Digit August 2018 by 9.9 Media

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Faking it!

pitch castes against one another… it was a video from Pakistan showing men on a motorcycle kidnapping a child, which was rebranded as an Indian video, and claimed that gangs of “outsiders” were looking for children to kidnap in order to harvest their organs for ailing rich kids that needed them. This made xenophobia rise to a fever pitch, with all those who looked like outsiders from a region being looked at suspiciously, and in some cases, lynched. While the conscience of service providers has been pricked, there’s also self-preservation at stake. No service provider wants to be seen as doing nothing to combat fake news. It’s not just public perception that matters, but also a very real fear of being banned from use in the country that is the most promising market in the world. Although I understand the goal, which is to reign in fake news from spreading like wildfire, I’m skeptical about us solving this as a pure technology problem. It’s not one. Technology is pretty much always just a passive tool that can be used for good and evil. You can use a hammer to build a house for a homeless person, or bludgeon him to death, and holding the hammer accountable for the latter is just a tad silly. Of course service providers will do something about it, because they want their business to flourish, but just leaving it at that is a huge mistake. Instead of educating the masses we’re censoring what they see and read, which may work in the short run, but will leave them just as vulnerable when the next big technology innovation comes along and infiltrates their lives. Technology generations are far, far quicker than human lifespans, and while all of the people on WhatsApp now will still very much be using technology five years, a decade, two decades from now, I seriously doubt that it’s WhatsApp that they will be using. The current crackdown is probably a necessary knee-jerk reaction, but the challenge is to maintain our liberty and individual rights at the same time. What we really need is a way to educate people about fake news and the internet, and to understand what reliable sources are. Do you have any suggestions for how we could do that?

M PL

I’m torn between my hate for fake news and detesting limitations on freedom of speech and expression. In past columns I have talked about both, but the internet being what it is, has brought them together on opposite sides. What we call fake news started getting popular on the internet with satire sites, places like 4Chan and on forums as jokes. The problem really took off when people started believing the jokes to be actual news, because the ‘fake news’ was getting less and less ridiculous. While it’s easy to tell that Google’s joke about opening a datacenter on Mars called Ziggy Stardust is just another April Fools prank, some of the other stuff that makes the rounds (especially as memes) is just terrible. From trying to incite violence, making up fake stories about something local, targeting politicians and people in the public eye, and even spreading lies about our neighbours... the world’s gone a tad crazy! If the last two decades showed us all the good side of connecting the people of the world to one another, the past few years has shown us the hideous underbelly of the internet. However, there are two sides to every coin. While it’s easy to make up laws and requirements for service providers to curb fake news, we have to first of all decide on a method to identify fake news. Because we live in a country where the rule of power is almost absolute, it’s important to admit that while we hate fake news, we should hate the idea of giving rich and powerful people the ability to silence all criticism of them even more. As we’ve seen in the last few years from some wacky foreign leaders, it’s far too easy to label every negative news about someone fake, and believe only the positive... or vice versa, if you happen to dislike the person. Recently Facebook has been on the warpath trying to convince us that it will stamp out fake news on its platform. WhatsApp has limited the amount of times things can be forwarded, and no doubt others will follow suit. I’d like to believe most service providers want to do this because they have a conscience and do not want people to die based on rumours – as an estimated 31 people have been killed because of a silly WhatsApp forward. No it wasn’t religious, political, targeting someone famous, or trying to

“If the last two decades showed us all the good side of connecting the people of the world to one another, the past few years has shown us the hideous underbelly of the internet.”

Liked or hated this column? Let me know at: editor@digit.in | facebook.com/raaabo | @raaabo

www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 1

Paranoid Android | Mithun Mohandas | Asst. Technical Editor

Apple - (Pre)Premium

of dust rolling into the crevice by the keyswitches. What was immensely irresponsible is that despite knowing the issue was present in the 2015 Macbook, they continued to use the butterfly keys in the 2016 models as well. One would expect such manufacturing defects to cause a product recall to be issued, however, it took a couple of class-action lawsuits for Apple to finally acknowledge the same and make the repairs free. Until then, it cost users $700. This year’s Macbook Pros are the latest in line of faulty Apple devices that have failed basic QA tests. A fresh unit of the 2018 MacBook Pro with the new Core i9-8950HK could not achieve their advertised speeds out of the box due to a bug that caused the CPU to throttle unnecessarily. There have been several threads discussing this issue, some blamed an improperly set fan-speed curve which prioritised silence over cooling. Some blamed a faulty firmware affecting the VRM, i.e. the Core i9 CPU was never getting the power it required. Just following Intel’s reference documentation is enough to handle this issue and to think that such a blatantly obvious issue actually passed the numerous QA tests that Apple claims that they perform. Shocking! A recently published statistic by Blancco, a firm that supplies repair and diagnostic software shows that iOS device failure rates are at par with Android. Either Android device manufactures which cater to the entire price gamut have upped their game or Apple who caters to the premium market solely has dropped the ball. The stats disclosed show that the iPhone 6 has a failure rate of 26%! The statistics are the more or less the same as Android across different geographies. I was never an Apple guy, never bothered using the iPhones for more than a week because they were that restrictive. I even forced myself to use macOS for two whole months just to change my perceptions about the OS and the ecosystem. Unfortunately, that didn’t. Despite all these misgivings I used to hold the opinion that Apple devices were better built than Android devices because of the sheer fragmentation of the Android ecosystem. Guess, I no longer have to believe in fairy tales anymore.

M PL

Apple has been seen as a premium brand over the years.Every time we saw an Apple product announcement, it had that fancy video where each and every facet of the manufacturing process was excruciatingly enunciated by numerous Apple executives. All of that worked! The perception of Apple came to be the benchmark that other hardware manufacturers aspired to equal. If I had to list all the other brands which tried to copy and mimic Apple products then I’d need a lot more than just this one page. All of this wasn’t a simple marketing gimmick, Apple indeed used better quality components and spent a lot of money making their products better and long lasting. The preference for alloys tailor-made to bear the physical stresses of a certain design philosophy is something Apple did a lot. Apple basically did innovate and lead, but not anymore. I never thought that I’d ever come across the day when Apple would become a me-too in the world of hardware manufacturers. Of late, it has become exactly that. Apple no longer walks along the bleeding edge of technology, nor does it come out with products that are built to last. Apple used to pride itself in being immune from viruses, however, that was never true. Given that macOS only has 13% of the personal computer OS share, hackers never bothered because their efforts wouldn’t yield the same number of victims. The recent slew of cryptominers and ransomware have targeted macOS devices as well. Since we’re on the topic of software, we might as well get the recent WWDC announcements out of the way as well. Little did any of this year’s announcements impress. The “new” features have been around on other platforms for ages. Where’s the innovation? On the hardware side of things, Apple’s been having a much worse time. Bend-gate was just one of the many instances wherein the allure of Apple’s build quality hit an all-time low. Apple was only recently caught with their pants down, manually throttling the performance of their phones with each OS upgrade and they finally had to admit it this time. Even the previous-gen MacBooks had a debilitating failure that was triggered by just one speck

2 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

“Either Android device manufactures which cater to the entire price gamut have upped their game or Apple who caters to the premium market solely has dropped the ball.”

