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The Static Page
One number to rule them all

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

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

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

May 2017 • Volume 17 • Issue 05
TO ADVERTISE PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH
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Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
Sales Director:
Lalit Arun, Mobile: +91-9582262959 Oppo F3 Plus
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ASUS GL553VD
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Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith
GIGABYTE AORUS GTX 1080 Ti Extreme
Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay East:
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Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Manish Rajesh, TP-Link WA-820RE
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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
HyperX Alloy FPS
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
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DGT 2019’s Audi e-tron
All the latest lifestyle technology, gadgets to The vehicle's 95kWh battery pack
Enter 12 drool over and gizmo porn like never before.

Desire, Greed and Temptation ahead...
gives it a range of 310 miles.
http://dgit.in/AudioEtron
) I have been reading dmystify since

the past year and a half and I would
Feedback for the April 2017 issue of Digit
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 Write to:

dmystify dedicated to virii, because they editor@digit.in
are complex and very, very different GPU comparison table the cover story to dmystify.
from everything else. We haven't set a was four pages. You people Overall it was one of the best
date for it yet, though, because we plan give attention to so much detail, that issues I've laid my hands on.
these things much in advance, but let you can rate a smartphone game on The April'17 issue saw the introduc-
me see if it can be moved up to appear ten, and even correct to a decimal place! tion of a different paper quality which is
sometime this year. (I've never seen decimal level rating on of inferior quality similar to cheap paper
–Robert smartphone games). cum plastic pamphlets. So, I would like
PS. The Tekken 7 poster was great! you to revert back to the previous one.
) Hello Digit, I’ve been a bit sad – you –Snehit Sah As far as the Digit app is concerned,
guys kinda killed SKOAR!. The jewel don't you think that handing out free
in Digit’s mighty crown is now stuffed Don't worry Snehit, SKOAR isn't dead. Digit e-books would encourage piracy!
somewhere inside the main mag and We have great plans for it. Stay tuned. As someone would surely put up a link
to make us feel the difference between But your plans for AI have scared us! (or upload it). And in no time we would
the main mag and SKOAR, you also Yes we do have detailed test processes see PDF versions of Digit, shamelessly
degraded its quality. I’ll be very happy if and we test every minute detail. But stolen (Hey! I'm not the one btw).
SKOAR! rises back again from the ashes Anusha, (who reviews mobile games) I And why don't you include Mithun's
of the Phoenix! suspect just likes decimals :-P column in the introductory pages? (with
Lemme tell you that cover story on –Siddharth Sid and Robert). It may result in the for-
AI was great. I believe that AI will surely mation of a new ''Trinity Brotherhood''.
arrive soon, and probably do all the ) Hey there! I've been wanting to write I also have some suggestions for the
work for me (am I too greedy?). They’ll to Digit since a long time now, so this upcoming issues. How about a Cover
be the slave and I have a valid reason for one's going to be a bit lengthy. Story on ''Becoming hack proof'' or
making them slaves. They have intelli- I had my board exams during the ''The future of the PC Master Race’’? I
gence. So, at some point of time, they will latter half of March, so I was expecting a would love to see a comparison of mid-
have a feeling, that they should be the one lot from your March'17 issue, in order to range GPUs. For SKOAR, how about
who is superior. This has been happening take off the pressure during study time. covering Metal Gear Solid or Resident
since forever in our human race. The AI But I was utterly disappointed. Almost Evil for the ''Phranchise'' section?
race won’t be any different I guess. We’ll nothing in the mag had my interest, I'm not sure whether it's done but a
need to have control over them. The except SKOAR and FastTrack. And after FastTrack on ''Building a PC’’ will be
reviews you guys do and the compari- the exams ended, I was expecting even great? A dmystify on Nanotechnology
sons are epic. I remember when you did more from the April issue and boy, did is something I'm expecting from you.
a comparison of smartphone cameras, you deliver. This time almost everything Also, you receive tonnes of games and
the table was two pages long, and the in the mag captured my interest – from 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 The paper quality is to differentiate idea to establish a new “Trinity Brother-
love to receive gifts from the #1 tech SKOAR as a separate section from the hood” as you put it. (Just don’t tell him I
magazine of the WORLD, especially rest of the magazine. We've been getting said so. Shhh.)
me. Finally, a Prey or Outlast 2 poster conflicting reactions to the paper quality. A blowout GPU comparison test is
would be highly appreciated. Thank If you read ahead in this section a fellow something we’ve been planning for a
you for enlightening readers like me reader is appreciating the low reflective while too. The only thing keeping us
and also for delivering such great glare on those pages. from doing it is our wait for AMD’s VEGA
content every month. Keep up the good About the app, yes piracy could be a cards. Once they're out, we’ll be coming
work team :) concern, except the app doesn't host PDFs up with a comparison test covering not
–Sarang Devsaha at all (which is why the reading experi- only the mid-range but all the catego-
ence, we hope, is much better). As for ries. So stay tuned for that.
Phew, you weren’t kidding when you past issue PDFs, we anyway give them out The ideas for future phranchise, and
said it’s going to be long one. But these twice a year on the special issue DVDs. dmystify are spot on. Though we did PC
detailed letters are the ones we appre- There seems to be a lot of demand to Building in September 2013. It might be
ciate the most. And hopefully my reply have Mithun’s column moved up! Since time for a refresh but the basic principles
will be equally detailed and long. Excel- Mithun is always knee deep in compo- still remain the same. Do dig into your
lent suggestions Sarang, and we’re glad nents, it just felt natural for his column PDF archives and look up that issue.
you liked the AI issue. Let me answer to be where all the hardware is – the Happy reading!
your queries one by one. Tried & Tested section. But it’s a great –Siddharth
LETTER OF THE MONTH
) Hi, I've been an on-off reader of Digit for what seems like the same colour. They barely reflect anything.
eons. There are a lot of positive things, but I have a feeling 5. In most cases I find the magazine content quite noob
this is going to be a rather long mail, and think the nega- friendly, and understand that it's a fine balance to
tives need to be addressed first. So here's my two satoshis: maintain. I have some mixed feelings about one aspect
1. I open the familiar two page Inbox section that lists the of the AI stories. The turing test is mentioned in quite
praises and woes by users. A quick scan and not a few places and is integral to the topic of AI. However
getting what I came for, begin to flip backwards. nothing was mentioned about what it was really. The
Finding out where to write to you guys was an jargon was thrown around like it was a technical
elusive piece of information to find! A simple test and a casual reader who is reading about
blurb somewhere on same page along the AI for the first time is going to think it's some
lines of "write to x to let us know" would've "computer thingy" that programmers do.
done wonders in streamlining the process 6. Officially a fan of Sahil Dawka after that
without having the reader to hunt it down. refreshing 2040 short story. Looking for-
2. Whats up with the Tips & Tricks page ward to more such creative stuff. :)
format? In this era who actually cuts and -Sony Sasankan
"files" them. I understand it made sense when
internet was a challenge and those dual DVDs were Yikes! I had no idea finding out how to reach us
a gift from the gods. It's time to update that column was so difficult. Feedback noted Sony, you'll find
I think. Give it page numbers and "normalise" it. a big blub in this section itself going forward.
3. Readability. Oh god! the ever fighting battle of designers! We've toyed with the idea of normalising the section too.
While I'm pleased to say that it's kept a great design But every now and then we get a stray mail from readers like
throughout, in spite of the overwhelming content, yourself who crib to us when we don't start the secton on a
some sore spots remain. Take the AI story last month right hand page (like this time) because they want to cut those
– the circuit pattern underneath is still hugely dis- pages and not disrupt whatever might be printed behind. But
tracting and often comes in the way of the text. yes point noted. We'll add this to our next reader survey.
4. Readability again (hides under a blanket). The whole Yup that's on us. I don't know how we missed
Sci-fi TRAPPIST story on Page 53. You see on glossy that. We hope the readibility in this issue is better.
pages when printed with black ink as the back- Indeed, we should definitely put in "for those who
ground, pretty much every light source is a messy came in late" explainers in our stories. Point noted.
reflection of white thou-shalt-not-read blinding Keep sharing such feedback with us
spell. This is fine on non glossy paper (like the Sony. It helps us improve a lot.
SKOAR story on page 84) which are printed using –Siddharth

SECTION SUBSECTION
GREED TEMPTATION
For those who just want more If you’re wondering what to do
than should be humanly with yourself or how to spend
allowed, we have enough to some time getting cultured,
satisfy your hunger... this section is for you...
THIS MONTH: Mini Cooper THIS MONTH: Expanse,

D, BMW X3, Bang & Olufsen Born a Crime: Stories from a
BeoSound Shape, OSIM South African Childhood and
uCaress 3D, Hidesign RFID upcoming stuff to watch out
blocking wallet and more... for in May 2017 ...
TECHNOLOGY WITH STYLE
DESIRE SHOWCASE
Solar-Powered Water
Harvester
MindMaze
VR Face T his sponge-like device
is capable of sucking
water out from water
Mask vapour in the air, even in
MindMaze has come up low humidity conditions. It
with a mask that’s capable can produce about three
of somewhat accurately litres of water a day for
reading your expressions. every sponge-like absorber
The mask consists of a ring it contains, and researchers
of electrodes which you say that it can only get more
can install into the face efficient in the future. In
foam of any VR headset. the past, researchers have
When you put the mask on, been able to acquire water frameworks, or MOFs. These Wang from MIT and together
it detects which sensors from the atmosphere but MOFs’ properties can be they came up with the
your skin is touching, never like this. Previous altered by chemists, dictating water-harvesting device. The
matching it to patterns of methods needed either too which gases bound them and device works by soaking up
facial expressions. It’s not much electricity or areas the strength of their bond. In water vapour from the air at
100 percent accurate, but of very high humidity. The 2014, they synthesised a MOF night, and using heat from
it helps read expressions team of researchers from that was adept at absorbing the sun to condense the
when your face is otherwise the University of California, water, even in low-humidity. vapour to liquid during the
hidden by a VR headset. Berkeley, led by Omar Yaghi, After synthesizing the new day. This could be a huge
found a way to use crystalline MOF (dubbed MOF-801), breakthrough for places that
powders called metal organic Yaghi reached out to Evelyn suffer from drought.
Lego Mac SHFT IQ X-Wing Drone Aerix Nano FPV

Although it
doesn’t run
SHFT IQ is a
virtual running
If you’re
looking for
drone
macOS, this coach that drones that These nano
tiny Lego Mac tracks and resemble drones feature
is made out of an e-ink analyses your body and spaceships from Star Wars, a 5.8ghz video camera along
display and a Raspberry Pi running style. This tiny pod Oliver C is your man. The with a 2-in-1 FPV standalone
Zero. All it can do is display is armed with an AI that can latest addition is the iconic monitor and goggle set for
the time or images on the provide you with instructions X-Wing fighter; completely some first-person-view
e-ink screen. in real time. custom-built. 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.

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

NowFloats Boost is a service that
these companies have been known to partner with phone
offers to give your business visibility
companies to lend their
by providing you tools to build your
expertise in smartphone own website. Above the usual
audio development, Onkyo social media presence, NowFloats
is taking it a step further. promises to get your website – and
Onkyo has gone ahead consequently, product – visible in
and developed its own unique search results. Overall, the
smartphone, the Onkyo appearance of the website is pretty
Granbeat. The focus of standard. In fact, any NowFloats
the Granbeat is of course Boost free website looks pretty
on the audio, and Onkyo much the same. But the important
thing here is the visibility – most customers of this app
claim it has the “highest
are small to medium stores who have used the app to
quality of audio in the
get regular service and product updates out to their
history of smartphones.” customers. The only thing it insists on – regular updates.
The Granbeat comes with
a standard 3.5mm audio Play Store: http://dgit.in/NowFBPS
jack and a 2.5mm 4 pole App Store: http://dgit.in/NowFBAS
jack. It’s also got dual
amplifiers, making it the Google Areo
first phone in the world to Hyperlocal services are picking
have those. The DAC and up pace and now Google seems
amplifier circuit are shielded in an enclosure that prevents to have taken up the job of
electromagnetic interference. The Granbeat’s body is made integrating them with its new
from a single aluminium block. There’s a dedicated volume app Areo. Currently operational
control knob on the left and player controls on the right side. in Bangalore and Mumbai, the
app brings together quite a few
SPECIFICATIONS services. For instance, food
OS: Android 6.0 | SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 | RAM: services like Freshmenu and
3GB | Storage: 128GB, expandable | Display: 1080p Holachef, home services from
IPS display | Camera: 16MP rear; 8MP front | Battery: Urbanclap, and more. A great
3000mAh | Dual SIM support 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. its legendary status as an icon. The latest edition is all about
The 8.8-inch display deftly lets go of its touchscreen interface making the Beetle smarter than ever before, while retaining
and relies on the circular iDrive controller for all controls. its iconic design, a pleasantly voluptuous cabin and generously
The intuitive controller gets seven buttons for quick access smooth driving dynamics.
to multimedia, Powered by Volkswagen’s SmartLink infotainment system
radio, telephone and that packages Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and MirrorLink into
sat-nav, along with an adaptive icon, you get ample gizmos to play around with.
main menu, back and The SmartLink console misses out on a dedicated sat-nav unit,
settings. At the centre but presents music and telephony via Bluetooth. You also get
is a large circular a USB port to charge devices, an aux port for analogue audio
control dial with connectivity, and an SD card and a CD drive should you require
five-way toggle and such media. The system also gets integrated voice operation
a central touchpad. that works well with the preset commands.

GREED AUTO
The multifunction steering wheel also integrates all of the good ground stability, and you can really feel the car’s weight
infotainment services into the MID, which makes operations impacting its stability positively.
even easier. Additionally, you get body-coloured inserts and a The BMW X3 xDrive 30d M Sport offers good, enjoyable
premium, all-leather black upholstery, with spacious, electri- driving dynamics. The steering wheel is weighed slightly lesser
cally operated front seats (that are also heated – no cooling). than our choice, but many would enjoy the zippy maneuver-
The rear seats are spacious enough to accommodate two ability despite the car’s size. Hit the highway and switch to
adults for short journeys in reasonable comfort. The dual-zone Sport, and this is where you get to know the real DNA of
AC, while being powerful enough, is a tad noisy, breaking the BMW’s mid-sized luxury beast, the X3 xDrive 30d M Sport.
momentum of seamless comfort.
The Beetle is an easy car to drive, and more enthusiastic Skoda Superb: Backseat comforts
drivers will be left wanting for more. The light steering wheel is Of the four cars we drove this month, the MINI Cooper D is all
easy to maneuver, and the soft suspension sits the car squat on about beautiful, ambient lighting and excellent handling, while
the ground. It does get slightly unsettled by large bumps, but the VW Beetle is about ease of driving and iconic styling. The
most drivers of the Beetle will enjoy the easy-flowing driving BMW X3, meanwhile, is about a mean riding stance and great
nature of the car. highway power. Amid all of these, the all-new Skoda Superb
The Beetle is not about sporty drives, and neither does it holds its own by being literally superb itself.
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 It retains the same SmartLink infotainment system seen
make searches easier. in the Beetle, including all infotainment services but a sat-
You also get full phone and message controls, along with a nav unit. You get ventilated seats, special Canton-powered
3D sat-nav map that knows Indian roads fairly well. The high 8.1-channel audio that is deep, crisp and clear, an automatic
definition rear parking camera, coupled with auto-adaptive, sunroof, adaptive mirrors, a thorough MID, voice control and
electrochromic rear view mirrors are excellent to assist easy coasting that still makes the rather massive sedan quite
reversing in tight spots. The console is a joy to use, based fuel efficient. Coupled with coasting, our peak mileage on
on sheer fluidity and ease of usage. Add to that, a gorgeous journeys came up to 20kph, which is impressive. While there
digital MID that shows every notification and update possible, is a slight turbo lag, the engine is still powerful, and there is
including gate open, date, temperature and more. ample torque to never let you feel out of depth on the highway.
The plush black interiors and the panoramic sunroof The steering is well-weighted, but still retains Skoda’s easily
add class, and the incredibly comfortable front seats also maneuverable characteristic that makes driving the large
add extra thigh support for tall drivers. You also get cooled saloon quite comfortable even in tight city traffic.
storage compartments, and a large, airy cabin that makes the The Laurin & Klement edition gets special leather uphol-
rear row great to be in. Sitting on the rear row also provides 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.

GREED AUTO
Android Auto vs. Apple

CarPlay: The grand
showdown
W
ith the rising number of smartphones in the world up, despite being responsive and swift, Apple CarPlay is
and almost every carmaker opting for its own custom extremely restricted in India. You can essentially only make
infotainment console, the need for unified infotain- calls, hear up to the last 10 received messages and play
ment platforms became crucial. Enter, Apple CarPlay and your music. Most cars right now already support calling and
Android Auto, bringing essentials of iOS and Android to cars. music from phones via Bluetooth (even without GUIs), and
While this sounds good and each has its strengths, they’re not seeing how much of your personal conversations are held via
quite perfect, yet. WhatsApp and Messenger nowadays, it is practically only a
cosmetic presence in your car, and not really functional.
Apple CarPlay
Connecting with Apple CarPlay is much simpler - plug in your Android Auto
Lightning cable to the USB deck here, and tap on Apple Car- To connect Android Auto, connect your phone via Bluetooth
Play on your central touchscreen unit to activate it. with the system, then plug it in via USB. Prior to this, download
CarPlay is also smoother and more responsive than Android Auto from the Play Store. Once you are paired with
Android Auto, just like the persistent difference between iOS Bluetooth, connecting your phone and switching on Android
and Android, and it also connects more swiftly. The interface Auto from both the phone and the infotainment unit initialises
is typically iOS and aids familiarity, but app support for India is a first-time setup, followed by a short tutorial and finally, the
very limited. home screen. In comparison, all you do for Apple CarPlay with
All of this leaves a gaping absence in India. The Apple iPhones is connect via USB and tap on Apple CarPlay from the
CarPlay ecosystem does not support Google Maps, and Apple 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.
Maps is not supported in India’s versions of CarPlay, at least The biggest boon, however, is Google Maps. It works as
for now. As a result, if you would need navigation while using well as it does on any phone, and you get comprehensive route
Apple CarPlay, you would need to separately use Google Maps details including traffic, and this hands Android Auto a major
(or any other navigation app) from your iPhone or use the info- advantage over Apple CarPlay.
tainment system’s default satellite navigation. Music playback allows local music sync and streaming via
Most inputs are handled by Siri, and this makes it fairly easy Google Play Music, but the playlist sync is erratic. After a few
to make calls on the go. However, you can only see the list of attempts, though, it gets the job done.
the last 10 messages received and have them read out (no
visual text for safety). It would have been more proficient if Our verdict
there were speed-sensing restrictions, so that the driver could Despite the cleaner and faster interface on CarPlay, it is Android
have accessed messages on the screen whenever the car Auto that proves to be better equipped in features for now. It
stopped moving. provides third party messaging support, Google Maps and music
Apple Music works as intended, but there is no keyboard playback along with calling and ‘OK Google’ voice assistance,
input to search for new songs (you rely on Siri here). To sum 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.

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 little too much, to be truthful. The device warns
uCaress 3D a try. It’s got a beige-brown colour palette you against overusing it but we went ahead and tried everything
which goes with everything and there’s even a velcro strap in one go, from getting lathi-charged thanks to the kneading
to tie it up with the backrest. The magical massaging is massage to falling asleep thanks to the relaxing multi-action
brought on by these two rollers that knead your back so full-back massage. And should you need something extra
well that even your chromosomes will get untangled. (no pun intended) then turn on the heat and you should be in
It’s got multiple modes which not only switch between the heaven. What we can say is that while it isn’t the same as a
different kneading patterns but also mix things up with focused comfy sofa massager, it is pretty much the same in efficacy.
massages. Maybe you’ve spent a little too much time slouched
SPECIFICATIONS
over your phone and pulled a neck muscle. Worry not, pick Weight: 6 kg | Dimensions: 75 x 16 x 42 cms |
the ‘Neck & Shoulders’ preset and wail away in agony as the Massage presets: 4 | Power: 120-240 V AC mains.
massager sets you right. We spent quite a lot of time on the Price: `22,000/-
Zebronics Zeb-Fit500
A fter the Zebfit-100 launched last
year in October 2016, Zebronics
recently launched an upgraded
quite a few false steps and you might
find your daily goal completed way
sooner than you thought it would. The
version of its basic tracker with the heart rate sensor is a good addition,
Zebfit 500. The new activity tracker and it works on an always-on mode.
contains a lot of standard features The sleep detection could use some
that were already there in the Zebfit work as in a couple of occasions, it
100, like a 1.24cm OLED display, could not detect interrupted sleep
seven day data storage, 15 days and ignored the hours before the
and above standby time, caller ID, interruption altogether. The wrist-
notifications, remote camera shutter, activation feature worked every
with almost identical dimensions and single time we tried, so that’s a plus.
weight. In addition to that, the new The Zebfit delivers on what it Overall, at `4,000 the Zebfit 500
tracker also contains a heart rate promises – except with the actual does carry little more than what its
monitor and a touch sensitive button. step tracking. The tracker detects competitors carry at half the price.

GREED EXAMINED
Blueair 280i SECURITY WATCH
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
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
meant for room sizes of 280 sq. ft. It’s capable of filtering looks trustworthy. Clicking the link may infect your
out smoke, dust and pollen from the air inside your house. system or fool you into logging into the website.
The smart panel on the top displays a lot of functions such This particular
as Wi-Fi connectivity, fan speed status, filter status and the type of phishing
air quality of the room for PM2.5 and VOC levels. The most attack is using
unicode to register
interesting feature in the ‘i’ models is the presence of an air
domains that look identical to the actual domain.
quality sensor that speeds up the fans whenever it detects
The prefix being used is what is known as an ‘ASCII
a drop in the air quality in the room. We tested this out by compatible encoding’ prefix. This lets the browser
blowing smoke near the purifier and it switched to the auto know that the domain is using ‘punycode’ encoding to
mode until it brought back the air quality to normal. represent the Unicode characters.
The purifier takes in air from the back and blows out clean The attack only seems to affect Chrome and Firefox
and purified air from the top. It’s necessary to place the users, and should be patched by the time you read this.
purifier away from any kind of hindrance to the air flow. You
can either set the purifier in the automatic mode or switch
Google Play Flashlight Trojan
between the three fan speeds. The Blueair Friend app will
ESET researchers recently discovered a banking trojan
let you control all the modes remotely without touching the on Google Play disguised as a flashlight widget. The
purifier, and it’s available on both Android and iOS. You can malware was found masquerading as a flashlight app
also monitor the air quality of your room in real-time and on Google Play. After being downloaded and installed,
accordingly set the fan speed. The app also connects to a it would ask for admin rights, hide its icon, and appear
database that gives you the air quality of over 150 countries, on the phone only as a
possibly including your city. When the filter wears out over widget. It could then
time, the Filter indicator will let you know that it’s time to display fake screens
replace the filter. With all the features mentioned above, the and mimic legit apps,
Blueair 280i does justify its price of `55,000 considering app
lock devices to prevent
detection, and intercept
connectivity and the presence of the air quality sensor.
SMSes and display fake
notifications. It was
SPECIFICATIONS targeted at primarily
Room size: 280 sq. ft. (room size is based on 8’ ceiling) | banking apps.
CADR (Smoke): 180 ft3 per minute | CADR (Dust): 200
It was detected
ft3 per minute | CADR (Pollen): 200 ft3 per minute | Air
changes per hour: 5 | Dimensions (H x W x D): 533 x 432 by ESET as Trojan.
x 209 mm (21 x 17 x 9 in) | Product weight: 11 kg (35 lb) 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.

