Digit November 2016 by 9.9 Media

The Static Page

Samsung please take Note accused of pulling some underhanded stunts like getting a DMCA takedown notice against a YouTube video showing footage of the above GTA 5 mod I mentioned. As you might expect, it didn’t help. The video still got shared on other platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, and currently there are dozens of other videos of the same Mod on YouTube. The most more important outcome of this debacle is that it will certainly dissuade early adopters. In the tech space we all know how important those early adopters are. These are the guys who pre-order before reviews are out, they are the ones who pitch tents, waiting in serpentine lines outside stores on the day of the launch, and most importantly, they are the brand’s biggest unofficial promoters. With the Note 7 blunder, I expect consumers to be more careful now. I certainly will be. What’s ironic is that my current personal phone is the Galaxy S6 Edge and the basic outline for this editorial was written on the device! There have been many fiascos (and recalls) before – from lead tainted jewelry to food and even entire cars. Even in the smartphones space the last one that comes to mind was Apple and #bendgate. Funnily enough, with the launch of the iPhone 7, I doubt any of the fanboys really waited to see if the new phones bend or not. They just assumed Apple would’ve fixed the problem and placed their orders anyway. Of course, it’s one thing for a phone to bend and quite another for it to explode… and then one exploded in Australia, and is being investigated as I write this. If a few more do the same, Apple is going to have a Samsung-like crisis, and they don’t have other models to fall back on. At least we can expect batteries to undergo a ridiculous amount of testing from here on, and much wariness in the entire phone segment. What do you think? Will Samsung recover? What should it do to build back consumer trust? Waiting to hear your thoughts.

Siddharth Parwatay Managing Editor

M PL

or the past month or so Samsung has courted an insane amount of controversy and ridicule over its Galaxy Note 7 devices. From what started off as a few isolated incidents of the device spontaneously catching fire in September, it has now led to one of the biggest product recalls in history. Samsung has reportedly recalled 2.5 million Note 7 devices and halfway through October there was news of not just production for Note 7 being halted but Samsung killing the entire “Note” brand. The interwebs of course had a great time poking fun at Samsung. There were memes, jokes and even a GTA 5 mod which replaced sticky grenades with the Note 7. The whole thing reached fever pitch when even the replacement devices started catching fire! But the final nail in Samsung’s coffin of despair came when the American FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) made it a federal crime to fly with one of these ticking time bombs. Jokes and fun aside, the most troubling bit about this whole fiasco is that Samsung still doesn’t know why its devices are burning up in the first place. Only an investigation can reveal what the exact cause is. But what if the explosions are just a symptom of the underlying affliction? And the affliction is the boundaries of technology being pushed beyond the envelope of safety. Why would the industry be doing that? Breakneck competition and the need to put out a product into the market as quickly as possible for one thing. Also, the lack of innovation and rut plaguing the industry (which Jayesh talks about in his column) is probably making brands flout testing norms that are in place for good reason. While it is essential to innovate, I think any tech giant – perhaps with the exception of SpaceX – must remember that it is one explosion away from collapse. The reasons aside, what most people are unanimously in agreement with is that fact that Samsung should have handled the recall and public relations better. We all mess up. Glob knows I have... many times, in fact. In such situations, it’s best to admit one’s mistake, take steps to rectify it and most importantly not repeat it. In many of these aspects Samsung failed miserably. Its apology came a little too late and about not repeating the mistake, well, we know what happened to the replacement devices. Samsung’s also been

siddharth.parwatay@digit.in

“The most troubling bit about this whole fiasco is that Samsung still doesn’t know for sure why its devices are burning up in the first place.”

Let me know at: facebook.com/staticsid | @staticsid | editor@digit.in

www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 1

Big Bytes

The smartphone party is officially over

following a 2-year smartphone refresh cycle since 2010, and the most I’ve ever spent on a smartphone is `25,000 – just last year. Back in the early 2000s, up until the launch of the first iPhone, at least phones used to look different – remember the iconic designs of Nokia nGage, Motorola Flip and others? The Blackberrys, Sony Ericssons, even Samsungs of the world looked and felt different, giving buyers a strong reason to go for this phone or that, or change frequently. But now with the advent of touchscreens, there’s so little to separate one candybar-shaped device from another. Smartphones aren’t only faced with lack of serious or meaningful innovation that consumers could relate to, but OEMs of budget to mid-ranged smartphones sporting 4 to 4.5-inch screens are looking at up to 50-percent increase in prices of LCD panels for at least the next six months, according to a troubling report by TrendForce. A rise in the price of a critical component would force OEMs to jack up prices, but they’ll not do it anticipating consumer backlash (especially in the budget segment), which means reduced profit margin. Double whammy! The smartphone industry needs to rescue itself from this crisis of innovation. The only thing that’s of any real value to consumers is the promise of phone-based VR implementations seen in the likes of Google’s Daydream or Samsung Gear VR. Or something like Microsoft Continuum for Windows phones, allowing you to connect a smartphone to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard to transform it into a PC. But everything else on the smartphone innovation front seems evolutionary, incremental changes; nothing’s revolutionary or a true breakthrough to capture people’s imaginations and urge them to refresh their handsets on an annual basis. What do you look for in a smartphone before purchasing it? How long do you wait before you replace your phone? What would be the next big smartphone breakthrough? Let me know your thoughts.

M PL

o, I’m not just talking about the curious case of the exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 here – although it did create quite a boom (pun intended) internationally, not so much in India. It is emblematic of the mood that’s gripping the smartphone market at large, ironic as it may seem. Nine years of record-breaking year-on-year growth, after Steve Jobs flagged off The Great Smartphone Race back in 2007, the smartphone juggernaut is running out of steam. Smartphone sales growth all over the world is slowing down, and in some markets it’s declining outright. Various reports from industry watchdogs like IDC and Gartner are predicting lowest percentage growth in annual smartphone sales in close to a decade. The Western market (US and Europe) is well and truly saturated, while emerging markets (China and India) are signalling the end of the boom. Next year is going to be more of the same, all the way till 2020. This is unprecedented. Having observed smartphone trends closely both in a personal capacity (since 2001) and in professional life as a tech analyst (since 2008), I can see why the party’s finally over and it’s time to sober up. IDC claims that consumers are increasingly happy with their smartphone purchases over the past six to twelve months, which means fewer people are buying or upgrading them as frequently as they used to. Consumers have slowly realized that their annual smartphone refresh cycles didn’t get them noticeably faster processors; instead they got less flashier screens and half-baked tech that had no realworld use. They’ve learnt to wait, save money, even skip a generation to buy something that felt more like an upgrade – both in terms of looks and performance. I know I have. We at Digit are spoilt for choice, getting to test and use any smartphone our hearts desired, but if I had to be honest with you I seriously don’t see the point of investing in high-end flagship smartphones anymore. Not only are they extremely expensive, what differentiates them from the rest of the pack in terms of design and features is becoming less clear cut with each passing year. I, for instance, am

Jayesh Shinde Technical Editor – Test Centre jayesh.shinde@digit.in

“IDC claims that consumers are increasingly happy with their smartphone purchases over the past six to twelve months, which means fewer people are buying or upgrading them as frequently as they used to."

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: facebook.com/jayesh. shinde | @jshinde | jayesh@digit.in

2 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

U O YE THE NEXT

D I C E D

R A E Y E H T F O E M A G

ategories c s u io r a v et om ite game fr y winners will each g r u o v a f R U k c YO and chooser your efforts! Few luom SKOAR’s vaults. w lo e b k n li s fr ey s fo to our surv wer you with reward ndful of classic game r e v o n o d o a Hea We shall sh t AAA titles Plus a h . d e t heard! s li e e ic s ’v o e v t we r la u e o h Make y some of t y. short surve e h t e k a t o t link below Follow the /GotY2016

http://dgi

t.in

Contents NOVEMBER 2016

VOLUME 16 \ ISSUE 11

QUICK

NAVIGATOR

001 ENTER 014 DGT Desire

Greed Temptation

M PL

LIFE 030 DIGITAL Geek Life Origins

TECH 046 SCI Tomorrow’s Tech Space Age

051 DEVWORX 055 WORLDVIEW 060 TOOLBOX Workshop Q&A Tips and Tricks

AND 074 TRIED TESTED

Bazaar Comparison Test

SMART 090 STREET Agent 001

vs Pak : The final showdown 42 Ind Going by the current situation, we take stock

Killer Rigs Top 3

of what happens when we go to war with our neighbour.

