Gov’t fund to buy Independent stake
The government employees’ pension fund is to acquire a 25% stake, worth about R500m, in Independent News and Media SA, according to a report on Tuesday. According to Business Day, the fund already owns a 19,5% stake in Times Media Group, which publishes Business Day and other major titles in
Green light for Eskom wind farm
The National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) has granted Eskom a licence for its Sere wind farm in the Western Cape, the power parastatal said on Monday. “This is an exciting milestone in Eskom’s move towards a cleaner energy mix,” Eskom CEO Brian Dames said in a statement. “Sere is our first
Win an iPhone 5 with Dryver
The Dryver mobile application is Tops at Spar’s initiative to reduce drunk driving by allowing people to create a network of friends using the contact on their phones that can then be used to arrange a lift home when they’ve had too much to drink. Users can set their status to
Playboy SA goes digital only
Playboy South Africa is to end its print run and go digital, it was reported on Wednesday. Editor Charl du Plessis told The Times that the “hurdle of conservative readers” had proved too much for the magazine. “We’re told from the consumer side that people don’t want to be seen buying Playboy
Telkom pay dispute headed to CCMA
A pay dispute between Solidarity and Telkom will be taken to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, the union said on Tuesday. Spokesman Marius Croucamp said wage talks between the two parties had deadlocked. “Solidarity is demanding
Big worry over power supply
Power utility Eskom’s ability to keep the country’s lights on this winter remains a major worry, the Democratic Alliance warned on Tuesday. “At the front and centre of most South Africans’ minds right now is the worry about our very precarious electricity supply,” MP Natasha Michael told MPs in the national
Procrastination, not price, hampers telecoms uptake
Universal access to the Internet in South Africa is no longer being held back by high prices or a lack of education, but by government and regulatory inefficiency. Smartphones and mobile computing devices are getting cheaper and broadband far more affordable. But the spectrum needed to deliver high-speed bandwidth is still clogged
Teraco, Absa in R200m funding deal
Vendor-neutral data centre operator Teraco Data Environments has secured a R200m medium-term funding facility from Absa’s corporate and investment banking division. Teraco CEO Lex van Wyk says the funding will allow Teraco to meet the demand created by growth of the Internet and cloud computing
Betting on the origin of the universe
Ten years ago, Stephen Hawking made a bet with the man in the office next door at Cambridge University: South Africa’s Neil Turok, the son of ANC MP Ben Turok. The iconic scientist balked at Turok’s proposal for a money wager, so they agreed on another kind of stake: bragging rights over which of them had discovered
Jurassic Park still holds up 20 years later
You’d think that 20 years of progress in computer-generated imagery (CGI) would make Jurassic Park look like, well, a dinosaur. But Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster, re-released this weekend with a 3D makeover, is just as captivating and thrilling now as it was in 1993. It remains a great example of the director’s ability
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