Latest
DU Beat – Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper
Author

DU Beat

Browsing
Arts & Culture

iPhone 5- You Like it, But Should You Buy it?

By

Low and behold! The iphone 5 is finally here, a device that’s thinner, lighter, faster and taller than its predecessor.
“This is the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since the iPhone,” said Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller. But is it really worth a buy? Let’s find out.

Firstly here are some significant and interesting features worth noting:

  1. Taller, thinner, and a metal back

The iPhone 5 features a 4-inch display (i.e. it’s larger than the iPhone 4S) and an aluminum and glass body that weighs 112 g and is 7.6 mm thick, making it 20 percent lighter and 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S. Touch sensors are now built into the display itself, which makes it 30 percent thinner as a result and less prone to glare.

The phones will be two toned, coming in either black and slate or white and silver. Apple iPhone 4S was given a glass back which got cracked by accidental falls frequently. Fortunately Apple has learnt their lesson from iPhone 4S and has provided a metal back this time, which is sure to play in their favor as far as durability of the body is concerned.

You won’t have to scroll that much because the larger screen will allow a fifth row of icons .On the down side most of the applications you have will not utilize all the space on the screen and will show black borders on the top and bottom of the application. The fate of this extra space will be decided by the application developers, whether to provide the customers with a better application experience or exploit the space by advertisements.

     2.     LTE (Long Term Evolution) and carriers

The iPhone 5 will run on 4G LTE networks. That’s in addition to the current support for GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, and HSPA data networks. iPhone 5 has an inbuilt dynamic antenna which allows you to switch among these networks smoothly. The 4G connection will double the speed internet browsing and downloading content.

Taking in account the Indian disputes over 3G, it might take some time before the 4G internet service is started in India. In the absence of a suitable 4G connection the network will run on 3G connection and HSPA data network

      3.     A faster chip (A6 Chip)

The iPhone 5 is also powered by a faster A6 processor. According to Apple’s specialists, users will see Web pages load 2.1 times faster, and the Music app with songs will load 1.9 times faster. Combining both the 4G LTE and A6 chip the entire iPhone’s operating speed and internet speed is bound to impress many iphone4S users.

     4.     Battery life and Audio

Phone calls (the reason we bought phones for once upon a time) will be better and have three microphones and a noise-canceling earpiece, in addition to Apple’s new “wideband” audio that promises to deliver more natural sounding voice. Apple claims a longer batter backup with 8 hours of 3G talk time, 8 hours of 3G browsing, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music playback, and 225 hours of standby time.

      5.      Camera

It comes with a spiffier camera, front and back facing cameras have each been upgraded (they’ll be 720p and 1080p, respectively) and users will be able to take much larger photos thanks to the new Panorama feature. There also a new image signaling mechanism within the A6 chip, which will bring spatial noise reduction and a “smart filter” that, produces better low-light performance and captures photos faster. Finally, there’s a built-in panorama mode that stitches shots together for one large 28-megapixel photo.

      6.     Lightning Power connector

The traditional 30-pin power connector has been replaced with much smaller one called Lightning is in. According to Apple, lightning is only 20 percent the size of the previous one. That means your iPod and iPad chargers won’t be charging your phone anymore. The various audio partners of apple which include BOSE will be coming up with new devices which will be compatible with the new connector.

Pricing for the different configurations is as follows: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, $399 for 64GB. It will be launched in India at sometime in early November this year. Also, note that the price of the iPhone 5 16 GB is same as the price of iPhone 4S 16 GB .For those who were hoping to buy a buy an iPhone 4S should definitely wait for the launch of iPhone 5 in India .

The Verdict: Should you buy it ?

Yes, the iPhone5 is definitely worth buying but unfortunately without a decent 4G connection it will not be performing at its maximum potential. The new design will adversely affect the view of the old applications and upcoming applications which should be solved in a few months. But the increase in battery life and the A6 chip alone make this iPhone a must buy.

 

Pinakita Gupta & Arjun Khosla
[email protected] ; [email protected] 

Keep Reading
By
Campus Central

DUSU Elections 2012- NSUI beats ABVP

By

Saturday, September 15, 2012 Congress’ student wing NSUI swept the Delhi University Students Union polls, winning all three top posts of president, vice president and secretary. NSUI’s Arun Hooda defeated, a margin of 5,465 votes. As against Arun who got 17,621 votes Choudhry secured just 12,156 votes.