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: @mithun_mohandas | mithun@digit.in

To Advertise

Products reviewed this month

Email: sales@digit.in

august 2018 • Volume 18 • Issue 08

Sales Director: Lalit Arun Mobile: +91-9582262959 North: Mayank Sharma Mobile: +91-8800661912

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Bazaar ASUS FX504 Lenovo IdeaPad 530S HyperX Alloy Elite RGB Sony WI-SP500 ASUS AMD B450M-PLUS Gaming BenQ Zowie XL2546 1More iBFree Sport Asus ZenFone 5Z (ZS620KL) Samsung Galaxy A6 Plus 64GB Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga

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Test Centre Asst. Technical Editor Mithun Mohandas Reviews Editor Swapnil Mathur Reviewers Abhijit Dey, Shrey Pacheco, Souvik Das, Subhrojit Mallick, Vignesh Giridharan

Games reviewed this month

advertising index

digit.in Editor Soham Raninga Assistant Editor Sameer Mitha News and Features Editor Adamya Sharma Writer Shubham Sharma

TP-Link....................................Inside front cover

Seagate....................................... Back cover, 17

SBI...................................................................5 iBall............................................................7, 21

Brother India..................................................11

Production and Logistics Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay Manager Logistics Vijay Menon Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari

India Anti Virus............................................. 111

Quantum....................................................... 112

Circulation Sales Head - Circulation Samir Mehta Regional Managers Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Norbert Joseph

Reader Services Team Leader Sudhir Patel +91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in 4 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

Kaspersky.........................................................3

Design Sr. Art Director Anil VK Art Director Shokeen Saifi Visualiser Baiju NV Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari

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

The Crew 2 Vampyr Street Fighter Anniversary Edition

Cover Designed by VisualBest.co

Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of the owners, 9.9 Group Pvt. Ltd. (Formerly known as Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Private Limited) 121, Patparganj, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, Near Mandir Masjid, Delhi - 110091 and printed at International Print-O-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U.P.) INDIA. Editor: Kanak Ghosh.

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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

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contents

COVER STORY PAGE 66-79

Aiming for the Stars

Celebrating India and our achievements in space exploration, military tech, startups, agriculture and even some of the hiccups we are going to encounter.

SCIENCE - PAGE 59-65

CULTURE - PAGE 53-58

August 2018

volume 18 issue 08

60 | Mangalyaan: Still Alive

Four years after demonstrating ISRO’s capability for an interplanetary mission, Mangalyaan continues to beam back data and shows no sign of stopping.

62 | A tale of chips

Could Gallium Nitride be the knight in shining armour in India’s semiconductor story?

65 | Natural Wonders of India

From unique crater lakes in basaltic rocks, to mysterious “ghost lights” without an established scientific explanation, there are many natural wonders to be witnessed in India.

AND MORE

8 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

56 | India’s comic book dream

The comic book scene in India is about to explode – if you can light the fuse.

54 | Smart-phoney?

Boo-Man isn’t too impressed with the state of the “Indian” smartphone industry.

58 | Photos taken from Indian spacecrafts

Through the course of their missions, the Earth Imaging Satellites, interplanetary missions and astronomical instruments of ISRO have captured some stunning images of everything from worlds to galaxies.

AND MORE

ALT - PAGE 80-95

tech - PAGE 13-52

On The DVD Little is known about NVIDIA’s next gen GPU so we decided to get our hands dirty and find out everything we could about the new GPUs.

17 | A memorable story

A sci-fi story exploring a future with a water crisis and how we might solve it.

88 | Mobile phone use in India Data collected by various organisations shows that smartphones are nowhere close to being ubiquitous in India even in 2018.

90 | Auto Tech

TECH Python IDE Atom IDE eric LiClipse PyCharm PyScripter Python 3.7 Visual Studio Code Wing 101

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NAND flash memory is found in most of the devices that we use everyday. How did it come to be so ubiquitous?

86 | Not one without water

22 | Gadget care: Startup Edition

Whether its a broken device or one that was stolen, these startups are out to help you not feel the pain.

24 | LevelUp

Exploring aviation tech and the new Hyundai Creta.

94 | Indian melee weapons Want to know what these pre modern combat weapons are? Read on!

AND MORE

Tips to help you travel like a true geek. Or manage your browser tabs. Whatever floats your boat!

skoar! - PAGE 96-111

28 | Monitoring resource usage on your Android smartphone

Worried about apps utilising too much battery or eating up all your data? We’ve got you covered..

30 | A versatile home for Agent001’s gear

Agent001 is on a mission, he needs a new camera bag for his fancy DSLR and lenses.

32 | Take My Money

An (almost) endlessly spinning top, an immortal torch, an instant thermometer.

33 | Reviews

104 | Crossplay Conundrum

Everything you need to know about crossplatform gaming

100 | Reevu: Vampyr Is that you, Dr. Acula?

40 | Mobile button-mashing

102 | Reevu: Crew 2

46 | Teardown: Macbook Pro 2018 (Touch Bar)

108 | Gaming disorder: Justified or Joke?

Comparing the best mobile gamepads.

A nightmare to upgrade and repair.

49 | Devworx: Tensorflow AND MORE

Welcome to the motornation.

Is the WHO’s gaming disorder classification justified?

AND MORE

LibreOffice Recuva VirtualBox Vivaldi K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

20 | NVIDIA’s upcoming graphics cards

Google’s Python Class A free class for people with a little bit of programming experience who want to learn Python. The first exercises work on basic Python concepts like strings and lists, building up to the later exercises which are full programs dealing with text files, processes, and http connections. AryaLinux AryaLinux is a source-based GNU/ Linux distribution that has been put together using Linux From Scratch (LFS) as a guide. Essentials Amarok Brackets ConEmu Discord Double Commander Free Download Manager GIMP Handbrake

ALT Golden Age comics Captain Science Marvels of Science Science Comics CULT Survival indie games Aground Attack on Toys Concluse Run Rooms Valheim SCI Video lectures on Fluids Atmospheric pressure is like an invisible friend who is always squeezing you with a big hug. Learn more about pressure, buoyant force, and flowing fluid so you can appreciate the sometimes invisible, but crucial, effect they have on us and the world around us. Archimedes’ Principle Density and pressure Fluid dynamics Audiobooks Prehistoric Men Theory of Colours The Secret of Everyday Things

www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 9

opening

Philippines luring its scientists back

Medieval skeleton, deadly bacteria

The govt is trying to draw Filipino scientists back to the country by paying them to set up their own research labs or teach. https://dgit.in/Aug18-10-1

inbox

Deadly type of Salmonella that is now rare in Europe is found in ancient Norwegian remains. https://dgit.in/Aug18-10-2

Please make sure that the next issue is fully related to programming.. Hoping to receive a reply for this message on your decision about the suggestions made here... – Navin Anto Felix Sagayam

