Use of Artificial Intelligence in Technical Writing

The concept of Artificial Intelligence(AI) is not new, but applying this concept in the field of technical writing has turned out to be the talk of the town, at least within the technical communication fraternity. The Brobdingnagian amount of comfort that AI brings to both the writers and the audience is flabbergasting. In this article, I have first briefly described what AI is and then described two tools which you can use in your documents to enhance document quality and the user experience. Before we dive deep into the application of AI into technical writing, let us first understand what AI is.

Any form of intelligence exhibited by machines is called artificial intelligence. To elaborate, any device which has mastered the art of sensing its environment and reacting accordingly is said to be artificially intelligent.

With this brief knowledge of AI, we can now look forward to its implementation in the field of technical writing. The two main technical writing stakeholders addressed in this article are:

•        The writer
•        The end user

AI can facilitate writers with jaw dropping tools which add a totally new dimension to the documents. The Watson Tone Analyze service, developed by IBM, adds the dimension of Tones to your documents. So, what exactly has a tone got to do with technical documents? In a quest to accomplish grammatical accuracy and technical correctness, the content’s language and emotional tones, which can drastically impact a reader’s mood, takes a back seat. The Watson Tone Analyzer goes a long way in curbing the negativity of content and making the tone of the document more immaculate. 

Tones form the fulcrum of Watson Tone Analyzer service. The content is analyzed to detect the presence of seven important Tones viz: Anger, Fear, Joy, Sadness, Analytical, Confident and Tentative. The first four Tones are associated with emotions and the rest three with language. (To view the official definition of Tones, refer “General purpose tones” section in https://console.bluemix.net/docs/services/tone-analyzer/using-tone.html).

Now, if your content has more of Anger Tone in it, then the document could be open for interpretation. A reader who himself is frustrated at the time of reading your document, might very well come up with a conclusion “Oh... The way the document is written, looks like the writer has done a great favor to me”. On similar grounds, high levels of Tentative Tone could make the reader feel “Does the process really happen as described?” In extreme cases, a frustrated customer could very well end up approaching a competitor, more due to the un appealing tone of the document, rather than the product itself.

So, how does the Watson Tone Analyzer rate your documents? Based on the likelihood of a Tone’s existence. The Tone score ranges from .5 to 1. If a Tone gets a score of less than .5, it means there is a high probability that no content in your document has this Tone. On the other hand, if a Tone scores more than .75, there is a high probability that the content in your document has this Tone. Anything ranging from .5 to .75, implies there is a possibility (but not strong enough) that the respective Tone might exist in the content.

The documents are evaluated at two levels, viz: Document-level and Sentence-level. The former provides a summarized view of the Tone scores. The latter provides a detailed view of the content. The sentences which are responsible for the presence of a Tone are highlighted, based on the score line.

If you are an avid techie and wish to try this service, you can do it right away. Just browse the IBM experimental page https://tone-analyzer-demo.mybluemix.net/  

If you have high volumes of data, ensure that you do not input more than 1000 sentences in an iteration. When I put up parts of the content (which you have been reading until now), this is what I found:

Fig-1 Document-level analysis by Watson Tone Analyzer

                                                   

Fig-2 Sentence-level analysis by Watson Tone Analyzer

So, moving on from writers, now let’s see how AI can delight the customers.

The Amazon Alexa is a dream come true service for the readers, since it is voice based and amuses the readers with a human touch. The readers can ask questions to Alexa if they are struck while reading the help document and Alexa responds to solve their queries.

Interesting, isn’t it? Wondering how this happens? Well, a customer must purchase an Amazon device which can use Alexa (Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo plus, Amazon Dot etc). Customer interacts via an Alexa powered device and gets response from Alexa. In case your confused, Alexa is a cloud based voice service. Alexa powered device uses this service to serve the customer(reader). 

When your document is ready, you need to surf the developer.amazon.com and create "intents" and their respective "slots". Intent is simply a task to be achieved. A slot is variable which relates to an intent. Amazon provides many built-in slots. For instance, a Date slot is used when you deal with data which works on Dates. Custom slots are created when the existing built-in slots are not sufficient to achieve intent tasks. 

You must also include a possible list of queries known as "utternaces" which the customer might raise when he is struck in a paragraph. Include as much utterances as possible so that Alexa can understand what the customer wants. 

