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 The Static Page
One number to rule them all
A
ssuming that you haven’t
been living under a rock,
you probably already know
what Aadhar is – the world’s largest
biometric ID system or as the paranoid
amongst us see it – an attempt by
the man to get a ton of sheeple on to
the grid.
With over 1.133 billion members
already enrolled on the system, the
debates about privacy, identity theft,
and surveillance, have long been ren-
dered moot. The system has holes, it’s
been leaking data steadily for a long
time. As I was writing this, the wires
were hot with the news of a Jharkhand
state government website accidentally
displaying names, addresses, Aadhaar
numbers, and bank account informa-
tion of lakhs of pensioners in that
region. And this is just one of many
such instances so far. For a long time,
the following search term was being
used to hunt these errant databases:
aadhar number name filetype.
xls -uidai. Thankfully, the search
term was written about so much in the
media that if you run it now, you’ll find
news articles about it rather than excel
sheets containing Aadhar numbers.
There is, of course, a flipside to all
this. While Aadhar might look to some
like an Orwellian construct designed
to subjugate the largest population
on earth, it does have its benefits.
As India hurtles down the path of
progress, Aadhar will be an important
tool to cut out middle men, to clamp
down on corruption, and to ensure
that subsidized goods and services by
the government reach the intended
people (needy and poor) directly. In a
technologically secure environment,
it could be used for anything from
mundane conveniences like biometric-
based micropayments at merchants to
being able to find and reunite missing
children. I’ve personally heard of a
few success stories from high-ranking
government officials which involved
databases being cross-referenced or
merged, and fraudsters being caught.
Cases in which the same individuals
Siddharth Parwatay
Managing Editor
“Everyone wants
accountability, but
no one wants to be
accountable.”
who are supposed to be below the pov-
erty line on one database, have high
tax return filing in another and are
claiming gas subsidy in yet another.
The biggest debate raging right now
is whether the enrollment should be
made mandatory. Should the disburse-
ment of govt social welfare, everyday
bureaucratic procedures like availing
loans, filing tax returns, etc., be denied
for want of an Aadhar number? My
personal opinion is that if getting that
number is relatively easy, why not?
Everyone wants accountability, but
no one wants to be held accountable.
Meanwhile, the supreme court
has dug its heels in, and believes that
Aadhar should not be made manda-
tory for availing welfare schemes; in
fact, it has questioned the government
about this recently. The funny thing
is that the Aadhar Act’s expanded
name itself is the “Targeted Delivery of
Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits
and Services” Act.
“What’s the worst that could
happen?,” is an important question to
answer. As any anthropologist tries to
look for naturally occurring instances
of a given experiment, I began to look
for other examples of centralised
biometric registries in the world. As
unique as Aadhar is in terms of scale,
surely, it cannot be the only initiative
of its kind? It’s not.
Ghana has its NIA, Brazil has its
Abrid, Malaysia MyKad (one of the
oldest), and Indonesia its eKTP. While
the first world has been resolute in its
opposition to centralised biometric
databases and identity registries, I
couldn’t find any significant reports
of intentional governmental abuse
of biometric data either against an
individual or a certain section of the
community. Though the possibility of
such abuse always exists.
This possibility doesn’t sit well
with privacy advocates.
Be that as it may, the truth remains
that even as the debate rages among
the elite about whether enrollment
should be made mandatory – most
people have gone ahead and got them-
selves registered for Aadhar. Not only
themselves, they are now starting to
get their young children registered too.
Those with a slightly restricted access
to Aadhar (remote areas) are desperate
to get themselves registered. It seems
like the only people who are unwilling
are the super rich, ‘intellectuals’,
and internet SJWs (who might have
secretly registered themselves, while
continuing to rant about it online).
What do you guys think? Weapon
for mass control, or tool for progress?
Let me know.
Reach me at: facebook.com/staticsid | @staticsid
| editor@digit.in
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 1
 The RSS Feed
Web 3 point no
O
ver a decade ago, there was one
buzzword that everyone and their
uncle were throwing around. Web
2.0 was the next big thing, and we all slob-
bered and waited for it, whatever “it” was.
It was called the “social web” or “interactive
web”, and honestly, no one understood it,
but everyone wanted to opine about it.
So what did change from 1.0? For starters,
the web stopped being simple and static
HTML pages, and to many coders I knew at
the time thought PHP was Web 2.0. I’m not
saying they were right, just saying it was a
confused time. Social media is called Web 2.0
by almost everyone though, so that’s some-
thing we all agree on.
I’m not a big fan of what’s happened with
Web 2.0, or rather I think Web 2.0 ruined the
world. Don’t get me wrong, I love many of the
things that came out of it – Wikipedia, You-
Tube, Facebook, etc. However I also hate a
lot of things that came out of it – Wikipedia,
YouTube, Facebook, etc.
Let me explain.
As a way of getting basic information and
spreading knowledge, there’s nothing better
than Wikipedia. If you’re clueless about
something, reading about it on Wikipedia is
the way to go, right? However, the problems
arise when students start using it as an
authoritative reference on subjects more
complicated than high-school science. That’s
when Wikipedia starts getting things wrong.
Problem is, no expert in the field checks
Wikipedia, and this often results in either
outdated information staying on pages, or
just plain incorrect information because a
contributor misunderstood a source. Then
there are the trolls...
What about YouTube? It’s awesome
for useful stuff, such as finding out how
to open a gadget up to repair it, or even
watching documentaries, or music videos
for entertainment, etc. However, it’s also
created an entire culture of attention-
seeking babies who cannot live without an
audience. The things people will do to get
views is getting ridiculous. Do a Google
search for the “DaddyoFive controversy”
and you will see how some parents actually
bullied their own child just to get views,
and that’s not even remotely the worst
thing people have done...
2 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Talking about attention-seeking babies,
that’s pretty much social media in a nutshell.
Of course it’s great to catch up with old
friends and keep in touch, and even using it
to find interesting links and videos. However,
social networking basically gave 2 billion
people a microphone and said, “Here, have a
shout!”, which I don’t think was a good idea
for society in general. The character flaws of
people, coupled with all our weird beliefs,
amplified by our massive egos results in the
cacophony that is online life today.
My own role as a creator of content has Robert Sovereign-Smith
suffered a lot in the past because of this. Executive Editor
There’s a clear rush to be first which is in robert@digit.in
direct conflict (very often) with the need to be
accurate. Personally, I find it better to steer
clear of the mad rush, and prefer to be accu- “Social networking
rate, any day – as all geeks should. basically gave 2
So what will Web 3.0 bring? Soon the
billion people a
number of internet users will be larger
than the unconnected. Currently about 49.6
microphone and
percent of the world’s 7.5 billion people use said, “Here, have
the internet – as per www.internetworldstats. a shout!”, which
com numbers. The Internet of Things will I don’t think was
add on a huge number of connected devices,
a good idea for
digital assistants (Siri, Cortana and the like)
will start taking away a lot of the work (and
society in general.”
thinking) we normally do on our own – AI
research will assist that. AI will also play
a large role in the semantic web – getting
machines to understand data the way
humans would. And of course, there’s VR,
which aims to finally disconnect us from the
“real world”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of VR,
especially for gaming and entertainment,
but I can see it all coming together to make
us dumber – slobbering idiots just swiping
away our credit cards and remaining discon-
nected from reality. Given that reality sucks
for most of the world, this is even under-
standable, sadly.
I’m worried though, because our track
record thus far online hasn’t been all that
great. It’s what makes me dread Web 3.0 and
call it Web 3 point (hell) no. Maybe I’m wrong.
I desperately hope I am. What do you think?
Liked or hated this column? Let me
know at:
robert@digit.in | @raaabo
facebook.com/raaabo
Contents
MAY 2017 VOLUME 17 \ ISSUE 05

QUICK
NAVIGATOR
01 ENTER
12 DGT
Desire
Greed
Temptation

24 DIGITAL LIFE
Origins - Digital
Payments
Feature - Right to
Connect

30 SCI TECH
Space Age
From the Labs

48 TOOLBOX
Q&A
Tips n Tricks

57 TESTED
TRIED AND
Bazaar
Comparison Test

75 STREET
Agent 001
SMART

34 Customise
Killer Rigs
Recommended Buys
Price watch
Everything
Nothing is perfect, including the tech that
106 TECH@WORK
Careers - Information
you deal with everyday. Every single piece of
Security technology around you can be tweaked to suit
Industry Connect
your needs, to make it unique or get more out of
110 ESC
Unwind
it. We show you how to customise every aspect
Community of your tech life.

TRIED &
TESTED 58
HIFIMAN HE560
59
ASUS GL553VD
60
ZOTAC GTX 1080 TI
Beautifully crafted, openbacked, Gaming on a good budget AMP! EXTREME
planar magnetic headphone The highest clocks we’ve seen

4 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 ON THE DVD
Samsung Galaxy S8 Video Game mod creation
Unpacked Keynote tools
Missed out on Samsung’s Autodesk Maya
Unpacked event? We have Blender
included the entire keynote Gmax
for you to watch all the K-3D
features packed into the MCreator
new Galaxy S8.
Popular Video Game Mods
Essentials Brutal Doom 64
81 SKOAR! (Now inside Digit) 4K Downloader Counter Strike Classic
We cover everything you’ll need to get started AirDroid Offensive
with modding your favourite games Atom Crusader Kings 2: A Game
Audials One of Thrones
Avira Free Antivirus Fallout 1.5: Ressurection

97 World View BurnAware Free

CCleaner
Half-Rats: Parasomnia

Our pick of the best articles from around

the world. CopyQ Aristotle Audiobooks
CyberGhost VPN Constitution of Athens
101 Devworx FileZilla Economics
> Code > Creativity > Community GIMP On The Heavens
Nitro PDF Reader Physics
Notepad++ Poetics
NVIDIA Graphics Drivers
30 Farewell Cassini Origin Science of Mental Health
Bidding adieu to one of the most Speccy Anxiety
prolific spacecrafts as it enters TeamViewer Dementia, delirium, and
its final mission. UPlay Alzheimer’s
WhatsApp for Desktop Depression and related

106 Information WPS Office disorders

Security ZoneAlarm Free Firewall Drug abuse and drug
addictions
The field of cyber-security is
booming with opportunities
which you can take advantage of.

LINUX LITE 4.3

(64-BIT)

GAME MODDING
DVD TOOLS

61 63
SONY XPERIA XZS BOSE QUIETCOMFORT
Just short of great 35
Quaint, comfortable

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 5

 May 2017 • Volume 17 • Issue 05
TO ADVERTISE PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH

Email: sales@digit.in Bazaar

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
Sales Director:
Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-9582262959 Oppo F3 Plus
Sony Xperia XZs
South:
Ram Sarangi, Mobile: +91-98864 06961 Moto G5
Managing Director Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha
Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh Gionee A1
West:
Publishing Director Vikas Gupta Suvarna Shringarpure, Mobile: +91-93249 28247 Bose QC35
ASUS GL553VD
Editorial
North:
Mayank Sharma , Mobile: +91-8800661912 iBall i360
Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith
GIGABYTE AORUS GTX 1080 Ti Extreme
Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay East:
Multimedia Co-ordinator Abhijit Dey Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Mobile: +91-93318 29284 11G
Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Manish Rajesh, TP-Link WA-820RE
Yangerlong Jamir ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme
ADVERTISING INDEX
Muve Acoustics Drive
Test Centre
Brand ............................................. Page No. HiFiMan HE-560
Asst. Technical Editor Mithun Mohandas
Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco
Assistant Vikas Patil Comparison Test - Gaming keyboards
Gigabyte................................... Inside front cover Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S
digit.in
Corsair K63
Editor Soham Raninga
Corsair K70 RGB
Assistant Editor Prasid Banerjee, Sameer Mitha TP-Link......................................Inside back cover
Features Editor Adamya Sharma Corsair K70 Lux RGB
Senior Sub Editor Karthek Iyer Corsair K95 RGB Platinum
Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar Corsair STRAFE RGB
Kingston..................................................Back cover
Gamdias Ares 7 GKB3000
Design
Gamdias Hermes Lite
Sr. Art Director Anil VK
Meghalaya ................................................................ 3 G.SKILL Ripjaws KM570 RGB
Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi
Visualiser Baiju NV G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 RGB
Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari Gigabyte XK700
Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi, Taitra ........................................................................... 7
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Peterson PJ & Manoj Kumar VP
Photography
Razer BlackWidow Chroma V1
Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi iBall - 1 ....................................................................... 9 Roccat Suora FX
SteelSeries Apex M800
Contributors
Writers Anusha Sinha, Soham Ganatra, Ronak Gupta, iBall - 2 .................................................................... 49
Prithvi Sudhan, Mehul Bhagwani, Varad Choudhari
GAMES REVIEWED THIS MONTH
Production and Logistics India Antivirus ....................................................111 Lego Worlds
Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay
Manager Logistics Vijay Menon Asura
Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh
Quantum................................................................112 Mass Effect Andromeda
Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari

Brand
Brand Head Mitin Kumar
Asst Product Mgr Madhuri Goel
Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh
Circulation Sales
Head - Circulation Samir Mehta
Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya,
Norbert Joseph
Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh
Reader Services
Team Leader Sudhir Patel
Executives Poonam, Bhishm, Nilesh & Narendra
+91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in
Cover Design Peterson PJ
Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and
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Mediaworx Pvt Ltd. Published at A-262, 2nd Floor,
Defence colony, New Delhi-110024 and printed at Witty Ways
International Print-O-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery
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INDIA. Editor : Kanak Ghosh.
Acrosplat
“We do not endorse or recommend any product or service
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Bluk
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Disclaimer Crash of Cars
For every Digit contest, there will be only one
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In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision
shall be final.

6 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

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 DGT
All the latest lifestyle technology, gadgets to
Enter 12 drool over and gizmo porn like never before.
Desire, Greed and Temptation ahead...
) I have been reading dmystify since
the past year and a half and I would
like to tell you that I have found it quite
intriguing and informative.
The things which I came to know
from reading various other books were
all present in your book, that too in a
very simplified way which is very good.
I hold off reading other books but I
never miss dmystify.
I am sorry I never mailed you earlier
to praise dmystify but this month's
dmystify on microscopic life lacked a
chapter on viruses. Everything was
discussed other than viruses. Unless,
you're planning to bring out a dmystify
entirely on the same.
–Prakhar Vighnesh
(Virus Lover)
Indeed, we are contemplating a
dmystify dedicated to virii, because they
are complex and very, very different
from everything else. We haven't set a
date for it yet, though, because we plan
these things much in advance, but let
me see if it can be moved up to appear
sometime this year.
–Robert
) Hello Digit, I’ve been a bit sad – you
guys kinda killed SKOAR!. The jewel
in Digit’s mighty crown is now stuffed
somewhere inside the main mag and
to make us feel the difference between
the main mag and SKOAR, you also
degraded its quality. I’ll be very happy if
SKOAR! rises back again from the ashes
of the Phoenix!
Lemme tell you that cover story on
AI was great. I believe that AI will surely
arrive soon, and probably do all the
work for me (am I too greedy?). They’ll
be the slave and I have a valid reason for
making them slaves. They have intelli-
gence. So, at some point of time, they will
have a feeling, that they should be the one
who is superior. This has been happening
since forever in our human race. The AI
race won’t be any different I guess. We’ll
need to have control over them. The
reviews you guys do and the compari-
sons are epic. I remember when you did
a comparison of smartphone cameras,
the table was two pages long, and the
10 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Feedback for the April 2017 issue of Digit
Write to:
editor@digit.in
GPU comparison table
was four pages. You people
give attention to so much detail, that
you can rate a smartphone game on
ten, and even correct to a decimal place!
(I've never seen decimal level rating on
smartphone games).
PS. The Tekken 7 poster was great!
–Snehit Sah
Don't worry Snehit, SKOAR isn't dead.
We have great plans for it. Stay tuned.
But your plans for AI have scared us!
Yes we do have detailed test processes
and we test every minute detail. But
Anusha, (who reviews mobile games) I
suspect just likes decimals :-P
–Siddharth
) Hey there! I've been wanting to write
to Digit since a long time now, so this
one's going to be a bit lengthy.
I had my board exams during the
latter half of March, so I was expecting a
lot from your March'17 issue, in order to
take off the pressure during study time.
But I was utterly disappointed. Almost
nothing in the mag had my interest,
except SKOAR and FastTrack. And after
the exams ended, I was expecting even
more from the April issue and boy, did
you deliver. This time almost everything
in the mag captured my interest – from
2019’s Audi e-tron
The vehicle's 95kWh battery pack
gives it a range of 310 miles.
http://dgit.in/AudioEtron
the cover story to dmystify.
Overall it was one of the best
issues I've laid my hands on.
The April'17 issue saw the introduc-
tion of a different paper quality which is
of inferior quality similar to cheap paper
cum plastic pamphlets. So, I would like
you to revert back to the previous one.
As far as the Digit app is concerned,
don't you think that handing out free
Digit e-books would encourage piracy!
As someone would surely put up a link
(or upload it). And in no time we would
see PDF versions of Digit, shamelessly
stolen (Hey! I'm not the one btw).
And why don't you include Mithun's
column in the introductory pages? (with
Sid and Robert). It may result in the for-
mation of a new ''Trinity Brotherhood''.
I also have some suggestions for the
upcoming issues. How about a Cover
Story on ''Becoming hack proof'' or
''The future of the PC Master Race’’? I
would love to see a comparison of mid-
range GPUs. For SKOAR, how about
covering Metal Gear Solid or Resident
Evil for the ''Phranchise'' section?
I'm not sure whether it's done but a
FastTrack on ''Building a PC’’ will be
great? A dmystify on Nanotechnology
is something I'm expecting from you.
Also, you receive tonnes of games and
gadgets. So, why don't you organise
 1080p at 60fps stream 3D-printing aeroplanes
Streaming platform, Twitch, has dropped their 3.5 Boeing to make 3D-printed structural titanium
MB bitrate limit – meaning, you can now stream parts for its 787 Dreamliner which will save them
in 1080p at 60fps. http://dgit.in/twitchUG $3M on each plane. http://dgit.in/3DplanesB Inbox

giveaways? I guess everyone would
love to receive gifts from the #1 tech
magazine of the WORLD, especially
me. Finally, a Prey or Outlast 2 poster
would be highly appreciated. Thank
you for enlightening readers like me
and also for delivering such great
content every month. Keep up the good
work team :)
–Sarang Devsaha
Phew, you weren’t kidding when you
said it’s going to be long one. But these
detailed letters are the ones we appre-
ciate the most. And hopefully my reply
will be equally detailed and long. Excel-
lent suggestions Sarang, and we’re glad
you liked the AI issue. Let me answer
your queries one by one.
The paper quality is to differentiate
SKOAR as a separate section from the
rest of the magazine. We've been getting
conflicting reactions to the paper quality.
If you read ahead in this section a fellow
reader is appreciating the low reflective
glare on those pages.
About the app, yes piracy could be a
concern, except the app doesn't host PDFs
at all (which is why the reading experi-
ence, we hope, is much better). As for
past issue PDFs, we anyway give them out
twice a year on the special issue DVDs.
There seems to be a lot of demand to
have Mithun’s column moved up! Since
Mithun is always knee deep in compo-
nents, it just felt natural for his column
to be where all the hardware is – the
Tried & Tested section. But it’s a great
idea to establish a new “Trinity Brother-
hood” as you put it. (Just don’t tell him I
said so. Shhh.)
A blowout GPU comparison test is
something we’ve been planning for a
while too. The only thing keeping us
from doing it is our wait for AMD’s VEGA
cards. Once they're out, we’ll be coming
up with a comparison test covering not
only the mid-range but all the catego-
ries. So stay tuned for that.
The ideas for future phranchise, and
dmystify are spot on. Though we did PC
Building in September 2013. It might be
time for a refresh but the basic principles
still remain the same. Do dig into your
PDF archives and look up that issue.
Happy reading!
–Siddharth

LETTER OF THE MONTH

) Hi, I've been an on-off reader of Digit for what seems like
eons. There are a lot of positive things, but I have a feeling
this is going to be a rather long mail, and think the nega-
tives need to be addressed first. So here's my two satoshis:
1. I open the familiar two page Inbox section that lists the
praises and woes by users. A quick scan and not
getting what I came for, begin to flip backwards.
Finding out where to write to you guys was an
elusive piece of information to find! A simple
blurb somewhere on same page along the
lines of "write to x to let us know" would've
done wonders in streamlining the process
without having the reader to hunt it down.
2. Whats up with the Tips & Tricks page
format? In this era who actually cuts and
"files" them. I understand it made sense when
internet was a challenge and those dual DVDs were
a gift from the gods. It's time to update that column
I think. Give it page numbers and "normalise" it.
3. Readability. Oh god! the ever fighting battle of designers!
While I'm pleased to say that it's kept a great design
throughout, in spite of the overwhelming content,
some sore spots remain. Take the AI story last month
– the circuit pattern underneath is still hugely dis-
tracting and often comes in the way of the text.
4. Readability again (hides under a blanket). The whole
Sci-fi TRAPPIST story on Page 53. You see on glossy
pages when printed with black ink as the back-
ground, pretty much every light source is a messy
reflection of white thou-shalt-not-read blinding
spell. This is fine on non glossy paper (like the
SKOAR story on page 84) which are printed using
the same colour. They barely reflect anything.
5. In most cases I find the magazine content quite noob
friendly, and understand that it's a fine balance to
maintain. I have some mixed feelings about one aspect
of the AI stories. The turing test is mentioned in quite
a few places and is integral to the topic of AI. However
nothing was mentioned about what it was really. The
jargon was thrown around like it was a technical
test and a casual reader who is reading about
AI for the first time is going to think it's some
"computer thingy" that programmers do.
6. Officially a fan of Sahil Dawka after that
refreshing 2040 short story. Looking for-
ward to more such creative stuff. :)
-Sony Sasankan
Yikes! I had no idea finding out how to reach us
was so difficult. Feedback noted Sony, you'll find
a big blub in this section itself going forward.
We've toyed with the idea of normalising the section too.
But every now and then we get a stray mail from readers like
yourself who crib to us when we don't start the secton on a
right hand page (like this time) because they want to cut those
pages and not disrupt whatever might be printed behind. But
yes point noted. We'll add this to our next reader survey.
Yup that's on us. I don't know how we missed
that. We hope the readibility in this issue is better.
Indeed, we should definitely put in "for those who
came in late" explainers in our stories. Point noted.
Keep sharing such feedback with us
Sony. It helps us improve a lot.
–Siddharth

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 11

SECTION SUBSECTION
TECHNOLOGY WITH STYLE
MindMaze
VR Face
Mask
MindMaze has come up
with a mask that’s capable
of somewhat accurately
reading your expressions.
The mask consists of a ring
of electrodes which you
can install into the face
foam of any VR headset.
When you put the mask on,
it detects which sensors
your skin is touching,
matching it to patterns of
facial expressions. It’s not
100 percent accurate, but
it helps read expressions
when your face is otherwise
hidden by a VR headset.
Lego Mac
Although it
doesn’t run
macOS, this
tiny Lego Mac
is made out of an e-ink
display and a Raspberry Pi
Zero. All it can do is display
the time or images on the
e-ink screen.
12 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
DESIRE SHOWCASE
Solar-Powered Water
Harvester
T his sponge-like device
is capable of sucking
water out from water
vapour in the air, even in
low humidity conditions. It
can produce about three
litres of water a day for
every sponge-like absorber
it contains, and researchers
say that it can only get more
efficient in the future. In
the past, researchers have
been able to acquire water
from the atmosphere but
never like this. Previous
methods needed either too
much electricity or areas
of very high humidity. The
team of researchers from
the University of California,
Berkeley, led by Omar Yaghi,
found a way to use crystalline
powders called metal organic
SHFT IQ
SHFT IQ is a
virtual running
coach that
tracks and
analyses your body and
running style. This tiny pod
is armed with an AI that can
provide you with instructions
in real time.
GREED
For those who just want more
than should be humanly
allowed, we have enough to
satisfy your hunger...
THIS MONTH: Mini Cooper
D, BMW X3, Bang & Olufsen
BeoSound Shape, OSIM
uCaress 3D, Hidesign RFID
blocking wallet and more...
frameworks, or MOFs. These
MOFs’ properties can be
altered by chemists, dictating
which gases bound them and
the strength of their bond. In
2014, they synthesised a MOF
that was adept at absorbing
water, even in low-humidity.
After synthesizing the new
MOF (dubbed MOF-801),
Yaghi reached out to Evelyn
X-Wing Drone
If you’re
looking for
drones that
resemble
spaceships from Star Wars,
Oliver C is your man. The
latest addition is the iconic
X-Wing fighter; completely
custom-built.
TEMPTATION
If you’re wondering what to do
with yourself or how to spend
some time getting cultured,
this section is for you...
THIS MONTH: Expanse,
Born a Crime: Stories from a
South African Childhood and
upcoming stuff to watch out
for in May 2017 ...
Wang from MIT and together
they came up with the
water-harvesting device. The
device works by soaking up
water vapour from the air at
night, and using heat from
the sun to condense the
vapour to liquid during the
day. This could be a huge
breakthrough for places that
suffer from drought.
Aerix Nano FPV
drone
These nano
drones feature
a 5.8ghz video camera along
with a 2-in-1 FPV standalone
monitor and goggle set for
some first-person-view
drone racing action.
 DESIRE

TAKE MY
MONEY!
Here is where we keep an eye on crowdfunded
projects that will make you go ‘Shut up and
take my money!’

Gnarly Racers Penna

E ver wondered what it would look like if you slapped a camera
on to an RC car? The guys at Gnarly have done exactly that
so now you can drive them around your house while enjoying
Y ou don’t normally see standalone keyboards made just for
smartphones or tablets. Well not frequently anyway, and
most of them aren’t that good. The Penna Bluetooth keyboard
a first-person-view from the car’s perspective. A Gnarly Racer aims to address that problem. The first thing that stands
boasts top speeds of 32 km/h! That’s pretty impressive for out about the Penna is its look. It has a very distinct retro
an RC car, and you get to experience it in FPV. Gnarly Racers look, which gives it a very typewriter vibe. It’s also aimed at
will come in a ‘Ready-to-Race’ kit which includes just about providing a comfortable typing experience, boasting the feel of
everything you’ll need. a mechanical keyboard. Penna features a choice of diamond
You’ve got the option of a shaped or chrome shaped keycaps. The first helps with typing
FPV monitor or goggles while the second enhances the retro look. Penna utilises Cherry
to best enjoy the FPV switches, the kind used in mechanical keyboards, to ensure your
experience a Gnarly Racer typing experience is as good as it gets. It also comes with a
provides. Unfortunately, Macro Bar which lets you map frequently used keys and words
Gnarly Racers don’t ship to it. It comes with Bluetooth 4.2 support and can be paired
to India, so if you’ve got with up to five devices. It supports all OSes, as long as you
relatives abroad, it’s time to have a device that can use Bluetooth, Penna should work. The
get in touch with them. Penna Bluetooth keyboard can be found on Kickstarter.

Superscreen
T here could be several reasons someone might prefer a larger
screen. Some might prefer a larger space to work with, and
some might simply just want a larger screen to watch stuff on.
Now, some might argue that there’s tablets for that. True, but
you can’t carry a tablet around as easily as a smartphone – they
don’t really fit into pockets. This is where Superscreen comes
in. Superscreen is a 10.1-inch HD display for your phone. It lets
you wirelessly transmit your mobile device to it, scaling it to
its much larger display. Once you’ve transmitted your device
to Superscreen, you can use it just as you would the device.
On top of that it doesn’t use any data of its own, so there’s no
subscription fee either. It boasts full multi-touch, orientation
control and stylus support as well. They also promise perfect
scalability, so no stretching and zooming. And all of that for just
$119 (`7700 approx.) on their Kickstarter page.

www.digit.in| |April
www.digit.in 2017| |Digit
May2017 Digit| |13
13
DESIRE TAKE MY MONEY

ZeTime Travis
Z eTime claims to be the world’s first hybrid smartwatch
which uses mechanical hands and a full round color
touchscreen. What we have here is something quite unique – a
H ere’s a handy gadget that
every frequent traveller would
love to have. Travis is a personal
watch that blends the classic watch design with the features voice translator that’s capable of
of a modern smartwatch. ZeTime’s front has four layers to it translating and communicating in
– at the base you have the TFT colour display. The mechanical over 80 languages! There are over
hands (the second layer) are placed after this, followed by the 6,500 languages on this planet (half
touch panel. And lastly, of them are probably from here), yet a
you have the resilient surprisingly high number of us speak
Gorilla glass layer. Unlike only one or two languages.
regular watches where Woops, we’re digressing! Back to
the hands are controlled Travis. Travis is a pocket-sized AI device. It’s able to instantly
by gears running in the recognise up to 80 languages and offer instant translations,
background, ZeTime’s in just two seconds! If you don’t have any connectivity, it can
hands are controlled voice translate 20 languages. If you happen to have earphones
by the watch’s CPU. It or headphones with Bluetooth, you can pair it with Travis
also moves the hands (there’s no jack unfortunately). There’s a lot of phone apps out
to maximise visibility on there that offer similar services but Travis is built specifically
the screen as necessary depending on what you’re doing. In for face-to-face interactions and you’re less likely to fumble
addition to having all the features of a regular smartwatch, this when all you need is one touch. You can get your own Travis for
Swiss-made watch also has its classic look going for it. The $139 (`9000 approx.) on Indiegogo.
best part? At just $139 (`9000 approx.), it’s not too expensive
either. Find ZeTime on Kickstarter.

Kudrone
K udrone is a palm-sized drone that can record in 4k, comes
with GPS auto-follow and is capable of shooting panoramic
3280 x 2464 px photos. This mini drone is easy to use, so you
won’t be needing any prior drone-handling expertise. Kudrone
comes with interchangeable, rechargeable batteries with the
option to purchase a charging dock as an add-on. The dock
can charge up to three batteries at once and the add-on itself
comes with three additional batteries. Some of the other specs
in this little drone include an accelerometer gyro, magnetic
compass, SONAR hovering assistance, and a vision positioning iSpin
sensor. For a $129 (`8,300 approx.) drone, those features are
almost too good to be true. Kudrone can also automatically
sync its photos and videos to your iPhone or Android phones’
storage. Interested in getting your own mini-drone? Find
F idget gadgets seem to be all the rage right now.
Ironically, fidgeting used to be considered a bad
habit. Now, it’s being considered therapeutic. To that
Kudrone on Indiegogo. end, here’s another bauble for you to fidget around with
– the iSpin spinner. What makes iSpin different from
other fidget spinners out there? The folks who made the
iSpin wanted to create a high quality fidget spinner, but
at an affordable cost. So they did, using Brass, which
is better than the cheap plastic ones out there. iSpin is
made out of ten CNC brass parts and one stainless steel
R188 bearing and can be fully dismantled. This allows
you to mess around with the balance by removing and
adding the brass parts. Since it can be fully dismantled,
you can replace the parts as needed if you happen to
break or misplace them. Head to their Indiegogo page if
you want an iSpin spinner of your own.

14 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 SECTION GREED
SUBSECTION
EXAMINED

DESIRE
APP WATCH

MOBILE
Tapzo
Tapzo is an app that integrates
all of it – cabs, food, bills, news

WATCH
– under one app. We don’t need
to tell you how useful that could
be, right? Especially when phones
are running out of storage space
Stylish, glamorous and interesting as rapidly as the blink of an eye, if
you could actually save space by
smartphones are always on the horizon. We
installing one app instead of say,
take a closer look at what’s hot in this space...
7 or 8, that immediately makes
the app a must-have. For now,
Tapzo has partnered with Uber,
Ola (the two cab biggies), Swiggy, Zomato (the two
food biggies), BillDesk, MySmartPrice, Airtel Money,
Redbus, Cleartrip, Bookmyshow, Freecharge, Mobikwik
and more. Needless to say, this covers a really broad

Onkyo Granbeat
spectrum of services from reliable service providers all
under the roof of one single app.

Play Store: http://dgit.in/TapzoPS

O nkyo is Japan’s leading manufacturer when it
comes to all things audio. It’s Japan’s answer to
companies like JBL, Bang & Olufsen, and Harmon Kardon
App Store: http://dgit.in/TapzoAS

when it comes to high end audio equipment. While NowFloats Boost

these companies have been known to partner with phone
companies to lend their
expertise in smartphone
audio development, Onkyo
is taking it a step further.
Onkyo has gone ahead
and developed its own
smartphone, the Onkyo
Granbeat. The focus of
the Granbeat is of course
on the audio, and Onkyo
claim it has the “highest
quality of audio in the
history of smartphones.”
The Granbeat comes with
a standard 3.5mm audio
jack and a 2.5mm 4 pole
jack. It’s also got dual
amplifiers, making it the
first phone in the world to
have those. The DAC and
amplifier circuit are shielded in an enclosure that prevents
electromagnetic interference. The Granbeat’s body is made
from a single aluminium block. There’s a dedicated volume
control knob on the left and player controls on the right side.
SPECIFICATIONS
OS: Android 6.0 | SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 | RAM:
3GB | Storage: 128GB, expandable | Display: 1080p
IPS display | Camera: 16MP rear; 8MP front | Battery:
3000mAh | Dual SIM support
NowFloats Boost is a service that
offers to give your business visibility
by providing you tools to build your
own website. Above the usual
social media presence, NowFloats
promises to get your website – and
consequently, product – visible in
unique search results. Overall, the
appearance of the website is pretty
standard. In fact, any NowFloats
Boost free website looks pretty
much the same. But the important
thing here is the visibility – most customers of this app
are small to medium stores who have used the app to
get regular service and product updates out to their
customers. The only thing it insists on – regular updates.
Play Store: http://dgit.in/NowFBPS
App Store: http://dgit.in/NowFBAS
Google Areo
Hyperlocal services are picking
up pace and now Google seems
to have taken up the job of
integrating them with its new
app Areo. Currently operational
in Bangalore and Mumbai, the
app brings together quite a few
services. For instance, food
services like Freshmenu and
Holachef, home services from
Urbanclap, and more. A great
feature is integrated checkout that shows you all the
services and items in your cart in one place.

Play Store: http://dgit.in/AreoPStr

www.digit.in | May 2017

www.digit.in | May |2017
Digit | Digit
15 | 15
 GREED

AUTO
Your one stop destination for a monthly
dose of all your automobile launches
and desires.

This is particularly helpful when you’re adding destinations to

maps, searching for contacts or dialling a number – you can
simply sketch on the dial with your finger to represent the
alphabet/number. There are plenty of LEDs at play here, with
exterior welcome lights and a glorious multi-colour LED ring
surrounding the central display. The LED ring inside changes
colour based on what is on the display, and hence works
functionally as well as aesthetically. The rest of the buttons
and the sporty instrument cluster get red LED lighting, and you

Four cars, also get electrically operated seats with great body support.
All of this is topped by the drive characteristics. Despite
the rather limited 115hp of power, the MINI Cooper D’s engine

four flavours: is tuned very well, and the heavy steering wheel offers great,
precise feedback. Switch to Sport and you immediately feel

Here’s what
the surge of well-optimised power – which sums up the entire
range of emotions and class of this premium hatch.

we drove last
Volkswagen Beetle: The iconic look
If there’s any car that can really make heads turn wherever
it goes, it is the Volkswagen Beetle. Dating way back to the

month
WWII era, the Beetle has stood the test of time to maintain

MINI Cooper D: Poetry in Motion

The MINI Cooper D has racing DNA deeply ingrained within;
a go kart-like stance moulded into a suave, new age design.
MINI follows a circular design from the headlamp and overall
chassis to the interior buttons, vents, controls and practically
everything, and this lends smooth continuity to the car on
overall terms. Not only does this make the car look suave and
sporty, it also aids in aerodynamics, which leads to superior
handling and great in-cabin experience.
The highlight of the interiors is the infotainment panel.
The 8.8-inch display deftly lets go of its touchscreen interface
and relies on the circular iDrive controller for all controls.
The intuitive controller gets seven buttons for quick access
to multimedia,
radio, telephone and
sat-nav, along with
main menu, back and
settings. At the centre
is a large circular
control dial with
five-way toggle and
a central touchpad.
its legendary status as an icon. The latest edition is all about
making the Beetle smarter than ever before, while retaining
its iconic design, a pleasantly voluptuous cabin and generously
smooth driving dynamics.
Powered by Volkswagen’s SmartLink infotainment system
that packages Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and MirrorLink into
an adaptive icon, you get ample gizmos to play around with.
The SmartLink console misses out on a dedicated sat-nav unit,
but presents music and telephony via Bluetooth. You also get
a USB port to charge devices, an aux port for analogue audio
connectivity, and an SD card and a CD drive should you require
such media. The system also gets integrated voice operation
that works well with the preset commands.

