Digit July 2018 by 9.9 Media

The RSS Feed | Robert Sovereign-Smith | Executive Editor

Assimilated

basically identical outcomes. You gain something you had no power to discover on your own – even if it’s just another funny cat video on the internet, it’s something you could not experience, because you could not have been there to witness it yourself. Still, in order to steer clear of the cyborg argument that might crop up because of different definitions, we found a loophole and equated all of us technology savvy individuals to The Borg. This is not the same as saying we’re cyborgs, it’s merely equating us to a fictional species… who were essentially cyborgs… ;-) See what we did there? That sleight of hand (or rather words), allows us to delve into some very complex ideas, and even explore whether or not it’s a good thing that we are either already like, or fast becoming like, The Borg. Personally, I’m of the opinion that it’s a good thing, because while we may be becoming the Borg, or even cyborgs, as long as we don’t lose our humanity while doing so, we will be fine. As long as we ensure that the technology is under our control, and not the other way around, technology really will help us perfect our imperfect selves. In fact, we’ve already been assimilated, and geeks like you who love technology, are far more a part of the collective than the average Joe. The real challenge is to remain cyborgs and not totally become like the Borg collective. Retaining our individuality will be the key to ensuring that our humanity stays intact. Whether or not we will manage, or whether we will actually become a hive mind… that’s something our grandchildren will find out. We will be long dead when it happens, but what we do today will be key in deciding what our kids inherit. What do you think? Is resistance futile against the technology juggernaut, or is there hope that we can resist just enough to prevent being totally assimilated? Read the cover story and then write in to me to let me know your thoughts...

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The cover story this month looks at how we may already be like the alien species called the Borg from Star Trek. I won’t go into details here, because it’s well covered in the articles that make up the cover story, but there is one large supposition we make here in the cover theme, and that is to treat technology use as a cybernetic enhancement of humans. This is different to the traditional meaning of a cyborg, and we have good reason for doing so. I’ll try and explain why in this column. Yes, it’s true that the word cyborg itself comes from the shortening of the two words, cybernetic and organism, which essentially means a sort of amalgamation of cybernetic parts and organic parts to make a hybrid entity. Many would consider someone with a pacemaker to keep their heart going to be a cyborg, while others would insist on it not being merely a medical tool, but would need to enhance an organism in a way that gave it abilities that make the specimen better than other members of its species in some way. Sort of like a human getting super vision – the ability to see as well as a hawk. Now that would be something everyone would agree is a cyborg, right? In short, some believe that you’d have to be able to give a specimen enhanced capabilities to consider it a cybernetic organism (cyborg). I agree, to a great degree. I certainly believe that to earn the title of a cyborg, a specimen needs to gain enhanced capabilities. I keep saying specimen because a cyborg doesn’t have to be human, it just needs to be a cross between technology and biology... of any species. However, I don’t believe that the technology needs to be physically attached or somehow woven into the biology of a specimen for it to qualify as a cyborg. I honestly don’t see how a chip embedded in your brain which gives you access to the internet is accepted as you becoming a cyborg, whereas a device you carry with you and access whenever you want to achieve the same goal does not qualify you to be one. It just doesn’t add up logically. After all, whether it is a billion neurons or your entire central nervous system interfacing with a chip directly in order to send a signal to your brain, or your eyes seeing something and then translating that as a signal to your brain, they are

“I don’t believe that the technology needs to be physically attached or somehow woven into the biology of a specimen for it to qualify as a cyborg.”

Paranoid Android | Mithun Mohandas | Asst. Technical Editor

AR - Augmented Redundancy

AR headset and a handy tablet. Got a motor down in section 5? Send the rookie in right away and beam the repair guidelines right into his visor. Rookie gets to work and has the motor up and running in under an hour. A couple of years down the line and you start seeing a lot younger workforce around you. All going about their daily duties sporting their fancy visors and tablets. Then you get called in by HR for a meeting wherein you’re told that your 15-years of experience are no longer needed because the rookies can do your job without all that experience thanks to the new AR visors. That’s where we’re headed. It doesn’t matter how passionately a CEO or CTO gives a speech on how AR in the industry is going to create more jobs, that’s never going to be a good thing for you. Just like AI, these new jobs are going to be created in the AI market and in our case, in the AR market. Your ordinary factory floor is simply going to replace you with not only a robot who’s less articulate but way smarter, but they’re also going to do away with the more experienced folks in favour of rookies who are heavily dependent on their AR HMDs. At the end of the day, a rookie assisted by tech is way cheaper than someone with 15-years of experience and for a business that’s money saved. A paper submitted to the University of Chicago concludes that ‘the mere presence of one’s smartphone reduces the available cognitive capacity’ ergo you become stupider if your smartphone is around you. Your smartphone is literally your brain’s kryptonite. I reckon that AR is going to do the same to our skilled workforce. It’s going to make the rookies so dependent on receiving constant instructions that they’ll forever remain in the state of rookie-ness. Over the course of a couple of decades, humanity will be rendered a bit stupider the same way every assistive tech has done thus far.

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If you guys have checked out some of the major conferences that happened this year then you’d have noticed that everyone’s gungho about AR (Augmented Reality). It’s no longer the over-hyped futuristic technology but we’ve now started seeing more pragmatic use cases. Sure Google canned Project Tango, but they did so because ARCore ended up being a superset and that too a more powerful one. Even Apple’s pushing for AR with more features shipped in ARKit 2. In fact, it was one of the highlights worth mentioning from their developer conference earlier last month. Even at enterprise conferences such as Liveworx, there was a lot more around AR based applications than anything else. What stood out at all these conferences was the “shared experience” or “multi-user experience” aspect that all of these AR frameworks showcased. That’s great! Well, it is great from a technology standpoint but it’s going to be a pain for the job market. One of the use cases where shared AR shows the most promise is to educate fresh graduates and reduce their training time. Written medium has been the staple of classrooms since time immemorial, then we saw audio-visual content making its way into the very same classrooms in the 20th century and now AR is poised to be the next big education accelerator. Yes, AR will definitely help you understand concepts faster since it’s nearly as good as experiencing them physically. Want to know what happens when you add 1 Molar Sulphuric Acid to 1 Molar Hydrochloric Acid? Well why don’t you try it out in an AR environment and watch the violent reaction from a safe perspective instead of the real one where you stand the risk of having those strong acids sputtering onto your person and giving you third-degree chemical burns. Or perhaps, you want to know how a nuclear power plant will react if you pull out the coolant rods. You can experience Chernobyl 2.0 without actually causing Chernobyl 2.0. It’s certainly a great tool for education! Even large scale companies see it that way. You can now hire fresh graduates out of college, have them go through a short training period and ship them off into the field with an

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

“They’re also going to do away with the more experienced folks in favour of rookies who are heavily dependent on their AR HMDs.”

