Author: Brett Venter

Following several delays, SpaceX’s Starship 10, the first attempt since the last one, lifted off from the company’s Starbase launch platform in Texas. For a change, nothing went drastically wrong until it was supposed to. The massive front section of the spacecraft eventually exploded, but this time, where it was always supposed to — on the surface of the Indian Ocean. It’s what happened in between that was of most importance to SpaceX. As this was a test launch, a simulated deployment of Starlink satellites took place following “a full-duration ascent burn” that “achieved its planned velocity, successfully putting it…

Right on schedule, Apple has announced the date for its annual iPhone keynote presentation. If your guess was ‘early September’, then you were well served by rumour and the company’s somewhat predictable behaviour since… forever. There’s little that can be gleaned from the company’s invitation, which conveys all the pertinent information right up front. Avid Apple watchers can tune into the livestream from the Steve Jobs Theater on 9 September. Local time has the event kicking off at 13h00, but here in South Africa, you’ll have to make space at 19h00. Awe, Apple As usual, the American smartphone maker is…

Stuff has previously spent time with Packard Bell’s entry-level Celeron notebooks, so it was a relief to get something speedier. The Packard Bell Carrera F3, or the Carrera Flex 3, depending on where you’re buying it, features an R8,000 price point (it can be had for less) and justifies the uptick in price by being… well, more advanced. Advancements are seen in the touchscreen display, a more diverse port selection, and a swivelling hinge that puts this notebook into the 2-in-1 category. It’s not an Asus RoG Flow Z13, however. A little more capable than its brethren, it’ll perform better…

When you’re Apple, even mediocre and overpriced products will have their copycats. Chinese brand Vivo has announced its Vision Discovery Edition mixed reality for sale in China, with the new wearable headgear taking a shot at Apple’s own Vision Pro. In terms of design, the two devices look remarkably similar. The visored headset and generous padded headband might have come from the same design engineer, but Vivo’s effort is just two-thirds the weight of Apple’s stupendously expensive hardware. Vision of the future? A raft of other features is supposed to tempt users away from Apple’s premium offering. Dual micro-OLED displays…

There might be few things more depressing than getting to put ‘LinkedIn video influencer’ into your digital CV, but that’s just what businesses and creators taking part in Microsoft’s BrandLink program are unleashing on the platform. Most users will have to remain content with publishing workplace-adjacent stories that totally happened, guys, but larger businesses, with bigger advertising budgets, are being added to BrandLink following a smaller-scale trial in 2024. The result is more advertising on the platform, in the shape of short-form video and content branded as “Shows by LinkedIn”. LinkedIn to the money Microsoft’s platform hopes to capitalise (on…

If you’re a Huawei fan who doesn’t mind dropping R25,o00 on a handset, the Huawei Pura 80 Pro has your name written all over it. Not literally, because that would be silly, but the Chinese company has produced another excellent slab of glass and… another kind of glass. Plus various circuits, components, and a camera sensor that should be experienced rather than talked about. What it still struggles with is what has held the brand back ever since the first Trump administration — software. That isn’t to say it’s a poor experience, it’s just not one that will tempt you…

There’s been talk of Meta’s so-called ‘Hypernova’ smart glasses for months, and it looks like the speculation will be put to rest in the next few weeks. CNBC reports that the social media company is lining up two new sets of wearable eyewear for its September Connect conference. One of these will be the specs named for a generic Marvel superhero. Or, you know, a galaxy-busting celestial event. That’s probably just Meta’s marketing department being hugely optimistic. Or is it? Going Hypernova The company’s Hypernova product has yet to appear in action, but the same sources that revealed its launch…

There’s a new Honor X7 in the works, in the shape of the Honor X7d. You’d think that with the company already launching two handsets in the lineup, they’d be ready to go up by a number rather than a consonant, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The phone has two serious claims to fame. The X7d will feature a simply massive (for any standard phone) battery, plus an oversized megapixel count. It’s also, based on previous pricing in its lineage, likely to be affordable. X7d. Or a. Or b. Or c.  The freshly announced handset will lob…

Stanford Medicine researchers have been working on a new brain-computer interface (BCI) chip intended to restore speech to folks who have severe difficulties verbalising anything. The implantable BCI lives in a subject’s motor cortex — the area that controls movement — and collects signals when patients attempt to speak. These are then translated into speech via a computer algorithm. The process works by training a computer to “recognize repeatable patterns of neural activity associated with each “phoneme” — the tiniest units of speech — then stitch[ing] the phonemes into sentences.” The principle works when patients attempt to physically speak, capturing…

Anyone who has ever taken a drone to the beach knows the uncertainty of using the pricy tech. Wind, waves, inquisitive seals… there are many hazards out there. The HoverAir Aqua hopes you’ll let it avoid those problems for you, except for perhaps the seals. There’s not much you can do about wildlife except feed them someone slower than you are. Whether you’re using a drone to capture your surfing or SUP skills, getting it to drop a fishing line in the midst of a school of fish (that’s cheating, by the way), or just capturing footage of people frolicking,…