Multimedia Contest 2016 was held at Vasant Valley School on 2nd September 2016. The individual results are as follows:

Gaming – Winners                                                                                                                                          Aryan Arora                                                                                                                                                      Shivin Suri [DS+]

Quiz – Winners                                                                                                                                                Aryaman Dubey                                                                                                                                              Raghav Tarak Khanna

Congratulations to all the winners!

CODE 2016 was held at Apeejay School, Noida on 10th-11th November 2016. The individual results are as follows:

Movie Making – Winners                                                                                                                       Arnav Singh [NE]                                                                                                                                         Zaina Ali [NE]

Photography – Runners Up                                                                                                                          Vaibhav Sharma [NE]

AlphaBit 2016 was held at Amity International School, Saket on 25th November 2016. The individual results are as follows:

Runners Up – Quiz
Udit Malik
Aaryak Garg

XINO 2016 was held at Delhi Public School, Rohini on 5th November 2016. Exun Clan bagged the overall runners up trophy. The individual results are as follows:

Exquisite (Creative) – Winners
Ananay Arora
Anirudh Goyal
Rohan Dhar

Sillico Battles 2016 was held at Ahlcon Public School, Mayur Vihar on 3rd November – 4th November.

The individual results are as follows:

Robowars – Winners

• Aahan Birla
• Danish Bansal

Digital Imaging – Runners Up

• Anirudh Goyal

Congratulations to all the winners!

C.O.R.E. 9 was held at Delhi Public School, Dwarka on 27th October – 28th October 2016.

The individual results are as follows:

Creative Event – Runners Up

• Ananay Arora
• Neel Lakhwani
• Anirudh Goyal

Infoyage 2016 was held at Cambridge School, Indirapuram on 6th October.

Exun Clan bagged the Overall Winners Trophy. The individual results are as follows:

Java Programming – Winners

• Vishrut Malik
• Anant Kumar

Events Day-2 Exun 2016

Exun 2016 Day-2 Closing Ceremony

Opening Ceremony

Day Events

Lately, a new port has become one of the seemingly ‘universal’ ports – the USB Type-C (or simply USB-C) port. Is this real innovation that helps simplify lives, or is it all about the jumbled fuss of more cables and adapters? Let’s find out.

First of all, some clarification

The USB specification is fragmented and confusing, so first, we’ll need to clarify a common misunderstanding.

There is one thing you need to keep in mind: there are two different specifications that this article will explain simultaneously – the USB protocol specification and the USB port specification.

USB Protocol Specification specifies the available bandwidth, power limits and capabilities of the USB connection. These are numeric, like USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0 etc.

USB Port Specification refers to the size and shape of the physical USB ports, and the pins in these ports. There are alphabetic, like USB Type-A, USB Type-B, USB Type-C (or simply UBS-A, USB-B and USB-C). Some of these ports also have a mini or micro version, like Micro-USB A, Mini-USB B etc.

This article will go through the details of these specifications later. For now, just remember that numbered specification/version (like USB 2.0) refer to the USB Protocol, while alphabetic specifications (like USB-C) refer to the physical port used for the connection.

A Brief History of USB

Development on the Universal Serial Bus (USB) started in 1994-1995 by several companies including IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Compaq, with Ajay Bhatt being a major contributor in the development. The goal was to have a simple & universal connector to connect peripheral devices.

Further development on USB and newer specifications has been summarized in the following table.

What the fuss is all about – Thunderbolt

From the table above, USB-C seems pretty straightforward – it supports upto 10 Gbps transfer speed and upto 100W power delivery because it runs on USB 3.1 Gen 2. But since don’t we live in a non-ideal world, things don’t end here.

In 2011, Apple and Intel introduced a new interface to connect peripherals and displays – Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is very different from (and also faster than) USB because runs on the PCIe interface. PCIe is the ‘backbone’ interface on the motherboard, onto which essential devices such as Graphics Cards and Sound Cards are connected. Thunderbolt has had two revisions since the initial release – conveniently named Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 1 & Thunderbolt 2 utilized the Mini DisplayPort connector.

Thunderbolt 1/2 connector (same as a Mini DisplayPort connector)

Now comes the fussy part – Thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 supports bi-directional transfers upto 40 Gbps. Instead of using the Mini DisplayPort Connector, Thunderbolt 3 utilizes the USB-C connector.

Thunderbolt 3 connector (same as USB-C connector)

USB-C ended up being a modern, compact and reversible connector used for two completely different interfaces – USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3, which has led to some confusion among customers. Thankfully, since Thunderbolt 3 is superior to USB 3.1, most (if not all) Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports also support USB 3.1 Gen 2.

Left – A USB 3.1 Gen 2 port on a desktop

Right – A Thunderbolt 3 port on an ultrabook

Visually, the two can’t be told apart because both interfaces use the same physical connector

A Potential Threat to Gaming Laptops

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) or Graphics Cards are pieces of hardware that make your machine capable of rendering models/simulations and running high-end games. Conventionally, there were dedicated Gaming Laptops with powerful GPUs. One major drawback of gaming laptops is that they are thick and bulky and heavy because of the powerful internals, bigger batteries to power high-end GPUs and better cooling systems.

In 2014, gaming laptops and desktops manufacturer Alienware demoed its Alienware Graphics Amplifier, the first-ever commercially available way to attach graphics cards externally. This opened a possibility for portable laptops that can be connected or docked to External Graphics Cards. The Alienware Graphics Amplifier uses a proprietary connector to connect a desktop Graphic Card to a laptop (over the previously mentioned PCIe interface).

The Alienware Graphics Amplifier with a high-end desktop GPU connected to an Alienware laptop using a proprietary connector

Since Graphics Cards need to run on the PCIe interface, Thunderbolt 3 (which also supports PCIe)and USB-C have made standardized External GPU solutions a reality. The Razer Core is a standard External GPU solution that can be used to attach a desktop GPU to any laptop with Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C (This won’t work over a USB-C port with just USB 3.1).

The Razer Core connected to an ultrabook over Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

External GPUs pose a threat to future gaming laptops, since they enable portable ultrabooks to be even more powerful than conventional gaming laptops by just plugging in a USB-C cable. With this, a single machine can be the best of both worlds – an ultraportable device when mobile, and a powerful gaming beast when docked.

In Conclusion

Although the USB standards have been regularly updated, this time is different. We now have a small, reversible connector that enables completely new interfaces and connections – from faster storage devices to monitors with more resolution, and from laptop chargers to external graphics cards – all over a single mighty port, USB-C. This versatility also ensured that the breakthrough USB-C is a confusing addition to the already-confusing family of USB ports and protocols.