Author: Brett Venter

Imagine if Meta decided to make a car. It’s less outlandish than you might expect. The company has figured out ways to suck up all sorts of other user data so far. Driving data probably isn’t that low down on its list of priorities. But, for once, Meta isn’t in the spotlight here. Instead, everyone else is clamouring around the freshest trough of user-generated data. Driving data is the newest gold mine for… well, for anyone who has anything to do with the motor industry. Repair companies want it. Insurers want it. In South Africa, insurers are actively receiving it.…

In future, you might well have to provide your biometric data to mobile service providers when obtaining a new cellphone number. The same applies when applying for a SIM swap. So sayeth the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). A new set of draft regulations from the regulator is explicit about the need for MSPs to collect user biometric data. The requirement is part of a larger set of changes to the country’s Numbering Plan Regulations from 2016. Most of these changes only really affect service providers like Vodacom or MTN. But the biometric requirement will directly impact the…

If you watched the 2018 film Ready Player One, you might recall the environment surrounding the players inhabiting the OASIS. The protagonist lives in a multi-level trailer park. He plays games inside the back of a derelict van with an internet connection. It’s a dystopian vision of a future. It’s also not too far off from what an actual, functioning metaverse would require. And not because Mark Zuckerberg and everyone who looks like him (you know, Silicon Valley CEOs) are the villains in this piece. They are, more or less, but that’s not why the metaverse is an awful idea.…

Once upon a time, you could only tag products in your Instagram posts if you were a business or possessed a creator account. But Meta (formerly Facebook) really, really wants to turn the platform into a one-stop-shop. One they can scrape commission off the top of. In the interest of a future with better advertising (for Meta to exploit), the social network is throwing the ability to tag products to everyone. As long as ‘everyone’ lives in the US, at least for now. We fully expect Instagram’s change to go global eventually. In the future, everyone will be an unpaid…

There’s only one constant when it comes to space travel. Well, besides rockets blowing up sometimes. And that is delays. Starship, SpaceX’s ambitious new craft, was originally supposed to take to the skies in January this year. There’s now a new date floating about that may or may not be achieved. And that date is May this year. Knowing Meme-Lord Elon, the company will try as hard as they can to turn 4 May into a viable option. May the Fourth, and all that. But it’s far more likely they’ll actually pick the date that’s the safest for an orbital…

Google’s Equiano internet cable, first announced in 2019, has made landfall in its very first African country. Though the cable was supposed to first stop in Nigeria, the government of Togo was able to persuade the search giant to give them first dibs. The cable forms part of Google’s plan to invest in Africa’s ‘digital transformation’. It follows a general trend of large tech companies investing in African internet infrastructure. The landing was handled by CSquared, a Uganda-based internet company that started life as a Google initiative. South Africa is represented here as well. Convergence Partners, a South African company,…

Governments generally approach new trends very slowly. South Africa, famously, can’t even manage its television signal switchover. That operation is about a decade late, so far. So it’s a little surprising to learn that the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is working on a digital Rand. More or less. It’s not something that’ll come to everyday South Africans in a big hurry, however. It’s part of a joint project between the reserve banks of several countries, as well as the Bank for International Settlements. The other countries involved are Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. The value of a digital Rand The…

VW does a lot of interesting things in the tech space. It’s working on autonomous driving, recycling, there was that whole diesel thing we don’t talk about… But VW South Africa’s got something a little more modern for us this week. Selling cars… wait for it… using NFTs. Impossible, you say? Actually, it’s not. It is, from a marketing perspective, almost genius. VW has stashed NFTs in the new locally-filed ad for the Polo. It’s giving away twenty unique digital items URLs that you can claim ownership of (a day) over five days. All you have to do is find…

Back to the Future is one of the most seriously disturbing family movies ever made. Seriously. Watch it again. But the tale of Doc Brown and Marty McFly’s voyage back (and forward, and further back in time) is also an iconic cinematic adventure. It deserves the fans that love it. Even if they are a little weird. The most iconic bit of the film, besides Marty’s outfit or Doc’s hair, has to be the Delorean. The movie’s influence is so extensive that the brand is coming back as an EV. And now Lego is also getting into the act, with…

We’ve been waiting for Huawei’s P50 lineup of phones since July last year. The P50 Pocket, a folding phone in the vein of Samsung’s Flip series, has been on our radar for months as well. Last night, the Chinese tech maker finally made both phones official for South Africa. Pre-orders for both handsets start next week, on 22 March. They’ll turn up in retail stores from 1 April. The only item missing from the list of info we had on the P50 Pocket and Pro was pricing. Well, that’s been sorted out. More or less. Want to pocket a P50…