Category: Lookit!

Categories
Event

Financial journalists, this one’s for you

Shriram Sanlam Awards invite entries in financial journalism, will be judged by an eminent panel of editors and corporate personalities.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Financial journalists in India need to take note: the Shriram Sanlam Awards for financial journalism is currently inviting entries.

This is the third edition of the Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism constituted by Shriram Group along with the South Africa-based Sanlam Group (South Africa) in association with the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), Chennai, in 2012.

Journalists can submit or nominate anything in the purview of financial journalism, ranging from Indian Economic Policy, Macro Economic Issues, Financial Markets including Equity, Debt and Foreign Exchange, Banking and allied services, Sectoral Issues, financial inclusion and financial literacy. There will also be a Life Time Achievement Award, for which recommendations are welcome. This year, the categories of Awards will be decided after receiving nominations. Journalists and editors are free to nominate as many entries or people as they wish. Parameters for the Awards are Insight, Analysis, Depth, Uniqueness, Originality, Comprehensive and Balanced Approach, Level of research, Follow up of story by others leading to wider discussion, and overall impact of the story.

Entries are being accepted up to January 31, 2015.

TN NinanOne of India’s most respected media personalities, TN Ninan (in pic on left, Chairman, Business Standard) has been inducted on the jury panel of the Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism 2014. He was also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2nd Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism in the year 2013. He will join a distinguished panel of independent jury members comprising, amongst others, Gopal Srinivasan (Chairman and Managing Director – TVS Capital Ltd.), Srinivasan K Swamy (Chairman and Managing Director, RK Swamy BBDO), Ashu Suyash (CEO, L&T Mutual Fund), Adit Jain (Chairman, IMA Asia) and Swaminathan S Aiyar, Consulting Editor of The Economic Times.

GS Sundararajan, Wholetime Director, Shriram Capital Ltd., said, “This year, the jury has a good mix of corporate personalities and eminent media editors. We are striving to ensure that renowned editors act as mentors to financial and corporate journalists. Financial journalism in the country needs to evolve dynamically as India braces itself for higher goals with challenges therein. These Awards are a step towards inspiring financial journalists to achieve higher levels of professional excellence.”

Look up www.shriramawards.com for rules and nomination form. Entries need to be mailed to awards@shriram.com from official email IDs. The grand finale of the Awards Function will be held in April 2015.

(Featured image courtesy blog.meraevents.com)

Categories
Watch

Attend: Rainer Fassbinder film festival

The Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, is hosting a retrospective of films by the German filmmaker, actor, till December 19, 2014.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Maverick German filmmaker and actor Rainer Werner Fassbinder, many say, died too soon. Born in 1945, Fassbinder breathed his last in 1982, at the age of 37. However, the prolific film personality and pioneer of the New German Film Movement made 43 films in 15 years.

The film director was synonymous with the German New Wave in cinema, and he made fascinating collages with truly colorful characters in his films.

Fassbinder film festivalAll this week, the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai is hosting a seven-day retrospective of Fassbinder’s select films on specified dates (see image on left) designed to acquaint the viewer with the political complexities of his films. His work is known to challenge the viewer to continuously re-orient himself owing to the films’ constantly changing cinematic structure.

This retrospective is not to be missed.

(Pictures courtesy theredlist.com and Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai)

Categories
Tech

Review: Lenovo Vibe X2

It is almost love at first touch with the Lenovo Vibe X2, which scores with its design and software performance.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

Lenovo has been a dark horse in the smartphone race; the company has steadily been leaving its mark in various smartphone markets. Now, it seems to be focussing on the mid-range segment of smartphones, with the Vibe X2.

The looks. Vibe X2 (X2-AP) has quite a unique design language. With three layers (all different and bright orange, peach and light bronze) besides the screen, the manufacturer gets credit for the first look. Further, you can attach a couple of accessories like an external battery unit or speaker making it the fourth layer minus a shabby look. There’s a lot of Magnesium in use here, the phone weighs about 120 grams and is 7.3mm thick, which makes it comfortable to carry around.

