Author: Brett Venter

NASA, if your memory is good enough, sent a spacecraft to tangle with an asteroid late last year. The DART or Double Asteroid Redirection Test came to a conclusion last night when the 600kg satellite collided with its target out in space. The plan was to lob the DART satellite at the Dimorphos asteroid and see if it makes any difference to its trajectory. Most of the DART was just weight with some basic navigation and propulsion systems, intended to collide with the Didymos satellite orbiting Dimorphos. Unfortunately, Didymos wasn’t playing ball so NASA sent it at the roughly 150-metre…

There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. Unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg, in which case all opposition to your plan for world domination should be crushed underfoot. Even then, it may not go your own way. But it’s not just social media that suffers from a lack of proper competition. It’s part of a greater trend in the technology space. Smartphones are at risk, along with social media, laptops, and a host of other technologies. The reason? There’s less competition in the market than there used to be. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fix it. Risk…

Let’s start by saying that we have no idea what the Delage D12 will cost when it finally goes into production. The vehicle is the headliner for the resurrected Delage marque and it’s a beast. In a very sleek, F1 sort of way. When (or if) it releases, it’ll be the fastest supercar allowed on conventional roads. How fast, you ask? 360km/h, but you’re not supposed to drive it that fast anywhere outside of a track. But you’d probably make use of its bonkers acceleration at least once or twice. The Delage D12 is supposed to be able to reach…

Nobody can accuse Samsung of trying to reinvent the wheel. The toilet, on the other hand… Yes, Samsung has come up with a technologically advanced toilet, providing us with a chance to indulge in some terrible humour. That’s not the first thing on our minds. It is, however, number two. Jokes aside, the South Korean company really has an all-new take on the traditional thunderbox. It’s supposed to be a more environmentally friendly toilet, thanks to a couple of innovations. [insert toilet humour here] The company’s R&D division, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, came up with the concept as…

It looks as though South Africans might see some relief from load shedding this weekend. Eskom has announced that the stages experienced will scale back over the weekend. We’re on Stage 5. By early Sunday morning, the country should be at Stage 3. That’s the plan, anyway. Stage 5 is expected to stick around until 05:00 on Saturday morning, after which it’s Stage 4 until 05:00 on Sunday morning. That’s planned until 05:00 on Monday morning. After that… who knows? It’s a Stage they’re going through #POWERALERT1 Loadshedding will continue to be implemented at Stage 5 until Saturday morning, thereafter,…

What happens when you combine Kojima Productions, NASA, and a wristwatch manufacturer? You end up with a wristwatch based on a video game company’s mascot and possibly the strangest crossover event in history. Okay, except maybe for that time Elton John and Eminem performed together at the Grammys. What’s Kojima up to now? Uncle Hideo is known for being a little weird. Kojima Productions’ mascot is a character called Ludens. Ludens spends all of his time in a space suit. He’s famous for it, almost. You know who else spends loads of time in spacesuits? Astronauts? So the partnership between…

A certain short-form video app (*cough*TikTok*cough*) has caused considerable issues for authors. You know, those people who write books? Amazon’s about to correct those issues or, at the very least, make it harder for authors to lose money just because people want free books. Amazon is about to change how ebook refunds on the platform work. It used to be that ebooks could be returned for a refund within seven days of purchase, no questions asked. Well, the online shopping giant’s about to start asking questions. An Amazon expedition For starters, the seven-day, no-questions-asked policy is about to go away…

Multichoice is looking to change how its business works. Satellite TV and streaming are still part of the company but there’s also plenty more coming. It’s diversified and it includes sports betting, exploration of insurance, fintech, and the security sector, and there’s a spot of education. Streama and Sky Oh, yes, and there’s hardware. Multichoice is launching a TV. Technically it’s the Sky Glass TV, which had already launched in the UK. It seems it’s coming to South Africa. It’s basically a streaming box built into a 4K TV panel that looks like a picture frame. Pricing and availability aren’t…

DStv is getting cheaper if you decide to go streaming only. DStv, according to the Multichoice product showcase today, is about to get cheaper. There is a catch, of course. You have to stream instead of getting your DStv from a satellite dish. That’s about it. A DStv discount? The price change is effective as of today. If you’re streaming and are on Premium, your price will drop from R840/m to R700/m. DStv Access customers see the streaming price for the tier drop from R120/m to R100/m. All the tiers in between also have a similar drop. Here they are.…

South Africa used to produce some very high-end military gear, like the Rooivalk attack helicopter and the MGL-40 grenade launcher. It’s been a while since something new turned up in the country and now it has. A South African company called the Paramount Group has unveiled the Mwari, a locally-made precision strike aircraft. Named for the Shona creator deity (though we’re not sure why — it seems like a fairly nice god, as gods go), the two-seater attack aircraft is designed to fill multiple military roles. It’s reportedly the first aircraft of its type to be produced in SA since…