Author: Brett Venter

Duolingo, the app that failed to teach everyone French and German during the 2020 Covid lockdown, is welcoming a new member to its nocturnal avian family. The company has announced that it is acquiring NextBeat, a UK-based mobile gaming startup specialising in music licensing. If you have to ask ‘why’, then you haven’t been paying attention. The language learning app has branched out in recent years, offering customers everything from chess to math lessons, with a brief stopover in the world of musical instruments. One of the newer additions is music lessons. Making notes for Duolingo Exactly how the acquisition…

Google reckons that if you’re a website owner and have seen a recent dip in traffic — the kind that normally comes via search engines — it’s got nothing to do with AI Overviews. Company vice president and head of Search, Liz Reid, said in a Google blog post that “third-party reports […] inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic,” claiming that, according to the company’s data, search traffic from Search remains the same as it was last year. The missive is likely in response to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, which found that AI Overviews and similar…

What’s the difference between the Kobo Libra Colour and, say, the Amazon Kindle Colorsoft? Besides the different spelling of the word ‘colour’, a fair bit. The former is made by Amazon, the latter by Rakuten Kobo, a Canadian company. That might be why the Libra Colour feels a little easier to get along with. It definitely accounts for the spelling difference. There are obvious similarities. Both brands make e-readers with E-Ink displays, and both operate storefronts where you can buy the books that live on them. But Kobo’s focus is more on hardware sales than on selling masses of digital…

If you’re one of the owners of a Sonos Roam speaker that has started overheating, you’re one of a select group of unlucky users. The company recently acknowledged that some of its 2021 portable speakers are experiencing heating issues, centred around the USB-C charging port. The problem, according to Sonos, isn’t widespread at all, though it says it is “closely monitoring” reported cases and taking steps to reduce the likelihood of problems. Not quite the fall of Roam The issue appears confined to the original batch of Sonos Roam units, which debuted in 2021. The successor speaker, the Roam 2,…

Google’s NotebookLM started life as an AI function that converts documents into audio podcasts, transitioning shortly after to a more education-focused summary tool. Next, it’s coming for the kids. Which might sound ominous, but that’s only the case if the kids using it become lazy and don’t check Gemini’s work or sources, and simply accept the connections NotebookLM makes for them. Oh. Oh, no… Anyway, here’s NotebookLM for kids Google this week said that it was making its NotebookLM tool available to “Google Workspace for Education users of all ages”, meaning that the average student must still wait a while…

If you’re in a corporate environment that uses Google Meet for virtual meetings, you’re a) super thankful that it’s not Microsoft Teams and b) about to get an all-new feature. The search giant has added a new function to its login process that uses “ultrasound proximity detection” to ascertain that you’re ready to enter a virtual room. If that sounds super-futuristic, that’s because it is. If it sounds a little disconcerting and somewhat dystopian, you’re a pessimist. Also, it is. But it’ll require Google Meet conferencing hardware to function on your laptop, so it’s unlikely to be spying on you…

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the South Korean company’s latest attempt at dominating the global folding smartphone market, and, if previous performance was anything to go by, we expected good things from the new entry. Not surprising things, but certainly good ones. There are a few standout changes here — better cameras, a thinner profile, and lighter weight. There’s also supposed to be a strength increase, something we’re not comfortable testing to destruction since Samsung takes its phones back when we’re done with reviews. We’ll take their word on the titanium lattice structure’s chops, but we’d be lying if…

South Africans love their durable smartphones, and Oukitel has a few stunning examples of those. The newest is the Oukitel WP210, a 6.7in rugged monster of a device that should power you through several days of use while not skimping on other features. A launch date has not been confirmed yet, according to GSMArena, and we’ve checked the official website to find that there’s no listing for the device either. But current images and details seem to be spot on and official enough to take the Oukitel WP210’s existence seriously. Oukitel WP210, reporting for duty The WP210’s 6.7in display is…

No matter what you might use Reddit for at the moment, you’re likely to see changes coming to the platform in the coming months. CEO Steve Huffman, speaking during the company’s latest earnings call, has said that the website will expand its role as a search engine. The mechanism the company will use for this is a combination of its Answers offering and large language model (LLM) integration. It makes a kind of sense — the website’s users often share specific information about queries pertinent to a particular subreddit, be it gaming, tech support, or how to wash a pair…

If your company isn’t crowing about AI in 2025, investors aren’t interested in looking at you. That could be why Uber Eats has announced that it will include artificial intelligence features in its app. Don’t get too dismayed — the features aren’t for you. Yet. Instead, restaurants and other sellers on the app will have an AI suite in the backend to help them “analyze customer reviews, auto-fill menu descriptions, and enhance food photos.” You know, stuff you can do already without setting fire to the planet. Uber Eats at the AI trough The new AI features will let food…