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’m now officially ancient (and the team never fails to remind me of that). This month I completed a decade of working for my favourite magazine, and I can vouch for the truth of the statement, “time flies when you’re having fun”. However, what has struck me the most over the past decade is how much less fun I’ve been having as the years progress. No, this is not a rant aimed at my bosses, this is a rant aimed at the technology makers, Microsoft and Apple maybe, Sony especially! I’m often called a fossil for preferring my powerful desktops over laptops and tablets, and certainly also the phones or phablets out there. Sure they have their uses, but none of them is a serious creation tool; they’re just fountains of data for the ravenous consumers of content. The statement of having less fun is to do with the death of the tinkerer, the killing off of curiosity, the maiming of the spirit to discover. There was a time when all of us who worked at Digit and those of us who read it would be called “geeks”, and it was a badge we’d proudly wear. We didn’t need to be Electronics engineers to pull out a soldering iron, or take a Metal Works course before dremelling our cabinets into new shapes, or get certified before dabbling in code to try and tweak something. Linux was loved because of this very reason: it taught you to think, to experiment, to try – and most importantly, it taught you to fail... Linux isn’t popular anymore, and neither is any of the rest in most cases. No one’s teaching anyone how to fail, how to get back up afterwards, how to try anything new... how to be a geek, basically. There’s an app for everything; there’s no reason for you and me to know how to do anything more than work a few buttons. There’s no glory or sense of pride in anything that doesn’t make you rich – no one wants to start another Wikipedia, everyone wants to start another Facebook. I’m sure there are enough Digit readers out there who will disagree, and I’m thankful that they do, or else we ourselves wouldn’t exist ... but this isn’t really about you, the person holding this magazine. This is about the world around you, the people you’re sitting next to while reading, your coworkers, your kids, siblings, parents even.

Apple made “easy” popular, and everyone else is playing catch-up in a mindless stampede. Sony took away the ability to install Linux on my PS3 a few years ago, plays Big Brother with DRM techniques such as Cinavia, and thanks to the Blu-ray market in India being largely unorganised and unregulated, I can’t seem to find any good movies to watch that also happen to be from my “region”. Completely following the letter of the law of course, but how come all other Blu-ray players seem to magically transform into “regionfree” players when you enter a silly code? Microsoft, on the other hand, has ensured that I will use nothing other than Windows 7 on any desktop, because that tile interface of Windows 8 is terrible for anyone using a keyboard and mouse, and not wanting to check Facebook updates every 2.63 seconds. Sadly, I’m a dwindling minority, and I suspect you are too. There’s just no room left for tinkering, to have fun, to unlock and fool about. If the powers that be get their way, we’re moving into completely closed platforms, with even more ridiculous ploys. For example, in the US, the copyrights office is removing the exemption that was given thus far to unlocking your mobile phone. I’m not saying carriers are going to start suing individuals for unlocking phones, but it certainly won’t be as easy as before to have a phone unlocked, and yes, you will be breaking a US law! So is this the future? Take it or leave it, but don’t try to change, improve or customise it? Instead of building intelligent communities and crowdsourcing to make things better and more customisable like Open Source did, are we headed into the building up of even more grey market dealers operating from shady offices offering to unlock your phone, or change your iPad battery, or just do the fun stuff that you’d much rather do yourself?

Robert Sovereign-Smith Executive Editor [email protected]

“No one’s teaching anyone how to fail, how to get back up afterwards, how to try anything new... how to be a geek, basically”

Liked or hated this column? Write in to [email protected] and let me know your thoughts.

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 1



Contents february 2013

volume 13 \ issue 02

quick

navigator 001 Enter 018 COnnECTIONS Sci tech 030 Internet of things

Gazing into the void

LIFE 038 DIGITAL Droolmaal 48fps

046 toolbox Q&A Workshop DIY Tips & Tricks

SMART 068 STREET Agent 001 Killer Rigs Price Watch

at work 082 Tech Smart SoHo Industry Connect Careers in SEO

next gadget...is you 76 The Find out how the next wave of gadgets will be built for, and into, the human body

Cameras Cabinets Bazaar

Tried & Tested

2 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

94

The perfect enclosure

and 088 Tried Tested

20+ cabinets vie for the honour of housing your very own killer rig

106 Viewsonic td2220 A touch-screen, LED monitor for your desktop

107 dell xps12 convertible Tablet or laptop or both?

108 intel core i53450s Mid-Range performer

Demystifying 48 fps

Digital life

42

We throw light on The Hobbit’s “HFR” movie format and wonder whether the future of filmmaking is in 48 fps

A “Privacy Visor” ?!

A group of Japanese scientists are developing a pair of glasses that can protect you from Facial Recognition Machines

Star Wars VII gets a director

And it’s none other than J.J. Abrams, who made a name for himself writing, directing and producing the hit show Lost and the Star Trek movie

Dating site finds iPhone

A man used an online dating site by creating a fake profile to lure the thief who had stolen his iPhone. Full story here: http://dgit.in/TMEMlH

Drool maal

Sonic Screwdriver Some people say that Doctor Who is the James Bond of science fiction, although Mr. Bond uses quite a lot of fiction himself. But looking past that, we would say that the huge army of fans that the show has garnered will surely appreciate the fact that somebody has actually gone on to prepare the Sonic Screwdriver, which the Doctor uses for exactly the same purpose as normal people would use a screwdriver -- absolutely anything. Lock-pick kit to tracking a bunch of nasty aliens, this promises to do anything that the writers can decide on. And it will do none of those things in real life, of course. But it is still a good piece of the show memorabilia, and would work for you as a trusted universal remote. Yours for some 5 grand, plus shipping. Check out www.iwantoneofthose.com.

Dive straight into the deep-end of tech nirvana with these digital toys Tesla Model S We are including this car not only because we love cars, but because of the previously unimaginable horizon that this particular manufacturer has brought very close to reality – a car that is eco-friendly without feeling like one. This piece of art on wheels, the “moonshot” Tesla Model S has been painstakingly in development for years, and was finally unleashed late last year. Costing around `60 lakhs, which is actually on the lower side considering its impressive stats, this car will fit the standard definition of a ‘sports car’ for the people who love those (basically everyone in the world), and is powered entirely by batteries, to keep the green army happy as well. Not an easy agreement to achieve, as most luxury car manufacturers would tell you. But we salute Elon Musk for his attempts, and bow down to the moonshot that is his creation.

.338 Lapua Magnum Geeks are a very predictable bunch. If you ask them for their ideal lives, you would probably get a roughly even distribution between the Matrix and James Bond movie environments. Favourite games would probably throw up Quake, Call of Duty and the ilk. What if we told you that there are parts of the above fictional worlds that are coming to life? AND they are powered by your favourite operating system – Linux? Please wipe that drool off your face, you might drop some on the page. So here is a setup that has an iPad that would pair with your gun’s scope, and would allow you to actually ‘lock’ on your targets, take all weather conditions into account, and fire a shot so jaw droppingly awesome that you absolutely cannot miss. As an added benefit, there is always the good feeling of living like an open source soul, even if it will cost you `11,00,000, although that is not way off creating the same setup yourself. So a good deal, all in all. If any of you would actually like to have one of these, you should be looking at www.tracking-point.com

ChargeCard If you travel extensively, you obviously know the pain of not being able to sync up your devices if you don’t have the heavenly blessing of an internet connection around you. A neat little Kickstarter project called the ChargeCard plans to remove those woes once and forever. They have introduced a small chip that can be carried around with you, in your pocket, which supports the God of modern connector cable – Micro USB. And it has not left the rebels out as well – here’s one for the iPhone too! The entire concept is effortlessly easy, but very cool. All you need to do is to take up the card, plug it into one device, have the sync material stored, and then plug it to your other device. Simple as that, and will only burn a `2,000 shaped hole in your pocket.

Scanadu Scout As it turns out, NFC is pretty native to our natural bodily structuring. At least that is what the guys at Scanadu believe, and that is the vision in which they created their nifty device called ‘Scout’, which can measure a bunch of your vital stats by simply holding it right next to your temple. Anyone remember the Star Trek medical tricoder? We seriously feel that the writers of that show were among the greatest visionaries in the modern day, unleashing the imagination of millions of geeks to go out and make the imaginary concepts of the show a reality. And they do so at a price that is not exactly worth drooling about – that part is taken care of by the idea itself. Check out www. scanadu.com, and in their own words, have your smartphone go to med school. Only for some 10 grand.

38 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

On The DV­­­Ds Exam Prep Xth and XIIth std. papers CBSE approved supplementary reading material Windows 8 Development Visual Studio 2012 Windows 8 app samples Photoshop templates C# and XAML labs

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 39

38 Droolmaal

Play Party of Sin Grandpa’s leftovers Perspective demo Planet Explorers

59 World View

Movie Trailers Beasts of the southern wilds Dead man down I am not a hipster Parker

Dive into the deep-end of tech nirvana!

Our pick of the best article from around the world

63 devworx Feature: Firefox OS; Sunil Shetty: Mobile Developer, eBuddy

Game Trailers Battlefield 3: End Game Aliens: Colonial Marines

Slender: The Arrival Perspective Drivers AMD Graphics drivers nVidia graphics drivers Intel PRO/SET WiFi drivers Realtek HD Audio drivers Essentials Google Chrome 7-zip Open Office Audacity Any Video Converter CCleaner .NET 4.5 Avast! Sponsored ESET Smart Security 5 (trial) TED A history of visual effects The last of the mosquitoes Dung beetles

Skoar!

122 Devil May Cry The Perfect Reboot

124 Resident Evil 6 Confusing, but beautiful

CBSE Exam prep

DVD

109 iball andy 4.5h Budget Android is finally coming of age

solved papers

110 Sennheiser momentum All round brilliance

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 3

February 2013 • Volume 13 • Issue 02 To Advertise Email: [email protected] National Manager: Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-95822 62959

Managing Director Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh Publishing Director Asheesh Gupta Editorial Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Features Editor Siddharth Parwatay Multimedia Co-ordinator Anirudh Regidi Test Centre Manager, Test Centre Jayesh Shinde Senior Reviewer Nimish Sawant Reviewers Vishal Mathur, Sameer Mitha, Swapnil Mathur, Anirudh Regidi Intern Siddhant Sharma Product Co-ordinator Shweta Mali Assistant Vikas Patil devworx & Custom Publishing Asst. Editor Nash David Thinkdigit.com Online Editor Soham Raninga News Editor Abhinav Lal Sr. Sub Editor Kul Bhushan Design Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Sr. Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Directors: Atul Deshmukh & Anil T Sr. Visualisers: Manav Sachdev & Shokeen Saifi Visualiser: NV Baiju Sr. Designers: Raj Kishore Verma, Shigil Narayanan, Suneesh K & Haridas Balan Designers: Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ, Midhun Mohan & Pradeep G Nair Marcom Associate Art Director: Prasanth Ramakrishnan Designer: Rahul Babu Studio Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Sr. Photographer: Jiten Gandhi Contributors Writers Abhishek Choudhary, Paanini Navilekar, Kshitij Sobti, Mithun Mohandas Copy editing Infancia Cardozo Production and Logistics Sr GM - Operations Shivshankar Hiremath Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay Asst Production Manager Vilas Mhatre Asst Mgr Vijay Menon Production Assistant Brahmanand Nikalje Executives M P Singh, Mohd. Nadeem Ansari Nilesh Shiravadekar Brand Product Mgr Arun Yadav Asst Product Mgrs Kshitij Garg, Sourabha Shakya Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh Circulation Sales National Co-ordinator Samir Mehta Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Norbert Joseph Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh Executive Vijay Mhatre Reader Services Lead Associate Itishree Mishtra Executives Pinky, Sudhir, Shabana, Shilpi

Cover Illustration: Manav Sachdev Photo: Subhojit Paul Model: Rakaysh

4 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

South: Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961 Jijo George, Mobile: +91-7676881480 West: Sajeed Momin, Mobile: +91-98192 44603 Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247 North: Debleena Majumdar, Mobile: +91-98101 19492 East: Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Mobile: +91-93318 29284

advertising index Brand Page No ASRock......................................................................... 51, 97 ASUS...........................................15, 31, 69, 93, 101, 103 Bajaj.......................................................................................23 Byond Mobile.................................................................. 125 Circle.................................................................................. 121 Corona................................................................................. 95 Cyber Solutions............................................................... 83 Domo Tab........................................................................... 49 Eset...................................................................................... 35 iBall................................................................................11, 47 India AV............................................................................ 127 Inflection............................................................................67 IOCL.................................................................................... 55 Kaspersky..........................................................................BC Kyocera................................................................................21 LIC........................................................................................17 Liteon................................................................................... 33 Micromax.............................................................................13 Model................................................................................... 99 NVIDIA......................................................77, 79, 81, IBC Pradan.......................................................................... 74, 75 Quick Heal........................................................................ 119 Seagate................................................................................25 Sony........................................................................................9 Symantec.............................................................................. 7 Techcom..............................................................................37 Toshiba..............................................................................IFC TP-Link.................................................................................87 Trend Micro..................................................................... 123 Western Digital.................................................................27 Xerox....................................................................................... 5 Zenfocus............................................................................. 29 Zenith....................................................................................19 Zoho...................................................................................... 45

Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt. Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Kanak Ghosh. Published at Bunglow No. 725 Sector - 1, Shirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai. 400706. Printed at Print House (India) Pvt. Ltd. R-847, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC, Rable, Navi Mumbai 400701. Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur Disclaimer For every Digit contest, there will be only one winner, unless specified otherwise. In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall be final.

Products reviewed this month Bazaar Acer Aspire V5-471P Aakash iTutor ADATA XPG SX900 256GB Amkette Evo box ASUS PadFone Canon EOS M Dell Latitude 10 Dell XPS 12 Convertible EAFT Destiny D90T eScan Mobile Security for Android Fujifilm X-E1 Harman Kardon CL HCL ME Ultra 3074 Huawei Mediapad 7 Lite iBall Andi 4.5h iBerry Auxus Core X2 3G’ iDance Hipster 703 Intel Core i5-3450S IRIS Compressor Pro JBL J22i JBL SoundFly BT Karbonn A21 Micromax Canvas 2 A110 Nokia Lumia 920 Portronics iLume Projector Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB Sennheiser Momentum Viewsonic TD2220 WickedLeak Wammy Sensation ZOTAC ZBOX AD06 Plus Cabinets Antec Eleven Hundred Antec One S3 Antec P280 Antec Solo 2 Bitfenix Merc Alpha Circle Herculean Circle Tornado Cooler Master Cosmos II Cooler Master Elite 344 Cooler Master HAF 912 Cooler Master HAF-XB Cooler Master HAF-XM Cooler Master K380 Cooler Master Silencio 650 Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 Cooler Master Storm Trooper Corsair Carbide 200R Corsair Carbide 400R Corsair Graphite 600T – Mesh Corsair Vengeance C70 Huntkey T-91 Mercury Romeo Omega NZXT Phantom 410 NZXT Phantom 820 Zebronics Bijli 2 Point and Shoot cameras BenQ GH210 BenQ GH650 Canon PowerShot G15 Canon PowerShot G1x Canon PowerShot S110 Fujifilm EXR F660 Fujifilm X10 Nikon Coolpix L610 Nikon Coolpix P310 Nikon Coolpix P7700 Nikon Coolpix S8200 Panasonic DMC-LX7 Sony RX100

Contact us Tell us what you feel about Digit If you have an opinion about anything published in Digit, or about technology in general, write to [email protected] or call at +91-22-678 99 700. To interact with the authors of specific articles, please write to the email address specified under the author’s name Software on the DVDs To submit and suggest software or any other type of content, to be included in the Digit DVDs, write to [email protected] or call +91-22-678 99 707

Q&A If you’re having trouble with your PC or a gadget, our experts can help solve your problems. Just write in to [email protected]. Remember to include full system configurations in your email. Agent001 Our very own secret agent will give you the lowdown on what to buy, from where and for how much. Send in all your buying advice or questions to the coolest agent ever. Write to [email protected] Help!  For copy-related issues, delivery status or any other complaints regarding out service, write to [email protected] or call +91-22-678 99 678 Subscribe Want to subscribe to India’s #1 Technology Magazine? You should, because we have exciting offers for everyone, and you save money in the bargain. SMS: to 92200 92200 or visit www.thinkdigit.com/subscribe Product testing Want your product reviewed by Digit? Contact our Test Center at [email protected] or call +91-22-678 99 708

News and new product launches To announce new product launches and press releases, email us at [email protected]

Endorsements / reprints Interested in ordering article reprints or in using our logos? Get the requisite permissions by contacting us at [email protected] Business enquiries Think we can help you grow your business, or maybe you can help us grow ours? Get in touch with us at [email protected]

Careers Want to work for Digit? Send us your resume at [email protected]

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Digit Facebook Pages Join the group that suits your need! http://www.facebook.com/ thinkdigit Your favourite magazine on your favourite social network. Interact with thousands of Digit readers and have some geeky fun! http://www.facebook.com/ techkranti Let’s wake ourselves up and gather the tools of tech to change the future of our great nation. Join The Revolution! http://www.facebook.com/ IThinkGadgets Community of People who love mobiles, laptops, cameras & other gadgets http://www.facebook.com/ consumermate Expert buying advice and some awesome offers http://www.facebook.com/ devworx.in Community of software programmers who enjoy writing code and want to grow their career in software development

Buzz

Enter

12

We bring you the latest from CES - the biggest electronics trade show on earth !

) Some years ago, Digit rarely published

content that would be useful to software developers. I had written to Digit about this, and though my letter was never published, a few months later, Digit did become a bit software-developeroriented. Whether this was a result of my letter to Digit or not, I don't know, but now I’m happier. There have also been Fast Tracks dedicated to software developers and I've taken full advantage of them. I’m a Software Developer myself working for an established UK-based software company, and I’ve been using the software-developer-oriented software and other material (tutorials etc.) provided by Digit, extensively. Please provide an index file (Even a basic PDF file would do) to help us locate all software (and other content) that has been provided in the recent past by Digit in its DVDs. Sameet Natekar, Mapusa, Goa We’ve had a few iterations of a software archive, but none of them were good enough. You can check out our forum at thinkdigit.com/forum where we provide a DVD manifest every month. Anirudh ) You guys are doing a great job! I've been reading Digit since the past few months and now I'm completely hooked. The Yays: The language you use is great and I easily understand complex concepts. You guys have added new sections; keep it up. The Fast Tracks are a complete hit. The layout of your magazine is impressive. The snippets atop every page are awesome. The Nays: I thought the cost was ridiculous when I first saw it. It turned out to be worth it, but please reduce it. The web site is a complete mess. TheNewBoston tutorials included in a DVD were a complete godsend. Please include all the remaining tutorials. Atheesh Krishnan

Thank you for taking the time to give us feedback, we really value it. Thanks for the "Yays". As for the Nays: With the price of things the way they are, it's hard 8 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

LG reveals new Ultrabook

LG introduced their new Ultrabook called the U560 which has an IPS based 15.6-inch LCD, 1.8GHz Core i5 CPU and a dedicated GPU

Feedback for the January 2013 issue of Digit

to keep costs down. Paper, printing and distribution costs have risen 1000 per cent or more since we started in the late 90s, yet the price of Digit has risen only 50 per cent − from `100 to `150. You won't believe the hoops we have to jump through to keep costs down. Web site design is very subjective, and what you hate, others love. That said we can surely improve if you send us some pointed and specific suggestions. We will continue to give those and other tutorials in our DVDs. Robert

your fabulous work. Keep it up. Hats off for the job you’re doing. Prakash Singh Congratulations! Your first letter has been published! 1 and 2) We’ve been providing tutorials on various aspects of programming over the past year and have included many a tutorial on Java and PHP and we will continue to do so over the coming months. 3) Well, the Windows 8 FastTrack that you’re getting this month should get you off to a great start. Anirudh

) This is my first letter to you guys. I’ve

) I’m a Class X student and have been

been reading Digit since February 2012 and now I'm a big fan. My brother and I would like the following for our studies: 1. Video tutorials on Java EE (swings, servlets, JDBC, JSP, JSF, EJB, Hibernate, Struts etc.) 2. Video tutorials on .NET (C# and PHP) 3. In-depth knowledge of computer hardware, NTFS, file system, cache memory, buffer memory, overclocking, etc. Also answer questions such as: What happens when a PC starts? What should be taken care of while formatting a PC and installing an OS? I want to say thanks to you guys for

reading your magazine since 2011. I really love the latest snippets of tech news on the top of each page. I liked all of the reviews this month especially of the iPhone 5 & the Samsung Galaxy camera. Awesome review of Far Cry 3 & HTC One X though I felt both products were underrated by you guys. Have you ever given a 90+ overall score to any product? All articles based on the cover story rocked, though I loved ‘The Ideal OS’ and ‘The Dark Horses’ − two awesome stories back to back. Keep up the great work! Akshat Pradhan If a product is excellent it will score over 90, but we have very rigourous test

Nintendo Wii U Games Inbox

Nintendo, in one of its webcasts has revealed that its going to launch Mario Kart, Zelda and many more for its Nintendo Wii U gaming console

Corrigendum

In the January 2013 issue, we had printed ESET Smart Security 5’s price as `1,644. It’s MRP, according to ESET, is `999. We apologize to our readers for the error

Letter of the month ) This is my first letter to you in 12 years. And what a journey it has been − amazing! First of all, thank you not just for teaching me so much about computers but also for being a technology navigator like no other! I really have no words to describe what would have been had I not been introduced to you in my early days. I vividly remember my first copy of Digit − it was in June 2000 that my father bought it for me when he found out that I had a great interest in computers. Oh boy! How happy I was seeing so many articles dedicated only to computers and other technologies. The issue had a featured article/cover story on GPUs which was very helpful. I was able to purchase the right GPU, within the right budget just by reading that one article. From then onwards I’ve never looked back or even thought of changing my technology navigator. Earlier, I used to purchase Digit right off the newsstand and would wait for it every month. With each new copy my face would light up with excitement. I read and reread each article just to get a better understanding. Each article was fun to read

procedures, so a product has to excel in each and every department to get 90+ overall score. Glad you loved our cover story last month. We are sure you will love this month’s cover story as well. Nimish ) Kudos to this month’s cover page design

team. This is the best cover page ever (reader since November 2006). Those cover models on competing gadget magazines look ugly comparison. Regardless, I have two complaints: 1. Where is iOS fighter jet? 2. Why has Windows got F22? I have one more request: please add Digit to ‘Zinio’. There are many Indian 10 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

and thanks to the simple and fluid language you used, even my father was able to enjoy it. Thanks to you, I was crowned as the geek in my school days and all my friends used to make their purchase decisions at least after consulting once with me; nothing felt better then. I would also like to thank you for helping me make the right career choice. Today I’m working as a Senior Engineer for Security and Identity Management, and I just love my job. I would have never been able to get here if I had never met you. Today, even after these 12 years, you’re my only technology navigator and will be in the future as well! I’d like to thank Team Digit who go through all this hard work to bring out the best in everyone. That’s what makes you #1! The Best! You guys deserve a lot more than this! Wish you all the best in the coming year and the years after! Dinesh Gaikwad You’ve just sent the team into a blushing tizzy with your praise. Thanks. Robert

magazines at Zinio, and it’s the only magazine application for the Playbook. Swadhin Sangram Swain Well as one of the cover stories said – Windows 8 is indeed Microsoft’s silver bullet. In the current scenario it’s claimed to be the most “modern” OS with a UI that’s been built ground up devoid of any skeuomorphism. It deserved an F22 don’t you think? And as for iOS we had a World War II era Apple plane didn’t we? We sell digital editions via Magzter currently. Robert ) I’ve been reading Digit since the past six months. I’ve got to say it’s a very

good magazine and it covers the general tech world nicely. One issue that I have with the magazine is that reviews are simply not up to the mark. Be it gaming or product reviews, you guys just don’t cover enough information but the DVD and Fast Track make up for it. Many feel that you don’t have any competitor but I’m a subscriber of Chip and find it better than your mag just because of your review section. Another issue is the placement of advertisements between your articles which really takes away interest. I’ve started a tech-related page on Facebook called Tech Me Up, and would like to know what type of content would attract maximum members. Can I post links to tech-related websites without their permission? I also wanted to share Chip's reviews through my page. I wrote a review for Dishonored and will post it soon. I also want to review hardware but can’t buy it so please give me some suggestions on how to review hardware without buying it. Shaurya Rawat Instead of us replying, we’ll let the next letter do that. To each his own, and no you can never “review” or “test” a product without getting it... at least that’s not the way we’ve ever tested. You can link to anyone you want, but don’t copy content and host it on your page or site. - Team Digit ) I’m a Class X student and have been

reading your magazine for over three years now. I just want to say that you guys are awesome. All the reviews are very useful and I can only see the flawless quality that you produce month after month. Your DVDs are also very useful. The devworx and World View sections are my favourites. When I turn over the last page of your magazine I feel like it shouldn't have ended. There’s no doubt that this is the best technology magazine. What I do want in the magazine is for you to increase content in the Skoar! section. Thank you and best of luck. I hope you maintain these standards forever. Aleen Baruah

Sad demise Buzz

Aaron Swartz, American computer programmer, co-author of the RSS 1.0 specification, and internet activist was found dead on 11th January

CES C

ES 2013 brought with it a lot of announcements, and while we can’t say the world has effectively changed overnight, several paradigm shifts are more readily apparent. And we did see trends that we expect will make their way into homes and pervade general society by the end of the year. A variety of new technologies were shown off at CES. From a flourish of 4K televisions and other forms of high-resolutions displays, to new ranges of mobile and tablet processors from all the big names. We even sae new Android and PC gaming devices, as well as a few innovations in storage, touch and virtual reality technologies. 4K TVs – In first place, simply by the number of major manufacturers showcasing a multitude of wares at CES, were 4K TVs (Ultra HD). They came in all shapes and sizes, curved and flat; all types – LCDs, LEDs,

OLEDs, AMOLEDs, and were made by every name in the business of displays – LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, 12 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Toshiba, and even ViewSonic. The first devices are expected to launch later this year, around the American summer. Razer Edge gaming tablet – While it was not the online portable gaming device of this year’s CES, the Razer Edge certainly attracted a lot of eyeballs, being the perfect example of a mobile device touted to have the power of a full fledged PC desktop. Due in February, with a $999 price

tag, the Razer Edge will ship with Windows 8, a 3rd Gen Intel Core i5 or i7 CPU, a discrete GeForce GT 640M GPU, an SSD (up to 256GB), and a 10.1-inch IPS display with a 1,366x768pixel native resolution. A bunch of controller accessories will also be available. Samsung Exynos 5 Octa – Samsung took the wraps off an 8-core processor, the Exynos 5 Octa. It will apparently offer a “level of pure processing power never before seen in a mobile device,” enabling heavy-duty multi-tasking without lag or disruption. It is also built to easily handle HD movie

Intel update

Due to the decline in desktop PC sales, Intel has decided to discontinue manufacturing desktop motherboards within the next three years

Top 20

Here’s a look at the hottest gadgets from the world’s biggest electronics show

streaming with no dropped frames and razor-sharp picture quality. Designed for high-end smartphones and tablets, it uses ARM’s big.LITTLE technology, pairing four ARM Cortex-A7 chips with four Cortex A15 multicore chips. First expected in the S IV and Note II, more details are due at MWC. Oculus Rift – A virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift from Oculus VR is a giant visor that straps to your head. The prototype development version shown off at CES 2013 was built of moulded plastic. It is then connected to the Oculus Rift Box, that is connected to an Xbox 360 or similar console via HDMI or DVI, and controlled via controller and head tracking. Currently at 720p HD resolution, exact specs have not been decided yet. Early impressions of the device have been very positive, and we hope to see consumer-ready versions ready sometime in the near future.

Tactus Pop-up Touch Tech – Tactus uses microfluid technology to raise buttons out of

a touchscreen. On the demo Android-based unit, when the OS called for a keyboard, the buttons raise out of the screen almost instantly, offering a small amount of resistance, enough to survive an accidental touch. When Android no longer needs the keyboard, the buttons instantly melt back. CEO and founder, Craig Ciesla states that the touch buttons can be configured into any design, including gamepad configurations. The

technology is expected to make its way to major manufacturer’s devices by the end of the year. Valve Steam Box – While Valve didn’t actually showcase its Steam Box console, founder Gabe Newell did outline what the product would be like in an interview with The Verge. With its own version expected only in 2014, multiple partners will be able to offer Steam Boxes in the meanwhile. At CES 2013, Xi3 showed off the Piston Steam Box prototype, replete with a very large number of ports. The Valve Steam Box will apparently also be able to act like a server, with

A touchscreen PS4 controller? Buzz

It’s rumoured that the new Playstation 4 from Sony will have biometrics and a touch screen integrated on the controller. Read more: http://dgit.in/XQEVFL

a post-Kepler GPU serving up to eight simultaneous game calls. Samsung Youm – Samsung showed off a prototype flexible OLED display called ‘Youm’ at its keynote speech at CES 2013, the predecessor to a whole new line of flexible displays. The company showcased many unique interface features for

its technology, such as an edge display, a foldable book-like tablet that turns into a phone, and more. While Youm technology will not be making it to consumer tech very soon, it is exciting to see the major brands taking such interest in the nextgeneration of interfaces. Qualcomm’s New Snapdragon Generation – Qualcomm announced a refresh for its line-up of Snapdragon systemon-chips, saying it would retire the S1, S2, S3 and S4 series of mobile chips, and release a new family of chips rechristened as - Snapdragon 200, Snapdragon 400, Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800. The Snapdragon 600 and 800 will represent the high-performance chips whereas the Snapdragon 200 and 400 will be seen in low-end budget mobile devices. Snapdragon 600 will be running four Krait 300 cores (clock speeds going up to 1.9 GHz), and will be around 40 percent more powerful than the S4 Pro at the 14 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

same time consuming comparatively lower battery power and it will house the Adreno 320 GPU. The Snapdragon 800 will run four Krait 400 cores (up to 2.3GHz) with the Adreno 330 GPU, and deliver 74 percent performance gains over the S4 Pro. Nvidia Tegra 4 – The Tegra 4 is being touted as the first commercial implementation of ARM’s quad-core, cortex A15 architecture and shall be seen in smartphones, tablets and notebooks. Codenamed Wayne before launch, it has 72 Nvidia GPU cores, delivering roughly six times the GPU horsepower seen on the Tegra 3; along with a quad-core processor and a fifth low power core for minimising battery use in idle state (as was seen in Tegra 3). It also boasts of 4G LTE voice and data support through an additional Icera i500 chip (LTE is not onboard the Tegra 4 SoC). The four cores

are expected to run at speeds of up to 1.9GHz. It also supports HDR photography. Intel’s New Trails – At CES 2013, Intel showed off a new generation of Atom processors, codenamed Bay Trail, meant for tablets. These Bay Trail Atom processors should start shipping in devices from later this year. The company also showed off its Clover Trail+ platform, the Intel Atom Z2580 processor, which uses a dual core Atom processor with Intel HyperThreading Technology, apart from a dual-core graphics

Autodesk Smoke 2013 out

The highly anticipated professional video editing software from Autodesk, Smoke 2013, has started shipping. More info: http://dgit.in/ViTKQS

engine, which will deliver 2x the performance of the Z2460. Lenovo, in the meanwhile, showed off the first device with the Clover Trail+ processor, the K900 phablet. Huawei’s 6.1-inch Ascend Mate – Easily the biggest smartphone-tablet hybrid at CES 2013, the Huawei Ascend Mate’s 6.1-inch IPS+ display with a 1280x720 pixel resolution. The device is powered by a 1.5GHz Hi-Silicon quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 4050mAh battery. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean straight out of the box, and is skinned with Huawei’s Emotion interface. It has an 8MP AF rear-facing camera with HDR and 1MP HD frontfacing camera for video calls. Huawei has also included proprietary Quick Power Control (QPC) and Automated Discontinuous Reception (ADRX) battery efficiency technology on the Ascend Mate. The device will be available in China in February 2013 in crystal black and pure white colours.

Acer Iconia B1-A71 budget tablet – Acer announced the budget Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Iconia B1-A71 tablet at CES 2013,

and brought it to India a little over a week later, at `7,999. The tablet boasts of a 7-inch display with a 1024x600 pixel resolution. Other specifications of the device include, the MediaTek processor (MTK 8317T) clocked at 1.2GHz dual-core, 512MB of RAM, 8GB built-in storage expandable via a microSD card. The Iconia B1-A71 also has a

2,710 mAh battery along with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS. Nvidia Project Shield - Apart from unveiling the Tegra 4 at CES, Nvidia had some other

announcements up its sleeve, the biggest being Project Shield, a portable Android gaming console in the prototype stage that is powered by the Tegra 4, and can support PC game streaming, provided Kepler GPUs are being used. Capable of being arranged as a tablet, it also folds out into a game pad and flip screen. The final form and feature set of the commercial version has yet to be decided. A part of the ecosystem required for crossdevice gaming is Nvidia Grid, also announced at the event.

Google buys $1 billion plot Buzz

Panasonic’s Tablets – The Japanese giant unveiled a bevy of tablet devices across platforms at CES 2013, with a prototype 20-inch 4K Windows 8 tablet, and two production ready Toughpads, the FZ-G1 for Windows 8 Pro (due in March), and JT-B1 for Android 4.0 ICS (due in Feb), which can be immersed in water. The Panasonic FZ-G1

Toughpad ($2,899) runs a 3rd Generation Intel Core i5-3437U vPro clocked at 1.9GHz up to 2.9GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology. It has a 1920x1200 pixel resolution display, a 128256GB SSD, 4 to 8GB RAM, and an 8 hour battery life. The Panasonic Toughpad JT-B1 ($1,199) has a TI OMAP4460 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of ROM, 1GB of RAM, 7-inches 500nit 1024 x 600 pixel display, and 8.0 hours battery life. Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC – A 27-inch all-inone desktop PC, the IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC was designed with around-thehouse portability, and a multiuser usage scenario in mind. The IdeaCentre Horizonsports a 27-inch 1,920 by 1,080 resolution screen, up to a Core i7 CPU, a choice of SSDs, and up to an Nvidia GeForce GT620M graphics. Untethered battery life is supposed to be two hours. It is exceptionally heavy, at 18

For its new headquarters in the UK, Google purchased a 2.4-acre plot in central London for a whopping sum of $1 billion http://dgit.in/VjHTlK

pounds, so definitely not portable, yet can serve from room to room. The AIO features the touch-optimized Aura interface that automatically comes up when you drop the screen to a horizontal position. The IdeaCentre Horizon is expected to start at $1,699 and be available in early summer. LG High-Resolution Mobile Displays – Apart from the 4K and OLED TV shenanigans that have plagued CES 2013, we saw some interesting mobile device displays from LG at the event. The high resolution displays shown off by LG include a 12.9-inch display with

a resolution of 2560 x 1700. LG also showed off a 7-inch display with a 1920x1200 resolution, and a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 resolution display. All three are made using AH-IPS, a screen technology we have seen on the iPhone and iPad displays. Kingston 1TB Flash Drive – At CES 2013, Kingston unveiled the HyperX Predator flash drive, with a whopping 1 terabyte of data storage capacity. The wow factor doesn’t just stop at its mind-boggling storage capacity. What makes us sit up and take notice of the Kingston HyperX Predator 1TB (DTHXP30/1T) flash drive is its claim of near-SSD data transfer speeds. As the Kingston 1TB flash drive supports USB 3.0, it’s claiming to deliver data transfer speeds of up to 240MB/s and 160

16 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Intel’s birthday gift

Intel gifted legendary physicist Stephen Hawking a specially inscribed 300mm Silicon Wafer on his 70th birthday

MB/s for read and write tasks, respectively. The Kingston HyperX Predator flash drive is housed in a zinc alloy casing that is highly shock-resistant. It is slated to arrive later in Q1 2013, with a bank-shattering US $1,750 price! Pebble Watch – One of the most exciting accessories to come out CES 2013, a gadget in its own right, was the Pebble watch. It features an e-paper (backlit at night) display and buttons that act as a control and notification interface for iPhone and Android devices, using Bluetooth for connectivity. It can also be used as a bike computer and pedometer. The Pebble works with iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S, 5 or any iPod Touch with iOS 5 or iOS 6 and Android devices running OS 2.3. Battery

fied that users can connect a Windows 8 computer in order to take advantage of Microsoft’s Windows 8 touchscreen capabilities. The tablet is expected to launch later this year and will be priced at $499. ViewSonic also showed off a prototype 32-inch 4K monitor, which is expected to hit store shelves by the end of the year.

life is supposedly over 7 days. It is designed to fit most 22mm watch bands, and is available for pre-order at $150.

Olympus STYLUS TOUGH TG-2 iHS – Olympus unveiled three tough cameras at CES 2013, the most notable of which was the TG-2, the updated version of the company’s popular TG-1. While the TG-2 retains the TG-1’s 12 megapixel BSICMOS sensor and the f/2.0 lens, it is more rugged, and features a microscopic macro mode. The lens has a starting aperture of f/2.0 which goes all the way to f/4.9 through the zoom range of 25-100mm, but the lens comes with an adapter ring for more attachments. The camera can be taken up to 50 feet deep under water and can withstand drops from heights of upto 6 feet. The ruggedized

ViewSonic VS240 Smart Display - Viewsonic has shown off a 24-inch, 1080p HD touchscreen that runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, called the VSD240 Smart Display. It is expected to hit store shelves by April. The touchscreen also includes USB ports for hooking up a keyboard and mouse. Under the hood, a Tegra 3 processor powers the device. ViewSonic has speci-

body also serves to protect the TG-2 against the elements and freezing temperatures as low as -10 Celsius wouldn’t have any effect on the camera.

Web watch

Connections

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A lot happenend in the world of Facebook and Google this month. We look at Graph Search and features of Chrome 25 beta

App watch

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January saw a lot of SOS apps for women’s safety gain traction. We take a look at some of them

Of Lumias, Ascends and Xperia Z’s We bring you the latest news from Consumer Electronics Show, which surprisingly saw few smartphone launches. Are phone-makers waiting for MWC?

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ince the last time we met, perhaps the biggest change in the Indian market has been the launch of the much-awaited Nokia Lumia 920. Given an MRP of `38,999, the Windows Phone 8 device started adorning store shelves in India from mid-January. Further along these pages, you will find our review of the Finnish manufacturer’s flagship. Elsewhere, at CES 2013, some manufacturers showed off their wares, whilst others, like LG, Samsung, and HTC, were surprisingly missing from the scene. Lenovo launched a few Android dualSIM devices, Huawei filled out its Android and WP8 lineup, with a couple of quad-core devices in tow. The BlackBerry 10 leaks kept coming of course, and at the time of writing, we were still awaiting the BB10 OS and device launch on January 31 – head on over to thinkdigit. com for the latest updates on that front. Moving sideways, two new entrants have made their motives plain in the smartphone operating system battlefield – Mozilla has announced developer models for its mobile Firefox OS, and Canonical has also declared similar intentions for powering mobile devices with Ubuntu from 2014. Samsung has also said it plans to release the first Tizen phones this year.

Lumia 920 and Lumia 820. The Lumia 920, designed with a polycarbonate shell, comes with a 8.7MP PureView technologyendowed rear camera, coupled with an LED ‘pulse burst flash’ and 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps. The rear camera features floating lens technology, for optical image stabilization (OIS). A 1.3MP front facing camera with 720p HD video recording capabilities. Read our review for more details. The 9.9mm-thick Nokia Lumia 820 has an MRP of `27,559 and is almost identical on the specs sheet, except for a smaller 4.3-inch 800x480 pixel AMOLED display, and the lack of a PureView camera. It also has a smaller 1,650 mAh battery that’s rated to deliver up to 14 hours of talktime, and 330 hours of standby time. Unlike the Lumia 920, it supports a microSD card slot, up to 32GB. The Lumia 620 was also showcased at the Lumia 920 and 820 launch event. Nokia’s Lumia 620 is a 3.8-inch handset with a ClearBlack WVGA display powered by a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 512 MB of RAM and a 5MP camera. Nokia has also conveniently added a microSD card slot that supports up to 64GB of

Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 Nokia launched its first Windows Phone 8 powered devices in India in January, namely the 18 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Nokia Lumia-920

storage. The budget device is due to hit shelves in February.

Huawei’s at CES Huawei was one of the few manufacturers to unveil a range of mobile devices at CES 2013, showing off the 6.1-inch Ascend Mate, the 5-inch Ascend D2 (both of which are Android 4.1 Jelly Bean-based), and its first Windows Phone-powered device, the WP8-based Ascend W1.

13MP BSI rear-facing camera along with a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video calls. It also sports a 3000mAh battery. The device is expected to launch first in China, in late-January. The Huawei Ascend W1 is a 4-inch phone with an 800-by480-pixel IPS LCD. Under the hood is a 1.2GHz dualcore Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 processor and Adreno 305 GPU. It isn’t supermodel thin, at 0.39 inches, but it packs in a 1950mAh battery. At the time of writing, the device has already launched in China.

