Sunday, July 24, 2016

POKÉMON GO is a fad


Pokémon Go And Its IMPENDING Death

Why the addictive mobile game is just a passing fad...

POKÉMON GO is a fad! Just like hula hoops, Tetris, Rubik’s cube, Tamagotchi and flash mobs – it’ll die a brutal and devastating death in a short while! Every person walking around with their phone held high, trying to collect all the monsters while being a traffic hazard, won’t be doing so! Somewhere near Christmas this year, Pokémon Go will turn into Pokémon, what?
AUGMENTED REALITY, REALLY? The graphics are from the 1980s and the monsters hardly do anything

Yes, it’s a very addictive game. Yes, it’s introduced a kind of augmented reality (AR) for the masses. Yes, it’s made Nintendo richer by a few billion dollars, and yes, it’s become one of the fastest downloaded and most used apps on a mobile phone ever! And that’s the reason it’s going to self-destruct and implode very soon.

The Idiot’s Guide To Pokemon Go

Pokémon stands for pocket monsters and has been around forever as a Japanese video game, a card-trading game and an anime series. Pokémon Go seems to be inspired by a Google April Fools’ Day prank a few years ago. It was released as an AR (merges game play with real life) game in three countries and a whole flurry of them right after. As you download the game, a rudimentary map of your city shows up and as you roam around, your ‘radar’ shows you all the kinds of Pokémon you can capture to start your army. You can also get eggs which can be incubated.

How To Start Playing In India?

For Android phones, you download the game’s APK (android package kit) and sideload it to your phone by connecting it to a computer. Try to get the ‘real’ APK (apkpure.com seems to have a legitimate file). For iOS devices, you need a new Apple ID with an address in one of the countries where it’s officially released and then own load it from the app store. The international version release is a ound the corner.

Is It Fun?

Totally! The most awesome fun you’ll have after a long time. Besides the constant data connection and the battery life that it will suck out of your phone, the cars and bikes that will constantly honk, the angry people you will meet who may not appreciate your trespassing to ‘go get them all’, and the amount of money you will finally spend in buying ingame ‘monsters’ rather than finding them.

Good Exercise To Meet, Discover And Do Business

Only if walking down a street while shouting “hatch, hatch” is the exercise you wanted. And ‘discovering’ your city may mean discovering that smart thieves have worked out locations where people will converge. Not to think about the weird places it sends you – graveyards, toilets and places of worship. Pokémon Go chauffeurs that take you on a monster ‘stop and capture’ trip and Pokémon-guided tours with

tough-to-get monsters are also part of the package.

Start Of AR Movement On A Global Scale?

This isn’t AR at all. The monsters appear animated on the streets, but the graphics are from the ’80s. The monsters do nothing more than just float over cars. This is one more in a list of ‘digital addictions’ that makes people interact less with real people and more with their phone screens.

So What Happens Now?

Nintendo will make a few billions off in-game purchases and the general euphoria, the game will release in more countries and more widespread Pokémon mania will strike. Thirty days later, it’ll all die as people will realise how tiresome the idea is.

Are You Sure?

Pokémon Go is a fad fuelled by social media. Now it’s time for me to go as my ` 500-an-hour Pokémon chauffeur ride is waiting. The Defence Colony flyover in Delhi, I hear, has a bunch of monsters, including the ones missing in my collection that I’ve been accumulating for the past one week.


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Saturday, July 23, 2016

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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

I need more time to shape up as I'm not 100% fit: Saina Nehwal




The badminton champion indulges in

The Rio Olympics is less than a month away and ace shuttler Saina Nehwal -who will be participating in her third Olympics later this year, and whom badminton player P Kashyap considers India's best bet for a medal -is taking it one step at a time to get back in shape, as she feels she is still not 100 per cent fit.

“I still need time to shape up completely . The injuries that I had are recovering, but over the next few weeks I'll have to notch up my game. The Achilles injury needs to heal further. I still have four weeks, so I'm hoping things will get better by then. I want to be physically stronger for the Olympics,“ Saina says. She is training five to six hours every day to prepare herself for the multi-sport event. Since the injury phase was challenging for her, Saina doesn't want to rush things now.“That period was really tough, and it took me a long time to come out of it,“ she adds.

Another aspect that she is working on now are the areas in which her opponents can take advantage. “There are a few areas where I am doing a bit of tweaking. Overall, am working on every aspect of my game,“ she explains. So, is she focusing specifically on the Chinese opponents who have always been strong contenders, Saina says that it is not only the Chinese, but also those from other places. “I need to be in a really good condition to pick up the difficult shots,“ she says.

Meanwhile, responding to P Kashyap's declaration that she is India's best bet, Saina says, “Definitely, people will expect that but I would say that Srikanth and PV Sindhu have a stronger chance. They are the ones who can trouble anyone at any point of time. But, often it happens that the ones who are thought to be least likely to do well end up exceeding expectations. I am trying my best, but it's not going to be easy, as performing at the highest level is difficult.“

As of now, she is trying to keep herself in the best frame of mind.“I just tell her to be focused and not to take stress. Sometimes, I also take her out for a movie just to keep her relaxed and calm, which is important for an athlete,“ says Usha Rani, her mother.

