Author: Brett Venter

Not every video game is educational, but education can lead to careers in video games. PUBG Mobile owner Krafton is presently running its Rising Designer programme in Africa for the second year. At stake are two internships for African designers. The catch? You don’t have much time to get involved. The application cutoff is 1 September. There are a couple of steps to take, one of which is entering the company’s Ultimate Set Design Contest. If you manage to win that, and part of its attendant $100,00 prize pool, you might not be so concerned with an internship. Designs on…

Ever since information started appearing about Samsung’s newly announced Galaxy S26 FE, we’ve been doubtful about just how exciting the device would be. It’s now entirely official, and it looks like our initial impressions were correct. Yesterday afternoon’s announcement attempted to put some spin on it for fans, at least. According to the company, its newest Fan Edition focuses on “what users value most”. Turns out, users value the Galaxy S25 FE rather highly. Seen the S26 FE before Samsung is punting its “enhanced” cameras and AI integration, both features that are essentially software updates. The Galaxy S26 FE’s camera…

Honor has just launched its Magic V6 for South Africa, but the Magic 9 is also supposed to be on the way. By September this year, according to Honor itself. According to leaker Digital Chat Station, the new device(s) will closely resemble last year’s Honor Magic 8. Internally, and for the base model Magic 9, at any rate. A better-specced, but still unnamed, version will include a beefier processor than the stock phone, which will bring the Magic 8’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 back for another round. Magic 9 You can blame the ongoing semiconductor ‘shortage’ for the reruns,…

Hyundai didn’t buy Boston Robotics — or enough of it to make no difference either way — for nothing. The automaker has plans to sell its robots to the public. As it happens, there’s preexisting infrastructure to make that happen. The South Korean company, via its CEO José Muñoz, has signalled its intention to sell robots via its network of dealerships. Muñoz, speaking during the company’s investor day, explained, “We have existing potential distribution for selling robots through our dealer partners.” Hyundai the weather It’s not like other car manufacturers don’t have similar ambitions. BYD is the most recent to…

Anyone who is seriously into AI will know that Apple’s Mac Mini units are in deep demand by folks looking to run their own models. Apple quietly introduced something new in the range, explicitly to capture the attention of the AI-mad. Apple reckons its new version, with either an M5 Pro or M6 chipset, delivers up to four times the AI performance of the previous M4 release. This “delivers a massive leap in AI performance,” but that could be Apple’s marketing team being hyperbolic. Maxing out the Mac Mini Apple touts improved performance for both its M6 and M5 Pro…

Yesterday’s Garmin announcement has completely revealed the company’s Fenix 9 lineup, comprising the stock, Pro, and Solar versions of the company’s newest wearables. While they’re not (quite) yet available in South Africa, all of the local prices are already known. The standard Garmin Fenix 9 will run runners (and other fitness fans) a solid R22,500. That seems to apply to the 43mm and 47mm casings. Moving up to the Pro puts the price between R25k and R26,500. The Solar edition only has 47mm and 51mm casings, and the most you’ll pay is R26,500. If getting lost is a possibility, you…

Loads of companies and individuals have come up with cyberdeck builds, often sticking a Raspberry Pi main board into a customised case. The minds behind the Pi have made acquiring one of these units even simpler by releasing plans for making your own version. The trickiest bit is laying your hands on the various components needed. The part that should be hardest — fabricating a case — is cleverly circumvented. Raspberry Pi’s build uses a waterproof storage case, essentially making the mini-PC a rugged unit capable of surviving much more than a standard laptop. Cyberdeck yourself The Pi build uses…

LinkedIn, in the form of the platform’s chief product officer Hari Srinivasan, is congratulating itself on lowering the volume of AI slop on the social network. According to Srinivasan, the platform has seen “40% less views on what we classify as AI slop from just a few weeks ago.” This follows a new reporting button from LinkedIn that lets users chime in that a post “seems like AI slop.” It is supposed to help LinkedIn “better understand how our community experiences low-quality content.” It’s also, in typical Microsoft fashion, roping in the platform’s users to fix the mistakes LinkedIn made.…

Unitree’s upcoming humanoid robot might have painted a target on Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt’s back, but another Chinese robot has actually fired the first shot. On target, as it happens. Over the weekend, several man-shaped robots competed in a 100-metre sprint event at the World Humanoid Robot Games. You can probably see where this is going. The quickest robot shaved a few molecules off Usain Bolt’s 2009 world record of 9.58 seconds, coming in at 9.39 seconds. It wasn’t alone, either. The second-place ‘runner’ finished in 9.47 seconds, also beating Bolt’s record. There’s a joke in there about these runners…

Where there’s a Garmin Fenix 9 Pro, there’s probably a Garmin Fenix 9. Images of the latter have leaked ahead of a suspected reveal later today from the sports tech company. Garmin has a ‘Play Harder’ event stream scheduled for 13h00 today (local time). It’s there that the company is expected to officially unveil its latest wearables. If you don’t want to wait for a sneak peek, you can keep reading. Images of the newest Fenix models — well, one of them — have emerged from the depths of the internet. As expected, Garmin’s premium lineup is looking awfully premium.…