The Static Page
One number to rule them all
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Siddharth Parwatay Managing Editor
for other examples of centralised biometric registries in the world. As unique as Aadhar is in terms of scale, surely, it cannot be the only initiative of its kind? It’s not. Ghana has its NIA, Brazil has its Abrid, Malaysia MyKad (one of the oldest), and Indonesia its eKTP. While the first world has been resolute in its opposition to centralised biometric databases and identity registries, I couldn’t find any significant reports of intentional governmental abuse of biometric data either against an individual or a certain section of the community. Though the possibility of such abuse always exists. This possibility doesn’t sit well with privacy advocates. Be that as it may, the truth remains that even as the debate rages among the elite about whether enrollment should be made mandatory – most people have gone ahead and got themselves registered for Aadhar. Not only themselves, they are now starting to get their young children registered too. Those with a slightly restricted access to Aadhar (remote areas) are desperate to get themselves registered. It seems like the only people who are unwilling are the super rich, ‘intellectuals’, and internet SJWs (who might have secretly registered themselves, while continuing to rant about it online). What do you guys think? Weapon for mass control, or tool for progress? Let me know.
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ssuming that you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably already know what Aadhar is – the world’s largest biometric ID system or as the paranoid amongst us see it – an attempt by the man to get a ton of sheeple on to the grid. With over 1.133 billion members already enrolled on the system, the debates about privacy, identity theft, and surveillance, have long been rendered moot. The system has holes, it’s been leaking data steadily for a long time. As I was writing this, the wires were hot with the news of a Jharkhand state government website accidentally displaying names, addresses, Aadhaar numbers, and bank account information of lakhs of pensioners in that region. And this is just one of many such instances so far. For a long time, the following search term was being used to hunt these errant databases: aadhar number name filetype. xls -uidai. Thankfully, the search term was written about so much in the media that if you run it now, you’ll find news articles about it rather than excel sheets containing Aadhar numbers. There is, of course, a flipside to all this. While Aadhar might look to some like an Orwellian construct designed to subjugate the largest population on earth, it does have its benefits. As India hurtles down the path of progress, Aadhar will be an important tool to cut out middle men, to clamp down on corruption, and to ensure that subsidized goods and services by the government reach the intended people (needy and poor) directly. In a technologically secure environment, it could be used for anything from mundane conveniences like biometricbased micropayments at merchants to being able to find and reunite missing children. I’ve personally heard of a few success stories from high-ranking government officials which involved databases being cross-referenced or merged, and fraudsters being caught. Cases in which the same individuals
“Everyone wants accountability, but no one wants to be accountable.”
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who are supposed to be below the poverty line on one database, have high tax return filing in another and are claiming gas subsidy in yet another. The biggest debate raging right now is whether the enrollment should be made mandatory. Should the disbursement of govt social welfare, everyday bureaucratic procedures like availing loans, filing tax returns, etc., be denied for want of an Aadhar number? My personal opinion is that if getting that number is relatively easy, why not? Everyone wants accountability, but no one wants to be held accountable. Meanwhile, the supreme court has dug its heels in, and believes that Aadhar should not be made mandatory for availing welfare schemes; in fact, it has questioned the government about this recently. The funny thing is that the Aadhar Act’s expanded name itself is the “Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services” Act. “What’s the worst that could happen?,” is an important question to answer. As any anthropologist tries to look for naturally occurring instances of a given experiment, I began to look
Reach me at: facebook.com/staticsid | @staticsid | editor@digit.in
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 1
The RSS Feed
Web 3 point no Talking about attention-seeking babies, that’s pretty much social media in a nutshell. Of course it’s great to catch up with old friends and keep in touch, and even using it to find interesting links and videos. However, social networking basically gave 2 billion people a microphone and said, “Here, have a shout!”, which I don’t think was a good idea for society in general. The character flaws of people, coupled with all our weird beliefs, amplified by our massive egos results in the cacophony that is online life today. My own role as a creator of content has suffered a lot in the past because of this. There’s a clear rush to be first which is in direct conflict (very often) with the need to be accurate. Personally, I find it better to steer clear of the mad rush, and prefer to be accurate, any day – as all geeks should. So what will Web 3.0 bring? Soon the number of internet users will be larger than the unconnected. Currently about 49.6 percent of the world’s 7.5 billion people use the internet – as per www.internetworldstats. com numbers. The Internet of Things will add on a huge number of connected devices, digital assistants (Siri, Cortana and the like) will start taking away a lot of the work (and thinking) we normally do on our own – AI research will assist that. AI will also play a large role in the semantic web – getting machines to understand data the way humans would. And of course, there’s VR, which aims to finally disconnect us from the “real world”. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of VR, especially for gaming and entertainment, but I can see it all coming together to make us dumber – slobbering idiots just swiping away our credit cards and remaining disconnected from reality. Given that reality sucks for most of the world, this is even understandable, sadly. I’m worried though, because our track record thus far online hasn’t been all that great. It’s what makes me dread Web 3.0 and call it Web 3 point (hell) no. Maybe I’m wrong. I desperately hope I am. What do you think?
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Robert Sovereign-Smith Executive Editor
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ver a decade ago, there was one buzzword that everyone and their uncle were throwing around. Web 2.0 was the next big thing, and we all slobbered and waited for it, whatever “it” was. It was called the “social web” or “interactive web”, and honestly, no one understood it, but everyone wanted to opine about it. So what did change from 1.0? For starters, the web stopped being simple and static HTML pages, and to many coders I knew at the time thought PHP was Web 2.0. I’m not saying they were right, just saying it was a confused time. Social media is called Web 2.0 by almost everyone though, so that’s something we all agree on. I’m not a big fan of what’s happened with Web 2.0, or rather I think Web 2.0 ruined the world. Don’t get me wrong, I love many of the things that came out of it – Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, etc. However I also hate a lot of things that came out of it – Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Let me explain. As a way of getting basic information and spreading knowledge, there’s nothing better than Wikipedia. If you’re clueless about something, reading about it on Wikipedia is the way to go, right? However, the problems arise when students start using it as an authoritative reference on subjects more complicated than high-school science. That’s when Wikipedia starts getting things wrong. Problem is, no expert in the field checks Wikipedia, and this often results in either outdated information staying on pages, or just plain incorrect information because a contributor misunderstood a source. Then there are the trolls... What about YouTube? It’s awesome for useful stuff, such as finding out how to open a gadget up to repair it, or even watching documentaries, or music videos for entertainment, etc. However, it’s also created an entire culture of attentionseeking babies who cannot live without an audience. The things people will do to get views is getting ridiculous. Do a Google search for the “DaddyoFive controversy” and you will see how some parents actually bullied their own child just to get views, and that’s not even remotely the worst thing people have done...
robert@digit.in
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“Social networking basically gave 2 billion people a microphone and said, “Here, have a shout!”, which I don’t think was a good idea for society in general.”