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

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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

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Detroit: Become Human Northgard

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Transsion.................................Inside front cover

Games reviewed this month

Cover Imaging and design Anoop PC

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contents

COVER STORY PAGE 49- 61

We are Borg

What if we told you that we’re already cyborgs? Fear not, for resistance may not be futile... yet.

SCIENCE - PAGE 70-79

CULTURE - PAGE 62-69

july 2018

volume 18 issue 07

72 | Also the norm

The animal kingdom has come up with many approaches to making sure their genes are passed on.

74 | Self assembling space telescopes

The coming generations of large space telescopes will require some kind of autonomous assembly in orbit.

76 | Laser, meet quantum computing Quantum computing could get a massive upgrade, thanks to super fast lasers.

78 | As good as new!

Can we heal like Wolverine or Deadpool in real life?

AND MORE 8 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

63 | The Red Zone has started

PUBG and Fortnite aren’t the only games fighting it out anymore. Get ready for an overdose of battle royale games this year..

64 | #UnrealInfluence

The world of artificial, CGI influencers is exploding.

68 | World Wide Dingus Conference Look, we did our ‘Jobs’! - Apple, WWDC 2018.

69 | Papa Flash

Harold “Doc” Edgerton, a professor at MIT used a stroboscope to revolutionise high speed and multi flash photography.

AND MORE

ALT - PAGE 80-95

tech - PAGE 14-48

On The DVD Apple’s annual developers conference lacked any eye-popping innovations this year. Here’s everything that stood out.

16 | Best of Computex 2018

The Mecca of PC components had several incredible products on showcase this year.

A day in the life of a cyborg.

88 | Man-Machine

A visual on technological interventions which can potentially make us transhuman.

90 | Auto Tech

TECH Tools for privacy paranoids Ad-aware Avast bitwarden Brave browser Comodo Firewall Cryptomator DashLane DeepSound DiskCryptor and more...

The hottest tech in luxury cars.

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22 | Smart Home and Home automation: synonymous?

86 | I, Cyborg

A stripped down version of the primary differences between the two seeminglysynonymous words.

24 | The NavIC Story

In its decade long journey to nearcompletion, the NavIC project has seen a lot of highs – and even some lows.

94 | Understanding the Indian PC market

Vinay Shetty, Regional Director for India & South Asia, ASUS, explains how ICT companies approach the Indian buyer.

AND MORE

skoar! - PAGE 96-111

27 | Reviews

34 | Level-Up

Make the most out of Google’s new Tasks app and the updated Gmail.

36 | Secure communication using open source tools 38 | Teardown: OnePlus 6

104 | Publishing 101

So you’re about to finish making your game. What’s next?

Clean design; risky display repairability.

40 | Groovy-101

100 | Reevu: Northgard Ragnarök beckons!

Getting started with Apache Groovy.

44 | Editing PC made to order

Agent001 dives deep while building a video editing PC for an old friend.

48 | Take My Money

This month’s crowdfunding roundup goes the smart way with a smart lock, a smart Rubik’s cube, and a powerbank with a smart take on design.

AND MORE

Graphic designer starter pack ArtRage 5 Clip Studio Paint Figma GIMP Gravit Designer and more...

ALT Captain Aero comics Captain Aero was a Flying ace for the US Army.

The best in technology available today, reviewed by us.

For the truly paranoid.

102 | The best of E3 2018

The big daddy of gaming conferences gave us a lot to be excited about!

108 | Mods that changed PC gaming

These game mods were even better than the original games!

AND MORE

The Last of Us Part II Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Trials Rising

14 | WWDC: Where’s the innovation?

CULT E3 2018 trailers Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Beyond Good & Evil 2 Death Stranding Fire Emblem Three Houses Fortnite Nintendo Switch Ghost of Tsushima HITMAN 2 JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION Just Cause 4 Marvel’s SpiderMan Star Citizen Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Indie platformer games Inch by Inch Light Fall Lost Bits (Demo) Stori The One Spell

SCI Searching exoplanets 20 Years of Hubble Science Ball Aerospace team assembles Kepler spacecraft Disk Detective Search for Planetary Habitats Disk Detectives Top 1 Million Classifications in Search for Planetary Habitats Highlighting our Tiniest Neighbors Kepler Misson Launch Kepler arriving at the Kennedy Space Center NASAs Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The Habitable Zone and more... Space Engine SpaceEngine is a realistic virtual Universe you can explore on your computer.

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

WWDC 2018: Where’s the innovation?

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

Apple’s annual developers conference lacked any eye-popping innovations this year. Here’s everything that stood out. Mithun Mohandas | mithun@digit.in

pple’s WWDC or WorldWide Developers Conference was sort of an antithesis of its name this year as they barely showcased any features that would interest developers and focused more on OS improvements and features. Something that Apple sorely needs to do since it has been years since we’ve seen any iota of innovation from the company that once made a habit of overusing the term across all their presentations. Moreover, given how bad 2018 has been for Apple in light of their iPhone OS/battery controversy and the MacBook Pro Keyboard fiasco that’s been plaguing their laptops for quite some time now. Apple’s theme for WWDC might as well be “Better late than never” as they introduced features that have been around on other platforms for ages. So what did you miss? Nothing spectacular but here are the highlights.

This month in tech: We’ll be having a quick walkthrough over all the major announcements from WWDC and Computex. Then we try to figure whether smart homes and home automation are the same. Finally, we take a look at India’s own navigational system called NavIC.

Pixelbook running Windows 10

Google is adding Windows support to its hardware to allow Pixelbooks to run the Windows operating system. https://dgit.in/ PixelWin10

iOS 12

Stability and performance underlined most of the announcements made for Apple’s latest OS for their mobile devices. iOS 12 is set to arrive later this year as a free update and a public beta should already have been out by the time you’re reading this. iOS 12 appears as if it is compensating for the iPhone battery controversy by undoing all the nerfs that they’d implemented. The update will be available for every device that came out after the iPhone 6S. Apple claims than an iPhone 6S running the new iOS 12 will launch apps 40 per cent faster, bring up the native key-

14 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

board 50 per cent faster and take a photo straight from the lock screen 70 per cent faster compared to iOS 11. What would be interesting to see is if iOS 12 performance matches iOS 9 performance on the iPhone 6S. CarPlay is a feature of iOS when docked with a car and Apple is now opening it up to third-party navigations apps such as Waze and Google Maps. It’s nice to see Apple accepting the age old saying that if you can’t beat them, join them. Or atleast open up your API to thirdparty developers. Next up for iOS 12 is the old Android feature of ‘Grouped notifications’. Notifications will now be grouped as per app and topic, so you can kiss goodbye to all those hundred notifications that would clutter your tab every few hours and have a more organised and succinct notification system. Innovation factor = 0/10

