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1Digit | July 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Apple recently unveiled iOS 7, which a lot of people were waiting for with baited breath. After all, design maestro

Jonathan Ive was going to be behind this one, and he has the notoriety of being willing to break tradition and build from scratch.

It’s been no secret that I’m pretty critical of Apple, and that I hate the way they sometimes market ordinary features as if they’ve just made wine from rocks. Actually, everyone kind of does that, it’s the way the game’s played I suppose, but perhaps it’s the devoted iPeople I’ve come across who have really irked me. Just because Steve said it, doesn’t make it the Gospel!

I’m not particularly religious, nor am I a “fan” of anything – except Manchester United to some extent, though I’m pretty critical of them as well. Surprisingly, I’ve had more rational debates with devoutly religious people of all religions than I’ve ever been able to have with some Apple “fans”. Fitting, I suppose, since the very word is a shortened form of “fanatics”.

Getting back to iOS, there already seem to be arguments starting online as to whether Apple’s “copied”, or “been inspired by”, Win-dows, Android, BlackBerry 10, and even Palm’s WebOS. This was expected, because radical changes bring comparisons to all that have gone before. Creativity itself is so subjective and usually inspired, that for all practical purposes, nit-pickers will always find “influences”.

A lot of new songs you hear, if scrutinised, sound like they’ve been inspired by some other. Perhaps the composer’s never heard the other song before, and since there are only 12 distinct notes in western music, there’s bound to be note progressions (melodies) that sound similar.

However, can Apple’s team claim the same ignorance? You can bet your life that every one of these companies watches every OS release by every other company like a hawk. With a trillion dollars at stake, they’d better be! Just as everyone watches what Apple is doing, so does Apple watch everyone else.

So what if iOS7 looks like it borrowed a few ideas from Palm / Android / Windows 8? It’s not the end of the world, unless you’re a fanboy and you take that as an insult to your very being. Apple’s never really “invented” anything ground-breaking that we use today... but neither have the other big companies. It

is researchers at good colleges such as MIT, smaller companies that get bought over, and some really creative individuals that do most of the real inventing anyway. What successful companies do best is identify a trend before it becomes one, buy into ideas before they’re big, modify good ideas into great ones, not be stuck-up enough to change, and most importantly, allow themselves to be inspired by others.

Even Sachin Tendulkar learnt the tech-niques of playing the perfect straight drive by watching others do it, footballing god Messi was inspired by someone, and Michael Jackson took a little inspiration from street dancers to invent his Moonwalk. So why should we hold Jona-than Ive and his team to any higher standards? Identifying what works best – regardless of who first used it – takes great maturity, and adopting something that’s not totally “new” into a flag-ship product line of one of the world’s biggest companies takes courage.

The only constant in the technology world is change, and even Steve Jobs knew that, as far back as 1994, where he once said in an inter-view, “All the work I have done in my life will be obsolete by the time I’m 50.”

Personally, I welcome the fact that Apple is looking to be more user-friendly and intuitive, regardless of whether it gets called a copycat. The lines blurring between UIs is a good thing, and will make switches to different platforms easier for people; it will level the playing field, and allow you to choose what’s best, instead of sticking to a platform for the sake of loyalty.

I think I’m going to like the new iOS 7, more than any versions before it, but I’m not going to put blinders on and think only Apple contributed to making it the way it is. We have Android, Windows and WebOS developers to thank for the new Apple OS as well, and admit-ting that isn’t Apple-bashing.

Personally, I’d just like Apple videos to be less preachy and sound less like evangelism – www.apple.com/ios/ios7/design/ – but maybe that’s just me. Or is it?

“Apple’s never really “invented” anything ground-breaking that we use today... but neither have the other big companies.”

Robert Sovereign-SmithExecutive [email protected]

Something new, something borrowed

Liked or hated this column? Write in to [email protected] and let me know your thoughts.

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2 Digit | July 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

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COnnECtIOnSWeb WatchMobile WatchApp WatchSecurity Watch

DIgItal lIfEDroolmaalImprove your brain with apps

SCI-tECHTomorrow’s Tech

tOOlbOxQ&AWorkshopTips and Tricks

trIED anD tEStEDFlagship smartphonesBazaar

StrEEt SmartAgent 001Price WatchKiller Rigs

tECH at wOrkIndustry Connect

ESCUnwindCommunityDigit 101

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TRIeDTeSTeD

quICknAvIgAToR

Invisible, Invincible, Incredible, Inevitable technologyWe celebrate five aspects of technology

101 ASUS TAIChI One Display is passé, it’s time for two

103 PAnASonIC P51 Decent mid-range phone, does it stand out against the others?

88gPS Devices

We compare 13 GPS devices so that you won’t get lost and reach

your destination on time.

ContentsJUly 2013 volUMe 13 \ ISSUe 07

104 nvIDIA gTX 770Deserving wingman to the GTX 780

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world Viewour pick of the best articles from around the world.

065

038

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On The DV D’s

Droolmaalgadgets and gizmos that will enrich your lives. Provided you’re rich of course.

devworxWWDC 2013,An interview with nikhil Soman, founder, Playblazer.

16 VIDEOtutOrIalS

107InTel CoRe-I7 4770KThe fastest quad-core desktop processor on the planet is here

features

ComputexDigit goes to Computex 2013 and brings you news about the hottest product launches.

Positronic BrainCan we ever really hope to have real Artificial Intelligence among us?

wwDC xIIIApple WWDC 2013 coverage

DistroFreeBSD 8.4

learnSculptris for OS X and Win-dows,Sculptris video tutorials

Sponsored appTrend Micro Titanium Maxi-mum Security

EssentialsAudacityAMD Drivers 32 and 64-bitAvast free editionBlenderCCleanerDaemon Tools LiteDropboxFeedReaderFileZillaFree MindMozilla FirefoxGoogle Drive

GIMPHamachiNVIDIA GeForce drivers 32 and 64-bit

SkOar!First interactive digital edi-tion of SKOAR!

ExclusiveDigit goes to Computex 2013. Digit interviews Fatal1ty. Get a lowdown on all things Fa-tal1ty - his gear, career, early life and even some Quake 3 tips!

E3 2013Catch up on everything related to E3. Take advantage of our complete coverage of all the major events and games of the show.

game demosCall of Juarez 1Call of Juarez: Bound in blood

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2gB oF eSSenTIAl SoFTWARe

DvD

108 STeelSeRIeS FlUX If bass is your thing

38 39Digit | July 2013 | www.thinkdigit.comDigit | July 2013 | www.thinkdigit.com

Digital life Drool maal

Smart Motion PreviewBing recently introduced Smart Motion Preview to actually preview a video before hitting a “play” button. Another tackle to Google, eh? http://dgit.in/15Mp6Yv

Nokia Asha 501This month Nokia unveiled its latest Asha 501, with a global price tag of $99. http://dgit.in/12rE2a3

Facebook for iOS updateOfficial Faceook app comes to version 6.1.1 for iOS, featuring new photo viewer option, and updated News Feed. http://dgit.in/11DLt12

Digital gizmos that add on the convenience

Sonos Playbar Part of a home theatre’s appeal and success is based on its audio performance, making speakers (surround

speakers at that!) an essential building block of the experience. But the Sonos Playbar isn’t just a dull and boring speaker set, it’s a smart one at that. One of the

most touted feature of the this slick soundbar is its abil-ity to wirelessly stream and play music from the cloud.

