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 robot kit from robotics experts Makeblock. Built around the 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 early start into these disciplines. There are two versions of the mBot: a Bluetooth version for home use and a 2.4Ghz WiFi version, which is

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 qu a l i t y mater ia l s — including some attractive anodised aluminium parts in your choice of pink or

blue. Every little part that you need — from the main Arduino board, DC motors, to each screw, cable and even a set of tools — is in the box. It comes pre-programmed but it’s also designed to be tinkered with. Parent of pre-teens might be familiar with Scratch — a free, 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 graphical programming and move on to text-based programming as

they become more advanced.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

IR remote controller. With the Makeblock app (iOS & Android), you can control the robots wirelessly

(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 program your own actions. This is 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, 201528 feel smart

PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS MAKING HEADLINES

BEN AFFLECK

App for AndroidGet it for: Free

DO

WN

LO

AD

PL

AY

Toost

Does not CommuteGame for AndroidGet 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. This is why the strategy 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

Makeblock mBot

PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. by Balraj Arora at Times House, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110 002 and printed by him at (A) The Times of India Press, 13 & 15/1, Site IV, Industrial Area, Sahibabad, UP (B) Elegant Offset Printers, Shed No. D2-31, Thivim Industrial Estate, Karaswada, Mapusa Goa - 403526. EDITOR: Brian Carvalho (Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act). © Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. All rights reserved.RNI No.: DELENG/2012/48648. MADE IN NEW DELHI VOLUME 04 NO. 25. AIR CHARGE: Raipur, Ahmedabad, Srinagar, Leh & via `2.00 PRICE IN NEPAL: NEP `15.00 except on Saturday & Sunday: NEP `25.00.