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.

Brief:
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is one of the best games I have ever played. Is it the best of the lot? I think so. Is it better than The Last of Us? I think not. But Uncharted 4 pulls off something so big and essential that these little comparisons and questions are left irrelevant. You’ll be yearning for more when you’re done with this experience. Developer Naughty Dog has done it again and has once again conquered and proved its rightful title as the best developer in the industry. This is a must play and definitely one of the games to beat in 2016. It is not just a game. It’s an experience.

Uncharted 4 is beautiful and by far the best looking game I have played to boot. Not even games like Dying Light or the new Tomb Raider – which punish your PC when played on Ultra – can come close to how gorgeous this looks. This game is straight up alluring. The in-game environments, textures, lighting, character models and especially the late game rain effects are so true to life that while I was playing at home, my parents kept confusing it with some high-definition action movie. The game is so good looking that Naughty Dog shows-off their talents and the game’s beauty by including an in-built timer saying ‘time spent standing still and looking at the scenery.’

Main:

Platform: PlayStation 4
Developed by: Naughty Dog
Release date: May 10, 2016

It’s universally accepted that if you cry at the denouement of an experience, it’s either exceptionally fine or exceedingly deficient. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End brought tears to my eyes, but it is definitely much more than just fine. Playing it for the first time gives you the same feeling that you had when you first saw Yuvraj Singh hitting those six 6’s against England, it makes you realise how much Nathan Drake has grown and how far developer Naughty Dog has come. It gives you that sense of pride and allegiance towards Naughty Dog that you almost get emotional (a lot, in my case). Uncharted 4 is so good, that it is not just a game, it is art. Just like The Last of Us, it is an example of what video games can be and how much the medium has grown.

Uncharted 4 is beautiful and by far the best looking game I have played to boot. Not even games like Dying Light or the new Tomb Raider – which punish your PC when played on Ultra – can come close to how gorgeous this looks. This game is straight up alluring. The in-game environments, textures, lighting, character models and especially the late game rain effects are so true to life that while I was playing at home, my parents kept confusing it with some high-definition action movie. The game is so good looking that Naughty Dog shows-off their talents and the game’s beauty by including an in-built timer saying ‘time spent standing still and looking at the scenery.’ The attention to detail is immaculate. If you haven’t played the previous Uncharted games then I recommend that you go and do so because of two reasons: firstly, the previous games themselves are must plays and will surely give you an amazing experience, and secondly (definitely the more important reason), Uncharted 4 gives so many nods to the previous titles that it is hard not to marvel and love Naughty Dog even more. Trust me, you would be a fool to play this without having played the preceding ones. It rewards the player with a sense of homecoming and trust with all its little and BIG Easter eggs. This feels like a Naughty Dog game and that is a great thing.

The game plays like an Uncharted game and is very much an Uncharted game, but I can’t emphasise enough that The Last of Us is all over this game that at some instances it doesn’t feel like an Uncharted game. We see this in the form of new types of collectables like notes and journal entries, which tell little stories of their own very much like The Last of Us did. This new form of environmental storytelling mechanic fleshes out the world and gives us a greater incentive to explore every little of its nooks and crannies. The new optional dialogue mechanic taken straight from The Last of Us helps flesh out the beloved characters of the franchise like Elena and Sully even more but also helps in the character building of the newer characters like Nate’s older brother Sam and the excellent villains (I’ll not name them to prevent spoilers). While all these new mechanics help make it a better experience, there are a few new gameplay elements like stealth (which has been seen before in Uncharted 2 but is much better this time and is almost identical to that in The Last of Us), tagging enemies, rope traversal, sliding mechanics and driving which in my opinion are extremely solid and functional but they don’t blow them out of the park. The shooting mechanics, melee and traversal feel extremely good and satisfying and are definitely a step above the previous games where these felt a bit empty. One aspect of the game that stands out is the new buddy system. It helps make the combat more fun and exhilarating and helps one take a more dynamic and fluid approach to their play style.

The game is excellent in it’s pacing and it ramps extremely well. It starts off slow with some hard hitting emotional beats and then ramps just at the right pace to make you feel engaged and involved in every moment with amazing looking cut-scenes and outstanding performances from the experienced cast. The moment-to-moment gameplay is so good that it feels exactly like an action movie. The story of Uncharted 4 is excellent and in my opinion, the best of the lot. It is a lot more grounded and real. This is definitely a more mature and “grown-up” Uncharted. Unfortunately, saying more about the story takes it into “spoiler-territory” and trust me you DO NOT want it spoiled for you.

It is also notable to say that this is a lot longer than the previous games that took about 8-10 hours whereas I clocked in at around 18 hours on Hard. This is a considerably longer playtime than the previous titles, but trust me, it does not take away from the experience. These 18 hours are some of the most memorable I’ve ever spent with a game.

Score: 9.8/10

Reviewed by: Siddharth Maharishi

http://domainsquareplus.blogspot.in/2016/05/uncharted-4-thiefs-end-review.html