2 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Liked or hated this column? Let me know at: robert@digit.in | @raaabo facebook.com/raaabo
Contents MAY 2017
VOLUME 17 \ ISSUE 05
QUICK
NAVIGATOR
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01 ENTER 12 DGT Desire
Greed Temptation
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LIFE 24 DIGITAL Origins - Digital Payments Feature - Right to Connect
TECH 30 SCI Space Age
From the Labs
48 TOOLBOX Q&A Tips n Tricks
AND 57 TRIED TESTED
Bazaar Comparison Test
SMART 75 STREET Agent 001
Everything 34 Customise Nothing is perfect, including the tech that
SA
Killer Rigs Recommended Buys Price watch
106 TECH@WORK Careers - Information Security Industry Connect
110 ESC Unwind
Community
you deal with everyday. Every single piece of technology around you can be tweaked to suit your needs, to make it unique or get more out of it. We show you how to customise every aspect of your tech life.
TRIED & TESTED
4 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
58 HIFIMAN HE560
59 ASUS GL553VD
Beautifully crafted, openbacked, planar magnetic headphone
Gaming on a good budget
60 ZOTAC GTX 1080 TI AMP! EXTREME The highest clocks we’ve seen
ON THE DVD Samsung Galaxy S8 Unpacked Keynote Missed out on Samsung’s Unpacked event? We have included the entire keynote for you to watch all the features packed into the new Galaxy S8.
Video Game mod creation tools Autodesk Maya Blender Gmax K-3D MCreator
Popular Video Game Mods
We cover everything you’ll need to get started with modding your favourite games
4K Downloader AirDroid Atom Audials One Avira Free Antivirus BurnAware Free CCleaner CopyQ CyberGhost VPN FileZilla GIMP Nitro PDF Reader Notepad++ NVIDIA Graphics Drivers Origin Speccy TeamViewer UPlay WhatsApp for Desktop WPS Office ZoneAlarm Free Firewall
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97 World View
Brutal Doom 64 Counter Strike Classic Offensive Crusader Kings 2: A Game of Thrones Fallout 1.5: Ressurection Half-Rats: Parasomnia
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81 SKOAR! (Now inside Digit)
Essentials
Our pick of the best articles from around the world.
101 Devworx
> Code > Creativity > Community
30 Farewell Cassini
Bidding adieu to one of the most prolific spacecrafts as it enters its final mission.
106 Information Security
Constitution of Athens Economics On The Heavens Physics Poetics
Science of Mental Health Anxiety Dementia, delirium, and Alzheimer’s Depression and related disorders Drug abuse and drug addictions
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The field of cyber-security is booming with opportunities which you can take advantage of.
Aristotle Audiobooks
LINUX LITE 4.3 (64-BIT)
DVD
61 SONY XPERIA XZS Just short of great
GAME MODDING TOOLS
63 BOSE QUIETCOMFORT 35 Quaint, comfortable
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 5
May 2017 • Volume 17 • Issue 05 TO ADVERTISE Email: sales@digit.in
Bazaar
Sales Director: Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-9582262959
Managing Director Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh Publishing Director Vikas Gupta Editorial Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay Multimedia Co-ordinator Abhijit Dey
South: Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961 West: Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247 North: Mayank Sharma , Mobile: +91-8800661912 East: Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Mobile: +91-93318 29284
Oppo F3 Plus Sony Xperia XZs Moto G5 Gionee A1 Bose QC35 ASUS GL553VD iBall i360 GIGABYTE AORUS GTX 1080 Ti Extreme 11G
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Yangerlong Jamir
ADVERTISING INDEX Test Centre
Brand.............................................. Page No.
ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme Muve Acoustics Drive HiFiMan HE-560
Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco
Comparison Test - Gaming keyboards
Assistant Vikas Patil
Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S
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Gigabyte.................................... Inside front cover digit.in
Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
TP-Link WA-820RE
Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Manish Rajesh,
Asst. Technical Editor Mithun Mohandas
PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH
Corsair K63
Editor Soham Raninga
Assistant Editor Prasid Banerjee, Sameer Mitha
TP-Link.......................................Inside back cover
Corsair K70 RGB
Features Editor Adamya Sharma
Corsair K70 Lux RGB
Senior Sub Editor Karthek Iyer
Corsair K95 RGB Platinum
Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar Design
Sr. Art Director Anil VK
Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi
Kingston...................................................Back cover
Gamdias Ares 7 GKB3000 Gamdias Hermes Lite
Meghalaya................................................................. 3
Visualiser Baiju NV
Taitra............................................................................ 7
Peterson PJ & Manoj Kumar VP Photography
Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi
G.SKILL Ripjaws KM570 RGB G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 RGB
Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari
Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi,
Corsair STRAFE RGB
Gigabyte XK700
HyperX Alloy FPS
Razer BlackWidow Chroma V1
iBall - 1........................................................................ 9
Roccat Suora FX
SteelSeries Apex M800
Contributors
Writers Anusha Sinha, Soham Ganatra, Ronak Gupta,
iBall - 2..................................................................... 49
Prithvi Sudhan, Mehul Bhagwani, Varad Choudhari
GAMES REVIEWED THIS MONTH
India Antivirus.....................................................111
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Production and Logistics
Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay
Manager Logistics Vijay Menon
Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari
Brand
Brand Head Mitin Kumar
Asst Product Mgr Madhuri Goel
Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh Circulation Sales
Quantum.................................................................112
Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of the owners, M/s Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Pvt Ltd. Published at A-262, 2nd Floor, Defence colony, New Delhi-110024 and printed at International Print-O-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U..P.) INDIA. Editor : Kanak Ghosh.
Head - Circulation Samir Mehta
Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya,
Norbert Joseph
Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh Reader Services Team Leader Sudhir Patel Executives Poonam, Bhishm, Nilesh & Narendra +91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in Cover Design Peterson PJ
6 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
“We do not endorse or recommend any product or service advertised in the magazine. The advertisement’s in this magazine are for information purposes only. We do not, expressly or impliedly, warrant or assume any liability or responsibility for the quality, accuracy, completeness, legality, reliability, usefulness or claims of any product or service advertised in the magazine. Our readers are strongly advised to carry out their own independent assessment of the product or services advertised in the magazine.”
Disclaimer For every Digit contest, there will be only one winner, unless specified otherwise. In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall be final.
Lego Worlds Asura
Mass Effect Andromeda
Mobile Monthly Witty Ways Battle Text Acrosplat FFTan Bluk MouseBot Road Star Crash of Cars Defend the Planet
Contact us Tell us what you feel about Digit If you have an opinion about anything published in Digit, or about technology in general, write to editor@digit.in or call at +91-22-678 99 700. To interact with the authors of specific articles, please write to the email address specified under the author’s name Software on the DVDs To submit and suggest software or any other type of content, to be included in the Digit DVDs, write to dvd@digit.in or call +91-22-678 99 707 Q&A If you’re having trouble with your PC or a gadget, our experts can help solve your problems. Just write in to sos@digit.in. Remember to include full system configurations in your email.