16 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in


The multifunction steering wheel also integrates all of the
infotainment services into the MID, which makes operations
even easier. Additionally, you get body-coloured inserts and a
premium, all-leather black upholstery, with spacious, electri-
cally operated front seats (that are also heated – no cooling).
The rear seats are spacious enough to accommodate two
adults for short journeys in reasonable comfort. The dual-zone
AC, while being powerful enough, is a tad noisy, breaking the
momentum of seamless comfort.
The Beetle is an easy car to drive, and more enthusiastic
drivers will be left wanting for more. The light steering wheel is
easy to maneuver, and the soft suspension sits the car squat on
the ground. It does get slightly unsettled by large bumps, but
most drivers of the Beetle will enjoy the easy-flowing driving
nature of the car.
The Beetle is not about sporty drives, and neither does it
aim to be. It is all about arriving somewhere in ample style and
comfort, and the VW Beetle aces both its objectives with class.
BMW X3: The sporty SUV for the
enthusiast’s family
Every BMW with the ‘M’ badge is a formidable offering, and the
BMW X3 xDrive 30d M Sport is no different. If you’re thinking
of a well-optimised luxury SUV that is comfortable, fun and
engaging on long journeys, the BMW X3 has a lot to offer.
To begin with, BMW’s iDrive infotainment unit uses a 12.3-
inch non-touch display that is recessed to enhance sunlight
visibility. Alongside the standard multimedia options, you
get excellent in-car audio fidelity and surround effects, and
full control of your audio via the equaliser settings provided.
Connectivity options include Bluetooth, USB, aux, SD card and
CD drive, and the iDrive controller retains its fluid touchpad to
make searches easier.
You also get full phone and message controls, along with a
3D sat-nav map that knows Indian roads fairly well. The high
definition rear parking camera, coupled with auto-adaptive,
electrochromic rear view mirrors are excellent to assist
reversing in tight spots. The console is a joy to use, based
on sheer fluidity and ease of usage. Add to that, a gorgeous
digital MID that shows every notification and update possible,
including gate open, date, temperature and more.
The plush black interiors and the panoramic sunroof
add class, and the incredibly comfortable front seats also
add extra thigh support for tall drivers. You also get cooled
storage compartments, and a large, airy cabin that makes the
rear row great to be in. Sitting on the rear row also provides
GREED AUTO
good ground stability, and you can really feel the car’s weight
impacting its stability positively.
The BMW X3 xDrive 30d M Sport offers good, enjoyable
driving dynamics. The steering wheel is weighed slightly lesser
than our choice, but many would enjoy the zippy maneuver-
ability despite the car’s size. Hit the highway and switch to
Sport, and this is where you get to know the real DNA of
BMW’s mid-sized luxury beast, the X3 xDrive 30d M Sport.
Skoda Superb: Backseat comforts
Of the four cars we drove this month, the MINI Cooper D is all
about beautiful, ambient lighting and excellent handling, while
the VW Beetle is about ease of driving and iconic styling. The
BMW X3, meanwhile, is about a mean riding stance and great
highway power. Amid all of these, the all-new Skoda Superb
holds its own by being literally superb itself.
It retains the same SmartLink infotainment system seen
in the Beetle, including all infotainment services but a sat-
nav unit. You get ventilated seats, special Canton-powered
8.1-channel audio that is deep, crisp and clear, an automatic
sunroof, adaptive mirrors, a thorough MID, voice control and
easy coasting that still makes the rather massive sedan quite
fuel efficient. Coupled with coasting, our peak mileage on
journeys came up to 20kph, which is impressive. While there
is a slight turbo lag, the engine is still powerful, and there is
ample torque to never let you feel out of depth on the highway.
The steering is well-weighted, but still retains Skoda’s easily
maneuverable characteristic that makes driving the large
saloon quite comfortable even in tight city traffic.
The Laurin & Klement edition gets special leather uphol-
stery, sunlight shades on rear windows, a blue/white/green
ambient LED strip and inlay lighting to make the cabin feel
special. Alongside, the rear seats get acres of leg and knee
room, enough headroom and decent thigh support as well,
falling short of perfect seat depth by a whisker. The ride quality
is smooth, stable and pliant, and reinstates the fact that the
Skoda Superb is a fantastic car to be chauffeured around in.
You also get rear AC temperature control, and knobs to adjust
the front passenger seat for optimum legroom.
The new Skoda Superb has loads of features to please the
discerning buyer. Hosting a plush cabin, great ride quality and
an efficiently tuned engine, it’s worthy enough to compete
against the two luxury hybrids including Toyota Camry and
Honda Accord, toe-to-toe.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 17
GREED AUTO
Android Auto vs. Apple
CarPlay: The grand
showdown
W
ith the rising number of smartphones in the world
and almost every carmaker opting for its own custom
infotainment console, the need for unified infotain-
ment platforms became crucial. Enter, Apple CarPlay and
Android Auto, bringing essentials of iOS and Android to cars.
While this sounds good and each has its strengths, they’re not
quite perfect, yet.
Apple CarPlay
Connecting with Apple CarPlay is much simpler - plug in your
Lightning cable to the USB deck here, and tap on Apple Car-
Play on your central touchscreen unit to activate it.
CarPlay is also smoother and more responsive than
Android Auto, just like the persistent difference between iOS
and Android, and it also connects more swiftly. The interface
is typically iOS and aids familiarity, but app support for India is
very limited.
All of this leaves a gaping absence in India. The Apple
CarPlay ecosystem does not support Google Maps, and Apple
Maps is not supported in India’s versions of CarPlay, at least
for now. As a result, if you would need navigation while using
Apple CarPlay, you would need to separately use Google Maps
(or any other navigation app) from your iPhone or use the info-
tainment system’s default satellite navigation.
Most inputs are handled by Siri, and this makes it fairly easy
to make calls on the go. However, you can only see the list of
the last 10 messages received and have them read out (no
visual text for safety). It would have been more proficient if
there were speed-sensing restrictions, so that the driver could
have accessed messages on the screen whenever the car
stopped moving.
Apple Music works as intended, but there is no keyboard
input to search for new songs (you rely on Siri here). To sum
18 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
up, despite being responsive and swift, Apple CarPlay is
extremely restricted in India. You can essentially only make
calls, hear up to the last 10 received messages and play
your music. Most cars right now already support calling and
music from phones via Bluetooth (even without GUIs), and
seeing how much of your personal conversations are held via
WhatsApp and Messenger nowadays, it is practically only a
cosmetic presence in your car, and not really functional.
Android Auto
To connect Android Auto, connect your phone via Bluetooth
with the system, then plug it in via USB. Prior to this, download
Android Auto from the Play Store. Once you are paired with
Bluetooth, connecting your phone and switching on Android
Auto from both the phone and the infotainment unit initialises
a first-time setup, followed by a short tutorial and finally, the
home screen. In comparison, all you do for Apple CarPlay with
iPhones is connect via USB and tap on Apple CarPlay from the
head unit. See the difference?
That said, Android Auto looks more lively,
albeit slightly low resolution. It is slower than
CarPlay, and every app displays lag while
opening. It is here that Apple CarPlay outdoes
Android Auto, fair and square.
However, Android Auto is the more useful
of the two. You get access to your contacts and
recent numbers, which you can tap on or use
OK Google to access. Like CarPlay, Android
Auto does not let you really read messages,
and all operations are via voice. Against Car-
Play’s SMS/iMessage support, Android Auto
supports apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, Google
Hangouts and Telegram (FB Messenger misses
out). This makes it more useful than CarPlay,
covering more essentials.
The biggest boon, however, is Google Maps. It works as
well as it does on any phone, and you get comprehensive route
details including traffic, and this hands Android Auto a major
advantage over Apple CarPlay.
Music playback allows local music sync and streaming via
Google Play Music, but the playlist sync is erratic. After a few
attempts, though, it gets the job done.
Our verdict
Despite the cleaner and faster interface on CarPlay, it is Android
Auto that proves to be better equipped in features for now. It
provides third party messaging support, Google Maps and music
playback along with calling and ‘OK Google’ voice assistance,
making it the better option of the two for India right now.
 GREED
Truly Exquisite
Samsung Galaxy S8
DROOL S amsung is claiming that the new Samsung Galaxy S8 is

MAAL
well on its way to becoming the company’s most suc-
cessful launch. Meaning a lot of people are going to be having
an S8. Well, for those of you that want to stand out, UK luxury
customising brand Truly Exquisite have gone ahead and made
Get your drool on and behold some the world’s first custom, luxury plated, Samsung Galaxy S8
of the fanciest, ostentatious and drop
dead gorgeous things money can buy.
Droolworthy?

Bang & Olufsen

BeoSound Shape
I t would be an under-
statement to call
the Bang & Olufsen’s
BeoSound Shape akin to and S8+. They’ve got three options to offer – 24K Gold, 24K
wall art. The speakers Platinum and 18K Rose Gold. The 24K Gold option is the
have a modular design cheapest of the lot at just £2,250 (`1,81,00 approx). The plat-
which looks like a series inum option will set you back slightly more at £2,350 (`1,90,00
of hexagonal tiles con- approx). And finally, the Rose Gold version will cost you £2,300
nected to each other. (`1,85,500 approx). Those are the prices for the S8 variant
Behind each tile you have an amplifier, smart hub, speaker, or whereas the S8+ variants will cost you that plus another £100.
acoustic dampers. You need a minimum of six tiles to get the But you’ll be getting extra goodies for those prices as well,
BeoSound Shape going, but you can scale it up as needed to including a Samsung Gear VR, a wireless charging pad, a 24K
form large honeycombs. It comes with hardware for AirPlay Gold power bank charger and a luxury card holder. All of which
as well, through a connectivity hub hidden in one of the tiles. will be delivered to you in a nice wooden box. You can pre-order
The BeoSound Shape costs $4,200 (`2,70,000 approx). your custom Samsung Galaxy S8 on the company’s website.

Samsung Cinema
Screen
W ould you rather go to the movie theatre and watch
projected movies or would you rather watch movies
on a massive super-sharp 4K UHD TV at home? The latter,
right? Samsung thinks so too. They’re calling it the world’s
first HDR LED theater display and it vows to improve your
movie-going quality tenfold. The Samsung Cinema Screen is
massive, measuring a whopping 34 feet diagonally. It boasts
of a peak brightness 10 times greater than that of standard
cinema projectors according to Samsung. They haven’t
announced any pricing for the Cinema Screen as of yet, but
we’re going to go out on a limb and guess it’s going to cost as
much as its size.

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 19

 GREED

EXAMINED
Some very cool products come to the
Digit Test Centre which don’t really fit into
the standard product categories that we
review in the Bazaar section. We write
about them here mostly to make you turn
green with envy.

OSIM uCaress 3D
Y ou can call it a 3D back massager or you can call it a
back pulveriser because that’s what it did to us. Unable
to get over the loss of the previous foot massager to grace
our test labs, we were ridiculously giddy to give the OSIM
uCaress 3D a try. It’s got a beige-brown colour palette
which goes with everything and there’s even a velcro strap
to tie it up with the backrest. The magical massaging is
brought on by these two rollers that knead your back so
well that even your chromosomes will get untangled.
It’s got multiple modes which not only switch between the
different kneading patterns but also mix things up with focused
massages. Maybe you’ve spent a little too much time slouched
over your phone and pulled a neck muscle. Worry not, pick
the ‘Neck & Shoulders’ preset and wail away in agony as the
massager sets you right. We spent quite a lot of time on the
uCaress 3D, a little too much, to be truthful. The device warns
you against overusing it but we went ahead and tried everything
in one go, from getting lathi-charged thanks to the kneading
massage to falling asleep thanks to the relaxing multi-action
full-back massage. And should you need something extra
(no pun intended) then turn on the heat and you should be in
heaven. What we can say is that while it isn’t the same as a
comfy sofa massager, it is pretty much the same in efficacy.
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight: 6 kg | Dimensions: 75 x 16 x 42 cms |
Massage presets: 4 | Power: 120-240 V AC mains.
Price: `22,000/-

Zebronics Zeb-Fit500
A fter the Zebfit-100 launched last
year in October 2016, Zebronics
recently launched an upgraded
version of its basic tracker with the
Zebfit 500. The new activity tracker
contains a lot of standard features
that were already there in the Zebfit
100, like a 1.24cm OLED display,
seven day data storage, 15 days
and above standby time, caller ID,
notifications, remote camera shutter,
with almost identical dimensions and
weight. In addition to that, the new
tracker also contains a heart rate
monitor and a touch sensitive button.
The Zebfit delivers on what it
promises – except with the actual
step tracking. The tracker detects
quite a few false steps and you might
find your daily goal completed way
sooner than you thought it would. The
heart rate sensor is a good addition,
and it works on an always-on mode.
The sleep detection could use some
work as in a couple of occasions, it
could not detect interrupted sleep
and ignored the hours before the
interruption altogether. The wrist-
activation feature worked every
single time we tried, so that’s a plus.
Overall, at `4,000 the Zebfit 500
does carry little more than what its
competitors carry at half the price.

20 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in


Blueair 280i
W e’ve been testing out many air purifiers and the ones
offering Wi-Fi connectivity along with a companion app
have always been appreciated. The Blueair Classic 280i is
meant for room sizes of 280 sq. ft. It’s capable of filtering
out smoke, dust and pollen from the air inside your house.
The smart panel on the top displays a lot of functions such
as Wi-Fi connectivity, fan speed status, filter status and the
air quality of the room for PM2.5 and VOC levels. The most
interesting feature in the ‘i’ models is the presence of an air
quality sensor that speeds up the fans whenever it detects
a drop in the air quality in the room. We tested this out by
blowing smoke near the purifier and it switched to the auto
mode until it brought back the air quality to normal.
The purifier takes in air from the back and blows out clean
and purified air from the top. It’s necessary to place the
purifier away from any kind of hindrance to the air flow. You
can either set the purifier in the automatic mode or switch
between the three fan speeds. The Blueair Friend app will
let you control all the modes remotely without touching the
purifier, and it’s available on both Android and iOS. You can
also monitor the air quality of your room in real-time and
accordingly set the fan speed. The app also connects to a
database that gives you the air quality of over 150 countries,
possibly including your city. When the filter wears out over
time, the Filter indicator will let you know that it’s time to
replace the filter. With all the features mentioned above, the
Blueair 280i does justify its price of `55,000 considering app
connectivity and the presence of the air quality sensor.
SPECIFICATIONS
Room size: 280 sq. ft. (room size is based on 8’ ceiling) |
CADR (Smoke): 180 ft3 per minute | CADR (Dust): 200
ft3 per minute | CADR (Pollen): 200 ft3 per minute | Air
changes per hour: 5 | Dimensions (H x W x D): 533 x 432
x 209 mm (21 x 17 x 9 in) | Product weight: 11 kg (35 lb)
GREED EXAMINED
SECURITY WATCH
Chrome and Firefox Phishing attack
A phishing attack occurs when an attacker sends you
an email or message containing a link to a website that
looks trustworthy. Clicking the link may infect your
system or fool you into logging into the website.
This particular
type of phishing
attack is using
unicode to register
domains that look identical to the actual domain.
The prefix being used is what is known as an ‘ASCII
compatible encoding’ prefix. This lets the browser
know that the domain is using ‘punycode’ encoding to
represent the Unicode characters.
The attack only seems to affect Chrome and Firefox
users, and should be patched by the time you read this.
Google Play Flashlight Trojan
ESET researchers recently discovered a banking trojan
on Google Play disguised as a flashlight widget. The
malware was found masquerading as a flashlight app
on Google Play. After being downloaded and installed,
it would ask for admin rights, hide its icon, and appear
on the phone only as a
widget. It could then
display fake screens
and mimic legit apps,
lock devices to prevent
detection, and intercept
SMSes and display fake
notifications. It was
targeted at primarily
banking apps.
It was detected
by ESET as Trojan.
Android/Charger.B and
was pulled from the store on April 10. If you haven’t
downloaded any flashlight apps of late you should be
fine. If you did download something that displayed
similar characteristics as the one above – and are
infected – the only way to uninstall it will be to boot the
device in safe mode and then do so.
US Law enforcement hits Kelihos/
Waledac botnet
Peter Levashov, who according to the FBI, is the
alleged mastermind behind the Kelihos/Waledac
botnet, has been recently arrested in Spain. According
to the FBI, Kelihos is, “one of the world’s most
notorious criminal spammers.”
Kelihos has been active since 2008 and has since
been under attack many times before resurfacing later.
It has appeared to have gone silent after the current
operation but one cannot tell for sure whether it’s
gone for good. This is the same botnet responsible for
the W32.Waledac viruses you may have encountered
on your PC. It functioned by sending spam emails
pretending to be from legit sources luring people into
giving up their credentials.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 21
GREED EXAMINED

Crusaders CF-100 Hidesign RFID

W ith the air pollution breaking quality standards (in a
bad way) in the capital, air purifiers are now becoming
mainstream. Soon to join them are air purifiers for cars and we
got to play around with the Crusaders CF-100. The CF-100 is a
scaled down version of a regular
air purifier while maintaining the
same mechanism of purification.
Packed with an active Carbon
filter and HEPA filter (capable
of preventing the passage of
particles the size of 0.3 microns),
it can purify an area of 60-70 sq.
ft. which is more than enough
for a car. Running on a recharge-
able Li-ion battery, we found the
purifier to last for up to three
hours in a single charge. There
are two fan speeds that can be
switched based on your require-
ment. The CF-100 is almost
the size of a bottle and quite
lightweight. It can also be placed on your desk or cubicle, and it
will be able to remove odour as well, thanks to the five physical
filters placed inside the two vents. Clean and filtered air is blown
out through the top vent. Although the CF-100 is expensive
for its price of Rs. 5,000, it could be a worthy investment as
a portable air purifier to use in your car and office cubicle.
SPECIFICATIONS
Air Flow: 15 M3/hr | HEPA Filtration: 0.3 micron @99.97% |
Filter Replacement: After 12 Months (Avg. use of 6 - 7 hours
every day) | Inbuilt Sensors: Odour sensor | Dust Purifying
Rate: >99.97% | Formaldehyde Purifying Rate: >96.2% |
Germs purifying Rate: >97.6% | Display Mode: LED | Rated
Voltage: DC12V | Negative Ions: >5,000,000/cc | UV Light
Lamp life: 20,000h | Applicable Area Max.: Up to 15 M2
blocking Wallet
G etting that snazzy new wallet might be good to bump your style
quotient up but it’s not going to protect you from hackers trying
to steal your credit and debit card data. RFID sniffing is the fad
among hackers(or should we call them pickpockets?) these days.
All they need to do is carry around a high-power RFID reader in their
backpack while walking down the streets. Current gen RFID readers
can copy your data from a few feet away and you won’t even notice
it before it’s too late (i.e. When you start getting SMSes for unknown
transactions). Unless you get one of these RFID blocking wallets.
We tried out the Hidesign RFID blocking wallet and it works!
(What else were you expecting
to hear?) The secret lies in a
wire-mesh lining that blocks
radio frequency pulses from
even getting to the RFID tags.
Of course, we didn’t have any
high-power transceivers so
we can’t say what a deter-
mined thief can get but your
average rookie hacker isn’t
going to be able to sniff your
debit cards from afar. Sure you
can stuff a layer of aluminium
foil inside your current wallet and get the job done. But will it
be stylish as this Hidesign wallet? It’s got 15 slits for plastic
money, two for paper money and a few pouches for ID. It’s
stylish, has plenty of slots and even protects your money from
digital pickpockets. What else do you want from your wallet?
SPECIFICATIONS
Length: 10 cms | Height: 12 cms | Credit/Debit card slits:
15 | Money slots: 2 | Windowed slots: 1 | Misc. Slots: 2.
Price: `1795/-

Belkin Universal Car

Charger
B elkin’s Universal charger ensures that it’s all you’ll ever need
for your charging needs on the go. It works with just about
every device in the market right now, equipped with a USB 2.0
port. It isn’t too bulky and is rather sleek in design. Furthermore,
the device comes with voltage-sensing built-in, so you don’t need
to worry about power spikes or other such surges damaging your
device. They’re pretty serious about that too, offering a warranty
of $2,500 if your device is damaged by a rogue electrical charge.

SPECIFICATIONS
10 Watt/2.1 Amp | Universal USB 2.0 Port | Compatible with
most devices | Price: `999/-

22 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 TEMPTATION TV SHOW

Expanse
CRITIQUE
In this section, we put stuff through the
grinder and closely examine what comes
out; everything except gadgets, because
there’s more to life than just that

BOOK

Born a Crime
I
the poverty, the struggle, the
camaraderie of children, the
hatred of adults – it’s a first
hand glimpse into the history
of a country that was until not
too long ago mired in institu-
tionalised racial segregation.
This is a story of early ‘90s
South Africa told from the
point of view of a child who
was, technically, brought into
the world as the result of a
crime. By law his white father
and black mother were not
f there is one problem
with quite a few sci-
ence fiction shows and
movies – it is the major
disregard towards anything
actually following the rules of
science. Based on the highly
acclaimed novel series by
James S.A. Corey, Expanse
makes it quite clear at the
start that it takes its science
seriously. Be it gravity serums
for space travellers, or the
impossibility of high-risk
maneuvers in space, all of it
makes sense if you’re reason-
ably up to date with the world
simple missing person and
a missing freighter case, the
show quickly takes unex-
pected turns to dive deep into
interplanetary dynamics.
What makes the show more
interesting is the drama
and conflict shown between
Earth, Mars and ‘Belters’,
which gives it a similar vibe to
Game of Thrones.
And if anything is
being compared to Game of
Thrones, how can it not have
an amazing cast? Everyone
from Shohreh Aghdashloo
to Thomas Jane have done a

B
orn a Crime is the
kind of book that
will take you on a
rollercoaster ride
of emotions from the first
few pages. The now famous
Late Show host stunningly
captures in visceral detail,
what it was like growing
up in post-apartheid South
Africa. The discrimination,
allowed to have relations.
The stories range from
lighthearted incidents full
of colloquial hilarity to gut
wrenching accounts of
racism. Strangely some anec-
dotes are relatable to any 90s
born middle-class Indian kid
– a trip down memory lane is
unavoidable.
Rating:
Siddharth Parwatay
of scientific research.
The show is based in a
future where we have succes-
fully overpopulated Earth,
colonised the Moon, have
begun terraforming Mars
in glass biomes and have
managed to push the lower
stratas of the society to the
asteriod belt in our system.
So yeah, future – but not Star
Trek yet. Starting off as a
brilliant job in portraying a
human race that is used to an
interplanetary life, but isn’t
quite at the best terms with it.
Sounds familiar, eh?
It only seems fair to say
that Expanse will initially
take its time, but once you
are hooked, you’ll need a
hyperdrive to let go.
Rating:
Arnab Mukherjee

Guardians of the Prey Pirates of the

Galaxy Vol.2 We’ve seen some pretty Caribbean: Dead
Marvel’s trailer game is bizarre things in Arkane Men Tell No Tales
strong. They’ve got the Studio’s upcoming first- Never thought we’d be
whole world hyped for person action-adventure seeing another one of
Guardians of the Galaxy title Prey. The game these but here we are, six
Vol. 2 and baby Groot. literally lets you turn into a years later. Here’s hoping
We’re really hoping this mug, among other things. that Dead Men Tell No
one is as good, if not Well, there are places Tales doesn’t spell doom
better than the first one. only mugs can reach... for this beloved franchise.
Release date: Release date: Release date:
May 5, 2017 May 5, 2017 May 26, 2017

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 23

 Feature Movie trailer roundup
Are you being denied a basic Justice League, It, Spider-man and

Digital life 27 human right in the name of

regulation and security?
more. Which one is your favourite?
http://dgit.in/weeklyTV

Arnab Mukherjee Cash killer humanity on the road to digital pay-

arnab@digit.in The barter system had existed for, ments. Today, we see huge volumes

B
e it due to demonetisation
or sheer tech savviness,
we’ve started using digital
payments a lot more off late.
Even offline payments – where you
complete otherwise offline transactions
via digital means – have picked up
pace. If you were to visit the Digit test
labs you’d hardly see any physical bills
lying around. We have innovations on
the payments front to thank for that.
Overall, it is obvious that digital pay-
well, as long as people needed stuff
that other people had. Quite obviously,
a time came in every market system
where the people involved collectively
realised that the mutual need required
for barter was a hindrance to trade. In
came the concept of money – some-
thing that everyone would be willing to
accept in exchange. Explains why salt
and cocoa beans were accepted as valid
tender at one point of time.
Over time, as technology progressed
to a point where things were becoming
of digital transactions. According to a
BCG report, in 2016, the total value of
digital transactions was roughly 411
trillion USD, which is roughly equiva-
lent to every person on the planet
ordering a vadapav every 90 seconds
for the entire year. Kind of takes care of
the hunger problem, doesn’t it?
Well Carded
The concept of using thin, plastic cards
for payments at almost every store was
IMAGING: PETERSON PJ

probably unimaginable a hundred

ments owe their popularity to their ease
of use, constant availability, and better
security in the present day scenario.
But there’s more to that story than
meets the eye.
faster, smaller and easier in every
aspect of life, carrying around huge
wads of cash to complete transactions
became cumbersome. That is where
technology stepped in and brought
years ago. What wasn’t unimaginable
was the idea of banks and stores
extending credit to users by means
of tokens and tags. One of the earliest
implementations of this was the Charga

24 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 New Google Earth Pokemon creator
Google unveiled a new verion of Google A neural network implementation can
Earth. Here are five new things you can do. create some interesting Pokemon.
http://dgit.in/newGEarth http://dgit.in/Npokemon Origins

Plate. It was very similar to a dog tag
with customer information embossed
onto it. This was fed into an imprinter
to record a transaction. Soon after,
American Airlines introduced an Air
Travel Card that would let you ‘buy
A Charga Plate case.
now and pay later’. Within the next 15
years, the Air Travel Card became the
first internationally valid charge card.
But most cards then were still lim-
ited to a particular vendor. You would
need to carry one card for each vendor,
or at least carry cash for anything
beyond. The first roughly general
purpose card was the Diners Club
in 1950, which was soon followed by
Carte Blanche and American Express.
Over the next 20 years, Visa (initially
BankAmericard) and MasterCard (then
Mastercharge) would come to be. But
all of this was still not computerised
and a credit card transaction involved
the following steps:
• Customer presents card.
• Merchant calls bank with card
details.
• Bank calls credit card company with
card details
• Credit card company gets employee
to manually check details
• Transaction gets approved
Although computerisation did
speed up the process to under one
minute, it still took a while (the advent
of the 21st century to be precise) for
always connected payment terminals
to become ubiquitous. Meanwhile, the
magnetic strip was standardised for
all cards – the same strip that you see
today behind your card – around 1979.
The first selfie
This was also the year when PoS termi-
nals began to emerge across the U.S.
Online
Internet arrived on the scene early
in the 1990s. Almost every sector
benefited from the connectivity,
including digital payments. Some of
the most significant online payment
systems started operations
in the early 90s. In 1994, the
Stanford Federal Credit Union
was established. This was the
first financial institution to offer
online internet banking services
to all members. However, these
systems weren’t even remotely
user-friendly and required
highly specialized knowledge
in areas like encryption or
data transfer protocol. Addi-
tionally, the systems weren’t
flexible enough to adapt to the rapidly
changing volume of users and the
nature of their transactions.
Initially, the main players in the
e-payments arena were Millicent
(founded in 1995), and ECash or
CyberCoin (both in 1996). The majority
of the first online services were using
micropayment systems and almost
all of them were trying to implement
electronic cash alternatives (such as
e-money, digital cash or tokens). More-
over, in 1994, Amazon was founded
and Pizza Hut started accepting online
food ordering. Pizza Hut’s online food
delivery system was one step ahead of
all it’s competitors.
Getting pally
with your
payments
In 1999, PayPal began as a
wireless payment service
provider for the Palm
Pilot. Back then it was
launched by Confinity,
a security software pro-
vider, which later merged PayPal is quite popular for global payments
with X.com, an online
banking company founded by Elon
Musk. Eventually, PayPal established
a strong customer base on eBay, which
prompted an eventual acquisition by
eBay for 1.5 billion USD in 2002. At
the time of the deal, 70% of all eBay
auctions accepted PayPal payments,
and roughly 1 in 4 closed auction
listings were transacted using the pay-
ment service.
Between its establishment and the
eBay acquisition, PayPal had imple-
mented a lot of innovative features
around online payment – like HTML
payment buttons, sending payments
using email addresses, launching the
reverse Turing test to reduce fraud and
more. On the other hand, eBay’s own
response to these innovations was the
creation of Billpoint, which was essen-
tially a PayPal clone. On top of that,
eBay took several measures to push
people to use Billpoint, like offering
free listing days for using Billpoint, cut-
ting fees, mandating use of Billpoint for
its Stores sites, rolling out a checkout
button at the top of every listing that
defaulted to Billpoint and more. And it
wasn’t just eBay – even banks were up
in arms against PayPal, pursuing litiga-
tion to get PayPal classified as a bank
or an unsecure service. It was sheer
customer loyalty and popularity that
pulled PayPal through this, which was
followed by the acquisition.
In the subsequent years, PayPal
made a lot of progress in terms of
integration and adoption on eBay. But
most of this progress was with the aim
of improving the shopping experience
on eBay. The core customers of the
global payments ecosystem itself were
largely ignored. In 2014, Carl Icahn,
an activist shareholder in PayPal,
made a public statement asking eBay
to spin-off PayPal as an independent
company. Quoting Elon Musk, he said,
“It doesn’t make sense that a global
payment system is a subsidiary of an

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 25

 Series based on INA
Amazon reveals a new series based
on Subhas Chandra Bose.
Origins http://dgit.in/INAseries
auction website… It’s as if Target owned
Visa….[PayPal] will get cut to pieces by
Amazon Payments, or by others such
as Apple and by startups if it continues
to be part of eBay.”
Bit by bit
A mere three weeks after the launch of
Apple Pay, eBay announced the separa-
tion of PayPal as an independent entity
on September 30, 2014. Ironically,
Apple Pay had originally approached
PayPal as a partner, but eBay CEO John
Donahoe reportedly forced PayPal to go
with Samsung’s payment services plan.
But by then, a lot had happened in the
world of digital payments.
For starters, bitcoin had been
invented. In 2008, a paper was released
online under the name Satoshi Naka-
moto titled ‘bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer
Electronic Cash System’. This paper
detailed a peer-to-peer network for
money transfer that did not rely on
trust. Within one year, bitcoins were
officially being issued and by 2011 ser-
vices had started accepting payments
via bitcoin. Bitcoin, as a mode of digital the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, 6S
payment, never looked back from that
Bitcoin has seen a tremendous rise in value
point and on March 2, 2017, the price of
one bitcoin crossed the spot price of one
ounce of gold.
Why did bitcoin succeed? For
starters, the internet loves something
that is for and by peers, instead of cor-
porations. A typical bitcoin transaction
is verified by six computers, hence it
is absolutely secure. This verification
process, carried out by network com-
puters, is called bitcoin mining, where
26 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
users are rewarded for helping with
the transaction verification against the
blockchain (a network ledger). Other
factors affecting bitcoin’s success are
online access, reduced chance of iden-
tity theft, protection from fraud, and
lower fees.
The great wall(et) of
Near Fields
Two technologies transformed the
way we look at digital payments in
the 21st century – digital wallets
and contactless payments. NFC, as
a technology, was being worked on
since the dawn of the 21st century.
But it was the introduction of Apple
Pay in 2014 that pushed NFC to the
mainstream. Just scanning a credit card
added it as a payment option to Apple
Pay. It also added a layer of biometric
authentication to it with the fingerprint
scanner. This second authentication
factor has in fact helped it cross
transaction limits applied to one-factor
transactions in several countries, like
the U.K. The service is compatible with
Plus, 7, 7 Plus, iPhone SE, iPad Air 2,
iPad Pro and the Apple
Watch. Users with an
iPhone 5, 5C, 5S, 6, 6
Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7
Plus and iPhone SE
can use the service
through an Apple
Watch, though it lacks
Touch ID security.
While much of the
global digital payment
wallets are split among
key players, India has
a clear leader – Paytm.
While Apple Pay was
launched in September 2014, Paytm
wallet in India was launched almost
one year earlier in 2013. And since then
a lot of other mobile wallets have also
emerged in India, namely Freecharge,
Mobikwik, Citrus and more. While
their services are differentiated mainly
by the charges they levy on transac-
tions and bank transfers, Paytm is
currently the market leader in this seg-
ment. A big factor in the current popu-
Numbers for DotA 2
Valve is taking serious actions to cut
down smurf accounts in Dota2.
http://dgit.in/Dota2smurf
larity of Paytm was the demonetisation
of `500 and `1000 notes in India on
Nov 9, 2016. App downloads soared
and so did transaction volumes. The
Prime Minister himself was featured
on a promotional ad for Paytm (which
is currently under dispute).
Apple Pay is being rolled out globally
and currently is available in 16 countries
with several leading retailers as part of
their platform.
The sound of money
While India is still behind the global
market in terms of newer payment
technologies like NFC, it is definitely
one of the biggest digital payment
economies in the world in terms of
number of users. Simple features such
as payment to a mobile number or scan-
ning in-store QR codes for payment are
gradually picking up pace and have
become quite popular since November
2016. Innovative startups like Tonetag,
which provides payment solutions with
the help of sound, are constantly rede-
fining what digital payments can do.
The future of digital payments lies in
novel and seamless payment methods
like paying via wearables, biometric
payments and mass implementation of
technology like blockchain.
Currently, digital payments
account for a mere 6% of total retail
transactions worldwide. But with
digital payments increasing everyday
in volume and scope, trends indicate
a much different scenario roughly
8-10 years down the line. With key
merchants participating, proper IoT
implementations and strong security
in place, overall share could go up to
26% with 13% of that being proximity
based payments, according to a BCG
report. The day that happens, there
will still be a few things that money
can’t buy. But for everything else, there
will be your biometrics.
 AI in StarCraft Air-free bike tires
After beating the best Go player in the Bridgestone has come up with a unique
world, AI’s next goal is to master StarCraft. ‘air-free tyres’ solution for bicycles.
http://dgit.in/AIcraft http://dgit.in/AirTyre Feature

Arnab Mukherjee list – combined. Some of these coun- That’s one for every 12 days. Now, don’t
arnab@digit.in tries are under the lashes of long wars for a second assume that these block-
on terror and some have strict auto- ages are nationwide – nothing even close

T
he conversation around
digital rights has gained
a lot of momentum in
recent times. It was only
last year that the entire furore over
net neutrality in India took place.
And over this one year alone, we have
seen issues around censorship and
freedom of expression in our online
lives in India. Even if we might have
advanced on some of these, a pretty
interesting statistic has brought to our
attention another online issue in our
country – the access to internet itself.
According to a survey by Brookings
Institution, India had more internet
blockages between July 2015 and June
2016, than any other country in the
world – at par with Iraq at 22 block-
ages. That’s more than Syria (non-ISIS),
Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh and
Brazil – the next five countries in the
cratic regimes that aren’t exactly big
on freedom of expression. And talking
about lashes, we’re actually higher than
Saudi Arabia on the list.
Now, it wouldn’t be fair to portray this
as an equal comparison. We do enjoy
more freedom of expression online than,
say, a Saudi Arabian citizen can. But to
be honest, should that even be a justi-
fication for being denied access to the
internet? On the other hand, the internet
is also a source of a large amount of
misinformation – some of which can be
pretty dangerous for the uninformed. So
what exactly does the internet mean to
you – a law abiding citizen of the largest
democracy in the world?
How bad is iT?
India has had 31 internet blockages
in 2016, according to research by the
Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC).
to that has been done. However, these
are region-based blanket blockages
which essentially disable internet access
from the network end. You can check
out a very useful tracker at http://dgit.in/
NetShtdwn. A place like Kashmir had its
internet access blocked for months. In
2017, the count has already reached 10
and we just entered the second quarter.
What makes it worse are the kind
of reasons for which the access has
been blocked on some occasions. For
instance, mobile internet services were
suspended for four hours across Gujarat
on 28th February, 2016 to prevent
cheating on the Revenue Accountants
Recruitment Exam. To be honest, most
of the cases that account for such high
numbers happened due to situations
of unrest in said states – mostly due
to communal clashes. But there are
situations where the normalisation of

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 27

 End of Marvel Learn how to learn
Axel Alonso hinted about Deadpool Coursera, launches ‘Mindshift’ to help
going on a killing spree again. professionals to learn and discover.
Feature http://dgit.in/KillMarvel http://dgit.in/MindshiftC

wHy sHould you

care

If you have opened the map mentioned

earlier in the story, you might have
noticed that the higher numbers of
internet shutdowns are limited to a few
states – states that have shown greater
volatility towards political or com-
munal unrest. You may or may not hail
from these states or have anything to do
with them. In case you’re the latter, you
might wonder what all of this has got to
do with you. There is one statistic that
SOURCE: SFLC.IN

will change your opinion about this.

