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Though Ubuntu is a very popular Linux operating system at present, it doesn’t offer as many applications as a Windows based machine. Moreover, if you are migrating to Ubuntu, you might miss some of your favorite apps, which may be a deal-breaker!

What’s the fix?

Yes, dear Ubuntu struck FYUP students – here’s introducing Wine. It is a program loader which assists you in running apps in Linux & various other non-Windows operating systems for free.

File:Wine 1.3.7 on Ubuntu 10.10.png

In Ubuntu, there are different ways of obtaining WINE. One may install it through the Terminal or download it from their official website.  A simpler way is to get through the Ubuntu Software Center (Briefcase shaped icon with the alphabet ‘A’). Search for “wine” in the center, select and install “Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer (meta package) wine” from the obtained results. Enter your login password when asked. The installation may take some time, depending on your internet connection.

install-wine-on-ubuntu

Once finished installing, you may configure Wine, such as default Windows version, screen resolution and so on. Now, you can run Windows applications, by right-clicking the desired application file and selecting “Open with Wine program loader” from the drop down list.  When you install an application, a shortcut would be created on your desktop and Application menu, which runs like any other Ubuntu application – Open and Play!

However, do remember Wine cannot run all Windows applications and there may also be certain bugs present in software you run using it, which should be resolved by further updates. But, nonetheless it’s an extremely useful application which enriches your Ubuntu experience and makes it more productive.  So try your favorite Windows software, games, tools and more, on Ubuntu-  have fun!

wine-office-shortcuts-in-unity-launcher

Sidhant Malhotra
[email protected]

Want a premium smartphone that doesn’t hurt your pockets?

Well, it’s no news, that today’s smartphone market offers customer more choices than ever before – there’s one for everyone! Not only the high-end phones, but with the arrival of various Asian brands on the scene the budget phone sector has also boomed. ZTE, Gionee, Intex, Maxx and many more manufactures have entered this market now. This has divided the market into two broad categories: “premium” and “cheap”. But what about a cheap premium phone? Introducing: Moto G.

The Device

Google decided to do what Apple failed at doing with the iPhone 5C – a cheaper alternative to the flagships.  However, it took the game to a whole different level by introducing the Moto G. It is not only a cheap viable alternative to the popular low-end smartphones, but more…

With an ergonomic design & an exquisite aesthetics, it’s a beautiful device, weighing about 146 grams with a girth of 11.6 mm. To spice things up, Motorola offers 7 different colourful back-shells.

The phone features a 4.5 inch screen, with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, with a ppi (pixels per inch) density of 326  a.k.a the Retina Display boasted by the iPhones. The screen looks rich & vibrant and a great viewing experience is assured.

Instead of using a mediocre single core processor or an acceptable dual core processor, Motorola has gone all out, featuring a Quad core Snapdragon processor at the heart of this device. The device would be able to carry out the routine tasks of calling, messaging, web browsing, etc with ease while playing graphic intensive games would be a joy. Packed with a gig of RAM, it seems a great deal.

The 5-megapixel, 720p camera, may seem a letdown coupled with lack of a micro-SD card slot. However, it seems like a fair deal, keeping in mind the budget constraints. A secondary camera is present for video calling.

The Android phone runs on the newest version of Jellybean 4.3, with an available update, to the latest android version i.e. KitKat.

The user also gets 50 GB of cloud storage via Google Drive, free of cost. The phone should last through the day, considering the presence of a 2070 mAH battery. The Motorola Moto G also features water-resistant nano-coating on the inside and outside.

The Impact

Released in the international markets 3 months back, Moto G has already received rave reviews from critics around the world. The phone seemed underpriced at $179 (8 GB) considering the specification it has to offer!

The device can prove to be a game changer in the Indian market and give a tough time to leading the Sino-Indian smartphone makers such as Karbonn, Micromax, etc, more so because of the powerful legacy of Motorola (first company to produce a handheld phone!).