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

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
f there is one problem simple missing person and
with quite a few sci- a missing freighter case, the
ence fiction shows and show quickly takes unex-
the poverty, the struggle, the movies – it is the major pected turns to dive deep into
camaraderie of children, the disregard towards anything interplanetary dynamics.
hatred of adults – it’s a first actually following the rules of What makes the show more
hand glimpse into the history science. Based on the highly interesting is the drama
of a country that was until not acclaimed novel series by and conflict shown between
too long ago mired in institu- James S.A. Corey, Expanse Earth, Mars and ‘Belters’,
tionalised racial segregation. makes it quite clear at the which gives it a similar vibe to
This is a story of early ‘90s start that it takes its science Game of Thrones.
South Africa told from the seriously. Be it gravity serums And if anything is
point of view of a child who for space travellers, or the being compared to Game of
was, technically, brought into impossibility of high-risk Thrones, how can it not have
the world as the result of a maneuvers in space, all of it an amazing cast? Everyone
crime. By law his white father makes sense if you’re reason- from Shohreh Aghdashloo
and black mother were not ably up to date with the world to Thomas Jane have done a
B
allowed to have relations. of scientific research. brilliant job in portraying a
orn a Crime is the The stories range from The show is based in a human race that is used to an
kind of book that lighthearted incidents full future where we have succes- interplanetary life, but isn’t
will take you on a of colloquial hilarity to gut fully overpopulated Earth, quite at the best terms with it.
rollercoaster ride wrenching accounts of colonised the Moon, have Sounds familiar, eh?
of emotions from the first racism. Strangely some anec- begun terraforming Mars It only seems fair to say
few pages. The now famous dotes are relatable to any 90s in glass biomes and have that Expanse will initially
Late Show host stunningly born middle-class Indian kid managed to push the lower take its time, but once you
captures in visceral detail, – a trip down memory lane is stratas of the society to the are hooked, you’ll need a
what it was like growing unavoidable. asteriod belt in our system. hyperdrive to let go.
up in post-apartheid South Rating: So yeah, future – but not Star Rating:
Africa. The discrimination, Siddharth Parwatay Trek yet. Starting off as a 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

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

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

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

Series based on INA Numbers for DotA 2
Amazon reveals a new series based Valve is taking serious actions to cut
on Subhas Chandra Bose. down smurf accounts in Dota2.
Origins http://dgit.in/INAseries http://dgit.in/Dota2smurf
auction website… It’s as if Target owned users are rewarded for helping with larity of Paytm was the demonetisation
Visa….[PayPal] will get cut to pieces by the transaction verification against the of `500 and `1000 notes in India on
Amazon Payments, or by others such blockchain (a network ledger). Other Nov 9, 2016. App downloads soared
as Apple and by startups if it continues factors affecting bitcoin’s success are and so did transaction volumes. The
to be part of eBay.” online access, reduced chance of iden- Prime Minister himself was featured
tity theft, protection from fraud, and on a promotional ad for Paytm (which
Bit by bit lower fees. is currently under dispute).
A mere three weeks after the launch of
Apple Pay, eBay announced the separa- The great wall(et) of
tion of PayPal as an independent entity Near Fields
on September 30, 2014. Ironically, Two technologies transformed the
Apple Pay had originally approached way we look at digital payments in
PayPal as a partner, but eBay CEO John the 21st century – digital wallets
Donahoe reportedly forced PayPal to go and contactless payments. NFC, as
with Samsung’s payment services plan. a technology, was being worked on
Apple Pay is being rolled out globally
But by then, a lot had happened in the since the dawn of the 21st century. and currently is available in 16 countries
world of digital payments. But it was the introduction of Apple with several leading retailers as part of
For starters, bitcoin had been Pay in 2014 that pushed NFC to the their platform.
invented. In 2008, a paper was released mainstream. Just scanning a credit card
online under the name Satoshi Naka- added it as a payment option to Apple The sound of money
moto titled ‘bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Pay. It also added a layer of biometric While India is still behind the global
Electronic Cash System’. This paper authentication to it with the fingerprint market in terms of newer payment
detailed a peer-to-peer network for scanner. This second authentication technologies like NFC, it is definitely
money transfer that did not rely on factor has in fact helped it cross one of the biggest digital payment
trust. Within one year, bitcoins were transaction limits applied to one-factor economies in the world in terms of
officially being issued and by 2011 ser- transactions in several countries, like number of users. Simple features such
vices had started accepting payments the U.K. The service is compatible with as payment to a mobile number or scan-
via bitcoin. Bitcoin, as a mode of digital the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, 6S ning in-store QR codes for payment are
payment, never looked back from that Plus, 7, 7 Plus, iPhone SE, iPad Air 2, gradually picking up pace and have
iPad Pro and the Apple become quite popular since November
Watch. Users with an 2016. Innovative startups like Tonetag,
iPhone 5, 5C, 5S, 6, 6 which provides payment solutions with
Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 the help of sound, are constantly rede-
Plus and iPhone SE fining what digital payments can do.
can use the service The future of digital payments lies in
through an Apple novel and seamless payment methods
Watch, though it lacks like paying via wearables, biometric
Touch ID security. payments and mass implementation of
While much of the technology like blockchain.
global digital payment Currently, digital payments
wallets are split among account for a mere 6% of total retail
key players, India has transactions worldwide. But with
Bitcoin has seen a tremendous rise in value a clear leader – Paytm. digital payments increasing everyday
While Apple Pay was in volume and scope, trends indicate
point and on March 2, 2017, the price of launched in September 2014, Paytm a much different scenario roughly
one bitcoin crossed the spot price of one wallet in India was launched almost 8-10 years down the line. With key
ounce of gold. one year earlier in 2013. And since then merchants participating, proper IoT
Why did bitcoin succeed? For a lot of other mobile wallets have also implementations and strong security
starters, the internet loves something emerged in India, namely Freecharge, in place, overall share could go up to
that is for and by peers, instead of cor- Mobikwik, Citrus and more. While 26% with 13% of that being proximity
porations. A typical bitcoin transaction their services are differentiated mainly based payments, according to a BCG
is verified by six computers, hence it by the charges they levy on transac- report. The day that happens, there
is absolutely secure. This verification tions and bank transfers, Paytm is will still be a few things that money
process, carried out by network com- currently the market leader in this seg- can’t buy. But for everything else, there
puters, is called bitcoin mining, where ment. A big factor in the current popu- 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 cratic regimes that aren’t exactly big to that has been done. However, these
digital rights has gained on freedom of expression. And talking are region-based blanket blockages
a lot of momentum in about lashes, we’re actually higher than which essentially disable internet access
recent times. It was only Saudi Arabia on the list. from the network end. You can check
last year that the entire furore over Now, it wouldn’t be fair to portray this out a very useful tracker at http://dgit.in/
net neutrality in India took place. as an equal comparison. We do enjoy NetShtdwn. A place like Kashmir had its
And over this one year alone, we have more freedom of expression online than, internet access blocked for months. In
seen issues around censorship and say, a Saudi Arabian citizen can. But to 2017, the count has already reached 10
freedom of expression in our online be honest, should that even be a justi- and we just entered the second quarter.
lives in India. Even if we might have fication for being denied access to the What makes it worse are the kind
advanced on some of these, a pretty internet? On the other hand, the internet of reasons for which the access has
interesting statistic has brought to our is also a source of a large amount of been blocked on some occasions. For
attention another online issue in our misinformation – some of which can be instance, mobile internet services were
country – the access to internet itself. pretty dangerous for the uninformed. So suspended for four hours across Gujarat
According to a survey by Brookings what exactly does the internet mean to on 28th February, 2016 to prevent
Institution, India had more internet you – a law abiding citizen of the largest cheating on the Revenue Accountants
blockages between July 2015 and June democracy in the world? Recruitment Exam. To be honest, most
2016, than any other country in the of the cases that account for such high
world – at par with Iraq at 22 block- How bad is iT? numbers happened due to situations
ages. That’s more than Syria (non-ISIS), India has had 31 internet blockages of unrest in said states – mostly due
Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh and in 2016, according to research by the to communal clashes. But there are
Brazil – the next five countries in the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC). situations where the normalisation of

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

Making a VR room Longest sentence ever
Here’s all the things you need to set up a Russian hacker Roman Seleznev gets
dedicated virtual reality room at home. sentenced to 27 years in prison for hacking.
http://dgit.in/VRroom http://dgit.in/27prison 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.
SOURCE: SFLC.IN
wHaT can you do
Blocking the access to a communica-

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

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

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. two or more bodies collide in space to
Essentially, every spiral around Saturn form moons or even planets.
will generate some amount of scientific Saturn’s magnetic and gravitational
data that can be relayed back to Earth. fields can be closely studied, giving us
The orbiter has been doing rounds of the an idea of what lies beneath the gaseous
ringed gas giant since its arrival to con- atmosphere. Due to its close proximity,
duct research with a safer approach of we’ll receive detailed data for the first
Enceladus: Possible Hydrothermal avoiding ring debris. Because the probe time on the composition of the gase-
Activity (Artist’s Concept) has nearly emptied its fuel, it’s worth the ous clouds in its atmosphere, using the
risk to get even closer to the planet. onboard mass spectrometer. Another
crust, the moon consists of a giant Travelling at a staggering speed of mystery that has riddled astronomers
global ocean of water. This essentially 122,000 kph (76,000 mph), the space- and scientists for several years is the
means that there’s a layer of water craft will complete 22 orbits around hexagonal cloud on the planet’s north
between the icy crust and rocky core. Saturn, covering the inner gap of 1,930 pole, something we might be able to
It gets interesting since this layer is kilometres (1,200 miles). Since it’s cur- demystify after this mission.
made of salt water, something which rently on a different trajectory, Cassini The final dive also poses a fatal risk.
is similar to what we have on Earth. will use Titan’s gravity to slingshot itself While travelling at such high speeds,
In October 2015, Cassini did a close into Saturn’s orbit through a gap in the impacts from even small particles might
flyby through the plumes to analyse the rings. Until the Cassini mission, there blow up the entire spacecraft. Cassini’s
accurate chemical composition of the has been a lot of mystery surrounding ring-plane crossings will be oriented to
gases. With the help of the on-board Saturn’s rings. Believed to be a static shield off the vulnerable instruments
Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, it system of boulders circling the planet, it behind the high-gain antenna. The team
was able to detect molecular hydrogen, was discovered that it’s quite a volatile behind this mission are certain that the
leading to a possibility of hydrothermal and active system of collisions. Further probability of experiencing a deadly
reactions occurring between the ocean research will enable us to study more impact is “less than 1 percent”.
and rocky core. A similar water-rock The final dive is going to be an
interaction is also found on Earth in the emotional moment for the team that has
Credit: NASA / NASA/JPL-Caltech/
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...

Robots fight drought Trees=global warming?
Researchers are using robotic platforms Researchers find that tree trunks do
to find drought resistant strains of crop. emit methane. But do they cause global
From the labs http://dgit.in/RoboCrop warming? http://dgit.in/warmtrees
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 entists have been unable to put a tab on
feedback@digit.in recognised as the time in which an intricate cellular interactions, primarily
I
embryo develops a semblance of indi- because it’s such a difficult system to
t is often a source of wonder viduality with the start of a head-tail get results out of. Growing embryo’s in
when a technology once deemed axis. Back then, people who formu- a petri dish and gaining the ability to
as ‘wishful’ thinking, the stuff of lated this law probably also believed culture the embryo artificially beyond
legends or part of science fiction that technology might never advance implantation is something that was
lore is actually realised. Think self- to a point to which we can produce a possible only for simpler organisms
lacing shoes that Nike recently unveiled fully functional human baby without like mice until very recently. Last year,
or how we now have the Roomba, a natural womb support – the rule will however, two independent research
robotic vacuum cleaner! But, the pos- never have to be amended or chal- groups reported successful culture of
sibilities and realisations aren’t always lenged even. Despite rapid advances human embryo’s for thirteen days. By
half as harmless or cute. in medicine, biology and engineering, providing the nascent embryo with a
raising a foetus in a lab specific cocktail of growth supporting
environment, ectogenesis, nutrients, the researchers found that
has remained a pipe dream. the embryos were able to self organise.
In this feature we give you a Their results provide irrefutable
lowdown on why. evidence that a human embryo can
develop beyond the implantation
The Intricacies stage without maternal input of any
Let’s start with how incred- sorts, in-vitro - in completely artificial
ibly sophisticated and conditions. Besides being a foundation
complicated the develop- setting study it has paved the way for
mental process of a human a large number of offshoot research to
Is this how life ought to begin? We say why not. foetus is. At the very onset study birth defects, disease and fun-
of the above developmental damentals of developmental biology.
A rule, now popularly known process is a stage called implantation. Another important point to note here
as the “fourteen-day rule” was first Post implantation is when there is self is that the embryo culture continued
proposed in 1979 and has since then organization and the embryo becomes for only thirteen days because the
been incorporated into the law books a collection of cells. This stage is critical researchers had to pull the plug in
and guidelines of numerous countries. because it is during this time, when adherence to the fourteen day rule.
Unlike building computing devices, many of the developmental disorders However, ethical and legal issues aside,
holograms or robots, growing human set in. The week around implanta- we are now in a position to culture
embryos in-vitro has deep moral and tion - when the foetus is essentially embryos artificially for a minimum of
ethical implications. Keeping that in attached to the mother’s uterus, is one two weeks. The next step - ensuring
mind, the fourteen day rule forbids of the most important and yet poorly survival of the embryo once it begins to
experiments on human embryos to understood phases of pregnancy. Sci- 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 done seminal research.
outside a mother’s womb is difficult. First, an artificial womb
Once the embryo implants to the has to provide a mechanically
uterus, there occurs the formation of safe housing for the growing
the all important placenta and amni- foetus and protect it against
otic sac, filled with amniotic fluid. The infection. Then scientists have
placenta is basically a direct connec- to replicate the functions of the
tion between the mother and the baby, placenta, namely to remove
allowing for exchange of nutrients, toxins and ensure transport
hormones and expulsion of waste. The of oxygen and hormones. An
amniotic fluid is like a shock absorbing artificial placenta will also have A neonatal intensive care unit
fluid which also doubles as chemical the capability to regulate blood
exchange medium. Simple enough? Not sugar levels, and do other tasks that the Part of the difficulty lies also in sur-
really. There are plenty of uncertain- babies newly developed organs might rounding the embryo with the right
ties involved. What is the sequence of not be initially capable of doing. It’s fluid, containing the correct percent-
these developments? What exactly is also critical to ensure that the foetus ages of water, hormones, proteins and
transferred, when and how much? The is able to breathe without the support other essential chemicals. Then these
list goes on. Besides, a single mistake inof the mothers lung. This is a major percentages have to be modulated
the hormone levels or genetic transfer problem in premature babies - lungs according to how far the embryo is in
could have consequences in the ulti- too weak to completely support them- its development. Also, while success
mate development that are impossible selves. Any artificial placenta will also with mouse embryo’s is a great step,
to predict. The current record for the have lung enhancement additions or scaling up to human embryo’s will
survival of a premature baby is just perhaps make use of state of art liquid need a paradigm shift in technology.
around 21 weeks into the gestation. ventilation technology. Lastly, the func- It goes without saying that this line
It is with the hope of increasing this tions of the amniotic fluid have to be of research can be vastly beneficial to
survival rate that scientists began to replicated - which in itself is no mean mankind. If successful, maybe artifi-
originally think of creating artificial task. Scientists also remark that the cial wombs might even become safer
wombs. And, while there are many womb will have to mimic the sounds than natural births in some cases. The
groups across the world now working and rhythms of the womb. technology will also allow couples that
in this area of cutting edge biology and cannot have children by natural means
Notable work to have babies – free of surrogacy.
Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara But as radical this technology is by
initially lead the charge for its nature, it also raises some funda-
development of artificial mental questions. Is the mere fusion of
placenta for a long time now. a sperm and egg enough to designate
His team in Japan have been the resultant ‘being’ as human? Or,
able to sustain growth of should go as far as to call it an instance
goat foetuses in a ‘ectogenic of synthetic life? Should life, at it’s
chamber’. Then there is Dr. very elemental level be broken down
Helen Liu at Cornell univer- to just genetic transfer?
sity who has devised a sophis- Politicians and bioethicists have
ticated system for culturing grappled with these questions for
mouse embryos. To sidestep more than a decade to result into
the limitations imposed by the the fourteen day rule. Now that
the fourteen day rule her scientists have begun knocking at
group switched from human the door, is it the right time to revisit
embryos to experimenting this rule and finally allow full scale
with mouse embryo’s. Bit human embryo experiments? Maybe.
by bit her group has been It all comes down to the question that
making additions integral in we ourselves have asked numerous
improving the viability of her times in features about CRISPR tech-
artificial wombs and while nology and designer babies - Can we
there has been progress it’s a trust science and scientists with such
Studies of a human foetus by Leonardo Da Vinci difficult road ahead. technology?

Cover story
TEAM DIGIT
feedback@digit.in
U
sually our cover stories are filled with stuff that and they will eat for a lifetime.” However, sometimes,
makes you think. We try and whet your appetite people just want some bread, with no gyaan and no fuss.
and encourage you to go out and find more That’s this month’s cover story in a nutshell. No fuss,
information on your own. We kind of follow no nonsense, just plain and simple geek knowledge that
the philosophy: “Give someone bread and they will show you how to do some geeky stuff. Now enough
will feed for a day, but teach them to farm and bake with this intro, let’s get to the point straight away.

Cover story
MASTER YOUR PC
In this section we’ve got tricks that will help you
become a true PC geek – from Windows hacks to soft-
ware that will geek up your PC, it’s all here
WINDOWS HACKS
06
couple of tricks up its sleeve though, SUPERSIZE YOUR CLIPBOARD
You can’t be a geek and actually like and giving you more context menus For power users, the Win-
windows the way it is. You have to is one of them. Just right click on the dows default copy function
change it and improve it, don’t you? Dexpot icon in the system tray, go to just doesn’t cut it (pun intended). With
Here are 10 ways to do just that: Settings > Controls > Title Ditto (http://dgit.in/DittoCBM) everything
Bars and choose the area in which you copy to the clipboard (text, images,
01
ENABLE GOD MODE! you want the context menu to appear, code, whatever) you can manage better
Name a folder “GodMode. which button triggers it and modifiers or past selectively. Just use the hotkey
{ED7BA470-8E54-465E- (if any), target (active window) and ([Ctrl] + [`]) to get further control over
825C-99712043E01C}” (without the action (stay on top). It also has more what goes where.
double quotes) to make a one click features to fiddle with.
07
solution for almost all of the settings DISABLE ‘FEATURES’
04
available in Windows. Open the folder, MAKE EXPLORER GREAT Windows may be better, but
and use the search bar to find a setting. AGAIN it’s still filled with boatware.
You can rename the folder to whatever Windows Explorer now Here’s what you should turn off.
you want once it’s created. opens to Quick Access which is good 1. P2P Windows Update Sharing:
for n00bs, but us geeks just want to Windows uses your PC to send
02
GEEK TASK MANAGER get straight to business. Just show us windows update files to other com-
The task manager is boring our files already Explorer! Open up puters on the internet. This reduces
and for noobs. Real geeks use a new Explorer Window, go to File your upload speeds and could be
Process Hacker (http://dgit.in/PrcsHckr). > Change folder and search costing you bandwidth. Go to Win-
You get granular access to all processes, options. Change the Open File dows Settings > Update and
which are all color coded for easier Explorer to option to This PC. If Security > Advanced Options
analysis, and also better graphs to show you’re concerned about your privacy, > Choose how updates are
resource usage. It also offers an easy uncheck the two boxes titled: Show delivered and turn it off.
search for process details, can replace recently used files in Quick 2. Disable the lock screen: You can’t
the default task manager and of course, Access and Show frequently used disable this for when you boot into
the icing on the cake is that it looks awe- folders in Quick Access. Now Windows, you can do it for wake
somely geeks, making you want to show Quick Access will work like the old ups from Sleep or manual Win-
it off to friends. Favourites list. dows locks. Go to C:\Windows\
SystemApps and look for a folder
03 05
CONTEXT MENU ADDONS TO SLEEP OR NOT TO named Microsoft.LockApp_
Dexpot (http://dgit.in/Dex- You’ve probably set your PC cw5n1h2txyewy. Just add a “.bak”
potDe) used to be for people to its sleep settings after a lot to the end of the file name and voila!
who wanted virtual desktops, but of trial and error. Yet there are times No more lock screen.
then Windows built it in. It still has a you need to change that for a specific 3. Remove Old Windows files: You’re
task, such as when downloading, or not seriously going to go back to
rendering, doing something important Windows 8 or 7 are you? If you
in the background, or just because you upgraded to Windows 10, you will
want it to stay awake. Get Caffeinated have the old OS files on your PC,
from http://dgit.in/Caffeintd and once and with SSDs, every GB comes at a
installed you will get a coffee pot placed premium. Run Disk Cleanup (search
in your system tray. Want to keep your for it in your taskbar), hit ‘Clean
PC awake and bypass your power setup system files’ and wait for it to
tings? Click the coffee pot and it will fill calculate. Locate “Previous Windows
up. Want to return the PC to normal? Installations” in that list and click
Use Dexpot to control how various Click the pot again and it empties of okay. You might free up to 25 GB of
windows are arranged coffee. Simple. space like this!