Screen Time

Apple’s internalising the features of Screen Time, a parental control app that allowed folks to keep an eye on how their kids are using their phones and tablets. Screen Time which will now become a native feature of iOS 12 will produce daily and weekly activity reports that tells you how much time was spent across various apps and how many times the phone was picked up. Going one step further, Screen Time will also

tech

computex

Best of Computex 2018

M PL

The Mecca of PC components had several incredible products on showcase this year. Here’s our pick of the best ones.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 850

ASUS Project Precog

ne screen on a laptop is normal. How about two screens? ASUS showcased the Project Precog, a laptop where the keyboard is replaced with a screen. Essentially, you’re getting a foldable device with two touchscreens. The product is targeted for a different segment of users who prefer multi-tasking and extra screen real estate. With artificial intelligence built inside the laptop, it will be able to determine whenever there’s a keyboard plugged in. The second screen will throw up a virtual keyboard but when a physical keyboard is connected, it will disappear. A similar switching will happen to the virtual trackpad if a mouse is connected. It can detect the orientation of the device, so if it’s folded and placed on the edges, the display will switch to a Book mode. There’s also a Flat mode where the laptop opens up to 180 degrees, to be used by two people on each side for some PvP gaming. The Tent mode will allow two users sitting across each other to look at the screens over a meeting, acting as a brilliant productivity device. ASUS didn’t reveal the price but they do actually plan on making this into a commercial product by next year.

16 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

ualcomm announced the Snapdragon 850 with the aim of powering low power Windows 10 machines for an always on, always connected use case. This platform brings together an X20 LTE Modem coupled with Qualcomm Wi-Fi solutions for the connectivity aspect. There’s also the Qualcomm Hexagon 685 Vector processor to aid the Qualcomm Kryo CPU. On the GPU front, the 850 is powered by a Qualcomm Adreno 630 Visual Processing System. Additionally, it also houses the Qualcomm Spectra 280 ISP and Aqstic Audio Technologies. The key upgrades in the 850 over the Snapdragon 835 come down to the better Kryo 385 CPU which can now go up to 2.95 GHz, faster Gigabit speeds which now have an increased cap of 1.2 Gbps and a more optimised power profile that allows for multi-day battery life just like smartphones. The 850 platform has five key pillars which include the always on and always connected capability, powerful AI compute power, entertainment capabilities and support for Windows 10.

tech

Flying car service

S-Ray under development

A startup flying car service, Kitty Hawk, backed by Google co-founder Larry Page has begun offering test flights. https://dgit.in/Jul18-24-1

ORIGINS

Samsung’s S-Ray speaker beams sound only the user can hear, and could possibly replace headphones. https://dgit.in/Jul18-24-2

Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System or, as it is operationally referred to as, the NavIC. We have reached the final stages of the program, to the point where NavIC promises greater locational accuracy than GPS. The GPS constellation provides an accuracy of 20 meters, while the NavIC constellation provides an accuracy of 5 meters. The journey to this point officially started more than a decade ago.

The announcement

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Back in 2007, about a decade after the GPS request was denied by the US, the Government of India announced that ISRO will be building and launching a constellation of 7 satellites as a part of India’s own indigenous navigation network, joining the ranks of countries such as USA, Japan, Russia and China. At that point of time, the project had been set a deadline of 2012 to become operational, with the first launch planned on the PSLV in 2010. Initially, the project was called the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). The goal of 7 satellites was set because India was looking to cover the country’s own lands as well as a surrounding distance of 1500 kms from the border. A similar global network would require around 24 satellites. By 2010, the various subsystems of the satellites were being manufactured by ISRO at various locations and the first launch was scheduled for late 2011 on the PSLV, and then one launch every six months. By 2014, with four satellites active (the minimum required) the NavIC system was scheduled to be operational.

The

NavIC story In its decade long journey to nearcompletion, the NavIC project has seen a lot of highs – and even some lows Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

very country stands to benefit in multiple ways from technological advancements. At times, more than the benefits, it is an external compulsion that forces the progression of

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

technology. During the Kargil War between India and Pakistan, when India asked the United States of America to share global positioning system (GPS) navigation data for the region, the request was denied citing the conflict. This particular action sped up India’s march towards developing and launching its own space based navigation system, the

The launches begin As it would happen, the actual launches began behind schedule for various reasons. On May 28, 2013, the ISRO Navigation Centre was inaugurated at the Indian Deep Space Network complex at Byalalu, about 40 kilometers from Bangalore, India. The Navigation Centre was supposed to be a crucial point of operation for providing the time reference, generation of naviga-

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

Nokia 8 Sirocco

Samsung 860 Evo 250 GB SSD

Microsoft Surface Pro (2017)

Sennheiser Momentum Free

Optoma UHD65

plus

28 OnePlus Bullets Wireless IEM 29 NETGEAR Nighthawk Pro XR500 Gaming Router 30 Corsair K55 RGB 31 ASUS VA326H 1800R 33 Zebronics Orion & MORE... www.digit.in | July 2018 | Digit | 27

tech

Xiaomi Redmi 6, 6A revealed

Snapchat's second gen Spectacles

The Xiaomi Redmi 6 and 6A have been announced with a starting price of under $100 and Mediatek chips. https://dgit.in/Jul18-28-1

Reviews

Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) Great tablet, underwhelming laptop

Snapchat's second gen Spectacles that allow users to capture circular video clips is available on Amazon now. https://dgit.in/Jul18-28-2

