Digit November 2017 by 9.9 Media

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THE STATIC PAGE | Siddharth Parwatay | Managing Editor

PC Elitism

ALMOST without exception and for as long as we can remember, all of us in the Digit Team have been PC gaming enthusiasts. We’ve had PCs from the time of the good old days of the 486 (some even before that!) and grew up on a healthy dose of ‘Prince’ and ‘Dave’, among other vintage games. All this makes this month’s edition of Digit all the more special. In essence, we are going back to our roots, and paying homage in our own way to one of the most influential devices to have made its way into our lives. As with any niche interest, over time, the love for PCs around the world has bred a sort of fanatical subculture that extols the virtues of using PCs over consoles for gaming. The self-proclaimed PC Master Race looks down at the ‘Console Peasants’ and has been seemingly engaged in a constant, neverending feud for years. For the most part though, it’s all harmless tongue-in-cheek fun. Personally, apart from thoroughly enjoying the memes this subculture has spawned, I find the feud a little odd, especially in today’s context. In a world where people are dropping PC purchases to go for ARM-based mobiles as their primary computing devices, and where consoles are anyway x86, the PC vs. console war seems almost silly. And PC Elitism sure seems a little unwarranted. Yes, there are certain arguments against consoles that make total sense. The games are absurdly priced for one thing, and the “exclusives” nonsense is such an obvious corporate ploy that I’m surprised most people don’t see through it. Even the processing power falls short, at least on the specs sheet, because for one thing since there’s no option to upgrade, there’s no question of scalability. From a personal standpoint, I’ve forever been put off by the aim-assists that most console games incorporate. It just seems like cheating or a deliberate dumbingdown of things. Then again, trying to play FPS games with controllers would indeed be ridiculous. A mouse is so much better for that kind of stuff. And while on the topic of controllers, it’s funny how the Master Race has allowed this peasant paraphernalia to find a home for itself in their hallowed halls, but that’s a story for another day. Despite well-documented drawbacks of consoles, they do serve a purpose. Even back in the day, I remember having a ton of fun playing Twisted Metal (split screen) or Tekken with my buddies from school. Replicating those kind of

experiences on a PC isn’t really possible or at the very least, cumbersome. In the other corner, PC enthusiasts argue that money spent on a PC is money well spent. Totally agree since the PC offers so much more than just gaming. But is the PC objectively superior in every aspect, as the PC Master Race community would like you to believe? I’m a little skeptical. The casual gamer doesn’t need an elaborate setup. Such a gamer might just want a quick party trick or a few minutes to kill in between Netflix binge sessions. Speaking of living-room entertainment, there’s no denying that couch gaming is best done with a console. Sure, you could craft complicated furniture to support a keyboard and mouse but out of the box, a console is much more suitable to be paired with your TV. Now for the elephant in the room – graphics. There’s no denying that high-end PCs have enough grunt to enable visuals that could make your eyes bleed glorious tears of joy. While I’ll be the first to admit that gaming on a 144Hz monitor feels buttery smooth, I’m not quite sure about the incremental benefits of pushing that to 240Hz. Besides, despite the awesome hardware that was launched this year, with the cryptomining boom and the resultant scarcity of GPUs that it led to, 2017 hasn’t been the best for those trying to enter the PC fold. And while I haven’t played too much on modern consoles, whatever little I saw of Gran Turismo and World Of Tanks on the PS4 Pro (in the Digit Test labs this month) - I found to be good enough. I could never imagine playing PUBG on one of these things, but hey horses for courses right? As a gamer, at the end of the day, I only care about the games – irrespective of the platform they exist on. While some say PC gaming is slowly transforming into a purely multiplayer and microtransaction driven industry, a strong argument can be made for how consoles have been responsible for supporting compelling AAA single player experiences from certain studios (the console’s very survival depends on them). In conclusion, why can’t we just enjoy both sides of this technology equation. I love my PC but I certainly don’t discount the possibility of ever owning a console. In fact, getting one might even be essential to having a well-rounded gaming experience. What is your take on this whole PC superiority debate? Do write in with your thoughts.

“Is the PC objectively superior in every aspect, as the PC Master Race community would like you to believe?”

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

www.digit.in | November 2017 | Digit | 1

THE RSS FEED | Robert Sovereign-Smith | Executive Editor

≠

WHEN YOU’VE written many of these columns, it’s not rare to find yourself stuck for ideas, or struggling with writer’s block. It’s been well over 100 for me, and this month I was in a real dry patch for ideas. Because we were covering PCs in so many places, I knew I wanted to write a nonPC column… but what? As is usually the case, a casual Team Digit chat resulted in Siddharth mentioning something about meritocracy, and I brought up a story (Franchise) by my favourite author Isaac Asimov, and then one thing led to another and 9 minutes later a column was born. The idea is simple, really. Humans are prone to biases, and most of the time, they aren’t even aware of their biases. It’s not just racial bias, but gender biases, age biases and even educational qualification biases. It’s not uncommon for a recruiter from a top college to want to recruit others from top colleges, and in the field of coding, someone invented the term “brogrammer” to describe this bias. How do you get rid of bias? Why AI of course! If humans have biases (known or unknown to themselves), surely AI will do away with them? If a meritocracy is ever to be achieved, surely a machine is the perfect HR head, because it will look only at skills and qualifications and parameters we teach it, and will thus ignore other factors it’s not programmed to compute with, such as gender, or race, etc., right? In theory, this is arguably the only way to arrive at a meritocracy, and if done right, it can indeed work, but it will need actual artificial “intelligence”, and not merely creative human programming. For now, I’d rather humans use their own brains and have the rudimentary AIs that we have now watch and analyse and create reports after the hiring is done. And this isn’t something I do flippantly, because this topic hits closer to home for me than anyone else in Team Digit. I’m by far the least qualified of all of the members of Team Digit who have ever worked here. An engineering dropout (twice!), I’m still an under-grad, and I wouldn’t make it into any company, or even an interview, if all they had to go on was the CV of a 20-something me. I should be doing cartwheels of joy that so many others like me will not be ruled out because

