“This year, Let’s
build something”
S
o, what are you doing different this year? Depending
on what matters to you, the answer of course could
be dramatically different. It may also be ‘nothing’ for
some. We would like to change that.
Exactly a year ago, I had promised you that all of
us at Digit will work very hard to bring about new
innovations and to enhance the quality of our content – in print and
on the web. True to our promise, we made many changes – many of
which you loved and some you asked us to change further: We’ve
expanded content coverage, done a redesign, introduced a second
dual-layer DVD, and changed, and based on feedback, changed
again, the fonts we use. We’ve also revamped our customer and
subscription delivery service, and created many new options for
you to interact with us and your fellow community members – be
Asheesh Gupta, Publishing Director
it on our web site, or Facebook, Orkut and Twitter. We’ve started
webinars and workshops on topics of your interest, which many
of you attend with great enthusiasm, and also started Community
Chapters, in June 2009, which are quite active in several cities, and "We've decided to offer more content to
offer an opportunity for you to meet each other, share and interact. help you build things, build products,
2009 was truly a year of change for Digit.
What has helped us all along is the regular feedback we get from build applications, build careers
you – frank, brutal and mostly constructive – through letters and
emails you write to us, your posts on the thinkdigit.com forum, and even build businesses"
and your participation in community surveys. You’ve given us a
lot of ideas to work on — an example is starting the Digit fan page new section on entrepreneurship from this month. It will provide
on Facebook. Please keep it this way, it is our biggest strength. you with practical tips, lessons from successful technology entre-
Your involvement is most precious to us, and it makes us unique. preneurs – many of whom started like you, provide you with the
You now also have a direct line to the Editor, on our forum (www. opportunity to get your questions answered by experts, and much
thinkdigit.com/d/editor/). more. This month, we’re featuring two successful entrepreneurs (pg
You will be happy to know that Digit has not only emerged 22) who started from scratch to build successful businesses. We’re
yet again as the number one technology magazine in India, in also going to provide you with more DIY workshops and articles
the 2009 Indian Readership Survey (R2), but has also increased – on both software and hardware, so you can build something for
its lead significantly. The survey also indicates that a lot of new yourself, your family or for the place you work or study.
readers have joined the community. Thank you for making us Let’s also build more bridges to connect us this year, and make
proud once again. our community stronger than ever. We have recently constituted
Now, back to the question I asked earlier – what are you doing a Community Advisory Council representing a cross-section of
different this year? At Digit, when we look at the world around our readers (you will find their names on pg 2) to help us with
us: our community and its preferences, the trends in technology this. You can personally contribute to building the community by
and tools for creating applications, the unprecedented economic introducing new readers, participating in the thinkdigit.com forum,
upheaval, creating the need for new business models and skills, commenting on articles online, joining in our activities, contests,
it all seems to shout out to us: This year, let’s build something. surveys etc., and spreading the word.
We’ve decided to offer more content to help you build things – Together, let’s build for a great future. A very happy 2010 to you!
build products, build applications, build careers and even build
businesses. Hundreds of you participated in a survey on entrepre-
neurship we conducted recently. A large section of our community
seems to want to start a business. Well the timing could not be
better in my opinion. To help you get started, we are introducing a Asheesh Gupta
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 1
January 2010 • Volume 10 • Issue 01
Managing Director Sales and Marketing
VP Naveen Chand Singh
TO ADVERTISE
Dr Pramath Raj Sinha
Printer and Publisher Product Manager Navneet Miglani SOUTH EAST
Kanak Ghosh Manager - Product Marketing
Publishing Director Vinodh Kaliappan Jayanta Bhattacharyya
Chandan Kumar Singh
Asheesh Gupta Email: vinodh.k@9dot9.in Email: jayanta.
Assistant Brand Manager
Arpita Ganguli Mobile: +91-97407 14817 bhattacharyya@9dot9.in
Editorial Phone: +91-80-2554 6370/73 Phone: +91-93318 29284
Editor Co-ordinator, Scheduling,
Robert Sovereign-Smith MIS and Ad-sales Aatish Mohite Fax: +91-80-4151 8330 +91-33-2231 7344/46
Editor-at-large and Online Architect WEST NORTH
Ahmed Shaikh Production and Logistics Sachin Nandkishore Pranav Saran
Head - Copy Desk Sr. GM - Operations Email: pranav.saran@9dot9.in
Email: sachin.m@9dot9.in
Nash David Shivshankar Hiremath
Mobile: +91-99203 48755 Phone: +91-93126 85289,
Writers Aditya Madanapalle, Production Executive Vilas Mhatre
Phone: +91-22-2437 2214/19 +91-11-4160 8655/56/57/58
Siddharth Parwatay Logistics M P Singh, Mohd. Ansari,
Shashi Shekhar Singh Fax: +91-22-2448 2059/1123
Test Centre INTERNATIONAL
Mgr - Test Development and Sourcing Circulation and Subscription — Sales
Michael Browne
Co-ordinator Vijay Mhatre
Navin Chand Singh
Mgr - Testing and Processes Email: nc.singh@9dot9.in, Mobile: +91-99013 00772
Rossi Fernandes Customer Service Prerana Panchal,
Trainee Reviewer Nimish Sawant Vrushali Londhe, Poornima ADVERTISERS' INDEX
Tendulkar
Multimedia Customer Service (Helpdesk) Client Page No LIC 31
Project Head Robert Sovereign-Smith
+91-22-4078 9612/13/14 Amkette 27 Map My India 21
Content Head Aditya Madanapalle Canon Inside Front Cover MTNL 35
Head Office: Editorial, Marketing Dell Back Cover NEC 11
Design and Customer Service Genius Inside Back Cover Sagarmatha 101
Sr Creative Director Jayan Narayanan Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt. Ltd
Art Director Binesh Sreedharan Gigabyte 17 Scrum-System 41
C/o KPT House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, KG Hosting 115 SUN Microsystems 9
Associate Art Director Anil VK Vashi (Near Sanpada Railway Station),
Lead Designer Vijay Padaya Leo Security 91 Top Gun 59
Navi Mumbai 400 703 LG 79 Transcend 19
Manager Design Chander Shekhar Phone: +91-22-4078 9666
Sr Visualisers PC Anoop, Fax: +91-22-4078 9540,
Santosh Kushwaha
Sr Designers TR Prashanth, Anil T,
+91-22-4078 9640 PRODUCTS REVIEWED THIS MONTH
NV Baiju
Cover design Bazaar ............................ 68 Canon PIXMA iP3680
Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi PC Anoop
Amkette WF-301 Canon PIXMA iX5000
ATI Radeon HD 5970 Epson B-500DN
Autodesk Maya Entertainment Ricoh SP3300DN
Tell us what you feel about Digit Creation Suite 2010 Ricoh SP4100NL
Each month, Digit walks through the technology maze to
Compro VideoMate IP50W
bring you the most relevant, and the most researched Storage test.................... 60
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D-Link DIR 685 Xtreme N Storage Intel SSD 80 SSDSA2SH080G1GN
in Digit, or about technology in general, please write to
Router Kingston SSD Now 128 GB V
editor@thinkdigit.com
Fyoocher DDR2 2 GB Series
Product testing GlacialTech X-Wing R1 Kingston SSD Now 64 GB V+Series
Want your product reviewed by Digit? HP TouchSmart PC IQ528d Kingston SSD Now M Series 80GB
Contact our Test Center at HTC Touch 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB
testcenter@thinkdigit.com Philips 42PFL5609 ST31000528AS
Software on DVD Samsung Series 6000 Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB
To submit and suggest software for UA40B6000BVMXL ST31500341AS
inclusion in Digit DVDs, write to Samsung ST550 Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB
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send an e-mail to help@thinkdigit.com
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Interested in ordering article reprints, Brother HL2140 1001FALS
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specified otherwise. In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall be final.
Ejaz Ashraf Natraj Kadur Anuvrat Parashar
Printed and Published by Kanak Ghosh, for Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt. Ltd. C/o KPT
House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, Vashi (Near Sanpada Railway Station), Navi Mumbai 400 703 Mayur Gaikwad Rohan Mathew Dipankar Saha
Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur, C/o KPT House, Plot 41/13, Sector 30, Vashi (Near Sanpada Railway Bhuveneshwar Gupta Amitabh Mishra Dilip Sanghvi
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2 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
The RSS Feed
If Yan can cook…
B
ack in 1998, when Digit wasn’t yet called I received a call recently, from a subscriber who
Digit, and right through 2001 when it was had retired from the armed forces, and he was
re-christened, I used to be a faithful reader. looking to get some instructions on how to use the
To be honest, before I started reading this Ubuntu ISO file on the DVD. Obviously, I decided
magazine, computers scared me. I was terrified of to be careful, and reminded him that there was a
corrupting the hard drive, or doing anything that chance that if he didn’t choose the right options, he
would cause the PC to crash — which actually used might lose his Windows partition. The answer I
to happen quite often on Windows 98. got was, “Oh I know that, thanks to Digit I backup
I spent a couple of years playing the occasional regularly, so I’m not worried about losing anything.”
game, but doing little else on the PC, because He also told me later that after reading Digit,
I didn’t know where to start. It was my wife he now discourages piracy amongst his friends
who first bought me this magazine, presumably and colleagues by suggesting open source and
because she was tired of starting up her PC for free alternatives to them. He had just one request
Robert Sovereign-Smith me, and showing me how to access the Yahoo! – to dedicate the back page of the magazine to
Editor mail account she had created for me. beginners, who might find some of our more techy
Just like in school, where certain subjects articles intimidating, and help them ease into the
become our favourites, more because we like the Digit world. Thus, Digit 101 was born.
teacher rather than the subject matter itself, Digit Over the years, after speaking to thousands
became my technology navigator, and technology of Digit readers, over mail, phone and the Digit
my favourite subject. forum (thinkdigit.com/forum), I’ve found that geekdom
I found mIRC on the Digit CD, and became an knows no age or sex – I’ve had interesting con-
IRC junkie, learning a lot from the hackers and versations with octogenarians who share this
virus writers that populated some of the IRC chat magazine with their teenage grandchildren.
I’ve found that rooms back then. Some of those people even sent Now to explain the headline on this page…
geekdom knows me viruses over IRC that crashed Windows, but I grew up watching Martin Yan, on his famous
no age or sex – I’ve thanks to Digit, I just shrugged it off, formatted, cooking show, where the line, “If Yan can cook, so
had interesting re-installed, and was back on IRC in no time flat. can you,” was made famous. That simple one liner
conversations with Digit also introduced me to open source, and I sticks with you, because even if you replace the
octogenarians who promptly lost the Windows partition, and all my words “Yan” and “cook” with an appropriate proper
share this magazine wife’s data, to a rather stubborn Mandrake boot noun and verb, it still makes uncanny sense.
with their teenage loader. In hindsight, I suppose I was the stubborn So, the next time you see a family member,
grandchildren one, and perhaps should have left the boot loader’s friend, neighbour or acquaintance struggling to
default settings alone; but where’s the fun in that? understand technology, share your copy of Digit
Then, a little over 7 years ago, I was tempted with them – and perhaps, ask them to read the
by an advertisement in Digit, which called for back page first. Also remind them to persevere;
CVs of interested candidates. The requirements? because even if they’re overwhelmed by tech-
A passion for technology, nothing more; and I’ve nology at first, just as you and I once were, it does
been here ever since. get easier, and fairly quickly, so long as you have
The reason I bring all this up is because over your technology navigator for company.
the years, I’ve met a lot of people who still seem Besides, remember, “If Yan can cook…”.
to be in awe of technology and the advancements
we’ve seen. I’ve also seen people who don’t want
to try new things, like Linux, because they’re too
scared to experiment, or too comfortable to change
– until they start reading Digit, that is. editor@thinkdigit.com
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 3
Contents
JANUARY 2010 VOLUME 10 \ ISSUE 01
QUICK
NAVIGATOR
006 ENTER
Inbox
Industry Connect
Buzz
CONNECTIONS
014 Mobile Watch
Web Watch
Entrepreneurship
024 DIGITAL LIFE
Drool Maal
Future of Cars
032 SCI TECH
Chrome OS
Robotics in India
Future of Sound
076 TOOLBOX
Q&A
Tips and Tricks
Build your own amp
092 STREETtech SMART
032
Great cheap
Agent 001
Price Watch
Killer Rigs
102 TECH@WORK
Google Go
108 ESC
Chrome Extensions
Amateur Astronomy
TEST
PRINTERphotos to lots of
From high quality ots
Assasin’s Creed 2
Forza Motorsport r
documents, there is a printer just for you
Saboteur
52
Digit 101
TRIED &
068
HTC TOUCH2
068
SAMSUNG
069
ATI RADEON
TESTED A sleek smartphone
from HTC
SERIES 6000
An LED backlit
40-inch wonder
5970
A dual GPU high end
graphics card
4 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Tools Gaming
FREEWARE ONLY APPLICATIONS FOR A Trailers
BETTER DESKTOP EXPERIENCE • Blade & Soul
• Blur
Internet • Class 3 Outbreak
• CYK Desktop Twitter
Interface 1.05 Games
• Darq Software Transmute 1.65 • Aces High
• Flickr Uploadr 3.2.1 • Dirt 2
• FrostWire 4.18.4 • Risen
• GoodieBoxLive 1.2.0.8 • Wolfenstein
• Ipswitch WS_FTP Home 12
024 • Pando 2.3.2.8 Patches
Drool Maal PLUS
• PowerFolder 4.0.1 • Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Status Fairy 1.0 • Dragon Age: Origins
S
OME O • F.E.A.R. v1.08
We look at a bunch of emerging technologies, A CHR DRIVE
T • GRID v1.3
TES
and droolworthy prototypes • Call of Duty 4: Modern
Warfare v1.7
018 Whacking the Wave
If you thing Google wave is novel, think again
089 DIY: Build an amp • Tixati 1.21
• Zultrax P2P 4.40
A step-by-step guide to make your own amp
Multimedia D:
NSE
• Arclab Thumb Studio 2.1 L ICEBBLES
• BullZip PDF Printer 7.1.0.1078 TA
• CDBurnerXP 4.2.7.1801
• Contenta-Converter Basic 4.8
• Document3D Suite 2009 SP2
• FotoMorph 9.3
• FoxTag Editor 1.5
116 067 • Fresh View 7.84
• Hornil StylePix 1.0.2
Tabbles: forget where your files are,
Assasin’s ZUNE HD • MediaCoder 0.7.2.4535
• MediaMonkey Standard 3.2
remember just what they are about.
A “tabble” is a tag and a virtual
Creed A First look at the Zune HD,
check out this month’s episode
• PhotoViz 3.1
• Pictomio 1.2
folder at the same time.
KEY:
So what really is the whole of Digit TV for a comprehensive • Soundbase 2009.12
1-38T02-7081977-1-597
conspiracy about? Video coverage.
Mobile Phones
OPERATING JAVA, SYMBIAN, BLACKBERRY AND
SYSTEMS, WINDOWS MOBILE APPLICATIONS TO
FREEWARE, VIDEOS, ADD FUNCTIONALITY TO YOUR MOBILE
MUSIC, GAMES AND
DVD DIGIT TV EPISODE 3
CONTENTS LISTED
D
DEVICES
• Chase Mobile browser 1.0
ALONG THE SIDE • dogWhistle 1.0
• UCWEB 6.3.3
• Facebook Mobile 1.0
• Nimbuzz 2.0
• Opera Mini 4.2
070 070 • SmartMovie 4.15
PHILIPS SKULLCANDY • Office mobile 2010 beta
42PFL5609 SKULLCRUSHERS • CameraToGo 0.3
A Full HD 1080p display Designer Headphones • Loopt 3.1.1
TV with Pixel Plus HD anyone? • Mobipocket Reader 6.0
Engine inside
• Palringo Instant Messenger
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 5
Inside IBM NVIDIA on Tegra
Enter 08 We find out what’s cooking at IBM from Dr.
Ponani Gopalakrishnan, VP, India Software Labs 10 A talk with Jen-Hsun Huan, Co-Founder,
NVIDIA on Tegra and other technologies
u The December issue was great. When
compared to last year, its up several
notches in value. Digit is the most
promising technology magazine around.
Content, presentation and reach – there’s
hardly any other tech mag in India that
matches up on these fronts.
The print was near perfect and did
away with all my previous gripes. So did
the overall coherency and layout of arti-
cles, it was sweetly on time at the stands
and DVD contents were well organised,
kudos to the team!
Your TED coverage was a revelation,
it’s good to know that innovations and
ideas do get the spotlight in these days of
commercial gimmicks and sales pitches.
Eagerly awaiting its video coverage.
Zero 1 awards were convincing,
although the all-Apple PMP ensemble
and all-AOC monitors were quite fid-
dling (Cowon S9, Sansa Fuze, Clip+ and
monitors from Dell and Benq should’ve Imaging and Photography which were just in the January issue. Also, include a free
deserved a mention). the basics. Visual Studio and Web Designing internet speed booster as I’m experi-
‘Enterprising ideas’ was really can also be detailed in future editions. encing low internet speeds. I’m keen to
inspiring and I encourage more such Lastly, I miss the old ‘ESC’ as I find the know about the top 5 desktops, laptops,
topics. new one a bit hokey! LCD monitors and pen drives in terms of
Digital media distribution in India Keep up the good work guys. Have a performance and features.
is plagued with unjustified revenue great new year! Siddharth Shankar
schemes and poor delivery infrastruc- Bhupati Baboo
ture. But it’s good to see reliable movie Thanks for writing in. You can try out Windows
rental services are now available and Hardware encrypted drives are difficult to find 7, which is included in this month’s DVD. Free
affordable. Though an Indian iTunes is in India, especially in the portable storage market. Download Manager is a great way of experiencing
still way down the line, such initiatives Seagate, for example, has hardware encryption downloads at high speeds on your connection.
towards simplified media availability is on some of their enterprise desktop and laptop You’ll find this on this month’s Mindware DVD the
always welcome. Interesting to note the drives. It would be difficult to do a comparison test Essentials section. Keep reading these pages for
caption at the start of the article stating of a niche product category, but we can surely do informative comparison tests. We have printers and
“converting and storing rented movies standalone reviews of such products. storage solutions in this month.
is illegal”. Though one wonders how the We’ve been receiving requests for Fast Track Aditya
legality here is enforced or even ensured? to Photoshop CS4 for quite some time now. We’ll
Since the copy protection encryption keep that in mind. We’ve tried to add a little more u I’m planning to buy a new LCD for
(CSS) these movie disc employs can be to our Escape section this issue. Hope you find it my dual-monitor HTPC (22-inch/24-
easily bypassed (unlike the types of interesting. inch for work and 32-inch for movies
SecuROM in games) and thus sails the Rossi and racing). I don’t want a TN panel. I
pirates! To find the balance between want good contrast ratio, so probably
effective revenue generation and non- u I am a 15 year old reader who is fasci- MVA should be my choice. But I’m con-
restricting rights protection policy, a nated by your tech magazine. I have no fused and so I referred to the LCD test in
reboot of existing irksome DRM formats words to thank you. You guys have done the August issue of Digit. Surprisingly,
is really needed. a great job. I have been reading Digit for all I can see is TN panels in the review.
Something for Agent 001 – is any over two years now. I’ve read many tech Only one astronomically priced MVA
‘hardware encrypted’ portable hard disk magazines, but Digit is the best one. I’ve and IPS panel was in the 22 inch and 24
available in India? If possible, do include heard Windows 7 has great features, per- inch category. Dell has a 22 inch eIPS
such drives in your shootout in January. formance and security. I wanted to try it for around Rs. 20,000. Other brands
I think a ‘proper’ Fast Track to Photoshop out. I tried to download the beta version, should also have a few models around
is due, despite earlier attempts such as but it takes a long while. Please provide it that price mark. Please don’t forget us
6 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Buzz Where to write in?
12 A roundup of the latest tech news
powered by www.thinkdigit.com
To reach the editor, write in to editor@thinkdigit.com. For
DVD Contents, write in to DVDcontent@thinkdigit.com Inbox
who want quality products. Yes you LETTER OF THE MONTH
have to follow market trends, but you u I’m 16 years old and started reading Mind Math Extravaganza 2009 held at
can also conduct a test only on high- Digit last year. It’s just amazing. I never New Delhi and guess what? I won the first
thought Digit would help me “earn” an prize – an iPod touch! I’m on cloud 9 right
end LCD panels featuring MVA, IPS iPod touch! A couple of months ago, you now! Thank you once again for the superb
and PVA panels (where TN panels are carried a TED video featuring mathemagi- magazine and even better DVDs! Hope
a strict no-no). You’re doing the same cian Arthur Benjamin. I was just stunned to you publish this in your magazine and
see it. That guy could calculate squares of spread the word of how unexpectedly Digit
in graphics card testing (the armour
5-digit numbers in his head - I was bub- can touch people!
clad beasts don’t show up when you are bling with excitement and I googled him Mrinal Mohit
reviewing entry-level cards). up. He had written a few books on mental We hope you enjoyed the TED coverage
My next request – please review math. I just blazed through them, moved in the December issue and we’re very glad
on to Martin Gardner and other authors you’ve won in the competition. The iPod
audiophile grade speaker systems. No,
and found that I too could do pretty well Touch is an excellent PMP and we’re sure
not some occasional review of Bose or in mental math (not as good as them, you’re enjoying it. Congratulations !
Klipsch in the Bazaar section, but a of course). So I took part in the National Aditya
complete review of 15 to 20 high end 5.1
speaker systems. Although most of these Like you, many of us like to use high-end LCD of all, I’m really very glad, along with
brands are unavailable in India, please screens based on MVA and IPS panels. Almost all other readers, I’m sure, of getting back
test the ones that are available. Please LCD monitors sold are based on TN panels. They the old Digit Archive. Your magazine con-
tell us why we shouldn’t go for Bose, are affordable and good for most of us. Manufac- tent is really very helpful. The new attrac-
how to assemble a good home theatre turers too, find it cheaper to make these displays. tion – Digit TV is really cool. The sound
set-up comprising AV receivers, sound That’s a trend and it doesn’t look like it’s going quality should be better though. But
cards, amplifiers, woofers and speakers, to change anytime soon. We do test high-end overall, it’s informative and interesting.
hardware and software decoding. I displays every now and then in Bazaar, so you’ll The Fast Track of the issue is full with
am sure most Digit readers don’t have have to keep an eye out for those. It’s the same colourful images and the page quality
any knowledge about this technology case with speakers. You can go with Bose products. is better than previous issues. The issue
segment. I know this one is tough, but They’re pretty good most of the time, just not contains info about BD Players which I
please make it happen somehow. affordable. So, obviously they lose out in value for think is what we need to know.Thanks a
Digit is my best friend and I really money. If you want something even better, go for ton and all the best.
don’t want to read online review sites. a Genelec setup. The general rule of the thumb Debraj Rakshit
Most of them are in some way biased. when it comes to audio products is that the more
I am reading Digit for years and I’ve expensive, the better it gets. Your suggestion for Thank you for the feedback. We’re trying to
realised that most of the reviewers prefer an article on setting up a home theatre setup is rectify the audio problems in Digit TV. As months
AMD more than Intel and I can bet my noted. We could cover it in one of our entertain- go by, I’m sure you’ll see more and better content.
money on the fact that they dream of ment issues. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.
crushing Intel on 2011 (just like I do). Rossi Siddharth
But while recommending, you tell us
to choose Intel as that’s the best option u Guys, you’re doing a great job. I really u Happy New Digit Year to Team Digit,
right now. That’s why I love Digit. liked the December 2009 issue. I was sur- and all the Digitians. It picked me up
One last thing, I started reading Digit prised that you had entirely removed the when I was a child, nourished me with all
when I was in school (2000) and I still Buying Guide section, but was pleased to the tech and helped me survive in the 21st
read it. I selected my Creative Inspire find a great compensation in Agent’s very century. Today’s technology is very com-
5200 based on the speaker test you own Fast Track. plicated, and I have picked up a few tips
conducted somewhere in 2002. I still Please provide Far Cry patches in and tricks over time to handle it, and I can
remember the cover. The model was so your DVDs because I don’t have a net stand tall today in this world, all because
cute. I remember people asking Digit for connection and my Far Cry mod requires of Digit. I thank all those guys behind the
her contacts. Oh yes, please bring the 1.3 patch or 1.31. Also, please do provide pages for providing cutting edge content
models back.All the people who said it’s game wallpapers. that gives sheer pleasure to the readers.
cheap are... men? Digit looked way cool Abhishek Anand I also want to congratulate you people
then. But the school boy of 2002 now The Fast Track to product purchasing tips was for your success and my best wishes
works in office and earns money and Agent’s ideas. We’re glad you liked it. We’ll try and are always with you who pioneered the
Inspire doesn’t inspire him any more. carry the Far Cry patches you need in the February computer age.
He wants Klipsch, he wants Denon, he issue. We carry game wallpapers every now and Jaydeep Chakrabarty
wants Bose and he’s so confused. That’s then. The last lot of game wallpapers can be found
the only part Digit hasn’t ever taught in the Playware disc of December 2009. The team was very pleased to read your heart-
him. I hope you understand... u Thank you very much, and Congratu- felt mail.
Debayan Das lations for a great December issue! First Michael
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 7
Patent mania
Big Blue IBM registered 4,186 U.S. patents in 2008, becoming
Is the nickname IBM has been given the first company ever to have more than 4,000 U.S.
Industry Connect for its official corporate colour patents in a single year
Inside IBM
Digit has a one-on-one with Dr. Ponani Gopalakrishnan,
VP - India Software Labs to find out what’s cooking at IBM.
Tell us about IBM’s smarter number and the system will prompt
planet initiative with a few him to press/say a number for the
examples of the technology used. price. Say a collection truck hasn’t
arrived, the voice site will link the
Let me give you a background farmer to the voice page of the
first. Today we’re at an intersection nearest available truck. Business
point. Device level instrumenta- Finder is another innovation
tion as well as system level coming out of our research
instrumentation – things like organisation. This will utilise our
RFID (Radio-frequency Identifica- service delivery platform which we
tion) tags as well as sensors – are have built for our telecom clients
everywhere. Even your cell phone such as Airtel.
is a sensor, with the help of which With Business Finder, for
your location can be triangulated. example, we can get a taxi to come
As these systems are getting right here where we are now, based
interconnected, the reach of the on a single request or SMS, without
information network has become giving any location specifications.
broader. This is what we believe is The taxi company gets my location
helping us build a smarter planet, and dispatches the closest driver.
where things are a lot more Business Finder combines location
instrumented, interconnected, and based services, capabilities that
intelligent. An example is Singa- smaller service providers have, and
pore, where we can predict traffic links it into the service delivery plat-
conditions, thanks to RFID tags Dr. Ponani Gopalakrishnan, VP - India Software Labs form. So if you are a taxi fleet owner,
that are put in place in cars. The you can register through the service
same RFID tags can help you track What are the other interesting delivery platform and have network
movement of your goods through the projects cooking at IBM software labs? subscribers routed to you. End users get to
supply chain. What can we hope to see in the future? know which service providers are available
Cities can be built in a smarter way in a location, who are the most reputed ones
too. Let’s take security as a case in In a geography like India, we believe that through a notification mechanism, and
point. Today, we have video sur- accessibility and the internet will find who are the most cost effective.
veillance technology that is able to more takers in the mobile phone platform.
automatically detect key events that So we’re working on technology that will How does the predictive algorithms
are going on in a scene under surveil- translate the experience of the web to the work in the traffic regulation tech-
lance. Cameras distributed through mobile phone platform. Spoken Web is a nology that you spoke about?
the city observing street feeds can project where people can speak and
analyse suspicious activity auto- interact with web information through We take real time information – volume
matically. Commotion, mob gathering, voice. A pilot system has already been of traffic and so on that comes from
objects being left unattended that deployed with Amul – one of the largest installed cameras and RFID tags in cars.
have not moved for a while auto- dairy distribution systems in the world. We also take static information such as
matically raise alarms in the system. Their suppliers are members of small the distance and type of roads along with
Physically manning so many feeds co-operatives that are not literate and far historic data such as peak traffic during
otherwise is impossible. Patterns flung. How do you get them to participate certain days and times. This data is
are defined, and our algorithms look in your network for information sharing? integrated and churned to predict traffic
trough feeds frame by frame. We’ve Prices, availability, quality standards etc movement. It can be used to manage
deployed this in Chicago and in India are the information points that are needed. traffic lights, send alerts to the consumers
Hyderabad international airport has With Spoken Web, voice sites are put up to (citizens) via SMS, and it can also be used
implemented this system as well. publish latest prices. A farmer can call up a for planning in the future.
8 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Tegra AMD in the lead
NVIDIA claims to have built a devkit AMD now holds 57 per cent market share for
for its next generation Tegra for use mobile graphics beating NVIDIA which was
Industry Connect on Chromium OS at the top in the beginning of 2009
Carry on computing
We met up with Jen-Hsun Huang, Co-founder, President
and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA and got him to talk
about Tegra and computers in general. Excerpts…
running the OS, the browser, its almost as No plans for Symbian?
good as a PC, its also very good at HD and
HD graphics, the graphics is better than No. It’s just too old. You need a real OS
most PCs. Compared to the competition to support a real computing platform and
we can support HD video, HD video Symbian support is not on the cards.
streaming from the web, Flash 10
streaming and Flash 10 graphics very After making such great devices
easily. We’re a visual computing company aren’t you worried about them
(as you know) and so our focus is reaching masses? The Microsoft Zune
building devices with great visual HD and Samsung M1, for example, are
computing experiences. not available in India
What would be the power consump- Maybe it’s because the Zune HD has
tion of Tegra compared to Atom? What sold out (laughs). Seriously, I think the
was the thought behind the dramatic solution to that problem is to simply
Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO, NVIDIA reduction in power consumption? make more devices. Eventually some of
them will filter down, as market accept-
How long did it take to develop If Atom gave you eight hours in a ance picks up, prices will fall too,
Tegra and how much of Tegra was netbook, Tegra would go a week. And the especially given competition. If Samsung,
developed in India? How much did performance is comparable. The Tegra for example, doesn’t want to sell devices
NVIDIA spend on its development? 650 would consume a few hundred like the M1 in India, it just creates an
milliwatts at full load – negligible. In a opportunity for someone else.
Tegra took us 5 years to develop. We typical PC the display consumes around
wanted to create a computing platform 10~20 per cent of the total power Is there any device in the pipeline
that has as good a mobile experience and conusmed. With Tegra in a PC, the from NVIDIA, based on Tegra?
better a multimedia experience than display would consume 95 per cent,
existing PCs, at 1/50th the power. It cost nearly. And that makes sense – because Not really, and the reason for that is
us half a billion dollars to develop. We your display is the only thing your eyes every time we develop a chip, we start
have 3 design centres Pune, Bangalore can see and what is really important to from the device and work backwards. We
and Hyderabad. Hyderabad’s entire you. Your eyes don’t see electrons moving really imagine the device and then get
design centre is working on Tegra, and a inside your PC, do they? If you can’t see down to building a chip to get us there. If
lot of the work on Tegra has been done it, why are you paying for it? nobody’s willing to build it, we’ll build it.
there, chip design, algorithm develop-
ment and software. The Pune centre has Quite true…so would you say Tegra Intel has plans for “Moorestown”,
also done some work on Tegra. is the Atom killer? a similar SoC chip, slated for 2010.
Any thoughts?
Are there any more Tegra devices You know, we don’t think about killing.
being worked on? Do you have any At least I’ve been brought up believing You can try to make a truck a smaller, but
Tegra prototypes out here? What that killing is wrong. What Tegra is, is a it’ll still be a truck. If you want to build an
would you say is the chip’s forte? mobile computing enabler. Creation is electric car, don’t start with a truck…just
what we’re looking at, not destruction. build an electric car. The only reason you
There are some 50 Tegra projects we’re would want to start with a truck, is if you
working on. There are prototypes, but What platforms will Tegra support? feel there is no market for electric cars, and
nearly all of them are in-house working you don’t want to over-invest. But if you feel
samples. There are several things that the We’re working very hard with support there is a huge market for it, you just go out
Tegra is very good at – computing for Google Android and Windows there and build the best electric car;
performance is very good - that is Mobile. anything else is just bad strategy.
10 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
The HD Arms Race #Business
Broadcom’s Crystal HD and NVidia’s Ion are Finally, a Business model for Twitter has emerged with
fighting head to head to dominate the Netbook enterprise accounts and adverts. Not that they need it
Buzz HD market, and Intel prefers Broadcom right now, post the Google and Microsoft Search deals
Bad news for grandma
Mobile numbers may soon have 11 digits
Acer launches new
I
f a proposal by DoT goes thing that can be done in such new “Feather” experiment on
through, we may all see a short period. Why not get their TestTube. TestTube for multi-touch, 3D
an additional digit added 20 digit phone numbers and YouTube is the equivalent of products
to our mobile numbers. save us the trouble for another the “Lab” features you find on On December 2, 2009, Acer
While India wasn’t couple centuries? GMail and allows you to par- launched a new range of
expected to reach the 500 ticipate in Google experimental products utilising some of
million subscriber-mark till YouTube launches features for their products. the hottest concepts today –
2030, it seems to have beat that a Made for India The new “Feathers” exper- 3D and multitouch. Their new
deadline by a good 21 years. feature iment makes the YouTube products include notebooks,
As is obvious, a ten digit The internet is hurtling along interface much lighter, by projectors, and all-in-one PCs.
numbering scheme can sup- at a fast pace moving from GIF putting focus on the most In their multi-touch seg-
port only a limited number of animated images to full HD important thing people use ment is a new Acer Aspire
phone number combinations, video. However, for us Indians, YouTube for, the videos. 5738PzG series notebook
and while a plan was in place the wonders of the internet are With the “Feathers” experi- which comes with a large
to have the transition by 2030, it still one long progress bar away. ment enabled, your videos 15.6-inch multi-touch screen,
seems that we are bound to run and comes with Windows 7 to
short much sooner than that. make full use of the feature.
The proposal would have The laptop is priced at Rs.
all current cell phone numbers 43,500 excluding taxes.
appended with a ‘9’, instantly Another interesting product
granting the country ten times they have launched which
as many phone numbers, and used multi-touch, is their new
hopefully solving the problem Aspire 5600 series All-in-One
for another few decades, or till (AIO) PCs. The AIO comes
foetuses decide to have their with a full 1080p HD enabled
own dual-SIM mobile phones, 23-inch multi-touch screen,
whichever is sooner. with a powerful configuration:
While 500 million sub- a Intel Core 2 Quad processor
scribers are active, as many 2.33 GHz (Q8200), 4 GB of
as 800 million might have RAM, a 1 TB HDD, and a 512
already been used up, as MB graphics card.
people often change service The AIO PC will also come
providers and numbers, and with an inbuilt DVD RW,
operators often discontinue and TV Tuner. Loaded with
operating such numbers. Window 7 Home Premium
Interestingly, it seems 20 per The new Feather feature in YouTube, especially for Indians and a suite of Acer applica-
cent of allotted numbers are tions to help ease users into
never even used. While YouTube happily will now default to standard their new touch environ-
While the DoT seems to be launched 1080p HD video quality, and the video page ment, the series is priced at a
pushing to have this change support, we’ve just started will only show a limited starting point of Rs. 60,000,
ready by January 2010, putting away our VCDs. Fin- number of comments, and excluding taxes.
operators claim they haven’t land may have made 1 Mbps related features. Among their new 3D-ena-
received any intimation of the connections a legal right, but Good work Google! This bled products is the new
same, and are only aware of we have to pay through our will keep us busy till we get 5738D 3D Notebook, and the
the long standing proposal. nose for even half of that. affordable 16 Mbps connec- X1261 3D-ready projector.
Additionally, they say this Google with the noble aim tions here too. Of course, by The new notebook uses a
change will require extensive of shaving a few seconds of then, the world would’ve combination of a special 3D
changes to their software and loading time, has now done us moved on to ultra high super “coating” on the screen, and
hardware, and is not some- Indians a favour by adding a duper resolution. polarised glasses to bring you
12 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Hungary mandates Open Source Bing! sues Bing
The Hungarian Government has embraced and adopted Open Microsoft is facing litigation by a little known
Source formats for all official purposes. Open Source advocates design company, at www.bing.biz for using
are campaigning for the same in India as well the Bing! trademark Buzz
a 3D experience. It will also come with a soft- into account your location and perform a
ware which will allow it to display videos, search of “what’s nearby”.
images, and games in 3D. The notebook is One of the most exciting new search fea-
HDTV ready and comes with a connector tures would have to be Google Goggles, a new
that will allow it to be used with an external feature for mobiles that lets you search using
screen – although you will most certainly images instead of text. With Google Goggles,
lose the 3D functionality in this case. The you merely point your camera to the object
notebook will also come with 4 GB memory, in question, whether it be a book, a monu-
and an option of either a dual-core Pentium, ment, an artwork or logo and Google will
or a Core 2 Duo processor. The netbooks will look it up for you. With this new feature, you
start at a price of Rs. 43,000 for the Aspire can simply point your camera at a landmark
5738DzG. and click a picture and find out its name, and
The new X1261 porjector showcases “2500 other search results.
ANSI Lumens brigtness, a contrast ratio of Google can also keep a “visual search his-
upto 3700:1 a native XGA resolution & a tory” similar to web history feature that lets
lamp life of upto 4000 hours.” It is capable you see all the images you’ve searched before.
of displaying 3D images by projecting both
right-eye and left-eye images which can then Intel reveals information
be viewed using an appropriate 3D glasses to about future Atom chips
get a 3D effect. Intel’s next range of Atom chipsets seem to
be ready to take NVIDIA Ion head on. The
Google upgrades search with new lineup will be smaller, faster, will reduce
real-time and mobile features the average power consumption by as much
It was bound to happen, but is quite exciting as 20 per cent, and are expected to be avail-
nonetheless. Google Search has now added able as early as January 2010. However, the
support for real-time search results. best feature of these chips is the integration
Now when you search for any topic, you of a GPU.
will see a search section that is constantly The three new processors will all come at
being updated with new results. The real- 1.66 GHz and will come with an integrated
time search section shows results from Intel NM10 Express graphics chipset.
sources such as blogs, news, Twitter and With the integration of the CPU, GPU and
FriendFeed. They’ve also revealed their part- memory controller on one chip, the outcome
nership with Facebook, MySpace, Jaiku, and is a reduction of size by 60 per cent for a
Identi.ca other than FriendFeed and Twitter netbook footprint and up to 70 per cent
for realtime search. for a desktop.
So searching for a trending topic such Of the three new processors, the N450,
as “GM” is sure to give you a feed of people D410 and the D510, the N450 is intended
mentioning it in Twitter or on their blogs. for netbooks, while the D410 and D510 are
By showing only the latest
search results you get a full For a more detailed report, camp at
http://www.thinkdigit.com/d/mw2
page with just a stream of
real-time updates.
With this, they are also graduating Google intended for low-end desktops, (nettops /
Trends from Labs after adding a new “Hot HTPCs). The N450 comes with a 512 kb L2
Topics” feature that shows some of the cache and a total TDP of 7 W, increasing the
trending topics on Google search. battery life on netbooks.
For mobile devices, Google is redefining The D410 has the same 512kb L2 cache size
the way searches are conducted by utilising as the N450, at a total TDP of 12 W. The D510
additional data available with such devices. is a dual core Atom processor with features
On mobiles, besides just a text query, more a 1 MB L2 cache and a TDP of 15 W.
data can be utilised to get a more context sen- By providing a more integrated solution
sitive and accurate search result. than NVIDIA’s Ion Platform – which offers
On mobile devices, Google Search can NVIDIA’s mobile graphics chipsets with the
now conduct voice search in Japanese. Google Intel Atom processor, it’s clear NVIDIA has
Maps has also added a feature that can take some tough competition ahead.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 13
Whacking Wave
Google goggles We introduced you to Wave last month.
Connections 16 Another Google service, this one’s available only
for those with an Android phone for now 18 This month, we’re telling you of options
other than Wave
This month we check out among
Signing off other things Google’s entry into real
time search, and as a prelude to our
security issue a look at innovative
web security measures from VeriSign
addition to entering your we came across a web rumour
easy to remember userid and that the new build of the Opera
password, you also enter the browser would feature hard-
six-digit code from your cre- ware acceleration.
dential as a second password. Turns out, the alpha build
This service is also available for the new version (10.5) code
via SMS. named Evenes has been leaked.