Cover story
08 01
COPY EFFICIENTLY EXPLORER++ You can edit source files, it’s got tabs,
What Ditto does for the There are many Windows and of course also highlights the text
clipboard, Teracopy does Explorer replacements, but according to the language it uses. Get it
for copying of files – that is, it makes most of them paid, or else so feature at http://dgit.in/NPadPlus.
it a heck of a lot easier. Copying large rich that they’re bloated, and no geek
05
queues of files is a pain with normal will ever tolerate bloat! (Except maybe IRFANVIEW
Windows Explorer, but not with This is hardly new, or
Teracopy (http://dgit.in/TeraCopyWin). It unknown, but it’s so good
also offers file verification, queues up that we have to mention it. Windows
transfers smartly, and can skip past Photos is just a simple app. Irfanview
errors and finish the list instead of offers much more functionality and
dying midway. It replaces the default options, and even has plugin support.
Windows copier, which means no extra You get easy text and watermark insert
keys to remember or use. options, more detailed photo informa-
from Adobe, because we have to). tion, precise cropping and much
09
SCRIPT LIKE A PRO Explorer++ has just the right amount more, without you having to use a
Using AutoHotKey (http:// of features – a fairly minimalistic UI, separate photo manipulation program,
dgit.in/AHKey) you can script a ‘details’ bar at the bottom, and even a definite plus for people who need
just about anything. And we do mean, full support for browser-like tabs. Get it to work with images often. Get it at
pretty much anything! For example, from http://dgit.in/ExplrrPls. http://dgit.in/IrfnView.
if you spend a lot of time filling in
02 06
forms online, all you have to do is SHAREX FOOBAR2000
script using AutoHotKey and you Windows Snipping Tool is Another default Windows
can automatically fill in your email a severely underrated and app that does the job but is
address in any field using a chosen actually, pretty unknown tool. Being sorely lacking is Groove. Foobar2000
shortcut. Hate that stupid caps lock able to screenshot selective parts of is the go to ‘audiophile’ music player
key? Change it to do something else. your screen is a lifesaver in a lot of situ- for windows, offering native support
You can also set up mouse gestures for FLAC (among other formats), built
to launch specific programs, and best in file convertor, great customisation
of all, you don’t even need to know options – both visual and audio. Mess
how to script, because of the large around with it until you get a sound you
community that uses it, chances are like). Add on a clean interface and you
the scripts you want have already get a crowd favorite. Get it from http://
been published online. Just download dgit.in/foobr2k.
and enjoy!
07
ations. ShareX does this even better. CYGWIN
10
ANALYZE DISK USAGE You can instantly saves your screen- Cygwin is a POSIX (Portable
Windows 10 has a decent shot, copy it to your clipboard, or even Operating System Interface)
Storage Monitor (Windows upload to Imgur, all automatically. It’s that offers most of the functionality
Settings > System > Storage), even got a GIF maker inbuilt. Get it at that cmd can, and also a host of other
but it doesn’t show where the space is http://dgit.in/ShareXSC. useful features. It adds on a distinctive
being taken up. Get Windirstat (http:// Linux feel to a Windows computer –
03
dgit.in/WinStat) and put an end to that PAINT.NET which makes it geek-cool. So if you’re a
today. You get a nice colour-coded tree Paint.net is the best compro- command-line junkie, get it from http://
diagram of what exactly is taking up mise for people who want a dgit.in/CygwinPOSIX.
your space, and shows you previews of wee bit more power than regular Paint,
08
the worst culprits. If you’re find your- but don’t want to jump to something AUDACITY
self managing your disks often, this is a as advanced as GIMP or Photoshop. It Windows Sound Recorder is
tool you cannot live without. has layer support, easy blurring and too basic. You have probably
tons of more functionality with a lots of heard of Audacity if you are used to
GEEK SOFTWARE 101 plugins. Get it at http://dgit.in/PaintdtNET recording stuff, and with good reason.
Although Windows has improved a lot and start editing immediately. Audacity also lets you record sound
since the days of Windows 98 and XP, from applications, make your own audi-
04
there’s still a lot left to be desired with NOTEPAD++ obooks, use it as a voice activated memo
the way it handles some things. This is Notepad++ is a Notepad recorder, and so much more. Even the
where essential software comes in. As replacement. While the audio editing features on it are amazing.
soon as you install Windows, you have latter is merely meant to edit plain text, and actually enough for even advanced
to install these 10 apps. Notepad++ does that and a ton more. use. Get it from http://dgit.in/AudaRec.

Cover story
09
MPC-HC CUSTOMISE GOOGLE
While Windows Movies is • Use double quotes (“”) to search for a
great for watching movies phrase exactly.
when running your laptop on battery, • Using “Site:” in front of a query will
it’s boring in every other aspect. Most give you better results than the site’s
people use VLC by default, but Media own search functionality. Always.
Player Classic – Home Cinema (MPC- • Exclude a word from your search by
HC) is just better. Download the madVR adding a minus sign (“-”) before it
plugin to upscale 480p or 720p into without a space. For example, “Linux
decent 1080p (GPU needed). Get it from Distributions -ubuntu” will display
http://dgit.in/MPCHC. all results for “Linux distributions”
that don’t contain the word “Ubuntu”
10
SUMATRA on the page.
Edge has a pretty decent PDF • Use “Filetype:” when you specifically
reader built in, but reading to set up an HTTP or FTP/ETP server want to find, say a PDF, or an EPUB
PDFs on a browser is akin to slicing for your local network. file. Example: “filetype:pdf global
vegetables with a Swiss Army knife. Get Everything from http://dgit. warming” will give you PDF files
You can, but why would you want to? in/2oF3n0n and install it. It will take a related to global warming
Sumatra looks terrible (rainbow on a while to index your drives, but then • User the Tools button to further
yellow background? What were they search becomes lightening fast. Eve- enhance your search to narrow
thinking?), but it’s very light, very, rything supports ‘regex’ or “regular results down. This will allow you to
very fast and opens pretty much any expressions” so you can type things like choose results from a certain time or
“.jpg|.png” (minus the quotes) and it’ll only from your country.
show you files with those two exten-
sions. You will need to manually toggle BROWSER CUSTOMISATIONS
regex by hitting [Ctrl] + [R] or • If you liked Firefox’s Awesome Bar,
using the Search dropdown menu. It which searches through history,
also has many other cool features, and bookmarks and open tabs all at once,
one of the best is the ability to find and you can get the same for Chrome.
manage duplicate files. Just download Fauxbar (http://dgit.in/
Everything can also be used to set FauxBr) and it will replace your Start
up an HTTP server. Go to Tools > and New Tab pages with it’s own
Options > HTTP Server. Enable it, screen, and will become the default
document files, even epub and cbz. It’s set authentication details (if required) search bar.
basically a geek-made reader, and this is and the folder you want to share and • Let’s say you normally use Yandex to
exactly why you have to have it. It does hit Apply. To access this server, you’ll find torrents, DuckDuckGo for an ad-
have one major drawback – it converts need to know your local IP address. And free experience, Bing for additional
files to bitmap in order to print, which there’s a pretty easy way to do that. Type research, and Google for everything
makes it terribly slow to print. Get it ipconfig into a commandline window else. Get Search Bar (http://dgit.in/
from http://dgit.in/SumPDF. to find your IP. An FTP/ETP server can SrchBar) and you will be able to
also be set up, but HTTP should suffice switch searches with ease.
GEEK UP YOUR SEARCH for most needs. • If you’d rather display search results
We’ve all been teeth-gnashingly frus- from different engines all in one
trated when trying to find a file at some LISTARY place, Dogpile (http://dgit.in/Dgpile) is
point. No more. We’ve found two great If you don’t need the file sharing bits your solution. It compiles the best
replacements for Windows Search, and of Everything, then Listary is a good results from various engines, and
each has their own strengths. replacement. It’s got a better looking also discards duplicates.
interface and has more features such as • Start.me can give you a highly cus-
EVERYTHING inbuilt hotkey activation. tomizable start page. You can get an
Everything is a small but extremely You still get near instant searches, RSS reader, email, videos and a realy
speedy search engine that promises but you also get the ability to search the cool bookmarking feature. Just take
near instantaneous results . It achieves web for basic stuff, such as currency some time to set it up.
this by archiving, err, everything! What conversion. All you need to do is press • If you need to track an image’s
it does is display a list of every file and [Ctrl] twice and up pops up Listary. source, use Tineye (http://dgit.in/
folder on a drive, and as you start typing There are also many hotkeys built in TinEyeRIS) to do so. Apart from
your query, it shortens the list based on that can streamline your whole com- tracking down sources accurately, it
filename. It’s very light, and can run in puting experience. Get it for yourself at also helps you find higher resolution
the background. It’s also the easiest way http://dgit.in/2q7BOx9 files of the same image.

Cover story
GET A SEXY DESKTOP allows you to create a tile that links to aesthetic you are going for. We’ve
Used to be a time we geeks would use any application for much faster access. included an example. On any icon
classic mode to eke every last drop of You need to download two things for this in the dock, Right click > Icon
performance out of our systems, but to work: The direct proxy file (http://dgit. Settings > “+” and then pick
those days are long gone. With good con- in/TilePrxy) and the app from the Win- individual icons for each shortcut on
figurations becoming very affordable, we dows App Store (http://dgit.in/TileCreator). the dock. Download this: http://dgit.
think it’s perfectly fine to waste a little If you use Steam to play games, you can in/2pX56iJ
CPU and memory on a sexy-looking also install Steam Tile from (http://dgit.in/ 4. Download custom icon images from
desktop. Don’t you? SteamTile) to get something better than DeviantArt for the things you want,
a static and boring icon. And who really and change the icon in the file’s prop-
RAINMETER likes those anyways? erties. Move all non-essential things
Rainmeter (http://dgit.in/RMeterCustom) to a folder to make it look better.
is the king when it comes to adding GO FULL MAC Delete all names of the items on the
widgets to your desktop, plus loads of If you yearn for more ‘Mac’ in your life desktop by using the blank character
functionality and monitoring tools as and a Dock like RocketDock (http://dgit. ([Alt] + [255]) as the name.
well. There are thousands of themes in/RcktDock) is not enough, and installing 5. Next, start Rainmeter and find a ‘Mac
you can choose from (check Rainmeter Hackintosh seems like too much trouble, Bar’ / ‘Rain Bar’ skin that you like on
forums and Deviantart), and you can there are a couple of ways to make Win- Deviantart or the forums and set it
just cherry pick the best elements to dows to look like a Mac. up. Some icons won’t give you func-
make your own masterpiece (the source As always, there’s an easy way and a tionality but here is one that is pretty
code is incredibly easy to edit). You could hard way. The easy way is to just down- good: http://dgit.in/2ooEMB4
also just blatantly copy someone else’s load Rainmeter and run a Mac theme And voila! that’s it, you have your
sick setup (/r/Rainmeter anyone?) and like this one (http://dgit.in/MacSierraDsktp). very own MacOS Sierra look!
call it day. One thing is for sure, your eye- Now for the fun way (which non-
candy needs will be sorted with this one. geeks would call the hard way). This can RETRO LOOK
end up better looking and more polished Want to go retro? Use Classic Shell
FENCES than the readymade themes, but only if (http://dgit.in/2pYntXx). You can make
Many of us have desktops that look like you are ready to take some pain upon Windows 10 look like Windows 2000/
our rooms – cluttered and untidy. Adn yourselves willingly. XP/7 without all of the security holes.
that can seriously get in the way of pro- 1. First you need a high-res wallpaper,a Download it, install it and choose the
ductivity or become a source of embar- nd the default MacOS Sierra one is window and start menu feel that inter-
assment when your desktop has to been ideal: http://dgit.in/2pedpZt ests you. You can also choose to disable
by someone else. This is where Fences 2. Download Rocket Dock if you haven’t breadcrumbs to make pathfinding easier,
from Stardock comes in. Make ‘fenced already and set it up. Next, download and of course, our favourite, change the
in’ translucent or transparent areas for a MacOS themed skin and paste it way the start button looks – including
your folders to segregate and access them into C:\Program Files (x86)\ making your own button from scratch!
easily. These fences roll up to the title bar RocketDock\Skins and you can You have got to try that feature, because
to make your screen look incredibly neat then select the skin from the Dock it one of the few ways you can give your
and organized. Fences does most of the Settings. (See link below) PC your own unique charm. By the time
grunt work automatically. It isn’t free but 3. Download an icon pack for Rocket you’re done with it, we’re pretty sure that
you can try it out for 30 days to see if you Dock that fits in with the style and your PC wont look the same at all.
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

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 batch backups. The paid Pro version CUSTOM RECOVERY
divided into three sections: unlocks a few more handy features Creating a manual backup for your
backing up, rooting, and then such as integrating app updates to phone is a good idea as well, if you’re
installing the ROM of your choice ROM, encryption, restoring individual sure about the recovery process. A
– which could include building your apps+data from non-root ADB, CWM custom recovery is essentially a third
own ROM. After all, that is the point of and TWRP backups and more. party recovery environment which
rooting in the first place – to customise
your phone to your specific needs.
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 Use Titanium backup once you’ve rooted The TWRP recovery interface
It’s backing up your rooted phone that
really matters, really, and even though • Helium Backup replaces your stock recovery environ-
we haven’t even got there yet, we’re Helium backup is an app that will ment when flashed onto your device.
just lumping all the backing up guides let you backup apps and their data These third party alternatives offer a lot
together. The thing with custom ROMs even before rooting. You will need the of features like rooting as well custom
is that they’re addictive, and fiddling Helium desktop client installed. With backups. The two popular options for
with them often results in crashed OSes USB debugging enabled on your phone, custom recovery are Clockworkmod
that need to be reinstalled. No one said start the Helium Desktop app as well as Recovery (CWM) and Team Win
being a geek was easy! This is why you the Helium app on your phone. Then Recovery Project (TWRP)
need more powerful backup tools: connect your phone to the PC and wait • Clockworkmod Recovery (CWM):
for it to be detected. Once it does get This recovery can create and restore
• Titanium Backup detected, you can unplug the phone. NANDroid backups – backups of an
This app lets you backup apps, data Going to the Helium app will now Android device’s entire file system.
and market links. By backing up apps, show you the option of backing up your It also has other advanced features
we do mean all your installed apps apps to a location of your preference – that will be useful if you are install
along with the system apps on your internal memory, SD card or the cloud. and deal with custom ROMs.
phone and their data. The app also lets This backup can be restored by the • Team Win Recovery Project
you schedule backups and do one-click ‘Restore and Sync’ functionality. (TWRP): This is a touch-based

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You need to have both USB Debug- • Click on Install 2 packages at the
ging and OEM Unlocking enabled on bottom right. Check Accept license
The Widget your device – both of which are avail-
able under Developer options. Now, just
and click Install.
Wizards in case you haven’t enabled Developer CHECK COMPATIBILITY

options yet, here’s a quick few steps on Before starting the process, make sure
how to do it all in one go: your desktop/laptop detects the phone
Your homescreens look bare
• Go to Settings and scroll down to correctly when connected via USB. If
without widgets, but which
the very bottom then tap on ‘About not, just do a quick Google search for
ones of the thousands available
should you use? Let us choose Phone’. the drivers from your manufacturer
for you, and also teach you how • Scroll until you find ‘Build number’ and install them.
to make your own. and the tap on it seven times. The
Developer Options section should UNLOCK BOOTLOADER
now be available on the main Set- Another thing that needs to be done
http://dgit.in/WdgtWzrd
tings window. before you get started is the unlocking
• Under Developer Options, enable of your bootloader. The bootloader is
recovery environment – all other USB Debugging and OEM basically the program that controls
recoveries are controlled by a Unlocking your device’s startup process. It has
device’s volume and power button. control over what applications run
TWRP even supports themes. It is during that process. Hence, unlocking
also used to make backups and flash it is a key to rooting your device.
ROMs on your Android devices. This is where things get manufac-
Essentially, to carry out a TWRP turer specific. Some manufacturers
recovery, you need to follow these steps: require you to get a key to unlock the
• Enable USB debugging. bootloader – something that they allow
• Download the TWRP recovery only registered developer accounts to do.
image for your phone and place it Usually, for this, you have to put your
in C:\ device into fastboot mode – something
• Boot into your phone’s bootloader There was a time when the process was that again differs depending on the man-
and connect it to PC. quite complex ufacturer. The most common way to do
• Wait until you see ‘fastboot USB’ on this is to reboot and hold the power and
your screen. INSTALL ANDROID SDK TOOLS volume down buttons for 10 seconds,
• Launch command prompt on your • Get the SDK tools from http://dgit. but it could differ for your phone.
computer and run this command: in/AndrdSDK and install them. Once in fastboot, open your com-
fastboot flash recovery Remember the installed directory. puter’s command prompt. If your
c:\<name of image>.img • Launch the SDK tools and uncheck device requires a code this is the stage
• After the process is finished, go to everything except Android SDK where you’ll see a long string of char-
bootloader again – you should see Platform-tools at the top. acters, that you will need to provide on
the TWRP custom recovery. the manufacturer’s website to get a key
• Select Backup option and choose the and further instructions on unlocking
relevant categories before starting the bootloader. Otherwise, this is the
the process
• Once successfully completed,
Make process you need to follow.
• Connect it to your computer and
you should have a TWRP custom your own bring it into fastboot again.
recovery image on your storage smartphone • Bring up the command prompt.
• The ‘Restore’ option on the first
menu takes you through the
case For Google Nexus and Pixel devices,
the commands are easy:
recovery process • Nexus phones: Type “fastboot
When just buying one is too
oem unlock” (without quotes) and
ROOTING YOUR PHONE mainstream, real geeks make
their own. Would you like to get
hit Enter
Now it’s time for the real deal – a Dbrand-like carbon-fiber look • Pixel phones: Type “fastboot
rooting your phone. There are for one-tenth the price? Maybe flashing unlock” (without
several ways to do this and you you want a spray-on Rubber quotes) and hit Enter
will need to decide which one’s best case? You can have it all by Motorola’s command is a little dif-
for you. Before you begin, make going to ferent:
sure your device is fully charged • Type “oem unlock UNIQUE_KEY”
– you do not want your device (without quotes), replacing “UNIQUE_
http://dgit.in/DIYCases
dying on you mid-root, trust us! KEY” with the code you received

Cover story
will be able to find on the device manu- • Copy boot.img and place it into
facturer forums or the XDA forums. ADB folder.
• Connect your phone to your com-
NOW WHAT? puter, open command prompt and
If you’re done with the rooting process, enter these commands:
you’re not done entirely yet. Due to the adb reboot bootloader
experimental nature of this process, fastboot flash boot boot.img
it is best to verify that you’ve done fastboot reboot
everything correctly and you’ve still got Pro-Tip: There are a few other
a fully functional device with you. Root methods to unroot as well, like deleting
Checker is an application that will tell the files which grant the root in the
you immediately if you have Superuser first place, or unrooting with an OTA
permissions – which is a good indicator update, but these may not work for all
that your device is successfully rooted. devices. Flashing the stock firmware is
Also, a root manager like SuperSU will the most likely to succeed.
be really helpful to control permissions
in a rooted environment.
JUST IN CASE Up your

Root Checker is a good way to check if
your phone has been successfully rooted
Now, if you aren’t exactly happy with the
way your rooted device is working, or
Emoji game
needed to go back to the unrooted state
So is HTC’s: for any other reason, there are ways to If texting is your thing (if not,
• Type “unlocktoken Unlock_ do that too. Once again, make sure you who are you?) then the emojis
code.bin” (without quotes), backup everything first. Refer to the you use say a lot about you.
replacing “Unlock_code.bin” with Backup section of this article to know Get your geek on by checking
the file you received. methods applicable to a rooted device. out these amazing apps, tips
For other devices, there is definitely a Once that is done, you can use and secrets to using emojis like
solution available even if your manu- apps like SuperSU or the third party never before.
facturer does not sanction bootloader rooting app that you used for the root
unlocking. Take a look at XDA Forums process in the first place (most of the http://dgit.in/UpEmoji
for the process for your phone. Complete apps do have an un-rooting option).
the process, and you’re another step The most thorough method of doing
closer to rooting your Android device. this, however, is by flashing the BUILD YOUR OWN ROM
stock firmware back onto the device. It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to say
FINALLY, ROOT IT And just as you expected, this is not that Android would be nowhere close
Now, there was a time when you would exactly an easy method. to its current popularity if it wasn’t
have to put a Custom recovery into • First, download the stock image and open source to begin with. Every com-
your device and then grant superuser extract it. ponent of the operating system – from
privileges to root your device. But now, • Then follow the same steps as the the messaging apps, libraries, UI com-
things are much easier with quite a few rooting process up to the point of ponents and more – is available as code
third party applications available that OEM Unlocking. for free. It is because of this very flex-
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 Make sure you install the two packages mentioned earlier

Cover story
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
The structure of the Android Open Source Project Open Source Project. You can find that at
http://dgit.in/AOSPDoc. Take the documen-
ibility that you see so many different A makefile is a document that tation seriously as each point in there is
implementations and customisations contains the directives that work when important for a successful build.
for Android – from smartphone manu- the make command is issued. These are Moving on, here are the broad tasks
facturers to hobbyists. A particular essentially instructions about how to that you’ll need to do, along with some
customised implementation is gener- compile a particular file. For instance, pro tips for each:
ally referred to as a Custom ROM. when a file has to be recompiled on the • Set up a build environment –
So can you get into customising basis of particular changes being saved, including installing the right devel-
Android? Why not? We’re here to show that is an instruction you will find in opment tools, the Java Development
you how. But before we begin, there are the makefile. Kit, and getting all the paths and
a few things you need to know. Another disclaimer: we are not directories right.
going to build the next Cyanogen Mod • Pro Tip: Ubuntu 14.04 is the
DISCLAIMER here. As we said earlier, it is not easy to recommended build environ-
Customising Android is not entirely build an entire operating system and ment for Linux users and OS X
simple. But that’s not unexpected, the output of this section is going to 10.11 for Mac users. You need to
considering all the wonderful things be minor changes at best. The rest we install OpenJDK 8 on Linux and
you can do with your Android phone leave up to you to learn. You will need Oracle’s JDK 8 on OS X. On OS X
now. So, as a consequence, there are a a boatload of patience, but it will be you also need Macports installed
few things that you need to know to rewarding in the end. along with Xcode an the Xcode
be able to do this successfully. Broadly command line tools.
speaking, you need to have some basic REQUIREMENTS
coding skills, some experience with Before we start, there are a few more
the Linux based command line and the things that need to be decided. First
concept of a makefile. of all, Android can be theoretically For the
built for any modern-day computing
system. That being said, customisa- keyboard
tion references and resources are warriors
more likely to be available more
easily for devices that support cus-
Stock keyboards are a bore,
tomisation out-of-the-box. The demo
so we’ve got some amazing
build that we used as a reference for
replacement keyboards for your
this article uses a Nexus 5X for the phone. Just follow this link:
customisation. However, you can do
a lookup if there are any particular
While we are customising, it will be
restrictions or requirements for the
a while before you can build the next http://dgit.in/NinjaTxt
Cyanogen or LineageOS specific model of your phone.

