Author: Brett Venter

BlackBerry, we’re sorry to say, is going away. That’s been happening for a while now and in varying degrees, but those folks with a death-grip on their physical BlackBerry hardware? Yeah, your time is up. Software support for BlackBerry software officially ends today, meaning you should have replaced your device last week to avoid service interruptions. The last BlackBerry More specifically, legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS (or earlier), BlackBerry 10, and BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 are coming to a close today, 4 January. This doesn’t mean that your device will stop working immediately, however. But it does mean that…

Just before the business world took a few days off at the end of December, Apple was awfully close to a world first. The company was closing in on a $3 trillion market cap valuation, which would make it the world’s fifth-largest economy, just after Germany. Well, it’s happened. And then unhappened, just as quickly. Apple yesterday became the first company to be worth more than $3 trillion, but it also uncrossed that milestone by the end of the day. An Apple a day Yesterday, 3 January, was the first day of trading for the year. Apple, during the day,…

It’s 2022, which means that we’re staring down the barrel of a Samsung Galaxy S22 announcement. It’s going to happen, that’s never been in doubt. Unless Samsung’s suddenly started hating money, there will be a new flagship smartphone out soon. Usually, Samsung tries to take the lead, so we’re expecting something official either this month or early in February. Last year, the company took its swing on 14 January. That’s just late enough that folks have woken up from December, but too soon for anyone else to be hogging headlines. So what can we expect from the Galaxy S22? Well,…

It’s the last day of 2021, which means that a) 2022 is right around the corner and b) you’re probably not going to read this until the hangover’s worn off at least a little. That’s fine. We’re just doing a little prognosticating about the year in tech to come. We don’t need alcoholic beverages to see into the future, though it does help from time to time. These are mostly guesses, in the same way analysts and stockbrokers are guessing what’s about to happen next. But we really wouldn’t be shocked to find that we’re not far off the mark,…

Everybody loves Fujifilm’s Instax cameras. If you don’t like them, you either don’t have a soul, or you lead a very solitary existence. Which is fine, but you’d like ’em of you went out more. Just sayin’. But, for a certain sort of person, instant cameras aren’t perfect. This is where the Instax Link Wide, and other products like it, come in. A boring box The Instax Link Wide is, in a nutshell, an instant camera that’s missing the camera bit. Another way to describe it is as a very specialised Bluetooth printer. But that doesn’t sound nearly as sexy,…

Choosing the best tech at any point in time isn’t easy. There are loads of points to consider — price, actual usefulness, personal preference… okay, not that last one so much. Not usually. At Stuff, we assess tech based on a much more objective set of criteria than most. Despite what people on YouTube would have you believe, it’s extremely possible to be objective about technology. But that also denies the fact that we (as people who spend all year surrounded by this stuff) might find some objectively less-than-stellar tech fun or interesting. And that’s really the point of these…

It’s entirely possible that you’re looking for a decent set of in-ears but aren’t looking to pay more than R2,000 for a set. That used to severely limit your options, with decent ‘buds starting around R3,000 and getting better from there. That’s changed. It’s now possible to snag some great in-ears for just R1,600 — the new Jabra Elite 3 earbuds are just dying for you to try them out. Jabra is a Stuff favourite. Their Elite range, both in- and over-ears, are consistently excellent. But the other consistent feature is the price – excellent audio generally costs several thousand…

So you want a new wearable fitness tracker? Fitbit’s Charge has been a stalwart of the company’s fitness line-up for ages for good reason, but the company’s recent acquisition by Google has turned up its best one yet. The Charge 5 is the first in the range to include a gorgeous colour OLED screen along with its usual run of GPS and tracking features. Finding a new band The Charge 5 looks fairly similar to the Charge 4, though some of the rough edges have been smoothed out. There are no buttons on the Charge 5 at all. That takes…

Copyright is a big deal. It is frequently used (and abused) for all sorts of things. Malaysia is the latest country to perhaps go a little overboard in its copyright protections. The country has amended its copyright law to include some rather hectic punishments for streaming piracy. Streaming piracy is exactly what it sounds like. Pirates set up streaming services and broadcast content they don’t have permission to share. Malaysia’s amended laws will see offenders who use both software and hardware to facilitate pirate streaming possibly going to jail. Malaysian Pirates And the jail term isn’t a short one. The…

Aerospace company Boeing had a bit of a mixed year. One of its planes went down, its flying refuelling drone did well, and then its Starliner was set to launch… until it didn’t. But, as with most of us, they’ve decided that next year is their year. Well, the next two years will be their year. See, Boeing’s planning on doing something new. Something awesome. Something that’ll make people sit up and take notice. The word ‘metaverse’ is coming up, you can just feel it. Virtually Boeing Boeing plans to build its next plane inside the metaverse, as it is.…