JWST plans to study various exoplanets and even ascertain possibilities of candidate planets harboring life. The primary equipment aboard the JWST include a near infrared spectrograph and a slitless spectrograph. Both of these instruments complement the infrared camera and the mid infrared instrument, the primary imaging technology that will be responsible for most of the dazzling images that the telescope captures. The wide range of wavelengths that can be captured by the JWST also allow it another luxury – the ability to study ‘cool’ objects. Cold objects emit less energetic and consequently higher wavelength radiation. Many interesting interstellar objects become cool objects in their lifetime. Examples include comets and even certain planets in galaxies scattered across the universe. Indirectly, the JWST can contribute to dark matter and dark energy research as well and will likely be

Image showing how light coming from objects receding from us (like galaxies) will have a larger wavelength shifted towards red end in the electromagnetic spectrum

used as valuable tool to pursue that line of research. Light coming from distant galaxies gets bent due to the effect of the mass of near galaxies (Einstein’s theory of relativity dictates that space time is disturbed in the presence of mass). Thus, the image obtained of distant galaxies will be shifted. This effect, called gravitational lensing, allows scientists to measure the actual mass of the near galaxy and contrast it with the mass calculated by an approximate summing of luminous objects. Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 115

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The difference suggests the presence of dark matter. Because of the high amount of sharpness and detail a JWST image can produce, it becomes a good candidate to make lensing measurements. Scientists also use high fidelity simulations to study the role of dark matter in the evolution of the universe. Data from galaxy formation in the early universe, something that the JWST is primed to do, can test these predictions and lead to better models. The JWST will be able to observe supernovae that are very dim and thus supplement other data that ties the red shift of supernovae to the existence of dark energy. While the JWST can perform most of the functions that the HST currently performs, it also stretches the ability of a telescope by a fair amount and allows scientists a view of the cosmos like never before.

(European Space Agency), The Canadian Space Agency and a host of other private companies are responsible for assembling thousands of sophisticated instruments into what can only be described as the most advanced instrument built by man to study space. Officially fourteen countries have contributed in one way or another to the JWST, though all countries are from either North American or Europe. Even though the making of the JWST was not truly global, in the fullest sense of the word, the telescope is a global observatory and will allow scientists from around the world to submit proposals to use the JWST. A peer review system will rank the proposals according to priority, much like the current system adopted for using the HST. Major scientific discoveries will be announced at Press releases, research studies will be published in journals and data will be made available on the internet for research groups across the world to use. Also, like the HST frequently released stunning images, the JWST will do the same.

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possible (with our current technology) to launch a repair mission for the telescope. We cannot however, discount the possibility of robotic technology making the required leaps in the near future. The truth is, a majority of space missions this far have been launched into space without the existence of an appropriate repair mechanism. Thanks to the professionalism of the team behind the JWST, its chances of success are looking good, and hopefully the JWST will launch successfully.

How does the JWST compare with the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT)? The TMT when completed will be the worlds second largest telescope (the largest being the E-ELT in Chile (still under construction)) having a primary mirror that

How long will the JWST operate for and what if it fails?

Captured image from the HST(top panel) of an interstellar disc that is seen during star and planet formation. Artists impression (Bottom Panel). JWST will give us better data from these systems.

Once the JWST is successfully launched in space we possess the ability to reverse the clock momentarily and study how the universe as we know it came to be, even if only in dull infrared.

Who made the JWST and who gets to use it? A project like the JWST is far from being a one team, or even a one nation job. It is a successful collaboration of a large consortium of scientists, engineers and managers from different countries. NASA, ESA 116 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

In its current condition the JWST is built to carry enough fuel to keep it running till 2028. Assuming it makes a successful scheduled launch in 2018, the JWST could provide scientists with the most fruitful decade in the history of cosmology and astronomy. There is no denying the fact however that a complicated machine like JWST could fail in so many ways. The mirror could degrade, compromising the light sensing ability of the telescope. Even minute failure of the sunshield or leakage of the coolant can critically damage the telescopes IR sensing functionality. Then there is the looming danger of a problem during deployment or launch. The people behind the JWST however, have completed extensive testing of every piece of equipment. From simulation tests to actual experiments, all possible methods have been used to expose the telescope to the harshest of tests. But what if the telescope fails in space? Because of the distance from Earth at which the JWST will be parked, it is not

The Pillars of Creation : One of HST’s most famous images showing interstellar gas forming in the Eagle Nebule

is much larger than the one on-board the JWST. The TMT also has excellent range and can detect light from near UV to mid IR. It is however an Earth based telescope which makes it unable to completely get rid of the effects of atmospheric dust and pollution. The JWST being space based, doesn’t have such problems, also installing a host of spectral measurement instruments. The TMT, which has since its inception shifted base to Ladakh, is excellent news for astronomers with its enhanced light capturing facility allowing scientists to probe deeper into the universe than any Earth telescope before it.

