THE STATIC PAGE | Siddharth Parwatay | Managing Editor
What is dead may never die
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steam also brought prices down to very affordable levels. As far as the music ecosystem is concerned, I remember a time when I was a penniless college student, and mighty proud of my 120 GB (gasp!) music collection. All pirated, of course, and copied from friends. Today you’d be hard pressed to find a millennial who doesn’t have either a gaana, saavn or some other music subscription service on their phone. The cost is just factored into their pocket money like chai and samosas were factored into ours. Any logical person would think of these as indicators of times to come. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ve carried a “Piracy is dead” kind of headline somewhere in the mag or on digit.in. However, the truth is, pirates never die, they just adapt to newer tides. As the Ironborn say in GoT “What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.” Why isn’t the video industry (movies and TV included) not going the way of music and gaming? Is there anything inherently different about video? Or do people just like the thrill of sticking it to the man, and getting away with it? For one thing Video on Demand is clearly the way forward. No one wants to be told to “tune in” to some fixed time slot for a dose of video entertainment. Besides, there are a few very unique problems inherent to heavily regulated geographies like India, such as censorship, which may be forcing people towards piracy. Very often, I come across a strange form of self-censorship on services like Amazon Prime Video, which just doesn’t make sense for a sign-in based web service. However, Hotstar, which requires a credit-card for signing up (thereby automatically ensuring that the age requirement is met), doesn’t censor content. So even the censorship excuse doesn’t apply. Perhaps video will be the last piracy bastion to fall or perhaps problems with piracy will exist as long as original IPs exist. Maybe there’s simply a chor in every man and it stirs when you put an internet connection in his hand. What are your thoughts on content piracy and the way it may or may not change in the future? Write in and let me know.
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THE FIRST EPISODE of the latest season of Game Of Thrones (GoT) was pirated (streamed illegally or downloaded on the torrent network) more than 90 million times! This is not new. GoT, because of its popularity, is a pirate magnet (pun intended) of sorts – with each passing year the show seems to be breaking its own piracy records. And with Season 7, it has become the most pirated TV show for the fifth year in a row. How crazy is the world about GoT? Even PornHub registered a 4.5 per cent drop in its prime time stats! That’s crazy because Sunday nights are a forever alone heaven. This year was different though – or at least it should have been different. The piracy levels should’ve been much lower considering that this year HBO opened up many more avenues to watch and stream GoT legally. For a long time in the western world, “I don’t want to subscribe to HBO only to watch GoT” was a valid excuse. But not anymore. They’ve even partnered with many more regional services to make episodes available at almost the same time as the US airing. Even our own homegrown HotStar makes it available for viewing super early in the morning, much before the earliest torrents get proper seeds – yes, I’ve checked this. For research purposes of course. I even remember seeing HotStar hoardings around Mumbai city which said “Torrent Morghulis” – a sort of declaration of war by HotStar against torrents and piracy. None of it seems to have worked. If we draw parallels with other media or digital-consumption based industries such as gaming and music, it seemed for a while at least that piracy was on the decline. If you look at gaming, two factors greatly impacted the rabid levels of piracy that we were accustomed to when growing up: 1. The very nature of gaming changed. With the rise of multiplayer, being connected to an official server could be made mandatory, and this meant that games had to be original, and hence it was almost mandatory for players to “buy in”. 2. The rise of and convenience of digital game distribution platforms like Steam simply made piracy not worth the effort – apart from making it harder to pirate games,
“...the truth is, pirates never die, they just adapt to newer tides.”
Reach me at: facebook.com/ staticsid | @staticsid | editor@digit.in
www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 1
THE RSS FEED | Robert Sovereign-Smith | Executive Editor
No country for AI?
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Who knows, but for the foreseeable future, don’t hold your breath. However, is it justified to extrapolate this lack of AI-love to all fields, just because AI might never drive a car in India? Big corporate houses with international clients and those with billions or trillions of data points will need big data analysing machine intelligence to help them sort through everything. Our vibrant stock market is another area where AI thrives. Translation services, personal assistants, recommendation engines, pretty much everything digital will have AI embedded in it, as it should. I think the mistake people are making is to confuse the idea that foreign solutions cannot be applied to India with the concept of AI itself. Of course, whatever algorithm is developed in order to make a recommendation to an American cannot be applied “as is” to India. In fairness, is anyone stupid enough to even suggest that? The algorithm might need to be much more complex for Indians (or simpler even, because maybe we’re more alike than we’d care to admit?). Whatever the case, am algorithm can still be used, because we’re all human, and humans follow patterns. What we really need to do, is get over this fear of AI. There are plenty of problems that only AI could solve for India. China and the US are investing a lot of money in AI development, and there is genuine concern that a lot of India’s softwarebased outsourcing could soon be replaced by Chinese AI. If you think you’re suffering because you’re stuck in an uninspiring code-monkey job, imagine what happens when you can’t even get that job anymore? It would be better for Indian companies to pioneer and lead the field of AI, and ensure that there are plenty of AI-support skills in the country which can also be outsourced. It’s not just for business that we need to ensure that we have enough human masters of AI in India, but also for national security reasons. We don’t want to be pitted against smart bots intent on stealing our data; not when we’re making a push to go digital in such a big way! While I agree this may be no country for driverless AI, it would be a huge mistake to make this no country for all AI! What do you think the future of AI holds in store for India? Drop me a line, and I’d love to discuss it with you.
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I WAS READING a report recently about our union road transport and highways minister making a comment about never allowing driverless cars in India, because it would take away jobs. I was then reading a few opinion pieces on that, and also (as is customary) reading opinionated social media posts, and of course, politics reared its ugly head. Most of the opinions I came across were biased on way or the other depending on political leanings. Thankfully, I’m a very vocal None-OfThe-Above (NOTA) voter, so I’m able to focus on the technology instead of the political party. As an Indian living abroad, I know the stark differences between the state of roads and driving in India and elsewhere. Australia (where I live) is one of the top 10 nations in terms of driving licence acceptance across the world, and amongst the hardest countries to get a driving license in... and still there are those who drive like idiots. Road rage, lack of road sense, no courtesy, accidents, etc., are all part of a daily commute here as well. However, there’s one thing first world countries don’t have too many of, and that’s people. I’m not educated in governance or economics to definitively know whether driverless cars in India would lead to more or less jobs, but I do know it’s insanity to think that AI is anywhere close to as sophisticated as it needs to be before it can drive a car in India! The sheer amount of variables is just insane: if it’s not the potholes, then it’s swerving human drivers, lack of lanes painted on the roads, and lack of people respecting those lanes when they are painted... Then there’s cyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians and even animals to navigate past, not to mention the average signal jumper and jaywalker… I want to be clear, this is not criticism of our country, merely a reality check of our rather unique situation. I genuinely believe that if there were over a billion first-worlders crammed into spaces and cities the way we are in India, the roads would be warzones littered with dead bodies and millions seeking therapy! There are things technology has accomplished, things it will achieve, and then things it might never do at all, and it’s OK to admit to those areas in which it might never make any inroads. Will driverless cars never come to India?
2 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
“There are things technology has accomplished, things it will achieve, and then things it might never do at all, and it’s OK to admit to those areas in which it might never make any inroads.”
Liked or hated this column? Let me know at: robert@digit.in | facebook.com/raaabo | @raaabo
PARANOID ANDROID | Mithun Mohandas | Asst. Technical Editor
Is Jio India’s AT&T?
