The Static Page
Hello 2017
P
ersonally, Im quite amazed with the
way technology blazes into our life
with each passing year. Inventions,
discoveries, and upgrades have continually
improved our digital and interconnected lives.
And now that were at the very beginning of a
brand new year, it would be nice to indulge in
some crystal gazing and see how our lives will
change further as the earth takes yet another
trip around the sun.
In many ways the issue you are holding
in your hands right now has been conceived
in line with this forward looking spirit. The
concepts and prototypes that we aim to show-
case in the cover story may not necessarily be
those that will come to fruition anytime soon;
however, they still give a glimpse of the future.
The issue also includes features on the state
of AI and one about the future of sensors and
solar power. These are of course hot topics
that will rule 2017, but if you were to ask for
my personal take, I believe much of the inno-
vation starting from CES will be around three
very specific technology domains a holy
tech trinity if you will. And they are: IoT, AR/
VR, and machine learning.
Wait, did I just say IoT? Yes, I did.
I know I know, IoT has been touted as
the next big thing for so many years now,
its almost become a joke like Half Life 3. The
thing with IoT though, especially in the smart
home space, is that so far there has been a
lot of fragmentation. There are hundreds of
players with their own hardware, apps, and
implementation methods, but no commonly
accepted open standards for interoperability.
With the likes of Amazon, Google, and Apple
making heavy inroads into this space, I expect
2017 to really be the year home automation
becomes mainstream. Even Zuckerberg
has been playing with the idea of creating a
Jarvis-like implementation for his home, and
while Im taking his recent video with a pinch
of salt, Im pretty sure hell have something
interesting to showcase by mid 2017.
The next technology that will see a lot
of action is AR/VR. In fact, 2016 saw one of
the biggest steps foretelling this wave the
now infamous Augmented Reality game
Pokemon Go, which crossed a hundred mil-
lion downloads. In 2017, taking things further,
mixed reality will see a lot of development in
terms of apps, gadgets, and content. While
the smart contact lens, which Sony recently
patented, may be a little far off, well find
all sorts of HUDs appearing everywhere in
2017 - from car windshields to machine repair
instructions powered by devices similar to the
Microsoft Hololens. AR and VR experiences
should become more commonplace in the
coming year.
The third technology rounding off this
tech triumvirate is Machine Learning. AI,
as youll soon find out, has achieved tremen-
dous strides already. But this year things are
going to go a step further. Youll have a ton of
chatbots appearing, your everyday assistants
will become smarter and there will be a pre- Siddharth Parwatay
dictive element in almost every service you Managing Editor
use be it hailing cabs via an app or online siddharth.parwatay@digit.in
shopping. Itll start becoming so normal that
itll be a new benchmark in the way services
ought to be user friendly. Machine learning I believe much
is particularly poised to augment the other of the innovation
two technologies Ive mentioned. Within IoT starting from CES
and home automation, using algorithmic will be around
processing of patterns your home can mould three very specific
itself to your needs and even anticipate them. technology
Even with AR and VR, machine learning domains -- a
can help create powerful experiences. holy tech trinity
Imagine using the power of natural language if you will.
processing (NLP) to come up with more
intuitive ways of interacting with these new
systems. Imagine using the power of Big Data
to crunch information before it gets onto
your HUD - your smartness quotient (at least
superficially) will go up a few notches. Lastly,
in VR and gaming, the importance of AI is
unmatched in providing a more realistic
and immersive experience. Imagine a game
that evolves with the users play style. Cou-
pled with VR-immersion, you might not be
able to tell whats real and whats not!
I for one am looking forward to what
amazing tech experiences this new year is
likely to bring. Like my three-point short
list, which technologies do you think will take
off in the near future? Looking forward to
your thoughts.
Reach me at:
facebook.com/staticsid | @staticsid
| editor@digit.in
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 1
 The RSS Feed
Prototype Trump
H
appy New Year to all of you, and
thank you for sticking with Digit
for another full calendar year. You
better stay with us for 2017 too, because its
going to be a wild ride in technology, and
youre going to need your favourite navi-
gator to help you find your way through it.
This months cover story is about con-
cepts, prototypes and new technologies that
will take off in 2017. Concepts are raw ideas
that may or may not work. They often look
good, but they may not be practical. Think
of every concept car image you have seen.
Awesome looking things arent they? Not
practical at all, but then again since when
has practical ever been fun? Then you come
to prototypes. Theyre often ugly looking
things, and look nothing at all like the con-
cept designs and images that inspired them,
and most often they barely work, or just do
enough to be a proof of concept. This is all
we expect of them, because its only with
painstaking research and development that
final products get made, and yes, even final
products rarely ever look like the concept
devices that were pictured in the original
artists mind. Then again, artists arent engi-
neers, and nor should they be.
Those of you who have read Digit for
a long time will know we arent political,
and avoid politics (and politicians) like the
plague. Tech has no politics, religion and
gender, and thats why we love it so much. So
why on earth is the headline of this column
mentioning Trump (with a capital T)?
We dont care about his politics, and we
dont care about pretty much anything he
does or says, except that which affects us as
Indians, or as technology users. Whether we
like it or not, the US has a tremendous hold
on the technology world, and as a result, so
does the supreme leader of that country.
As a concept Trump is far from beautiful
no artist, no matter how skilled could ever
be able to pull that off. However, as a concept
he was funny, and the resident troll in us all
secretly wished hed win the election, just to
see what happens. Then, when he did win,
he was no longer a concept, he was now a
prototype. Things suddenly got serious. And
thats the stage were at right now.
Personally, I think his anti-China ranting
is actually good for India. Its not at all
2 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
surprising that Apple wants to start making
products in India as well now. I expect a lot
more business to come our way if we play
our cards right, because no big company
in the US wants their business to be held
to ransom by diplomatic ties between the
US and China. Given their new presidents
whimsical nature, and the matching ego
of the Chinese, trouble may very well be
brewing for many tech companies.
Net neutrality fans might not like the
ideas he and his cabinet have though,
because the word is that the new government Robert Sovereign-Smith
plans to do away with the new amendment Executive Editor
to uphold net neutrality that was introduced robert@digit.in
just recently under Obamas watch. The
republicans have long since been opposed to Tech has no
government interference, and believe in the politics, no religion
free market which means let the provider
and no gender,
do whatever it wants to, as long as you have
an option to switch providers, everything
and thats why we
will work out. Problem is, most areas in the love it so much.
US dont have too many options for ISPs So why on earth
where they live, and providers are probably is the headline
going to come together anyway, given the
of this column
prospect of making more money, not just off
consumers, but also off internet companies.
mentioning Trump
Though this doesnt affect India, we know (with a capital T)?
that as the home of most of the internet,
whatever happens in the US has a ripple
effect all over the world.
Another aspect of his campaign has
been his promise to bring back jobs to the
US, which makes me wonder how much
we might lose in outsourcing revenue, even
if we make some extra by manufacturing
Apple devices.
In the end, only time will tell how pro-
totype Trump will impact us as President
Trump, so we have to wait and watch. Either
way, there certainly are interesting times
ahead for technology in 2017. What do you
think will be the biggest changes (if any) for
India (positive or negative) because of the
new US president? Write in and tell me, Id
love to hear some varied (and perhaps better
informed) views on the topic.
Liked or hated this column?
Let me know at:
robert@digit.in | @raaabo
facebook.com/raaabo
Contents
JANUARY 2017 VOLUME 17 \ ISSUE 01

QUICK
NAVIGATOR
001 ENTER
014 DGT
Desire
Greed
Temptation

028 DIGITAL
Origins
LIFE
Feature

038 SCI TECH

Tomorrows Tech
From the Labs
Space Age

058 TOOLBOX
Q&A
Workshop
Tips and Tricks

073 WORLDVIEW
077 DEVWORX
098 TESTED
TRIED AND
Comparison Test
Bazaar 48 17 Concepts for 2017
In this calendar year, the implementations of
these 17 concepts blur the distinction between
114 STREET
Agent 001
SMART
science-fiction and real life even more.
Price watch
Killer Rigs
Top 3

122 ESC
Industry connect

Feature
Its [A]l[I]ve
Right now, AI is quite capable and its 32
Unwind evolution isnt stopping anytime soon.

TRIED &
TESTED 106
EPSON L655 INK
108
GIGABYTE RADEON
109
ASUS ZENBOOK 3
TANK PRINTER RX 480 Is the latest powerful, fast and
Superb raster prints for the Why go for stock when youve thin Zenbook a viable Macbook
average SOHO got this? alternative?

4 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 ON THE DVD
Learn Angular 2 This release is based on
IntelliJ IDEA Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit), with
Visual Studio Code the Cinnamon desktop.
WebStorm
Angular IDE PlayStation Experience
Angular libraries 2016 Trailers
Cross-platform Absolver
development Ace Combat 7
Call of Duty World League
Game Streaming Software 2017

81 SKOAR! (Now inside Digit) Gameshow

Livestream
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane
Trilogy
From the good old days of 8-bit to the modern
OBS Classic Destiny: Rise of Iron
4k 60fps wonders, we trace gamings evolution.
OBS Studio Dreadnought
Wirecast Gran Turismo Sport
MAKE THIS ISSUE OF DIGIT COME ALIVE XSplit Gamecaster Horizon Zero Dawn
BLIPP...BLIPP... BLIPP...
Knack 2
FILL SCREEN
FILL SCREEN FILL SCREEN
WITH IMAGE
WITH IMAGE
IMAGE
WITH
JUMPS
IMAGE JUMPS
IMAGE
TO LIFE! TO LIFE!
IMAGE JUMPS
TO LIFE! Games Lara Croft GO
DOWNLOADDOWNLOAD DOWNLOAD Brief Karate Foolish LET IT DIE
BLIPPAR BLIPPAR BLIPPAR
Cloudphobia Demo Nex Machina
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Cubotrox Demo
Download the Keep an eye out for Blip the image and get access EXIT Demo Software Updates
Blippar app the Blippar icon next to video reviews, interactive Minecraft: Story Mode AdwCleaner
to some images games, and much more! Episode 1 AirDroid Image
Neon Warp Demo AMD Radeon ReLive

42 Sensors of the The Eyes of Ara Demo Avast

Google Chrome
future Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon K-Lite Mega Pack
Beyond gyroscopes and Clement Lefebvre has Malwarebytes Image
accelerometers! announced a new release NVIDIA Graphics Drivers
of Linux Mint. The new Spybot Search and
version, Linux Mint 18, is a Destroy
62 Live streaming long term support release Transmission-QT
This workshop shows you how which will receive support WhatsApp for Windows
to setup your own gaming through to the year 2021. WPS Office
livestream.

LEARN ANGULAR 2
LINUX MINT 18
CINNAMON

GAME STREAMING
DVD SOFTWARE

111 113
THERMALTAKE CORE ONEPLUS 3T
P3 OnePlus just showed us how
The most beautiful chassis to make the best they had even
weve ever assembled better.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 5

 January 2017 Volume 17 Issue 01
TO ADVERTISE PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH

Email: sales@digit.in Bazaar

OnePlus 3T
Sales Director: LG V20
Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-9582262959
Lenovo K6 Power
South: Corsair Carbide Air 740
Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961 Corsair VOID RGB
Managing Director Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha
HyperX Cloud Stinger
Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh West: Epson L655
Publishing Director Vikas Gupta Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247 RX 460
Thermaltake P3
Editorial North:
Mayank Sharma , Mobile: +91-8800661912 GIGABYTE RX 480
Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Jabra Halo Smart
Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay East: Asus Zenbook 3
Multimedia Co-ordinator Abhijit Dey Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Mobile: +91-93318 29284 WD Passport external HDD
Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Manish Rajesh, Nikhil Punjabi Coolpad Note 5
Intern Yangerlong Jamir
ADVERTISING INDEX Comparison Test
Test Centre ASUS Cerberus
Asst. Technical Editor Mithun Mohandas Brand ............................................. Page No. Cooler Master MasterMouse Lite S
Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco Cooler Master MasterMouse S
Assistant Vikas Patil Cooler Master MasterMouse Pro L
Shell .......................................... Inside front cover
G.Skill MX780
digit.in Gigabyte XM300
TPLink .......................................Inside back cover Steelseries Rival 100
Editor Soham Raninga
Steelseries Rival 300
Assistant Editor Prasid Banerjee, Sameer Mitha
Razer Death Adder Elite
Features Editor Adamya Sharma Gigabyte - 1 ...........................................Back cover
Gamdias Zeus P1 RGB
Senior Sub Editor Karthek Iyer
TT eSports Ventus Z
Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar
Gigabyte - 2 ............................................................13 Zowie EC2-A
Zowie FK2
Design
Zowie ZA11
Sr. Art Director Anil VK Kyocera ...................................................................... 3
Logitech Proteus Core G502
Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi
Visualiser Baiju NV
LIC .............................................................................. 7 GAMES REVIEWED THIS MONTH
Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari
Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi, Steep
Peterson PJ & Manoj Kumar VP iBall - 1 ....................................................................... 9 Dead Rising 4

Photography Mobile Monthly

iBall - 2 .....................................................................59
Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi Distraint Missing
Overpainted Jrump
Contributors ICTS.......................................................................... 11 Dan the Man Beat Stomper
Writers Aabir Abubaker, Abhishek Balaji, Anusha Seen Prime Peaks
Sinha, Arjun Krishna Lal, Dhinoj Dings C II - 1 .....................................................................15 Time Locker

Production and Logistics

MAKE THIS
Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay
C II - 2 .....................................................................97
Manager Logistics Vijay Menon
Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh
Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari
Quantum............................................................... 128
ISSUE OF DIGIT
Brand Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and
COME ALIVE
Brand Head Mitin Kumar on behalf of the owners, M/s Nine Dot Nine
Asst Product Mgr Madhuri Goel Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published at A-262, 2nd Floor, Step 1
FILL SCREEN
WITH IMAGE
BLIPP...
IMAGE JUMPS
TO LIFE!

Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh Defence colony, New Delhi-110024 and printed at Download the Blippar
International Print-O-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery DOWNLOAD
BLIPPAR app
Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U..P.)
Circulation Sales INDIA. Editor : Kanak Ghosh.
Head - Circulation Samir Mehta
BLIPP...
Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya, We do not endorse or recommend any product or service FILL SCREEN
WITH IMAGE
Step
IMAGE2 JUMPS
TO LIFE!
Norbert Joseph advertised in the magazine. The advertisements in this
magazine are for information purposes only. We doDOWNLOAD
not, Keep an eye out for the
Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh expressly or impliedly, warrant or assume any liability or
BLIPPAR
Blippar icon next to
responsibility for the quality, accuracy, completeness, legal-
ity, reliability, usefulness or claims of any product or service some images
Reader Services advertised in the magazine. Our readers are strongly
Team Leader Sudhir Patel advised to carry out their own independent assessment of BLIPP...
FILL SCREEN
the product or services advertised in the magazine. WITH IMAGE IMAGE JUMPS Step 3
Executives Poonam, Bhishm, Nilesh & TO LIFE!

Narendra DOWNLOAD
Blip the image and get
Disclaimer
+91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in
BLIPPAR
For every Digit contest, there will be only one
access to video reviews,
winner, unless specified otherwise. interactive games, and
Cover Design Peterson PJ In the event of a dispute, the Editors decision shall much more!
be final.

6 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

Contact us
Tell us what you feel about Digit
If you have an opinion about anything published in Digit, or about technol-
Digit Facebook Pages
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To interact with the authors of specific articles, please write to the email
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If youre having trouble with your PC or a gadget, our experts can magazine on your favourite social
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from where and for how much. Send in all your buying advice or ques-
tions to the coolest agent ever. Write to agent001@digit.in techkranti
Lets wake ourselves
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8 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 DGT
All the latest lifestyle technology, gadgets to
Enter 14 drool over and gizmo porn like never before.
Desire, Greed and Temptation ahead...
) I'm a great fan of Digit magazine. I
love technology and gadgets. I'm a 12th
std. student and I love science, espe-
cially astronomy or cosmology. I like
your dmystify books very much, and
want to read all the previous books.
So, can I get the digital edition of all
the dmystify books, and also upcoming
books in digital format? Thank you!
Mohammad Rehan
We usually give out PDF editions with
our June and December special issues,
the latter is still available for order
online. If you want upcoming editions
in digital format, theres an easy way
out for that - youll have to download
our app from here - http://dgit.in/
AndroidEmag
Abhijit
) Hello Team Digit, Greetings from
one of your loyal fans. I'm a student
studying in Grade 9 and am an ardent
follower of Digit from the last six
months. I really liked the comparisons
and the reviews and tests done in the
Digit Zero1 awards. I absolutely loved
the blast pun you guys did on the
Note7 issue.
Now coming to some suggestions:
1. PLEASE PROVIDE A POSTER
FOR CALL OF DUTY : INFINITE
WARFARE. I beg you.
2. Provide SKOAR! as a separate
magazine. (Did I mention that I'm
a console head? Sorry #PCMaster-
Race)
3. Please increase the quantity of mate-
rial in SKOAR!
4. Stop hating iPhones so much. (pun
intended)
5. Increase the number of memes.
6. I have noticed that you guys have
decreased the length of the Digit
Diary. It is very interesting to read.
P.S. How many of you made your
New year resolution to finish your
work on time.
P.P.S. Please leak the identity of
Agent001.
Last thing - Can we have another
Encyclopaedia Technica or another
round of Crack the Code?
Dhruv Dugar
10 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Feedback for the December 2016 issue of Digit
Dhruv, Your suggestions for the
poster have been noted. There is a
certain process for picking the artwork
for the poster, which is why some-
times we cant give a certain game.
But fear not, your interests are always
at our heart. As for the diary, why does
it seem to me that you like reading
about our sufferings? And since
youve asked about my identity, let me
refashion the now famous line from V
for Vendetta.
We are all Agent001,
We are Digit,
We are Technology,
We are not biased,
Write to us. ;-)
Agent001
) Hey Team Digit,
Im a very big fan of your magazine.
I know you have better stuff to do so
Ill make it short. My problem is that
I have a story for a game. It is a very
good story for an FPS/RPG game. The
problem is I dont know programming
and I dont know anyone around me
who does. So I want to know whether
I can send the story to a publisher/
developer and, if so whom. Please reply
quickly. Thank you in advance.
Radhika Katiki
Apple VS Nokia again
The two mobile companies are back
again with their patent lawsuits. Read
more here: http://dgit.in/ApleNokia
If you trust us, you can share the
story with us and we will give you our
honest feedback. If we think it sucks,
we will say so, and if we think its good,
well say that. We could share some
pointers too and then we can help by
putting you in touch with some people
at game studios if we think the storyline
has what it takes.
Mithun
) Hi! Ive been a huge fan since I was
8, Im now 17. It has been a long time
reading your issues. In the beginning
from my school's library and then later
by saving my pocket money and getting
it from the stand. Your magazine was
like a part of my life. All month long Id
wait for your next issue while guessing
what would be in your upcoming issue.
I miss those days a lot.
1. Guys try doing some experiment
in you magazine like changing your
pics.
2. Try to add a page about the months
top phone apps and games as it is all
the buzz now all thanks to JIO.
3. Give some sexy posters as guys love
them and put it up on walls.
4. I should salute you as you guys give
such good quality stuff for this cost
and that too in print.
 VW concept EV Corrigendum
Volkswagen teases a new fully electronic In our December 2016 issue, ASUS PA329Q was wrongly
self-driving car concept with a rectangle listed as PA328Q and sequential write speeds for the
Inbox steering wheel. http://dgit.in/VWnewEV Samsung 960 Pro should have been 2,100 MB/s.

5. Please change your DVD look and try
to add some more utility software.
6. Give Robert's ID at the end of the
email section as well so it will be
easier to find for first timers.
7. I have moved to the countryside and
can't get your magazine so is it pos-
sible to get a summary kinda stuff in
like once every 2 or 3 months?
I'm in 11th right now so this New
Year Im going to buy a home theater
and my parents are giving me a budget
of `12K. As I'm a movie freak I watch
loads of movies, especially horror. And
listen to EDM and trap music all day so
I want my room to be booming with all
the bass. Thanks guys!
Sanyam Maan
Hey Sanyam, Wed really like to help
get a Digit issue to your town so well
put you in touch with our logistics team.
You can find our app and mobile game
recommendations in the DGT>Greed
section and SKOAR!, respectively. Are
you saying our video game posters
arent sexy enough? We are working
on the DVD interface and youll see
something new soon. Dont worry about
mails not going to Robert, he has the
all-seeing eye. For the home theatre
recommendation, check out a similar
query in the Agent001 section of this
issue. Hopefully, that should make your
room go booming with bass.
Siddharth

LETTER OF THE MONTH

) The cover story in the Collectors Edition made me a col-
lector. DGT Auto was a master piece. Digit Mini really helped
clear misconceptions.
Id like to give awards to Digit for some of the best content
Ive come across over the entire year that Ive been reading
the magazine:
1. Best Article - 15 men and 1 woman by Adamya Sharma
(Features Editor in 15th Anniversary Edition)
2. Best Cover Story - Our Tech Story
3. Best dymstify - The human brain
4. Best FastTrack - Secure everything
5. Best SKOAR! - Rewriting history
6. Best Poster - Uncharted: A Thiefs End
Some suggestions:
7. Please give some videos and articles in Hindi
as there are many who are interested in tech, but
dont understand English due to the language barrier.
8. Please make App on Digit Quiz
9. Please provide 2 DVDs every month and 3 DVDs in Special
Edition
10. Please change the DVD music
11. Please do Phranchise features for AC and NFS
Some criticism:
12. I have gone through your PDFs from 2006 - 2014 and saw
that you have reduced the DVD content
13. You dont conduct the DIGIT Contest any more
14. You stopped giving views of celebrities about tech.
15. Another year passes without changing DVD UI isnt. I hope
in 2017 it will be changed.
16. Right now I complete my 1 year of reading digit and have
lost 3 things:-
1 EDWARD HENNING SIR
2 Jayesh Shinde
3 DVD and DVD content (reduced since 2006).
I got very disappointed and got emotionally flooded on
hearing the news of death of Sir Edward Henning & farewell of
Jayesh Shinde.
May Sir Edward rest in peace and hoping for a better life
ahead for Jayesh. The cover page story drawing are very very
good thanks to all designer teammates. Thanks again for being
my technology navigator for this year - my offline google.
Anubhav Prakash
Wow Anubhav, thats a really long letter with a lot of
points that you have made. Ill try and take them up
one at a time. Thank you for the positive feedback
in from 1 through 6, appreciated
7. We currently have a hindi version of our site,
and you can check it out at digit.in/hi
8. Not a bad idea as a part of another app.
9. We are aware of the love for the 2 DVDs
of software, but our indepth research of our
reader-base suggested that many more prefer
the dmystify over the second DVD. Alas, we cant
give you this point.
10. Will do so
11. The SKOAR! Gods rarely answer anyones prayers, so
lets see, but dont hold your breath.
12. Answered in point 9
13. We do contests as and when we have goodies to give
away. We will try and hold another soon.
14. Turns out celebs are way less geeky than our readers,
and they dont want to seem like fools in front of you.
15. I have given up on this. Perhaps the team will finally
do something about it, I dont have the energy to beg
for it anymore :-(
16. We all miss Edward. He had seen and experienced
more of India than all of us put together, and used
to translate old documents from Sanskrit to English.
He was more Indian than all of us, frankly. As for
Jayesh, we are sure he will remain in touch and be a
critical reader like yourself. You can take people out of
Digit, but you cant take the Digit out of them :-)
I will pass on your message to the designers, they will be
tickled pink!
Robert

12 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. Like us on
Tel: +91-22-40633222 Toll Free: 1800-220966 Visit us: www.gigabyte.in www.facebook.com/GIGABYTEindia
Gujarat: 98642 30150; Mumbai: 99677 18653; Rest of Maharashtra: 99677 18653; Goa: 99677 18653; Chhattisgarh 99677 18653; Madhya Pradesh: 99100 86976; New Delhi, Haryana,
Uttar Pradesh: 99583 72672; Punjab, Chandigarh and Jammu & Kashmir: 99100 86976; Rajasthan: 98286 63392; Bihar, Jharkhand: 90075 45577; Orissa: 90405 06080; North
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SECTION SUBSECTION
TECHNOLOGY WITH STYLE
Hy
Hy is a pair of hidden
wireless earbuds that
are quite discreet
looking can augment
your natural hearing.
Hy is designed to be as
unintrusive as possible
and is built so that you
can go about your daily
activities without worry.
It comes with active noise
cancellation and leaves
your natural hearing
unaffected. Another nifty
feature is that it also
comes with biometric
sensors for the health
conscious. Moreover, the
which allow for health
monitoring. And yes, they
will release the SDK!
Bose Hearphones Helios
The Hearphones
allow you
to control
the sound
around you, allowing you
to tune out distractions
in noisy environments,
thus enhancing your
conversations and focus.
14 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
DESIRE SHOWCASE
ChainFORM
C hainFORM is an MIT
project which is a neat
little hardware system
that has shape changing
capabilities. It is a modular
robot which, thanks to its
form changing factor, can
change into anything, yes
ANYTHING, depending on
how you put its modules
together. This means you
can turn into a walking
robot, a clock, a joystick, the
list goes on forever. With
ChainFORM, you can adjust
its shape, color, and even
its length. Each module
of ChainFORM has touch
detection across multiple
surfaces and also comes
with blinking lights and
motor actuation. The lights
can also be programmed
and customized to suit your
needs, such as for interactive
displays. ChainFORM is able
Helios is a
modular touch
screen wall
light which
needs only a touch to turn
on or off. Thanks to its
modular design you can
choose how much lighting
you need in an area.
GREED
For those who just want more
than should be humanly
allowed, we have enough to
satisfy your hunger...
THIS MONTH: Pagani Huayra
Hermes Edition, Casio MR-G
Gold Hammer Tone,Ixoost
Esavox, The Undersea
Aquahoverer and more ...
to tell how many modules
are connected together and
each module is capable of
changing their individual
function. The ChainFORM is
based on a similar project
from the past called
LineFORM which some might
be familiar with. The project
is still a work in progress for
the time being, but expect
to see this handy gadget in
markets within a decade or
Hudify
Hudify
turns your
smartphone
into a portable
and transparent heads-up
display for your car and
gives you features like GPS
and speed limit notifications
and more.
TEMPTATION
If youre wondering what to do
with yourself or how to spend
some time getting cultured,
this section is for you...
THIS MONTH: Movie: Rogue
One - A Star Wars Story,
Arrival and upcoming
movies to watch out for in
January 2017 ...
so from now.
If you have a hard time
picturing it, then imagine
a bunch of LEGO bricks
that are touch sensitive,
have their own lights, are
programmable and can
move around on their own.
With limitless application
scenarios, we cant wait to
see how this project evolves
and we certainly hope these
evolve into nanobots!
Naked Case
Naked Case
as the name
implies is a
case for your
iPhone but one you will
barely notice. The Naked
Case is puncture-proof so
you dont have to worry
about getting scratches.
DESIRE SHOWCASE
Foldscope
F oldscope is an origami microscope that can fit in your
pockets. Its made mostly out of water-proof paper and
allows you to make use of a microscope without the bulk and
expense of a conventional microscope. Foldscope is aiming
to bring the microscope out of the labs and into the hands of
the people. Dont be fooled, Foldscope is a proper microscope
and has the magnification and resolution to be able to image
individual cells and other single celled organisms. Thanks to
its price and design the Foldscope can be used anywhere, its
a great tool for one with a curious mind, effectively bringing
science into your daily life. Foldscope comes with its own kit
which fits nicely into a pencil box like package.
16 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
The kit comes with key items that allow you to prepare
and mount samples in whatever kind of setting youre in at
any given moment. This way you have all the tools youll need
if you need to quickly zoom in on something. The standard
Foldscope comes with a 140X magnifications lens.
SPECIFICATIONS
Magnification: 140x | Lens material: Borosilicate
glass | Resolution: 2 microns | Dimensions:
180 mm x 80 mm x 5 mm | Weight: 400 grams
(kit) / 8 grams (Foldscope) | Power: NA
Price: $20
EyeQue
E yeQue is a personal vision tracking smartphone vision test.
Using EyeQue you can test your vision at home without
having to go through the hassle of getting an appointment and
having to travel to a specialist for tests. All you need is the
EyeQue miniscope and the myEyeQue app which is free and
available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. When
using EyeQue your results are returned almost immediately,
and the record is returned using spherical, cylindrical and axis
figures which are the same as those used by eye doctors to
generate prescriptions. That means that you can determine
what kind of glasses youll be needing right at home and can
simply place an order for them online or skip the appointment
and head straight to the spectacle store. To add to that, you can
check your vision history on the app as well, allowing you to
compare and share your vision history with your doctor.
 DESIRE SHOWCASE

Switch Bot
T he Switch Bot is a tiny robot which mechanically controls
all kinds of switches and buttons no matter where you
are. Basically, with the Switch Bot you can control your
switches wirelessly. The device functions by actuating a
mechanical arm which presses down. To install the Switch
Bot you simply have to affix the Switch Bot right where the
actuating arm can trigger the switch. Its has a 3M adhesive
pad which is destined to last for ages. It is built in a way
which allows it to work with just about any kind of switch
found all over the world, so you dont have to worry about it
not fitting your switch.
All you need to do is place it such that the arm can
trigger your switch. For electrical switches around the house
you might have to swap them out for spring-loaded rocker
switches. The Switch Bot works well with smart home apps
and devices as well and can be controlled by the likes of
Amazon Echo, SmartThings, WeMo sensors and several
others. The Switch Bot comes with a long battery life as well;
its powered by a lithium battery which can be replaced app or whatever smart home device you have in your home.
but should suffice for around 600 days. After all, once the The project is now on Kickstarter and you can get one Switch
arm is stationary, it will no longer consume any power. All Bot if you pledge $19. Unfortunately, that rewards rung ran
you need to do to get the Switch Bot running after youve out way quickly, so if you want to get your hands on one,
attached it to whatever switch you want, simply use the free youll have to shell out $79.

Acton Blink
T he Acton Blink electric skateboards
come with a host of neat features
and are made with top-grade materials
to ensure you get the best ride. The
Acton Blink has 3 models for you to
choose from, the Blink Qu4tro which
comes with 4 wheel drive and actually
allows you to climb hills thanks to
its power. The Blink S2 comes with
2 wheel drive, its meant to be an all-
rounder and a cruiser with long range
and allows for uphill boarding as well.
The Blink S is the most economical
variant and comes with 1 wheel drive.
Its also the lightest of the lot and the
most portable as well, making it ideal
for campuses. All 3 models come with
a hub motor, a remote control and a
smart app. They can be connected
to your smartphone via Bluetooth
and theyre all water resistant. Each
of the three models also comes with
regenerative braking and integrated
lights on the front, rear, and sides.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 17

 DESIRE iKeybo
T he iKeybo is a virtual laser projected keyboard, piano and

TAKE MY
portable charger, all in one. Its multi-lingual a well, so
anyone can use the iKeybo. It can be a pain to type on a keyboard
whose layout you arent familiar with. To remedy that, the iKeybo

MONEY!
comes with 4 different language layouts: English, Spanish,
Arabic, and Chinese. Now while were not particularly concerned
with that, its still pretty cool.
Another cool thing about the iKeybo is that it comes with
Here is where we keep an eye on crowdfunded its own in-build music app and can transform into a piano,
projects that will make you go Shut up and guitar, bass or drums when you want it to. Simply hook up your
take my money! smartphone onto the iKeybo and let the tunes flow.
The third perk of the iKeybo is that it doubles as a portable
charger for your devices as well and can hold up to 10 hours of
charge. And we all know how much extra power comes in handy!
And lastly, the device is compact enough for you to be able to

FlowMotion ONE carry it around with ease. So if youre in the market for a really
cool looking keyboard cum instrument cum charger thats light
weight and feature rich, all you need to do is look up the iKeybo

T he FlowMotion ONE is a smartphone stabilizer which

aims to provide smooth and cinematic videos with your
smartphones. Its a gimbal for your smartphone. It comes with
on Kickstarter.

a slew of features which allows you to make videos like the pros.
It eliminates camera shake entirely, its compact and weighs
only 300 grams. You can dismantle and fit it in your pockets
with ease. You can mount the FlowMotion to pretty much any
camera mount or the optional
carbon extension pole
that comes with
the device. The
FlowMotion ONE
comes with its own
app that allows you
to make use of its auto follow
technology. All you need to do is mark
the person you wish to follow and the ONE will
keep them in the frame no matter where they are.

NexD1
T he NexD1 is a 3D printer capable of high-end prototyping,
multi-material and 3D electronics printing. It utilizes
industrial-grade 3D printing technology called PolyJet
which theyve scaled down and are calling it DigiJet.
DigiJet is capable of printing a wide range of materials from
nanoparticles to special resins. The NexD1 can print fully
functional circuits and can place them in any 3D configuration
within your design. It uses a six cartridge system which
allows it to combine and print up to six materials at once.
Its eco-friendly as well, and operates with non-toxic water
soluble support materials. You can also connect to the NexD1
through your smartphone and print from anywhere, its
comparatively easy to use than some of the other 3D printers
out there, and significantly cheaper as well. If you are
interested in some 3D printing, check them out on Kickstarter.

18 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in


Silent Partner
S ilent Partner is a SmartMask one would use while
sleeping that helps deal with snoring. How this works is
the Silent Partner creates a silent zone around the person
in question, thereby doing away with the snoring sound
for those in the vicinity. It does so my using Active Noise
Cancellation technology. The Silent Partner emits a counter
sound to cancel out the sound of snoring, or in more technical
terms, the Silent Partner senses the frequency of the snores
and broadcasts a sound wave in an inverted phase. When
the two waves line up they cancel each other out. Thanks to
subwavelength active noise cancellation the Silent Partner
can reduce noise effectively from as close as 8inches away.
Theres nothing to it as well, all you need to do is wear it,
turn it on, and go to sleep as usual. The Silent Partner is light
and compact as well, so you can carry it around with ease,
and you dont have to worry about getting it dirty since its
washable. You can find the SmartMask on indiegogo.
Temperfect Mug
T he very first thing one often looks forward to in the
morning is their cup of coffee. And if that cup of coffee
isnt just right, it could ruin the rest of the day for them.
Trust us, we know this from experience. This is where the
Temperfect Mug comes in, it works to ensure that your coffee
stays just right. You dont need any batteries or cords or
apps to get this mug to work, you just pour your coffee in
there and it does its magic, ensuring that your coffee stays
just right for hours. It does this by extracting the extra heat
from your coffee right as you start pouring it into the mug,
this stored heat then works to keep your coffee at the right
temperature. Since it extracts the
heat right away, you can drink your
coffee right away without worrying
about burning your mouth. To
pull this off, Temperfect added
a second layer of insulation to a
vacuum-insulated travel mug. This
enables it to be able to absorb the
heat and release it again slowly to
keep your coffee from getting cold.
Look for Temperfect on indiegogo
if you want to get your own perfect
mug of just right coffee.
DESIRE TAKE MY MONEY
HelloEar Arc
T he Hello Ear Arc is a pair of custom earphones designed
to achieve maximum comfort during use. Theyre built
to ensure a comfortable and secure fit, no matter how long
you end up wearing them. The Arc features a custom airbag
structure which is flexible and
bends depending on how you
move. Its crafted with silica
gel so that your ears dont
feel too stuffy and gives them
room to breathe. The design
also offers a secure fit, so you
can go about your workout or
you jog or whatever activity
you were doing without
worrying about the Arc falling
out of your ears. It makes use of the Z-lock earphone design,
which is inspired by the Z shape sound wave reflection
structure. The Arc is customisable as well, you can use it
via Bluetooth or a 3.5 mm jack or even via lightning cable.
Interested in the Arc? Find the HelloEar Arc on Kickstarter.
Findster Duo
E very pet lover is concerned about their pet, and it can
be quite worrying when your pet is lost. It comes as
no surprise that people often invest in GPS trackers for
their pets to ensure that they know where they are at
all times, but these GPS tracking services often require
a monthly fee. This is where the Findster Duo comes in,
this handy GPS tracker requires no monthly fees and
has no coverage limits either. It also monitors your pets
health for you, and even rewards you for keeping your
pet in good shape. In addition to precise real-time GPS
tracking, the Findster Duo app includes a built-in radar
as well which shows you how far you are from your pet
and guides you towards them. You can set up zones on
the app, the Security Zone where you want your pet to
stay, and the Danger Zone, which you want your pet to
avoid. If you pet does happen to wander into the Danger
Zone, the app immediately notifies you. Definitely a
must have for pet lovers around the world.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 19
 DESIRE
MOBILE
WATCH
Stylish, glamorous and interesting
smartphones are always on the horizon. We
take a closer look at whats hot in this space...
HTC Desire 10 Pro
T he HTC Desire 10 Pro comes with some top-grade
cameras and is backed by ample amounts of expandable
memory to be able to back those pictures youre going to take.
The HTC Desire 10 Pro comes with
a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS LCD display
and on the back its got a fingerprint
sensor. It runs on an octa-core
MediaTek MT6755 clocked at 2 GHz
and is backed by 4 GB of RAM and
a Mali-T860 MO2 graphics engine.
The device has a 20 MP rear camera
with laser autofocus, dual-colour
LED flash and 13MP camera on the
front. This phone is powered by a
3000mAh li-polymer battery with
the option to fast-charge making it
a great choice for multi-tasking and
gaming. Expected in February.
Pictured above:
Vivo V5
20 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Nokia C1
T
he Nokia C1 marks the return of the iconic phone brand
that at one point of time used to lead the mobile market.
Nokias decision to adopt Windows over Android could
maybe be the reason for the companys downfall. However,
it looks like Nokia have learned from their mistakes and
intend to make a comeback with their Android based device.
The new Nokia C1 is expected to launch in February and will
come with a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS LCD display. Itll run on
the Android v6.0(Marshmallow) OS and will be powered by
the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chipset. With 2 GB of RAM
and an Adreno 510 GPU to churn out all the graphics, this
phone should be priced for the average consumer which
packing a decent hardware. You have a 13 MP camera
on the rear and a 5 MP front camera for your selfies and
video calls. The C1 will be powered by a 2,800 mAh non-
removable li-ion battery. The one thing were all hoping for
is that Nokia retains its legendary build quality as thatll
definitely set it apart from the rest.
Vivo V5 Plus
V ivo is no stranger when it comes to manufacturing quality
smartphones, and the Vivo V5 Plus definitely looks like
it matches up to those standards. Among the other things
this phone offers, what stands out is its excellent front facing
camera, meaning this phone is obviously targeted at the
selfie enthusiasts. So if youre fond of documenting your day
with quality selfies, you could consider the Vivo V5 Plus. The
V5 Plus comes with a Full HD IPS LCD display and thats
protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. It runs on a Qualcomm
Snapdragon 652 MSM8976 chipset and has 4 GB of RAM.
Since, we talked about the phone being a selfie-focused
device, the Vivo V5 Plus comes with a 13 MP rear camera but
on the front weve got a dual lens camera, of 20MP and 8MP
each. These are backed by LED flashes that make them the
ideal for selfies and video calling.
 GREED
AUTO
Your one stop destination for a monthly
dose of all your automobile launches
and desires.
Mini John Cooper
Works Clubman
T he Mini John Cooper Works Clubman is the latest entrant
into what we call the premium compact segment and it
comes with a plethora of improvements which make the MINI
look like a promising addition. The MINI comes with All4 all-
wheel drive system, LED headlamps, different driving modes,
park distance control, radio MINI visual boost, multifunctional
buttons on the steering wheel and cruise control with brake
function among other things.
The MINI comes with a 2.0-litre petrol tank and a 4-cyl-
inder engine backed by MINI TwinPower Turbo technology.
The All4 system also comes with in-built electrohydraulic
regulation functionality. The MINI JCW can go from 0 to 100
km/h in just 6.3 seconds, and comes with a shooting brake
concept never seen before in the compact segment. It also has
an auxiliary radiator for additional cooling. These performance
numbers are really good for this segment.
As for looks, the MINI goes for a sporty look with the JCW
logo on the radiator grille, side scuttles and the rear. Its got
5 seats on the inside, each with integrated headrests, and a
steering wheel dressed in signature JCW leather. In terms of
personalisation, the MINI offers a lot of options. There are a
number of paint colors, roof colors in various contrasts, stripes,
and wheel variation, as well as an available red-themed interior
to replace the standard black themed interior.
MINI is no stranger to the hot-hatchback segment of cars,
with its focus being on building smart and fun to drive small
cars. With this one, MINI has truly entered the four-door
hatchback section in full throttle!
Pagani Huayra
Hermes Edition
M anny Khoshbin is known for owning a rather mind-
blowing fleet of cars, from the McLaren P1, and the
Bugatti Veyron, to the Porsche Carrera GT. So you can be sure
that the latest addition to his fleet would have to be quite
droolworthy. Introducing the one of a kind Pagani Huayra
Hermes Edition, with its own unique aerodynamics, suspen-
sion, and exhaust. It comes with slightly larger wheels as
well. The brand has partnered with Hermes for the very first
time in order to create this beast exclusively for Khoshbin.
Hermes of course has rolled out specially styled travel bags
to match the car itself and they even threw in a Birkin bag
for Khoshbins wife as well. The customization to the Pagani
Huayra Hermes Edition are all part of the Tempesta package
offered by the brand, and while this Huayra is one of the last
to use the Tempesta, we can be sure to see more of it in other
departments of the brand in the near future.
www.digit.in | January
www.digit.in | January | Digit||Digit
2017 2017 21 | 21
GREED AUTO

Ferrari J50
N ow, owning a Ferrari is a big deal,
but theres a select class of elite
folk for whom a normal Ferrari just
wont do. Well, Ferrari has a solution
for them, and it comes in form of
the limited edition Ferrari J50. The
name J50 comes from the brand
celebrating their 50th anniversary
in Japan, with 50 representing the
year and the J for Japan of course.
The J50 is the result of the Fer-
raris Special Projects department
working with the companys styling
center team in Maranello in order
to invoke a feeling of nostalgia. The
J50 is hugely inspired in design by
the Ferraris of the 70s and the 80s.
Through the polycarbonate cover you
can see the 3.9-litre turbocharged
V8 which powers this beast and
delivers a whopping 680 bhp. The
limited edition Ferrari J50 is limited
in all senses of the word, with there
being only 10 units, each priced at
a whopping 2.5 million Euros, not
including taxes; but were sure all 10
units have probably already sold out.

Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe Night Edition

T he Night Edition is the latest to
join Mercedes-Benz S-Class range
and it looks like the best-looking Benz
to launch this year. In the words of
Mercedes-Benz themselves, the Night
Edition combines the classic propor-
tions of a Gran Turismo with modern
luxury and start of the art technology.
The Night Edition is also the largest
two-door car by Mercedes-Benz yet. If
it wasnt implied enough by the name,
the Night Edition comes in all black.
The window sill inserts, the grilles,
the AMG alloy wheels, its all been
blackened. The outside mirrors are also
a shadowy tone to add to the dark aesthetic. For the interiors, will be dressed in Luxe Nappa leather in the chosen colours.
the buyer can choose the color of the cabin from a selec- In addition to that buyers can also pick the engine that
tion of combinations such as black/black, crystal gray/black, powers this beauty, with choices ranging between different
saddle brown/black and Bengal red/black. The steering wheel engines from 367 to 455 hp and rear or four wheel drive.

22 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 GREED
DROOL
MAAL
Get your drool on and behold some
of the fanciest, ostentatious and drop
dead gorgeous things money can buy.
Droolworthy?
Casio MR-G Gold
Hammer Tone
W hen you think G-Shock you think sporty watches. Casios
G-Shock watches are easily recognisable for not only
their appearance but their ruggedness and sturdiness as well.
But that doesnt mean that a G-Shock cant go the luxury
way. The all-new G-Shock MR-G Hammer Tone model was
handcrafted in Japan and was made using the tradition Tsu-i-ki
method in which the each bezel and band is hammered indi-
vidually to create a unique pattern.
This watch marks Casios second collaboration with the
master metal craftsman Bihou Asano. The Tsu-i-ki method
was used to individually hammer each of the 300 watches
that were produced. Special tools were used to accomodate
for the small size of the bracelet and the links. The MR-G
Hammer Tone features a titanium case and bracelet band, a
non-reflective sapphire crystal, GPS satellite sync for accuracy
and comes with Multiband 6 and Tough Solar capabilities. As
expected of a G-Shock its quite rugged, with shock resistance
and water resistance upto 200M. Each of the watches will be
priced at $6200 at launch.
Also, the watch boasts of dozens of useful features -
ranging from GPS time sync to stopwatch. The watch is pow-
ered by an 18-month battery charged by solar cells. The case
is 49.8mm in diameter and 16.9mm thick, while the functions
include world time function, chronograph, countdown timer,
alarm, perpetual calendar, battery indicator and backlight.
The watch will be available starting January 2017 and, as
we mentioned earlier, will be limited edition. The craftsman-
ship combined with the exclusivety justifies the MR in the
name, which stands for Majesty+Reality.
Trump Engraved
iPhone 7
B efore you ask, this in no way has anything to do with
politics or who we support. Coincidentally enough, this
Gold Trump emblazoned iPhone 7 is now in existence thanks
to Russian Company Caviar, who are known for their extrava-
gant designs. This custom iPhone has been created by the
brand to honor Trumps iconic win. The iPhone features a
gold plated portrait of Trump on the back and also features,
in gold of course, his iconic campaign slogan, Make America
Great Again. The manufacturers aim to better the relations
between the two countries with this as well.
They also desire to hand over one of these to Donald
Trump himself. These exclusive Trumpified iPhones can be
purchased for $3100 and are probably a must buy for the
die-hard Trump supporters out there. So pretty soon, Donald
Trump might be tweeting about Donald Trump from a Donald
Trump iPhone - are you feeling Trumped yet?
www.digit.in| |January
www.digit.in 2017| |Digit
January2017 Digit| |23
23
 GREED DROOLMAAL

The Undersea
Aquahoverer
W hen it comes to personal submarines,
there are quite a few designs out there
to choose from, but the more recent design
introduced by Hammacher Schlemmer is
proving to be far more versatile in comparison
to its competition. The Undersea Aquahoverer is a
submersible vehicle that allows for easy driving under water
thanks to a hovering mechanism it uses to keep it in place.
This unique vehicle has been designed in such a way that itll
automatically hover in water when its not being driven. This want to look at
means it doesnt need any additional instruments or weights underwater, which is
to balance it underwater. precisely why this is the ideal personal submarine for enthu-
The Undersea Aquahoverer can accommodate two pas- siasts of the aquatic kind; that is, if youre willing to dish out
sengers at a time and comes with six 400RPM, 1.2-kilowatt the $15 million needed to get one of these.
ducted propellers and a rechargeable 15kWH battery. The However, if you do decide to get one of these, here are a
Aquahoverer is easy to drive in any direction and you can few things you could do immediately - find Nemo, solve the
park it anywhere near reefs, or wrecks, or whatever it is you Bermuda triangle, and locate Atlantis.