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Come find out how to code your websites, both efficiently and securely

How we unwind A team must watch GoT A team must wait. Well, a team has waited an entire year and it’s been well worth the wait. Season 6 of Game of Thrones hasn’t disappointed yet, well, most of us haven’t been. Monday lunch hour is now for GoT hour except for Mithun who prefers to watch it way before everyone else. So much for being a team player.

Midnight snacking in Noida

Burnin’ for you

While on a trip to Noida to join the rest of our colleagues, we had a sudden hankering for food at 12am. Not that there’s anything wrong with Noida, just that you can barely find anything to eat at night. After two and a half hours of mindless roaming with empty bellies, we finally found sandwich pakodas at 3:30am.

Special issues are always tough, and it’s a tough period for all of us. Arnab’s prayers to be relieved were answered sooner than everyone else’s and not quite ending in respite. The poor guy has fallen prey to the pesky Aedes Aegypti and is now holed up in a hospital. We wish him a speedy recovery.

And he is...

DIARY D... d... de... DEJA VU! Team Digit has achieved 80 per cent Drift compatibility i.e. people have started thinking along the same lines and have even begun blurting out the same sentences at the same dame time! *Read in plural voice* Facebook live has now become a regular thing. The shy residents of the Mumbai Test Centre have begun broadcasting live sessions in the evenings. Something the Delhi team has been doing for quite some time. We’ve been looking at ways to get more views so much that there appears to be a little rivalry brewing. If you’re ever in the mood to ogle at the cool gadgets we fiddle with, do keep an eye out on our Facebook page. No diary entry is complete without highlighting our shenanigans in CS:GO. Well, we’ve been strategising... a lot. Aside from break times, there’d be the occasional ‘a-ha’ or the more common ‘abey sunn’ followed by strategy plans that would be discussed anywhere between 15 minutes to over an hour. Strategies are only helpful for the first few rounds, it’s chaos after those initial rounds. We can almost say that we ‘enable’ comebacks... for the other team... *sigh* And now, it’s time for the interns. Ankush, apparently, has been compartmentalising information, i.e. he tells his folks that he is off to work and doesn’t turn up at work. We believe he’s spending quality time serenading someone. We’ll soon find out. Meanwhile, Mehul’s about to get the full wrath of everyone who’ve been unfortunate to proof-read his writing. Even Manish, the machine-less vagabond, who proof-reads Mehul’s writing has given up on his search for components and is busy plotting his revenge. To Mehul’s credit, he’s been devouring books like The Elements of Style in a bid to improve his writing.

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Every month we recognise the best article written by our community members and publish it here. Keep up the good work, Digitians!

Securing your website 101 There are numerous ways to code websites that do exactly the same thing but is any of that code efficient and secure also? Ever wondered how a hacker can get unauthorised access to websites? In easy words, by exploiting vulnerabilities. And guess what, it’s you, the programmer, who creates these vulnerabilities and overall making it easier for any bad guy to hack into your website. Now this may sound ridiculous that how the programmer can Praneet Sah be at fault, after all he’s the person burning candle from both the ends, but imagine a scenario in which you are asked to create a website that includes a user dashboard, which allows user to update his information and profile picture, along with a button to delete the profile. Now, before we even begin to roll, you must be comfortable in coding a website with above specifications and able to convert pseudo code into real code on your own, in your choice of language. A website like that would be easy to make but here’s the golden rule, achieving functionality just means that you’re done with 20% of the work. The rest 80% is all about optimising the code. Let me give you an example, imagine you are supposed to make a program that takes in name and phone number of 100 people and then it displays them. At one point in history, there would have been a time where we didn’t have any loops and people would end up writing same input and output statements for 100 times with 100 odd variables. And then someone, frustrated with the repetition, created the concept of looping and now we can wrap up those hundreds of line into a mere five lines of code. Do you see a point? Both the programs can get the work done but the second program is efficient too. Getting back to the point where we started, which was about creating a user dashboard. Here we have multiple ways to tackle the task and here’s what you’re expected to achieve (assume the user is already logged in): 1. Create a HTML form with relevant fields (including profile picture upload field) 2. Form will also display the current values that the fields hold a. If user clicks on submit: Put updated form’s details in database and shift the uploaded file to server after renaming it to user’s ID. Also redirect back to user dashboard. b. If user clicks on ‘Delete profile’ then delete the user from database using POST method. That looks pretty easy and if you implemented it the same way, then take a minute and think that what exactly is wrong with that code. And yes, that pseudo code will get the work done. 118 Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in

Here actually lies a severe vulnerability because there’s totally no validation of user’s input and we’re expecting the user to go along the pattern that we want him to. Unfortunately, not every user will have the same pattern and some (a.k.a. hackers) will try to mend it. Think from a hacker’s (which mostly consists of script kiddies because real ones are busy printing money) point of view and you’ll realize that following are the most commonly exploited vulnerabilities which arise due to poorly written code.

