GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL..... Review: Alcatel One-Touch IdolX+

Gadget Review: Alcatel One-Touch IdolX+

Price: Rs 16,999
Specs: 5-inch Full HD IPS display, 2 GHz Mediatek octa core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB + micro SD, 13.1 MP rear + 2MP front camera, BT 4.0, FM, 2500mAh, 130 grams
Pros: High-quality display with narrow bezel, price includes smartband and JBL headphones, unibody design
Cons: Glossy back panel attracts fingerprints and scratches easily, does not come with Android 4.4 though an update is promised 

There's a reason for the 'plus' in the name of this phone — it's essentially an upgraded version of the Idol X. This time, it has a different design and a true octa core processor from Mediatek while the other hardware (screen, camera, etc.) remains the same.
Alcatel says that the new spin finish design on the back panel is a result of in-mould labelling technology — but the glossy surface will start to look old quickly.
It is fairly small and light despite the 5-inch screen. The back panel is not removable so the micro SD and SIM card slots are hidden under magnetic held flaps — one on each side of the phone.

The screen is nice and is protected by tough Dragon Trail glass which stands up well to day-to-day wear. The Mediatek quad core offers a decent dose of performance. It scored 15643 with Quadrant and 30677 on AnTuTu — these benchmarks put it ahead of phones like Samsung's Galaxy S4 and LG G2, both of which are priced substantially higher.

The phone has a lot of pre-loaded apps: Uno & friends, The Avengers, Shazam, Flipboard, Currency Converter and many other. Some of these could have been avoided, but there are some useful ones too: WiFi Transfer, TV link, To Do, One Touch Smart Suite (PC connection) and an app for DLNA media sharing.

We did not have any issues with call quality and battery life was a full day with all networks on.

By Hitesh Raj Bhagat, ET 140926

TECH SPECIAL .........................4 Wearables That Give You Superpowers

4 Wearables That Give You Superpowers

SUPER STRENGTH. SUPER HEARING. SUPER ARTISTRY. SUPER EXPRESSION. THE FUTURE OF WEARABLES IS REALLY A QUEST FOR HUMAN ENHANCEMENT.

Mark Ralston used to be CCO at Frog Design. Now he runs his new consultancy, Argodesign. And as part of our Wearables Week, his firm generated a series of concepts based upon our simple mandate: No watches.

What Argodesign presented in response was “a provocation”--four wearable concepts that would not just track your heartbeat or put your email on your wrist, but give you what Rolston calls “superpowers.”

He points to the modernsmartphone as his evidence. It’s already given us the opportunity to fly through space (through maps or video conferencing), travel through time (through our photos or social networks), and increase our intelligence (through omnipresent Internet access). To him, wearables will just be “more literal extensions” of these powers. They’ll offer us everything from more coordination to improved hearing. And it’s the quest for these powers that will drive user adoption.

IDEA 1: KINESEOWEAR

We’ve all heard of kinesio tape. Kineseowear is basically kinesio tape come to life. It’s a stick-on, artificial muscle, that could do anything from tapping you on the left shoulder to convey the next turn dictated by your GPS, to supporting your muscles during an intense butterfly lap in the pool. It creates a physical bridge between your body and information of any sort.

“We had one [version] that was a belt that tightened before lunch so it keeps you from eating more than you want to,” Rolston explains. They settled on the athletic form as a cultural statement of its own--a way to signal to other runners or swimmers that you were of the same connected tribe.

IDEA 2: OUIJIBAND

Imagine if you could pick up a pencil and draw a perfect circle the first time you tried. That’s the promise of Oujiband, an electronic counterweight strapped to your wrist that uses a gyroscope and a gimbal to sense your fine motor movements and, when necessary, smooth them out a bit. (Imagine a finely balanced Segway for your hand.)

Potential implications? Surgeons could cut straighter when the band sensed their hands shaking. A new tennis player could learn to backhand faster through this mechanical coach. And it’d look great at your next steampunk convention.