Ixoost Esavox
W e realise that the name does
indeed sound like a spell one
would read in a Harry Potter book
but the Ixoost Esavox is actually a
speaker system. A speaker system
inspired by Lamborghini and their
flagship Aventador. A lot of us would
love to own a Lamborghini of our
own, but not all of can dish out the
$200,000 needed to actually buy one,
so instead, you can have an Ixoost
Esavox parked in your garage. These
speakers are crafted from a carbon
monocoque chassis and houses two
8-inch carbon woofers on either side.
Its also got dual 1 inch tweeters on
the exhaust pipes and a mammoth
15-inch neodymium subwoofer in
the centre which in itself outs 200
watts bringing the total output to
800 watts. You can connect to the
speakers via Bluetooth and its got
an RCA input as well. Just like its
inspiration, the Ixoost Esavox is
designed to turn heads, and sure, you
could get a lot more for its $21,000
price tag, but its a Lamborghini.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 25

GREED DROOLMAAL

MAINGEAR Rush APP WATCH

1ofONE Reos Camera
Smartphone camera apps are

T he Maingear Rush 1ofONE is a custom gaming PC born of

a collaboration between gaming PC maker Maingear and
the soda behemoth Coca-Cola. This custom gaming PC is a
sight to behold and has an actual glass coke bottle used in its
design. However, the liquid inside the bottle is not Coca-Cola,
dont worry. It is in fact, Maingears hand crafted Crystal
Hardline liquid cooling. As for specs, this baby packs quite the
punch and is fitted with an
Intel i7-6950X 10-Core
CPU, two Nvidia GTX
1080s, HyperX Fury 16GB
DDR4-2666 RAM, Sam-
sung 950 Pro 512GB M.2
NVMe and an EVGA X99
Micro 2. Maingear have
stated that the Coca-Cola
PC is one of many more
to come in the 1ofONE
series, and were excited
to see the rest.
aplenty on the app stores, with
a lot of me-toos and some with
their own unique features. Reos
Cameras complete feature set
make it feel like a Swiss Army
Knife of Camera apps. The app has
dynamic filters and adjustments in
both the photo and video modes,
which let you preview the content
before clicking it. Also, there is a
Prisma-like Artify mode, where,
just like Prisma, you can apply artistic effects on your
image. But the best part is the Search mode. Here, when
you click an image of an object, the app first recognises
the object and then shows you links to similar objects
being sold online. It worked every single time we tried it!
Play Store: http://dgit.in/ReosCamPS
Adobe Photoshop Fix
Adobe has a host of apps available
for smartphones, and one of the
most useful ones is Photoshop
Fix. Bringing some of the most

AB-100 Spectre useful Photoshop features to your

smartphone, the app truly lets you
play around with the image. And

W hat makes the AB-100 Spectre special among yachts?

Well for one thing, its powered by three 1900hp engines
which give it a cruise speed of 45 knots and a top speed of
one of the most unique features on
the app is the Face editing mode
under the Liquify feature set. It
a whopping 54 knots. For a 100 foot long boat, thats very identifies your facial features and
gives useful sliders to alter them
impressive. Every bit of this yacht is beautifully designed,
- like making you smile more. If only it was that easy in
with a top-grade galley to a living area with a massive flat
real life!
screen TV. The main deck has large lateral windows flooding
the place with natural lighting and then, of course, theres a Play Store: http://dgit.in/PSFixPS
winding staircase to the top deck where you can relax and App Store: http://dgit.in/PSFixAS
take in the sights. There also 3 fully sized bedrooms too, so
you have room for guests as well. Nice.
The AB-100 Spectre does something that most yachts
Recipe Book
One of the top apps of 2016
strive to achieve, bring both speed and style together. While
according to the Google Play
the price for this incredible yacht is yet to be announced, you
Store, Recipe Book goes on to
can be sure that youre going to need a rather sizeable budget show that sometimes simplicity is
to be able to acquire this beauty. the best possible design principle.
With useful suggestions on the
homepage and inspiring blogs on
the Get Inspired section, even
an aspiring cook will soon get
something going (or burning) with
this one. Interesting features?
ShakenMake lets you choose 2 or
more ingredients then shake the phone to see suggested
recipes, while Snapncook lets you snap the ingredients
and then suggests recipes based on whats identified.

Play Store: http://dgit.in/RBookPS

App Store: http://dgit.in/RBookAS

26 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 TEMPTATION
CRITIQUE
In this section, we put stuff through the
grinder and closely examine what comes
out; everything except gadgets, because
theres more to life than just that
MOVIE
Arrival
Another sci-fi movie that messes with your head
with automata and the
works but Arrival pre-
sents a different concept.
Challenging the subject of
something as fundamental
as language, without which
no intelligent life-form
can advance. The movie
emphasises on telling a
story about communica-
tion and compassion, and
makes us introspect about
our reactions should we
encounter a being of the
third kind. Arrival belongs
I
to one of those rare movies
f youre asked to that makes you question
imagine a sci-fi movie, reality, leaving a lasting
you might tend impression in your mind.
towards movies like A recommended watch for
2001: A Space Odyssey, every sci-fi fan.
Total Recall, Blade Runner,
Alien, etc. You tend to Rating:
picture a mechanised world Abhijit Dey
John Wick 2
Retirement never comes
easy for the super-
assassin John Wick as
hes forced to jump into
the midst of battle to
save his own skin from
all those whom he had
considered colleagues
all these years.
MOVIE
Rogue One
Officially, Episode 3.5
W
hen news
of massive
reshoots
spread,
quite a lot of us lost heart
for the spin-off/prequel/
somewhere-in-the-middle
movie from the Star Wars
universe. Given that very
less of the trailers actually
made it to the final movie,
were very thankful to the
studio for bringing on Tony
Gilroy to fix Rogue One. In
its final form, the movie
assuages all worries that
one might have had about
the Mads Mikkelsen and
Ben Mendelsohn starrer.
Thats right, were arent
going to mention Felicity
Jones or Diego Luna,
because they make the most
of whats wrong about the
movie. Heck, K-2SO, the
droid voiced by Alan Tudyk
Resident Evil - The
Final Chapter
Alice and the Umbrella
Corporations hatred
for each other shall be
put to the test as the
final installment (we
hope) in the series takes
Alice back to where it
all began, Racoon City!
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 27
was way better at getting
emotions across among the
tiresome trio. The pivotal
moment in front of the
entire council felt so bland
that it made watching paint
dry relatively exciting.
The set designs, use of
practical effects, and oh! The
space battles were so well
done, that they immediately
make one forget about the
lead actors. Add to that, the
X-Wing Red and Gold squad-
rons buzzing all over the
place to add a sense of battle
chaos. CGI Tarkin certainly
pulled off a better job as well.
And theres another CGI
character that wasnt so well
done, but we arent going to
spoil that for you now so go
watch the movie dammit!
The spin-offs offer a
steady stream of Star Wars
content aside from the
animated TV series but
we believe that we might
get a little jaded from all
of it. Overall, the movie
has accomplished what it
set out to do, explore the
events between Episodes
III and IV while not overly
depending on the classic
characters to act as pall-
bearers to what might have
been a drastic failure.
Rating:
Mithun Mohandas
Underworld -
Blood Wars
Selene has to fend off
attacks from the Lycans
and the Vampires
while she attempts to
finally end the eternal
battle between the
two factions. Could
this be the last?
 Feature A lamp with Alexa
The current state of AI reveals one GE made a circular lamp simply called LED

Digital life 32 big picture - AI is the tech of 2017

and the near future.
Lamp, with Amazons Alexa smart assistant
build into it. http://dgit.in/AlexaLmp

CHAPT
PROJECT GUETR 1 -
ENBERG
PROLOGUE - THE FIRST SIGNS F or the next step, we
ward to the later ha
20th century. In 19
jump for-
lf of the
71, University

I n the early 1900s, phonographic books of Illinois student

Michael Hart
were marketed but didnt work due to got unlimited acces
s to the Xerox
impractical durations. Even with further Sigma V computer
in the Mate-
developments, it couldnt match up to print. rials Research lab on
campus. To
So what pushed it further? The demands return the favour, Ha
rt wanted to
of blinded war veterans from World War do something that
would benefit
II to read and learn. Also, in the year 1949, everyone. He took
up a project to
Angela Ruiz Robles, a Spanish teacher, digitize more than
10,000 books
invented an automated book reader la by the end of the
20th century,
Enciclopedia Mecnica or the Mechan- now known as Proje
ct Gutenberg.
ical Encyclopedia with the objective of To start with, he typ
ed in the entire
reducing the weight of the books her stu- Declaration of Inde
pendence and
dents had to carry every day. While these declared it on ARPA
net as down-
facts are not exactly about e-books, they loadable. Six people
downloaded
were important for the world to realise that it and the first e-boo
k was born.
the printed word can also be improved.

Arnab Mukherjee
arnab@digit.in

28 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Planet melting warning 1.9 MP action camera
Climate scientists reported that recently a Casio announces a new rugged action camera
chunk of sea ice the size of India melted near specifically designed to be used in the dark.
Antarctica. http://dgit.in/iceIndiamlt http://dgit.in/CasioNcam Origins

CHAPTER 2 - OCR -
THE EBOOK SUPERCHARGER

W hile Project Gutenberg was started

with the best intentions, the initial
output was slow due to the process being
BACKSTORY 1 - OCR

followed - each book would be typed

in manually by Michael or a volunteer.
B asic OCR technology was being used as
early as 1914. Yes, even handheld versions.
We are talking about the Optophone here, a
It reached its 10th ebook in 1989 with
device built for the sightless, that could scan
the King James Bible. Around this time,
the letters on a paper and produce a corre-
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) was
sponding tone which the listener would be
sufficiently advanced to directly speed up
trained to identify. Initial speeds were around
the ebook creation process. Companies
one word per minute but this went up to 19-20
like ABBYY make OCR accessible to gen-
words a minute by the 1920s. The time period
eral public. And as the volumes increased,
from 1970 to 1990 can be said to have truly
more people joined the efforts of Hart to
brought OCR to the forefront of digitizing
take Project Gutenberg forward.
the written word, with significant develop-
ments like the first commercial handheld
OCR scanner from the Caere Corporation,
omnifont recognition from Kurzweil Com-
puter Products Inc. and similar products
from ABBYY.

CHAPTER 3 - THE INTERACTABLE BOOK

M uch before electronic books had been perfected, some part of the
interest in the field had moved towards creating and experiencing
interactive books books where the user could interact with the flow of the
story. And even here there is some general misconception regarding the
first. Eastgate Systems Afternoon, written by Michael Joyce and released
in 1987 on the floppy disk, is widely named as the first hypertext fiction and
often confused to be the first interactive book, where, in fact, there have been
multiple examples in the same decade. A popular one was The Hobbit (1982)
where the user progressed the story by typing instructions into it, although
IMAGING: BAIJU NV

it can be argued that this was more of a game than a book.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 29

 Butt vs face recognition Fitbit buys Pebble
Researchers found out that chimpanzees can Health tech company Fitbit officially
recognise each others butts the way human announces that they are buying smartwatch
Origins recognises faces. http://dgit.in/buttRcgnse maker Pebble. http://dgit.in/fitbitPble

BACKSTORY 3 - EBOOK FORMATS

M eanwhile, the world of ebooks was facing an issue that echoes

across any new digital media and technology development -
CHAPTER 4 - INTERNET - lack of standardisation. As ebooks were growing with the internet,
THE E-BOOK ARRIVES major software companies were each pushing their own specific for-
mats. Adobe released its Portable Document Format (PDF) in 1993.
Due to features like platform independence, DRM support, semantic
structure, PDF did gain its fair share of popularity over just using
W ith the arrival of the internet in
the early 1990s, the potential of
e-books was recognized. Tim Berners-
XML, which was the practice at the time. However, one of its advan-
tages was also its biggest problem - it displayed documents as they
Lees original vision with the internet would be printed, irrespective of device screen size.
was to facilitate the sharing of informa-
tion freely and this began to take shape
immediately as books being shared
online. In 1993, Bibliobytes, the first
online store for ebooks launched. Also
John Mark Ockerbloom, who was then
a Carnegie Mellon University student,
launched Online Books Page as a web-
site that facilitates access to books that CHAPTER 5 -
are freely readable over the Internet. EREADERS ARRIVE

T hanks to improving bat-

tery capacity, ebook readers
became a possibility around the
late 1990s. The Rocket eBook
was released in 1998. With an
LCD screen, it could store up to
BACKSTORY 2 - E-INK 10 ebooks and sold upto 20,000
units till 1999. It had its own pro-

T he concept behind electronic paper displays

existed since the 1970s. But it took more than
20 years for it to come into any kind of realisation.
prietary format as the Rocket
eBook format.

In the year 1995, physicist Joseph Jacobson and a

few undergrads at the MIT media lab were trying to
create a multi-page electronic book where content
would change at the push of a button. While their ini-
tial approach was to manipulate half-black and half-
white spheres using electric charge, an accidental
creation of all-white spheres combined with failures
of the original idea led them to the discovery of e-ink.
They put the all-white and black spheres into a micro- BACKSTORY 3 - PART 2
capsule with dark dye and thats what went on to

become the E-ink which they patented the same year.
This was obviously improved upon in years to come.
In the year 2019, works like Felix Saltens Bambi and Kahlil
Gibrans The Prophet along with more will enter the public
domain. Why is 2019 special? Check out the copyright extensions
enforced by the US government over the last century.
T
he PDF format didnt work for mobile devices. As the tech
world was increasingly moving towards smaller devices,
including smaller portable e-readers, there was the need for a
flexible format. The first move towards this was the Mobipocket
ebook file format created by Mobipocket.com. This formats
extensions are .mobi and .prc. It could take more complex con-
tent as compared to existing standards. For example, readers
can add their own pages, freehand drawings, etc

30 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 $20,000 for bug finders Uber buys AI Company
Nintendo launches a new program that offers Uber acquires Geometric Intelligence, a
rewards upto $20,000 to find bugs on its 3DS startup co-founded by AI researchers to
game console. http://dgit.in/NntndoBug create an AI lab. http://dgit.in/uberAIlab Origins

Booktrack is an app that lets you read soundtracked ebooks for free. Go
ahead and see if you like it.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing - Popular self publishing service from Amazon,
that lets you publish your book on Amazons global store, has actually seen satu-
ration in recent times and people are shying away from eBooks because of that.

CHAPTER 7 -
THE KINDLE

CHAPTER 6 - E-INK,
MEET E-READERS
I t was in 2004 when Jeff
Bezos took on the goal
to make the worlds best
e-reader. However, it took
them three years to build it and

A significant part of the

reading experience with
normal books comes from its
in November 2007, Amazon
launched the original Kindle
priced at $399, which sold out
make. One noteworthy detractor in five and a half hours. Soon,
was this - looking at books for even tablet manuacturers like
hours was definitely nowhere Acer would be benefiting from
close to being as stressful to the the sudden demand.
eye as staring at an LCD screen.
But that changed with the Sony
Librie and the e-ink technology.

BACKSTORY 3 - PART 3

T he need for a standardised

format for ebooks was rec-
ognised in the 1990s itself. In the EPILOGUE
later half of that decade, a con-
sortium was formed to develop
the Open eBook format that would
allow eBooks to work on different I t wouldnt be too wrong to say that the ebook, as a
technology, has only seen marginal innovations in
the recent times. On the other hand, it would be fool-
hardware and software platforms
equally well. Significantly, the hardy to say that print book sales are not being affected.
format involved the creation of an At some point, they are bound to find an optimal
XML manifest that would identify middle ground. Who knows, maybe ebook technology
the components of the book like combined with hardware advancements will someday
the cover art, spine text, table of replace bookshelves with e-reader shelves?
contents, etc. It was this format
that would later be developed into
EPUB, the most widely supported
ebook format now.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 31

 The Expanse season two Mars mission delayed
Based on the novels by James S.A. Corey, the Mars One will delay its Mars colonisation
Si-Fi TV series is back for a season two. timeline to 2031 in order to raise more money.
Feature http://dgit.in/ExpnsS2 http://dgit.in/Mars1dlyd

Its [A]l[I]ve
If 2016 was the
year of VR, then 2017
is the year of AI

Mithun Mohandas
mithun@digit.in

P
rimarily pictured in movies
as that evil entity which
threatens all of mankind, the
future of Artificial Intelli-
gence (AI) seems a long way from what
we see today. Current AI are simply
decision makers, very good decision
makers, with millions and millions of
data inputs being factored to generate
elaborate binary trees which form the
brains. And with hardware pushing
the boundaries, were enabling these AI
to become smarter at an unprecedented
pace. The growth of AI has been so
rapid, that some of the smartest minds
on the planet have rung the alarm
bells. So how do these simple decision
making AIs pose such a threat to man-
kind? To understand that, we need to
have a look at the state of AI so far.

A primer on Machine
Learning
Machine Learning has been around
for ages, and in the simplest sense it is
about building machines that can learn
without being explicitly programmed.
It boils down to creating a set of condi-
tions for pattern recognition and then
the computer is fed a lot of data using
which it hones these preset conditions
to increase levels of accuracy. The
data sets are also monitored during
the learning phase to ensure that the
right kind of conditions are learnt by
the system. This is the training phase
where the data thats fed to the system
is handpicked. Once the training phase
is over, we provide a few data sets to see
how well the system has trained itself,
this being the validation test. Based on
the validation set, the system might
need to be tweaked again to ensure
accuracy. And lastly, we have testing,
wherein real world data sets are given
to see if the classification performed is
up to human standard. The system is
then put into production.
A relatable example is that of
recommender systems which can be
found on ecommerce web sites and
on multimedia portals like Netflix.
Suppose you show interest in certain
products or movies by watching them
or by regularly browsing sections
related to said movies. Soon enough,

32 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Atari 2600 in Minecraft
Gamer, Seth Bling builds the ancient Atari
gaming in Minecraft console using thousands
of command blocks. http://dgit.in/AtriMncrft
every movie or product in recom-
mended section piques your interest.
Thats a very benign implementation of
machine learning.
Milestones in 2016
They can beat you are your
own game
2016 began with a flurry of news
articles lauding the numerous victo-
ries of AlphaGo, a Google Deepmind
computer program which can play the
board game Go. It started by taking
baby-steps, learning the game and its
different strategies and then moved
on to besting humans in October 2015
without handicaps. Five months down
the line in March 2016, it had won in a
best-of-five against Lee Sedol. For those
whore coming across this name for
the first time, Lee Sedol is a 9-dan (top
Go world rank) professional player.
In just five months, using current gen
technology, an AI had become the very
best in the human scale.
THE match: AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol
They can speak your language
Another key development was that of
Google Neural Machine Translation,
which is now used for Googles Trans-
late service. With a little help from the
Google Brain team, the folks behind the
project were able to reduce translation
errors in complex languages like Man-
darin by 60 per cent compared to their
previous phrase-based algorithms.
This was in September 2016, and in
just one month, the researchers behind
the project have announced work on
Zero-Shot Translation. Till now, all the
103 languages that Google Translate
had to work on had separate computing
machines. With Zero-Shot Transla-
tion, they aim to do away with all of
them and replace that with just one
Microsoft Build 2017
Microsoft announces that its 2017 annual
build developer conference will take place
10th-12th May, 2017 http://dgit.in/MSb2017
extremely powerful system. Theyve
already put the system in practice for a
few languages and are scaling it slowly.
They can single you out
Weve spoken about games and
languages, both key domains for ML.
Another such key domain is that of
visual recognition. Industrial applica-
tions, like that of security, which have
hundreds of cameras tied into one com-
puter, which analyses each video feed
frame-by-frame, have already been
around for a while. Human behav-
ioural traits are now being learnt by
these systems to mark individuals out
from the crowd. Theres even a startup
called AllGoVision which has already
put into production a system that can
detect loitering, tailgating, suspicious
objects and more.
To take things to the extreme end,
scientists have developed a neural
network that can identify criminals
just by looking at photos. Students at
the Shanghai Jiao Tong University fed
1,586 photographs of men, half of which
were criminals, to a system which then
learnt to identify criminals with a 89.5
per cent accuracy. No background data
was provided whatsoever, so the only
metric were their faces.
They can read your lips
The folks at the University of Oxford
seem to have grown tired of the BBC
anchors voices, so much that they
came up with the Watch, Listen,
Attend and Spell neural model. Be it
just plain audio, or video or both, this
machine learning model can accurately
transcribe speech into characters with
a higher accuracy than professional lip-
readers. The system was so good, that it
surpassed all previous benchmarks for
lip-reading based on the same data sets.
Lip reading accuracy has improved
Feature
They can speak for you
Googles been keeping Brain quite busy
they recently published a paper intro-
ducing WaveNet, a deep neural net-
work for generating raw audio forms.
This is simply a text to speech system,
except that it doesnt sound robotic
anymore. Parametric systems, i.e. the
ones youre all quite familiar with, be
it at public airports, or your operating
systems friendly voice, uses snippets
of audios which are stitched together
to form words. These sound very
monotonous but when you get a neural
Adobes VoCo is PhotoShop for audio
network to analyse millions of audio
files, it can generate the same sentence
with a much higher resolution. Imagine
current gen systems as having indi-
vidual audio files for each letter. Based
on their position in a word or sentence,
a particular audio file would be played.
Now this is the equivalent of a highly
pixelated image. Now imagine if more
audio files were used per alphabet,
youd have tonality. Now go one level
deeper with even more files per sound.
You now have WaveNet, which speaks
very much like a human being.
One thing that politicians will be
blaming each time theyre misquoted
will be Adobes VoCo. Why? Well,
its photoshop for audio. Just like
WaveNet, it can take an audio stream
from a person, transcribe it, allow you
to edit the sentence and play it back
in their own voice! This technology
was expected but no one expected it to
materialise this quick. While it does
raise several concerns about ethics,
and how digital media could no longer
be used as evidence in the courtroom,
it sure does make for a really cool tech-
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 33
 Fuel from humans
Researchers at PNNL developed a new
method to produce biofuel from human
Feature excrements.
nology. The advent of photo manipula-
tion tools raised similar concerns but
that hasnt screwed up the legal system
and we dont expect this to either.
Adobe has themselves said that theyre
working to detect use of its software
so if at all any fraudulent evidence is
presented, theyll know if it was made
using VoCo technology.
They can learn on their own
Weve seen how far machine learning
algorithms have come and how
the hardware advances, especially
the GPUs, have really pushed the
boundaries of machine learning to
new extremes. However, one thing
remains quite constant, a human expert
is always required to perform certain
key tasks that set a machine learning
system on its path. The human element
is required to preprocess the data,
select the key parameters, select the
most apt ML algorithm for the learning
to begin, tweak the system to ensure
accuracy during the training phase and
lastly, to precisely analyse if the system
is doing what it set out to do.
With AutoML, you can say goodbye
to the humans. This rapid growth of
ML in the last few years has led to an
increased demand for ML solutions
that work out of the box requiring
next to no expertise to set up. AutoML
does exactly that. It provides an array
of tools that any novice can apply on
a set of data from simple metadata
learning to traditional algorithms that
use Bayesian classification. It wont
be long before complex AI can finally
build and improve itself over time.
They can keep secrets
Another one from the folks at Google
Brain, this experiment involved set-
ting up three neural networks which
could all communicate with each other.
Two of them, Bob and Alice, shared a
secret key which was used to encrypt
communication between the two. And
the third neural network, called Eve,
was the snoop whod try to eavesdrop
on the conversation between Bob and
Alice. Eves success was measured by
how accurate her interpretation of the
34 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
http://dgit.in/BiofuelHE
secret communication was. And Alice
and Bobs success was measured with
reference to how less of their conversa-
tion could be decrypted by Eve.
This resulted in an adversarial
network between the three entities
with improvements happening over
time. Bob and Alice became very good
at generating an inhumanly powerful
encryption that Eve could not crack.
Thats right, robots just created encryp-
tion methods that even other powerful
robots could not crack. The techniques
by which these new methods were
arrived at are way advanced than how
humans have done so far.
All aboard the Open
Source train
2016 was a huge year for AI and quite
a lot of these have gone the open source
way. Google announced the open
sourcing of Tensor Flow and started
supported Keras, a deep learning
library for Python. Microsoft then
went ahead and did the same with
Google opensourced TensorFlow
CNTK (Cognitive Tool Kit), their set
of learning algorithms. The Chinese
web-services company, Baidu, also
open sourced their libraries under the
name PaddlePaddle. Amazon has opted
to implement MXNet in their AWS
ML platform and lastly, Facebook is
backing Torch and Caffe.
2017 will be bigger
While 2016 has already accomplished
so much, 2017 looks to be even bigger
with leaps of advancement being
predicted in every single domain. But
two things stand out chatbots and
self-driving automobiles. While there
Verizon fiber connection
Verizon begins rolling out its new $300 million
FiOS fiber connection in Boston, US. Learn
more about it here: http://dgit.in/VriznFbr
have been a few setbacks for chatbots
this year, namely, Microsofts Tay going
on racist rants thanks for hundreds of
thousands of Twitter users feeding it
racist diatribe, the year 2017 seems to
be a lot more promising. Googles Allo,
Amazons Alexa, Apples Siri are all
paving the way forward with better
interpretation of natural requests and
responses becoming more intuitive
and natural. Given the rapid pace of
improvements, we hope to see a lot
more human-like chatbots in 2017.
Self-driving automobiles are doing
well enough but there have been a few
legal setbacks and theyre still to gain
mainstream acceptance. 2017 should
probably be the year when public
transportations systems gain a level of
autonomy post. The consumer segment
should follow right behind but given
the push back from the traditional
automotive industry, this could take
a few more years. Nevertheless, 2017
will see a huge leap in at least industrial
applications for the self-driving vehicle.
Closer to the singularity
One of the prime reasons why Stephen
Hawking and Elon Musk are worried
is that once AI achieves the ability to
communicate secretly and teach itself
It will give rise to a runaway effect
resulting in a super intelligence. Mr.
Hawking, in an interview with the BBC
said that, It would take off on its own,
and redesign itself at an ever increasing
rate. Humans, who are limited by slow
biological evolution, couldnt compete,
and would be superseded.
Elon Musk on the other hand is
worried about just one company which
he hasnt named yet, but he decided
to do something about it. And thus,
OpenAI was born. Its a non-profit
AI company with an aim to develop
friendly AI that hopefully doesnt end
up like HAL 9000 from Arthur C.
Clarkes Space Odyssey.
Whether we get superseded by
machines as the dominant race or if
we form a peaceful society where AI
and humans can co-exist remains to be
seen, but one things for certain, this
will happen in our lifetime.
 Bose hearing aid Web version for Moments
Bose, the headphone company is working Photo-sharing service Moments by Facebook
on a new hearing aid headphones. Learn rolls out a new lightweight web version of the app
more here: http://dgit.in/BoseHrAd http://dgit.in/MomntsWeb Feature

Are
Smartwatches
here to stay?
We look at state of wearables, two years
on from the Moto 360s debut

Arjun Krishna Lal IoT in an interconnected cally change your surroundings and
feedback@digit.in world the experiences of the people around

A
h, yes, about those weara-
bles... If you were to step
aside for a moment and
look at contemporary
consumer tech, youd be forgiven
for thinking we were halfway to
Minority Report. (Or, considering that
social credit people rating system
the Chinese are keen to implement,
halfway to Black Mirror.) In any case,
theres been an absolute consumer tech
explosion since Steve Jobs introduced
the iPhone to the world 10 years ago;
the ways in which we interact with
tech, and more importantly, how
often, have changed fundamentally.
The rise of the Internet of Things, in
particular, has shaped our changing
interactions with tech. IoT is a concept
that takes into consideration every
single connected device in the world
smart appliances, mobile devices,
embedded sensors, and security
systems. In an IoT environment, your
interface with the machine isnt bound
to your personal terminal, whether
thats a smartphone or wearable. Your
device becomes a hub for inputs and
outputs from every device connected
to that environment. Imagine that kind
of power: See and hear anything, at
any time. Grant and restrict access to
both real and virtual systems. Physi-
you. All this, right at your fingertips.
Are wearables here to stay?
And thats what brings us to wearables,
smartwatches and fitness bands. On the
surface, theyre the kind of tech thats
straight out of an eighties sci-fi movie.
Theyre supposed to be the magic pill to
an interconnected IoT worldthe kind
of thing that just screams youre here
in the future. But reality isnt quite this
straightforward. Are smartwatches
truly a step forward for communica-
tion, or are they really just tiny, wonky
little half-phones with no real inde-
pendent connectivity that you stick on
your wrist because, well, the future?

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 35

 Nintendo theme park
Nintendo and Universal are working on a Super
Nintendo World theme park to open by 2020.
Feature http://dgit.in/SprNntndoWrld
Smartwatches are pretty cool to look
at, and they can do a lot of interesting
stuff if you set them up right. The
question, though, is, in these times of
rapid technological change, when we
might just leapfrog from VR goggles to
smart contacts in ten years, do smart-
watches have a future? Are smart-
watches our interface with tomorrow?
What smartwatches can
(and cant) do
If we want to answer that question,
we need to first look at what smart-
watches can actually do, in the here
and now. As well argue later, its not
so much that theres a shortage of use
cases for smartwatches. Rather, low
adoption rates, amateur software, and
a fragmented ecosystem mean that the
solutions are rarely more effective than
what you could just get done with your
phone. Sports and fitness are among
some of the use cases where smart-
watches really shine, and can give your
phone a run for its money in terms of
features and convenience. While we
cant speak for the Apple Watch, the
360 does a great job of fitness tracking.
When you head out for a jog, Android
Wear devices do a good job of keeping
track of your timing, distance, and
heart-rate (with the rather dubious
heart-rate monitor on the Moto 360).
And while much of this is possible with
a pedometer app on your phone, the
increased convenience of smartwatches
really makes a difference here. Also, its
one of the few cases where you dont
need an active phone connection to
your watch. Unfortunately, personal
fitness isnt much of a priority for many,
and a cheap fitness band, like the Mi
Band, can get your virtually all of this
functionality at a fraction of the price.
While the latest generation of
smartwatches feature standalone
mobile internet connectivity, most of
the devices out in the wild, including
the first and second-gen Moto 360, are
entirely reliant on a Bluetooth-paired
phone to connect. While standalone
connectivity is a step in the right direc-
tion, most smartwatches are inextri-
cably tied to their paired phones. This
36 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Panasonics shopping system
Panasonic releases a demo of their new shopping system
that can automatically bag and generate your bills
http://dgit.in/PansoncBl
reduces their utility right from the get
go because it introduces an element of
redundancy: whatevers on your watch
has been passed through from your
phone where its almost certainly avail-
able in more detail. Because of Android
Wears inherent limitations, you really
cant get a full-fledged app experience
on your watch: Although WhatsApp,
Moto 360 2nd Gen
for instance, displays your current
messages, you dont get to see the whole
history, and cant even type out replies
without using a third-party input
method. Although Android Wear 2.0
is slated to ease things in this respect
with handwriting support, and the
ability for apps to run independently of
your phonebetween the small screen
and the limited battery life making it
necessary to leave said screen switched
off as much as possible, youre just not
going to have a comparable experience
to what you can do with a phone thats
only a pocket-whip away.
The use-case dilemma
There are quite a few cases where the
Android Wear solution is compelling,
but its either a hassle to set up, or
where redundancy makes pulling out
your phone as easy an alternative. Take
media centre remotes, for instance. In
theory, a media remote that works off
Android Wear is the perfect comple-
ment for a laid-back living room Netflix
binge. In practice, the complex jerry-
rigging thats going on here, with your
watch talking to your phone, thats
talking to your HTPC, means that con-
nection drop-outs are the rule, rather
than the exception. Its cool to use, and
the convenience is tantalizing, but at
the end of the day, youre apt to just pull
out your phone, and use that to control
your media centre. E-book reading
is another area where, surprisingly,
Wear does have its uses. The unassum-
ingly named Wear Reader makes best
possible use of limited screen space:
it flashes words at you, one by one,
onscreen. This works a lot better than
you think it would, and if you dont
mind flipping ermrewinding when-
ever you lose focus, its a surprisingly
easy way to read, though it does run
through your battery. But the question
that arises here is, again, why cant
you just pull out your phone? Because
of the greater amount of screen space,
theres no need for gimmicky flashing
of any kind. Market evidence points to
precisely what wed expect for a device
that people just cant find a suitable
niche for in their lives: A Gartner
survey indicates that smartwatches
have a 29 per cent abandonment rate. In
other words, one in three smartwatches
is currently gathering dust in a drawer
because their owners havent been
able to find compelling uses for them.
Although the lack of a mature app
environment is a concern, the real
issue here is a bit more fundamental:
As things stand now, there arent a lot
use cases where software is tailored
towards a wearable experience. There is
so much more that a connected device
on your wrist ought to be able to do
than merely act as a second screen for
your smartphone. While native mes-
saging options are rudimentaryvoice
commands and a small selection of auto
replies are about itthird party options
like Coffee and Wear Messenger are
surprisingly complete messaging solu-
tions. There are all kinds of situations
where its not feasible or appropriate to
pull out your smartphone. Shooting off
quick messages from Wearthe Wher
r u varietywithout pulling yourself
out of whatever youre doing, is a solu-
tion that only a wearable device can
offer. With Android Wear 2.0 featuring
 SyncThink for athletes
SyncThink is a new device that uses VR to help
understand concussions in athletes with more
accuracy. http://dgit.in/SyncThnkvr
much deeper messaging integration,
this makes for at least one compelling
reason to get your hands on a wearable
next year.
Lessons Learned: Android
Wear and usability
Considering, though, that most
smartwatches out on the market run
hardware that was top-spec for a
2010-11 era smartphone, isnt there a
more straightforward way of getting
past software limitations? Lets go back
to 2011 and the little-known story of
the MOTOACTV. The 360 isnt the
first mainstream smartwatch to hit
the market. But, strangely enough, its
not even Motorolas first smartwatch.
That honour goes to the MOTOACTV.
Back in 2011, Motorola decided, for
some reason, to out what was essen-
tially a 1-inch Android tablet with
a wrist strap. The MOTOACTV ran
full-fat Android, and could handle
just about any Android app you
threw at it. The problem was that
menu items were shrunk to unus-
able proportions, making the watch
unsuitable for just about anything
apart from Watch and fitness function-
ality. Which is probably why it didnt
sell so well. And by extension why
Android Wear is as simplified as it is.
When we put smartwatches in the
context of an IoT-enabled world, this
is a major concern. The watch, if its
role is to be taken seriously, needs to
be a hub device. It needs to let the user
communicate with multiple devices
Huawei Watch Classic Style
Slack takes on Skype
Slack, the workplace collaboration platform
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at the same time. Without some form
of multitasking support at the OS
level, an Android Wear smartwatch
would simply not be capable of acting
as an effective IoT hub. A problem
thats much harder to solve, though,
is consumer apathy: As of Q3 2016,
smartwatch sales are down to around
2.7 million units, a substantial decline
from the 5.6 million units shipped in
the same period last year. This is a frac-
tion of a fraction of smartphone sales,
or even just watch sales for the same
time period. Without a large user base,
big-name developers tend not to release
content for the platform. Without con-
tent, users dont see the need to buy into
the platform, and the platform devel-
oper doesnt see the need in improving
the platform itself. A fundamental
rewrite of Android Weargoing
far beyond the Wear 2.0 paradigm,
allowing for true multitasking (not just
semi-persistent music player control)
and a feature-rich interfacecould
remedy these issues, but as is always
the case, its demand that shapes prod-
ucts, and right now, theres just not that
kind of demand in the market.
A wearable future?
Where could wearables go from here,
though? Although the current crop of
smartwatches is less than useful, we
dont think that wearables, as a cat-
egory, are a complete write-off. Looking
to sci-fi (which, by the way, is turning
out to be a remarkably accurate way
of predicting the near future), smart
eyewear is likely whats next on the
horizon. Google Glass never did pick
up, even as a concept. It faced many of
the same issues faced by Android Wear
devices today, only magnified: Glass
was never a market-ready product, and
the high price of the Explorer Edition
put off most would-be buyers right off
the bat. A dearth of Glass-enabled apps
(of which there are fewer than 100)
meant that there just wasnt much you
could do with your Glass unit. One of
these is titled Google Glass Airplane
Mode, which should give you an idea
of the state of Glasss app environment.
But just like with Android Wear today,
Feature
the real killer was Glasss lack of pur-
pose. If a Wear device is a scaled-down
second screen for your phone, Google
Glass is merely a blown up, head-
mounted screen for the same. More-
over, the very real privacy concerns
that Glass introduced cant be under-
stated, with casinos and theatres ban-
ning its use. While security concerns
with smartwatches arent quite as in-
your-face, many people simply remain
uncomfortable with the idea of easily
concealable wearables being misused.
Nevertheless, with products like
Microsofts Hololens and the myste-
Google Glass never made it
rious Magic Leap adopting the eyewear
form factor, and with the current flour-
ishing of consumer VR, wed be hard-
put to identify where else the wearable
story could go.
Although sales are, indeed, in
decline, we find it hard to see smart-
watches disappearing as a product
category anytime soon. Theres just
something evocative about consumer
tech that just blends into the rest of
your life. At times, using an Android
Wear device like the Moto 360 can feel
like a burden: too much effort, too little
payoff. But the way it just is, somehow
a watch and yet not, the way it takes the
familiar and inverts it, evokes the way
sci-fi technology once appeared, years
ago. Its the familiar masking some-
thing new, and thats the real beauty
of the IoT, a dusty, scrappy Internet of
wardrobes and induction cookers and
venetian blinds. And watches.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 37

Sci-Tech 42
SOLAR ENERGY
IS THE TIME RIPE FOR
Dhinoj Dings
feedback@digit.in
T
eslas project of powering
an entire American island
using solar power, freeing the
citizens from depending on
diesel energy has revived the excite-
ment surrounding solar power. Is it a
one-off or has the time truly come for
solar energy?
Its no secret that the sun is a great
source of energy. After all, it is what
powers all the living things on this
planet! In fact, the sun showers on the
earth enough energy to take care of the
worlds power requirements multiple
times over.
On the plus side, it doesnt produce
carbon dioxide emissions. So, you
wouldnt have to worry about adverse
environmental effects on that front.
Another advantage is that the sun is
practically inexhaustible. Also, the sun
38 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
From the labs
Gone are the days when sensors were
simple technology these are the
sensors of the future.
THE DREAM NOW?
doesnt charge any money for making
use of its energy!
So, the question is how the people
on earth can turn the sunlight into
electricity that we can use?
How to harness energy
from the sun
To do this, old-school solar technology
makes use of large crystals that are
made of silicon. These crystals generate
electrical current when struck with
light. The reason why silicon does this
A red boiling pot of energy
Space age
A Superluminous Supernova a.k.a
45 Hypernova is a high energy star explosion
that looks stunning as well as scary.
is because the electrons in the crystal
move when they are exposed to light.
(In many materials, the electrons would
just jiggle around when struck by light-
the reason why heat is generated.)
Inside a crystal, the bonds that exist
between the silicon atoms are made of
electrons which are shared among the
atoms in the crystal. When the light is
absorbed, sometimes an electron in a
bond gets excited up to a high energy
level and therefore is able to move more
freely than when it was bound. This
means that the electron can now freely
move around in the crystal, resulting in
a current in the crystal.
Silicon has the advantage of turning
a decent amount of the light energy into
electrical energy.
The downside to using
silicon
The downside is that its quite expensive
since big crystals arent easy to grow.
 6S battery problems
Apple announces a repair program for
some iPhone 6S models regarding battery
issues. http://dgit.in/6Sapleisue
But there is some good news: newer
materials make use of smaller and
cheaper crystals like copper-indium-
gallium-selenide. These can even be
shaped into thin flexible films. This is
called the thin-film solar technology.
But the catch is that this technology
isnt as good when it comes to turning
light into electricity compared to
silicon. Even in the U.S the wealthiest
nation in the world, solar energy
accounts for just a small portion of
their complete electricity generation
the reason being, of course, the expense
involved. Generating electricity from
coal is cheaper but highly polluting.
To get a perspective on how expen-
sive solar power is at the moment, it
would be about five times as expensive
Efficient but costly
as what you pay for the electricity
which comes out of the power outlets in
your home.
This cost-factor has been a major
reason why the world hasnt been
able to adopt solar panels widely even
though they have been considered as a
way to replace fossil fuels.
Is the action of solar cells
similar to photosynthesis?
One comparison that many laymen
make is between the functioning of
solar cells and photosynthesis. But
thats not entirely an accurate com-
parison. For instead of just creating
electricity, plants absorb light and use
the electron to alter a chemical bond
within the plant-meaning they generate
fuel for their consumption.
Now, it would be super-cool if
scientists were able to create a solar cell
which, instead of creating electricity,
made fuel. Aside from the fuel-advan-
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South Korean automaker, Hyundai is
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Photosynthesis: a different ballgame
tage, it would also help deal with the
effects of global warming because by
mimicking a plant, the solar cell would
also be taking in the CO2 from the air to
generate the fuel.
The power efficiency of a cell
Since we use solar cells to capture
sunlight and turn it into electricity, its
worth looking at the power efficiency of
a typical crystalline silicon cell.
The power efficacy of such a cell is in
the range of 22 to 23 percent (meaning,
22 or 23 percent of light that strikes
a cell is converted into electricity).
But thats the case with the industrial
variant. The ones which are affordable
for an individual to put on the rooftop
have a power efficacy that lies some-
where within the 15 to 18 percent range.
The most efficient variants are the ones
that are used in satellites these could
have power efficiencies which approach
a whopping 50 percent.
More power to you
Powering an entire island
with solar energy
Solar City Corporation is one of the
more significant players in the solar
energy products arena. Based in
America, the company recently merged
with the Elon Musk-led Tesla. Even
though the merger was completed
Tomorrows Tech
mere weeks back, a glimpse of what
such a union could bring to the world
has already been shown in the way
of an entire island thats powered with
solar energy.
The island in question is the small
island of Tau in American Samoa. Its
over 4,000 miles from the West Coast
of the United States. The island is a
17-square mile volcanic island that has
just a single road that runs through it.
The project made use of the prowess
of SolarCity power generation and
Teslas Powerpack-based storage.
Before this, the island was relying a lot
on a diesel generator grid.
The reliance on diesel as a fuel to
generate power isnt all that unique.
Many island communities rely on
burning fossil fuel to maintain an elec-
trical grid. However, using a fuel which
has to be shipped in at great costs from
long distances poses a large number of
problems. Also, such a scenario causes
a lot of temporary blackouts. The costs
of solar generally can be recouped
only in a long time once the grid power
becomes convenient and easily avail-
able. However, the financial benefits get
accrued way more quickly when you
are shipping in fuel and burning it as
the sole source of energy.
For the Tau grid project, a SolarCity
panel array was created thats made
of more than 5.300 panels with the
An island charged by the sun
capability of generating 1.4 megawatts
of solar capacity. This was clubbed with
a Tesla Powerpack commercial battery
storage facility that has a capability of
storing 6 megawatt hours of reserve
capability in 60 Powerpacks. The
resultant micro-grid could bring three
full days worth of power for the islands
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 39
 Oxehealth heartbeat monitor
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residents- 600 at maximum capacity.
Also, the entire unit can recharge
completely with only seven hours of
straight sunlight exposure.
Since Tau is pretty remote, the
citizens of the island were very much
used to frequent power rationing,
outages and also a high dependency
on diesel generators. The core services
of the island include schools, the local
hospital and police station. Thanks
to the installation of the micro-grid,
they dont have to worry about power
rationing or outages anymore.
Aside from bringing energy to the
islanders, the project also enables the
island to save enormously on energy
costs and also offset the use of over
109,500 gallons of diesel a year.
Also, to the credit of the two com-
panies involved, Tesla and SolarCitys
Tau microgrid project was put together
from start to finish within just a year.
And with the project, almost 100 per-
cent of the islands energy requirements
are met by renewable sources.
How valid is the project as
a proof of concept?
There exists no doubt that the Tau pro-
ject is a landmark project in the journey
of using the sun as a source of energy.
But how valid is it as a proof of concept?
To find the viability of a solar energy
project, five aspects are to be looked
into before start:
1. The cost of setting up the plant
2. What it means to be economically
viable
3. The solar power thats expected to be
generated
4. The required solar power for the
citizenry
5. The environmental impact
1. The cost of setting up the plant
One of the reasons why solar power
plants are being erected in more
number than ever before is the fall
in price of silicon over the past half a
decade or so. As per a conservative esti-
mate, putting up a 100 kw plant would
cost just over a crore in Indian rupees.
The Solar City project has a solar
generation capacity of 1.4 megawatts
40 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
(the 6 megawatts of battery storage
capacity is in addition to this).
This means that the cost for the pro-
ject of this size would fall in the range
of `14 to 15 Cr.
2. Economic viability
Due to the generally higher rate of infla-
tion in India as opposed to developed
countries like the USA, 15% is consid-
ered to be an acceptable rate of return
for the country (for a developed nation,
that could be 8%).
However, in addition to the return,
one should also take into account the
Operation & Maintenance cost which
usually falls in the range of 1% of the
project cost.
Therefore, the return (expected) +
O&M cost = 16% (In India) and 9%(in
developed countries.
As for the Tau project the factors
such as the exact return expected are
not yet available for public consump-
tion. However, confidence-inducing
statements have come from Tesla to
its stakeholders. Also, the benefit of
the project is already being enjoyed
by the islanders. This success would
moreover be viewed as a way to attract
more potential clients for Tesla. In that
sense, the return expected is seriously
long-term and theres every reason to
assume that they are justified in it.
3. Expected solar power
generation
The amount of solar energy generated
is dependent on a few factors- like the
ambient temperature, radiation and
the technology that is used. Out of
these, temperature and radiation are
in turn location-dependent. Its said
that a 95% accurate generation esti-
mate is now possible thanks to sophis-
ticated meteorological databases that
are available.
For instance, a 100 kw solar power
plant in the USA would give be able to
generate 1,76,804 units while in India,
the same plant would create 1,78, 321
units every year.
The Tau island is located in a part of
the world where the sunlight is ample.
This means its safe enough to estimate
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that the number of units produced are
comparatively higher than in most of
the North American regions.
4. The required solar power of
the citizenry
The solar project is already fulfilling
almost the complete power require-
ments of the island. This Tesla and
Solar City has already proven. This
means that the energy created by the
plant is sufficient for the citizenry.
5. The environmental impact
Apparently, a huge amount of forest
land had to be cleared to set up the
plant (The exact area mowed down is
still not easily available with varied
information coming from different
sources). However, thanks to the pro-
ject, more than 4 lakh liters of diesel
would be offset every year the island
was previously dependent on diesel to
meet their power requirement.
While factors such a rising fuel cost
and the cost of transporting such huge
quantities to the island are taken in to
consideration, the long term financial
gains are significant.
Other concerns
One of the major peripheral concerns
would be the power generation capa-
bilities in adverse weather conditions.
The storage capacity for the project
comes around 6 MWwhich by even
the most extreme estimates would suf-
fice for the island in a situation when
they wouldnt have ample sunlight even
for prolonged days.
Final analysis
The project has the advantage of a
location that gets ample sunlight and
which has been reliant on fossil fuel,
the offsetting of which in itself makes
the project viable.
The environmental cost could be
justified in this instance due to the
aforementioned reason. And that is one
point in which the critics may find the
project less than adaptable universally
the justification for clearing huge
swatches of land may not exist in all
kinds of places.
 Hackers sentence quadrupled!
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That aside, in terms of power gen-
eration and backup, and also the long
term viability, the project is an ample
proof of concept.
Tesla and SolarCity
merger-what it means for
the future of solar energy
The merger between Tesla and Solar-
City has both critics and those who
think it a great move for the future of
solar energy.
As for Tesla, the hope probably
is that the Tau project would act as
an example that attracts potential
customers. Also, on a commercial scale,
Musk actually believes that the solar
battery part of the business would one
day cross the market for Teslas. There
are, after all a number of places in the
world where the appeal for reliable,
independent power runs higher than
that for electrical vehicles.
The future in the making?
Also, looking at their just concluded-
project, the Tau islands location off the
West Coast could be a great advantage
for Tesla. Its a great location to harness
the energy of the sun. Also, the pos-
sibility of expansion exists. Whether
more locations can be supplied with
energy by expanding the grid or not is
something to be seen in the future.
Tesla completed the acquisition of
SolarCity for $2.6 billion. And though
the CEO, Elon Musk said the need for
such a merger is blindingly obvious
the acquisition is still considered a
risky move by many. The critics say
that after all, the billions have been
spent on buying a company thats not
yet profitable. For every $1 that the firm
makes, it spends $6.
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Microsoft is seriously working on its Windows
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Troubling as that aspect may be, the
fact remains that Tesla is one of the few
companies that have actually shown
a pro-active interest in investing in
green-energy technology. And as for
SolarCity, its certainly a fact that they
were a comparatively small player. But
on the other hand, they also possess a
strong acumen on building solar tech-
nology products. What they lacked was
the ability to scale up in such a way that
the technology would impact a large
population in the least amount of time.
But thanks to the acquisition by
Tesla, that issue has now been solved,
or so we can hope. In the final analysis,
its safe to say that the merger holds
great promise for the future. In a fragile
planet, everything depends on the pace
with which such things happen.
Kamuthi Solar Power
Project and the shape of
things to come
The worlds largest single location solar
power project has been launched in
Kamuthi in Ramanathapuram district
in Tamil Nadu. The project, which has
been launched by the Adani Green
Energy (which is the energy wing of
the Adani Group) has a capacity of
648 megawatts(MW). The investment
for the project is a whopping `4,550
crore. The plant is spread over an area
of 2,500 acres- thats enough land to
organize 476 parallel football fields.
It contains 25 lakh individual solar
panels which are cleaned every day by
a robotic system. This robotic system
itself is powered with solar energy-
meaning the entire system is self-sus-
taining. The project would bring clean
energy to 1.5 lakh homes.
The sheer size of the plant puts it
at the center of discussions regarding
the nations ambitions to be certainly
among the worlds leading green
energy generators.
To bring the mammoth project to
life, about 8,500 people worked. This
way, about 11 MW of installation was
set up each day and the entire plant was
completed in just 8 months. The power
plant comes as part of the Tamil Nadu
state governments plans to create 3
Tomorrows Tech
GW of solar power inline. Let us hope
that the plan succeeds.
Before this, the title for the largest
single-location solar plant belonged to
Californias Topaz Solar Farm (with a
capacity of 550 MW).
India has made a decision to source
40 percent of the 100 GW power
requirement using rooftop solar. If
practical manifestations of the deci-
sion happen, it would mean that we
are in for a sea change in the energy
production arena in India. The reason
Fields of a solar dream
such a decision was made was because
rooftop solar incurs practically no
land acquisition cost and very little
transmission cost because the dis-
tance between the consumers and the
solar panels is the shortest.
Its Tata Power which presently has
the largest solar installed capacity in
the nation (approx. 9 percent). This is
followed by ACME (7 percent) and Sun-
Edison (approx. 5.5 percent). The Adani
group has amassed 5 percent.
While we could expect big-sized
projects in the near future too, the
writing on the wall is clear: For the
common man, the biggest source of
renewable energy would come from
rooftop solar panels. So, the real revolu-
tion, from the everyday perspective,
would not be brought by bigger plants
but by the average Joe.
Interestingly, as a consequence, the
one who benefits the most from this
would also be the average Joe. Rooftop
solar cell installations will eventu-
ally become self sustainable when
the consumer is sufficiently educated
regarding the process. On such a day,
energy would be truly free.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 41
 6-screen Video chat Sensitive Robot hands
Facebook Messenger is launching a new group At the Cornell University, researchers build
chat feature where upto 6 different people can a robotic hand that detect shape, softness
From the labs video chat at once. http://dgit.in/FBnewVchat and textures. http://dgit.in/SenseBot

Sensors of the
Future
Gyroscopes and accelerometers are so last gen. Heres an in-depth
look at the new wave of sensors that are likely to be at the heart of
upcoming consumer devices. EEG/EOG sensors, arrays of swarm
sensors, self-powered sensors and biodegradable sensors are just
the tip of the iceberg - sensor technology is set to revolutionize
industry, research and consumer electronics.

