Sony kept its MWC presentation short and sweet, but still managed to pack in three new smartphones — The Xperia X, XA, and X Performance. All three handsets feature a 5in/12.7cm display and Sony’s instantly recognisable square, minimal Omnibalance design of which we’ve grown rather fond over the years, and prioritise camera performance and battery life — traditionally two of Sony’s strong suits. The standard Xperia X offers a 1080p display, alongside a 23MP camera with a dedicated shutter button and the promise of a 0.6 second startup time. Sony’s pushing the camera’s Predictive Hybrid Autofocus, which is able to detect the…
Author: CraigWilson
Yesterday Samsung presented its newest smartphones to the world and announced that those who pre-order either the S7 or S7 Edge will the latest Gear VR headset (the recent one with “Powered by Oculus” printed on the side) for free. We wondered aloud whether or not the offer would apply to South Africa and — drumroll please — are downright delighted to report that it will. Forgive us as we lapse momentarily into the world of infomercial speak, but we’re pretty excited. Right, so pre-order the new device through Samsung’s SA website any of South Africa’s operators and you get the Gear…
Dark fibre company Vumatel, the business that’s made the residents of Johannesburg’s Parkhurst and surrounds even more supercilious than usual, has announced it’s going to “roll out free uncapped open access fibre optic infrastructure” to every school its teams of trench-digging, fibre-laying, pink-high-visibility-vest-clad workers pass as it grows its network. That’s 1Gbit/s, uncapped connectivity they’re talking about, meaning children at the schools in question could be forgiven for thinking they’re suddenly living in Seoul or Tokyo, albeit with fewer tentacled surprises in their packed lunches. Being a “dark fibre” company means Vumatel lays the physical fibre, but a range of internet service providers (ISPs) get…
In the immortal words of Richard Ashcroft, “It’s a bittersweet symphony this life / Tryna make ends meet you’re a slave to money then you die”. In addition to certain death, we also have taxes and laundry to look forward to. A Johannesburg-based start-up wants to try and alleviate the drudgery of one of those. A hint as to which one of those inescapable facts of life it’s aiming at lies in its name: Just Laundry. That’s right, Just Laundry is exclusively focused on making your soiled garments its business. No, it’s not going to repackage them and sell them…
If your employer bought you a smartwatch or other wearable and used the data to make your working conditions better would you be willing to don it? Research and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says almost three quarters of South African employees it surveyed say they would. PwC quizzed more than 2,283 working SA adults online (an equal gender split across those surveyed and with 51% of them between the ages of 25 and 34) and 72% of them said they’d be happy to use a wearable provided by their employer, and let said employer to collect data from it, even without benefits.…
If you hear soft whimpers in the gentrified areas of your city today or the pitter patter of hands on payments its because the community managers of the world are crying with joy or doing cartwheels in the streets over the announcement that the darling of image sharing, Instagram, has added support for multiple accounts. In other words, if you have more than one Instagram account — or have to look after more than one, like a personal account, another for work and a third for your OOTD (outfit of the day) posts — it’ll soon be possible to switch…
Almost all smartphones look alike: rectangular glass panels wrapped in aluminium, plastic or plastic made to look like aluminium. Sure, some are clad in bright colours, others in gunmetal grey, hues of gold or variations of silver but the basic design is the same. BlackBerry’s new Priv looks like a chubby Samsung S6 Edge Plus, Xiaomis look like Huaweis look like Sonys, and the HTC One A9? Well, its doppelgänger is world famous. Unless you’re the sort of person who thinks the moon landing was staged (i.e. nuts), there’s no denying HTC’s One A9 looks uncannily like an iPhone 6/6s.…
In the second quarter of last year Huawei was number three in the global smartphone shipments race. It’s now beating Sony and and HTC in Europe for marketshare, it posted a whopping 70% growth last year, and Google thought enough of the Chinese manufacturer to let it make a Nexus handset. Now the company’s announced it’s also shipped 10 million units of its P8 lite handset, the flagship P8’s cheaper sibling (which we gave a score of 8.2). Well, fan us with an iPhone and call us impressed. The milestone comes nine months after the device landed in Europe. With…
Uber, the business that started out as a way for tech bros and other moneyed Americans to hail Lincoln town cars and German luxury sedans from the comfort of their smartphones but now offers all sorts of services in dozens of countries, has had a makeover. Gone is the capital “U” with the little flourish on the left ascender in favour of a block (or bit, in Uber’s new design parlance) surrounded by a shape that’ll vary depending on the service. If you’d like the full rundown of the what prompted the change you can head over to Wired’s comprehensive,…
Yesterday Telkom announced it plans to offer around 11,000 of its existing DSL subscribers the option to upgrade their connection to fibre for free and try out a pair of its fibre products for two months, also at no charge. Now the company has provided a list of the areas that are eligible for the campaign. The deal applies to consumers currently using a 2,4 or 8Mbit/s DSL service from Telkom and doesn’t apply to businesses. If you’re one of those customers Telkom says it’ll be getting in touch with you to see if you’re interested in participating in its fibre trial.…