Author: Brett Venter

The global semiconductor shortage is having all sorts of interesting effects. Companies like Sony have stopped taking some orders. Auto-makers are releasing vehicles that are lacking certain features. And now Canon’s printer arm is telling its users how to circumvent its toner cartridge DRM. You know how some printers work, right? They just don’t seem to function correctly unless you plop in a branded plastic box filled with a very expensive substance. That’s because there’s a little chip built into the cartridge that tells the printer that this is the genuine article. Well, Canon can’t find enough of those chips,…

It was only a matter of time before another company got into the folding smartphone game. Honor has revealed the Honor Magic V, its brand-new folding flagship. It’s destined for China only at the moment, which may be a good thing. For Honor, that is. The design looks… a little familiar. And not just because most phones — even brand-new folding ones — tend to look like what came before. The few images that exist show a spine and camera bump that Samsung might have designed. It uses what Honor calls an “advanced waterdrop hinge”, but they don’t go into…

Facebook (which we now all know as Meta) doesn’t always have the best ideas. It’s misused large quantities of user information. It’s enabled all sorts of negative behaviour… pretty much around the world. And it frequently makes tone-deaf decisions. This, happily, isn’t one of them. The social media giant has announced something it calls its Privacy Center. Currently limited to a set number of American desktop users, it’s a one-stop shop for understanding how the company uses personal data. It makes a nice change. That’s not very Meta At its heart, the Privacy Center is an educational tool. Meta hopes…

NASA had a better weekend than most. The James Webb space telescope, following several lengthy delays, launched into space in December last year. And, over the weekend, the telescope’s final deployment successfully took place. The James Webb space telescope finished opening up its 21-foot-wide, gold-plated primary mirror over the weekend. Previous operations saw the ‘scope’s sun shield deployed, in order to protect the very sensitive optical hardware. But there’s much more to do still. Caught in NASA’s Webb Though NASA’s managed to get its shiny new telescope opened up, it’s still due for alignment. The James Webb’s primary mirror is…

Last week we saw that Telkom filed a legal challenge to suspend the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (ICASA) spectrum auction later this year. Mobile service provider MTN has filed its own papers, opposing Telkom’s bid for an interdict. MTN is hoping to avoid a repeat of last year — the long-delayed spectrum auction was delayed yet again, until 2022. Telkom’s challenge would likely set the auction even further back. And MTN wants to expand its 5G infrastructure, damnit. MTN’s mission MTN CEO Charles Molapisi said, “Spectrum is not just an industry issue, this is an issue for all…

Cryptoland isn’t the kind of place you’ll find Bigfoot lurking. That’s Cryptidland. Totally different place. But Cryptoland is apparently a very real idea that might one day turn into a very real place. We’re not really sure why. In case the name isn’t obvious, the idea is to make an island just for cryptocurrency fans, at which point the jokes just write themselves. What do you call 1,000+ crypto-bros on a remote Fijian island? A good start. Okay, okay, we’ll stop. Cryptoland’s on Fyre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiHopGox5cU Seriously though. The minds behind this “financial opportunity” intend to divide an island in Fiji…

It might be that COVID is winding down, but for the folks at E3, it’s not over yet. At least, that’s the reason the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is giving for suspending a physical Electronic Entertainment Expo for the third year running. First confirmed to VentureBeat, the ESA says that it’s suspending a physical E3 event in 2022, “[d]ue to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees.” But not everybody thinks this is the case. E3 in peril Reporter and analyst Mike Futter doesn’t agree with the ESA’s announcement, calling…

Last year Donald Trump surprised at least some of the world by actually announcing his own social media platform:, Truth Social. The jury’s still out on whether it’ll include Blackjack. And hookers. But it might just, since it’ll offer users “…an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.” Now it appears we’ve got a launch date for the app. According to a listing on the Apple App Store, the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) will launch Truth Social on 21 February this year. Timing Truth Social Bear in mind that this date is not official…

If you’ve been paying attention to CES 2022, you’ll know that Samsung’s announced a new bit of screen tech. See, it’s doing something besides shoehorned NFT features for its TVs after all. Called QD-OLED (Quantum Dot Organic Light Emitting Diode), this creation from Samsung Display is a little odd. Why? Well, because Sony’s planning on releasing the first TV set to use it — the Bravia XR A95K. But what is QD-OLED, besides a way to market the Next Big Thing™ in television tech to people who simply must have the very latest gear? That’s the question we’re about to…

Razer launched its Zephyr N95 face mask in 2021. It was quite the affair, with all sorts of intakes, RGB lighting (of course), and… that was about it. There was a missing feature: voice projection. Well, at CES 2022, Razer announced a fix for that. A new mask, the Zephyr Pro, that’ll doubtless sell out just as fast as its first one did. Jack Parow is a Zephyr Pro, isn’t he? At Las Vegas this year, Razer corrected its oversight by announcing the Zephyr Pro. It looks… fairly close to the original Zephyr, but it’s got a few additional bits.…