Sony launches Xperia C4 and C4 Dual

The phone runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system, and sports a 13MP autofocus rear camera with LED flash and 5MP front camera for selfies. 

 Sony has launched Xperia C4, along with a dual-sim variant, Xperia C4 Dual. 

The Japanese company did not reveal the prices of the smartphones, however, it mentioned that the devices will be available June onwards. 

Sony Xperia C4 sports a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920p) IPS display. Powered by a 1.7GHz octa-core (Cortex-A53) MediaTek MT6752 processor coupled with 2GB RAM, the phone comes with 16GB internal storage expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. It's powered by a 2,600mAh battery which delivers up to 12 hours 47 minutes of talk time and up to 682 hours of standby time, as claimed by the company. 

The phone runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system, and sports a 13MP autofocus rear camera with LED flash and 5MP front camera for selfies. 

It measures 150.3x77.4x7.9mm and weighs 147 grams. In terms of connectivity, the phone supports Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Hotspot, 4G LTE, 3G, Bluetooth 4.1, and aGPS. 

Just like its predecessor, Xperia C3, this smartphone too targets selfie-loving consumers. "Following the success of Xperia C3, we are proud to introduce Sony's evolved PROselfie smartphone," said Tony McNulty, vice-president, Value Category Business Management at Sony Mobile Communications. 

Xperia C4 has improved specifications in terms of camera, processor and battery. Xperia C3 was launched in India, September last year at Rs 23,990
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Intex launches Aqua Life and Aqua Life II

Aqua Life II is a dual sim phone that runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat and features a 5-inch FWVGA (480x854p) display. 

 Intex has expanded its Aqua series with the launch of two new smartphones — Aqua Life and Aqua Life II — priced at Rs 5,777 and Rs 5,555, respectively. Both the phones have been listed on the company website but there is no word on availability.

Aqua Life is a dual sim smartphone that runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat and features a 5-inch FWVGA (480x854p) display. Powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor, the phone comes with 512MB RAM, and has 4GB of internal storage. Users can also install microSD cards of up to 32GB.

Aqua Life sports an 8MP primary camera with LED flash, has a 2MP front facing camera, and packs 2000mAh battery.

For connectivity, the smartphone offers 3G, GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.1 and a micro-USB slot, and is available in three colours — black, white, and blue.

The other smartphone, Aqua Life II, is also a dual sim phone that runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat and features a 5-inch FWVGA (480x854p) display.

Powered by 1.2GHz quad-core spreadtrum processor and 1GB RAM, the phone comes with 8GB in built storage and can support microSD cards of up to 32GB.

The smartphone sports a 5MP primary camera with dual-LED flash and a 1.3MP secondary camera, and in terms of connectivity, includes support for 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS/ A-GPS, and micro-USB.

Aqua Life II will be available in three colour variants — white and orange, black and blue, and blue
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BlackBerry unveils Leap smartphone in India

However, BlackBerry has not revealed the India price of the new 4G-enabled Leap smartphone yet.

 Canadian manufacturer BlackBerry has unveiled its Leap smartphone in India. The mid-range smartphone, which was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, will be available in the market next week.

However, the company has not revealed the price of its new 4G-enabled handset yet. In foreign markets, the smartphone is priced at $275 (approximately Rs 17,000).

BlackBerry Leap sports a 5-inch HD (720x1280p, 294 PPI) touch display. Powered by a relatively older 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, the phone has 2GB RAM and 16GB flash storage in addition to a microSD card slot that supports card up to 128GB.

Leap runs BlackBerry 10 OS (version 10.3) and supports BlackBerry Blend desktop software. It supports Android apps and comes with both Amazon Appstore and BlackBerry World.

The phone sports an 8MP rear camera with auto-focus and flash and support for 1080p video capture, and a 2MP fixed-focus front-facing camera that supports 720p video capture.

BlackBerry Leap comes with a 2800mAh battery with a claimed backup time of 25 hours with heavy use. In terms of connectivity, the phone supports 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy and EDR, GPS, FM radio and 4G (FD-LTE 1800MHz only).

Samsung Galaxy Note 5, Note Edge 2 features leaked

The successor of Galaxy Note Edge is being developed under the code name Project Zen; unlike the original Galaxy Note Edge, it will not be just a Note 5 with a curved screen on the side. 