Inside the case are six mid woofers and three tweeters, and the Playbar claims to play both clear low-level fre-

quencies and distortion-free deep sounding bass at high volumes. And it’s ridiculously easy to use.

Suunto Ambit2 This one’s for all you fitness and adventure freaks. Imagine get-ting rid of your smartphone (just for once) and velcro-straps, but still have the ability to track your fitness (other things) while on a jog or an exploration trek? A Swiss army knife of watches, the Suunto Ambit2 not only has GPS tracking to keep an eye on your running speed, distance and vertical, it also offers a full range of navigation functions (chronograph, barometer, compass, etc.). Apart from all this the wristwatch can also keep tabs on your vitals, while you’re in the middle of swimming stroke or pedalling through a desert. The watch supports its very own app store with over 5,000 distinct apps. Go grab it now!

Cube 3D Printer 3D printers are still at a nascent stage right now, and most of them require a complex assembly process before you can fire them up. Not the Cube 3D printer, from 3D Systems and Cubify, which is a bit different from others out there. The Cube is literally its name-sake in dimensions (5.5 x 5.5 x 5.5 inches) and comes with an EZ load print cartridge for “printing” miniature objects. After you purchase it, you get up to 50 free 3D print files for the initial burst of 3D mania. You can design and sell your 3D model online and purchase prototype designs from others through Cubify. Let the 3D hysteria begin!

Robotalk Want to own a personalized robot toy? Look no further than Robotalk, a cute little desktop gizmo that offers more than just eye candy. This table-top robot runs on Ubunty and a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom chip with 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, and offers fea-tures like a USB slot, LAN and Wi-Fi support. It also bundles in a 2MP camera, 60-LED array and proximity sensors. Robotalk can sync with Google Calendar to remind you of appointment, read the news through RSS, and is always ready to kick you out of cubicle boredom with a witty, unsuspecting sense of humour. Obviously, it is insanely expensive.

Combimouse How would you work if your keyboard and mouse were

designed differently from their traditional look and feel? And what if they made you work better than ever? The genius of Ari Zagnoev, the engineer who invented and patented Combimouse

as far back in 1999, has been perfecting the design and concept. The Combimouse basically splits the regular keyboard into

two halves and the right-half of the keyboard has a mouse trail towards the end for you to grip. It’s still a work-in-progress, the

Combimouse, but Zagnoev and his team are getting closer to launching a commercial product very soon.

78Get smarterWho doesn’t like to be smarter, right? With the power of these apps, it’s time to give your brain a much-needed upgrade. Thank us later.

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July 2013 • Volume 13 • Issue 07

Bazaar

AMD A10-6800K

ASRock Z87 Extreme 4

ASUS Taichi

Byond Phablet P1

Corsair H80i

Corsair Vengeance K70

ECS Z87H3 A2X Extreme

F&D A511

Genius Wireless combo

HP Pavilion m4-1003tx

Intel Core i7-4770K

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

Panasonic P51

Seagate Central 4TB

Signature Acoustics C12

Sony Alpha A58

Sony DSC-WX300

Spice Stellar Pinnacle Pro

Steelseries Flux

Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security

Umax Boombastic USP 3200

Videocon d2h HD DVR

Western Digital WD5000LPVT

Wickedleak Wammy Desire II

ZOTAC GTX 780

High-end smartphones

Apple iPhone 5

BlackBerry Q10

BlackBerry Z10

HTC Butterfly

HTC One

LG Nexus 4

LG Optimus G

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung Galaxy S4

Sony Xperia Z

GPS devices

Garmin nuvi 2568LM

Garmin nuvi 40LM

MapMyIndia CarPad 5

MapMyIndia Lx340

MapMyIndia VX140s Premium

MapMyIndia Zx250

Primo GPS PG411G

Primo GPS PG711G

Satguide 4.3 Navi with Entertainment

Tom Tom VIA 100

Tom Tom VIA 120

Tom Tom VIA 125

Products reviewed this month

Managing Director Dr Pramath Raj SinhaPrinter and Publisher Kanak GhoshPublishing Director Asheesh Gupta

Editorial Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-SmithFeatures Editor Siddharth ParwatayMultimedia Co-ordinator Anirudh Regidi

Test CentreManager, Test Centre Jayesh ShindeSenior Reviewer Nimish SawantReviewers Vishal Mathur, Sameer Mitha, Swapnil Mathur, Nikhil Pradhan, Anirudh RegidiInterns Siddhant Sharma, Varad Choudhari, Umang ModaProduct Co-ordinator Shweta MaliAssistant Vikas Patil

devworx & Custom PublishingAsst. Editor Nash David

Thinkdigit.comOnline Editor Soham RaningaNews Editor Abhinav LalSr. Sub Editor Kul Bhushan

DesignSr. Creative Director: Jayan K NarayananSr. Art Director: Anil VKAssociate Art Directors: Atul Deshmukh & Anil TSr. Visualisers: Manav Sachdev & Shokeen SaifiVisualiser: NV BaijuSr. Designers: Raj Kishore Verma, Shigil Narayanan & Haridas BalanDesigners: Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ, & Pradeep G NairConsulting Designer: Vijay PadayaMarcomDesigner: Rahul BabuStudioChief Photographer: Subhojit PaulSr. Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

ContributorsWriters Abhishek Choudhary, Avinash Kothuri, Ekta T, Jait Dixit, Paanini Navilekar Copy editing Infancia Cardozo

Production and LogisticsSr GM - Operations Shivshankar HiremathManager Operations Rakesh UpadhyayAsst Production Manager Vilas MhatreProduction Assistant Brahmanand NikaljeManager Logistics Vijay MenonAsst Mgr Production & Logistics M P SinghExecutives Mohd. Nadeem Ansari, Nilesh Shiravadekar

BrandProduct Mgr Arun YadavAsst Product Mgrs Sourabha ShakyaMgr - Online Shauvik KumarCo-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh

Circulation SalesNational Co-ordinator Samir MehtaRegional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya,Norbert JosephManager Circulation Dharmendra SinghExecutive Vijay Mhatre

Reader ServicesLead Associate Itishree MishraExecutives Pinky, Sudhir, Shabana, Shilpi+91-22-67899678 / [email protected]

Cover Design: Anil T

Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt. Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Kanak Ghosh. Published at Bunglow No. 725 Sector - 1, Shirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai. 400706. Printed at Print House (India) Pvt. Ltd. R-847, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC, Rable, Navi Mumbai 400701.Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur

DisclaimerFor 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.

