Author: CraigWilson

All (well, most) of our Star Wars dreams have come trueWe’re pretty huge fans of R2-D2 at Stuff HQ, but R2’s got some stiff competition in the form of BB-8, the spherical droid that’s become the non-human character most synonymous with the forthcoming film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Now robotics company Sphero has made a tennis ball-sized version of BB-8 consumers can actually buy, charge and send scuttling around their homes, offices or wherever else the fancy takes them. BB-8 takes three hours to charge (via an inductive charging dock), offers an hour of play time, a range of…

Telkom’s announced that it’s rolling out the second phase of SmartBroadband Uncapped High Speed Wireless packages to more than 200 areas in Gauteng. Users in the applicable areas can sign up for uncapped LTE accounts, on 24-month contracts. The contracts start at R599 per month and are limited in each area to 150 sign-ups per LTE base station. The company ran the first phase of the initiative, which seeks to make better use of its LTE infrastructure, in June and says around 400 people took up the offer which was made available in 29 areas in Gauteng. Customers receive an antenna…

Huawei’s Mate S pips Apple to the Force-Touch-enabled smartphone postIFA 2015 is underway in Berlin, Germany and has already been full of surprises, like the announcement of Sony’s 4K-display-touting Z5 Premium phablet and Huawei releasing a gold smartwatch that costs as much as Apple’s top-end Watch Edition (it starts at $10,000). But the Chinese electronics company had another surprise up its sleeve: it’s released a phone with Force Touch — a touch screen that can distinguish between different degrees of pressure — a feature that’s found on the Apple Watch and that’s widely rumoured to be making its way to Apple’s…

We can’t say we knew Maserati had left South Africa, but we can tell you we now know the Italian manufacturer of luxury cars is officially back. With a showroom in Bryanston, Johannesburg and two more to follow in Durban and Cape Town in coming months the company is looking to offer South African one-percenters a more exclusive option than the standard German fare so commonplace on our roads and highways. Maserati’s re-entering South Africa (hope it bought her a drink first) with its complete model line-up. This includes the Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio ranges. It’s promoting the Ghibli range specifically…

Wearables could one day send data through our bodies instead of via BluetoothBluetooth may be the de facto way of getting wearables to communicate with other devices like our smartphones, but a team at the University of San Diego in California is testing a system that uses the human body’s natural magnetic field to transfer data instead. It works on the same principles as an MRI, but involves far less energy. What does it mean? It could mean we get wearables that can go far longer between charges. Or we could accidentally create a real-life Magneto. Either way, it’s going to…

Once upon a time the great race in mobile was to build the phone with the most megapixels to its name. Now the race seems to be for the highest resolution display. Enter Sony and the Z5 Premium, its new phablet-style smartphone with the 4K UHD display the rumours suggested we could expect and, of course, the ability to shoot 4K video, too. With a resolution of 3,840×2,160 pixels and a 5.5-inch display, that means a 808 pixels per inch (ppi). Wowser! The new flagship, meanwhile is the Z5 and the trio is rounded out with the Z3 Compact. All three devices…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olFEpeMwgHk It’s hard to believe Google’s still only a teenager. It’s look has come a long way over the past 17 years, as has the range of products and services it offers. And it’s power, let’s not forget it’s enormous, culture-shaping power. From search to photo storage, mapping to self-driving cars and even plans to get remote areas online with high-altitude balloons, there are few areas of the digital world Google doesn’t have a hand in. It’s all pretty amazing for a company that makes the bulk of its (rather substantial) income from advertising. Like any company that’s so public-facing,…

PriceCheck used to be little more than an aggregator that tech journos and tech-savvy, consummate consumers used to compare prices on various products, often before buying them elsewhere, offline. Now the service has added the option to actually buy and pay for goods via its site, and collect said goods at Pargo collection points around South Africa. The service isn’t limited to online retailers, so bricks and mortar outlets can enjoy some of the benefits of e-commerce without having to worry about those pesky details like facilitating payments and fulfilment. PriceCheck is particularly focused on enabling all of this from mobile devices –…

Ever heard of a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider)? Nope, didn’t think so. And that’s part of the problem Alan Knott-Craig the younger wants to solve with his new business venture, HeroTel. HeroTel plans to launch at the beginning of April next year, by which time it hopes to have made some progress consolidating the existing WISP industry. The forthcoming service was started after Knott-Craig acquired two existing WISPs, Snowball out of Stellenbosch and Cloud Connect from George. Of course, Knott-Craig is no stranger to wireless internet solutions. He’s currently CEO of Project Isizwe, the free Wi-Fi network the City…

Got a decent internet connection? Don’t want to jump through hoops to get around Netflix’s region restrictions? Tired of rolling the dice with torrents? Disappointed by Altech’s Node and the VIDI streaming service? Then Naspers is hoping you’ll consider spending R99/month on its new video-on-demand streaming service, ShowMax, that launches in South Africa today. Unveiled at a plush launch event in Johannesburg today, ShowMax offers apps for iOS- and Android-powered phones and tablets, a browser version for laptops and desktops, and apps for Samsung and LG’s smart TVs. ShowMax also supports Apple’s AirPlay functionality. The service is offering a no-hold-barred seven-day…