Author: Marcé

It’s the popular social media app that’s still at everyone in Silicon Valley’s fingertips: Clubhouse has announced its monetisation plans. And like most things it decided to do slightly differently, it’s planning on handling monetisation in a more… personal way. The app will soon allow users the ability to send money directly to their favourite creators.  Welcome to the Clubhouse, entry’s 5 bucks That, instead of allowing ads onto the platform, is the developers’ solution to monetisation without being intrusive. Older social media monetisation models are quite broken, relying on user information and personal data tracking. We’ve even seen Twitter…

Streaming services are now abundant, which requires more precise planning and budgeting when choosing the platforms you prefer. You can’t just go for all of them, because then the monthly bill will rival DStv Premium’s monthly instalments. Now the Multichoice-owned streaming service, Showmax, is trying to sweeten the deal even further by offering a few seasons of content completely free to… anyone with a screen and a data connection.  Show me the Max Showmax has been working on building its catalogue of proudly South African content to try and rival Netflix — the US-based streaming giant that, granted, don’t offer…

LG, the brand that is generally known for TVs, fridges and oftentimes washing machines, has announced that its officially closing down its smartphone division. This makes it one of the first smartphone developers to exit the smartphone biz completely following less-than-favourable revenue from some of the wackiest handheld devices in the market.  South Korea’s second-largest appliance brand struggled to keep up with competition from then-emerging smartphone manufacturers like Huawei and Xiaomi who’ve managed to dominate the modern mobile phone landscape (although how much longer Huawei will stay in the game is still up in the air).  Pour one out for…

Tonight at a live media event, the South African Broadcasting Commission (SABC) announced that it will, along with Media Investments partner with existing broadcaster Openview to bring its content to South African consumers through its platform. The service already includes a host of content, including radio channels, news and tv. Now it’ll include SABC content, which will include a new channel. Of course, everyone needs to adapt along with newer digital technologies, and that includes the battling state agency we’ve all come to loathe. This announcement means we’re finally seeing the SABC move in the right direction. Instead of launching…

We’ve all grown to be hardened load shedding veterans, but that doesn’t mean we enjoy a little bit of help along the way. If you’re still finding South Africa’s rolling blackouts a nuisance more than anything, we’ve compiled our absolute must-have pieces of tech that bring you all the comfort of actually having power in

DStv’s parent company Multichoice has sent out a warning to customers about some nefarious communication that’s reaching its users through a variety of channels. Of course, no-one wants to get stuck in a scam with the Nigerian prince and an unclaimed life insurance fund, but the same goes for your DStv account, it seems.  “There’s been a surge in the number of scams targeting our DStv customers in recent weeks,” the company said in a blog post. “Scammers use various tactics to either defraud customers of their money or to get customers’ personal information.” “Please be vigilant,” DStv says Even…

Who could’ve expected the Nintendo Switch handheld to do so well in the market? Well, probably Nintendo. But interestingly we haven’t seen a handheld gaming console equipped to take on the current leader in portable gaming, until now it seems. Qualcomm is, if reports are to be believed, working on a portable gaming console, and we can’t wait to see what it produces.  The Android-powered device will apparently be fairly similar to the Switch but will be powered by Qualcomm’s silicon, which either means we’ll see it run only mobile games, or platform-specific games. If the hardware turns out like…

If you’ve realised that certain apps are misbehaving on your Android smartphone, don’t panic just yet. Due to a system error, Android users across the globe have seen some apps crash unexpectedly (more than they should). Luckily, Google’s already rolled out a fix for that.  We first experienced this issue this morning on our Samsung S20 Ultra, when Truecaller just stopped blocking those intrusive calls from robotic sales staff. The Truecaller app wouldn’t boot, and crashed when we tried to open it on every instance. It soon became clear that many phones are displaying similar behaviour, even outside of South…

Global watchdogs should follow the example set by São Paulo, Brazil-based consumer protection agency Procon-SP and take on Apple for its lack of chargers in new iPhones. In 2020, Apple announced its upcoming devices won’t ship with a charging block in the box, citing environmental reasons. People already have iPhone adaptors, right? No.  According to MacRumours and a Brazillian tech publication called Tilt, Procon-SP has fined Apple nearly R$10.55 million (around R28 million) because its new devices aren’t accompanied by a charging adaptor. In doing this, Apple unknowingly violated the country’s Consumer Defense Code.  The watchdog wasn’t happy with Apple’s…

South Africans have gotten used to the slightly slower pace at which new tech reaches our far-reaching shores. Sometimes it’s days, sometimes weeks, but in the case of Huawei, Saffas tend to wait longer than it takes Zack Snyder to make a new cut of an old film. With that in mind, we welcome the Huawei Mate 40 Pro into South Africa as of 1 April 2021.  Dropkick Google Originally announced in October 2020, the Mate 40 Pro handset is the latest in its line of Google-less smartphones. In lieu of Google mobile services, it plays host to the Chinese…