Email: [email protected]

National Manager: Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-95822 62959

South: Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961 Jijo George, Mobile: +91-7676881480

West: Sajeed Momin, Mobile: +91-98192 44603 Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247

North: Debleena Majumdar, Mobile: +91-98101 19492

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

to Advertise

Brand Page No

Airforce ...............................................................................23

Amkette ................................................................................9

APC .......................................................................................11

ASRock ........................................................................25, 45

Avtari games .....................................................................15

Canon ...................................................................................21

College Ambassador .....................................................75

Gigabyte ............................................................................. 29

Globaltel ...........................................................................111

HP Insert ......................................................... Innovation

India AV ........................................................................... 119

Intel ............................................................................ 80-87

IOCL ....................................................................................51

Kaspersky..........................................................................BC

Kingston ........................................................................ IBC

LG .................................................................................. 56, 57

Logitech ...........................................................................IFC

Micromax ............................................................................13

Panasonic ............................................................................. 7

Quantum .......................................................................... 128

QuickHeal ........................................................................ 127

Techcom .............................................................................47

Top Notch ...........................................................................27

TP-LINK ............................................................................ 49

TWTC ...................................................................................19

Vu Tech ...............................................................................17

Xerox ......................................................................................5

Advertising index

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Enter


) Why on earth was the ‘Spend Smart’ sec-tion for laptops and ultrabooks scrapped off? It has always been a handy guide for most of the readers who need to buy com-ponents and want to save themselves from surfing through the internet all day.

I noticed that although you guys start off great sections, you do not continue them. Lack of space or content − whatever be the reason − it's a bit frustrating at times when you expect regular features and don’t get it, right? I know being a critic is not the way to go, but it is these sug-gestions from us readers that will help to make our favorite magazine even better.

Shubham

The Spend Smart section covers dif-ferent categories each month, so you will see laptops and ultrabooks next month. Due to space constraints it is not possible to include all categories every month. Regarding the sub-sections, well some-times we have to allot more pages to certain stories - cover story, comparison tests and so on. But we ensure that you get a variety and we do not completely drop any section.

Nimish

) This is my first letter to you. First of all I would like to congratulate you on your 12th anniversary.

Talking about the June issue (again read in a train), Fast Track to Embedded Systems was fabulous! Encyclopedia Technica and Intel tutorials were also good. Somehow the cover story wasn’t good enough for an anniversary issue. You should have included Fast Track PDFs and some free goodies such as those seeds you’d included in a previous issue. And yeah, you forgot to include ‘Digit 101’ this month.

Finally, some suggestions:1. I appreciate your care for the environ-

ment. You use recyclable plastic in your packaging. However the vendors don't accept it for recycling. Please think of an alternative such as fabric bags or cardboard boxes like provided in anti-virus packages.

2. Please try do dedicate a section of your DVD to TED Talks every time or provide a DVD full of TED Talks once every few months.

3. Fast Track to DIYs Part 2, circuit components (explaining things such as diodes, transistors, etc), tech career, Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, Fire-works etc.That's all. I can't show you all the

appreciation you deserve in a single mail, because I doubt Gmail servers would be able to withstand such a long email.

Sanjay Wadhwa

Thank you for your mail, Sanjay. We will look at your suggestions, and consider them. The packaging won't be possible because of the vast differences in weather conditions across our great nation. We'll need to stick with recyclable plastic.

Robert

) I really had no idea where to send the email for the ‘Enter’ section so I just sent it to the first link given in your mind-blowing magazine. I’ve been reading Digit since 2006 in my school library. I got the chance to buy one in 2009 and when I did, my life changed. Every single friend of mine now consults me for any tech help.

You guys totally rock and special appre-ciation to Mr. Robert Sovereign-Smith; your articles are touching, inspiring and most importantly relatable. Honestly your magazine is maha-awesome.

I just wish you’d increase the space for Digit Diary because that's the most epic (after the editorial) thing in your magazine and reading about your team is ultra-fun.

Achal D. Zoan

Thanks for your mail. We'll try and make Digit Diary bigger :)

Robert

) This is my first letter to you in my one year experience of reading Digit. It’s more than a navigator; it’s a really awesome magazine which can transform even a character with a dull personality into a technology geek. I’m really impressed by your contribution in the field of tech-nology. You’re doing an amazing job and I hope you’ll continue this excellent service.

Well, I have some suggestions for you:1. Your website thinkdigit.com is good,

but due to excessive advertisements seems like a website dedicated to ads. Please improve this.

2. The PC rig you provide is very good, but I suggest recommending AMD FX 8 series instead of Intel core proces-sors because they’re far cheaper and equally good in performance. An 8-core processor for `12,000 is really worth the price.

3. Lastly, please accelerate your responses to emails. I send you an

Feedback for the June 2013 issue of Digit

Deactivate inactive accountsYahoo is going on a sort of spring cleaning activity, but instead of removing entire services, it’s going to deactivate accounts from 15th July, which are inactive since one year.

BuzzCome with us as we give you a tour of drool-worthy products at this year’s Computex12

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Buzz


Jayesh Shinde, Nimish [email protected]

Every year in the month of June, the city of Taipei becomes the focal point for the

world of technology as it unveils Computex, Asia’s (and one of the world’s) largest technology convention. Not wanting to be left behind in the race to cover the latest chapter of Computex, Digit went and covered the event to give you (our readers) a first-hand report of what innovative products are going to launch in the market very soon. Unlike other global tech conventions, the computer components get more prominence here.

ASUSThe Taiwanese manufacturer harped a new tune at this year’s Computex. In search of incredible was their new mantra and ASUS left no stone unturned in deliv-ering a whole host of products, possibly the largest set of new products revealed by an OEM at Computex this year. The press conference hosted by ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih was quite an entertaining one, punctuated by several products announced-ments covering tablets, smart-phones, laptops, routers, mice, and others. It was a mix of revealing brand new product lines for the very first time to the world and refreshing aging champions of the past. “We seek to perfect the balance between

engineering and humanity, where every intricate detail echoes our needs for both emo-tion and function,” said Jonney Shih. “This is the ASUS way of Design Thinking, where every idea starts with people and we turn our imagination into myriad revolutionary innovations,” he added. Let’s see what ASUS has been cooking up all this while.

Flipboard clone?Facebook’s rumoured Reader service would curate news in a Flipboard-like format and will be tailor-made for mobile users.

Computex Digit’s

AdventureBe Free Block Party We came across an interesting accessory which has also

won the Computex d&i 2013 award given to innovative products. The Be Free Block Party is a collection

of plastic rectangular blocks which can be arranged in various configurations to hold your tablet or your smartphone in vertical or horizontal orienta-tion – at an angle that you like. It has soft rubber tips around the edges which come in contact with the smartphone or tablet part so as to protect the device from scratches. Its retail price is USD 50 but there were no details on India availability. Video: dgit.in/dgt_cmptx_bfbp

We were at this year’s Computex in Taiwan and came away impressed with the technology on display.

ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity

Computex 2013 bundleToo lazy to type out the URLs in the boxes below? Don’t worry, just point your smartphones to this QR code

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Connections


28 31

Amazon Marketplace IndiaGlobal e-commerce giant Amazon has brught its online shopping portal to India – Amazon.in. To start with, the service offered books, movies and TV shows for sale, and at the time of writing this started with gadgets as well. On Amazon.in, Indians will be allowed to act as third-party sellers on the marketplace. The third-party seller will be able to list their products for sale on the website.

“This marketplace will pro-vide Indian customers with a shopping destination to pur-chase products from third-party sellers. India represents Amazon’s tenth marketplace launch. With the introduction of the Amazon.in marketplace and launch of two new pro-grammes — ‘Sell on Amazon’ and ‘Fulfilment by Amazon’

— sellers across India now have access to unlimited and free ‘virtual shelf space’ and a scalable, pay-as-you-go ful-filment and customer service offerings,” the company said in a statement.