For instance, consider a document in which you feel the customer might be struck up in the first step. So, you can create a create an intent known as "understanding step-1", create a custom slot for it and define utternaces which can be something like:

•          Alexa explain me step 1
•         Alexa what does the first step mean
•         Alexa this step on the first line is driving me crazy. Help me understand it

You can refer https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/custom-interaction-model-reference.html for more information on intents, skills and utternaces. The actual code which reads the intents, slots, and utternaces is generally written in AWS lambda. 

When you input all this information in the cloud based Alexa, this information is accessed by all the Alexa powered devices. The customer purchases one such device, reads the document and asks questions when he is struck. Alexa responds. The entire process of creating slots, intents, utternaces, lambda code is called “teaching Alexa a new skill”. 

Hacking: An ethical perspective

“Can hacking be made completely Ethical?”, has turned out to be a million-dollar question of the 21^st century. The simple answer however is a big NO. As it is said “if God exists then even demons do exist” similarly if an ethical hacker exists then his unethical counterpart also exists in some part of the world.

Let’s explore what this ethical, unethical fuss is all about and before that what hacking itself is?

In common terms, hacking basically is stealing of information from someone’s electronic device, but on a broader scale hacking involves targeting of high end servers to bring them down, network jamming causing denial of service and lots of other deadly attack on a PC, network or a server.

The ‘ethical’ version of hacking has been the talk of the town ever since hacking came into picture. It continues to be an unsolved riddle for many, as to how hacking can be made ethical, when the very term of hacking itself is considered a crime by cyber police.

Now, consider a situation in which your friend challenges you to hack his FB account. You do it successfully. Congrats, you will shortly face a trial in cyber court. That is because even though your friend might have given you permission in writing to hack his FB account, but the fact is that your friend does not own Facebook. He only has an account in it. Mark Zuckerburg can sue you in a cyber court. So need to be really careful.

Well, hacking does have a lot of merits, which is a major reason why people are considering ethical hacking as a profession and new courses on the same are being taught. Here is a look up at when exactly can we call hacking as ethical.

Ethical hacking usually is done by an organization itself to explore loopholes in its network security. Usually a written statement is given by the organization to the hacker that he will not be under any threat if he succeeds in hacking. An organization hires a certified hacker to try and hack into its network and get critical information. Now the hacker can either succeed or fail in hacking. If he fails its good, because this implies that the company has a strong network security which is if highly difficult, if not impossible to be hacked. The other scenario could be that the hacker succeeds in what he is up to. But this absolutely causes no loss to the company since it is aware of what’s happening. In fact, this helps the organization in identifying the flaws in its network security and thus improving the same. The ethical hacker however after finishing his work should not leave any footprints behind which could aid a not ethical hacker to re hack the system. Greater luxuries of hacking, are however enjoyed by Indian intelligence bureau who intercept conversations which are fishy. Not only the Indian intelligence agencies, other top intelligence agencies have got an army of hackers who are deemed to be “ethical” because they are working for the good or at least to prevent the bad.

So, for those of you who are excited to pursue a career as an ethical hacker, here are the three most sought after courses in this domain:

·      Certified Ethical Hacker V9(CEH).

·      Global Information Assurance Certification Penetration tester(GIAC)

·      Offensive Security Certified professional(OSCP)

Nirbhaya- A Tale of Tears

A pic showing Nirbhaya, before the attack(right) and after the attack (left)

If PAIN was an abbreviation then its expanded form would look something like “Plethoric Agony of Innocent Nirbhaya”. I hope everyone remembers who Nirbhaya was? The unfortunate girl who was at the receiving end of brutality showcased by a breed whom some people still call humans. Really astonished to know that they are yet to be hanged.

So, let's turn the tide back and look at the series of events from that day till day(15 Dec 2015). That day was also has the same date as today except for the year column which reads 2012. On that unfortunate Sunday evening, Nirbhaya along with her friend, had planned to spend some time together. They went to an evening show of the then famous "Life of PI" movie, post which they were wondering on how to head back home. It was then that misery struck, and struck them really hard.

They were unable to neither get any local transit nor was any auto driver ready to drop them at their destination and then they saw a bus heading their way. The bus halted in close proximity. Both of them figured out that although it was a private bus but still had a few passengers. They boarded the bus with a sigh of relief that at least it would reduce the distance to their destination if not make them reach their destination. This turned out to be the biggest mistake of both their lives. Little did they know that the bus they boarding into had no other passengers and the rest who pretended to be passengers were all of the same inhuman gang who had already robbed a poor person who had boarded their bus before Nirbhaya and her friend. Although the person who had boarded the bus prior to Nirbahya and her friend did inform two police officials who were on rounds, about the robbery and also the fact that they were all drunk. The two cops paid little heed to his words and in fact suggested him that "complaints are not lodged on road, so better visit a nearby police station" and zoomed of on their motor bikes.