Also, this is the last phone developed by Motorola under Google, before Lenovo took over the brand. Its India launch got delayed and was introduced on 5th February 2014. In an exclusive tie between Motorola and Flipkart, the 8 GB version is available for Rs. 12,499 while the 16GB version (presently out of stock) is priced at Rs. 13,999.

Sidhant Malhotra
[email protected]

Until a few years ago, showcasing an event on television was the only way to connect to a large number of people without them being physically present at the venue. This also helped bigger events to gain more sponsors. However in this day & age, with high speed internet at our disposal we can broadcast any event live – for free! May it be a college’s fest, a friend’s party, your cousin’s wedding, a meeting or your big birthday bash – you can share anything and everything in real-time, with anyone and everyone!

Live Stream using a Computer

Many websites offer Live Video Streaming for free, one of the most popular and efficient one is uStream. You can either use uStream directly from the browser or download the uStream Producer (Free), for a better experience. Premium ad-free versions are also available for various prices with additional features. You will also require a camera [P.S: If you don’t have a camera you may use your smartphone as a webcam using EpocCam (Free, iOS & Android)!]. Though you can also use Livestream (another platform) and Google+/YouTube for the same purpose as well, this post uses mainly talks about uStream.

To Live Stream from the website you first need to SignUp for an account on uStream and then login with the same (Facebook Login is available). Next, click on “Create Channel” and give your channel a name. Finally, select your camera from “Video Source” drop down list and click on “Start Broadcast” to go live (Allow uStream to access video or web camera when asked). You can also click on “Start Record” to simultaneously record the broadcast for later viewing.

Live Stream using a Smartphone / Tablet

Wanna share something with the world but don’t have a computer around? No issues! You can shoot and stream live videos right from your Android or iOS devices over 3G/4G or WiFi. All you need is the uStream mobile app (Free)!

Live Broadcasting with this app is as simple as clicking a picture! After logging in with your uStream account, hit “Go Live” from the sidebar and the app opens up a camera-like interface with various functionalities. Tap the record button and you can instantly stream what you see. Though it’s pretty seamless, the video resolution is lower. Touch the same button to end recording.

Watch it Live

Once you start the broadcast through a computer or a mobile phone, the live stream can be viewed by others on your channel i.e. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yourusername. Moreover, other interactive tools can also be used while broadcasting live such as polls, live comments, chats, and one can also simultaneously share the stream using Facebook, Twitter or YouTube from the website or within the app. The live stream can also be embedded within a website! Also, if you don’t want to make the stream public but want it to be exclusive for your friends or family, you can make it accessible only to a selected audience as well.

So when the next time you want to share an experience with others, share it live, right when it happens!

Sidhant Malhotra
[email protected]

Held every year in January at Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronic Show or CES consistently brings the innovators and visionaries in the field of consumer electronics to showcase the next-generation technological creations. This year, amidst all the futuristic and revolutionary products, there were some strange and freakish gadgets as well.

Here are some of the weirdest devices introduced at CES 2014:

TREWGrip

TREWGrip-MarkParker-full

TREWGrip aspires to revolutionise the field of typing by unveiling a portable accordion style keyboard with an inbuilt mouse. The keyboard is compatible with Bluetooth enabled smart TVs, PCs and smartphones. Also, it features a universal dock which can hold any smartphone at the center. But, this isn’t a normal QWERTY keyboard, the typing keys are behind the device! You need to wrap your fingers around and type on the keyboard placed behind – just like an accordion!

LG Talking Washing Machine

LG Talking Washing Machine-2

After search engines, smartphones & computers, its washing machines! LG showcased its next-generation washing machines which can interact with users through voice commands. If asked “Wassup?”, the machine may reply ” “I’m just finishing the spin cycle, I won’t be long.” And that’s not all! The machine is connected to LG HomeChat, which allows users to control appliances by sending it instant messages from smartphones!

Kolibree

iphone +brush 2

Even the toothbrush hasn’t been spared! The French company introduced a toothbrush with built in magnetometer, accelerometer and gyroscope which enables it to record how well you brush your teeth. Moreover, it syncs the information over Bluetooth, with a smartphone app that then rates your brushing performance, out of five! It also points out areas, which need more brushing!

