A huge milestone for the American electric vehicle and clean energy company, Tesla, as it has confirmed that it reached its goal of producing half a million EVs in 2020. Given that its factories weren’t running at full capacity at all times due to the pandemic, it is no mean feat considering there were only 367,500 deliveries in the year prior. Tesla has become the largest car manufacturer by market capitalization (by far), even though the company is still very small in terms of car sales compared to more traditional manufacturers. The largest manufacturer in the United States is General…
Author: Malama Mulenga
Eskom has announced that it will be implementing load shedding at stage 2 from 10pm on Wednesday the 6th of January. The electricity interruptions will be repeated on Thursday during the same overnight hours. The rotational national power cuts will be implemented until 5am on Thursday, the state-owned power monopoly said in a statement posted on social media. They come on top of similar load shedding last week, which also took place over two consecutive nights. “The load shedding is necessary to recover and preserve the emergency generation reserves that have been utilised to support the system during the week…
Plans to delist three state-owned Chinese telecom companies were cancelled by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday, reversing a decision that further dented already strained relations between the world’s two superpowers. Releasing a brief statement, the NYSE said it “no longer intends to move forward with the delisting action” for China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom. No detailed reason was given for the sudden reversal, which the exchange said came after “further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities”. Responding the NYSE decision, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the initial US move to delist the three companies…
Robots like Spot and Atlas from Boston Dynamics meticulously coded to tackle the tasks we throw at them and the results can be impressive, but it can also leave them unable to adapt to situations that aren’t covered by their software. A joint team of researchers from Zhejiang University and the University of Edinburgh claim they’ve developed a better way with Jueying. The dog, named Jueying by the researchers, was provided with the AI and then thrown into a set of scenarios to test its recoverability. They basically loaded an advanced, experimental AI into a robot dog and then literally…
Concerns are rising for South African as Eskom has taken Unit One of Koeberg offline earlier than planned for scheduled maintenance after “an increasing leak rate was observed on one of three steam generators”. The unit was scheduled to be taken offline for refueling and routine maintenance starting in February. Eskom says it expects the unit “to return to service during May 2021”. The power station supplies stable and predictable baseload power generation of just more than 1.8GW, which halved after 6pm on Sunday evening when the unit was taken offline (yellow in the chart below). Of concern is the…
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has revealed that plans for a new ID system in South Africa have been put in place and it has published a new draft official identity management policy. The department said the current Identification Act is outdated and does not consider key developments in managing official personal information. “The current legislation and systems are outdated, fragmented and do not fully align with constitutional principles of equality, non-discrimination, and human dignity,” it said. The DHA mentioned that in addition to the outdated legislation, the department said issues said issues with crime and corruption has led…
The South African government is set to establish an electronic vaccination data system (EVDS) for management and surveillance of the COVID-19 vaccines. Dr Anban Pillay, deputy director-general (DDG) at the Department of Health said that this establishment is to avail data needed for monitoring vaccine uptake and coverage, prioritization of the groups, planning, safety monitoring and vaccine effectiveness. The health DDG, who is also a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on vaccines, was speaking during a presentation of SA’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout strategy on Sunday. According to Pillay, the EVDS will leverage off existing electronic systems, which are currently…
Telkom has revealed that it will be implementing network freeze as so to meet the demand for mobile data traffic over this festive. Talking to MyBroadband, the company said it will need to roll out additional infrastructure to meet demand in certain areas and it will continue with its regular freeze of network expansion over the holidays. “Over the festive season Telkom implements a network freeze except for fault repairs.” – the company said. Telkom said it does not anticipate any significant increase in mobile data demand across the country, but certain holiday destinations may see increased demand. “We don’t…
Toyota Motor Corp. has unveiled that it has plans to sell self-directed shipping-container-like vehicles within a few years that it says could double as a mobile store or roving office. The e-Palette by Toyota is a transparent, driverless oblong carriage on wheels that’s powered by a battery. It can accommodate up to 20 passengers, with seats that fold up and allow the space to be re-purposed. The vehicle began as a concept vehicle, announced at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show by Toyota President Akio Toyoda, who said it is a symbol of how he is trying to transform the world’s…
After a long wait, OnePlus has finally announced the launch its smartwatch in early 2021. Taking to Twitter recently, the company’s CEO Pete Lau has confirmed reports that OnePlus has revived its smartwatch project several years after the first attempt for abandoned. At the time, the manufacturer decided to focus its efforts on smartphones after its initial success, with many more great phones launching in the interim. It revived its non-smartphone division in recently and launched its first product, the OnePlus Buds, a couple of months ago. This division may have other projects in the works as well, not just…