Meanwhile, Saina also maintains that being relaxed and working on her game has indeed helped her and also facilitates her recuperation from injuries. “The work that has gone on so far has yielded positive results and am happy to work with Vimal sir,“ she adds.

She is also glad about the changing scenario of women's representation in the Olympics, in the badminton category . “I am very happy that in India, where 10 years ago not many women players were coming forward to play badminton, now there is a marked improvement. I hope in the future, we'll have at least five to 10 women representing our country ,“ she signs off.

Monday, July 18, 2016

What’s the pecking order when it comes to flagship killer mobile phones?

The Shootout
What’s the pecking order when it comes to flagship killer mobile phones?
 
I’M REALLY excited about this column. There’s something about a no-holds-barred war between devices with sudden death, brutal body blows, the smell of gunpowder, a battle where only one can survive. What’s not to love? This was a shootout all of you have asked for. It’s been the number one request on my social media accounts all of last week. This is the kind of shootout that used to happen once a year between the iPhone and Samsung Flagship – now it’s between three phones all priced around 25K! This will be by far the toughest shootout ever since each phone has won rave reviews, has almost no negatives, is state-of-the-art and frankly almost bulletproof. Let the games begin.

IT’S A CHALLENGE The names that are out to give Samsung and Apple a run for their money with their under-`25,000 phones include (from left) LeEco, Xiaomi and OnePlus

THE CONTENDERS

The OnePlus 3: The house of One Plus have taken a chunk from the super-premium market, found success with OnePlus One, not so much with OnePlus 2 and hit back hard with the 3.

The Le Max2: The much-awaited phone from LeEco that set the market afire when it was announced in China and made headlines at its glitzy India launch. It came up with two versions. The 6GB version is the contender here.

The Mi 5: A phone from Xiaomi that wants to play with the big boys. It leads in the under-15K market but this is their first foray into the under-25K market.

THE DESIGN

The OnePlus 3 and the Max2 go with the typical straight line all-metal unibody. Mi 5 has metal and curved glass. OnePlus 3 is slim and the Max2 is sturdy but feels a tad bulky. The Mi 5 is super slim and feels good in the hand.

Verdict: Mi 5 tops the design-and-feel category but the other two are right behind.

THE DISPLAY

This is where the Le Max2 is in a league of its own. 5.7” Quad HD display, while the OnePlus 3 has a full-HD AMOLED display and the Mi 5 has a full-HD IPS screen. But those are just the numbers. In reality all three phones possess great screens with good outdoor readability and crisp graphics. Movies and games look much better on the Le Max2 though.

Verdict: Le Max2 takes this category, but the difference isn’t as vast as the numbers would make it seem.

THE HARDWARE AND PERFORMANCE

All three phones run on the same chipset but the Mi 5 has less RAM and may even be under-clocked a bit. Both the OnePlus 3 and Max2 have a whopping 6GB RAM inside. Overkill? Maybe, as most laptops don’t have this much of RAM and even phones three times the price don’t have anything like this.
Verdict: Tough to call this one. In performance the OnePlus 3 nudges ahead a little.

THE CAMERA AND OPTICS

Most crucial for a flagship-killer. Le Max2 has a 21MP rear snapper while the Mi 5 and the Plus 3 come with a 16MP rear camera. To make it tougher all three have state-of-theart ‘Sony’ sensors. All three come with 4K video recording and OIS capabilities but the 4 Axis stabilisation of the Mi 5 gives smoother recording. And the selfie camera on Mi 5 gives a wide-angle perspective. Verdict: For stills, Le Max gives better results but for video, it is the Mi 5. Pick your optical poison.

THE BATTERY LIFE

The Achilles Heel for many amazing specced phones. The OnePlus 3 and Mi 5 ship with 3000mAh capacity while the Le Max2 has a 3100mAh battery. All three include fast charging and a USB Type-C connector. Verdict: The extra 100mAh of battery on the Le Max2 might be underwhelming for a 5.7 Quad HD display and 6GB RAM and thus loses out. Mi 5 wins it by a whisker.

THE SPECIAL FEATURES


Le Max2 seems to be in early Christmas mode as it brings a lot to the table. Lossless CDLA audio technology, a free CDLA headphone right now and exclusive content. OnePlus offers customisation via its Oxygen OS. The Mi 5 has premium design and great video features. Verdict: Le Max2 wins it by a long shot.

THE PRICE

Price is a deciding factor in this category. The Mi 5 is priced at ` 24,999 for the 3GB/32GB version while the OnePlus 3 is available for ` 27,999 for the 6GB/64GB version. The Le Max2 is at ` 29,999 for the 6GB/64GB version. Verdict: The Mi 5 takes it but it gives a little less value too.