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they are missing a piece of paper that HR execs deem vital, but I’m not. This is because the AIs will be given parameters to find “successes” and will be given patterns to study. Certain types of people will be deemed to be better at, say, web development, and those stereotypes will continue. Machines just aren’t quirky enough to spark an interest the way a human would. For example, if you read this article, and happen to get a CV from an undergraduate who dares apply for a position that you have specified a bachelor’s degree for… perhaps some of you might be swayed just enough to call her in for an interview. Essentially, it’s the human condition that gives people like me a shot at a job, for better or worse. A machine would just never do that, because statistically, I’d be a bad bet. Then there’s the question of eugenics (of sorts) where relying only on one machine’s ideas of good employees might end up ruining a company by reducing diversity, instead of increasing it. Then again, a machine that was programmed to maintain or increase diversity might give unfair preference to minorities… The complications are endless… I mentioned Asimov’s short story called Franchise (read it if you can), and that was because what works for job hiring today, might work for immigration tomorrow, or elections day after, and pretty soon we find that machines are indirectly running our world by electing our officials, CEOs, politicians and bosses. Thankfully, there are other people like me, with the same fears as mine, who are also working on this. Tara (Talent Acquisition and Recruiting Automation) is an example of an attempt to get AI to create a true meritocracy by ignoring paper qualifications and focussing on competency. Unilever is using AI to hire for entry-level jobs, and it gets candidates to play neurosciencebased games against the AI, and this helps it screen out applicants that are incompatible with the company’s requirements. With thousands of applicants for every job in a big company, there’s no choice but to use AI to whittle down the numbers, but I hope the skills of the people training the AI itself are up to the mark...

“Humans are prone to biases, and most of the time, they aren’t even aware of their biases. It’s not just racial bias, but gender biases, age biases and even educational qualification biases”

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

PARANOID ANDROID | Mithun Mohandas | Asst. Technical Editor

Is the PC really dying? THERE ARE FEW THINGS that those who champion for the PC Master race don’t look forward to. No, it isn’t anything sinister that the console plebs might unleash upon us, rather it’s the industry shipment reports that Gartner and IDC release every quarter. Up until three years back, these reports were eagerly waited upon, since they always heralded a positive trend but for the last 12 quarters, they’ve been ringing the death knell for the humble PC with a ferocity that can only be matched by Joey Jordison of Slipknot. However, there is something that most folks don’t tend to pick up from these quarterly reports – a shift in trend towards the enthusiast segment. A key factor that’s attributed to the drop in PC shipments is the shortage of components. Over these last few years, we’ve had several such shortages. The one that seems to have been widely felt was that of hard drives after the disaster in Southeast Asia that ended up flooding most hard drive production facilities in Thailand. The industry did take roughly a year to get back on its feet but middle-men all over the world managed to drag this particular reason to mint some extra money. We felt it quite a bit in India as an artificial scarcity developed and lasted for much longer than the real issue. Hard drives are commodities and an absolute necessity when building PCs since they offer the best bang for buck. Which is why any drop in availability affects PC sales. The same can’t be said for enthusiast graphics cards or high end CPUs. After the HDD shortage came the SSD shortage thanks to silicon production facilities not being able to keep up with demands. The fact that more and more mobile phones are selling each year means that component manufacturers have to focus on these segments. So if a company that makes display panels for laptops and monitors sees value in making panels for mobile phones, then they’re going to shift resources from large screen assembly lines towards the smaller form factors. This results in a shortage of display panels as well. As all of these essential components become more expensive, the BOM (Bill of Materials) cost for PCs rises. Subsequently, consumers put off their purchases for a later period when the prices are more affordable. While we do see a slump in the PC market

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which mostly involves laptops and assembled desktops, there’s one segment that’s been doing significantly well. And that’s the enthusiast market. Like the age old TV wisdom - sex sells - it seems we have a similar phenomenon with PC sales - gaming sells. Slap a label that says gaming and it’s bound to sell more than without the label. You need not even have any feature that gives you an extra edge in gaming, simply market any of the existing features to make it seem as if you are getting the extra edge and it will sell. A Jon Peddie Research estimate from 2015 had set an expectation of 24.6 billion for the gaming market in 2016, however, when 2016 did finally come around, the gaming market had expanded well over the estimate to a reported 30 billion market. The industry has grown two years ahead of its estimates. That was 2016, and 2017 has been even better for the “gaming” hardware market. So what does all this tell us? Even if the traditional PC market is dying, we’re seeing a tremendous growth in the enthusiast PC market. While overall shipments maybe drying up slowly, the manufacturers aren’t losing revenue, rather they’re raking in a lot more money thanks to the popular gaming segment. India has been doing better than first world countries since the PC market is growing thanks to an enormous demand for notebooks, and to top it all off, the gaming segment has been providing a ridiculous boost. So you’re going to see a lot more gaming related events in the country since every hardware manufacturer is eyeing India in particular for this very reason. So if you’re thinking of starting out a new business and need ideas, then gaming is where your focus needs to be.

“There is something that most folks don’t tend to pick up from these quarterly reports”

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

contents NOVEMBER 2017 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 11

COVER STORY PAGE 57- 67

Celebrating PC It’s time for the PC Master Race veterans and newbies to rejoice! We’re celebrating one of the most powerful and significant devices mankind has ever built – The Personal Computer. TECH - PAGE 16-56

22 | Build a cryptominer for your website

SCIENCE - PAGE 69-76

72 | Out Cold!

All you need to know about Coinhive and how to use it!

Have you ever wondered what exactly happens to your body and your brain during blackouts, comas and vegetative states?

AND MORE

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SKOAR! - PAGE 97-111

ON THE DVD

102 | The Indian Game Dev Story What it takes to be a game developer in India, a country where it’s a stigma

99 | Rise of Battle Royale Style games Quite a lot of games are following the battle royale style these days. What makes them work?

AND MORE

ALT - PAGE 77-88

80 | Why is everything arseways in America From switches to units to driving, why did America had to go against standard practices in almost everything? was it a bid to be ‘unique’ or something else entirely?

78 | Cogito ergo sum A future with brain-computer interfaces!

AND MORE

CULTURE - PAGE 89-96

90 | Careers in CAD With an IoT, smart-home and 3D printing boom upon us, there is an impending explosion in CAD job opportunities. Here’s how to make the most of it.

94 | Booman’s Twitter tirade The uber-antisocial Boo-Man is hating on Twitter’s new 280 character limit this time.

AND MORE

Home Networking Tools AirDroid Connectify ViStumbler Who’s On My Wi-Fi Wireless Network Watcher Zenmap Alternatives to AutoCAD DraftSight FreeCAD LibreCAD NanoCAD SketchUp Make ZWCAD 2018 Essentials AdwCleaner Avast Antivirus Ellp K-Lite Codec Pack Full KCleaner LibreOffice Notepad++ Skype Thunderbird Web browsers Brave Browser Chrome Chromium Chromodo Cyberfox Opera Opera Neon Vivaldi Audiobooks 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert 5 Science Fiction Stories by Mac Reynolds At The Earth’s Core Before Adam Short sci-fi

Einstein’s Special Relativity Michelson and Morley’s luminiferous ether experiment Minkowski spacetime Lorentz transformation Einstein velocity addition Indie games Bannerman Bob Faith Investi-gator Oblige Slay.one Where The Goats Are Arduino: The Documentary Arduino the documentary is a look at the story of the open-source hardware board that now artists, engineers, students use to build many things. See who are behind the wonder. Origins and early history of humans Watch a series of videos that explores the origins and early of humans through a vast timeline of events.

www.digit.in | November 2017 | Digit | 7

WHAT’S NEW

Made by Google

DOES THIS SECTION EVEN NEED AN INTRODUCTION? FROM COMPUTERS TO MOBILES, AND HEADPHONES TO GPUS, IT’S ALL HERE...

