Author: Brett Venter

The majority of game publishers and developers are focusing their efforts on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, taking advantage of the improved processing power of the new consoles. It’s been a worry that one of gaming’s largest franchises, Call of Duty, would be taking the same tack but that is not the case. Publisher Activision have announced that the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will, while being focused on the new consoles and the PC, also be making its way to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4. They’ve also confirmed that the Wii U won’t be getting…

Tesla might have grabbed a lot of attention with the Powerwall but they’re not going to be hogging the limelight for long. Mercedes-Benz are also throwing their hat into the home battery ring with an unnamed (in English, at any rate) energy cell. The company’s planning on Home and Business models of energy storage. According to Daimler, the Home versions consist of “[u]p to eight battery modules with an energy content of 2.5 kWh…combined into an energy storage plant with a capacity of 20 kWh. Households with their own photovoltaic systems can thus buffer surplus solar power virtually free of any…

Right on time and as expected, Apple has announced a new flavour of OS X at WWDC for release later this year. Going by the admittedly goofy name of El Capitan, the upcoming desktop operating system is ringing in a few changes for users. This is what you’re going to be looking forward to in OS X 10.11. Spotlight has a bigger.. er… spotlight Apple’s given Spotlight a few more capabilities for El Capitan, notably the ability to use natural language to create your search terms. This isn’t restricted to your operating system either, natural language search terms will function…

Headliner for Apple’s WWDC? That’d be iOS 9, which got a very extensive reveal at the San Francisco event yesterday evening. Or morning, depending on where you are in the world. The update is scheduled for later this year, as is customary, but here’s what you can expect from your Apple mobiles and tablets when the update lands. Siri’s getting extra smarts Siri, the lauded digital assistant, has largely fallen by the wayside. Some users exploit her talents but not as many as Apple would like. For that reason Cupertino have decided to use iOS 9 to roll out Proactive Assistant…

Hey, do you remember Lycos? Some of you might, but the former search company was before the time of at least a portion of our readers. That’s how long Lycos have been out of the limelight but they’re looking to step back in with a newly-announced set of wearable tech. Quite the jump from search engine to smart band but okay. Meet the Life Band and the Life Ring. And no, they’re not going to help you search for the best place to buy dog food online or anything, that part of Lycos’ life is done. Instead these smart wearables,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3XyDLbaUmU Wait, we’re teaching robots to use swords now? We’ve seen this anime series, it doesn’t end well. Actually, it’s not quite that bad. Japanese company Yaskawa Electric Corporation, to celebrate their centenary, have decided to pit one of their Motoman-MH24 industrial robots against champion swordsman Isao Machii in the art of Iaijyutsu for the Yaskawa Bushido Project. The robot first learns sword movement from Isao, by the simple expedient of motion capture. Then, once the robot has been programmed, it’s time for man and machine to go head-to-head. It’s quite the contest. Isao and the MH24 alternate turns, from diagonal cuts…

I’m all for impressive visuals, whether we’re talking about games, movies or just looking at pretty pictures and in order to really do that, you have to get yourself a display larger than HD. And a PC, because consoles just can’t match up to the promise of a 4K or even QHD screen. Not yet, at any rate. We’re not here to talk about the PC though, we’re wondering about the display. But that’s mostly because we got a new one from Acer, their XG270HU 27-inch QHD gaming display. And this is a definite option when it comes to your high-res…

It’s one thing to have your details leaked by an outside source or a member of the company who can’t keep their mouth shut, it’s another to pre-empt your own announcement by posting the details where you think no-one will find it. That’s just what Samsung have gone and done though, by revealing the support page and product manual for the Galaxy S6 Active online before they’ve made it official. Their leak has detailed most of the functions you can expect to see from the S6 Active and these details line up with previous sightings of the phone. At least as far…

This year’s Computex, held as usual in Taipei in Taiwan, was again the scene of a bewildering array of products, gadgets and upcoming items of a technological nature. With companies from Taiwan, like Acer, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI, as well as international exhibitors like HiSense, Intel, Microsoft and Nvidia in attendance, it’s quite the demonstration. Alas, there’s never time for us to pore over each and every product that pops out of the world’s second-largest ICT trade show but that doesn’t mean that we can’t bring you the highlights of the past week. What follows are Stuff’s picks from Computex…

The worst thing about leaving home, with the network that every piece of tech (and our pants) has the password to, is getting to your destination and having to find parking. Say what you like about SA but we really didn’t think this whole parking-spaces thing through properly. BMW might be taking care of that little issue though, via a new software tool set to find its way into future models of the German car lineup. The system, called On-Street Park, is the creation of a company called INRIX and you can think of it as a sort of probability…