Category: Tech

Strengthening their Tanzanian partnership, Nokia and Vodacom introduced 4G in Dar es Salaam in May 2016. With this service, Vodacom has become the largest wireless telecommunications network of the country. The services were started in Dar es Salaam on 11 May 2016 and are expected to reach all major cities of Tanzania in the upcoming times.

While Vodacom is looking forward to 200Mbps download speeds as an “eventual goal”, for the present time, it is believed that the network is capable of delivering downlink transmission speeds of up to 70Mbps.

Prior to this launch, the company began testing 4G LTE in 2013 with Nokia Networks. It is expected that the coverage will gradually extend to other major parts of the country as well. Earlier, Nokia also supplied 2G and 3G equipment for Vodacom. Presently, Nokia marks its presence in almost all countries in Africa and is striving hard to expand its reach across other global destinations. It also manages Vodacom’s network in Tanzania.

The Country Senior Officer of Nokia, Pete Beadle said “Nokia is spending 4.5 Billion ‎Euro per annum. That is equivalent to the GDP of Dar Es Salaam. It is a serious investment done to make sure we will continue leading innovation to expand the human possibilities of the connected world.” He also remarked that this launch is an exemplification of the effort Nokia is setting into research and development. The company asserts that it has a vision to lead Tanzania into the digital world and hence make sure that they provide state-of-the-art services across the nation.

Managing Director of Vodacom Tanzania Limited, Mr. Ian Ferrao also remarked that their company wants to contribute towards the nation’s growth and development and said that “Our vision is to lead Tanzania into the digital age and in order to achieve this we are committed to ensure that we deliver the best 4G services available in the Country.”

Understanding the crucial position that network has in the socio-economic development of a nation, this launch has set a milestone in the telecommunications industry of the country.

One of the leading Chinese mobile manufacturing companies Huawei unveiled its P9 series in South Africa in the first week of June 2016. Huawei P9 is the world’s first co-engineered Leica dual-camera smartphone. The launch also uncovered two other primary devices of the range – P9 Lite and P9 Plus.

The phone’s USP is its dual camera which is co-engineered by the premium German camera manufacturer Leica. The first camera of the P9 is a standard 12 megapixel camera with an RGB sensor that can take photos in full color; the second camera contains a monochromatic sensor and takes black-and-white photos. The device also offers professional photography option like changing ISO, shutter speed, and focus. And its 8 MP front camera can keep the user on top the selfie game.

“We are excited to give our users the ultimate smartphone photography experience. Consumers around the world use their smartphones to take billions of pictures each year, making photography critical to their everyday lives,” says Charlene Munilall, GM at Huawei Consumer Business Group.

The phone comes with a new-generation 2.5 GHz processor and 3000 mAh battery and a finger-print sensor. The device comes with either 32 GB or 64 GB RAM which can be extended upto 128 GB.

The phone’s look is also amazng with diamond-cut edges, aluminium unibody and superior grade glass. Huawei P9 is available in three colurs: Haze Gold, Ceramic White and Titanium Grey. Its 5.2 inch screen comes with a resolution of 1080p.

The Huawei P9 can be purchased at a price of Rs. 12,999 from all local operators. P9 Plus is priced at Rs. 15,000. For the customers with lower budget the P9 Lite can be an apt choice with a retail price of Rs. 4,499. But the phone lacks the dual camera.

The Huawei P9 series has garnered immense popularity among the customers of the region and the sales have surpassed the company’s expectations. According to Huawei with the support of its tremendous growth in the South African market the companiy’s global market share has increased to 8.5%.

In a recent discovery, Rosetta Spacecraft has detected amino acid glycine, a key building block of life, in the Comet 67P Churyumov–Gerasimenko directly for the first time. This discovery supports the various theories related to the relation between life’s ingredients and the cosmic bodies. An instrument known as the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) mass spectrometer was used to discover the element.

Rosetta is a space probe built by the European Space Agency launched on 2 March 2004. It became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet on 6 August 2014 when it reached Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It made its first detection in October 2014 when it was just 10 km from the comet. The other detection was in March 2015, when it was 30–15 km from the nucleus during a flyby.

Katherine Atwigg, principal investigator of the ROSINA instrument at the Center of Space and Habitability of the University of Bern said that “This is the first unambiguous detection of glycine in the thin atmosphere of a comet”. According to her, this discovery suggests that glycine is a common particle in the areas of universe where celestial bodies have formed. She also revealed that ““At the same time, we also detected certain other organic molecules that can be precursors to glycine, hinting at the possible ways in which it may have formed.” The spacecraft also found phosphorus which is also one of the key components of DNA and cell membranes.

Earlier there was a long debate on whether comets and asteroids have any relation in the beginning of life, and this recent discovery seems to clear that debate by proving that comets do have a potential part in the creation of life. This is a crucial discovery that will unfold many secret related to the mysteries of beginning of life.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched ASTROSAT on September 28, 2015 its first dedicated multi-wavelength mini space observatory into space to understand the high energy processes in binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes. At a cost of Rs 1.8 billion and with a lifespan of five years, it will orbit 400 miles above Earth. With the same polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV), India also launched from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh six foreign satellites for Canada, Indonesia and the United States (this was the first time ISRO launched satellites for the US). ASTROSAT’s mission is to provide data about stars and solar systems to a control centre in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, and some astronomy institutes in the country.