Parrot Jumping SumoBot

Parrot Jumping SumoBot_1

It is a mini drone, with a built in camera, that can jump up to 80 inches from the floor.  The camera enables user to direct the drone or record footage.  Equipped with various sensors like ultrasonic, pressure, accelerometer and a gyroscope, it is packed with 1GB of RAM and a 500 MHz processor. Though it’s a cool gadget to play around with, practically there’s nothing present above 80 inches which we can’t already see!

Superbed by Sleep Number

Superbed by Sleep Number_3

If 1/3rd of our lives are spent sleeping, why not sleep better? A French company Sleep Number, revealed a state of the art smart bed that monitors your sleeping behavior & patterns and transfers the information to an app for reviewing later.  It also features voice commands, with which one can enable the inbuilt massager, bed lights or the anti-snore feature, which slightly raises the bed, temporary relieving users from their partner’s snoring!

Mother

Mother_3

‘Mother’ consists of a base unit and along with some accompanying units called ‘cookies’, One places the smaller units or ‘cookies’  around the house – which will monitor motion and  temperature – on people, pets, household items, etc. , and wirelessly send the data to the central device ‘Mother’. Further, this data gets uploaded on the internet. The usage, as mentioned by the developers, gives you “peace of mind” by answering life related questions like “How much water do you drink daily?” or “How many guests visited your house this week?”  Not only does this device seem weird, but also looks creepy – it resembles a punch-clown!

Sidhant Malhotra ([email protected])

It might be a little late for writing your obituary, but almost after a week since your demise, the hollowness has just begun to sink in. Dear Google Reader, thanks for being the information aggregator that I always required. Thank you for being there, and specially for being a Google product.

When your daddy wrote this in a blog post, I almost felt that retire could be replaced with kill. The fact that I will never see my subscriptions in the Google Reader interface was just a change one wasn’t used to.

“We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.”

Now that you are gone, its strange that with so many alternatives buzzing in the Internet sphere that people hardly notice a void. They might not be Google, but they still work and surprisingly come packed in intuitive interfaces. And then your demise also created a new category called the ‘Google Reader replacement’ and a huge number of developers willingly went for the kill. Almost dying Digg saw the scope in the market and launched the Digg Reader. Established AOL announced plans of an AOL Reader. Feedly and BlogLovin have already been there since long.

Bread and butter to many and a reader’s paradise, with you RSS had been a companion. It had been there earlier but hadn’t been recognised. You gave the phenomenon visibility, thank you for that.

Like many application based services that come and go in this fast changing web world, you my friend lived a long fruitful life of eight years. In today’s world of social media dominance, I wonder whether RSS is becoming a shrinking market. I shared your loss with a few friends, and well the major response said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Sadly, the past three years of social media dominance have taken over your prowess. Twitter majorly, might be the one to blame. RSS is all about quick and light updates for news and information that matters to you. Twitter, integrated multimedia into the system, subscriptions in the form of accounts you could follow and everything in a constantly updating ‘feed’. I am not referring to it as a complete RSS alternative, it just happens to be doing a lot of damage to RSS’ market.

As a blogger, reader and Internet lover, I will miss you. We shall continue to respect you for what you gave to the Internet. You might leave us as a service, but will continue to stay in our emotional cache and mental history forever and ever. May you rest in peace and ever eternal online glory.

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) organized the Lunabotics Mining Competition in which it challenged university level students to design and build a lunar excavator, known as a LUNABOT, that can mine on lunar surface. Kirori Mal College in collaboration with Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi (whose Lunabot was on display at Antardhvani 2013) was one of the 50 International institutions invited to participate in NASA’s Fourth Annual Lunabotics The Mining Competition was held at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA from the 20th to 24th of May 2013. The KMC-CIC Lunabotics Team was one of the 12 exceptional teams whose Lunabot was successfully able to mine and dump the lunar simulant. It was the only Indian team to bring laurels to their country by winning two awards out of the five categories at the prestigious event. They won the second position for the outreach category as well as for Luna’s worldwide campaign category.