As an initial offer, customers will get free home delivery and cash on delivery for a limited

time. After the offer expires, orders above Rs. 500 will be home delivered.

In the past, we have seen the launch of Junglee.com, which was Amazon’s debut in the Indian market. Amazon also has its Kindle store along with Kindle digital publications in India. The Amazon Android appstore too is live in India.

New Gmail Inbox Google has revamped Gmail for desktop and mobile, rede-signing the inbox to sort items into groups. The new inbox groups are meant to help users better manage their disparate incoming mail, putting them “back in control using simple, easy organization.”

The changes to Gmail’s Inbox have mostly rolled out at the time of writing, though users on the desktop will be able to manually choose the

new design (selecting ‘Con-figure inbox’ in Settings), soon. The new version will be just another inbox type, like Classic or Priority Inbox, and users will be able to switch whenever they want.

The new Gmail inbox for desktop will feature tabs, five in total – Primary, Social, Promo-

tions (and offers), Updates (and bills and receipts), and Forums. Users will be able to disable and enable these tabs from the Con-figure inbox option. They will also be able to set all starred messages to appear in the pri-mary inbox, and ensure certain senders appear in certain tabs.

The tabbed Gmail inbox also appears in the Android and iOS apps. Your settings on the desktop version get reflected on

the mobile version. Be sure to check out our Tips and Tricks section for some brilliant usa-bility tweaks.

Twitter’s FollowMe ServiceTwitter has introduced a new feature called #FollowMe that allows users to create short

highlight reels, including their finest tweets, pics and Vine clips. Twitter has teamed up with Vizify to launch #Fol-lowMe reels, which are said to be based on HTML5.

“We’ve teamed up with Vizify to bring you #FollowMe, a new way for everyone on Twitter to make instant high-light videos of their best photos, Vine videos, Tweets, topics and followers. You’ll find out if you’re a nightowl or an early bird, discover your most engaged followers, and feature your most popular Tweets. All set to music,” Twitter announces in a post.

Twitter has already posted some examples of #FollowMe clips, featuring NBA stars Kobe Bryant and Steven Curry, as

well as star of the TV show Glee, Amber Riley. To get started with Twitter’s #FollowMe, you need to log in to Vizify, which will ask you to authorize Vizify to access your Twitter account. Once Vizify has made your video, you can change the music or choose different elements (photos, Vine videos, Tweets).

Mobile WatchBeyond hardware, it appears the operating systems are making all the difference. Check out the latest developments in this space

App WatchThere are no smarts for smartphones without apps that turn a phone into a Swiss knife of the digital age

We take a look at the biggest happenings on the web since we last met, from new services being launched, to product refreshes and updates.

Jet Streams

New Gmail inbox now features tabs

Twitter FollowMe - Kobe Bryant

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Digital life

Nokia Asha 501This month Nokia unveiled its latest Asha 501, with a global price tag of $99. http://dgit.in/12rE2a3

Digital gizmos that add on the convenience

Cube 3D Printer 3D printers are still at a nascent stage right now, and most of them require a complex assembly process before you can fire them up. Not the Cube 3D printer, from 3D Systems and Cubify, which is a bit different from others out there. The Cube is literally its name-sake in dimensions (5.5 x 5.5 x 5.5 inches) and comes with an EZ load print cartridge for “printing” miniature objects. After you purchase it, you get up to 50 free 3D print files for the initial burst of 3D mania. You can design and sell your 3D model online and purchase prototype designs from others through Cubify. Let the 3D hysteria begin!

Combimouse How would you work if your keyboard and mouse were

designed differently from their traditional look and feel? And what if they made you work better than ever? The genius of Ari Zagnoev, the engineer who invented and patented Combimouse

as far back in 1999, has been perfecting the design and concept. The Combimouse basically splits the regular keyboard into

two halves and the right-half of the keyboard has a mouse trail towards the end for you to grip. It’s still a work-in-progress, the

Combimouse, but Zagnoev and his team are getting closer to launching a commercial product very soon.

78Get smarterWho doesn’t like to be smarter, right? With the power of these apps, it’s time to give your brain a much-needed upgrade. Thank us later.

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Cover story

Anirudh Regidi andRobert [email protected]

We look around us and see that most of us seem to have our noses securely embedded in

our phones/tablets all the time. All that anyone seems to want to talk about is Nexus/Android this, Windows Phone that

and iOS the other… Technology is, and always will be, more than the personal gadgets you spend your lives with. Your phone or tablet is merely the last line in a rather long chain of invisible devices and technologies, working tirelessly to deliver the experience we take for granted today.

At Digit all of us have worked towards one simple goal: bettering India through technology. We look at our readers as the true influencers of this nation, and

that’s why we’ve always tried to spark an interest in you, get you to start a conversa-tion or a train of thought, give you a gentle push in the right direction, ask you to think out of the box… you get the drift.

With this month’s cover story, we’re asking you to take a break from the gadget hype and consumerist obses-sion, and realise the importance of the invisible. There are unsung heroes of the technology world and it’s those very

ima

gin

g: a

nil

tWe celebrate 5 aspects of technology that most of us don’t give much thought to, but which we

should be really grateful to have

Cover story

INVISIBLEINVINCIBLEINCREDIBLE

INEVITABLE TECHNOLOGY

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Sci-Tech


DivshotThis is a visual interface builder for creating quality HTML5 based applications using a drag-and-drop interface. http://divshot.com

Exposed!A security bug in Facebook’s system may have exposed email address and phone numbers of 6 million users.

Paanini [email protected]

What is Natural Language Processing?Natural language, or the language spoken by humans the world over, is a fascinating construct. Not only does each language have its own set of rules concerning grammar and semantics, but over time these languages spawn dialects that modify these rules in subtle ways. Computers, on the other hand are programmed using a set of instructions that are collectively called a programming language. These languages have their own ‘grammar’ (called syntax) and their own ‘vocabulary’ (called keywords) and bear little or no resemblance with natural language. While these programming languages operate on a very strict set of rules governed by logic, spoken language is often far more flexible, and any attempt to quantify these rules would fall under the domain of ‘fuzzy logic’.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an attempt to use the concepts of linguistics and machine learning to allow computers to understand and communicate using natural languages. The earliest attempts at getting com-puters to understand human languages were in the 1950s, where machines were programmed to translate texts between different languages using a hard-coded set of rules. However, such attempts failed quickly owing to the imprecise and ever-changing nature of language. Recent

developments in the fields of machine learning using artificial neural networks have used statistical models that ‘train’ the software to understand the subtleties of language. Such systems can interpret natural languages more accurately, owing to their probabilistic approach, where they are trained using a set of known rules or words, and use this data to inter-pret new, raw data.

This form of NLP that uses machine learning models has proven far more successful than earlier approaches which modelled themselves after computer languages rather than human languages. The problem in this approach was that programming languages have fewer rules which are enforced more strictly than natural languages, which follow complex and ever changing rules of grammar. Language-specific semantics is another hurdle, as the literal meaning of words may not always be accurate.

MakingcomputersNatural Language Processing lies at the intersection of linguistics and computer science, and promises to change the way we interact with computers. Forever.

