A History of Balloon Crashes

A hot-air balloon exploded in Egypt yesterday as it carried 19 people over ancient ruins near Luxor. The cause is believed to be a torn gas hose. In Egypt as in many other countries, balloon rides are a popular way to sightsee. (Read about unmanned flight in National Geographic magazine.)

The sport of hot-air ballooning dates to 1783, when a French balloon took to the skies with a sheep, a rooster, and a duck. Apparently, they landed safely. But throughout the history of the sport, there have been tragedies like the one in Egypt. (See pictures of personal-flight technology.)

1785: Pioneering balloonist Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and pilot Pierre Romain died when their balloon caught fire, possibly from a stray spark, and crashed during an attempt to cross the English Channel. They were the first to die in a balloon crash.

1923: Five balloonists participating in the Gordon Bennett Cup, a multi-day race that dates to 1906, were killed when lightning struck their balloons.

1924: Meteorologist C. LeRoy Meisinger and U.S. Army balloonist James T. Neely died after a lightning strike. They had set off from Scott Field in Illinois during a storm to study air pressure. Popular Mechanics dubbed them "martyrs of science."

1995: Tragedy strikes the Gordon Bennett Cup again. Belarusian forces shot down one of three balloons that drifted into their airspace from Poland. The two Americans on board died. The other balloonists were detained and fined for entering Belarus without a visa. (Read about modern explorers who take to the skies.)

1989: Two hot air balloons collided during a sightseeing trip near Alice Springs, Australia. One balloon crashed to the ground killing all 13 people on board. The pilot of the other balloon was sentenced to a two-year prison term for "committing a dangerous act." Until today, this was considered the most deadly balloon accident.

2012: A balloon hit a power line and caught fire in New Zealand, killing all 11 on board. Investigators later determined that the pilot was not licensed to fly and had not taken  proper safety measures during the crash, like triggering the balloon's parachute and deflation system.

2012: A sightseeing balloon carrying 32 people crashed and caught fire during a thunderstorm in the Ljubljana Marshes in Slovenia. Six died; many other passengers were injured.

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What's Next for Pope Benedict XVI?

The party for the world's most prominent soon-to-be retiree began today when Pope Benedict XVI hosted his final audience as pontiff in St. Peter's Square.

More than 50,000 tickets were requested for the event, according to the Vatican, while the city of Rome planned for 250,000 people to flood the streets.

FULL COVERAGE: Pope Benedict XVI Resignation

With his belongings packed up, Pope Benedict XVI will spend the night, his final one as pope, in the Apostolic Palace.

The pontiff, 85, who is an avid writer, will be able to take his personal notes with him. However, all official documents relating to his papacy will be sent to the Vatican archives.

On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI will take his last meeting as pontiff with various dignitaries and the cardinals, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office.

INTERACTIVE: Key Dates in the Life of Pope Benedict XVI

While not all of the cardinals are in Rome, it is possible that among the princes of the church saying farewell to the pope could be the man who will succeed him.

"I think the overall tone is going to be gratitude. From the cardinals' perspective, it'll be like the retirement party for your favorite professor," said Christopher Bellitto, a professor at Kean University in New Jersey who has written nine books on the history of the church.

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

The Conclave: Secret World of Picking the Pope Watch Video

Papal Appearance: Faithful Flock to Saint Peter's Square Watch Video

RELATED: Cardinal Resigns Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Pope Benedict XVI will depart the Vatican walls in the afternoon, taking a 15-minute helicopter ride to Castel Gandolfo, the papal retreat just outside of Rome, where he will live while his new Vatican quarters undergo a renovation.

Around sunset, the pontiff is expected to greet the public from his window in the palace, which overlooks the small town square, for the last time as pope.

At 8 p.m. local time, the papal throne will be vacated. The man known as Pope Benedict XVI for the past eight years will take on a new title: Pope Emeritus.

What Lies Ahead for the Pope Emeritus

The announcement that Benedict XVI would be the first pope to resign in 600 years shocked the world and left the Vatican with the task of creating new rules for an event that was unprecedented in the modern church.

"Even for the historical life of the church, some of this is brand new territory," said Matthew Bunson, general editor of the "Catholic Almanac" and author of "We Have a Pope! Benedict XVI."

