Author: Brett Venter

Chinese companies continue to have a terrible time with Trump at the head of the United States. Xiaomi might have largely escaped notice until now but Huawei has been Trump’s favourite target for ages. And, just before the outgoing US president is due to turn over the country to Joe Biden, Trump’s getting one last shot in. A report from Reuters, citing unnamed sources, claims that the Trump administration has notified several of Huawei’s suppliers, including the likes of chip-maker Intel, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell products to the Chinese tech-maker. It also intends to reject “dozens”…

Two weeks ago Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp gave its users an ultimatum: Agree with its new privacy policy by 8 February or delete your account. The new agreement will see the service sharing a bunch of information with Facebook, including phone numbers, contact info, statuses posted to the messaging service, and more besides. The execution of the privacy policy left a little something to be desired, with the service seeing an exodus of users to messaging platforms Telegram and Signal. Its subsequent attempts at damage control were also a little wide of the mark. So, now, Facebook has opted to…

This is a kinda cool thing you can check out from Canon — though it would be cooler if it actually worked in real-time. If you’re unaware, Canon has its own satellite in orbit called the CE-SAT-1. Inside is a Canon 5D Mark III connected to a 40cm (15in) Cassegrain telescope, which gives it the ability to resolve down to 32-inches on the ground, over a space about 5x3km in size. And you can access this satellite via the internet, though sadly not in real-time — though that would be awfully impressive. The company has made CE-SAT-1, and the details…

There are only really two uses for Twitter — breaking news and then complaining about everything else that folks post on Twitter. It’s also a great way to give yourself depression unless you surround yourself in a happy little bubble that includes WeRateDogs, darth, wint, and God. But using the service for anything approaching news-gathering is a one-way ticket to trolls, facial tics and therapy. And since 2021 is just 2020: Part Duh, we’ve all got enough negative crap going on without adding constant dopamine-fuelled injections of melancholy into the mix. It might be time to delete your Twitter account.…

Samsung confirmed many of the things we thought we knew about its newest series of smartphones at last night’s event. One of those things was the existence of an S Pen for the Galaxy S21 Ultra, allowing people who like the Note’s scribbling to do the same on something that isn’t a Note. It’ll launch with the handset, but it’ll cost you R1,000 extra to get one for your (already pricey) smartphone. But if you’re not in the market for a wildly-expensive new smartphone, you don’t have to give your wallet a coronary in order to get a Samsung stylus…

That’s right, just about everything you heard was true. Samsung’s Everyday Epic Unpacked event saw the company launching three new smartphones – the Galaxy S21, the Galaxy S21 Plus and the Galaxy S21 Ultra. If you’re Samsung, you’re being difficult about the naming. Technically each of these has a ‘5G’at the end because each of the phones supports 5G. Now if only we had more of it here in South Africa. Here’s what you need to know The S21 they want you to want The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G is the smartphone the South Korean company wants you to…

If you’ve been following tech for long enough, specifically wearable tech, then you’ll remember the Pebble. The original Kickstarter phenomenon sparked a serious wearable trend but the e-paper device wasn’t big on features. It’s still pretty unique, though — as is its spiritual successor, called Watchy. Best of all, it’s designed to let you do a little tinkering of your own, ensuring that your Watchy really is as unique as you can make it. Watchy what I can do By which we mean: you’re going to have to put it together. The weird wearable is built around an ESP32 board…

HTC. That’s a name we haven’t heard in years. The HTC Desire, if you’re old enough to remember the launch of Android, was once one of the most desirable smartphones on the market but in recent years the company has slipped from our radars. When last we heard, HTC was making blockchain-specific smartphones like the Exodus 1 and spending its efforts on virtual reality gear. But now the company’s back with an all-new (and traditional) Android smartphone of a sort that we haven’t seen in literal years. This is the HTC Desire 21 Pro 5G. An object of Desire? The…

In a little over 24 hours Samsung’s first event of the year, Galaxy Unpacked 2021, will kick off. Fans here at home and around the world can sit in on the digital event that’ll show off the South Korean company’s first flagship handsets of the season. But if you’ve been paying attention, you may not need to check out what Samsung has to say at all. Besides pricing and concrete availability dates here in SA, there’s not much the company can do to surprise us. That isn’t to say there isn’t the potential for a shock but it’s very unlikely.…

WhatsApp, the largest messaging app on the planet, is having an unpleasant time at present. Competitors, like Telegram, are catching a lot of the exodus from the Facebook-owned service, in the wake of a terms and conditions update that was less a notification and more an ultimatum. Attempting to limit some of the damage, Facebook has shared an FAQ concerning its privacy policy update. It says that, based on “…some of the rumors going around, we want to answer some of the common questions we have received.” Unfortunately, the company doesn’t really address anything that actually sparked outrage last week.…