OnePlus Bullets Wireless IEM

Impressive performance at a decent price

he unit I've got with me for review is the Surface Pro i5 Model 1796. This model is powered by an Intel Feature.......................56 Core i5-7300U CPU (clocked at Performance.......... 88 2.60GHz), with 8GB of RAM Value. ...........................61 and 256GB of solid-state Design. ......................... 77 storage. Without these magnetic accompaniments, the Surface Pro is solidly built for a standalone tablet. The fanless dual-core Intel Core i5 processor stays cool most of the time but can get quite warm when crunching a lot of data. It's still quite comfortable to hold and draw though. The 12.3-inch glossy and reflective PixelSense display on the Surface Pro has an aspect ratio of 3:2, a resolution of 2736 x 1824 pixels and a screen brightness of 390 nits. The keys on the Surface Pro's Signature Type Cover keyboard are flat but feel excellent. The Surface Pen works splendidly while drawing and writing. Performance on the Surface Pro is somewhat underwhelming. The Intel Core i5-7300U processor, clocked at 2.60GHz, is sufficient for most office and light creative tasks. Gaming is best avoided on the Surface Pro. Running PCMark's Creative conventional battery life test revealed a score of 4 hours and 33 minutes on a full charge. On at least two occasions, the Surface Pro clocked five hours without begging to be plugged in when used just for writing. All things considered, the Microsoft Surface Pro shines in a lot of areas where a regular laptop simply can't. – Vignesh Giridharan

he device is made Price using memory 3,990 alloy material, which is covered in liquid silicone. The in-line controls feature three buttons, where one in the middle handles three tasks. The earpieces of the device are magnetic and include play/pause functionality. The Bluetooth range of the earphones is around 9 meters. The earphones are splash and sweat resistant as well but there’s no mention of an IP rating. It delivers about 7.5 Feature.......................57 hours of continuous audio Performance........... 77 playback after a full charge, or Value............................68 one and a half day at 60 Design.......................... 77 percent volume. However, OnePlus has equipped it with Dash Charge, which gives around four hours of audio playback in ten minutes. The sound signature is ever so slightly bright, mids are crisp and vocals are pronounced. The acute frequency response for instruments falling in the lower range of the audio spectrum is great. We did notice slight bass spread while listening to Limit your love by James Blake and subtle blending of bass guitar with kick drums in Black Tambourine by Beck. The Bullets Wireless are vaguely tiring after listening to music continuously for a couple of hours, and we noticed smooth roll-off while listening to Get Lucky by Daft Punk. There is minor distortion at volumes above 75 percent. With detailed mids, clear lows, and a rather expansive soundstage, these wireless earphones show up as a serious rival to competitors that are similarly priced. However, the earphones might not appeal to percussive electronic music listeners (EDM and house music basically), who want extreme bass as the highlight. – Shubham Sharma

SPECIFICATIONS

Contact

M PL 71

Price 0 86,99

28 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

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.

Google Tasks allows you to add emails (from Gmail) to your tasks which is handy. It copies the Subject of the email as the title of the task and even offers a link to the email in the task itself. To add emails to Tasks you will need to use Gmail on a desktop browser since the app

Get started with the Google Tasks app

Emails as tasks (Gmail only)

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Google Tasks is one of the simplest and most user-friendly to-doapps. Once hidden in Gmail or Google Calendar, now a standalone app, Tasks simplifies the mechanics of a to-do list app.

Dhriti Datta | feedback@digit.in

Google Tasks is a minimalist to-do list. Google Tasks may be simple but it can be powerful when used in conjunction with Gmail and Google Calendar.

Start adding tasks

give you the option to add details/notes to your task, add a date (synced with Google Calendar) and even add a subtask to the main task. To sync Google Tasks with Google Calendar, simply go to calendar.google.com and Select the Tasks option under My Calendars tab on the lefthand side panel.

Let’s get on to creating the tasks. • Click on the blue button in the bottom of the screen that says ‘Add a new task’. • Add your task and click on the save button. • To add details to your task, click on the name of the task to pull up the edit page for the task. • Google tasks will now

Sorting, moving and deleting

Adding tasks to the Google Tasks app can be as simple or detailed as you want it to be. You can create a simple checklist of multiple standalone tasks, or create tasks with subtasks, deadlines and commets. You will need to create a list for the task you are noting down. By default, all tasks go to the ‘My Tasks’ list that comes preinstalled in the app. However, if you

want to create a brand-new list, you will need to follow these steps: • Click on the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) on the bottom left of the screen. • You will find a tab saying ‘Create new list’ • Select that tab and enter the list title and then click on done.

The Google Tasks app can also add an email from Gmail on your tasks and sync with Google Calendar. 34 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

You can move around tasks in a list easily by long-pressing it. This will assist you to sort your tasks in a particular order. Another method to sort your tasks is by date which will list the tasks in order of imminence. Simply Tap the three dots on the left bottom side of the app and click on Sort by: Date. To delete a task, you will need to click on the name of the particular task you want to delete and click on the bin icon on the top-right side of the screen. If you need to delete an entire list, click on the three dots on the bottom right side of the app and click on delete list. The app will prompt you for a confirmation before deleting.

Sort tasks by date or your order and delete lists in this menu. doesn’t support this feature yet. Follow these steps: • Select the email you wish to add as a task and open it up. • Click on the ‘More’ dropdown and select ‘Add to Tasks’ among the dropdown menu options. You can add important emails to your lists and have them be easily accessible in the form of a to-do-list. Unfortunately, there is no way yet to do this directly from the mobile Gmail app or the Tasks app itself.

tech

> code / creativity / community >

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

DEVWORX

Groovy-101 Agnibha Bose | feedback@digit.in

of the variable depends on the runtime, because of that the same variable that you have used to store a string can also be used to hold a number, as shown at https://dgit.in/Groovy0. To run the code just type $ groovy <File Path> and the output will be:

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he following tutorial is for those who have a little hands on experience with some programming language (preferrably Java). Essentially, Groovy provides a great expansion over Java as a programming language. It provides some of the flexibility of the loosely typed languages like scripting languages to Java.

Or you can simply open a new terminal and execute the following code. $ source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/ sdkman-init.sh" After you are finished with SDKMan then just type in the following script to install Groovy . $ sdk install groovy After the installation you can test the installed version by typing the following into the terminal. $ groovy -version And that’s all there is to do.

Getting Started with Groovy

Requirements

We are using IntelliJ as the IDE. You can use anything other than IntelliJ too. But IntelliJ comes with a predefined Groovy Support as a framework. We will also be providing Linux Support in this tutorial, though you can find Groovy support for your Operating System in their downloads page.