BE LAZY

THIS MONTH IN TECH: You heard it right, learn how to automate simple tasks on your PC with this month’s workshop. Get to know how cryptomining works on websites and take a closer look at the iPhone 8 Plus. Want to know about the best web browser for desktops? We find the answer.

The Bitcoin roller coaster October has been an eventful month for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, as it went past $5000 and $6000 within two weeks, amid speculations of China un-banning cryptocurrencies. At the time of writing this, Bitcoin stands at $6033. http://dgit.in/BitRiches

ctober 4th was the day, that will be remembered in the future of Android smartphones as the really special day, when… not much changed. The Made by Google event this month gave us the successors to last year’s Pixel range, namely the Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL. The smartphones, boasting of the ‘best smartphone camera ever’, also brought to us Android Oreo with interesting features like Google Lens built-in. The Portrait Mode was reasonably a talk of the town since Google is doing it with just one camera lens while the others are using two different lenses. But to be fairly honest, we had expected a lot more.. unique stuff from the Pixel phones this year. Well, let’s hope third time’s the charm. What did steal the show, however, were the host of other hardware devices announced at the event. Google launched more products in the Google Home range, namely the Google Home Max and the Google Home Mini. While the Home Max is a premium super-sized version of the Google Home smart speaker that boasts of two 4.5 inch woofers as well as tweeters. The Google Home Mini is just the opposite – the Google Home but in a tiny package.

Windows Phone is officially dead

In a series of tweets, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore has revealed that the Windows Phone will not receive any further hardware and feature updates. However, bug and security fixes will continue to be released in a timely fashion. http://dgit.in/RIPMSPhone

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Alongside updates to the existing Home range, Google also launched a couple of new products. While the Pixel buds are mainly targeted to potential Pixel customers (since there’s no headphone jack this time around), the real-time translation feature makes it an interesting device for practically anyone. Because who wouldn’t want to speak in a different language without taking the pain of tapping and speaking to their smart-

phones? Also launched was the Google Clips smart camera that uses machine learning to capture photos and videos of interesting stuff going on in its view. Additionally, a premium high-end Chromebook, the Pixelbook, was also launched. Overall, Google gave the world of tech a lot to talk about this time around, and you need to stay tuned for more details on how well these devices perform. http://dgit.in/MadByGoogle

Nvidia announce a platform for autonomous cars

NVIDIA claims its new system, codenamed Pegasus, can be used to power Level 5, fully driverless cars without steering wheels, pedals, or mirrors. http://dgit.in/nvidiapegasus

New Facebook app only on Android

A new Facebook app/feature that lets users subscribe to publications and content platforms within the app will only be available on Android, thanks to Apple’s vehemence to charge 30% of all in-app purchases. http://dgit.in/NoThnxApple

TAKE MY MONEY

tech

Pimax

Funding: $1,488,972 of $200,000 goal as of writing Link: http://dgit.in/kspimax

WT2

Funding: $151,376 of $50,000 goal as of writing Link: http://dgit.in/kswt2

T2 is a wearable that works as a real-time translator. The WT2 kit includes two earphones, an app, and a charging case. WT2 uses what they call “1+2” technology. What this supposedly allows the WT2 to do is allow “multiplexed (combination of multiple digital and/or analog signals) speech communication between both WT2 earphone translators and a single phone with the WT2 App. All you need to do to “break down language barriers across the globe” is to pass them an earphone and start talking. It’s that easy. You don’t have to ask them to download an app on their phone or do anything else. The most common translators are apps which needs each person involved in the conversation to speak into the phone while the app is running. This requires you to pass the phone around. The other is the 1+1 model with a single phone and earphone. Here you wear the earphone while they speak into the phone speaker or vice versa. The 2+2 model requires two phones with the apps downloaded on both of them. The 1+2 model bypasses all these problems. Definitely a handy translator for travelling enthusiasts. Check WT2 out on Kickstarter.

EOZ Air

Funding: $169,369 of $40,000 goal as of writing Link: http://dgit.in/kseoz

OZ Audio call the EOZ Air the “world’s most advanced true wireless earphones”. EOZ Air promises the best audio-experience wireless earphones can provide, on par with any major brands out there. They characterise their audio quality by powerful bass, and clear and crispy mid-highs. The earphones house 8mm electro-dynamic drivers and the latest aptX technology. This supposedly reduces the bit rate signifi-

he Pimax is a 8K VR headset that’s been designed with DIY enthusiasts in mind. The design is intended to be modular, so that it not only works with current tech but can also be further implemented and added onto newer tech in the future. There’s room to add features like hand-motion, inside-out tracking, wireless, eye-tracking and more as they come along. The Pimax comes with a 200 degree FOV or Field of View. This is already more than what both the mainstream VR headsets currently dominating the market are offering. It’s also just 20 degrees less than 220 degrees which is the natural FOV for humans.

The design supposedly allows little to no outside light to enter. They’ve supposedly addressed one of the major drawbacks of VR headsets known as the “Screen door effect”. Basically, this is a phenomenon where the eyes are able to distinguish the fine lines between pixels. It’s not a very immersive experience. That’s a big plus, and one of the biggest complaints people have with VR headsets. But we’ll reserve confirmation for after we try it out, if we get to try it out that is. Let’s not forget that you’re getting a wide viewing angle WITH 8K resolution. The 8K comes from having 2x 3840x2160 lenses. They also claim to have supposedly dealt with the motion sickness issue. You can find the Pimax 8K headset on Kickstarter starting at $499.

cantly without compromising audio quality. EOZ Air comes with Bluetooth 5.0 support. Of course, that’s backwards compatible with older versions of Bluetooth as well. EOZ automatically pairs with the last device

it was used with when removed from its case and will work with any Bluetooth compatible device. EOZ Air provides four hours of playtime on a single charge with up to 48 hours more with the charging case on the move. EOZ Air is designed to stay in your ears no matter what activity you’re doing. It comes with three pairs both memory foam tips and silicone ear tips in different sizes (S, M and L). It’s also sweat resistant. The charging case can be charged via a USB Type-C cable which comes along with the EOZ Air. EOZ Air is live on Kickstarter right now and you can pick a pair up for $99. www.digit.in | November 2017 | Digit | 19

reviews The Digit Test Centre receives hundreds of products every month. Each of these products is put through a series of tests and is finally given a score. The final score is arrived at after considering a number of factors and evaluating them in terms of features, performance, value for money, build quality, and, in the case of software, even ease of use.

