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PARANOID ANDROID | Mithun Mohandas | Managing Editor

In deep trouble

trust such an entity and many agree with my point of view. That kid could have peaked at the answer, or googled it or asked a buddy or even threatened said buddy with dire consequences to get the answer. I don’t know how he got it and that makes me wary. Nevertheless, deep learning has advanced AI research by leaps and bounds. It’s like a tool that has served its purpose and needs to be retired. This does not mean that deep learning is dead. In fact, many applications and household gadgets that have become ‘smart’ thanks to deep learning algorithms are here to stay and more such applications will continue to be developed using CNNs in the years to come. When it comes to researchers, the domain of study is usually decided by its potential and deep learning seems to be running out of it. The new kid on the block is reinforcement learning, a term used for goal-oriented algorithms which are taught what’s the right decision to make on the basis of a reward system. If the algorithm picks whatever you want it to pick, you give it a cookie. Both deep learning and reinforcement learning are autonomous self-learning algorithms. The reward systems helps with one major drawback of deep learning, biases. Since reinforcement learning tries to maximise rewards, if you tell it to not have a race bias, then it’ll train itself to meet your conditions. The only problem here is that reinforcement learning relies on constant feedback and if that mechanism has to involve humans, then the rate of learning will be severely limited. However, if you have a well-labelled data set, then you can use it to formulate the right rules and do away with the human feedback element. The time for deep learning to be in the limelight is certainly nearing the end. Unless someone figures out a way to understand how a deep learning system makes decisions, its days in the research domains are numbered. However, the good thing about AI algorithms is that most of the things we see in action today were actually developed 2-3 decades ago, some going even further back. AI algorithms have a cyclical pattern wherein they shine for a few years and then sulk for a few decades till its time to come out again. Deep learning is on its way into the shadows. We’ll still continue to see deep learning applications for a long time to come given how it has helped democratise AI but it’s going to be overshadowed by the newest kid on the block.

M PL

WE CAN CALL DEEP LEARNING the poster child of research in the domain of artificial intelligence. The interest in deep learning snowballed from the moment the results of the 2012 ImageNet competition declared Geoffrey Hinton’s algorithm to have beaten the nearest competitor by 10 percentage points. Ever since then, researchers have been poking and prodding at Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and boy has it paid off. In the past six years, the artificial intelligence leaped out of the research lab and became a household name. Most of the gadgets that claim to have AI are simply marketing existing features as AI while some have drawn very broad definitions so that they can fit in with the cool crowd. The truth of the matter is that research in AI has mostly been dominated by deep learning and CNNs are at the heart of it all. And with all such things that get to bask in the glow of mainstream popularity, there will be naysayers who pen articles that spell the doom of said thing. With deep learning, this comes in the form of a new report by the good folks over at the MIT Media Labs. After having analysed 16,625 research papers from the research databased arXiv, it was observed that the deep learning phenomenon has already started slowing down and in the coming years, it could end up on the back burner like many AI domains before it. It’s understandable why this is happening. Deep learning based systems have been goofing up quite often and that too in embarrassing ways. All the autonomous vehicles that were involved in accidents were taught using CNNs and CNN-based image classification software such as Amazon’s Rekognition ended up with 31 percent false positives in a recent MIT study. The inherent issue with deep learning algorithms is that once the neural network has been trained, there’s no way of figuring out how the system is arriving at an answer. There’s no chain of ‘thought’ that you can follow, nor can you reverse engineer the decision making process to figure out the what and the how. This uncertainty is extremely irksome and takes away the aspect of accountability from a system built using deep learning algorithms. The whole reason we have this field of study is so that we may some day recreate human-like intelligence. To build something with common sense. Deep learning is that kid who gets the right answer most of the times but has no clue how he ended up with that answer. I would never

“Deep learning is that kid who gets the right answer most of the times but has no clue how he ended up with that answer.”

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

www.digit.in | February 2019 | Digit | 1

THE RSS FEED | Robert Sovereign-Smith | Executive Editor

Wolves in sheep’s clothing

journalists – dgit.in/smi-fraud) have suggested that brands pay each influencer between 50k and 70k USD (35 to 50 lakh) per video. Yes. PER VIDEO. And what do they get? Said influencer fawning over their product. As far as I am concerned, that’s a bribe. Actually, it’s worse, it’s more like mafia protection money, because apparently if you launch a new brand or a new product, and don’t give an influencer money, they’re likely to ignore your product… if you’re lucky, that is. Some influencers will go as far as bashing your products as a way of teaching you a lesson. From simple product placements to all out fawning over products, everything has a price, and influencers are raking in the money, with no regulation whatsoever. Heck, in fact, when influencers are growing their own brand image, and don’t have sponsors, they actually just fake it and pretend to be selling products. Why? Because this fools other companies into believing that they’re being paid, and also fools users into believing that they’re influential enough to be noticed and given free stuff by large companies. All out fraud basically. While we at Digit are super strict about making sure advertising is clearly demarcated and that it has absolutely no influence on our editorial content, influencers are doing the exact opposite. While we lose advertising revenue every year after our Zero1 Awards – we tell you what the best products of the year were, and not all of our advertisers agree with our results, thinking their product should have won. Chalk it down to being passionate about their own products, but the JFM quarter is our lightest in terms of advertising for that very reason. And yet we do it every year. The same applies to our reviews, which are conducted under a strict objective test process. It doesn’t get us too many fans in the advertising community, and some advertisers have come to expect favourable “reviews” from the average blogger or influencer, for a price. We’ve even been told by people in the industry that we’re too old school, and are passing up crores of rupees every month with our “outdated ideas of morality”. I disagree. Strongly. I’d rather die honest than live on bribes. However, that’s up to you, and whether you will accept being led around like sheep by an influencer, or think for yourself and value transparent testing methods. Which is it going to be?

M PL

WE LIVE IN AN AGE WHERE FACTS ARE OPINIONS, or opinions facts, and we also have alternative facts… whatever those are. We are the most opinionated society that has ever lived, and we have biases galore, which we feed on a daily basis. Our egos are big, our voices loud (in CAPS online), our convictions courageous; despite our knowledge lacking depth, a total inability to self-reflect, and no desire to hear a counter argument, let alone be capable of changing our minds. We all fancy ourselves to be leaders, and yet are all just sheep. And who are the shepherds? These people we call social media influencers. They’re more wolves than shepherds though. There used to be a time when I despised the word “evangelist” the most (read the August 2009 column). I have since demoted evangelists to second place, and I now hate the term “influencer” the most. This time it has much less to do with the word itself, and much more to do with what so-called influencers do. And yes, as much as I hate the fact that our Digit Squad promotion includes that word, I’m told we have to market it using terms everyone understands. I’m not an instagrammer. I guess I’m too old to be one, and too in love with my PC. My first instinct is not to pull out my phone and capture a moment. Neither is my goal in life to be followed and liked, or hearted, or whatever it is called on instagram. My job, however, needs me to be aware of all that happens in the tech world, and, sadly, Instagram is a part of that. Instagram is a business. Pure and simple. No one popular on instagram is on there to enjoy themselves, or to pointlessly share anything. It’s all crafted and strategically positioned to sell you stuff. First you’re sold the idea of the user and whatever it is they claim to stand for, and then you’re sold the stuff the user is trying to hock to you. Sometimes it is discrete and almost subliminal, and sometimes in your face, but it’s always there. Influencers may have started off on YouTube, and are still there, but Instagram is certainly the default home for most of them. However, it’s not the platform that I have a problem with, it’s the content and the total lack of ethics and regulation. These days, you cannot launch a mass consumption brand without having very deep pockets and huge budgets to pay off social media influencers. Reports (released by actual

2 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

“I now hate the term “influencer” the most. This time it has much less to do with the word itself, and much more to do with what so-called influencers do.”

