Author: Max Milella

Clubhouse (the app) has been an absolute sensation over the past few months, garnering a significant audience on its own platform and inspiring lookalike audio platforms built by tech giants like Facebook, Instagram, and even Discord. But the original audio-only social media platform has, unfortunately, been exclusive to iOS. Until now. Android enters the Clubhouse Yes, the ever-popular audio chat app is making its Android debut. It’s not rolling out to the masses just yet, so don’t get too excited, but Clubhouse says that “a handful of friendly testers” are currently playing around with a “rough beta version” of the…

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… two planes? No, it’s the Roc, aerospace firm Stratolaunch’s massive carrier plane. Like the giant mythological bird it is named after, the Roc is an absolute behemoth. And it now has two test flights under its presumably monumental belt. Roc you like a hurricane Getting a thing like this in the air is no small task. The Roc is the largest plane in the world in terms of wingspan, because its purpose is to carry Stratolaunch’s Talon-A, a near 3-tonne hypersonic vehicle meant to zip around the atmosphere at Mach speeds for various…

Everyone’s got a story about a voice assistant (like Google Assistant) completely mishearing something they said to it, mostly when they’re trying to make a phone call. You know how it goes. “Hey Google, call Mom.” “Okay, calling: Debonairs.” It’s a relatively rare issue when it comes to simple names, but it far more commonly pops up with more unique monikers. To curb that communication struggle, Google’s rolling out an update that will let you teach specific pronunciation of your contacts’ names to its Assistant. Google Assistant needs some assistance Google explains how this works, briefly, in an announcement outlining…

While Samsung does have some game-ready laptops, they’re not as prominently featured on “Top Ten Gaming Laptops” lists as those made by the likes of Asus and Alienware. That might be about to change. Samsung has revealed the Galaxy Book Odyssey line, and it boasts some hardware that could impress even the most critical of laptop connoisseurs. Samsung embarks on an Odyssey Samsung touts that the Odyssey is all about power, and we’re inclined to believe them. It’s decked out with Intel’s latest 11th-gen CPU, and either NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q or the 3050 Ti Max-Q graphics cards. While…

Ask anyone in South Africa to name two streaming services and you’ll almost always get Netflix and Showmax as answers. The pair have comped for viewership, particularly on the African continent, since day one, and the global pandemic has only spurred this rivalry on. Now the streaming giant is investing in creating its own locally-grown African content to attract a larger audience from the African continent. Showmax loves local While Showmax is available in a few western countries, due to its South African roots it has more of a reach into Africa as a whole, available in 50 countries on…

Electronic vehicles are where it’s at for automakers at the moment, and one of the most important aspects of EVs is their batteries. Ford is upping its game in this department, announcing the launch of a new battery development centre focused on figuring out the best ways for it to make its own EV batteries. Ford’s charging towards in-house battery production The battery development centre will be based somewhere in Michigan USA, and will be dubbed “Ford Ion Park”. This park will open up late next year, reports The Verge, manned by a team of 150 experts focused on battery…

Uber South Africa vowed to increase safety measures for food delivery couriers, as well as review drivers’ provided insurance policies, in light of a Thomson Reuters Foundation exposé highlighting the rise in road accidents and risks faced by drivers amidst the ongoing pandemic. Uber’s drivers need more support The expose was published earlier this month, and found figures showing a 30% hike in road accidents for food couriers in May and June 2020, when SA lockdown restrictions began easing. It also found a lack of safety equipment and training provided by Uber to its drivers, many of whom are migrant…

Last November, WhatsApp began rolling out a disappearing messages feature to users. While its pretty self-explanatory, the whole “this message will self-destruct” gimmick isn’t new to online chat platforms, WhatsApp’s take on it wasn’t fantastic either. And while it’s getting a bit of a fix, it still isn’t great. Whatsapp needs to do some fine-tuning See, upon first arriving on WhatsApp, disappearing messages came in two flavours: On, or off. That’s it. Enabling the feature resulted in your messages, you guessed it, disappear, but only after 7 days. An entire week. With no way to change it. That will change…

There once was a time when portable/home projectors were for lame work presentations and forcing your friends and family to sit through your holiday photo slideshow. They’re still used for those things today, but they’re also far more frequently used for entertainment. Nowadays, projectors are cool.  And the Asus Zenbeam Latte L1 is one of the coolest. Or hottest, depending on how you like your coffee. Zenbeam me up, Scottie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul5IX0rNbfw&t=46s Specs-wise, you’ve got a pretty solid little gizmo here. The Zenbeam Latte is a portable LED projector boasting a 720p display and 300 lumens worth of light output, which…

Samsung is going all-in on folds it seems, and has secured a 52-page patent for a “Foldable device including electronic pen”, reports LetsGoDigital. And this foldable phone has three displays. Samsung’s triple-threat foldable That’s right. Three individual displays. That’s a lot of screen space. The phone appears to have a double-hinged design, and, when fully opened, looks to have one large display framed by two smaller ones. The combination of the three results in a larger single display. The left and right screens fold inwards, like a pair of doors, laying atop the centre screen. The patent images also show…