Author: Brett Venter

Last year LastPass, the encrypted password-protecting app, released details of a data breach that affected both the company and customers. The details of this breach have trickled out over time, with some of the more disturbing info being held over until the world was on holiday. As the late, great Billy Mays once said, ‘But wait, there’s more!’ The company that owns LastPass, GoTo, has confirmed that customer data was also hauled off during the hack. Some of that customer data is at risk. Head ’em off at the LastPass The company’s second hack of 2022 resulted in more extensive…

Extreme sports have, in addition to giving the world the X Games, always been an exciting pastime. Whether you’re doing something unlikely at high speed yourself or just checking out some vintage footage, it always delivers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a spectator or a participant. Sadly, most of us will only ever be spectators. This might go some way towards explaining why extreme sports video games have proved so popular over the years. It all started with Tony… actually, it all started with California Games in 1988. But it wasn’t until eleven years later, in 1999, that Tony Hawk’s…

Jabra makes a lot of in-ear headphones. Seriously. A whole lot of in-ear headphones. Eventually, statistics dictate, you wind up repeating yourself. That’s the case with the Jabra Elite 5 in-ear buds. Were these released in isolation, they’d be a fantastic set of affordable in-ears. But right now? We’ve seen most of what they can do before this. But at R2,500, they’re relatively affordable and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the tech they’re packing. But they don’t have to be here. The Jabra Elite 2 will cost you R1,300. The Elite 4 Active is R2,200. The Elite 7 Active? R3,600.…

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…