Author: Brett Venter

Imagine being able to get together with your co-workers, share what you’re working on in real time, see and hear each other, without being in the same room or even the same city. That’s called a Zoom meeting. Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms, a newly revealed attempt by the social network to use its Oculus VR division for something other than eNtErTaInMeNt, is very much a similar concept. Only you need a Facebook-made VR headset to play. Horizon Workrooms: Zero Dawn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgj50IxRrKQ&feature=emb_logo Okay, so we’re dumping on this new idea because it’s Facebook and they’re big enough to look after themselves. Horizon…

It’s a pretty scary time if you’re a resident of Afghanistan. The ongoing Taliban takeover of the country as America’s armed forces leave has created issues for many, including social media companies like Facebook, but there are at least a few that the company can solve. One of those is user privacy. In a country controlled by the Taliban, having the wrong information about yourself publicly available could potentially prove rather hazardous, which is why the social network has launched a new tool in that region. Facebook finally does something that protects privacy https://twitter.com/ngleicher/status/1428474006609399811 Facebook’s head of Security Policy, Nathaniel…

There are two games that more or less defined shooters back when the only place you could play them was the PC — Doom and Quake. Now Doom has been back in the public eye for some time, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen any life from iD Software’s iconic shooter. Quake-ing in our boots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi-bdUd9J3E This post wouldn’t exist unless there were the words ‘…until now’ to add to that last statement. The 25-year-old game (yes, you really are that old) has hit all of the platforms you could possibly want, at a fairly decent price. The…

Vaccine misinformation is a problem that Facebook has had to tackle for months now. It hasn’t helped that reports have turned up claiming that just twelve accounts are responsible for almost two-thirds of misinformation online at the moment. The social network disputes this view but said in its most recent update on the state of viral misinformation on its platform that it has “…removed over three dozen Pages, groups and Facebook or Instagram accounts linked to these 12 people, including at least one linked to each of the 12 people, for violating our policies.” Facebook does some vaccinating of its…

Earbuds are becoming a much more common sight, which is leading to a slight revolution in terms of hearing aids — companies are making in-ear buds that look like the headphones we all wanna wear, but are also building assistive technologies into them. Case in point, the new Jabra Enhance Plus earbuds, which are designed to give those with up to moderate hearing loss a little boost. Enhance Plus other things The name comes from the fact that they a) enhance your hearing and b) do the stuff you’d expect from a set of earbuds, like play music and connect…

You know how sometimes you can leave one career for a new one and suddenly flourish because you’re doing something you’re interested in? That seems to be what’s happening to South Korean tech-maker LG, which claims to have demonstrated 6G wireless transmission using the terahertz (THz) spectrum in Berlin. Hey LG, that doesn’t terahertz as much as we thought it would Besides opting to invest in making screens for those pocketable devices it no longer makes, LG has put some of its effort into developing 6G technology. Never mind the fact that most of us don’t really have 5G yet,…

In-person events are back. Mobile World Congress did it and the Consumer Electronics Show is going to do it too. But CES 2022 has a new requirement that we haven’t really seen anyone pushing as yet — you’ll have to provide proof of vaccination if you’re planning to attend. A stab at CES 2022 The head of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Gary Shapiro said in a statement that “We all play a part in ending the pandemic through encouraging vaccinations and implementing the right safety protocols. We are taking on our responsibility by requiring proof of vaccination to attend…

All things must come to an end, it seems. Banking firm and debt-creator Mastercard has announced that it intends to phase out the magnetic strips you’ve seen on your bank card ever since you had a bank card. This means no more swiping your card when that blasted RFID chip is malfunctioning for no particular reason this week. No more swiping your Mastercard The magnetic strip (which the company called a ‘magnetic stripe’ — tomayto, tomahto) is going away from 2024, which is when the company will roll out strip-less cards first. If you’re particularly attached to your easily damaged…

There’s a moment, right at the beginning of Boston Dynamics’ most recent demo video for Atlas, its humanoid robot, where you know that you should be freaking out about how this mechanical thing is moving. It crops up again and again, whenever you realise that this robot is jumping, flipping and balancing better, unassisted, than you’ve ever seen a robot perform before. But by the time you get to the end of the video, all that’s left is admiration. Admiration for Atlas’ performance — because it sure has come a long way — but also for the team behind its…

If at first you don’t succeed, object to the process. If that doesn’t work, offer to pay to be allowed in. If that doesn’t work, go to court about it. That seems to be the battle plan Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is following in its attempt to secure the NASA Artemis lunar lander contract (the HLS, or Human Landing System) the agency awarded to SpaceX earlier this year. Someone told Jeff Bezos ‘no’ Which, yes, does mean that Blue Origin has taken its objections to Elon Musk’s SpaceX being awarded the lunar lander contract to the courtroom. A suit was…