THE LATEST PRODUCTS REVIEWED FOR YOU

For better understanding of our ratings, here’s a quick guide to our overall score 10

to 100

Extremely poor product. Keep away!

Strictly OK.

Not recommended

Decent product.

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!

INSIDE

Zebronics Premier ZEB-916B

Intel Core i7 8700K

GALAX HOF Keyboard

Alienware 15 R3 Gaming Laptop PLUS

Intex LED B4301 UHD SMT

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Zebronics Max Plus HyperX Alloy Elite Plantronics BackBeat 505 GIGABYTE Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 38 LG OLED65C7T 39 ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING & MORE... 34 36 37 37

tech A BlackBerry with a keyboard?

The new BlackBerry Motion from TCL will be all touchscreen and is ditching the iconic keyboard http://dgit.in/bberrymotion

Galaxy S8 texts disappearing

Samsung Galaxy S8 users are reporting that some phones are failing to receive text messages, and it isn’t clear why. http://dgit.in/gs8texts

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2

density and 18:9 aspect ratio display that still feels excellent.

Almost a true flagship

Performance Being Xiaomi’s flagship, the Mix 2 is also Xiaomi’s fastest smartphone to date. Additionally, there's also 128GB storage inside which is the most storage you can get on mid-ranged phones. The Mix 2 sets high benchmark scores and the same is seen on regular usage as well. Xiaomi has tuned the software to reduce app load times. The Mi Mix 2 is snappy and responsive, although not as fast as the OnePlus 5. The earpiece on the Mix 2 is cleaner this time. Due to extensive LTE bands, meaning you can literally use it anywhere. On the OS front, you get MIUI8, and all that it brings.

aving sold millions of phones in India, Xiaomi is yet to crack the flagship market. So, as they passed on the Mi 6 this year, it seemed like the right idea to choose the Mi Mix 2 instead. The Mix series has a short history, beginning only last year. It’s meant to prove that Xiaomi isn’t a company that makes affordable phones only. It’s a mascot, for innovation and creativity. It’s meant to prove that Xiaomi is capable of making uber premium devices and bring them to market before others. The Mix isn’t a first of its kind phone, but it’s a phone that meets every modern standard you can think of.

REVIEWS

Battery Price 9 37,99

Camera

The Mi Mix 2's camera is easily wipe fingerprints off outperformed by any flagship of. The rounded metal today, mid or high-end. It sides provide better grip takes reasonable photos in and increased robustness. FEATURES ....................76 daylight, although you can The round, goldenPERFORMANCE.......... 88 see fine noise when you accented camera module VALUE...........................60 enlarge them. Details are is slightly raised, with DESIGN .........................91 also low and they reduce in the flash next to it and a low light or indoor shots. similar fingerprint sensor Shadow details are low and below it. Below that is photos shot at night remain sub-par. “Mix Designed By Xiaomi”, a declaraThankfully, colours and white balance tion by the company that it can make a are decent and the camera is quite fast phone like the Mix 2. With the proximto shoot with. Overall there’s still work ity sensor behind the display, there's to be done on the camera. also a minor earpiece notch on the top. Based simply on design, the Mix 2 is miles ahead of mid-ranged flagships Build and Design like the OnePlus 5 and Honor 8 Pro Most of the Mi Mix 2’s defining and would easily impress budget buyelements are in its design. You find a ers who yearn for the premium feel a larger black border around the screen, phone priced at 50k brings. as compared to last year’s Mi Mix, although the form factor is smaller. The Mix 2 is also thinner, and all of that Display together makes for a compact smartDue to cost cutting, a 1080p display is phone, despite a 6 inch screen. all you get, although the lack of bezels Due to the smaller form factor, make it feel much more immersive the finish feels tighter and the body on the Mix 2. While Gorilla Glass 2 more solid. Xiaomi is only selling the feels quite premium, we would have ceramic variant here in India. Hence, preferred an AMOLED panel on the your Mi Mix 2 is fragile but easier to Mix 2. Instead, you get 403 ppi pixel

The phone runs on a comparatively small 3400 mAh battery. On a weekend, with only a few calls and toned down usage, the phone easily surpassed 15 hours on a single charge. For most users, the phone will easily last at least 12 hours on each charge. The PC Mark battery test returns a score of nearly 12 hours to bring the battery down from 80% to 20%, which is the highest amongst flagships on our tests.

Verdict The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 looks premium, feels high end and it’s fast. It doesn’t set new heights in terms of what flagships can be, but it certainly proves what Xiaomi is capable of. The Mi Mix 2 matches any phone in terms of speed, design or build quality. Where it fails though is in terms of camera performance. While the Mix 2 will impress those who want a flagship design, it’s not the perfect mid-ranged flagship and certainly not the best buy. –Prasid Banerjee

SPECIFICATIONS

CONTACT

XIAOMI INDIA | PHONE: NA | EMAIL: service.in@xiaomi.com | WEBSITE: www.mi.com/in/

www.digit.in | November 2017 | Digit | 33

tech Edge coming to iOS and Android REVIEWS

Microsoft puts an end to Groove

Microsoft has released betas of its Edge browser for iOS and Android.. http://dgit.in/edgeiosdroid

Zebronics Max Plus

By the end of the year you will no longer be able to stream, purchase or download music via Microsoft's Groove music app. http://dgit.in/groove2spotify

Intex LED B4301 UHD SMT

A new winner in budget mechanical keyboard

Not good enough

Price 0 52,99

Price 2,999

he Max Plus is a full-sized 104-key mechanical keyboard packing all the required features necessary for gaming and typing. FEATURES ....................50 Backlighting is bright, and BUILD QUALITY ...........69 although it’s not RGB, all the VALUE...........................90 rows have different coloured LEDs giving an illusion of an RGB keyboard. Along with that, you get support for multimedia control and Windows lock through modifier keys. Full n-key rollover is present on the keyboard and there wasn’t any visible input lag or erroneous key presses. On the inside, the Max Plus packs Outemu Blue mechanical switches which, although similar to Cherry MX Blue, boast of only 10 million clicks. They have a similar actuation force of something between 50-60g and travel distance of 4mm. Gaming on the Max Plus wasn't bad and typing on the keyboard was also pleasant. Apart from the switches, the chassis build quality is average. However, the keycaps are double-shot injected which indicates a longer lifespan of the characters on them. There’s nothing attractive in the design of the Max Plus nor does it offer the best build quality. It's USP is the price of `2,999. While the TVS Gold is available for a lower price with genuine Cherry MX switches, it doesn’t offer backlighting. The price differs only by a few hundred rupees, so it’s best to go for the one with more features. If you've always fancied a mechanical keyboard, you wouldn’t need to think twice about the Max Plus. –Abhijit Dey

