Author
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
Nothing new about Bluetooth. Nothing new about haptic feedback. And certainly nothing new about shoes. But they’ve all come together in an innovative way in the LeChal interactive footwear. CEO and co-founder of Ducere Technologies, Krispian Lawrence, speaks to Mala Bhargava about the shoes that started out as a way of helping the visually impaired.
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A Borderless CurrencyCare to dabble in some Bitcoin? Now you can, with a Bitcoin wallet app, ZedPay. The app lets you buy, store, send and spend Bitcoin, the de-centralised digitial borderless currency that many believe is the future of money. Bitcoin believers think that this is the currency that is the least vulnerable to inflation. No one country owns it and yet it’s the world’s most widely used alternative currency. The app saves a user from having to learn anything about the technology and go ahead and transact with anyone in the world using Bitcoin money. Sending an amount is as easy as sending a message. The number of merchants supporting the use of Bitcoin is increasing. Contrary to popular belief, Bitcoin is perfectly legal. It’s linked to your mobile number irrevocably. Download it and see if you’d like to experience Bitcoin.Shift It A BitShift is a fascinating app by Pixite, which has a bouquet of other interesting apps in the photo effects department. That includes Fragment, Tangent, Union Matter and Lorry Stripes, some of which have been covered here before. Fragment, in particular, does magical geometrical things to a photo. But back to Shift. Press a button to see change upon change in your picture. Three moveable points appear that shift the effect to different places on the image as well as modify it in some way. You can save an effect but really, it’ll always look different on different images. Particularly nice is the effect of light on a photo which you can move for a more dramatic look. Two sliders let you enhance colours and brightness a bit, but otherwise, this is an app that does its own thing. Shift is available for Android and iOS.In The Backgroundfor a long time, Pocket has dominated the read-it-later scenario. It’s connected to most other apps and you can collect a lot of your reading there. But it’s time for a different user experience and that’s what Flynx for Android gives you. It loads web pages of your choice in the background while you’re busy with other apps. Download the app free on Android, and then go through Settings to make a few choices. Choose the size and alignment of a little bubble that will appear on your screen. When you’re in Twitter or Facebook or a browser for example, you just double tap a link and it saves your article for later. Tapping the bubble takes you to the articles. You don’t have to leave the app you’re using. The problem is that it’ll take a little getting used to and making Flynx the default place for reading can be a nuisance.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 18-05-2015)
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We first got to know Lenovo, many years ago, when the company bought over IBM’s notebook business. The legendary IBM ThinkPad wasn’t IBM any more. But over time, Lenovo didn’t interfere too much with the ThinkPad branding, keeping most of its signature features intact. Though die-hard fans may believe the current ThinkPads are not a patch on the old ones, they’re really still very sturdy machines. Even though there’s a Yoga version of the ThinkPad with the screen bending back all the way, it’s still not compromising the strength of the laptop at all.The newest version of the ThinkPad is the X250, a nice light laptop that bends the screen down flat though not all the way to meet the bottom of the keyboard. It’s so light that they call it an ultrabook. And yet it seems so durable that it’s aimed at the enterprise. It’s a 12.5-inch device and the way it’s put together just makes it seem the perfect size — not a problem to carry and yet not cramped and miniaturised, making the user struggle to see the text on the screen for long days at work, everyday.The look of the X250 is all ThinkPad, from the grey-black or charcoal colour to the distinctive logo and blinking light, to the keyboard and the famous red track-point which you use instead of a mouse. The keys on the keyboard seem shallow at first, but as you begin to use them you find they’re perfectly adequate and allow you to input text pretty fast. The touchscreen is not only bright and quite a pleasure to look at but also responsive. Sound is nice and deep, not tiny and cheap as on some smaller laptops. Should one want to watch video — and that’s becoming an increasingly important part of business these days — the experience will be good.The battery life is one of the stronger points on this laptop, meant to last the whole day at work without the user having to bother about carrying the adaptor along as he or she flits from place to place with this lightweight workhorse. The version I checked out was the Intel 5th Generation Core i7 processor with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard disk, running Windows 8.1. There are other configurations available and of course a lot of options in the ThinkPad series itself. The X250 with the mentioned configuration is Rs 1,18,000 – not cheap, but very well built. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 18-05-2015)
