Author: Brett Venter

Japanese space company ispace may have encountered some of the hazards of space exploration earlier this year when the Hakuto-R lunar mission failed but that doesn’t mean that the folks behind it are giving up. Company head Takeshi Hakamada announced at a recent event in Tokyo that Mission 2 would be taking place shortly. Moreover, it would include a new micro rover for exploring the lunar surface. Rovers are generally named — Curiosity, VIPER, and possibly Roo-ver (that one’s Australian) — but ispace’s dinky little craft has yet to get a title. The new lander, on the other hand, has.…

Honor’s gone big in South Africa since it returned to the country after… everything that happened. The last major smartphone to cross our desk was the Honor 90 but the company’s about to hit triple digits. There’s a launch event planned in China later this week but supply chain chatter has already spilled (most of) the beans. The Honor 100 and 100 Pro handsets are expected to turn up at the company’s 23 November event. Most of the details and, indeed, images of the phones are already out in the wild so you don’t have to wait for the official…

YouTube and the rise of artificial intelligence aren’t exactly strangers but we haven’t heard an awful lot that sounded like it wasn’t going to be an immediate dumpster fire (so far). That might change with two new AI tools for the video-sharing platform that could make life easier for creators. Or, you know, considerably more difficult. These new features, according to a new blog post, are called Dream Track and Music AI Incubator. There’s more to these products than just the name, which tells you barely anything. The first allows creators to use artificially generated voices for 30-second clips. The…

If you’ve taken the time to poke around Amazon’s online store — South Africans are much more likely to do this in 2024 — you’ll know there are all sorts of things you can buy. Missing from the list of oddities, at least so far, has been a full-on motor vehicle. Yeah, that’s changing. Don’t get too excited, though. South Africa doesn’t even have a local Amazon outlet (yet). We won’t be on the list for vehicle purchases until other countries have it right. The online retailer and Hyundai have created a new partnership that will see the Korean automaker…

It’s been a couple of years since the Steam Deck first made its appearance on the gaming scene. In that time several copycat contenders have shown up, including the Asus ROG Ally. But, given that it’s 2023, it’s just about time the original hardware got an upgrade. And that’s exactly what Valve has just announced. The major difference between this and 2021’s version? 2023’s Steam Deck is launching with a 7.4in OLED screen and an increased price point. That second point is not just to make up for the switch from LCD to OLED, either. There are a few other…

If you’re not working on generative AI in 2023, you’re nothing. That’s the prevailing sense you get from the many (many) announcements flying out of every orifice of the internet this year. Samsung’s planning to yank something out of a hole of its own soon, announcing Samsung Gauss. It is, based on context (but also fact), the South Korean company’s very own generative AI and it’ll turn up in the next few months, according to an announcement made at the company’s AI Forum event. What’ll it do? It seems like it’ll power something called Galaxy AI. Gauss, I think I…

We hope you weren’t especially attached to the Fitbit brand. According to a report from TechCentral, the wearable brand is leaving South Africa. The call comes shortly after the company was bought by Google and is the result of the same policy that prevents you from buying a Pixel smartphone in SA with ease. Uhhh… Google doesn’t feel like it. That’s not exactly how the company put it in a statement confirming the wearable tech brand’s departure. The company has made the move “…to align our hardware portfolio to map closer to Pixel’s regional availability”. That also means that Nest…

Ford, the auto manufacturer, is celebrating 100 years in South Africa this month. At a celebration event at the Silverton manufacturing plant in Pretoria today, the company announced that it would begin production of a new type of Ranger in 2024 – a plug-in hybrid. Can you af-Ford one? Since production has yet to start, Ford hasn’t given out any pricing but expect them to be a little more costly than a stock Ranger. It’ll have a 2.3 litre EcoBoost engine alongside its EV components but the company reckons that you’ll be able to drive it in full EV mode.…

Transportation app Uber has marked its ten-year anniversary in South Africa by launching Uber Package. The service intends to offer same-day deliveries in the country using electrified bikes. Two of them, in fact. There won’t just be two bikes, obviously. You won’t get your package if there are two new drivers. Uber will launch two types of battery-powered scooters in SA, starting in Cape Town this year. Uber bikes The new bikes are differentiated by their batteries. Okay, fine, they also look different and have different ranges (and speeds). One is rated as medium speed and, with a 1.5kW battery…

If ever there was a place we didn’t want to see AI unleashed it would be YouTube’s comments section. Google’s video-sharing platform is well known for having a chaotic environment where folks will comment on the video they’re watching (while casting aspersions on other commentators). Do we really need AI to explain what’s going on in there? Turns out, the answer to that is ‘yes’. Google is conducting a small-scale experiment with some of its YouTube Premium subscribers that will net them an AI assistant devoted to navigating the vast world of YouTube more effectively. And yes, that includes the…