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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:

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

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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,

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

Cover story
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
The Arduino Uno will
• WS2812B RGB LED strip THE SOFTWARE BIT
control the lights
• Wires Arduino behind this setup
1. Open the Arduino Sketch
Software
• Raspberry Pi 2 / 3 Disk Image and change the number of
• Arduino Sketch (http://dgit.in/ LEDCOUNT to match the total number 2. Put your SD card in the PC or card
ArduinoSketch) of LEDS we noted earlier. reader (make sure it is at least 8 GB
• Hypercon.jar
2. Also in the line: const char Class 10 )
• Arduino NeoPixel Library
• Win32 Disk imager prefix [] = {0x41,0x64,0x6 3. Install and Run the Win32DiskIm-
1,0x00,0x57,0x02}; we need to ager.exe as administrator, select
change the last two bytes. (0x57 and the image file to write to the SD
the wall behind your TV, matching 0x02) to match your setup. card,
the colours being displayed on 3. For this take the total number of LEDs 4. Click “Write” to write it to the card
the TV. Thus, if the majority of on your system and subtract 1. 5. Insert the card into your PI
the screen was red, then the light 4. Convert this number to HEX (use
emitted would be red, and so on. Google calculator or any online CONNECTING ALL THE EQUIPMENT
Over the years this has been decimal to hex converter) and replace 1. Plug the Arduino Pin 10 into the
refined to multiple colors, matching the first byte (0x57) to 0x?? to match LED astrip data line and Arduino
small parts of the screen, and the aim yours in the sketch. GND pin to V- of the power supply,
is to make the TV watching experi- 5. Now go to XOR converter (xor.pw) 2. Plug the USB of the Arduino into
ence even more immersive than it is and enter the following: port 1 of the Raspberry Pi.
already. It’s a feature that most people 6. In the first Line enter 55 3. Plug an HDMI cable from the
like, but some might not, but it never 7. In the second line enter the byte you HDMI splitter output 1 into your
fails to wow people the first time they calculated in the above step TV’s HDMI-in
see it. Tell them you built that your- (0x57 in our case ) 4. Plug the output of the HDMI
self, and they’re going to be even more 8. Click Calculate XOR Selector into the input of the HDMI
impressed! Of course you could also 9. Replace the last byte of your line splitter
just buy a Philips Ambilight TV, but by the Output you get. Make sure 5. Plug another HDMI cable from
what’s geek about that? to include “0X” before the number the HDMI splitter output2 into the
(0x02) as this is represented in HEX HDMI2 AV converter.
CONFIGURING THE LEDS format. 6. Plug all the Devices into HDMI
Start From the bottom left corner, place 10. Also note down the Baud rate – selector
the LEDs counterclockwise around the 500000 in our sketch . 7. Plug the video (yellow) cable to
border of the TV and connect them at 11. Now connect the D10 pin on the
the corners (except the first one, obvi- arduino to the Din of the LED – the
ously) with conductive wire – make third wire from the LED strip.
sure that you connect the corresponding
terminals on each LED correctly.
12. Download and include the Neopixel
library (see box Requirements) by going
Smartphone
to Tools > include Library Master Race
POWER SUPPLY > Add Zip file in the arduino
It is important to connect the GND software.
Real phone pros can use their
from the Power supply to the Arduino 13. Save the sketch and compile for any
phones as well as normal
The connection to the Arduino is: errors, and then upload to Arduino.
people use desktops. From
• LED Din to Arduino Pin (as config- adblockers to VPN here’s a list
ured in the Arduino Sketch) INSTALLING THE IMAGE ON THE of tweaks no “smart” phone
• Power Supply GND to Arduino RASPBERRY PI SD CARD, user should be without
GND 1. Unrar the OSMC_Pulse_setup_
Note: Count the number of Vertical all_working.rar provided with
http://dgit.in/SPMstrRace
LEDS and make a note of this. the link.

Cover story
• Type : adalight STREAM EVERYTHING!

• Output : /dev/ttyUSB0 (need With high speed broadband and decent
Floating to check the usb number if this

doesn’t work)
FUPs becoming commonplace, the
days of downloading content are long
apps? • Baud rate: 500000 (from the gone. Be it your favorite TV shows,
arduino sketch) movies or your entire music collection,
• Direction : Clockwise streaming is the way to go. And there
If you think you can’t multi- • Select the left, right , horizontal , are tons of ways to do it as well. For
task on your phone, think again. offset to match your setup from example, Plex is a popular solution for
There are apps that will help
the table we noted above. sharing media over a local network.
you do two or more things at
3. Click Save Although there are features behind
once on your phone. Learn all
about it at 4. Make sure that the correct usb certain paid subscriptions, there are
device is selected for the usb also free alternatives that work just as
grabber in the grabber tab. well. As an intelligent server software
http://dgit.in/FlApps 5. Now under the External Tab make Sonarr is pretty much all you’d need.
the setup as shown and click Save Whereas Sickrage, a fork of the Sonarr
the usb grabber video connector 6. Now Click on “Create Hyperion alternative Sickbeard, also covers pretty
(yellow). Configuration” and save this. much the same things in a much more
8. Connect the USB grabber on the organised and sleek way. Head over to
other port of the Raspberry Pi as it FINAL STEPS our ultimate streaming guide at http://
draws more power. 1. Go to the SSH tab dgit.in/AllStreaming to sort out pretty
2. Enter the IP address of the PI in the much all of your streaming needs.
POWER UP THE RASPBERRY PI AND Target IP field
SETUP THE WI-FI IN THE OSMC 3. Make sure Port is 22 AUTOMATE YOUR HOME
1. Navigate to Programs > My OSMC 4. Enter username as osmc password Even though IoT devices have been
2. In the setup menu you can con- as osmc ( if you haven’t changed the quite popular globally over the last
figure the network settings and default settings.) few years, it is only recently that India
select wireless , From the list of 5. Click Save
available networks select your 6. Click Connect and you should con-
network and configure it to connect nect to your PI
to the network. 7. Then click “Send Config” and wait
This configures the KODI media for it to Upload
player and lets us stream content onto 8. Click Save
the screen. 9. Click save hyperion file, will
Note: the IP address of the PI on the help in later use
network, we will need it later. 10. Reboot your PI
CONFIGURING HYPERION If everything has gone well your

1. Run Hypercon.jar Ambilight setup should now be working The Oakter kits are pretty easy to use
2. In the Hardware Tab configure these: with your TV!
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
The KODI media player is a great option for staying up to date with the latest and multiple aspects to get started with
best shows. automating your home.

Cover story
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 Remember, quality and accuracy
time since technology has often depends on the brand as well as
spread into every aspect the price point in this category. Some of
of our lives, our day-to- the good ones that we’ve used recently
day health is not something we’ve are the Fastrack Reflex and the Mi Band
widely adopted technology for. This 2. Also, while a smartwatch can offer
is changing, and fast with the advent you a lot more, getting one mainly for
of wearables and the ubiquity of the purpose of activity tracking is not
smartphones. Here are a few easy to really worth it.
implement methods to customise your
health and lifestyle using technology MULTI-SPORT TRAINING TRACKERS
Slightly on the higher-end, these
TRACK ACTIVITY WITH WRIST-BASED trackers can track more activities than
TRACKERS OR SMARTWATCHES normal wrist-based trackers. The Fenix
Just in case we haven’t said this enough 3 HR from Garmin can track Altitude,
before – fitness trackers have arrived! Atmospheric pressure and even detect
You see them all around you, and a multitude of sports like swimming,
pretty much every electronics company hiking, rowing and more. Moreover,
is now getting into the activity tracking normal step tracking and heart rate
market with fitness bands being sold sensing is much more accurate.
from anywhere between `1,000 to Tracking your performance in these
`15,000. These entry-level devices offer sport-trackers can help you optimise
you some of the basic features such as your performance. Track all that you eat by calories as well
Step tracking, Sleep tracking, Heart rate as nutrients
sensors and more. With all this data,
you can customise the way you spend tion in the best Indian Apps on Google
your day. For instance, if you keep track Play for two years in a row. Consisting
of your steps along with calories burnt, of a database of more than 100,000
you can walk longer to increase that. Indian dishes, diligently entering what
In case you see that you’re not getting you ate into the app will not only help
enough deep sleep you can undertake There’s more to wearables than just you keep track of your calories, it will
steps to get better sleep. The sedentary fitness bands also provide you contextual feedback
alerts will ensure that you do not stay regarding the nutrient content in your
in one position for too long. 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
The Mi Band 2 packs a lot of workout service with an Indian calorie aren’t here! Still, self-customisation is
features for just `1,999 counter is what got HealthifyMe a posi- going to be very big, very soon.

Tips & tricks Radeon RX 500 series
Get your hands on the Windows 10 AMD's new graphics cards launched in
Toolbox 50 Creator's update and its tricks, along

with a manual on how to encrypt it all.
India at prices starting `7000.
http://dgit.in/RX500new
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 scriber of Kindle Unlimited. After down- recovery software that can recover from
Hello Digit, loading the Kindle app, as I'm trying to even volume corruption. But I want the
Whenever I start my computer, I get the register myself it says they don't have hard drive to be recognised on my PC.
following in an error windows: any account with that email ID. I've How can I repair my HDD mechani-
“MSVCP100.DLL missing” tried with all of my email IDs but the cally? Where can I take it to in Kolkata?
This annoys me a lot. Because of result was same. I'm afraid if I try to I don’t want data recovery services, I
this error, I’m not able to install the register a new account I might lose all want repairing. I can recover once it’s
EyeLeo software and Mailbird. Please my books and my Kindle Unlimited sub- recognised by a PC. Please help.
help me out. scription. Please help me get back my Regards.
– Gaurav Kumar books and my subscription as well. – Tirtha Chakraborty
Thanking you,
Hey Gaurav, – Chanchal Kumar Das.
We all know the pain of dll file errors.
There can be several reasons leading Hello Chanchal,
to the MSVCP100.DLL error. It could This is a really weird issue and none of
be a malware or virus, a Windows us have ever come across this problem.
registry error or rarely a hardware Your email ID on Amazon India
failure. The best solution would be to (Amazon.in) is the same for all their
run a virus scan and also a malware properties including their shopping
scan. Then you should download and website, Prime Video, Kindle store or
install all the latest Windows updates. Audible. So essentially, if you are able
Perform a registry clean up and then to log in onto any of these services with Hi Tirtha, this is surely a mechanical
reinstall the software you were trying one particular ID, the same ID should problem but you should try using a
to use. If the problem still persists then be functional on all of them seam- different SATA power and cables and
you should try a system restore if you lessly. If you had registered for Kindle also different SATA ports to verify the
have a restore point saved. Pro tip: it's Unlimited on Amazon.com, then your problem. Repairing a hard drive can be
always a great idea to have one saved. email ID will be different. You need quite expensive and we would recom-
Otherwise you can insert your Win- to verify which email is associated to mend you to contact Seagate service
dows installation DVD or USB drive account and then try logging in again. centre for official support. There are
and repair the system. If nothing works If nothing works out, then you should four service centres in Kolkata that you
at all, we’re afraid that you’ll have to contact Amazon support before you can contact.
install a fresh copy of Windows. register any new account. If you have
everything in email – your Amazon Android games with an
Failed Kindle login Kindle Unlimited subscription invoice Xbox 360 controller
Sir, I'm a regular subscriber of Digit – then you shouldn’t have any problem. Hello guys, I have a Redmi Note 3 (3GB
since a long time. I've a OnePlus One RAM, 32GB storage). I want to play
phone and I was going along with it Broken HDD games with my controller on my phone.
nicely. Recently, the screen got locked Hi Digit, my HDD (Seagate I have an Xbox 360 wireless controller,
accidentally and I couldn't open it and st2000dm001) suddenly stopped wireless receiver, and an OTG cable. But
I had to format it with someone’s help. working. It starts spinning, makes some it is not working. I have watched many
Since I had a Google backup I got back reading noise (actuator moves the head YouTube videos where they are playing
most of the data. My problem is I had back and forth) and stops spinning. I games with the controller. Please help
downloaded several books from the want to get it repaired so that I can me. You are my last hope.
Amazon Kindle store and I'm also a sub- recover its data, I have several data – 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 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
Hey Gagnesh, the process is pretty clear out some space to accommodate
straightforward and you shouldn’t face your GPU. And you can always make it
any problem. Make sure that your wire- your own in this process.
less receiver works on the Xbox 360 in
the first place. Connecting the con- Infamous error 10
troller to your phone is just like Hey Digit,
connecting an input device and I need your help. My internet isn't
shouldn’t require any configuration. working. Until the last boot, it was
Try to use it in the wired mode as well. working but when I tried to access it one
Another thing you should remember is day after that, it is showing an error in
that not all Android games support the LAN device – Error Code 10. I have
gamepad controls, so make sure you’re tried reinstalling the driver from the
trying it out on compatible games only. motherboard DVD as well as from the
Without proper support, the controller ASUS website. But the error persists.
might behave unpredictably within the Please help me.
game. The videos explaining this
process are more than enough to help PC Configuration:
you out. • Intel Core i5-3330
• 4GB RAM
Is it big enough? • OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
Hello team Digit, below is the specs of • Motherboard: ASUS H61M-K
my rig: – Shashwat Gupta
• Processor: Intel Core i5 4440
• RAM: 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB), Hey Shashwat, error 10 is a sign of
• Motherboard: Gigabyte H81m-s1 failed hardware. This is caused because
My cabinet is the iBall Piano 414 of either outdated software or maybe
which is in fact a compact cabinet. I am 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
willing to buy the ASUS Strix RX 470 take care of any such errors. You can
but I have a painful thought. Will it fit also try to uninstall the driver if it
in my cabinet? I am tight in my budget doesn’t work, but if it was working fine
so any advice of modification in the earlier, then rolling back should be fine.
cabinet itself will do me good if the card And with either of these options your
normally doesn't fit. Kindly help! internet connectivity issue should be
– Rick solved for good.
Tips & Tricks
KRITA your need and it will be

Krita is an open source raster added to the stack.
graphics editor known for
digital painting. This editor Make any
is packed with a plethora pow- brush into a
erful features that could make clone tool
it a Photoshop replacement. As there’s no separate clone
Krita can be downloaded for tool in Krita, you can use any
free from krita.org. Try out brush as a clone tool. To do
these tips and tricks to get this, Select the brush
control on Krita. tool > Edit brush set-
tings > Clone > Set the
Use any brush size. To select the clone point
as eraser on the canvas, hold the Ctrl
Krita offers a plethora of Krita ........................................................................................... 18 key and click on the area that
brush presets. These brushes you want to clone, and leave
not only come handy for Windows Creator’s Update .......................................... 19 the Ctrl key.
painting but also for erasing.
Encrypt everything ........................................................... 21
This can be done by changing Quickly see
{ } the mirror
Tips & Tricks has its own page numbers, and does not follow the rest
the brush mode to an eraser. of the magazine’s page numbers. This is done to ensure that you can
Select the brush tool cut out and save T&T in a separate folder for later reference. view of your canvas
> Choose brush preset Instead of flipping the
(located at the top in the pref- image horizontally and then
erences bar). Once the brush Create a list reverting back, you can just
is selected, click on “Set eraser of your hit the “M” key on your
mode”. This will change the favourite brushes keyboard and you’ll see the
brush mode to an eraser. The pop-up palette is handy. mirror image of the canvas.
However, you may not find
Get quick your favourite set of brush Avoid erasing
access to in it. You can create one by the canvas
brush and the going to the Brush Presets If you are coming from Pho-
colour palette > Tag > name your tag > toshop and trying to erase
Searching for brush presets Enter. Now go back to “All” something in the first layer,
can be time-consuming. To brushes list, right-click on the it’ll show you the check-
deal with such situations, brush you want to add to your ered background instead of
Krita provides a neat feature list then Assign to tag > white. This happens because,
that gives you access to your choose your tag. unlike Photoshop, the first
recently used brushes and layer is not Alpha locked by
colours. Just right-click on Change your default. To avoid this, you
your canvas and you’ll see a brush size must change the background
brush and colour palette. You Going all the way to the brush while creating a new canvas.
can see all your recently used preferences and doing it is The Tag button is located at To do this, hit Ctrl + N >
colours to use. 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,
Click on the arrow button to get quick access to the brush bottom of the Layers docker. and Advanced Color Selector
preferences Then select the layer as per by default, these are not the
Digit | May 2017 Vol 17 | 18 www.digit.in

Tips & Tricks
versioning number added to on the Update Now button.

it. Go to File > Save Incre- This will download the down-
mental Version. load assistant necessary for
the manual update. Once it is
Animate with downloaded, install it and run
Krita it. Go through the mandatory
Not restricting to be just a procedure and the download
static graphics editor, Krita process will begin. Then you
goes beyond to offer ani- can go ahead and install it.
mation capabilities as well.
Although animation with Install fresh
Choose between As first layer or As canvas colour Krita is not easy, you can get Windows
total control by trying out few using Cortana
only dockers available. You Enable simple techniques. To ani- If you are installing a fresh
can add other dockers to auto-save mate with Krita, press Ctrl copy of Windows 10 build
get other tools handy. Go to functionality on + N > New > Animation > with Creators update, you’ll
Settings > Dockers and Windows Animation-Japanese-En > be greeted and guided by Cor-
select the docker you want. Krita autosaves your work Use this template. tana throughout the installa-
Additionally, there’s also an in case of crashes. However, tion process. Unlike the tradi-
option to hide all the dockers. sometimes the autosave Add filters to tional installation procedure,
Go to Settings > Uncheck browser doesn’t open on your canvas you can use your voice com-
“Show Dockers”. Windows. In such situa- If you are coming from Pho- mands to install Windows 10.
tions, you need to manually toshop you will not find this
Get full- find the autosave file and open feature any different. Just like Rest your
screen view it. To do this, go to Windows Photoshop, Krita allows you weary eyes
To enter the fullscreen view, Explorer and type %TEMP% to add filters to your canvas. with Night Light
hit the “Tab” key on your in the address bar. This will To do it, select the layer of the The Creator’s Update has
keyboard. To go back to the show you all the temporary object you want to apply the added a must have feature
normal mode, press the “Tab” files on your system. Look for filter on, navigate to Filter and the Night Light feature. It’s
key again. autosave.kra files, open them choose the appropriate one. a Windows counterpart for
one by one and save as the one f.lux that reduces the blue
Test your that you want. WINDOWS 10 light emitted by a display.
brush CREATOR’S To enable Night Light, go to
To get the perfect brush for Quickly save UPDATE Start Menu > Settings >
your requirement you need different The Creator’s Update not only System > Display > turn
to test different combinations versions of the improves the existing features Night light on. You are also
of brush settings. Usually, art- same canvas but also adds new features offered additional features
ists do this on the main canvas If you want to do version and apps to revamp your under Night light settings like
and undo the testing strokes. control, the traditional way Windows experience. To help setting the colour tempera-
To deal with this, Krita has is to Save as different name. you with the new update, we ture or also scheduling the
provided a dedicated area to Instead of this, Krita has have compiled a series of tips Night Light mode. There’s a
test your brush. You can find an option to automatically and tricks that will introduce preset schedule that will turn
it to the right side in the Edit save your current canvas by you and also master the best on the Night light automati-
brush settings palette. marking the new file with a of the new features. cally at the time of sunset and
turn if off at the time of sun-
Get the rise. Apart from this, if you
Windows 10 want to set a manual schedule
Creators update you may do it as well.
As the Windows 10 Creators
update is already rolling, Try the new
your Windows 10 system Paint 3D
will get it automatically via The traditional Microsoft
the phased rollout. How- Paint which we all grew up
ever, if you haven’t received using gets a massive addition
the update prompt you can in the Creators update – the
download it manually. Paint 3D. Yet, the old Paint still
To do so, go to this site remains and does the same job
The area on the right is the brush tester http://dgit.in/Win10CU and click as before. To start Paint 3D,
www.digit.in Vol 17 | 19 May 2017 | Digit

Tips & Tricks
search and launch Paint 3D in Set a custom

the start menu. After creating background
a new project, on the top you’ll colour and accent
find the navigator that lets you To set custom colour to the
choose between Tools, 3D desktop background, go to
objects, Stickers, Text, Effects, Settings app > Person-
and Canvas. Clicking on the Get the real-time view of your tabs in the thumbnail alisation > Background.
3D objects button at the top Choose the fit to Center or
will allow you to choose from on Hub icon (denoted by on your app usage. It also pro- Fill, click on the “+” next to
3D models, 3D objects, and three lines) > Books. vides an option to turn off the the custom colour > select
also 3D Doodles. permission for websites to your desired colour. If you
Set tabs aside access language list. have a particular hex colour
If you always work code, you may also enter it by
with a lot of tabs the “Set tabs Group tiles clicking on the More button.
aside” feature will make a into folders in To set custom accent
group of the current active start menu colour, click on Colors tab
tabs and set it aside. This To clear the clutter in the star located at the left, followed
will give you a clean slate to menu, starting from the Crea- by “+” Custom color button.
work with other tabs. To do tors update, Windows allows Choose the custom colour
this, click on the “Set these you to group multiple tiles in a you want. You can see the
Convert your free hand tabs aside” icon located on single tile folder. This feature realtime preview of the new
drawing to 3D objects the top-left corner just before has been a part of Windows colour on the buttons, hit
“Done” when you have the
Preview colour you want.
pages in Edge
browser Enable
Compiled with a plethora Dynamic
of features, Edge could now locking system
make its place in the browser The Dynamic lock feature
race. One of these revamped connects between your phone
features is the ability to pre- and your PC using Bluetooth
view pages. This feature lets Click on each thumbnail to restore it individually to automatically lock your PC
you see a thumbnail view of when your phone goes out of
other tabs providing a sneak your first tab. To find the tabs Phone for a long time, how- range. This is a neat feature
peek of whether the page has that you have set aside, click ever, it has made its way to aimed at offering a different
been loaded or the video has on the “Tabs you’ve set aside” the desktop operating system level of security. To enable
been buffered. To do this, icon next to the “Set these tabs now. To group multiple tiles dynamic locking, first, pair
open the browser, and click aside” icon. Once you are done into a single folder, drag a your smartphone with your
on the drop down arrow with your work and want tile that you want to add on Windows desktop using Blue-
button placed at the top next the previous tabs back, go to top of another and drop it. tooth. Navigate to Settings
to your last tab. You can also “Tabs you’ve set aside” and This will create a folder with > Accounts > Sign-in
use these thumbnails as tabs click on “Restore tabs”. This those two tiles. To add more options > under Dynamic
to navigate between different will bring back all the tabs. tiles to the folder, simply drag lock enable “Allow Win-
tabs by clicking on it. and drop other tiles into the dows to detect when
Have more folder. Just like other tiles, you you’re away and automat-
Use Edge as control over can also resize the folder. To ically lock the device”.
primary your privacy do it, right-click on the Henceforth, if you leave
e-reader Starting from the Creators folder > resize > select your PC unlocked and move
Edge now also supports update, Microsoft is being the size you want. away with your phone from
ePUBs. Instead of using third- transparent about what kind
party apps to read eBooks, of data it collects. To find
you can do it right from your privacy settings, just search
browser. When you purchase for “Privacy settings” in the
an ebook from the Windows start menu. The privacy set-
Store, it will appear in the new tings allow you to turn off the
Books section located between permission to let apps use
reading list and history. To advertising ID to make ads
go to the Book section, click more interesting to you based Optimise start menu space by using folders of different sizes.