Samsung may be months from launching the Galaxy Note 5 and second-generation Note Edge phablets, but rumours about the two have already started surfacing.

According to a SamMobile report, Samsung Galaxy Note 5's Super AMOLED display will either have 2K or 4K resolution; if Samsung indeed uses 4K resolution, Galaxy Note 5 will likely be the first smartphone in the world to offer such high pixel density.

The report also says that Galaxy Note 5 will be powered by Samsung's upcoming Exynos 7422 chipset, which is expected to integrate CPU, GPU, RAM, storage and modem on the same chip.

The successor of Galaxy Note Edge is being developed under the code name Project Zen; unlike the original Galaxy Note Edge, it will not be just a Note 5 with a curved screen on the side.

Instead, Samsung is giving the smartphone a different set of features compared to its next flagship phablet.

The first thing to note is that Samsung is going for a smaller screen size on the next-generation Note Edge compared to last year's model. SamMobile reported that the smartphone's screen will measure 5.4- or 5.5-inch and have curves on both edges, similar to the ones on Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Since this phablet is part of the Note series, it will come with an S Pen too.

Additionally, the chipset of the phablet will not be as high end as Note 5's; the handset is likely to be powered by a Qualcomm's Snapdragon 808 processor and come with only 16GB of internal storage. On the imaging side, Samsung is said to be using a 16MP rear camera and an 8MP selfie camera on the Galaxy Note Edge 2
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Huawei launches Honor 4C, Honor Bee smartphones in India

Honor Bee sports a 4.5-inch (854x480p) display and features an 8MP primary camera with dual LED flash, along with 2MP secondary camera.

 Chinese smartphone giant Huawei has added two new smartphones to its Honor range: Honor 4C and Honor Bee. The smartphones are priced Rs 8,999 and Rs 4,999 respectively. The phones are exclusively available on e-commerce website Flipkart.

Coming to the specifications, Honor 4C has a 5-inch HD IPS (1280x720p) display and sports a 13MP primary camera along with a 5MP secondary camera.

Powered by 1.2GHz octacore processor and 2GB RAM, the smartphone offers 8GB of internal storage and can support microSD cards of up to 32GB.

Huawei Honor 4C runs Android KitKat 4.4.2 and packs a 2550mAh battery. On the connectivity front, the phone offers support for 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.

The phone is available in three colours: White, Black, and Gold.

The other new entrant in Honor range, Bee sports a 4.5-inch (854x480p) display and features an 8MP primary camera with dual LED flash, along with 2MP secondary camera.

The phone is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM, the phone offers 8GB internal storage along with microSD support. Honor Bee also runs on Android KitKat 4.4 like Honor 4C, and packs 1730mAh battery.

Apart from the two smartphones, Huawei also launched a power bank. Priced at Rs 1, 399, it has a 13000mAh battery. The Power Bank can be connected via USB cable and port
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Can Indian IT firms like Infosys, TCS sustain growth?

Technologies and business models are shifting the services delivery model away from the industrialised model.

The bloom is coming off the rose for many Indian IT services firms. Over the past decade, India created a wealth-generating "engine" of innovation and an industrialised services model. That disruptive model took the world by storm. 

It humbled industry giants, bringing once-great firms such as EDS and CSC to their knees and forcing other great firms such as IBM and Accenture to adopt India's model. Large Indian firms such as Cognizant, Infosys, TCS and Wipro became global leaders. The engine built a $100 billion-plus services industry that sheltered a generation of IT talent and placed India squarely in the centre of the knowledge economy. 

It has been a marvellous run. But all industries eventually mature. Moreover, all are impacted by the forces of change from disruptive technologies, transformational business models and changing expectations around value drivers. The industrialised services model is no different from other industries. Technologies and business models are shifting the services delivery model away from the industrialised model. Growth is slowing. Consequently, the maturing industry is now at an inflection point. 

Software eats everything and as this happens, growth opportunities are shifting into software-as-a-service, cloud, and platforms. The stakes are huge for the Indian IT services firms and for India. To the winner goes the spoils. The question is: will the Indian firms built on the industrialised service model be able to pivot to become leaders and win in new market segments? 

Incremental approach by some 

Certainly they are attempting to do so. But making the pivot to new disruptive market segments is far from easy, and it's even more difficult to become a leader in the space. 

