SCI-TECH 14SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2015

www.punemirror.in/techpunemirror.feedback@gmail.com

ROBOTS THAT MAKE PIZZA AND PANCAKESEuropean research project, RoboHow, has developed robots — called PR2—that use instructions to figure out how to make pizza and pancakes. The robotchefs were on display at the High-Tech Systems 2015 fair in the Netherlands.

V odafone India has said it will launch itsfourth-generation (4G) mobile tele-phony services by 2015-end, an an-nouncement that comes days aftermarket leader Airtel announced plans

of its own.The rollout will match the upcoming 4G

commercial launch by Reliance Jio, which isplanned for December.

“Important data markets, including Mum-bai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Kochi, willbe part of the first wave of the rollout,” Voda-fone India said in a statement.

In addition, Vodafone India will introduceits own 3G networks in seven circles — Assam,the North-East, Uttar Pradesh-West, Rajas-than, Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha, to expandits overall 3G footprint to 16 circles across thecountry.

“Testing of 4G services has commencedsuccessfully. Vodafone India has partneredwith leading global technology infrastructureservice providers for the network rollout,” thestatement said.

Pan-India 4G services will be launched at“an appropriate time”, it said.

Bharti Airtel on August 6 announced thelaunch of its 4G mobile phone services to covernearly 300 towns in the coming weeks. Thelaunch came ahead of Reliance Jio, the telecomarm of the cash-rich conglomerate Reliance In-dustries, starting 4G voice and data services inDecember.

“With some of the latest technological de-velopments on the anvil, Vodafone is buildinga robust and resilient network architecturewith a strong backhaul to support the volumesand need for speed from customers,” the Voda-fone statement said.

Vodafone India had successfully acquiredadditional 4G (LTE) spectrum in five circles –Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Kerala and Karnatakain February 2014 auctions. These circles to-gether contribute close to 50 per cent of the to-

tal data revenues for the company.Globally, Vodafone has launched 4G in 18

countries. There are over 20 million 4G cus-tomers across the group and its 4G proposi-tions are enhanced with a mixture of music,sports and TV content to increase adoptionand usage.

In preparation for the India rollout, Voda-fone India had in 2014-15 set up a record num-ber of over 23,000 tower sites, taking its overallnetwork footprint to more than 1,31,000 sites.

“Over the last few months, Vodafone Indiahas taken several steps to modernise its radionetwork and switching systems. Chargingplatforms have also been upgraded to facilitatea wider bouquet of products and services,” itsaid.

Major investments have been made inhigh-capacity fibre/backhaul to significantly

increase the internet connectivity to the rest ofthe world.

“Vodafone India remains committed to-wards making significant investments in net-work expansion and for enhancing overall cus-tomer experience,” the statement said.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 3G AND 4G4G is expected to bring substantially higher da-ta rates, making HD video streaming over yourmobile network a possiblity, but the additionalinfrastructure required to support 4G will alsobring improvements in voice services.

While a speed of 200 Kbps was mandatoryfor a service to qualify as 3G, the minimum datarate for 4G is 100 Mbps. There are various kindsof 4G, from HSPA+ to LTE, the latter being thefastest, especially for uploading data. PMB

Vodafone to begin4G roll-out this year

I nstagram has added new layout options inaddition to its signature square for pic-tures and videos in a bid to attract more ad-

vertisers and to stop users defecting to rivalservices.

This is the first major alteration to thephoto-sharing, social media service sinceFacebook bought it for $1 billion in 2012, andaddresses the wishes of many of its 300 mil-lion users, who have been constrained by thesquare format.

“It boils down to giving advertisers andusers more options,” said analyst Debra AhoWilliamson. “You want people to be able tosee more of your ad. It's something advertis-ers are definitely going to be interested in.”

One in five photos and videos posted onthe service do not fit the square format, Insta-

gram said in a blog post.“Friends get cut out of group shots, the

subject of your video feels cramped and youcan’t capture the Golden Gate Bridge fromend to end,” it said.

From Thursday, Instagram’s web-basedservice and its Android and iOS apps will al-low portrait and landscape formats, givingboth users and paying advertisers more op-tions.

The move should help Instagram in itsbattle with new rivals like Snapchat for usersin the fast-moving messaging and media-sharing market.

To promote the new photo formats, WaltDisney released exclusive footage of its up-coming film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens,using the new landscape option. AGENCIES

Instagram now supports portrait, landscape media layouts

Photos now appear without bands around them

Breakneck is a free game availablefor iOS devices. Scan the QR codeto go to the game’s App Store page.

MOBILEAPP

BREAKNECKAny game that comes out of the PikPok stable is almostguaranteed to be great, and Breakneck is no different.Similar to the also brilliant Race the Sun, this is a pod racer where you’re racing against time across beautiful 3Dworlds. Your aim is to go as far as possible, navigatingthrough tricky maze-like levels, racing out of areas whereeverything is crumbling in front of you, and avoiding

capture. The best part is that thegame’s environment resets daily, soyou’re always coming back to a newchallenge.

A stronomers have found two supermassiveblack holes in Markarian 231, the nearest qua-sar to Earth, using observations from NASA’s

Hubble Space Telescope. The discovery of two supermassive black holes

— one larger one and a second, smaller one — areevidence of a binary black hole and suggests thatsupermassive black holes assemble their massesthrough violent mergers.

Xinyu Dai, professor in the Homer L. Dodge De-partment of Physics and Astronomy at the Univer-sity of Oklahoma, and Youjun Lu of the NationalAstronomical Observatories of China, Chinese A-cademy of Sciences, looked at ultraviolet radiationemitted from the centre of the Mrk 231 from Hub-ble observations, then applied a model developedby Lu to the spectrum of the galaxy.

As a result, they were able to predict the exist-ence of the binary black holes in Mrk 231.

“We are extremely excited about this findingbecause it not only shows the existence of a closebinary black hole in Mrk 231, but also paves a newway to systematically search binary black holes viathe nature of their ultraviolet light emission,” saidLu.

“The structure of our universe, such as those gi-ant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, grows bymerging smaller systems into larger ones, and bi-nary black holes are natural consequences of thesemergers of galaxies,” said Dai.

So over time, the two black holes discovered byDai and Lu in Mrk 231 will collide and merge toform a quasar with a supermassive black hole.

Aquasar is an active galaxy with an illuminatedcentre, which is short-lived compared to the age ofthe universe. AGENCIES

Supermassive blackholes discovered inquasar close to Earth

India’s second-largest mobile operator will offer 4G in four cities this year as it attempts to catch up with BhartiAirtel, which already offers the service in 296 towns. Reliance Jio is also set to follow suit starting December

Product: MirrorPuneTB PubDate: 29-08-2015 Zone: Pune Edition: 1 Page: PMIRPG14 User: kedard1204 Time: 08-28-2015 20:39 Color: CMYK

Pune Mirror, Pune, August 29, 2015. Pp.14