Author: Max Milella

MultiChoice and its broadcasting service, DStv, have caught flack in the past for their price-to-product ratio. In short, when stacked against some of the competition, their offerings aren’t particularly great in terms of value for money.  MultiChoice is working to rectify that a little. An upcoming ‘Flex’ package turned up back in September and it is currently offering a limited promotion on its DStv Premium streaming package.  DStv discount A Premium subscription normally costs R829 a month, and gives you access to 135+ channels (no decoder required), DStv Box Office, and Showmax, across up to 4 devices. MultiChoice is cutting…

People love Clubhouse. That’s pretty common knowledge at this point. But for a social media platform that’s all about using your voice, it’s always been a bit lacking in in-app language options other than English. Now it’s rectifying that, adding in 13 new language options. Clubhouse the polyglot The social-audio platform announced the new languages in a press conference in India, reports TechCrunch, where it holds a pretty healthy user-base. The languages being added are:  German, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Malayalam, Italian, Kannada, Brazilian Portuguese, Tamil, Telugu, French and Korean. Interestingly enough, while this list does a pretty good job of…

Blizzard just can’t keep out of headlines, can it? After ex-president J. Allen Brack left the studio in August, Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra took his place as co-leaders. Now, a mere 3 months later, Oneal has announced her departure.  Oneal is out In a statement on Blizzard’s official site, Oneal explained, effective immediately, Ybarra would be the sole head of Blizzard. Oneal is staying on until the end of the year, transitioning into a new role working alongside Activision Blizzard and Women in Games International (a non-profit where she is a board member) to drive long term changes at…

It’s become clear that collaboration and community interaction are powerful tools for user retention and engagement on social media platforms. Just look at the success of TikTok’s duets. Taking this on board, Instagram’s rolling out a new communal feature that lets users interact with each other publicly through their stories. Instagram wants full participation The feature is a sticker, called “Add Yours” and it’s found just like any other sticker you’d find while preparing to post a story, but it’s got an admittedly fun little twist. See, if you post an “Add Yours” sticker, other users can select it and…

In his downtime from being a Twitter shitposter, Elon Musk recently became the world’s richest man, as Tesla’s market cap rocketed to $1 trillion. Now, we don’t know how he spends his money, nor are we about to start speculating, but David Beasly, director of the United Nation’s World Food Programme called him (and Jeff Bezos) out via Twitter for not using it to help alleviate the world hunger crisis. Beasly claims that a mere fraction of Musk’s wealth could effectively end the crisis, to which Musk responded, saying that if Beasly could show him in detail exactly how, then…

The Tecno Spark 7 Pro falls squarely into the mid-range smartphone category, and that’s by no means an insult. It’s an important range of devices offering decent to good specs that the everyday consumer can buy without breaking the bank. The Spark 7 Pro is no exception, packing some pretty decent bang for your buck, even if it falls a little short in a few categories. But for a R3,000 to R4,000 phone what you get is more than enough. How’s it look? Right off the bat, while it doesn’t have the forged glass design of a Galaxy smartphone or…

Twitter Spaces may not quite have the same social media magnetism as Clubhouse, but it’s got a fair audience. Live audio shows are cool, after all. Unfortunately, the thing about live shows is that if you miss them, you miss them. That’s that. Fortunately, Twitter’s rolling out a new feature that lets hosts record Spaces so that their followers can listen back to them later. Spaces for when you have time It’s rolling out in earnest just yet. Currently, the recording feature is only available to a handful of Spaces hots on iOS, though playback is available to all listeners…

Monetising creators is a service many would argue social media companies owe them, whether through ad-revenue or through in-app subscriptions/donations (think YouTube’s ‘Join’ button or Twitter’s tip jar). TikTok has had a tipping solution for a minute now, though it’s been limited to in-app live streams. Now the feature is being tested directly in user profiles. Get that TikTok doller The new tip jar is currently only being tested by a handful of users, according to TechCrunch. Creators who have been picked for the test can apply to activate the feature if they a) have at least 100,000 followers and b)…

If you’re into your software, and we mean really into your software, there’s probably only a small handful of things you look forward to more than an update. Google Chromebooks offer a version of their OS just for such users. The OS channel is called ‘Canary’, which updates more frequently than any other version of Chrome OS, giving users access to the latest and greatest features in return for some instability. Unfortunately, ‘instability’ is a bit of an understatement at the moment. The latest version of Canary is reportedly (via 9to5Google) bricking some Chromebooks. Canary in the coal mine If you use your…

The future of the transport industry is green, so it seems, and as such we’re starting to see more and more environmentally friendly options popping up in the auto industry and its runoffs. Ride-hailing app Bolt will soon give South African users the ability to hail electronic and hybrid vehicles. Bolt gets electric Bolt’s EV offering, which falls into a ‘Green’ ride category, isn’t exactly new. It’s been available in Kenya for a minute now, and both Kenya and South Africa have had access to the company’s e-bike food courier services for a few months now. Bringing the EV option…