098 TECH@WORK Industry Connect 131 ESC Unwind

The complete guide to surviving a nuclear attack

In the worst outcome, this is how to survive

TRIED & TESTED

4 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

75 IPHONE 7 PLUS

76 IDEAPAD Y700

Apple’s latest flagship is the ace of smartphones right now

76 ROG GT51CA

Performance with style but bulky

The gaming desktop from ASUS packs some serious heat

ON THE DVD Made By Google

As every major developer focuses on Multiplayer, are Single Player games done for?

FILL SCREEN FILL SCREEN WITH IMAGE WITH IMAGE DOWNLOAD DOWNLOAD BLIPPAR BLIPPAR

BLIPP...BLIPP...

FILL SCREEN IMAGE JUMPS IMAGE JUMPS WITH IMAGE TO LIFE! TO LIFE!

BLIPP...

IMAGE JUMPS TO LIFE!

DOWNLOAD BLIPPAR

Step 1

Step 2

Download the Blippar app

Linux Distro

Play around with the latest distro from Fedora and an updated version of Raspberry Pi’s own OS, Raspian. Fedora 24 Workstation Raspian

Best of Digit

We shoot several videos across various products and categories, and we’ve decided to include five of the best every month. In conversation with Sony A quick look at the Hero Optima DX First Impressions: Google Pixel X and XL First Look: Moto Z and Moto Z Play In conversation with MSI

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MAKE THIS ISSUE OF DIGIT COME ALIVE

103 SKOAR! (Now inside Digit)

Catch the entire keynote from the #MadeByGoogle event where the company released several products. Pixel X Pixel XL Google Home Chromecast 4K (with support for 4K and HDR) Daydream VR Google Wifi

MediaMonkey NVIDIA Drivers Pidgin Process Explorer SHAREit Slimjet Speccy TeamViewer VirtualBox XnView

Step 3

Keep an eye out for Blip the image and get access the Blippar icon next to video reviews, interactive to some images games, and much more!

46 Tensor

Processing Units TPUs may hold the future of machine learning

84 Dual camera

smartphones

Ableton Live Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Advanced IP Scanner AMD Catalyst Drivers Atom Audacity Avast Antivirus Core Temp FrostWire HiJackThis K-Lite Codec Pack Malwarebytes

Games

Astroflux Bloody Walls Crush Online Hunger Dungeon Riding Club Championships Zombie Defense

A shootout between some of the best dual camera smartphones in the market

Essentials

GOOGLE EVENT KEYNOTE BEST OF DIGIT

DVD

FEDORA 24 WORKSTATION

78 ZOWIE FK1+

79 NIKON D500

For serious gamers, riddled by expensive local pricing

This one from Nikon is the king of APS-C sensor DSLRs

www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 5

The RSS Feed

You will pay for that food restaurants as well, while the fast food joints (i.e., social networks) thrive. Publishers who want to talk about inconvenient truths and not pander to your egos by giving you the content you should know about, but might not like... they’re the ones dying out. In June this year Facebook announced that it would give more preference to posts from friends and family and less to publishers, and all hell broke loose, with some publishers hailing it as the Facebook-olypse. Nothing major happened, but publishers were quaking in their boots for a few weeks at least. This is how much power we have given Facebook, and it’s probably not the wisest thing to do. Of course, I’m preaching to the choir here, because as geeks who are paying for content, you are already aware of the pitfalls of allowing yourself to be lulled into depending solely on the “free” content out there. It’s important to support the publishers you like by subscribing to their paid services – in our case it’s this magazine and an e-magazine (yes, that app is finally ready and should be out by the time you read this!). More and more big publishers across the globe are going back to paid services, and focussing on their real customers – people like you, who are serious about what you want to know and learn about, and are willing to pay to get it from a trusted source. Content creators are slowly realising that they cannot rely solely on self-serving businesses such as Facebook and Google. Soon, anyone who’s serious about getting information will realise it too, and have multiple subscriptions to “real” content providers, who they know will always give it to them straight – we hope you will continue to consider us one of those trustworthy sources. As serious geeks you will demand content that is not biased, is important, and is what you need to know, and not just what you want to know. However, you will pay for that, or else you will become just another meme-liking sheep.

Robert Sovereign-Smith Executive Editor robert@digit.in

M PL

y previous two columns with this same headline were about piracy, but this one has nothing to do with pirates – it’s about colonists instead. Don’t worry, the British aren’t coming back – they’re too busy hiding indoors on their little island afraid of their terrible weather and all the immigrants who are ringing their doorbell. The colonists I’m talking about are internet giants like Facebook and Google, who have taken over everything – for many of us, Facebook in particular is becoming the default source of information. The real problem is that Facebook is a business (as is Google and all the others). In order to stay in business, Facebook needs you to spend as much time as possible on it; it needs to be an addiction, or at least a routine. Everyone knows how to keep an addict hooked – just give them what they want to keep them high and happy. Facebook’s algorithm does exactly that; it gives you what you want, will like and will share. It looks at your past behaviour to judge what you’d like to see, and throws in the odd viral meme or video. Problem is, have you seen the things that go viral? When was the last time you saw something viral that was indepth, non-sensational, and written with a balanced view? We have it a lot easier, because our readers are geeks who know quality when they see it, but even we are guilty of being a little sensational at times on Facebook. Why? Because if we aren’t, you won’t click to read it, and Facebook will drown us out with memes and cute videos, or 874 new pictures of your distant relatives child learning to eat something new for the sixth time this week. Don’t believe us? Count the ratio of cutesy rubbish to serious articles on your timeline. Go on! When a serious looking article does finally show up, it’s usually from a partisan source, and probably something you’re likely to share onwards – because the algorithm knows you have done so in the past, and all internet giants make their money by knowing you and your habits. We’re like little kids set loose in a candy store – which means we’re fat and dying of diabetes. However, we’re not dying alone, we’re killing off the salad bars and healthy

“When was the last time you saw something viral that was indepth, non-sensational, and written with a balanced view?”

6 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

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

November 2016 • Volume 16 • Issue 11 TO ADVERTISE

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

PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH

Email: sales@digit.in

Bazaar

Sales Director: Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-9582262959

Apple iPhone 7 Plus

South: Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961

Google Pixel XL

West: Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247

ASUS GT51

North: Mayank Sharma , Mobile: +91-8800661912

Moto Z with Hasselblad Moto Mod

East: Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Mobile: +91-93318 29284

Sony MDR-1000X

Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Manish Rajesh, Nikhil Punjabi

ADVERTISING INDEX

Test Centre Technical Editor Jayesh Shinde

Zowie FK1+

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

Nikon D500

Assistant Vikas Patil

Mediatek..................................Inside Front Cover

Lenovo Vibe K5

digit.in

Redington.................................Inside Back Cover

Senior Reviewer Mithun Mohandas

M PL

Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco

Editor Soham Raninga

Assistant Editor Prasid Banerjee, Sameer Mitha

Gigabyte................................... Back Cover, 41, 43

Features Editor Adamya Sharma Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar Design

Sr. Art Director Anil VK

Moto G4 Play

Creative Aurvana on-ear NC

LIC............................................................................... 3

Lenovo Ideapad Y700

TP-Link........................................................................ 7

Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi Visualiser Baiju NV

iBall.......................................................................9, 69

Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari

Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi,

Kyocera..................................................................... 11

Peterson PJ & Manoj Kumar VP Photography

Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi Contributors

Writers Abhishek Kant, Anusha Sinha, Sahil Dawka,

Comparison Test: Dual-camera smartphones Apple iPhone 7 Plus

ICTS..........................................................................17

Huawei P9

CII-1..........................................................................19

Honor 8

IOCL..........................................................................21

Varad Choudhari

CII-2....................................................................... 113

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

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

8 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

India AV................................................................. 135 Quantum................................................................ 136

Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of the owners, M/s Nine Dot Nine Interactive 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.

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DOWNLOAD Disclaimer BLIPPAR 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.

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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.

http://www.facebook.com/ thinkdigit Your favourite magazine on your favourite social network. Interact with thousands of Digit readers and have some geeky fun! http://www.facebook.com/ techkranti Let’s wake ourselves up and gather the tools of tech to change the future of our great nation. Join The Revolution!

