Author: Shashank Bhardwaj

Whether you’re someone who buys clothes as a necessity or someone who approaches it as a fashionable hobby, there must have been a point when you wondered about the process involved in the making of our clothes. How are such fabrics made, for example, from the simple and comfortable cotton to the luxurious silk? The textile manufacturing process is a simple one to follow and in fact hasn’t changed much from how it was first developed. The most complex part are actually the machines used to streamline the entire process, making it more efficient and allowing the resulting swaths of fabric to…

On Android’s Play Store (or on the iOS App store), there are hundreds of thousands of different music applications like Saavn, Gaana, Wynk and many more. As smartphone user, you have access to any kind of music program imaginable, right from Internet radio and streaming apps to guitar tuners and portable DJ stations. Despite all of this, music streaming was slow to take off, at least in countries like India where even though calls were dirt cheap, data really wasn’t. All of that fortunately changed last year with Jio’s big bang entry into the telecom sector. With data so ridiculously…

After India’s Demonetization in 2016, multiple financial technology companies, or Fintech startups, as they’re called, have been on the rise. While we’ve seen similar versions of the same idea – a mobile wallet, P2P lending, etc – there’s another unique concept emerging as a disruptor. Enter ‘Simpl’. Inception Our entire lives we’ve followed the concept of pay first, use later. Flip this idea. Imagine a set up where you can use or enjoy entities across multiple platforms, and pay the bills later. That’s what a credit card does, yes. Now imagine there was no credit card. This is exactly what Simpl aims…

Information, technology and finance form the supporting pillars of emerging civilizations. Connecting all three nodes can be thought of as the most successful way to build a self-sustaining model for the future. An ingenious invention – blockchain in the financial industry, aims to do exactly that. It’ll build a secure and decentralized framework for the evolving global economy. To understand Blockchain better, you may need to understand the concept of ‘Bitcoin’. While most of us are aware of bitcoins, there are many others who are intimidated by the concept. Bitcoin: Why we felt the need for Blockchain Technology Bitcoin is…

The market for VPNs ought to be peaking right now – with the US Government bringing in some very controversial legislation allowing ISPs to sell consumers’ browsing history. That, coupled with the half a decade of surveillance scandals we’ve been witnessing are only adding to the general public’s need for Virtual Private Network software. Which brings us to an important question – if you need to be switching to VPNs right now, which one should you go for? Plenty of software firms have capitalised on the situation to launch a plethora of VPN applications. Some of these apps are available…

As Indians queue up for cash in banks and ATMs , the question on whether India will successfully transition to a cashless economy stays strong in our minds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a bold move to eradicate black money (or was it to promote cashless transactions?), announced the demonetization of our 500 rupee and 1000 rupee notes in November 2016. As this constituted about 86 percent of nation’s currency in circulation, Indians had no choice but to resort to means such as online payments and net banking (RBI). Let’s first understand what does cashless economy means . A cashless economy is one where…

PayPal emerged in 1998, and largely changed the way financial transactions happened. While it isn’t the major player today that it hoped to be, its influence is evident. Mobile wallets are everywhere. Cash transactions continue to decline. Digital commerce is expected to amount to more than a quarter of all retail commerce by 2025. Apart from its impact on the world’s economy and business, digital commerce has enormously influenced consumer habits. Past studies by various economists on the shifts and trends in the consumer spending behavior point to not only the commercial, but also the psychological reasonings for such changes in consumerism. According to economists,…

There’s no dearth of people who’ve dreamt of going into that vast unknown. The unknown we call space. I’m not going to repeat Carl Sagan calling Earth a distant speck. But think about it – in our billions of years of existence as man, and thousands of years as modern man, we haven’t breached more than 400 kilometers upwards from the surface of the Earth, in a universe that is 93 billion light years across. I say 400 kilometers, because our trips to the Moon were a one-off expedition that were initiated and forgotten within half a decade. No human, ever since the 1970s,…

Elon Musk doesn’t need an introduction. But we’re going to give him one anyway. Probably because we never get tired of describing him. One of the greatest minds in the world right now, Musk is known for his enormous innovations in the field of electrically powered vehicles in Tesla Motors and his work in SpaceX. He’s probably the most celebrated entrepreneur in the world right now. Also Read: The Rise & Rise of SpaceX Musk believes the future of the global automobile industry (and planet Earth) rests in electric vehicles. The era of Internal Combustion Engines should start its downhill phase, to be taken…

We’ve had some majorly influential movies over the past couple of years. As I write this, however, no other comes to mind except Interstellar. If it weren’t for my Batman bias, I’d call it Nolan’s most ambitious project ever. Interstellar was a magnificent amalgamation of a truly fascinating theme, terrific screenplay, and a soundtrack that can captivate you single handedly. Now, the debate masterpiece is out on Blu-Ray and DVD, courtesy Sony DADC. We got ourselves a copy of the BluRay, which offers 3 hours of special footage, along with commentary from the cast and crew, and many more extras. Before…

The tablet market has been shrinking lately. But that’s not stopping new entrants from launching a number of new products for us consumers. OEMs are focusing on differentiating their products to boost visibility and sales, which is a good strategy if you want to get off to a good start. Swipe Telecom is doing just that. The latest offering from Swipe is the Ultimate 3G – one of those hybrid tablets that doubles up as a laptop with its mechanical keyboard. Announced at CES earlier this year, the device is now available in India exclusively through SnapDeal. It is the successor to…

We knew Nokia handsets were sturdy, very sturdy. But this recent report will take their invincible status to a whole new level. A Swedish man’s Nokia stayed underwater for more than 3 months before it was found again – and it’s still working! Roger Nilsson lost his Nokia Lumia 800 in a lake 3 months ago, and gave up looking for it. Only recently, he happened to find the handset stuck between 2 rocks while heading home. After 3 months underwater, it still works After taking the Lumia back home, he removed the mud coating, cleaned the internals, and left it…