The same Brookings Institution
study, that we mentioned earlier, goes
As the number of blockages increase, so do our losses from them on to highlight the economic cost of
internet blockages. India, over the one
Internet blockages has led to apparent a separate system with similar proce- year period, lost $968,080,702 due to
over-regulation. Take the example of dural safeguards should be introduced. blockages for 70 days. That’s about
Kashmir – almost no Indian citizen who Otherwise this leaves scope for misuse `10,000 lost on every second of blocked
has a basic awareness of what’s going on and abuse. As seen with the blockage for internet. If you had any doubts about
in the country needs to be told that the the clerk exam.” the blockages having any adverse effect
state of Jammu and Kashmir has been Essentially, there are a couple of on our economy, that number should be
in civil unrest. Between 2012 and 2016, sections of the legal framework that enough to quell them.
Kashmir had 29 internet shutdowns for affect internet access in India. Along According to the Internet Shutdown
reasons such as the death anniversary of with Section 144, another legal basis for report from Centre for Internet and
a rebel leader and a wrestling match at a disruption of internet services may be Society, India has a greater tendency to
disputed venue. Section 5 (2) of the Telegraph Act 1885. block mobile internet services entirely
That legislation was drafted before com- in situations that warrant control over
THe legaliTy mercial radio was introduced, which has communications. So, even during that
To start off, let us make it clear that been modified over the years to grant the clerical examination, if you wanted to
internet blockages are perfectly legal in government greater power and control transfer money on the go for any emer-
India. There is a provision in our consti- over the transmission of messages. gency, you couldn’t do so without access
tution for the same. However, it is how
it is done that makes it a bit confusing.
“The Indian IT act doesn’t specifically
provide for internet blockages. The orders
for internet shutdowns are issued under
Section 144 of the CrPC” says Asheeta
Regidi, cyber law expert, “This gives the
judge the authority to take any measures
needed for maintaining peace, such as in
situations of unrest or riots. The judge has
the power to take any measures required,
at his discretion, for maintaining the
peace. The problem with this is that as
the internet is becoming more and more
fundamental to daily lives, procedural
safeguards are necessary. For example,
section 69A of the IT Act, which provides
for blocking of websites, has detailed
procedures. Either it should be clarified
that orders for internet blockages must be Interactive map at http://dgit.in/NetShtdwn that tracks internet shutdowns over the
passed under Section 69A. Alternatively, years in India

28 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 Making a VR room
Here’s all the things you need to set up a
dedicated virtual reality room at home.
http://dgit.in/VRroom
SOURCE: SFLC.IN
India portrays a greater tendency to block mobile internet services entirely, compared
to other possible measures
to a broadband connection. In com-
parison, countries like Brazil, Egypt and
Uganda have taken a different approach
by blocking specific services like What-
sapp, Telegram and certain social media
apps – which definitely seems like a less
restrictive approach.
In case you’re wondering “So what
if mobile internet was blocked – people
could still access it via desktops and
other media right?” – then you’re grossly
misinformed about internet usage in
India. About 323 million people in India
accessed the internet through their
mobile phones in 2016, which cor-
responds to about 24-25 percent of the
country’s population. So, one in every
four Indians is affected by restrictions
on mobile internet – which is a pretty
high number to ignore. To put it in
context, imagine a religious legislation
ignoring the impact on every single
minority religion in India! Not some-
thing that you will see people taking
silently, right?
wHaT can be done
First of all, you need to believe that there
is something that needs to be done. This
cannot be a time when we get used to
internet blockages as something that
just ‘happens’. Let’s face it, there are
situations where you can justify such a
blockage with public unrest in context.
But it’s very important to understand
what we are losing in the process.
Putting a roadblock on the internet
Longest sentence ever
Russian hacker Roman Seleznev gets
sentenced to 27 years in prison for hacking.
http://dgit.in/27prison
blocks all communication online –
even legitimate and helpful ones.
During the Cauvery riots in Ban-
galore in September 2016, Bangalore
Police put forward a stellar example
of how technology can be used to help
people during chaotic situations. Riots
in different parts of the city over a
Supreme Court order, combined with
WhatsApp forwards that spread misin-
formation presented a so-called ‘ideal’
case for internet blockage. Instead, Ban-
galore Police took to Twitter to clarify
any such instances of misinformation.
They also ensured that their What-
sApp accounts replied to any queries
regarding general safety around the city.
Even though there was a lot of damage
An example of how Bangalore Police
carried out their efforts
Feature
and chaos due to the riots, the scale
was effectively brought down greatly
because of access to a genuine source of
information. In another example, during
the Boston Bombings of 2013 – the
internet became the only tool that could
deal with the internet. Boston PD also
took to social media within 10 minutes
of the bombing to ensure that accurate
updates overrule misinformation and
the then-ongoing social media witch
hunt was reigned in.
wHaT can you do
Blocking the access to a communica-
tion medium hampers a lot of good
outcomes in comparison to preventing
misinformation. And more often than
not, governments around the world
have used internet blockages as a
method to silence the voice of journal-
ists, activists and voices of dissent.
Thanks to the internet, there are quite
a few things you can do to ensure that
your internet access isn’t taken away.
First of all, you can check out and
sign the petition from Keep Us Online,
a campaign by the Internet Freedom
Foundation, at http://dgit.in/KpUsOnln.
The petition is addressed to the Prime
Minister of India and is also marked
to relevant Ministers and government
employees – with an aim of reaching
1,00,000 signatures to be sent.
Almost all the NGOs involved in
this movement – AccessNow, Internet
Freedom Foundation and more – do
accept donations as well to keep the
movement going and to get more people
involved from a tech standpoint. And if
you want to take things one step further
and be directly involved in making sure
that internet is always within our reach,
you can always join these organisations.
Both AccessNow and Internet Freedom
Foundation are accepting applications
for volunteers, interns and even full-
time positions.
The important thing here is for you
to know that this isn’t something where
you can just sit by and watch it unfold.
‘Cause if that’s what happens, the very
internet that you take for granted might
one day be yanked away from under
your feet without warning.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 29
 From the labs Microsoft Chromebook
With artificial wombs a Reportedly, new Windows 10 Cloud OS

Sci-Tech 32 possibility, are we ready to play

with the power of life?
to go against Google’s Chromebooks.
http://dgit.in/Win10cloud

FAREWELL CASSINI
Chronicling the journey of the Cassini-Huygens
mission across the outer solar system.

Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Abhijit Dey
abhijit@digit.in

N
ASA’s Cassini mission is near-
ing its end. The decade-old 2004, they separated
spacecraft is preparing for and Huygens landed on Titan on
its final dive into Saturn. The January 14, 2005. two particular
unmanned spacecraft will carry out its The Cassini-Huygens mission was a moons have drawn the
ultimate mission of studying more about joint space mission between NASA, the interest of astronomers and scientists –
Saturn while analysing the gap between European Space Agency, and the Italian Titan and Enceladus.
the planet’s upper atmosphere and the Space Agency. The mission, which is
innermost ring. Plunging the spacecraft still ongoing, has a lot of achievements Life on Titan in the future
to its death was always being consid- to its name that we will be talking about As already mentioned, the primary mis-
ered and as the spacecraft has almost in detail. Out of the 62 moons of Saturn, sion of the European Space Agency’s
depleted its fuel resources, the motiva- Huygens probe was to study Saturn up
tion to carry out the final study makes close and land on Titan. This landing
more sense now. Cassini will begin the marked the first ever successful mission
final spiral towards the ringed-planet on of landing on a moon in the outer solar
April 22. By September 15, or in about system. On touchdown, the surface of
four months from now, there won’t be Saturn’s biggest moon was found to be
much of the spacecraft left, as it will get an icy terrain with surface temperatures
Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech / Bob Brown

shredded by Saturn’s harsh atmosphere. at a freezing minus 179 degrees Celsius.

Titan consists of rivers, seas and lakes
Humble beginnings filled with liquid methane and ethane.
Launched back on October 15, 1997, the Just like Earth’s water cycle, the moon
Cassini-Huygens mission was primar- also displays a similar weather pattern
ily deployed to study Saturn and its of rainfall. The same process of evapora-
satellites. It consisted of two modules tion and condensation occurs. Among
including Cassini, the Saturn orbiter, and the methane seas on the moon, the
Huygens, the moon lander for Saturn’s second largest sea Ligeia Mare was de-
biggest moon Titan. Both the spacecraft termined to have a depth of 170 metres.
entered Saturn’s orbit on July 1, 2004, This was the first time we were able to
and after a few months on December 25, Cassini in the space simulator calculate the depth of a liquid body on

30 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 Windows PC infected McDonald’s ‘Mulan’
More than 10,000 machines could be The internet has been flooded with McDonald’s
infected by NSA’s advance backdoor. two decade old Szechuan sauce. Why?
http://dgit.in/DoublePulsar http://dgit.in/McDviral Space Age

the surface of another planet. It was same hydrothermal process is

also discovered that the moon might happening in the ocean. This
also harbour a liquid water/ammonia makes Enceladus another prime
ocean underneath the surface. With the candidate to support life.
presence of frozen hydrocarbons and
water, it’s quite likely in the future (mil- The beginning of the end

Credit: NASA / NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

lions of years later or even more), when You might wonder why crash the
the Sun’s temperature increases, for life spacecraft rather than letting
to originate there. it float in the emptiness of the
outer solar system? The primary
The origin of life on Enceladus reason for this step is to avoid
Previously, Cassini had discovered icy collision into Titan or Enceladus,
water geysers on Enceladus, one of Sat- both Saturn’s moons which ap-
urn’s moons. Cracks in the icy crust of parently have signs of harbouring
the moon allowed water vapour, simple a fundamental form of life. The
organic chemicals and ice particles to second factor to influence this
spew out. Spewing at about 400 metres move was the opportunity to Saturnian Hexagon Collage
per second, it forms a plume over the study Saturn more closely, espe-
surface of the moon. Beneath the icy cially the uncharted and possibly empty about the science behind collisions be-
region between the rings and the planet. tween bodies in outer space. We’ll also
In this way, we’ll also get to study get more detailed information on how
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Saturn’s atmosphere like never before.
Essentially, every spiral around Saturn
will generate some amount of scientific
data that can be relayed back to Earth.
The orbiter has been doing rounds of the
ringed gas giant since its arrival to con-
duct research with a safer approach of
Enceladus: Possible Hydrothermal avoiding ring debris. Because the probe
Activity (Artist’s Concept) has nearly emptied its fuel, it’s worth the
risk to get even closer to the planet.
crust, the moon consists of a giant Travelling at a staggering speed of
global ocean of water. This essentially 122,000 kph (76,000 mph), the space-
means that there’s a layer of water craft will complete 22 orbits around
between the icy crust and rocky core. Saturn, covering the inner gap of 1,930
It gets interesting since this layer is kilometres (1,200 miles). Since it’s cur-
made of salt water, something which rently on a different trajectory, Cassini
is similar to what we have on Earth. will use Titan’s gravity to slingshot itself
In October 2015, Cassini did a close into Saturn’s orbit through a gap in the
flyby through the plumes to analyse the rings. Until the Cassini mission, there
accurate chemical composition of the has been a lot of mystery surrounding
gases. With the help of the on-board Saturn’s rings. Believed to be a static
Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, it system of boulders circling the planet, it
was able to detect molecular hydrogen, was discovered that it’s quite a volatile
leading to a possibility of hydrothermal and active system of collisions. Further
reactions occurring between the ocean research will enable us to study more
and rocky core. A similar water-rock
interaction is also found on Earth in the
Credit: NASA / NASA/JPL-Caltech/
two or more bodies collide in space to
form moons or even planets.
Saturn’s magnetic and gravitational
fields can be closely studied, giving us
an idea of what lies beneath the gaseous
atmosphere. Due to its close proximity,
we’ll receive detailed data for the first
time on the composition of the gase-
ous clouds in its atmosphere, using the
onboard mass spectrometer. Another
mystery that has riddled astronomers
and scientists for several years is the
hexagonal cloud on the planet’s north
pole, something we might be able to
demystify after this mission.
The final dive also poses a fatal risk.
While travelling at such high speeds,
impacts from even small particles might
blow up the entire spacecraft. Cassini’s
ring-plane crossings will be oriented to
shield off the vulnerable instruments
behind the high-gain antenna. The team
behind this mission are certain that the
probability of experiencing a deadly
impact is “less than 1 percent”.
The final dive is going to be an
emotional moment for the team that has

form of hydrothermal vents on the bot- worked on the Cassini-Huygens mission

tom of the ocean floor. The release of throughout its epic journey across the
Space Science Institute

molecular hydrogen could be an energy solar system. The mission was launched
source for microbes who consume more than 19 years ago and the monu-
hydrogen to give out methane. Now that mental journey is now getting closer to
we know about the presence of hydro- an end. Will we find life in any form other
gen, we need to determine whether the Saturn, Approaching Northern Summer than Earth? The search continues...

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 31

 Robots fight drought
Researchers are using robotic platforms
to find drought resistant strains of crop.
From the labs http://dgit.in/RoboCrop
The hope and despair of
Artificial
wombs Growing humans artificially is a futuristic dream for some, and a
macabre dystopia devoid of the essence of life for others. How close
are we to building an artificial womb?
Ronak Gupta carry on beyond fourteen days, widely
feedback@digit.in recognised as the time in which an
I
embryo develops a semblance of indi-
t is often a source of wonder viduality with the start of a head-tail
when a technology once deemed axis. Back then, people who formu-
as ‘wishful’ thinking, the stuff of lated this law probably also believed
legends or part of science fiction that technology might never advance
lore is actually realised. Think self- to a point to which we can produce a
lacing shoes that Nike recently unveiled fully functional human baby without
or how we now have the Roomba, a natural womb support – the rule will
robotic vacuum cleaner! But, the pos- never have to be amended or chal-
sibilities and realisations aren’t always lenged even. Despite rapid advances
half as harmless or cute. in medicine, biology and engineering,
raising a foetus in a lab
environment, ectogenesis,
has remained a pipe dream.
In this feature we give you a
lowdown on why.
The Intricacies
Let’s start with how incred-
ibly sophisticated and
complicated the develop-
mental process of a human
Is this how life ought to begin? We say why not. foetus is. At the very onset
of the above developmental
A rule, now popularly known process is a stage called implantation.
as the “fourteen-day rule” was first Post implantation is when there is self
proposed in 1979 and has since then organization and the embryo becomes
been incorporated into the law books a collection of cells. This stage is critical
and guidelines of numerous countries. because it is during this time, when
Unlike building computing devices, many of the developmental disorders
holograms or robots, growing human set in. The week around implanta-
embryos in-vitro has deep moral and tion - when the foetus is essentially
ethical implications. Keeping that in attached to the mother’s uterus, is one
mind, the fourteen day rule forbids of the most important and yet poorly
experiments on human embryos to understood phases of pregnancy. Sci-
32 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Trees=global warming?
Researchers find that tree trunks do
emit methane. But do they cause global
warming? http://dgit.in/warmtrees
entists have been unable to put a tab on
intricate cellular interactions, primarily
because it’s such a difficult system to
get results out of. Growing embryo’s in
a petri dish and gaining the ability to
culture the embryo artificially beyond
implantation is something that was
possible only for simpler organisms
like mice until very recently. Last year,
however, two independent research
groups reported successful culture of
human embryo’s for thirteen days. By
providing the nascent embryo with a
specific cocktail of growth supporting
nutrients, the researchers found that
the embryos were able to self organise.
Their results provide irrefutable
evidence that a human embryo can
develop beyond the implantation
stage without maternal input of any
sorts, in-vitro - in completely artificial
conditions. Besides being a foundation
setting study it has paved the way for
a large number of offshoot research to
study birth defects, disease and fun-
damentals of developmental biology.
Another important point to note here
is that the embryo culture continued
for only thirteen days because the
researchers had to pull the plug in
adherence to the fourteen day rule.
However, ethical and legal issues aside,
we are now in a position to culture
embryos artificially for a minimum of
two weeks. The next step - ensuring
survival of the embryo once it begins to
form structures.
 Uncertainty principle? Lethal Injection
Scientists devise a method to bypass Lethal injections for executions and
Heisenberg’s Uncertainity Principle. the shocking lack of science behind
http://dgit.in/HUPnew them. http://dgit.in/Lethalkill From the labs

Gestation medicine, two groups have

Carrying out the gestation process
outside a mother’s womb is difficult.
Once the embryo implants to the
uterus, there occurs the formation of
the all important placenta and amni-
otic sac, filled with amniotic fluid. The infection. Then scientists have
placenta is basically a direct connec-
tion between the mother and the baby,
allowing for exchange of nutrients,
hormones and expulsion of waste. The
amniotic fluid is like a shock absorbing artificial placenta will also have A neonatal intensive care unit
fluid which also doubles as chemical
exchange medium. Simple enough? Not
really. There are plenty of uncertain-
ties involved. What is the sequence of
these developments? What exactly is
transferred, when and how much? The
list goes on. Besides, a single mistake inof the mothers lung. This is a major
the hormone levels or genetic transfer
could have consequences in the ulti-
mate development that are impossible
to predict. The current record for the
survival of a premature baby is just
around 21 weeks into the gestation.
It is with the hope of increasing this
survival rate that scientists began to
originally think of creating artificial
wombs. And, while there are many
groups across the world now working
in this area of cutting edge biology and
Studies of a human foetus by Leonardo Da Vinci
done seminal research.
First, an artificial womb
has to provide a mechanically
safe housing for the growing
foetus and protect it against
to replicate the functions of the
placenta, namely to remove
toxins and ensure transport
of oxygen and hormones. An
the capability to regulate blood
sugar levels, and do other tasks that the
babies newly developed organs might
not be initially capable of doing. It’s
also critical to ensure that the foetus
is able to breathe without the support
problem in premature babies - lungs
too weak to completely support them-
selves. Any artificial placenta will also
have lung enhancement additions or
perhaps make use of state of art liquid
ventilation technology. Lastly, the func-
tions of the amniotic fluid have to be
replicated - which in itself is no mean
task. Scientists also remark that the
womb will have to mimic the sounds
and rhythms of the womb.
Notable work
Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara
initially lead the charge for
development of artificial
placenta for a long time now.
His team in Japan have been
able to sustain growth of
goat foetuses in a ‘ectogenic
chamber’. Then there is Dr.
Helen Liu at Cornell univer-
sity who has devised a sophis-
ticated system for culturing
mouse embryos. To sidestep
the limitations imposed by
the fourteen day rule her
group switched from human
embryos to experimenting
with mouse embryo’s. Bit
by bit her group has been
making additions integral in
improving the viability of her times in features about CRISPR tech-
artificial wombs and while
there has been progress it’s a trust science and scientists with such
difficult road ahead.
Part of the difficulty lies also in sur-
rounding the embryo with the right
fluid, containing the correct percent-
ages of water, hormones, proteins and
other essential chemicals. Then these
percentages have to be modulated
according to how far the embryo is in
its development. Also, while success
with mouse embryo’s is a great step,
scaling up to human embryo’s will
need a paradigm shift in technology.
It goes without saying that this line
of research can be vastly beneficial to
mankind. If successful, maybe artifi-
cial wombs might even become safer
than natural births in some cases. The
technology will also allow couples that
cannot have children by natural means
to have babies – free of surrogacy.
But as radical this technology is by
its nature, it also raises some funda-
mental questions. Is the mere fusion of
a sperm and egg enough to designate
the resultant ‘being’ as human? Or,
should go as far as to call it an instance
of synthetic life? Should life, at it’s
very elemental level be broken down
to just genetic transfer?
Politicians and bioethicists have
grappled with these questions for
more than a decade to result into
the the fourteen day rule. Now that
scientists have begun knocking at
the door, is it the right time to revisit
this rule and finally allow full scale
human embryo experiments? Maybe.
It all comes down to the question that
we ourselves have asked numerous
nology and designer babies - Can we
technology?

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

Cover story
U
sually our cover stories are filled with stuff that
makes you think. We try and whet your appetite
and encourage you to go out and find more
information on your own. We kind of follow
the philosophy: “Give someone bread and they
will feed for a day, but teach them to farm and bake
34 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
IMAGING: PETERSON PJ
TEAM DIGIT
feedback@digit.in
and they will eat for a lifetime.” However, sometimes,
people just want some bread, with no gyaan and no fuss.
That’s this month’s cover story in a nutshell. No fuss,
no nonsense, just plain and simple geek knowledge that
will show you how to do some geeky stuff. Now enough
with this intro, let’s get to the point straight away.

MASTER YOUR PC
In this section we’ve got tricks that will help you
become a true PC geek – from Windows hacks to soft-
ware that will geek up your PC, it’s all here
WINDOWS HACKS
You can’t be a geek and actually like
windows the way it is. You have to
change it and improve it, don’t you?
Here are 10 ways to do just that:
01
ENABLE GOD MODE!
Name a folder “GodMode.
{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-
825C-99712043E01C}” (without the
double quotes) to make a one click
solution for almost all of the settings
available in Windows. Open the folder,
and use the search bar to find a setting.
You can rename the folder to whatever
you want once it’s created.
02
GEEK TASK MANAGER
The task manager is boring
and for noobs. Real geeks use
Process Hacker (http://dgit.in/PrcsHckr).
You get granular access to all processes,
which are all color coded for easier
analysis, and also better graphs to show
resource usage. It also offers an easy
search for process details, can replace
the default task manager and of course,
the icing on the cake is that it looks awe-
somely geeks, making you want to show
it off to friends.
03
CONTEXT MENU ADDONS
Dexpot (http://dgit.in/Dex-
potDe) used to be for people
who wanted virtual desktops, but
then Windows built it in. It still has a
Use Dexpot to control how various
windows are arranged
couple of tricks up its sleeve though,
and giving you more context menus
is one of them. Just right click on the
Dexpot icon in the system tray, go to
Settings > Controls > Title
Bars and choose the area in which
you want the context menu to appear,
which button triggers it and modifiers
(if any), target (active window) and
action (stay on top). It also has more
features to fiddle with.
04
MAKE EXPLORER GREAT
AGAIN
Windows Explorer now
opens to Quick Access which is good
for n00bs, but us geeks just want to
get straight to business. Just show us
our files already Explorer! Open up
a new Explorer Window, go to File
> Change folder and search
options. Change the Open File
Explorer to option to This PC. If
you’re concerned about your privacy,
uncheck the two boxes titled: Show
recently used files in Quick
Access and Show frequently used
folders in Quick Access. Now
Quick Access will work like the old
Favourites list.
05
TO SLEEP OR NOT TO
You’ve probably set your PC
to its sleep settings after a lot
of trial and error. Yet there are times
you need to change that for a specific
task, such as when downloading, or
rendering, doing something important
in the background, or just because you
want it to stay awake. Get Caffeinated
from http://dgit.in/Caffeintd and once
installed you will get a coffee pot placed
in your system tray. Want to keep your
PC awake and bypass your power set-
tings? Click the coffee pot and it will fill
up. Want to return the PC to normal?
Click the pot again and it empties of
coffee. Simple.
Cover story
06
SUPERSIZE YOUR CLIPBOARD
For power users, the Win-
dows default copy function
just doesn’t cut it (pun intended). With
Ditto (http://dgit.in/DittoCBM) everything
you copy to the clipboard (text, images,
code, whatever) you can manage better
or past selectively. Just use the hotkey
([Ctrl] + [`]) to get further control over
what goes where.
07
DISABLE ‘FEATURES’
Windows may be better, but
it’s still filled with boatware.
Here’s what you should turn off.
1. P2P Windows Update Sharing:
Windows uses your PC to send
windows update files to other com-
puters on the internet. This reduces
your upload speeds and could be
costing you bandwidth. Go to Win-
dows Settings > Update and
Security > Advanced Options
> Choose how updates are
delivered and turn it off.
2. Disable the lock screen: You can’t
disable this for when you boot into
Windows, you can do it for wake
ups from Sleep or manual Win-
dows locks. Go to C:\Windows\
SystemApps and look for a folder
named Microsoft.LockApp_
cw5n1h2txyewy. Just add a “.bak”
to the end of the file name and voila!
No more lock screen.
3. Remove Old Windows files: You’re
not seriously going to go back to
Windows 8 or 7 are you? If you
upgraded to Windows 10, you will
have the old OS files on your PC,
and with SSDs, every GB comes at a
premium. Run Disk Cleanup (search
for it in your taskbar), hit ‘Clean
up system files’ and wait for it to
calculate. Locate “Previous Windows
Installations” in that list and click
okay. You might free up to 25 GB of
space like this!
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 35
 Cover story
08
COPY EFFICIENTLY
What Ditto does for the
clipboard, Teracopy does
for copying of files – that is, it makes
it a heck of a lot easier. Copying large
queues of files is a pain with normal
Windows Explorer, but not with
Teracopy (http://dgit.in/TeraCopyWin). It
also offers file verification, queues up
transfers smartly, and can skip past
errors and finish the list instead of
dying midway. It replaces the default
Windows copier, which means no extra
keys to remember or use.
09
SCRIPT LIKE A PRO
Using AutoHotKey (http://
dgit.in/AHKey) you can script
just about anything. And we do mean,
pretty much anything! For example,
if you spend a lot of time filling in
forms online, all you have to do is
script using AutoHotKey and you
can automatically fill in your email
address in any field using a chosen
shortcut. Hate that stupid caps lock
key? Change it to do something else.
You can also set up mouse gestures
to launch specific programs, and best
of all, you don’t even need to know
how to script, because of the large
community that uses it, chances are
the scripts you want have already
been published online. Just download
and enjoy!
10
ANALYZE DISK USAGE
Windows 10 has a decent
Storage Monitor (Windows
Settings > System > Storage),
but it doesn’t show where the space is
being taken up. Get Windirstat (http://
dgit.in/WinStat) and put an end to that
today. You get a nice colour-coded tree
diagram of what exactly is taking up
your space, and shows you previews of
the worst culprits. If you’re find your-
self managing your disks often, this is a
tool you cannot live without.
GEEK SOFTWARE 101
Although Windows has improved a lot
since the days of Windows 98 and XP,
there’s still a lot left to be desired with
the way it handles some things. This is
where essential software comes in. As
soon as you install Windows, you have
to install these 10 apps.
36 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
01
EXPLORER++
There are many Windows
Explorer replacements, but
most of them paid, or else so feature
rich that they’re bloated, and no geek
will ever tolerate bloat! (Except maybe
from Adobe, because we have to).
Explorer++ has just the right amount
of features – a fairly minimalistic UI,
a ‘details’ bar at the bottom, and even
full support for browser-like tabs. Get it
from http://dgit.in/ExplrrPls.
02
SHAREX
Windows Snipping Tool is
a severely underrated and
actually, pretty unknown tool. Being
able to screenshot selective parts of
your screen is a lifesaver in a lot of situ-
ations. ShareX does this even better.
You can instantly saves your screen-
shot, copy it to your clipboard, or even
upload to Imgur, all automatically. It’s
even got a GIF maker inbuilt. Get it at
http://dgit.in/ShareXSC.
03
PAINT.NET
Paint.net is the best compro-
mise for people who want a
wee bit more power than regular Paint,
but don’t want to jump to something
as advanced as GIMP or Photoshop. It
has layer support, easy blurring and
tons of more functionality with a lots of
plugins. Get it at http://dgit.in/PaintdtNET
and start editing immediately.
04
NOTEPAD++
Notepad++ is a Notepad
replacement. While the
latter is merely meant to edit plain text,
Notepad++ does that and a ton more.
You can edit source files, it’s got tabs,
and of course also highlights the text
according to the language it uses. Get it
at http://dgit.in/NPadPlus.
05
IRFANVIEW
This is hardly new, or
unknown, but it’s so good
that we have to mention it. Windows
Photos is just a simple app. Irfanview
offers much more functionality and
options, and even has plugin support.
You get easy text and watermark insert
options, more detailed photo informa-
tion, precise cropping and much
more, without you having to use a
separate photo manipulation program,
a definite plus for people who need
to work with images often. Get it at
http://dgit.in/IrfnView.
06
FOOBAR2000
Another default Windows
app that does the job but is
sorely lacking is Groove. Foobar2000
is the go to ‘audiophile’ music player
for windows, offering native support
for FLAC (among other formats), built
in file convertor, great customisation
options – both visual and audio. Mess
around with it until you get a sound you
like). Add on a clean interface and you
get a crowd favorite. Get it from http://
dgit.in/foobr2k.
07
CYGWIN
Cygwin is a POSIX (Portable
Operating System Interface)
that offers most of the functionality
that cmd can, and also a host of other
useful features. It adds on a distinctive
Linux feel to a Windows computer –
which makes it geek-cool. So if you’re a
command-line junkie, get it from http://
dgit.in/CygwinPOSIX.
08
AUDACITY
Windows Sound Recorder is
too basic. You have probably
heard of Audacity if you are used to
recording stuff, and with good reason.
Audacity also lets you record sound
from applications, make your own audi-
obooks, use it as a voice activated memo
recorder, and so much more. Even the
audio editing features on it are amazing.
and actually enough for even advanced
use. Get it from http://dgit.in/AudaRec.

09
MPC-HC
While Windows Movies is
great for watching movies
when running your laptop on battery,
it’s boring in every other aspect. Most
people use VLC by default, but Media
Player Classic – Home Cinema (MPC-
HC) is just better. Download the madVR
plugin to upscale 480p or 720p into
decent 1080p (GPU needed). Get it from
http://dgit.in/MPCHC.
10
SUMATRA
Edge has a pretty decent PDF
reader built in, but reading
PDFs on a browser is akin to slicing
vegetables with a Swiss Army knife.
You can, but why would you want to?
Sumatra looks terrible (rainbow on a
yellow background? What were they
thinking?), but it’s very light, very,
very fast and opens pretty much any
document files, even epub and cbz. It’s
basically a geek-made reader, and this is
exactly why you have to have it. It does
have one major drawback – it converts
files to bitmap in order to print, which
makes it terribly slow to print. Get it
from http://dgit.in/SumPDF.
GEEK UP YOUR SEARCH
We’ve all been teeth-gnashingly frus-
trated when trying to find a file at some
point. No more. We’ve found two great
replacements for Windows Search, and
each has their own strengths.
EVERYTHING
Everything is a small but extremely
speedy search engine that promises
near instantaneous results . It achieves
this by archiving, err, everything! What
it does is display a list of every file and
folder on a drive, and as you start typing
your query, it shortens the list based on
filename. It’s very light, and can run in
the background. It’s also the easiest way
to set up an HTTP or FTP/ETP server
for your local network.
Get Everything from http://dgit.
in/2oF3n0n and install it. It will take a
while to index your drives, but then
search becomes lightening fast. Eve-
rything supports ‘regex’ or “regular
expressions” so you can type things like
“.jpg|.png” (minus the quotes) and it’ll
show you files with those two exten-
sions. You will need to manually toggle
regex by hitting [Ctrl] + [R] or
using the Search dropdown menu. It
also has many other cool features, and
one of the best is the ability to find and
manage duplicate files.
Everything can also be used to set
up an HTTP server. Go to Tools >
Options > HTTP Server. Enable it,
set authentication details (if required)
and the folder you want to share and
hit Apply. To access this server, you’ll
need to know your local IP address. And
there’s a pretty easy way to do that. Type
ipconfig into a commandline window
to find your IP. An FTP/ETP server can
also be set up, but HTTP should suffice
for most needs.
LISTARY
If you don’t need the file sharing bits
of Everything, then Listary is a good
replacement. It’s got a better looking
interface and has more features such as
inbuilt hotkey activation.
You still get near instant searches,
but you also get the ability to search the
web for basic stuff, such as currency
conversion. All you need to do is press
[Ctrl] twice and up pops up Listary.
There are also many hotkeys built in
that can streamline your whole com-
puting experience. Get it for yourself at
http://dgit.in/2q7BOx9
Cover story
CUSTOMISE GOOGLE
• Use double quotes (“”) to search for a
phrase exactly.
• Using “Site:” in front of a query will
give you better results than the site’s
own search functionality. Always.
• Exclude a word from your search by
adding a minus sign (“-”) before it
without a space. For example, “Linux
Distributions -ubuntu” will display
all results for “Linux distributions”
that don’t contain the word “Ubuntu”
on the page.
• Use “Filetype:” when you specifically
want to find, say a PDF, or an EPUB
file. Example: “filetype:pdf global
warming” will give you PDF files
related to global warming
• User the Tools button to further
enhance your search to narrow
results down. This will allow you to
choose results from a certain time or
only from your country.
BROWSER CUSTOMISATIONS
• If you liked Firefox’s Awesome Bar,
which searches through history,
bookmarks and open tabs all at once,
you can get the same for Chrome.
Just download Fauxbar (http://dgit.in/
FauxBr) and it will replace your Start
and New Tab pages with it’s own
screen, and will become the default
search bar.
• Let’s say you normally use Yandex to
find torrents, DuckDuckGo for an ad-
free experience, Bing for additional
research, and Google for everything
else. Get Search Bar (http://dgit.in/
SrchBar) and you will be able to
switch searches with ease.
• If you’d rather display search results
from different engines all in one
place, Dogpile (http://dgit.in/Dgpile) is
your solution. It compiles the best
results from various engines, and
also discards duplicates.
• Start.me can give you a highly cus-
tomizable start page. You can get an
RSS reader, email, videos and a realy
cool bookmarking feature. Just take
some time to set it up.
• If you need to track an image’s
source, use Tineye (http://dgit.in/
TinEyeRIS) to do so. Apart from
tracking down sources accurately, it
also helps you find higher resolution
files of the same image.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 37
 Cover story
GET A SEXY DESKTOP
Used to be a time we geeks would use
classic mode to eke every last drop of
performance out of our systems, but
those days are long gone. With good con-
figurations becoming very affordable, we
think it’s perfectly fine to waste a little
CPU and memory on a sexy-looking
desktop. Don’t you?
RAINMETER
Rainmeter (http://dgit.in/RMeterCustom)
is the king when it comes to adding
widgets to your desktop, plus loads of
functionality and monitoring tools as
well. There are thousands of themes
you can choose from (check Rainmeter
forums and Deviantart), and you can
just cherry pick the best elements to
make your own masterpiece (the source
code is incredibly easy to edit). You could
also just blatantly copy someone else’s
sick setup (/r/Rainmeter anyone?) and
call it day. One thing is for sure, your eye-
candy needs will be sorted with this one.
FENCES
Many of us have desktops that look like
our rooms – cluttered and untidy. Adn
that can seriously get in the way of pro-
ductivity or become a source of embar-
assment when your desktop has to been
by someone else. This is where Fences
from Stardock comes in. Make ‘fenced
in’ translucent or transparent areas for
your folders to segregate and access them
easily. These fences roll up to the title bar
to make your screen look incredibly neat
and organized. Fences does most of the
grunt work automatically. It isn’t free but
you can try it out for 30 days to see if you
like it. Get it from http://dgit.in/FencesDck.
GLASS2K
Although this has been abandoned and
is no longer being developed, it still
works. Download the 55 kB (yes, kilo-
byte!) installer from http://dgit.in/Glass2k
and install it. Use [Ctrl] + [Shift]
+ [0] to [9] to change the transpar-
ency of any window. Simple, yet effective
for those who like the sleek glass look.
START MENU TILES
If you are one of the 14 people on earth
who actually like tiles in their start
menu, you also know that some tiles
end up looking really awful. TileCreator
38 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
allows you to create a tile that links to
any application for much faster access.
You need to download two things for this
to work: The direct proxy file (http://dgit.
in/TilePrxy) and the app from the Win-
dows App Store (http://dgit.in/TileCreator).
If you use Steam to play games, you can
also install Steam Tile from (http://dgit.in/
SteamTile) to get something better than
a static and boring icon. And who really
likes those anyways?
GO FULL MAC
If you yearn for more ‘Mac’ in your life
and a Dock like RocketDock (http://dgit.
in/RcktDock) is not enough, and installing
Hackintosh seems like too much trouble,
there are a couple of ways to make Win-
dows to look like a Mac.
As always, there’s an easy way and a
hard way. The easy way is to just down-
load Rainmeter and run a Mac theme
like this one (http://dgit.in/MacSierraDsktp).
Now for the fun way (which non-
geeks would call the hard way). This can
end up better looking and more polished
than the readymade themes, but only if
you are ready to take some pain upon
yourselves willingly.
1. First you need a high-res wallpaper,a
nd the default MacOS Sierra one is
ideal: http://dgit.in/2pedpZt
2. Download Rocket Dock if you haven’t
already and set it up. Next, download
a MacOS themed skin and paste it
into C:\Program Files (x86)\
RocketDock\Skins and you can
then select the skin from the Dock
Settings. (See link below)
3. Download an icon pack for Rocket
Dock that fits in with the style and
aesthetic you are going for. We’ve
included an example. On any icon
in the dock, Right click > Icon
Settings > “+” and then pick
individual icons for each shortcut on
the dock. Download this: http://dgit.
in/2pX56iJ
4. Download custom icon images from
DeviantArt for the things you want,
and change the icon in the file’s prop-
erties. Move all non-essential things
to a folder to make it look better.
Delete all names of the items on the
desktop by using the blank character
([Alt] + [255]) as the name.
5. Next, start Rainmeter and find a ‘Mac
Bar’ / ‘Rain Bar’ skin that you like on
Deviantart or the forums and set it
up. Some icons won’t give you func-
tionality but here is one that is pretty
good: http://dgit.in/2ooEMB4
And voila! that’s it, you have your
very own MacOS Sierra look!
RETRO LOOK
Want to go retro? Use Classic Shell
(http://dgit.in/2pYntXx). You can make
Windows 10 look like Windows 2000/
XP/7 without all of the security holes.
Download it, install it and choose the
window and start menu feel that inter-
ests you. You can also choose to disable
breadcrumbs to make pathfinding easier,
and of course, our favourite, change the
way the start button looks – including
making your own button from scratch!
You have got to try that feature, because
it one of the few ways you can give your
PC your own unique charm. By the time
you’re done with it, we’re pretty sure that
your PC wont look the same at all.
 Cover story

CUSTOMISE YOUR PHONE

Your phone makes a statement about who you are. Use this
section to learn how to root your Android phone, back it up,
make a custom ROM and even accessorise it

T
he following rooting guide is
divided into three sections:
backing up, rooting, and then
installing the ROM of your choice
– which could include building your
own ROM. After all, that is the point of
rooting in the first place – to customise
your phone to your specific needs.
batch backups. The paid Pro version
unlocks a few more handy features
such as integrating app updates to
ROM, encryption, restoring individual
apps+data from non-root ADB, CWM
and TWRP backups and more.
CUSTOM RECOVERY
Creating a manual backup for your
phone is a good idea as well, if you’re
sure about the recovery process. A
custom recovery is essentially a third
party recovery environment which

BACKUP!
Before you dive into the world of rooted
Android you have to backup every-
thing, just in case. It’s the smart move,
even though nothing will probably go
wrong if you follow this rooting guide
to the letter.