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Help! For copy-related issues, delivery status or any other complaints regarding out service, write to help@digit.in or call +91-22-678 99 678
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Agent001 Our very own secret agent will give you the lowdown on what to buy, from where and for how much. Send in all your buying advice or questions to the coolest agent ever. Write to agent001@digit.in
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8 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
http://www.facebook.com/ IThinkGadgets Community of People who love mobiles, laptops, cameras & other gadgets http://www.facebook.com/ consumermate Expert buying advice and some awesome offers http://www.facebook.com/ devworx.in Community of software programmers who enjoy writing code and want to grow their career in software development
DGT
12
) I have been reading dmystify since
Feedback for the April 2017 issue of Digit
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the past year and a half and I would like to tell you that I have found it quite intriguing and informative. The things which I came to know from reading various other books were all present in your book, that too in a very simplified way which is very good. I hold off reading other books but I never miss dmystify. I am sorry I never mailed you earlier to praise dmystify but this month's dmystify on microscopic life lacked a chapter on viruses. Everything was discussed other than viruses. Unless, you're planning to bring out a dmystify entirely on the same. –Prakhar Vighnesh (Virus Lover)
The vehicle's 95kWh battery pack gives it a range of 310 miles. http://dgit.in/AudioEtron
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Enter
2019’s Audi e-tron
All the latest lifestyle technology, gadgets to drool over and gizmo porn like never before. Desire, Greed and Temptation ahead...
Indeed, we are contemplating a dmystify dedicated to virii, because they are complex and very, very different from everything else. We haven't set a date for it yet, though, because we plan these things much in advance, but let me see if it can be moved up to appear sometime this year. –Robert ) Hello Digit, I’ve been a bit sad – you
GPU comparison table was four pages. You people give attention to so much detail, that you can rate a smartphone game on ten, and even correct to a decimal place! (I've never seen decimal level rating on smartphone games). PS. The Tekken 7 poster was great! –Snehit Sah
Don't worry Snehit, SKOAR isn't dead. We have great plans for it. Stay tuned. But your plans for AI have scared us! Yes we do have detailed test processes and we test every minute detail. But Anusha, (who reviews mobile games) I suspect just likes decimals :-P –Siddharth
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guys kinda killed SKOAR!. The jewel in Digit’s mighty crown is now stuffed somewhere inside the main mag and to make us feel the difference between the main mag and SKOAR, you also degraded its quality. I’ll be very happy if SKOAR! rises back again from the ashes of the Phoenix! Lemme tell you that cover story on AI was great. I believe that AI will surely arrive soon, and probably do all the work for me (am I too greedy?). They’ll be the slave and I have a valid reason for making them slaves. They have intelligence. So, at some point of time, they will have a feeling, that they should be the one who is superior. This has been happening since forever in our human race. The AI race won’t be any different I guess. We’ll need to have control over them. The reviews you guys do and the comparisons are epic. I remember when you did a comparison of smartphone cameras, the table was two pages long, and the
Write to:
editor@digit.in
10 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
) Hey there! I've been wanting to write
to Digit since a long time now, so this one's going to be a bit lengthy. I had my board exams during the latter half of March, so I was expecting a lot from your March'17 issue, in order to take off the pressure during study time. But I was utterly disappointed. Almost nothing in the mag had my interest, except SKOAR and FastTrack. And after the exams ended, I was expecting even more from the April issue and boy, did you deliver. This time almost everything in the mag captured my interest – from
the cover story to dmystify. Overall it was one of the best issues I've laid my hands on. The April'17 issue saw the introduction of a different paper quality which is of inferior quality similar to cheap paper cum plastic pamphlets. So, I would like you to revert back to the previous one. As far as the Digit app is concerned, don't you think that handing out free Digit e-books would encourage piracy! As someone would surely put up a link (or upload it). And in no time we would see PDF versions of Digit, shamelessly stolen (Hey! I'm not the one btw). And why don't you include Mithun's column in the introductory pages? (with Sid and Robert). It may result in the formation of a new ''Trinity Brotherhood''. I also have some suggestions for the upcoming issues. How about a Cover Story on ''Becoming hack proof'' or ''The future of the PC Master Race’’? I would love to see a comparison of midrange GPUs. For SKOAR, how about covering Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil for the ''Phranchise'' section? I'm not sure whether it's done but a FastTrack on ''Building a PC’’ will be great? A dmystify on Nanotechnology is something I'm expecting from you. Also, you receive tonnes of games and gadgets. So, why don't you organise
SECTION
SUBSECTION
GREED
TEMPTATION
For those who just want more than should be humanly allowed, we have enough to satisfy your hunger...
If you’re wondering what to do with yourself or how to spend some time getting cultured, this section is for you...
THIS MONTH: Mini Cooper D, BMW X3, Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Shape, OSIM uCaress 3D, Hidesign RFID blocking wallet and more...
THIS MONTH: Expanse, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood and upcoming stuff to watch out for in May 2017 ...
DESIRE
SHOWCASE
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TECHNOLOGY WITH STYLE
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Solar-Powered Water Harvester
MindMaze VR Face Mask
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his sponge-like device is capable of sucking water out from water vapour in the air, even in low humidity conditions. It can produce about three litres of water a day for every sponge-like absorber it contains, and researchers say that it can only get more efficient in the future. In the past, researchers have been able to acquire water from the atmosphere but never like this. Previous methods needed either too much electricity or areas of very high humidity. The team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, led by Omar Yaghi, found a way to use crystalline powders called metal organic
frameworks, or MOFs. These MOFs’ properties can be altered by chemists, dictating which gases bound them and the strength of their bond. In 2014, they synthesised a MOF that was adept at absorbing water, even in low-humidity. After synthesizing the new MOF (dubbed MOF-801), Yaghi reached out to Evelyn
Wang from MIT and together they came up with the water-harvesting device. The device works by soaking up water vapour from the air at night, and using heat from the sun to condense the vapour to liquid during the day. This could be a huge breakthrough for places that suffer from drought.
Lego Mac
SHFT IQ
X-Wing Drone
Although it doesn’t run macOS, this tiny Lego Mac is made out of an e-ink display and a Raspberry Pi Zero. All it can do is display the time or images on the e-ink screen.
SHFT IQ is a virtual running coach that tracks and analyses your body and running style. This tiny pod is armed with an AI that can provide you with instructions in real time.
If you’re looking for drones that resemble spaceships from Star Wars, Oliver C is your man. The latest addition is the iconic X-Wing fighter; completely custom-built.
Aerix Nano FPV drone
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MindMaze has come up with a mask that’s capable of somewhat accurately reading your expressions. The mask consists of a ring of electrodes which you can install into the face foam of any VR headset. When you put the mask on, it detects which sensors your skin is touching, matching it to patterns of facial expressions. It’s not 100 percent accurate, but it helps read expressions when your face is otherwise hidden by a VR headset.
