Author: Max Milella

Online safety is pretty high-priority for folks with any amount of sense, and it’s ostensibly an important matter for most big tech groups too. Particularly when it comes to children, even if their safety features sometimes miss the mark a little. Google, in line with this, is rolling out a new safety feature with which users can request the removal of minors from its Image Search results. Good-guy Google There are a few reasonable caveats to the way the feature works, the main ones being that not anyone can request an image be removed on behalf of anyone else. Obviously,…

There are a few more frustrating sentences to read on a Wednesday morning, after 4 days of Stage 2 load shedding, than, “Regretfully Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented from 12:00 on Wednesday until 05:00; thereafter Stage 2 loadshedding will continue as previously communicated until 05:00 on Saturday”. Shocking. Lengthier load shedding https://twitter.com/Eskom_SA/status/1453286383242579974 This comes by way of Eskom’s Twitter account, which goes on to explain that over the last 24 hours units at Medupi, Kusile and Matla tripped, and units at the Lethabo and Arnot stations were forced to be shut down. Eskom says it expects two generating units…

Believe us when we say that we know that shifting over to a new phone can be a major pain. Particularly when you’re switching from one OS to another. Fortunately, Google recently made it much easier to move over from iPhone to Android, with no more than a Lightning-to-USB-C cable, with the release of Android 12. This also included a WhatsApp history transfer for Samsung phones, something that’s been historically lacking. Now the search engine giant is extending that functionality to the new Pixels, as well as any new phones that launch with Android 12. iPhone to Android made easy…

For all the hype 343’s been talking up about Halo Infinite’s open-world campaign, we hadn’t seen much in the way of trailers since the initial reveal back in 2020. Now we’ve got a new one, and it’s 6 minutes sheer awesome. Halo there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCbMVbeKlCg For being only 6 minutes long (backed by some epically nostalgic music), the trailer packs a lot of stuff into it, including a look at the new story, open-world, vehicles and enemies, and new mechanics. Story-wise, Infinite picks up just after Halo 5’s cliffhanger conclusion, meaning yes, the big bad is still Cortana. But that doesn’t mean Chief’s on his…

We don’t want to say we told you so, but we definitely saw this coming. Eskom has announced that load shedding will continue from this morning (Tuesday 26 October 2021) to 5am on Saturday 30 October 2021. Best bust out the power banks and MiFi routers. According to a statement, while the power utility has managed to restore units at the Kusile, Matimba and Arnot, breakdowns still amount to 13,333MW, with an additional 5,548MW worth of capacity set aside for planned maintenance. Furthermore, delays in returning several other stations to service have hampered the utility’s ability to replenish emergency generation…

Eskom’s been playing a bit of hot-and-cold with regards to load shedding as of late, so in case you missed the memo (and if you’re a Johannesburg resident you may well have) most of South Africa is back on Stage 2 until 21:00 Tuesday. Ostensibly, at least. Given Eskom’s track record that could very well be extended. But not Johannesburg, whose residents will be happy to hear that City Power has declared that there will be no load shedding for them. Johannesburg has the power City Power, Joburg’s municipal power utility, made it known via Twitter over the weekend that…

At this point, most folks would probably say that the ongoing chip shortage has overstayed its welcome. Substantially. Unfortunately, Intel says things won’t get much better any time soon, predicting the soonest possible end to the supply strain by 2023 and no sooner.  Intel’s pessimistic The tech company posted its Q3 earnings last week, and while there’s immediately nothing particularly foreboding about them, the semiconductor shortage is certainly taking its toll. Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCP), its most important revenue stream, dropped 2% year-over-year, which doesn’t seem like much at first glance but is pretty telling when compared to relative…

As popular as cryptocurrency is these days, it’s still a ways off from becoming a widely accepted form of currency. Unless you’re El Salvador. South African banks still approach the subject with caution and are quick to steer clear of anything they aren’t fully keen on. Standard Bank has decided that arbitraging falls into that category, and has now served account termination notices to several clients who offer the service. Standard Bank’s Crypto Crush In case you don’t know, arbitrage is the act of purchasing something in one area, then selling it in another, usually at a higher price. In…

Google has finally relented somewhat over its contentious 30% Play Store developer tax. The internet giant announced that it is lowering the toll for subscription-based apps (say, Netflix) to 15%, and ebook and music streaming services “…as low as 10%”. Google lets up This mimics a similar move Apple made recently regarding ‘reader’ apps on the App Store. The reason for the company’s sudden generosity, according to The Verge, is that actual content costs make up the majority of these apps’ sales, rather than in-app purchases. While Google doesn’t go so far as to say it, there’s no doubt that…

While Sony’s always been one of the biggest names in gaming, thanks in no small part to the PlayStation, it only recently started getting heavily into esports. The Tokyo-based company purchased Evo, the largest fighting game festival in the world, earlier this year. A patent it filed last year that would allow for more immediate engagement between esports stream viewers and competitors has been approved. And it’s… interesting. Not really a pro-gamer move, Sony The patent, in a nutshell, regards a system by which spectators can remove players from games at will, either kicking simply kicking them out or throwing…