For the post of vice president NSUI’s Varun Khari defeated ABVP’s Gaurav Chaudhary, and Varun Choudhry won the post of secretary by defeating ABVP’s Ritu Rana. There was a tie between NSUI’s Raveena Choudhary and ABVP’s Vishu Basoya for the position of Joint Secretary.

“I am extremely happy, it was indeed a well deserved victory” says a supporter of the winning president Arun Hooda.

The DUSU elections were held yesterday in which 40% polling was reported. The ABVP is obviously not satisfied with the results and alleged rigging in the elections and staged protest at the Delhi Universitycampus, to control which the police had to resort to lathi charge. Since the morning, the area near the University Plaza and Dean Student welfare where the counting was taking place was cordoned off by the police and nobody, not even the media was allowed in.

 

Aishwarya
[email protected]

Picture credits: Swadha Singh

Keep Reading
By
Campus Central

Venky Elections: Results and Agendas

By

Amidst a great deal of anxiety and excitement, Venky’s elections took place on Friday, the 14th of September. Leading up from the intense campaigning of the previous weeks, which included showers of pamphlets being thrown on the students, vote appeals between classes and allegations of bribing voters; it would be sufficient to say that this voting season was full of surprises.

The results were declared soon after the booths were closed and were as follows – Mandeep, a third student of Physics Honours was declared President, Sachin Mann a first year student of B.A Programme the Vice President, Sagar Gupta the General Secretary, Manisha Thakran a second year student of Physics Honours the Joint Secretary and Sanjay Rawal a third year student of Chemistry Honours the Central Coordinator.

All four were exhausted from campaigning but ecstatic at their victory. Said Mandeep, newly elected President, “The credit goes to my friends who supported me at every step of the way, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. It was my goodwill and that of my friends that ensured my victory.” In response to a question about work to be undertaken he replied, “I want to start a forum wherein CR’s of the classes can talk to the cabinet regarding their problems and in this way we can be in touch with all courses. Moreover, renovation in the canteen, better administrative practices and arranging for a special hostel for sportspersons is on the agenda.”

A jubilant Sanjay Rawal

Vice President Sachin felt that recognition and help from the authorities would be vital for the success of the cabinet. Joint Secretary Manisha agreed with the administrative problems and added, “There are a lot of problems with respect to infrastructure in college that we want to address. The base of which is to ensure working fans and lights which are sometimes ignored and not maintained. Also, we want to start a department library in the Arts Block (a library which caters to specific courses and books can be issued for the whole semester). Apart from that I want to see a bigger and better Nexus 2013.” Joint Secretary Sanjay has a two point agenda. He said, “As of now, there are two things we want to do. First to try and get a lift constructed for differently abled students, who face problems if their classes are held on the upper floors and secondly, get the library hours extended as those courses where the classes end late are not able to avail of the services.”

It remains to be seen how many of these promises the new cabinet can deliver, as of now however they all seem optimistic and ready to face any obstacles that bar Venky from becoming truly world class.

 

Riddhi Dayal
[email protected]

Keep Reading
By
Campus Central

SRCC Elections- Who and What Won

By

After the spirited build-up on the speech day that took place on Thursday, students, unaffected by the rains that lashed the city, turned up to vote for their favoured candidates on Friday at SRCC. The candidates standing for various posts, were representing three respective panels, namely, the Hosteliers Panel, led by Rajan Chhabra, the Day Scholars’ Panel, captained by Prateek Handa, and the “V” Panel led by Vivek Jain.

The EVM results of posts for College President, General Secretary, and DU Central Councillors came out at around 2 in the afternoon, which saw Rajan Chhabra’s panel winning with a hands-down 4-0. The students winning the posts were Rajan Chhabra for College President, Ajay Kiraan for General Secretary and Amitabh Paul and Hari for DUSU CCs.

The results for the respective societies came later, and the Hosteliers’ Panel couldn’t have been happier as they won all the possible posts, bringing the statistics to 16-0.