Aabir Abubaker The logical progression of thought sound, light, speed and location - they
feedback@digit.in was - what if other inputs could be lose out on chemical information like

T
he popular yardstick (though
one that has lost relevance in
the last decade) for progress
in technology appears to have
comfortably settled to Moores Law. Its
somewhat strange that this continues
to be the popularly perceived rate of
progress in the world of electronics,
robotics and their applications. In fact,
the obsession with processing power
often shadows the equally exciting devel-
opments in algorithms, architecture, and
the focus of this article - sensors.
Whats a sensor good for?
Sensor technology had its humble
origins in the tactile switch - yes, the
very same button that you press to turn
on the lights. The concept is a general
one. A sensor must follow three very
simple rules:
1. It must be sensitive to a property of
interest
2. It must be insensitive to all other
properties
3. It should not influence the property
of interest
used to control similar outputs? The
boom in aircraft technology called for
a tremendous innovation in sensors in
the 60s, with the fly-by-wire, hands-
on control systems gradually being
phased out in lieu of slicker digital
interfaces. And the robotics boom (did
you know that robots probably sort
your mail?) put the cherry on top as
we entered the 2000s. Even so, ask
an average (tech-savvy!) kid on the
street to name some sensor types and
the answers you get will be limited to
accelerometers, gyroscopes, and per-
haps photodiodes (or light detectors,
as goes teenage jargon).
What are we missing out on here?
A whole lot, honestly. The 21st century
has ushered in a new wave of sensor-
based research that is set to completely
change the way we think of technology
and its capabilities. Its easy to see the
problems with conventional sensors.
Theyre bulky, heavy, fragile, need
batteries, and are bad for the environ-
ment. Ignoring aesthetics, consider
their functionality. Traditional sensors
are limited to coarse measurements of
smell, on collaborative sensing, on
very small inputs, and on most kinds
of subtle information. Even worse,
they often need to be treated with great
care, and are next to useless in extreme
conditions - imagine what youd need to
fly a drone over Mount Everest.
The 21st century, being the amazing
period of time that it is, has seen fit to
begin addressing all of these issues.
Micro- and Nano-sensors
Biological research has been the
driving force behind a lot of modern
sensor applications, and perhaps the
best example is micro- and nano-
sensor research. These are sensors
with an extreme scaling down - liter-
ally of the order of micro or nano-
metres in length. To put things in
perspective, the average cell is a few
micrometres across. Even with current
applications that are mainly tactile,
micro--sensors and robots at such
scales will give us the ability to treat
diseases at the cellular level, to monitor
wound healing to microcontrol drug
dosage. In the future, they could

42 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Djay Pro app on iPhone
The popular DJ application from the Mac
and iPads finally comes available for the
iPhones http://dgit.in/DjayProP
perhaps even replace cell organelles in
unhealthy cells, and in the very very
long term, repair the telomeres that
cap our DNA (whose wear has been
directly linked with aging). Nanosen-
sors open up a whole new paradigm.
Not only can they revolutionise medi-
cine with an unprecedented ability to
interact one-on-one with viruses, but
they will also induce huge strides in
materials science research.
Source: http://news.mit.edu/2015/sensor-detects-
spoiled-meat-0415
This device, based on modified carbon nanotubes, can
detect amines produced by decaying meat.
The thought of little robots swim-
ming around in our bloodstreams
might induce panic in some, and prac-
tical questions in others. How are these
devices going to be powered? What
happens when they wear out or need
maintenance? The answers lie respec-
tively in self-powered and biodegrad-
able sensing technologies.
Self-powered sensors
Research in self-powered sensing is
throwing up all kinds of innovative
answers. Work is currently being done
on sensors that can derive energy from
a heat difference (such as that between
a patients body and the surrounding
air), from radiation, from chemical
energy in compounds like stomach
acids, and even from vibrations (such
as the beating heart, or thermal cur-
rents in the oceans and skies). As
always, research is never unidirec-
tional, and the potential for self-
powered sensing is being extended to
almost any application where it would
be hard to keep replacing batteries.
Underground vibration monitoring
for earthquake and fault detection,
especially in high-risk areas around
fracking oilfields, is important.
Lenovo Zuk Edge
Lenovos new smartphone the Zuk Edge is the
cheapest Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 powered
smartphone. http://dgit.in/LenovoZedg
Biodegradable sensors
The concept of biodegradable sensing
offers a simple conundrum - the more
complex a part, the harder it is to
ensure that it disintegrates harmlessly.
The idea is to print circuitry on sheets
of silicon so thin that they dissolve in
water over a period of days to weeks.
The circuitry is wrapped in silk to
vary this time period - progress has
already been made with the fabrica-
tion of diodes as well
micro-cameras of this
type. The possible
applications of such
sensors are end-
less. Post-operative
care for sensitive
organs like the brain
and the heart often
involve the inser-
tion of sensors into
these organs, which
not only must be
removed at a later date, but can also
cause complications, swellings and
infections. The advent of innocuous
biodegradable sensors stands to
completely change this. The potential
to non-intrusively collect data on the
functioning of natural ecosystems,
especially sensitive ones like coral reefs
and rivers, also stands to gain.
Vibration and dust/particle
sensors
Vibration sensing research has
advanced to the extent that it is now
commonly used in both industry and
consumer applications. The running
of huge, hundreds of kiloWatt-hour
motors can throw up unexpected prob-
lems of alignment that quickly spiral
out of control, permanently damaging
often expensive equipment. Vibration
sensors, especially in their modern ava-
tars that provide compact, comprehen-
sive sensing of amplitude, frequency
and wave modes, allow such catastro-
phes to be avoided in the pumping,
automotive, manufacturing and power
generation industries. Vibration
sensing also has obvious applications
in motion sensing and security. Snakes,
commonly thought to have no sense of
From the labs
hearing because they lack an external
ear, can actually sense vibrations
very accurately via an organ in their
mouths. This allows them to pinpoint
with remarkable accuracy whenever
anything is moving around them.
Particle sensing equipment has been
a focus of sensor research with fairly
straightforward applications. Quality
control in factories, air conditioning
applications, effluent analysis for
toxins and particulates, and radiation
monitoring are now all processes that
can be easily and efficiently automated.
Chemical Reactant Sensors
While it doesnt look like were going
to have anything to compete with dogs
for their olfactory abilities in the near
future, it certainly behooves humans
to try their luck. And so we see
chemical reactant sensors, designed
as electronic noses that react with
specific compounds in the air to detect
biohazards, gas leaks, rust and even
alcohol on the breath!
Moisture sensors
Moisture sensing technology, though
rooted in the mid 1900s, has come
a long way - it no longer has to be
replaced as often, offers a long life,
low maintenance, and excellent
accuracy. For certain kinds of post-
Source: http://news.mit.edu/2014/wireless-chem-
ical-sensor-for-smartphone-1208
A wireless chemical sensor.
operative care, its extremely impor-
tant to keep a patient well-hydrated in
a humid environment (a moist wound
heals faster). Moisture sensing helps
out here. Also, with integration with
other sensors, smart refrigerators
can decide you shopping list for you
and modify the controls according to
whats inside.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 43

From the labs
Speaking of integration, its only
natural to question the efficacy of the
lone sensor, working in isolation. So
many kinds of useful insights can be
gathered from aggregations of data of
different kinds, and swarm sensors and
Ubiquitous Sensor Networks (USNs)
target an exploration of such potential.
Source: http://news.mit.edu/2016/nanobionic-
spinach-plants-detect-explosives-1031
By embedding spinach leaves with
carbon nanotubes, MIT engineers
have transformed spinach plants into
sensors that can detect explosives
and wirelessly relay that information
to a handheld device similar to a
smartphone.
Swarm sensors
Swarm sensors are now becoming the
norm in large-scale surveillance. The
idea behind swarms is to have a bunch
of sensors working in communication
and cooperation with each other so as
to gather maximally useful informa-
tion in the most efficient way. Simply
put, instead of having robots work
independently on the task at hand,
which might lead to redundancies or
wastage of resources, we train them
to work constructively, eliminating
waste. Swarms are today being used
to survey agricultural land, forests,
traffic routes, and even by space agen-
cies in their strategies for extraterres-
trial exploration.
Ubiquitous Sensor
Networks (USNs)
USNs incorporate the integration of
multiple kinds of sensors into one large
information processing pipeline - this
could include camera data, motions
sensors, vibration data, sound and so
on. USNs have tremendous applica-
tions in security and surveillance - with
efficient integration, they approach
the efficiency of a human guard, while
limiting the cost, and widening the
44 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
VSCO RAW images
Photography app VSCO now supports
RAW images for more phone photography
potential. http://dgit.in/VSCOraw
area under surveillance. Like many
technologies developed for defence, this
has also leaked out to the entertainment
industry - virtual reality is having a
ball with the scope that USNs offer. VR
now has the potential to react not just
to your hand movement - but to your
body temperature and facial expression
that distinguish a frantic wave for help
from a friendly one!
Self-healing Sensors
We come full circle with a return to
the scope that biological inspiration
offers sensing technology. Self-healing
sensors are under rapid development.
These are sensors that can actually
sense and repair themselves post
certain kinds of damage. The erstwhile
comic book fantasy of an exoskeleton
is thus under active development - this
might well define the warfare of the
21st century. Self-repairing membranes
for biological and chemical process
plants, protective clothing for sports
and adventures, as well as materials
science for protective sheets, tarpaulins
and roofs might eventually benefit from
strides in this area.
Galvanic skin response
sensors
Galvanic skin response sensors might
appear to be straight out of science
fiction. This remarkable technology
senses various features of the skin,
ranging from temperature to moisture,
and has managed to effectively cor-
relate these observations with emo-
tion and mood. Besides the obvious
applications to virtual reality (a mood
or reaction-dependant plot twist in a
movie or video game!), this creates the
potential to monitor and study mental
health and patient recovery in unprec-
edented detail. Similarly, it allows for
the potential to tailor air-conditioning
to individual preferences.!
EEG/EOG sensors
Electroencephalograms and electrooc-
ulograms (EEGs and EOGs) are a fas-
cinating subset of sensing technology
that track the electric fields produced
by fluctuations in brain and eye activity
Honor Magic
Chinese smartphone Honors new Magic
wont display notifications if it doesnt
recogise owner. http://dgit.in/HonrMgc
respectively. These have been linked
to certain determinate processes that
can be used to control all manner of
processes. Tests have revealed that
EEG data can be accurately used to
learn and replicate hand gestures from
human test subjects. Anywhere where
human skill is required remotely -
consider the example of underwater
welding, which would be greatly
simplified if a human could be sitting in
a control room, directing a robot will
be revolutionised by this technology.
EOGs offer a unique advantage - they
track eye movements, and can be used
in virtual reality, for attention measure-
ment and psychological research and a
host of other decisions. Consider data of
where a drivers eyes flit while driving
being used for the efficient design of
vehicular control systems.
With the advent of multidisciplinary
research, the possibilities for sensor
research are truly endless. Add to this
the interfacing, processing and learning
capabilities that are being rapidly
advanced, and you have a recipe for a
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/
tdeering/97706037/
A remote sensing protective glove
that can integrate galvanic skin
response, self-healing, self-powered
and other kinds of sensors. Photo for
representative purposes.
future that will be as unrecognizable
as it is unpredictable. Indeed, with the
Internet of Things, that allows all your
devices to interface with each other,
with self-driving cars, with virtual
reality - the world around us is already
starting to look somewhat surreal. If
we can expect a layman from the 1980s
to be startled by the technology we
take for granted today, its only logical
that humanity must be in for some big
surprises in the 21st century.
For a technophile - there has never
been a better time to be alive.
 Waymo is back OurMind hacks Netflix
Former Googles self-driving car project The infamous hacker group is up again. And
Waymo is working on collaborating this time the victims were Netflix and Marvel
with Honda. http://dgit.in/WaymoH twitter accounts. http://dgit.in/OMhacks Space Age

SUPERLUMINOUS
SUPERNOVAE
THE GORGEOUS MEGA-VILLAINS
OF OUTER SPACE
Souvik Das
souvik@digit.in

B
eauty, as they say, depends on
how you perceive it. The vast
space has eons of mysteries
tucked away in distant corners,
much of which we have not yet set sight
upon. However, our greatest scientific
and engineering efforts are reaching out
to see the farthest, darkest corners of
outer space with greater panache than
ever before. In this instance, what we
witnessed at the beginning of 2016 was
something that scientists and research-
ers are stating was a hypernova, or a
superluminous supernova.
For reference, a supernova itself is a
sight to behold. It is the sharp, violent
death of a star when it finally runs out of
its fuel, emitting immense amounts of en- The most beautiful moments are also the most violent
ergy and light and shining its brightest, be-
fore eventually fading and burning out. Yet multiple stages, and the overall phe- ple times brighter and more violent than
another type of supernova occurs when nomena has only recently come to light. that of a standard explosion. These are
two white stars, bigger than our dwarf star That itself is not really surprising, typically about 100 times brighter than
the Sun, collide with each other, leading to seeing how the first superluminous su- a supernova, and from what research-
the instability of their cores and a subse- pernovae are estimated to be only about ers have revealed so far, occur mostly
quent thermonuclear reaction. These, as a few billion light years away from us. because of exceptional circumstances
held by researchers, have a characteristic What is it, that makes such gargantuan - collision of giant stars or exceptional
type of luminance, hence forming a metric creations in outer space? How are they thermonuclear explosions being the
in the scaling of supernovae. formed, and what are the forces that more common of exceptional cases.
The latest type, however, is rarer, and are at play there? The research has only Although we have observed a
incomprehensibly more hostile. Super- about begun, but from what has been number of stellar deaths leading to this
luminous supernovae, as the name itself found, superluminous supernovae are as phenomenon, the entire range of causal
suggests, is something that is far more mesmerising as their very name. factors is not yet known. Out of the four
violent and hostile than the average broad categories into which supernovae
death of a star. These are brighter than What is a superluminous are classified, researchers have at least
the brightest, compounding immense supernova? experienced the corresponding super-
amounts of force and energy at the point Quite literally, a superluminous superno- luminous phenomenon of three types.
of explosion. They also occur across va is the explosion of a star that is multi- This relatively new field of research

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 45

 Super Marios record
Nintendos new Super Mario game on iOS
sets a new record with 40million downloads
Space Age in 4 days. http://dgit.in/SuperMR
has hence kept the precise postulates
under research, but we do seem to
have a fair idea.
Superluminous supernovae typically
last for over six months, as compared to
the duration of 2-3 weeks for a standard
supernova. The reactions, too, are differ-
ent in nature, and far more titanic than
the standard incident of the death of a
Now you know what happens when two
stars collide
star. Multiple causing factors have been
identified, of which we will talk about in
the next section. These are also believed
now to be a significant source of gamma
ray bursts in the cosmos, although con-
crete outtakes are yet to be derived of it.
As against a typical supernova, the
superluminous supernovae are said
to feature two sections in the stellar
explosion. Before the major explosion
that sustains over months and shines
consistently brighter than its surround-
ing galaxy for a much longer span, there
is a smaller, initial explosion - a starter
ignition of sorts - that leads to a subse-
quent dip spanning over a few days. It is
following this that there is a surge in the
energy and light emission of the superlu-
minous supernova.
This entire procedure is what makes
this phenomenon rare, extremely volatile
and unusual. There are even more titanic
explosions across our galaxies far, far
away (not akin the Death Star, of course)
that shine even brighter. For instance,
an explosion observed by the All-Sky
Automated Survey for Supernovae
(ASASSN) was from a source that takes
light 3.8 billion years to reach, and was
reportedly twice as bright as the largest
known superluminous supernova.
The reason of this explosion is now
being attributed to the impact of a gar-
46 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
gantuan black hole that literally ripped
a massive star apart, to create light and
energy that is 570 billion times higher
than the Suns peak light and energy
radiation. While this will indeed go down
as the death of a star, and technically
fall under a superluminous supernova,
our speculations would say that this is
certainly an infrequent occurrence. If
A giant star was torn apart to create the
brightest galactic observation yet
not, though, then we have forces out
there that are far greater than what we
have known of.
This, to sum up, is a superlumi-
nous supernova. The violent death of a
massive star, catalysed by anomalous
elements to form fireballs of energy that
is way beyond standard comprehension.
How do they occur, though?
This is how they are formed
Before we begin, it is essential to
understand that the causal factors of
a superluminous supernova are highly
unusual, and as such, have been pegged
as possibilities. Not always can the exact
reason of the formation of a superlu-
minous supernova be understood in
accordance to their type, simply because
of their highly complicated structure and
massive parameters of the explosions.
A supernova typically forms when
the core of a star collapses to give rise
to a gravitational pullback of energy.
When this happens, there are multiple
times when the core is too heavy, and
the cores explosive propulsion is not
enough to eject the outer shells of the
star. This leads to a silent death of a star
that ends up forming black holes.
Supernovae are formed only when
the core of the star weighs between 5
and 15 times the mass of our star, the
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Sun. When the gravitational collapse
of such a star begins, a faint super-
nova is produced when the star has
slow rotational rate. The slow speed
ejects smaller jets to outer orbits over
short distances, thereby forming the
essence of a standard, or in our case, a
faint supernova.
Considering the chemical constituen-
cy of the dying stars in our examples are
constant, a superluminous supernova
will occur only when the star has very
fast rotational speeds. This leads to light
and energy being spewed far beyond the
outer shells as the core falls through in
gravitational collapse, and these jets of
light and energy are relative in magni-
tude to the rotational speed. This is what
makes a more usual superluminous
supernova, which also leads to long
outbursts of gamma rays.
However, there are further questions
within the primary postulate of stellar
explosions leading to superluminous su-
pernovae. While the mass and rotational
speeds do contribute to the formation,
the chemical constituency is also a ma-
jor deciding factor on the feasibility of
titanic explosions. Typically, a star that
ends up in a superluminous supernova
has higher metallicity alongside the
The force is literally quite strong here
standard Hydrogen-Helium composi-
tion, which further leads to very high
surface temperatures and luminosity
at death. It is this that makes them
shine brighter and at significantly higher
temperatures for sustained durations, in
which it surpasses the energy given by a
standard supernova.
While the previous model explains
superluminous supernovae with high
gamma ray outbursts, the other expla-
nation is of stellar deaths that do not
 Hyundais robotic assistant
The South Korean auto-maker is working on
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contribute to gamma outbursts. This one
is fairly similar to the SN2005gl super-
nova observed in 2005, and the more re-
cent, still-under-debacle ASASSN-15lh
explosion. The reason for the formation
of superluminous energies here is the
consistent observation of how these
stars are embedded within correspond-
ing nebulae - a highly proactive galactic
When birthplace meets death
zone rich in circumstellar material.
These are the elements that give birth
to a star, and upon its death, the energy
jets react with the matter to create
visible shockwaves of stellar energy.
Interestingly, the formation of superlu-
minous supernovae from circumstellar
matter do not necessarily depend on the
constituency of the star, but more on its
spatial arrangement.
There are other observed processes
in the formation of massive superno-
vae, as well, but they get increasingly
rarer. For instance, super-massive stars
in the order of 260 times the mass of
Sun give rise to particles and antipar-
ticles upon explosion. The existence
of opposing matter leads to extremely
rapid partial collapse of the core, which
further causes simultaneous fusion of
matter aided by gravity, all of which
leads to the complete death of a star,
and an extreme magnitude of energy
and light repulsion that can be as much
as one hundred times more intense
than the highest standard supernova.
The process has not yet been con-
firmed in interstellar space, seeing that
the sheer size of stars that can have
such reactions are not present in our
immediate universe.
The birth of a magnetar, as explained
by Matthew Smith, post-doctoral re-
Improved eyecare
Microsoft Intellegent Network for Eyecare
plans to use machine learning to improve
eyecare in India. http://dgit.in/MSeyeIND
searcher at the University of Southamp-
ton to Phys.org, can also be a plausible
reason behind the birth of a superlumi-
nous supernova. The phenomenon would
involve the birth of a rapidly spinning
neutron star, preceded by extreme heat
and energy followed by rapid cooling.
While the rapid cooling observation
would be somewhat against a superlu-
High intensity deaths can be titanic in
magnitude
minous supernova, the observations are
so far being studied to collate further
information, before inferring.
Probability and geometry
The core collapse model also goes be-
yond probability factors of understand-
ing superluminous supernovae. Cosimo
Inserra and his team from Queens
University, Belfast, have obtained
spectropolarimetric data on recent
hypernova observations to affirm that
despite an asymmetric, spherical
pattern of the stars in explosion, the
formation pivots around a primary axis,
and the polarisation of matter changes
in time and wavelength.
This coincides with the core-collapse
model of a stars death, further proving
that while superluminous supernovae
have been much recent discoveries, they
have actually been an ancient phenom-
ena, and may not even be as rare going
beyond our present, engineering limits.
A new milestone for space
research
While not much have been attributed to
the impact of superluminous superno-
vae in terms of terrestrial impact, they
do contribute further to the study of
black holes, neutron stars and the core
Space Age
reactions in massive stars. It also lends
basis to the study of gamma radiation
bursts, which till the turn of the millen-
nium was a matter completely shrouded
in mystery. Even with the plausible ex-
planations, the matter of short-duration
gamma bursts still remain in question,
and the hypernovae only contribute to
long-duration bursts.
While hyper-size star theories still
remain in question because of the rarity,
a possible massive gamma radiation
burst has already been attributed to
the second-largest extinction ever on
Earth, during the Hirnantian Age of the
Ordovician Period, more than 440 million
years ago. While this was only ever a hy-
pothesis and no concrete evidence was
found, it may have been on the impact
of a massive stars violent death due to
matter-antimatter collision.
Our immediate future seems to
be more secure, and mankind has far
greater threat of extinction from global
climate change than from an immi-
nent hypernova. With every discovery
we escalate to a new height of stellar
explosion force that exceeds previous
gargantuan figures significantly. The
ongoing research on superluminous
supernovae is a major milestone for
Now this wont ever happen Hopefully
space research, because of these very
titanic forces at play. These aptly define
the endless borders of space, and how
practically infinite can the titanic nature
of forces be.
It is occurences like these that show
you the true power of nature. On the
other hand, it is truly a sight to behold.
And maybe someday we will find the
fourth type of supernova thats even
more awesome. How big would that be?
Let us know through your messages
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 47
 Cover story

IMAGING: PETERSON PJ
 Cover story

BY TEAM DIGIT
feedback@digit.in

M
ost people will look to do forward
looking stories on the first on January
of every year. Its a new year, there
are 12 whole months of things that
will happen, and in general, readers
are psychologically conditioned to
accept such stories. We were tempted to go down
that expected route too. Its a hell of a lot easier to
give you a list of expected launches and rumoured
features of the iPhone 8 and Samsung S8, etc.
And thats not to say we wont cover those stories
online ourselves, but for the magazine, we obvi-
ously wanted some depth something more
Whilst discussing story ideas we realised that a
lot of the things we were discussing were starting off
in 2017, or would be first on display in 2017, and this
led us to the conclusion that more than any other
year before, 2017 paints a much clearer picture of
what we can expect in our future. After a really long
time of mediocrity, finally 2017 promises to be a year
where science and technology will start to wow us
again like it used to do 10 or 15 years ago.
Another clarification we should make is that we
dont mean concepts in the way companies make
as well, because the former usually leads to increased
amounts of the latter. With no end in sight for popu-
lation growth just yet, its obvious that we need to do
other things to control climate change as of now.
One of those things is to deal with transport
caused pollution. Rapid transit systems are usually
inner city modes of transport typically metros or
subway systems, and theyre environmentally better
than everyone using their cars to get around the city.
However, its not just people transport that matters,
but also cargo, because most large cities are fed with
supplies from nearby towns or smaller cities.
Early in 2017, and right throughout, we will see a
lot of activity and testing by companies around Elon
Musks Hyperloop challenge. For those who dont
know, billionaire Elon Musk, whilst stuck in traffic,

concept gadgets those are often just designers
going wild with scribbles and are seldom based
in reality. The auto industry is famous for concept
drawings that look amazing, and then prototypes or
actual cars that look nothing like the original draw-
ings, because artists are not engineers, and dont
account for real-world scenarios.
When we say concepts, we mean something more
broader than a single design. We mean a conceptual
shift in the way we will live our lives in the future.
And we do mean we and not our grandkids,
because all of the concepts were covering are some-
thing we expect to see in our lifetimes as early as
within the next five to ten years!
Anyway, enough of the buildup, lets get to the
actual concepts. Remember to write in to feedback@
digit.in and tell us if we missed out on something,
or if you disagree with our concepts, or just want to
add something to the story the best letters will win
Digit T-Shirts.
SOURCE: WIKIMEDIA
Hyperloop concept art.
wished for a better transport system. While for most
of us this remains a daydream, billionaires have the
advantage of being able to fund their dreams. He
open sourced his idea, and encouraged more compa-
nies and scientists to get on board, and get on board
they did by the thousands.
There are currently many interesting candidates
from across the globe vying for testing time on the
few hyperloop test tracks there are, and 2017 is the
year we expect to see many of those tests being con-
ducted. Although we dont see this as being an inner
city rapid transit solution, we do see this first being
implemented to transport goods between closely
situated cities that have a lot of goods and cargo
exchange. Sadly, youll probably need

01 RAPID TRANSPORT /
TRANSIT
Lets face it, as each year passes, the
seriousness of two things increases
rapidly population and climate
change. Both are directly proportional
EXCITING EXAMPLES
http://dgit.in/MIThyprlp
http://dgit.in/vichyper
http://dgit.in/bdgrloop
a visa and a flight ticket to see it.
Currently, the first phase of selected
finalists for hyperloop testing will be
conducted at SpaceXs Hyperloop test
track between January 27-29, and then
Phase 2 in the summer of 2017.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 49

 Cover story
02 AUTOMATION
ROBOTICS
AND
Whether you like it or not, whether
you think of it as the coolest thing ever,
or youre fearing Judgement Day (as in
the Terminator movies), automation is
upon us.
Every other day we hear about a
new type of robot being developed
in labs, and then there are products
available to actually buy. Robot vacuum
cleaners, for one, are now so common-
place that theyre not these rare things
that billionaires have in their homes.
When travelling abroad, inevitably
you come across one in someones
home. You can buy really cheap ones
for as little as ` 1,000, and the original
SOURCE: WIKIMEDIA
TOSYs Topio 3.0 humanoid robot
playing table tennis.
Roomba series costs between `15,000
and `50,000 (not billionaire territory).
Robot pets arent even fun any-
more. In fact, as 2017 passes us by, its
not the kids who will be playing with
robots, but more so the adults if you
know what we mean. Yes, commercial
sexbots are going to become widely
available to a lot of people starting
2017, and experts believe that by 2050
we will see people marrying robots!
While that may be too far away to be an
accurate prediction its typically the
sex industry that brings in cutting edge
technology. Its not just human-looking
bots that will be hot in 2017, but also
apps and accessories for smartphones.
We expect a lot of first-world countries
to start using apps that help youerr
fornicate with real people
in a virtual setting. Both
bots and apps like these NANO, NANO!
are, in essence, the safest http://dgit.in/MoleyMR
form of sex there will be. http://dgit.in/lsrRobot
Bots wont just http://dgit.in/KnightS
be appealing to your http://dgit.in/AIAEpdf
sexuality in 2017 though
50 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
there is a robot chef set to go on sale
in 2017, and it might mean the end of
cooking for all of us. Well all of us with
loads of space and a minimum of $15,000
(just over ` 10 lakh). The
price depends on how
UNREAL LINKS
popular the demand
is, and eventual retail http://dgit.in/AEthernity
price could be as high as http://dgit.in/ARcrime
$75,000 (` 50 lakh). People http://dgit.in/IntelmVR
buy cars that are way more
expensive, and you would
think that those people would also want
a chef cooked meal everyday yes, the
kitchen watches chefs wearing motion
capture equipment when they cook, and
replicate the dish they prepare (and they
copy better than any human ever could).
You can buy a recipe from something
akin to an app store, and tell the robot
chef to cook your dinner while youre on
your way home, so that you get a nice hot
meal as soon as you arrive. This is way
better than any sexbot in our opinion!
03 WHATS REAL?
With the big push VR saw in
2016, which directly followed the 3D
push from a couple of years before that,
the trend seems to be pretty straightfor-
ward to spot. We want a lot of fake stuff
to appear to be very, very real.
Whether its gamers who want to be
immersed into real-looking environ-
ments, or movie watchers who want to
be a part of the action, or even simpler
YouTube style videos where we just
want to be able to do our own thing
VR is certainly here to stay. Now, were
well aware that VR and AR arent new
technologies, in fact weve been using
AR (using Blippar) on our covers for
over two years now.
What will be new in 2017, and what
you will see happening (or perhaps
not see happening), is the integration
of it into more than just the entertain-
ment field.
Weve already mentioned the
umm private entertainment aspect
of tech in the previous
segment. That applies
doubly here to VR and
AR as well, but were not
going there
Instead, there are
concepts of AR being
used in detective work
and crime scene investigations. For
example, the Netherlands Forensic
Institute are experimenting with AR
to help an on scene officer get help
from a crime scene
expert who could be
anywhere else on Earth.
The officers body cam
sends video to the
expert, they mark items
of importance, which
sends an update to the
officers smartphone (or VR headset if
they so please), and you have the best
crime scene investigators on call for
challenging cases, without the need
to arrange travel for them. The AR
system will be made available to some
police departments in 2017.
However, why stop at AR and VR if
you can simulate yourself? A new con-
cept called Augmented eternity aims
to use AI to make a virtual you! Being
developed jointly by MIT Media Labs
and Ryerson University (Toronto), this
concept aims to use the same machine
learning that any big shopping website
uses in their recommendation engines
to analyse your purchases and suggest
items to try and get you to spend more
money Except, this is that engine on
some serious steroids! The goal is to
SOURCE: FLICKR
Razers OSVR Hacker Dev Kit.
completely analyse everything you do,
learn from you until the day you die,
and then take over and continue to be
you (virtually and digitally, of course).
The idea is that if you want to know in
the year 2100, What would Obama
have done?, you can just ask Virtual
Obama, and get a pretty good estimate.
In fact, since the virtual you continues
to get new information and make deci-
sions or have opinions, it wont even
be you, it will be some form of you
that never died and kept living and
updating itself!

04 NEW ENERGY
In a recent blog post, Googles
senior VP, Technical Infrastructure
wrote about Google being set to reach
100% renewable energy in 2017. So,
every single Google search done,
every email you send via GMail, every
YouTube video you watch, every
Google Adsense ad you ignore on sites,
app you download from the Google
Play Store everything Google that
you use uses up energy from a server
somewhere. Heck, those of you using
CORADIA ILINT, REGIONAL TRAIN, SALZGITTER (GERMANY).
COPYRIGHT: ALSTOM / MICHAEL WITTWER
This train actually runs on hydrogen!
Googles free DNS servers every
time you click on a domain name you
havent been to before, you ask a Google
server for an IP address All of that
humongous data flow, all of a million or
so servers (Googles datacentre costs are
supposedly $20 billion a year), all of
the energy used by Google officeswill
be powered by renewable energy!
Now thats quite a feat, and Google
will be the first large company to
achieve this. Google is already the
worlds largest corporate buyer of
renewable energy (non-fossil fuel
energy), and it only buys solar and
wind energy currently. Understand
that Google is not off the grid, run-
ning on its own solar panels and
windmills their servers are way
too important to risk a cloudy day
suddenly resulting in YouTube going
down! Instead, Google
is paying the electric
suppliers the premium MORE SHOCKS?
rate necessary for the http://dgit.in/REnergy100
supplier to purchase that http://dgit.in/ToyotaD
amount of power from http://dgit.in/iLint
a green and renewable
electricity producer (such as a wind
farm or a solar farm).
Hydrogen is another fuel thats
showing promise, and its
relatively cheap to make
PUT THESE ON
because its extracted
from water, and when it http://dgit.in/SmrtPrkw
is burnt, the only exhaust http://dgit.in/MITwear
product is water, making
it a very desirable fuel
source indeed. Another way to use
hydrogen power is to use hydrogen fuel
cells which uses hydrogen and oxygen
as the anode and cathode (respectively)
of a battery to produce electricity and
water as the only waste product.
Amongst others, Toyota is one car
manufacturer working on a hydrogen
powered car. We mention them
because at the time of writing this their
concept happens to be the one most
recently released.
Theres also a train that has been
developed recently that will use
hydrogen fuel cells to power it. It will
run at speeds of up to 140 kmph, and
carry as many as 300 passengers, with
a range of between 600 to 800 km on a
full tank of fuel!
05 WEARABLES
The minute we use this word,
you will be thinking Not more smart-
watches please!. For good reason too,
because despite all the
hype, smartwatches seem
to have flopped royally.
Apple somehow expects
to make new records
selling their Watch, but
were still skeptical.
Cover story
Thankfully, were not predicting
that smartwatches will do anything
spectacular in 2017. However, we do
think that the wearable
space is set to take off
in other ways. Let us
explain that.
Take for instance the
MagicBands used in Dis-
neys theme parks. These
are bands that you wear on your wrist
that contain information about you,
what youve paid for, even what you
want to have for lunch (if you choose to
enter that data). What does this result
in? No waiting in ticket lines, no need to
worry about hotel room keys (the band
is the key), and if you ordered your
lunch, no waiting, it is prepared and
kept ready for you, just scan the band
and take your lunch. You update your
selections at the many kiosks available
at Disney World, by using their app,
or on the MagicBand website. Not only
does this make the consumers life a
lot easier, by tracking magic bands, the
entertainment park is able to make sure
there are enough staff to assist at loca-
tions where there is an extra crowd, for
example, and also it cuts down on costs
of running the place. This isnt new, or
even unique to Disney parks, but we
see it taking off elsewhere.
SOURCE: FLICKR
Nano-printable circuits from MIT
An interesting development in
wearables comes from MIT (again),
where engineers have come up with a
way to print really tiny circuits onto
flexible surfaces. Unlike regular inkjet
printing that was being tried before,
the new method uses stamps to print
pre-decided circuits onto a surface.
While this means that youre not going
to be using your home printer for this
purpose, it does make for some really
cool and tiny circuits, and that means
the only limit is your imagination.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 51
 Cover story
06 DISINFORMATION
Its getting worse. With all the
trolls out there, the sick and twisted
humour that is the norm today, its
no wonder that disinformation is the
order of the day. Never believe anything
you read on social media these days,
because almost all of the time you
SOURCE: PIXABAY
Fake news is now quite real thanks to
social media
havent got all the angles of the story
to arrive at an informed conclusion of
what actually occurred. Whats worse
is that its not just individuals doing
this, its now governments as well.
If you followed the recent US
presidential election (and you would
have to be living under a rock to have
not followed it at least a little), you
might have heard of a Twitter hashtag
called #PizzaGate. Its too complicated
to explain this in detail, so we assume
you will Google it, but the short version
is that a few people (probably Repub-
licans), made up a story about Hillary
Clinton being a part of a pedophile ring,
about children being kept against their
will in a pizza parlour called Comet
Ping Pong, and politicians meeting to
perform satanic rituals.
Not surprisingly, people on Twitter
thought it was really funny and soon
the #PizzaGate theory went viral. The
problem with people trolling is that
they make it sound like they genuinely
believe in something, and they often
make fake accounts of famous people
(or parody accounts) which causes the
simpler-minded amongst us to really
believe whats being
said as the truth. There
are parody accounts of FAKE OR FACT?
Indian celebrities and http://dgit.in/pizaGte
politicians as well on http://dgit.in/UScmpgn
social media, and they http://dgit.in/CometFake
also keep fooling people http://dgit.in/WikiFake
on a daily basis.
52 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Whats worse is that Russia,
during the elections, was suspected of
spreading a lot of fake news to try and
terminology, this is called the internal
data bus. The prototype could transfer
300 gigabits/s per square millimeter,
discredit Hillary Clinton. Whether or this is approximately 10 to 50 times
not that is true and how faster than existing elec-
successful they were trical internal data bus
00110001 00110000
in doing so is totally speeds. Around 20 to 30
conjecture, but common http://dgit.in/DWave2c percent of a data centres
sense would tell you that http://dgit.in/LightChips energy consumption
it certainly had some http://dgit.in/SiliconNext is spent on electrical
effect given that quite a communication between
few people were willing the CPU, memory and
to believe that Clinton was a blood network interfaces. The energy saving
drinking, child trafficking, pedophile will be momentous!
based on just a few tweets by trolls its Quantum computers are a relatively
not hard to imagine that those same new and every company have their
people believed the disinformation own way of implementing the tech-
spread by Russia! nology. D-Wave is one such company
with some of the fastest quantum
07 COMPUTING
computers on the planet. Their existing
Weve been using optical fibre tohero product is a 1000-qubit quantum
channel data for a few decades now so computer which has been adopted by
communication using light isnt new. the likes of Google, Lockheed Martin,
LANL and NASA. While quantum
Its the fastest thing in the universe, but
we still havent managed to shrink the computing itself is a major step in
tech to be used at the transistor level processing power, D-Wave recently
SOURCE: D-WAVE
D-Wave 2X features a 2000-qubit quantum processing power.
in microchips. Thats set to change in unveiled the successor to their flagship,
2017 thanks to the efforts of a group of the D-Wave 2X. The 2X should have
researchers from MIT, the University of given it away, its going to be a 2,000-
California, Berkeley and University of qubit quantum computer but heres the
Colorado, Boulder. thing its 500 to 1,000 times faster!
Theyve shrunk optical fibre to such D-Wave has received some flak from
a small scale that they could squeeze competitors whove claimed that these
850 of them with trans- arent exactly quantum computers, but
mitters and receivers we dont care. Wed take any computer
onto a processor. The thats 500 to 1000 times faster than its
optical connections were predecessor. This pretty much seems
used to move data to and like magic! And thats not all, two
fro between the pro- to three years down the line, theyre
cessor and the memory. promising to multiply performance by
In current computing a similar factor.