Many web sites such as The browser is all about speed
PayPal and Ebay have this as says a blog post from Opera.
an optional layer of security. It might feature the Carakan
Security has moved beyond software “In fact PayPal in the UK has Javascript engine, making it
already made this manda- 250 per cent faster than the
Online security simple – a hardware token or tory,” says Chadha. So the current build. In terms of UI
Security on the internet, espe- a card sized device generates next time you’re logging in improvements, it will feature
cially when it comes to online a code that users need to enter to even your favourite social a lot of elements we’ve seen in
transactions, has always been along with their passwords on networking site, don’t be sur- competing browsers such as
a major concern. Passwords web sites. Earlier netbanking prised if you find yourself Chrome, Safari and Firefox.
can be stolen, phished or web sites that had opted for reaching for your phone. Even Opera is now expected to
simply lost and hence, experts 2FA security authentication, if it’s non-mandatory for now, have a new skin featuring a
have long been trying to create would provide these hardware users should probably opt for merged tab bar – a Chrome
a better way for authenticating devices to their customers. this service voluntarily. With rip off – the top of the screen
one’s identity on the web. One VeriSign, a company oth- this added layer of security, won’t have the title bar but
of the ways in which security erwise best known for SSL a hacker will not only have tabs. Those annoying dialog
can be upped is by introducing certificates and it’s check sign, to steal your password, but boxes for saving passwords
another layer of security over has brought 2FA to a new form physically reach into your and other information will
and above the username and factor – the mobile phone. pocket to steal your phone too be integrated into the UI and
password. This is known as Rajiv Chadha, VP, VeriSign – quite an unlikely situation. will now appear discreetly just
two-factor authentication India, gave us a demo of this There are currently about 70 below the address bar. There
(2FA). It has proven itself quite format at a special briefing in web sites where VIP is avail- is going to be a improved find
effective for averting unau- Mumbai. The process is quite able. To get a full list head feature. This was something
thorised transactions. The simple. Users have to register over to www.vipmobile.verisign. that was rather annoying with
way 2FA takes place is pretty once and acquire a unique com/wheretouse.v. In India, sev- Opera. In the existing build,
credential ID. This number is eral brokerage and banking you need to jump from one
O
Dhis locked to a J2ME application web sites are already in talks search term to another. In the
t
that can be downloaded for with VeriSign to implement new avatar it will follow the
Phish or no phish free on any compatible phone. this soon. screen darkening and high-
This fun resource from VeriSign Further, this credential can lighting that Safari has. There
lets you hone your skills be linked to a number of user Phantom of the is going to be better integra-
when it comes to spotting a
fake web page. It shows you ids on different sites that use new Opera tion with Windows 7, meaning
two seemingly identical web VIP (VeriSign Identity Protec- Opera has always been some- jumplists and task bar thumb
pages and asks you to spot tion). The app generates a six- what the preferred browser nail tabs. Incognito browsing
the phishing attempt. Whether
you’re able to spot digit code that changes every of the uber geek. It’s the only is being ported to opera too.
the imposter or not, the web 30 seconds. The credential browser to get 100 on the Rounding up the changes is the
site will highlight crucial is registered with a relying acid3 test, and for long had new rendering engine – presto.
differences you should spot.
Head over to party web service - and every the reputation of being a stable Still, we couldn’t find a men-
www.phish-or-no-phish.com time you initiate a login ses- browser, always on the cutting tion of hardware acceleration.
sion to your web service, in edge of innovation. Recently, If it does happen the power if
Demonoid is back from the dead, we don’t know for how long though Google launches its very own short URL service – goo.gl. The service is currently available for
14 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Zoomin has a new look Nerrot.com
The photo printing web site that won our web If your bored looking through a page full of a hundred
award in September, has a new look. Stay tuned for torrent listings try this web site. It’s the equivalent of
our full review at thinkdigit.com Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” option for torrents Web watch
the GPU could be used to fire like only a few search terms get
up your browsing. We’ll have the real time updates. These
to wait and watch. search terms are only the ones
currently in the ‘hot topics’ sec-
Google goes real tion of Google Trends (found
time under More Services). Clicking Privacy settings in Facebook
After staying out of the real on “Latest results” brings up
time search domain for a long a full page consisting of real sort topics into categories maybe Santa will steal a piece
time Google has finally entered time results. like business, technology and for you.
the fray. Google is not the first music etc. Why would one use
Now when you search for one in this space. Bing had google or bing anyway? Well Facebook: Privacy?
topics you will see a section beat Google to the punch by perhaps when this gets built Almost everyone from your
of search which is constantly launching this service before into all search terms and not grandmom to your local milk
being updated with new them. Prior to the biggies just “hot topics” from google shop guy is using Facebook
results. The realtime search entering realtime search, if trends, this will prove to be these days and worse – adding
section shows results from wanted to know what’s hap- useful to even the regular you! With family and random
realtime sources such as blogs, pening on the internet at researcher to get an idea of the people getting hooked to the
news, Twitter and FriendFeed. any point in time, you had to mood of the people around ever popular social networking
Google have partnered with head over to icerocket.com the world regarding the topic site, it has become increasingly
Facebook, MySpace, Jaiku, and to search for blogs and blog in question. essential that you know how
Identi.ca other than Friend- trends. Another one is col- to keep certain parts of your
Feed and Twitter for realtime lecta.com; this displays your I wantz.it profile concealed from certain
search. The partership with search results as a continuous Now here’s a service that lets people. You might recall the
Facebook means that informa- flow that gets refreshed every you broadcast what you want famous case of a woman who
tion from Facebook pages, or few seconds. oneriot.com or to the whole world. Wantz.it got sacked from her job because
any other public listing such as scoopler.com too are great is a free web application that someone put up pictures of her
events, will also soon be avail- sources for the latest trending lets you create lists of what you at a party on a day that she was
able to Google. topics in the web 2.0 world want and then share them with supposed to be sick at home. The
We ran a few searches to from sources such as twitter. friends via Facebook, Twitter, way to control what you share, is
test this upgrade and it seems com. These web sites neatly email and blogs. through privacy settings in your
One of the better things account. This month Facebook
about this wish list service made long overdue changes
is that you can add any- to it’s privacy settings. We say
thing on the web to it. Just “long overdue” because a lot of
enter the URL and it gets users wanted the privacy set-
added to your wishlist. tings to be simpler.
From twitter and delicious Instead of focusing on usa-
just put @dowant. Wantz.it bility, Facebook has tried to
is a way to make sure that nudge users towards opening
your friends know what up their accounts. This brings
you have your eye on. If you up the eternal debate – whether
choose to link your Face- to be open or not on social net-
book account, the items you working sites. The argument is
add on the list appear on if you’re there to network, why
your friends’ feeds too. Our not share more content with
suggestion couldn’t have people? Either way, Facebook’s
come at a better time too changes brought them com-
– your friends and family plaints from several privacy
won’t have to scramble groups in the US. They say the
around guessing what default options after the Privacy
you’d like for New Years! settings revamp, point towards
So go ahead and put the sharing stuff with everyone,
HD 5970 on your wishlist. and not with ‘only friends’ as
Google search results now include real-time tweets If you’ve been good all year, was the case earlier.
Google products and not for broader consumer use Reports suggest a Mozilla employee told Firefox users to move to Bing citing privacy concerns
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 15
Just like Goggles Infosys launches Flypp
Nokia to bring Augmented Reality mobile Flypp is a back end platform for mobile service
Mobile watch devices to India by 2011 providers, to provide a variety of content to users
Google Goggles Goes Live
T
here have been demo also has an accelerometer, we
videos of Google don’t really know why, but
Goggles at work usages are bound to emerge.
for some time now,
and the service finally went IMEI fiasco does not
live last month. Google Gog- dent China made
gles is an application that you phone sales
install on your mobile phone The Government banned
that uses an image as the basis A demo of what Google Goggles does phones without IMEI num-
for searching images online. bers from December 1. While
This follows close on the heels describe in words, or don’t yet between a Smartphone and this effectively put a lot of
of Amazon’s iPhone app that know how to. Clicking a busi- a Netbook. Officially called a cheap mobile phones out of
essentially does the same thing. ness card, scans the informa- “mini laptop”, the monickers circulation, the wide open gap
However, Google’s other serv- tion allowing you to add the for these kinds of devices are in the market was taken up
ices offer a range of interesting information to contacts or to getting increasingly diverse by “Indian Brands” of mobile
mashups with Google Goggles. dial a number immediately. and confusing. The device has phones, which are highly local
Right now Google Goggles is A live search feature allows a 10.1-inch HD screen and a mobile phone manufacturers,
available as a free applica- a user to point the camera QWERTY keyboard, with a providing impressive feature
tion for the select few who are around, without even clicking, hinge in between, so calling list and imitation devices along
using Android based devices. and related results scroll along it a laptop wouldn’t be too the lines of established mobile
This means that if you spot a the bottom of the screen like a off the mark. The Booklet 3G phone manufacturers. While
product in a supermarket, and ticker. This works well only for is built with a range of con- these do have IMEI numbers,
snap the bar code, you will get areas covered well by Google nectivity options including be wary of such devices as
competing deals from nearby Street view though. Wi-Fi, WLAN, a 3G modem, they have the same low shelf
locations, using a combina- Some of the applications on board GPS and a hot- life and bad design quality of
tion of Google Search, GPS and planned are a little unbeliev- swappable SIM card that goes the Chinese mobile phones.
Google Maps. able though, including recog- directly into the body. In fact, although the mobile
Photographing an object is nising particular trees based The Booklet 3G incorporates phones have an Indian local
the same as entering the same on a single leaf. Head out to some of the sensibilities of their brand on the packaging and
entry into search engines, so a http://www.google.com/mobile/gog- mobile phone range, in terms of the casing, these mobile phones
book or a painting will get you gles/ for more. build quality and feature mix. are still produced in China and
background information as if There is an impressive 12 hour imported into India. So the
you entered the search manu- Nokia’s Booklet 3G battery life, which is supposed “Indian Brand” is nothing but
ally. This means that users can launched to last through at least one a rehashed versions of the Chi-
search for things they cannot The Finnish mobile giant has heavy work day without the nese Mobile phones.
just stepped up into new terri- need to be connected to a plug The official mechanism for
tory by releasing the Booklet point. The Booklet 3G is pow- converting an illegal, IMEI-
3D, and nobody is really sure ered by an Atom Z530, 1.6 GHz less device into a legal one
what to call it. This will processor on a fanless chipset, has ended in the month of
probably be the first of the with Windows 7 installed by December itself, and despite
new wave of Smartbooks default. In terms of memory, what local advertisers or
to hit the streets, some- the device sports 1 GB RAM, service providers might tell
thing that is a cross and 120 GB hard disk space, you, there is now no official
which is an ample amount for way to get an IMEI number to
such gadgets. There are a bunch your phone if it already does
of software bundled too, which not have one. The best thing
is supposed to make connec- to do in case you own such a
tivity simple for users, the Ovi device is to trash it, and pick up
suite featuring prominently. a legitimate model with a legal
The Nokia Booklet 3G Strangely enough, the device IMEI code.
16 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Bespin QuickTopic
Named after the gas giant of the Star Wars Ever felt the need to start a message board for a
universe, this is a real time collaboration tool couple of friends or colleagues to discuss something?
Feature aimed at coding in HTML 5 Head over to quicktopic.com and flame away
Although Google
Wave is the buzz lately.
Believe it or not, this is
not a new concept
but unheard of. Some are online following
a similar hosted format to collaboration,
while some like Gobby or SubEthaEdit
require a client. Sure, Google Wave has
managed to take enterprise-level software,
Siddharth Parwatay collaboration on the same platform – with juice it up, put a nice user-friendly shell
siddarth.parwatay@thinkdigit.com the added twist of doing things in real around it and bring it to the ordinary
time. Email, the web’s primary means of consumer. But here we will look at other
W
ave is perhaps the most communication and makeshift collabora- not-so-hyped options, and surprisingly
talked about web tech- tion, has been around for donkey’s years. some might even appeal to you more.
nology in recent times. And much like the thought behind Chrome
The ostensibly impressive OS (Google’s browser-based operating Etherpad
collaboration and unified communication system), the guys at Google Wave too, seem Unified collaboration, project management,
platform was launched a while back in to have got up one day and decided “hey leverage file sharing – they’re all heady
typical Google fashion – under a closed, email is so 90s, let’s come up with some- jargon. At the root of it all, Wave is primarily
perhaps permanent beta, invitation-only thing better”. Google Wave aims to do just a document creation tool – much like wikis
release. Even with the initial 1,00,000 that – create an all new protocol that goes – but in real time. You thought Wave was
invites, it had tons of mixed coverage and away from mailbox-to-mailbox email. In the only to do that? You’re wrong. When
reactions. Some are calling it a confusing Wave, you have a hosted form of commu- Wave demoed for the first time in the hour
jumble of non-linear communication, nication where metaphorically you have and a half long video, people gasped at the
resulting in something even less produc- one email opened to which you can invite sight of being able to see what your collabo-
tive than email itself, while others are others. This should theoretically create rators are typing in real time. But it’s not the
sitting on the fence reserving their judge- a world without the dreaded “Reply all” only web app out there that can let you do
ment for later. Many more are embracing button, which causes so much confusion that. Take Etherpad. It gives you everything
the beta preview and even more still are in large email threads. Additionally, the – right from real time editing of documents,
desperately waiting for their invites. Wave protocol is entirely open source, so to rich text to a small chat window docked
Not jumping to conclusions about the developers can create their own interface in the side bar. All this power-packed func-
usefulness of Wave seems to be a more and put it to better use through the API. tionality in the simplest easy to use interface
logical approach, because clearly Wave is an Even so, the idea of unified communica- – which strangely until now, Google was
on-going work in progress. Besides, since tion has been around for quite some time. renowned for. The current state in which
Google has made it an open source protocol, In fact, there are several initiatives out there Google Wave is functioning, with hundreds
developers can design their own interface that have been doing exactly this in some of people “collaborating” on waves which
and you never know who will leverage the form or the other. Some have been around don’t really have a direction or goal, gets
API to come up with a revolutionary idea. a long time too. Many of these alternatives confusing really quickly. The picture/video
Coming to what Wave does, it has put have been locked up in the enterprise-level sharing functionality does get a thumbs up,
instant messaging, email and wiki-like commercial sphere while some are free, but collaboration cannot really be centred
around picture sharing – it remains just an
WHY WAVE MIGHT ACTUALLY WIPE OUT… added tool. Instead, the focused, minimalist
There are a couple of things working against Wave in terms of usability. Firstly, the ability to form of document creation restricted to
comment and annotate any part of the Wave is a good feature for sure, but it makes things all eight users offered by Etherpad, is better
the more confusing. In your Inbox, you have a Wave showing 13 unread messages denoting in most collaboration use case scenarios.
13 instances of people making changes to the Wave but you don’t know in which part of the Etherpad offers some very interesting
wave the action happened. (Yes you can use the playback option, but that too leaves a lot to features. You can save any number of revi-
be desired). This brings us to the second problem with the way things are currently going in sions which act as restore points. After you
the Wave universe. Making public Waves with hundreds and thousands of users is perfect for are done creating the write-up, there are
popularising a platform, but does it really make sense in terms of productivity? You end up with multiple options to export the document
just another tool with a lot of clutter which was supposed to reduce your communications clutter as a Word, PDF, text and open document.
in the first place. People will eventually have to come down to small focused groups. Let’s not There is even an undo/redo function, the
confuse collaboration with community people. lack of which is quite a pain in Google Wave,
as we’ve mentioned in the past. Time Slider,
18 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Surf’s up!
Don’t know what to do with Wave? Read HTC Touch HD2
our coverage on Google Wave in the HTC’s popular Touch HD2 comes to
Feature December 2009 Collector’s Edition of Digit India with a price tag of Rs. 30,000
EtherPad in action Shareflow with near real time conversations
the Etherpad equivalent of the Timeline fea- collaborators to that room. With live chat, of the wave when you collapse all comment
ture of Google Wave is absolutely smooth. whiteboard, and file sharing, and no user bubbles, you’re left with a usable document.
It literally plays back the process of creating limits, it makes for a fun web utility.
the document smoothly, almost like a movie. Synchroedit
The process of getting in collaborators is notepub “SynchroEdit is a browser-based simulta-
also very simple – just mail or IM them a notepub is an online note taking app that neous multi-user editor, a form of same-
link. And the best part is that the interface allows for public collaboration. Its drag and time, different-place group ware. It allows
is light and hence really fast. Also, work can drop features for adding images to a note multiple users to edit a single web-based
begin instantly – no sign ups, registration comes the closest to Wave. You can start a document at the same time, and it con-
or invites! note easily from the home page. Once you’ve tinuously synchronizes all changes so that
It’s no surprise to us that Etherpad’s created a note, you can share it by making it users always have the same version.”, says
official blog recently announced that they public and sending the link to those whom the web site. Sounds familiar? Well it is...
have been acquired by Google. you want to collaborate with. If you were And it’s probably the oldest player in this
to create a note describing pictures from a game and hence retains that jaded web 1.0
beWeeVee recent holiday with friends, you can share look. But the interface itself looked quite
“Why work alone?” is their motto, and it’s it directly via twitter or Facebook. You can good featuring rich text options. However,
quite true. This is a similar tool following also link notes to other notes and hence at the time of testing the server was down
a server hosted format for collaboration. there is a considerable amount of commu- (and may even be permanently so, by
Built on Silverlight, it is more basic than nity play that comes into the picture. Still, the looks of the cob-web ridden home).
Etherpad, but definitely more stylised. It this one is pretty low on usability and won’t
has done what Adobe’s Buzzword did to engage you as much as some of the others. TextFlow
a simple concept like Google Doc’s word Based on Air, Text flow is perhaps the most
processor – putting a jazzy shell around a ShareFlow aesthetically pleasing and yet powerful
simple technology. It has standard func- This one is touted as perhaps the closest document collaboration tool out there.
tionality like saving revisions, but you can’t one can get to a Google Wave clone, and Apart from simple collaboration that
export. Use this little tool if you want to start has been around for quite some time. can be achieved in near real time, it also
off quickly and the work you are collabo- ShareFlow debuted after Wave burst on offers version management of documents.
rating on is not long and cumbersome. to the scene last May at their developers’ It analyses multiple versions of a single
conference, so it’s not quite clear who document, conveniently highlighting
Scribblar copied whom. Perhaps ShareFlow just changes in each version compared to the
Scribblar is yet another online collabora- beat Google to it by making their service original, and allows you to chose and refuse
tion tool which allows sharing images available to the consumers sooner than through suggested changes to the docu-
and video much like wave, but it’s better Google – without those coveted invites. ment. Currently sign-ups are frozen on the
classified as a white-boarding app. It strictly ShareFlow works beautifully as a replace- textflow web site and it is invitation only.
does not compare to the others featured ment for sending group mails for decision
here so far, because document creation is making or sharing files. It has support for Greener on the other site?
missing. Scribblar does feature a white- events, calendar events, and even a unique While all of these apps featured here
board and so in brainstorming use cases email address where you can send stuff serve you in most use cases, at times
it comes of great use – more than Wave, in that you want pinned to a particular flow. even better than Google Wave, they lack
fact. The format followed by Scribblar is A focused environment is called a flow (like Wave’s extension and gadget-ability. With
pretty simple. You can register or start off a Wave) and can be thought of as a folder that Wave can be put to use in virtu-
with a single click. The application creates containing all your files and conversations. ally infinite scenarios. But do you really
a room for every team and that URL can It fails when it comes to document creation want everything? Or would you rather
be shared with others for calling other as unlike in Google Wave wherein at the end be focused on the need at hand?
20 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Yellow Pages 10 million calls
GETIT Infomediary Limited introduced the concept of Just Dial receives over 10 million calls every month
Feature Yellow Pages in India in 1986 from its 4 million registered customers
How I Did It: VSS Mani
The brains behind the phone-based information service reveals how he wants
to make Just Dial as omnipotent as Google. It all started with the move to
Mumbai with just Rs. 50,000 in his hands. As told to Supriya V
I
was born in Jamshedpur and products and services. We then intro-
brought up in Kolkata in a tradi- duced lead-based payments, where a
tional middle class family. My client pays according to the number of
future career had been chalked out customers he gets through Just Dial.
for me right from my childhood – try Today Just Dial draws from a database
and get into IIT or at least become a of three million establishments – of
chartered accountant. Being an entre- which 100,000 are sponsored – to feed
preneur was unheard of. information to callers. Even though we
By 1987, I needed to get a job and make money based on leads, we have
contribute to the family income. I took never ever given out our database to
up a sales job with a yellow pages V.S.S Mani, Founder, Justdial.com telemarketers.
company called United Database India We kept our prices low for our
(UDI). While I was worked there, I kept for my service that was very easy sponsored clients. Though we couldn’t
wondering if it was possible to offer a to remember. In 1996, the Kandivili pay our staff well at that time, we
service like this over the phone. Unlike Telephone Exchange in Mumbai was evolved a performance-based incentive
the West, Indians always had the habit coming out with its new 888 series. I scheme to keep morale high. Callers
of banking on friends, relatives and thought 888 8888 would be the easiest were happy since their calls generated
neighbours for information in their eve- to remember. I spoke to the general man- quick response.
ryday life. So I thought, why not launch ager and told him about my idea. It is important to constantly
a service to cater to this need? In those days, a phone line used to upgrade services and explore new
In 1989, I got some like-minded cost Rs. 15,000 under OYT, or else, you mediums. In 2007, we launched just-
people to start a company called “Ask had to wait for a few years. I didn’t have dial.com, which now registers more
Me”. This was before the telecom boom. Rs. 15,000 so we applied by paying Rs. than 1,85,000 hits a day. We send
The idea was well appreciated but with 3,000 and we got the number a year close to six lakh SMSs every day and
the downward trek of the economy that later! When I got the number, I didn’t 15,000 messages through WAP.
followed, we became easy victims. When have enough capital to start. We finally Today, this pan-India service
I look back at what went wrong, I realise started Just Dial in a small 3x5 feet receives over 2,00,000 calls every day
we were much ahead of the times. In garage, with the number 888 8888, some from 240 cities in India. All this mad
early 1992, I walked out of this venture. borrowed furniture, rented PCs and a rush for information is tackled by eight
But I promised myself that one day I capital of Rs. 50,000! call centres spread across the country.
would start the service again and make While I was waiting for my magic I have been thinking of taking the
it a huge success. number, I had begun collecting names service global for some time. Right now,
Between 1992 and 1995, I worked on and telephone numbers of small and I’m working on the launch of Just Dial in
different ideas to survive and also save medium-sized companies through a North America.
some money to give my phone directory team of data collectors. There was a lot My dream is to make Just Dial as
business one more shot. In 1995, I landed of raw data available, but this needed omnipotent as Google. When I look back
in Mumbai with Rs. 50,000 with which to be validated. I got a team of telemar- at the last few years and think of the
I had to find a house and an office space. keting executives to validate this data. challenges I have overcome, I wonder
What I did find were some generous I managed to convince some establish- if my venture could have been timed
relatives who offered me an empty flat for ments to be my sponsored clients by better. But I think we benefited from
a nominal rent in one of Mumbai’s far- paying a flat fee. being the first mover. I also wonder if
flung suburbs. I rented a two-seater office As time went by, the number of the venture could have grown faster if
in Mumbai’s financial district, Nariman sponsored clients multiplied. That I had some more capital, but again you
Point, for Rs. 5,000 a month. model then gave way to a premium fee need more than capital to start some-
I had learnt from my “Ask Me” days model where sponsored clients paid a thing on your own – you need creativity
that I had to have a phone number sum according to the category of their and gumption.
22 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
High education spendings Planet Vidya
India Education sector is expected to up its IT Planet Vidya is India’s first 24x7 education portal and
spending to an estimated $704 million by 2012 online K-12 community to share multimedia content Feature
“We are not out to make
our millions overnight”
Pooja Kothari talks to Vineet Ladia, an ex-software engineer with Infosys, who
sells multimedia content to schools in South Africa with his partner Aravind V
I
was born and brought up in Baroda, In April 2006, we went to I got my motivation from him.
a small town in Gujarat. I went South Africa. We met minis- We looked at other chan-
to school there, and later did my ters, private schools, public nels of sale, such as NGOs
engineering there. I joined Larsen & schools, educationists, et al. and corporate social invest-
Toubro for five months after graduation, Aravind and I opened an ments, which had clear,
but left to start a manufacturing unit. I office in July to sell the concept objective briefs. They were
built it into a business with a turnover of multimedia content and clear about getting a return on
of Rs 3-4 crore in less than two years. animation. We were highly their money, so our proposi-
After a while, my contribution started conservative with our money. Vineet Ladia tion worked. Slowly, we built
stagnating. I had no commercial under- We did not build content first. acceptance for our product
standing. So, I decided to do an MBA. I We simply got brochures done for client related to school-level science and math.
joined the Indian Institute of Manage- meetings. It was only after we met at least We now work with 700 schools in
ment, Ahmedabad, the top business a thousand people that we launched our South Africa. We launched our services
school in India, in 2004. first product. in Baroda three months ago and are
Those two years built confidence In fact, at the seed stage, we were working with 18 schools now. We have
more than business skills. I knew from offered Rs 2.5 crore for a 30 per cent bundled our software with computers
the beginning that I did not want a stake in our business. We refused that. in Mexico. We are looking at developing
cushy job at the end of those two years. And that was a great decision in hind- countries, such as Turkey and Egypt
I also discovered that I really enjoyed sight. We did not even spend 10 per cent A lot of players have shown interest
the entrepreneurship course run by of our revenue on marketing in South in licensing our content, since Indian
Sunil Handa, who took on only 30 stu- Africa. We would have unnecessarily players have traditionally not invested in
dents and invited entrepreneurs to talk parted with one third of our equity for developing high-quality content.
about their experiences. money that we didn’t need. What eggs us on is the knowledge
I met a like-minded student, who is We started developing content. Being that only 1 per cent of schools in India
now my business partner, Aravind V. We in Ahmedabad, we got in touch with have access to digital content. We are
explored various sectors and zeroed in on people at the National Institute of Design, not in a hurry. We have learnt our les-
education. First, we thought of starting who helped us create good quality anima- sons well in the last few years. Instead
a school, but then decided to provide tion. From the beginning, we used the one of achieving Rs 5 crore in one year, as
services to all those schools that were measure that is used by parents all over was our first business plan, we reached
coming up. the world – marks and grades. We are there in three years.
During our free time, we took on an now the only Indian company with statis- We are not out to make our millions
independent project to find out gaps in tical data on how multimedia content is overnight. We have been approached by
the education sector. We wanted work improving grades. venture capitalists time and again, but we
that had potential and would allow us We got small projects at first. We were are clear we will not shell out more than
to make money. We also realised that tempted by the money coming in, but we 10 per cent of our equity. We are in the
not many professionals joined the edu- stayed focused on developing our own midst of some real breakthrough tech-
cation sector. product. We only sell software. When nology, which has a lot of potential for the
Around this time, both of us got things looked very bad, we would look education sector.
selected for an exchange programme in at the map and say: every school in the For the time being, we are going
Canada that was hosting students from world will use our product. It is just a with the flow. People create a lot of hype
40 countries. We met this guy from South matter of time. around things. Our purpose is to sim-
Africa, who told us about the deficiencies Aravind showed more courage than me. plify them using multimedia. We simply
in the education sector there. They got a I was financially stable due to my manu- want to introduce fun into learning –
lot of aid for education, but had to return facturing business. But Aravind, despite just as we are having fun building this
it for want of avenues. family responsibilities, would not give up. business around education.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 23
Motor Marvels Fennec coming
Digital life 26 Read about the innovations in
car design and what’s to come
Fennec, Mozilla’s Firefox browser for the Nokia
N900 device is very close to release
Pocket Technologies>>
Touchscreens will go a long way on portable devices, as the tech-
nology is getting increasingly cheaper. The keypad might be
replaced even on lower-end candybars, and the back surface of the
device is an untapped area for further interfacing. This will allow
for versatile devices for a wide spectrum of activities, from gaming
to communication. Modularity may be another trend, with gaming
pads or high quality video recorder plug-ins available for your hard-
ware. The processing power will soon reach that of desktops in the
begenning of the millenium, and being online won't be a problem
at all. If all you want is a functional mobile phone, you may get it as
a ring, an earpiece, a bracelet, or even a disposable one where the
sim, circuitry, and buttons are all printed on in vending machines.
Fast Forward>>
We look at current concepts and prototypes peek at which
devices we will be drooling over in the not too distant future
Wearable Technologies>>
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi T-Shirts and Caps are passe, we'll
soon be putting on much more than clothes. Embedded
within the fabric or as strap-on gadgets are a wide range
of input and output devices. A lot of these will easy plug
in to existing systems. The utilities range from easy to use
cameras, wafer thin, glove-like cell phones, keyboards
that are wired to your fingers and searching for infor-
mation on the go. Consumer exoskeletons to boost the
physical strength and agility of the body are under massive
development, with military and industrial applications as
well. Augumented reality devices, like MIT's Sixth Sense
showcased here will be a major landmark, as this will blur
the lines between the digital world and the real world. All
of this is without the gadgets getting beneath our skins.
24 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Thinnest TV Max Payne 3
LG has claimed to have made the world’s thinnest Max Payne 3 to be released in the last
LCD TV panel at 2.6mm which will be showcased at quarter of 2010 and is expected to be set
CES 2010 in January in Sau Paulo, years after the last game Droolmaal
Display Technologies>>
Getting a cheap, flexible electronic display is one of the major challenges that labs around the world are trying
to meet. This will save a lot of space and allow for easy mobility. This has been achieved to an extent using
LCD technology, but right now only monochrome displays are possible, not great looking HD displays that
is the rage right now. 3D and holographic displays have been in the works for a long time, and will probably
be a long time coming. 3D requires a lot of efforts on the production front, as well as glasses. Current Holo-
graphic technologies involve large spinning mirrors that occupy more space than the hologram itself. What
you will be seeing around are portable and immersive entertainment systems such as the MYVU crystal ev.
Input Technologies>>
There are a bunch of major trends when it comes to input technologies. Roll up keyboards are passe, the
rage now is flexible, water-proof and food-proof keyboards, that are pretty lightweight. Ultra-portability
is achieved by pen-sized projectors that can throw out a keyboard on almost any surface, and these are
already on the market. Touchable surfaces with tactile feedback is another area of focus. Be prepared for
inputs to invade all kinds of surfaces, from tables, toll booths, advertisements in newspapers, even the roads
are not ruled out. The sky is however, the limit, which will probably be saved up for displaying the tweets
you send in about the food in a restaurant using a digital napkin. Wires will soon be stone-age technology.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 25
Recreating Da Vinci DB5
Scientists in Florence, Italy, successfully created a The first DB5 prototype used in ‘Goldfinger’ was later
Feature working model of Da Vinci’s automobile in April 2004 stripped of its weaponry and gadgetry by Aston Martin
Madhusudan Mukerjee the masses. In the 21st century, then, another mode of transportation for your
readersletters@thinkdigit.com perhaps we are on the threshold of seeing car – air, or even water.
Hollywood fantasy cars turn into fact. It
Cars on the wing
T
he self-propelled vehicle – or is quite possible that we may soon have
automobile – has come a long to change our definition of the ‘car’ as we Several attempts to fuse an aircraft with
way since Karl Benz first pat- know it. Let’s take you through some of a car have been made throughout history.
ented his ‘horseless carriage’ the most interesting advances in automo- The Hovercraft – a car that runs on a
in 1885. Simply attaching a motor to a biles that are likely to change the way we cushion of air – was once much-touted
wheel has, since then, led to an altering commute in the not-so-distant future. by science fiction writers like Arthur
of our perception of time and space and C. Clarke, but was eventually proved
creating, among other things, cities, Beyond the road impractical due to the high level of noise
suburbs and growth of an international Roads were made to enable automobiles and fuel consumption. The Aerocar by
motoring community. to travel quickly between distant settle- Moulton Taylor in the 1950s was made of
With the use of artificial intelligence, ments. Over the last few decades, much wings, a tail and a power plant – a single
new design technology and innovations effort has been put in to literally, ‘getting engine that powered the road wheels
in materials, scientists, entrepreneurs the show off the road’ for automobiles. as well as the propeller. Henry Smolin-
and researchers from different parts of New automotive Research and Develop- ski’s ‘Mizar’ was built in the 1970s by
the world are striving to create new and ment seems to hint that the road might Advanced Vehicle Engineers (AVE) by
improved vehicles that can be used by soon become just a point of access to fitting together the rear part of a Cessna
The
Motor
Marvels
Recent R&D in automotive technology is
literally getting the show off the road
26 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Time travel Patents
The ‘Back to the Future’ series of movies by Steven There are nearly 80 patents filed at the USPTO for
Spielberg featured a car with the powers of time travel flying cars. Most of these have never really taken off
(VTOL) 4-seat aircraft which, uses four
pairs of Wankel Rotary engines, and, it
is claimed, can hover 15 feet above the
ground. It has four ducted fans with
covered propellers to increase safety.
Although it is, quite evidently, a small
aircraft, it is projected as a ‘car’ since it
has the potential to be used to commute
over short-distances. This ‘flying car’
The Skycar looks great but is yet to prove its mettle
has been several decades in the making
Skymaster and a Ford Pinto. This one, and Moller has had to postpone projec-
however, was a car that you drove to tions of its launch more than twice. The
the airport and could be bolted into the present craft under production is the
aircraft before flying away. Besides, the M400 which is planned in single as well
project collapsed with the death of Henry as 6-seat versions.
Smolinski when the Mizar disintegrated
mid-air during a test flight. Though none Labiche’s FSC-1
of those mentioned below resemble ‘The Mitch Labiche’s Labiche Aerospace has
Fifth Element’ kind of flying cars, they do designed the FSC-1 which is basically a
come pretty close. car that can open out into an aeroplane
with the push of a button, or conversely,
Terrafugia’s transition an aeroplane that can fold up to become a
The most significant effort in the crea- car. When it comes to flying cars, people
tion of a ‘Flying Car’ is by a company
called ‘Terrafugia’ set up by MIT
graduates in Massachusetts in 2006.
But this one is a ‘Roadable Aircraft’
called ‘Transition’. The Transition is
so designed to fold its wings when not
flying and to be used as a legal ‘car’ – or
a ‘street-legal airplane’, as they state
in their web site http://www.terrafugia.com/.
There are no bolts and nothing to put
together or dismantle but you’d need to
be a driver as well as a pilot to be able
to use one of these. Terrafugia hopes to
launch its first commercial model in 2011
and has already received 70 orders as
of September 2009. This one will be a
two-seater, which can travel 725 km at a Parajet skycar
speed of about 115 km/hr in air.
would prefer something that is more of
Moller International’s Skycar a car and less of a plane – a conclusion
Paul Moller’s invention is the ‘Skycar’ – a Labiche reached after asking about 3000
personal Vertical Take Off and Landing people. So, unlike the Moller M400, this
can actually be driven on roads.
Skybike
Samson Motorworks’ Skybike is a three-
wheeled motorcycle that can be flown or
driven on the streets with equal efficiency.
Led by Sam Bousfield, an inventor with
several patents to his name, this Sacra-
With the Transition you could drive to an airstrip and mento-based company hopes to launch a
then fly to work radio-controlled model of its attractively
27
Wake up Nokia touch
The Insignia alarm clock comes with a radio and Nokia 5230 Touchscreen phone available in
Feature a digital photo frame all packed into one India at an official price of around Rs. 9,000
10 tonnes. The Aquada can travel at Python
a maximum speed of 160 kmph on WaterCar.Inc was founded by Dave
land and of about 49 kmph on water. March in California. The company hand-
Unlike the Volkswagen Schwimwaggen makes customised amphibious vehicles
launched in 1942, it does not create bow in two designs, viz. the Python and the
waves to hinder progress over water, but Gator – both of which are said to achieve
The LaBiche FSC-1 is the perfect hybrid flying proceeds smoothly like a typical motor 60 mph or 95 kmph on water and achieve
boat. The Aquada is a three-seater with the same speed in 4.5 seconds on the
titled ‘Switchblade’ flying bike up for only one seat in front. You step into roads. It offers hundreds of colours to
display in a few months. it like you would in a boat but steer it choose from for exteriors as well as inte-
like a car. It uses a 175-horsepower, V6, riors, making each car exclusive enough
Parajet Skycar 2.5-liter, 24-valve engine that enables to pay the hefty price tag of 200,000
The Parajet Skycar actually flew and it to accelerate from 0 to 96 kilome- $. You can see the car in action at www.
drove its way from London to Timbuktu tres per hour in less than 60 seconds. thinkdigit.com/d/carvid/
in January 2009 without a hitch and has Once it enters the water, the wheels can
been declared the world’s first legal flying be retracted, like in an airplane, thus Riding on air
car. It has a top speed of 180 kmph and significantly reducing the drag. With According to Praveen Nahar, Head of the
a maximum range of 400 kilometres. the press of a button, the wheels retract, Transportation and Automobile Design
The car is basically constructed from a the car senses it is in water, activates at NID (National Institute of Design,
dune buggy combined with a paramotor the jet to propel it in water and changes Ahmedabad), sustainable design is the
(one of those paragliding contraptions the headlights into marine lights. It inevitable future of the automobile.
which have a set of motorised propellers is buoyant and cannot sink. Priced at While the Copenhagen summit may not
at the pilot’s back) for greater thrust and almost $3,00,000, it still lies beyond have seen any significant breakthroughs
propulsion and a parafoil (the flat sail of the average person’s buying capacity. for environmental conservation, car
a paraglider) to increase the lift. Gibbs Technologies is also working on
the ‘Humdinga’ – a concept four-wheel
Hoverpod drive car that aims to seat five people
Entecho, an Australian company has com- and hit speeds of 160 kmph on land and
bined a new rotor technology with unique 64 kmph on water .
lifting surfaces to create a flying machine
that looks like a typical flying saucer. A Sir Tristram Fly like an alien
centrifugal fan causes the air under the car Peter Martin of Northern Ireland, in
to move radially from the centre towards October 2009, used an outboard motor, designers and manufacturers all over
the outside, generating lift as the ‘skirt’ – welding equipment and waterproof the world have been quietly working to
the airtight flexible membrane beneath the sealant on a Renault Laguna he had ensure that our automobiles cut down
level of the rotor – blows up, directing the purchased for 100 pounds sterling and on harmful emissions. One of these op-
flow of the air downwards. converted it into an amphibious vehicle. tions is the compressed air car – or the
This car-boat, named Sir Tristram car that runs on air – or hybrid versions
Automotive amphibians covered about 20 miles over sea from of the same.
Want to avoid the traffic jam on the Ireland to Scotland, in 7 hours. This one,
bridge? No sweat. Just press a button however, is not a prototype and seems to Air Car
and glide across the water at the speed be a one-off. Martin’s vehicle is to be auc- In an extraordinary tie-up with Luxem-
of a motor boat. If you think this sounds tioned on eBay for the benefit of the Help bourg based MDI (Motor Development
like a James Bond movie, here is a list of for Heroes charity that assists wounded International), Tata Motors (India) has
amazing amphibious vehicles to make British soldiers. been working hard for the last two years,
you think again. to put the finishing touches to a technol-
ogy that will enable their cars to run on
Aquada air. With fossil fuels diminishing, fuel
Using High Speed Amphibian tech- prices skyrocketing and global warming
nology (HAS), Gibbs Technologies led threatening us, this couldn’t have come
by Alan Gibbs has launced the Aquada at a better time. The only trouble with
in the USA. The HAS is a technology air-compression engines is the extremes
that has been developed over a period in temperature. When compressed air is
of seven years and can now even be released, these engines become extreme-
applied to vehicles weighing up to No more cruising on the highway ly cool, making it difficult to operate
28 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
OScar Car-Fi
Read more on the open source car project Ford’s new cars are going to be WiFi hot spots as
Feature – OScar in the August 2009 issue of Digit an extension to its SYNC systems
have received a license to take their crea-
tive ideas into overdrive. Here are a few
examples to make your jaw drop.