THE FINAL VERDICT


Well, I can say without hesitation that you could buy any of these three phones without thinking twice and end up with one of the best phones ever. Look up each category and check the verdict and what’s important to you. Even the Le Max2 with lower specs at 22K is fantastic.

Isn’t it amazing what one can get today for about 25K? Think what you’ll be able to get for 15K in a year from now! Think about what Apple and Samsung will have to do to compete with these three phones and want to make us buy a 60K phone in a few months! I may not be able to predict the future but I can tell you this for sure: I’ll be doing far more shootouts than ever before :)

The Self-Driving Car That Couldn’t Drive!



Untested technology put to use to beat competition leads to tragedies like the Tesla crash
TESLA DRIVER dies in first fatal crash while using auto-pilot mode’. This headline or derivations of it have been coming in at the speed of light. The reasons why it has made such big news are manifold. It’s the first fatal crash for an auto-pilot car, it’s a huge setback for the self-driving car industry and it’s devastating news for the first-user geeks and nerds. But within it lies another story. A story of pushing the limits of technology before it is ready, trying to be different and defying auto industry conventions just to stay ahead and more importantly just how silly it is to have unproven tech like this being opened to the public and calling it a beta test.


RACING AHEAD


Beta tests are what you do with a piece of software or an unreleased app or maybe even a prototype phone. But a beta feature that allowed control of a car and ended up taking a life? Tesla Motors and its very famous founder Elon Musk have always portrayed themselves as unconventional, ahead of the curve and more innovative than any other car maker. And in making sure that everyone understood that, an autopilot self-driving feature was introduced in the Tesla Model S sometime back. This was at best a ‘in-testing phase’ feature and while it worked fairly well, it wasn’t perfect as has been clearly demonstrated in the crash. Pushing limits, extreme aggression to be ahead of the rest and showcasing features that may not be ready for usage on actual roads – these are becoming typical norms of the auto industry in its race to be the first out with a self-driving car. A race that may well end with major crash and burn in the future.

FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY

Think about it. You buy a car. Right on top of the brochure as feature number one, it says ‘self-driving auto-pilot mode’. The salesperson gives you a demo, the car actually does drive on its own as the car keeps to its own lane and even gently swerves right and left when another vehicle comes close. You are thrilled. This is it; all those futuristic movies, all those articles you read, all those promises about the future self-driving car – they are all already here. You slowly start to use the auto-pilot, grow more confident and soon are leaving it completely to the car to drive you around while you read a newspaper (yes, lots of videos of people doing that are out), watch a movie (that’s what apparently the driver of the crashed Tesla was doing, watching a Harry Potter movie), work on your laptop or even chat on your phone. This easy seduction of cutting-edge technology and the false sense of security it establishes is when things get dangerous. The Tesla auto-pilot system allows the car to keep itself in a lane, maintain speed and operate for a limited time without a driver doing the steering with cameras and other sensors. While more details will emerge, preliminary findings state that a white semi tractor-trailer turned in front of the car and the cameras and sensors on the Tesla couldn’t distinguish between the white trailer and the bright Florida sky. The car drove on and into the trailer – not knowing it was there at all!

ROAD BLOCK

There is a second story here. How untested technology that isn’t ready for prime time can sometimes become a serious road block for future innovation. What will be the fallout of this fatality. New rules, stringent laws, banning of auto-pilot mode in all cars for a while, licences and regulations? And it’s not as if the technology really failed. If the trailer in front of the car also had an auto-pilot mode and could sense all the other cars on that highway, it would have been aware of the car behind it and speeded up or turned away. This tragedy could have been averted.

THE PATH AHEAD

There is no going away from the fact that we will all be in an auto-pilot self-driven car in the future. It’s a predestined path for the automobile industry and for us humans. Every single car and tech company in the world is working towards it, plus it’s actually good for us, the environment and the world we live in. From parking woes, traffic jams, pollution, better transportation as well as safety on the roads – all of them get solved with the perfect self-driving cars ecosystem. But this one crash has opened up a can of worms and the whole self-driving car industry may have a five-year setback. It also brings back the classic question that still doesn’t have a perfect answer. Maybe you can give it a shot.

FUTURE DILEMMA


You’re sitting in a self-driven completely automated car. Two children aged 6 and 7 suddenly cross the road right in front of the car and a crash is imminent in the next second. Your automated car has to take a decision based on programming it has been fed for a situation like this. Should it drive you into certain death by crashing the car into a wall on the right or should it save you and mow down the two children? Think about it and let me know what the right answer is. It is questions like these that need to be answered before we all take our hands off the steering wheel forever.
A self-driving car leaves the occupant free to do other things like read, chat, and even watch a movie (that’s what apparently the driver of the crashed Tesla was doing).
Preliminary findings reveal a tractor-trailer turned in front of the car and the sensors couldn’t tell the white trailer apart from the bright sky

Back To cave Art With emoji messaging



With Apple automating emoji usage and others catching on, the future of writing looks bleak
H OW’S YOUR emoji game? Can you message an entire sentence with clever little pictures instead of words? Can you combine pictures and words in such a way that the receiver is both impressed and a little intimidated? Have you never struggled with messages full of emojis? Do you know all the double meanings behind the most-used emojis?

