Author: Brett Venter

It wasn’t long ago that wearable devices did little more than track how many steps you took in a day. Now Samsung’s Galaxy Watch is getting ready to keep an eye on your (possibly undiagnosed) sleep apnoea. As with most new features from the South Korean company, it’ll turn up in its home country first before heading to the rest of the world. Sleep apnoea tracking is coming to the company’s wearables early in 2024 following approval by Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS). This regulatory approval process is something the feature will have to clear in other…

Spotify has been busy of late, dropping all manner of new features (mostly to do with artificial intelligence) but there’s a good old-fashioned freebie waiting in the wings as well. Well, ‘freebie’ is a relative term since it’s reserved for those who already give the music streaming service money every month. The key word here is ‘audiobooks’. Spotify is looking to increase the number of users on the platform who consume audiobooks and the way to do that is to give them a little free access to whet their appetites. If they like what they hear, users can buy more…

We haven’t gone a day in 2023 without some product or service having AI crowbarred into it. Statistics demand that eventually there will be a list of the worst AI implementations but we’re willing to bet that Fitbit’s upcoming generative system won’t be on that list. Not unless it pulls a version one Bard, anyway. That’s… probably not going to happen. Google has most of those issues sorted out and this AI system, announced at the search giant’s Made by Google event yesterday, isn’t looking to answer complicated questions that might strike you right about the same time that endorphin…

The pandemic lockdown was a very good time for Zoom (and other online meeting apps and services). Now? Less so. Zoom Docs is the platform’s latest bid to hold your online attention during a time when face-to-face is increasingly preferred. Consulting the Zoom Docs Everyone remembers the eponymous Zoom meeting from just a few years back but we’re all spending less time in front of webcams in 2023. Zoom Docs hopes to reignite this tendency for the company by offering similar functionality to that offered by Google Docs or Microsoft’s suite of collaboration tools. Since it’s 2023, there’s also some…

Samsung’s Galaxy FE lineup, otherwise known as the brand’s Fan Edition kit, has just gained three new members. An image leak late last month dropped some of the details, as well as official imagery, but the new announcement gives out all of the details of the new product lineup. What’s most remarkable about the announcement is the lack of fanfare. Samsung typically makes some sort of noise but this reveal was confined to a press release published on its own website and a brief YouTube overview of the Galaxy FE versions of the S23, Tab 9, and the new Buds…

Say what you like about Elon Musk, and folks frequently do, but the man is an inspiration. No, not like that. TikTok is considering a subscription charge for its services and now Meta is doing the same. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta intends to test-drive a plan that’ll let users in the European Union choose a monthly payment to get rid of ads on both Facebook and Instagram. The amount being considered for mobile users is a not-insubstantial R270, or around $14. Only, it’s in Euros, because of a little thing called the Maastricht Treaty. Developing the Meta…

That OnLeaks fellow is back at it again, dropping images of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus smartphones at not one but two different venues. Images of the S24 Ultra are also out and about but they show a smartphone that looks mostly similar to this year’s effort. Based on the image leaks, the smaller handsets are in for a bit of a redesign. Rather than the colour-matched and rounded edges we’ve become used to, the images of the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus show a new, flat titanium edge that’ll immediately bring to mind Apple’s iPhone design over…

There’s a brand new issue of Stuff, if not on the horizon then out on the shelves of your favourite retailer. The Oct-Nov 2023 issue of South Africa’s best tech magazine is packed to the eyeballs with ways for you to get better at everything. We really do mean everything, with topics like productivity, home theatre (which you really should check out while the Rugby World Cup is ongoing), and more turning up on the list.  One skill that’s always useful is the ability to travel light. Airlines love to charge for extra weight, which means every gram saved equals…

You have exactly one guess as to where the Archax robot mech originates from. If you said anything other than ‘Japan’ then we’re sorely disappointed that you haven’t been keeping up with your mecha anime. But we’re also proud of you for that, so it balances out. Of course Japan would be attempting to actually build a working mech. It’s not the first time that country has given it a shot but the Archax, the product of a startup called Tsubame Industries, is considerably more expensive than the Kuratas, which was on sale on Amazon. Archax enemy This 4.5-metre-tall robot…

It’s been so long since the Charge 5 launched that the newly announced Fitbit Charge 6 has a whole lot more Google inside it than was previously the case. That’s because, in the intervening time, Google completed its assimilation of the fitness tracker company. Long story short, there’s a new member of the Charge family. Unusually, if you’ve been doing this for a while, the announcement turned up on Google’s website rather than, say, Fitbit’s. It also appears there but it’s just a little weird to see Google taking the lead. Google’s Charge 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbLmKWsaCvI Since this is a Fitbit…