Meanwhile in the bus the goons including driver and the so called "juvenile" had started teasing Nirbhaya and her friend. It was then that her friend protested and demanded an immediate halt. The goons snatched their mobiles, wallets and started beating up Nirbhaya's friend brutally. The driver hit him hard on his head with a rod and he fell unconscious. Poor Nirbhaya cried out for help but since the glasses of the bus were jam packed no one could either hear nor see her from outside. After her friend, it was now Nirbhaya's turn to suffer. They started by gang raping her and then it didn't at all stop there. They were all bent upon maximizing the pain on hapless Nirbhaya. The so called juvenile went to the in human extent of inserting rod in her private part and was repeatedly screaming "mar saali" (die you *******). Even though Nirbhya, who was in tears pleaded for her life promising that she will not tell anyone of the incident none of them felt pity at her condition. In fact all those sadists were ecstatic to see Nirbhaya on her heels pleading them. Finally after they felt that had pinned down their opponents they decide to throw them off their bus in the chilling cold with no clothes on both of their victims.

Nirbhaya laid unconscious but her friend recovered and started pleading for clothes and a trip to hospital. Many people did pass by and saw them but didn't stop to help them. It was after around an hour that a good soul arrived to their rescue. He took them to hospital and the doctor who saw Nirbhaya for the first time said "this is not rape this is madness".

Soon the news of this unfortunate event spread not only throughout Delhi but whole of India. Outraged by the incident, people came out on streets and demanded those six people be handed to public rather then being put behind the bars. Seeing this level of public outburst government was quick to realize that this outrage could really lead to something terrible if not controlled. Local police was under tremendous pressure and within a short notice got hold of all six perpetrators. The two cops who could have turned out to be last ray of hope for Nirbhya had they reacted instantly, were instantly fired from their services.

Amidst all these developments Nirbhaya's deterioting health was a big cause of concern. After a few intense days of medical treatment and observation government decided to shift her to Singapore, but nothing really seemed to work as Nirbhaha bid a sad farewell to her life, a few days post being shifted to Singapore. Her grief struck parents and a couple of younger brothers bought her body back only to be buried after she faced all that brutality.

Government decided to put the case in fast track from day one itself. But one of the perpetrator who was lucky that he was just 17 seemed to have escaped because of juvenile laws which impose a maximum punishment of just three years to be spent in correction home for any crime committed by someone less then 18. Government set up a three member panel which had to rethink on reduction of age limit of juveniles for the simple fact that the sixth criminal who was not only a juvenile but was most ferocious of all other when it came to level of atrocity being exhibited. But unfortunately the panel didn't recommend the reduction in age and as a result the sixth criminal had a lucky escape with just 3 years of correction home residence. 

But his five other counterparts had to face their trials in the fast track court. One of them who was the driver (may be ashamed of what he did) committed suicide in jail. But for sure God would have had returned him the same pain that he inflicted on the helpless girl.

The rest of the four perpetrators were prosecuted in a fast track court, which gave out its judgement within 8 months after the occurrence of the incident. There were no surprises in the death penalty judgement, as that was something the whole of the nation demanded. The case was also deemed as “rarest of rare”. As expected all of the four accused have challenged the decision in supreme court, which is yet to hear their petitions. And as for the juvenile, he is going to finish his three years term in correction home in a week’s time and what to do with him next has turned out to be an enigma for the Government. Because juvenile officials say that at the correction home is inmate was a juvenile terrorist and he has brain washed this rapist, who has already shown everyone how violent he can be. Now, if he is set free then the prospect of him joining a terror group and wrecking more havoc is on the cards, big time. But human rights activists say that he should be “given a chance” to be a good person. Well, human rights people should first understand that Human rights are for humans and anyone who has a couple of legs, hands, ears, eyes with a mouth and ear cant be termed human. Even modern robots have these.