Or do you still call them emoticons? Do you get confused as to which emoji to use besides the smiley and the sad face? Do you think the smiley poo emoji is actually just happy chocolate ice-cream? Because you thought that, have you been sending out bad smelling but smiling poop when all you wanted was to tell someone you just enjoyed some creamy ice-cream?
Have you sent the eggplant emoji to numerous people not knowing that it’s usually used to denote one large part of the male anatomy? Do you have multiple messages in your inbox full of emojis and still have no idea what they mean and are too embarrassed to ask anyone?

Welcome to the brand-new world of emojis. You may have been using them for a while, you may even think you’re fairly witty and clever with how you use them, you may even be an expert in emoji combos – but you haven’t seen anything yet. With Apple automating emoji usage and suggestions (you type a plain word sentence and it’ll show you how many emojis you could have used instead) plus doubling the size of the little critters – and almost all the others now wanting to get into the word-replaced-by-emoji game – things are about to change dramatically.

There are two schools of thought here. Emojis are ruining language, word and sentence-construction skills, while the other side is all for it being a clever and creative way of communicating in the new age of technology and instant messaging. Let’s explore both sides briefly before I tell you which school of thought I lean towards.

Emojis are truly beautiful. Yes, very creative, very universal. Just like caveman drawings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mayan icons and half-a-dozen other ancient civilisations who used pictures to communicate. It’s also the reason why the Egyptians were never able to document their history, write books or evolve into a literary society. It wasn’t till the Greek alphabet that books or stories or any real communication took place. Pictures as a language are pretty but very static. There are limits to what you can say or do. It is almost impossible to take forward deep thoughts, explain ideas, write meaningful poetry or even tell a story. Try and put together about a 100 emojis to tell a story and you’ll end up confused yourself. Yes, it’s been done and it was fun and it made the author famous. But it is also useful to know that of every 100 people who tried to read an all-emoji story, more than 95 gave up after the first nine emojis.

Plus there is no universal acceptance of pictures as words. Different cultures interpret emojis differently. The ‘pig snout’ emoji may be fun in Japan, but is taken to be a racial slur in the Middle East. And it’s not just about different cultures. In various studies, it’s been found that more than 70 per cent of people interpret emojis very differently from what the sender had intended it to be. Over 50 per cent are usually confused and don’t know what a message means when more than four emojis are used.
So where do I stand on the emoji debate? Very much on the #BanEmoji side. I don’t want to sound like a crusty conservative who wants to question progress, but is this really progress? If this is evolution then it’s moving backwards. If this is us moving to the future then it’s a downhill future. Most people are forgetting the art of writing with short forms, too many acronyms and way too much slang being used in written communication. Add automated emojis to the equation and it sounds like the end of the communication world, not the start of future communication. Every time I get a message with a lot of emojis, I feel very :(


Emojis are great, but should be left to the cavemen!

Thursday, July 14, 2016

WhatsApp features

With over 1 billion active users globally as of April 2016, WhatsApp is pretty much indispensable. Some time ago, Facebook added the end-to-end encryption to the instant messenger, making it hard for anyone to snoop or intercept a WhatsApp chat. Then there was the desktop client for PCs, which linked to a user’s smartphone. Similarly, there are lot of other features which the WhatsApp app on your phone packs in, but you probably haven’t used them yet.

1. Save your messages forever

When a WhatsApp user switches to a new phone, he has to install and configure the WhatsApp account from the beginning. This doesn’t mean a user has to lose all the text and chat threads from his last phone. WhatsApp allows users to take backup of all your chats, images and videos on Google Drive at the time of configuring the account or even after it. Even if you don’t have a Drive account on your device, you can save your messages on Drive by going to settings->Chats->Chat backup.

2. Find your favourite messages

In case you wish to save a chat or a message there is an option called Starring. To access this option hold and long press any message or group of messages and the star icon will show on the top of the chat window. Tap on it and the selected message will be starred. You can access the starred message anytime in settings->starred messages. You can see all the starred messages at one place, so you forward it to others or go back to the chat threads around which the chat took place.

3. Sending messages made easy

If your smartphone runs Android Marshmallow, you can take advantage of Android Direct Share feature in WhatsApp. This means that a user can share a web page with their favourite groups or contacts from the share page itself. The share window automatically shows the contacts your are most active with on the share page. This saves the user a trip to WhatsApp for sharing a link.

4. Chat in Indian languages

WhatsApp is one of the few messenger apps which supports Indian languages, and lets users use them for messaging. While you can use the app in 12 Indian languages right away, you can send messages in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. To change the language of the app go to settings->chats->app language. To change the language for sending messages go to phone settings->language and input-> keyboard and input methods and select Google Indic keyboard.

