Author: Brett Venter

It feels like it’s been forever since we had a new Huawei smartphone announcement to marvel over. Hopefully, the reveal of the Huawei P50 has been worth the wait. If you live in China, then perhaps it has because that’s the only place the new HarmonyOS handset with the intimidating (camera) bulge has been confirmed for. There are, of course, two different models for fans to look out for — the stock 6.5in 90Hz OLED-screened P50 and then the 6.6in 120Hz OLED P50 Pro, which you’ll see in our header image above. Typically a Huawei flagship would use one of…

Looks like we’re going to have to get off the couch now — robots like Oregon State University’s (OSU) Cassie are officially running 5km tracks now and we’re going to have to be faster than they are. You know, just in case. It’s not like we haven’t seen this coming. Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot has steadily been improving its athleticism over the years, so it was only a matter of time before a bipedal machine joined us on a Parkrun. Thankfully, many of us will be able to beat Cassie’s 5K time — the robot managed to complete the run…

If it’s good enough for Jeff and Elon, it must be good enough for the fine folks at Porsche, right? The German automaker has become the latest company to take steps in a spaceward direction, having dropped the princely sum of $75 million (a little over R1 billion) on a German aerospace startup, reports the Financial Times. The company made the investment, along with several other companies, in Isar Aerospace in order to get it off the ground — figuratively and literally. The startup aims to provide low-earth orbit satellite launch services to its customers, putting it in competition with…

It’s a very good time to be one of the companies that collectively make up Big Tech. Apple, Microsoft and Google have all posted their most recent sets of financial results and they’re definitely the sort that would be stuck up on the fridge by proud parents CEOs. Apple and Google have both set records with this batch of financials, while Microsoft is just doing rather well at present. However you look at it, none of the companies mentioned is in any trouble at all when it comes to making cash during the pandemic. Big Tech likes big money Apple’s…

Autonomous vehicles are the up-and-coming thing and, as this drone race shows, frequently AI-controlled craft are able to beat humans working in identical circumstances. Researchers at the University of Zurich’s Robotics and Perception Group have created a new algorithm capable of outperforming human quadcopter pilots on an identical track. That’s no mean feat, considering there’s a drone Grand Prix with a very large cash prize out there for the very best human pilots. Try not to drone on too much https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPI8U1uSJUs This algorithm was tested against the “…fastest lap of two world-class human pilots on an experimental race track”, according…

Joby Aviation is joining all of those other tech companies attempting to put a flying taxi in the skies, only this particular electric VTOL craft might have a little distance on its rivals. The company’s electric vertical take-off and landing taxi has just successfully competed its first 240km (150 mile) test flight. Good job, Joby Aviation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpqYuce6Ao There are a few things that you need to know about Joby’s flight though. It’s thought to be the longest electric VTOL flight achieved, using a full-sized prototype of the proposed six-rotor flying taxi design. The 240km distance was covered in an hour…

Remember the Artemis Lunar Lander contract NASA awarded to SpaceX in April this year? Yeah, Jeff Bezos, the very rich man who very recently went to space on his own rocket, still wants that contract. So much so that he’s offering NASA $2 billion to let Blue Origin (and the others involved in their pitch for the lander) build the freaking thing. At least, that’s what the open letter by Bezos, published on Blue Origin’s website and addressed to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, says. Specifically, the company has offered to save NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program money “…by waiving…

When you hear Mark Zuckerberg talking about something called a ‘metaverse’, it’s a little disconcerting. He sits at the top of the most data-hungry company the world has ever seen (give or take a Google or two), one with a terrible track record of keeping its users’ information safe. Why on Earth would anyone trust this man to build a metaverse? To answer that question, it helps to know what Zuck is talking about. He hasn’t gone all Reed Richards and starting building his own universe or anything like that. The metaverse is Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of Facebook.…

LG might be out of the smartphone game but their Tone true wireless headphones are sticking around. And, in typical LG style, they’re evolving a little — the company spent a lot of time putting audio first in its handsets before the Big Close, and that innovation seems to live on in its headphone lineup. Setting the Tone The South Korean tech-maker has announced a new batch of its in-ear buds, as well as a collection of new features not seen in the lineup before. There are three sets of buds making their way to “key markets” (that’s all we’ve…

It’s not just upstart startups taking on the space race. Boeing’s in the game with its Starliner crew capsule, which was supposed to be a little further along by now. Quite a bit further along, actually, but the capsule has been grounded since it didn’t manage the orbit it was supposed to in 2019. Starliner has a shot at redemption this month, however, as 30 July will see the Boeing-designed-and-developed capsule return to space in an attempt to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). Starliner goes a little old-school NASA has determined, following a flight readiness assessment, that Boeing’s…