editor's note Archives - Exhibit Tech

Fact is our truth is more fascinating than fantasies!

It’s April 2022, the start of the financial year, and any new start is a great start. Temperatures are at an all-time high in India, and the spirits of Exhibit as a whole. After a thrilling BBC TopGear Magazine India Awards 2022 and driving exotics back to back to decide winners, read on to wish for a french lifestyle we can only dream about in reality. Fact is, our truth is more fascinating than fantasies. Imagine flying in and beyond Indian shores and driving exotic sports cars and SUVs along with the petrolhead Ranveer Singh. This has been a happening month! My team had a tech-savvy time reviewing products with the best phone launches, from Samsung, OnePlus, iQOO, Realme, etc., to excellent new laptops. Technology has witnessed RTX graphics in an Acer thin and light Swift X. Speaking of multiple phones, phone companies have lost it. The first quarter of the year has already confused smartphone buyers with the number of launches. They’re almost uncountable! Speaking of all the phones, we also explored the return of colours in smartphones. Who doesn’t like a little colour in their lives? A new aspect of the world is emerging in the form of NFTs. Knowledge is wasted if not shared.

Our cover features the gorgeous and brilliant Miss World 2017, Manushi Chillar, debuting in Prithviraj, opposite Akshay Kumar this June. We wish her all the best. Our team also conversed with someone I have known for a long time, an automotive social media influencer, Mumbiker Nikhil, and his passion turned profession. Talking about influencing, our Influencex – Indias’ first Influencer awards are in its 3rd season, and voting has just begun if you see the exhibit.tech/voting tripping it’s because of the insane fans coming and voting for their favourite across the 40 categories that we stack them on. It all concludes with 100 of the Top Influencers flying with us in Kerala to celebrate the best of the best content creators in India.

It’s all about the set and the setting. Hence, we explore 10 incredible roads trips you must take across India. Once a runner up at Exhibit Top 500 Tech Startups almost half a decade ago, we explore Haptik and its founder’s insight on his business as they tie up with JIO, a Reliance property. Ever wondered how big is the dating industry fuelled by desires? A coin with the same sides is unique but unfair. Drive along and witness the madness of an EV and the grandeur of a Porsche mashing insanely in stunning beauty, Taycan. Never has the world witnessed these many amounts of EV and ICE automobile launches as the year 2022. Other countries have already decided on their EV commitment, but India is a developing country and changes though slow, are steady. We have three of the newest midsize SUVs covering several hundred kilometres across cities. Volkswagen, Skoda, and MG all crave the new mid-size buyer’s attention. Oh, did I mention Arjun Kapoor and I went on a drive in the Volvo XC90? He owns one and drives too, but unlike most of us, he is a vampire of the night. Arjun shares his insights about ownership and comfort as we move along Mumbai streets unnoticed by the paparazzi. Overall, we have a packed issue with celebs, reviews, beautiful automobiles and much more; read at your heart’s content.

Imagination Station

There is something about cryptocurrency which has always been intriguing, alluring, and still complicates the minds of ordinary souls, hindering mainstream adoption. There is a comparison drawn between when the internet was born and when cryptocurrency was beginning to unfold. Still, the worldwide web was much simpler to comprehend, and its usage and practicality could convince a blacksmith also, and till today the world of
crypto bounces off many foreheads.

We traced the journey of crypto billionaires, who had secured their seats before the crypto flight took off. There are many exciting stories of people who paid for pizza through bitcoins, and today, it’s worth millions. Anyone who had invested $100 in 2009 could be sitting on a Rolls Royce Phantom today parked in his Beverly Hills mansion and still would have millions to spend. It would be worth almost US$ 48 million today. Phew!

If you are done imagining things that could have been done with that much money, let me have your attention back because the train had left the station in 2009. Take solace with folks who bought cryptocurrency and died with their next of kin having no idea about their inherent lost wealth. We have researched well into what happens to cryptocurrency investment when one dies. Turn to page 34 for answers to that.

