Browsing: In-depth

Much has been made about green industry being a new vehicle for industrial development in South Africa. It is part of the industrial policy action plan. For now, the focus is mainly on increasing the local content of components, which fall under the renewable energy independent producers’ procurement programme

South Africa’s first wind farm was built outside Darling, up the coast from Cape Town. Its four turbines sit on a hill, looking towards the ocean. At peak capacity, they generate 5,2MW, enough to power 700 houses. The only sound they make is a soft whoosh as their giant white blades rotate

Demand for low-cost handsets, regional diversity and differences between developed and underdeveloped areas all mean older, second-generation (2G) mobile technology is set to remain the dominant form of connectivity in Africa for the rest of the decade. This is according to the

Google’s planned US$12m (R120m) investment in a US$260m solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant near Kimberley in the Northern Cape is simply a sound investment decision and will generate good publicity for the cash-rich online giant, according to industry analysts. On Thursday, Google announced that

Therapy, on Johannesburg’s Juta Street, was once a nightclub in the heart of gay Braamfontein. Today the building stands unused. The loud interiors and labyrinthine back rooms hint at a former wild life. The music got turned down for the last time in 2010. Now this part of the inner-city neighbourhood

Naspers-controlled pay-TV operator MultiChoice, which owns DStv and SuperSport, may soon face a probe by South Africa’s competition authorities after rival On Digital Media (ODM), which owns TopTV, accused it of anticompetitive abuses. TechCentral can reveal exclusively

The most memorable image from Microsoft’s reveal of the Xbox One was an animated German Shepherd with Kevlar armour and a high polygon count. Motion-captured from a retired Navy Seal dog to serve as a player companion in this year’s iteration of Call of Duty, the pooch is an apt mascot for the console. The dog

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is at a crossroads. The company, with Microsoft, dominated the client-server era of computing. Its chips power most servers and PCs sold today. But the action in the computing industry is no longer in desktops and laptops, but rather in smartphones

Could pay-TV operator MultiChoice, which owns DStv, be forced to allow rival broadcasters access to premium sports and entertainment content that it has bought rights to? If communications minister Dina Pule gets her way, this could happen.Pule told parliament on Tuesday

Vodacom expects demand for data to offset a decline in voice revenues in the next few years, but with the margins on data slimmer and the price of data being driven down by a competitive market, the operator is also hoping so-called “over-the-top” services – content, social networking and financial services are three examples