Tips & Tricks
the proximity your PC will be the computing resources to ENCRYPT

automatically locked after 30 the game. EVERYTHING!
seconds. However, if someone Game mode automati- Your
intercepts the PC before it cally turns on when a game smartphone
locks it will not lock. Blue- starts. This only works if the To set up encryption on your
tooth connectivity is not that game is downloaded from the Android phone, go to Set-
reliable so sometimes it won’t Windows Store. However, if tings > Security and
work as expected. you want to enable it manu- click ‘Encrypt phone’. It’s a
ally, run the game and use the fairly long process so be pre-
Get themes Windows hotkey: Windows pared to wait. Do note, the
via the store logo + G. Click on the “Set- only option to recover is to
Themes for your Windows tings” icon > check “Use Game factory reset your phone. On
10 system can be downloaded mode for this game”. This will an iPhone, go to Settings >
from the store. Here’s the hot- enable game mode. You can’t draw without Touch ID & Passcode >
link to directly redirect to the selecting the “Touch writing” Turn Passcode On. You can
theme section of the store: Use Picture-in- tool first add longer numerical pass-
http://aka.ms/themesinstore Picture mode codes by selecting Passcode
To get a theme, select a If you are working with photo using Photos app, click Options > Custom Numeric
theme and click on the “Get” video-focused programs, on Draw and choose your Code. You can also a custom
button. This will download you can use the picture-in- brush. Annotate your photo alphanumeric code from the
and click on the Save button same menu.
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
Click on the “Get more themes in the Store” button to directly of the screen. Select the brush
go to the themes section of the Store you want to use followed by
the brush colour and the size.
the theme on your system. To picture mode to use multiple To start drawing, select the
apply the downloaded theme, applications at once. To use “Touch writing” button from
go to Settings > Person- picture-in-picture mode, first, the menu.
alization > Themes > play some content on Films &
Select downloaded theme. TV app. As the video starts, Broadcast
you’ll see a small box button your game
Set recurring on the control bar next to the The new update has also Rebooting your phone with a
reminders full-screen button. Click on added the ability to broad- 20 char password isn’t fun
with Cortana the button and you’ll be into cast your game using Beam.
Among the few new abili- the picture-in-picture mode. This makes it easy to broad- Your calls
ties of Cortana, you can cast your game without using Whatsapp calls are
set recurring monthly Annotate over any extra software. Addition- end-to-end encrypted by
reminders. Click on the “Ask pictures and ally, Beam’s low-latency tech- default, meaning that no one
me anything” field and ask it maps nology enables broadcasters else, not even Whatsapp can
to set a reminder. To recur, The Creator’s update adds to stream their gameplay listen in. If you prefer some-
click on “Only once” > Select the inking feature to the without experiencing lag. To thing with a bit more of secu-
everyday or specific days of Photos app. This can be used broadcast a game, open the rity focus, Signal from Open
the month or week. Once to quickly annotate pictures game bar (Windows key + Whisper systems is a great
everything is alright, click to share on social media. To G) while playing a game and alternative. As a bonus, both
on “Remind” button. annotate a picture, open the click on Broadcast. of these apps support video
calls as well and are avail-
Try the new able on both Android and
Game Mode iOS devices.
Game Mode on Windows 10
prioritises your game over Your texts
other programs running on Unlike calls, regular
the system and allocates all To broadcast using Beam, sign in to your Microsoft account first. cellular texts can be encrypted
www.digit.in Vol 17 | 21 May 2017 | Digit

Tips & Tricks
using Signal, only if the other rypt (http://dgit.in/VeraCrt). It’s Administration and if you There are tons of options to
party has it installed. You can based on one of the stalwarts are sure that only a select choose from (read Agent 001’s
set it up to be your default SMS of the encryption business, few devices are going to be article on his hunt for a robust
app its encryption algorithms TrueCrypt. If you are a Win- connecting to your network, VPN). We recommend Bole-
automatically apply to your dows 10 Pro user, you should disable Dynamic Host Con- hVPN (https://www.bolehvpn.
texts to other people without also take advantage of Win- trol Protocol or DHCP (you’ll net) that even has a free trial
you having to do anything. dow’s built in encryption tool, have to manually assign an IP you could try out. And add
iPhone users have nothing to BitLocker to do a standard full to each of your devices from in another layer of security
worry about as iMessage has drive encryption as well for your router’s DHCP range). by downloading Tor Browser
encryption built in. Moving more security. As a last step, change your (https://www.torproject.org). It
onto IMs, most major appli- router’s internal IP to some- is essentially a browser that
cations like Whatsapp, Tel- Your WLAN thing more obscure than obfuscates your browsing data
egram (secret chats are more Log on to 192.168.0.1 192.168.xxx.xxx. by using other TOR nodes so
secure than regular chats), (or 192.168.1.1 if that doesn’t that no one can essentially pin-
Signal and BBM, all have end work) and refer your rout- Your email point to your data.
er’s manual for If you use your
the authentication browser as your mail client, Your files
details (or just use all your mails are automati- If other alternatives
a wired connection) cally encrypted by your such as encrypting a drive
and navigate to the email host (mostly), and aren’t feasible you consider
security settings have an HTTPS layer on top. Axcrypt (https://www.axcrypt.
page. If it’s just a But continuing in our pur- net) that offers 128-bit AES
confusing jumble of suit for better security, you encryption for the free ver-
This small unassuming message is
words, here’s a gen- should consider switching sion and integrated shell sup-
actually one of the biggest milestones
in digital privacy eral rule of thumb: to a standalone mail clients port for Windows so that it is
WEP, WPA, TKIP like Outlook or Thunder- extremely easy to use.
to end encryption baked in. are all outdated and aren’t as bird. Do note that the other
You can also set autodestruct secure as WPA2-AES. Also, person needs to have your Your
messages on platforms like use a six letter password at the digital signature to decrypt documents
Facebook Messenger, Tel- minimum. For added security, your messages, so look up You can encrypt your docu-
egram and Signal to achieve you can also make the SSID your client’s documentation ments right from your word
even more privacy, if required. not broadcast which means to find out the specifics. processor. In the Microsoft
you have to manually enter Office Suite, go to File >
Your hard in the SSID and password Your internet Info > Protect Document
drive on mobile devices (search traffic > Encrypt with pass-
If you have sensitive informa- for an add network option), VPNs are really helpful to word to encrypt your pres-
tion of any sort on your hard while Windows shows the hide who you are and where entations, datasheets and docs
drive, you should really take network as Hidden Network. you are from literally eve- with a password. In Open
the time to encrypt it. We Disable WPS, disable Guest ryone, making your browsing Office, go to File > Save
highly recommend Verac- Networks, disable Remote more secure and private. 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-
Please do remember that there’s a tiny magic ‘I messed up button’ on the back of your router 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...

Build a Lego Macintosh Bugs VS maple
Programmer Jannis Hermanns builds himself a Scientists in Canada are experimenting with
Lego Macintosh Classic that works and he wants a molecule found in maple syrup, and they’re
Bazaar you to build one too! http://dgit.in/legoMAC getting positive results. http://dgit.in/MapleBug
iBall CompBook HIFIMAN

i360 HE560 Price41
Beast of a battery but needs more A rare pleasure 61,9
performance
T
he HIFIMAN
HE560 is a beauti-
fully crafted, open-
backed, planar mag-
netic headphone, designed
Price99 for reference use. Unlike
12,9
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
W
ith this device, instance you have to manu- diaphragm itself is electri- little more attention towards
iBall is trying ally kill the keyboard using cally charged with conduc- the finishing and build.
to raise the bar a switch before flipping to tive material to make it move. The cushioned earpads are
by offering a tablet mode. This should’ve This makes them durable very comfortable while the
convertible option at such been automatic. Moving on to (less movement), more sensi- headband provides adequate
an affordable price point. Its ergonomics and performance, tive, and – to apply a display support. The clamping pres-
screen rotates all the way the keyboard is not very com- tech term – their refresh sure is a little on the tighter
transforming the laptop into fortable to type on because of rate is very fast. This makes side but not uncomfortable.
a 11.6-inch touchscreen tablet. its proximity to the touchpad. planar magnetics super accu- The HIFIMAN HE560 is a
It’s a decent device with a Accidental touches were rate and more responsive. delightfully detailed aural
few minor annoyances. For common. There’s no ethernet The HE560s are very experience. Apart from the
port, which is normal for easy on the eyes. The wood regular test tracks, I wanted
laptops in this segment. How- finish ear cups, the smooth to literally put every piece
64
ever, we would have appre- metal frame and pleather of music I owned through
ciated an ethernet-to-USB these cans just to see what
adapter with the laptop. The new detail I will be able
iBall i360 runs on an Intel to discover, or what little
90
Performance............................57
Atom x5-Z8300 SoC which previously missed nuance
Features ....................................55
scored 1285, 1384, and 1142 would rise to the surface. The
Value ..........................................90
respectively on the PCMark 24bit/96kHz fully uncom-
Design: .......................................55 Performance...........................92
Home accelerated, Creative pressed nuforce test samples
accelerated and Work acceler- Features .................................. 80 I’ve had with me for the past
Specifications Build & Design ........................78 five years never sounded this
Processor: Intel Atom Processor ated benchmarks – adequate
Z8300 @ 1.84 GHz; Display: 11.6- for a device such as the i360 Value .........................................70 good. I don’t want to gush
inch capacitive touch; Resolution: which should ideally be used but the dynamic range on the
1366x768; Storage: 32GB primarily for light tasks like Specifications HE560 is phenomenal. Their
In-built, expandable up to 64GB browsing and Office. If you’re Frequency Response: 15Hz- sound signature is very close
via microSD; Ram: 2 GB DDR3 50KHz; Sensitivity: 90dB;
RAM; Battery: 10,000 mAh Li- looking for a economical Impedance: 45 Ohms; Weight: to neutral with supremely
Polymer battery; Weight: 1.35 kg; laptop just for basic needs you 375g; Cable Length: 2m; Plug: tight bass. If you can afford
Dimensions: 29.7 x 20.2 x 1.7 cm might have other options, but 6.35mm; Style: Open Back; Driver them, and if you have a
if it’s a budget 2-in-1 you want Type: Planar Magnetic sufficiently high end source
Contact and you just need to have that to pair them with, there is
iBall India Contact
Phone: 022 - 30815100 touch interface, then the iBall ProAudioHome absolutely no reason why
Email: NA isn’t too bad. Phone: (022) 65611833 you shouldn’t go for them.
Website: www.iball.co.in Manish Rajesh Website: proaudiohome.com Siddharth Parwatay

Call of Duty WWII Cassini’s final mission
The next Call of Duty is officially heading back NASA’s Cassini mission will enter its final phase
to World War II after disappointing feedback this month. Studying Saturn more closely than
from Infinite Warfare. http://dgit.in/CODwwII ever before burning out. http://dgit.in/Cassini2 Bazaar
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 Price90
GL553 has two variants out in the market at the 94,9
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 to tweak various
same time doesn’t compromise on the hardware aspects such as the fan
it packs in. The keypad has chiclet keys with speed profiles, keyboard illumination patterns
ample amount of spacing between individual keys and performance profiles. ASUS Gaming Center
making it easy to use compared to the average has a pretty easy to understand UI and we spent
laptop keyboard and there’s a different texture to quite a bit of time playing around with the dif-
the touchpad as well. But who uses the touchpad ferent patterns. Aside from that, we didn’t find
for gaming? The keyboard supports 30-key anything that stood out about the GL553.
rollover which is more than sufficient for any The display panel on the GL553 is pretty
gamer. Even a StarCraft player with insane APM good for a laptop. For starters, it scored 100%
wouldn’t feel bottlenecked on this system. Another in the sRGB colour gamut but the maximum
81
neat thing about the keyboard is the fact that the brightness level only hit up 273 lux which isn’t
arrow keys jut out a little. So it’s easier to get your particularly bad, however, it’s lower than some
bearing without looking down. The spacebar, too, of the competing units from MSI which gener-
has a little protrusion towards the bottom. ally score around 290.
Performance...............77
The CPU and GPU use the same heatpipes
Features .......................86
which isn’t something we like. However, they’ve Performance Build ............................. 80
kept the right edge of the laptop devoid of any Performance wise you’ll be scoring above 30
vents which is a good thing as while gaming your FPS in most games while running at Very High Specifications
hand isn’t bearing the brunt of hot air blasting settings. Just don’t switch to a ridiculous level of Processor: Intel Core
through them. We’ve seen certain high-end anti-aliasing, FXAA and you should be just fine. i7 7700HQ; Platform:
gaming laptops make this silly mistake of placing Unigine Valley scored around 45 FPS average HM175; RAM: 8 GB
cooling vents on the right side. Ideally, we prefer across the benchmark and FireStrike scored 2400 MHz; Screen Size
- 15.6-inches; Screen
exhaust vents on the rear and intake vents on 5523. If we were to switch out the GTX 1050 for Resolution: 1920x1080;
the bottom. A good thing about the ports on the a 1050 Ti then the FireStrike score would jump GPU: 1050 4 GB; SSD:
GL553 is their placement. They’re placed on the to approximately 7900. In games, Doom scored 128 GB;
sides alright, but more towards the user. The USB about 42 FPS on max while Overwatch hit 54 HDD: 1 TB 7200 RPM;
Type-C and headphone jack, especially, benefit FPS on ultra settings. So you’ll have to tone Battery: 4-Cell 48 Whr;
AC Adapter: 120 W;
the most since most cables are either no more than things down a little to hit 60 FPS. Overall, the Weight: 2.5 Kg
three feet in length so you don’t have to slouch over new GTX 10 series of graphics cards have really
the laptop which you’d otherwise have to do had given gaming laptops a much needed shot in the Contact
the audio jack been towards the rear. arm. The GL553 competes with the likes of the ASUS Technology Pvt.
MSI GP and GE series and they’re competitive Ltd.
Phone: +18002090365
Features in terms of features. It’s just the price that makes Email: reachus@asus.
As with most gaming laptops these days, the ROG the competition seem all the more appealing. com
GL553VD comes with software that allows you Mithun Mohandas Website: www.asus.in

Chinese cargo reaches space Conflict detector wearable?
China’s first automated cargo spacecraft Several researchers join forces for a study aimed
successfully docked with the country’s Tiangong-2 to detect conflict in couples before it occurs using
Bazaar space station http://dgit.in/ChinaCargo wearable technology. http://dgit.in/Conflictwear
ZOTAC GeForce Moto G5

GTX 1080 Ti Dependable, but not the best
AMP! Extreme
T
he Moto G5 is
a good overall
To ‘Ti’de you over till Volta smartphone, and
has something
comes along Price99 to offer for everyone. It
70,T9ax)
(+ 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
Y
ou might be miffed to switch between profiles sun, and everyday perfor-
at seeing two using a separate software, mance is acceptable. The
NVIDIA flagships ZOTAC has gone ahead and buit-in speaker isn’t loud
coming out back to dropped multiple profiles. So and if you want to watch
back but the GTX 1080 Ti you get the best performing content, we suggest using
sure is a beast. The ZOTAC profile out of the box. headphones. The 16GB camera clicks good photos
GeForce GTX 1080 sports Coming to the build storage is a downer too. We producing decent colours
the highest clocks that we’ve quality, the card is protected do not recommend anyone and overall details. Having
seen on any 1080 Tis that from all fronts thanks to to buy a phone with 16GB said that, there are times
have graced our Test Centre the protective backplate storage, unless all you need when the colour accuracy
with a base clock of 1645 that extends over the sides. is calling, basic messaging is off, with warm colours
MHz and boost clock of ZOTAC’s Spectra lighting apps and internet access. looking undersaturated.
1759 MHz. And unlike the has improved since we last Heavy games showed some If extra long battery
current trend of forcing you checked it out and now sup- framerate issues, but the life is a priority, you can
ports the full RGB spectrum. games were still playable. consider the Xiaomi Redmi
But we’re still not fans (see For well lit situations, the Note 4 or even the Redmi
what we did there?) of the 3s. If a good camera is
80 2.5 slot thickness. We also what you are looking for,
70
noticed the FireStorm soft- the Honor 6X is your pick,
ware acting up during testing while the Redmi Note 4
Performance............................90 but were assured that a fix is the one for those who
Build ...........................................75 would have been released demand performance. The
Features ....................................66
Value for Money ......................75 soon. Performance wise, it Moto G5, meanwhile, is for
Design ........................................78
has been the fastest with most those looking for an ergo-
Performance............................70
Specifications games running at greater nomic smartphone that is
CUDA Cores: 3584; Texture Value ..........................................60
than 60 FPS in our test suite. dependable on everyday
Units: 224; ROPs: 88; Core Clock:
And the overclock helps out basis. It’s compact, has
1645 MHz; Boost Clock: 1759 Mhz; Specifications
Memory Clock: 11.2 GHz; Memory since we did clock 8 extra FPS Display: 5.0-inch FHD; decent battery stamina,
Bus Width: 352-bit; VRAM: 11 GB; in Rise of the Tomb Raider Platform: Qualcomm MSM8937 offers stock-like Android
TDP: 320 W; Warranty: 5 Years. over the reference GTX 1080 Snapdragon 430; RAM: 3GB; interface and has an aura
Ti. It is a little pricier than the ROM: 16GB; Battery: 2800mAh; of assurance. It isn’t the
Contact competition but you get five Camera: 13MP
best smartphone at around
Aditya Infotech Ltd.
Phone: +120-4555666 years warranty which is also Contact 10k, but is one that you can
Email: sales@adityagroup.com greater than the competition. Phone: 1-800-419-6686 depend on as per need.
Website: www.zotac.com Mithun Mohandas Website: https://goo.gl/odfJJx Sameer Mitha

Critical flaw in IoT Doomsday Vault expanding
A couple of critical vulnerabilities in CODESYS Almost a decade after the original Svalbard seed
Web Server could lead to making many IoT vault opened its doors, Norway’s Doomsday vault
devices vulnerable. http://dgit.in/IOTflaw is being expanded http://dgit.in/VaultExpand Bazaar
Sony Xperia XZs

Just short of great
T
he Sony Xperia XZs is gaming a great experience. Touch
the company’s latest response is smooth and fluid,
flagship smartphone in and the updated Xperia UI with
India, and is the first to Android Nougat retains all the
unveil staggering slow motion goodness and the finesse of glass
videos at 960fps. It uses the new effects along with a few optimisa-
sensor with 19-megapixel effective tions. The UI allows you to adjust
resolution at 4:3 pillarboxing, the display’s colours manually
along with an f/2.0 G lens and with an RGB toggle, and override
a faster BIONZ X image pro- presets by choosing to use the
cessor. The slow motion videos X-Reality Mobile display engine.
produced by the Xperia XZs, Other UI optimisations include
however, are erratic. With ample Xperia Actions - a deep-inte-
light in natural environments, the grated assistant that works in the
Sony Xperia XZs shoots stun- background and suggests predic-
ning slow motion videos with no tive actions for tasks that you
interpolation and stutters, and is usually do at a certain time, every
a significant visual upgrade over day. It is non-intrusive and acts
the 120fps and 240fps slow mo smoothly, and can be controlled
videos produced by phones so far. manually any time.
However, the algorithms e Powered by an underclocked
Pric 90
struggle with shutter speed adjustment 4 9 , 9 Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC at
under fluorescent light due to flicker rate, 1.6GHz, 4GB RAM and 64GB native
and produce too much noise in low light. storage, the Sony Xperia XZs provides
This limits places where you can use this mode. smooth overall performance despite running
The regular camera performance is signifi- on a year-old processor. Most everyday apps like
cantly improved, with the predictive shooting WhatsApp, Instagram, Gmail, Facebook and
79
coming into play when you are shooting in Chrome load without any delay at first, although
motion. Autofocus speed is also significantly with more than five apps open you get slight
faster, and all of these features make use of the delays that are noticeable enough for discerning
higher DRAM in the stacked CMOS sensor to users. Gameplay is smooth and seamless, and
give a fast, smooth main camera. Colours are although the device does heat up a bit, the Features .......................57
vibrant, offer high contrast and are well-detailed, interior heat pipes ensure device temperature Performance............... 81
and high dynamic range helps deeper range of remains with 41 degrees even after 30 minutes Design ........................... 91
colours and more details even in shadows. How- of gaming. The 2900mAh battery on the Sony Value .............................77
ever, the slight strains of oversaturation cannot Xperia XZs is supported by Qualcomm Quick-
be ignored. Low light shooting, however, tends to Charge 3.0 for fast charging and Qnovo Adaptive Specifications
Processor: Qualcomm
produce more noise in Auto mode than optimum, Charging to protect longevity. This programs Snapdragon 820; RAM:
which is the only loose end here. the device to charge fast up to 90 percent in 45 4GB; Storage: 64GB,
The Sony Xperia XZs retains the same design minutes, after which it cuts off power supply to expandable; Primary
as previous Xperia smartphones, which is a maintain battery health. The device lasts for 13 camera: 19MP with
good thing. The 5.2-inch smartphone is light and hours of average real time usage with intensive 960fps slow motion;
Front camera: 13MP;
ergonomic to hold. Button placement is also well- tasks, and a daily charge is necessary. Display: 5.2-inch, Full
thought out and makes the phone easy to use. Despite being a fine smartphone with few HD; Battery: 2900mAh,
The sharp corners, however, will get chipped in flaws, the Sony Xperia XZs now runs on a pro- Qualcomm QuickCharge
mild drops, and the smooth metal surface along cessor that has already lived a year of its life cycle. 3.0
with rounded edges do not aid grip. The phone still offers sublime end-user experi-
Contact
The display is crisp and bright, producing ence, but with new flagships being launched, it Phone: 1800-103-7799
705 lux of luminance, which is appreciable. becomes hard to recommend at `49,990. Website: https://www.
The vibrant colours make video streaming and Souvik Das sonymobile.com/in/

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

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

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
T
he Bose QuietComfort 35 is a pair best bit, being well-measured, and
of premium active noise cancel- well-detailed. The overall warmth
lation headphones that are in audio enables comfortable
83 aimed at the higher ranges of
mainstream premium personal audio
listening, and the sweet timbre
adds to the plush audio here.
gear. True to its name, the audio Good soundstaging here is further
Performance...............93 delivery is not particularly enthusi- combined with smooth active noise
Features .......................88 astic or peppy, but is smooth, warm cancellation to ensure that you get
Design .......................... 80 and comfortable. The headphones an expansive field of listening, and
Value ............................ 60 maintain great consistency and does not induce claustrophobia.
composure of audio delivery across The noise cancellation is cali-
Specifications most genres, with well-calibrated brated to add comfort to the listener
Operating principle:
low frequency performance, sharp and not isolate the person, which is
Closed system, Weight:
235 grams, Range: 10m, and clear mids, and slightly conserva- a good element here. The headphones
Battery Life: 12 hours, tive highs. Price63 are heavier than its predecessor, but are
Cables included: 3.5mm The bass produced is well-defined, 29,3 fairly robust. Good connectivity range of
aux, microUSB charging but is not overpowering. The mids are over 40 feet and nearly 11 hours of play-
reasonably sharp, but needed a little more back time sum up the Bose QC35. Overall, it
Contact
Phone: 1800-102-2673 emphasis to be pitch perfect. It sounds good makes for the most optimally balanced pre-
Website: https://www. across octaves and vocal ranges, but is a tad mium headphones to buy in India.
boseindia.com subdued on overall terms. The highs are the Souvik Das
MuveAcoustics Drive
Decent sound, but tips are bad
T
he Virat Kohli fronted brand MuveA- because of the tips. The in-line remote and
coustics makes audio gear aimed at the microphone work well enough. The sound
youth. To start off, the Drive in-ear is signature on the Drive is bright and sparkly. On
available in Black, Blue and White. The some of the bass heavy tracks you quickly notice 62
blue unit that we received definitely looks nice the low end is lacking. But that could also be
although they don’t really inspire too much con- because finding a good seal with those paper-
fidence in terms of build – being extremely light like tips is so difficult. The passive isolation is Features ...................... 48
– but they are definitely not flimsy. pretty bad too because the tips are Performance.............. 66
An interesting thing about the drive unable to create a good seal. On Build ..............................65
was the elaborate box that they came Chris Rea’s Call On Me the vocals Value .............................77
in. If some of that effort and money seemed recessed. The Muve Acous-
would have been put into bundling a tics Drive (MA-1000SB) isn’t a bad Specifications
Driver size: 8 mm;
hardcase, it would’ve helped. sounding in-ear headphone by any
Frequency Response: 20
The flat tangle free cords are a measure. It isn’t particularly great Hz-20 kHz; Impedance: 16
plus. The translucent silicon tips either. In fact a few critical flaws ohm; Weight: 15.3 g
go with the design but hamper the like the low flexibility silicon tips
performance. The material lacks and non-inclusion of a hardcase Contact
MuveAcoustics
the flexibility and the springiness take away major points. We recom-
Price9
Phone: +91-22-6736-8877
needed to create a good seal. It’s quite mend you spend another `200 and go
179 Twitter: @MuveAcoustics
thin too. Since getting a good seal is for the E10C or Twinwoofers M 2.0. Website: http://www.
difficult, the bass performance suffers Arnab Mukherjee muveacoustics.com

