Author: Brett Venter

As these words are being written, we’ve had one of Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphones in our possession for about… two hours. That’s not a lot of time, but you can get a fair amount done in that period. You can have at least five terrible dates. You can go for lunch (twice). Or you can attend roughly one standard meeting where you’re not actually needed but are roped into anyway. Two hours isn’t enough to decide whether a smartphone, even a smartphone as slick as Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra, is worth buying. But it is long enough to get…

Predictions have flown for absolute ages around possible Apple-made augmented reality (AR) hardware. So far, the only thing it has consistently done is not show up. That might change, as soon as the end of this year. You know, instead of 2023, when everyone’s actually expecting it. A report from Digitimes (via MacRumours) claims that Apple’s AR headset prototypes have recently passed second-phase engineering validation tests (EVT 2). These tests ensure that the hardware meets the company’s standards, in terms of design and spec. Apple pirates say ‘AR!’ Apple View – Seeing is believing. See more 8K images on my…

We’re quite used to seeing things blast off from Earth en route to the International Space Station (ISS). We’re a little less accustomed to seeing what happens when cargo arrives. That changes today. Check out this brief video showing the careful connection of the ISS’ Canadarm2 robotic arm and Cygnus cargo spacecraft late last night. The operation, shown in the tweet below, looks like a slow, sedate one. But that’s deceptive, mostly because of the size of the object in the back (Earth). The fact that everything concerned is moving at the same speed (a little over 27,000km/h) also makes…

It’s hard to work out, unless you’ve been conditioned from a young age to think that exercise is fun. The rest of us need motivation. That motivation often comes in the form of music. We’ve also been conditioned to believe that every montage should be a musical number. But exercise equals sweat and sweat melts headphones. Most headphones. The Jabra Elite 7 Active in-ear buds should survive anything you can throw their way. Except for maybe a 16kg kettlebell. They’re tough, but not that tough. But, at R3,300 a pair, they really have to be quite decent to justify the…

Meta, the former Facebook, changed its name for several reasons. The one that has nothing to do with Facebook taking loads of flack was the whole metaverse idea. The social network hopes to position itself at the front of a future it is intent on creating. And, according to the social network, that future is nigh. As opposed to Nye, which is something completely different. Speaking to advertising agencies about the platform, Meta claimed that mixed reality — which combines the real and digital worlds — will become a serious thing for consumers in the next few years. In Meta’s…

So you want to be Batman, do you? Yeah, so do millions of other people who’d like to punch a mentally-ill clown for a living. But you have to walk the walk. Or, at least, drive the Batmobile. That’s a definite option, if you’ve got Bruce Wayne-level cash. Best of all, you won’t be wrecking the environment much. An intrepid designer based in Vietnam, Nguyen Dac Chung, built an EV version of the Tumbler, the vehicle that scares the pants off of Morgan Freeman in Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Using blueprints for the movie original, the Tumber was recreated…

Meta has revealed a little information about its metaverse aims. Besides the name-change and significant investment in a technology years from existing in any tangible format, the former Facebook has launched a rebadged virtual reality experience called Horizon. This metaverse stand-in has seen a substantial amount of growth since Horizon Worlds launched last year. Starting from a pool of about 30,000 users, it has jumped to more than 300,000 in rather short order. But it’s still not enough to begin a critical mass for the metaverse. Event: Horizon Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox, speaking to company staff, gave out…

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the DeLorean as the vehicle that transports Doc Emmet Brown and Marty McFly back to the future. Or past. Or a different past. It’s complicated, but the original Robert Zemeckis trilogy is still glorious fun. And surprisingly traumatising, but you’ll find that out on a rewatch. If you’re a little older than that, you might remember the DeLorean as an interesting car design with a dark history. Netflix has a documentary series about it if you feel the need to catch up. Basically, though, it was a cool but wholly impractical…

Welcome to the age of the optionally piloted vehicle, or OPV. A UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter was, earlier this month, successfully flown at the US Army’s Fort Campbell in Kentucky. This normally isn’t a big deal, but this time there was no pilot inside. In fact, there was nobody inside the military transport at all. The series of flights over the US military base on 5 February was remotely monitored but nothing was undertaken with any human intervention. Building a better Black Hawk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbtyBIO8dXA This isn’t the first we’ve heard of an autonomous helicopter. Ingenuity, NASA’s Martian explorer, is just…

If you’ve been paying attention to game reviews lately, you’ll have seen that Horizon: Forbidden West is doing very, very well. The sequel to one of the PlayStation 4’s best hits is performing well, as far as critics go. That’s a good thing for everyone, but brick-maker Lego is perhaps the most pleased. See, they’ve got a new set based on the PlayStation 5 exclusive landing in May this year. Bring me the Horizon (Lego set) Lego fans can expect a splendid-looking new set to launch in a few months. The iconic Tallneck, that roaming giraffe-looking thing that reveals the…