Send your feedback at editor@digit.in

So this month it’s been two years that I have been reading Digit. First a little about myself. I got to know about Digit in the year 2015 or basically when I was in sixth class. Since then I was searching for Digit on the magazine stands and many other stores. I even went to Chandigarh (Punjab) as I live close to there, in order to find it, but I didn’t. Due to some economical reasons I was not able to subscribe to the magazine. Then, one day when I was purchasing some stationary products, I looked up and noticed the magazine hanging there. I’ve been reading it ever since, and I cannot resist buying it. It has made me the “Tech Geek” of my class. But enough about me, let’s talk about the mag... Pros: 1) The product reviews of the mag are really cool 2) The Tech as well as Alt sections 3) The DVD too has great software and distros in it. Cons: 1) The magazine has got a bit boring. due to some “sci” lectures. 2) Please bring the Tips and Tricks section back. 3) The FT is a bit limited like in the last edition of Modding it was for only OnePlus phones. 4) The posters should be changed back to normal game posters (as I have to show off them to my friends) 5) And also this is written in CAPS because SEVERAL PAGES OF MY DMYSTIFY WERE TORN

M PL

Feedback for the July 2018 issue of Digit

So... let me see if I can get this right... you’re saying you want more programming related content? We will certainly try, though something tells me no matter how much we ever did, it wouldn’t satisfy you! :-P – Robert

Hello guys, you can consider me your biggest fan as I implement all remedies on technical issues given by you. Today, this email is for a different kind of request related to the DVDs you provide. Your DVDs are awesome, but every DVD has one or two useless OSes in them. You don’t give OSes such as Kali Linux and the ones you do provide are pretty much all the same. So please fix this and give us more good stuff like games. – Rahul Jha

Hey Rahul, we only give important distros that people ask for, and try and maintain a balance between games, software, videos and distros. Many people complain about there being too many games... – Abhijit

outline on the outdated programming languages. A detailed insight into every programming language and it’s pros, cons, uses... Ranking of those programming languages. Most sought after skills in the tech industry. And also languages recently released, and front-end and back-end languages for Web Development. And for the Skoar issue, information on gaming engines like Snowdrop, Anvil, Massive, Unity, Unreal, etc., and about the prerequisite knowledge needed to be in game programming like C++,C#,Lua etc. About Nvidia’s cuda programming and skills sought by the gaming companies like Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix... And also the skills needed to get into Nvidia, Intel, Google and Facebook. And in the Fast Track, info on topics like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Human machine interaction, AI,Robotics etc. And would like to read about “New Data Structures concepts that everyone should know about” in Dmystify. And posters related to coding, Nvidia and inspirational quotes on programming... And for the DVD, tools for variant programming languages and tutorials in tech and alt. In cult, videos related to game programming and in Sci, Data Structure classes...

I’ve been a reader of the magazine for nearly a year. I love this magazine for providing details about the latest gadgets, reviews,new game releases for PC, Mobile and PS4... But the thing I love most is programming. Level up, Devworx, Workshops are a great source of knowledge but I feel like I need more – to know about the programming from it’s early stages, programmers from the beginning, and the recent hot topics in the field of programming. An

10 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

What’s New

World’s strongest Net Neutrality rules adopted by India

E neutrality laws. Exceptions and outliers to the rules have been outlined in the framework leaving nothing open to interpretation. https://dgit.in/INDTraiNN

M PL

Does this section even need an introduction? from computers to mobiles, and headphones to GPUs, it’s all here...

ndia’s Telecom Commission endorsed TRAI’s (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) recommendations on Net Neutrality, and thus, we now have the world’s strongest Net Neutrality framework. TRAI’s tweet on this issue says that the government has taken an unambiguous stand on the issue. Net Neutrality requires internet service providers to treat all forms of content in the same manner and not favour one or the other. Net neutrality discussions have been taking place all over the world with some countries like the USA even backpedalling and repealing existing net

pple’s newly released MacBook Pro models are facing issues and early-adopters plan to return them. The new MacBook Pro models are configurable to use the newly released Intel Core i9-8950HK which is a 6-core/12thread CPU which can go all the way up to 4.8 GHz. However, the new devices have difficulty in hitting the advertised speeds

This month in tech: We take our best guess at what NVIDIA’s next gen GPUs are going to be, before exploring the evolution of NAND flash. We also show you how to travel like a true geek. Looking to buy a mobile gamepad? We’ve compared the best ones!

Consumers returning new MacBook Pros because they can’t reach advertised speeds

Tracking even with GPS off

By using other sensors such as the magnetometer, accelerometer and the gyroscope, researchers were able to track a smartphone’s location even with its GPS functionality turned off. https://dgit.in/ GPSOptional

Uganda taxes social media access, folks unhappy

The Ugandan Government has levied a new tax to access social media. Users now have to pay a daily levy of UGX 200 (Rs.3.72) to access social media websites in addition to internet data fees. https://dgit.in/ShowMeDaMony

because the laptop’s inbuilt cooling systems cannot keep up with the heat generated by these high-power CPUs. CPUs

WPA3 for Wi-Fi makes it harder to crack

The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced WPA3 which will be used to secure Wi-Fi passwords making them a lot more harder to crack than they currently are. The new standards will be made available through firmware updates. https://dgit.in/WPA3Wi-Fi

have inbuilt safety mechanisms which throttle the CPU should it heat up too much and go out of spec. While this was attributed to a bug which was resolved with a software patch, that was not the end of the road as another issue pertaining to the T2 Chip and it’s Bridge OS popped up, leading to crashes. https://dgit.in/2018MacCookPro

Over 800 cryptocurrencies now dead

Bitcoin has fallen by roughly 70 per cent since its record highest value of $20,000 last year. During the crypto high a lot of new cryptocurrencies were being issued and as the market hype died down, so did many of the low-value coins. https://dgit.in/DeadCrypto www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 13

Rewarding smart clothing

Netflix is testing a new tier for their subscription plan to check whether users are willing to pay for Ultra HD and HDR. https://dgit.in/Aug18-17-2

ORIGINS

M PL

Tommy Jeans Xplore uses embedded Bluetooth smart tags to reward you for wearing the clothes. https://dgit.in/Aug18-17-1

tech

Netflix Ultra

A NAND memorable Flash story NAND flash memory is found in most of the devices that we use everyday. How did it come to be so ubiquitous? Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

torage devices are part and parcel of our electronic lives today. And among them, flash memory holds its own important niche. Present in our USB flash drives, among other things, flash memory enables nonvolatile solid state storage that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. That makes them similar to the HDD disks that we see in our PCs but with the difference being that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re very

portable. Broadly, flash memory is of two types - NAND and NOR, and yes, the primary difference between them is the logic gate used in their design. While NOR memory also has its uses, NAND is what we see in most everyday devices like the USB flash drive, cameras, memory cards, SSDs and other devices that require portable and easily accessible storage. But thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot more to how NAND flash memory came to being as ubiquitous as it is today. www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 17

tech

China’s rocket program

China is expanding its rocket launch capabilities with a new series of rockets including super-heavy lift and resusable rockets. https://dgit.in/Aug18-20-1

feature

AI defeats humans

DeepMind AI playing a stripped down version of “Capture the flag” in Quake III exceeded “humanlevel” gameplay. https://dgit.in/Aug18-20-2

Everything we know about the NVIDIA Turing GTX 1180 / 1170 / 1160

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Little is known about NVIDIA’s next gen GPU so we decided to get our hands dirty and find out everything we could about the new GPUs.