Math and Basics

Now to demonstrate basic and mathematical operations in Groovy we are going to create a new file. The extension is .groovy. For the filename, let’s go with MathsAndBasics.groovy. Within the file we are going to create a new Class MathsAndBasics. People from Java know why the filename and the public class name should be the same. For others, here's a brief explanation – the code that we write will first go through a compilation step where a byte code (in this case a .class file) will get generated. That .class file will be executed eventually. Now within the class we will create a main method, which will look like static void main(String[] args){} Now over here static means this is a method or a function that belongs to the class. void means the method will not return anything. main is the name of the method which takes a String array as an argument from the command line. The main method is executed whenever a class is executed. To print something, type println("Hello World"); To define a variable you need to write def followed by the name of the variable. Groovy is a dynamically typed language. So unlike Java the type

Installation

Installing Groovy is very easy on Linux. If you have Sdkman in your system then it will be a cakewalk otherwise we would suggest installing SDKMan first and then installing Groovy from that. If you are into using Java and Java Oriented Languages then SDKMan is a good utility to work with. To install SDKMan, go to your terminal and add the following script. $ curl -s get.sdkman.io | bash This will install SDKMan. After finishing with the installation process add the following code into your `runcom` file (.bashrc, .zshrc) $ export HOME="$HOME/.sdkman/ bin/sdkman-init.sh"

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

Now the basic mathematical operations will work like Java or any other language. But every number will have some methods associated with it. In Groovy, numbers are treated as objects. This is easy to compare with JavaScript because in JavaScript everything is an object, similarly in Groovy things are treated as object. Numbers are the instances of the Integer class. As numbers are objects, they inherit some predefined methods from the Groovy Integer Definition. Some examples of such methods are in this code sample: https://dgit.in/Groovy1. From the above piece of code you can see that numbers inherit some typical methods like intdiv, plus, minus, multiply etc. Instead of these methods you can also use the operators. For integer division you have to use intdiv. Groovy by default provides division in floating points. Output of the above code is below.

The order of mathematical operations in Groovy is the same as standard mathematics – brackets, followed by division, multiplication, addition

tech Microsoft unveils FastStart

FastStart, a new feature announced by Microsoft during E3 2018, applies machine learning and only downloads necessary parts of the game. https://dgit.in/Jul18-44-1

agent001

Alexa for couch potatoes

Amazon has unveiled their new TV streaming device which is almost completely handsfree! https://dgit.in/Jul18-44-2

Editing PC made to order

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agent001 | agent001@digit.in

he other day I got a call from an old friend of mine with whom I’d lost touch over the years. He’d recently quit his job and wanted to join the bandwagon of entrepreneurs and enter the world of videography. Just like old friends who’ve never bothered to keep in touch with you, he proceeded straight to asking for hardware advice. Ah … well. A PC was needed, that too for video editing and he had the budget for it. He’d already started editing videos on his laptop but the export times were through the roof, hence the need for an upgrade. As I went about asking him about his production pipeline, it dawned upon me that he makes absolutely no use of any special filters at all. At most, certain clients would request some garish filters to give it the classic Indian wedding video feel but that was about it. So naturally, I couldn’t suggest the usual Killer Rig recommendation for the guy since the video editing rig makes use of a really good CPU and a GPU to strike a balance between core count and the GPU so that export times were reduced even if plenty of filters were used. However, if you aren’t going to use many filters or effects in your video, then getting a powerful graphics card isn’t prudent. The only outlier here would be if you are using a software that is optimised

Agent001 dives deep while building a video editing PC for an old friend.

44 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

for GPGPU. Then you’re better off with the Killer Rigs recommendation. There is a simple reason why you shouldn’t base your rig purchase off of benchmarks because benchmarks, by definition, are built to make use of all the aspects of a software and push the hardware to its limits. This is a scenario which is not at all seen in real-world situations. Most amateurs simply perform jump cuts and add scene transitions. Essentially, all the GPU intensive tasks are kept to a minimum while CPU intensive tasks take up most of the edit process. This is with regards to every software out there except just one – DaVinci Resolve. Resolve makes use of the GPU

intensively and there’s great benefit to be had for your edit process if you’re using DaVinci Resolve. Running batch filters becomes more convenient if you have a good GPU while using DaVinci Resolve. For the most popular software such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, you’re better off with a more powerful CPU and a normal GPU. So now the question remains, what kind of GPU should you get? Is the GPU intensive task so minimal that you can make do with a simple RX 460 or GTX 1030? Turns out, that’s not the case. Real world tests reveal that while performance does scale as you get a better GPU, the magnitude of

Imaging: Anoop pc

SA cover story M PL E

cover story

Are we really “The Borg” or is this just another rubbish headline?

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Agent 001 | agent001@digit.in

they did so matter of factly, without fanfare or trying to hero the technology. Now I know a lot of you might want to hero the features of your latest phone, but Star Trek aimed far beyond our petty egos and tried to imagine a future where technology was just taken for granted and where humans had no other purpose except to learn more about our universe, and have philosophical conversations about the fate of lesser species that were encountered by them. Counter this with Terminator or The Matrix where technology is basically only trying to wipe humans out, or

s geeks, we’re all invested in some space fantasy or the other, because love of science fiction is one of the most common geek traits. Now, we all know that Star Wars and Star Trek are the two most famous space-based science fiction sagas out there, though many will insist that only Star Trek is science-fiction while Star Wars is pure fantasy and no science – let’s not have a USS Enterprise vs Millenium Falcon dog-fight just yet. Let’s just agree that Star Trek is meant to be a more accurate a prediction of our future as a space faring species, while Star Wars is “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....” and doesn’t even deal with humans.

Technology: Good or evil?

While so much of sci-fi involves technology being used more for evil than for good, and it’s the basic plot of hits such as the Terminator series or the Matrix trilogy, it was Star Trek that first made it cool to be a geek, and made engineers and scientists into heroes. The original series did have the brash, lady-charming, and not-so-scientific Captain James T Kirk as the main hero, but it also had the medical advice of Leonard Bones McCoy as the doctor and Spock the always logical Vulcan. Star Trek looked at a future where technology was just another tool that humans used to achieve things, and

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The Borg – villains in Hollywood, but just us in the future

farm them for food, and you can see that Star Trek was far more optimistic and realistic than the others. Of course, people like Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking have disagreed in the past, suggesting that AI will eventually try to destroy us… but that’s a completely different discussion. And it’s not like Star Trek was only always optimistic about technology and its use, and never explored the evil side of technology, because they did come up with one of the most relentless villains in the history of science fiction. The Borg were something that all Star Trek fans were taught to hate instantly. They went against everything that was human, and were the very definition of evil technology, as it was being used to subjugate and take over entire species. According to Star Trek, the Borg are a once very human-like species that are obsessed with perfecting themselves, and part of perfecting themselves is to embrace technology and assimilate the technologies of species they come into contact with. Of course, it also means assimilating the species themselves… men, women, children, all… in order to assimilate the knowledge of the species. Sound familiar? If you really think about it, doesn’t that sound just like us? We’re not doing it across species yet, but across countries and geographical regions we’re certainly using

What’s New

Steve Trevor is alive?

