My gamertag is more useful than a business card. I write about the tech industry, hardware, software, games, and motoring.
Huawei, the Chinese smartphone and telecoms company, has made it clear that US-backed sanctions will not affect its supply chain. After being placed on the US Entity List, Huawei lost access to Google software — an integral part of smartphones that don’t bear the Apple insignia. Now, the smartphone maker has announced its mobile operating system called Harmony OS, and it’s ready to deploy. Reports suggest that the company’s been in discussions with other Chinese phone makers like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Meizu to make HarmonyOS based phones. While nothing points to any official partnerships in China, a Finnish smartphone…
The video conferencing platform that’s one of the few companies that saw massive gains during the global pandemic in 2020, Zoom, is building out its platform’s features. The company has now acquired Kites, (Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions), a company that works on real-time transcription and translation services. Zoom meets Babbel? While Zoom already has a real-time transcription feature for English speakers, that’s not the case with many other languages. Now, in addition to transcription, the video conferencing tool is looking to add translation capability to its app. Kites was originally built as a tool for teachers — it would allow…
In recent weeks, we’ve seen more talk about crypto in South Africa than ever before. There were Doges involved, an ex-South African space emperor and two Cajee’s that got away with billions. The latter included an extensive scam built on Africrypt — a local cryptocurrency trading platform that turned sour at the end. Now South African financial regulations need to consider this new form of currency. Crypto, but all grown up According to Bloomberg (via BusinessTech), the South African Prudential Authority (or, the banking regulator) has revealed that it will have a regulatory framework ready for the new currency in…
The company behind the world’s favourite sole destroyers, Lego, has vowed to construct all of its products from sustainable materials by 2030. That gives it nine years to turn all of its tiny plastic bricks into something more… green. With that in mind, the toy company has revealed a brick prototype made entirely from recycled plastic. Not just any plastic, mind you. “The new prototype, which uses PET plastic from discarded bottles, is the first brick made from a recycled material to meet the company’s strict quality and safety requirements,” says the Lego Group in a statement. Lego, but make…
After months of testing, US-based streaming service Netflix has launched its Netflix Mobile plan for only R50 a month. In addition to the new, cheaper option to stream content from the best in the biz, it’s launched a feature called ‘play partial download’. How Netflix Mobile works Similar to Showmax’s mobile-only package, Netflix Mobile will only function on mobile devices (ie that smartphone you’re toting or the tablet in the cupboard). You’ll pay a smaller fee than those equipped with a full Netflix subscription, but you’ll have access to all of its cool features. Bless. This means you won’t be…
The world’s premier tennis tournament is back to make us feel ever-so-slightly more normal again. London is gearing up for Wimbledon 2021, complete with the players you’d expect to see there. We’re not a sporty bunch but when we see that the world’s biggest tennis tourney is being streamed live for free across countries, we’re there. It looks like Wimbledon 2021 will be free to stream across a variety of platforms (both official and not-so-official). In the UK, of course, it’ll be accessible on BBC’s iPlayer. Zoom out and you’ll be able to access live-streamed matches on ESPN’s channels. While…
It seems the South African Broadcasting Commission (SABC) is running out of ways to get South Africans to pay their TV licences. The embattled state broadcaster detailed that it plans to rely on the private sector to help them collect TV licence fees, placing a specific focus on Multichoice’s pay-TV brand DStv. Play-Pay TV licences The Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams raised the idea to rope in Multichoice and DStv as the licence fee collector. You know, because they already get money from their subscribers. But according to a recent call with investors, Multichoice’s CEO Calvo Mawela…
The two O’s of the smartphone industry have decided to finalise their merger — Oppo and OnePlus revealed that the latter will become a sub-brand of the former. While the news isn’t exactly a surprise, it’s an interesting strategy that may even bring OnePlus hardware to more countries. A OnePlus waiting to Oppo Both Oppo and OnePlus are owned by the same holding company, BBK Electronics. So what the merger really means, is that BBK is pooling its resources to sell more devices and ultimately make more money. “[W]e have integrated a number of our teams together with Oppo to…