The winning candidates were Bhanu Pratap and Priyamvad Yadav for President and Secretary respectively, Economics Society, Abhishek Vyas and Chandan Dhand for President and Secretary, English Literary Society, Satrajeet Mukherjee and Ankana Ghatak for President and Secretary, Fine Arts Society, Prajwal Bimali and Rahul Kothari for President and Secretary, Commerce Society, Ashish Mohanka and Kanika Gupta for President and Secretary respectively, Hindi Sahitya Sabha and Vardhman Jain and Lalit Chopra for President and Secretary, History and Political Science Society.

While Prajwal Bimali received the highest number of votes polled, a whopping 1112, Kanika Gupta won her post with the highest margin.

A visibly jubilant Rajan Chhabra mentioned in his speech, “We have worked hard in the past, and promise to work even harder in the future. Also, we have no hard feelings for anyone from the opposite panel, and we appreciate their efforts.”

An emotional Bhanu Pratap quoted, “It was a roller coaster ride, full of twists and turns, but those who were truthful to themselves, emerged as winners. We are looking forward to taking Ecosoc. and Srcc to greater heights.”

“What followed the announcement of the results was pure hysteria. The campus resonated with cheers of “Kunde hoye!” a South Indian victory song of sorts adopted by the hosteliers. The winning team was seen showering each other chips, supporters of the winning panel were dancing on the tables in the canteen,  it was crazy!”, informed Priyansha Saxena a student.

There were also a few verbal spats here and there, but no serious aggression was seen.

While the running helter-skelter convincing people to vote, almost spamming our inbox with vote appeals and general sweat and toil paid off for some, others had to face dejection, but what was noteworthy was the spirit with which the elections were contested.

Vatsala Gaur
[email protected]

Picture credits: Swadha SIngh 

Keep Reading
By
Bazinga

Bazinga

By

DUSU elections have a new game-changer. A real threat to the existing band of boys and girls chock-full of braggadocio who have dominated elections in the Varsity till date, Ranbir Kapoor, alias Janardhan riding on the tall crest of success following his musical accomplishments has filed his nominations for the post of President today. He has always shown his ambitious attitude since voicing his wish to replicate the success of his idol, Jim Morrison. The already established stalwarts of the DU elections scenario have each expressed their surprise and also a strange fear regarding this new behemoth of a contestant which has seemingly weakened their bladders. Popular among his wannabe-fans as Jordan, Janardhan has issued a statement saying that his decision to file his candidature came after his peers and seniors began to mock his whacked-out sense of dressing and consequently he would want to try and implement a uniform in the University that would be identical to his daily wear. However in a shockingly honest and true declaration he further stated that the final and strongest spurt of determination for him came when he realised that his acting career had nothing more to offer him and he is better off as a typeset DU student.

Keep Reading
By
Sex Amma

Sex Amma

By

Hi, I am fourteen years old and yesterday I was rubbing my thing down there while watching American Pie. Suddenly, white viscous liquid spurted out. I am very scared. Does this mean I have lost my virginity? It did feel really good. Can you hook me up with someone who can help me in the future? It took and aweful long time this time, approximately three hours. I was hoping to clock it under ten minutes.

 

Now this is one of our good kiddos, gave Amma exactly the kind of imagery that’ll give her sleepless nights! Eeeeeekh! So now that Amma is done going through the setting, the activity, the ‘climax’ and well, anti- climax, let’s get to the yissue.

My sweetest, you are at the doorstep of teenage so many and most of these sudden changes are normal. Your hormones are doing overtime, that is causing the physical set of changes like the one you got all graphic about above. And the same hormones can be held responsible for the emotional changes, anxiety is one.

A good person to talk to would be a counsellor; you might have access to one at school. Talking to your parents if you are this open with them is a very good idea too.

And three hours you say, that is probably because you were watching AMERICAN PIE 1, Amma suggests watching American Pie Beta House, yuuumm never mind. So do talk to a trusted elder and next time when you are planning to take matters into your own hand, try not going all Usain Bolt and clocking the thing down!

 

You could mail Amma your queries on the ‘hush hush’ topic at [email protected].

