Author: Brett Venter

Flush with Bitcoin, even after you bought your Lambo? Swiss watch maker Hublot has a product just for you — a wristwatch that can only be bought using Bitcoin. Because cash is for poor people who don’t own an Italian supercar they can barely drive. The wristwatch is being issued in very limited amounts, in order to commemorate Bitcoin’s tenth anniversary. Yup, really. Called the Meca-10 P2P, a title we’d expect to see in an anime about oversized robots stomping on greater Japan, Hublot’s fancy wristwear would be out of reach of most people anyway. It’s estimated to cost about…

Warcraft 3: Reforged is an updated version of the RTS classic, coming 2019 Maybe you played it back in the day, maybe you weren't around back then, but before World of Warcraft there was just Warcraft 1 through 3, with the third game in the series representing the pinnacle of what could be done with

If you’re a Blizzard fan then you know that this past weekend was the company’s annual Blizzcon event, where any new announcements for the upcoming year (and beyond) are made — among other happenings. If you’re not that big of a fan, well… now you know. Whichever you are, one of the things announced at this year’s Blizzcon was Diablo Immortal, an unusual and very divisive title for the company. You see, Diablo Immortal is a mobile RPG — a stripped-back version of Diablo 3 (though with an all-new story) designed to run on a smartphone. The game is being developed…

Apple’s been in trouble in the past when it comes to batteries in their tech. Older model iPhones have seen their speeds and battery capacities limited by software updates since 2016, a function that Apple said was to avoid devices shutting down when they get older. But… Apple didn’t give anybody a choice concerning those updates, leading to the company having to replace batteries for some models of iPhone — free-of-charge for some users and at a cost for others (who no longer had a valid warrantee). Expect more of the same coming for now-aging iPhones, with the iPhone 8,…

It’s Friday afternoon (for the moment), you’re probably thinking about heading home for the weekend and work is the last thing on your mind. We’re not psychic but we can totally sympathise, which is why we’re going to give you something to do instead of your job. Elon Musk sat down with Re/Code’s Kara Swisher recently for an interview, which is now available as a podcast (pretty much everywhere podcasts are sold stored). The interview ranges all over the place, from Elon fighting with journalists to the year 2018 (which has been ‘fun’ so far, hasn’t it?), to more business-oriented…

South Africa played host to Africa’s very first Comic Con event earlier this year, which saw hordes of the excited and the curious descend on the Kyalami Convention Centre in Johannesburg to spend huge sums on money on all manner of geekery. It was… rather awesome. And now we’re going to get to do it all over again. Organisers Reed Exhibitions Africa and Reed POP have announced the dates for Comic Con Africa 2019, as well as a new venue — The Gallagher Convention Centre in Gallagher Estate, Johannesburg. A tentative date of 13 to 15 September was given for…

Ride-sharing service Uber is trying something a little different in a few American cities — it’s called Ride Pass, which is just what it sounds like. Unless you think it sounds like something that you do to get past slow drivers on the highway. No, Ride Pass is a monthly subscription that will give dedicated Uber users access to cheaper rates when getting around. Sounds pretty handy if you’re replacing your car with Uber on a (semi-)permanent basis. Uber’s Ride Pass will cost users in Austin, Denver, Miami, and Orlando $14.99 a month and users in Los Angeles $24.99 a…

It’s really hard to innovate in the world of banking when your roots stretch back further than some countries have been countries, but South Africa’s newest bank, Bank Zero, is looking to give it a shot anyway. The new financial institution, which is backed by the likes of Michael Jordaan, has been granted its license by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and is now beginning Alpha tests of their app-driven bank. Testing has begun following Bank Zero integrating with the SARB’s national payments system last month, a move that it says “will be of benefit to the bank’s users”.…

It’s the event you’ve all been waiting for, ever since Apple announced it way back on 18 October. The company opted for a reveal event during South African work hours (the American ones go without saying) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House rather than using their own campus, which should have been our first hint that Apple had something different in store. Well, different-er. On the big screen Remember the iPhone XR? Yeah, the new iPads are taking their screen skills from Apple’s ‘affordable’ smartphone display tech with a Liquid Retina display that utilises an edge-to-edge…

100 Million. That’s how many people are using Mac devices worldwide and that’s just one figure of many from Apple’s presentation in Brooklyn, New York, today. But we’re far more interested in the new MacBook Air models heading to market soon. Apple took the wraps off some freshened-up skinny notebooks at their late-2018 presentation, with Tim Cook introducing an all-new device with Retina display, security and audio enhancements, an improved keyboard and Touch ID. Here’s what you need to know. In your Face(time) Apple’s new MacBook Air contains a brand new Retina display (with a 4-million pixel count and improved…