Author: Brett Venter

Right, so Microsoft is keen (for a given value of the word ‘keen’) and the likes of Oracle is interested in TikTok, a company that currently has Trump problems. What is the most unlikely company to throw into this unusual stew? How about… Walmart? That makes perfect sense for 2020, doesn’t it? Particularly since, as the New York Times reports, Walmart is hoping to partner up with Microsoft in order to take control of the service for most of the Western world. The sum being thrown around for acquisition? Anywhere from $20 to $50 billion.  Welcome to Walmart The question…

The guitar is an instrument that has proved rather hard to innovate. Most changes have to do with its bodily composition — whether it’s cardboard or carbon fiber — or by changing the way that it transmits sounds. It’s rare to find a new way to play something that has been around for hundreds of years — but that’s what the Circle Guitar has gone and done. Going full Circle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dtrvc6gOc4&feature=emb_logo And that’s because the Circle Guitar, the invention of Anthony Dickens (as well as engineers Jacob Boast, Luke Perkin and Marie Tricaud), offers players a whole new way to…

Usually when we’re talking about wearable tech, we mean wristbands, shoes, occasionally a jacket. It’s almost never a mask (okay, there was that one time) but today… today we’re talking about masks. Only this mask is made by LG and contains an air purifier for wearing on your phiz. Face. Whatever. A different kind of selfie filter LG’s PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier, to give it its full title, incorporates two H13 HEPA filters. That’s the same filter standard used in LG’s air purifiers. There’s a dual fan system in there, along with something LG cooked up for this product –…

Before you can run, you have to walk. It’s possible to jump straight behind the wheel of a supercar when you turn 16 but if you haven’t spent time in a VW Polo first, you’re probably just going to break it. That’s the idea behind Fitbit’s Inspire 2, which is designed to get first-time fitness fanatics moving without being overwhelming. Ordering a starter The Inspire 2 is the least elegant of Fitbit’s designs, making for a chunkier presence on the wrist. Which isn’t all that surprising, as it’s primarily a fitness tracker rather than a smartwatch. That thinner profile isn’t…

One thing that remains popular online is other people ripping apart new tech to see how it works. Sometimes it’s to see what internals there are, other times it’s a grab for clicks as the latest and greatest devices are chucked in a blender, off a roof or set on fire. This time, happily, we’re just taking a look inside Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. This one’s hot The folks over at iFixit have a tendency to take new smartphones, pull them apart and see what makes them tick. Understandable, since the company tried to make repairing your tech that…

Life has become a whole lot more stressful than it used to be — and life before 2020 wasn’t exactly a relaxed time. Fitbit’s newly-unveiled Sense smartwatch couldn’t have come at a better time — the company’s jammed everything it can into this wrist-borne tracker, including the ability to keep tabs on your stress levels. We might wind up going through a few of these in the coming months. In addition to being a smartwatch (yeah, it does all the usual smartwatch-y things), the Fitbit Sense is the most feature-laden wearable from the company. Stress-tracking, while the big new feature,…

So you’re not in the market for a wearable that’ll give you answers to the question: “How stressed are you?” That’s okay, sometimes the stress doesn’t like it when you shine a light on it. (You still should, though). For something a little less technologically-detailed but still pretty damned technical, Fitbit has also revealed the third full device in its Versa lineup. This is the Fitbit Versa 3. Versa versus Versa Which, as wearables go, doesn’t have a whole lot different going on compared to the Fitbit Versa 2. The look is generally similar and the major talking points are…

It’s been a long time in coming but finally… finally, Razer’s notebooks have made it to South Africa. We’ve had access to the company’s peripherals in the shape of keyboards, mice, speakers and headsets for ages but that computer hardware… that just hasn’t been easy to get. Until now. The Razer’s edge Razer, via local distributor Apex Interactive, enters the South African market in the next few weeks. You can pre-order your machine already but expect them to turn up in the country from around 4 September. That’s… not far away. With the current launch, no matter which of the…

Maybe you got your paperwork done in time, maybe you didn’t, but that doesn’t really matter now. The AlphaDogFight trial, which saw several AI ‘agents’ — software pilots designed to take on aircraft in combat — battle it out for aerial supremacy, has concluded. And, since you probably read the headline before you got this far, you already know that the AI system won. Flight of the Heron There were several agents in contention for the privilege of taking on a lone, anonymous Air Force pilot but the eventual winner was a defence contractor called Heron Systems whose agent took…

It’s a good time to go outdoors. (Terms and conditions apply) We’re all about tech in all of the various aspects of life but some of those aspects are more obvious than others. Kitchen tech? Sure. Lounge? Of course. Car. Obviously. Garden? Yeah, that one’s often overlooked. Until now, that is. It’s almost spring, the sun’s on its way back, that dastardly winter is retreating into the distance — it’s time to plant some things. But using technology, because we’ve come a long way when it comes to garden work. Whether it’s lawns that mow themselves (okay, robots are involved),…