IDEA 3: SNAPCHAT IRL

“Take the apps that have become new social engines, and ask yourself, ‘Can those things be moved into the physical universe so we don’t have to live through the 5.5-inch screen?’” Rolston advises. “Snapchat looked in the digital world and said, ‘Some conversations you want to keep private.’ We asked, ‘How do we put that idea in the regular world?”

The result was Snapchat IRL. It’s a necklace that senses the IR light emitted by cameras during their autofocus sequence. And in response, it fires back a blinding counter-flash to protect your anonymity. No smartphone is even needed. It’s a completely standalone-ready device.

Snapchat IRL also has a discreet earpiece that allows you to have a private conversation with someone in the room whom you’ve decided to hook up with--like a walkie talkie for your sex life. Rolston admits that bit hasn’t been completely thought out, but his team liked the detail because it was so evocative.

IDEA 4: LALALA

We’ve all been out to a bar where we couldn’t hear the person standing right beside us. Lalala is basically a Bose noise-canceling headphone for anything you want to listen to in life. And with motion-tracking capabilities inside (assumably, through an integrated technology like infrared tracking), you can simply point to someone you’d like to hear better in a room, and every other voice will fade away.

But it’s not just a functional convenience. Rolston sees it as the future form-factor for smartphones. You’d wear it all the time. It would have all of your contacts inside. And it would be able to connect you to anyone, at any time, through immersive 3-D sound rather than awkward teleconferencing.

“If this is the next gen iPhone, the idea of spatially placing people could be phenomenal,” Rolston explains. “Your wife could speak into your right ear while you were in a meeting with people. It’d be like a secretary or friend coming up to whisper, ‘I know you’re busy, but remember to pick up your kid.”

Of course, you may think Argodesign’s concepts look too techie for your tastes. It would be a fair criticism. The team intentionally made the designs over and unapologetically electric--not necessarily because they believe fashion is in some way unimportant--but to highlight thatwearable technology will lure us with more than the appeal of fashion alone.

“I love how people comment, ‘You’ll never catch me wearing this stuff!’ And I get the fear of cyborg,” Rolston explains. “But [life is] a competition to get a leg up over the next person.”

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3036295/4-wearables-that-give-you-superpowers?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=2&partner=newsletter

HEALTH SPECIAL.....VITAMIN D

VITAMIN D

Fifteen facts that are important to know about vitamin D and sunlight exposure:

 

1. Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from natural sunlight. 

 

2. The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don't generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home. 

3. It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body. 

 

4. A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet. 

5. The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. States are far from the equator. 

6. People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 - 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the sam e amount of vitamin D. That's why prostate cancer is epidemic among black men - it's a simple, but widespread, sunlight deficiency. 

 

7. Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium,rendering calcium supplements useless. 

8. Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body's bones and nervous system. 

9. Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body's ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreen products actually cause disease -by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.

 

10. It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs. 

11. If it hurts to press firmly on your sternum, you may be suffering from chronic vitamin D deficiency right now. 

 

12. Vitamin D is "activated" in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used. 

13. Having kidney disease or liver damage can greatly impair your body's ability to activate circulating vitamin D. 

14. The sunscreen industry doesn't want you to know that your body actually needs sunlight exposure because that realization would mean lower sales of sunscreen products. 

 

15. Even though vitamin D is one of the most powerful healing chemicals in your body, your body makes it absolutely free. No prescription required. 

On the issue of sunlight exposure, by the way, it turns out that super antioxidants greatly boost your body's ability to handle sunlight without burning. Astaxanthin is one of the most powerful "internal sunscreens" and can allow you to stay under the sun twice as long without burning. 

Other powerful antioxidants with this ability include the super fruits like Acai, Pomegranates (POM Wonderful juice), blueberries, etc. 

 

Diseases and conditions cause by vitamin D deficiency:

* Osteoporosis is commonly caused by a lack of vitamin D, which greatly impairs calcium absorption. 