Future of monetization Games help the brain
Judging by Facebook’s F8 conference, machine Researchers have found that videogames can
intelligence is the future of monitization. More help keep you mentally healthy and help with
Bazaar here: http://dgit.in/FBmonitize overcoming addictions. http://dgit.in/BrainG
TP-Link WA- Gionee A1

820RE Wi-Fi Good camera, but not the overall
package
Range Extender
T
he Gionee A1 is the
Portable and adjustable company’s new
flagship smart-
T
he current crop of phone. The prime
wireless extenders selling point with the A1 is
are quite bulky to the 16MP front-facing
begin with but the camera and it does
Price9
TP-Link WA-820RE has 1,37 produce good
Price99
that problem solved. How? It images. Although, 19,9
runs off USB power and that skin tones are still
too it’s designed for a power softened to make
envelope not exceeding faces look brighter, and
2.5W so you can use it with sharp edges and coarse tex-
USB 2.0 ports as well. The tures also produce softness
installation is pretty easy standing of networking but to smoothen out blemishes.
and there’s even an app with the app, it’s easy. The The rear 13MP camera
available should you feel the unit is lightweight and has on the Gionee A1 is a fairly
need to migrate to a different vents on the sides to help competent package as well.
network or kick unwanted cool off but the LED can be It uses a Sony IMX258
leechers. After all, anyone a bit distracting with the sensor, which produces as oversaturated as most
who has physical access can lights out. Thankfully, the vibrant colours and good AMOLED panels. In addi-
make their way onto the app has an option to turn dynamic range, along with tion, Gionee’s Amigo OS pro-
network using WPS. And that off as well. fairly accurate white bal- vides you with a colourful
extenders aren’t so easy to We weren’t expecting ance in daylight conditions. interface and bright icons as
access post configuration that good of a performance The 5.5-inch AMOLED well as the iOS-like settings
so kicking unwanted users with the WA-820RE since display adds to the pros of menu, which is fairly intui-
required a decent under- it was built to run off of the device. Colours look tive to use. The Gionee A1
USB power but we were fairly natural, and are not is powered by a MediaTek
pleasantly surprised to see Helio P10 SoC. The octa-core
it work at par with those SoC is clocked at 2GHz and
75 extenders that run off of

AC main power. The catch 66
does a decent job in overall
day-to-day performance,
here is that you have to stick with most lightweight apps
Performance............................76 with 2.4 GHz so bandwidth loading fairly smoothly.
Features ....................................74 isn’t great. It’s a decent Features ....................................68 Gaming experience is a little
Build Quality ............................75 solution for setting up an Performance............................62 inconsistent though.
ad-hoc extender absolutely Value ..........................................52 The weakest link of the
Specifications anywhere since all you need Design ........................................79 Gionee A1 however is the
Antenna: 2x external; Protocols: is an accessible network battery life, which lasts
802.11 b/g/n; Bandwidth: nearby and a powerbank to Specifications about a work day, but you do
300(300@2.4GHz) Mbps; get this started. Moreover, SoC: MediaTek Helio P10; RAM: expect more from a battery
Transmit Power: <18dBm; 4GB; Internal Storage: 64GB;
Ethernet: NA; Dimensions: the foldable antenna helps Display: 5.5-inch 1080p; OS: this size.
89.41x 36.6 x 14.3 mm; Warranty: with minor adjustments to Android 7.0 Nougat; Battery: Overall, the Gionee A1
3 years. get better reception. It may 4010mAh is a decent smartphone that
lack the 5 GHz band and has a good display, offers
Contact have no ethernet ports but Contact acceptable performance for
TP-LINK India Private Limited, Gionee India
Phone: 1800 209 4168,
the unit is priced appropri- Phone: 18002081166 lightweight usage, and a
Email: www.tp-link.in, ately for the feature set. Email: gcare@gionee.co.in very competent camera.
Website: sales.in@tp-link.com Mithun Mohandas Website: https://gionee.co.in/ Hardik Singh

Giant robots battle Gucci’s new alien models
The giant robot duel of your mecha-dreams Gucci’s upcoming Autumn / Winter ‘17 line, stars
between USA and Japan is finally happening aliens and android models from far-away places
in August 2017 http://dgit.in/SKuratas in the galaxy. http://dgit.in/GucciAlien Bazaar
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 Price00
57m,9sung
repercussions. The company’s tryst with glass (Sa
y S8)
Galax
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 Price00
reeks premiumness. But more importantly, 67m,9sung
(Sa 8 Plus)
yS
there’s much more finesse in terms of UI design. Galax
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
84
tools icon is integrated into the on-screen keys,
instead of a floating bubble. As you probably didn’t happen on the S8. Also, you may see a Samsung Galaxy S8
know already, there’s a pressure sensitive home slight rainbow effect where the screen curves, Features ...................... 60
button below the screen, and you get used to it but that’ll disappear if you turn off Edge Lighting Design .......................... 94
very easily. from Settings. Performance...............87
The Galaxy S8 is all about ergonomics. It’s Univisium aspect ratio on phones is new, Value ............................. 81
5.8-inch Univisium display is tall and narrow, so you’ll have to contend with black bars when
making the phone itself more ergonomic. Even watching content, at least for now, since videos
83
smaller hands would be able to reach across and movies don’t follow this aspect ratio just
the screen, making it decent for single-handed yet. Samsung has added a button on the recents
usage. However, you still have to get used to the menu to stretch apps to full screen, which works
slippery glass back on both of these phones. most of the time but makes some apps tough to
Samsung Galaxy S8
That’s even more important on the Galaxy S8+, use. That’s probably why the company didn’t
Plus
which is far less ergonomic than the S8. It’s forcefully fit all apps to the new display.
Features ....................... 61
compact for a 6.2-inch device, but really not Amongst other things that Samsung has
Design ...........................92
something we’d call ergonomic. put on these devices, the Exynos 8895 is as fast
Performance.............. 90
Speaking of ergonomics, that fingerprint as you’d expect from a flagship SoC. The 10nm
Value .............................72
sensor was destined for disaster. It’s easier chipset runs four of Samsung’s Mongoose cores
to get used to on the Galaxy S8, but we found and four Cortex A53 cores. Benchmark scores
ourselves using the pin very often on the bigger are amongst the highest we’ve ever seen, but
Specifications
Galaxy S8/S8 Plus
device. Why use the pin? Because the Iris really, there’s not much that dazzles in terms of Display: 5.8-inch QHD/
Scanner and Face Unlock feature aren’t depend- performance. The Galaxy S8 phones are as fast 6.2-inch QHD; RAM: 4GB;
able enough to be used all the time. Both take a as flagships should be, and incrementally faster Storage: 64 GB; SoC:
second too long to be called seamless and often than their predecessors. 2.5 GHz Exynos 8895
do not work in lower light. We couldn’t even Both phones will give you just about a work octa-core; Battery:
3000 mAh/3500 mAh;
register our iris on the S8+. day’s worth of battery life. The PC Mark test Operating System:
The best feature of the Galaxy S8, as with puts the bigger phone at over 11 hours, while Android 7.0; Camera:
many Samsung phones, is its display. QHD the S8 comes out to 8 hours. Samsung made no 12MP, f/1.7, dual-pixel
resolution on both the devices makes them change to the camera, so that remains pretty
sharp. More importantly, Samsung has toned much what it was last time. Overall, the two Contact
Samsung India
down colour oversaturation and touch perfor- phones are great and meant for those looking for Phone: 1800-40-7267864
mance is excellent. We found a reddish tint on a flagship worth showing off. Website: samsung.com
the Galaxy S8+ from some angles, but the same Prasid Banerjee Email: Web form

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

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

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- Features evaluation: The keyboards edges of the keycaps. If the keycap is made
cessors weren’t powerful enough to covered in this comparison test have a of ABS, the coating or upper paint dissolves
keep up with the load of multiple input wide gamut of features. We made an effort and gets smudged. For evaluation, we scored
devices pushing instructions down its throat throughout the test process to ensure all the usage of ABS and not how good the
while it was already busy processing other the features that are currently offered in ABS material was on the keycap. Cherry
instructions from the OS. Considering today’s keyboards were included in the scoring. MX switches have been the gold standard
hardware, your processor won’t bottleneck Subsequently, the most important or nec- of mechanical switches and we also have
even if you attach multiple keyboards or essary features for a gaming keyboard was a few knock-off switches competing in this
mice to it. However, to distance ourselves given more weightage than those features test. We rated them based on their specifi-
from any form of bottlenecking, we tested which can be termed as luxury. For example, cations since we don’t have the necessary
all the keyboards on the following rig: maximum n-key rollover was given more equipment to determine their durability over
• Motherboard: AsRock Z77 Extreme4 weightage than the number of lighting extended periods of wear.
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K modes possible in the keyboard. Hardware Verdict: In our comparison tests, we
• GPU: MSI Gaming X Radeon RX470 features including the presence of USB and give out three awards based on the final
• RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR3 16GB audio passthrough, Windows-key lock, mul- scores obtained after evaluating the features
• Monitor: Dell Professional P2312H timedia buttons, etc., were covered to name and build quality. Since we can’t objectively
• Mouse: Zowie FK2 a few. Keyboards that had software support determine the performance of the keyboard,
Since we didn’t want any inconsistencies were also given extra scores distributed over the Best Performer award is a weighted sum
between different test runs we didn’t fiddle a set of features such as changing the polling of the features and build quality scores. This
with the power or BIOS settings. Everything rate, lighting modes, recording macros, etc. award will be given to the keyboard that
was set to default. The latest firmware was Accessories such as a keycap puller, extra obtains the highest score, revealing which
updated on every keyboard before testing. keycaps, palm rest, carry pouches, etc., have keyboard is best in an overall aspect. The
This involved either downloading it directly also been scored. second award of Best Buy is given to the
from the official website or through the soft- Build quality: As all the keyboards are product with the highest score/rupee ratio.
ware (if there was software support), and mechanical, most of them are sturdy. We This award will help us determine which
then upgrading. The keyboard was placed made sure that every part and component keyboard balances itself by offering good
on a white hard plastic desk to test the anti- of the keyboard was evaluated in terms of features and build quality at a proper price
slip capability of the rubber or plastic feet build quality. Here we didn’t test how good point. The Editor’s Pick award is completely
on the bottom. Keyboards were connected a particular component was and instead, subjective and dependent on the experience
to a USB 2.0 port to avoid any compatibility we scored based on the type of material of the reviewer. There can be several pos-
issues during the basic testing. Apart from it used. For example, keycaps are usually sibilities here and it might also be possible
that, the keyboards were also operated made from ABS or PBT plastic. To determine that one product wins Editor’s Pick even
using USB 3.0 to verify whether there were the material, we dipped a cotton swab in though they might have won one of the two
any issues. diluted Acetone and smudged it at the lower previously mentioned awards.
for keyboards and since tile and clicky, and Brown underneath will survive Coming over to the fea-
their patent ended, several – tactile. Red switches are longer. Clearly, durability tures that distinguish a
knock-offs have flooded the directed towards gaming, and a wide range of options gaming keyboard from a
market. These knock-offs are Blues are for typing whereas in switch types in mechanical generic one, the level of n-key
comparatively cheaper and Brown stands at the sweet keyboards become a strong rollover is the most crucial.
have drastically dropped the spot for both gamers and typ- parameter for a gaming key- N-key rollover is used to
prices of mechanical key- ists. Apart from preferences, board. Analog and optical denote how many keys can
boards. The basic “feel” of Cherry switches are highly technology for keyboard be registered simultane-
these switches are standard durable offering up to 50 mil- switches are also being con- ously by the keyboard. The
(denoted by colour) with lion keystrokes that should sidered. Both of them are ‘N’ is replaced by a number,
every manufacturer (except last for a couple of decades. based on the same mechan- usually 3, 6, 10 or just N. ‘3’
Razer), certainly a good thing Yes, decades! One thing to ical technology, but the way denotes that a maximum of
to avoid confusion. Although, note is that the durability is input is registered by the key- three keys will be registered
with enough experience you only for the key switches and board is different. Going into simultaneously which goes
will be able to observe the not for the entire keyboard. detail will require its own for any number replacing N.
little nuances between them. Your keyboard’s chassis or in-depth story, but it’s inter- If N-key rollover or NKRO
The most common switches keycaps will start wearing esting to see new technolo- (sometimes full N-key roll-
are Red – linear, Blue – tac- off early but the switches gies coming up. over) is mentioned by the

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

Tiny-care-terminal Bose wiretapping charges
Tiny-care-terminal is a free dashboard that Illinois man Kyle Zak, accuses Bose of illegally
wants to make sure you’re looking after yourself wiretapping him via his Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless
while you code. http://dgit.in/TinyCare headphones. http://dgit.in/Bose35sue Keyboards
settings, you’ll always have to of the other tiny differences, storage of hardware macros. the different preset lighting
keep the software running in the logo on the top has been You can switch between these modes based on different game
the background, as they can’t replaced with the old one three saved profiles using the genres. The different lighting
be loaded onto the keyboard. (users really hated the new dedicated profile switch on the modes can also be cycled using
There are slots at the bottom Corsair Gaming logo), extra top left. Other than that, the the modifiers. There aren’t
of the keyboard what looks double-shot moulded keycaps RGB lighting is amazing and any accessories included in
like slots for a palm rest. But for FPS and MOBA games, with the added LED strip on the box, and at this price we
the company doesn’t pack and a textured spacebar. Only the top, it looks gor- expected a keycap
one in the box, nor does the Corsair has been providing geous. The keyboard puller to be included.
palm rest from the K70 series extra double-shot moulded MAY 2017
fit the K63. Build quality is keycaps whereas others offer

almost the same in both the regular laser etched ones.
keyboards, where the advan-
tage is the dedicated keys on Corsair STRAFE RGB
the K63. However, the Mas- The STRAFE has been
terKeys Pro S has a lower another line-up from Corsair
price while offering slightly following a comparatively
better features than the K63, minimalist approach to the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum
ultimately giving it a superior K70 family. It has an anodised
value for money. Only reason aluminium body that won’t has a sturdy frame including Gamdias Hermes Lite
you should look into the K63 accumulate dust unlike the the palm rest. The palm rest The Hermes Lite is another
is if you’re a Corsair loyalist brushed aluminium body on has a dual-sided rubber mat basic gaming keyboard with
and want customisation the K70 RGB. The most high- which is magnetic. Both the minimal features. It uses the
options through software. lighted feature in this time’s sides have different textures TTC Red mechanical switch
STRAFE is the MX Silent that can be flipped according inside which feels very sim-
Corsair K70 RGB and switch. Essentially, they are to your preferences. You ilar to Cherry MX Red. You
K70 Lux RGB a redefined version of the can find cable grooves at the can switch the n-key rollover
The K70 line-up from Cor- Cherry MX Red switches bottom meant for cables going between 6-key to 21-key but
sair has had a great run right with the same actuation force to the USB pass-through. Do 6-key rollover is more than
since its Vengeance days. It of 45cN. The white reflective note, that the keyboard cable you’d require. This can be
has evolved drastically with paint at the back of the keys is won’t fit in these grooves. changed using the modifier
several refreshes in the same a great move followed by sev- At such a high price, we did key or from the software.
model, sometimes with just eral keyboard manufacturers. expect dual-shot moulded This keyboard has red LEDs
the branding whereas in this keycaps and that’s some- with just a simple breathing
case, a functional update. The Corsair K95 RGB Platinum thing Corsair should explore effect that can be controlled
K70 RGB was quite popular We had the best overall experi- to offer in their most premium both from the keyboard and
when it came out, in terms ence on the K95 Platinum in line of keyboards. software. Macros are also
of build quality, features, terms of build quality, lighting supported again through
software support and the modes, features, etc. The big- Gamdias Ares 7 Color the keyboard and on-board
most awaited feature – RGB gest shortcoming in the other (GKB3000) macro recording button. The
lighting. Over time, Corsair keyboards was that in order to The Ares 7 Color is another keycaps didn’t have a snug
released several other key- have a custom lighting effect or keyboard using the TTC Blue fit and wobbled a lot. The
boards, and after a lot of feed- macros active on the keyboard, switch, and it has a similar feel attached palm rest could have
back and complaints, the K70 you had to keep the software to Cherry MX Blue. It doesn’t been broader since it hardly
was updated with the K70 Lux running in the background. If feel as clicky as the Outemu managed to accommodate our
model. The main update to the you connected the keyboard to Blue switches but certainly palms or wrists while typing.
K70 Lux is a new controller another machine, it wouldn’t needs more force to register At the time of writing this test,
for better lighting transition save to the device except the a click. One difference we the Hermes Lite was listed for
effects. While it was expected static lighting on the keys. This noticed was the Cherry MX almost its price making it a
to have a USB pass-through in holds true for other Corsair Blue felt smoother. This key- great keyboard to consider
the first place, Corsair added keyboards as well. The K95 board doesn’t come with RGB under a small budget.
it later to the Lux. The font on Platinum is capable of storing lighting but offers a maximum
the keycaps was also replaced three different profiles of of seven colours that give you G.SKILL Ripjaws KM570 RGB
with the one found on the lighting effects on the device, an illusion of RGB lighting. The KM570 RGB is more
STRAFE keyboard. Speaking but still doesn’t support the You can switch between 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 control keys and on the fly the KM780, the RGB LEDs frames. With a budget of
the almost the same level macro recording. Although weren’t as bright even in the around `10K, you can surely
of software customisation the keyboard has two USB full brightness level. Because consider this board as it ships
for both lighting effects connectors, it was surprising of the plastic body, the KM570 with Cherry MX switches if
and macro recording. You that it didn’t have a USB RGB flexes compared to the you don’t like TTC switches
still get dedicated volume pass-through. Compared to other keyboards with metal on the Gigabyte XK700.

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

New GoPro Fusion HTC’s squeezable phone
The new consumer 360-degree action camera The new HTC U will feature Sense 9 and a
from GoPro can shoot upto 5.2K videos at 30 new touch-sensitive frame.
Keyboards frames per second. http://dgit.in/GPfusion http://dgit.in/HTCocean
ment the same. This keyboard a staggering 80 million key-

MAY 2017
is among the most afford- strokes. This is way above
able ones with Cherry MX Cherry’s durability rating
switches, trailing behind the of 50 million keystrokes
TVS Gold and Cooler Master and it will be interesting to
MasterKeys Pro S. Our big- observe whether this holds
gest and probably the only in the long run. Speaking of
issue was with the quality of the keyboard, it has full RGB
the keycap stem. Certain key- backlighting with a white
caps used to get stuck midway backplate to make the LEDs
because of the poor moulding. appear brighter. Lighting
G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 RGB This won’t be an issue after modes were impressive and
they grind away, but better the transition was smooth too.
a hard case box that also con- caps could have been better moulding is necessary. RGB Everything can be controlled
tains a plastic keycap puller. because they don’t have a enthusiasts might not be overusing the software which is
The palm rest is also made of snug fit and wobble. Just whelmed with the keyboard limited so you won’t be able
top quality with a textured to check, we replaced a few since the per-key lighting to do much. If you aren’t com-
rubber coating. The entire keycaps with the ones on the is red only. You do get extra fortable with the software,
body of the keyboard is built Corsair K70 and found quite keycaps for WASD and 1234, you can record macros on the
like a tank, making it the heav- a snug fit. Another inter- where the WASD keys are tex- fly which is simple. You’ll also
iest one in the labs. Software esting aspect to the keyboard tured. The HyperX Alloy FPS find extra buttons on the left.
support enables you to further was the mechanism to adjust is also the thinnest keyboard If you’re a hardcore Razer fan,
customise the lighting options the height of the feet on the in this comparison. considering the crazy claim of
and recording macros, where bottom of the keyboard. Two
it could have used more gran- dials at the top can be moved
ular options. for the desirable height. The
RGB lighting on the keyboard
Gigabyte XK700 wasn’t as satisfying because it
All the keyboards in this com- kept flickering a lot. We tried
parison test were black and to to connect to a different port
be honest, we were quite bored and even update the firmware Kingston HyperX Alloy FPS
with this colour. But then we but didn’t observe any change.
saw the brilliant silver metal Either it could use another Razer BlackWidow an 80 million keystroke dura-
frame on the Gigabyte XK700 firmware update or the con- Chroma V1 bility, you could consider the
and were mighty impressed. troller inside isn’t powerful to It’s been way too long since we keyboard but it will be quite
This keyboard also has a handle the RGB lighting. tested Razer keyboards and heavy on your wallet.
small footprint even though it was great to get our hands
it has a standard size of 104 HyperX Alloy FPS on the popular BlackWidow Roccat Suora FX
keys. We were surprised after The HyperX Alloy FPS is a Chroma V1. Do note, that in The Suora FX uses TTC Blue
we picked up the keyboard keyboard directed towards this comparison we covered switches inside which are
because it felt light in weight serious gamers who don’t the version one and not the similar to Cherry MX Blue
compared to the others and care about fancy lighting or two. Recently, Razer started switches, and unlike the
we did find that it was in fact features. The quality of the building their own mechan- Outemu Blue switches, both
the lightest keyboard in the spongy-meshed carry pouch ical switches where earlier these feel almost the same.
comparison. It’s under a is great and we would they used Kailh switches. Rated with a durability of
kilo in weight, making it love other keyboard Now, they’ve grown to offer 50 million keystrokes, we
more portable. The key- MAY 2017
manufacturers to imple- many options and they aren’t sure whether it offers
decided to completely ignore the same durability of Cherry
the colour code used by other MX switches. Among the lot,
switch manufacturers. The it’s only fair to compare this
BlackWidow Chroma V1 we keyboard with the Gigabyte
received had the Razer Green XK700 due to the similar
switches that feel close to switches and price of being
Cherry MX Blues but Razer around `10,000. We didn’t
Gigabyte XK700 claims to offer a durability of come across any flaws in the

New Traffic lights built Volume button for ears
Russian designer Evgeny Arinin has reimagined Knops are a new pair of adjustable ear plugs
the traffic light. These big, bold signs are built for that claims to be “the volume button for your
people and robots. http://dgit.in/botLights ears”. Learn more: http://dgit.in/Knops Keyboards
mend you to experience them the Best Buy award. But the
before buying. Gigabyte XK700 held quite a
number of features and acces-
BEST PERFORMER sories to clinch this title away
The fight for the best per- from them. This keyboard has
former seemed clear between all the basic features required
two goliaths in this test. It along with providing several
would have either been the accessories including a metal
G.SKILL Ripjaws KM780 keycap puller, extra keycaps
Razer BlackWidow Chroma V1 RGB or the Corsair K95 RGB and a carry pouch. It also has
Platinum. While the K95 software support and has
keyboard. It has software Speaking of typing, it took us RGB Platinum did manage RGB lighting. Built in a tough
support and it does have a a comparatively longer time to sweep away the highest plastic and metal frame, the
lot of features to enhance the to get used to these keys but score in build quality, the XK700 offers the best value
RGB lighting, adding macros we weren’t able to achieve the KM780 RGB offered so much for money out of the lot.
as a modifier key, etc. It’s a same typing speeds recorded in terms of features, that it
standard keyboard with addi- on other mechanical switches. took the glory of winning EDITOR’S PICK
tional keys for volume control, The feedback won’t be satis- the “Best Performer” award. Although features are equally
with the satisfying minimalist fying enough if you’re moving Both the keyboards nearly important, several features
design. Compared to all the from a mechanical keyboard balanced out each other in are merely luxuries and can
keyboards with exposed to this one. Nonetheless, it’s
key switch design, the back- completely subjective. The
lighting looks impressive key switch design places the
on this one, especially in the RGB LED right at the centre
default rainbow wave and of the switch, resulting in the
cycle lighting mode. keycaps shining brighter and
smoother. In terms of bright-
SteelSeries Apex M800 ness, the QS1 switches are
By design, almost all the still dimmer than the white
mechanical key switches LEDs on the MasterKeys Pro
in the other keyboards are S. The SteelSeries Engine 3 SteelSeries Apex M800
the same. The SteelSeries software doesn’t offer much
QS1 switches is a relatively customisation options other features and build quality be set aside. A keyboard’s
new design for mechanical than lighting and macros. One but G.SKILL won by a sliver. build quality is something of
switches, exclusive to Steel- interesting aspect of the soft- The KM780 RGB is one of great value, placing the Cor-
Series. They feel more like ware is GameSense that lights the best designed keyboards sair K95 RGB Platinum as the
a membrane keyboard but up keys on your keyboard to we received with well thought Editor’s Pick. The moment
because of the short travel display your in-game stats out features that will only we unboxed the keyboard,
distance, it doesn’t have the such as health and ammo. act as an added advantage we were looking at a new
same mushy feeling. Initially, This brings in a functional to gamers. benchmark for higher quality
you would be bottoming out use for RGB lighting in the components. Right from the
the keys and once you get used keyboard other than pure aes- BEST BUY brushed Aluminium surface
to the short actuation distance thetics we’re used to seeing. We were sceptical at first to the heavy-duty dual-sided
of just 1.5mm, you’ll be able to The switches are great for because we had included two palm rest, it offered almost
achieve a higher typing speed. gaming but we highly recom- ten-key-less variants in this everything you would want
comparison where the com- in a gaming keyboard. The
petition was against mostly RGB lighting was mesmer-
standard sized keyboards. ising, and with the help of
Hence, we didn’t include any the software you can actu-
parameter that favoured the ally create your own custom
size of the keyboard, whether lighting effects to any level.
standard or tenkeyless. With With only a few qualms on
the tenkeyless variants having the software side, using the
the lowest prices, we thought K95 RGB Platinum was an
Roccat Suora FX one of them would take away absolute treat.

