When I heard that CES 2021 is going virtual, it took me a few days to come to terms with that as I could not stomach this piece of news. Firstly, in my mind, 2020 is not to be counted and the start of 2021 without being at CES looked like an extension of 2020. In fact, for the last 9 years, it was nothing short of a religious process to start January submerged with all the tech and meet all my friends and folks who “download” themselves in Las Vegas from all over the world and in between the casinos and the exhibition halls, the year was shaped. But this was inevitable and an expo of that scale in between the pandemic would have been catastrophic. Even if we are at the tail end or in a better situation with vaccines being produced. So just like the virtual launches that we have got used to now with the Hector Plus, Tucson, Kia Seltos, the OnePlus Nord (With its AR launch), Samsung Galaxy unpacked event and the rest, Virtual CES is something that will be painful to swallow but will be in line with the new normal.
This month, launches kept dropping from the tech and auto world and the signs that we are in the midst of a pandemic started to diminish; perhaps signs of the economy opening up. Amidst all, the OnePlus Nord virtual AR launch was something that was a spectacular treat and satisfied the nerds in us. The auto sales this month are also almost neck to neck with July 2019, at 197,523 units. This is also the first issue since lockdown when we went to a studio, had a stylist, pro lensman, hair, makeup, studio and the entire sanitization frills along with the man of the moment Sonu Sood just like we used to do pre-COVID times, nowadays called ‘BC’ (Before COVID).
I have known Sonu for 4 years now and the first time I had met him was when he walked Exhibit -tech fashion tour. I had observed how the media and photographers lap on him. Because of his affable nature, having come from ground zero and made his own niche in south and Hindi film industry, it was hardly surprising when he came forward and has now made a name for himself in the history of “The Great India Migrant Movement’. Sometimes you just need to do your bit and a movement starts. Sonu Sood is that example and when we are in the cusp of celebrating our 74th independence with 74 gadgets that have changed our lives, there can be no better person to dote our cover.
His fearlessness and the decision to go out and meet 1000s of people amidst the COVID proves a point, either he believes in his immunity – the fitness freak that he is or in karma. I think it’s a bit of both. Now as we have learnt to live with the virus, we should never unlearn that it’s only the essentials that matter in life, rest everything is a chase a mirage which engulfs our whole life.
OnePlus recently reentered the mid-range smartphone market segment with the launch of the OnePlus Nord. It may not be the best phone from the company’s stable, but it definitely packs a punch. The Nord had definitely been the talk of the town during its launch phase. However, it got a bittersweet reception after its specifications and pricing were announced.
Instead of taking a step further in the flagship range competition, OnePlus went with the tried-and-tested formula of returning to the mid-range segment, offering three variants of the Nord. I got a chance to use the top trim with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is what I am going to talk about in this review.
Now, I have been an OnePlus user for over two years. My model, the OnePlus 6 has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Naturally, I was expecting a considerable upgrade when using the Nord. But, the primary difference that I noticed, unfortunately, was the screen size and not the performance. Even in hardcore gaming, the best advantages the Nord offered was a slightly bigger screen, a better 20:9 aspect ratio, and clearer graphics.
Look and Feel:
The Nord is only marginally bigger than my OnePlus 6, though it has much thinner bezels and a better body-to-screen ratio. The phone also feels mediocre to hold. Not that it feels of inferior quality in any way, but it just meets usual OnePlus standards. It does get an all-glass body with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on both front and back. However, the downer is the plastic frame, which diminishes sturdiness and makes you feel less confident when handling your device. It also does not have an IP rating for dust and water resistance, further adding to its disadvantages over its competitors. I got to review the Gray Onyx coloured model, which I personally would always prefer over the Blue Marble.
The Nord retains the company’s signature slider button for volume profiles on the right, along with the power/wake button. The overall look and feel of the phone is neat, however, it misses out on the premiumness that OnePlus phones are generally associated with.
Camera:
Having said that, the Nord takes the cake with its camera. OnePlus offers some of the best manual control options in its camera. Even in my OnePlus 6, the Pro mode can be used to click DSLR quality images. Consequently, the Quad Camera setup of the Nord is lightyears ahead. Still sticking to the Pro mode, the OnePlus Nord allowed me to click lifelike images effortlessly. But for the occasions when I felt too lazy to adjust the settings, the Nord had my back with its 48MP Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) camera. It has a Sony IMX586 main sensor, along with three secondary cameras of 8MP, 2MP, and 5MP. All other photo modes (which are a lot by the way) support superzoom and superwide mode, but the 48MP mode takes all control in its own hands. Just focus and click away!