Inside

since the director herself thought of revealing it as the first look, we guess they have other things planned for the movie. https://dgit.in/WW84Gk

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

ou’ve probably watched Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine (playing as Steve Trevor). You probably also remember watching Steve blow up in flames near the end of the movie. Few months ago, it was announced that the sequel will be set in 1984. Recently, director Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot took to Twitter to reveal a first look at what to expect from the sequel. Although Gadot just posted a picture of Wonder Woman looking at a multiple television screens, it was Jenkins’ tweet that led to speculation. She tweeted out a photo of Chris Pine with the caption “Welcome to WONDER WOMAN 1984, Steve Trevor! #WW84”. Is Steve coming back from the dead? We’ll probably learn more through trailers, or directly in the movie. This is probably a massive spoiler but

Marvel at SDCC

evin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, has already stated that they won’t be showcasing anything in Hall H at the San Diego Comic Con this year. This means we won’t be witnessing anything new from Avengers 4 and Captain Marvel. Fans have been eager to find out what was going to happen after half of MCU was wiped out with the snap of a finger. It looks like we won’t

This month in Cult: We take a look at the literally unreal influencers of the world. Then in 1000-words we look at some of the most iconic high speed flash photographs and Boo-Man has a few things to say about the WWDC 2018.

GOTG 3 timeline

There has been a lot of speculation on the timeline of the movies coming out after the upcoming Avengers 4 movie. For now, James Gunn has confirmed that the third GOTG movie will deal with events after the fourth Avengers movie. Looks like the deaths weren’t permanent after all. https://dgit.in/JGGOTG3

IT 2 begins filming After news kept pouring in about the adult versions of the kids from the reboot clown-horror movie IT being cast, James McAvoy confirmed on Instagram that they have begun filming for IT 2. https://dgit.in/IT2McAvy

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be getting anything anytime soon. However, this does not mean that Marvel won’t be present at the convention. Sony Pictures might be planning a Hall H presentation with two

DC trailers at SDCC The San Diego Comic Con is almost upon us, and after official confirmation on the release of the Aquaman trailer, which we’re quite hyped about, there are rumours that we might get one for Shazam as well. https://dgit.in/ShzmDCEU

big movies coming out this year. Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse and Venom, both of which are highly anticipated. Venom stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and is the first spin-off movie for Spiderman. Whereas Spider-verse is the first time that Miles Morales is being introduced to the cinematic universe, although it’s set in its own universe. https://dgit.in/VnmSpideySDCC

The Batman and Joker

We learned that Todd Phillips’ Joker movie is actually happening. Fresh rumours suggest that the speculated Batman movie will share the same cinematic universe. https://dgit.in/JkBtmnTP

culture

Jared Leto ‘Joker’ film

Paradox acquires BattleTech

The standalone Joker film is happening, hopefully giving Leto a chance to redeem his interpretation. https://dgit.in/Jul18-64-1

feature

Paradox is to acquire Harebrained schemes, developer of BattleTech and Shadowrun, for $7.5 million. https://dgit.in/Jul18-64-2

#UnrealInfluence I

restricted to Instagram, let us quickly dispose of that notion. If you’ve played EA Sports’ Fifa 18, you know Alex Hunter from the Journey mode. You probably also know about the brand endorsement deal that Alex, a virtual

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Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

and currently stands as the poster girl of CGI influencers at 1.2mil followers on the platform. Her journey features a healthy dose of controversy as well. Back in April 2018, another CGI personality on Instagram, Bermuda, hacked the account to force Miquela into admitting her fake identity – something that has remained foggy from day one. This forced an LA based startup, Brud, to issue a pretty dubious statement on Miquela’s behalf, claiming that she, along with another personality on the platform are AI that they have created. Putting dubious claims and controversy aside, what was evident from this entire situation is that people were, and are, invested enough in the affairs of artificial influencers. To the point that Miquela has worked with brands like Giphy, Prada and has also sported clothing from Diesel and Moncler. Although she has claimed that none of that content was sponsored, that doesn’t mean a demand doesn’t exist. Take another example – that of Shudu

The world of artificial, CGI influencers is exploding

t is 2018 and influencers need no introduction. Odds are, you already interact with one on a daily basis in one form or another on social media. Just in case, influencers are the people who have a significant impact on a niche audience due to their credibility, knowledge, appeal or uniqueness. At least they used to be ‘people’. In recent times, you might have come across influencers on social media and found that something seems to be a bit off about them, especially their appearance. You might have encountered what is commonly known as a CGI Influencer.

What is a CGI Influencer

If the name wasn’t explanatory enough for you, a CGI influencer isn’t a real person. It is a virtual entity created and managed by an individual or a team whose identity is in no way connected to real life counterparts. They exist entirely on the digital realm and often accept the fact boldly. In other aspects, they are exactly like human influencers - they have a significant following, are regular contributors to whichever platform they are on and actually react to real world actions. To be honest, being animated tends to work in their favour.

What works The story of Miquela Sousa has all the benefits and pitfalls – she started off on Instagram as LilMiquela in 2016

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Lil Miquela, the poster girl of CGI influencers

Gram, created by fashion photographer Cameron-James Wilson. With her shot to fame coming from a repost by Fenty Beauty, Rihanna’s cosmetics brand, she’s reportedly received tons of offers for brand sponsored content. If you are starting to feel that this CGI/virtual influencer madness is

Alex Hunter could be the first in-game virtual ambassador for a real brand

footballer on a meteoric rise to fame, signs with Coca Cola. In fact, Alex signs a similar deal with Adidas as well in the same franchise. Even in video games, this phenomenon transcends genres. Luxury brand Louis Vuitton featured Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII as the ambassador for their Spring/Summer 2016 collection.

Why does it work These influencers are distinct from mascots that brands sport. Far from being cartoony, they sport distinct personalities and take interest in real world issues. Lil Miquela, in the past, has raised her voice for issues like Black Lives matter and Transgender rights. There’s more to their popularity than that. First off, these influencers are crafted with an ideal image of beauty in mind. Take a look at Lil Miquela and Shudu Gram’s Instagram profiles and you’ll know what we’re talking about. That itself is a popular reason for both brands and followers to flock to these lifelike personas online. On

culture

Discussions

CTC

thread on the Digit Forum

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CTC came back after a gap of two years, and got the entire community scratching their heads or pulling their hair out. Leg 1 was difficult, Leg 2 was easy, Leg 3 was brutal, and you might receive the magazine just in time before Leg 4 finishes. Here is what the forum members had to say about CTC VI. Join in the discussion at https://dgit.in/ctcvi

I need to come out of my hibernation and buy the recent issue ASAP!

mukul_rockstar

i am cracking one after another it seems never ending ! anyone how many codes in total are their to crack in leg one ? but must say its quite interesting !!

