Author: Brad Lang

One has to feel somewhat bad for Snapchat, an app that can only really be described as that movie star that was really famous in the 1990s but just stopped landing roles when younger, more popular performers come along that tested more positive with younger audiences. That feels like the case now that TikTok is the dominant short-video creation app that people are using,  Snapchat has been battling to retain the audience it established when it first launched. It’s not giving up yet though as the company is looking into experimenting with content viewable outside of the app itself. It…

A few years back, YouTube had the great idea of adding an “Autoplay” feature to the video streaming app. It was a nice idea (mainly for the business than actual users) that allowed them to compete with YouTube. YouTube autoplays videos similar enough to one another that you could potentially watch hours of related content without having to select it. You know this. It works great for helping people plough through playlist of content they may otherwise miss in the overwhelming amount of videos on the channel but, truth be told, it’s more annoying than anything else. Netflix’s strange algorithms…

As the resident comic book expert (or complete dork) at Stuff I felt like a post regarding superheroes and COVID-19 was well overdue. Sure, we wrote about how you could pick up a load of Marvel comics for free but that’s quite the angle I’m going for this time. COVID-19, while not as severe as it used to be, is still a problem that requires a solution and if all my years reading comic books has taught me anything, the best approach is to don a mask (hopefully already done) and invent some cool gadgets to aid you in your crusade against…

I think this is the first time I’ve sat down to write a story and been struck with the overwhelming sensation that I’m becoming old. I don’t understand Facebook avatars, I really just don’t see the appeal of making a little… face of yourself. Why not just use your real face? The avatars just look silly, like something you’d expect to see in a bad Dreamworks movie. Yet they’re clearly popular enough to warrant some kind of expansion as Facebook announced this morning that specialised “Avatars for Africa” are being implemented into the social media platform. If you don’t know what…

Ghost of Tsushima, the swansong to an age of excellent PS4 exclusives, took the world by samurai sword-swinging storm. It’s an excellent game, one that’s dripping with both content and sheer, unadulterated beauty. For a while now, it was assumed that the latest game by Sucker Punch Studios, much like their previous projects, was a single-player only affair. Yet it turns out that Ghost of Tsushima may have a bit more lift under its wings. While the campaign of the game is remarkably fleshed out with loads to do, it seems that the developers thought it would be cool to allow friends to…

Alright, this is one for all you personal assistants, secretaries, students and non-tech journalists out there. I know you enjoy your job (or whatever course you’re studying towards) but I’m fairly confident that transcribing all those meetings and lectures gets to be a real pain, right? Trust any one of the Stuff writers, we’ve had to conduct interviews and it doesn’t matter how interesting the person you’re talking to is because you’ll always have to sit down and transcribe everything before you write it up properly. It’s boring, time-consuming and just generally sucks. In recent years, we’ve been making use of Google’s…

The Stuff office is rather found of Telegram, what many believe to be the most secure instant messaging service on the market today. Honestly, it’s nothing special but the extra security is definitely a decent reason to adopt it into the workplace over competitors like Slack or…WhatsApp, I guess. Yet while Telegram is excellent for sending messages, it’s not great when it comes to video, an avenue the app has largely side-lined. Yet that’s set to change in the near future as a recent announcement from Telegram has confirmed that one-on-one video calls are being integrated into the software… if you have…

UPDATE: Showmax Pro will be live in South Africa from 19 August. It’ll cost R449 per month, while Showmax Pro Mobile will cost R225 per month.  The two most popular local streaming services, DStv and Showmax are similar enough (because they’re owned by the same company, of course) that consumers often need to think long and hard about what they want out of their entertainment, with DStv Now often holding a powerful card in the way of live sport through the SuperSport channels. That advantage won’t be the case much longer as the Showmax Pro subscription service, launching in South…

The Ford Range is one of those cars. It feels like one of the quintessential cars that every South African has experienced at some point in their lives. Whether it be driving to school sitting in the back of one or witnessing some jackass driving on rage down the N3, one doesn’t need to think back too far to remember the Ford Ranger making some kind of impression. Which is why Ford’s Ranger Thunder announcement is so cool as it takes one of the most iconic bakkies around and supes it up with some very snazzy new features. The Ranger Thunder looks…

Lawsuits are, unsurprisingly, a very common hobby in Silicon Valley. Everyone has got an idea or intellectual property that belongs to someone else that dozens of legal procedures are kicked off every day, I’m sure. Epic Games, developer and publisher of Fortnite (among other games) is no stranger to both filing and being dealt lawsuits, so why are we going out of our way to report on its latest legal procedure? Well, because Epic Games is taking on arguably the two most influential behemoths in the tech industry, accusing Apple and Google of “unfair and anti-competitive actions” on both the…