Shared personal cars
Led by Praveen Nahar, Coordinator of
the Transportation and Automobile Riding high
Tata’s new Air Car Design programme at NID, Ahmedabad,
three students of the same institute have AIDA is connected to sensors all over
them in cooler climates and necessitating come up with three unique designs for the interior and exterior of the car, which
heating mechanisms like heat exchang- the Royal Melbourne Institute of Tech- gives it information about the driver’s
ers. While these cars are all set to hit the nology (RMIT). These designs, which are state of mind (strength of the grip on the
roads of France by 2011, it’s their features going to be used by the Australian car- steering wheel, etc.), and the status of the
that make you sit up and pay attention. sharing firm, Flexicar. “Instead of own- seat-belt is off. It also helps the driver get
Compressed Air cars usually use a motor ing a car, we might be sharing a car in the to the destination quicker using alterna-
powered by compressed air – or combine near future,” says Prof. Nahar, referring tive routes with the help of GPS.
them with gasoline, diesel, electric or to the concept behind these cars which
ethanol engines – to help gain higher entails that several drivers use a single Augmented Reality System
speeds. France’s MDI plans several such car at different times on a regular basis. Imagine this: you’re driving around a
hybrids to tide over this bug. These designs involve an incredible corner and you can’t see what’s coming
Tata’s vehicle, called the ‘Minicat’, is level of personalization: When you use round the bend; but your car shows you
purely run on an air-compression engine, a swipe card to enter the car, the car the entire scene from behind the wall,
is a zero-emission vehicle and might resets all your personal preferences to even before you’ve reached there.
even be launched this year, as the first optimise your driving experience – and Denso, a car part manufacturer
batch has already completed production this includes the steering wheel, the seat in Japan, along with Yaser Sheikh of
at its Uttarakhand factory in Pantnagar. arrangement and your favourite music. Carnegie Mellon University – and his
The company claims that the vehicle can The team includes three students, viz. team - have been researching a camera
reach a speed of 96 kilometres per hour Sameer Malkhare, Lalit Yaduvanshi and system that enables a driver to see
and cover a range of 300 kilometres on a Gautam Nair. Prof. Nahar hopes that, in through walls. While this is still in the
full tank of air. future, civic administrative bodies may nascent stage, the team hopes to put
even decide to allow such shared vehicles a video processor on the dashboard,
Pneumatic technologies to receive priority on the streets, once which would receive a wireless signal
Cars like Toyota’s Prius and Honda’s they realise their benefits. from a roadside camera and project the
Insight use a petrol engine and braking scene from behind the wall directly on
energy to generate on-board electricity Chameleon Cars your windscreen, preventing the risk
which adds to the power of the vehicle. Using a special treatment called Feint- and bother of having to move your eyes
Engineers led by Prof. Hua Zhao at Paint by the Spanish company Payola from the road to a screen.
Brunel University, West London, Eng- Forlids, BMW’s MINI Chameleon
land, have discovered another way of changes colour with the weather. The The road ahead
adapting a regular petrol engine to run paint on the car is treated with micro- Of course, the question is, whether we’ll
on compressed air. The unique aspect of scopic magnetic iron oxide particles, be able to see any of these contraptions
this technology is that the compressed which, once a minor magnetic field passes in our lifetimes. But then, did you ever
air is generated by using the braking through it, changes colour in a matter dream you’d see battery powered scooters
mechanism. Whenever the car brakes, of seconds. The car is sensitive to both, whizzing around silently on the streets
the pistons compress air and push it temperature as well as moisture. This of Indian cities? Hasn’t GPS – once the
into a compressed-air tank. If this comes should be seen on the streets of Singapore stuff of science fiction – now become an
through, it is sure to lead to greener, sometime soon. integral part of thousands of cars in the
cheaper and healthier cars. developed world? Similarly, several of the
Robotic car companion technologies discussed above are already
Automobile add-ons MIT and Audi have come up with the way beyond the concept stage and are
There’s much more happening on the AIDA (Affective Intelligent Driving already in use by people like you and
automotive innovation front than flying, Agent) which is a robot head set up on me. Don’t be surprised, then, to see your
floating or greening-up. With current your dashboard, with a ‘neck’ that allows neighbour fly his car into his garage, one
digital technology, nanotechnology and it to swivel and laser colour projections fine day. Who knows, you might even
new materials, car designers seem to on its surface to give it expressions. The beat him to it.
30 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Cloudburst The second lap
Scitech 34 Is Google Wave only hype and
is it the only one of its kind? 38 The future of computing - the transformations
and what to expect in the years to come
What makes
a tablet
We look deep inside the Wacom Intuos 4 to
discover how it manages to be both wireless
and battery-free...
Modulator
The modulator acts as a link
between the processor and the
resonance circuit positioned
at the tip of the pen.
Pressure Spring
The spring in the stylus measures the
amount of pressure being put and transmits
that information up to the modulator and
then the processor. Tilt of the pen is also
recorded. A Wacom Intuos4 tablet for
example, can record 2048 levels of pressure.
Coil
The sensor panel generates
Controls a field. The coil within in the
pen oscillates and generates a
In addition to the controls present on
current which is used to power
the stylus itself, the main platform
the stylus when it is brought
on a typical Wacom tablet has a few
within close range of the panel.
controls that can be used to pan and
This is what makes the Wacom
zoom into images in software and
stylus cordless and battery-free.
also to select different levels
32 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Robotics, India and the Future Get up and listen
42 Read how robotics might change the way we live our lives in
the future 45 The future of sound technology has been
here all along How stuff works
The actual sensor circuit and panel
without the outer shell
Processor
The processor in the stylus keeps track of
the pressure levels, the tools being and the
also the switches. It gets this information
and sends back this information through
the modulator.
A closeup of the panel of the
magnetic field generating panel
Switches
The switches are basically the left and
right-click buttons. They are used
to control the brushes in a typical
painting software and also with the
operating system
The different versions of stylus nibs
from Wacom. The one on the extreme
right is one of the newest most compact
ones they’ve ever made.
Magnetic panel
This is the one of the key components
which generates the field and is
connected to your PC. The field both
helps generate power within the
Stylus and also helps in tracking the
location of the stylus. Newer models
from Wacom allow touch using
multiple fingers as well.
A transparent stylus with the pressure
spring, coil and switches in view
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 33
On Dec 17, Intel’s Indian
Nokia’s Booklet 3G, a netbook branch unvieled a prototype 48
launched in the European core processor meant specially
Tomorrow’s Tech markets, runs Windows 7 for cloud computing
Cl udburst
Aditya Madanapalle In fact, the way things are going, services Google’s Chrome OS is
aditya.madanapalle@thinkdigit.com by Google, Microsoft and others will very not even on the horizon,
likely be intercompatible with each other. but the hype has reached
What is Chrome OS?
Chrome OS is Google’s attempt to bring
A demo video of Chrome had a Google
employee quipping of a “new application
an almost rabid frenzy.
it’s minimalistic sensibilities to the for Chrome by Microsoft”, which was Here, we separate the
Operating System. Operating Systems are an online version of Microsoft’s office facts from the faff
designed to run on a wide range of hard- suite. In fact, all the competition is better
ware, support a large number of devices, for Google. Even if there is a netbook books now. Chrome OS is still very much
and run on constantly changing configu- based cloud OS that gets more popular in the development phase, with code
rations. This means that the code used than Chrome OS, Google still stands to being put in regularly. The source code is
for the Operating System generally has benefit, simply because of it’s strong hold available for anyone to download and use.
a ton of checks to utilise each and every over the internet. Chrome OS is open While Chrome OS is not the first cloud
piece of hardware to an optimum level. source, and the reason Google is investing operating system, it is the most widely
This is just in theory, and we all know efforts into it, is that their primary aim publicised, and a hands-on reveals that
how buggy this is in practice. Chrome is to get people online. As long as people there are many things that users will end
is probably one of the few Operating are online, they will probably be using up doing differently.
Systems where everything is stripped a Google service, which
down to the bare essentials. Designed is the reason for a lot of How to get Chrome OS
for a narrow range of hardware, this generosity on Google’s Do you want to test drive Chrome OS for yourself?
compromise is in favour of performance. side, including free Wi-Fi Here is how:
Chrome is designed for the particular access to a lot of American
niche of netbook users who spend most airports. Google is dra- It is best to start with an Ubuntu system.
1
of their time in the clouds. One of the matically not venturing Go to http://www.thinkdigit.com/d/14984/.
primary guiding philosophies of Chrome into some other areas Download the latest source code, which will
is that you are on the internet when you of the web, an example be in a tarball or ZIP archive.
turn your computer on. This explains would be back-end plat-
the almost startling sub 7 second boot forms for cloud applica- Download scripts from the Google Chrome
time (It’s true, we checked), and the fact tions, such as Microsoft’s OS site that let you compile Chrome OS on a
that your Google username is also your
account name on your system. There is
Azure operating system.
At this stage, Chrome
2 USB drive, then boot from it. Complete instruc-
tions are available at http://www.thinkdigit.
almost nothing on the operating system OS is the browser Chrome com/d/83057/.
apart from the Chrome browser. installed on a skeletal
Chrome OS is not a competitor to Ubuntu system, with a Plug in the USB drive to your computer, hit
3 [F12] to enter the boot menu, and select boot
other companies that make Operating few bells and whistles.
System for the netbook segment. Chrome This is all that Chrome from USB drive. Enter your Google account
OS is just one of the many exciting new looks like it will ever be, details.
platforms for Mobile Internet Devices and Chrome is barely an
(MIDs). Moblin, a Linux distribution operating system in the Alternatively, you can search for a pre-com-
by Intel for it’s Atom processor, eyeOS, traditional sense. For the piled Chrome OS disk image, then load the
a cloud-based OS to be distributed with break-in period, Chrome image in a virtual machine such as VirtualBox.
IBM machines from this month, and
Google’s own Android are just some
OS will very likely be
bundled with a “normal”
4 Download a torrent file from http://www.think-
digit.com/d/15730/, and unzip it to a direc-
examples. The web is growing at such OS, either another Linux tory. Then, start up VirtualBox, and choose
a pace that there is enough room for flavour, or with a Win- an existing disk image, and load the file you
everyone, including the smaller players to dows installation, as is downloaded.
get a hold on different aspects of the web. done with Android net-
34 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Bada OS VMware vSphere
Samsung’s new offering for mobile There are a number of enterprise
devices is heavily dependent on Cloud OS being deployed around the
Tomorrow’s Tech Cloud compatibility world, including the vSphere
As soon as you plug i an external
in t l as an OS model is great, but needs a lot
storage device, Chrome OS treats the more to offset the advantages of a tradi-
folder structure as just another web page. tional operating system – the ability to
You can click through the directories, write out a document offline, for example.
and open up any file as long as there is
something on the web that can read the Life in the Clouds
file. As of now, this is not really a lot, the Chrome OS is just a part of a larger trend.
most exotic format that Chrome OS can While a Cloud OS may be a little too pre-
handle is an MP3 file, which it opens mature for the entire planet, the general
The Chrome OS equivalent to the Start Menu, which in a player. Some of the more obscure, direction that Chrome OS is working
is just a web page with glorified hyperlinks or even mundane items does need you towards, is more or less the future. The
to work backwards though. An .xml strict hold over formats and standards
Working on Chrome document will open in the browser itself, that companies enjoyed so far, belongs
Once you login, you get a start menu which for example, but not with an editor web to an age that is passing by the day. Data
is basically an array of different web sites. application. Chrome OS tries to make the intercompatibility and portability will
Conventional web services are treated concept of “downloading” old-fashioned, be important for a lot of reasons, and we
as applications in Chrome. Gmail is an but does not really succeed at it. are likely to see stable, long lasting ways
application at par with Google Docs, a radio Multimedia is a problem as of now, in which to create, store and share data.
streaming service and a flash chess game but between YouTube, Vimeo, Last. Open APIs that everyone can use are a
on a web site. Basically every tab you open fm, Grooveshark, and the tons of other part of this, which ensures that appli-
on a web browser is no longer considered streaming options out there, this should cations to use data and content can be
as a “page” within Chrome OS, and instead not be much of an issue, by the time designed by independent sources. Face-
is a “window”. There is no desktop to speak Chrome OS actually comes into circula- book and Twitter are shining examples of
of, as everything is within the Chrome tion. Serious gaming is outright impos- this trend at the moment. The way things
browser window. The equivalent device sible, unless a dedicated hacker comes are going, it would be relatively simple
for shortcuts or icons are compressed tabs up with some elaborate mechanism (we to drag and drop a photo from a mail
that are always on irrespective of what are sure to see this), but the web is full of attachment into your Facebook profile.
you are doing. Some applications like the flash games for the casual gamer. Keep While an OS based entirely on the cloud
Lala streaming radio and GChat are given in mind the usage scenarios, and the may not be an answer, a more hybrid-
a unique treatment as “panels” that can be kind of devices that Chrome OS is likely ised approach, will not only work, but
minimised when needed. These are always to show up on, and these are not really is already here to some extent. Adobe’s
hovering along the bottom of the screen, major disadvantages. Kuler for example, is a Web 2.0 swatch
to be called when needed. This new way That said, there is not much to get application that works with Adobe’s
of working may seem like it gives you no excited about, unless you are already Creative Suite 4 installed on the desktop.
control, or freedom with your device, but drooling over the Chrome browser, which The lines between what is a web applica-
this is not necessarily a bad thing. would only be possible in a parallel uni- tion and what is a desktop application
You cannot install your own applica- verse without Firefox. The unbelievable has began to blur.
tions on Chrome as yet, as the root folders start-up time is the single most impres- The biggest roadblock to this trans-
remain locked. A Linux OS with the sive thing about Chrome OS. The browser formation is the internet itself. The
Sudoers account disabled is about as world wide web sits on a network of
secure as current technology is going wires almost three decades old now.
to get, so no matter what happens, the These wires use hideously outdated
operating system simply cannot get protocols, and it is here, the back
messed up. This means that the OS end of the web, that needs a major
remains as fast and responsive as it upgrade. The web was meant to be an
was, even over prolonged use, as the academic endeavour, an agent for the
underlying system is not changing at sharing of information. It has grown
all. The flip side is that you will have to to be much more, with the invasion of
depend on the web for providing with e-commerce, social networking, and
all the applications that you need. now full fledged operating systems.
There are some pretty neat web 2.0 The cloud right now really is wisps
applications out there, for everything of data without any real support, The
from photo-editing to audio trans- internet needs to be much more secure
coding, but these are not as fast or as Pinned applications (top left) and Panels in Chrome, before users can move completely into
convinient as the desktop alternatives. minimisable and persistent windows the cloud.
36 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Light computing Future interface
Photonic Computing which will be based on the transfer SixthSense developed by MIT’s Pranav Mistry is a
of photons instead of electrons, is bound to increase the wearable gestural interface that will let us interact
Tomorrow’s Tech speed of computing to unimaginable levels with information using natural hand gestures
The second lap
Sriram Sharma ments. However, given that we live in 2008, Michael Arrington wondered
readersletters@thinkdigit.com India, and only got 3G close to a decade aloud why there wasn’t a $200 “Mac-
after Japan got it, it should be fairly easy book Air-thin touch screen machine
F
orget 2012, and the singu- to predict the future of technlogy in that runs Firefox and possibly Skype
larity. We’re going to try India, by looking at what is happening on top of a Linux kernel. It doesn’t exist
and envision the future of around the world. today, and as far as we can tell no one is
personal computers and tech- creating one.” Arrington later outlined
nology beyond 2015. The future is the past his manifesto and philosophy behind the
To start off with this feature on This is an industry where intellec- $200 CrunchPad. The design, specifica-
future predictions, which will only tual property, software and interface tions and software would be open source,
deal with certainties, we would like to patents, and walled gardens help retain allowing anyone to build one. The last
assure our readers that world is not precarious monopolies. It’s hard not to prototype, sporting a 12-inch capaci-
ending in 2012. NASA, in fact had a be cynical, when you realise that we’re tive touchscreen could run Chrome OS
news release dismissing claims about yet to see a $100 laptop or a Rs. 10,000 and Windows 7, and was expected to be
a phantom planet or galactic alignment Android. Our bandwidth is capped at launched early 2010.
that could bring the end of the world. 10 GB, while countries like Finland have Sadly, in December, Arrington
“Even if these alignments were to occur, declared bandwidth a birthright. declared the project dead, spilling out
their effects on the Earth would be Basically, the future of computing the gory details of “greed, jealousy and
negligible”, says a news release. “Each in India is the past in many developed miscommunication” on TechCrunch.
December the Earth and sun align with countries. com, which has over three million fol-
the approximate centre of the Milky lowers on its RSS feed. He filed a lawsuit
Way Galaxy, but that is an annual event Tablets and touch devices a fortnight later. The CrunchPad is now
of no consequence.” Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, Tucker: reincarnated as JooJoo, and is available
However, it is difficult to gaze into The Man and his Dream tells the tragic for pre-order in the US for $499 from
a crystal ball, and project a grandiose story of a man who tried to take on the Fusion Garage. Hopefully, he will not
vision of future technologies. Five-year big auto companies in the US in the give up, and follow his vision through to
plans are best left to socialist govern- 1940s, but failed spectacularly. In mid- give us a $200 tablet by 2015.
38 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Memory resistor VIS 4D
Memristor technology could lead to computer Ethereal Technologies’ Volumetric Imaging
systems that can remember and associate patterns System or VIS4D can be used by gamers to
in a way similar to humans visualise 3D images in real time without glasses Tomorrow’s Tech
Smartbooks? factor, to prevent it from overlapping Tegra 2 is expected this year. Over
At a recent round-table in Mumbai, with the laptop market. Not everyone is a five year lifecycle, we are also very
NVIDIA’s CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang was in happy with this particular arrangement. likely to see implementations of the
good spirits, reflecting that balloons in Unlike Intel, ARM puts no limitations Cortex A9, which will be produced by
the movie Up wouldn’t brush a certain on the size or form of the products that AMD’s spinoff GlobalFoundries. These
are made using it. The Tegra, five will power not just touch-based smart
years in the making is based on phones and tablets, but netbooks and
the ARM11 core. “We wanted to laptops as well. While these devices will
create a computer that is as good offer an entirely new user experience
at 1/50th the power”, said Jen- compared to Windows PCs or Apple
Hsun Huang. Macs, they will be able to run Google’s
Crystal gazing into the future Chrome OS, and store data on a cloud.
of handhelds/netbooks, or at least They will boot in seconds, always be
the processors that power them is connected – either via inbuilt 3G or
not that difficult. The ARM 11 SOC wireless connectivity – and have a much
(system on a chip), which powers longer battery life. And you don’t have to
a majority of Android devices and every worry about backing up your data.
the original Apple iPhone, was
first announced in 2003. In Anand Interfaces
Shimpi’s column titled Core In a TED talk about simplicity and
Values, he explains that the Cortex design. NY Times columnist David Pogue
A8, which debuted in 2005, took mentions how Palm Inc. used to have
four years to be incorporated into an employee whose job designation was
In case you’re lost, use Layar a product, first on the iPhone 3GS that of a “tap counter” – to ensure that all
and Palm Pre. It takes time, because their applications achieve their desired
way, if it weren’t for NVIDIA’s contribu- ARM does not manufacture processors outcome in three taps. Of late, everyone
tion to graphics technology. None of the like AMD or Intel, but licenses its design seems to have embraced this aesthetic.
journalists present were willing to ques- to players like Texas Instruments, Sam- However, two companies, Swype and
tion that statement. sung, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA, who make First Else, have come up with new inter-
On that particular day, Intel had just their own customised SoCs. face designs this year that seem like the
agreed on an out-of-court settlement, to a We can safely predict a new product next evolutionary leap. In terms of speed
lawsuit filed by AMD, for a sum of $1.25 lineup called smartbooks this year, with and elegance, they leave the iPhone, the
billion. Jen-Hsun opined that when com- emphasis on touch-based computing, holy grail of UI design in the dust.
pared to the profits Intel made during the The First Else phone
period of the lawsuit, it was the equivalent has been made by an
of paying for a parking ticket. Israeli design house and
On display at the meeting were a draws comparisons to
wide variety of Tegra-based devices – sci-fi user interfaces seen
e-book readers, smartphones, netbooks, in Minority Report, Fifth
and a large touch tablet. “The beauty of Element, and Terminator.
low-power design is that the form factor The device does away
can be exquisite. The hi-def movie was with icons, and tries to
streaming off a tiny Mobinova netbook. adapt to you, instead of
It can play hi-def movies for 12 hours, the other way around.
and gives week long battery life other- One just slides the finger,
wise”, Jen-Hsun said. letting the menu options
The netbook has been attributed as fan out. The highlighted
an Asian innovation. Starting from the Processor cores are increasing by the day item gets selected once
EEE PC, it has provided a low-power you lift your finger. The
and low-cost computing option to a large and as a communications tool with data radial fan-like menu spreads out options
section of society, and is currently avail- stored on a cloud. At less than Rs. 10,000, based on thumb position, contacts are
able for $300 to $600. This platform has these will be cheaper than Intel’s Atom sorted by call frequency, First Else also
been dominated by Intel so far, who have netbooks, or in a different usage model, claims to provide cross platform search,
also broadly defined the specifications likely to be bundled free with a wireless and backs up all your contacts and infor-
and limitations of a device of this form internet telecom service provider. mation on the cloud.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 39
Atomic computers Future data storage
A group of researchers going by the name Nanotechnology Holographic data storage is an emerging technology
Dream Team say they will unveil a revolutionary computer which will enable high density storage of data (500
Tomorrow’s Tech made out of atoms on November 1st, 2011 Gbit/in) and faster data transfer speeds
Here’s how it works: Starting able energy to power their infrastruc-
up the Layar application auto- ture. These will be consumers who will
matically activates the camera. drive a shift in performance metrics and
The embedded GPS automatically the benchmarks being used. Homes and
knows the location of the phone, offices that run on green or renewable
and the compass determines in energy would care very much about a
which direction the phone is facing. monitor that uses 20 per cent less power
Each partner provides a set of than its contemporaries.
location coordinates with relevant We are also likely to see more environ-
information, which forms a digital mentally conscious components that will
layer that is presented on the phone. be free of mercury, arsenic, PVC and BFR.
“Eventually, the physical and the Some of the leading consumer electronics
virtual worlds will
become one,” said
Raimo van der
Klein, co-founder
of SPRXmobile.
First Else has a convenient “thumb-based” interface Layar derives
information from
Swype, a Seattle-based company has a variety of loca-
launched a new way to type on touch- tion based services – the
screen phones without ever lifting your developer SPRXmobile
finger. You just slide your finger across has partnered with local
the letters at top speed. The software banks, a realty web site,
was created by the inventor of the T9 a social networking web
predictive typing system, and is able to site, an employment Reduction in packaging
predict what word you are typing by agency, and a healthcare
tracing your path and the letters that provider to provide their location coordi- companies try to make products that
come under your slashes and swipes. nates and other information. Technically, are recyclable. Many of them collect a
In a comparison video on YouTube, the any mobile phone with a camera, GPS product after its lifecycle, and take care of
Swype-enabled Samsung Omnia II beats and compass should be able to do the its reuse and disposal.
the iPhone by a healthy margin. The web same. The company has opened up its The gigahertz race pushed the power
site claims that one is able to achieve an platform for developers, to enable third consumption of desktop processors to out-
unheard of speed of 40 words a minute parties to create and publish digital layers rageous levels, but lately, power efficiency
on touch screen devices. For us Indians, within the Layar mobile application. has been given the emphasis it deserves.
this will probably mean entering our To a fair extent, computer manufacturers
unique names into the dictionary by Greener pastures have begun to close in on the gap between
tapping traditionally, before we will be Neal R. Armstrong, professor at the
able to Swype. It’s releasing on Android US-based University of Arizona,
phones next year. which does a lot of research on solar
power said this about the world’s
Reality++ most popular music player: “You
Mobile Augmented Reality is already burn about a quarter of a pound of
a reality in the Netherlands. An coal per charge of your lithium ion
Amsterdam-based company, SPRXmo- battery, and you generate about half
bile, has come up with an application a pound of CO2 per charge, per bat-
called Layar – a mobile augmented reality tery, per day.” Apparently the room
browser that currently works on the got really silent after he said that.
Android and the iPhone. It displays real Laptops will soon offer you
time digital information on top of the three hours of battery life, some
reality that the mobile camera sees. While will give seven to ten, others
looking through the phone’s camera lens, promise a week. Even if consumers
a user can pan around the landscape, and aren’t interested in going green, it
look for houses for sale, restaurants, jobs, is likely that we will see increased
healthcare providers and ATMs. adoption by people who use renew- Ready for use
40 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Future of gaming Nanotech batteries
The Emotiv EPOC headset is a Brain Computer Researchers at Maryland Nanocentre have developed
Interface (BCI) device that will let gamers play games a nanotech battery that has a storage capacity, 10
by mind control techniques times more efficient than present day technologies Tomorrow’s Tech
power and power efficiency by developer showing a demo of the
making their desktops more application on YouTube. It’s the
a
energy efficient when idle. world’s first application to make
Energy consumption is mobile video calls over Internet
m
coming down across the board protocol (IP). The company has
p
and is not just relegated to the a history of bringing free calls
CPU powering your system. and Twitter over the Internet for
a
Google.org, a philanthropic phones, and Fring works with any
branch of Google is developing kind of internet connection – 3G,
k
PowerMeter, which taps into Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE &WiMax.
W
smart meters and helps track “We have a responsibility to
energy consumption through continue breaking the mobile-
c
PCs and smartphones. The Internet barriers” said Avi
service will eventually be rolled Shechter, CEO of Fring.
S
out in India through Reliance Fring also supports iPhone/
who have partnered with them iPod touch, Android, and Win-
i
this year. According to Google’s dows Mobile handsets, but will
d
Ed Lu, they aim to save a “socially roll
r out similar features for these
relevant amount of energy” platforms at a later date. We
p
through these means. wonder how it will work on them
w
without a front facing camera.
Mobile-internet We are very excited about Fring, the We are also looking forward to number
Rumours of Symbian’s death have been unified mobile app that can be used to portability, which will be rolled out
greatly exaggerated. Nokia made an conduct video calls with other users this year in India. That should give
announcement recently that they would on Skype using the phone’s Wi-Fi or consumers the freedom to opt out of
be working on only one Linux (Maemo) 3G connection for free. “This is a two- an operator that has a “non-fringing
phone a year, so Symbian remains. way video call!” says an enthusiastic service” plan.
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Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 41
From the labs
Prof. Prahlad Vedakkapet
readersletters@thinkdigit.com
The Robotic Age
The world around us is constantly
evolving in unprecedented ways, at an
unimaginable speed. The robotic age,
something we’re used to reading about
in science fiction is finally becoming a
reality. The result? Hopefully, a robot in
every house. Robots have a long history,
from fictional characters (Isaac Asimov’s
novels and motion pictures), to industrial
robots and mobile robots.
Industrial robots have taken a long
stride and are well established, but newer
domains and research has got most of the
limelight. Roboticists are now taking
the robots out of their fixed base
(industrial applications) and are
imparting mobility and intelligence.
There are a number of mobile robots
deployed in the real world.
Robotics is an exciting, multi-discipli-
nary area that integrates intelligent con-
trol, communications, computer vision,
mechatronics, sensor fusion, design and
many other aspects on a single platform.
Although the vast majority of robots
today are used in factories, advances in
technology enable robots to automate
many tasks in non-manufacturing indus-
tries such as agriculture, construction,
health care and other services.
India is now emerging as a destination are venturing into this space. The Indian cerned. A large volume of work centred
for the production of industrial robots. In manufacturing arena is poised to grow around these domains is outsourced
fact, the size of the Indian robotics market larger in the coming decades, thereby to India. Being an agrarian society, our
is large with sales figures hovering increasing the demand for robotic solu- nation has opportunities in automating
around Rs. 3,500 crores. Most of this tions. As far as the industry is concerned, agricultural related activities.
(around 70 per cent), is in the automo- India contributes significantly as far Industrial robotics is mature as a tech-
tive industry. The robotics industry in as research / intellectual property (IP) nology, and is well established. However,
India is expected to grow substantially generation to converting LISP codes to the mobile robotics space is expected to
in the years to come. Several new players C codes for industrial robots is con- witness significant growth in the coming
42 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Unimates Robotics
Karel Capek In the early ‘50s, George Devol The word first appeared in 1942
The Czech writer who first used the and Joe Engleberger created the in the short story “Runaround”
word “Robot” in the 1921 play RUR first modern industrial robot by Isaac Asimov From the labs
years along with social / interactive, in our daily life sharing our space and The CREO
consumer and medical robots. resources (power, bandwidth and space). The Mechatronics and Automation
Mobile robots are utilised in indus- Nature has shown the way where the laboratory of National University of
trial, military and security environments. most successful species on this planet has Singapore developed this humanoid
There are several consumer robots meant two legs. And, the robots that may have to robot, and supports a wide range of
for entertainment purposes, and some live with us in due course of time should research in robotics, including intelligent
designed to perform certain domestic preferably be two legged, or else, we’ll system, image processing, kinematics and
tasks such as floor cleaning. Autonomous have to redesign our living space to suit dynamics, real-time control system, wire-
robots with reasoning capabilities and wheeled robots. less communication and energy efficiency
the ability to move around freely will The most challenging issue with in biped locomotion. CREO stands tall at
be in demand in the coming decades. humanoids is balancing on two legs. 540 mm with 26 degrees of freedom.
Designing autonomous mobile robots Humans are capable of doing all kinds A double knee joint configuration
in any meaningful degree has become of acrobatics with two legs. We have based on closed kinematics is utilised.
possible only with the recent surge in muscles to assist us in coordinating The actuators can be configured with dif-
computational, communications and various activities and the body is flexible. ferent response profiles to fully maximise
sensing technologies. Teams of smart Research along material science (flexible motion efficiency and effectiveness. The
micro-robots could do regular mainte- body, muscles, actuators), nano tech- actuators use the daisy chain network
nance in nuclear power plants and other nology (smaller and lighter sensors and topology. The humanoid sparks an open
hazardous environments.
Personal robots will change our
lifestyle altogether by assisting us in
our disabilities and nursing us in sick-
ness. Artificial dogs or robot-pets with
emotions can soothen many, especially
children, and the aged and disabled.
While all this is exciting to experi-
ence, behind the scenes, there are several
issues that crop up – where am I (posi-
tional information), where should I go
(situation awareness and target identifi-
cation), what should I do (target identifi-
cation, object manipulation and reactive
capabilities). These are issues that should Robots (and humans) enjoying a game of soccer
be addressed.
When it comes to real-world opera- actuators), computational intelligence architectural platform in which the
tional conditions of mobile robots, the (fuzzy logic, neural-networks, learning processors can be customised. It is armed
level of accuracy is also important. The – genetic algorithms, evolutionary algo- with a 1.3-MP camera and an inertia
most advanced species on this planet rithms), should be assimilated into and measurement unit consisting of a three-
(humans) perform well out there with mastered to design better systems. axis accelerometer and two-axis gyro.
less precision and accuracy. Of course, it Traditionally, humanoid robots are
is desirable to have mobile robots that are GENUS often built with a lower centre of gravity
capable of pin-point accuracy, which will This 21 degrees of freedom humanoid robot (for better stability performance) and
depend on the application areas. Human is marketed by Robhatah Robotic Solutions, larger foot. CREO has a foot-body ratio
capabilities around “tracking” and “fol- Bangalore. A single DSP-based controller closer to that of the humans and higher
lowing” are commendable, though preci- board drives the servos. A camera, acceler- centre of gravity. A great deal of studies
sion and accuracy are not major concerns ometer and digital compass are connected can be conducted in CREO on generating
as we are comfortable in continuously to the DSP board for sensory feedback. motion similar to that of a human in
adjusting our actions. There is a long way The on-board accelerometer is used as a terms of dynamics, control and stability
to go in bringing robots to the level of tilt sensor that allows the robot to detect performance since the physical system is
human-like capabilities. a fall or dive and autonomously recover now closer to that of a human (ratio and
back into an upright standing posture. weight distribution aspects).
Humanoids Trajectory-based gaits for the humanoid is
We have built the environment that is generated in real time by reading prede- Cooperative robotics
suitable for two-legged systems. It is fined joins data and interpolate using cubic Cooperation / coordination among mem-
predicted that robots will be with us polynomial trajectory planning. bers was so much the need of the hour,
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 43
Kevin Warwick
Check out the Robots in Love album in The Cybernetics professor who calls
the DVD by Bertycox which explores himself the world’s first cyborg, with
From the labs the world from the eyes of a robot computer chips implanted in his left arm
as they had to compete with have played an important role There are opportunities in industrial
other (hostile) communities. in pushing technologies leading robotics space for further development
Present industrial systems to a number of technology starts specific to Indian requirements and
are more complex and ups. The FIRA Robot World Cup expansions along manufacturing. Mobile
multiple mobile robots are increasingly and Congress Bangalore 2010 (www.fira. robotics is relatively new, and has higher
preferred. Multiple mobile robots are not in) is expected to
spatially constrained and performance act as a catalyst in
benefits are manifold. Robots/agents these directions
equipped with knowledge, motivations, where the advance-
reasoning and planning capabilities may ments in robotics
communicate each other and, share data will be showcased.
and information. Cooperation protocol FIRA India aims to
by distributed control, effective commu- propagate and popu-
nication and fault tolerance while having larise robotics and
efficiency of cooperation, adaptation international-level
and robustness are some of the research robotic competitions
directions associated with multi-robot / across India. The
agent systems. objective of the com- Due to the restricted growth in recent times, robotics, as a sector is expected to
petition is to promote witness an exponential growth rate
Robot soccer the spirit of science
The robot soccer platform serves as and technology among the younger gen- potential growth in the coming decades,
a test bed to study and research on eration. It serves to bring together skilled where a variety of applications right from
the issues pertaining to cooperative researchers and students from different consumer products to medical robotics
mobile robots. A robot team backgrounds to challenge one another in are expected to usher in avenues.
needs to coordinate its developing better robots for technologies Higher education in India is often
actions while com- of the future. neglected and as a result, there’s an acute
peting with another Robotic soccer competitions have shortage of skilled man power in spe-
team. The robot emerged as benchmark problems for cialised areas, especially in the robotics
soccer system also the integration of several technologies and intelligent systems industry. The
has an explicit per- required to build sophisticated autono- number of institutions imparting
formance measure, mous robots. These competitions are courses related to robotics design is
the match score. meant to stimulate research and serve as limited in India. According to a recent
Cooperation, a platform for the exchange of ideas for NASSCOM study, 75 per cent of Indian
decision making, the researchers involved. We’ve set 2050 engineers are not employable and IT
planning, model- as our target to pitch a team of human- firms reject about 90 per cent of Indian
ling, learning, oids against humans to play graduates. The employability
robot architecture, the game of football. Although of graduates is directly related
vision tracking many of us are sceptical of this to the quality of education,
algorithm, sensing deadline, primarily because availability of state-of-the-art
and communication are some technology is yet to reach facilities and the assessment
of the directions of study. the needed threshold for this methodologies adopted.
Organisations such as FIRA to materialise. What these Timely reforms in the educa-
(www.fira.net) are promoting deadlines do, is help us work tional sector can assist India to
robot soccer as a competitive towards its accomplishment ride the robotics wave and to
platform to push technology. and push ourselves. position better. Japanese and
Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat,
In robot soccer, teams have PhD
Korean domestic robotic mar-
to coordinate and compete The path ahead www.vadakkepat.com
PhD, MTech (IIT Madras),
kets are able to sustain their
while chasing an indivisible We expect robots will be utilised BTech (Hons.) Calicut University. growths from within. Gov-
Fellow IETE, Senior Member IEEE
resource (the ball). Robot in the 21st century for household Associate Professor Electrical and ernmental support and push
soccer, therefore, is a bench- applications. This will pave Computer Engineering National along niche areas of research
University of Singapore; Director,
mark problem to study the way for advanced robotic Robhatah Robotic Solutions; in interactive and intelligent
Member, National Committee on
various issues along coordination / coop- technologies to dominate in the Robotics; Confederation of Indian robotic systems can help India
eration and competition, giving insights 21st century. Some day, personal Industries; General Chair, FIRA
Robot World Cup and Congress
to position itself better and to
into problems in social / life sciences. robots will be as popular as Bangalore 2010; General Secretary, tap into the immense potential
Federation of International Robot-
International robotic competitions personal computers! soccer Association. that lay ahead.
44 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Nimish Chandiramani conversation, someone brought up
readersletters@thinkdigit.com this crazy idea: instead of using
ten big speakers and hoping that
f you haven’t spent as much they’re loud enough to cover the
I time obsessing about sound
as you have in the pursuit of
the best HD (or not) picture in
the last few years, you are forgiven.
For whatever reason, the sound
Get
entire auditorium, why not just
use a hundred smaller speakers all
around the auditorium? This way,
you don’t wake the neighbours,
and you give everyone — even the
technology we’ve come in contact
with reached the level of “good
enough” some years ago, and that’s
where we’ve stopped. Case in
up and cheapskates in the back — a better
overall experience. Win-win. It’s
highly possible that this someone
threw the idea at the scientists at
listen
point: performances. the Fraunhofer Institute, because
The concept of surround sound at CeBIT 2007, we saw it in action.
and multiple-channel audio has
been...well...surrounding us since IOSONO
the 1940s, with Disney’s Fantasia. In its physical form, Fraunhofer’s
And now we have the technology, IOSONO technology is exactly
so here we are. And this is the Spoiler Warning: what we just described: a contin-
story with rock concerts too. We’ve the future of sound uous band of small speakers
been up close and personal with technology has been running along all four walls.
the sound setups at our share of
performances, and for all their
here all along The result, however, is the
most immersive experience
sophistication, they really just boil we’ve ever had, including
down to “put speakers in room, all the expensive tech we’ve
and turn up the volume”. been around in these offices.
But a few years ago — some- Also — and this is more
where near Mark Knopfler’s per- significant than one would
formance in Mumbai — in a casual think — we could walk up
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 45
Wafer-thin Speakers
To work with IOSONO, Fraunhofer also developed speakers Audeo
that can use walls as an integral part of the system and can A neckband that will read neural impulses on their
From the labs be constructed with thin panels way to vocal cords, and generate speech for you
to the speakers and not have our ears
blown off. If you’ve ever walked up near
the speakers at a club or concert, you’ll
appreciate this.
IOSONO’s secret is the big sweet
spot — unlike traditional sound setups,
you get the best audio experience all
over the stadium, rather than the tiny,
centre-of-the-hall sweet spot we hunt for
all the time.
Perhaps we must dial back a bit and You, in the sweet spot
elaborate a little more on this sweet spot
business. But first...
The wavefront
We hear sound because of the distur- You, Not in the sweet spot
bances it creates in the air around our
ears. If you think about this in slow
motion, you can picture the sound
leaving a speaker in expanding spheres:
These spheres are called wavefronts,
and when you’re in their way, you hear
sound. And sound gets less intense with
distance, so you want to be an “optimal”
distance from the speaker — too close Most people watch their movies and concerts from outside the sweet spot
and your eyeballs may burst, too far
and, well, why bother? We’re building this sweet spot is usually tiny — you a new multiplex in a crowded metro,
up to a point here... may be one of only ten people in a it is possible to use an array of smaller
theatre getting the full experience. speakers and a mathematical algorithm
The sweet spot There’s a bit of advice you didn’t or two to simulate that same wavefront,
Picture yourself in, say, a movie theatre. expect from this article — when you’re just inches away from you.
The speakers, like your household 5.1 headed to the movies, pick seats in the Creating the simulated wavefront
system (if you are in such a household), centre of the theatre.
are placed on the four corners of the Obviously, if more of us are to
room, and right in front with the screen. enjoy our outings, we must all be in
Each of these speakers is sending out the sweet spot. One option, would have
sound in wavefronts, and at the point been to place speakers really far from
where the wavefronts for all these the audience space. In an alternate
speakers meet, you get to experience universe, maybe they do have enough
all the goodness of 5.1-channel audio — real estate to do that. In our world, we
you’re in a “sweet spot”. Unfortunately, must find another way. It’s called wave
field synthesis.
The simulation
Imagine this: you’re about ten feet away
from a large speaker, looking (hypo-
thetically) at the wavefront. This may The array of speakers (in front) can create a wavefront
be the optimal non-eyeball-melting-but- that simulates the effect of a speaker far behind
still-loud-enough distance, but what if is simple enough. The speaker in the
you don’t have ten feet to spare? What centre starts emitting sound first, the
if you live in a high-rent dingy studio in ones on either side next, and so on. And
the wrong part of the wrong metropolis, there you are — if the speakers simu-
cursing your sad, pathetic...sorry, some- late the wavefronts at the sweet spot,
times we get carried away. Anyway, suddenly the sweet spot becomes every
Yes, there’s a reason volume icons look like this when you’re pressed for space, like say, spot that’s at least six inches away from
46 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Nanotubes WebEar Headphones
Like so much else, Carbon Nanotubes may end Andy Kurovets and Kris Dekeijser have
up in speakers of the future, letting even laptop designed a futuristic headphone that
speakers dish out loud, concert-like music doubles up as a webcam From the labs
The sound wave for “Something”, by The Beatles, from its original(ish) form in 1983, to what it became by 2000. You’ll notice that not only has the song
been made much louder, but it’s been boosted disproportionately. The original has a few quiet and a few not-so-quiet bits, which have now been turned into
annoyingly loud or annoyingly slightly-less-loud
the wall. And the big selling point here dumping entire music collections on in the bar/café/establishment-of-your
is that this works even with regular 5.1 to a PMP and still have place left over. choice was drowning out the song. And
audio as well, so it even makes business Our experiences with audio, on the so they decided to make “hot” masters
sense. Right. Here we are, then. other hand, haven’t changed in decades. — recorded audio whose volume is arti-
Whether today or in 1979, there’s only ficially boosted to make them stand out
Interlude one way to bring a “concert experience” more when they’re played. This came
We don’t normally do this, but permit home — get the music in its purest form to be regarded as a really good idea,
us, if you will, to get up on our soapbox (no, not by kidnapping the band), put it so they kept doing it. We’ve laboured
and yell for a bit. You see, as the begin- through the best equipment money can under the impression that the audio on
ning of this article plainly suggests, the buy (ideally the kind that the studios CDs is as good as it gets, but in reality,
“future” of technology already exists. own), and turn up the volume. With they’re shining examples of artificially
With lossless formats like FLAC, and IOSONO, our concert experience may loud music — the boosted track requires
gigabytes of space available for peanuts, come closer to the experience of being in less digital space, and so it made sense
it’s entirely possible for us to enjoy the studio with the artist. And if you can to use this technique to cram in as many
music exactly as the artists recorded it. set up an IOSONO system at home, you songs as possible.