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can get the phone and the Jio apps for a bare minimum of `153+199 (`352) or you can pay upwards of `600 to get the same set of features with any other telecom and DTH operator. So for the millions and millions of people in our country who are faced with a choice of picking their existing telecom providers along with an additional DTH provider, they can simply get a JioPhone and save money while getting a phone-cum-TV. All this, provided their all-IP infrastructure can handle the load. There simply isn’t any reason left to pick a DTH provider. And it’s not just me that feels this way. This sentiment was shared by thousands of shareholders who let loose of their DTH stocks, so much that the stock dropped in value by 6 per cent the day Mukesh Ambani made his announcement. Moreover, there have been leaks in the past few months regarding a Hybrid Jio DTH box which aims to offer broadband internet as well as DTH services. If the rumours are true, Reliance will be unleashing another “Prime” offer to reel in customers from the competition. This marks the moment in Indian history wherein the first telecom-cum-DTH provider came to be. Now let me draw your attention to the US, where such entities are commonplace. There’s AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and a couple of others. Some of these only provide telecom services while others serve multiple markets. And when you have a closer look at most American cities, they only have one or two providers to pick from, often giving rise to a situation where consumers have to pick the lesser evil. And as competition reduced in each territory or zone, these monopolistic companies hiked fares at each and every opportunity they could get. This has resulted in the USA having one of the highest per capita internet expenditures in the world! It seems there’s absolutely nothing that’s going to stop Reliance from going the same way. It has caused more disruptions in the market than any other entity leading to mass adoption of Reliance’s services. And with the introduction of these new plans, it seems Reliance will not only gain a stronghold over telecom but also the DTH market giving rise to, in all sense of the word, a monopoly. Only time will tell if Reliance will slowly consume all the competition and go on to be India’s AT&T. If so, there will be nothing worse for the Indian telecom consumer than that.
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VERY FEW COMPANIES can claim the honour of becoming a household name in such a short time as Jio. And why not, after all, Jio brought such a disruptive change that has had every other telecom company in the country crying bloody murder. So much that they’ve all come together to file numerous complaints against Jio’s pricing strategies with the country’s regulatory authorities. Analysts observing all the action from the sidelines have pointed out the realisation that most telecom companies have arrived at – that mobile data is the new oil. While some may say that it’s an overestimation of the true value, there’s a simple thing that I’d like to point out. Jio is targeting not just the telecom market but also the DTH market. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance AGM address hinted at Jio’s intention of targeting this market which is projected to have a revenue greater than $5 billion by 2020. Before we get to that let’s see what JioPhone brings to the table. It’s a low cost smartphone that comes with Jio apps. This phone offers half a GB of data every day. That’s half a GB for a targeted 500 million subscriber count. This is what you get for the base price package of `153. For `309, you can double the daily data cap which Reliance says is enough to enjoy 3 to 4 hours of video. Additionally, there’s an “affordable” JioPhone TV Cable that you can buy to link the JioPhone to your TV. This JioPhone TV Cable sounds like an MHL cable, which will let you mirror your JioPhone on your TV. The very same JioPhone that has 1 GB of data per day and a couple of Jio Apps. JioTV is one of these apps and it opens up your phone to over 400+ TV channels including 60+ HD channels. Then there’s JioCinema which does the same for movies, TV shows and music videos. The former costs `349 a month and the latter costs `199. Let’s recap, you’re getting unlimited phone calls across India, 1 GB of data, access to a plethora of TV shows, movies and music; all for `153. Now let’s take a look at the existing telecom base packs and DTH base packs. The bare minimum appears to cost around `85-99 across all DTH providers. And this is without sports and international channels. When you club those “premium” packages along with your base plan, the net DTH subscription fee goes up to `500-600. Now, you
4 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
“Analysts observing all the action from the sidelines have pointed out the realisation that most telecom companies have arrived at – that mobile data is the new oil.”
Let me know your thoughts on this column at: @mithun_mohandas | mithun@digit.in
Scontents A M PL E COVER STORY PAGE 54-64
The India Special
Join us as we learn about the tech and science breakthroughs that India accomplished recently, and uncover the future of our young and eager country
TECH - PAGE 16-53
SCIENCE - PAGE 88-96
AUGUST 2017 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 08
22 | Are external GPUs here to stay? They give small form factor machines a boost in performance but their days could be numbered..
AND MORE 6 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
92 | When humans bite back! Want to save the world? Well, you can start by eating bugs.
AND MORE
SKOAR! - PAGE 97-111
ON THE DVD to gravity at the space station Space station speed in orbit Introduction to Newton’s law of gravitation More on gravitation
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Open source starter pack What if we told you that you can survive solely on source software on your PC and completely avoid commercial software? It’s possible and we’ve bundled the most essential packages, software, and tools into a single starter pack. You’re welcome. 7-zip Audacity FileZilla Firefox KeePass kodeWeave Krita LibreOffice Mumble PDFsam Basic Pencil Pidgin qBittorrent ShareX Shotcut Subsonic Thunderbird VirtualDub Visual Studio Code VLC media player
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97 | Steam killers in the making!
These game distribution clients are trying to beat Steam at its own game. Do they have what it takes?
106 | Where have game demos gone?
We explore why game demos have all but disappeared from the gaming industry.
AND MORE
ALT - PAGE 76-87
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CULTURE - PAGE 68-75
78 | Artificial weather 70 | All your pop culture stories are manipulation Imagine if in the near future, humanity stolen was able to control the weather. What would the world be like?
80 | DGT We bring you some of the best products from around the world, some of which we tested out in our labs!
AND MORE
From Star Wars to the Lion King, and even the Lord of the Rings, your favourite stories weren’t exactly original.
72 | Boo-Man on Chromecast Cast this out of your life and mind, like an evil spirit.
