An ‘Epic’ Indian Browser

Finally, we have the first Indian internet browser and by Indian, we did not mean the Indian flag that it has on it’s logo. Launched by a Bangalore based company Hidden Reflex, Epic is all set to make Indians proud.

Epic, based on Mozilla platform, comes bundled with a bunch of India centric features and is available for a free download here. After testing it for continuous 4 hours on 8 tabs together and without any crash, We are impressed.

The Looks and Features:

It is light, spacious and neat. By default, comes with a peacock background which may not be too soothing to eyes but you can always choose the background according to your whim from a range of 1500 creative themes related to India at the launch itself. Then, comes the flashy sidebar which is a host of each and every necessary application to which a sincere netizen is addicted to. They include social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, a Gmail file back up, Yahoo India homepage, maps, travel planner, news concerning India(customizable states!) and everything else! Also, there is an option to choose between the applications to keep on your sidebar. But, you can use one widget at a time; the sidebar allows you to browse any one of the above listed widgets at one time per window which increases accessibility on a widescreen resolution to a high extent. The tabs are neatly designed, clean and smooth transition effects between menus and tabs win attention. The buttons on the sides of the address bar are colourful(Indian, after all!) and slick. We took some beautiful screenshots during the test, which must be shared.

 

  Theme: Sachin Tendulkar

What’s Good:

Open Epic, visit any site which offers text box to write to discover the wide range of Indian languages, currently 12, it offers to write in there. This is applicable to chat boxes of Facebook and Gmail too. The engine of the browser is decently fast and there are no compatibility issues. And the most interesting part, Epic is the first browser to come up with an anti-virus(25mb download) built in as a widget.

  The built in ESET NOD32 Anti-Virus.

What can be done better:

The browser fails to render page borders of the sites opened in every tab making them look a little bit tacky. We hope they correct it soon in upcoming update patches.

The Conclusion:

An initiative, first of it’s kind in India, that must be appreciated. We look forward to have slick improvements in the update patches.

 

Featured Comment: Shad Khan said... What epic does is, it combines the very best features of all the popular browsers, be it Firefox, Opera or Chrome (omnibox taken from Google Chrome, side widgets like Opera, Firefox's speed and stability). For all those who question the innovativeness, does anyone notice the small internet side widgets? Facebook, Gmail and all?. The interface of all those small widgets is same as what you see on an iPhone. When you open a website it assumes you're surfing on an iPhone and compresses the website accordingly which is helpful in two ways:- 1) Saves data (assuming you're accessing internet on your laptop using a mobile) 2) It's faster than accessing the full version of the same website. Seeing that Epic was launched just 10 days before with more than 2 lakh downloads and a positive response from the internet community it could be the next big thing in the internet browser market.

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The leather Rampage

As genuine as the reality, as natural as ones own skin, this material called Leather has been human being's companion since time immemorial, even before fire was discovered . Yet sometimes considered an article of luxury, for other times a subject of environmental-social opposition , it has maintained its identity despite all controversies. Trends according to Seasons come in and fade out, but style remains eternal and constant! Similarly, Leather is considered an everlasting thing, having which in one's closet is not only like a classic must have but also a style statement.
If one considers that using leather is equal to cruelty to animals, then what about meat industry? Animals are slaughtered for meat. There is a thriving slaughter houses spread all over the country. These animals that are killed for meat can be called a victim of cruelty and barbarism. Leather tanneries just utilize the dead animal's hide/skin to process and produce finished leather. Non Vegetarians can be held more responsible for this so called injustice to animals rather then Leather consumers in such a case. But then the question of maintaining ecological cycles of nature wherein often every organism is a food to another will be hampered. Everything is just so interlinked. A common connection binds every other thing into a single chain.
Consider a typical day in a mid suburban town. You step into your delicate Nu buck shoes hoping that you must not face dust and moisture for the day. On the streets you hear a rattle of leather boots walking along. A lady in her mid thirties standing near the bus shed, starts ransacking her leather tote to find out her mobile encased inside the classic cow leather pouch. Few steps ahead a teenager girl,all equipped with her latest gizmo's stuffed inside her colorful leather duffel constantly invites attention with her hyper activities. You turn your wrist to see the time on your watch attached to the original sheep nappa straps adding multi folds to its value. You can now comprehend easily how entwined leather/skin is with minute aspects of life ,nevertheless its versatility and beauty is not adequately explored!
Few years back, I had heard my Grand mom-who was an orthodox Indian Hindu lady, advocate for the taboo of not taking Leather shoes to any temple or holding the petty cobbler as untouchable in the society, but I couldn't figure out why is deity such as Lord Shiva allowed to sit on a deer/tiger's hide despite such prohibitions?! Although neither is Lord Shiva nor is my Grand mom accessible for questioning of course. Yet what I can conclude is that the versatility, flexibility, durability,strength,rub fastness,comfort, beauty of differently patterned natural skin, being a by product of meat industry makes leather stand apart of the rest. The water retaining Chamois leather, the music instrument's and lamp shade's goat parchment or the tough upholstery and saddle leather all have some unquestionable importance. Lastly,isn't plant products also a cruelty to plants?