You’ll have to part with many months can bring that experience home as well. The worst part is that even though
worth of family income, but it’s there. But the real problem — the rotten the audio CD, for all practical purposes,
We don’t get to enjoy this because of banana skin that even the most agile is dead, this practice continues. So even
good old human idiocy. technology will slip on — is what’s though you can get yourself the best
Here’s how we got the idea for a known as the “loudness war”. At some equipment, the old garbage-in-garbage-
“future of sound” article: we’ve gone point in the jukebox era, recording out rule applies, and all that money
from CRT monitors to 22-inch HD industry executives decided that would be spent for naught.
capable screens in almost no time. We’ve consumers were such brain-dead twits But does this matter? When we take
gone from lugging around CDs and a that they couldn’t be asked to get up into account economics, the demands of
portable CD player in a backpack, to and turn up the volume when the noise consumers, and other such factors that
have nothing to do with technology, we
come to one key phrase...
THE AUDIO SPOTLIGHT
Since we have already touched The basic principle is this: instead Good enough
on the subject of performance of transmitting audible sound waves, If you, like so many of us, like your
audio, we should also men- transmit ultrasound waves that will music in your pocket while you travel,
tion another form of audio in degenerate in the air in such a way do you really think — even with
public places — obnoxious that they turn into regular sound sound-cancelling headphones — that
public advertising. If you’ve waves by the time they reach your you’ve ever cared that the music is
been in a mall or supermarket ears. This degeneration can be con- artificially “enhanced”? Or do you
and heard the repeated wail An audio spotlight prototype trolled quite precisely, too. just kick back and enjoy? A sound-
of an announcement or adver- by the Kakamura Laboratory Ultrasonic waves are directional gasm may be highly desirable, but
tisement you didn’t really care at the University of Electro- — they don’t get transmitted eve- its lack isn’t really going to tear the
Communications, Japan
about, you’ll be interested to rywhere, just in the direction the world in two. If you can get joy out of
know that it’s possible they’ll speaker is pointing in. This means sound without caring what bitrate it’s
be obsolete soon. that you could sit right in front of your TV and reaching you at, then you probably
Like most audio innovations, the “audio watch your soaps on full blast, while the rest of aren’t even bothered about what this
spotlight” has been around for ages — in fact, your family could sit as little as a foot to your right article is saying.
we read about it in Digit way back when we and not hear a thing, leaving them free to think If we demand great technology, it
were readers ourselves. about what a disappointment you’ve become. may or may not come.At least there’ll
always be great music.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 47
DTH Comparison
Unscrambled advice
With so many DTH operators vying for your attention, how do you choose?
R
ecently, in some times, that we wouldn’t mind asked the Digit reader com- cast satellite to the consumer’s
areas of Mumbai, hiring a consultant to spew out munity what they felt about dish, it can reach remote places.
customers have a solution suited for our needs. the various players out there. With the widespread imple-
a choice when it There are various factors one We conducted an online survey mentation of CAS (Conditional
comes to basic utility service needs to consider when making where we asked readers to rate Access System) throughout the
providers. Even when it come a choice about DTH providers. their DTH service on each of country, DTH is a good alterna-
to their electric supply, which First, there is the question of the parameters mentioned. But tive. As of now, there are pri-
has for long been public sector whether a cable set-top box is before we get to them, let’s iron marily six main players in this
controlled, consumers can now sufficient for you. Next, when out some of the basics. space with Videocon being the
choose between two providers, you’ve decided to go in for DTH, youngest entrant. Each player
and many are exercising that there are various factors one The DTH story has more popularity in certain
new found freedom. So when needs to consider like picture DTH can be defined simply zones. For instance, Sun with
it comes to cable TV enter- quality, transmission during as the transmission mode by its bouquet of south Indian
tainment, naturally we will rough weather, how suitable which satellite TV program- channels is strong in the south.
tend to be more picky. With are the package bouquets, ming can be received at home. As of late 2008, Dish TV had
several new entrants in the pricing, and, of course, value It began in India, a few years about 59 per cent market share
market, the already crowded added services. ago, with Dish TV who was followed by TataSky. But within
Direct To Home (DTH) space Since the services are awarded the country’s first three months of its launch, Reli-
now has more than enough dependent on signal strength, DTH licence in 2003 and began ance BIG TV gained 15 per cent
contenders; namely, Dish TV, geographical variances have to operations in 2004. DTH is of the share.
TataSky, BigTV, Airtel Digital, be considered. If a particular the primary alternative if you
Sun Direct and Videocon d2h. provider has excellent recep- don’t want to depend on local Key parameters
The battle is getting fierce, tion in one area it may not nec- cable operators, who, let’s face In the current scenario, DTH
while the consumer is spoilt essarily be the same elsewhere. it, have a lot of problems when players are offering a host of
for choice. Who’s complaining? When it comes to choosing it comes to service delivery. services to attract consumer
More choice means more DTH providers, some go strictly Tier 2 and 3 towns frequently attention. Here are some of the
confusion. So many players, by price – the cheapest being face Cable TV outages and features you should consider
so many packages, so many the default winner. But most breakdowns and service is not before you decide which service
plans – how does one choose? people go by what their friends dependable. Since DTH signals provider you would opt for,
It’s so overwhelming some- and relatives have to say. We come directly from the broad- from the ever growing list.
48 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Framing anyone?
Macroblocking is a glitch where DTH losses How old is TV?
the smooth video flow temporarily Sun Direct suffers huge losses between the The first successful public television broadcast
dissolves into blocks August - October period happened in January 1928 in the USA DTH Comparison
Picture quality another add-on package to the PACKAGE PRICING AT A GLANCE
A DTH service is only as good base pack to make it more com- Package No of channels Cost per month
as the picture quality you get. prehensive. Others have fixed Titanium pack 193 332.5
Some players offer MPEG4 plans according to different Child pack 190 165
picture quality, while others prices of the packages. Dish TV, Platinum 190 312
offer DVD quality digital trans- for example, has plans such as Gold 165 210
mission. A newer standard Silver, Gold and Platinum. In Silver 145 125
is the MPEG4 with DVB-S2 addition to these, providers South Platinum 190 312
which stands for Digital Video allow you to add channels à South Gold 155 190
Broadcasting - Second Gen- la carte (order on an itemised South Silver 145 125
eration. This standard was basis). For instance there may + à la carte channels that can be added to any pack
developed at about the same be a movies à la carte add-on that Gold Pack 125 150
time as the H.264 video codec. will activate few foreign movie Diamond Pack 165 275
The standard has provision channels. Almost each DTH + Add-ons ranging from Rs. 5 to Rs. 60 that can be added to any of the
for HD quality, but it has to be provider has special packs for base packs
implemented. It also allows for the southern region that has Super Value 110 127
enhanced interactive services packs specifically designed New Value 118 160
with access to the internet. to include regional language Economy 155 221
Only the outgoing data needs channels. Another option is Mega 177 304
to be sent by other transmission the all encompassing package. Ultra 184 364
methods. Currently, going by In such a package, DTH pro- +Top ups from Rs 15 to Rs 75 that can be loaded on to any of the
information on their web sites, viders will give you all chan- packages
only Airtel and Videocon offer nels available for a lump sum Value Pack 81 90 + Taxes
MPEG4 with DVB-S2. amount. These packs are given Bronze Pack 111 135 + Taxes
grandiose names such as Mega- Silver Pack 123 180 + Taxes
Packages Pack or Titanium Package. On Gold Pack 138 225 + Taxes
Each DTH provider has pack- an average, the monthly charges Diamond Pack 152 270 + Taxes
ages with channels bundled for such a mega pack comes to Platinum Pack 156 315 + Taxes
together. This seems unfair, about Rs. 350. Depending on the + Add on packs from Rs 25 to Rs 40
since you should be able to provider they will even throw Super Hit Pack 63 160
pay for only those channels in a couple of free movies on Super Value Pack 103 200
that you want. But it’s a small demand and perhaps access to Super Value Kids Pack 104 225
price to pay for digital quality active services. The mega packs Super Saver Pack 124 275
and value added services. give the most value for money + Add on packs Rs 15 to Rs 112 + three à la carte channels
The base pack of almost when it comes to a price per Shine Pack + 1 free top up 130 120
every provider contains free- channel. However, if you don’t North Jumbo Pack 30 300
to-air channels and a few want to go in for jumbo schemes, + 41 Add on packs from Rs 6 to Rs 155 + à la carte channels
other channels thrown in. The you need to prioritise which
first level of categorisation in channels are most important. chase decision, the number of User Interface
packages happen in two large The simplest way to do this is to channels offered is not as impor- The user interface is impor-
geographies – South-specific make a list of the channels you tant as the relevance of those tant. You’ll be using it to
packages and Rest of India want, and go ahead with the channels and whether you’re interact with your service.
packages. Some providers like service or package that gives getting the desired combination The Electronic Program-
TataSky schemes are struc- you most of them for the least in a pack. There are even inter- ming Guide (EPG) helps you
tured in a way that you can add amount. While looking at a pur- esting entry offers by the DTH navigate through all the pro-
providers which include the grams you can watch. Some
cost of installing and the hard- EPGs allow you to narrow
ware. In the entry offers, these down channels as per genre.
providers bundle a particular BIG TV’s guide, for example,
package for free in the initial allows you to reorder channels
months. To make sure you’re alphabetically or as per num-
getting your desired channels, bers. Videocon offers the inter-
it’s best to look through listings face in multiple languages and
on the provider’s web site and allows you to customise the
Market share and market composition as per our survey respondents brochures carefully. on-screen display to a certain
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 49
Get into the action
Sony and FIFA plan to film and Wii like Sony
broadcast the 2010 Football World Sony expected to launch motion
DTH Comparison Cup in 3D controller in Spring 2010 for PS3 Slim
extent. The more players source latest content, a button without moving away
user-friendly while others show movies from the main screen.
the interface the that are not as recent.
better. The inter- Survey findings
face should let you Interactive services We asked members of the Digit
access a lot of infor- Many providers with the community to rate their DTH
mation in a compre- exception of Sun Direct service on a scale of 1 to 5 on
hensive manner. offer interactive services. a few parameters such as Pic-
There are sev- These services let you ture Quality, Overall reception
eral things that interact with the TV. For quality, Package composition
go into this – brief example, while watching and structuring, Pricing and
write ups available a cooking show, there may Value Added services. They
about upcoming pro- be a pop up which says were even asked to comment on
grammes, how far press the red button to see specifics that appeal to them as
ahead does the guide other such recipes. users and their thoughts while
show updates, does at scheduled start times. choosing a particular DTH
the guide show what is cur- These schedules can be Widgets-based data provider. Big, Dish and Airtel
rently playing (preview), and accessed through the service Some DTH providers such as received the highest number of
so on. interface or some DTH opera- Dish source content from online votes for being chosen based
tors even put it up on their sources like matrimonial or on pricing.
Movies on Demand web sites. It’s important to job services. Others like Airtel We also got an idea of which
With DTH comes the added note here that the number of allow you to set up widgets that services are more popular. As
advantage of playing movies channels showing movies on give information and news snip- expected, TataSky was the
on demand. There are specific demand is not as important pets, weather, stock updates, most popular and formed the
channels where movies play as the kind of movies. Some breaking news on the press of largest part of the respondents.
FEATURE SNAPSHOT
TataSky Dish TV BIG TV Airtel Digital Sun Direct Videocon d2h
Quality – MPEG4 DVD DVD Yes Yes Yes Yes
DVB-S2 No No No Yes No Yes
Interactive Services Actve Topper Gaming iStock iNet NA Active Darshan*
Actve Learning News Active iCricket iLearn Active Cooking*
Actve Stories Bhakti Active iAstro iNews Active Travel*
Actve Mall Astro Active iCooking iMatinee Active Health & Fitness*
Actve English ICICI Active iCare iTravel
Actve Wizkids Sports Active iGames iAstro
Actve Games Multilingual Services iNews iSports
Actve Darshan Shaadi Active
Actve Cooking Jobs Active
Actve Astrology Travel Active
Actve Starnews Mobile Active
Base Pack + Add on Base package + Add on Base Package + Adding Base pack + Add on +
Packages Model Base Pack + Alacarte Basepack + Add on
Pack + Few alacarte packs + regional packs next package or Topups Alacarte
Movies on Demand Channels 7 6 21 6 4 Coming soon
Favourite Channels lists 1 with 20 channel 8 with unlimited 8 with unlimited 4 with 15 channel No 4 lists with 20 channels each
Naming Favourite list No No Yes Yes No Yes
Top 10 list No No Yes No No No
Parental control Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Parental control with rating No No Yes Yes No Yes
Language for interface Single Single Single Single Single 2 Languages out of 9 available
Customisable hud No No No No No Yes
Ticker/Widgets No No No Yes No Yes
All feature listings as per information on service providers website. Acutal differences may occur.
*“Some of these features & services may not be currently available, to be introduced shortly”
50 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Mission: Transmission
MPEG-4 is a standard to compress still images, audio and Future of DTH
video coded files so that it can be streamed on cellphones, DTH market is projected to grow by over 30
broadband as well as digital television per cent by 2012 according to reports DTH Comparison
It received a good rating on pic- promising and are directed at going places. The DTH pro- BIG TV
ture quality, but scored lowest kids. TataSky seems to be the vider has armed itself with a BIG has been quite big on our
on pricing and package struc- most trusted of the lot. Rahul lot of innovative interactive user-based score charts. It
ture. The highest average rating Choudhary from Haldwani services and some exclusive scores high in picture quality,
for picture quality went to BIG Uttarkhand says, “It has good features such as a Univeral thanks to MPEG4. It also has
TV, followed closely by Airtel. service and the Tata quality.” remote. Saravana Pradeesh good start-up plans, with three
Similarly, both BIG and Airtel But since it’s the most popular from Tirupur says he “chose months subscription clubbed
received the highest user rating Airtel for the universal remote with the hardware cost. BIG is
for package pricing. Since Vide- TATASKY+ and customer service”. On the focussing heavily on pay-per-
ocon is the newest entrant Currently it is the only DTH service interactive front, Airtel view movies, but we couldn’t
in this space, it received that offers DVR (Digital Video Recording), which has some interesting find any interesting titles
very few votes to be means that you get to record 90 hours of TV content innovations. With playing. “Big TV has its issues
considered in the in it’s internal hard drive and watch it at your convenience. their iNet feature, but it does provide me with
comparison of spe- This is truly the wet dream of any hardcore TV buff. In addition customers can many options. There are more
cific parameters. to recording, users get to record one programme while watching get updates on channels, in more languages
The survey another, pause a live telecast and even rewind a TV programme the latest news, (and in the original languages),
also revealed some that you are watching. This way those unexpected interruptions stocks from your and the picture quality is defi-
secondary findings don’t mean missing out on that crucial part of your favourite portfolio, Bolly- nitely better. And it is reason-
as well. About 60 per soap. All this doesn’t come cheap. The hardware itself wood gossip and ably priced”, says Kirtana
cent of the respondents will the latest weather Krishnan from Thane.
who took the survey were set you back by Rs. 8999. with widgets. “We have
on DTH, while 20 percent partnered with NDTV for Sun Direct
were on regular cable. Cable our News widget and CNBC Sun has a strong presence in
set-top boxes were preferred it got a lot of criticism as well. for Stocks”, said Mr. Sugato the South. It also has packs for
by 17 per cent of the respond- A few complained the interface Banerji, Chief Marketing other regions and languages.
ents. About 73 per cent of the is slow. Rahul Mathur from Officer – DTH, Bharti Airtel. This way, you can opt for the
respondents still own regular Bhopal says, “Tata Sky, even As for plans, the structure is Marathi pack (depending on
CRT TVs, while 15 per cent have after many software updates, decent. If say you’re a music your language) if you’re from
HD ready and 11 per cent have seems to be very slow and buff, you could go in for a base Maharashtra.
full HD LCDs. hangs couple of times”. How- pack of 110 channels for Rs. 127
and go in for a music top up for Videocon d2h
USER SCORES Rs. 25, which has a few chan- Videocon combined its elec-
nels and World Space radio tronics and consumer goods
thrown in. background to bundle LCD TVs
and DVD players with in built
Dish TV DTH receivers. They’ve even
Dish is the oldest DTH pro- come up with DVD players
vider around. You can access that have in built DTH. It also
content from Shaadi.com and has some interesting features
search for potential partners on the interface. For example,
through the ShaadiActive a 12 picture in picture mosaic
service. The content is not to browse channels rather
live but is updated every week. than using the EPG. It also
Similarly you can access con- has tickers for stock, cricket
TataSky ever on the positive side, we tent from monster.com and and news updates that form an
TataSky has been around for got comments like this one ICICI Bank. overlay over the programming
quite some time. Among other too. “Their customer service is As for packages, they’ve being viewed. Their packages
things, TataSky provides cus- good” Narendra from Meerut got three packages that cover are decent but as per the web
tomers with 24x7 support in says “its customer support is an assortment of everything, site information even their
11 languages. Their channel also very responsive and sup- while à la carte channels can Diamond pack which is their
packages seem to be a tad on portive”. be ordered as per preference. highest end offering needs an
the more expensive side. How- Respondent Anil Kumar, says English movie add on priced at
ever, they have the maximum Airtel Digital “The packages are good”, how- Rs. 25 to make it complete. Like
number of interactive serv- With its Saif and Kareena ever he adds, “I’ve had but poor Sun Direct, Videocon d2h also
ices – many of which very campaigns, Airtel seems to be reception during rainy days”. has packs for every region.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 51
Printer test
Nothing is still quite as impressive as reading off paper...
Rossi Fernandes and should be dependable and and the occassional photo. As Setting up the printer is pretty
Nimish Sawant hassle-free. So, which is the best we were looking at entry level easy though – with just two car-
readersletter@thinkdigit.com printer for you? For homes, for printers, the ones that matched tridges to be installed after pow-
workplaces? our requirements were the two ering it on. The software instal-
T
here’s nothing quite We received some 14 printers Canon printers – the PIXMA lation is also simple and quick,
like reading a letter in all. Instructions were clear – iP1980 and PIXMA iP3680. and the user interface is easy to
on paper instead of everyday printers only! We’ll navigate. There are settings to
on a bright screen. have MFDs and photo printers Canon PIXMA iP1980 select paper options and also ink
Even if you feel that’s not the for you in other months, because For home users, who are looking levels of the cartridges are shown.
case, you’ll always have so many we feel that they are different for an affordable photo printer, There’s a “quiet mode” option
things that you have to print – enough to attract buyers for dif- the Canon PIXMA iP1980 that allows you to print as qui-
airline tickets, forms, letters, ferent reasons. comes as a boon. It’s a very basic etly as possible, but at the cost of
documentation, directions to a inkjet printer which is similar to speed – useful if you’re printing
theatre, an invite for a concert... Entry-level inkjet the iP3680 in some ways. at night. The fast printing mode
It’s a luxury that most people printers for home The build quality is not that compromises a little too much
don’t really need, but still want While testing printers in this sturdy, as the plastic appears on quality for us.
nonetheless. However, home category we were basically quite weak and has a tendency
users aren’t the only ones who looking at affordable inkjet to bend in certain areas. The Canon PIXMA iP3680
need to print. Every single office colour printers which could hinges are not steady either. This printer is targeted at photog-
place needs a fast printer, some- give out decent photo quality The absence of a paper-out tray raphy enthusiasts. It looks good
thing that 10 users or even 100 prints. This category is aimed means you’re going to have to with its shiny glossy finish, and
can print from. What’s most at home users, who mostly play catch with printouts if this features an input and a rear tray
important is that the printer print documents and web pages, printer is at the edge of a table. to make managing paper easier.
52 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
3D printing Vitraglyphic process
Pad Printing is a process of printing images on 3D A team of engineers working at University of
objects using a flexible rubber silicon pad to pick up the Washington have developed a technique to create
image from an inked plate and transfer it to the object a glass object using a normal 3D printer Printer test
JANUARY 2010 Canon Laser Shot though attractive, is quite
LBP2900B weak. It might not be able to
Canon’s LBP2900B is a fast hold too many printer pages.
monochrome laser printer Th e r e’s n o dup l e x
which can be used in homes printing facility, which
as well as offices. It’s quite could have added a feather
attractive and very compact. to its cap. On the whole, the
To setup, all you have to do LBP2900B is ideal for users
is slide the laser cartridge who mainly print text docu-
into position. ments, and is quite fast at
Canon PIXMA iP3680 The software user inter- spewing out a print or two.
face for the LBP series is However, it suffers when you
Setting up this printer is noticeably lighter. The lines different from the PIXMA print, say, 15 pages. It took
easy, but installing the ink of text are heavily broken at series, however navigation a whole minute and twenty
tanks is pretty painful for first smaller fonts. through the basic options is two seconds to do the 15 page
time users. Since the printer The iP3680 has a little just as easy. print test.
has five ink tanks, they are first more detail in its photo prints. The paper feed tray
installed on to a printer head, As for colours, the iP1980 located at the base is very
that, in turn, is placed in a spe- showed more neutrality, strong, but the output tray,
cific groove. You then need to but was still not able to pro-
JANUARY 2010
watch for a red light to indicate duce complete accuracy. The
successful installation. iP3680, on the other hand was
A good feature is the Pict- a little heavy on reds. In the
Bridge port that will let you highest photo quality setting,
print photographs directly from the iP3680 wins.
camera memory cards. This is
good for home use. Mono laser printers
The printer is quieter than – under Rs. 10,000
the PIXMA iP1980. It doesn’t The printers here are targeted
have the option of duplex at small to medium size offices
printing, but instead prompts that have a lot of text to print.
you to manually move the pages Since cost is an important factor,
to the rear tray. we split mono lasers into two
categories – under Rs. 10,000
Performance and over Rs. 10,000.
Under the magnifying glass, Canon Laser Shot LBP3300B
the Canon PIXMA iP1980 and
iP3680 models had compa-
HOW WE TESTED
T
rable quality. The iP3680 had he printers were all tested of the test was for text and doc- to replace the cartridges, toners
on a very basic Intel uments with images in them. and also how to restock the
better pronounced edges in the Pentium 4 system with Neutral and natural colours was paper trays. Build quality of the
text print outs, as the iP1980 2 GB of RAM. All the printers the key component along with printers and the multiple tray
had some residue around the were allowed to calibrate them- accurate crisp prints. We also assembly was equally impor-
edges of the text in all text selves via software, and a few looked for flaws such as banding tant. Of course, there were other
test prints were taken before instead of smooth gradients, things like noise, the printer
sizes. There was also fine blot- the actual testing began. Good grain and uneven edges in text software user interface, easy
ting of ink seen. Printing times bond quality A4 paper was used at different settings. Mixing of of setting up the printer on the
were also almost identical. In throughout the test. colours and uneven edges to network and many other finer
Print quality was obviously text because of spreading ink aspects that were thoroughly
economy/speed modes, there’s
one of the most important com- was also looked at. explored and scored.
no difference in quality. ponents of the test. Each of the Features were also noted and Not all printers require the
In the fast mixed prints, prints were rated accordingly weight given for each of them same level of performance and
the iP3680 had visibly satu- and compared to other printers depending on their important quality. Each type of printer is
of its category. Time was also and the category of product. made with a completely dif-
rated colours. Speeds were
recorded for every print taken. For example, a printer for SoHo ferent purpose in mind. Different
pretty identical, again. There There were different prints taken. or medium sized businesses tests were given different weights
was a fine yellow noise all Since this isn’t a photo printer should have network access, a for every category of printer. In the
over the yellow text in black test, we only had a basic photo cheap home printer need not. end, all of it taken into considera-
print test while the major chunk We looked at how easy it was tion and a final verdict given.
background areas. Greys are
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 53
Printer languages
Adobe’s Postscript and HP’s Printer Command
Language which depict a page to be printed in
Printer test vector form
JANUARY 2010
INKJET PRINTERS FOR HOMES
Canon Laser Shot LBP3300
BRAND Canon Canon
This printer has a plastic matte finish body,
Model PIXMA iP1980 PIXMA iP3680
with good build quality. It has four indicators
Price Rs. 2,695 Rs. 5,595 on top, and no moving flaps, which gives it a
Grand total (out of 100) 50.60 53.55 sturdier build.
Features (out of 40) 11.12 13.84 A quick driver installation, and the printer is
Performance (out of 60) 39.48 39.71 ready for installation, which is painless – detach
FEATURES the front, put in the cartridge and you’re good to go.
Maximum print resolution (dpi) 4800 x 1200 9600 x 2400 It also takes this printer very little time to warm up.
Power saving mode (Y/N) N N The input paper tray has a capacity of 250
Duplex printing (Y/N) N N sheets and is at the base of the printer. An inter-
Ink saving mode (Y/N) N N esting feature here is a notch that indicates the
Zoom / fit to page (Y/N) N N level of paper in the input tray. There’s no output
Colour correction on printer (Y/N) N N tray, and a small secondary tray is located above
Size of display on printer NA NA the main base tray, but it’s flimsy.
Number of cartridges used 2 5 This printer supports duplex printing, and
Cartridge colours Black and Colour CMYK and Black output is quick. It doesn’t take long to warm up,
CONNECTIVITY and is ideal for home and office use. It’s also great
PictBridge support (Y/N) N Y for printing books, because it’s one of the faster
USB flash drive support (Y/N) N N printers around.
Network printing support (Y/N) N N
Wi-Fi support (Y/N) N N Brother HL 2140
Bluetooth printing (Y/N) N N Brother’s a brand known for its multifunctional
Memory card support (Y/N) N N devices. The HL2140 was one of the four printers
Miscellaneous they sent across. An entry level monochrome
Bundled cables Power cable, USB cable Power cable, USB cable laser printer, the HL 2140 is very plain looking
Software supplied Easy PhotoPrint EX, My Printer Easy PhotoPrint EX, My Printer printer . The all-plastic body is strong and it has
Dimensions (W x D x H) (mm) 442 x 237 x 152 431 x 296 x 153 rounded edges on all sides. There is one input
Weight (kg) 3.3 5.6 tray located at the base, and a face down output
PERFORMANCE tray with a small manual feed paper guide. There
Text print (eco) 4.50 4.50 are status lights for Toner, Drum and Error and
Text print (time in seconds) 10.00 9.00 a power button on the side.
Text print (quality) 6.00 6.25
We encountered problems like paper jamming
Text print (time in seconds) 10.40 10.00
when we used glossy paper for a photo printout.
The printer tends to take in two papers simultane-
Mixed document print (quality) 6.13 6.38
ously, thus getting jammed in the process. For this
Mixed document print (quality) (time in seconds) 34.80 26.00
printer, the photograph test was carried out on
Mixed document print (speed/eco) 5.25 5.25
normal paper. The printer is fast, taking as little
Mixed document print (speed/eco) (time in seconds) 20.50 21.00
as 11 seconds for a normal text printout.
Mixed document print (speed/eco) 15 copies (time) 268.00 290.00
Photo (eco) 7.25 7.13
Brother HL 2150N
Photo (eco) (time in seconds) 94.00 122.00
On first glance, the HL2150N looks exactly like
Photo (quality) 7.38 7.38
HL2140, but on close observation one notices a
Photo (quality) (Time in seconds) 181.00 168.00
major addition. While the HL 2140 has no net-
Build quality (out of 10)
work connectivity, the HL 2150N does.
Body 5 7
The body structure is very similar to the HL
Folding / hinges 4.5 6
2140. The tray is quite strong even though its not
Tray quality 5.5 6
as smooth as we would like.
Buttons 6 7
Like the HL 2140, this printer also performs
Ease of use (out of 10)
poorly with glossy paper. Not that it’s meant to
Hardware connections 7 7 print photographs, but paper jams are inexcusable.
Cartridge installation 7 5 However, printing on plain paper is a
Paper loading 7 6 smooth process. This is ideal for home net-
Software user interface 6 6 works or for use in small office setups with
Ink levels 7 7 bulk document printing.
54 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Extreme photo printing Printer spying?
The Epson Stylus Pro 9880 comes with as many as 8 Invisible tracking codes are printed across every
colour ink tanks to produce high quality photo prints print out coming out of a color laser printer Printer test
JANUARY 2010
Brother HL-5240 offset by an oddity — it does not
The HL-5240 has a really basic have a USB cable bundled.
and somewhat boring design. The body is quite strong and
It’s built well, and the paper tray it has just one button and two
doesn’t feel as smooth as some of light indicators. The SP3300DN
the more expensive printers out comes with 32MB of onboard
there. There are two side fans on memory, which is extendable
this device, to aid cooling. to 160 MB.
Although we didn’t expect The SP330 is ideal for organi-
a lot when we first saw it, the sations that have a large docu-
HL-5240 impressed us with its ment printing load. The printer
blazing speed – there was notice- also has a LAN port for network
Brother HL2170W
able folding of paper though. connectivity, which makes it
Things get noisy, but only for a more versatile.
while. There aren’t too many con-
trols to bother with either, but Ricoh Aficio SP 4100NL
Performance Setting up the wired there are status lights for toner, Ricoh’s SP4100NL is a high-
One thing that was very clear port connection is easy but drum and paper levels. There’s end monochrome laser printer
with mono laser printers – the wireless setup is quite even a parallel port connection which is super fast as far as per-
they had excellent text quality. tedious, especially if you have for those using really old PCs. formance goes. It has a strong
With the exception of the multiple WiFi routers in the body with an equally sturdy
Canon IP2900B, all of them area. Moreover, the resetting Ricoh SP3300DN input tray at the base.
gave excellent text prints. can be annoying for some. The This is the first printer that we The printer has a small mono-
Taking photo prints isn’t efficiency of the USB interface have tested that has a facility to chrome LCD display screen on
a great idea but we tried it and wired network connection join an extra paper tray to the top along with buttons for the
anyway with the mono laser is almost the same. base input tray. his uniqueness is various menus. The screen is
printers. The first thing you very small and does not do jus-
notice are the horizontal lines tice to the features it offers.The
across the images. The Canon only thing that works in favour of
LBP3300 was far better in this the screen is its bright backlight.
aspect with almost no lines – This printer has has an
slightly brighter images. onboard energy saving mode
which puts it in a sort of hiber-
Mono laser printers nation mode when not in use.
– above Rs. 10,000 This is an important feature for
Brother HL 2170W large offices as laser printers are
The HL 2170W is a monochrome known to be heavy power users.
laser printer which comes with The small LCD screen makes
the 802.11b/g wireless function- matters worse when any errors
ality alongwith network connec- shows up on the menu. Absence
tivity. This means that not only of a user manual or a trouble-
can the printer be connected to a shooting guide is sorely felt, and
wired network but can also take no USB cable bundled just adds
a print command from a system to your woes. Printing on glossy
that is wirelessly connected to paper resulted in paper jams.
the network. This option is the The printer is ideally suited
USP of this printer. for large offices and meant for
The build is very similar bulk text printing. Our tests
to HL 2140 and HL 2150N CONTACT DETAILS found that graphics and image
which features a strong tray Brand Contact Phone E-mail Web site output isn’t great.
at the base. Canon Canon India Pvt. Ltd. 188-345-33-66 info@canon.co.in www.canon.co.in
It has 32MB of internal Brother Brother International +91-22-4098 8922 info@brother.in www.brother.in Performance
memory which allows you to (India) Pvt. Ltd. With the more expensive mono
queue more documents than Epson Epson India Pvt Ltd. +91-80-3051 5023 NA www.epson.co.in laser printers, quality didn’t nec-
the previous ones from Brother. Ricoh Mr. Kiran Pai +91-11-4161 3010 ril.info@ricoh.co.in www.ricoh.co.in essarily improve drastically. The
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 55
Laser Printer emissions
According to a study by the Queensland Unoversity of Technology, laser printers can emit clouds
Printer test of ultra-fine particles that compare to cigarette smoke and motor vehicle emissions
JANUARY 2010
same banding was present even are lights to indicate status INKJET PRINTERS FOR OFFICES
with these range of printers. The of the CMYK cartridges. All BRAND Canon Epson
Ricoh SP4100NL for example four cartridges are placed in Model PIXMA iX5000 B-500DN
had a lot of this. This printer is a single compartment, with
Price Rs. 18,995 Rs. 22,999
also a perfect example of some- instructions on how to install
Grand total (out of 100) 48.88 72.66
thing else – ridiculously fast the cartridges clearly visible.
printing speeds. Installing drivers is not Features (out of 30) 9.62 15.48
We were impressed to see it a straightforward affair. We Performance (out of 70) 39.26 57.18
print in 5.8 seconds. A 15-copy selected USB, and then had to FEATURES
print order took just 38 sec- switch off the power, reconnect
Maximum print resolution (dpi) 9600 x 600 9600 x 600
onds! This is the fastest of all the USB cable and then power
Power saving mode (Y/N) N N
the printers in this test. The the printer back on before the
cheaper SP3300DN model and PC recognised the printer and Duplex printing (Y/N) Y Y
Brother’s HL5240 aren’t too far started installing drivers. Ink saving mode (Y/N) N N
behind either. If you want speed, The printer takes a long Zoom / fit to page (Y/N) Y Y
then you’re only going to find time to warm up for individual Colour correction on printer (Y/N) Y N
itin the monochrome laser cat- prints, but is a lot faster with
Size of display on printer NA NA
egory over Rs. 10,000. Quality bulk prints.
Number of cartridges used 4 4
of prints is almost identical – to The duplex printing option
the naked eye, that is. is impressive, and outputs are Cartridge colours CMYK CMYK
quick. This is because printer Print memory 256MB 16MB
Color laser printers pulls the next page in while the Connectivity
As this category usually caters second side of the first one is
PictBridge support (Y/N) N N
to office users who print bulk still printing.
USB flash drive support (Y/N) N Y
documents with both text
and images, it’s priced higher. Canon Laser Shot Network printing support (Y/N) Y Y
There are savings to be had in LBP7750Cdn Wi-Fi support (Y/N) N N
the long run though. The LBP7750Cdn is a really Bluetooth printing (Y/N) N N
huge printer and one that’s Memory card support (Y/N) N N
Canon Laser Shot designed for large offices.
Miscellaneous
LBP7200Cdn The body design is great and
Bundled cables Power cable, USB Power cable, USB
At 24 kgs, this is the heaviest use of metal in many areas of
printer we tested this month. the printer makes it sturdy. The Dimensions (W x D x H) (mm) 601 x 317.6 x 193.2 480 x 489 x 312
It has a matte finish body, and hinges aren’t extremely sturdy, Weight (kg) 9.3 10.7
sports indicators that prompt though, and are slightly loose. It’s PERFORMANCE
you to load paper or check heavy, and requires two people to
Text print (quality) 6.50 6.00
for paper jamming. There carry it around.
Text print (time in seconds) 9.40 9.50
Mixed document print (high quality) 6.6 6.1
Mixed document print (quality) (in seconds) 26.30 13.30
Mixed document print (speed) 15 copies (time) 272.00 81.00
JANUARY 2010
Photo (quality) (time in seconds) 128.00 33.80
Build quality (out of 10)
Body 7 7.5
Folding / hinges 6 6.5
Tray quality 7 6
Buttons 6.5 7
Ease of use (out of 10)
Hardware connections 7 7
Cartridge installation 5.5 6.5
Paper loading 6 7
Software user interface 6 6.5
Canon Laser Shot LBP7750Cdn Ink levels 7 6
56 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Mag+
Bonnier’s Mag+ digital magazine reader is the
latest concept taking off from the ebook readers. Printer test
JANUARY 2010
COLOUR LASER PRINTERS The printer has two paper is ideal for small office setups.
BRAND Canon Canon trays – one at the front and one The printer is built well, but
Laser Shot Laser Shot on the side like you would nor- looks very ordinary. The front
Model
LBP7750Cdn LBP7200Cdn
mally see in a copier. It also and rear tray are well put
Price Rs. 99,995 Rs. 47,995
has something least expected together, with enough exten-
Grand total (out of 100) 76.03 58.02
in printers – a hard drive. It per- sions to support A3 paper.
Features (out of 30) 13.50 12.44
forms exceptionally well, and Setting up the ink tanks in
Performance (out of 70) 62.53 45.58
offers excellent control over the the printer head is similar to the
FEATURES many features, thanks to the Canon iP3680, but with four ink
Maximum print resolution (dpi) 1200 x 1200 1200 x 600 display and buttons. tanks in this case.
Power saving mode (Y/N) N Y This is obviously a no-frills This is a fast printer, and even
Duplex printing (Y/N) N N printing machine for a busy A3 colour prints on plain paper
Ink saving mode (Y/N) N N office. It doesn’t support A3 take under a minute to complete.
Zoom / fit to page (Y/N) N N paper, however, which some of It’s also quick to cancel a print,
Colour correction on printer (Y/N) N N you might need. stopping immediately when you
Size of display on printer NA 2 line 16 character This colour laser printer press the Cancel button.
Number of cartridges used 1 1 uses four separate, and huge, However, when printing 15
Cartridge colours Black Black toner cartridges – you won’t copies, we noticed that, like some
Print memory 32MB 192MB have to change them often. of the other Canon’s, this printer
Connectivity
PictBridge support (Y/N) N N
USB flash drive support (Y/N) N N
Network printing support (Y/N) Y Y JANUARY 2010
Wi-Fi support (Y/N) N N
Bluetooth printing (Y/N) N N
Memory card support (Y/N) N N
Miscellaneous
Power cable, USB Power cable, USB
Bundled cables
cable cable
Easy PhotoPrint EX,
Easy PhotoPrint EX,
Software supplied My Printer
My Printer
Dimensions (W x D x H)(mm) 517 x 530 x 374 409 x 490 x 331
Weight (kg) 35 24.8
PERFORMANCE
Text print (quality) 7.00 7.00
Text print (time in seconds) 14.00 22.30 Epson B-500DN
Mixed document print (high quality) 6.5 6.63
Mixed document print (quality) (time in A few things are unique pauses for a bit, unexplicably,
17.00 22.80
seconds)
here; the LBP7750Cdn’s power after 10 or 11 pages are printed.
Mixed document print (speed/eco) 15
44.00 63.00 switch, which is usually placed
copies (time)
Photo (quality) 6.88 7.13 at the back of a printer, is found Epson B-500DN
Photo (quality) (time in seconds) 17.00 56.00 behind a protective cover on the This is an attractive inkjet
Build quality (out of 10) top, and paper loads sideways! printer from Epson, and has an
Body 8 7.5
One expects speed over eve- unconventional design.
rything else in a printer of this All the elements of the
Folding / hinges 6.5 6.5
class, and it doesn’t disappoint. printer are compartmentalised,
Tray quality 7 7
Double-sided printing speeds and stick out – literally. There is
Buttons 6.5 6.5
are excellent, and the synchro- a separate section for the front
Ease of use (out of 10)
nised paper flow around the tray, the cartridges and the rear
Hardware connections 7 7
printer is truly a joy to watch. tray, all of which jut outwards.
Cartridge installation 6.5 6
There is a 2 line LCD display,
Paper loading 7 6.5
Canon PIXMA iX5000 which is quite ordinary, as it has
Software user interface 6.5 6.5
Canon iX5000 is the only A3 no backlight. However, operating
Ink levels 7 6 size printer that was tested and the menus is easy and intuitive.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 57
Torrents hit
Mininova traffic has dropped by a whopping 66
per cent after it went legal and took off all the
Printer test illegal torrents from the site.
