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.
Get It Done SoonerGetting things done becomes so much easier when the planning is enjoyable. And the iPhone app Sooner makes it so. This rather expensive app(Rs 350) uses gestures in a most unusual interface. It’s like a clock face. You drag a plus sign to the edge of the clock to add a task or list of tasks under a category. So you can make lists within broader lists. But its main idea is to lay out tasks and goals to span the clock, which is when you can actually get them done, one by one, in priority. Sooner has much-needed tips that come up contextually as you try to do something. Calendars, reminders, notes, etc., all pop up when needed and can be accessed with a swipe or tap. It’s very much a personal use app but you can edit the categories given and include professional work out tasks and goals to span the clock. A Network Of Wallpaper UsersFor the easily bored, here's a free app that changes your wallpaper every time you unlock your Android phone. If that's too much of a good thing, you can tune it down and change every once in a while. The wallpapers in Bitmado come from users. When you submit a photo to the wallpaper collection, Bitmado checks out the resolution and rejects the picture if it doesn't make the cut. So no one gets to see low-quality images. The context is up to the users and fortunately is mostly very nice. Users vote up or down an image and the selections show up on screen. It's addictive especially when you put in your own images. The app is like a social network of wallpaper users and could be more interesting. It would also be nice if the app didn't register users with their Google or Facebook logins. Change The LookLaunchers, or applications that can change the interface of your Android phone, have tended to be complicated to use. Sometimes, in fact, they only work with a ‘rooted’ phone. But they’re getting easier and mainstream. Find on the Google Play Store, an app called Themer. It’s still in beta, so you have to ask for an invite. Once you do, open it and allow it to be your main launcher temporarily. With the new themes from Themer, you can set widgets and apps afresh, in a new look, changing the look of your phone completely. Be prepared to find things that you’ve put in familiar places to have disappeared. They’re all in the app drawer and the widgets section, of course, and you can get back to them by selecting your smartphone’s own interface again. Themer is free. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 30-12-2013)
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Lenovo P780Rs 19,999Ask some people what they want most in a phone and they’ll say – battery life. Can’t blame them, for those who are focused on communication and only want other smart functions to play second fiddle, are hard put to find a phone today that will satisfy them with enough battery life. The Lenovo P780 is built for battery. It’s a business-like looking phone, with metal-plus-textured-plastic making for an appearance that is handsome, though not necessarily cool. It’s clearly a look that will appeal to working professionals rather than the hip youth, who want something snazzy. But it has a whopper of a battery — 4,000 mAh should be enough on any smartphone. There’s also an app that lets you choose your usage pattern, so you can stretch the battery life further. If you are not busy draining out the battery with videos and gaming, this should last a couple of days for sure. The battery is, of course, a weight unto itself, but the phone is overall not at all prohibitively heavy. I’ve seen others this size that are heavier. The P780 has a very nice 5-inch display, with a 780 x 1280 resolution, while some have moved on to full HD. Colours are beautiful, images and text clear and viewing angles are fine. The cameras are 8 MP and 0.3 MP and not particularly good. The device is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Mediatek processor with 1 GB RAM and 4 GB storage. It runs on Android 4.2.1 and works quite fast and smooth. It’s overall a standard Android phone with a few touches from Lenovo and no heavy overlay of annoying interfaces. It also offers a dual sim. Lemon Aspire A4Rs 17,999It's companies like lemon Mobiles and more so Micromax, Karbonn and Lava that are giving the phone bigwigs a run for their money. Not only do they eat up the lower end of the market, they’re now showing that they can make smartphones with hefty specs too. Lemon has come up with an Aspire A1 and Aspire A4 (the one we look at today) in the 5-inch space. A1 even has a stylus. The Aspire A4 may be 5 inches but it doesn’t feel oversized or heavy. It has a nice back, fingerprint resistant and is nicely done, but the metallic-looking strip along the sides doesn’t quite have the“finish” that one associates with worthwhile products. The power button on this device is also a bit recessed and not easy to get to by pure feel. But the smartphone comes into its own when you turn on the screen. The default animated wallpaper is quite quirky — showing off the 1920 x 1080 full-HD screen in all its colourful glory. The image revolves when you move across screens and I was so childishly delighted with this I kept everything else off the home screens. The A4 doesn’t just stop at a great screen. This fairly fast phone runs Android 4.2 on a 1.2 GHz quad core processor with 1 GB of RAM. The cameras are 13 MP and 5 MP — but perform averagely. There are a lot of Lemon apps on the device. The battery is an 1850 mAh, which may be a tad too little for a