AND MORE
Introduction to Gravity Introduction to gravity Mass and weight clarification Gravity for astronauts in orbit Would a brick or feather fall faster? Acceleration due
Alternatives to Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud Is the Adobe Creative Suite too expensive for you? Fret not because free alternatives are available and we’ve included a few popular ones in the DVD. Fusion 8 Inkscape Openshot GIMP Scribus Indie games Cosmoteer Dude, Stop EGGNOGG+ First recon Insatia Mutilate-a-Doll 2 Nighttime Visitor Pigeons Attack Potato Bumper Dash Fresh Linux distros Tired of using the same old Ubuntu and Mint distros? Here are two fresh Linux distros that we recently discovered. Each has its own unique features and advantages. Enso OS LXLE
www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 7
TO ADVERTISE
PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH
EMAIL: sales@digit.in
AUGUST 2017 • VOLUME 17 • ISSUE 08 Managing Director Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh Publishing Director Vikas Gupta EDITORIAL Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay Multimedia Co-ordinator Abhijit Dey Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Manish Rajesh, Yangerlong Jamir
SALES DIRECTOR: Lalit Arun Mobile: +91-9582262959
BAZAAR
SOUTH: Ram Sarangi Mobile: +91-98864 06961
Jabees BTwins | SoundMagic E10BT
WEST: Suvarna Shringarpure Mobile: +91-93249 28247
ASUS ROG Pugio | Lenovo Legion Y520
NORTH: Mayank Sharma Mobile: +91-8800661912
ASUS Cerberus Mech RGB | ZION Blaze 8 GB
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EAST: Jayanta Bhattacharyya Mobile: +91-93318 29284
Honor 8 Pro | AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
Jabra Evolve 75 | HTC U11
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TEST CENTRE Asst. Technical Editor Mithun Mohandas Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco Assistant Vikas Patil DIGIT.IN Editor Soham Raninga Assistant Editor Prasid Banerjee, Sameer Mitha Features Editor Adamya Sharma Senior Sub Editor Karthek Iyer Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar DESIGN Sr. Art Director Anil VK Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi Visualiser Baiju NV Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ & Manoj Kumar VP Intern Aman Agrawal PHOTOGRAPHY Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi Intern Rohit Kajaria
Brand.......................................... Page No. Samsung.................................Inside front cover
PRODUCTION AND LOGISTICS Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay Manager Logistics Vijay Menon Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari
Playerunknown’s Battleground | Injustice 2
HP.....................................................Back cover
MOBILE MONTHLY Cosmo | Phase Spur | The Arcana Masala Express | Father and Son Knight Saves Queen | BaconEscape
Seagate............................................................3
Gigabyte...........................................................5 iBall............................................................. 9,47 Canon.............................................................11
SBI.................................................................13 LIC..................................................................15
TP-Link...........................................................19 IOCL................................................................27 India Antivirus............................................... 111
Quantum....................................................... 112
BRAND Brand Head Mitin Kumar Asst Product Mgr Aditi Malhotra Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh CIRCULATION SALES Head - Circulation Samir Mehta Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Norbert Joseph Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh
READER SERVICES Team Leader Sudhir Patel Executives Poonam, Bhishm, Nilesh & Narendra +91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in 8 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
GAMES REVIEWED THIS MONTH
Lucideus..................................Inside back cover
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CONTRIBUTORS Writers Aabir Abubaker, Anusha Sinha, Kanishk Karan, Kshitij Sobti, Prithvi Velsa
ADVERTISING INDEX
COVER ILLUSTRATION AND DESIGN Peterson PJ
Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of the owners, M/s Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Pvt Ltd. Published at A-262, 2nd Floor, Defence colony, New Delhi110024 and printed at International PrintO-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U..P.) INDIA. Editor : Kanak Ghosh. “We do not endorse or recommend any product or service advertised in the magazine. The advertisement’s in this magazine are for information purposes only. We do not, expressly or impliedly, warrant or assume any liability or responsibility for the quality, accuracy, completeness, legality, reliability, usefulness or claims of any product or service advertised in the magazine. Our readers are strongly advised to carry out their own independent assessment of the product or services advertised in the magazine.”
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.
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 editor@digit.in 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 dvd@digit.in or call +91-22-678 99 707
JOIN THE GROUP THAT SUITS YOUR NEED!
https://www.facebook.com/digitgeek/ Your favourite magazine on your favourite social network. When mainstream tech is not enough, come over to the geekier side.
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Q&A If you’re having trouble with your PC or a gadget, our experts can help solve your problems. Just write in to sos@digit.in. Remember to include full system configurations in your email.
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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 agent001@digit.in
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10 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
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http://www.facebook.com/skoar What is life without gaming? Catch up on all the latest in gaming news, reviews and shenanigans from our test labs
opening Hobbit meal INBOX
Music Mix
Ever wanted to cook some of the meals you saw on the Hobbit yourself? Now you can! http://dgit.in/cookhobbits
Here’s a simple guide on what you’ll need to get started with mixing music. http://dgit.in/mmlandr.
I was going through the articles of July 2017 magazine. Instead of technology related topics (by that I mean about computers, laptops or all the electronic equipment) I see articles on games, biology, time travel, Jupiter and articles on cars. Thank god you haven’t covered FOOD! Do we really need these articles in a Technology magazine? When we have separate magazines for all such things, do you really need to mix this with your technology magazine? I’m very disappointed and worried as I have subscribed for one year starting this July 2017. –Chaitanya Vangala
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Feedback for the July 2017 issue of Digit
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welcome and appreciated on all the points you’ve mentioned. As for the website, we actually have conquered the digital space as well, and it’s India’s leading tech website, but we will agree with you that it needs a facelift, which is exactly what’s underway now. For now, you might find our geek site more to your taste: http:// geek.digit.in – tell us what you think.. –Siddharth
Send your feedback at editor@Digit.in
also improved a lot. However, there are too many videos – “first look” videos, then unboxing, then review video and whatnot. Perhaps you should do away with the unboxing videos? Instead, you could do QnA videos and other stuff. I get bored watching so many smartphone videos. The website is, well... y’know...pretty bad by today’s standards. You have conquered the offline platform but are still lagging behind on the online platform, which is pretty ironic (considering the fact that you are considered TECH GURUS). I know this mail was full of criticism and it must be pretty difficult to execute all these tasks on time and run a magazine successfully. But you guys are the best that there can be. P.S: I really liked the Time travel article in the July issue. I also liked the way memes are dropped in many articles. –Omang Baheti
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I am writing this mail to you to thank you guys for covering all these photography-related topics. The accompanying software on the DVD for editing were also appreciated. I loved Filmora and its tutorial, You guys are amazing and I’ve been a subscriber since the last three issues. I loved your coding based FastTrack this time. I also like the design of your issue very much. I have some suggestions for you: • Can you cover coding and programming more? • I want a FastTrack on AI, Android and Web Development. Would it be possible? –Harsh Kathiriya
As you can imagine we’ve already done FTs on AI, Android and Web Development before. Since you are a new subscriber, you probably didn’t know that. Secret tip: your June issue DVD should have FTs to Android Studio and Building your own Website. For the others, just fill out a quick survey at http://dgit.in/dvdarch17umy –Arnab
Digit has undergone a lot of changes since I subscribed back in August 2015. The new layout is pretty kickass (but I did not like the Digit Diary section, the older one was better). I liked the integration of SKOAR! into the main magazine and the quality of videos on YouTube has
12 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
The point behind breaking down the overall content around a product into unboxing, reviews and comparisons is to keep the content diverse and have something available for every viewer out there. Many people love unboxing videos, especially people about to buy the product. For Q&A we do Facebook lives now, as it is meant for that kind of interaction. Like our various Facebook pages to be notified of lives. Rest assured, your criticism is
The biggest section by far in the magazine is the technology (Tech) section. We are certainly not wavering from that and most of the magazine is dedicated to exactly the things you want. However, based on our readership survey, we found that a lot of our readers wanted the kind of content that we put under Sci and Cult. Alt is admittedly our own doing, but it’s a miniscule section anyway. We feel it is important for all of our readers to develop well-rounded and globally-aware opinions. Whether it’s personal or professional relationships, we feel that everyone needs to widen their knowledge and interest areas to succeed on an increasingly competitive global battlefield. I’m happy to return your subscription cost from my own pocket, but we cannot stop your subscription. Why not wait a few months, we are sure you will find the content growing on you. –Robert This is going to be a long mail. I do hope you have the time to read it! I started reading Digit in class 9 (two years ago) in my school library. The
WHAT’S NEW
AMD Ryzen 3 and Threadripper announced
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CPU. The 1950X will be priced at $999 and the 1920X will come in for $200 fewer i.e. $799. On the Ryzen side, the two new Ryzen 3 SKUs are the 1300X and the 1200, both of which are 4-core/4-threaded CPUs with a pretty decent range of clock speeds and 8 MB of L3 cache. http://dgit.in/AMD3T
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DOES THIS SECTION EVEN NEED AN INTRODUCTION? FROM COMPUTERS TO MOBILES, AND HEADPHONES TO GPUS, IT’S ALL HERE...
he announcement happened without much fanfare via a video (http:// dgit.in/Ryzen3T) featuring AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, John Taylor and Robert Hallock who went through the specifications of the two SKUs and ran benchmarks. The results of which were quite incredible. The new Threadripper CPUs will have up to 16 cores and 32 threads and require an all new socket and chipset i.e. the 4094-pin TR4 socket along with the new X399 chipset. We have information about two new SKUs – Threadripper 1950X and Threadripper 1920X. The former being the 16-core/32-thread flagship while the latter being a 12-core/24-thread
TECH-LOVE
Share any file type on WhatsApp
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hatsApp now allows users to share any file type via its social messaging platform. The feature first spotted in beta version is now rolling out for all Android users. Android users can send files up to 100MB in size while web users can only send files up to 64MB, but reports suggest that iPhone users can send slightly larger files.
