Author: Brett Venter

Uber Intelligence, a new function in the ride-sharing apps for its advertising partners, has just recruited you (and everyone else who uses the service) as Intelligence operatives. The company just announced the ‘feature’, a “data and insights platform that gives brands a clearer view of how people move through the world, from the trips they take to the meals they order.” If you need it spelled out, that means the data Uber has gathered from its users, encompassing travel and meal orders, is up for grabs. It’ll be suitably anonymised (“pseudonymized”, according to Uber), resulting in “a privacy-enhancing way to…

If you’ve been on the lookout for a new high-spec Toyota to drool over, the new GT GR and GT GR3 models will be happy to set your saliva production into overdrive. The two new vehicles are prototypes of the Japanese company’s motorsport and performance ambitions, intended to “showcase technologies never before used in a Toyota production car.” Toyota is all about futuristic vehicles, when it’s not releasing the more reliable and boring sort you see on the road every day. The GT GR and GR3 are more forward-looking than the latter, eventually functioning as “future flagships for Toyota’s performance…

Kohler, the company behind the Dekoda toilet camera and several other smart toilet gadgets, appears to have fallen short of its claimed “end-to-end encryption”. Unless it meant that it can see your rear end from its end, in which case, they were being largely honest. Okay, so you might not wind up with pictures of your butthole on the internet as a result of the smart device maker’s security issues, but since the company “can access the data stored on its servers” from its toilet cameras, somebody could well get a gander at… something. And then use it to train…

It’s been just a few short months since Meta unveiled its latest crop of AI-featuring wearable devices, and while the company has received positive feedback from these, Zuckerberg and friends obviously feel there’s more they can do. Enter Limitless, a wearable AI device maker newly acquired by the social media/internet giant. The company could well use its tech to release a new type of wearable — one that goes around your neck rather than sitting on your skull. Meta learns new limits It can be argued that AI is hanging around humanity’s neck already like an exceedingly well-cooled albatross, but…

Casio’s wristwear has always been up for a good partnership or two, meaning that the brand’s upcoming Stranger Things crossover isn’t much of a surprise. Branded versions of the company’s  G-Shock DW-5600STT-1 and Vintage AQ-800EST-1A wristwatches are bound for countries outside of Japan. Is South Africa on the list? Perhaps, as both the brand DW-5600STT and AQ-800EST models are listed on Casio’s South African website. Whether you’ll be able to buy them is another matter, but since the availability date is given as December 2025, it may take a while to confirm. Casio turn it up to Eleven As is…

Crocs, the shoes made famous by Idiocracy before the trend of wearing them really took off, has a brand new partnership incoming. Microsoft has paired up with the world’s most hideous (but inexplicably comfortable) shoe in the past, releasing a Windows XP edition of the plastic footwear. Next up? An Xbox-branded set. There is a catch if you’re a South African gamer looking to adorn your feet with plastic game controller replicas. The shoes are only available (for now) on the official Crocs website. You’ll have to join a waitlist to order them, too. What a lot of Crocs The…

Want the most advanced motorcycle helmet in the world? Then cast your eyes towards the Shoei GT-Air 3 Smart, a brain bucket made in conjunction with a company called EyeLights. It’ll cost you a cool R24,000 (€1,200) to protect your cranium with one, but you should be checking out Shoei’s headgear even if it’s not packed with tech. And what tech it is. EyeLights reckons the GT-Air 3 Smart is the world’s first helmet with fully supported augmented reality built into the visor — something we’ve been expecting for some time. BMW has already offered bikers similar tech, in glasses…

One thing you’ll notice with every ‘free’ AI service is that it eventually transitions to paid features. Samsung’s Galaxy AI appears to be no different, with the South Korean company dropping the first hints that you’ll eventually have to give it more money (probably on a monthly basis) to get upcoming functions to work. That doesn’t mean you can discard your Galaxy AI-featuring smartphone in disgust right now — the existing set of ‘free’ functions appears to be staying free. For a while at least. Anything new, though? That could be another matter entirely. Paying Samsung’s price The folks over…

Can you call it an EV-only showroom if there’s only one sort of EV in it? Technically, yes. Online smart home store mUther has unveiled a store that sells only EVs — a first for South Africa, apparently. The first (and only, at least to start with) vehicle to grace the Boksburg facility’s floor is the Dongfeng Nammi Box (most references dispense with the ‘Nammi’). mUther The store is called the mUther Xperience Hub (someone better get Chris Claremont on the line for uniform designs). The store, the creation of company head Alex Staniland, opened its doors on 17 November…

You can now play Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, if you’re willing to risk your boss’s wrath and jump through a few hoops at the same time. It won’t feature the fantastically smarmy Tim Curry chewing on scenery (that’s Red Alert 2), but the game’s bonkers cutscenes and excellent real-time strategy gameplay will at least let you while away a boring Friday at the office. The game is playable on all major browsers, but the folks behind the project reckon you should avoid Firefox if you’d prefer decent performance for your skiving-off time. That leaves Chrome, Edge, and Safari…