Author: Brett Venter

Stuff has spent time with several Tecno smartphones in recent years. The Africa-centric Chinese brand offers up decent hardware to users but its software has historically left much to be desired. That, happily, may be about to change. Google and Tecno have announced a new three-year partnership that should see the smartphone brand wielding some better software in short order. Time for some new Tecno A key part of the partnership is the introduction of “an optimized user experience” for the company’s smartphone. That’s largely Google’s responsibility. Since the company is the de facto authority on Android (since Google owns…

Microsoft, not so long ago, bought a little company called Activision. Shortly after, Sony was up in arms because it thought it might lose Call of Duty on the PlayStation platform. It’s an obvious thing to be stressed about. One of the largest gaming franchises on the planet being owned by your arch-rival is bound to cause a little executive sweat. Microsoft has reportedly made Sony a second offer about keeping the twitch-shooter gaming juggernaut on the PlayStation. The initial offer, according to Sony, wasn’t adequate. Hopefully, this one is a little better. The price of the Call of Duty…

Huawei appears to have reached the wackier stage of product ideas. The company’s new Watch Buds device is an upcoming wearable device that is also a set of wireless earbuds. Because that makes perfect sense. It must make sense to someone at Huawei because the Watch Buds appear to be a real thing. The Chinese company has officially teased them on the Weibo social network, marking them for release in China. Whether we’ll see them elsewhere, and whether we’ll want to, remains to be seen. Watch Buds blossom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfx8Uj_qKnU As the name suggests, the Watch Buds are a Huawei Watch…

South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope array has already amassed quite a string of feats. It has provided new information about the universe, banded together to see more, and even picked up an absolutely spectacular shockwave in space. But now it’s time for something different. The radio telescope will embark on something altogether new. MeerKAT is about to start hunting for alien life. It’ll do this with a brand new Breakthrough Listen compute cluster. This is “…the most powerful digital instrumentation ever deployed in the search for technosignatures”. MeerKAT on a mission The Breakthrough Listen program isn’t just confined to South…

In September this year ride-sharing app Uber launched a pilot program in South Africa. Users in Pretoria and Johannesburg got the ability to record their trips via the app itself. In the event that something went wrong (or just unpleasantly), that recording could be uploaded to Uber for review and action. Now, South Africans in general have access to the feature. Audio Recording has rolled out to the country as a whole, letting anyone using the service record their trips in the best paranoid fashion. That includes drivers as well as passengers. Drivers have to pick up some sketchy customers…

It’s hard to explain just how important the 1989 Batman movie was to the current crop of superhero films. It took a comic book character, treated him (mostly) seriously, and paved the way for Marvel and DC’s prevalence in movie theatres. It also introduces non-nerds to the sheer awesome of the Batmobile. And now you can own one. Just like the now-unavailable Lego version of the same vehicle, laying hands on this particular Batmobile will be a mission. Not because they’re not in stores anymore. It’s because there’s just one available and it’s priced at a mighty R26 million ($1.5…

Last week the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) was looking to push through a new draft policy for the agency. In it, the SFPD sought permission to legally use robots to kill suspects. This week, the department attained that permission. That doesn’t mean assassination-by-robot will become the SFPD’s preferred method of interacting with criminals. And suspected criminals. We hope. But it does open the door to robots being used to blow up particularly pesky perps. You know, just in case that’s a thing that’s needed. Slow down, San Francisco Last night, San Francisco’s board of supervisors approved the draft policy…

Netflix, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t just about streaming video anymore. It’s also a budding mobile games publisher with designs on getting into the PC games space as well. Since it’s not really part of Ye Olde Video Game club, though, it more or less releases games whenever it wants. There are nine new titles launching on the company’s service. Some of them are familiar looking, even if they are original properties. There’s a Stranger Things-themed match-three game, a Farmville clone (of sorts) called Country Friends, and a cutesy bullet-hell shooter called Skies of Chaos. But they’re just the…

If you’re one of the select few able to afford Apple’s newest high-end smartwatch, then the launch of Oceanic+ should be on your radar. Apple’s Watch Ultra might cost a hefty R20,000 but that’s because it’s got a raft of interesting features — like a day-and-a-half battery and a larger display. Okay, and a few other features. And with the launch of Oceanic+, a new subscription service for the device, there’s one more. Specifically, the ability to use the company’s ‘premium’ wearable as a dive computer. Oceanic+ what? The Watch Ultra isn’t quite ready to pull a James Cameron but…

Video games have become expensive of late. It’ll still cost you in excess of R10,000 for the latest consoles. Game prices are nudging the R1,500 mark. And first-party game controllers will set you back about the same. Turtle Beach has something for the Player Two in the equation that won’t be quite as murderous to your bank balance — the React-R controller. It’s far from the only option from the peripheral maker. Recently, Stuff went hands-on with Turtle Beach’s Recon controller. That one’s a little more expensive than this edition for some reason but they’re both wired and they’re both…