JANUARY 2010 JANUARY 2010
MONO LASER PRINTERS
Under Rs. 10,000 Above Rs. 10,000
Brand Brother Canon Brother Canon Brother Brother Ricoh Ricoh
Laser Shot Laser Shot
Model HL 2140 HL 2150N HL 2170W HL 5240 SP 3300DN SP 4100NL
LBP2900B LBP3300B
Price Rs. 5,990 Rs. 6,595 Rs. 9,990 Rs. 9,995 Rs. 12,990 Rs. 15,490 Rs. 21,500 Rs. 29,600
Grand total (out of 100) 30.04 27.47 33.79 35.46 35.80 34.54 37.01 47.39
Features (out of 20 / 25) 4.36 4.59 6.48 8.37 8.08 4.70 6.53 8.91
Performance (out of 80 / 75 ) 25.68 22.88 27.31 27.09 27.72 29.84 30.48 38.48
FEATURES
Maximum print resolution (dpi) 4800 x 1200 9600 x 2400 1200 x 600 600 x 600 1200 x 600 2400 x 600 1200 x 600 1200 x 1200
Power saving mode (Y/N) N N N N N N N N
Duplex printing (Y/N) N N N N N Y N N
Ink saving mode (Y/N) N N N N N N N N
Zoom / fit to page (Y/N) N N N N N N N N
Colour correction on printer (Y/N) N N N NA N N N N
Size of display on printer NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Number of cartridges used 2 5 1 1 1 1 1 1
Black and CMYK and
Cartridge colours Black Black Black Black Black Black
Colour Black
Print memory NA NA 8MB 2MB 16MB 8MB 32MB 16MB
Connectivity
PictBridge support (Y/N) N Y N N N N N N
USB flash drive support (Y/N) N N N N N N N N
Network printing support (Y/N) N N N N Y Y Y N
Wi-Fi support (Y/N) N N N N N N Y N
Bluetooth printing (Y/N) N N N N N N N N
Memory card support (Y/N) N N N N N N N N
Miscellaneous
Power cable, Power cable, Power cable, Power cable, Power cable, Power cable,
Bundled cables Power cable Power cable
USB cable USB cable USB cable USB cable USB cable USB cable
368.3 x 360.6 x 369.8 x 216.7 x 368 x 361 x 369.7 x 375.7 x 368 x 361 x
Dimensions (W x D x H) (mm) 371 x 384 x 246 363 x 368 x 209 388 x 450 x 345
170.1 250.5 170.5 257.7 170.5
Weight (Kg) 5.8 6.4 6.8 11.8 6.8 9.4 8.8 17.5
PERFORMANCE
Text print (quality) 7.00 6.50 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00
Text print (time) 11.00 12.00 11.00 10.00 11.00 10.00 9.00 5.80
Mixed document print (quality) 5.25 5.6 5.5 4.6 6.2 6.2 6.0 6.0
Mixed document print (quality) (time) 15.00 14.00 14.00 13.40 14.00 13.00 13.00 8.60
Mixed document print (speed/eco)
57.00 82.00 51.00 55.00 51.00 45.00 44.00 38.00
15 copies (time)
Photo (quality) 4.6 5.0 4.3 5.2 5.8 5.7 6.1 600
Photo (quality) (time in seconds) 21.00 26.00 12.00 11.40 13.00 11.00 13.00 7.00
Build quality
Body 6 7.5 6 7.5 6 7 7 7
Folding / hinges 5.5 6 6.5 6.5 6.5 6 6.5 6.5
Tray quality 6 6 6 7 6 6 6.5 7
Buttons 5 6.5 5 6 5 6.5 5 6
Ease of use
Hardware connections 7 7 7 7 7 7 5.5 5.5
Cartridge installation 6.5 6 6.5 6 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5
Paper loading 7 6 7 6.5 7 7 7 6
Software user interface 7 6 7 6.5 7 7 6.5 6
58 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Bucket Printer?
The bucket shaped Canon Selphy CP790 is a
cute compact photo printer screen which gives
out water resistant photographs.
ance and features.
The LBP7750 throws
out a photo print
every 17 seconds. To
Canon PIXMA iX5000 give you some idea of
how fast this is, the
iX5000 takes more
than two minutes!
Conclusion
Starting with the most
impressive performer
of the entire test, the
Canon Laser Shot
LBP7750Cdn. It hap-
pens to be the most
It features network connectivity, which expensive one of the lot, and also has the
adds to its versatility. best features. For a colour printer, it’s really
The B-500DN is quite noisy, but quick, fast and the photo test was exceptionally
and is great for photo printing on glossy quick – 17 seconds for a A4 sized photo
paper. Printing quality of documents with print. Sure, the quality of the photo print is
lots of text and graphics is also excellent, not as good as the iX5000, but it’s equally
but colours could have been better. matched everywhere else.
The Epson was the next best, mainly
because of its fea-
Check out all the printer photos at
ture set. For a colour
www.thinkdigit.com/d/1001printers
inkjet, it’s really fast
as well. We weren’t
Performance very impressed by the slightly darker
It was a one-on-one in the case of the colours in the photo prints but the detail
Epson B-500DN and the Canon PIXMA was good. It makes good sense when you
iX5000. The Canon had really impressive consider the price tag – Rs. 22,999. It gets
colours and quality, but was slower. In our Best Buy award.
most office scenarios, where quality isn’t Of all the mono laser printers, we rec-
as important as speed, the Epson would ommend the Canon Laser Shot LBP3300B.
steamroll the Canon. At just under Rs. 10,000, it’s perfect for
The Canon’s prints were a little over- most small businesses with some 10 to 15
saturated, but not as much as the
Epson. Blues were too promi-
nent in photos, but a little colour
adjustment could fix this.
The laser printers from
Canon didn’t stand much of a
chance against their mighty
inkjet comrade – the iX5000
when colour saturation and Canon PIXMA iP1980
photo quality was compared. If
you are in some kind of a studio and need employees. It might be the most expensive
excellent photo quality, inkjets such as of the Under Rs. 10,000 segment, but it’s
the iX5000 are the best solution. a worthy winner.
If you’re looking for speed and cheap If you’re like most of us and just want a
prints, lasers like the Canon Laser Shot simple printer for simple everyday use, the
LBP7750Cdn and LBP7200Cdn are your Canon iP1980 is the most sensible choice.
best options – they aren’t cheap though. Even though it isn’t as good as the iP3680,
There is a big difference in both perform- it’s a lot cheaper at Rs. 2,695.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 59
Storage test
Photography: Jiten Gandhi
Larger hard drives, faster,
cheaper solid-state drives —
there’s a lot of hope for storage
junkies. We’ve tested some of
the best solutions around.
Michael Browne
Steel
michael.browne@thinkdigit.com
Silicon and
L
et’s face it — storage
is a boring product
category for most.
And you’ll notice
the judicious use of the term
“storage”. We’ve gone used
to the term hard drives, but
with the coming of solid-state
drives, (SSDs hereon), we’ve
had to adjust. SSDs are faster
than traditional magnetic
storage and also run cooler.
All this love for flash seems
to leave good old hard drives
60 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Storage test
Solid state drives the thought of using an SSD as
SSDs initially created a lot of an external drive quite funny.
hype, but this has simmered After all, why take something
down as people realised that capable of 150 megabytes per
prices are prohibitive. Although second in terms of read speeds
SSDs have become cheaper (as and choke it on a tortoise-like
has all flash-based storage) they USB bus? Even writes would
are no replacement for hard be bottlenecked, and external
drives at the moment. There is solutions are primarily meant
the longevity of flash to be con- for storage, not speed. This
sidered, for while flash memory drive was obviously made by
itself is longer lasting than tra- Intel and rebadged by King-
ditional magnetic recording, ston; understandable since
there is a finite number of write Intel is a big SSD OEM.
operations that can be done to Kingston’s SNV225-S2/64GB
flash memory, or a block of flash is pretty impressive, and not just
memory to be more specific. the relatively affordable price tag.
Exceed this number of writes We found it to have equally good
and the flash becomes unreliable, performance, something rarely
as does the integrity of the data. seen in any product. It offers
Therefore, people who consider pretty good write scores, and it
SSDs for use as a primary OS competed fiercely with Intel’s
drive need to also consider the SSDSA2SH080G1GN, which
cons of maintaining a swap file was slightly larger, offering 80
on the drive for obvious reasons. GB. Intel’s drive was the better
This, coupled with the prices has performer overall, though the
been a killjoy and continues to individual results tend to seesaw.
be. We were surprised to see The last SSD was Kingston’s
Kingston actually offering a 64 SNV125-S2/128GB, which was
GB SSD for Rs. 8,999 — which the largest capacity drive in this
in our opinion, is pretty good. category, but also lagged behind
People demanding terabytes of the others in terms of perform-
storage will obviously scoff at the ance. Priced at Rs. 15,555, this
notion of a paltry 64 GB, but for 128 GB SSD doesn’t exactly
discerning users who want the offer much, given the perform-
goodness of flash we feel this is ance. It’s a perfect example of a
a decent option. higher density, lower-speed SSD.
in the cold no? Not quite, Western Digital has a clear High performance flash When it came selecting
for while SSDs were getter demarcation for their drives is costlier than regular flash the fastest
cheaper and somewhat faster, — Black Editions represent memory; although most drive, Intel’s
hard drives were focussed on the best performance, Blue SSDs will have higher read
getting larger, currently to the Editions represent a mix of speeds than HDDs. But the JANUARY 2010
tune of 2 TB. performance and price while write speeds are often at par,
We wanted only larger Green Editions represent or even slightly below par
drives and would not accept power saving. HDDs, but high performance
anything smaller than 500 GB. SSDs represent a breath of flash is typically 60 - 70 per
Why? Well, a Seagate 500 GB fresh air to a category that was cent faster. This makes them
hard drive costs around Rs. becoming predictable, if not ideal for use as OS drives, or a
2,600, while a 1 TB version boring. They promise to lose place to install all software. We
is priced at Rs. 4,200, this is their gilded status by becoming received four SSDs, three from 80 GB SSD edged out the
a virtual no-brainer in terms more affordable. We already Kingston and one from Intel. Kingston SNV225-S2/64GB,
cost per gigabyte of storage know they have the potential All of these used the same 2.5- albeit by a hairsbreadth. Intel
space, the bigger HDD wins. of being really fast, but they’re inch form factor, although the wins our Best Performer award
The market is also get- not five times faster, in case you Kingston SNM125-S2/80GB for its overall sterling per-
ting segmented For example, were wondering. featured a USB casing. We find formance. When it comes to
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 61
More NAND Seagate Pulsar
Toshiba Corp. this week announced the Seagate announces their first enterprise
launch of a 64GB embedded NAND grade SSD storage, based on SLC storage, the
flash memory module, the highest drives are available as OEM drives and are not
Storage test capacity yet achieved in the industry available in retail at the present
cent difference in performance Comparatively, platters last users will flinch at the pros-
if they have to spend 40 per year had reached 333 GB. There pect of shelling out Rs. 18,000.
JANUARY 2010 cent more to reap it. WD and does seem to be a stagnation of Admittedly, street prices will
Seagate have different ways sorts happening and we’re not be much lower than the men-
of classifying products, WDs going to see 6 and 8 TB hard tioned MRP, but the Black
method is easier to understand.drives very soon, but to be per- Editions aren’t really cheap.
fectly honest, there’s hardly a
In fact, we’re told Seagate is in The WD 1 TB Black Edition
the process of making such ver-market in India until broad- seemed to have some physical
ticals within their hard drivesband penetrates to smaller fault, though we could detect
to clearly demarcate perform- areas and what is available in no noise (which is common for
value, it’s hard to fault the ance drives from value and metros becomes faster. Excep- damaged hard drives). The low
second fastest drive — the power saving ones. tions exist, and data gluts do scores meant something was
SNV225-S2/64GB — it comes Large 2 TB hard drives demand more, but 2 TB is all really wrong, especially when
within 5 per cent of the Intel have become available though you’re going to get this the 2 TB version was
offering, but importantly does the cost per GB value remains year, and you pay pretty blazingly fast. Unfor-
so at nearly half the price. We’re higher than any penny for owing one at tunately, WD couldn’t
awarding it our Digit Best Buy. the moment. rush us a replacement
JANUARY 2010
Western Digital in time, so we tested
Hard Disk Drives has outdone itself the one piece we had.
The good news for all hard when creating the 2 Seagate’s Barracuda
drive owners — SSD is still TB Black Edition — XT seemed inter-
a fair bit away from making St ay tu ned next e this drive was actu- esting, until we set it
serious inroads into HDD sales m onth as we te st th ally faster than a up. Sadly, this drive
and there are perks of buying exte rna l counte rpa rts single Velociraptor, did not do anything
into a reliable, proven tech- of th es e int ern al no mean task espe- with the SATA 3
nology that has gone through sto rag e so lut ion s cially considering interface and shock-
numerous refinements and the 10,000 rpm ingly the scores in
optimisations. What you do get spindle speed of SATA 2.0 mode
is a product offering unmatch- 1 TB drive. This is due to the the latter. In fact, were actually faster.
able cost per gigabyte, which is higher areal density of the in terms of speed This doesn’t make
the most effective way of rating drive, where each platter is and storage, this sense, except that for
a hard drive. After all, 90 per packed with more data. At the drive is pretty much unbeat- SATA 3 mode, we were forced
cent of users will not be con- moment we’re seeing platters able, if only it were priced to use a non-Intel controller as
cerned with a 10 or even 30 per with up to 500 GB of data. more competitively — most Intel’s ICH 10R does not sup-
port SATA 3.0. However, this
SSD Real World Scores (Read and Write) comes as no big surprise, since
given our experience, neither
are SATA 2.0 HDDs really
faster than their SATA 1.0
equivalents, except in bench-
marks involving measuring
bandwidth in burst mode.
In fact with the best drives
barely touching 130 MBps
for read scores, which is still
below the 150 MBps offered
by SATA 1.0, and miles away
from the 300 MBps that SATA
2.0 is supposed to deliver hard
drives, in general are lagging
far behind the interfaces theo-
retical limits. Similarly we feel
it’s SSDs, not HDDs that will be
able to exploit SATA 3.0 when
it becomes mainstream. Basing
62 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Tegra 2
NVIDIA is all set to make a major announcement at CES
about the future of the Tegra family, including Tegra 2, Buffalo unveils the DriveStation
which is rumoured to be two times as powerful as its HD-HXU3 USB 3.0 External Hard Disk
predecessor. Series in India Storage test
HOW WE TESTED
We decided to segregate all drives motherboards support SAS con- access, such as System Restore, while a copy back to the RAID
on the basis of pricing, effectively nects, so we ended up with three File Indexing and a few unused 0 array simulates a read.
doing away with the traditional different rigs. services were disabled. Post instal- We also did these tests intra
divisions based on technology The Barracuda XS was tested lation of benchmarks, each parti- drive, that is copying from
or capacity. After all, users want under both SATA 2.0 and 3.0 con- tion was cleaned, defragmented one partition of the test drive
the best solution for any given ditions, and the results (spoiler!) and then we run a disk scan. to the other. This is a read +
price. Higher performance drives surprised us. We credit ASUS and For theoretical benchmarks, write operation, which is more
will generally tend to be costlier Western Digital in particular — we used HD Tach 3.0.1.0 and taxing and slower as you will
than power saving drives, so this the former for supplying us their SiSoft Sandra 2010 with the latest see. Finally we used Adobe
slight inverse delta (performance/ typically excellent boards for use update pack. Both benchmarks PhotoShop CS 2 to test the
price) works well. We did distin- in this test and the latter for require unformatted drives to amount of time taken to load a
guish between SSDs and HDDs to providing us with Velociraptor perform write testing. After these 1 GB image. Both the image and
avoid comparing the proverbial drives to use as references. Intel benchmarks were complete we the scratch disk were kept on
apples to oranges. Typically we also deserves mention for their formatted the test drives and cre- the test drives, on the same par-
use a single test rig for any test provision of three of the best ated two partitions of equal size. tition, effectively simulating file
to ensure uniformity of results. processors on their top three For our real world tests we access. In case of hard drives,
However, this time we had a platforms. used an 8 GB .RAR file to simu- we gave no weight to Features,
TEST RIGS
Main Rig SATA 3.0 Rig SAS Rig
Motherboard ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe ASUS P7P55D-E Premium ASUS P6T Deluxe
Processor Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3 GHz) Intel Core i7 870 (2.93 GHz) Intel Core i7 975 Extreme (3.33 GHz)
RAM 2 x 2 GB DDR3 1600 MHz (1333 MHz @ 8-8-8-20) 2 x 2 GB DDR3 1600 MHz (1333 MHz @ 8-8-8-20) 3 x 1 GB DDR 2000 MHz (1333 MHz @ 8-8-8-20)
HDD 2 x Western Digital Velociraptor (RAID 0) 2 x Western Digital Velociraptor (RAID 0) 2 x Western Digital Velociraptor (RAID 0)
Graphics Card Palit GeForce GTS 250 Palit GeForce GTS 250 Palit GeForce GTS 250
OS Windows Vista Premium 32-bit Windows Vista Premium 32-bit Windows Vista Premium 32-bit
couple of unique contestants, We continue to use late sequential operation to the since there were none that need
both from Seagate. The first, their Velociraptors over SSD, because of disk and a folder of size 8 GB considering before buying an
Barracuda XS drive is based on a the high write speeds these drives consisting of a whole lot of dif- HDD. For SSDs, we gave points
SATA 3.0 interface, a new standard give in RAID. Clean installs were ferent types of files of varying for SSDs that featured Trim, a
promising theoretical transfers up done on each of the platforms and sizes; this to simulate an random command that basically allows
to 600 MBps. Naturally we had two partitions created on the RAID or non-sequential operation. the SSD controller to zero in on
to use a SATA 3.0 board, and 0 array, the primary one of a size These files were copied to and clean blocks and add them to
there are precious few of those. of 100 GB, while the second par- fro from the second partition the pool of free blocks. These
We also got Seagate’s 600 GB tition consisted of the remaining on the RAID 0 array to the test blocks represent deleted files,
Cheetah based on an SAS (Serial space. All extra Windows func- drives. A copy to the test drive making Trim somewhat of a
Attached SCSI) connectivity. Few tions that potentially slow down simulates a write operation, “trash compacter” command.
our assumptions on present the WD 2 TB Black Edition device to these drives, but Sea- nitely speeding up things. The
HDD spindle technology we and the mighty Velociraptor gate has been smart to offer read scores are no less impres-
reckon manufacturers WD3000HLFS — this drive on an SAS-interface, sive and this drive a sequential
can squeeze out another Seagate’s Cheetah rather than the de facto SCSI read score of 180 megabytes
10 per cent of perform- 15K.7 ST3600057SS, interface that such 15,000 rpm per second — very impres-
ance in real life scenarios, was a shocker, and drives regularly feature. SAS sive, and by far, the fastest
JANUARY 2010
given the same spindle one of the meanest drives are rare, as are SAS con- hard drive we’ve come across.
speeds, meaning there’s things this side of trollers (especially on desktop While people will claim that this
very little headroom to a platter that your boards), but we dug one up, the figure is child’s play for SSDs,
exploit a theoretical limit cash can buy. To be ASUS P6T Deluxe. The Cheetah the write speed of 142.2 MBps
of 300 MBps, let along honest, it’s a little lives up to its namesake when it proves its mettle — if you want
600 MBps (SATA 3.0). unfair to compare comes to raw throughput, par- the fastest drive out there for a
But there was one other what is, essentially ticularly the write tests, where desktop system, this is the one to
solution that crushed an enterprise-grade the faster spindle speed is defi- go shopping for, although you’ll
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 63
Storage test
JANUARY 2010 JANUARY 2010 JANUARY 2010
HDD
Brand Seagate Seagate WD WD Seagate WD WD Seagate WD Seagate
Barracuda Black Edi- Green Edi- Green Edi- Velociraptor Black Edition
Model Name 7200.12 Barracuda LP Barracuda XT Cheetah 15K.7
7200.11 tion 1 TB tion 1 TB tion 2 TB 300GB 2 TB
WD WD WD WD WD
Model Number ST31000528AS ST31500341AS ST32000542AS ST32000641AS ST3600057SS
1001FALS 10EADS 20EADS 3000HLFS 2001FASS
Price (Rs) 4600 7000 7200 10950 11500 14950 16500 17500 18250 35400
Grand Totals (Out of 100) 58.58 58.41 54.65 46.66 57.17 47.54 67.44 61.56 70.10 84.80
Performance (Out of 100) 58.58 58.41 54.65 46.66 57.17 47.54 67.44 61.56 70.10 84.80
Cost per GB (Rupees) 4.94 5.01 7.73 11.76 6.17 8.02 59.04 9.39 9.80 63.34
FEATURES
HDD formatted capacity (GB) 931.51 1397.26 931.51 931.51 1863.02 1863.02 279.46 1863.02 1863.02 558.91
Interface SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 3.0 SATA 2.0 SAS
Number of Platters 2 4 3 3 4 4 2 4 4 2
Rotational Speed 7,200 rpm 7,200 rpm 7,200 rpm 5,400 rpm 5,900 rpm 5,400 rpm 10,000 rpm 7,200 rpm 7,200 rpm 15,000 rpm
Buffer Size 32 MB 32 MB 32 MB 32 MB 32 MB 32 MB 16 MB 64 MB 64 MB 16 MB
PERFORMANCE
Synthetic Tests
HD Tach 3.0.1.0
(8 MB file)
Average Read (MBps) 106.4 108 89.3 75.7 97.1 80.3 106.9 117.2 121.2 132.6
Average Write (MBps) 102.1 104.1 87.8 76.9 97.3 79.3 107 69.2 114.1 93.1
CPU Utilisation (%) 2 3 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3
Random Access Time (ms) 13.9 15.3 12.3 13.8 14.9 17.3 7.5 16.3 11.5 5.6
Read Burst Speed (MBps) 223.4 240.7 231 234.4 221.6 233.2 250.4 238.2 245.7 173.2
HD Tach 3.0.1.0
(32 MB file)
Average Read (MBps) 106.5 107.6 89.6 76.9 97.3 79.9 106.9 116 120.4 132.6
Average Write (MBps) 101.8 107.6 89.5 75.9 96.8 79.8 106.1 89.9 119.9 120.1
CPU Utilisation (%) 2 3 2 2 1 2 2 2 3 2
Random Access Time (ms) 13.9 15.1 12.3 13.7 14.9 17.2 7.1 16.5 11.6 5.7
Read Burst Speed (MBps) 224.2 238.4 231 235.9 221.7 232.9 251.3 212.5 245.4 163
SiSoft Sandra 2010
Drive Index, Read (MBps) 102.49 103.47 86.36 72.5 93.87 76.86 101 112.38 114.88 141.3
Access Time, read (ms) 14 15.26 12.36 13.87 14.41 16.58 7 16.47 5.73 3.2
Drive Index, Write (MBps) 89.5 95.47 83.12 69 87.84 74.51 91.75 103.8 111.73 127.4
Access time, write (ms) 5 5.7 4 5 5.4 5.85 1.64 5.33 4 2.9
Real World Tests
File Write 8 GB Single File (MBps) 119.77 123.00 101.51 86.41 117.03 94.05 118.55 129.01 141.24 156.04
File Write Test Assorted 8 GB File
98.94 98.70 87.71 74.74 95.15 79.61 103.70 95.59 117.20 132.56
(MBps)
Read Test Single 8 GB File (MBps) 121.36 131.28 99.30 85.78 115.06 93.09 117.36 133.42 134.30 180.04
Read Test Assorted 8 GB File
113.62 113.78 96.04 83.59 107.23 88.75 111.61 89.63 131.07 142.22
(MBps)
Intra Drive Test (Read/Write)
31.80 26.16 28.61 22.24 29.33 21.42 45.23 24.87 34.54 58.85
Sequential (MBps)
Intra Drive Test (Read/Write)
33.87 28.63 32.32 25.31 28.05 25.91 45.28 34.64 40.94 56.34
Assorted (MBps)
Photoshop CS2 (1 GB File, in
63.2 52.5 47.9 54.7 54.6 57.8 41.2 33.5 39.1 37.2
seconds, less is better)
64 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Storage test
JANUARY 2010 JANUARY 2010
SSD need a board with an SAS con-
BRAND Kingston Intel Kingston Kingston troller, which is something of a
rarity, but hardly impossible to
SSD Now 64 GB SSD Now 128 GB V
Model Name
V+Series
SSD 80
Series
SSD Now M Series acquire. Western Digital’s Green
Edition drives run cool, but
Model Number SNV225-S2/64GB SSDSA2SH080G1GN SNV125-S2/128GB SNM125-S2/80GB
their performance isn’t too hot
Price (Rs) 8999 14000 15555 17500 either. These are not intended
Grand Totals (Out of 100) 78.08 75.42 53.53 69.17 for performance junkies, but
those needing storage. Seagate’s
Features (Out of 5) 5.00 0.00 5.00 0.00
Barracuda LP ST32000542AS
Performance (Out of 95) 73.08 75.42 48.53 69.17 was better in terms of perform-
Cost Per GB (Rupees) 150.9 187.8 130.5 234.8 ance, and nearly embarrasses
FEATURES
its supposedly faster sibling,
the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB
HDD formatted capacity (GB) 59.63 74.53 119.24 74.53
ST31500341AS, surprisingly
Interface SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 SATA 2.0 so, considering this is a 5,900
Buffer Size (MB) 128 16 64 16
Trim Support Y N Y N
PERFORMANCE JANUARY 2010
Synthetic Tests
HD Tach 3.0.1.0 (8 MB file)
Average Read (MBps) 187.4 219.4 111.2 189.5
Average Write (MBps) 140.2 73.7 79.2 61.2
CPU Utilisation (%) 3 4 2 2
Random Access Time (ms) 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.2
Read Burst Speed (MBps) 251.6 256.2 125 207.1
HD Tach 3.0.1.0 (32 MB file)
Average Read (MBps) 176.9 215.6 111.2 148.9
Average Write (MBps) 106.7 78 85.8 64.7
CPU Utilisation (%) 3 4 2 3
Random Access Time (ms) 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.1
rpm drive and the latter is a
Read Burst Speed (MBps) 250.9 256.8 124.8 209.3
7,200 rpm one. This is an unu-
SiSoft Sandra 2010 sual speed, for most drives are
Drive Index, Read (MBps) 211.35 241.54 117.72 202.24 either 5,400 rpm or 7,200 rpm
ones, but whatever the change,
Access Time, read (ms) 0.24 0.08 0.04 0.12
it’s evidently working for Sea-
Drive Index, Write (MBps) 85.27 76.27 58.6 54 gate. The LP stands for Low
Access time, write (ms) 0.17 0.01 21.1 0.01 Power, meaning it’s aimed at
WDs Green series of drives.
Real World Tests
With the Cheetah 15K.7
File Write 8 GB Single File (MBps) 142.72 72.37 82.08 68.44 ST3600057SS strutting its
File Write Test Assorted 8 GB File (MBps) 73.01 68.15 46.52 53.82 stuff in the performance charts
Read Test Single 8 GB File (MBps) 195.51 217.29 98.34 199.32
we were pretty clear who our
performance pick would be.
Read Test Assorted 8 GB File (MBps) 165.49 180.04 100.64 156.34
But it’s not a desktop drive,
Intra Drive Test (Read/Write) Sequential (MBps) 53.09 53.61 45.77 50.54 at least not one that you can
just go out and buy and plonk
Intra Drive Test (Read/Write) Assorted (MBps) 43.81 50.95 27.05 47.63 it in and get started. For one,
SAS controllers are found on
PhotoShop CS2 (1 GB File, in seconds, less is better) 52.80 31.80 72.70 28.60
hardly 2-3 motherboards at the
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 65
Seagate diet drives Nokia and SatNav
Seagate unleashes the world’s thinnest SatNav Technologies, pioneers in GPS Navigation in India
hard notebook drives, available in 250 GB since 2005 through the brand SatGuide, today launched
and 160 GB capacities at spindle speeds of a FREE version of GPS Navigation Software and Maps for
Storage test 5,400 rpm. These are only 7 mm high Symbian OS phones by Nokia
moment, secondly this drive HDD Real World Transfers (Read Scores)
gets pretty hot; in fact it reg-
istered 65 degrees even in our
air-conditioned environs. With
this in mind, we’re awarding
it a joint Best Performer award
along with Western Digital’s 2
TB Black Edition, which was
equally impressive, managing
to beat even the 10,000 rpm
Velociraptor despite a slower
7,200 rpm spindle speed. The
Best Value award undoubtedly
belong to Seagate’s 7200.12 1
TB drive — at Rs. 4,600, it’s
just what the doctor ordered
for those who need big storage
at a shoestring.
The platter of the
matter
Once the test was done, we
had a bit of time to think,
and contemplate. Sadly, hard bandwidth. Computing has the Core i7s. The same perform- time, but will trail the Radeon
drives haven’t really become become faster by miles, just ance delta can be found in the HD 5870 by at least a 10x factor.
the speed demons we hoped think back five years to the graphics domain, if any of you The same cannot be said for
they’d be when SATA 2.0 came Pentium’s, three years back to recall the ATi Radeon X800XT, HDDs, in fact it’s been three
along and promised double the the first Core 2 Duos and now, it was the fastest card of its years and they’re still strug-
gling to utilise the bandwidth
HDD Real World Transfers (Write Scores) made available by SATA 2.0.
SSDs promise to play saviour to
those craving speed and we’ve
seen the fastest SSDs actually
come pretty close to the theo-
retical SATA 2.0 throughput
limit, but as we know, they’re
not exactly affordable. We
foresee a period of transi-
tion and the next year should
see us at its cusp. SATA 3.0
becoming mainstream will be
the first step. Hard drives will
not be able to take advantage of
the improved throughput and
this is where flash will step
CONTACT SHEET in. Flash manufacturers have
Brands Company Name Email Address Phone No Website promised flash chips rated at
450 MBps for writes and 500
Intel Intel Corp apacsupport@mailbox. 080 2854 2105 www.intel.com/in
intel.com MBps for reads. That’s a whole
Kingston Kingston Technology sales_india@kingston. 022-26592963 www.kingston.com new dimension of speed, and
com something even 4 x SCSI drives
Seagate Fortune Marketing (Seagate sales@fortune-it.com 011 - 26414468, 26472491 www.fortune-it.com in RAID 0 will not give you.
Distributor) Imagine two such 128 GB SSDs
Western Digital Western Digital Corp Amarjeet.singh@wdc. - www.wdc.com in RAID 0, at a price of under
com
Rs. 20,000! Dare to dream…
66 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
HD Tweeting iPhone grows Intel in hot water? FIRST
LOOK
An application for Twitter arrives on Apple’s iPhone outgrows Windows Mobile NVIDIA proclaims itself victim of Intel’s
the Zune HD, we’re hoping to see sales in the US, meanwhile, we’re hoping to business conduct. It says that the FTC’s
Facebook next see the iPhone 3GS here lawsuit will help expand the GPU business
Read the complete
review online
www.thinkdigit.com/
Touchingly different
d/1001zunehd
O
ne of the most positive for the same is a separate purchase. lot more gestures. For example in the
initial reactions to the Zune Thanks to Tegra, the Zune HD is amply music menu, you will be swiping your
HD was that we haven’t powered for every multimedia usage way to glory moving between artists,
seen a better OLED dis- scenario one can think of, and menu playlists, albums, genres and so on.
play. At 3.3-inches, the display (480 x responsiveness and activity anima- The Zune HD ships with a tweaked
272 pixels) is crisp with great colour. tions are super smooth with no delays version of their Internet Explorer for
The device is built well and owing to whatsoever. Microsoft has promised 3D WM devices, pretty much necessary
its slimness and a brushed metal rear games for this platform, which means for a device with Wi-Fi support.
cover feels pretty solid. There are only what we’re seeing in terms of perform- Videos look sweet, with good colour,
3 keys on the device, a flush-fitting ance is probably a cakewalk for the detail and contrast. In terms of audio
power button on the top, a (very use- APX 2600, and it is only 3D applica- quality, the bundles earphones medi-
less) media navigation button and an tions that might better utilise the jaw ocre, but audio quality of the device
elongated menu button just below the dropping hardware under its hood. is good. You can directly download
display. Start up is quick, thanks to The interface a lot more complicated songs to the device, without the need
some new hardware courtesy NVIDIA. than Apple’s simplistic one and you of a computer. Tracks can also be sent
There’s an HD video processor, an will take an hour to get your bearings. to friends’ Zunes by entering their
audio processor, two ARM cores and The device itself has a good clean menu email IDs or Zune tags. Now for the
a graphics processor. The specific system. Compared to the iPod Touch, serious downside, the Zune HD isn’t
Tegra solution used is the APX 2600 its obvious competitor, Apple has a available here! Sad, for this is surely
and this system-on-a-chip (SoC) is much simpler, defined menu structure Microsoft’s best attempt yet, to nuke
based on a 65-nanometre fabrication where it’s difficult to go wrong. But what can only be described as Apple’s
process. This particular Tegra solution to some, this soon becomes boring utter domination of a segment.
Thanks to this there’s an HD video out as it involves mostly list-like menus. Price: Zune HD 16 GB – $219
capable of 720p, although the cable With the Zune, you will perform a and 32 GB – 289 US$
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 67
LCD remote control iPods in the deep
Silver PAC 5500 Universal Remote Control Swimman has worked on the iPod Shuffle by
comes with a 4.3 inch LCD display and Windows waterproofing it and enabling its use up to 25 feet
Bazaar SideShow technology below water
HTC Touch 2 Specifications
Processor: Qualcomm
Small and elegant MSM7225 528 MHz
Screen: 2.8-inch QVGA
Network: 850/900/1800/
W
hen you will find it an improvement but
first take the someone not so adept will have 1900 MHz; Memory: 512 MB
Touch 2 in a hard time performing simple ROM; 256 MB RAM; Weight:
your hand, it tasks. The resistive screen, 110 g; Connectivity: Blue-
looks like an impressive little although nice looking, is not tooth, Wi-Fi, 3.5-mm audio
gadget with a lot of promise. very responsive to finger input.
The gunmetal matte finish on The dedicated hardware keys Contact
its plastic body looks elegant. will come of use. The camera Phone: +91-98108 32373
WinMo, even in the latest 6.5 is not very impressive either. Email: sanjay sharma@htc.com
flavour is bound to put off It distinctly had trouble han- Web: www.htc.com
most people, but HTC’s own dling different lighting condi- Price: Rs. 24,490 (MH & MP),
TouchFLO UI augmentation tions, resulting in a sepia-like Rs. 22,490 (Rest of India)
makes this phone more usable. colour tone in many shots. The
The phone is fast and we found inbuilt GPS and preloaded
the scrolling shortcut bar at applications such as Facebook, 7
the bottom of the home screen YouTube and Office Mobile def- 10
to be quite handy for quickly initely earns the phone some
launching certain applications. points. We find the price tag to
Features..........................8
Performance .................6
Getting into deeper options be tad on the outer side. HTC
Build quality..................9
within the phone is still a pain. has better offering around that Value for money...........6
Those familiar with WinMo price point.
Samsung 40-inch LED TV
Specifications Sleek... needs something more
Scree size: 40-inches,
Resolution – 1920 x
T
1080p, LED-backlit, Con- he extra wide bezel of
trast ratio – 30,00,000:1 this 40-inch HDTV
(Dynamic, stated), weight not withstanding,
(with stand) – 23.2 kgs it’s a quite a stunner.
Thanks to LED backlighting,
Contact the display is really slim and
Alok Pathak the large stand is made of glass
Phone: +91-11-4151123 embedded with red highlights
Email: alok.pathak@ – Bordeaux style. The material
samsung.com used imparts a very upmarket
Web: www.samsung.com/in/ look and feel. Even while setting
Price: Rs. 1,25,000 up, the blackness level is pretty wider. Movies are pretty good, There is noticeable input lag as
good and the HDMI ports face with minimal banding. There well, noticeable in games and
sideways, which really makes is a lot of noise and banding in with desktop use. Text clarity,
6 setting up easy. really dark areas of the screen when connected to a PC is also
10 The contrast ratio is very while watching video content, an issue. Priced at Rs. 1,25,000,
good, in DisplayMate, we got but this is not very serious. There this Samsung 40-incher is over-
Features.... 6.5 great scores for the grey-scale were some really bad issues with priced. However, it’s stunningly
Performance .................6
intensity check. Colour rendition the backlight response and this good looking and will make a
Build quality..................8
Value ...............................4 was good, but we felt the gamut spoilt what could have been flaunt-worthy addition to your
for red should have been a bit a decent gaming experience. designer home.
Transcend launched ultrafast JetFlash USB pen drives having read speeds upto 32MBps and 18MBps of write speeds Corsair introduced 24GB
68 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Exotic photography Mind control robot
LEICA M7 Edition Hermes Camera marries Robotics scientists have developed a robotic arm
photography with luxury costing 9,500 Euros that can be controlled by mere thought processes Bazaar
ATI Radeon HD 5970
AMDs return to high-end competition
A
TI’s Radeon
HD 5970 is an
extreme high-
end graphics card Specifications
which comes equipped with a Engine Clock: 725 MHz
dual GPU thus making it the Memory Clock: 1000 MHz
best performing card in their Memory Interface: 512 - bit
lineup. The 5970 has a 512-bit Video Memory: 2 GB DDR5
bus with a core clock of 725
MHz and memory clock of Contact
1000 MHz along with 1 GB of the goods during performance. is a key component and has to AMD
DDR5 memory. In general, it is a good bit faster be chosen to provide enough Phone: 1-800 425 6664
Design-wise, it’s very sim- than the dual-GPU NVIDIA air-flow to enable quicker Email: fusion.india@amd.
ilar to the slower HD5870 and GeForce GTX295. cooling of the card. Considering com
HD5850 cards. The card runs The only thing that is of this is a high-end product, the Web: www.amd.com
on a 6 and 8-pin power con- concern is the heating up of the price of Rs. 42,000 is quite Price: Rs. 42,000
nector configuration. It has a card. Due to the closed design, steep. The DX 11 compatibility
single fan cooling system, with
Complete results of the Radeon 5970 at
8
two air-inflow compartments www.thinkdigit.com/d/1001_rad5970 10
beside the fan. Features..........................8
The card was tested on an Performance .................9
ASUS P6T Deluxe mother- it tends to heat up a lot. It’s also is an added advantage even Build quality..................8
board with an Intel Core i7 975 a little cooler than the GTX295 though there are no DX11 com- Value for money...........7
processor. The card delivered under load though. The cabinet patible games around for now.
Sony DSC-TX1 Specifications
The Sony touch 10.2 MP CMOS sensor, 3-inch
touchscreen, 4x optical zoom,
video resolution: 1280 x 720,
T
he Sony DSC-TX1
comes in an uber- Dimensions: 93.8 x 58.2 x
slim solid metal shell 16.5 mm, weight: 119 g
and is one of the stur-
diest cameras around. This is a Contact
10.2-MP, 4x optical zoom port- Sony India
able camera. Phone: 1800-103-7799
One of the key features of the Email: sonyindia.care@
TX1 is the touchscreen used for ap.sony.com
almost all of the features on the Web: www.sony.co.in
camera. The zoom trigger feels Price: Rs. 20,990
poorly designed – it’s too small easy to use. The lens is placed does HD video. Although, it lacks
and has too little travel. The front away away from the corner of the features and performance, 7
is protected by a metal sliding the camera, so your finger won’t the compact size is something 10
panel. The piece we received block the view. The touchscreen that will appeal to many. It’ll fit Features...................... 6.5
had some fine scratches from is decent, but display a little laggy. into any pocket size, so you can Performance .................6
the slider movement. It has variable focus points and take it anywhere you go. If that’s Build quality..................8
The screen quality isn’t great. you even choose which area you what you want, the price of Rs. Value for money....... 6.5
The user interface is basic and want the camera to focus. It even 20,990 should not be an issue.
Dominator DDR3 memory kit for professional applications and performance enthusiasts SatNav technologies’ free GPS navigation software to be
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 69
Old school Super expensive!
A path breaking retro form factor Nikon‘s AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/2.8 ED
for PCs by Philco PC which can run VR II super telephoto lens costs a mind
Bazaar Windows 7 boggling $5,900
Philips 42PFL5609
Specifications Can’t hold a candle to its older sibling
Size
42-inches, resolution – 1920
P
hilips’ 42PFL5609 be suitably scaled down, and Using DisplayMate, the
x 1080 pixels, backlighting initially comes this is not to nitpick, because contrast ratio is immediately
– CCFL, Contrast Ratio – across as the the display isn’t bad – it’s just noticed to be deficient. This
50000:1 (Dynamic, stated), 42PFL7409’s we had the 42PFL7409 at shows up in movies, especially
brightness – 500 cd/m2, 3 x poorest pal. Part of the 5 series, hand, and the difference, is darker scenes. Input lag is not
HDMI connects, 2 x Com- the build quality is okayish, very noticeable. The native noticeable. There is also a ten-
ponent, 1 x Composite, 1 x with the plastics being lower resolution for PC is set at 1360 dency to over saturate reds.
D-Sub, 1 x USB grade than its higher-end sib- x 768 pixels, while the display Picture quality is good, but
ling. The panel also appears to itself goes up to 1080p. there was some minor banding
Contact noticeable and the display does
Philips Electronics India Ltd. not work with non-native reso-
Phone: 18601801111 lutions as well. On the whole,
Email: customercare.India@ movies are fun, especially
philips.com higher resolution stuff.
