July 2025 was a whirlwind month for Meta’s AI endeavors. The company rolled out innovative consumer AI tools, announced major partnerships and investments, notched research milestones, and navigated regulatory pushback and security scares. Below, we break down the biggest Meta AI news from July 2025 – from new AI assistants and Llama model initiatives to…
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Introduction: A New Space Race for Broadband A revolution is underway above our heads. In the past year alone, companies and governments worldwide have turbocharged efforts to beam high-speed internet from space down to Earth. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation has surpassed 8,000 satellites launched since 2019, amassing over 5 million users across 125+ countries reuters.com. In…
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Introduction In parts of the world, authorities are literally switching off the internet on a routine basis. Over the last five years (2020–2025), countries like Syria, Iraq, and Algeria have repeatedly imposed nationwide internet shutdowns – often timed with school exam periods – plunging millions into digital darkness for hours at a time. Governments claim…
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Côte d’Ivoire is undergoing a digital transformation, rapidly expanding internet infrastructure and connectivity across the country trade.gov. Fueled by government ambition to become a West African digital hub trade.gov, investments in fiber-optic networks, mobile broadband, and even satellite internet are reshaping how Ivorians access the online world. Internet usage has grown from only a fraction…
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Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet network, has rapidly expanded coverage worldwide since its beta launch in 2020. As of mid-2025, Starlink service is available in over 110 countries and territories, with more on the way idemest.com. Below is an up-to-date regional breakdown of Starlink availability – including countries with full commercial service, those in beta or…
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Overview of Internet Access in Cape Verde Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) has made significant strides in expanding internet access across its islands. As of early 2025, about 73.5% of the population are internet users, up from roughly 72% a year prior datareportal.com datareportal.com. In absolute terms, this represents approximately 387,000 users out of a population…
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Current State of Internet Access in Burkina Faso Burkina Faso’s digital landscape is marked by low internet penetration and heavy reliance on mobile networks. As of 2023, only about 17–20% of the population are internet users, well below the African average (~39%) pulse.internetsociety.org and the global average (~66%) datareportal.com. In raw numbers, that equates to…
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Bhutan – a small Himalayan kingdom known for its Gross National Happiness philosophy – was a late adopter of modern communications, introducing television and the internet only in 1999 freiheit.org. In the two decades since, Bhutan has rapidly embraced the digital age. Today, internet connectivity reaches all 20 districts and even every school in the…
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Benin has witnessed a quiet but striking internet revolution over the past decade. In the early 2010s, internet use was in the single digits of the population; today roughly one-third of Beninese are online datareportal.com pulse.internetsociety.org. This rapid growth has been driven by improvements in infrastructure and aggressive government initiatives, yet significant challenges remain. The…
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Angola has made significant strides in expanding internet access over the past decade, yet connectivity remains very uneven between its urban hubs and rural hinterlands. With a population of about 37 million datareportal.com – most of them young and over two-thirds living in cities datareportal.com – Angola’s digital landscape is growing rapidly. As of early…
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