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THIS MONTH IN TECH: We explore where and how solar power was developed in Origins this month, moving on to talking about external GPU boxes, and then profiling upcoming startups in the health sector. Apart from regular gadget reviews, we are starting off a new section where two devices or software are compared head-to-head. For all you guys typing on dirty keyboards, we have a special DIY guide to cleaning keyboards.
How checkers was solved
AI learns parkour
Google’s subsidiary DeepMind’s latest research reveals how AI is teaching itself parkour and other robust techniques to get around in complex environments in their latest paper. http://dgit.in/AIparkour
The game of checkers has roughly 500 billion billion (5 x 10^20) possible board positions. This is a story about two men, a duel, and the quest to build artificial intelligence long before Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue or Lee Sedol and AlphaGo. http://dgit.in/CheckDuel
16 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
The new update allows users to send any kind of file including zip files or APKs of
Hacker steals $32 Million in Ethereum
At least three different accounts were compromised for a total loss of $31,725,019 USD worth of ether from Parity (an ethereum client). The new cryptocurrency has been gaining a lot of attention worldwide lately and it was only a matter of time before hackers started working. http://dgit.in/32ether
mobile apps. Users can also see all of their photos and videos in the in-app camera by swiping up. WhatsApp will also retain original quality of the images and stop compressing photos altogether. The update may not be available right away but should become available for everyone in the coming days. http://dgit.in/WhatsAPK
Android O Reddit AMA
Google’s Android O engineering team’s Reddit AMA answered a lot of questions about the upcoming OS on Reddit. The team talked about Project Treble, Themes, Blob Emojis and a little more. Find out what’s on the way. http://dgit.in/Oama
level
A COLLECTION OF PRO TIPS FOR EVERYTHING. Without being limited to a particular topic, these tips are from popular software, to coding, to browsers, search, storage rules, password rules, mobile device hacks, bios cracking, tweaks explained and everything tech under the sun.
software? However, you will need Creator’s Update installed on Windows 10. Rather than listening to music or watching movies in regular stereo, Windows Sonic for Headphones will make the audio spatial. This feature is only available for headphones. To enable Spatial sound, head over to Sound > Playback and then right-click on your headphones to go to its properties. Open the Spatial sound tab and select Windows Sonic for Headphones from the dropdown menu.
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The element of surprise in software is wonderful when it comes to useful features. We randomly list down a few handy ones.
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Hidden features you probably didn’t know about DEVELOPERS DON’T ALWAYS reveal all the features offered in their software and it’s up to the users to stumble upon them randomly. Although they require some digging to discover, they usually hide in plain sight. Here are eight such hidden features across different platforms and software, in no particular order.
SEARCH INTO SPECIFIC WEBSITES
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Having a hard time looking for a specific article on a website? Well, one way is to use search operators in Google Search or you could just use Chrome’s omnibox instead. The omnibox is the address bar in the Chrome browser where you enter the domain names. By default it lets you search directly on
Google Search. But if you’re looking for specific websites, say Reddit, then you’ll have to make an entry in the settings. Head over to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines. Here you can enter any website you want and if you’ve already opened the website, chances are the Chrome must have automatically added it to the list. If not, you can manually enter and even assign a special keyword rather than typing down the entire domain name. Once it’s added in the list, if you’ve assigned the keyword “reddit” to reddit. com, then type down reddit and you’ll see the text “Press tab to search reddit”. On pressing tab, any entry you make in the omnibox will search only in Reddit.
Edit the search engines on Chrome
SHORTCUT TO DELETE BROWSING HISTORY
Now, we know you must have made all the “questionable” online searches in an incognito tab. But say, you haven’t, you can hit the “Ctrl+Shift+Delete” combination and the “Clear browsing data” window will pop up. Select or deselect the things
26 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
Clear browsing data shortcut
you want to delete and you’re done. This enables you to delete the embarrassing history like a ninja.
DRAG MULTIPLE TABS ON CHROME
Chrome has made it easy to drag opened tabs into a new window. Sometimes, when you’re working on an assignment, you might have other websites open. To organise the clutter, you would want the relevant tabs to be open in a single window. If you’re individually dragging them to the new window, you’re doing it wrong. Chrome allows you to drag multiple tabs at once - just press “Ctrl” and click on all the tabs that you want to drag.
ENABLE WINDOWS SPATIAL SOUND
Did you know that you could enjoy spatial sound on Windows without any extra
Windows Sonic spatial sound
FIND YOUR WHATSAPP BFFS
Snapchat has a feature that displays the users with whom you exchange the most snaps. If you’re looking for the same on WhatsApp, it’s easy to find. On Android, open up WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chats > Chat History > Email chat. You’ll find three contacts or groups listed under “Frequently
tech Hololens using AI
AI invents language
The next iteration of the Hololens will use an onboard AI chip for real-world object recognition. http://dgit.in/hololensAI
Google’s Neural Machine Translation (NMT) program has developed its own internal language. http://dgit.in/aiinventlang
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PC KEYBOARD CLEANING 101 with a membrane keyboard and cleaning them was definitely a pain in the backside. You had to open up the entire keyboard chassis to reach the inner housing where most of the filth got collected. Whereas, mechanical keyboards are comparatively easier to clean because the key caps can be easily removed. Majority of the dust is collected around the switches right below the key caps and to reach them, you don’t need to open up the keyboard. This brief guide will show you how easy it is to clean your keyboard. You should, because according to a recent study, your dirty keyboard might have about 20,000 times more bacteria than a toilet seat! This might not kill you, but if you have weak immunity, you will fall sick frequently. To begin, we’ll go through a couple of regular keyboard cleaning habits that you should incorporate in your life. This will not only keep you healthy but will also improve your keyboard’s life.
WEAPONS OF MASS CLEANLINESS
• Compressed air can / air dust blower / vacuum cleaner
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Keeping your keyboard clean is a healthy lifestyle choice. We’ll show you how to follow one. Abhijit Dey | abhijit@digit.in
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lashback to a few years ago when you first got your keyboard. You probably had a smile on your face the entire time as you unpacked it and placed it front of your PC. Then you traced your fingers along the keys and typed your first words on the new hardware, getting a feel for what would be your companion in the coming years. Skip to the present, and now your keyboard has a budding ecosystem harbouring germs feeding on the pizza crumbs or potato chips left inside it. Most of us started off
28 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
Liquid soap mixed with warm water is the best cleaning solution for keyboards
reviews
For better understanding of our ratings, hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a quick guide to our overall score to
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Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen anything like it before. A definite must buy!
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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.
