Author: Marcé

It’s finally confirmed. South Africa (and a bunch of other territories that aren’t important right now) will get access to the Disney+ streaming service mid-2022.  “Disney+, the streaming service from The Walt Disney Company, confirmed that this winter it will launch in 42 countries and 11 new territories*. New countries include South Africa, Turkey, Poland and the United Arab Emirates,” a press release details.  Disney+ launched in late 2019 and has since diverted all of its original content away from other streaming services to its own. Currently, you won’t find much Marvel or Disney content on services like Netflix or…

South Africans that make use of solar backup power (and that number is growing thanks to load shedding), may be severely impacted by new energy regulation revisions planned by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).  The revisions include a revised electricity pricing methodology which will affect end-consumers according to their usage. It details three main groups of consumers: big power users, normal power users and on-grid solar and self-generating power users.  That last group’s electricity demands fluctuate according to their needs and the availability of the sun for a particular period. According to Nersa, each category user must…

Social media has created individual rooms for each of us. But that also means that any person who wants to come through the door will hear what you have to say. If you don’t want everyone to hear something, in particular, Twitter’s got a feature for you.  The microblogging site is working on a feature that will allow users to only publish a tweet for a certain group of followers. The user will be able to choose the friends in that group.  Birds of a feather…  #Twitter keeps working on the implementation of Twitter Flock (Trusted Friends) 👀 pic.twitter.com/roizS5K99K —…

Stuff says –  5/5 Do you know how you make a flagship notebook even better? Attach a wonderfully vibrant OLED display to it. That’s exactly what Asus managed to do with the Asus ZenBook 13 (UX325UE) laptop. The updated display comes in addition to the stellar internal hardware that makes the ZenBook a workhorse worthy of anyone’s desk space. We know, we know – the brand’s newest ZenBooks should be heading to SA soon enough. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feature one of the most affordable OLED-touting notebooks available in South Africa. This one, in particular, starts out at…

It’s no secret that load shedding has become exponentially worse over the past decade. According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) load shedding report published in December 2021, South Africans are experiencing an increased number of load shedding hours. The only real reprieve is an investment in solar, or other sustainable energy.  In 2014, Eskom managed to shed only 203GWh, in comparison with 2021’s 2,455GWh. That’s a 120% increase in seven years.  Opting for a more sustainable backup system, like solar, is an expensive endeavour. But it’s a completely viable option if you are prepared to carry…

While Apple still figures out how to put a fingerprint scanner in its upcoming iPhone’s display, Xiaomi’s upping the bar. The Chinese smartphone company recently patented a technology that’ll offer fingerprint scan functionality across a whole smartphone screen.  This is according to the Chinese national patent database (via GizmoChina). It’s an interesting concept, but we foresee some security issues if the tech makes it to market.  Basically, the smartphone’s full front display will have the capacity to accept a fingerprint to unlock the device. Fingerprint scanners are a fairly common option for biometric security for most Android phone users. And…

The German car-maker, Audi, is investing heavily in South Africa’s electric vehicle future with its latest project. The brand has partnered with GridCars, which offers a variety of EV solutions, to build an extensive electric vehicle charging network in SA.  This network will make up a total of 70 chargers placed at 33 public charging sites throughout the country. It’ll include a variety of chargers, including four 150kW fast-chargers, five 80kW chargers and 24 20kW chargers. These will be available to any brand of EV to use, not only those branded with the four circle emblem.  Audi’s got that spark…

The streaming service that brought you favourites like Squid Game, Stranger Things and Cobra Kai, Netflix, has pledged $1 million towards a scholarship fund in South Africa. The newly established Creative Equity Scholarship Fund (CESF) will support film and TV students in Sub-Saharan Africa in their education.  This serves a dual purpose: train more film and TV industry professionals to contribute to Netflix’s cause of delivering more localised content. And help empower young creatives in the region – something that’s always welcome. Unless you’re Afriforum. Read more: Afriforum is “disgruntled” with Netflix’s local Black Creatives fund It’ll cover students’ costs…

In a Series A extension funding bout, Carry1st, one of Africa’s leading mobile game publishers, raised a total of $20 million. This extension was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included some participation from Avenir and Google.  This is Andreesson Horrowitz’s first time investing in a company headquartered in Africa. In addition, the funding attracted a range of big-name angel investors, including Grammy winner and prominent crypto investor Nas. Some familiar faces – investors from Carry1st’s May 2021 Series A round – including Riot Games, Konvoy Ventures, Raine Ventures, and TTV Capital are backing the company again.  “We’re excited to partner…

Investec private banking clients may find some reprieve from Eskom’s shenanigans soon. The bank plans to offer them funding to install solar and battery power backup systems in their homes, Bloomberg reports.  South Africa is regularly affected by rolling blackouts across all territories due to a failing state electricity grid. The only way to effectively avoid power cuts, is by investing a lot of cash into a backup electricity system, like batteries, a generator or solar installations.  Investec playing the green card Investec’s offering follows a trial that included around one thousand South African customers. If a customer is interested,…