Author: Brett Venter

Canon’s done one, Nikon’s done one, now it’s Fujifilm’s turn. The Japanese camera brand is bringing its new GFX Eterna 55 filmmaking camera to market, with one of its landing locations situated in South Africa. Unlike Canon’s EOS C50, which favours a compact design, Fuji’s newest accessory for amateur auteurs looks like it means business. That’s because it’s not strictly for amateurs, having been designed with professional filmmaking in mind. The company will still sell it to newbies and TikTok wannabes, because a sale is a sale, but the new GFX 102MP CMOS II HS image sensor almost demands some…

Electronic pets are surprisingly popular and not just because they can’t be killed (only stunned) by neglect. Casio’s Moflin, previously launched in Japan and now coming to other regions around the world, hopes to impress owners (or horrify them) by developing its personality from scratch until it achieves “a one-of-a-kind emotional bond with [its] owner.” It’ll do this via the mundane magic of artificial intelligence, which is supposed to help “express Moflin’s emotions in real time, creating authentic and evolving interactions.” It’s not immediately clear whether it’ll evolve unique movements to accompany its verbal responses, but that would be kinda…

Space travel isn’t just about controlling a massive explosion until gravity stops caring. There’s usually a ton of scientific and technological development going on, too. NASA’s AVATAR program, announced for the manned Artemis II mission set for April next year, is one such development. Organ chips are involved. For once, this isn’t exactly what it sounds like. Instead of dried slivers of kidney and liver in a crinkly silver-interiored packet, AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response) will take living samples of human cells into space to “study the effects of deep space stressors, including increased radiation and microgravity.” It…

If you’ve successfully avoided installing Microsoft’s 365 Copilot app on your Windows computer thus far, your window of peace and serenity is rapidly closing. Unless you’re a member of the EEA (European Economic Area), in which case you’re safe from having Copilot thrust upon you for a while longer. Everyone else can expect to have the company’s AI app installed on their machines, provided they’re running Microsoft’s 365 desktop client apps on their machines. According to the company, from October this year, it will “begin automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows devices that have Microsoft 365 desktop…

It appears that Meta’s ‘Hypernova’ announcement, slated for later this week at its Connect conference, is the company’s new Ray-Ban Display glasses. How do we know this? Meta accidentally published a brief video to its YouTube channel that revealed the glasses. The social media company corrected its mistake as quickly as it could, but the folks at UploadVR still managed to get a look at the new glasses. The visual design is fully on display, revealing a set of eyewear that doesn’t look terribly different from the regular stuff partner company EssilorLuxottica makes. What a Ray-Ban Display The Ray-Ban Wayfarer…

LG never really abandoned the best feature of its smartphone lineup – audio. The new Xboom Buds Plus and Buds Lite are the newest audio products from the South Korean company, aiming to spread the sonic love between premium and casual listeners alike. The announcement follows the launch earlier this year of the LG Xboom Buds, the ‘stock’ version of the new in-ears. It’s just a pity that, despite carrying a range of Xboom audio gear, LG hasn’t made these available locally yet. We can probably expect a similar wait for the new stuff. Buds Plus benefits The naming convention…

If you’re all about that bass, the work being done at the University of Tsukuba in Japan that turns your stomach into a subwoofer could be what you need in your life. Yes, you read that correctly, and no, it’s not a joke. Japanese researchers are working on a way to turn your abs into a bass-producing machine. One of the features pitched about the tech is that it’s silent, since it combines “electrical muscle stimulation with low-frequency vibrations” to let users “physically feel deep bass in virtual reality (VR) and everyday music.” The neighbours will probably appreciate your subwoofer…

If you were ever caught by the 1980s allure of the Ferrari Testarossa, prominently featured in Miami Vice and Sega’s OutRun arcade racer, the launch of the Italian brand’s new plug-in hybrid version might be enough to reignite that passion. You’ll still never afford one, but at least it’ll be a modern vehicle that’s out of your price range. That’s somewhat easier to reconcile yourself to. But, if you do happen to have a spare R10 million just wasting away in a trust fund, Ferrari might sell you a shiny new 849 Testarossa. Surprise Testarossa Ferrari’s newest uses a main…

Microsoft’s Xbox and LG’s PlayWare car software solution are teaming up to bring the former company’s cloud gaming features to “select vehicles.” According to Xbox, soon “passengers in internet-connected vehicles will be able to stream and play games directly from the Xbox app.” The vehicles capable of performing the task are not yet known, but they’ll support LG’s Automotive Content Platform, which is powered by webOS—the same software that runs LG’s TVs. The solution, appropriately known as PlayWare, offers “a broad array of high-quality and diverse global and regional content, including video streaming, music, gaming, and location-based services.” You’re going…

As businesses from restaurants to the smoking industry are aware, the key to building customer bases is to get them while they’re young. With that in mind, Google has just announced its new AI Literacy hub, a place to keep the company’s “latest AI resources and learning tools for parents and guardians, students and educators.” The website’s launch follows several injections of AI into Google’s products across most of its platforms. It’s not quite barging into primary schools like a Scientologist with a monthly quota, at least. Most of the resources are intended for parents, teachers, and high-school students. Google…