12 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
These nano drones feature a 5.8ghz video camera along with a 2-in-1 FPV standalone monitor and goggle set for some first-person-view drone racing action.
Movie trailer roundup
Feature
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Arnab Mukherjee arnab@digit.in
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e it due to demonetisation or sheer tech savviness, we’ve started using digital payments a lot more off late. Even offline payments – where you complete otherwise offline transactions via digital means – have picked up pace. If you were to visit the Digit test labs you’d hardly see any physical bills lying around. We have innovations on the payments front to thank for that. Overall, it is obvious that digital payments owe their popularity to their ease of use, constant availability, and better security in the present day scenario. But there’s more to that story than meets the eye.
24 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Cash killer
The barter system had existed for, well, as long as people needed stuff that other people had. Quite obviously, a time came in every market system where the people involved collectively realised that the mutual need required for barter was a hindrance to trade. In came the concept of money – something that everyone would be willing to accept in exchange. Explains why salt and cocoa beans were accepted as valid tender at one point of time. Over time, as technology progressed to a point where things were becoming faster, smaller and easier in every aspect of life, carrying around huge wads of cash to complete transactions became cumbersome. That is where technology stepped in and brought
humanity on the road to digital payments. Today, we see huge volumes of digital transactions. According to a BCG report, in 2016, the total value of digital transactions was roughly 411 trillion USD, which is roughly equivalent to every person on the planet ordering a vadapav every 90 seconds for the entire year. Kind of takes care of the hunger problem, doesn’t it?
Well Carded
The concept of using thin, plastic cards for payments at almost every store was probably unimaginable a hundred years ago. What wasn’t unimaginable was the idea of banks and stores extending credit to users by means of tokens and tags. One of the earliest implementations of this was the Charga
IMAGING: PETERSON PJ
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Digital life
Justice League, It, Spider-man and more. Which one is your favourite? http://dgit.in/weeklyTV
Are you being denied a basic human right in the name of regulation and security?
Microsoft Chromebook
From the labs
Sci-Tech
32
Reportedly, new Windows 10 Cloud OS to go against Google’s Chromebooks. http://dgit.in/Win10cloud
With artificial wombs a possibility, are we ready to play with the power of life?
FAREWELL CASSINI
Abhijit Dey abhijit@digit.in
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2004, they separated and Huygens landed on Titan on January 14, 2005. The Cassini-Huygens mission was a joint space mission between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. The mission, which is still ongoing, has a lot of achievements to its name that we will be talking about in detail. Out of the 62 moons of Saturn,
Humble beginnings
Launched back on October 15, 1997, the Cassini-Huygens mission was primarily deployed to study Saturn and its satellites. It consisted of two modules including Cassini, the Saturn orbiter, and Huygens, the moon lander for Saturn’s biggest moon Titan. Both the spacecraft entered Saturn’s orbit on July 1, 2004, and after a few months on December 25,
30 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech / Bob Brown
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ASA’s Cassini mission is nearing its end. The decade-old spacecraft is preparing for its final dive into Saturn. The unmanned spacecraft will carry out its ultimate mission of studying more about Saturn while analysing the gap between the planet’s upper atmosphere and the innermost ring. Plunging the spacecraft to its death was always being considered and as the spacecraft has almost depleted its fuel resources, the motivation to carry out the final study makes more sense now. Cassini will begin the final spiral towards the ringed-planet on April 22. By September 15, or in about four months from now, there won’t be much of the spacecraft left, as it will get shredded by Saturn’s harsh atmosphere.
Cassini in the space simulator
two particular moons have drawn the interest of astronomers and scientists – Titan and Enceladus.
Life on Titan in the future As already mentioned, the primary mission of the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe was to study Saturn up close and land on Titan. This landing marked the first ever successful mission of landing on a moon in the outer solar system. On touchdown, the surface of Saturn’s biggest moon was found to be an icy terrain with surface temperatures at a freezing minus 179 degrees Celsius. Titan consists of rivers, seas and lakes filled with liquid methane and ethane. Just like Earth’s water cycle, the moon also displays a similar weather pattern of rainfall. The same process of evaporation and condensation occurs. Among the methane seas on the moon, the second largest sea Ligeia Mare was determined to have a depth of 170 metres. This was the first time we were able to calculate the depth of a liquid body on
Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Chronicling the journey of the Cassini-Huygens mission across the outer solar system.
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sually our cover stories are filled with stuff that makes you think. We try and whet your appetite and encourage you to go out and find more information on your own. We kind of follow the philosophy: “Give someone bread and they will feed for a day, but teach them to farm and bake 34 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
TEAM DIGIT
feedback@digit.in and they will eat for a lifetime.” However, sometimes, people just want some bread, with no gyaan and no fuss. That’s this month’s cover story in a nutshell. No fuss, no nonsense, just plain and simple geek knowledge that will show you how to do some geeky stuff. Now enough with this intro, let’s get to the point straight away.
IMAGING: PETERSON PJ
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Cover story
Cover story
MASTER YOUR PC
In this section we’ve got tricks that will help you become a true PC geek – from Windows hacks to software that will geek up your PC, it’s all here
You can’t be a geek and actually like windows the way it is. You have to change it and improve it, don’t you? Here are 10 ways to do just that:
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ENABLE GOD MODE!
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GEEK TASK MANAGER
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CONTEXT MENU ADDONS
Dexpot (http://dgit.in/DexpotDe) used to be for people who wanted virtual desktops, but then Windows built it in. It still has a
Use Dexpot to control how various windows are arranged
MAKE EXPLORER GREAT AGAIN
Windows Explorer now opens to Quick Access which is good for n00bs, but us geeks just want to get straight to business. Just show us our files already Explorer! Open up a new Explorer Window, go to File > Change folder and search options. Change the Open File Explorer to option to This PC. If you’re concerned about your privacy, uncheck the two boxes titled: Show recently used files in Quick Access and Show frequently used folders in Quick Access. Now Quick Access will work like the old Favourites list.
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The task manager is boring and for noobs. Real geeks use Process Hacker (http://dgit.in/PrcsHckr). You get granular access to all processes, which are all color coded for easier analysis, and also better graphs to show resource usage. It also offers an easy search for process details, can replace the default task manager and of course, the icing on the cake is that it looks awesomely geeks, making you want to show it off to friends.
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SUPERSIZE YOUR CLIPBOARD
For power users, the Windows default copy function just doesn’t cut it (pun intended). With Ditto (http://dgit.in/DittoCBM) everything you copy to the clipboard (text, images, code, whatever) you can manage better or past selectively. Just use the hotkey ([Ctrl] + [`]) to get further control over what goes where.
