Author: Brett Venter

Amazon has, like Google, been jamming AI into every product it can get its hands on, and next up are features for Kindle Direct Publishers. For those who don’t know, KDP is a platform where writers (of varying skill) can create and sell their work without bothering with agents or editors or anything like that. Soon, authors will have Kindle Translate in their corner, allowing for translation of their magnum opus into other languages for other markets. First, though, the feature has to get out of its limited beta. Does this Kindle your interest? Amazon will give “select Kindle Direct…

Everki’s Studio Eco 15in expandable laptop backpack wants to be the item you lug your work to and from the office in, with a few tricks left over to let it serve as an overnight bag for air travel. If you’re not hopping on planes for the occasional meeting, the R2,900 price tag might prove to be a little too much to bear. It’ll also be a tough sell for anyone with a portable gaming laptop since… well, most of those tend to be larger than 15in in size. Don’t try and jam something in that won’t fit, and the…

Anyone who has ever played Overcooked or one of its sequels with other humans knows just how tense interactions with the folks you once called ‘friends’ can get. The multiplayer cooking game easily devolves into a mess of shouting, swearing, and severe recriminations. You were supposed to handle the dishes, Kyle! What’s wrong with you?! Ahem. Given the onscreen chaos, it’s almost surprising that nobody has thought to make a reality TV show of the concept before, but according to Deadline, Netflix and A24 are about to rectify that. Netflix gets Overcooked The show based on the game is said…

If we told you there was a new product called the Stream Ring, you’d probably have visions of folks with improbably dyed hair making flabbergasted faces in thumbnails. It’s not really like that, though. The new smart ring, a product from a company called Sandbar, is another take on others we’ve seen, but it puts a few fresh functions on your finger. Step into the Stream Ring Sandbar is made up of veterans of a neural interface company that was absorbed (for money) by Meta some time back, so you know there are some decent tech brains behind the Stream…

Nintendo has stepped into the modern age, releasing a dedicated app for its Store for both iOS and Android. It’s a fresh take on its older My Nintendo app and stands on its own from the likes of its parental control or Switch apps. As the name suggests, it’s all about browsing the company’s games. Perhaps to avoid Apple and Google taking a cut of the proceeds, buying a shiny new download of Donkey Kong Bananaza requires users to complete the transaction outside the app. What Nintendo has in Store There’s more than just a catalogue of available Switch and…

The Canon EOS R6 III is here to replace its R6 II predecessor, and it’s throwing a few notable improvements at photographers to do it. The Japanese camera specialist just announced the upgrade, which features a larger image sensor and a few new skills. The most obvious upgrade is the R6 III’s sensor. 32.5MP replaces the previous generation’s 24MP tech, giving the mirrorless shooter an immediate advantage. But there are a few other upgrades to look forward to when it makes its way to South Africa. Examining the EOS R6 III Improved resolution is matched by quicker shutter speeds and…

If you’ve ever wanted to own a MacBook but aren’t keen on paying Apple’s usual prices, you could be in luck. A new report from Bloomberg (via Reuters) claims that the premium tech maker is considering a budget MacBook for launch sometime in the first half of 2026. Concrete details are sparse, but the unannounced device is supposed to tempt customers away from Chromebooks and entry-level Windows machines. That’s a tall ask if you’re charging Apple’s usual prices — the cheapest MacBook currently in South Africa starts at R22,500 — but if the company could bring its prices down? MacBook?…

Google has some interesting plans for the future of AI. The company describes its Project Suncatcher as a “moonshot,” and for once, the term is appropriate. Suncatcher envisions “equipping solar-powered satellite constellations with TPUs and free-space optical links to one day scale machine learning compute in space.” The idea isn’t a new one, with one startup already investigating moon-based data centres. Reach for the Suncatcher Google has the funds to pull something like this off, however. The company reckons that Starlink-style constellations with Google TPUs, powered by sunlight and orbiting the planet, “would have tremendous potential for scale, and also…

Following an iOS-only (and invite-only) launch, OpenAI’s Sora video generation app has made its way to Android devices. Don’t get too excited yet. The launch is confined to a specific geographic location, and South Africa isn’t one of those. Sora, which recently added the option to pay for extra video generations, is available on Google’s mobile OS in Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam, according to a post from the platform’s official X account. You probably don’t live in any of those places. Sora for you If you check out the official Play Store download page, you’ll…

Sam Altman’s OpenAI seems to believe that the company is worth, in its current or near-current state, a trillion dollars. At least, that’s what the company aims to achieve when it goes public at an undetermined point in the near future. Whether you believe anything that comes out of Altman’s mouth (or those connected to him in a Human Centipede-like manner) is between you and your stockbroker. Last week, reports did the rounds that the ChatGPT maker would head to the stock market for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), with the frankly insane target of a $1 trillion valuation. That’s…