FRIENDLY ANDROID
Android has a good inbuilt mechanism
to assist you in backing up anything
vital on your smartphone. Using cloud
services is probably the best way to
backup everything, and most of us are
probably already doing so. You can also
always copy your pictures, music, etc., to
your PC, but let Google handle all your
contacts and SMSes. That way you just
need to sign in with your account and
import everything back automatically.

AFTER ROOTING
It’s backing up your rooted phone that
really matters, really, and even though
we haven’t even got there yet, we’re
just lumping all the backing up guides
together. The thing with custom ROMs
is that they’re addictive, and fiddling
with them often results in crashed OSes
that need to be reinstalled. No one said
being a geek was easy! This is why you
need more powerful backup tools:
• Titanium Backup
This app lets you backup apps, data
and market links. By backing up apps,
we do mean all your installed apps
along with the system apps on your
phone and their data. The app also lets
you schedule backups and do one-click
Use Titanium backup once you’ve rooted
• Helium Backup
Helium backup is an app that will
let you backup apps and their data
even before rooting. You will need the
Helium desktop client installed. With
USB debugging enabled on your phone,
start the Helium Desktop app as well as
the Helium app on your phone. Then
connect your phone to the PC and wait
for it to be detected. Once it does get
detected, you can unplug the phone.
Going to the Helium app will now
show you the option of backing up your
apps to a location of your preference –
internal memory, SD card or the cloud.
This backup can be restored by the
‘Restore and Sync’ functionality.
The TWRP recovery interface
replaces your stock recovery environ-
ment when flashed onto your device.
These third party alternatives offer a lot
of features like rooting as well custom
backups. The two popular options for
custom recovery are Clockworkmod
Recovery (CWM) and Team Win
Recovery Project (TWRP)
• Clockworkmod Recovery (CWM):
This recovery can create and restore
NANDroid backups – backups of an
Android device’s entire file system.
It also has other advanced features
that will be useful if you are install
and deal with custom ROMs.
• Team Win Recovery Project
(TWRP): This is a touch-based

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 39

 Cover story
The Widget
Wizards
Your homescreens look bare
without widgets, but which
ones of the thousands available
should you use? Let us choose
for you, and also teach you how
to make your own.
http://dgit.in/WdgtWzrd
recovery environment – all other
recoveries are controlled by a
device’s volume and power button.
TWRP even supports themes. It is
also used to make backups and flash
ROMs on your Android devices.
Essentially, to carry out a TWRP
recovery, you need to follow these steps:
• Enable USB debugging.
• Download the TWRP recovery
image for your phone and place it
in C:\
• Boot into your phone’s bootloader
and connect it to PC.
• Wait until you see ‘fastboot USB’ on
your screen.
• Launch command prompt on your
computer and run this command:
fastboot flash recovery
c:\<name of image>.img
• After the process is finished, go to
bootloader again – you should see
the TWRP custom recovery.
• Select Backup option and choose the
relevant categories before starting
the process
• Once successfully completed,
you should have a TWRP custom
recovery image on your storage
• The ‘Restore’ option on the first
menu takes you through the
recovery process
ROOTING YOUR PHONE
Now it’s time for the real deal –
rooting your phone. There are
several ways to do this and you
will need to decide which one’s best
for you. Before you begin, make
sure your device is fully charged
– you do not want your device
dying on you mid-root, trust us!
40 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
You need to have both USB Debug-
ging and OEM Unlocking enabled on
your device – both of which are avail-
able under Developer options. Now, just
in case you haven’t enabled Developer
options yet, here’s a quick few steps on
how to do it all in one go:
• Go to Settings and scroll down to
the very bottom then tap on ‘About
Phone’.
• Scroll until you find ‘Build number’
and the tap on it seven times. The
Developer Options section should
now be available on the main Set-
tings window.
• Under Developer Options, enable
USB Debugging and OEM
Unlocking
There was a time when the process was
quite complex
INSTALL ANDROID SDK TOOLS
• Get the SDK tools from http://dgit.
in/AndrdSDK and install them.
Remember the installed directory.
• Launch the SDK tools and uncheck
everything except Android SDK
Platform-tools at the top.
Make
your own
smartphone
case
When just buying one is too
mainstream, real geeks make
their own. Would you like to get
a Dbrand-like carbon-fiber look
for one-tenth the price? Maybe
you want a spray-on Rubber
case? You can have it all by
going to
http://dgit.in/DIYCases
• Click on Install 2 packages at the
bottom right. Check Accept license
and click Install.
CHECK COMPATIBILITY
Before starting the process, make sure
your desktop/laptop detects the phone
correctly when connected via USB. If
not, just do a quick Google search for
the drivers from your manufacturer
and install them.
UNLOCK BOOTLOADER
Another thing that needs to be done
before you get started is the unlocking
of your bootloader. The bootloader is
basically the program that controls
your device’s startup process. It has
control over what applications run
during that process. Hence, unlocking
it is a key to rooting your device.
This is where things get manufac-
turer specific. Some manufacturers
require you to get a key to unlock the
bootloader – something that they allow
only registered developer accounts to do.
Usually, for this, you have to put your
device into fastboot mode – something
that again differs depending on the man-
ufacturer. The most common way to do
this is to reboot and hold the power and
volume down buttons for 10 seconds,
but it could differ for your phone.
Once in fastboot, open your com-
puter’s command prompt. If your
device requires a code this is the stage
where you’ll see a long string of char-
acters, that you will need to provide on
the manufacturer’s website to get a key
and further instructions on unlocking
the bootloader. Otherwise, this is the
process you need to follow.
• Connect it to your computer and
bring it into fastboot again.
• Bring up the command prompt.
For Google Nexus and Pixel devices,
the commands are easy:
• Nexus phones: Type “fastboot
oem unlock” (without quotes) and
hit Enter
• Pixel phones: Type “fastboot
flashing unlock” (without
quotes) and hit Enter
Motorola’s command is a little dif-
ferent:
• Type “oem unlock UNIQUE_KEY”
(without quotes), replacing “UNIQUE_
KEY” with the code you received

Root Checker is a good way to check if
your phone has been successfully rooted
So is HTC’s:
• Type “unlocktoken Unlock_
code.bin” (without quotes),
replacing “Unlock_code.bin” with
the file you received.
For other devices, there is definitely a
solution available even if your manu-
facturer does not sanction bootloader
unlocking. Take a look at XDA Forums
for the process for your phone. Complete
the process, and you’re another step
closer to rooting your Android device.
FINALLY, ROOT IT
Now, there was a time when you would
have to put a Custom recovery into
your device and then grant superuser
privileges to root your device. But now,
things are much easier with quite a few
third party applications available that
take care of the rooting process for you.
Some of the good ones are:
• CFRoot – Executable script in BAT file
• Baidu Root – Dedicated app via
APK
• Towelroot – Dedicated app via APK
• Kingo Root – Dedicated app via
APK as well as desktop app
• Kingroot – Dedicated app via APK
as well as desktop app
Remember these are generic apps
that may or may not work for your
device. If you believe you have the skills
and patience required, it makes much
more sense to opt for a dedicated pro-
cess for your device – something you
will be able to find on the device manu-
facturer forums or the XDA forums.
NOW WHAT?
If you’re done with the rooting process,
you’re not done entirely yet. Due to the
experimental nature of this process,
it is best to verify that you’ve done
everything correctly and you’ve still got
a fully functional device with you. Root
Checker is an application that will tell
you immediately if you have Superuser
permissions – which is a good indicator
that your device is successfully rooted.
Also, a root manager like SuperSU will
be really helpful to control permissions
in a rooted environment.
JUST IN CASE
Now, if you aren’t exactly happy with the
way your rooted device is working, or
needed to go back to the unrooted state
for any other reason, there are ways to
do that too. Once again, make sure you
backup everything first. Refer to the
Backup section of this article to know
methods applicable to a rooted device.
Once that is done, you can use
apps like SuperSU or the third party
rooting app that you used for the root
process in the first place (most of the
apps do have an un-rooting option).
The most thorough method of doing
this, however, is by flashing the
stock firmware back onto the device.
And just as you expected, this is not
exactly an easy method.
• First, download the stock image and
extract it.
• Then follow the same steps as the
rooting process up to the point of
OEM Unlocking.
Make sure you install the two packages mentioned earlier
Cover story
• Copy boot.img and place it into
ADB folder.
• Connect your phone to your com-
puter, open command prompt and
enter these commands:
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot reboot
Pro-Tip: There are a few other
methods to unroot as well, like deleting
the files which grant the root in the
first place, or unrooting with an OTA
update, but these may not work for all
devices. Flashing the stock firmware is
the most likely to succeed.
Up your
Emoji game
If texting is your thing (if not,
who are you?) then the emojis
you use say a lot about you.
Get your geek on by checking
out these amazing apps, tips
and secrets to using emojis like
never before.
http://dgit.in/UpEmoji
BUILD YOUR OWN ROM
It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to say
that Android would be nowhere close
to its current popularity if it wasn’t
open source to begin with. Every com-
ponent of the operating system – from
the messaging apps, libraries, UI com-
ponents and more – is available as code
for free. It is because of this very flex-
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 41
 Cover story
The structure of the Android Open Source Project
ibility that you see so many different
implementations and customisations
for Android – from smartphone manu-
facturers to hobbyists. A particular
customised implementation is gener-
ally referred to as a Custom ROM.
So can you get into customising
Android? Why not? We’re here to show
you how. But before we begin, there are
a few things you need to know.
DISCLAIMER
Customising Android is not entirely
simple. But that’s not unexpected,
considering all the wonderful things
you can do with your Android phone
now. So, as a consequence, there are a
few things that you need to know to
be able to do this successfully. Broadly
speaking, you need to have some basic
coding skills, some experience with
the Linux based command line and the
concept of a makefile.
While we are customising, it will be
a while before you can build the next
Cyanogen or LineageOS
42 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
A makefile is a document that
contains the directives that work when
the make command is issued. These are
essentially instructions about how to
compile a particular file. For instance,
when a file has to be recompiled on the
basis of particular changes being saved,
that is an instruction you will find in
the makefile.
Another disclaimer: we are not
going to build the next Cyanogen Mod
here. As we said earlier, it is not easy to
build an entire operating system and
the output of this section is going to
be minor changes at best. The rest we
leave up to you to learn. You will need
a boatload of patience, but it will be
rewarding in the end.
REQUIREMENTS
Before we start, there are a few more
things that need to be decided. First
of all, Android can be theoretically
built for any modern-day computing
system. That being said, customisa-
tion references and resources are
more likely to be available more
easily for devices that support cus-
tomisation out-of-the-box. The demo
build that we used as a reference for
this article uses a Nexus 5X for the
customisation. However, you can do
a lookup if there are any particular
restrictions or requirements for the
specific model of your phone.
You’ll also need access to a Linux
machine or a Mac. In terms of specifi-
cations, you’ll need about 130-150GB
of storage and quite a lot of RAM
(upto 16GB on Linux) – we never said
Android was light. And regarding the
overall time it will take, don’t expect it
to be done in minutes.
OVERVIEW OF BUILD PROCESS
There are two main steps to this pro-
cess – downloading the Android SDK
and then modifying the source code
implementation as a custom ROM.
It is most certainly not possible to
complete the entire process in this one
article. Something like that is more
suited to an entire Fast Track. We will be
highlighting the broad steps involved
though the best place to start off would be
Google’s documentation on the Android
Open Source Project. You can find that at
http://dgit.in/AOSPDoc. Take the documen-
tation seriously as each point in there is
important for a successful build.
Moving on, here are the broad tasks
that you’ll need to do, along with some
pro tips for each:
• Set up a build environment –
including installing the right devel-
opment tools, the Java Development
Kit, and getting all the paths and
directories right.
• Pro Tip: Ubuntu 14.04 is the
recommended build environ-
ment for Linux users and OS X
10.11 for Mac users. You need to
install OpenJDK 8 on Linux and
Oracle’s JDK 8 on OS X. On OS X
you also need Macports installed
along with Xcode an the Xcode
command line tools.
For the
keyboard
warriors
Stock keyboards are a bore,
so we’ve got some amazing
replacement keyboards for your
phone. Just follow this link:
http://dgit.in/NinjaTxt
 Cover story

head to http://dgit.in/AndStsBar and start

off small. Also, if video is your thing,
Gesture check out the custom ROM tutorials at

control the links below:

your
phone
Touch is so last decade! Real
geeks don’t prod their phones
like baboons, they just gesture!
We’ll show you how. Just go to
http://dgit.in/Gesturize
• Grab the source – this is done using
the “Repo” tool and git.
• Pro Tip: Have patience.
• Obtain proprietary binaries – some
of the drivers are only released in
binary form.
• Pro Tip: The binary drivers should
be unpacked in your working direc-
tory.
• Choose a target – using the “lunch”
tool.
• Pro Tip: This is phone specific and
it’s better to check out the particular
value for your phone.
• Start the build – using “make” and
“jack”.
• Pro Tip: You start the build using
make. GNU make can handle par-
allel tasks with a -jN argument, and
if you find your machine struggles
during the build process then try
something like “make -j2”.
• Flash the build onto your device –
using adb and fastboot.
• Pro Tip: You will find adb and
fastboot in ./out/host/darwin-x86/
bin/ or ./out/host/darwin-x86/bin/
for OS X or Linux respectively.
Once the build is done and flashed,
you will be looking at the barebones
version of Android on your phone –
without Google services and only with
few basic apps. Congratulations, you’ve
managed to complete your first basic
build of Android.
THE ACTUAL CUSTOMISATION
Tinkering with this huge OS is not an
easy feat. Listing out how to build an
entirely new custom ROM would take
more pages than this entire magazine.
A better way to do this would be to
• http://dgit.in/CstmROM1
• http://dgit.in/CstmROM2
INSTALLING THE BEST
While some of you might have actu-
ally tried the build process above, a
much more common (and almost as
daunting) alternative is to install a
popular Custom ROM. On the other
hand, if you’ve followed everything
above, installing a custom ROM is
fairly simple and involves the fol-
lowing steps:
• Download a ROM – Well, duh! Once
it is downloaded, place it in your
internal memory along with cor-
responding GApps for the version of
Android that you’ve downloaded.
• Boot into recovery – Checkout the
‘Root your smartphone’ section at
the very beginning of this story
for a detailed guide on how to
set up custom recovery for your
smartphone.
• Flash ROM – As mentioned in the
‘Root your smartphone’ section,
select the .zip file from the TWRP
interface and install it. You can also
opt for Clockwork Mod.
• Clear Cache – Once the installa-
tion is done, go back and clear your
cache. And you’re done!
While that’s how to get a Custom
ROM on your phone, you also need to
know which ones are the best. Cyano-
genmod is a very popular choice,
although Cyanogen Inc shut shop
pretty recently. There are some pretty
good alternatives which you can check
out here: http://dgit.in/AltCyano.
With that, you have pretty much
learnt how to get a customised version
of Android which works exactly the
way you want it to.
ACCESSORISE YOUR PHONE
Now that you’ve rooted your phone it
may run like a geek’s phone, but does
it look like one? You can’t really call
yourself a geek unless you’ve tried some
accessories on your smartphone. Check
out these cool accessories that you can
use with your phone to help you get a
custom look.
EYE SMART IPHONE CASE
Eye is a very interesting smartphone
case, because it has its own OS! You
read that right, Eye comes with
Android OS on it, but (here’s the
kicker), it’s an iPhone case. Whaaat?!
Huh?!? We’re not kidding. Eye comes
with Android Nougat 7.1 and Google
Play. Other features of the Eye smart-
phone case include a 5-inch Full HD
Amoled display, wireless charging,
an added extra 2800mAH of power, 2
SIM slots, up to 256GB of expandable
storage, a metal tag for mounting pur-
poses, infrared, a 3.5mm headphone
jack and it’s NFC enabled. We’re pretty
sure it can also send stuff to mars, and
will kill off humans soon. So what’s
the point? iPhone one side, flip ot and
you have Android on the other. How
cool is that?
SELFLY
Everyone hates clicking selfies at an
arm’s length, and selfie sticks are for
kids. What you really need is a drone,
right? But you can’t carry a drone
around in your pocket. Or can you?
Here’s Selfly, a smartphone case that is
also a drone! Just snap the drone off the
case, and set it to fly. It’s even got auto-
pilot functionality and will do all the
selfie-taking for you.

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 43

 Cover story

HOOKUPZ 2.0
HookUpz’ main goal is to connect your

Amplify smartphone to the optic of your choice.

They don’t care what that optic is – bin-
your phone’s oculars, monoculars, spotting scopes,

eye candy telescopes, microscopes, borescopes,

quotient
When it comes to customizing
looks, Android beats every other
OS hands down. Here’s a handy
guide to giving your droid a
complete makeover.
http://dgit.in/IcandyAnd
YELLOW JACKET CASES
For the people out there who want to
secure their phones as well as them-
selves - the Yellow Jacket case is not just
a decent protective case for your phone,
it’s also a stun gun as well! The case plugs
into your phone and the ‘stunner’ is near
the top of your phone. A mechanism on
the back of the cases reveals or hides the
‘stunners’ as per need. Perfect for a night
out of town in a strange place.
and any other scope you can think of.
This opens up the ability to do a lot of
things, like letting you record and cap-
ture everything you see digitally and
then being able to instantly share what
you saw to social media. Go for version
2.0 as it accounts for larger sized phones
and phablets too, so you should have no
problem fitting your phone in even with
its bulky case on.
1BYONE FOLDABLE BT KEYBOARD
In most cases, where we miss our
laptops these days, we can make do with
our phones. But we do end up missing
a QWERTY keyboard sometimes –
especially old BlackBerry users. You
don’t need to buy an overpriced phone
to get QWERTY, just use this foldable
Bluetooth keyboard instead! If you
frequently work on your phone, and edit
documents and the like on the go, this
keyboard fits right into your pocket, and
is about the size of your phone. It works
with any Bluetooth-enabled device – iOS,
Android, Windows, Mac OS, whatever.
It is powered by a rechargeable internal
battery with good battery life.
For more such awesome accessories,
check out http://dgit.in/ProAccsrs

CUSTOMISE YOUR HOME

Another aspect of being a geek is to customise your
home, and wow anyone who visits it. Even better if it’s
not filled with things you bought, but things you built!

I
this section we will help you build
your own ambient lighting hack for
your TV, and also give you a few
pointers and links to some articles
we have done online, which will help
you stream media all over your house
and automate your home by turning
dumb devices into smart ones.

MAKE YOUR OWN

AMBILIGHT
Back in the day, when the first
LED TV’s appeared, Philips came
out with a great feature: Ambient
TV lighting, which they called
“Ambilight”. Ambilight consisted TVs with ambient lighting look very good when they can sync with the content on
of lights that would project on to the screen

44 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in


REQUIREMENTS
What we Need
• Raspberry Pi 2 or 3
• Sd Card 8GB Class 10
• Arduino Uno
• HDMI splitter
• HDMI Selector
• HDMI2AV Converter (1080p
supported)
• USb Grabber
• 5V 10A power supply
• HDMI Cables
• WS2812B RGB LED strip
• Wires
Software
• Raspberry Pi 2 / 3 Disk Image
• Arduino Sketch (http://dgit.in/
ArduinoSketch)
• Hypercon.jar
• Arduino NeoPixel Library
• Win32 Disk imager
the wall behind your TV, matching
the colours being displayed on
the TV. Thus, if the majority of
the screen was red, then the light
emitted would be red, and so on.
Over the years this has been
refined to multiple colors, matching
small parts of the screen, and the aim
is to make the TV watching experi-
ence even more immersive than it is
already. It’s a feature that most people
like, but some might not, but it never
fails to wow people the first time they
see it. Tell them you built that your-
self, and they’re going to be even more
impressed! Of course you could also
just buy a Philips Ambilight TV, but
what’s geek about that?
CONFIGURING THE LEDS
Start From the bottom left corner, place
the LEDs counterclockwise around the
border of the TV and connect them at
the corners (except the first one, obvi-
ously) with conductive wire – make
sure that you connect the corresponding
terminals on each LED correctly.
POWER SUPPLY
It is important to connect the GND
from the Power supply to the Arduino
The connection to the Arduino is:
• LED Din to Arduino Pin (as config-
ured in the Arduino Sketch)
• Power Supply GND to Arduino
GND
Note: Count the number of Vertical
LEDS and make a note of this.
THE SOFTWARE BIT
Arduino
1. Open the Arduino Sketch
and change the number of
LEDCOUNT to match the total number
of LEDS we noted earlier.
2. Also in the line: const char
prefix [] = {0x41,0x64,0x6
1,0x00,0x57,0x02}; we need to
change the last two bytes. (0x57 and
0x02) to match your setup.
3. For this take the total number of LEDs
on your system and subtract 1.
4. Convert this number to HEX (use
Google calculator or any online
decimal to hex converter) and replace
the first byte (0x57) to 0x?? to match
yours in the sketch.
5. Now go to XOR converter (xor.pw)
and enter the following:
6. In the first Line enter 55
7. In the second line enter the byte you
calculated in the above step
(0x57 in our case )
8. Click Calculate XOR
9. Replace the last byte of your line
by the Output you get. Make sure
to include “0X” before the number
(0x02) as this is represented in HEX
format.
10. Also note down the Baud rate –
500000 in our sketch .
11. Now connect the D10 pin on the
arduino to the Din of the LED – the
third wire from the LED strip.
12. Download and include the Neopixel
library (see box Requirements) by going
to Tools > include Library
> Add Zip file in the arduino
software.
13. Save the sketch and compile for any
errors, and then upload to Arduino.
INSTALLING THE IMAGE ON THE
RASPBERRY PI SD CARD,
1. Unrar the OSMC_Pulse_setup_
all_working.rar provided with
the link.
Cover story
The Arduino Uno will
control the lights
behind this setup
2. Put your SD card in the PC or card
reader (make sure it is at least 8 GB
Class 10 )
3. Install and Run the Win32DiskIm-
ager.exe as administrator, select
the image file to write to the SD
card,
4. Click “Write” to write it to the card
5. Insert the card into your PI
CONNECTING ALL THE EQUIPMENT
1. Plug the Arduino Pin 10 into the
LED astrip data line and Arduino
GND pin to V- of the power supply,
2. Plug the USB of the Arduino into
port 1 of the Raspberry Pi.
3. Plug an HDMI cable from the
HDMI splitter output 1 into your
TV’s HDMI-in
4. Plug the output of the HDMI
Selector into the input of the HDMI
splitter
5. Plug another HDMI cable from
the HDMI splitter output2 into the
HDMI2 AV converter.
6. Plug all the Devices into HDMI
selector
7. Plug the video (yellow) cable to
Smartphone
Master Race
Real phone pros can use their
phones as well as normal
people use desktops. From
adblockers to VPN here’s a list
of tweaks no “smart” phone
user should be without
http://dgit.in/SPMstrRace
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 45
 Cover story
Floating
apps?
If you think you can’t multi-
task on your phone, think again.
There are apps that will help
you do two or more things at
once on your phone. Learn all
about it at
http://dgit.in/FlApps
the usb grabber video connector
(yellow).
8. Connect the USB grabber on the
other port of the Raspberry Pi as it
draws more power.
POWER UP THE RASPBERRY PI AND
SETUP THE WI-FI IN THE OSMC
1. Navigate to Programs > My OSMC
2. In the setup menu you can con-
figure the network settings and
select wireless , From the list of
available networks select your
network and configure it to connect
to the network.
This configures the KODI media
player and lets us stream content onto
the screen.
Note: the IP address of the PI on the
network, we will need it later.
CONFIGURING HYPERION
1. Run Hypercon.jar
2. In the Hardware Tab configure these:
The KODI media player is a great option for staying up to date with the latest and
best shows.
46 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
• Type : adalight
• Output : /dev/ttyUSB0 (need
to check the usb number if this
doesn’t work)
• Baud rate: 500000 (from the
arduino sketch)
• Direction : Clockwise
• Select the left, right , horizontal ,
offset to match your setup from
the table we noted above.
3. Click Save
4. Make sure that the correct usb
device is selected for the usb
grabber in the grabber tab.
5. Now under the External Tab make
the setup as shown and click Save
6. Now Click on “Create Hyperion
Configuration” and save this.
FINAL STEPS
1. Go to the SSH tab
2. Enter the IP address of the PI in the
Target IP field
3. Make sure Port is 22
4. Enter username as osmc password
as osmc ( if you haven’t changed the
default settings.)
5. Click Save
6. Click Connect and you should con-
nect to your PI
7. Then click “Send Config” and wait
for it to Upload
8. Click Save
9. Click save hyperion file, will
help in later use
10. Reboot your PI
If everything has gone well your
Ambilight setup should now be working
with your TV!
STREAM EVERYTHING!
With high speed broadband and decent
FUPs becoming commonplace, the
days of downloading content are long
gone. Be it your favorite TV shows,
movies or your entire music collection,
streaming is the way to go. And there
are tons of ways to do it as well. For
example, Plex is a popular solution for
sharing media over a local network.
Although there are features behind
certain paid subscriptions, there are
also free alternatives that work just as
well. As an intelligent server software
Sonarr is pretty much all you’d need.
Whereas Sickrage, a fork of the Sonarr
alternative Sickbeard, also covers pretty
much the same things in a much more
organised and sleek way. Head over to
our ultimate streaming guide at http://
dgit.in/AllStreaming to sort out pretty
much all of your streaming needs.
AUTOMATE YOUR HOME
Even though IoT devices have been
quite popular globally over the last
few years, it is only recently that India
The Oakter kits are pretty easy to use
has seen consumer grade IoT devices
show up in its markets. And with these
devices you can customise your humble
abode or grand palace to be smarter
and respond to your needs much better.
Take the Oakter home automa-
tion kits, for example. Comprising of
smart switches and a central hub, it’s
an easy to use plug-and-play solution
that works seamlessly with its mobile
app. You can use it for pretty much
any device that requires a plug-point
and needs to be controlled remotely. It
features scheduling as well.
Check out our detailed feature at
http://dgit.in/HomeAutom which covers
multiple aspects to get started with
automating your home.

CUSTOMISE YOURSELF!
If you’re really going to want to geek out, you also need to
do that personally. Stay healthy, stay happy, stay geek!
W
hile it has been quite some
time since technology has
spread into every aspect
of our lives, our day-to-
day health is not something we’ve
widely adopted technology for. This
is changing, and fast with the advent
of wearables and the ubiquity of
smartphones. Here are a few easy to
implement methods to customise your
health and lifestyle using technology
TRACK ACTIVITY WITH WRIST-BASED
TRACKERS OR SMARTWATCHES
Just in case we haven’t said this enough
before – fitness trackers have arrived!
You see them all around you, and
pretty much every electronics company
is now getting into the activity tracking
market with fitness bands being sold
from anywhere between `1,000 to
`15,000. These entry-level devices offer
you some of the basic features such as
Step tracking, Sleep tracking, Heart rate
sensors and more. With all this data,
you can customise the way you spend
your day. For instance, if you keep track
of your steps along with calories burnt,
you can walk longer to increase that.
In case you see that you’re not getting
enough deep sleep you can undertake
steps to get better sleep. The sedentary
alerts will ensure that you do not stay
in one position for too long.
The Mi Band 2 packs a lot of
features for just `1,999
Cover story
Remember, quality and accuracy
often depends on the brand as well as
the price point in this category. Some of
the good ones that we’ve used recently
are the Fastrack Reflex and the Mi Band
2. Also, while a smartwatch can offer
you a lot more, getting one mainly for
the purpose of activity tracking is not
really worth it.
MULTI-SPORT TRAINING TRACKERS
Slightly on the higher-end, these
trackers can track more activities than
normal wrist-based trackers. The Fenix
3 HR from Garmin can track Altitude,
Atmospheric pressure and even detect
a multitude of sports like swimming,
hiking, rowing and more. Moreover,
normal step tracking and heart rate
sensing is much more accurate.
Tracking your performance in these
sport-trackers can help you optimise
your performance. Track all that you eat by calories as well
as nutrients
tion in the best Indian Apps on Google
Play for two years in a row. Consisting
of a database of more than 100,000
Indian dishes, diligently entering what
you ate into the app will not only help
There’s more to wearables than just you keep track of your calories, it will
fitness bands also provide you contextual feedback
regarding the nutrient content in your
WALK WITH SMART SOLES diet. And if you’re looking for some
Smart soles take tracking one step serious weight loss, you can even avail
further! Lechal’s smart soles not only the services of their health coaches.
let you track your steps, but they also
let you receive navigational directions THE FUTURE
as vibrations in your left or right foot Even if there aren’t too many truly
– depending on the turn ahead. You exciting ways in which you can cus-
can even create waypoints, set multiple tomise yourself now, there are many
destinations or go exploring on your right around the corner. From smart
own, adding notes all the while. You’ll tattoos to AR lenses, all of our basic
simply never walk the same way again. senses are about to be customised to
harness technology. And don’t even get
CUSTOMISE YOUR DIET us started on brain-computer interfaces
HealthifyMe is by no means just a cal- – no, really, don’t; we’ve been men-
orie tracker. Combining a personalised tioning them for a decade and they still
workout service with an Indian calorie aren’t here! Still, self-customisation is
counter is what got HealthifyMe a posi- going to be very big, very soon.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 47
 Tips & tricks
Get your hands on the Windows 10
Toolbox 50 Creator's update and its tricks, along
with a manual on how to encrypt it all.
DLL errors are here to haunt
us again
Broken HDDs can break our hearts, so can other gadget related problems that we
explore this month.
DLL panic
Hello Digit,
Whenever I start my computer, I get the
following in an error windows:
“MSVCP100.DLL missing”
This annoys me a lot. Because of
this error, I’m not able to install the
EyeLeo software and Mailbird. Please
help me out.
– Gaurav Kumar
Hey Gaurav,
We all know the pain of dll file errors.
There can be several reasons leading
to the MSVCP100.DLL error. It could
be a malware or virus, a Windows
registry error or rarely a hardware
failure. The best solution would be to
run a virus scan and also a malware
scan. Then you should download and
install all the latest Windows updates.
Perform a registry clean up and then
reinstall the software you were trying
to use. If the problem still persists then
you should try a system restore if you
have a restore point saved. Pro tip: it's
always a great idea to have one saved.
Otherwise you can insert your Win-
dows installation DVD or USB drive
and repair the system. If nothing works
at all, we’re afraid that you’ll have to
install a fresh copy of Windows.
Failed Kindle login
Sir, I'm a regular subscriber of Digit
since a long time. I've a OnePlus One
phone and I was going along with it
nicely. Recently, the screen got locked
accidentally and I couldn't open it and
I had to format it with someone’s help.
Since I had a Google backup I got back
most of the data. My problem is I had
downloaded several books from the
Amazon Kindle store and I'm also a sub-
48 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
scriber of Kindle Unlimited. After down-
loading the Kindle app, as I'm trying to
register myself it says they don't have
any account with that email ID. I've
tried with all of my email IDs but the
result was same. I'm afraid if I try to
register a new account I might lose all
my books and my Kindle Unlimited sub-
scription. Please help me get back my
books and my subscription as well.
Thanking you,
– Chanchal Kumar Das.
Hello Chanchal,
This is a really weird issue and none of
us have ever come across this problem.
Your email ID on Amazon India
(Amazon.in) is the same for all their
properties including their shopping
website, Prime Video, Kindle store or
Audible. So essentially, if you are able
to log in onto any of these services with
one particular ID, the same ID should
be functional on all of them seam-
lessly. If you had registered for Kindle
Unlimited on Amazon.com, then your
email ID will be different. You need
to verify which email is associated to
account and then try logging in again.
If nothing works out, then you should
contact Amazon support before you
register any new account. If you have
everything in email – your Amazon
Kindle Unlimited subscription invoice
– then you shouldn’t have any problem.
Broken HDD
Hi Digit, my HDD (Seagate
st2000dm001) suddenly stopped
working. It starts spinning, makes some
reading noise (actuator moves the head
back and forth) and stops spinning. I
want to get it repaired so that I can
recover its data, I have several data
Radeon RX 500 series
AMD's new graphics cards launched in
India at prices starting `7000.
http://dgit.in/RX500new
recovery software that can recover from
even volume corruption. But I want the
hard drive to be recognised on my PC.
How can I repair my HDD mechani-
cally? Where can I take it to in Kolkata?
I don’t want data recovery services, I
want repairing. I can recover once it’s
recognised by a PC. Please help.
Regards.
– Tirtha Chakraborty
Hi Tirtha, this is surely a mechanical
problem but you should try using a
different SATA power and cables and
also different SATA ports to verify the
problem. Repairing a hard drive can be
quite expensive and we would recom-
mend you to contact Seagate service
centre for official support. There are
four service centres in Kolkata that you
can contact.
Android games with an
Xbox 360 controller
Hello guys, I have a Redmi Note 3 (3GB
RAM, 32GB storage). I want to play
games with my controller on my phone.
I have an Xbox 360 wireless controller,
wireless receiver, and an OTG cable. But
it is not working. I have watched many
YouTube videos where they are playing
games with the controller. Please help
me. You are my last hope.
– Gagnesh Seth
 Quora costs $1.8 bn
The popular Q&A app just raised $85 million,
raising its total value to around $1.8 bn.
http://dgit.in/QuoraV
Hey Gagnesh, the process is pretty
straightforward and you shouldn’t face
any problem. Make sure that your wire-
less receiver works on the Xbox 360 in
the first place. Connecting the con-
troller to your phone is just like
connecting an input device and
shouldn’t require any configuration.
Try to use it in the wired mode as well.
Another thing you should remember is
that not all Android games support
gamepad controls, so make sure you’re
trying it out on compatible games only.
Without proper support, the controller
might behave unpredictably within the
game. The videos explaining this
process are more than enough to help
you out.
Is it big enough?
Hello team Digit, below is the specs of
my rig:
• Processor: Intel Core i5 4440
• RAM: 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB),
• Motherboard: Gigabyte H81m-s1
My cabinet is the iBall Piano 414
which is in fact a compact cabinet. I am
willing to buy the ASUS Strix RX 470
but I have a painful thought. Will it fit
in my cabinet? I am tight in my budget
so any advice of modification in the
cabinet itself will do me good if the card
normally doesn't fit. Kindly help!
– Rick
Q&A
Hey Rick, the cabinet is quite old
and we couldn’t find the specs men-
tioning the maximum supported GPU
length. What we do know is the length
of the Strix RX 470, which is around
240mm. Sometimes the most basic
equipment is the most useful. You
should verify with a measuring tape or
scale whether it can fit the cabinet. If it
doesn’t then you can try to remove the
riveted HDD or ODD cage that will
clear out some space to accommodate
your GPU. And you can always make it
your own in this process.
Infamous error 10
Hey Digit,
I need your help. My internet isn't
working. Until the last boot, it was
working but when I tried to access it one
day after that, it is showing an error in
the LAN device – Error Code 10. I have
tried reinstalling the driver from the
motherboard DVD as well as from the
ASUS website. But the error persists.
Please help me.
PC Configuration:
• Intel Core i5-3330
• 4GB RAM
• OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
• Motherboard: ASUS H61M-K
– Shashwat Gupta
Hey Shashwat, error 10 is a sign of
failed hardware. This is caused because
of either outdated software or maybe
the device got corrupted. Now, as a first
measure, you should rollback the
drivers to an earlier version by going to
Device Manager and right clicking on
the Ethernet device, disabling and
rolling back. If a previous version of the
software was operational then rolling
back should do that trick. You can then
install the latest update of the drivers
from the website and the warning icon
should go away. Usually, these updates
take care of any such errors. You can
also try to uninstall the driver if it
doesn’t work, but if it was working fine
earlier, then rolling back should be fine.
And with either of these options your
internet connectivity issue should be
solved for good.
Tips & Tricks
KRITA
Krita is an open source raster
graphics editor known for
digital painting. This editor
is packed with a plethora pow-
erful features that could make
it a Photoshop replacement.
Krita can be downloaded for
free from krita.org. Try out
these tips and tricks to get
control on Krita.
Use any brush
as eraser
Krita offers a plethora of
brush presets. These brushes
not only come handy for
painting but also for erasing.
This can be done by changing
the brush mode to an eraser.
Select the brush tool
> Choose brush preset
(located at the top in the pref-
erences bar). Once the brush
is selected, click on “Set eraser
mode”. This will change the
brush mode to an eraser.
Get quick
access to
brush and the
colour palette
Searching for brush presets
can be time-consuming. To
deal with such situations,
Krita provides a neat feature
that gives you access to your
recently used brushes and
colours. Just right-click on
your canvas and you’ll see a
brush and colour palette. You
can see all your recently used
colours to use.
Click on the arrow button to get quick access to the brush
preferences
Digit | May 2017
your need and it will be
added to the stack.
Make any
brush into a
clone tool
As there’s no separate clone
tool in Krita, you can use any
brush as a clone tool. To do
this, Select the brush
tool > Edit brush set-
tings > Clone > Set the
size. To select the clone point
on the canvas, hold the Ctrl
Krita ........................................................................................... 18 key and click on the area that
you want to clone, and leave
Windows Creator’s Update .......................................... 19 the Ctrl key.
Encrypt everything ........................................................... 21
Quickly see
{ } the mirror
Tips & Tricks has its own page numbers, and does not follow the rest
of the magazine’s page numbers. This is done to ensure that you can
cut out and save T&T in a separate folder for later reference. view of your canvas
Instead of flipping the
image horizontally and then
Create a list reverting back, you can just
of your hit the “M” key on your
favourite brushes keyboard and you’ll see the
The pop-up palette is handy. mirror image of the canvas.
However, you may not find
your favourite set of brush Avoid erasing
in it. You can create one by the canvas
going to the Brush Presets If you are coming from Pho-
> Tag > name your tag > toshop and trying to erase
Enter. Now go back to “All” something in the first layer,
brushes list, right-click on the it’ll show you the check-
brush you want to add to your ered background instead of
list then Assign to tag > white. This happens because,
choose your tag. unlike Photoshop, the first
layer is not Alpha locked by
Change your default. To avoid this, you
brush size must change the background
Going all the way to the brush while creating a new canvas.
preferences and doing it is The Tag button is located at To do this, hit Ctrl + N >
painful. Instead of all this, you the top-right corner New > Content > Select
“As canvas color” under
can just hold the Shift key and Background > Create.
drag the mouse.
Add tools to
Play with your
layers workspace with
Krita offers special layers for dockers
painting, drawing shapes, Dockers are the small win-
filter, etc. Depending on dows that appear to the right
your need you may add a of your canvas. These dockers
new layer by clicking on come handy to do any task.
the “arrow button” located While you are presented
next to the “+” button at the with Layers, Brush Palette,
bottom of the Layers docker. and Advanced Color Selector
Then select the layer as per by default, these are not the
Vol 17 | 18 www.digit.in