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

M PL

contents

COVER STORY PAGE 56 -68

PC Power

Join us as we explore a multitude of hacks, tips, tricks and tweaks and be prepared to experience a whole new level of PC Power! TECH - PAGE 14-55

FEBRUARY 2019

32 | Top 3 Recommended Buys

From the top action cameras to mid-tower cabinets, here’s the best your money can buy right now.

33 | Reviews

VOLUME 19 ISSUE 02

We’ve reviewed latest graphics cards, gaming headsets, air purifiers, laptops and more!

16 | Tech Feature

Understand how innovations in smartphone cameras have come a long way.

20 | CES 2019 Roundup

Everything from the biggest announcements by all major tech companies, to the oddest gadgets we saw on the show floor.

28 | You’re hired

Recruitment startups are making hiring an easy experience for recruiters and candidates.

30 | Agent001:

Agent001 isn’t impressed with CES

4 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

42| True Wireless IEMs compared Picking the best of the lot, sans wires.

48 | Take my money

An Airpower inspired tray, an industrial robot arm and a self-driving toy car are the best you can crowdfund this month.

50 | Config

Everything you’ll ever need to build your own PC. Whatever your budget.

50 | Teardown: Apple iPad Pro 11”

Shipping now with a modular USB Type-C port, finally.

52 | Introducing Flutter

Google’s new open source mobile application development SDK and how you can get started on it

AND MORE

CULTURE - PAGE 78-84

ALT - PAGE 85-96

ON THE DVD 79 | May the tracking be with you

86 | Know your western

80 | Are we living in a Blade Runner future?

88 | Bandersnatched

TECH Septor Linux Septor is a Linux distribution which provides users with a pre-configured computing environment for surfing the Internet anonymously.

Daum PotPlayer GOM Player K-Lite Codec Pack Mega KMPlayer Media Player Classic MPC-BE SMPlayer VLC Media Player

We take a nosedive into the entire history of interactive storytelling.

90 | Foreign satellites launched by India

Image editing tools 4K Stogram ArtRage Caesium Image Compressor Capture One CopyTrans HEIC for Windows Darktable DxO PhotoLab FastStone Image Viewer FotoSketcher GIMP Gravit Designer Greenshot ImageGlass Inkscape IrfanView Jing Krita LightShot Paint.NET

CULT Indie simulation games Baking Simulator Barry Has A Secret BH Trials Dude Simulator I’m Still Here Let’s Play Simulator Office Management 101 Snowtopia Startup Panic The Airline Project

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Drawing a comparison of the depicted technological advancements with the current times.

Cowboys, bandits, gunslingers, horses, train robberies – these are the stuff of westerns.

It’s getting you cheaper smart TVs.

83 | Boo-man: SM or S&M?

If social media is so bad, why don’t you leave?

AND MORE

Since 1999, ISRO has launched 275 satellites for international customers, mostly contracted through Antrix.

AND MORE

SKOAR! - PAGE 97-111

SCIENCE - PAGE 69-77

70 | The drifting magnetic north

104 | Archaeogaming

72 | Exploring the dark side of the Moon

100 | Reevu: GRIS

The magnetic north pole is shifting its position and this shift is accelerating.

The Chang’e 4 mission is the first to execute a soft landing on the far side of the Moon.

74 | What is a planet?

Turns out, there is a lack of scientific consensus on the issue.

76 | Shrink science

Researchers have developed affordable nanoscale shrinking tech, but you still won’t get an Ant-Man suit. Here’s why.

AND MORE

Understanding how video games were used to chronicle contemporary material, resources and culture.

A visually delightful platformer that intersects artistic storytelling with platform game mechanics.

102 | Reevu: Onimusha: Warlords

Does this remaster of Capcom’s riveting samurai adventure match the original?

108 | Preevu: Anno 1800

Relive the Industrial Revolution in this wellmade city building simulator.

AND MORE

Circuit simulation tools Circuit Simulator DesignSpark PCB EasyEDA ExpressPCB LTspice PCBWeb PICSimLab QUCS SimulIDE Video playback software 5KPlayer All My Movies

SCI Video crash course on Ecology Brush up on a wide range of ecology, in this fun and informative Crash Course video by Khan Academy! ALT Movie - The Pilgrim (1923) The Pilgrim escapes from prison and guises as a pastor to save himself from the sheriff. The sheriff cannot be outsmarted and is determined to take him into custody.

www.digit.in | February 2019 | Digit | 5

TO ADVERTISE

PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH

EMAIL: sales@digit.in

FEBRUARY 2019 • VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 02

SALES DIRECTOR: Lalit Arun Mobile: +91-9582262959 NORTH: Mayank Sharma Mobile: +91-8800661912

EDITORIAL Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Managing Editor Mithun Mohandas Features Editor Aditya Madanapalle Associate Editor Arnab Mukherjee Intern Nikhil Nagvekar

EAST: Jayanta Bhattacharyya Mobile: +91-93318 29284

SOUTH: Jayanth Ramakrishna Mobile: +91-9964087233

BAZAAR Xanova Juturna-U Corsair M65 RGB Elite 1MORE Triple Driver In-Ear Samsung Galaxy A9 Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Sharp FP-J60M Xiaomi Mi LED TV 55-inch 4X Pro

WEST: Suvarna Shringarpure Mobile: +91-93249 28247

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TEST CENTRE Reviews Editor Swapnil Mathur Reviewers Abhijit Dey, Subhrojit Mallick, Vignesh Giridharan

DIGIT.IN Editor Soham Raninga Managing Editor Adamya Sharma Assistant Editor Sameer Mitha Senior Sub-Editor Shrey Pacheco Writer Shubham Sharma

GAMES REVIEWED THIS MONTH

ADVERTISING INDEX

Brand.......................................... Page No. TP-Link....................................Inside front cover

Corsair.....................................Inside back cover

GRIS Onimusha: Warlords Anno 1800

Seagate.............................................Back cover SBI...................................................................3

Accenture.........................................................7 ASUS........................................................... 9,23 LIC..................................................................11 Computex.......................................................13

DESIGN Sr. Art Director Anil VK Art Director Shokeen Saifi Visualiser Baiju NV Lead UI/UX Designer Shri Hari Tiwari

CII............................................................. 15,99

PRODUCTION AND LOGISTICS Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay Manager Logistics Mahendra Kumar Singh Executive Mohd. Nadeem Ansari

IOCL................................................................17 Quantum....................................................... 112

“We do not endorse or recommend any product or service advertised in the magazine. The advertisement’s in this magazine are for information purposes only. We do not, expressly or impliedly, warrant or assume any liability or responsibility for the quality, accuracy, completeness, legality, reliability, usefulness or claims of any product or service advertised in the magazine. Our readers are strongly advised to carry out their own independent assessment of the product or services advertised in the magazine.”

CIRCULATION SALES Head - Circulation Samir Mehta Regional Managers Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Norbert Joseph

READER SERVICES Team Leader Sudhir Patel +91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in 6 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of the owners, 9.9 Group Pvt. Ltd. (Formerly known as Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Private Limited) 121, Patparganj, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, Near Mandir Masjid, Delhi - 110091 and printed at International Print-O-Pac Limited, C/4-11, Hosiery Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U.P.) INDIA. Editor: Kanak Ghosh.

