Author: Brett Venter

One of the strangest Venn diagrams has to be Notorious B.I.G. fans who also spend time in Horizon Worlds. Horizon, in case you missed it, is Meta’s crack at that metaverse idea everybody used to talk about. There must be enough of them, or else Mark Zuckerberg is out to capture a whole new market. That’s because, on 16 December, a “hyper-realistic” recreation of Biggie will perform at a concert inside Horizon Worlds. If you’re keeping score at home, that means someone will play his greatest hits on Spotify while a computer model pretends to be him. But in VR,…

WhatsApp has launched yet another business-focused feature. As part of Mark Zuckerberg’s drive to turn the app into a commerce tool, the ability to locate businesses has launched in five countries. South Africa isn’t one of those yet. But, based on which countries have the feature, it can’t be far off. It’s not the usual collection of front-runners getting the Shiny New Thing™. Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, and the UK are all on the list for the new search function. The point is to connect users with the companies they interact with, all while making sure that nobody ever has…

November is all about Black Friday. Or it’s about not touching yourself inappropriately, but we’ll stick to the retail aspect, thanks. This year, South African retailer Game will launch its Black Friday ambitions in an unusual place. No, not there. Roblox, the online sandbox, will host the company this month. Game describes this as an entry into the metaverse, a thing that doesn’t exist and has no clear definition yet. But it’s a convenient way of describing interacting with a brand (an intangible something) in a virtual space (an intangible place). So we’ll let it go for now. Getting stopped…

Yesterday Telkom announced that it was handing the reigns for the TelkomONE streaming service over to the SABC. The service has been renamed SABC+ and is now a partnership between the public broadcaster and the Chinese brand Hisense. Initially, the name of the service was still vague and unconfirmed. Today, SABC+ is heading to Hisense’s VIDAA-powered smart TVs. In a bit of a kick in the nuts to Multichoice, the partnership will see 28 of this year’s FIFA World Cup matches broadcast on the platform. Unfortunately, we don’t know which games will be broadcast yet. SABC+ Football It’s not just…

At the end of 2020, the SABC and Telkom launched TelkomONE. This was a streaming service dedicated to letting the SABC claim a cut of streaming revenue in the form of TV licenses the SABC’s collection of content. We’ve heard relatively little about the service in the intervening months but now there’s finally some action. Of a sort. Telkom has announced that it is transferring TelkomONE as a whole over to the SABC. The country’s public broadcaster will surely do a magnificent job of improving on what is already a mediocre platform. Remember that TelkomONE? That previous statement might sound…

Asus has dropped its new Vivobook Pro 16x OLED onto a very crowded notebook market. It’s an excellent piece of hardware but it’s sadly marred by the fact that it’s the second time we’ve seen it this year. The previous model, which shares the exact same name, is a little slower and lacks a few features. But, by and large, it’s the same machine. The chassis design is almost completely identical. The lid is absolutely the same between both machines. Most of the differences require a closer look — the port arrangements are totally different, for example. But you don’t…

Robotics company Boston Dynamics is suing military robotics company Ghost Robotics over the design of Ghost’s robotic quadrupeds. The suit, according to Robot Report, claims that Ghost has infringed on seven different patents applicable to the Spot robot dog. Specifically, Ghost’s Vision 60 and Spirit 40 units infringe on Boston’s technology, according to the suit. The infringed capabilities include how the robots navigate stairs and gait interruption, among other abilities. Boston Dynamics sees a Ghost Boston, when queried, replied with a boilerplate “We don’t comment on ongoing litigation” statement but its motivation for the suit is even less clear. The…

Everyone knows that one guy or girl who doesn’t pay for Netflix but racks up massive viewing hours. A bit like that houseguest on your couch who won’t leave, these users tend to be hard to shift. Well, the streaming platform is giving users the ability to give them the boot. The new feature is one that has taken its sweet time coming. Netflix calls it Manage Access and Devices because it… lets you manage access and devices on an account. No more Netflix for you Using the feature is as easy as clicking over to the relevant menu (Manage…

NFTs or non-fungible tokens were super popular for a while there. That interest has taken a dive since November 2021, which means it’s the perfect time for fitness brand Nike to launch its own take*. .SWOOSH is the name of the company’s new web3 platform. It’s entered a beta, ready for rollout at a future date. The name for the platform is taken from Nike’s iconic emblem, known as the swoosh. Or, more likely, the swoosh™. This new venture uses all those lovely crypto-themed buzzwords like ‘blockchain’ and ‘web3’ and ‘please invest in this’. A .SWOOSH in the hand Nike’s…

Australia, in the face of increasing ransomware attacks, is considering making it illegal to pay off those behind these attacks. The country’s largest health insurer and its second-largest telecoms company have, in recent months, had their data locked up. That’s not the whole list, of course. Several other entities have suffered ransomware breaches recently. Ransomware, in case you missed the introductory classes, is when an outside party breaks into a system, encrypts it and demands money to give the data back. When it’s done to an individual user, as it was initially, it’s often possible to suck up the loss…