Author: Brett Venter

The last time Donald Trump was in office, Huawei had a… rather unpleasant time. Samsung is reportedly preparing to sidestep any difficulties that arise as a result of the incoming American president’s Chinese tariff policies by changing the way its foldable phones are made. The report, by way of The Elec, claims that Samsung is making design changes to its range of foldable smartphones. This will reduce the amount of titanium, a product largely imported from China, contained in the devices. Samsung’s glass cannon Samsung is considering changing the backplane, an internal structure separating a folding smartphone’s screen and hinge,…

Meta, the company behind those ‘essential’ social networks Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is reportedly considering a massive new internet cable. The idea is to sidestep issues caused by relying on existing infrastructure, which is sometimes laid in volatile areas. The vast majority of Meta’s business rests on the back of internet access so it’s not surprising that it’s considering taking this step. Lost internet access is lost revenue for companies like Meta, no matter what various marketing departments would have you believe about their motives. The main question is: can the company pull it off? Meta-phorically speaking First spotted by…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has received a new contract to perform a task it hasn’t yet successfully managed. It’s done something similar(ish), but that doesn’t make this any less remarkable. The launch company has been awarded a NASA services contract to ship Dragonfly to its destination. SpaceX has been contracted to provide launch services for NASA’s Dragonfly mission. Dragonfly, if you’ve been paying attention, is a nuclear-powered lander planned for a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan sometime after 2028. The company will provide the launch platform — specifically a Falcon Heavy rocket — that will take the novel craft to its…

Huawei has released details of many upcoming products in the past few days. Joining the Mate 70 is a new version of Huawei’s Watch Ultimate Design Edition, a smartwatch that borrows a few tips from high-end horology purveyors. Those tips are almost universally from the ‘design’ side of the flashy name, resulting in a smartwatch that looks like it belongs in a watchmaker’s catalogue and not on a Chinese website. We’re awfully glad it appears on the latter, though, since there’s a chance we’ll get hold of it at some point. Intelligent Ultimate Design Okay, perhaps it’ll be as inaccessible…

It’s a good time to be Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi. Market research firm Canalys has issued its latest report on the African smartphone market and the Chinese company has increased its share of the smartphone market on the continent overall. That puts Xiaomi in third place. That might not be unexpected from a South African perspective, which tends to rank Samsung and Apple ahead of the Chinese contender but Apple, as a company, isn’t represented on the podium in Africa as a whole. African tastes When all of Africa’s countries are considered, Apple doesn’t rank in the top five for…

Leonardo da Vinci is a man of many talents. He created plans for objects that could only be built in the twentieth century (he died in 1519). He had a ninja turtle named after him. And he’s been immortalised in Lego. More than once, now. Lego is preparing a more technical rendition of one of da Vinci’s works. You can grab a version of the Mona Lisa that looks suspiciously like British comedian Jimmy Carr right now for R1,900 but if you wait a few weeks, you can get something a little more practical — Leo’s flying machine. Lego my…

South Africans will have fond memories of Huawei’s premium Mate lineup. The opportunity to make more memories should arise soon since the Chinese brand has unveiled its new Mate 70 handset. The announcement was made at an event in Shenzhen by Huawei Consumer Business Group Richard Yu, who claimed that this handset is “the most powerful Mate phone ever”. He wasn’t referring to all four models unveiled, of that we’re fairly certain. That accolade possibly belongs to the Huawei Mate 70 Ultimate Design. My new Mate 70 It could also belong to the Pro or Pro+ models announced alongside the…

If you’ve been paying attention to Huawei’s moves over the past few years, you’ll know that the Chinese brand has been distancing itself from former partners. This wasn’t the company’s first choice but it eventually led to the creation of Harmony OS. Huawei has revealed its ambitions for the operating system. In a bid for greater independence from… well, everyone, the company intends to expand the number of supported apps on Harmony OS. Huawei gonna do it? Presently there are some 15,000 apps available on Harmony OS. The company hopes to support several times that number before the end of…

Logistics is big business, and nobody knows that better than Amazon. But like everything else, you eventually run out of ways to increase efficiency. When that happens, you hit a wall but there are ways to stave off the impact. The retail giant is reported to be working on a way to make its deliveries just that much faster. How? Smart glasses are supposedly the answer, according to a report by Reuters. Delivery drivers will wear these and, in theory, speed up deliveries in the one place where a computer isn’t already involved. Augmented Amazon The project’s existence was confirmed…

You didn’t think consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation would escape the artificial intelligence assimilation, did you? Actually, Sony’s console might remain pure for a bit longer than Microsoft’s gaming hardware. The American company has gone all-in on AI and that involves cramming the technology into everything. The Xbox’s first encounter with the ‘future’ is a new AI-powered chatbot that will handle the platform’s tech support queries. Yup. That’s it. Except it’ll have a personality. So… totally unlike all those humans who used to handle the function for Microsoft. Xbox of tricks The Support Virtual Agent, as Microsoft is calling…