Author: Brett Venter

Do Hyperice and Theragun have competition from Xiaomi’s Massage Gun 2 percussion massager? That really depends. If you’re an athlete? Not really. If you’re just a regular person, though, opting for the Chinese brand’s massage gun makes a lot of sense. Part of this is the price. The Xiaomi Massage Gun 2 has a recommended retail price of R1,900, but you can grab it for closer to R1,780 if you poke around a bit. For your money, you’re getting a competent massager with enough attachments to keep your tired body going beyond its limits. Hammer time There are only a…

If your main complaint about wearable tech is that it’s too bulky, there’s a new crowdfunded project just for you. The Lumia 2 claims to be the world’s smallest wearable. Since it fits inside a pair of earrings, the company behind it might be right. Given the product design (and all of the promotional images), the Lumia 2 is aimed predominantly at female users. The earrings can be worn with pierced ears, but there’s also an attachment that’ll stick the sensor onto one’s ears, the same way clip-on headphone buds function. Lumia 2, too?  The Lumia 2 ships, depending on…

The future was always supposed to include flying cars. Joby, one of the companies trying to make this happen, has begun live testing in New York City. The program will run over ten days, but it’s not for average citizens yet. The company’s trial is more of a tech demo, showing off how Joby can “connect the region, linking vertiports, international airports, and communities” in NYC in particular. It’s all come a long way since NASA was helping the company to test flight capability. Good Joby, guys Joby’s first flight in the test, and the one they’re bragging about, travelled…

Huawei is set to announce its next global product launch at an event in May, according to a teaser the company posted on X. The tagline for the event is ‘Now is your spark,’ which could mean almost anything on its own. But given that the AI-generated teaser video (embedded below) involves cute pandas, elephants, wristwear, and tablets, we’ve got a fair idea of what to expect. For everything else, there’s industry rumour to fall back on. The folks over at Notebookcheck reckon that the Chinese brand has six or more devices in the offing. Based on the brief teaser,…

Unitree’s G1 and H2 humanoid robots have put on impressive shows of late, but you’re far more likely to buy the company’s R1. At least initially. It’s not like they’re hard to find, but interested buyers might have it even easier in future. The Chinese company is supposedly set to list its R1 humanoid on AliExpress, initially for sale in China. It’ll later appear in other markets, including the US and Europe. There’s a decent chance it’ll tempt local buyers as well. But… the exact timing of the listing isn’t clear. Unitree’s roots spread Earlier this month, the South China…

Will the world ever benefit from solar energy beamed to the ground from space? Several companies (and some academics) believe this is possible. The latest company to try, and one that just signed a contract with Meta for space-based solar power, is an entity called Overview Energy. Unlike Reflect Orbital, which has ambition but seemingly little sense, Overview Energy is explicit in its goals. The company plans to stick a constellation of 1,000 satellites into geostationary orbit to “convert energy from the sun into safe, near-infrared light, and deliver it when and where it’s needed on Earth.” Solar energy, Overview?…

Once upon a time, Samsung was going to release Ballie, a little robot that followed you around your home. That critter isn’t happening soon, but the EBO Max hopes to fill that little round hole in your heart. You know, the one that’s also got a camera on top of it? The EBO Max is the creation of a company called Enabot, which is pitching this little guy as a “familybot”. It’s got more in common with a robot vacuum cleaner, but it could have some utility when it comes to monitoring your pets or checking on people who have…

You want the UGV Beast. It’s useless to even pretend that you’re not interested in your own little camera-toting tracked drone. The fact that Waveshare’s expensive little project involves a lot of self-assembly just makes it more attractive. We ran across WaveShare a little while back, with the company advertising a slightly different Raspberry Pi-based device. The PocketTerm35 is cool, sure, but does it have tank treads? The UGV Beast is undeniably cooler, but there’s also the older UGV Rover from the same company if you have specific… needs. UGV Beast of a project The setup from WaveShare comes with…

The Boox range of ereaders has a lot of wild and wonderful designs, from straight-up readers to… smartphones? The company’s new Boox Leaf5+ is more of a pure reading device, with a design that isn’t far off from the Kindle Oasis. The Oasis is (or was) perhaps the best reader Amazon ever launched. It was also one of the most expensive, but there was a reason for that. The Leaf5+ sports a very similar form factor, which lends itself well to ambidextrous reading. Oasis of Boox Onyx, the company that makes these devices, posted about the Leaf5+ on Weibo. The…

Honor is launching a new pair of headphones in its native China. That’s the reason you haven’t heard of the Choice Codeler Headphones, let alone the newly announced Choice Codeler Headphones 2. Still, given what the company is building into these, we hope to see them here sooner rather than later. The biggest drawcard, which gets even more impressive once you see the features of the Choice 2 over-ears, is the projected price. They would sell, locally, somewhere around the R1,000 to R1,500 mark. How good could these cans really be? Codeler of Honor The Choice Codeler Headphones 2 overs…