
Setback for Microsoft’s Africa cloud ambitions
A row over guaranteed annual payments has reportedly delayed a major Microsoft data centre project.
MONDAY, 11 MAY 2026, 10:02

A row over guaranteed annual payments has reportedly delayed a major Microsoft data centre project.
An anonymous reader shared this report from Futurism:In November, Amazon leaders sent an internal memo to employees, pushing them to use its in-house code generating tool, Kiro, over third-party alternatives from competitors. “While we continue to support existing tools in use today, we do not plan to support additional third party, AI development tools,” the memo read, as quoted by Reuters at...

After five years of deliberation the global south has forced the question that defined the Covid crisis: who will get the vaccines?
The Covid-19 pandemic did deep and lasting damage to the international political system. Countries in the global south are keenly aware that the established order let them down. They received vaccines later, in smaller numbers and often at a higher price than rich...
For just the first three months of 2026, Rocket Lab’s launch business reports $63.7 million in revenue, reports CNBC — plus another $136.7 million from its space systems business. Besides beating Wall Street’s expectations, Rocket Lab also announced that its backlog has more than doubled from a year ago to $2.2 billion, and that it’s buying space robotics company Motiv Space Systems. Friday...

Industry body says the fiscus-first model is starving the very sector South Africa depends on for connectivity.

With the help of citizen scientists, researchers studying rare humpback ‘jaw-gaping’ believe the move could be a social display
On the coast of Western Australia, a humpback whale is “pirouetting”, sweeping its pectoral fins through the water, its massive jaw hanging wide open. Surrounded by companions, the animal isn’t lunging for a meal: rather, it is putting on a mysterious behavioural...
IT sector unemployment “increased to 3.8% in April from 3.6% in March,” reports the Wall Street Journal. But they add that the increase reflects “an ongoing uncertainty in tech as AI continues to play havoc with hiring. That’s according to analysis from consulting firm Janco Associates, which bases its findings on data from the U.S. Labor Department.”On Friday, the department said the economy...
IT sector unemployment “increased to 3.8% in April from 3.6% in March,” reports the Wall Street Journal. But they add that the increase reflects “an ongoing uncertainty in tech as AI continues to play havoc with hiring. That’s according to analysis from consulting firm Janco Associates, which bases its findings on data from the U.S. Labor Department.”On Friday, the department said the economy...

Many mergers and acquisitions will now escape Competition Commission review – but a senior lawyer sees a tech blind spot.
CNBC reports:The European Union is considering rules that would restrict its member governments’ use of U.S. cloud providers to handle sensitive data, sources familiar with the talks told CNBC. The European Commission — the EU’s executive branch — is expected to present its “Tech Sovereignty Package” on May 27, which will include a range of measures aimed at bolstering the bloc’s strategic...

Contact-tracing apps were widely deployed during the Covid pandemic. They aren’t as helpful during smaller outbreaks.

One of the country’s busiest airspaces has a new kind of flying machine—maybe temporarily.

Your cell phone can handle basic language translation, but bespoke tools can offer a much more immersive experience.

The hotel staffer who calls you with an urgent request for payment isn’t necessarily who they say they are.
“Meta’s embrace of AI is making its employees miserable,” reports the New York Times. And “After Meta said late last month that it would start tracking employees’ computer use, hundreds of workers spoke up.” (One employee even told Meta’s CTO in an internal post, “Your callousness to the concerns of your own employees is concerning.” In an internal post last month, Meta told its U.S. employees...
While Nvidia has dominated the “infrastructure boom” since 2022’s launch of ChatGPT and “the generative AI craze,” CNBC writes that “This week offered the starkest illustration yet of what MIzuho analyst Jordan Klein said could be a ‘changing of the guard in AI.'”Chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel notched gains of about 25%, while memory maker Micron jumped more than 37% and...
Under the nonprofit Linux Foundation, “a new Sustaining Package Registries Working Group will seek to identify concrete funding, governance, and security practices,” reports ZDNet, “to keep code flowing as download counts grow…. Because software builds, continuous integration pipelines, and AI systems hammer registries at machine speed rather than human speed, the sites can’t keep up. “That...
To upgrade its grid for data centers, PJM Interconnection (which serves 13 states) plans to spend $22 billion — and charge nearly $2 billion of that to customers in Maryland, argues Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel. The money “will be recovered in rates for decades” and “drive up Maryland customer bills by $1.6 billion over the next ten years alone,” they said Friday, announcing an...
NASA’s $500 million Neil Gehrels Swift space observatory was launched in 2004. But it’s now “at risk of falling back through the atmosphere and burning up without intervention,” reports Spaceflight Now. Fortunately, a mission to prevent that “just passed a notable prelaunch testing milestone.”On Friday, NASA announced that the Link spacecraft, manufactured by Katalyst Space Technologies to...
September 2025? January 2026? Delivery dates keep slipping for the Trump Organization’s “Trump Phone” — a gold-coloured Android smartphone priced at $499 (£370). But in March the Verge spotted signs the phone was moving forward:FCC listings for a smartphone with the trade name “T1” show that it was tested late last year, and granted certification by the FCC in January… [T]he phone was...

After embarking on a trial of CAR T-cell therapy, actor Sam Neill announced he is cancer-free. Researchers are enthusiastic the therapies could be a major weapon in the battle against cancer
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“Game-changer.” That’s how Prof Misty Jenkins, an immunologist at the Walter and...