device you’re going to like seeing the screen of. Wammy Passion Z+Rs 15,990The 5-inch phone that goes by the unlikely name of Wammy Passion Z+ came to the market a while ago with an upgrade to the earlier Passion Z, and with a bunch of advantages. First, it’s got an obvious nice build. It’s a slab, say, reminiscent of some of the Sony devices, but has a look and feel to it. Slightly rounded corners and smooth sides make it easy to hold. That, and the fact that it isn’t too wide to sit in the palm of your hand. The back is smooth plastic and doesn’t need to pretend to be anything else as it doesn’t look cheap. It’s in black and white. The back panel opens to let you get at the 2500 mAh battery as it sits inside neat interiors. Power this device up from the button on the right, designed neatly into the body, and you’ll find a pretty nice screen, one of the early full HD IPS 1080 x 1920 ones. Viewing angles are not bad. Sound is a fraction low, but not disappointing. Surprisingly, it has a good 13 MP camera, not half as noisy as some seen on more expensive and well-known brands. It shows quite a bit of sharp detail, even inside. The front camera is a 2 MP. Running it all — and Jelly Bean Android 4.2 — is a MediaTek 1.5 GHz MT6589T quad-core processor. There’s 1 GB of RAM and sadly about as much storage space because that’s what’s available of the 4 GB on board. You can add a memory card and expand the storage, but it’s the apps that need the space on a device. The phone performs smoothly and is fast enough and offers dual-sim — all offered for a fair price. A reminder that Micromax is by no means the only company that offers value-for-money phones. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 16-12-2013)
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If you’ve been using Samsung’s Galaxy Note II, the flagship stylus-based large smartphone, you won’t be able to help wondering whether you could make a good thing better by saying goodbye to the Note II and moving on to the newest version, the Note 3, recently launched in September. This time, wonder of wonders, it really does seem as if Samsung has been listening and has taken every little thing about the Note II and made it better. Well, almost. Here are the pros and cons to help you decide whether to take the plunge and get the new Note, or be happy with the one you have.Reasons To UpgradeEvery Hardware Spec Has Been Boosted: From the screen to the battery, the processor to the camera, everything is more, more, more on the Note 3. Even if you’re not a specs junkie and realise that ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the using, the boosted hardware makes an immediate and significant impact. The screen is miles better. If you look at the two Notes side by side, you’ll see the more refined, sharper screen of the Note 3 in all its 5.7 inch 1080 x 1920 pixels glory. It isn’t a perfect display and doesn’t look as sharp and crisp as some, but it’s a massive difference from the Note II, and the screen is often the one thing that makes everything feel different. But of course, everything else is also different and the smartphone performs at top level with its Exynos 5 Octa 5420 chipset, 3 GB of RAM, 32GB storage space, and Android 4.3 running smoothly, carrying along an updated TouchWiz (Samsung’s interface and features). The camera, which is now a 13MP primary and 2MP front-facer, is much more capable and has a few tricks up its sleeve to boost low-light images – as long as you stay still and your subject does as well. There are a few annoyances though, but we’ll come to that in a bit.The hardware improvements include a Bluetooth 3.0 for faster charging and transfer of data, depending on what’s at the other end. The S-Pen, Samsung’s stylus, has also improved and even goes into its slot any way you care to insert it, a thoughtful refinement that many will appreciate. And finally, the glossy plastic back has been replaced with a faux leather panel which looks nowhere near as bad.The Ergonomics Are Up: The Note 3 has more powerful chops than its predecessor and yet is thinner and lighter and somehow much easier to hold. It also has a better grip to it because the slippery back has gone. If you use the flip cover, the advantage is retained because that too is textured. And believe me, that little bit of difference in grip is important and can mean someone can or cannot knock the device out of your hand as they pass by. All in all, the Note 3 being a little larger actually doesn’t feel it or even look larger than the Note II. The optional flip cover has a window through which you can see and receive or reject calls, view messages or even take pictures and notes. When you’re in a big hurry, that cover adds to the ease with which you can be on calls.It’s obviously difficult to use a device as large as the Note 3 one-handed, but Samsung has tackled this problem with software. You can use the now enhanced one-handed operation features to create a phone within a phone,. Apps such as the dialer, browser, calculator etc can be squeezed into a phone window that can be used with one hand – until you’re ready to go back to the original size.Air gestures and voice command features also add to the improved ergonomics on this device. While there are some of these features on the Note II as well, they’ve been enhanced. Just waving your hand in the proximity of the screen will let you move to the next photo in your gallery, for example. Such features were on the S4 well before they appeared on the Note 3, and well, some people like them while some