* Sufficient vitamin D prevents prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, depression, colon cancer and schizophrenia. 

* "Rickets" is the name of a bone-wasting disease caused by vitamin D deficiency. 

* Vitamin D deficiency may exacerbate type 2 diabetes and impair insulin production in the pancreas.

* Obesity impairs vitamin D utilization in the body, meaning obese people need twice as much vitamin D. 

* Vitamin D is used around the world to treat Psoriasis.

* Vitamin D deficiency can cause schizophrenia. 

* Seasonal Affective Disorder is caused by a melatonin imbalance initiated by lack of exposure to sunlight. 

* Chronic vitamin D deficiency is often misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia because its symptoms are so similar: muscle weakness, aches and pains. 

* Your risk of developing serious diseases like diabetes and cancer is reduced 50% - 80% through simple, sensible exposure to natural sunlight 2-3 times each week. 

* Infants who receive vitamin D supplementation (2000 units daily) have an 80% reduced risk of developing type 1 diabetes over the next twenty years. 

Shocking Vitamin D deficiency statistics:

* 32% of doctors and med school students are vitamin D deficient. 

 

* 40% of the U.S. population is vitamin D deficient. 

 

* 42% of African American women of childbearing age are deficient in vitamin D. 

 

* 48% of young girls (9-11 years old) are vitamin D deficient. 

 

* Up to 60% of all hospital patients are vitamin D deficient. 

 

* 76% of pregnant mothers are severely vitamin D deficient, causing widespread vitamin D deficiencies in their unborn children, which predisposes them to type 1 diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia later in life. 81% of the children born to these mothers were deficient. 

 

* Up to 80% of nursing home patients are vitamin D deficient. 

RECEIVED FROM JR

TECH SPECIAL.................... 3D printing, Internet of Things & smart machines will be a good disruptive force

3D printing, Internet of Things & smart machines will be a good disruptive force

The world has become digital as people and businesses are now able to interconnect more seamlessly using technologies. These days, information is exchanged across borders digitally and in real time as well, driven by a surge in demand for content, services and products.
Old buzzwords like computerization, automation, and internet are no longer adequate for businesses in a digital world. To stay ahead of the competition, companies need to rethink their long-term strategy.
Possibly a game changer which disrupts existing business models, digital business helps bridge the physical-digital divide, promising an unprecedented convergence of people, businesses and devices.

Another important consideration is how things interact in the digital age. More than seven billion people and businesses, together with an additional 35 billion devices and things will exist by 2020. And will not only communicate, but also transact with each other.
Moving forward, negotiation as another kind of interaction will emerge too, making the transformation from traditional to digital business timely and even more inevitable.
New Key Enabling Technologies

Enabling digital business is the advancements and proliferation of new technologies, such as 3D printing, Internet of Things (IoT) and smart machines. Collectively, these innovations disrupt the way enterprises manage demand, execute supply functions and engage customers.

3D printing: Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is the process of producing a threedimensional object. By referencing a digital 3D model, successive layers of material are "printed" to create an object featuring virtually any shape.
Utilizing 3D printers, products and components can be manufactured on demand, thus reducing the capital tied up in finished goods inventory. The consumable and raw materials for 3D printing would be the only major variable cost, offering businesses a minimum capital outlay.
IoT: Although open to diverse interpretations, IoT describes a network of devices that are connected to the Internet. Embedded with sensors, these devices are typically employed to collect data and can be controlled remotely. Combined with data analytics and cloud computing, IoT delivers remote monitoring and a host of advanced applications. 

To minimize cost, IoT can be incorporated into a machine to enable a "physical asset as a service" model, providing the flexibility to charge its utilization depending on usage metrics. Without an upfront capital expenditure, users will just need to pay for the actual operating service.
Smart machines: There are two kinds of smart machines - those that do physical work and those that do cognitive work. For example, newer mobile robots can be redeployed and taught to tackle an array of jobs, ranging from moving inventory to assembling parts - unlike older industrial robots often designed to do one type of job.

