Author: Brett Venter

Honda are supposedly bringing back the S2000, with a successor in development If you’ve been after a new Honda roadster then there may be some good news headed your way. The company is said to be resurrecting their S2000 two-seater, based on an apparent visit by Honda reps to an S2000 owner’s meeting in the UK. It’s mostly speculation at the moment but there’s talk of Honda bringing out a third-gen S2000 with a 1.5 and a Type-R 2.0 litre engine, which would conform to past editions in terms of positioning and driving wheels. In Honda’s sights is Mazda’s MX-5,…

Comedian George Carlin once famously said “A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get… more stuff.” Though he first spoke those words in 1981 he might as well have been saying them today. I know that I’m not alone in this but the collection of gadgets at home has been steadily growing over the years. Now there’s scarcely a plug point left open at any given time of day and there isn’t a single one that doesn’t have a multi-plug adaptor fitted to it. Some of the multiplugs have multiplugs, for goodness sake. What…

Samsung to pay Apple, at last – $548 million that they might want back later Apple and Samsung have been in court together for the last few years, though you wouldn’t know it if you weren’t following the patent battle. In public they’re like two people who can barely stand each other being forced to share a room, but in court… Anyway, Samsung have revealed that they will be paying Apple $548 million of the court-ordered cash that the South Korean company owes, upon receipt of a receipt. But there’s a catch. Samsung will be reserving “…all rights to reclaim…

The Samsung Galaxy S7 rumours have been nothing if not constant and we’ve got a decent idea what the new smartphone will consist of, as well as a few speculative thoughts. What we don’t actually have is any visual confirmation yet. We’ve now got a good idea what the Galaxy S7 will be capable of, power-wise, thanks to a leak via the Weibo website in China that claims to have tested the Galaxy S7 in Geekbench. The version tested is the one containing a Snapdragon 820, so we’re getting two pieces of performance info in one. The claimed tests have…

For the ultimate in hipster musical instruments, here’s a cardboard Fender guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oo2H-W7d6A This is more an instrument for rockers and less one for hipsters but if you were ever looking for a vegan guitar, this probably qualifies. Signal Snowboard have been on a make-things-from-cardboard kick of late and they’ve gone and made a Fender from the papery substance. Fender was instrumental in shaping the guitar and adding the pickups and they also test drove the instrument. For a mostly see-through (body and neck) guitar, it sounds pretty darned good. Though we’d probably not want to jar the neck when…

Who is the guy at Google who gets sent to some of the world’s most picturesque locations with a funny-looking backpack so that the rest of us can see what it looks like without leaving our desks? How did he get his job? How could we apply for his job? Because he’s just been sent off to Peru, to the historic Machu Picchu, which means that you can now explored it as will https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi-y_SZTdhU You can take a virtual tour through Machu Picchu and marvel over its mysteries while wondering just how the Inca managed to build what they did…

Verizon have made a working smartphone inside Minecraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdlZRhKmWJY We’ve seen something very interesting things made inside Minecraft. A scale model of the Starship Enterprise. A fully working Redstone computer. A giant pixel Mario. But this creation by American cellular provider Verizon takes the cake. If there was any cake, we mean. They’ve created a working cellular phone inside Minecraft, as well as a cellular tower, which is able to make and take calls (by connecting to the outside world), browse the web, and make video calls. All of this is rather blocky but that’s what you get when you’re…

Samsung have just announced the Gear VR for South Africa, pricing the virtual reality unit locally at R1999 per headset. That’s the recommended pricing from Samsung, at any rate. Your merchant may vary. Users will be able to pick the Gear VR, which is lighter than the older Innovator Edition by a claimed 22%, in Frost White. Samsung have been working on the touchpad interface and their Bluetooth gamepad also plays nice with the virtual reality headgear. But, before you go rushing out to get yours, you’ll need to have specific Samsung hardware in order to use the Gear VR.…

McLaren’s 675LT is the sort of car you’ve always wanted to drive Thanks, Captain Obvious. You really think we wouldn’t sacrifice several internal organs to own a McLaren 675LT? Even though selling said organs on the black market still wouldn’t let us afford one. Like all petrolheads on a budget, we can still dream. And maybe hate The Verge columnist Jason H. Harper just a little bit. He’s taken the 675LT for a drive and his impressions of this V8, twin-turbo, 3.8 litre, 666 horsepower (yes, really), R5.8 million supercar deserve to be read. You might as well be in the cockpit with him.…

BlackBerry bails on Pakistan after refusing to hand over users to the government  This is how companies should behave when faced with unreasonable government demands when it comes to customer information. BlackBerry have, as of today, pulled out of Pakistan in response to a demand by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, issued in July this year, to all mobile carrier to shut down BlackBerry’s Enterprise Service. But, according to BlackBerry, “The truth is that the Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) traffic in the country, including every BES e-mail and BES BBM message. But BlackBerry will…