THE LATEST PRODUCTS REVIEWED FOR YOU
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INSIDE
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ASUS Cerberus Mech RGB
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HTC U11
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AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
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Jabees BTwins 32 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
PLUS
33 SoundMagic E10BT 35 Lenovo Legion Y520 35 Honor 8 Pro 36 ZION Blaze RAM 8GB 37 Jabess BTwins 37 ASUS ROG Pugio & MORE...
tech Hamburger straws
Infinity War poster
Japan's newest meme that's going viral is sticking drinking straws through hamburgers. http://dgit.in/HStraws
Marvel released a poster for the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War movie featuring the entire cast. http://dgit.in/IWarPost
HTC U11
A flagship that could have been better
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bright. Amongst the many advertised features of the HTC U11 is the new Edge Sense feature. The U11 is squeezable and you can customise the feature to launch any app, or perform other function, like turn on the torch, launch the camera and so on. There’s even a
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FEATURE.......................76 PERFORMANCE...........78 VALUE............................76 DESIGN..........................83
SoundMagic E10BT Totally worth the money
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distinction for squeeze-and-hold actions and a short squeeze. The HTC U11 is a flagship class flagship, and that’s the best way to put it. Having said that, I would choose the Galaxy S8 or the LG G6 over this in a heartbeat. They look better, sport newer technologies and feel more premium in my opinion. Edge Sense is unique, but I would pick the Edge display over it, even though Sense Companion is as hamstrung as Bixby. HTC fans will not complain with this phone, but as good as the HTC U11 is, it’s just not good enough anymore. We routinely picked the OnePlus 5 and Galaxy S8 over this. –Prasid Banerjee
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t’s easy to write off HTC in the current market but the HTC U11 is something new and it’s something different. It’s got the good elements of the HTC 10, and is better in a lot of ways. From the front, the HTC U11 looks almost entirely like the HTC 10, but it’s got a liquid glass surface on the back. It sort of changes colour depending on how light falls on it. The U11 has a 5.5 inch QHD display with Gorilla Glass 5 protection and the colours aren’t punchy so to speak, but they’re neither too warm, nor too
REVIEWS
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hen one of our all time favourite in-ear headphones Price decides to shed its 3.5mm jack 3,499 and go completely wireless, we sit up and take notice. The E10BT is the bluetooth version of the much-loved E10 series from SoundMagic. Having the battery and bluetooth transmission circuitry on the cable makes the driver housing fairly light and compact – making it more comfortable for longer listening sessions. write home about – no fibre The only problem we felt braiding, reflective paint etc was that the cable is a little – but it’s certainly not flimsy. too long if you clip it to your In terms of performance BUILD............................75 collar. A fair bit of slack the E10BT manages to retain FEATURES.....................78 remains. But it’s not long everything we love about PERFORMANCE...........80 enough to go to, say, your the series. The sound is acVALUE............................85 sleeve. In terms of build curate, and compared to the quality there’s nothing to BLU-200 it has a more open
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SPECIFICATIONS
OS: Android 7.1 | CHIPSET: Snapdragon 835 | CPU: Octa-core (4x2.5 GHz Kyro & 4x1.9 GHz Kyro) | GPU: Adreno 540 | BATTERY: Non-removable Li-Po 3000 mAh | CAMERA: Primary (Dual 12 MP, f/1.7), Secondary (16 MP, f/2.0)
CONTACT
HTC INDIA | PHONE: NA | EMAIL: Online form | WEBSITE: www. htc.com/in/
mid range. This makes tracks sound rich without being overtly warm. When the BLU-200 was released, we liked its audio quite a bit, but the E10BT is a better performer. The vocals produced are absolutely clear and upfront, while the bass is tight. In fact the bass is just about right – definitely not overpowering. At the `2500 to `2800 price point, there’s absolutely no reason not to go for the SoundMagic E10BT if you are looking for a pair of well balanced Bluetooth headphone. In fact, this pair dislodges the Brainwavz BLU-200 as our go-to recommendation for affordable wireless in-ears. –Siddharth Parwatay
SPECIFICATIONS
DRIVER: 13.5mm | FREQUENCY RANGE: 20Hz - 20kHz | IMPEDANCE: 46Ω | SENSITIVITY: 100dB at 1kHz/mW | BLUETOOTH VERSION: 4.2 | WIRELESS RANGE: 10m | RATED BATTERY LIFE (MUSIC): 10 - 12 hours | STANDBY TIME: 200 hours | WEIGHT: 20g
CONTACT
SOUNDMAGIC | PHONE: +91 9910038574 | EMAIL: support@ acrorma.com | WEBSITE: http://www.soundmagic.in/
www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 33
tech Air Force One
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One minute list compiles a list everyday with interesting little facts and information. http://dgit.in/oneminlist
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GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Gaming 9 VS ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE
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HEAD-ON
Here’s a detailed picture depicting the design and function of the Air Force One. http://dgit.in/AF1works
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ntel’s latest and greatest i.e. the X299 HEDT platform arrived a little earlier than scheduled and it’s brought with it quite a few powerful processors. With AMD’s Threadripper platform serving as competition, Intel seems to have hurriedly pushed out the X299 platform to meet Threadripper head on. Both platforms have excellent processors and board manufacturers have been busy coming out with equally good motherboards to make the most out of them. While Threadripper is still fresh in the market, we do have X299 motherboards pouring in, out of which we have two from the top end. From GIGABYTE we have the X299 AORUS Gaming 9 which
BUILD
GIGABYTE X299 AORUS GAMING 9
We start off with one of the most important aspects of a high-end motherboard, the VRM. We see that the Gaming 9 has 8-phases for the CPU VCore which can be seen at the very top of the motherboard. They’re using an Infineon IR35201 as the digital PWM with IR3556 MOSFET rated at 50A for each of the individual phases. The inductors on each phase also happen to be rated for 70-76A which should easily handle peak loads of the upcoming 18-core CPU without overclocking. For the RAM we see two IR3553 and two IR35204. Overall, a pretty well-knit design drawing power from two 8-pin ATX connectors.
40 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
Two of the most feature rich X299 motherboards go head to head. Mithun Mohandas | mithun@digit.in
is part of their gaming focused lineup and we have the PRIME X299-DELUXE from ASUS. As flagship boards, both of these support Intel’s HEDT CPUs with the maximum PCIe lane count. So we’re going to see a slight variation in the choice of peripherals and components that utilise these lanes but in either case, we’re going to have all 44 lanes being utilised. Let’s see how these boards fare against each other.
ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE
Just as we saw with the Gaming 9, the ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE uses an Infineon IR35201 as a digital PWM with 8-phases but each phase is being controlled by an IR3555 MOSFET which are rated for 60A which is greater than what the GIGABYTE motherboard has. As for the RAM, we see two Digi+ ASP1103 controllers which is only found on ASUS boards and since there are no publicly available datasheets, we can’t get into the nitty gritty of it. Another thing to note is that this VRM circuitry draws power from one 8-pin and one 4-pin ATX power connector which under peak loads will exhibit higher temperatures compared to the GIGABYTE board.
tech
> code / creativity / community >
FOR THOSE GEEKS WHO LIKE TO GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY IN CODE
DEVWORX
Getting Started with Vue.js
Kshitij Sobti | feedback@digit.in
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<div id="app"> </div> <script src="app.js"></script> If you open this HTML file in the browser and open the console, you should see output like "You are running Vue in development mode. ..."
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data. It doesn't enforce any structure to your code or concern itself with your business logic. It doesn't even enforce a structure for your Vue.js code. In fact you can create a working Vue.js app in a single JavaScript file that is loaded directly in your HTML page, along with the Vue.js code with no requirement for a build step. Of course, if you want to use the latest JavaScript syntax and want to bundle your code better you will still need something like Webpack. We will use some modern JavaScript features that require a somewhat modern browser. Any recent version on Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge will work – Internet Explorer will not. We will be building a simple app that lets you search for users on GitHub using their public API.