Choose between As first layer or As canvas colour
only dockers available. You
can add other dockers to
get other tools handy. Go to
Settings > Dockers and
select the docker you want.
Additionally, there’s also an
option to hide all the dockers.
Go to Settings > Uncheck
“Show Dockers”.
Get full-
screen view
To enter the fullscreen view,
hit the “Tab” key on your
keyboard. To go back to the
normal mode, press the “Tab”
key again.
Test your
brush
To get the perfect brush for
your requirement you need
to test different combinations
of brush settings. Usually, art-
ists do this on the main canvas
and undo the testing strokes.
To deal with this, Krita has
provided a dedicated area to
test your brush. You can find
it to the right side in the Edit
brush settings palette.
The area on the right is the brush tester
www.digit.in
Enable
auto-save
functionality on
Windows
Krita autosaves your work
in case of crashes. However,
sometimes the autosave
browser doesn’t open on
Windows. In such situa-
tions, you need to manually
find the autosave file and open
it. To do this, go to Windows
Explorer and type %TEMP%
in the address bar. This will
show you all the temporary
files on your system. Look for
autosave.kra files, open them
one by one and save as the one
that you want.
Quickly save
different
versions of the
same canvas
If you want to do version
control, the traditional way
is to Save as different name.
Instead of this, Krita has
an option to automatically
save your current canvas by
marking the new file with a
Vol 17 | 19
versioning number added to
it. Go to File > Save Incre-
mental Version.
Animate with
Krita
Not restricting to be just a
static graphics editor, Krita
goes beyond to offer ani-
mation capabilities as well.
Although animation with
Krita is not easy, you can get
total control by trying out few
simple techniques. To ani-
mate with Krita, press Ctrl
+ N > New > Animation >
Animation-Japanese-En >
Use this template.
Add filters to
your canvas
If you are coming from Pho-
toshop you will not find this
feature any different. Just like
Photoshop, Krita allows you
to add filters to your canvas.
To do it, select the layer of the
object you want to apply the
filter on, navigate to Filter and
choose the appropriate one.
WINDOWS 10
CREATOR’S
UPDATE
The Creator’s Update not only
improves the existing features
but also adds new features
and apps to revamp your
Windows experience. To help
you with the new update, we
have compiled a series of tips
and tricks that will introduce
you and also master the best
of the new features.
Get the
Windows 10
Creators update
As the Windows 10 Creators
update is already rolling,
your Windows 10 system
will get it automatically via
the phased rollout. How-
ever, if you haven’t received
the update prompt you can
download it manually.
To do so, go to this site
http://dgit.in/Win10CU and click
Tips & Tricks
on the Update Now button.
This will download the down-
load assistant necessary for
the manual update. Once it is
downloaded, install it and run
it. Go through the mandatory
procedure and the download
process will begin. Then you
can go ahead and install it.
Install fresh
Windows
using Cortana
If you are installing a fresh
copy of Windows 10 build
with Creators update, you’ll
be greeted and guided by Cor-
tana throughout the installa-
tion process. Unlike the tradi-
tional installation procedure,
you can use your voice com-
mands to install Windows 10.
Rest your
weary eyes
with Night Light
The Creator’s Update has
added a must have feature
the Night Light feature. It’s
a Windows counterpart for
f.lux that reduces the blue
light emitted by a display.
To enable Night Light, go to
Start Menu > Settings >
System > Display > turn
Night light on. You are also
offered additional features
under Night light settings like
setting the colour tempera-
ture or also scheduling the
Night Light mode. There’s a
preset schedule that will turn
on the Night light automati-
cally at the time of sunset and
turn if off at the time of sun-
rise. Apart from this, if you
want to set a manual schedule
you may do it as well.
Try the new
Paint 3D
The traditional Microsoft
Paint which we all grew up
using gets a massive addition
in the Creators update – the
Paint 3D. Yet, the old Paint still
remains and does the same job
as before. To start Paint 3D,
May 2017 | Digit
Tips & Tricks
search and launch Paint 3D in
the start menu. After creating
a new project, on the top you’ll
find the navigator that lets you
choose between Tools, 3D
objects, Stickers, Text, Effects,
and Canvas. Clicking on the
3D objects button at the top
will allow you to choose from
3D models, 3D objects, and
also 3D Doodles.
Convert your free hand
drawing to 3D objects
Preview
pages in Edge
browser
Compiled with a plethora
of features, Edge could now
make its place in the browser
race. One of these revamped
features is the ability to pre-
view pages. This feature lets
you see a thumbnail view of
other tabs providing a sneak
peek of whether the page has
been loaded or the video has
been buffered. To do this,
open the browser, and click
on the drop down arrow
button placed at the top next
to your last tab. You can also
use these thumbnails as tabs
to navigate between different
tabs by clicking on it.
Use Edge as
primary
e-reader
Edge now also supports
ePUBs. Instead of using third-
party apps to read eBooks,
you can do it right from your
browser. When you purchase
an ebook from the Windows
Store, it will appear in the new
Books section located between
reading list and history. To
go to the Book section, click
Digit | May 2017
Get the real-time view of your tabs in the thumbnail
on Hub icon (denoted by
three lines) > Books.
Set tabs aside
If you always work
with a lot of tabs the “Set tabs
aside” feature will make a
group of the current active
tabs and set it aside. This
will give you a clean slate to
work with other tabs. To do
this, click on the “Set these
tabs aside” icon located on
the top-left corner just before
Click on each thumbnail to restore it individually
your first tab. To find the tabs
that you have set aside, click
on the “Tabs you’ve set aside”
icon next to the “Set these tabs
aside” icon. Once you are done
with your work and want
the previous tabs back, go to
“Tabs you’ve set aside” and
click on “Restore tabs”. This
will bring back all the tabs.
Have more
control over
your privacy
Starting from the Creators
update, Microsoft is being
transparent about what kind
of data it collects. To find
privacy settings, just search
for “Privacy settings” in the
start menu. The privacy set-
tings allow you to turn off the
permission to let apps use
advertising ID to make ads
more interesting to you based
Vol 17 | 20
on your app usage. It also pro-
vides an option to turn off the
permission for websites to
access language list.
Group tiles
into folders in
start menu
To clear the clutter in the star
menu, starting from the Crea-
tors update, Windows allows
you to group multiple tiles in a
single tile folder. This feature
has been a part of Windows
Phone for a long time, how-
ever, it has made its way to
the desktop operating system
now. To group multiple tiles
into a single folder, drag a
tile that you want to add on
top of another and drop it.
This will create a folder with
those two tiles. To add more
tiles to the folder, simply drag
and drop other tiles into the
folder. Just like other tiles, you
can also resize the folder. To
do it, right-click on the
folder > resize > select
the size you want.
Optimise start menu space by using folders of different sizes.
Set a custom
background
colour and accent
To set custom colour to the
desktop background, go to
Settings app > Person-
alisation > Background.
Choose the fit to Center or
Fill, click on the “+” next to
the custom colour > select
your desired colour. If you
have a particular hex colour
code, you may also enter it by
clicking on the More button.
To set custom accent
colour, click on Colors tab
located at the left, followed
by “+” Custom color button.
Choose the custom colour
you want. You can see the
realtime preview of the new
colour on the buttons, hit
“Done” when you have the
colour you want.
Enable
Dynamic
locking system
The Dynamic lock feature
connects between your phone
and your PC using Bluetooth
to automatically lock your PC
when your phone goes out of
range. This is a neat feature
aimed at offering a different
level of security. To enable
dynamic locking, first, pair
your smartphone with your
Windows desktop using Blue-
tooth. Navigate to Settings
> Accounts > Sign-in
options > under Dynamic
lock enable “Allow Win-
dows to detect when
you’re away and automat-
ically lock the device”.
Henceforth, if you leave
your PC unlocked and move
away with your phone from
www.digit.in

the proximity your PC will be
automatically locked after 30
seconds. However, if someone
intercepts the PC before it
locks it will not lock. Blue-
tooth connectivity is not that
reliable so sometimes it won’t
work as expected.
Get themes
via the store
Themes for your Windows
10 system can be downloaded
from the store. Here’s the hot-
link to directly redirect to the
theme section of the store:
http://aka.ms/themesinstore
To get a theme, select a
theme and click on the “Get”
button. This will download
Click on the “Get more themes in the Store” button to directly
go to the themes section of the Store
the theme on your system. To
apply the downloaded theme,
go to Settings > Person-
alization > Themes >
Select downloaded theme.
Set recurring
reminders
with Cortana
Among the few new abili-
ties of Cortana, you can
set recurring monthly
reminders. Click on the “Ask
me anything” field and ask it
to set a reminder. To recur,
click on “Only once” > Select
everyday or specific days of
the month or week. Once
everything is alright, click
on “Remind” button.
Try the new
Game Mode
Game Mode on Windows 10
prioritises your game over
other programs running on
the system and allocates all
www.digit.in
the computing resources to
the game.
Game mode automati-
cally turns on when a game
starts. This only works if the
game is downloaded from the
Windows Store. However, if
you want to enable it manu-
ally, run the game and use the
Windows hotkey: Windows
logo + G. Click on the “Set-
tings” icon > check “Use Game
mode for this game”. This will
enable game mode.
Use Picture-in-
Picture mode
If you are working with
video-focused programs,
you can use the picture-in-
picture mode to use multiple
applications at once. To use
picture-in-picture mode, first,
play some content on Films &
TV app. As the video starts,
you’ll see a small box button
on the control bar next to the
full-screen button. Click on
the button and you’ll be into
the picture-in-picture mode.
Annotate over
pictures and
maps
The Creator’s update adds
the inking feature to the
Photos app. This can be used
to quickly annotate pictures
to share on social media. To
annotate a picture, open the
To broadcast using Beam, sign in to your Microsoft account first.
Vol 17 | 21
You can’t draw without
selecting the “Touch writing”
tool first
photo using Photos app, click
on Draw and choose your
brush. Annotate your photo
and click on the Save button
to save a copy of that photo as
the annotated version.
Similarly, you can also
annotate in maps. Launch the
Maps app, click on the brush
button (Windows Ink toolbar)
located at the top-right corner
of the screen. Select the brush
you want to use followed by
the brush colour and the size.
To start drawing, select the
“Touch writing” button from
the menu.
Broadcast
your game
The new update has also
added the ability to broad-
cast your game using Beam.
This makes it easy to broad-
cast your game without using
any extra software. Addition-
ally, Beam’s low-latency tech-
nology enables broadcasters
to stream their gameplay
without experiencing lag. To
broadcast a game, open the
game bar (Windows key +
G) while playing a game and
click on Broadcast.
Tips & Tricks
ENCRYPT
EVERYTHING!
Your
smartphone
To set up encryption on your
Android phone, go to Set-
tings > Security and
click ‘Encrypt phone’. It’s a
fairly long process so be pre-
pared to wait. Do note, the
only option to recover is to
factory reset your phone. On
an iPhone, go to Settings >
Touch ID & Passcode >
Turn Passcode On. You can
add longer numerical pass-
codes by selecting Passcode
Options > Custom Numeric
Code. You can also a custom
alphanumeric code from the
same menu.
Rebooting your phone with a
20 char password isn’t fun
Your calls
Whatsapp calls are
end-to-end encrypted by
default, meaning that no one
else, not even Whatsapp can
listen in. If you prefer some-
thing with a bit more of secu-
rity focus, Signal from Open
Whisper systems is a great
alternative. As a bonus, both
of these apps support video
calls as well and are avail-
able on both Android and
iOS devices.
Your texts
Unlike calls, regular
cellular texts can be encrypted
May 2017 | Digit
Tips & Tricks
using Signal, only if the other
party has it installed. You can
set it up to be your default SMS
app its encryption algorithms
automatically apply to your
texts to other people without
you having to do anything.
iPhone users have nothing to
worry about as iMessage has
encryption built in. Moving
onto IMs, most major appli-
cations like Whatsapp, Tel-
egram (secret chats are more
secure than regular chats),
Signal and BBM, all have end
This small unassuming message is
actually one of the biggest milestones
in digital privacy
to end encryption baked in.
You can also set autodestruct
messages on platforms like
Facebook Messenger, Tel-
egram and Signal to achieve
even more privacy, if required.
Your hard
drive
If you have sensitive informa-
tion of any sort on your hard
drive, you should really take
the time to encrypt it. We
highly recommend Verac-
Please do remember that there’s a tiny magic ‘I messed up button’ on the back of your router
Digit | May 2017
rypt (http://dgit.in/VeraCrt). It’s
based on one of the stalwarts
of the encryption business,
TrueCrypt. If you are a Win-
dows 10 Pro user, you should
also take advantage of Win-
dow’s built in encryption tool,
BitLocker to do a standard full
drive encryption as well for
more security.
Your WLAN
Log on to 192.168.0.1
(or 192.168.1.1 if that doesn’t
work) and refer your rout-
er’s manual for
the authentication
details (or just use
a wired connection)
and navigate to the
security settings
page. If it’s just a
confusing jumble of
words, here’s a gen-
eral rule of thumb:
WEP, WPA, TKIP
are all outdated and aren’t as
secure as WPA2-AES. Also,
use a six letter password at the
minimum. For added security,
you can also make the SSID
not broadcast which means
you have to manually enter
in the SSID and password
on mobile devices (search
for an add network option),
while Windows shows the
network as Hidden Network.
Disable WPS, disable Guest
Networks, disable Remote
Vol 17 | 22
Administration and if you
are sure that only a select
few devices are going to be
connecting to your network,
disable Dynamic Host Con-
trol Protocol or DHCP (you’ll
have to manually assign an IP
to each of your devices from
your router’s DHCP range).
As a last step, change your
router’s internal IP to some-
thing more obscure than
192.168.xxx.xxx.
Your email
If you use your
browser as your mail client,
all your mails are automati-
cally encrypted by your
email host (mostly), and
have an HTTPS layer on top.
But continuing in our pur-
suit for better security, you
should consider switching
to a standalone mail clients
like Outlook or Thunder-
bird. Do note that the other
person needs to have your
digital signature to decrypt
your messages, so look up
your client’s documentation
to find out the specifics.
Your internet
traffic
VPNs are really helpful to
hide who you are and where
you are from literally eve-
ryone, making your browsing
more secure and private.
There are tons of options to
choose from (read Agent 001’s
article on his hunt for a robust
VPN). We recommend Bole-
hVPN (https://www.bolehvpn.
net) that even has a free trial
you could try out. And add
in another layer of security
by downloading Tor Browser
(https://www.torproject.org). It
is essentially a browser that
obfuscates your browsing data
by using other TOR nodes so
that no one can essentially pin-
point to your data.
Your files
If other alternatives
such as encrypting a drive
aren’t feasible you consider
Axcrypt (https://www.axcrypt.
net) that offers 128-bit AES
encryption for the free ver-
sion and integrated shell sup-
port for Windows so that it is
extremely easy to use.
Your
documents
You can encrypt your docu-
ments right from your word
processor. In the Microsoft
Office Suite, go to File >
Info > Protect Document
> Encrypt with pass-
word to encrypt your pres-
entations, datasheets and docs
with a password. In Open
Office, go to File > Save
as and search for Save With
Password in the box near the
bottom of the dialog.
Your .zip
archives
Alternatively, you can add
your files, documents, pic-
tures to a zip file and encrypt
it using your archiving man-
ager. If you have 7-zip, right
click on a file and click Add
to Archive. Set up your secu-
rity options (AES-256 is the
most robust) and set your
password. You can then add
further files to this particular
archive and it’ll be automati-
cally secured.
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 INSIDE

Page 58

Bazaar
HIFIMAN HE560

THE LATEST PRODUCTS Page 59

REVIEWED FOR YOU ASUS

GL553VD

The Digit Test Centre receives hundreds of products Page 61

every month. Each of these products is put through Sony Xperia XZs
Page 60
a series of tests and is finally given a score. The ZOTAC GTX
final score is arrived at after considering a number 1080 Ti AMP!
of factors and evaluating them in terms of features, Extreme
performance, value for money, build quality, and, in
the case of software, even ease of use.

For better understanding of our ratings, here’s a

quick guide to our overall score
10 to 30 Extremely poor product.
Keep away!

31 to 50 Strictly OK.
Not recommended Page 63
Bose QuietComfort 35

51 to 70 Decent product.
Page 65
Go for it, but there may be better products out there.
Samsung
Galaxy S8/S8+
71 to 90 Very good product.
Highly recommended.

Ground-breaking product.
91 to 100
We’ve never seen anything like it before. PLUS
A definite must buy!
58 | iBall CompBook i360
60 | Moto G5
62 | GIGABYTE AORUS GTX 1080 Ti 11G
62 | Oppo F3 Plus
63 | MuveAcoustics Drive
64 | TP-Link WA-820RE Wi-Fi Range Extender
64 | Gionee A1
& MORE...

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 57


Bazaar
iBall CompBook
i360
Beast of a battery but needs more
performance
W
ith this device,
iBall is trying
to raise the bar
by offering a
convertible option at such
an affordable price point. Its
screen rotates all the way
transforming the laptop into
a 11.6-inch touchscreen tablet.
It’s a decent device with a
few minor annoyances. For
64
Performance............................57
Features ....................................55
Value ..........................................90
Design: .......................................55
Specifications
Processor: Intel Atom Processor
Z8300 @ 1.84 GHz; Display: 11.6-
inch capacitive touch; Resolution:
1366x768; Storage: 32GB
In-built, expandable up to 64GB
via microSD; Ram: 2 GB DDR3
RAM; Battery: 10,000 mAh Li-
Polymer battery; Weight: 1.35 kg;
Dimensions: 29.7 x 20.2 x 1.7 cm
Contact
iBall India
Phone: 022 - 30815100
Email: NA
Website: www.iball.co.in
58 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Build a Lego Macintosh
Programmer Jannis Hermanns builds himself a
Lego Macintosh Classic that works and he wants
you to build one too! http://dgit.in/legoMAC
Price99
12,9
instance you have to manu-
ally kill the keyboard using
a switch before flipping to
tablet mode. This should’ve
been automatic. Moving on to
ergonomics and performance,
the keyboard is not very com-
fortable to type on because of
its proximity to the touchpad.
Accidental touches were
common. There’s no ethernet
port, which is normal for
laptops in this segment. How-
ever, we would have appre-
ciated an ethernet-to-USB
adapter with the laptop. The
iBall i360 runs on an Intel
Atom x5-Z8300 SoC which
scored 1285, 1384, and 1142
respectively on the PCMark
Home accelerated, Creative
accelerated and Work acceler-
ated benchmarks – adequate
for a device such as the i360
which should ideally be used
primarily for light tasks like
browsing and Office. If you’re
looking for a economical
laptop just for basic needs you
might have other options, but
if it’s a budget 2-in-1 you want
and you just need to have that
touch interface, then the iBall
isn’t too bad.
Manish Rajesh
Bugs VS maple
Scientists in Canada are experimenting with
a molecule found in maple syrup, and they’re
getting positive results. http://dgit.in/MapleBug
HIFIMAN
HE560 Price41
A rare pleasure 61,9
T
he HIFIMAN
HE560 is a beauti-
fully crafted, open-
backed, planar mag-
netic headphone, designed
for reference use. Unlike
regular dynamic drivers
wherein the diaphragm is
pushed by the moving coil
behind it, planar magnetic
diaphragms are encased headband give them a
within opposing magnets sophisticated look. Though
and the entire wafer thin I wish HIFIMAN had paid a
diaphragm itself is electri- little more attention towards
cally charged with conduc- the finishing and build.
tive material to make it move. The cushioned earpads are
This makes them durable very comfortable while the
(less movement), more sensi- headband provides adequate
tive, and – to apply a display support. The clamping pres-
tech term – their refresh sure is a little on the tighter
rate is very fast. This makes side but not uncomfortable.
planar magnetics super accu- The HIFIMAN HE560 is a
rate and more responsive. delightfully detailed aural
The HE560s are very experience. Apart from the
easy on the eyes. The wood regular test tracks, I wanted
finish ear cups, the smooth to literally put every piece
metal frame and pleather of music I owned through
these cans just to see what
new detail I will be able
to discover, or what little
90
previously missed nuance
would rise to the surface. The
24bit/96kHz fully uncom-
Performance...........................92
pressed nuforce test samples
Features .................................. 80 I’ve had with me for the past
Build & Design ........................78 five years never sounded this
Value .........................................70 good. I don’t want to gush
but the dynamic range on the
Specifications HE560 is phenomenal. Their
Frequency Response: 15Hz- sound signature is very close
50KHz; Sensitivity: 90dB;
Impedance: 45 Ohms; Weight: to neutral with supremely
375g; Cable Length: 2m; Plug: tight bass. If you can afford
6.35mm; Style: Open Back; Driver them, and if you have a
Type: Planar Magnetic sufficiently high end source
to pair them with, there is
Contact
ProAudioHome absolutely no reason why
Phone: (022) 65611833 you shouldn’t go for them.
Website: proaudiohome.com Siddharth Parwatay
 Call of Duty WWII
The next Call of Duty is officially heading back
to World War II after disappointing feedback
from Infinite Warfare. http://dgit.in/CODwwII
ASUS GL553VD Gaming Laptop
Gaming on a good budget
B
eing members of the #PCMasterRace,
we don’t generally approve of gaming
laptops and it certainly gets on our nerves
when folks ask for a gaming laptop under
`30K(such a thing doesn’t exist). But if you want
to game on a laptop and wish to have a good time
while you’re at it, then the GTX 1050 is the bare
minimum you should be looking at. The ASUS
GL553 has two variants out in the market at the
moment, the GL553VD and GL553VE, we’ve had
the pleasure of trying out both and we prefer the
one with the 1050 Ti (the E variant).
Build
The GL553VD is not overly heavy and at the
same time doesn’t compromise on the hardware
it packs in. The keypad has chiclet keys with
ample amount of spacing between individual keys
making it easy to use compared to the average
laptop keyboard and there’s a different texture to
the touchpad as well. But who uses the touchpad
for gaming? The keyboard supports 30-key
rollover which is more than sufficient for any
gamer. Even a StarCraft player with insane APM
wouldn’t feel bottlenecked on this system. Another
neat thing about the keyboard is the fact that the
arrow keys jut out a little. So it’s easier to get your
bearing without looking down. The spacebar, too,
has a little protrusion towards the bottom.
The CPU and GPU use the same heatpipes
which isn’t something we like. However, they’ve
kept the right edge of the laptop devoid of any
vents which is a good thing as while gaming your
hand isn’t bearing the brunt of hot air blasting
through them. We’ve seen certain high-end
gaming laptops make this silly mistake of placing
cooling vents on the right side. Ideally, we prefer
exhaust vents on the rear and intake vents on
the bottom. A good thing about the ports on the
GL553 is their placement. They’re placed on the
sides alright, but more towards the user. The USB
Type-C and headphone jack, especially, benefit
the most since most cables are either no more than
three feet in length so you don’t have to slouch over
the laptop which you’d otherwise have to do had
the audio jack been towards the rear.
Features
As with most gaming laptops these days, the ROG
GL553VD comes with software that allows you
Cassini’s final mission
NASA’s Cassini mission will enter its final phase
this month. Studying Saturn more closely than
ever before burning out. http://dgit.in/Cassini2 Bazaar
Price90
94,9
to tweak various
aspects such as the fan
speed profiles, keyboard illumination patterns
and performance profiles. ASUS Gaming Center
has a pretty easy to understand UI and we spent
quite a bit of time playing around with the dif-
ferent patterns. Aside from that, we didn’t find
anything that stood out about the GL553.
The display panel on the GL553 is pretty
good for a laptop. For starters, it scored 100%
in the sRGB colour gamut but the maximum
81
brightness level only hit up 273 lux which isn’t
particularly bad, however, it’s lower than some
of the competing units from MSI which gener-
ally score around 290.
Performance...............77
Features .......................86
Performance Build ............................. 80
Performance wise you’ll be scoring above 30
FPS in most games while running at Very High Specifications
settings. Just don’t switch to a ridiculous level of Processor: Intel Core
anti-aliasing, FXAA and you should be just fine. i7 7700HQ; Platform:
Unigine Valley scored around 45 FPS average HM175; RAM: 8 GB
across the benchmark and FireStrike scored 2400 MHz; Screen Size
- 15.6-inches; Screen
5523. If we were to switch out the GTX 1050 for Resolution: 1920x1080;
a 1050 Ti then the FireStrike score would jump GPU: 1050 4 GB; SSD:
to approximately 7900. In games, Doom scored 128 GB;
about 42 FPS on max while Overwatch hit 54 HDD: 1 TB 7200 RPM;
FPS on ultra settings. So you’ll have to tone Battery: 4-Cell 48 Whr;
AC Adapter: 120 W;
things down a little to hit 60 FPS. Overall, the Weight: 2.5 Kg
new GTX 10 series of graphics cards have really
given gaming laptops a much needed shot in the Contact
arm. The GL553 competes with the likes of the ASUS Technology Pvt.
MSI GP and GE series and they’re competitive Ltd.
Phone: +18002090365
in terms of features. It’s just the price that makes Email: reachus@asus.
the competition seem all the more appealing. com
Mithun Mohandas Website: www.asus.in
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 59

Bazaar
ZOTAC GeForce Moto G5
GTX 1080 Ti Dependable, but not the best
AMP! Extreme
To ‘Ti’de you over till Volta
comes along
Y
ou might be miffed
at seeing two
NVIDIA flagships
coming out back to
back but the GTX 1080 Ti
sure is a beast. The ZOTAC
GeForce GTX 1080 sports
the highest clocks that we’ve
seen on any 1080 Tis that
have graced our Test Centre
with a base clock of 1645
MHz and boost clock of
1759 MHz. And unlike the
current trend of forcing you
80
Performance............................90
Build ...........................................75
Value for Money ......................75
Specifications
CUDA Cores: 3584; Texture
Units: 224; ROPs: 88; Core Clock:
1645 MHz; Boost Clock: 1759 Mhz;
Memory Clock: 11.2 GHz; Memory
Bus Width: 352-bit; VRAM: 11 GB;
TDP: 320 W; Warranty: 5 Years.
Contact
Aditya Infotech Ltd.
Phone: +120-4555666
Email: sales@adityagroup.com
Website: www.zotac.com
60 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Chinese cargo reaches space
China’s first automated cargo spacecraft
successfully docked with the country’s Tiangong-2
space station http://dgit.in/ChinaCargo
Price99
70,T9ax)
(+
to switch between profiles
using a separate software,
ZOTAC has gone ahead and
dropped multiple profiles. So
you get the best performing
profile out of the box.
Coming to the build
quality, the card is protected
from all fronts thanks to
the protective backplate
that extends over the sides.
ZOTAC’s Spectra lighting
has improved since we last
checked it out and now sup-
ports the full RGB spectrum.
But we’re still not fans (see
what we did there?) of the
2.5 slot thickness. We also
noticed the FireStorm soft-
ware acting up during testing
but were assured that a fix
would have been released
soon. Performance wise, it
has been the fastest with most
games running at greater
than 60 FPS in our test suite.
And the overclock helps out
since we did clock 8 extra FPS
in Rise of the Tomb Raider
over the reference GTX 1080
Ti. It is a little pricier than the
competition but you get five
years warranty which is also
greater than the competition.
Mithun Mohandas
Conflict detector wearable?
Several researchers join forces for a study aimed
to detect conflict in couples before it occurs using
wearable technology. http://dgit.in/Conflictwear
T
he Moto G5 is
a good overall
smartphone, and
has something
to offer for everyone. It
isn’t the most well-built
smartphone, but is
definitely one of
the most ergo- Price99
nomic. It doesn’t 11,9
have the most
vibrant display
to consume content,
but isn’t bad either. The
display is visible in the
sun, and everyday perfor-
mance is acceptable. The
buit-in speaker isn’t loud
and if you want to watch
content, we suggest using
headphones. The 16GB camera clicks good photos
storage is a downer too. We producing decent colours
do not recommend anyone and overall details. Having
to buy a phone with 16GB said that, there are times
storage, unless all you need when the colour accuracy
is calling, basic messaging is off, with warm colours
apps and internet access. looking undersaturated.
Heavy games showed some If extra long battery
framerate issues, but the life is a priority, you can
games were still playable. consider the Xiaomi Redmi
For well lit situations, the Note 4 or even the Redmi
3s. If a good camera is
what you are looking for,
70
the Honor 6X is your pick,
while the Redmi Note 4
is the one for those who
demand performance. The
Features ....................................66
Moto G5, meanwhile, is for
Design ........................................78
those looking for an ergo-
Performance............................70
nomic smartphone that is
Value ..........................................60
dependable on everyday
basis. It’s compact, has
Specifications
Display: 5.0-inch FHD; decent battery stamina,
Platform: Qualcomm MSM8937 offers stock-like Android
Snapdragon 430; RAM: 3GB; interface and has an aura
ROM: 16GB; Battery: 2800mAh; of assurance. It isn’t the
Camera: 13MP
best smartphone at around
Contact 10k, but is one that you can
Phone: 1-800-419-6686 depend on as per need.
Website: https://goo.gl/odfJJx Sameer Mitha
 Critical flaw in IoT
A couple of critical vulnerabilities in CODESYS
Web Server could lead to making many IoT
devices vulnerable. http://dgit.in/IOTflaw
Sony Xperia XZs
Just short of great
T
he Sony Xperia XZs is
the company’s latest
flagship smartphone in
India, and is the first to
unveil staggering slow motion
videos at 960fps. It uses the new
sensor with 19-megapixel effective
resolution at 4:3 pillarboxing,
along with an f/2.0 G lens and
a faster BIONZ X image pro-
cessor. The slow motion videos
produced by the Xperia XZs,
however, are erratic. With ample
light in natural environments, the
Sony Xperia XZs shoots stun-
ning slow motion videos with no
interpolation and stutters, and is
a significant visual upgrade over
the 120fps and 240fps slow mo
videos produced by phones so far.
However, the algorithms
struggle with shutter speed adjustment
under fluorescent light due to flicker rate,
and produce too much noise in low light.
This limits places where you can use this mode.
The regular camera performance is signifi-
cantly improved, with the predictive shooting
coming into play when you are shooting in
motion. Autofocus speed is also significantly
faster, and all of these features make use of the
higher DRAM in the stacked CMOS sensor to
give a fast, smooth main camera. Colours are
vibrant, offer high contrast and are well-detailed,
and high dynamic range helps deeper range of
colours and more details even in shadows. How-
ever, the slight strains of oversaturation cannot
be ignored. Low light shooting, however, tends to
produce more noise in Auto mode than optimum,
which is the only loose end here.
The Sony Xperia XZs retains the same design
as previous Xperia smartphones, which is a
good thing. The 5.2-inch smartphone is light and
ergonomic to hold. Button placement is also well-
thought out and makes the phone easy to use.
The sharp corners, however, will get chipped in
mild drops, and the smooth metal surface along
with rounded edges do not aid grip.
The display is crisp and bright, producing
705 lux of luminance, which is appreciable.
The vibrant colours make video streaming and
Doomsday Vault expanding
Almost a decade after the original Svalbard seed
vault opened its doors, Norway’s Doomsday vault
is being expanded http://dgit.in/VaultExpand Bazaar
gaming a great experience. Touch
response is smooth and fluid,
and the updated Xperia UI with
Android Nougat retains all the
goodness and the finesse of glass
effects along with a few optimisa-
tions. The UI allows you to adjust
the display’s colours manually
with an RGB toggle, and override
presets by choosing to use the
X-Reality Mobile display engine.
Other UI optimisations include
Xperia Actions - a deep-inte-
grated assistant that works in the
background and suggests predic-
tive actions for tasks that you
usually do at a certain time, every
day. It is non-intrusive and acts
smoothly, and can be controlled
manually any time.
e Powered by an underclocked
Pric 90
4 9 , 9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC at
1.6GHz, 4GB RAM and 64GB native
storage, the Sony Xperia XZs provides
smooth overall performance despite running
on a year-old processor. Most everyday apps like
WhatsApp, Instagram, Gmail, Facebook and
79
Chrome load without any delay at first, although
with more than five apps open you get slight
delays that are noticeable enough for discerning
users. Gameplay is smooth and seamless, and
although the device does heat up a bit, the Features .......................57
interior heat pipes ensure device temperature Performance............... 81
remains with 41 degrees even after 30 minutes Design ........................... 91
of gaming. The 2900mAh battery on the Sony Value .............................77
Xperia XZs is supported by Qualcomm Quick-
Charge 3.0 for fast charging and Qnovo Adaptive Specifications
Processor: Qualcomm
Charging to protect longevity. This programs Snapdragon 820; RAM:
the device to charge fast up to 90 percent in 45 4GB; Storage: 64GB,
minutes, after which it cuts off power supply to expandable; Primary
maintain battery health. The device lasts for 13 camera: 19MP with
hours of average real time usage with intensive 960fps slow motion;
Front camera: 13MP;
tasks, and a daily charge is necessary. Display: 5.2-inch, Full
Despite being a fine smartphone with few HD; Battery: 2900mAh,
flaws, the Sony Xperia XZs now runs on a pro- Qualcomm QuickCharge
cessor that has already lived a year of its life cycle. 3.0
The phone still offers sublime end-user experi-
Contact
ence, but with new flagships being launched, it Phone: 1800-103-7799
becomes hard to recommend at `49,990. Website: https://www.
Souvik Das sonymobile.com/in/
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 61
 Final Fantasy on Netflix Drinking sea water
Final Fantasy 14: Daddy of Light, a TV show You may soon be able to drink seawater using
based on the game is premiering worldwide on a graphene oxide-based filter thanks to a
Bazaar Netflix this fall. http://dgit.in/FF14netflix team of scientists. http://dgit.in/DrinkSea

GIGABYTE Oppo F3 Plus

AORUS GeForce The best selfie phone
GTX 1080 Ti 11G
T
he Oppo F3 Plus
claims to be the
A little extra dose of copper on the “Selfie expert” and
it is indeed one. The
back phone offers two cameras at
the front with one dedicated
wide angle camera for group
selfies or “groupfies”.
Having two cameras
at the front allows
the phone to shoot Price90
30,9
‘bokeh’ selfies as well.
The image quality is
Price
NA quite good and it captures

I
t’s not just made much bigger
the branding than before. Except,
that’s new with the one on the front actu-
the GIGABYTE ally makes a difference. This
AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 card too takes up 2.5 slots
Ti 11G, they’ve made some which is a bummer. This
interesting changes with unit has GIGABYTE’s VR
the cooler design as well. link feature which puts an
For starters, they’ve added HDMI port on the front of
a copper block right behind the card but the box does not
the GPU which is supposed contain the 3.5-inch drive
to help with the cooling. bay dock for making use
Then there’s the copper base of the VR Link feature. So
plate for the main cooling that’s an additional purchase
assembly which has been you’ll have to make to use
the feature. As for the VRM
circuitry, it has a 12+2 power
most details. The colour
saturation is decent and
reasonably consistent across
varied light situations. Image
quality of the 8MP groupfie
camera is as expected lower
than the 16MP sensor, but it is
still good.
The smartphone’s pho- tions. Images taken by the
tography strengths extend to rear camera look sharp, with
the rear camera as well. The well-balanced colours and
16MP Sony IMX398 sensor at some visible noise.
the back has the capability to The design is nothing new
shoot some really nice images and the F3 Plus looks way
in almost all lighting condi- too similar to most devices
out there in the same price
category. The build quality