Web: www.india.philips.com Gaming is a little less
Price: Rs. 64,990 involving, owing to the deficient
contrast. Use on a PC should
6.5 be avoided as text crispness
10 and overall display clarity is a
problem, unless you’re willing to
Features..........................6 run it at 1360 x 768 pixels. At Rs.
Performance ..................6 64,990, it’s pretty overpriced, but
Build quality..................7 better than the Samsung 40-inch
Value ...............................6
LED display in terms of value.
Skullcandy Skullcrushers
Black Checker Specifications
30mm neodymium magnetic
speakers, Frequency range:
Blows the mind... literally 20 – 20 kHz, 1.5-m cord
Contact
T
he Skullcrushers this overly powerful-for-a-
Black Checker headphone speaker, an AA Skullcandy India
model is undoubt- battery is required. The bat- Phone: +91-120-3067633
edly one of the tery holder block also has Email: sales
boldest looking headphones bass-level control. The bass @skullcandyindia.com
we’ve seen. The design might is excessive and is so much Web: skullcandyindia.com
be attractive to some, but those that you can feel your ears Price: Rs. 3,469
who want simple yet elegant and the headphone vibrate.
looking headphones will hate We used it at 10 per cent
this. Although the build quality overall capacity. and action movies, the bass
isn’t great, there’s a lot of flex- Audio quality isn’t great can be fun. 6.5
ibility to fit your head. Those – the bass is overkill. It These cans are crude and 10
with really big heads might find kicks into the music at the they’re like a toy. But they Features..........................7
it uncomfortable as well. wrong time all the time. are loads of fun with all the Performance .................7
The key feature is the Without any bass, the crazy vibrations in games Build quality..................6
bass on this thing. To power quality is decent. For games or movies. Value ........................... 6.5
available freely for Nokia phone users ASUS bagged eight 2010 iF Product Design Awards for its notebook and keyboard series MSI claims it is
70 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
iPhones printing Acer’s Androids
Epson announces iPrint photo printing app for iPod Acer plans to come out with five to six Android
touch and iPhone users based handsets in the first half of 2010 Bazaar
Compro VideoMate IP50W
Your neighbourhood watch
T
he Compro Vide- support for multiple cam-
oMate IP50W is eras and the system allows Specifications
a security camera for motion detection and 1/4-inch colour CMOS VGA
system that uses a recording as well. sensor, resolution: 640x480,
network camera to remotely You can access the maximum frame rate: 30
monitor areas of your office camera over the web fps, Dimensions: 84 x 124
or home. The camera has a on desktops as well as x 91.5 mm
good sturdy design, but it has mobiles. In that aspect,
a steady flashing blue light at it’s extremely versatile. Contact
the front that draws attention. There’s even Wi-Fi and Creative Peripherals & Dis-
The installation is supposed two-way audio streams. tribution Pvt. Ltd.
to be pretty straightforward, All the features work Phone: +91-99877 84010
but we had some issues with flawlessly and the remote Web: www.comprousa.com
automatically detecting the net- access to the camera over Price: Rs. 10,000
work camera on the network the net is good. The Compro
using the software provided. VideoMate IP50W is a
The camera and the soft- great security solution. If 7.5
ware together has several it doesn’t grab pictures of 10
features. The software and intruders, just knowing that market price of Rs. 7,000 (MRP
web interface on the camera it’s present is sure to keep them is Rs. 10,000) is a little high if
Features..........................8
Performance ............. 7.5
allows resolution and frame away. A built-in battery would you think of it as a gadget, but not
Build quality..................7
rate settings to be managed. have been a nice thing to have when you think of it as a serious Value for money....... 6.5
The ComproView software has in case of power outages. The security camera.
Autodesk Maya ECS 2010
Be your own 3D CG studio
Requirements
T
he concept of suites Artist: Marius Jursys
is somewhat new. Windows XP/Vista 32 and
We look at the Maya 64-bit versions, 2 GB RAM,
Entertainment 5 GB disk space, 512 MB
Suite 2010, which is a bundle OpenGL / DirectX 9.0c card,
of Maya 2010, Motionbuilder
and Mudbox. Contact
This suite is huge and has Autodesk
tons of possibilities. Maya Web: www.autodesk.com
is best known as a 3D mod- Motionbuilder allows for With close integration in Price: $4,995. (Rs. 233,000)
elling tool and is compared intensive character rigging Maya, Motionbuilder and
to 3d Studio Max. Some key and animating features once Mudbox, it’s easy to move models
improvements have been the model is complete. The and scenes from one package to
made to include better ste- user interface is very simple another seamlessly. The new 7
reographic camera support
for 3D movies. The inter-
because of the use of colour
and easy-to-understand
avatar of this package from
Autodesk allows independent
10
face hasn’t changed a lot controls for the rig itself. artists and studios to be able to Features..........................8
and modelling is still most Tweaking of physics and ani- have a complete 3D content devel- Performance .................8
Build quality.............. 6.5
comfortable for those well mations in real-time is also opment suite that integrates and
Value ...............................5
versed with it. very well done. therefore works well as a package.
ready with WiMAX enabled laptops for the Indian market by January 2010 Synology launched economical Disk Stations DS210j and DS410j having
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 71
Impatient surfers CES 2010
Four of five viewers leave a stream if it rebuffers Over 2700 technology companies expected to take
according to a study carried out by Tubemogul, part in the International Consumer Electronics Show
Bazaar a video distribution and analytics startup (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2010
Amkette WF-301 Specifications
2.4 GHz RF, mouse speed
800 dpi, Power source - 2
A dual function device — keyboard with a trackball AAA batteries, Minimum
RAM – 256 MB, USB port
D
esktop users can receiver should be connected It takes a while getting 1.1 or later, Works on Win-
enjoy the flexibility to USB slot in front of the CPU accustomed to using the dows 98/Me/2000/XP/
provided by the for smooth performance. This trackball with a finger. The Vista/Win 7, Linux , OS X
Amkette WF 301, feature is great for users having placement of the mouse click Dimensions: 365x 156 x 22 mm
which is an integrated wireless HTPCs as it eases controlling buttons and the scroll key just
keyboard with a trackball that the system or browsing the web below the trackball is incon- Contact
packs in the dual functionality while watching a movie or while venient. The two additional Amkette
of a keyboard and a mouse. making presentations on big click buttons on the left-hand Phone: +91-93106 75585
The keyboard can be screens in executive offices or side of the keyboard provide Email: rahul.gandhi@
used at a distance of up to 10 in boardrooms. The absence of immense flexibility. Power amkette.com
metres, but without any bar- a dedicated number pad makes saving mode of the keyboard Web: www.amkette.com
rier between the receiver and mathematical calculations an is an interesting feature, which Price: Rs. 2,995
the keyboard. Ideally, the RF uphill task. takes the keyboard to a sleep
mode if it’s not used for over
4 minutes. It exits the sleep 6.5
mode as soon as any key is 10
pressed. A light above the
trackball blinks when the bat-
Features...................... 6.5
Performance .................7
tery is running out.
Build quality..................7
A retail price of Rs. 2,995 is Value for money...........6
a bit on the steeper side.
HP TouchSmart PC IQ528d
Touch me not?
T
his all-in-one offering ways than just your mouse and operate it from a few feet away.
from HP is not your keyboard. The piece we got had There is slot loading dual layer
Specifications ordinary run-of-the- Windows 7 and a set of touch DVD writer optical drive on the
Processor: Intel C2 Duo mill PC. This sleek applications that form part of side. Of course a hoard of ports lie
T6600, Memory: 4 GB device is more a gadget than the TouchPack. underneath a removable panel at
Graphics: GeForce 9300M GS a PC and features a 22-inch While it gets full points for the back, including LAN, SPDIF
HDD: 640 GB SATA touchscreen. This means you coolness, touch becomes cumber- and TVin. The audio quality of
TV: PCIe mini-card, get to interact with it in more some when used as your primary the speakers is quite decent, very
TV tuner card method of input. Issues such suitable for personal listening.
as arm fatigue and finger As for the internals, it fea-
Contact prints on the screen do tures Intel’s Core 2 Duo T6600
HP India creep up. The build quality 2.20 GHz processor with 4 GB
Email: ketan.patel@hp.com is solid – the wireless key- of RAM. The GeForce 9300M
Web: www.hp.com board features pseudo iso- GS graphics solution is more
Price : Rs. 89,990 lated keys, while the mouse than enough for running touch
looks surprisingly like the apps and playing HD video.
6.5 magic mouse from Apple. However, serious gaming is out
10 It also comes with an of the question. Our standard
MCE remote, so you can benchmarks for PCs revealed
Features..........................7 a decent performance. It’s over-
Performance ............. 6.5 priced but if you want a conver-
Build quality..................7 sation piece you might want to
Value for money...........5 opt for it.
storage capacities upto 4TB and 8TB respectively Nikon launches with the D3S for professional news, sports and wildlife photographers
72 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Windows Mobile 7 soon Apple Lala
Windows Mobile 7 will be coming out late next year according Apple acquires Lala, a paid online music streaming
to Microsoft UK Mobility head Phil Moore. service, that bypasses the need to download iTunes Bazaar
ZOTAC GeForce GT220
A cool entry level graphics card, literally Specifications
GPU Clock: 625 MHz
Memory Clock: 1580 MHz
Z
OTAC GeForce GT
220 is an entry- Memory Interface: 128-bit
level graphics card Video Memory: 1 GB DDR3
that provides quite Dimensions: 365
a punch with its limited fea- x 156 x 22 mm
tures. Armed with a 625-MHz
core clock and a memory clock
of 1580 MHz, the GT220 has a Contact
1-GB DDR3 memory. Aditya Infotech Ltd.
It comes with an HDMI Phone: +91-93106 75585
port which makes it deal as Email: sales@adityagroup.com
an HTPC graphics solution. Web: www.zotac.com
It does not need any addi- Price: Rs. 5,500
tional power. Get the full benchmark scores at
The card was tested on www.thinkdigit.com/d/1001_zot220
our graphics card test bench
– an ASUS P6T Deluxe moth- The GT220’s advantage is considering that XFX GeForce 6.5
erboard on a Core i7 975 that it does not tend to heat 9600GSO, one of the winners 10
processor. For an entry-level up a lot. We only saw a 4 to 5 in our entry-level graphics card
Features..........................7
graphics card, the GT220 degree difference between load test is marginally better and is
Performance .................8
performs well. It was better and idle temperatures. also available at a lower price.
Build quality..................8
off than the ZOTAC GeForce Priced at Rs. 5,500, the If you’re planning to buy a new Value for money...........7
9500GT. GT220 is slightly expensive, card, it’s better to wait a while.
Corsair HX850W
Large, lovely but overkill
Specifications
T
he HX 850W comes you only use the cables you Western Digital Velociraptors Power – 850 W, connects
snuggled inside need. The cables themselves and 2 x ATi Radeon HD 5870 – 12 x SATA, 12 x 4-pin
loads of styrofoam are sleeved in a nylon jacket graphics cards, everything was molex, 6 x PCIe, active PFC,
and a huge package. and pretty long, certainly rock steady. Needless to say, single rail 12 V design
The PSU is well constructed enough for larger chassis or there were no hiccups whatso-
and heavy and the finish is a bottom-mounted configura- ever. It has an unheard of six Contact
matte powered coating that tions. A 140-mm fan handles PCIe power connects and each Tirupati Enterprises
seems rugged. Being modular, air circulation and this fan is of these are 8-pin connects, Phone: +91-93392 07519
cable clutter is minimal since touted to be ultra quiet till the meaning this PSU is totally Email: sales@adi-
load on the PSU future proof. We feel running tyagroup.com
crosses 70 per cent. two Radeon HD 5970 cards Web: http://www.tirupati.net
Try as we could, should also be possible . Price: Rs. 10,750
we couldn’t load For most people, this is
the HX 850W to a gross overkill. Still, it’s 8
anywhere near
its maximum
remarkably well built and
remarkably efficient and
10
potential. Even it’s built from premium spec Features...................... 8.5
with a Core i7 975 components. To top it all, it Performance ............. 6.5
Extreme, 6 GB of has an unbeatable seven-
Build quality.............. 8.5
Value for money....... 6.5
DDR3 memory, 2 x year warranty.
priced at Rs 2.89 lakh ASUS unveiled the P7P55D-E Premium motherboard which will feature true USB 3.0 and SATA 6GBps performance AMD
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 73
High-speed data links
i6500 after i5700 Spica Google to be a part of consortium to install the $400
Samsung i6500 is the going to be its next million Southeast Asia Japan undersea cable that will
Bazaar Android phone after i5700 Spica greatly increase internet access globally.
Specifications
Compliant Standard:
IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u,
D-Link DIR 685
IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 892.11g,
Costliest home router ever?
T
IEEE 802.11n (draft 2.0) he D-Link DIR 685 tons have a definite
LAN Ports: 1 WAN port, 4 Router is a high- delay in the response
LAN RJ 45 ports end feature-rich time. The LCD is
Dimensions: 4.4 in x 5.8 in x router. Its body with crisp and it displays
1.2 in (W x D x H) a smooth finish and a 3.2-inch information such
LCD screen makes it one of as internet speeds.
Contact the better looking routers in The router provides
D-Link (India) Ltd. the market. unique features such
Phone: +91-22-8659 5765 It comes with two USB ports as FTP server and file
Email: divya. for external storage devices and sharing on the net-
shetty@dlink.co.in it also has a slot to attach a 2.5- work. There’s even
Web: www.dlink.co.in inch SATA hard drive (up to Bittorrent down-
Price: Rs. 21,000 500 GB) on the rear side. It can loading capabilities.
room but the signal quickly
Check out the performance figures of weakens in the adjoining
7 the D-Link DIR 685 on www.thinkdigit.
com/d/1001_dlink685 room and so does the per-
10 formance. For all the grand
also be used as a photo frame The router was tested features provided by the
Features..........................8 although we would like a larger for wireless performance router, there is a grander
Performance .................6 screen. The router is easy to set in three zones. It runs quite price to pay. At Rs. 21,000,
Build quality..................8 up, although it takes a long time smoothly with the wire- it’s one of the most expensive
Value for money...........6
to start up. The touch screen but- less connection in the same routers we’ve tested.
Samsung ST550 Specifications
A path breaking dual-screen compact camera 12.2 MP, 4.6x Optical Zoom
ISO Range 80-3200, Micro
SD expandable up to 4 GB /
The photographs are quite Micro SDHC expandable up
rich and even at ISO 1600, the to 8 GB,
noise effect is not that promi- Video: 1,280 x 720 @ 30/15fps
nent. The camera lacks a view- Dimensions: 4.4 in x 5.8 in x
finder. The preview button 1.2 in (W x D x H)
just below the zoom notch also
allows the user to make on-the- Contact
spot image editing which is an Zion Kim
innovative feature. Phone: +91-22-8659 5765
The face detection feature Email: zion.kim
of ST550 is quite impressive. @samsung.com
For a compact camera,it has Web: www.samsung.com/in/
various options to focus a sub- Price: Rs. 24,990
ject. The Smart Touch AF and
7.5
T
he Samsung ST550 The design is very simple One touch shooting modes
is the first ever com- with only three buttons and a provide the user enough 10
pact camera to have zoom notch. The touch screen freedom to choose any focus
a 1.5 inch display works well. The wide touch point within a frame.
Features..........................8
Performance .................7
screen embedded in the front screen enables ease of control, Priced at Rs. 24,990, it’s
Build quality..................8
panel, thus allowing easy cap- but navigation will definitely expensive for a compact camera
Value for money...........7
ture of self-potraits. take some time. in spite of the many features.
claims that it is now second in the mobile graphics market right ahead of NVIDIA A company by the name Bing! claims that Microsoft has violated its
74 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Data consumption XS-SSR3
Average Americans consume 34GB of data daily according JVC launches a path breaking form factor with
to a research by University of California its XS-SR3 curved dock speaker Bazaar
Fyoocher DDR2 2 GB Specifications
Memory: 2 GB DDR2
A new comer that we’ll remember Speed: 667 MHz
F
yoocher is a new bility issues whatsoever. gave a memory bandwidth of
player in the entry The memory was tested on a 4.42GBps in SiSoft Sandra Contact
level memory market X38 chipset board running an which was similar to the Cor- Phone: +91-22-4275 4545
and have launched a Intel Core 2 Duo Q9650 proc- sair Dominators 2 GB DDR2 Email: info@fyoochertek.com
range of memory modules for essor. It performed quite well in RAM kit running at the same Web: www.fyoochertek.com
laptops and desktops. We’re the benchmark tests. The RAM speed and timings. Price: Rs. 2,500
looking at their DDR2 desktop The RAM memory is
memory. best suited for everyone
This value memory building PCs within lim-
is pretty much like any ited budgets. Gamers who
other value memory – no want to overclock might 7
heatsinks or fancy coolers not be pleased with the 10
on it. We ran the tests with overclocking performance
Features..........................7
the memory forced to run of this memory. Performance .................7
at its speed of 667 MHz. At Rs. 2,500 (MRP), Build quality..................7
Timings were set to 4-4- it’s a good VFM buy. Market Value for money...........8
4-12 and we faced no sta- prices are bound to fluctuate.
GlacialTech X-Wing R1
Generously large cooler, but a tiny fan
T
he X-Wing R1 is one of
the few decent looking
notebook coolers
around. Some might
find the bright red accents loud,
but we feel it complements the Specifications
black body. It’s well built and the Fan size: 70 mm, body –
top is entirely mesh with a rather plastic with metal mesh
small fan enclosed. The centre of Speed: 667 MHz
the rear is vented. Two pegs are
provided for further inclination Up to 17-inch notebooks can fit one, and has a pretty low CFM Contact
towards your body, if the need on this cooler. thanks to its size, meaning GlacialTech
should arise. Even without The wrist support has a the speed control doesn’t do Phone: +886 2 2244 1227
these, the cooler is pretty high quite a few blue-LED backlit much, we’d prefer a larger fan Email: icarol.chiu@
and the palm rest on your note- buttons, for varying fan that covered a greater surface. glacialtech.com
book is at least 1.2-inches higher speed, displaying the tem- While this won’t cool down Web: www.glacialtech.com
than normal. Towards the end perature and fan RPM via an notebooks with heavy-duty Price: Rs. 2,738
of the notebook, the height is integrated two digit, mono- GPUs, it does okay with
only slightly more at 1.8-inches, chrome LCD. There are also regular notebooks that have
using the foot-pegs raises this by multimedia buttons along venting on the rear. While it 5.5
another 0.5 inches. The cooler with volume controls. Thank- affected the temperature of an 10
has a rubber strip running fully your wrist will not acci- Acer notebook we tested, it
across the mesh and this is better dentally activate anything, had no effect on Apple’s Mac-
Features..........................7
Performance .................6
than the traditional pegs used, because you have to apply book Pro. A niche product,
Build quality..................7
since it will prevent both big and extra pressure to engage the and a mediocre one at that,
Value ...............................4
small notebooks from sliding. buttons. The fan is a low RPM in terms of cooling.
trademark Toshiba brings 64GB NAND flash for mobile phones, camera and netbooks, expected to hit markets in early 2010
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 75
Fun with electronics
Heard of Microsoft Office 2010? If you buried that desire to make your own
Toolbox 81 We have useful tricks around it.
For more go to page 81 89 electronics project for lack of knowledge, it’s time
you let go of all apprehensions
Your problem is no
problem to us!
Problem with compilers, system rebooting randomly? Write to us and we’ll give
you the fix to it!
C/C++ coding on More Memory? Graphics card,
64-bit Windows 7 My PC has 2 GB of memory, 1 TB Seagate
I have a Sony VAIO VPC- which is under utilised. It HDD running
CW15FG laptop with Windows always uses virtual memory Windows Vista
7. I use a 64-bit operating on the drive instead of the Ultimate.
system on it. I want to code RAM. My RAM usage is usu- I often browse
in C and C++ and need help ally less than 1 GB and the hard Youtube and
with a better programming drive page file is always above other video sites.
software. I have Turbo C++ 3.0 1500 MB. Why is the available I leave around
which doesn’t work any more memory of RAM underutilised? ten videos to
with this version of Windows. Whenever I launch any appli- buffer fully
I need some software that is cation, only the page file con- before I watch
compatible with Windows 7. sumption usage increases and them. Every time
Tousif Bandaly not the RAM usage. I want to I click the play
know this is because my hard button, it takes a
You can try running Turbo drive is very slow. Because of long time to load
C/C++ using compatibility the virtual memory file, every- from my drive
mode in Windows 7. You can thing takes time to load and I and my video
also try using the virtual PC don’t get the performance that playback per-
formance suf-
fers. Sometimes, Disabling virtual memory entirely on Windows
the video plays
without the sound. This really if you could write an article in
annoys me! I have to close all your future issues regarding
the application and reopen it RAM, virtual memor y
again for it to work again. explaining all the terms shown
Why does my system not in the task manger.
utilise the entire memory? Karthik R
Will a memory upgrade to 4
GB reduce the virtual memory If you want your memory
usage? Is it recommended for a to be used better, you can dis-
user like me? I have tried Ready able the paging file completely.
boost and USB VM options, Press [Windows] + [Pause].
but the result is even poorer Go to Advanced system set-
Turbo C++ running within the DOSbox emulator performance. The worst part tings, Performance, Advanced.
is that I updated to Vista SP2 Set it to Use no page file. You’ll
feature on Windows 7. Also, I should get with this kind of last week and the performance have to reboot after this.
try using DOSBox (www.dosbox. system configuration. got worse. If you’re trying to buffer ten
com), a free DOS emulator. My system configuration: Can you please help me Youtube videos at once, it might
If you want a program Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, Intel out with all these issues. I tried still slow down a bit. Flash can
that runs on Windows 7, try DP45SG motherboard, Tran- different things to resolve this be pretty menacing and use a
Dev-C++ (www.bloodshed.net) and scend 2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz problem, but I haven’t found lot memory. Upgrading to 4 GB
Eclipse (www.eclipse.org). RAM, XFX GeForce 9500GT any solution. It will be helpful won’t make things a lot better.
76 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Facebook! Torrents. Legal? Google DNS
Yahoo! adds integration with popular Mininova has now done away with Google’s new DNS service uses
social networking site Facebook all illegal content on its servers IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 QnA
Try a different browser and the viewport and on high-
also look at the applications density wireframes - it will be
using the most memory. smoother than it is now with
all kinds of mesh and turbo-
Windows time smooth modifiers turned on.
I’m using Windows Vista Home The rendering, however, is
Edition on an HP laptop. I am done only by the processor and
not able to update the system memory. When you upgrade,
time using the Internet time don’t look for a graphics card
update feature. any slower than a GeForce
Prof. K.C. Raveendranathan 9600GT.
Try clicking on Start > System goes
Run (or [Windows] + [R]). blank during bootup
Type cmd, press [Enter]. In Recently, I have been having
the prompt, type ping time. some problems booting my
nist.gov while connected computer. It starts fine but
online. If don’t get a reply to goes blank when the boot
your ping, the server might be screen shows up. It does not Dumeter is a good bandwidth monitoring tool
down. Try later. If the server restart or show a BSOD. If I
address doesn’t resolve, there restart with the reset button, extra data uploaded and down- tracks the total amount of data
might be some kind of DNS the same problem comes back. loaded. I have even disabled all sent and received. Alarms can
problem on your ISP end. When I tried to install a fresh the update options including also be set. A free alternative
copy of Windows XP, it boots ones for the Windows XP SP2 to DUmeter is Netmeter (www.
Will Windows 7 fine from the CD but goes and all other installed software metal-machine.de/readerror/). It lacks
run on an older PC? blank just after loading all files. like codecs, anti-virus defini- many of the features of DUm-
I have a three-year old PC One of my friends suggested tion updates, security updates, eter though.
powered by an AMD Sempron that it could be a problem with etc. I have also disabled auto-
2600+, Gigabyte GA-K8VM800 my RAM. Is it so? Should I go updating of software. But still, I Blue screens and
motherboard, 1.5 GB RAM, 80 to my vendor with the memory have a lot of extra data transfer. viruses woes
GB hard disk. Can you tell me if or is it a fault with some other I calculate data usage using my My PC configuration is as
Windows 7 will run on this PC? component? I was using Win- download manager, browser follows – Motherboard: MSI
If it won’t, what can be done dows XP SP2. and other using statistics. But P45 Platinum, Processor: Intel
for it to run Windows 7. Please Mayukh Biswas when I check internet con- Core2 Duo E8400 3.0GHZ
suggest a good graphics solu- nection properties, it shows (overclocked to 3.15 GHz),
tion. 3d Studio Max and Maya Your friend maybe right. approximately 35 to 50 per Memory: 2 x 1 GB Corsair XMS
are my favourite applications. Try using Memtest86+ (www. cent extra. As I am using my 2 800 MHz, Hard Disk: Seagate
Said Fazil memtest.org) to make sure that the mobile phone connection, it 7200.12 500 GB, Graphics Card:
memory doesn’t have any errors not only wastes my time but Sapphire Radeon 4670, OS:
Yes, Windows 7 will run or faults. The problem could be also makes a hole in my pocket. Windows XP SP2.
just fine on your system. But with some other component too I need some help - is there any I had installed drivers for
you won’t be able to run Win- – run a disk scan to check the application that shows all the the graphics card, but when I
dows Aero theme, although drive for any bad sectors. data being accessed by any install Catalyst, a blue screen
the OS itself will run perfectly software application or any shows up whenever Windows
fine. You should upgrade if you Internet band- type of update? starts. I undid the process
want to game or do intensive width disappearing Vikram Paliwal of installing Catalyst through
work on your system. I like your problem solving sec- system restore. Games such as
Simply upgrading your tion. It’s very helpful. I wanted There is always some Grid, NFS and Assassins Creed
graphics won’t improve the to ask you one of my prob- network traffic even with no run perfectly fine, but I want
performance of 3dsMAX or lems. My system configura- browsing or downloading on. Catalyst as well.
Maya. It will also need an tion is an Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel It definitely can’t be 30 to 50 Also, CPU-Z And GPU-Z
overall upgrade - CPU, moth- GCCR945RY motherboard, 4 per cent more than your usage analyses my graphics card
erboard, RAM and more. GB memory, 450 GB SATA hard though. Try using a software and shows the speed to be 200
The graphics card will drive. I use the internet connec- called DUmeter (www.hageltech. MHz. Getting this card replaced
only help while working in tion but I’ve found that I have com/dumeter/). The software also is not an option for me.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 77
Offline email
WiMAX laptops Popular and open source email Change at Ubuntu
MSI plans to launch WiMAX-enabled client Mozilla Thunderbird 3 gets Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth to
QnA laptops in India ready to launch step down
Recently, I removed a virus BIOS update for 1) My PC is infected with read some of my blank DVDs/
called killvirus.vbs using booting into BIOS Autoit.VQV. It has created CDs or DVDs written on my PC.
USB Disk Security and Threat My motherboard is Micro Star a folder within a folder (eg. 6) My CPU is also making a
Fire. Even then, a message Model No: MS-6577 Ver: 4.1. folder name “New folder” lot of noise.
keeps coming when Windows My current BIOS is Phoenix with a file”New folder.exe” is All software/games men-
starts saying Could not find Award BIOS v6.00PG through present of capacity of at least tioned worked properly before
the script file kill- which I cannot boot from nei- 300 KB in every folder in the formatting the C partition. I
virus.vbs. I want to get rid ther bootable DVD nor USB PC). Please suggest good anti- kept my user name and pass-
of that pesky message. drive. How can I upgrade virus to remove this virus. I had word same. Please help me
Avash Bista my BIOS so that I can do the to format my C partition, but it guys as I don’t want to format
above and if possible, run a didn’t help. This virus uses up a my entire drive.
One of the solutions might SATA Hard Disk as primary lot of space on my drive. Abhishek Gupta
be to format your hard drive master Hard Disk using a SATA I can’t install anti-virus such
and install Windows alto- to USB cable. as Avast, Kaspersky or Norton. Most viruses will disable
gether. Using System Restore Parnold It gives me error messages. the task manager and registry
When I double-click on the editor. Some of them won’t let
installer, nothing happens. you install anti-virus programs
2) Before formatting, I could or even update them. You can
play games such as GTA San try using online web scanners
Andreas, Max Payne 2, Half- to stop of these problems, then
Life, and Soldier of Fortune install an anti-virus.
which are installed on the D If you formatted the C drive,
partition. After formatting, my then the saved games folders
games can’t find their folders from the Documents and Set-
so I delete their folders by tings folders might have also
pressing [Shift] + [Del] been erased. The game crash
and then reinstall them. But I also is because of some kind
can’t play them when I double of corruption. Try reinstalling
click the game executables. the game. The MSI engine error
3) I can’t play games such as might be because you’re using
Disable any suspicious programs from loading during startup
GTA Vice City and GTA Myraid an older version of the Microsoft
Island. It gives me a Unhandle Windows installer application.
to uninstall drivers isn’t the Not all boards support Exception : c0000005 At Update it from Microsoft’s site.
best way to fix the issue. The booting through USB and address : 006f6330 error Try using a different DVD
wrong graphics card details very few had the feature added message. All these games drive to read our discs. There
might also be because of cor- through a BIOS update. You mentioned work fine on my might be a compatibility issue
rupted drivers. If possible, have to first identify the exact friend’s computer. with the drive. Look for any
try installing your graphics model number of your moth- 4) I can’t install Nero 8, firmware updates on the man-
on another system and check erboard and then look for the but Nero 5 works. When ufacturer’s web site. The PC
for similar errors. In case they BIOS updates on the MSI web I double-click on it, Nero might be making noise because
are similar, you have to get the site. Look for the list of changes extracts some files but gives of either a faulty fan on the SMPS
card repaired or replaced. to find the USB boot feature. me a MSI engine cannot or the processor or graphics card.
To get rid of the error mes- Most newer boards will let updated, Please update If you have a poor quality
sage, go to Registry Editor you select a USB device as a manually message. I also cabinet, the panels on the sides
by clicking on Start > Run primary boot disk. can’t install Adobe Photoshop or the base might be making
and typing regedit. Browse CS4 because when I double- the sound you’re hearing. Do
to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Long list click on it, nothing happens. a thorough cleanup of the inte-
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ I have a long list of problems. I can’t install Bittorrent, but I riors and put some padding to
Windows\CurrentVersion\ My PC configuration is as fol- can install uTorrent. It gives me reduce any vibrations.
Run and look for an entry for lows. Operating system: Win- some error messages. A clean format and reinstall
Killvirus.vbs. Delete any dows XP Pro SP 2, Memory: 5) My DVD drive can’t read is also recommended. Try and
relevant entry you may find. 512 MB DDR2, Hard disk: 80 any of your DVDs (When I use a different system to clear
You can also start MSCONFIG GB, Processor: Intel Pentium insert your DVDs it doesn’t any viruses or worms on the
and disable the entry under 4, Motherboard: ASUS P5GD1- display anything). I have to remaining partitions before
the Startup tab. TM Series Rev.105.01. boot several times, but it can you do so.
78 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Tips & Tricks
Office 2010 ment window minimises itself
Before we could recover from to show you the next open
the surprises packed into Win- window behind it.
dows 7, Microsoft released the Remember to close all other
Office 2010 Beta version. Full Windows except for the one you
of new and convenient func- need to take the image from,
tions, the new Office can be since this function only takes
downloaded for free at http://www. the one directly next to the one
microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default. you’re working on. This screen
aspx with the foreknowledge, then takes on a white pallor
of course, that it’s only going to and the cursor turns into a +
work till October 31, 2010. sign. Click and drag the mouse
over the portion of the image
Word screenshots you wish to capture. Once
No more using [Prt Scr]. You Office 2010 ........................................................................................................... 1 you’re done, the window auto-
can now take a screenshot from matically disappears to reveal
Konfabulator ........................................................................................................ 2
within Word. This is great for your selection on the page of
writers who need to add images Thunderbird 3 .................................................................................................... 3 your document.
between their text documents. Ubuntu 9.10 ......................................................................................................... 6 You could do the same with
If you want to take a screen- OneNote (Insert > Screen-
Power saving tips ............................................................................................... 8
shot, click on the Insert tab in clip) and PowerPoint (Insert
the now familiar ribbon above, > Screenshot).
and you’ll notice a button that Please note this feature screen image and instantly
says Screenshot. Run the will not be available if you’re include it into your Word Blogging with Word
mouse over it and you’ll see a working on Word in Compat- document. Click on the Screen Fed up of copying/pasting or
drop down window that tells ibility Mode, but you’ll still see Clipping button and your docu- uploading into your blog? Word
you how to use it. the Screenshot button in the
If you click on the screen- ribbon when you click on the
shot button, it’ll give you a Insert tab. To activate it, you’ll
preview of all the windows need to click on File > Info
already open on your computer. > Convert so that the docu-
It will not show you the win- ment gets out of the 1997-2003
dows you’ve minimised to the format and lets you make use
taskbar, so make sure they’re of the new features.
all active behind the window You probably noticed the
you’re working on. Screen Clipping button at
Click on the one you need the bottom of the window that
and it’ll be inserted into drops down from the Screen- Don’t minimise the screen you want captured
the page you’re working on shot button. This allows you
in Word. to crop or clip any part of a
You can use this to insert full screenshots into text documents The screenshot adjusts to the parameters of the page
Tips & Tricks
Convert to get the best out of Office 2010
2010 allows you to post your PowerPoint 2010 lets you in-
literary outpourings straight sert videos (or audio files, as
from your document, without the case may be) directly into Add images to your notes
having to go through the the presentation itself.
process of opening a browser, When you wish to put a visible in the middle of your Choose My Computer, right-
logging in and uploading. video into a slide, just click on slide. You can then change click on the little pane and click
Just click on the Office the Insert tab above the ribbon the size of the video using the on widget preferences. A
button on the top left above the on top of the page. Click on variety of Video Tools that small window will open where
ribbon (File). Click on the New Video on the right side of the appear in the ribbon above. you can customise the settings
tab and choose the Blog post Insert ribbon and the drop- With the same procedure, you for your pictures. You can
button. Click on the Create down menu asks whether you can embed audio files directly choose the folder to monitor for
button on the right. You need wish to embed the video from into your presentation, using photos in the Select Picture
to register your blog. You your own PC or from Folder. By default, it is set to My
can choose from the most pop- a web site. Picture. You can set the images
ular ones such as WordPress If you click on to randomly or chronologically
and TypePad. Video from file…, appear through the Sort Pic-
All you have to do then, is a browse dialogue tures option. You can set a tran-
fill the User ID and password box appears for you sition interval of every minute,
for your blog. Once you’re done to locate the file. five minutes, 15 minutes, half
with your blog post, simply Once you select the hour or hourly. The second tab
click on the Publish button on file, PowerPoint will of the settings, Frame, will let
the top left of the ribbon. embed it into your Video embedding made easy you choose the style of the frame
presentation. and the maximum size to display
Video in PowerPoint You can even insert videos the Audio button next to Video, any picture. It’s a cool way to
Until now, if you wanted to directly from YouTube, Daily on the Insert ribbon. keep looking at all the photos
show your audience a rel- Motion or any of your favourite you have on your hard disk
evant or interesting video, you video sharing site. When you Konfabulator without having to browse
had to create hyperlinks on click on Video from Web Getting started through them manually.
your PowerPoint slides and site, simply paste the embed To use Yahoo! Widgets on If you store your pictures
temporarily move out of your code directly into the text box either your PC or Mac, you first on Flickr, these settings can be
presentation for the purpose. that appears and the video is need to grab the installer online used to configure default Yahoo!
(widgets.yahoo.com) and install Widgets photo application for
it. Download the program, the photo-sharing service as
install it and go through the well. To browse through pic-
initial few options. tures in online photo albums,
WebImages ( http://widgets.
Photo streaming yahoo.com/widgets/webimages )
The photo viewer that comes offers better customisation
built-in with Yahoo! Widgets and lets you save those web
is actually the best tool when images on your hard drive.
it comes to browsing pictures To check out cool photos of
stored on your hard disk. When the day from Flickr or National
you first click on it, you will Geographic, there are two great
be asked to choose between tools. For Flickr, check out Flickr
loading pictures from Flickr, Explor’r (http://widgets.yahoo.com/
No browsers required Yahoo! Photos or your PC. widgets/flickr-explor39r) that show-
Tips & Tricks
a worthy choice. Otherwise,
we would strongly suggest
sticking to a standalone RSS
reader or ticker.
Webcomics reader
Just like with RSS readers,
reading comics through a
widget faces a similar issue
of lack of contenders, when it
comes to an all-in-one solution.
The only decent option is Dai-
lyDose (http://widgets.yahoo.com/
widgets/daily-dose), but it lets you
monitor only three comics at a
time. To add the comic strip of
your choice, you will have to go
to the Widget Preferences and
copy-paste the web link to your
desired comic. There are ample
Yahoo! Widgets or Konfabulator, all your fun things at one place customisation options avail-
able for the comics through
cases the 500 most interesting The Weather widget itself is If you are looking for a great the widget preferences for the
photos from Flickr each day. And quite useful as in its mini mode, timer countdown widget, the same, which are explained
for nature lovers, the National it will show you the current tem- best one we have come across is through an example comic
Geographic Picture of the Day perature outside and whether the Atomic Timer (http://widgets. already loaded.
widget (http://widgets.yahoo.com/ it’s cloudy or sunny with an yahoo.com/widgets/atomic-timer). However, if you must have
widgets/national-geographic-picture- image representing the same. A Feature-rich, incredibly cus- your fix of daily comics through
of-the-day) promises to satiate drop-down icon in the bottom- tomisable and yet easy to use and Yahoo! Widgets, most of the
your thirst for great scenic pho- left corner will give expanded configure, you will not need to popular comics already have
tographs every day. information such as weather even look at any other timer. great individual widgets ready,
forecast for the next four days including the likes of Calvin
Weather based on readings from Weather. RSS reader and Hobbes, Penny Arcade,
If you wish to know the com, as well as details of the Without a doubt, the biggest Dilbert, Garfield, Ctrl+Alt+Del
weather outside while sitting current climatic conditions such flaw in Yahoo! Widgets is the and XKCD. Just search for your
in your comfortable, insu- as humidity, pressure, sunrise lack of a good RSS reader. We favourite comic in the Yahoo!
lated office cubicle, the default and sunset. tried out eight different RSS Widgets gallery and you should
Yahoo! Weather widget is by While Yahoo! uses Fahr- readers and tickers, but not one find it easily.
far the best of the lot available. enheit by default, Indian users of them managed to impress
Its simplicity is what makes it might prefer to have their tem- us. The best option for those Mozilla
so useful. perate readings in degrees Cel- who absolutely want one is Thunderbird 3
Click on it once in the Yahoo! sius. To change this, right-click the RSS Reader widget (http:// After spending 15 minutes
Widgets dock to start it up, and anywhere on the widget, choose widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/rss-reader). with Thunderbird 3 (TB3),
you will see the weather settings ‘Widget Preferences’ and check It will let you add, remove and our first reaction was one of
for Sunnyvale – the interna- the box for ‘Use metric units’. manage several feeds, as well delight: Mozilla is back! Just
tional headquarters for Yahoo!. as customise your font and the like Gmail made Thunderbird
Click on it for a drop-down bar Clock look of the widget. However, 2 seem silly and archaic, TB3
to change your location. In the The default analogue and for some inexplicable reason, makes Gmail seem utterly
ensuing box, just type the name digital clocks provide all it does not support Word Wrap limited. The biggest reason
of the city you’re looking for, the functionality you could and keeps making you resize for this is that at the end of the
such as Mumbai or New Delhi, want from a clock. They are the window to read headlines day, Gmail is an online email
in the first blank bar. Yahoo! both skinnable as well, with that are larger than the width client; Mozilla has made Thun-
Weather recognises most inter- extra skins available at their of the window. If you have a derbird 3 into what can best be
national cities and will update respective pages in the Yahoo! large screen and plan to keep described as a ‘communication
your information accordingly. Widgets gallery. this elongated all the time, it’s management’ tool.
Tips & Tricks
Google Calendar > Google Calendar tab. tor;1’].getService(Compo you don’t have to switch the
Mozilla developer Bryan Clark Clicking on it will open a new nents.interfaces.nsIWind browser window at any time
has come up with an awesome tab prompting you to sign into owMediator).getMosRecent and every link just pops up in
extension that allows users to your Google Calendar. Do so Window(“mail:3pane”).doc an adjoining tab.
use Google Calendar in a sepa- and you are ready to start using ument.getElementBy But that’s where Thun-
rate tab in Thunderbird 3. Google Calendar from a tab Id(“tabmail”). derbird differs. Thanks to its
To get Google Calendar within your Thunderbird 3! openTab(“contentTab”, large open-source community,
running as a separate tab in {contentPage: “https:// the program has an extension
your TB3, head over to Clark’s Google Wave wave.google.com/ called ThunderBrowse that lets
blog (http://clarkbw.net/blog) and The new Google Wave service wave/?nouacheck”}); you browse through sites and
scroll down to the entry on has been getting a lot of media Click Evaluate and Thun- links right from inside your
running Google Calendar in attention, especially with its derbird will open up a new tab email client.