Many people including Nirbhaya’s parents are of the opinion that the juvenile who’s face has been kept in dark all these years should be made to face the public. “If you want to release him release him, but show his face before releasing him” has turned out to be a popular banner writing. So 21^st December 2015 is the last date of the juvenile’s stay in correction home, post which government needs to take a call on whether to extend his stay or release on some conditions or do something else. But, I personally feel if you have to release him better castrate him and release him. At least he cant repeat the same crime. Nirbhaya’s parents got some cash from Government and one of her younger brother has been offered a government job. As for Nirbhaya’s friend he still wanders on those streets of Delhi wondering how different life would have been had he and Nirbhaya not boarded that bus on that black Sunday.

And finally Nirbhaya who had great aspirations to be a doctor could reach hospital only as a patient and finally rest in peace, but many difficult to answer questions still galore around her death. What wrong did she do to deserve this hatredness?, Could she have survived if anyone came to her rescue immediately after being thrown out of the bus, and more importantly Has she got justice?   

Bhopal Gas Tragedy-2-Dec-1984

The infamous pic of the buried child in the Bhopal incident 

Thirty-one years ago a terrible incident occurred at Bhopal which has left the lives of people wet eyed for the rest of not only their lives but also the next of their kins. Let’s revisit and have a look as to what actually happened on that unforgettable night of 2-12-1984.

Union carbide, a well know multi national had well established itself in the heart of India in the city of Bhopal. Their reputation spoke for themselves as they were one of the very few known multi national to operate with high levels of profit on a consistent basis. Let’s explore a bit of history on Union carbide.

Bhopal during the 1970’s was a poor city just like many of its Indian counterparts. People were looking for work, work and just work. It was then that the Union carbide came up with the proposal of setting up one of its unit in Bhopal. The top officials of the company had great relationship with the local government. The government officials were happy as well because they were able to hit two birds with a single pebble i.e to provide jobs to unemployed which would greatly benefit them during elections and secondly the fact that they can use it up as a weapon to show “development” has been done in Bhopal, a result of which an MNC has its branch in such a small city. Union carbide was also under huge profits as they got lands at a very low cost to set up their factories. It was a total win-win situation for both the parties involved.

Union carbide manufactured a pesticide called “Siven” which infected the nervous system of the pests and killed them. All seemed to go well for a few years but then came the doomsday. The company wanted to cut down its costs, even at the risk of employees safety. They replaced the experienced candidates with freshers (as they can pay them a lesser pay package) stating that they will train them and make them as perfect as their predecessors. This did’nt have much effect on safety as the newly employed candidates lacked experience but not talent. But the company’s greed just did’nt end here.  

As it is said that “Every misfortune does ring a bell before its arrival” similarly there were danger bells in this case to but they were all ignored. A few years before the deadly incident occurred an employee lost his life, thanks to the company’s cost saving techniques, which was just an indication to occurrence of the calamity. If the company had reacted at the death of this employee many lives would have had been saved. But that did’nt happen. The company switched off the cooling system  that cooled an “underground monster”, which  was an important ingredient in manufacturing of siven.  The Nitrogen levels present in underground tanks along with the "monster" was alarmingly decreasing and the company didn’t bother to enhance the tanks with more nitrogen. Even the pressure indication meters which showed the pressure levels in underground tanks, were not working properly. A blocker or safety valve which stopped water from mixing with the "deadly monster' had to be installed by opening a pipe but the company did’nt consider this as an important task since it cost them around 2-3 hours of a labor’s work time and this work gave them no productivity but would have enhanced the security of employees which was not on the company’s profit agenda.

So now let’s see the "monster" discussed above and the one which wrecked havoc in Bhopal that night. It was “Methyl iso cyanide” a deadly dangerous and highly reactive chemical stored in huge amount in three underground tanks in gaseous form. Cyanide is something, which if you lick you die and this was combined with methyl and was in gaseous state as well which meant that if the tanks burst, gaseous methyl iso cyanide could easily evaporate into the atmosphere.

