Author: Brett Venter

Samsung is once again asking for your pre-order money for a new smartphone. The digit has gone up and the prime beef on display is the Galaxy S24 Ultra. But if you paid attention to our comparison last year (or the subsequent review) then you might already have a Galaxy S23 Ultra in your pocket. Should you swap it out for something a single digit higher? That’s a surprisingly granular question to answer. Last year’s headliner from Samsung was awfully close in terms of spec to the S22 Ultra. The same is true this year. The S24 Ultra and the…

Today at an event at the Multichoice HQ in Johannesburg, Showmax showed off what is coming next from the streaming service. It promises a revamped experience, starting with a new Comcast-NBC Universal partnership. Showmax CEO Marc Jury explained that the new partnership is the key to the updated platform. That’s right, the tech behind the service is set to change. 4K Showmax when? Maybe sooner than you think. Showmax revolutionaries From 23 January, all subscribers will migrate over to the Peacock platform. This’ll continue until 12 February for customers all over Africa. In case you don’t know, Peacock is NBC’s…

December 2023 was a rather nice time. It’s not just being off work that did it, either. Eskom managed, probably at massive expense, to keep the lights on for the festive season. That’s over for now and load shedding has returned. If you don’t already have a battery in your home, it’s time to snag something like the Gizzu Hero Core 512Wh power station. You don’t absolutely have to get this one but at R8,000, you’re getting a fairly good deal. The Hero Core 512Wh is compact, features enough capacity for most basic uses, and also has all the ports…

Every year at CES there’s a slew of some of the weirdest tech you’ll ever see. LG is usually involved (this year is no different) but you get far wackier results from the lesser-known folks on the show floor. They’ve got more to prove or less to lose. Whatever the case, it always makes for some excellent head-scratching. We’ve trawled around the tech on offer at the Consumer Electronics Show to find the weirdest of the bunch this year. It’s not enough to just be weird, however. It’s also got to stand a chance of actually making it to retail.…

The world of amateur astronomy is slowly undergoing several changes. One of these is the advent of smarter telescopes, offering better views without requiring massive amounts of prior knowledge. The new Celestron Origin, just announced by the astronomy company, is the latest candidate for pushing forward what’s possible in the (heh) space. The new telescope is based on Celestron’s Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA), an F/2.2 widefield system aimed at more advanced users like researchers and government programs. But the Celestron Origin, while based on the design, is looking to be more user-friendly. Yes, AI is involved. Because of course it…

Ecoflow’s range of Delta products is in South Africa, leaving us hopeful that the newly announced Ecoflow Delta Pro Ultra will eventually turn up. The new battery storage system showed its face at CES 2024 and it’s a substantial enough upgrade to justify the Ultra moniker. While the Delta 2 and its brethren are solid enough to run large appliances for long periods, the Pro Ultra is capable of sorting out an entire home. Think of it as a Tesla Powerwall except you’ll probably actually be able to find one. If you can afford the R110,000 ($5,800) starting price, of…

Yesterday it was merely a rumour, today it’s confirmed fact. Apple’s Vision Pro virtual reality headset will turn up in the real world on 2 February this year. Well, we say the real world but really it’s launching in America. Other locations around the world will have to wait longer to experience what Apple has cooked up. If you’re a Yank, you’ll be able to pre-order Apple’s R65,000 VR hardware from 19 January, giving you ten days to decide if you’re comfortable throwing another $3,500 in the fruit company’s direction. By most accounts, the Vision Pro will change the way…

In the 21st century, everything is being enhanced through technology. By ‘everything’, though, we weren’t expecting to include good old soil. But that’s just what researchers at Sweden’s Linköping University claim to have achieved. Called eSoil, the Swedish researchers reckon that their innovation speeds up the growth in barley seedlings (barley is a key ingredient of beer, in case you need a reason to be interested) by 50%. But if all they were doing was sloshing some liquid that smells like decaying shellfish (that’s the nitrogen) onto their crops, we wouldn’t be here. At least it’s not iSoil This is…

It’s no secret that Xiaomi has had its sights set on an EV to rival Tesla’s offering. The Xiaomi SU7, if the company’s marketing is to be believed, is that vehicle. The newest electric vehicle on the planet was officially revealed in China at the end of December, with a price announcement due in the next few months. Bottom line, though, is you’ll probably struggle to afford one. It’s not just that the launch is likely to be confined to China, at least at first, and that EVs are inherently expensive. Xiaomi hasn’t gone small with the SU7, serving up…

The Consumer Electronics Show is often about the strangest new tech in the pipeline and there’s no reason to expect CES 2024 to be any different. Usually, we’re allowed to wait until the event starts before the situation gets odd but LG’s got a talent for jumping the gun. What we hope is the strangest product to issue from the South Korean company in 2024 has already been revealed, along with a preview of everything else folks can expect from LG’s CES 2024 presentation. There are TVs and monitors, some rather interesting audio kit, and then there’s this — LG’s…