5. Find your favourites among the clutter

One of the predicaments of using WhatsApp is the many groups one is added even if one doesn’t wish to be there. This increases the length of the home page unnecessarily, making it difficult for one to figure out the chat group that a user actually wants to be on. You can create a shortcut of specific chat groups as if they were a separate app in itself. Press and hold any such chat group and a select create shortcut option from the pop-up window that shows up. This will add the shortcut on the homescreen and will show the profile picture of the group as the app icon. You can access the group right away. This feature can be used for individual contacts too.

6. Send messages to many users

This feature works on similar lines as sending an email to many users at once. You can send a common message to a group of people simultaneously. Just go to menu button on the main homepage of Whatsapp and select new broadcast. It will ask you the names and numbers of the receiver. Just tap on + icon and select the contact from the phone book.


WhatsApp has the habit of sneakily delivering new features without you ever realising it.

Their latest update brings a bunch of super useful features that you need to known about, including disabling read receipts at last. Let us educate you on the other features hiding in the nooks and crannies of WhatsApp. You can thank us for our intrepid sleuthing later. As usual, we'll take credit, not cash.

Bold, italics and understrike your messages



Make yourself heard. But not to the point of being rude with an all caps ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME message. Instead, just bold your text to bring more attention to what you're saying, or be a bit more subtle and italics certain parts of your message.

Also, be a little snarky and do a strikethrough when you intend to express a sorry, not sorry message to your friends.

How: to bold, add an * before and after the text, so it should look like *Hey*. For italics, add _ before and after the text, giving you _Hey)_. And finally to strikethrough your text, add ~ before and after the word, so you'll get ~Hey~

Unfortunately, it's only available to iOS users for now but the update should roll out for Android phones pretty soon. If your iOS-loving friends start sending you messages with *, _ and ~ mixed in, at least you know what they're trying to do.

Send PDF documents to people



This isn't exactly new but it's high time WhatsApp added the feature. A recent update allows you to send documents to fellow WhatsAppers. But for now, there are two caveats. First, it only supports PDF documents. Second, the recepient must update their WhatsApp to the latest version, else it'll trigger a failure to send notification.

So remember, it pays to always update your WhatsApp to the latest version.

How: For Android users, tap on the attachment icon on the top right corner of the interface. iOS users, land your thumb on the arrow up icon on the bottom left. You should see a new Document option, so go crazy and start sending PDFs to your friends.

Data savings



If you ever bothered looking at which apps consume the most data on your iPhone, chances are WhatsApp ranks high up there since you use it to send photos of your lunch to everyone. As if self aware of its data-hungry habits, WhatsApp has revamped its Settings tab for iOS and included a brand new option that every data cap-buster will appreciate. Called Data Usage, this is your one-stop shop for watching your WhatsApp diet.

How: Go to Settings, then tap on Data Usage. In there you’ll find options pertaining to the type of media you can receive and whether you should always only accept them on Wi-Fi, or both Wi-Fi and Cellular. If you’re dangerously close to the limit, make sure everything is only on Wi-Fi, so the next photo of your friend’s dog won’t push you dangerously nearer the edge.

Also handy is the Low Data Usage for WhatsApp calls. Make sure that’s switched to make your WhatsApp calls with better peace of mind.

Curb your calls



If you’re curious about how much data your calls actually take up, there’s a way of finding out.

How: Go to Recents, then tap on the "i" next to any name to bring up pertinent information on that individual including how long each call was and how much data it ate up exactly. Shocked? Good. This will teach you to go easy on the WhatsApp calling when line calls are perfectly viable options. But if you’re using Wi-Fi, go crazy.

Just make sure you’re really on Wi-Fi before commencing your gossip sesh.

Star messages for easy reference



Sometimes you get important messages in your WhatsApp chats like the address of the restaurant you’re supposed to meet your friends at but it gets lost in all the digital chatter. When dinner time rolls around, you try to scroll through your 352 frivolous messages to find that one message that matters. With WhatsApp’s latest update, there’s now a way to bookmark certain messages for easy locating.

How: Double tap on any message and tap on the star icon to mark it. To find it again, all you have to do is tap on the chat’s name, and tap on Starred Messages to see all the messages you’ve marked out.

To see conversation context, just tap on the arrow next to it and you’ll be brought back to the exact place in the chat. When you’re done with it, just double tap the message, hit the star icon again to unstar it. It’s only available for iOS users for now, so fandroids, wait your turn.

See all starred messages



Now that you’ve gotten into the habit of starring messages, you’ll realise that you can quickly lose track of how many you’ve accumulated. You no longer have to go into each chat to see if you have any starred messages within. There’s one spot to find them all.

How: Go to Settings and you will see Starred Messages right at the top. Tap on it to find all the messages you’ve wanted to note for whatever reason at that point in time. Can’t remember anymore? Tap on each one to see the chat context, and unstar them if you no longer need them.

Because nobody needs clutter, even in their digital lives.

