Author: Brett Venter

Website hosting provider GoDaddy is one of the largest in the world, so when something goes wrong there it tends to be pretty big. Since it makes no sense to lead with that unless something’s gone wrong… guess what? A security breach at the company has lead to the leak of up to 1.2 million WordPress accounts. The breach, referred to as a “security incident,” was revealed in an SEC filing the company made reporting the leak. Security me harder, GoDaddy! At risk are the email addresses of up to 1.2 million of GoDaddy’s active and inactive Managed WordPress users.…

Hideo Kojima, the mind behind some of the strangest games to ever hit the mainstream, is extending his reach. The video game company established by the Japanese game designer, producer, director and writer is expanding its reach into more traditional media. Soon, he will be unstoppable. Nah, actually, Stuff is fine with Hideo Kojima’s company Kojima Productions starting up a new division dedicated to making music, films, and TV shows. It’s obviously what the company founder has been keen on for… decades. All hail Hideo Kojima According to GamesIndustry.biz, Kojima Productions’ new division will be based in Los Angeles. It’ll…

It’s not just SpaceX and Blue Origin in search of the stars. Smaller startup Astra has been working on getting its rockets out into space as well. And now, finally, the company has succeeded. The company this weekend sent its Launch Vehicle 0007 into orbit, reaching that region of space for the first time. The flight took off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak Island, Alaska, at 1:16 AM ET (or 08:16 AM on 21 November, SAST). The 13-metre rocket entered orbit around the planet a few minutes later. Infernus Ad Astra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97qhttuqtB4 Astro CEO Chris Kemp, speaking in…

One of the things you don’t worry about nearly enough is the potential for an asteroid strike on planet Earth. Folks at SpaceX and NASA are worried about it, though. So much so that this week the two space agencies are launching the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART mission. The point, if the name isn’t a complete giveaway, is to crash something into an asteroid to see if it can be shifted out of its path. This might come in handy for an Armageddon situation since we can’t count on Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Steven Tyler to save…

The chip shortage is causing all sorts of changes in the tech world. Some items are harder to get (like game consoles), some cars are dumping features until supplies improve, and some car manufacturers — like Ford and GM — are becoming involved in the chip manufacture process. But the American automakers aren’t setting up their own production plants. Instead, they’re making deals with various established chip-makers to ensure that there’s enough silicon to go around. Presumably just for themselves. They’re probably not too concerned with BMW’s current fate. A-Ford-able chipsets? Ford announced that it would team up with GlobalFoundries…

SpaceX has made substantial progress on its Starship launch vehicles. You know, the one it suspects will take humans to Mars? The company went from blowing them up in various ways to actually landing one. Immediately, plans were started to launch one into orbit for a few revolutions before returning it to Earth. When this feat would be achieved, however, was the subject of speculation. Original estimates had the test taking place before March 2022, but Elon Musk has pushed that timeline back a little. Provided nothing expensive happens in the meantime, of course. Starship knee-deep in hoopla Speaking at…

Last year Sony returned its TV lineup to South Africa, and today the company dumped a whole lot of its new Bravia XR sets right into our lap. Stuff was at the launch today in Johannesburg, which was a subdued affair involving a handful of people and a selection of truly impressive TV tech. We got to experience several different aspects of Sony’s TVs. There are ten different models launching into the country — of those, four are the headliners. These are the Bravia XR sets, with two OLED and TV of Sony’s Full-Array models being part of the company’s…

There’s not a lot of innovation happening in smartphones. They all look the same, with the major changes being constant across product lines and brands. To really shake up the world of smartphones, it’s apparently necessary to think about… toast? Yeah, that’s right. Meet the Balmuda phone. The Balmuda phone is made by a Japanese company that specialises in making luxury toasters if you can believe it. And, unusually for an established company that ‘decided to release a phone’, it hasn’t just gotten a generic slab of something and rebadged it. That would be far too easy, and it’d also…

You’re never going to believe this — Samsung’s got another mid-range phone headed to market soon, in the shape of the Galaxy A33. How do we know this? Well, besides the fact that we know how to add a single digit to the thing Samsung did last time, press images of the device have turned up online. And they are press images, no matter how much noted leaker OnLeaks and website 91Mobiles make them out to be chance renders. At this point, we’re starting to suspect that OnLeaks has a second email address that ends in ‘@samsung.com’. Guardians of the…

Honda is a name we don’t hear enough from in the tech space. The Japanese company is looking to change that, with more investment in some interesting spheres. But, in the meantime, here’s something a bit more immediate. Meet Honda’s Autonomous Work Vehicle, or AWV. Which is exactly what it sounds like — it’s an autonomous cart designed to trundle around construction sites and deliver materials to humans who do the really intricate work. Honda takes somebody’s jerbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRtGYnBNG7U The Honda AWV is spending time at a solar farm construction site in New Mexico. Fleets of them are roaming up…