M PL

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10 | Digit | November 2016 | 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

Unboxing of Famicom– the Japanese version of the NES first launched in 1983. http://dgit.in/FamicmUnbx

Feedback for the October 2016 issue of Digit

M PL

) Greetings Team Digit! ‘Become a Hacker' was a lot better than 'Become a God'. In fact, the Hacker issue was the most savage of ‘em all, especially the DVD. Because guess what – I installed Kali Linux with VirtualBox, and there I am ‘Learning to hack’! I couldn’t be happier. But don't worry I'd never hack you guys because cheating on you guys is the last thing I'd want to do! And I’m still a noob, don't fear me! BTW Belated Happy 30th Birthday Siddharth! Don't you worry man, age is just a figure. Ok, I’m kidding, you’re definitely goin’ ol’ man! Don't worry you guys, you will still be our tech heroes even when you turn 80! I got one request – please publish a poster of CoD: Infinite Warfare with the next issue. –Punarnava Malhotra

The Famicom

Enter

All the latest lifestyle technology, gadgets to drool over and gizmo porn like never before. Desire, Greed and Temptation ahead...

Hey thanks for not hacking us Punarnava. Since you are being so kind we’ll see what we can do about that CoD poster. Stay tuned. –Siddharth

) Greetings Team Digit! First, I want to thank you all for the Battlefield poster (though it was me who recommended it, remember?) and also for introducing us to the new PS4 Pro and Slim console. Now coming to the October issue. The editorial by Siddharth bhaiya (happy belated birthday, btw) was great, and it really enlightened me about the casualties caused by Apple in the name of 'Technological Progress', but one thing's for certain you really are, 'THE APPLE HATERS'. The Parenting 2.0 article was awesome and made my parents lenient about using gadgets more often. To be honest, I couldn't read the whole cover story, but the one by Jayesh bhaiya was substantial. The comparison between the mid-tower cabinets was something unique and the one between the smartphones was nothing less. The Dmystify on 'Geology' sounded pretty boring, but you really know how to make things interesting. At last, the journey of the Fallout franchise was too good to skip, how about

the 'Ups and Downs of Call of Duty' for the November issue? I also have some important queries. My father needs a business laptop under 50k, so can you suggest one? (capable of handling AAA titles on medium settings). Also, can you guys reintroduce two DVDs? How about a poster of Dishonored 2, WWE 2K 17 or Titanfall? You can give anything except a poster on Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare? That's it for now. Keep up the good work and keep inspiring us. –Sarang Devsaha

12 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

Thanks for the feedback Sarang. Though, none of us are “Apple Haters”. I use an iPad Pro and Jayesh has a personal Macbook Air. We’re unbiased; and in today’s world of rampant fanboyism, that might just appear as “hating” :-) Check out Agent 001 this month for Laptop advice. As for your poster Punarnava (above) is really dying for an Infinite Warfare one. What shall we do? –Siddharth ) I am Sritej from Darbhanga, Bihar, a small town where tech is known only by a few. Here are some suggestions. I am in class 10th and my parents want me to go Kota for IIT prep (which I don’t

like). But I want to learn programming. So can you suggest any place where I get the good environment of a techie and a student so I can study and secure my future? I want to modify my PC so I would need your help. I don't like dmystify. I am spending Rs. 200 a month for a tech magazine not for a history or biology magazine. Instead you can give a hand book programming like the encyclopedias you gave in special issues. –Srittej Kumar

There’s nothing to not like about the IITs. You can learn programming anywhere, including at an IIT, if you have the motivation. Study hard. While Digit guides you about technology, dmystify aims to make your core science fundamentals strong. Diversity is necessary to make your knowledge well rounded. –Siddharth ) I really like the dmystify booklets as they explain various theories on science and technology. The 'Earth' and 'Quantum World' were my most favourite Dmystifys. I also like SKOAR since I’m a gamer too. I had, will and (maybe) always read this magazine. P.S. Happy (belated) birthday to Siddharth Bhaiyya! I just want to know if he's

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: Louis Vuitton iPhone case, Galactica Super Nova, Osim uSqueez Air, Blueair Blue Pure 211, 2017 BMW i8 and a lot more...

THIS MONTH: TV Show: Westworld (Pilot), Book: Water Knife and upcoming stuff to watch out for...

DESIRE

SHOWCASE

M PL

ILDOCK

TECHNOLOGY WITH STYLE

No headphone jack, no problem

Motion Code

hile many people are debating whether Apple’s decision of removing the audio jack was a brave move, it has been the brunt of many jokes all over the internet. Whatever be the reason for Apple to do away with the audio jack, the ILDOCK has you covered. It stands for IPhone Lightning DOCK which has a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a lightning charging port. This means you can now listen to your favourite songs while you charge your iPhone at the same time. The ILDOCK also comes with a variant that has two lightning ports instead of the 3.5 mm audio jack, in case you want to listen to songs with your significant other, who also has lightning earpods. The ILDOCK

65 percent of card fraud occurs during “cardnot-present” or CNP transactions. Oberthur Technologies have come up with Dynamic Security Code cards called Motion Code that have a miniscreen on the back. It displays a three digit security code used for online purchases. This number automatically and randomly refreshes every hour, so if the card data gets stolen, it’ll be useless in just an hour. There’s no button to press, or plugin to install, it’s easy, fully transparent and more secure.

Daydream View

Google’s first headset, the Daydream VR is compatible with any phone that supports Daydream. Google worked with clothing designers to make it “soft and cozy”.

Chromecast Ultra The upgraded Chromecast comes with HDR support, Dolby Vision, and 4k content. It works the same, plug it into your TV and cast, November as well.

14 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

Plus variant provides ports for SD/TF cards and USB as well, so you can read pictures from flash cards and connect your phone to USB drives with this variant. You don’t need to install any software or drivers, or need any prerequisites to use the ILDOCK, simply

plug and play. Don’t worry about the ILDOCK looking out of place, it’s made with aircraft grade Aluminum and has four colour variants to choose from, to best match with your iPhone. It’s small, it’s light, and it enables you to use the audio jack, what more do you need?

Google WiFi

Google Home

Google’s new router, simply dubbed Google Wifi, is a multi-point network system. So you can place the router modularly at various locations throughout the house to maximise coverage.

The Google Home was announced way back in May which has quite a few new smart assistant features and is designed to work with several units within one household.

Origins

The 32GB iPhone 7 could be up to eight times slower in storage performance than your 128GB iPhone model, http://dgit.in/SlowiPh7

M PL

Digital life

Slower iPhone 7 32GB

From the rise of Friendster to MySpace, we tell you everything there is to know about Social Media

Let’s face it – India isn’t a shining beacon when it comes to women’s safety. There have been numerous assault cases across the country that have brought bad repute to the country as well as put women in a situation where they are afraid to travel late or alone. To empower women and make them feel safer on the roads, developers and various companies have built quite a few very useful safety apps. bSafe is a very popular app for women’s safety. It is based on a social model in which you add friends to the app to form something like a social security network. With such a network in place, simply enabling your location and sharing it through the app allows your friends to see where you are. The ‘Follow me Live’ feature allows selected

omen are giving men tough competition in every field despite centuries of hardships. And when it comes to the world of smartphone apps, which have all sorts of possible specialisations, there are apps that cater specifically to women as well. And after going through a lot of such apps, and features within existing apps, we believe that there are certain apps that are a must have for every woman in the country. Wondering why we didn’t do this on women’s day? Because we believe that there doesn’t need to be a specific day to suggest something good for our mothers, sisters, friends and all the women out there.

30 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

friends to track you via GPS, effectively letting them walk you home even if they are not with you. There is also a ‘Timer’ mode, in which the app can send alerts to selected contacts if you do not check in within a certain time. The ‘Fake call’ feature, that even lets you select who the call should be from is also very useful. And as a last ditch measure, there is the Guardian alert button, which when pressed sends an alert to your friends and family members regarding where you are (GPS) and what is happening (video feed) with an optional siren as well.

Health We all know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. This is especially true when it comes to our physiologies. But the irony is, many

IMAGING: PETERSON PJ

Safety

arnab@digit.in

Arnab Mukherjee

M PL

Cover story

INDEX: 37.......CYBER WARFARE: DOING YOUR BIT 39 ......HOW TO SURVIVE A NUCLEAR ATTACK 42 .....IND VS PAK â&#x20AC;&#x201C; THE FINAL SHOWDOWN 44......FUTURISTIC WEAPONS

36 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

M PL

Cover story

EVERYONE’S A SOLDIER IN THE DIGITAL WAR BY MITHUN MOHANDAS mithun@digit.in

been politically motivated acts of hacktivism, some have been in the private sector as a means of industrial espionage and lastly, certain acts were used as a means of gaining knowledge about the implications of cyber warfare (research, if you will). If you want a more recent example then by the time you are reading this, you’ll have been bombarded quite a bit about the set of DDoS attacks that have been happening since October 20th 2016. The sheer magnitude of this DDoS attack was such that large scale services like Spotify, Twitter, Github, PayPal and others were rendered inaccessible. At the time of writing this, not much has been revealed about the reasons for this attack nor had any entity come forward to own up.