08 BETTERIES
Weve already spoken about
new energy, but 2017 isnt only going
to be about solar panels and wind-
mills its also going to be about
batteries. We know youre fed up of
being promised better batteries (bet-
teries?) for a decade or more, and only
ending up with cutting-edge batteries
that explode sorry Samsung, as
much as you want to forget 2016, its
going to take more than one year for
that debacle to be forgotten.
The reason why nanowire-batteries
(which have been promised as the
alternative to existing batteries for
ages) have not taken off is because the
nanowires that store the charge get
brittle with every charge and break.
PHOTO CREDIT: STEVE ZYLIUS/UCI
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
Nanowires can store 10 times more
energy than lithium-ion batteries.
This reduces the efficiency of the bat-
tery, which in turn means you end up
with a battery that loses charge faster
and faster beyond a point (usually
after 500 cycles, or so). The advantage
of nanowires is that they are able to
store 10 times the amount of charge
as lithium-Ion batteries, which means
either batteries that last much longer,
or much, much smaller and lighter bat-
teries for the same charge.
In a lab in the University of Cali-
fornia, Irvine, Mya Le Thai, a PHd can-
didate, accidentally discovered a way to
prevent the nanowires from breaking.
Although she worked with gold nanow-
ires, she is confident that this method
will work with nickel wires as well.
In preliminary testing (which is still
underway), shes already charged and
discharged the nano-bat-
tery over 200,000 times.
How does a battery BATTERY BOOM?
that lasts charging and http://dgit.in/ChemBtry
recharging for 400 years http://dgit.in/NuclrBtry
or more sound? Its not
just smartphones that benefit either,
its electric cars, which would be able to
increase their driving range on a single
charge by 10 times, which is a massive
shot in the arm for them.
Another develop-
ment being talked about
FAST BYTES
(link to video below) is
a University of Bristol http://dgit.in/HAMRv
video and press release http://dgit.in/3DxPoint
that aims to solve a http://dgit.in/HAMRfrbs
small part of the worlds
nuclear waste problem
(specifically graphite waste from reac-
tors), by making carbon-14 waste into
a radioactive diamond, encasing that
inside a regular diamond shell to seal
in the radioactivity, and then using
that as a battery. Sounds like sci-fi or
something from a game (alien crystals
used for power?), no this is actually
very valid science. However, youd
need some humongous radioactive
diamonds to run anything substantial.
The only awesome thing for really low
powered circuits (such as those on
satellites or unmanned space vehicles)
is that the batteries will run for thou-
sands of years, given that the half-life of
carbon-14 is 5,730 years!
09 STORAGE Though SSDs have matured over
the years, they come with one inherent
issue, the NAND memory suffers from
a limited set of read/write cycles. Hard
drives can be re-written millions of
times over, and we know of big bulky
hard drives from the 70s that are still
operational today! With SSDs, however,
you have a metric called MTBF (Mean
Time Before Failure) which ranges
somewhere around a few million hours
of operating time. TBW or Total Bytes
Written is a more accurate metric to
figure out when your SSD will die.
Right now, SSDs can only survive 5-6
years of moderate-high volume usage
which is way short compared to HDDs.
Enter 3D Xpoint (three-dee-cross-
point), which is a non-volatile storage
technology that boasts of a lot more
read/write cycles than
SSDs. With information
still limited about this
technology, we cant add
much more than that, but
well see consumer grade
Cover story
3D Xpoint storage medium in 2017.
A supposed evolution of 3D NAND
technology, 3D Xpoint is claimed to
be faster, durable and power efficient.
By how much? Supposedly 4x better
write speeds, 3x better
read speeds, 3x write
endurance, 10x lower
latency and consuming
just 30% power. Of
course they will probably
be 10+3+4+3=20 times
more expensive! (Were
kidding!). Historically newer storage
technology have only been introduced
for the enterprise segment first and
consumer SKUs arrive a good year or
two later when the costs reduce. So you
can drool while we get to benchmark
these beauties when theyre released.
2017 is also when HDDs will
finally lose their commodity status.
The density race is boring now, and
improvements in hard drive technology
are merely cosmetic. Even brands have
realised this and have resorted to mar-
keting tactics such as rebranding and
segmented targeting.
This is where HAMR (heat assisted
magnetic recording) comes to the
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
3D Xpoint layer diagram
rescue. The magnetics particles on plat-
ters have a property called coercivity,
which is a measure of their resistance
to an external magnetic field. As you
make these particles finer, it becomes
more difficult to switch their alignment
(from 0 to 1 or vice versa). Thus, you
need to reduce their coercivity. Heating
is one way to do this, and HAMR uses
a fine laser beam to heat the area being
written to. Hard drives are going to see
a large increase in capacities thanks to
HAMR, therell now be a phase where
HDDs become as competitive as SSDs
before going back to being commodities
in the distant future.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 53
 Cover story
10 PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography hasnt seen much
action for a while. Its a numbers game
with new DSLRs just having more
megapixels and focus points, and
slightly improved image processors.
Nothing revolutionary. Then Lytro
introduced the Light Field cinematog-
raphy. Though their first two ventures
didnt pan out well, Lytro Cinema, their
upcoming video camera, is all set to
revolutionise the movie industry.
The Lytro Cinema is a unique
camera. It has a sensor capable of cap-
turing 755 RAW megapixels, and the
sensor itself is a foot and a half wide.
Captured content can be rendered
as either 4K or 2K videos running at
SOURCE: LYTRO.COM
Lytros 755 megapixel light field cinema
camera
300 FPS. If all this still seems like
just numbers, consider that Light
Field Cinematography allows you to
change focus, depth of field and shutter
speed during post production. The
camera records 3D depth of individual
objects, and also stores angular data.
What does this mean? You can remove
objects from the scene, and dont need
to reshoot them. You can do away with
green screens altogether! Also, since
angular data is stored, you end up
with a virtualized holographic image.
Because the camera creates models of
every object it shoots, it includes posi-
tional data in 3D space of them. This
camera will drastically reduce post
production costs, reduce reshoots and
save a ton of money on CG effects.
The next development is in sensors,
which have thus far been
flat. Various elements
in the lens are what MORE MEGAPIXELS
help change the field of http://dgit.in/FlexCam
view and focus, which http://dgit.in/LytroVid
means you have to have http://dgit.in/SceneDetect
a separate module with
54 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
the sensor and then the lenses in front
of it. Not anymore. Researchers at the
Columbia University are working to
build a flexible sheet camera. This isnt
a new concept, but previous iterations
suffered from non-fixable
aliasing, because the
DLCS
lenses in front the sensor
werent flexible. With http://dgit.in/MxdRealityV
this new technology, both http://dgit.in/GameTrends
elements are flexible.
So how are these
going to be put to use? You could wrap
sheets around objects and see them
from all directions. We couldnt think
of a more apt example other than the
all seeing eye from Lord of the Rings.
Jokes aside, you can wrap vehicles
with these sheets and improve driver
assist systems.
11 GAMING VR has melded with the gaming
ecosystem and each platform has added
a multitude of VR titles. The PlaySta-
tion VR has been quite successful on
the console front while Oculus Rift and
HTC Vive have led the charge for PC.
Needless to say, VR on the PC is a much
more fluid experience
thanks to the abun-
dance of processing
power on hand. How-
ever, it still remains
a niche as VR Head
Mounted Displays still
arent cheap. Xbox on
the other hand decided
to sit this one out but
Scorpio will change
that as its packing a
lot more horsepower to
give gamers a PC-like
experience. However, Facebooks Oculus Rift gaming boot at Gamescom 2014
theres one thing thats
really going to drive AR/VR adoption,
and thats Physically Collaborative
Gaming (PCG).
Over the years multiplayer games
have carved a bigger piece of the
pie than single player games the
highest sales records are
exclusively multiplayer
titles. With PCG, gaming
hardware will incorpo-
rate technologies such as
Intels RealSense cam-
eras, which will digitise
human players, who will then take the
role of your co-op partner. This is the
closest youll get to the real thing.
A worrying trend is the faster hard-
ware and software refresh rates. Every
year we have a new CPU
and GPU refresh, which
previously took at least
2-3 years to happen.
Software is updated way
too often anyway, with
something like Googles
Chrome browser releasing 10 or 15
major updates a year. This is OK for
software though, because it doesnt
cost the user anything more, but with
hardware updating costs a bomb!
For consoles, we saw the Xbox One
S and PlayStation Pro being announced
around E3, about three years after
the PS4 launched. But Sonys going to
release the PlayStation Neo in 2017.
Thats in less than one year. The fact is,
because console manufacturers having
adopted the x86 architecture, game
developers no longer have to develop
for the PC separately. This has led to
quite a lot of PC specific code making
its way onto the console versions.
SOURCE: WIKIMEDIA
This means that where earlier
developers used to have to cut code
and optimise for restrictive console
hardware, they can afford to be a little
lazier now, and that opens up a new
avenue for console manufacturers to
make even more money. You can kiss
your long support periods for consoles
goodbye, because manufacturers will
focus only on the latest few iterations of
their hardware. In short, consoles are
going the mobile way, and your only
hope is to join the #PCMasterRace.

12 FOOD With more and more humans
crowding for space on the planet, food
production is going to be an important
aspect that we need to get right, or else
all hell will break loose. Not only do
we have to account for all the extra
stomachs, we also have to take care of
the environment, which means were
just a little stuck between a rock and a
hard place. Add to that the tendency of
people to either impose their ideas of
whats right to eat on others (vegans,
vegetarians, paleo-diet people and
anti-GM groups), or the other bunch
SOURCE: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
A genetically modified crop
of people who dont care how their diet
impacts the planet (beef eaters we mean
you), and we have a recipe for disaster.
This is where technology has to step
in to save the day. The most obvious
technology is genetic modification
(GM), where the DNA of plants and ani-
mals are changed to make them yield
more food, cost less to maintain, and
secure them from disease and pests.
Medical understanding of
genomes, and of DNA has been
increasing steadily, and with more
genetic modification experiments or
projects being green-lighted across
the globe, food production is sure to
get a shot in the arm.
Although many still question the
ethics, an example of aquaculture
(fish farms) using GM trials to try
and prevent fish from
falling sick, or making
them resistant to fish TASTY OPTIONS
parasites such as sea http://dgit.in/PDayFood
lice will go a long way in http://dgit.in/BistroV
making seafood farms http://dgit.in/GMOaqua
more efficient.
Cover story
Agriculture is not only benefitting
from genetic modification, but also
from improvements in weather predic-
hardware capability of being self-
driving, including even the Model 3. Of
course, the cheaper cars will have the
tion and more accurate hardware but wont have
rainfall reports. self-driving capability
GET IN GEAR
Most importantly, we just yet. The more expen-
expect to see the first lab http://dgit.in/TeslaLoss sive cars will have all of
grown meat and dairy http://dgit.in/TeslaSDriving the self-driving capabili-
products to become http://dgit.in/SelfDCmove ties, and the data gath-
available in 2017. While ered from those cars will
this may disgust even be analysed, and when
the meat eaters amongst us, lab grown Tesla feel they are confident enough
meat has several advantages. It can be to, they can just send an over the air
grown lean and healthy with less fat update and enable self-driving on the
and it is much greener, more efficient other vehicles. It doesnt have to be an
and much more moral all or nothing solution either, because
than raising an animal features such as automatic emergency
from a baby, feeding braking could be enabled first, then col-
it all its life and then lision warning, and so on, depending
killing it for meat as a on how much testing Tesla got done in
young adult. real-world scenarios, and how confi-
dent it was of the system being perfect.
13 SELF-
DRIVING
Tesla claim that their self-driving cars
are much safer than human drivers,
When you think of despite 2016 being the year the first
self-driving cars, you person died in a self-driving accident.
automatically think Tesla is still confident that it is far
Google. This is because, safer than human drivers, because its
for a long time, Google only had one fatality in over 200 mil-
has led the way in lion km driven by self-driving Teslas,
self-driving research. However, recently, as opposed to US human drivers, who
Uber announced a self-driving car test have a fatality every 150 million km.
to be run in California. They
were promptly told by the
California Department of
Motor Vehicles that they
would need to apply for
autonomous licenses for
their cars, pay extra money
and agree to rigorous self-
driving regulations. Uber
refused, because unlike
SOURCE: FLICKR
with other self-driving cars,
Uber has a driver present
ready to take over in an
instant. Of course, Uber lost Ubers self-driving car
the battle, and then promptly
decided to shift to Arizona, where As long as the second fatality happens
Governor Doug Ducey welcomed them much after 400 million miles have
with open arms and wide open roads. been self-driven by Teslas, this claim
Looks like there will be something will hold. If the next fatality happens
unique for a few Ari- before 300 million km, Tesla might
zonan Uber riders to tell be in big trouble. Actually, the next
their friends about. fatality might be big trouble no matter
In October 2016 Tesla how many million miles later it comes!
announced that from This particular capability is under high
then on, all Tesla cars levels of scrutiny and if you ask us,
would be sold with full even the slightest mistake is a big deal.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 55
 Cover story
14 A.I. This is the one field that is
seeing so much progress, that we cant
even begin to scratch the surface if we
dedicated the entire cover story to it.
Pretty much all of the future concepts
weve listed here have some element of
A.I. supporting them, and its going to
be big business too.
Digital Assistants were big in
2016, but they werent perfect, and
we think 2017 will see even more of
them launched, and all of the billions
of interactions they have with people
SOURCE: WIKIMEDIA
Roboy, an advance humanoid robot developed at the
University of Zurich
from across the globe will train them
to be smarter, and thus make them
even more invaluable in the long
run. However, its not just personal
assistants that will go artificial, but
also many jobs, and surprisingly,
theyre not repetitive jobs of assembly
line workers and the like, but jobs that
you would think could never be done
without humans
When the worlds largest hedge
fund (Bridgewater Associates) says it
wants to start building and trialling
software to take over quite a few tasks
from humans, you sit up and take
notice. The founder, Ray Dalio wants
the company to run according to his
vision, even after hes gone, and feels
that software is the only way to achieve
that. What will the
software handle? Hiring
and firing of people, eve- COMPUTER
ryday decision making GENERATED LINKS
and management, and http://dgit.in/AIAEpdf
even strategic decision http://dgit.in/AImanagers
making (all in line with http://dgit.in/MINeyecare
the companys vision of
56 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
course). Humans can have a bad day,
and their judgement can be clouded,
but software is always clear about
the outcome. Not to say
that software is perfect,
DOCTORS ORDERS
which is why Dalio
believes that up to 75% http://dgit.in/Heartbackpck
of management can be http://dgit.in/HybrdLoop
done by software, but the http://dgit.in/GeminiSC
remaining 25% will have http://dgit.in/GeneThrpy
to be managed by some
very smart humans. The
only bit that confuses us is, if the soft-
ware will manage hiring and firing
doesnt that make the soft-
ware 100% in charge?
The rise of AI has even
the office of the Presi-
dent of the US involved,
because theyre worried
about the impact to the
economy when A.I. takes
over the jobs of millions
of Americans soon. This
is also very worrying for
countries that rely a lot on
outsourcing, such as China,
and also India. The only
thing cheaper and harder
working than a Chinese
factory worker is a robot,
at least in the long run. We
think that in 2017 we will
see the start of the effects of
A.I. on global economies,
and it might not turn out
too well for some of us.
15 MEDICAL
This is the field
which possibly gets the
most funding for research,
and with good reason too,
because humans want to
live longer (if not forever) A French made artificial heart
and the fountain of youth is
the ultimate goal of mankind.
One of the ways to accomplish a
longer life, especially for people suf-
fering organ failure, is to have artificial and a company called Spark Therapeu-
organs take over the job,
either permanently, or
temporarily till a donor
is found. In 2016 we were
wowed by 25-year old
Stan Larkin, who carried
an external artificial
heart in a backpack for
over a year-and-a-half. He even played
basketball without a heart inside his
body, which would be unthinkable just
a few years ago.
In 2017, the first
artificial pancreas will
go on sale, which is
excellent news for people
suffering from type 1 dia-
betes. The little gadget
will constantly check
blood sugar levels and
inject insulin accordingly, thus taking
away the need for the patient to do that
themselves. This should also reduce
the risk of death because of incorrect
dosage, such as taking insulin when
the blood sugar is low.
However, the big news is not just
artificial organs, but the possibility
exists that we will be able to do entire
head transplants soon. Yes, you read
that right, in a few years you might be
able to go to a doctor and get a totally
new body (but keep the same head)
if you thought sex change surgeries
needed therapy, imagine waking up
with someone elses body literally!
Of course some diseases might not
need whole new donor bodies, and
this is where gene therapy comes in,
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
especially when it comes to genetic
flaws that make us prone to maladies.
Blindness is one such genetic problem,
tics is expected to get a license from the
US FDA in 2017 to start gene therapy to
try and cure a genetic type of blindness
called inherited retinal dystrophies.
And thats just scratching the surface
of the mind-blowing medical marvels
we can expect to see starting in 2017.
Fingers crossed!

16 SALE We all love a good bargain, and
we love the highs we get from some
retail therapy. Digit readers especially
love the feel of a new gadget in our
hands its just pure bliss isnt it?
However, retail isnt just for buying
gadgets with demonetisation a lot
of us are buying everything online or
from larger stores, and using plastic
to pay for it all. This is good because it
SOURCE: AMAZON GO (YOUTUBE)
Amazons advance shopping technology where you
never have to wait in line.
will open up more people to accepting
the newer way of buying things, which
in turn will help people innovate in the
space. With that in mind, 2017 seems to
be the year things will change in retail
in India but this is also true for global
retail, and some of the technologies
used abroad will find their way to us, or
inspire local versions, because, we are,
after all, one of the biggest consumer
markets in the world.
Augmented Reality actually plays a
large part in online shopping, and we
think you will see more and more of
it starting in 2017. Most of you know
that we have partnered with Blippar
to augment our covers, and Blippar is
also doing some good work with retail.
Using Blippar you can buy products
that you see models wearing on runway
shows, you can preview how a piece of
furniture would look in your house.
Using social media and updates
from friends, and a little A.I. magic, you
can get suggestions about
what to buy friends for
their birthdays, or for SPECIAL OFFERS!
special occasions. IBMs http://dgit.in/AmazonGo1
Watson is being used in http://dgit.in/ARworks
a project called Watson http://dgit.in/VRnARleto
Trend to accomplish this.
Then of course theres VR and AR
that can be used to tell you what size
of clothes you should buy, lets you try
on (virtually of course)
clothes that are available
BOOM!
for purchase online, so
that you know how it http://dgit.in/ArmyTech
would look on you (or http://dgit.in/usaCPGS
at least get a pretty good
idea). And all of this is
just technology thats akin to Snap-
Chat filters! Then of course
VR can allow retailers to
give you a large mall-sized
experience without incur-
ring any of the associated
costs, because you will visit
virtually from the comfort
of your home.
With so many inven-
tive ways being thought up
about how to make your
shopping a novel experi-
ence, were pretty sure that
2017 will forever change the
way we shop, both online as
well as offline.
17 WAR
Sadly, the one
things we wish wouldnt
improve is our efficiency
at killing one another,
but we know we will
get better at it. Defense
research is perhaps a
total misnomer, because
pretty much most of the
R&D dollars spent by
every country on earth
goes towards offensive
weapons things meant Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
to kill others, and not so
much ways to defend against attacks.
The world spends a whopping $1.6
trillion a year on defense, just because
we cant all get along.
One of the biggest developments
in nuclear warfare (something we
hope is never used, but perfect, just
in case), are hypersonic ICBMs. The
US, China and Russia
are said to be working
on this, and although no
one knows for sure, the
US seems to be in the
lead, given the nervous-
ness of the Russians.
Cover story
The Chinese also seem to be making
progress and are working towards
Mach 10 (10 times the speed of sound)
missiles. The US is still
far ahead, with rumours
suggesting that they
are on their way to
achieving Mach 20
already. Lockheed was
awarded a $147 million
contract by the US to build a Mach 20
payload delivery system.
Why is this so important? Because
most countries have defense systems
capable of shooting down traditional
ICBMs of the type, say, India, Paki-
stan, France and England have. In
order to beat defense systems, there
is only the option of stealth which
is very hard in this day and age of
sophisticated satellite surveillance,
and of course, good old speed. If the
missile is faster than the anti-missile,
you win. At Mach 20, a payload would
be impossible to stop and hard to even
detect in time. Theoretically, the US
could bomb and disable all nuclear
SOURCE: PEXELS
sites in Russia or China before they
even knew what had hit them, let
alone launch a retaliatory strike!
There are a lot of smaller enhance-
ments being made to weapons as well,
and lasers seem to be the choice of
weapons for 2017 and beyond. Star
Wars may finally be coming true, and
wars of the future might just be fought
with lasers!
Well that was our list of the 17 areas
that will completely change due to tech
advancements and progress in 2017.
While it may not be exhaustive, it defi-
nitely is exciting.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 57
 Feature Workshop
We're past the trial stage in AR, Want to show off some gaming skills

Toolbox 60 and it's about time for you to play

around with some AR dev tools. 62 or hilarious fails? Here's how you can
livestream your gameplay to YouTube.

Lost Android passcode, a conked

memory slot, the notorious system32
error and more such suffering
This month we came across our readers facing problems on their PC on both
hardware and software; along with smartphone issues

A foreign problem
Hey Guys!
First of all, I love Digit and Im totally
addicted to it. My problem is that I have
a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 which I bought
from China (as it is not yet released in
India.). I switched off the phone and
after switching it back on, it asked me
for the backup password instead of the
fingerprint. When I entered my cor-
rect password, it is not accepting it and
due to this I am not able to unlock my
phone. I tried to search online for an
answer and it suggested to switch off
the phone, press the power and volume
up button for ten seconds after which
the recovery mode can be accessed. But
when I did that instead of the recovery
mode, I got a picture of the phone and
the charging cable beneath it. I also
tried contacting the Mi customer care in
India, but they said that since the Redmi
Note 4 is not yet launched in India they
can't help me. In fact, everywhere I go,
I get the same statement. I am really
frustrated that I have got such a great
phone, yet still I am not able to use it.
Please help me to get out of this mess.
You guys are my last hope.
Shaurya
Hey Shaurya,
It used to be easier on devices run-
ning Android 4.4 and below, but after
Android 5.0, they removed the option
in an attempt to increase security.
The only way for newer devices is to
factory reset your device which means
that youll be losing all your data. To
reach the factory reset screen, you have
to enter the custom recovery of the
phone and for that you need to press
the power and volume up hardware
buttons to activate it when the phone
is switched off. If the charging icon is
coming up, then you havent reached
the custom recovery. Try different vari-
ations with the hardware buttons such
as power and volume down button or
power and both the volume buttons.
You can also try keeping the power
button pressed for around 15-20 sec-
onds to reset the device (although not
all devices follow this). At the customer
service, explain your exact problem
and request the staff to help you out.
Socket trouble
Sir, I have a problem where one of my
RAM socket isnt working. How do I fix
it? My PC specifications are as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3470
RAM: 2 GB
CPU: GeForce GT 610
Aditya
Hey Aditya, looks like the socket has
failed. To determine whether your
socket or RAM module is faulty, you
should try inserting your RAM stick on
another socket or a friends mother-
board. The testing depends on the
number of RAM sticks you have and
whether your motherboard has more
than two slots. If youre using just one
RAM stick, which works fine, then you
should simply switch to the other slot.
If you have two RAM sticks and dont
RAM socket failure calls for a new
motherboard
have more than two RAM sockets, then
youll have to use just one stick. The
only solution would be to buy a new
motherboard if you really need the
other RAM module.
Kali-brated network card
Hey Team Digit,
I have a Killer Gigabit network card to
reduce my ping while gaming. It's pretty
good for reducing lag in gaming, so I was
thinking whether it can be used in Kali
Linux for better performance in moni-
toring mode but I don't know the con-
cept of the Killer Gigabit card and how
it works. So I kind of feel stupid about
asking this question. I'm currently using
an Intel Wireless 3165 adapter. I have
an MSI GE62VR Apache Pro. So, if I can
use the card in Kali Linux, do tell me how
to change the default settings so that I
can switch the network card. Thanks.
David Terros
Hey David, you shouldnt face any
problem running scans and collecting
wireless data on Kali Linux with your
network card. Use the appropriate
kernel version since we updating the
kernel might affect compatibility in
Kali. Heres a quick guide on how to
setup an external network card: http://
dgit.in/NtwrkCrdKaliLinux.
The forgotten settings
Sir, today I was changing the settings
in my BIOS but cant recall what I
changed. It shows an error men-
tioning DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_
OR_EQUAL. On restart, each time
it is dumping physical memory and
restarting. Please help me.
Akhil

58 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Tips & Tricks
Unlock the true potential of your smartphone camera
69 with the Open Camera app. And once you're done,
explore how scrobbling can make your life easier.
Hey Akhil, this problem arises
because of a driver issue of a particular
hardware. Try to change that setting
back then if you can remember. If you
can't find the same setting again, go
into the BIOS and reset defaults ("Load
default BIOS settings" or "Load Default
Settings", or something similar
depending on your BIOS), and that
should fix it.
Also, you can try booting into Safe
Mode and reinstalling the driver which
is at fault. You will be able to check
the corresponding faulty driver from
device manager. You could also go
ahead and try to repair your system
with the Windows Installation Disk
using a USB drive.
If you can't even get to the BIOS,
just look at your motherboard manual
for the clear CMOS button or jumper.
When the PC is shut down, either use
that jumper or button, or take out the
CMOS battery, leave it out for 15 min-
utes, put it back in and start your PC.
That should do the trick.
The blue screen of death
Video compression
Hey Digit experts, I own a Sony PMW
camera which records 1080p HD videos.
But a small recording of about five
minutes consumes around 650 MB. But
Hollywood movies around two hours
have the size of 900 MB, which kept me
thinking about a way to compress video
files without altering the video quality or
maybe altering to a small extent. Please
help me find a way to compress videos.
Sharan
Hey Sharan, the Hollywood movies
youre talking about go through several
passes of compression with changes in
Q&A Q&A
their bitrate, audio bitrate, resolution,
etc. The video that you record has
hardly any compression algorithms
applied to it, hence the huge file size. If
you want to compress your recorded
videos, you can use a free tool called
Handbrake. Its a fairly easy software to
use where youll be able to compress
your videos to smaller sizes without
losing much of the quality. There are
very helpful presets also available
which can get the job done in not time.
Handbrake is great for video compression
Missing system file
Dear Digit Team,
I have recently bought an HP laptop
from HP Online Shopping whose details
are as follows: HP Pavilion 15-au626TX
with three years onsite warranty. When
I boot up the laptop, it is not able to
show the desktop screen and displays a
message mentioning a system32 file is
missing (File location not found). Please
send some helpful advice regarding this.
Thank you.
Saksham
Hey Saksham, it would have been
helpful if you had mentioned the name
of the file. Nonetheless, this error is
usually caused when a particular file in
the system32 directory gets corrupted
or deleted. This is usually caused by a
virus. What you should do is write
down the name of the missing file, boot
up your laptop in the Safe Mode and
execute a search on your system for
that particular file, in case it was moved
to another location. If you find it, move
it back to the system32 directory. If you
cant find the file, then repairing your
system using the Windows Installation
Disk is your best bet.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 59
 Beats X earphones delayed Opera currency converter
First announced on september 16, Apples The Opera web browser for desktop gets a
Beats X earphones are likely to be delayed new inbuilt currency converter. Read more
Feature again. http://dgit.in/BeatXaple about it here: http://dgit.in/OpraCurncy

Arnab Mukherjee guage. And this isnt even new, but it is Some of the features it offers are:
arnab@digit.in an example of how AR can seamlessly Object recognition

L
ast month, Pokmon GO offi-
cially launched in oh wait!
Not again! Not another article
about augmented reality
starting with Pokmon GO! It almost
seems as if Pokmon GO and aug-
mented reality have become synonyms
thanks to the events of last year. Thank-
fully, theres more happening which
will change this perception, and fast.
We now have AR apps freely avail-
able on Android and iOS, and they per-
form beyond the expectations we had
just a year ago. For example, the Google
Translate app can detect text by using
your smartphone camera, and translate
it on the fly using augmented reality.
You end up with the original text being
replaced by software to look as if the
book magically appeared in your lan-
integrate into our lives.
Vuforia
One of the most complete SDKs for the
augmented reality platform, Vuforia
is perhaps one of the most feature-
rich AR development tools out there
targeted at mobile devices. Like most
AR tech, it uses computer vision to
comprehend the scene in front of the
device camera and identify surfaces.
Once identified, the orientation and
visualisation of virtual objects is kept
in sync with the device orientation.
Vuforia is one of the most popular AR
development SDKs
Virtual buttons
Open GL support
Smart terrain ability to recon-
struct terrain in real time
Extended tracking
Cloud database for mage recognition
While Vuforia has paid versions
that offer certain advanced capabilities
for AR development, the free version is
still pretty powerful. The Vuforia plat-
form supports Android and iOS smart-
phones and tablets as well as digital
eyewear. Developers can build Vuforia
apps in Android Studio, Xcode and
the Unity cross-platform game engine.
Its no surprise that Vuforia is the top
choice for a lot of developers. Theres a
full list of developers and apps that use
it at https://www.vuforia.com/Apps which
you can check out. Apart from the free
version, the SDK also comes at either a

60 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 TrademarkVision
TrademarkVision is a new software that uses
machine learning and makes finding logos on the
internet much easier. http://dgit.in/TrdmrkVisn
consumer-level pricing or an enterprise
pricing package.
The problem with Vuforia is the
absence of a complete framework
manual. The disconnected short tips
and instructions are not sufficient for
beginners to find their way around
it. Also, in the free version there
are certain limitations on the cloud
recognition technology, along with a
watermark on the AR experience once
per day.
Aurasma Studio
The potential of AR as an interactive
tool to gain popularity is immense,
but not everybody is looking for a full
fledged 3-dimensional augmented
reality experience. Besides, due to lack
of budget, or developer skills, that may
not even be an option for some. Aur-
asma studio is a web-based augmented
reality development tool that requires
no installations or programming to be
implemented. In fact, you can imple-
ment an Aura, which is what they call
one interactable experience, within
45 seconds. We should mention that
this number was derived from a dem-
onstration video and actual times may
vary depending upon your device
and connectivity.
The studio itself is online and is
completely hassle free to use. All you
need to do is follow these steps:
Upload your trigger image this is
the image that the app will recognise.
Upload your overlay this is the
content that will show up as the
AR experience
Resize the overlay to fit properly
with respect to the trigger
Place any additional interaction
overlays and hotspots if needed, and
save it.
Youre ready to go!
We tried it out and it is quite easy.
While the quality of the AR experience
is far from polished think more like
Pokmon GO its the ease of use that
is the attraction here.
The app itself looks quite cluttered,
and it was hard to tell how a brand
would market itself on the app. What
would make more sense (if you wanted
Room-service robots
A hotel in Silicon Valley, California uses
small robots, outfitted with 3D cameras for
room-services. http://dgit.in/RobrtRSrvce
to use Aurasma), is to use the Aurasma
SDK in an app youre developing, and
then leverage the backend cloud sup-
port from Aurasma, but keeping your
own app UI and experience as undam-
aged as possible.
ARToolkit
While Vuforia limits the developer in
terms of premium ceilings, Aurasma
is simply not capable of full-grade VR.
Somewhere in between those two is
ARToolkit, which has the added advan-
tage of being open source. This means
that you get free access to the develop-
ment library. Among other features,
ARToolkit supports 2D recognition in
augmented reality and mapping addi-
tional elements via openGL.
The library also allows advanced
marker tracking via the device camera,
which is essentially how AR popularly
works right now. This allows devel-
opers to create AR interfaces based on
the location data they receive from the
device camera.
Despite being free, ARToolkit
suffers from the curse of poor docu-
mentation. And it would be fair to say
that the test apps are quite difficult to
build. If youre willing to sweat it out
on an open-source platform, you will be
able to develop apps for Android, iOS,
Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
In the interest of transparency, we want
to inform readers that we use BlippAR
ourselves to augment this magazine, but we
assure you of remaining completely unbiased
in our analysis of it.
BlippAR
While Blippar is not mainly a develop-
ment platform, it does offer one of the
easiest ways for a brand to use AR.
Weve found that the Blippar app itself
has one the best image recognition fea-
tures amongst the available apps, and
that, combined with an AR experience
that you can build yourself makes for a
really strong contender.
You gte a Blippbuilder tool that lets
you develop an AR experience using
a simple drag-and-drop process. The
easiest outcome is redirecting users to
Feature
a URL with each Blipp, you can also
implement highly engaging 3D content
that can vary from simple food recipes
jumping out at you from ingredient
packets, to a full scale look designer
inside a a fashion magazine.
As a developer, since the Blipp-
builder Script is a Javascript interface
for Blippars AR engine, you will get
the freedom to define your own scene,
Blippar offers a diverse spectrum of AR
experiences
script custom effects and integrate with
other applications. It supports native
exporters and advanced lighting and
materials effects. The basic plan for this
API is free, but is limited to very basic
watermarked blipps.
And more..
These are merely the popular tools
that are already being used by a large
number of developers. This doesnt
mean that this is an exhaustive list,
because augmented reality is still in
its infancy, as are the development
tools and plans. With each new tool
competing in this space, and with
each new update for the existing
players, comes an even higher level
of quality and immersion. To us, it
seems pretty obvious that a lot sooner
than you think, an augmnented
reality is pretty much going to be
the new definition of reality. Just as
you cannot imagine life without, say
Google, youre not going to even be able
to imagine a life without AR, and not
in 20 or 30 years, but maybe as soon
as 5 or 10. If youre just starting off on
a career of development, you might
want to ensure that you build some AR
skills, because this is one technology
that is here to stay.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 61
 New Vine camera New airliner concept
Vine recently announced that they're This new airliner concept can help airlines
closing their service and rebranding the app easily rearrange and mix their sitting
Workshop to Vine Camera. http://dgit.in/VineCam positions. http://dgit.in/CrzyAir

LIVE
STREAMING YOUR GAMEPLAY TO YOUTUBE
If youve always wanted to show off your AWP-ing skills
in CS: GO to your friends, heres an extensive guide on
how to livestream your gameplay to YouTube.

Before we begin, there are a few

things you need to keep in mind. Youll
obviously need a good gaming PC and
a high-bandwidth internet connec-
tion for a seamless and good quality
stream. But you dont need to worry
if you have a poor internet connec-
tion because we were able to stream at
lower bandwidths of around 1Mbps
and on a system running a Second Gen
Intel Sandy Bridge CPU. Although the
stream might be strong but depending
on your ISP, your game pings might get
affected. In one of our test cases, the ISP
was able to simultaneously maintain
a stable ping and stream as well. The
shortcoming with low bandwidth
connections would be poor, pixelated
streams, even though your stream
could be running at 1080p and 60fps.
A better setup would also require
you to have another display so that you
could be playing on one display while
controlling and watching your stream
Abhijit Dey but now, it has become effortless to on the other. The best solution for a high
abhijit@digit.in livestream your gameplay, accessible to quality and seamless streaming experi-

O
ver the years, YouTube has
witnessed a rise of channels
hosting their gameplay reli-
giously, whether live or pre-
recorded ones. In fact, the most sub-
scribed YouTuber, PewDiePie, rose to
fame with his Lets Play videos. Earlier,
streamers relied on recorded footage
everyone and not just to professionals.
Youll find premium software bundled
with gaming laptops or even games,
that have far easier setup controls. But
for this workshop, we will explore a
free and open source alternative, and
probably the most popular broad-
casting service called Open Broadcast
Software, or just OBS.
ence would be the use of a dedicated
streaming PC, where you play the game
on one PC while the streaming PC cap-
tures your game and streams it online.
This workshop will only be looking at
how to stream using a single PC.
Downloading OBS
Currently, there are two downloadable

62 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Engineering Rice New UberPool timer
Researchers are working on new ways to Uberpool now has a specific timer so you
reduce the amount of phosphorous that dont have to wait long for other carpool
plants waste. http://dgit.in/EnggRice mates. http://dgit.in/UbrpolTmr Workshop

versions of OBS OBS Classic and love the customisation based on your Out of the three, Game Capture is what
Studio. Classic is the original software channels theme. The animated intro you should be opting for but there
the project was started while Studio is also acts as a buffer for the times when were times where a blank screen was
the revamped version. The advantages youre about to begin your live stream. output and the stream lagged during
of Studio is that the entire software has Rather than showing your desktop, switching. If it doesnt work out for you,
been rewritten from scratch and the you could display the animated splash Display Capture should be your option,
Settings menu has also been over- screen in loop. the only problem here could be your
hauled to make things easier. Another
advantage would be pre-installed
plugins, because earlier, you had to
install them individually in Classic.
Now, the question is whether you
should download Classic or Studio
and the answer is simple. New users
should definitely download Studio
since fiddling around with the different
streaming and encoding settings is a tad
bit easier than Classic. The main reason
would be the discontinuation of updates
from Classic whereas Studio has been
witnessing a healthy update cycle.
You can download OBS Studio here:
http://dgit.in/OBSDwnld

Setting up scenes and

sources
When you start up OBS, youll be
presented with a blank window and
four sections below it. In the Settings
menu, the General tab includes a few
useful features and also an option
pick between a light and dark theme, a
feature missing on Classic. A scene is
a collection of elements from different
sources that ultimately forms the final
screen that is streamed to your viewers.
Multiple scenes can be added to a single
stream and switched accordingly using
hotkeys in between the stream. Its
smarter to assign a purpose to every
scene rather than adding multiple
scenes for every single source since
theres no restriction on the number
of sources in one single scene. This
will make it less complicated to switch
scenes when youre in the middle of a
live stream. Sources are elements where
your content will be pulled such as your
desktop screen, webcam, mic audio,
desktop audio, browser window, etc.
As a means of making your live
stream look good, we would recom-
mend using animated intros, borders
and overlays for your sources. These
arent a necessity but your viewers will
The OBS Studio version offers an easy to use interface when it comes to tweaking
Create the first scene and name it
something like Intro. Animated intros
or any kind of video element can be
added as a Media Source. If you want
to save on bandwidth, and add just
a standby image instead of a looping
video, you can add one or more from
Image or Image Slide Show. In the same
way, you can also add text using the
Text (GDI+) source. Along with an intro
source, you can also add another image
or media source as Standby for the
times when you need to take a break
but still continue streaming or make
changes in OBS on the fly.
Moving on to adding your gameplay
as a scene, well create a new scene and
name it Game. Naming and assigning
hotkeys is important at the beginning to
prevent any confusion later after youve
added multiple scenes and sources.
To display your game, you have three
options including Display Capture,
Game Capture or Window Capture.
entire desktop screen will be visible to
the viewers. But this can also be pre-
vented by switching to your Standby
screen or intro when youre using the
desktop, and switching to the Desktop
Capture after opening up the game
using hotkeys which register globally
over any running process. If you wish,
you can also add your webcam feed as
a source using Video Capture Device.
You can then move, crop and resize the
webcam feed wherever you want on the
screen. To follow the channels theme,
you could add a border as an Image
source around the webcam feed and
also a logo somewhere in the scene.
There are many variations that you
can try out by adding multiple sources
to the same scene and finding the best
composition you need. Once youre
satisfied on the scenes, you can assign
hotkeys to them under Settings to
switch between them without opening
up OBS. Avoid assigning hotkeys that

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 63

 The Moskito smartwatch A blackhole "supernova"
This new smartwatch not only has a funny A black hole tears apart a star that passed too
name but it can also turn into a speedometer close to it resulting in the biggest supernova
Workshop for your bike. http://dgit.in/MoskitoSM ever observed. http://dgit.in/BlckHlStr

might be already used by the game or

desktop. This will create unnecessary
confusion mid-stream.

Adding stream settings

Your stream settings include the ser-
vices to where youll be livestreaming.
You can choose from Twitch, YouTube
and even Facebook Live. For this case,
well select YouTube/YouTube Gaming
and continue with the default Primary
YouTube ingest server. Your stream
key is unique to your channel and
needs to be entered in order to connect
the live stream feed to your YouTube
account. Head over to your channel
settings or Creator Studio in YouTube,
then Livestreaming, and enable Live
streaming privileges. Its fairly easy to
setup and once youre through, scroll
to the bottom of the dashboard and
youll find your stream key. Click on
reveal and copy-paste the key in OBS
The desktop capture mode streams your entire desktop
and hit Apply. You need to keep your
stream key private since anyone with
access to it will get access to stream
content on your channel. If you wish to
add Stream settings for other services,
the process is similar and all you need
to do is find the stream key in the
services dashboard and add it to OBS.
For Twitch, youll need to download a
separate tool called Twitch Bandwidth
Test to figure out the best server.

Experimenting with
encoding
Getting the right encoding settings
takes a lot of time unless someone else
with the same configuration as yours
has posted the optimal settings. Your
encoder settings are highly dependent
on the game youre playing, whether
its an FPS or an MMO or an RTS
game. The reason is different genres
have different rendering speeds and OBS output encoding settings lets you heavily tweak your audio output in the stream
accordingly, the encoding needs to be
capable of outputting it. Another factor and select the Simple mode since we tions and frame rates here: http://dgit.
would be how powerful your hardware wont be changing anything under the in/OBSYtSettings.
is, essentially your CPU and GPU. The Advanced mode. Youll have to enter Youll need to factor in your internet
Stream Settings Estimator http://dgit. your video bitrate in kbps at which bandwidth as well since the above rec-
in/OBSConfig web tool will give you your stream will be sent to YouTube ommendation doesnt consider it. Your
exact numbers on the settings you need or other streaming services. YouTube video bitrate should be around 80-85%
to populate in OBS. Head over to the has completely listed down the settings of your upload bandwidth that can be
Output menu under Settings in OBS youll need to enter for different resolu- acquired and calculated by running

64 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 SpaceX is ready Gym vs Tsunami
SpaceX announced that it is already ready to Architects and engineers in Westport,
launch its next rocket just four months after its Washington designed a gym that can withstand
last tragic accident. http://dgit.in/SpceXjan a tsunami. http://dgit.in/GymTsnami Workshop

Speedtest. Do note, Twitch has restric-
tions to a video bitrate of 3,500 kbps
(unless youre a partner). Facebook
Live has many restrictions on encoding
settings such as no support for hard-
ware encoding, a maximum audio
bitrate of 128, maximum resolution of
720p in 30 fps, and maximum video
bitrate of 4,000 kbps.
Choosing whether you want to
use software or hardware encoding
depends on your rig. If you have a
strong CPU like an Intel i7, then you
can pick the x264 encoder with audio
bitrate at 160 and Encoder Preset on
fast. Youll need to check whether your
CPU is capable of handling the dif-
ferent Encoder Presets where ultrafast
doesnt stress the CPU whereas slower
in intensive. You should definitely opt
for x264 encoding if you dont have a
discrete GPU.
But if you do have a decent or
powerful GPU, you could enable
hardware encoding and the corre-
sponding encoder to your GPU (AMD
or NVIDIA) will appear. Here, you can
again experiment with the encoder pre-
sets from High Quality to Low-latency
High Performance. In our testing, we
found the hardware encoder to be
better at streaming with the GTX 1080
even though we had the i7-3960X.
Audio and video settings
There isnt much in the audio and video
settings since everything will be set to
default. You can choose between the
sample rates and reassign your desktop
audio and mic sources. In audio, Studio
sees an update over Classic to support
multiple sources for desktop audio and
mics. Click on the dropdown menu for
Desktop Audio Device and Mic/Aux-
iliary Device, and select your devices
rather than letting the default setting
stay for better control over your stream.
The video settings essentially ask
you to set the resolution and fps that
you want to output on your stream.
It could be 1920x1080 at 60fps or
1280x720 at 60fps, depending on
your internet bandwidth and PC
specs. Choose the Downscale Filter as
Lanczos only if you have a powerful rig.
Previews, dry runs and
going live
Before you go live to your audience, its
important to test whether scene transi-
tions are functioning properly. You
can right-click on each scene and go to
Fullscreen Projector that will give you
a preview on how that scene will look
like in the stream. You should do this
for every scene, just to be sure. The best
way to check whether all your hotkeys
work is to record a session. When all
the scenes and sources are final, hit
the Start Recording button and it will
save a local copy of the entire session.
Different streaming services support different parameters
You can refer to the recorded video to
discover flaws and then move on to a
dry run online.
Do note that even the first dry run
on your YouTube channel will send a
notification to your subscribers (if you
have any) that youve gone live. Hence,
it would be advisable to use a sec-
ondary undisclosed YouTube channel
to experiment.
After youve entered all the settings
in YouTube as mentioned above, hit
Start Streaming in OBS and the top bar
in the YouTube Live dashboard should
turn green or yellow or red. The dif-
ferent colours depict the quality of the
stream where green is the best and red
is the worst. A preview should appear
in the window below where you can see
the scenes from OBS. Start the game
you want to stream and switch to that
particular scene if youre using Game
Capture. Since the game will run in full-
screen, the best way to check whether
your live stream is functional is to watch
it live from a mobile device, preferably
on a different connection (cellular) or
you could ask a friend to watch. You can
try switching between the scenes and
testing all the hotkeys, and also observe
whether the stream suffers frame drops
or freezes. If you notice these problems,
then youll have to go back to tweaking
the encoder settings and more tests.
If you have a strong internet
bandwidth that can handle both the
streaming and watching simultane-
ously, then you can have the YouTube
Live dashboard running on another
monitor if you have one. This will
enable you to watch and reply to your
chat messages and keep an eye on the
streams health. It is also essential to
check your audio levels for each audio
input source. Sometimes, your in-game
audio could be overpowering your mic
input and you will have to reduce the
volume for your desktop or in-game
audio source. Youll also need to check
for dropped frames in your stream at
the bottom and there are numerous
reasons to blame for it. You can check
out this comprehensive post that tries
to solve this problem http://dgit.in/
OBSDroppedFrames.
Once your live stream is lag-free,
youre ready to go live and face the
world to display your high level of
skills or the lack of it. On a different
note, we do stream the lack of our
skills in CS: GO almost every day on
SKOAR!s official Facebook page. Make
sure you head over and like the page so
that youre get a notification whenever
we go live.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 65

 Note 7 fiasco continues NASA goes social
A new software update for Samsung's Galaxy NASA announced two new accounts (Giphy and
Note 7 prevents it from charging completely. Pinterest) where they will share new GIFs from
Workshop http://dgit.in/Note7fsco space. http://dgit.in/NASAgifsnw

UPI
START MAKING
PAYMENTS IN
A FLASH!
If you have felt the effects of the cash crunch,
read on to find out how you can use UPI to
make payments

Abhishek Balaji of currency in India. RBI gauges the for allowing the use of the computation
feedback@digit.in volume of currency to be printed by power in their personal computers. The

D
igital Payments in India
took off more by force than
by choice. If youre one of
those affected by the sudden
move to a digital economy, we bring
you one such service which promises
to revolutionise the payment space in
India. Digital Payments or most com-
monly known as Plastic Currency is a
creation of twentieth century bankers
who wanted better ways to handle
their money. Currency is an integral
part of any economy. These small
chunks of metal or paper represent a
real value in the world. The currency
in an economy is heavily reliant on the
prosperity of the country. So, a country
can be more prosperous by printing
and circulating more currency? No, just
ask Greece. The amount of currency
in circulation at any point of time is
dictated by the amount of reserves of
wealth the state-owned bank has. For
example, in India, the Reserve Bank
of India is the federal bank which
regulates the printing and circulation
the amount of gold reserves it has. That
is the biggest hurdle digital payments
face. For an economy to go completely
cashless and digital, it needs to be
regulated. Right now, the only solution
is to virtualise the currency. Services
like bitcoins have a different take
on digital economies. Instead of just
making the same currency virtual,
bitcoins and other blockchain based
cryptocurrencies introduce a new type
of digital asset. Bitcoins are decentral-
ized, which means that they are not
pegged against any form of resources or
reserves. There is no central authority
that controls the currency and hence,
it might seem like a better option.
Instead, it is a system to reward users
computing power is used to repeatedly
access and decode the various strings
of data that arise out of a mathematical
formula. The formula, along with the
software used for mining the bitcoins,
both are open source so there is more
accountability with the currency.
While were far off from a com-
pletely digital economy, India has
announced recently a payment system
known as UPI or Uni-
fied Payment Interface.
UPI borrows a few
tricks from bitcoins by
eliminating the need
to exchange personal
information such as
bank account details,
names or phone
numbers when making any transac-
tion. While normal online transactions
are secure to a certain extent, the sheer
volume of transactions means that
your personal data is being trans-
mitted across the internet so many
times, that the risk of your data getting
compromised increases dramatically.

