Author: Brett Venter

The window for SpaceX’s Starship 14 launch opens as soon as 22 September, according to the space company. Unlike previous recent missions, this one isn’t supposed to crash. At least, not until it’s done working. Starship 14 will instead see the massive rocket travelling to orbit for the first time. Assuming everything goes as planned, of course. In addition to being a test flight, this launch will see the rocket deploy Starlink V3 satellites in orbit before it returns to Earth. Starship of dreams SpaceX’s mission plans are already pretty solid. Instead of “safe suborbital trajectories,” the rocket will travel…

The Meta One subscription has been in the works since before the likes of WhatsApp Plus, Instagram Plus, and Facebook Plus were a thing. Next up is the bundled package, which could see Meta fans handing over larger monthly sums to Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Meta announced the (gradual) rollout of its One subscription, as well as what features subscribers can expect for their larger monthly sum. It seems, at least in the company’s Core plan, to fold features from the first three individual options into one place. Meta One more subscription? If you already use one or more of the…

Fujifilm’s newly announced Instax Pal 2 compact camera is a weird-looking critter, unless you lived through the 1980s. The compact shooter features a very retro aesthetic, but includes modern camera tech, all somehow crammed into an 87-gram body. The Japanese company is no stranger to South African shores. Most recently, it announced its newest Instax Mini 13 for the country. It’s also no stranger to trying something weird, as the Instax Mini Evo Cinema can attest. The Instax Pal 2 is also likely to find its adherents once it arrives in (and then departs from) Fuji’s native country. Instax Pal…

Amazon’s Prime Video is expanding its Clips initiative with something the streaming platform calls News Clips. Though nominally US-only for now, the feature will include the “latest local news, weather, and national news reports,” available for free on the platform. The roster of providers includes “ABC News Live, CBS News 24/7, LiveNOW from Fox, CNN Headlines, NBC News NOW, and hundreds of other free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) Channels.” Ready for Prime Video time? According to Prime Video’s head of global app experience, Brian Griffin, “…not everyone can catch breaking news the moment it happens. With News Clips, customers have…

MSI’s newest gaming handheld, the Claw 8 EX AI+, has been a thing for some time. Pressures from the ongoing artificial intelligence situation and a fondness for higher sales may have prompted the Taiwanese company to make a more affordable version. The beefier, pricier version of MSI’s latest uses Intel’s Arc G3 Extreme chipset. The recently spotted ‘budget’ version swaps that out for a standard Intel G3. It gets a slightly confusing designation to set it apart — it’s the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3M. Extending the Claw 8 EX AI+ Visually, the two handheld gaming consoles shouldn’t look dissimilar.…

Stuff has received a few pairs of budget Chinese headphones lately, some of which perform better than others. The Redmi Headphones Neo over-ears are an example of doing budget cans almost ridiculously well.  They certainly look and feel more premium than you’d expect from a R1,300 pair of overs. There are concessions to the price, but they’re in places we don’t usually see sacrifices — the smart features. Build, audio, comfort, and noise-cancelling are left more or less alone, with some quality-of-life functions discarded instead. It’s… actually a pretty fair swap, considering what you’re paying for these. What? Budget? Xiaomi/Redmi…

Geely hasn’t been shy about releasing its EVs in South Africa. Hopefully, that trend will continue with the company’s new Galaxy TT EV, a sporty new sedan with decent specs and an even better price. That price is confined to Geely’s native China and probably won’t carry over to South Africa. Even so, it’ll probably be priced extremely competitively. Not as competitive as Geely’s ¥130,000 (R316,000) price, of course. We can expect it to be a few hundred thousand more if it comes to this country. But we certainly want it to arrive. The 0-100km/m time of 3.8 seconds for…

Huawei is expected to make its new Mate 90 series known to the world a little later this month. The launch is only rumoured out of China, but there’s another one to follow. If you were hoping for the company to keep its pricing stable, you’ll have to think again. A leak via Chinese social media platform Weibo reckons Huawei has at least five different versions of the Mate 90 coming. These are the basic 90, the 90 Pro, a Pro Max edition, and a Collector’s Edition. There’s also an RS Design version of the phone inbound. The pricier of…

Far back in the mists of time, PC games used to come in a very large box. With the advent of digital, the boxes went away. We, and Good Old Games (GoG), have not forgotten those eye-catching display pieces. The folks at GoG have gone so far as to start bringing them back. Some assembly required, of course. The company isn’t doing this alone. Big Box Collection, an obsessed one-man show, provides scans of the original physical boxes to GoG, as well as the files needed for players to mess around with digital versions of the same units. Good one,…

UPDATE 11/9/26, 14h20 SAST: Retroid has just announced pre-order dates and pricing for its new Pocket Duo consoles. The Pocket Duo Lite starts at R2,450 ($150) with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. A 6GB/128GB model will also be available. The R4,440 ($270) Pocket Duo includes 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Pre-orders begin a little later today. ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Everybody wants to sell you a handheld gaming machine in 2026. Retroid makes some impressively decent hardware for older game console emulation, and there’s something even better on the way. Plus, something less decent but somewhat more affordable.…