80 phase design, which helps in

maintaining high overclocks.
Performance wise, it is
Performance............................89 better off than the reference
card thanks to its better over-
Build ...........................................75
clock but when pitted against
Value for Money ......................75
the ZOTAC card above, it’s
Specifications a tad behind. It’s still a GTX
CUDA Cores: 3584; Texture 1080 Ti so you can easily
Units: 224; ROPs: 88; Core Clock: game on 4K resolution with
1594 MHz; Boost Clock: 1708 Mhz;
reckless abandon. There’s
Memory Clock: 11 GHz; Memory
Bus Width: 352-bit; VRAM: 11 GB; another SKU from GIGA-
TDP: 320 W; Warranty: 3 Years. BYTE, the Xtreme version
with even better clock speeds,
Contact improved cooling and an
GIGABYTE Technology additional year of warranty
Phone: +919810494944
Email: mayank.sharma@
(as per the website). So we’d
gigabyte.com, skip this one in favour of that.
Website: http://www.gigabyte.in Mithun Mohandas
74
Features ....................................66
Performance............................76
Value ..........................................73
Design ........................................78
Specifications
SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 653;
RAM: 4GB; Internal Storage:
64GB; Display: 6-inch 1080p;
OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow;
Battery: 4000mAh
Contact
Oppo India
Phone: 1800-103-2777
Email: service@oppomobile.in
Website: http://www.oppo.com/in/
is good as well and so is the
large 6-inch 1080p display.
Performance is handled
by the Qualcomm Snap-
dragon 653 SoC, which does
a decent job for the price, but
still lacks the punch of the
Snapdragon 821 powered
Oneplus 3T. That being said,
the 4000mAh battery pro-
vides enough juice to provide
you 24 hours of usage.
Overall, The Oppo F3 Plus
is the best selfie-centric smart-
phone we have tested so far. It
performs well, has decent bat-
tery life, but a larger footprint
may not suit everyone.
Hardik Singh

62 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 First ‘flying car’ test flight Free decryption tool
Lilium Jet’s new all-electric two-seater, vertical Bitdefender has developed a tool to decrypt files
take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype take its first that have been encrypted by the Bart ransomware.
test flight in Germany. http://dgit.in/LilliumJet Learn more: http://dgit.in/BartCrypt Bazaar

Bose QuietComfort 35
Quaint, comfortable

83
Performance...............93
Features .......................88
Design .......................... 80
Value ............................ 60
Specifications
Operating principle:
Closed system, Weight:
235 grams, Range: 10m,
Battery Life: 12 hours,
Cables included: 3.5mm
aux, microUSB charging
Contact
Phone: 1800-102-2673
Website: https://www.
boseindia.com
T
he Bose QuietComfort 35 is a pair
of premium active noise cancel-
lation headphones that are
aimed at the higher ranges of
mainstream premium personal audio
gear. True to its name, the audio
delivery is not particularly enthusi-
astic or peppy, but is smooth, warm
and comfortable. The headphones
maintain great consistency and
composure of audio delivery across
most genres, with well-calibrated
low frequency performance, sharp
and clear mids, and slightly conserva-
tive highs.
The bass produced is well-defined,
but is not overpowering. The mids are
reasonably sharp, but needed a little more
emphasis to be pitch perfect. It sounds good
across octaves and vocal ranges, but is a tad
subdued on overall terms. The highs are the
best bit, being well-measured, and
well-detailed. The overall warmth
in audio enables comfortable
listening, and the sweet timbre
adds to the plush audio here.
Good soundstaging here is further
combined with smooth active noise
cancellation to ensure that you get
an expansive field of listening, and
does not induce claustrophobia.
The noise cancellation is cali-
brated to add comfort to the listener
and not isolate the person, which is
a good element here. The headphones
Price63 are heavier than its predecessor, but are
29,3 fairly robust. Good connectivity range of
over 40 feet and nearly 11 hours of play-
back time sum up the Bose QC35. Overall, it
makes for the most optimally balanced pre-
mium headphones to buy in India.
Souvik Das

MuveAcoustics Drive
Decent sound, but tips are bad

T
he Virat Kohli fronted brand MuveA-
coustics makes audio gear aimed at the
youth. To start off, the Drive in-ear is
available in Black, Blue and White. The
blue unit that we received definitely looks nice
although they don’t really inspire too much con-
fidence in terms of build – being extremely light
– but they are definitely not flimsy.
An interesting thing about the drive
was the elaborate box that they came
in. If some of that effort and money
would have been put into bundling a
hardcase, it would’ve helped.
The flat tangle free cords are a
plus. The translucent silicon tips
go with the design but hamper the
performance. The material lacks
the flexibility and the springiness
Price9
needed to create a good seal. It’s quite
179
thin too. Since getting a good seal is
difficult, the bass performance suffers
because of the tips. The in-line remote and
microphone work well enough. The sound
signature on the Drive is bright and sparkly. On
some of the bass heavy tracks you quickly notice 62
the low end is lacking. But that could also be
because finding a good seal with those paper-
like tips is so difficult. The passive isolation is Features ...................... 48
pretty bad too because the tips are Performance.............. 66
unable to create a good seal. On Build ..............................65
Chris Rea’s Call On Me the vocals Value .............................77
seemed recessed. The Muve Acous-
tics Drive (MA-1000SB) isn’t a bad Specifications
Driver size: 8 mm;
sounding in-ear headphone by any
Frequency Response: 20
measure. It isn’t particularly great Hz-20 kHz; Impedance: 16
either. In fact a few critical flaws ohm; Weight: 15.3 g
like the low flexibility silicon tips
and non-inclusion of a hardcase Contact
MuveAcoustics
take away major points. We recom-
Phone: +91-22-6736-8877
mend you spend another `200 and go
Twitter: @MuveAcoustics
for the E10C or Twinwoofers M 2.0. Website: http://www.
Arnab Mukherjee muveacoustics.com

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 63


Bazaar
TP-Link WA-
820RE Wi-Fi
Range Extender
Portable and adjustable
T
he current crop of
wireless extenders
are quite bulky to
begin with but the
TP-Link WA-820RE has
that problem solved. How? It
runs off USB power and that
too it’s designed for a power
envelope not exceeding
2.5W so you can use it with
USB 2.0 ports as well. The
installation is pretty easy
and there’s even an app
available should you feel the
need to migrate to a different
network or kick unwanted
leechers. After all, anyone
who has physical access can
make their way onto the
network using WPS. And
extenders aren’t so easy to
access post configuration
so kicking unwanted users
required a decent under-
75
Performance............................76
Features ....................................74
Build Quality ............................75
Specifications
Antenna: 2x external; Protocols:
802.11 b/g/n; Bandwidth:
300(300@2.4GHz) Mbps;
Transmit Power: <18dBm;
Ethernet: NA; Dimensions:
89.41x 36.6 x 14.3 mm; Warranty:
3 years.
Contact
TP-LINK India Private Limited,
Phone: 1800 209 4168,
Email: www.tp-link.in,
Website: sales.in@tp-link.com
64 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Future of monetization
Judging by Facebook’s F8 conference, machine
intelligence is the future of monitization. More
here: http://dgit.in/FBmonitize
Price9
1,37
standing of networking but
with the app, it’s easy. The
unit is lightweight and has
vents on the sides to help
cool off but the LED can be
a bit distracting with the
lights out. Thankfully, the
app has an option to turn
that off as well.
We weren’t expecting
that good of a performance
with the WA-820RE since
it was built to run off of
USB power but we were
pleasantly surprised to see
it work at par with those
extenders that run off of
AC main power. The catch
here is that you have to stick
with 2.4 GHz so bandwidth
isn’t great. It’s a decent
solution for setting up an
ad-hoc extender absolutely
anywhere since all you need
is an accessible network
nearby and a powerbank to
get this started. Moreover,
the foldable antenna helps
with minor adjustments to
get better reception. It may
lack the 5 GHz band and
have no ethernet ports but
the unit is priced appropri-
ately for the feature set.
Mithun Mohandas
Games help the brain
Researchers have found that videogames can
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Gionee A1
Good camera, but not the overall
package
T
he Gionee A1 is the
company’s new
flagship smart-
phone. The prime
selling point with the A1 is
the 16MP front-facing
camera and it does
produce good
Price99
images. Although, 19,9
skin tones are still
softened to make
faces look brighter, and
sharp edges and coarse tex-
tures also produce softness
to smoothen out blemishes.
The rear 13MP camera
on the Gionee A1 is a fairly
competent package as well.
It uses a Sony IMX258
sensor, which produces as oversaturated as most
vibrant colours and good AMOLED panels. In addi-
dynamic range, along with tion, Gionee’s Amigo OS pro-
fairly accurate white bal- vides you with a colourful
ance in daylight conditions. interface and bright icons as
The 5.5-inch AMOLED well as the iOS-like settings
display adds to the pros of menu, which is fairly intui-
the device. Colours look tive to use. The Gionee A1
fairly natural, and are not is powered by a MediaTek
Helio P10 SoC. The octa-core
SoC is clocked at 2GHz and
66
does a decent job in overall
day-to-day performance,
with most lightweight apps
loading fairly smoothly.
Features ....................................68 Gaming experience is a little
Performance............................62 inconsistent though.
Value ..........................................52 The weakest link of the
Design ........................................79 Gionee A1 however is the
battery life, which lasts
Specifications about a work day, but you do
SoC: MediaTek Helio P10; RAM: expect more from a battery
4GB; Internal Storage: 64GB;
Display: 5.5-inch 1080p; OS: this size.
Android 7.0 Nougat; Battery: Overall, the Gionee A1
4010mAh is a decent smartphone that
has a good display, offers
Contact acceptable performance for
Gionee India
Phone: 18002081166 lightweight usage, and a
Email: gcare@gionee.co.in very competent camera.
Website: https://gionee.co.in/ Hardik Singh
 Giant robots battle
The giant robot duel of your mecha-dreams
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Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+
Bent to impress
F
rom the Note Edge to the Galaxy S8,
Samsung seems to have settled on a func-
tionality for its curved screen - to make
its phones look good despite obvious
repercussions. The company’s tryst with glass
continues this year in its best design so far.
The first thing you notice about the Galaxy
S8 and S8+ is obviously their design. The curved
edges (front and back) and glass on both sides
reeks premiumness. But more importantly,
there’s much more finesse in terms of UI design.
Touchwiz is now called the Samsung Experi-
ence and it feels lighter and is tastefully done.
Icons and notifications look stylish and Sam-
sung has fixed some issues too.
For example, notification icons appear just
before where the screen curves, while the game
tools icon is integrated into the on-screen keys,
instead of a floating bubble. As you probably
know already, there’s a pressure sensitive home
button below the screen, and you get used to it
very easily.
The Galaxy S8 is all about ergonomics. It’s
5.8-inch Univisium display is tall and narrow,
making the phone itself more ergonomic. Even
smaller hands would be able to reach across
the screen, making it decent for single-handed
usage. However, you still have to get used to the
slippery glass back on both of these phones.
That’s even more important on the Galaxy S8+,
which is far less ergonomic than the S8. It’s
compact for a 6.2-inch device, but really not
something we’d call ergonomic.
Speaking of ergonomics, that fingerprint
sensor was destined for disaster. It’s easier
to get used to on the Galaxy S8, but we found
ourselves using the pin very often on the bigger
device. Why use the pin? Because the Iris
Scanner and Face Unlock feature aren’t depend-
able enough to be used all the time. Both take a
second too long to be called seamless and often
do not work in lower light. We couldn’t even
register our iris on the S8+.
The best feature of the Galaxy S8, as with
many Samsung phones, is its display. QHD
resolution on both the devices makes them
sharp. More importantly, Samsung has toned
down colour oversaturation and touch perfor-
mance is excellent. We found a reddish tint on
the Galaxy S8+ from some angles, but the same
Gucci’s new alien models
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Price00
57m,9sung
(Sa
y S8)
Galax
Price00
67m,9sung
(Sa 8 Plus)
yS
Galax
84
didn’t happen on the S8. Also, you may see a Samsung Galaxy S8
slight rainbow effect where the screen curves, Features ...................... 60
but that’ll disappear if you turn off Edge Lighting Design .......................... 94
from Settings. Performance...............87
Univisium aspect ratio on phones is new, Value ............................. 81
so you’ll have to contend with black bars when
watching content, at least for now, since videos
83
and movies don’t follow this aspect ratio just
yet. Samsung has added a button on the recents
menu to stretch apps to full screen, which works
most of the time but makes some apps tough to
Samsung Galaxy S8
use. That’s probably why the company didn’t
Plus
forcefully fit all apps to the new display.
Features ....................... 61
Amongst other things that Samsung has
Design ...........................92
put on these devices, the Exynos 8895 is as fast
Performance.............. 90
as you’d expect from a flagship SoC. The 10nm
Value .............................72
chipset runs four of Samsung’s Mongoose cores
and four Cortex A53 cores. Benchmark scores
are amongst the highest we’ve ever seen, but
Specifications
Galaxy S8/S8 Plus
really, there’s not much that dazzles in terms of Display: 5.8-inch QHD/
performance. The Galaxy S8 phones are as fast 6.2-inch QHD; RAM: 4GB;
as flagships should be, and incrementally faster Storage: 64 GB; SoC:
than their predecessors. 2.5 GHz Exynos 8895
Both phones will give you just about a work octa-core; Battery:
3000 mAh/3500 mAh;
day’s worth of battery life. The PC Mark test Operating System:
puts the bigger phone at over 11 hours, while Android 7.0; Camera:
the S8 comes out to 8 hours. Samsung made no 12MP, f/1.7, dual-pixel
change to the camera, so that remains pretty
much what it was last time. Overall, the two Contact
Samsung India
phones are great and meant for those looking for Phone: 1800-40-7267864
a flagship worth showing off. Website: samsung.com
Prasid Banerjee Email: Web form
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 65
 Offline mode for Instagram Tesla bigger than Ford
During the F8 developers conference, Facebook According to stock valuation, Tesla now
confirmed that Instagram for Android would stands at $47.8 billion and is bigger than
Keyboards now work offline. http://dgit.in/offlineInsta Ford motors. http://dgit.in/TeslaFord

Abhijit Dey the next subsection, we’ve doesn’t matter whether man- ever, there’s no debate on
abhijit@digit.in tried to declutter all the jargon ufacturers call it a gaming the durability of mechanical

O
ur previous compar-
ison test of gaming
peripherals in the Jan
2017 issue took care of
the mouse. The comparison
explored gaming mice under
`6k, giving us a more detailed
perspective on the perfor-
mance that can be achieved
at different prices. We were
able to provide an objective
as well as a subjective ver-
dict on the various mice that
and focus on the most essen-
tial ones.
Given the absence of high-
quality equipment necessary
to evaluate keyboards objec-
tively, the comparison test is
more focused on the features
and build quality. The perfor-
mance of the keyboard was
given more of a subjective
assessment. For a detailed
description about the testing
process, you can refer to the
“How we tested” section.
keyboard or not. However,
keyboards christened with
the ‘gaming’ tag do offer addi-
tional features that you won’t
find on a generic keyboard.
Features such as extra keys
for macros, N-key rollover,
anti-ghosting, Windows key
lock, backlighting, extra tex-
tured/coloured keycaps, pro-
grammable keys using soft-
ware, etc., will give gamers an
extra edge in competitive and
productive scenarios.
keyboards. They will last
you longer than membrane
and even the recent hybrid
solutions. Catering to subjec-
tive preferences of gamers,
mechanical switches are
available in different fla-
vours or “feel”. The most
basic variants include tactile,
clicky, and linear, while dif-
fering in actuation points,
actuation force and travel
distance (Agent 001 had
already covered the techni-
calities of these keyboards
IMAGING: PETERSON PJ

were considered. This time, Before we talk about all

we are trying to achieve the
same with gaming keyboards.
Upon hearing about gaming
keyboards, it usually sounds
like marketing drivel, but in
WHAT IS A GAMING
KEYBOARD?
Let’s be clear on one thing.
You can play games on a
generic keyboard, and it
these features, let’s begin
with switch types. Certainly,
it boils down to personal
preference at the end while
picking switch types. How-
previously in the Feb 2017
issue, make sure you give it
a read). Cherry is the most
popular manufacturer of
durable mechanical switches

66 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 The ‘Superlaser’ concept The Last Jedi
Not as powerful as the Death Star, but we are The latest Star Wars VIII movie trailer is
now closer to merging multiple laser beams into a here. Luke Skywalker has finally spoken.
single powerful blast. http://dgit.in/Superlaser http://dgit.in/SWVIIIt Keyboards

HOW WE TESTED

T
esting rig and setup: Earlier, pro-
cessors weren’t powerful enough to
keep up with the load of multiple input
devices pushing instructions down its throat
while it was already busy processing other
instructions from the OS. Considering today’s
hardware, your processor won’t bottleneck
even if you attach multiple keyboards or
mice to it. However, to distance ourselves
from any form of bottlenecking, we tested
all the keyboards on the following rig:
• Motherboard: AsRock Z77 Extreme4
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
• GPU: MSI Gaming X Radeon RX470
• RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR3 16GB
• Monitor: Dell Professional P2312H
• Mouse: Zowie FK2
Since we didn’t want any inconsistencies
between different test runs we didn’t fiddle
with the power or BIOS settings. Everything
was set to default. The latest firmware was
updated on every keyboard before testing.
This involved either downloading it directly
from the official website or through the soft-
ware (if there was software support), and
then upgrading. The keyboard was placed
on a white hard plastic desk to test the anti-
slip capability of the rubber or plastic feet
on the bottom. Keyboards were connected
to a USB 2.0 port to avoid any compatibility
issues during the basic testing. Apart from
that, the keyboards were also operated
using USB 3.0 to verify whether there were
any issues.
Features evaluation: The keyboards
covered in this comparison test have a
wide gamut of features. We made an effort
throughout the test process to ensure all
the features that are currently offered in
keyboards were included in the scoring.
Subsequently, the most important or nec-
essary features for a gaming keyboard was
given more weightage than those features
which can be termed as luxury. For example,
maximum n-key rollover was given more
weightage than the number of lighting
modes possible in the keyboard. Hardware
features including the presence of USB and
audio passthrough, Windows-key lock, mul-
timedia buttons, etc., were covered to name
a few. Keyboards that had software support
were also given extra scores distributed over
a set of features such as changing the polling
rate, lighting modes, recording macros, etc.
Accessories such as a keycap puller, extra
keycaps, palm rest, carry pouches, etc., have
also been scored.
Build quality: As all the keyboards are
mechanical, most of them are sturdy. We
made sure that every part and component
of the keyboard was evaluated in terms of
build quality. Here we didn’t test how good
a particular component was and instead,
we scored based on the type of material
it used. For example, keycaps are usually
made from ABS or PBT plastic. To determine
the material, we dipped a cotton swab in
diluted Acetone and smudged it at the lower
edges of the keycaps. If the keycap is made
of ABS, the coating or upper paint dissolves
and gets smudged. For evaluation, we scored
the usage of ABS and not how good the
ABS material was on the keycap. Cherry
MX switches have been the gold standard
of mechanical switches and we also have
a few knock-off switches competing in this
test. We rated them based on their specifi-
cations since we don’t have the necessary
equipment to determine their durability over
extended periods of wear.
Verdict: In our comparison tests, we
give out three awards based on the final
scores obtained after evaluating the features
and build quality. Since we can’t objectively
determine the performance of the keyboard,
the Best Performer award is a weighted sum
of the features and build quality scores. This
award will be given to the keyboard that
obtains the highest score, revealing which
keyboard is best in an overall aspect. The
second award of Best Buy is given to the
product with the highest score/rupee ratio.
This award will help us determine which
keyboard balances itself by offering good
features and build quality at a proper price
point. The Editor’s Pick award is completely
subjective and dependent on the experience
of the reviewer. There can be several pos-
sibilities here and it might also be possible
that one product wins Editor’s Pick even
though they might have won one of the two
previously mentioned awards.

for keyboards and since
their patent ended, several
knock-offs have flooded the
market. These knock-offs are
comparatively cheaper and
have drastically dropped the
prices of mechanical key-
boards. The basic “feel” of
these switches are standard
(denoted by colour) with
every manufacturer (except
Razer), certainly a good thing
to avoid confusion. Although,
with enough experience you
will be able to observe the
little nuances between them.
The most common switches
are Red – linear, Blue – tac-
tile and clicky, and Brown
– tactile. Red switches are
directed towards gaming,
Blues are for typing whereas
Brown stands at the sweet
spot for both gamers and typ-
ists. Apart from preferences,
Cherry switches are highly
durable offering up to 50 mil-
lion keystrokes that should
last for a couple of decades.
Yes, decades! One thing to
note is that the durability is
only for the key switches and
not for the entire keyboard.
Your keyboard’s chassis or
keycaps will start wearing
off early but the switches
underneath will survive
longer. Clearly, durability
and a wide range of options
in switch types in mechanical
keyboards become a strong
parameter for a gaming key-
board. Analog and optical
technology for keyboard
switches are also being con-
sidered. Both of them are
based on the same mechan-
ical technology, but the way
input is registered by the key-
board is different. Going into
detail will require its own
in-depth story, but it’s inter-
esting to see new technolo-
gies coming up.
Coming over to the fea-
tures that distinguish a
gaming keyboard from a
generic one, the level of n-key
rollover is the most crucial.
N-key rollover is used to
denote how many keys can
be registered simultane-
ously by the keyboard. The
‘N’ is replaced by a number,
usually 3, 6, 10 or just N. ‘3’
denotes that a maximum of
three keys will be registered
simultaneously which goes
for any number replacing N.
If N-key rollover or NKRO
(sometimes full N-key roll-
over) is mentioned by the

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 67

 The real T- Rex Verily’s new smartwatch
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manufacturer, then the key-
board will register every
single key on the keyboard
simultaneously. To avoid
confusion, we’ll be referring
it to as full N-key rollover.
This is an important feature
for games that will require
multiple simultaneous key
presses. You should be fine
with 6 or 10-key rollover in
most of the games. Earlier,
full N-key rollover was lim-
ited to only PS/2 connectors
while USB ports supported a
maximum of 6-key rollover
(including six alphabet keys
and the four modifier keys).
This is not the case anymore.
We are yet to arrive at a situ-
ation where we actually
needed more than 6-key roll-
over in our daily gaming and
typing routine, hence this
was chosen as a minimum.
In certain game genres
such as MOBAs, extra keys
with macro capability to
assign abilities and item
buys make a huge difference
in competitive gameplay.
Mapping the entire process
of buying a particular item to
a single key is also favoured.
In FPS games, binds can also
be assigned to a single key
to save the pain of conven-
tionally going through two
or more steps. Not really
an essential feature, but it’s
always great to have.
Most of the keyboards,
even generic ones have
anti-ghosting capabilities
nowadays, and we’ve rarely
come across this error in
high-end keyboards.
Referred to as “Game
Mode” by some, the toggle
switch to disable the Win-
dows key(s) is a welcome fea-
ture. Gamers hate unwanted
Windows key triggers with a
passion that they don’t even
reserve for game bosses.
We are currently in an age
where even mousepads have
RGB lighting. Whether RGB
or non-RGB, backlighting on
a gaming keyboard is impor-
tant because you’ll be gaming
in a dark environment most
of the time (if you’re like us).
The brightness level is also
important and having dif-
ferent levels (turning it off
as well) is a welcome feature.
Lighting modes are simply a
gimmick and offer no func-
tional advantage, just aes-
thetics. RGB lighting can be
useful if your PC build fol-
lows a certain colour scheme
and you want your keyboard
to match that. Functionally,
you might imagine assigning
different colours to different
keys for games can be useful,
but most of the time you
wouldn’t be even looking
down at your keyboard.
Certain gaming key-
boards ship extra inter-
changeable keycaps for
WASD and 1234 keys. These
are essentially for FPS games
and you will also find inter-
changeable keycaps for
QWERDF for MOBAs. They
are either coloured, textured
or both, where the textured
option is always better.
The ability to reprogram
and reassign key functions
using a software is great for
productivity and gaming.
The software bundled with
a keyboard includes these
features with more customi-
sations. You can record com-
plex macros, remap key func-
tions, tweak the backlight,
etc., and all of these settings
can be saved to the keyboard
(if supported by hardware) in
different profiles. Although
it isn’t an important feature,
few keyboards include some
functions such as recording
macros, changing the back-
lighting, switching polling
rates, etc., right on the key-
board without any software.
Additional features such
as USB passthrough ports,
audio ports, mouse cable
holders, detachable cables,
and grooves for cable man-
agement are useful but more
of a luxury. In summary, here
are the essential features for a
gaming keyboard:
• Mechanical switch
• 6-key rollover or more
• 100% anti-ghosting
• Backlight support
Any keyboard that ful-
filled the above criteria was
considered a gaming key-
board and included in this
comparison test.
THE COMPETITION
Cooler Master MasterKeys
Pro S White LEDs
After having used 15-20 dif-
ferent mechanical keyboards,
we can say that their bright-
ness levels have been almost
the same. A white backplate
on the bottom, as seen on the
Corsair STRAFE RGB and
Razer BlackWidow Chroma
Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S White LEDs
V1, made them look brighter
and vibrant. However, the
LEDs on the MasterKeys Pro
S White LED variant is miles
ahead. The brightness on this
keyboard was so high that we
had to keep it on one lower
step than the brightest level
while in a well lit room but
in a dark room, we lowered
it by two. Being a tenkeyless
variant, it had the smallest
footprint or volume, even
compared to the tenkeyless
Corsair K63. This makes it the
most portable keyboard from
the bunch. Although it has
an included carrying pouch,
we would have appreciated
if it was of a greater quality
compared to the ones we see
in the HyperX Alloy FPS
or Gigabyte XK700. Sadly,
there’s no software support
for the keyboard but that
doesn’t restrict the necessary
features expected on a gaming
keyboard. Several functions
on the keyboard can be used
with modifier keys including
macro recording, setting up
profiles and shifting between
lighting modes. The same
level of customisation isn’t
possible on other keyboards
without software support.
At this price, you get all the
advantages of portability, cus-
tomisation and also genuine
Cherry MX Blue switches
packed inside. A detachable
cable only makes the key-
board more portable friendly.
Corsair K63
The Corsair K63 is the only
other tenkeyless variant in
this comparison. Speaking
of the footprint, the K63 is a
little broader because of the
dedicated multimedia, bright-
ness level and Windows lock
keys. You do get software sup-
port but in order to save all the

68 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 Tiny-care-terminal
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settings, you’ll always have to
keep the software running in
the background, as they can’t
be loaded onto the keyboard.
There are slots at the bottom
of the keyboard what looks
like slots for a palm rest. But
the company doesn’t pack
one in the box, nor does the
palm rest from the K70 series
fit the K63. Build quality is
almost the same in both the
keyboards, where the advan-
tage is the dedicated keys on
the K63. However, the Mas-
terKeys Pro S has a lower
price while offering slightly
better features than the K63,
ultimately giving it a superior
value for money. Only reason
you should look into the K63
is if you’re a Corsair loyalist
and want customisation
options through software.
Corsair K70 RGB and
K70 Lux RGB
The K70 line-up from Cor-
sair has had a great run right
since its Vengeance days. It
has evolved drastically with
several refreshes in the same
model, sometimes with just
the branding whereas in this
case, a functional update. The
K70 RGB was quite popular
when it came out, in terms
of build quality, features,
software support and the
most awaited feature – RGB
lighting. Over time, Corsair
released several other key-
boards, and after a lot of feed-
back and complaints, the K70
was updated with the K70 Lux
model. The main update to the
K70 Lux is a new controller
for better lighting transition
effects. While it was expected
to have a USB pass-through in
the first place, Corsair added
it later to the Lux. The font on
the keycaps was also replaced
with the one found on the
STRAFE keyboard. Speaking
Bose wiretapping charges
Illinois man Kyle Zak, accuses Bose of illegally
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headphones. http://dgit.in/Bose35sue
of the other tiny differences,
the logo on the top has been
replaced with the old one
(users really hated the new
Corsair Gaming logo), extra
double-shot moulded keycaps
for FPS and MOBA games,
and a textured spacebar. Only
Corsair has been providing
extra double-shot moulded
keycaps whereas others offer
regular laser etched ones.
Corsair STRAFE RGB
The STRAFE has been
another line-up from Corsair
following a comparatively
minimalist approach to the
K70 family. It has an anodised
aluminium body that won’t
accumulate dust unlike the
brushed aluminium body on
the K70 RGB. The most high-
lighted feature in this time’s
STRAFE is the MX Silent
switch. Essentially, they are
a redefined version of the
Cherry MX Red switches
with the same actuation force
of 45cN. The white reflective
paint at the back of the keys is
a great move followed by sev-
eral keyboard manufacturers.
Corsair K95 RGB Platinum
We had the best overall experi-
ence on the K95 Platinum in
terms of build quality, lighting
modes, features, etc. The big-
gest shortcoming in the other
keyboards was that in order to
have a custom lighting effect or
macros active on the keyboard,
you had to keep the software
running in the background. If
you connected the keyboard to
another machine, it wouldn’t
save to the device except the
static lighting on the keys. This
holds true for other Corsair
keyboards as well. The K95
Platinum is capable of storing
three different profiles of
lighting effects on the device,
but still doesn’t support the
storage of hardware macros.
You can switch between these
three saved profiles using the
dedicated profile switch on the
top left. Other than that, the
RGB lighting is amazing and
with the added LED strip on
the top, it looks gor-
geous. The keyboard
MAY 2017
Corsair K95 RGB Platinum
has a sturdy frame including
the palm rest. The palm rest
has a dual-sided rubber mat
which is magnetic. Both the
sides have different textures
that can be flipped according
to your preferences. You
can find cable grooves at the
bottom meant for cables going
to the USB pass-through. Do
note, that the keyboard cable
won’t fit in these grooves.
At such a high price, we did
expect dual-shot moulded
keycaps and that’s some-
thing Corsair should explore
to offer in their most premium
line of keyboards.
Gamdias Ares 7 Color
(GKB3000)
The Ares 7 Color is another
keyboard using the TTC Blue
switch, and it has a similar feel
to Cherry MX Blue. It doesn’t
feel as clicky as the Outemu
Blue switches but certainly
needs more force to register
a click. One difference we
noticed was the Cherry MX
Blue felt smoother. This key-
board doesn’t come with RGB
lighting but offers a maximum
of seven colours that give you
an illusion of RGB lighting.
You can switch between
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 69
Keyboards
the different preset lighting
modes based on different game
genres. The different lighting
modes can also be cycled using
the modifiers. There aren’t
any accessories included in
the box, and at this price we
expected a keycap
puller to be included.
Gamdias Hermes Lite
The Hermes Lite is another
basic gaming keyboard with
minimal features. It uses the
TTC Red mechanical switch
inside which feels very sim-
ilar to Cherry MX Red. You
can switch the n-key rollover
between 6-key to 21-key but
6-key rollover is more than
you’d require. This can be
changed using the modifier
key or from the software.
This keyboard has red LEDs
with just a simple breathing
effect that can be controlled
both from the keyboard and
software. Macros are also
supported again through
the keyboard and on-board
macro recording button. The
keycaps didn’t have a snug
fit and wobbled a lot. The
attached palm rest could have
been broader since it hardly
managed to accommodate our
palms or wrists while typing.
At the time of writing this test,
the Hermes Lite was listed for
almost its price making it a
great keyboard to consider
under a small budget.
G.SKILL Ripjaws KM570 RGB
The KM570 RGB is more
of a sobered down version
 Keyboards
MAY 2017

Brand Cooler Master Corsair Corsair Corsair Corsair Corsair

Model MasterKeys Pro S K63 K70 RGB K70 Lux RGB K95 RGB STRAFE RGB
Platinum
Price (`) 7999 8999 13999 14999 16999 11999
Features 51 46 64 69 84 65
Build Quality 68 66 84 86 90 69
Value for money 83 68 59 58 60 65
Final Score 70 62 73 76 86 72
Body Layout Tenkeyless Tenkeyless Standard Standard Standard + Standard
Macros
Number of keys 104 87 104 104 110 104
Length (mm) 359 365 438 436 465 448
Width (mm) 138 171 163 165 171 170
Height (mm) 37 41 24 38 36 40
Weight (kg) 0.96 1.12 1.23 1.2 1.32 1.27
Cable Length (m) 1.5 2 2 1.8 1.8 1.8
Palmrest No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Cable material Braided Thick plastic Braided Braided Braided Thick plastic
Cable management No No No No Yes No
Audio passthrough No No No No No No
USB passthrough No No No Yes Yes Yes
Charging port No No No Yes Yes Yes
Polling rate switch No No Yes Yes No No
Keys Switch type Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical
Switch model Cherry MX Blue Cherry MX Red Cherry MX Red Cherry MX Cherry MX Cherry MX
RGB Red RGB Speed Silent Red
Durability 50 million 50 million 50 million 50 million 50 million 50 million
Actuation force (cN) 50 45 45 45 45 45
Travel distance (mm) 4 4 4 4 3.4 3.7
Actuation point (mm) 2.2 2 2 2 1.2 1.9
Cherry MX keycaps No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Multimedia keys Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Windows lock Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Brightness levels Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dedicated macros No No No No Yes No
Maximum N-key rollover Full Full Full Full Full Full
Backlighting No. of brightness levels 5 3 3 3 3 3
RGB lighting No (White LED variant) No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Software support No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Lighting modes 9 6 10 10 10 10
Connectivity Wireless No No No No No No
Detachable cable Yes No No No No No
Gold-plated USB Yes No No No No No
Accesories Key cap puller Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Carry pouch Yes No No No No No
Extra keycaps No No No Yes Yes Yes

of the KM780, providing
the almost the same level
of software customisation
for both lighting effects
and macro recording. You
still get dedicated volume
control keys and on the fly
macro recording. Although
the keyboard has two USB
connectors, it was surprising
that it didn’t have a USB
pass-through. Compared to
the KM780, the RGB LEDs
weren’t as bright even in the
full brightness level. Because
of the plastic body, the KM570
RGB flexes compared to the
other keyboards with metal
frames. With a budget of
around `10K, you can surely
consider this board as it ships
with Cherry MX switches if
you don’t like TTC switches
on the Gigabyte XK700.