Another example of smart machines is cognitive computer systems that come with advanced artificial intelligence. While they still cannot replace an employee completely, such systems can now handle increasingly more complex tasks traditionally performed by people such as helping doctors determine diagnoses and treatments.

How Disruption works
The above-mentioned "technology disruptors" have a significant impact on a myriad of current business practices. These can include risk assessment in the unbanked segment, taxation strategies and customer loyalty management. Here are three further examples.
Redefining a product life cycle: 3D printing provides enhanced flexibility in product management. Companies may choose to test their initial product launches via ultrashort production runs that are 3D printed, and then scale up to traditional manufacturing for high output capacity if the market responses are positive.

Furthermore, a product that can be 3D printed will be made available indefinitely for the market, produced as and when required rather than being discontinued. Unlike conventional manufacturing techniques, 3D printers are able to churn out different products without costly retooling.

New leasing models: Many asset leases are calculated using depreciation schedules, which are loosely based on calendar time and a presumed usage pattern. But thanks to IoT, companies can closely monitor how an asset was used, such as the hours run and the maximum temperatures reached.

This insight allows residual values and leasing costs to be more accurately determined. Tracking these metrics is more transparent with IoT, mitigating dispute and risk during the lease term.
Hybrid workforce planning: In the future, a typical workforce will be comprised of people, augmented workers and smart machines. Leveraging on augmentation devices, such as wearables like the Google Glass, regular workers can effectively bolster their overall productivity.

Another option is to employ mobile robots and cognitive computers to deal with the workloads. Consequently, a resource planner will have a number of choices and will have to find the right balance of workers and machines to be deployed.

Like it or not, digital disrupters will change the traditional business models and continuously present new challenges, and they can come out of nowhere and happen so quickly and on such a large scale that it is hard to predict or defend against.

Therefore, businesses need to start building sustainable competitiveness and flexibility in order to react fast and reap the benefits as the first mover to gain an upper hand in competition.

- Hung LeHong is a VP and Gartner Fellow in Gartner Research

CDET140926

BUSINESS SPECIAL....................... Future Perfect: India Inc gears up for a digitally-connected business model

Future Perfect: India Inc gears up for a digitally-connected business model

Next time you take your Swift Dzire for service to the Maruti Suzuki service station, chances are that the service manager will greet you armed with a tablet. The device will have the complete history of your car—last service, any recurring trouble—and your latest service request will be noted down by the manager on the tablet.
The device will help cut the normal booking time for service from about 16 minutes to eight minutes. Even as you leave the service station, the tablet would have shot off a request to the spare parts department to send any parts needed — a new air filter, engine, gear oils to be changed or new spark plugs—and send it to the designated service bay to help the mechanic get down to the job without delay.

All this is part of the plan that makes Maruti Suzuki future ready. And there's lots more which happens even before you buy the car. Says Rajesh Uppal, chief information officer (CIO) Maruti Suzuki, "it's a technology driven orchestra that drives whatever Maruti does. Robots work along side humans to roll out the right cars at the right time for the customer."

Uppal, a Maruti veteran having spent 29 years the company says this is the fourth generation of technology upgrade at Maruti with an aim to keep the country's largest auto maker future ready. "It's a sea change compared to even three years back. If IT is down for one minute, three cars get delayed in the production line. That's how critical IT is."

Across India Inc be it pharma, FMCG, banks or even online marketplaces, the key business driver is IT and CIOs are creating systems that promise to make the companies future ready. Says Anil Jaggia, CIO, HDFC Bank, "today, a bank is a technology company in disguise. There's no way we could have handled the daily volume without technology. And since that count (daily transactions) increases daily, we need to be ahead of today's needs."

For example in August alone HDFC Bank handled 15 per cent of the total interbank money transactions, that is, volumes exceeding more than one million transactions. Another sector where daily volumes are high and downtime could jepordise business is online marketplaces.

