Author: Marcé

Until now, only existing DStv customers (i.e. the ones with a dish on their roofs) have had access to DStv’s streaming platform. In case you’re a little behind the times, the company’s streaming platform is a hub  in the form of an app or web portal and plays host to most of DStv’s exclusive content and licensed shows and movies. Now, anyone can sign up to the Multichoice streaming service. Even if they don’t have a decoder. “Until recently, customers could only subscribe to DStv through a satellite connection, which meant customers needed a decoder to access DStv’s content,” the…

The modern world has never deserved time off more than right now. Many businesses close for a portion of December in South Africa, including fibre network operations, or FNO’s. These are the people who install the physical fibre lines at residences and businesses. Now MTN’s fibre arm, Supersonic, is offering to cover new customers with free uncapped internet during that time.  If new clients sign up for a fibre contract with Supersonic during December, the FNO’s may not be available to do the installation until mid-Jan, which means you’ll be sans internet for the duration of the festive season. Supersonic’s…

If you’ve been repeatedly refreshing your DStv decoder or app, searching for the Catch Up tab, We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but it doesn’t exist anymore. Multichoice made the choice to remove the Catch Up feature in its app. But don’t panic, because it’s got another hub for previously-aired content now.  Now, DStv users will still be able to find all of their Catch Up favourites, it’s all just distributed under different banners. In November, users were suddenly logged out of their accounts, the only fix being to log back in. When they returned, they found…

These days it isn’t easy dodging the new digital format in the shape of vertical video Stories. Snapchat was clearly on to something, because everyone else keeps snatching and adapting the feature for their respective platforms. The latest on that list: Spotify, the music streaming platform.  Even though Stories don’t really make sense on a platform dedicated to feeding you music, it clearly sees a place for it in the app. Users have started reporting Stories in Spotify’s mobile apps. When you search for terms or artists, you may be greeted with a vertical-format Story-style video. After you tap a…

It’s the one day of the year when consumers lose any trace of sensibility. Many go out and buy things they don’t need because ‘it’s a deal’. Luckily COVID has minimised the amount of retail-related accidents, but that also means everything has moved to e-commerce.  OneDayOnly, the online retailer that features random product deals on a daily basis, is experiencing an online retail-related accident and its website seems to be crumbling under the pressure of South Africans looking for a deal.  https://twitter.com/OneDayOnlycoza/status/1332196901236695040 It’s just… these aren’t normal ‘deals’. OneDayOnly started a trend of announcing products at 100% off on its…

In recent years, many South Africans made the move from satellite-TV to Netflix and other streaming services. Most of them did this with a big smile, because service delivery of major players in the satellite TV industry has been criticised, nevermind the rehashed nature of its content. Now, the South African Broadcasting Commission (SABC) has plans to take on Netflix — one of the biggest streaming services in the world.  This week, the SABC presented its case to Parliament. Following this, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’ confirmed plans to have all streaming services that offer content in South…

Okay, in a weird turn of events, an online retailer is already selling the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro in South Africa. And we have pricing (albeit not necessarily official). The Smartphoneshop — a retailer known for importing and distributing smartphones and wearables from China, is selling iPhone 12s today for R24,000 and iPhone 12 Pros for R33,000. We contacted the retailer, and they confirmed that they do, indeed, have stock and are selling the handsets. Stock is limited though. But if you place your order today, you’ll receive the device by Monday next week, depending on where it’s shipped…

South African’s have been on the edges of their seats for too long. Rumours started rolling through the streets, while retailers and journalists have been inundated with questions: “When are we getting the iPhone 12?” It finally looks like there may be hope for us. A recent tweet by popular tech retailer Cellucity sent shockwaves through Twitter. The tweet simply reads: “18 December…” accompanied by five little apple emojis. What could this mean? We wondered. We needed to crack the code at once.  https://twitter.com/Cellucity/status/1331899016653705216 Okay, it’s not that complex, really. Cellucity just conformed that South Africans will, indeed, get Apple’s…

As YouTube video lengths start to rival Netflix movie lengths, YouTube’s introduced a nifty feature called ‘chapters’. Although not completely new, the feature is gaining a few useful tools that’ll make creating and navigating chapters far more streamlined.  YouTube‘s video chapters will now get an AI upgrade that’ll help creators save much more time when compiling them. The feature was recently tested using machine learning techniques, and will automatically add chapters to uploaded videos.  “We want to make it easier for people to navigate videos with video chapters, so we are experimenting with automatically adding video chapters (so creators don’t…

LG’s proposition of ‘as close to OLED without the price tag’ is a tempting one. Does the Nanocell 55in live up to the promise? If you’ve been keeping up with TV tech, we’ve moved on from good old backlit LED panels. Samsung calls it QLED while LG’s going with something fancier: NanoCell. This time you’re getting a coating of nanocrystals between the screen and backlight that has phosphorus properties. That’s the key ingredient for crisp colours – who knew? We get it though. LG’s NanoCell tech keeps to its word on bringing glamorous 4K content to life (you bet we…