So on that deadly night a few workers were performing a routine clean up work of some pipes. A strange incident occurred. They were cleaning a huge pipe but the water that they poured from one end didn’t flow out from another end and this caused a few tremors in the workers but none of them knew this would trigger something really bad a couple of hour later. They called a few experts to track the path traversed by water in the pipe. Before the experts could start their trail water did start to flow out from the other end which made everyone breath a sigh of relief, but not for too long. What everyone missed was the fact that some of the water, used up for cleaning somehow changed its path and headed towards the deadly containers having methyl iso cyanide. On its way the water stream also took the rusty parts of iron as well. The safety valve was missing which could have been the best water blocker but since it was not installed water flew viscously. Nitrogen gas could have had stopped water from interacting with methyl iso cyanide but since it had exhausted, water eventually did meet with monster and they both turned out to be a deadly duo. The result of this mixture (and also not to forget the iron rust particles which water bought with it) gave way to a deadly chemical reaction in the tank which increased the pressure levels greatly in the tank. But no one was aware of it, since the pressure valves were not working properly. Had the cooling system switched on,it would have had solidified the resultant chemical. The pressure slowly increased and reached a great extent and it was now that the pressure valves shooted up directly from zero to maximum and the staff got a rough idea of what they were up against. With very less reaction time in hand they were quick to realize that methyl iso cyanide has escaped from the tank and is heading towards chimney from where it can directly interact with the atmosphere thus creating a cloud of death. In a last attempt to avoid the disaster they tried shooting water jets at the gas while it was moving out from chimney, but they neither had sufficient cold water nor the water jets were strong enough to reach the peak of chimney from where the gas flew out. They did ring the emergency siren but it was only for employees not the city of Bhopal which was deep into sleep since it was midnight. 

What happened next is remembered till date. As this deadly gas entered people’s lungs they started to cough initially and their eyes began to heat up giving them a burning sensation. Slowly more and more people and eventually the whole town was under the cluthches of this deadly gas. People started to madly run towards hospitals. Many of them losing their lives on the way and many after reaching hospital. The doctors had no idea as to what had hit the town such that it was threatening to take Bhopal’s population to zero in a matter of night. Even though the doctors came to know that it was methyl iso cyanide but they did’nt know how to cope up with the patients and what treatment to be given.  They could helplessly only see people dying in front of them. The news of Bhopal tragedy spread all over India and even the world. Everyone wanted to know how did it all happen. Quite ironic was the fact that a company which started as a manufacturer of pesticides was killing people like pests. Even animals were not spared by this horror night.

The then CEO of Union carbide Warren Anderson visited India the next morning. Everyone wanted him arrested and it did happen to. But he was released on bail within four days courtesy his good relations with local government and he left India immediately never to return. (Warren Anderson died in September 2014)

Indian Government appointed Mr. Tyagarajan to investigate what exactly happened that night at the factory. Tyagarajan was surprised to know about the security compromisation policy of the organization but was even more worried to know that their were still another two underground tanks which had more methyl iso cyanide then what evaporated out. He decided that the only way to make Bhopal safe was to exhaust these two tanks entirely. But for that to happen the factory had to restart its operations which meant that Bhopal-2 would be on the cards big time. But there was no other option. So the factory restarted its operations to exhaust all of the Methyl iso cyanide. But government decided to take better safety measures this time. They covered entire plant with wet cloth to keep it cool, helicopters carrying water flew on top of factory ready to splash water bombs if needed. As the news of the factory restarting its operation spread across Bhopal everyone started to vacate the city and it turned out to be a land of the departed, a city of ghosts were no one wanted to live.

Mr. Tyagarajan and his team did start their work and after seven long days of siven manufacturing they were able to fully exhaust all the methyl iso cyanide in the remaining two tanks. Bhopal was declared safe to live but who wants to live in this city which gave them such a horrible night.

The Union carbide did say that it was some mischevious employee who wantedly let water into that tank which caused the reaction and not their lack of safety measures which made many laugh out their lives. The reaction caused that night was so fateful that people who were affected then are still suffering. But the problem is that even their sons and daughters born way after the occurrence of this incident are affected by it. They are genetically unstable. Some have crucked legs, some don’t have nose, some cant talk clearly and so on…In 1989 five years after the occurrence of this incident Union carbide decided to pay out compensation to the victims. They gave away some huge amount of dollars to Indian government which disbursed it to the victims. What was hilarious was the fact that it only accounted for Rs. 12410 for each victim, which means you have to find a doctor who within 12410 will not only cure you but also your future generations. Can such a doctor or a hospital be found remains to be the so called “YAKSHA PRASHNE” till date.

Micromax Canvas HD Plus A190-Micromax's latest Magnetizer

Micromax Canvas HD Plus A190-Another Smartphone for the common man

Hello Friends, I am back with a post on another Smartphone launched by Micromax predominantly for the common man. So let's meet Micromax Canvas HD Plus looks as depicted in the picture below.