Preview links


Everyone has that friend who likes to share nothing but links. And sometimes links are nothing but words that lend no clue to the content of the site. Thankfully, for the paranoid ones, links on WhatsApp can now come with previews, should the sender wish it so.

How: Copy and paste a link into the message bar as usual, and you’ll have to wait for a bit for the preview to pop up if you want to include it in your message. If not, just ‘x’ it and let the recipient guess what’s the true nature of your dubious cryptic link.

3D Touched WhatsApp


For those of you with the latest iPhones, WhatsApp has received the gift of 3D Touch. Not sure what that latest message meant? Peek into a chat to see its context quickly. Should you feel like replying, Pop right into it.

How: Oh come on, by now you should have mastered the mechanics of 3D Touch. Press a little harder to peek into a chat and when you swipe up, you get more chat options like Mute and Delete without having to fumble your way around the chat window, looking for the quick actions you need. Otherwise, apply more pressure to proceed into your chat of choice.

Also, fun way to show off what your new iPhone can do.

Instantly add dates to your calendar




It’s easy to forget appointments when you’re a busy bee. You make vague plans for drinks, settling on a date but promptly forget about it as the conversation rolls on. This handy little shortcut makes sure you commit to an appointment.

How: Just state a date and you get an automatic link to add it to your calendar. It also recognises words like ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’ and days. But it would be best to use specific dates, just in case you get the day wrong. No more excuses for forgetting drink dates anymore. At least, not for iOS users. Android users still have a little time before the update happens.

Use Whatsapp on the web



WhatsApp Web is the best creation since...WhatsApp itself. It’s not an entire new feature as Android users have been enjoying it for a while, and rubbing it in the faces of those on iOS. Guess what, their gloating days are over, as the feature has been quietly rolled out to iOS, too.

How: To enable inconspicuous chatting on the web as you do your work, all you have to do is go to Settings, tap on WhatsApp Web. Then head to web.whatsapp.com on your computer and scan the QR code that appears using your phone. Commence chatting on the sly without downloading anything. Genius.

Locate group chat


For those with too many chats to keep track of, this next trick is for you. Bet you didn’t know you can find old group chats by checking with individuals. This is useful for when you want to revisit old topics and you can’t remember where to find them. Chances are you'll remember who was in the chat, more than what the chat was.

How: Just tap on any individual chats, and tap their name for more information. From there you’ll be able to see all the groups you have in common with said individual, even if they go way back, which makes for an easier way of finding what you were looking for.

Backing up videos



WhatsApp is almost like a digital diary of everything that’s happened for as long as you’ve been using it. There’s probably few other apps that you use as regularly as it. It used to be that you could only backup images in your chats, but not videos. Now that’s changed.

How: Get into Settings, then Chats and Calls, and pop into Chat Backup. This is the control centre for backing up your wordy memories.

You can choose when you want Auto Backup to happen (but make sure you disable backing up using data within your phone’s settings or there will be hell to pay). And now, you can also choose to not leave videos out in your backup by toggling Include Videos (duh). Would it be greedy of us to ask for voice messages to be included in the next update too?

Visual reminder


Have the habit of reading messages then forgetting to reply to them? Now you have no excuse to neglect them as there is a new Mark as unread feature that’s been introduced in WhatsApp. What it allows you to do is to mark the chat with a blue dot so that you know you still have to attend to it. The only problem is remembering what you want to remind yourself to do…

How: Just swipe any of your chats to the right and the option to Mark as unread will show up. Tap on it and a blue dot will appear on the chat as a visual marker. Once you’re done with it, just swipe the chat to the right to unmark it. Simple.

Staying selectively notified


You can know who’s contacting you via WhatsApp even before you look at your phone now. How? By customising your chat notifications, of course. Now all you have to do is remember which sound alert represents who and you're gold.

How: Tap on any chat (both group and individual), then on the name of the chat, and hit up Custom Notifications. From there you can choose from a variety of sound alerts for both calling and texting purposes.

Begone, blue ticks of misery



Sometimes we need to glance at a message, and then take a little time to formulate a response as we carry on with the rest of our day. All that, without having the sender realise that we actually looked at said message five hours ago. But the inception of the double blue ticks took that privilege away.

The chat app has realised the error of its ways and silently come up with a workaround. The liberty of message-mulling is ours again.

How: Go to Settings, then Account, and finally Privacy to make it yours again. All you have to do is switch off Read receipts. Bear this in mind- if you turn your blue ticks off, you won’t be able to see if people have read your messages either. However, read receipts will always be sent for group chats so that’s a compromise you’ll always have to live with.

Make calls at last



WhatsApp is more than just a run-of-the-mill instant messenger. You can use it to make calls too.

How: Make sure you're using the latest version of WhatsApp. You should see a new Calls tab alongside the usual Chats and Contacts. Just send a voice call invite to another WhatsApp user and you'll be chatting away in no time.

Prevent people from accidentally reading your messages



Theoretically, messages on WhatsApp are private. But not when you leave your phone on the table, and a new message notification comes in. How many times have you unintentionally read someone’s message just because you’ve curiously looked over when their phone screen blinked to life with a new message notification? Admit it, we’ve all done it, and read something we all regretted.