"The Vatican took a great deal of care in sorting through this," he said. "This is establishing a precedent."

Along with Benedict's new title, he will still be allowed to wear white, a color traditionally reserved for the pope.

He'll still be called Your Holiness. However, the Swiss Guards, who are tasked with protecting the pope, will symbolically leave his side at 8 p.m. Thursday.

His Ring of the Fisherman, kissed by thousands of the faithful over the years, will be crushed, according to tradition.

Not much is known about the pope's health.

In his resignation statement, the pontiff said his physical strength has deteriorated in the past few months because of "an advanced age."

He also mentioned the "strength of mind and body" necessary to lead the more-than-1-billion Catholics worldwide.

If he is able to, Bellitto believes the pope will keep writing, perhaps on the Holy Trinity, a topic of great interest to him.

RELATED: Papal Conclave 2013 Not Politics as Usual

As the pope emeritus settles into the final chapter of his life, experts have said it is likely he will stay out of the public realm.

"[Pope Benedict XVI] has moved very deliberately in this process," Bunson said, "with an eye toward making the transition as smooth, as regal, as careful as possible for the election of his successor."

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Happy, snappy tweets gain the most Twitter followers

Want to be popular on Twitter? There are plenty of people who claim they can help, but their tips rarely work and many of them are scammers. Now scientists have joined in, boiling down half a million tweets to a few simple rules for gaining a following.

C.J. Hutto (@cjhutto on Twitter) and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta examined the content and retweeting fate of tweets sent by 500 non-celebrities over a 15-month period. They looked for 2800 terms that convey positive and negative emotions, including slang and swear words, a set of emoticons and common acronyms, like LOL.

By giving each term a score on a sliding scale of positivity they were able to assess whether Twitter users who used each term gained or lost followers. The keys to success, they found, were to tweet positive messages, write clearly and retweet interesting titbits of news.

People who tweeted mostly about themselves didn't fare so well. "Twitter is used quite heavily as a news medium," Hutto says. "My weak connections on Twitter care less about what I had for breakfast than they do about this neat bit of news I discovered."

Know your audience

Previous studies had suggested that following "important" people like celebrities and getting them to follow you back, alongside the frequency and timing of tweets were key factors in upping your number of followers. But the team's study suggests it's what's in your tweets, rather than who you follow, that has the biggest impact on the size of your Twitter audience.

How engaged people are with their followers also matters. "Twitter users who engage with their existing followers via mentions, replies and favouriting had positive follower growth, while users who mostly broadcast to no one in particular had dramatically suppressed growth rates," says Hutto.

Readability was also key. The team constructed a "Tweet Reading Difficulty Index" to measure how understandable the tweets were. Those whose tweets scored higher on the index had more followers.

"When deciding whether or not to follow a virtual stranger, we found Twitter users seek out well-written over poorly written content," says Hutto. "People rely on linguistic cues like spelling and vocabulary to compensate for the lack of traditional contextual cues available in face-to-face settings."

The researchers will present their findings at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris, France, in April.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Fatah-linked militants claim Gaza rocket after inmate death

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza militants from Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired a rocket at Israel on Tuesday as a "preliminary response" after one of its members died in an Israeli jail.

It was the first time a Gaza rocket had struck southern Israel in more than three months, and stoked fears that the mass protests in the West Bank over the fate of prisoners held in Israeli jails could spread to the Hamas-run territory.

Following weeks of anger in support of four prisoners on long-term hunger strike, the issue came to head on Saturday with news that a 30-year-old prisoner who had been interrogated for throwing stones, had died in custody.

Arafat Jaradat was arrested on February 18 and interrogated by Israel's Shin Bet internal security services on suspicion of involvement in a "stone-throwing terror attack" in November. Five days later, he died in Megiddo prison.

His death sparked angry demonstrations across the West Bank, with Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Issa Qaraqaa saying preliminary results from his autopsy showed he had died "as a result of torture".

At his funeral near the southern city of Hebron on Monday, militants from Al-Aqsa Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, vowed revenge, with the group claiming Tuesday's rocket as a first response.

