STQMediaAfrica

17/06/2026

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma has been recognised by TIME magazine, becoming one of only two cricketers to feature in the prestigious 2026 list.

12/06/2026

06/06/2026

Tech Tonic No Plates

BREAKING: Google has agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million a month for computing power as part of a cloud-services deal that runs through mid-2029.

The deal was made public via a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing just ahead of SpaceX's highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO).

If the contract runs its full 33-month duration, the total value of the deal will reach roughly $30.36 billion.

SpaceX is providing Google with access to massive cloud compute capacity that includes approximately 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, alongside accompanying CPUs, memory, and specialized infrastructure components.

This compute power is housed in SpaceX's advanced data centers, leveraging infrastructure connected to its massive Colossus supercomputing clusters.

The agreement officially begins with a gradual ramp-up phase through September 2026 (at a reduced fee rate). Full monthly payments of $920 million will kick in starting October 2026 and run through June 2029.

SpaceX must fully deliver access to the contracted 110,000 GPUs by September 30, 2026.

If SpaceX fails to hit this target, a one-month grace period applies. After that, Google has the right to either terminate the agreement immediately or accept whatever lower number of GPUs SpaceX actually managed to deploy, reducing its monthly $920 million fee on a pro-rata basis.

After December 31, 2026, the contract becomes highly flexible—either party can terminate the agreement with a 90-day notice.

25/04/2026

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market. Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there. Given that no company walks away from European consumers voluntarily the phones are going to change and once they change for Europe the rest of the world will ask why theirs still do not.