How: Go to Settings, then Notifications, and disable Show Preview. Now you can gossip in peace, without anyone accidentally reading your conversations by just glancing casually at your phone when a notification comes in. Your notification will just reveal who has just messaged you without divulging any of its super secret contents.

Reply directly from a popup

Oh, new message! Swipe down the notification bar, tap the message and reply. Sounds simple, right? We're tell you there's an easier way. Cut to the chase and reply to it directly from a notification.

How: Go to Settings, Notifications, then Popup Notification, and choose from four different options. You can change this setting for both individual messages and group messages respectively. Unfortunately, this feature is only available for Android. For now.

See when your messages are read



Think the double blue ticks are the worst thing to happen to relationships since Last Seen? Think again. There’s another way to cause upset and destroy friendships, and in a very specific way at that. More than finding out your message has been read, you can see the exact time your message was successfully delivered, and the exact time your message was read if you choose to stick with the ticks.

How: Go to any of your WhatsApp chats, tap and hold on any of the messages you’ve sent in that chat, followed by the Info option. For iOS users, you can also drag towards the left to reveal a window which will show the time your message was delivered and subsequently read. Works for group messages too with the window listing the time each participant read the message. Guess you can no longer get away with WhatsApp murder.

Tied to your number


If you’re overseas and you get a new data sim, there’s no need to register the new number attached to the SIM and have to reintroduce yourself to all your WhatsApp contacts when you can just continue WhatsApping using your normal number.

How: When you put your new SIM in and activate WhatsApp, you’ll be prompted by the messaging service to register the new number. But doing so will mess up your contacts list. Just ignore the pop-up or cancel it and your WhatsApp should work linked to your old number, while using your new data SIM.


Sending public messages privately


If you’ve got a generic announcement to make, like an invite to a weekend bbq. And you don’t want to do it on the loudmouth platform that is Facebook, this feature works in pretty much the same way as BCC-ing people in an email. Your recipients will get the message like it’s a privately composed one, unbeknownst to the fact that you’ve sent the exact same one to 342 other people. Sincerity? What's that?

How: On the top left hand corner of your WhatsApp Chats window, just below the search bar, you’ll notice a Broadcast Lists. Tap on it for the option to create a new list of contacts you want your message to go out to (like the people on your birthday party guestlist, or your harem of girlfriends who might not know about one another…). And message away like you would normally.

Back it up

Worried about losing your year’s worth of messages? You don’t have to. WhatsApp knows how precious your chat history is to you and secures it all for you in the cloud.

How: iPhone users get the option of backing their chat history to iCloud automatically on a daily/weekly/monthly schedule. If it’s only selected chat histories you desire, click on the chat you want, then the user’s name and finally email conversation to yourself or whoever else.

Android users will find the file within the WhatsApp folder in their phone. Switching Android phones? Make sure that file, found in WhatsApp > Databases and named msgstore.db.crypt7, is copied and transferred to the exact same folder in your new Android device.




Shortcuts to conversations


If there are certain people you converse with more than the others, almost on a minute to minute basis, it might be a good idea to create a shortcut for them directly on your homescreen so you don’t have to keep opening and closing WhatsApp just to talk to them alone.

How: Tap and hold on the chat (group or individual) of your choice and a tab will pop up. Select the Add Conversation Shortcut option and the chat in question will appear as the person's profile photo on your mobile desktop. Unfortunately this only applies for Android users and not iPhone ones. Sorry guys.

Keeping group chats on the down low


As WhatsApp becomes the go-to chat app for more and more people, the likelihood of making group decisions gets carried over as well. So if you’re always getting added to new group chats filled with strangers (you social butterfly, you), you might want to keep certain details private until those strangers become friends.

How: Head to Settings, Privacy, and then tweak your Last Seen, Profile Photo and Status to retain a bit of mystery. Choose to share them with Everyone, or only your Contacts, or Nobody at all. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about hiding your phone number.

Mute group chats


We’re all in at least a few group chats at any one time, created because someone (likely the group admin) was bored. People tend to get overzealous in chats, especially since WhatsApp allows group conversations of up to 50 participants. Who hasn’t woken up to the horror of 100+ unread messages fuelled by a night of boredom?

How: To prevent yourself from being woken up by the constant lighting up of your smartphone screen, you can (a) either turn it down screenwards or (b) Mute the offending group chat. Tap on the group chat of your choice, then the name to bring up Group Info where you will find the option to Mute the chat for eight hours to one week or a year. Alternatively, you can exit it altogether.

Find out the truth about where your friend is


All of us have been a victim of that “On the way” lie when the person in question is still in bed. To prevent yourself from ever getting duped again, insist that the contact shares his current location with you by tapping on the arrow icon next to the text box and then Share Location. We hear you protest that he can still manually enter the location he’s supposedly at. Which is true, but there’s a way of getting around it.