Video options are also ample, with 4K recording at 30 fps, 1080p recording at 30 and 60 fps, and a Time-lapse mode at 4K (30 fps) and 1080p (30 fps). For “Slo-Mo” content creators, the Nord can take super slow-motion videos at 1080p at 240 fps! The media that I captured was further enhanced when displayed on the 6.44” Fluid AMOLED screen. Not to forget its 90Hz refresh rate that offered a decently seamless transition.
Processor:
Honestly, I was quite disappointed by the processor choice. Again comparing with my OnePlus 6, I found its Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 to be much more efficient than the Nord’s Snapdragon 765G, which was rather dejecting. While both processors have 8 cores, the Snapdragon 765G has a combined peak CPU speed of 15.4 GHz, while the Snapdragon 845 clocks 18.28 GHz. The Nord does get a higher upload speed of 210 MBits/s, has a 267MHz higher RAM speed, and has a larger maximum memory size, which is why the Nord is available with 12GB of RAM. But apart from that, I missed the feeling of getting a processor upgrade when switching from my OnePlus 6 to the Nord.
Phone Setup:
Talking about switching, OnePlus offers a neat little app called, well, OnePlus Switch. This allowed me to replicate my existing settings and applications from my old OnePlus 6 to the new Nord. The transfer also happened in the time it took me to reach home from the office, which is why I was all set to experience the Nord as soon as I stepped in. To emphasize, the app transferred more than 50 GB of data, along with multiple customization and personalization settings in a span of 15 minutes, without a strong Wi-Fi connection.
Battery:
Being an ardent gamer, I mastered many different genres of games (Challenge me if you dare?). The OnePlus Nord allowed me to play games as intensely as I wanted while offering a decent battery backup with its 4115 mAh battery pack. On the occasional weekend that I played games from morning till night, I only had to leave the Nord on charge for a little over an hour. The WarpCharge 30T charger that comes in the box was wholly responsible for that, no questions asked. Honestly, I needed a bigger break than that so I am not complaining.
Verdict:
Priced at Rs 29,999, the top trim of the OnePlus Nord is the best choice for potential customers. This is because, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, users can experience the fullest potential of the OnePlus Nord. Also, its option with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is priced just Rs 2000 less, which makes the top trim an even more value for money option. The Nord offers everything that OnePlus is known for, but it leaves something to desire. Probably as OnePlus says, Never Settle?
Segment 1: Launches This Week – India Xiaomi: Mi TV stick, MI smart band 5, MI TWS Earphones Basic POCO M2 Pro Vivo X50 Series Samsung Sound Tower & Soundbars JBL One Series monitor speakers Mercedes S-Class all-new infotainment system
Segment 2: News This Week The UK bans Huawei 5G from end 2020 Airtel partners with Verizon to launch Blue Jeans in India Nokia launches a software upgrade to 5G technology Samsung begins smartwatch manufacturing in India.
How wonderful is it to be the first person to know about something that is going to bring a huge difference to the world? Every year, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) hosts the largest tech show in the entire universe (assuming aliens don’t exist), with more than 4500 exhibiting companies that represent the entire consumer technology ecosystem. It is called the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and it is the platform where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace and thus, attract a lot of attention from the world media. Each year, tech enthusiasts travel across continents to Las Vegas, only to experience innovation that might revolutionize the entire tech industry.
An event “where innovation does business”, will definitely be held physically despite the pandemic keeping in mind the necessity of social distancing. However, with pandemic limiting travel, the products will be showcased digitally as well. Last year with 175,000 attendees, the event was held at The Las Vegas Convention, which is the primary venue for the event. With companies redefining technology by re-launching their products at CES, the event is known to attract an enormous number of exhibitors every year.
Also, with the successful GamesBeat Summit 2020, the exhibitors and attendees definitely expect the event to be held digitally. Without having to worry about the travel expenses, sanitization facilities, social distancing and the pandemic, the attendees can attend the event from the comfort of their home. Also, a larger number of attendees are interested to know how the event might actually turn out digitally. New advancements in technology might happen only to acknowledge and overcome the difficulties in hosting the event successfully on a digital platform—something every tech enthusiast is looking forward to. It is a challenge for the organizers though, considering that they host the largest tech show in the entire world.
“We will showcase our exhibitors’ products, technology breakthroughs and ideas to the world, both physically in Las Vegas and digitally,” Consumer Technology Association, which produces CES, said in a statement. “You can expect to see a wider selection of live-streamed CES content, along with many other engaging digital and virtual opportunities, enabling you to connect with the world’s leading technology innovators, thought leaders and policymakers,” the statement added. CES is marketed to exhibitors on the strengths of its large pool of attendees and massive scope.
To understand advancements in technology, one should know where its previous benchmark was. If you are intrigued by what CES 2021 has in store, look for the best in 2020. BMW launched its i3 Urban Suite: one that includes perks like a hanger for coats, heated cup holders, and a literal desk lamp. There are also some pleasant privacy-centric features like simulated acoustic sealing and a display that supports smartphone mirroring when you need a second screen. All could be accommodated by removing a few seats.