Infosys was the first to try to pivot but has stalled in its growth efforts. Cognizant, TCS, Wipro and others are watching Infosys while they experiment with their own attempts to shift to the new growth markets. They are taking a more incremental approach rather than attempting the wholesale shift that Infosys adopted. But it is far from certain that any of the firms will successfully emerge as market leader in the next generation services world. 

If we can rely on history, we can expect that only a few will make this shift to industry leadership in the new market segments. Two decades ago, the IT and services industry leaders were ACS, CSC, EDS, IBM and Perot. As the market moved to new segments and new technologies to exploit, the leader landscape changed. HP acquired EDS, Xerox acquired ACS, and Dell acquired Perot. 

IBM is the only firm that consistently led as the market matured and moved to new segments over the past 20 years. It successfully met the challenge of becoming a leader in new market segments multiple times. And IBM's activities, including a string of acquisitions in analytics and cloud, continue to position it to make the next jump into new market opportunities. IBM has demonstrated multiple times that a company can make that shift with a bold and fast forward strategy. 

Capital and market access 

Will the Indian firms be able to follow IBM's winning moves to establish leadership positions in the new areas where they can grow? I expect that only one firm — or two at the most — will successfully pivot to be industry leaders in five years. Even so, they will not create the engine of prosperity and the incubator of innovation that they have enjoyed for the last decade. But this does not relegate India to a less-relevant place. Although most Indian firms will fail to achieve leadership in the new domains, their legacy is their massive development of talent over the past decade. So Indian IT is still likely to be in the centre of the new domains. 

There is a higher probability that the Indian startups community will generate wealth and emerge as market leaders than the probability that today's leaders in the industrialised services model will pivot to become leaders in the new market models. But winning in the new growth segments is not just a talent game. 

It requires capital and market access. The venture capitalists that fund the US breakaway companies understand the power of the Indian talent model and cast their eyes toward Indian firms to take advantage of the raw talent. Much like Silicon Valley perpetuates its role as an innovation centre because of its talent base, Bengaluru has the same opportunity. Billions of venture capital dollars are pouring into India, and there are dozens of incubators to nurture startups. 

Companies such as Amazon Web Services and Salesforce are streaking ahead and carving out huge market caps. But not long ago these market leaders coming out of Silicon Valley were startups. 

Indian firms can challenge these market giants in two ways. One or more of the industrialised model leaders can successfully pivot (like IBM) and create a leadership position. And the Indian entrepreneurial class can use India's wealth of talent nurtured under the old model to become an innovative market leader. 

So what is the future of India's established IT and services firms? Of those that don't pivot to the new market segments, some will maintain their size but will become less attractive places to work; others will be acquired as the industry consolidates. Those that pivot and recast themselves will grow. And one or two will succeed in their pivot, become market leaders and drive explosive growth.
 

TCS may be facing churn at top level

Analysts say that though growth at TCS has slowed over the past few quarters, the management changes are unlikely to be a reflection of that.

 Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest IT services company, has seen a number of top-level changes in the past few months, moves that experts ascribe to a need to create job growth for the company's higher management and prevent loss of talent.

TCS has the most stable management in the Indian IT industry, unlike its Bengaluru-based rivals Infosys and Wipro. But though move of its head of business process services Abid Ali Neemuchwala to Wipro was well-publicised, there have been others that slipped below the radar.

Vish Iyer, who was the company's president Asia Pacific, was replaced by Girish Ramachandran in January. Iyer is now global head for legal and corporate affairs, TCS' investor relations page shows.

J Rajagopal, executive vice president and global head for consulting, stepped down from the role December, his profile on professional social networking site Linkedin shows. The responsibility for consulting was moved to Krishnan Ramanujam who is also the global head for enterprise solutions. Rajagopal is now an advisor at TCS. In March, TCS also appointed Aarthi Subramanian, its global head of delivery excellence, to its board.

"With the CEO being quite a long way from retirement you have leaders of similar age moving on to CEO/COO roles as they will never get the chance at TCS. Abid is one such person. They are also moving aside people to allow up-&-comers space to lead and grow," said Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO at IT outsourcing consultancy, Everest, said.

Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS, has been in the role for five years and his contract was extended for another five last year. Some other top executives at the firm have also been there for decades. TCS did not respond to multiple mails seeking comment for this story.