Dr. Sumitra Mohanty, Assoc Prof. Dept. of Physics was the faculty advisor of the team. The unflinching inspiration and support extended by her helped the team to scale to the projected heights. The team was led by Anubrata Saha a final year, B.Sc. (H) Physics student who the team described as the perfect leader who stays calm and refuses to give up even in the most difficult conditions. The competition was in relevance to NASA’s recently announced mission to find an asteroid by 2016 and then bring it to Cis-Lunar space; the technology concepts developed by the university teams for this competition conceivably could be used to mine resources on Asteroids as well as on Mars. KMC-CIC Lunabotics Team feels highly privileged to bring recognition to Delhi University and looks forward to continuing its engagement with NASA . It also aims to continue its winning streak at the NASA LMC 2014

 

Picture source:  www.business2community.com

 

Think about the last time you read an important piece of information. More often than not, it comes from the status updates of your numerous friends on Facebook. When you put forward an opinion, a lot of it might have drawn inspiration from your favourite tweets on the same subject. Instead of flipping through the pages of your neatly organised notebook, you would rather zoom into the picture you saved of your college timetable on your phone. Information is now merely a click away, giving people from even the most remote corners of the world an opportunity to communicate easily and efficiently. However, a majority of us are now crippled by our continuous dependency on these virtual crutches.

In the light of the latest crackdown on social connectivity, consisting of the government restricting messaging to a meagre 5 per day due to the threat towards people from the North-East did not sit too well with a society that is completely in sync with the social networking era. Thus, what actually began as a somewhat reasonable ban to prevent rumours spreading on a wide scale is now being seen as another excuse by our country’s leaders to crack the whip on our freedom of expression, be it through the SMS or the more dangerous threat of control over sites like Facebook and Twitter. Agreed, a simple ban on texting will in no way stop malicious stories leaking into the public domain. However, what is also evident is the fact that the lack of proper texting facilities didn’t lead to the end of the world a good four months before December 21st, 2012. Life continued in the same fashion as it did when the rights of texting were more liberal. When the Telecom Authority of India had declared a ban of 100 SMSs a day, so many users received a reality check when they learnt of their addiction to a piece of electronic genius. However, just as we gradually got accustomed to this new regulation and our tired fingers were fortunate enough to be subjected to marginally less typing, the new ban for a short period of only 12 days is too insignificant a sacrifice being paid for the uproar it has caused.

With the messaging limit being later extended from 5 to 20, and finally the lift of the ban, social networking sites immediately saw the appearance of memes and statuses proclaiming happiness almost equal to a nation winning its first world cup. The excitement of being able to send 15 more messages a day seemed palpable as almost everyone had their phones out the next day, furiously typing as they stared into a mini screen that flickered with notifications received from their equally enthusiastic recipients. However, the comment that made me stop and re-evaluate how dependant we really have become to these social platforms was when someone casually remarked, “I don’t know about people with those outdated phones, but almost everyone has a Blackberry or a smart phone now. That keeps us connected through BBM, Whatsapp and Facebook. This ban on texts is just a minor glitch,” said one such addict with a beeping Blackberry in hand.

The number of times we refrain from using our electronic gadgets for practically everything can be counted off our fingers. When you start working on your super important project one day before the deadline, you thank the Google and Wikipedia gods for showering their blessings on you. Our internalisation of technology is evident from the use of phases like ‘I googled that information’ or ‘I saw that on her wall last week,’ while only a couple of decades ago, walls referred to those rectangular combinations of cement and plaster of Paris that form the outline of every structure. As for the future, this incessant need to be constantly linked to everyone around only seems to be growing as social media spreads its branches and reaches out to every single entity within and beyond its periphery. Social networking and technology provide us with an easier and more efficient lifestyle, but that doesn’t alter the reality that if our parasitic existence continues, we might just be witness to the dawn of a Matrix-inspired end to our civilisation.