COVER DESIGN Anil VK

DISCLAIMER For every Digit contest, there will be only one winner, unless specified otherwise. In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall be final.

CONTACT US TELL US WHAT YOU FEEL ABOUT DIGIT If you have an opinion about anything published in Digit, or about technology in general, write to editor@digit.in or call at +91-22-678 99 700. To interact with the authors of specific articles, please write to the email address specified under the author’s name HELP! For copy-related issues, delivery status or any other complaints regarding our service, write to help@digit.in or call +91-22-678 99 678

JOIN THE GROUP THAT SUITS YOUR NEEDS

https://www.facebook.com/digitgeek Your favourite magazine on your favourite social network. When mainstream tech is not enough, come over to the geekier side.

SOFTWARE ON THE DVDs To submit and suggest software or any other type of content, to be included in the Digit DVDs, write to dvd@digit.in or call +91-22-678 99 707

DIGIT FACEBOOK PAGES

Q&A If you’re having trouble with your PC or a gadget, our experts can help solve your problems. Just write in to sos@digit.in. Remember to include full system configurations in your email.

http://facebook.com/thinkdigit Join the conversation within a community of over 1.3 million tech enthusiasts. There is something for everyone.

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AGENT001 Confused about what product to buy? You can get technology buying advice from our team (and maybe even directly from our very own secret agent... if you’re lucky), by addressing your query to: agent001@digit.in

SUBSCRIBE Want to get an edge over everyone else at school, college, or even work? Subscribe to India’s #1 Technology Magazine, and you will find our secret sauce is the best! Plus you will save money. Visit www.digit.in/subscribe or email us at help@digit.in

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PRODUCT TESTING Want your product reviewed by Digit? Contact our Test Center at testcenter@digit.in or call +91-22-678 99 708 NEWS & NEW PRODUCT LAUNCHES To announce new product launches and press releases, email us at pressrelease@digit.in

ENDORSEMENTS / REPRINTS Interested in ordering article reprints or in using our logos? Get the requisite permissions by contacting us at reprint@digit.in BUSINESS ENQUIRIES Think we can help you grow your business, or maybe you can help us grow ours? Get in touch with us at business@digit.in CAREERS Want to work for Digit? Send us your resume to careers@digit.in

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8 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

digit.in/forum

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http://www.facebook.com/skoar What is life without gaming? Catch up on all the latest in gaming news, reviews and shenanigans from our test labs

opening INBOX

Anthem demo gets rough start

Secret ear laser messages

The “VIP” demo for EA’s Destiny-like online shooter Anthem ran into gamestopping issues. https://dgit.in/feb19-87

Scientists can silently send laser-transmitted messages into the area around a person’s ear. https://dgit.in/feb19-88

FEEDBACK FOR THE JANUARY 2019 ISSUE OF DIGIT

time-efficient. Lastly I keep on hearing that nowadays laptops and desktops are coming without DVD readers. and hence DVD’s are no longer useful. However these laptops/desktops all come with USB ports and external DVD writers that connect through the USB port are cheap. I am unable to understand why this is a hassle. In conclusion my vote is for the DVD to be retained. My apologies to Robert for not voting to reduce his pain. Lastly if it is of any interest, I will be 70 years in 2019. –Jayakumar Natesan

Send your feedback at editor@digit.in

M PL

Dear sir, first of all, let me wish you in advance for your upcoming 70th birthday from all of us at Digit. I want to be clear about what we My objective of participating in intend: We do NOT intend to do away the survey was to give my vote for the with the curation and testing of software continuation of the DVD. My reasons aspect that is the forte of the DVD today. are many. Initially in the early days, We want to continue that online and with ultra low-speed connectiivty make sure there is a curated “e-DVD” it was impossible to download any available online that’s ful of stuff not useful software without hitches and just for PCs but smartphones as well. even then we could not be sure if the The money saved from the DVD would software would load on MS-DOS and be used to make a new book to read work as claimed. The CD and subse(like dvice in the December issue), and quently the DVD was the only means since we’d still be making an e-version of getting hassle-free software that of the DVD, we’re essentially increashad been thoroughly verified for bugs, ing our workload to offer much more at trojans, viruses. A second point was the same price. However, I intend to run the software on the disks were curated the survey for a few months to ensure and one could reasonably hope that everyone gets their say and the decision the software was useful and would is taken as per what the readers want. not screw up the computer. Today the Right now, the results are pretty even, internet speeds are quite good and with about 45% still wanting the DVD. downloading content is not difficult. Also, we’ve received many, many However the choice of software and complaints about the URL for the survey other content is mind boggling and i not working. This is probably because don’t have the time to check out what is most people are typing in digit.in instead useful and what is not and the need for of dgit.in (that’s D G I T . I N – without curated content still exists. Also there the first ‘i’ of digit). Sadly, we might is only so much time I can devote to have made a mistake using DGIT as our email, social media, internet browsing shortURL service, as most people either etc. One does have other things read that as digit or assume we to do especially if you a typoed our own site name. Take the non-techie. ThereBecause we cannot survey NOW: fore curated and run a bitly supported verified (for bugs, shorturl service with trojans, viruses) our main domain, we content via DVD is chose dgit.in. still very helpful and -Robert

I got an extra copy of Digit January Edition at my address. I am willing to return it. What can be done? –Asutosh Biswal

Thanks for letting us know Asutosh. Please gift it to one of your neighbours or friends who you think would enjoy reading it. Maybe ask them to subscribe if they like it ;-) -Robert

Right now my laptop’s CD-drive is damaged and I’m unable to read any content of DVDs. So is there any possible way to access that content online? –Sarthak Shah Magazine DVD should be kept forever as it provides essential items under various heads. –Karan Singh I have been subscribing to this magazine since the days of CHIP magazine and I have seen this metamorphed into DIGIT. under the Jasu Shah brand and now under the 9.9 brand. I saw Robert’s editorial imploring readers to rake your Survey 2019. I tried the link but there was a message that the digit.in server was unable to take the request. Probably it was overloaded.

10 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

dgit.in/ Survey2019

WHAT’S NEW

Amazon’s Rekognition can’t recognise

cation was 19 percent. Amazon did respond to MIT’s study and ran a similar test with the up-to-date version of Rekognition on a similar set of images numbering in the millions and found zero false positive matches. dgit.in/RekogNope

M PL

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

fter the much discussed goof-up wherein Rekognition falsely matched 28 US lawmakers with mugshots, this new report from MIT’s Media Lab spells even bad news for the upcoming service. From tests done at the MIT Media Lab which included similar facial recognition software made by Microsoft, IBM, Face++ and Kairos, it was found that Amazon’s Rekognition made absolutely no errors while identifying light-skinned men but when it came to women, it made mistakes about 7 percent of the time. With dark-skinned women the accuracy rate dropped much further and Rekognition misidentified dark-skinned women as men about 31 percent of time. The overall rate of misidentifi-

Mark Zuckerberg wants to unify WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger

he New York Times reported that Mark Zuckerberg is planning on unifying the underlying messaging systems of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. Facebook is also working on adding endto-end encryption across the remaining services which don’t have them at the moment. WhatsApp incorporated end-toend encryption a few years back

THIS MONTH IN TECH: CES - The world’s biggest consumer technology show happened, read our recap of the biggest happenings at CES. Understand the innovations behind your smartphone camera and take a look at how startups are handling the recruitment crisis in the country.

