My gamertag is more useful than a business card. I write about the tech industry, hardware, software, games, and motoring.
Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker that’s taking advantage of Huawei’s sudden drop in smartphone sales (which they absolutely have to), has managed to overtake Apple and become the second-largest smartphone maker in the world. Xiaomi the numbers The company saw a massive 83% growth in smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2021. This is according to research firm Canalys, who also found that Xiaomi had accumulated 17% market share, on the heels of South Korean smartphone giant Samsung at 19%. Dragging its feet at third place, Apple’s sitting at a measly 14%. It’s interesting to note that Xiaomi’s market…
You wouldn’t expect an internet connection to be the primary resource needed to help rural, underserved communities gain access to COVID-19 vaccines. Generally, they just need nurses, some needles and a few bottles filled by Phizer, right? Wrong. Because in South Africa, citizens need access to the internet to register via the government’s EVDS platform before they can receive the coveted jab. The perfect vaccine duo A new partnership between satellite internet service provider Eutelsat and the pharma company Aspen is pushing for increased vaccinations in Mpumalanga. The province is facing the challenge of vaccinating mainly rural municipalities with little…
New evidence suggests the recent spate of riots and looting in South Africa was more organised than originally thought, and organised using modern communications platforms at that. In a report in the Daily Maverick on 14 July 2021, Ferial Haffajee introduces evidence of a WhatsApp group apparently filled with messages from users planning and coordinating some of the recent attacks in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Deputy State Security Minister Zizi Kodwa said that “These are people with experience of running operations,” and that the recent unrest was more planned than was previously thought. Haffajee’s report appears to support this. Meet ’em…
Grocery and food delivery services like the Checkers Sixty60 app, Pick n Pay’s Bottles and Woolies Dash carried many isolated South Africans through 2020 and 2021 lockdowns. Checkers, particularly, ramped up coverage for its app in a year’s time, making food and household items extremely accessible and delivered to your house in an hour’s time. Now, many of these on-demand services are facing increased pressure and are struggling to keep up with the demand in Gauteng. Food not ordered-to-go Recent events in two of South Africa’s major metropolitan areas (Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal), have impacted direct access to some essential food…
Last night, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the social media platform will officially axe its ‘Fleets’ feature following slow user adoption. We don’t blame ‘em, considering it was just another rip-off of Snapchat’s disappearing Story feature. While the same feature became wildly popular shortly after launching on Instagram (we’re still not convinced about the feature on Facebook). But it seems Twitter users didn’t take to the vertical-graphic format that disappears after 24 hours as well as Insta users did. A Fleeting moment Fleets made their debut on the platform in 2017, packaged as ‘a 24-hour disappearing tweet feature’. It…
Recent riots, looting and general lawlessness in two of South Africa’s major metros have ignited (quite literally) and negatively affected the tech industry in the country. The incidents have been centred around KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Of course, the recent actions of some South Africans have affected many businesses — large corporations have lost factories, shops, malls and refineries. But small businesses, tuck shops and family-owned businesses have also been affected. In the below list, we’ll look at some of the large tech corporations that have been adversely affected by recent riot actions. Affec-tech in South Africa According to a report…
Apple’s rumoured vehicle has been one of the most mysterious projects under the helm of Tim Cook. While the rumour mill’s been hard at work, there really isn’t much in terms of concrete info about the elusive vehicle. Now, we know that Apple is manufacturing batteries for an autonomous vehicle in the US. Apple Car’s ramping up According to a report on DigiTimes, Apple “… may work with Taiwanese makers rather than Chinese ones…” Two Taiwanese battery manufacturers, Foxconn and Advanced Lithium Electrochemistry both plan to establish factories in the US. Both are also in the running to seal a…
This week, Google detailed some of the updates it’s planning to bring to its mobile ecosystem at the Google Developer Summit. While Stadia is… fairly cool, we’re really interested in the updates the company will bring to its Android 12 mobile platform — just because we actually use it here in South Africa. It announced a new feature called “play as you download” – built specifically to give mobile users quicker access to games, even if they have a slower download speed. Something South Africans are far too used to by now. Android’s waiting game is over If you’re a…
You may not know this, but Samsung actually has its own streaming service that’s free to use on Samsung devices as an app. Called Samsung Smart TV Plus, the service is ad-supported and now anyone can, technically, access it and stream its content, regardless of the name on your device. The Korean smartphone manufacturer recently announced that Smart TV Plus is now accessible via a browser on the web — though upon further inspection we found that it isn’t actually available in South Africa (unless you resort to a VPN). We also find it interesting that Samsung has never really…