Author: Brett Venter

There’s mining for bitcoin and then there’s taking matters a little too far. A private equity firm based in the States, Atlas Holdings, has purchased an old power plant in New York State that it intends to bring back online. It’s not bringing Greenidge, the fossil-fuel powered facility, back online to supply power to the surrounding area though. No, they’ve got something much more lucrative in mind. Bobbing for bitcoin Atlas Holdings intends to use most of the (again, fossil-fuel powered) power plant’s output to run its bitcoin-mining machines. Greenidge will be used to power some 18,000 mining rigs before…

First, there was QLED, Samsung’s attempt to convince everyone that OLED wasn’t that big of a deal. Now there’s Neo QLED (which is short for ‘new Quantum light-emitting diode), and it’s just landed in South Africa. Samsung’s new range of Neo QLED TV sets has dropped — all six of them — and they’re priced well enough that your bank account won’t be completely terrified. This is good news if you’re desperate to make the jump to 8K, because you only need to sell one kidney this year. Use the Force, Neo QLED So what can you expect to pay…

Facebook has been wary of the (forced) changes coming to its app on the iPhone and, now that iOS 14.5 has dropped worldwide, it seems that the social network has been right to worry. Despite attempting to convince its iPhone users base to opt-in to all those lovely tracking settings Facebook’s so fond of, the response… hasn’t been stellar. iPhone says no Analytics firm Flurry Analytics has crunched the numbers and, of the 5.3 million global iOS 14.5 users (that is, people who have upgraded to the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system), just 13% have opted in to…

Unless your name is Nyjah Huston (it’s not) and you’re a world-renowned skateboarder, you’re likely never going to lay your hands on the Asus ROG Nyjah Huston Special Edition. So named because it’s a special edition of the Asus ROG Strix Scar made specifically for pro skater Huston, it’s an attractively designed custom machine with Asus’ customary power under the hood. It’s good to be Nyjah Huston The custom concept machine from Asus has been heavily modified. Even the packaging has been tweaked to be skating-themed. Once the laptop has been decanted onto a desk, the packaging can be used…

Everywhere you look in this country, when the time comes to shop for a TV set, you see ever only a handful of brands. South Africa doesn’t have a great selection, but it’s just grown by one. Toshiba has relaunched its TVs in the country, according to an announcement from the company. Toshiba TV time What’s more, the brand’s new sets are being manufactured in Cape Town. There are currently eight sets on the South African market, available though Takealot (and other places that sell TVs), with more on the way. The TVs themselves range in size from 40in (which’ll…

Two-factor authentication or 2FA is an almost wholly essential thing to have on your online accounts. It’s a similar argument to the one Americans use to justify guns — it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Well, Google’s decided that we’re all going to have it. 2FA the price of one The search giant has become tired of you all ignoring its nag screens asking you to activate two-factor authentication and it’s going to just set it up for all of its users. Which… isn’t a bad tactic, when it comes…

It was only a matter of time: SpaceX’s Starship prototype has finally completed a landing without exploding either before or after it touched the ground. Explosions completely failed to occur, depriving us of the joy of seeing something explode but witnessing one of Elon Musk’s new rockets make it to the ground is worth it. Wish upon a Starship  Starship SN15 (it jumped ahead a few numbers in the sequence) successfully landed at the company’s Boca Chica facility. You should know the procedure by now — SpaceX sent its prototype, sitting on top of three of its Raptor engines, 10km…

Remember that scene in The Dark Knight where Batman reveals he’s turned every phone in the city into a surveillance device? This… is a little bit like that, except it only has university-level funding and it can’t find the Joker in the space of a few hours. But, other than that, more or less exactly the same thing. With limits. Researchers at Glasgow University have come up with an algorithm that can use a device like a smartphone or a laptop to identify the layout of a room, using sonar or echolocation. Batman at home The algorithm uses sounds or…

HTC, once a bastion of Android smartphones, is now making VR hardware for the masses. The company has Vivecon taking place next week, from 11 to 12 May, where it’s expected to unveil some new hardware. Some of it we knew about — a fitness-focused headset called the Vive Air was leaked early by an awards website (and the company has since claimed that it’s a concept only) — and now we know a little more. Two more of the company’s headsets have turned up early. Virtually all of HTC’s announcements Spotted by website Protocol, the VR company has leaked…

The thing about attacking pirates is that you’re not allowed to swing onto their ships using your rigging any more. So the UK’s Royal Navy testing out Gravity Industries’ Jet Suit as an aid to getting a team on board a ship that doesn’t want them there… makes a kind of sense. And it looks a little like Tony Stark testing his first Iron Man suit over the ocean. Yes, this is a real thing. No, we’re not sure when Britain’s sailors will be using them in a real-world situation. But, when they do, hopefully someone’s running a live stream…