VUE.JS BASICS
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Over the past few years, few web frameworks have survived. Vue.js has not only survived but thrived. Let's see why.
SETTING UP OUR CODE
We will set up our Vue app the simple way, without using any external tools. We will simply create an HTML file that includes Vue and our code, and optionally some CSS to make the application presentable. Create a fresh directory to play around in, and in it create an empty HTML file called index.html and a JavaScript file called app.js. Of course you can call these files whatever you want, but you will need to adjust the code examples accordingly. You can paste in any simple boilerplate HTML5 code. All you need in the header section is this script tag that will load Vue from a CDN: <script src="https://unpkg. com/vue"></script> And inside the body tag create a single div tag where the app will be mounted, and a script tag to include our app code:
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he world of web development is one of constant churn; new frameworks pop up one day and take the world by storm, only to disappear in a month. If you are looking to create an actual app that is intended to be deployed for people to use, it is important to consider the history of a project and how active its development is at the moment. Vue.js has been around for over three years, and in that time it has gained a lot in popularity for its simplicity, minimalism and performance. It calls itself 'The Progressive JavaScript Framework' and markets itself with the keywords Approachable, Versatile and Performant. As you may have derived from the name, Vue.js mostly concerns itself with the View part of your application. It lets you create reusable components that can be composed to build powerful, reactive user interfaces. Like many modern web frameworks, Vue.js uses a virtual DOM to make the framework fast and responsive. It is not concerned with how you connect to your API, how you fetch
48 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
Before we delve into the code, there are a few things you should know about how Vue works. Since Vue is a framework for building user interfaces in a web browser, at some point it needs to output HTML that will be rendered to the page. Different frameworks have different approaches for how this output is generated, and the approach Vue uses is that of templates. You provide Vue some template HTML code that has special markup for where to fill-in data, and Vue will not only fill in the data you provide but also create a binding so any changes to your data will automatically update the relevant parts of the UI. Let's look at the simplest example of a "Hello World" app here: http://dgit. in/HlwWrld. As you can see in the code example above, we are creating a new Vue instance and providing it a template for our output via template, the data to fill into the template via data and the HTML element in our page – where this Vue component is to be rendered – via el. Setting el to '#app' tells it to mount the component in the element with an id of app; Vue will then render this component and place it where the we put the div with an id of app. The template above is an HTML code with a placeholder for message defined by putting it inside double curly-braces. Vue will look at the value of greeting in data and fill it in the placeholder inside the h1 tag.
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INDIA S DIGITAL LANDSCAPE: TAKING STOCK
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How well has India wired its digital network, that aims to forge a new system of e-governance in the coming days Kanishk Karan | feedback@digit.in
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Illustration: Peterson PJ
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n a country like India, where the problems hinge more on mindset and less on policy, digitisation has unanimously been dubbed as a very ambitious task. For years, India has had a familiar set of problems – poverty, illiteracy, sanitation, joblessness, etc. Digitisation demands a basic level of digital literacy from people who might not even know how to read a word in their native language, even though almost all of them have cell phones in even the most remote areas. The latest India Exclusion Report 2016 (IER) (http://dgit.in/ier2016), suggests that despite the government’s thrust towards digital in the country, it isn’t producing the results we’d hoped for, mainly because of connectivity and infrastructure issues. To list out the major highlights put forth by scholars and policy analysts in the IER report, it would suggest that the digital pathway of the country is faced with several roadblocks. While the initiatives taken under the digital India initiative are laudable, bridging the digital divide is of vital importance, experts believe. “One must keep in mind that roughly only a third of the country has access to the internet. Given the size of India’s population, the infrastructure needed for digitisation of the country is woefully inadequate,” says Shalini Narayan, Communications Advisor, Society for Promotion of Youth and Masses, a national organisation working towards community mobilisation, healthcare and socioeconomic development.
DIGITAL INDIA
The IER 2016 suggests that the goals set during the launch of the Digital India initiative in July 2015, are nowhere close to be achieved. The plan to build the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) to provide broadband connectivity to 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats in three phases seems to have lost track now. About 37 per cent of the network has been laid so far, and of the Gram Panchayats connected to NOFN, only 13 per cent have internet access. The report further adds that the government seems to have no clear direction to go with the NOFN and a continual tweaking of the deadline, is adding to the problem. Recently, the Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the entire target of connecting Gram Panchayats will be completed by mid-2018. If so, it would be a very successful project, given that even developed countries like Australia have struggled to build a fibre-optic backbone for the country in twice that time! According to estimates, the cost of internet is a bit too expensive for at least 1.063 billion people in a population of 1.3 billion. Remember, we have over 25 per cent of rural India, and about 13 per cent of urban India living below the poverty line. The digital locker facility, which lets people store their documents in the cloud, is a good concept and an efficient system, but is susceptible to cyber threats. Currently, loss due to documented cyberattacks stand over `25,000 crores in India. www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 55
WHAT’S NEW
D23 Expo
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announced the cast for it. Will Smith will be playing genie and right now, that’s all you need to know to be expecting a good movie. • The Lion King - Disney’s 1994 classic film, The Lion King is getting a full modern-day CGI remake set for 2019. The teaser featured baby Simba, Rafiki and of course, the iconic Pride Rock with a realistic makeover. For more news, announcements and updates from Disney’s D23 event, check it out here: http://dgit.in/d232k17
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GEEK CULTURE IS OUR WAY OF LIFE, AND ENCOMPASSES MOVIES, GAMES, COMICS, AND TRENDS FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE
isney’s 2017 magical party kicks off at Anaheim, California. The annual event for fans to celebrate and meet their favourite characters is followed by a showcase of the company’s latest projects and upcoming movies. Three of the best movie announcements from D23 • Avengers: Infinity War - Marvel teased new footage from their forthcoming Avengers movie and apparently, the whole Marvel-fan universe is going crazy. Unlucky for us, as of writing this story, the clip hasn’t been released online. • Aladdin cast - There is a live-action Aladdin film upcoming and Disney has already
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he most exciting announcements from San Diego Comic-Con 2017: • Thor: Ragnarok- The Asgardian prince is back! This time, its all about defeating the Goddess of Death. • Justice League- The biggest superheroes from the DCEU are finally coming together in a quest to defeat supervillain Steppenwolf and his Apokolips army. • Ant-man and the Wasp- The
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THE CULTURE SECTION THIS MONTH kicks it off by telling you how all your favourite pop culture stories are stolen. While Boo Man lets it all out against the Chromecast, an unfortunate (read: stupid) team member goes on a rant about the loss of his smartphone. As we said, things are getting rough!
