Author: Brett Venter

Samsung makes some really excellent phones. We’ve long been convinced on that score, but occasionally the company… is less impressive. Currently, the South Korean tech maker’s newer Galaxy smartphones are under scrutiny. How come? They’re apparently artificially limiting the performance of up to 10,000 apps. Which, based on all available indications, seems to be happening. Korean Samsung users discovered that a bunch of apps are being scooped into another app called Game Optimising Service. This undeletable app limits the performance of more apps than it is supposed to. And, if it’s on your phone, you’re likely affected too. Samsung got…

You have to be both deaf and blind to be unaware that there’s an ongoing Russia-Ukraine situation. It’s touching lives as far away as here in South Africa. Our recent petrol price increase? Yeah, that can be laid at least partly at the door of ongoing events in Eastern Europe. But the broader tech world isn’t exempt either. Major companies have already announced what their responses to Russia’s actions will be. A few new heavy hitters have followed suit. Netflix, PayPal, and Spotify have all taken action against Russia in one way or another. Mostly, this involves halting doing business…

We’ve been expecting it, now it’s official. Apple has set a time and date for its first event of the year. “Peek Performance” is the name of the game, because the company’s pun writers never miss an opportunity. When can we expect to get a peek at this? 8 March, at 20:00 South African Standard Time. Peek Apple What can we expect to find at Apple’s event? That’s less certain than usual because the company’s being more obtuse than expected. But it’s a strong bet that there’s a new iPhone SE on the way. There’s also, according to Bloomberg’s Mark…

Still using a Fitbit Ionic? It isn’t super likely that you’re still using a fitness tracker that launched in 2017 and left production in 2020. Or perhaps not. Maybe you look after your stuff. But if the Ionic still forms part of your fitness arsenal, you should know that they’re being recalled. Why? Well, the same reason basically any tech is recalled in this day and age. Battery issues. Some of the trackers are overheating. That’s a bad thing to have in something that lives next to your skin. So Fitbit has issued a recall. Yes, for all of them…

It’s amazing the sorts of things you can find on planetary surfaces humans haven’t spent very much time. Or have they? Nah, there’s no evidence of intelligent life on Mars and the Moon. Heck, there’s barely evidence of intelligent life on Earth. But, like our blue-and-green planet, there are a few strange things to be found. Thanks to space travel, the internet, and cameras, we even get to take a look at some of it. NASA and China’s own CNSA have both located some oddities — Mars plays host to a flower (of sorts), while someone’s been dropping marbles on…

How do you make the purchase and/or sale of a non-fungible token (NFT) even more insufferable than it already is? Simple. You do what every tech field that’s run out of ideas does. Stick it in a vending machine. There are many useful items to be found inside vending machines. There are also some less wholesome, perhaps even lewd, items inside some, but we don’t talk about those. Mostly, vending machines are a repository for snacks that definitely don’t count towards your caloric limit for the day. Provided nobody sees you using the machine, that is. But how does an…

Space exploration, if Star Trek is to be believed, is all about bringing people together. And occasionally phasering Romulans, but we haven’t seen any of those in ages. Indeed, the ExoMars mission hoped to bring different countries together, so they could collectively destroy Martian landers. But the fate of ExoMars is now in doubt. Why? Well, we shouldn’t have to point too hard at what’s happening over in Ukraine. ExoMars is a joint mission between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, the Russian equivalent of NASA. Things… aren’t going well there right now. Invasion blocks ExoMars It turns out, it’s…

Huawei has a new wearable landing in the South African market, effective… immediately. The company has announced that its new Watch GT 3 is now available, in SA stores and from Huawei’s online shop. The successor to the Watch GT 2, which launched in SA in 2019, aims to bring its range of wrist-borne smarts to more people than ever. That’s because there are three distinct versions of the smartwatch, plus a Watch 3 Runner edition to look out for. The starting price? R5,000 — which is one par with the GT 2’s R5,000 launch price. Huawei supposed to resist?…

There are a few obstacles when it comes to using solar power. The first requirement is sunlight, which South Africa has in abundance. The second is money, which South Africa has to… borrow from someone else. This might be why the newest solar power plant in the country was made by Amazon. Because they have all the money. The online retailer, and supplier of hosting services to many, has completed a 10MW solar power plant in the Northern Cape. Amazon expects the facility to generate some 28,000 MWh (megawatt-hours) of power a year. Enough, the company says, to power some…

It’s reassuring to know that a $10 billion (R154 billion) space telescope like James Webb shares DNA with terrestrial telescopes. If you stop paying attention to the challenges, what’s currently happening out LaGrange Point 2 isn’t all that different from sticking a laser collimator into a 10in Dobsonian. Besides the fact that NASA’s using eighteen mirrors at once and is operating the ‘scope remotely from a distance of 1.5 million km. Other than that, it’s totally the same. It puts having to readjust a rear mirror in the cold while wearing gloves into perspective. James Webb focuses on the job…