Part of the reason for the moves is also a result of a problem that the Indian IT industry is just beginning to face. In the past, high-performing talent could always be given better roles as the industry was expanding into new service lines and geographies. But as the industry has grown and matured, new areas to expand into have grown scarce.

"What new roles will they grow people into? At the mid-level, you can always find new roles, but as the employees get more senior and valuable, and if the top management is stable, there is a natural ceiling," said a consultant with an outsourcing advisory. The consultant declined to be identified.

The moves aren't just at the top level. In April, TCS named Daniel Praveen as new CEO of its insurance business process outsourcing unit Diligenta, which ET had reported. The firm also named Rammohan Gourneni as head of TCS - France, a source with knowledge of the matter told ET.

Analysts say that though growth at TCS has slowed over the past few quarters, the management changes are unlikely to be a reflection of that.

"I wouldn't ascribe the changes to the quarterly results. TCS has been one of the fastest growing companies in the Indian IT sector. I would say it is the normal process in the company," Thomas Reuner, managing director of IT outsourcing research at consulting firm HfS Research, said.

That is something TCS' Chandra has also said in an interview in April with ET. "All of our units are run by very strong leaders," Chandra said. "So to be very frank, if you can take away one message, it's that our execution is solid. We have never had an execution issue. So, we are not going to rejig the structure for execution."

But the flipside of such management stability is that senior leaders with ambitions may have to look outside the company to fulfill them.

"I think some senior leaders like Abid who want a shot at the brass ring may start looking outside. You could see one or two leaders leave the company for roles elsewhere," Everest's Bendor-Samuel sai
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NDA ministers likely to be more active on FB following PM, FM

In a meeting with a Facebook official and the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry it was suggested that more ministers follow the example of PM Modi and Union finance and I&B minister Arun Jaitley to use Facebook to communicate their point. 

 After Twitter, ministers could soon be nudged in to posting regularly on Facebook. With the Modi government's continued focus on social media as the preferred medium of communication the government is brushing up its skills to that end.
In a meeting with a Facebook official and the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry it was suggested that more ministers follow the example of PM Modi and Union finance and I&B minister Arun Jaitley to use Facebook to communicate their point. Modi for instance sought suggestions on Facebook before his Australia visit, while Jaitley prefers to blog to make a succinct political point. The posts tend to have a multiplier effect generating interest and participation. 

Facebook's lead for politics and government engagement Katie Harbath met with I&B secretary Bimal Julka and social media cell officials on Friday. ``We had a good interaction where we discussed ideas on how to upgrade our presence on social media. We are also likely to involve Facebook for capacity building for our officials,'' Julka said. 

According to him Facebook was using Jaitley's posts as a case study to illustrate how the medium could be used to the hilt. 

Harbath, who focuses on political outreach, suggested that information nuggets be kept short and crisp to keep people's attention. ``Instead of heavy doses of information she suggested we give small nuggets of image, text, visual content with an eye on story telling rather than a talk-down approach,'' a source said. 

Putting a human face and story to the outreach initiative also helps engage people better. Harbath also pointed out that the social networking site's citizen engagement in India was high. For instance UK polls had garnered about 78 million views while Indian elections had generated 228 million views. 

Sources said that there were likely to be more such interactions. The ministry is also likely to organize another social media workshop along the lines of the one done some months ago
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Facebook: Users make their News Feed less diverse

The researchers found individuals' choices about which stories to click on had a larger effect than Facebook's filtering mechanism.

 If your Facebook News Feed is devoid of variety and diverse views, most of the blame lies with you and not with the Facebook algorithm, says a new study by data scientists at Facebook.

The researchers analysed the accounts of 10 million users over six months to reach the conclusion that the so-called "echo-chamber" isn't as impermeable as thought to be.

It said that liberals and conservatives are regularly exposed to at least some content that doesn't conform to their political or religious views, adding that almost 29% of the stories displayed by Facebook's news feed present views that conflict with an individual's ideology.

"You would think that if there was an echo chamber, you would not be exposed to any conflicting information, but that's not the case here," Eytan Bakshy, a data scientist at Facebook who led the study, was quoted as saying by NYT.

The researchers found individuals' choices about which stories to click on had a larger effect than Facebook's filtering mechanism in determining whether people encountered news that conflicted with their professed ideology.