66 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Feathered tail of a dinosaur
A 99 million year-old tail, with feathers preserved,
of a dinosaur was found in Amber in Myanmar,
Southeast Asia. http://dgit.in/dinoAmbr
UPI works by partnering with the
banks in India and every customer is
directly linked to their bank accounts.
Unlike wallet services such as Paytm or
FreeCharge, UPI is not a wallet. There
is no intermediary where the money is
stored for transactions. Instead, all the
transactions happen directly through
the bank accounts.
While not all banks have com-
pletely implemented UPI, there are a
few which have released applications
already. A customer of the bank would
have to download the application and
obtain a unique address, which is the
only thing that needs to be shared in a
transaction. Unlike bitcoins, the trans-
actions are not anonymous, and there is
always a record of these transactions.
The organization behind UPI is the
NPCI or National Payments Corpo-
ration of India. If youve ever used
IMPS (Immediate Payment Service),
UPI is an advanced version of IMPS.
Today a few banks have gone live
with UPI out of 29 banks that had
concurred to provide UPI service to
their customers. We are confident
that several banks will join UPI this
year and the number will multiply
further. Our focus is in line with RBIs
vision of migrating towards less-
cash and more digital society. NPCI
has always been at the forefront to
innovate and introduce new prod-
ucts and services at par with global
standards, said A. P. Hota, MD &
CEO, NPCI. By allowing the user to
create a virtual address like an email
address, the virtual address can be
given out in the public for people to
transact. To send and receive money
through UPI, youll need a virtual
address which can be obtained from
supporting banks. Only the banks
have an internal database, that links
the virtual addresses to account
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Software giant Microsoft finalises a whopping $26
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http://dgit.in/McrsftLnkd
numbers and names, and you can have
multiple virtual addresses at multiple
banks. For example, a virtual address
looks something like this digit@sbi.
Here, digit is a string that you can
select, something like a username.
Instead of a username, you can
also use your phone number as
1234567890@sbi. The second
part of the virtual address speci-
fies the bank in which the cus-
tomer holds the account. Each
bank has a short code, which can
be used here. The virtual address
is the only information youll
need to initiate the transac-
tion. This is incredibly useful
for retail applications where it
is often inconvenient to accept
payments through traditional
Net Banking. A shop owner can We used PhonePe to try out UPI
simply store the virtual address
in any medium such as QR Codes,
NFC tags, RFID chips, Beacons etc.
UPI also lets you initiate a payment
request to a virtual address, like
several wallet apps. The
person requesting must
only type the virtual
address and commu-
nicate the URL to the
other person by any
media such as physical
media or digitally.
According to the NPCI, a merchant
PoS (Point of Sale) application could
create the UPI link with the correct
parameters as specified and then
transmit using sound to the customer
device. Customer app or a utility app
can listen to that sound, convert it
back to the link, and then launch the
UPI application on customer phone to
make the payment. The URL format is
described as:
upi://pay?parm-name=param-
value&param-name=pram-value&...
UPI also encourages deep-linking
within apps, so services can invoke UPI
apps which are listening on a users
phone to initiate a transaction. We now
delve into the procedure for using UPI
on most android and iOS phones, and
Workshop
a limited set of participating banks. For
now, the banks which have gotten the
approval from Apple for UPI transac-
tions include Andhra Bank, Axis Bank,
Bank of Maharashtra, Bhartiya Mahila
Bank, Canara Bank, Catholic Syrian
Bank, DCB Bank, Federal Bank, ICICI
Bank, TJSB Sahakari Bank, Oriental
Bank of Commerce, Karnataka Bank,
UCO Bank, Union Bank of India,
United Bank of India, Punjab National
Bank, South Indian Bank, Vijaya Bank
and YES Bank. If you have an account
in any of these banks, you can begin
using UPI right away. If your bank isnt
participating yet, you should contact
you nearest branch.
Do you really need UPI?
While the prospect of UPI sounds
interesting and exciting for digital pay-
ments, you wouldnt be using it much
unless there is widespread adoption.
Very few merchants and businesses are
aware of UPI and it is best to determine
if your use case matches with the objec-
tives of UPI. UPI can be substituted
with a lot of other services such as
credit/debit cards, net banking, pay-
ment wallets and blockchain curren-
cies. So, if your needs can be serviced
by one of these services, you can ignore
UPI.
How to get started:
Since UPI is built on a mobile first plat-
form, you can download your respec-
tive banks UPI app from the Google
Play Store or the iOS App Store. You
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 67
 Oil spills photography App for assault victims
Check out this link to see beautiful A reporting system for sexual assault victims
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Workshop industrial wastes. http://dgit.in/OilPhto personal information? http://dgit.in/AssltApp

can also choose from
one of the many 3rd
party apps that have
sprung up. These apps
support multiple banks
and often have features
more than the native
bank applications. The
apps must be certified
by the NPCI, although
given the initial push,
the certification process
isnt too stringent.
You can start by
finding the bank you use Step 2 : Activating
and one that has already PhonePe UPI Account
implemented UPI and
download the respective app. Although
almost all banks have an app for UPI,
you might find them clunky or unus-
able. You can, however, use any banks
Step 1 : Setting up PhonePe
app for registering and making trans-
actions through UPI. We found that
only a couple of apps worked reliably,
we used PhonePe which is a third-
party app. Once you download the
app, youll need to verify and link your
phone number with the app. This can
be done by sending an SMS automati-
cally. After your number is verified,
youll be able to create an account with
PhonePe, linking your phone number.
After providing the details requested
such as your full name and email
address, you need to create a MPIN,
which is what youll be using the log
into the app and authenticate some
transactions as well.
After creating the
account, youll be prompted
to create a Virtual Payment
Address or VPA, which is
what youd be sharing with
everyone for receiving digital
payments.
Creating a Virtual Pay-
ment Address is like getting
an email ID so you know the
drill. The VPA must be in a
set format:
username@bank_code
For example, if
you have an account
in ICICI Bank (Pockets), you can
create a VPA as john@pockets.
You can also use your mobile
number as the username. The
VPA is linked to the
bank account, making
it possible to link
multiple bank accounts
to the same mobile
number and have a
unique VPA for each
bank account. After
you create the VPA, Step 3 : Link Bank Acc.
youll have to link your
bank account to this VPA. Till
now, only your mobile number
has been linked to the VPA.
Youll have the option to
link any supporting bank
account to the VPA by just
verifying your mobile number.
The app sends a request to the bank
trying to match the phone number
UPI transfer options
provided to the respective accounts.
Once this is authenticated, your bank
account would be linked to the VPA.
Thats it! Youre now registered to make
transactions over UPI. Easy, right?
How do you transact?
To send or receive payments, youll
need the other persons VPA. You can
then add them as a contact with the
VPA and start transacting. UPI does
away with OTPs, so there are no hassles
when initiating transactions. Payments
can also be requested from the app.
This is useful for
merchants who can
request a payment
from a customer.
When a payment is
requested, the cus-
tomer is notified and
when they approve,
the money is trans-
ferred instantly.
There will be service
charges for most
transactions unlike
existing wallets.
Additional
Services
Apart from sending and receiving
money, the UPI allow several functions.
Youll be able to Recharge your mobile,
data card, DTH, broadband and pay
you electricity bill and even pay insur-
ance premiums.
It doesnt make sense to use UPI for
small amounts as the service charge
would be a significant chunk of the
amount transacted. Most of the
UPI apps we tested also has a
feature to split the bill among
friends. You can take advantage of
this in situations where a group of
people might share a restaurant
bill and each person can pay their
share by using UPI. And since
it directly withdraws from your
bank account, you dont have to go
through the hassle of topping up
another digital wallet.
Let us know what you think
about this new system. Write to
us on editor@digit.in

68 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in


OPEN CAMERA
Unlock your phone cameras
true potential with these
10 tips on how to use open
camera
If you think that your
phones stock camera app can
do a lot, youll be surprised to
learn that Android lets you do
much more with the Camera2
API. Unfortunately, youll
have to download third party
apps to fully experience the
features your phones camera
is capable of.
Open camera is one such
app that is completely free. It
doesnt have ads and can be
used without any in app pur-
chases. So what can you do on
Open Camera which cannot
be done on your stock camera?
Read on to find out:
Camera
Stabilization
When youre shooting video
everyday, youd be lucky if
you have a device that has
image stabilization built
in. For now, it is a feature
reserved in the top flagship
devices only. Open Camera
cleverly implements camera
stabilization by using the
accelerometer to show you
the angle at which the camera
is tilted. You can use this vir-
tual spirit level to adjust your
grip so that the photos and
videos you shoot are perfectly
level. To use it, simply open
up Open Camera and look for
the readings on the bottom
left corner of the screen.
Showing interface, stabilization, memory usage
www.digit.in
Open Camera .......................................................................01
Multimedia Tracking and Recommendations ...02
{ }
Tips & Tricks has its own page numbers, and does not follow the rest
of the magazines page numbers. This is done to ensure that you can
cut out and save T&T in a separate folder for later reference.
Detect faces iour for the volume keys.
and not The volume keys can be used
objects! to take a photo, toggle video
You can enable face detec- recording, adjust the focus,
tion in the settings menu and zoom in/out, change exposure
let the camera focus on the level and toggle auto stabiliza-
faces that are recognized in tion. So fly through the app
the frame rather than having with the volume controls to
to manually select the focal take better images, faster.
points. This makes it easier to
shoot portraits and not having Control your
to worry about the person camera with
going out of focus. your voice
You can set the camera to
Use volume automatically take a picture
keys to take a or start recording video when
picture! you say a trigger word such
Open Camera lets you cus- as cheese or set it respond
tomize the volume keys to per- to loud noises. Youll find this
form various functions when handy when trying to take a
using the app. You can head groupie or an usie.
over to Settings>more camera
controls and set the behav- Adjust audio
sensitivity
Not all environments you
record video in are the same,
some might be more noisy
than the others. Unless your
phones mic adapts auto-
matically, youll be left with
extremely noisy or muffled
audio recordings. To counter
this, you can manually adjust
the sensitivity of the micro-
phone to best suit the envi-
ronment youre recording
Vol 17 | 01
Tips & Tricks
in. Head over to Audio con-
trol options to increase or
decrease the sensitivity.
Lock photo/
video
orientation
When youre shooting video,
the internet will collectively
groan if youre shooting it
in portrait. If you have a
problem with the orientation
when you rotate your device,
you can lock the orientation
to landscape regardless of
how the device is oriented.
Or you can always record in
portrait and endure the col-
lective hate. Set the orienta-
tion under More camera
controls in settings.
Various settings that can be
tweaked
Save your
photos where
you want!
If youre one of the lucky ones
who managed to snag a good
phone with a memory card
slot, you can take advantage
of the increased storage by
setting Open Camera to save
the photos to the external
storage. This saves valuable
space in your phone for other
content. You can change the
Save location to any folder
on the phone that the app has
write access to. Youll also be
able to customise the names of
January 2017 | Digit
Tips & Tricks
Showing various camera
resolutions
the files Open Camera would
be saving on your phone by
using prefixes. Add a prefix
for a video or a photo file sepa-
rately and you can make your
life a bit easier by reducing the
frequency of manual photo
organizing sessions.
Mark your
photos and
videos based on
when you took
them!
You can add stamps on photos
and videos with the date and
time and even embed the loca-
tion information if permis-
sions are granted. This will
help you catalog the photos
better and remember the
context to your photos when
youre reminiscing your green
and salad days. Add the times-
tamps in any format you want,
add custom text and even cus-
tomize the style of the text
youre adding.
Customize
how the
screen looks when
using the app
Stock camera apps can have
confusing UI and can be con-
tent agnostic when it comes
to interfaces. You can control
the layout of the UI for left
Digit | January 2017
handed and right handed be a pretty ordinary music Spotify
people and toggle the various streaming tool - just enter Open Spotify preferences
controls shown on the screen. the name of your artist and on Spotify by going to
Head over to Settings > On get listening to a mix of their Edit>Preferences
Screen GUI to play around songs. So whats this all Simply, check the
with the UI. about? Lets find out. Scrobble to Last.fm box
and enter your Last.fm
Burst mode Adding username and password.
Burst mode lets you services Now anything you listen
take photos in rapid succes- So one of the most powerful to on Spotify will be added
sion to capture memories uses of Last.fm is something to your Last.fm profile.
that are too fast to frame known as Scrobbling - when Anyone can check out
and compose a picture. You you listen to a song on some your profile at last.fm/
can set how many photos platform, details about that user/[username] and go
the phone takes when you song are sent to another ser- through your music taste.
trigger burst mode. You go
from 2 to 10 and even set it to
click photos as long as youre
holding down the shutter
button. Use the burst mode
with caution tough. Taking so
many photos can fill up your
phones storage fast.
Open camera comes with
a lot more features than the
stock camera and is useful
for users who want complete Last.fm has desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux.
control over taking photos. As
with other third party camera vice - in this case, Last.fm Desktop
apps, you can manually con- - and added to your profile. Whether youre on a Mac, a
trol the exposure, ISO, resolu- This, in turn, provides Last. Windows or a Linux platform,
tion, frame rate, timer, color fm more data to understand all you need to do is down-
effect, scene mode, HDR, flash your taste and suggest music load the respective Scrobbler
and white balance. Note that to you more accurately. Before application and install it. The
the app may not be supported we proceed any further, you plugin will be running in
on all phones as it relies on can head to Last.fm and create the background to track the
Googles latest Camera API. an account to try out these music that you play on native
Check if your phone is run- steps. Here are some quick music players like the Win-
ning the latest version of steps on how to succesfully dows media player or iTunes.
Android available and keep scrobble your music from sev- For a Mac, even the music that
your Google Services updated eral platforms onto Last.fm, to you listen to on your iPod,
for optimal usage. generate accurate data about iPad or iPhone eventually
your music taste. gets synced to your iTunes
MULTIMEDIA
TRACKING AND
RECOMMENDA-
TION
Last.fm for Audio
Last.fm is a powerful tool to
track all the music that you
consume across multiple plat-
forms in one place. How does
that benefit you? You get to
understand your own music
taste better along with get-
ting great recommendations
from the tool itself. At the The Chrome extension Last.fm Scrobbler works with many
very basic level it appears to popular services
Vol 11 | 02 www.digit.in

library and consequently, to
your Last.fm account.
Web
Even when youre generally
browsing the web and lis-
tening to music on Youtube,
Soundcloud or other websites,
you can scrobble them to your
Last.fm account if you have
the Last fm Scrobbler exten-
sion installed.
Once the extension is
installed, Click on the notifi-
cation to open the login page
on Last.fm and then allow the
service access to your profile.
Youre all set!
Android and iOS
Install the Last.fm app
Login with your account
credentials
Go to Settings and enable
Scrobbling for all apps in
the list including Other
music apps
Apart from these, Last.fms
API can scrobble from a lot of
services. Feel free to try them
out on your own.
Supercharge
Spotify with
Last.fm
Last.fms scrobbling service
leaves nothing to complain
about while Spotifys recom-
mendation service could use
some help. Fortunately, if
youre using Spotify theres
a neat tool to help you - Spot-
ibot. Spotibot offers a range
of Last.fm related services
to make Last.fm work better
with your Spotify account.
For example -
Use the headline feature to
enter the name of any artist
and generate a related
playlist.
Enter your Last.fm user-
name to generate a playlist
based on your listening
history.
Once you have a playlist,
drag an on screen icon onto
Spotify to play it.
www.digit.in
Receive recommended
Spotify songs via twitter.
Transfer Last.fms loved
tracks to Spotify playlist.
Use Last.fm
extra stats to
visualise your
music taste
Using Last.fm data to
visualise your music taste is
a common use of Last.fms
API. Theres an easy to use
tool known as Extra stats that
lets you do that on Windows.
The taste for music!
Simply download the app
from http://dgit.in/ExtrStts and
get going! If youre on Linux
or Mac you can request your
graphs on the same page.
Another service that does this
in an even more detailed way
is My Music Habits.
Get Wallpaper
and
Screensavers by
using Last.fm data
There are numerous uses to
which Last.fm data can be put
but this has to be one of the
most interesting. What if you
could use your music tastes
to generate wallpapers and
screensaver for your Win-
dows PC? Turns out you can.
Use Gijscos Desktop Gen-
erator for the wallpaper and
Music Quilt Screensaver for,
well, the screensaver, by just
entering your Last.fm user-
name. These two services are
Windows only, although there
are more you can find online.
Vol 17 | 03
And all the
cool things
Last.fm is much more than a
mere song tracking and rec-
ommendation engine. Head
over to http://dgit.in/BldLstFm
and you will category-wise
implementations of different
extentions of the Last.fm API.
There are standalone desktop
radio players, plugins for
blogs and social networks,
and more options for showing
off your listening trends using
all kinds of crazy charts.
Theres the Last.fm Firefox
Extension, which is similar
to PandoraFM in that it sub-
mits your Pandora tracks to
Last.fm; LastGraph, a wave
generator for your Last.
fm songs; Last.fm Reverse
Neighbours, a tool that finds
users that have you listed as
their neighbor (which is Last.
fms method to let you follow
users on its platform); Last.
fm Desktop Generator, which
generates a cool desktop for
you based on your Last.fm
playlists, and the official Last.
fm widgets, which basically
allow you to embed your play-
list on your site or blog.
Trakt.tv for movies
and TV shows
Just like Last.fm can scrobble
your music, Trakt.tv can
scrobble your tv shows and
movies. And just like Last.
fm, Trakt itself does not
stream content but mainly
shows you where you can
find content. And a lot more.
Read on to find out all that
you can do with it.
Build your
watched
history
The easiest way to do this is
scrobbling from your media
centre. Trakt officially sup-
ports Kodi, Plex, Netflix
and more. And most of the
plugins from these services
analyse the watched history
Tips & Tricks
of the media centre as well,
and sync everything back to
your account. This comes very
handy if youve been always
using a media centre for your
media consumption.
When youre not watching
something online, you can
still do a check-in via the
trakt.tv website or the mobile
app. These are referred to ask
manual scrobbles. Apart from
this you can also manually
click the purple check marks
on all trakt platforms web-
site and app for any movie or
TV show that you have seen.
See Stats
Based on your his-
tory, Trakt shows you some
useful stats on its own. On
the platform, there are but-
tons which will dynamically
update to give you stats and
progress info. When viewing
an episode or movie summary
page, youll see the play count
and the most recent date and
time you watched the item.
The view all link displays a
full history of every time you
watched the episode or movie.
Shows and seasons provide
progress info including the
percentage watched, epi-
sodes watched, and episodes
remaining. The view plays
link displays a full history of
every time you watched the
show or season.
Use Trakt
through apps
Trakt works on a number of
third party apps as well to
offer you a host of features.
When you go to a theater to
watch a movie, fire up Movist
and check in to what youre
watching. The app also syncs
up plays from all your other
connected devices. If youre
watching TV shows, use
SeriesGuide or iShows 2 to
easily track where youre
at. There are apps for all the
major platforms available,
January 2017 | Digit
Tips & Tricks

Open Kodi (please make choose Configure in the

Trakt has the coolest 404 error page ever
so try a few to find what you
like best. Thanks to the com-
munity support you wont
fall short of choices on the
implementations.
sure youre on the latest
version)
Select SYSTEM>Add-
ons>Select Search> type in
trakt>press enter or click
Done
Select Script
Trakt>Select Install
Wait for the Add-on ena-
bled message in the bottom
right corner of your screen.
After installing the plugin,
Get trakt on it should popup with instruc-
Kodi tions on how to connect
This is how you can download your Trakt.tv account. If you
and install the trakt plugin dont see this, then follow
on Kodi. these steps:
Trakt.tv add-on informa-
tion screen, then choose
How do I authorize.
An 8 digit code will be
displayed.
Go to https://trakt.tv/activate
on your laptop, desktop,
or mobile device. If youre
already signed into the
Trakt.tv website, youll see
the screen below asking for
the code displayed in Kodi.
Click YES to allow Trakt
for Kodi to access your
Trakt.tv account.
Return to Kodi after you
see the success message.
Configure the
Kodi plugin
After connecting your Trakt.
tv account, Kodi will refresh
and display the plugin con-
figuration screen.

General
Notice in the top User line, it
displays your connected user-
name on the right side. If you
want to re-connect to another
Trakt.tv account, go through
the connection steps again.

Exclusions
If youd like to ignore items
from being scrobbled to Trakt.
tv, you can do that in this tab.
Excluding HTTP sources
means any streaming content
will be ignore. Exclude spe-
cific paths if youd like ignore
local media from being scrob-
bled. For example, ignore any
shows your kids are watching
so they dont scrobble to your
Trakt.tv account.
These are the most pop-
ular services that youll need
to track. Both of them are
highly community driven, so
anything that we might have
missed out, youll definitely
find it online, along with
documentation. In fact, you
could even build your own
implementation! If you do,
Use the exclusions to avoid unwanted shows and movies being scrobbled let us know at editor@digit.in

Digit | January 2017 Vol 11 | 04 www.digit.in

 OUR PICK OF THE BEST TECH ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

(MUST READS)
[The Verge Corner]
THE KEY TO VIRTUAL REALITY

RASPBERRY PI GAMING
This DIY project will guide you
on how to make the ultimate
retro gaming machine. All you
need is a Raspberry Pi, mouse,
keyboard, an output display and
a microSD card/card reader.
http://dgit.in/RspbryPiGM

MUSIC FOR
PRODUCTIVITY
Can listening to your favourite
song amidst doing some work
really increase your produc-
tivity? Studies can prove that
for most type of demanding
tasks, anything but silence can
hurt your performance.
http://dgit.in/musc4work

Researchers at the Panoptic Studio in Carnegie Mellon University

are trying to understand body languages to improve the way
robots relate to human beings. They also believe it holds the key
to the future of virtual reality. http://dgit.in/VRfutre

THE PERFECT FIREPLACE

Januarys are usually the
coldest time of the year in
most parts of India, and here is
how you can build the perfect
fireplace to beat the winter.
http://dgit.in/fireplaceBst

Wired town going wireless Writing a tweetstorm Who owns CRISPR?

FIXING THE INTERNET
The internet has begun to
corrode. There are so many
new bugs in the system and
it is being rapidly exploited by
hackers and trolls. What is the
cost of all this? How can we fix it
entirely to make it alright again?
http://dgit.in/FixIntrnt
The Blacksburg Electronic Village
at the time of their launch in the
1990s were the state of the art.
Today, with the passing of internet,
the once vibrant network has
become obsolete.
http://dgit.in/BEVabsolete
Ever been annoyed when you want
to write more than 140 characters
on Twitter? Well, heres the best
way you can send multiple tweets
at once to form a single continuous
message.
http://dgit.in/tweetstrm
CRISPR is a DNA cutting technique
used in scientific studies. This new
research is worth million of dollars
and a patent hearing is tearing the
scientific community apart.
http://dgit.in/CRISPRcase

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 73

 (worldview)

ANDROID EVERYWHERE SIMPLE AQUARIUM THE DEATH STARS EXPLAINED: OLED

Googles Android PHYSICS FLAWS TECHNOLOGY
is free and open You can have In Star Wars, the Organic Light-
SHORTS

source, app a pretty cool Death Star may Emitting Diode

development is easy and it also
works on almost everything. No
wonder its the most popular
OS. if anything you build has a
screen on it, there are plenty of
reasons why Android should be
the OS you work with and you
can find them here.
http://dgit.in/yAndroidos
looking vacuum
suspended aquarium using a
glass jar or vessel to create a
tank above the water level. This
simple DIY project explains
how this is possible using
simple physics and looks
totally cool.
http://dgit.in/AqurmPhyscs
be represent as a
symbol of fear and oppression,
but to an architect, its just poor
defence, limited amenities and
an overall bad design. Heres
what a couple of engineers and
architects had to say about the
planet-killers vague design:
http://dgit.in/DthStrFlws
(OLED) displays
are bright, crisp and incred-
ibly more beautiful. But the
technology is still very new and
they are still very expensive.
But are they worth the extra
cost? What about the content?
Is it worth it?
http://dgit.in/OLEDxplnd

Technology that died in 2016

2016 was a year full of farewells in the tech world, so heres a
recap of all things tech that will not see the light of day in 2017. By Souvik Das

E
very year the tech industry
bombards us with a barrage of
new products and fascinating
technologies to pave the way
for our digital future. At the same time,
with each advancement in technology,
with each new phone, with each new app
or software, the old goes out the window
making way for more sophisticated
gadgets and groundbreaking innovation.
2016 was a year full of farewells in the tech
world, so heres a recap of all things tech
that will not see the light of day in 2017.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has already
claimed top spots in our Most disap-
pointing phones of 2016 and Biggest
Tech stories of 2016 lists. Making an
appearance for the third time around, the
Galaxy Note 7 bags the most noteworthy
tech death of the year. How not to rush a
smartphone launch is a lesson Samsung
has learnt only too well. As the phone
kept bursting into flames, so did Sam-
sungs hopes of crushing Apples flagship
iPhone 7. Although, Samsung has prom-
ised to get to the bottom of the disaster.
Apple iPhone 5s, 6 and
6 Plus
You can probably still buy them from
third-party sellers, but the iPhone 5s,
6 and 6 Plus have been officially dis-
continued. Following the launch of
the iPhone 7, the 5s, 6 and 6 Plus were
unlisted from Apples website. With the
3 iPhones, Apple also said goodbye to the
16GB base variant and instead upped it
to a minimum of 32GB storage for all
variants except the SE.
Microsoft Lumia
Microsoft was bound to kill the Lumia
brand after the devices took a major
beating from competing brands. The
Chinese invasion in the mobile market
didnt help either. Nevertheless, the
world is a better place without Lumia
smartphones and Microsoft seems to
have made a sensible decision.
Nexus
With the launch of the Google Pixel and
Pixel XL, we finally bid farewell to the
Nexus brand. The Mountain View tech
giant apparently has no plans to con-
tinue the Nexus project which began
back in 2010, using the Pixel name
going forward.
Pebble
Disappointing many fans of its retro
smartwatches, Pebble is now officially
dead. Well almost. The hugely successful
Kickstarter startup, Pebble recently sold
all of its software assets to wearable
maker Fitbit. Fitbit is only acquiring
key personnel and software assets from
Pebble. The acquisition excludes Peb-
bles hardware products. So yes, its time
to say adios to the Pebble Watch.
Microsoft Band 2
The Lumia smartphone range was not
the only money drainer Microsoft had
under its belt. The Redmond based soft-
ware giant was also not doing too well
in its fitness tracker business. The Band
2 was abruptly taken off the Microsoft
store this year, even though its listing
page still exists. Microsoft also removed
the software developer kit for the Band
2, indicating that it does not want more
apps to be developed for the same.

74 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 (worldview)

UNDERSTANDING TRACKING HACKED SPIDERMANS WEB UV LIGHTS FROM PHONE

QUANTUM GRAVITY ACCOUNTS WINGS What is a
The effort to LeakedSource If you have blacklight and
unify quantum is a service seen the new how do you
mechanics that sends Spider-Mans make one?
and general email notifica- movie trailer, This is about understanding
relativity means tions about you must have surely noticed the important aspects of
reconciling totally different new breaches and offers a his new wingsuit. Here is a frequency and electromag-
notions of time. Understanding database of information stolen simple explanation on how netic waves. You can make
this research could very well in hacks. This is how they keep the new wingsuit can help an ultraviolet light using just
unearth the true nature track of over 3 billion hacked Spider-Man glide across chop- the LED flash light from your
of time. accounts in their database. pers and buildings: phone. Cool, isnt it?
http://dgit.in/quantumG http://dgit.in/LeakdSource http://dgit.in/SpidrmnSuit http://dgit.in/blacklightDIY

However, the Band 2 is still available
for purchase on Amazon, but buying it
right now would be a mistake consid-
ering the company itself is washing its
hands off it.
Reuters, the company pulled funding
from the project in September this year.
Word is that the project was suspended
in order to streamline Googles hard-
ware efforts. Interestingly, Google had
earlier promised a developer edition of
the product in autumn 2016, and even
announced a bunch of partners. In fact,
Google even showed the products to
some international media outlets.
Apple AirPort WiFi Routers
As per a report by Bloomberg, Apple is
getting out of the router business and
doing away with the router division in
the company internally. This means
Cupertino will no longer be making
the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme
or Time Capsule. Apple has reallocated
their staff to other hardware depart-
ments as of now.

Picasa Hyundai i10

Point and Shoot cameras
2016 has truly been the year when point
and shoot cameras became completely
obsolete. With smartphone photog-
raphy now rivalling DSLRs, point and
shoot cameras vanished from retail
shelves. Because who needs a bulky
camera when one can just flash around
the latest smartphone?
Vine
The death of Vine, a popular video-loop
service owned by Twitter, came as a
complete surprise to the tech world. Eve-
ryone knew the platform was struggling,
but to pull the plug entirely was prob-
ably Twitter trying to tie up some loose
ends before finalising its own acquisi-
tion. However, rumour now has it that
Twitter might after all be looking to sell
Vine at a cheap price tag.
Google Project Ara
Googles Project Ara died an early death
even before its modular phone saw the
day of light. According to a report by
Google retired Picasa and moved on to a
single photo service called Google Photos
in February 2016. The new photos app
was integrated seamlessly across mobile
and the web. Although, you can access
your Picasa Web Albums data, including
your tags, captions, and comments, in
the Album Archive.
MacBook Air 11-inch
Following the launch of the MacBook
Pro with the OLED Touch Bar, Apple
announced that it will be discontinuing
the 11-inch MacBook Air. In fact, Apple
made it very clear that it will focus
on the MacBook and MacBook Pro
lineups going forward. However, the
MacBook Air 13 inch model, which saw
a refresh in 2015, is still being sold by
the company.
we do it now as the days of struggling
The Hyundai i10 also saw its last in 2016.
The popular hatchback will not be pro-
duced by Hyundai anymore. This is the
end to i10s 9 year production cycle and
even though the car might still be vis-
ible on the roads for a few more years,
Hyundai will not make any new i10s.
Portable Music Players
With streaming becoming a way of
life, the death knell for portable music
players has been sounded. 2016 marked
15 years of the Apple iPod, but with
Apple Music in the fray, the company
does not seem to have any intentions of
making another iPod. The future of port-
able music seems to be permanently tied
to that of smartphones.
Cable connections
Lastly, digital set top boxes and video
streaming services have finally man-
aged to kill off local cable connections.
There are a bunch of online streaming
services available for audiences to
keep themselves entertained. Binge
watching and pay-per-view is the how
with a rooftop antenna or dish come to
an end.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 75

(worldview)

JERRYRIGEVERYTHING (PRODUCT LAUNCHES)

Technology reviews
from the inside. This MOTO M FUJIFILM X-A10 APPLE AIRPODS
channel mostly com-
prises of smartphone

teardowns, durability
tests and do-it-yourself
repair videos. The cre-
ator labels all the parts
and accessories used in
the project and one can
easily follow his instruc-
tions for self repairs.
http://dgit.in/JerryRigE
The all new Moto M has a uni-
body metal design and a fin-
gerprint scanner at the back.
The phone is just 7.8mm thick
and comes in two variants - A
3GB RAM version with 32GB
storage and a 4GB RAM with
64GB of storage.
Price: `15,999/- `17,999/-
P I C TURE PU Z Z L E
The new X-A10 is the
cheapest X-Series mirror-
less camera from Fujifilm. It
has a 16 megapixel sensor
and an LCD display that can
tilt 180 degrees. The camera
also comes with a 16-50mm
f/3.5-5.6 lens.
Price: `34,000/- (approx).
Apple announced their new
wireless earphones along with
the new iPhones a few months
ago. But after much delay they
finally releases the Airpods.
At its given price there are no
reasons why we would recom-
mend it to anyone.
Price: `15,000 (approx)
ABSOLUTE
TIMEPASS

Top 3 Picks Make sure your bosses dont catch you goofing off
watching one of these videos playing on your screen

To get all these links in one
easy to read page, make
sure you blip this page from
your smartphone.
History of Googles growth
Duration: 06:00
How Google evolved from a
small university project to the
Worlds largest tech brand -
the entire story, all here.
http://dgit.in/HstryGoogle
Method 1 Robot Penguins vs. Santa Claus
Duration: 01:40 Duration: 08:04
Method-1 is a manned-robot If youre ever feeling jobless
made by South Korean watch this bloody simu-
company Korea Future lated battle between 11,000
Technology Penguins and Santa Claus
http://dgit.in/Method1bot http://dgit.in/PngnSanta

76 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 > code / creativity / community >
Angular is jumping
to Angular 4
http://dgit.in/Angular4

2017 for developers

>>Here are some of the key trends that have shown
promise for the coming year > by Mithun Mohandas

A
lot many developments have happened over
2016, quite a few trends have been over-hyped,
with Big Data being one of them. And now with
that having died down, the industry is making
actual progress. Aside from lacking the right infrastructure
and resources to base the industry on, these few years have
only been good for the conglomerates that had the money to
actually put big data to use. With really fast memory having
arrived and compute hardware with large caching becoming
more affordable, 2017 looks to be the year when were going to
see the democratisation of big data. Anyone can easily afford
consumer grade compute cards from NVIDIA or AMD and
get started with the number crunching. Moreover, we now
have access to Machine Learning tools that have a much more
beginner-friendly learning gradient.
So what do we expect from 2017? Read on
There shall be one
This last year quite a lot of proprietary Machine Learning soft-
ware ended up getting open sourced by the giants from Silicon
Valley. Elon Musk backed non-profit called OpenAI was set up
with the aim of building AI that is human friendly. Microsoft
open sourced their Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK), Facebook has
been putting its weight behind Caffe and Torch while Google
has open sourced its TensorFlow and DeepMind projects.
Baidu, one of the biggest entities working on MachineLearning
has also open sourced its set of libraries under the name Pad-
dlePaddle. And lastly, Amazon has integrated MXNet into
their AWS ML platform.
With so many tools getting open sourced, the community
is slowly going to get its hands dirty and from among all these
Google open sourced DeepMind
will arise only one. While every Machine Learning library has
its pros and cons, there are other factors that will come into
play when developers start playing around with ML. These
libraries will proliferate the developer community and at the
end of 2017 we shall see one particular library becoming the
gold standard. This gold standard will then be adopted by all
major XaaS providers and will be better integrated with their
platforms. Data Sets for these ML platforms will also become

*Coding Matters

*OpenAIs AI training *AWS CodeBuild *Firefox hardware report

>> Universe is a software platform >> AWS Codebuild is Amazons new >>Mozilla published analysis of
that allows any user to measure and build service for creating and testing hardware usage to advise web
train an AIs general intelligence. new software packages. developers about hardware market.
http://dgit.in/UOpenAI http://dgit.in/AWScode http://dgit.in/FFxHWRep

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 77

easier to get your hands on as more and more companies are
releasing non-private data. Even those starting out can get their
hands on voluminous data sets pertaining to, lets say Amazon
Book Reviews or Dota2 Game matchups / results, Facebook
comment volume data, etc.
Hardware is affordable
High Performance GPUs that can really accelerate the pace of
Machine Learning like NVIDIAs Tesla and AMDs Radeon
Instinct have been announced. While both companies have had
GPGPU is getting a massive push thanks to NVIDIA and AMD
their GPUs being used for OpenCL and proprietary GPGPU
applications for a while, the move to smaller process nodes for
their transistors have resulted in a tremendous rise of compute
power. Needless to say, the basic solutions from either company
have become really affordable. While industrial applications
would still require spending ridiculous amounts of money
to set up Machine Learning servers, it will be way easier for
startups to dive into the deep end without the fear of sinking.
This widespread adoption will lead to several off-the-shelf
solutions becoming a reality and thereafter, becoming even
more affordable. Be it GPUs, services on the cloud or neural
chipsets for the embedded market, the cost will go down.
Blockchain for all
Unless youve been living under a rock, youd have heard about
blockchain. Its a distributed database that maintains a steadily
growing list of ordered records. They are inherently resistant
to past records getting modified and have a high fault toler-
78 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Banks are championing the development of Blockchain
ance. Conceptualised by Satoshi Nakamoto for the now infa-
mous Bitcoin a form of cryptocurrency Blockchain is being
readily considered by banks for issuance of bank issued legal
currency. R3, a distributed database technology company that
leads a consortium of over 70 financial institutions has been
investing heavily in blockchain technology. R3 is seeking $150
million from its member companies to fund the development
of blockchain-based technologies for the banking sector, and
theyve already secured more than half of that amount. While
a few top names have left the consortium Goldman Sachs,
Morgan Stanley, Santander and NAB more have stepped in
to take their place.
Aside from traditional applications, Blockchains are also
being targeted at recording Smart Contracts. Simply put, Smart
Contracts are a bunch of conditional statements that form the
basis of a legal agreement between parties. The moment these
conditions are met, the Smart Contract gets executed. Ethereum
is a well-known platform that deals in Smart Contracts. And
there are a lot many other such as Maidsafe, Ardor, Synereo,
etc. which are all working towards creating the decentralised
internet. By the time their efforts bear fruits, we should arrive
at the end of 2017 and hopefully see Blockchain evolve.
IoT wreaks havoc
The Internet of Things is going to be huge, with over 6 billion
devices that are connected to the internet A figure thats
expected to exponentially rise in the coming years to hit the 50
billion mark by 2020. However, there is no uniform security
framework for IoT. All manufacturers implement their own
proprietary solutions which has led to an extremely fragmented
scenario. And in the midst of all this, weve had the very first
massive IoT based botnet attack in October 2016. Now known
as the Mirai botnet, this attack crippled the servers of companies
like NetFlix, NYTimes, Paypal and Twitter.
Cisco, AT&T, GE, Intel and IBM formed the Industrial
Internet Consortium about two years back to focus on the IoT
Mirai Botnet was only the first
industry and to create a unified framework,
but it will take a few more attacks by mas-
sive IoT botnets like the Mirai, before the
industry switches to high gear and comes
out with a solution. It would be a lot better
if Government agencies step in to keep the
corporates in check while these frameworks
are designed.
Mixed Reality gathers steam
While VR and AR applications will continue
to steadily grow, Mixed Reality will gain a
foothold. Among the well known players,
currently only Microsofts Hololens and an
yet to be revealed MagicLeap project are
working on Mixed Reality. Both devices are
being readied for launch and should be out
before the H2 2017.
Mixed Reality is going to be big
The myriad set of applications involving
mixed reality showcase its true potential.
And since enterprise use cases are likely to
take the first step, we will see Mixed Reality
being used for visualising Big Data. This
in turn, will improve the decision making
process where large complex data sets are
to be factored. We should see plenty of such
data visualisation services pop-up thanks to
the Big Data industry.
PaaS will dominate cloud services
If one thing needs to be made clear is that
with the rise in growth and accessibility of
Machine Learning comes the realisation
about the kind of hardware thats needed
for applications. While in-house develop-
ment can easily be carried out on off-the-
shelf solutions, going into production is an
entirely different ball game altogether.
As companies begin to realise that such
hardware come at a steep price and that set-
ting up all that hardware also incurs addi-
tional expenditure. This is the reason why
cloud based services are doing so well in
the and machine learning is no different.
All the major XaaS providers have already
started setting up GPGPU clusters. Towards
*pointers
>>Interesting
developer videos
*Machine Learning
Products
>>A video that showcases 10
amazing machine learning based
products to inspire developers.
http://dgit.in/MLProds
*Blockchain
demystified
>>A TEDx talk on how blockchain
is shaping and moving beyond the
bitcoin hype.
http://dgit.in/BCTedX
*The basics of a
botnet
>>Also known as Zombie
Armies, Sheharbano Khattak
of the University of Cambridge
Computer Lab explains botnets.
http://dgit.in/BotnetBasics
*Windows
Holographic
>>Microsofts Mixed reality
platform expands the world
of augmented and virtual
reality along with the Windows
ecosystem.
http://dgit.in/WinHolo
the end of the year we should
see more pricing tiers in the
PaaS offerings for GPGPU
use cases. And along with
that, well also see a push
for cognitive computing,
streaming media analytics and predictive
analytics in the same time.
More GPGPU PaaS services to come in 2017
With the rise of newer technologies to
analyse big data, weve seen a sharp fall in
Hadoop usage. This fall started towards the
end of 2015 but in 2016, the big data com-
munity left Hadoop behind. Rival Apache
Spark has been experiencing similar ups and
downs all across 2016. As programmers are
slowly gaining data science skills on their
own, those whod prided themselves as big
data gurus are going to be left behind as
Data Science is really going to heat up
well. These roles, i.e. Data Scientists, Data
Architects and Data Officers are all going to
get better defined and thus, a year down the
line were going to see a spike in demand for
such roles as well.
Some of the things mentioned earlier
might feel good to you as a developer, some
not so much. But what cannot be denied is
that 2017 is going to a momentous year for
the technology community.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 79

>>Gautam Rege,
Co-Founder, Josh
Software>>
>>We sit down with Mr. Rege to
learn about their new initiative
towards increasing open source
contribution from the community.>
Digit: What is CodeCuriosity and what
are the reasons behind its inception?
Gautam: Open-source is being used
everywhere today, if youre using an
Android phone then youre probably
using some Open-source component.
Even if you look at applications made on
the iPhone, theyre probably using some
open source library at the core. Microsoft
open sourced .NET, Apple open sourced
Swift 2, these are the languages and
frameworks prevalently used to make
applications. These large companies are
moving towards open source. So open
source has become a very common
aspect today. Now, moving towards
*Nodes of Interest
*Android Things :
Getting started
>> Android Things is a new IoT
platform based on Android OS.
http://dgit.in/AndrdIoT
80 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
the developer side, how many people
consume open source and how many
people contribute to open source? About
99.3 per cent consume open source and
maybe less than 0.7 per cent Im being
optimistic here are actively contrib-
uting back.
Now this is a problem that were
trying to solve. So the roots of CodeCu-
riosity started off about 3-4 years ago at
Josh when we wanted our team to start
contributing back to open source. We
were finding it difficult for them to get
out of their daily grind to contribute.
Majority of them did it as an optional
thing. So after years of experimenting,
we had something called Open Source
Friday where nobody worked on their
daily work and just contributed to open
source projects. It worked for some
months before dying down.
We started brainstorming to figure
out that if open source contributions are
fun, motivating and rewarding, then we
had a solution. We started a competi-
tion. And if participants were found to
be among the top 5-6 people then they
were rewarded. We tried this internally
at Josh for the last one year and we got
astounding results.
Once we started tracking peoples
activities on GitHub, we were able to
reward people for their work. And once
we started doing that, we saw contribu-
tions increase. So we set up a platform
and called it CodeCuriosity to track open
source contributions. And through this
platform, we were tracking every activity
that was being done every day. And we
were rewarding users.
*Minecraft Designer |
Code
>> You can learn basic coding and
make your own Minecraft game.
http://dgit.in/MSmncrft
We wanted it to be motivative and
not competitive. So we started working
towards the Fitbit model. Everyone
knows running is healthy but it was
only after wearables came into the pic-
ture and started telling you how much
youve benefitted that you started getting
motivated to run more.
CodeCuriosity does that for you. We
set up goals, you can choose goals and
then you start contributing on a monthly
basis. The platform tells you how much
you have contributed, how much is left
for your target and when you do hit your
targets, you are rewarded.
Digit: So how do you score a user?
Gautam: We have an automated algo-
rithm which is open source and con-
tinues to evolve based on feedback. We
try to improve and try to score every
open source contributions it could be
a code commit, or raising an issue, etc.
Weve also been trying to integrate Stack-
Exchange into CodeCuriosity.
So once youre able to track all these
activities, you get rewarded points. And
10 points = $1, so you can actually start
making money out of your open source
contributions. So not only are you making
it fun, motivational and rewarding but
youre also getting people to contribute
back. So open source contributions
become part of your daily routine. This
is our aim. To ensure that we can tilt
the balance of consumers:contributors
from 99.3:0.7 to 95:5. Even if we are able
convert 10% of the consumers into con-
tributors, the results will be astounding.
Because the benefits are huge!
*Botnet setup for Noobs
>>A step by step tutorial on how
to setup your own botnet, without
being an expert hacker yourself.
http://dgit.in/BotnetForNoobs
 UBISOFTS LATEST BRINGS AN OPEN WORLD TO ADVENTURE SPORTS.
nybody who has been
playing or following any
of the recent Ubisoft
titles such as - Watch
Dogs series, the Division, Ghost Recon
Wildlands - will have noticed that
Ubisoft is certainly obsessed about
open worlds. Any of you who have
played the Burnout Paradise instal-
ment of the Burnout series will find
themselves on familiar grounds with
Steep. On the other hand, even if
youve played Tony Hawks Pro Skater
or similar extreme sport games- any of
them - youll be at an advantage here
too! Well, enough of dwelling in the
past. Even we were getting a
tad bit bored with the
hordes of typical FPSs,
RPGs and multitude of
me-too games that are
released by the dozens,
so when the mountains
from Ubisoft called, you
bet we answered!
82 | SKOAR! | January 2017 | follow us on:
By Arnab knidarius Mukherjee
feedback@skoar.in
GAMEPLAY
Steep starts you off at one of the many
drop off locations in the game. Its
main attraction - you can seamlessly
switch between snow-boarding, skiing,
paragliding and wingsuiting your way
across the white expanse of the Alps if
youre at a standstill to begin with. And
trust us, that choice matters! While
you eventually might feel the snow-
boarding is the coolest of the four and
that para-gliding is a slow, drab excuse
for the games lack of any faster trans-
port mechanism to undiscovered loca-
tions, there are challenges that can
only be done in certain sports. And
you WILL need that XP to level gold edition comes bundled with the
up and unlock additional Season Pass DLC, which brings in new
drop locations, without sports, night challenges and a lot of
which it is a real pain to digital content to the game.
7 travel across the land- Talking about levelling up, there is no
scape. At this point, we particular character development
should let you know that mechanism here. Sure, you can do a ton
we played the standard of cosmetic changes - from your wing-
edition of the game. The suit helmet down to your skiing shoes -
facebook.com/SKOAR

MOAR!
PLATFORMS: PlayStation 4, Xbox One,
Microsoft Windows
PRICE: PC - Standard Edition `1,799;
Gold Edition `1,999; Season Pass DLC
`499.
Xbox - Standard Edition `4,000; Gold
Edition `5,350; Season Pass DLC `1,192.
PS4 - Standard Edition `3,499
REVIEWED ON: PlayStation 4
DEVELOPERS: Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft
Montpellier, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Kiev
PUBLISHERS: Ubisoft
Pros
Overall visual treat
4 Player co-op can be a lot of fun
WINGSUIT!!
Cons
Repetitive
Glitches in game physics and graphics
No skill development
but none of those changes will affect
your riding even a little bit - unless youre
bothered by a snowman helmet with a
twig going right through it.
Well admit that the controls are a
bit hard to master. And Steeps focus
on realism doesnt really help with
that. Every wrong turn, every missed
deceleration will cost you dearly as
you realise that even the slightest of
bumps at certain speeds can lead to
some glorious bone-crunching crash-
es. Well, at least the game gives you
trophies for that!
Now, coming back to the open
world mechanism - Steep has its eyes
strongly set on the social gaming
experience, but gets a few things
painstakingly wrong. To begin with,
grouping up with a new player that you
see in-game requires a PlayStation
Plus subscription. We found that out
the hard way as one of us had chased
another player on skis for almost ten
minutes before getting plastered with
the big prompt. Also, at no point of
time did we see more than 4 players in
the same gaming world. That might
have been intentional to avoid crowd-
ing this beautiful landscape. But
beyond this, the social features imple-
In-game screenshots
mented are pretty nice. You can actu-
ally go to the Mountain View (this
ones in the Alps, not California) and
check out your previous saved runs
and redo them from any point of your
choosing! You can even share these
runs on social media, save them for
redoing later, or even create a new
challenge for your friends based on
multiple parameters like time, freestyle
score and more.
Although, some of the special
Mountain story missions do get their
own cinematic setting. These moun-
tain stories are actually quite fun to
play - with each mountain narrating to
you its description upon discovery, in
its very own personality. And weve
done it all - from running over evil
snowmen to following a trail of roses
on the snow to a frozen lake - and the
mountain stories didnt disappoint.
follow us on:
R EE V U
GRAPHICS
The game certainly kicks off by look-
ing gorgeous, right in your face! From
the moment you start the game you
are thrown into amazingly beautiful
visuals of the Alps, painstakingly rec-
reated (at this point, it would start
sounding like Ubisoft built the original
Alps themselves) each detail about
the mountain range, especially the
snow. The snow - oh boy, dont get us
started on that! If this game gets a 10
on something, that would be its snow.
Beyond the snow, almost nothing
is even close to accurate - be it the
weird ice textures that almost seem
handdrawn to the trees that look
ordinarily out of place, All of that
would have escaped attention if a
couple of bugs werent so disturbing-
ly obvious.
In our runs, we would often end up
between certain objects, inside
other players or even going through
something immovable quite inexpli-
cably. On the other hand, we often
landed in spots from where it was
impossible to recover without going
to the last place where the game
autosaved your location. Some of the
collisions in the game dont make
sense either. Steep leaves you with
quite a few of these questions, when
it comes to graphics, before it daz-
zles you with the next glorious sum-
mit you just unlocked.
OVERALL
Why does this review have only the
above two sections? Because thats
pretty much it about Steep. The game
doesnt offer you anything more and
doesnt pretend that it is. The
soundtrack is pretty average and con-
sists of tracks that would fit into any
adventure sports setting.
Just like the unabashed product
placements in the game (Steep has
Red Bull challenges and cinematics),
the game itself is quite straightforward
with what it offers you - a fun exhilarat-
ing way to let go at the end of a long
day. While a skill development feature
would make it much more relatable
and competitive, in the end, true riders
only care about the thrill of the ride,
dont they?
twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 83
 Zombieland: The Video Game
By Sameer Psycho Mantis Mitha
feedback@skoar.in

f youve played the previous Dead Rising games, then youre probably a fan
of the franchise and know what to expect. I, however, havent played any of
the prequels. So if like me you are one looking to dive into the world of
Dead Rising, then read on. This review is for you.
At its core, Dead Rising 4 is a third-person open world game where your
objective is to kill all the zombies. Plain and simple. You don the role of Frank
West a former photojournalist now working as a college teacher. You and your

84 | SKOAR! | January 2017 | follow us on: facebook.com/SKOAR


student Vicky Chu, are investigating a
military compound which is the site of
the first zombie outbreak. As always,
things dont go according to plan and
you are accused of terrorism by the
government, yada-yada-yada, zom-
bies attack and you are there to face
the day. Thats the short version of the
story. The story isnt the most compel-
ling feature of the game and its there
just to get you from point-A to point-B.
Dont expect a BioShock Infinite level
of storytelling in Dead Rising 4 and it
shouldnt be expected from a survival
beat em up game like this.
GAMEPLAY
Moving on to gameplay, this is where
Dead Rising is a lot of fun. Kicking
things off, there are a lot of customisa-
tion options available for the main
character and the sky is the limit for
how you want the protagonist to look.
There are also a lot of collectables and
blueprints to find scattered through-
out the level. Finding the blueprints for
new weapons can be quite fun. If you
have played Ratchet and Clank or Sun-
set Overdrive and like the weapons in
those games, then you will love what
Dead Rising 4 has to offer. It looks like
the developers have taken a leaf from
the Batman Arkham games detective
mode. You have access to something
very similar which will help you solve
puzzles through this journey. There is
also an exo-skeleton suit that looks like
the one from the movie Edge of
Tomorrow and that isnt a bad thing.
Add a bunch of customisable vehicles
to the mix and you have one zombie
apocalypse game that you will be play-
ing for hours to come.
Speaking of hours to come, it will
take you well over 20 hours to finish
one playthrough even if you arent
going to collect everything or do every-
thing there is to do.
Overall, the gameplay is a lot of fun
and there is little to complain here. It is
the ideal game to run through if you
just got bullied, had a bad day at work
or want to steamroll over some zom-
bies to vent your frustration.
If there is one thing Id like to see
in the game, its split-screen co-op.
It would be a lot of fun to sit on a
couch with a friend and kill hordes
of Zombies.
GRAPHICS
Moving to the graphics, the game isnt
the best there is, visually but it isnt
bad either. There are frame rate drops
and texture pop-ins but all this can be
forgiven when you see the number of
Zombies that are rendered at a given
point in time. If you have played The
Last of Us, then this is the exact
opposite. The Last of Us shows what
the world would be like if the Zombie
apocalypse became a reality. Dead
Rising is the final battle from the
movie Zombieland.
follow us on:
R EE V U
MOAR!
PLATFORMS: Xbox One,
Microsoft Windows
PRICE: Xbox One: 3,999
REVIEWED ON: Xbox One S
DEVELOPERS: Capcom
Vancouver
PUBLISHERS: Capcom,
Microsoft Studios
Pros:
Crazy weapons
Overall fun gameplay
Cons:
Inconsistent frame rate
Sometimes repetitive
Coming to the sound, the voice
acting is quite cheesy but not overly
so. There is too much sarcasm and
humour in the dialogue for you to
take anything seriously and thats a
good thing. The weapon sounds are
punchy and the gurgling of the zom-
bies getting squished under your car
or being destroyed by your weapons
is satisfying.
VERDICT: DEAD RISING 4
Dead Rising 4 is a fun game and one
that you can play when you want to
blow off some steam, or just lose your-
self in the video game version of Zom-
bieland. The weapons are interesting
and the story though cheesy, some-
thing we like. The only two downsides
are the dip in frame rate and the fact
that the gameplay can sometimes get
repetitive and boring. If you are looking
for a serious World War Z-style Zom-
bie game, then youre better off play-
ing The Last of Us.
twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 85
86 | SKOAR! | January 2017 | follow us on: facebook.com/SKOAR

Gaming has come a long way from its
origins, and its seen a lot of changes along
the way, in its relatively short life it has
changed a lot, and were going to take a look
at them changes
By Manish Trigger Happy Rajesh
feedback@skoar.com
he first ever video game was
invented all the way back in 1958.
Thats 58 years, 58 years of gam-
ing and weve seen some BIG
changes along the way. Weve
come from our humble pixelated
pong beginnings to games that
look so real its hard to distinguish
them from movies. Of course graphics arent the only thing
thatve changed over time, theyre just the most easily
noticeable thing. Below the surface theres many things that
have changed as well, and the speed at which the world of
gaming changes and evolves today, you could be gaming in a
completely different way in just five years from now, if youve
been a gamer for a long time; for example from back when
Sega and Nintendo were the Xbox and PS of today, then
youll probably be able to relate to a lot of what were about
PHOTO IMAGING BY: ANIL VK
to say, so lets get right into it.
Games too easy?
Lets address and get the first few things out of the way
immediately. These are the most obvious things, and the first
one were talking about is how games spoonfeed players
these days. Now we know that there are several factors that
come into play when it comes to this particular trend in
K U VA H S T ORY
games today. The main demographics of gamers in the past
used to be teenagers and kids, they were the majority of the
market. Now however, the demographic has shifted to adults
who are over the age of 30. Its probably because those same
kids grew up and are still gamers but what were getting at is
that easier games are less time consuming, and adults dont
have too much time to game. However, we did see a shift
recently, with the advent of Dark Souls, challenging games
were becoming the in thing again. And all of a sudden there
was an influx of games that were challenging and existing
games that were already challenging saw some limelight.
Games now punished players for messing up; no instruc-
tions, no guides, no spoonfeeding. Bet that didnt stop you
from going online and looking up a walkthrough though. But
at the end of the day, most major game devs will lean
towards wherever the money is and the money is with the
working adults. Anyway, that was the why, but were still
going to b*tch about it now.
Insert back in my day meme here. If youve played on the
old consoles, or even old PC games, then you know the
struggle. You had to memorise level codes, you couldnt save
your game when you wanted, you had to progress far enough
to reach a save point or risk having to do it all over again. You
couldnt look up the answer to a puzzle or anything online,
you had to tough it out yourself and figure it out. There were
follow us on: twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 87
K U VA H S T ORY

walkthroughs and internet forums wait-

ing for you with all the answers. That
feeling of discovering or accomplishing
something on your own has gone, its
been missing from games for a long
time. The internet is your backseat driv-
er when it comes to games now.