Micromax Canvas HD Plus A190

So this is how this Super Smartphone looks. It's available in two colors, Black and white. So let's explore the world of HD plus which was launched in India in August 2014

Firstly to begin with spectacular size, A190 is 5 inches long and has an IPS LCD capacitive display with a resolution of 1280*720 pixels and the display is protected by a shield of Gorilla Glass, thus making it a scratch proof screen. The phone has two slots for sim cards and supports 2G and 3G Networks.

Talking about the camera present in this camera it's got two of them as expected one at front and the other at back. The Primary camera is of 8 Megapixels. It has features like Autofocus,touchfocus, geotagging, auto zoom, face detection, panorama mode and an LED flash. The video recording can be done in HD at 30 fps. It also has a Secondary camera of 2 Megapixels.

The main attraction of this Gizmo is it's processor. This Smart looking smartphone has a Smart Cortex A7 Hexacore processor clocked at 1.5 Gigahertz, and what makes the Smartphone smarter is the fact that there are'nt many Smartphones with Hexacore processor and its too tedious to find a hexacore smartphone priced lesser than the A190. The Smartphone also has a Graphics processor known as Mali 450

After processor let's move to memory. This Smartphone features a RAM capacity of 1GB. The Secondary memory which is inbuilt in the phone is 8GB and is further expandable upto 32GB. (The feature of Memory expansion is lacking in many smartphones which have a built in 8GB memory). 

The phone is powered by the latest Android Kitkat 4.4.2 operating system. This smartphone has Accelerometer and Proximity sensors and HTML 5 enabled Browser.

The connectivity of this phone is also mesmerising. It supports Bluetooth version 3 with A2DP, micro USB 2.0, WiFi which can be also used as hotspot, A-GPS, Class 10 GPRS  and also an FM Radio with recording feature.

The Phone is powered by a 2000 mAH Lithium ion Battery which provides a talk time of upto 7 hours and a standby of  up to 10.4 Days.

The Audio formats supported by the phone are AMR, AAC, WAV and MP3. The video formats which can be watched are MP4 and 3GP.The Smartphone also supports HD viewing. The Smartphone also supports voice input. Some of the preloaded apps are Google hangouts, Google Documents and Document Viewer.(And yes you can download a lot of other apps as well).The smartphone supports SMS, MMS, Pushmail. 

Now coming to the Price of the phone. The phone is available at various vendors at different prices but the cheapest of them which I found (during this write up) was Rs.10499 at infibeam.com (black). So I hope i have given all details of this Smartphone. I will be back soon with another review of another latest smartphone.

                                                                                                                                                                 

Sony Xperia Z2

Hello Friends. After the cumulative comparision of Moto E and Micromax unite 2, I am back with a details of another latest gadget which is from the Scintillating Sony and known as "Xperia Z2". (Successor of  Xperia Z1). For those of you who have not yet glanced at this gorgeous gadget here's a pic of it.

Sony Xperia Z2 (Purple)

This smartphone is available in three colors: purple, white  and black.

       At a point of time when companies like Micromax and Motorola are bent upon slitting each other's throat with their cheap, budget gadgets, and Samsung and HTC are involved in a totally different brutal battle with their high end gizmos (samsung galaxy S5 and HTC One M8), Sony has burst on to the scene with a lethal Xperia Z2 to capture the market. At present when the mobile market is booming with cheap budget gadgets which provide a lot of value for money, and the high end gadgets (which although less in number) which provide a lot of features for money, Sony decided to launch its Smartphone in an Indian Market which is already segmented into middle and high class and there are mobile phones for both these classes of society. That's where Sony is different in its approach and so is known as surprising Sony because they surprises one and all including the competitors, Customers stakeholder etc. Super Sony's Super Smartphone as you already know is called as Sony Xperia Z2. This gizmo is being seen as a prime competitor for HTC's M8 and Samsung's S5. But it's warning bell for Micromax and Motorola as well, because the purchasing power of Indian middle class has greatly enhanced in the past decade and we should not be surprised if you see Xperia Z2 's sales graph go beyond that of it's budget phone competitors. 