70 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 Keyboards
MAY 2017 MAY 2017

Gamdias Gamdias G.SKILL G.SKILL Gigabyte HyperX Razer Roccat SteelSeries

Ares 7 GKB3000 Hermes Lite Ripjaws Ripjaws XK700 Alloy FPS BlackWidow Suora FX Apex M800
KM570 RGB KM780 RGB Chroma V1
11999 9999 9999 14999 9360 8999 14999 10500 13999
51 42 57 90 65 47 67 60 74
76 73 68 82 86 66 75 70 68
58 61 71 69 90 69 55 71 61
64 60 70 90 84 63 71 72 75
Standard Standard Standard Standard + Standard Standard Standard + Standard Standard +
Macros Macros Macros
104 104 104 110 104 104 109 104 110
458 440 447 518 440 442 475 435 510
220 170 159 228 150 129 171 125 174
44 37 46 48 40 36 39 43 44
1.1 NA 1.25 1.54 0.88 1.04 1.5 NA 1.4
1.8 1.8 1.8 2 2 1.8 2 1.8 2
Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No
Braided Braided Braided Braided Thin plastic Braided Braided Braided Braided
No Yes No No No No No Yes No
No No No Yes No No Yes No No
No No No Yes No No Yes No Yes
No No No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes
No No No No No No No No No
Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical Mechanical
TTC Blue TTC Red Cherry MX Red Cherry MX Brown TTC Red Cherry MX Blue Razer Green TTC Blue SteelSeries QS1

50 million 50 million 50 million 50 million 50 million 50 million 80 million 50 million 60 million

60 45 45 45 45 50 50 60 45
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3
2.2 2 2 2 2 2.2 1.9 2.2 1.5
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
No No No Yes No No Yes No Yes
Full 21 Full Full Full Full 10 Full Full
5 3 5 4 10 5 20 10 7
No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
7 1 8 8 7 6 5 10 17
No No No No No No No No No
No No No No No Yes No No No
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No
No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
No No No No Yes Yes No No No
No No No Yes Yes Yes No No No

G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 RGB
When the Ripjaws KM780
RGB entered our test labs, it
seemed intimidating because
of the exhaustive list of its fea-
tures. It has a tough design
exterior with pipes going
around the chassis. Along
with giving the keyboard
structural support, it also
holds the keycap box, mouse
cable holder and the palm rest.
The keyboard has a knurled
volume dial on the top right
similar to the ones we saw
on the K70 and K95 line-up.
There are dedicated keys
for multimedia and macros,
allowing you to record macros
on the fly. The extra keycaps
on the KM780 RGB have steep
contouring, sometimes which
felt a little too much. To store
those keycaps, G.SKILL ships

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 71


Keyboards
MAY 2017
G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 RGB
a hard case box that also con-
tains a plastic keycap puller.
The palm rest is also made of
top quality with a textured
rubber coating. The entire
body of the keyboard is built
like a tank, making it the heav-
iest one in the labs. Software
support enables you to further
customise the lighting options
and recording macros, where
it could have used more gran-
ular options.
Gigabyte XK700
All the keyboards in this com-
parison test were black and to
be honest, we were quite bored
with this colour. But then we
saw the brilliant silver metal
frame on the Gigabyte XK700
and were mighty impressed.
This keyboard also has a
small footprint even though
it has a standard size of 104
keys. We were surprised after
we picked up the keyboard
because it felt light in weight
compared to the others and
we did find that it was in fact
the lightest keyboard in the
comparison. It’s under a
kilo in weight, making it
more portable. The key- MAY 2017
Gigabyte XK700
72 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
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caps could have been better
because they don’t have a
snug fit and wobble. Just
to check, we replaced a few
keycaps with the ones on the
Corsair K70 and found quite
a snug fit. Another inter-
esting aspect to the keyboard
was the mechanism to adjust
the height of the feet on the
bottom of the keyboard. Two
dials at the top can be moved
for the desirable height. The
RGB lighting on the keyboard
wasn’t as satisfying because it
kept flickering a lot. We tried
to connect to a different port
and even update the firmware
but didn’t observe any change.
Either it could use another
firmware update or the con-
troller inside isn’t powerful to
handle the RGB lighting.
HyperX Alloy FPS
The HyperX Alloy FPS is a
keyboard directed towards
serious gamers who don’t
care about fancy lighting or
features. The quality of the
spongy-meshed carry pouch
is great and we would
love other keyboard
manufacturers to imple-
HTC’s squeezable phone
The new HTC U will feature Sense 9 and a
new touch-sensitive frame.
http://dgit.in/HTCocean
ment the same. This keyboard
is among the most afford-
able ones with Cherry MX
switches, trailing behind the
TVS Gold and Cooler Master
MasterKeys Pro S. Our big-
gest and probably the only
issue was with the quality of
the keycap stem. Certain key-
caps used to get stuck midway
because of the poor moulding.
This won’t be an issue after
they grind away, but better
moulding is necessary. RGB
enthusiasts might not be over-
whelmed with the keyboard
since the per-key lighting
is red only. You do get extra
keycaps for WASD and 1234,
where the WASD keys are tex-
tured. The HyperX Alloy FPS
is also the thinnest keyboard
in this comparison.
Kingston HyperX Alloy FPS
Razer BlackWidow
Chroma V1
It’s been way too long since we
tested Razer keyboards and
it was great to get our hands
on the popular BlackWidow
Chroma V1. Do note, that in
this comparison we covered
the version one and not the
two. Recently, Razer started
building their own mechan-
ical switches where earlier
they used Kailh switches.
Now, they’ve grown to offer
many options and they
decided to completely ignore
the colour code used by other
switch manufacturers. The
BlackWidow Chroma V1 we
received had the Razer Green
switches that feel close to
Cherry MX Blues but Razer
claims to offer a durability of
a staggering 80 million key-
strokes. This is way above
Cherry’s durability rating
of 50 million keystrokes
and it will be interesting to
observe whether this holds
in the long run. Speaking of
the keyboard, it has full RGB
backlighting with a white
backplate to make the LEDs
appear brighter. Lighting
modes were impressive and
the transition was smooth too.
Everything can be controlled
using the software which is
limited so you won’t be able
to do much. If you aren’t com-
fortable with the software,
you can record macros on the
fly which is simple. You’ll also
find extra buttons on the left.
If you’re a hardcore Razer fan,
considering the crazy claim of
an 80 million keystroke dura-
bility, you could consider the
keyboard but it will be quite
heavy on your wallet.
Roccat Suora FX
The Suora FX uses TTC Blue
switches inside which are
similar to Cherry MX Blue
switches, and unlike the
Outemu Blue switches, both
these feel almost the same.
Rated with a durability of
50 million keystrokes, we
aren’t sure whether it offers
the same durability of Cherry
MX switches. Among the lot,
it’s only fair to compare this
keyboard with the Gigabyte
XK700 due to the similar
switches and price of being
around `10,000. We didn’t
come across any flaws in the
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Razer BlackWidow Chroma V1
keyboard. It has software
support and it does have a
lot of features to enhance the
RGB lighting, adding macros
as a modifier key, etc. It’s a
standard keyboard with addi-
tional keys for volume control,
with the satisfying minimalist
design. Compared to all the
keyboards with exposed
key switch design, the back-
lighting looks impressive
on this one, especially in the
default rainbow wave and
cycle lighting mode.
SteelSeries Apex M800
By design, almost all the
mechanical key switches
in the other keyboards are
the same. The SteelSeries
QS1 switches is a relatively
new design for mechanical
switches, exclusive to Steel-
Series. They feel more like
a membrane keyboard but
because of the short travel
distance, it doesn’t have the
same mushy feeling. Initially,
you would be bottoming out
the keys and once you get used
to the short actuation distance
of just 1.5mm, you’ll be able to
achieve a higher typing speed.
Roccat Suora FX
Speaking of typing, it took us
a comparatively longer time
to get used to these keys but
we weren’t able to achieve the
same typing speeds recorded
on other mechanical switches.
The feedback won’t be satis-
fying enough if you’re moving
from a mechanical keyboard
to this one. Nonetheless, it’s
completely subjective. The
key switch design places the
RGB LED right at the centre
of the switch, resulting in the
keycaps shining brighter and
smoother. In terms of bright-
ness, the QS1 switches are
still dimmer than the white
LEDs on the MasterKeys Pro
S. The SteelSeries Engine 3
software doesn’t offer much
customisation options other
than lighting and macros. One
interesting aspect of the soft-
ware is GameSense that lights
up keys on your keyboard to
display your in-game stats
such as health and ammo.
This brings in a functional
use for RGB lighting in the
keyboard other than pure aes-
thetics we’re used to seeing.
The switches are great for
gaming but we highly recom-
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mend you to experience them
before buying.
BEST PERFORMER
The fight for the best per-
former seemed clear between
two goliaths in this test. It
would have either been the
G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780
RGB or the Corsair K95 RGB
Platinum. While the K95
RGB Platinum did manage
to sweep away the highest
score in build quality, the
KM780 RGB offered so much
in terms of features, that it
took the glory of winning
the “Best Performer” award.
Both the keyboards nearly
balanced out each other in
SteelSeries Apex M800
features and build quality
but G.SKILL won by a sliver.
The KM780 RGB is one of
the best designed keyboards
we received with well thought
out features that will only
act as an added advantage
to gamers.
BEST BUY
We were sceptical at first
because we had included two
ten-key-less variants in this
comparison where the com-
petition was against mostly
standard sized keyboards.
Hence, we didn’t include any
parameter that favoured the
size of the keyboard, whether
standard or tenkeyless. With
the tenkeyless variants having
the lowest prices, we thought
one of them would take away
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 73
Keyboards
the Best Buy award. But the
Gigabyte XK700 held quite a
number of features and acces-
sories to clinch this title away
from them. This keyboard has
all the basic features required
along with providing several
accessories including a metal
keycap puller, extra keycaps
and a carry pouch. It also has
software support and has
RGB lighting. Built in a tough
plastic and metal frame, the
XK700 offers the best value
for money out of the lot.
EDITOR’S PICK
Although features are equally
important, several features
are merely luxuries and can
be set aside. A keyboard’s
build quality is something of
great value, placing the Cor-
sair K95 RGB Platinum as the
Editor’s Pick. The moment
we unboxed the keyboard,
we were looking at a new
benchmark for higher quality
components. Right from the
brushed Aluminium surface
to the heavy-duty dual-sided
palm rest, it offered almost
everything you would want
in a gaming keyboard. The
RGB lighting was mesmer-
ising, and with the help of
the software you can actu-
ally create your own custom
lighting effects to any level.
With only a few qualms on
the software side, using the
K95 RGB Platinum was an
absolute treat.
 Column

N
ew age poppycock sells. Doesn’t
matter how asinine a product,
service or even idea in its conceptual
stage be, lathering on a generous amount
of marketing bullshit will help you sell the
product. Heck, if you’re good at it and happen
to be cashing in on a trend, then venture
capitalists will throw a cool $120 million at
you. Yes, this is Juicero I’m talking about. A
startup that sells juice, except it sells it in a
proprietary pack which needs a proprietary
machine to squeeze the juice out of the pack.
Classic case of baiting the hipsters. In a way,
I don’t mind hipsters being targeted for such
Mithun Mohandas products. For all I care, they deserve to be
Asst. Technical Editor taken for a ride.
mithun@digit.in
Juicero is a machine, a $400 machine, if
you buy it now (used to be $700). And if you
“You could blame happen to be a business, then it’s $1200. It’s
Apple for coming up like a vertical chappati maker, except you
with this proprietary don’t have to physically apply force. It does
nonsense but that on your behalf, with 4 tonnes of pressure.
the truth is that Apparently, that’s enough to lift two Tesla
it has existed automobiles and enough to squeeze every
long before Steve nutrient droplet out of their proprietary juice
Jobs pulled his pack. Venture capitalists were impressed with
disruptive miracle” the whole proprietary aspect of the product,
you need to buy an expensive squeezer to get
eight ounces or 237 ml of juice, and the juice
pack costs anywhere between $5-$8. Cold-
pressing has been marketed as being really
good for you but the truth is that nobody has
ever proven that it is indeed better than the
age old method of using a mechanical juicer.
Let me know your thoughts on this So people are paying an insane amount of
column at: @mithun_mohandas money for complete poppycock.
You could blame Apple for coming up
with this proprietary nonsense but the truth
is that it has existed long before Steve Jobs
pulled his disruptive miracle. Printer inks
have been riding the whole proprietary ink
cartridge business model for ages. And I get
that, printers are complex machines and you
don’t have a choice. You can use refilled car-
tridges but printer manufacturers have built
in kill switches and even failsafe kill switches
to ensure you stick to the original stuff. I’d
say even the stone age man sold an obsidian
knife to his fellow man and later sold him a
handle for a premium so that he didn’t cut his
own hand. Coming back to Juicero, let’s take
a look at the kind of mumbo jumbo they’re
spinning around the product. Firstly, they’re
calling it the the first of its kind. No falsehood
over there, it truly is the epitome of redun-
dancy. It’s USP lies in the fact that 1. It can be
remotely disabled should it detect a product
recall for a batch of juice packs. 2. “Consistent
pressing calibrated by flavour to deliver the
best combination of taste and nutrition”. 3. A
very tight supply chain so that farm-to-table
time is minimal. Points 1 and 3 are valid but
point 2 is just a huge pile of steaming crap.
So if all you need to sell a product is to ride a
trend and spew bullshit then …

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74 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 Killer Rigs
The optimal configurations you can get for
Street smart 78 your money for various PC builds spanning
across all usage levels.
EENY,
MEENY,
MINY,
VPN
The Internet is a scary place and we
all want the security of a VPN. But
how do we pick the best one?
Agent 001
agent001@digit.in
A
VPN is the veritable jack of
all trades when it comes to
ensuring your privacy on the
big bad internet. With the
ability to not only safeguard your
privacy and provide you with a level
of security, VPNs are also useful in
many other ways. Such as allowing you
access to geo-restricted content and
sometimes even routing your internet
connection through a faster set of hubs
getting you better connectivity to cer-
tain portions of the internet. With the
recent FCC rulings in the US, a lot of
our private information is about to be
accessible to ISPs so that they can sell
it off to advertisers. And just because
the ruling happened in the US, doesn’t
mean that we’re safe here in India. The
internet operates in mysterious ways
and US laws are very ambiguous to
begin with. If at all, at any point during
the transmission of data packets from
your browser enters the geographical
boundary of the USA, it falls under
US laws and you can bet your ass that
whatever ISP is carrying that data
within the US will take a peek. And if
the website you’re visiting happens to
serve ads using a platform that’s also
US based, then there’s a good possi-
bility that your browsing habits will be
sold by said US ISP to the ad platform.
So what should you do? Well, the
first step would be to contemplate
if you even care about your privacy.
If at the end of your contemplation,
your answer to the question happens
to be ‘f##k it’. Then by all means, go
about your life and don’t even bother.
However, VPNs are still important for
other reasons, if not for your privacy.
So should you change your mind
sometime in the future, here’s what you
should know about them.
Do they keep logs?
If at any point, data regarding which
websites you’re visiting or which IP
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you were assigned and which IP you
used to connect to an end-point are
stored, then you’re in trouble. It’s as
good as not using a VPN since what-
ever privacy you stood to gain from a
VPN was rendered useless because of
these logs. Extremely popular VPNs
like Hola! VPN, Unlocator and even the
built in VPN in Opera browser keep
traffic logs. In fact, the VPN service
used within Opera logs everything,
from your traffic, bandwidth, DNS
requests, timestamps and even IP
addresses. There’s zero privacy should
any governmental entity ask Opera to
reveal your data. On the other hand,
IVPN, NordVPN and BolehVPN keep
no logs at all (at the time of writing
this). I doubt if you’ve ever heard of any
of these services.
Encryption used?
Not keeping logs is a great facet of a
VPN only if coupled with good encryp-
tion. Poor encryption would ensure
that anyone can use a simple man in the
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 75
 Price Watch
Experience sound through the best budget in-
Agent 001 80 ear monitors, and push your budget to 30k for
best budget smartphones in the market
middle attack and then listen in on your
traffic. So what should you be looking
for? When you connect to a VPN, there
first occurs a handshake wherein infor-
mation about you is passed onto the
VPN’s server and authentication details
from the VPN are passed onto you. This
handshake must be secure. The highest
level of encryption any VPN offers for
this is RSA-4096. Then comes your
traffic as it travels through the VPN, this
again should be encrypted by a form of
encryption. The highest encryption that
you get for your data is AES-265 which
is what we’d consider to be the bare
minimum for data encryption.
Server location
We’ve spoken about how location
matters. There are a few nations that
have pooled together to share intel-
ligence data and some of these nations
have international programs which
require data logs from one nation to be
shared with the others in the pro-
gram. So should your browsing data
enter the geographical boundaries of
Wireless casual gaming
I was looking for a gaming mouse but
I don’t really have a huge budget. I
don’t plan on gaming heavily, just casual
gaming. I’m looking for something under
`2,500. Oh, and I compulsorily need a
wireless mouse.
– Harshit Nanda
Hey Harshit,
If you’re looking for only casual gaming
then you can go for any generic mouse
out there since most of them perform the
same. We would recommend the Lenovo
500 or Logitech M185 but it might not
be comfortable for long gaming sessions.
At a lower budget, it’s difficult to find
good wireless mice for gaming. If you’re
ready to spend extra money, go for the
Logitech G602 or the Razer Mamba.
The best GPU
Hi guys,
I’m trying to build a rig for myself and
76 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
any of these nations then it’s up for
grabs for any of the other nations in
the program. We know that the US
and the UK are really bad with data
privacy. Then there are well known
programs such as the Five Eyes, Nine
Eyes and Fourteen Eyes, all of which
involve sharing data between them. So
figure out where the VPN’s servers or
HQ is located and make sure that it’s
not situated in the following coun-
tries: US, UK, Canada, New Zealand,
Australia, Denmark, France, Holland,
Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy,
Sweden and Spain.
Speed and protocols
One of the issues that plague VPNs
is speed. Since a slow network will
bottleneck your traffic, it’s imperative
that your VPN have high bandwidth
within their network. You can easily
test this out by subscribing to a trial
program that most VPNs offer, then
running speedtests while also testing
out your experience with your most
frequently used websites. The second
I’ve bought almost every component
except the GPU. I’ve been saving a lot
since a long time to build my dream
ultra-high-end gaming rig and the GPU
has kept me wondering. I was going for
the GTX 1080 but then the GTX 1080
Ti was launched. I’m glad I didn’t rush
into buying but now I’m confused which
one should I buy. I’m assembling my
rig inside a Corsair Obsidian 900D, so
there’s no restriction in the card size
The ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme
Edition is the most powerful GPU we’ve
ever tested in our labs
HTTPS everywhere
MindGeek announces that both Pornhub and
YouPorn are moving from HTTP to the more
secure HTTPS. http://dgit.in/PornSecure
thing you should worry about are the
different protocols such as P2P pro-
tocols, Torrents(also P2P), Multihop,
SSH Tunneling, etc., which all of us
tend to use sometime or the other. It’s
not just the protocols, but even select
ports are blocked by certain VPNs,
sometimes for the sake of security, and
sometimes to prevent malicious DDOS
attacks. The VPN service’s website
will usually have an FAQ section out-
lining all the different measures they
undertake to safeguard user privacy,
you’ll find these details over there.
Any product or service with a lot
features tends to be expensive so if
you’ve shortlisted the very best VPNs
that suit your needs, then price is what
you need to check next. And this is
kind of obvious, so I’m not going to
dwell upon this any longer. In case you
feel like all of this is a really daunting
task, then fret not, one dude took it
upon himself to test out multiple VPN
services and he’s still testing them.
You can check out his findings on
https://thatoneprivacysite.net
because I’ve enough space inside.
Please suggest me the best GTX 1080
Ti that I can buy right now. Along with
that, recommend a robust PSU that I
can get to last me for several years.
– Mohnish
Hey Mohnish, we’re glad that you’re
finally ascending in the PC Master
Race. We have tested a few GTX 1080
Ti GPUs lately and out of them, the
ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme
Edition performed the best. With this
GPU, you can throw any game at it and
have them run smoothly at even 4K
ultra settings. You can get it for around
`70,999. For the PSU, it will be better to
go for modular one. Our recommenda-
tion is the Seasonic M12II-750 EVO
that you can get under `10,000.
Budget i5 laptop
Hi, I want a laptop in the range of
`30,000-40,000. It should have 4 to
 Instagram’s bug kid
Adrian Kozakiewicz has more than 1,56,000
followers which he gained by putting colourful
bugs on his face. http://dgit.in/Bugstagram
8GB of RAM, 2 to 4GB memory in the
graphics card and 1TB of storage. I also
need an Intel Core i5 processor. Please
suggest the best one that I can get in
this range.
– Vasi
Hey Vasi, you should look into the
ASUS R558 series of laptops. Go
through the specifications of the lineup,
make you choice and check whether
that particular SKU is selling in India.
Beats under 10k
Hey, I wanted to buy a portable speaker
under `10,000 and an earphone under
`3,000. Please suggest me something.
– Savan
The UE Roll 2 is a great choice
Hey Savan, check out the UE Roll 2
portable speaker, that would be your
best bet or you could also go for the UE
Boom. If you put in some extra money,
you can go for the UE Boom 2 which is
a great option. As for the earphones
within your budget, have a look at the
Audio-Technica CKX5 and JBL
Synchros E10. It would be best to head
over to your local retail store, listen and
experience these earphones (and
portable speaker as well if you’d like)
before buying.
Phone for new bloggers
Hi Digit. I need a phone for a project.
What would be the best phone under
`15,000 for playing games and taking
good quality pictures for a blog?
– Manish
Hey Manish, we would recommend
the Coolpad Cool 1 as it manages to
balance out well in terms of perfor-
mance and camera quality. If you want
Plug me in’ in Mumbai
Wiebe Wakker travels around the world relying on
people’s kindness. 41,000 kilometers later, finally
arrives India http://dgit.in/PlugMeIndia
more performance then you can go for
the Lenovo Z2 but do note, the camera
quality on this is lower than the Cool 1.
Durable earphone
Hey guys, which one among the two is
better? Sennheiser CX180 or Brainwavz
Omega? I was looking for something
under `1,000. I just want something in
good quality and durability.
– Febin
Hi Febin, the Brainwavz Omega
reproduces better audio quality,
balance and has passive noise cancella-
tion to an extent. The bass response
reproduced on the Omega is much
better than the CX180. The build
quality on the Omega is also superior.
In this range, you can try out the Altec
Lansing MZX147 which comes in
second in this range.
You’ll get better audio and build quality
on the Brainwavz Omega
Best phone under 15k
I’m trying to search for a good phone
under `15,000. Please suggest me the
best one I can get.
– Mohan
Hey Mohan, there are several good
phones that you can go for under that
budget. Have a look at the LeEco Le 2
for good performance, Redmi Note 3 for
good battery life and the Nubia Z11
Mini for a good camera.
An “exciting” laptop
Hello! I want to buy a new laptop with
exciting features at an affordable price
of under `35,000. It should have a 2GB
graphics card, 1TB HDD, 4GB RAM, Intel
Agent 001
Core-i3 or i5. Please suggest one with
these specifications.
– Aravind
Hello Aravind,
There are many options in this range
that perform well. We would recom-
mend two among them, either the
The ASUS A555LF series has some
amazing colour varaints available
Lenovo IdeaPad 100s or the ASUS
A555LF. Later, you can upgrade the
storage with an SSD and also expand
the memory modules.
Making the move to
mechanical keyboards
Hello team, I’m looking for a gaming
keyboard. It should be mechanical
and include backlighting, RGB isn’t
necessary. Please suggest me one with
genuine Cherry MX mechanical switches
because I don’t want the new duplicate
ones. Also, this will be my first mechan-
ical keyboard andmy budget is strictly
under or around `10,000.
– Arindam
Hey Arindam, if you’re looking for
a keyboard under `10,000 and
Cherry MX switches are mandatory
then you don’t have many options.
You can go for the HyperX Alloy FPS
which has red LED backlighting and
you can also look at the G.SKILL
Ripjaws KM570 which as RGB
lighting. If you don’t mind working
without a numpad, then you can
check out the Corsair K63 or the
Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S. All
of these keyboards are under `10,000
and ship with Cherry MX switches.
Coincidentally, we have a gaming
keyboard comparison test this month,
so do check it out.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 77
 KILLER RIGS
Everything you’ll ever need to build your own PC. Whatever your budget.

Basic rig = 29,563 Entry-level gaming = 51,424 Mid-range gaming = 75,708 High-End Gaming = 1,11,939 Ultra high-end gaming = 3,12,225 Digit test rig= 4,87,524

BASIC RIG ENTRY-LEVEL GAMING

Processor Intel Core i3 - 7100 8,500 Processor Intel Core i3 - 7100 8,500
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H 6,864 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H 6,864
RAM HyperX FURY 4 GB 2133 MHz 2,500 RAM HyperX FURY 4 GB 2133 MHz 2,500
HDD Toshiba 1 TB DT01ACA100 3,150 HDD Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 3,450
Graphics Card Intel HD Graphics 630 0 Graphics Card ZOTAC GTX 1050 2GB Mini 9,400
PSU Corsair VS450 2,450 PSU Corsair CX430 V2 3,031
Speakers None 0 Speakers Philips MMS4040F - 2.1 Channel 3,033
Optical Drive None 0 Optical Drive LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer 949
Mouse Logitech MK120 (Bundle) 999 Mouse Logitech MK120 (Bundle) 999
Keyboard Logitech MK120 (Bundle) 0 Keyboard Logitech MK120 (Bundle) 0
Sound Card None 0 Sound Card None 0
Sub-total (Excluding Monitor) 24,463 Sub-total (Excluding Monitor and Cabinet) 38,726
Monitor BenQ G615HDPL 15.6-inch 4,100 Monitor BenQ GW2470H 9,699
Cabinet OEM Cabinet 1,000 Cabinet Corsair Carbide SPEC-01 2,999
Total `29,563 Total `51,424

MID-RANGE GAMING HIGH-END GAMING

Processor Intel Core i5 - 7400 13,300 Processor Intel Core i5 7600 + Corsair H45 21,030
Motherboard ASRock B250M Pro4 6,864 Motherboard MSI Z170A PC Mate 11,934
RAM Corsair Value Select (2x 4 GB) 5,000 Kingston DDR4 2133 MHz HX421C14FB/8 16
RAM GB (2x 8 GB) 5,000
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1 TB +
HDD 6,549 Western Digital WD20EZRZ 2 TB + Kingston
ZOTAC 120GB SSD HDD 8,299
UV300 SSD 240 GB
Graphics Card MSI RX 480 ARMOR 4G OC 19,100 Graphics Card ZOTAC GTX1070 Mini 32,475
PSU Antec VP650P V2 4,340 PSU Seasonic M12II-750 EVO 8,750
Speakers Sony SRS-D9 2.1 4,990 Speakers Sony SRS-D9 2.1 4,990
Optical Drive LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer 949 Optical Drive LG GH24NSD1 SATA DVD Writer 949
Mouse Logitech G100s (Bundle) 1,879 Mouse CM Storm Devastator (Bundle) 2,499
Keyboard Logitech G100s (Bundle) 0 Keyboard CM Storm Devastator (Bundle) 0
Sound Card None 0 Sound Card None 0
Sub-total (Excluding Monitor and Cabinet) 62,971 Sub-total (Excluding Monitor) 95,926
Monitor Viewsonic VX2263Smhl 9,738 Monitor BenQ GL2460HM 9,899
Cabinet Corsair Carbide SPEC 01 2,999 Cabinet Cooler Master MasterBox 5 6,114
Total `75,708 Total `1,11,939

ULTRA HIGH-END GAMING PRIMARY DIGIT TEST RIG

CPU + Cooler Intel Core i7-7700K + Antec Kuhler H2O 600 31,530 Processor Intel Core i7 - 6950X (Extreme Edition) 130,000
Motherboard ASUS MAXIMUS IX APEX 26,869 Motherboard Gigabyte X-99 SLI 24,500
Corsair Vengeance (2x 8 GB) CMK8GX- RAM Apacer Panther 2666 MHz 32 GB (4x 8 GB) 15,840
RAM 4M1A2400C14R 8,900
WD WD30EZRX 3TB + Samsung 960 Pro HDD Western Digital WD40EFRX 9,700
HDD 512GB SSD 37,960
SSD SanDisk Extreme II 240GB x2 (RAID 0) 34,000
Monitor Acer XB270HU 27-inch 144Hz 4K G-Sync 61,300 Intel 750 NVMe + Kingston HyperX Predator
PCIe SSD 119,275
Graphics Card ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme 70,999 480 GB
Cabinet Corsair Crystal 570X 13,659 Graphics Card ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme 70,999
PSU Corsair RM1000i 1000W 12,600 Cabinet+ Cooler Cabinet (NA) + Noctua NH-D15 6,099
Speakers Logitech Z906 5.1 17,990 PSU Corsair RM1000X 13,899
Optical Drive LG Blu-ray WH14NS40 RW 5,999 Monitor LG 29UC97C 40,000+Tax
Mouse Logitech G502 Proteus Core 4,800 Optical Drive NA NA
Keyboard HyperX Alloy FPS 8,999 Mouse G.Skill MX780 3,712
Sound Card ASUS XONAR Essence STX 10,720 Keyboard G.Skill KM780 19,500
Total `3,12,225 Total `4,87,524

78 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 RECOMMENDED BUYS
From smartphones to gaming laptops, here’s what we recommend for your next purchase!

TOP 3
BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS TOP 3
UNDER `2000 GAMING KEYBOARDS
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Portronics Sublime 2 2,090 Corsair K95 RGB Platinum 16,999
JBL Go 1,980 G.Skill Ripjaws KM780 RGB 14,999
Logitech X100 1,400 Gigabyte XK700 9,360

TOP 3 TOP 3
HIGH-END DSLR CAMERAS HIGH-END SMARTPHONE
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Canon EOS 1DX Mark II 4,51,900 Apple iPhone 7 Plus 61,990
Nikon D5 4,28,950 Samsung Galaxy S8 57,900
Canon Canon EOS 5D Mark IV 2,34,964 Google Pixel 57,000

TOP 3 TOP 3
HIGH-END GRAPHICS CARD ACTIVITY TRACKER
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Zotac GTX 1080 Ti Amp! Extreme 70,999 Garmin Fenix 3 HR 52,990
Aorus GTX 1080 Ti NA Garmin Forerunner 35 15,990
Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition 62,999 Samsung Gear Fit 9,990

TOP 3 TOP 3
SMARTWATCHES E-READERS
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Apple Watch Series 2 32,900 Amazon Kindle Oasis 23,999
Samsung Gear S3 28,500 Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3G 13,999
ASUS Zenwatch 3 17,599 Illumina Icarus Android E-Reader 9,999

TOP 3 TOP 3
PREMIUM TABLETS PC SOUND CARDS
Brand Model Price (in `) Brand Model Price (in `)
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 96,890 Creative Sound Blaster Z 11,308
Apple iPad Pro 65,900 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 11,100
Apple iPad 28,990 ASUS Xonar DX 5,550

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 79

 Social media privacies Space explosion..
Researchers have figured out how ..detected 10.7 billion light years away
social media posts can reveal hidden by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Price Watch browsing. http://dgit.in/SocialH http://dgit.in/SpaceTnt

SPEND SMART
Thinking of getting a new phone? Push your budget to 30k and pick
one from the list below. How about you upgrade your earphones along
with that? Check out the list of the best in-ear monitors under 5k.

IN-EAR MONITORS (EARPHONES) UNDER `5,000

Frequency Driver Size Sensitivity (in
Brand Model Impedance Type Microphone Price (`)
Response (in Hz) (in mm) dB SPL/V)
Brainwavz S3 16 Ω 16 Hz - 22,000 Hz 8mm 96dB/mW Dynamic Yes 4,999
a-Jays Four+ 16 Ω 20 Hz - 20,000 Hz 8.6mm 96dB/mW Dynamic Yes 4,999
FiiO EX1 (2nd Gen) 16 Ω 20 Hz - 30,000 Hz 13mm 102dB/mW Dynamic Yes 4,299
Brainwavz B100 50 Ω 15 Hz - 22,000 Hz NA 110dB/mW Balanced Armature No 4,199
RHA S500i 16 Ω 16 Hz - 22,000 Hz NA 100dB/mW Dynamic Yes 3,999
Sony MDR-AS800AP 16 Ω 5 Hz - 25,000 Hz 12mm 105dB/mW Dynamic Yes 3,889
Beyerdynamic MMX 102iE 23 Ω 10 Hz - 23,000 Hz NA 104dB/mW Dynamic Yes 3,840
Audio-Technica ATH-ANC33iS 32 Ω 20 Hz - 20,000 Hz 13mm 105dB/mW Dynamic Yes 3,799
MEE Audio M6 Pro 16 Ω 20 Hz - 20,000 Hz 10mm 100dB/mW Dynamic Yes 3,499
Brainwavz M2 20 Ω 20 Hz - 22,000 Hz 10.7mm 115dB/mW Dynamic No 3,499
Audio-Technica ATH-CKS550iS 40 Ω 5 Hz - 24,000 Hz 9.8mm 104dB/mW Dynamic Yes 2,990
1More Single driver piston 32 Ω 22 Hz - 22,000 Hz 8mm 98dB/mW Dynamic Yes 2,799
Sony MDR-XB50AP 16 Ω 4 Hz - 24,000 Hz 12mm 110dB/mW Dynamic Yes 2,049
Tekfusion Twinwoofers M2 16 Ω 19 Hz - 21,000 Hz 10mm 113dB/mW Dynamic Yes 1,999
SoundMAGIC E10C 16 Ω 15 Hz - 22,000 Hz 10mm 100dB/mW Dynamic Yes 1,999

BUDGET SMARTPHONES (UNDER `30,000)

Primary Battery
Brand Model Processor RAM Screen size Operating System Price (`)
Camera Rating
OnePlus 3T Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 6GB 5.5inch Android v7 Nougat 16MP 3400mAh 29,999
Huawei P9 Hisilicon Kirin 955 3GB 5.2inch Android v6 Marshmallow 12MP + 12MP 3000mAh 27,999
Oppo F3 Plus Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 4GB 6inch Android v6 Marshmallow 16MP 4000mAh 29,997
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) Exynos 7880 3GB 5.2inch Android v6 Marshmallow 16MP 3000mAh 28,990
Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 4GB 5.7inch Android v6 Marshmallow 16MP 3300mAh 27,990
Apple iPhone SE A9 2GB 4inch iOS 10 12MP 1624mAh 27,200
Moto Z Play Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 3GB 5.5inch Android v7 Nougat 16MP 3510mAh 24,999
Huawei Honor 8 Hisilicon Kirin 950 4GB 5.2inch Android v6 Marshmallow 12MP + 12MP 3000mAh 23,950
Xiaomi Mi 5 Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 3GB 5.15inch Android v6 Marshmallow 16MP 3000mAh 22,999
ASUS Zenphone 3 Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 3GB 5.2inch Android v6 Marshmallow 16MP 2650mAh 21,999
Blackberry DTEK50 Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 3GB 5.2inch Android v6 Marshmallow 13MP 2610mAh 21,900
Xiaomi Mi Max Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 4GB 6.44inch Android v6 Marshmallow 16MP 4850mAh 19,999
Moto G5 Plus Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 4GB 5.2inch Android v7 Nougat 12MP 3000mAh 16,999
Lenovo Z2 Plus Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 3GB 5inch Android v6 Marshmallow 13MP 3500mAh 14,999
Lenovo P2 Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 3GB 5.5inch Android v6 Marshmallow 13MP 5100mAh 14,999

80 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 OUR PICK OF THE BEST TECH ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

(MUST READS)
[The Atlantic Corner]
HOW ARISTOTLE CREATED THE COMPUTER

ECHOES OF A BLACK HOLE

Frankfurt Institute for
Advanced Studies’ researcher
Sabine Hossenfelder talks
about the recent discovery of
ripples in space-time and how
it can herald the demise of
Einstein’s general relativity.
http://dgit.in/BhEchos

THE MERCURY EFFECT

Facebook hosted a murder.
But for all the talk about
content moderation, machine
learning, and flag-monitoring
algorithms, the problem isn’t
the platform, it’s the people.
http://dgit.in/MercuryE

Today, Charles Babbage is considered to be the Father of Computers for his

inventions and concept of analytical engines during the 19th century. But 2000 years
ago, it was Aristotle and the philosophers he influenced that set the stage for the
technological revolution that remade our world. http://dgit.in/AristotlePC
FIGHT OVER CYLANCE
Last November, a systems
engineer at a large company
was evaluating security soft-
ware products when he dis-
covered something suspicious.
http://dgit.in/Cylance1

THE VENERA-D PROJECT

NASA and the Russian
Academy of Sciences’ Space
Research Institute (IKI) are
teaming up on the most
ambitious space mission ever.
The Venera-D project aims to
send an orbiter, lander and
possibly even an airship to
Venus by 2026.
http://dgit.in/venusRnA
Bacteria are getting stronger
Scientists have been
experimenting with superbugs
for quite some time now. These
tiny bodies, upon returning to
earth from space were found
harder to kill. Similarly, thanks
to air pollution, disease-causing
bacteria are showing greater
resistance to antibiotics.
http://dgit.in/BacteriaG
Bidding farewell to a space robot
Few weeks ago NASA released
a short animation showing how
their beloved probe will meet its
end. The Cassini probe will soon
plunge into Saturn, ending its
13-year long mission to the ringed
planet and triggering a wave of
grief among scientists, engineers,
and an adoring public.
http://dgit.in/Cassini1
Hide your online tracks
Browsing histories are impossible
to hide, well at least from your
Internet Service Provider or the
government. But what if someone
told you that you can pollute your
browsing history with fake traffic
using an algorithm to make it
harder for ISPs to spy on you? Find
out more here:
http://dgit.in/hideTrack

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 97

 (worldview)

INVENTING THE SURVEILLANCE STARTS AN ELEGY FOR EARTH HOW ‘AMAZON GO’
TELESCOPE AT HOME OBSERVING-1 WORKS
The linear his- This story is part Earth Amazon
SHORTS

torical account of Motherboard Observing-1 announced their

of telescopes
obscures a far
more interesting, convoluted
story. From Newton’s reflecting
mirrors to the lenses that had
been used since Galileo, how
many great minds does it take
to invent a telescope?
http://dgit.in/telescope1
vice’s new
series called
‘when spies come home’. It’s
all about powerful surveil-
lance software and the
‘Stalkerware’ ordinary people
use nowadays to eavesdrop
on each other’s phones.
http://dgit.in/stalkerware
wasn’t supposed
to survive as long
as it did. Operating on a shoe-
string budget, the spartan
satellite outlasted its war-
ranty 15-fold, and changed
the way we do space-based
imaging of our planet.
http://dgit.in/EarthEye
Amazon Go retail
shop in December
last year – a retail store where
you could simply walk in, grab
items and walk out. But how
does that work? Are current
age computer visions really
good enough for it?
http://dgit.in/GoTheory

Research says Indians want to upgrade

phones in 12 months, but should you?
Counterpoint Research’s new survey says Indian consumers
want to upgrade their smartphones within 12 months. – By Prasid Banerjee

