Author: Brett Venter

Talk about venturing into enemy territory. Samsung has released an app for the iPhone, of sorts, called iTest. And what it does is allows you to preview what life would be like using a Samsung handset, without actually going into a store and holding one of the South Korean company’s phones. Passing the iTest Basically, you can head to the iTest website using an iPhone. Once there, you scan a QR code that adds a web link to your Home screen. Select the link and you’re directed to a highly interactive website that looks like the OS for Samsung’s flagship…

If you want a Nintendo Switch but just can’t afford the once-off payment, then Vodacom and Nintendo here in South Africa have a deal with you. Or, rather, they have several deals for you, and they’ll all cost you about R400 per month. Switch to Vodacom? Each bundle includes a data package from Vodacom (either 1GB or 2GB per month) and all of them run over 36 months. There are four packages in total but all of them come to four hundred bucks a month over the period. There’s the Game and Watch bundle, which includes 1GB of data a…

There is a shortage of readily available semiconductors on planet Earth at the moment, in case you haven’t been paying attention, and it’s just possible that this is a problem that isn’t going away any time soon. The problem, as you might have guessed, started with the pandemic. People stayed at home, tech sales (including motor vehicles) dropped, and manufacturers cancelled orders for semiconductor products. Then matters eased and orders picked up again, but getting semiconductor production back to its previous levels has proved a little difficult. Search for semiconductors Deloitte’s Chris Richard, who works on the company’s supply chain…

Remember how performance artists MSCHF put together an online paintball game to illustrate what Boston Dynamics’ Spot would look like in a militarised situation? Remember how Boston Dynamics wasn’t pleased with this state of affairs? Well, it seems the French military is currently exploring how Spot would function in a military context. See Spot gun https://twitter.com/SaintCyrCoet/status/1379457690020294665 Boston Dynamics’ robot dog hasn’t been outfitted with weapons or anything like that, however. It was used, mostly for reconnaissance, during a two-day exercise conducted by the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, a French military academy. Who then posted about it on Twitter. French…

LG, you might have heard, has officially pulled out of the smartphone game. Which is rather sad for us, because the company was just starting to get whacky (and their V-series phones were also under-appreciated). You might be a little concerned about the fate of your current device if you’re an LG user. After all, if the company isn’t making phones, will they continue to support them? The answer to that is: yes. For a while. LG long term The company has promised that some of its currently-available smartphones will continue to receive software support, in the form of Android…

We’ve known for some time that people can control computers with their brains. The trick was doing it without wires, something that BrainGate, a project being undertaken by Brown University, has just demonstrated. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are the next leap in computer use, with everyone from Elon Musk’s Neuralink to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook looking to get their foot in the door. But Brown’s experiment has just shown off the ability to control a computer with your mind without using all those lovely electrodes that we’ve all become used to. Building BrainGate The BCI system replaces wires with an implanted electrode…

Fujifilm’s got an all-new retro-designed instant camera for you to check out — the Instax Mini 40 is set to launch in South Africa a little later this month. The instant camera, in keeping with previous models from the company, turns up on 21 April at a fairly affordable price point — just R1,400. An all-new old thing The Instax Mini 40’s launch is a global one, which means that South African fans won’t have long to wait at all before snapping instant shots of… whatever they want, really. The camera brings with it more than just retro styling, however.…

Google’s smartphones are typically hard to come by in South Africa, but that’s changing. And just in time, too, because the company’s Pixel 6 handset is reportedly going to be the first to come with a chipset made by the search giant. 9to5Google reports that Google’s newest handset, including the Pixel 6, will ship with the company’s rumoured ‘GS101’ Whitechapel chip. That’s a Google-made (or at least -designed) SoC (system-on-chip) that will be used for the company’s handsets and its Chromebook hardware. Because everyone else from Apple to Samsung are doing it — why can’t Google? Pushing Pixels The chipset,…

In the beginning there was Hyundai, then there was the Genesis sub-brand. Or, actually first there was Genesis and then there was Phil Collins, and then there was the Tarzan soundtrack. But that’s not the point here. The point is that Hyundai’s sub brand launched in China recently and the South Korean company used 3,281 drones to put on a bit of a show. Which is a bit of an understatement. Hyundai’s show in Shanghai on 29 March this year, using more than three thousand drones, was a record-setting affair — one that continues to evolve. The Genesis of drone…

Here’s a sentence we never thought we’d write. A South African company is working on a plane called the Pegasus Vertical Business Jet, which is really an awesome concept. It’s a plane that can take off and land like a Harrier II GR7 — either from a runway or a helipad, if that’s the sort of thing you have at home. But don’t get too excited about the Pegasus just yet. It’s still being developed by a company called Pegasus Universal Aerospace, headed by Dr. Reza Mia. Local development is continuing with Epsilon Engineering Services, a Centurion-based outfit. The plane’s…