Author: Brett Venter

Amazon has been on a buying spree of late. It’s not certain whether the company is looking to become the first truly dystopian megacorp. Some might argue that has already taken place. But acquiring iRobot, the company that makes the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, has to push it a rung or two further up that ladder. What Amazon plans to do with its new bauble is also doubtful. It’ll definitely fold iRobot’s tech into its range of smart products, possibly giving the world a Ring Roomba. We’re picturing an automatic vacuum cleaner that can also go and see who’s at…

Earlier this year, Meta head Mark Zuckerberg announced that NFT support was coming to Instagram. Following a test in May this year, the function is making like an Autobot and rolling out. It’s not just turning up in one or two places, either. Zuckerberg revealed, via an Instagram post, that NFTs on the platforms were heading to another 100 countries. The exact set of locations isn’t certain, but it includes “…Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas”. South Africa’s in there somewhere. Instagram’s instant NFTs Don’t expect broad-based support on Insta just yet, though. Yes, you can show off…

Apple products don’t do anything as crass as getting old. They become vintage. And, in a bid to make everyone feel old, Apple’s very first MacBook Pro featuring a Touch Bar has just hit that milestone. It’s not alone, though. A collection of other MacBook products, a pair of iMac models, and two iPad Pro versions are all now classified as vintage. This isn’t the worst thing in the world to have happen. It typically takes at least five years for an Apple product to get to this point. MacBook Pro retires, story at 11 The products newly reclassified are…

First National Bank (FNB) is all about giving its customers additional benefits. eBucks, discounts on software, rebates on massive petrol prices — it’s all designed to make you like them. The bank has a new batch of please-like-me stuff heading in customers’ direction. These new benefits are along the lines of previous offerings. The tagline for its announcement today is ‘Beyond Banking’, and signals how FNB is looking to be useful for more than just financial services. As if that wasn’t obvious before. Listening to FNB FNB has teamed up with a whole range of new services, in a bid…

Asus has been on a roll lately. The company’s spitting out laptops like a cartoon cat launching watermelon seeds. Unlike some mass producers, basically all of the company’s hardware has been excellent. The Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED, the latest slab of metal-encased computing performance to cross Stuff’s desk, is no exception. The Pro 16X OLED seems closely related to the company’s StudioBook ProArt 16 OLED. They’re both slanted towards the design-minded, rather than the everyday user. They can both play games, but that’s not their intended purpose. And they both feature a dial of sorts. For creative reasons, we…

While Stuff was at TymeBank’s new SME-focused update in Johannesburg today, we encountered one of its kiosks. These are designed to let potential customers open a new bank account as fast as possible. Since we’d just trooped out of a panel discussion, and the machine was free, we decided to give it a shot. Part of the company’s advertising is that it takes less than five minutes to open a new bank account. We didn’t time it, unfortunately. But we can confirm that it took longer to pay for parking in Sandton than to open the new account. Which, yes,…

South African digital bank TymeBank today announced a series of new features and changes to its business. All of these share a common thread — they’re geared to point the bank squarely at small businesses. Specifically, the bank hopes to make itself the best choice for small South African startups. Key to this is the acquisition of a company called Retail Capital. Retail Capital focuses on something called working capital solutions. In basic terms, the company lends money to businesses in need of products or supplies to continue operations. So a shipment of food for a spaza, a batch of…

One of the largest criticisms lobbed at blockchain technology is that it’s not really useful for anything beyond making sure it continues to exist. Almost every single implementation adds an extra, power-heavy layer on top of systems that don’t actually need it to function. Video games are being made that leverage the blockchain. They’re almost without exception irritating grind-fests. Attempts to add NFTs to games, for unique digital items, have been reviled. So reviled that similar efforts without blockchain integration have to specifically say they avoid the technology. So it’s time for yet another industry to decide that blockchain is…

Sennheiser’s Momentum Wireless headphones have long been a staple of Stuff’s Top 10 lists. Currently, the brand is on its third-generation Momentum product but the Momentum 4 Wireless is waiting in the wings. And now, we know all about it thanks to a Canadian online retailer that jumped the gun. This is weird because Canadians are more sensible with guns than their American cousins. It’s mostly the look that was spoiled by this errant leak, though. The visual redesign is the largest change coming to the lineup anyway, but the leak itself doesn’t drop any specs beyond what is included…

August is a pretty special month. It’s the host of International Women’s Day and is widely considered Women’s Month. It also mostly contains Leos, but that’s just statistics. The August-September 2022 issue of Stuff Magazine is out in the wild and it celebrates at least a few of these points. We’ll give you a hint — it’s got nothing to do with Leos. We’re pretty sure. No, it’s women in tech that headline Stuff’s newest issue. And not international women in tech, either. We know they exist, but why should they get all the good press? We’re talking about South…