Author: Brett Venter

You might have seen several reports over the weekend claiming that load shedding is about to become a permanent fixture in South Africa. As in, it’ll be permanently scheduled rather than going away occasionally. The state power utility has since given a statement that this is in fact, incorrect. You might think that a lack of permanently-scheduled load shedding would be a good thing but the reasons why it isn’t being implemented don’t bode too well. Building better load shedding Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha explained, “Eskom has considered implementing permanent Stage 2 and 3 load shedding to give more predictability…

Apple’s off to a flying start for 2023, even if that start doesn’t appear to include virtual reality headgear. A fresh crop of M2 Apple Silicon-powered devices is due at month-end and now there’s talk of a set of M3-powered Apple hardware in the second half of the year. But talk is all it is, at least for the moment. A report from Digitimes, which covers Asian supply chain news, suggests that there are M3-powered MacBook Air models in the works for some time after June 2023. The M3 goes faster, right? According to the report, “The supply chain is…

Twitter may have just (re)launched its Blue subscription service on Android but there’s more in store for those willing to give Uncle Elon money. Specifically, a more expensive version of the already eleven-dollary (R190/m) service. You’ll get what you’re paying (a substantial chunk of money) for. The purpose of the upcoming tier is to remove advertising from the service entirely. Twitter wants you feeling Blue Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023 Paying for access to the micro-blogging service, weirdly enough, doesn’t remove all the ads from the…

What if your gaming chair was also a DualShock controller? That’s the question the Cooler Master Synk X haptics gaming chair hopes to answer. The concept behind it is simple. The Synk X turns game (and, presumably, movie) audio into vibration. The point is to deepen a user’s involvement in whatever entertainment experience they’re immersed in. Of course, this also means that you need to either a) charge or b) plug in your gaming chair in order to use it. Still… I’ve always wanted a Cooler Master The Cooler Master Synk X is being punted as a cross-platform haptics chair.…

Netflix, as a company, is really interested in making as much money as possible from its current users. This makes sense. Its plan to interest whole hordes of new users hasn’t worked out especially well so far. Might as well squeeze more out of the current crop, right? One of the company’s plans was to introduce the ability to ‘share’ your password with someone who doesn’t live inside your home by paying a little extra. The initial experiment… didn’t go well. That’s not stopping the company from making the ‘feature’ more widely available anyway. “Do it anyway” – Netflix “While…

Once upon a time, Samsung flagship phones — in South Africa (and other places) — ran on Exynos chipsets. Last year, however, it was Snapdragon across the board. This year, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 lineup is expected to follow suit with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in all of its handsets. But it seems there’s a wrinkle coming up. According to a report by website 9to5Google, which claims to have seen documentation evidence, Samsung’s version of the 8 Gen 2 for 2023 isn’t the same as everyone else’s. There’s a customised version of the chipset in the works. This seems to…

Whenever Boston Dynamics drops a new video featuring Atlas, you know it’s going to do two things. It’ll impress you and it’ll also make you fear for the future of humanity. When last we checked in with the humanoid robot, it was doing parkour. Now? It’s going to work. As demonstrations go, the latest video of Boston Dynamics’ robot is a little less visually impressive than clearing an obstacle course. But on a technical level, seeing Atlas do what it does is a surprising leap forward in what bipedal robots are capable of. Atlas rising https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1_QhJ1EhQ Previously, the robotic star’s…

Apple’s had the AirTag, a Bluetooth tracking tile that isn’t unique to the fruit company, for some time now. Samsung’s Tag is another example of the tech. Now Google’s working on ‘Grogu’, its own Bluetooth-enabled sliver of hardware designed to help you keep track of things. At least, that’s according to information found in Android code by several researchers. Finding Grogu Information tracked down inside Google’s software suggests that the upcoming tracker will include several features. There’s a speaker — one of its references is ‘groguaudio’ — as well as Bluetooth LE and UWB (ultra-wideband) support. It’s that last point…

Netflix, in the relentless drive to keep shareholders happy, has spent the past year looking for ways to squeeze more money out of streaming. This has taken several forms. The company has cracked down on password sharing. It’s also launched a new ad-supported tier in a bid to bring in more paying customers. Neither has worked, it seems. Netflix slows down The streaming platform is expected to announce its financial performance later this week. Part of that announcement will be the number of new subscribers to the service. And, according to reports, that number is at its lowest point since…

These days you can never have too many batteries. The problem is that rewiring an entire home to run on solar energy (it’s certainly not running on Eskom’s power) is expensive. The solution for most of us is smaller batteries designed to get one or two functions running. The Gizzu 242Wh portable power station is one of these. As it happened, we got to test one of these little battery packs during Stage 6 load shedding. But that wasn’t all. Eskom also suffered a couple of blowouts, resulting in more than 48 hours of darkness thanks to the state power…