Them graphics
Ahh, the graphics. The evolution of
games goes hand-in-hand with the evo-
lution of hardware, and theyve both
come a long way. But despite the huge
difference between graphics then and
now, we as gamers still love being picky
about graphics. Its probably a human
trait, wanting to find flaws in everything.
But we used to be awestruck by graph-
ics in the past, games that wed proba-
bly cringe at now were considered the
apex of graphics back in the day. Even
mobile games have better graphics
than many of the games that we used
to play even just ten years ago. But we
gamers are a hard bunch to please and
so well keep whining about the graph-
ics being meh. Till when will we keep
whining? We have no idea. 8k graphics?
16k? They say the human eye cant see
more than 30 fps, can it see over 4k?
(Note - this is sarcasm)

Multiplayer
Remember when multiplayer meant
having friends over and plugging in that
player-two controller, or having your
keyboard crammed with hands, and
good old split-screen gaming? Local,
splitscreen, multiplayer gaming is all
but nonexistent nowadays, thanks to
faster internet speeds and better con-
nections, among other things. Almost
every game nowadays has an online
component to it, be it for security rea-
sons, or otherwise. This has its advan-
tages, such as updates and bug fixes
and whatnot. Well, theres no real disad-
vantages per se, except for everyone
who doesnt have an internet connec-
tion. Sucks to be them. Of course lets
not forget all the salt and toxicity that
exists in online games today. In the
words of the Human Torch, Flame On!
Add-Ons, DLCs, and
Expansions
When most of us here started gam-
Some would say games are way easier now thanks to the internet providing you
walthroughs and playthroughs of every new game, literally handholding you through
the experience
ing, which was a long time ago(okay, an expansion is Witcher 3s Blood and
not that long ago), we used to be Wine expansion.
excited for expansions and DLCs. We The worst part however, is when
expected huge new campaigns and publishers sell you an incomplete game
new places to visit, new characters, and you have to pay extra for the DLC
new abilities, you know the drill. They which should have been part of the
represented big changes for that main game anyway! Theres a game
game you had already played oh so called DLC Quest that illustrates what
many times. But these days DLC are we mean very well. In the game you
used to bait people into pre-ordering need to buy DLC to unlock the most
games (STOP PREORDERING GAMES basic of abilities, like jumping and being
PEOPLE) and the worst part is the able to move backwards. Lets hope
DLCs arent even worth it in most AAA companies dont get any ideas
cases. Nowadays they just end up from that game.
being aesthetic changes to your char-
acter within the game and dont add Console Wars
much else to the game. The only Oh they did exist back then, just not on
game in recent times to do justice to as big a scale as right now. But then

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Gaming consoles have changed a lot over
the years too, along with the games.
Theyve evolved into serious competitors
for the PC although PC Master Race
mostly wins. Interestingly, the war
between PCs and Consoles is one thing
that hasnt changed over the years,
merely moved online.
These days, whether youre on a PS4 or
an Xbox you take certain things for
granted - online gameplay, exclusives
and, well, being better than the other guy.
again, there seem to be extremes for
everything these days. Oh well, you
know what they say, if you cant beat
em, join em. #PCMasterRace!
Secrets, Hidden Items
and Easter Eggs
Hidden items pfft. Nothing is hidden
anymore, and if it is hidden, somebody
online has bound to have found it to
save you the trouble of having to find
it yourself. Of course
these days DLCs
include secret
items as well
sometimes. Buy
this cool DLC to get this cool secret
item you wont get anywhere else! Pre-
order for $99.99 only!
Being to able to stumble upon a hid-
den area, or come across a secret your-
self was one of the charms of being a
gamer, and then you would run to your
friends and share the experience with
them. The same applies to secret char-
acters, whore not so secret anymore
and are now normally unlocked
through, you guessed it, DLCs.
Hardware
Hardware, everything depends on the
hardware. Its the hardware that runs
the games and therefore the kind of
games you can run and how well they
will run all depends on your hardware.
Back in the day we never really had to
bother about so many things in order
to be able to play our games. We were
really only bothered with the RAM and
the CPU, and that was it, if you had a
decent CPU and a good amount of
RAM, (256mb of RAM was considered
a good amount back then btw) you
were good to go.
But now, maaaan, you need to have
lots of space, you need a good proces-
sor, you need a good GPU that can han-
dle the game you want to play, you need
a good PSU to be able to handle that
GPU, and you need a minimum of 4GB
of RAM nowadays if you want to be able
to play anything without it crashing.
Back in the day if you had the best
of the best you were good for a long
time. Nowadays the best keeps getting
updated so frequently its hard to keep
up, and if you do its definitely
going to leave a rather
large hole in your pock-
et. Would be nice to go
back to simpler times
right? But would you
be willing to give up
everything else
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K U VA H S T ORY
Gaming graphics has come a long way from
pixelated wonders to 4K wonderlands, but
has it affected the overall thrill that we feel?
Interestingly, we complain more about
graphics now than we used to, back in the
days. 30fps? Meh!
youre getting thanks to these hard-
ware advancements?
The rise of mobile gaming
Games evolve as fast as hardware
does. And if theres anything else that
has changed and evolved as much as
games have in these past few years, its
smartphones. Everyone whos anyone
has a smartphone these days, theres a
whole library of games to choose from,
and a lot of them are free to play as
well, so its not surprising to know a
large percentage of the gaming popula-
tion today is mobile gamers. To add to
that, a lot of the oldies and games from
other handheld consoles are being
ported to smartphones as well.
Remember how we said that the pri-
mary demographic was adults now?
Thats another major reason mobile
gaming is doing so well now, since it
was something you could do in your
spare time, during transit, it was porta-
ble and easy to access. Now however,
the ever changing beast that gaming is,
mobile gaming is actually moving more
and more towards the mainstream, and
were already seeing tournaments for
games like Clash Royale.
And finally, us Gamers
Yes, gamers! Weve changed a lot too!
Of course theres the demographic
change weve mentioned several times
already but were a very large factor
when it comes to the direction of
games, since what works and what
doesnt largely depends on us.
Conclusion
The world of gaming is constantly
changing, evolving, adapting. It can
take us by surprise sometimes and
disappoint us at times. But if weve
learnt anything from this article, its
that were the ones who truly control
the direction of gaming.
twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 89
 FINAL FANTASY. ONE OF THOSE NAMES THAT KEEPS POPPING UP IN THE WORLD OF VIDEO GAMING. IF YOURE A
GAMER, CHANCES ARE YOUVE DEFINITELY HEARD OF SOME FINAL FANTASY OR THE OTHER, AND THERES A LOT OF
THEM SO THEYD BE PRETTY HARD TO MISS. THE FRANCHISE THAT IS FINAL FANTASY IS ONE OF THE MOST, IF NOT
THE MOST, POPULAR JRPG FRANCHISES OUT THERE AND HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG TIME.
By Manish Trigger Happy Rajesh
feedback@skoar.in

ow let us get something out of
the way immediately, were
PC gamers first and foremost,
and Final Fantasy is an almost
completely console exclusive
franchise, weve missed out
on most of the Final Fantasys
(yes including Final Fantasy VII, please
dont hate us) but were totally willing to
jump right into the franchise and its
complicated world. So thats exactly
what this particular phranchise article
is going to be like. If youre long time
fans of the franchise feel free to let us
know if we missed anything or if theres
something we should check out for
ourselves. And for the rest, lets begin
our crash course in Final Fantasy!
FIRST THINGS FIRST,
WHAT IS FINAL FANTASY?
From what weve gleaned from the Inter-
webs and our own experience with Final
Fantasy XV, its messy, its confusing, its
amazing; its basically what youd expect
from Japan(stereotyping much?). Its a
huge brand; if the game has Final Fanta-
sy in its name, it sells like hot-cakes.
Theres a reason behind that too,
because people have come to expect a
certain production value from Final Fan-
tasy games, so to an extent they know
they cant go wrong with their purchase.
There have been several Final Fantasy
titles released over the past few dec-
ades, some have been great, some not
so much. We can assume that most of
them did well, considering the franchise
is still going strong after well over fifteen
titles. Almost all Final Fantasy games are
based in the same universe and share
certain common traits or attributes.
WHAT ARE THESE COMMON
TRAITS AND ATTRIBUTES YOU ASK?
Most of them dont look similar on the
surface at all, which makes one wonder
why theyre sequential sometimes.
Most titles feature a similar story set-
ting, and many of the core concepts are
the same. Take the magical elements
for example: Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth,
Thunder(Lightning) and Water. Here
Fire beats Ice, Ice beats Wind, Wind
beats Earth and so on. This remains
true for ALL Final Fantasy titles. No,
they dont work like Pokmon elements
so Wind beats Earth, dont ask how, it
just does, ok?
Next is the story, which in most
cases usually puts you in the shoes of a
hero or sometimes even a group of
heroes with a tragic backstory(in
most cases) who has to take on some
kind of behemoth task to save his or
her war-torn world. The worlds are
huge and full of interesting places to
see and explore, all while listening to an
amazing soundtrack, which is a Final
Fantasy trademark now.
Another common trait is the ability
to collect and equip items and weap-
ons. Most will even let you customize
skills and abilities and direct your char-
acters growth to suit your own play-
style. Then, of course, theres side
quests, lots of side quests, but thats
something weve come to associate
with RPGs regardless.

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The last common trait for most of
the titles is that everything boils down
to one last epic boss fight which con-
cludes the game. Final Fantasy games
are littered with boss fights, and most
of them are pretty darn cool, definitely
warrants having the word Fantasy in
the title with the size of some of them.
Theres a lot of iconic bosses from Final
Fantasy that are well known in the world
of gaming, Sephiroth for instance, he
isnt one of the gigantic ones though.
These traits and attributes define
most Final Fantasy games, so even if
you pick up a new title, youll feel right
at home, sort of.
Now, if youve been paying attention
thus far, youll notice that theres a lot of
usually, mostly and almost in the
aforementioned paragraphs. Well if you
did spot that, kudos to you and a pat on
the back! The reason of course is that
there are Final Fantasy games that
dont share all those traits, theres Final
Fantasy card games, racing games,
fighting games and even a rhythm
game. Remember how we said games
with Final Fantasy in the name seem to
sell like hot-cakes? Well evidently
Square Enix knows that too.
OK, SO THOSE ARE THE COMMON
TRAITS, WHAT ARE THE GAMES LIKE?
Well in terms of gameplay, most Final
Fantasy games are quite similar to
Pokmon games. Theres a huge map
for you to explore, and random encoun-
ters can happen anytime youre out in
the wild. When it does happen, the
game tries very hard to give you an epi-
leptic seizure(just kidding) and youre
taken to a different screen. Now youre
in the combat phase or battle phase of
the game, where you can command
your characters with orders like
attack, magic, or item. When youre Hironobu Sakaguchi was a Tolkien fan,
back on the world map, or field section
of the game, you can go looking for
treasure, speak to NPCs, pick up new
quests, all that RPG stuff.
Combat is turn based, and the agility
stat determines how often your charac-
ters turn comes up. Simply put, faster
characters get their turn more often.
You had to keep your resources, mana
points and items in mind before taking
any action. There wasnt too much
emphasis on timing and such till latter
titles where combat started veering
more towards real-time. Of course, you
STILL have to keep your eye on your
resources and magic points.
This formula where games are split
into a combat phase and a field phase
is a staple among the main Final Fanta-
sy titles, even if the strategies and
mechanics differ from game to game.
In fact, this is the formula thats promi-
nently been used in most JRPGs.
Oh, and Cid, all Final Fantasy games
have a character named Cid in them.
Dont ask us why, they just do.
Anyway, now that weve gotten past
what the games common traits are
and what the gameplay is like, lets take
a look at the games themselves!
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P HR A NCHI S E
FINAL FANTASY I - VI
The first Final Fantasy was released in
1987 by a little known company called
SquareSoft. It had what youd expect
from a game named Final Fantasy in
the 1980s, i.e., elves, dwarves, robots,
temples, ruins, all that. The creator,
and based the game on his novels. As
for why the Final was there, its because
he wasnt going to make any more,
unless this one did well. Guess what?
Now its after the first Final Fantasy
that things get a tad confusing. Square
went ahead and made two sequels for
Final Fantasy Final Fantasy II, and III
duh but released them only in Japan.
So when Final Fantasy IV came out and
released in the States as well, it was
called Final Fantasy II over there. This
happened again with Final Fantasy V,
which did not release in the States,
resulting in Final Fantasy VI which was
released in the States being called
Final Fantasy III when it did release in the
States. Yea, confusing, we know. This
should hopefully clear up your confusion.
Final Fantasy - 1987,
Nintendo (U.S. and Japan)
Final Fantasy II - 1988,
Nintendo (Japan only)
twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 91
P HR A NC HI S E
Final Fantasy III - 1990,
Nintendo (Japan only)
Final Fantasy IV - 1991,
Super Nintendo (released in U.S. as
Final Fantasy II)
Final Fantasy V - 1992,
Super Nintendo (Japan only)
Final Fantasy VI - 1994,
Super Nintendo (released in U.S. as
Final Fantasy III)
Fortunately, Square have fixed this
confusion and have re-released and
ported correctly numbered English ver-
sions in the States for all of the above.
We dont think wed be able to cover
the plot for all of them, so lets just go
through a few notable changes that
were implemented across the first six
Final Fantasy titles, in proper order.
The first Final Fantasy of course,
implemented many factors that are
typical in RPGs today, i.e., experience
points, random battles etc. But it also
laid the foundation for following Final
Fantasy games with its element system
and story setting, among other things.
Final Fantasy II introduced us to the
ever-lovable chocobos, which look kind
of like ostriches and were rideable. This
is also where were first introduced to a
character named Cid and a main cast
of characters who were unique to the
games story.
With Final Fantasy III we see the job
system for the first time, where differ-
ent jobs or classes had access to job or
class-specific abilities.
Final Fantasy IV debuted the
active time battle system, which is
like a mix between real-time and turn-
based combat. The ATB system has
since been incorporated by many
games. This is also the first Final Fan-
tasy to incorporate save points and
healing locations.
Final Fantasy V further tweaks upon
and works on the job system, but oth-
erwise didnt do anything new.
Final Fantasy VI introduced Magicite
Crystals into the game which allowed
non-magic jobs to equip and use
magic as well.
FINAL FANTASY VII - 1997
Now up until this point, we could say
that Final Fantasy VI was the most pop-
92 | SKOAR! | January 2017 | follow us on:
ular of the lot. But everything changed
when the fire na- uhh, when Final Fan-
tasy VII released.
Everyone has probably heard about
this one, this is the game that put Final
Fantasy on the map, and its been there
since, for the past two decades. You
remember that Sephiroth guy we men-
tioned earlier? Yea, hes from this game.
Anyway, when Final Fantasy VII hit
the PlayStation in 1997 the world went
crazy. The game used 3D models and
the backgrounds were all pre-rendered.
They didnt spare any expense on the
CG movies either. This was 1997, every-
one was like Wow! This looks real af!
But FFVII was backed by more than
just fancy 3D models, the plot and nar-
rative were gripping, and of course, the
heart wrenching plot twist that is
remembered to this day also the
major reason behind everyone hating
on Sephiroth so much.
This in no way means that Final Fan-
tasy VII is the best one, its just the one
that made the franchise well known.
But one could say that Square hasnt
managed to top the feeling that people
got from FFVII yet.
FINAL FANTASY VIII - 1999
FFVIII introduces us to a host of new
main characters including Squall, an
angsty and moody teenager(this is a
recurring theme btw) and his time
spent in military school. FFVIII also
introduced something called the Junc-
tion System, which basically allowed
you store Para-Magic. It changed the
way magic was cast in the game so far,
which was by purchasing or acquiring
spells and using mana points or magic
points to cast them. You could also
Junction magic to a character and
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enhance their stats, with each type of
magic and magic combination
enhancing stats differently. You could
also add elemental damage and
increase your resistance against cer-
tain elements. They also revamped the
Summons, up until now a summon
mostly involved the summon showing
up and doing massive damage and
leaving. The new Guardian Forces ena-
bled the summons to fight alongside
you and even gain levels through expe-
rience for further improvement.
FINAL FANTASY IX - 2000
FFIX and FFVIII were in the works
alongside each other but took very dif-
ferent directions, with IX going back-
wards, in both time (to a more medieval
setting) and even playstyle, returning to
the more traditional Final Fantasy
gameplay and mechanics. The plot
revolved around Zidane Tribal, a young
thief caught between warring nations
(its always warring nations, damn poli-
ticians!). FFIX had a feature called
Trance Mode which was similar to the
Limit Break in FFVII. In Trance Mode
character skills were augmented into
superior, more powerful versions. Fans
of the series were happy with the series
return to its roots and the game was
critically acclaimed and well received.
FINAL FANTASY X AND
X-2 - 2001 & 2003
Final Fantasy X is the first Final Fantasy
to have fully 3D real-time backgrounds
and character voice acting. The ATB
(Active Time Battle) system was
swapped out for CTB combat, or Con-
ditional Turn-based Battle combat. This
basically paused the game, or started a
wait timer whenever it was the player
characters turn, doing away with the
pressure of time. The traditional leveling
system was done away with, and the
Sphere Grid was introduced, which
allowed for much deeper customiza-
tion and allowed characters to branch
out into various fields and classes.

Final Fantasy Xs story revolved
around Tidus pro blitzballer appar-
ently and his quest to defeat a mon-
ster named Sin who destroyed his
home city. And so he joins a Summoner
named Yuna who is on her pilgrimage in
order to defeat Sin.
Final Fantasy X-2 takes place just
two years after the events of Final Fan-
tasy X, making it the first direct sequel
in the history of the franchise. Both
titles were commercial successes.
FINAL FANTASY XI - 2002
FFXI is the first Final Fantasy to come to
Windows and the first ever MMORPG
for Xbox 360. Its also the first MMOR-
PG to offer cross-platform play
between the platforms. It offered most
features weve come to expect from
MMORPGs today and functioned on a
subscription based model. It was pretty
good from what weve heard, and still
enjoys a decent player base.
FINAL FANTASY XII - 2006
FFXII is the only main game in the fran-
chise to be based in an already estab-
lished world. Ivalice is where the
events of Final Fantasy Tactics takes
place. FFXII brought with it several
changes, for one, battles were now
seamless, so you didnt switch
between a field phase and a combat
phase. Additionally, the world map
was now divided into different zones
and a Gambit system was introduced
to control the AI accompanying you.
Theres also the reintroduction of
Chocobos and Moogles. FFXII revolves
around Vaan the Sky Pirate, who works
together with the princess of Dalmas-
ca, a nation ravaged by war(again), to
stop the tyranny of the bad dudes.
Final Fantasy XII was also critically
acclaimed and received several game
of the year awards.
FINAL FANTASY XIII, XIII-2, LIGHTNING
RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII - 2010,
2012 & 2013
Final Fantasy XIII is the first single play-
er Final Fantasy to come to Windows
and is the first one to release on the
PlayStation 3. It features much faster
combat but has turn-based combat
elements. It used Crystarium to
determine which abilities a character
developed next and used Paradigm to
control AI and queue commands.
FFXIII has you fill the shoes of Light-
ning, a former soldier, who has taken up
arms against the government in order
to save her sister who has been brand-
ed as an unwilling servant to some
Pulse based God. Confused? Not to
worry, this is normal in Final Fantasy
games, were just as confused as you.
FFXIII is a victim of what we call the
hype-train, so if youre looking to start
playing Final Fantasy or have never
played one before, wed advise you to
NOT to start with this one unless youre
a fan of the franchise, or youll just have
a really bad first impression and we
dont want you missing out on the good
stuff because of that. Now before the
rabid fanboys lunge at us, the sequels
do attempt to knit out a lot of the prob-
lems and do succeed to an extent. And
despite mixed reviews, Square Enix
declared FFXIII and its sequels a com-
mercial success
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P HR A NCHI S E
FINAL FANTASY XIV (2010 - 2012)
FFXIV was released as the successor to
Final Fantasy XI, the next MMORPG in
the franchise. The game received an
overwhelmingly negative response on
release and the servers were closed
just two years later in 2012.
FINAL FANTASY XIV:
A REALM REBORN - 2013
FFXIV: A realm Reborn takes place five
years after the events of the original
FFXIV. After the overwhelmingly nega-
tive response that the original received,
then Square president announced that
the game was going to be completely
overhauled under a new team of devel-
opers. And true to their word, A Realm
Reborn was like a completely new
game and was very well received with
praise for not only its mechanics and
progression, but also for being able to
salvage the initial train wreck of FFXIV.
Phew! Were done! And thats with-
out the recent Final Fantasy XV and the
plethora of Final Fantasy spin-offs!
Before we go into the conclusion for
this mammoth franchise, wed just like
to give a shout-out to the amazing
soundtrack that accompanies all these
titles. If theres one thing Square has
done right in these games, its picking
the right music for the right moments,
and that can make all the difference in
ones experience in our opinion.
CONCLUSION
If the scale of this franchise is deterring
you from trying it out, dont be afraid!
Just jump right in. Feel free to start with
earlier titles of the franchise as well;
they all offer a very unique experience
despite being in 16-bit and quite a lot of
them have been remastered for mod-
ern consoles and theyre available on
PC and smartphones too! So put on
your adventure boots and set off on a
your own Final Fantasy.
twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 93
PHE A C HUR
You have to try these games out on your smartphone!
By Anusha Trillian Sinha
Distraint
T D
he Oxford dictionary defines
Distraint as the seizure of
someones property in order to
obtain payment of money owed,
especially rent (we had to look it up
because we were not sure what it
meant). In this game, you play as
Price, a distraint agent whose job is
9 scattered across it and you have to
to tell widowed old ladies who smell
of flowers and offer you pie to vacate
their house because they havent
paid up. This cruel job eats away at
the soul of our pixelated protagonist
but he continues nevertheless
because he needs the money and
prestige. However, his job becomes
much harder when mangled corpses
show up in the places he visits along
with mysterious notes hinting at even
greater horrors that await him.
Taking advantage of the 2D
graphics, the game is just spread
across a strip in the middle of the
screen, leaving empty space on both
sides (the bottom one has huge con-
trol buttons). The soundtrack is eerie
and together with the pixelated
graphics in muted colours sets the
atmosphere quite nicely. And the
jump scares? Very effective.
94 | SKOAR! | January 2017 | follow us on:
8.8
Overpainted
O
verpainted is a platformer
with one unique aspect. You
cant really see the plat-
forms. The entire level is complete-
ly dark except for a few pointers
figure out where the level is as you
move along. The game functions a
bit like That Level Again, another
interesting platformer, because you
have to keep playing the same level
but with minute changes each time.
Also, it is almost a copy of the PC
game INK, which features the same
premise and seems to have
inspired Overpainteds design as
well. Overpainted is the story of a
white square who is determined to
jump into a spiral galaxy like thing
suspended in midair despite the
fact that often there isnt even a
way there. As your blocky character
moves around, it creates a trail of
splotchy paint, thus revealing the
level bit by bit. The focus of this
game is trial-and-error, especially
because you cant see anything and
you might end up going off the
edge far too many times for your
liking. It is advisable to be cautious
and proceed slowly, taking clues
about the environment.
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Dan the Man
an the Man is a reiteration of
the quintessential retro plat-
former and will definitely
remind you of Mario. The game has
been created by Halfbrick Studios,
which you might recognise as the
creator of Jetpack Joyride, Monster
Dash and, the go-to game for enter-
taining small children, Fruit Ninja.
Like all the others, this game too has
the characteristic pixelated graphics
and polish of all the games made by
Halfbrick. Unsurprisingly, the game
features a man called Dan who is
also a ninja. You can also play as
Josie the woman. Both characters
sprint across rooftops and clouds in
8.6
order to defeat the evil army
that has taken over most of the vil-
lage. The controls are quite precise
and this is a game you will be good at
if you have ever played Mario or any
other platformer, for that matter. The
gameplay is pretty basic and there is
nothing new here except the variety
of weapons that you will come
across. In conclusion, Dan is the Man
and so are you.
 PHE A CHUR
7.9

Seen that you can respond with missing a tutorial. Once you
to each text. The story get the hang of it, you can also

S
een is a game that will be easy to
relate with for anyone who has
ever used a text messaging ser-
vice to get to know someone. In short
messages and casual back-and-forth,
entire personalities and motivations
are revealed in the game. You play as
Mark Blythe, a high school student
who falls in love with the new student,
Nicole Tyler. Through texting, you will
learn about her as well as other char-
acters in the game, some of which
might be competing for your beloveds
affection. This interactive story game
provides you with a number of options
builds up slowly and
engages you as you root
for your protagonist to
get the girl. The game is
not so much about skill
as much as it is about how well you
can read people and of course, how
good you are at making people fall for
you. However, this is just one of the
stories in this game. There is a story
maker that you can use to create your
own scenarios and then share them
with people. However this interface is
not as easy to use as you might like,
especially due to the fact that it is
share heartbreaking stories
from your life or a conversa-
tion between Darth Vader and
his son. Story World is the in-
game community where you
can both upload your own stories as
well as get others. The game looks
exactly like Facebook Messenger, thus
adding to the illusion that its all real.
One of the more famous stories that
you can play through in this game is
one based on Annie96 is typing, a
creepypasta that had gained fame on
reddit. Seen is an interactive story
game that will keep the attention of all.

Time Locker take. In this way, you are literally scrubbing through the
timeline. The game starts out slow, with only a few serene

T
ime Locker is based off the central idea in Superhot
but the execution is different enough to warrantee a
play from even fans of the PC game. For those who
havent tried out Superhot, the basic premise is that time
only moves when you move. While Superhot is a FPS, Time
Locker is a runner, featuring bright ani-
mals. You start playing as a shiny polyg-
onal bear waddling across a stark white
level. You are interrupted by a range of
polygonal animals, including a T. Rex as
well as other dangerous objects such as
a huge tank which is bent on killing you.
You shoot a bullet with every step you
birds flying across the level but then quickly ramps up in
subsequent waves. A definite high point is when the ram-
paging orange T. Rex appears. Have fun killing that one! The
animals are of different colours and have different power-
ups or in-game currency that you can collect when you kill
them. There is no soundtrack except the
noise your bullets make and the scrub-
bing sound when you make the charac-
ter retreat. The game is a delight to play
because you have time to strategize
and hence exercise some clairvoyance
in planning your moves. In conclusion,
9 Time Locker is worthy of your time.

Missing room. The dialogues speak to you and target to achieve every day but she

M
issing is a game for a cause
and an especially good one at
that. The game was created as
a part of the Missing Project by Leela
Kejriwal, an artist and photographer to
raise awareness about the terrible
issue of sex trafficking in India and
across the world. You play the game as
a young girl who has been drugged
and kidnapped and locked up in a
9.5
try to evoke a sense of empathy for the
character (which they are extremely
successful in doing). For example,
when you are locked up in the room
the dialogues prompt you to try and
escape. The situation is like one you
would encounter in one of the count-
less escape games. However, this is
where the game shows you exactly
how different it is. You simply cannot
escape. The characters are detailed,
with great voice acting as well. The sit-
uations youll find yourself in are terri-
fying. Once your character grows up,
she is forced to walk the streets and
make offers to different men based on
the amount of money that they have
and how lusty they are. She has a daily
never stops trying to escape. Your aim
is to explore the nearby surroundings
and try to break out from the brothel.
The game is pretty heavy in terms of
the range of emotions it will make you
feel. The graphics are brilliant and cap-
ture the spirit of dirty, crowded alleys
perfectly. The game environment feels
like something you might have walked
across in your everyday life.
The game, thus, includes an explo-
ration element as well as that of
resource management as you have to
keep track of your finances. There are
a lot of hard hitting lessons in this
game and like all the best stories, the
hero retains a sense of hope even in
the darkest of times.

follow us on: twitter.com/skoar | January 2017 | SKOAR! | 95

PHE A C HUR
Jrump
N P
ow that the spectacle that was
the US Elections is over and
people have more or less
made their peace with it, this game
based on Trump is even more rele-
vant. It features a Donald Trump who
jumps up into space from a starting
point which is a wall. He keeps jump-
ing higher and the players aim is to
create platforms for him to land on
and then jump off of. He has the
potential to reach tremendous
heights; if you play for long enough
you will even get to space! However,
the major obstacle to Trump ascend-
ing great heights is the barrage of
Mexicans that seem to be raining
down from
the sky. The
7 other presi-
dential can-
didates also
try to knock
Trump down
while don-
ning jet
packs and
whizzing
around
the sky.
The game takes the most ridicu-
lous elements of Trumps campaign
rhetoric and turns it into an enjoyable
runner. The graphics are really pretty
and even the shrivelled up orange
that is Trump looks pretty gorgeous
in this new avatar. There are a num-
ber of costumes that you can unlock
and you can have the honour of play-
ing with a sailor Trump or with one in
a crown and a Miss Universe sash.
Apart from Trump, you can also
unlock other controversial leaders
and watch them launch themselves
into space. In fact, taking the
#Kanye2020 campaign a bit further,
there is even a Kanye West character.
A problem with this game are that
there are too many ads that pop up
after a bunch of replays and some-
times the controls lag a bit. So while
the game doesnt offer much new, it
takes a simple idea and executes it
pretty well and that is worth a bit of
your time and even a few laughs.
96 | SKOAR! | January 2017 | follow us on:
8.3
Beat Stomper
B
eat Stomper is an endless
runner about jumping to the
beat. It features an energetic
little square that is quite a fan of
EDM and wants nothing more than
to jive to its own beat. Now that we
have successfully established char-
acter motivation for a geometric
shape, it is time to look at how diffi-
cult the game is to play. Not very, if
you have a sense of rhythm and
can keep track of a beat. Your aim is
to time the jumps at the right
moments to make the square
bounce up to the next platform.
Here, the platform moves accord-
ing to the pulsating music and you
have to make sure to land on this
piece of musically-inclined rectan-
gle. As the square edges closer
towards its destiny of rising ever
upwards, the beat speeds up and
the game become more difficult.
Each landing is punctuated with a
resounding thud which shakes up
the entire screen. There are a num-
ber of levels that you can unlock
depending on certain milestones,
like a certain number of plays or a
score. Each new level features a dif-
ferent sound track, making them
worth the trouble undertaken in
unlocking them.
The game has one-touch con-
trols which make it quite easy to
play. However, one wonders what
the game would have been like with
two controls in order to manoeuvre
the square while it was still in the
air. The graphics are stellar, with
neon colours and flashing lights
keeping time with the music and
really making the game one big
party. Ads pop up after a few
replays and are quite irritating
especially in the beginning when
you are trying to get a hang of the
game. But once youre in the flow,
youll hardly notice them.
facebook.com/SKOAR
Prime Peaks
rime Peaks is a really elegant
reworking of Hill Climb Racing
an android staple of yore. The
premise is the same, you are the
driver on an outrageously twisted
mountain road and must do all you
can to stop the car from toppling
over and crushing your driver with it.
If you are a person who has ever
seen a hill road, you will know that its
not how things usually work. There is
a greater danger of driving off the
sides than of driving up a 75 degree
slope and toppling over. Still, let us
indulge the developers and overlook
this extreme disconnect from reality.
There are two control buttons, one to
accelerate and one to brake. The
roads are strewn with hazardous
obstacles and coins. There is also the
question of fuel management as your
highly inefficient car runs out of fuel
every few minutes and you must
make your way to the next container
of petrol that hangs conveniently in
midair. To say that the graphics are
mind-numbingly amazing would def-
initely be an exaggeration but they
are indeed amazing. The cars are
beautifully designed and it is a pleas-
ure to collect the money required to
unlock them and then try them out
on the track. Of course, it would have
been even nicer if they were already
8.7
unlocked but who doesnt love a
good challenge and some good old
level progression. An issue with this
game is that it becomes quite diffi-
cult to progress after you reach a
plateau. The upgrades get costlier
until they become too much to afford
and that forces you to play the same
level again and again. However,
despite the minor flaws, this game
has the somewhat niche achieve-
ment of being the best hill climber.
 Column Bazaar
Theres a dark side to the Internet All the latest and greatest products

Tried & Tested 104 of Things and you should be worried

about it 105 tested and reviewed so you make an
informed buying decision

A GOOD GAMING MOUSE CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Abhijit Dey have exceptional reaction time one could strike a balance THE COMPETITION
abhijit@digit.in and skills, but winning that between accuracy, comfort Our search came down to 15

T
he bombs ticking away,
you have your cross-
hair positioned at the
entry point. You spot
your enemy enter and pull
an inhuman flick with your
scoped weapon; eliminating
them and winning the round
for your team. Of course, you
round wouldnt have been
possible if your gaming mouse
fell short on accuracy. While
buying a gaming mouse, its
always better to prioritise the
sensor and shape rather than
drooling over RGB lighting.
Hence, we procured sev-
eral gaming mice and com-
pared them to find out which
and features.
Weve gone through a
number of variables and
tests to determine the per-
formance and other aspects.
To learn how exactly these
parameters were evaluated,
we recommend that you
jump to the How we tested
section to know more.
of the most popular gaming
mice in the market across a
wide price bracket. This com-
parison will act as a guide
that you can return back to
whenever youve made up
your mind to buy your next
gaming mouse. Apart from
the specifications and scores,
the pros and cons of each mice

98 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 VirtualBox 5.1.12
Oracle annouced the release of their new
VirtualBox 5.1.12 with Initial Linux Kernel
4.10 support http://dgit.in/Virtualbox5
have been added to make it
easier for you to decide on
your next mouse.
ASUS Cerberus
The Cerberus is an entry
level gaming mouse from
ASUS. At this price range,
you cant expect high sensor
accuracy. In fact, we observed
the tracking and malfunction
speed was pretty low (around
1m/s). Once the mouse crossed
the tracking speed, the sensor
failed to register further and
only started detecting again
after it dropped below the
threshold. We couldnt test
acceleration due to the low
malfunction speed, but we
didnt experience any accel-
eration in the lower speed
range. At lower speeds, the
mouse had great accuracy.
The shortcoming of the sensor
to read data at higher speeds
should practically concern
only those gamers who play
in low CPI levels. The com-
paratively high lift-off dis-
tance will make aiming dif-
ficult for gamers whore used
to that technique. It has an
ambidextrous design, offering
comfortable grip for both claw
and palm grip.
Cooler Master
MasterMouse Lite S, S
and Pro L
The Lite S is a comfortable
mouse for people with small
hands. It has a nice matte
finish and on first glance, it
looks and feels like a premium
mouse. But dont expect much
of an impressive gaming expe-
rience since the mouse does
perform poorly at higher
speeds. This a concern for low
CPI level players. We didnt
experience performance lag
while flicking as compared
to the Cerberus, and we were
able to aim and take down
enemies even at a low polling
rate of 125 Hz. The Lite S is a
great mouse at this price and
in terms of accuracy, the 3509
sensor is definitely better than
the Cerberuss A5050 sensor
that loses tracking at high
speeds. The cable attachment
location is quite low on every
MasterMouse but because
of the Ss textured cable, a
noticeable amount of drag
will hinder with your game-
play. This wasnt the case with
the other two mice, where one
of them has a braided cable
whereas the other one has a
flexible plastic cable. For the
maximum advertised DPI of
7200, we found the maximum
and true CPI to be around
CM MasterMouse Pro L
6600. The Pro L is the high-
end mouse in their lineup, the
focus being on using a close
to perfect sensor, the 3360,
and the ability to switch the
body design between palm
and claw grip with remov-
able parts.
Gamdias Zeus P1 RGB
The Zeus P1 is the brightest
RGB mouse weve had in our
test labs and it surely looks
brilliant. The RGB light ring
reminds us of the Razer
Mamba but here, there are two
levels of the lighting around
the mouse. The switches have
low key travel and the feed-
back is great, making it our
favourite for button spam-
ming. The PTFE feet are too
thin resulting in the middle-
bottom portion of the mouse
touching the mouse pad.
Public shaming gamers
Capcom will publicly shame players with
profile icons for intentional disconnects and
ragequitters. http://dgit.in/StrtFghtrV
Gamdias Zeus P1 RGB
Hence, it suffered slight skips,
leading to further inaccura-
cies. A hard plastic surface
would be better rather than
soft surfaces. The scroll wheel
is placed noticeably higher
and is highly responsive. The
steady slope throughout the
body makes it perfect for palm
grip, although a groove at the
right and left click would have
been more comfortable.
Gigabyte XM300
The XM300 is another ergo-
nomic mouse with ridges
on both sides which makes
holding the mouse quite com-
fortable. The CPI levels arent
true, so we had to recalibrate
them for testing, ending up at
950, 1800 and 3600. White
plastic surfaces take a toll
on the mouses ability to
track, dropping smoothness
drastically. The unit we had
received skipped a step in the
scroll wheel. This could either
be a defective unit or it wears
GIGABYTE XM300
out sooner than expected. The
3988 is quite accurate and
stable at higher speeds, and
considering the price being
under `3k makes it worthy
of buying.
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 99
Gaming Mice
G.Skill MX780
While the MX780 does
impress us with its alien-ish
design, sturdy build quality
and multiple lighting zones,
it fails on sensor accuracy.
In fact, in our testing, the
MX780 won both on fea-
tures and build quality, so
kudos to G.Skill for picking
the right features and mate-
rials. We found the advertised
DPI levels to be inaccurate
and had to calibrate them to
attain true CPI levels before
testing. The mouse functions
the most accurate on a white
plastic surface whereas the
Avago 9800 laser sensor
drops accuracy drastically
G.Skill MX780
on rough mouse pads like
our Razer Goliathus Control
edition. The CPI levels had to
be recalibrated one more time
just for the Goliathus mouse
pad. Hence, if youre plan-
ning on getting this mouse,
we would recommend you
against using rough and soft
mouse pads. The highest sup-
ported DPI level mentioned
is 8200, but our CPI calcula-
tion came out to be around
7800 on a white plastic sur-
face. The A9800 sensor suf-
fers irregular acceleration,
sometimes positive while
sometimes negative. Apart
from the sensor inaccuracy,
the mouse comes with an
exhaustive set of features in
its software to customise the
RGB light zones and easily
assign macros, becoming the
 New Hogwarts Battle 600 million Instagramers
Hogwarts battle is a new tabletop deck-building Facebooks photo and video sharing app
Harry Potter game where you try and beat Instagram now has over 600 million active
Gaming Mice Voldemort. http://dgit.in/HogwartsB users. http://dgit.in/InstagramF