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Difficult to ima-gine that a little black-and-white e-reader could be dramatically improved upon in any way, but Amazon has done just that with the Kindle Voyage. They now have a vanilla Kindle that costs Rs 5,999, the Paperwhite, which is for Rs 10,999, and Rs 13,999 (3G version) and now the Voyage for Rs 16,999. And lots of very nice cases in great colours for all of these.The Paperwhite really lets e-ink come into its own, making text so nice and legible even in outdoor daylight. Now, the Voyage takes it up a notch, adding a lot to what was already one of the best ways to read — and be eco-friendly at the same time. I was wondering whether I was imagining it but no, it’s true that the Voyage is a tiny bit smaller than the other Kindles. That makes it easier to hold by just that fraction — but it’s a fraction that matters. On this version, Amazon has also fixed one of my pet peeves. I hated the power button, its placement on the underside of the reader and the way it needed to be pressed hard. Now, there’s a soft round button exactly where your fingers will naturally reach on the back of the reader. One touch and your Kindle is asleep. But, there’s also now a great smart case, so the device wakes up when you lift the flap off. Another great addition is the tiny squeeze needed on the edge of the device to turn the page. While reading, your fingers are right there and just a little pressure turns the page. That’s much more of a big deal than it sounds. I turn the font on fairly large and need to turn pages very often, but the effort needed to do this is now nothing. If you find the squeeze method annoying, you can tap the screen to move to the next page.The Voyage is more than noticeably faster than the others. It’s responsive and smooth. The screen, at 300ppi, is also much crisper and brighter, making it easier to read smaller text clearly. There are little changes to the interface, but it’s the better hardware that makes this Kindle a premium one.The Voyage is for those who read a lot and don’t mind investing in their reading. It’s expensive, but a vastly improved experience. While the other two options are more gift-able, the Voyage is probably the one you want to curl up with yourself. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 18-05-2015)
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As soon as she wakes up at the crack of dawn, co-founder of startups Cashkaro and Pouring Pounds, Swati Bhargava, puts in a solid hour of multi-tasking. But it’s not that she’s juggling her email and phone calls while wolfing down her breakfast and talking to her husband. Instead, she heads for the green lawns that surround her house for an involved session of visualisation, meditation and yoga followed by an invigorating walk.Your Kind of DaySwati discovered exercise during one of the busiest times of her life. She had graduated from the London School of Economics and was working with Goldman Sachs and life was a relentless cycle of work and partying. The stress was beginning to tell and Swati found herself having to cope with allergies. Her mother came to the rescue by teaching her yoga and pranayama. Not only did the allergies disappear, but Swati was coping well with her exceedingly busy life. The benefits were so obvious to her that she decided to never stop yoga. Twelve years later, when she began her business, along with husband Rohan Bhargava, she was glad she had never let go of the yoga routine. “My belief in my exercise routine has only grown, since we got into our business,” says Swati, adding, “We’re never really ‘off’ whether it’s a weekend or not and it’s the exercise that really rejuvenates us.” But perhaps the most interesting thing that Swati does is combine the exercise hour with visualisation, imagining her life and day to be what she desires. “This way,” she says, “I get the kind of day I want, not the kind of day that is forced upon me.” Even a few minutes of what she calls “a visualisation zone” helps her day pan out just wonderfully. “Whether it’s yoga or meditation or the treadmill,” says Swati, “the underlying purpose is the same — to bring in positivity into your life.”Rev Up Productivity Rohan Chandrashekhar, founder of Buzzvalve, has a Twitter timeline as populated with fitness buffs as with startup founders. According to him, there’s never before been such a strong interest in staying fit while being bootstrapped for time. “Working out feeds straight into your productivity,” says Rohan, “I’m new to working out and I can say that there’s a direct impact on my concentration. It feels like a hormonal change towards work.” Rohan puts in an hour and a half to