Around the sides (with the three stripes running), you have the dual SIM tray (houses a nano SIM and micro SIM) placed underneath the left side panel, and the volume rocker and Power/ Lock key on the other side. I would have liked these physical keys to be a bit more tactile and less flushed to the body surface as you will often find them inconvenient to spot and press without having to look at them. The microUSB port and primary mic sit at the bottom, and the 3.5 mm headset jack is at the top.

On the front, there’s the 5-inch full HD panel, along with the 5 MP front-facing camera, sensors, speaker grill, and a tiny LED notification light on its top; while there are three capacitive buttons – Option (Menu), Home and Back button placed below the screen, which are not very dim. The rear seems usual – Camera and LED flash on the right corner, then the secondary mic, Lenovo logo in the middle, and loudspeakers towards the bottom.

Display. The phone boasts a 5-inch (1920 x 1080) LCD touchscreen. The display of the phone is sharp, quite bright and decent for using under sunlight. The colour reproduction, though, does not pop as a high-end device, but it’s not bad. Viewing angles are also on par with most full HD panels, and videos and high resolution images appear pretty nice on the screen.

Camera. The Vibe X2 sports a 13 MP (AF) camera along with an LED flash. Here are a few sample images.

The phone’s camera isn’t its best feature. More often than not, pictures turn out to be just okay. Colours sometimes appear washed out, and only decent when the camera is able to focus well, which is another place where it struggles. Low-light shots aren’t much to talk about. With decent conditions, you can get a few detailed shots, but don’t expect more. You are better to try taking shots in the HDR mode than normal as it turned to be more than useful on several occasions. The 5 MP front-facing camera is not bad for making video calls or taking a selfie. The camera app, in contrast to the rear camera, is smooth and simple to work around.

Battery. With a 2,230 mAh battery unit inside, you will have to charge it up in about 15 to 16 hours. With brightness level at 20 per cent, and always on WiFi, the phone’s battery is not a great performer. Also, the Vibe X2 doesn’t support fast charging.

Audio. Audio on the phone is also not that great. Though loudspeakers are on par with most smartphones when it comes to videos and games, in-ear sound quality is average. Using the bundled headset with another phone gives you a noticeably better sound, meaning the Vibe X2 (with the bundled headset) isn’t much of a standout.

Software and performance. The device is equipped with MediaTek’s MTK 6595 SoC (1.7 GHz quad-core and 2 GHz quad-core processor, PowerVR GPU) along with 2 GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.4.2 with Lenovo’s Vibe UI in use.

If you have used another Lenovo phone from last year, you are going to notice and mostly like what changes the company has done to its software. There’s no separate app launcher like before and all your app shortcuts appear on Home screens, but the whole look, icons, arrangement of UI elements is much better. The phone is fluid to open apps, reboot, responsive to play games on, and hardly ever stuttered during my entire usage.

The notification center and Settings have also been given a facelift. You can edit which toggle buttons appear above the notification bar, and also take a screenshot. Lockscreen now allows you to directly jump into Call Log, messages or open the Camera app. Status Bar changes its colour depending upon the app you are currently on. It is white by default, but, for instance, if you move to Settings (which has a White background), the status bar and icons turn black.

You can also double tap to wake the screen, which works well. Long-pressing the Options key brings up recent key (in iOS manner), and long-pressing the Home key pops Google Now up (by default). The user gets about 26 GB of accessible storage space. All in all, one can sum up the software and performance experience by saying Lenovo has done a lot of good work in improving its software and making the phone a stellar performer.

To sum up, the Lenovo Vibe X2 seems to be a great value for money purchase about Rs 20,000. With a good screen, great performance, average battery life, if you aren’t too concerned about the camera performance, this smartphone surely comes as a great option for this price.

Categories
Listen

Live music, at a mall near you

A Kandivali-based mall has started a musical initiative where new artistes will get to perform for free for live audiences.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Mumbai’s big malls are certainly laying the red carpet down for its patrons. After Phoenix Mall hosted an art walk in September, the city’s suburbs will now get a taste of live music every Friday.

Shoppers headed to Growel’s 101 Mall in Kandivali will now be treated to musical performances by singers and musicians every Friday, as part of the Mall’s ‘Fun Friday’ initiative. The initiative aims to provide a platform to budding artistes from Mumbai to showcase their talent. The first performances took place last week on November 28, when Sonu Kakkar and Siddharth Basrur.