HOW WE TESTED

T
esting rig and setup: To maintain a
standard workflow, weve tested all the
mice on a single rig since we discovered
how the testing software could suffer anoma-
lies with certain settings. The software that we
used to test the accuracy of the sensors were
highly sensitive to certain programs running in
the OS which had to be disabled while some had
to be enabled. Hyperthreading had to be enabled
(usually enabled by default), HPET mode had
to be disabled, USB Selective Suspend had to
be disabled, essentially, anything interfering
with the state of the CPU had to be disabled
to ensure they didnt utilise the CPU while
recording the sensor data. Only the mouse
being tested and a keyboard was connected to
the rig while keeping the remaining USB ports
free to avoid any error.
Although a robotic arm clamping the mouse
over a spinning turntable would have been the
ideal setup, instead we decided on restricting
the window of collecting the sensor data. This
step ensured that the data gathered from the
different mice fell under the same constraints
and it becomes easier to calculate a final
score. We used four different type of surfaces
to test including a cloth mouse pad, the Razer
Goliathus Control Edition mouse pad, a white
hard plastic desk and a glass slab with a black
cloth underneath. Measurements were marked
on the desk itself to avoid using a ruler every
time, which would have obviously introduced
errors every time. Around this area, a rough
enclosure was made to restrict the movement
of the hand to execute accurate motions.
Performance test: To introduce objectivity,
we used several software. The most impor-
tant among them are MouseTester v1.5.3 and
Enotus Mouse Test v0.1.4. MouseTester has
built-in plotting of sensor data that lets you
generate graphs depicting many parameters
such as accuracy, polling rate, velocity, etc.
We used MouseTester for every mouse set at
800 CPI to obtain the sensors accuracy when
the mouse was given a quick swipe on a cloth
mouse pad. Overall, only three CPI levels were
used for all the tests 800, 1,600 and 3,200.
To maintain consistency, we ensured the swipe
speed between a velocity range of 2-2.4 m/s,
keeping the total time under 300 ms. Mouse
settings had to be verified in the OS (Windows
10) as well, so the Pointer Speed was kept at
the default 6/11 with Enhance pointer precision
disabled (since it introduces acceleration).
Enotus Mouse Test was used to obtain
certain parameters, maximum speed being
an important one. The maximum speed at
which the mouse could detect movement was
recorded, a test limited by the reviewers ability
to swipe the mouse as fast as possible. This
brings in a real world parameter into the score
and gives us information on how differently a
mouse behaves on different surfaces.
In the beginning, the CPI was calculated
using the Measure tool in MouseTester and to
bring in more accuracy, it was calculated in MS
Paint also (moving the cursor to the left edge of
the canvas on x-coordinate 0 and then moving
the mouse one inch using a ruler, gives you the
DPI from the value of the x-coordinate). The
CPI was calculated every time prior to running
any benchmark that involved an objective test,
and also to verify whether different DPI levels
advertised by the manufacturer were accurate.
Measuring the lift-off distance was done
using the age old DVD technique where the
mouse was kept on one DVD and then more
added until the sensor stopped detecting. DVDs
have a standard thickness of 1.2 mm, so if the
sensor detected over one DVD and stopped
detecting with the second DVD, the recorded
lift-off distance was 1.2mm. Lift-off distance
customisation was switched off in the software
(if available).
Response time was evaluated but it was a
subjective test since it was dependent on the
reviewers reaction time. This also gives us a

best looking RGB mouse. The
build quality is amazing with
rubber coating, textured at the
finger grips, held together
with a metal frame inside, and
giving you options of replace-
able side skirts.
Logitech Proteus Core
G502
The most popular mouse in
this comparison and a flag
bearer in overall accuracy,
comfort, build quality, fea-
tures and productivity, the
G502 is a dream gaming
mouse for many. Continuing
the legacy of the Gseries,
the G502s main attraction
is the exclusive sensor the
legendary 3366. But it comes
at a price and weight, the
latter being stressed because
its comparatively heavier at
around 120 g. The infinite
scroll wheel is a wonderful
feature that we found our-
selves using. Currently, the
Spectrum version (RGB) is
available as well, selling at
around the same cost. You
know what to do.
Razer Death Adder Elite
Razer continues its tradition
of improving the venerable
Death Adder every year, this
time in the form of Elite. It fea-
tures the same iconic design
with better texture on the
Razer DeathAdder Elite
side buttons, a better sensor
which is highly accurate, and
finally custom manufactured
switches with Omron with a
durability of 50 million clicks.
The mouse is perfect for claw
grip and the wide feet ensure
the necessary amount of fric-
tion is obtained. Our only
qualm is with the limited
features in the software and
the slight jitter at 1,000Hz.
Other than that, its close to a
perfect mouse, and only time
will tell about its durability.
SteelSeries Rival 100
and 300
RGB lighting is present in
almost every mice in this
comparison, and other than
indicating DPI, none of them
have necessary functionality.
SteelSeries has the best imple-
mentation with GameSense
where your actions and state
in a game affects the lights
on your mouse. This feature
works well and we tried it out
in CS: GO. Speaking about
the mice, the 100 is a great
budget option for a small
gaming mouse with limited
control to the DPI settings in
the software whereas the 300
is a better option, meant for
bigger hands and has a better
sensor. They are available in
different colours and accents.
Tt eSports Ventus Z
The Ventus Z brings back the
meshed design we had seen
on the Level 10 M Advanced
RGB. Although, the mesh
didnt offer any function-
ality, other than just aes-
thetics, in the latter because

100 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Googel Land Lines 7-Elevens drone service
Land Lines is an interesting Chrome The Worlds largest convenience store chain
experiment that turns scribbles into delivers 77 customer products using drones.
satellite images. http://dgit.in/2hWJEqA http://dgit.in/7elevenDD Gaming Mice

real world output on response time whenever
the right or left click buttons were clicked. We
used two different tools KeyResponsePK
and Human Benchmark. KeyResponsePK
calculates the response time between two
successive clicks (more accurate) whereas
Human Benchmark calculates the average
reaction time.
Acceleration was tested inside CS: GO and in
MouseTester at different CPI levels. Any form
of acceleration in the system and mouse soft-
ware was disabled before testing. The age-old
technique of shooting at a wall, swiping fast
to the right and returning back to the original
position was employed. In MouseTester, X and
Y coordinates are also traced that can give us
an idea whether theres acceleration.
To test angle snapping, we disabled it in the
mouses software (if available) and drew dif-
ferent shapes on MS Paint. Drawing also gives
us an idea whether the sensor jitters at high
CPI levels. The best way to determine whether
prediction is implemented was to draw circles
at different CPI levels, slowly and rapidly. On
rapid circular motion, prediction can be easily
detected where the curves of the circles form
straight lines.
Features evaluation: The mice covered in
this comparison are diverse some are packed
with amazing features while some are plain and
comfortable. Scoring has been kept objective
based on whether a particular feature is pre-
sent on the mouse or not. They arent evalu-
ated based on how well they perform since
the implementation may vary among different
manufacturers. For example, the procedure to
change the RGB lighting modes on the mouse or
its software wont be the same for two different
manufacturers. Software capability has also
been scored, and again, only based on avail-
able features and not ease of use. Outrageous
features havent been considered, only the ones
that exist currently have been included. Things
such as modularity to replace certain parts, a
DPI profile switch button, extra teflon feet etc.,
have been added.
Build quality: To keep the scores objective,
rather than scoring based on how good they
felt, weve evaluated each mice considering
the type of materials they use. Weve tried to
cover every part of the mouse in our calcula-
tion including the switches, cable and scroll
wheel. The coating of a mouse is an important
aspect to its build quality hence, weve further
categorised the type of coating for various parts
of the mouse. The touch and feel of the but-
tons, as well as the supported grips (palm or
claw) havent been considered because they are
subjective. Although these aspects will be high-
lighted in this comparison to make it easier for
readers to understand more about the product,
they dont affect the final scores.
Verdict: Essentially, the comparison will
be concluded with three awards based on the
final scores. The first one is Best Performer,
which goes to the one with the highest score
achieved in terms of sensor accuracy only.
No other parameter related to other aspects
are considered.
The Best Buy award goes to the mouse
with the highest score/rupee ratio. In this case,
the score will include sensor performance,
along with the scores from features and build
quality evaluation. This way, if a product hap-
pens to lack high-end features or build quality
but has a lower MRP, the value for money
score is automatically compensated. This is
our way of maintaining fairness for the entry
level mice in the comparison which dont have
flashy features.
The final, Editors Pick award is given based
on the reviewers favourite among all the mice.
This could either be the Best Performer or Best
Buy or some other mouse that was close in
winning one of the two awards. The judgement
is completely subjective, depending on daily
usage and gaming experience of the reviewer.

of its useless location. But in
the Ventus Z, the lower palm
area sports the mesh that lets
your palm breathe during
intense gaming sessions. The
Avago 9500 is more accurate
on a solid coloured surface
but the acceleration can be
as frustrating as seen on the
MX780. But if youre a high
CPI player, you dont need to
worry. The Ventus Z also acts
Tt eSports Ventus Z
a great productivity mouse
because of the extra buttons
that can be assigned macros
using the software. Few of the
buttons have poor tactile feed-
back, but its totally subjective
on your part. The software
does a great job of giving you
granular control on what each
key press will do, giving you a
list of predefined actions.
Zowie FK2, EC2-A and
ZA11
Zowies lineup of mice are
so exhaustive that no matter
what size hands or grip pref-
erence you have, theyll surely
have a variant for you. Players
who love ambidextrous mice
will feel at home with the
FK2. Its built for gamers with
smaller hands, but if you have
bigger hands, the FK series
should be on your list. Out of
the three that we considered
in the comparison, we loved
the ergonomic design of the
EC2-A and how it perfectly
took the shape of our hands.
The maximum DPI is adver-
tised as 3,200 but we verified
from our MouseTester and
Enotus tests, and found the
true CPI to be around 3000.
The ZA11 didnt have any CPI
Zowie ZA11
difference as reported in the
other two mice, and had close
values out of the box. Because
of the prominent bump at
the middle, the extra height
makes the mouse comfort-
able for palm grip users. All
of them use the 3310H sensor
which is highly accurate and
have zero to negligible acceler-
ation. But do note, the 3310H
hates white surfaces and work
best on black cloth mouse
pads. Speaking of the differ-
ences, the FK and ZA series
are ambidextrous and low-
profile, while the EC series
is ergonomic (right-handed
users). If youre the kind of
person who doesnt care about
additional and mostly use-
less features but only care
about comfort and accuracy in
a mouse, Zowie has them all.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 101

 Gaming Mice
JANUARY 2017

Brand ASUS Cooler Master Cooler Master Cooler Master Gamdias Gigabyte G.Skill
Model Cerberus MasterMouse MasterMouse S MasterMouse Zeus P1 XM300 MX780
Lite S Pro L RGB
Price (`) 1,500 1,500 2,500 5,000 5,999 2,990 5,429
Specifications
Omron D2FC- Omron D2FC- Omron D2FC- Omron
Switch modules Yusya Huano Omron D2FC-F-7N
F-7N F-7N F-7N D2FC-F-7N
Durability (million) NA 10 20 20 20 20 20
Shape Ambidextrous Ambidextrous Ambidextrous Ambidextrous Ergonomic Ergonomic Ambidextrous
Plastic/Rub- Plastic/Rub- Plastic/Metal/
Material Plastic/Rubber Plastic Plastic Plastic
ber ber Rubber
Matte UV Matte UV Matte UV Textured Textured
Coating Textured plastic Textured plastic
coating coating coating plastic plastic
Cable Braided Plastic Plastic Braided Braided Plastic Braided
Length (mm) 124.86 117 117 130 127.26 130 130
Width (mm) 68.72 63 63.5 67.8 72.45 60 70
Height (mm) 40.11 38 38 38 40.85 43 38
Weight (g) 155 86 89 127 125 101 120
Cable Length (m) 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8
Senor type Optical LED Optical Optical Optical Optical IR Optical Laser

Sensor module A5050 PixArt 3509 PixArt 3330 Avago 3360 PMW3336 Pixart 3988 Avago ADNS 9800

Max. DPI Level 2,500 2,000 7,200 12,000 12,000 6,400 8,200
No. of DPI Levels 4 3 4 4 6 4 4
Max. Polling Rate 500 Hz 125 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz
Number of buttons 6 6 6 8 8 7 8
Miscellaneous
Acceleration Y Y N N N N Y
Angle Snapping N Y N N N N N
Lift-off dist. (mm) 6 6 2.4 2.4 3.6 6 2.4
Performance scores
MouseTester NA NA 19 33 53 45 24
Enotus Mouse Test 77 72 70 77 84 75 63
Other scores
Features 34 31 51 68 52 49 90
Build quality 79 73 76 77 81 74 90
Value for money 90 83 65 37 30 54 38
Overall 61 56 62 62 59 59 68

VERDICT
Best performer
Steelseries Rival 300
The comparison included
several accurate sensors
including the PMW3360,
PMW3366, PMW3310 and
PMW3310H. It would have
been unfair to select the best
just based on the accuracy of
the sensor, while putting less
importance on the collective
performance over different
surfaces. This challenge was
overcome by Enotus mouse
test. Throughout the testing,
we observed in real world
tests how the surface could
drastically affect the mouses
performance with something
as minor as a colour patch on
the mouse pad. The Rival
300 consistently performed
well in terms of precision on
rapid movements and perfor-
mance on different surfaces.
JANUARY 2017
SteelSeries
Rival 300
We reported CPI level dis-
crepancies on almost every
mice but out of the box, the
300 had an accurate value of
800 set at the default level.
Although the Zowie FK2 won
in the MouseTester sensor
accuracy and stability test,
the Rival 300 having secured
second place in the same test,
and first in the Enotus mouse
test, bagged the first place title
in overall performance.
Value for money
ASUS Cerberus
It wasnt a surprise for the
Cerberus to win the value for
money award. Weve already
mentioned that its an entry
level gaming mouse. Looking
at the score sheet, Master-
Mouse Lite S falls short by
a whisker because of the
companys choice to go for a
rubberised coating and tex-
tured grips, making it more
comfortable to use. It also
sports a gaming look which
would certainly look good
sitting on your desk. But the
inaccuracy and malfunction
anomaly that we observed
during our MouseTester
test runs at moderately high
speeds, had us sceptical about

102 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Gaming Mice
JANUARY 2017 JANUARY 2017

Logitech Razer Steelseries SteelSeries TT eSports Zowie Zowie Zowie

Proteus Core Death Adder Elite Rival 100 Rival 300 Ventus Z EC2-A FK2 ZA11
G502
5,495 5,999 2,799 4,399 4,200 5,622 5,166 5,116

Omron D2FC- Omron D2FC-F-

Steelseries Steelseries Omron Huano Huano Huano
F-7N K-RZ
20 50 30 30 20 10 10 10
Ergonomic Ergonomic Ambidextrous Ergonomic Ergonomic Ergonomic Ambidextrous Ambidextrous

Plastic/Rubber Plastic/Rubber Plastic Plastic Plastic Plastic Plastic Plastic

Textured Textured
Textured plastic Glossy plastic Textured plastic Smooth plastic Smooth plastic Smooth plastic
plastic plastic
Braided Braided Soft plastic Soft plastic Braided Soft plastic Soft plastic Soft plastic
132 127 120.6 133 139 120 124 128
75 73 67.13 7 71.5 64 64 67
40 43 40 46 39.29 40 36 40
121 96 92 105 130 93 85 90
2 2.1 1.8 2 1.8 2 2 2
Optical IR Optical IR Optical IR Optical IR Laser Optical Optical Optical
Pixart
PixArt 3366 PMW3389-T3QU PixArt 3059 Avago 9500 PMW3310H PMW3310H PMW3310H
PMW3310
12,000 16,000 4,000 6,500 11,000 3,200 3,200 3,200
4 5 2 2 4 4 4 4
1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz 1,000 Hz
11 7 6 6 10 6 8 8

N N N N Y N N N
N N N N N N N N
2.4 2.4 3.6 4.8 1.2 2.4 2.4 2.4

66 22 22 75 47 36 90 72
81 71 62 90 83 66 75 68

63 49 50 45 69 31 34 34
85 84 66 80 80 63 63 63
37 28 53 43 46 24 30 29
67 55 56 65 67 45 53 50

recommending the mouse
for gaming, especially for
FPS games. However, youll
only need to worry about
accuracy if youre a low CPI
player. If your FPS gaming
JANUARY 2017
ASUS Cerberus
doesnt involve much hand
movement but mostly twists
in your wrist, you could be
happy with the Cerberus.
Editors Pick
Logitech Proteus Core
G502
At the test labs, we were
rooting for the G502 to win
the comparison hands down.
It still remains our favourite
gaming mouse because of eve-
rything it delivers. Holding
the mouse is a treat. The palm
bump perfectly aligns with
our hands every time, and
each time its hard to believe
that this is a universal design.
Having used only small and
lightweight mice, the G502
does feel heavy, but some of
us were able to adapt thanks
to the adjustable weights.
JANUARY 2017
Logitech Proteus Core G502
We are all for ergonomic
mice, so if it wasnt the G502,
it would have either been the
Zowie EC2-A or the Death
Adder Elite. With so many
mice lying around, we got
the opportunity to experi-
ment with different grips and
discover how it affected the
gamepla. After having tested
so many mice at a stretch,
weve been reassured that
the shape, comfort and accu-
racy of a gaming mice will
trump any of the RGB voodoo
being advertised to sell these
gaming mice. Dont be fooled.
Until then, happy fragging.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 103

 Column
Its a (r)IoT
T
he Internet of Things grew bigger
than most of us expected and its con-
tinuing to grow at a really fast pace.
Too darn fast. Rapidly advancing technology
is a geeks wet dream but something as
pervasive as IoT which has digital commu-
nication as its core philosophy is missing
one key ingredient security. Every vendor
has their own security framework, some
are stringent while some are akin to a town
crier who shouts out everything he hears. All
vendors are quick to claim that their devices
use encryption while communicating but
not many are willing to divulge any details.
Mithun Mohandas Given that the more energy efficient IoT
Asst. Technical Editor devices dont have SoCs powerful enough to
mithun@digit.in
handle SHA-256 encryption, they resort to
using weaker hashes like MD5. To reuse the
I discovered previous analogy, this would be like the town
something else crier whod been gagged but allowed to write
during my little and display whatever he heard. MD5 hashes
security audit are so weak that you can look up their plain-
My router could text counterparts on Google.
be accessed from Towards mid-November we saw the first
anywhere on ever massive IoT botnet takedown an ISP
the internet. and multiple popular services like Netflix
and Twitter with relative ease. It gets worse.
The Mirai botnet, like all massive botnets
in the past decade, has started to evolve. Its
finding newer ways to infect devices which
till now were assumed to be relatively safe.
This is where the creepiness begins.
One month after Mirai had struck, I was
casually browsing and started to notice my
mouse cursor slowly creep to the left. These
things tend to happen every now and then, I
wasnt using a mouse pad with my G502 and
it never needed one. I let go and observed it
for a while, hoping that I could catch a little
twitch on the cable that might have triggered
the ghost movement. Nothing. I forgot about
the incident but a few days later, it happened
again Theres a little thing about paranoia
the magnitude of irrationality varies from
person to person. I prefer the term cautious
but the moment my mouse started moving
on its own again, paranoia kicked in. It
didnt take long to hunt down the source of
the ghost movements (it was my cat) but I
discovered something else during my little
security audit.
Let me know your thoughts on this My router could be accessed from any-
column at: @mithun_mohandas where on the internet.
104 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
The momentary relief I experienced
when Id zeroed in on the cat as the culprit
completely vapourised the second I saw my
router pop up on Shodan. Im not going to
mention the make or model (obviously). But
its a well documented issue with a really
popular brand. With even the most recent
firmware not addressing the issue, there
wasnt much I could do to quickly remedy
the situation. While it was really cool to
screw around with my own router remotely,
you soon realise how helpless you are. I now
have DD-WRT running with an additional
script that activates periodically to issue a
kill command to the httpd service, so the
issues taken care of.
The ease with which someone could
locate an exploitable router, find the exploit
description and command line parameters
via forums, and then proceed to take control,
within hours can get anyone paranoid. Using
Shodan anyone can locate unprotected IP
cameras, webcams and proceed to view the
feed. We hear Mark Zuckerberg tapes over
his webcams for the same reason.
Security is pivotal for anything connected
to the Internet but the lax attitude with which
companies treat it is heartbreaking. Security
researchers have been talking about IoT for
ages but not much in the form of a unified
framework has come forth. Even the router
issue had been flagged for over 4 months yet
nothing was done to patch the same. Its only
when the issue reaches mountainous propor-
tions that governments and companies take
action. So with that, I hope doom unto
you all. I hope your nudes get captured via
unsecured webcams and released on the
internets. I hope that industrial secrets get
leaked thanks to easily exploitable back-
doors in IP cameras. I hope this issue affects
enough of you for the authorities to accel-
erate work on a unified security framework,
especially for the banking sector. As we move
towards going cashless, its a lot better if your
privacy gets compromised rather than your
life savings.
 INSIDE

Page 107
LG V20

Bazaar
THE LATEST PRODUCTS
Page 108
GIGABYTE
Radeon RX 480 G1
GAMING 8G

REVIEWED FOR YOU

Page 109
ASUS
The Digit Test Centre receives hundreds of products ZenBook 3
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 Page 110
the case of software, even ease of use. Jabra Halo Smart

For better understanding of our ratings, heres a

quick guide to our overall score
Extremely poor product. Page 111
10 to 30 Thermaltake Core
Keep away!
P3

31 to 50 Strictly OK.
Not recommended Page 113
OnePlus 3T

51 to 70 Decent product. &MORE...

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

71 to 90 Very good product.

Highly recommended.

91 to 100
Ground-breaking product.
Weve never seen anything like it before.
A definite must buy!

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 105

 AndroidThings by Google New Nokia handsets
Google launches the first developer preview HMD Global Oy, announces two new Nokia
for its new IoT platform, Android Things. feature phones following a comeback in the
Bazaar http://dgit.in/AndrdThngs mobile market. http://dgit.in/Nokia150dSim

EPSON L655 VOID Wireless

Ink Tank System Dolby 7.1 RGB
Printer Great immersion and comfort; build
quality could have been better
Superb raster prints for

T
the average SOHO he 7.1 Dolby sur-
round sound works
through software,
Price99 not independent
24,9 drivers, as theres only Price99
14,9
one 50 mm driver in
each earcup. The headset
provides a huge soundstage
for games and
we were able to
distinguish the
sounds from the left,

T
he most prominent printing thanks to the ADF.
upgrades to the The nozzle configuration has
EPSON L655 over also changed for the better
the L455, which is with a more densely packed
the last EPSON printer that arrangement. EPSON has
wed gotten our hands on, replaced the SD Card slot
are the additions of an Auto- with Ethernet.
matic Document Feeder, As for the printing
and automatic double sided performance, the denser
nozzle arrangement sure
does a much better job as
it produces really accurate
75 prints. Moire patterns are
hardly seen, we had to really
squint to notice some within
Performance............................78 the innermost circles of the
Build ...........................................70 standard Siemens-star. Even
Value for Money ......................80
Features ....................................70
fine raster lines were accu-
rately reproduced. Photo
prints werent as impressive
Specifications as we could easily notice
Nozzle configuration: 400
Black, 128 Colour; Droplet size: grainy texture over human
3.3 pl; Ink: Black - pigment, skin, however, when we
colour - dye; Printing resolution: tried printing high-poly
4,800 x 1,200 DPI; Printing speed: count CMYK colour wheels,
33 ppm mono, 20 ppm colour;
we couldnt notice banding
Scanning resolution: 1,200 x
2,400 DPI; ADF capacity: 30; at all. Quite impressive!
Interfaces: Wi-Fi, USB, Ethernet, The EPSON L655 does
Wi-Fi Direct; Weight: 7.4 kg charge quite the premium,
but the total cost of own-
Contact ership is way better than
Epson
Phone: 1800 425 0011 cartridge based inkjets in
Email: NA the same price segment.
Website: www.epson.co.in Mithun Mohandas
right, front and back. Long
pressing the dial on the left
earcup disables surround
sound. The audio quality is
immersive for FPS and open
world games. Its also great
for watching movies but
not for music. The quality
of the mic is only good
enough for in-game chat and
TeamSpeak. The micro-
phone was found to have a
hollow and muffled sound
signature. The headrest and
63
Features ....................................75
Build Quality ............................65
Value ..........................................50
Specifications
Frequency response: 20-20 kHz;
Impedance: 32; Drivers: 50 mm;
Mic frequency response: 100-10
kHz; Mic impedance: 2.2; Mic
sensitivity: -37 dB (+/-3 dB)
Contact
Corsair
Phone: NA
Email: corsair.secure.force.com
Website: www.corsair.com/en
earcups use memory foam
for comfort and the foam
is covered with a meshed
fabric for ventilation. They
might look heavy due to the
size but the headset is light,
and you can wear it for long
gaming sessions. But we
received an older unit and
the swivel joints had become
really loose. Even the head-
band clamping pressure
was weak, and sudden jerks
would displace the headset
and the mics stem.
RGB lighting is present
in two zones on each earcup
and we observed that keeping
them switched off using the
CUE software extends the
battery charge immensely.
The reasons to buy the VOID
RGB are if you wish to own
a wireless headset with
great audio immersion, RGB
lighting to match your rig and
lastly, if youre a Corsair fan,
to colour coordinate your for
maximum RGB madness. If
not the RGB, then the stereo
and regular black versions of
the headset are available at
lower prices.
Abhijit Dey

106 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 3D printed circuit boards
Next Dynamics builds a new 3D printer that
can even build circuit boards using multiple
materials. http://dgit.in/3Dcrctbrd
LG V20
Niche appeal
I
f youre one of those
looking for a removable
battery, the LG V20 is
the only flagship phone
that suits your needs. Despite
an all metal build, the phone
allows you to pop the back and
remove the battery.
That said, the V20s metallic
build doesnt feel as premium.
The phones MIL-STD-810G
certification comes at the
expense of a premium feel.
You dont get the anodised
aluminium that premium
smartphones are often known
for. Given that shock proofing
doesnt really protect your dis-
play in practical scenarios, we
would have happily dropped it
for a more premium device.
LG has chosen an LCD
panel this time, and the results are quite
evident. While the V20 is good in terms
of colour reproduction and viewing angles,
the black levels are noticeably lower. Moreover,
theres some light leak near the edges, which
is more evident when the primary display is
turned off. The part just below the secondary
panel will look somewhat greyish in this case.
The secondary display remains more of a
gimmick. You can put your most used apps
on this, or have the quick settings here, but it
doesnt really solve a purpose, or become a fea-
ture you couldnt do without. Your phone looks
different, but thats about it.
That aside, the V20 is your regular flagship.
The Snapdragon 820 is as fast as ever, however,
the QHD display does reduce frame rates on
gaming a bit. This will show up in benchmarks,
but is hard to spot in real life. In general, the LG
V20 is as fast as any other flagship out there,
but youll have to take the phone off its power
saving mode to draw the full power of the SoC.
On the default mode, games lag quite a bit.
The V20 also has a dual-camera setup on the
back. Unlike the Huawei P9 or iPhone 7 Plus,
though, it doesnt combine the power of two
lenses. Like the G5, you get a wide angle 8MP
camera and a 16MP rear camera. The image
Knowmail raises $3.5M
Knowmail is an Israeli startup that wants to use
AI to help better managing of emails and other
messages. http://dgit.in/KnowmailAI Bazaar
quality is also just as good,
which means it is no match
for a Pixel or iPhone right
now. The wide angle camera
produces fish-eye like images,
which some may like, while
many will not enjoy.
The LG V20 can take good
images under most lighting
scenarios, and would have
been amongst the best some
months ago. Its just that the
Pixel and iPhone 7 Plus have
changed the game recently,
with the former being a major
deterrent to the V20. The Pixel
has a much higher dynamic
range, and better details and
colours than this one.
The LG V20 is also behind
in terms of battery life. The
Price99 phone drops 5 per cent battery
54,9 over 15 minutes of gaming and runs for
just over five hours on the PC Mark bat-
tery test. This is satisfactory by industry
standards, but one still wishes for more. In gen-
eral, the V20 will only last a work day at best. 74
Where the LG V20 truly excels is audio
quality, and thats not just in terms of output.
The V20 is the best smartphone for those Features .......................72
looking for good audio recording quality. A Performance...............70
song played on an iPhone SE and recorded via Value .............................69
the V20, sounds better on the latter. The phone Design ...........................83
combines three Acoustic Overload Point micro-
phones to record audio, while a 32-bit Hi-Fi Specifications
DAC handles audio output. In both cases, the Display: 5.7inch QHD
V20 is the best you can get, rivalled only by the IPS LCD, 2.1inch 160 x
1040 pixel secondary
HTC 10, and that too in audio output only. The display; RAM: 4 GB; SoC:
LG V20 is a tad louder than the HTC 10, too. Qualcomm Snapdragon
To conclude, the LG V20 is a very good 820; Operating System:
smartphone, but its meant for a very niche user. Android 7.0 Nougat;
If the removable back and battery, or good audio Storage: 32/64 GB;
Battery: 3200 mAh;
performance are not your priorities, you really Camera: 16 MP primary
wont make the best purchase with the V20. It + 8 MP wide angle, 5 MP
is one of the few phones to come with Android Front Camera
Nougat out-of-the-box, but so is the Google
Pixel. At a `50k+ price point, Googles smart- Contact
LG
phones can do almost everything better than the Phone: 180901809999
V20, barring audio performance. Email: Via web site
Prasid Banerjee Website: www.lg.com/in/
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 107
 Self-driving cabs
Ubers self-driving cars start picking up
passengers in San Francisco.
Bazaar http://dgit.in/UbrSlfdrvng
GIGABYTE
Radeon RX 480
G1 GAMING 8G
Why go for stock when youve got this?
Price00
23,5xes)
Y
(+ T a
ou can easily is ideal if you have a
notice how liquid cooler for the
GIGABYTE has CPU as accidental leaks
put some work into wont wreck your graphics
the design and built quality card. However, this does
of this card the moment mean that the components
you hold it. And theyve underneath the backplate
maintained the aesthetics will be starved for air. The
to be in line with the look of GPU, especially, tends to get
their G1 Gaming series. The a little toasty but with two
added RGB LEDs, power 90 mm fans, this GIGA-
indicator LEDs and protec- BYTE unit is able to ward
tive backplate give the card a off high temps for a little
premium feel. The backplate longer than stock cards.
However, with the move to
14 nm FinFET, thats mostly
71 taken care of. Performance
wise, the few extra MHz on
the core clock do give you an
Performance...........................70 inch of extra performance
Build ..........................................78 over the stock RX 480. Which
Value for Money .....................65 makes this card quite good
for 1440p and 1080p gaming.
Specifications We were able to push the card
RX 480 Polaris; Stream to about 1350 MHz but with
Processors: 2304; Compute the temperatures hitting the
Units: 36; Boost clock: 1290 MHz; early 90s we decided to scale
VRAM: 8 GB GDDR5; Memory back. Overall, the GIGA-
clock: 8 Gbps; Memory bus
width: 256-bit; TDP: 150+ W; BYTE Radeon RX 480 G1
Power Connectors: 1x 6-PIN. GAMING 8G is a pretty great
upgrade to the stock card, so
Contact theres no reason why you
GIGABYTE Technology shouldnt opt for one when
Phone: +919810494944
Email: mayank.sharma@ upgrading to the new AMD
gigabyte.com Polaris GPU.
Website: www.gigabyte.in Mithun Mohandas
108 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Apples support app
Apple recently launched their own Apple Support app
where you can get in touch with a live support technician.
http://dgit.in/ApleSuprtAp
WD My Passport
4 TB
Colour coded storage
E
xternal hard drives
or mechanical hard
drives, in general,
have reached a
point where you cant really
differentiate between
two models based on
their performance.
Price40
Although, these 17,1
hard drives tend to
differentiate between
each other by offering
more in terms of features
such as cloud storage and On the inside, it is using
automated backups aside the same tried and tested
from the overall design. 5400 RPM 2.5inch hard
With this particular offering drive which we have seen
from WD, the biggest change in its previous generations.
comes in the form of the new After taking into account file
square-ish design and a bevy system parameters, the user
of colour options. While the gets about 3.63 TB of usable
design is somewhat subjec- space. This means you pay
tive to what one may like, around `4.6 per GB, which
we personally would have is not very economical as
preferred a sleeker more external drives with similar
rounded design. But having storage capacities are avail-
the option to pick from six able at almost half the cost.
different colours, sort of However, during our testing
makes up for that. we observed better data
transfer rates compared to
its counterparts. We saw
peak sequential read speeds
60
of around 246 MBps and
write speeds of around 107.6
MBps. Random data from
real world tests painted a
Performance............................50
similar picture with the
Features ....................................70
data copy speeds averaging
around 110 MBps.
Specifications On the software front,
Capacity: 4 TB; Interface: USB
3.0; Colour: Black; RPM : 5400; this WD My Passport comes
Dimensions: 110 x 81.5 x 21.5 mm; with its application suite,
Weight: 250 g; Warranty: 2 Years including an automatic
backup software, password
Contact protection and drive health
Western Digital
Phone: 1-800-275-4932 check utility. Nothing we
Email: Support site havent seen before.
Website: www.wdc.com/en-um/ Hardik Singh
 Merlin Bird Photo ID Air, by Lucid Motors
This mobile application can tell you exactly which Carlifornia-based auto maker Lucid Motors
species of bird you are looking at simply by taking revealed their first electric car that has a
a picture. http://dgit.in/MrlnBrdID 400-mile range. http://dgit.in/LcdMtrsAir Bazaar

Corsair Carbide Air 740

68 A windy mini-castle for your PC

Performance................71
Features .......................72
Build Quality .............. 90
Value .............................37
Specifications
Motherboard support:
ATX, Micro-ATX and Mini-
ITX; PSU form factor: ATX
standard; Front I/O: 2x USB
3.0, Mic in and Audio Out,
LED light control; Drive
options: 3x 3.5inch HDD,
4x 2.5inch SSD; Fans: 3x
120mm/2x 140 mm (front),
2x 1220/140 mm (top), 2x
1220/140 mm (bottom), 1x
120/140mm (rear)
Contact
Corsair
Email: corsair.secure.
force.com
Website: corsair.com
T
he dual-chambered design
of the Air 740 ensures
the separation of all
the ugly cabling and
storage devices from the main
components that require unin-
terrupted airflow. The other
side houses all the extra cables
so you dont have to worry
about cables messing with
air flow. And the generous
number of rubber grommets
makes it easier to route them.
The chassis is huge and
a large amount of space will remain
vacant if you just have air cooling. This
could be filled up with radiators (on the
top and front and even bottom) or a custom
liquid cooling system. Nonetheless, your system
will maintain stable temperatures in the factory
shipped setting. The build quality of the entire
chassis is impressive. The handy
hinged-window panel is a neat
feature. The only shortcoming
in the structure is the absence
of dust filters on the top and
bottom panel.
We ran our stress tests
on the rig with the default
Corsair dual-140 mm fans on
the front and a single 140 mm
fan on the rear. The i7-4960X
didnt cross the 60 degree
Celsius mark on Prime95
while the HD 7790 managed to
Price99 hold at around 61 degree Celsius on
15,9
the FurMark stress test.
The 740 is a premium chassis given its
price tag. It has an offbeat design and you
get massive expansion for future upgrades or
for a better cooling system.
Abhijit Dey

ASUS ZenBook 3
A MacBook alternative? 66

T
o begin with, the ASUS ZenBook 3 is which is too shallow. In contrast, the touchpad Features .......................77
powerful, fast, thin and light. on the ZenBook 3 is simple, smooth and a joy Performance...............74
Lets face it, the ASUS ZenBook to use. On paper, the ASUS ZenBook 3 is a Value .............................47
3 looks like an Apple MacBook, but beast and it almost performs like one. The Intel Design ...........................65
its more flashy and colourful. However, what Core i7 - 7500U processor churns out superb
makes this design fascinating is the fact that performance in office related tasks. However, we Specifications
ASUS has managed to include a full fledged observed some light throttling when we tried Processor: Intel Corei7
7500U; GPU: Intel HD;
Intel Core i7 Processor, a cooling fan, and heat running some games like Dota 2 on it.
RAM: 16 GB 2133 MHz
pipes within that ultra-thin chassis. Also, the As for the battery life, if you are performing LPDDR3; Internal
small chassis does not allow more than normal everyday tasks, the laptop easily Storage: 512 GB PCIe
one Type-C USB ports and lasts for 7-8 hours. However, SSD; Display: 12.5inch,
you end up carrying a if you are more into 1920 x 1080; Keyboard:
Island type; OS: Win 10;
dongle everywhere. streaming movies, the
I/O: 1 x USB 3.0 Type-C,
The 12.5inch laptop will at max. last 1 x Headphone/mic jack
display on the machine for four hours. Consider combo
is bright and beautiful. It has the ZenBook 3 if you want
good viewing angles and the narrow a great MacBook alternative. Contact
ASUS
bezels add to its aesthetics. However, the Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo
ASUS has tried to imitate the shallow Price90 Thinkpad X1 Carbon are more cost
Phone: 18002090365
9
keyboard of the 12inch MacBook and 1,47, effective options.
Email: reachus@asus.
com
failed. The keys have 0.8 mm of travel, Hardik Singh Website: www.asus.in

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 109

 PS4 controllers for Steam Gotham City Sirens
Valve recently added an update on Steam. Based on DCs 2009 series Gotham City Sirens,
It now supports PlayStation 4s DualShock Margot Robbies new Harley Quinn movie is
Bazaar controllers. http://dgit.in/ps4cntStm officially on its way. http://dgit.in/GthmCtySrns

Jabra Halo Smart Lenovo K6 Power

Calling essentials Comebacks are real

T T
he Jabra Halo he Lenovo K6
Smart is a Blue- Power is somewhat
tooth headset with late to the budget
a lightweight neck- party, but it is
band that is unobtrusive. better competition than the
It includes drivers, micro- companys earlier phones.
phone and in-line controls, In terms of design or
with volume and answer/ even build quality,
play-pause buttons to the the K6 Power looks
right and the microphone like any other Price9
9,99
button to the left. Price9 budget device. It
2,99
Call reception is excep- has a metal back,
tional via the bi-directional, the camera module and
noise cancelling micro- fingerprint scanner have
phone. Noise isolation is offer rigid feedback which the same central location
reasonably impressive, but makes the tapping some- and there are no on-screen
it does pick up a fair bit of what difficult. navigation keys. There are
noise if someone is talking The Halo Smart retains subtle changes to the power
loudly right beside you. good connectivity with and volume keys, and the
In-call audio clarity is source. It experiences loss speaker placement, but
good, and the loud volume of signal at about seven thats about it. It is equipped dragon 430 SoC, Adreno
helps call clarity even feet away, but since this is with a 1080p panel. We 505 GPU and 3 GB of RAM
through intermittent net- a calling headset for those found the contrast ratios performs very similar to the
work. The audio balance is extensively on call, this may and colour saturation of the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime.
focused on clear mids, which not be a major problem. 720p panel on the Redmi 3S App load times and mul-
further heightens clarity. Another con is the struggle Prime to be better. titasking performance are
However, the soft buttons to get the right fit. Jabra does The Lenovo K6 Power better than last generation
include four ear tips, but we with its Qualcomm Snap- K-series phones. However,
couldnt get a comfortable fit this one is still slower than
with any of them. This also a 16 GB Xiaomi Redmi Note

69 affects the already-limited

passive noise isolation and
degrades audio quality even
Features ....................................78 further than where it could
Performance............................64 have been with a better fit.
Value ..........................................67 The neckband vibration
Design ........................................66 is a great addition for callers.
Music playback, though, is
Specifications not impressive. Distinct lack
Weight: 38 g; Connectivity: of lows make it a mediocre
Bluetooth v4.1; Speakers: experience. The app does
10 mm Neodymium magnet; not add much to it, although,
Impedance: 16 ohm; Mic
frequency range: 200 Hz to there remains scope for
6,300 Hz; Speaker frequency improvement.
range: 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz With up to 16 hours of
battery life, the Jabra Halo
Contact Smart is one of the more rec-
Jabra
Phone: 1800-425-3718 ommendable calling headset
Email: support.in@jabra.com at its price point.
Website: www.jabra.com Souvik Das
74 3. The audio output of the
device is nice with head-
phones, and music lovers
Feature ......................................79 will like it at this price.
Performance............................73 Lenovo claims about 13 to
Value ..........................................60 14 hours of battery life from
Design ........................................83 the 4,000 mAh battery,
but we got about 12 hours
Specifications on a single charge, which is
SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon still good. Further, the rear
430; RAM: 3 GB; Storage: 32 GB; camera really shines. The
Camera: 13 MP rear, 8 MP front; colour reproduction is good,
Display: 5inch display with
1920 x 1080 resolution (441 ppi); and it offers better details
Battery: 4000 mAh; Operating than most sub-`10K phones.
system: Android 6.0 In essence, the Lenovo
K6 Power ticks all the right
Contact check boxes and with it,
Lenovo
Phone: 1800-3000-7678 Lenovo has made a come-
Email: Lencare@lenovo.com back in the budget segment.
Website: www.lenovo.com/in/en/ Hardik Singh

110 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 NoBroker raises $7M A boring company
India-based property startup NoBroker Elon Musk says he might build a new digging
gets fresh funding of $7 million to expand company that will build underground routes to
its services. http://dgit.in/Nobrokr7M alleviate city traffics. http://dgit.in/BorinCmpny Bazaar

55
Thermaltake Core P3
The most beautiful chassis weve ever assembled

Performance...............58
Features ....................... 51
Build Quality .............. 64
Value .............................45
Specifications
Motherboard form
factor: ATX, Micro-ATX
and Mini-ITX; PSU form
factor: ATX standard
(max. Length 200 mm);
Front I/O: 2x USB 2.0, 2x
USB 3.0, Mic in and Audio
Out; Drive options: 2x
3.5inch HDD/2.5inch
SSD, 3x 2.5inch SSD;
Fans: 3x 120/140 mm
Contact
Thermaltake
Phone: NA
Email: CS@thermaltake.
com
Website: thermaltake.com
T
he P3 is a smaller
version of the Core
P5, both following
an offbeat open
air modular design. Given
the level of customisability
you can remove unneces-
sary components such as the
wall mounting bracket that
comes inside the chassis. A
useful advantage for us was
the option to orient its placement
horizontally or vertically as per need.
Although the white colour looked
impressive, the paint around the screw
holes wore out after the first attempt at
assembling the various components. This
shouldnt be a concern on the Black edition.
The P3 isnt a cabinet for enthusiasts only.
The acrylic transparent window (no tempered
glass option) ensures all your components are
visible. This was built for
RGB laced components.
The biggest disadvantage
of the case would be dust
accumulation since theres
nothing at all to stop dust
entry (except a magnetic dust
filter behind the fan mounts).
This is where it drastically
loses points in our final score.
But this is usually the case for
unconventionally designed
cabinets. The 4960X touched
Price0 63 degree Celsius on full load in
9,70 our Prime95 test while the FurMark
1080p preset stress test pushed the HD
7790s temperatures to 64 degrees Celsius.
On normal usage, the temps were average but
thats on air cooling. You can really go crazy
with different layouts for liquid cooling.
Abhijit Dey

Coolpad Note 5
Not That Cool

W
ith 4 GB of RAM, the
Coolpad Note 5 is
offering more memory
than any of its com-
petitors. It offers a metal body,
5.5inch FHD display, non-backlit
capacitive buttons and slightly
chamfered edges around the sides.
On the back, the camera,
fingerprint sensor, speakers and a
small ridge below the speaker grille
are placed at the same spots as the
Redmi Note 3. Overall, the Coolpad
Note 5 does not feel as well built as
its peers.
The colours and black levels on
the Note 5s display are satisfactory,
Price99
and there is a colour shift when viewing
from angles, along with a very notice-
able bezel around the edge of the display.
For the touch response, it seems to have trouble
registering more than two to three
touches. The Coolpad Note 5 comes
with CoolUI 8.0, based on Android
Marshmallow. The Quick Toggles
70
are accessed by swiping from the
bottom. However, trying to bring Features ...................... 80
up the toggle seems to register Performance.............. 60
touches on the capacitive buttons. Design ...........................69
There are occasional lags and Value .............................70
stutters that I came across while
using the device. There are also Specifications
slight frame drops while playing SoC: Qualcomm
high-end games. The Coolpad Note Snapdragon 617; Storage:
32 GB; Display: 5inch
5 comes with a 13 MP rear camera display with 1920 x 1080
and the images lack detail with resolution (441 ppi);
higher image noise. At the front is
Contact
an 8 MP camera with flash, which
Coolpad India
10,9 is a static LED in lamp mode. The device
Phone: 1800-1027-159
has a large 4,010 mAh battery that lasts Email: Via web site
through an average work day. Website: www.
Shrey Pacheco coolpadindia.com

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 111

 Dark atomic clocks
NASAs scientists believe that old atomic
clocks can help test forms of dark matter from
Bazaar the universe. http://dgit.in/AtomicClck
HIS RX 460
iCooler OC 4 GB
Polaris Mini-Me
H
Price5
9,6ax4es)
B
(+ T
ased on the reference GTX 960
Polaris 11 or the Pascal based
GPU the Radeon 1050 and 1050 Ti. Both
RX 460 is a scaled cards are built to stay within
down version of the RX 480 the 75W thermal envelope
targeted at eSports and low but only the 1050 acts as a
power systems. With 896 direct competitor as it too is
stream processors housed a sub-`10k GPU.
within 14 compute units, The HIS RX 460 iCooler
the RX 460 aims to lay OC has decent build quality,
waste to the sub-`10k price after all, with less than half
bracket. It boasts of a 112 the stream processors of the
GB/s memory bandwidth RX 480, you dont generate
which is the same as the much heat. The cooling fans
noise is distracting at peak
workloads but those were
69
during synthetic bench-
marks. During gaming, only
the occasional ramp ups
Performance............................61 were audible. In gaming, the
Build ...........................................70 RX 460 is neck and neck
Value for Money ......................75 with the GTX 1050 with
certain games performing
Specifications better on the RX 460 while
RX 460 Polaris; Stream some others doing well on
Processors: 896; Compute the GTX 1050. Needless
Units: 14; Core clock: 1090 MHz; to say, Doom, Hitman and
Boost clock: 1220 MHz; VRAM: Total War: Warhammer
4 GB GDDR5; Memory clock: 7
Gbps; Memory bus width: 128-bit; run quite well on the RX
TDP: 150+ W; Power Connectors: 460 but games like Far Cry
1x 6-PIN. Primal Witcher 3 do well on
the GTX 1050. For eSports,
Contact it manages to keep the min-
HIS Digital
Phone: NA imum frame rate above 50
Email: marketing@hisdigital.com in CS:GO and Overwatch.
Website: www.hisdigital.com Mithun Mohandas
112 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
LG ProBeam projector
LGs new small form-factor laser projector
supports Miracast, Bluetooth and a 1080p
video playback. http://dgit.in/ProBeamLG
Kingston HyperX
Cloud Stinger
Forget music, these are
great for gaming
aving used the
headset for a good
month, we can say
that these
are really comfort-
able for extended
period of time. The Price9
3,99
HyperX Cloud
Stinger opts for
a circumaural,
closed-back
design for the ear
cups. The memory foam on
the cups coupled with the
right amount of clamping The microphone of the
pressure ensure a well Stinger felt quite close to the
aerated environment on the audio capture source i.e. our
insides of the cups. Weve voices! Moreover, the swivel
had it on for approximately to mute function is handy.
six hours at a stretch with The active noise cancella-
next to zero discomfort tion on the microphone was
being experienced. quite effective at reducing
feedback while streaming
clan matches where you
have one too many people
68 shouting right next to each
other. In our CS:GO audio-
location tests, we were able
Performance............................65
to detect spawn locations
Build ...........................................70
and rapid movement quite
Value for Money ......................60
accurately, weapon sounds
Design ........................................75
werent overly bass heavy
which is what you want
Specifications when gaming. As for music,
Driver: 50mm with neodymium
magnets; Cup design: it doesnt make the cut.
Circumaural, closed back; Songs like Pink Floyds
Frequency response: 18 Hz - 23 Comfortably Numb or the
kHz; Impedance: 30 ohms; THD: live rendition of Yannis The
~2%; Cable length: 1.3+1.7m;
Connector: 3.5 mm TRRS; SPL: Rain must fall that feature
102 30 dB @ 1 kHz; Weight: most of the mid-range
275 g. spectrum seem lacklustre.
At the end of the day, these
Contact are gaming headphones and
Kingston Technology
Phone: 1860 233 4515 in that department, they do a
Email: sales_india@kingston.com pretty good job.
Website: www.kingston.com Mithun Mohandas
 Magic mushroom for cancer
Studies confirmed that magic mushrooms can
help cancer patients experience less fear and
depression. http://dgit.in/mshrmCncr
OnePlus 3T
Better than the best
H
ow do you make something that is the
best-in-class better? Or rather, should
you be upgrading a phone that
is already good? Well, that is
exactly what OnePlus is trying to do,
with the OnePlus 3T. The 3T brings
small hardware changes, keeping the
aesthetics unchanged.
However, OnePlus says it saw
room for improvement, with the new
SoC, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821,
16 MP front-facing camera and the
battery capacity has been increased
from 3,000 mAh to 3,400 mAh.
Display and Design:
Same as last time
The OnePlus 3T looks and feels
exactly like the OnePlus 3. The
only difference is the new gun-
metal grey colour, using the
same, robust metal build as its Price99
predecessor. The AMOLED display 29,9
used on the phone is still one of the best
around in terms of colour reproduction.
Performance: A slight increase
Equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
SoC, the OnePlus 3T is slightly faster than its
predecessor. However, this difference is difficult
to spot on day-to-day usage. You can liter-
ally open 30 apps (we had more than 50 apps
installed on our test unit) and each one of those
apps will keep running in the background.
Gaming experience on the phone is also
similar to that on the OnePlus 3, or any flagship
other Android phones. Its smooth, and does not
falter even if you play multiple games back-to-
back, or games like Asphalt 8 for long periods.
The difference is noticeable only on synthetic
benchmarks. The OnePlus 3T is undoubtedly
faster, but not by a large margin.
Battery: Marginal increase
The slight bump in performance is com-
plimented by a 3400 mAh battery, which
supports Dash Charging. The 3T can easily
withstand a work days worth of moderate
usage. However heavy users may have to charge
the phone twice per day.
Cracking a credit card
Researchers build a tool that can crack credit
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just 6 seconds. http://dgit.in/VCrdHck Bazaar
This, though, is no different
from the OnePlus 3, which
begs the question as to why the
OnePlus 3T is needed. The new
battery doesnt really add to the
battery life, despite the extra 400
mAh boost to capacity.
Camera: Selfies galore
The front facing camera is where
the main change is. It has been
upgraded to a 16 MP sensor. With
it, the image quality of selfies have
also improved. Photos come out
sharper than the OnePlus 3, while
details and colour reproduction
are also better. It is amongst the
best front facing cameras weve
tested in a while.
On the back, the OnePlus 3T
uses the same 16 MP Sony sensor
used in the OnePlus 3. It is PDAF (Phase
detection auto-focus) enabled and is
aided by OIS (optical image stabilisation).
However, it seems there are mild algo-
rithmic changes in the camera app, with Oxygen
OS version 3.5.3. Images look more vibrant in
normal lighting conditions, and sharpness and
83
contrast are slightly better. Low-light images
look pretty much the same as on the OnePlus 3.
Bottomline Feature .........................77
Jargon aside, the OnePlus 3T is really not a Performance...............72
big upgrade to the OnePlus 3. The processor is Value ............................ 90
indeed faster, but 10% is not noticeable in real Design .......................... 94
world performance. If you have the OnePlus 3,
youre not missing out on much. Specifications
SoC: Qualcomm
The 128 GB variant may seem more expen- Snapdragon 821; RAM:
sive, but paying 5k more for the extra storage 6 GB; Storage: 64/128
seems to make much more sense than what GB; Camera: 16 MP rear,
Google and Apple ask for. The OnePlus 3T still 16 MP front; Display:
makes sense, compared to the flagship phones. 5.5inch display with
1920 x 1080p resolution
(401 ppi); Battery: 3400
Verdict mAh; Operating system:
If you have a OnePlus 3, the OnePlus 3T is not Android 5.1
a big upgrade. If your budget is around 30-35k,
the OnePlus 3T is indeed the best smartphone to Contact
OnePlus
buy. It is the most value for money smartphone Phone: 1800 102 8411
in the market today. Email: NA
Hardik Singh Website: oneplus.net/in
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 113