Mithun Mohandas | mithun@digit.in

here has been plenty of speculation about what the next generation of graphics cards from NVIDIA are going to bring to the table. We’ve heard of a few rumours and there certainly have been a couple of leaks of late that have let us postulate the specifications and prowess that these new cards will sport. Do note that these speculations that we’re going to dive into are based off unreleased material, leaked benchmarks and NVIDIA’s technology history. So we’re going to be off the mark but not by a large margin.

NVIDIA GTX 1180 / 1170 / 1160 or GTX 2080 / 2070 / 2060 ?

a Forbes story about NVIDIA’s financial results mentioned that the upcoming gaming graphics cards from NVIDIA will be codenamed Turing and not Volta. It is extremely unlikely that Turing is an entirely different architecture from ground up. Turing might be what NVIDIA is calling the gaming variants of Volta.

What will NVIDIA’s next GPU architecture be called?

NVIDIA unveiled Volta on December 7, 2017 in the form of the NVIDIA TITAN V at the NIPS technology conference. Which was based on the more efficient 12nm fabrication process with 12 GB of HBM2 memory. With the last two generations, i.e. Maxwell and Pascal, NVIDIA kept the architecture name the same as when they first introduced them. However, rumours started that the upcoming cards might be called Turing or Ampere. All of that was set aside when

20 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

NVIDIA Turing cards are either going to be GTX 2000 series or GTX 1100 series. Why this confusion? Because this is the first time a 4-digit numbered graphics card is getting a successor. Till now, we had the 3-digit nomenclature which had the newer generations increasing the first digit i.e. GTX 400 made way to the GTX 500 which then led to GTX 600, with the missing GTX 800 series being the only exception, since NVIDIA already had GTX 800M mobile chips. Pascal returned to the typical naming scheme by changing the 9 to a 10. So came the GTX 10xx (1080/1070/1060/...) series that we now see everywhere. NVIDIA Turing based graphics cards are expected to follow in a similar fashion and launch as GTX 1100 series i.e. GTX 1180 / 1170

/ 1160. We’ve heard the same from two industry sources. There was also a recent E3 2018 video interview with YouTuber Brainbean where a Lenovo representative let it slip that the GTX 11-series cards were slated to come later this (2018) fall.

NVIDIA Turing GTX 1180 / 1170 / 1160 Release date

We now know of a release window in the Aug-Sep period. Secondly, Tom’s Hardware Germany heard from sources that NVIDIA has begun briefing board partners back in early June 2018. They even managed to obtain a Bill of Materials (BoM) from NVIDIA to their partners which details all the stages of a card’s development cycle. The time period as per this BoM adds up to roughly ten weeks. With this leak from mid-June, that works out to an Aug-Sep release. We’ve also heard from an industry source that the GTX 1180 will be unveiled at Gamescom. Additionally, the schedule for the Hot Chips symposium initially had (since corrected) a session titled “NVIDIA’s Next Generation Mainstream GPU” to be presented by Stuart Oberman, Principal Engineer, NVIDIA. If NVIDIA was going to detail its next-gen

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.

there are several essential items that you should be packing with your luggage, so making a list is essential. If you’re visiting a foreign country or a region with a different language than the ones you know, you might face issues in communicating with the locals, reading signs and even sometimes finding your way around. The number of things you could do to make your life easier on a trip is endless. Ultimately, your objective should be to spend more time on admiring the location and not beating your head with packing, planning and communicating. Read on to discover ways in which you can enhance your travel experience using different apps.

that allowed us to seamlessly book tickets. We weren’t really looking for an app that offered something more than that. We found Yatra to provide these little features that make your booking experience quick. If you’re booking your flight tickets then you can verify whether the flight is on time and also perform web check-ins. As we mentioned earlier, from a booking point of view, the process is almost the same on the . So, when it comes to making a decision about choosing a platform to go ahead with, it’s all up to you depending on which interface do you prefer the most.

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Before you head out on your next trip, make sure you’re prepared with the following apps

Unless you create a list of the items you need to carry for your trip, it’s highly possible that you might miss out on packing something. If it happens to be an important

Make your trips smarter

Packing essentials

Abhijit Dey | abhijit@digit.in

Rather than travelling to a new city mindlessly, it’s always best to make use of an existing itinerary or prepare one by yourself. At least you’ll have planned your journey without having to waste time on picking the next destination on the spot. However, your trips can be made much more efficient than you think. It usually starts from picking your destination and then searching through travel blogs to get recommendations. After you’re done picking your destination, it comes down to booking your hotel at the most appropriate location at the most affordable prices. It’s natural you’d be visiting various places, so it’s always best to pick a hotel which isn’t too far from the tourist spots. Packing the right stuff is pretty important too. You wouldn’t want to reach your hotel room and find out that you forgot to carry your phone charger cable. Not just that,

Booking tickets

When you’re done picking your destination(s), the first financial setback is booking your travel tickets. Whether you’re travelling by train or flight or bus, you should book your tickets way in advance to get the best prices. You will find several apps out there for booking tickets and functionally, they don’t have much of a difference. Essentially, any of the popular apps such as MakeMyTrip, Yatra, ClearTrip, etc., can be used. Our objective was to find a booking app

24 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

Download: https://dgit.in/ YatraAnd

item, you’ll have to buy the same item after reaching your destination and eat into your travel budget. To avoid any such problems, you should give PackKing a try. Initially, we thought of recommending a good to-do list app. However, what if you don’t know what you need to carry? Well, PackKing provides a curated list of items that you should be carrying based a few factors. Before presenting the list, it will ask you certain questions to narrow down the items. It collects information such as your mode of travel, weather of your destination and finally, what are you packing for, ie, what type of activities will

tech

No Man’s Sky gets multiplayer

Google Maps for bikes

Two years since its launch, No Man’s Sky finally gets true multiplayer update codenamed ‘Next’. https://dgit.in/Aug18-30-1

agent001

Google Maps with routing specific to motorbikes is about to make its way into most south-east Asian countries. https://dgit.in/Aug18-30-2

A versatile home for Agent001’s gear

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agent001 | agent001@digit.in

n a recent trek to the marshes near Navi Mumbai, I had the misfortune to lose my camera bag. Well I didn’t misplace it or anything, the marshes are extremely slippery and when I did inevitably slip, the cable eyelet on the bag caught onto a nearby stump and the entire section just tore off. If it were a simple zipper coming loose, then I could have easily gotten it repaired but with the entire section coming off, even the inner waterproof layers tore. Fixing that is going to be a chore and there’s no telling if the bag will indeed be waterproof after I’m done. Sure I can go to town with a lot of duct-tape but I doubt the end product will last for long. So yeah, I need a new camera bag and I need as soon as possible. Before we get into what I finally ended up buying, I think it’s best that I put down what all I wanted in my new bag. It better have adjustable compartments and the padding has to be just right. By that I mean it shouldn’t be too thick wherein the dividers become too rigid and it better not be too thin that it fails to protect the cameras and the lenses. Protection is obviously the priority but being accessible while doing the same should also be a feature. I don’t want a separate bag for my laptop, so there has to be a padded compartment for my laptop. For my

Agent001 is on a mission, he needs a new camera bag for his fancy DSLR and lenses