Apple might drop LCD for OLED

A recent WSJ report indicates that Apple may discontinue using LCD technology in their upcoming 2020 lineup of iPhones in favour of OLED technology. Use of OLED will help Apple build slimmer phones with curved edges. dgit.in/AppleOLED

Tinder gets tenderised, settles discrimination suit Tinder settled a class action lawsuit for USD17.3 million after it was found to be charging users over the age of 30, double the standard fee for one of the subscription fee that it offers on the platform - Super Likes. dgit.in/TinderTender

14 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

while the other two don’t have it enabled or present at all. After the unification, the services will continue to remain as standalone apps. This unification

Vodafone halts equipment purchase from Huawei The world’s biggest telecom service provider outside of China said that it is temporarily suspending purchases of 5G equipment made by Huawei amid growing security concerns raised by the United States and other countries. dgit.in/HuaHALT

comes across as a move to fight the growing fragmentation among messaging services and the loss of users to other platforms such as Telegram. Another aspect of this unification is that it will become more difficult for regulatory bodies to break up Facebook from the other two services should there be an antitrust lawsuit. dgit.in/WhaMesIns

Custom TV sizes thanks to MicroLED

MicroLED, a TV technology that was recently showcased at CES 2019 by Samsung uses emissive LEDs eliminating the need for backlighting. This allows for modularity and thus allows manufacturers to build custom TV sizes for customers. dgit.in/MicroCustom

TECH WATCH

M PL

tech

CES 2019 ROUNDUP

Everything from the biggest announcements by all major tech companies, to the oddest gadgets we saw on the show floor.

Mithun Mohandas | mithun@digit.in

ANNOUNCEMENTS

AMD Radeon VII World’s first 7nm Gaming graphics card

t the AMD CES 2019 key note held at the Sands Expo, Venetian, which was also AMD’s first ever CES keynote, the CEO and President, Dr. Lisa Su announced the AMD Radeon VII, the latest and greatest graphics card to join the Radeon family. It’s also the world’s first 7nm graphics card. The AMD Radeon VII will have 60 compute units which means there are 3840 shaders in total. Moreover, AMD is not compromising on the memory because the AMD Radeon VII sports a whopping 16 GB of HBM2 memory. The Radeon VII will be available for sale on February 7th 2019. AMD’s previous flagship, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 had 4096 shaders and 8 GB of HBM2 memory. Radeon VII will be available from AMD’s own website, all major retailers and OEMs.

20 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

At the keynote session, the AMD Radeon VII was demonstrated with Capcom’s upcoming Devil May Cry 5 video game. The demo had a small battle scene running at 4K resolution and clocked in around 90-115 FPS. Another thing that was revealed at the keynote was that AMD had partnered with Google for Project Stream. The upcoming streaming service from Google is reportedly running AMD’s Radeon GPUs. AMD said that the Radeon VII graphics card beats the RTX 2080 in performance and will be priced at $699. The graphics card will be available for sale on AMD’s website and from all major retailers from February 7, 2019 onwards.

tech AGENT001

Can we interscept nukes from space

Online safety lesson to Girl Scouts

The US military is looking at ways to intercept and stop nukes from orbit but experts say the dreams a bit farfetched. https://dgit.in/feb19-71

Cyber Squad is a new video game to help Junior Girl Scouts learn about cybersecurity, privacy and dealing with online bullies. https://dgit.in/feb19-72

It’s the tech singularity!

Agent001 didn’t find CES all that impressive. Here’s his take on the biggest consumer tech show of the year.

M PL

Agent001 | agent001@digit.in

f you guys haven’t been reading up on the latest happenings at CES, then you’re not missing much. Gone are the days when CES used to be the only consumer technology show of note. Now a days we have tech events for practically every month on the calendar. CES got over, then comes MWC, then there’s IFA, COMPUTEX, Gamescom, GDC, etc. spread throughout the year. Moreover, niche specific conferences and shows have always been around and for brands that don’t wish to fight for media attention, they have their own set of events. The end result is that all these technology shows have lost their lustre and have become a watered down version of their former selves. So what did we find interesting this year? Quite a bit, to be honest. Virtual assistants were battling it out for supremacy on the show floor. They’re starting to get a bit ridiculous as well. The usual marriages (virtual assistants in speakers) were in plenty. Major manufacturers had already integrated Alexa and Google assistant into their mid-range speakers to test waters in early 2018. This year, they were integrated in all the luxury products and

high-end speakers. Amazon even went ahead and put Alexa into the latest BMW 530E. If you can’t afford a BMW then you can always buy one of those car accessories that plug into your car and give you a slightly watered down experience. Like I said, they’re everywhere. Your privacy went out of the window a decade ago and tech companies went laughing to the advertisers with your data. Now they’re just doing it in your face. And the madness doesn’t stop there. We even saw Alexa

30 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

being integrated into a toilet. Yes, we’re talking about the Kohler Numi 2.0 that can now warm up your seat and activate the bidet for some automated hygiene action. Where does the it stop? Speaking to a couple of folks on the ground, I learnt that Amazon is a bit more proactive when it comes to working with brands to help them integrate Alexa into products. So be prepared to

see more of Alexa integrated devices in the years to come. The other thing we noticed was that more of the component and peripheral manufacturers were bundling their products together to make complete PCs. There was an age when these very manufacturers would have shrugged at the suggestion of offering complete PCs but now that PC sales have dropped, they’ve resorted to any trick that’ll get them those sales numbers back. The most they did was offer small form factor PCs but now they’ve come out guns blazing with top of the line configurations. Brands which were hitherto known just for making components have gone into the building complete PC solutions. Ever thought of MSI and GIGABYTE would have their own monitors? Well, they do now. GIGABYTE even had SSDs and RAM modules at COMPTUEX 2018. It won’t be long before they you’ll buy a complete PC from one of these manufacturers instead of building your own from scratch. The whole thing about sticking to a niche and owning it is fading away, with their traditional channels of money slowly drying up, all these manufacturers are being forced to come up with such solutions.

reviews

For better understanding of our ratings, here’s a quick guide to our overall score 10 to 30 to 50 to

to 70 to

Keep away!

Strictly OK.

Not recommended

Decent product.

Extremely poor product.

to 90 to

to 100 91 to

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

Very good product. Highly recommended.

Ground-breaking product.

We’ve never seen anything like it before. A definite must buy!

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

THE LATEST PRODUCTS REVIEWED FOR YOU

INSIDE

1MORE Triple Driver In-Ear Headphones

Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)

Corsair M65 RGB Elite

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

NVIDIA RTX 2060 Founders Edition PLUS

38 Sharp FP-J60M 38 Xanova Juturna-U 40 Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 590 Special Edition & MORE... www.digit.in | February 2019 | Digit | 33

tech

Self-driving Uber scooters

iOS customisation by iOS magician

Uber is reportedly investigating short-term rental type autonomous versions of the scooters and bikes. https://dgit.in/feb19-3

REVIEWS

The iOS magician is back with some wallpapers that makes either the dock or the folder disappear. https://dgit.in/feb19-4

Corsair M65 RGB Elite

Sensor performance

A step-up in performance

Price 6,699

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f you’ve been spending a good amount of time looking at gaming mice over the years, you might possibly know about the Corsair M65 mouse and its iterations. It had a unique design when the sniper button was introduced years ago. Although it might not have been useful to you, it did serve a new way of playing FPS games. Now, they’ve given the M65 series a refresh with a new custom optical sensor in the M65 RGB Elite.

