Author: Duncan Pike

It has become increasingly difficult for smartphone manufacturers to set their offerings apart from the rest. This is true regardless of price point. The manufacturing processes and implementation of features in budget smartphones are increasing to the point where, in some cases, it’s difficult to tell which market segment a device is supposed to fit in based on specs alone. We recently got our hands on a few of Huawei’s latest range of devices. Kicking off the new ‘Nova’ series is the Nova 8. On paper, just looking at the device’s specs, you’d have a hard time definitively saying whether…

It may surprise you but the City of Joburg is getting tired of all this load shedding, just like the rest of us. New city mayor Mpho Moerane said the city will move ahead with plans to source alternative sources of power in an attempt to lessen the current reliance on Eskom. Now, while that might sound like a great idea, its implementation and the success thereof is another story. According to eNCA via BusinessTech, the strategy entails sourcing 200MW of electricity from solar farms and another 200MW from ‘wheeling and trading’. Wheeling refers to the act of buying additional…

All the way back in February, Zoom said it planned to roll out automatic closed captioning, or live transcription, to free accounts. Now it’s making good on that promise. Thanks, Zoom. The feature was previously only available on paid accounts but that drew a bit of criticism because why should people that need it pay extra for accessibility features. At the moment only English captions are available, so it’s not quite achieved real accessibility. But the company said it is working on adding more languages in the future, so hopefully, they aren’t too far off. “It’s important to us that…

It’s no secret that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is a big advocate for NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Now, apparently, he’s looking for ways to bring these features to his platform. According to several sources, including Mada Aflak, a software engineer working on the feature, the platform is working on integrating your NFTs into Twitter and even allowing you to display them as your profile picture. https://twitter.com/af_mada/status/1443243702156206089 The video shows how you’ll be able to connect your wallet and download your NFTs or set them as your profile picture or banner profile. They’ll even come with a little mark that shows they’ve…

In a press release today, FNB announced that its customers can now use their virtual cards with participating digital wallets like its own tap-to-pay and scan-to-pay features, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay.  Since the beginning of the year, 500,000 virtual cards have been activated and used to spend over R1 billion rand collectively. So it seems natural that FNB adds the feature to all forms of digital payments. Chris Labuschagne, FNB Card Chief Executive says, “Our approach is to support our individual and business customers with a wider choice of contextual payments solutions via our digital…

Dune’s success will hopefully mean more to come Image: Warner Bros. As we, as a collective, slowly emerge from varying stages of lockdown and try to find some sense of normalcy, something everyone has started doing again is going to the movies. If you’re looking for a movie to go see now, we can recommend

Razer, best known for its semi-decent, colourful PC peripherals, is attempting to diversify its offerings with the introduction of the company’s first internal PC components. The company recently held its second RazerCon where it showcased what it’s been working on and provided updates on older things, like the Zephyr N95 mask that sold out moments after it was available. The slightly more exciting prospects come with the company’s first foray into internal PC components. For years the company has stuck to making PC and console peripherals usually adorned with the company’s Chroma RGB. That hasn’t changed with these latest products.…

Last night Sony released the trailer for the PC port of the previously PlayStation exclusive game God of War. This confirms the rumours that started after a leak surfaced from an Nvidia GeForce Now server, which revealed a page for the title. The game was released in 2018 with overwhelmingly positive reviews, not only for its visuals but also for its storytelling and gameplay. Hopefully, the PC port faithfully translates all of that from the console version. There’s no reason not to. With the included support for Nvidia’s AI-driven Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and support for 4K displays as…

The Jabra Elite Active 75t marks yet another true wireless earbud option. Is it just us, or is the market starting to feel a little saturated? If it isn’t the seemingly endless supply of cheap AirPod knock-offs, its companies re-releasing the same earbuds with minor changes under the guise that they’re ‘all new’. That is just what Jabra has done with the Elite Active 75t earbuds. That being said, in this case, they’ve re-released some great-sounding, snug-fitting earbuds, but are they worth the price increase? As you might’ve guessed from the ‘active’ in the name, these are geared primarily towards…

Streaming giant Netflix will be increasing the local price of two of its subscription tiers starting immediately. According to TechCentral, the price of the standard plan will increase from R140p/m to R160p/m and the premium plan will increase from R170p/m to R200p/m. The price of the mobile and basic plan will remain the same at R50p/m and R100p/m respectively. While these increases may seem like a lot on paper, a nearly 15% and 20% increase for the standard and premium plans respectively, Netflix still manages to bring a great value proposition to the table.  Netflix is hot and it knows…