A
survey conducted amongst
over 1500 respondents has
led Counterpoint Research
to believe that Indian con-
sumers want to switch to a new phone
within 12 months. The report says fea-
tures like 4G VoLTE, better battery and
memory are reasons for consumers
wanting to switch. “As per the survey, two
in three users plan to upgrade to a new
mobile phone in the next 12 months. This
is a departure from an average of 24-30
months to under 20 months upgrade
cycle,” says the report.
Further, Counterpoint’s report says
that one of the factors for users to look
for 4G LTE smartphones is Reliance Jio’s
VoLTE only network. Also, with smart-
phones becoming a big part of people’s
lives, better memory, storage and battery
have become important requirements.
Should you be upgrading
within 12 months?
In a word, the answer is no. Having
tested most smartphones today, we can
attest to the fact that most users do not
need to upgrade within 12 months.
If you have a 3G/2G phone, then an
upgrade is warranted. However, if you
happen to have bought a phone within
the last 12 months, hold on to it. Android
phones do slow down over time, but they
really do not get to the point where they
become unusable. As a rule of thumb,
there’s only one real reason to “upgrade”
your smartphone, that is if it stops
working entirely. Let us explain why.
Let’s assume you purchased a Xiaomi
Redmi Note 4 a few months ago. Here’s
what your phone is missing right now:
Sony Xperia XA dual
Android Nougat. It’s indeed a big miss,
but alternatives aren’t much better any
way. You have a reasonable camera to
work with, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage
and a balanced Snapdragon 625 SoC. It’s
more than what most users need right
now. Xiaomi announced an Android
Nougat beta at launch, so chances are
that you’ll be getting an update soon
enough. If you’ve purchased a Motorola
device, you probably are on the latest
software already.
Phone’s normally start lagging and
become harder to use once you have
about 1GB or less space left on it. Over
time, you will block up some of the RAM,
which will reduce performance. The
more apps you load, the more the pro-
cessor load. But absolutely none of it will
make your phone unusable. The Redmi
Note 4 and most of its compatriots run
on able and up-to-date hardware.
There’s another big reason to not
upgrade your smartphone. Almost all
numbers today point towards growing
demand in the sub-15K range. In this
range, there are phones that are good,
some that are better and some that are
downright bad. However, none of these
devices can be considered an “upgrade”
to their counterparts. In fact, stagnation
in the smartphone market has made
the term “upgrade” obsolete. Like we
said above, buying a VoLTE enabled
phone after a 3G phone is an upgrade,
but buying a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 or
any other “budget beast” just offers
you incremental updates instead of
real upgrades.
The above is true for every best
selling phone out there right now. Few
smartphones today warrant an upgrade
within 12 months, so if you are planning
an upgrade, you should make sure your
phone is simply refusing to turn on. If
not, stick with it, at least for 18 months.
http://dgit.in/IndianPH

98 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 (worldview)

A NEW CPU FOR VR GENETICALLY MODIFIED INTERNET-CONNECTED PC 20-MILLION-YEAR-OLD

To create more
immersive
worlds, VR
makers are
turning to the same kind of
CPUs powering the artificial
intelligence explosion. But
a chip revolution is coming
sooner than you think. And it’s
going to bring a whole new VR
experience along with it.
http://dgit.in/ChipVR
HUMANS
American infor-
mation-technology
author Daniel
Suarez thinks
genetically modified humans
may seem like pure fiction today
– but not for long. His new novel,
‘Change Agent’, talks about
genetic engineering and the
advancement in research today.
http://dgit.in/Genhuman
IN PRISON
Five inmates in
Ohio were caught
with a functioning
internet-con-
nected computer hidden in the
ceiling, according to a report
by the Ohio Inspector general’s
office. How hard can building
a PC be if a couple of inmates
can do it in prison?
http://dgit.in/PrisonPC
BLOOD
Brought to you by
the same scien-
tist that inspired
the Jurassic
Park movies. George Poinar
Jr., now a retired professor
at Oregon State University
stumbled upon a 20-million-
year-old tick, full of blood,
preserved in timber.
http://dgit.in/20Mtick4bfg

DDR5 will double DDR4 memory bandwidth

DDR5 memory will have Improved channel efficiency, greater performance,
higher power efficiency and twice the density of DDR4 memory. – By Abhijit Dey

T
he organisation that comes up
with standards for the micro-
electronics industry, JEDEC
Solid State Technology Asso-
ciation, has announced new develop-
ments in the DDR5 standard. The devel-
opment of DDR5 or Double Data Rate 5
and NVDIMM-P design standards have
already been in the works for some time.
The final DDR5 specifications will be rati-
fied by the end of 2018.
Harder, Better, Faster,
Stronger?
We aren’t sure about DDR5 being harder or
stronger since there hasn’t been any rapid
development or changes in PCB material.
What we are sure about is that the new
memory is definitely going to be better and
faster. DDR5 will offer better performance
and deliver higher power efficiency com-
pared to previous generations. This will be
achieved by offering twice the bandwidth
compared to DDR4, doubling the speed
in DDR5. Along with the bandwidth, the
density is also expected to double. This
will result in higher capacity memory
chips that can be either embedded or made
into DIMMs. With twice the bandwidth
and density, DDR5 will deliver improved
channel efficiency as well. Imagine the per-
formance you get on existing quad-channel
DDR4 memory kits, and now multiply
that by a factor of two (almost). That’s what
DDR5 is going to be.
Servers will be the first to receive DDR5
memory modules
Who gets it first?
Hold onto your horses, fellow brethren
of the glorious PC Master Race, for you
won’t be enjoying DDR5 memory on
your system anytime soon. Convention-
ally, whenever a new memory standard
hits the market, they make their way to
servers first. The reason is simple, they
are expensive at launch. If you’re one
of those gamers who use two thousand
rupee notes for kindling then by all
means, go right ahead. Once the server
memory market has been touched, they
will slowly make their way to high-end
gaming PCs and eventually scale down to
low-power SKUs for laptops. Later, they
will scale down to lower SKUs for mobile
devices as LPDDR5.
When can I buy?
The release of the specifications of DDR5
is slated for 2018. Generally, it takes
around a year for manufacturers to imple-
ment and introduce support for the new
memory standards on their components.
Hence, it’s fair to say that we will see
motherboards coming out with support
for DDR5 memory at the end of 2018 or
directly in 2019 when a new chipset with
DDR5 support arrives.
Do you need to upgrade
from DDR4 or DDR3?
Upgrading from DDR4 to DDR5 should
improve your system performance based
on the proposed specifications. But we
can’t confirm objectively since we have no
idea about its implementation yet. Intel’s
Optane (3D XPoint) is a new non-volatile
memory technology that retains data even
after the computer is shut down. Using
Optane M.2 cache drives drastically drops
boot times and the time taken for applica-
tions to start up (on the second time after
caching happens). They aren’t expensive
either, as the 16GB variant is priced at
$44 (`2,800/- approx), whereas the 32GB
variant is priced at $77 (`5000/- approx).
Another thing to remember is that Optane
is only supported on Intel Kaby Lake pro-
cessors and it isn’t backward compatible.
JEDEC talked about a hybrid DIMM
technology called NVDIMM-P. Techni-
cally, it isn’t the same as Optane, but it will
be interesting to find out how both these
forms of volatile and nonvolatile memo-
ries are going to perform. Read more here:
http://dgit.in/DDR4or5

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 99

(worldview)

SCIENCE PLUS (PRODUCT LAUNCHES)

Science Plus is built
for enthusiastic sci- SAMSUNG GALAXY S8 & AMD RYZEN 5 CPUS HYPERX CLOUD
S8+ REVOLVER S
ence fans seeking out
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Trace Dominguez digs
above and beyond the
usual scope to deliver
details, develop-
ments, and opinions
on advanced topics
like AI, string theory,
and Mars exploration.
http://dgit.in/SciencePlus
(QR Code)
Samsung’s new flagship AMD launched four new The HyperX Cloud Revolver
Galaxy S8 and S8+ packs Ryzen 5 series CPUs. The S gaming headset from
4GB RAM with 64GB internal new mainstream processors Kingston supports Dolby
memory, and 6GB RAM with are either 4 Core or 6 Core 7.1 Surround Sound,
128GB Internal memory processors with 8 Threads or features a 50mm driver
respectively. They come with 12 Threads, respectively. and a noise cancelling
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Price: `57,900/- `15,799/- `18,199/- Price: `12,999/-
ABSOLUTE
W O R D J U M B L E TIMEPASS
J L S B D O J I O R S Z B P J G A L O H
M H C D R E N Z P D L E X I P M V X E Z
I L O H Y A P E X Z V Q B J P H Q M O M
S O L U O S E V G I O N L S K U P I X B
E G O K H K M E I N U H Q D I E W F T P
H W S O X M I R D E G N I N T H G I L Q
M R R Y J E R Y H W K W E K M E C L U I
A E I F G W P T T P T E D Z N D L A P R
Z W A T O M A H A C P Y T V A T N A A G
I V W R W C V I U C E O P A F A O I T N
N I R P B X O N T Q I J Y R I V I V A G
There are 20
P A S A O E N G H A T E E H C V L K C Z Android launchers
H O N E Y C O M B T R A M S B L A W O F hidden in the word
P G E V I E R E R D N O I T C A O P Y W grid. How many
R T S S L S F B L A C K B E R R Y R E N can you find?

Top 3 Picks Make sure your bosses don’t catch you goofing off
watching one of these videos playing on your screen

For a list of all the links

from this section and
snippets in the entire
magazine, head over to
http://dgit.in/alllinks517
Or point your phone to the
QR code above.
Cassini’s Grand Finale
Duration: 03:40
This animated video tells
the story of NASA’s Cassini
spacecraft making its final
Saturn mission.
http://dgit.in/Cassineme
Cutting with paper
Duration: 05:33
Now this video takes ‘paper
cut’ to a whole new level.
Have you ever wondered how
paper beats rock?
http://dgit.in/PaperCut1
How Big do Tornadoes Get?
Duration: 06:57
Tornadoes are one of the
most terrifying natural
disasters. But how big can a
tornado actually get?
http://dgit.in/TornadoSize

100 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in

 > code / creativity / community >
Facebook launched
AR development
platform at F8
http://dgit.in/FBARF8

Free HTTPS with Let’s

Encrypt
>>Secure your domain and all data transactions
with free HTTPS SSL certificates, courtesy of Let’s
Encrypt> by Mithun Mohandas

E
ncryption has become a hot
topic of discussion these days.
Governmental agencies and
hackers hate it, and technology
evangelists recommend it. Security is abso-
lutely important, no matter which aspect
of your online presence is being discussed.
On the web, you have multiple forms of
encryption and that too, present at dif-
ferent stages. You should be familiar with
the HTTPS lock symbol which pops up
right at the beginning of the address bar when you visit popular
websites like Google, Facebook, Github, etc. It’s now mandatory
for implementing certain services or modules which involves
transmission of personally identifiable information. There will
be no online payment page without HTTPS, no gateway’s API
will even allow you to perform a transaction if that page isn’t
secured with TLS/SSL.
Many industry titans have started
encouraging the use of TLS as well. Let’s
say you’ve decided to build your own web-
site, if you have any page that needs a user
to submit personal information or even
sign into a page, then it’s better to have that
page secured with an SSL certificate. Or
better yet, your entire site. Google started
giving websites with HTTPS a little boost
in their search rankings back in 2014.
They’d stated that they’ll promote HTTPS
further to encourage website owners to shift from HTTP to
HTTPS. So if all you need to do in order to get a little bit of
Google-search-love is implement HTTPS then you can turn
to one of the many Certificate Authorities (CA) which issue
HTTPS certificates.
There are several types of SSL certificates and they’re clas-
sified either by Validation Level or by Secured Domains. Let’s

*Coding Matters

*Facebook Relay *Microsoft Cognitive Stack Overflow trends

>> New version of Relay JavaScript Services APIs released >> This blog post from Stack
framework improves Facebook >> Face, Computer Vision and Overflow shows programming
performance on mobile. Content Moderator APIs available. trends from Stack Overflow usage.
http://dgit.in/FBRelay http://dgit.in/MSftAPIs http://dgit.in/StkOvrFlw

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 101

look at Validation certificates first. The simplest one here is
Domain Validated (DV) SSL which validates a domain so that
the administrator is aware of it and has to actively approve
the certificate on the server side either via email or DNS. Then
there are Organization Validated (OV) SSL certificates which
is only issued after the domain owner proves that an organiza-
tion (such as Facebook or Google) operates the domain and that
their establishment is verified by the CA. This level of validation
requires you to provide and verify information such as name,
city, state and country of
the organization. You can
take this one step further
with an Extended Valida-
tion (EV) certificate which
requires more legal paperwork to link the domain with a busi-
ness. You can easily identify EV certificates by their green bar
in the browser featuring the name of the company beside the
padlock symbol.
The second type of SSL certificates are those issued based
on secured domains. This one is fairly easy to comprehend.
There are Single-name SSL certificates which protects a single
domain such as www.heythere.com. Then there are Wildcard
SSL certificates which protects an unlimited number of subdo-
mains attached to a single domain. So you could have a single
certificate for *.heythere.com and it will protect any subdomain
attached to heythere.com such as abc.heythere.com and def.
heythere.com and so on. And lastly, there are Multi-Domain
SSL certificates which can secure a combination of different
domains under the same certificate. So you can have heythere.
com and whaddap.com secured by the same certificate.
Since there is a significant amount of work needed to issue
certain certificates, they end up becoming quite expensive.
Even with a lather of marketing mumbo jumbo, CA break up
these SSL categories even further into price based tiers with
their own nomenclature, thus, adding a lot more complexity
to an already complex set up. An EV certificate from GoDaddy
can cost you `6,499/year which is a pretty significant invest-
ment for someone starting out their own website. And that’s
with 50% discount, you’ll be paying `13,000 upon renewal. So
SSL certificates are expensive but they go a long way towards
ensuring a better internet. This is where Let’s Encrypt comes
into the picture. They are a Certificate Authority that provide
free certificates and make the entire process of implementing
TLS for your domain really simple. It was founded by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla Foundation and the
University of Michigan with the aim of eliminating payment and
reducing the complexity of setting up and maintaining HTTPS.
The only catch is that you need to renew the certificate every
90 days as that’s how long Let’s Encrypt certificates are valid
for. However, this is a pretty easy barrier to get across as you
can set up a simple cron job to perform renewal every 89 days.
102 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Setting up Let’s Encrypt
If you have access to your webserver then you can simply
install an TLS certificate using the Certbot ACME(Automated
Client Management Environment) client. This way, you can be
done with just a few commands. Or if your hosting provider
has a built in script to implement Let’s Encrypt then you’re
set. However, since a lot of hosting providers also provide
SSL certificates, they don’t like the idea of giving up a revenue
stream just so that they can serve their customers better. So
you’re unlikely to find many hosting providers supporting
out-of-the-box Let’s Encrypt implementation. We ended up
using Digital Ocean for setting up HTTPS on a domain as all
the other hosting providers we came across had “issues” with
setting up Let’s Encrypt.
Set up requirements
You can visit the Certbot website for detailed instructions based
on which web server software you are using and what OS it is
running on. Our droplet on DigitalOcean was running Ubuntu
16.04 with Apache as the web server software. You should have
access to the web server via Shell and have all the initial set up
kinks ironed out.
Then you’ll want to point a Domain to your hosting using
the Nameservers that you’ll be assigned when you purchased
the hosting. If you do this ahead of time then DNS propoga-
tion will have taken place by the time you can proceed with
installing the certificate. This can take up to 48 hours but we
only had to wait two hours.
The first step is to install the Let’s Encrypt client i.e. Certbot.
Start off by updating the package indexes by typing the fol-
lowing command.
$sudo apt-get update
And once that’s done, you need to install Certbot by typing in.
$sudo apt-get install python-letsencrypt-apache
If your hosting provider can’t find the Certbot client then
you’ll need to add their repository before using the apt-get
install command.
Installing SSL certificate
After the Certbot client has finished the installation process, you
can proceed to setting up the SSL certificate. Use the following
command to get that done.
sudo letsencrypt --apache -d yourdomainname.com
It should be pretty self explanatory as to what arguments are
being passed here but we’ll go ahead and spell it out any ways.
You’re passing the arguements ‘--apache -d
yourdomainname.com’ to letsencrypt. The
‘--apache’ tells Certbot which web server
you are using and the domain you want to
issue your certificate for is passed after the
‘-d’ flag. In this case, it would be yourdomain-
name.com.
Should you want a Multi-Domain or
Wildcard SSL certificate then you can add
an additional domain by using another ‘-d’
flag followed by the second domain name.
For example:
sudo letsencrypt --apache -d yourdomain-
name.com -d yourseconddomain.com
It’s best to pass the root domain first
before passing any sub-domains or wild-
cards as it’s the domain used by Let’s Encrypt
to create the certificate. You’ll then have to
enter your email ID in the next prompt for
key recovery should you forget it .
The rest is a pretty simple process where
you just have to confirm if all the information
on the screen is true or not.
Towards the end, you’ll be asked if you
want to route even the HTTP traffic through
HTTPS which is ideally the safest option.
*pointers
>>Interesting
developer videos
*Secure Nginx
>>This tutorial shows you how to
use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a free
SSL certificate and use it with
Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04.
http://dgit.in/NginxUbuntu
*Secure Wordpress
>> Learn how to put a WordPress
site under SSL, removing “mixed
content” warnings, and more.
http://dgit.in/SecureWrdPress
*Facebook F8 2017
>>In case you missed it, check
out the entire Facebook developer
converence streamed live by
Time in this video.
http://dgit.in/FacebkF8
*Google Dev Day
>>At GDC 2017. Developers talk
about new devices, platforms,
and tools are helping developers
grow successful businesses and
push the limits of mobile gaming.
http://dgit.in/GDCDevDay
Congratulations, you now have HTTPS
set up for your domain. Your certificates
will be located in ‘/etc/letsencrypt/live’. You
can see if it’s routing all traffic by typing
http://yourdomainname.com and checking
if the padlock symbol appears. Or you can
check out ssllabs.com which has an SSL
test page.
Now that you’ve got your SSL certificate,
you need to set up auto-renewal since the
certificate expires in 90 days. To do this,
Let’s Encrypt has a renew command that
automatically checks and renews your cer-
tificate if it detects an expiry set to happen
under 30 days. So go ahead and type the
following in shell.
sudo letsencrypt renew
You’ll be met with the following message
since you’ve just installed the HTTPS certifi-
cate and have 90 days left.
• Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/
yourdomainname.com.conf
• The following certs are not due for
renewal yet:
• /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomainname.
com/fullchain.pem (skipped)
• No renewals were attempted.
Now we just have to set up a scheduled
task to run every week or day or month
which runs the renew command. The safest
option would be to run it every day but we
feel that’s a little unnecessary at this point.
So we’re going to be running it once a week.
You’ll need to edit the crontab to set up
a schedule. Type the following command
to open it.
sudo crontab -e
Based on which text editors are installed
on your system, you’ll be presented with
options to pick one. Once crontab is open,
you’ll need to add an additional line at the
very end for your SSL renewal. Crontab
follows a simple pattern which has your
date and time first and the command to be
executed right after that. For example:
59 23 31 12 6 command
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 103

This first two parameters allow you to set the time. So you
have minutes(0-59) and then hours(0-23). Then there’s the
day(1-31) of the month, month(1-12) and day of the week(0-6,
0 being Sunday). And lastly the command to be executed. We
want to run the renewal command every week on a Monday
at 2:30 AM. So we’ll be using:
30 2 * * 1 /usr/bin/letsencrypt renew >> /var/log/le-renew.log
You should now save and exit crontab. We’ve also set a log
file to be created for each instance of the cron job to be saved at
/var/log/le-renew.log.
The alternate way
Sometimes, if your domain is behind a firewall or if you have
a CDN setup, then the usual method will not work. This is
because the Let’s Encrypt authentication server needs to per-
*Nodes of Interest
*Data Encryption *Secure Rancher apps
>> Confused about the basics of >> Here’s how to secure your
encryption? Give this course a shot Rancher web app with Let’s Encrypt
to get back on track. on Ubuntu 16.04.
http://dgit.in/DataEncryp http://dgit.in/SecureRancher
104 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
form a challenge with the IP address associated with your
domain. And with a CDN involved, the authentication server
will see the challenge request coming from a different IP
address. In this case, we need to use the webroot method. This
method simply creates a temporary file in the root folder of
your domain which the Let’s Encrypt authentication server
can read from to verify domain ownership. To do that, use the
following command:
certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/yourdomainname/ -d
www.yourdomainname.com
The Let’s Encrypt server will make an HTTP request
to find this temporary file at your www.yourdomainname.
com and the certbot will create that temporary file at /var/
www/yourdomainname/ in your server. Ensure that you
create the temporary file in the root directory and nowhere
else. Hopefully, you’ll now have HTTPS enabled via the
webroot method.
Conclusion
HTTPS is the future of the web, there’s no denying that. It pro-
tects the integrity of your website and ensures the privacy and
security of visitors coming to your site. When we’ve entered
an era of needless mass surveillance, the web has started to
become less free and subject to censorship. The latter has
been used by governments to suppress their people and is still
being used to do the same in many regions across the world.
HTTPS may not be the one true solution to this problem but it
sure does go a long way towards alleviating the privacy issue
plaguing the internet.
U
Secure | https://www.yoursite.com
Let’s Encrypt, through its service has made the process of
obtaining SSL certificates ridiculously easy, to the point the even
absolute beginners can implement HTTPS on their domains.
Moreover, it’s free. So what’s holding you back from getting
your own SSL certificate?
*Secure your website
>> A feature that covers the major
areas that you need to secure if you
have your own website.
http://dgit.in/SecureWb

Tech@Work 109
Arnab Mukherjee
arnab@digit.in
I
nformation security is not a new
topic – it is something that com-
panies and individuals alike have
been well aware of for ages. Be it
the fight against viruses or ransom-
ware, the threats and the defences
have evolved side-by-side. What
hasn’t changed is the steadily growing
need for security. It wouldn’t be your
fault if you assumed that there isn’t
any exceptional need for security
professionals in the industry right
now. Everything is hunky-dory and
nobody is going to need even more
people to keep their data (and assets)
safe. So people might as well leave
everything to the firewalls, VPNs
and anitiviruses of the world, and
you most certainly don’t want to be
another information security analyst
106 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Industry Connect
We catch up with AMDs David
Bennet to learn more about their
new Ryzen lineup of CPUs
in an already ‘overcrowded’ market.
Are we getting it right so far?
Take a look at last year’s attacks,
which ranged from the Dyn DDoS
attack that brought down half the
internet or the multiple data breaches
announced by Yahoo. But like many
others last year and the years before
them, all of these are routine far off
events that haven’t really boiled down
to actual consequences in your life,
right? Unless….
It’s happening – now and here
In October 2016, Indian banks suf-
fered their worst data breach yet
when almost 3.2 million debit cards
were compromised. Quite a few major
banks like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank,
SBI, ICICI and Yes Bank were some
of the worst affected. The effect was
industry wide because of the target
chosen by the attackers - the interoper-
Wear24 by Verizon
The American telecom’s new Android
smartwatch will be available for
$349.99. http://dgit.in/Wear24V
able payment system. Banks operate
their ATM and payment networks in
such a way that any network bank’s
cards will work with any bank’s
machine. Hence, when Yes Bank’s ATM
network was compromised due to a
malware injection into the payment
gateway of Hitachi network systems,
the effect gradually spread to mul-
tiple banks and their account holders.
Interestingly, the breaches happened
somewhere between May and July,
yet it was not until two months later
in September that it was even iden-
tified. Hitachi wasn’t even able to
identify the amount of data breached.
And that’s a banking network.
Many of you might have heard of the
IMAGING: PETERSON PJ
Cloudflare data breach – infamously
titled Cloudbleed due to the data
leaking behaviour in the breach. Quite
a few popular websites, even India
based, were using Cloudflare as their
 Shopify’s card reader Another HDR standard?
Canadian e-commerce company, Shopify Samsung and Amazon have announced a new
has designed a ‘Simple Card Reader’. open standard for high dynamic range video.
http://dgit.in/ShopifyCard http://dgit.in/HDR10plus Work @ Tech

storage provider and as a consequence, nology behind security is being handled

were affected by it. Some of them were
HDFC Bank, Citibank, Infibeam, Uber,
Zoho and Lenskart. If you had an
account on these websites before the
breach, it is highly likely that the data
was leaked to any random requester
who hit the correct server or even used
the correct search term on Google.
Overall, according to a report from
Gemalto, last year saw a staggering
1.3billion records breached by hackers
– that is 44 people losing their infor-
mation every second, throughout the
year. And this doesn’t include the 52%
breaches where the number of records
lost was unknown. Compare that to
the fact that the total number of breach
instances actually went down by 4% –
indicating that the breaches are going
wider and deeper in terms of effective-
ness. Specifically, India was one of the
worst performers. According to the 2016
SBI had to undertake one of the largest
debit card replacement drives last year
Cost of Data Breach Study from IBM,
India had the highest average number
of breached records at 31,225 per breach.
Interestingly, the same report goes on to
point out that India is the global leader
when it comes to percentage of breaches
caused by system glitches. That does tell
you something about the way the tech-
currently in India.
It’s a pain
The data you lose to breaches may or
may not be vital to you – depending
on the severity of the breach. Enter-
prises, on the other hand, have a higher
price to pay. Indian organisations
experienced an average loss of $1.6
million per organisational breach,
bringing the cost of each lost record to
about $60. Apart from the economic
losses, a data breach or hack also
affects the goodwill of a brand with
its customers – and we all know how
important that is in the Indian context.
Average perception towards
improving enterprise level security is
spending more money on it. According
to Gartner, organisations spend an
average of 5.6 percent of their overall IT
budget on IT security and risk manage-

The 2016 Breach Level Index from Gemalto paints a scary picture of what’s to come.

www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 107


Work @ Tech
ment but actual security levels are far
below what is indicated by this share.
“Clients want to know if what they are
spending on information security is
equivalent to others in their industry,
geography, and size of business in
order to evaluate whether they are
practicing due diligence in security and
related programs,” said Rob McMillan,
research director at Gartner. “But gen-
eral comparisons to generic industry
averages don’t tell you much about your
state of security. You could be spending
at the same level as your peer group, but
you could be spending on the wrong
things and be extremely vulnerable.
Alternatively, you may be spending
appropriately but have a different risk
appetite from your peers,” he said. And
because of these incorrect assumptions,
increased security budgets haven’t
resulted in greater security levels – a
situation that has prompted many com-
panies to sit up and take stock of their
information security infrastructure.
This perception is gradually
changing. Some clearly defined factors
are emerging in the industry that have
shown direct cost and effect benefits
towards security:
• Establishing a workforce trained in
the latest vulnerabilities and new
threat avenues.
• Ensuring company-wide usage
of encryption on each and every
platform.
• Forming an incident response team
that is well prepared to deal with a
live breach.
• Cooperative participation in threat
sharing with other companies.
New entry points
It has been a long standing practice
to secure a computer with an anti-
virus and a firewall. That practice
has trickled down to a small portion
of the smartphone community, with
similar awareness regarding threats.
Now, if you think that an individual
smartphone is at risk, you couldn’t be
further from the truth. That level of
targeting is quite rare and is mostly
left to espionage novels and movies.
What attackers do go after is your data,
108 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
iPad Air 2 for Four
The company may replace your
fourth-generation iPad for an Air 2.
http://dgit.in/ipad2fourth
stored at server level. And in the case of
smartphones, a small margin of users
actually check the permissions asked
for by each app they install – thus the
others grant access to their data even
if it is not relevant to their use case.
On the other hand, newer data
endpoints are emerging everyday.
According to Gartner, Smart machines
will enter mainstream adoption by
2021, with 30 percent adoption by
large companies. These are machines
that will make many decisions for
Wearables are a new and unsecured entry point for attackers
themselves mostly while connected to
networks. Even if they are not entirely
autonomous, security for these has to
be implemented differently.
Last year, the Mirai botnet attack
demonstrated the potential of IoT secu-
rity breaches. IoT indeed is something
that has been discussed a lot from a
security standpoint, but then again, it
is the Internet of ‘things’ – anything
new that is connected to the internet
falls under IoT. And anything con-
nected to the internet is vulnerable.
Cars have been hacked, a popular U.S.
smart home alarm system was hacked,
implantable medical devices like
pacemakers have been hacked, plane
systems have been hacked, critical
infrastructures like a power grid and
a dam were hacked, mobile banking
apps have been hacked, smart city
technology has been hacked, and even
a traffic management system has been
hacked in Washington, D.C.
Audio call on Duo
Google’s video-chat application Duo
now supports audio calling worldwide.
http://dgit.in/DuoACall
By nature, the IoT market is
fragmented in terms of design and
security. What does that mean? It
means that there is no single security
approach that applies to the entire
connected devices market. Because of
that reason, there is a high demand for
cybersecurity professionals who can
analyse and deal with cases specific to
a certain company. And as the expend-
iture areas in the previous section
showed, there is active effort to reduce
the level of human error and system
glitches possible, making CyberSe-
curity a lucrative career opportunity
right now.
What can you do
It is true that cybersecurity, as a
career choice, has always had a steady
demand - till now. In the coming few
years, as factors above indicate, the
demand is not only going to grow - it
is going to widen as well. According to
Glassdoor, an entry level Information
Security Analyst can make upto 8lpa,
and it only goes higher from there.
Building expertise in new and
emerging platforms, which have their
own vulnerabilities, is a good first
step towards a career in this growing
market. Also, developing practical
experience alongside that can never be
a bad thing. For anything beyond that,
stay tuned to this space for a detailed
article on building a career in cyber-
security next month.
 Gaming scholarship
University of Utah has announced
scholarships to students for gaming.
http://dgit.in/GamingCash
How AMD
has Ryzen
We have a quick chat with AMD’s David Bennet
about Ryzen’s share in the market and how the
company plans to continue competing.
Mithun Mohandas
mithun@digit.in
There have been quite a few devel-
opments around Instinct and Naples.
However, we hardly get to hear much
about compute related AMD hardware
in India. Why is that so?
Whilst compute news has been limited
in the past, with the introduction of
both Naples and Instinct in 2017, we
will see increased communication
around this as AMD re-enters the data-
center in a big way. Following the suc-
cess of Ryzen, we are excited to be able
to launch Naples in Q2 2017, so stand by
for more to be released in the very near
future. Server and enterprise markets
are other spaces that are starved for
competition and the early press and
feedback show what we already know –
Ryzen was designed with high perfor-
mance compute in mind and is perfect
for enterprise workloads with excellent
scalability and performance per watt.
AMD’s known for supporting a plat-
form for long periods. AM3+ has been
around for more than six years now.
How long can we expect the new AM4
to be supported by AMD?
We have stated that our plan for AM4
is to support this platform until 2020.
We are committed to long lifetimes
for our sockets as seen in the past.
This allows for our customers to have
multiple upgrades available to them
with the launch of subsequent products
based on our upcoming architectures.
Samsung Google Play
New partnership makes Google Play
Music the default on all Samsung devices.
http://dgit.in/S8playmusic
Spokesperson: David Bennet, Corporate
Vice President & General Manager,
Commercial & Enterprise Business, AMD
People like choice and not everyone
has an unlimited budget. Our goal is to
create an ecosystem that allows users
to upgrade as little or as often as they
want without having to spend as much
money as you would with the competi-
tion. More performance for less cost.
With Ryzen, our current 7th
Generation APUs and upcoming Zen
based Raven Ridge APUs all being on
the AM4 platform – we believe that the
longevity of AM4 is great news for our
customers and partners. This stability
gives them upgradability for years
to come and a platform with all the
modern features they need such as M.2,
USB Type-C and NVMe to work with
for the next four years.
Claiming the lead in CPU perfor-
mance has always been a cat and
mouse game. Intel seems to be
Industry Connect
prepping two new Kaby Lake SKUs
to compete with certain Ryzen SKUs
which begs the question if AMD has
anything hidden up their sleeves to
one-up Intel? Will we see a Ryzen 7
1900X two months down the line?
Unfortunately, we are not able to speak
to future products over and above what
we have already announced. That said,
we have already indicated that Zen 2
and Zen 3 products are in development
and will continue to improve both per-
formance and efficiency along with pro-
viding our customers great value in the
coming years. The recently launched
Ryzen 5 CPUs will help us address a
broader part of the market with Ryzen.
Long story short, we are ready and still
have some surprises up our sleeves.
The Polaris graphics cards went a
long way towards increasing AMD’s
share in the overall GPU market. How
big an impact do you think Ryzen
will have on AMD’s share in the CPU
market, both globally and in the Indian
sub-continent?
According to the latest market data,
AMD Radeon has enjoyed six straight
quarters of growth. We believe the
opportunity is even greater in the CPU
segment. For almost a decade, the high-
performance PC market has only had
one choice when building a system. We
have now brought back real competition
to this space and believe this excitement
clearly has an opportunity to reinvig-
orate and excite the market as a whole.
More importantly, AMD believes in
open source and providing maximum
compute power to maximum people.
Just like we did with the Radeon RX
480, we have introduced our Ryzen
processors at an incredible price gap
versus our competition. We provide
better performance than our competi-
tion at each price point, and by a con-
siderable amount. I certainly believe
this will allow us to capture share from
our competition in the Indian sub-con-
tinent and around the world. In fact, we
are already seeing this happen.
For the full interview, visit the following
link: http://dgit.in/AMDRDB67.
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 109

Esc
Customisation - Wins or Fails?
Everything is customizable these days. Some people come up with the most amazing
customizations, and then there’s this lot…
Car lashes
What was the first thing that popped
into your mind when you saw these?
Was it “why would you want your car
to have headlight lashes?” or “Wow!
Those look pretty!”? The former right?
There’s absolutely no point to them.
And it’s definitely not going to make
your car feel any prettier. If you thought
the latter... erm, we don’t judge?
Still better than a Mac
This is the latest product from
Apple’s labs and boasts better func-
tionality than the best PCs in the
market! Also it’s red, just like the
recent iPhone Red. Which means
it’s obviously more superior to its
non-red brethren. It’s really that
good, trust us. We’ve reviewed it
ourselves.
110 | Digit | May 2017 | www.digit.in
Blackberry wins $815M
Qualcomm lost an arbitration battle against
Blackberry and must pay $814 million.
http://dgit.in/Qualberry
Thomas the tank en-dragon?!
Thomas the dragon (formerly tank
engine) has become something of a
symbol when it comes to modding
and Skyrim. Sure it doesn’t make any
sense and isn’t immersive or lore-
friendly at all, but it’s still pretty
darn funny. Watch as he aggressively
choo-choos and breathes steam in
this incongruous setting!
Who needs cabinet fans
Overheating is an issue a lot of us face,
especially around this time. Why waste
money on tiny cabinet fans when you
can get the job done with one much
bigger fan. Strap on this bad boy and
you’re good to go. You risk losing
some small parts but you can prob-
ably replace them with the money you
made from not buying fans.
App for medical doctors
Figure 1 is a new photo and knowledge sharing
app for medical professionals, with peer-to-peer
sponsored content. http://dgit.in/drFigure1
For your nose picking urges
This smartphone case comes with
a nose on it. No, it’s not because it
comes with an app that can actu-
ally smell stuff. The only purpose
of this case is for you to pick it (up).
Get it? ‘Pick it’ up? Yep, it’s a smart-
phone case based on nose-picking.
Be honest, did you ever think you’d
see the day?
The Galaxy Note 7 in GTA V
Ah, the GTA V exploding Note 7 mod.
Because flinging explosive Note 7s
at people is pretty funny. But, for
obvious reasons, Samsung did not
find it funny. So they did the “sen-
sible” thing and tried to have videos
featuring the mod taken off of You-
Tube citing copyright. Lol.
 Drones as projectiles
The recent weaponization of drones has seen its
share of inventiveness. Now militants are using
drones as projectiles. http://dgit.in/Dronemilitia
How we unwind
Moar Food!
We found a new place (yes,
AGAIN) to get food from and
it comes to us in the form of the
Gorb app. We’ve been ordering
from them for well over a week
now and we probably won’t be
stopping anytime soon.
Blue Mountain State
This ridiculous teenage
comedy series that looks like
an extended version of Amer-
ican Pie, has totally enthralled
Mithun. For the rest of us
it’s a guilty pleasure. Don’t
tell anyone.
Community Creations
Puzzle2
Trying to escape the grind the
Monday-Friday routine, long time
Digit readers, Tanay and Abhilash
decided to put their extra time in
developing small mobile games.
Working as engineers in Bengaluru,
they named themselves Mast
Studios and developed Puzzle2.
You’d imagine Puzzle2 came after
Puzzle1 or just Puzzle, but in fact,
they never managed to finish Puzzle. Apparently, both of
them are overwhelmed with ideas and are easily distracted
with new projects. Now, the team is focusing on building
Puzzle3 while trying to finish the first one, confusing them
whether to call it Puzzle1 or Puzzle3 on release.
Download it here: http://dgit.in/Puzzle2And
Space manned missions
Aerospace company Boeing reveals its plans for
human space exploration systems to reach Mars
and even beyond. http://dgit.in/BoeingSM Unwind
DIARY
This was a month of many firsts. It was the first time
Arnab “PC Police” Mukherjee used the F bomb in a
sentence *gasp*. It was also the first time he came to
office on a Sunday! *double gasp!* Arnab is like the most
married, un-married guy we know. We’re glad he could
get away from the old ball and chain, to spend time with
his true love – technology. This was also the first time Sid
got to be on a radio show. Though he was more excited
about the fact that people still listen to good old conven-
tional radio. An unnamed millennial in the team *cough*
Manish *cough* wanted to listen in, and asked where he
could “stream” it from. LAWL. Speaking of the Mama’s
Boy, this was the first time (in a long while) that Manish
didn’t write the diary. He has been pretty glum lately,
because the powers that be, decided to not let him go
home to Hyderabad for a long weekend. The writer filling
in for him, asks that you guys find him on Facebook, and
send him all the cute kitten pictures you can find. He’ll be
very appreciative. (his name is spelt M-A-N-I-S-H R-A…
ah we’re sure you’ll find him)
PC, Laptop
Tablet, Mobile
Saur(aa
92.72.70.70.50
98.22.88.25.62
www.digit.in | May 2017 | Digit | 111
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