Author: Brett Venter

*hits blunt* “Hey, you know what would make Instagram even better? Let’s add NFTs to it!” This probably isn’t how it actually went down, but it really can’t be too far off. Meta founder and all-round galaxy brain Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that support for NFTs is coming to the picture-posting platform. Speaking at SXSW, Zuckerberg said, “We’re working on bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term.” NFT #sponcon nightmare ahead Zuckerberg added, “I’m not ready to kind of announce exactly what that’s going to be today. But over the next several months, the ability to bring some of your…

In the beginning, there was Wordle. And there was much posting of coloured cubes on Twitter, and rejoicing. Then came The New York Times and a purchase in the “low seven-figures”. And there was much Right-Click-and-Saving in the land. At the time, changes to the guessing game were expected. Wordle was to remain free-to-play for a time, but there was always a chance that it would require a login or a subscription to access once The New York Times figured out what to do with its new toy. Wordle Archive goes away The first official enforcement of the NYT’s new…

Spotify has finally made enough money to be able to sponsor a soccer team. And not, like, Coventry City or Liverpool. A real soccer team. FC Barcelona is the team that’s, er… teamed up with the music streaming service. The sponsorship includes both shirt and stadium branding and kicks off from the 2022/2023 season. It’ll run over four seasons. No penalty for Barcelona FC Barcelona’s stadium, Camp Nou, is undergoing a name change as a result of the deal. It’ll now be known as Spotify Camp Nou. The streaming service is the first sponsor to secure naming rights for the…

Time flies when you’re taking photos of everything in sight. Japanese camera Brand Fujifilm is celebrating its ten-year anniversary in South Africa. How? By building a new place for people to work, obviously. But the new Johannesburg head office isn’t just about people earning a living playing with cameras. Okay, it kinda is. But it’ll also offer a few new aspects for the company. There’s set to be an on-site repair center, and then there’s the company’s Technology Centre Africa. Fujifilm goes green(er) Which, yes, is more or less an experience center. Most major companies have one these days, but…

When you hear the word ‘Kawasaki’, you probably picture something… specific. Sleek and fast, electric-snot green, with the word ‘Ninja’ in the title. You’re probably not thinking about Bex the robo-goat, which looks like something you might shoot on a cyberpunk hunting trip. And yet, here we are. Bex is indeed real. It looks a little like a children’s carnival ride before they spray fur on the thing, and it’s designed to carry cargo. It owes at least a little of its existence to Spot, the robot dog. After all, if Boston Dynamics can achieve success replicating canines, robotic capridae…

You’ll remember that in February, Huawei and South Africa’s Department of Labour were feeling a little disagreeable. See, Huawei’s staff complement is made up of 90% foreign nationals. The acceptable maximum, according to South African employment equity regulations, is 40%. This made the department responsible for this sort of thing understandably miffed. Things were said. Legal action was threatened. But then things cooled down a little, and both parties resolved to settle this matter out of court. That’s exactly what has happened, and it seems like everyone has more or less what they want. Huawei doing so far? In a…

South Africa’s Competition Commission doesn’t take a hand in the tech industry all that often. When it does, the effects are usually extensive and far-reaching. Meta, formerly Facebook, is about to find out what that means. SA’s Competition Commission has just instituted proceedings against the social media giant. The reason for prosecuting Meta before the Competition Tribunal is simple. Meta messed with the government. Specifically, government platforms called GovChat and #LetsTalk. Meta makes a mess The Commission alleges that Facebook, as it was known in 2020, “expressed an ongoing intention to offboard Gov Chat and #LetsTalk, a technology start-up that…

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…