IMAGING: PETERSON PJ

Cyber Warfare is a theatre of war that has been in the news for quite a while but not clearly understood. While both forms of warfare are equally effective not much is known about cyber warfare. Cyber Warfare is simply the application of hacking methods to attack the opponent’s digital resources and thus, affect economical damage or extract intelligence. The average cyber soldier does not fit the image that comes to your mind when you hear the word soldier. And no, we don’t wish to imply that these are script kiddies based out of their parent’s basements either. Cyber warfare has been used effectively for quite some time and is being looked at as the primary means of extracting intelligence. Militaries around the world have long fathomed the importance that cyber warfare has in the modern world and there have been quite a few publicly known operations as well. And not all of these operations were for military purposes. Some have been targeted towards civilian infrastructure, some acts of cyber warfare have

What if we told you that we didn’t even have a cyber security policy in place before 2013? While the word hacking has been thrown around by folks for a better part of the decade, the Indian Government hadn’t given much thought to cyber warfare. It was only after the whole NSA blowout

happened and Edward Snowden revealed that India had been spied upon for ages that the government woke up. Apparently, the NSA was focused on domestic Indian politics and commercial and strategic interests. After the revelation of 2013, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology came up with the National Cyber Security Policy to put up a framework in place. It’s still an evolving framework and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is one of the agencies to have been set up in the aftermath of the 2013 revelations. However, the more critical agencies like the Nuclear Power Corporation of India has chosen to build it’s own capabilities to deal with mission critical infrastructure while the CERT-In is given less critical sectors. Another body set up under the Department of Information Technology is the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC). And under the watchful eyes of the National Security Agency, there’s yet another agency being set up about which not much has been revealed. www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 37

From the labs

Sci-Tech

Understanding the true potential of CRISPR technology and gene editing.

Misfit unveils hybrid smartwatch Misfit’s Phase hybrid smartwatch combines an activity tracker along with other smartwatch features in a true timepiece http://dgit.in/MisFitPSW

THROUGH THE TENSOR

M PL

TPUs or Tensor Processing Units may hold the key to accelerate the future of machine learning big time

Jayesh Shinde jayesh@digit.in

arlier this year, at two different Google events, the company’s CEO spoke at length of the search-engine giant’s significant advances in the field of machine learning, deep neural networks and best-in-class cloud services. Amidst all the bells and whistles, one particular announcement made analysts sit up and take notice. Google’s revelation of TPU, a piece of silicon the company had designed and fabricated to power its machine learning-tuned data centres. Why? Because Google thinks the TPU’s implementation is pivotal to accelerate machine learning by leaps and bounds.

various degrees of efficiency, a TPU is an ASIC or application-specific integrated circuits chip that’s only designed and programmed for machine learning instructions allowing it to be extremely efficient – certainly more efficient than a CPU or GPU undertaking the same task, according to claims made by Google. The company has only released the following image of what a TPU looks like, and other essential hardware and performance specifications are still a closely guarded secret at Google. Yes, it’s difficult to decipher a whole lot from this image of a TPU, as released by Google, but this is all we have for now. Wonder what lies beneath that heatsink, and what does the silicon die actually look like. Google has hinted at the fact that the TPU has the same footprint as a hard drive – we

What’s a TPU?

A Tensor Processing Unit is a proprietary chip designed by Google for use specifically for machine learning applications inside its TensorFlow framework – which is an open source software library for machine learning applications. Instead of a CPU or GPU which are designed to undertake a whole host of instruction sets for different softwareside tasks and execute them with

46 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

Behold, for this is Google’s own TPU!

don’t know whether they meant it in terms of the unit’s dimensions or power efficiency or both. The fundamental way in which a TPU differs from a standard CPU (from Intel or AMD) or GPU (from NVIDIA or AMD) is its computational efficiency. Where a CPU and GPU is designed on a 64-bit architecture, experts are of the opinion that Google’s TPU will most likely be running on 8-bit or 16-bit architecture which is far less precise in comparison. The advantage of sticking to an 8-bit or 16-bit cycle allows more logical circuits to be physically installed on the chip, allowing TPUs to calculate more operations per second and thereby be more efficient (in general and precise terms) than CPUs or GPUs. Through TPUs and advancements in machine learning, Google claims it has advanced its hardware competency by up to three generations (or cycles) of Moore’s Law. This is critical to give the company and its services a decisive edge over competition, as machine learning is used by over 100 product teams in Google – from Natural Language Processing (voice search), Smart Reply in Inbox, Street View in Maps, and a whole lot more.

> code / creativity / community > Microsoft researchers reach human parity in speech recognition http://dgit.in/MSSpchRc

NativeScript – Cross Platform Native Mobile Apps with JavaScript

M PL

>>Put you web develop skills into making a mobile app> by Abhishek Kant – Sales Director and Country Head, Progress

will find a brief overview of NativeScript, addressing some of the key questions such as What, Why and How with regards to NativeScript.

such as: • Which platforms to support – Android, iOS, Windows? • Should you develop hybrid or native mobile apps? • Should you go cross-platform? There are many platforms to cater to and a lot of options to choose from. Native mobile app development will need separate teams for Android, iOS and Windows. Hybrid lets you use a single team and build using HTML/JavaScript/CSS technology. But hybrid apps may be more difficult to scale, compared to native apps. In this article I’ll introduce you to a new framework by Progress called NativeScript. In the coming sections you

What is NativeScript? NativeScript is a technology which lets you develop truly native mobile apps with just JavaScript as a language. Hence the name NativeScript. If you are coming from web background, believe me when I say that you are already a native mobile app developer. NativeScript is how you build cross-platform native Android/iOS apps without web views. You can use plain vanilla JavaScript or TypeScript (which is my personal favorite) or the newly released AngularJS 2 from Google. You style your app using CSS, create UI using XML and use NativeScript provided UI components. You get truly native UI and native performance. NativeScript provides 100% access to native APIs via JavaS-

ave you ever been approached with the idea – “Let’s build a mobile app”. Chances are ‘Yes’. But as a developer you soon get confused. You will have to answer the typical mobility questions

*Coding Matters

*Atom 1.11 released

>>Free and open source code editor updated to 1.11, with peformance and stability improvements.

http://dgit.in/Atom111

*P Open-sourced

>>Microsoft open sources platform for asynchronous programming in IoT and distributed services.

http://dgit.in/POpnSrc

*Yarn for JavaScript

>>Open Source JavaScript package manager released by Facebook and Google.

http://dgit.in/YarnJSc

www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 51

OUR PICK OF THE BEST TECH ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

(MUST READS)

[Wired Corner]

MICROSOFT’S PROJECT CATAPULT

TROUBLES OF ELON MUSK

M PL

SpaceX, Hyperloop, Tesla and SolarCity are all part of the fantastic future Elon Musk wants to create. But this puts another question in the forefront, how much can Elon Musk afford to lose, if he does.

http://dgit.in/EMtrbld

BEFORE THE EXILE

Edward Snowden’s lawyer made him virtually disappear for about two weeks in 2013 to keep him safe and away from the CIA, till he reached out to UN. Helping Snowden were a few lawyers and refugees, who are now sharing the memories of those old days.

http://dgit.in/EdwSnwden

DIDI, THE UBER SLAYER

With tech giants supplementing their servers with to cope up with the rapidly developing AI, Microsoft’s Project Catapult also aims to adapt this change to keep up with the developing global systems, worldwide, with this new chip aimed at programmable hardware.

When two big companies in the same field are put to compete against each other, the result is almost always malicious. But between Didi and Uber, it resulted into a merger. Here are the details about how it all happened.

http://dgit.in/MSPCtplt

http://dgit.in/UberVsDidi

WHY ‘MADE BY GOOGLE’?