Having already tested the PMW3391 optical sensor on the Corsair IRONCLAW RGB, we weren’t really expecting anything different. Most of the parameters displayed similar performance. The noisy variance that we noticed previously was also seen in this mouse. In Enotus Mouse Test, we recorded high smoothness as expected. This was another aspect present in the IRONCLAW RGB, stemming from the same issue. Coming to real world testing, this noise observed in the graphs didn’t really affect gameplay. We were comfortably able to play FPS games and land headshots without noticing any lags or input issue. We also didn’t notice any positive or negative acceleration, nor was angle snapping present by default. Since the mouse is dedicated to FPS players, a lower lift-off distance would have been more favourable for them.

Features and accessories

PERFORMANCE...........73 onboard profile storage FEATURES.....................57 (one profile) etc., are also All the basic features BUILD QUALITY............84 enabled by the software. expected in a premium VALUE FOR MONEY.....67 gaming mouse are present on the Corsair M65 RGB Build quality and Elite. Corsair upgraded the design M65 Pro RGB with a new custom optiSporting an unconventional design cal sensor in the form of the PMW3391 always, the M65 RGB Elite is an ergothat performs way better than average. nomic mouse. It might look uncomIt can go up to a maximum of 18,000 fortable to hold the mouse, but a palm DPI and can be increased or decreased grip feels fine. If you have medium to through 1 DPI steps. You can cycle large hands then you could comfortthrough a maximum of five DPI levels ably do a claw grip as well. Because using the buttons on the top of the of the different design, it’s advisable mouse, where the values can be custo actually try it out before making a tomised using iCUE. buying decision. However, it all comes Another aspect that was changed down to personal preference at the end was the minimum weight, so FPS and the weird design could be unsetgamers who love a lightweight mouse tling for you. will be delighted to know that the While the majority of the parts of M65 RGB Elite can now be reduced to the mouse are made from plastic with only 97g without the weights. Previdifferent finishes and density, the ously, the M65 Pro RGB weighed at a main frame of the mouse is made of minimum of 115g. The sniper button anodised aluminium. This drastically gives the M65 mouse its identity and improves the durability and makes the it has been given an update only with entire frame rigid. respect to its position. Considering the unconventional Finally coming to the regular bells design of the M65 series, it was defiand whistles, the mouse supports RGB nitely a difficult task to accommodate lighting in two zones – the Corsair all the components inside. With some logo and the scroll wheel. Lighting improvisation, separating the optical effects can be controlled using iCUE. sensor from the main board did the Other settings such as surface calibrajob quite well. It’s also safe to say that tion, macro recording, polling rate, build quality has been quite impresfirmware upgrades, custom profiles, sive throughout the mouse.

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Verdict

Corsair has retained all the features and the signature build quality that ensured the M65 lineup continues its legacy. With time, the software utility has also improved, making it easier to control all the settings on the mouse including the RGB lighting effects, macro recording, surface calibration, custom profiles and much more. The Corsair M65 RGB Elite is a brilliant mouse possessing all the premium features with superior build quality. If you’re looking for a gaming mouse specially for FPS games and don’t mind spending the extra money that the Corsair M65 RGB Elite entails, choosing this one is a decision that you will not regret. –Abhijit Dey

SPECIFICATIONS

CONTACT

CORSAIR | PHONE: NA | EMAIL: corsairindia@gmail.com | WEBSITE: corsair.com

tech

Phone with no Ports!

Apple is reportedly planning to make iPhones X, XS, XS Max in India to reduce its dependence on China. https://dgit.in/feb19-19

The Meizu Zero is a smartphone with no ports or buttons, with only holes for a microphone and a tiny reset button. https://dgit.in/feb19-20

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HEAD-ON

iPhones ‘Made in India’

Picking the best, sans wires

BRAGI THE DASH PRO

he world of audio is quite subjective, and while many still hold on to their wired headphones and earphones, users have made the switch to wireless. The quality of wireless audio has seen huge gains over the last few years. In fact, major brands are releasing wireless versions of their established wired audio devices, which showcases a willingness to put brand value on the line. Today we’re talking about a comparatively recent audio category that has almost no legacy – true wireless IEMs. Some seriously unique and useful features, making it even more difficult to pick one among the lot. That brings us to this test. We’ve picked some of the best True Wireless IEMs and pitted them against each other across categories.

42 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

Build and design: The Dash Pro isn’t Bragi’s first true wireless IEM and that is evident in its design. They might look a bit bulky and daunting, but they fit right into your ear canals, especially when you’re using the right combination of FitSleeves and FitTips. Not only do you get a build that you can swim with, but it also features tracking for your swim sessions along with other activities. The Dash Pro features touch input, which works like a dream. Our only issue with the Dash Pro’s build is, in fact, not with the IEM but with the case. It is quite bulky and heavy, not something you would want to carry in your pockets. However, that very same case grants these buds a cumulative battery life of 25 hours, so hey, we’re not exactly complaining here.

Features: The Dash Pro breaks the mould for True Wireless IEMs and it wouldn’t be wrong to call these the smartest earbuds out there. When it comes to controls, with a combination of touches, taps and swipes, Bragi has most use cases covered, including additional features of audio transparency and Windshield. Using audio transparency lets you listen in to your surroundings without having to take off the IEMs, and it also works perfectly fine. Oh, and did we mention the fact that you can control the Dash Pro by moving your head, using something called the 4D menu? Performance: In our usage period, the Dash Pro gave us no connectivity issues save for the initial pairing, which took a while. Due to the slew of features it offers, you might feel a bit

Imaging: Baiju NV

Arnab Mukherjee | arnab@digit.in

> code / creativity / community >

FOR THOSE GEEKS WHO LIKE TO GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY IN CODE

Introducing Flutter Xavier Das | feedback@digit.in

stateful widget retains state information and a stateless widget does not. With this insight on Flutter, let’s have it installed on our computers. It is a fairly easy process for both macOS and Windows users with a slight snag for the latter to which we shall get into steadily. We’ll discuss the process for Windows here. For macOS, it’s even easier than the Windows one..

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ave you ever wondered how easy things might have been if mobile developers could build applications for several platforms from just one single code base? Fascinating isn’t it? Developers could just dedicate their time to focus on the code they want to create or the logic they intend to build without letting their mind be clouded by the impositions of environment/operating system on which the app shall run. Well, worry no more for Google has yet again come forward with a boon for the developers in the form of Flutter. Flutter allows you to build beautiful, native apps on iOS and Android from a singular codebase. In other words, the code that you write once shall be taken care of by Flutter to suit both Android and iOS, two of the most widely used mobile operating systems in the current times. Google claims the four tenets of Flutter to be beautiful, fast, productive and open. To have an understanding of how fast Flutter can be, it’s good to know that Flutter compiles directly to ARM code without any scripts to parse. To justify its openness, Flutter is not just open source but it allows us to build on top of applications and frameworks on it. One of the most amazing aspects of Flutter is the functionality of 'Hot Reload' in which all you need to do is to save the app and hit refresh to let the modified code work its way and dis-

play the changes made to the app itself in a matter of few milliseconds which can almost be thought of as refreshing a webpage. Imagine the amount of time that can be saved and also the difference this brings to the usual way of modifying code to see the changes implemented where several files had to be recompiled. Flutter allows building vector animations at every frame which aren’t essentially mistaken to be precomputed gifs and they run at 60 frames per second. At its core, Flutter uses DART as its programming language,

Google's new mobile application development SDK

52 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

Things you’ll need

The first thing that we shall need is our very own command prompt terminal or a suitable alternative to that,