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Name a folder “GodMode. {ED7BA470-8E54-465E825C-99712043E01C}” (without the double quotes) to make a one click solution for almost all of the settings available in Windows. Open the folder, and use the search bar to find a setting. You can rename the folder to whatever you want once it’s created.
couple of tricks up its sleeve though, and giving you more context menus is one of them. Just right click on the Dexpot icon in the system tray, go to Settings > Controls > Title Bars and choose the area in which you want the context menu to appear, which button triggers it and modifiers (if any), target (active window) and action (stay on top). It also has more features to fiddle with.
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WINDOWS HACKS
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TO SLEEP OR NOT TO
You’ve probably set your PC to its sleep settings after a lot of trial and error. Yet there are times you need to change that for a specific task, such as when downloading, or rendering, doing something important in the background, or just because you want it to stay awake. Get Caffeinated from http://dgit.in/Caffeintd and once installed you will get a coffee pot placed in your system tray. Want to keep your PC awake and bypass your power settings? Click the coffee pot and it will fill up. Want to return the PC to normal? Click the pot again and it empties of coffee. Simple.
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DISABLE ‘FEATURES’
Windows may be better, but it’s still filled with boatware. Here’s what you should turn off. 1. P2P Windows Update Sharing: Windows uses your PC to send windows update files to other computers on the internet. This reduces your upload speeds and could be costing you bandwidth. Go to Windows Settings > Update and Security > Advanced Options > Choose how updates are delivered and turn it off. 2. Disable the lock screen: You can’t disable this for when you boot into Windows, you can do it for wake ups from Sleep or manual Windows locks. Go to C:\Windows\ SystemApps and look for a folder named Microsoft.LockApp_ cw5n1h2txyewy. Just add a “.bak” to the end of the file name and voila! No more lock screen. 3. Remove Old Windows files: You’re not seriously going to go back to Windows 8 or 7 are you? If you upgraded to Windows 10, you will have the old OS files on your PC, and with SSDs, every GB comes at a premium. Run Disk Cleanup (search for it in your taskbar), hit ‘Clean up system files’ and wait for it to calculate. Locate “Previous Windows Installations” in that list and click okay. You might free up to 25 GB of space like this! www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 35
Tips & tricks
Toolbox
50
Get your hands on the Windows 10 Creator's update and its tricks, along with a manual on how to encrypt it all.
Radeon RX 500 series
AMD's new graphics cards launched in India at prices starting `7000. http://dgit.in/RX500new
DLL errors are here to haunt us again DLL panic
scriber of Kindle Unlimited. After downloading the Kindle app, as I'm trying to register myself it says they don't have any account with that email ID. I've tried with all of my email IDs but the result was same. I'm afraid if I try to register a new account I might lose all my books and my Kindle Unlimited subscription. Please help me get back my books and my subscription as well. Thanking you, – Chanchal Kumar Das.
recovery software that can recover from even volume corruption. But I want the hard drive to be recognised on my PC. How can I repair my HDD mechanically? Where can I take it to in Kolkata? I don’t want data recovery services, I want repairing. I can recover once it’s recognised by a PC. Please help. Regards. – Tirtha Chakraborty
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Hello Digit, Whenever I start my computer, I get the following in an error windows: “MSVCP100.DLL missing” This annoys me a lot. Because of this error, I’m not able to install the EyeLeo software and Mailbird. Please help me out. – Gaurav Kumar
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Broken HDDs can break our hearts, so can other gadget related problems that we explore this month.
Hello Chanchal, This is a really weird issue and none of us have ever come across this problem. Your email ID on Amazon India (Amazon.in) is the same for all their properties including their shopping website, Prime Video, Kindle store or Audible. So essentially, if you are able to log in onto any of these services with one particular ID, the same ID should be functional on all of them seamlessly. If you had registered for Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.com, then your email ID will be different. You need to verify which email is associated to account and then try logging in again. If nothing works out, then you should contact Amazon support before you register any new account. If you have everything in email – your Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription invoice – then you shouldn’t have any problem.
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Hey Gaurav, We all know the pain of dll file errors. There can be several reasons leading to the MSVCP100.DLL error. It could be a malware or virus, a Windows registry error or rarely a hardware failure. The best solution would be to run a virus scan and also a malware scan. Then you should download and install all the latest Windows updates. Perform a registry clean up and then reinstall the software you were trying to use. If the problem still persists then you should try a system restore if you have a restore point saved. Pro tip: it's always a great idea to have one saved. Otherwise you can insert your Windows installation DVD or USB drive and repair the system. If nothing works at all, we’re afraid that you’ll have to install a fresh copy of Windows.
Failed Kindle login
Sir, I'm a regular subscriber of Digit since a long time. I've a OnePlus One phone and I was going along with it nicely. Recently, the screen got locked accidentally and I couldn't open it and I had to format it with someone’s help. Since I had a Google backup I got back most of the data. My problem is I had downloaded several books from the Amazon Kindle store and I'm also a sub-
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Broken HDD Hi Digit, my HDD (Seagate st2000dm001) suddenly stopped working. It starts spinning, makes some reading noise (actuator moves the head back and forth) and stops spinning. I want to get it repaired so that I can recover its data, I have several data
Hi Tirtha, this is surely a mechanical problem but you should try using a different SATA power and cables and also different SATA ports to verify the problem. Repairing a hard drive can be quite expensive and we would recommend you to contact Seagate service centre for official support. There are four service centres in Kolkata that you can contact.
Android games with an Xbox 360 controller Hello guys, I have a Redmi Note 3 (3GB RAM, 32GB storage). I want to play games with my controller on my phone. I have an Xbox 360 wireless controller, wireless receiver, and an OTG cable. But it is not working. I have watched many YouTube videos where they are playing games with the controller. Please help me. You are my last hope. – Gagnesh Seth
INSIDE
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THE LATEST PRODUCTS REVIEWED FOR YOU
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Bazaar
Page 58 HIFIMAN HE560
The Digit Test Centre receives hundreds of products every month. Each of these products is put through a series of tests and is finally given a score. The final score is arrived at after considering a number of factors and evaluating them in terms of features, performance, value for money, build quality, and, in the case of software, even ease of use.
Page 60 ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme
Page 59 ASUS GL553VD Page 61 Sony Xperia XZs
For better understanding of our ratings, here’s a quick guide to our overall score to
30
Extremely poor product.
Keep away!
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31
to
50
Strictly OK.
51
to
70
Decent product.
71
to
90
91
to 100
Not recommended
Page 63 Bose QuietComfort 35 Page 65 Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+
Go for it, but there may be better products out there.
Very good product.
Highly recommended.
Ground-breaking product. We’ve never seen anything like it before. A definite must buy!
PLUS 58 | iBall CompBook i360 60 | Moto G5 62 | GIGABYTE AORUS GTX 1080 Ti 11G 62 | Oppo F3 Plus 63 | MuveAcoustics Drive 64 | TP-Link WA-820RE Wi-Fi Range Extender 64 | Gionee A1
& MORE...
