Author: Brett Venter

Some ideas are so good that you can’t believe they haven’t been thought of before. One of these is School Time, a lockdown system that limits access to smart devices (used by kids, obviously) during predefined hours. It’s a feature that Google made available earlier this year on one of its Fitbit kids wearables. The initial rollout must have been a success (we wouldn’t know) because the search giant has announced that it will bring School Time to more devices. Some of them we might even have here in South Africa. It’s School Time On the cards for the new…

Red Bull isn’t all about extreme sports like kitesurfing, video games, and landing planes on the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah. Red Bull Basement is an international initiative designed around student entrepreneurs and, once again, South African students have a shot at international business stardom. In keeping with 2024, contestants get to involve artificial intelligence in their pitch. This happens right out of the gate, with the entry mechanism requiring that potential before they’ll even be considered. Red Bull Basement-dweller There are a couple of requirements to enter the South African leg of the Red Bull Basement challenge. For starters, you’ll…

If you’re not recycling while you’re cycling, are you really cycling at all? There’s a ‘Yo, dawg’ meme in there somewhere but we’re not about to go looking for it. But seriously, though, how do cyclists get even more eco-friendly? By recycling their bike frames, of course. Igus, an international plastics specialist with a local division, has come up with a recycled plastic bike frame that should put a few good karma points on your side of the ledger, provided you also remember to recycle it when you’re done. Bike frame-job As high-end cycling gear goes, the injection-moulded plastic frame…

We’ve seen robot dogs given some interesting purposes. They’ve been security guards, AI agents, and even sniper rifles. The VERO, a robot dog created by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), is a vacuum cleaner. VERO stands for “Vacuum-cleaner Equipped RObot”. As acronyms go it’s a bit of a stretch. But not as much of a stretch as the design for this little critter. You might imagine a robot dog/vacuum cleaner manipulating a traditional pipe or a Roomba with legs. That’s… only sort of right. It’s a VERO. Nice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8BqvAe-moI The IIT’s Dynamic Legged Unit designed its quadrupedal vacuum cleaner…

Yesterday saw Facebook and Instagram parent Meta launch AI Studio, a feature that lets anyone using Instagram create their very own chatbot based on… well, themselves. Today we’ve learned that the company’s previous experiment, based on actual human celebrities, has been retired. This newly-cancelled foray into AI chatbots didn’t catch anyone’s attention despite Meta replicating recognisable names and faces. The obvious move is to let everybody create the same sort of bots and hope someone is willing to talk to one of those. Right? That’s so Meta According to Meta (speaking to The Verge), “We took a lot of learnings…

If a private citizen climbing outside of a space capsule in orbit sounds like the worst idea since Stockon Rush decided to build his own submarine, maybe you shouldn’t learn more about the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission. Helmed by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who previously funded the SpaceX Inspriation4 flight, it’ll see regular folks (more or less) climb outside of a SpaceX capsule before getting back in. Exactly why you’d want to get outside of a Crew Dragon isn’t explained in excruciating detail (more on that in a second) but it should still take place this year. A little later than expected,…

Whatever your thoughts are on the idea of exoskeleton assistants, they’re coming. The Mo/Go by Arc’teryx, developed with the assistance of Skip, is proof of that. Skip originated at Google’s X Labs and specialises in the sort of mobility tech that might turn ordinary humans into something more. This isn’t the first we’ve seen of tech like the Mo/Go. Back in 2019, there was an academic version focused on runners. This commercial effort is more interested in making it easier to walk up mountains. Slow? Try Mo/Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKdbyWbbxkc So where can you buy one of these knee-supporting gadgets that clip…

Before diving into the Anker Nano it’s worth remembering that there is more than one version of this little battery pack. The first version, which included a Lightning port, only supports 15W output. That’s fair, since it only works with the iPhone and older iPads. There’s a larger 30W version which looks nothing like our friend here and then there’s this one: the 22.5W USB-C version that anyone with a modern Android phone could stand to have upon their person. Block head Anker knows batteries. Or, if they don’t, they’ve made a career out of faking it extremely well. Stacking…

Did you purchase one of Sony’s PSVR 2 headsets back when it launched for the PlayStation 5? Didn’t think so, but if you’re a PC gamer it might be time to investigate Sony’s headset. We’ve known for some time that it’ll get Steam support in August this year but now there’s an official date — 6 August. That’s according to the official Steam page for the PSVR 2 app, which has gone live. The app gives out a fair amount of information for famously detailed PC gamers who might want to activate Sony hardware on their gaming rigs. PSVR 2:…

Oppo’s Reno handsets, now widely available in South Africa, tend to be decent performers for the price and the new Oppo Reno 12 Pro 5G is no different. Right now you have a couple of choices when picking one up — a R750/m contract or you can buy it outright for R17,300 (down from the R18,500 launch price). That’s uncomfortably close to the current price of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 and far above the Galaxy S23 FE. Is it worth paying close to twenty grand for Oppo’s mid-range handset when flagship and flagship adjacent phones are easily within reach? Let’s find…