Author: Chris Anu

Communications & digital technologies minister Solly Malatsi Huawei held its highly anticipated Huawei South Africa Connect 2025 in Johannesburg, bringing together more than 2 900 leaders from government, business and the technology sector to explore how intelligent technologies can power the country’s advance from digital adoption to intelligent transformation. Themed Accelerate Industrial Digital Intelligence for South Africa, the event focused on how artificial intelligence, cloud computing and smart platforms are reshaping industries — moving beyond connectivity to build a truly intelligent and sustainable future, enabling industry growth, unlocking inclusion and driving long-term national development. At the event, communications & digital technologies…

City Power’s EV Programme is rolling out charging infrastructure and transitioning its fleet to electric vehicles. Johannesburg is charging ahead with City Power’s Electric Vehicle (EV) Programme, featuring the deployment of EV charging stations and the transition of its fleet to electric vehicles, driving a cleaner and more efficient urban mobility system.The power utility received a new batch of electric vehicle charging stations last weekend, highlighting a significant step forward in the utility’s journey to power Johannesburg’s transition to a cleaner, smarter and more sustainable energy future. In a statement, City Power said the initiative forms part of its ambitious…

The department of home affairs is going to roll out a suite of self-service kiosks as part of its plan to speed up service delivery and eliminate the notoriously long queues in its branches. According to home affairs deputy minister Njabulo Nzuza, the department has already acquired 75 of these terminals, which will make some services – including the reprinting of birth, death and marriage certificates – accessible without the need to engage with any other touch points. “We are on track with self-service kiosks as part of our digital transformation journey,” Nzuza told parliament in his budget vote speech…

Rennie Naidoo, professor in Information Systems at the Wits School of Business Sciences. South Africa’s land reform debate remains a dominant feature of public discourse. But a more insidious form of dispossession is underway – one that is redrawing the boundaries of power, wealth and control.This isn’t about hectares or fences. It’s about code, data and cloud infrastructure. And we don’t own it.For centuries, South Africa’s economy was shaped by extractive industries, including mining, minerals and agriculture, which were largely designed to enrich Western colonial powers and imperial nations that built their wealth on the back of local dispossession.After 1994,…

Mount Everest. Mário Simoes/CC BY 2.0 Human waste, empty oxygen cylinders, kitchen leftovers and discarded ladders. Sherpas working on Mount Everest carry all that and more — 20kg/person — navigating a four-hour hike that traverses crumbling glacial ice and treacherous crevasses to bring trash back to base camp. During the most recent climbing season, they had new assistance from two giant DJI drones, which can complete the same journey in six minutes, sharing the task of clearing an expanding volume of refuse piling up on the world’s highest peak. About 70% of the garbage usually carted off the mountain by…

South Africa’s communications and digital technologies minister Solly Malatsi. The success of SA’s digital transformation hinges on the country’s ability to expand connectivity and use AI to accelerate industrial intelligence in public and private sectors.This is a key takeaway from the Huawei South Africa Connect 2025 event, hosted by Huawei and its partners at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg, on 3 July.This is the first time Huawei’s Connect platform has focused specifically on SA, signalling the company’s deepening interest in the country.Speaking at the event, SA’s minister of communications and digital technologies Solly Malatsi said the country’s digital economy…

Chinese hardware brand Honor has announced a slimmer foldable phone, a bid to out-design Samsung Electronics days before it launches its own new foldable devices. The phone, called the Magic V5, measures as thin as 8.8mm when folded shut, making it one of the slimmest foldable devices ever to hit the market. (Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold6, announced last year, is 12.1mm when folded.) With the latest models, the form factor has nearly reached the thinness of conventional smartphones — even while offering a tablet-sized inner display for improved multitasking and more immersive video consumption. The tech industry’s biggest players, including…

Ask most South Africans and they’ll tell you the country’s spam call epidemic is getting worse. Despite multipronged efforts to keep the problem at bay, telemarketers continue to plague phone users with endless spam calls. Telemarketers, scammers and robocalls persist in the face of third-party applications like Truecaller, efforts by device manufacturers to block spam using their own software tools and even intervention by the Information Regulator. The onslaught raises a serious question: how can South Africans put a stop to the time-wasting menace? For many South Africans, the go-to solution is an app called Truecaller  – or others like…

Prepaid mobile subscribers will be affected by increased verification costs, says the Association of Comms and Technology. South Africa’s mobile network operator umbrella body has slammed the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) for its 6 500% increase in the cost of biometric verifications.It says the move is contrary to government’s own socio-economic endeavours.This comes as home affairs minister Dr Leon Schreiber told the National Council of Provinces – during his presentation of the department’s budget yesterday – that the increase, which forms part of an upgrade to the National Population Register (NPR), was “in the national interest”.In response to questions…

Gadjet Dov Halpern E-commerce websites like Takealot and Amazon have become crucial for third-party sellers, but figuring out how to maximise sales on these platforms can be tricky. That’s where a new service provider, Gadjet – which helps online sellers manage their opportunity better – has stepped in. According to Gadjet founder Dov Halpern, the platform helps address many of the pain points experienced by sellers on online marketplaces, with the holistic view of their business chief among them. Gadjet … offers features like real-time dynamic pricing, automated inventory management and sales analytics “Gadjet integrates directly with Takealot and offers…