Author: Stuff writer

It seems a bit of flexibility is what Samsung’s reaching for with its range of flipping and folding smartphones. We got a chance to play with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, just weeks after playing with the Galaxy Z Fold 4. Somewhere between the two, we weren’t sure if we were flipping or folding….but we knew we were bending.  Call the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip range the more affordable, feminine version of the big brother Galaxy Z Fold range. Flips don’t take life as seriously and sport a few more lifestyle features. That’s the main difference… other than the…

Generation Z, also known as the Zoomers, has ‘cancelled’ another emoji, labelling the thumbs-up emoji as hostile, rude, and passive-aggressive when used in the workplace. In a debate between Zoomers and Millenials on Reddit, Zoomers advised millennials to avoid using the thumbs-up emoji after a Reddit user said they were not comfortable posting the ‘thumbs-up’ emoji reaction. Okay, let’s clear out the generations before we go too far… Generation Z(Gen Z) are the Zoomers and they were born between the 1990s and early 2010s. They’re also the first humans to have grown up with most of the technology we use…

As Eskom continues to throw one load shedding stage after another at us, South Africans still have a sense of humour. Eskom has announced stage 1 load shedding from Friday. Which stage will we be on this weekend? Does Eskom even have an answer to this question? We doubt it. TikTokers in SA continue to find new ways to put the joke on Eskom – even in the dark. With no electricity around, you might as well spend your time on social media. That is, if you managed to charge your devices in time. We never thought we’d hear ourselves…

Microsoft previewed Places this week, an app meant to help us get back into the swing of things as we figure out the ‘new normal’ hybrid working environment. That’s if you use Microsoft of course. Microsft says the workplace needs to be more connected. Sure, Microsoft, we’ll hear you out. “When spaces have meaning and purpose, they become places. That comes from people gathering, bonding, and sharing an experience together. It’s what makes a house a home—and an office worth coming into,” says Microsoft. Well, we don’t know about that. But we guess it would be nice to have the…

You could soon be catching an air taxi to the airport if Delta Airlines’ investment in Joby Aviation works out. It will probably be slightly different to South Africa’s Siyaya taxis with passengers passing money from the back of the taxi. Also, you won’t have to worry about sitting in front and calculating the change so you give the driver the right amount. Your Joby experience might be completely different, but it’s still a taxi. Fly me to the… airport It plans to have vertiports across New York City and Los Angeles initially. These will be close enough to residential…

It’s no secret that Huawei, as a smartphone maker, faces an uphill battle. Various factors act against the company, limiting what it is able to put together. 5G chips are in short supply, as are high-end processors, but that’s about where it stops on the hardware front. The new Huawei Nova 10 and Nova 10 Pro, recently launched in South Africa, illustrate this rather well. The company’s smartphones put their best, mid-rangiest feet forward in a bid to grab your attention. Largely, it works. There’s more inside these phones than you’d expect at first glance. As always, it’s up to…

In 2001, an unassuming white box arrived and transformed the gadget world. Good job it did too: if Apple had carried on just making computers, we might all be walking around today listening to MiniDiscs, taking photos on compact cameras, and making calls on Nokias. Imagine! iPod (1st generation) In terms of design, the original iPod was a classic. It had a scroll wheel that actually turned – a clever system that in many ways beats a touchscreen for the tactile pleasure of scrolling from ABBA to Zappa – and four buttons around it that made a satisfying click when…

Google is hanging on to its text-to-video AI engine, Imagen Video, as it addresses concerns about the potential misuse of the tech. Imagen Video uses AI and machine learning to interpret words and turn them into looping video clips – just like Meta’s Make-A-video. The AI formulates animated 1,280×720 three-dimensional videos at 24fps in different styles, based on your prompts. Google trying to avoid Skynet and Tay “We train our models on a combination of an internal dataset consisting of 14 million video-text pairs and 60 million image-text pairs, and the publicly available LAION-400M image-text dataset,” says Google in a…

Remote work is great until the power goes out  (a not-so-new norm in South Africa). Unless you’ve got a UPS or the good-old generator, you’ll either have to wait it out or find a place to work from and hope they’ve got electricity.  Necessity is the mother of innovation and the need for electricity has sparked great ideas on the continent.  Western Cape app developer, Tristan Klement has launched an app to help you find workspaces with electricity. You’ll be directed to places like restaurants and cafes – though if you’re able, maybe bring a portable Wi-Fi with you. After…

As expected, SA is back in the dark after Eskom announced the return of load shedding on Sunday evening. What a way to spoil a weekend. As for the week ahead, most South Africans return to the mercy of the load-shedding schedule (assuming there are no localised faults).  Second verse, same as the first Eskom has implemented Stage 2 load shedding daily from 16:00 until midnight from Monday until Wednesday this week. So you’ll probably spend at least the first three evenings of this week in the dark. You can probably expect that to increase The power utility says two…