Machine learning models the problem from a human perspective. Humans tend to learn a new language faster using examples as opposed to strict rules, and NLP algorithms try to use this very fact to improve the accuracy of their systems.

Algorithms used in Natural Language Processing:The Markov Model and Parts of SpeechMost algorithms that classify text use complex learning algorithms that involve statistical models to extract meaning from text. An older, less accurate but consider-ably simpler technique used is the Markov model, which is used in classifiers such as Parts Of Speech (POS) tagging or senti-ment analysis. POS is a system which tries to assign a tag to each word in a sentence, identify it as an adjective, verb, noun, article, singular, plural etc. Sentiment analysis is a technique that looks for cer-tain words or ‘identifiers’ that determine the overall ‘mood’ or sentiment of the sen-tence. Such analysis is useful analyzing social media to gauge group sentiment.

One company putting sentiment analysis to good use on social media data is Paraktweet, which has launched two products. The first is called Bookvibe which gives book recommendations based on positive tweets about a tome, and the second is TrendFinder which helps enter-tainment companies gauge the audience’s response to a movie by following the con-versations around a movie or TV series. Parsing systems have also been developed

talk

Fans of The Office (US) will be familiar

with Steve Carell’s famous retort “That’s

what she said”, which spawned a whole

new genre of jokes. Inspired by this, two

students at the University of Washington

developed a system of identifying

sentences which can be be turned into

a TWSS joke. Hit the link below to read

the paper that they published, titled

“That’s What She Said: Double Entendre

Identification”. http://www.aclweb.org/

anthology-new/P/P11/P11-2016.pdf

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Our pick Of the best tech articles frOm arOund the glObe

Nobody, and we mean nobody, likes to suffer at the hands of a slow internet connection. It’s not funny, and in today’s constantly connected world something that you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy. So, here’s how you fix the problem. Through multiple ways. http://dgit.in/11ybm06

Online privacy: Should we care?We interact with so many online services on a daily basis, but do we ever care to wonder about our privacy on them? Here’s an interesting take on the touchy topic, about stuff that should matter and stuff that shouldn’t.http://dgit.in/1a4PgXF

Give wings to an old game controllerAlways wanted to do complicated combos but found the buttons on your controller too cumbersome to press? Here’s a DIY that changes all that. Just get yourself some Arduino and you’re set. Killer combos... Die!!!http://dgit.in/12Xrkmg

Balancing your health and work at officeLong, uninterrupted hours in front of the computer and living a sedentary lifestyle can be disastrous for your health. If too much work’s eating up your physical activity time, here’s how you can do a bit of exercise right at your front desk.http://dgit.in/11Xcuqt

(Must reads)[lifehacker corner]

10 tips to fix slow internet connection

Why do We need music While Working out?the psychology behind music aiding us during physical work-outs has never been completely understood. until now, it seems. here’s an explanation that tries to understand the connection between music and our ability to feel pain.http://dgit.in/11H8rin

Productivity myths debunkedlonger work hours means more output? a cluttered desk points at a cluttered mind? multitasking means better productivity? all these popular productivity myths and more debunked. With the help of what else but science?

http://dgit.in/12XtBOn

give your iPhone the ios 7 look

impressed by Jony ive’s pres-entation of iOs 7 at apple’s WWdc last month? can’t wait to give your iphone the iOs 7 upgrade? Well, here’s how you can give your jailbroken iphone

the look and feel of running the upcoming iOs 7 upgrade – without actually installing it.

http://dgit.in/12jsX7j

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65devworx> | July 2013 | www.devworx.in

Apple releases iOS 7 at WWDC *side panel

This year at WWDC, Apple announced the release

of the latest iteration of iOS. The newest release – iOS 7 – has been designed with a whole new interface in mind and has been seen as the big-gest change since it was first released. This not only means that there are a lot of changes and features for the consumer,

it also means that there are a lot of goodies for the devel-opers too. Of course, following this announcement, the iOS developers will have to rede-sign their application while keeping the newest changes in mind.

The most appealing aspect of iOS 7 is definitely touted to be the flat and simplistic design

that the general UI elements are presented in. Some other noticeable features include a “Control Center” which could resemble the notification bar in Android, where you can toggle quick settings. There is an enhanced notification center, which shows you everything related to weather, calendar and app notifications. Multi-tasking is something else that has been given a huge uplift and has been made much smarter and better. Among others are features like a new radio service, AirDrop sharing. The App Store has also seen a few updates including features which shows nearby apps and automatic updation of all apps.

Since the guidelines for developers have already been released, it is understood that app developers are expected to start working on re-designing their apps for integration with the newest features.

Read the entire article at http://dvwx.in/1686D5P and share your comments.

*Amazon app engagement reports

>>After announcing its app store in more than 200 countries all over the world, Amazon is now set to release app engagement reports to track app usage data for mobile app developers. Read:

http://dvwx.in/1ajhJVo

*Opera’s Chromium browser

>>Opera’s new browser, known as Opera Next 15 is a beta version and is expected to incorporate the upcoming Blink rendering engine from Google in the near future. Read:

http://dvwx.in/19jbljn

BlackBerry 10.2 SDK released

>>BlackBerry’s beta update for its new platform brings some much awaited features. Some of these include the ability to run Android 4.2.2 apps and updates to the Adobe AIR 3.5 runtime environment, which now has Stage3D available for acceleration of OpenGL graphics.

http://dvwx.in/17hJW34

Java EE 7 at a glance>>Around 3.5 years have passed since the last major version jump of the Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE). It was intended to be more powerful in Java EE 7 via cloud support. These plans proved too ambitious at quite a late stage. As a result, the version that was completed in mid-April contains very few fundamentally new aspects and just represents a consistent effort to round off existing features. Read:

http://dvwx.in/19MFyJx

Developer takeaways from WWDC 2013

>>At WWDC 2013, Apple highlighted the rapid growth of its iOS platform. It claimed to have paid $10 billion to developers and to have crossed the 50 billion download mark.

http://dvwx.in/11W4IAs

*footer

Interview with Nikhil Soman,

Founder, PlayblazerFor the complete interview

visit:devworx.in

For latest news, updates and features, join us on

Facebook at facebook.com/

devworx.in

> code / creativity / community >

*Bing Voice faster>>Microsoft has released a software update to its Bing Voice Search for Windows Phone devices which can now enhance voice search making it faster and more accurate. Read:

http://dvwx.in/17hFeSUSMAPLE


78WorkshopLearn 3D clay-modelling using Scluptris, an easy-to-use modelling softwareToolbox

Blue screen while gamingMy notebook configuration are as follows:• Model name: Compaq Presario CQ43• Processor: Intel Pentium CPU B950

@2.10GHz• System Memory: 2GB• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics• OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

Whenever I play games such as Hitman Blood Money, Duke Nukem Forever, Alice Madness Returns, etc., my notebook shuts down automatically and when I re-open my system, it returns to last stage of the game when it was closed. This problem did not happen earlier. Please provide a quick solution so that I can play normally.

Samrat Nandan

Are you getting a blue screen while you are in the middle of the game? If yes, then the system's HD graphics are falling short while playing the game. You will have to lower the settings on your games to see if you are getting a stable system performance.

System heating upI own this old Compaq Presario C702TU and it's heating up to temperatures as high as 80 degrees C. It stays at that temp for a long time, I tried to increase the fan speed using utilities such as Speedfan but it won't detect the laptop's fan.

