Author: Brett Venter

If you thought you were getting away with dodging price increases just because you’re a Telkom subscriber, think again. Following MTN and Vodacom upping pricing earlier in the year, Telkom’s about to do the same. But, at least, there is a few more months’ grace before the increase kicks in. 1 August is the big day, so you’ve got plenty of time to watch the petrol price climb even higher before your Telkom account starts to cost more. The tariff increases will affect all of the telecoms provider’s fixed-line and broadband customers, as well as a selection of mobile services.…

Is R40,000 too much to pay for a 75in TV? The Hisense U9G doesn’t think so. But then, if all you’re after is a super-large screen, you can get that for less. Samsung’s got a few models, one as cheap as R25,000. Heck, if you’ll willing to lose five inches, you can grab a 70in TV for R16,000. Nobody even knows how long five inches is anyway, right? But with this sort of price gap in the market, the Hisense U9G has a lot to prove. Why is it worth dropping an extra R15,000 on Hisense’s panel over Samsung’s screens?…

Everyone’s third-favourite¹ information-harvesting app, WhatsApp, is getting yet another update in the coming weeks. This time around, there are changes afoot for how the app’s backups work. Specifically, it’ll let you export them from Google Drive. About bloody time, too. Late last year, the app rolled out encryption for backups. This one’s a little different. See, your WhatsApp backups are stored on Google Drive. And, presently, they don’t count towards your backup total. So if you’ve got 15GB of storage (the standard for a free account) and have 3GB of data belonging to Meta’s app on the service, you’ve still got…

If Tesla can do it, Toyota can do it too. That’s at least partly the thinking behind the Japanese auto-maker launching its very own home-based battery storage system. You know, the sort of thing we all need in our homes to avoid load shedding? But, unlike the Powerwall, it’s not bound to turn up in South Africa any time soon. The O-Uchi Kyuden System, as Toyota calls it, is designed to run your home on battery power in case of emergencies. All of the bits and pieces that make it up, though, are a product of the company’s EV tech.…

And now for something completely dystopian. Discovery has launched a new service in Johannesburg that is nothing more or less than a private firefighting service. Called Fire Force, the service runs in conjunction with Advanced Emergency Management Services (Advanced EMS). Because where is Discovery going to store a fire truck? It’s not something that you just sign up for. The medical insurer offers the service to Discovery Insure customers who live within a specific radius of Johannesburg. It doesn’t seem like qualifying Insure customers need to do anything except phone the relevant phone number if a fire happens. Quite the…

If the only thing stopping you from jumping on the Apple bandwagon was having to buy it from the iStore, then things have changed. Nedbank’s Avo app now has Apple products on its platforms. It’s easier to buy, since, being backed by a bank, Avo knows just what you can afford. The month of June sees the launch of the popular American brands’ products on the platform, so of course there are discounts. There are three main deals — One for iPad, one for MacBook, and one for the iPhone 13 Pro Max. All three are bundles and all three…

M-Pesa is an African payment solution that has done awfully well on an international stage. The service is spreading its wings a little further, partnering with credit giant Visa for something a little more… global. Visa and M-Pesa have come together to create a new virtual bank card. That’s not really a novelty — loads of banks offer one now. This one, called the M-Pesa Global Pay Visa Virtual card, will facilitate payments to retailers all around the world. Making M-Pesa matter more The idea behind the virtual card is…. well, capitalism. It’ll give users access to more than 100…

Of all the places you thought might supply you with Apple products, Nedbank’s Avo app perhaps wasn’t at the front of the line. And yet, here we are. Avo, the South African bank’s so-called super app, has been appointed an official Apple Authorised Reseller. This means that it’s possible to purchase everything from Macs and iPads to iPhones, as well as all the ancillary bits that go along with them, via Nedbank’s app. A toast to Avo Apple’s products will appear on the Avo app from today and are available over 24-month contracts. Nedbank also says that June will see…

Just how cheap does a tablet have to be before it qualifies as a budget tablet? You could opt for something around the R1,200 to R2,500 mark, but then you’re facing spotty software support and it might run videos on its sub-standard screen. Maybe. If you install VLC on it and run your files locally. No, for our money, a budget tablet is any that comes in under R10,000. Of course, the more you get for the least amount of money is the factor that we tend to pay attention to. We’ve collected a decent little batch of locally-available hardware,…

Are you one of those technological Luddites still using the TweetDeck app for Mac? Well, we hope you’re comfortable with change. You’re about to be dragged into the future that Twitter wants when the app is shut down on 1 July 2022. Which is fair enough. Twitter acquired the platform in 2011 before systematically shutting it down, piece by piece. The mobile versions went away in 2013. The Windows version was dispersed in 2016. The Mac was the final stronghold for the Tweetdeck app, and now that too is falling. Bon voyage, TweetDeck We’re saying goodbye to TweetDeck for the…