Column
N
ew age poppycock sells. Doesn’t You could blame Apple for coming up
matter how asinine a product, with this proprietary nonsense but the truth
service or even idea in its conceptual is that it has existed long before Steve Jobs
stage be, lathering on a generous amount pulled his disruptive miracle. Printer inks
of marketing bullshit will help you sell the have been riding the whole proprietary ink
product. Heck, if you’re good at it and happen cartridge business model for ages. And I get
to be cashing in on a trend, then venture that, printers are complex machines and you
capitalists will throw a cool $120 million at don’t have a choice. You can use refilled car-
you. Yes, this is Juicero I’m talking about. A tridges but printer manufacturers have built
startup that sells juice, except it sells it in a in kill switches and even failsafe kill switches
proprietary pack which needs a proprietary to ensure you stick to the original stuff. I’d
machine to squeeze the juice out of the pack. say even the stone age man sold an obsidian
Classic case of baiting the hipsters. In a way, knife to his fellow man and later sold him a
I don’t mind hipsters being targeted for such handle for a premium so that he didn’t cut his
Mithun Mohandas products. For all I care, they deserve to be own hand. Coming back to Juicero, let’s take
Asst. Technical Editor taken for a ride. a look at the kind of mumbo jumbo they’re
mithun@digit.in
Juicero is a machine, a $400 machine, if spinning around the product. Firstly, they’re
you buy it now (used to be $700). And if you calling it the the first of its kind. No falsehood
“You could blame happen to be a business, then it’s $1200. It’s over there, it truly is the epitome of redun-
Apple for coming up like a vertical chappati maker, except you dancy. It’s USP lies in the fact that 1. It can be
with this proprietary don’t have to physically apply force. It does remotely disabled should it detect a product
nonsense but that on your behalf, with 4 tonnes of pressure. recall for a batch of juice packs. 2. “Consistent
the truth is that Apparently, that’s enough to lift two Tesla pressing calibrated by flavour to deliver the
it has existed automobiles and enough to squeeze every best combination of taste and nutrition”. 3. A
long before Steve nutrient droplet out of their proprietary juice very tight supply chain so that farm-to-table
Jobs pulled his pack. Venture capitalists were impressed with time is minimal. Points 1 and 3 are valid but
disruptive miracle” the whole proprietary aspect of the product, point 2 is just a huge pile of steaming crap.
you need to buy an expensive squeezer to get So if all you need to sell a product is to ride a
eight ounces or 237 ml of juice, and the juice trend and spew bullshit then …
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.
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The optimal configurations you can get for The very best products you can
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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 your browser enters the geographical you were assigned and which IP you
agent001@digit.in boundary of the USA, it falls under used to connect to an end-point are
A
US laws and you can bet your ass that stored, then you’re in trouble. It’s as
VPN is the veritable jack of whatever ISP is carrying that data good as not using a VPN since what-
all trades when it comes to within the US will take a peek. And if ever privacy you stood to gain from a
ensuring your privacy on the the website you’re visiting happens to VPN was rendered useless because of
big bad internet. With the serve ads using a platform that’s also these logs. Extremely popular VPNs
ability to not only safeguard your US based, then there’s a good possi- like Hola! VPN, Unlocator and even the
privacy and provide you with a level bility that your browsing habits will be built in VPN in Opera browser keep
of security, VPNs are also useful in sold by said US ISP to the ad platform. traffic logs. In fact, the VPN service
many other ways. Such as allowing you So what should you do? Well, the used within Opera logs everything,
access to geo-restricted content and first step would be to contemplate from your traffic, bandwidth, DNS
sometimes even routing your internet if you even care about your privacy. requests, timestamps and even IP
connection through a faster set of hubs If at the end of your contemplation, addresses. There’s zero privacy should
getting you better connectivity to cer- your answer to the question happens any governmental entity ask Opera to
tain portions of the internet. With the to be ‘f##k it’. Then by all means, go reveal your data. On the other hand,
recent FCC rulings in the US, a lot of about your life and don’t even bother. IVPN, NordVPN and BolehVPN keep
our private information is about to be However, VPNs are still important for no logs at all (at the time of writing
accessible to ISPs so that they can sell other reasons, if not for your privacy. this). I doubt if you’ve ever heard of any
it off to advertisers. And just because So should you change your mind of these services.
the ruling happened in the US, doesn’t sometime in the future, here’s what you
mean that we’re safe here in India. The should know about them. Encryption used?
internet operates in mysterious ways Not keeping logs is a great facet of a
and US laws are very ambiguous to Do they keep logs? VPN only if coupled with good encryp-
begin with. If at all, at any point during If at any point, data regarding which tion. Poor encryption would ensure
the transmission of data packets from websites you’re visiting or which IP that anyone can use a simple man in the

Price Watch HTTPS everywhere
Experience sound through the best budget in- MindGeek announces that both Pornhub and
Agent 001 80 ear monitors, and push your budget to 30k for
best budget smartphones in the market
YouPorn are moving from HTTP to the more
secure HTTPS. http://dgit.in/PornSecure
middle attack and then listen in on your any of these nations then it’s up for thing you should worry about are the
traffic. So what should you be looking grabs for any of the other nations in different protocols such as P2P pro-
for? When you connect to a VPN, there the program. We know that the US tocols, Torrents(also P2P), Multihop,
first occurs a handshake wherein infor- and the UK are really bad with data SSH Tunneling, etc., which all of us
mation about you is passed onto the privacy. Then there are well known tend to use sometime or the other. It’s
VPN’s server and authentication details programs such as the Five Eyes, Nine not just the protocols, but even select
from the VPN are passed onto you. This Eyes and Fourteen Eyes, all of which ports are blocked by certain VPNs,
handshake must be secure. The highest involve sharing data between them. So sometimes for the sake of security, and
level of encryption any VPN offers for figure out where the VPN’s servers or sometimes to prevent malicious DDOS
this is RSA-4096. Then comes your HQ is located and make sure that it’s attacks. The VPN service’s website
traffic as it travels through the VPN, this not situated in the following coun- will usually have an FAQ section out-
again should be encrypted by a form of tries: US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, lining all the different measures they
encryption. The highest encryption that Australia, Denmark, France, Holland, undertake to safeguard user privacy,
you get for your data is AES-265 which Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy, you’ll find these details over there.
is what we’d consider to be the bare Sweden and Spain. Any product or service with a lot
minimum for data encryption. features tends to be expensive so if
Speed and protocols you’ve shortlisted the very best VPNs
Server location One of the issues that plague VPNs that suit your needs, then price is what
We’ve spoken about how location is speed. Since a slow network will you need to check next. And this is
matters. There are a few nations that bottleneck your traffic, it’s imperative kind of obvious, so I’m not going to
have pooled together to share intel- that your VPN have high bandwidth dwell upon this any longer. In case you
ligence data and some of these nations within their network. You can easily feel like all of this is a really daunting
have international programs which test this out by subscribing to a trial task, then fret not, one dude took it
require data logs from one nation to be program that most VPNs offer, then upon himself to test out multiple VPN
shared with the others in the pro- running speedtests while also testing services and he’s still testing them.
gram. So should your browsing data out your experience with your most You can check out his findings on
enter the geographical boundaries of frequently used websites. The second https://thatoneprivacysite.net
Wireless casual gaming I’ve bought almost every component because I’ve enough space inside.
I was looking for a gaming mouse but except the GPU. I’ve been saving a lot Please suggest me the best GTX 1080
I don’t really have a huge budget. I since a long time to build my dream Ti that I can buy right now. Along with
don’t plan on gaming heavily, just casual ultra-high-end gaming rig and the GPU that, recommend a robust PSU that I
gaming. I’m looking for something under has kept me wondering. I was going for can get to last me for several years.
`2,500. Oh, and I compulsorily need a the GTX 1080 but then the GTX 1080 – Mohnish
wireless mouse. Ti was launched. I’m glad I didn’t rush
– Harshit Nanda into buying but now I’m confused which Hey Mohnish, we’re glad that you’re
one should I buy. I’m assembling my finally ascending in the PC Master
Hey Harshit, rig inside a Corsair Obsidian 900D, so Race. We have tested a few GTX 1080
If you’re looking for only casual gaming there’s no restriction in the card size Ti GPUs lately and out of them, the
then you can go for any generic mouse ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme
out there since most of them perform the Edition performed the best. With this
same. We would recommend the Lenovo GPU, you can throw any game at it and
500 or Logitech M185 but it might not have them run smoothly at even 4K
be comfortable for long gaming sessions. ultra settings. You can get it for around
At a lower budget, it’s difficult to find `70,999. For the PSU, it will be better to
good wireless mice for gaming. If you’re go for modular one. Our recommenda-
ready to spend extra money, go for the tion is the Seasonic M12II-750 EVO
Logitech G602 or the Razer Mamba. that you can get under `10,000.
The best GPU The ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti AMP! Extreme Budget i5 laptop
Hi guys, Edition is the most powerful GPU we’ve Hi, I want a laptop in the range of
I’m trying to build a rig for myself and ever tested in our labs `30,000-40,000. It should have 4 to

Instagram’s bug kid Plug me in’ in Mumbai
Adrian Kozakiewicz has more than 1,56,000 Wiebe Wakker travels around the world relying on
followers which he gained by putting colourful people’s kindness. 41,000 kilometers later, finally
bugs on his face. http://dgit.in/Bugstagram arrives India http://dgit.in/PlugMeIndia Agent 001
8GB of RAM, 2 to 4GB memory in the more performance then you can go for Core-i3 or i5. Please suggest one with
graphics card and 1TB of storage. I also the Lenovo Z2 but do note, the camera these specifications.
need an Intel Core i5 processor. Please quality on this is lower than the Cool 1. – Aravind
suggest the best one that I can get in
this range. Durable earphone Hello Aravind,
– Vasi Hey guys, which one among the two is There are many options in this range
better? Sennheiser CX180 or Brainwavz that perform well. We would recom-
Hey Vasi, you should look into the Omega? I was looking for something mend two among them, either the
ASUS R558 series of laptops. Go under `1,000. I just want something in
through the specifications of the lineup, good quality and durability.
make you choice and check whether – Febin
that particular SKU is selling in India.
Hi Febin, the Brainwavz Omega
Beats under 10k reproduces better audio quality,
Hey, I wanted to buy a portable speaker balance and has passive noise cancella-
under `10,000 and an earphone under tion to an extent. The bass response
`3,000. Please suggest me something. reproduced on the Omega is much
– Savan better than the CX180. The build The ASUS A555LF series has some
quality on the Omega is also superior. amazing colour varaints available
In this range, you can try out the Altec
Lansing MZX147 which comes in Lenovo IdeaPad 100s or the ASUS
second in this range. 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
The UE Roll 2 is a great choice keyboard. It should be mechanical
and include backlighting, RGB isn’t
Hey Savan, check out the UE Roll 2 necessary. Please suggest me one with
portable speaker, that would be your genuine Cherry MX mechanical switches
best bet or you could also go for the UE because I don’t want the new duplicate
Boom. If you put in some extra money, ones. Also, this will be my first mechan-
you can go for the UE Boom 2 which is You’ll get better audio and build quality ical keyboard andmy budget is strictly
a great option. As for the earphones on the Brainwavz Omega under or around `10,000.
within your budget, have a look at the – Arindam
Audio-Technica CKX5 and JBL Best phone under 15k
Synchros E10. It would be best to head I’m trying to search for a good phone Hey Arindam, if you’re looking for
over to your local retail store, listen and under `15,000. Please suggest me the a keyboard under `10,000 and
experience these earphones (and best one I can get. Cherry MX switches are mandatory
portable speaker as well if you’d like) – Mohan then you don’t have many options.
before buying. You can go for the HyperX Alloy FPS
Hey Mohan, there are several good which has red LED backlighting and
Phone for new bloggers phones that you can go for under that you can also look at the G.SKILL
Hi Digit. I need a phone for a project. budget. Have a look at the LeEco Le 2 Ripjaws KM570 which as RGB
What would be the best phone under for good performance, Redmi Note 3 for lighting. If you don’t mind working
`15,000 for playing games and taking good battery life and the Nubia Z11 without a numpad, then you can
good quality pictures for a blog? Mini for a good camera. check out the Corsair K63 or the
– Manish Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S. All
An “exciting” laptop of these keyboards are under `10,000
Hey Manish, we would recommend Hello! I want to buy a new laptop with and ship with Cherry MX switches.
the Coolpad Cool 1 as it manages to exciting features at an affordable price Coincidentally, we have a gaming
balance out well in terms of perfor- of under `35,000. It should have a 2GB keyboard comparison test this month,
mance and camera quality. If you want graphics card, 1TB HDD, 4GB RAM, Intel so do check it out.

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

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
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
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
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
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

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

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

(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 vice’s new wasn’t supposed Amazon Go retail
obscures a far series called to survive as long shop in December
more interesting, convoluted ‘when spies come home’. It’s as it did. Operating on a shoe- last year – a retail store where
story. From Newton’s reflecting all about powerful surveil- string budget, the spartan you could simply walk in, grab
mirrors to the lenses that had lance software and the satellite outlasted its war- items and walk out. But how
been used since Galileo, how ‘Stalkerware’ ordinary people ranty 15-fold, and changed does that work? Are current
many great minds does it take use nowadays to eavesdrop the way we do space-based age computer visions really
to invent a telescope? on each other’s phones. imaging of our planet. good enough for it?
http://dgit.in/telescope1 http://dgit.in/stalkerware http://dgit.in/EarthEye 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 really do not get to the point where they about 1GB or less space left on it. Over
over 1500 respondents has become unusable. As a rule of thumb, time, you will block up some of the RAM,
led Counterpoint Research there’s only one real reason to “upgrade” which will reduce performance. The
to believe that Indian con- your smartphone, that is if it stops more apps you load, the more the pro-
sumers want to switch to a new phone working entirely. Let us explain why. cessor load. But absolutely none of it will
within 12 months. The report says fea- Let’s assume you purchased a Xiaomi make your phone unusable. The Redmi
tures like 4G VoLTE, better battery and Redmi Note 4 a few months ago. Here’s Note 4 and most of its compatriots run
memory are reasons for consumers what your phone is missing right now: on able and up-to-date hardware.
wanting to switch. “As per the survey, two There’s another big reason to not
in three users plan to upgrade to a new upgrade your smartphone. Almost all
mobile phone in the next 12 months. This numbers today point towards growing
is a departure from an average of 24-30 demand in the sub-15K range. In this
months to under 20 months upgrade range, there are phones that are good,
cycle,” says the report. some that are better and some that are
Further, Counterpoint’s report says downright bad. However, none of these
that one of the factors for users to look devices can be considered an “upgrade”
for 4G LTE smartphones is Reliance Jio’s to their counterparts. In fact, stagnation
VoLTE only network. Also, with smart- Sony Xperia XA dual in the smartphone market has made
phones becoming a big part of people’s the term “upgrade” obsolete. Like we
lives, better memory, storage and battery Android Nougat. It’s indeed a big miss, said above, buying a VoLTE enabled
have become important requirements. but alternatives aren’t much better any phone after a 3G phone is an upgrade,
way. You have a reasonable camera to but buying a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 or
Should you be upgrading work with, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage any other “budget beast” just offers
within 12 months? and a balanced Snapdragon 625 SoC. It’s you incremental updates instead of
In a word, the answer is no. Having more than what most users need right real upgrades.
tested most smartphones today, we can now. Xiaomi announced an Android The above is true for every best
attest to the fact that most users do not Nougat beta at launch, so chances are selling phone out there right now. Few
need to upgrade within 12 months. that you’ll be getting an update soon smartphones today warrant an upgrade
If you have a 3G/2G phone, then an enough. If you’ve purchased a Motorola within 12 months, so if you are planning
upgrade is warranted. However, if you device, you probably are on the latest an upgrade, you should make sure your
happen to have bought a phone within software already. phone is simply refusing to turn on. If
the last 12 months, hold on to it. Android Phone’s normally start lagging and not, stick with it, at least for 18 months.
phones do slow down over time, but they become harder to use once you have http://dgit.in/IndianPH

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

To create more HUMANS IN PRISON BLOOD
immersive American infor- Five inmates in Brought to you by
worlds, VR mation-technology Ohio were caught the same scien-
makers are author Daniel with a functioning tist that inspired
turning to the same kind of Suarez thinks internet-con- the Jurassic
CPUs powering the artificial genetically modified humans nected computer hidden in the Park movies. George Poinar
intelligence explosion. But may seem like pure fiction today ceiling, according to a report Jr., now a retired professor
a chip revolution is coming – but not for long. His new novel, by the Ohio Inspector general’s at Oregon State University
sooner than you think. And it’s ‘Change Agent’, talks about office. How hard can building stumbled upon a 20-million-
going to bring a whole new VR genetic engineering and the a PC be if a couple of inmates year-old tick, full of blood,
experience along with it. advancement in research today. can do it in prison? preserved in timber.
http://dgit.in/ChipVR http://dgit.in/Genhuman http://dgit.in/PrisonPC 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 ment and introduce support for the new
with standards for the micro- memory standards on their components.
electronics industry, JEDEC Hence, it’s fair to say that we will see
Solid State Technology Asso- motherboards coming out with support
ciation, has announced new develop- for DDR5 memory at the end of 2018 or
ments in the DDR5 standard. The devel- directly in 2019 when a new chipset with
opment of DDR5 or Double Data Rate 5 DDR5 support arrives.
and NVDIMM-P design standards have
already been in the works for some time. Do you need to upgrade
The final DDR5 specifications will be rati- Servers will be the first to receive DDR5 from DDR4 or DDR3?
fied by the end of 2018. memory modules Upgrading from DDR4 to DDR5 should
improve your system performance based
Harder, Better, Faster, Who gets it first? on the proposed specifications. But we
Stronger? Hold onto your horses, fellow brethren can’t confirm objectively since we have no
We aren’t sure about DDR5 being harder or of the glorious PC Master Race, for you idea about its implementation yet. Intel’s
stronger since there hasn’t been any rapid won’t be enjoying DDR5 memory on Optane (3D XPoint) is a new non-volatile
development or changes in PCB material. your system anytime soon. Convention- memory technology that retains data even
What we are sure about is that the new ally, whenever a new memory standard after the computer is shut down. Using
memory is definitely going to be better and hits the market, they make their way to Optane M.2 cache drives drastically drops
faster. DDR5 will offer better performance servers first. The reason is simple, they boot times and the time taken for applica-
and deliver higher power efficiency com- are expensive at launch. If you’re one tions to start up (on the second time after
pared to previous generations. This will be of those gamers who use two thousand caching happens). They aren’t expensive
achieved by offering twice the bandwidth rupee notes for kindling then by all either, as the 16GB variant is priced at
compared to DDR4, doubling the speed means, go right ahead. Once the server $44 (`2,800/- approx), whereas the 32GB
in DDR5. Along with the bandwidth, the memory market has been touched, they variant is priced at $77 (`5000/- approx).
density is also expected to double. This will slowly make their way to high-end Another thing to remember is that Optane
will result in higher capacity memory gaming PCs and eventually scale down to is only supported on Intel Kaby Lake pro-
chips that can be either embedded or made low-power SKUs for laptops. Later, they cessors and it isn’t backward compatible.
into DIMMs. With twice the bandwidth will scale down to lower SKUs for mobile JEDEC talked about a hybrid DIMM
and density, DDR5 will deliver improved devices as LPDDR5. technology called NVDIMM-P. Techni-
channel efficiency as well. Imagine the per- cally, it isn’t the same as Optane, but it will
formance you get on existing quad-channel When can I buy? be interesting to find out how both these
DDR4 memory kits, and now multiply The release of the specifications of DDR5 forms of volatile and nonvolatile memo-
that by a factor of two (almost). That’s what is slated for 2018. Generally, it takes ries are going to perform. Read more here:
DDR5 is going to be. around a year for manufacturers to imple- http://dgit.in/DDR4or5