Stephin John Thomas

Get the laptop looked at by a service centre as 80 degrees is terrible. Stop using it immediately, it's already a miracle that your motherboard hasn't been fried. It seems to us that your laptop fan has just stopped functioning totally.

Card not being recognisedI had a memory card on which I copied some movies and files from my computer. But when I connected my memory card to my laptop to

copy those movies and files then it showed me a message that said, "You need to format your disk." I don't want to format my memory card at any cost, so please kindly help me to resolve this issue.

Shashank Shekhar

Did you copy or move those files? Does the card still read on your computer without asking for formatting? The file allocation table might be corrupt, or you may not have "Safely removed" the card.

If it doesn't read on the computer as well, some corruption has occurred and you'll need to format the drive. You can try using a data recovery software, such as Recuva, to recover the files if they are very important, but this will take a considerable amount of time.

Windows detected a hard disk problemI got a strange error message that popped up while I was browsing the net (given below). Before I do anything about it, I want to be sure that it is legit and not someone's attempt to get me to install a virus or something like that. And if it is legit, I want to know what I should do about it.

I am running Windows Vista 64-bit, and the hard drive in question is an internal Toshiba 500GB drive.

Please help me in resolving this tricky issue as I don't intend to format my hard

drive which has my precious software and data.

Lunthang Tonsing

Are you hearing any knocking/scratching sound from your HDD while your system is running? If yes, the HDD is facing some mechanical issue, and the best thing to do is back up all your data.

If your hard drive is running fine, then you should run through the following steps. Go to Start>Run>gpedit.msc

Under Local Group Policy Editor navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System >Troubleshooting and Diagnostics > Disk Diagnostic

Double Click on "Disk diagnostic: con-figure execution level", set it to "disabled".

"Not configured" is enabled by default.Then restart your system.

Socket pins damagedI am a regular Digit reader. I have a problem related to my Motherboard socket

The problem is that my socket pins are broken and I want to fix these broken pins

My computer specifications are1. Processor: Intel Pentium E55002. Motherboard: Gigabyte G41mt-es2l3. RAM: 4GB DDR34. HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB5. Graphics Card: MSI N430GTPlease tell me how I should go about it.

Siddharth Gupta

Are the pins broken or just bent? If they're broken, you will have to get a new board or you risk damaging the CPU and in extreme cases, fire as well.

If they're bent you need to have a steady

System heating up, reviving damaged socket pins, WP8 issues and more...We scour [email protected] for troubleshooting issues bothering you

Google's Dart SDK arrivesGoogle released the first beta SDK for its JavaScript alternative engine Dart. It includes an update for improving performance and productivity on the platform. http://www.dartlang.org/

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Tried & Tested


Smartphones TestEver smartphone brand’s flagship device goes through the grinder to tell you which one’s better than the rest

BazaarAll the latest and greatest products reviewed with a verdict to help you make the right buying decision94 100

Vishal [email protected]

Since we last tested GPS navigators over a year ago, a lot of water has flowed under the

bridge, and we’re happy to report that these navigation devices have improved quite a lot in many aspects – the quality of the package and the device itself, navigation quality, feature set and ease of use. The depth and quality of coverage has improved immensely as well, with POIs being added all the time, making these devices all the more worthwhile.

For those of us who don’t have a GPS device installed in our vehicles, the common prac-

tice of rolling down the window and asking someone in the adja-cent vehicle for directions is quite normal. However, doing it one time too many can be irritating – plus, imagine stop-ping and starting your car at every street crossing or signal – and lengthen your time on the road unnecessarily.

Firewalled: The safety aspectThen there’s also the safety issue to consider. A GPS and naviga-tion device can come in handy if you’re lost in an unknown part of town late at night, trying to find your way back – not the best time to reveal to a stranger that you’re lost, is it? This is where, a simple GPS device in

the car will be a no-nonsense guide that corrects your course back to the road leading to your ultimate destination.

It’s a guide, not a commandIdeally, these devices are meant for use as a guide, and they shouldn’t interrupt you while driving, which is the most important thing. And their guidance isn’t something etched in stone, and neither will you get rapped on your knuckles for not following the direction spelt out by the navigation device to the last letter. Yes, the quality of mapping has improved consid-erably over the last 12 months, something that we have experi-enced since our previous GPS

comparison test in the summer of 2012. But, there is always the chance of a mapping error, or a change in the topography that the map may not yet reflect. As a rule, only listen to the naviga-tors’ directions while driving, and only look at the device’s dig-ital display when your vehicle is stationary by the curb or at a traffic signal.

With that being said, let’s deep dive into our analysis of this year’s GPS and personal navigation devices.

First Touch: Comparing the build qualityLet us start off with the most inexpensive navigator in this comparison, the SatGuide 4.3

Having a GPS device has its own benefits, while exploring the road less travelled. We test some of the best ones here this month.

You Have Reached Your Destination!

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Smartphones Test


New typing experienceGoogle Keyboard is a Nexus-like keyboard with amazing features available in Play Store for any Android 4.0 and higher phone or tablet. http://dgit.in/13HebdC

Dropbox updateDropbox users can now share the Dropbox links right from their desktop. Check it out http://dgit.in/177mntQ

Vishal [email protected]

The first six months of the year 2013 have been nothing short of a revelation. The

kind of variety that usually gets launched across 12 months in a calendar year, has been cramped within just 6 months in ’13. And with half of the year still remaining, we cannot be more excited for what smartphone marvels are still under wraps. Here we compare the top smart-phones from various brands.

BuilD & DesigNOne thing about this bunch of devices is very clear – the pop-ularity of touchscreen phones is pretty much sky high at the moment, with only the Black-Berry Q10 being the phone with

the good old physical QWERTY keypad. Let us go through each device one by one.

google Nexus 4 by lg: All that glitters…The Nexus 4 by LG made its way to India rather belatedly. The device does elicit passionate oohs and aahs from fans, but for the rest, it looks pretty much like any other smartphone. However, the real goodness of this unibody design can be understood only when you use the phone in detail. Its front has an unassuming design, with the screen and touch-sensitive keys sitting below it, pretty much the trademark of Android phones. However, flip the LG Nexus 4 over, and the glass back awaits you. The holographic design

on this glass glimmers under light. Two things that need to be specified – 1) The iPhone 4 and the 4S had the glass back for years and 2) This gets scratched very quickly. However, if you get beyond the idea of “No, I will not put a case on my Nexus because of its back panel”, and actually get a bumper case for it, the device will have a better chance of staying intact longer, as is the case with most smart-phones. Very good form factor for single hand use, and despite looking rather bland at first, has a finesse about it that most Android phones sadly lack.

lg Optimus g: Why, LG? Why?As far as the specifications and the innards are concerned, the Optimus G is almost exactly

like the Nexus 4. But design-wise, it is very different. Its industrial design with less curves and a little less polish in terms of smoothness is dis-appointing. While the Nexus has the cascading effect where the display glass ends and meets the body, the Optimus G has a very rough. While it has glass on the back, the Optimus G neither has the finesse of a Nexus nor does the imprint really glitter that well when light falls on it. The camera sits slightly higher than the rest of the panel, and the phone when placed on a table, sits on it. This is a design flaw that is pretty silly, and a lot of manu-facturers tend to overlook this when designing phones. When LG can make the Nexus 4 what it is in terms of the brilliance of

The year 2013 is just half done with, but a lot of rather chic smartphones have been launched. We attempt to sift through all the options, to reach what we believe, is the best phone money can buy.

