Author: Marcé

Oppo launched in South Africa during lockdown, and has found a comfortable space in the market left by its Chinese counterpart Huawei. That is following a myriad of bans and sanctions set by the US government and its previous administration. Now, Oppo’s going hard on the budget-to-mid market with its range of stellar smartphones, the latest of which is the A74 5G device.   While not brand new, the A74 5G was announced globally in April 2021, and has made its way to local shelves as of today. It brings with it some standout features like a 90Hz display (which seems…

Have you accepted WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy? If not, the council may decide to keep you online for longer, considering WhatsApp’s decision to backtrack on its plan to kick users who don’t accept the new terms.  In January, the Facebook-owned messaging app rolled out notifications regarding its updated privacy policy that’ll allow more intricate tracking across its platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp). Users were pushed to accept or face being kicked from the platform entirely. Before the first deadline came about, developers announced it would be extended to 19 May 2021. A date that’s quickly nearing.  Cast your vote on…

SpaceX now accepts Dogecoin as payment for a moon mission At this point, what meme is Elon Musk not trying to incorporate into his business model? SpaceX has confirmed that it will now be accepting Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency inspired by a beloved internet meme hound. Doge-1 Mission to the Moon will take off early next year and

Following the WhatsApp controversy featuring an ultimatum and users deciding to jump ship to other messaging platforms, the messaging network has bolstered its quality-of-life features in recent months. Now it looks like one of those features may be multi-device support across operating systems.  A recent report by the trusted leakers behind WABetaInfo found that a beta version of the app features chat migration between iOS and Android. This could be the first step to offering full multi-device interoperability.  Too many WhatsApp’s to handle Right now, users can only have their WhatsApp account on either Android or iOS, and not on…

Catch #STUFFonENCA hosted by Toby Shapshak and broadcast on eNCA every Friday at 21:30. The theme for this week’s episode of Stuff on eNCA is ‘Medical Innovation’. Watch out for a demonstration of advanced, and more simple tech innovations developed especially for the medical environment. We’ll also be chatting to the founder of a healthcare solutions provider focused on providing quality, affordable and sustainable healthcare throughout Africa. In keeping with the theme of the episode this week, we’re giving away a Simzo non-contact thermometer and a LED pulse oximeter from Jziki. The prize is valued at R600 and there are…

While most people know that Facebook’s advertising practices are questionable on the best of days, popular messaging app Signal recently attempted to expose how accurate the social giant’s tracking really is. That is, if you can even call it tracking — we’d prefer to call it blatant surveillance.  Many users of the blue social platform and its underlings (Instagram and WhatsApp) really have no idea how deep its understanding of its users delves. A recent advertising campaign attempted to buy ‘multi-variant targeted’ ads on Instagram that would clearly show the company’s tracking practices.  Wait for the Signal An ad would,…

Resident Evil: Village intuitively follows the path set by its predecessor (that would be the seventh game) by ditching the bulk of the series’ history. The story of Ethan Winters is a direct continuation of Resident Evil 7, and while there are nods to events that happen in much earlier games for fans who enjoy continuity, you only really need to have played the most recent game. Just trying to get back to normality after the traumatising events of the last game, Ethan Winters is once again tasked with surviving the horrors of the world when his new life in Europe…

Sometimes it’s easier to make a call to your favourite food spot than to navigate through endless web pages to make a digital booking. Sometimes. A local software company called Dineplan has signed a deal with Google to give South Africans the ability to make restaurant bookings directly through Search, Maps or even Assistant.  Hey Google, make a reservation… While Dineplan was built to manage bookings, it’ll now offer its booking services directly through the multinational search engine company. It’ll be integrated with something called ‘Reserve with Google’ — a feature that allows users the ability to make online bookings…

While almost all smartphones look like identical black glass slabs from the front, hardware designers are displaying increased creativity when it comes to the back panel. Smartphone manufacturers are hellbent on cramming as much camera hardware into their devices as possible — the same goes for Huawei. But tastefully. Remember the Nokia 9 PureView? They’re trying not to replicate that. And we may have had a closer look at the rear (and front) design of the incoming Huawei P50, showing a very interesting camera configuration. According to the most recent leaks, we’ll only see this device in the flesh by…

Last week Apple rolled out the latest operating system update for its devices. Called iOS 14.5, it didn’t feature significant updates barring the addition of App Tracking Transparency. The feature allows users the ability to limit the amount of information gathered by apps like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — and the holding company’s not happy.  Now Facebook’s turning to straight-up manipulation, by detailing how its app tracking ventures are critical to keeping its services “free of charge.” ATT requires apps to show users a prompt asking for their consent before tracking them across other apps and websites. And the social…