Author: Max Milella

YouTube’s on a bit of a roll as far as coming down hard on misinformation is concerned. Last week the video sharing platform announced a stern ban on all vaccine misinformation. Now it and its parent company, Google, are going after climate change denialists. The pair will no longer host ads alongside or monetise “content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” YouTube sees the science An announcement post on Google’s Ads Help page details the change in ad policy. According to the search giant, a number of advertisers have become increasingly concerned about…

At a recent Google4Africa event, the search engine juggernaut announced that it “…wants to make the Internet more helpful to people, businesses, and organisations in Africa.” In pursuit of this, the company has revealed that it would be committing $1 billion over 5 years towards “digital transformation” throughout Africa, part of which would be dedicated towards a new undersea internet cable. Google4Africa, 4 the better The undersea cable is set to drop internet prices and raise speeds for several African nations, including South Africa, Nigeria, St Helena, and Namibia, and would provide a direct internet link between Europe and Africa.…

If we’ve learned anything from sci-fi flicks, it’s that AI-driven law-enforcement comes in two flavours: Robocop and ED-209. The former being significantly more attractive than the latter. Currently, certain law-enforcement structures have already begun using future-esque tech in the vein of biometrics and facial recognition, but legislation surrounding the use of this tech is still vague. That’s why Europe is looking to ban its use. Algorithmic law-enforcement needs some work The European Parliament has moved for lawmakers to ban the use of algorithm-driven surveillance tools utilised in predictive policing. According to Gizmodo, MEPs have voted in favour of laws against…

As cyber-crime continues to flourish in the online world, Twitch has become the latest victim of a hacking attack. Hackers have leaked a torrent containing 128GB of sensitive information not meant for the public eye, reports The Verge, and has labelled it “part one”. Twitch in trouble As with most dubious internet dealings, an anonymous user posted the torrent to a 4chan messaging board, intending to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space”. If disruption is what you want, airing out 128GB+ of dirty laundry is certainly the way to do it. According to The Verge,…

You may or may not have noticed this already, but Instagram is really trying to be the next big video platform. Who can really blame after the wild successes of both YouTube and TikTok? But its first big video push, IGTV, hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. That’s why Instagram’s giving it a makeover.  IGTV is dead. Long live Instagram TV In truth, the format itself isn’t being thrown out. Rather, it’s getting a new name, ‘Instagram TV’, and it’s being made less special. See, IGTV used to have a distinct advantage over normal feed videos, that being that…

Monday may have been a bit of a nightmare for Facebook and a headache for its users, but it seems it was nothing but blue skies for competing messenger apps. One such app, Telegram, enjoyed a massive boom of new users while the big, blue social media goliath was on its knees. Around 70 million of them, to be precise. Facebook’s loss is Telegram’s gain In case you somehow missed it, Facebook faced a massive outage on Monday evening, which dominoed into WhatsApp and Instagram being out of commission too. This is why you don’t lump everything into one giant…

Most dating apps work on a ‘freemium’ model. You get access to all of the most basic features pro-bono, with the fancier stuff locked behind a paywall. Tinder is no exception, and now it’s upping its freemium game with the introduction of an in-app currency. Tinder mints its coins Like most apps with currencies, there are two ways to line your virtual pockets: slowly earned through using the app, or coughing up some irl currency for a quick buck. In terms of earning through the Tinder app, users can do so by keeping their profiles up to date or by…

Phelan Energy Group is a leading solar energy innovator, most known in South Africa for the massive solar farm it built in De Aar, Northern Cape, back in 2016. The farm, 600,000 panels strong, has a total capacity of 175MW, and was contracted to deliver renewable energy to Eskom for 20 years. Now, the future-focused company has unveiled its next project: floating solar panels. Phelan wet Phelan Energy presented the project at the Floating Solar Conference, held in Amsterdam at the end of September, reports Business Insider. Floating solar solutions aren’t particularly mainstream yet, having only really started making waves…

Coinbase is one of the top ten biggest cryptocurrency exchanges by 24-hour volume in the world. It provides services to over 68 million users and has a market cap of around $65 billion according to CNBC. Unfortunately, that makes it a pretty attractive target for cybercriminals, and it has recently come to light that 6000 Coinbase customers have had money stolen from their accounts.  Coinbase crypto-heist The crypto exchange sent out a notification detailing the hack to customers affected by it.  “Unfortunately, between March and 20 May 2021, you were a victim of a third-party campaign to gain unauthorised access…

Apple’s MacBooks have always been great pieces of hardware. Most of us here at Stuff do most of our work on them, for good reason. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that Apple’s looking to improve its flagship laptop with the 2021 iteration, but it might be doing so quite significantly, in the form of its upgraded M1X chipset.  Mega-MacBook Apple made the switch to its proprietary M1 chipsets last year. The ARM-based 8 core processor took the already well-performing MacBook to the next level, offering speed and efficiency as we’d never seen before. According to Apple insider…