Chinese tech giant Huawei has launched its most talked about smartphone ‘Mate S’ and ‘Huawei Watch’ for the Middle East region in Dubai. The Huawei Mate S’ touch screen control technology is a perfect amalgamation of chic design and master craftsmanship. Its touch feature goes in sync with Huawei Mate S finish and gives an excellent opportunity to preview and enlarge the screen by pressing it with one finger while viewing photos. The Huawei Watch has been crafted from stainless steel, with a sapphire 1.4-inch display and includes 4GB of storage and 512MB of RAM capacity. The device uses the Android Wear operating system and includes a fitness tracker, heart rate motor, motion sensor and barometer. They are available across select retail outlets across the region.

Pichai Sundararajan is the new Chief Executive Officer of Google Inc., succeeding Larry Page. Google has already announced that it will be restructured and be renamed Alphabet, after the new parent company. Sundar Pichai would thus be the CEO of Alphabet. Born in 1972 in Chennai, India, and an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Sundar earned his MS from Stanford and MBA from Wharton, and then joined Applied Materials and McKinsey & Company before moving on to Google in 2004. He is renowned as the man who made Google Chrome browser and Chrome OS popular worldwide. Earlier, he made strides up the Google hierarchy by making the Google search toolbar in the upper right corner of Web browsers successful, making Google more favoured than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Before becoming the CEO, he worked as Senior VP with responsibilities of Gmail and Google Docs.

Apple has a complete new offering for the music junkies, the Apple Music, an app that has the world’s widest collection of music, programmed by distinguished music experts. Apple Music is a one-stop music station with instinctive and streaming music service, and is going to be the world’s live 24-hour radio station. It would help the listeners tune in with their favourite artists and songs. It’s going to be a direct competition to Spotify, Tidal and several other music Apps.
Apple Music is the largest and dandy medley of music designed by the experts for iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, Mac, PC, Apple TV and Android phones. It can match upto 25,000 songs and plans to upgrade it. Apple Music has been made available from June 30, 2015 in over 100 countries.

The Computex Taipei 2015, the CIT’s Mecca for IT firms proved to be a great hit this year. It is famed to be the biggest event in Asia where ideas turn into reality, and innovation is at its expressive best. Several IT players converged at the event to flaunt their latest designed gadgets and gizmos.
The year 2015 was marked by wacky and pioneering exhibits of phone-controlled devices and wearable timepieces. These smart devices attend to the human need in various manners and cater to the requirements of fitness/health, young adults, enterprises, senior care and even help keeping track of children.
Given the high footfall, the occasion (event) was a success and attracted nearly 38,550 international buyers from 165 countries.

A new scientifically useful shape memory alloy (SMA) has been produced by engineers, which springs back into its original shape even after a breathtaking 10 million times’ bending. SMAs are a unique class of metal alloys which are capable of recovering apparent permanent strains after heating over a specified temperature.

The Breakthrough

The new alloy has been created from nickel, titanium and copper, and is several times better than any previous memory alloy as it can sustain 10 million bends before wearing out. Previous alloys had a high-cycle fatigue and could regain their shape once or a few times (the previous highest was 16,000 cycles), but not of this proportion. The alloy has been developed by Prof. Manfred Wuttig of the University of Maryland, USA and his colleagues at the University of Kiel, Germany.

The 10 million times’ bending was achieved by a special crystalisation of the nickel, titanium and copper atoms so they can switch between two different configurations repeatedly. The rebonding can be triggered by either heating or in some cases as soon as the tension is released. The bending is called cycling, and a material may have low-cycle fatigue (LCF) or high-cycle fatigue (HCF). Fatigue is defined as permanent structural change in the material under conditions of fluctuating stress, strains or heat, which may result in crack or complete fracture after a sufficient number of fluctuations. Thus, an HCF material would be able to bear a high number of cycles or bendings before it is fatigued or permanently damaged.

Commercial Use

There are many potential uses of memory alloys, such as creating artificial heart valves, airplane parts such as wing flaps or control surfaces, or unfolding solar panels of a spacecraft, or a new generation of solid-state refrigerators, in addition to usage in surgical operations where a stent may be squashed into a tiny blood vessel and then made to spring back to its original position opening the blocked vessel in the process. In case of refrigerators, instead of using a liquid to compress and expand the compressor, this alloy could be used. Now, the general expectation is that a refrigerator would have a lifecycle of 20 years, so the stressing and recovering millions of times would be possible through this alloy.

The Technological Process

The samples for test were made in tiny square pieces of 1 cm and less than 1 mm thick, and then were checked under both heat and stress. A lot of patience was needed in the ensuing weeks to generate and check the 10 million cycles, though the stress was automatically generated through little stress-strain machines. Testing with temperature was more difficult as a specialised furnace system was used to rapidly heat and cool the samples a full 10 million times and again a few weeks’ patient waiting was done. The changes in the shape and structure were examined using powerful microscopes and through X-rays. It’s an awesome scientific breakthrough as the possibilities of commercial and laboratory usages are ample. Several high-end engineering, medical, space and everyday products would highly benefit.

The Micro blogging website operator Twitter seems to have digested the fact that something’s just can’t be summed up in 140 characters. According to a recent report by Re/code (technology portal), company executives are working on a new product which will allow its users to write more than 140 characters. As an initial step, the company seems to be working on elimination of hyperlinks from its character count. However, it will be really interesting to see how twitter will keep its eccentricity alive after scraping its signature character limit to better compete in the socially vivacious world. Though, the company is yet to throw light on the same, twitter fans will definitely wait for the new product.