Author: Marcé

As expected, Apple’s WWDC 2021 conference didn’t bear any hardware. That’s what the other ten events throughout the year are for, right? What we did get, however, is a deeper look into the upcoming software for its iPhones and iPads across the globe.  iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 will both launch later this year, and the beta will be ready by July. Both will bring some significant upgrades and changes to the platforms, from FaceTime enhancements to updates in Photos and Maps, notifications, privacy and a few more things.  Let’s dive into what these updates will bring to devices and…

Launched in South Africa for the first time in 2008, the Volkswagen Tiguan is now on its third generation, which has now been confirmed for South Africa. The 2021 Tiguan will be available in South Africa and some neighbours (Namibia and Botswana) from 1 July of this year.  According to a press release, the Tiguan was the best-selling medium SUV in South Africa for the previous year. It reportedly sold over six million units globally and 41,000 in SA for the same period — which is impressive. We’ve all seen how much South Africans like their SUVs, particularly if they…

Last year we saw Twitter roll out the ability to limit who replies to your tweets by mentioning them specifically. As a natural extension of that feature, Twitter is now testing a tool that’ll prevent other users from mentioning you. Right now that is possible, but you’ll have to explain to your buddy why you blocked them on the platform.  Using the incoming feature, users have more control over who has the ability to mention them. This can be for professional reasons, personal reasons or… maybe you’re just an introvert? In any of these cases, having the power to limit…

WhatsApp has been under fire from all angles in recent months, following its planned rollout of new privacy terms that’ll allow it access to cross-platform data. Now the reverse is true. WhatsApp is challenging the UK government’s call to reduce encryption on its messaging platform.  WhatsApp sticking to its guns According to TechRadar, the UK government has issued a call to reduce WhatsApp’s encryption, which has been described by their home Secretary Priti Patel as “not acceptable”. That comment in itself raises quite a few questions: would the UK government prefer its citizens’ devices be easily hacked? Don’t they care…

It’s the merging of internet service providers: Afrihost has announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Cool Ideas. The deal was sealed this weekend, and will mean Afrihost essentially owns the smaller ISP.  Sounds like a Cool Idea? While the acquisition has been approved, it’s still subject to a long line of bureaucratic regulatory approvals. If everything goes according to plan, however, Afrihost will hold a majority stake in Cool Ideas. The two plan to leverage their combined economies and audiences to scale their impact.  This doesn’t mean that Afrihost will absorb CI — the companies plan to…

Galaxy S21 FE production suffering from chip shortage The global chip shortage may have another victim: Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S21 FE device slated for August 2021. Remember the Galaxy S20 FE? It turned out to be one of the brand’s best-performing devices in the previous cycle. So obviously plans to roll out another knockout device

These days no one is safe, either from ransomware attacks or just plain old hacks. The most recent victim of just such an incident, is Electronic Arts, the game development studio behind titles like Battlefield, The Sims and the wildly popular football game FIFA. The studio was reportedly hacked, after which hackers gained access to the source code of FIFA 21 and some dev tools.  Can’t EAscape the cyber-Battlefield “We are investigating a recent incident of intrusion into our network where a limited amount of game source code and related tools were stolen,” EA said in a statement, according to…

We knew the local broadcaster was expecting better-than-expected earnings this year following an interim report recently published. Now, Multichoice’s financial earnings have been revealed, and it’s clear Africans haven’t quite given up on channel-flipping and reruns yet.  According to the earnings report ended March 2021, Multichoice reports record-high profits of over R10 billion. In addition to that, it gained over 1,3 million new subscribers in the 2021 financial year. Of those, just over 500,000 were South African. Total revenue for the period stands at R53.338 billion. This totals a 4% increase in revenue from R51.4 billion, and an increase of…

In light of the recent, cold, dark days, president Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that he has lifted the threshold of power generating capacity for private citizens.  “We are today announcing a significant new step in further reforming our electricity sector towards achieving a stable and secure supply of energy,” said Ramaphosa. Power to the people The threshold for embedded generating electricity capacity has been lifted from a mere 1MW to 100MW. This applies to both households that are or plan to be reliant on their own power generation capacity. According to the president, this move is critical to responding to…

Smartphones have become one of the most popular pieces of tech glued to consumers around the world, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s got one. Feature phones (ie not smart, but practical devices), are still wildly popular among older people, or people who just can’t afford smart devices. Most of these feature phones run an operating system called KaiOS, and can now make voice calls through WhatsApp. KaiOS getting the VoIP treatment In 2019, KaiOS received a game-changing update – the popular messaging app WhatsApp finally launched a scaled-down version of itself for the platform. That meant feature phone users on…