Author: Brett Venter

So you want to be a streamer, do you? Then your budget should probably include tickets to this year’s in-person Comic Con Africa. Why? StreamerCon, apparently. There’s now one more reason to attend the in-person geek festival in September this year. What is a StreamerCon? StreamerCon is not, as the name suggests, a parole program where former convicts get jobs on Twitch. No, it’s a “…hub for creators to expand their reach, collaborations to spark, and for aspiring content creators to be guided by industry veterans.” It sounds like it’ll be the most live-streamed part of Comic Con Africa. Which…

Apple is looking at cutting production of its iPhone SE and AirPods, according to reports out of Asia. Plans are to trim back the number of SE handsets produced by 20%, say multiple sources that spoke to Nikkei Asia. This is a bit of a blow for the newly-announced handset, which has only just turned up in South Africa. But, given the current situation overseas, it’s not exactly unexpected. No iPhone SE for Russia The most obvious reason for the cutback is that Apple has suspended sales in Russia. All of its sales. And since the company is the third-most-popular…

There’s a new Halo TV series currently airing, which means it’s the perfect time for a product crossover. The Microsoft property helmed by Master Chief gets the chance to put the boot in a day or so. That’s not a punk rock reference. There’s some new footwear dropping in from low orbit, a collaboration called the Wolverine x Halo: The Master Chief. It’s not a Marvel crossover, either. Wolverine is a footwear brand from the States, and the themed footwear is based on its Hellcat lineup. What Master Chief does for kicks With a few tweaks, of course. Halo creators…

DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) frequently does all sorts of impressive — and terrifying — military things. But not every project is a winner. Or talked about. There were several technologies envisaged by the American government in the early 2000s. DARPA was supposed to work on the feasibility of these, as part of something called the Information Awareness Office (IAO). The objective for these projects, given it was George Bush, Jr’s fledgling War on Oil-Containing Countries Terror™, was largely surveillance. And while the Information Awareness Office was officially canned after a year of existence, many of the technologies…

PUBG developer Krafton has signed a long-term deal with Solana Labs that will cause the dev creating “blockchain- and NFT-based games and services”. Imagine how much your battle royale experience would be improved by the addition of NFTs. Or blockchain-based equipment purchases. That sounds like a fantastic idea, right? Guys? Where’s everyone going? This isn’t Krafton’s first foray into the world of blockchain-based games. Earlier this year, the company said it was teaming up with Naver Z to build “…an NFT metaverse platform”. But, as with the Solana Labs announcement, there wasn’t much detail to go on. They’re just going…

If you’re younger than a certain age, you might not remember Nokia all that well. First the world’s leading purveyor of feature phones, it was later snapped up by Microsoft. After an ill-fated foray into Windows smartphones, the company resumed making devices for itself in 2017. A few short years later, we’re standing here, in front of the Nokia T20 tablet. Which isn’t the first Nokia-made Android tablet Stuff has seen. But it’s certainly considerable slicker than anything that carried the Lumia branding back in the day. The Nokia T20 takes a page from its more modern smartphone designs by…

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…