How: The way the location appears is a clue to whether he sent his current location, or whether he chose to enter the location he’s purportedly at. If it’s the GPS-based location he’s at, the location share will appear as a dropped pin, but if it’s a location he had to enter, its address will appear beside the dropped pin. Feel free to call him out on it.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Take a walk with nature in these rainforests





Treasure troves of rich biodiversity and breathtakingly beautiful natural panora mas, rainforests remind us at every step how spectacular planet earth really is. An ecotourist's paradise, these lush landscapes and canopies offers a lot of opportunity to learn about nature and its wonders up, close and personal. While the conservation of these ecosystems remains a matter of concern and debate, we give you a pictorial tour of some of the most stunning rainforests across the globe...

IN INDIA...

The major tropical rainforests are located in the Western Ghats (primarily Karnataka and Kerala), northeastern states (mainly Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur), some parts of Odisha as well as in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

KHAO YAI NATIONAL PARK, THAILAND

Counted among mainland Asia's largest intact monsoon forests, this UNESCO World Heritage site is also Thailand's oldest and most-visited reserve. The landscape -spreading across an area of 2,168 square kilometres -consists of five rainforest zones: evergreen, semi-evergreen, mixed-deciduous, hill evergreen and savannah.Prominent species found: Red jungle fowl, coralbilled ground cuckoo, Asian black bear, Indian elephant, gaur, gibbon, Indian sambar deer, pig-tailed macaque, Indian muntjac, Ussuri dhole, barking deer, otters and wild pig.

AMAZON RAINFOREST, SOUTH AMERICA

Popularly known as the Amazon Jungle or Amazonia, this beautiful moist broadleaf expanse spans across eight countries -Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana -and is easily the world's largest rainforest. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.Prominent species found: Jaguar, black caiman, cougar, macaw, Amazon River dolphin, black spider monkey, poison dart frog and anaconda.

SINHARAJA FOREST RESERVE, SRI LANKA

Over 60% of the trees found in this UNESCO World Heritage site are considered rare, while its mammals, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians are unique too.This tropical rainforest covers an area of 21 kilometres. The peaks of Sinharaja -which translates to lion kingdom -are Sinhagala, Pinipitigala and Mulawella.Prominent species found: Purple-faced langur, greater racket-tailed drongo, orange-billed babbler, red-faced malkoha, green-billed coucal, Sri Lanka blue magpie, green-pit viper, hump-nosed vipers, tree frogs and birdwing butterfly.

DOMINICA RAINFOREST, CARIBBEAN SEA

This little rainforest island is blessed with an extraordinarily scenic landscape that includes peaks, valleys, waterfalls, birds, flora and fauna. This lush landscape is often promoted as the `Nature Isle of the Caribbean'. It also boasts of the world's second largest hot spring, called the Boiling Lake. The island covers an area of 750 square kilometres.Prominent species found: Jacquot parrot, broad-winged hawk, purplethroated carib, agouti, manicou, sea turtles, bats, butterflies and crabs.

Mumbai's one-stop destination for sports enthusiasts





The Speedo and Asics store launch gets a huge response
Elements Retail Pvt Ltd, one of the leaders in the retail industry that has exclusive franchise for brands Speedo and Asics, recently launched their flagship store in Bandra, Linking Road. Though the brand already had a presence at Infinity Mall and Phoenix Mumbai, this new store ensures its reach to a wider segment of sports enthusiasts.

Spread across a vast area of 2,000 sq ft, the state-of-the-art store, was launched by Raj Thackeray along with wife Sharmila and son Amit, Nitin Sardesai and others.Also present were prominent socialites from Nashik and Mumbai. Talking about the new store, Varun Bagadia of Elements Retail, says, “We offer a broad range of Speedo swim accessories including more than 70 styles of goggles, several types of watches, sunglasses and towels. In addition, the store also offers several lines of aquatic fitness aids and swim aids for children and adults, as well as scuba masks, snorkels and swim fins.“

Aditya Bafna of Elements Retail says, “Today , India is at a stage where we have access to various sports. The motto behind opening these high-end targeted stores is to reach out to sports enthusiasts with the world's best swimwear brand by Speedo along with some high quality sports shoes from Asics.“

He further adds, “I only believe in selling a product, which convinces me, only then will I sell it and convince my customers, otherwise no. We will be expanding with only exclusive brands, which are the best in it particular segment.“

Where: Speedo and Asics, Linking Road, Bandra.

KNOW YOUR BRANDS

Speedo Speedo is one of the leader's in swimwear. World renowned swimming champions flaunt this classy swimwear and it is endorsed by several celebrities and athletes across the globe.

Asics Asics is a Japanese multinational company that offers athletic equip ment like high-end footwear and other sports equipment. Started by designing basketball shoes, it went on to become one of the leaders with its products endorsed by various celebrity athletes.So, next time you think of buying shoes or swimwear, step into one of the brand's classy stores and get spoilt for choice by the sheer variety of products on display.