1. WHAT DOES AFFLECK SAY OF THE
EPISODE?
He said he was embarrassed about
having a slave-owning ancestor
and that “the very thought left a
bad taste in my mouth.”
HOW BADLY HAS HE BEEN HIT?
Well apart from PBS's decision to
withdraw the episode, the
actor also had to deal with
some expletive-laden
reactions on the
social media.
SO CRITICS IN THE US
HAVE A PROBLEM
WITH THE ACTOR WHO
DONS THE HALLOWED
DARK SUIT HAVING A
SLAVE-OWNING
ANCESTOR?
No. They have a
problem with
Batman trying
to hide the fact.
AND THE APT
BATMAN QUOTE
WOULD BE...
“It’s not who we are
underneath but what we
do that defines us.”
THE ACTOR AND BATMAN IN
THE UPCOMING BATMAN V
SUPERMAN?
Yup.
WHAT ABOUT HIM?
Let’s just say he is embarrassed.
ABOUT WHAT?
American public broadcaster
PBS earlier this week said it
would withdraw an episode of
a show named Finding Your
Roots featuring the actor from
all forms of distribution.
BUT WHY...
It has to do with his great-great-
great grandfather.
WHO WAS HE AND WHAT DID
HE DO?
His name was Benjamin Cole.
He was a sheriff in Chatham
County, Georgia in the 1850s.
WHAT’S BAD ABOUT THAT?
He was also a “custodian” of
seven slaves.
OOPS.
Exactly.
SO AFFLECK DIDN’T OPEN UP
ON COLE ON THE SHOW?
He did but later asked the show
producer Harvard historian
Henry Louis Gates Jr to edit
out the part from the
programme.
BUT THEN HOW
DID IT COME TO
LIGHT?
How does
anything come
to light,
nowadays?
WIKILEAKS…?
Exactly. They
published a
mail
exchanged
between Gates
and senior
executives at
Sony in which the
show producer put
in a request
informing the
channel of the actor’s
request.
T
his cute little fella is the mBot — a do-it-yourself educational
robotkitfromroboticsexpertsMakeblock.Builtaroundthe
Arduino open-source platform, it’s designed to induct kids
into the fields of robotics and programming. The company chose to
build around the concept of STEM education: science, technology,
engineering & mathematics. Specifically, it helps children get an
earlystartintothesedisciplines.TherearetwoversionsofthemBot:
aBluetoothversionforhomeuseanda2.4GhzWiFiversion,whichis
designed for classroom use.
The company took to Kickstarter to generate funds for mBot and
promised one unit for $49 (plus shipping). From a modest $20,000
goal, a staggering $2,85,463 was raised during the campaign.
Now, you can buy a kit from Makeblock’s website. Coming
back to the mBot, everything that you
need to build it is in the box — in a
nutshell, you need to assemble it
using the precise instructions
provided and add batteries.
There are 45 pieces and it’s easy
to put them together in about 15
minutes. It’s neatly packaged
and consists of very high
quality materials —
including some attractive
anodised aluminium parts
in your choice of pink or
blue. Every little part that you need — from the main Arduino board,
DCmotors,toeachscrew,cableandevenasetoftools—isinthebox.
It comes pre-programmed but it’s also designed to be tinkered with.
Parentofpre-teensmightbefamiliarwithScratch—afree,graphical-
based programming language developed by MIT Media Lab. Well,
Makeblock has built their own version for this and called it mBlock
(it’s based on Scratch 2.0 and free to download from their website).
The idea behind mBlock is that younger children can start out with
graphicalprogrammingandmoveontotext-basedprogrammingas
theybecomemoreadvanced.
Ultimately, once you put everything together, mBot can move
around and avoid obstacles on its own, follow a line on the
ground or just accept commands from the supplied
IRremotecontroller.WiththeMakeblockapp(iOS
&Android),youcancontroltherobotswirelessly
(without needing line of sight). For children,
especially, it can be a surreal experience:
actually building something out of
tiny parts and seeing it come to
‘life’. And there’s no limit to what
you can do — add more parts, add
another robot to play games or
programyourownactions.Thisis
what will inspire the next
generation of engineers.
— Hitesh Raj Bhagat
About...Talk
Like other caller ID apps, Toost
also requires you to verify your
phone number and give details
such as name and email ID for
activation and registration. On first
run, the app automatically scans
your call log and identifies
unknown numbers. It also scans
your contacts and identifies
potential business/service
providers (chemist, restaurants
etc) and lets you recommend the ones you
prefer. After that
whenever you get a call
from an unknown
number, a pop-up box
displays the contact
name. In our usage, the
app was able to identify
eight out of 10 numbers
correctly. In addition to
this, you can even
search for people or
businesses from within
the app. There is also a
quick search function to
locate restaurants, doctors or plumbers
around you. It also has a built-in call-
blocking feature. An impressive feature of
the app is the inclusion of social features —
you get activity feed of your friends
through which you can keep a check if
they have added new details to their
profile. The app claims to have a database
of over 750 million unique contacts. If you
are looking for an alternative for
Truecaller, check out Toost.— Karan Bajaj
JUNE 28-JULY 04, 2015
28 feel smart
PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS MAKING HEADLINES
BEN AFFLECK
App for Android
Get it for: Free
DOWNLOADPLAY
Toost
DoesnotCommute
Game for Android
Get it for: Free for iOS & Android
DO BROWSE LISTEN READ PLAYGET
Get it for: $75 (plus shipping & duties)
Amajority of the driving games stick
to racing or open-world driving
gameplay. Thisis whythestrategy
driving gameplay of Does not Commute
comes as a refreshing change. The game
shows a birds-eye view and you get
driving directions for different vehicles.
You have to drive each vehicle to its
destination within the given time
without
getting into an
accident.
The
controls are
easy to
understand
as the only
thing you can
do is steer left or right — there is no
accelerator or brake. Keep in mind that
the game is time based — you have to
make all the vehicles reach their
destination within the given time and
collisions will slow down your car. You
start from a small town and graduate to
a city with traffic, buildings and other
obstacles. While there are no ads in the
game, there is an optional premium
version you can buy for `125 that lets
you resume gameplay from where you
had left.— Karan Bajaj
MakeblockmBot
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