Author: Brett Venter

You might have a good job, but it’s probably never gonna be as cool as Ken Block’s 9-to-5. Or whatever his hours are. This rally driver has done pretty much everything, but generally, he gets given custom cars and hoons around in them. For money. The latest comes by way of Audi, who are making him a completely custom EV. The vehicle is called the Audi S1 Hoonitron, because what else were they going to call it? It’s based on the company’s iconic Sport Quattro S1 rally car, an inline five-cylinder that did interesting things in the 1980s. It’s also…

Korean automaker Hyundai’s robotic ambitions are transparent. Following its creation of spider-cars and purchase of Boston Dynamics, the company has revealed MobED. Which stands for Mobile Eccentric Droid. This is a little four-wheeled assistant that’ll do… well, all sorts of interesting things. But mostly it’ll follow you like the world’s most obedient dog, possibly carrying the world’s most disobedient dog to the vet. And MobED is coming to CES in Vegas next year. It’s a MobED scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BI8usSuo7I But since nobody ever likes to wait — and because Hyundai will take all the hype they can get — the company…

Somewhere at Samsung is a guy working on a pinboard with bits connected by string. He probably looks a little like Charlie Kelly from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and it’s his job to plan global smartphone domination. If Samsung’s Galaxy A52s 5G is any indication, our fictional Charlie is making himself redundant. The Galaxy A52s (we’re going to drop the ‘5G’ now) offers a considerable amount for its R9,000 asking price. Can other companies beat it in terms of value? Sure. Poco is one such brand. The problem is that you’ve never heard of them. Samsung has the bigger… package,…

Is there any way to make semiconductors any more efficient than they already are? IBM and Samsung seem to think so, and are out to prove it. A new technology called Vertical Transport Field Effect Transistors (VTFET) changes how chips are made, with interesting results. Conventional FinFET chips are made into… well, fins, with sections branching off around a central channel. This new development stacks transistors vertically, letting transistor density increase without increasing a chip’s footprint. IBM squints at the very tiny future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF3Zwfu6Ngc If the only result of this new manufacturing method was more transistors, it wouldn’t be that…

Huawei doesn’t know when to quit — which is probably a good thing. The Chinese tech-maker has a new smartphone on the way. And yes, it probably folds in half. The company has chosen a funny time for the official unveiling of its newest devices — 23 December this year. Which, yes, is traditionally devoid of competition from other companies. But there tends to be a reason for that, at least in the Western world. Huawei knows when to Fold ’em Still, Huawei’s issued an invitation via its Weibo page for the 23 December event. It’s the company’s “winter flagship…

The folks from Universal Music Group (UMG) seem convinced that the best way to get on board with the metaverse and NFTs is to combine the two. The group has announced a partnership with a company that builds avatars that incorporates NFTs. In a way that’ll make them (and potentially you, but probably not) more money, naturally. Universal has teamed up with a company called Genies, to make digital avatars (called Genies, of course) of UMG’s artists. For the metaverse. That thing that doesn’t really exist yet? Sure, makes perfect sense. Some things just aren’t Universal The plan is for…

Yesterday we saw LG crafting a different take on the functions offered by its Signature R OLED TVs. Today, there’s something altogether more practical to marvel over. Next year, LG intends to launch a TV called the StanbyME. If that sounds weird to you, you’d… actually, you’d be pretty spot on. LG obviously intends its StanbyME TV (yes, that’s its real name) to be the sort of screen lazy people fall in love with. It’s on a height-adjustable stand and its display angle can also be tweaked. If you’ve got a super-comfy position on the couch that doesn’t make for…

A certain type of person just loves to make things at home. That’s how 3D printing is expanding in popularity, and it’s also where companies like Dremel find a lot of sales. Well, that, and the fact that they make some incredible hobbyist tools. The newest bit of kit to issue forth from the American company is the Dremel 8260. The bland-sounding name conceals the fact that this rotary tool represents two firsts for the product lineup. Do it with a Dremel A rotary tool, if you’ve never used one before, attaches a series of different heads that all spin…

It’s really, really hard to get humans to live in space. The astronauts onboard the International Space Station are, technically, NASA guinea pigs who just happen to also conduct high-level scientific research. Soon they’ll get to test one more thing — a sleeping bag that sucks. ISS residents are prone to one very specific malady. The problem is, humans are made up of large quantities of fluid. Fluid floats in microgravity. And fluid can, quite literally, go to an astronaut’s head. Called spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS, this is when an astronaut’s eyeballs are squeezed by the fluids in their…

South Korea gets all of the cool toys first, and LG’s new OLED Evo TV is no exception. The tech-maker’s newest 65in OLED television is the latest attempt to make a TV more than just a rectangular picture box. Instead, the Evo TV is part of something LG calls its Object Collection. That is; a TV that’s supposed to be more like furniture than just a screen. You know, kinda like how Samsung’s Frame TVs are supposed to be all arty. Evolving the Evo TV Mostly, the LG OLED Evo TV Object Collection is the same as the standard Evo…