The emulator running on Google Pixel 2 running Android 7.1

which was also developed by Google a long time back. It didn’t receive much popularity back then but it’s back into relevance with the advent of Flutter. Flutter uses widgets, which are the basic building blocks of most web or mobile app these days. They comprise the UI elements that we see on screen and offer minute or specific controls inside the app. Flutter provides for stateful and stateless widgets. According to Flutter, a stateless widget is one that does not involve a change in its state whereas a stateful widget maintains information of the state which are subject to change. Essentially, a

preferably the git bash for executing certain flutter commands which aid this process. We also need to get the Java SDK installed and set the path to the bin folder of the directory in which Java was installed. We then need to consider whether we would be testing out our Flutter code in a real Android device ( a smartphone) or a virtual emulator such as the one that the Android Studio provides. In case of the latter, we need to install Android Studio which sets up an emulator for Android. The emulator used for building a small application has been run on a Google Pixel 2 running on

Imaging: Anil VK

SA cover story M PL E

cover story

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here are users and then there are power users, but the difference between the two is just a matter of getting the same things done more efficiently. All the software that we use get regular updates, and not everyone has the time to go through the logs and figure out which new features are important to them. Over a period of time, there can be a lot of features creeping into the most familiar tools, and even long term users may be totally unaware of it. In here, you will find tips that will make your life easier, improve your productivity, maintain the health of your hardware, and ultimately get the most out of your machines. Some of these tips are things you need to do only once, while others are about developing a good habit, and still others point to power features in common software that are rarely used. This is your guide to becoming a power user.

Team Digit | feedback@digit.in

01Underclock for more

If your PC heats up a lot and you experience performance throttling, then underclock your CPU by 100-200 MHz using software such as Intel Extreme Tuning Utility or Ryzen Master and

New routers will have smart connect features that automatically assign the older device to the 2.4 GHz band and the newer ones to the 5 GHz band. For slightly older routers, you’ll have to sort them out manually.

03Type with voice

You can use Cortana to dictate emails, and it works well with third party services including Gmail. Windows also has the basic functionality of allowing you to type anywhere, using your voice. This works with any text input. Go to Control Panel > Ease of Access > Start Speech Recognition. There is a rudimentary setup involved that will make you speak a few lines to calliberate the microphone. Then, you can choose to toggle the feature through voice activation or manual activation, and whether or not to initiate speech

ensure better performance on average. In Intel XTU, you will have the multiplier slider under Basic Tuning and in Ryzen Master, simply create a new profile and then drop the multiplier by two. It’s not necessary to drop the multiplier to solve the throttling issue, you can always get a better cooler.

Lose the old ones

Make use of the dual-band feature in your router and shift your legacy devices onto the 2.4 GHz band. Older 802.11a/b/g devices will downgrade your entire network, so the better alternative is to upgrade them all for a better overall user experience. The downgrade often isn’t as crippling as most imagine it to be, but nevertheless does affect your network.

recognition at Startup. After that, you are good to go, anywhere a cursor appears, you can just type with your voice. There are also commands available for dictation, such as start a new line, delete a paragraph, insert punctuation marks and so on. Some commands can take a while to process, so watch for

the indicator on the top of the screen. If you have a thick Indian accent, then this feature will not work well.

Record your clicks

Problem Step Recorder helps you record your clicks and takes a screenshot everytime you click somewhere. To do this, go to Run, type “PSR” and hit [Enter]. Once PSR is open, hit Start Record. Now all your clicks will be recorded until you hit Stop Record. Once you do that, a window will open with the screenshots along with a brief description of your action. This can also be saved and sent to someone, preferably an expert, for further analysis in case you’re having some problems with your PC.

05Text Scaling

If you have a 4K display, or need the text to be bigger for any reason, there is a way to scale the text. From the Start button, search for Display, click on “Advanced Scaling Settings”, and set a number in custom scaling size. You can feed in any value between 100% to 500%.

Hide Notifications

You can choose which applications are allowed to serve notifications on your desktop. In Settings, go to Notifications www.digit.in | February 2019 | Digit | 57

WHAT’S NEW

Electricity producing bacteria can be used for power generation

Saturn did not always have rings

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THIS MONTH IN SCIENCE:

approaches for identifying electricity producing bacteria was slow and time consuming. The researchers from MIT were looking for a faster, less destructive way of isolating the useful bacteria. Developing the process for segregating the bacteria was painstaking, and took over ten years of research. https://dgit.in/elecbact

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

ome bacteria living in anoxic conditions, or an environment deprived of oxygen, can produce electricity as a waste product. These bacteria live in deep mines, or at the bottom lakes. The challenge has been to identify and isolate these bacteria. The bacteria are much smaller than mammalian cells, and are difficult to grow in a lab environment. Researchers from MIT have identified a new technique of isolating these useful bacteria, by segregating them on a property called polarizability, which has a high correlation with their ability to produce electricity. The traditional

easurements from Cassini’s final dive into Saturn have allowed researchers to precisely weigh the amount of material in the rings of Saturn. The material in the rings is roughly 40 percent of the mass of Mimas, a moon of Saturn. The measurement informs scientists that the rings were formed less than 100 million years ago, and maybe even as little as 10 million years ago. The finding shows that the ring

We kick off the science section this month with the shifting magnetic north. Following that is an exploration of the Chang’e rover, after which we dive into what it means to be a planet. Right after that, we tell you why you can’t have an Ant-Man suit, ever.

17 expressions for happiness

Scientists have studied how facial expressions are interpreted across cultures, and found that some emotions are expressed in more ways than others. While the human face can be contorted in 16,384 different ways, the researchers found only 35 different facial emotions across cultures. The researchers found that a large number of human expressions convey joy. https://dgit.in/17joy

Fossil fish shakes up family tree

The discovery of a 100 million year old fossilised fish has allowed researchers to get a better understanding of nearly all vertebrates, after finding this remote ancestor. The finding has led to the re-organisation of all fish and their descendants. https://dgit.in/hagfish

was certainly not formed 4.5 billion years ago. Essentially, the lower the mass, the younger the rings are. This is because when they were formed, they are made up of light and bright particles of ice. As the material

Faster 3D printing with light

A new approach solidifies 3D shapes in their entirety, by shining light into a vat full of liquid. A pair of lights are used to create the shapes within liquid resin. The researchers have demonstrated the technique by printing a lattice, a boat, and the letter M. https://dgit.in/lightprint

in the rings age, they become darker and heavier, as they accumulate contaminants and interplanetary debris. There are some signs that the material in the ring was dumped into orbit after a moon impacted with a comet. Mimas, which is in orbit in a gap in the rings, called the Cassini Division, has a large impact crater, known as the Herschel Crater which could have been the collision site. https://dgit.in/satrings

Probing clownfish anemone symbiosis

An unknown mechanism prevents the anemone from killing of the clownfish, while it consumes other fish in the sea. New research explores the effects of the exchange of bacteria between the two organisms, on their symbiotic relationship. https://dgit.in/clwnanmn

www.digit.in | February 2019 | Digit | 69

sci

Dying Red giant star

Meteorite collision sparks Moon

Very Large Telescope has captured planetary nebula of a dead giant star that has thrown off its outer layers, https://dgit.in/feb19-55

SPACE AGE

A Meteorite Crashed Into the Moon during the Lunar Eclipse which could be spotted as a brief flash of light. https://dgit.in/feb19-56

The first photo from the surface of the far side of the Moon

was a rover for in-situ exploration around the landing site. Communications to the far side is blocked by the Moon itself, so the Chang’e 4 mission was executed through a relay satellite launched in May 2018.