Facebook's algorithm serves users stories based in part on the content they have clicked in the past.

The researchers found that people's networks of friends and the stories they see are skewed toward their ideological preferences.

But that effect is more limited than the worst case that some theorists had predicted, in which people would see almost no information from the other side.

On average, about 23 percent of users' friends are of an opposing political affiliation, according to the study.

However, some observers argued that the Facebook study was flawed because of sampling problems and interpretation issues.

The study appeared in the journal Science
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How Indian startups are wooing Silicon Valley Desis

The e-commerce sector, led by companies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal, attracted more than $5 billion of investment last year.

After losing top engineering talent for years to America's tech heartland of Silicon Valley, India is luring them back as an e-commerce boom sparks a thriving startup culture, unprecedented pay, and perks including free healthcare for in-laws. 

India's IT industry has long been seen as a back-office backwater, even by its own engineers who started moving abroad in their droves in the 1970s. That is now changing. 

The e-commerce sector, led by companies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal, attracted more than $5 billion of investment last year, Morgan Stanley says, compared with less than $2 billion in 2013. 

That growth is fuelling the hunt for talent to drive the next stage of expansion -- for many, an initial public offering or a push into overseas markets. 

"The appetite for finding engineering talent ... is great," said George Kaszacs of Silicon Valley-based headhunters Riviera Partners, who helps Indian startups scout for potential hires. 

The number of returnees is small, but they represent a sign of the early emergence on the global stage of Indian upstarts. Indian companies such as Snapdeal, Inmobi and Zomato each say they have hired between a handful to as many as 20 people from Silicon Valley in the past five years. 

India's biggest e-commerce company, Flipkart, recently hired two senior executives from Google Inc in California, both engineers of Indian origin, for its headquarters in Bengaluru. 

Flipkart did not disclose their pay, but headhunters say remuneration packages can reach $1 million over 3-4 years. 

Headhunter Kaszacs said several factors are drawing Indians back home, including the chance to join a fast-growing startup. Joining bonuses, stock options and other perks were also helping. 

The chance to live close to parents and other relatives is another factor drawing Indian executives back home -- an important consideration in India's close knit family system. 

For Tanmay Saksena, who heads online ordering at restaurant review website Zomato, similarities between the Indian and Silicon Valley start-up culture helped him decide to return after eight years away. 

"Of course your base pay is not the main driver, it is equity and you join a startup because you think it will do well," Saksena said. 

Other executives moved for similar reasons, saying the chance to work for a thriving startup offset the challenges of everyday living in India's chaotic cities. 

In return, companies are going all out to make settling back as easy as can be. 

InMobi, a mobile phone advertising platform, provides summer camps for kids and meetings where spouses can socialise with one another. It offers health insurance not just for employees and their spouse, but their in-laws too, which Abhay Singhal says is a big hit. 

"One thing that unfortunately India does not have great answers to yet is the quality of living outside of work," Singhal, one of the founders of the company, said. 

"The professional still has his days to spend in the office but the spouse and kids... that becomes a very big issue." 

Snapdeal said in a couple of instances the company had even helped spouses search for jobs. 

"There will be systemic issues everywhere," Punit Soni, who joined Flipkart from Google as its chief product officer, told Reuters in March. 

"I took up the job because it was the most interesting thing I could do
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How Google tests if job candidates will fit in

Google has a reputation for being a laid-back company that operates more like a network of startups than a corporation.

One of the biggest perceptions about working at Google is that fitting into its culture is really important. Google has a reputation for being a laid-back company that operates more like a network of startups than a corporation. 

But, according to Google's human resources chief Laszlo Bock, you don't need to stress out about fitting in too much during your job interview with Google. 

Just make sure you're offering ideas that bring something new to the company, and "don't wear a suit." 

There are two specific things Google looks for when deciding if someone is a good fit -- "conscientiousness" and "intellectual humility," as he said in a recent Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit. 

