Author: Stuff writer

Swatch, father of the colourful plastic watch boom of the 90s, could have its very own smartwatch on the way if the latest rumours prove to be true. Bloomberg, who spoke with Swatch CEO Nick Hayek, believes that the watch will be made form colourful plastic (naturally), and will play nice with both Android and Windows devices. Oh, and it won’t ever need charging. How it can go cable-free remains a mystery, but we can make a few guesses. The first theory involves a microscopic hamster running around an internal wheel, generating enough energy to power the watch itself. This…

Flying drone enthusiasts are a fun bunch, tweaking their quadcopters to create things like the SHIELD Helicarrier from The Avengers. But the latest pop culture recreation really takes the cake. Check out this custom-built Millennium Falcon drone from Star Wars, which was posted to Reddit by user Olivier-FR. He’s got a wealth of quadcopter clips on YouTube, but this appears to be his first shared attempt at bringing an iconic ship to life. The foam-based body is a little light on visual detailing, but the silhouette is spot-on, and it does a great job of incorporating quadcopter guts within the…

These spy shots of a Samsung Galaxy S6 case might not be the most glamorous compositions around, but they give us a pretty good idea as to what it could look like. Assuming they’re genuine of course. Picked up by French site Nowhereelse.fr (who’s got a decent track record when it comes to leaks), the shots reveal an all-metal casing that, well, really isn’t too dissimilar from an iPhone 6, at first glance anyway. Apart from the obvious shape similarities, the bottom of the case itself also has a very similar layout to Apple’s current smartphone champion, with a headphone…

When Apple bought Beats last year, most people assumed it wasn’t just to pick up some glossy, trendy headphones. It was more about Beats Music, and Apple has unsurprisingly been hard at work bringing the streaming service into its web. 9to5Mac has a report out about Apple’s plans with its own streaming music service, which will use Beats Music as a foundation, and the piece details Apple’s planned approach for its integration and launch – with some surprising details in the mix. Right now, Beats Music exists largely as it did before the Apple purchase, albeit with a bit more…

Remember the Olympus OM-D E-M5? It was one of the best system cameras of 2012 – and it’s just been updated for 2015. Olympus has just announced the OM-D E-M5 Mark II, a refreshed edition of the Four-Thirds lens-swapper that looks outwardly similar (no bad thing) but offers a haul of new features. Chief among these is its all-new 5-axis optical image stabilisation, which Olympus claims is the world’s most powerful – able to compensate for shake to the equivalent of five steps of shutter speed and giving a drastic boost to both low-light performance and handheld video stability. An…

We could see two refreshed 4K-focused consoles from the Microsoft and Sony camp this year, if the latest online whispers prove to be true. During CES back in January, Netflix executive John Hunt, according to The Huffington Post, claimed that Sony “promised” a 4K-friendly revised version of the PS4. Since then, Forbes’ John Archer has got in touch with the online movie streaming giant, which believes that when both consoles undergo their traditional two-year hardware refresh, they’ll land with all the components necessary for true 4K video playback. Neither console currently offers 4K movie streaming or gaming experiences. While gaming…

If you’re looking for a laptop that can run the latest PC games at high settings without breaking a sweat, the Razer Blade has been an easy recommendation the last couple years. And now it’s even better. Razer unveiled its third-generation Blade model, which maintains the build and general composition of last year’s very capable gaming notebook while boosting the internal specs. And it starts with NVIDIA’s new Maxwell graphics chips. The refreshed Razer Blade packs an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M, boasting 3GB GDDR5 VRAM, which should help the 14in IGZO QHD+ multitouch display (running at 3200×1800) pump out some…

WhatsApp could soon be bringing the fight to the likes of Skype and Viber with the addition of voice calling, after a Reddit user in India posted screenshots indicating he now has access to the feature. Given that the screenshots originated from India, it’s likely that WhatsApp is using the country as a test. It’s also worth noting that the Reddit user stated that he was running Android 5.0 Lollipop on a Google Nexus 5. The user is currently unable to send invites to other people, and the screenshots have since been taken down from Reddit as they contained personal…

Leaked photos of an alleged Samsung Galaxy XCover 3 show off a phone that’s made for more than snapping cappuccino art in cosy coffee shops. Unlike Samsung’s Galaxy S Active handsets which offer IP67-rated water/dust-proofing, the XCover range throws in the addition of shock protection too – ideal for more ‘Xtreme’ activities like rock climbing, brick juggling and building site parkour sessions. Obtained by GSM Arena, the photos show off the front and rear of a rugged-looking smartphone, which appears to have in-built rubber or plastic bumpers for drop protection. The bumper looks like it extends beyond the screen too,…

If you worried that Pebble might be left behind as flashier Android Wear devices hit the market, don’t fret: the company recently hit a huge milestone and is talking about big plans for the future. CEO Eric Migicovsky tells The Verge that Pebble shipped its one millionth smartwatch on 31 December, and more than half of its shipments came within the last nine months – so things are very much on the upswing. No doubt, some of that momentum came from the price drops last autumn, which saw the entry-level model drop to $99 (R1,150), and the sleek Pebble Steel…