two hours of workout, often multi-tasking by tackling mail and social networking on the treadmill. Rohan finds that being on top of one’s workout translates into being on top of one’s game, pushing up the endorphins level to make it possible to do things that really are rarely connected to each other. He agrees that exercise fuels positivity, pointing out that a startup founder’s journey is often a lonely one involving tough decisions and plenty of stress. Working out is the perfect antidote. Like minded EnergyEnterpreneur and techie, Anand Jain, founder of Wizrocket, Burrp Askme, isn’t as emotionally attached to working out. The increase in working hours that come with entrepreneurship however, persuaded him to stop neglecting his physical health and he tried out the 7-minute workout. “For a while I would tweet about the 7-minute workout everyday and lots of people would ask me about it. But I get bored easily, and gave up on that,” says Anand. What worked for him on a more consistent basis instead was joining a group of like-minded entrepreneur-trekkers, who on weekends go off for 25km hikes, not just to stay fit, but to be outdoors and away. “They don’t take no for an answer,” says Anand, of his group, “They keep you on track and make sure you have no excuses.”Energy is just what Mia Dand has for her gym routine, despite a frenzied pace of work and spending time with her little daughter. Heading a social-digital startup in San Francisco, she works long and intense hours. But she describes her workout mix of dance, weight training, and kickboxing as her “Zen place” because it relieves stress and sends her energy levels soaring. She also has a home gym and a personal trainer, to ensure she never misses her workout, no matter how busy she gets.Balance And Efficiency Rohin Dharmakumar moved into the startup life only recently and abruptly found his time gobbled up by work pressure, especially as he moved closer to the launch of his business. “I’m not in my twenties, and as work became really hectic I realised it was becoming critical to balance work, health, and family life,” he said. He’s always been on the active side, but now finds he has to focus on getting an efficient workout that gives him the most bang for the buck. He zeroed in on strength training which he feels is important as one gets older. Although he works out alone, he compares notes with Twitter friends and fine-tunes his routine. “With some common sense, it’s possible to do a careful workout,” he says. Rohin uses books and apps that tell you exactly how to go about the moves and which programme to follow. Rohin believes working out physically keeps him mentally alert and ready to tackle work. “Had I been unfit, I think I would have become lethargic,” says Rohin.Think In PeaceMumbai-based entrepreneur Kanchan Kumar, Founder of HR software companies Fluousand Emportant, is working on his next project. “As you move closer to the launch, you find you have to do everything yourself. It’s chaotic and doesn’t give you the time to think. It’s like being on a treadmill all the time.” Luckily for Kanchan, he discovered GoQii, the wearable that measures fitness parameters but more importantly, comes with a coach. Immediately hooked, he began to put the coach’s advice into action and began preparing for a 100 km walk. “Going on treks and long walks is almost like meditating,” says Kanchan, “It’s really me-time and you get the time to think in peace.” Kanchan now has a Whatsapp group of others interested in walks and treks. The fallout of this group was meeting new people whom one wouldn’t otherwise. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 18-05-2015)
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Weather Coming UpIt isn't just the British who talk about the weather. Indians are equally interested. Especially when the weather has been particularly variable as it has recently. The Android app Weather Timeline, which costs Rs 50, is a really detailed look at weather with predictions from the next hour to the distant future. Obviously, the immediate weather is based on satellite information while distant future weather is based on typical patterns — very useful for when you're traveling somewhere.There are a whole bunch of widgets associated with Weather Timeline so you can choose what kind of information to put on your screen. There are lots of options for fine tuning, including changing colour automatically with the weather. What's really nice is the qualitative style of alerts: "Light drizzle, starting in the evening," for example.A Precise WorkoutI've been looking for something like this for a long time. I finally chanced upon this app that goes by the strange name of Chrono List, on the Play Store.Chrono List is a simple timer for exercise intervals. You can create timers by naming them, setting time, entering multiple tasks and selecting the alerts you want throughout. I like it because I like to switch on some music that paces my workout and at the same time get alerts for exact times. Often, music has its own built-in intervals, but it's