Author: Brett Venter

Who among us hasn’t felt the urge to spice up a road trip with the uncertainty of proprioception dislocation? Audi plans to offer just that, by offering support for Holoride in-car virtual reality in some models before the end of this year. That’s right. Your kids will soon compound carsickness and simulation sickness on the back seat of your R450,000 family car. Or you can make a passenger hurl by taking corners sideways in an R8 as they experience a rollercoaster in VR. Holoride or die Holoride (which the company likes to spell ‘holoride’) is an in-car specific virtual reality…

Meme-themed headline aside, former president of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime just took a serious shot at Meta’s metaverse ambitions. Speaking at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW), Reggie cast doubt on just how successful Mark Zuckerberg’s venture into the still vaguely-defined future will be. It wasn’t the idea of the ‘metaverse’ in general that Fils-Aime took exception to. It’s just Meta’s proposed implementation. Epic Games, and a few smaller companies, were given credit for doing interesting work on the proposed metaverse. Meta itself? Not so much. Say how you really feel, Reggie Speaking on stage at SXSW, Fils-Aime pointed out…

Samsung has two events. One is Galaxy Unpacked, for its flagship devices. The other is Galaxy Awesome, for its Galaxy A devices. We’ve had the one, now it’s time for the other. The South Korean company has issued invitations for its upcoming “Awesome Galaxy A Event”, which’ll take place on 17 March. That’s… well, that’s this week. And, as with last year’s event, expect this one to be a little hard to follow if it was a while since you were in high school. How do we know this? Well, Samsung gets a little Gen Z-happy for these events. And…

Any time you see a website on the internet asking you to fill out surveys for cash, expect that they’re about to rip you off. Except, perhaps, in the case of Google Opinion Rewards. This is an app supported by Google that offers users rewards. For expressing their opinion. Seems kinda obvious, based on the name. The app first launched in the States in 2013. Users download the app, answer questions when they’re available, and are rewarded with Play Store credit. And now, the app has finally landed in South Africa. That’s just, like, your opinion, man At least, that’s…

TymeBank launched in South Africa in 2018. At the time (heh), it billed itself as SA’s first digital-only bank. Now it’s time for something a little different. TymeHealth is set to be an app-based medical insurance offering from the company. The service aims to offer private medical care to people who might not have been able to afford it previously. Plans from TymeHealth will start at R140/m and signing up is… pretty easy. Making time for your TymeHealth  There are three plans available to users, all of which may be accessed by signing up via the company’s app. MediClub Connect…

The saga of Samsung’s Game Optimising Service (GOS) has been a quick and nasty one. First, it was found that GOS was artificially limiting app performance for more than 10,000 apps. Then, Samsung came along and said it wasn’t supposed to do that. Now the South Korean company has taken speedy action. Speedy action in South Korea, and just for its Galaxy S22 devices, to be fair, but it’s fast all the same. XDA Developers reports that Samsung has launched an update for the S22 that fixes GOS’ behaviour. Samsung kills the golden GOS The outlet reports that South Korean…

Who would have thought that taking NFTs, an obtuse item for people with more money than sense, and putting them in a vending machine was a good idea? Oh, right, a company called Neon was positive that it was on to a winner. And, to be fair, we would have given it a shot. While we would have loved to travel to New York in order to buy an NFT from a vending machine, we’re South African. It’s hard enough to keep the lights on in this country. We’re not about to travel roughly 13,000km to buy a URL. Someone…

If you’re interested in Apple’s newest compact powerhouse, the Mac Studio, you might have noticed a strange discrepancy. There are two versions of the little desktop replacement. One uses Apple’s M1 Max processor, the other the new M1 Ultra chip. If you peer a little closer at Apple’s official specs list, you’ll see quite a weight difference between the two. The M1 Max machine weighs in at 2.7kg. The M1 Ultra version? 3.6kg. That’s a 900-gram difference. Turns out, there’s a serious reason for the weight change. The Mac Studio is cool Both models, internally, are almost entirely identical. Apple’s…

And now for some good news, mostly for the olds out there. If you were a gamer back when the Sega Genesis and Ninty’s SNES were a thing, you probably played one of Konami’s Ninja Turtles games. Well, they’re all coming back, thanks to the pending launch of the Cowabunga Collection. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection (TMNT: CC for short) collects thirteen classic titles together in one place. The games hail from the arcade, the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and the Game Boy, but they’ll all be playable on… well, basically all the modern consoles. The PS4, PS5,…

Children are important. They’re our future, even. But there’s starting early, and then there’s going too far. VTech’s Level Up Gaming Chair, a gaming chair designed for toddlers, might just be the latter. Yup, proper lumbar support and excellent wrist placement don’t have to wait until your child is pre-pubescent. It’s possible to start them before preschool, simply by purchasing this slightly horrifying home addition. It looks like a gaming chair collided with Tex Dinoco from Cars and it’s… it’s kinda growing on us, actually. VTech just kicked in, yo The chair features a kiddified version of the moulded seat…