Sony’s Xperia Z and ZL

Huawe Ascend Mate 1

The Ascend Mate has a 6.1inch display with a 1280x720 IPS+ display and has a 1.5 GHz Hi-Silicon quad-core processor under the hood combined with 2GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean straight out of the box and is powered by a 4050mAh battery. It has an 8MP AF rear-facing camera with HDR and 1MP HD front-facing camera for video calls. The device is expected to launch first in the Chinese market, in February. The Huawei Ascend D2 bears a 5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1920x1280p and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean straight out-of-the-box. The D2 has Huawei’s K3V2 1.5 GHz quad-core CPU along with 2GB of RAM. It has a whopping

The Xperia Z was finally unveiled at CES 2013. Sony says that the earliest the phone will hit the markets globally is March 2013. The Xperia ZL will only hit “select markets”. Pretty much in line with the rumours, the Xperia Z specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 quad-core processor clocking in at 1.5GHz, Adreno 320 graphics, 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch 1080p HD TFT display, 13MP Exmor RS camera, 16GB built-in storage with microSD expansion, 2330mAh battery, as well as Clear Audio+, Bravia Reality Display and Bravia Engine2 technology. The Xperia Z also has waterproof capabilities, up to a depth of 1 metre. The Xperia Z has glass panels on the back and the front, along with plastic covers for all ports on the spines. The Xperia Z will ship with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 out of the box, with a “promised” Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update.

Tt Bigwater 760 Pro Web Watch

Thermaltake added the Bigwater 760 Pro a new liquid cooler to their CPU cooler arsenal

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10

Replacing its Mobile Fusion brand, BlackBerry has launched its BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 which is now available for download for businesses

Evolving digital frontiers Changes are constant and adaptation is the name of the game as the Internet grows in size and complexity

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part from regular updates from the usual players, we’ve had reason to celebrate, as the Internet turned 30 in January, beginning to mature into a more evolved entity. It is still finding its feet under the frenetic mass of ever-burgeoning social media interaction however, whilst withstanding the onslaught of censorship policies and cyberattacks at the same time. The Internet found its beginnings as Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) when it switched over from using Network Control Protocol to TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol). History notes that this change was not easy, as many operators resisted going from an already working system to something that was just a “standard” in text. It is said that one day, the admins of ARPANET just flipped the switch, turning off all of NCP for a day or so to get people to switch over to TCP/IP. With those humble beginnings, the Internet has grown into an entity that is now an integral part of everyone’s lives. While it may be entirely possible to live a day or two without the internet, it is hard to imagine a life without it.

mulated from user profiles over the years make results closer to you and your friend’s circle. Launched in the beta version at the moment, Graph Search is available to limited users, and will be rolled out slowly across the board. The Graph Search results focus on four core points – people, places, photos and interests. Facebook can easily create these results after it spent quite a few years urging users to upload information, interests and photographs to their profile online. The premise of people search works on both types of queries

Facebook Graph Search Logo

Facebook Graph Search Photo Search

Facebook unveils Graph Search Facebook in January announced a new search engine on its social networking web site, making search results more relevant to you on a social scale. Data accu20 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Facebook Graph Search People Search

– direct and general. An direct people search example given by Facebook is “people named Chris who are friends of Lars and went to Stanford”. Alternatively, you could do a generic search like “My Friends who live in New Delhi”. Apart from direct people related search, you could search for interests that you may have. There are examples like “music my friends like” or “my friends who watch BBC Top Gear”. This is not something that Google had claimed to do till now, but should rather start doing with the Google+ network. Apart from the people search, the photo search is surely going to see the privacy brigade go up in arms. Search phrases such as “photos of friends at Hard Rock Café” or a more precise “Disha’s photos in Paris”. With this, Google must be worried. Photographs uploaded on Facebook will be found on Facebook, like they always have been. With Graph Search, the process is more varied in terms of how you search and more streamlined in terms of the results that you get. With location search, if you happen to be travelling to a city you do not know a lot about, you could search for “bars in Liverpool liked by people who live in Liverpool”. This is something that could worry the likes of Foursquare and TripAdvisor, because localised ratings, reviews and knowledge about places is what they bank on. Interestingly, Facebook has tied up with Microsoft to

provide Bing search results for the queries it may not have answers to.

Heavily cloud connected? While announcing the new Graph Search feature, Facebook revealed its users have uploaded staggering 240 billion photos and created 1 trillion connections on the network to date. On an average, a normal Facebook user would have uploaded more than 200 pics and made a thousand connections. The staggering feat comes months after Facebook announced in October that the company had gone past the 1 billion active users mark. The social networking as a service is also now believed to the most popular online ever.

Like who? A recent study (by the University of Warwick and UC San Diego) has shown that people remember posts that they have seen on Facebook a lot easier than they do names, faces, or even information they read in a book. The study suggests the gossipy nature of the conversations that happen on the social networking web site make it easier to remember than something that is written in a more formal and informative manner. “One could view the past five

Facebook Like Who

15,000 apps for BB10 Web Watch

A big number of apps flooded the BB10 atmosphere suggesting that the number of developers for BlackBerry10 is on a steady rise

thousand years of painstaking, careful writing as the anomaly,” said UC San Diego Professor Nicholas Christenfeld. “Modern technologies allow written language to return more closely to the casual, personal style of preliterate communication. And this is the style that resonates, and is remembered.” The report goes on to say, “In the first two experiments, participants’ memory for Facebook posts was found to be strikingly stronger than their memory for human faces or sentences from books—a magnitude comparable to the difference in memory strength between amnesiacs and healthy controls. The second experiment suggested that this difference is not due to Facebook posts spontaneously generating social elaboration, because memory for posts is enhanced as much by adding social elaboration as is memory for book sentences.” “Our findings might not seem so surprising when one considers how important both memory and the social world have been for survival over humans’ ancestral history. We learn about rewards and threats from others. So it makes sense that our minds would be tuned to be particularly attentive to the activities and thoughts of people and to remember the information conveyed by them.”

their own lives. Respondents admitted they were frustrated and envious after visiting the social networking web site. The study noted users who browsed Facebook without participating in any sort of active conversations are the most affected by such negative feelings. Friends’ vacation photos on social the networking site is among the top reasons for the frustration, the study found. Such negative feelings can “frequently” cause users to work up their Facebook profile and boast about recent successes to compete with friends. This however, causes jealousy among other users, which researchers dub as the “envy spiral”.

Google Asia Servers Internet users in India and other Asian nations will soon experience Google’s services such as web search and YouTube streaming at about 30 percent faster speeds as the tech giant’s new data centres installed in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are slated to go operational this year. According to an Economic Times report, Lalitesh Katragadda, country head, India products at Google, notes web connectivity speed in India isn’t very high. “These data centres will be crucial to this market due to its proximity,” he adds. The

Facebook envy German researches have come up with a new study that reveals social media envy is a real thing and is leaving people with negative feelings such as loneliness, frustration and even anger. The study titled ‘Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?’ is based on a survey of 600 people in Germany. The study goes on to say the social media envy is making people feel less satisfied with 22 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Google Asia Servers

New Star Wars movie

“Star Trek” director J.J.Abrams is rumoured to be directing the forthcoming “Star Wars” movie. http://dgit.in/WqKkSf

Google official admitted that several Google services including its video sharing site YouTube and video conferencing service Google Hangouts weren’t accessible at optimal speeds in the country right now. A report from web-based content delivery firm Akamai Technologies says India is at the 112th position globally in internet speed. India is among the largest markets for Google with the nation having more than 100 million users. “More people from India are coming online every day and this is an important market as Google looks to bring the next one billion online,” Katragadda added. “We plan to invest disproportionately in India in the coming months and years.”

Mega resurrection Kim Dotcom has announced a new file-sharing network, Mega, with 50GB free storage. This comes on what is the first anniversary of his arrest on charges of racketeering linked to the now defunct Megaupload.com. The network has already clocked 1 million registered users within 1 day of the service being rolled out for users globally. Dotcom stated that his lawyers had examined the new network thoroughly and is confident that it complies with all security and anti-piracy norms.

Every file uploaded by a user will be encrypted and there are enhanced levels of privacy for uploaded and stored content. Mega, just like Megaupload. com, allows users to upload, store and share files with other users. As per the announcement, there are two methods of signing up for the Mega service. The free account offers 50GB storage, with the full gamut of sharing capabilities. It is interesting to note that the free option offers more than what the likes of Dropbox and Skydrive offer, and additionally, Mega also offers the similar convenience of the drag and drop upload tools. Unfortunately, soon after launch in mid-January, the service was unreliable, and people have been unable to log in the system easily. Kim Dotcom tweeted that he apologizes for the poor service quality as his servers where not prepared to handle such traffic for the start-up.

Chrome 25 beta The beta version of Google’s web browser for Windows has been released with the Web Speech API, letting users control more than just search, with voice commands. The browser is currently available for Windows users. Announcing it, Google said, “Using your voice to search on your computer or phone is handy, but there’s so much more you can do with voice commands. Imagine if you could dictate documents, have a freestyle rap battle, or control game characters with your browser using only your voice. With today’s Chrome Beta release, this future is closer than you think.” Apart from the voice control feature, Chrome 25 will bring in security and performance enhancements for all extensions, a new search and tab page and better HTML5 support.

StumbleUpon updated for Android App Watch

StumbleUpon app for Android was updated recently with a good looking homepage, previews, filters, new sharing options and something called as StumbleDNA

Samsung snubs WinRT

According to reports, Samsung has scrapped plans for releasing its Windows RT based tablet in the U.S.

Nirbhaya, Fight Back and more... January saw a lot of women’s safety apps gain publicity. Here we also take a look at these SOS guardians and some SMS replacement apps Nimish Sawant [email protected]

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he Delhi rape case which shocked the nation led to a lot of protests nation-wide and has really got everyone talking about harassment of women which is so rampant in our country. In response to the need of the hour, app developers have come out with innovative apps which can be used by women in distress. While we saw some brand new apps launched in the last month, there were some apps which got much deserved recognition as the issue of women’s safety was on every responsible citizen’s mind.

Nirbhaya An app named after the symbolic name that was given to the deceased victim, was launched by a Pune-based company SmartCloud tech. It sends a distress message or allows the user to call a contact group specified by the user in an emergency situation. On the home screen of the app, you have a set of five buttons, each of which you assign a group of contacts to send message or call in case of an emergency. Apart from local police authorities, hospitals, you can have your close rel-

atives on the Groups. You can assign different groups for different sorts of emergencies. For instance for family emergencies, you group can have close family members; for accidents you can have local hospitals on your list and so on. The message is sent along with the users current location. At present it is only available on the Google Play Store (http:// goo.gl/Jvzbh) but will be coming on the Apple Store and Windows store soon. The app is thankfully free of cost.

MeAgainstRape Android software developers Gunwant Battashe (23), engineer Anup Unnikrishanan (24) and graphic designer Jayesh Bankar (23) from Nashik have developed an Android application – Me Against Rape – which is free app to help women in distress by allowing them to send a message with the location co-ordinates or call a predefined number registered by the user. It also features a spy-mode which activates video and voice recording to act as evidence against eve-teasers. Its location log feature when activated, sends across the users location co-ordinates every 10 minutes, so that the receiving party is always clued in on the users location. It is available for free on the Android app store (http://goo. gl/8J7tW)

Fightback This app, developed by Mahindra Group, company CanvasM, allows user to send SOS message via SMS, e-mail 24 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

and Facebook at the press of a single key. It was initially avalilable for `100, but can now be downloaded for free from the

area, when the phone battery is low and if the phone is forcibly destroyed. The user’s last known location is sent via SMS or email to her well-wishers who can then take the necessary action. This app is selling for `50 on the Google Play Store (http://goo. gl/Y4PIy)

SOS app of a different kind

Android app store. It enables users to push a central button and generate a security alert, which then uses communication channels such as SMS, emails and Facebook to give out panic message alongwith the exact location of the user. It is available for free on the Google Play Store (http://goo.gl/ GaZ4m)

Sentinel Personal Security This is an old app but quite relevant in the times we live in. It works just like the other apps – sending SMSes and making calls to the concerned people in case of emergency after the app is activated. It also has certain nonmanual methods to send alerts – if phone is switched off without logging our from Sentinel, when the phone goes out of coverage

Microsoft has announced a cross-platform app powered by Windows Azure called HelpBridge. It is an app which allows you to both ask for help as well as offer help in case of a natural disaster. This app is available on the Google Play store, Apple iTunes App Store and Windows Phone Store. At the moment it is only available in the US, but we should see Microsoft expanding support to other countries soon. The HelpBridge app allows you to notify a group of friends or relatives from your contacts in case of an emergency. On your command, the app will send messages over email or SMS to the people who you have nominated to be notified during emergencies. The app also allows you to send a status update on your Facebook timeline and with your permission send across your precise location as well. Absence of Twitter is kind of surprising. The other function of the app allows you to send across help in the form of money, supplies or even volunteer work in disaster prone areas. You can donate cash using PayPal and supplies can be sent to relief organisations directly.

Opera’s new “Ice” browser App Watch

500px removed from App Store

Opera is preparing to reveal a new web browser called “Ice” for Android and iOS based tablets and smartphones soon

Apple in a bid to stop pornography in its apps has removed the 500px photo sharing app from its App store as it was possible to find nudity using the app

Replacing SMS

Kik

WeChat

Smartphone penetration is increasing by leaps and bounds in India thanks to handsets available at cheaper rates by the day. You can get a smartphone for as low as `5,000 nowadays. Short messaging service is slowly but surely on its way out as far as smartphone users are concerned. BlackBerry users have that taken care of with the BlackBerry Messenger service which is the preferred choice of messaging between two BlackBerry users. But for non-BlackBerry users there are many apps out there which can be used for messaging so long as you have a working data connection.

This is another free-to-use mobile messaging app which works across platforms. Kik can work with either the phone number or with a Kik ID. It has an interesting feature in the form of cards, which is supported on some platforms. There are four cards: YouTube, Reddit pics, Sketch and Image Search. These cards can take you to the respective sites and you can share videos or pictures from these sites within Kik and they will appear as cards. Apart from this it has the regular messaging chops including the sent, delivered, read and typing notifications.

This app from Chinese company Tencent is creating a lot of waves offlate thanks to its option to video chat and make voice calls

Hike This is an indigenious app developed by Airtel’s appmaking arm – Bharti SoftBank Holdings (BSB). While it is similar to most mobile messaging apps allowing transfer of text, video and audio based messages over the internet connection, what is unique about this app is that it allows you to send upto 100 free SMSes to non-Hike users. If any of your friend accepts your invitation to join Hike you get 50 free SMSes. While you can send messages to friends who are

using Hike worldwide, the free SMS option is only open to Indian numbers. Incidentally, this app works better than WhatsApp on Windows Phone 8.

Website: http://kik.com/

Platform: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Symbian, BlackBerry OS

Samsung ChatON As expected, this app comes preloaded on all Samsung smartphones and allows you to send

text, images, videos, audio, share location, maps, calendar and contact information as well. You can create animated messages which is just like Kik’s Sketch feature. There is a slight amount of gamification with a feature like Interaction Rank which ranks your contacts according to the frequency of your interaction. It works across platforms and requires your phone number to register just like other messaging apps. You can form your own groups,

Website: http://get.hike.in/

Website: https://web.samsungchaton.com

Platform: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Symbian, BlackBerry OS

Platform: Android, Bada, iOS, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, PC

26 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

launched Facebook Messenger which allows you to login with your Facebook account as well as with your phone number. Even non-Facebook users can use this app by giving their number. You can send text or voice messages as well as share photographs. It has a free calling feature as well but it only works on iPhones and for users in the US and Canada. Website: https://www.facebook. com/mobile/messenger

in addition to mobile messaging. It is available on all the major platforms and you can even login using your Facebook credentials. You do have to register your phone number with WeChat. You can add photos, send locations, make video calls or send across a voice message if you are too bored to type. You have options to customise your backgrounds while group chatting. It also comes with differentiating features such as Moments: which is like a social photo sharing which allows users to like or comment on your photos; LookAround: which allows you to see how far your friends are from you based on their locations; Shake: you shake your phone and you will come to know who else using WeChat has shook his or her phone and you can start a conversation with them and so on. Website: http://wechat.com/en/

Platform: iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Windows Phone, PC

Facebook Messenger There were rumours last year that Facebook was planning to acquire WhatsApp, but they were just that. Facebook went ahead and

Platform: Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS.

WhatsApp This is the de-facto mobile messaging app that most smartphone users have as it is a cross platform app. So an Android user can communicate with a BlackBerry user and vice-versa. Actually, most of the apps we have listed are

cross-platform, but WhatsApp can safely be said to have started the trend. You can send text messages, images, videos as well as audio files. You can create groups of friends as well. This app even works on feature phones such as Nokia S40 ones which is a big plus in its favour. Another plus is that there is no advertising on the app, despite it being free of cost. Although WhatsApp says that the app is free only for a year and after a year they charge $0.99 per year (around `55), we have to still come across too many users who have actually paid for using WhatsApp. Website: www.whatsapp.com

Platform: Apple iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Windows Phone, Symbian S40

Dark Arisen release date Security watch Connections

Capcom’s new game – Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen is expected to release of April 23rd

Atari files for Bankruptcy

Atari, one of the oldest names in the gaming scene has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. and is selling all of its assets

Beef up the ramp With the rise of cyber-terror and new vulnerabilities being found daily, the connected world is a minefield without a map. We take a fly-by

S

ecurity is a continual struggle to maintain integrity, in the face of countless possible attacks. It is a struggle that can never be won, unless the system under threat is absolutely closed, both in the electronic and physical sense. Vulnerability is constant, with new patches and holes being created nearly simultaneously. In a scenario like this, preparation will only get you so far, with fast reactions and adaptations recourses all must resort to. Since we met last, innumerable players have made even more numerous changes to their systems. Preparations are being made as well, with the Indian government amongst those gearing up for a bleaker future.

India’s cyber security architecture In a bid to deal with the sabotage, espionage and other forms of cyber attacks, the Indian government is developing the national cyber security architecture. The facility will be also responsible for safeguarding the country’s information infrastructure and networks as well as offering certification to service providers and vendors to ensure additional security measures. The revelation was made by National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon, who said: “It will also involve capacity and authority for operations in cyber space. The goal is to prevent sabotage, espionage and other forms of cyber attacks that could hurt us.” The National Security Council has okayed the archi28 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

tecture in principle even as the implementation details are being chalked out with the ministries and agencies, “which we hope to take to the Cabinet for approval soon”, Menon said. A national cyber security coordinator in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) will be responsible for bringing this work together.

Google’s updated Chrome extensions Google’s cracking the whip on rogue extensions, by tightening the noose around the way extensions are installed in its Chrome browser. Up until recently, vendors of software could silently install Chrome extensions, without requiring any input from the user. Google has found that this feature of Chrome has been getting widely abused, so in Chrome version 25, the ability to silently install an extension will be taken away. Any software that requires a Google Chrome extension to be installed will now have to prompt the user for permission to not just install, but also enable the said extension. Another security feature being built into Chrome 25 will essentially disable all extensions installed on Chrome, and will require to be re-enabled by the user.

Falling Spam According to Kaspersky Lab data, share of spam in e-mail traffic slumped to 72.1 percent in 2012 – lowest in last five years. The share saw year-onyear fall of 8.2 percent as compared to 2011. Kaspersky Lab says the slump in spam volume

is due to improved anti-spam protection in e-mail systems and implementation of DKIM signature policies that verifies the domain from which e-mails are sent. The slump is also due to availability of affordable advertising on legal platforms. The proportion of e-mails with malicious attachments was very less though as such e-mails had 3.4 percent share. The data ranks China as the top source for spamming, as it accounts for 19.5 percent of all spam mails. India ranks third behind the U.S. with 9.7 per-

our services continued to grow,” says Google in a blog post.“User data requests of all kinds have increased by more than 70 per cent since 2009. In total, we received 21,389 requests for information about 33,634 users from July through December 2012.”

Anonymous’ Warning

India Transparent

The hackers group, Anonymous, has said it is going to continue its campaign against web censorship in 2013. The group released a statement warning the world to “Expect us 2013”. The group has also released a video featuring its campaign and strikes carried out in the year 2012. The video includes the group’s temporary shutdown of the various US sites in protest of the US government’s indictment of the operators of popular file-hosting site MegaUpload. The video also features the group’s campaign against Syrian government sites over alleged shutdown of the Internet. It also shows Anonymous’ campaign against the Israeli government to protest the latter’s attacks on Gaza. “The operations which are listed in the video are only examples, there are far more

According to Google’s latest ‘Transparency Report’, India stood second with as many as 2,431 requests for data about 4,106 users. The U.S. topped the list with 8,438 requests for information about 14,868 users. France, Germany, Britain and Brazil filled out the top six. “[The data] shows the steady increase in government requests for our users’ data continued in the second half of 2012, as usage of

operations,” Anonymous wrote in the statement. “Some of them are still running, like Operation Syria. We are still here.”

cent. Overall, Asia accounted more than half of the world’s spam. The report says India is among top target for phishing sites as the country ranks sixth. The list is dominated by developed countries.

Space Age

Sci-Tech

Jayesh Shinde

34

Which is the best telescope to gaze into the night sky? We tell you that and more...

“Installous” shuts down

The pirated app store called “Installous”, which provided pirated copies of paid apps for iOS shut down recently.

TheInternet Of Things

[email protected]

T

he Internet has revolutionized our lives in more ways than we care to imagine. Within a decade from being a desirable facet of one’s life, the Internet has invaded our homes and is now a strong necessity that we can’t live without . Yet what we deem as the Internet is just a web of computers (in one shape or another) exchanging data through a network of communication devices (routers, switches, etc.). These days the definition of computers has changed a bit to encompass highly evolved gadgets like smartphones and tablets that access the Internet more than good old PCs ever did. Often what we loosely label as the Internet (for checking Facebook, reading websites, etc.) is in fact the World Wide Web or Web – just a means of reading content over the Internet’s superhighway. This is where most of us restrict our involvement of the Internet. To think we call this minor obsession of ours with the Internet a revolution is just plain ridiculous. Imagine an Internet of intelligent devices (not PCs) that requires minimum supervision, as a separate network entity which interacts with the Internet, leveraging its potential different to what we are used to in our-day-to-day life. The possibilities of such an Internet, alive with gadgets and devices, is vastly more enriching. Just thinking about it is enough to realize that such an Internet of Things will go a long way in making our lives more comfortable than they already are. And it may be unfolding around us in the coming months.

30 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

The era of smart, connected devices is well and truly upon us

The next big wave Internet of Things has been a buzzword on the technology horizon for the past couple of years. But not until the Consumer Electronics Show held in January this year did the term re-surface and claw back into popular discourse. There were products unveiled at the year’s biggest technology show to signal that the Internet of Things has matured far beyond a concept to buzzing, beeping devices produced by a variety of manufacturers, lending muchneeded momentum to the phenomenon’s widespread acceptance.

Fancy an electronic, remotely operated light switch to your living room? Check out the Belkin WeMo Light Switch which looks and feels like any ordinary light switch, only it’s not – it’s much smarter, connects to Wi-Fi and can be remotely controlled from anywhere in the world by an iOS (and soon-to-release Android) app. Can’t check on your flower garden regularly when you’re busy travelling? Monitor their well-being through this ingenious Parrot Flower Power sensor asasasas The device plugs into the soil to track sunlight, moisture, temperature and

Google Glass news Tomorrow’s Tech

Google’s augmented reality based Project Glass may feature a laser-projected virtual keyboard to allow users to provide an input by tapping their hand or arm

Belkin WeMo light switches are Wi-Fi enabled, fully controlled via iOS and Android apps

fertilizer levels. It beams this info over bluetooth to an app which helps monitor the health of plants in the sensor’s vicinity. A curious example of the impending convergence of technology and convenience is the Samsung T9000 refrigerator which runs on Android. Fitted with a Wi-Fi enabled 10-inch touchscreen panel, this smart fridge can help you with food recipes, regulate its temperature and features through the touch panel, take notes through Evernote, and much more. The Internet is no longer restricted to traditional computing devices (PC, smartphone, tablet), but household appliances like Wi-Fi lightbulbs, self-heating ovens (LG Smart Oven), self-regulating motiondetecting and temperature sensors, are just some of the examples showcased at this year’s CES through which the concept of a smart home full of connected devices finally becomes a reality. The possibilities are endless. Fuelling the advent of this Internet of connected devices are several trends. At a fundamental level, the Internet’s switch to IPv6 ensures there is no shortage of IP addresses for devices willing to connect – the more the merrier! Broadband proliferation, reduction of data charges, and improved hardware (CPU, circuits, etc) is lending hitherto analog devices some some semblance of “smartness” and digital awareness.

the limelight in recent memory – and focusing on the impending boom of connected devices, the Internet of Things will be severely weakened if it ends up being just another cluster of devices. That won’t be truly revolutionary, as there are several challenges yet to overcome. Experience is a critical factor that will help take the Internet of Things to the next level. Take for e.g. the TV industry, which harped the horn of 3D TVs at CES 2010, and unveiled 4K Ultra HDTVs at this year’s CES. Instead of just upgrading the visual experience, TV manufacturers should have put more thought on how to make these idiot boxes more smarter than

Beyond the hype While it’s great that we’re pushing the spotlight away from the likes of smartphones and tablets – high-growth industry segments that have hogged all 32 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

This ingenious plant sensor can help you monitor your garden through a smartphone

Fake music views removed

YouTube, dropped 2 billion music views faked by record companies on their sites. This affected pageviews of certain celebrity videos

just recognizing gestures, dynamic picture control, and secondary PCs. A device’s smartness or processing power (wow factor, in other words) won’t be a limiting factor in realizing the full potential of connected devices, but the ecosystems that they plug into most certainly will be. A smart fridge that can’t automatically alert you about depleting inventory while you’re on the road back home isn’t smart enough; a sensor inside the garden soil isn’t fulfilling its potential if it can’t water the plant on its own (for e.g.); a fitness tracker that merely tracks burnt calories isn’t good enough if it can’t inform on calories consumed or recommending the right personalized diet. So the Internet they plug into needs to be smarter by deploying an accompanying service that they utilize. These services will also drive the end user experience and monetization models for companies to make the Internet of Things a sustainable business in the long run. The Internet of Things will be multilayered, in all probability. Imagine your car to be part of a home network where it’s just another fully-automated gadget in your control. But if you step out on the road, there may be an Internet of Road Transport that it hooks into for route navigation, self-driving, etc., and this separate network will monitor and control all cars that are on the road. This may sound like science fiction, but a self-driving car is far from it. Also, what happens to all the connected devices leveraging the Internet of Things when there’s a power failure and broadband’s down? Scary to imagine that all your smart devices become dumb just like that, losing all their intelligence when they’re offline. Sure there’ll be workarounds developed to counter this challenge as well. The Internet is evolving and it’s no longer a place where you only go to find information, it’s now a place where you go to find things and objects. This trend will only continue to unravel and grow in the coming months or so, where manufacturers realise and push the envelop of our imagination, making us view the Internet through a new lens. The Internet of Things is arriving fast and there’s no stopping it. Did we say, Internet? Behold, the Thingternet!

Cooler Master adds more coolers Space Age

Cooler Master added two new coolers namely the 240M and 120XL to its Seidon line of all-in-one liquid coolers http://dgit.in/WUeE8C

Vine to be launched by Twitter Users on Twitter will soon be able to share video clips on their network and other websites using a new Video app called Vine http://dgit.in/W5z5RA

Gazing into the void The complexities involved in the construction of a telescope go far beyond mere optics and glass. We take a look at some of the challenges faced by engineers to this day Anirudh Regidi [email protected]

A

chieving feasible space travel is a dream that is still very far from reality, but we can still gaze into the void of the cosmos and dream of one day reaching those distant stars. The only way we can do that now is by the use of telescopes. These have evolved from humble, hand-held devices with apertures of a few mm to the radio behemoths of today with apertures that are many times the diameter of the Earth.

Light To understand how a telescope works we would need a better understanding of light in the context of space. What we perceive as light and colour is electromagnetic radiation within a particular frequency (or wavelength) that our eyes respond to. XRays, radio waves, infra-red, etc. are all the same thing. Electro-magnetic radiation, only, they’re travelling at a different wavelength. To put it another way, our eyes are electromagnetic sensors that are sensitive to a particular range of wavelengths, the same way 34 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

that your cell phone’s FM radio’s antenna can pick up radio waves in the correct band. The sky at night is lovely to behold, if you can see the stars through the thick layer of smog that is, but the one stand out feature of the night sky is that it is dark. Why is that so? If the arc of a grain of sand held at arm’s length can contain thousands of galaxies, why do we not see them all when we look up? The answer is surprisingly simple. Almost all the stars in space are moving away from us at very high-speeds, speeds that are unimaginable for us on Earth and easily in the range of hundreds of thousands of kilometres an hour and the farther the star, the faster it is moving away from us. This changing speed causes a change in the wavelength of light where it is “red-shifted” (due to the Doppler Effect). This “redshift” causes the electro-magnetic spectrum to shift from the visible range, the range our eyes are sensitive to, to infra-red to the microwave and even radio wavelength. Of course, the exact opposite happens to objects that are coming closer to us and the radiation from those objects shift from the visible spectrum to UV, X-ray, and gamma ray and beyond. There are more factors that

determine the nature of this radiation, but to enumerate them would be way beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say that since our eyes are only receptive of a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, we only see a fraction of the actual “light” in space.

Types of telescopes Based on the above understanding of how light and electro-magnetic radiation work, telescopes have to be specifically designed to receive and interpret radiation in specific bands. As such, telescopes are classified as: • Optical • Radio • X-Ray • Gamma-Ray • Sub-mm and so on. Of note are the radio telescope arrays that are massive structures that can cover hundreds of square kilometres. These telescopes are essentially, large antennae that are separated by many kilometres, with some even positioned in space. These antennae pick up incoming radio signals and can, mathematically speaking, produce apertures that are larger than the diameter of the Earth. Managing

Pirate Bay documentary Space Age

A documentary titled “TPB AFK”(The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard) based on the lives of Pirate Bay founders will be released for free at the end of this month

such telescopes is an extremely complex task involving massive super-computers, atomic clocks and GPS satellites. Given the wide area that the antennae are scattered over, the time at which they receive radio signal from the same-source, say a distant star under observation, will vary by maybe a few milliseconds or nanoseconds. Just sufficient to cause blurring and reduce the resolution of such telescopes. Atomic clocks are absolutely essential to ensure that the time delay is precisely calculated and GPS is required to ensure

Ultra deep field

that the location is as precise as possible. All this data that is generated is massive and only super-computing arrays can crunch those numbers at anything resembling real-time rates.

Yolo debuts in Kenya

Intel’s low-cost smartphone named Yolo has debuted in Kenya. It sports an Intel Atom Z2420 processor, a 3.5-inch touchscreen and costs USD 125

Space Telescopes Telescopes such as the multi-billion dollar Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are only comparatively simpler to build and manage. The optical system needs to be fine-tuned to a particular frequency of light and any errors on the various surfaces that the electromagnetic waves (usually UV and visible light in this case) have to pass through or are reflected off, have to be polished to perfection. For example, since no surface can be perfectly smooth, the precision to which the glass for the lens has to be ground must be well below that of the wavelength being observed and is measured in nanometres. Other factors include the heating and contraction of the entire telescope as it gets exposed to direct sunlight and passes through the Earth’s shadow. The variation in the surface temperature of the optical elements, even to a fraction of a degree, can cause enough distortion to ruin the data that the telescope captures. To this end, NASA has embedded a system in the HST itself that maintains the temperature of the mirror and other optical elements at a comparatively warm 15 degrees C. This has the unwanted side-effect of limiting the effectiveness of the telescope in the infra-red spectrum though. The orbit of a space telescope also determines its effectiveness. Again, taking the example of the HST, its actual effective period of operation is only a little over half its orbit. There are various factors which affect

The Doppler Effect The Doppler Effect is a phenomenon that is observed when an observer or object is in motion relative to the other. In essence, an object that is coming towards you while emitting waves, say sound waves, will appear to be will sound louder than if it was moving away from you as the time taken for each successive sound wave keeps on reducing and vice versa while moving away. Light is also affected by this motion, but given the incredible speed at which it travels, this effect is only noticeable in space where the distances are so vast that there is time for the spectrum to spread or contract enough for us to perceive the difference.

A swan demonstrating the doppler shift with aplomb

this and even something as obscure as the North Atlantic Anomaly, a region where the surrounding Van Allen radiation belt comes to within 200 km of the Earth’s crust, can seriously affect the operation of a telescope. Even during construction, a simple thing such as a bit of moisture getting absorbed by the material used to construct the telescope can later freeze in space and hamper its operation. Truly, the amount of work, care and precision that is required to launch and maintain a telescope in space is something that cannot be explained to a layman.

In conclusion

The electromagnetic spectrum 36 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

What we have covered in this article is barely a fraction of the actual story behind telescopes, space and even light in general. The work put in by the various men and women in this field deserves our utmost respect and hopefully, this article can shed at least some light on the story behind those impressive images that we just dismiss as glorified wallpapers to adorn our screens.

Demystifying 48 fps

Digital life

42

We throw light on The Hobbit’s “HFR” movie format and wonder whether the future of filmmaking is in 48 fps

A “Privacy Visor” ?!

A group of Japanese scientists are developing a pair of glasses that can protect you from Facial Recognition Machines

Sonic Screwdriver Some people say that Doctor Who is the James Bond of science fiction, although Mr. Bond uses quite a lot of fiction himself. But looking past that, we would say that the huge army of fans that the show has garnered will surely appreciate the fact that somebody has actually gone on to prepare the Sonic Screwdriver, which the Doctor uses for exactly the same purpose as normal people would use a screwdriver -- absolutely anything. Lock-pick kit to tracking a bunch of nasty aliens, this promises to do anything that the writers can decide on. And it will do none of those things in real life, of course. But it is still a good piece of the show memorabilia, and would work for you as a trusted universal remote. Yours for some 5 grand, plus shipping. Check out www.iwantoneofthose.com.

Dive straight into the deep-end of tech nirvana with these digital toys Tesla Model S We are including this car not only because we love cars, but because of the previously unimaginable horizon that this particular manufacturer has brought very close to reality – a car that is eco-friendly without feeling like one. This piece of art on wheels, the “moonshot” Tesla Model S has been painstakingly in development for years, and was finally unleashed late last year. Costing around `60 lakhs, which is actually on the lower side considering its impressive stats, this car will fit the standard definition of a ‘sports car’ for the people who love those (basically everyone in the world), and is powered entirely by batteries, to keep the green army happy as well. Not an easy agreement to achieve, as most luxury car manufacturers would tell you. But we salute Elon Musk for his attempts, and bow down to the moonshot that is his creation.

38 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Star Wars VII gets a director

And it’s none other than J.J. Abrams, who made a name for himself writing, directing and producing the hit show Lost and the Star Trek movie

Dating site finds iPhone

A man used an online dating site by creating a fake profile to lure the thief who had stolen his iPhone. Full story here: http://dgit.in/TMEMlH

Drool maal

.338 Lapua Magnum Geeks are a very predictable bunch. If you ask them for their ideal lives, you would probably get a roughly even distribution between the Matrix and James Bond movie environments. Favourite games would probably throw up Quake, Call of Duty and the ilk. What if we told you that there are parts of the above fictional worlds that are coming to life? AND they are powered by your favourite operating system – Linux? Please wipe that drool off your face, you might drop some on the page. So here is a setup that has an iPad that would pair with your gun’s scope, and would allow you to actually ‘lock’ on your targets, take all weather conditions into account, and fire a shot so jaw droppingly awesome that you absolutely cannot miss. As an added benefit, there is always the good feeling of living like an open source soul, even if it will cost you `11,00,000, although that is not way off creating the same setup yourself. So a good deal, all in all. If any of you would actually like to have one of these, you should be looking at www.tracking-point.com

ChargeCard If you travel extensively, you obviously know the pain of not being able to sync up your devices if you don’t have the heavenly blessing of an internet connection around you. A neat little Kickstarter project called the ChargeCard plans to remove those woes once and forever. They have introduced a small chip that can be carried around with you, in your pocket, which supports the God of modern connector cable – Micro USB. And it has not left the rebels out as well – here’s one for the iPhone too! The entire concept is effortlessly easy, but very cool. All you need to do is to take up the card, plug it into one device, have the sync material stored, and then plug it to your other device. Simple as that, and will only burn a `2,000 shaped hole in your pocket.

Scanadu Scout As it turns out, NFC is pretty native to our natural bodily structuring. At least that is what the guys at Scanadu believe, and that is the vision in which they created their nifty device called ‘Scout’, which can measure a bunch of your vital stats by simply holding it right next to your temple. Anyone remember the Star Trek medical tricoder? We seriously feel that the writers of that show were among the greatest visionaries in the modern day, unleashing the imagination of millions of geeks to go out and make the imaginary concepts of the show a reality. And they do so at a price that is not exactly worth drooling about – that part is taken care of by the idea itself. Check out www. scanadu.com, and in their own words, have your smartphone go to med school. Only for some 10 grand.

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 39

Spiked robots to explore space?

Researchers from NASA and Stanford think that spherical robots with “spikes” are the best way to explore space http://dgit.in/Up3oRJ

Geek life

Microsoft buys

Keeping the Xbox in mind, Microsoft has acquired a small home-entertainment startup called “R2 Studios”

Visual Conundrum A deeper understanding of The Hobbit and the “revolutionary” HFR format. Is 48fps the future of filmmaking?

Anirudh Regidi

and the movie as a whole as is the choice of cast and crew, colour or monochrome. Movies are normally shot at a rate of 24 frames per second (fps) and this value n December of 2012 a new movie was standardised for various reasons, was released, a movie that was said but primarily because this was the to implement a technology that minimum frame-rate at which our brain would change the face of movies can process still images and be fooled forever. The movie was The Hobbit: An into thinking it was looking at motion. Unexpected Journey. The technology – The key word here is “minimum”. While 48 fps HFR or High-Frame-Rate as it adequate, this frame-rate is far from ideal is better known. Whether the movie and was chosen more for the fact that film lived up to its expectations is a matter (think negatives, not movies) was rather of debate but what about HFR? expensive in those days and this was the cheapest frame-rate required to produce Movie vs. Video a movie, than for the fact that this was an To better understand how HFR affects us, ideal fps to showcase a movie in. The 24 as an audience, we need to understand the fps standard is actually very prone to flickering (hence the name, “flicks” associated with movies) and today’s projectors have to compensate by projecting at least two duplicate frames per frame projected to compensate for this flickering. As an audience, we adapted to this frame-rate, it was double Blurred? 24 fps. Crystal clear? 28 fps. Which is better depends entirely on the context in which the video is that of the 12 fps from the shown. Good enough for a movie, bad for sports. [email protected]

I

42 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

difference between a video and a movie and yes, there is a very big difference between the two. A video is nothing more than a collection of images that are displayed in quick succession, giving the illusion of motion, usually accompanied by audio. A movie is a video that is supposed to be a work of art. Someone’s vision that has been painstakingly brought to life. A good movie tells a tale, transports you to another world and gets you completely involved. A bad movie is just a video that attempts to do all of the above. What matters, or should matter to the director, is how the movie is experienced by the people, the audience. The choice of frame-rate is as important to the scene

Razer’s new Xbox 360 controller Geek life

Razer launched a new controller for the Xbox 360 called the “Razer Sabertooth”. It has a built-in OLED Display along with six extra buttons

silent film era and we learned to appreciate the inherent blur that the frame-rate introduced. Directors also used this to full effect and the blurring, coupled with the softer images of the non-HD era produced movies that looked dreamy and surreal. This worked exceptionally well for movies such as Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but fell short of completely immersing audiences in proper action movies such as The Towering Inferno or The Burning Train. The inherent blurring ruined fast-paced scenes, but since the audience were used to it, it didn’t matter that much. The argument against HFR is the same that was used against HD. People complained that HD brought with it more detail than was required and would be the end of the “close-up shot” and there would no longer be any romantic (and arduously long) kissing scenes. This isn’t the case though and any good director knows that it is softer focus, not a lower resolution that brings that effect.