Google’s first Nexus was released in 2010 along with HTC as their hardware partner. Six years later, Google Pixel is company’s first ‘Made by Google’ phone, marking its transition into making its own products instead of leaving it solely to its hardware partners.

http://dgit.in/MdeByGgl

In conversation: Pres Obama and Joi Ito With the constant growth that technology is seeing right now, President Obama sits down with Entrepreneur and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito to address concerns behind neural networks, AI, machine learning, self driving cars and the future of the world.

Trolling the trolls Online abuse and harassment has been growing multifold, owing to trolls using the paradox of free speech in their interest. Jigsaw, a small subsidiary of Google , with its Conversation AI aims to do away with online abuse and harassment, making people nicer on the internet.

The Mechanical Saga Gamers swear by mechanical keyboards simply because of its reliability. In order to spread the joy of using a mechanical keyboard amongst everyone, companies are turning away from the leading switch manufacturers to cheaper clones to cut down on costs and meet the increasing demands.

http://dgit.in/FtreTech

http://dgit.in/GglJigsw

http://dgit.in/MechKeybd

www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 55

Workshop

Toolbox

All you can do with Swift Playgrounds, Apple's app for the iPad to get children started with programming.

Feature

Applications and websites used everyday and the slew of hidden features they carry.

REVAMPING YOUR

ANDROID PHONE'S UI

Abhijit Dey

M PL

Rooted or non-rooted, we transform your Android's interface.

abhijit@digit.in

he theme inside an Android phone isn’t the same across every OEM, since they implement their own skin with several modifications over the stock theme. While these modifications enhance the vanilla experience of Android (offered by few OEMs and preferred by many), they aren’t really customisation friendly. The maximum you would be able to do is change your wallpaper, replace the icons and install a third-party launcher. on non-rooted phones. But serious transformation comes only with rooted phones pushing the possibilities immensely, where you’ll also be able to change the layout of system apps, system icon colours and positions, and much more. It’s not only the visual feel but you can have an enhanced and more productive interface, with subtle additions such as a launcher that automatically categorises your favourite

or most used apps. As mentioned earlier, rooted phones are more open to customisation since modification is granted to the system files. This makes it possible to update your menu icons, boot animation, overall colour scheme, etc. We’ll be covering both the fronts, and since the visual styling of your personal phone is highly subjective, we’ll only be suggesting the possible changes you can make, starting off with non-rooted phones.

60 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

Custom launchers Usually the default launchers from OEMs are basic and offer minimum options for extra functionality. For instance, there’s Samsung’s TouchWiz, HTC’s Sense, ASUS’ ZenUI, Google’s Google Now Launcher etc. that offer limited functionality, few of them including theme support. If you want to break off from these restrictions, then there are a few third-party launchers that enable a huge potential for customisation. There are numerous options available for third-party

launchers on the Play Store, and it wouldn’t be practical to cover all of them. The following are a few of the lot which cover different use-case scenarios since the core functionalities are the same in all of them.

Nova Prime Nova is the best third-party launcher we’ve used so far. The basic version has an exhaustive list of features and customisations, where the premium version, Nova Prime includes even more of them. You can change the behaviour of your homescreen, app drawer, dock and folders. The Desktop menu lets you change the grid of your homescreen for apps and widgets, resize the app icons and play around with the font (if supported), and increase or decrease the transition animations for scrolling. App and widget drawers lets you tweak up all the transitions and layout of the app drawer right from the background to the grid. It also includes gesture support and an add-on to display a notification count badge for specific apps.

Q&A

The other menus also offer many other tiny customisations that together come out beautiful, and you may end up investing a lot of time in tweaking the launcher. Once you’re done, you can take backups of the entire setting and restore whenever you shift to a new phone or custom ROM, or after a factory reset.

Arrow

Our tips to supercharge your Android Browsing experience and audio editing tips for Audacity

Workshop

if you’re a regular user of Wunderlist, the launcher has official support to link all your tasks here. On the customisation side, you won’t see many options and we aren’t complaining since it’s not what the launcher is intended to do.

Yahoo Aviate Just like Arrow, Aviate is also dedicated towards productivity and organising your apps, and to make your app drawer look better. Rather than having your apps listed alphabetically, Aviate organises them into categories such as productivity, social, transport, entertainment, etc. The initial setup lets you pick your favourite apps and then the next screen asks for your preferred categories. After the setup is complete, you’ll be presented with two app drawers – one organised according to categories while the other one is listed alphabetically. The apps which are already installed in your phone will be automatically bundled in these categories. These categories also have a drop-down list that further suggests related apps with direct links to the Play Store. Coming to the other great feature in Aviate called Smart Stream, which is uncannily similar to Google Now, it takes advantage of only your location and activity to serve you relevant content. The launcher isn’t really flexible with other customisations for your homescreen, and the categorisation is its only important feature.

M PL

Coming from Microsoft Garage, Arrow takes over your homescreen and presents an organised space, efficiently reducing the number of steps required for many tasks. The most attractive feature here is the Recent screen, where all the recent apps, photos and documents you opened appear in a list. It takes care of the initial setup on its own, and then you’ll be presented with five home screens. Initially, the Recent tab won’t show much, but as you use your phone more, the tab will get populated with more content. Another interesting thing is the pull up menu on the homescreen that works similar to Apple’s Control Center. The Reminders widget will let you directly add tasks on the homescreen and you will receive corresponding alerts. And

Tips & Tricks

The infamous HP incompatible cartridge issue strikes, along with creepy shutdowns and BIOS issues.

Widgets Acting as quick access window to an app, widgets get things done quicker while making your homescreen look good as well. There are widgets for almost every app, let it be weather updates, music player, calendar, etc. Usually, apps have their own widgets, but there are certain standalone widgets that connect to existing services on your phone. Our recommendations are as follow: • Battery Widget Reborn • Calendar Widget: Month • Power Toggles • Zooper

Iconpacks

Your phone has a lot of apps installed and they don’t have a uniform shape or design, sometimes making your app drawer or homescreen look like a mess. This is where iconpacks are a boon. There are a lot of options to choose from and really good looking ones, both available in free and paid versions. For starters, we would recommend free ones and once you’re familiar with using them, you’ll automatically head out to search for the best in the premium segment. One thing to note is that iconpacks need a third-party launcher. The support for launchers depends on every iconpack but you’ll be fine with popular launchers such as Nova, Apex, and Aviate etc. You can find many on the Play Store by simply entering ‘iconpacks’ in the search field. Here are a few picks from our side on the minimal front: • Candycon • Delta - Icon Pack • Glim • Moonshine • Polycon

Theme Managers Now that we’ve dealt with the customisations possible in non-rooted phones, it’s time we moved on to rooted phones. From this point, we expect you to already have a rooted phone with the stock or a custom ROM installed. If you’re on the stock ROM, then you’ll have to install a third-party theme engine using Xposed but with Cyanowww.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 61

INSIDE

Bazaar

Page 77 Google Pixel XL

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THE LATEST PRODUCTS REVIEWED FOR YOU

Page 76 ASUS ROG GT51CA Gaming Desktop PC

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 78

Lenovo Vibe K5

Page 79 Nikon D500

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

Extremely poor product. Keep away!

Strictly OK.

Decent product.

Very good product.

to 100

Page 81 Sony MDR-1000X

Page 82 Moto Z

Not recommended

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

Highly recommended.

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

74 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

&MORE...

Column

Why do our banks not notify us of data hacks and breaches in their database? The answer might surprise you.

Comparison test

We compare the dual cameras sported by the iPhone 7 Plus, Huawei P9 and Honor 8. Who won? Read on...