CTC SIX! Yeah!! I havn’t got my June magazine yet. But I think I can start cracking the code! *cracks knuckles*.. Vyom

No hints until tomorrow, it’s really simple stuff, and when you get it, you will kick yourself for not thinking of it sooner. Raaabo

Rdksuper

Got the benedict cumberbatch answer. Stuck in the next one, that shows screenshot of a PC. Any hints? amitsahoo

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I thought to how devious DIGIT guys were and I got through… markerOne

btw you got me sleepless.... Congrats Digit.... :D Stuck in the loop from hours....

Are you guys observing what kind of keywords we are trying? And laughing?

bytebolt

Hari1

What’s New

Measuring the human impact on the Earth’s biomass

vegetation. Although they are incredibly tiny, they are so numerous that 15 per cent of the biomass is due to bacteria. All the other organisms, including humans, constitute only 5 per cent of the biomass on Earth. https://dgit.in/biomass

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This month in science:

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!

f you weighed all the chickens in farms around the world, the figure would be three times that of all the birds in the wild. Humans and livestock combined weight 20 times as much as all the other animals in the world put together. This is an indication of the kind of impact humans have had on the biomass of the planet. The combined weight of all mammals was six times more than what it is now, before humans. We are responsible for eradicating roughly half of the biomass on Earth. The main cause of this impact is the clearing of forest and the cutting of trees. 80 per cent of the total biomass of the planet is because of

Astronomers image black hole eating star

or the first time, astronomers have observed the moment when a supermassive black hole swallowed up a star that drifted too close, and ejected jets of extremely fast moving high energy particles. The spectacular stellar death is known as a tidal disruption event, and only a small number of these have been detected. This was the first time that such

Would you want accelerated healing or surgery in a pill? Explore both, before moving on to understanding nature’s weirdest reproductive practices as well as the possibility of the first self-assembling space telescope!

an event was directly observed. The star was pulverised and formed a fast moving disc of material around the black hole. From the poles of the disc, there

were two jets where particles were moving at nearly the speed of light. The event was tracked through multiple astronomical instruments, including the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the Lovell telescope and the Spitzer telescope. The event took place in a pair of colliding galaxies, together known as Arp 299, 15 million light years away. https://dgit.in/arp299

Explore exoplanets

NASA has put up an interactive experience where users can get a feel of how the surface of alien worlds would appear. Users can take a virtual walk on the surface of Trappist-1 e and watch six Earth sized exoplanets more or less in a straight line in the sky. Kepler-186 f with its probably red vegetation, and Kepler-16 b with its twin suns can also be explored. Each planet has labelled features with scientific explanations. https://dgit.in/etb

React to unlock devices

Researchers from the Universeity of Buffalo have proposed a system that measures brainwaves and your reaction to certain pictures to unlock devices. This novel biometric security measure works best with two kinds of images - pictures of celebrities, or pictures of animals. https://dgit.in/ubrct

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MIT develops tiny drone chip

MIT researchers have engineered a tiny chip for drones. The chip will be used to navigate microdrones, and is called “Navion”. The chip can process information from inertial sensors, as well as images from a camera at the rate of 171 frames per second. https://dgit.in/mitdc

Oldest reptile fossil found

Palaentologists have identified a 240 million year old reptilian fossil as Megachirella wachtleri. It is the oldest known ancestor of snakes and lizards. The fossil pushes back the advent of the first snakes and lizards by 75 million years. https://dgit.in/lizfos

sci

First artificial human prion made

Days getting longer

Researchers have created the first artificial human prion which may offer treatment for brain-wasting diseases. https://dgit.in/Jul18-74-1

SPACE AGE

A new research indicates that days on Earth are getting longer as the Moon moves away from us. https://dgit.in/Jul18-74-2

Self assembling space telescopes

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The coming generations of space telescopes are expected to be too large to fit in a single payload, and will thus require some kind of autonomous assembly in orbit.

space telescopes, this is invariably made up of multiple mirrors assembled together. The larger the primary mirror is, the better the telescope is. The parts of the mirror for future telescopes will have to be sent up to space over multiple launches. The materials for the mirror would have to be lightweight, to keep the cost of the launches low. The modular design should allow for easy assembly in space, and a mechanism for locking the various parts together. The components would require some kind of propulsion mechanism to arrive at the rendezvous point, after the launch. Then there has to be a way to assemble these components together in space. The parts of the mirror can navigate to each other and assemble themselves. Another option is that humans or robots in space can intervene during the assembly process. In all, it is preferable if the

he primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is seen in the image above, with a human on the side for scale. The mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter, an improvement over the 2.4 meter mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST is designed to be powerful enough to resolve a single bumblebee on the face of the Moon. The JWST is scheduled for launch in 2020. It will be put into orbit as a single payload, with the components folding up. Towards the left side of the image, the gap between the hexagonal components, shows one of these folds. When launched, the JWST would be the largest astronomical instrument in space. However, engineers around the world are already coming up with ways to peer deeper into the universe, and at better resolutions. The major component of a space telescope is a primary mirror. The size of the mirror is known as the aperture of the telescope. In the larger

74 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

entire assembly process can be automated. There is also a requirement of deploying a Sun shield of sorts. This is a preferably thin screen that can protect the components from solar activity, and keep the temperature of the instruments low, which are ideal for the health of the telescopes. NASA has just approved a feasibility study for one such telescope. The proposal is that of a modular active self-assembling space telescope swarm. Dmitry Savransky from Cornell University and 15 other engineers have been developing a concept for a telescope that could autonomously assemble in space, and require a number of relatively cheap launches involving small payloads in each flight. The idea is to use a number of hexagonal modules, each 1 meter in diameter. Every module is autonomous, and is loaded with a number of subsystems such as actuators,

Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

Aditya Madanapalle | aditya@digit.in

What’s New

Fortnite Rehab

ALT this month:

the game for long periods of time. Definitely not good news and most definitely not in favour of gaming in general as the WHO recently classified ‘gaming disorder’ as a disease. https://dgit.in/fnadic

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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?”

nine-year old girl who was supposedly addicted to ‘Fortnite’ has been checked into rehab. The girl got hooked to the game, playing for over 10 hours a day. It was reported that she would lash out at her father if he tried to take the console away from her. There’s no denying the popularity of Fortnite. The game has taken the world by storm and is breaking all kinds of records left right and centre with millions of downloads since its launch last year and endorsements from several famous celebrities. According to the parents, she is currently in therapy for addiction, as she had become withdrawn, agitated and disturbed from playing

The health benefits of ASMR

new study suggests that Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) that experienced by some people in response to specific ‘triggers’, such as the sound of whispering, tapping, scratching and/or slow hand movements, among others, could have both mental and physical health benefits. This study is the first of its kind, while ASMR has been around for a while, very

Follow a Cyborg from Chittagong to Mandalay and then find out the implants being developed for the human machine. We also examine some cool PC components from the TUF Alliance, followed by the usual reviews of movies and TV shows.

