Author: Brett Venter

Not everyone has had to deal with the stomach-dropping realisation that their smartphone is headed towards the floor at speed and that the display probably won’t survive the fall but those that have have likely lamented the brittle displays that keep us connected to modern life. That could be on its way to changing though, with tougher, more durable screens being a possibility thanks to recent developments by scientists at the University of Akron in Ohio. The researchers there have come up with a new film treatment that will allow manufacturers to replace existing ITO (indium tin oxide) screen coatings,…

[vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/96047923″] This is what you get when two NYU graduate students decide to get experimental with clothing and technology: a hoody that is capable of communicating with other people who are operating smartphones. The thing is that you won’t be using this garment to do any typing yourself, a series of innocuous gestures, like pushing up a sleeve or adjusting the hood, are enough to broadcast some pre-defined messages to those who need to be contacted. The intelligent upper-body wear was made using a hoody (of course), a cellular-capable Arduino board that fits at the back between the wearer’s…

In March this year Yahoo notified users of their services that third-party logins would eventually be phased out, meaning that you would no longer be able to access Yahoo-owned properties with the likes of your Facebook and Google credentials. One of the first to be making the change is photo-sharing/hosting service Flickr, which will be dropping third-party login functionality come 30 June, according to an email from Yahoo. Flickr users will instead have to use a Yahoo account in order to sign in to Flickr, something that should preferably be taken care of before the changeover happens. Users who use their…

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1efsA8PQmDA”] NASA has fired its laser. Not with any superweapon intent though, the space agency has sent a video transmission from the International Space Station (ISS) using their OPALS (Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science) system – which is a test for using methods other than radio transmission for transmitting video. The transmitted footage, which can be seen in the video above, was 148 seconds in length but was sent to the Table Mountain Observatory (the one in California) in just 3.5 seconds. Normally a video of that length would take 10 minutes or so to transmit from space, so…

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtVdAasjOgU”] The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is the third game in the Geralt of Rivia series from Polish developer CD Projekt RED and it’s looking like the best outing for the mutant hero to date. Now, at long last, we’ve actually got a release date for the title and that is going to be on 24 February 2015. That’s still too long to wait though, especially when you see what CD Projekt have in store in the newly released trailer – Sword of Destiny. You’ll get some idea of what to expect from the storyline, particularly if you’ve…

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTL1IXTDH30″] Google’s Project Tango is planning on using mobile devices to map areas and some tech outfits have come up with creative uses for the smartphone version of the technology so far (like creating an autonomous drone). An older report claimed that Google intended to make a tablet version of Project Tango, something that the search giant has since confirmed and Google have also given out specifications for the Nvidia-powered tablet. The 7-inch development unit features Nvidia’s Tegra K1 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. Fairly standard specs as far as a slate goes, though the…

Barnes & Noble’s Nook doesn’t get much exposure on the African continent, though the American bookstore’s gadgetry does have its adherents in South Africa. Now it seems that there’s a new Nook on the way and Samsung will be teaming up with B&N to make the device. The branding, perhaps unsurprisingly, will see the new e-reader/tablet being called the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook and the partnership between the book sales company and the prolific South Korean company will see the device competing with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX – without the HD part. The Tab 4 is a 7-inch slate with…

Ubisoft’s Watch_Dogs has been on the market for a couple of weeks now and it’s about time that we gave away some awesome stuff related to the game – including the game itself on PlayStation 3. If you’ve been keeping tabs on the site you’ll see that we’ve got a Ubisoft-created hamper to give away and today is the day that we announce our winner. Before we get to the good stuff, as always, here is some detail on how the competition draw works. Winner’s names are drawn randomly by a computer that has been fed everyone’s names and has…

Stuff has had some experience with Vertu’s range of luxury smartphones, like the Ti Ferrari which costs more than most of the country makes in a year. The trouble with the luxury handset maker’s Android device has always been that the specifications have fallen short of the high-end devices that come from the usual companies (though the other features always make up for it). Not so the new Signature Touch from Vertu, which corrects that little issue nicely. As opposed to the mid-range specs we’re used to seeing, Vertu’s latest is packing the latest in hardware. A Snapdragon 801 CPU…

We’re seeing so many wearables these days that a special fitness category is almost a given at this point. The newest item to launch at a local level is Garmin’s Fēnix 2, which follows the Forerunner from a while back. Appropriate naming there. The Fēnix 2 is being billed as an adventure GPS watch and we’re pretty sure that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be having escapades in Narnia, based on the imagery that accompanied the local launch announcement. Instead, it’s going to be giving you direction which you’re mountain-thinying (-biking, -climbing, -falling… that last one takes care of itself…