Author: Brett Venter

Google is looking to take on some work for the American military, lobbying the Pentagon for the American Department of Defense’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract. This is despite possible opposition to the contract from the company’s own employees. This time around, though, it’s possible that the search giant won’t face quite as much opposition as it did with its previous Pentagon contract. Previously the company worked on Project Maven, which saw it using AI to assess images that could eventually lead to ‘improved’ drone strike capability. The company’s involvement ended in 2018, following employee protests, and saw Google…

2021 is, in many ways, a repeat of 2020. Last year our spirits were buoyed by the release of the PlayStation 5, but it was hard to get. Nintendo’s new OLED Switch console might have soothed some ruffled souls this holiday season but, like last year, the gaming hardware will prove hard to locate. Nintendo has trimmed its sales forecast for the handheld console by 6%, meaning the company’s ‘only’ expecting to sell 24 million units by the end of this year. This isn’t too alarming, but the company’s also expecting to battle to meet holiday season demand. Switch to…

Meta, the company that owns Facebook (nothing’s changed but the name, guys), has announced that it is ending its Facial Recognition program on the social network. The previously opt-in program will conclude, meaning those users who were participating will no longer automatically be recognised by Facebook. According to the company, more than a billion individual facial recognition templates are set to be deleted. Automatic Alt Text (AAT), a feature that automatically adds descriptions for the visually impaired, will also no longer identify opted-in users by name. Why now, Facebook?  It’s important to note that the social network isn’t abandoning facial…

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is famous for many things — the ‘arrow in the knee’ meme, giving players the ability to punch dragons to death (with the right build), Dragonshouts, and being re-released every time a new video game platform comes along. Well, guess what, Todd Howard fans? If you guessed that there’s a whole new version of Skyrim coming, then your parent’s investment in your education wasn’t wasted. The notable thing about this new edition? It’s not the sort of game that’s been released multiple times over the last decade. Standing on the Skyrim of the world No, this…

The thing about taking photos of events and get-togethers is that you have to stop attending the event or get-together to do so. Canon’s new Powershot PX smart camera wants to circumvent these breaks from being present by giving you a way to put a bunch of people in a room and photograph them having fun without getting any people involved. It does this by sitting on a flat surface somewhere and looking vaguely like a cheap home security camera. Only instead of just tracking whatever’s moving in the room, Canon’s little camera critter is cataloguing the camaraderie we’re certain…

The next frontier in line to be conquered is the air. Humanity has done it already, what with planes and things, but vehicles like the Xturismo intend to bring something a little more… exciting to the skies above us. It’s called “urban air mobility” and what it translates to is… well, it’s flying cars. And bikes too, obviously. Japanese company A.L.I. Technologies recently showed off its own take on a flying motorcycle thingy on a racetrack. Which isn’t as exciting as it sounds but it certainly is loud. Gran Xturismo? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52xwlnCD1tk See, the Xturismo (the ‘x’ is how you know…

It was at the end of September that we announced that we’d be giving away a new Huawei Nova 8i smartphone to one lucky winner. The passage of time has brought us inexorably here, to the point where we’re actually going to give it away. Securing your very own Huawei Nova 8i was laughably simple — all you have to do was enter your details into a form, answer a question that was basically just your opinion, and you were in with a shot. And that’s what loads and loads of you went and did. But, before we get to…

The social network formerly known as Facebook has had its first leak — a Meta smartwatch that has yet to be announced was discovered inside one of the company’s apps. And it’s not just a reference inside the code either. Images of the wearable device were unearthed, showing the notched screen and the teeny little camera that’s supposed to live inside the display. Social media smartwatches The image was discovered in the companion app for the Facebook Stories smart glasses, which were made in partnership with Ray-Ban. The discovery was made by a developer called Steve Moser before being shared,…

Last year at about this time, Samsung bucked the ongoing trend of tech companies doing badly by posting a record quarter. The company posted, in Q3 2020, record revenue of just under 67 trillion Korean won. In South African terms, that’s about R850 billion, or enough to pay off Eskom’s current debt twice and still have enough change left over to buy the government minister of your choice. Well, guess what? The South Korean company’s done it again. It hasn’t replicated 2020’s feat, though. It has exceeded it. The company has posted a new quarterly record for revenue by making…

About mid-way through last year — so approximately six years ago, in COVID-time — Olympus announced that the camera brand would be going away. At the time, it didn’t seem as final as all that. The company’s sale to Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) made it clear that the hardware would continue in one form or another. And, now, we finally know what form that will be. Last sight of Mount Olympus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqIsKqf03F4&feature=emb_logo Olympus returns to the market under a familiar name. Cameras bearing some familiar hardware are headed to market under the name OM System, which is close enough to…