Thunderbird Tabs (November invitation-only policy. How- with Google Wave running in You can grab the extension
23). Clark has provided a link ever, while it is touted as “what it. Sign in and start waving! from the add-ons manager or
to download his extension in email would have been like Cool, eh? download it to your PC form
XPI format. Once you save the were it to be invented today”, thunderbrowse.com and install
file to your hard drive, open up Wave is not compatible with Browse links it. Once installed, Thunder-
Thunderbird and go to Tools Thunderbird 3 or any other One of the biggest complaints Browse will give you lots of
> Add-ons. Navigate to the email client. people have with email clients options such as using autocom-
Extensions tab and click the Thankfully, the web is full (and so do we, to be frank) is plete, enabling Javascript and
Install button at the bottom- of clever little hackers who are that when you get a link in an cookies. The add-on is highly
customisable and you can go
through the options to tweak it
to your favoured settings.
Running web apps
The method used to run Google
Wave was inspired by Bryan
Clark’s source code for the
Google Calendar Tab. Clark
has also listed another cool
work around for users to run
any web app they want – be it
Twitter, Facebook or Orkut –
from a tab in TB3.
First, you go to Tools >
Error Console in TB. In the
box, type the following code:
Components.classes[‘@moz
illa.org/appshell/window
-mediator;1’].getService
(Components.interfaces.n
sIWindowMediator).getMos
tRecentWindow(‘mail:3pan
e’).document.getElement
ById(‘tabmail’).openTab
You can now use Google Calendar from within your Thunderbird client (‘contentTab’,{contentP
age:’http://ABCDEFGH.CO
left corner. In the pop-up box ready with a way to run Google email, you invariably have to M’})
that follows, browse to where Wave in your Thunderbird 3. go to a different application – To browse to a web app of
you have saved GoogleCal- First, go to Tools > Error Con- your browser – to open it. This your choice, simply replace
endarTab.XPI and open it to sole. There, in the provided box, is annoying, tedious and one the ABCDEFGH.COM to the site
install the same in your TB. type the following code Compo- of the main reasons so many address such as Twitter.com
After restarting your nents.classes[‘@mozilla. people prefer to use an online or Facebook.com. Once you
Thunderbird, head to Tools org/appshell/windowmedia email client like Gmail, since hit Evaluate, you should get
Tips & Tricks
Google Wave on Thunderbird? That’s a surprise
a new tab with the service open images sent with emails auto- your Thunderbird, there is a in the various options available
in it. matically. There are quite a handy extension that can help on the page. For example, with
Knowing the robust Mozilla few newsletters and other you out. Called gContactSync, Windows Live Mail, the option
community, it won’t be long important mails we receive, the experimental add-on is is situated in the drop-down list
before someone comes up as well as fun forwards, which available on the official Thun- when you click Manage.
with a great add-on or exten- depend heavily on these derbirds add-on page at https:// By default, most email
sion that lets you browse sites images. So how do you bypass addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ services export your contact
and web apps easily. But even this annoying feature? addon/8451. list in the CSV format, which
as it stands right now, for a First, go to Tools > Once installed, click on the both Outlook Express and
techie, Thunderbird 3 is an Options > General Tab extension in the add-ons pane Thunderbird can read. Some
amazing communication man- > Config Editor. The pro- and enter its Options mode. In email providers give multiple
agement tool. gram will warn you that you the Accounts tab, click on the format options; in that case,
Another way to browse are about to void your war- Add Login button and provide choose CSV or anything that
the internet or open web apps ranty; accept that. In the filter your user details, and hit OK. is Outlook compliant.
in TB3 is by using Thunder- box, type mailnews.message_ From here, gContactSync will Once you download and
Browse. Just create and save display.disable_remote_ take over, and within ten min- save the file to your hard drive,
a draft email with all your go to your Mozilla Thunderbird
favourite links in it. Open the and select Tools > Import. In
draft and click on the links to the first pane, choose Address
start a tabbed session of Thun- Book. Next, choose text file
derBrowse within your client. (LDIF, TAB, CSV, TXT). Browse
to the file on your hard drive
Autohide Tabs bar when prompted. Put a check
If you aren’t using any of the mark against the fields that
tabs and just have your inbox you want imported and click
open, it does not make sense to OK. You’re done!
waste any of that vertical screen This same method can also
realty. So let’s go about auto- be applied to Gmail, of course,
hiding the tabs bar, shall we? but with an extensions as awe-
First, go to Tools > Options some as gContactSync, the need
> General Tab > Config ThunderBrowse at work would never come up.
Editor. A warning will prompt
you that this shall void your image and hit [Enter]. If the utes, you should have your TB Enable spell check
warranty (Thunderbird has a value is set to false, double- address book synced up with To avoid making spelling mis-
warranty?), so just accept that click on it to change it to true. your Gmail contacts. takes, Thunderbird 3 comes
and click through it. In the filter with a built-in spell check.
box, type mail.tabs.auto- Sync contacts Import address book However, you will first have
Hide and hit [Enter]. If the Thankfully, Mozilla has con- If you use Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail to enable this. Go to Tools >
value of the entry is set to false, figured TB3 such that all your or some other email service, Options > Composition >
double-click on it to change it messages are synced brilliantly then grabbing your contact Spelling. Here, check Check
to true. with Google’s email service. list isn’t as easy a procedure spelling before sending.
However, a lot is left to be as installing an extension. In Currently, Thunderbird 3
Download images desired when it comes to the this case, first go to your email supports only the American-
automatically Contacts list. account’s contact list through spelling dictionary for English
Thunderbird 3, for some To sync Google contacts your browser. Select all your words, but this should soon be
reason, does not download with the address book for contacts and look for Export rectified, in all likelihood.
Tips & Tricks
Root password?
In the Linux world the root
account is held in high esteem.
In 9.10 the all powerful root
account is practically insignif-
icant - the first user becomes
the defacto root. Unfortunately,
if one doesn’t know this fact,
it can be quite frustrating
trying to figure out what the
default root password is (a
online search reveals root-
mein), since the installation
routine doesn’t seek one and
trying the user password is the
last thing on a Linux user’s mind.
Also try logging in as root
Noia 2.0 is an interesting theme for Thunderbird or su, and you won’t get much
far. The solution is to use the
Exciting themes up the bootloader. The boot this figure can be added to “sudo su” command to stay on
Just like Firefox, Mozilla has loader installation cannot be the line GRUB_DEFAULT=1 with higher privileges for a
made Thunderbird completely tweaked, so one cannot change replacing the 1. This line is longer period.
skinnable. This has led to many the default boot option - which in the /etc/default/grub
independent fans come up with is Ubuntu. Dedicated tools to file, not the grub.cfg file. The right Resolution
themes for the email client modify the boot menu are The default interval of 10 secs Getting the video right can be
over the years. While Thunder- available in some distros like can be adjusted by tweaking the considered as a top most pri-
bird 3 does not support older PCLinux and Opensuse, but GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 line, in the / ority for a distro, and when
themes yet, there are quite a few in Ubuntu one needs to do the etc/default/grub file. two year old distros manage
of the old favourites that would modification maually using Of course, there is a pos- to get it right, one would expect
still catch anyone’s fancy. The the text editor and command sibility that the GRUB rou- the latest distros to atleast do
one that stands out, in our line. Additionally, those who tine gets the boot parameters as much, especially since the
opinion, is Noia 2.0 eXtreme. are familiar with editing the / wrong. In the case of the writ- hardware is not cutting edge.
A must-have! boot/grub/menu.cfg file will er’s system already containing But, Ubuntu 9.10 (or 9.04 for
be clueless here. The reason : a PCLinux installation, GRUB that matter), fails to detect
Ubuntu 9.10 Ubuntu uses GRUB2 which did not properly detect the the max resolution on two of
The release of Canonical’s works differently and doesn’t boot parameters leaving the the systems this writer tried
Ubuntu 9.10 coincided with the use a menu.lst file. PCLinux installation inacces- installing the OS on. Now had
release of the latest Windows In Ubuntu to get the default sible. In such cases the menu this been PCLinux or Open-
OS and prompted compari- OS entry right, you need to edit can be modified by editing the suse, the tools to modify the
sons between the two. In fact, the /etc/default/grub file. /etc/grub.d/40_custom file graphics properties would
some even suggested trying out This file is not quite helpful to include the corrected menu be available within the GUI,
Ubuntu as a replacement for because it does not list the entry. This is a bit advanced, but this is Ubuntu. So one
those who are not satisfied with boot entries. So either recall but for minor editions, like needs to be prepared for
Microsoft’s operating system. the entries in the boot menu in the writer’s case, the rel- some command line action.
displayed when your booted, evant entries from the grub. There are a few surprises in
Boot options or open the /boot/grub/ cfg can be copied over to the store here as well. For one,
If you’re satisfied with the grub.cfg file to figure out 40_custom file and necessary the familiar xorg.conf file is
Live CD experience, and the exact entries and their changes made. missing. So to create a xorg.
choose to install the OS to the sequence. In the grub.cfg file, Once all modifications conf file, one needs to run
disk along with any existing the “menu entry” prefix denotes are completed, the command the X -configure command
OS, you will feel miffed. the entries in the boot menu. grub-update needs to be run after logging in as superuser.
During installation, Ubuntu The first entry is numbered to ensure that the changes are As in the writer’s case, even
succeeds in annoying the user 0, and the second 1 and so on. incorporated in the /boot/ this doesn’t always work, in
by displaying what is hallmark Once the required default grub/grub.cfg file which is which case the best option
Windows behaviour - messing entry number is arrived at, the basis of the boot menu. is to download the relevant
Tips & Tricks
PCLinux installation as well. using a non native file system.
Even when the other OS is The application can be unin-
detected, the end result of stalled like any Windows
the migration is not obvious. program and the disk space
There doesn’t seem to be any freed, but the boot menu is
documents imported to the not restored (atleast in Win-
user’s home folder, and nei- dows XP). If no entry to the
ther are any settings changed uninstall link figures in any
in the Ubuntu environment as menu, the uninstall file is
a result. present in the Ubuntu folder
Wubi is highly recommended
Wubi for people using Windows
This is an interesting utility. and should be the only way
Briefly, it allows one to install to try Ubuntu to avoid most
Ubuntu in any Windows par- troubles of a normal installa-
tition. Wubi creates a folder in tion. Sadly, Linux users are not
the Windows partition where similarly treated.
all OS files are stored, and
requires atleast 3 GB free space Mobile broadband
to start. One feature that thoroughly
The Ubuntu One account page After providing a password, impressed this writer was the
space and location to store the automatic configuration of the
graphics drivers and follow tilus, Tomboy and Evolution files at the start of the process, GPRS enabled mobile phone.
the instructions. respectively on systems run- there is no user interaction Just plugging in the mobile pre-
ning the service. required. So, potential mine- sented a wizard, which already
On the cloud fields like creating partitions had the settings to access var-
Ubuntu One is the name of Migrating settings are avoided. Once launched, ious GPRS service providers
Ubuntu’s cloud service. The Theoretically, it involves Wubi goes through the same from India, like BSNL, Airtel,
Link to Ubuntu One is under merely copying the files from motions as the normal instal- Idea etc. A few clicks and one
the Appications, Internet one installation site to the lation process. On rebooting, was online. Impressive. In
Menu. A user needs to sign other. Ubuntu has incorpor- post installation, the modified contrast with the earlier PPP
up for the service first, and on or wvdial routine
first launch a browser window in older versions
takes you to the sign up page. of Linux, and the
Subsequently launching Nokia PC Suite
Ubuntu One link opens the in Windows, 9.10
preferences window, where truely is in a dif-
one can set the behaviour of the ferent league.
service. An icon in the system
tray will display the status of Conclusion
the Cloud and allow easy syn- 9.10 is for the invet-
chronisation. Unfortunately, erate distro hopper
despite 9.10 being the first who already has
Ubuntu to offer this feature, gotten into the
the synchronisation opera- Ubuntu groove. For
tion is not smooth and the Windows users,
reason for this is that the client Wubi is the rec-
software is incompatible with The Ubuntu Software Center ommended route
the server. - probably the best
Nonetheless, one can tated a tool to do this during boot menu presents both OS way to sample a distro, some-
add data in the form of files, the installation, but in the three options with the default option thing for the other distros to
contacts and notes to the installations that this writer being the Windows instal- emulate. For the rest of us, 9.10
Ubunto One account and did, the tool failed to detect the lation. The Ubuntu installa- is worth a dekko to drool over
these can be synchronised Windows installation on the tion performs quite smoothly the visual effects, and return to
within applications like Nau- same disk, and in one case the with no apparent lag inspite of our more familiar distros.
Tips & Tricks
Setting the tab
With rising power costs, it’s cient technology for screens,
time to take a look at ways while LCD comes second. An
we can reduce our electricity LCD monitor can reduce your
consumption. To reduce your power consumption by 70 per
PC’s power consumption, cent when compared with a
it’s important to get the right CRT monitor.
hardware in place and tweak Reducing the brightness of
your settings according to the screen also reduces power
your needs. Before you know consumption. Change your
it, your laptop battery will be monitor’s settings and reduce
going longer than usual and the brightness to a point where
your electricity bill will see a it’s still comfortable to read text Power saver mode in Windows is your first step in cutting down
substantial cut. easily. A simple way is to open
a Word document, set the font any disc in it. Each disc periodi- on Change plan settings.
Hardware to Arial, size 8. Change the cally asks the computer to seek The two main options here are
First make sure your power colour to a grey that is mid it, thus taking up more power. the amount of time in which
socket and wiring is good. way between white and black the computer will automati-
You can ask an electrician to on the font colour palette. Now Software cally switch off the monitor
verify this. If either of these is reduce your screen brightness If you’re running Windows 7, and the amount of time it will
faulty, your computer can try or contrast to the point where there’s good news for you as put the computer to sleep.
to sap more electricity than this text is legible. With this Microsoft has come up with a Tweak it to your heart’s con-
it needs. setting, all other text you come special Power Saver mode tent – we recommend keeping
Solid state drives and across should be easily read- which will ensure your com- the display turn-off at 5 min-
ultra-low voltage processors able for you. puter does not take up any more utes and the computer sleep
are becoming increasingly Unplug any external electricity than needed. To acti- time at 10 minutes.
affordable and offer significant devices you won’t be using, vate this, go to Control Panel Not many people know
boosts in power usage. When such as portable hard drives, > System and Security > that the screensaver actually
guzzles up a lot of power. You
can program your PC to auto-
matically turn off the display
through Power Options. Install
MonitorOff (www.monitor-off.com)
that lets you configure hotkeys
and different timers and other
schedules for your monitor to
be automatically switched off
when not in use.
If the above settings are
already enabled, and you wish
to have more control over your
computer’s power usage, a nifty
free application called Set-
Power (http://www.setpowersoftware.
com/Free.aspx) might just be the
LCD or CRT?
answer. Immensely customis-
able and robust, SetPower lets
choosing a monitor, go for an additional wireless keyboards Power Options and select the you create power profiles and
LED monitor over an LCD, and and digital cameras. If you are Power Saver power plan. schedules for your computer
an LCD monitor over a CRT. not using your optical drive, You can further customise based on hourly, daily and
LED is the most power-effi- keep it empty and don’t forget your power plan by clicking monthly requirements.
Electronics DIYs Etching
If you’re an electronics hobbyist and find such projects This is a process of dissolving copper on a PCB,
interesting, send us exciting ideas so we could feature them so that components can be soldered on a printed
in our future issues circuit board without using connecting wires DIY
Build your own amplifier
Nash David you a long way. This way you’ll the two lines intersect each of the input signal is fed to the
nash.david@thinkdigit.com find it really easy. other and have a dot at the inverting input of the amplifier
point of intersection then to get an inverted output. The
Your components
D
IYs are fun. Elec- the two paths are connected. output of each stage is then con-
tronics is fun too, Resistors are thin components Accordingly, positive supply nected to the speaker terminals.
but the thought of with coloured bands. These voltage is connected across This circuit needs a sym-
putting your cir- coloured bands are standard pin 5 of the two ICs and pins 1 metrical power supply built
cuitry together and soldering convention used in reading the and 5 of IC1 are not connected around a centre-tapped trans-
them seems like a daunting task. values of resistors. to each other. These are some former (18-0-18V/1A). We got
If done right, you should be able Among the various types of common errors while building one for around Rs. 90. The two
to get your circuitry up and run- capacitors, you’ll use ceramic a circuit. wires on one end of the trans-
ning in the first go. But as an as well as electrolytic capaci- As you can see in the cir- former (known as the primary
amateur, mistakes are bound tors while building this circuit. cuit diagram, there are two winding) should be connected
to happen. You might need to The difference between the amplifier ICs with an identical to the AC 230 V supply. Simi-
take a closer look to ensure all two is that electrolytic capaci- circuitry for each stage. This larly, in the case of the centre-
the connections are right. We’ll tors have polarised terminals supporting circuitry is wired tapped transformer, you’ll find
attempt building an amplifier while ceramic capacitors don’t. such that both the ICs handle three wires at the other end
around the TDA 2030A audio You can connect ceramic the signal identically. However, (secondary winding). The wire
power amplifier IC. We referred capacitors irrespective of one generates a positive signal at the centre should be consid-
to the data sheet of this IC and polarity, but when soldering while the second stage gener- ered as ground.
opted for the bridge amplifier electrolytic capacitors, ensure ates a negative signal, thereby If you take a multimeter, set
configuration for its simplicity the terminals are oriented increasing the resultant poten- it to AC voltage measurement
and price. across appropriate voltage tial difference of the output (indicated by the V~ symbol)
Although the circuit looks potentials. Also, electrolytic signal. This way, you have and measure the voltage across
small, building it can be a capacitors have a voltage double the output with the the terminals (the centre ter-
tough nut to crack for an rating. As a rule, opt for a same amplification factor. This minal should be reference),
amateur. Taking care of a few voltage rating of double the way of wiring an amplifier is you will get a reading around
things, however, could take power supply. known as bridging. A sample 18-20V. However, the two AC
Effectively, for this circuit,
What you need
with a power supply of 15 V,
Resistors
use electrolytic capacitors
R1, R2, R3, R5, R7 – 22k
R4, R6 – 680E with a voltage rating exceeding
R8, R9 – 1E 30 V. We opted for 62 V.
Integrated circuits have
Capacitors
C1 – 2.2uF a pin-out diagram and you
C2, C6 – 100uF should refer to the appropriate
C3, C7 – 100nF data sheet for information on
C4, C5 – 22uF pin-outs to avoid damage to
C8, C9 – 0.22uF
the component as a result of
ICs wrong connections.
7815, 7915 – Positive and
negative voltage regulators
(15V)
Circuit diagram
TDA2030A x 2. Understanding circuit sche-
matics and following connec-
18-0-18V step-down tions is vital in getting your
transformer
amplifier to work. The circuit
3.5-mm audio jack (male)
Connecting wire diagram in Figure 1, A line
Multimeter indicates a connection path.
Soldering iron and alloy Similarly, two intersecting
General purpose PCB
Speaker connector
lines mean the connections Figure 1: TDA 2030A wired in a bridge configuration can give you a higher audio
don’t intersect each other. If output with fewer components or amplification stages
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 89
Make your cabinet Shielding
You can use a variety of materials such as plywood and When using cables for audio signals, always use coaxial
sheet metal to house your amplifier. You can also use cables with a braided outer layer. This braided layer is
DIY ready-made cabinets available in electronic stores grounded and prevents external noise interference
Resistor colour code separately before attempting Reading capacitor values Power supply stage
The sentence – BB Roy (from) to power your amplifier off it. Ceramic capacitors have a Pin 5 of IC TDA 2030A is con-
Great Britain (had a) Very numbering scheme instead
With all going right, the output nected to +15V and pin 3 to -15V.
Good Wife – is commonly of colours. The first number
voltage should be stable at +15 represents the first digit, the Capacitors C6, C7, C2 and C3
used as a mnemonic for the
colour code. The first letter of V and -15 V, respectively. second number, the second form the basic by-pass circuitry
each word corresponds to the With your power supply digit, the third number is the to remove AC components from
colour band. number of zeros to give the
done, the most important part capacitance in pF. For example, the regulated power supply.
Colour code Value is the amplifier itself. For this, 102 indicates 10 x 10^2 in pF This minimises AC hum due to
a closer look at the circuit dia- = 10 x 100 = 1000 pF = 1 nF 50 Hz mains AC supply voltage.
Black 0
gram will tell you how to go
Brown 1
about building the circuit. The the wire soldered to the outer Soldering
Red 2 two ICs as explained earlier are connector to the ground ter- File the component leads to get
Orange 3 two stages used to process the minal, and the inner wire car- rid of oxide deposits. This will
Yellow 4 same audio signal. In fact, both ries the audio signal. Capac- aid a good solder joint. Insert
Green 5 the stages are wired identically. itor C1 couples the audio to the component into the PCB
Blue 6
The only difference is the output the input of the amplifier and on the other end, place the
audio signal that is fed back to and reduces the DC level at hot soldering iron tip across
Violet 7
the inverting input of IC2 via the the input of the amplifier. the component lead near the
Gray 8
RC stage comprising R7 and C5. copper base of the board, while
White 9 And yes, the +15V and -15V that Biasing/Feedback applying the solder alloy. 2-3
Accordingly, if the resistor you got from the regulator stage Resistors R1 and R2 (22k) are seconds should be ideal.
is colour coded Red-Red- will be connected to the points connected to pin 1 of TDA2030,
Orange, then its value is 22 x marked +Vs and -Vs. Similarly, respectively. Also, R3, R4 and Powering on
10^3 = 22 x 1000 = 22 k. the point marked with the black C4; and R5, C5 and R6 together Before switching on your ampli-
line (GND) is connected to the form the biasing network for fier, check all the connections
signals are out-of-phase. Elec- centre tap of the transformer ICs 1 and 2. R7 couples the with the continuity checker on
tronic circuitry need a DC (also the common point of ICs audio between IC1 and IC2. a multimeter, ensuring they’re
supply to work. Effectively, 7815 and 7915). all connected. If all seems fine,
this is where our first circuit Output stage your amplifier should work,
stage is needed. A rectifier Stages Capacitors C8, R8, C9 and R9 unless a particular component
circuit converts the lower The circuit is made up of several form the output stage before is faulty; in which case, you’d
voltage alternating current to stages. A look at Figure 1 will interfacing the speaker. A have to isolate and replace the
a more stabilised direct cur- give you a fair idea of how your series RC-circuit (resistor faulty component. If you’ve
rent (DC) supply. There are amplifier will work. and capacitor connected one followed the circuit diagram,
two kinds of rectifiers – half after the other) helps boost the your amplifier should function
wave and full wave rectifiers. Input stage audio signal. Use a speaker properly; and yeah, as far as the
The most common type of rec- Audio signal is input via a connector to connect your price goes, you should be done
tifier circuit is the bridge cir- 3.5-mm audio jack. Connect speakers here. within Rs. 250.
cuit which is nothing but four
diodes (1N4007) connected as
a bridge. Input AC voltage is
applied across two ends of the
bridge, while unregulated recti-
fied DC voltage from the other
ends are fed to the voltage regu-
lator stage. The voltage regu-
lator is built around positive
and negative voltage regula-
tors ICs 7815 and 7915, respec-
tively. The one tricky thing
about these voltage regulators
is their pin outs. Depending
on how you look at them, pin
numbers 1 to 3 are arranged dif-
ferently. Test your connections Figure 2: You need to convert AC to DC to power the amplifier circuit in Figure 1. Use 78XX series voltage regulator ICs for this
90 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
In touch with ergonomics
After hearing his friend out, Agent decides to take Price watch
Street smart 96 a look at ergonomic devices available. Enough of
aches and pains. Time to ease out 98 Looking for accessories or buying a
new gadget? Get the latest prices
Must have
Streetware
It’s no secret that we’re Lamington Road regulars, and each one of us has our favourite dealers, but what about all those little guys peddling
their wares in makeshift shops? The story’s the same wherever in India you are, and you’ve probably been wondering if any of those inter-
esting looking gadgets are actually worth buying. From lights and fans to USB attachments and more, it’s all so tempting isn’t it? We decided
to do an under Rs. 300 roundup of some of the best and worst stuff out there. Obviously, no one, including the shopkeepers you buy this stuff
from will guarantee anything, so make sure you use and test everything before you pay.
Here’s our round up of 12 products that you MUST HAVE, some that you just WANT and other that you should AVOID.
Siddharth Parwatay
siddharth.parwatay@thinkdigit.com
Anti-glare
scratch guard Triple fan notebook cooler (Rs. 110)
This product is basically an acrylic sheet with four rubber knobs and three fans. It
(Rs. 40) promises to keep your laptop cool, and we found that it actually doesn’t do as bad a
job as we thought it would. The fans are powerful enough to cool down your precious
Well, LCD screens don’t really produce hardware. Just plug it into a USB port, and place your notebook on top of it — carefully,
all that much of a glare anyway right? because it’s not as steady as it looks. The blue LEDs will make your notebook look like
Besides, the glue used on this scratch an invading alien spaceship, and that’s something some of you will love and others will
guard is not at all adhesive. It’ll keep hate, so figure out which, and either run out and get it, or skip to the next product. Since
flapping and won’t last a day. Definitely the fans are not shielded, be careful where you put your fingers, and don’t even think of
avoid. putting it on your lap!
92 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
MIDI guitar
Killer rigs The innovative folks at released a funky looking
Plan your dream configuration depending MIDI controller in the shape of a guitar. It’s got 32
98 on your needs. Whether budget, gaming or
high-end rigs, you’ll get a headstart on it all
LED push-button switches and 6 touch sensitive
copper plate switches Feature
USB Light (Rs. 65)
It’s late and night, and everyone’s asleep. You’re trying real hard to not wake up the house,
while you surf for... err... whitepapers. Your laptop screen brightness is all the way down, and
since hardly any notebooks come with key backlighting, even typing thinkdigit.com can be as
hard as playing F.E.A.R. without ever using your flashlight — impossible. That’s where this
little gadget can be a lifesaver. It connects to USB, and has three LEDs that are pretty pow-
erful over short distances. You’re never going to have to squint to find the right keys again,
and best of all, no one is going to be disturbed by bright lights. The bendy-wire-neck-thingie
lets you adjust the light just so, and it’s only Rs. 65. Get it now!
USB Hub (Rs. 100)
Who wouldn’t want this funky looking USB
Hub? Unlike those boring HUBs that have all
their ports an a single line, this one is more
functional. Something definitely worth having
plugged into your PC at all times.
FM car transmitter
(Rs. 200)
Some people have music systems in their cars that are worth as much as the car itself. With
CD-changers, satellite radio, funky displays, and other features that most can’t afford... For
the rest of us, there’s the FM car transmitter. What this gadget does is let you turn a regular
USB flash drive or memory card into an MP3 player. Connect your pen drive to this gadget,
hook it up to the cigarette lighter port, tune your radio to the specified frequency, and you’re
good to go. There’s a remote and a display to show you the track details, but make sure you’re
not bending over trying to read the small font while driving. What’s more, you can now play
DJ for some of the other poor car radio owners stuck in traffic around you...
USB fan (Rs. 65)
For those times when you want to experience the wind in your hair, even if you’re
working in an AC environment. We’re kidding. This powerful little fan provides Chargeable
life saving comfort for those times when you’re working in a stuffy room and
sweating right down to your unmentionables. But wait a minute... what if you put Speakers (Rs. 275)
your finger in it? We were curious too, and got the new intern to do it. Turns out Linux fans rejoice ! This cute little penguin
the blades are soft membrane – not mightier than your finger. speaker works on a rechargeable lithium
ion battery and draws power from a USB so
it can be an improvement over your laptop
speakers as well. The device weighs just
80 grams and is about the size of a tennis
ball so don’t expect to blow your ear drums
with its 3 W output. Still the sound quality
is definitely not bad. It can connect to any
MP3 player or phone with a 3.5 mm jack
making it perfect for weekend trips, picnics
or even to annoy fellow commuters in the
train. In case you’re wondering the sound
comes from the penguin’s back side.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 93
Flying high
Happy Geek Christmas! Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is in the air. The behemoth
Some folks all over the world are busy making LED is an 80 per cent composite material aircraft, with 35
Feature Christmas trees. Quite a fun idea worth trying tonnes of carbon-fibre reinforced plastic
Gaming Mat (Rs. 170)
Long cylindrical packaging and a name a name
like PlayMat, arouses a strange suspicion.
Turns out it’s a gaming mat. And a very
good one at that. Not that it’s a testa-
ment to the quality but the company
that make this, UltraPRO has web-
site too and seems to have a rather large range
of products. The mat offers a huge playing surface and
has a very nice print of a dragon. The mouse glides smoothly over
LCD cleaning kit its traction happy surface. We’d say it offers about 70 per cent of the performance
of products offered by the likes of Razer and EverGlide, at about 15 per cent of the price.
(Rs. 40) Sweet deal isn’t it?
People often poke their friends about
the possibility of getting questionable
CD and lens cleaner (Rs. 50)
stains on their LCDs from watching Many users write in about how they can clean their CDs and DVDs.
questionable content. If it does ever Well here’s something you can try. Along with badly translated
happen, you can always use this box set Chinese instructions, this kit comes with a CD VCD cleaning fluid,
which comes with a soft cloth which is soft cotton brush, a separate DVD cleaning fluid to be used with the
a 80:20 mix of polyester and polymide lens cleaner CD. The lens cleaning CD has two brushes with soft
– whatever that means. There’s a liquid bristles on the reading surface. The fluids are odourless, colourless,
spray, that works quite well, and a soft non-viscus, and non-soapy. We wouldn’t be surprised if the bottles are
brush that has a miniature hand at one just filled with water. The lens cleaning disk just about saved this one
end for some reason. from the avoid list.
Multi USB kit
Bluetooth (Rs. 90)
(Rs. 100) The central device has a auto retracting
cable that basically acts as an extension
If your laptop doesn’t have Bluetooth, to your USB port. The six other thingies
then a dongle is a must. This one is the let you connect to all sorts of devices. The
smallest one we’ve seen so far. Let it connectors include Micro-B, Mini B, Type
occupy a spot on your laptop and you B and many other standards. A must have
have Bluetooth connectivity. Even for for any self respecting geek. [Psst – here’s a
your desktop PC it’s always nice to have tip - Combine this with the USB adapter to
another means of connectivity right? make your own universal charger.]
Connect to headsets, mobile phones cam-
eras just about anything. On Windows
7, the device installed automatically and
there was no trouble to have it up and
running in no time.
Notebook lock (Rs. 75)
It’s not just wallets that get pinched these days. With notebooks getting smaller
and lighter, and netbooks protruding out of large pockets, any help we can get to
safeguard our gizmos is appreciated. This little device fits into the Kensington
lock slot on your notebook/netbook, and can prevent someone with sleight of
hand walking away with your precious baby. Especially recommended for those
who go to LAN parties, or waste time at coffee shops, pretending to work. Just
remember to hook the other end to something that’s immovable — and not your
briefcase, or you’ll end up losing more than you bargained for.
94 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Pulsar Xylophone Table
We’re not talking about the bike. It seems Xylophones can be made from almost anything.
Seagate has entered the SSD space with Pulsar Check out this unique one that is the size of a
their first SSD offering in the enterprise space coffee table. In fact, it’s a coffee table! Feature
Mobile battery charger
(Rs. 100)
This is one of the most useful devices that we got our hands
on. With this baby hanging on your bag or in your pocket,
you will never ever run out of battery on your cell phone.
All you need to do is put in a standard AA battery (pencil
USB cell) and it’ll charge up your phone. It has connects for Nokia
(both thin pin and fat pin), Sony Ericsson, and miniUSB. If
adapter you run out of battery on that crucial call simply head over
to the nearest store and pop in a pencil cell. If you’re going on
(Rs. 50) a long expedition to the Himalayas carry a few pencil cells
and use as per your convenience. Definitely a must have.
This little gadget is a great
utility while travelling. Often
we have devices that draw Foldable keyboard (Rs. 250)
power from USB ports, and A mat like keyboard that rolls up into a compact
there’s no PC in sight. This package? “I want one” would be anybody’s reac-
adapter solves that problem tion. It instantly transports you back to hacker
by converting essentially movies where they show geeky yet strangely well
any power point into a USB built men roll open foldable keyboards to hook up
charger. to a target system. This is a full keyboard with a
num pad so it makes for a great addition to a note-
book. However the quality isn’t so great. You’ll get
more exercise than you bargained for - the keys
need to be pressed really hard.
USB Vacuum (Rs. 75)
This product sucks. Yes that’s what its supposed to do, we know. But it even sucks at
sucking! A total disaster. Avoid at all costs. The gadget only makes a hell of a ruckus. It
comes with a brush attachment that can at best be used to sweep dust. It does pull in a
little bit of dust, but since there are vents at the back it’s essentially it’s just displacing
whatever little dust that it pulls in.
Membrane Keyboard
guard (Rs. 40)
Ever tried to clean a notebook keyboard after you spill something on it? You have three
choices. Stop using notebooks, stop eating or drinking, or just spend Rs. 40 and get your-
self one of these. Surprisingly, this doesn’t hinder typing at all, and apart from protecting
you against your own clumsiness, also helps keep the dust away.
Dual fan foldable notebook
cooler (Rs. 75)
The idea of a folding notebook cooler is nice. Not when it comes to this one
though. The fans are not as powerful as the other notebook cooler and the
balance is off. Buy it only if you’re going to go giddy at the prospect of folding
it into a neat little package.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 95
Kinesis advantage
Software enforcers A completely split keyboard that is
AntiRSI, Timeout, and Workrave force you ergonomically designed and features a
in not-so-subtle ways to take a break and Dvorak optional layout instead of the regular
Agent 001 engage in stress relief exercises QWERTY layout
In touch with Ergonomics
Agent 001 scours the streets for the best ergonomic devices
money can buy. Here’s the dope on ergonomics and whether the
so called ergonomic devices out there are really worth it
Agent 001 ergonomic input devices and aids are other keyboard
agent001@thinkdigit.com available out there. Lamington road + mouse set that
– the hardware capital of our country – was shown to me,
Illustration: Binesh PS
R
ecently a friend of mine, turned out to be somewhat of a disap- was the Microsoft
who’s used to cribbing, was pointment. My hardship began with Natural Series
complaining a lot about wrist explaining the product category to the 7000. This one
pain and all sorts of other guys behind the counter. They were was an ergonomic
“stress” related afflictions while we better versed with gaming mice and keyboard in the
were chatting. Initially, I dismissed it as keyboards – Salmosa and Steel Series true sense of the word. It featured a 12
him being his usual whiny self until I being the most sought – than ergonomic degree split down the middle (roughly
realised the magnitude of his problem. devices. But after a bit of shop to shop between the T and Y set of keys) and a
Could this be Carpal tunnel syndrome hunting, model number quoting and 14 degree gable. A gable can be thought
or repetitive stress disorder caused by describing such devices, two boxes were of as a sloping bump on the keyboard
working in a non ergonomic or human with its peak roughly at
friendly environment? There could be the centre. The mouse
many more people out there who could had a thumb rest con-
use some guidance when it comes to tour which takes away
ergonomic devices reducing the chances weight from the side
of injury when using a computer for of the palm and other carpel
long hours. Confused? Let me explain. tunnel stress points. It feels
By and large, ergonomics tries to like you are holding a blob that is
improve human interactions with adjusted to the space naturally formed
products, equipment, environments and when you close your palm. I found the
systems. It takes into account human specially unearthed and called for. One mouse to be way more comfortable than
biology, stress analysis and material was the Logitech MK 700 wireless key- standard mice. But with a price tag as
engineering to make products more board. Though not strictly an ergonomic much as its model number, it remains a
usable and less stressful to the human keyboard it did have scalloped keys, significant decision, which could prove
body during repetitive use. Simply put, which according to the Logitech “posi- useful in the long run. Also of interest,
that’s making products keeping the tion your fingers properly, and their though not strictly ergonomic was my
end user and usage in mind. Ideally, softly rounded edges invite your finger- old favourite – the TV Gold mechanical
all devices should be ergonomic. But in tips to glide from key to key”. This one keyboard available for around Rs. 1,100.
reality, only a small percentage are. was available for around Rs. 4,500 and Other than keyboards and mice
So, keeping the risks of RSI in mind, I’m certain will improve typing accuracy there are other ergonomic aids on offer
I went out on a quest to find out what if not give you ergonomic comfort. The in the form of gel-filled keyboard rests
and mouse pads. These are available
ERGONOMIC FURNITURE
for around Rs. 200 and offer sup-
Apart from most natural. There should be no forward port when using devices that are not
ergonomic input flexion of the next, twisting of the torso.
ergonomic. However my personal
devices, the While adequate lumbar (back) support
furniture you sit should be provided. There are furniture experience with them has not been up
on and house attachment modules that are separately to the mark. The gel does give tactile
your computer, available too, such as a negative tilt key- support but it’s almost always a little
goes a long board tray that lets you tilt the keyboard
way to avoid away from you, leaving your wrist drop to higher than you’d normally want.
repetitive stress its most natural or neutral position. So the To conclude, I would urge everyone to
injuries. Ergonomic furniture is designed in next time you custom make a computer seriously consider doing whatever little
such a way that your posture automatically table or go out to buy one, be sure to they can from improving posture to exer-
improves. You sit and work in a way that is consider these principles.
cises and keep your body stress free.
96 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Remote access Firefox RC in sight
Teamviewer (www.teamviewer.com) is Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 was released late
a free remote access desktop sharing December. Release Candidate build
alternative to VNC or Logmein isn’t far away Agent 001
My budget is Rs. 43,000 and I’m I recommend a combination of AMD HD 5770 which supports DX11 and
not a hardcore gamer. I have set up the Athlon II X2 240 CPU and ASUS should be priced at Rs. 11,000 or so. Look
following configuration, please M2N68-AM board. The CPU is available for brands like Sapphire, Palit, XFX or
comment. for approximately Rs. 3,000, while the MSI. For the hard drive, I recommend a 1
AOC 2216 SW 22-inch LCD moni- motherboard retails for close to Rs. 2,200. TB 7200.12 HDD from Seagate that
tor, iBall Benz with 400W SMPS, 1.5 Pick up 2 GB DDR2 (667 MHz) RAM should be priced at the Rs. 5,000 mark.
TB Seagate (SATA2), 2 GB (800 MHz) which should cost another Rs. 2,000. AOC’s 2236Vw should be priced at the
Kingston DDR2 RAM, ASUS P5Q-E 1600 For the HDD, I recommend a Rs. 8,700 mark and will suffice as a good
FSB, Quad Core Q9505 2.83 GHz 7200.11 Seagate 250 GB. Expect to pay gaming monitor.
V. Srikanth another Rs. 2,000 for this. You could It should also compliment the
also pick up a GeForce 9400 GT from card well. For the power supply, you
Since you’re not into gaming, I suggest a brand like ZOTAC, Galaxy, MSI or should consider a Corsair VX 450
focusing on a good CPU. The Core i7 is Palit for another Rs. 2,800 or so. priced at the Rs. 3,000 mark. The
much better than the ageing Core 2 Duo. If you want to use this for casual rest of the peripherals and cabinet
The Core i7 860 is available for Rs. 14,600 gaming, I recommend a GeForce are totally your choice, but I would
and makes a good buy. Invest in an MSI 9600 GT from ZOTAC, priced at go with a CoolerMaster 690 chassis
P55 GD65 board for around Rs. 10,500 just around the Rs. 5,000 mark. (Rs. 4,200) and a Logitech keyboard
and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM costing around and mouse combo (Rs. 500).
Rs. 5,000. I’m planning to buy a touch-screen
I recommend Acer’s 2236Vw priced mobile phone within Rs. 10,000. I have I want to buy a 512-MB graphics
at Rs. 8,700. For the power supply look short-listed Samsung Corby s3653 and card. I play only GTA: San Andreas-like
at a VIP 450 W. This should cost Rs. Samsung Star. Which one is better? games. I also want good performance
2,000. The Seagate 1.5 TB hard drive is Please suggest a better option. for HD content and viewing photos.
available for around Rs. 6,000. You will Prateek My budget is between Rs. 1,800 and
also need a graphics card. I recommend Rs. 2,600.
a GeForce 8400 GS-based card, that It all depends on what you want. If
should cost Rs. 1,500 or so. Although you want a QWERTY keypad, you could I recommend the Galaxy or ZOTAC
this would increase your budget by consider the iMate Kjam. This phone will GeForce 9400 GT graphics card with 256
Rs. 3,000, it would be worth it. give you a 2.8-inch touch screen with a MB of video RAM. However, this would
full QWERTY keypad. Otherwise, the set you back by around Rs. 2,800.
