Author: Marcé

Later this month, popular streaming service Netflix won’t be accessible on Telkom’s set-top boxes. The South African mobile and internet provider’s hardware will lose access to Netflix support later this month.  The contract between Telkom and Netflix has come to an end and won’t be renewed, according to Wanda Mkhize, the state internet provider’s content executive. Don’t panic just yet though, because she reassures users that there will be new content announcements soon.  But you’re still covered because Multichoice is rolling out its new decoders — just this time they’re not normal decoders, they actually feature access to streaming services.…

It looks like it’s about time for another WhatsApp feature update — the Facebook-owned messaging app is about to add one useful feature, and potentially one rumoured feature.  Whether you love or hate voice notes, they’re particularly useful in certain scenarios and are about to become slightly more useful. A new feature, as detailed by the trusty WABetaInfo, will allow users to pause and restart voice note recording in the app.  WhatsApp rolling in updates This means that anyone will, once the feature makes it to devices, be able to stop recording a single voice note and continue recording it…

South Africa’s state-owned agencies have really been investing in the establishment of new digital channels over the course of the pandemic. Considering the best place to apply for and collect official documents is at home, the department of health managed to digitise most of its important processes for the public.  Now the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has launched a new feature in the NaTIS platform, which’ll allow South African car-owners the ability to renew their vehicle licence disks online.  The portal includes a payment gateway powered by First National Bank, which means you can miss the long, confusing queues…

While the country is in the midst of unplanned blackouts, the newly appointed mayor of the City of Johannesburg has announced that the municipality has signed a two-year deal with a private power plant.  The privately-owned Kelvin power station will assist in reducing the city’s reliance on the country’s state-owned provider for that oh-so-important electronic juice. According to newly-elected Johannesburg mayor Mpho Moerane, the deal with Kelvin will help significantly reduce electricity outages in the city. Johannesburg’s unlimited power! According to BusinessTech, “Kelvin Power Station is the only large privately owned coal-fired power plant in the country. Located near OR…

LG Electronics South Africa had big plans to bring its range of TVs, all made up of different tech, to the country in Q3 2021.  Those plans quickly went out the window (quite literally) when the country experienced something called the National Shutdown and many factories, businesses and retail stores were looted. Now it’s ready to launch at least one of the planned products: the 4K 75in QNED Mini-LED TV.  LG slowly reassembled The QNED range was initially announced at CES 2021 and brings some interesting tech to the brand’s line of TVs. It combines LG’s NanoCell filtering technology with…

First National Bank (FNB) has announced a type of local lottery available to its customers that have been fully vaccinated. The bank is giving away up to R18 million in financial incentives via the ‘nav» Wellness’ feature in the FNB app.  The campaign runs over a period of three months, which means there is up to R6 million per month up for grabs in the monthly draw.  “[Customers] could win R3 million for just being a vaccinated FNB customer, R2 million more if a customer is vaccinated and has insurance with FNB Life and another R1 million if they are…

In the past week, you may have come across an official-looking link from the department of health offering vaccine certificates called the Covid-19 Vaccine Certificate System portal. These are akin to vaccine passports used in some other countries that allow fully vaccinated citizens the freedom to travel and access certain public amenities.  In September we got word that the health ministry has approved digital vaccine certificates for people in the country. Now, the digital portal is being tested in a public trial to iron out any issues it may come across when it launches in a more official way. Many…

While the name may ring a little foreign, Fed Ex, the US-based logistics service operates in South Africa under FedEx Express branding. According to TechCentral, the operator recently concluded its first electric vehicle trial in Johannesburg and will now start introducing EVs into its entire fleet in the country.  FedEx FedUp with combustion It’s an admirable effort, considering EV charging infrastructure is still a relative rarity in South Africa, even though some car manufacturers have invested large amounts of money to erect more charging stations on main roads. It’s still not saturated enough to convince most locals to invest in…

This week all hell broke loose when influencers momentarily lost influence, family members lost comms and boomers couldn’t forward conspiracy memes. Facebook and its suite of apps, which includes WhatsApp and Instagram went down for about 6 hours, and if you didn’t notice, we applaud you. It did spark a conversation that is needed: where are the competitors? On Tuesday, South Africa’s new communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni spoke to the press about the outage. She mentioned that local developers should focus on offering local users worthy replacements for the affected suite of apps.  SA used to have just that. Think…

No, your data hasn’t run out, it’s probably only Facebook’s servers giving up. But if your data does run out, it may be worth checking out Telkom Mobile’s latest data deals — all of which seem to offer the cheapest prepaid data prices in the country.  Exactly a month ago, the mobile operator announced that it would be dropping its 1GB and 1.5GB data prices. Now its announced its Summer 2021 data deals, including both prepaid and postpaid (contract) offerings starting from R50 for 3GB anytime + 3GB night-time data.  Telkom’s flooding us with love “We know that things have…