In the accessibility category, the Phonak Virto Black: a discreet hearing aid that takes the form of wireless earbuds. The device is quite versatile with Bluetooth streaming.
Last year, Dell introduced the concept of PC gaming on the go with Intel-powered Alienware Concept UFO. The portable Windows PC, which mirrors the form factor of the Nintendo Switch, features an 8-inch display, kickstand, detachable controllers, and support for external devices like displays or a keyboard and mouse. The device was conceptual, although they might’ve come up with something this year. Samsung’s 49-inch Odyssey G9 monitor — a treat for the gamers, has a 1440p resolution, a 1 millisecond response time, and supports refresh rates up to 240Hz. It also supports AMD’s FreeSync 2 and Nvidia’s G-Sync for better gameplay.
CES has something for everyone and everything for the ones who are uncertain about their requirements. For artists and creators, Acer’s ConceptD 7 Ezel is a laptop with a 15.6-inch 4K display & multiple configurations. Could there be a better version of the already-launched product? Only CES can say.
The dramatics of hosting the event digitally might seem highly unrealistic at this point, but one can never know of the possibilities it might bring into the real world. Technology gives you the freedom to travel to a different dimension altogether from the mere comfort of your home. Just imagine how wonderful it will be to be virtually present at a physical event without compromising any sort of experience. With greater challenges comes better solutions. Covid-19 is the worst thing that could’ve happened but it has challenged technology in ways nothing else has ever could. CES 2021 is surely expected to surprise us, yet again and as always!
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is gearing up to join the ranks of those few countries around the world, who have extended their reach to infinity and beyond! After six years of extensive research and development, the Middle Eastern country will launch its first interplanetary mission to Mars.
It is called the Emirates Mars Mission and the satellite will be launched on April 17, on top of a Japanese rocket. This will be the beginning of several other missions to Mars, including China’s orbiter, rover and lander launches on July 23. NASA is also in hot pursuit with its preparation to launch the Perseverance, its next rover. All these missions have a very small window of time, when Earth and Mars come closest to one another on their orbits around the Sun. This planetary alignment only happens once every two years, so if any of these missions can’t launch this summer, they’ll have to wait until 2022 to try again.
The Emirates Mars Mission is especially important for the country, as it is viewed as a part of a celebration for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UAE, which is in December 2021. It was first announced in 2013 by UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, when he asked the nation’s top space engineers to pull off the ambitious space mission by 2021 to commemorate the occasion.
The spacecraft is called Hope and aims to complement other studies going on about Mars. It is expected to give scientists a clearer picture of Mars’ lower atmosphere, which will help them understand the annual weather patterns. The UAE calls Hope “Mars’ first weather satellite” since it will monitor the weather throughout the day in as many locations as possible on Mars.
With a tight budget of just $200 million, the UAE had a tough job completing Hope on its own. To overcome this, The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, which built the Hope spacecraft, teamed up with the University of Colorado at Boulder — a college that’s been designing Martian instruments since the 1960s. It also received guidance from researchers at Arizona State University and the University of California, Berkeley throughout the course of the spacecraft’s development. NASA has also enabled communications with Hope for the Emirates, using its Deep Space Network (an existing network of antennas spread around the world).
The live counter for the launch of this spacecraft can be tracked on the official website of the Emirates Mars Mission. It is slated to be launched in the early morning hours on top of a Japanese H-IIA rocket out of the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.
American tech giant Google officially announced a $10 billion digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital economy. Sundar Pichai, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Silicon-based company took to Twitter to make the announcement today.
Pichai wrote, “Today at #GoogleForIndia we announced a new $10B digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital economy. We’re proud to support PM @narendramodi’s vision for Digital India – many thanks to Minister @rsprasad & Minister @DrRPNishank for joining us.”
The company will focus its investments on four areas:
First, enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, whether it’s Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other
Second, building new products and services that are deeply relevant to India’s unique needs
Third, empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation
Fourth, leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture
India has more than 500 million people online everyday with more than 450 million smartphones in active usage. India is also a key overseas market for Google, due to its range of products and services getting deeply embedded in the Indian digital system. Services such as Google Search, YouTube and Android OS have almost become inseparable from the average Indian user.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also confirmed this news on Twitter. He stated, “This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs.” Modi also discussed the challenges brought by Covid-19 to areas like sports as well as the importance of data and cyber security.
This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs. pic.twitter.com/IS9W24zZxs
Google joins the ranks of Facebook and Amazon in India to have made an investment of substantial amounts. Facebook made a $5.7 billion investment in Reliance Jio Platforms, the top telecom operator in the nation in April this year to digitize 60 million mom and pop stores in the country. During his visit to India early this year, Jeff Bezos said Amazon plans to invest an additional $1 billion in India, totalling the company’s to-date commitment to $6.5 billion.