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 57
Build a Lego Macintosh
Bugs VS maple
Programmer Jannis Hermanns builds himself a Lego Macintosh Classic that works and he wants you to build one too! http://dgit.in/legoMAC
Bazaar
iBall CompBook i360
HIFIMAN HE560 A rare pleasure
Price41 61,9
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he HIFIMAN HE560 is a beautifully crafted, openbacked, planar magnetic headphone, designed for reference use. Unlike regular dynamic drivers wherein the diaphragm is pushed by the moving coil behind it, planar magnetic diaphragms are encased within opposing magnets and the entire wafer thin diaphragm itself is electrically charged with conductive material to make it move. This makes them durable (less movement), more sensitive, and – to apply a display tech term – their refresh rate is very fast. This makes planar magnetics super accurate and more responsive. The HE560s are very easy on the eyes. The wood finish ear cups, the smooth metal frame and pleather
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Beast of a battery but needs more performance
Scientists in Canada are experimenting with a molecule found in maple syrup, and they’re getting positive results. http://dgit.in/MapleBug
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Price99 12,9
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ith this device, iBall is trying to raise the bar by offering a convertible option at such an affordable price point. Its screen rotates all the way transforming the laptop into a 11.6-inch touchscreen tablet. It’s a decent device with a few minor annoyances. For
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instance you have to manually kill the keyboard using a switch before flipping to tablet mode. This should’ve been automatic. Moving on to ergonomics and performance, the keyboard is not very comfortable to type on because of its proximity to the touchpad. Accidental touches were common. There’s no ethernet port, which is normal for laptops in this segment. However, we would have appreciated an ethernet-to-USB adapter with the laptop. The iBall i360 runs on an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 SoC which scored 1285, 1384, and 1142 respectively on the PCMark Home accelerated, Creative accelerated and Work accelerated benchmarks – adequate for a device such as the i360 which should ideally be used primarily for light tasks like browsing and Office. If you’re looking for a economical laptop just for basic needs you might have other options, but if it’s a budget 2-in-1 you want and you just need to have that touch interface, then the iBall isn’t too bad.
Performance.............................57 Features.....................................55 Value...........................................90 Design:........................................55
Specifications
Processor: Intel Atom Processor Z8300 @ 1.84 GHz; Display: 11.6inch capacitive touch; Resolution: 1366x768; Storage: 32GB In-built, expandable up to 64GB via microSD; Ram: 2 GB DDR3 RAM; Battery: 10,000 mAh LiPolymer battery; Weight: 1.35 kg; Dimensions: 29.7 x 20.2 x 1.7 cm
Contact
iBall India Phone: 022 - 30815100 Email: NA Website: www.iball.co.in
58 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Manish Rajesh
90 Performance............................92 Features................................... 80 Build & Design.........................78 Value..........................................70
Specifications
Frequency Response: 15Hz50KHz; Sensitivity: 90dB; Impedance: 45 Ohms; Weight: 375g; Cable Length: 2m; Plug: 6.35mm; Style: Open Back; Driver Type: Planar Magnetic
Contact
ProAudioHome Phone: (022) 65611833 Website: proaudiohome.com
headband give them a sophisticated look. Though I wish HIFIMAN had paid a little more attention towards the finishing and build. The cushioned earpads are very comfortable while the headband provides adequate support. The clamping pressure is a little on the tighter side but not uncomfortable. The HIFIMAN HE560 is a delightfully detailed aural experience. Apart from the regular test tracks, I wanted to literally put every piece of music I owned through these cans just to see what new detail I will be able to discover, or what little previously missed nuance would rise to the surface. The 24bit/96kHz fully uncompressed nuforce test samples I’ve had with me for the past five years never sounded this good. I don’t want to gush but the dynamic range on the HE560 is phenomenal. Their sound signature is very close to neutral with supremely tight bass. If you can afford them, and if you have a sufficiently high end source to pair them with, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t go for them. Siddharth Parwatay
Offline mode for Instagram
Tesla bigger than Ford
According to stock valuation, Tesla now stands at $47.8 billion and is bigger than Ford motors. http://dgit.in/TeslaFord
the next subsection, we’ve tried to declutter all the jargon and focus on the most essential ones. Given the absence of highquality equipment necessary to evaluate keyboards objectively, the comparison test is more focused on the features and build quality. The performance of the keyboard was given more of a subjective assessment. For a detailed description about the testing process, you can refer to the “How we tested” section.
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abhijit@digit.in
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ur previous comparison test of gaming peripherals in the Jan 2017 issue took care of the mouse. The comparison explored gaming mice under `6k, giving us a more detailed perspective on the performance that can be achieved at different prices. We were able to provide an objective as well as a subjective verdict on the various mice that were considered. This time, we are trying to achieve the same with gaming keyboards. Upon hearing about gaming keyboards, it usually sounds like marketing drivel, but in
WHAT IS A GAMING KEYBOARD?
Let’s be clear on one thing. You can play games on a generic keyboard, and it
66 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
doesn’t matter whether manufacturers call it a gaming keyboard or not. However, keyboards christened with the ‘gaming’ tag do offer additional features that you won’t find on a generic keyboard. Features such as extra keys for macros, N-key rollover, anti-ghosting, Windows key lock, backlighting, extra textured/coloured keycaps, programmable keys using software, etc., will give gamers an extra edge in competitive and productive scenarios. Before we talk about all these features, let’s begin with switch types. Certainly, it boils down to personal preference at the end while picking switch types. How-
ever, there’s no debate on the durability of mechanical keyboards. They will last you longer than membrane and even the recent hybrid solutions. Catering to subjective preferences of gamers, mechanical switches are available in different flavours or “feel”. The most basic variants include tactile, clicky, and linear, while differing in actuation points, actuation force and travel distance (Agent 001 had already covered the technicalities of these keyboards previously in the Feb 2017 issue, make sure you give it a read). Cherry is the most popular manufacturer of durable mechanical switches
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Abhijit Dey
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Keyboards
During the F8 developers conference, Facebook confirmed that Instagram for Android would now work offline. http://dgit.in/offlineInsta
Column
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mithun@digit.in
You could blame Apple for coming up with this proprietary nonsense but the truth is that it has existed long before Steve Jobs pulled his disruptive miracle. Printer inks have been riding the whole proprietary ink cartridge business model for ages. And I get that, printers are complex machines and you don’t have a choice. You can use refilled cartridges but printer manufacturers have built in kill switches and even failsafe kill switches to ensure you stick to the original stuff. I’d say even the stone age man sold an obsidian knife to his fellow man and later sold him a handle for a premium so that he didn’t cut his own hand. Coming back to Juicero, let’s take a look at the kind of mumbo jumbo they’re spinning around the product. Firstly, they’re calling it the the first of its kind. No falsehood over there, it truly is the epitome of redundancy. It’s USP lies in the fact that 1. It can be remotely disabled should it detect a product recall for a batch of juice packs. 2. “Consistent pressing calibrated by flavour to deliver the best combination of taste and nutrition”. 3. A very tight supply chain so that farm-to-table time is minimal. Points 1 and 3 are valid but point 2 is just a huge pile of steaming crap. So if all you need to sell a product is to ride a trend and spew bullshit then …
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Mithun Mohandas Asst. Technical Editor
ew age poppycock sells. Doesn’t matter how asinine a product, service or even idea in its conceptual stage be, lathering on a generous amount of marketing bullshit will help you sell the product. Heck, if you’re good at it and happen to be cashing in on a trend, then venture capitalists will throw a cool $120 million at you. Yes, this is Juicero I’m talking about. A startup that sells juice, except it sells it in a proprietary pack which needs a proprietary machine to squeeze the juice out of the pack. Classic case of baiting the hipsters. In a way, I don’t mind hipsters being targeted for such products. For all I care, they deserve to be taken for a ride. Juicero is a machine, a $400 machine, if you buy it now (used to be $700). And if you happen to be a business, then it’s $1200. It’s like a vertical chappati maker, except you don’t have to physically apply force. It does that on your behalf, with 4 tonnes of pressure. Apparently, that’s enough to lift two Tesla automobiles and enough to squeeze every nutrient droplet out of their proprietary juice pack. Venture capitalists were impressed with the whole proprietary aspect of the product, you need to buy an expensive squeezer to get eight ounces or 237 ml of juice, and the juice pack costs anywhere between $5-$8. Coldpressing has been marketed as being really good for you but the truth is that nobody has ever proven that it is indeed better than the age old method of using a mechanical juicer. So people are paying an insane amount of money for complete poppycock.