Now let's explore and see what all is in it for you to buy it. Firstly talking about it's screen which is truly a gigantic one. The screen extends as long as 5.2 inch and is called IPS LCD capacitive touch screeen and is Fully HD. This screen is made up of a shatter proof and a scratch resistant glass. It's also dust proof and water resistant.(IP58 and IP55) It features a triluminos display and a X reality engine which enhances the quality of images with the aid of a native gallery app. Xperia Z2 weighs approximately around 163grams has a dimension of 147x73x8 mm. which gives it a sleek look. This widget also features multi touch thus allowing the user to use all 10 fingers. Z2 runs on a 3200 mAH battery which is powered by a Stamina mode which automatically stops all unwanted apps and functions whenever the phone is not in use. These are automatically resumed once you begin using your phone. So gone are the days of unnecessary battery draining.The talktime is 15 hrs and 19hrs. for 2G and 3G respectively. In standby mode battery can run for 690 hrs. and 740 hrs. in 2G and 3G mode respectively.

Moving on to it's hardware parts Xperia Z2 is made up of Qualcom Snapdragon processor clocked at 2.3 Ghz. Z2 also features an Adreno 330 graphic processing unit (GPU) which takes your gaming experience to a different level. The RAM capacity is 3GB coupled with a whooping  internal memory of 16 GB (of which  is used for firmware and built in apps and 12 GB is for user) and you can expand the memory up to 64 GB.

Now coming to it's Software, Z2 is configured with the latest Android 4.4 Kitkat operating system. It has a lot of built in apps like the Google hangout, google play, google voice search, xperia care, xperia home,twitter, facebook, youtube and the list goes just on. 

Now talking about it's connectivity Z2 not only supports 2G and 3G but also 4G, taking your browsing speed sky high. Not to mention it has Bluetooth(Various versions), Wifi hotspot and USB connectivity. Navigation section is powered by AGPS GLONASS and also google maps.

Going to the Camera section Z2 has an eye widening 20.7 Mega pixel primary camera and a 2.2 Mega pixel secondary camera. This a very powerful weapon in the armory of Z2 as it is equipped with a lot of modern day features which are difficult to find in other similar devices. The camera is powered by BIONZ technology which processes images automatically. It also has G lens.You can now get crystal clear images even in the deepest dark environment. The camera also has 4K technology thus allowing you to record videos in 4K mode and also view your videos on a 4K T.V. The 4K technology gives clarity 4 times better then an HD display It also has a few built in apps particularly for handling camera functioning. 

Also there is a lot for you if you are a music lover. Sony has for the first time introduced a noise cancelling feature which gives you a melodious music listening experience. It also features clear audio, clear bass, clear stereo technologies. The sound is boosted due to the use of dual stereo speakers.

When it comes to the question of sensors, Z2 has so many sensors that our sixth sense just cant get it. Z2  has proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, magnetometer, barometer, step counter, step detector, game rotation vector, geomagnetic rotation vector and an ecompass. 

There is no shortage of additional features in Z2 which is evident from the fact that it accounts for the latest features like Screen mirroring, smart connect, sync ml, T.V. launcher, SENse me, talk equaliser, handwriting recognizer, slow talk, smart call receive, health support, face unlock, gesture input and auto rotate. 

Now talking about it's pricing which is fluctuating on a day to day and store to store basis. Approximately, the price of this phone ranges between Rs.44000-Rs.50000 based on the color and features.

So now you have seen almost everything in Z2 so if you feel you can afford it than surely give it a shot and own this smartly loaded smartphone.

MOTO E VS MICROMAX UNITE 2 A 106

Hello all. Lets compare the differences between two of the leading budget smartphones in the market.

So, the topic of discussion today is a choice decision, which is ringing in the minds of many Indians (especially those from middle class) as a million dollar question. Any guesses on what is the question about, well no prices for guessing and no fine for not guessing-it is indeed whether to go for the Majestic Moto E or the Magnanimous Micromax unite 2? 

In this blog I will give a full description of the features of these two smartphones. So, let's begin the Moto-micro comparision game to see if Moto E can achieve its motto or can Micromax macromise itself.

For those of you who have not yet had a first view at these gadgets let me tell you that the first smartphone in the picture shown above is that of Micromax Unite 2 and the second smartphone in the picture shows a Moto E.

Moto E comes in two colors, a black and white whereas you can buy Micromax Unite 2 from a range of 4 distinct colors which are Mystic grey,white,ragging red and balmy green.

Now beginning with the comparison we first look at the looks of these gorgeous gadgets. The Moto E has a curve on its body which gives you a pleasent texting and surfing experience. It comes with a 4.3 inch display with a resolution of 540x960 quad HD(540x960 pixels).  Talking about its counterpart Micromax Unite 2 is sleek and has a 4.7 inch display and a resolution of 800x480 pixels.