Bazaar

Apple iPhone 7 Plus This is the ace

M PL

pple’s flagship phone seamless experience. There’s has a dual-camera really nothing as smooth as an setup with two 12 MP iPhone thanks to the vertical main cameras that integration. Interestingly, work in tandem and separately despite all this, the temperature to present 2x optical zoom, of the iPhone never went past along with improving image 39.3 degree Celsius, except when details and noise. The 12MP recording 4K video, which primary image sensor that brought it to 41 degrees. These accompanies the 28mm, f/1.8 are acceptable levels, given the wide angle lens is a -inch type stress the phone is under. Single core scores on GeekCMOS sensor, and the 12 MP bench 4 come up to 3433, which image sensor accompanying is more than the Galaxy S7 the 56mm, f/2.8 telephoto lens Edge, Pixel XL and others. The is a .6-inch type sensor. multi-core performance, though, The image sensors are typiis more at par with other flagcally smaller than those on the ships. AnTuTu benchmark Galaxy S7, Pixel XL and LG G5, scores the iPhone 7 Plus, 171270, but Apple has aced noise canwhich again is higher than all cellation and achieves optimum others we’ve tested. The Google balance of light, colours, noise Price00 Pixel XL scores about 124k. and sharpness in photographs. 72,0 The 1080p display on the iPhone 7 The iPhone 7 Plus shoots delightful Plus is warmer, looking pleasant. photographs with very good colour accuThe iPhone 7 Plus’ major flaw is in racy and white balance. Photos are slightly design. Our matte black unit is quite heavily warm, but still quite close to that of the source, scratched, for no apparent reason. In addition, details are crisp and subjects retain sharpness. the design is not optimal for a 5.5 inch phone, The iPhone also handles low light condiany way. The iPhone 7 Plus is unwieldy and tions well, keeping them relatively free of noise. tough to manage. You definitely can’t use it with Image noise is suppressed and the frame is one hand and it’s quite heavy as well. Like the brightly lit, with accurate colours. iPhone 7, you’ll need a cover, which will make Using the dual-camera setup, you can get up this bulkier. to 2x optical zoom from the wide angle camera. You probably know about the lack of headYou can also use this for achieving background phone jack on this phone. We’re with you, it can blurs. The bokeh mode hasn’t hit the iPhones be a hindrance. But in our testing, we felt the yet, but even without it, the 7 Plus produces lack of the jack only once, when our Bluetooth gently blurred backgrounds. headphones ran out of charge. There was no The iPhone 7 Plus is also an incredible pernoticeable audio loss using Apple’s in-box lightformer. It’s blazing fast and switches between ning to 3.5mm audio jack, and we were generapps seamlessly, even when you’re switching ally fine without the headphone jack. The stereo between apps like Email, Facebook, Google speakers do improve audio quality, but it’s not Snapseed, Google Maps and Asphalt 8. The better than the Sony Xperia Z5 or HTC 10. The app load times are noticeably faster than other iPhone uses the bottom right speaker grille and smartphones, and benchmark scores put it the earpiece output for stereo sound, which does ahead or at par with any flagship today. improve overall audio. The new quad-core A10 Fusion has two high The iPhone 7 Plus is one of the best phones performance cores, coupled with two low power in the market today. With over 24 hours of batcores. This brings its multi-core performance up tery life on single charge, go for it – if you can. to higher levels, and coupled with the vertical software-hardware integration, provides a Souvik Das

80 Features........................67 Performance................96 Value............................. 48 Design............................89

Specifications

Display: 5.5 inch 1080p; SoC: 2.23 GHz Apple A10 Fusion; RAM: 3GB; Battery: 2900 mAh; Storage: 32/128/256 GB; Camera: 12MP dualcamera rear, 7MP front; OS: iOS 10

Contact

Phone: 000800 1009009 Website: https://support. apple.com/en-in

www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 75

Column

Take my money

given online service today. Very few ensure that all data is within their own systems from end-to-end. And quite a few of these third-parties don’t even bother with proper encryption. And don’t get me started on encryption, most don’t even use high-grade encryption let alone ‘salt’ (add random data prior to encrypting) your passwords. I’ve gone across all the pastebins and extracted my personal data with relative ease. Given the existing data out there, I could then create a simple wordlist to bruteforce any of the other hundreds of services I’ve used the same ID with. And you’re in the same position as I unless you use a service that generates and manages passwords for you. Security breach notification laws serve two primary purposes. Firstly, the awareness causes users to take measures to better protect themselves from monetary loss or identity theft. And secondly, the fear of public backlash acts as a deterrent for companies to take better care of the data they’re entrusted. This month as we delved into cybercrime, one key thing came to most of us, that of Digital India. Let’s take the Aadhar programme for example, the government hasn’t even bothered to incorporate all the security measures suggested by a committee which found severe irregularities with data collection and lack of security audit mechanisms to keep a check on the collected data. Right now, we won’t even know if the Aadhar system gets compromised unless we end up seeing a data dump on some darknet market going for a few hundred thousand dollars. Then again, with such lax security we wouldn’t be wrong to assume that a few have already crossed that bridge. The IRCTC website was hacked earlier this year and officials have confirmed that Aadhaar numbers were present in the stolen data. The government has to lead by example and get its act together or we might as well toss away money in the streets.

M PL

oughly a month ago, quite a few of us ended up getting SMSes from our banks asking to update our debit/ credit card PINs. Certain banks even took a more proactive role and changed the PINs without user intervention. And then there were a few banks that even disabled CNP e-commerce transactions and removed international usage off of international debit cards (oh, the irony!). It did seem a little fishy at first but since it was for our own security, we went along with it. The extra paranoid ones like yours truly, took the opportunity to update our accounts with new passwords and PINs. But a few unlucky ones ended up being victims in one manner or the other. I was one of these unlucky few, or at least I hope the number is small. It goes without saying that had the banks broken the news, mass chaos could have erupted resulting in bank runs i.e. when customers rush en masse to withdraw funds. But should the banks have made a disclosure? Yes, they most certainly should have. The only reason that such an issue should not be disclosed is when it could impede an investigation. Otherwise, as consumers we deserve to know if our information has been acquired by an unauthorised person. India does not have a security breach notification law or a data breach notification law. And this becomes all the more important as more services enter the digital domain. The mere fact that more and more companies are losing out to hackers puts our precious data at stake. Just this year, we’ve seen multiple breaches, both foreign and Indian companies alike have had their systems compromised. The most recent include Redbus.in and quite a lot of banks. And if you were to check your email IDs against popular sites like hacked-emails.com or haveibeenpwned.com then there’s a high probability that your data has been compromised in the last five years if you’ve been online for that long. The Indian IT Act of 2000 isn’t up to the mark given the fact that those who wrote it in the first place weren’t well versed with the concepts and the lack of data breach notification laws puts us in an even worse state. There are numerous third-parties who are sub-contracted to handle your data in any

Mithun Mohandas Senior Reviewer mithun@digit.in

“The mere fact that more and more companies are losing out to hackers puts our precious data at stake”

Let me know your thoughts on this column at: @mithun_mohandas

www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 83

Pixel Wallpaper pack Dual Camera Phones

Here are all the wallpapers bundled along with Google’s latest Pixel phones, one feature that’s not exclusive to Pixel phones. http://dgit.in/PxlWlpr

Gboard update

The Google Keyboard for iOS has been updated for 3D Touch and iOS 10 emoji support. http://dgit.in/gBrdUpdt

DUAL-CAMERA SHOOTOUT:

M PL

SHOOTING WITH TWO CAMERAS Dual camera smartphones are slowly growing in number, so naturally, we had to see how they have been developing! Here, we try out the Huawei P9 and the Honor 8 alongside Apple’s latest flagship, the iPhone 7 Plus, to see how capable they are... ... and which one’s best!

Souvik Das

more expensive cameras would produce. Engineers soon figured a way to process two separate images from the two cameras, and use separate colour and light data from each to create a final image that is far superior in quality. That is the essence of dual camera setups on smartphones. The three smartphones that we have in our comparison here include the Leica SUMMARIT lens-powered Huawei P9, its sibling of sorts, the Honor 8, and Apple’s latest, greatest flagship, the Apple iPhone 7 Plus. It is interesting to note that while the Huawei P9 and Honor 8 use to cameras to capture colour and monochrome data separately, the iPhone 7 Plus takes a completely different approach. Here, the two cameras, alongside providing additional data to increase details and

souvik@digit.in

ual camera smartphones are a steadily growing breed. A number of popular present day smartphones already flaunt this feature, and still many more are reported to house two cameras on their backs come 2017. But, what really makes dual-cameras on a smartphone so special? First brought to the mainstream market by the likes of Honor, with the Honor 6 Plus and QiKU, with the Q Terra, (although technically the HTC Evo 3D was the first smartphone with a dual-camera system) dual-camera setups on smartphones were initially conceptualised to simulate depth of field for smartphones, lending soft, blurred backgrounds similar to how

84 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

contrast of photos, have different focal lengths, and Apple uses this to present an optical zoom mechanism of sorts, without moving lens elements. However, is 2x optical zoom really worth the hype? Or is it Leica that aces the dual-camera setup with the Huawei P9? Or is it the Honor 8, an underdog of sorts here, that delivers surprisingly good results? This is what we are going to find out in our three-way shootout of the latest dualcamera smartphones to have launched in India. Our parameters of testing includes how well the cameras fare in terms of details, sharpness, colour accuracy, white balance, image noise, and bokeh. Unfortunately, the LG G5 was not available at the time of our testing, which would have otherwise made for a more compelling shootout. Let’s roll!

