Author: Stuff writer

OpenAI has given us all another chance to look at the cutesy picture of Jony Ive and its CEO, Sam Altman. In a social post, which included that adorable wedding-pose image announcing that the company had bought Ive’s ‘io’ startup, the AI firm says it has removed all mention of io from its websites due to a trademark complaint. The not-so-happy couple This page is temporarily down due to a court order following a trademark complaint from iyO about our use of the name “io.” We don’t agree with the complaint and are reviewing our options.https://t.co/suwMRPTHqB — OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom)…

Only Facebook, now of course known as Meta, would make it mightily easy to mistakenly publicly share private queries in its Meta AI app. This is the upshot of the exposé that very private queries were being shared by mistake by many users. Meta’s solution? To warn you to “avoid sharing personal or sensitive information” right before users hit the “post to feed” button. Most rational companies would turn off the publicising of personal information from the word go, but not Facebook, which has put both capitalism and surveillance in surveillance capitalism. Chucking privacy out the window This lapse in…

Range anxiety is real. We get it. Clearly so do the boffins at Haval, which has released an updated version of its H6 GT Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. Yes, there’s a new acronym, if you haven’t seen it yet: PHEV. Haval’s latest PHEV has got some serious voomah, and should ease those crippling range anxiety fears. All hail Haval Both the EV charge and a full tank of petrol will get you 1,000 km. The new H6 GT PHEV has a combined output of 762Nm of torque, including its advanced 321kW Petrol-Electric Drivetrain. Using just electric power, Haval says you…

Parked outside an Arctic cabin in the middle of a snow-covered Swedish landscape, the Volvo EX30 Cross Country looks like it can take on any environment. You can’t blame the Swedish carmaker for using this picturesque scene. It really is aspirational. Some would say driving cross-country in an EV is also aspirational. But Volvo thinks differently, as we know. And it thinks its EX30 Cross Country deserves to wear the proud “Cross Country” moniker that was first launched in 1997. Leaving your EX in the snow “Designed to cope with the demanding Scandinavian climate, our Cross Country cars perform in…

Having your phone stolen in Mzansi is more of a ‘when’ scenario than an ‘if’. The country’s crime problems were on full display in the White House earlier this year. Unfortunately. An average of 189 mobiles are stolen every day in South Africa, according to the South African Police Service (SAPS). “Police data suggests that only 29% of these were blacklisted with service providers,” wrote the Institute for Security Studies, of the 412,998 mobiles were reported stolen between April 2017 and March 2023. Taking on Samsung Smartphone makers clearly know this, and Samsung has released a range of new anti-theft…

In a truly unprecedented move, Donald Trump wants to sell you a smartphone. He is the first US President to offer a branded smartphone. Or any branded product. For $500 (R9,000), you can own a Trump-branded gold device that will charge you $47.45 (about R855/m) a month to sing the praises of the 45th and 47th US president, geddit? Turns out patriotism is a gold mine. Who knew? The phone service will be called Trump Mobile, and its T1 smartphone is gold, or should we say gold-coloured. Very gold coloured. It’s a colour that Trump clearly loves, as he has…

Mxm. Sequels are never as good as the originals, are they? Oh, this one was. The original PlayStation redefined home gaming, but five years later, Sony unleashed another revolution. The new console’s guts packed serious clout, enabling game makers to sculpt breathtaking efforts: the soulful Ico and awe-inspiring Shadow of the Colossus, the sprawling open world of GTA3, grin-inducing racers like Burnout Revenge – and many more. This wasn’t merely shifting more polygons; it was a quantum leap in gaming. Hurrah! Progress! Year zero! Just like gaming is supposed to be. Except no. Sony recognised the investment millions of gamers…

1980s arcade gaming meets 1930s cinema. Double retro overload! It does feel like that when you first set eyes on Shigeru Miyamoto’s legendary design. This was one of the earliest ‘climbing’ games, laying the foundations for the platform genre. And it’s packed with film tropes, from the damsel in distress to the giant ape – too packed, according to Universal City Studios, which filed a lawsuit against Nintendo alleging trademark infringement of King Kong. Universal lost; Nintendo won; gamers and everyman carpenters everywhere erupted in celebration. Probably. Carpenters? Duh, Mario’s a plumber! Not at first. He wasn’t even called Mario…

Whether you want to explore gaming history or just have some retro fun, these mobile emulator apps will transform your phone into a classic console. Delta | iOS (Free – IAPs) This is the one that changed everything for iPhone. It took 10 years for Delta to reach the App Store, and it only happened then because Apple performed a screeching U-turn on allowing emulators. We’re glad it did, because Delta is a slick, usable way to play games from old Nintendo consoles. Note that, for reasons too complicated to go into here, some folks need to grab it from…

There’s a fresh issue of Stuff on shelves, but you may have trouble accessing a copy. Perhaps your favourite store that stocks slices of dead tree doesn’t have stock (please let us know if this happens to you). Perhaps you’re in the mood for something that is delivered directly to you. That’s how the modern world works, after all. Convenience shopping By far the simplest and quickest way to grab the newest issue is to buy the digital version. Directly from Stuff, for preference, since each PDF download is lovingly hand-crafted by the very best interns (kidding – we don’t…