Author: Brett Venter

It’s relatively rare that Stuff gets to talk about the pope. Generally, we avoid religion unless artificial intelligence and Balenciaga are involved (apparently), but this also applies when the leader of the Catholic faith upgrades his vehicle to an EV. Mercedes Benz has revamped Pope Francis’ popemobile (its unofficial title) to be a little more eco-friendly. The German automaker has supplied vehicles to the papacy for almost 100 years. For 45 of those, the car chosen to ferry the pontiff was a modified G-Class. Well, His Holiness is about to experience instant torque. To the Popemobile! The Mercedes G-Class Popemobile…

Chinese brand Honor makes some excellent products but there’s one we have yet to lay hands on — its MagicBook laptop lineup. The company announced new 300-series smartphones this week but it also unveiled two new contenders in its laptop lineup. These are only confirmed for China right now but we’re hopeful (perhaps in vain) that we’ll eventually see them on this side of the planet. Why? Huawei, formerly Honor’s parent company, has also launched laptops in South Africa and the MagicBook Art 14 saw a global release earlier this year. This is a MagicBook There are two new MagicBook…

Provided the current geopolitical situation in South Korea behaves itself, we could see something brand new from the country’s most famous company. Samsung is reported to be working on yet another unusual wearable product that we probably won’t get here. In addition to its smart ring, the South Korean company is shortly expected to unveil a set of smart glasses. When? According to a report out of Korea (Yonhap News), the company may unveil its new tech in January 2025. Before that happens, though, it will supposedly share details about the software that will drive the device sometime this month.…

It’s the time of year when Stuff publishes its annual gift guide. You’ll find the main thing in the December 2024-January 2025 issue of Stuff, which is due on shelves from 6 December, but we couldn’t stuff everything into the print version of the gift guide. That’s why you’ll find a few of these popping up as the country closes in on the big December shutdown. There’s still time to buy gifts and we’re here to guide you in how to do that. Today’s instalment is for that person who can’t get enough of yesteryear. But there’s no reason they…

Intel and Chinese brand Tencent Games have collaborated on a new bit of gaming hardware destined for launch in China and possibly the rest of the world. Called the Sunday Dragon 3D One (hey, we didn’t name the thing), it’s supposedly the “world’s first” glasses-free gaming handheld. Of course, that’s a false claim. Nintendo’s 3DS gaming console launched in China in 2012. Chinese platform ITHome has all the details of the Sunday Dragon 3D One, a name that suggests sequels are possible for the console. Never mind that not even Nintendo has managed a proper update to what was honestly…

The last time Donald Trump was in office, Huawei had a… rather unpleasant time. Samsung is reportedly preparing to sidestep any difficulties that arise as a result of the incoming American president’s Chinese tariff policies by changing the way its foldable phones are made. The report, by way of The Elec, claims that Samsung is making design changes to its range of foldable smartphones. This will reduce the amount of titanium, a product largely imported from China, contained in the devices. Samsung’s glass cannon Samsung is considering changing the backplane, an internal structure separating a folding smartphone’s screen and hinge,…

Meta, the company behind those ‘essential’ social networks Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is reportedly considering a massive new internet cable. The idea is to sidestep issues caused by relying on existing infrastructure, which is sometimes laid in volatile areas. The vast majority of Meta’s business rests on the back of internet access so it’s not surprising that it’s considering taking this step. Lost internet access is lost revenue for companies like Meta, no matter what various marketing departments would have you believe about their motives. The main question is: can the company pull it off? Meta-phorically speaking First spotted by…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has received a new contract to perform a task it hasn’t yet successfully managed. It’s done something similar(ish), but that doesn’t make this any less remarkable. The launch company has been awarded a NASA services contract to ship Dragonfly to its destination. SpaceX has been contracted to provide launch services for NASA’s Dragonfly mission. Dragonfly, if you’ve been paying attention, is a nuclear-powered lander planned for a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan sometime after 2028. The company will provide the launch platform — specifically a Falcon Heavy rocket — that will take the novel craft to its…

Huawei has released details of many upcoming products in the past few days. Joining the Mate 70 is a new version of Huawei’s Watch Ultimate Design Edition, a smartwatch that borrows a few tips from high-end horology purveyors. Those tips are almost universally from the ‘design’ side of the flashy name, resulting in a smartwatch that looks like it belongs in a watchmaker’s catalogue and not on a Chinese website. We’re awfully glad it appears on the latter, though, since there’s a chance we’ll get hold of it at some point. Intelligent Ultimate Design Okay, perhaps it’ll be as inaccessible…

It’s a good time to be Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi. Market research firm Canalys has issued its latest report on the African smartphone market and the Chinese company has increased its share of the smartphone market on the continent overall. That puts Xiaomi in third place. That might not be unexpected from a South African perspective, which tends to rank Samsung and Apple ahead of the Chinese contender but Apple, as a company, isn’t represented on the podium in Africa as a whole. African tastes When all of Africa’s countries are considered, Apple doesn’t rank in the top five for…