find them far too gimmicky. So whether you welcome them or not depends on which category you fall into.Also adding to the ergonomics is the adjustable sensitivity of the screen. You can use the phone with gloves on and you can interact with the screen through the plastic window of the flip cover.More Features To Explore: If you love discovering new things to do with gadgets, the Note 3 is really up your alley as Samsung is most fond of packing a device with features. There’s no pressure to use them and you can choose to keep it simple until and instead just explore new features at leisure. This is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the Note 3. For example, I chanced upon a feature on the S Note app that lets you record your drawing. I have no immediate use for it, but it was fun finding it and setting it aside for a time when I might want to explain something with a drawing that unfolds.There are new features tucked into every corner of this smartphone, in settings, with apps, and so on. This is one of the more future proof aspects of the device.You Can Accessorize It: The Galaxy Gear, Samsung’s smartwatch and companion to the Note 3 (optional buy) is, according to many, still a concept that needs much refining. But should you count yourself as an early adopter, then you have the option of adding more uses and features via accessories like the Galaxy Gear which will hold apps that will give you quick access to information and functions on your phone without your having to reach for it. You can also add accessories to start to explore the health and fitness tracking features that are becoming popular on smartphones. These come at a cost, of course. The Galaxy Gear costs approximately Rs 23,000, but for those who really enjoy technology to the hilt, nothing is too much.Capable Camera on Board: The Note 3’s camera does have a few annoyances such as continuously auto focusing that doesn’t lock manually, no optical image stabilisation, and none of the 4k video recording that is on the Snapdragon version not available in India. But it’s a 13MP all rounder which, for a change, shows a clear difference from previous 8MP shooters. The front facing 2MP also leads to some pretty nice self shots and clearer video calls. There are various modes like beauty shot, sports etc but also some special ones such as shooting to capture an animated photo, an image with a bit of sound, and a drama mode which takes frozen inter-action images. There’s also a golf mode with which you can examine a golf swing repeatedly.On the Note 3, the camera boosts ISO to take lit up shots in low light and reduces noise. There’s digital image stabilisation but you do often get blurry pictures if you or the subject moves. It’s still an enjoyable camera for casual photography of the phone variety and it does a better job than most other non-specialist phones. In daylight, the photos are crisp and in nice colour. And there’s an HDR or rich tone mode for greater depth.The Note 3 is a top-of-the-line gadget today but for users of the Note II, it’s a want-to-have rather than a must-have device….Reasons To Stick With The Note IIA Steep Price: If you’ve paid for the Note II, it will almost certainly feel like paying twice for the same thing. Despite the improvements. At Rs 47,990, (though you may find it for less) the Note 3 is a hefty sum unless money is no object – or unless you can’t resist the lure of new features. We easily refer to a new version as an upgrade, but when we’re paying for another device, it’s a whole new clump of cash and a new purchase not an upgrade at all. So, if you decide not to pay all over again – or just yet – rest assured that you still have a perfectly good device. As long as you keep it free of lag by resetting it and not overloading it with data and apps, it will easily give you at least a year of productive work until you perhaps feel you need to catch up with specifications and features that have moved on ahead. This is specially the case with the Note II as it’s a productivity focused device rather than a gamer’s gadget or an ordinary phone with high performance. If you work a lot with your Note II, it will continue to be useful to you for quite a while.Simplicity Wins: If you’re focused on productivity, and so the right target customer for the Note series, you’ll value familiarity and simplicity. Having become accustomed to the Note II’s apps and interface, you may find one of two things on the new device more complex, though one can get used to anything. The S-Note application is simpler and feels more natural than its equivalent on the Note 3. The handwriting mode, for example, is easier on the eye on the Note II, and it’s easier to use. Pulling out the S-Pen brings up a pop-up Note on the Note II but on the Note 3 you have further options to become habituated to. Google Now is up front when you long-press on the capacitive button on the Note II, but on the Note 3 you have a comprehensive search feature. If you’re not currently ready to give new features your time and attention, you’re by no means badly off with the Note II.Hardware Specs Are Not Everything: The battery on the Note 3 has just a little more juice than the Note II’s, but having used the Note II since it launched, I found it was consistent and gave me a steady one and a half days of use between charges – if I left it alone while I slept. The Note 3 is still being seasoned, but in practical use isn’t making a significant difference. The processor is more powerful now and there’s a whole 3GB of RAM, but you can make any Android