(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
comprehensive conver-
sations on the nerdy
topics they love. Host
Samsung’s new flagship AMD launched four new The HyperX Cloud Revolver
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128GB Internal memory processors with 8 Threads or features a 50mm driver
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above and beyond the earphones from AKG. Price: `12,199/- `13,799/- microphone.
usual scope to deliver Price: `57,900/- `15,799/- `18,199/- Price: `12,999/-
details, develop-
ments, and opinions ABSOLUTE
W O R D J U M B L E TIMEPASS
on advanced topics
J L S B D O J I O R S Z B P J G A L O H
like AI, string theory,
M H C D R E N Z P D L E X I P M V X E Z
and Mars exploration. I L O H Y A P E X Z V Q B J P H Q M O M
http://dgit.in/SciencePlus 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
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Z W A T O M A H A C P Y T V A T N A A G
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There are 20
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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
Cassini’s Grand Finale Cutting with paper How Big do Tornadoes Get?
magazine, head over to Duration: 03:40 Duration: 05:33 Duration: 06:57
http://dgit.in/alllinks517 This animated video tells Now this video takes ‘paper Tornadoes are one of the
Or point your phone to the the story of NASA’s Cassini cut’ to a whole new level. most terrifying natural
QR code above. spacecraft making its final Have you ever wondered how disasters. But how big can a
Saturn mission. paper beats rock? tornado actually get?
http://dgit.in/Cassineme http://dgit.in/PaperCut1 http://dgit.in/TornadoSize

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

look at Validation certificates first. The simplest one here is Setting up Let’s Encrypt
Domain Validated (DV) SSL which validates a domain so that If you have access to your webserver then you can simply
the administrator is aware of it and has to actively approve install an TLS certificate using the Certbot ACME(Automated
the certificate on the server side either via email or DNS. Then Client Management Environment) client. This way, you can be
there are Organization Validated (OV) SSL certificates which done with just a few commands. Or if your hosting provider
is only issued after the domain owner proves that an organiza- has a built in script to implement Let’s Encrypt then you’re
tion (such as Facebook or Google) operates the domain and that set. However, since a lot of hosting providers also provide
their establishment is verified by the CA. This level of validation SSL certificates, they don’t like the idea of giving up a revenue
requires you to provide and verify information such as name, stream just so that they can serve their customers better. So
city, state and country of you’re unlikely to find many hosting providers supporting
the organization. You can out-of-the-box Let’s Encrypt implementation. We ended up
take this one step further using Digital Ocean for setting up HTTPS on a domain as all
with an Extended Valida- the other hosting providers we came across had “issues” with
tion (EV) certificate which setting up Let’s Encrypt.
requires more legal paperwork to link the domain with a busi-
ness. You can easily identify EV certificates by their green bar Set up requirements
in the browser featuring the name of the company beside the You can visit the Certbot website for detailed instructions based
padlock symbol. on which web server software you are using and what OS it is
The second type of SSL certificates are those issued based running on. Our droplet on DigitalOcean was running Ubuntu
on secured domains. This one is fairly easy to comprehend. 16.04 with Apache as the web server software. You should have
There are Single-name SSL certificates which protects a single access to the web server via Shell and have all the initial set up
domain such as www.heythere.com. Then there are Wildcard kinks ironed out.
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. Then you’ll want to point a Domain to your hosting using
Even with a lather of marketing mumbo jumbo, CA break up the Nameservers that you’ll be assigned when you purchased
these SSL categories even further into price based tiers with the hosting. If you do this ahead of time then DNS propoga-
their own nomenclature, thus, adding a lot more complexity tion will have taken place by the time you can proceed with
to an already complex set up. An EV certificate from GoDaddy installing the certificate. This can take up to 48 hours but we
can cost you `6,499/year which is a pretty significant invest- 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.
ment for someone starting out their own website. And that’s $sudo apt-get install python-letsencrypt-apache
with 50% discount, you’ll be paying `13,000 upon renewal. So
SSL certificates are expensive but they go a long way towards If your hosting provider can’t find the Certbot client then
ensuring a better internet. This is where Let’s Encrypt comes you’ll need to add their repository before using the apt-get
into the picture. They are a Certificate Authority that provide install command.
free certificates and make the entire process of implementing
TLS for your domain really simple. It was founded by the Installing SSL certificate
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla Foundation and the After the Certbot client has finished the installation process, you
University of Michigan with the aim of eliminating payment and can proceed to setting up the SSL certificate. Use the following
reducing the complexity of setting up and maintaining HTTPS. command to get that done.
The only catch is that you need to renew the certificate every sudo letsencrypt --apache -d yourdomainname.com
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 It should be pretty self explanatory as to what arguments are
can set up a simple cron job to perform renewal every 89 days. 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
*pointers Congratulations, you now have HTTPS
set up for your domain. Your certificates
‘--apache’ tells Certbot which web server >>Interesting will be located in ‘/etc/letsencrypt/live’. You
developer videos
you are using and the domain you want to can see if it’s routing all traffic by typing
issue your certificate for is passed after the http://yourdomainname.com and checking
‘-d’ flag. In this case, it would be yourdomain- if the padlock symbol appears. Or you can
name.com. check out ssllabs.com which has an SSL
Should you want a Multi-Domain or test page.
Wildcard SSL certificate then you can add
an additional domain by using another ‘-d’
flag followed by the second domain name. *Secure Nginx
For example: >>This tutorial shows you how to
use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a free
sudo letsencrypt --apache -d yourdomain-
SSL certificate and use it with
name.com -d yourseconddomain.com Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04.
http://dgit.in/NginxUbuntu
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 Now that you’ve got your SSL certificate,
enter your email ID in the next prompt for you need to set up auto-renewal since the
key recovery should you forget it . 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
*Secure Wordpress
>> Learn how to put a WordPress under 30 days. So go ahead and type the
site under SSL, removing “mixed following in shell.
content” warnings, and more. sudo letsencrypt renew
http://dgit.in/SecureWrdPress
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/
The rest is a pretty simple process where yourdomainname.com.conf
you just have to confirm if all the information • The following certs are not due for
on the screen is true or not. renewal yet:
• /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomainname.
com/fullchain.pem (skipped)
*Facebook F8 2017 • No renewals were attempted.
>>In case you missed it, check
out the entire Facebook developer Now we just have to set up a scheduled
converence streamed live by task to run every week or day or month
Time in this video. which runs the renew command. The safest
http://dgit.in/FacebkF8 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
Towards the end, you’ll be asked if you a schedule. Type the following command
want to route even the HTTP traffic through to open it.
HTTPS which is ideally the safest option. sudo crontab -e
Based on which text editors are installed

*Google Dev Day on your system, you’ll be presented with
>>At GDC 2017. Developers talk options to pick one. Once crontab is open,
about new devices, platforms, you’ll need to add an additional line at the
and tools are helping developers
grow successful businesses and very end for your SSL renewal. Crontab
push the limits of mobile gaming. follows a simple pattern which has your
date and time first and the command to be
http://dgit.in/GDCDevDay
executed right after that. For example:
59 23 31 12 6 command

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
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 The Let’s Encrypt server will make an HTTP request
day(1-31) of the month, month(1-12) and day of the week(0-6, to find this temporary file at your www.yourdomainname.
0 being Sunday). And lastly the command to be executed. We com and the certbot will create that temporary file at /var/
want to run the renewal command every week on a Monday www/yourdomainname/ in your server. Ensure that you
at 2:30 AM. So we’ll be using: create the temporary file in the root directory and nowhere
30 2 * * 1 /usr/bin/letsencrypt renew >> /var/log/le-renew.log 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.
You should now save and exit crontab. We’ve also set a log U
file to be created for each instance of the cron job to be saved at
Secure | https://www.yoursite.com
/var/log/le-renew.log.
Let’s Encrypt, through its service has made the process of
The alternate way obtaining SSL certificates ridiculously easy, to the point the even
Sometimes, if your domain is behind a firewall or if you have absolute beginners can implement HTTPS on their domains.
a CDN setup, then the usual method will not work. This is Moreover, it’s free. So what’s holding you back from getting
because the Let’s Encrypt authentication server needs to per- your own SSL certificate?
*Nodes of Interest
*Data Encryption *Secure Rancher apps *Secure your website

>> Confused about the basics of >> Here’s how to secure your >> A feature that covers the major
encryption? Give this course a shot Rancher web app with Let’s Encrypt areas that you need to secure if you
to get back on track. on Ubuntu 16.04. have your own website.
http://dgit.in/DataEncryp http://dgit.in/SecureRancher http://dgit.in/SecureWb

Industry Connect Wear24 by Verizon
We catch up with AMDs David The American telecom’s new Android
Tech@Work 109 Bennet to learn more about their

new Ryzen lineup of CPUs
smartwatch will be available for
$349.99. http://dgit.in/Wear24V
Arnab Mukherjee in an already ‘overcrowded’ market. able payment system. Banks operate
arnab@digit.in Are we getting it right so far? their ATM and payment networks in
I
Take a look at last year’s attacks, such a way that any network bank’s
nformation security is not a new which ranged from the Dyn DDoS cards will work with any bank’s
topic – it is something that com- attack that brought down half the machine. Hence, when Yes Bank’s ATM
panies and individuals alike have internet or the multiple data breaches network was compromised due to a
been well aware of for ages. Be it announced by Yahoo. But like many malware injection into the payment
the fight against viruses or ransom- others last year and the years before gateway of Hitachi network systems,
ware, the threats and the defences them, all of these are routine far off the effect gradually spread to mul-
have evolved side-by-side. What events that haven’t really boiled down tiple banks and their account holders.
hasn’t changed is the steadily growing to actual consequences in your life, Interestingly, the breaches happened
need for security. It wouldn’t be your right? Unless…. somewhere between May and July,
fault if you assumed that there isn’t yet it was not until two months later
any exceptional need for security It’s happening – now and here in September that it was even iden-
professionals in the industry right In October 2016, Indian banks suf- tified. Hitachi wasn’t even able to
now. Everything is hunky-dory and fered their worst data breach yet identify the amount of data breached.
nobody is going to need even more when almost 3.2 million debit cards And that’s a banking network.
people to keep their data (and assets) were compromised. Quite a few major Many of you might have heard of the
safe. So people might as well leave banks like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Cloudflare data breach – infamously
everything to the firewalls, VPNs SBI, ICICI and Yes Bank were some titled Cloudbleed due to the data
and anitiviruses of the world, and of the worst affected. The effect was leaking behaviour in the breach. Quite
you most certainly don’t want to be industry wide because of the target a few popular websites, even India
another information security analyst chosen by the attackers - the interoper- 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 currently in India.
HDFC Bank, Citibank, Infibeam, Uber,
Zoho and Lenskart. If you had an It’s a pain
account on these websites before the The data you lose to breaches may or
breach, it is highly likely that the data may not be vital to you – depending
was leaked to any random requester on the severity of the breach. Enter-
who hit the correct server or even used prises, on the other hand, have a higher
the correct search term on Google. price to pay. Indian organisations
Overall, according to a report from experienced an average loss of $1.6
Gemalto, last year saw a staggering million per organisational breach,
1.3billion records breached by hackers bringing the cost of each lost record to
– that is 44 people losing their infor- SBI had to undertake one of the largest about $60. Apart from the economic
mation every second, throughout the debit card replacement drives last year losses, a data breach or hack also
year. And this doesn’t include the 52% affects the goodwill of a brand with
breaches where the number of records Cost of Data Breach Study from IBM, its customers – and we all know how
lost was unknown. Compare that to India had the highest average number important that is in the Indian context.
the fact that the total number of breach of breached records at 31,225 per breach. Average perception towards
instances actually went down by 4% – Interestingly, the same report goes on to improving enterprise level security is
indicating that the breaches are going point out that India is the global leader spending more money on it. According
wider and deeper in terms of effective- when it comes to percentage of breaches to Gartner, organisations spend an
ness. Specifically, India was one of the caused by system glitches. That does tell average of 5.6 percent of their overall IT
worst performers. According to the 2016 you something about the way the tech- budget on IT security and risk manage-
The 2016 Breach Level Index from Gemalto paints a scary picture of what’s to come.

iPad Air 2 for Four Audio call on Duo
The company may replace your Google’s video-chat application Duo
fourth-generation iPad for an Air 2. now supports audio calling worldwide.
Work @ Tech http://dgit.in/ipad2fourth http://dgit.in/DuoACall
ment but actual security levels are far stored at server level. And in the case of By nature, the IoT market is
below what is indicated by this share. smartphones, a small margin of users fragmented in terms of design and
“Clients want to know if what they are actually check the permissions asked security. What does that mean? It
spending on information security is for by each app they install – thus the means that there is no single security
equivalent to others in their industry, others grant access to their data even approach that applies to the entire
geography, and size of business in if it is not relevant to their use case. connected devices market. Because of
order to evaluate whether they are On the other hand, newer data that reason, there is a high demand for
practicing due diligence in security and endpoints are emerging everyday. cybersecurity professionals who can
related programs,” said Rob McMillan, According to Gartner, Smart machines analyse and deal with cases specific to
research director at Gartner. “But gen- will enter mainstream adoption by a certain company. And as the expend-
eral comparisons to generic industry 2021, with 30 percent adoption by iture areas in the previous section
averages don’t tell you much about your large companies. These are machines showed, there is active effort to reduce
state of security. You could be spending that will make many decisions for the level of human error and system
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: Wearables are a new and unsecured entry point for attackers
• Establishing a workforce trained in
the latest vulnerabilities and new themselves mostly while connected to glitches possible, making CyberSe-
threat avenues. networks. Even if they are not entirely curity a lucrative career opportunity
• Ensuring company-wide usage autonomous, security for these has to right now.
of encryption on each and every be implemented differently.
platform. Last year, the Mirai botnet attack What can you do
• Forming an incident response team demonstrated the potential of IoT secu- It is true that cybersecurity, as a
that is well prepared to deal with a rity breaches. IoT indeed is something career choice, has always had a steady
live breach. that has been discussed a lot from a demand - till now. In the coming few
• Cooperative participation in threat security standpoint, but then again, it years, as factors above indicate, the
sharing with other companies. is the Internet of ‘things’ – anything demand is not only going to grow - it
new that is connected to the internet is going to widen as well. According to
New entry points falls under IoT. And anything con- Glassdoor, an entry level Information
It has been a long standing practice nected to the internet is vulnerable. Security Analyst can make upto 8lpa,
to secure a computer with an anti- Cars have been hacked, a popular U.S. and it only goes higher from there.
virus and a firewall. That practice smart home alarm system was hacked, Building expertise in new and
has trickled down to a small portion implantable medical devices like emerging platforms, which have their
of the smartphone community, with pacemakers have been hacked, plane own vulnerabilities, is a good first
similar awareness regarding threats. systems have been hacked, critical step towards a career in this growing
Now, if you think that an individual infrastructures like a power grid and market. Also, developing practical
smartphone is at risk, you couldn’t be a dam were hacked, mobile banking experience alongside that can never be
further from the truth. That level of apps have been hacked, smart city a bad thing. For anything beyond that,
targeting is quite rare and is mostly technology has been hacked, and even stay tuned to this space for a detailed
left to espionage novels and movies. a traffic management system has been article on building a career in cyber-
What attackers do go after is your data, hacked in Washington, D.C. security next month.

Gaming scholarship Samsung Google Play
University of Utah has announced New partnership makes Google Play
scholarships to students for gaming. Music the default on all Samsung devices.
http://dgit.in/GamingCash http://dgit.in/S8playmusic Industry Connect
How AMD
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
has Ryzen
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
We have a quick chat with AMD’s David Bennet and will continue to improve both per-
formance and efficiency along with pro-
about Ryzen’s share in the market and how the viding our customers great value in the
company plans to continue competing. coming years. The recently launched
Ryzen 5 CPUs will help us address a
Mithun Mohandas broader part of the market with Ryzen.
mithun@digit.in Long story short, we are ready and still
have some surprises up our sleeves.
There have been quite a few devel-
opments around Instinct and Naples. The Polaris graphics cards went a
However, we hardly get to hear much long way towards increasing AMD’s
about compute related AMD hardware share in the overall GPU market. How
in India. Why is that so? big an impact do you think Ryzen
Whilst compute news has been limited will have on AMD’s share in the CPU
in the past, with the introduction of market, both globally and in the Indian
both Naples and Instinct in 2017, we sub-continent?
will see increased communication According to the latest market data,
around this as AMD re-enters the data- AMD Radeon has enjoyed six straight
center in a big way. Following the suc- Spokesperson: David Bennet, Corporate quarters of growth. We believe the
cess of Ryzen, we are excited to be able Vice President & General Manager, opportunity is even greater in the CPU
Commercial & Enterprise Business, AMD
to launch Naples in Q2 2017, so stand by segment. For almost a decade, the high-
for more to be released in the very near performance PC market has only had
future. Server and enterprise markets People like choice and not everyone one choice when building a system. We
are other spaces that are starved for has an unlimited budget. Our goal is to have now brought back real competition
competition and the early press and create an ecosystem that allows users to this space and believe this excitement
feedback show what we already know – to upgrade as little or as often as they clearly has an opportunity to reinvig-
Ryzen was designed with high perfor- want without having to spend as much orate and excite the market as a whole.
mance compute in mind and is perfect money as you would with the competi- More importantly, AMD believes in
for enterprise workloads with excellent tion. More performance for less cost. open source and providing maximum
scalability and performance per watt. With Ryzen, our current 7th compute power to maximum people.
Generation APUs and upcoming Zen Just like we did with the Radeon RX
AMD’s known for supporting a plat- based Raven Ridge APUs all being on 480, we have introduced our Ryzen
form for long periods. AM3+ has been the AM4 platform – we believe that the processors at an incredible price gap
around for more than six years now. longevity of AM4 is great news for our versus our competition. We provide
How long can we expect the new AM4 customers and partners. This stability better performance than our competi-
to be supported by AMD? gives them upgradability for years tion at each price point, and by a con-
We have stated that our plan for AM4 to come and a platform with all the siderable amount. I certainly believe
is to support this platform until 2020. modern features they need such as M.2, this will allow us to capture share from
We are committed to long lifetimes USB Type-C and NVMe to work with our competition in the Indian sub-con-
for our sockets as seen in the past. for the next four years. tinent and around the world. In fact, we
This allows for our customers to have are already seeing this happen.
multiple upgrades available to them Claiming the lead in CPU perfor-
with the launch of subsequent products mance has always been a cat and For the full interview, visit the following
based on our upcoming architectures. mouse game. Intel seems to be link: http://dgit.in/AMDRDB67.

Blackberry wins $815M App for medical doctors
Qualcomm lost an arbitration battle against Figure 1 is a new photo and knowledge sharing
Blackberry and must pay $814 million. app for medical professionals, with peer-to-peer
Esc http://dgit.in/Qualberry sponsored content. http://dgit.in/drFigure1
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 Thomas the tank en-dragon?! For your nose picking urges
What was the first thing that popped Thomas the dragon (formerly tank This smartphone case comes with
into your mind when you saw these? engine) has become something of a a nose on it. No, it’s not because it
Was it “why would you want your car symbol when it comes to modding comes with an app that can actu-
to have headlight lashes?” or “Wow! and Skyrim. Sure it doesn’t make any ally smell stuff. The only purpose
Those look pretty!”? The former right? sense and isn’t immersive or lore- of this case is for you to pick it (up).
There’s absolutely no point to them. friendly at all, but it’s still pretty Get it? ‘Pick it’ up? Yep, it’s a smart-
And it’s definitely not going to make darn funny. Watch as he aggressively phone case based on nose-picking.
your car feel any prettier. If you thought choo-choos and breathes steam in Be honest, did you ever think you’d
the latter... erm, we don’t judge? this incongruous setting! see the day?
Still better than a Mac Who needs cabinet fans The Galaxy Note 7 in GTA V
This is the latest product from Overheating is an issue a lot of us face, Ah, the GTA V exploding Note 7 mod.
Apple’s labs and boasts better func- especially around this time. Why waste Because flinging explosive Note 7s
tionality than the best PCs in the money on tiny cabinet fans when you at people is pretty funny. But, for
market! Also it’s red, just like the can get the job done with one much obvious reasons, Samsung did not
recent iPhone Red. Which means bigger fan. Strap on this bad boy and find it funny. So they did the “sen-
it’s obviously more superior to its you’re good to go. You risk losing sible” thing and tried to have videos
non-red brethren. It’s really that some small parts but you can prob- featuring the mod taken off of You-
good, trust us. We’ve reviewed it ably replace them with the money you Tube citing copyright. Lol.
ourselves. made from not buying fans.

Drones as projectiles Space manned missions
The recent weaponization of drones has seen its Aerospace company Boeing reveals its plans for
share of inventiveness. Now militants are using human space exploration systems to reach Mars
drones as projectiles. http://dgit.in/Dronemilitia and even beyond. http://dgit.in/BoeingSM Unwind
How we unwind DIARY

Moar Food! This was a month of many firsts. It was the first time
We found a new place (yes, Arnab “PC Police” Mukherjee used the F bomb in a
AGAIN) to get food from and sentence *gasp*. It was also the first time he came to
it comes to us in the form of the office on a Sunday! *double gasp!* Arnab is like the most
Gorb app. We’ve been ordering married, un-married guy we know. We’re glad he could
from them for well over a week get away from the old ball and chain, to spend time with
now and we probably won’t be his true love – technology. This was also the first time Sid
stopping anytime soon. 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
Blue Mountain State Boy, this was the first time (in a long while) that Manish
This ridiculous teenage didn’t write the diary. He has been pretty glum lately,
comedy series that looks like because the powers that be, decided to not let him go
an extended version of Amer- home to Hyderabad for a long weekend. The writer filling
ican Pie, has totally enthralled in for him, asks that you guys find him on Facebook, and
Mithun. For the rest of us send him all the cute kitten pictures you can find. He’ll be
it’s a guilty pleasure. Don’t very appreciative. (his name is spelt M-A-N-I-S-H R-A…
tell anyone. ah we’re sure you’ll find him)
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.
PC, Laptop
Working as engineers in Bengaluru,
they named themselves Mast
Studios and developed Puzzle2.
You’d imagine Puzzle2 came after
Tablet, Mobile
Saur(aa
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
92.72.70.70.50
98.22.88.25.62

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Chennai: +91 44 28550186, +91 9710740740 I MUMBAI: 022-49207079 | BANGALORE: +080 26609356, +91-9710740740 I Jabalpur: +91 9893390070
HARYANA / Panipat: +91 8950445040 I MADHYA PRADESH / Indore: +91 9630145599 | Gwalior: +91-751-4007833, +91 9300266559
Hyderabad / Secunderabad: +040 66387427, +91 9246161880 | WEST BENGAL / Kolkata: +91 9331358367 I GUJRAT / Vadodara: 7383305842
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A-40, 2nd Floor, Mayapuri Indl Area,

Phase 1, Mayapuri,Delhi-110064
Tel: +91 11 28110291-95, +011 45034001, +011 49057108,
Fax: +91 11 42644350
email: sales@qhmpl.com
Reliable Security Solutions web: www.qhmplsecurity.com

RNI REGN. No. DELENG/2001/03791

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Tel: +91-22-40633222 l Toll Free: 1800-220966 l Visit us: www.gigabyte.in

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