On another trivia, have you ever observed any 12 or 13-year-old Instagram accounts? They don’t post, only stories. Gen Z uses Instagram as Snapchat. One possible reason is that they are a much larger insecure bunch, insecure from society and their immediate family. Perhaps future technologies and startups can be based on this simple observation and should adjust their products and services to this behavioral change coming up. Maybe your next train to the Beverly Hills mansion?

A New Tomorrow

Back to square one. This time last year, things were pretty much the same. We were in lockdown, confused, and the fear of the unknown. This year, we know how to deal with Covid and know somewhere there are vaccines, but still, uncertainty looms large on us. It’s been almost a year since we have attended any tech launches. Automobile brands have no choice, and they have also been forthcoming.

We have seen the whole house attending almost whenever a launch invite hits our mailboxes, be it the Hyundai Alcazar at Alila fort or the VW Taigun in Goa, the Renault Kyger, or the Mercedes A-class. I really can’t wait to meet folks from the tech industry at a banquet hall or on top of a fort or a boat. Face to Face meets is what the craving is for.

Uncertainty breeds chaos and challenges the status quo. This is why we are seeing a colossal jump in Bitcoin pricing to reach its current price of Rs 46 lakh. It’s mind-boggling to see the opportunity lost, and tech entrepreneurs, including Musk, have been investing rather openly in it. Most tech entrepreneurs have this resulting fire to change the world, challenge everything, and don’t want to hand control currencies into the hands of the government. There are massive pros and cons of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and we can quickly write a book about it, but we can’t ignore it either. Ether is another crypto on a meteoric rise, and we have gone down to a miniature crash course to mine it, just in case, it tickles your brain somewhere.

It is impossible to decode the future of the world. Electric cars and lithium batteries leave an enormous carbon footprint and have damaging effects. Improperly disposed batteries contribute to water and air pollution. When depleted, these batteries are tossed into the trash, and they end up in landfills, where they decay and leak. As the batteries corrode, their chemicals soak into the soil and contaminate groundwater and surface water.

With the large-scale adoption of electric cars and waiting on the brink is a booming recycling industry, these batteries will also find better use after discarding. Hopefully, we will breathe clean air in time to come. Until that happens, do your bit to save energy. Remember that a 2 degree further rise in our temperature will have catastrophic effects. Even worse than Covid.

Enjoy the issue.

Epidemic, Endurance, and Exhibit!

When SpaceX’s latest launch, the SN8, burst into flames, millions of dollars evaporated but there was not a single wrinkle on Elon Musk’s forehead. In fact, the mad scientist went on to congratulate his team on the failure! That’s how the man is built; taking failures into his stride and on a mission to do the impossible. The idea of building a colony on Mars is the wildest and weirdest dream anyone can have, and if anyone has the ability to execute it in our lifetime, it is probably Musk. I have always been fascinated by him, his journey, his tweets, the hero of startups, and one crazy soul who does first, think later, and goes all in. Read his book, Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance and you will start believing even in Spiderman and Superman. Why Elon Musk, you ask? Because it’s that time of the year when you will be making new year resolutions, and in that it’s a must that you should slide in after you have browsed through our take on 31st parties in these Covid times.

The turn of the year always brings positivity, aspirations, and hope. 2021 will definitely go down the century as the year where hope for 7.5 billion people are all glued in for the vaccine, for the skies to open, to live freely, to stay alive! By this time, the preparations for CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas are in full swing, like many things now it’s a ritual which will be missed massively in fact for the first time ever since the first edition of Exhibit came about – 15 years ago.

Since then, we have seen a lot of highs and lows, though nothing as radical and life-changing as this pandemic. Nevertheless, it is our Nature to bounce back harder than we are hit and that’s exactly what we have done. We persevered through the toughest of times and faced the highest of pressures. But as they say, only the coal that can sustain the highest pressure turns into a diamond. It’s a wrapping issue of 2020, and we have just dropped our podcasts on Spotify and other platforms, next time give us a thumbs up, we will have plenty of conversations, tech hacks coming up there. Moving forward to the next year, all we can wish to carry forward from this year are the learnings, the lessons, and the alterations that we have voluntarily done to our lives. Otherwise, I think you all would pretty much agree that 2020 should have never existed!