San Diego Comic Con
Evolution of colour
From manual frame-byframe footage painting to complex digital post production technologies, watch this historical timeline of the evolution of colors in movies. From technicolor to modern day HDR, color in film industry have come a long way. http://dgit.in/ColorFilm
Highest watched video
See You Again by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth with 2,951,250,931 views replaced PSY’s GANGNAM STYLE (2,909,264,734 views) as the most watched video on YouTube. Can Despacito (2,753,960,360 views) catch up or even get to the top? http://dgit.in/WizViews
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sequel features Evangeline Lilly as The Wasp, Hannah John-Kamen as The Ghost and Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster/Goliath. • Shazam- After JL, Shazam will be the next DCEU
Fight for netneutrality
Everyone from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and more are rallying together - and bringing their users along as well - to fight against the US Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) planned withdrawal of net neutrality rules in the US. http://dgit.in/NetFight
movie, featuring the story of a young boy who transforms himself to become Earth’s mightiest mortal. • Flashpoint- Could this revealed title indicate a movie adaptation on the 2013’s classic ‘Flashpoint Paradox’? • Captain Marvel- Concept art of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel was showcased. Find out more updates from SDCC 2017 here: http://dgit.in/Comicon17
Trailer Trove
Blade Runner 2049, Death Note, Inhumans, Jigsaw, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Bright and many more. Check out our latest compilation of the best upcoming movie trailers you should be watching as soon as you can. (P.S we update it every week!) http://dgit.in/Trailer08
culture
If you are ever curious about what the digit gang is upto, this is the place to get all the inside info. From the latest game we’re obsessing about to the newest intern we’re driving up the wall – it’s all here folks.
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getting PLAYERUNKNOWN’s BATTLEGROUNDS. We did get it, we just haven’t gotten to the streaming part. But we will for sure. Soon™. It turns out that Mithun has an affinity for games where cowardice can lead to victory. Ok, ok, the rest of us are just jealous that he actually won a chicken dinner. For those unfamiliar with the term, he came first. We’ve gone from four interns to just one. The one being Aman, who’s technically not an edit intern. So we can’t really pick on him. We’re all getting pretty grumpy without any outlets. *ahem* This is in no way meant to deter anyone else from trying to intern here. It’s a lot of fun, trust us. *evil grin*
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his month was rather dull complugging our own magazine in our own pared to the last two. Of course, magazine. Sue us. Anyway, back to the we still had our usual movie, Manish and Abhijit got rush to close the magazine. to watch the movie a few QUOTE OF It’s just not the same days before the release THE MONTH if there’s no rush. We and it took all of their probably intentionself-restraint to avoid “Eric Clapton was inducted ally delay things just spilling spoilers in the into the Rock and Roll Hall of so that we have to labs. Once the movie Fame thrice” rush (shhh don’t tell did finally release, Did they throw him the bosses). Hopeeveryone save Mithun out twice? fully we haven’t been watched it. We’re a – Manish fired before the next issue nasty bunch so we made comes out. to sure to openly (and loudly) We started this month off with the discuss the movie in his presence. release of Spider-Man: HomecomDon’t worry we won’t do the same to ing. You can read our review on the you guys. movie a little further ahead in the Alt Speaking of Mithun, we mensection. Yes, yes, we’re shamelessly tioned last time that we were all
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DISCUSSIONS
Every month we will highlight some of the more interesting discussions happening on our Digit Forum (digit.in/forum). Head over and join our forum if you want quick answers to your queries from some of the geekiest Indians online. In case you love giving gyaan, or even if you love arguing with others, the Forum is the place you should be.
Suggest a GPU within 7k-8K
The Photography thread
http://dgit.in/GPU78k
http://dgit.in/Phgrphy
A very popular request on the forum is for budget gaming hardware. Check out the thread and responses. You can also post your own thread requesting feedback for any buying decisions, in any category of technology whatsoever.
Fancy yourself to be a photographer? Head on over to our photography thread and show off your clicks. Also a good place to learn some photography tricks from the community and teach them some of your own.
[Buying Advice] Budget Android Smartphone http://dgit.in/BdgtAnd
Here’s a member wanting to buy his mum a smartphone. Makes you go “Aww” as it hits you in the feels, but there are some very interesting responses, especially since his mum will be upgrading from a feature-phone. Spoiler alert: He bought her a Redmi 4.
Join the discussion at: Web: geek.digit.in | Forum: geek.digit.in/community | Facebook: facebook.com/digitgeek www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 75
WHAT’S NEW
The font case for Pakistan
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WEATHER WOES
Currently, the situation in Pakistan is seeing sufficient support for both sides, with the Defence minister even calling the report ‘trash’ and ‘full of flaws’. While certain early versions of the font were available prior to 2007, even the creator of the font has deemed it an absurd idea for someone to use it before it was released. One thing is certain – if a font has ever come closest to becoming a national font, this is it. http://dgit.in/CalibriPM
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THIS IS TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE AND SCIENCE WITH A DIFFERENCE, AND THAT DIFFERENCE IS USUALLY ENOUGH TO MAKE MOST NORMAL PEOPLE GO “WTF?”
here are times when something pretty insignificant assumes a very important role – so important that it might bring down a government. Such is the case of the Calibri font and the Government of Pakistan. In what is turning out to be called #fontgate, officials investigating the financial assets of Nawaz Sharif, the Prime minister and his family, have alleged that his daughter has forged documents to provide fake evidence in the case. And their strongest argument for this? The Calibri font. Documents dated 2006 which were submitted by the PM’s daughter Maryam Nawaz contain the font Calibri. The font wasn’t commercially available till 2007. Yes, this does happen in real life too.
A KFC phone? Why not?
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ho doesn’t like fried chicken and smartphones? Well, now you could enjoy them both at the same time. The American fast-food company has partnered with smartphone maker Huawei to release a new phone commemorating KFC’s 30th anniversary of doing business in China. The new KFC edition ‘Enjoy 7 Plus’ phone was first unveiled
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THIS MONTH WE DIVE by into the future with a science fiction story about a world where weather is literally in our hands. Moving on, the DGT section brings to you some of the best products from around the world, some of which we even got to try at the Digit Labs! With Auto, satiate the gearhead in you.
by KFC on its Weibo page. Sporting a signature red color and the very obvious Colonel
Sander’s face engraved on the back, the phone does feature decent specs for the price. A Snapdragon 425 SoC, 5.5 inch display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB ROM with expandable memory, 3020 mAh battery and a fingerprint sensor at the back. Huawei is only making 5000 units of the smartphone to be sold for $162 (`10,500). http://dgit.in/KFCphone
Pet Obesity
According to new health report from researchers at Banfield, approximately, 1 out of 3 pet dogs and cats today are overweight, and these numbers continue to grow. The survey conducted on more than 2 million dogs and about 500,000 cats living across 42 different states in the US revealed a staggering 169% increase in obese cats and 158% in dogs over the past 10 years. http://dgit.in/PetObese
Over piling garbage
Hong Kong is reportedly running out of space for all its garbage. The densely packed city doesn’t have any full-scale recycling plants, and the people generally aren’t educated enough about environmental awareness. http://dgit.in/DumpKong
76 | Digit | August 2017 | www.digit.in
Fallout anthology speedrun
A speedrunner beats the entire Fallout series in under two hours. The player by the name of ‘tomatoanus’ (yup) set a new world record by beating all five games of the Fallout anthology in 1:37:54. Watch the full run here: http://dgit.in/FalloutRec
Funding space colonisation
Colonising another planet sound a lot more doable today than it might have twenty years ago. But who’s going to pay for all the missions? Let’s face it: No government is ever going to fund a mission to colonize another planet. http://dgit.in/spacefund
DGT AUTO
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car simply found a path around the bumps and maneuvered itself to avoid the obstacles. The large high resolution central display takes data from GPS, radars and imaging sensors to show an accurate representation of the road. Alongside, it also shows a predictive track that the car is going to take, including the trajectory around bumps and turns. ZF’s prototype Touran is equipped at the core with Nvidia’s Drive PX 2 platform, and has other companies like Astyx, e.Go, Hella and more that contribute to the individual components. All the individual camera modules use Mobileye’s EyeQ3 chip, while the larger multi-cam modules use the new EyeQ4 chip. ZF manufactures and develops most of its components and firmware by itself including the lidar. Software platforms are all open source, meaning that the algorithms that power ZF’s Vision Zero vehicle, can also power an OEM’s vehicle. The Touran here is equipped to go up to Level 3 autonomous, but development till now restricts its present application only to Level 2. While the ride itself is quite underwhelming, what’s overwhelming is the ease and efficiency with which the cars drive themselves. Everything has a cohesiveness to their operations, although the car could not take very sharp turns by itself, yet. It almost
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‘Driving’ an autonomous car
ZF Friedrichshafen AG put all of its intelligent components into its ‘Vision Zero’ autonomous prototype, and we took it out to see how it drives. Souvik Das | souvik@digit.in
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utonomous vehicles sound mighty promising on paper, but just how they work can only be figured when you sit in one. It is this that we got to experience at ZF’s Vision Zero test track in Pachfurth, Austria, aboard a modified Volkswagen Touran. Modifications to the inside include reinforced safety belts that automatically adjust and provide haptic feedback according to the motion of the vehicle, a massive Tesla-esque touchscreen interface that provides access to steering control, rear/front/ all wheel drives, different levels of assisted and autonomous driving, and microcontrollers for automatic steering control. The rest of the vehicle, apart from the tattooed paint job, was surprisingly unassuming. ZF’s new, reinforced seat belts are adaptive, so when you step into the car, they automatically raise themselves in height to let you fix the belt easily. It then provides haptic feedback depending on your seat and sitting position to fit itself adequately.
