Author: Brett Venter

Apple gave the Apple Watch the ability to give its users an Electrocardiogram, or ECG, back in 2018. That was a great idea, since knowing what your heart’s up to is key to living longer. And almost all of us want to live longer. So it was only a matter of time before Samsung followed suit on the feature. Coming soon (but not here) Samsung’s first watch to feature built-in ECG is the Galaxy Watch Active2, a piece of kit you might already own. But yours… can’t check to see whether you have atrial fibrillation (AFib). It’s probably got the…

Just before South Africa’s lockdown kicked off, we started up a giveaway for an Epson Ecotank L5190 printer. We’ve been sitting on the winner’s details because, well… nobody’s been allowed to go out and deliver it to our lucky winner. That’s all changed now. Many of us’ll be working from home for a while longer, so an addition like the Epson L5190 is bound to be a welcome one. Unfortunately we only have one to give away — which is a pity because it’s an excellent piece of office hardware. Everyone should have one. Because of this giveaway, one person…

Butts are amazing things. You can sit on them, obviously, but we’ve also made them fly, we’ve used artificial ones to test out smartphones, and we’ve even seen car companies test out car seats using robotic butts. Now they can do at least one more thing (that we’re allowed to write about) — they can start cars. In a manner of speaking. Get on your butt and do something You might be familiar with the Polestar 1, the electric vehicle spun off from Volvo’s productions lines. It’s one heck of a vehicle, even though we’ve yet to see it on…

You know how DC and Warner Bros. have been trying to fight the entertainment juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe? And how it was trying to follow suit with grim, broody movies that were nonetheless interconnected? Remember how that worked out for them? 2017’s Justice League was supposed to be DC’s version of The Avengers, the first Marvel film to tie up the threads of the previous MCU films all neat and tidy(ish). Only that didn’t work out so well. What should have been a three-hour film was pared down to two, and the change in director from Zack…

Twitter’s gone and done something else (again) instead of giving us all the Edit button we so desperately want (and probably shouldn’t ever get). The social media service is testing the ability to choose who can reply to a tweet. Any tweet. A few minutes of thought should make it clear that this is a terrible idea. The ability to limit replies in your tweets will effectively put a stop to getting ratioed. That’s… not a good thing. If you’re being ratioed, you probably screwed up pretty bad. Building a better bubble https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1263145271946551300 The test is currently running but with…

When the world went into lockdown (with a few notable exceptions — looking at you, Sweden) tech events were cancelled left and right. They’re still being cancelled, as a matter of fact, but there are also signs of recovery. Like Samsung’s newly-detailed launch event for the upcoming (and inevitable) Galaxy Note 20, which takes place this August. Unpacked online Samsung usually goes all-out for its twice-annual Unpacked events. It tends to be a lavish, well-organised global event which is… very hard to pull off. This year, though, the event has to contend with the likes of COVID-19 and social distancing.…

Apple’s long been rumoured to be working on something in the VR/AR space, and it’s not like its smartphones haven’t been building that functionality in for the last few iterations. Still, the tight-lipped company may have sprung a huge leak as details of the so-called Apple Glass are all over the internet. Better than Google? Seriously, all the details seem to be out in the open. Pricing, availability, how it’ll work, what it’ll look like…. everything. The glasses are designed for AR but seem to be a more elegant, or at least consumer-friendly design, than Google’s ill-fated Glass headset was.…

Facebook Shops is a new aspect of both Facebook and Instagram that’ll give every small business that wants it something that it really needs — its own store.  

Samsung’s had a thing for massive megapixel counts in its ISOCELL sensors of late, even if the results are sometimes a little… overzealously promoted. First, there was a 64MP sensor, then Samsung jumped to that giant 108MP effort. The next takes a step back, but it’s got a few extra features in it, so that’s all right. Two-in-one Samsung’s new 50MP ISOCELL GN1 camera sensor is the sort of thing you’ll find in its upper-midrange devices, by the look of it. It combines the South Korean company’s Dual Pixel and Tetracell tech into the same sensor for the first time,…

Are you still using your Samsung Gear VR? If you are, you may want to make the most of it. The South Korean company discontinued the Gear VR as a hardware platform in 2019, and has just announced that it’ll be winding down the software side of things as well. As such Samsung’s XR service, which handles all things VR for the now-defunct hardware, is being shut down. Dead in the water If you’ve been using the Gear VR in conjunction with Samsung XR, you’ll notice a few things right off the bat. 360° video uploads are gone, as is…