To blur or not to blur It isn’t possible to talk about HFR and immersive movies and not mention Douglas Trumbull. He was the man who produced special effects for such iconic movies as Blade Runner, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and even 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull was a pioneer, he wanted to revolutionise film-making in general and was a great proponent of the HFR format. His work on special effects is still unmatched and it is only current generation CG that has bettered some of his work in this field. What Trumbull wanted was a movie that was as immersive as possible, a first-person experience, a movie that was your own where you were part of the movie rather than a disconnected member of the audience. To this end, 24 fps wasn’t enough, a higher frame-rate was required and 48 or 60 fps was the key. At this frame-rate, blur disappears, a well-shot video at 60 fps, projected on a screen of sufficient quality, is as close to being indistinguishable from reality as it is possible to get. Incidentally, this is why 60 fps is the holy grail for a gamer. 25 fps is playable, sufficient, but not ideal and certainly not recommended. 44 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

When it comes to blurring or a loss of detail, be it in an image or even audio, our brain has the impressive ability of filling in the details, a sort of interpolation of data. This is why a blurry CG image can look way better than a crystal clear CG image if that CG image isn’t as detailed as it should be. It is this ability to interpolate and interpret incomplete data that directors inadvertently (the good ones do it deliberately) take advantage of when they’re shooting their scenes. HFR

18 Billion messages

WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging app processed a record 18 billion messages on Dec 31,2012

3D and HFR What happened with The Hobbit is what has been happening with 3D. Directors haven’t yet fully wrapped their heads around the technology so while Avatar looked fantastic in 3D, Clash of the Titans looked awful. What is required is a complete reimagining of every scene in 3D and HFR, which is actually quite hard for someone who has had to do the exact opposite their whole life. Shooting in 3D or HFR is not just about shooting

Blur is not always a bad thing

gets rid of this factor and presents the viewer with exactly what has been shot, leaving no room for interpretation. It’s like looking at the movie through a window and everything is actually happening in front of your eyes. Unless what you’re seeing is “real” or as close to reality as it’s possible to get, what you see through that “window” will seem fake, just a bunch of actors on a stage, playing with props. The challenge faced by the director of The Hobbit was exactly this. His “window” wasn’t real enough to immerse the audiences. People complained that props looked like props, CG sequences looked like game trailers and some people absolutely loved the fast-paced action sequences. Peter Jackson failed to live up to the expectations of HFR, but at least he tried and while the technology may not have been well implemented, the movie seems to have done an excellent job of show-casing the good and bad of that technology. To upgrade to HFR requires projectors that are capable of projecting the movies at such speeds, but the fact is that most good projectors are perfectly capable of handling the task and many of them routinely project at over 72 fps anyway (144 for 3D).

the scene with fancy gear for the sake of shooting it. The entire visual experience is defined by the techniques that are used and adequate care must be taken. HFR and 3D tech have been around for decades, they just haven’t been implemented well enough for mainstream use. There is a lot of talk that “3D is dead” or that it was a huge mistake. There is similar talk about HFR as well and this just after one movie. This is a technology that hasn’t been given a chance to mature yet. The potential is there and these technologies are the future, all that is lacking is the right vision and a better understanding of the technology. When it comes to movies, these technologies are not just mere jargon that can be thrown around to attract audiences. They can affect the entire movie experience and must be used with care and precision to truly take advantage with them. Just like an artist has brushes and paints at his disposal, HFR and 3D are tools that a director can employ. These tools need to be used judiciously and with care. What is the point of an illusion if you can see clearly see what the magician has employed to hide it in the first place?

Make your own CMS

Toolbox

50

Sometimes it's easier to code your own CMS than to adapt an existing one for your needs

Tips and Tricks

53

Supercharge your Chrome browser with plugins and speed up you Apple devices with these gestures and settings on iOS6

Laptop overheating, partitioning woes to getting rid of unwanted messages... We go through [email protected] to answer your distress calls Laptop overheating I purchased an HP G6-2016TX six months ago from Lucknow. It has Intel Core i5-3210M and ATI 7670M and has switchable graphics (which is turning out to be a pain). Off late when I play games (like Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Defense Grid) my fan makes a lot of noise. Checking with hardware monitor reveals that CPU temp reaches 100 deg C. This high temperature is freaking me out. Please advise me if it is safe to operate the laptop at this temperature. Else what should I do? Archit Gupta If it is in the default mode, then the graphics will be switching to HD 7670M based on the game settings. In case you are running the games on integrated graphics, then it looks like the integrated graphics on your processor is finding it tough to keep up with the game settings you have. Hence, it's heating up. In case, you are running the games using the 7670M, and the CPU is still heating up, then that indicates that it is not being cooled properly. You can either get it

Cooler Master Notepal U Stand

checked at the service centre if it is still under warranty. Or you can get a good laptop cooler to keep the laptop running cooler. A good option is Cooler Master Notepal U. You can read more about it here in our online review: http://goo.gl/ PAqoq. Worth the money. 46 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Multiple issues I have a couple of problems, but first here are my system specs: • OS: Windows XP Professional SP3 • CPU: Intel Pentium (R) E5300 @2.7GHz • Motherboard: ASUS P5G41T-M LX (LGA775) • RAM: ADATA DDR3 2GB @1333MHz • HDD: 75GB SAMSUNG SP0822N (PATA) • PSU: 450W 1) I've noticed that my system takes quite a while to start up. But occasionally it starts up quickly but the home screen takes time to come on. My dad says that it may be due to a faulty power cord and a lot of apps are set to start on start up. Is there any menu for it like on Windows 7? My HDD is almost 6 years old. 2) I used ‘Speccy’ which was bundled with the Digit DVD and it showed my RAM as: ‘2.00 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 400MHz (6-6-6-15)’. But both my RAM and motherboard are DDR3 1333MHz. Is it this that is causing the 1st problem? Everything has slowed down than earlier 3) Can I use my Sony Bravia 32CX420 Full HD TV as a monitor via the HDMI port of a graphics card? Reuben Thomas Let's us answer your questions, one at a time: 1) The reason startup is taking so long is because you probably have set a lot of applications to start when Windows starts. Now this is not really necessary for all applications. Specially utilities like the Canon printer menu and so on. In order to reduce your startup time go to Start > Run > msconfig > Startup tab and untick the services that you do not want to start up when Windows starts. But if you are not sure which services to untick, install the CCleaner utility which is bundled in the DVD under Essen-

Run "msconfig" to launch the window

tials. First Analyse system and then Run CCleaner. 2) The DDR3 1333MHz is the specification of the motherboard, in the sense that it indicates that the board supports upto 1333 MHz DDR3 memory. The memory you have lodged in the RAM slot is running slower. That's fine. 3) Yes, you can connect your TV to the HDMI cable coming out of your graphics card and use it as a monitor.

Running multiple OSes Can you please suggest me some software utilities or applications by using which I can run multiple OSes simultaneously. I want to use Windows 7 and Windows 8 simultaneously. I currently use Windows 7 32-bit edition. Please help. Milind Fegade You can use the utility Virtual Box to have multiple OSes running on your system. You can find it in the DVDs that are bundled with the magazine or can download it from (http://goo.gl/4bbl). On installing the utility, it will ask you to allocate free space on your HDD on which a new OS can be loaded.

American Megatrends bootscreen with 'Press F1 to Run SETUP' message This is the first time I am writing to you and I am a very big fan of your magazine.

Open Source manual for Pi

A group of teachers from the UK have released an Open Source educational manual for the Raspberry Pi with a liscense from Creative Commons. http://dgit.in/VDnnus

I have a problem with my computer's date and time settings. Whenever I start my PC, there comes a page asking me to press F1 and run setup or press F2 to load default values and continue. So everytime I have to run the setup and then continue, which is very time consuming. The date is shown as '01-Jan-02' and time is shown as '12:00AM'. Is this any type of a virus or something else? Please do help me. Mohil Khare This problem generally occurs when you have made some recent hardware changes. The error you are getting is pertaining to CMOS. You can try clearing the CMOS by clicking on the clear CMOS button or changing the jumper settings when your system is off. Refer to your motherboard manual to check out which jumpers are used to clear CMOS. See if you get rid of the error. If not, then you will have to update the BIOS by downloading the latest BIOS from the motherboard manufacturer's website. If your date is constantly changing, then remove the battery for some time from the motherboard. Reinsert it and then set the date in the BIOS.

Partitioning woes I need help regarding partitioning my laptop hard drive. My configuration is as follows: • Model: Samsung Notebook3 NP305E5Z - S01N • CPU: AMD A4 1.96GHZ Dual core • RAM: DDR3 4 GB • Hard Disk: 500 GB • VRAM: AMD Radeon DDR3 1 GB How do I effectively partition it without defragmentation? And how should I exactly do that? How many partitions can I have? Also I have plans to install Linux (dual boot) on a separate drive, so please guide me according for that. I have installed Windows 7 32-bit version and the problem is, its using only 2 GB out of the 4 GB installed RAM. How do I use the full RAM capacity? Purushoth To create partitions, you can go to Start > Run > Create and Format hard disk partitions, but make sure you have sufficient space on your 500 GB drive.

Q&A

This will show you all the drives that are there on your system. We are assuming you have only one drive at present without any partition. So say C drive is showing as 450 GB. You right click on it and select shrink volume and enter the capacity which is lower than your free space. So for instance if of the 450 GB, you have around 200 GB of free space, then enter the capacity for shrink volume under 180 GB. This will create another volume and you will need to reboot. The simplest way to try out a new OS is to use Ubuntu. The distro is available on the Feb 2013 DVD and only needs to be mounted via a tool such as Daemon Tools (also on the DVD). Then all that needs to be done is to run "Wubi.exe" from the DVD. Follow the instructions and Ubuntu will be installed within Windows without the need to create a partition. The second alternative is to partition the HDD using Windows's in-built partitioning tool. Press the Start button and type "Create and format partitions" to open the program. Use it to shrink a volume and create a new partition from the free space. Make sure that you create a partition that is at least 20GB in size if you want to try out a new OS. Next create a bootable pen drive using the "rufus" tool from the Feb DVD or search for it online. The other option is that you can burn the image file to a DVD using any image burning utility. Instructions for creating a bootable Ubuntu pen drive can be found at http://dgit.in/WcTjH8. The method will be similar for any other distro. You can either set your PC to boot via the USB drive or DVD depending on what medium you used for creating a bootable image, then follow the installation instructions for the distro you're using. Most linux distros have very clear instructions but be warned that some don't and if you do not follow the instructions or don't know what you're doing, you can very easily delete your Windows partition or damage the installation in some other way. Since you have a 32-bit version of Windows 7, you cannot use 4 GB or RAM as there is a limit on 32-bit OS. Installing a 64-bit version of Windows 7 will utilise all 4 GB.

Mexico defence dept attacked Workshop

Hacktivist organisation Anonymous launched a DDoS attack on Mexico’s defence department in support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army

Give life to your ideas By making impressive presentations or videos using PowToon Siddhant Sharma [email protected]

What is PowToon? Powtoon is an online web-based service which enables you to create amazing animated presentations and videos even when you might not know anything about animation or designing at all.

Familiarising yourself with PowToon’s user interface

Choose a name and style from here

After you’ve chosen a template and a type of PowToon (presentation or movie) by giving a name with a description to it, you should click on the edit button and a new window will open up giving you an option to select a type of template. Once there, you’ll notice a host of easy to use controls

even use the Timeline in Powtoon to switch the objects entry and exit timings. At the right side of the Timeline you will find plus (+) and minus (-) buttons which when clicked add or remove a second respectively from the current slide per click.

Making a PowToon movie

This is how the main PowToon window looks like

everywhere. Let’s start understanding what these controls are, shall we? The top part of the window is the PowToon toolbar which has the usual buttons such as New, Save, Cut, Copy, Import, Export, share, etc. Whereas on the left we have the slide pane which contains option to select between movie or presentation modes, clone objects, etc. At the right side you will find a slide style selector. We now move on to the most useful control in PowToon, which is the Powtoon Timeline. It has a radical time based functionality to it which enables you to appropriately assign the amount of time per slide or per object. You can 48 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

ReWalk 2.0

A walking exoskeleton from Argo Medical technologies called the ReWalk 2.0 enables the physically challenged to walk normally

• Add a prop to your character by dragging and dropping a prop on the slide. • In order to add a new slide click on the “plus (+)” button at the left on the slide pane. • Follow the same procedure and add content to your project. • Use the Timeline and drag an object’s start or end bits to move it along the timeline to assign it an entry and exit time on the slide. You can even drag the whole timeline for a particular object and move it before or after another object (this will make that object appear or disappear accordingly). • When you want to add entry or exit effects to your content, click on the respective arrow for the object on the timeline and select an effect such as “Fade”, “Pop” etc. If you don’t require any effect then select “No Effect” from the list. • Use the “Play Start” or “Play” buttons to preview your work and get an idea about what kind of changes can be done in the slide. • Once you get the hang of using the Timeline (it’s very simple), it will be very easy for you to create a good video. • When you have entirely completed your video, just click Save to save your project.

Creating a movie using PowToon is very easy. Follow these simple steps. • Start by clicking on the Start button on My PowToons page in your account and selecting the mode of Powtoon. Select a name and describe your PowToon and choose the style you want for your PowToon movie followed by the template of your choice. After which you Create > Selecting an effect for your content Edit PowToon. • A PowToon window will pop • You can export your work to YouTube out. Add text to the slide by clicking or share it on Facebook and Twitter on the Text option at the right and using the share option. selecting the text type of your choice • And if you want to download your (animated or static). project, just click on the File > • Move onto another slide, and import an Image on the slide using the Import Export Type > Download File and Image option on the Toolbar > you’re done. • If and when you require more features Import. Browse through your files or want to remove PowToon’s branding and select an image to open it. You can from your projects, then you’ll have to resize it as per your convenience. purchase a premium PowToon account • Adding a character is also very easy, Now, get creative and make awesome, just drag and drop your desired charprofessional looking presentations or acter (animated or static) on the slide videos. PowToon’s your canvas. and you’re done.

Facebook app update DIY

Facebook released a new update for its native Android app which adds faster photo viewing experience and voice messaging features

Filabot

A Kickstarted device called “Filabot” can turn household and printed plastic stuff into printable filaments for use in 3D printing

DIY: Make Your Own CMS Sometimes it is more of an effort to adapt an existing CMS to your needs than it is to build one from scratch

A

s many wise people will tell you, avoid making your own CMS, make modules for an existing open source CMS instead. The are many reasons for this – more work, less people who understand your code, poor security. Yet, with the right framework all this can be avoided. Content Management Systems usually revolve around the kind of content being managed, blog posts / articles, audio, video, images or something else entirely. If the data has a non-standard hierarchy then a traditional CMS system might not do. Imagine a CMS for car parts that has a heirarchy of part, which could fit in any number of car, and which could work with any number of other parts. It is unlikely you will find something exactly for this. So how about we make our own? In this DIY we will use Django, a popular web framework written in Python. In this example, we will make a movie database application. Here we have a movie, and each movie has people attached to it in different roles, director, producer, actor and so on. If you are familiar with coding you should be able to follow this DIY quite easily.

1. manage.py: You use this to run commands on your project. 2. mycms folder: This folder has files related to your Django project. 3. mycms/settings.py: This is the file that has all the settings for the project. 4. mycms/urls.py: This file has a table of contents that maps URLs to features of our web app. 5. movies folder: This folder has files related to your movies app. 6. movies/models.py: Here we define the data structure of our website. 7. movies/views.py: This file has the code that actually returns HTML code to a user browsing the website.

Basic setup We need to change some very basic settings before this project will work the way we want. First let’s set up the database; open settings.py and look for the code beginning with DATABASES, it should be near the top.

Pre-requisites To make this application, you need to have Python and Django installed. Rather than go through that here, we can point you to a good tutorial on the Django website: https://docs.djangoproject. com/en/dev/intro/install/

Next we need to set up our project. Create an empty directory for your projects files, and in it run the following command: django-admin.py startproject mycms We just created the basic structure of a Django project, a project in turn can include one or more “apps”. We create that as follows: python manage.py startapp movies We created a single app, called “movies”. An app provides a distinct bit of functionality. In a CMS, one app might manage articles, another the forum and a third could handle images and media. Apps can reference one another, so you could embed your media into a forum post or article.

The Django Project Structure A Django project is a collection of apps configured to work together. You can write these apps, or find ready-made apps and integrate them into your own project. At this point we have the basic structure of our project, so let’s see what role some of the important files play: 50 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

A ready-made admin panel!

Here, change the ENGINE parameter to django. db.backends.sqlite3 and set NAME to test.db. SQLite is a simple SQL engine that keeps everything in a file so we won’t need to set up a server or anything. Further down, in the INSTALLED_APPS code section, uncomment the line’s first commented entry ‘django.contrib.admin’ by removing the # and the space after it; remember, indentation matters a lot in Python. We will also add our own app to the list of installed apps. Add the following line of code at the end inside the INSTALLED_APPS block: ‘movies’, Like the previous step, mind the indentation. Finally, open the urls.py file in the mycms folder and uncomment the lines for the “admin” as instructed by the comments on that file.

ASUS joins WP8 brigade?

According to reports, ASUStek is set to jump in the Windows Phone 8 market with a WP8 version of its popular PadFone

Giving some structure to our blog Now let’s start actually building our CMS. We will start with our models file that defines the data structure of our app. We will have three kinds of objects in our database, the first is a Person object. This is just a first and last name. Second, we have a Role object, for the role a person plays in a movie; just a name is enough here. Finally we have a Movie, which has a title, and an arbitrary number of people, with different roles. class Person(models.Model): first_name = models.CharField(max_ length=50) last_name = models.CharField(max_length=50) def __unicode__(self): return “%s %s” % (self.first_name, self. last_name) The Person class is subclassing the Model class provided by Django, which ensures that we get all the benefits of Django automatically. This will automatically create a database table and provide a rich API. We have kept the person model simple, just the name, but we could add a whole lot more. Each of these becomes a column in the database table, in this case a character field with a maximum length of 50 characters. The __unicode__ method is meant to return a textual representaion of this object; here that is a combination of the first and last name. What we need next is a Role class to define the possible roles a person can have. Rather that hardcoding it, we leave it flexible, so that more roles can be added in the future. class Role(models.Model): name = models.CharField(max_length=50) def __unicode__(self): return self.name This is pretty straightforward compared to what we already did, if you noticed. Finally, we need a @Movie@ class for each movie; we will keep this simple as well: class Movie(models.Model): title = models.CharField(max_length=256) summary = models.TextField() release_date = models.DateField() def __unicode__(self): return self.title Here we have two new fields, a TextField which allows for a greater bulk of text, and a DateField for the release date. Although now we have all the basic data, we need some way to connect them, a way to say which Person worked on what Movie

Developers rejoice!

Google recently added support for ARM in Chrome’s Native Client making the job of developers easy

DIY

in what Role. We’ll call this data model Credit; here is how we define that: class Credit(models.Model): movie = models.ForeignKey(Movie) role = models.ForeignKey(Role) person = models.ForeignKey(Person) ForeignKey is used to link one kind of data to another. So a blog post can have a ForeignKey to an author, or a product object can have one for a manufacturer; it is necessary to create some kind of hierarchy. With this we have defined the structure of the data our app will work with, but we still need to tell it how everything works together. Before we do that though, let’s have Django create the basic structure for our database; run the following command in the main project folder: python manage.py syncdb This creates database tables for our models, and allow you to set up an admin username and password; keep note of that.

The admin panel The great thing about Django is that even with this, our site already has an admin panel, it just doesn’t know about our new data yet. So we need to tell it. Create a new file called admin.py in the movies directory, and add the following code to it: from movies.models import Credit, Movie, Person, Role from django.contrib import admin admin.site.register(Credit) admin.site.register(Movie) admin.site.register(Person) admin.site.register(Role) Now, run the following command in the project directory: python manage.py runserver This will launch the server for our website, by default at http://127.0.0.1:8000. The real magic right now is at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin which hosts the admin panel. Enter the password you used while running the syncdb command, and you will see what we have built. You will see that there is already quite a functional admin system! You can add movies, people, roles and credits. But, the way we add credits isn’t very convenient, wouldn’t it be better to highlight the credits for the movie under it? The good thing is that the admin panel is not only automatically generated, but also highly customisable. Just like we defined a custom data structure for our app using models, we can define a custom admin panel using admin models. We want to add credits from within a movie, for this

Check out a wearable Arduino DIY

The Adafruit Gemma is a 1-inch wearable chip, based on the Arduino platform and is powered by the ATtiny85 with 3 I/O pins and progammable using Micro USB

PS4 may be > Xbox 720

According to a website, sthe Playstation 4 will have a run-capability of 1.84 teraflops, more than the Xbox 720’s 1.23 teraflops http://dgit.in/10u3HLH

inlines = [CreditInline] And modify the line admin.site.register(Person) to admin.site.register(Person, PersonAdmin).

A little for the front

This is a much better way of adding movie credits. By the way you can click on the “+” to quickly add an object of that type!

what we need is an inline model, i.e. a way to input information about one model from within another model. Here is how that could be coded: from movies.models import Credit, Movie, Person, Role from django.contrib import admin class CreditInline(admin.TabularInline): model = Credit extra = 3 class MovieAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin): inlines = [CreditInline] admin.site.register(Movie, MovieAdmin) admin.site.register(Person) admin.site.register(Role) The CreditInline class uses the Credit model, and allows for it to be embedded inline within another admin model. We are subclassing from TabularInline, but there is another option, StackedInline which looks a bit different; try it out. By setting a value for extra we tell the admin panel to allow people to enter three entries for Credits for a movie by default, although they are free to add more. In the previous example we just used the admin.site.register to register our models with the admin. This uses the default settings for the admin panel. In this example we are overriding the settings for the admin panel for movie by making a class for it and customising its settings. The only setting we change here is that it should have an inline model, the CreditInline model. If you run the site now, you will see a much better interface for adding movie credits. If we want, we can add the same inline option for people, so each person’s admin page will list the movies that person has contributed to. For that we just add a PersonAdmin mirroring what we did for MovieAdmin, and register it the same we do for Movie. Add: class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin): 52 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

All we can do right now is add data, but there is no way to show it to users. Let’s do something about that. The urls.py file comes into play here. When someone visits a URL on our site, Django checks if the URL matches a pattern in this file, and calls the corresponding function. The pattern matching is done using Regex, and the functions are stored in the views.py file. Look at the examples in the urls.py file, then let’s add one of our own. Above the admin code, add this: url(r’^movie/(?P\d+)/$’, ‘movies.views. movie_detail’), The first parameter to URL is a regular expression for matching a URL that has “movie/” followed by a number, which is captured as movie_id. It will then pass this movie_id to the movie_detail function in the views.py files in the movies app. Open the views.py file and add the following: from movies.models import Credit, Movie from django.http import HttpResponse def movie_detail(request, movie_id): the_movie = Movie.objects.get(id=movie_id) credits = Credit.objects.filter(movie=the_movie) html = “%s” % (the_movie.title) for credit in credits: html += “%s: %s ” % (credit.role, credit.person) return HttpResponse(html) If you visit the URL http://127.0.0.1:8000/movie/1/ the above function will be called with the value of movie_id set to 1. What you do in this function is up to you, but it needs to return something for the browser to show. Here it is an HttpResponse with some HTML code. You will see Django ORM (Object-Relation mapping) API used for the first time here. The first line retrieves the Movie object for the requested id. We then filter all the Credit objects that match this Movie. The movie name and credits and then put in some basic HTML code and returned to the browser. Add a few movies with credits and try this out to see a very simple HTML page.

Conclusion And there you have it, a custom CMS with custom data. It is easy to apply this same method to any kind of data structure and work with books, libraries and authors, or music, artists, genres, albums and producers. You define the kind of data you want to work with, and Django makes you a rich, easy-to-use admin panel and the rest is up to you. Ther is a lot more to Django, the admin panel can be customised a lot more, ther are powerful tools and features for dealing with the frontend using a simple template language. And there’s a lot more to Django’s database API which we just glossed over above. If you are intrigued visit www.djangoproject.com for a lot more information.

Tips & Tricks

iOS 6

page to reveal the browser’s History instantly. From here, you can easily access and scroll through your Safari data all the way back when you started using your iOS 6 device.

The latest Apple mobile OS doesn’t come with a bag of tricks that not only add glitter and glamour to iOS, but it also incorporates features that brings it up to par with some of its popular rivals. Overall, there are lots of nifty additions to the OS’ repertoire to make it truly shine and more compelling for past and present users of iPhones and iPads. We try and cover some tricks that you absolutely must try.

Siri app launcher When you have hundreds of apps installed on your iPhone or iPad, finding the one you want at any given time can turn into a tedious task. There’s only so much Spotlight searches one would execute before wishing

Guided access

iOS 6.............................................................................07 Chrome........................................................................08 SublimeText................................................................ 11

{

Tips & Tricks has its own page numbers, and does not follow the rest of the magazine’s page numbers. This is done to ensure that you can cut out and save T&T in a separate folder for later reference.

Siri is a pretty smart personal assistant – it can launch apps

for a better workaround. For your iOS 6-enabled Apple device, there is such a workaround. And it’s better than the option of filtering everything down to folders and trusting your memory to recollect the correct one for any particular app. Siri is the answer to this app-launching woe. The voiceassisted assistant in iOS 6 can launch apps if you ask her to do so. Just hard-press your supported iOS 6 Apple device’s Home button to launch the Siri console, hit the microphone button, and clearly speak out the name of the app you want

to launch. So in all the mess of overflowing apps, Siri can actually launch apps faster and in lesser steps compared to finding it through Spotlight. Don’t be shy, give it a try.

}

But in iOS 6, Apple has oneclick access controls to quickly look up past history of your browsing data either within Safari or the App Store. If you’re in the iTunes app, shopping for something, just look for the History button in the search bar which should tell you your entire history of accessing iTunes and past transactions starting from the most recent on top. In Safari, just hard-press the back button on any open Web

Our phones are seldom our sole possessions these day, as they easily extend into digital toys for kids at home. How does one give one’s iPhone or iPad to a technically novice-minded young one or adult and expect them to not interfere with any other functions of the device that you deem as off-limits? Well, in iOS 6, Apple has finally embedded a feature called Guided Access which tries to address this specific issue for iOS 6 device owners who have over-inquisitive kids demanding their gadgets. Guided Access lets you open an app or a game and basically explicitly instruct the iPhone or iPad to limit the device’s interaction with that particular active app and nothing else. To turn add Guided Access in your iOS 6 device, go to General Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access. Turn the feature On by tapping on its slider button. Once your device is in Guided Access mode, open up any application, triple click on the Home button, click on Guided Access and give

Access History How many times has it happened that you visit iTunes Store or Safari browser, trying to remember that interesting app or web page that you saw couple of days back? And how often does your memory fail you in such instances? Most of the times, without a doubt – it’s a common occurrence for all iOS users of the past.

| www.thinkdigit.com

Your iTunes browsing history is saved for quick access in future

Vol 13 | 07

Digit | February 2013

Tips & Tricks it to any unsuspecting child. Despite their best attempts, you’ll notice that the device refuses to return to the Home screen despite repeatedly pressing the Home button. To get out of Guided Access mode, you have to type the passcode that you initially secured your device with. Hopefully, this passcode will be a wellguarded secret.

Disable ad tracking Apple has restored control back to the user as far as privacy is concerned in iOS 6, by allowing users to decide on their own whether they want marketers to track their browsing habits to direct targeted ads to your iOS device.

Multiple email signature Email signatures are absolutely essential to have, whether you’re responding to official work email or personal mails from your iPhone or iPad. It’s part of email etiquette, basically. And if you’re in the habit of ending mails sent from your different email accounts with the same signature, iOS 6 has come to set the record straight and rescue you from this habit. With iOS 6, each one your linked email account can now have its own unique signature – that’s right. Good riddance to the dull and boring default “Sent

Crack the whip on ad tracking services. Crack it hard!

If you dislike adverts targeted at you, just go to Settings > General > About in your iOS 6, and scroll down to Advertising. Tap and then slide on the “Limit Ad Tracking” feature to help prevent inquisitive online marketers from bombarding you with targeted ads on your iOS device. Also, as far as the device’s general privacy goes, Apple has added a dedicated Privacy field under General settings. Clicking on it lets you access various subfeatures like Location Services (which tells you which thirdparty apps are accessing your device’s location data), and more. In fact, you can even regulate the level of access granted to your Twitter and Facebook

with a customized message with the click of an additional button, while the latter lets you choose between postponed call-back reminders on your iPhone which will prompt you to return the call at the time of your choosing.

data through this dashboard, and completely revoke access to OS-wide social media services.

from an iPhone” message, isn’t it? Editing the signature settings for each email account on your iOS 6 device is simple, just navigate to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and scroll down to the Signature button. Tap on Signature > Per Account, and type in the personalized signature you want for each

Offline reading list

Account-specific sigs FTW!

account. Like we said, no more “Sent from an iPhone”, please.

Reply/Remind with Phone Calls How cool would it be to spare yourself the trouble and actually let your phone remember what missed calls you’d like to get back to? With iOS 6, Apple lets iPhone users do just that in a simple and straightforward fashion. Normally, when you get an incoming call on your iPhone, you see the standard choices, Decline or Answer, displayed in bold on the lock screen. But if your iPhone runs on iOS 6, you can access an additional flick-on menu that comes into view when you flick the screen from bottom to top. You see now two additional buttons displayed below the Decline or Answer buttons – Reply with Message and Remind Me Later. The first of those two additional options lets you quickly reply the caller

Reply with a message or set a reminder for incoming calls

Digit | February 2013

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Apple also effectively combines the power of its iCloud sync service and a feature from its Mac OS X Mountain Lion build to introduce a nifty feature in iOS 6 – Reading list. It’s basically an offline reader for synced and saved web articles. When you’re on a long, interesting Web page that you’d like to read during your commute back home, just tap the Share button in Safari’s browser to reveal a menu. Select Add to Reading List from the bevy of options displayed, and you can now effectively save a complete offline copy of a web page (with images, formatting, etc) as is for deferred reading. You’ll see the reading glasses icon while the article is uploaded on iCloud. This is a great feature for those of us who have a non-data equipped iPod touch or Wi-Fi only iPad – basically anyone who can’t connect to the Internet on the go. Next time you’re in office, all you have to do is add interesting articles to your Reading list and you’re done.

Chrome Apple’s popular adage that “there’s an app for that” which they largely meant for mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad can be tweaked to “there’s an extension for that” and applied to most popular Web browsers these days. Here we take a look at hand-picked Google Chrome extensions that enhance your time on the Web and optimize your browser experience. There’s also tips in there to | www.thinkdigit.com

Tips & Tricks tweak Chrome’s performance through its advanced settings.

To-do lists This is a simple yet efficient extension to amp up those simple to-do lists, sync them online and across devices. Download and install the Any. do Chrome extension from Chrome Webstore. • Add the extension and find it at the top-right corner of your browser window. • Click on it to reveal a dropdown menu. • You either sign-up for an account or login with your Facebook credentials. That’s it. Now start adding the to-do items by clicking on the blue icon on the top-right corner of the Chrome browser window. If you’re a heavy Gmail user, you’ll be happy to know that Any.do’s Chrome extension is deeply integrated into the

Gmail inbox, letting you create tasks out of them, which can then be added to Any.do and synchronised across devices. In your Gmail inbox, you can click the “Remind Later” button on any email that you want to add to the Any.do to-do list. Give Any.do a try on Google Chrome, it’s a nice little personal assistant helping you organize your life, one browsing session at a time.

Privacy Fix The Internet is notorious for wanting to track your browsing habits – well, not the internet per se, most of the websites that we tend to visit. Often tracking websites collect browsing data to analyse user behaviour, and most of them do this without acknowledging the fact to unsuspecting users. If you want to navigate the privacy landmines of the

Privacyfix is an eye-opener

Internet highway effectively, Privacy Fix is one Google Chrome extension you have to start using immediately. • Search for “privacyfix” in Chrome’s webstore. Add the extension to your browser, and notice the square icon labelled “fix” appear in the top-right bar of Chrome. • Enable the Healthbar to see privacy ratings as you visit websites. • In the dropdown, hit on ‘Settings’ to let Privacyfix show its true colours.

• The extension now redirects you to the privacyfix.com website where it gives you a quick overview about your privacy settings on Facebook, Google, popular websites that share data, tracking cookies, and explains the Heatlthbar – how to interpret its rating. Once installed on Google Chrome, Privacyfix means that you can never be left in the dark about your privacy on the websites you visit.

Undisturbed reading Readers are unhappy and complaining about the lack of standards in most websites, when it came to amplifying, celebrating the very essence and joy of readings. So far as we know, most of the Internet sports websites whose pages have a lot of distracting ads that take away from the reading experience.

Tips & Tricks With extensions like MagicScroll Web reader or iReader, you can have a smooth, uninterrupted reading experience. • Install MagicScroll Web reader • Visit a website page • Click the MagicScroll “book” icon in your browser to pull and display the text in plain, nothing else. iReader works in much the same way on Google Chrome, transforming interactive Web pages into clean, serene book pages with just a white background and text. Make the most of your online reading sessions.

Delete browsing history As you well may know by now that Google Chrome (any other of its competitors) saves browsing data in chronological order (unless you surf the web in Incognito Mode). But how do you do more than just what default options Google Chrome offers? Find and download History Eraser from Chrome’s webstore to get things rolling. • Click on the eraser icon on the top-right corner of Chrome to launch History Eraser’s app window. • Apart from giving you basic features that Chrome’s default History mechanism offers (clear cache, delete cookies, delete browsing data, etc), History Eraser has a whole lot of other filters to carefully tweak and delete every facet of your browser activity from the records. • What’s more, with this extension, you can prevent the default Chrome history page from showing up – just tick the option in History Eraser’s console and try hitting Control+H to no avail. This extension is highly recommended for one-click actions you want to take on your Chrome’s browser history.

App management Just what do you do when you have too many apps and extensions installed on your Chrome browser? You install another extension called Nexos (from the webstore) to make sense of all the other plugins installed and available on your PC. Nexos is an offline app which helps you organize everything from your bookmarks to your extensions and apps. Not only this, it also comes with built-in support to connect and access Google+, Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Flickr, GitHub, Vimeo and Google Drive account all through its console. • Install and access the Nexos app through a new tab. • Its home screen shows management options like Apps and Extensions, Bookmarks, Images, Videos, etc. • Click on the Settings gear wheel on the top-right.

Nexos is a basic app manager for Chrome

• You will now see the Connections view of Nexos, handling your Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, Google+, etc., connections. With Nexos installed in your Chrome browser, you can pick and choose which apps and extensions you want to keep active or disable. And also its connections menu feature lets you easily access data from your various social network and email accounts in one convenient place. Give this a try and see if it adds to your browsing experience.

Digit | February 2013

The Summer Chrome extension is great for additional research

Meta info There’s a nifty, littleknown extension for Chrome that scans every webpage you visit for the mention of popular personalities. Upon encountering names that it cross checks with entries in its vast database, it quickly lets you know that you can know a lot more about them... without opening another tab! Now isn’t that wonderful? That’s what Summer is all about. According to its official description, “Summer makes it easy for online users to get a comprehensive and informative snapshot about people, companies and other topics they find interesting within pages and articles they visit across the web.” • After you install the extension from Chrome’s webstore, just access any random webpage. • If Summer finds names of people or companies mentioned on the page for which it has additional info, it will slide-in its logo from the right-side of the screen as an overlay, trying to grab your attention. • Clicking on it will drop down a column along the right-side of the browser with names Summer found on the page. • Click on any one of the names to access additional info about the person or company. • The additional info Summer offers include Wikipedia bios, related video, news

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summary from various sources, Twitter buzz, links to official website, and more. The biggest asset of Summer is to give you all this rich info about subjects it finds right there on the same page, as opposed to our usual habit of opening a new tab and Googling the subject ourselves.

Night vision Staring at bright computer screens displaying white as the dominant colour can make your eyes weary in no time. And the problem is amplified when you sit in a room where your PC’s screen is the only light source illuminating your immediate surroundings. For all the night owls out there, who spend way too much time online in front of their computers in the dark, here’s an extension just for you. • Install this extension from Chrome’s webstore. • After installation, click the moon-like black and white orb icon visible in the topright corner of Chrome. • Select from Normal, Increased Contrast, Grayscale, Inverted Color, and Inverted Grayscale display options, as per what you find comfortable. • Apply a setting. You can even customise a particular setting for a website, forcing it to open with one of these filters applied whenever you access that site. | www.thinkdigit.com

Tips & Tricks Install it and give this a try, your eyes will thank you later!

Tweak performance • Over time, Google Chrome has garnered a reputation of being quite heavy on system resources, clogging up CPU cycles and taking up generous amount of RAM (like a boss!). This behaviour is even more magnified on systems running on older hardware or low-end PCs that are low on system resources in the first place. • A common trick devised to address this is by allowing the GPU to take over some of the processing tasks by accessing Chrome Experiments in the browser. Just type “chrome://flags” in the URL bar and press Enter and you’ll see a whole new tab with a list of experiments available for Google Chrome. Scroll down to locate “GPU

by clicking on the top-right button > Settings > Advanced Settings > Uncheck “Automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google” under Privacy. • Clear browsing data from time to time to avoid a lot of clutter from stacking up and hampering the browser’s performance. Go to Settings > Advanced Settings > Hit the “Clear browsing data” button to do some spring cleaning. Doing this once a month is recommended.

SublimeText If you haven’t heard of Sublime Text, you are missing out on what is possibly one of the best text editors available today. Sublime Text is a simplistic text editor with an uncluttered UI a beautiful interface, and a powerful keyboard driven interface. It has very rich keyboard shortcuts that make reaching for the

The command palette is one of the best features of Sublime Text

is a list of commands and their corresponding short-cuts, if any. The best thing about this list is that it is searchable. If at any point you want to perform an action, and you do not know the keyboard short-cut for it, simply open the Command Palette, and start typing the name of the action. Let’s say you want to convert a sentence from normal case to title case. Open the command palette and type “case”. You should see a number of options for converting between different cases.

Install the Package Manager

Sublime text has a clean and neat interface that is focussed on text editing

compositing on all pages” in the list and select “Enabled” from the drop-down action. Also enabled “Threaded compositing” for good measure. • Google Chrome anonymously collects stats to send crash reports back to the development team to make the browser better. However, turning off this feature can give you a minor performance benefit. Launch Chrome’s drop-down menu

mouse unnecessary. It is also highly customisable and extensible with its own plug-in API.

Command Palette Probably the most powerful feature of Sublime Text is the Command Palette accessible by pressing Ctrl+Shift+P. Think of it as a command line for Sublime Text. When you use the aforementioned shortcut, what you see

| www.thinkdigit.com

Installing packages for Sublime Text is simple enough, and just requires one to copy the package files to the Sublime Text packages directory. However there is a better way that integrates with the Sublime Text editor – Sublime Package Control. Sublime Package Control is a package manager that allows you to download, install, update, and remove packages directly from Sublime Text. Of course you need to install the package manager itself first, but that too is simple enough. Visit http://dgit.in/SHszAW for installation instructions. Once it is installed, you will notice new commands for managing packages in your Command Palette. Press Ctrl+Shift+P and then type “install” and you will see “Package Control: Install

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Package” as one of the options. Select it and after a short wait you will see a searchable list of packages you can install.

Plug-ins Now that you have the package manager, there are a few plug-ins you just need to install: • Prefixr: If you work a lot with CSS, this plug-in is a must have. It automatically adds the correct browser prefixes to CSS properties. • Sublime Alignment: This neat plug-in allows you to automatically align your code to the same indent level or align assignments around the “=” • SFTP: If you want to work on code directly on a remote FTP server. • BracketHighlighter: Automatically highlights starting and ending brackets around a code segment. • Emmet: Formerly known as Zen Coding, this is a highly condensed way of writing HTML or CSS code. • OmniMarkupPreviewer: If you want to use lightweight markup languages like Markdown or Textile, this plug-in is must have. It exports such mark-up to HTML and shows a live preview in your browser. • CodeIntel: This plug-in adds support for code auto-completion, function call tooltips, and jump to definition, bringing it closer to an IDE. Digit | February 2013

Tips & Tricks • Nettuts+ Fetch: If you routinely need to work with remote files, this is a handy package. Just configure your popular remote files, and this package will fetch the latest version for you whenever you want. • ColorPicker: This allows you to tweak CSS colours with a handy colour picker. • SublimeREPL: This gives Sublime Text an inbuilt REPL or Read Evaluate Print Loop or in other words interpreter. It supports supports a number of languages, from Python and JavaScript to F# and R. • Gist: If you use GitHub, the Gist plug-in will come handy as it allows you to quickly publish some code from a local file to a Gist. Once you have the package manager installed, just search for these packages using that and install them if you want. There are nearly a thousand packages available for Sublime Text that do everything from adding support for specific frameworks, adding support for VCS systems, changing the theme or colour scheme, automatic linting, adding support for more languages, and lot more.

Edit at multiple points Another powerful feature of Sublime Text is multiple cursors. With multiple cursors active, you can type the same text in multiple locations at the same time. To use multiple cursors, simply click in multiple places in your document while keeping the Ctrl key pressed. Wherever you click, a new cursor will be added, and any text you type now will simultaneously appear in all those places. A keyboard shortcut for this is also available, press Ctrl+Alt+Up or Ctrl+Alt+Down to add another

cursor at the same column in the line above, or below respectively. To get rid of multiple cursors, and switch back to a single one—as you would obviously want to do at some point, just press Esc.