The Mall’s ozone area is to be used for the purpose. Said Rajiv Bhatia, COO, Retail and Real Estate, Grauer & Weil (India), “We want to develop the Mall as the newest venue for fresh talent, especially from the neighbourhood. In a space-starved city like Mumbai, such an initiative is bound to get a hands-down support from people.” He added, “New artistes who are extremely talented still find it difficult to acquire venues since most of them charge exorbitant amounts. We wish to provide a stage to such artistes free of cost so that they can showcase their talent. The mall has robust footfalls, especially on weekends beginning Friday, which is what led to the genesis of the Fun Friday concept.

“Good footfalls will ensure that the artistes have a great audience. That will definitely be encouraging for them.” The management hopes that the initiative will be a double treat for shoppers, too, as they can listen to some of the best new music as they shop, eat or simply hang out at the mall.

(Pictures courtesy Growel’s 101 Mall)

Categories
Tech

Celkon and ZTE launch two new phones

Celkon’s first Windows phone, a low range device, comes to India; while ZTE’s mid range phone is named the Grand SII.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

As announced by the company a few days back, Celkon has launched its first Windows Phone device in India two days ago. The phone is named WIN400, and caters to the low-end smartphone segment.

The WIN400 (in image above) features a 4-inch (800 x 480) screen and runs on Windows Phone 8.1. Under the hood, there is a Snapdragon 200 chipset (1.2 GHz quad-core processor, Adreno 203 GPU) along with 512 MB of RAM. On the back, there is a 5 MP (AF) camera (with an LED flash), while the front has a 1.3 MP camera. The phone comes loaded 1,500 mAh battery unit and with 4 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 32 GB using a microSD card. Connectivity-wise, there’s 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, GPS, and microUSB 2.0. The phone comes in black, and is available for Rs 4,979.

ZTEZTE also launched its new mid-range smartphone, the Grand SII (in pic on left). The device runs on Android 4.2 with Mi Flavor UI on top. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chipset coupled with 2 GB of RAM. The Grand SII features a 5.5-inch (1920×1080) screen and is equipped with a 2,500 mAh battery unit. There’s 16 GB of internal storage, which is expandable. The rear sports a 13 MP camera, and the front has a 5 MP camera.

It also boasts 3G and 4G LTE connectivity options along with Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, microUSB 2.0, and FM Radio. The phone comes in only silver-black colour, and is available exclusively from Amazon at Rs 13,999.

Categories
Tech

This just in: Microsoft Lumia 535

Launched in India at a price of Rs 9,199, this smartphone is Microsoft’s first Windows handset under its own brand.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

Microsoft’s first Windows Phone handset under its own brand, the new Lumia 535, has been launched in India two days ago. The phone marks the beginning of Microsoft phones in the Indian market, while the low-end feature phones will continue to be under the name Nokia.

Running on Windows Phone 8.1 (with Lumia Denim Update), the Lumia 535 features a 5-inch (540 x 960) screen with Gorilla Glass 3 on top, and comes loaded with many Microsoft apps and services like Offices, OneNote, OneDrive, Xbox app, and more. Under the hood, there is a Snapdragon 200 SoC (1.2 GHz quad-core processor, Adreno 302 GPU), along with 1 GB of RAM.

On the back, there is a 5 MP (AF) camera (with an LED flash), while the front has a 5 MP wide-lens camera. There’s 8 GB of on-board storage, which can be expandable up to 128 GB, plus, 15 GB of free OneDrive storage space.

This dual SIM handset sports Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, microUSB 2.0, WiFi, 3G connectivity, and 3.5 mm headset jack. Weighing about 146 grams, the phone packs a 1,905 mAh battery unit.

The Lumia 535 goes on sale later this week at Rs 9,199, and comes in bright green, bright orange, white and black colour options. The user will also get free 500 MB of 3G data from Vodafone for the first two months, 2 months of BoxTV subscription, free recharge from PayTM worth 600 bucks, and free EBooks from Flipkart worth Rs 1,500.

Exit mobile version