also nice to do a precise number of repetitions. With this app you can set for example, 10 rounds of 50 seconds each . It can include a certain time for warm-up and cool down and you can get different beeps or other sounds to indicate start, finish and intervals. Useful fuss-free app.A Nuzzle Of NewsThis isn't the first app to give you news your friends (let’s be clear, they’re contacts) are sharing. But it’s a popular one and you can get it on the App Store for Rs 60.The approach in this news app — and there are so many out there — is to present you news that more than X number of contacts from your timeline are sharing. Since you will have contacts that share interests, here’s your cue to not just read the content but share it further with the confidence that it has a greater chance of being appreciated. There are several ways to consume your news. You can look at recently shared content, or look at featured feeds, friends’ feeds, friends’ friends’ feeds, and news you may have missed. There’s quite a degree of control over notifications. You can save stuff to read later, of course.Take A Safe Rideanyone who's taking buses, cabs or autos somewhere could benefit from firing up RideSafe before setting out. There are so many safety apps out there but each takes a slightly different approach. This app for Android just looks for deviations from your chosen route to a specified destination. Put in the two addresses and select some contacts you would want informed, and then make sure you follow a known standard route. If there's trouble and you're not able to reach out to your phone, your contacts will get an alert. The app makers have promised to pay for the SMSs that go out — though they hardly need to.Friends and family could also use the app to track each other's rides though most of the cab apps also now have this feature.There have also been SOS apps. It's just that RideSafe doesn't need manual intervention.Traffic Goes Socialthere was a time when, if someone said “jam” you’d reach for the bread and butter. Not today. Jam means badly stuck in traffic, going crazy with frustration. Well, if traffic particularly drives you up the wall and makes you late for everything, try these updates. Traffline, an app on iOS, Android, Facebook and Twitter, is India-specific and it maps your city’s traffic with colour codes. Google Now users will know that you can get an idea of traffic and time to travel from there, including suggestions on when to leave, but here’s a deeper level of information if you’re up to getting involved. You can contribute to the information yourself. People can message each other, put up photos of traffic conditions and work around the routes where there seems to be too much of a traffic pile-up. Enter your location, set your destination, and take recommended routes.For The Hyper FriendlySocial networks have increased the amount of access people have to each other, that’s for sure. But it also means friends and contacts can be scattered all over across these platforms. It gets to be a mess. Connect is an app for iOS, Android and the Web that puts all your people on a map. Clusters are in overlapping circles but you get a pretty good idea of how they’re distributed. The Connect app is meant to let you keep tabs on your contacts to a fault. You can get notifications on their social activities and also, to some degree, their whereabouts. So, if someone visits your city, you’ll get an email notification.For a person who wants to network intensely, it’s a boon, but watch out if you’re roughly happy with your current level of interactions. Even after offloading the app, you continue to get alerts. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 04-05-2015)
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The Moto Turbo is like the big boy burger of phones. It’s not a good looker — not by a long shot — but instead it’s sturdy, chunky, and a little heavy for its 5.2-inches of screen. It’s strange how the back of a phone gets talked about as much as it does but then it’s the part that everyone else sees first and it’s what the user touches all the time. On the Turbo, the back is made of ballistic nylon, a kind of strongly textured material that resists scratches and fingerprints but looks rugged instead of sophisticated. And for what it costs — Rs 41,999 — this phone should be looking a bit nicer.All said and done though, maybe the type of person who’ll be interested in the Turbo won’t care as much about the looks of the phone as about the combination of hardware specs and software. There’s a screen that’s phenomenally crisp at 2560x1440 resolution with 565ppi density. That’s one clear screen. It is a QuadHD AMOLED display (like the ones used by Samsung) and colours are considered overly rich, but the majority don’t mind that at all. And if you’re worrying that a screen like that will soak up battery like a kid drinking cola then you needn’t. The 3,900mAh Li-Po non-removeable battery certainly lasts you the day and a bit more if you use it moderately.The Turbo is also turbocharged with a 