Multiple Selections Just like you can have multiple cursors, you can have multiple selection as well, which let you modify multiple places at the same time. The process of making multiple selections is simple. If you have some text selected, and you would like to select more text elsewhere, just drag and select that text while keeping Ctrl pressed. This feature is a lot more powerful though. Let’s say you realise after writing a lot of text that you spelled ‘colour’ as ‘color’ and you were supposed to use the British spelling? Simply put your cursor over ‘color’ and press Ctrl+D; this will select ‘color’ and highlight other instances. Now keep pressing Ctrl+D till all — or as many as you want — instances are selected. Then simply type in the replacement.

Modifying settings You may find that Sublime Text doesn’t really have a settings panel like you might expect. There is no GUI for configuring the software, but what you do have is a rich set of configuration files that let you alter nearly everything about the software. In the Preferences menu, you will find entries such as Settings - Default and Settings - User. Altering either of them will change the desired setting, but only the User settings will survive an update to a plug-in or of Sublime Text. By default many “User” setting will be blank, but you can open the “Default” versions of

Digit | February 2013

the config files to see what settings are available to configure. If you want you can just copypaste the contents of the default file in the user file and only modify the settings you want. This is recommended because this file has to be in a very specific format called JSON. The settings are terse variable names, but the names are often self-explanatory. For example: “spell_check” sets whether Sublime Text automatically highlights spelling mistakes by default, you might want to enable it if you mostly work with non-code text; “highlight_ line” sets whether the line(s) containing a cursor should be highlighted. Most plug-ins will

that, we’ll assume that is what you have done. Find the line that says “theme”, which by default is set to “Default.sublime-theme”. Change this setting based on the theme you installed. Try it with the popular “Soda” theme. Install the Soda theme using the package manager, and then change this setting to “Soda Light.sublime-theme” for the light version of the theme, or “Soda Dark.sublime-theme” for the dark version.

Colour Scheme Like the theme, the syntax highlighting scheme used by Sublime Text can also be changed. Like themes, you can

Here we see the Nexus theme using the Nexus code highlighting

have their own setting, which too will be divided into default and user.

Change the theme The default UI theme is pretty good, but you may have your own preferences, and luckily for you the theme can be changed. Installing a theme is simple thanks to the package manger, just search for “theme”. Switching themes however, requires you to edit the configuration files. Select Settings - User from the Preferences menu. As we said before, this file uses the JSON format, if you don’t know what that is just copy the everything from Settings Default and make changes to

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find colour schemes using the package manager. Just search for scheme and you should see many of them. Sublime Text has a simple UI for changing colour schemes; they are all listed hierarchically under Preferences > Color Scheme. Some themes also include colour schemes that fit with that scheme.

Make a plug-in If all else fails you can always make your own plug-in for Sublime Text. You will notice that the Tools menu has a New Plugin... option. SublimeText plug-ins are written in Python, so you will need to know that a bit in order to do something useful. You can check out a tutorial here: http://dgit.in/149A1bt. | www.thinkdigit.com

Our pick of the best tech articles from around the globe

(Must reads) Smart appliances? Really? We saw some smart home appliances launched at CES with ridiculous pricing over their non-smart counterparts. In this article, the author builds a case for how smart appliances should actually be and debunks the ‘smartness’ of the current appliances.

(Wired Corner) Graph Search: The Inside Story

http://dgit.in/13YxOi2

Gabe Newell on the future of SteamBox

In this free-wheeling chat, Valve’s Gabe Newell tells us about SteamBox – a Valve-developed hardware case targetted at gamers. He stresses on using biometrics as an input method over traditional motion controllers; the future of multiple screen gaming; user-generated stores on Steam and more.

http://dgit.in/Xs5aR0

Facebook announced its third pillar – Graph Search – on Jan 15th, but this Wired senior writer got early access to the system and has written a wonderful piece on the making of Graph Search. Fun Fact: Graph Search was headed by two ex-Google employees (one of whom was instrumental in forming Google Maps and Google Wave). http://dgit.in/SpojWo

Particle Physics and shopping recommendations? Nothing could be as different as particle physics and online shopping recommendation engines. Yet researchers from a Swiss university are using the philosophy behind particle physics – particles occupying most energetically favourable states or in case of bosons there is no limit to the number that can occupy a given state – and applying it to improve online recommendation engines

http://dgit.in/SqqVU6

A Larry Page interview Google CEO Larry page rarely gives interviews and when he does, the tech world takes notice. Here he talks about the need to work beyond incremental changes, Google X, importance of being able to market your innovations, the future of Motorola and much more. http://dgit.in/XrYAKe

Auto-tech at CES We have all read reams upon reams of coverage of tablets, smartphones, 4K TVs and so on from CES 2013. But there were some innovative auto-tech on display as well. This photo-gallery gives a listing of the best. http://dgit.in/V9JxVl

Hybrid data-networking Optical networking is currently used to transfer data between data centres and sparingly to transfer data within a data centre. It talks about research in the field of hybrid electrical and optical networking which will power future data networks. http://dgit.in/13Xl8b5

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 59

Shorts

(worldview) Arcade nostalgia

Ultra-Def, ultra-woes!

A nostalgic look at the world of arcade gaming in America and how it is slowly dying out. While there is still demand for vintage arcades as a collector’s item, the social gaming phenomenon has surely taken over. http://dgit.in/WyWw3W

This Economist article takes a look at the difficulties and challenges that lie ahead of the 4K resolution. Absence of native 4K content is just one part of the story, but there are more fundamental issues such as content shot in native 4K, cost factor, transmission woes and so on. http://dgit.in/UeKm1P

Just how insignificant are you? This beautiful collection of 50 images of space will bring home the point that we humans are just so insignificant when seen in the context of the entire universe. http://dgit.in/13VJza2

This is why Nvidia’s Shield will fail Copyright © 2012 Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc.

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t CES this year, Nvidia announced something a bit unexpected — a handheld Android gaming console. Rather than just a phone, the Shield is reminiscent of an Xbox 360 controller, but with a clamshell-style screen that folds out on top. It’s an actual handheld unit, rather than some controller attachment. Out of all the recent dedicated Android gaming devices — such as the Ouya or the GameStick — the Shield is not only backed by the developer with the most prestigious reputation out of the bunch, but is the only handheld device. However, it’s still just another Android gaming console that plays the same games as the other ones, and that is the biggest reason why the Shield will most likely fail. First off, it’s worth noting that the Shield is actually a decent piece of hardware. It sports a Tegra 4 SoC (with its 72-core GPU), an integrated 5-inch, 720p display that flips up off the controls, reportedly strong speakers, HDMI out so you can plug it into a bigger display, around five to ten hours of gaming battery life, and a standard amount of buttons found on modern dedicated gaming handheld devices. It will also have access to the Android Play store, which is where you will be able to download games from. In short, the Shield has all the hardware we’d ask for from a modern-day handheld — but really, we’ve come a long, long way since the Game Boy Advance, and a decent hardware spec is usually a given nowadays.

60 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

The hardware seems legit, but as we’ve learnt from eight generations of video game consoles, hardware isn’t the sole decider of a console’s success. The fate of the Shield seems to lie with its intent. The reason why Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve (with Steam), and Apple (with iOS) have carved out their own large portions of the gaming market is because they all offer something competent you can’t get anywhere else. Sony and (to a lesser extent, considering the ports to PC) Microsoft have its own exclusives, Nintendo is practically built on exclusives (whether it be franchises or wacky hardware), and iOS not only offers exclusives, but is the platform on which the most popular games initially release. Though Android is fragmented in terms of both the spread of its operating systems and hardware on which they’re installed, it’s not like the OS can’t run games — for instance, there have been multiple Humble Bundles loaded with Android games, and top-tier games at that. Nvidia’s Shield has a rough road ahead because it already has too much competition. The Ouya, which already shipped its dev kits and is well on its way to a consumer release, only costs $99. The GameStick is $20 less than the Ouya, and the console fits right inside its own controller. Both units offer a controller, though neither offer portable gaming.

How big are your pockets? Android phones are portable, and can run the same games the Shield can — but your smartphone obviously doesn’t provide a standard gamepad layout that games can target. However, because the Shield can’t make calls, you’ll still have to carry around your phone — a device on which you can already (most

Qualcomm’s keynote covered with pics and tweets Qualcomm launched the new line of Snapdragon processors. But it also had one of the most quirkiest keynotes at CES. A hilarious take via images and tweets. http://dgit.in/13VK2c6

- By James Plafke

likely) play the same games. Users will be forced to make the choice between a unit with more comprehensive features, or one that lets you use a controller to play games that weren’t designed with a controller in mind. We don’t even know if the Shield will fit in your pocket: It looks rather chunky to me. Sure, considering the Ouya and GameStick are on the horizon as well, game developers could begin creating worthwhile Android games with a controller in mind, but they would only do that if they knew it would be profitable — and that leads us to the catch-22 of trying to open up a new market. Developers generally won’t develop something if it won’t return any profit, so they need a large enough install base of gamers to buy their products; however, a large enough install base of gamers generally won’t adopt a console if there aren’t guaranteed products they want. If you’re wondering why the Ouya and GameStick aren’t being judged the same way, that’s because they shouldn’t be judged the same way. They’re two crowdfunded, fairly simple (and thus cheap) indie projects. Though we haven’t heard mention of a price for the Shield yet, considering the hardware packed under (and above!) the hood, Nvidia will most likely have to eat a significant sum of money to price it competitively. The dedicated Android gaming console is an awesome product in theory, but its success will ultimately boil down to what the success of all gaming consoles boils down to, and that’s the games. If the Shield wants to succeed, Nvidia needs to get some impactful exclusives pretty quickly, or else people will most likely continue playing Game Dev Story on their phone like they’ve been doing all along.

(worldview) Making the Raspberry Pi This ZDNet article takes an in-depth look into the making of the USD 35 barebones computer – the Raspberry Pi, the inspiration and developments and plans for the future. Upton, the founder thought that 1000 units were the maximum he could hope to sell! http://dgit.in/VKILkm

Remembering Aaron Swartz

Games to look forward to

26-year old Aaron Swartz, Reditt co-founder and the boy wonder responsible for the RSS framework committed suicide. This obituary tells us about this hacker with a conscience whose only crime was freeing information from behind paywalls. http://dgit.in/WaZJJj

A compilation of games alongwith their storylines and video trailers to look forward to from January to March 2013. A must read for all you gaming enthusiasts. http://dgit.in/VJDGJ6

Why Nvidia’s Shield will succeed Copyright © 2012 Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc.

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vidia’s Tegra 4 chip might have been leaked a dozen times in the run up to CES 2013, but its Project Shield handheld console was a complete surprise. Powered by the Tegra 4 and rocking a 720p display, the Shield is an Android gaming machine that seems to be flirting with both success and failure. But when you look at the state of the mobile gaming market one thing is clear: Nvidia has all the cards needed to score a big win with the Shield. The single biggest advantage Shield has is that Nvidia is not stuck developing a content ecosystem for a single device. Sony and Nintendo, for instance, have to sell developers on making games for their singular handhelds. Nvidia is taking a different route by leveraging multiple existing ecosystems rather that starting from scratch. Project Shield runs full stock Android with Play Store access, and Android gaming has truly taken off in the last year. There are loads of awesome platformers, adventure games, and 3D shoot-em-ups. Many of these titles include controller support (either Bluetooth or wired), and that means the Shield will be ideal for playing the likes of GTA: Vice City, Sonic, and Need for Speed. There are hundreds of games like this just waiting to grace the Shield’s screen, and Nvidia doesn’t have to lift a finger to make that happen. Developers don’t need to be convinced to make these games. Android accounts for

roughly 75 per cent of smartphone shipments and Google activates over 1.3 million devices every single day. No one has to worry about whether or not there will be game available for the Shield. The calculation is based on Android’s success, and that’s an easy call for plenty of devs. Nvidia is also using its dominance in PC gaming to sweeten the deal. The Shield will sync up with Steam to stream PC games across your home network so they can be played on the handheld or a TV in another room. And, of course, the visuals in a PC game are still worlds better than what you’ll see on any handheld console. Nvidia demoed this with a very pricey GTX680 desktop card, but it could be a

Analogue love! Last year we saw Canon 6D and Nikon D600, the “cheaper” fullframe DSLRs enter the market. There are enough videos online comparins the two. In this video we take a look at even cheaper full-frame cameras – the analog SLRs. Nikon F65, Canon EOS 5 and Minolta Maxumm 7000 face off in this unlikely comparison:) http://dgit.in/T9Qn1J

- By Ryan Whitwam

killer feature if made available to a wider range of Nvidia hardware. The third prong in Nvidia’s content attack is Tegra gaming. In addition to the standard controller-compatible games in Google Play, there are dozens of games with Tegra-optimized graphics. Some are exclusive to Tegra, and some just have enhanced graphics on Tegra chips. A game like Dead Trigger looks nearly console level on Tegra 3, and Tegra 4 is only going to up Nvidia’s game. With Tegra 4, Nvidia promises graphics unlike we’ve seen before on Android. The brief demo of Dead Trigger 2 was indeed stunning. The Shield has more raw power than the Xbox 360 and it fits in your (admittedly large) pocket. Nvidia has been working with developers for years to optimize games for its video cards. That’s the same thing it’s doing on Android — it works with app devs to support the creation of games that are targeted specifically at Tegra. I’m always surprised how effectively Nvidia pushes Tegra Zone games onto Android. It happened with Tegra 2, with Tegra 3, and it’s going to happen with Tegra 4 and Shield — content won’t be a problem. The Shield will be a pure Android device with access to all the cool cloud services Google has to offer. Nvidia could have forked Android and designed its own separate ecosystem for maximum control, but it chose a more open approach. That, along with multiple gaming options is going to earn Nvidia plenty of fans. If the company can sell Shield for a reasonable price, it’s a clear winner and a good alternative to all those mediocre Bluetooth controllers strapped to phones. Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 61

(worldview) (worldview) HeadSqueezeTV Ever wondered what exactly constitutes ‘1 second’? Or how much water does the Earth hold?

Many more such questions, which most of us will not give a second glance to, are answered in this brand new BBC channel Headsqueeze TV. It has sub-sections such as NumberPad, Live experiments, James May’s QnA, Sci Guide and so on involving scientists, mathematicians and even comedians giving you interesting insights into everyday things. http://dgit.in/WznwjQ

(Product Launches) Xperia Tablet Z

Fujifilm X100S

Samsung S9 UHD 4K TV

At 6.9mm this is the thinnest tablet in the world and at 495 gms, much lighter than the iPad.The 10.1-inch Xperia Tablet Z having a 1920x1200 pixel resolution is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, runs on Android 4.1 and sports a 8.1 MP rear camera. Pricing will be known at MWC.

Fujifilm updated their retro-looking X100 with the X100S at CES 2013. It houses a 16.3MP APS-C X-Trans

Ultra HD was the buzzword at this years CES and Samsung announced the S9 Ultra

CMOS II sensor, a hybrid optical / electronic viewfinder, 2.8-inch 460k dot LCD and it can shoot at 6 FPS in RAW format. It is expected to hit the markets in midMarch at USD 1399.95.

HD 4K TV which measures 85-inches diagonally, has an easel design which houses 120 Watt speakers and houses a quad-core processor. It will be available from March onwards at an insane pricing of USD 38,000.

Absolute

wO R D j umb l e K T U H K K W Z A B U N T M M A H Z K A C N K X D E P A R T S N I A G A E M E K A X E C A P S S D R I B Y R G N A U R J B E X H C B A J N I N T I U R F A I K B T N E Q K D R P X F Z R H E P U E N G W H N P G Y E P R X Y L E N I T N E S J I G N X W Q A E G D I R B P L E H A M B P I Y U X S D X W M L U O N D F F N X T I F O X T H T T A H C E W E Q S H I P H C V S A O B R S X W E R J C B I V R U Z Y V H M Y Y I N U R E L P M E T H B T M S W K K T N G M F P T L A H P S A H A J T

(QR Code)

D W I P O G C O N O T A H C A Z A F K G K L K F W E T M B Y T J E V I F Y L I B S C A U U R Y L Z O P T E K I H A X L K

Top 3

For a list of all the links from this section, head over to http://dgit.in/WorldViewFeb2013 Or point your phone to the QR code above 62 62 Digit Digit||February February2013 2013||www.thinkdigit.com www.thinkdigit.com

Timepass

Picks

You will find all the apps covered in the App Watch section and some game related apps in this word grid. Find as many as you can.

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

Push to add drama

Smart kitteh

The new planking?

Duration: 01 mins 46 secs

Duration: 00 mins 57 secs

Duration: 01 mins 42 secs

What happens when you press

So you thought cats were only

YouTube star Ryan Higa takes a

a red button which has a notice

good at being lazy and had no

dig at the weird trend – planking

‘Push to add drama’? See it live.

brains? He’ll prove you’ll wrong.

– with his own – Milking.

http://dgit.in/Sq76fH

http://dgit.in/Sqajff

http://dgit.in/WlAMst

> code / creativity / community > Interview with

Sunil Shetty, Mobile Developer, eBuddy

For the complete interview visit: devworx.in

*side panel

BlackBerry 10 is here...

I

t’s February, and after a long wait, BlackBerry 10 is finally out there. A couple of analysts we spoke to believe “BB10 definitely has an advantage, if compared to other new platforms such as Windows Phone”. When compared to an open platform such as Android, it won’t have challenges such as fragmentation to the extent that developers working on Google’s platform face. At the same time, it’s of course not as ‘closed’ in nature as Apple is.

Monetarily speaking, it’s cheapest to develop for BlackBerry. Yet, at the same time, BlackBerry developers earn more than 4 times what Apple developers earn. Scrolling down to the overall experience, or user interface per se, there has been a lot of squabbling between Apple and the Android camp. A couple of days ago, a court ruled specifically that Samsung tablets do not infringe Apple patents. After these technological

*footer

http://dvwx.in/10lbP5T

Read the entire article at http://dvwx.in/T51ZTC and share your comments.

Oracle faces hiccups

Github’s two million

>>Launched in April 2008--GitHub--the open source developer’s code repository of choice, now has 3 million developers on board. By adding 1.3 million sign-ups since raising $100 million in July, GitHub is now red hot with 3 million developers on board with their 4.9 million repositories. GitHub has been used by several prominent products to host code.

skirmishes, Microsoft had refreshed the ecosytem with its fresh tiled interface in Windows Phone. While all of that seemed unique enough, it left very little space for any new entrant to have room enough to ‘innovate’ with creative, functional or rather original an approach. For a while it felt each piece of innovation risked being the victim of IP claims and possible sabotage. Surprisingly, Research in Motion has mostly overcome all the above hurdles. It’s stripped off bloat, dead weight as an organisation, plugged holes, nearly written off Java for a POSIXcompliant RTOS called QNX that powers car dashboards in over 200 million automobiles across the club, factories as well as nuclear power plants. It’s not without reason that the Canadian company is banking so heavily on BlackBerry 10.

Project Glass begins...

>>The events, which are being called “Glass Foundry”, will allow developers to get to know the Mirror API and start developing for Google Glass with the help of easy access being made available to a number of Google Engineers at the events.

http://dvwx.in/UUZMFF

>>Google is now allowing Android application developers to respond to reviews generated for their apps on the Play Store. Read:

http://dvwx.in/VKEu1q

*15k apps in 37.5 hours!

>>Yes, that’s exactly what Research in Motion managed to pull with a hackathon prior to the launch of BlackBerry 10. Read:

http://dvwx.in/VKEvCz

*Device irrelevant

>>A new study by Accenture reveals that two-thirds of smartphone and tablet owners don’t have strong brand loyalty to any one particular operating system. Read:

>>After the American government warned users of the security risk posed by the recently discovered Java vulnerability that was being exploited in the wild, Oracle quickly came into action and posted a security update within 3 days of the news spreading worldwide. However, according to several analysts, there is still considerable work needed to assuage industry, developer and user concerns surrounding the report of a security vulnerability.

http://dvwx.in/VKEFto

*Respond to App reviews

http://dvwx.in/13fnwK8

For latest news, updates and features, join us on Facebook at

facebook.com/ devworx.in

devworx> | February 2013 | www.devworx.in 63

Firefox OS: Web to the Core >>There’s yet another smartphone OS joining the already confused selection in 2013, and that is Firefox OS. Mozilla’s latest endeavour is an operating system built entirely for the web, sound familiar?> by Kshitj Sobti

F

irefox OS sounds a lot like Google’s Chrome OS, down to the fact that both operating systems are named after their respective browsers. Like Chrome OS which is a Chrome-based browser, Firefox OS is a Firefox-based OS. While similar, they are both actually quite different, and have different goals. What Firefox OS is actually a lot closer to is HP / Palm’s webOS. Firefox OS is an operating system that is designed to run only web applications. On the surface this sounds a lot like Chrome OS and the difference between the OSs seems to be that Chrome OS is for notebooks while Firefox OS is for mobile. However the deeper difference becomes apparent when you consider that in Chrome OS the browser, the UI, and everything are all native code running on Linux; Firefox OS on the other hand is an operating system that itself is a web app! Firefox OS is built entirely using web technologies, this means even the home screen, dialer and even the browser in Firefox OS is written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Firefox OS’s architecture consists of three layers which Mozilla has named Gonk, Gecko and Gaia. The middle one, Gecko might sound familiar, stick with us and you will understand why. Here is what these layers are and what they do: Gaia: This is the visible layer of the OS, it is the UI that you see when you run Firefox OS. Gaia includes all the basic apps of Firefox OS including the dialler, SMS app, the camera app, home screen, lock screen, OS setting app, and almost everything else you would consider and essential part of a mobile OS. Since this is simply a web application, you can easily run it on Firefox, or even Chrome on a desktop or a modern browser running on any platform. Gecko: Gecko is actually the rendering engine used by Firefox. This is what Gaia runs on. Think of it as a fullscreen browser running on the mobile device, with everything else running on top of this full screen browser. The difference between this version of Gecko, and the Gecko have running in desktop or mobile versions of Firefox is that the Firefox OS version of Gecko has mobile APIs required for mobile web applications enabled. Gonk: Gonk is the lowermost layer of Firefox OS. This consists of the Linux kernel and other userspace apps necessary to run the Firefox engine. Since this layer is developed by Mozilla it can give Gecko more access to native hardware than is available on any other OS. This layer actually shares a lot with Android since it has a similar goal of running on mobile devices.

64 devworx> | February 2013 | www.devworx.in

Firefox OS is a web app running on the Firefox engine on Linux. An entire mobile OS written in web technologies that can install run and manage other web applications in itself sounds like a big accomplishment, but it is only a small part of the whole. After all, how does a phone even work, how can a web app make calls? The web platform is the perfect platform for creating cross-platform applications. After all an app can be written once, using one well known technology and it will run on every device. So why do people still spend so much time and money making native apps for different platforms. The fact is that while web apps can reach far, they cannot reach deep. They cannot use features such as system’s camera, or Bluetooth. They cannot use NFC or telephony features of a mobile system. What is left for a mobile app to do? When you think of the SMS app in a mobile, why does it seem like it’s something that a web app could not do? Microsoft can bring its office suit with complex rich formatting and a ribbon interface to the web, but a simple text message sending application seems out of reach. The only thing missing is the last piece of the puzzle, access to the system functionality of sending a message. Currently many developers use toolkits such as PhoneGap to bridge the functionality gap between the web and native apps. However due to the work done by Mozilla and others this might not

always be necessary. In the process of making a mobile OS using web technologies Mozilla also took a look at what is missing from the web platform; what stops developers from making the web applications for mobiles and making native apps instead. Wherever there was a roadblock, a missing API that stopped an application from getting access to a feature it needed, Mozilla decided to start work on an API and submit it as a web standard for inclusion in all browsers, and participate in its development. The result of that effort are the Battery API, WebVibration, WebContacts, Settings API, WebSMS, WebTelephony and a number of other web APIs. Many of these APIs have already been implemented in Firefox OS, giving Firefox OS apps access to those native mobile functions. After all, it’s not that web applications weren’t capable to doing great things, just that they weren’t allowed to. This is where Firefox OS is closer to webOS. Many mobile platforms have embraced the web as an application platform, but with Firefox OS the web IS is the native platform of the device. Every existing web application is already a Firefox OS application. With a little effort it can even become an installable Firefox OS application. Another important part of Firefox OS is Mozilla’s web app store which is intended to make it easy to discover and install web applications on the Firefox OS – and eventually even the desktop – platform. An app doesn’t even need to be on Mozilla’s store to be installable or using on Firefox OS, all it needs to do is support a manifest for installing the app. Perhaps the most important thing to understand about Firefox OS is that it is not competing with Android and iOS. It isn’t even launching in the US first. Firefox OS is designed to run on low power devices, cheap devices. It is intended to bring smartphones to people who currently only have access to feature phones, and make it possible for them to run applications on their mobile that can enrich their lives. This is another place where the ubiquity of the web platform comes in. On a platform like the iOS one simply would not find it worthwhile to create an application that has highly local information, such as an app for a local department store. Not many farmers are likely to have iPhones so an app that lets people check market prices of farm produce is less likely to succeed. Even if these apps are entirely free and not profit driven, they are simply not reaching the right people because those people do not have access to the technology being used to deliver it. Firefox OS intends to be that bridge for those people. Firefox OSs success won’t be

*pointers >>Nuggets of cool code at work

*Firefox Phone OS demoed at CES 2013

>>The initial intended market for devices running B2G is South America and emerging markets. That’s why it was demonstrated on a low-end device. The reasoning for the OS is simply to offer choice and competition in the mobile sphere.

http://dvwx.in/TXFuhv

determined by whether it can dethrone iOS or Android, but how many feature phones can it replace with smartphones phones. How many people finally get access to the web when they never had it before. If you are itching to try Firefox OS for yourself after reading this, the good news is that there is a version that can run on desktop computers. This is a Firefox OS simulator; it essentially runs Gecko on Windows, Linux or Mac OSX and Gaia on top of that. Firefox OS is currently available under its code name of boot2gecko, and as such what you get is a boot2gecko package with the Firefox OS UI running on a phone sized window on your computer. You can download this package from: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/b2g/nightly/latest-mozilla-central/

*Ubuntu Phone first look

>>Aaron hits the floor at Pepcom’s Digital Experience to bring you details on the recently announced Ubuntu platform for smartphones. We wonder if there is enough room to support another mobile operating system.

http://dvwx.in/105Dvvy

*Automating Firefox OS

>>Malini Das discusses the challenges in testing Mozilla’s new Boot2Gecko operating system, and how they arrived at a solution. http://dvwx.in/13yB83j

*Demo of QNX Car 2 application

>>Sheridan Ethier, automotive engineering manager at QNX Software Systems, gives a featureby-feature demo of the QNX CAR 2 application platform in the company’s latest reference vehicle.

http://dvwx.in/UHDSrb

You can get packages for Windows, Linux and OS X here. Firefox OScan also be installed as an add-on for Firefox. This is the recommended method as it integrates with Firefox itself, allowing one to push websites and web applications from Firefox to the Firefox OS simulator. That add-on can be acquired from: https://addons.mozilla.org/ en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-os-simulator/

2013 should be an exciting year for mobile platforms. Other than Firefox OS, there is also Tizen that is expected to come to a mobile device this year, and it may also see the re-emergence of webOS and MeeGo as mobile platforms. Read the original article online on devworx. Visit www.devworx.in devworx> | February 2013 | www.devworx.in 65

*join us!

>>we ensure we have maximum features available on XMS >> >>Sunil Shetty, Mobile Developer, eBuddy eBuddy as an alternative to text, is old. What’s your expectation from the future? Although eBuddy Chat has been available since 2003, we launched an XMS real-time messaging app for smartphones in March 2011. We expect people to increasingly use instant messengers leaving behind text messaging. There is no dearth of applications these days, as there are phenomenal levels of fragmentation acrpss platforms. How does XMS stand out? It is very well agreed that there is a huge chunk of specialised messaging platforms available in the market now and XMS is also a part of those applications. Therefore we ensure we have maximum number of features available on XMS, such as allowing users to chat cross platforms, ability to communicate via text, pictures and video. We also have a web companion to our app, so that a user can have the option of having the ease of using the big desktop screen if required. Is the mobile app native, or is it a web interface? What is the mechanism behind XMS? All our mobile XMS client apps are native. We also support a browser-based version which works on tablets, called WebXMS. Our mobile apps open a socket (either plain or TLS) to the XMS backend services to handle the messaging when the application is on the foreground. When the application is off (or on the background depending on the mobile platform) we rely on the Push Notification services provided by the mobile platform. Read the entire interview online, at www.devworx.in and share your comments. 66 devworx> | February 2013 | www.devworx.in

>>You’ve been following devworx every month as you enjoy your favourite technology magazine. With your support, devworx has been on a steady rise, and is discovering its identity with you – the reader – the developer. While on one hand, it’s an extension of your most trusted brand – Digit; on the other, it’s tailored for application developers in India. Whether you’re an app development company based out of India, an application developer, or simply an enthusiast – you are nonetheless, a catalyst in India’s growth as a software development powerhouse. Be it the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, or the Curiosity Explorer currently roving across Martian terrain,

Indian technologists and developers are a very close part of cutting edge innovation across the globe. We want to help you innovate! devworx is an attempt to recognise such stories in software innovation, early on! Irrespective of where you stand in the scenario illustrated, we invite you to be a part of us. Whether you’re an established app development company, a policy maker influencing the mobile ecosystem, or an individual developer, there’s a lot to share with the community. We eagerly want to hear your story. Write to us today! Visit www.devworx.in and go to the Contact us and Careers pages for further information. You can also email us at [email protected].

*open source

Lucene

Solr

http://dvwx.in/UedcPR

http://dvwx.in/Vjr2iK

>>Lucene has been widely recognized for its utility in the implementation of Internet search engines and local, single-site searching. Text from PDFs, HTML, Microsoft Word, etc, can all be indexed.

>>Solr’s powerful external configuration allows it to be tailored to almost any type of application without Java coding, and it has an extensive plugin architecture when more advanced customization is required.

Join the discussion on Facebook and stay updated on latest news and features. Scan the QR code using your smartphone, now!

Prefer 140 characters? Follow us: @devworx.

Price Watch

Killer Rigs

Street smart

70

Our regular monthly round-up of the best components for your rig across budgets

72

Find out the latest prices of phablets, tablets and smartphones over the `15,000 price bracket

Everything for your smartphone Add bling to your smartphone with these fun accessories Agent 001 [email protected]

S

martphones today have become all round devices. Apart from the usual texting and making calls, smartphones connect users to their social networking accounts, act as dedicated GPS devices, can be used for multimedia, portable gaming and have effectively replaced your average point and shoot camera. If you thought that was enough, wait till you come across some funky accessories I have found for them.

Bluetooth headset A Bluetooth headset is the most basic accessory you will need with your smartphone. It is ideal for those who are on the move and like to keep their hands free for other activates (get your mind out of the gutter!). For this I recommend the Jabra Stone 2. It has some cool features like answering or rejecting calls with voice commands, verbal setup instructions, caller ID and battery level (verbal) indications. It can also dictate GPS directions. It comes with a charging stone letting you charge the headset on the go. You can pick it up for `8,000.

Portable Charger Lets face it, with all the functionality a smartphone offers users today, the one thing that it lacks is a good battery backup. This is where a portable charger makes sense. I recommend you take a look at the Nokia Universal Portable Charger DC-16. To start with, it packs in a 2200mAh battery. This capacity is good considering that most phones pack in a 2000mAh battery at best. You can charge a smartphone completely in roughly 2 and half hours. For `1,499 this is definitely a steal. 68 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Headphones

A rugged case

The bundled earphones with smartphones aren’t the best especially if you are a music buff. But having a nice pair of headphones that also double up with answering calls really makes it a value for money device. The Bose AE2i headphones comes to mind. Not only are they comfortable to wear and produce some fantastic sound, but they also have controls for music as well as calls so you can seamlessly answer calls without having to remove the headphones. Expect to shell out `8,888 for these babies.

Doesn’t it break your heart when you drop your smartphone and see that big scratch along the side or back? Well, not anymore. There are a variety of tough cases available from OtterBox for most of the popular smartphones available in the market. These cases are priced around the $35 (Rs. 2,000 approx.) and are a real value for money proposition especially if you are one who likes to carry their smartphone wherever they go, including mountain climbing.

Removable iPhone lens Yes, the camera of the iPhone is one of the best when compared to the competition but it has a long way to go before it can appeal to a professional. Additional lenses from olloclip is just what the doc ordered. You get a three-in-one lens – fisheye, wide-angle and macro. If you are one who loves shooting images with your iPhone, then this is a must have accessory for you. You can expect to pay $70 (`4,000 approx.) for this accessory.

Smartphone car mount If you get lost easily, then the GPS and maps app on your smartphone is a lifesaver. To ensure that you don’t drive into a wall while checking your phone, we suggest that you take a look at a car mount for your smartphone. Ranging from `1,200 to `4,000, there are a number of car mounts available. Some are generic and can house smartphones of various build and sizes such as the Griffin Window Car Mount for smartphones priced at `1,500. Some of the universal mounts can house PMP’s as well.

Largest QR Code Cake

A China based internet company celebrated the new year by making a huge 3-ton QR Code on a cake which found its way into the Guiness book of World Records

Buy Note II or wait? I was thinking of buying Samsung Galaxy Note II, but I would also like to know if I should wait? Is there any other flagship product from Samsung or HTC which will be getting launched in 2013? I can manage my budget for Note II, so if there is any other upcoming smartphone, then please let me know. I really need your help and views. Please do the needful. Yusuf Goriawala Yes, if you can afford it, the Note II is the best flagship device money can buy. Samsung, HTC and all the other premium smartphone manufacturers have adopted an annual refresh cycle for their devices. in 2013 we expect to see the Note III, Samsung Galaxy S IV and other flagship devices from manufacturers. If you are buying a device today, then yes the Samsung Galaxy Note II is great. We suggest you wait till Feb as at MWC 2013 we will see the smartphones slated to launch in 2013.

Invisibility cloak created?

Physicists in China have created an illusory, ghosting invisibility cloak that can change the appearance of an object to make it look like something else

You are choosing between two devices from different product categories. The Note II has a 5.5-inch display where as the tablet has a 10.1-inch display. If your Dad wants to carry this device in his pocket, then we suggest you take a look at the Note II as it qualifies as a phone with a really large display. the tablet on the other hand doesnt fit in your pocket, the large display is more comfortable for reading and the addition of a SIM card slot means that you will need a bluetooth headset for calls. The best thing to do would be to take your Dad to a Samsung showroom and give him some hands on with all three. see which is the device he is most comfortable with in terms of portability, reading text/ mail and above all comfort. Which is the product that fulfils his requirement.

Suggest a laptop I want to buy a laptop. My budget is `55,000. I want a 3rd-gen Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, 4GB RAM, 1 TB HDD and an HD LED screen.Please suggest some good laptop models. I need it urgently. Harshita Kothari

Tablet or Phablet? Samsung Galaxy Note II I am having trouble selecting between Note 10.1 and Note II for my father. He currently uses Samsung Galaxy Y. He often complains that he is fed On the basis of the general specs that up of the small screen and jokes whether you have mentioned, we would suggest his eyesight is getting weak due to old age you consider the Samsung NP350V5C. or due to small screen ;) This is priced at just above `50,000. Can you please give me reasons for (http://dgit.in/10TPL3u). With this parselecting either of the gadget and also ticular configuration, you get the third some cons about each. generation Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of Nikhil Agrawal RAM, 15.6-inch display, a 1 TB hard drive

Agent 001

and the AMD Radeon HD 7670M (2 GB) graphics. You might also want to consider the Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 (59-333345 – http://dgit.in/10MSXwY) which costs `48,990. This also has the latest gen Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 15.6-inch display, 500 GB hard drive and a NVIDIA GT630M (1 GB) graphics.