 Moto E is covered by a transparent blanket of corning gorilla glass 3 to protect its display which means that the display glass is chemically strengthened and also is made up of native damage resistant material. The screen is tough enough and can withstand quite deep scratches too. Not just that it also has an Anti smudge guard to protect itself from getting dirty and a Splash guard to protect itself from water. Unfortunately its competitor Micromax's Unite 2 does not have any such display protection features.

Moving on to Battery prowess of both of these phones the Moto E is powered by a built in 1980 milli Ampere Hour Lithium ion Battery with a battery life of 24 hours in mixed usage mode. The Micromax Unite 2 has a removable 2000 milli Ampere hour battery with 8 hours of Talktime and a 190 hours of standby time.

Now talking about the cameras of these gizmos the Moto E has a 5 mega pixel camera and no secondary camera. It has a Geo tagging feature i.e. instead of just clicking pictures you can even add your geographic information into them. It supports videos with 720p (i.e. 720 progressive lines) and an FPS (frame per second) of 30. i.e it can produce 30 unique frames in a second. It also allows you to click a pic in a panoramic mode i.e. you can drastically increase the aspect ratio of your photo. Now Micromax may be behind Moto E in its screen protection features but certainly not in camera features. It has a 5 mega pixel primary camera and 2 mega pixel secondary camera. It supports HD video recording and has a host of other features like the auto focus which automatically focuses on a manually selected area, face beauty mode which automatically brightens your face by eradicating flaws from your face and  a panorama mode.

Now talking about the Hardware, Moto E is made up of 1.2 Giga Hertz(GHz) snapdragon 200 dual core processor and also features an Adreno 302 graphics processor.  It's RAM has a capacity of 1 Giga Byte(GB)  and it is also powered by internal storage capacity of 4 GB (of which only 2.2 GB is usable) . It's memory can be expanded upto 32 GB with the aid of Micro SD cards. Now Micromax is made up of 1.3 GHz Quad core  processor and a Mali 400 MP2 graphics processor. It has a 1GB RAM, 4GB ROM and 1.67GB usable internal memory (and 0.89 GB internal memory pre-used for apps). It's memory can also be extended up to 32 GB

 After Hardware it's definitely software. Here both are head to head. Moto E works on the latest Android Kitkat v4.4.2 (Motorola has promised atleast one free upgrade). Micromax unite 2 also has the Android Kitkat v4.4.2. However, I did not get to hear about any free upgrade promises from Micromax.

Hardware done, Software done, next comes Networking and Connectivity. The Moto E supports Bluetooth 4.0, has USB 2.0 connector,supports Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and 3G connectivity with speed of 21 Mega bits per second(MbPS) in HSDPA and upto 5.76 Mbps in HSUPA mode.(3G support to both the sim cards). You can navigate with the help of A-GPS supported by Glonass and also Google maps. The Micromax unite also has Bluetooth 4.0, Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and 3G connectivity with speed of 21 Mega bits per second(MbPS) in HSDPA and upto 5.76 Mbps in HSUPA mode (3G support to only one sim card). You can navigate by using Google Maps.

Now talking about the sensors Moto E is equipped with Accelerometer, Proximity and Ambient light sensor. Accelerometer sensor helps you detect your phone's orientation.Proximity sensor detects your face and prevents you from accidentally dialing any key while answering a call. Ambient light sensor automatically adjusts screen brightness and back light to provided an enhanced battery life. Micromax Unite 2 has Accelerometer Proximity and Gravity sensors.

Now finally coming to preloaded apps and extra features, Moto E has a super safety feature known as Moto alert which when activated sends notifications to another preactivated phone about your location whenever you move far away from your usual locations. Other features are P2i, single white LED and bluetooth tethering. Some of the important pre-installed apps are Google play, Gmail,  Google chrome,Youtube,moto assist and moto migrate. Moto E supports voice input and allows you to handle your phone with your words and not your fingers. Micromax has the popular mad call app which allows you to make a call hear an ad and earn more balance.(works for both prepaid and postpaid). Micromax also supports 21 Indian languages. It also supports voice input thus allowing you to control your phone with your words. The pre-installed apps are Google bar, google docs, google drive and opera M drive.

Both the gadgets are priced at Rs 6999.

So I hope you are clear now on which gadget is better and which one you want to buy. Are'nt you?