Says Amitabh Misra, vice president, engineering, Snapdeal, "we connect buyers and sellers and also do post-order processing. Our catalogue of five million products is live and we add a few lakh every month. We keep ourselves future ready by solving problems that we encounter — be it scalability or introducing new languages."

On an average Snapdeal does 70 software releases a month and technology changes are real time—like on a treadmill. So software like ERP is hygiene—the focus is more on technologies that can make work smarter and better. And that includes SMAC—Social, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud computing. "The goal of IT is to implement business strategy.

For instance, when buyers visit dealers they get to meet salesmen equipped with tablets to display various colour variations and test drives uploaded on the tablets," says Uppal. Mahindra & Mahindra, which offers its motorcycles and XUVs for sale on Snapdeal, forsees a scenairo where customers in the remotest part of the country can customise their vehicals, beyond just color.

"As the cost of IT comes down, more things become viable. Designing your own car is a real possibility in the future," says executive director Pawan Goenka. While on one hand robots are being used to be future ready, on the other hand, companies are putting devices like tablets to new uses, empowering their sales force.

For example, pharma major Lupin sees the goal of IT to support bottom line and top line. Says Mayur Danait, CIO, Lupin, "the line between business and IT is blurring. Mobility and cloud are the two things that help us get to the goal. For example, we are now giving tablets to field force. MNCs have done it earlier, but I believe given the infrastructure issues in the country (limited bandwidth) the time is only right now."

Out of its 15,000 employees at Lupin a third are on the field. "The idea is to have doctor call reporting systems, chemist reporting, leave, expense and even performance appraisal via tablets. For devices like Apple iPad the mania phase is over and now is the time to derive value," says Danait.

The company is evaluating Apple iOS or Windows devices for its sales team. Lupin spends 1 per cent of its revenue on IT. Maruti declined to share its IT spend, while HDFC Bank spends about Rs 1,000 crore a year on new technologies and that's increasing by about 20 per cent a year. 

Lupin has also eliminated paper work by using a doctor call reporting system—instead of paper reports field staff now use the reporting software to send virtual reports that includes doctors feedback on new drugs.
Lupin has also introduced an SMS based anti-counterfeit solution. Lupin's 300 million medicine pack come printed with a code to authenticate whether the drug is genuine. The user can text the code to Lupin to authenticate the drug. The major FMCG companies are preparing for a situation wherein digital technology will be all pervasive in the supply chain.

"The cost of using technology to collect information has dropped by a factor of 100 in the last twenty years due to cell phones, point of sale machines and cloud computing. Real time information helps improve inventory turns, helps recue capital engagement and enables faster cycle times." says D Shiva Kumar, Chairman and CEO, Pepsi. 

FMCG major Marico is in the midst of rolling out cloud based internal social network tools for better sharing of ideas and collaborating amongst various workgroups across geographies. Says Mukesh Kripalani, chief, IT & business process transformation, Marico, "the role of IT is shifting from being a solutions provider to that of helping the CEO to shape overall business strategy." Within Marico collaboration has shifted from conference calls to using social tools like Yammer and Wooqer.

Perhaps the greatest impact of technology has been on the most regulated business — banks. And with good reasons. More people like to bank from their desktops, tablets or smartphones rather than stand in long queues in banks. Also, if India has to take banking to the masses setting up physical bank branches to cover the population could take more than two decades.

Technology brings the bank faster to customers. With the age of personalisation setting in, customers want all services on demand. "I think the future bank will do everything the way the customer wants," says Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank. Customers are adopting new services fast. 85 per cent of all fixed deposits with HDFC Bank are booked online.

Says Jaggia, "From November 2015 customers will get a chance to use digital signatures (as mandated by the Reserve Bank). This along with use of Aadhaar identity and electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) could lead to paperless loan applications."

eKYC allows banks to verify customers without need to carry documents like address proof, identity card. Given that more businesses are dependent on IT, the system level changes are live. Says Jaggia, "We change things in motion. For example we replaced the retail banking software in 10 blocks without any impact on customer service or experience."