SPECIFICATIONS

CONTACT

ZEBRONICS | PHONE: 1800-102-0220 | EMAIL: enquiry@zebronics.info | WEBSITE: http:// zebronics.com/

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ut of the box, Intex’s 43-inch 4K UHD Smart television sports a utilitarian design. PERFORMANCE...........67 Barring the semi-circular, CONNECTIVITY ............63 metallic stand, the TV doesn’t DESIGN .........................65 make any efforts to look and feel like a high-end television. It’s bezels are reasonably thin and it’s really light as well. While the TV is easy to set up, there’s a noticeable wobble that seems rather precarious. Even if the port situation is well handled, picture quality on the Intex TV isn’t the best. The picture quality is an overall letdown and even if you do get to play 4K content on this TV, the change in quality is barely visible. That’s mostly because the panel isn’t very good in the first place. Another problem is that the Intex TV’s USB ports don’t seem support NTFS hard drives. For software, the company has created a forked version of Android 5.1. The UI is reasonably fast and smooth. Instead of a Play Store, you get Intex’s App Store, which seems to have a lot of problems with supporting even common apps like Netflix and Prime Video. Even the controls are poorly designed. With lacklustre audio summing up the cheap experience, `52,990 is far too expensive for this television, and you’d be better off buying a FHD TV, which will also save you money. If you’re bent on buying a 4K TV, TCL’s 50inch 4K TV looks better and delivers much better picture quality, at a slightly lower price point. –Prasid Banerjee

SPECIFICATIONS

CONTACT

INTEX TECHNOLOGIES | PHONE: 011 41610224 | EMAIL - NA | WEBSITE: www.intex.in

Imaging: Peterson PJ

cover story

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Mithun Mohandas | mithun@digit.in

rophesying the future of any technology domain has always been a difficult thing to do. Not that we’re held back by our limited imagination, but the pace of innovation is so rapid that any reasonable prediction we make always ends up being way too conservative. Since Artificial Intelligence has become very accessible, almost every company with a good R&D division is using AI to build reliable data models and hasten the research process. So take these predictions with a pinch of salt. If at all you are reading this 20 years from when it was written and they all seem way too conservative, you know why.

IS THE PC REALLY DYING?

No, the personal computer is not going to die anytime soon, no matter which form factor we’re looking at. From the traditional desktop machine to the new slim ultraportables, the value that a personal computer holds makes it invulnerable for the next 20 years.

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However, there has been a strong shift towards smaller and sleeker form factors and manufacturers are more than happy to accommodate customers since it allows them to charge a premium. The older bulkier systems don’t give manufacturers as high a margin as they used to, but since they form the bulk of the PC business, it’s going to be around till the market share makes it unviable to continue. And even the slim computers aren’t going to outlast the traditional desktop by a huge margin. Simply consider them to be a stage on the PC’s path of evolution towards becoming commoditised. However, it’s this path of evolution that we’re curious about, and this is what we think is most likely to happen with PCs.

DISPLAY

Let’s start with the most visible component of the PC. There’s no questioning the fact that the display and keyboard are what’s keeping the PC from shrinking further. Going

below the 13-inch form factor is seen as asking to be ignored by the customer as we can assuage from the shrinking tablet market. Tablets aren’t popular and manufacturers aren’t going to place their bets on a dying market so we’ll continue to see the 13/15/17-inch screens to live on. However, the panel technology should see interesting developments. Foldable screens should become more popular as it will allow computers to be squeezed into an even smaller dimension. Imagine a notebook that fits in your pocket that can be unfolded twice before you operate it. Provided the elastomers that allow for “bending” can survive repetitive bending. The other interesting development we expect is for haptic displays to become mainstream. Though it will remain a novelty until the haptic feedback can be used to provide a practical and long lasting feature. Another possibility is to use projection technology to provide both, a keyboard and display, thus,

cover story allowing for the form factor to reduce even further. However, this becomes impractical for folks on the move.

STORAGE

This one is a no brainier. The traditional hard drive will continue to survive with even greater densities being made possible. Only recently, Western Digital unveiled their Microwave-assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) technology which will help increase storage density to 4 Tb/sq. inch making hard drives with 40 TB a possibility by 2025. Hard drive technologies tend to evolve at a slower pace and hard drive manufacturers have resorted to coming up with scenario-specific SKUs. So it’s unlikely we’ll see anything remarkable with those. On the other hand, we have the SSDs to look forward to. NVMe was a significant leap over existing technologies and we should see similar leaps whenever semiconductor process nodes evolve. Moore’s Law is at the verge of ceasing to be so we’re reaching the fundamental limits of transistor technology. There’s still a significant scope for development and it’ll just take more time to increase density. This means, we’ll see SSDs mature and gain reliability akin to those of hard drives. Already, technologies like Optane have provided a nominal increment in memory endurance. As these technologies mature, we’ll soon see the hard drives relegated to enterprise uses. The only caveat being equalisation of cost. For all we know, if SSDs do equal performance and endurance levels of RAM, they just might replace RAM altogether.

CPUS

The easy thing to say would be that CPUs are going to get faster and smarter and more power efficient. However, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang’s recent statement at the GPU Technology Conference should have Intel and AMD worried. He stated that GPUs will replace CPUs and that the days of Moore’s Law are numbered. If you think about it, GPUs have been, for some time, taking over functions that were traditionally performed by CPUs. CPUs have only been gaining incremental performance gains with each generation while GPUs

have been scaling by leaps and bounds. So if you were to offset CPU tasks onto the GPU, then even with computational overhead considered the GPU should be able to outperform the CPU. To add credibility to Jen-Hsun Huang’s statement, an NVIDIA whitepaper that was accidentally made public, outlined a Multi-Chip-Module(MCM) GPU. Since Moore’s law also affects GPUs, NVIDIA is exploring package level integration of multiple GPUs to build a bigger GPU module. Since CPUs are general purpose computational devices, having different modules within the MCM GPU focused on different computational aspects essentially makes it a CPU. It seems fairly plausible on a 20 year roadmap to see the CPU make way for the GPU.

