Author: Stuff writer

If you’re considering getting a cellphone for your child or young teen this festive season, besides spending more money on airtime and data, we hope you’re also thinking about how cellphone ownership could affect their well-being. Stanford Medicine researchers observed more than 250 kids over a five-year period to track if there was a link between their well-being and the age they were when they got their first cellphone. “When should children get their first mobile phone? Is owning a mobile phone harmful or beneficial to children? These questions are on the minds of many of today’s parents, educators, and…

How much time do you spend tapping through WhatsApp statuses? We imagine it’s a lot. Especially if you have friends who upload paragraphs that can be summarised in a single sentence. Instead of muting them, you may soon be able to listen to their ‘new’ thoughts as you carry on with the rest of your day. WhatsApp is reportedly working on an upgrade that will let users post voice statuses. Users will also be able to choose a background color to go with their generally broadcast voice notes. These will appear as a message bubble to their contacts. The Meta-owned…

Expect changes in the cryptocurrency industry in South Africa this December. After years of considering multiple options to keep track of the booming industry, the country’s Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) annexure has been amended to consider crypto asset service providers as “accountable institutions” from 19 December 2022. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has amended the FICA annexure, listing cryptocurrencies under Schedule 1 of the Act. This comes after the Financial Sector Conduct Authority declared cryptocurrency a financial product in October of this year. Cryptocurrency to play ball The amendment will require accountable institutions to ‘FICA’ their customers by verifying their…

Bedtime stories are about to get more interesting for Amazon Alexa users. The company announced a new feature, “Create with Alexa” for its Echo Show devices. The feature lets you, or your kids, create short animated stories that could soon replace flipping through pages trying to find the right story to knock your kid out. Parents can create stories with their kids by saying “ Alexa, make a story” to kick things off. We foresee long nights filled with way too much excitement on this. Good luck. Exploring the Amazon The feature uses conversational and generative artificial intelligence (AI) to…

If you’ve recently watched the night skies, you’ve probably spotted something that looks way too bright to be a natural star. No, it’s not the aliens, it’s a cell phone tower that’s been troubling conspiracy theorists and scientists around the world. AST SpaceMobile’s Bluewalker 3, launched on 10 September 2022, is built to connect directly to cell phones down here on earth. Its brightness has offended a group of international scientists who say it is a threat to their work and to humanity’s view of the universe. It has a 64-square-meter array of solar panels and antennas. Observations of the…

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven states in the United States are suing Google and iHeartMedia Inc for deceptive advertising. This is after the search giant allegedly paid radio personalities and influencers to promote the Pixel 4 series – by pretending to share their experiences with the devices – while they had actually never used them. “It is common sense that people put more stock in first-hand experiences. Consumers expect radio advertisements to be truthful and transparent about products, not misleading with fake endorsements,” says Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, in a statement shared by the FTC. Read More:…

“We had WhatsApp Business before WhatsApp Business was real,” says Laetitia Vambili, Love Ur Locks,  founder, and co-CEO. Social-media-turned-business platform WhatsApp became Love Ur Locks’ link to natural hair lovers across the world during its foundation and in the years that followed during the COVID-19 lockdown. Vambili was speaking at a Nedbank-sponsored Stuff event on how digital innovation is transforming small businesses. Vambili launched Love Ur Locks in 2016, four years after she asked herself why African hair only grew to a certain length. In freezing temperatures while in France on a bursary, Vambili hooked up with other African women and…

Millions of Meta-owned WhatsApp users could be affected by what could be the platform’s biggest data breach to date. This is after an ad posted on a hacking community forum by an actor allegedly selling a database of 487 million WhatsApp users’ mobile numbers, according to Cybernews. WhatsApp has more than two billion users globally. WhatsApp with your data The anonymous seller, who posted the ad on 16 November, claims to be in possession of a 2022 data set containing WhatsApp user information from 84 countries. African countries listed as part of the database with affected users include Egypt (44,823,…

Now that Black Friday is done and you’ve dusted some rands off your accounts, you can spend a few more on South Africa’s Cyber Monday deals. Though Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is originally an American e-commerce day designed to get more things off the shelves, local consumers worldwide continue to spend like January isn’t around the corner. Most deals have a discount of around R1,000 with a few that drop prices off by around R5,000. You’ll notice there are fewer products on the slaves compared to Black Friday sales. Unlike Black Friday deals that lasted until Sunday for…

The City of Tshwane will shut down yrs ICT equipment this weekend and residents have been warned to expect internet service interruptions and a possibility of not being able to buy electricity. The City’s Internet Service Provider (SITA) plans to upgrade its Centurion Data Centre. To do so, it’ll need some electricity downtime. From 1 pm on Saturday, SITA will shut down all ICT equipment until Sunday at 2 pm. It says this is in order to safeguard the city’s network and server equipment hosted at SITA. Work around the internet outage “During the downtime period, consumers will not be…