Eskom’s 800MWin
Remember this moment. Bask in the glow of Eskom’s collective win for South Africa. Rather than disturb the quiet, long weekend with yet another bout of load shedding, Eskom delivered some good news to South African residents. 800MW of energy capacity has officially been added to the national grid.
“Eskom is pleased to announce the successful addition of Kusile Power Station’s final unit, Unit 6, to the national grid today at 16:45” the energy provider wrote in a post on X/Twitter on Sunday.
“This achievement marks a crucial step toward completing one of South Africa’s largest infrastructure projects and is a key milestone in Eskom’s strategic objective of adding 2,500MW of new capacity to the grid by March 2025.”
Just… don’t get your hopes up yet. While adding 800MW capacity to the national grid is worth celebrating, it’s not a done deal. Unit 6 at Kusile Power Station will undergo six months’ worth of ‘extensive’ testing before it can reach commercial operation. This is likely due to the unit embracing Wet Flue Gas Desulphurisation (WFGD) technology, the first in Eskom’s fleet to do so.
Once fully operational, the entirety of Kusile Power Station will contribute 4,800MW to the national grid, thus confirming its status as the most important element in Eskom’s ongoing battle against load shedding.
Trust nothing – not even comments
Do you need help writing even a basic Instagram comment? Meta certainly seems to think you do. In a desperate bid to shove AI where it doesn’t belong, Meta is once again experimenting with artificial intelligence inside its Instagram app, this time inviting users to use AI to dream up a comment for them – no thought required.
Jonah Manzano first spotted this threat to literacy and posted about the experience on X.com/Twitter. The feature appears limited to a small subset of users for the time being, with a small ‘pencil’ symbol appearing next to the text bar for those who do have access to it. Clicking this pencil will automatically suggest three different comments – generated by Meta AI analysing the image or video in the post.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the feature’s existence in a statement to TechCrunch. “We regularly test more features for you to use Meta AI across our apps,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch via email.
“Outside of DMs, you will find Meta AI there for you in areas like comments, feed, groups, and search to make your experiences more fun and useful.”
Whether the feature will stick around for the long run remains to be seen. Meta frequently dabbles with artificially intelligent features, most of which are hit or miss (emphasis on miss). Only a few months ago, Meta tested AI-generated character accounts, before eventually ditching them thanks to their creepy nature and uselessness. We wouldn’t be surprised to see AI-generated comments go the same way.
Alexa+ is out with the old, in with the new
While Alexa+ is still a mystery to most, Amazon has finally offered some concrete confirmation on the sort of devices that can expect to play with the AI-powered upgrade. We already know that early access to the new AI-powered service is limited to customers in the States who own an Echo Show 8, 10, 15, or 21, but what about the rest of Amazon’s long line of assistants?
While an expansion for Alexa+ is planned over the coming months, several of Amazon’s existing assistants won’t make the cut. The list is rather short, however, with the first-generation Echo Dot, Echo, and Echo Show failing to receive the AI-powered update. The same goes for third-party devices touting the Amazon assistant, though Alexa as you know it will continue to function there as it always has. For now, of course.
Is that… Minecraft?
If you’re the type of person to complain that Minecraft is not visually stimulating enough while playing God with the virtually infinite possibilities the game offers, you’ll want to see this. Mojang Studios during Minecraft Live just announced the ‘Vibrant Visuals’ update, bringing the first graphic overhaul to the game’s blocky beginnings in over fifteen years. And it’s arriving for both Java and Bedrock in the coming months.
Mojang was quick to note that while the Vibrant Visuals update will introduce “improved visual elements such as directional lighting, volumetric fog, and more,” it’s leaving the core gameplay alone. The fundamental mechanics that make Minecraft, well, Minecraft, will remain. “The result is dazzling – shadows move as the sun arcs across the sky, water reflects the landscape around it, and clouds appear infinite as they stretch far into the distance.”
Vibrant Visuals is fully backwards compatible with all your worlds and can be switched off at a moment’s notice – likely to accommodate those players who miraculously managed to get Minecraft running on nothing but a humble potato. Minecraft Bedrock players will have access to Vibrant Visuals at first through the beta program in the next few weeks before Mojang can get to work on porting the update to the Java version of the game.