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor with 3GB of RAM. The graphics processor is an Adreno 420, which makes it just what the gamer ordered. It doesn’t heat up particularly either. Onboard storage is 64GB with no storage slot.The software on the Turbo has all the Google and Motorola goodies. First, it’s running Android 5.0.2 —Lollipop. It’s very fluid and smooth though, sometimes you may get a pause before something begins for the first time. Once it gets going, it’s slippery smooth. Motorola doesn’t interfere with the stock Android feel, the tech savvy love so much, but it does put in extras that make it a special experience to use.The Turbo isn’t without its disappointments though. The 21MP rear camera isn’t what you’d expect it to be. The camera app is slick and easy to use but lacks in-depth settings and results in mushy pictures in low light. The front camera is just a 2MP shooter. Another disappointment is that the phone doesn’t support 4G. Still! All that heft, both physical and performance-wise, may compel you to consider the Turbo, especially if you’re a user of the old Nexuses, ready to upgrade. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 04-05-2015)
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Not long ago, the premium audio brand from Denmark, Bang and Olufsen, set up shop in India, bringing their whole range into the country. There’s a reason it’s housed at the Emporio Mall in Delhi. This is expensive stuff. Although they have affordable headphones and Bluetooth speakers, it’s at the high-end that they really come into their own with surround sound, televisions, and snazzily shaped speakers that send music straight into your bones. I carried off one of their smaller items, a portable wireless speaker, to give it a try.And the BeoPlay A2 is easy to carry off. It has a lovely leather strap that gives it a huge touch of class. The speaker itself is encased in a hard plastic grill which comes in a few different colours, though it’s the army green that really looks the best. It looks rugged and cool and though it’s more masculine looking than neutral, I’d say few people will hesitate to take it around. The speaker is quite heavy for its size. I would definitely do some serious damage if I were to drop it on my foot. And yet it’s certainly thinner than War And Peace. The weight, however, becomes understandable when you switch it on and the sound flows out.The BeoPlay speaker sounds great. Although we’ve got somewhat used to hearing loud sound from small packages, what you hear on the BeoPlay still comes as a surprise. No distortion, no lack of clarity, just powerful clear sound. It delivers a deep bass but never pounding and unpleasant. The speaker is double-sided so you get a wider spread of sound. They like to call it 360 degree sound. There are two channels on either side of the speaker and an extra tweeter on the rear side of the driver for more high-frequency tones.I found the BeoPlay A2 connected via Bluetooth to devices really quickly and with no fuss at all. There was just nothing to fiddle with: just one button, which along with the volume up/down and the power button is all there is on one edge of the device. In the box, you get a set of different plugs and a big charging adaptor. There’s a USB slot and you can actually charge your phone in the unlikely event that you should need to. The battery of the speaker is a claimed 24 hours, but on Bluetooth and with loud volume, it will certainly not last that long.You need to shell out Rs 22,990 for the BeoPlay A2 and it really isn’t much for the quality of sound this speaker delivers. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 04-05-2015)
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Depression has always been that dark dirty secret you suffered in silence. Today’s workplace is impatient of anyone “dropping the ball”, let alone allowing depression to cause a dip in performance. But the consequence of making depression taboo has been brought home forcefully with the suicide of the Germanwings pilot who crashed the aircraft along with 149 passengers. Back home in India, actress Deepika Padukone brought the forbidden topic to the table with a courageous open interview on television. Dr Alok Sarin, Consultant Psychiatrist at New Delhi’s Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research speaks to Mala Bhargava about why it’s important to talk about this loneliest of diseases even at work.Apart from a drastic and unusual situation such as happened with the Germanwings pilot, is depression really an issue at the workplace?People spend a large part of their lives at their workplace. About one in four people are likely to suffer from depression at some time. If depression is not recognised or acknowledged, certainly it can impact functioning and the feeling of well-being at work. It’s unlikely that a person who suffers from depression is working at his or her full potential. The impact may not be obvious, but it’s there.If it isn’t obvious, how does one recognise depression at work?The way that you would recognise it