Author: Brett Venter

We’ll say this about Chinese tech company Huawei — it has no idea how to give up. There’s a new product showcase ahead for the brand, set to take place at the end of this month. The event isn’t local — yet. It’ll take place in China on 28 April, but rumour suggests that we’ll see at least some of the new tech launched here in South Africa. Other bits… are far less likely to turn up. Pity. Huawei ready? Information on Huawei’s event turned up in the form of a poster published by the company itself. The image, since…

Rather than targeting the ultra-fit, Garmin’s newest wearable is aimed at the everyday person. The Vivosmart 5 is the latest in its range of fitness bands. Unlike the company’s admittedly stellar lineup of sports watches, the Vivosmart 5 sticks to the basics. You know, basics like step tracking. Sleep scores. Heart rate. Stress tracking. Pulse oxygen. The general sort of thing for people who want to be fitter but don’t need VO2 Max updates on a regular basis. Perhaps the best thing about Garmin’s new fitness band? It lands in South Africa at less than R3,000. Vivosmart 5 is alive!…

Netflix has seen a drop in subscribers for the first time in about ten years. The company has lost some 200,000 subscribers, which isn’t very much in the grand scheme of things. But it’s enough to get the company worried, since it was predicting an increase in subs not very long ago. And when companies are worried, things change. Last month, Netflix said that it was looking at ways to clamp down on password sharing. It also, recently, said it didn’t have a massive amount of interest in an ad-supported tier. Well, guess what? Changes for Netflix The streaming service,…

And now for a Twitter story that doesn’t mention Elon Musk at all… ah, dammit. Okay, aside from that one time. Twitter’s most requested feature, almost since the dawn of time, has been an edit button. That’s because Twitter is fast and human brains are slow. Typos creep in. Sure, you can delete ’em and try again. You could also try and brazen it out, but when you’ve just used the hashtag #susanalbumparty, an edit button starts looking awfully attractive. Unfortunately, it’s attractive for other reasons. Post something super-popular, get loads of engagement, and then alter it into something horrendous?…

Samsung loves to place emphasis on its fans. This much is obvious from its presentations, as well as the phone lineup literally called the ‘Fan Edition’. The only thing missing is a serious crossover. But Nintendo and Pokémon are making that happen. Kinda. Technically. If you live in South Korea. Samsung is launching a new Pokémon Edition Galaxy Z Flip 3, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a branded version of the company’s folding smartphone, but in Ash Red (a colour we didn’t just completely make up). (Pokémon) go buy it if you can Inside, it’s a standard…

By now it should be no secret that Disney+ is launching in South Africa. 18 May is the date, according to the service and a wide range of roadside advertising, but the Mouse Company is feeling a little insecure. This might be why Disney+ is asking South Africans to pre-register for the service. A little like Samsung asking buyers to pre-order their pre-orders, the service is letting users “…register their interest to subscribe to Disney+ in South Africa”. Disney+ a discount The point, obviously, is so the service can gauge local interest ahead of launch day. There’s probably some honcho…

It’s hard enough living in the modern world. The stress of constant notifications, while not as immediately threatening as, say, a bear, wears down a person’s soul. And when one of those notifications could, at any moment, be a thunderbolt that heralds load shedding (again), the urge to throw your vibrating phone can sometimes prove powerful. But if you’re packing a bit of load shedding avoidance kit, like the Energizer Max Power Station, then you might not be quite so twitchy. Then it’s just bosses and spouses and kids and the bank and Google’s notifications to worry about. Even so,…

Asus has been vying for your (and our) attention for some time. The company’s latest move just clinches it. Instead of asking you to head to retail like some regular person, the Taiwanese brand has launched its own online store in South Africa. Much like Samsung and Huawei, which sell their own products natively as well as on/in everyone else’s stores, you can now pick up Asus hardware via the company’s website. Feel the same Asus The company’s major focus with the online store, at least at the moment, seems to be its notebooks range. This includes more consumer-facing lineups…

Mining is a tough job anywhere. South Africa has a considerable mining industry, which makes mining safety an important topic in the country. Vodacom has designs on improving mining safety, through the use of wearable technology. And the Internet of Things (IoT), because that’s still a buzzword, apparently. As with other products released by the mobile service provider, like the Curve tracker and the newly-unveiled Linea watch, Vodacom’s mining tech is heavily based on location tracking. And a few other things as well. Miners require more than just a panic button, after all. Vodacom says: ‘Mine’ Vodacom’s Connected Worker solution…

If you want something to seem edgy and futuristic, add an X to it. That’s the modern-day equivalent of using a well-timed ‘Extreme!’ to get your thing to stand out. So it makes a kind of sense that Vivo’s first folding smartphone is the X Fold. As opposed to the Mate X lineup from Huawei, which is the same thing, only backward. It’s the very first folding handset from the Chinese brand, but don’t expect to see it in South Africa yet. The X Fold is only confirmed for a launch in China so far. Still, it’s worth checking out…