Author: Brett Venter

Look, not every startup can be a winner. Dead Startup Toys, another drop by the internet collective known as MSCHF, plans to commemorate that. You see, it’s not enough to just have a bad idea. All of the little toys in this actual online store are small versions of real products that got real funding and then really, really collapsed when everyone released how useless they really were. Dead Startup Toys for Africa? The products on offer include representations of the Juicero (an over-engineered juice presser that was easily replaced by human hands), the Coolest Cooler (which made huge bank…

Divisive South African politician Julius Malema was handed a brief suspension by Twitter last night, after the social media company found that he had “…violated the Twitter Rules” with regards to recent posts on the service. The 12-hour suspension looks like it was automatically triggered and, as of this morning, Malema’s suspension has ended. Julius Malema is briefly booted https://twitter.com/FloydShivambu/status/1415006565049016326? We’re not exactly sure what the EFF politician did to get kicked off the service. Malema’s most contentious tweets over the past few days are still up and active, despite one calling for EFF members to join the ongoing unrest…

Quantum computers might one day become commonplace but, for now, they’re strictly the domain of large companies. QuantWare, a startup company based in the Netherlands, hopes to expand the reach of the burgeoning technology by creating and shipping quantum processors. Which is a fantastic development, though not one that matters to consumer computer technology yet. QuantWare is my CPU? Computers used to be something you had to rent by the hour, because they were as large as buildings and owning one was just far too expensive. It was only after the technology became more affordable that computer usage really exploded.…

We get it, you’re a Super Mario (or just a Nintendo) super-fan. But just how far does that go? There are all sorts of limited edition gear starring the little red-clad plumber and while Tag Heuer’s new limited Connected Android Wear device isn’t even the most expensive wristwear we’ve seen featuring Ninty’s mascot, it could well be one of the coolest. Smartwatching out for Super Mario There’s not much difference between the standard Tag Heuer Connected and the Mario-sporting version in terms of actual performance. It’s a 45mm device, with a 430mAh battery that Tag reckons will last you a…

‘Galactic Musk’ sounds like an Axe body spray variant but instead it’s what you get when SpaceX’s Elon Musk has booked a ticket to space on Virgin Galactic. ‘Virgin Galactic Musk’, however, describes the sort of person who thinks the Axe body spray idea is a good one. Seriously, though, SpaceX’s Elon Musk has, according to Virgin Galactic CEO Richard Branson, booked a seat on one of his company’s SpaceShip craft to travel to the edge of space. Which is fine, after all. The Muskinator (literally nobody calls him that) can afford it. Elon Musk knows a bargain when he…

Richard Branson has become the first billionaire to ride his own rocket into space, successfully heading to the edge of the great beyond and back over the weekend. Unlike Bezos and Musk’s efforts, Virgin Galactic is intended to function primarily as a tourism company but, as with Jurassic Park (assuming it were real), travelling off this planet isn’t going to be cheap. We just need our space right now By which we mean, the odds of the average person affording a trip on one of Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered SpaceShip craft are low. Unless you have R3.6 million lying around doing…

Harley Davidson’s first electric motorcycle, the LiveWire, led to the brand being spun off into its own company, and the LiveWire One is the first bike to issue forth from that place. Detailed by the company in a recent release, the One launches in the States a little later this month with one important improvement over its predecessor — it’s a little bit cheaper. A real LiveWire One Which is the ideal situation for any EV, even those of the two-wheeled variety. The original LiveWire launched with a price tag over the R400,000 ($30,000) mark, so it’s kinda nice to…

Finance and payments company Square is working on creating a hardware version of a bitcoin wallet — because who wouldn’t want to lose a physical item containing several hundred thousand rands worth of currency? In all seriousness, it’s a very interesting idea and quite a technical challenge as well. The idea was first floated by company CEO Jack Dorsey (he of Twitter fame) in June this year, but it looks like it’s actually going to happen. Square off in the ring https://twitter.com/JesseDorogusker/status/1413222597207134214 Square’s hardware lead Jesse Dorogusker explained that the company wants to use the innovation to “…make bitcoin custody…

Qualcomm is inside many smartphones but it doesn’t make any smartphones. That’s still true, but it does have one that it can call it’s very own — a new handset made in partnership with Asus called the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. Kinda just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? The catch? You’ve got to belong to the company’s new Snapdragon Insider community in order to purchase one. Oh, and it’ll cost you at least R22,000 ($1,500). Quality control from Qualcomm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_BF3KMUZWs&feature=emb_logo But is Qualcomm’s new, awkwardly-named device worth shelling out more than twenty grand for? On the face of it,…

It’s basically the never-ending franchise, like Call of Duty but without the guns — now Ubisoft’s got something a little different in mind for the Assassin’s Creed series. And we’re not sure how to feel about it. First revealed by Bloomberg, the French game developer has since confirmed that Assassin’s Creed Infinity is actually a thing. Ubisoft hasn’t detailed too much but the original report claims that it’s set to be an “evolving online platform”, along the lines of Fortnite, or perhaps Call of Duty Warzone would be a more apt comparison. Ubisoft’s going hard online Ubisoft officially confirmed that…