THE MAGPIE BRIDGE

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The story of the weaver girl and the cowherd is one of the folk tales of China. This is the story of two lovers, who represent the stars Vega (the weaver girl) and Altair (the cowherd), who are banished to opposite sides of a river (the Milky Way galaxy). Once a year, a bridge of magpies, facilitates their meeting. The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) deployed a satellite called Queqiao, which means “the magpie bridge”, in orbit around the L2 point of the Earth-Moon system, in what is known as a “halo orbit”. As seen from the Earth, the orbit of the satellite looks like a halo around the Moon. The gravitational forces of the Earth and the Moon together work to keep satellites deployed at this point in place, which makes maintaining the orbit economical in terms of fuel consumption. Queqiao is the first satellite to operate from that orbit, and the location gives it an advantage. However, the very slight perturbations, including gravitational influences of the Sun and other planets, can disturb the orbit of the satellite. Which is why, the orbit of the satellite has to be maintained once every seven days. The orbital maintenance requires controlling the angle, altitude and speed of the satellite with high precision. Queqiao has an orbital period of 14 days. It can communicate with spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, and maintain a line of sight to the surface of the Earth. The main antenna for communications has a diameter of 4.2 meters, and is shaped like an umbrella. The satellite is designed for a mission duration of 3 years.

EXPLORING

THE DARK SIDE OF THE

MOON The Chang’e 4 mission, named after the Chinese Moon goddess, is the first to execute a soft landing on the far side of the Moon, and explore the surface.

Aditya Madanapalle | aditya@digit.in

he Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, and any observer on Earth can only see one side. The far side is called the dark side not because it receives no sunlight, but because it has not been studied extensively by scientists on Earth, and little is

72 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

understood about it. The composition of the far side is expected to be different from the near side, if the Moon was formed in an impact event between the Earth and a Mars sized planet, soon after the formation of the Solar System. The crust is also suspected to be thicker on the far side, and can only be confirmed through in-situ examination. On January 3, 2019, the Chang’e 4 mission from China touched down on this uncharted territory. On board

CHANG’E-4 PROBE The Ranger 4 mission was actually the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the Moon. It was an impact

WHAT’S NEW

Black Panther makes superhero movie history

INSIDE

Studios President Kevin Feige said, “It’s the most important recognition that a film can receive in our industry. That’s not lost on any of us. It’s something that’s immensely gratifying. As the numerous phone calls and text messages [show] that went back and forth between all of us who were lucky enough to work on the film, it is just pride.”

New cast for Batwoman

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

ver time, superhero movies have received recognition in the Academy Awards in various categories. However, it never got to see the light in the top category of awards. That changes now as Black Panther has become the first superhero movie to be nominated for Best Picture. Apart from this milestone for superhero movies, the movie also received nominations in Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Production Design, Original Score, Original Song and Costume Design. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Marvel

he CW has been working on the upcoming series of Batwoman after her introduction in the Elseworlds Crossover event. Filming is yet to begin but we got to know three major characters that are going to be seen joining Batwoman aka Kate Kane. The new cast is as follows: Meagan Trady as Sophie Moore, Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox and Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton. For the uninitiated, Moore is a highly skilled private security agent who used to be a military academy graduate.

THIS MONTH IN CULT: Blade Runner was set in 2019, we investigate how close reality matches the fiction. We also check out some cutting edge imaging technologies, and Boo Man has a dare for you.

According to the comics, Kate and Moore were in a relationship but we don’t know whether the same is going to be adapted in the series. Luke Fox is the son of Lucius Fox and we all know how important he is to Batman and to Bruce Wayne as

well. With the responsibility of keeping Wayne Tower secure, he also wants to protect the legacy of Batman. Later on, Luke joins the Batman family and becomes Batwing in the comics. Finally, Mary is Kate’s talkative step-sister who has a deep compassion for Gotham’s disadvantaged citizens. Details at this point are scarce but considering how kickass Ruby Rose was as Batwoman, we are looking forward to seeing more of her adventures in Gotham. https://dgit.in/BatWCW

Ghostbusters 3 teaser Out of nowhere, we got to see a teaser of the Ecto-1, the iconic van of the Ghostbusters. The upcoming movie will be centered around a group of kids and it will be a sequel to the original movies, releasing in July 2020. https://dgit.in/GB32020

Terminator 6 BTS

A new behind the scenes video was dropped from the sets of the untitled Terminator movie that brings back Linda Hamilton along with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will be appearing as the human the killer robots were based on. https://dgit.in/2B2po1u

78 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

Detective Pikachu 2

Even though Detective Pikachu voiced by Ryan Reynolds hasn’t released yet, it’s already got a sequel in the works. Legendary has picked up Oren Uziel of 22 Jump Street fame to write the next installment. https://dgit.in/DetPik2

Morbius gets a date Sony Pictures’ has been working on a Spider-man spin-off movie, Morbius The Living Vampire, starring Jared Leto. This is another movie where Spider-man won’t be seen, just like Venom. https://dgit.in/ MorbiusSony

culture

‘Resident Evil’ TV Series

Amazon releases ‘The Boys’ Teaser

Netflix has begun developing a scripted series based on the Resident Evil franchise backed by Constantin Film. https://dgit.in/feb19-63

FEATURE

Amazon releases the first trailer for its adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic book “The Boys”. https://dgit.in/feb19-64

Are we living in a

Blade Runner future? Abhijit Dey | abhijit@digit.in

However, the moment they start moving or physically interacting or even speaking, it’s a dead giveaway. Humanoids or robots that look like humans are present in plenty. Jia Jia is one such example that closely resembles a Chinese woman. Then there’s Sophia which is another robot displaying the capabilities of artificial intelligence by interacting like a human would, using speech. Development in AI, as seen on IBM’s Watson, advances in genetics and robotics are important to make the convergence happen. In its current state, it’s pretty easy to know the difference between a robot and a human. The abilities or features needed to match that of replicants is far off.

billboards, video calling booths and much more were predicted back in 1982 when it was made. In this article, we’ll be exploring all those predictions and whether we are currently living in a Blade Runner world. From this point onwards, we will be assuming that you’ve already watched the movie. If you haven’t, we would highly recommend you to patiently watch this sci-fi classic and then come back to this article to truly enjoy it.

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Drawing a comparison of the depicted technological advancements with the current times.

REPLICANTS

Central to the story of the Blade Runner universe, replicants are genetically engineered androids resembling human beings to the finest details. Replicants are as close as it gets to humans since

he thing about dystopia is one wouldn’t even realise if they’re already living in one. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a world where everything has gone wrong. All it takes is a single aspect of our society or nature taking a terribly unexpected trajectory from an ideal or moralistic standard. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was based on a sci-fi book ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ By Phillip K. Dick. It imagined a dystopian future where climate change has taken its toll on Earth with heavy industrialisation visible across the landscapes and no flora or fauna in sight. This impending doom probably jumpstarted a fierce space race that resulted in humans reaching distant stars and colonising extraterrestrial planets. Of course, not all planets are going to be habitable. So, humans artificially developed human-like androids called Replicants to take the burden off from humans to do our dirty work. We literally created artificial lifelike slaves. It’s clearly a dystopia. However, not everything in this future is terrible. Several technological innovations have been depicted in the movie that take place in the year 2019 in Los Angeles. Things such as flying cars, digital

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they are completely made up of organic materials. A regular person won’t be able to tell the difference and only Blade Runners like Deckard can identify them after putting them through the Voight-Kampff test. Their sole purpose is to be used as a labour force on harsh offworld colonies where it isn’t safe for normal human beings to work or explore. Since there’s full control over their development, they can be given different abilities such as superhuman strength, high intelligence, etc. Are we capable of building such artificial beings? Not at all. We have only managed to reach a stage of building mechanical bots capable of carrying out normal and heavy duty tasks. Physically they do resemble humans to a great extent.

