Author: Stuff writer

Catch! SpaceX catches Starship booster on its fifth attempt It didn’t take long for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to get Starship working the way it was hoping to. After the FAA finally gave the company clearance to try and launch its building-sized rocket into space again, the fifth attempt at Starship went without a hitch. That means, of course, that Starship itself launched, travelled for a while, and then splashed down in the Indian Ocean. That was the point, after all, and the scientists are after data more than anything else. But something else also went horribly right. Starship’s Super Heavy…

Oh look, everyone’s top retro handheld. As long as they like green. And motion blur. It’s easy to scoff at the Game Boy’s dot-matrix display, with its four shades of murk and visible ghosting. And yes, next to the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx, the lack of colour – and clarity – was stark. But while falling short in terms of visual clout, the Game Boy excelled where it mattered and quickly became a handheld for the masses. It didn’t munch through batteries; it was affordable and light; and most importantly, it had those stellar titles that you really…

Remember, remember, the first of November Surprise! Apple is coming out of the woodwork for yet another product launch, despite a busy iPhone-filled September. That’s not unusual, not by a long stretch. If you’re familiar with the Big Fruit’s strategy, a slew of new Mac-related products are coming our way soon; including two new MacBook Pros, a revamped Mac Mini, an M4-toting iMac, and iPad Mini. The event – expected to debut at the end of October according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter – mimics that of Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ event in 2023, except that the M4 SoC is…

So you want a new iPhone 16, do you? Yeah, you and everyone else. But if you’re seeing this page early in the month of October, you’ve come by way of the competition page on the current issue of Stuff Magazine. You also want a little of that free iPhone action. It’s cool. We understand. It’s an Incredible giveaway (literally — check the logo out on p63). If you’re on this page, you’ve got everything you need to complete your entry into the giveaway. It’s all in the on-shelf issue of Stuff. The calm one with the white cover. Now…

Amazon rekindles your love of reading with a new e-reader A new Kindle e-reader is waiting in the wings, and it’s about time, too. Amazon rode the coattails of its latest entry-level Kindle for the past two years, but it looks like the game is finally up. Dwindling stocks of the e-reader around the world have forced the retail giant to finally cook up a new Kindle, possibly out tomorrow. That’s according to a Spanish retailer (first spotted by Good e-Reader) which accidentally posted a listing last week featuring the new e-reader, complete with a half-decent list of specs we have…

Counting laps is an integral part of a pool swimmer’s training routine, dominating their thoughts on every stroke, trying to remember how many laps they’ve completed. With this in mind, we dived into a pool wearing the Form Smart Swim 2 goggles to see if they were any good. For the most part, yes. The Form Smart Swim 2 offers an innovative approach to enhance the swim training experience. Smart goggles activate The initial unboxing of the Form Smart Swim 2 goggles was surprisingly pleasant. The goggles ship inside a functional black case with drainage holes on either side. However,…

It’s about time You don’t get to witness history being written very often. But that is about to change because NASA is officially developing a ‘lunar time standard’ designed for the Moon’s rotation, a task delegated to it by the US government as America continues to set its sights on touching down on the big rock (sometime in 2025) and colonising it for generations to come. Following the White House’s directive sent out in April, NASA has confirmed it will “coordinate with U.S. government stakeholders, partners, and international standards organizations to establish a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC),” a whole five…

Rain’s (not) the One Rain, a latecomer to South Africa’s mobile network operator game, is hiking its prices. That’s not déjà vu, either. Despite already bumping up its prices in June, the operator is putting its customer’s patience to the test, this time only targeting its RainOne packages, which initially launched in May 2023 with a starting price of R560/m. That was the case until 1 June 2024, when Rain sprung a R36 increase on customers, leaving them with a R595/m bill for the base RainOne package, offering 30Mbps speed. A further R200/m investment unlocks 60Mbps speeds, while the highest…

App developers all over the world are after one thing. Money. Recognition that you’re better than everyone else, though? That’s also a decent thing to have. If you’re a South African app developer, you’ll know that Stuff’s App Awards winners for 2024 were recently announced. That can only mean one thing — yes, it’s time to start gearing up for 2025. What’s app’n’ing? We’re not saying that it’s time to ready your URLs and dump a bunch of information on us. Not yet, anyway. But the time isn’t far off. We’ll be looking for locally developed apps, no matter where…

November holds the key to M4 MacBooks… allegedly If you were hoping for news of new MacBooks at Apple’s upcoming ‘It’s Glowtime’ event next week, you’re bound to be sorely disappointed. If history is any indication, Apple will hold off on any announcements that don’t include the words “iPhone 16”, “AirPods”, “Apple Watch” or “Pro Max”. Wait until November, however, and you may just get your wish in the form of M4-touting MacBooks. That’s according to MacRumours who reckons it’s dealing with a source “familiar with the matter.” That’s not entirely out of the question for Apple, whose “Scary Fast” event was…