30 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

cameras, I have one body and a couple of additional lenses that I carry most of the time on remote trips, especially ones where I can put my photography skills to good use. A 70-200 mm, 24-70 mm and a 17-35 mm. Otherwise, it’s just the additional zoom lens. You know, the usual trifecta. Then there’s a flash and a couple of accessories and additional batteries. Then there’s the laptop and if not a laptop, a portable wireless hard drive. Well, now that you know what’s in my bag, let’s get on with the actual bag-choosing, shall we? Most of my friends were quick to drop the big names - Manfrotto, Vanguard, LowePro, etc. and one guy even went ahead and recommended that I get a Pelican case. A PELICAN

CASE! These brands certainly have offerings that offer more than my modest requirements, however, they also come with an equally high price tag. Another friend was kind enough to point me towards the surprising but often rewarding doors of Kickstarter. We’ve been covering crowdfunded products for several years and we can certainly say that there are several hidden gems on the Kickstarters and Indiegogos of this world. That is where I discovered Everyday Backpack by Peakdesign and by the looks of it, I’m not the only one to have been surprised by this discovery. Generally, I’d go and check out a couple of stuff online, do my research and then check them out in person at a local store

reviews

The latest products reviewed For you

For better understanding of our ratings, hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a quick guide to our overall score 10

Keep away!

Strictly OK.

Not recommended

Decent product.

to 100

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

Very good product. Highly recommended.

Ground-breaking product.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen anything like it before. A definite must buy!

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Extremely poor product.

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.

INSIDE

Sony WISP500

HyperX Alloy Elite RGB

ASUS ZenFone 5Z

ASUS TUF FX504

BenQ Zowie XL2546

plus

36 Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga 2018 37 ASUS TUF B450M-PLUS 38 Lenovo IdeaPad 530S 38 Samsung Galaxy A6+ 39 1More iBFree Sport & MORE... www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 33

tech

corrigendum

Nest Rooftop popup tent

We regret to inform you that last month the wrong image for NETGEAR Nighthawk Pro XR500 was carried in this section

Reviews

HyperX Alloy Elite RGB Only an RGB upgrade

This pop up tent, inspired by sail boats, sits on the roof of your car and provides a resting place during your getaways. https://dgit.in/Aug18-34-2

ASUS ZenFone 5Z (ZS620KL) All-rounder in a budget

Price 9 15,99

SPECIFICATIONS

Contact

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uilt with a sturdy steel top frame and plastic body, there’s no compromise in build quality For the HyperX Alloy Elite RGB. The Features.....................69 only downside in build quality Build quality............74 is the loosely fit keycaps. Some Value............................61 of them would pop out easily while typing. It isn’t a deal breaker but will cause frustration among heavy users. The keyboard uses Cherry MX switches across the Red, Blue and Brown variants. Gaming and typing performance was satisfactory. Since full N-key rollover has been implemented, we didn’t notice any erroneous key presses. This means you can comfortably play all your favourite games without worrying about skipped or repeated key presses. HyperX’s new NGenuity software has a simple interface and it can improve drastically with more features. You can change the lighting effects on every single key and even create your own custom lighting effects. Reassigning keys and macro recording functionality is available as well. At this price point, the HyperX Alloy Elite RGB isn’t offering enough features. We would rather recommend the Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2. Not only does it include more features and better build quality, it has impressive software. However, for a lower price, you should definitely consider the Alloy Elite RGB. –Abhijit Dey

sus continues to use their signature Concentric Price 9 Design language for 29,99 the Asus Zenfone 5Z. The glass on the back just barely sticks out of the metal frame, giving the edge a not-so-seamless feel. The front is encased in 6.2 inches of Gorilla Glass which feels slightly less slippery than the back. The screen has 95% DCI-P3 (wide colour gamut) coverage but does offer 100% sRGB colour reproduction. This you can achieve by using one of the three provided colour settings. The Asus Zenfone 5Z scored 6317 in 3DMark Slingshot while the OnePlus 6 had scored 5702. Similarly, Geekbench single and multicore scores were 2439 and Feature.......................76 9002 respectively, higher than Performance...........92 OnePlus 6’s 2372 and 8502. Value............................97 Along with a cleaner and Design..........................81 leaner ZenUI, the phone has a number of AI features bundled. While we were not able to tell for certain whether all of these worked as advertised or not, we do know that Asus allows you to toggle them. The primary lens has OIS while the secondary utilizes EIS. While taking photos outdoors, the AF is quick, and the photos look vibrant. That new ISP Qualcomm baked into the Snapdragon 845 is really working some serious magic. In our PCMark battery test, the phone lasted over 7 hours, while in real-world usage, the phone was giving an average of 7 hours worth of Screen on Time. With a starting price of `29,990, it is nearly impossible to ignore the immense value for money this phone has to offer. –Swapnil Mathur

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tech

Twitter comes down on scams

Watch VR videos together

Twitter is locking accounts that impersonate celebrities to trap people in cryptocurrency related scams. https://dgit.in/Aug18-40-1

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comparison

Google adds “watch together” option in the YouTube app that allows friends to experience videos together. https://dgit.in/Aug18-40-2

Buttonmashing, now on mobile Taking mobile gaming to the next level Abhijit Dey | abhijit@digit.in

erformance on mobile devices has immensely improved. Video games that you once played on your consoles and PC are now playable on your smartphones. Mobile gaming back in the day used to be mostly around puzzles and endless runners. Casual gaming on mobile devices was the dominating demographic among

40 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

gamers. However, as smartphones became more powerful, graphic-intensive games started becoming more commonplace. Even mid-range smartphones were becoming powerful enough to handle these games. Based on your preferences, you might enjoy different types of mobile games. It could be a daily activity or only when you’re bored while waiting or commuting. If you belong to the category

of gamers who dedicate their precious time to mobile gaming everyday, this comparison is for you. While furiously tapping on your screen while shooting down enemies, have you ever tapped on another button by mistake? Say, you’re playing a racing game and you kept missing the boost button at the right time because you couldn’t see it. The number of mistakes you make might reduce as

> code / creativity / community >

For those geeks who like to get their hands dirty in code

Rise of the machines

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Arunava Roy Choudhury | feedback@digit.in

framework Tensorflow, that simplifies the technique of machine learning and neural networks, which is a branch of artificial intelligence that uses mathematical structures that mimic (to some extent) our human brains to solve certain types of problems. We will attempt to design a NN (neural network) that given an image tries to classify it as a circle, square, star or a triangle. Let us approach this problem step by step.

Understanding the basics of Tensorflow

methods to change the weights and gradient descent is one such method. We basically want to maximise the total correct classifications by the network i.e. we want to make changes such that the number of correct classifications by the network increases. So we create a single variable called cost which informs us if the training is helping. Typically cost is defined in such a way that as the cost is reduced, the accuracy increases. So, we keep track of cost and do many iterations till cost stops decreasing. One of the simplest ways to define cost is mean root square cost. It is defined as: cost=0.5â&#x2C6;&#x2018;i=0n(yactualâ&#x2C6;&#x2019;yprediction)2 After training is complete, these parameters and architecture will be saved in a binary file. Later, when we get a new image of shape to classify, we load the model in the same network and calculate the probability of the new image. This is called inference. Finally, the pass of a single complete set of training data is called one epoch,i.e. in one epoch the network sees all the training images once.