"In a preliminary response to the killing of our hero the prisoner Arafat Jaradat, we claim responsibility for firing a Grad rocket on Ashkelon at 6:00 am (0400 GMT)," the Gaza branch said in a statement.

The rocket struck a road just south of the Israeli port city, causing damage but no injuries, police said.

It was the first such attack since the end of an eight-day confrontation in November during which militants fired more than a thousand rockets at Israel and the air force hit back with a major bombing campaign.

The violence, which killed 177 Palestinians and six Israelis, ended with a truce deal on November 21.

Meanwhile Palestinian police were Tuesday preventing demonstrators from reaching an area near Jalame checkpoint in the northern West Bank where several mass protests have erupted into violence in the past 10 days, an AFP correspondent said.

Earlier, Abbas had instructed the security forces to "maintain the calm" in the West Bank, following a demand from Israel at the weekend that he act to cool the situation.

Washington also sent a "clear message" to both sides calling for calm, a State Department spokesman said, indicating it expected "all parties to consider the results of the autopsy calmly and without inflammatory rhetoric".

And the United Nations said there must be an independent inquiry into Jaradat's death.

"The United Nations expects the autopsy to be followed by an independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr Jaradat's death, the results of which should be made public as soon as possible," UN Middle East envoy Robert Serry said late on Monday.

The Palestinians also called for an independent inquiry in a letter from their UN ambassador Riyad Mansour to the UN Security Council in which it said the autopsy showed Jaradat "was subjected to severe beatings, abuse and medical negligence during his captivity, possibly amounting to torture."

According to the letter, the autopsy showed Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs, as well as other injuries.

Israel has said the prisoner could have suffered broken bones during the attempts by the emergency services to resuscitate him.

It said the preliminary findings were "not sufficient to determine the cause of death" which could only be known with the results of microscopic and toxicological, which are reportedly due back on 10 days.

-AFP/fl

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Ford EcoSport heads to Europe, Spotify voice-control in tow (hands-on)

BARCELONA, Spain--Mobile World Congress is usually more about smart phones and tablets than full-blooded vehicles, but that hasn't stopped Ford from using the show to announce its newest motor, the Ford EcoSport, which boasts Spotify voice control and a host of other futuristic features.

Technically the EcoSport isn't a new
car, as it's already on sale in South America. This is the first model that gets to melt some rubber to European roads however, when it goes on sale in Europe in late 2013.

The EcoSport is equipped with Ford's 'Ford Sync' technology, including AppLink, which lets you control smart phone apps by barking orders at the car's voice-recognition software. Streaming music service Spotify is the latest app to land on the AppLink service, filling the EcoSport's cabin with your carefully crafted playlists

iPhones connect to the car via a USB cable located just below the handbrake, while
Android and BlackBerry mobiles can link up wirelessly. There's currently no support for Windows Phone devices, unfortunately.

Once connected, you press a voice control button that's built into the right of the EcoSport's steering wheel. The first voice command you'll need is "mobile apps" followed by "Spotify". Once the car has connected to the app, you can use the voice control to do things like turn shuffle on or off or select specific playlists. Nifty.

The voice recognition tech works quite well, though as with most systems of this type, you'll spend longer than you want listening to the robotic in-car system telling you your options, or asking you try speaking again. You'll feel a little self-conscious shouting at your dashboard if there are other folks in the car with you, so I imagine this feature is something you'll mainly use when it's just you and the road.

Hearing playlists read out by the robotic voice sounds a little odd, and you might have to strain to make out exactly what your options are. The temptation will be to pick up your phone and just use the app itself, but thankfully this isn't possible -- when your mobile is connected to the car all you can access a Ford-branded lock-screen, which stops you distracting yourself from the road.

The lock screen stops you from using the smart phone interface while driving.

(Credit:
Luke Westaway/CNET)

Another Ford Sync safety measure is that if you crash, the car will automatically contact emergency services with your GPS co-ordinates.

Thrumming away beneath the EcoSport's bright orange exterior is Ford's one litre, three-cylinder EcoBoost engine, which Ford reckons will boost fuel economy while slashing greenhouse emissions. The body isn't as chunky as some SUVs, and I imagine this surprisingly-small car will fit in well on Europe's narrow, winding roads.

