Author: Brett Venter

Are you a massive fan of Motorola’s stylishly compact 2004 handset, the Motorola RAZR? If so, you’re not alone (130 million were sold) and you’re also probably the target for Lenovo’s modern take on the handset. The Wall Street Journal reports that Motorola plans to resurrect the iconic brand and design, but with a far more current spin. Moto’s entry into the (still young) foldable phone market is set to be a revamped RAZR. The report doesn’t go into detail about what sort of tech the updated Moto RAZR will feature. There’s no information regarding the screen, processor, RAM, cameras……

Ever since Electronic Arts acquired the rights to make games based on the Star Wars universe back in 2013 we’ve been hoping for a proper story-based game (like the sadly-cancelled 1313). There was supposed to be a game like that in the works, being developed by now-shuttered studio Visceral. When Visceral closed up shop in 2017 EA’s unnamed story-heavy Star Wars title (code-named Ragtag when Visceral was working on it) was sent over to Electronic Arts Vancouver (who named their new project Orca). But now it has been canned, according to a report from Kotaku. Which is a pity because…

Apple recently announced that it was expecting revenues to take a hit, as a result of several factors. Economic slowdown and increased competition from China were blamed but another cause seems to be the company’s discounted battery replacement program. Apple may have been expecting to replace between one and two million batteries for the year but things didn’t work out that way. According to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, in 2018 Apple had to contend with some 11 million iPhone battery replacements. Because reasons (to do with software throttling). That’s a lot of older iPhones that were good to go…

If you’re one of the many who have resisted moving from Windows 7 to (the mess that was) Windows 8, (the slightly better) Windows 8.1, or (the oddly numerated) Windows 10, your time is growing short. There’s just a year left of free support for Windows 7, meaning that official support for the Microsoft operating system is coming to an end. Unless you’re willing to pay for a little more support, that is. Extended support for Windows 7 comes to an end on 14 January 2020, at which time Microsoft will no longer be providing security and other updates for…

Welcome to 2019. Technically we’ve been in the new year for a while but in Stuff Magazine terms it’s been 2019 since the end of November 2018. Most of our time towards the end of 2018 was dedicated to our Jan-Feb 2019 issue’s headline feature — the Stuff Magazine Gadget Awards for 2018. That’s not an easy matter to decide. There’s screaming, shouting, minor acts of vehicular sabotage… and that’s just to decide the Budget Smartphone of the Year. Then we have to do it all again for the remaining fifteen categories. But we got though it, in few enough…

Apple's AirPower wireless charging mat said to be in production We'll believe this when we see it... Apple's AirPower wireless charging mats, according to a new report, are currently in production. That report is via ChargerLab, a Twitter account dedicated to er... chargers. Which still isn't as weird as the folks who dissect cables for

Some things need to be seen. And even if you’re not a huge fan of Star Wars, this short fan-film directed by Quebec’s Maxime-Claude L’Écuyer and starring cosplayer David Blouin (with voice work by Anton Golikov) is worth watching. Called Squad Leader TD-73028 Soliloquy, the short is a strong mashup of Star Wars visuals and the work of William Shakespeare — specifically Hamlet’s soliloquy. The film’s blurb describes the scene as “…Hamlet’s famous soliloquy…presented as the inner voice of a Stormtrooper, demonstrating the way Shakespeare’s language still echoes down to us through the centuries and remains as relevant today as ever—not to mention…

And here we have an unusual announcement that could have far greater ramifications — Vodacom has revealed that its Video Play streaming service has secured the rights to live-stream the FA Cup in South Africa. Users of the service will be able to watch FA Cup matches — live, delayed, or on-demand (provided the match has ended, of course) — from 26 January right up until the 18 May FA Cup final. It begins? That’s… a bit of a first and it could spell trouble for traditional sports providers, like the already-battling SABC and for Multichoice in particular. If the…

Surfboards are a little like car tyres, if you think about it. Most folks who use them don’t worry too much about how they work, they just want to go out and have a good time. But there’s always some intrepid scientist making them better in ways that aren’t immediately (and visually) apparent, and there are always avid fans keeping up with these developments. I, sadly, have not been one of these. But over the festive season, that changed. The last time that I did any extensive surfing was a little over a decade ago. Boards then were about 6’…

It’s almost that time again, though it’s happening a little early this year. Samsung has set the date for Unpacked 2019, their annual event where we get our first proper look at the year’s flagship phones, officially. 20 February marks the reveal of the Galaxy S10 and, perhaps, Samsung’s first folding smartphone. The event takes place at 11:00 Pacific Time (PT) in the States, which works out to 21:00 South African Standard Time (SAST) — also on 20 February, in case time zones make you do mental cartwheels. The venue? The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. What’s strange about…