Author: Brett Venter

Huawei was always going to reveal a new folding smartphone, even though we haven’t actually seen its first draft in stores here in South Africa. And with the announcement of the new Mate Xs, it seems like the first falcon-wing folding phone is completely out of the question. Unless you’re an eBay collector-type. Beyond the Fold Huawei’s Mate Xs took more than a few shots at Samsung’s Galaxy Fold — with a few direct comparisons in spec in its presentation. Prime among those was the 8in foldable display, which now uses a multi-layer polymer screen — a material the company…

It may surprise you to hear this but not everyone — yes, including the people you like — tells the truth on Twitter. That’s fine if you’re the kinda guy with 26 followers and not a whole lot to say. But that guy with millions of followers? Many of ’em will believe that chap if he says the Earth is flat — based on little more than the fact that he has millions of Twitter followers. Twitter’s taken note of this phenomenon and is experimenting with marking false and misleading tweets by politicians and public figures with red and orange…

Maybe this deepfake video, by placing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the shoes of an alien overlord bent on enslaving (some of) humanity, is offering up some sort of social commentary. Or maybe it just looks cool having Bezos face off against Tesla/SpaceX head Elon Musk.

Your struggle for power doesn’t have to be a massive struggle. We’re all rocking electric devices and those devices make life easier when it comes to power outages. The trick is keeping those devices topped up when Eskom’s out — three hours of gaming on a Nintendo Switch will ding the battery pretty hard. There is an obvious answer, though: batteries.

Another day, another Apple rumour. This one, from Taiwan, claims that Apple’s got a new 12in iPad Pro waiting in the wings. It’s said to have a new three-lens 3D time-of-flight camera sensor, which would allow the tablet to pack far more of a photographic punch. You’d still look like a bit of a git taking photos with an iPad, though. Reveal date? According to Digitimes, its sources have said: “Apple is set to release its new 12-inch iPad Pro model featuring a rear-end three-lens ToF 3D sensor in the spring [that’s around March to all of us Southern Hemisphere…

Just because something can be used for evil doesn’t mean we should completely chuck it out the window. If we dismissed all deepfakes, we wouldn’t be so sure that what the world needs right now is a Back to the Future remake/sequel with MCU actors Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. 

In a world where streaming is making life as uncomfortable as possible for traditional TV suppliers (without the reintroduction of public flogging), you’d think that price increases would be a thing of the past. But inflation hasn’t gone away just because Netflix is in South Africa and it’s for that reason that Multichoice has announced price increases for its DStv packages. 

Space. The final frontier. The place where no-one can hear you scream.  And, apparently, the place you import the finest zoom from — at least, if you believe Samsung’s claims about its all-new flagship device, the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Yes, that S20 Ultra. It’s totally real. And, with the new handset, Samsung’s hoping to take some of the shine from Huawei’s camera hardware, using a little something the company calls Space Zoom. To Infinity! You see, the Ultra gets its title from the quad rear camera arrangement that uses Samsung’s newest, largest sensors. The main lens is a 108MP ISOCELL…

Samsung’s throwing as much power as they can at its smartphones this year, in the hopes that you’ll be convinced that a Galaxy flagship is all you’ll need for the rest of the year. Whether you’re actually convinced… well, that’s on you.

Looks aren't everything. That's quite the claim to make in a world where being famous on Instagram can make you loads of money -- which is fine 'cos you'll need the cash for spinal ops from holding all those odd (but photogenic) poses. But looks really don't matter. They're nice to have. But they don't