Bock explains exactly what the means in his full answer posted below: 

At a lot of places "cultural fit" is about "is this candidate like me." At Google, it's a bit different - we want people who bring something new to the mix. And we specifically care about conscientiousness (work to completion, think like an owner, etc.) and intellectual humility (not regular humility - just the ability to admit you're wrong). So, for Google, don't worry about relaxed vs. formal. Just don't wear a suit. :)

Game review: Mortal Kombat X

A note: Before jumping into the review, we need to warn you that Mortal Kombat is one of the bloodiest in a long series of bloody games dating back to the early days of gaming. So viewer and buyer discretion is advised. There's a lot of dismemberment, beheading and other gory things rendered in exquisite lifelike detail. So, don't show this to your kids folks and for god sakes, don't buy this for your kids. There's a reason a big scary ninja is on the cover. 

 

You cannot imagine the word "Arcade" without thinking about Mortal Kombat. The game captured imagination with lifelike motion captured characters in the days of pixels. With amazing depth in the one on one combat, Mortal Kombat was propelled to fame by it's graphic violence in the form of fatalities, and gruesome ways to end your opponent, which became an instant hit. Now, 22 years after the first game comes the Mortal Kombat X, taking not only the violence to the next level, but also the gameplay. 

Story and setting
The Earth and Outworld realms are rebuilt after the events of the last game. As we are introduced to the next generation of kombatants in the form of Kotal Khan, Cassie Cage, Jackie Briggs, Takeda Takahashi and Kung Jin, as well as the return of several faces from the entire Mortal Kombat canon. All of whom have to deal with the aftermath in the form of civil wars, with a greater evil looming over the horizon threatening to return. 

As expected from a Mortal Kombat game, the story is fantastic, with a good level of camp to keep things action movie-like. Weaving through multiple perspectives, the game lets you play as several characters as the story progresses, letting you learn the new mechanics as well as experience the new progressed universe. Despite all the blood spillage, Mortal Kombat is a family drama, with an ending that will make you go 'aww', then quietly look around you to see if anyone's noticed you going aww.

 

The one annoying part of the story mode though is that fights with characters like Ermac, the computer keeps spamming those annoying teleport and levitation moves, which will drive you crazy. 



Gameplay
If you strip away the flesh right down the the raw beating heart of Mortal Kombat X. The game is very deep. It's a one on one fighter, with two characters on screen beating each other senseless. Except it's so much more. Each character has a specific moveset, actually up to three movesets each character. Which you can choose and master. The attack animations are fantastic, and so believable. Once you learn the basics, each fight scene looks like well choreographed kung fu sequence in an action movie. As each move blends seamlessly into each other.

 

The kombos are easy to pull off and quite intuitive as to the movement of the player. Takes a bit of learning, but there's a helpful move list. There is a three stage meter at the bottom of your screen, that lets you perform a parry or one of the brutal X-Ray moves. Which shows you internal damage done to a character in extra gory detail, as spleens rupture, ribs get shattered and skulls get broken. While it may seem a bit excessive, however when playing with friends, it provides that "ouch" moment of one upmanship. You can also use the environment to your advantage, like in the movies, where in a market scene you can slap a hot boiling plateful of embers on to your opponent, or swing from an overhead branch for a kick. Essentially, Mortal Kombat gives you the opportunity to fight dirty, rather lots of opportunities. 

 

Even after completing the story missions, there's tonnes to do. You can either take part in the online activities, or fight your way through several of the living towers, which nets you koins, so you can unlock new outfits and other goodies in the Krypt. There's a large roster of characters you can master, plus if you have bought the DLC, you get to play as the legendary Predator, from the movies. 

Much like the story mode, computer opponents tend to spam teleport moves and execute combos to combos at unrealistic speeds. This dampens things a bit. 

The fatalities are back. Though this time around there are quick fatalities. No more memorising a bunch of button presses to execute an opponent. Except, you have to buy them in several micro transactions. Truth be told, there's a certain excitement in working for your fatality. Which are spectacularly gruesome. Rather than the old over-the-top geysers of blood fatalities of the old games, Mortal Kombat X opts for a realistic approach. So you can, boil, broil, poison, slice, dice, disembowel, burn, freeze, break and various other icky things that cannot be categorised anywhere. So hence the viewer discretion. Don't show this to your kids folks and for God sakes, don't buy this for your kids. There's a reason there's a big scary ninja on the cover. 

Online
Bored of playing with the computer, you can take your skills online. Where, unfortunately, almost everyone plays as Scorpion. One of Mortal Kombat's most iconic characters, and with an arsenal of cheap moves. Thankfully IGN has a helpful guide on how to counter the yellow ninja. 

