NASA deployed the WB-57 and UAVSAR-equipped Gulfstream III to support Texas flood recovery, delivering high-resolution real-time data despite persistent cloud cover, with over 110 fatalities and more than 170 missing. The European Launcher Challenge finalists are Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, MaiaSpace, PLD Space, and Orbex, each eligible for contracts up to €169 million. Airbus…
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1.7 billion adults lack access to formal banking, about 31% of all adults, and 55% of the unbanked are women. BitPesa, a crypto-powered remittance firm in sub-Saharan Africa, has cut transfer fees by up to 90% compared with traditional methods. In Kenya, the Red Cross and Grassroots Economics launched a blockchain-backed community currency, enabling 25…
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The EU’s AI Act is set to take effect in mid-2026, imposing strict, risk-based regulations and market access requirements. A 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulation was removed from a major US Congressional bill, underscoring regulatory contention. The US and China are locked in a high-stakes AI race, with the US investing about $700 billion…
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Over 45 major European firms—including ASML, Airbus, Mercedes-Benz, and Siemens Energy—urged the EU to delay the AI Act by two years to protect innovation. AI engineers now command $2–10 million per year, as Meta commits up to $72 billion to AI in 2025. Microsoft’s MAI Diagnostic Orchestrator (MAI-DxO) diagnoses diseases four times more accurately and…
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Revolut will integrate the European Payments Initiative’s Wero wallet into the Revolut app for customers in France, Belgium and Germany, a system launched in 2024 that already has over 40 million users and aims to add e-commerce payments by late 2025 (announced June 26, 2025). Lunar, the Nordic digital bank, announced in June 2025 partnerships…
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As of early 2024, Turkmenistan had about 2.59 million internet users, roughly 39.5% of the population—the lowest penetration in Central Asia. Turkmenistan’s telecom market is a state monopoly led by Turkmentelecom (Turkmen Telecom), with TM CELL/Altyn Asyr as the sole mobile operator after MTS exited in 2017–2018. There were about 4.34 million mobile subscriptions in…
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Summary of Recent Developments (Mid-2025) SpaceX’s Starship vehicle lifting off on its ninth test flight from Starbase, Texas in May 2025. Starship is the company’s next-generation, fully-reusable rocket system under development. In summary, by mid-2025 SpaceX is breaking launch records, advancing Starship’s development amid regulatory hurdles, expanding its Starlink network, and securing a growing share…
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ESA’s Biomass satellite, the first with a P-band SAR, released its initial high-resolution images and enables 3D mapping of forest structure for carbon accounting. Rocket Lab’s 67th Electron launch deployed four satellites—three HawkEye 360 Cluster 12 microsatellites and the experimental Kestrel-0A—marking the ninth Electron mission in 2024. Amazon’s Project Kuiper added 27 satellites to reach…
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Uzbekistan’s internet infrastructure has shifted from slow dial-up to fiber and 4G/5G networks, with Uztelecom expanding fiber backbones and boosting international capacity to 3.2 Tbps in 2022. As of 2022, 2G networks blanket 99% of the population, 3G covers about 90%, and 4G LTE reaches roughly two-thirds of residents. In 2023, Uzbekistan began rolling out…
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The World Bank–funded Digital CASA project is deploying over 2,500 km of fiber, establishing 30 backbone nodes and 200 local access points, and will connect about 4,000 public facilities nationwide to high-speed broadband. As of late 2023, 4G/LTE mobile networks cover 98.8% of Kyrgyzstan’s inhabited localities. Internet penetration reached about 79.8% of the population by…
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