Author: Stuff writer

Harmonix has announced that Rock Band 4, the fourth instalment of the main game (there’s been seven Rock Band games if you include band-specific games and spin-offs, though), will be coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later this year. Eric Pope, Product Manager, has said that since 2010, when Rock Band 3 was released, the games developer has dabbled in a number of other areas. These include motion control, PC and Virtual Reality. He says the company has learned a great deal and is “prepared to dive back into our beloved Rock Band series, and actually push the genre…

Processor chips might not be top of your list of things to get excited about, but anyone with a passing interest in phones should have their interest piqued by Intel’s latest Atom line-up. They’re the dream combination of powerful and cheap, and heading straight to 2015’s smartphones. The Atom X3 should be making an appearance in phones around the R1,200 price point, bringing more power to the low-end party and possibly spelling big things for phone users in countries like South Africa. Stuff regulars will probably be more interested in the Atom X5 and X7 though – these are the…

LG may not have shown off any high-end smartphones at MWC 2015, but its CEO Juno Cho has been dropping a few hints about its next crop. First up is a follow up to the LG G3, which he says will be very different to its predecessor. The company is overhauling the phone’s design as well as making big changes to the UX – in fact, so big is the change in UX that the software will be unveiled before the actual handset. “We will announce LG UX 4.0 before announcing the LG G4,” Cho said. “I think it is…

Google’s vision for the future of smartphones is about to become a reality, with its long-awaited Project Ara modular smartphone finally set for release later this year. The news was revealed by the little-known smartphone manufacturer Yezz at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona. Yezz unveiled a range of modules that will work with Ara, although it’s unclear how many of them will actually be available come the supposed August 2015 release date. But with the likes of NFC chips, storage modules and even a gaming controller on show, it looks as if there’ll be no shortage of options. The…

If there was a theme at this year’s Game Developers Conference, it was undoubtedly virtual reality. Valve and HTC are getting into the headset game, AMD has started to natively support headsets, and Bjork’s next music video is even going to be made available in VR. Sony, though, has perhaps the greatest shot at making VR a true mainstream success. Its Morpheus headset has been in development for almost as long as the Oculus Rift, while PlayStation 4 compatibility means that 20 million-plus people will be ready to plug and play once the headset is launched. Sony has announced that…

Calling an unannounced, not-officially-acknowledged gadget “delayed” is somewhat mad, we admit. But earlier reports claimed that Apple was about to start producing its so-called iPad Pro, and that’s apparently not happening now. Instead, Bloomberg says that Apple will start producing the purportedly 12.9-inch tablet around September. Weak availability of display panels is pegged as the reason for the delay, although you’d think with Apple’s money and muscle, it could make just about anything happen. But a Q3 debut makes more sense with Apple’s tablet release cycle in recent years. The first three iPads all launched around midyear, but then Apple…

If you’re a smartphone fan, the Samsung Galaxy S6 probably has your face looking a bit heart-eyes emoji right now. It’s a serious looker – but if you’re currently rocking an S5 you won’t even have had your current phone for a year. So is it worth shelling out for its replacement or is the S6’s beauty only skin deep? And what’s so great about the S6 anyway? Here’s what we reckon. 1. IT WORKS THAT BODY We aren’t exaggerating when we call the Samsung Galaxy S6 the best-looking phone Samsung has ever made. Having seen the error of its…

With an edge-to-edge touchscreen display and an app that amalgamates your social feeds, the BlackBerry Leap brings features other manufacturers have been offering for years to the table. BlackBerry finally conceded that this whole touchscreen thing was taking off with the BlackBerry Z10 and, despite saying it was going to focus on keyboard-toting telephones, has gone all-touch once again. The BlackBerry Leap has a 5-inch HD edge-to-edge display and BlackBerry reckons you can get up to 25 hours of heavy use out of the thing on a single charge – we’ll believe that when we see it. The Leap is…

Yup, you read us right. The Universal Foldable Keyboard that the ever-friendly Microsoft announced at MWC works with Windows, Android, and iOS devices. It connects to your phone or tablet via Bluetooth, adding the ability for tactile typing to the device. The keyboard layout is familiar, and it even has two keys on the top left for you to switch between two devices simultaneously. So if you’re working on your iPad, and a message suddenly comes in on your Lumia, just tap the key to switch and type. No mess, no fuss. A CLOSER LOOK It folds pretty flat and…

With Apple and Samsung embracing fingerprint-scanning home buttons to protect devices and authenticate payments, our digits will soon be the key to opening up a whole new world of possibilities. While the iPhone and Galaxy S6 make use of physical buttons to house the scanner, it would be much better if the screen itself were able to double up as a sensor, letting you authenticate your fingerprints simply by tapping anywhere on the screen itself. Nestled among the torrent of smartphones and tablets here at MWC, we came across a clever piece of kit that could enable us to one…