EU leaders 'not bluffing' over Brexit terms, warns Malta's PM

EU leaders are not "bluffing" when they say the UK will be left without access to the single market when it leaves the bloc if there is no free movement of people, Malta's prime minister says. Joseph Muscat, whose country assumes the EU's presidency in January, told the BBC "this is really and truly our position and I don't see it changing". Theresa May says the UK will begin the legal process to leave the EU by March. Mr Muscat said talks on the details of a "new relationship" could be delayed. Much political debate has focused on the possibility of a "soft" Brexit - the UK retaining some form of membership of the single market in exchange for conceding some control over immigration - and "hard Brexit" - leaving the single market but having fuller control over migration.

China's LingLong launches DingDong smart home speaker

A Chinese firm has unveiled the country's first voice-activated smart home speaker - its answer to Amazon's Echo and Google's Home.

The DingDong, by technology company Beijing LingLong, uses voice interaction to do tasks such as playing music and switching on home appliances.

The device is said to understand Mandarin, Cantonese and basic English.

A study by Juniper Research suggests China's smart home market could be worth $22.8bn (£18.3bn) by 2018.

Trump denies any conflict of interest over business empire

Billionaire US President-elect Donald Trump has said he is not obliged to cut ties to his business empire when he takes office on 20 January.

Telecom regulator TRAI has wanted views on a model for implementation of public Wi-Fi hotspots, including reselling of service by location owners, that may be scaled up for bigger insurance and affordable broadband services.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India claimed their consultation paper on product for nation-wide interoperable and scalable community Wi-Fi sites is "to examine the jobs of various stakeholders in the Community Wi-Fi system value chain and construct an environment for selling scalable and sustainable partnerships for large scale nation large deployment."The regulator said that it's also discovering monetisation and sustainable organization types for public Wi-Fi systems through the consultation process.The regulator has determined insufficient variety in the backend to connect Wi-Fi hotspots, stagnated development of home associations, certification of Wi-Fi consumer, cost mechanism, infrastructure problems like availability of energy among problems effecting proliferation of public Wi-Fi.

Reliance Jio's Lyf phones have been selling in India for quite some months now, however, the company still needs to tap the rural and tier-III markets for its data services and mobile business.

The report said that Jio may try to reach out to the consumers who are first-time data users in rural areas. "Jio wants to tap all the segments in the country and sees huge potential in the rural areas, which it now aims to tap with VoLTE feature phones," said the report.There will be two feature phones, if the report is to be believed, priced at around Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500. Reliance may launch these phones in the first quarter of 2017. Although these are feature phones, meaning there will be no touchscreen, they will be able to run 4G data and will be capable of accessing internet.The cheapest 4G-enabled smartphone at present is sold at around Rs 3000, and a huge slice of the market is still based on feature phones. With the launch of such feature phones, Reliance Jio will be able to offer the affordability of a feature phone with 4G VoLTE technology along with free voice calls.

Reliance Jio's Lyf phones have been selling in India for quite some months now, however, the company still needs to tap the rural and tier-III markets for its data services and mobile business.

The report said that Jio may try to reach out to the consumers who are first-time data users in rural areas. "Jio wants to tap all the segments in the country and sees huge potential in the rural areas, which it now aims to tap with VoLTE feature phones," said the report.There will be two feature phones, if the report is to be believed, priced at around Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500. Reliance may launch these phones in the first quarter of 2017. Although these are feature phones, meaning there will be no touchscreen, they will be able to run 4G data and will be capable of accessing internet.The cheapest 4G-enabled smartphone at present is sold at around Rs 3000, and a huge slice of the market is still based on feature phones. With the launch of such feature phones, Reliance Jio will be able to offer the affordability of a feature phone with 4G VoLTE technology along with free voice calls.

Scientists observe how quantum superpositions build up in a helium atom within femtoseconds.

In the double slit experiment, a particle travels on two different paths at the same time. Something similar can be observed when a helium atom is ionized with a laser beam. The ionization of helium can happen via two different processes, and this leads to characteristic interference effects. A team of scientists has now managed to observe the buildup up of these effects--even though this effect takes place on a time scale of femtoseconds. It is definitely the most famous experiment in quantum physics: in the double slit experiment, a particle is fired onto a plate with two parallel slits, so there are two different paths on which the particle can reach the detector on the other side. Due to its quantum properties, the particle does not have to choose between these two possibilities, it can pass through both slits at the same time. Something quite similar can be observed when a helium atom is ionized with a laser beam.