Society is seemingly trapped in amber, frozen in place by the coronavirus. But really we’re speeding ever faster toward a technological future.
Author: Agency Staff
Independent energy producers were finally making headway in their bid to persuade government to revive long-stalled plans to buy more renewable power when they encountered a new obstacle: the coronavirus.
Alibaba Group will invest $28-billion on cloud infrastructure such as data centres over the next three years, a major effort to extend one of its fastest growing businesses to more countries.
Google and Facebook will be forced to pay media companies in Australia for publishing their news under what the government says is a world-first mandatory code of conduct.
South Africa will gradually ease regulations in various sectors to restart activity after the national lockdown and will work on fast-tracking some structural reforms to help the economy recover.
South African Airways plans to lay off its entire 4 700-strong workforce after failing to persuade the government to provide more financial help.
Boris Johnson’s plan to let Huawei help build the UK’s 5G mobile networks is under threat from mounting opposition to the Chinese company in his ruling Conservative Party.
It’s not only the economy at stake. South African society is also at risk if the government extends a five-week lockdown without allowing more industries to get back to work.
Uber Technologies withdrew its financial guidance for 2020 and said it will write down about US$2-billion in investments after the coronavirus pandemic upended the ride-hailing business.
Facebook and its partners said their libra cryptocurrency project will now support multiple versions of the digital coins, the majority of which will be backed by individual fiat currencies.