Network Architecture

When designing the architecture of a neural network we have to decide on a number of things: How do you arrange layers? which layers to use? how many neurons to use in each layer etc.? Designing the architecture is a complicated topic and takes a lot of research, however there are a number of standard architectures which work well for many problems. Examples being AlexNet, GoogleNet, VGG etc. Once you have decided the architecture, the second task is to identify the weights(w) and biases(b) or the parameters of the network. The objective of the training is to get the best possible values of the all these parameters. For example, while trying to build a classifier between dog and cat, we are aiming to find parameters such that output layer gives out probability of dog higher than cat for all images of dogs and probability of cat higher than dog for all images of cats. One of the ways to find the best set of parameters is a process called Backward propagation. Here, you start with a random set of parameters and keep changing these weights such that for every training image we get the maximum correct output. There are many optimiser

he year is ____, your home assistant wakes you up, plays your favorite tune as you freshen up and compiles the to-do list for the day. Your favorite breakfast is ready for you by the time you are ready, tailored to your calorie intake and just as you are done, your health coach is notified of the meal timing. Preparing to leave for work, you unplug your electric car, command it to drive out of the garage as you hurriedly imprint lock the door. As you zip down the subterranean highway idly browsing the daily news updates of your preference you are alerted to the predicted arrival to your office and an automatic update is sent to your secretary. Welcome to the future, technology has evolved and developed intelligence, complimenting and augmenting civilization. Except this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the future, the year is 2018 and all of the technology is already here, driven and orchestrated by what is being called the biggest leap in recent history, artificial intelligence

Tensorflow

The process of designing artificial intelligence is mind bogglingly complex in its entirety, that does not mean that we as aspiring developers cannot approach it at all. In 2010, Google launched its now extremely popular machine-learning

Building a small Neural network based image classifier

The Neural Network that we will implement is very small and intended only for learning purposes so that you can train this on a CPU as well. While training, images from all the classes are fed to a convolutional layer which is followed by 2 more convolutional layers. After convolutional layers, we flatten the output and add two fully connected layers in the end. The second fully connected layer has only four outputs which represent the probability of an image being a circle, a square, a triangle or a star. Pre-requisites i) OpenCV: We use openCV to read images so you will have to install it. ii) Softmax: We shall apply the Softmax function to the output of our convolutional neural network in order to convert the output to the probability for each class. www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 49

What’s New

San Diego Comic Con 2018 highlights

Woman, Shazam, and a Green Lantern reboot by writer Grant Morrison. After being cancelled, Star Wars: Clone Wars is being revived again. All we know is it continues from where it left off and it will be streamed exclusively on Disney’s streaming service. We also got a new trailer for Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald. This time we get to see more of Newt’s journey along with Dumbledore and

geek culture is our way of life, and encompasses movies, games, comics, and trends from across the globe

t’s that time of the year again, for the world’s biggest pop culture convention. All the biggest entertainment studios and publishers got together to present fans with all the upcoming goodness in the form of comic books, movies and TV shows. It would be practically impossible to include all the announcements, so here’s our pick of the most important ones.

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Inside

Starting off with the biggest ones, DC clearly made the most headlines. They released trailers for Aquaman and Shazam while showing some footage from the Wonder Woman sequel. The visual effects look impressive in the trailer and since director James Wan has said that two-thirds of the movie will be underwater. Shazam sees a young Billy Batson being given the power of the Gods and his discovery of how to use them. It looks like a fun movie, the kind of shift in tone needed in DC movies. Coming to their DC Universe streaming platform, we got a first look at the new liveaction Titans TV show. New comics were also announced for Aquaman, Batman, Wonder

This month in Cult: We take a look at the comic book scene in India. In 1000-words, we look at some of the stunning images ISRO has captured with their astronomical instruments. Finally, Boo-Man has a few things to say about Indian smartphone companies.

Comcast backs out

The race to acquire 21st Century Fox raged on as Disney raised the offer to $71.3 billion from the previous $52 billion bid, countering Comcast’s bid of $65 billion. And now, it looks like Comcast no longer wants to pursue entertainment properties but is still chasing Sky properties. https://dgit.in/CmcstDsny

DCU subscription

DC Comics’ subscription service is priced at $74.99 annually and $7.99 monthly which will include all their exclusive TV shows including old ones and a curated list of comic books. https://dgit.in/DCUplns

Nicholas Flamel making an appearance. We also got the first trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters where we not only got to see Godzilla but also Mothra, King Ghidorah and Rodan. Sony Pictures went on to show separate footage from Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse and Venom. It has been confirmed that Spiderman won’t be doing any cameo in the Venom movie. The footage also showed Venom biting off someone’s head and fighting against another symbiote named Riot. Marvel Studios were absent this year, so there wasn’t anything new about Captain Marvel or Avengers 4 or the future of the MCU in general.

RIP Steve Ditko

Co-creator of legendary comic book characters Spider-man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee, artist and writer Steve Ditko was found dead in his apartment. He was 90 years old. https://dgit.in/SteveDSM

JOKER movie plot

That Hashtag Show reports that Todd Phillips’ ‘JOKER’ is named Arthur Fleck and he could be Batman’s half brother in the upcoming movie starring Joaquin Phoenix. https://dgit.in/JOKERthry

www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 53

culture

Uncle Ben Spiderman

MIB4 begins filming

Marvel Comics’ Spider-geddon event will feature Uncle Ben and Osborn turning into Spider-Heroes. https://dgit.in/Aug18-56-1

Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

need to be about superheroes, magic and fantasy or something that has a distinct commercial selling point. At Studio Kokaachi, we’ve been creating content for a grown up audience for more than 7 years now. As the number of art design colleges grows in India, nowadays we are getting studentturned-artists who are on top of niche techniques and alternative methods of storytelling.” Another interesting phenomenon that is contributing to the growing demand for mature comic books is the availability of mature video content. In India, the availability of high speed, accessible internet coincided with the growing popularity of video streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video

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henever the topic of comic books in India comes up, it mostly refers to the ‘goldenage’ classics like Chacha Chaudhary, Amar Chitra Katha and Raj Comics in their heydays. When it doesn’t, it is used to refer to international titles from houses like Marvel and DC available in India. What most of us, repeatedly, miss out on are the amazing titles and comic books being made right here, in our country, by an insanely talented lot of artists and publishers. These titles cover all kinds of stories, ranging from retelling our mythology to all-new,

One such major publisher in India right now is Holy Cow Entertainment. Multiple serialised titles like Aghori, Caster, Showcase and more form their portfolio. They specialise in retelling Indian mythology in various ways and now they’ve even created a connected universe among their characters. Mumbai-based Vivek Goel, the founder of HCE, was formerly employed by Raj Comics as an Inker. He broke into the new comic book scene with Ravanayan back in 2011 and since then, Holy Cow Entertainment has made a name for itself in the mythological comics sub genre. Studio Kokaachi is another name that is doing something very different. Their focus is far away from stories of

feature

Sony Pictures has started filming the sequel to Men In Black and photos of Chris Hemsworth have come out. https://dgit.in/Aug18-56-2

India’s comic book dream superheroes and mythological retellings - they focus on real life. Studio Kokaachi’s work isn’t dependent on a particular artist. It’s managed by Pratheek and Tina, who come from a background in comics through Manta Ray, another comic book studio that shut shop in recent times. In fact, they’ve continued Manta Ray’s Mixtape series on in Kokaachi. They even have some completely free to read titles under the mantle of Zero-Calorie Comics that you can download from their website. While their website might seem to be the primary way to get Studio Kokaachi’s titles, they’re also available in about 40 stores across India. “The main problem right now is to educate the audience” says Tina, “We, as an audience, need to overcome the perception that comic books either

indigenous superheroes and more. We reached out to some of the most promising names in the Indian comic book industry right now and tried to understand what the contemporary Indian comic book scene is all about.