After all it is the perception that matters the most!

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3D Gaming, Without Any Special Hardware!

So, you like 3D action games. Good. Those red-cyan goggles are readily available in a shop nearby. Great! Nintendo3DS is yet to arrive in India. Very Bad. But, I give you a reason to smile. Well, now you don’t need to wait to have your share of 3D. Just get your pair of anaglyph goggles and a fairly powerful system.

There is a 3D-capable monitor manufacturer called iZ3D and their drivers are available for free download here. The console of the driver has an option to turn on anaglyph, which converts all your games to 3D. The driver renders two separate frames, from two slightly different perspectives just like Nvidia offers with '3D Vision Discover', but those drivers limit you to an Nvidia graphics card, and moreover, the latest drivers are not supported on laptops. iZ3D surprisingly runs on any system, and supports both Nvidia and ATI 3D cards.

I said in the beginning that you need a ‘fairly powerful system’. The DirectX shows you each frame with a few other frames pipeline. Now that, every frame is rendered twice, the ‘few other frames’ frames are doubled; there would be a loss of almost 50% performance. Precisely, that means that if your game earlier ran at 30 fps, expect it to run at less than 15 fps or If earlier you played a game at 1600x1200, you can roughly have a similar performance at 800x600 resolution. So, it would use a lot of your system for extreme high end games like Arkham Asylum on rig. But, you will feel blessed on a comparatively lower end game.

Setting up the game to appear in 3D is not a very tough task, in fact it’s very easy. When the game starts, iZ3D's step-by-step wizard starts too. Wait for some rendered graphics (I mean the actual game, don’t poke your nose between menus, NO!) to appear on the screen, and then you can change settings. The separation between the images can be adjusted and you can check using your goggles what settings look best.

The software works flawless, but I am not very much convinced with the 3D thing in the first place. I mean, you play/watch in 3D, unlike 2D the colours are washed off. And, after you have played and you get rid of those goggles, you feel like an alcoholic who just poured 3-4 bottles down his neck. I mean this technique is not the best gaming experience you can have. But it gives you a different experience altogether, something that would fascinate people and you can boast about. And best thing of the bests, it’s free! So, what are you waiting for? Just download, start playing and tell me your experience.

Below is a list of my personal preferences of the large list of games that showcase 'iZ3D at its best', according to the company.

• Assassin's Creed
• Assassin's Creed 2
• Batman Arkham Asylum
• Crysis
• Crysis: Warhead
• Devil May Cry 4
• Empire Total War
• Half Life 2
• Left 4 Dead
• Mirror's Edge
• Need for Speed: Carbon
• Prince of Persia 2008
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Trine

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A Trip to Paradise: My Village.

Its rather strange that I am posting this personal post on arbitSpecs today.
I’ll tell you why. My village, Nandan Bigha can be any other village of rural India. It has no unique personality of its own. Or, if you allow me the liberty to say this, it enjoys the personality of every typical small village of the rural India.
And hence, I wanted to display a rural side of India. Much beautiful than the urban one, to say the least.
This is gonna be a photoblog, thanks to my Sony H Series DSI camera, and I will try to show you my village through my eyes. (Or my camera’s. :D)
 

Nandan Bigha, is a sleeping village; like any other village of Bihar, the people have lost interest in agriculture. Well, most of them. I was taken aback to know that there is no farmer in the village from my father’s generation, let alone mine!

But the village is not dead yet. My grandfather’s smaller brother lives with his wife. And so do other grandfathers of the village and their wives. They have been farmers throughout their lives and they would never even think of leaving it. The village has a small school where some children of the extremely poor villagers study. They would be here till their fathers earned enough money to call them in Patna and get them admitted in better schools or colleges.

                                                               The Village School.

There used to be a small library in the village. But now it has been converted into ‘Anganbari’… the tot lot. Notice the dilapidated condition of the structure. I wonder how it is still erect. And functional.

We the inhabitants have moved on. To cities. To malls. To multiplexes. We have left our village, the soil that nurtured our ancestors during the times they needed it the most.

Progress. From villages to cities. From darkness to light?
I try, but can not take yes as an answer.