Are you keen on the EcoSport? Would you use in-car voice control? Let me know in the comments, and be sure the check out all our coverage from Mobile World Congress.

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Sharks Warn Off Predators By Wielding Light Sabers

Diminutive deep-sea sharks illuminate spines on their backs like light sabers to warn potential predators that they could get a sharp mouthful, a new study suggests.

Paradoxically, the sharks seem to produce light both to hide and to be conspicuous—a first in the world of glowing sharks. (See photos of other sea creatures that glow.)

"Three years ago we showed that velvet belly lanternsharks [(Etmopterus spinax)] are using counter-illumination," said lead study author Julien Claes, a biologist from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain, by email.

In counter-illumination, the lanternsharks, like many deep-sea animals, light up their undersides in order to disguise their silhouette when seen from below. Brighter bellies blend in with the light filtering down from the surface. (Related: "Glowing Pygmy Shark Lights Up to Fade Away.")

Fishing the 2-foot-long (60-centimeter-long) lanternsharks up from Norwegian fjords and placing them in darkened aquarium tanks, the researchers noticed that not only do the sharks' bellies glow, but they also had glowing regions on their backs.

The sharks have two rows of light-emitting cells, called photophores, on either side of a fearsome spine on the front edges of their two dorsal fins.

Study co-author Jérôme Mallefet explained how handling the sharks and encountering their aggressive behavior hinted at the role these radiant spines play.

"Sometimes they flip around and try to hit you with their spines," said Mallefet, also from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain. "So we thought maybe they are showing their weapon in the dark depths."

To investigate this idea, the authors analyzed the structure of the lanternshark spines and found that they were more translucent than other shark spines.

This allowed the spines to transmit around 10 percent of the light from the glowing photophores, the study said.

For Predators' Eyes Only

Based on the eyesight of various deep-sea animals, the researchers estimated that the sharks' glowing spines were visible from several meters away to predators that include harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), and blackmouth catsharks (Galeus melastomus).

"The spine-associated bioluminescence has all the characteristics to play the right role as a warning sign," said Mallefet.

"It's a magnificent way to say 'hello, here I am, but beware I have spines,'" he added.

But these luminous warning signals wouldn't impede the sharks' pursuit of their favorite prey, Mueller's bristle-mouth fish (Maurolicus muelleri), the study suggested. These fish have poorer vision than the sharks' predators and may only spot the sharks' dorsal illuminations at much closer range.

For now, it remains a mystery how the sharks create and control the lights on their backs. The glowing dorsal fins could respond to the same hormones that control the belly lights, suggested Mallefet, but other factors may also be involved.

"MacGyver" of Bioluminescence

Several other species use bioluminescence as a warning signal, including marine snails (Hinea brasiliana), glowworms (Lampyris noctiluca) and millipedes (Motyxia spp.).

Edith Widder, a marinebiologist from the Ocean Research and Conservation Association who was not involved in the current study, previously discovered a jellyfish whose bioluminescence rubs off on attackers that get too close.

"It's like paint packages in money bags at banks," she explained.

"Any animal that was foolish enough to go after it," she added "gets smeared all over with glowing particles that make it easy prey for its predators."

Widder also points out that glowing deep-sea animals often put their abilities to diverse uses. (Watch: "Why Deep-Sea Creatures Glow.")

"There are many examples of animals using bioluminescence for a whole range of different functions," she said.

Mallefet agrees, joking that these sharks are the "MacGyver of bioluminescence."

"Just give light to this shark species and it will use it in any possible way."

And while Widder doesn't discount the warning signal theory, "another possibility would be that it could be to attract a mate."

Lead author Julien Claes added by email, "I also discovered during my PhD thesis that velvet belly lanternsharks have glowing organs on their sexual parts."

And that, he admits, "makes it very easy, even for a human, to distinguish male and female of this species in the dark!"

The glowing shark study appeared online in the February 21 edition of Scientific Reports.

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Senate Expected to Vote on Hagel Nomination

After a battle lasting nearly two months, characterized by tough interrogation and a partisan divide, lawmakers are expected to confirm President Obama's nomination of Republican Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense this afternoon.