“You could blame Apple for coming up with this proprietary nonsense but the truth is that it has existed long before Steve Jobs pulled his disruptive miracle”
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Let me know your thoughts on this column at: @mithun_mohandas
INTRODUCING THE ST1CK A dramatic revisioning of the most important tool mankind has ever known. We’ve taken humanity’s humble gift and made an all new advanced system that is multi-dimensional, multi-utilitarian and multi-layered. All this technology has been synergized to fit an all too familiar form factor. Built using only the finest tree-core sourced from Indian Jambul trees which are grown utilizing sustainable deforestation. We employ child-slave workers strictly below the age of 6 and each St1ck is polished using their sweat and tears. Which in turn, is obtained by beating them with said St1ck. Thus, each St1ck is hand-made, giving it a personal beating touch. As a means to rejuvenating the lost Indian art of Gilli-Danda, we’ve designed the St1ck to provide maximum whack-force. Each St1ck is certified to contain at least 42% Cross-linked Phenolic Lignin providing them the durability to withstand over 9000 blunt-force whacks. Each St1ck has been designed to expedite social interactions through the simple act of Poking making it a multi-racial, multi-platform communication device. And should you feel things getting out of hand, then the St1ck doubles up as a conversation ender as well, all you need is a simple whack ... or two.
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A unique stick for all shticks
Now on sale for just
$499
(Pre-launch introductory price)
Killer Rigs
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The very best products you can buy right now spanning across popular tech categories.
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EENY, MEENY, MINY, VPN
Recommended buys
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Street smart
The optimal configurations you can get for your money for various PC builds spanning across all usage levels.
The Internet is a scary place and we all want the security of a VPN. But how do we pick the best one? Agent 001
agent001@digit.in
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VPN is the veritable jack of all trades when it comes to ensuring your privacy on the big bad internet. With the ability to not only safeguard your privacy and provide you with a level of security, VPNs are also useful in many other ways. Such as allowing you access to geo-restricted content and sometimes even routing your internet connection through a faster set of hubs getting you better connectivity to certain portions of the internet. With the recent FCC rulings in the US, a lot of our private information is about to be accessible to ISPs so that they can sell it off to advertisers. And just because the ruling happened in the US, doesn’t mean that we’re safe here in India. The internet operates in mysterious ways and US laws are very ambiguous to begin with. If at all, at any point during the transmission of data packets from
your browser enters the geographical boundary of the USA, it falls under US laws and you can bet your ass that whatever ISP is carrying that data within the US will take a peek. And if the website you’re visiting happens to serve ads using a platform that’s also US based, then there’s a good possibility that your browsing habits will be sold by said US ISP to the ad platform. So what should you do? Well, the first step would be to contemplate if you even care about your privacy. If at the end of your contemplation, your answer to the question happens to be ‘f##k it’. Then by all means, go about your life and don’t even bother. However, VPNs are still important for other reasons, if not for your privacy. So should you change your mind sometime in the future, here’s what you should know about them.
Do they keep logs?
If at any point, data regarding which websites you’re visiting or which IP
you were assigned and which IP you used to connect to an end-point are stored, then you’re in trouble. It’s as good as not using a VPN since whatever privacy you stood to gain from a VPN was rendered useless because of these logs. Extremely popular VPNs like Hola! VPN, Unlocator and even the built in VPN in Opera browser keep traffic logs. In fact, the VPN service used within Opera logs everything, from your traffic, bandwidth, DNS requests, timestamps and even IP addresses. There’s zero privacy should any governmental entity ask Opera to reveal your data. On the other hand, IVPN, NordVPN and BolehVPN keep no logs at all (at the time of writing this). I doubt if you’ve ever heard of any of these services.
Encryption used?
Not keeping logs is a great facet of a VPN only if coupled with good encryption. Poor encryption would ensure that anyone can use a simple man in the www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 75
OUR PICK OF THE BEST TECH ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE
(MUST READS)
[The Atlantic Corner]
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HOW ARISTOTLE CREATED THE COMPUTER
ECHOES OF A BLACK HOLE
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Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies’ researcher Sabine Hossenfelder talks about the recent discovery of ripples in space-time and how it can herald the demise of Einstein’s general relativity.
http://dgit.in/BhEchos
THE MERCURY EFFECT
Facebook hosted a murder. But for all the talk about content moderation, machine learning, and flag-monitoring algorithms, the problem isn’t the platform, it’s the people.
http://dgit.in/MercuryE
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Today, Charles Babbage is considered to be the Father of Computers for his inventions and concept of analytical engines during the 19th century. But 2000 years ago, it was Aristotle and the philosophers he influenced that set the stage for the technological revolution that remade our world. http://dgit.in/AristotlePC
FIGHT OVER CYLANCE
Last November, a systems engineer at a large company was evaluating security software products when he discovered something suspicious.
http://dgit.in/Cylance1
THE VENERA-D PROJECT
NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute (IKI) are teaming up on the most ambitious space mission ever. The Venera-D project aims to send an orbiter, lander and possibly even an airship to Venus by 2026.
http://dgit.in/venusRnA
Bacteria are getting stronger Scientists have been experimenting with superbugs for quite some time now. These tiny bodies, upon returning to earth from space were found harder to kill. Similarly, thanks to air pollution, disease-causing bacteria are showing greater resistance to antibiotics.