Creation

There’s no shortage of creators in India – and the comic book scene is no different. However, due to the prevailing image of comic books being meant for children, especially in our country, there hasn’t been a tendency to choose comic books as a means to tell meaningful stories. But that scene is changing now. Creators are working on developing something completely different and niche, the comic book scene in India is on the verge of a massive breakthrough.

56 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

The comic book scene in India is about to explode – if you can light the fuse

and multiple homegrown platforms. Whereas content was primarily family oriented before this, suddenly everyone had a device and individuals could be targeted. This led to the growing demand for more mature, dark and gritty stories from such platforms which has now primed the Indian audience for similar stories told through the medium of comic books.

Distribution One of the major issues that the comic book scene faces right now is distribution. While legacy comic book publishers like Amar Chitra Katha and Raj Comics have an established network of distributors, up and coming names find it difficult to find exposure at the same scale. “Most of the titles that are changing the comic book scene

What’s New

New molecular clock to improve smartphone navigation accuracy

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This month in science:

used in smartphones to increase the accuracy of navigation. A GHz signal produced by a clock transmitter chip excites the rotation of carbonyl sulfide molecules in a tiny gas cell. The period of rotation of the molecules is a constant, and can be used to track units of time, such as seconds. The resulting clock is about a 10,000 times more stable than the clocks currently used on smartphones, and is comparable to the accuracy of atomic clocks. https://dgit.in/mitmc

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!

here are times when a signal from navigation satellites are not available - say, if the device is surrounded by buildings that reflect the signals, or is going through a tunnel, or is underwater. In such situations, a crystal-oscillator clock on the device is used in combination with an accelerometer to provide the location. The more accurate this clock is, the more accurate the location tracking. Researchers from MIT have developed a molecular clock on a chip, that can be

105 million year old snake found preserved in amber

team of international researchers have found the oldest baby snake preserved in amber. The contents of the amber also reveal the environment in which the snake lived - a forest area with plenty of insects. The find illuminates the early history of snakes, particularly their spread through an ancient continent known as Gondwana. There are only

We learn more about ISRO’s Mangalyaan mission. Then, we take a loot at how Gallium Nitride could save India’s semiconductor dream. Finally, we explore some of India’s natural wonders.

20 or so fossilised snakes that are 100 million years old. The fossilised snake is related to ancient snake species in Argentina, Africa, India and Australia. The team used CT scans to study the snake. Their studies helped advance the knowledge of the development

and embryology of ancient snakes, including the formation of the vertebrae and the notochord. The research has been published in a paper titled “A Mid-Cretaceous Embryonic-toNeonate Snake in Amber From Myanmar” in Science Advances. https://dgit.in/babysnek

Water locked away in the mantle

Dragonflies inspire heart valves

No :P for the T-Rex

Comparing the fossils of dinosaurs to skulls of birds and crocodiles has showed that the dinosaurs and pterosaurs could not stick out their tongues like lizards do. The tongues were probably attached to the base of the skulls, similar to the tongues of alligators. This means that all the depictions of dinosaurs with their tongues sticking out of their faces are wrong. https://dgit.in/dinotong

Origin of Neutrinos found

Researchers from Drexel have successfully identified the origin of Neutrinos: Active galactic nuclei that fire high energy ionized matter, often directly towards the Earth, known as blazars. The oval shaped galaxies are believed to have supermassive black holes at their centres. https://dgit.in/ntrno

This diamond, formed deep within the Earth, contains embedded within it, microscopic flecks of water bearing minerals. The finding indicates that between 410 and 660 kilometres below the surface of the planet, there is a layer of water rich minerals. https://dgit.in/waterworld

Dragonfly larvae inhale water, extract the oxygen, and then release the water through a valve that is very similar to human heart valves. Inspired by these larvae, researchers plan to design a heart valve that can direct jets of blood in specific directions. https://dgit.in/dflyheart

www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 59

sci

Quantum entanglement record

Chinese physicists have broken a record to establish quantum entanglement across 18 qubits, passing the earlier record of 10 qubits. https://dgit.in/Aug18-62-1

r&d

Spidey sense is real?

New study suggests that spiders are able to sense the changes in electrical fields in the atmosphere. https://dgit.in/aug18-62-2

Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

A tale of

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here’s no need to establish how crucial semiconductors and their industry are to the world of technology today. Chances are, you are reading this article on a device powered by the same. Even if you’re not, if their importance is lost on you, then you’re in the wrong place. Currently, China has nearly 60% hold on the world’s semiconductor business with that number poised to grow in the coming years. Even after China, there’s a long list of regions like the Americas, Europe, Japan after which there might be a spot for India. On the other hand, we tend to mostly import our electronics or manufacture a large quantity of electronics devices based on imported semiconductors. According to a NOVONOUS report, the consumption of semiconductors in India, mostly import-based, is estimated to rise from $10.02 billion in 2013 to $52.58 billion by 2020 at a dynamic CAGR of 26.72%. Our strength lies in chip design, which our lacking manufacturing capabilities have failed to capitalise on – yet.

Could Gallium Nitride be the knight in shining armour in India’s semiconductor story?

Before we begin, we need to segue into our understanding of what semiconductors are made of. Without going into extraneous details, it suffices to say that silicon is an excellent material for building transistors – the things that make your processors run – and is generally what they’re made of. Now, silicon transistors are generally good at working under 400 volts. When you switch over the choice of material to gallium nitride, however, the operating threshold moves up from 400 volts to 900 volts. Additionally, gallium nitride has a lot of usefulness when it comes to power electronics. It is exactly this that Mr. Srinivasan Raghavan had in mind when he moved back to India more than a decade ago. When he arrived here,

62 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

gallium nitride fabrication process? Currently, India is too far behind in the silicon based fabrication game to catch up. Whereas, the gallium nitride process, cheaper than its silicon counterpart, is soon to become widespread in electronics manufacturing. For India, the power electronics market currently stands at $36.93billion, and is expected to grow to $51.01billion by 2023 – less than five years from now – with increased usage of gallium nitride devices at the heart of this growth. So, to achieve India’s goal of zero trade deficit for electronics, which currently stands higher than gold and lower than Molecular structure of Gallium Nitride

though, he found a country lacking the expertise to produce and work with gallium nitride. Why is it important for India to have its own

A new hope

chips

67 – Private Indian Spaceflight | 69 – MILITARY MIGHT | 72 – The Startup Story | 74 – Food for thought | 78 – reality bites

SA cover story M PL E INDEX:

cover story

Private Indian Spaceflight Abhijit Dey and Aditya Madanapalle | feedback@digit.in

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SRO has a number of interplanetary missions and satellite launches lined up. Private spaceflight companies want in on the action too, and like ISRO, are planning their own ambitious interplanetary missions to the Moon and Venus. When it comes to satellites, ISRO cannot possibly meet the escalating demand for space technologies, and is encouraging the participation of the private sector to build up India’s space capabilities.