Entry level DSLR I am an entry-level photographer looking for a DSLR which could last me for years to come. I’m looking in the price range is `25,000 – `34,000. I prefer Nikon and have in mind the models D3200 and D5100. Please suggest the right one. Elias Alan Fabian Purchasing a DSLR is a rather straightforward task, given how most bodies in a particular segment offer pretty much the same features. If you’re looking at the D3200, we’d say go for it as it is a great camera. The D5100 on the other hand is slightly older and features a sensor with a lower pixel count, but features a slightly better AF performance when in Live View mode. The D5100 costs `34,950 with an 18-55mm kit lens while the D3200 costs `36,450 with the same 18-55mm kit lens. Then there is the D5200 that’s expected to come out within the next month, which has the sensor from the D3200 but a much beefier AF system than the D5100. It will cost `46,950 with the 18-55mm kit lens. Now if you can wait and extend your budget, our recommendation would strongly be to buy the D5200. For `34,000 the D3200 would be the camera to go for.

killer rigs

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

Basic rig = 23,993

HTPC = 22,635

Entry-level gaming = 36,130

Intel Pentium G840 Asus P8H61-M LX3 Corsair 2GB DDR3 1333MHz Toshiba 500GB HD 721050DLE630 ViewSonic VA2038WM None Huntkey T-91 Seasonic SS-400ES Altec Classic Audio BXR1221 Zebronics Judwaa 5 (Bundle) Samsung 22x SATA DVD Writer Zebronics Judwaa 5 (Bundle) None

4,000 2,810 700 3,418 6,400 0 1,450 2,700 1,100 0 950 465 0 23,993

AMD A10-5800K ASUS F2A85-M Pro G-skill F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT Seagate 1 TB ST2000DL001 BenQ G2222HD None Huntkey T-91 Corsair CX430 Altec Lansing V2621 Zebronics Judwaa 5 (Bundle) Samsung 22x SATA DVD Writer Zebronics Judwaa 5 (Bundle) None

7,500 8,690 1,200 4,725 7,000 0 1,450 2,300 1,850 0 950 465 0 36,130

Mid-Range Gaming Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speaker Mouse Optical Drive Keyboard Sound Card Total

Intel Core i5-3450 Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Corsair Vengeance 4 GB Seagate 500GB 7200.12 Samsung P2350 ASUS GTX 650 Ti Cooler Master HAF 912 Corsair GS 600 Altec Lansing V2621 Razer Abyssus (bundled) Samsung 22x SATA DVD Writer Razer Cyclosa (Bundled) None

70 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Ultra high-end = 1,56,089

Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speaker Mouse Keyboard Optical Drive Sound Card Total

AMD A6-3650 ASRock A75M Kingston 2GB DDR3 1333MHz Western Digital WD20EARX 2TB None (your TV) None (HD6530D onboard) Zebronics Tambi Bundled (150W) None MS Wireless laser Combo XVA-00020 Bundled Samsung 22x SATA DVD Writer None

5,900 4,300 750 5,985 0 0 2,000 0 0 2,750 0 950 0 22,635

Mid-range Compact System

Entry-Level Gaming Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speaker Mouse Optical Drive Keyboard Sound Card Total

Mid-range gaming = 56,700

HTPC

Basic RIG Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speaker (2.1) Mouse Optical Drive Keyboard Sound Card Total

Mid-range Compact System = 53,357

Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speaker Mouse Keyboard Optical Drive Sound Card Total

Intel Core i5-3570K ZOTAC Z77X-ITX A-E Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 Seagate 2TB Green Your TV ZOTAC GTX 650Ti AMP (1 GB) Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Cooler Master Thunder 500W None MS Wireless laser Combo XVA-00020 Bundled Samsung 22x SATA DVD Writer NA

14,200 9,999 2650 5,850 0 10,999 2,799 3,160 0 2,750 0 950 0 53,357

Ultra high-end Gaming 11,500 4,050 1,450 3,650 10,800 11,250 4,500 4,000 1,850 0 950 2,700 0 56,700

Processor Motherboard RAM HDD Monitor Graphics Card Cabinet PSU Speaker Mouse Optical Drive Keyboard Sound Card Total

Intel Core i7-3770K ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 WD WD30EZRX 3TB + Corsair Neutron 120 GB BenQ XL2420T ZOTAC GTX 680 2 GB Cooler Master HAF - XM Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W F&D F680 Corsair M-60 LG Blu-ray WH14NS40 RW Thermaltake eSports Challenger Pro ASUS Xonar DX 7.1

20,500 15,876 2,650 17,000 22,500 33,500 9,500 11,044 3,500 3,920 7,000 4,399 4,700 1,56,089

Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2

Acer unveils Liquid E1

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Xcover 2, a rugged and water resistant Android 4.1 smartphone with a 4-inch screen

Acer released its new smartphone, the Acer Liquid E1 for the mid-range category which runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Price Watch

Spend Smart Find out the latest prices of high-end smartphones, phablets and tablets

Smartphones above `15,000 Brand

Model

Operating System

Processor (in MHz)

Display Size (in inches)

Primary Camera (MP)

Battery Rating (in mAh)

Price (in `)

Blackberry

Curve 9320

Blackberry 7.1 OS

806

2.44

3.2

1450

15,425

Blackberry

Curve 9360

Blackberry 7 OS

800

2.44

5

1000

17,925

Blackberry

Torch 9860

Blackberry 7 OS

1200

3.7

5

1230

21,499

Blackberry

Bold 9900

Blackberry 7 OS

1200

2.8

5

1230

32,999

HTC

8X

Windows Phone 8

1500

4.3

8

1800

35,032

HTC

One V

Android 4.0

1000

3.7

5

1500

16,500

HTC

One S

Android 4.0

1700

4.3

8

1650

24,667

HTC

One X

Android 4.0

1500

4.7

8

1800

33,499

LG

Optimus L7 P705

Android 4.0

1000

4.3

5

1700

15,990

LG

Optimus 3D Max P725

Android 2.3

1200

4.3

5

1520

28,990

Motorola

Atrix 2

Android 2.3

1000

4.3

8

1785

17,999

Motorola

Razr XT910

Android 2.3

1200

4.3

8

1780

23,999

Nokia

808 Pureview

Symbian Belle OS

1300

4

41

1400

25,000

Nokia

Lumia 710

Windows Phone 7.5

1400

3.7

5

1300

15,000

Nokia

Lumia 800

Windows Phone 7.5

1400

3.7

8

1450

18,867

Nokia

Lumia 900

Windows Phone 7.5

1400

4.3

8

1830

31,131

Nokia

Lumia 920

Windows Phone 8

1500

4.5

8.7

2000

37,199

Samsung

Omnia M S7530

Windows Phone 7.5

1000

4

5

1500

15,900

Samsung

Galaxy S Duos S7562

Android 4.0

1000

4

5

1500

16,700

Samsung

Galaxy S Advance i9070

Android 2.3

1000

4

5

1500

18,999

Samsung

Galaxy Note N-7000

Android 2.3

1400

5.29

8

2500

27,500

Samsung

Galaxy S III

Android 4.0

1400

4.8

8

2100

31,900

Samsung

Galaxy Note 2 N7100

Android 4.1

1600

5.5

8

3100

36,900

Samsung

Galaxy S 2 i9100

Android 2.3

1200

4.27

8

1650

25,900

Sony

Xperia Go

Android 2.3

1000

3.5

5

1305

15,100

Sony

Xperia Neo L

Android 4.0

1000

4

5

1460

15,000

Sony

Xperia Sola

Android 2.3

1000

3.7

5

1320

17,000

Sony

Xperia SL

Android 4.0

1700

4.3

12.1

1750

25,990

Sony

Xperia Ion

Android 4.0

1500

4.6

12

1900

29,990

Lava

Xolo X900

Android 2.3

1600

4.03

8

1460

15,000

Sony

Xperia Go

Android 2.3

1000

3.5

5

1305

17,990

Sony

Xperia Neo L

Android 4.0

1000

4

5

1460

16,490

Sony

Xperia SL

Android 4.0

1700

4.3

12.1

1750

27,990

Sony

Xperia Ion

Android 4.0

1500

4.6

12

1900

29,990

Lava

Xolo X900

Android 2.3

1600

4.03

8

1460

17,500

72 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Cloud Drive Photos update

Belkin buys Linksys from Cisco

Amazon updated its Cloud Drive Photos service for Android which features auto-save and direct photo taking ability within the app itself

Belkin has announced that it will absorb the entire home business of Cisco including the brand Linksys. But will retain the "Linksys" brand name

Price Watch

Phablets Brand

Model

Operating System

Processor (in MHz)

Display Size (in inches)

Primary Camera (in MP)

Battery Rating (in mAh)

Weight (in gms)

Price (in `)

Byond

Phablet PIII

Android 4.0

1000

6

8

2500

230

12699

Intex

Aqua 5.0

Android 4.0

1000

5

5

2000

198.9

9690

iBall

Andi 5c

Android 4.0

1000

5

5

2300

200

11999

Lenovo

S880

Android 4.0

1000

5

5

2250

196

18999

Lenovo

K860

Android 4.0

1400

5

8

2250

193.5

28499

LG

Optimus Vu

Android 4.0

1500

5

8

2080

168

34500

Magicon

mNote

Android 4.0

1000

5

8

2000

160

9999

Mercury

MagiQ

Android 4.0

1000

5

12

2200

140

12700

Micromax

Canvas 2 A110

Android 4.0

1000

5

8

2000

168

9999

Samsung

Galaxy Note

Android 4.0

1400

5.3

8

2500

178

29990

Samsung

Galaxy Note II

Android 4.1

1600

5.5

8

3100

183

37599

Spice

Stellar Horizon

Android 4.0

1000

5

5

2400

205

12499

Wickedleak

Wammy Note

Android 4.0

1000

5

8

2500

192

11000

Zync

Cloud Z5

Android 4.0

1000

5

8

2500

165

8990

Brand

Model

Operating System

Processor (in MHz)

Display Size (in inches)

Primary Camera (in MP)

3G (Y/N)

Battery Rating (mAh)

Price (in `)

Apple

iPad 16GB (4th generation)

iOS 6

1400

9.7

5

N

NA

31,900

Apple

iPad 32GB (4th generation)

iOS 6

1400

9.7

5

N

NA

45,900

Asus

Eee Pad Transformer TF300TG-1A3141

Android 4.0

1200

10.1

8

Y

NA

42,265

Blackberry

Playbook

BlackBerry OS

1000

7

5

N

4800

13,900

Karbonn

Smart Tab 8

Android 4.1

1500

8

3

Y

4500

7,290

Karbonn

Cosmic Smart Tab10

Android 4.1

1500

9.7

2

Y

6000

10,290

HCL

Me Tablet U1

Android 4.0

1000

7

0.3

Y

3600

5,950

HCL

MyEdu Tab (X1) - k12

Android 2.3

1000

7

2

Y

3500

9,999

iBall

Slide i6012

Android 4.0

1200

7

0.3

Y

4000

7,625

Lenovo

A2107

Android 4.0

1000

7

2

Y

3500

13,400

Micromax

Funbook Pro

Android 4.0

1200

10.1

0.3

N

5600

9,999

Milagrow

MGPT04 - 4GB

Android 4.0

1200

7

1.3

Y

4000

7,990

Samsung

Galaxy Note 800

Android 4.0

1400

10.1

5

Y

7000

34,500

Simmtronics

Xpad X1010

Android 4.0

1200

10.1

0.3

Y

5600

8,565

Zync

Z1000

Android 4.0

1500

9.7

2

Y

7000

10,990

Tablets

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 73

IT MAY BE TIME TO TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE GROUND.

photo credit: getty images

2012 - INDIA IS STILL HOME TO 41% OF THE WORLD'S POOREST. For India to truly change, we need to address this issue. PRADAN is powered by the belief that the best minds in the country need to work at the grassroots to change the face of poverty in India. Their teams have been working with endemically poor communities for 30 years with some amazing results. Their focus is to work with women and tribal communities across the poorest districts of India. They have introduced models, which have helped entire communities find livelihoods and emerge from poverty. They have touched over 1 million people, changing their lives in a range of ways – from ensuring food and livelihood, to creating choice and dignity. They pictured the change. And changed the picture. It may be time to take your head out of the ground. Donate now to help change the picture. For any further information on how you can help, please visit 30.pradan.net or send an email to [email protected]. You could choose to either make a personal donation or join hands with PRADAN as part of your CSR initiatives.

PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT ACTION

picture the change | change the picture 9.9 Media supports PRADAN.

Illustration: Manav Sachdev Photo: Subhojit Paul Model: Rakaysh

Cover story

76 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Cover story

Digit takes a virtual leap into the near-future and paints a canvas of our likely digital lives to come: a city seen through a lens of augmented reality, gaze tracking, presence detection, human-powered devices, crowd-sourced energy, and sponsored dreams… Here’s how the gadgets of tomorrow will be built for and into the human body... Ahmed Shaikh [email protected]

A

sharp buzz. The dream faded. Leaving behind thin gossamers of memory and a strong desire to buy the latest fairness cream for men – assuredly the ladies would love it… I suppressed the urge to place an order and cursed (yet again) the Odin DreamSaver. The neural jack was great if you wanted a peaceful night’s sleep but its propensity to insert sponsored advertisements was quite grating on the nerves, perhaps literally. What was that buzz? I pulled down my blanket and blinked thrice in quick succession to boot up my OdinVision, then took a weary peek at the wall. The wall’s sensors locked in with the soft lenses of OdinVision, did a quick IR handshake, and threw up the most recent home notifications: due rent

(ignore), low on groceries (ignore), Star Wars XXIV: Revenge of Mickey download complete (a disappointment in waiting, judging by its prequel but I had to see it), and ah yes, the cause of the buzz – someone at the door. Rather, someone was at the door. Evidently tired of waiting, he placed something by the corridor, turned his back to the camera and left. Curious, I brought up the external camera feed on my OdinVision and trained the lens towards the package. The courier had left a box about a foot long and twice as deep. My heart fluttered, the OdinVision noting the elevated BPM. Could this be The Package? The Package was about the gadget, The Gadget. It was love at first sight for millions, circa CES 2049, a little more than a year ago. The star of the conference that year was a little pill. The pill was in essence a delivery mechanism for a series of nanobots. The marketing pitch went like this: take these pills and turn into a superhuman. A pill (which

came in both red and blue, naturally) and the contents therein would spread throughout your interior – tiny bots attaching themselves to specific chemical receptors inside your body. Much like a protein binds itself to a neural interface to give us the sensation of smell or touch, so would these nanobots find their neural mates and turn up the gain on the entire human condition by a few notches. Bots were thus designed to mate with sense organs, the major muscles, optic nerves, and organs to create an internal mesh that would let you see into the ultraviolet or infrared, hear well below 20Hz, taste much more than the paltry five basic tastes, and so on. The nanobots were meant to be taken in batches, over a period of weeks, to ensure complete internal coverage. They were designed to be powered by the body’s own cells and would talk with each other and externally over the personal area network... or so said the marketing pitch…

Deliver more performance anD fun with amazing hD viDeo, photo, web, anD gaming.

Cover story

Lets get physical Piezoelectricity was discovered in the late 1800s by French physicists and brothers Pierre and Jacques Curie. Yes, Pierre, husband to Marie — the Nobel Prize winning pair for radioactivity. Certain materials, when put under physical stress, produce an electrical charge. This is best seen in electric cigarette lighters: hit a button, which hammers a piezoelectric crystal and produces a spark. Stretching and bending such materials can also result in electrical activity, which can then be used as a generator. One such application foresees sheets of piezoelectric material woven into the soles of a shoe. As you walk, the material bends and stretches, and the electricity produced is stored in small batteries. There have been a few practical uses to this tech: a dance club in the Netherlands, appropriately dubbed WATT, uses piezoelectric modules to harnesses the dancers’ steps and power LED lights by the dance floor. Each person can generate about five to twenty Watt. Each module is 75x75x20 cm and can produce up to 35 watt of sustained output.

The reality was bleaker. Or it could have been, if given a chance to manifest. While millions were sold on the pill, millions still were skeptical, or worse. The detractors pointed to several unfortunate incidents in the past; including everyone’s favourite that involved — a school bus full of children and a malfunction with the heads-up display of the bus driver that set the opacity of an incoming message too high. The resultant accident put a severe deceleration on the development of HUDs; it was only with some extremely stringent policies (and massive global lobbying) introduced by Odin Werks that solutions such as OdinVision were allowed back into the consumer market. The marketing pitch, never realised into an actual product: starting with the US FDA, the miracle pills were banned across countries. The Package that I was expecting would contain some sensitive information on the nanopills. More 78 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

precisely, it contained the location of the location, which would give me an indication to the where and whom of the pills. I focused on the package and the house’s cameras zoomed in on the label, the OdinVision showing me the feed as an overlay on the left side of my vision. The packaging didn’t give me any clues except to show a generic destination and source, along with the route that the package took to get here. It could be anything. I would have to get up and get my hands dirty. Sigh. I groaned, stepped onto the floor and dragged my feet towards the door. Each step that I took pressed against a piezoelectric pad below the flooring and added a little bit of power to the home’s battery storage. Walking from my room to the hall, in order to open the door, would generate enough power to do absolutely nothing. But it all added up: the pressure pads in the floor, the solar panels in the window, the wind vanes

on the terrace, the house also borrowed power generated by commuters walking below — pads, like the ones used in my floor would funnel wattage from passing feet to a nearby power routing lamppost, meanwhile multiple vents along the building would suck in the collective heat of the billion Mumbaikars and transform it to energy using good oldfashioned water and steam. Energy was never more symbiotic and communal. As I reached for the door, I noticed that the refrigerator in the kitchen was continuing its attention-grabbing “dude, you are all out of food” notification. It had been doing this all week. Normally, the fridge had enough sense to order my usual meats and vegetables – it pretty much set my diet, after all. This week, however, was different. My credit flow was ebbing; not nearly enough for the refrigerator to directly place an order to the hypermarket. That would need my intervention, which wasn’t forthcoming, and hence the notification. I could add some funds to the house’s wallet but that would immediately be siphoned off to the rent first and because I hadn’t paid for the past two months, it would not leave anything for food. No, I would have to do this the hard way as well, and go to the hypermarket myself to grab some bits and pieces to eat. I opened the door to the usual sights and smells of the city. One sight in particular was especially arresting: my neighbor coming back from her morning jog. I trained my OdinVision on her and took a few snaps for memorabilia. If she were paying attention, she would have noticed my soft lenses strobe a visible red – this was a deliberate feature of OdinVision – one necessary to communicate to a party that he/she is being watched and recorded. It was socially important to broadcast this form of communication, much like the shutter sound effects in camera phones of yore… “You are on film”, it said. A few snaps for my scrapbook, harmless. But the body can’t be fooled and by extension, neither can OdinVision. The slight uptick in endorphins that the sight of my neighbor triggered was noted by OdinVision and sure enough, I promptly got a surge of advertisements: interest you in flowers perhaps?, a few local ‘romantic spots’ that you two should surely check out, an ad for chocolates (always works), and of

Cover story course one for performance enhancing drugs. She looked at me and gave me a sociable smile; sensing a chance here (misplaced), the ad for the drugs jumped up two spots and sweetened the deal with a twenty per cent discount coupon valid for the next five minutes. What the AD succeeded in doing, was kill any traces of arousal I might have had, automatically dismissing the other advertisements. The one for the pills, however, shone brighter still! I hated this piece of crap and waved off the AD, irritation evident on my face. The shapely neighbor read this wrong and thought I was waving her off, her eyes going cold and distant… I reached for the box before I could do more damage and bought it inside to check out its contents. First: scan the tags, check out its transit history, look for any obvious red flags. None. Good. Next: the opening. I stabbed the box eagerly and tore off the top; inelegant but efficient. Two inches of packaging foam later, I hit paydirt. Or not. Diapers. For grown ass men. The box was filled with grandpa-pants! This was going to be one of those days… Sensing my growing unrest, OdinVision put on some soothing Blues to calm my nerves and tried to bring some cheer to this morning. It turned on the entertainment zone: my main wall came alive with 82-inches of Cartoon Network and my dining table slowly poured me some of my favourite social feeds and commentary that it thought I might find interesting. I appreciated the music but was not in the mood for cartoons. I gestured at the wall and the giant screen that was erstwhile blaring cartoons, powered-down and blended in with the rest of my wall by adapting the colour and pattern of my

Crowdsourcing energy Excess body heat combined with piezoelectricity can also be used on a large scale to crowdsource energy. The Central Station in Stockholm sees more than 300,000 commuters pass through its doors each day. Each person generates about 100W of excess body heat. The station uses giant heat exchanges to trap this excess heat, warm up vats of water (thus aiding in cooling the station itself), and then pipe the warm water to a building next door in order to heat it! Meanwhile in Japan… there are special piezoelectric tiles installed by the ticket turnstiles. Each time a commuter steps on these tiles, a small amount of electricity is generated. A person weighing 60kg would generate about 0.1W in the second it takes to step across the tile. However, add in the millions of people who cross the metros each day and the energy adds up: enough to power nearby electronic signboards, Christmas decorations during festivities or even the ticket counters themselves.

living room’s wallpaper. I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down by the table. A news feed caught my eye; it was an email notification – for the package’s successful delivery. I placed the cup on the table and the surface surrounding the cup immediately went a dark, bright, red. The cup was a good dozen degrees hotter than what my palette was used to. I would have to wait a few minutes – the table gently suggested – and started a countdown to 120 seconds around the bottom of the cup – time enough for both the cup and my temper to cool down… Warming my hands by the cup, I gazed at the email for a few seconds. The table got the message and cleared up the rest of the feeds to bring the email to fore. I scrolled through the text to jump to the courier’s ID and photograph. I selected the area of

interest by drawing a circle in the air and then made a tearing away gesture at the selection. OdinVision took the hint, digitally transferred the ID and photo to my HUD, ran an OCR on the ID, converted it to editable text and offered to store it in my memory bank up in the cloud. I gave it my assent. I queried the whereabouts of the ID. OdinVision filled my field-of-view with an overlay of the city map, in three-dimensions and appropriately scaled down. A yellow dot indicated my current position, a green dot, moving, indicated my quarry. Briefly, I thought of giving the courier an old-fashioned voice-call. But the thought of wading through the inevitable advertisements and product placements to connect and finish the call quickly quelled that thought. I gestured at the green dot and zoomed in for a closer view. I tapped on Mr

AccelerAte performAnce by up to 7x over todAy’s integrAted grAphics solutions* And provide AdditionAl dedicAted memory.

* Measurement of DirectX graphics performance compared to Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics.

Cover story

Of Google Glass and HMDs

Maybe you have heard of Google Glass? Glass is an amalgamation of technologies old and new, and one that Google hope will usher in an age of practical head-mounted-displays (HMD), augmented reality (AR), and a brand new revenue stream. The Glass fuses a 1.3 cm display into the frame of a pair of glasses. The precise science behind Glass is currently unknown but one will be able to see a phone-like interface, powered by Android, through the 1.3cm window. The interface will allow the user to take photos, take part in video conferences (Google+ Hangout), check appointments, and access the Web and Google Maps. Google isn’t the only player looking to make an impact in the HMD business. Apple too is in the game, or at least thinking about the game: it won a patent late in 2012 for ‘peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays’. Apple’s implementation is binocular and sends two different images to each eye: “Apple hopes to solve many longstanding issues with HMDs, particularly the general risk of eyestrain that could be caused by the difference in distances between the wearer’s field of vision and the peripheral display itself. Essentially, Apple’s technology dynamically matches the color images being transmitted with either LED, OLED or lasers, which are converged stereoscopically to reduce the tunnel effect experienced in many of today’s HMDs”. Sony has experimented with HMDs as well, somewhat successful too: their HMZ-T1 ‘personal 3D viewer’ consisted of two OLED screens and offers the user a 720p display for each eye. The HMZ simulates the viewing experience of a 700-inch screen, as viewed from a distance of 20 meters… Recently, the Occulus Rift has been making the waves in the gadget circles: winning quite a few hearts first and raising a cool $2.4 million through Kickstarter, followed up by winning quite a few best-ofshow awards at CES 2013 (especially noted for its superior head-tracking). The Rift is an HMD endorsed by the likes of John Carmack and Gabe Newell – it will offer an effective resolution of 640x800 to each eye in stereoscopic 3D. The Occulus will first be offered as a developer version this year, followed by a consumer version, probably in early 2014, or late 2013. The consumer version will have a higher resolution and better quality lenses.

Green (short for Mr Green Dot the courier boy) and asked Odin to chart out his whereabouts for the next 30 minutes. Thirty seconds later, my HUD filled with five routes, with varying thickness – the thicker the route, the more likely Green was to take it – it was a projection based on his past routes at this time of day, taking into account the route he had taken in the past fifteen 80 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

minutes. A routine tracing algorithm. I had thirty minutes to get to Holy Family High School, which was to be the courier’s destination, a certainty rank of 95%. I grabbed the box of grandpa-pants, pinged my car through Odin (it would drive itself out to the street from the parking lot), and headed for the door. Sensing my exit, OdinVision reminded me that I hadn’t bathed in three

days now – perhaps a hot shower first? That didn’t slow me down; it only darkened my mood further. This led to two things: the blues music was now routed directly to my personal area network to continue an attempt to better my mood, and the door sprayed me with a deodorant and my favourite perfume as I head out, a futile attempt to drown my manly, err, musk. The car was waiting for me. As I approached, it detected my presence, pinged my personal area network for an authentication code and scanned my face as a double-confirmation. Satisfied, it opened the door. I threw in the box and took to the wheels. The car could self-drive but cursing at the traffic and narrowly avoiding the pedestrians was a hobby, it would improve my mood by a degree or two. As I touched the steering, the car scanned my fingerprints, then started its electric engine, threw up my destination and charted out the shortest route based on traffic conditions. I chose a slightly denser road; I had people to narrowly miss, after all… Mumbai in 2050 is much like Mumbai in 20-whatever. It always has been and always will be crowded, smelly, noisy and very very busy. Too busy to notice you, and be thankful for that... some things have improved though: the electric cars have dialed down the poisoned air by a few notches, the billboards are all mostly relegated to the virtual – the likes of OdinVision now routinely fill your peripheral vision with advertisements – personalised, tailored ads, honed for maximum ROI. And there are no cops in sight. This last part is not because crime is low, or because Mumbaikars have suddenly grown road sense, the reason is more practical: since every transaction is now electronic – done over encrypted networks using bits and blobs of software – the scope for bribes has greatly reduced. And thus so has the cops’ main incentive to ply the streets for the next victim… I narrowly avoided: three school children, one granny, two kittens, one biker, and one extremely inebriated soul who seemed smitten by my car. Odin awarded me 15,000 points at this feat and unlocked the Road Warrior achievement.Having reached my destination fifteen minutes ahead of time, I headed to the KFC next door for a quick brunch. Just a few feet from the KFC door, I bumped into someone who

Cover story was evidently was an old acquaintance of mine. I could tell by the excited manner in which he shouted my name and was now pumping my hand. Right. Thankfully, I had installed the Socialite plugin into my Odin for just such occasions (of which there were many). As Odin threw up relevant metadata around this Ravendra (apparently my classmate from Std 5), I flooded him with his life’s own factoids and made pleasantries. “Of course I remember the school picnic where you ate a sandwich filled with sand! Ha ha… and how is the missus?... oh look at the time, I have to rush, yes of course I will see you at the reunion next month!” I gave him my ID where all spam goes to die and continued my way to KFC. Each hospitality center has a bright multicolored globe next to its name. If you intend to use its services, you only need to fix your gaze on the globe for 5 unblinking seconds — I did and a menu was thrown up by the sidewalk — I chose a burger and some cold coffee to go. Odin did the electronic transaction and showed me the waypoint where I could collect my food in two minutes… Two minutes later, munching on my burger, slurping down my coffee, I headed to my destination. The brunch was much needed: it both woke me up and served as a good source of energy to recharge my OdinVision. Junk food that tasted good and didn’t put on much fat – now that’s progress one could get behind! Odin alerted me to Mr Green’s ETA; he would be here any minute now. I spent some time looking over the building where Mr Green would make his delivery. It was a hospital for the elderly; it used to be a school until a long-standing land dispute was resolved in the hospital’s favour in 2040. This wasn’t my general knowledge on the city speaking; rather it was Odin, thank-

A moment of clarity (aka yeh writer kya bakwaas kar raha hai)

So just how likely is this possible future? Let’s take a quick look at what is being proposed, through the lens of what’s current possible: OdinVision: The obvious predecessor would be HMD product that have been and are yet to come: from the HMZ-T1 to the upcoming Google Glass (see box: of Google Glass and HMDs for more). OdinVision will offer an augmented-reality, stereoscopic 3D window into the virtual, layering it upon the real. Think Google Maps, in elevation mode being projected onto your surroundings… now slowly add in the other Google services and crowd sourced offerings such as Wikipedia for a taste of the wonderful and scary world that is to be. In this story, we have miniaturized Glass into a soft-lens. How is the lens powered, you ask? Through the power of love, but naturally… Smart Houses: Take your garden-variety smart white goods (televisions, refrigerators, microwaves…) and bring them all together under a benevolent dictator, i.e. a home server, throw together a wireless local-area network that would allow the dictator to listen in and order around the goods and you have a smart house in the making. Granted, the ‘smart’ televisions et al, are currently a misnomer, but we give it another three decades for the likes of Samsung and LG to figure it out... The Gadget: Or the nano-machine delivery pills… this one is more fact-ion than fact. Think Metal Gear Solid – no wait, don’t… The fact: researchers are exploring how human tissues, cells, and mechanical activities such as walking and the beating of the heart can power tiny, tiny machines. For example: using the host’s heartbeats to power his or her pacemaker, or powering a hearing aid using a pool of natural ions generated in the human ear… Batteries powered by the human gait, micro-fibers woven into your clothes that store and release micro-watts, and so on. The fiction: reduce everything to a nano scale and inject the machines into the human body. These nano-machines would talk to each other over a very, very local network and hopefully play nice and not explode your heart or melt your brain. Makes you feel all warm inside, doesn’t it?

lessly serving me data on the building I was so evidently keen on. The courier arrived, carrying a suspiciously similar package in hand. I cut him off, showed him my ID and explained the situation. Unfortunately, Mr Green was from out of town and was both new to the area and to the local lingo. Thankfully, OdinVision’s translation soft-

ware could translate just about any speak into just about any other language (exception: political speeches). We communicated haltingly, I made a mess of his dialect but he got the gist of the mix-up. I exchanged the granny panties for The Package and walked back to my car with a smile. This was going to be a good day, after all….

Drive up to four HD Displays (up to tHree witH NviDia surrouND™ tecHNology) or coNNect to a 3D-eNableD tv.

Work@Tech

Tech @ Work

84

We look at career opportunities in the fields of Web analytics and SEO in India

Industry Connect

86

We speak to Qualcomm’s Dr. Avneesh Agrawal on the prospects of LTE in India, SoCs and much more

Safeguard your work data Steps you need to take to ensure business data is protected all the time Jayesh Shinde [email protected]

I

f you’re running a business, you of all people should understand the importance of data security and integrity. It doesn’t matter how small or big a threat may be, or its type or nature, there will be consequences (reputation, legal charges, losing competitive edge, and other unforeseen damages) for any breach of your company’s data and in some instances even irreparable damage. Unless you run a completely offline business, chances are that you have a fair amount of interaction with the web, which is rapidly becoming the top infection point for all sorts of security vulnerabilities. Seeing how security vendors are always releasing not-so-encouraging reports about the online threat landscape, it is important to understand and acknowledge the fact that unless protected your data is under constant threat. There are a number of steps that one should take to safeguard and secure data before it’s too late. We share a few basics that shouldn’t be ignored.

Secure your network and connections While working from home, how do you ensure that you connect securely to your office server for an urgently required file? Virtual Private Networks or VPNs is the answer, think of it as your very own private, completely secure tunnel through the internet. Windows 7 has a built-in VPN feature which you can explore (just 82 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

type “VPN” in the Start Menu field) to hook up two computers. You can also check out pretty good third-party solutions like OpenVPN or Hamachi which are free and easy-to-setup. For your wireless office network, don’t ignore the basics: ensure you deploy WPA2 encryption with a difficult passphrase and MAC address filtering at the router level.

that even if a laptop is stolen or lost, the data on it is always encrypted and impossible to recover. Tools that let you do this are TrueCrypt, an open source favourite, and Windows’ own BitLocker utility. Both of them are used to securely encrypt entire hard drive volumes with or without hardware encryption via TPM (trusted platform module), deploying different authentication methods.

Encryption shouldn’t be ignored at all

Online backups are critical

Make data encryption part of your work policy, whether you have two or twenty employees. Every computer that has business data on it should be encrypted at the hardware and software level to ensure

If your office PC hardware is old or aging fast – disk drives whirring too loudly, with audible clicking sound – it’s important to backup your data at short, fixed intervals before disaster strikes.

WikiVoyage released

The WikiMedia foundation has finally released “WikiVoyage” – a crowdsourced travel guide. Check it here: http://dgit.in/SATsq8

Backing up critical business data online is increasingly becoming a cheaper alternative with a myriad cloud backup services. While there’s nothing wrong in services such as Dropbox.com and Nortonzone.com, if you just want some cloud to offload your business data on to. But we recommend investing in a dedicated service that offers support and other features. Check out the likes of SpiderOak (www.spideroak.com) and SOS Online Backup service (www.sosonlinebackup. com) – the former encrypts and never deletes your data, offering a free 2GB service with the ability to backup and sync data across a host of machines including mobile devices, while the latter offers incremental backup and syncing of data from PCs and even attached network drives at an affordable price.

Backup offline as well Another way to tackle data disasters is to always keep offline data backups to ensure there’s minimal impact on

Lomography scanner

A Kickstarter project called the Lomography Smartphone Scanner turns old 35mm film strips into digital pictures shareable via a smartphone

business and quick restoration of data. Of course, online backup solutions are equally important and shouldn’t be ignored, but downloading data from the cloud can take time. Offline data backup policies, whether on a central server, NAS, just another always-on PC or an external drive, can be put in place and configured in a matter of minutes with the following applications. For Windows machines, Windows Home Server offers the best experience in terms of ease of use and setup – it’s got all the basic features as well. Do also consider tools such as Acronis True Image Home or Rsync – the latter being an acclaimed cross-platform backup software. Mac users don’t need anything else apart from Time Machine, a free tool already present in OS X which does the job. You can probably supplement it by purchasing a Time Capsule, a cute external drive that backs up data wirelessly through Time Machine.

Smart SoHo

Mobile shields While most of us have desktop security software running around the clock, we may ignore mobile security apps or not attach as much importance to them as their desktop counterparts. From now on, don’t. With the advent of BYOD (bring your own device) policy at workplaces, it’s difficult to track where your office data travels – smartphones and tablets, we’re looking at you. It’s critical to counter the threat of mobile security. Apart from trying out mobile apps from popular security vendors, check out Lookout Mobile Security (www. lookout.com) which does a pretty good job of securing your mobile device and the data on it, besides backing it all up in the cloud. The app is in a constant state of vigilance, safeguarding you against malicious app or connecting to an unsecure Wi-Fi hotspot, besides letting you remotely control and manage data on your phone through a Web browser and even find a missing handset.

Embedded tweets improve Work@Tech

Twitter improved its embedded tweets feature to load faster and display content better, adding an “embed button”

A cleaner HTC “Sense 5”

A user on XDA developers claims to have the upcoming HTC “Sense 5” skin for Android which looks very clean and condensed

Careers in Web analytics and SEO We take stock of the opportunities and focus on the skill sets required to hone your talent and excel in this line of work Jait Dixit [email protected]

D

ue to the rapid proliferation of the Web and constantlyconnected devices, digital marketing has become an inevitable career option for numbercrunching geeks. And two of the most engaging facets of digital marketing are SEO and Web Analytics. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and as the name suggests it involves knowing the nitty-gritty of search engines to attract users to your online properties – making sure that you gain a relevant audience and the search engine users gets exactly what they came for. Analytics on the other hand is about collecting and analyzing data collected from your websites and distilling the data into research which will help improve your website’s performance.

Background Before we proceed a quick primer. In simplest terms SEO is all about boosting your search engine ranks. You don’t pay for clicks but you employ other changes like website improvements, copywriting, engaging your audience on social chan84 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

nels, building links and content to make sure that your site gets to the top of the search engines. As for how the search engines work, SEOs treat them like blackboxes you just cannot make out what is going on inside rather you employ a combination of reverse-engineering, experiments and educated guesswork to arrive on ways to improve your search-listings. Web analytics on the other hand is measuring the footprints of a user’s activity on your website and outside it, and regurgitating detailed reports and insights into user behaviour, so that you can calibrate all your marketing channels including SEO to better serve your customers. According to Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist, Web Analytics practitioners fall into two categories: Implementers and Data Reporters. Implementers are the ones who integrate code from vendors into websites while the data reporters liaison with the management to piece together insights into how spending in different marketing channels is affecting your website/brand.

Indian opportunities India is uniquely poised in the digital marketing scene as it has something

very unique to offer to the marketers - it’s fledgling online population. There are roughly some 120 million people online in India from it’s population of nearly 1.2 billion which is only about 10% of the population. About 13 billion advertisements are served month on month. This industry is particularly on the lookout for experienced professionals in Analytics. This is just one part of the story though, “There are a lot of firms out there who specialize in SEO consulting, i.e. handle SEO for firms which outsource this work, but there is a dearth of organizations which provide the same services in Web Analytics”, says Rakesh Makhija, Senior Business Analyst at Tatvic, one such Web Analytics consulting firm. On the whole there are opportunities galore, both on the in-house and consulting fronts, the industry is thirsty for talent and experience.

Profile and requirements Passion and a keen insight in data are the very essential for a job in either of these paradigms. Aspirants looking for jobs in SEO also need a background in web development with hands on skills in both frontend and backend tech-

NEC unveils “Medias W”

Japan’s NTT Docomo teamed up with NEC to release new smartphones. Part of the offering, “Medias W” has dual display and is foldable

nologies. Apart from this they’re also expected to diversify and curate content on the website particularly the user interaction and comments, implement high-quality link building strategies for the websites in their portfolio. SEO also is very much about reverse engineering and second guessing the search engine, skills which can only be accrued and honed after years of experience. From our previous dichotomy of available job profiles in Analytics, if you’re more interested in the technical aspects of things then the companies expect you to be well versed with front-end technologies especially JavaScript. There are a lot of tools/vendors in the market which aid analysts in collecting, organizing and reporting the data viz. Google Analytics, Omniture, IBM Digital Analytics, Webtrends and so on. It’s onus on the analytics implementers to make sure that all the systems active on your web properties are completely in sync as errors or miscalibration can lead to catastrophic result. “We look for people who have a logical bend and enjoy number crunching, also they should be willing to work as a part of a team as collaboration is a part of the job profile.” adds Rakesh. As for the degree certification, companies usually don’t demand any particular degree but as a minimum the aspirant should possess a Bachelor’s degree, a background in science or technology is an added bonus but not a necessity. Along with this some workable knowledge of HTML and JavaScript is expected. As an entry level SEO executive/business analyst you can expect anything from 1.8 lac p.a. to 2.5 lac p.a.; an experienced SEO executive/Analyst stands to rake in a minimum of 4.8 lac p.a. though the exact amount varies from company to company.

Training A recent survey by Adobe and CMO Council taken by 295 senior marketers in Asia-Pacific show that the industry in the APAC region lags behind its global counterparts in terms of experienced talent. Although we have excellent resources as far as the web development skills go, the marketing teams don’t have the right skills and/or experience to handle digital mar-

Temple Run 2

The latest iteration of Temple Run called “Temple Run 2” was downloaded 20 million times in its first four days of launch

Work@Tech

Certifications A lot of institutes have come up across India which offer courses and/or certification in SEO and Web Analytics. There a couple of places online which offer excellent certificate course for a fee.

1. Web Intelligence at University of California - Irvine This course is a collaboration of the University of California, Irvine Extension, the University of British Columbia Continuing Studies Program and the Digital Analytics Association. It’s an award-winning course on digital analytics with courses on data warehousing, business intelligence and other such business topics. The course is completely online and roughly costs about `2,27,153. You can find more information about the course at: http://unex.uci.edu/areas/it/web_intel/

2. Market Motive While the Web Intelligence course at Irvine is more focused on Analytics, Market Motive provides you with an entire gamut of certifications for nearly all paradigms in digital marketing with courses covering fundamentals, search engine optimization, web analytics, conversion optimization, social media marketing, pay per click marketing and digital PR. MM offers a comprehensive selfpaced study plan in which all the material

keting strategies at scale but this is partly due to the fact that such corporations suffered from a paucity of hiring budget which prevented them from recruiting senior talent. All in all an experienced SEO expert/analyst will be welcomed with open arms by organizations all around. When it comes to training it boils down to your ability to grasp the essentials and your aptitude for learning. It is easier for students with technical background to pick up things faster as far as SEO is concerned, while in the case of Web Analytics you need to understand the nitty-gritties of an analytics tool to get a clear picture of what’s taking place. Usually a digital marketing agency or an SEO/Analytics Consultancy doesn’t limit itself to one particular tool but chooses to work with a vendor which best meets their budget and requirements, so a new entrant has to first train with the experienced staff and find his way around the tool. After understanding the working of the various vendor platforms, an aspirant is bumped

is available online including training videos, lessons, quizzes plus a platform to meet peers from the industry on the website itself. There is no one time fee, but the access costs about `16,047 per month. Learn more at: http://www.marketmotive.com/

3. Conversion University This is a free course by Google but it focuses on Google Analytics as opposed to Web Analytics in general. The resources are excellent, it has got both video and text-based lessons to help you become a more knowledgeable Google Analytics user. Google also provides a Google Analytics Individual Qualification which shows your proficiency with the platform. The test is a 90 minutes open book exam, with 80% passing marks. You can access the test at Google Testing Center each test costs roughly `2684 . The course resides at: http:// www.google.co.in/analytics/iq.html Adobe also provides training services and a certificate program for digital marketing aspirants who specialize in working on it’s Digital Marketing Suite. But as a rule of thumb such courses focus on the tool and won’t give you much coverage about the basics which apply to every platform in the wild. Best of luck!

up to design and implement strategies at an industry-level. You usually progress to a vertical after accruing enough experience in dealing with industries.

Conclusion What we’ve offered is a glimpse of what is awaiting those of you who are interested in a career in SEO and Web Analytics. Something to look out for here would be business intelligence, which involves providing the management with business specific decisions based on the data coming in from various marketing platforms. But the digital marketing scene just doesn’t end here, we haven’t even broached the topics of Paid Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Mobile Marketing. There is no denying the fact that digital marketing is poised to bring about a revolution in how people interact with brands and businesses both online and offline, the key is to keep oneself updated and never stop learning. Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 85

Gorilla Glass 3 Industry Connect

“Corning,” of Gorilla Glass fame, announced and showcased “Gorilla Glass 3” at CES 2013

Facebook messenger news

According to reports, Facebook is working on adding voice messaging and VoIP feature in its Messenger app for smartphones http://dgit.in/132XYRi

Calling Qualcomm We talk about the future of LTE, their latest chips and opportunities in India Soham Raninga

customisation options that save engineering costs and speed time to market, access to an ecosystem of hardware and software providers, and testing and acceptance readiness for regional and leading operator requirements. In India, Qualcomm is working with all the leading Indian brands.

[email protected] Given that Qualcomm is at the centre of the implementation of LTE-TDD in India, what are the biggest challenges to get LTE off the ground in India?  

In India, Bharti Airtel launched their commercial LTE-TDD network with multimode dongles based on Qualcomm Technologies’ MDM9x00 in Kolkata, Bangalore and Pune. India’s mobile broadband needs can only be met when 3G HSPA/EV-DO & LTE work in harmony to provide the best solution for coverage and capacity. 3G HSPA/EV-DO must be the underlay that provides widescale coverage while LTE will be deployed in dense areas for additional capacity. While LTE is expected to become more prevalent in the long term, most Indian operators are focused on maximizing the value and performance of their 3G HSPA/EV-DO services to ensure consumers have a fantastic mobile broadband experience. Qualcomm has been very successful in the SoC space, thanks to the S4 series of processors. Can you share some details on the latest MSM8226 and MSM8626 chips and what devices they will be targeting? 

These Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processors with quad-core CPUs will bring premium multimedia and connectivity features to high-volume 3G handsets. Featuring the powerful Adreno 305 GPU, 1080p capture and playback, and up to a 13 megapixel camera, the MSM8226 and MSM8626 processors are optimized to deliver visually stunning graphics and exceptionally long battery life to high-volume smartphones. Building on Qualcomm Technologies’ previous quad-core offering, both the MSM8226 and MSM8626 processors are fabricated using the 28nm technology node and will continue to support multi-SIM capabilities with Dual SIM, Dual Standby and Dual SIM, Dual Active. In addition to a quad-core CPU, these chipsets incorporate 86 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

How bullish is Qualcomm on the low-end smartphone and tablet market?  

Dr. Avneesh Agrawal, Senior Vice President, Qualcomm Technologies and President, Qualcomm India and South Asia

the new WTR2605 multi-mode radio transceiver, and offer 40 percent power savings and 60 percent smaller footprint compared to previous generations. The Snapdragon S4 Pro vs the Exynos 5250, the latest dual-core SoC from Samsung, your thoughts? 

In fact, our highly integrated, multicore processors consistently beat the competition in third-party benchmark reviews and user experience testing. For example, our Snapdragon S4 8960 processor, featuring a dual-core Krait CPU, outperforms the competitors’ quad-core solutions in the majority of third-party benchmark reviews. Can you share details on the Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) program?

QRD brings together the value of the mobile industry leader with specific products, features and programs for emerging markets. Device manufacturers should not have to trade off quality and innovation for price. The QRD program offers Qualcomm’s leading technical innovation, differentiated hardware and software, easy

We are quite bullish on the affordable 3G smartphone and tablet opportunity in India which has low penetration of PCs and laptops. Qualcomm has played a key role in catalysing India’s wireless revolution by making mobile communication affordable and accessible. We believe many Indians will get their first experience of mobile Internet and computing on a 3G smartphone, since smartphone affordability is a reality today. Qualcomm Snapdragon processors are leading this trend by enabling affordable 3G smartphones at sub `5,000 price point and 3G tablets below `10,000. Qualcomm has invested heavily in Sharp which is into making displays. Is this a future business division for Qualcomm for making tablets or ebook readers?  