Bidding farewell to a space robot Few weeks ago NASA released a short animation showing how their beloved probe will meet its end. The Cassini probe will soon plunge into Saturn, ending its 13-year long mission to the ringed planet and triggering a wave of grief among scientists, engineers, and an adoring public.
Hide your online tracks Browsing histories are impossible to hide, well at least from your Internet Service Provider or the government. But what if someone told you that you can pollute your browsing history with fake traffic using an algorithm to make it harder for ISPs to spy on you? Find out more here:
http://dgit.in/BacteriaG
http://dgit.in/Cassini1
http://dgit.in/hideTrack
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> code / creativity / community > Facebook launched AR development platform at F8 http://dgit.in/FBARF8
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Free HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt
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>>Secure your domain and all data transactions with free HTTPS SSL certificates, courtesy of Let’s Encrypt> by Mithun Mohandas
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ncryption has become a hot topic of discussion these days. Governmental agencies and hackers hate it, and technology evangelists recommend it. Security is absolutely important, no matter which aspect of your online presence is being discussed. On the web, you have multiple forms of encryption and that too, present at different stages. You should be familiar with the HTTPS lock symbol which pops up right at the beginning of the address bar when you visit popular websites like Google, Facebook, Github, etc. It’s now mandatory for implementing certain services or modules which involves transmission of personally identifiable information. There will be no online payment page without HTTPS, no gateway’s API will even allow you to perform a transaction if that page isn’t secured with TLS/SSL.
Many industry titans have started encouraging the use of TLS as well. Let’s say you’ve decided to build your own website, if you have any page that needs a user to submit personal information or even sign into a page, then it’s better to have that page secured with an SSL certificate. Or better yet, your entire site. Google started giving websites with HTTPS a little boost in their search rankings back in 2014. They’d stated that they’ll promote HTTPS further to encourage website owners to shift from HTTP to HTTPS. So if all you need to do in order to get a little bit of Google-search-love is implement HTTPS then you can turn to one of the many Certificate Authorities (CA) which issue HTTPS certificates. There are several types of SSL certificates and they’re classified either by Validation Level or by Secured Domains. Let’s
*Coding Matters
*Facebook Relay
>> New version of Relay JavaScript framework improves Facebook performance on mobile.
http://dgit.in/FBRelay
*Microsoft Cognitive Services APIs released
Stack Overflow trends
>> Face, Computer Vision and Content Moderator APIs available.
>> This blog post from Stack Overflow shows programming trends from Stack Overflow usage.
http://dgit.in/MSftAPIs
http://dgit.in/StkOvrFlw
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Industry Connect
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The American telecom’s new Android smartwatch will be available for $349.99. http://dgit.in/Wear24V
Arnab Mukherjee arnab@digit.in
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in an already ‘overcrowded’ market. Are we getting it right so far? Take a look at last year’s attacks, which ranged from the Dyn DDoS attack that brought down half the internet or the multiple data breaches announced by Yahoo. But like many others last year and the years before them, all of these are routine far off events that haven’t really boiled down to actual consequences in your life, right? Unless….
nformation security is not a new topic – it is something that companies and individuals alike have been well aware of for ages. Be it the fight against viruses or ransomware, the threats and the defences have evolved side-by-side. What hasn’t changed is the steadily growing need for security. It wouldn’t be your fault if you assumed that there isn’t any exceptional need for security professionals in the industry right now. Everything is hunky-dory and nobody is going to need even more people to keep their data (and assets) safe. So people might as well leave everything to the firewalls, VPNs and anitiviruses of the world, and you most certainly don’t want to be another information security analyst
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It’s happening – now and here
In October 2016, Indian banks suffered their worst data breach yet when almost 3.2 million debit cards were compromised. Quite a few major banks like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI, ICICI and Yes Bank were some of the worst affected. The effect was industry wide because of the target chosen by the attackers - the interoper-
able payment system. Banks operate their ATM and payment networks in such a way that any network bank’s cards will work with any bank’s machine. Hence, when Yes Bank’s ATM network was compromised due to a malware injection into the payment gateway of Hitachi network systems, the effect gradually spread to multiple banks and their account holders. Interestingly, the breaches happened somewhere between May and July, yet it was not until two months later in September that it was even identified. Hitachi wasn’t even able to identify the amount of data breached. And that’s a banking network. Many of you might have heard of the Cloudflare data breach – infamously titled Cloudbleed due to the data leaking behaviour in the breach. Quite a few popular websites, even India based, were using Cloudflare as their
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Tech@Work
Wear24 by Verizon
We catch up with AMDs David Bennet to learn more about their new Ryzen lineup of CPUs
Blackberry wins $815M
Qualcomm lost an arbitration battle against Blackberry and must pay $814 million. http://dgit.in/Qualberry
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App for medical doctors
Figure 1 is a new photo and knowledge sharing app for medical professionals, with peer-to-peer sponsored content. http://dgit.in/drFigure1
Customisation - Wins or Fails?
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Everything is customizable these days. Some people come up with the most amazing customizations, and then there’s this lot…
Thomas the tank en-dragon?!
For your nose picking urges
What was the first thing that popped into your mind when you saw these? Was it “why would you want your car to have headlight lashes?” or “Wow! Those look pretty!”? The former right? There’s absolutely no point to them. And it’s definitely not going to make your car feel any prettier. If you thought the latter... erm, we don’t judge?
Thomas the dragon (formerly tank engine) has become something of a symbol when it comes to modding and Skyrim. Sure it doesn’t make any sense and isn’t immersive or lorefriendly at all, but it’s still pretty darn funny. Watch as he aggressively choo-choos and breathes steam in this incongruous setting!
This smartphone case comes with a nose on it. No, it’s not because it comes with an app that can actually smell stuff. The only purpose of this case is for you to pick it (up). Get it? ‘Pick it’ up? Yep, it’s a smartphone case based on nose-picking. Be honest, did you ever think you’d see the day?
SA
Car lashes
Still better than a Mac
Who needs cabinet fans
The Galaxy Note 7 in GTA V
This is the latest product from Apple’s labs and boasts better functionality than the best PCs in the market! Also it’s red, just like the recent iPhone Red. Which means it’s obviously more superior to its non-red brethren. It’s really that good, trust us. We’ve reviewed it ourselves.
Overheating is an issue a lot of us face, especially around this time. Why waste money on tiny cabinet fans when you can get the job done with one much bigger fan. Strap on this bad boy and you’re good to go. You risk losing some small parts but you can probably replace them with the money you made from not buying fans.
Ah, the GTA V exploding Note 7 mod. Because flinging explosive Note 7s at people is pretty funny. But, for obvious reasons, Samsung did not find it funny. So they did the “sensible” thing and tried to have videos featuring the mod taken off of YouTube citing copyright. Lol.
110 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
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