RitzySmartphones:THE ONE WORTH YOUR MONEY

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v

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.

BazaarThe laTesT producTs reviewed For you

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

extremely poor product. Keep away!

to10 30

strictly oK. Not recommended

to31

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

to51 70

very good product. Highly recommended.

to71 90

Ground-breaking product. We’ve never seen anything like it before. A definite must buy!

to91 100

i N s i d e

50

102 | HP Pavilion M4-1003tx103 | Panasonic P51104 | Sony DSC WX300105 | ECS Z87-A2X Extreme106 | NVIDIA GTX 780107 | Corsair Vengeance K70108 | Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security108 | Genius Wireless combo109 | Seagate Central 4TB109 | Steelseries Flux110 | UMAX Bombastic USP 3200

& M o r e . . .

Page 110Corsair H80i

Page 102Byond Phablet P1

p l u s

Page 106AMD A10-6800K

Page 107Intel Core i7 4770K

Page 103Sony Alpha A58

Page 104 NVIDIA GeForce

GTX 770

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Bazaar


81

58 The HD DVR provided by Videocon has pretty much the same specifications as the Tata Sky HD+ and the Airtel Dig-ital TV HD Recorder. Both use a 500GB

drive internally, the only difference being that one uses a 3.5” disk and the other a 2.5” one. There is no notice-able performance differ-ence though.

There isn’t a notification LED on the Videocon HD DVR to indicate when a recording starts or is in progress, which is a huge omission. From our experi-ence with Tata Sky HD+ and Airtel Digital TV HD Recorder, the red notification LED on the front lets you know when a recording may be in progress.

The picture quality on almost all SD and HD channels is very good. On the same display with the exact same picture adjustments, the SD chan-nels on d2h look considerably crisper than those

on Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV. All channels on the Videocon d2h have fairly subdued colours when compared to the Tata Sky HD+ and we had to bump up saturation by 20 to get comparable

colours. The user interface has serious problems, its sluggish, unintuitive layout and confusing remote keys that can sometimes duplicate tasks. For

example - going back from a particular spot in the menu, to, let’s say, the main menu. Sometimes the X button

works, and sometimes the return key works. At times, the box just hangs and refuses to change channels and the only way around it is to unplug the device. Crude.

Videocon d2h attracts you with the sheer variety of channels on offer, but UI issues are a huge turn off.

Vishal Mathur

The ASUS Taichi is clearly an ultrabook that is meant to stand out in Toshiba’s lineup. It’s almost nothing like the tradi-tional ultrabooks we’ve become used to.

The brushed aluminium unibidy finish gives it a premium look and feel that is matched only by the Samsung Series 9 ultrabooks. The keyboard deck and the underside are very well put together. However, the same doesn’t follow through completely to the lid, which has a bit too much glass because of the two displays. The hinge is quite taut, but you cannot risk applying too much pressure anywhere on the lid.

The dual display thing is quite neat. Once you have the Asus Utilities set up, you can set the display mode to one or both the 11.6-inch screens. The Full HD

resolution does make the text too small in desktop mode, but setting it to 125% makes it readable at least. A by-product of this resolution is very crisp text. Asus has mastered the art of packing in excel-lent keyboards in small spaces, as they showed us with the VivoBook. The keys on the Taichi are

well-spaced with adequate travel allowing for quick typing.

Performance from the Core i7 processor is excellent, and though 4GB of RAM

is seems a bit low for a machine costing this much, it doesn’t create a bottle-neck. The battery will last 4.5 hours with ease, with the brightness set at 60%.

You do pay a lot of money for the Taichi, but this machine blends flair with function with aplomb.

Vishal Mathur

Asus Taichi One display is passé! It’s time for two

Videocon d2h HD DVR Frustrating UI and hardware ruins the user experience

Features ........................ 80Performance ................ 50Build ............................... 60Value .............................. 40

SpecificationsStorage Capacity: 500Gb; Connectivity: RCA, Coaxial/Optical SPDIF; Ethernet; USB 2.0; HDMI

ContactBharat Business Channel LimitedPhone: 073558 73558Email: [email protected]

Features ........................ 90Performance ................ 85Build ............................... 90Value .............................. 60

SpecificationsProcessor: Intel Core i7-3517U @ 1.9GHz; RAM: 4GB; Display: 11.6-inches x 2; 1920 x 1080 pixels; Graphics: Intel HD 4000; Storage: 256GB SSD; Connectivity: 2 USB 3.0, mini HDMI, memory card reader; OS: Windows 8 Pro

ContactAsus IndiaPhone: N.A.Email: http://support.asus.com/ContactUs.aspx?SLanguage=en

samsung Galaxy Tab 3Samsung announces its new Galaxy Tab 3 with 8 and 10.1-inch format. The device will be launching globally this June.

pico ii - portable chargerProvide additional battery support to your smartphone anywhere with this portable and handy wireless charger.

Price

1,39,999

Price6,490

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Street smart

Price WatchWe scout the market for smartphones under 15k, phablets and tablets for all your portable requirements

Killer RigsOn a budget? Want to build a compact HTPC? Here’s our list of perfect components to asemble your own PC

In-ear monitors, more commonly known as in–ear headphones or canalphones, are a budding Audiophile’s gateway to the world

of high–fidelity audio. The reason is that unlike speakers or proper circumaural headphones, IEMs give you access to high quality audio at a fraction of the cost. To get the same kind of quality on a set of speakers or headphones you’d have to spend a bomb. In-ears are also infi-nitely more portable and make for perfect companions on those long boring daily commutes – because of their inherent design, they passively block out a lot of ambient noise. The only trouble with in-ears, if at all, is that they take getting used to, and finding a perfect fit is a bit difficult. Thankfully most manufacturers include a set of tips in different sizes to fit most ears. This brings us to the most important question: how do you choose the right one for you?

The in-ear market is quite diverse, with options starting from the humble Creative EP-630 (which is surprisingly still going strong on sites like Flipkart at a price of `799) to the precision high–end pieces like the Sennheiser IE80 (`24,990) or UltimateEars UE 900 (`34,995). And these are just the high-end retail options. Once you go into the custom moulded space, the sky’s the limit. Even the brands in the space are far too many to keep track of. So for the sake of simplicity let’s

break it down into a couple of sound signature preferences.

For the bass loversIn-ears usually are skewed towards bass performance. The bass also greatly depends on how snug the fit is. One of the most bass heavy in–ears to grace the Digit Test Center was the JBL J22i. It’s a bass-head’s delight and for the asking price of `2,990 they’re not bad at all. If you don’t want outlandish bass performance and are looking for something heavy but at the same time, taut, the Klipsch Image S4i is a worthy though slightly expensive option at a price of `5499. If your purse strings are a little tight this month the Tekfusion - Twinwoofers (`1,399) are a good option. Made by an Indian company, they were far better than we expected.