The rest has no difference from the regular vehicle - you simply start the vehicle and set off as you would. Putting it in adaptive mode, when I drove into a one-way lane, the array of sensors read the road signs, alerted me on the smaller, secondary LED display that I’ve entered the wrong way, and automatically braked. The
auto brakes and alarms also engage as soon as you put the indicator towards a wrong way. Later, as I approached road bumps at nearly 60kmph, the sensors assessed about 100 metres out that I’m not slowing down, and automatically tightened the seat belts and slowed the car down. Interestingly, when I switched to autonomous mode and let the steering wheel take control, the
feels like second nature to have your car simply drive around obstacles, or slow down and brake when it detects a pedestrian. ZF itself says there is a long way to go before car cabins turn into living rooms, but if this is the level of precision and accuracy that is shaping up our future cars, I see no reason to be skeptical of their implementation and access to the public. www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 85
WHAT’S NEW
Biosensing tattoo ink
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FUTURE PLANS
their glucose levels more easily and replace the current painful procedure of piercing their skin 3 to 10 times per day. Learn more: http://dgit.in/MITattoo
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SCIENCE IS THE PATH TO KNOWLEDGE, AND FINDING OUT ABOUT HOW OUR UNIVERSE WORKS. YOU CAN’T BE A GEEK AND NOT KNOW YOUR SCIENCE!
esearchers from MIT are developing a biosensing, color changing tattoo ink known as Dermal Abyss that can change its color in response to variations in interstitial fluid present in the body. The pH sensing ink changes from pink to purple depending on the alkalinity of interstitial fluids and a glucose sensor changes from blue to brown as the concentration of sugar increases. Another pH sensor glows at a higher intensity under UV light as salt level increased on the skin. Thus, users can easily monitor the colour changes and the need for insulin. With this new technology, researchers hope that maybe one day it can help diabetics monitor
Teleportation IRL
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n an attempt to create a globalscale quantum internet, a team of researchers from China was successful in teleporting a photon from Earth to a satellite in orbit around the planet. This experiment becomes the first satellite-to-ground quantum network ever created. Based on quantum entanglement, the scientists broke the record for the longest distance (500 km) over which entanglement was achieved previously.
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HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATS AS WE START OFF THIS TIME by exploring the truth behind quantum teleportation and how close we are to actually achieving it at a level that matters. And if you were thinking we’re all about such cool stuff, move on to the next piece about eating insects for dinner. Yes, you read that right. Maybe someday that’s all we’ll have left to eat, especially when we get to Mars in the next story?
The rise of frogs
A new study has found that majority of the extant, or existing frog species (approximately 88%) on our planet expanded after the catastrophic event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. http://dgit.in/Frogons
Analysing a missile’s capability You don’t have to be an analyst at the CIA or the MI6 or any other three letter agency to figure out the acceleration and capabilities every time North Korea fires a missile. All you need is a small video analysis tool and some physics know-how. http://dgit.in/NKphysics
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Teleportation has already been carried out several times in labs but only photons were teleported to distances over 100 kilometres. These instances were conducted using optical
Post-Ebola syndrome
A new study suggests, Ebola may still not be done; it might have just shifted to a clever stealth mode. From examining archived tissue samples from infected monkeys, researchers found out that the virus could create a reservoir in certain immune cells and hide under the body. http://dgit.in/EbolaNW
fibres or terrestrial free-space channels. Because of photon loss through these mediums while traversal, achieving longer distances was limited. Establishing entanglement between a set or group of photons and teleporting all their properties hasn’t been achieved yet. So, we have only been successful in teleporting single photons over short distances and are way too far from teleporting ourselves. http://dgit.in/telephoton
Planet of the Ravens
A series of experiments conducted on a few handraised ravens to study the outer bounds of their cognitive abilities found out that these birds were able to plan ahead and might be more intelligent than we actually thought. http://dgit.in/RavenIQ
sci Less Rockets for Mars
Partner’ Didi Chuxing is apparently freezing Uber out of Southeast Asia by investing $2 billion in regional arch-rival Grab. http://dgit.in/ubervdidi
CUTTING EDGE
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Elon Musk’s Mars rocket may be about to lose half of its engines in a bid to make the rocket fit in existing factories. http://dgit.in/reducerocket
Uber vs Didi
Quantum Teleportation not as cool as it sounds, but still cool
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The biggest brains in physics are working on something with the word ‘teleportation’ in it. Surely, that means the next time you’re hungry, you mother can whip up something delicious back home and ‘beam it up’ to your desk at work? Not quite. Not even close, actually... Aabir Abubaker | feedback@digit.in
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here has always been a bit of an issue explaining cuttingedge technology to the layman. It’s always been hard for scientist to dumb things down to the level of us laymen. In fact, the more the expertise of the scientist, the harder it is to think like those of us essentially ignorant on the topic. Three things can happen when a new technology or science enters the general population’s life. Frist, they simply don’t care – think grandparents and smartphones. Second, they hate it and oppose it vehemently – when the first steam-
powered trains starting running in the UK, doctors all over the country said the human body was not built to go over 10 miles an hour, and that uteruses would fly out of the bodies of women! When telephone lines were being set up all over the US, a devious postmaster arranged for the workmen to be shot and killed in order to stop it. He was convinced that he would lose
This man has no clue what he’s doing.
his job because nobody would send letters any longer. Good call postmaster... not on the murders, obviously, but on the death of letters. Third would be people who choose to wholeheartedly accept the new technology. Think of A.I. – everyone and their uncles are convinced that it’s the next big thing and should be chased after, even though some very smart people warn against it. Quantum teleportation would be one of those things that would sit squarely in the third category. It sounds absolutely awesome: it has something to do with quantum physics and has the word “teleportation” in it! How could it not be cool? Let’s rip the band-aid off real quick here. Quantum teleportation is probably never going to be sending you a www.digit.in | August 2017 | Digit | 89
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