The Senate returns today after a week off from debating Hagel's merit. Republicans blocked a cloture vote to confirm Hagel on Valentine's Day, pushing the decision back until after their President's Day recess.

Democrats framed that rejection as a filibuster, while Republicans said they needed another week to discuss the candidate's record.

"This is a very controversial nominee, there is a desire to not end debate now," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that Thursday. "We feel like come back next week, after the break, unless there is some bombshell I'd be ready to move on to vote."

Ten days later, GOP Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona predicted the Senate will go through with a vote today. The nomination is likely to pass but with many no votes from the GOP.

A group of 15 Republicans sent a letter to Obama last week asking him to withdraw Hagel's nomination. Coburn, one of the senators who signed that letter, said the fight among lawmakers over Hagel's qualifications would weaken him should he become secretary.

"I like Chuck Hagel as an individual, but the fact is, in modern times, we haven't had one defense secretary that's had more than three votes against him," Coburn said on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend. "And you're going to have 40 votes against him, or 35 votes. And that sends a signal to our allies as well as our foes that he does not have broad support in the U.S. Congress, which limits his ability to carry out his job."

Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense: Confirmation Process Watch Video

Obama Taps Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary Watch Video

McCain did not sign that letter.

"I do not believe that Chuck Hagel, who is a friend of mine, is qualified to be secretary of defense, but I do believe that elections have consequences -- unfortunately," McCain told CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday on "State of the Union," explaining why he chose not to sign. "And the president of the United States was reelected."

Obama announced his support for Hagel two weeks before the kick-off of his second term.

Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran. If confirmed, he would be the first former enlisted member of the Armed Forces to serve as secretary of defense, but he has been an unpopular pick from the start, with groups claiming he was anti-Israel and anti-gay rights.

The hearings over Hagel's nomination have had tense moments, with many serious accusations and at least one bordering on the bizarre.

Republicans have raised questions about Hagel's finances. A letter signed by 20 senators faulted Hagel for failing to disclose information about compensation he and organizations he worked with received during the last decade.

McCain also accused Hagel of being on "the wrong side of" history for his opposition to President Bush's 2007 surge of American troops in Iraq.

A conservative website attacked Hagel for taking money from a group called "Friends of Hamas," which was later revealed to be an imaginary entity dreamed up by New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman.

If confirmed, Hagel would take the place of departing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta bemoaned the drawn-out confirmation hearing process at an event at the Pentagon, saying the experience was "like it's 'Groundhog Day' around here."

"I have a hard time," Panetta told an audience gathered to honor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "You know? I've got -- My office is packed up. Sylvia is packing at home. I'm ready to go."

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Take my taxi to the moon

Susmita Mohanty, the founder of India’s first private space company, Earth2Orbit, wants India to claim bigger piece of the space-launch pie

How active is India's space programme?
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which was founded in 1969, launches rockets, builds and uses satellites extensively for earthly applications and has recently started planetary exploration. It tested its first astronaut capsule for atmospheric re-entry in 2007, and is planning to build a residential astronaut training facility. ISRO is also planning a lunar lander mission for 2014 and will launch a mission to Mars this year.

How does your company, Earth2Orbit, fit in with this programme?
We want to commercialise India's space capabilities, in particular the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. It is one of the world's most reliable in its class. I want to make it the rocket of choice for international satellite-makers looking to get to low Earth or sun-synchronous orbits. India could build and launch up to six each year, but currently launches only two. We need to step up to full throttle. The same goes for satellites and ground equipment. Over the next decade or two, I think India should be aiming for at least a quarter of the multibillion-dollar global space market, if not more.

What do you think of the way spacecraft for carrying humans are currently designed?
The way the world aerospace industry is set up, it is closely linked to the defence sector – they share the technology, the tooling and the cumbersome contractual processes. Unlike commercial automobile or consumer-product companies, where the end user is the primary design driver, aerospace companies tend to please government customers. As a result, we often end up with over-engineered, under-designed crew craft with an exorbitant price tag.