However, Nature, as I could unmistakably notice, has bestowed Nandan Bigha every bliss it ever needed. See it through the lens’s eyes yourself.
                                                       My grandfather’s Sugarcane field.

                                                 The Neem tree with its bittersweet fruits.

                                                                          The Oxen.

                                                           The well in the compound.

                                                                  Bricks and Greens.

                                                              My Grandfather’s Spirit.

                                                              The road and the tree.

                                                                              Peace.

My village trip made me contemplate about what I am doing to my heritage. And what we are doing to ours. Acres and acres of fertile lands go on being barren while the labourers go to cities like mumbai and delhi  where they are insulted and thrown outside by people like the MNS.

Why don’t we take this insult as a challenge. why don’t our laborers come back to their lands and grow. Grow happiness. And slap this agricultural happiness and satisfaction hard on the face of the people of the likes of MNS?
A very strange thought came to me. How about myself settling down to such a job that I operate on a laptop over internet from my village only, trading across the world by sitting close to the oxen. Can it be done?
I try but I can not take no as an answer.
Anyways, I also took some random pics of the household as well as the outside. See, and comment.
                                                                           The Wall.
                                                                  Grey silence.

               (And this one is for my architecture fellows…) and the brick says, “I want to be an arch.”


                                                        Old, consumed, tired and lonesome.

 
                                                              “Will come back ultimately.”




Lastly, my own pic in my own land. I normally don’t post my own pic on this blog (anymore). But this pic ought to be here.

I like it and I want  to share it with all my loved ones.

Folks, This, is my place, and here I stand, close to my roots.

Alok K.
July 11, 2010.

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Prince of Persia: Loved it.

Sometimes you know you are going to see a bad movie. You know that you have played all the four games on a particular theme and you accept that the movie will never ever be able to even touch the level of the excitement that the games once reached you to.

And sometimes you are mistaken.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an adorable movie. To the ones who have played all the games, and to the ones who haven't even remotely heard about the persian prince at all, alike.

The best part is that you don't need to play any game at all to understand and relish the movie; and having said that, if you have played all the games, you know the script writer knows that you have played 'em all.

There are many subtle jokes on the games themselves, which the layman would skip off and the gamer would acknowledge with a big smile. But would come to that later.

The story? Not as complex as the games. The theme? Very clichéd for a POP series. The Prince  commits a mistake and embarks upon a dangerous journey to amend it all.

Of course with the help of a beautiful damsel. :)

It's not the story, but the treatment of it that captivates the audience. The way the movie progresses, the gradual unfoldings, the unanswered queries, the hints, the traps, the drama, the romance... not to miss the action and unexpected comedy. POP SOT is a perfect entertainer.

In some terms, better than the critically acclaimed and criticised Sherlock Holmes one.

Ben Kinsley takes the Nizam to a new height. After that momentary appearance in Teen Patti, he desperately needed to deliver better... Gyllenhaal, indeed was a surprise, though. I had never thought that the gay partner of Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain would rise to become the mighty Prince of Persia... lol.

But the show stealer is Gemma Arterton, who, not surprisingly, was the only good thing about the disasterous movie: Clash of the Titans...remember? 

In one of the ostrich racing scenes, she looks awesomely gorgeous. That particular frame should not be missed. Note  it down.

Though the action disappoints a little, all in all POP SOT is a nice movie. Worth watching.

And now for the ones who know the Prince through the awesome games.

Yes, it was a treat watching him alive. This movie actually was a hotch-potch of all the four games. The story of the 'The Sands of time', the costume  of the 'Warrior Within' and some special action sequences of the 'The Two Thrones'.

The way Prince flirts with Princess Tamina reminds me of Elika, the girl from the fourth game.

The whole fourth game was about how the Prince heroically intervenes in the battle of the Gods of the Princess's kingdom and selflessly helps her in eliminating the darkness of chaos.

And here, the Prince sheepishly says (quite out of context), "Those are your Gods. Fight them on your own." This brought smile on every gamer who has played the fourth one. An embedded joke on the source game.

Yes. The combat sequences are disappointing and do not match the class and acrobatics displayed in the games. Well, that's where the movie makers had to put more money in the graphics and animation. It could have been even more gamelike. But wait, was this the objective? I guess not.

It seems that Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Movie has passed its acid test. It's successful in captivating the gamers and non gamers alike. And this is precisely what I didn't expect at all when I bought the tickets... :)

Alok K.

P.S. For those who want more of the Prince action, well, here's the news. The PC version of the 5th installment of the POP Series has been launched by the name, Prince of Persia: The forgotten Sands. Njoy.

                                        

P.S. The copyrights of the images used in this article belong to the respective parties involved. aS has used them just for illustration.

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