Qualcomm recently announced the expansion of our display technology development between Qualcomm’s wholly-owned subsidiary Pixtronix, Inc. and Sharp Corporation. The goal is to develop and commercialize high-quality color, low-power MEMS displays incorporating IGZO- based display (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) technology and utilizing existing LCD manufacturing infrastructure. In addition, Qualcomm is making an equity investment in Sharp Corporation to become a minority shareholder in Sharp. Expanding our existing relationship with Sharp to jointly commercialize new MEMS display technologies will help both companies realize their shared goal of driving high-performance, lower power displays for a variety of devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Cabinet Test

94

Tried & Tested

20+ cabinets slug it out in a quest to house your precious hardware. Head over here to find the one that’s right for you

Bazaar

105

An assortment of headphones, cameras and other gadgets are passed through are rigorous test process

Camera Shootout of the

Advanced Kind

We compare the popular enthusiast cameras out there to crown the best

Swapnil Mathur [email protected]

W

ith the pointand-shoot camera market hitting somewhat of a wall in terms of growth, the camera makers figured it was time for the next stage of evolution – advanced point and shoot. Given the changing trends, manufacturers have started taking the features that make DSLRs so great and packing them into smaller point-n-shoot cameras. In the last two years, we’ve seen cameras with really fast apertures of f/1.4, we’re seeing bigger sensors getting packed into the little cameras not to mention those really convenient dials and controls that are also starting to slowly creep into these little shooters. Normally, if

you want fast apertures of f/1.4, you’re going to have to shell out a lot more for the lens than you would for an advanced point and shoot. While the manufacturers are in a giving mood, they’re not willing to let the consumer have it all. If you’re hoping for a point and shoot with a really fast f/1.4-2.3 lens to also have a large sensor with an excellent 24mm (or wider) to 200mm (or longer) focal length, we recommend you go back to sleep and continue dreaming. There seems to be an underlying trend of crippling even these advanced cameras.

Advanced point and shoot This is a category we are quite excited about as it is a sign that there truly is a future for the little cameras that fit into our pockets. It is a sign that we may

88 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

not have to lug our DSLR kits around just because we want to be sure of not missing that critical shot.

Features and design Given that the advanced point and shoot segment is still in its infancy, we’re not surprised that the feature set is still very fragmented. While one camera might play host to a large sensor, the optics on it might fall short with a relatively slow lens. On the other hand a camera blessed with a fast aperture might falter due to its small 1/1.7-inch sensor, at least when it comes to high ISO performance. Case in point being the Sony RX100 and the Panasonic LX7. While the RX100 has a large 1-inch sensor, its lens has a really slow f/4.9 maximum aperture at the telephoto end. The LX7 on the other

hand, boasts an aperture range of f/1.4-2.3, the fastest in a point and shoot, but the camera gets crippled due to a small sensor. The Canon PowerShot G1x is the powerhorse here, with its huge 1.5-inch APS-C sensor, the first of its kind in a point and shoot camera, but with that huge a sensor comes a major drawback. The minute you lay your hands on a G1X, you’d feel like you’d rather be holding a small DSLR. Not only is the camera huge and bulky, but it also has a relatively slow f/2.8-5.8 lens. The G1x also weighs in at 534 grams, which is not really light so far as point and shoots go. All cameras in our comparison had a pop-up flash, with all the advance cameras also sporting a hot-shoe to attach external speedlights. The Sony RX100 is an exeption here though, lacking both a hot shoe

Ubuntu Mobile in 2014

Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu for desktop have said that they will release an Ubuntu based smartphone in the year 2014

Acer launching Iconia B1

Acer is going to launch its new Android 4.1 Jelly Bean based tablet, the Acer Iconia B1 in India soon for `7,999

Cameras Test

How wE teSted The goal of our test this time was to determine which camera would give the best image quality, not only at varying ISO’s, but also at varying apertures. In DSLR lenses, the common notion is that a lens isn’t delivering optimum sharpness at the widest aperture and therefore, requires the lens to be stopped down by almost a stop to get to that sweet spot of ultimate sharpness. We wanted to see whether the same would apply to the point and shoot cameras as well. As a camera that’s going to go everywhere with you, we also wanted to make sure the video feature on these

and external flash support. What it does have, however, is a pop-up flash with a novel hinge design that allows the user to tilt it backwards to allow for a nice bounce from a nearby ceiling. We found that this ability to tilt the flash for different kinds of fills allowed us to achieve a rather pleasing image, one with a good balance of ambient and flash. With respect to design, we’re sort of on the fence with whether we should go for something that’s slim and pocketable, or let the bulk of some of these cameras slide just because they have powerful imaging capabilities. The Nikon Coolpix P7700 comes to mind here, which has served us really well in many awry conditions. Its only downside was the slightly slow AF and that it’s incredibly bulky, but that’s probably because of the fully articulated screen. However, if something bulky is absolutely out of the question, then the RX100 or the LX7 are worth a look.Speaking of features and design, we’d like to make a special mention of the Fujifilm X10, which employs the most unique camera design of the bunch. It has a rangefinderlike design and it ships with a fast f/2-2.8 lens while sporting a decently sized 2/3-inch sensor which Fuji claims will give DSLR-like results. It comes

little shooters was up to the task. All cameras were tested using SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I memory card (64 GB). We divided our tests into three parts: two for stills and one for video. One set of tests involved shooting a simulated test target in controlled light to measure color depth/accuracy, white balance accuracy and lens sharpness in the corners and center. A controlled test target also helps determine the ISO performance of a camera. The second phase of testing involved getting outside the studio and shooting a real-world scenario. We included the

with modestly fast AF, but one that takes a little getting used to along with the film simulation modes that we absolutely love. Fujifilm might not be making the Velvia film anymore, but you might get that same look with the X10. Overall, we feel that it can be hard to pick just one camera to trump them all based in just features, but our hearts are strongly set on the RX100 which not only has a large sensor, but also a fast starting apertureand comes with a tilting flash all wrapped up in a neat, sturdy plastic body that will fit into most pockets.

Ergonomics and build A lot of money is spent by camera makers to achieve the perfect placement of buttons

usual rundown of several kinds of still life, lots of landscape, some macro along with people shots. For our low light testing, we resorted to taking a lot of street shots at generally high ISO and wide apertures. Video performance was tested indoors and outdoors. The outdoor filming allowed us to gauge the dynamic range and audio prowess of the cameras whereas the indoor test allowed us to see how well the sensor could curtail and control noise. For detailed tested images head to: http://dgit. in/dgt_0213_adv_pns

and indents when it comes to their cameras. The companies truly do want the camera to be an extension of your arm, and therefore, much research goes into designing its curves to flow naturally with the human grip. We felt that in all the cameras we used, the Canon PowerShot G15 had the best blend of size and comfort. Its grip is designed and the buttons are all within the thumb’s reach, except the playback button which is right at the top, next to the viewfinder. The worst in our opinion was the Panasonic LX7, whose buttons not only felt like cheap toys, but also felt weirdly spaced. The RX100 is designed simply as an elegant slab of plastic with rounded edges with no real

february 2013

gripping options. If you’re comfortable with holding the camera with just your thumb and index finger, then you shouldn’t have any problems with the RX100, otherwise we strongly recommend looking into a third party grip option. It’s a toss up between the RX100 and the G15, slimmer design and pocketability vs superior ergonomics and function. The Panasonic LX7 and the Canon PowerShot S110 both fit well into the pocket, but follow the same design ethos as the RX100. Overall, if we had to choose, the RX100 would be our choice because it’s super light, so holding it with the ‘thumb-index-fingercombination’ doesn’t hurt at all, it has a large sensor and a fast aperture and most of all, it can easily be tucked away not only into a pocket, but also any reasonably small crevice in a backpack or purse.

Performance

Sony RX100

Now THIS is the real meat of the show! With every manufacturer’s best cameras laid out in front of us, it all comes down to which camera can deliver the best images and videos. Our studio tests revealed that the Canon PowerShot G1x was hands down the best at controlling noise. Our Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 89

Cameras Test

february 2013

february 2013

Advanced point and shoots Brand

Sony

Fujifilm

Nikon

Nikon

Panasonic

Canon

Model Price (`)

DSC - RX100 34,990

X-10 44,999

Coolpix P7700 24,950

Coolpix P310 16,950

DMC - LX7 34,990

PowerShot G15 34,995

Features (Out of 20) Still Image Performance (Out of 40) Video Performance (Out of 30) Build Quality (Out of 5) Ergonomics and usability (So 5) Grand Total (Out of 100) Specifications Sensor resolution (MP) Sensor size (inches)/type Wide-Telephoto End (mm) Aperture Range (Wide/Tele) AutoFocus System Manual Focus (Y/N) White balance presets Built-in Flash (Y/N) Image Stabilisation (Type) Aperture/Shutter priority (Y/N) AE/WB Bracketing (Y/N) Continuous Drive (frames per second)(at max resolution) GPS (Y/N) LCD size (inches) / Resolution (dots) LCD Articulated / Touchscreen (Y/N) LCD Touchscreen (Y/N) JPEG / RAW (Y/N) Microphone type / HDMI Out Max Video capture resolution Battery Type (AA, Li-ion) Battery Life (Manuf rated no of shots) Memory cards used Body dimensions (in mm)

8.2 31.48

7.65 31.16

7.61 28.46

6.88 27.72

7.76 29.96

7.56 29.28

23.34 3.75 4.4

22.19 4.5 3.6

21.02 3.75 3.65

20.01 2.75 3.5

20.21 3 3

22.55 4.25 3.95

71.17

69.1

64.49

60.86

63.93

67.59

20 1-in/BSI-CMOS 28-100 f/1.8-f/4.9 Contrast Detect Y 9 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 10

12 2/3-in/BSI-CMOS 28-112 f/2-f/2.8 Contrast Detect Y 7 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 10

12 1/1.7-in/CMOS 28-200 f/2.0-f/4.0 Contrast Detect Y 5 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 8

16 1/2.3-in/BSI-CMOS 24-100 f/1.8-f/4.9 Contrast Detect Y 5 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 7

10 1/1.7-in/CMOS 24-90 f/1.4-f/2.3 Contrast Detect Y 5 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 11

12 1/1.7-in/CMOS 28-140 f/1.8-f/2.8 Contrast Detect Y 7 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 2.1

N 3 / 1228k

N 2.8 / 460k

N 3 / 921k

N 3 / 921k

N 3 / 920k

N 3 / 922k

N

N

Y

N

N

N

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 330

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 270

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 330

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 230

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 330

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 350

SDXC 102 x 59 x 36 mm

SDXC 117 x 70 x 57 mm

SDXC 119 x 73 x 50 mm

SDXC 103 x 58 x 32 mm

SDXC 111 x 68 x 46 mm

SDXC 107 x 76 x 40 mm

350

392

194

298

352

9/9/9 7.5/6.5/6

9/9/8 7/0/0

8/8/7.5 6.5/5.5/0

9/9/8 7/5.5/4

8.5/8.5/8.5 7.5/6.5/5.5

8 8 8

6.5 6.5 6.5

7 7 7

8 8 8

7 7 7

8 8

8 8.5

8 8

7 7.5

9 8.5

7 6 8

7 6 7

7 6 6

7 6 6

7.5 7 7

8 8 6

8 7 6

7 7 6

7 7 6.5

8 8 7

8.5 9

7.5 9

7 9

7 9

7.5 9

Weight (in grams) 240 Performance Scores and Benchmarks Still Performance High ISO tests (So 10) ISO 200/400/800 9/9/9 ISO 1600/3200/6400 8/7/6 Low light Shooting Mode (So 10) Low Light mode sharpness 7.5 Auto mode sharpness 7.5 ISO 400 - P Mode - sharpness 7.5 Macro Mode Distortion supression 8 Pixel Clarity 8.5 Video Performance Video Quality (So 10) HD Indoor shooting 8 HD Indoor focussing 6.5 HD Indoor noise supression 8 Outdoor shooting Video 1: Horizontal panning 8.5 Video 2: Vertical panning 8 Video 3: Subject focus while 7.5 zoom Dynamic Range 8.5 Noise supression 9 90 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Cameras Test

february 2013

february 2013

Entry-level point and shoots Canon

Canon

Nikon

Nikon

Fujifilm

BenQ

BenQ

PowerShot S110 29,995

PowerShot G1x 47,995

Coolpix S8200 13,450

Coolpix L610 10,950

F660 14,299

GH210 9,990

GH650 13,999

7.07 28.14

8.01 31.9

5.16 26.62

4.78 25.8

5.51 28.98

4.59 25.04

4.7 24.44

21.6 2 3.9

23.33 4.5 3.7

19.85 3 3.5

19.85 3 3.5

20.46 3 3.85

17.7 2.5 3.6

17.7 2.5 3.45

62.71

71.44

58.13

56.93

61.8

53.43

52.79

12 1/1.7-in/CMOS 24-120 f/2-f/5.9 Contrast Detect Y 7 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 2.1

14 1.5-in/CMOS 28-112 f/2.8-f/5.8 Contrast Detect Y 7 Y Optical Y/Y Y/N 1.9

16 1/2.3-in/BSI-CMOS 25-350 f/3.5-f/5.9 Contrast Detect Y 5 Y Optical N/N N/N 10

16 1/2.3-in/BSI-CMOS 25-350 f/3.5-f/5.9 Contrast Detect Y 5 Y Optical N/N N/N 1.9

16 1/2-in/BSI-CMOS 24-360 f/3.5-f/5.3 Contrast Detect N 7 Y Sensor Shift Y/Y Y/N 8

16 1/2.3-in/NA 24-300 f/3-f/5.9 Contrast Detect N 6 Y Optical N/N N/N 1.9

16 1/2.3-in/NA 22-580 f/3-f/5.9 Contrast Detect Y 7 Y Optical Y/Y N/N 1.9

N 3 / 461k

N 3 / 920k

N 3 / 961k

N 3 / 460k

N 3 / 460k

2.7 / 230k

3 / 460k

N

Y

N

N

N

N

N

Y Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 200

N Y/Y Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 250

N Y/N Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 250

N Y/N Stereo / Y 1920x1080 AA 120

N Y/N Stereo / Y 1920x1080 Li-ion 300

N Y/N Stereo / N 1280x720 Li-ion 200

N Y/N Stereo / N 1280x720 AA 350

SDXC 99 x 59 x 27 mm

SDXC 117 x 81 x 65 mm

SDXC 104 x 59 x 33 mm

SDXC 108 x 69 x 34 mm

SDXC 104 x 59 x 33 mm

SDXC 120.2x79x87.1mm

198

534

213

240

217

SDXC 103.2 X 58.5 X 21.2 mm 160

8/8/7.5 7/6/5.5

9.5/9.5/9 8.5/7.5/6.5

8/8/7.5 6.5/5/0

8/8/7.5 6.5/0/0

9/9/8 7/6/0

7.5/7.5/7 6/5/0

7.5/7.5/7 6/0/0

7 7 7

7.5 7.5 7.5

6 6 6

6 6 6

6.5 6.5 6.5

6 6 6

6 6 6

8 8

9.5 9

8 8

8 7.5

8 7.5

8 7.5

8 7.5

7 7 7

8 7 8

6 6 6

6 6 6

7 6 7

5.5 5 5

5.5 5 5

7.5 7.5 6

8 8 7

7 7 6

7 7 6

7 7 6

6 6 6

6 6 6

7 9

8.5 9

6.5 9

6.5 9

7 9

6 9

6 9

410

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 91

BB Curve 9315 released Cameras Test

testing parameters topped out at ISO 6400, as that was the maximum for most cameras. The G1x’s APS-C sized sensor didn’t have a lot of problem keeping the noise at bay. The RX100 was a very close second, given that it also has a large, 1-inch sensor. However, the real surprise here was the Fujifilm X10, which despite its smaller sensor was nearly at par with the RX100. We measured the detail retained in the toy fibers and bottle label from our test scene at every ISO level. Once again, the larger sensor on the G1x put it ahead of the competition, with Sony’s 20 megapixel, 1-inch BSI sensor not far behind. The Nikons, obviously, with their tiny little sensors, couldn’t keep up with the front runners, but the Nikon Coolpix P7700 showed a surprising penchant for detail retention, at least when shooting RAW. If we were to leave ISO out of the equation and put the cameras in aperture priority mode, then we noticed the G1x falter slightly. With an aperture of f/2.8, the camera couldn’t achieve fast shutter speeds, which made shooting a person walking slowly quite a challenging image to capture. The LX7 on the other hand didn’t have any issues with capturing the image, but it did have a hard time locking focus. The G15 on the other hand did really well thanks to the fast, f/1.8 lens, but the real star of the show was the Sony RX100, which managed to lock focus and shoot at high ISO and give us decent enough shutter speed to capture our subject. Switching to the bright daylight conditions, the rules of physics were quite apparent. Larger sensors captured more dynamic range and displayed better color depth when compared to their small sensor-ed counterparts. Once 92 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

BlackBerry 7.1 OS based Curve 9315was recently released. There is no word about its availability in India though

Consoles launch in March?

According to reports, both Microsoft and Sony are planning to reveal their next-gen consoles in March this year

this category, we restricted the models to those that fell below a price cap of `15,000 and only included those that were released after October 2012.

february 2013

Features and design

Fujifilm-X10

again, the G1x shone bright here, with the Sony RX100 in close tow.

Verdict Canon Powershot G1x is the winner of our Best Performer award and therefore the point and shoot for you to buy. However, before you shell out the `48,000 premium for it, do note that you can buy a decent DSLR

Buy award. While the RX100 and the G1x wear the winner’s crown, we can’t help but make a special mention of the Fujifilm X10. Its an incredibly beautiful camera with a great AF system, amazing imaging performance and a whole load of old-school dials. It doesn’t perform quite as well as the G1x, and it’s a lot more expensive than the RX100, so it loses out on the two logical

february 2013

Canon PowerShot G1X

for that price, a DSLR which will give you the option to change and use far better lenses that those on the G1x. Instead, if you turn to the Sony DSC RX100, which performs almost as well as the G1x, you’d realize that for `34, 990, it’s a far better deal. Given the amazing blend of performance and price the Sony RX100 truly deserves the Best

metrics, but despite that, the Fujifilm X10 has impressed us enough for it to earn our Editor’s Pick award.

Basic point and shoot cameras Now that we’ve got the bigwigs out of the way, we can focus on the smaller, more basic point-nshoot cameras that we got. For

In this matchup, we’ve got three compact point and shoot cameras: The Nikon Coolpix S8200, Fujifilm F660 EXR and the BenQ GH210 and two ultra-zoom cameras: the Nikon Coolpix L610 and the BenQ GH650. The GH650 offers the maximum zoom in this category, with the lens capable of pulling off shots in the 22-580 mm range. We were actually quite surprised to see the lens go down to 22 mm, something we have not seen in a lot of point and shoot cameras as they generally tend to favor 24 or 28 mm as a starting point. The Nikon Coolpix S8200 and the BenQ GH210 ship with a very standard set of features, f/3.5-5.8 aperture lens, a focal length of roughly 25-350 mm and a 1/2.3-inch sensor , but the shocker on the GH210 is that it uses a CCD sensor, a type that is now being phased out by most manufacturers. However, it’s interesting to note that the BenQ site lists the sensor on the GH210 as one made by Sony, while the one on the GH650 as made by Panasonic. Similarly, the optics on the BenQ cameras also come from Sony, although we have serious doubts whether these optics match the quality found on Sony’s own cameras. The Fujifilm F660 EXR uses an unconventionally sized 1/2inch sensor, making it the largest amongst those we compared. Other than that, it also has some rather nice ergonomics, with smooth curves and a well finished body, but the real winner for us is the mode-dial which is placed at a slight angle on

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the back. It’s really easy to turn without really having to move the thumb a lot. This did, however, at times pose a problem as we found the dial switching on us unexpectedly even with the slightest brush of the thumb.

Build and ergonomics The comfort of holding a camera can be quite subjective to the hands of the user. However, certain things remain universal, such as the placement of the shutter button, the placement of the zoom toggle and other buttons that are needed to access features. The ergonomics on each of these five cameras were quite decent, though we weren’t quite taken in by the sharp corners on the GH210. The best fitting camera (in our hands) was the Fujifilm F660 EXR, which did surprise us a little, seeing how the X10 is anything but an ergonomic marvel. When we started to play with the Nikon Coolpix L610, we were really intrigued by the design of the camera. It has a really gentle bulge at the top, probably as a result of the large lens, but we haven’t seen such curvaceous design cues being implemented in cameras off late. If anything, they have been becoming more angular and clean cut, so the curves are a welcome change. We do however, feel that you might run into issues fitting

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this into a camera case that you might have lying around. What we loved the most about the L610, a feature that definitely made it stand out from the rest of the cameras in this competition was the ribbed grip that’s replaced the smooth rubber grip that’s normally found on such cameras. Speaking of build quality, the Nikons, though obviously made of plastic, they didn’t feel flimsy at all. The Fujifilm infact, inspite of the plastic,

built camera out of the five with a well-polished finish, sturdy buttons that were placed just perfectly and the camera itself was a treat to handle.

Performance The in-studio performance results showed that throughout the range, the Fujifilm F660 EXR dominated the test. Thanks to the slightly larger sensor. It was just ahead of the Nikons up until ISO 1600 and at ISO

february 2013

Cameras Test

over emphasised. While landscape photographers, or those who love shooting leaves might enjoy the Nikons, the F660 EXR offers a better balance of colors. The BenQs offered the same balanced saturation as the Fujifilm F660 EXR, but there is more to the overall story. When we factored in contrast and dynamic range, the F660 did better just by a little bit thanks to its emphasis on shadows in strongly lit scenes. We ended up with lesser “unintentional” silhouettes with the Fuji than we did when shooting with the Nikon or BenQ models.

Verdict

Fujifilm F660EXR

felt like it could withstand a drop or two. The BenQ cameras on the other hand felt as fragile as egg shells in our hands. The battery door was one of the flimsiest we’ve ever seen, operating on a very delicate spring-hinge mechanism. The GH210 felt mostly like a toy camera with an incredibly thin plastic shell that creaked at the slightest pressure from our fingers. Overall, the Fujifilm F660 EXR was the best

3200, the retention of detail was visibly higher compared to the Nikons and the BenQs. The real world tests were a rather exciting comparison, with the performance becoming quite hard to gauge. For example, the Nikon S8200 had a very pleasing level of saturation, with a strong emphasis on greens. The Fuji on the other hand had slightly lower saturation (on default setting), but the greens were not

In cameras that are under `15,000, we do not really expect stellar performance, especially when we’re used to using more high-end imaging devices and these cameras were no exception. We decided that the Fujifilm F660 EXR should win our Best Buy award for its better performance over the competition (though just by a little bit). The build quality on the Fuji was also surprisingly good, as we’re normally used to dealing with cameras that have a flimsy build or poor finish if they cost under 15K. But it looks like Fujifilm cut no corners with this little beauty. We do however wish that it had a faster lens, as that would definitely make this the camera of choice when going anywhere, especially clubbing.

COD: Black Ops II DLC Cabinets Test

A new DLC for the popular game Call Of Duty: Black Ops II, titled Revolution was released on January 29 and is available for purchase

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The

Perfect

Enclosure We pit 25 cabinets against each other in this month’s shootout, right from the cheapest cases to the pocket burning meteor-sized ones. Hold on to your thumb screws because this isn’t going to be an open and shut case

Siddhant Sharma [email protected]

W

hen the time finally arrives to build or upgrade your rig, you will obviously want the very best components that can be bought in your budget. So after selecting all the innards, your next big decision should be to select a good cabinet. In most cases, people focus on all the other core components and end up buying cheap and flimsy cases. For the lack of a better word we’d call that plain silly, because a bad cabinet with poor build-quality, improper airflow will increase the internal temperature of the cabinet and decrease the life of your precious components. This is where we come into the

94 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

picture, to help you make the right decision and help you choose the best cabinet for your needs.

Mini-tower and mid-tower cabinets under `5,000 This price bracket has the most budget-friendly cabinets including mini-towers as well as mid-towers. Some of the cases mentioned in this category have features that you may get in higher-end cabinets as well but for a fraction of their price. Let’s take a closer look at them, shall we?

Cooler Master Elite 344 The CM Elite 344’s design is inspired from its bigger brother the CM Elite 311 but the Elite 344 is a micro-ATX case. It’s simple looking with

a glossy finish at the front and silver accents around its borders. The side panel has space to add a 90 mm fan to improve air-flow. But it being a mini-tower, `2,400 is still on the expensive side for us to be fully sold on it.

Huntkey T-91 The T-91 from Huntkey has a simple meshed design on its front bezel with some slit-like grilled accents. The power button is big and has nice feedback to it when pressed and it lights up from the top to give it a nice look. The ports are aptly placed and easy to reach. Going to the side panels you will notice that the left side panel has a grill which can be used to mount fans. Inside the case are some plastic blockers used to close out sharp parts of

the case to prevent cuts during installation. The drive caddies are well made and tool-less. But one thing which is missing from this case is USB 3.0.

Bitfenix Merc Alpha The Bitfenix Merc Alpha may look spartan, but don’t let looks fool you, because it packs quite a lot of impressive features when it comes down to functionality. It has plenty of room for mounting more fans as desired. The number of USB ports on the Merc Alpha is also an added advantage. The PSU can be mounted either with its fan facing downwards or upwards. Modules in this case are stripped down to cut costs but its not necessarily cheap at `2,849. We didn’t like its laterally mounting hard drive cages as the cables interfere with other components.

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Cabinets Test

How wE teSted The cabinets we received for this test spanned across categories. There were mini-towers, mid-towers and full-towers of all shapes, so we decided to divide the mini-tower and mid-tower cabinets according to their price range, namely cabinets below `5,000, cabinets between `5,001 to `10,000, and cabinets above `10,001. For the last category we grouped full-tower cabinets together. TEST RIG (For mid-towers and full-towers): Processor: AMD Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition with stock cooler Motherboard: Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB DDR3-2133 Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 4870x2 Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro 850 Watts Hard Disk Drive: Seagate Barracuda 80 Gb SATA Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate TEST RIG (For mini-towers): Motherboard: ECS Elitegroup A785GM-M

Black Series Except the motherboard, all other components used for testing minitowers were the same. We assigned 50 percent weightage to the cabinet features, 40 percent to performance and 10 percent weightage for included accessories. We also took a note of the location of the power and reset buttons, the location of audio jacks and PSU placement. Cabinets which provided features for better cable management, dust protection and tool-less design were awarded more points. For testing the performance of the cabinets, we calculated the difference between the load CPU and GPU temperature and cabinet’s internal temperature when idle. We used Cinebench R11.5 to stress test the CPU by running three loops of the CPU benchmark and took a note of the hottest CPU core using core temp in the final loop. The ambient temperature and case internal temperature was measured using a digital thermometer. We chose to use the ATI Radeon HD4870x2 as our test GPU because it runs extremely hot

even when it’s idle and obviously on full load. For stressing the GPU, we ran the OpenGL benchmark for two loops in Cinebench R11.5, which put the GPU under 100 percent load, we then used GPU-Z and MSI Afterburner to get the idle as well as load temperatures of the GPU during testing. We kept the temperature probe of the digital thermometer suspended right between the CPU and GPU area which allowed it to capture the most accurate case internal temperature. Cable management was perfectly observed for every cabinet so that wires didn’t block the air-intake as well as exhaust. All of the unused as well as the in-use wires were tied using wire strings. The fans included with the cabinets were allowed to run at their full speed (even for the cabinets which had a fan controller preinstalled). The orientation and placement of included fans was not disturbed or changed, so the included fans were placed at their default places during the test; this practice dismissed unfair advantage (if any) for every cabinet.

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Cabinets Test

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a lot of dust, as it does not come with dust-filters at all. february 2013

Circle Tornado This is a decked up case as far as features are concerned. The top of the case protrudes to allow for 2x120 mm fans and also has four slidable switches for its fan controller which has low, normal and high settings for each individual fan. The front is completely meshed and has a wide variety of ports including an eSATA port. Its side panels though wobbly have space to attach four optional fans. The dust filters on the side-panel are screwed down. Velcro cable ties make cable management easy. Its HDD Bay section is removable but overall the case is still a bit cramped.

Cooler Master HAF 912

Circle Herculean

Cooler Master K380 This case has a design which is somewhat inspired from Cooler Master’s HAF series of cases but without the HAF nomenclature. The front panel has a zig-zag design to its edges, along with a metallic CM logo and a meshed grill. Its top is raised so as to provide for an air-vent. Powering on this case, you will notice a Red LED fan with a honeycomb grill at the front which looks futuristic. A big bulging side-panel window lets you see inside the case. The niggling bit is that its hard drive cages are laterally placed. There is not an abundance of space in this case but it gets the job done.

Corsair Carbide 200R Corsair Carbide 200R has a very basic but quite a functional design. The front of this case is plain with matte plastic, and honeycombed slits are used for air intake. Installing 3.5-inch

or 2.5-inch drives in this case is very easy – you just need to slide the drives in the cages and they get locked in. It even has four easy-to-use compartments for 2.5- inch drive installation. Though it has some nice features, but we feel its pricing ar `4,000 is on the higher side.

Zebronics Bijli 2 After the original Bijli, Zebronics has improved their design with the Bijli 2. It has a meshed front and the ports as well as buttons on Bijli 2 are all at the top for ease of access. The power button is backlit and the side panel window is nicely designed to make place for viewing the innards of the case. It also provides tool less installation for the PCI cards by using small clips. We found this case to be very cool during testing mainly because of sheer number of fans included with the case. But this case will pull in

96 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

And others Mercury Romeo Omega was another mini-tower we got, the insides of this case are very basic and there is not much difference between this and the CM Elite 344 except it has an 80mm fan at the rear and costs half as much. The Antec One S3, had a nice plastic matte design and is a good case to consider, but we found it tough to fix its left side-panel due to less clearance.

Category verdict The Huntkey T-91 comes out as the winner of the Best Buy award in this lower end of the spectrum mostly because it’s dirt cheap but still has nice features and performs well enough. The Bitfenix Merc Alpha was also a worthy contender due to its price but the Huntkey T-91 at `1,450 is what you must get (if you have no space constraints) rather than getting a mini-tower case. People looking for more style in their cabinets, can opt for the Cooler Master K380 as it has a nice feel to it along with most of the bells and whistles available in good cases.

The CM HAF 912 is a budget -friendly alternative to CM’s higher end line of their HAF breed of cases. Its front bezel has an aggressive look to it with a metal mesh and dust filters. The side panels of the case also protrude outwards and the left side panel has the HAF logo painted on it. The build quality of this case is solid but its side panels have some amount of flex. There is plenty of space inside the case to accommodate most components. Cable management is easy in this case. We found that the included fans provide a good amount of airflow inside the case and keep Cooler Master Storm Trooper the case cool.

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Cabinets Test

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Cooler Master HAF XB february 2013

Straight out-of-the-box you will notice that the dimensions of this case are very different from standard mid-towers. It’s because this case also doubles up as full-fledged test bench. Being from CM’s HAF series of cases,its design is still primed for maximum airflow. This can be seen as it has a big meshed grill at its front with pre-installed fans. There are also two hot-swap drive bays at the front. There are handles at its sides to allow you to carry the case conveniently. Its motherboard tray can be removed just by unscrewing four thumbscrews. The frontportion of the case can also be used to install a 240mm radiator for liquid-cooling.

may notice with this case is that it has a huge acrylic sidepanel window with silicone grommeted fan mounts. The front of this enclosure is completely meshed and has slits on both the sides to complement its design. The right-side panel has space for mounting a fan which will be behind the motherboard tray. Upon opening the Eleven Hundred, you will see that it has a molex powered internal fan-hub and an option to turn off the top fan LED. A bundled front-fan would have lowered the temperatures inside this case but it’s still one of the few cases in our test which are big enough to house XL-ATX boards.

Antec Eleven Hundred

Cooler Master HAF - XM

The Antec Eleven Hundred is a mid-tower in a full-tower’s disguise. The first thing you

Straight out-of-the-box the HAF - XM greets you with its sturdy body with black anodised fin-

Cooler Master Silencio 650

Mid-tower cabinets between `5,001 to `10,000 This is a sweet spot for most buyers as this range has impressive cases which provide most of the features one can ask for without burning that proverbial hole in your pocket. There are some cabinets in this category which are big enough to support XL-ATX or E-ATX motherboards making it easy for buyers to choose them instead of paying for an expensive full-tower. It should also be noted that most of the cases in this range have good cable management features.

Corsair Carbide 400R The Carbide 400R has superlative build quality along with a very professional but functional design and a great paint job. Its front panel is meshed and has two white LED fans preinstalled and its top is raised to make way for a handle which enables you to carry the case around. Its side panels are pro98 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

truding more than any case we got for the test. These panels are sturdy and have rubbered fan mounts on them. The included fans provide a good deal of airflow inside the case. You can mount a 240mm or 280mm radiator at the top of the 400R too.

february 2013

NZXT Phantom 410 Out of the two Phantom cases which we got from NZXT, the Phantom 410 is a mid-tower and also a newer version of the original Phantom. The front and the top of this case is mostly made of plastic but the inner frame of the case is solid steel. We liked its bevelled design. A push-toopen door hides the 5.25-inch drive bays. The left side panel is divided into a see-through window and a grill for fan mounting. There is lots of space to manoeuvre around inside the case. You can even install a fan on the drive cages which has a pivot to switch the direction of airflow towards the GPU or CPU areas.

Huntkey T-91

Karbonn Data Bundle

Karbonn Mobiles teams up with Bharti Airtel to offer a range of bundled data offers with the purchase of select smartphones

february 2013

Dell’s Post-PC

A hybrid PC-on-a-stick and streaming solution unit handling HD video encoding and decoding, running Android, http://dgit.in/10O9osH

ishing. It has a meshed front bezel with two hot-swappable drive bays and a 200mm fan. The top of this case is also meshed and is removable. It has space for a liquid-cooling radiator at the top too. The leftside panel can be opened by just pulling a spring loaded latch. Inside, a cover hides the PSU cable clutter. It also has an extra, vertical PCI slot. The drive rails work very well and cable management is a also breeze. This enclosure being a mid-tower can still house an XL-ATX motherboard comfortably.

And others

Corsair Carbide 400R

We also got the Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 and the Antec Solo 2 for this test. The former is a proper gaming case which comes with most of the features

Cabinets Test

a good gaming case should have. Its design is great and the handles at the top allow you to carry this LAN-party-friendly case around. The contender from Antec is primed for silent computing users. It stays quiet using sound dampening material and silicone vibration absorbers. But due to its dimensions, there is not much space to work with in this case. Antec P280 was almost the same as the Antec Eleven Hundred but more of a silent computing case.

Category verdict The Best Buy award for this category goes to the Corsair Carbide 400R for being a rock solid case with great attributes for the price. While manoeuvring inside this case, you won’t break a sweat and

Slides Offline Cabinets Test

Pakistan Boycotts COD

Google’s PowerPoint-rival, Slides now gets offline support, making more features of the service accessible to users offline. http://dgit.in/V9MaXc

Retailers there stopped selling the new COD and MOH titles in the country, claiming they show the country in a poor light

february 2013

Cabinets Category Type Brand

Cabinets under `5,000 m-ATX m-ATX Mini-Tower Mini Tower Mercury Cooler Master Romeo Elite 344 Omega

Model Price (in `) Features (Out of 50) Accessories (Out of 10) Performance (Out of 40) Overall (Out of 100) Specifications Dimensions (HxWxL in mm) Weight (in kg) Colour Features Thumb screws / Latches for side panels (Y/N) Painted Interior(Y/N) Location of Ports / Power button (Top / Front) USB 2.0 / 3.0 ports Audio / Mic jack eSATA / FireWire port Internal USB 3.0 Header USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 Converter Cable Management (Cutouts) Cable Management (Rubber Grommets) 5.25in/3.5in (internal)/3.5in (external) bays Expansion Slots/ CPU Cooler Cut-Out Click lock HDD bays (Y/N) PSU location (Top / Bottom) Option to lock cabinet (Y/N) Base stand Liquid cooling grommets SD Card Slot Fans (Number / diameter in mm) Front Rear Side Top Fan Contoller (Y/N) Optional Fan Space Dust Filters Side/Top/Front/Bottom panel fan Accessories Thumb screws / Wire Strings Performance (in degrees Celcius) Case Load temperature CPU Stock Delta (Load temp – Case idle temp) GPU Delta (GPU load temp – Case idle temp)

the expandability it offers is great for future upgrades. The handle on top of the Corsair Carbide 400R also helped us to pick the case up and move it around during testing. The second best case in this section was the NZXT Phantom 410. It’s curvaceous design and a huge feature list make it easy to recommend if you can shell out it’s higher asking price. 100 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

ATX Mid-Tower Huntkey

ATX Mid-Tower Bitfenix

ATX Mid-Tower Antec

ATX Mid-Tower Zebronics

One - S3

ATX Mid-Tower Cooler Master K380

T-91

Merc Alpha

Bijli 2

1,400 8.25 0 18.59 26.83

2,400 17.45 6 18.74 42.20

1,450 19.85 4 22.94 46.80

2,849 21 10 21.78 52.78

3,000 25.8 6 23.10 54.90

3,400 26.15 6 20.09 52.24

3,799 26.8 6 23.80 56.60

361x183 x406 NA Black

356x183 x436 4 Black and Silver

415x185 x480 NA Black

439x190 x490 4.9 Black

438x208 x488 4.7 Black

445x209 x479 4.7 Black

450x190 x430 6.8 Black

N/N N Front/Front 2/0 Y 0/0 N N N N 2/4/0 4/N N Top Y Steel N N

Y/N N Front/Front 2/1 Y 0/0 Y N N N 2/6/0 4/Y N Top Y Plastic N N

Y/N Y Front/Front 2/0 Y 0/0 N N N N 3/5/0 7/Y Y Bottom Y Plastic Y N

Y/N Y Top/Top 4/0 Y 0/0 N N Y N 3/6/1 7/Y N Bottom Y Rubber Y N

Y/N Y Front/Front 0/2 Y 0/0 Y Y Y N 3/5/0 7/Y Y Bottom N Plastic Y N

Y/N Y Front/Front 1/1 Y 0/0 Y N Y N 3/7/0 7/Y Y Bottom N Plastic Y N

Y/N Y Top/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 N N Y N 3/4/0 7/Y Y Bottom Y Plastic Y N

0 1/80mm 0 0 N 2

1/120mm 0 0 NA N 2

0 0 0 NA N 5

0 1 0 0 N 7

0 1/120mm 0 0 N 4

1/120mm 0 0 0 N 3

1/120mm 1/120mm 1/120mm 1/120mm N 2

0/0/0/0

0/0/0/0

0/0/1/2

0/0/0/0

0/0/0/1

0/1/1/1

0/0/0/0

N/N

N/Y

Y/N

Y/Y

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

38 33 54

45 31.4 48.4

55 7 40

44 7 48

39.5 5.5 49.5

45 11 49

31.2 7.8 49.8

Mid-towers above `10,001 This category is for people who want to buy higher-end mid-towers but don’t want to jump on the full-tower bandwagon. We must say that most of the features you may see in this category are also available on the cabinets seen in the `5,001 to `10,000 category. It’s just that the build quality

of all the cabinets in this section is exceptional.

Cooler Master Silencio 650 This case has a minimalistic and sophisticated design element to it. Apart from being a case from the CM Silent series, it also has numerous features up its sleeves. It has a great looking aluminium door at

the front with a brushed-metal finish. The door also snaps into place using magnets. The orientation for opening the door can be changed too. The top of this case has two sliding covers, one for the ports and the other for air exhaust (this can be closed to decrease sound emanating from the case). The internal foam padding further dampens the sounds generated from within.

