Author: Duncan Pike

A new report from MyBroadband Insights has named MTN the best overall mobile network in the country for the first quarter of 2024, with Vodacom hot on its heels in second place. 7,197 unique devices were recorded performing a collective 285,839 speed tests on the MyBroadband speed test platform all over South Africa from 1 January 2024 to 31 March 2024 to arrive at these findings. These speed tests, together with drive tests carried out in cities, towns and on the country’s main roads provide the basis for MyBroadband Insights’ findings and offer real-world performance metrics of South Africa’s mobile…

One of the main draws for buying a laptop over a desktop is its versatility and that’s exactly what Huawei’s latest MateBook D model is geared towards, hoping to curry favour with hybrid workers, students, and young professionals. If your workload is mostly answering emails, filling in spreadsheets, and typing up documents, you probably won’t care too much that Huawei’s 2024 MateBook D16 can’t do fancy things, like turn into a tablet. It’s more focused on getting you through the day without wasting your time making you wait for things to load or getting bogged down when you open more…

Several things became immediately obvious when the Beosound A5 from Bang & Olufsen first showed up at Stuff HQ. The first was that it was nearly lunchtime because let’s face it, the Nordic Weave model featured here wouldn’t look out of place on a blanket in a park along with some sandwiches. Once we got over that and took a closer look at the anodised aluminium plates, oak wood handle, and paper fibre weave covers, we were reminded of Bang & Olufsen’s esteemed heritage – and that this speaker was probably a pricey one. The Danish audio company has been…

While most smartphone companies fall over themselves trying to make their devices smaller, thinner, and lighter, the 8849 Tank 3 Pro from Unihertz stands on its own. It is unbothered by the trials and tribulations of other smartphones with their measly 5,000mAh batteries and paltry memory and storage offerings. There is an immediately obvious use case for the rugged Tank 3 Pro and its 23,800mAh battery — it would do well as a camping companion. But even then, it might be a little overkill because the enormous battery (which features 120W fast charging), rear LED light, and rugged IP68-certified design…

LG’s new M3 OLED evo TV solves a very specific problem. Don’t you hate it when you spend tens of thousands of rands on a new high-end TV to go in your professionally designed living room only for the unsightly cables running out the back to ruin the feng shui? We can only imagine how awful that must be. Thankfully, this terrible plight is easily solved with the new 77in LG M3 wireless OLED evo TV — all it takes is a big enough wall and R130,000. LG M3 OLED TV wins cable hide-and-seek The LG M3 OLED evo is…

Google’s AI-focused subsidiary, DeepMind, recently announced SIMA, its new “instructable game-playing AI agent.” SIMA, which stands for Scalable, Instructable, Multiworld Agent, is currently still in its research phase and is being trained to learn a broad range of gaming skills across a variety of scenarios — instead of just destroying humans at StarCraft II. Through partnerships with video game developers Hello Games, Embracer, Tuxedo Labs, Coffee Stain, and others, SIMA is learning how games work and how to apply what it learns to games it’s never seen before. DeepMind’s eventual aim with SIMA, other than furthering natural language AI model…

Choosing a smartphone is about to get a little more difficult with Honor launching its Magic V2 and Magic 6 Pro in South Africa next week. While the Magic V2 isn’t exactly new — it launched in China in July last year — it could still prove disruptive to the local foldable smartphone market. When it lands, it’ll claim the title of being the thinnest and lightest folding smartphone in the country against Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Huawei’s Mate X3. The Magic 6 Pro, on the other hand, is entirely new and was only recently announced at MWC…

Microsoft has implemented changes to the guardrails that govern prompts in Copilot after one of the company’s AI engineers wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week regarding concerns they had with the platform’s image generation abilities. Some of the now-blocked prompts include “pro choice,” “four twenty,” and “pro life” after the platform was found to produce “demons and monsters alongside terminology related to abortion rights, teenagers with assault rifles, sexualized images of women in violent tableaus, and underage drinking and drug use,” according to a CNBC report. Stuff can confirm that when provided with those prompts Copilot Designer…

HP’s All-In Plan is supposedly the future of “hassle-free” printing and on the surface, it might even seem reasonable. For a monthly subscription, customers receive a printer of their choice*, automatic ink delivery**, 24/7 live support***, and access to next-business-day replacements****. Doesn’t that sound great (if you ignore all the asterisks)? For those who do loads of printing, the benefits probably seem enticing. If you’ve ever had to print something in a hurry only to find you’ve run out of ink or the printer jams halfway through the job, you might even welcome a subscription plan like this. At least,…

Microsoft has unceremoniously announced it is ending official support for Android apps on Windows 11 and has already started pulling the plug. The Amazon Appstore, the only officially supported avenue for downloading Android apps on Windows devices, is no longer available for download from the Microsoft Store. Thankfully, currently installed Android apps will still function and, depending on the developer, can still receive updates until the underlying system is deprecated on 5 March 2024. If you’re one of the few who regularly use Android apps on Windows, it’s time to look for alternatives. Microsoft kills WSA  When Microsoft launched Windows…