Street smart 117
The Chromebook query
Agent 001
agent001@digit.in
O
ne thing about the PC
master race is that we
consider ourselves supe-
rior - and with that comes
the implied conclusion that everything
else is inferior. Consoles? Macs? It is a
generally accepted idea that nothing
really measures up to the glory of a
full fledged all-component-blazing
PC, and everyone should go for it. I
have a lot of friends who swear by the
PC master race and I am somewhat of
a loyalist myself. The thing is, some-
times it can get difficult for anyone to
get a point across to some loyalists.
On one Sunday afternoon, in
between a few heated CS:GO death-
matches, one of my friends told the rest
of the group that he had purchased
a Chromebook for his freshly gradu-
ated kid brother, who is an aspiring
automobile-blogger. Of course, what
followed immediately was a massive
session of hilarious jokes and geeky
insults (we all know what I am talking
about here, eh?), all targeted at the poor
fellow who couldnt really say anything
in his defence. But this brief exchange
had set some mental cogs into motion
and even after the CS:GO session was
114 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Price watch
This time its all about smartwatches
and mobile phones under `25K which are
some of the most popular segments
Sometimes, all it
takes is a CS:GO
match to be
convinced about
the pros of a
Chromebook.
Confused?
Read on...
over, I couldnt stop thinking about
Chromebooks. I had tried one in its
initial days and frankly, it wasnt that
great. The idea behind it - I liked that
part. But mostly it was almost destined
to fail, the way it was at that point. In
fact, even my reviewer buddies at Digit
thought so. Has something changed
over this time? This definitely warrants
more research.
Googles computing
experiment - the Chrome
OS
The initial idea behind Googles
ChromeOS felt quite impressive and
audacious to me - an entire com-
puting platform that ran nothing but a
browser. Wow! Right? Over the years,
I have noticed that the majority of us
spend most of our computing time on
web browser windows. So I had a lot of
expectations when Chromebooks hit
the stores a paradigm shift, com-
puting overhaul, etc. but was disap-
pointed soon enough.
It was after I began my research
afresh recently that I came across a few
interesting confirmations about certain
Chromebook updates both in terms
Killer rigs
We tell you about the best
118 components to look for at various
PC rigs at different budgets
of hardware and software that I was
not completely sure of until that point.
For starters, there are a lot of them in
all shapes and sizes and specifications.
While the India availability is sketchy,
it would be wrong to deny that there
are Chromebooks that satisfy almost
every specific requirement need. Hmm,
interesting! So what exactly was my
friend thinking when he got a Chrome-
book for his brother?
Form factor
Well, I am aware since day one of the
ChromeOS that it is intended to be
lightweight. I can hear you smirking,
Chrome and lightweight?. Well, not
if youre a heavy handed multi-tasker
like me. But for a major section of
consumers, whose only needs are to
browse, watch videos and use some
apps, say, a 2 GB RAM Chromebook
with a mid level Intel Processor would
make sense. And due to being light on
the specifications, Chromebooks can be
built to be extremely portable yet inex-
pensive at the same time. I mean, would
you believe that there is a Chromebook
at the price of a mid range smartphone?
Turns out there is. That somewhat
ticks off one major box making it gift
friendly. Someones getting one!
What else? Hmm, the guy wants
to be a blogger, so mostly he would
be working on documents, browsing
online, maybe upload a few pictures or
watch some videos. A Chromebook and
Googles suite of cloud based applica-
tions are perfect for this use case. Heck,
even I could use a Chromebook if that
was all I did! But if I remember cor-
rectly, that kid brother of my friend was
complaining about the spotty internet
connection in his hometown the last
time we spoke. When offline, Chrome-
books were little other than a dead
laptop the last time I had laid my hands
on them. Somehow, it didnt make sense
and at this point I had to verify some-
 Recommended buys Industry connect
The very best products you can buy We talk to Pete Lau, Co-Founder of

119 right now spanning across 10 popular

tech categories. 120 OnePlus and Eddie Udagawa, VP of
Canon India Agent 001

thing that I faintly remembered about
Chromebooks - offline apps.
Offline Chromebooks - Not
completely useless
After a quick dig at the Chrome Web
Store and around some of my trusted
sub-reddits, it was evident that
Chromebooks had far better offline
support when it came to apps now.
There are over 200 apps on the Web
Store that work offline! Trust me, if my
surprise seems unwarranted to you
compared to the Play Store, thats a
dead giveaway that you havent really
used a Chromebook in its early days.
In fact, let us assume a situation
in which there is no internet and no
electricity (Yes, I just conjured up hell
in front of your eyes!). Compared to a
standard Windows laptop, A Chrome-
book would be more reliable for its
owner, thanks to the offline support as
well as the great battery life that most
Chromebooks come with. That is, if you
can survive without internet for 7-8
hours. And the moment you come back
online, everything syncs back into place,
including peace of your mind. Of course,
I swear by internet connectivity Wi-Fi
at my place and hotspots wherever I go.
Go ahead, call me internet obsessed but
Ill be having the last laugh when the
cloud takes over the world!
Jokes apart, on the other hand a
connected Chromebook would do a lot
of things for me. For starters, I dont
need to store any media anyways
Netflix takes care of my TV shows and
movies, Google Play Music can handle
my music collection and last time I
checked, Google offers 100 GB of free
Google Drive storage for two whole
years if you purchase a Chromebook.
All that and a device that doesnt even
need to boot up each time you turn it on
- just press the button and youre there,
ready to log in and get productive.
A Chromebook for al...
most!
Next time we had a round of CS:GO, I
made it a point to appreciate the guys
perfect choice about the Chromebook
for his brother. I could tell that he
almost audibly laughed at everyone
else but stopped himself. Maybe it isnt
really a good idea to laugh at a lobby
full of people youre about to play a
deathmatch with, eh?
So what followed were a series of
questions directed at my statement
and in general about my betrayal to the
PC master race. That is, until I abso-
lutely owned them in a few successive
deathmatches while telling them about
a Chromebook perfect for their use
case. Yes, there is a Chromebook for
almost everyone. Almost. To all the
TV show addicts and movie fanatics, I
suggest a full HD Chromebook in the
likes of the Acer Chromebook 14 to
use your Netflix subscription to its full
potential. And if youre still looking for
something to support all your offline
content, first you need to come out of
the distant past, so that you can see
that there are Chromebooks like the
ASUS C301 which go up to 64 GB of
onboard storage. There are plenty of
good options in India that have 32 GB of
storage as well.
In fact, you could have the added
advantage of a flip 2-in-1 design with
the ASUS Chromebook Flip. Chrome-
books are essentially designed to be
lightweight and portable which makes
them a perfect entrant in to the 2-in-1
form factor category.
Most of them were convinced and
reached the same conclusion that I had
just a couple of weeks ago - Chrome-
books are the perfect device for a popular
group of users who, unlike me and you,
dont really care about the heavy lifting.
Who wouldve thought that a group
of people, including me at an earlier
point of time, would see Chromebooks
in a new light due to a CS:GO match?
Knowledge sometimes does come from
the most unexpected of sources.
Of course, some of them were still
unconvinced as Chromebooks had no
Steam support and doesnt look like its
going to get it anytime soon. For them, I
had no answer yet.
P.S - Some Chromebooks already have
Google Play support and some will be
getting it soon. If youre planning to buy
one, keep a tab on https://www.chromium.
org/chromium-os/chrome-os-systems-
supporting-android-apps to stay up to date
with this feature.

Dolby for home
Dear Sir, I would like to buy a home
theatre system for my house. I want a
Dolby Atmos sound system. Essentially,
when a horse is running on the TV, it
should sound like the sound came from
the back to the front and I should be
able to feel it even with my eyes closed.
If theres an activity on the left then only
the left speaker should give the sound
and the same can be said for the other
side. Please recommend me a system
and the accessories.
Sangsaptak
Hey Sangsaptak, we think youre theatre system should be enough to
confused between Dolby Surround and take care of your needs. We would
Dolby Atmos. Dolby Surround sound recommend the Samsung HT-J5100K/
systems deliver sound in a single plane XL 5.1 Ch Home Theatre system and if
using five or seven speakers strategi- you can stretch your budget, you could
cally placed around the room. Dolby go for the Yamaha YHT-299 Home
Atmos adds another dimension by Theatre System.
giving you spatial or 360-degree
sound, where the sound is
delivered from the ceiling
of the room. The query
you mentioned is for
Dolby Surround and
buying a 5.1 or 7.1 home Yamaha YHT-299

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 115

 Volkswagen launches Moia
Moia will be a new standalone mobility company
under VW that will specifically focus on mobility
Agent 001 solutions. http://dgit.in/VWmoia1
If youre interested in Dolby Atmos
for Home, youll have to shell out more
money since the entire system and
the setting up process is expensive. It
would be a good idea to future proof
but do note that you wont find abun-
dant content supporting Dolby Atmos.
You will require Dolby Atmos enabled
speakers which would fire the sound
upwards, giving you the spatial feeling,
while you can use regular speakers
for the rest along with a Dolby Atmos
enabled receiver. For the receiver, you
could go either for the Pioneer VSX-
930-K or the Denon 7.2 AVRX2200W.
Gaming keyboard
Yo digit, Im a bit confused as I want
to buy a good gaming keyboard for my
PC. Please help me pick a keyboard.
Following are the names of a few key-
Zebronics Max
boards. If you have any other keyboard
in your mind, please let me know.
Logitech K400 PLUS Wireless
Gaming Keyboard (Black)
MARVO KM 400 Scorpion Wired USB
Gaming Keyboard (Black)
Circle Armor Professional Gaming
Keyboard
Generic Waterproof 2.4G Gaming
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Circle Ballistic Professional Gaming
Keyboard
Redragon ASURA K501 USB Gaming
Keyboard
My budget is `3k only. Hoping you
will reply soon. Thanks in advance.
Ayush
Hey Ayush, under a budget of 3k,
you can buy mechanical keyboards
including the TVS Gold USB/PS2 and
the Zebronics Max keyboard, selling at
around `2k. The TVS keyboard uses
116 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
genuine Cherry MX Blue switches
whereas the Max uses Outemu
switches which are cheaper variants,
but the advantage in the Max would be
better build quality and backlit keys.
Mechanical keyboards are a refreshing
update from membrane keyboards and
great for gaming and typing. If youre
looking forward to membrane or
hybrid keyboards, then you could go for
the Cooler Master Devastator II which
is a keyboard and mouse combo.
RAM for laptop
Hello Digit, my name is Akash (huge
fan of your FastTracks and dmystify).
I need a little help from your side. I
want to buy an 8 GB DDR3L RAM for
my laptop. I already have in-built 4
GB RAM but Im not able to identify
which RAM will work on my laptop.
There are dozens of 8 GB DDR3L
RAM from different
manufacturers.
Which one should
I prefer? Im
very confused.
I hope you
can give me
proper guidance about this. I only
need performance. My laptops model
number is Asus X550JX (i7-4720HQ
2.60 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, 4GB
DDR3 NVIDIA GTX 950M Graphics). My
laptop is mainly used for software such
as Android Studio, Unity3d, Photoshop
CC, etc., and I only play a single game
Cities: Skylines by Paradox Interactive.
So, which RAM should I buy to meet all
my minimum requirements. I know your
team will give me the best suggestions
so Im really waiting for your reply.
Akash
Hey Akash, you could go for RAM
modules from any top manufacturer
since they dont have much of a
difference in performance. And since
you wont be gaming much, the regular
base models should be enough. Hence,
you should only consider your brand
preference and price. Most of them are
clocked at 1600 MHz, so you can pick
any one from Transcend, Corsair,
Kingston or ADATA.
The history of small pox
A new mummy discovered suggests that
smallpox disease is just hundreds of years old,
not millennia. http://dgit.in/SmlPoxStdy
Gaming mouse
Hi Digit, My Razer Death Adder 2013s
left-click is registering double-clicks
even when I click once. Its been almost
two years since I bought the mouse,
and its been acting up for the last two
weeks. Since the warranty period is
already over, I was wondering whether
Razer DeathAdder Elite
the mouse can be repaired? Or will I
have to buy a new mouse? If it cant
be repaired, please suggest me a good
gaming mouse at around `6k. Thank you
very much.
P.S. It would be great if you could
recommend me an RGB gaming mouse.
Mohanvance.
Hey Mohan, its been a common
complaint with the DA 2013 and its
nice that the mouse lasted you for so
long. This is a switch problem and can
be solved by replacing the switch itself.
But youll have to open up the mouse,
desolder the faulty switch and solder
the new ones. It would be better to
avoid this if you dont have any
experience with soldering. But if youre
already considering about purchasing
a new mouse, then give it a try and take
the help of an experienced person.
For around `6k, you could go for
the trustworthy Logitech G502 Pro-
teus Spectrum. Or if you want to still
continue with the Death Adders famili-
arity and RGB lighting, go for the Death
Adder Elite which has more durable
switches than the previous generation.
Coincidentally, we have done a mouse
comparison this month, so make sure
you check it out. It might help you in
making a decision.
 Nvidia's own AI car Write apps for Google home
Nvidia made a new AI self-driving car and it Google is finally letting developers write applications
finally gets approved to test on California roads. and bring services for its Google Assistant.
http://dgit.in/NvidiaAI http://dgit.in/GgleHmdev Price Watch

SPEND SMART
Mobiles under `25k happen to be one of the most popular segments,
here are some of the best ones you can get and while you're at it, check
out these smartwatches as well.

MOBILES UNDER `25,000

Brand Model Processor Clock Speed RAM Screen size OS Primary Camera Battery Rating Price (`)
Motorola Moto Z Play Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 3 GB 5.5inch Android 6.0.1 16 MP 3510 mAh 24,999
Xiaomi Mi 5 Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 3 GB 5.15inch Android 6.0 16 MP 3000 mAh 22,995
Samsung Galaxy A5 Exynos 7580 2 GB 5.0inch Android 4.4.4 13 MP 2300 mAh 21,900
Blackberry DTEK50 Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 3 GB 5.2inch Android 6.0 13 MP 2610 mAh 21,900
Gionee S6 Pro MediaTek Helio P10 4 GB 5.5inch Android 6.0.1 13 MP 3130 mAh 21,268
Huawei Honor 8 smart HiSilicon Kirin 650 2 GB 5.2inch Android 6.0 13 MP 3000 mAh 19,999
Lenovo Z2 Plus Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 4 GB 5.0inch Android 6.0.1 13 MP 3500 mAh 19,999
OnePlus 2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 4 GB 5.5inch Android 5.1.1 13 MP 3300 mAh 19,999
Xiaomi Mi Max Prime Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 4 GB 6.44inch Android 6.0 16 MP 4850 mAh 19,999
LeEco Le Max 2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 4 GB 5.7inch Android 6.0 21 MP 3100 mAh 18,000
Vivo V5 MediaTek MT6750 4 GB 5.5inch Android 6.0 13 MP 3000 mAh 17,982
ASUS Zenfone 3 Max ZC553KL Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 3 GB 5.5inch Android 6.0 16 MP 4100 mAh 17,499
OPPO F1s MediaTek MT6750 4 GB 5.5inch Android 5.1 13 MP 3075 mAh 16,990
ASUS Zenfone 3 Laser Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 4 GB 5.5inch Android 6.0 13 MP 3000 mAh 15,999
Xiaomi Mi Max Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 3 GB 6.44inch Android 6.0 16 MP 4850 mAh 14,999

SMARTWATCHES
Brand Model SoC Size Blurtooth ver. Compatibility Battery Weight (g) Price (`)
Garmin Fenix 3 HR NA 1.2inch v4.0 Android / iOS 300 mAh 86 g 52,990
Apple Watch Series 2 (42mm) S2 processor 1.5inch v4.0 iOS 273 mAh 40 g 48,700
Garmin Fenix 3 Sapphire NA 1.2inch v4.0 Android / iOS 300 mAh 85 g 43,990
Garmin Forerunner 735XT NA 1.23inch Yes Android / iOS 300 mAh 40 g 40,990
Apple Watch Nike+ S2 dual-core processor 1.7inch v4.0 iOS 250 mAh 40 g 39,900
Motorola Moto 360 (2nd Gen) Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.56inch v4.0 Android / iOS 300 mAh NA 36,485
Apple Watch Series 2 (38mm) S2 processor 1.7inch v4.0 iOS 334 mAh 32 g 32,900
Michael Kors Access Dylan Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 1.65inch v4.1 Android / iOS 360 mAh 113 g 25,995
Michael Kors Access Bradshaw NA 1.4inch v4.1 Android / iOS 360 mAh 51 g 25,995
LG Watch Urbane Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.3inch v4.0 Android 410 mAh NA 25,734
Samsung Gear S2 Exynos 3250 1.2inch v4.1 Android 250 mAh 47 g 22,400
Huawei Watch Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.4inch v4.1 Android / iOS 300 mAh 61 g 17,999
Sony SmartWatch 2 ST-Microelectronics STM32F439 1.6inch v3.0 Android NA 122 g 14,990
Samsung Gear Fit 2 Exynos 3250 1.5inch v4.2 Android 200 mAh 30 g 13,990
ASUS Zenwatch 2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.63inch v4.1 Android 400 mAh NA 8,990

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 117

 KILLER RIGS
Everything youll ever need to build your own PC. Whatever your budget.

Basic rig = 31,506 Entry-level gaming = 54,016 Mid-range gaming = 82,965 High-end gaming rig = 1,16,916 Ultra high-end gaming = 2,74,434 Digit test rig= 4,51,508

BASIC RIG ENTRY-LEVEL GAMING

Processor Intel Core i3 - 6100 8,892 Processor AMD FX8320 11,760
Motherboard MSI H170M PRO-VDH D4 8,563 Motherboard ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 4,708
RAM Corsair Value CMV4GX4M1A2133C15 - 4GB 1,635 RAM G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNS 2,298
HDD Toshiba 1 TB DT01ACA100 3,325 HDD WD Blue WD10EZRZ 1 TB 3,599
Graphics Card Intel HD Graphics 530 0 Graphics Card GALAX GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC 4GB GDDR5 12,607
PSU Cooler Master Thunder 450W 3,032 PSU Corsair VS450 2,930
Speakers None 0 Speakers Creative SBS-E2800 2.1 2,950
Optical Drive None 0 Optical Drive LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer 975
Mouse Logitech MK120 Wireless (Bundle) 850 Mouse Logitech MK200 (Bundle) 650
Keyboard Logitech MK120 Wireless (Bundle) 0 Keyboard Logitech MK200 (Bundle) 0
Sound Card None 0 Sound Card None 0
Sub-total (Excluding Monitor) 26,297 Sub-total (Excluding Monitor and Cabinet) 42,477
Monitor BenQ G615HDPL 15.6-inch 4,209 Monitor BenQ RL2240HE 9,239
Cabinet OEM Cabinet 1,000 Cabinet Cooler Master CMP 250 2,300
Total `31,506 Total `54,016

MID-RANGE GAMING HIGH-END GAMING RIG

Processor Intel Core i5 - 6402P 12,910 Processor Intel Core i5 6600 16,800
Motherboard ASUS H170-PRO 10,530 Motherboard ASUS H170 PRO GAMING 12,132
RAM Corsair Value F4-2133C15D-8GNT 4,314 RAM G.Skill Aegis F4-2133C15D-16GIS 7,777
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1 TB + Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2 TB +
HDD 6,830 HDD 10,985
Kingston SSD UV400 120 GB Kingston UV400 SSD 240 GB
Graphics Card MSI GTX 1060 GAMING X 6GB GDDR5 25,673 Graphics Card ZOTAC GTX 1070 AMP! Edition 37,350
PSU Seasonic M12II 520W 5,330 PSU Seasonic M12II-750 EVO 8,820
Speakers F&D F550X 2.1 3,849 Speakers F&D F550X 2.1 3,849
Optical Drive LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer 975 Optical Drive LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer 975
Mouse Logitech G100s (Bundle) 1,585 Mouse Cooler Master Devastator II (Bundle) 2,618
Keyboard Logitech G100s (Bundle) 0 Keyboard Cooler Master Devastator II (Bundle) 0
Sound Card None 0 Sound Card None 0
Sub-total (Excluding Monitor and Cabinet) 71,996 Sub-total (Excluding Monitor) 101,306
Monitor LG 22MP58VQ-P 7,919 Monitor BenQ GL2460HM 9,710
Cabinet Corsair Carbide SPEC 01 3,050 Cabinet NZXT Guardian 921RB 5,900
Total `82,965 Total `1,16,916

ULTRA HIGH-END GAMING PRIMARY DIGIT TEST RIG

Intel Core i7-6700K + Antec Kuhler H2O Processor Intel Core i7 - 6950X (Extreme Edition) 1,43,000
CPU + Cooler 29,312
650
Motherboard Gigabyte X-99 SLI 23,399
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 5 17,900
Corsair Vengeance (2x 8 GB) CMK8GX- Apacer Panther 2666 MHz 32 GB
RAM 6,966 RAM 15,840
4M1A2400C14R (4x 8 GB)
WD WD30EZRX 3TB + Samsung 960 Pro HDD Western Digital WD40EFRX 12,444
HDD 512GB SSD 30,063
SSD Samsung 960 Pro 1TB NVMe SSD 43,000+Tax
Monitor Acer XB270HU 27-inch 144Hz 4K G-Sync 61,300
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 XTREME
Graphics Card ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1080 8GB 61,313 Graphics Card 63,250+Tax
Gaming
Cabinet NZXT S340 Elite 9,450
Cabinet+ Cooler NZXT H440 + Noctua NH-D15 24,107
PSU Cooler Master V1000 1000W 15,023
Speakers Sony HT-RT3 5.1 16,490 PSU Corsair HXi1000i 1000W 16,699
Optical Drive LG Blu-ray WH14NS40 RW 5,849 Monitor Acer Predator X34 89,000
Mouse Gigabyte XM300 2,679 Optical Drive NA NA
Keyboard Steelseries APEX 350 8,249 Mouse Razer Death Adder Elite 5,999
Sound Card ASUS XONAR Essence STX 9,840 Keyboard G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 RGB 14,770
Total `2,74,434 Total `4,51,508

118 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 RECOMMENDED BUYS
From smartphones to gaming laptops, heres what we recommend for your next purchase!

TOP 3 TOP 3
ULTRABOOK ANDROID SMARTPHONES
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Lenovo Ideapad 710S 73,390 Google Pixel XL 67,000
Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 1,28,400 Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge 50,900
Dell XPS 13 94,990 OnePlus 3T 29,999

TOP 3 TOP 3
GRAPHIC CARDS PROFESSIONAL MONITOR
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Gaming 61,499 ASUS Proart PA329Q 1,00,000
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 8GB 42,699 BenQ BL2711U 61,990
SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 480 8G 24,486 BenQ BL3201PT 1,00,000

TOP 3 TOP 3
HYBRID LAPTOPS MAINSTREAM LAPTOPS
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Lenovo Yoga 710-14IKB 77,890 Lenovo Ideapad Y700 91,990
Lenovo Thinkpad X1 YOGA 83,700 Dell Inspiron 15 7559 114,390
Lenovo Yoga 900 125,890 HP Pavilion 15-AU117tx 86,790

TOP 3 TOP 3
DESKTOP PROCESSOR SSDs
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Intel Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition 130,000 Samsung 960 Pro 1TB 43,000+Tax
Intel Core i7-6900K 81,500 ZOTAC Sonix Gaming SSD 480GB 33,799
Intel Core i7-6850K 48,250 Samsung SM951 512GB 23,199

TOP 3 TOP 3
WIRELESS ROUTERS MINI PC
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
ASUS RT-AC5300 23,000 Zotac Magnus EN1060 73,599
TP-Link Archer C5400 22,900 ASRock DeskMini H110 65,499
D-Link DIR-879 16,690 GIGABYTE BRIX GB-BSi5H-6200 36,000

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 119

 Dopamine on mice
Scientists find a way to manipulate mice and
make them lose track of time. Learn more here:
Industry Connect http://dgit.in/dopamineM
Prasid Banerjee
prasid@digit.in
T
he OnePlus 3 was launched
about half-a-year ago, and
OnePlus has already brought
forth an upgrade, with the
OnePlus 3T. Why? The company
says its because it saw some room for
improvement. We spoke to Pete Lau,
Founder, OnePlus, asking for some
explanations on this, his take on VR,
their strategy for flagships and more on
those lines.
The obvious question first. Why did
you upgrade the OnePlus 3 so soon?
Lau: The OnePlus 3 has been launched
for almost half a year, and we thought
we needed to improve on the product
which is why we did it.
When we met Carl Pei last time,
he had said you guys worked really
hard to make the OnePlus 3 perfect.
So, how does the new hardware make
it better?
Lau: Technology is always developing
fast. When we launched the OnePlus
3, there was no Snapdragon 821. Now
there is, and the CPU performance
actually increased by about 10% and
the GPU performance by about 5%.
Some people may think that this isnt
a huge improvement, but we yearn for
perfection, and if we think even if we
can add a little bit, then we will.
The biggest change on the OnePlus
3T is in the battery. It has changed from
3,000 mAh to 3,400 mAh, and the size
didnt change. The phone is as light-
weight, but the battery performance
is two hours more. It took us almost
half a years work for this battery. In
the choice of the battery, we are like the
most conservative. Our principle is that
the current battery has been used for
almost half a year, and while theres no
problem with it, this new one is now
ready, so we can use it.
But OnePlus is a fan-oriented
company, and youre telling them that
you launched a new phone half a year
ago, they bought it and youve now
120 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
New Bluetooth 5
New Bluetooth 5 said to bring a better support
for IOT, increased speeds and better range.
http://dgit.in/Blutut5
upgraded it. How do you justify it to
those fans?
Lau: We actually listened to our fans.
When we launched OnePlus 3, some
fans liked Dash Charge, but they also
wondered if the battery could last
longer. So, taking that feedback from
our consumers, we decided to use this
new battery. For fans who are already
using the OnePlus 3, I dont think there
is a need to upgrade. But, if a person
doesnt have a OnePlus phone, the One-
Plus 3T is the best phone to buy.
From the OnePlus One to OnePlus
3, youre now better known, but you
still cater to your fans. Do you have
any plans to ever cater to the first
time buyers, which India has a huge
number of?
Lau: Of course, we will cater to those
Pete Lau, CEO, OnePlus new customers. But, having said that,
the fans are still our first focus. Our
OnePlus
brand and reputation is spread from
mouth-to-mouth, so their loyalty is
very important to us.
3T loads Last year you hit two different price
games
brackets, with the OnePlus 2 and
OnePlus X. Then you said youll stop
that and follow a one flagship strat-
48%
egy, but this year again we have two
phones. So where is it headed? Are
you going to hit different price brack-
faster than
ets soon?
Lau: We wont continue with the
OnePlus X series. We had an interview
Galaxy S7 with some of our fans, and they said
they wouldnt buy the OnePlus X. They
Edge:
said our brand positioning is in the
premium market, so theyll only buy
our flagship phones. OnePlus repre-
Pete Lau
sents the best of flagship smartphones,
so even if we have those lower ranged
devices, our fans dont want to buy
them anymore.
The OnePlus 3T
replaces the OnePlus Ok, coming back to the OnePlus 3T.
You said it brings a 10% improvement,
3 atop the companys which is what Qualcomm also says for
portfolio. Whats the the Snapdragon 821. But does it also
big idea here? bring Daydream VR support?
No, VR isnt the reason for adding the
Snapdragon 821. I dont see VR head-
sets having a very promising future.
 AMDs Crimson ReLive Pokemon at Coffee shops
AMDs big graphics software update Pokemon Go partners with Starbucks turning
offers more tools and easier game sharing over 7,800 stores across US into pokestops
features. http://dgit.in/CrmsnRLv and gyms. http://dgit.in/PkeGoStrbcks Industry Connect

India through Canons eyes

Wondering what Canon
thinks about the Indian
market? Read on.

Mithun Mohandas
mithun@digit.in

How is Canons PhotoMarathon

faring in India as compared to the
other countries in South East Asia?
Eddie: This was the 7th edition of
Photomarathon in India and we are
happy to witness the popularity this
event has gained over the years. The
ever increasing number of young-
sters taking up their cameras and
unleashing their creative self is reas-
surance to our constant efforts towards
encouraging a culture of photography
in India.
We feel confident and extremely
proud with the photographic capa-
bilities that Canon Photomarathon
managed to attract this year which is
immensely innovative and at par with
the global standards. Mr.EddieUdagawa, VP, Consumer Imaging and Information Center, Canon India
Looking at the success of the
platform, we intend to scale it up and We know that sales for DSLRs, Mir- eras. A better zoom and image quality;
engage enthusiasts from different parts rorless and Point and shoot have been focus on HD video recording and low
of the world. falling over the last decade globally. light photography are some highlights.
Is India exhibiting a similar trend?
Could you shed more light on the How is Canon adapting to this drastic With the demand for better picture
Indian community as per Canon? change in the consumer market? quality sans noise, rolling shutter
Between the professionals, amateurs, Eddie: India has seen a growing trend effect, etc., will we see cameras with
DIY enthusiasts, absolute beginners, in the DSLR segment. With the launch high performance CCD sensors in the
etc. How is the Indian community of our new cameras in the market in consumer segment?
different as compared to the rest of 2016, we see huge potential from our Eddie: The rolling shutter effect can
Asia and as compared to the world? entry level camera EOS 1300D and our be caused by a variety of reasons, use
Eddie: We have seen a lot of change mid- level camera EOS 80D. We have of a CMOS design being one of them.
since we first started Photomarathon in recently launched our flagship model However, these days, due to improve-
India in the year 2009. Initially, it was EOS-1D X Mark II and EOS 5D Mark ments in hardware fabrication as well
more of professional photographers IV which are high end professional as software the effect of rolling shutter
who participated in this live photo cameras and we see a huge demand for is minimal. Our advanced DIGIC pro-
contest, gradually over the years we these cameras. cessors are also able to correct this phe-
have seen photo enthusiasts, begin- So far, as the Compact cameras are nomena. Thanks to the many benefits
ners and hobbyists who have started concerned, Canon has been focusing on CMOS sensors enjoy over CCD sensors,
participating. This year we introduced the current compact camera portfolio CMOS sensors are being used not only
students category where students from especially in the Zoom range category in DSLR cameras but in smartphones
various schools participated. and high end premium compact cam- as well.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 121


Esc
Esc 126
NEW YEARIS RESOLUTIONS FOR GEEKS
AND HOW TO KEEP THEM
ITIS THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN, WHERE PROMISES TO ONESELF
ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN. BUT NOT ANYMORE!
Arnab Mukherjee
arnab@digit.in
N
ew year resolutions have
become an annual joke
for most of us we make
them with total dedication
on day one of a new year and some-
times fail to keep them the very next
day. Rather than looking at them as a
cultural phenomenon that you need
to follow, seeing them as an effective
way to change things in your life is a
much better thing to do. And if you
allow technology to help you keep
them, there is actually no way that
youre going to fail. Here are some
resolutions that geeks should find easy
to keep with the help of technology.
I will keep track of my money
One of the most popular resolutions
one that even fails as popularly is
122 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
Unwind
2016 really wasnt the upbeat year we
were hoping for, so heres the Pessimists
Guide to 2017. Just in case.
the one we all make, to save money.
Somehow, even though we try to
keep track of every single rupee, at
the end of each month we have to get
really lucky to have some money left
with us. Well, why does this happen?
Mostly because at any given point of
time, we have to rely on our mental
estimates to track how much money
we have. In fact, relying on mental
estimates not only botches up the
overall number but even leads to
misconceptions regarding which
area of spending needs more focus.
get a product without knowing if its
Netflix Offline
Netflix has enabled offline
viewing on their mobile apps
http://dgit.in/FlixOffline
There are too many money man-
agement apps out there for anyone to
even try to complain about not having
what they want. Whether you want
location based tracking (Wally+),
or something that supports family
input (HomeBudget), or bill split-
ting features and more extra features
(Walnut) there is literally something
for everyone. So the next time you
think about saying that you cant save
- have a look at your smartphone.
I will not pre-order!
This cannot be stressed enough - do
not pre-order games. Or devices, for
that matter. Companies that make
these things are repeatedly using
pre-order as a mechanism to push
their product even before actual
launch. What does this do? It leads
to a situation where a lot of people
 Internet for all
CRTC declares broadband internet a
basic right for Canadians
http://dgit.in/CanaInt
good or bad, or if its even compatible
with your existing set of gadgets.
Also, if a game gives you pre-order
bonuses that actually help you win
better, you know that the game isnt
being fair. There are players who have
waited for the actual launch and they
deserve an equal chance too. An easy
way to avoid the urge to pre-order is
to think about all the other games that
you can buy with the money you dont
spend on pre-orders, especially during
a Steam sale.
I will not be biased towards
or against any particular
brand
Essentially, dont be a fanboy and dont
be a hater. Neither does you any good.
For starters being a fanboy makes
you blind to the flaws of the company
and its product. Apple fanboy? Accept
that the dongle-hungry Macbook
was a bad design decision. Windows
fanboy? Silently think about Windows
8 whenever you feel the urge to hate.
On the other hand, being a hater
makes you blind to products or features
which are actually good from a certain
company. What could you do? Why, its
simple! Just dont be biased see every
product as a fresh launch and give
every company an equal opportunity
to win your favour. Grudges and biases
never did any good.
I will get into shape
You must know how important
this is especially for us geeks who
mostly spend our days sitting on a
chair in a stagnant position in front
of a computer screen weve been
staring at for waaaayyyy too long.
You will be horrified to find out that
the number of spinal problems,
heart diseases and other old age
issues are now very common in the
below-30 demography. So, this time,
dont ignore the health resolution.
How can you keep it? Get apps
like Nike+ Training Club on your
phone. This one in particular sug-
gests workout plans depending on
your requirements. And once you get
started on a plan, each workout comes
Thats huge!
PC Gaming market has grown to be worth
$36 Billion in 2016.
http://dgit.in/PCGames36
with detailed demonstrations of each
particular exercise and follow-up
queries to dynamically adjust the plan
depending on how its working out
for you. Along with this, get a fitness
tracker. Before you smirk - they work.
They might not be entirely accurate,
at least the lower-end ones, but having
one gives you a rough idea of how
much you walk, your non-moving
durations, etc. And knowledge is
power, my friend.
I will not procrastinate
This year get everything done. Gone
are the days when you had to rely
solely on your memory and willpower
to actually be responsible and active.
There are a number of note-taking apps
out there and our favorite is Google
Keep. It is the perfect combination of
simplicity and versatility. To begin
with, Keep allows you to colour code
your notes so that you can identify
which note is about which topic
easily. Within notes, Keep allows to
create checklists and tick them off.
Keep also allows you to set
reminders for certain notes, even
repeated ones. So each day, at a
particular time, a note could pop-up
showing you your monthly goals. And
Feature
if youve had trouble getting up for all
this to happen - get Rock Clock! Now!
In this app, you set goals to begin with,
and each day your alarm reminds
you of that goal with a motivational
message from none other than Dwayne
The Rock Johnson. And yeah, this
doesnt have a snooze button, Rocks not
a big fan of that one!
I will go cashless
While the debate around the recent
demonetization move still rages
on, there is no doubt that a digital
economy and digital payments are
actually beneficial to the country
and you, for that matter. For starters,
on every digital payment, youre
assured that the money is accounted
for and the service youre paying for
will be given to you. No flying blind
with cash. Also, with digital pay-
ments, your entire finance is mapped
out appropriately so you pay the
tax that is due, not more, not less.
Along with that, of course, digital
payments are way too easy these days
and almost everyone is doing them.
It leaves no requirement for you to
carry pocket change and each time
you transfer the money, by design you
get a receipt - so no more trouble with
those reimbursements! And on top of
that, most digital wallets offer tonnes
of cashbacks and discounts so youll be
saving a hell lot of money for that next
config upgrade youve been planning.
Also, do try out UPI, its a pretty
neat way to transfer money without
revealing any of your bank or personal
details. It works on top of the existing
www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 123
 Elon Musk is the man!
Real life Iron Man just beat Mark Zuckerberg
and Steve Jobs as the most admired Tech
Feature Leader http://dgit.in/ElonDaMan
IMPS infrastructure and payments are
as easy as sending an email. There are
tonnes of UPI applications to choose
from because UPI is bank agnostic in
terms of which app you use.
I will learn one new language
this year
One of the most interesting skills
that one can pickup over a years
time is a new language. You might
think that theres no point in learning
another language like French, Japa-
nese, Spanish, etc., but then youd be
very, very wrong. Learning a new
language opens up doors to a lot of
things meeting and interacting
with new people, the ability to watch
movies and read books in that lan-
guage, and once, someday when you
travel to that country you wont be a
tourist, youll be a traveller. To learn
a new language, there are apps like
Duolingo which have gamified the
process. Duolingo takes you through
an entire course where you earn
points for your achievements in the
learning process. Its a lot of fun.
And when we talk about language,
we also mean computer languages. If
thats your thing, definitely learn a new
programming language because gone
are the days when knowing just one
language really well would be enough
to be a good programmer. There are
tonnes of resources available online,
like free courses from platforms like
Udacity, free web tutorials from the
likes of W3Schools and more.
124 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in
I will definitely try one new
piece of tech
We often end up looking at the latest
piece of tech and sighing, I wish I
could get my hands on these. Thats
the thing - you can! In todays world,
no piece of technology is truly inac-
cessible - be it AR, VR, drones or
anything else. All you need to do
is go out and get your hands dirty.
There are tons of exhibitions and
makerspaces that have sprung up all
over the country, which let you play
around with these things. On top of
that, experiences like VR and AR are
becoming more accessible every day
both in terms of price and usability.
And if nothing else works then take
the DIY route - use Digits workshops
and FastTracks and tonnes of other
online sources that can get you going.
You can order your materials from an
online store there are dedicated stores
for almost every niche tech enthusiast
market. Who knows, you might actu-
ally end up building something that
completely revolutionises the field!
I will not pirate
This one is non-negotiable. You dont
deserve to call yourself a gamer or a
fan if you actually pirate someones
work off the internet. There are literally
teams of people whove worked hard
over months, sometimes years to make
the thing that is now sitting on your
computer for free. The least we could
do is pay them what they deserve.
For games, if you cannot afford
them at the moment they are launched
you wont lose out on a lot. In fact, you
will get to know if its good or bad by
the time you can buy it. And if you
really want it all - save up. Our best bet
Back from the dead
KickassTorrents, the popular torrent site
was revived by the original staffers
http://dgit.in/KatsAlive
is the Steam summer sale every year.
For movies, services like Amazon
Prime have made things really acces-
sible, and now theres literally no
excuse for you to pirate your favorite
movies or TV shows for that matter.
Cmon, show your support and get an
actual online streaming account on the
website of your choice.
Everything from books to music
now has dedicated online platforms
that not only make things easier to get,
but also cheaper. If you are a true geek
you will understand how another geek
would feel to see something theyve
worked on for months being shame-
lessly stolen right in front of their eyes.
I will educate
Yes, there are noobs in this world.
There are people around all of us
who are not tech savvy, or even tech
friendly to begin with. That doesnt
give you the right to make fun of them
and ridicule their inability. Always
remember that there was a time when
you didnt know half of the tech things
that you do now. As a geek, it is your
responsibility to teach and educate
others around you about the merits,
and even the demerits, of technology.
Teach someone how to experi-
ence VR through their smartphone,
share some learning resources with
someone, show someone how to use a
mobile wallet - trust us, these things
will feel great when you see that person
effortlessly doing the things youve just
taught them. Not to sound cheesy, but
you WILL be making the world a better
place for technology.
 More apps for DaydreamVR Cellular PCs in future
The virtual reality platform for Android is getting Microsoft says its working with Intel and
more apps and games including NextVR, HBO, Qualcomm to bring mixed realities and Cellular
Unwind virtual Lego etc. http://dgit.in/GgleVRnew PCs in the future. http://dgit.in/CellphnPC

Pessimists Guide to 2017

2016 was a really bad year, we lost Alan Rickman, David Bowie and the glorious
Harambe. 2017 could really outdo 2016 if the following were to happen ...

Nuclear Kim Hackity Hack You get spied on

Fatty Kim the Third has been bawling
like a sullen child all this while. His
constant threats to nuke the crap out
of the America have started getting
old. But one of these days, a tired
North Korean military researcher
might actually get things right and
build Kimmy his first viable nuclear
missile. But will Jonggy use it?
With the US Presidential elections
over and the losing side whining
about hackers having influenced
the outcome of the elections, 2017
looks to be a year when countries go
at each others throats, at least in the
digital arena. Things could go hor-
ribly wrong but one things for sure
WikiLeaks will have its hands full.
Technology companies have this
nasty habit of spying on their users
and there have been some huge
admissions by certain Silicon Valley
giants. Who knows if you discover in
2017 that almost every social net-
work, mail service and everything on
the internets were spying on you from
the very beginning. *sigh*

Game of Thrones cancelled Aliens land on earth World War III

In a twist of events, something that
George R. R. Martin is quite well
known for, HBO decides to one up
Georgie by pulling the ultimate Game
of Thrones death scene by cancel-
ling Game of Thrones right before
the April season premiere. We might
probably go picket outside HBOs
offices if that were to happen.
Weve been wondering about it for
ages, whether we are the only ones
alive in this gigantic universe. The
answer though positive might not
bode well for us humans as any spe-
cies capable of interstellar flight will
have sufficiently powerful weapons
than us and well be delegated to the
role of food. Yikes!
The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdi-
nand set off World War I in motion
back in the days when all was fine
and dandy. And now with the tense
atmosphere in Europe, Russias
ambassador got shot dead by a
lunatic. While experts believe this
wont set off World War III, it surely
has become a cause for concern.

126 | Digit | January 2017 | www.digit.in

 Oculus Carmel WebVR Discord hits 25m users
The developer preview for Oculus new Discord, the chat application for gamers hits 25
Carmel WebVR is out. Learn more about million users and can now be used in unreleased
it here: http://dgit.in/OclsWebVR games too. http://dgit.in/Dscrd25m Unwind

DIARY
It is said that the anniversary issues are the toughest. But the
soothsayers at Digit have been wrong so often that Nos-
tradamus would have been ashamed for. Poor little homesick The Digit SKOAR! board
Manish ended going back to Hyderabad again, this time for
Christmas. With Jayesh out of the picture and Siddharth Difficulty level : Need new benchmark
down with a myriad number of diseases, Mithun was at his
Skills learned : Virtual Wintersports
wits end having taken on the brunt of the work load.
Quote of the month : Squeak squeak!
Nikhil was away for most of the month, he decided to pool
Creapicheep
all his holidays and take most of the month off, and finally
when he did decide to come in, he got run over by a car. Not
the whole of him but just his foot. So hes practically been on
leave the entire month. Abhijit had a pretty fun month getting video at the Techfest having garnered more views than any-
to test plenty of computer mice. His testing methodology thing else so far. Last we saw Arnab, hed upped his hipster
would often be a little irksome, especially when hed jerk the cred and only responds if called The Arnab.
mice across the table creating sounds thatd only be heard at We have a transfer from the Delhi office, his name is
a dhobi ghat. Karthik or was it Karthek? The guy is yet to come out of his
Arnabs month was quite uneventful as most of them are shell and sits by his desk hunched over his laptop typing
except for when he went to the IIT Techfest. He took Young away mercilessly, ignoring all the fun and frolicking that hap-
Yanger along with him and ended up getting Yanger more pens a few feet away. It will take some time but he shall join
confused than he already had been. Arnab had his first viral the dark side as well. *vader breathing effect*

How we unwind

PC, Laptop
Tablet, Mobile

Rogue One
We were divided on this one, while most of the team
Saur(aa
are ardent fans of the Star Wars franchise, the mere
fact that a good portion of the movie had been reshot
had naysayers spelling out the doom of the series. But 92.72.70.70.50
we decided to give Rogue One the benefit of the doubt
and boy, are we glad we did! The movie certainly lived 98.22.88.25.62
up to the others in the franchise even though its just a
spin off. The space battles were magnificient and having
experienced the movie in a Dolby Atmos theatre surely
helped. Its a pity that half the team didnt watch it, as
the ones who did can barely hold the spoilers.

www.digit.in | January 2017 | Digit | 127

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