 

In the one on one battles you can take part in the Faction Wars, which lets you pick one of five factions, and each time you perform a Faction Kill, your faction gets points. What's interesting also, is the Quitality, which executes a player who quits a multiplayer match. The living towers has an online element, with conditions that change hourly. All in all, fighting online is fun and frustrating if you come across another Scorpion after Scorpion. Tonnes of fun if you're playing with your friends. 

Graphics and Sound The graphics are so good that they will make you cringe. Characters are detailed both externally and internally, including the non human anatomies. The fighting frame-rate is smooth, and the animations seem to blend into each other. Little things like the little parries as moves connect, the whooshing of fists as they connect, the way one move flows into another without any jerks, gives a whole sense of believability. The violence is dialled up all the way, with muscle tissue giving way to flesh, then to actual bone, as rib cages cave revealing internal organs that pop and get cut. You get used to it, as the gameplay soon outweighs all the gory flash, but when you first see the moves, it's hard not to look away but yet it will make you exclaim loudly. 

That cringe is also due to the fantastic sound effects, of the bones popping. Very well done, as punches hit hard. Fist to flesh has a certain sound, and in the case of the metal armed Jax, hard hitting metal to bone, in the case of D'vorrah chitin, all inclusive of the swishes and whooshes of power moves in progress. 

Characters look fantastic, though, in cutscenes, the faces look a bit off as compared to the detail in the rest of the bodies. 

Conclusion Mortal Kombat X is one game you cannot ignore. Fantastic in every way, built to deliver maximum flurry of fun, with immense replayability. Best recommended on the PS4 or Xbox One right now as the PC one is pretty broken. Pick it up on the PC only if you're willing to wait a bit until its fully fixed. That said, Mortal Kombat X is highly recommended.

Gionee Elife S7 review

Gionee is back with another slim smartphone, Elife S7. This time the company promises that its new phone won't be just another anorexic device and will also offer improved performance and new features. Does the phone live up to the promise? We try to find out in our review...

Build and design

Just like its two predecessors, the Elife S7 sports a super-sleek form factor and feels premium and solidly-built thanks to the use of materials like glass and magnesium alloy.

You have to give it to Gionee for managing to reduce the thickness of the phone to just 5.5mm and squeezing in hardware components. It sports a unibody design so you can't remove the battery. Another sacrifice that the company made was that it did not include a microSD card slot to keep the phone slim.

The S7 doesn't only look sleek but also the ridged frame that holds the phone is made of metal with inserts for antenna at the top and bottom edges. We got a blue coloured phone as our review unit which looks like sea green.



The front features the 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display, the front camera and the sensor array. There are no capacitive buttons for navigation as the software incorporates on-screen buttons.

The all-glass back has a glossy finish and features the camera lens and an LED flash at the top left. It's amazing how the camera lens and flash are flush with the body and don't stick out. Even the back has Gorilla Glass 3 protection to guard against scratches. However, we feel a matte finish rear would have been more helpful to go with the thinness and for better grip. The phone slips easily if you keep it on a soft surface with the slightest incline.

There's minimal branding at the back. The right edge sports the colour coordinated metal volume rocker and power keys that offer good tactile feedback and look nice. The left edge houses dual micro-sim card tray. The 3.5mm headset jack is at the bottom edge along with the micro-USB port and a speaker grill.



Overall, the phone not only looks super sleek but also feels durable with its metal frame.

Display
Gionee S5.5 sports a 5.2-inch Full-HD Super AMOLED display that offers vivid albeit over-saturated colours. However, the black levels are very good and the display looks gorgeous with black themed apps and wallpapers. It comes with Gorilla Glass Class 3 coating to guard against scratches.



Brightness levels are great and we didn't encounter any problems using the phone in sunlight. Even the viewing angles are pretty good. We'll not hesitate to say that it's one of the best displays we've seen recently, if you can overlook the over-saturated colours.

It's not optimized for one hand use especially if you have small hands. Touch response was great.

Software
Gionee Elife S7 runs Amigo 3.0 based on Android 5.0 Lollipop. We've loved Gionee's mid-range phones but always complained about lag-ridden, unoptimized software. It appears Gionee has paid heed to our feedback and made improvements. The software is now more responsive than ever and the UI also looks pretty good.

