Author: Max Milella

The age of online retail is firmly upon us and sinking its talons into just about every facet of our digital existence. It’s not personal, it’s just business. And it’s a business Twitter’s looking to get into. The microblogging platform plans to test out a new live shopping feature this weekend in collaboration with United States retail store Walmart, which will let users buy products advertised during a live-stream. Kind of like the digital equivalent to those old shopping networks. Twitter teleshopping Twitter’s tried and tested shopping features in the past, though not to any rousing success. Which is sure…

Clubhouse might be the original, big social audio platform but that doesn’t mean it’s got everything going for it. While it has plenty to offer, it does lack a few key features that its competitors/lookalikes don’t. For example, it’s lacked closed captions, an important feature for accessibility for those with hearing impediments, for quite a while now. Well, no longer! Clubhouse gets easy on the eyes closed captioning is here for iOS! update your app now to see it in action in live rooms. here’s a lil’ example, in case you need convincing… pic.twitter.com/v2poAjE2Pl — Clubhouse (@Clubhouse) November 17, 2021 Starting…

Following the Wall Street Journal’s damning report on Bobby Kotick’s complicity, covering up of and participation in Activision Blizzard’s toxic culture of sexual discrimination and harassment, the company has faced waves of criticism from fans, employees and news outlets alike. Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox division, has reportedly thrown his own voice into the ring via a staff email. What’s more, is that he says he plans to back his words up with actions as he “[evaluates] all aspects of [Xbox’s] relationship” with the games company. Spencer speaks up In a staff email (via Bloomberg), Spencer expressed that he and his…

Apple has historically been pretty obtuse when it comes to letting customers open up and repair their own devices, in the sense that: they haven’t. Traditionally, wannabe iPhone and Mac DIYers have had to source tools and parts from third parties, and fiddling around with your iPhone’s guts is generally a quick way to void its warranty. That’s all about to change. Apple has announced that, from next year onwards, customers will be able to make use of ‘Self Service Repair’, which will provide them with “Apple genuine” (i.e. the ones they use in-house) tools and spare parts so they…

As far as we’re concerned, shaking your phone like a bartender making a martini for Daniel Craig isn’t exactly the most reasonable response to running into a bug, but it’s still completely valid. So long as you have a firm grip. Instagram, it appears, concurs, and is therefore baking the gesture of vexation into its UI. How? By letting you use it to report errors. Shake it off, Instagram Yes, you read that right. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the new feature on Wednesday, specifically calling it a “Rage Shake”. It works as you might expect it to: should you encounter…

The Wall Street Journal reports that despite his claims to the contrary and ostensible support for victims, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has known for years about the toxic ‘frat boy’ culture pervading his company, the result of which has been a slew of sexual misconduct and discrimination incidents. Not only that, but WSJ also alleges that Kotick was complicit in some of these incidents, downplaying allegations and sweeping them under the rug. Kotick’s complicity The WSJ report mentions several incidents within Activision’s various studio arms, where Kotick used his influence to silence accusers and protect the accused. For example, Call of Duty studio…

In a move surprising a total of zero people, Eskom announced today that Stage 2 load shedding will be making a return from 2PM this afternoon until 5AM Saturday morning. Break out the generators and charge up those power banks, friends. Here we go again. Load shedding: extended edition https://twitter.com/Eskom_SA/status/1460881964521734146 “Regretfully, due to the ongoing insufficient generation capacity and the loss of a unit each at Medupi, Duvha and Kedal power stations this morning, Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 14:00 today until 05:00 on Saturday 20 November,” reads a statement from the power utility. “This is to preserve…

Any social media platform worth its salt (and even many that aren’t) is often infected by droves of fake, spam, and bot accounts. If there’s money to be made off of it, someone’s gonna find a scummy way to do it. That’s just business. Platforms like Twitter and Instagram have tried to curb the spread of these accounts in a number of ways, using CAPTCHA codes and verification emails. Insta is taking its account verification one step further, requiring that users provide a video selfie to prove that they’re who they say they are. Instagram gets to your head https://twitter.com/MattNavarra/status/1460341104667201536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1460341104667201536%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.xda-developers.com%2Finstagram-video-selfie-verification%2F…

Microsoft celebrated the original Xbox’s (and Halo: Combat Evolved’s) 20th birthday yesterday, and to mark the occasion it decided to give everyone an early Christmas present: an early release of Halo Infinite’s free multiplayer mode. Eyes up, Spartan. Time to get to work. Happy birthday, Halo Since it was announced that Infinite’s multiplayer would be free for all, fans have been more than a little keen to get their hands on it on the game’s full launch day, the 8th of December. This excitement was only stoked further by the success of several beta-test weekends earlier this year. The standalone, cross-platform mode has landed…

Instagram’s been throwing features and money at its short-form video platform, Reels, for a hot minute now in order to compete with TikTok (which has seen massive success with the format). Its latest attempt to garner popularity: paying creators to use Reels. Instagram Reels in creators Instagram is currently testing payments to creators for Reels, reports TechCrunch, referring to them mainly as ‘bonuses’. Big (or big-ish) creators on the platform are offered bonuses if they can hit a certain amount of Reel views within a month. It’s not all-or-nothing though, users will still get paid if they miss their mark, though it’ll…