FORM FACTORS

Computers might just get a little too personal. By personal, we mean both, near permanent fixtures that are embedded into your person and swappable gadgets that are placed on your person. Cybernetic implants aren’t unheard of but the current generation of cybernetic implants are hardly full fledged computers. Twenty years from now, we should see human beings make use of multiple cybernetic implants to compensate for human inadequacies and a central node to control them all. Most of these implants will start off as prosthetics and it will be some time before cosmetic applications take off. So we aren’t going to be transformed into the Borg collective 20 years from now, but having a cybernetic implant inside you will be really common. Some academics predict that we might have the electronic equivalent of stem cells in the future that can be injected into your body to help repair impaired motor functions or simply enhance your brain. Honestly, we’d argue that 20 years feels a bit too less for such a tremendous leap in technology.

HID

Human Interface Devices are probably the most interesting devices that most of us would be looking forward to. The massive hype around Pranav Mistry’s sixth sense when it was first

unveiled and the current VR boom serve as testament to how much people are interested in HIDs. Current generation HIDs include interactive projections and tracking without the need of interacting with a physical controller such as the Microsoft Kinect. However, these technologies aren’t anywhere close to achieving the accuracy of the traditional mouse. This is where accurate eye-tracking comes into the picture. However, eyetracking already exists and if you’ve ever tried one, you’ll realise how bland an experience it can be. You are simply staring at a screen and waiting for a visual feedback to tell your that your input has been received i.e. it’s a unidirectional system. Bidirectional HID is the future. Imagine having a system that can provide haptic feedback for a non-contact input. In a similar vein, think of emotion tracking, where human emotions are considered before receiving input. It’s almost as if computers are gaining good bedside manners. Throw a bit of VR / AR / MR into the mix and you have systems like those seen in the minority report become a reality.

PC AS A SERVICE (PCAAS)

It goes without saying that the PC will get commoditised in the next 20 years leading to the PC being offered as a service. It’s quite plausible to expect average performing PCs to be sold at kiosks for next to nothing sort of like miniature credit cards. And with cloud storage becoming cheaper by the day, you could simply do away with the PC altogether and just carry around an ID which can simply bring all your data to your fingertips no matter where you are. If you need the extra compute power, you can simply plug in another compute module and you’re good to go, or you can simply move to a higher payment plan and get the extra processing power in a manner of seconds. Despite all of these conveniences, there’s one thing that won’t die off so easily in the next 20 years, and that’s the enthusiast machine. Heavy compute tasks like video editing, AI, ML, etc. will still require a large format machine. Long live the #PCMasterRace. www.digit.in | November 2017 | Digit | 59

WHAT’S NEW

The fear of spiders and snakes is hereditary

HAVE YOU EVER...?

THIS MONTH IN SCIENCE: Ever wondered how a coma is different from blackouts? Ever imagined that a roller coaster ride could be a cure for kidney stones? Ever thought that some of the most innovative ideas in the country would come not from its labs, but from its startups?

There are chunks of plastic frozen in the Arctic ice

A British-led expedition has found sizable chunks of polystyrene on remote frozen ice flows in the middle of Arctic Ocean. The discovery was made just 1,000 miles away from the North Pole, in an area that was inaccessible to scientists because of sea ice. http://dgit.in/polyarctic

small percentage of the population is exposed to snakes or spiders and the country is only known to have two species of snakes that are truly venomous, the percentage of people who are averse to the creatures is no less than any other country where they are more commonplace. http://dgit.in/fearcrawlies

Puppy dog eyes are meant only for humans

new study shows that dogs make puppy dog eyes solely for the benefit of humans. It was found that the facial expression is rarely ever used outside of when they’re interacting with humans. It was long assumed that animal facial expressions were involuntary and dependant on emotional state. It wasn’t thought that dogs used it as a form of communication.

However, scientists at the Dog Cognition Centre at Portsmouth University have found that dogs mostly use facial expressions when

humans are present, as a direct response to attention. The “puppy dog eyes”, where the dog raises its brows and makes its eyes appear wider was found to be the most common. Researchers haven’t been able to tell if the dogs actually know that they look sadder, or if they’ve just learned that doing so elicits sympathy and affection from humans. http://dgit.in/pupeyes

Source: NASA

SCIENCE IS THE PATH TO KNOWLEDGE, AND FINDING OUT ABOUT HOW OUR UNIVERSE WORKS. YOU CAN’T BE A GEEK AND NOT KNOW YOUR SCIENCE!

lot of people are afraid of snakes and spiders, even in countries and places where people hardly come in contact with them. A debate going on for a while now is whether this fear is innate or learnt. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive Brain Sciences (MPICBS) in Leipzig and the Uppsala University have discovered that the fear is indeed hereditary and ingrained in us. Even six month old babies felt stressed upon seeing the creatures, long before they could have possibly learned to be afraid of them. Even in a country like Germany, where a very

Water could have flowed on ancient Mars

Mars has water-carved valleys and lake beds which indicate that at some point water flowed on its surface. However, climate models suggest that average temperatures on the red planet stayed well below freezing. So how was water flow possible? http://dgit.in/marswaterflow

British birds evolved bigger beaks

It has been found that some birds in Britain have evolved to have bigger beaks over the last 40 years. The reason? It’s easier to feed from bird-feeders, which is fairly commonplace in Britain and can be found in many places. http://dgit.in/britbird

Crops evolved ten millennia before what experts thought

According to a new research by the University of Warwick, ancient hunter-gatherers affected the evolution of crops up to 30,000 years ago, which is a good 10,000 years before experts previously estimated. http://dgit.in/cropevolve

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sci Herbivores ate shellfish R&D

NASA’s Odyssey captures Phobos

Even herbivorous dinosaurs couldn’t resist the taste of shellfish, their poop reveals. http://dgit.in/NonvegDino

NASA’s Odyssey orbiter which has been going around Mars recently sent photos of the Martian moon Phobos after 16 years. http://dgit.in/OdyssyPhbs

Startup Competitions in India T

here is no right time or formula to get a good idea, especially if that idea has the potential to be the next big startup of the country, maybe even the world! But there is no denying that even the best ideas sometimes find it hard to find the right traction and support before eventually dying out in today’s world. Thankfully, there are quite a few startup competitions that are trying to do their bit in highlighting the best among the best. These competitions are providing startups the necessary platform, along with mentorship, funding and even step-by-step guidance in some cases. While there are a lot of accelerators out there, catering to various startup verticals and industry areas, what we are looking at today are more competitive events that let startups compete against each other for a winning position. Let’s just say that if you have an idea for a startup, applying for a startup competition is one of the best ways you can go to get your idea noticed and even give it an adequate platform to grow to its full potential. But out of all the competitions out there, which ones should you apply for? We’ve got your back on that one.