FLYING CARS

There was always this romanticism with flying cars in the portrayal of sci-fi right since the time we invented airplanes. Right from the Jetsons to Back to the Future, the presence of flying cars in the future was something people imagined to be a natural progression. In Blade Runner, flying cars are common and the cops are seen using them (called Spinners) frequently. Are we there yet? Well, almost. Flying car concepts have existed since a really long time (probably since the invention of the airplane) and it looks like we are finally going to see them as early as 2020. Recently, Boeing conducted their first test flight with their prototype built with Aurora Flight Sciences. AFS is also working

WHAT’S NEW

DNA ancestry kits fail test by twins

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ALT this month:

provided by the companies were not the same. The researchers suspect that the fault lies in the data processing algorithms that the companies used, but are not sure. In conclusion, these DNA testing kits are best restricted to recreational science. https://dgit.in/twintest

THIS IS TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE AND SCIENCE WITH A DIFFERENCE, AND THAT DIFFERENCE IS USUALLY ENOUGH TO MAKE MOST NORMAL PEOPLE GO “WTF?”

o test out the effectiveness of publicly available genetic testing services, a pair of twins sent in samples of their DNA to five companies for analysis. Despite having almost the same DNA, the results from all the five companies did not register a match. According to the tests, the twins had ancestry tracing back to different parts of the world. According to experts, the DNA results from the companies for both the sisters, should have been almost identical. A team of researchers from Yale went ahead and obtained the raw data sets that the companies used to analyse the data. Surprisingly, while the raw data was nearly identical for both the twins, for all the five companies, the results, or ancestry breakdowns

Dead drops and the dark net markets

he dark net sellers are moving away from the underbelly of the internet, and onto more conventional instant messaging platforms, such as Telegram. The dark net marketplaces are prone to surveillance and takedowns, and the merchants have more control over the interaction channels on the IM clients. Automation via chatbots is easy, and regular customers can be moved to private channels that are even more resilient to takedowns and

We kick off the section this month by giving you a rundown of all kinds of westerns there can be. Right after that, we move on to show you how Bandersnatch from Netflix wasn’t really that special. Don’t forget to check out a visual story on how many foreign satellites ISRO has launched, in the Infoporn section!

Multiple headed Hydra

Scientists have recreated mythology by manipulating the genetic code of the hydra, to grow multiple heads. The tiny organism is practically immortal, and can regenerate its entire body even after being cut into tiny pieces. Disrupting this regeneration mechanism allows it to grow multiple heads. https://dgit.in/ hydraheads

Amazon’s robotic tech vest

Amazon warehouses can be pretty dangerous. Amazon has introduced electronic safety vests, designed to make interactions with robots safer. This is for when the employees have to pick up items dropped by the robots, or have to repair the robots themselves. https://dgit.in/robovest

surveillance. Instead of using the postal service the dark net merchants are moving to dead drops. The parcels are stashed in public places, such as parks, and then the location is provided to

Smart cat bowl

A smart pet feeding bowl uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition to dispense the right amount of food for the right pet. This bowl ensures that your pets do not get obese. The bowl is also linked to an app, that allows pet owners to figure out the eating habits of their pets, and to figure out if they are ill. https://dgit.in/aipetbowl

the customer after the payment is done. This reduces the risk, as no personally identifiable information is exchanged during the entire transaction. The customer also can get the delivery within a matter of hours. The seller can stash away the parcels in advance, and quickly direct any new customers to the locations. The organisations emerging to support this new market model are being called drop gangs. https://dgit.in/dropgangs

Creepy medical devices

Blades that cut through arteries, clusters of needles that caused rashes, and machines that sprayed carbolic acid into the operating theatre to sterilize the environment. Discover bizarre apparatus from when bloodletting and leechcraft were a part of healthcare. https://dgit.in/medcreep

www.digit.in | February 2019 | Digit | 85

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SHOWCASE

Riptide R1X

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ollowing the recent trend of putting motors on anything with wheels, electric skateboards have been seeing growing demand over the last couple of years. While the Riptide R1X isn’t exactly new, it has seen rising popularity since a demonstration at CES 2019, which is where it caught our attention. Boasting a range of roughly 22kms (nearly twice as its previous versions) at 35Km/h, the Riptide R1X seems like an incredibly fun-to-ride shortboard. All of that is powered by a 1800W dual belt drive with a 3:1 gear ratio, deep-toothed 15M belts, and hardened pulleys. Keep in mind that the actual top speed achievable on these things vary by the incline and gradient of the road and a few other factors. It’s not all about speed though, it’s about control as well. Featuring a Rosewood build, the R1X comes with regenerative braking through its RX Remote. To roll on, it comes equipped with 90mm 74a ABEC11 ReFly Wheels, which Riptide describes to “feel like snowboarding”. Along with that, you get head and tail lights from ShredLights, which can be set to bright, dim, or blink, depending on your riding style. It takes

about 3.5 hours to charge the unit so you might want to plan your ripping sessions in advance. Apart from the tech smarts, the design has also seen an overhaul focussed on usability. There’s an integrated kick tail at the back that makes turning and manual stops easy and controllable. The dual handles make carrying it around quite convenient, and at about 6.5 kgs, you’d do that without breaking a sweat. At its longest, the board is 31”, and 9.5” at its widest, with a mere 4.5” rise over the ground, making it inconspicuous.

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So you don’t really need to worry about charging it at the coffee shop while you enjoy your coffee (or tea, we don’t judge). The redesigned RX remote features a larger roller thumb wheel for better control over your acceleration and braking. Bright LEDs on the remote also indicate speed modes and battery levels. With all the smarts and power, the Riptide R1X will set you back a smooth $999, shipping not included.

Hermès Arceau L’Heure De La Lune

he name Hermès brings up the image of designer handbags more than watches. However, in the past, the French high-fashion luxury goods manufacturer has made a name for itself by releasing notable timepieces and it repeated that feat this year at SIHH 2019. The Arceau L’Heure De La Lune takes the idea of the classic moon-phase watch and turns it on its head, quite literally in some ways. You get the option for a grey meteorite or starry, blue aventurine for the dial, which is framed by the 43mm white gold case. Both the options come with the all-new Hermès Caliber H1837 movement. This movement is driven by a patent-pending module that powers the unique timekeeping mechanism and moon phase display on this watch. There are two distinct subdials that display the time and date separately. Instead of having some rotation mechanism that makes a depiction of the moon rotate along with the phase, the De La Lune has the subdials rotate, floating above two mother-of-pearl moons that depict the moon phase for

92 | Digit | February 2019 | www.digit.in

the northern and the southern hemisphere individually. Hermes has flipped the convention by keeping the moon representing the southern hemisphere at 12’o clock, and the one for the northern hemisphere at 6’o clock, so you quite literally have to dive headfirst into this mechanism. The subdials, which come in black on the grey dial and white on the blue one, rotate across the dial clockwise, covering and revealing the lunar disks in accordance with the current moon phase in each hemisphere. This leads to a complete sweep in 59 days. This cosmic complication has been designed by Jean-Francois Mojon, who has worked with a host of brands, including MB&F and Harry Winston. The moon faces themselves are unique, with the one at 6’o clock representing the lunar surface whereas the one up at 12’o clock embracing a pegasus motif, inspired by the Pleine Lune (Full Moon) works of artist Dmitri Rybaltchenko. The Hermès Arceau L’Heure de la Lune is limited to 100 pieces in each dial version, each priced at $25,500; Hermès says they will be available at retail in Spring of 2019.

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