Author: Brett Venter

Space travel is an interesting business. It’s like flying, except you don’t get to use wings, and there’s a constant explosion happening underneath the craft. It’s no surprise that it’s a difficult industry to keep safe. That said, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is now officially the safest ever made. Why? Because it’s had a total of 139 launches. Of those, there was a single failure in flight — a resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2015. There was also a single launch that failed prior to takeoff, which isn’t counted towards that total. Flying the Falcon 9 The…

Everyone is making NFTs now. Some are doing it completely legally, but the nature of NFTs means that anyone can turn any digital property into a potentially lucrative blockchain entry. Some intrepid speculators decided to craft a batch of NFTs based around Nike sneakers. Without asking the brand first. Nike hasn’t taken that sitting down. This, as is often the case with large companies, means that lawyers are involved. StockX, a company that resells various sneaker-shaped goods, decided to turn actual, physical pairs of Nike shoes into NFTs. Now they’re heading to court over it. A new kind of Nike…

So you’ve been waiting patiently for uncle Elon to give you your Starlink internet access? You will have to wait until Starlink Premium, a far more expensive version of the internet-from-space service, rolls out first. The original version of the service (which cost R1,500 to book) offered speeds of up to 150Mbps, beamed down from space by Starlink satellites dropped off by SpaceX rockets. The Premium version offers speeds of between 150Mbps and 500Mbps. But there’s obviously a bit of a financial catch. Paying a premium for Starlink Premium Starlink high performance antenna https://t.co/83kIQSNV3l — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2,…

Meta this week revealed its fourth-quarter results for 2021. News of the company’s performance sent its stock into the toilet — relatively speaking. Losing 20% of the value of anything is rather severe, but there’s still plenty of value left out. Facebook’s user performance in particular was to blame for some of the company’s stock issues. The other part might be Meta’s metaverse ambitions. Reality Labs, the internal division exploring the metaverse for Meta, cost the company $10 billion in 2021. That’s a fair sum of money to throw at a future that is far from certain, despite being such…

There’s no denying that audio brand Sonos makes some amazing tech. The company is a consistent Stuff Gadget Awards winner, but it’s only just entered the mobile audio market. The Sonos Roam is an excellent debut for a properly portable speaker but where does the company go next? Headphones make a fair amount of sense. Last year, we saw the brand had filed a patent application for a set of noise-cancelling headphones. Now, a new acquisition might have pushed them closer to release. A set of Sonos cans Tech website Protocol reports that Sonos has acquired an American Bluetooth audio…

The streak just couldn’t last. Eskom has arranged a new round of load shedding for South African citizens, starting from 11:00 this morning and continuing through until 05:00 on Monday, 7 February 2022. Unless, of course, something unexpected happens. Load Shedding XXVI: The Sheddinator Returns #POWERALERT1 Following further breakdowns during the night, Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented starting at 11:00 on Wednesday until 05:00 on Monday pic.twitter.com/BM6PLebuQs — Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) February 2, 2022 The reasons given for the shutdown are… extensive. A unit each at Kusile and Kandal power stations have tripped. This is in addition…

When it comes to serious space plans, there are really only two governments in this space — the US and China. American’s efforts are fairly well-chronicled, and it’s only recently that China’s been trying to get its name out there. Just lately, it was the country’s five-year plan for space exploration. Now, it’s something a little more visual. The Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter has sent back some video of its trip around the red planet. Tianwen-1 of these days Another surprise from China’s Tianwen-1 Mars spacecraft, this time to celebrate Chinese New Year, with a video taken using a selfie stick.…

You’re probably familiar with the little grey, yellow and green blocks that signify another successful round of Wordle. The free online game, the creation of American Josh Wardle, has proved to be a hit in the months since its launch. Well, things are about to change. Maybe. See, Wordle, originally a one-man show, has just been purchased. By none other than The New York Times, and for “…an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures”. So at least a million dollars, then. What’s the word on Wordle? What’s going to change? As far as the game itself goes, probably not much.…

UPDATE: The Meta-linked Diem Association has confirmed the sale of its assets to Silvergate, the crypto-aligned banking institute. This effective kills off Facebook’s plans to launch its own cryptocurrency, though it leaves the company’s digital wallet ambitions on the table. Silvergate said that it paid $182 million (R2.8 billion) for all of the company’s assets, including intellectual property. It’s possible the in-develop currency will see the light of day, but it won’t be under Meta’s banner. Unless Meta’s funding Silvergate’s buyout in an attempt to be sneaky and continue development at arm’s length. There’s literally no evidence for that, but…

We’re legally obligated to point out that Stuff’s all-time favourite gadget (for the majority of the office) is the Kindle any time the eReader is mentioned anywhere. The release of the 2021 edition of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite has done exactly nothing to change that opinion. In fact, it’s gone a fair way towards cementing that opinion on the kind of concrete the Romans used to use. So it’s a little bigger Amazon’s 2021 Paperwhite had its work cut out for it. The 2018 edition, which brought waterproofing to the line, was basically the perfect eReader. And the thing about…