QUALCOMM DESIGN IN INDIA After a successful first round last year, Qualcomm was back in 2017 with Design in India Challenge II. With an aim to make India an innovation hub,

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are great s n io it t e p Startup com startups e s a c w o h s o platforms t m noticed and get the it.in

e | arnab@dig

rje Arnab Mukhe

this competition invites applications from all startups based in India with a minimum of 6 months of operations in hardware design and solutions, mainly in the areas of smart infrastructure, biometric devices, payment terminals, agricultural technology, medical technology and rural IoT. Ideally, your product should be designed using Snapdragon SoCs and/or other Qualcomm products, but there’s no

such strict restriction. What is crucial, though, is that your product showcases a relevance to “community and technology” related demand in India. Why should you apply? First of all, this is one of the few competitions out there that is focussed on actual hardware ideas. There are typically two cycles to this competition, from January to August and from July to December respectively. In each cycle of

QDIC II, up to 6 shortlisted companies get a cash prize of $10,000 each to convert their design submissions into workable prototypes using the Qualcomm Innovation Lab. These shortlisted companies also get 6 months of technical support and mentoring in the Qualcomm Innovation Lab at the end of which, they are judged at the grand finale event and up to 2 winning companies stand to win up to $75,000 each in prize money. In this year’s edition, the first cycle was won by Tagbox Solutions Pvt. Ltd and Steradian Semiconductors Pvt. Ltd. While the former has designed an ultra-low power wireless platform, the latter has developed a high resolution 4D radar to enable true all-weather vision for autonomous vehicles and drones. To know more about QDIC, check out http://dgit.in/qualcommdic.

WHARTON INDIA STARTUP CHALLENGE Want to take part in a competition that led to startups like Ketto, Zostel and BabyChakra? Wharton India Startup Challenge would be the one you’re looking for. Currently accepting applications for its fifth edition, the competition from Wharton India Economic Fo-

WHAT’S NEW

Google’s A.I creates better code than its creators THIS IS TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE AND SCIENCE WITH A DIFFERENCE, AND THAT DIFFERENCE IS USUALLY ENOUGH TO MAKE MOST NORMAL PEOPLE GO “WTF?”

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? USE YOUR BRAIN: One can’t help but noticethat quite a few things in America are different by design - units, driving side and more. Find out why in Geek-key. While brain computer interfaces might be far from reality, we imagined a future where they are very much a part of everyday life, in Future Feature. All of that with your regular dose of DGT goodness - that’s ALT for this month.

Psychopaths can be very adaptive Psychopaths are often thought of as being highly maladaptive and are often associated to having a lack of empathy and emotions. However, new research in the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences has found otherwise. http://dgit.in/psychowhat

oogle’s automated machine learning system, the mysterious AutoML, develops neural networks of its own. The company recently announced that the AutoML has successfully duplicated and improved itself, with more efficient code. The project was started in May as an AI that would help Google create other AI systems. It was a matter of time, but AutoML has successfully improved on its own code - what it

was created for. Essentially, AutoML is now ‘smarter’ than the team of 1300 people who were tasked with creating it. AutoML has made several headlines and broken several records so far. It broke the record for categorising images by content and also beat a human-built system for marking the location of multiple objects in an image field. According to Google, these processes can integrate into furthering AR and VR. http://dgit.in/googleautoml

Apple gave Uber unprecedented access

t was recently found out that the Uber app has a secret backdoor to Apple’s devices, allowing the service to access and record a user’s screen and other personal information without their knowledge. The ability is not disclosed anywhere on any information that’s displayed to the app’s consumers. This despite the fact that the company is giving Uber access to features which are off-limits

Alexa fooled by a parrot

A pet parrot from London was able to make an order online, mimicking its owner after overhearing a conversation. How it went from triggering the keyword ‘Alexa’ to actually placing and confirming the order is not yet known. http://dgit.in/parotorder

to outside companies. There’s no info or knowledge as to whether Uber has made use of the special

Wireless sex toy gets hacked

A serious security flaw was discovered with a Bluetooth-enabled sex toy which allowed hackers to remotely take control of the toy using their laptop. The reason is apparently a cheap and insecure version of Bluetooth which has no built-in protocol security. http://dgit.in/stoyhax

features/privileges. But now that it has been revealed that they actually have access to these features raises even more questions about the company’s controversial business practices. According to Uber, the code was not being used and was a “vestige from an earlier version of its Apple Watch app” which set off alarm bells among experts. http://dgit.in/uberbackd

Conspiracy theorists have a problem

According to a paper published in the European Journal of Social Psychology some people sense danger even when there’s no signs of the same, driving them to believe in conspiracy theories. It’s called illusory pattern perception. http://dgit.in/conspcog

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alt MIT students fortify concrete FUTURE FEATURE

Students at MIT have created stronger concrete by adding bits of irradiated plastic water bottles to it. http://dgit.in/mitconc

Tesla ships batteries to Puerto Rico Tesla has been sending hundreds of its batteries to Puerto Rico as the island deals with widespread power loss. http://dgit.in/TeslaPR

Cogito ergo sum FA-TTER POST 89752167445345

Some french guy said this in the 17th century, and it means “I think, therefore I am”... I AWOKE TODAY IN EXACTLY THE SAME MANNER I have done since I was first brought online on my sixth birthday – exactly at 7:00 am IST, with the GovNet anthem playing in my head. Heart this post, I’m including a brainload so you can experience my perspective. I know many of you will think it a waste of time because you all also awake the exact same way yourselves, at the same time, but try it.... GovNet tells me my brain waves have changed, and I am no longer as content and as refreshed in the morning. They’ve even sent out three bots in the last month alone to check on my uplink, and the interface seems to be working fine. I’m scheduled for a direct connection with an enforcer in about a week… they’d do it sooner, but more and more people seem to be exhibiting a more than standard deviation from GovNet norms. I was worried it was another outbreak of The Virus, but I was assured that I had none of that code in my head.

But would they tell me if I was infected? See. See what I mean? I keep getting random thoughts like that, which are messing with my braingramming##. Because it’s taking so long for GovNet to help me, I’ve been doing research, and retracing my steps and looking at my brogs*. It turns out, that this all started somewhere between the time I first found the old collection of science fiction, and the discovery of the ancient articles from that Digit company on the dead web. None of the sci-fi books, nor the Digit articles were even brain-coded. I actually had to display them on my wall… like walliti**... it was so strange, having to actually do this thing called “reading”. Believe it or not, as recently as 200 years ago, people didn’t even have the GovNet, let alone scalps#! I had to look at squiggles on the wall, and GovNet launched an ancient app called BrOCR or something like that, to translate those squiggles into meaning. I don’t know if they had horrible language skills or whether GovNet’s program is

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faulty, but I suspect the former, because of the myriad spelling errors! ## braingramming = brain programming | * brogs = brain logs | ** walliti = wall graffiti | # scalps = brain | computer interfaces

Maybe we’re the ones with the bad language skills now? There it goes… another odd thought. I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain! Anyway. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I got so focussed on the walliti articles, and for so many months, that I’ve begun to be able to “read” them myself. Yes, that’s what they called it… “reading”. It was something you did with your eyes, and it needed light! Can you believe the energy wastage that must have happened back then? Needing actual light, and using the eyes to “see”. No, it’s not like how we see now, it’s like looking with your eyes open… something we would never think of doing now, because there isn’t anything to see in our cubicles. Not only did they waste energy by seeing back then… believe it or not, they even moved about on those useless things we call legs. I could tell you such stories about how they moved, how they used machines to move faster, and even wasted more energy that any of us could use in a lifetime by having “races” – where individuals had a contest to see which of their machines could complete a journey faster!

