Author: Nick Cowen

Ster-Kinekor, one of South Africa’s oldest and most influential movie chains, has announced it will enter into voluntary business rescue this week in an attempt to return to profitability. The move comes as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures implemented by governments the world over continue to hammer businesses — particularly those who have a heavier reliance on foot traffic than others. Only last week Clicks Group announced the demise of music and entertainment retail chain Musica. “As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent economic lockdown instituted by the South African government at the end of…

The Reddit Gamestop Wall Street riot just keeps on rolling. Anyone who is still labouring under the impression that this month’s Wall Street bloodbath is simply going to go unchecked should slam back a hard cup of coffee. It essentially involves group of amateur investors on a Reddit community that spear-headed a short-squeeze against hedge funds on Gamestop stocks to the tune of billions of dollars. If we were to put our tinfoil hats on, we’d say that it seems the 1% react quite quickly when their pay margins are affected. In the last 24 hours not only did the…

Amateur investors who had been having a grand old time inflating the share price of gaming retail chain Gamestop (which made a lot of them quite a bit of money), while thumbing a collective nose at Wall Street in the process, found their activities cut short yesterday when several amateur trading apps banned them from buying Gamestop shares. Well, it was too much fun to last, wasn’t it? According to a report on The Guardian the RobinHood amateur trading app (among others), moved to prevent users from buying up Gamestop stock, along with the stock of seven other companies. RobinHood was…

Cast an eye in the general direction of the finance sector and you’ll see that the last couple of weeks have sent shock waves through Wall Street. After shorting the stock of game retailer Gamestop, several hedge funds and their backers lost billions in January after amateur investors on the Reddit community r/wallstreetbets initiated a ‘short-squeeze’, buying up Gamestop shares and boosting their price. This has naturally caused some consternation; beyond the massive losses of capital, the move has raised issues of ethicality and legality in the finance sector, with some players crying foul and the White House announcing it…

Given the recent rise in popularity of films and documentaries about tech industry movers and shakers —  The Social Network, The Fourth Estate, The Social Dilemma, Steve Jobs and Snowden among them — it was only a matter of time before someone got around to making a movie about Silk Road. Starring Nick Robinson (Jurassic World, Shadow In the Cloud) and Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Pet Sematary) the film follows the rise of illicit web entrepreneur Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) founder and owner of Silk Road, arguably one of the most infamous online black markets in the Darkweb’s…

Musica, formerly one of South Africa’s most established music and entertainment retail chains for the last 29 years, is to cease trading this year. This, according to its parent company Clicks Group, which acquired Musica back in 1992. TechCentral reports that in a statement released via the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) this week, Clicks said: “Shareholders are advised that the board of directors has taken a decision to close the group’s heritage entertainment brand Musica with effect from 31 May 2021.” The death of Musica Clicks went onto say: “Musica has been operating in a declining market for several years…

As if 2021 wasn’t shaping up to be one of the weirdest years in recent memory, news has emerged that Reddit users have managed to cost Wall Street investors billions of dollars by boosting the stock of US video games retail chain Gamestop. Confused? Don’t worry — there’s a lot to unpack there. Thanks to the general drop in physical sales for games over the last year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and in part to the rise of digital sales, Gamestop was not expected to turn a profit until 2023. This made it a rather attractive prospect…

It’s been just over two weeks since former United States President Donald Trump was suspended from Google’s streaming platform YouTube, ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Originally put in place on 12 January after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, YouTube suspended Trump’s ability to upload videos to his channel, as well as disabling the comments sections. Now, according to a report in The Guardian, Google has decided to extend the suspension indefinitely, citing concerns over possible violence that may erupt in the future. “In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J Trump channel…

If you own an Apple iPhone or iPad, we suggest that you scan for a software update immediately. If you haven’t already installed iOS 14.4 on it, we suggest you do so to ensure you’ve got the most recent security patches. Apple has posted a rather worrying blog on its support page that essentially points out that those without the update on their devices are vulnerable to exploitation from malignant outsiders. A report on TechCrunch states that Apple’s latest update is aimed at fixing three vulnerabilities that may allow you to be targeted as you read this. Most worryingly of…

When news broke in November that Hitman developer IO Interactive announced its next project will be a James Bond game, the gaming community loudly rejoiced — and rightly so. After all, the Danish development studio is arguably the perfect entity to tackle this prospect; the Hitman games share so much with the James Bond film franchise — exotic locations, outlandish villains and a protagonist tasked with assassination. IO could probably have gotten away with simply giving Agent 47 a head of hair and some tattoo removal. Naturally, the studio has bigger plans than that, but details were scarce about the…