device currently available laggy if you stuff it with apps and force it to retrieve large amounts of data on app start up. The Note II still has enough wherewithal to work quite smoothly if it’s treated well.Also A Capable Camera: The camera is indeed much better on the Note 3 but its style of auto focusing continually is not easy to get used to. Also gone is the night mode or low-light mode, now replaced with a digital image stabilization measure which fills an image in low light with brightness but is a little more prone to softness. On the other hand, the Note II’s camera has more noise and grain in low light images, but also a little more sharpness. A dedicated macro mode has also gone. In sum, the Note II’s camera isn’t bad and one of the best in the 8MP category, specially in daylight.On a spec to spec comparison, the Note 3 would obviously win out, but the trade off is a big expense. The Note II is still desirable enough to offer a good alternative to those buying a member of this series for the first time as it can be brought for between Rs.27,000 and 30,000 or so. Both are win-wins for Samsung as well as consumers.mala@pobox.comTwitter: @malabhargava
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Going Out Of Town?There’s quite a deluge of travel-related apps, with new ones turning up every day. PNR Status by Ixigo is a one-stop app for both train and flight details. The free app for Android has a nice interface, but needs you to enter your email id, PNR number, date of travel and where you bought your ticket – a little too much information, I thought. Isn’t a PNR number unique enough to get you what you need? Anyway, once you’ve put in these bits of information you get your page of flight or train details and can call the airline or check-in via the app, which takes you to the airline’s website. You could just use the airline’s app, of course, but if you have a mix of train journeys and flights, you may find PNR Status useful. The nice thing is, you continue to get useful alerts and prompts until you’re on your way. Air Call AnswerPhone companies that make devices without any strong distinguishing features make a big noise about how you can do things like answer a call with the wave of a hand. Well, that’s just the proximity sensor at work, and all it needs is the command to tell it what to do when faced with a certain situation. So if you want this piece of magic on your Android phone, head to the Play Store and download the free Air Call Answer. Enable it. And there you have it! Now, all you need to do is let the proximity sensor on the top of your phone see your hand or finger moving and the call can be answered. Even better, just lift the phone to your ear and the call engages. Obviously, as the sensor gets the same kind of input, it’ll work. There are many similar tweaks you can make to an Android phone yourself ratherthan take the marketing bait thrown at you. Attack Of The Carrot There was a time when you could thwack your alarm clock into silence and go back to sleep. But these days your clock lives in your phone where it gets smarter and smarter until it finally outsmarts you. This is true of the Carrot alarm clock for iOS, which will just about torture you if you don’t wake up. There are specific actions you have to perform to silence the alarm such as swiping on a certain part of the screen. When Carrot sees lack of compliance, it will go into torture mode until it eventually threatens to kill a kitten if you don’t get up. The app has a gesture-based interface but is otherwise simple and doesn’t let you set multiple alarms. It’s strictly a wake-up machine, and an extra snooze will cost you. As time goes on, your tasks will become tougher and Carrot will be ruder. The app costs $0.99.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 23-09-2013)
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Blackberry loy- alists can stop mourning the end of QWERTY keyboards. BlackBerry promised another generation of devices, modernised and yet not losing sight of whatever faithful users have loved all these years. And it delivered. The jury is very far out on whether these new devices have come too late and are compelling enough, but here they are regardless. Two ‘Q’ smartphones give consumers a choice of expensive and a-little-less-expensive. The Q10 weighs in at a price of Rs 44,990. And when your head stops spinning, take in the fact that the Q5 cost Rs 24,990. I cannot pretend to understand BlackBerry’s pricing strategy but this much is clear that the company is segmenting its potential buyers into the young and the restless on one hand and the Type A hyper-connected professional on the other. And they believe the price is right. What both segments have in common is their need for a smartphone centred on communication more than anything else. Of course, all phones are about communication, but today your smartphone is your fitness trainer, your toy, your French teacher and a lot more and communication is just one item on the agenda. Not so the BlackBerry phones for which the focus is staying in touch. With the new BlackBerry 10 (now on 10.1) devices, Z10, Q10 and Q5 so far, the BlackBerry Hub is the very heart of the phone, created as it is to be the repository for all mail, messages, social communication, etc. You can send mail from the Hub as easily as you can tweet from it. Both the Q smartphones have full QWERTY keyboards that have shed their smiles to become straight and neat. And although I’ve never been a full-time BlackBerry user, I have to say the keyboards are