Author: Max Milella

Online collaboration spaces like Zoom and Microsoft Teams have all but become permanent staples of our lives amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and in light of this they’ve all been striving to make working from home easier and less headache-inducingly surreal. Microsoft Teams has now added a bunch of new features aimed at making its in-app experience more personal. Microsoft Teams gets personal Microsoft announced a slew of updates to Teams’ online call and group chat functions on desktop, web, and mobile. Firstly, in an attempt to recreate family gatherings and nights out with the squad, Microsoft is making “Together mode”…

iOS 14.5 brought a lot of cool stuff to the iPhone, but one of the most exciting new features was the App Tracking Transparency feature. This requires all apps to ask for your permission before they can sink their teeth into your information. Not surprisingly, the majority of iPhone users weren’t keen on that at all. In light of this, Twitter is now politely asking users to let them track their ads with an in-app prompt. Twitter’s pretty upfront about tracking iOS Twitter users on the latest version of the app should already be seeing the prompt pop up. The…

It’s been a long ride, but we’re finally here. Clubhouse, an iOS exclusive since March 2020, will be made available to Android users worldwide this week. The audio-social media platform launched on Android in the US last week, and will be adding more and more countries to its list as the week goes on. https://twitter.com/Clubhouse/status/1393968237239545856 Clubhouse’s doors are fully open Clubhouse made its Android debut in a US-only “rough beta version” at the beginning of the month, which turned into an open-beta (with some stipulations) about a week later. This week marks its global rollout. The platform is now available…

The philosophy of the day when it comes to media seems to be “everyone’s included”, and has inspired a big push from companies to make their products accessible to all. Xbox is the latest to have taken on this mantra, and is testing out some new accessibility features to its Party Chat function.  Xbox wants everyone to chat In an announcement, Xbox explained that two new features were being added to Party Chat: speech-to-text transcription and text-to-speech synthesis.  They do pretty much exactly what it says on their tins. Speech-to-text makes it so that whatever the members of your party…

Everyone likes their toast done a certain way, but Balmuda is well known for giving you the ability to cook your breakfast bread in style. Its fancy, steam-utilising toaster line is famous in Japan and the US. They also produce other essential appliances. Now the company wants to break into the smartphone market. Balmuda, from home-ec to handsets It’s a bold move. The smartphone market isn’t the easiest space to thrive in, and even the big names know that. But Balmuda is confident, with CEO Gen Terao explaining that the company is looking not to come out on top in…

Lenovo-owned telecommunications company Motorola is most well known for its folding phones, old and new. Now it seems the company wants to try its hand at air-charging technology. It recently announced a partnership with GuRu wireless, a tech company already working on wireless charging tech of its own. Motorola wants to be an air-charging GuRu GuRu claims to have its very own charging tech, utilizing millimetre-wave integrated chips and an RF Lensing technique that can charge multiple devices up to nearly 10 meters away, according to The Next Web. GuRu’s chargers can currently charge a phone at somewhere between 5W and…

Just under two months ago, Tesla announced that it would begin accepting Bitcoin as payment for its cars, a pretty on-brand move for the ostensibly future-focused automaker owned by crypto-cardinal Elon Musk. Now, via a tweet (what else) from Musk, it’s been announced that Tesla is backpedalling on that decision due to Bitcoin’s current environmental toll. Tesla thinks again The announcement tweeted by Musk explains that Tesla has suspended the purchasing of its vehicles with Bitcoin for the time being. Apparently it is, “concerned about the increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has…

A few weeks ago, Facebook confirmed it will bring Live Audio Rooms to its social network, pegging a release date in the second quarter of 2021. The social media giant is now testing out the feature with Taiwanese public figures. Live Audio Rooms is one of the company’s attempts to capitalise on the live-audio social media platform craze sparked by Clubhouse (the other is called Hotline), and it works in essentially the same way as its… inspiration. Users can create and host audio rooms centred around a particular topic, either alone or with additional speakers, and others can tune in,…

These days it’s kind of hard to say whether we as a species are evolving alongside technology or degenerating as it fills in for common sense for us. Case in point, engineering student Minwook Paeng has made a robotic third eye that looks out for obstacles while its wearer texts and walks. Third Eye blind The Third Eye (that’s the official name) is made up of a pupil-esque sonar sensor and a gyroscope housed in a clear plastic case that attaches to the user with a thin gel pad. A head strap also helps to keep the eye attached. The…

While it’s all good and well that big automakers are going all-in on electric vehicles, purchasing one for use in South Africa is often a difficult and expensive experience. Volvo’s similarly expensive XC40 P8, is now available for pre-order. Rest, Relax, Recharge with Volvo The XC40 P8 is Volvo’s first full-electric vehicle. It’s got two electric motors capable of putting out 304 kW of power and 660 Nm, and it can go from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.9 seconds, which is impressive for an EV. The automaker is also set on making it easier for South Africans to buy…