Gionee has subtly incorporated elements from Android 5.0 including Material design for its native apps, used a lot of pastel colours and retained the Lollipop app switcher with different browser tabs appearing as different apps. The phone has onscreen navigation keys and you can change the position of the back key to your liking. However, the notification drawer is slightly different and the settings shortcut toggles are placed in an iOS Control Center-like pull-up tray. It's even called Control Center! This menu is a bit unintuitive as there are no visual cues to highlight the feature. Also, unlike iOS the menu is hidden between the three navigation buttons.

Just like most Chinese phones with custom software, Amigo 3.0 doesn't have a separate app launcher by default. The home screen and app launcher are one though this can be changed by using a different theme or third party launcher. Six themes are available but you can't download additional themes. The phone offers an interesting app called Chameleon that makes use of the its camera to select a colour drom your surroundings and make it the default app colour for native apps. For instance, if you see a blue flower that you like, you can point the phone's camera towards it and select the colour. You can then have all system apps use the same colour theme.



The latest version of the OS also adds widget support, which is a welcome change though the process is slightly cumbersome.

The Elife S7 also offers sensor-controlled smart gestures that let you unlock the phone, browse through home screens and images and control video, with a wave of the hand. It also supports double tap to unlock and alphabet gestures to launch apps when one draws a particular letter on the lock screen. These features are not new but worked withiut any problems. There's also a Suspend floating soft button that can be enabled through the settings. This button houses the shortcut keys for back and home in addition to screen lock and menu buttons.

The software still has its quirks but Gionee has done a good job of optimizimg it for the hardware and the overall experience was much better than the last two Elife phones.

Camera
Gionee Elife S7 comes with a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facing camera. The camera app offers simple and professional modes with the latter offering controls for granular settings. The camera features Image+ technology through which it can capture 6 pictures in about 1 second and compose a single picture by combining them, adjusting the brightness and image noise.




It also features Magic focus similar to Nokia's re-focus mode to change the focus of the image after it's shot.

During our use, we found the camera to be slightly underwhelming although Gionee has consolidated its different camera apps into one.



Pictures shot in daylight had decent level of detail but came out over-exposed (in Auto mode). Colours were slightly oversaturated. Low-light shots came out well, though these had some noise. The front camera captures good quality selfies and the Beauty mode really enhances them. It's also good for video chats.

Performance
Gionee Elife S7 is powered by a 1.7GHz MediaTek MT6752 octa-core processor and 2GB RAM. The phone boasts of powerful hardware and its performance was comparable to other premium mid-rangers. We did not encounter any major lag while using multiple apps and playing games. Scrolling was also pretty smooth.

In synthetic benchmarks, the phone scored 44,645 in Antutu, 15,698 in Quadrant, and 61.9 in Nenamark 2 benchmark tests. In most of these tests the phone lags behind the Xiaomi Mi 4 and OnePlus One. But we'd not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance can be different at times.

Another department where the phone excels is battery backup. The phone comes with a 2700mAh battery, and easily sails through one and a half days with moderate to heavy use.

The phone comes with 16GB storage (about 10GB of which is usable), but unfortunately, it doesn't sport a microSD card slot. This means you'll need to live with the limited storage capacity of the phone. Gionee must do something about this if it has to take Indian market seriously.

We were able to play most video and audio files on the phone without encountering problems. The phone offers good call quality and signal reception. It was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups. The phone supports both Indian 4G bands but we could not test 4G connectivity as there's no live LTE network in New Delhi.

The external speaker on the phone offers loud sound output.

Gaming
The phone is able to handle graphics-rich games without any hiccups. However, we noticed that the phone gets heated up within a few minutes of playing graphics-heavy games.
We were able to play games like Looney Tunes Dash, Asphalt 8 (with visual details set to 100%) and Riptide GP 2 without
encountering any problems.




Verdict
With the Elife S7, Gionee has certainly made strides in making a well rounded slim phone. The company has ironed out software issues that plague its other devices and even the battery life is stellar. Of course the phone looks and feels super sleek, the only problem being its slippery and fragile body. The meagre 16GB storage capacity and the lack of a microSD card slot is a big bummer though.

Does it offer good value for your money? Unfortunately, at a price of nearly Rs 25,000, we feel there are better phones available in the market.