DFC Bank has a 600 people IT team and it invests continuously in upgrading systems. At Maruti the refresh cycle which was earlier seven years has come down to four years. Maruti Suzuki has a 80 people in house technology team. Says Uppal, "my challenge is how do I adopt new technology all the time. Expectations of users—be it customers or at shop floor—are high and that makes refreshes easier to implement."

Lupin's IT roadmap is a three year plan. Says Danait, "obsolescence is high on the hardware side as technology changes rapidly." Marico has a refresh rate of three years. At new age companies like Snapdeal, technology planning is practically real time. Says Misra, "We have 350 people in IT, up from 100 nine months back, and this will easily triple in less than a year. We have to constantly keep a step ahead." And that's becoming true across industries.

By Shelley Singh, CDET 140926

GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL Android One: A smartphone googly

AT A TIME when the world was busy speculating on the look, feel and features of the new Apple iPhone, Google launched its nextgen platform— Android One— targeted at the low-end smartphone segment in emerging markets. Apple was going the highway, price-wise, while Google was targeting the volumes segment.

Spice Dream Uno ` 6,299 Karbonn Sparkle V ` 6,690 Micromax Canvas A1 ` 6,499

Three new handsets were unveiled along with the launch that will sport the operating system, and the company plans to roll them out to other developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the coming months.

The feature-rich Android One smartphones, running on high speed 3G as well as WiFi, will allow commercial transactions, let you play games and watch movies, and do a lot more— something that is currently missing in most low-cost smartphones.

But if you already have an Android phone, you cannot replace the OS with Android One, or upgrade to it.

What is Android One?

For any new software, the hardware needs to be capable of handling the software. The Android One platform boasts of the latest operating system, the new version of the 4.4 KitKat. It promises automatic updates, keeping your phone in sync with thee latest security patches, bug fixes, etc.

Why do we need new w software? ?

A numbere of personal details such as banking updates, tax information, important password etc are stored in the phone and connected with the number. Hence, the phone should be secure, with facilities such as a pass code lock, a pattern lock, etc. Such features are added to the software when updates are rolled out. As and when the maker of the detects bugs— in t his case, Google— they release r updates.

Which phones have Android One?

In India, Micromax Canvas A1 (`6,499) , Karbonn Sparkle V (`6,690) and Spice Dream Uno (`6,299) are the first ones off the block that are running Android One. All three have dual SIM, front and rear cameras and support video-calling. A quad-core processor ensures all apps run smoothly, and a MicroSD card slot lets you expand storage. The phones also give you access to Maps, so you can use them for navigation.

Google also offers subscription to magazines and newspapers for free for the first year. With Google’s announcement t hat YouTube videos will be available offline soon on Android One Devices, one can download them (in free Wifi areas) and save on data charges.

One must download apps only from the Google Play Store and check that while updating the operating system, data transfer is not counted in the monthly plan.

What about other sub-`7,000 phones?

There are quite a few options, such as the Xiaomi RedmiS1 (Android 4.3; upgrade to 4.4 not available yet) that costs ` 5,990, the Asus Zenfone 4 (`5,999; Android 4.3; upgrade to 4.4 under release) and the Nokia Lumia 530 (`6,999; Windows 8.1, which is the latest version). They are all great, sport modern operating systems, and clock speeds that are faster than Android One phones.

They also come with international warranty, which Android One phones may not have.

The verdict

If you are planning to buy a low-cost smartphone, the three Android One phones, as well as the Xiaomi Redmi S1, Asus Zenfone 4 and Nokia Lumia 530, are good options. They open up a whole new market with the latest features, operating systems and a good set of hardware, all in one go, without pinching your pockets too much.

What Android One does for the phones and what the phones do for Android One, only time will tell. It may be seen as a gamble by Google, ahead of the iPhone6 launch, but the OS surely is a step in the right direction, and great value for money.

HT 140923