I’m reviving an old AMD Athlon Corby s3653 should be decent, though
system and would like to replace / you can also look for the LG KP500 I want to buy a external hard disk
upgrade the following: (Cookie) for around the same price, which of size 500 GB. I want portability with
1) Motherboard has a touch screen but no QWERTY. decent speed to store movies, videos,
2) Processor music and photos. Please suggest me
3) Graphic card (something like a I’m planning to buy a gaming rig some good hard disk models. My rela-
9400GT/8600GT/equivalent ATI for around Rs. 40,000. Does it need to tives suggested either Seagate Free
card) be DX 11 capable? Agent Go or Western Digital.
4) RAM Ron Thomas
5) Hard drive For true portability go with a 2.5-inch
My budget is Rs. 10,000, although I am A budget of Rs. 40,000 is not really solution. Seagate’s solutions are cheaper,
flexible with it. I require it to play full enough to buy a “gaming rig”, but you but WD has a slightly better reputation in
HD video, play the latest games. Please can get a decent configuration based on a the market and arguably better drives, so
give a satisfactory configuration, best Core 2 Duo E8400 (Rs. 7,800), BioStar they charge a premium. I recommend
possible within the budget. I45 motherboard (Rs. 5,500), 2x2 GB WD’s 500 GB Passport available for
Vishnuram Rajagopalan DDR2 RAM (4,500) and an ATi Radeon around Rs. 6,500.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 97
Secure Bluetooth Stories this Christmas?
The latest version of Bluetooth has been announced Amazon’s Kindle has its highest selling
with 128-bit encryption and 32-bit addressing month in December, but sales figures are
Price watch among other goodies hard to come by
Spend smart
Processors
Model Market Price Tested In Socket Speed FSB L2 Cache
AMD Sempron 140 Rs. 1,950 September 2009 AM2+ 2.7 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 1 MB
AMD Athlon X2 5200+ Rs. 3,200 November 2008 AM2+ 2.7 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 1 MB
AMD Athlon X2 7850 BE Rs. 3,350 September 2009 AM2 2.8 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
AMD Athlon II X2 250 Rs. 4,100 September 2009 AM2+ 3 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
AMD Athlon II X2 550 Rs. 5,450 September 2009 AM2+ 3.1 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 1 MB
AMD Phenom X4 9650 Rs. 6,025 November 2008 AM2+ 2.3 GHz 3600 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE Rs. 7,500 September 2009 AM3 2.8 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 1.5 MB
AMD Phenom II X4 810 Rs. 8,350 September 2009 AM2+ 2.6 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
AMD Phenom II X4 920 BE Rs. 9,650 AM3 2.8 GHz 3600 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Rs. 12,075 September 2009 AM2+ 3 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
AMD Phenom II X4 955BE Rs. 13,100 September 2009 AM3 3.2 GHz 2000 MHz HyperTransport 2 MB
Intel Dual Core E2200 Rs. 3,000 September 2009 LGA775 2.2 GHz 800 MHz 1 MB
Intel Dual Core E5200 Rs. 3,375 September 2009 LGA775 2.5 GHz 800 MHz 2 MB
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Rs. 5,900 September 2009 LGA775 2.8 GHz 1066 MHz 3 MB
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Rs. 8,850 September 2009 LGA775 3 GHz 1333 MHz 6 MB
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 Rs. 8,650 September 2009 LGA775 2.33 GHz 1333 MHz 4 MB
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Rs. 8,750 September 2009 LGA775 2.4 GHz 1066 MHz 8 MB
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 Rs. 12,100 LGA775 2.66 GHz 1333 MHz 6 MB
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Rs. 12,601 LGA775 2.83 GHz 1333 MHz 12 MB
Intel Core i7 920 Rs. 14,900 September 2009 LGA1366 2.66 GHz 4.8 GT/s QPI NA
Monitors
Model Market Price Tested in Size Resolution Contrast Ratio Response time
Acer V203H Rs. 7,250 20-inch 1600 x 900 10000:1 5 ms
ASUS VM193D Rs. 6,850 19-inch 1440 x 900 800 : 1 5 ms
BenQ E2200HD Rs. 9,950 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 1000 : 1 5 ms
Dell 1909W Rs. 6,800 19-inch 1440 x 900 1000 : 1 5 ms
Dell S1709W Rs. 7,200 17-inch 1440 x 900 600 : 1 8 ms
Dell S2409W Rs. 14,750 24-inch 1920 x 1080 1000 : 1 5 ms
LG 177WSB Rs. 6,300 May 2008 17-inch 1440 x 900 700 : 1 8 ms
LG W1942T Rs. 6,900 19-inch 1440 x 900 700 : 1 5 ms
Samsung 2033 Rs. 7,250 20-inch 1600 x 900 15000 : 1 5 ms
Samsung 733NW Rs. 6,550 17-inch 1440 x 900 1000 : 1 8 ms
Samsung 943NWX Rs. 7,500 19-inch 1280 x 1024 1000 : 1 5 ms
ViewSonic VA1918WM Rs. 6,600 19-inch 1440 x 900 1000 : 1 5 ms
VIEWSONIC VX2255WMB Rs. 12,500 May 2008 22-inch 1680 x 1050 1000 : 1 5 ms
ViewSonic VX2240W Rs. 9,900 22-inch 1680 x 1050 1000 : 1 2 ms
Graphic Cards
Model Market Price Tested in Core Speed Type of memory Memory
EVGA 9600GT Knock-out Rs. 6,650 November 2008 700 MHz GDDR3 512 MB
Power Color HD4850 Rs. 6,600 August 2009 625 MHz GDDR3 512 MB
Power Color HD4670 Rs. 4,650 August 2009 750 MHz DDR3 1024 MB
Palit GeForce 9400 GT Super Rs. 2,525 August 2009 550 MHz GDDR2 1024 MB
Palit Radeon HD 4870 SONIC Rs. 13,500 October 2008 750 MHz GDDR5 512 MB
Palit GeForce GTX 260 Rs. 1,0750 650 MHz GDDR3 896 MB
Palit GeForce GTX 275 Rs. 1,3900 633 MHz GDDR3 896 MB
XFX GeForce 8600 GT Rs. 3,150 540 MHz GDDR3 256 MB
ZOTAC GeForce GTS 250 Rs. 9,250 738 MHz GDDR3 1024 MB
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 285 Rs. 26,000 Feb 2009 648 MHz GDDR3 1024 MB
98 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
8,00,000 not enough
NVIDIA says the early lead rival AMD has with DX 11 Phenom II mobility?
chips, to the tune of 8,00,000 pieces of DX 11 GPUs is AMD promises their flagship Phenom II processors Price watch
not significant for notebooks by May 2010
The latest peripheral prices updated every
month. Go ahead, plan your configuration today
Motherboards
Market
Model Tested In Socket PCIe x8/x16 slots SATA ports USB ports
Price
ASUS M3N78-EM Rs. 4,300 November 2008 AM2+ 1 6 4
ASUS P5Q Deluxe Rs. 14,900 June 2008 LGA775 2 6 6
ASUS P5Q-PRO Rs. 9,650 LGA775 2 6 6
ASUS P5Q-E Rs. 11,350 LGA775 2 6 8
ASUS P6T Deluxe Rs. 20,975 October 2009 LGA1366 3 6 8
ASUS Rampage II Extreme
Rs. 26,000 October 2009 LGA1366 3 6 6
(BEST PERFORMER)
ASUS Rampage II GENE Rs. 16,450 October 2009 LGA1366 2 6 6
ASUS M4A79T Deluxe Rs. 13,050 October 2009 AM3 4 5 6
GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 Rs. 16,950 October 2009 LGA1366 3 6 8
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Rs. 8,900 LGA775 1 6 8
GIGABYTE MA790GP-UD4H Rs. 9,100 October 2009 AM2+ 2 6 4
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Rs. 14,250 LGA1366 2 6 8
MSI X58 PRO Rs. 11,300 October 2009 LGA1366 3 7 6
MSI P7N Diamond Rs. 15,200 LGA775 4 6 6
MSI X58 Eclipse Rs. 20,250 LGA1366 3 10 8
XFX nForce 790i Ultra Rs. 21,050 October 2009 LGA775 3 6 6
Zotac 780i Supreme Rs. 14,500 LGA775 3 6 6
Zotac nForce 750a Rs. 6,500 AM2+ 2 6 4
Digital Cameras
Model Market Price Tested in Sensor Optical Zoom LCD Screen Size
Canon Powershot SX120 Rs. 14,995 October 2009 10 MP 10x 3.0 inches
Canon IXUS 100IS Rs. 12,999 October 2009 12 MP 3x 2.5 inches
Canon Powershot A480 Rs. 7,499 October 2009 10 MP 3.3x 2.5 inches
Canon A1100IS Rs. 9,499 October 2009 12 MP 4x 2.5 inches
Canon IXUS 95IS Rs. 10,500 October 2009 10 MP 3x 2.5 inches
Canon SX200IS (BEST PERFORMER) Rs. 21,500 October 2009 12 MP 12x 3.0 inches
FujiFilm FinePix F200 Rs. 17,999 October 2009 12 MP 5x 3.0 inches
FujiFilm FinePix S1500 Rs. 12,500 October 2009 10 MP 12x 2.7 inches
Kodak C140 Rs. 4,999 8 MP 3x 2.4 inches
Nikon P90 Rs. 23,995 October 2009 12 MP 24x 3.0 inches
Nikon Coolpix L20 Rs. 7,750 October 2009 10 MP 3.6x 3.0 inches
Nikon S220 Rs. 8,500 October 2009 10 MP 3x 2.5 inches
Olympus FE25 Rs. 5,995 10 MP 3x 2.4 inches
Panasonic FS4 Rs. 6,750 8 MP 4x 2.5 inches
Samsung ES55 (BEST BUY) Rs. 6,990 October 2009 10 MP 3x 2.5 inches
Sony HX1 Rs. 29,800 October 2009 9 MP 20x 3.0 inches
Sony S930 Rs. 7,800 10 MP 3x 2.4 inches
Sony H20 Rs. 17,500 10 MP 10x 3.0 inches
External HDDs
Model Market Price Capacity Interface Warranty (Years)
Seagate Freeagent GO Rs. 5,150 500 GB USB 5 years
Seagate Freeagent GO Rs. 3,250 250 GB USB 5 years
Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini Rs. 3,200 250 GB USB 5 years
Transcend StoreJet Rs. 2,725 160 GB USB 2 years
Western Digital MyPassport Rs. 2,850 160 GB USB 3 years
Western Digital MyPassport Essential Rs. 4,100 640 GB USB 3 years
Western Digital MyPassport Studio Edition Rs. 7,800 1 TB USB, FireWire, eSATA 3 years
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 99
KILLER RIGS
Basic rig = Rs. 21,350
Multimedia cum gaming rig = Rs. 81,100
everything you will ever need to build your own PC. whatever your budget. Ultra high-end PC / Gaming rig = Rs. 1,51,700
PRIMARY SECONDARY COMPONENTS
COMPONENTS
CABINET MOUSE
PROCESSOR
AMD AthlonII X2 240 / Rs. 3,000
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 / Rs. 8,200 POWER SUPPLY Logitech 3 button scroll / Rs. 300
Intel Core i7 920 / Rs. 14,400 VIP 350 Watts / Rs. 850 Logitech MX518 / Rs. 1,300
Corsair TX 650 / Rs. 6,500 Logitech MX518 / Rs. 1,300
Corsair HX 850 / Rs. 10,300
OPTICAL DRIVE
Zebronics Antibiotic / Rs. 2,100
CoolerMaster 690 / Rs. 4,400
CoolerMaster ATCS 840 / Rs. 12,000
MOTHERBOARD
ASUS NVIDIA 7025 M2N68-AM /
Rs. 2,250 LG H55N / Rs. 1,100
ASUS P5Q / Rs. 8,500 SPEAKER LG H55N / Rs. 1,100
MSI X58 Pro / Rs. 13,500 None ASUS BC-1205PT / Rs. 11,010
Altec Lansing MX 5021 / Rs. 6,500
Logitech Z5500 / Rs. 14,000
KEYBOARD
RAM
2 x 1 GB DDR2 800 MHz (Kingston) / Logitech
Rs. 2,000 Multimedia /
2 x 2GB DDR2 800 MHz (Corsair) / SOUND CARD Rs. 400
Rs. 4,000 None Logitech G15 /
2 x 3 GB Corsair Dominator 1600 MHz ASUS Xonar DX / Rs. 3,700 Rs. 4,400
DDR3 / Rs. 9,000 ASUS Xonar DX / Rs. 3,700 Logitech G15 /
Rs. 4,400
GRAPHICS
CARD
MISCELLANEOUS
None
ZOTAC GeForce
GTX 2602 / Rs.
14,000
ZOTAC GeForce TABLET HEADPHONES PRINTING SOLUTIONS
GTX 295 / Rs. 29,000
HARD DRIVE None None
Seagate 500 GB 7200.11 / Rs. 3,300 iBall Design Tablet PF1209 / Rs. 8,900 Sennheiser HD 201 / Rs. 1,500
Seagate 1 TB 7200.12 / Rs. 4,600 Wacom Intuos4 Medium (PTK-640) Sennheiser HD 280 Pro / Rs. 5,500 Canon PIXMA iP1980 / Rs. 2,695
Western Digital Velociraptor 150 GB / Rs. 21,280 Canon iP3680 / Rs. 5,595
Rs. 9,900 / Western Digital 1 TB Black Epson B-500DN / Rs. 22,999
Edition / Rs. 6,800 GAMING CONTROLLERS
MOUSEPAD
POWER PROTECTION
MONITOR
ViewSonic VA1928wm / Rs. 8,200
AOC 2230fm / Rs. 14,000
Dell 2408WFP / Rs. 38,000
None
Razer Goliathus Speed (Oversized) / Xbox 360 controller / Rs. 1,350 None
Rs. 1,400 Logitech Momo / Rs. 5,500 APC 550W / Rs. 2,400
Steel Series Qck Heavy / Rs. 2,000 Logitech G25 / Rs. 17,500 Numeric 1 KVA / Rs. 4,200
100 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Go, as in Google Go on Go?
Named from the first two letters of Google itself, The Google Go web site golang.org runs
Go is aimed to be a programming language of on the godoc documentation server which
Tech@work tomorrow’s concurrent, networked computing world is written in Go itself
Google and it is time for a change. With the intro-
duction of a new programming language
which is developed keeping the require-
ments of today in mind, developer and
GO
users alike have a lot to benefit for code
which runs faster and is easier to develop.
Some important aspects
C++ is definitely one of the most popular
languages for system development. Let
us look at some of the ways in which Go
differs from C++, since many of the points
have already been mentioned before, they
will be given in brief:
• No pointer arithmetic
A new language for • No type hierarchy
geeks to play with • No overloading methods or operators
• No implicit type conversions
• No header files, Go uses the concept
of packages instead
Kshitij Sobti not very suitable for creating the kind of • Strings, arrays and maps (hashes) are
kshitij.sobti@thinkdigit.com applications that are needed nowadays. a native type in Go
Their issues with the state of affairs • Threading and concurrent program-
{T}
here is a reason with developing in current program- ming features are natively provided
Google appeals to ming languages is that despite computers by the language
geeks; they give us being enormously faster now, software • Variables are initiated on declara-
so much fun stuff development has not speeded up much. tion, there are never any uninitiated
to play with, and often for free. Google Languages such as C and C++ use headers variables.
Go is one of their latest new projects, which make dependency analysis and • Internal garbage collection
born during the famous 20 per cent time fast compilation difficult. The syntax for declaring variables is
that all Google employees use to develop Many of current programming lan- reversed, as :
innovative products on their own. guages also have a very "cumbersome" var variable_name int;
type system which pushes more people var another_variable_name
What is Go? towards languages like Python and Java- string;
Go is a new open-source programming Script which have dynamic typing. Most Instead of C++'s:
language created by Google which it of them also have very limited features int variable_name;
claims to be simple, fast, safe, concur- when it comes to parallelism and support char *another_variable_name;
rent, fun. For someone who is familiar • Functions are declared using the
with programming languages such as Google Go: Google's func keyword with the following syntax:
Java and C++, it does not significantly take on what a modern func some_function(a int, b
depart from the syntax. The same programming language int, c string);
familiar curly braces are there along
with semicolons as line terminators. Yet
should be like • If a variable is being assigned at the
same time as it is being declared, the type
there are enough idiosyncrasies to make a complicated syntax for the same. may be omitted as follows:
the language new. Programming languages have kept var some_variable = some_
The language draws heavily from the on adding features via newer and newer other_variable;
basic C syntax, while bringing in some of libraries which bring new features, • There is no distinction in syntax for
the best features of other programming however the languages themselves have accessing properties of pointers to struc-
languages. It supports concurrency in not evolved to take on the features which ture and structure, both are accessed via
its basic syntax, and has built-in garbage are required at their very core. Current the . notation. This is unlike C++ where
collection. languages have become very verbose pointers to structures require a -> notation.
requiring much "clerical work" in adding • Go supports multiple parallel assign-
Why another language? any functionality. ments, as such swapping two variables
Google created Go since they believe that The shape of computing has changed can be written quite simply as follows:
current programming languages are significantly over the last couple of years, i, j = j, i;
102 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Nomenclature
The Google Go compiler and linkers are named as per Plan 9 Mishmash
with one letter for architecture (6 for amd64, 8 for x86, 5 for Go’s syntax is inspired by C, and some its features by
ARM) and the second is g for Go or l for linker Pascal, Modula, Oberon, Newsqueak and Limbo Open source
Functions in Go can return multiple since you wouldn't be coding a car on your does the actual sorting. In the function
values. A function which returns mul- computer such analogies are useless for instead of specifying a particular type as
tiple values can be declared with a list of establishing the utility of the concept. a parameter, we use the interface instead,
variables in parenthesis after the function Interfaces work the other way around. as follows:
as follows: Giving a real world example, as you go func Sort(data Sortable)
func f() (i int, j int); around the world looking you notice {
v1, v2 = f(); similarities in many of the things that you for i := 1; i 0 &&
which follows a for or if statement, should twinkling lights stars, on further reflection data.Less(j, j-1); j--
be wrapped in curly braces as follows: he may call all twinkling lights in the sky {
if a
work for any RSS feed instead of just one, createElement(“a”);
and can in fact leave the option up to the optionsLink.href = chrome. We will also need to add the option
user. Let us see how we can go about doing extension.getURL(“options.html”); parameter in the “options.html” page. You
that. optionsLink.innerText = can simply add the following after the first
We can use localStorage to store the “Options page”; option block:
URL of the feed, and load this URL instead document.body.innerHTML = What RSS
of loading a preset one. Just to make sure “Before you begin using the feed do you wish to load stories
that there is always a feed to load, we can extension, you need to configure from?
have a preset value pointing to a feed. Or it from its “;
to configure the extension if the URL hasn’t appendChild(optionsLink);
First we check if the URL has been stored Since earlier all additions to the docu- And the storeURL function is
in the localStorage, and if it hasn’t, display a ment were being done after the feed loaded simply:
link to the options page (which is bound to be after function storeURL()
instead of the links from the popup loads, there was {
the feed. To do that we no problem. window.
need to make a few Now we are checking if localStorage[“feedURL”] = docu-
changes though. Since a localStorage prop- ment.getElementById(“feedURL”).
you cannot add any- erty called feedURL has }
thing to the popup till been defined, and if it Finally, to make sure that your extension
it loads, we will shift all doesn’t, we are adding a has permission to load any feed it wants, the
our code to a new main message telling the user permissions block should become:
function, and call it to visit the options page “permissions”: [
when the popup is done before proceeding. We can “http://*/”
loading as follows: get a link to the options ]
var req = new page using chrome api Instead of:
XMLHttpRequest(); chrome.extension. “permissions”: [
function main() getURL(“options. “http://www.thinkdigit.
{ Your very own Chrome extension at work html”). com/”
if(window. Now if we don’t have ]
localStorage[“feedURL”]) a feedURL set, it will prompt you to open There you have it! A simple Chrome exten-
{ the extension options page. You could set sion which can display items from any feed
req.open(“GET”,window. the extension to automatically open that in a dropdown! Go ahead, start building on
localStorage[“feedURL”], true); page if no URL is found if you want. We will this, and make an extension which can load
req.onload = showTDRssFeed; also need to add the body tag to the same from multiple feeds, or one which allows
req.send(null); popup.html file with the main function set paging. There are many possibilities even in
} else { to run once it is done loading: this small example.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 105
Largest image ASUS 1201N MySQL 5.5
The world’s largest giga-pixel image is ASUS’s new Atom netbook is powered New beta of MySQL 5.5
Developer corner made of 1,655 21-MP images by the NVIDIA Ion platform codenamed “Betony” released
be of 19x19 pixels. Since this will be used original article. and go to the for loop. The for loop is just
as an icon on the toolbar, it is best if it's • tag that contains an repeating the operating in it 5 times, to
a PNG file with a transparent backdrop, extract (or the entirety) of the article (not display the first 5 stories in the RSS feed.
ensuring that it will blend with any used in this example). We will here iterate over each item in the
theme that is applied to Chrome. function showTDRssFeed() { posts array.
var posts = req.responseXML. var story = document.
popup getElementsByTagName("item"); createElement("div");
In this file, we will actually add the code document.body. story.class = "storylink";
which will load and display the RSS feed appendChild(document. In these lines, we are creating a new
contents. To load the RSS feed, we use the createElement("hr")); element which will be containing
XMLHttpRequest object which is com- for (var i = 0; i element is
monly used in all AJAX applications for var story = document. being given a class of storylink so that
loading data onto a page asynchronously. createElement("div"); we can later style it using CSS.
var req = new XMLHttpRe- story.class = "storylink"; var storyLink = document.
quest(); var storyLink = document. createElement("a");
req.open("GET","http://www. createElement("a"); Now we create the actual link to the
thinkdigit.com/rss/tech-news", storyLink.href = posts[i]. story using the element.
true); getElementsByTagName("link")[0]. storyLink.href =
req.onload = showRssFeed; childNodes[0].nodeValue; posts[i].
req.send(null); storyLink.inner- getElementsByTagName("link")[0].
First, we create a new XMLHttpRe- HTML = posts[i]. childNodes[0].nodeValue;
quest object which will then be used getElementsByTagName("title") storyLink.innerHTML =
to load the feed contents. This object is [0].childNodes[0].nodeValue; posts[i].
stored in the req variable. story. getElementsByTagName("title")
The second line actually instructs appendChild(storyLink); [0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
the XMLHttpRequest object that it is document.body. This are two rather long lines of code
supposed to retrieve the feed located at appendChild(story); which do the simple task of extracting the
http://www.thinkdigit.com/rss/ document.body. link and title from the feed story item and
tech-news, which is the thinkdigit.com appendChild(document. injecting them into the element. Lets
feed location. createElement("hr")); break it down to get a better idea.
In the third line, we specify the func- } The posts[i] is the i-th element of the
tion that needs to be called when the } posts array, from this feed item, we need
feed is done loading. Here, we create a var posts = req.resp to extract the link and the title. We extract
function called showRssFeed to use the onseXML.getElementsBy these by using the getElementsBy-
downloaded feed content to generate a list TagName("item"); TagName function with the required tag
of links. In the first line in the function, we use name as parameter. Since this will return
The fourth line simply sends the GET the responseXML property of req, the an array of link and title elements (even
request to the specified URL and begins XMLHttpRequest object (that contains though it will contain only one object),
the loading process. the XML content loaded from the RSS we use the first element of the array using
Now we look at the showRssFeed feed). The responseXML property con- [0]. This will return us something like
function that will do the actual work of tains the XML structure of the RSS feed. (for the first tag):
rendering the feed contents. How- http://www.think-
ever, before we do that, let us briefly
go over the structure of RSS.
You can reload the extension digit.com/General/Soccer-
Dance-Kung-Fu-AcYut-
An RSS feed is simply an XML after making even a small does-_3822.html
file with it's own syntax of tags.
Details of each story in an RSS feed
change, and see how it affects Since we only need the link
itself from this XML element,
are encapsulated in an tag. your extension we use the childNodes property
The tag contains further (which will again be an array of
tags which give details of each story. The Now by running the getElements- child nodes although only with one text
tag contains (listing only the ByTagName function we get an array of element containing the link) and access
important ones used in the example): all the items in the feed into the array the first child by appending [0]. This
• tag that contains the title of named posts. will now finally give us a string with the
the story. for (var i = 0; i tag that contains a link to the Let us leave the second line for now using the nodeValue property and get
106 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com
Gboard 48-core CPU Etherpad open source
Google launches Gboard - an USB Intel recently demonstrated its After being bought by Google, Etherpad, an
Gmail shortcuts keyboard 48-core processor online collaboration service goes open source Developer corner
the link which we need to inject into the localStorage["numStories"] case it doesn't.
storyLink's href attribute. Similarly we = document.
get the story title and put that inside the getElementById('numStories'). Testing the extension
link using the innerHTML property. Now value; As said before, in Chrome you needn't
we have a link to the feed story. } restart the browser after each change. You
story.appendChild(storyLink); can in fact load the directory containing
document.body. the extension files as is, without packing
appendChild(story); into a CRX file. To go about testing your
This newly created link is now extension, open the Extensions page
appended inside the story we using the wrench menu. On the page that
created earlier. This complete link Options for my exten- appears, you’ll see a link titled Devel-
within a is now appended to the sion oper mode near the top-right corner
document body. We skipped the docu- of the page. This will reveal extended
ment.body.appendChild(document. How many story links should be to load an unpacked extension. Click on
because all it does is create a or a displayed? the button to Load unpacked exten-
horizontal rule element which just serves dialog which results to the directory with
adding a line around every story. You extension will now appear in the
tag in the popup.html file. We list, with the option to reload, disable and
will also add a few CSS instructions to uninstall. The options button should also
improve the appearance of the popup. be enabled. You can reload the extension
body { This is what you'd expect from pretty after making even a small change, and see
min-width:180px; much any HTML file. Now let's delve in. how it affects your extension.
overflow-x:hidden; First inside our page we have
} a text input element with an id of num- Conclusion
This ensures that the popup gets a Stories which is asking the user how You can see how easy it is to get started
width of at least 180 pixels, and any over- many stories need to be displayed from with creating extensions for Chrome.
flowing width is hidden. the feed. We also have an input button However, we have only just scratched
that will call the store() function when the surface. There's a lot more you
options clicked to save the setting. Also, the can do with Chrome than just display
Since we are just looking at the basic tag itself runs the main() func- a popup from a toolbar button. You
configuration scenario, here's the options. tion on loading. can respond to event in the browser
html file in its entirety: Here the main function is checking if to trigger your own code. You can
the localStorage value for numStories add content scripts which can change
is set. In case the extension is being run the very looks of a page. You can
Options for my for the first time, it might not be, in which even pass messages between exten-
extension case it is set to 5. Its value is then read sions to make them work together.
and put in the numStories textbox. Remember that to make full use of
function main() The store() function reads the this tutorial you should actually code
{ value from the text box and saves it in the extension yourself while adding
if(!window. localStorage. The options page is your own changes to the mix, instead of
localStorage["numStories"]){ done. However, it’s useless if we don't just reading it. Hopefully after you are
window. use the option in our main popup page done with this tutorial, you will explore
localStorage["numStories"] = 5; itself! So now we go about modifying further the intricacies of creating
} that to use this configuration parameter. Chrome extensions.
document. This can be very simply be achieved by With extensions, Chrome has made
getElementById('numStories'). modifying the for loop to look as follows: a significant step in gaining parity with
value = window. for (var i = 0; i to 567678
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Looks The Today screen is awesome and But I seriously hate the propietary
The first thing one notices are the adds a lot of functionality to the jack. A 2.5 mm jack would have
looks; and let me tell you I hated phone. (Is it the same is all new been tolerated. I am an earphone-
this handset when I looked at its WM phones or just HTC? I think buster and this one would last only
pictures on the web. But I was its only HTC?) 2-3 months. A replacement would
surprised that it looks pretty good therfore be expensive due to the
when you have it in front of your Camera propietary jack.
eyes. Camera is just okay. For viewing
pics on phone or posting to blogs. Productivity
Touchscreen Just for emergency uses. Despite The phone allows creating, viewing
The Touchscreen is responsive the 2MP sensor, quality is not and editing Word and Excel
in most cases. But the stylus is much better than my age old files. Viewing Powerpoint files is
not comfortable enough for my Nokia 6600’s VGA camera. And supported but it is sluggish. I was
tastes. I am currently using an ink- its painfully slow. Video capture is surprised to see support for Office
finished-pen with a big tip; this is handicapped at QCIF resolution. 2007 File formats. The Adobe
much better for navigation as well PDF reader makes an appearance
as writing on-screen. Music here as well. But for all practical
Music quality through the single purposes, it ain’t that usable
UI speaker on the phone is fair for soft because of the slow processor.
The overall speed is not anything numbers, it just isnt the thing for
to talk home about. It is somewhat heavy metal stuff. But loudness, my Conclusion
slow. my, I didnt expect a PDA to be so Well well, I definitely am in love
RAM usage is high at default setup loud. Not that its very loud, but its with this device. Perhaps because
with no programs running. Very much more than what I expected. its my first experience with
less free RAM left at startup, just The Treble is more emphasesed Windows Mobile. I was able to
33%. (Is windows sluggish in every through the external speaker as is adapt to the new OS in a period of
patform?) the case with many mobiles. one day.
Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com 113
SKOAR! Special
THE SKOAR !
8
Sameer Desai the sim racing podium that Gran Turismo Then there’s the one-button driving Forza 3 has a completely revamped
readersletters@thinkdigit.com has so long occupied? assist that makes driving so easy that all career mode that is broken up into sea-
The daunting physics and spirit- you really need to do is hold down the sons. Here too, accessibility is the mantra
orza Motorsport is the Xbox’s crushing realism that have turned so many accelerator and steer, without having to use with voice-overs guiding you through its
F answer to one of PlayStation’s
most famous brands – Gran Tur-
ismo. 2007’s Forza Motorsport 2
on the Xbox 360, in fact, must have got quite
away in the past, can now be dialled down
using an array of driving assists, such as
rewind, which lets you go back in time and
retry a segment of the race where you may
the brakes or worry about spinning out of
control. By this, Turn 10 aims to appeal to
anyone who loves cars, but doesn’t want to
spend time learning a sim.
many features, be it races, car tuning, or
upgrades. The career mode is long, and will
take you well over 50 hours to complete.
Graphically, Forza 3 isn’t a massive jump
a few alarm bells ringing in Japan, as it have erred. up from its predecessor, with performance
delivered the most complete sim racing getting priority.
experience on current-gen consoles. And
while we’re yet to see a full Gran Turismo
release on the PS3, Forza’s next instalment
– Forza Motorsport 3 – is already in stores.
But does it do enough to steal the top step of
FORZA MOTORSPORT
8/10
Developer: Turn 10
Publisher : Microsoft Gam
e Studios
Genre: Racing
Platforms: Xbox 360 (Rs
. 2,290)
114 SKOAR! | January 2010 | www.skoar.com
SKOAR! Special
Make Ezio bucks While some missions are similar,
there are enough variations in them to
Sameer Desai not feel monotonous. From thrilling chase
readersletters@thinkdigit.com sequences through narrow streets and
rooftops to the challenging assassins’
A
ssassin’s Creed was built up tombs puzzles to the main assassination
as the hottest new IP when it missions, there is plenty of variety to make
released in 2007. It promised each mission feel fresh.
to revolutionise the open world Then there are the side missions
action-adventure genre with Parkour-like and collectibles; a standard inclusion
platforming, stealth, and a unique game in all open-world games. It really is an
world set in the 12th century. The game achievement when a game makes you
however, failed to live up to the hype want to complete optional tasks. Side
and although it received praise for its missions are a mix of delivery mis-
originality, it was universally criti- sions, assassination contracts,
cised for its repetitive structure. rooftop races, and roughing
Fortunately, the game up unfaithful husbands,
sold very well, paving and these missions
the way for a sequel yield cash rewards.
and a second chance But it’s the collecti-
for Ubisoft to deliver bles that will keep
on its promises. you playing long
If Assassin’s Creed was a statement of after you’ve completed the main story.
intent, then Assassin’s Creed 2 is a Codex pages are pieces of a puzzle that
realisation of those intentions, you must collect throughout the game,
and for anyone who loved the however collecting these is compulsory
idea behind the first game, to progress the story. Viewpoints are
but lamented its lacklustre tall building strewn around the various
implementation, the sequel will not disap- cities and climbing them will add more
point. AC2 has all the qualities of a great objectives to your map. Then there are
sequel; it irons out all the faults from the glyphs hidden on various landmarks.
original, while building upon everything On finding them you’re required to solve
that made it great. While you played Altair some very challenging puzzles. Each
in the first game, this time you play the puzzle unlocks a few seconds of a video
more flamboyant Ezio, and the setting clip, and finding all glyphs unlocks a
moves from 12th century Middle East to a rather interesting video.
more beautiful Renaissance Italy. So the missions are fun and the side
quests and collectibles are engaging as
THE SKOAR well, but the icing on the cake in Assas-
sin’s Creed 2 is the locations. As you
play in Renaissance Italy, you will travel
The characters from both games do through a few Italian cities, but none
share similarities. They’re both assas- more stunning than Venice. The city is
sins, after all; they dress similarly and painstakingly detailed, teeming with a
share similar physical abilities. Ezio, busy population, and it’s a joy to navigate
however, has a wider range of weapons to around with its network of canals and
choose from. He now has smoke bombs, rich architecture. The inclusion of a day
throwing knives, and various other and night cycle further adds to the beauty.
means to take on enemies. Money also You could argue that some of the mis-
plays a role and revenue earned from sions feel like filler material, but on the
ASSASSIN’S CREED renovating and upgrading businesses in whole, Assassin’s Creed 2 is a game with
Reviewer: Ubisoft his hometown can be used to buy better few faults. It delivers on every promise
Genre: Action-adventure weapons and armour, and even to hire that the first game made but failed to
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3 (Rs 2,599). PC ver- courtesans, thieves, and mercenaries to uphold, and like any good sequel should, it
sion delayed till March 2010 help you in your missions. raises the bar in just about every area.
116 SKOAR! | January 2010 | www.skoar.com
SKOAR! Special
THE SKOAR !
7
TIME TO SABOTAGE
Sameer Desai exciting without being perfect, while the Hitman- Assassin’s Creed, stealth is inspired by Hitman,
readersletters@thinkdigit.com inspired stealth works well enough without being and the area liberation system is similar to, most
as clinical as specialist stealth titles. recently, inFamous. So clearly, The Saboteur is a
T
he Saboteur is a World War II game. The most unique aspect of The Saboteur is game built on borrowed ideas, and while that
But before you dismiss this as another its art style. Nazi-controlled areas are ominously may sound bad on paper, the implementation of
generic Nazi-killing first-person shooter, dark, gloomy and devoid of all colour, with only these elements, while not perfect, is pretty good
let me tell you that it isn’t. Yes, you do kill the yellow tinge of window panes at night and red and they come together cohesively to provide a
Nazis in The Saboteur, but this isn’t a war game. representing Nazi flags, arm bands and control fair amount of gameplay variety.
It’s a story of personal vengeance that just hap- points breaking the monotony of black and white. The Saboteur isn’t historically accurate, the
pens to take place during World War II in Nazi- When it’s pouring down, it is reminiscent of Frank voice acting is so bad that it almost feels inten-
controlled Paris. The Saboteur is a free-roaming Miller’s Sin City, and along with a fantastic ‘60s tional. What it lacks in polish and production
action adventure game with a mission structure soundtrack, it creates a brilliant atmosphere. But values, it makes up by delivering heaps of simple,
similar to that of Grand Theft Auto. In fact, it bor- liberate these areas by completing missions and unadulterated fun. And that’s worth something.
rows ideas from many popular games. But does it the look is drastically different. It’s vivid and col-
manage to create an identity of its own? ourful like a Disney animated film and it’s almost THE SABOTEUR
You play as foul-mouthed Irish race car driver jarring to a point where you’ll start to miss the 7/10
Sean Devlin, who is forced to flee to Paris after noir film charm of the Nazi areas. Developer: Pandemic Studios
the war breaks out. There he finds himself on a Besides the story missions, which vary from Publisher: EA
personal quest to avenge the death of his best chase sequences in giant zeppelins and car races Genre: Action-adventure
friend at the hands of a top Gustapo agent. Some- to assassinations and destroying Nazi control Platforms: PS3 (Rs 2,499), Xbox 360 (Rs
where along the way, he gets caught up in the points, you also have side missions. These consist 1,899), PC (Rs 999)
Parisian resistance movement and simultaneously of destroying smaller Nazi installments such as
chain-smokes his way towards ridding Paris of sniper towers, radars, AA guns and propaganda PC MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
the Nazis. speakers. Completing missions earns you con- Operating system:
The Saboteur is an open world game and traband, which you can use at various dealers to Win XP SP3, Vista SP1, Win 7
the missions are mostly of the infiltrate, kill buy weapons and ammo. There is also an inter- CPU:
and destroy variety. There is also a fair amount esting perk system that rewards you for excelling Intel Core2Duo 2.4 Ghz or AMD equivalent
of Assassin’s Creed-style platforming and Sean in various areas such as gunplay, sniping, stealth RAM: 2 GB
is able to climb pretty much any building in the kills and driving. HDD: 7 GB
city. Missions can be dealt with in multiple ways. As we said, missions are presented in the Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX w/ 256MB
You can either go all guns blazing or throw on standard GTA-esque ‘go there and talk to him’ video ram or ATI Radeon HD2600 Pro
a Nazi uniform and see how far the stealthy structure, platforming is strikingly similar to Sound: DirectX 9c compliant sound
approach takes you. Gun play is satisfactorily
118 SKOAR! | January 2010 | www.skoar.com
Digit 101
What language The language of the internet can be strange and translating service to turn everything into Arabic
do the kids speak incomprehensible to the “outsiders”– that’s you. or Russian and back again. If what which it
these days? It is known as Engrish, and it means learning makes arrive that kind of thing is read and mean-
really well to write really bad. An easy fix? Use a ing is not formed, none of that really you worry!
Where is my mysterious The Jargon File
missing Hard Disk space? Cloud: A description for data online
that can be accessed from many loca-
The rest of the world considers Kilo and Mega to be tions and platforms. A Word document
multipliers of a thousand and a hundred thousand saved on Google docs, for example,
respectively. Unfortunately, the nerds who designed can be accessed from mobile phones,
computers don’t seem to count in anything but binary. desktops and cybercafes. The docu-
The obscure number of 1024 became the multiplier, ment is said to be in the cloud.
and they went right ahead and called it “Kilo” anyway.
So in reality, 1 megabyte = 1048576 bytes. Manufac- Distro hopper: A Distro hopper
turers caught on, thinking it would be simpler to ad- is someone who compulsively
vertise a 1 Terrabyte drive, but give a few GBs less. That installs different flavors of Linux.
explains the difference between the memory space you
expect, and the memory space you get. A new standard PictBridge: PictBridge is an inter-
proposes to use kibibytes instead. face that allows cameras to be directly
connected to printers, without a com-
How to get rid of the irritating mobile alerts puter or any other device in between
Does your mobile service provider send Vodafone Live! MFD: MFD stands for multi-
you updates you don’t really appreciate? SMS CAN VL to 111 (postpaid) function device. For example, a
Here is how to unsubscribe: SMS CAN VL to 144 (prepaid) combination of a scanner, photo
copying machine and printer.
Reliance Infocom Airtel
Call 51234 863 for Cricket SMS UNSUB 54321 Live CD: A Live CD is typically a
Call 51234 863 for Astrology Examples of the include Comic, Linux distribution that runs directly
SMS U to 51234 for Astropack Mobile, News, Business, Film off a CD, without any installation.
Loop Mobile just press *112# Idea Ubuntu: Canonical’s attempt at making
and follow the instructions SMS DND to 1909 a widely publicised idiot-friendly Linux
distribution on the lines of Windows.
When
Will The
World
End?
No, really, 5 Billion years from now, the planet will go kaput Near disasters of 2012
Some people were actually surprised when at 2020. They will just have to bear the Microsoft will release Windows 8
the world didn’t end back in 2000, and disappointment. Current science dates the The second largest near earth
now a group is rallying around the year Sun at 5 billion years old, and at middle- space rock (Eros) will just miss us
2012, just because Mayans got bored of age. When the sun goes nova, 5 billion The Kyoto protocol will be void
calculating the days of the year. The more years from now, is when the planet will The sun will become hyperactive
patient cultists are pin-pointing the date be swallowed up in a big ball of hot gas. A Dalek will break loose
120 Digit | January 2010 | www.thinkdigit.com