Checking the uploaded file’s extension You asked the user to upload an image and the user uploaded a file named “DSC_002.jpg”. He then checks the URL of uploaded image which is www.example.com/image/id_87.jpg (remember: you programmed it to rename the files to user’s ID). Just to be double sure, the user uploads another image named “DSC_005.jpg” and again checks the URL which turns out to be same because it’s programmed to renamed. So the user can figure out URL of any of his uploaded profile picture and he will now try to upload a shell file (it’s like a backdoor access to servers; somewhat like a cPanel

within a PHP file). Shell files end with ‘.php’ extension and since we aren’t checking for the extension of files, this will get uploaded to “../image/id_87.php”. The bad guy just needs to visit that address and instead of an image, he’ll get a shady control panel which offers everything to take over your website. He’ll have access to all your files which can even reveal the connection details of your database. So that’s how a single user can steal all other user’s details. To safeguard your website from such attacks, you need to check extension

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of files being uploaded. Don’t go with excluding specific extensions instead go on by just allowing specific extensions that you expect the user to use, for all the others, just throw up an error. Even by mistake, do not transfer the unwanted file to your server and then throw the error, that’s just stupid but often practiced. Make sure that all these checks are performed server-side because if you are doing it on the user-end then the bad guy can easily dodge the check (hint: Inspect element). Lastly, the least effective advice, use ‘chmod’ and never set any uploaded file’s permission to 777 (that means read, write, execute access to everyone), you must use 644 or whatsoever your application demands.

Validation of requests being made A few months back, a person found a vulnerability on YouTube. All he did was modifying the POST request, from his own Video ID to the target video’s ID, that allowed him to delete any YouTube video without the uploader’s consent which could have actually created a big mess. Getting back to our dummy website, if the user clicks on ‘delete profile’, a POST request will be generated which can be tampered easily by using plugins such as ‘Tamper data’ or ‘Postman’ (for Firefox and Chrome respectively). This is how the bad guy will proceed: He’ll turn on the plugin, click on Delete Profile on the user dashboard, interfere with the POST request being made using plugin and change the ID from his own to someone else’s ID and then let the request proceed. And as you might have guessed, someone else’s account will get deleted without that user’s consent. This is why it’s extremely important to verify whether the action being executed is legitimately initiated or not. To overcome such requests, you’d need to implement Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). When the user logs in, generate some random values and stick it up to the user’s session and have a copy of it on the server side too. For every requests, insert this random value in the POST data (use hidden field for forms) and cross-check this value, whether it matches with the one stored on server side or not. If it doesn’t, simply return an error, and that’s how you made your whole environment more secure.

SQL Injection You probably heard this term earlier is your website safe from SQL Injections? This is probably the least effort consuming way of hacking into any poorly coded website and of course, tons of websites (especially small businesses’) are vulnerable to SQL injection. Imagine you are on the login page of our dummy website, a normal user will input his username and the password for it, and if they match, the user will be logged in. However, what if instead of a normal user, a bad guy comes up and he inputs some cryptic strings, guess what, he will get logged into the first account that’s present in the database, which generally is of an administrator. What actually happened over here is that the cryptic string altered the behaviour of your SQL commands. In any code, ‘terminators’ play important role and that cryptic string, consisting of numbers and conditions, basically tricked the program. So, if our MySQL query was something like:

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Digit Squad

And the bad guy puts username as “1 OR 1 = 1; --” and submits the form. This will actually convert our MySQL statement to

SELECT id FROM users WHERE username = 1 OR 1 = 1; -- AND password = any_random_text;

Which will get the user logged into someone’s account without even knowing the password. (Double dashes above stands for comment in SQL). To overcome such vulnerabilities, you should use “mysql_real_ escape_string()” function (for PHP version < 5.0) or start using ‘mysqli’ (for PHP version >5.0). Both of them will filter out the unwanted characters and no longer the bad guy could exploit your site. With those three practises you have actually made your website much more secure and are assured to keep script kiddies at bay. And wait, there still lies a lot of undiscovered vulnerabilities that keep popping out every day thus making none of the systems secure enough. So keep an eye on the news and efficiently improve your code wherever possible.

Disclaimer: The above topic is purely for educational purposes. Do keep in mind that you are fiddling with the website’s coding and any erroneous code can render your website dysfunctional. A first hand experience of writing code and building a website is essential. Digit and its parent company are not legally responsible for any outcome that may arise out of the implementation of the above article in any and all ways.

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SELECT id FROM users WHERE username = $username AND password = $pwd; Digit | June 2016 | www.digit.in 119

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