There was a time when smartphone users frowned upon the mention of a Chinese smartphone, but today almost everyone is trying to get their hands on one. With a number of mobile brands from China entering the smartphone market in India, the biggest of them all, Xiaomi has yet again maintained the top spot in China. According to the Q1 2015 results, out of the total 99 million smartphones sold in China, 14.2 million were made by Xiaomi. This marks about 14 per cent of the total Chinese smartphone market share which is quite an achievement for a five year old company. Recently the company made a global announcement of their newest smartphone in India which has been creating a buzz. The Mi 4i is a new lower cost variant of their previous flagship, the Mi 4, with the latest gen hardware packed in neatly designed body. Known for its aggressive sales strategy, Xiaomi invited close to 3000 fans along with the media for the Mi 4i global launch, which sounded like a nice gesture to engage with its consumers, but turned out to be chaotic due to the overwhelming attendance. The new device packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor (64-bit) with 2 GB of RAM, 16GB of built in storage, a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP rear and 5MP front cameras, and the latest Android Lollipop update. Priced at Rs. 12,999 the Mi 4i is definitely bang on for the money, but with no SD card expansion, it could lead to some annoyed consumers. The company also announced that it will be selling the Mi Band, their fitness band, in India at a low cost of Rs 999. The Mi Band is a nifty tool that tracks your walking activity, sleep pattern and gives you notification and alarm alerts by vibrating around your wrist. All said and done, Xiaomi is becoming a big brand but it is still behind tech giants Samsung and Apple. Speaking of which, according to Reuters, Samsung is yet again the leader in global smartphone sales as it has managed to capture a 24 per cent market share in the first quarter of 2015. The company is said to have shipped 83.2 million smartphones worldwide which is a drop from 31 per cent last year but still enough to be announced as the leader followed by Apple with a total market share of 18 per cent.
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Camera makers Nikon and Canon are always neck to neck when it comes to their DSLR range and to make things even once again, Nikon announced its mid-ranged D5500 to compete against the Canon 700D. Skipping the D5400, Nikon jumped straight to the D5500 when it announced the product in January 2015, making it a direct upgrade for the D5300. The new model sees some minor yet interesting upgrades including a more compact body, better ISO performance, a better battery life and more. You still get pop-out tilt screen and Wi-Fi along with the new 24MP sensor with 39 focus points which work great for a DSLR that is this small. Since it is slightly more compact than the previous version the buttons around the camera feel smaller which can be an issue for someone with large hands. If you are familiar with previous mid and low ranged Nikon DSLRs then the D5500 will not be difficult to use as the controls are quite simple. The added advantage here is that the display is touch enabled thus giving you more flexibility when you are shooting in difficult situations. The touchscreen isn’t super accurate, but it gets the job done. Apart from focusing and clicking pictures, you can also change all your settings directly from the touchscreen. Another big change is that the mode dial is less cluttered; on the D5500 you get the usual manual, aperture, shutter-speed and program modes along with auto, scene, effects and flash-less modes. Thanks to the inbuilt Wi-Fi chip, you can transfer images onto your smartphone or tablet via the Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility app with the need of removing the memory card or using cables making the process of transferring images a lot easy. Pictures turn out be excellent and even low light conditions are managed very well. Pictures at 2000 ISO are pretty much usable with very less noise. The camera supports ISO of up to 25600 in case you just have to get that crucial shot. Similarly in the video department, the quality is quite good. The camera can shoot at 720p and 1080p on 60fps videos which is boon for amateur video makers as the can get high-quality output. The D5500 is a superb DSLR and gives a good competition to cameras like the Sony A65 and even the Canon 700D. For about Rs. 54,000 you can get the camera (body only) and there are three kit options, Rs. 59,950 (18-55mm VRII Kit Lens), Rs. 68,950 (18-55mm+55-200mm VR Kit Lenses) and Rs. 72,950 (18-140mm VR Kit Lens).
