Author: Brett Venter

Well, Blue Origin did it. The space company sent beloved actor William Shatner off the surface of the planet, out beyond the Kármán line and then returned the 90-year-old man to Earth safely. We’re not sure what we’re going to be up to at that age, but now it has to be bungee jumping on Mars or something — thanks for that, Bill. William Shatner says ‘Wow’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utUQ01BueHY Blue Origin has released some video of New Shepard 18, its second manned flight to the heavens. The footage shows Shatner and the other passengers, Audrey Powers, Chris Boshuzien and Glen de…

William Shatner, who is a solid candidate for the title of ‘World’s Nicest Man’, travels to space a little later today. He’ll be making the trip on Blue Origin’s NS-18 mission along with three others — Blue Origin’s Audrey Powers, as well as Chris Boshuzien and Glen de Vries. Following a brief delay, Blue Origin’s mission lifts off today — at 16:00 local time, if all goes well. And, of course, you can watch the beloved Star Trek icon and his crew head out beyond the Kármán line as it happens. Watch Shatner boldly go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEhdlIor-do Blue Origin will be…

Okay Samsung, come on now. You’re obviously timing these things to take some of the wind out of Apple’s sails. Or else it’s just a massive coincidence, but this is the internet. It’s never just coincidence. Or is it…? Yes, Samsung has announced another Unpacked event and yes, it takes place next week. On 20 October, fans of the South Korean company’s tech can check out Galaxy Unpacked Part 2: The Unpackening. The event itself starts at 10:00 Eastern Time, which is 16:00 South African Standard Time. Sussing out Samsung As to what is coming, that’s a little murky. Samsung…

Apple’s September event has come and gone, leaving the new iPhone in its wake. But there’s something more coming — the tech maker has announced an October event, subtitled “Unleashed”, that should see more MacBook Pros turn up before the end of the year. The event kicks off on 18 October at 10:00 PDT — which is 19:00 South African Standard Time. As usual, Stuff will be watching the event with a beady eye. You can expect all of the details to turn up as Apple announces them, but here’s what you can expect. Apple Unleashed Apple’s online event will…

Nokia used to be the biggest name in cellular phones before Apple came along and launched the smartphone. Ever since then, the company has attempted to find its footing again. It did a stint as a Microsoft-owned phone company for a while, then retired for a bit. Then it came back with some new smartphones of its very own. What could it possibly do next? How about… Nokia TVs? Opportunity Nokias Those are totally a thing and they’re also totally launching here in South Africa before the end of the year. Bandwidth Blog reports that local electronics distributor Ellies will…

Samsung loves to show what sort of punishment its smartphones can take. Part of this stems from the launch of the original Galaxy Fold, where the company received some criticism about how fragile the handset was. But, now, Samsung’s folding smartphones are considerably more durable — so the brand is just showing off at this point. Samsung shows its stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWHBvxmDV0 If you’re dropping nearly R40k on a folding smartphone (or a much more reasonable R22,000 for a different folding smartphone), then you want to know that it’s built to last. As you’ll see from Stuff’s review of the Galaxy…

Percussive maintenance used to be the sole domain of really confident engineers and mechanics, as well as talented (or wholly talentless) computer technicians. ‘Hit it till it works’ hasn’t been an effective tactic for anything since… well, ever, and yet, we keep coming back to the idea that punching something will eventually fix something else. There may be some merit to the idea, in some very limited ways. Fitness company Hyperice has turned the idea of repeatedly hitting something until it starts working better into a fine art, with the Hypervolt Go being an almost perfect example of what can…

Samsung, the leakiest boat in tech, has seen its upcoming Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone leak far in advance of anything like an official announcement. We’re most likely to see something official from Samsung in late February or early March 2022 but for now, let’s all just peer at these dummy S22 Ultra handsets. Is this the Galaxy S22 Ultra? The metal blanks found by Italian website Coverpigtou.it claim to show the basic design for Samsung’s upcoming smartphone flagship. That’s a big whoop, generally speaking. There’s only so much innovation you can achieve with something that’s mostly made of glass, but…

One of the nicest men on the face of the planet, William Shatner, is going to space. If you don’t know why this is significant, we have only one question: How are you finding your first week on the internet? But, Blue Origin has delayed Captain Kirk’s trip to space. Not for terribly long, mind you. But it’s still a delay. Shatner to Enterprise — four to beam up https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1447367260473987074 Blue Origin announced the weather-prompted delay on its website, saying that while all of its passengers (the company still calls them astronauts) are cleared for takeoff and that training for…

Canon has a thing for intricate-yet-functional glass of the expensive sort, and the newest bit of this is a new dual 5.2mm f/2.8 fisheye lens that’s intended for use on its EOS R cameras. Well, one EOS R camera. See, the only camera so far confirmed to use Canon’s new dual fisheye arrangement is the EOS R5, a mirrorless body that’ll set you back at least R65,000. That’s… reasonable, as high-end cameras go. But what’s the point of the thing that’s got poor Wall-E looking so worried? No longer just headCanon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJAr7SbVGBg&feature=emb_logo The Japanese camera giant calls its new 5.2mm…