Sounds like fun! Arrgh! Shut up! Stupid brain! Where was I? Oh yes, the walliti… those sci-fi books were so strange. What we call sci-fi today they used to call “news”. Their sci-fi was all about people writing about things that didn’t really happen… I know, it’s strange, but people liked those things. They told stories that they… just made up… like in their heads. Like tell-

WHAT’S NEW

New trailers: Justice League, Black Panther and more

GEEK CULTURE IS OUR WAY OF LIFE, AND ENCOMPASSES MOVIES, GAMES, COMICS, AND TRENDS FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE

BUILD IT BETTER

THIS MONTH IN CULT: We had our hands full with a bunch of trailers for movies we’ve anticipated for a long while. But if you need to get some work done, explore how to build a career in CAD and CAE. And while you’re building your next project, find out why Project Treble is probably the saviour that Android has been awaiting.

New beginnings after Avengers 4 Director James Gunn has said that once we have wrapped up with Phase 3 of the MCU, which ends after the sequel of Infinity War, a new story will be written after that. The next phase, Phase 4 will officially kick off with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. http://dgit.in/MCUPhs4JG

he month of November is going to be a great month for superhero fans, since Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League open up. To hype things up, Warner Bros. released the final trailer for JL that further shows Steppenwolf’s wrath unleashed on the DCEU. In December, The Last Jedi is going to tell us about Rey’s parents, who exactly is Snoke and more stuff teased in the trailer. In the latest Black Panther trailer, we see more of Wakanda and the villain of the movie (who is suited up as well). Also anticipated is Pacific Rim: Uprising. From the trailer, the movie seems to deliver what we

absolutely loved in the original: Giant robots kicking, pile driving monsters bigger than them.

Is Blade Runner 2049 a flop?

redicted to start off with an opening weekend of around $50 million, Blade Runner 2049 made only $32.7 million. After three weeks of release, the sequel has been able to gross around $81.9 million at the box office. Although it’s already a success compared to recent sci-fi movies, the budget of $150

Han Solo movie gets a name

The Star Wars spin off movie based on the early years of Han Solo finally has a name. Director Ron Howard took to social media to announce the title “Solo: A Star Wars Story” after wrapping up production of the movie, which has a release date of May 25, 2018. http://dgit.in/SoloHanRH

million is yet to be recovered. The first Blade Runner movie made $6 million at the box office opening with a total budget of $28 million. They were only able to break-even after decades of re-releasing different cuts of the movie. The movie built a cult following through the years. This time, poor ticket sales could be

Ruffalo accidentally streams Ragnarok

While at the premiere of Thor: Ragnarok, Mark Ruffalo was building up excitement for the movie by going live from his Instagram account. But he forgot to end the live stream, where the viewers were able to listen to the opening scenes of the movie. http://dgit.in/MRuffTR

because of its 163 minutes running time and the necessity to have watched the original. That would mean spending close to five hours to watch both the movies which seems too much for newcomers to the franchise. If you ask us, we enjoyed the movie’s incredible visuals and how new dimensions were added to the original story. All this without even glancing at our watches for once. http://dgit.in/BR2049BO

Pennywise had eaten a baby in IT

The record breaking horror movie had a flashback scene where the shapeshifter Pennywise was seen eating a baby. This deleted scene was mentioned by actor Bill Skarsgard who played the role of Pennywise, and a Reddit thread also came up explaining the scene. http://dgit.in/PnnwsIT

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culture The SNES classic is easy to hack CAREERS

A simple exploit designed by a Russian hacker allows fans to add far more games to the system than its default set of 21. http://dgit.in/sneshax

Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

here was a time when architects had to sit with complicated geometry tools and huge blueprints to work on the design of a project. Then came along computer aided design tools, and architecture almost entirely moved onto the digital platform. Fast forward to today, and it isn’t just limited to that one field. Almost everything you see around you was nothing more than a digital representation on someone’s screen. Computer Aided Engineering and Design have taken over a huge aspect of every engineering project’s lifecycle. Apart from the evident advantage that digital simulations offer in the form of savings in cost and time, computer aided engineering tools can often simulate real life conditions that were limited to a broad estimate (from the engineer) at best not too long ago. And that is exactly why we will explore all that needs to be done to build a career in this area. But before we begin,

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there’s some things that you need to determine yourself.

PREREQUISITES The field of computer aided design and engineering is quite vast. From the automobile engineering to manufacturing industries and even game development, every field and specialisation uses some form of CAD and CAE today. In fact, the benefit of using these in most projects is the unification of engineers and designers from multiple verticals coming together to apply their collective knowledge on one, comprehensive idea. With areas like IoT rising fast and 3Dprinting becoming reliable and cheap, newer devices are being conceptualised and designed at a never-seen before pace and this means that there are significant new job opportunities - but for that, you either need to have a background experience in the vertical you’re designing for, or good skills in the design environment itself. “While 1.5 million engineers graduate every year in India, only a very small percentage of them are employable, making employability

Batman coming in Blu-ray

The popular animated series of Batman released back in 1992 is making a comeback on Blu-ray in 2018. http://dgit.in/BatmnBlu

training an urgent imperative,” says Mr. Rafiq Somani, Country Manager, South Asia Pacific and Middle East at ANSYS. “Understanding the physics of the phenomenon, translating into an engineering challenge and then using software to solve these challenges is a critical element of being employable as an engineer.”

LEARNING Depending on your situation, there can be more than one way to approach learning the basics of CAD. We do say ‘basics’ because most of the learning in CAD happens on the job, where the most important aspects of your CAD skills - your problem solving ability and creativity - are put to use. But before all of that happens, it’s good to build a repertoire of CAD qualifications, or even one particular segment. There are quite a few small and big institutions offering CAD courses that are targeted at generating employment. Enumerating and qualifying them would be a gargantuan task in itself. But when it comes to the online learning