How can we improve on these designs?
I want us to push the boundaries of technology and design and build intelligent spaceships – spaceships that think. Imagine if an international consortium of companies such as Apple, Samsung, Pininfarina, Space X and MIT Media Lab got together to design and build a spaceship! What would it look like? Could it think? Could it self-repair or self-clean? Would it challenge the crew?

The private sector is changing how we get into space. How has the X Prize contributed?
It created a tectonic shift in mindsets and showed how we can accelerate innovation in space exploration without having to spend taxpayer money. The first X Prize led to the first privately funded and designed spaceplane built by Burt Rutan. Then Richard Branson seized the opportunity: if all goes well, Virgin Galactic could fly more people to space in a year than the Russians or Americans have over the past 50 years!

What is next for space travel?
It barely takes 10 minutes to reach low Earth orbit. It probably takes longer for most urbanites to commute to work. I want to be able to "cab it" to low Earth orbit. I am dreaming of private astronaut taxis. The first generation will take paying passengers into orbit. The second generation will ferry us to the moon and Mars.

This article appeared in print under the headline "One minute with... Susmita Mohanty"

Profile

Susmita Mohanty is CEO of Earth2Orbit, which recently launched its first client satellite. She has worked at NASA and Boeing, and holds a PhD in aerospace architecture

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Nokia launches cheaper Windows-based phones

BARCELONA: Nokia, once the leader of the mobile phone world, unveiled Monday two new Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphones aimed at the cheaper end of the market.

The Finnish group revealed the Nokia Lumia 720 and Nokia Lumia 520 on the opening day of the world's biggest mobile fair, the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Spain.

"The momentum behind Nokia is gathering pace," said Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop.

"The launches today reflect our commitment to broadening our devices and services portfolio to meet the demands of people and businesses around the globe."

The Nokia Lumia 720 has a camera with Carl Zeiss optics and has a starting price of 249 euros (US$330) before taxes, with a rollout due to start in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore in the first quarter.

The Nokia Lumia 520 would be priced at just 139 euros pre-tax, it said, the cheapest of its Windows Phone 8 devices, launching first in Hong Kong and Vietnam in the first quarter of this year before a broader release in the second quarter.

Nokia said it would bring the Lumia 720 and the Nokia Lumia 520 to China.

Last month, Nokia posted a net profit of 202 million euros in the fourth quarter, its first quarterly profit for 18 months.

But the beleaguered company, which is trying to cut costs, said that it would not pay a dividend to shareholders for the first time in more than 20 years.

In the three months ending December 31, Nokia made a net profit of 202 million euros compared to a loss of 1.07 billion euros in the same quarter a year ago.

The company sold a total of 86.3 million devices during the quarter, including 4.4 million Lumia smartphones, its new flagship product developed with Microsoft.

Nokia said at the time that the numbers were better than expected.

Still, net sales of smart devices fell 55 percent in the quarter to 1.2 billion euros on a yearly basis as volumes fell.

-AFP/fl

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Japan's NTT Docomo plans to offer 112.5 mb/sec LTE speeds

NTT Docomo CEO Kaoru Kato at Mobile World Congress in February 2013.

(Credit:
Roger Cheng/CNET)

BARCELONA, Spain--Think Verizon Wireless or AT&T's 4G LTE network is fast? Check out Japan.

NTT Docomo's CEO, Kaoru Kato, said he plans to offer download speeds of 112.5Mbps to his company's customers. The higher speeds should come shortly, he said. NTT Docomo is Japan's largest wireless carrier by customer base.

By comparison, Verizon and AT&T boasts speeds of 20Mbps on a good day and an uncluttered network. In practise, the speeds are more in the high single or low double digits.

LTE, Kato said during a keynote address at Mobile World Congress, is key to the company's push to offer its subscribers a bundle of services it calls "smart life." The carrier is looking to wrest control of the customer from the likes of
Android or iOS by offering a number of different services, offering everything from its own credit card to medical and healthcare services.

NTT Docomo offers a portal of various digital services that is curated, secure, and filled with high-quality content, Kato said.

Like Verizon, NTT Docomo was early in deploying its 4G LTE network. Kato said the company has 10 million LTE subscribers, and is targeting 41 million subscribers by fiscal 2015.

He said that revenue from these non-core services could grow to $11 billion by fiscal 2015.

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