Author: Brett Venter

You know which book properties haven’t been properly exploited in video game format? The fantasy tales by Edgar Rice Burroughs, notably the Tarzan and John Carter franchises. Game developer Tanglewood Games and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc hope to change all that with John Carter: Warlord of Mars. Slow down, John Carter But, before you get too excited, there isn’t much to see of the game yet. It’s got the backing of the company that owns the rights to everything Burroughs wrote but the game itself is still early in development. There’s some basic animation done, a few character models have…

Showmax is, like many streaming services around the world, focusing time, money and effort on its own original programming. Skemerdans is one of those. This tale revolving around the Oasis jazz club in the Cape Flats has the distinction of being the service’s first Afrikaans-language Showmax Original. And, as luck would have it, there’s a new trailer for the show out and about. The last time we checked in on it, there was precious little content to see because… well, it hadn’t actually been filmed yet. That took place in October last year, at Cape Town’s Club Galaxy. Sussing out…

Vodacom left this a little late in the day today but we kinda understand why — it’s 1 April (for a while yet). Too early in the day and you might take it a little less seriously. The mobile network is dropping prices for some of its 30-day data packages, altering allocations for others and introducing one new one. The reasoning? To further digital inclusion for all, apparently, but also, it’s good business. Nice one, Vodacom The data packages being changed range between the 150MB bundle and the 1GB bundle — there’s also a 2GB bundle which will cost users…

Real life is catching up to video games. Microsoft has been awarded a US Army contract to supply the military agency with 120,000 headsets based on the company’s Hololens technology. The contract will run over ten years and should net the tech company up to $21 billion over the period. This isn’t a surprise, however. The tech giant previously had a $480 million deal with the US Army in 2018 to create the prototypes — this recent announcement marks the shift from prototype to production of the IVAS headset. Military Microsoft The headsets, known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System…

Mobile World Congress held on as long as it could last year before pulling the plug but seems adamant that 2021’s MWC will go ahead. Sadly, Google has joined Nokia, Sony and other smaller exhibitors and pulled out of the in-person portion of the show. Google is the latest and largest exhibitor to cancel its appearance at the world’s largest mobile phone conference. This doesn’t put the cut-down in-person event in doubt, but another handful of attendees cancelling on the GSMA might scupper the international show. Goodbye Google The search company issued a statement, saying, “Following our current COVID-19 travel…

The Mi 11 Ultra wasn’t the only smartphone Xiaomi unveiled this week — the company last night released details of its Mi Mix Fold handset which, as the name very clearly points out, doesn’t fold in any way whatsoever. Wait, of course it folds. And it looks awfully familiar, but then all phones do these days. Don’t count on seeing this one any time soon, however. The company has confirmed that it will only be available in China, so you might be able to bring one back if you’re travelling but otherwise you’ll just have to look at it from…

SpaceX, following a series of delays, finally got to test its SN11 Starship prototype out after the last one crashed-and-burned on landing at the beginning of this month. SN10 experienced an issue on impact that ignited the rocket just after it touched down. SN11, however… we’re not really sure what happened to SN11. The test took place on a foggy day and while it made its 10km height, it experienced issues on descent that were visually concealed by the fog. It was fine as it entered the fog, then it was blown to bits in a manner we can’t explain.…

Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) will still be taking place this year but, in deference to the fact that it’s not a grand idea to gather in numbers, it’s all going to be online. Which means that the event will once again be free to all Apple developers (and anyone else viewing the stream on YouTube — like Stuff). What to do at WWDC There is some speculation that the company will be unveiling its AR or VR tech at the event, based mostly on the teaser image above. Which isn’t out of the question — Apple has used…

We’ve long known that South Africa is able to compete on an international stage. In everything from the arts to tech to scholastic achievement, SA has the potential to take on the best the world has to offer and this is no different. A team of Curro Academy students has taken second place in the Imagine Cup Junior Virtual Artificial Intelligence Hackathon, Girls Edition 2021. That’s a long title but it’s a large competition so we’ll give them the grandiosity. The Microsoft- and UNSECO-backed competition sees student teams from the ages of thirteen to eighteen competing against schools from other…

Niantic Labs, the minds behind Pokémon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and, prior to all that, Ingress, are specialists in augmented reality games. About the only thing that could make their efforts better would be the introduction of an easily-accessible pair of AR glasses. The concept is cool, but the execution could use a little work. Or could it…? A nod to Niantic Labs https://twitter.com/johnhanke/status/1376624749787242499? Company CEO John Hanke (who we’re trying mightily not to refer to as Mr. Hanke, and failing miserably) tweeted something appropriately cryptic last night. He mentions new devices that leverage the company’s platform, and shows…