Price watch

Killer rigs

Street smart

We tell you about the best components to look for at various PC rigs at different budgets

This it’s all about high end gaming laptops and LED TVs under the price bracket of `1lakh.

Laptop tradeoffs media-rich presentations that require great performance. It’s also their multimedia machine, stereo system, and hostel all-rounder. One of the trade-offs to consider while buying a laptop for school is whether you want great battery life or better all-round performance. Up to six hours of usage off a single charge or the ability to work on graphics design, video editing or animation and rendering apps (that require faster components like Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, 7200rpm HDD, 2GB GPU, etc). Portability vs versatility is another consideration. A 10-inch netbook with a weak Intel Atom or Core i3 chip won’t let you do a whole lot, but it’s convenient to carry around campus and keep it in your backpack for notetaking in class. But the same netbook will be too slow for doing other things like HD movie watching sessions, good quality audio, LAN gaming sessions (on medium settings), etc., for which a 15-inch or 17-inch desktop replacement laptop – which is largely confined to your dorm room – is obviously more preferable. Windows OS vs Linux OS is another trade-off and it’s purely a cost-based consideration. Microsoft Windows operating system offers familiarity of use but also affects final cost of the laptop by 3-4k. Linux OSes (like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Elementary, Mynt) are a free workaround, but not for absolute beginners. Chrome OS (on Chromebooks) are another cloud-based OS alternative to consider. Anything that helps cut cost for a cash-strapped student, right?

Agent 001

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Unless you have limitless money, laptop buying isn’t without its fair share of compromises. Here are a few popular ones.

agent001@digit.in

For business: Slim and light or rock solid dependability?

Business notebooks can’t just be the same as consumer notebooks, because businesses have special needs and need to tow the compliance line. Business notebooks need to be full of all the bells and whistles that most consumer notebooks offer, but not at the cost of safety, security and dependability – three key traits of any self-respecting business laptop. A notebook can’t be slim and light and offer rock solid build quality and dependable performance at the same time. A thin and light business notebook is generally a premium ultraportable, which doesn’t sell for cheap, weighs less than 1.5 kg with around 10 mm thickness. It may compromise on larger battery capacity or great build quality to prioritize on its aesthetic appeal and size-zero figure. Safe and secure or cute looks? Flaunt an expensive toy or something on a tight budget? Decision time!

In a business notebook, sometimes you would have to settle for a less than ideal CPU, RAM, HDD, and form factor combo just to keep the costs down. Or sometimes you’d have to do that just to ensure certain critical extra features are supported by the notebook. Stuff like TPM or Trusted Platform Module chip which hardware encrypts all sensitive data on the laptop; remote maintenance and laptop management tools like Lenovo ThinkVantage suite built into the system; HD 720p webcam with directional microphone for better quality video conference calls; and more.

90 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

For students: Something cheap for note taking or a high performance laptop? Do you need all-day battery to take notes in class or desire lightning quick performance to edit videos? Choose the right alternative to ace through school. When it comes to a laptop, school student’s needs are varied. They can be as simple as taking notes all day long during lectures (for which battery life is important) or working on multi-

Good looking laptop just for your living room or high on functionality? Choosing a laptop for home use isn’t as easy as it looks. Laptop to replace your home desktop PC or to complement

Recommended buys

the max. Pimp the specs out, everything overloaded. Why? Cuz that’s how you bring the latest and greatest games kicking and screaming down to their knees. And therein lies one crucial tradeoff. Running games smoothly on a laptop takes a lot of effort in terms of hardware firepower, not to mention a dedicated graphics processing unit (or GPU) with dedicated RAM. When a laptop with 15-inch Full HD screen, an Intel Core i7 CPU with 16GB of DDR3 RAM, 1TB HDD and 4GB DDR5 NVIDIA GTX 1060 GPU is trying to run a game like Mafia III on max setting, you can feel it working on overdrive – moreso if it’s running on battery power alone. And this match, the poor battery is thoroughly outmatched.

Agent 001

speed might involve trade offs on other features that are equally important for gaming. For instance, in the quest of getting a superior Intel Core i7 quadcore processor clocked at higher speed versus Intel Core i5 processor clocked at slightly lower speed, cost-wise the Core i5 configuration may be able to fit in a Full HD screen and greater RAM capacity than the Intel Core i7 (because it costs more, meaning you have to settle for a low resolution screen or lesser RAM).

Matte screens for reading text or glossy screen for pretty visuals?

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it? Small screen, small budget or big screen, no holds barred? A home laptop ideally has to be the jack of all trades. It has to satisfy differing needs of people in the house. A homemaker would want to just browse Facebook posts and videos on it all day or watch movies, keeping the laptop plugged in all the time. Or she may want to use the laptop in the kitchen to watch cooking videos, thereby desiring greater battery life and ultraportability. There are no easy choices, only tradeoffs to consider. It isn’t absolutely necessary for a home laptop to sport the latest, fastest hardware. For example, it’s okay if you can’t get an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPU, DDR4 RAM, 7200 rpm HDD, NVIDIA or AMD graphics, or Full HD display on your laptop. For basic home use, a laptop with an Intel Core i3 processor, DDR3 RAM, 5400 rpm HDD, onboard Intel HD graphics or 1366x768 pixel resolution screen is more than enough – if you’re just going to be using the laptop for browsing the Internet and watching downloaded movies for the most part. This can help save you money. Or look for other unique features that you can’t fit into your budget – like a touchscreen panel, multiple USB 3.0 ports, DVD writer, licensed Windows OS, etc. While shopping for a home laptop that looks good, choosing a machine that looks good – with an attractive screen lid, aesthetic colour combo – something that’s not dull, boring or black will come at a price. It won’t be the cheapest laptop around and functionality may not always be prioritized. For example, a cute looking laptop may not necessarily be built well; if it has a glossy or smooth bottom panel without rubber stoppers it won’t grip any surface assuredly. Be wise in your choice.

Germany has asked Tesla to rename the ‘Autopilot’ feature to a more appropriate term for its driver assist system in the newer cars. http://dgit.in/TSPRnme

Rename ‘Autopilot’ mode

The very best products you can buy right now spanning across 10 popular tech categories.

Why a gaming laptop can’t deliver high-speed performance and great battery life simultaneously Great gaming performance or superior battery life? It’s a classic Catch 22! For gamers, only the best hardware will do. The best hardware, super-sized… to

Big keyboard to type or easy to carry around? What’s best for writers and bloggers? Any writer worth his salt has

Choosing the right laptop for your budget as well as your needs might be tough

For the configuration mentioned above, you’d be lucky if the battery lasts anything over 90 minutes on continuous gameplay – whether it’s a 3-cell or 4-cell battery, doesn’t matter. Which means, you’d perpetually have to keep a gaming laptop connected to a power source, as you can’t really expect a whole lot as far as its battery life’s concerned. So yeah, with great performance comes inferior battery life on a gaming laptop. That’s just how life is. Also CPU clock speeds matter on a gaming laptop but higher clock

to do two things a lot -- type and watch the screen. For hours on end. So, obviously, typing comfort and eye strain are of utmost importance to a writer. The tradeoffs to consider while buying a laptop for writing or blogging is this. Do you want a small, tiny laptop that’s easy to carry around or a full keyboard that’s easy to type on? Keyboard properties to look at are -- full-sized, bevelled or curved keys, keyboard flex, and layout. A minimum of a 13-inch screen size (15-inch is ideal) ensures at least the keyboard has full-sized www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 91

More Candy Crush

Feature

Tech@Work

100

Lionsgate TV and King Ltd are teaming up to produce a new TV game show for CBS based on Candy Crush series. http://dgit.in/CandyCrsh

Startup accelerators in India are doing a great job in identifying startups with potential.