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You don’t drive your car staring at the dashboard. Sure, it provides excellent information. You can see how fast you are going, whether or not you have enough gas, and even find out if the engine is running properly. But, if you don’t look out the windshield, you’re guaranteed to crash into something very soon. Data discovery is very much the same. Internal data sources shed light on key internal issues, but if that is all you are taking into consideration, you’re missing out on some of the most important information. An insider’s look with no external validationWhen business intelligence (BI) tools first hit the market they focused on data from internal systems, largely data from operational databases and other enterprise software systems. When properly implemented, these systems gave companies a really valuable insight into operational issues ranging from the performance of the call-center to the results of the latest efforts to fight customer churn – in short, pretty much anything that falls under the “COO’s world”. This is a great way to understand what’s happening inside the organization. But what about the external business environment? Things like market conditions, competitive landscape and economies that the company is operating in can provide critical information that is often left out of view. The truth is that companies can operate perfectly based on internal metrics, but still come crashing down in flames if they don’t navigate the market environment effectively. In other words, decision-makers in the enterprise spend a lot of their time looking at the dashboard — sometimes literally — but only have a blurry and fragmented view of their surroundings: the markets they operate in, the economies they belong to and the demographics they target. Good in theory, but difficult in realityThe truth is that there’s a lot of good data out there, from public and proprietary sources alike. Government databases are opening up and contain more valuable information than most people realize. Syndicated research — trackers, forecasts and surveys — is plentiful but hard to find and quickly gain insight from. And data from custom research, whether internal or from research vendors, is usually delivered in static formats. As a result, too much of it ends up sitting on hard drives somewhere with no good way to search, compare or access later – let alone to keep an eye on updates to the underlying data. This is fundamentally inefficient as it can be near impossible for the average user to track down this information and integrate it into their data analysis. As a result, decisions aren’t made with reference to the best available data. Instead, time is lost digging through piles of static documents and companies are unable to make the most of the sizable investments they’ve already made in market intelligence. Directions for SuccessI’m often asked how this actually works in real life. Offerings that allow users to consume data as a service provide insightful data direct to users in a format that can be easily integrated and analyzed. And the truth is some of the more interesting use cases come from basic, even rudimentary, information like weather. For example, users often look at metrics on sales and wonder why particular spikes or drops have occurred over time. Layering on weather data can show all sorts of information. Perhaps there was a snow storm that stopped people from coming to the store or differences in temperature and precipitation that impact consumption trends. One of my favorite podcasts “Under the Influence” actually did a show all around the power of weather on marketing. One of the most interesting tidbits was around supermarkets in the UK, which found they sell more ice cream on a sunny, cool day than a cloudy, warm day. When the temperature reaches 77F, ice cream sales plummet. The reason was simple: shoppers worried the ice cream would melt before they could get it home. This type of insight can significantly impact the way an organization handles their inventory and even their marketing approach and it all comes from looking at external data sources. In the future I truly believe that the leaders in the industry will be the ones who find ways to leverage external data in order to find better insights within their own information. Not only will they gain a better understanding of their organisation, they will be able to better predict and anticipate outcomes based on external factors. The author, Josh Good, is Director of Product Marketing, Qlik
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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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The Epson EH-TW570 is a home cinema projector that takes up a sizeable portion of your wall, lighting it up nice and bright with a big picture. It’s not as high-res an image as it can be, but it is 1280x800 or “HD Ready” and of very good quality. The colours are well-defined and rich, the picture is bright, thanks to a 3,000 lumens lamp, and the contrasts are great at a ratio of 15,000:1. While watching a movie, it was a few minutes before we realised we had the lights on. Epson uses what they call 3LCD technology and which they claim makes the picture sharper and smoother — and indeed, something seems to. This projector has several striking features. For one, it supports 3D projection along with 2D to 3D conversion. The 3D conversion works flawlessly, however it tends to speed up the cooling fan, which means it takes more of a toll on the overall power consumption. You also get a pair of 3D glasses which pair via Bluetooth to the projector but pairing it can be a bit of a challenge as there isn’t any guidance given in the package to do this.Connectivity features include a standard HDMI port, a serial port for connecting a PC or laptop and standard RCA ports. The projector also comes with USB ports and supports MHL which lets you connect a smartphone to charge and project content via the projector.A larger than life picture is all very well, but where do you get your sound? There is a small 2W speaker onboard which you could settle for at a pinch especially if you’re using it in a smaller room. But it’s easy enough to connect an external speaker to it and soon you can have the neighbours complaining. That also drowns out a bit of the noise of the fan. That fan works quite loud and really has its work cut out for it as the device gets quite hot. Not only is its rather flimsy plasticky body quite prone to getting hot, it would heat up a small room a few notches, so you’ll need some air conditioning.This projector is pretty good for your daily entertainment if you’re hankering for viewing in large size, but it will all depend upon what you’re doing for a TV in the first place. It costs Rs 66,109 though you can get it for around Rs 57,000 from online sources. It’s exciting but not revolutionary, and there are a number of cheaper options available in the market with similar performance and features from brands like BenQ, Acer and Sony. The authors are Mala Bhargava and Kunal Khullar(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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