Author: Brett Venter

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is usually filled with some of the wildest ideas in tech, but CES 2026 seemed like a different beast compared to recent years. All of the usual product lineups were present, but the black rectangles (TVs, smartphones, and laptops) weren’t quite as dominant as they had been before. Instead, the product lineup seemed a much more varied lot. There was still plenty of AI talk circulating the show floor, but if a laptop or phone made waves, it was because it attempted something novel. The usual incremental updates weren’t worthy of making a fuss…

Someone needs to have a word with the marketers at Honor. The new Honor Magic 8 Pro Air has at least one too many words in its title, but at least it’s in good company. (Looking at you, Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max.) Getting some Pro Air The Chinese handset was revealed in China, and it’s the latest in a series of slim phones from global brands. The difference? Honor seems to have gone harder on the specs than its competitors have, with heftier camera hardware being the main drawcard. Despite only being scheduled for a full reveal on 19…

Meta’s drive into the metaverse — you know, the whole reason for the company’s rebranding — is skidding to a halt. Following reports that the Facebook and Instagram owner would be laying off staff, the company has begun… laying off staff. Affected are employees at Reality Labs, the division responsible for AR, VR, and metaverse experiences, as well as three different VR studios under Meta’s aegis. Well, studios Armature, Sanzaru, and Twisted Pixel used to be under the company’s umbrella. Not anymore. Meta’s dose of Reality (Labs) The transition away from the much-lauded ‘metaverse’ toward something more tangible has been…

Calling all couch potato rock gods in training — Samsung and Fender have announced plans to bring Fender Play, the music training app that’s supposed to teach you how to wield an axe properly, to the South Korean tech maker’s TV sets in 2026. The app also works on most smartphones, as long as they run Android or iOS, and can even be accessed via a web browser. But when you’re ass-deep in your comfy couch and your (preferably Fender) guitar and the TV remote are within reach, but your phone or laptop isn’t… this’ll serve to give your fingers…

Chinese brand Dreame is set on diversifying as quickly as possible. First, it was robot vacuums, then power banks, then hypercars(?)… now there’s Dreame’s 8K Leaptic Cube action camera to look out for. And it’s not just the action cam, either. The company has also announced two wearables, its AI Glasses and an AI Ring, that, in conjunction with the 8K camera, “[redefine] the very essence of ‘recording.” Their words, not ours. Look before you Leaptic The Leaptic Cube consists of a main control unit with a display and controls (and, likely, much of the innards), and a detachable 8K…

Everybody wants a slice of the fresh AI pie, and Asus is offering regular folks the chance to run their own AIs locally. Probably businesses, first and foremost, but there’s bound to be a few units of its new “USB edge AI accelerator” kicking around nerds’ homes soon. Asus on TOPS again The full name for this handy little AI gadget is the Asus UGen300 USB AI Accelerator. It’s designed to plug into a computer and ramp up its artificial intelligence capabilities, augmenting existing processor-based NPUs with an extra 40 TOPS (trillion operations per second). The UGen300 doesn’t look like…

Motorola’s revamped Razr, which recently became available in South Africa, will soon be joined by the Razr Fold, the first of the company’s book-style folding smartphones. The handset appeared at CES and is set for launch later this year, but all the details are already known. It seems Samsung has competition on its hands in 2026. We can make guesses as to how the South Korean company will handle the new threat, but several successive generations of Galaxy Fold suggest that Samsung probably won’t be too stressed. Even if it has largely made the same phone for the past couple…

One of the largest concerns with creating functional AI is powering the data centres. Meta and others are looking to nuclear energy to realise their ambitions, with the social media giant announcing new partnerships that will see the companies creating up to 6.6GW of power from various nuclear projects over the next ten years. According to the company, its new partnerships will “extend and expand the operation of three nuclear power plants, boost the development of new advanced nuclear technology, and foster job growth” in the US. The upshot is that its AI will have enough power to get around…

Fitness app Strava has, just in time for New Year’s resolution time, come out with a shiny new feature for its users. The company might be counting on that tendency to scoop up some extra revenue because the feature, Instant Workouts, is tucked away behind a monthly subscription. If you’re already a paying user — and many of Strava’s user base are — that’s not much of a problem. But if you’re trying to skate by on the free tier, you’ll have to shell out at least R90/m to access the new automatic workouts. Strava to be your best The…

Asus’ Zenbook Duo lineup has languished over the past couple of years, but that’s about to change. The company announced a new version of its fully double-screened notebook for launch later in 2026. The good news for fans of the somewhat unusual? South Africa will get a crack at it, too. Exactly when and how much it’ll cost is up in the air, but it should be here before the middle of the year. The last time we saw one like this was in 2024, when the hardware was priced at R43,000. We can probably expect similar levels of cost…