World’s tiniest computer

The world’s tiniest computer can make a grain of rice look huge. The University of Michigan answered IBM’s “world’s smallest computer” boast with a temperature sensing ‘computer’ measuring just 0.04 cubic millimeters. https://dgit.in/wsc

Octlantis, the Octopus City

Biologists have discovered an underwater Octopus city, and they’ve aptly named it Octlantis. The city features dens made out of piles of sand and shells, and is home to around 15 cephalopods, which suggests that the creatures aren’t as isolatory as we initially thought. https://dgit.in/octlantis

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little research has actually been done on its benefits. There are over13 million ASMR videos on YouTube, from haircuts and massages, to mock medical examinations.

Play as Obama in Shaq-Fu

Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn sees the return of Shaquille O’Neal to virtual martial arts. The game’s first DLC pack, called BarackFu, adds an additional story starring none other than the former POTUS, Barack Obama. The character is called “Dirty Barry” in the game. https://dgit.in/dirtybarry

People watch these videos to relax, or sleep better, or just relieve stress. Not everyone experience the response and the associated feelings though. Dr Giulia Poerio, of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Psychology said that many people experience ASMR, but awareness of the sensation has risen dramatically over the last decade, thanks to sites like YouTube. https://dgit.in/ASMR

Hawking’s voice beamed to a black hole

While Stephen Hawking’s ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey in London, the European Space Agency beamed a musical tribute, in Hawking’s famous synthesized voice, towards the closestknown black hole. https://dgit.in/haho

alt

Driver’s eye view of...

...your Hot Wheels track. Zoom In, made by Mattel and GoPro is a Hot Wheels car with a GoPro attached to it. https://dgit.in/Jul18-86-1

Apple CarPlay will soon gain access to Google Maps and Waze for users that are predisposed to using them over Apple Maps. https://dgit.in/Jul18-86-2

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future feature

Apple CarPlay gains Google Maps

I, Cyborg A day in the life of a cyborg

Aditya Madanapalle | aditya@digit.in

The cameras were flashing. The bright stage lights came on, and Udaya could barely see the people in the audience. His smart contact lenses could artificially brighten the faces, but he had an idea he had never tried before. He kicked up the animated emoji overlay, hoping that the GPUs could handle the mass of faces in front of him. It worked. All the people in the audience were replaced with random anthropomorphic animals – frogs, bunnies, elephants, pandas, cats and eagles stared up at him. Udaya’s stage fright

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evaporated. An overlay in his lenses prompted him through his presentation. After the talk, Udaya went around the conference floor answering questions, meeting people, and building his network. It was the part he usually dreaded, but he had kept the XR overlays on. He talked to a morose jeroba, and scheduled a media interaction. Next up was a animated orangutan who wanted some technical questions answered. By the end of the day he had exchanged visiting cards with a dugong, an anteater and a dingo. After the conference, an argali showed up in his taxi. Udaya decided to turn the overlays off.

4.5 alt

2018 Mercedes-Benz S350d

4.8

assist with manually adjustable proximity distance, interior sensor-based driver attention and distraction assist, active lane-keeping assistance, blind spot monitoring, cross-traffic alert, pedestrian and obstacle assistance, adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation system, auto-adaptive Highbeam Assist Plus headlamps, automatic bending and cornering lights, and adaptive ‘Airmatic’ air suspension. However, do make sure that you switch active braking off because of the lack of road rules in India, and raise the suspension when you’re in city.

technology, drive review: Enter, royalty

Infotainment, connectivity and electronics

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You get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well, and programmable sections too. Wi-Fi connectivity is available, along with smartphone sync and app support, which can help you load supported apps to the system via your host of buttons, along with a click wheel phone’s Bluetooth. You can also get live and a touchpad. You get two more traffic updates, email prompts and other touchpads mounted on the steering notifications through this. wheel, making operation quite easy. There’s a forcemeter, which shows Other clever bits include dual-sideengine power delivery and torque when opening central armrest, NFC conin dynamic mode. The ambient LEDs, nectivity and more. The seats get the along with features like the Multibeam expected ventilation LED headlamps, and massager. The air focus and air • Price: `1.32 crore; fantastic Burmester fragrance dissipator, • Powertrain: 2.9-litre in-line sixspeaker setup is dedicated infotaincylinder diesel, 286bhp/600Nm, quite impressive, but ment remotes and 9-speed 9G-TRONIC automatic the more impressive more make it a truly gearbox, 4MATIC permanent bits are the fullspecial car here. all-wheel drive; recline rear seat, and • Fuel economy: 9.1kmpl the 64-colour ambiThe royal drive (obtained); ent LEDs. Despite the weight, • Pros: Regal stance, Immense length and bulk, the road presence, Impeccable build quality, Oozes class and S350d hits 100kph Semiluxury, Semi-autonomous in 6.0 seconds, and autonomous technology is extremely solid, can technically driver assist Infotainment is future-ready, go all the way up systems Burmester 13-speaker setup to 250kmph. The The Mercedes-Benz sounds excellent, Unmatched power delivery is S350d has one of the rear seat luxury, Solid engine linear, and not for most complete ADAS and brilliant gearbox, Air susonce do you feel out packages, includpension wafts over everything, of power. It is not a ing front and rear Has pretty much everything you particularly exciting radars, infrared and can hope for in a car; engine per se, but proximity sensors • Cons: No massager in front the focus here is on and multiple cameras. seats, Proprietary headphones luxury. Hence, you The features include could have been better, No get the magical air 360-degree camera magic sky control here, No aususpension, which is with autonomous tomatic boot, Adaptive braking is a bit too sharp; absolutely brilliant. parking, active brake

There is something about the ‘best car in the world’ that will make you fall in love with it, even with all the competition around. Souvik Das | souvik@digit.in

Build quality, design and aesthetics

The W222 Mercedes-Benz S350d is 5.25 metres long, with a wheelbase of 3,165 mm. The side profile is smooth, long and swooping, with an immaculately finished chassis ending in a rear profile that is swept back. Inside, the silk beige/espresso brown genuine leather upholstery interspersed with brown open-pore ash wood looks magnificent. The Mercedes-Benz S350d has softclosing doors. Up front, two 12.3-inch displays are placed in one panel of glass. These are the infotainment display and the instrument cluster. There are two 10.1-inch displays for the rear seat. The hydraulic chrome push knobs, slide-out ashtray and AC vents all have a perfection of finish. Even the cup holders have adjustable side bolsters, to prevent spillage. The control area has a

90 | Digit | July 2018 | www.digit.in

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