Author: Brett Venter

Samsung’s Frame TV has a bit to answer for. Aura, a company that makes digital picture frames, has adopted the Frame’s concept and removed the TV, replacing it with a coloured e-paper display that fits into a frame that hangs on your wall. The result, the Aura Ink, is the last family photo frame you’ll ever buy unless there’s some sort of subscription service that can be cancelled when it stops making money. That is, in fact, the case, so prepare yourself for annoyance when the Ink’s corporate lifespan reaches its end. I can see your Aura Beyond the 13in…

Samsung’s Galaxy XR has been lurking around the internet for some time now, but an event this morning finally let the headgear step out into the open. The XR headset, made in partnership with Google, hopes to provide users with a “new way of interacting with technology.” That said, Samsung’s very pricey (though not as expensive as Apple’s gear) headset seems like just another way to burn hours on Android. Major features include access to streaming apps, tailored gaming experiences, and a retread of the same old Google apps, plus additional Gemini integration, in case your cognitive capabilities are getting…

If you’re using a laptop, at some point you’ll need a computer mouse. At some point. Volkano X, SA’s purveyor of budget peripherals and gadgets, has at least three for you to check out that’ll sit below a R350 price point. The lowest price is a mere R200, which is nearly nothing when it comes to (functional) computing hardware. Of this trio — the Magma, Lava, and Crafter — one stands above the others, purely because it doesn’t take batteries. It also looks pricier than it actually is, though all three do well enough in terms of build. Particularly for…

Ikea is one of those brands Stuff gazes at longingly from afar. You can buy the Swedish company’s products here, but they’re not officially sanctioned by Home Base. Even that route wouldn’t work for the latest (and cutest) product to require you to assemble it yourself. Part of the so-called Phone Sleep Collection, qualifying buyers can nab a teeny tiny little bed for their smartphone. Tucking your internet portal in at night will generate discount codes… eventually. Ikea you There’s a catch, of course. These little build-it-yourself smartphone beds are only available via Ikea in the UAE, meaning you’ll need…

If you thought you’d seen the last word in LG’s TVs, you obviously had no idea that the South Korean brand is launching a 136in Magnit. That’s the branding for its massive new microLED TV, which is scheduled for launch in LG’s home country before heading elsewhere. The LG Magnit Active Micro LED TV, to give it its full title, will blow colossal holes in your savings, investments, and bitcoin holdings, assuming you can convince the company to bring it to South Africa. For enough money, though, most companies will do just about anything. Gods and punks LG’s newest monster…

Chinese robotics company Unitree has a new humanoid robot to unsettle you. Called the H2, or the “H2 bionic humanoid”, this guy’s a little bigger than the kickboxing G1. We still reckon the company’s A2 Stellar Hunter Explorer can take it in a fight, though. If the Unitree G1 is the size of a pre-teen child, the H2 humanoid will look most humans directly in the eye. Standing 1.8 metres tall, its dimensions are roughly similar to those of the existing H1, a R1.5 million humanoid that seems rather less dextrous than its successor. H2 gets pretty sharp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUdBIFkMh-M&t=1s If…

Okay, body assessment is getting a bit silly now. The Dekoda is a very pricey camera made by Kohler, of bathroom fame. It’s designed, perhaps obviously (though we wish it wasn’t), to peer down into your toilet bowl and tell you what it sees there. Like you don’t already know. When you’re watching a chocolate submarine swirl its way to some distant destination, you probably can’t “[decode] your body’s signals, translating them into personalized insights on gut health, hydration, and more.” Can you? No, you need a R10,500 ($600) camera to do that. Is the Dekoda a crappy idea? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3wxqXXZjE…

How much are you willing to pay for that WholesomChungus420 handle on X? Assuming it’s available, having gone dormant because whichever Redditor had it previously died of basic cardio, you’ll need to pay twice. And then keep paying, until you, too, expire in some unlikely incident involving a terrified badger and a VW Microbus. X, formerly Twitter (yes, we know you know by now), is launching its X Handle Marketplace that will let subscribers purchase usernames that were snagged by folks who never used them, or simply stopped posting. There’s a catch, though. To browse the options and give Elon’s…

Samsung could miss its usual on-shelf date for the new crop of high-powered Galaxy S26 smartphones you absolutely have to upgrade to next year.* There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that a (rumoured) rebrand of one of its handsets turned out to be a bad idea. The other is that the base model might not be ready in time for its annual announcement. Missing the Galaxy S26 We can speculate at least one more reason why Samsung might be pumping the brakes. The South Korean company is supposedly making its own Qualcomm headline chipsets this year,…

Redmagic, a sub-brand of Chinese company ZTE, has announced its new Redmagic 11 Pro smartphone for the Chinese market. It’d be cool enough to drool over even if it was only slated for launch in that country, but with a pending international launch on 7 November, we might see it somewhere outside of its home grounds at some point. Why should we care about the 11 Pro? Two reasons — an absolutely massive battery, and the world’s first (available at retail) liquid cooling system. Will those features be entirely practical? Possibly. Were they developed solely to stand out from the…