Mercedes-Benz has officially unveiled the next generation of its in-car user interface system, the MBUX. It will debut in the 2021 S-Class and features a new interface. The German luxury carmaker has powered the MBUX with a new hardware suite that adds multiple features and functions across the car. The hardware suite includes a 320GB SSD, 16GB of RAM and 50 percent more processing power over its predecessor.
Some of these features include a pseudo-3D display technology behind the steering wheel, new personal profiles that the driver can access via a fingerprint sensor, facial recognition or voice commands. The hardware also improves the “Hey Mercedes” voice recognition system. The new MBUX minimizes the use of physical buttons and encourages the use of voice commands and quick access shortcuts.
Mercedes-Benz will debut the new MBUX with the 2021 S-Class. The luxury sedan will be equipped with a 12.8-inch OLED touchscreen with haptic feedback, in a portrait orientation. The screen rises from the centre console, unlike the usual dashboard embedded position. It is easily accessible to the driver as it is placed just beside the steering wheel. Mercedes-Benz has also made the overall interaction sleeker by reducing 27 “hard keys” in the new S-Class.
Users can now save personalized preferences in the new MBUX, which include settings like seat adjustment, interior lighting colour, and their favourite radio station, among others. These personal profiles can be enabled or disabled with the new security features and can also be loaded in other Mercedes-Benz cars that feature the new MBUX.
Drivers get access to a large, rounded rectangular floating display. It is the car’s fully digital instrument cluster offers the driver a chance to customise the colour, layout, and overall presentation of information like speed, power output, and driver assistance features.
Sajjad Khan, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz AG, CASE says, “Our overarching goal is to offer the utmost in comfort, personalization and convenience for our customers. A system that is more detailed, thoughtful and individual than ever before. So I would even call it My MBUX. Through even more ease-of-use, our customers gain extra time and added value. This goes beyond just displays and voice control. My MBUX now becomes the spinal cord, or even the central brain of the vehicle.”
The MBUX has the capability of creating a three-dimensional impression of the objects on the screen. It can do so with the help of facial recognition cameras and something that Mercedes-Benz calls an “auto-stereoscopic display”. The screen of the MBUX is a combination of standard LCD display and “a special pixel structure and a controllable LCD aperture grille” that makes the driver’s left and right eyes see “different pixels of the LCD.”
Updates to the MBUX software include recognition of up to 20 different commands triggered by saying “Hey Mercedes” as well as support of 27 languages. The S-Class is also expected to feature as many as three screens in the rear that will be connected to the infotainment system in the front. This will allow passengers in the back to share content between the screens along with selecting or changing the navigation route. Mercedes-Benz is expected to unveil the new S-Class in September 2021.
There are many gamers (like me) who own a Steam account but are unwilling to purchase games. If you are one of those, this is the ideal list for you! This is a list of games that are free-to-play on the Steam Store. While some of these contain in-app purchases and DLCs which require real-life money, their gameplay can be fairly enjoyed, free of cost. So, here are some of the best free-to-play games on the (steam) market.
EVE Online is a sandbox Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) and puts you in charge of a fleet of spaceships. Widely considered as one of the best sandbox games to date, EVE Online is the result of 15 years of development and expansion. It allows the player to control one among many spaceships, while exploring a practically endless universe. Players can choose multiple factions, loyalties, professions and much more. The possibilities of living a space life through this game are infinite. While the game is free-to-play, some elements of it are locked behind in-app purchases.
DC Universe Online is another MMORPG that was released way back in 2011. Nevertheless, it has garnered a massive and loyal fanbase over the years. As the name suggests, players are plunged into the world of DC and enter the game with a customised superhero. There are multiple combinations to creating a superhero, allowing the player to personalize his pick. The game allows players to complete missions, pick sides with heroes or villains and much more. DC Universe Online is free to download but has multiple DLCs and expansion packs that can be purchased separately.
Among the most recognized and beloved games around the world, Counter Strike: Global Offensive is the latest and current iteration in the Counter Strike series. Popularly called CSGO, the game involves two teams of five players each engaging in a death battle. The two teams are called Terrorists and Counter-terrorists respectively and must fulfill their roles accordingly. While terrorists must plant a bomb at a specified place, the counter-terrorists must prevent that. CSGO can be downloaded for free and does not have any special in-app purchases, except a premium pass.
Undoubtedly one of the most famous games in the world, DOTA 2 is also a profession for many. A 5V5 online MOBA game, it is one of the oldest surviving games and has a fan-following matched only by few other games in the world. It involves players choosing one of 100+ heroes and battling it out to destroy the other team’s base. DOTA 2 is also free to download but has in-app purchases that give the player access to special skins, effects and aesthetics.
