Author: Brett Venter

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…

Okay, okay, we’re really trying to get through this without too much toilet humour. We promise, it’s the Number Two thing on our mind besides telling you about one of the odder trends for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year. Smart toilets are apparently going to be a thing, either for the critters that occupy our homes (pets, not kids or creepy crawlies) or for the larger bipeds that look after said critters. The $7,000 (R97,000) smart toilet Say hi to a throne that Elvis would probably be happy to expire on — though the addition of Alexa to…

If you thought that Apple was the only major tech company with some unexpected losses for the end of 2018, first of all: That’s an awfully specific thing to be thinking. Secondly, Samsung is now also reporting that it’s expecting a decline in revenue and profits for the quarter ending 31 December 2018. The tech giant released new guidance to investors, saying that it was going to miss expectations for revenue and profits for Q4 2018. Samsung said that reduced demand for product from its memory/RAM division and increased competition across the smartphone sector are to blame for the decline.…