anywhere else. You need to step out of the employer-employee paradigm and look at the person with the fellow human lens. There will be changes in behavioural patterns which could directly relate to work, or changes that show up in socialising in the workplace. A person could be actively avoiding company, participating less in activities, saying the minimum possible at meetings, and of course looking sad. It’s the same things you would notice in a friend or a family member — this isn’t specific to a workplace. Dr Alok SarinSince people at the workplace are not trained to recognise depression, isn’t there the danger that they will only see dropped performance?The same would be true of a parent, a child or a spouse. It’s important for all people to be sensitive to the possibility of someone having a depressive illness or disorder and be sympathetic to the fact, whether it’s a colleague or family member. Both for the good of the individual and the micro unit, whether that’s the family or the office or a team, it is important to understand that while all sadness may not be depression, it can often be a disorder for which sympathetic and thoughtful intervention needs to be planned.Would you say then that people in organisations need to know more about depression?People in the world certainly need to know more about depression. It is important in organisations that those in supervisory positions and in HR be aware of the possibility of depression and consider it when evaluating performance. They need to make sure that they have a plan to help those who need it. And this is not just for depression but other problems as well, both mental and physical.How would you say organisations should become informed about depression? It is important for them to be part of public discourse on this and not shy away from a problem that is obviously so common. In fact, if you a’re an organisation — whether an educational institute or a company — where a large number of people collect and spend their time, then the sensitive handling and care of each and every member of your micro community is your responsibility. There are people who talk to companies about stress management and so on, but while not wanting to medicalise the issue, depression beyond day-to-day stress also needs to be talked about. While talking about time management and productivity, it must be kept in mind that some people — a very few people — might need a little more intervention, even if it’s psychotherapeutic or pharmacological. People have become particularly spooked after the incident of the Germanwings air crash. Do you think they’ll just be wary of depression now?It would be most unfortunate to demonise anyone with depression because of these atypical incidents. One doesn’t really know the reasons for the pilot’s actions. Just because a person is suffering from depression doesn’t mean that everything he or she does is stemming from that. Bringing it down to just mental illness, in fact, would be a very limited and limiting perspective. And we should certainly not start to think of depression as dangerous in this way or as inevitably leading to catastrophic consequences. That would be a real pity. The more you demonise, the more you stigmatise. In fact isn’t there enough stigma causing people not to report or come out in the open with depression?Yes, there is and that’s unfortunate. People believe that they will be discriminated against. For instance in the army, they may be denied promotion or moved to other work categories, and so they keep the problem hidden. In the services in fact, people will seek help outside rather than from services doctors because they are so worried about it being known.Isn’t depression dangerous for some jobs that need intense alertness and concentration. Also do drugs not interfere with some jobs causing sleepiness or blurred vision?Yes, it is possible and that’s where proper handling is required. Many solutions are available, if explored. Such as moving a person to another kind of work, either temporarily or permanently, or increasing the level of supervision, dealing with the person more sensitively, and so on. Pure avoidance isn’t the answer and nor can you — or should you —keep people with depression out of the workforce. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 04-05-2015)
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Amazon just launched another version of its Kindle e-Reader and though it's more expensive at Rs 16,999, here's why you should consider it. 1. It's smaller and lighter, making it more ergonomic to hold and carry even in a large jacket pocket. 2. Just a tiny squeeze on the side and you can turn the page - no reach out and flip needed. Nice even in a shaky car.3. It works faster - and that's always reason enough. It's responsive enough to avoid irritating you as you're on the go.4. The screen is now 300 pixels per inch and clear and bright in all lighting conditions.5. It has an optional but great origami smart case, prop up or fold away to protect.
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