truly well-made. The Q10’s has metal frets prominent between keys and the Q5’s doesn’t. The keys are small but remarkably well spaced in a style that’s still familiar to BB users. Keys are slightly sloped in the direction in which our finger is expected to travel. They even make the same press-and-let-go sound. For some reason, the Q5’s keyboard feels a little better to use and there are some murmurs about whether the Q5 will actually overshadow its more powerful sibling. Both devices have the distinct BlackBerry look, unlike the all-touch Z10. But I suppose anything with that keyboard will. Old users will notice that some of the keys they used earlier have gone, including the BB key and the call receive and reject buttons. Those functions have now shifted to touch. Speed dialing isn’t easy either and may call for a future fix. But there are lots of quick shortcuts one can use on the keyboard, specially with the browser, giving those who want to use touch as little as possible some relief. The phones are very nice to hold in the hand and have really hit that sweet spot in ergonomics that makes them neither too big nor painfully small. The two Qs are almost the same size, with the Q5 being a little taller. Both also feel quite premium, though that’s always a subjective view. A single swipe-up brings alive the remaining 60 per cent of the phone — the touch screen — and they feel adequate on both devices. They are smooth and fluid for basic tasks, but also for video chat which you can initiate so easily from BBM. I did not test out on games. The cameras on neither phone are out of the ordinary. On the Q10, we have an 8MP and a 2MP. The Q5’s 5MP and 2MP cameras are make-do. The Q10 is in matte finish black and in white, while the Q5 is in black, white, and a very attractive red. Micromax Canvas 4Micromax Canvas 4Micromax’s proposition has so far been to offer better value for money than Samsung does. Micromax reinforced the perception by following the same design language as Samsung. When the Canvas series smartphones debuted, they made large Note-sized phones affordable. With the Canvas 4, the plot has changed somewhat. It’s still Samsung-like, complete with gimmicks, but at around Rs 18,000 it’s no longer shockingly inexpensive. It’s also not a dramatic upgrade over the Canvas HD but the price certainly is. The Canvas 4 seems better built than previous editions. It has a blindlingly bright blue-white 720 x 1280, 5-inch HD IPS display. You have to blow on it to unlock the device and it’s surprisingly sensitive while executing this party trick. You can also shake to unlock. The screen is crisp enough and has pretty good viewing angles. Colours are quite nice too. Micromax has put in lots of updates to apps and features, all running on Android 4.2.1 and doing a pretty smooth job of it too. I no longer have previous Canvases for comparison, but I do feel there’s significant fluidity over them on the Canvas 4. Powering it is a MediaTek 1.2GHz quad core processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. There’s a microSD slot and 2 sim slots inside, along with the removable 2,000 mAh battery. The 13MP primary camera has a lot of features and you can now use it to take 360 degree images. The quality is average, but poor in low light. The 5MP rear facing camera is also on the average side, despite the increase in megapixels. The Canvas 4 is still a phone that gives you a lot for its price, but the scenario has changed since the first Canvas launch and there are more options today. It’s worth considering at a lower price.mala.bhargava@gmail.com(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 09-09-2013)
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As expected and announced in the recently held auto expo, the month of March will be exploded with big launches. Most of the auto manufacturers have revealed what they have to offer to Indian auto enthusiast, March is the month when some of the most anticipated vehicles will hit floor and the final price will be revealed. Let us take a look at the big 5 March launches which make maximum buzz in the auto industry.
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Jawaharlal Lal Nehru was the first Prime Minister to present the budget when he held the union finance minister portfolio in 1958-59. Indira Gandhi was the only woman Finance Minister who took over the Finance portfolio from 1970 to 1971.
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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday (19 February) kicked off the final budget-making exercise by helping to prepare halwa. It has been a tradition which has continued for long. As part of the ritual, halwa is prepared in a big kadhai (vessel) and served to the staff of the ministry.
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The Narendra Modi-government will present its second full-year budget on February 29. Budget-making is an art of striking a fine balance between various competing demands. The Finance Minister is likely to lower taxes, increase social sector spending, raise investment in infrastructure and achieve the impossible by also curbing the fiscal deficit.
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Traditional watch makers are realising they have to move with the times. But Titan doesn't think it should let go of its soul in the process. So it's launched an almost-smartwatch, the JUXT, and it's attracting quite a bit of attention. Here's what you should know before you consider buying it:
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