Sony adds colour to the PS3

Sony’s 6.44-inch Phablet

Sony’s newer and slimmer version of the Playstation 3 is now available in Red and Blue colour as well

A leaked glass panel indicates Sony might unveil a 6.44-inch phablet at MWC 2013, in its Xperia lineup http://dgit.in/V9Lr8w

february 2013

Cabinets Test

february 2013

Carbide 200R

Cabinets between `5,001 and `10,000 ATX ATX ATX ATX ATX ATX Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Cooler Circle Corsair NZXT Cooler Cooler Master Master Master HAF 912 Tornado Carbide Phantom HAF - XB Storm Scout 2 400R 410

3,999 25.15 10 24.11 59.26

4,500 28.3 6 31.54 65.85

4,950 30.55 6 22.49 59.04

5,700 31.35 6 25.37 62.72

6,199 33.85 6 25.75 65.60

6,200 26.15 6 21.86 54.01

6,500 30.1 6 21.59 57.69

7,500 27.4 6 24.04 57.44

8,099 31.05 6 22.58 59.63

8,400 33.05 6 24.12 63.17

9,500 36.1 6 22.89 64.99

430x210 x497 7.17 Black

480x230 x496 8.7 Black

432x200 x487 NA Black

520x205 x502 9.2 Black

516x215 x532 9 Red

330x442 x423 8.2 Black

513.5x230 x517.5 8.3 Red

440x205 x470 9.1 Black

527x237 x546 6.9 Black

526x231 x562 10.2 Black

530.5x252 x579 10.5 Black

Y/N Y Front/Front 0/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y N 3/4/0 7/Y Y Bottom N Rubber N N

Y/N Y Front/Front 1/1 Y 0/0 Y N Y N 4/6/1 7/Y Y Bottom Y Plastic Y N

Y/N Y Top/Front 4/2 Y 1/0 N N Y N 3/4/1 7/Y Y Bottom Y Rubber N N

Y/N Y Front/Front 0/2 Y 0/1 Y N Y Y 4/6/0 8/Y Y Bottom N Rubber/Steel Y N

Y/N Y Top/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/6/0 7/Y Y Bottom N Rubber Y N

Y/N Y Front/Front 0/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y N 2/0/2 7/Y Y Bottom N Rubber Y N

Y/N Y Top/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/7/0 7/Y Y Bottom Y Rubber Y N

Y/N Y Front/Front 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y N 2/3/0 7/Y Y Top Y Silicone N N

Y/N Y Front/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/6/0 9/Y Y Bottom N Plastic Y N

Y/N Y Front/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/6/0 9/Y Y Bottom N Plastic/Rubber Y N

Y/Y Y Front/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/8/2 8/Y Y Bottom Y Rubber/Steel Y N

1/120mm 1/120mm 0 0 N 5

1/120mm 1/120mm 0 0 N 4

1/120mm 1/120mm 0 2/120mm Y 5

2/120mm 1/120mm 0 0 N 8

1/120mm 1/120mm 0 1/140mm Y 4

2/120mm 0 0 0 N 4

0 1/120mm 0 0 N 7

0 1/120mm NA 0 Y 2

0 1/120mm 0 1/200mm LED N 5

0 1/120mm 0 2/120mm Y 4

1/200mm 1/140mm 0 1/200mm N 4

0/0/0/1

0/0/1/1

4/0/1/2

0/0/1/2

0/0/1/1

0/0/1/1

0/0/1/1

0/0/2/1

0/0/2/1

0/0/2/1

1/1/1/1

Y/Y

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

Y/Y

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

Y/Y

41.5 5 46

44.2 2 45

35.8 7 51

41.5 4 46

36 4.2 47.2

33 8 55

42 7 50

39.5 4.4 50.4

43 6.5 46.5

41.6 5.2 45.2

33.7 6.8 51.8

ATX Mid-Tower Corsair

ATX XL-ATX Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Antec Antec

XL-ATX Mid-Tower Antec

XL-ATX Mid-Tower Cooler Master

Solo 2

Eleven Hundred

P280

HAF-XM

Google’s Password Alternatives

Galaxy S4 rumours Cabinets Test

Google plans smart rings or USB-based cards as biometric and personal password alternatives for confirming multiple identities online http://dgit.in/V9MLbp

Rumour has it that Samsung’s new flagship phone, the Galaxy S4 is set to launch in April this year

february 2013

Cabinets Category Type Brand

Cabinets above `10,001 ATX ATX Mid-Tower Mid-Tower Cooler Corsair Master Silencio 650 Graphite 600T - Mesh

Model Price (in `) Features (Out of 50) Accessories (Out of 10) Performance (Out of 40) Overall (Out of 100) Specifications Dimensions (LxWxH in mm)

february 2013

february 2013

Full tower cabinets XL-ATX, ATX XL-ATX Full Tower Full-Tower Circle Cooler Master Vengeance C70 Herculean Storm Trooper

ATX Mid-Tower Corsair

XL-ATX Full-Tower NZXT

XL-ATX Ultra Tower Cooler Master Phantom 820 Cosmos II

10,500 34.15 6 22.11 62.26

11,800 34.55 6 23.96 64.51

11,999 29.5 6 25.37 60.87

11,999 34.4 6 24.03 64.44

13,500 38 6 22.40 66.40

15,999 38.65 10 23.01 71.66

19,000 36.6 6 21.58 64.18

Weight (in kg) Colour

479x207 x525.6 13 Black

507x265 x592 11.2 Black

501x232 x533 8.6 Military Green

500x232 x555 NA White and Black

605.6x250 x578.5 13.7 Black

650x235 x612 15 Matte Black

704x344 x664 22 Black

Features Thumb screws/Latches for side panels (Y/N) Painted Interior(Y/N) Location of Ports / Power button (Top / Front) USB 2.0/3.0 ports Audio / Mic jack eSATA/FireWire port Internal USB 3.0 Header USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 Converter Cable Management (Cutouts) Cable Management (Rubber Grommets) 5.25in/3.5in (internal)/3.5in (external) bays Expansion Slots/ CPU Cooler Cut-Out (Y/N) Click lock HDD bays (Y/N) PSU location (Top / Bottom) Option to lock cabinet (Y/N) Base stand

Y/N Y Top/Top 2/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/7/1 8/Y Y Bottom N Rubber

N/Y Y Top/Top 4/1 Y 0/1 Y Y Y Y 4/6/0 8/Y Y Bottom Y Rubber

N/Y Y Front/Front 0/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 3/6/0 8/Y Y Bottom N Steel/Rubber

Y/N Y Top/Top 2/2 Y 1/0 Y N Y Y 6/8/0 10/Y Y Bottom N Plastic

Y/N Y Top/Top 2/2 Y 1/0 Y N Y Y 9/8/0 9/Y Y Bottom Y Rubber

Y/Y Y Top/Top 4/2 Y 0/0 Y N Y Y 4/8/0 9/Y Y Bottom N Rubber/Steel

N/Y Y Front/Top 4/2 Y 1/0 Y N Y Y 3/11/2 10/Y Y Bottom N Rubber/Steel

Liquid cooling grommets SD Card Slot Fans (Number / diameter in mm) Front

Y Y

Y N

2 N

Y N

Y N

Y Y

Y N

2/120mm

1/200mm LED 2/120mm

1/200mm

2/120mm

1/200mm

1/200mm

Rear Side Top

1/120mm NA 0

1/120mm 1/120mm 0 0 1/200mm LED 0

0 NA 1/200mm

1/140mm 0 1/200mm

1x140mm 1x200mm 1x200mm

1/140mm 2/120mm 1/120mm

Fan Contoller (Y/N) Optional Fan Space Dust Filters Side/Top/Front/Bottom panel fan Accessories Thumb screws/ Wire strings Performance Case Load temperature CPU Stock Delta (Load temp – Case idle temp) GPU Delta (GPU load temp – case idle temp)

Y 3

Y 5

N 8

Y 3

Y 5

Y 6

Y 5

0/0/1/1

0/0/2/1

0/0/1/1

0/0/1/2

0/1/2/2

1/2/1/2

1/1/1/1

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

N/Y

Y/Y

Y/Y

N/Y

42.3 6.3 49.3

39.3 5 48

41.5 4 46

40 5.5 45.5

36.7 7.5 49.5

39.9 6 48

38.6 7.5 51.5

Corsair Graphite 600T This curvy case from Corsair is bevelled at all of its edges which gives it a very different look. The construction of the case is rigid and the front panel of this enclosure is ventilated by a meshed and dust-filtered grill which can be removed at 102 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

the push of a button. A pair of keys is also provided with the case to lock it (a nice feature). Along with the buttons and ports, there is a big dial which acts as a fan controller on the top of the case. The side panels on this case come off easily thanks to latches, making this

case as tool-free as possible. Cable-management is an easy affair thanks to the perfectly located rubber grommets.

Corsair Vengeance C70 This case is designed to look like an ammunition straight out of an armoury. The build quality

of the C70 seems solid and you can carry it around by using two attached spring-loaded handles at the top. The power and reset buttons accentuate it’s military design – there’s actually a safety flap that you need to flip open to access the reset button. Everything is tool-less inside this

Quora reveals blogging tool

Quora the popular question-and-answer website has launched a new blog project to provide users something much more open-ended

february 2013

Google Images redesigned

Google has revealed a new look for Google Images which focuses on metadata visibility, looks as well as speed

this case was that it was very sturdy and professional looking with a strong rubberised base. We didn’t choose the Vengeance C70 as we thought that it was overpriced for the features it provided in this segment.

Full – tower cabinets This section is for people who want to go all out with their case purchase and have amazing drool-worthy hardware at their disposal. It must be noted that these cases are huge and heavy – even when empty. Some of them may require you to sell a kidney, but hey they’re awesome. These cases support XL–ATX and E–ATX boards and have enough room to house the most extensive liquid cooling components out there. Needless to say, we didn’t run into any sort of trouble while installing components in any of these cases during testing. Cooler Master HAF 912

case, so installing HDDs / SSDs or even 5.25-inch drives is easy. As for cable management, the C70 has smart clips at the back of the motherboard with prerouted cabinet cables.

Category verdict The Corsair Graphite 600T was a good contender but the Cooler Master Silencio 650

Circle Herculean won the Best Buy award in this segment as it had more number of features at its disposal and provided decent performance compared to the others in the test. It also had an SD card slot along with the integrated fan controller and a dual-boot switch to select a boot drive between two different drives. The best part we found about

This case propels Circle to the next level where other veteran case manufacturers tread. We received the white coloured one and it has an aggressive design element to it with sharp edges. Its front panel has a white frame with small divided clefts at the sides. It has a large side-panel window. The top of the case has hemmed vents which can

Cabinets Test

be opened or closed. The integrated fan-controller knobs lie on a brushed aluminium panel along with the ports. It also has tool-less PCI slots. With all these great design elements, its pin-holed reset button is something we couldn’t fathom. This case is actually a copy or rebranding of the Rosewill Thor v2 available outside India.

Cooler Master Storm Trooper No, this case has nothing to do with the cloned Storm Trooper characters from Star Wars as its name might make you think. Still, its design is what a stealthy case should be like. We emphasise stealth because Cooler Master has actually included a hidden and lockable box at the bottom of this case which can be used to securely keep your stuff when at LAN parties. Other than its design, it has tons of space, 90 degree rotatable HDD cages, a sturdy steel make, rubbergripped carry handle for easy hauling at LAN parties, and an extra vertical PCI Slot called the “Storm Guard” for routing peripheral cables through it for security. Phew! It also has easyto-remove front panels, space for a 240 or 280 mm radiator at the top and bottom, and lots of space behind the motherboard tray for cable routing. The builtin fan-controller works very

Pebble smartwatch

Phone unlocking becomes illegal Cabinets Test

Kickstarter’s CES success, the Pebble smartwatch has started shipping. It will soon be available for $150

Unauthorized unlocking of smartphones in the U.S. will now land people in Jail. As the U.S. federal government has made this illegal

Contact Sheet Brand

Company

Phone

Email

Web site

Antec

Antec Inc

9820613274

[email protected]

www.antecindia.co.in

022-27701140

[email protected]

www.xtremegx.com

9987703334

[email protected]

www.circlect.com

9845651608

[email protected]

www.corsair.com

9820207871

[email protected] www.coolermaster.in

Bitfenix

Xtreme Grafix Circle Infotech Circle Pvt.Ltd Corsair Corsair Memory Cooler Cooler Master Master Co. Ltd. Texonic Huntkey Instruments Mercury Kobian Pte. Ltd Prime ABGB NZXT Pvt.Ltd Top Notch Zebronics Infotronix Ind Pvt. Ltd

044-42118608 [email protected]

www.texonic.com

011-40529574

www.mercury-pc.com

[email protected]

022-67402000 [email protected]

www.primeabgb.com

044-40000007 [email protected]

www.zebronics.com

well. It also has a small removable bracket at the bottom for installing 2.5-inch drives. Front has a 2.5inch hot-swap bay called the X-Dock. There are dust filters everywhere in this case which makes it easy to keep it clean. This is a good case indeed.

NZXT Phantom 820 Being NZXT’s flagship case, it has a futuristic design to it along with a host of amazing features. Its build quality is great and it also has a raised-steel stand. It can accommodate a 360 mm radiator at the top, a 240 mm or

february 2013

280 mm radiator at the bottom, and the rear fan can be slid up or down to directly be in front of the CPU cooler. It has lights on its back I/O shield and PCI slots to make it easy to see in the dark. The included fan controller works like a charm. Its hue LED controller can be used to change the colour of lights inside and along the edges of the case to your heart’s content. The bottom dust filters can be easily removed by pushing them and they pop out.

Cooler Master Cosmos II

NZXT Phantom 820 104 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

This case is like the sports-car of PC cases. And the analogy extends to it’s price tag too. It is humongous, very heavy, but very well built. The handles at the top help in carrying it (provided you can lift it) and the base of the case is also composed of the same handle like rods but instead they’re stands. Sliding the front cover down reveals the external drive bays. Forget thumbscrews, you just need to press down a lever at the back and the side panels open up. Both the side panels open like hinged doors. There is massive amount of space inside the case and there are two fans hinged together on the drive bays too. The top portion can be removed

to install fans or liquid-cooling radiators. If you have an itch for huge cases and `19,000 to burn then go for it.

Verdict This bout goes to the underdog. Circle beat out the biggies to win the Best Buy award, but keeping its pricing in mind the Herculean edged past the next best contender - the Storm Trooper. The Herculean does offer a great feature set with a lovely design. Having said that the Cooler Master Storm Trooper was the only case in the test which managed to keep the test GPU temperature lower than all the other cabinets and we are fans of its stealthy design. So, if you can get the Trooper under `11,500, its a great buy too.

Overall best performer Every once in a while an unlikely upstage happens in our performance tests. For instance you may be surprised to know that a case from our lowest price bracket won the Best Performer award. But numbers don’t lie. The Cooler Master HAF 912 won it for having the lowest overall temperature spanning all categories of our test. A good case to go for considering its not costly too.

The editors pick NZXT Phantom 820 won the Editor’s Pick for having a great overall score and being consistent in both its performance and features. This case was the second biggest case in our test after the CM Cosmos II. The Phantom 820 was followed closely by the Cooler Master Storm Trooper in most of the parameters and is also a very good case to get considering its cheaper than the Phantom 820 and also has similar features.

I N SIDE

Page 107 Dell XPS 12 Convertible

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The latest products reviewed For you

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

Page 108 ADATA XPG SX900 256GB

Page 111 Dell Latitude 10

Page 114 Nokia Lumia 920

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

to

30

Extremely poor product.

31

to

50

Strictly OK.

51

to

70

Decent product.

71

to

90

Very good product.

91

to 100

Keep away!

Not recommended

Page 115 ASUS PadFone

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

Highly recommended.

Ground-breaking product.

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

Page 117 Fujifilm X-E1

PLUS 106 | Acer Aspire V5-471P 106 | Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB 106 | Viewsonic TD2220 107 | Amkette Evo Box 108 | Intel Core i5-3450S 108 | IRIS Compressor Pro 109 | HCL ME Ultra 3074 109 | iBall Andi 4.5h 110 | JBL SoundFly BT 110 | Sennheiser Momentum 111 | iBerry Auxus Core X2 3G 112 | Karbonn A21

& M ORE . . . Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 105

Custom Lumia 820 cases

Motorola X Phone

Nokia has announced that it will allow owners of its Lumia 820 smartphone, an option to customise their phone cases or shell covers

If rumours are to be believed, the much awaited Motorola X Phone with Android Key Lime Pie OS is slated to be announced at Google I/O in May this year

Bazaar

Acer Aspire V5-471P

Budget warrior but with chinks in the armour

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB Second to the Velociraptor

Viewsonic TD2220 Touchscreen LED monitors are here

Price 9 19,99

T

he Aspire V5-471P is touchscreen based laptop Price39 39,1 from Acer coming with a 14-inch screen and a Windows 8 Home OS. It houses a comparitively older Intel Core i3-2365M processor which sporting laptops and ultrabelongs to the Sandy Bridge books. In the graphics departline up, clocked at 1.4 GHz ment, 3D Mark 06 gave an without any Turbo Boost. overall score of 3230 marks. As The Acer Aspire V5 has a far as real life games go, we got silver-coloured plastic body all around 23 fps on Resident Evil 5 around and lacks the premium at 1280x720 pixel resolution. feel that one sees in the Aspire Don’t bother with gaming on S7. The 14-inch touchscreen is this machine. a finger-print / smudge magnet The audio output of the which becomes evident while Aspire V5 was quite impresyour screen is dark. sive. Clarity and sound separaWe got a score of 1901 on PC tion were decent for a laptop of Mark 7, which is much lower this class and we did not notice than competing Core i5 and any distortion at 100 per cent Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor volume level. Videos lack the depth, thanks to the display which is highly reflective and suffers from backlight bleeding around the edges. The battery life just lasted for 140 minutes, which will mean that it will Features.....................................60 give around 4 - 4.5 hours on Build Quality.............................40 standard usage scenario. Performance.............................50 The Acer Aspire V5-471P Value for money.......................70 is an ideal machine for those who are looking at an entrySpecifications Processor: Intel Core i3-2365M; level Windows 8 machine Clock speed: 1.4 GHz; RAM: 4 GB; with a touchscreen. Students HDD: 500 GB; Operating System: are the first candidates that Windows 8 Home; Screen size: come to mind. At `39,139 we 14-inches; Resolution: 1366x768; think it’s a tad bit expensive Optical Drive: Yes; USB ports: 1xUSB 3.0; 2xUSB 2.0 specially considering its older processor. Under `35,000 Contact this would make for a good Acer India purchase if you can overlook Phone: 0120 3807200 its issues. Email: [email protected] Website: www.acer.co.in Nimish Sawant

55

106 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Price 0 14,50

T

his drive comes with the Advanced 4K technology that was missing in the 512-byte sector size in the previous 3 TB iteration. The DiscWizard software allows you to use it on WinXP sporting machines as well. The Barracuda XT 3TB gave faster speeds than the WD Black 2TB drive and is second only to the mighty WD Velociraptor 1TB drive. Sequential Read / Write: 172 / 157 MB/s and Assorted Read / Write: 134 / 144 MB/s. Its cost per GB comes to `5.18 which is quite decent for its performance.

W

ith the Windows 8 OS upon us we will soon be seeing a lot of touchscreen monitors. Viewsonic TD 2220 sports a highly reflective screen and has a fluid touch response. The full HD resolution is impressive and is great for regular use. The contrast ratio using Spyder3Elite colorimeter came to around 451:1 at 50 per cent brightness and contrast settings which is on the lower side. The reflective screen makes movie watching experience in a lit room quite painful. At `19,999 it is priced at quite a premium and we would advise you to wait till other players enter this space.

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80 Features.....................................80 Performance.............................85 Build Quality.............................NA Value for money.......................75

Specifications

Unformatted Capacity: 2794.2 GB; Interface: SATA 3; Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM; Advanced 4K: Yes; Buffer size: 64 MB

Contact

Fortune Marketing Phone: +91 11 2641 4468 Email: [email protected] Website: www.seagate.com

Features.....................................80 Performance.............................65 Build Quality.............................70 Value for money.......................40

Specifications

Display size: 21.5-inches; Resolution: 1920x1080; Display ports: 1xD-Sub, 1xDVI; Dimensions with stand (WxDxH in mm): 511x635x240; Weight with stand: 4.92 kg

Contact

ViewSonic Technologies India Ltd Phone: +91 11 4260 3195 Email: [email protected]

LG Optimus G Pro leaked?

Apparantly, a slide showing the features and images of the next flagship phone from LG called the “LG Optimus G Pro” leaked

Xperia Tablet Z announced

Sony has announced a new ultra-thin 10.1 inch Xperia tablet called the “Xperia Tablet Z” powered by a quad-core 1.5GHz processor and Android 4.1

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Dell XPS 12 Convertible Comes at a premium for the convertible feature

76 Features......................... 75 Performance................. 80 Build Quality................. 85 Value for money .......... 65

Specifications

Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U @ 1.8GHz; RAM: 4GB; Display: 12.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixel); Graphics: Intel HD 4000; Storage: 128GB SSD; Ports: 2 USB 3.0, display port; OS: Windows 8 Single Language

Contact

Dell India Phone: 080-2506-8026 Email: N.A.

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XPS 12 on the same level he family resemblance with the as the others, which Dell XPS 13 and the XPS 14 ultrainclude lesser-priced books is very much there. The models. The PC Mark chassis is made from machined 7 test scores fall within aluminum, including the frame of a fair range – the XPS the device and the display flip hinge. 12 scores 4734, while the There is no lock for the display Satellite U840 scores 4220 when in ultrabook mode, and the Samsung Series 9 and sudden movement scores 4647. can dislodge it from the Excellent battery life on groove very easily. the XPS 12 – five hours in our Colour handling on the benchmark test. In a typical usage display is extremely good. The day-at-work scenario, this could get you brightness level is adequate, somewhat through the 8-hour day on a single charge. like the HP Envy 4-1002tx. Auto brightYou do pay a significant premium for the ness, when activated, makes a profound Price90 89,9 XPS 12. Better ultrabook options cost a lot difference, something that isn’t visible to lesser – HP Spectre XT being an example. this extent on most other ultrabooks. Also, check out the Lenovo Yoga 13 before The specifications are at par with a making the final payment. majority of the ultrabooks tested recently. And that shows in the benchmarks tests, which peg the Vishal Mathur

Amkette Evo Box

The update gets crucial motion gesture improvements

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Improved undoubtedly, but still no match for the n the outside, the look of the device is likes of the WD Live and the Boxee Box. exactly the same as the previous edition. The interesting addition is the XBMC capaA fairly compact device, and the old bility on the device, which pretty much makes saying “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” this a unique proposition among hasn’t been forgotten. The remote all HD media players that remains exactly as it is from we have tested recently. the previous edition, Movies get a combut the critical bit is pletely different angle the much smoother with XBMC – sumand assured on-screen maries, fan-art, reviews motion response. etc., and there is no need to The interface remains hook up a PC for that. largely the same, but with The unique features do add the newer Ice Cream Sandwich OS. a premium to the price tag. If you Horizontal scrolling in the UI works need a robust HD media player for better now. There is access to the Play movie playback, consider the WD Live Store and even a secondary re-done app and the D-Link Boxee Box. But if the store. As an HD media player, it upscales Price95 extras are what entice you more, go for the standard definition content fairly well. 11,4 Evo Box. But the issue still remains with the compatibility with certain video containers. Vishal Mathur

73 Features......................... 80 Performance................. 70 Build Quality................. 70 Value for money........... 70

Specifications

Platform: Android 4.0.4; Processor: ARM Cortex A9; RAM: 1GB; Graphics: Mali 400; USB: 4 USB 2.0 + memory card slot; AV Out: HDMI and Component; digital audio

Contact

Amkette India Phone: +91- 931269148 Email: [email protected]

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 107

Mega launched

LG’s UHD TV sales story

A cloud storage site called “Mega” which is the successor to the now closed file-hosting site MegaUpload was launched recently

Since the launch of LG’s Ultra HD TV last year, it has sold about 300 of the 84-inch model in Korea

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ADATA XPG SX900 256GB

Intel Core i53450S Mid-range performer

High capacity, decent speeds and a great price

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SD capacities are increasing with pricing becoming more economical. This is good news for system builders, as you not only get speed but enough space to pack in your heavy applications and games as well. After looking at Corsair SSDs couple of months back, Price00 We tested the SSD we have yet another 13,5 on our standard rig 256GB SSD in our comprising an Intel Core midst – the ADATA XPG i7-3770K processor, ASRock SX900 256GB SSD. Z77 Extreme 4 motheboard, It comes in an all-black 8 GB Kingston DDR3 RAM brushed aluminum finish body and so on. Crystal DiskMark and has a 9.5mm thickness 3.0 gave a Sequential Read making it ideal to be used / Write score of 366 / 368.6 even inside a laptop. There are MB/s which is lower than the 16x16GB MLC NAND chips, 440 / 471.3 MB/s seen on the eight on each side of the PCB Corsair Neutron GTX 240 GB along with a SandForce SF2281 drive. AS-SSD gave 4K read controller. You get around 238 / write speeds of 19.15 / 47.24 GB of usable space. MB/s which was slower than both the Corsair Neutron GTX, as well as Neutron SSDs. The random read/write performance was at par with Intel Series 335 SSD. While Features.....................................75 transferring within the drive, Performance.............................70 we got sequential / assorted Build Quality.............................75 file transfer speeds of 155.65 Value for money.......................75 / 129.12 MB/s which is again lower than that seen on the Specifications Corsair SSDs whereas Intel Unformatted Capacity: 238 GB; Series 335 SSD is faster with Interface: SATA 6 Gbps; SSD assorted transfers. Controller: SandForce SF2281; At `13,500, it offers a very Weight: 76 gm; Memory: 16x16 Intel 25nm MLC NAND good cost per GB of `56, which is lower than the Corsair SSDs. Contact If you are fine with compariADATA Technology (India) Pvt Ltd tively slower speeds, this SSD Email: [email protected] gives you great value for money. Website: www.adata.co.in Phone: NA Nimish Sawant

Compressing files to a fraction of the original size

Price 9 4,99

Price 0 11,00

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his is a low-power quad-core processor clocked at 2.8 GHz and capable of going upto 3.5 GHz on Turbo Boost. It gave a score of 5.16 on Cinebench R11.5 and 29.06 FPS on x264 HD encoding. This is higher than the AMD A10-5800K and sufficiently lower than Intel’s Core i7-2600K. It is slightly faster than Core i5-2500K but does not have unlocked cores. At `11,000 it is an ideal processor for a mid-range gaming rig. If you want an unlocked processor, the Core i5-2500K still offers good value for money.

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108 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

IRIS Compressor Pro

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t allows you to compress your heavy PDF, JPG, TIFF or PNG files to a compressed PDF file. It can convert upto 25 pages or images to a compressed PDF format. The text in the compressed PDF is searchable. It takes a while to compress but the resulting PDF is a fraction of the size of the original. We compressed 25 images amounting to 130MB to a mere 8.24MB in 121 secs. You can just right click on any image or PDF and convert it right then by selecting the IRIS Compressor from the drop down. At `4,999, it is definitely meant for a niche audience.

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71 Features.....................................75 Performance.............................75 Value for money.......................65

Features.....................................70 Ease of use.................................75 Value for money.......................60

Specifications

Specifications

Socket: LGA 1155; Platform: Ivy Bridge; Clock speed: 2.8 GHz; Turbo Boost speed: 3.5GHz; HyperThreading: No; No. of cores: 4; Integrated graphics: Intel HD 2500

Contact

Intel Phone: 91 80 2854 2105 Email: [email protected] Web site: www.intel.com

OS requirement: Windows XP/ Vista/7/8, Mac OS X Mountain Lion/ Lion/Snow Leopard; Min RAM: 128 MB; Min HDD space: 115MB; Image to PDF conversion; One-click conversion; Reducing size by a factor of 15

Contact

Netspider Infotech India Ltd Email: [email protected] Website: www.niil.in

HCL launches Me Y3 Tablet

A new dual - SIM Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS based tablet called the HTC Me Y3 was released in the indian market for Rs. 11,999

8-inch Galaxy Note confirmed

Samsung has confirmed that it will release a newer but smaller version of the Galaxy Note Note 10.1 which will be 8-inch in size

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HCL ME Ultra 3074 50 Features......................... 50 Performance................. 55 Build Quality................. 40 Value for money........... 55

Specifications

Processor: Intel Core i3-3217U @ 1.8GHz; RAM: 4GB; Display: 14-inch (1366 x 768 pixels); Graphics: Intel HD 4000; Storage: 500GB HDD + 32GB mSATA; Connectivity: 2 USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi; OS: Windows 7 Basic (64-bit)

Contact

HCL India Phone: 1860-1800-425 Email: http://www.hclstore. in/pages/Contact-Us/pgid35876.aspx#

Very good battery life, but thats about it

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he ME Ultra looks fairly standard as most other ultrabooks, but its build quality and overall solidity are disappointing. There is a fair amount of flex everywhere on the chassis. Price40 What is really worrying 51,4 is the amount of bend on the keyboard. Move the lid, or change the tilt angle, and you get a fair amount of flex on and around the display hinge. The 14-inch screen has a matte finish – so thankfully distracting reflections are not present. Colour reproduction is not very vivid, but the text clarity is good, without noise. The keyboard does not have a sharp response that would be conducive to quick typing. The benchmark tests clearly peg the Dell Inspiron 14z as a

better performer than the ME Ultra. The Dell Inspiron 14z’s PC Mark Vantage score of 7404 is much higher than the 5558 that we get on the HCL ME Ultra. The fact that the Inspiron has a dedicated graphics chip as well makes it a more versatile machine. We were quite impressed with the battery life offered by the ME Ultra. It lasted 207 minutes from full charge to complete discharge in our stressful battery test which involves playing a video on loop. The HCL ME Ultrabook is directly competing with the Dell Inspiron 14z. Between the two, the Dell ultrabook seems to be a better deal in terms of features as well as performance. Vishal Mathur

iball Andi 4.5h

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Budget Android phones finally coming of age

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parts about this phone. The screen e are seeing a lot of despite being reflective is still readbudget Android phones able under sunlight on adjusting the sporting higher specs. brightness. Blacks aren’t as deep as we We saw it last month in would have liked. The iBall Andi 4.5h our phablet test. This time around we has a decent 8MP camera. The major got our hands on iBall’s latest – the issue is autofocus speed. We did not Andi 4.5h – a 4.5-inch IPS LCD panel like its video mode at all as it shoots in sporting phone housing a dual-core the 3GP format and lacks quality. processor, 8 MP rear camera, 960x540 Coming to battery life, the phone pixel resolution and more. The whitesports a 1600mAh battery which will colored Andi 4.5h has a great build easily last for around 9-10 hours a day quality and a hint of chrome around its on regular usage and around six hours top and bottom edges. Opening of the on heavy usage. It takes quite a while to rear cover is a bit of a task as the notch charge though which we did not like. is located at an unusual position. The iBall Andi 4.5h is a much better It runs Android 4.0.4 and you get e Pric 90 4 improvement over the iBall Andi 5c. Decent a stock ICS experience. Call quality on the , 12 performance, good build quality coming at a Andi 4.5h is quite good with decent volume sweet pricing of `12,490 makes it a great bang levels and optimum sound clarity, but we for the buck. did not like the delay in response when you click on the End Call icon. The display is one of the best Nimish Sawant

Features......................... 75 Performance................. 65 Build Quality................. 65 Value for money........... 80

Specifications

Display: 4.5-inch IPS LCD; Resolution: 960x540 pixels; Camera: 8MP (rear), 0.3MP (front); RAM: 1 GB; SoC: 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9; OS: Android 4.0.4; Battery: 1600 mAh; Connectivity: 3G HSUPA/HSDPA, EDGE/GPRS Quadband 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, WiFi 802.11b/g

Contact

iBall Website: www.iballmobiles. co.in Email: [email protected] Phone: 1800 300 42255

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 109

New camera lenses

Firefox OS phones

Sony launched two new E-mount lenses for its NEX mirrorless cameras and camcorders

Mozilla has finally entered mobile phone wars and has unveiled two phones called “Keon” and “Peak”powered by its Firefox OS

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Huawei Mediapad 7 Lite

A tablet good for multimedia but very laggy for everything else!

JBL SoundFly BT

Sennheiser Momentum

Very good sound, but not truly portable

All round brilliance

Price0 9,99 Price 0 24,90

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Price00 13,7

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he Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite has a unibody design giving it a very good build. It weighs 370 gm, which is on the higher side considering the competition, but it isn’t a hindrance with the utility. The Huawei Mediapad 7 Lite runs Android 4.0 ICS which is a disappointing as we have seen tablets launch in India running

53 Features.....................................60 Performance.............................50 Build Quality.............................60 Value for money.......................40

Specifications

Platform: Android 4.0; Processor: 1.2Ghz single-core; RAM: 1GB Display: 7-inch IPS display with 1024x600 resolution; Storage: 8 GB storage expandable up to 32GB via a micro SD card; Rear Camera: 3.15MP; Front Camera: VGA, Battery: 4100mAh

Contact

Huawei India Phone: 1800-209-6555 Email: [email protected] 110 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Jelly Bean out of the box. The battery life of the device is average. It lasted for a little over 3.5 hours in our continuous video playback test. The overall performance of the tablet is quite sluggish. It takes a couple of seconds to switch the screen orientations and load the home screen when exiting an app and that is a very bad thing. The tablet can run basic games well but if you try to play Dead Trigger, you will inevitably pull your hair out. The audio from the tablet is very good. The device supports a 3G SIM card not only for data but for voice calls as well. The Huawei Mediapad 7 Lite is a disappointing tablet. The good thing about it is that it is extremely well built, the display is good for watching videos and the audio output from the speaker is loud and clear. The downside is that it is very laggy and you will be in for a frustrating experience if you run heavy apps and try to multitask. It’s hard to recommend the Huawei Mediapad 7 Lite since the competition offers a better deal. Sameer Mitha

he SoundFly BT is a fairly compact Bluetooth speaker. Retains similar dimensions to the Jabra Solemate, but has a more curved design. The integrated two-pin plug lets you directly plug this into the wall. Audio quality is surprisingly good. Volume levels are enough to successfully fill up a mid-sized room. The clarity of the vocals, even at volume around 70 per cent is impressive. Range for Bluetooth connectivity is around 10 metres, with one wall in the way, which is good. The Jabra SoleMate offers battery backup as well at the same price, making it truly portable and it has a good sound quality too.

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he Momentum is a light, compact, circum-aural headphone. The whole ear is covered comfortably and the cups settle snugly, with a very high quality leather finish. The Momentum is perfectly walking the path between being bass or treble heavy. The bass was adequately powerful when it needed to be, while the higher end of the spectrum gets the necessary focus for crystal clear vocals. Important is the clear distinction between various parts of the sound spectrum. The Momentum can handle most music genres with ease. Brilliant, but they do cost a lot of money.

66 Features.....................................60 Performance.............................70 Build Quality.............................75 Value for money.......................60

Specifications

Type: Bluetooth speaker; Connectivity: Bluetooth only; Bluetooth version: 3.0; Frequency Response: 60Hz – 20KHz; Sound pressure level: 80dB; Weight: 0.42kg; Dimensions: 190 mm (W) x 92 mm (W) x 77 mm (H)

Contact

JBL by Harman Phone: 011-40538425 Email: [email protected]

85 Features.....................................85 Performance.............................90 Build Quality.............................95 Value for money.......................70

Specifications

Type: Over-the-ear headphones; Freq response: 16 – 22000 Hz; Sound Pressue: 110dB; Connector: 3.5mm; Controls: In-line for Apple devices; Weight: 190 grams

Contact

Sennheiser India Phone: N.A. Email: [email protected]

New Xbox 360 controller

Razer recently launched the Sabertooth – a new controller for the Xbox 360 with a built-in OLED display and six extra buttons

LEGO Gamepad

Check out a working 5-foot long Nintendo Gamepad made entirely out of LEGO’s here: http://dgit.in/WjOb3f

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Dell Latitude 10 The best of both worlds?

70 Features......................... 75 Performance................. 55 Build Quality................. 80 Value for money........... 70

Specifications

Processor: Intel Atom Z2760 @1.8 GHz; RAM: 2 GB; Screen size: 10.1-inch IPS LCD; Resolution: 1366x768; SSD: 64 GB; USB 2.0 ports: 1; HDMI port: 1; Battery capacity: 3500 mAh; Weight: 662 grams

Contact

Dell India Pvt Ltd Phone: 1800 425 4026 Email: NA Website: www.dell.co.in

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desktop. We connected a e got our hands on bluetooth keyboard and the latest Winmouse to it and it worked dows 8 Pro fine. The finest example of sporting how lag-free the response is, tablet from Dell –the can be best explained by the fact Latitude 10. that you can play Quake III on it It comes in an all-black body without any lag. with a glossy front-finish and a mattePrice90 4 The battery life is stellar giving finish on the rear side. A 2.5 cm thick , 42 a good five hours on stress testing. On normal bezel surrounds the actual 10.1-inch disusage, you can easily extract over eight hours play, which may seem like a waste of screen from the Latitude 10 – a plus point for corporate real-estate at first, but makes sense considering users on the move. the gestures. The Latitude 10 houses an Intel Atom While the hardware has no issues as such, the Z2760 dual-core processor clocked at 1.8 GHz and Windows 8 Pro had a lot of inconsistencies with has 2 GB of RAM. This device is not meant to run apps. We found the Latitude 10 much more useful heavy applications. Cinebench R11.5 was crawling in the desktop mode than the modern UI as apart when we were running the benchmark which is from native apps there are lot of issues with most understandable as the processor is no match for the of the other apps. At `42,490 it makes sense for more mainstream Intel Core i-series processors. business users who want the best of both worlds. The USB port allows you to connect your keyboard or mouse and use it as a regular laptop/ Nimish Sawant

iberry Auxus CoreX2 3G A stunning Jelly Bean tablet

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he iberry Auxus CoreX2 3G is one of the you get access to Google Now, which is one of the key first “next gen” budget tablets that we features of Jelly Bean. have seen. The best thing about the tablet The tablet is slim at 9.6mm thin and weighs is its display. The resolution is the same 312gms making it a very comfortable device. as the Nexus 7 at 1280x800 but its performance Multitasking too is a breeze and the device also could have been better. Watching videos, playing boasts of the ability to make calls. The down side is games and reading text was a treat, but the typing that the onboard speaker is underwhelming. You experience and the response of the touchscreen would be better off using a Bluefelt lackluster. The power under the tooth headset to make calls. In hood too is impressive and it continuous video playback, the will run all the apps from the device lasted for 4 hours, which app store with ease. Straight is standard for budget devices. out of the box, it runs on If you are in the market to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It pick up a budget tablet, we sugalso comes with a bunch of gest you wait for the competipreloaded apps such as Office tion to catch up before making suite Pro, Chrome browser, your buying decision. If you Viber and more. want to pick up a good tablet Price90 In terms of its UI you get the for the budget of 10k, the iberry Auxus 10,9 stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean experience and CoreX2 3G can be at the top of your list. that is a very good thing. From the lock screen, Sameer Mitha

70 Features......................... 80 Performance................. 60 Build Quality................. 60 Value for money........... 80

Specifications

Platform: Android 4.1; Processor: 1.6Ghz dual-core; RAM: 1GB; Display: 7-inch IPS display with 1280x800 resolution; Storage: 8 GB storage expandable up to 64GB via a micro SD card; Rear Camera: 2MP; Front Camera: 0.3MP, Battery: 4100mAh

Contact

Iberry India Phone: 1800 102 6242 Email: [email protected]

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 111

Surface Pro en route

Cheaper Ivy Bridge models

Microsoft announced this month that its Surface Pro tablet will go on sale in the U.S. and Canada from February 9th at $899

Intel released new and inexpensive models of its Ivy Bridge processors. These include three Celeron’s, four Pentiums and a Core i3-3210

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Karbonn A21

An ideal budget Android smartphone

Aakash iTutor Micromax Average performing Canvas 2 A110 educational tablet

The ideal budget phablet

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traight out of the box, the first thought that comes to mind when you see the device is wow. The rear of the device has a rubbery matte black finish giving it an elegant and premium look. Someone would only Price9 call this a budget 9,89 device if they knew Karbonn made it. The rest of the design elements are standard with the capacitive functional buttons below the touchscreen. If there’s one thing we loved about the A21, it’s the it has an oleophobic coating keyboard on the phone. It is making it really smooth and very comfortable to type on in nice to work on. The quality of landscape and portrait. It is video playback on the device one of the best keyboards we is just above average and the have seen on a budget phone. audio is acceptable. Playing The 4.5-inch display has games was fun on the device, a 480x800 resolution. And but this is where the 4.5-inch the performance is quite good. screen is a tad disappointing. The touchscreen feels like We have gotten used to the 4.7 to 5-inch screen size for gaming. The 1800mAh battery manages to make it through the day with above average use. For `9,899, the Karbonn Features.....................................60 A21 is worth it. It gives users Performance.............................70 an Android experience with Build Quality.............................80 decent hardware under the Value for money.......................80 hood, a very good build and a lovable touchscreen. On Specifications the downside, the camera is Platform: Android 4.0; Processor: 1.2Ghz dual-core; RAM: 512MB underwhelming, the battery Display: 4.5-inch display with life could have been better 480x800 resolution; Storage: 4GB and the overall performance storage expandable up to 32GB via a is laggy. If you are looking to micro SD card; Rear Camera: 5MP; invest in your first Android Front Camera: 1.3MP, Battery: 1800mAh device and think that a 4.5inch display is right for you, Contact then the iBall Andi 4.5h is a Karbonn India better bet. E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 080 40894888 Sameer Mitha

Price 0 14,00 t is better if we look at the Aakash iTutor as an educational device rather than a mainstream tablet. The Aakash iTutor gives users access to video lectures, self-study materials, MCQ self-assessment, feedback mechanism and more features that help in the self-learning process. The educational content varies depending on the package you have taken. The cost of the content varies from `14,000 to `30,000 per year depending on the class (8,9,10,11,12) and package type (basic, classic, premium). The tablet also has access to the Google Play store giving you access to a plethora of apps. It runs on Android 2.3 though.