Thanks to pioneering startups and the encouragement of ISRO, private Indian spaceflight is poised to take off

Bellatrix Aerospace

Probably India’s only company working on rocket launch vehicles and propulsion systems, Bellatrix Aerospace has huge plans for the future. They have applied for a patent on their design of a microwave electrothermal thruster (MET) that uses water as the fuel. Back in April 2018, we’d covered in detail how the thruster works and the challenges they faced during the entire course of the project until the first successful prototype. (https:// dgit.in/BellatrixAero). This propulsion system is highly scalable and directed towards satellites only because of the low thrust generated. The team is still working out on various components of the system, eventually moving on to testing the MET in its full form. Bellatrix has received funding for their MET project while they are still awaiting to raise funds for their secondary projects involving launch vehicles. Currently, they have two designs, Chetak and Garuda, that are capable

The TeamIndus moon rover

of carrying a payload of 500kg and 1,010kg respectively. The MET isn’t the only propulsion system they are working on. Working on Hall Thrusters, they are trying to achieve a longer lifespan than the traditional designs. They’re also trying out their hands in developing a cleaner alternative to Monopropellant Hydrazine Thrusters used in chemical propulsion systems. It’s a toxic chemical, so the company is working on the alternative and they are calling it Green Monopropellant Thruster (HAN blend).

ISRO Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO is actually a private spaceflight company.

Antrix provides among the cheapest and most reliable launch services in the world, primarily through its workhorse rocket – the PSLV. It is not a very big or very powerful rocket, but this actually worked to its advantage because of the miniaturisation of satellites. Infact, ISRO is working on developing a smaller rocket specifically to launch nanosatellites and microsatellites. Additionally, ISRO works closely with private industries in the country for sub-systems used in its launch vehicles and satellites. ISRO intends to transfer its technologies to private companies, and privatise at least portions of the rocket and satellite production. www.digit.in | August 2018 | Digit | 67

What’s New

Chernobyl wolves

ALT this month:

deemed off-limits for all. While some of the zone is now open to tourism, nobody is still allowed to live inside that zone. The lack of human life has caused wildlife in the region to prosper. Investigations have revealed mixed results, with some saying the wildlife suffered from the fallout, and other saying wildlife prospered. https://dgit.in/radwolf

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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?”

rey wolves from the radioactive forbidden zone of Chernobyl are now roaming out into the rest of the world. A new study suggests that they may now carry their radioactive genes far and wide. However, there doesn’t seem to be any problem with them. They aren’t mutant in any way or don’t have any superpowers, they’re radioactive, but they’re normal grey wolves. Researchers add that their prosperity and their spread to regions outside of Chernobyl is thanks to the fact that the radiative zone now acts like a wildlife reserve. Ever since the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986, a 30 kilometer diametre around the reactor was

Otzi the Iceman’s last meal

tzi the Iceman, who died about 5,300 years ago was first discovered by a pair of hikers in the Otzal Alps, all the way back in 1991. After being discovered, researchers studied just about everything they could about him, the material of his coat, the clothes he was wearing, his tooth decay. Unfortunately, they simply couldn’t find his stomach, because that could give an important insight

We bring you several melee weapons that originated in ancient and medieval India. Then we look at a fictional future scenario of water scarcity in India and how we could solve it. In DGT, as usual, we cover products that induces desire and greed in us. Some movie and TV show reviews under Temptation and finally a chat with HP India’s MD, Sumeer Chandra.

Milky Way space grease Scientists have found that there’s a whole lot of toxic space grease in the Milky Way, a whole lot more than they thought, between the stars in the galaxy. The grease is an oily form of hydrogen-bound carbon called aliphatic carbon and is leaked into space by blazing stars. https://dgit.in/spacgre

Oceans are slowing down

While it was previously indicated that ocean current circulation would slow down due to climate change, a study suggests that circulation has slowed down dramatically, and climate change doesn’t explain why it’s happening 10 times faster. https://dgit.in/oceslow

80 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

into the kind of diet people might have had 5,300 years ago. However, almost twenty years after being discovered, researchers finally found the

Mayans used chocolate as money

A new study reveals that the Mayans used chocolate as a form of currency at the height of their civilisation, it also suggests that the loss of chocolate could have played a role in the civilization’s downfall. https://dgit.in/chocmon

stomach, which had gotten pushed up under his ribs, which is normally where the lungs sit. Oh, and also, the stomach was still full with what was Otzi’s last meal! After running the contents of Otzi’s stomach through several tests, researchers have discovered that Otzi’s final meal was some dried ibex meat and fat, red deer, einkorn wheat, and traces of toxic fern. https://dgit.in/lastmeal

Sony accidentally uploads movie

Sony Pictures Entertainment accidently uploaded the entirety of the movie Khali the Killer on YouTube instead of a trailer, which is what they were initially planning to upload. At around 1 hour and 30 minutes in length, the movie was up on YouTube for several hours. https://dgit.in/khaliac

alt Technology and electronics

Beginning the Hyundai Cretaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technology package is the 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system running on Hyundaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proprietary infotainment firmware. As always, the system is fairly smooth, although many may feel that Hyundai could have added a bit more of a premium touch to it. The infotainment system offers integrated navigation with voice read-out, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Arkamys sound modes to improve the performance of the default speakers. The firmware is the same as we have seen in every Hyundai car, and the list of features is exactly the same as what Hyundai provides in the Elantra and the new Verna. Using the system is fairly easy, with clearly marked features.

Touch response is fairly fluid, although swiping around the map shows a slight amount of stutters. The display also supports splitscreen mode, which allows you to see the map and still have access to music controls at the same time. The colour scheme is not the most interesting, though. It is functional, but not the most engaging per se. That said, the native system itself is more than good enough for every function, and that reduces Android Auto and Apple CarPlay to optional elements that you can avoid using, unless you need access to things like instant messaging services, the Google Assistant etc. In the instrument cluster, while the backlit LED behind the analogue dials look decent, we hope that next gen vehicles have digital instrument clusters.

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ince its launch, the Hyundai Creta has had to deal with the compact Ford EcoSport, the burly eight-seater Tata Hexa, and a stunning surprise package in the Jeep Compass. The segment itself is quite vast, being among one of the highest selling in India after the ultra-affordable compact hatchbacks. Naturally, expectations were quite high when the 2018 Hyundai Creta was unveiled. On the face of it, there are not too many changes - the front grille has been upgraded, the new skid plates add a touch of durability, and has the Swachh Can inside - an in-car dustbin that the Korean car giant very notably flew brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan in to unveil at the 2018 Auto Expo. While it does tidy things up a bit (excuse the pun), how do all these changes reflect with the car itself?

Hyunda

: w e i v e r e v i r d , y g o l o n h c e t a t e r iC

t h g i r Ab f o h s a spl orange

92 | Digit | August 2018 | www.digit.in

The new, improved ot a full Hyundai Creta is n e over its generation upgrad ke every predecessor, but li des, good mid-life upgra ver an improves subtly o d car. already-establishe ik@digit.in

Souvik Das | souv

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