Author: Max Milella

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has a little feature called the ‘last seen’ status that lets you see the last time another user was online and vice versa. Commonly used to stalk exes, see if you’ve been ghosted or tell when that joke you just told your best friend really didn’t land. Now, you can customise your last seen to be visible to anyone with your number, only to those whose numbers you also have or to nobody at all, but by default it’s toggled to the “Everyone” option. Now WhatsApp’s switching…

By now just about everyone knows it, so we’re going to start saying it outright more often: Instagram’s Reels is a straight up copy-n-paste of the TikTok formula. Which is fine. Good artists borrow, great artists steal and all that. With that in mind, Instagram’s making Reels even less original by adding yet another made-famous-by-TikTok feature: replying to comments with Reels. Reel comments, reel people Instagram’s calling the feature “Reels Visual Replies”, which somehow tells you exactly what is without explaining it at all in the same breath. What “Visual Replies” means that you can select specific comments to your…

Stuff says –  4.5/5 Though more and more affordable options are hitting shelves, true wireless buds with active noise cancellation cost a pretty penny. They’re worth it more often than not, but hard to justify when you’re on a budget. Fortunately, high-quality earbuds like the Jabra Elite 2 still provide a high-quality experience, and the omission of ANC while slightly disappointing means they’ll only set you back R1,000. Elite 2: Electric Boogaloo By the name alone you might have guessed that these buds have contemporaries, in this case, the Elite 3. Aesthetically, they’re almost identical, which is great because…

Following the announcement of mass layoffs of QA staff in one of Activision Blizzard’s studios, workers have announced via activist group A Better ABK Workers Alliance that they were initiating an indefinite strike until their demands are met. These demands include pay transparency, the reinstatement of laid off Raven employees, an “unbiased third party audit” of the company as a whole and more. A Better ABK has also set up a strike fund for those who wish to “join in solidarity”. Activision activism https://twitter.com/ABetterABK/status/1468943518248980486 A Better ABK Workers Alliance has helmed several walkouts this past year, the first being in…

Samsung’s been dominating the folding smartphone arena recently, setting trends for other manufacturers to follow. That’s just business. Oppo looks like it’s keen to throw its own hat into the ring, showing off a prototype foldable that looks a lot like the Galaxy Z Fold. Oppo flips out The prototype, “Oppo’s first foldable flagship”, is named the Find N, and is apparently the result of four years of “intense R&D” and 6 generations of prototypes. Considering the fact that it took Samsung three tries to really nail a foldable smartphone (which still needs some touching up), this seems like a…

As much as The Game Awards poses itself as the video games equivalent to Oscars, a lot of people (us included) consider the event’s main appeal to be the excessive trailers and announcements that accompany the actual awards. We were particularly excited this year given how E3, while being completely serviceable, wasn’t particularly exciting. There’s a veritable truckload to get through, with several hours worth of trailers shown off, so we’re here to give you the condensed version, paying special attention to the biggest stories. Elden ring gets a cinematic trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_03kFqWfqs From Software might be the only studio capable…

In case you’re not caught up on the Apple vs Epic Games cage match, here’s a refresher. And here’s some additional information. What’s relevant to the here and now is that Judge Yvonne Gonzales of the District Court for the Northern District of California ruled a couple of months ago that the South Californian tech giant had until today (9 December) to allow app developers to utilise third-party billing options for in-app purchases rather than Apple’s in house version. This would allow them to skirt the now infamous 15% to 30% cut the App Store (and Google’s Play Store) takes…

When controversial figures start complaining about ‘the Twitter mob’, more often than not it looks a lot like they’re deflecting to avoid being held responsible for something they did. But that’s not to say mob-driven harassment isn’t a real problem on Twitter. It is.  It turns out the microblogging platform has a safety net for users at risk of being mobbed aptly called ‘Project Guardian’.  Twitter guardian angels According to a Bloomberg report, Project Guardian “aims to protect prominent tweeters from abuse” and “harassment”. Twitter apparently keeps a list of thousands of “prominent tweeters” that it suspects may be in…

Remember that neat feature the Wii had where it would passive-aggressively remind you to take a break to make you feel guilty for playing 6 straight hours of Mario Kart? Well, Instagram’s getting something similar, which tells teenagers to take a break if they scroll mindlessly for a set period of time. Touch some grass Instagram’s been testing the feature for around a month now, which sets a prompt to appear every 10, 20 or 30 minutes to tell users to take a break.  According to The Verge,  Instagram says it’s had largely positive feedback. Around 90% of users who tested…

Activision Blizzard has seen its workers walk out twice this year already. The first after the California DFEH’s initial sexual harassment lawsuit surfaced, and after that following the revelation that CEO Bobby Kotick was well aware of the studio’s longstanding toxic workplace culture. Now it’s going for a hattrick following mass layoffs. Activision AWOL Raven Software, one of Activision Blizzard’s tributary studios behind the endlessly popular Call of Duty: Warzone, fired 12 quality assurance contractors working on the title. Activision Blizzard informed them that they would be having one-on-one meetings to determine whether or not they may stay on as…