Magician Karan Singh conjures magic tricks with the Lumia 640 XL
How can an illusionist and mind reader use his Lumia 640 XL to perform magic? Here’s his #achievemore story.
Karan Singh started to learn magic when he was 11 years old. The now-23-year-old magician has been performing for eight years, clocking 100 shows per year, and aims to double that this year.
“I wanted to be in performing arts ever since I was growing up,” he said. “I wanted to act, do music and do theatre and magic lets me do all of this together.”
That’s the not the only thing Karan has achieved. He’s also one of the first users of the Lumia 640 XL in India*. Let’s hear from the entertainer how his Lumia 640 XL helps him #achievemore.
How do you use your Lumia 640 XL day to day?
Karan: OneNote has really helped me to plan and structure my shows. My next performance is two months away but the planning and tricks are all penned on my OneNote.
I am also collaborating with a few magicians on Skype because the 5-megapixel front-camera is fantastic; you hardly get to see that on other devices. I also like to play Temple Run a lot.
In what ways has it changed the way you work?
Karan: I have started using OneDrive and even made a trick featuring it. I send someone an email and I ask them not to open it. I tell them I dreamt last night that I had dinner with a famous celebrity somewhere in the world. I then ask them where they think it was who the celebrity was and which cuisine we ended up having.
As they answer, my accomplice edits and updates the email with their answers on One Drive. After all this is done, I ask them to check their mail and they find that it says, “I had a dream last night that I was in (Name of the city they said) where I met the famous celebrity (Name of the celebrity they said). I asked her to join me for dinner and we ended up having (cuisine they said).
“There you go, a magician’s trick revealed!”
What are the top five apps that you like on your Lumia 640 XL?
First, Office is a must-have. I use PowerPoint a lot as I need to share my profiles with companies who approach me for shows.
Second, OneDrive has all my profiles stored and I can instantly share the link. With my Lumia in my hand, I don’t need a laptop or need to wait for a working Internet connection anymore. Everything is synced on my 3G phone and I can just hit the send button.
Third, I use Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to interact with my followers. Fourth, the Blogger app works smoothly on Windows Phone. I don’t blog regularly but whenever I am out, I can write and update my blog on the go.
And last, the Lumia Camera. Apart from clicking photos, I love the “Action shot” mode on Lumia Camera. It looks like instant Photoshop, if I stand in front of a white screen, I can make myself disappear like magic. It adds theatricality and that’s how I begin my shows.
How do you marry magic and technology in your shows?
Karan: I try to mix anything I am passionate about with magic. I am inspired by the 13-megapixel rear camera of the Lumia 640 XL and even have an idea for an impromptu camera trick. In the scenario, someone picks a card from a deck and thinks of a card, which I have not seen, and I click a picture of them thinking with the card.
When it is time for me to reveal the card the person thought of originally, I ask the person to take my phone and see the last image clicked, and voila, the image is of the same card the person had picked from the deck!
What do you do besides magic shows?
Karan: I like to read e-books and play FIFA on my Xbox. I also play music and many instruments such as the flute, the keyboard, the clarinet, the violin, table and harmonium.
My favorite instrument is the flute and I have been playing flute for the last 10 years. I have also come up with a trick where I ask somebody to think of a song and I start playing it on my flute. People can never guess how I know their song, but I just know.
Can you share a magic trick with our readers using the Lumia 640 XL?
Karan: I made a trick where I figure out passwords on a phone and I made a trick where I ask others to figure out my password. There’s another one where I tell people what contact they are thinking about and what is the corresponding number. There’s so much magic in technology.
Thanks, Karan, for talking to us!
*The Lumia 640 and Lumia 640 XL are available in India now, and are continuing their global rollout throughout April.