Keep Reading
By
Arts & Culture

Must-Have Apps For Y’All

By

1. Evernote – Free Available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, WebOS, Maemo,BlackBerry and Google Wave, it’s considered the ultimate note-taking tool that keeps your notes in sync between devices. You can also record audio notes, store images, and keep all of this info well-organized with the help of notebooks and tags. 2. Grades: Student Organizer – $0.99 This Android app promises to help you get better grades! Based on a person’s ‘goal grade,’ the app tells you to required grade needed in the next test to bump up your score. It is yet another powerful organizational tool for students, featuring options like attendance monitoring, teacher and professor contact information storage, an advanced calendar and others. 3. My Student Budget Planner – Free It helps you to establish what you can spend each week, tracks your spending, stores your progress, re-calculates week-on-week so that you stay within budget. Thus, download My Student Budget Planner for Android to start keeping track of your spending. 4. Trackclass – Free  This app (available on iPhone, iPad and Android) is useful as it allows you to add classes and events for each class, attach files, receive reminders for upcoming events, take notes and view all the information at a glance on a Dashboard. One can even attach files to each class and assignment to keep things organized. It is a great way for students to stay organized. 5. Alarm Clock Xtreme – Free This Android app is for all those people who simply can’t get up in the morning. You can set it to wake up gently and gradually, set a variable snooze duration, and even set it to so you have to solve math problems before it will turn off the alarm. The app also features a countdown timer and allows you to set reminder alarms for events throughout the day. 6. Textalazyer – $0.99 Alcohol and texting are a potent combination. This interesting little app (available on the iPhone) is a boon for those nursing broken hearts. If helps people by not enabling them to drunk dial their ex. First, one has to enter contacts in the ‘forbidden contacts’ list and to later access this list, one has to go through a series of tough memory and concentration questions. Hence, saved from embarrassment. Problem solved.   Riddhi Dayal [email protected]]]>

Keep Reading
By
Campus Central

DU in Desperate Need of Revaluation

By

Exam results are generally not what most students look forward to. So when Delhi University decides to go ahead and make the experience even more harrowing, you can’t really blame them for being disgruntled.

Most of them would agree without question that the revaluation system is a major pain. Under the system, if there’s a difference of 5% between the original and the revaluated marks, no change would be made. In case the difference in between 5-10%, average of the two marks would be awarded. And if it is more than 10%, the paper would be reexamined and the average of the two highest marks amongst them would be awarded.

Something that appears to be troubling most students is the methodology of awarding marks within this system itself. The question that’s on their minds, put simply, would read something like this- why am I being awarded averaged marks instead of what I actually secured? “Why am I being penalized for the examiner’s mistake and why am I being charged for it? This is rubbish”, says Rudrakshica, a 3rd year economics student.

The whole system, however, now seems like a money making gimmick. Not only has the revaluation fee sky rocketed from Rs. 250 per paper a few  years ago to Rs. 1000 per paper in the present day, it also seems as if the papers have been deliberately marked less to possibly increase revenue from this source. Take for instance, the curious case of notoriously low marks in one of the Economics 2nd year papers- Indian Economic Development (IED). It is true that students were given grace marks in Microeconomics on account of the horrifying paper but that in no way justifies the enormous scaling down that has happened in IED. This has led to most of the students applying for revaluation in this paper. Taking into account the number of students currently pursuing this course in DU, the revenue that they would have generated from this is something that boggles the mind.

There is no questioning the fact that such a steep increase in revaluation fee is to deter those who give in their papers just for the sake of it. However, what they seem to forgetting is the fact that those who are genuinely facing a problem are also students and Rs. 1000 per paper might not be something that they could afford. Time to become a little more student friendly, DU?

 

Surya Rajappan
[email protected] 

Keep Reading
By
Juxtapose

St. Stephen’s v/s LSR: War Of The Cafés

By

Graphic credits- Siddhant Sharma

Stephen’s steamed chicken momos or LSR’s kathi rolls?
Not only is Stephens known for its “egg” recipes- the delicious omelettes served with a knife and a fork,and the cheese scrambled egg, it’s Minced chicken maggi and dosas are also famous.
LSR on the other hand has to it’s credit a vast menu which ranges from keema dosas to butter chicken and from pizzas and hot dogs to seek kebab rumali rolls. While both these canteens assert themselves as “cafes” , it is still tough to say which is better.

Leave your comments to give us a winner.

Post your argument below.

Keep Reading
By