Author: Brett Venter

Talk of a folding device from Apple has lingered for years. It may not be a phone, but most talk suggests that we’ll see it next year. What it might look like, or even what it’ll be, is as closely guarded a secret as almost any Apple device. But there’s a suggestion that the company is investigating using an e-ink display on it. Which doesn’t mean Amazon is kicking itself for not figuring out that a folding Kindle is a brilliant idea. (It really is, though). Nope, Apple’s e-ink investigations are for the outside of this not-totally-fictional piece of technology.…

You’ve finally made the call and assembled the budget. It’s time to buy a new smart TV. It’s not always possible to wait until Game or Makro is opening a new store on Black Friday, after all. But that’s the thing. What on earth do you do now? Which TV should you buy? There are several brands in South Africa selling smart TVs. Samsung and LG are the major players. You can occasionally score a Panasonic if you look around hard enough. Otherwise, there’s Hisense and Skyworth playing in the smart TV arena too. TCL is also here, and they’re…

Flash drives, on the excitement scale, sit just a little above printers. They are, for the most part, boring. Unless you’re the sort who gets excited about data transfer rates, it’s usually capacity upgrades that hold the most attention. Space. That’s people getting excited about empty space. The folks from NexCopy reckon they might have something worth raising your pulse about, though. They might even have a point. NexCopy, if you’re not familiar with them, spends most of its time making flash drives for businesses. Those cheap-ish flash drives, purchased in bulk? Yeah, they make the machines that make it…

They must be putting something into the water in Finland. Not only is the country a hub for some of the best video games of all time (and a few others), but it’s also home to some serious tech. Nokia and Polar hail from the country as well. Now there’s one more — Verge, makers of the Verge TS. The Verge TS is an electric motorcycle. Big deal, right? There are tons of those. Triumph, Husqvarna, BMW, Harley Davidson — loads of folks have one. Even South African outfit BST has a spectacular option. But Verge’s bike is a little…

Vodacom is really taking its whole ‘super app’ concept seriously. VodaLend Compare is the newest feature to launch on the VodaPay app. An online version of the new service coming later. In the meantime, though, Vodacom users can venture deeper into the company’s ecosystem and look for unsecured personal loans. On their phones. Even though the product is made by Vodacom Financial Services, VodaLend Compare doesn’t actually mean you’re borrowing money from the company. The clue is in the name. The feature makes it easy to compare loan options, involving just three steps to more debt. Nothing VodaLend Compares to…

It’s been said again and again. Eventually, Apple is expected to stop being a dick about it and move from Lightning (which only the company uses) to USB-C (which everyone is using). Well, strap in for another prediction of the future. Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reckons the change is coming. But not this year. Instead, you can look out for Apple devices to start featuring USB-C ports from 2023. Which isn’t all that far away, if you think about it. Still, that does mean at least one more set of iPhones with Lightning ports. Sailing the USB-C (1/2) My…

Following weeks of rumours and leaks, the Sonos Ray is finally official. The audio brand’s newest soundbar, as it turns out, was more or less entirely pre-empted by eager people on the internet. Still, here’s the official word on the brand’s most compact soundbar to date. For starters, a global launch is just weeks away. And since ‘global’ includes South Africa, 7 June is when we (and everyone else) get access to the Sonos Ray. The price? R6,500 here at home. We’re not too concerned with the price in Azerbaijan or America or those far-flung places. Sonos Ray of sunshine…

Just when you thought it was safe to go back onto the internet, along comes another data breach. This time it’s South African pharmacy group Dis-Chem. The group has posted a notice detailing what it currently knows about a recent hack. To start with, more than 3.6 million customers have been affected. 3,687,881, to be precise. And any time there’s a number this accurate, things are either really confirmed, or really made up. In this case, it’s the former. Pity, that. Dis-Chem database dumped The good news is that the information scooped up by whoever was wandering around in Dis-Chem’s…

Checkers Sixty60 may have started us all off during lockdown but everyone else is gradually catching up — with varying degrees of success. Massmart retailer Game is the latest traditional real-world store to ramp up its online offerings, in a bid to stay competitive. That means heading to the Game website, the URL of which hasn’t changed at all, to see what’s new. It’s more than just a redesign, too. There are actual tangible changes on hand, but some are a little limited right now. Make a Game of it Some of these changes are things that… really should have…

We got lucky over the past few months, but there’s no guarantee that luck will hold. South Africa’s fuel price had fallen, a little, kinda, over April and May. April’s dip was thanks to a little tax holiday handed out by SA’s government. Even then, the price of petrol increased a little. In May, the (small) dip was a result of that same holiday. Well, folks, that holiday is just about over. The upshot is that South African motorists must brace for a possible walloping. The R1.50 reduction in the general fuel levy (GFL) was only supposed to remain in…