Neutral For a long time the Meelectronics M6 was a reference set at the Digit test center. It still remains a decent flat sound-signature piece for a humble sub–2k price. Trouble is, they’re a little difficult to procure. Another all round good performer is the Cowon EM1. At a price of `750 (for the non-microphone version) these are easily one of the best performing in-ears for the price. In fact they could easily be the next EP-630. The microphone version costs

a little more (Rs. 1,099) but is worth the price for the tangle free cable and build quality. If money is not an issue look no further than the MartinLogan Mikros 70. It is handsdown the most neutral and pre-cise IEM we’ve heard in a long time. But be prepared to shell out `9,900 (where to buy: http://dgit.in/16oy0rH).

General tipsWhile buying in-ears read as many reviews as you can but stay away from the general hype that populates forums. Take the case of the old EP 630. Sure for the price they were good, but the hype from a few years ago made them out to be god’s greatest gift to human ears! That’s the thing with internet hype; every now and then people get caught up with a trend. The XBA 3 was one such piece that didn’t live up to the hype. Also remember that manufacturers usually give away review units to self-proclaimed audio-phile forum reviewers, who are overcome with gratitude with the chance to keep the review units for “long term testing”. These days there is a lot of talk about the Signature Acoustics C-12 Elements wooden IEMs. Digit got a review unit and again, the hype proved dispropor-tionate. Last protip: buying earphones is easiest from online sources such as eBay, Flipkart, etc.

Welcome to the world of high-fidelity portable audioAgent 001 helps you pick the right in-ear headphones for your needs

114 116

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Abhinav [email protected]

With its many recent forays into the mobile space, starting with the Face-book for Every Phone

app, and followed by Facebook Messenger, Facebook Home, HTC First, the numerous data access partnerships with various car-riers, and the newest integration with the Asha OS, the social networking giant has been taking some major steps in provide its services across devices, regions and platforms, ensuring a large part of its mas-sive userbase is connected on-the-go.

We decided to speak with Facebook about its plans in the mobile space.

What is the future of mobile social

networking, and social networking overall,

according to you?

With increasing mobile internet penetra-tion, mobile social networking will be an integral part of society. At Facebook, we help people connect across platforms with features including chat, messaging, email, SMS and Groups. We want our users to have access to information and be able to reach anyone they want.

A report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB states that number of mobile internet users is expected to grow further to 130.6 million (by March 2014) and 164.8 million by March 2015 which itself explains the increasing database of people accessing internet through mobile devices.

We are also witnessing people signing up to Facebook accounts with their phone numbers and not really through email addresses, though we have both the options. These are people who prob-ably don’t even have an email address.

Recently, we have realised that out of every 5 minutes, mobile users spend 1 minute on Facebook.

What opportunities does mobile create for

Facebook?

The proliferation of mobile devices is expanding the market of people who can use Facebook and simultaneously driving deeper engagement with our product. Today over 751 million people use Face-book on a mobile device each month, and 70% of them return to Facebook every day compared to 40% of desktop users. To bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world, we’re working across the entire mobile industry- with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers. We’re very excited about the opportunity to bring millions of additional people online via Facebook through these joint efforts.

Is having multiple apps for a single plat-

form a strategy for Facebook (e.g., Facebook

Messenger and Facebook app in iOS both

featuring the same functionality)? Will there

ever be a single app for all functions?

We are a mobile-first company and innovate constantly to improve the mobile experience across all devices. The idea behind every offering whether it is ‘Face-book for every phone app’, Facebook Mes-senger or Facebook Home, is to connect people in a most convenient manner pos-sible and create an ecosystem for users to provide an improved Facebook experience. Home is the first example of a new and different Facebook experience built lever-aging the openness of Android platform. Similarly, “Facebook for Every Phone” app was built to deliver Smartphone-like Facebook experience on feature phones. In India, the app is available in Hindi and seven other local Indian languages.

Can mobile become a major revenue

generator for Facebook?

Mobile is a major source of revenue. Last year, around this time, we had no revenue from mobile and at the end of 2012, 23% of Facebook’s Q4 revenue was generated by mobile ads. Also, since launching mobile app install ads in October, they’re already being used by 20% of the top 100 iOS apps to accelerate growth.

How do you see Facebook’s mobile strat-

egy evolving in the future?

Today we see ourselves as a true mobile company. Going forward, our mobile experiences will be the best way to use Facebook, we will help mobile developers grow their apps and make them social, and we will develop mobile ad products that allow marketers to reach our unique audi-ence in compelling ways.

For the complete interview, visit http://

dgit.in/161VmmV.

Facebook India’s mobile-first strategy to capture next billionWe speak with Kevin D’Souza, Country Growth Manager, Facebook India, about the social networking giant’s evident focus on making the service truly mobile, and connected

Facebook for BB10 updateFacebook for BlackBerry 10 update brings design tweaks along with some of the new photo upload settings. Get it from: http://dgit.in/ZHbf13

Creative Cloud OutAfter unveiling the successor to its Creative Suite last month, Adobe’s Creative Cloud is now available for download

Kevin D’Souza, Country Growth Manager, Facebook India

Tech@Work


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Tales of plagues and pestilenceFeeling guilty about the rat we so mercilessly executed (read the diary), we’ve decide to assuage our (and your) collective consciences by compiling a list of some of the worst plagues in the history of modern man (which isn’t much actually)

ObviousitisQuite obviously, this refers to the trend of stating the obious. You know, like the above statement. Stating the obvious is getting so obvious in recent times that it has, obviously, started getting on to our nerves quite a bit. This is, obviously, a trend that needs to be stopped. Isn’t it patently obvious that something is wrong with this world?

Bieber FeverWe really thought people were more intelligent. That was of course, till one of our interns recognized this one from a picture of its eyes. Ugh. Anyway, it’s high time we did something about it and one of those things is to recognize this as a real affliction and deal with it as such. We need to snuff this Fever out at its very root.

SchruteismWho can forget such gems as “Women are like wolves. If you want a wolf, you have to trap it. Snare it. Then to keep it happy, you have to tame it. Feed it, care for it. Lovingly. The way an animal deserves. And my animal deserves a lot of loving.” This is one of those afflic-tions that deserves to spread. In fact, this should be a religion.

Bio-HazardWe’re ageing fast, really fast. The average life-span is falling and 20-somethings are now looking like 40-somethings (not us, we don’t really work) because of the stress of living. Regardless, just because you look like a 40-something doesn’t mean you can write a frickin’ biography on your life! You’re not already dead. There’s so much more you can do with it.

Trailer TrashAn overexuberant fog horn/bugle and some dramatic drumming hardly make for a great movie, but almost all film-makers seem to be thinking that it’ll make for a great trailer. In fact, those very same filmmakers are probably spending more time on the trailer than on their movies anyway. But hey, maybe our short attention spans deserve it!

BlogophobiaThis phenomenon has been spreading like wildfire for many years and it abso-lutely must come to a stop. Anyone and everyone is a blogger and a wannabe celebrity but the fact remains, rambling to yourself about how you spent your day is not going to help either you or anyone else. Read more about our thoughts and dreams on our blog at www.thinkdigit.com

The Positronic BrainIs Isaac Asimov’s vision of the future ever going to turn real? We examine the facts

CommunityCheck out what our thriving community is upto on facebook and on our forum122 124


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