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Price0 9,99

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he look and build of the A110 is very good. The power under the hood is good to run all the apps. In its raw performance, there are better performing devices available out there. It also comes preloaded with its own app store in addition to the Google Play store. The preloaded theme may be too vibrant for some but that can be changed with ease. The only downside to the device is that the display resolution isn’t the best for viewing videos or playing video games.

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Specifications

Display: 7-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen; OS: Android OS 2.3.4 (Gingerbread); Processor: 1.5GHz Processor; RAM: 512MB; Storage: 4GB built-in, microSD card support up to 32GB

Contact

Aakash iTutor E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 011-47623456

Features.....................................60 Performance.............................70 Build Quality.............................80 Value for money.......................80

Specifications

Operating System: Android 4.0.4; Screen size: 5-inch at 480x854 pixel; Panel: IPS; Built-in Storage: 4 GB; RAM: 512MB; Camera in MP: 8; Dual-SIM: Yes; Battery: 2000mAh. Processor: 1GHz Dual-Core

Contact

Micromax India Phone: 0124-4811000 E-mail: http://www.micromaxfunbook. com/contactUs.php

ASUS announces MeMO Pad

ASUS will launch its MeMO Pad Tablet at $150 in April. The MeMO Pad is a 7-inch Android 4.1 inch budget tablet

LG to launch WP8 devices

In order to get into the Windows Phone market again, LG is lining up a number of Windows Phone 8 OS based handsets. No news of their release yet

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Portronics iLume 76 Features......................... 70 Performance................. 80 Build Quality................. 80 Value for money........... 75

Specifications

Projection system: DLP (with Brilliant Colour); Brightness: 400 ANSI lumens; Contrast Ratio: 2000:1; Native resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels; Ports: HDMI-in, VGA, AV-in, audioout; Media playback: USB, SD card and iPhone / iPod dock

Contact

Portronics Digital Pvt Ltd Phone: 1800-103-4241 Email: sales@portronics. coms

Handles movies and presentations comfortably

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brilliant. Among the portable projector category, he iLume is fairly pocketable, considering this is the crispest video reproduction we have it sits on the palm of your hand. Its build seen by far. quality is very good. The black and silver The iLume did fairly well even colour combination looks good. There is with ambient light trickling no shortage of input options - Propriin. To double check, we etary cables take care of the switched on a 16W component input source, LED lamp in the room VGA port and HDMI. after sundown, and yet Can play back media off the viewing experience the USB port or the micro remained fairly acceptable. SD slot. The iLume did not play From a distance of around back certain video containers off the 3 feet from the wall, the projection USB port. Built-in speakers are not enough size was around 50-inches. Overall Price90 for movies. quality was excellent, with vivid colour 9 39, We are fairly impressed with the iLume reproduction. Fast moving object runprojector. Also check out the BenQ Joybee ning across the screen on a bright/white GP2 because it offers a built-in battery backup backdrop, elicits some motion judder, but that and an iPhone/iPod Touch dock for media playisn’t visible on a dark-ish backdrop. back as well. Content that is originally in High Definition formats (we tested with 720p and 1080p) looks Vishal Mathur

EAFT Destiny D90T

A budget Android tablet with an awesome battery life

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ne of the striking design elements of the In the continuous video playback test, it lasted D90T is that the rear panel looks surprisfor a whopping nine hours leaving the competing ingly similar to the Samsung Galaxy Note budget tablets way behind. 800 and that isn’t a bad thing. The front of A lot of budget tablets are plagued with laggy the device has a 9.7-inch IPS display which is fantastic response when navigating especially if you load the to watch movies on. In fact it is great to read text as home screen with lots of shortcuts and widgets. well along with impressive viewing angles. The This device too is plagued with the 4:3 aspect ratio works well for browsing lag, but it’s comparatively less. and reading but you loose screen If it weren’t for the underreal estate while watching whelming touchscreen we videos. It runs on stock would recommend this Android ICS 4.0.4. tablet hands down. It has a good The biggest downside to display as well as speakers and some the tablet is the response of the impressive power under the hood. It almost touchscreen. It feels rough and lacks gives premium tablets a run for their money Price90 polish. Don’t expect to type documents or in terms of the benchmark scores. 14,9 even enjoy a game like Dead Trigger on this If a 10-inch tablet is what you are looking device. We wish the experience of the touchfor, then you could check out the Zync Z1000, screen were better. Karbonn Smart Tab 10 or the Spice Stellar Pad A whopping 8000mAh battery powers the before making your purchase decision. tablet and this is where the tablet is a performer. Sameer Mitha

73 Features......................... 80 Performance................. 80 Build Quality................. 70 Value for money........... 60

Specifications

Platform: Android 4.0.4; Processor: 1.6Ghz dual-core; RAM: 1GB Display: 9.7-inch IPS display with 1024x768 resolution; Storage: 8 GB storage expandable up to 32GB via a micro SD card; Rear Camera: 2MP; Front Camera: 0.2MP, Battery: 8000mAh

Contact

EAFT Technology Phone: 1860 - 425 - 3238 Email: [email protected]

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 113

Jabra SPEAK 510 launched

Roccat launches Lua

Jabra introduced a new Bluetooth speakerphone called the SPEAK 510. Get it for `11,500. http://dgit.in/UU6nlE

The gaming peripheral manufacturer - “Roccat” has launched a new, basic TriButton gaming mouse called Lua

Bazaar

Nokia Lumia 920 A phone comes of age

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he Nokia Lumia 920 is a phone that many have waited for with baited breath and it is finally here. It runs on a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor complimented by a whole 1GB of RAM. The PureMotion HD+ display developed by Nokia not only makes legibility under the sun a thing of the past, but also ensures completely blur-free scrolling, no matter how fast you do it. Nokia’s claims of the PureView camera’s low light performance are true, as we’ve come to realize from our extensive testing. The camera takes good images in normal light, at par with the iPhone 5 if not better, but definitely leaves the competition behind when it comes to shooting in low to negligible light. While the optical image stabilization didn’t really help a lot in photographs, its effective-

80 Features.....................................90 Performance.............................75 Build Quality.............................90 Value for money.......................65

Specifications

Platform: Windows Phone 8; Processor: Dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus clocking at 1.5GHz; RAM: 1GB; Display: 4.5inch IPS LCD with 1280x768 pixel resolution and PureMotion HD+; Camera: 8.7MP PureView Camera with 1080p HD videos; Battery: 2000mAh

Contact

Nokia India Phone: +91-11 30303838 Website: www.nokia.com/in-en 114 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

iDance Hipster 703

eScan Mobile Security

Bling bling bling!

Packed to the brim with features

Price90 38,1 Price 9 4,89

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ness in shooting video makes the camera stand tall. The Nokia Lumia 920 also comes with a chunk of other goodies, like true Dolby sound processing thanks to the S4 processor. The NFC chip on the inside makes it possible to stream music without any connectors to compatible docks, which is really nice. Last but not the least, there is the Windows Phone 8 OS, which in our opinion is a breath of fresh air in what has become a stale mobile OS environment. The resizable Live Tiles, the social integration along with a completely novel way of navigating through the UI. What we do feel lacking on the new mobile OS from Microsoft is the plethora of apps that we’ve come to love so much on other platforms. But there is no denying how amazing it is to have Microsoft Office come preinstalled. If you’re in the market for picking up a smartphone, we’d strongly recommend giving the Lumia 920 a look. Swapnil Mathur

ith these headphones, the assault on the senses began first in the visual cortex, before proceeding anywhere near the aural region. The garish, tacky bling would compel even a seasoned welding worker to avert his eyes. The assault was also on the mind – why would headphones wilfully be named Hipsters? Oh the irony! Putting them through our gamut of tests offered us but one conclusion – these are strictly mediocre. The mids are muffled and the bass was on the boomy side. The last assault was on our intelligence and it came with the price tag. To think anyone would pay close to 5k for these headphones (especially after listening to them) is purely wishful thinking.

Price 499

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Scan Mobile Security for Android is a feature-rich suite with almost everything that you could possibly want for your phone. The overall system impact is minimal. In fact, some of our benchmark scores actually went up a bit. The callblocking and parental controls work really well, though the parental controls do restrict you to only the default browser. The price of `499 seems a bit high for an Android app, but considering that mobile devices are part of our lives, this might be worth it. The suite threw up major issues with custom ROMs that we tried, so modders beware; for everyone else, this is an excellent security option.

85

40 Features.....................................50 Performance.............................50 Build Quality.............................40 Value for money.......................20

Features.....................................75 System Impact.........................100 Parental Controls...................90 Value for money.......................75

Specifications

Specifications

Contact

Contact

Speaker Diameter: 44mm; Imapedance: 32 ohms; Response: 15Hz - 20 KHz; Cord Length: 1.5 m Acro Engineering Company Phone: +91 11 40525645 Email: [email protected] Website: www.idanceaudio.in

Real time scan; Call and SMS Filter; Anti-theft; SMS Backup; Parental control eScan India Phone: +91 22 6772 2911 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.escanav.com

Galaxy Grand

Samsung released pricing for its dual-core Samsung Galaxy Grand phablet. It will soon be available at `21,500

Huawei Ascend G615 announced Huawei has added a new smartphone to its portfolio called the Ascend G615 with a 4.5-inch HD display and a quad-core CPU

Bazaar

WickedLeak Wammy Sensation 75 Features......................... 70 Performance................. 70 Build Quality................. 80 Value for money........... 80

Specifications

Platform: Android 4.0.4; Processor: 1Ghz dual-core; RAM: 1GB Display: 4.7-inch display with 1280x720 resolution; Storage: 4GB storage expandable up to 32GB via a micro SD card; Rear Camera: 12MP; Front Camera: 3MP, Battery: 2000mAh

Contact

WickedLeak E-mail: http://www. wickedleak.org/contact-us Number: 9324311617

The budget hunter’s Galaxy S III

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Its earpiece is good for calls but the traight out of the box, the device speaker is bad. It has really low volume has an uncanny resemblance especially for calls and multimedia to the Samsung Galaxy S III. content. In terms of battery life of the Even the default wallpaper on device, it will last you for about one the smartphone is the same one that and a half day of above average use. you will find on the S III. That being For `16,000 the device is quite said, the build quality of the Sensation impressive in its performance. The is quite impressive. The smartphone battery life is good, display is large also boasts of a 12 MP rear camera, but and comfortable to use but the audio don’t be fooled. Its performance is very output is quite poor. There are budget underwhelming. smartphones out there with better For its price, the device has quite raw performance but they don’t offer impressive specifications. The power users a second battery straight out under the hood ensures that the device of the box. On the downside, the device feels extremely smooth while multiPrice00 is plagued with the occasional issue of tasking and everyday use. Videos looked 0 16, hanging found on all budget devices. We really good and the viewing angles were suggest you take a look at the Karbon A21 as better than other devices in its class. Even well as the Micromax Canvas A110 along with while playing games and running apps, the this device before making your purchase decision. device performed quite well. The display is crisp to browse the web and read text. Sameer Mitha

ASUS PadFone

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Is it a phone, tablet or a netbook?

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he phone is your run-of-the-mill 4.3-inch The device also comes with a stylus. When Android smartphone that is quite well built in tablet mode, you can use the stylus to receive and works rather well but the keyboard calls making you look like James Bond. It’s very on it could have been better. All the power cool and works really well. rests in the phone. Place the phone in the tabletAs a concept the housing unit, and you get a 10.1-inch tablet running PadFone works well. It Android. The tablet has a battery of its own and the tries to bring the best processing power comes from the smartphone. Add of three worlds in one to that the keyboard dock also houses a battery, and device, but at a whopyou have a device that is not only a 3-in-1 but also ping `65,000. If you are has a ton of battery backup! in the market to pick up The smartphone works very well, as good a smartphone, you can get as any flagship smartthe iPhone 5 in this budget, or phone available today. an iPad and a decent Android The video playback on smartphone. It’s not exactly a both the smartphone and value for money product. But if you the tablet was really good. are the kind of person who wants The representation of colour one gadget to fulfill your smartphone Price00 was crisp and nice although tablet and netbook needs, you can totally 65,0 the black levels were a bit lower than we’d consider picking this device up. like. The audio too was loud and clear. Sameer Mitha

Features......................... 90 Performance................. 80 Build Quality................. 80 Value for money........... 60

Specifications

Platform: Android 4.0.3; Processor: Dual-core Qualcomm MSM8260A Snapdragon clocking at 1.5GHz; RAM: 1GB; Display: 4.3-inch Super AMOLED, 960x540 pixels, tablet: 10.1-inch 1280x800; Storage: 16/32/64GB, with microSD slot up to 32GB; Camera: 8MP with 1080p HD videos; Battery: 1520mAh in the phone. Tablet: 6600mAh

Contact

Asus India E-mail: [email protected] Ph. No. 1800-2090-365

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 115

New Micromax Canvas

Sansui releases budget phones Bazaar

Micromax will release a new smartphone from its stables called the A116 Canvas HD and it will be available for `15,000 from mid-February

Sansui Moblies launched two new budget friendly but feature - rich phones namely the S23 and S30 with powerful batteries available for `1,100 and `1,290 respectively

ZOTAC ZBOX AD06 Plus

Harman Kardon CL Comfort and elegance

JBL J22i Meaty beats for all the bass lovers out there

Brazos 2.0 on the ZBOX

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he ZOTAC ZBOX has become synonymous with mini-PCs in this part of the world thanks to their constant refreshes. The AD06 Plus houses an AMD E2-1800 dual-core APU which has integrated HD Price99 7340 graphics, there 20,9 is 2 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 320 GB hard standard set of benchmarks. It drive. It comes without performed better than the AMD any OS pre-installed. E350 sporting ZBOX AD03 On the design front there are Plus and AMD E450 sporting no surprises for anyone familiar AD04 Plus. It was much with a ZBOX. The glossy black better in terms of graphics box housing all the components when compared with the Intel is still the finger-print magnet Atom D2700 sporting ID80 but we love the connectivity Plus as well. Cinebench R10 options on board which include gave a score of 2372 whereas an SD card slot and two USB PC Mark Vantage gave 2624 3.0 ports. It supports WiFi and which was higher than all three bluetooth and comes with a ZBOXes mentioned previously. Wi-Fi antenna. HD movie playback suffers We installed Windows 7 if the 1080p clips have a data Ultimate 64-bit OS and ran our rate higher than 8000 kbps. The CPU utilization is over 80 percent while playing full HD videos which is not great. Resident Evil 5 gave 19 frames per second at 1280x1024 resolution Features.....................................60 on low settings, so it is clearly Performance.............................55 not meant for gaming. Build Quality.............................60 The price of `20,999 is lower Value for money.......................65 compared to its contemporaries when they launched, but we Specifications would much rather have a preAPU: AMD E2-1800 dual-core; Clock installed OS at this price point. speed: 1.7 GHz; Integrated graphics: The non-plus variant (withouth AMD HD 7340; RAM: 2 GB; HDD: the HDD) comes at `15,999. It 320GB; OS: None; USB 3.0 ports: 2; USB 2.0 ports: 3; is ideal to be used as an HTPC, thanks to a bundled in WinContact dows Media Centre remote, as Aditya Infotech Ltd. well as for regular surfing and Phone: +91 11 2622 3810 office work, but not for gaming. Email: [email protected] Website: www.zotac.com Nimish Sawant

Price0 9,99

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verything about this pair of headphones oozes out understated class – the packaging, the pleather carrying case, and finally the square matte black housing with steel trim – all just visual delight. Put them on and you’re transported into a world of exceptional detail. The sound signature is on the brighter side, and the highs are very well defined. The bass will surprise you – distinct and hard hitting. Perhaps only the soundstaging was lacking but now we’re just nitpicking. Not even the Grado SR 225 was as comfy. As for features you’ve got onwire controller, microphone, detachable cable and exchangeable metal headband. All of it justifies the high price point.

60

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Price 2,990

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he JBL J22i is a basshead’s delight, so right at the outset we’d like to ask you to look elsewhere if you’re looking a neutral pair of in-ears. But before we get into the audio performance let’s look at the build. The housing seems to be sturdy while the flat cable (which has a mic and control buttons) is even sturdier. The added benefit is that it remains tangle free. In terms of performance the J22i is good in the lower frequencies but upper mids and extreme highs get muddled when instrument density increases. But apart from that a solid set for the price point.

72

81 Features.....................................85 Performance.............................85 Build Quality.............................80 Value for money.......................75

Specifications

Features.....................................72 Performance.............................68 Build Quality.............................78 Value for money.......................70

Specifications

Driver Diameter: 40mm ; Frequency Response: 16Hz - 20kHz ; Cord Length: 1.4 m

Driver size: 8.6mm; Input Impedance: 16ohm; Frequency Response: 18Hz – 20kHz; Cable length: 1.3m

Contact

Contact

Harman International India Pvt. Ltd. Phone: 1800 108 1234 Email: [email protected] Website: www.harman.in

Harman International India Pvt. Ltd. Phone: 1800 108 1234 Email: [email protected] Website: www.harman.in

Spice Stellar phones

Spice introduced a new affordable Android 2.3 smartphone called the Stellar Xtacy Mi-352 for `4,634

Nokia back with PureView

Nokia’s PureView technology is coming soon on its Windows Phone devices. The project based on this has been codenamed as EOS

Bazaar

Canon EOS M Better late than never

68 Features......................... 75 Performance................. 60 Build Quality................. 80 Value for money........... 55

Specifications

Sensor: 18 Megapixel APS-C; Lens: Proprietary M mount; Maximum Burst Mode: 4.3fps; Movie Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (30, 25, 24 fps)

Contact

Canon India Pvt Ltd. Email: NA Phone: 1800 345 3366 Website: www.canon.co.in

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about 1/3 of a stop worth of aying that Canon room for adjustment over the has come late to the 650D. We also found the EOS mirrorless game M’s low light performance to would be an underbe, incredible. statement. Canon has been As good as the images from taking their time to put out a the EOS M are, we found the product that would take the autofocus on this camera to market by storm. Unfortube incredibly crippled. It was nately, the truth is actually bad enough that it wouldn’t quite the contrary. Price95 lock focus sometime, but what was worse The EOS M comes with an 18 MP APS-C 49,9 was the camera confirming the focus was CMOS sensor with a Digic 5 processor. The locked when all we saw on the screen was a sensor is the same as the one in the 650D, blur. Shooting in low light like clubs required at least as far as specs go, with the same pixel us to adjust focus manually if we needed to get a count and the hybrid AF. Given all the similar useable image from the night. Lack of a competent innards, we felt that the EOS M would give a perfocus system on a camera that Canon has had years formance that would at least match the 650D’s, but to develop is extremely disappointing. However, if we were in for a few surprises. you’re ok with manually focusing all your shots, then The image quality of the EOS M images, in our the EOS M will give you some stellar photos for sure. opinion is definitely better than that of the 650D. the colors are more vibrant and the RAW files give Swapnil Mathur

Fujifilm X-E1

Big things in small packages

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he X-E1 has a 16 MP APS-C sensor The film simulation modes on the X-E1 are present complimented by the EXR Processor. It’s and we personally love the look of the Velvia film, so designed as a rangefinder camera, but needless to say we had many of our images follow unlike the bigger X-Pro1, it doesn’t include that look. The new 18-55mm f/2.8-4.0 optically staa hybrid viewfinder. Instead, the X-E1 has an elecbilized lens is actually really good in itself and that is tronic only viewfinder with a 2.3 million dot resolunot something we often say for kit lenses. tion. The screen on the back is a 2.8 incher with a The X-E1 does take amazing photos, but we had 460K dot resolution which is surprisingly good, issues with the AF. It’s actually pretty fast and incredeven under the bright midibly accurate, but moving day sun. Ergonomically, the the AF points around was X-E1 has a rather hard-cut quite annoying. The only rectangular shape, and may way to change the AF from not be to everyone’s liking. one point to the next is using We spent a lot of time a combination of the AF shooting with the X-E1 at button and the direction parties and our general outbuttons. We really wish ings and for once, it was nice there was an easier way. This to not have to shoot in RAW. makes our love for the X-E1 Price00 The X-E1 does an amazing job at metering a little less. But that wouldn’t stop us from 0 , 70 y only) (bod the light just right, which is something we getting one for ourselves. had a tough time achieving on the X-Pro1. Swapnil Mathur

75 Features......................... 70 Performance................. 80 Build Quality................. 90 Value for money........... 60

Specifications

Sensor: 16 megapixel APS-C; Lens: X-Mount compatible; Maximum Burst Mode: 6 fps; Movie Resolution: 1920x1080 at 24fps

Contact

Fujifilm India Phone: 1800 200 0608 Wesbite: www.fujifilm.in

Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com 117

Esc

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SKOAR!

Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 6 reviewed. Evil beckons

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Community

A sneak peek into our thriving online communities. Join us, if you dare!

Craziest moments in tech 2012 was quite a year, packed to the brim with the wierd and wonderful. Here is our compilation of six of the craziest tech moments in 2012

Apple Maps

John McAfee

The maps fiasco of iOS 6 was one of the most unexpected from Apple. What it did was send the entire iWorld back to the Stone Age. People had to actually talk to strangers (“shudder”) and ask for directions. A dire situation indeed! No matter, Google’s maps soon came along and returned the iFaithfuls to the 21st century.

Where do we even begin? First, a man is found dead in Belize, then he spends a night hidden in a cardboard box, then he’s in Guatamela, a photo from there finds its way to the internet. He apologizes saying the exif data was faked and he tampered with it; turns out he was in Guatamela and he apologizes again for apologizing about tampering with the photo.

A fresh start. Or Not. The disappearance of the Start Menu was met with much agitation from the Windows community at large. People were lost without it and the new Metro, or Modern, or New Style or whatever the UI is called now just seems so incoimplete without it. It was a sad day indeed when Microsoft finally decided to kill it. R.I.P. Start button.

A second too soon

The one, true religion Isak Gerson is your God and the Missionary Church of Kopimism your place of worship, Kopimism being your new religion. Begone to Sweden ye perfidious pirates. The only country that recognises file-sharing as a true religion. A religion that holds Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V as holy symbols demands our attention. The message, “Have internet, will copy.”

118 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Time Keepers add an extra second to the world’s atomic clocks and parts of the world grind to a halt. A minor glitch in the linux kernel caused many servers (not updated in time) to just crash. The crashed servers include those of Reddit and Mozilla. In a world where every second counts, Time is truly our mistress.

Space Age parts When you are accidentally shipped wierd spares with a suitably cryptic id. “Google Planet8541 Pluto switch”, you know that Google’s plans at world domination are grander than you think. Nobody has yet been able to solve the mystery of the spares and Google has gracioucly presented T-Shirts to the engineers who received those parts.

Vine to be launched by Twitter Unwind

Sony penalised in UK

Twitter will soon launch Vine, the social video app allowing its users to share video clips on the network and other sites. http://dgit.in/W5z5RA

The PlayStation Network breakdown and databreach of 2011 has landed Sony a hefty fine of $395,000. This databreach leaked PSN users information online

How we unwind Hibernation

In Guns we trust

The long cold nights have started to take their toll on us in the office. All we ever seem to want to do is huddle up under something warm and not get up till the return of warmer weather. Anirudh dreams of sunning himself like a cat while Jayesh just wants to hibernate. Sid of course has his own internal “fires” that keep him going long after everyone is asleep.

The day Anirudh brought his air gun to the office was the start of a reign of terror and destruction. The look of shock on the venerable Baiju’s face as he faced Sid down the barrel of the gun was something to behold. Nothing was left alone, a battered penguin, punctured bottles, damaged plaster and the shattered remnants of Vijay’s “twister” are all that remain of those fateful days.

Mayer Mania We suddenly re-discovered John Mayer and found out what an amazingly talented artist he is (Sid even went on to tell one of our Directors that Mayer’s “the Eric Clapton of our generation”. The cheek of him!). We also observed that Mayer sounds better when he performs live than all his studio renditions. Very few artists can claim to do that.

diary This is going to be a hasty entry. This writer has some very important business to attend to. The reputation of the team is at stake. Take a deep breath, breath out, breath in, hold. Last month’s intern, Siddhant, has really blossomed this month and after spending hours and hours and many a day testing cabinets, he surreptitiously played and polished his Quake skills and is now giving both Siddharth and yours truly a real run for their money, both of whom are frantically trying their best to hold on to the last shreds of their self-respect and ego as rocket after rocket from that indescribably tall minion blows up their virtual avatars into teensy-weensy little pieces at every opportunity they get. It is only the conditioning of years of Quaking that is keeping them in the lead so far. Every minute that we stay away from Quake is a minute that Siddhant spends improving his skill and this writer is getting left behind. Yaaargh! You pesky readers and your penchant for the diary. (Five minutes later) Ah. Packed off Siddhant for the night and now it’s time to relax a bit. Whew! What a game! Let’s see, what else happened this month? Ah yes, the gun. Anirudh’s airgun brought a breath of life to the long nights of issue closing (and an excuse to not play Quake with Siddhant) and it also managed

120 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

to kindle the primal instincts in most of us (the exception being Nimish, who considers himself above such barbaric behaviour). As you would have understood from the box above, there was many an inanimate casualty but the tale of the penguin is the saddest of them all. The portly penguin has been part of our office for many a year and it was the kind-hearted Nimish who rescued it from the ignominy of the “box”. They’ve spent many a night together, corralled in some corner, the penguin serenading Nimish with tinny tunes from its tiny speaker; ah the joys of the innocent. Anyway, Siddharth and Anirudh, while perusing through the office stash for odds and ends to shoot, found the penguin and decided that it was the perfect target. The poor penguin couldn’t even wince as shot after merciless shot was pumped into it by the whole team, Robert included, shattering it from the inside and out. The remains of the poor creature were left where they fell and the poor Nimish was completely oblivious to the fate of his dear friend. When he found the remains the next day, adorning his desk, he was all man. He carefully collected all the pieces with a stony face and deposited them in the bin. Don’t be fooled by his heartless demeanour though, we glimpsed a stray tear slipping down his gaunt cheek (the left one).

Skoar!

The Perfect Reboot Sameer “Psycho Mantis” Mitha [email protected]

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ust like the rest of the world, we were skeptical when we heard that DmC was going to receive a reboot. We have been playing the game for some time now, and we have to tell you, it doesn’t disappoint. To start with the story is on similar lines of the original series with a slight twist. You are Dante, a Nephilim (son of a demon father and angle mother). With his mother murdered and father imprisoned, Dante joins forces with his twin brother Vergil to take down the demon God Mundus who brought this fate upon them. Fans of the franchise will recognize the plot twists half way through but there are other twists and turns that keep the story interesting. The voice acting in the game is good and even thought there are the cheeky moments they can be forgiven because the overall package is a treat. The audio in the game too is fantastic. The various swish and swipes of combat mixed with fast paced metal music gives you a sense of excitement that is very exhilarating. The level designers of the game deserve special credit. Even though DmC is very

122 Digit | February 2013| www.thinkdigit.com

linear, the levels themselves are a lot of fun to navigate. The game essentially takes place in Limbo, which is a destructive imagination of the real world (a lot more crazy that the world we have seen in Constantine) and that is a very good thing. From upside down subway stations to a gothic them parks, the levels are superb and varied throughout the experience. Dante has at his disposal his sword, Rebellion, and his sexy twin pistols, Ebony and Ivory. Being a Nephilim, Dante has access to a bunch of new moves, which include Devil mode and Angel mode. Holding down the right and left trigger respectively can access these modes. In each mode, Dante’s weapons are modified to vary his attacks. You also have an additional two weapons in each mode and an overall of three different guns giving you an arsenal to take on an army (which you kind of do in the game). The gameplay stays true to tradition. The hack and slash mechanic are retro enough to keep fans happy as well as appeal to new comers with the addition of new combat elements. The number of weapons, combos and varied enemies at your disposal are more than enough to keep the game fresh for its 12 hours play through. The

way the enemies are introduced too is very dramatic. Towards the end of the game, most of the tough enemies are grouped together putting your demon slaying skills to the test. This is an action platforming game with just one puzzle. The platforming is swift and fluid mixing together Angle and Demon mode giving you access to some really cool moves to traverse the already crazy environment and the boss fights, although simple, are a sight to behold.

Verdict If you love action games, you have to play DmC. If you are a fan of the franchise, trust us when we say that the game will by no means disappoint. A must have for all action adventure fans and a benchmark for future reboots!

MOAR! » Genre: Hack and slash, beat ‘em up » Developer: Ninja Theory » Publisher: Capcom » Price: PS3 and Xbox 360: `. 2999; PC: ` 999

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Skoar!

Confusing but Beautiful Swapnil “flyingphoenixx” Mathur [email protected]

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ot a lot of franchises have garnered the kind of fame that Resident Evil has so naturally, and we have quite a lot to say about this one. The story of Resident Evil 6 unravels one layer at a time. It is told through the perspectives of the four main characters, Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield, Jake Muller and Ada Wong. Each character has its own set of missions. While we like this idea, we found a couple of really annoying hiccups along the way. First off, in order to get any semblance of what the story is all about, you absolutely have to play as each character, which is cool if you’re a video game junky. However, the Ada Wong character is locked from the beginning and her missions are the only ones that allow making sense of everything you have been doing playing as the other three characters. Ada Wong’s missions replay the events from the other characters’ missions and just makes the whole thing a whole lot more confusing. In case you’re wondering what’s the story all about, it’s about Dr. Simmons (the main bad guy) being in love with Ada Wong, getting rejected and acting like a hurt adolescent. Only, Simmons is equipped with Viruses spanning the entire alphabet (and then some), so since he can’t have Ada Wong, he decides to create a clone of her using the C-Virus. Simmons has a trusted lab assistant, Clara, who’d do just about anything to win Simmons’ affection. Taking

124 Digit | February 2013| www.thinkdigit.com

advantage of that, Simmons implants her with the C-Virus, turning her into a clone of Ada Wong. Now Clara (or Ada-Clone) isn’t supposed to have any memories from her previous life (as Clara), but somehow ends up remembering what Simmons has done to her and thus plots revenge at the scale of a James bond film. Not very compelling. The game starts off with a pretty neat tutorial about the gameplay, including moments where it will require you to randomly press a random button or shake a random stick in random motion in case a zombie decided to give you one of their undead hugs. You know, like bite you. We also noticed that certain bits of the game are absolutely contrary to logic. For example, in one of the earlier stages, Leon must pass through a metal detector, which goes off since he’s carrying a gun, hence attracting a massive horde of zombies. We noticed (after being killed) that there was a table next to the metal detector blocking the way. We figured we’d jump over it (since Leon can leap over pretty much anything), but no, leaping over a table that wasn’t as tall as his waist was impossible. Anybody see the logic in that? Yea we didn’t think so. Despite the logical fallacies, Resident Evil 6 is a visual stunner, with extreme attention to detail. Capcom has really outdone itself on character design. There’s plenty of overpowering foe that make your entire arsenal useless, adding more to the difficulty of the game. The J’avo (fancy zombies) are smarter thanks to the C-virus preserving brain functions, so they can communicate, coordi-

nate and even operate weapons like knives, machine guns and sniper refiles. Yea, this isn’t your run off the mill zombie shooter.

Verdict The story line is weak, but the need to play as all characters allows the gameplay time to significantly increase. The game definitely is a visual treat and quite a challenge with these intelligent zombies roaming around. However, glaring ploys like inability to jump over obstacles just to create a firefight seem like a poor choice. Then there is the issue of a very narrow field of view, but Capcom is fixing that with an upcoming update (along with unlocking Ada Wong’s missions from the very beginning). All in all, we feel that Capcom wanted to deliver a vast, rich gaming experience with a complex story, but somewhere in the journey to achieve that goal, gave up.

MOAR! » Genre: Third person shooter » Developer: Capcom » Publisher: Capcom » Price: PS3, Xbox 360: `2,999

6

iCloud spreads steadily Apple’s cloud platform, iCloud has increased its user base to over 250 million users

Community

Google’s Password Alternatives Google plans smart rings or USB-based cards as biometric and personal password alternatives for confirming multiple identities online

Head over to our online communities for some of the best discussions, buying advice and user reviews. Of course, you’ll meet like-minded (and not-so-like-minded) geeks; be they utter n00bs or top class developers. Join the fun. 20-09-2012, 08:20 PM dead.night7 Apprentice

.NET vs Java... What side are you On? I have successfully learnt a lot from both of the worlds, in the last one year. Now doubt raises on what side a person should be...

Java - The heated cup Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Mumbai Posts: 91

1) J2SE Being the core I thought that this would be awesome to learn, much better than C++/C Cool concept of JVM(Java Virtual Machine) 2) JSP Servlets the level two of Java and the answer to all the web CGI Scripts today, 3) EJB the sellers choice 4) J2EE the world today, with frameworks aka Spring, Struts, Hibernate, More MVC and ORM tools (Still not gone through but will sooner or later one day) one has to learn a lot before in order to go through and understand these 5) The JSF Now.... pros : Cross platform, Opensource, Free IDE’s all around making good start. cons: If you go further (to learn any Framework) you have to learn a lot earlier

The wave of Microsoft .NET Now this actually turns out to be the same, having technologies, concepts being nearly the same 1) The programming Fundamentals: It seriously depends on what have you started using with VB(Visual Basic.NET) being the most awkward syntactically but easy to learn, C#.NET syntactically same like Java, But under Windows CLR (Common Language Runtime) Concept same as the JVM, But I dont find the applications running on any different OS other than Windows itself. Partly hyped in our textbooks about Cross Platform isn’t it? 2) ASP.NET the .net’s answer to the Web in terms of the the Web applications But still, Linux having a history in being secure, ..Would you go for Windows? 3) WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) pros: Easy to learn enough if you have learnt some OOP earlier, please list few if you have some. cons: Limited to windows, Micro$oft (if you know what i mean to say).. IDE’s Costs, Free version available but with lesser bells... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - On what grounds would you like to go with any of the worlds, lastly what preference would you like to give... In other words If rated these sides what rating would you like to give them in 10, I dont want an argument/ debate here just a fine talk on what you think on either of these technologies...? Your ideas views... If it is a programming preference, A language can be learnt in a span of a week if you have a background in any of the Object Oriented Programming... If its a preference of speed: Then I would like to add that speed in your application majorly depends on coding practices, If you make a mess in the design of your code, It is obvious that there will be a dramatic decrease in your app’s speed...and pointing that decrease to any of the company is not fair enough on a programmers end. Good thoughts / views Welcome..

Last edited by dead.night7; 29-09-2012 at 01:17 AM.

No question is too dumb. Everyone is only there to help you. 17-01-2013, 09:38 PM ramakanta Broken In

Guide to make strongest passwords Here I am posting this ref. to an excellent SANS guide on simple ways to make your passwords stronger, yet still remember them:http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whi...ation/1636.php A reliable alternative is to use a password manager program. Two of the better ones: KeePass Password Safe

Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Kalinga Posts: 188

Password Safe | Free Security & Utilities software downloads at SourceForge.net But just remember if you let someone access your files and PC, it is no longer really your PC. One way to reduce the risk is to encrypt sensitive files so they cannot be accessed by someone. One program that does a decent job of this is Truecrypt: TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux Plants some trees.. Spoiler:

show

18-01-2013, 02:00 AM pranav0091 In The Zone

Re: Guide to make strongest passwords The first link doesnt work buddy... Anyways the trick I use is to take two things I like and join them with one or more special characters. Lets say you like jalebi and lassi => jalebi&lassi Its simple and its very easy to remember for you but not for someone else. And tbh, I have never really found the need for anything more secure than that

Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Wherever I am Posts: 448

HP Pavillion dv4 3016tx | i5 2.33 GHz | ATI HD6750M 1GB | 4GB RAM | 500GB HDD Grado SR60i | Panasonic HJE120 IEM Nokia N70 | Sony Ericsson Eperia Ray | Coming up : Lumia 920 Canon EOS 600D 18-55 Kit lens

126 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Pirate Bay documentary

A documentary titled “TPB AFK”(The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard) which is based on the lives of Pirate Bay founders will be released for free at the end of this month

Nokia to pay Microsoft

Microsoft will now be paid increased “software royalties” by Nokia over the use of Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. Until now, Nokia was enjoying a free ride Community

Need to spruce up your security? How about a new laptop or graphics card? Our community is always ready to help. Check out the post below, and also some of the other discussions taking place at www.thinkdigit.com/facebook.

nVidia or AMD? Clear up your confusion online.

Chromebook top-seller on Amazon Digit 101

According to reports, the new Google Chromebook by Samsung is selling fast on Amazon. You can read more here: http://dgit.in/W0DHVe

Apple store robbed

Apple’s store in Paris got robbed of Apple merchandise worth more than $1 million by masked men

Form factor 101 In a post-PC era, computing devices come in a variety of size and shapes. The consumerization of IT, improved manufacturing processes and innovative industrial design are giving rise to form factors that are giving a fresh lease of life to computing devices

O

urs is a life surrounded by computing devices, and they come in different sizes and shapes. Whether it’s that old faithful desktop PC which is almost as old as yourself or that latest touchscreen smartphone you finally managed to snag after months of research, how many of us actually stop and appreciate their form? How would you describe a laptop’s form and design? Is convertible a term only of interest to grease monkeys and car aficionados? And what is a hybrid device, pray do tell? We try and sort it all out below, giving you a basic understanding of popular consumer tech device form factors.

was first packaged and sold by IBM never deviated from its design DNA overmuch, even to this day. • All-in-one: When Apple released its first iMac with a translucent monitor which also housed the system’s chipset in the enclosure, many considered it to be a passing fad. But the all-in-one form factor of the device caught on with other manufacturers much later, and today’s AIO PC’s have sturdy photo-frame like design.

1) Non-mobile

2) Mobile

As you can imagine, since heavy, tied-down computers are part of the old school of computing, nothing extravagant has happened in this segment of personal computing. The transition from ugly, rectangular boxes to sleek, photo frame units can hardbly be dubbed revolutionary in the 21st century.

Predictably, all the action and battle of innovative design is being fought tooth and nail in mobile PCs and handheld computing devices that primarily include laptops, tablets and smartphones. There’s a lot of flux in this space of consumer products with the dust being far from settled. Exciting times for sure. • Clamshell: All modern laptops sport this design, including most ultrabooks, where the screen lid of the portable PC and its bottom chassis are held together by hinges – like on a suitcase. Flip phones of the past also fall under this design and form factor. • Candybar: The most dominant form factor among mobile phones. It is basically a cuboid but of different volume, size and shape (for every manufacturer), and apart from buttons it may not have any other moving part. Most QWERTY and touchscreen phones found in the market today embrace this form factor. • Slate (tablet): Just an enlarged Candybar, a smartphone gets into the slate or tablet territory when it starts measuring between 7 to 12 inches. • Slider: A unique form factor, slider phones came into prominence at a transitionary

An all-in-one PC! Where’d the cabinet go?! • Traditional desktop PC: There wasn’t anything particularly evocative about the parts (cabinet, monitor, keyboard and mouse) that consisted and comprised of a desktop PC. The commercial personal computer as it 128 Digit | February 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

phase when people weren’t convinced about fully touchscreen phones. Sliders may or may not have a touchscreen, as a rule, but they always had a keyboard compartment which slided along its length to reveal itself. The Blackberry Torch 9800 is a prominent slider phone.

A swivelling screen is the pièce de résistance of a convertible’s design • Convertible: This is essentially a laptop or notebook form factor which has a swivel multi-touch screen to rotate and sit back on the keyboard, essentially transforming the device into a tablet form factor.

A hybrid form factor makes a conventional clamshell laptop into a tablet with a keyboard dock. Genius • Hybrid: These are smaller notebooks or netbook-like devices with a detachable screen, a natural evolution of the design. With the keyboard attached, the device is a netbook or notebook; but take the screen apart and the screen transforms into a full-fledged tablet. Great, isn’t it?

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Find great graphics for your PC at www.nvidia.in/geforce NVIDIA Authorised Board Partners ASUS / Gainward / Galaxy / MSI / Palit / POV / Sparkle / ZOTAC NVIDIA Authorised Distributors > Abacus Peripherals - P: +919890189321, E: [email protected] > Aditya Infotech - P: 08860074211, E: [email protected] > Rashi Peripherals - P: 022-67090828, E: [email protected] > Technology & Gadgets - P: 91-22-23823331/2, 9321951626, E: [email protected] > TopNotch - P: 9380216167, E: [email protected] * Measurement of DirectX graphics performance compared to Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics. © 2013 NVIDIA Corporation. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, GeForce, PhysX and Kepler are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

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