If AI really is about to reshape the global economy, the question for South Africa is not whether the technology arrives but whether the country owns any part of it. As argued in a previous column, the abundance its boosters promise rests on a basic income the South African budget cannot remotely fund. That leaves…
The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition wants an updated National Gambling Bill in front of Cabinet this year. (Image created by GenAI) The National Gambling Amendment Bill – in the works since 2018 – is before Parliament to be finalised as the industry calls for urgent action rather than more talk about blocking illegal…
South Africa’s biggest telecommunications operators will square off with Icasa at public hearings in Midrand on Monday and Tuesday, after formal submissions revealed near-unanimous industry criticism of the regulator’s draft rapid deployment regulations – rules meant to accelerate broadband roll-out that operators warn could achieve the opposite. The draft regulations, gazetted on 10 April, are…
Companies are taking a more cautious approach to future social media spending. South African businesses are expanding their social media strategies as TikTok and LinkedIn attract growing user engagement, while Facebook’s long-standing dominance continues to erode. This is one of the key findings of the South African Social Media Landscape Report 2026, released last week….
SA QuTI project manager Jodie Robbertse The University of Pretoria last week became the newest node in the South African Quantum Technology Initiative (SA QuTI), launching UP Quantum Science and Technology – UPQuST – as one of six nationally funded quantum research hubs. The university said the node, backed by the department of science, technology…
Lady Mariéme Jamme, SA’s special envoy for technology and AI. (Image supplied) Government has appointed technology leader and digital education advocate Lady Mariéme Jamme as the country’s special envoy for technology and artificial intelligence (AI). This is according to the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, which says the appointment was announced at…
When Grand Theft Auto VI finally arrives on 19 November, it will almost certainly become the biggest entertainment launch in history. The only real question is by how much. The precedents are staggering. Its predecessor, GTA V, earned US$815.7-million in its first 24 hours in September 2013 and passed $1-billion in three days, making it…
Helen Kruger, CEO of Troye. (Image: Troye) The biggest mistake CIOs make about cloud is believing that adoption equals modernisation. It does not. In many cases, cloud has simply given them a more expensive, more fragmented and harder to manage version of the infrastructure problems they were trying to escape. This is becoming a serious…
Zimbabwe’s state power utility Zesa reported a nationwide power outage on Monday evening, saying a technical fault on its network caused the blackout at 6.24pm. Zesa said its technical teams were investigating the cause of the outage. Zimbabweans have long experience with blackouts, exacerbated by ageing equipment at power plants and foreign currency shortages that…
Solly Malatsi, communications and digital technologies minister. Minister Solly Malatsi says he has engaged several low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers, including Starlink, for insight-sharing purposes rather discussing individual licence applications. This, amid furore over alleged lobbying of Starlink, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to get an operating licence in South Africa by Democratic Alliance (DA)…