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The future of design, material science and new ways of making things

In conversation with Tom Wujec from Autodesk

Tom Wujec, Autodesk

Siddharth Parwatay siddharth@digit.in

n the sidelines of the recent Autodesk University conference in Mumbai, we got a chance to speak to Tom Wujec, currently a Fellow at Autodesk and previously instrumental in creating Maya – one of leading 3D computer animation software in the industry today. In the freewheeling conversation below we talk about everything from the future of design, material science, digital humans and even the maker movement.

biles and even everyday items. Here’s an amazing fact that I stumbled upon long ago: according to the american microprocessor association, we’re now producing more individual transistors than grains of rice harvested on the planet and that’s astonishing! We’re now producing individual transistors on chips at the rate of 13 trillion per second. Essentially what that means is computation is becoming more available, distributed less expensive and more flexible than ever. There are three major classes of technologies that these chips are going into that are changing the way we design and make things. One is sensors, second is computation and third is fabrication. Sensors allow us to understand and read the world in ways in which we never could do with such precision. They come in all shapes and sizes and they can not only see better than people but also can hear, or taste, or smell, and perceive properties of the world that human beings cannot on their own.

If it’s ok with you I’d like to keep our discussion free flowing. What would you like to start with? Wujec: Since Digit is a technology magazine, why don’t I talk about the impact of four particular technologies and how we see they’re changing the way we design, make, and use just about everything – from running shoes to automo-

98 | Digit | November 2016 | www.digit.in

Right. In fact, there’s a trend in which people are surgically augmenting themselves with these kind of sensors to detect magnetism, WiFi etc. Wujec: Exactly! The second class of technology as we know, and your readers know, is the growth of computation. So Moore’s Law is changing as a result of chips. But certainly the trend of increasing computation and calculating power is moving in parallel. What that means is we have increasingly more power to offload cognitive skills to the computer. Digital tools can do simulations, analysis, and increasingly machine learning, generative design and other classes of computation that were never previously available. And what that’s doing is kind of allowing us to have magical powers in thinking and analysis. The third tool is fabrication, which is essentially robotics. The same way sensors can read the world, robots can ‘write’ to the world – through actuators and manipulation. We have an explo-

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108 R.I.P Single Player

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118 Forza Horizon 3

128

120 Gears of War 4

MOAR

Why do we grind?

105 | Mobile monthly

114 | Phranchise: Elder Scrolls

122 | NBA 2K17

126 | Preevu: WWE 2K17

Cover Design: Anil VK

CONTENTS | NOVEMBER 2016

Bring SKOAR! To life by following these simple steps:

PICKS

Whether it’s speed runs, graphics tearing or any other momentous grabs from our favourite games, these are videos for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

The Mario Theme Song!

Duration: 55 secs There’s many version of the mario theme song, but we’ve never seen it done like this!

http://dgit.in/gunsnmario

104 | SKOAR! | November 2016 | follow us on:

Vladimir ACTUAL Champ Spotlight

The Nintendo Switch

Duration: 13 mins 20 secs

Nintendo’s newest console looks very promising in this new first look video.

MagicarpUsedFly shows us what an actual champion spotlight should look like.

http://dgit.in/vladsl facebook.com/SKOAR

Duration: 3 mins 36 secs

http://dgit.in/nintendoswfl

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SA 108 | SKOAR! | November 2016 | follow us on:

facebook.com/SKOAR

Co-op with the masses or perish alone. Is single player truly dying or is it just another â&#x20AC;&#x153;phaseâ&#x20AC;??

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K U VA H S T ORY

By Manish “Trigger Happy” Rajesh

game as focused on the single player narrative anymore. So why is this? If we had to put it simply, people like playing together. Playing video games is a fun activity, and the experiences video games provide can be great for bonding, and no one can deny it’s an exceptionally fun means of doing so. Another reason is that gamers would rather compete with actual human players rather than the AI. This was evident back from the time when Starcraft II went competitive and has carried over to the eSport era we’re in right now. But these are only a few factors. Other things, such as the technical and hardware aspects are also important to consider here. One of the biggest factors of course is broadband internet going mainstream. It would make sense for games to take advantage of technology which connects

PHOTO IMAGING: ANIL VK

feedback@skoar.com

ompared to other mediums of entertainment, video games are a relatively new medium. And for most of their existence, they’ve been mostly single player games, attempting to provide an enticing and engrossing single player narrative. However, in recent years, the trend seems to be moving increasingly towards multiplayer games. For every single player that’s released, we see at least two to three multiplayer games releasing. Although critically-acclaimed single player experiences like those in franchises like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are still being created, released and are very successful, it’s very rare to see another

people together. You know what they say, the more the merrier. This transition into multiplayer has been happening steadily over the past few years, with many mainstream titles incorporating multiplayer game modes into their repertoires. In fact, these days many games are actually questioned if they don’t have multiplayer in them, because it’s almost considered a must to ensure the longevity of the game, something many gamers consider to determine the worth of a game. To reinforce this point, it’s noteworthy to mention that a large percentage of the people who bought Starcraft II and Call of Duty: Black Ops did so for the multiplayer aspect of those games, even though they have critically acclaimed single player campaigns. The multiplayer that we’re talking about here isn’t restricted to actually

twitter.com/skoar | November 2016 | SKOAR! | 109

Unwind

134

Esc

Chrome Canary is here

Since our theme is war, we bring you the most absurd, pointless, and downright strangest wars ever fought

Chrome Canary has finally arrived on Chrome for Android but is only available for developers. http://dgit.in/ChCanary

When tech titans sling some mud... Arnab Mukherjee arnab@digit.in

it as the new way to compute. Jokes about Apple Pencil quickly followed the announcements. But the most important response came after Apple launched its ‘What is a computer’ commercial. In the commercial, Apple highlighted the new iPad Pro’s flip keyboard, Apple Pencil compatibility and multi-window multitasking capabilities as things that made it an equal or even better than a full fledged computer. And guess who responded?

Late 2013, Microsoft released a commercial titled Windows 8: Less talking more doing. In the advertisement, an iPad and a Windows 8 tablet are placed side by side, with Siri listing out things it cannot do that the Windows tablet is shown to be easily capable of. Pretty soon, in July 2013, they released a follow up ad that started with Siri going ‘oh no, here we go again’ and listed some more features like USB support, backstand and a physical detachable

Microsoft released a commercial within the fortnight that showed the iPad Pro and the Surface Pro 4 side by side, with the former celebrating a party for becoming a PC because it has a keyboard. Cortana, speaking from the Surface Pro 4, goes on to politely ask Siri about having an Intel Core i7 processor, an actual trackpad and external ports, along with full versions of Office rather than the apps. Needless to say, Siri quickly calls off the party. (Watch: Apple’s ad: http://dgit.in/ iProCmptr, Microsoft’s response: http://

keyboard, ending with Siri exclaiming that it hasn’t ended well for her as the price difference between the two is shown to be $250 in the favor of Microsoft. (watch: http://dgit.in/AplVSMS1 and

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ccasional multi-million dollar lawsuits and fierce marketing battles have become an entertaining aspect of tech rivalries that consumer have come to enjoy over the years. In fact, these rivalries have created an environment where publicly calling out the faults in a rival’s products is a competitive practice. These tongue in cheek slights, social media battles and thinly veiled insults are a sheer delight to watch/read. Here are some of those that just couldn’t get enough of.

...the insults just keep on coming. But who’s complaining?

Google Pixel vs iPhone 7

Apple’s bold statement of ‘courage’ in the removal of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 received its own fair share of attention. Even though Chinese smartphone manufacturer LeEco had gotten there first, the world just waits for the Cupertino giant’s announcements every year and the parodies that follow. With their own smartphone launch this year, Google also jumped into the fray in the Pixel smartphone announcement video. At the 43 second mark after highlighting a slew of new features, it declares, ‘3.5mm headphone jack satisfyingly not new’, directly poking at the removal of the same from the iPhone 7.

dgit.in/SProComptr)

This wasn’t the first time Microsoft was taking a dig at Apple’s tablet. In

(Watch: http://dgit.in/PixlHdphn)

Everyone vs iPad In September last year, Apple announced the massive 12.9 inch iPad Pro with much fanfare, proclaiming

Microsoft trolling the iPad pro

http://dgit.in/AplVSMS2)

Lumia 1020 vs everything else Nokia dropped a bomb when it launched the Lumia 1020 in 2013 with its 41MP camera. Most of its ad campaigns for the phone (read: all of them) focussed on how amazing the camera was and how it made zooming altogether redundant with its high level of detail. One of the highlights of this entire campaign was a commercial that almost directly took down all its competitors in one fell swoop. The commercial showed a school play being attended by parents of the children acting in the play. As soon as the play begins, overeager parents, brandishing iPhones and Samsung smartphones quite visibly, realise that they aren’t close enough to the stage to www.digit.in | November 2016 | Digit | 131

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