Author: Tshepo Chauke

After a successful debut roughly a year ago, Chinese online retailer Temu is adding Zulu as the second language option on its South African app. The app quickly gained massive popularity in the country, becoming one of the most downloaded apps in the months following its launch. Now, more users can throw their pennies at the platform in exchange for goods they probably don’t need. Temu goes native Temu found itself a hit in the South African market and only took a few months to climb the ranks to become the most downloaded app in the country on the iOS…

Volvo SA is enticing more people to make the jump to electric vehicles with a new promotion, giving new buyers of their electric offerings a public charging voucher valid for two years, Vodacom data for three years, and a GridCars wallbox AC charger for their home. Volvo takes charge for two years In a country where access to energy is precarious, it’s no wonder that EV adoption seems relatively slow. A perceived lack of public charging infrastructure is often quoted as one of the biggest (but certainly not the only) hurdles for new buyers. Volvo aims to combat this by…

YouTube is making changes to its ad placement process. The platform intends to use data to improve where ads are automatically placed within videos, particularly mid-roll ads which commonly frustrate users with jarring pop-ups. From 12 May onwards, YouTube will be more deliberate with its process, taking more care to place ads at less disruptive points. Fewer ad jumpscares on YouTube It’s a known trope that there’s no rhyme or reason to the way the algorithm places ads within a video. You can expect one or two at the beginning, and from then on you’re at its mercy. Oftentimes the…

YouTube’s long-rumoured Premium Lite tier may be coming (for real this time). For those who find YouTube too similar to a digital Times Square, the video-sharing platform already features a Premium tier devoid of ads, and tacks on YouTube Music as a bonus. But if the rumours of a new ‘Lite’ tier (courtesy of Bloomberg) are true, it may signal the company’s commitment to more cost-effective tiers for users. YouTube Premium Lite years ahead Suggestions of the Premium Lite tier’s arrival have been circling since last year when it began experimenting (again) with the idea of new tiers to draw more…

Good news for audiophiles and public domain scourers – the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is making its archive available to everyone for the first time ever. In collaboration with music production platform Spitfire Audio, the department’s work particularly over the BBC’s major productions in the 1950s and 1960s is being made available to the public for music producers to use. Don’t be surprised to see an increase in 1950s British radio in your favourite house songs in the coming years. Opening the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s archives The BBC Radiophonic Workshop started up in the 1950s as a laboratory for concocting original…

Chinese electronics manufacturer Oukitel, known mostly for its chunky phones with big batteries, has opened preorders for its newest model the WP100 Titan. Titan is an apt name considering the phone measures roughly 17.8cm by 8.4cm, and about 3.3cm thick, weighing a chunky 867g. Oukitel on Titan With a 33,000mAh battery, the WP100 Titan is the ultimate survivalist’s phone. Oukitel claims it is good for 4,459 hours or around six months of standby time. It has an IP68 rating, allowing it to be submerged in 1.5m of water for about thirty minutes. It also packs a 1,200-lumen LED camp light,…

Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD has announced its ‘God’s Eye’, or DiPilot advanced intelligent driving assistance system, a new and improved AI self-driving system. It’s still unclear how the system compares to Tesla’s self-driving software but, since BYD is already the world’s largest EV producer, any significant improvement over the American competition is bad news for Elon. BYD goes autopilot The system consists of three tiers: DiPilot 600, the most capable of the lot, uses a triple-LiDAR-equipped system for the company’s Yangwang models. DiPilot 300 uses a single LiDAR unit and is aimed at “Denza and select BYD models”, while…

YouTube is testing a new feature that uses AI to determine whether a viewer is over eighteen years old. With Australia banning social media access for teenagers, the US Senate has been mulling over doing the same, as evidenced by the near-ban of TikTok. Google seems to be preempting any new status quo by rolling age autodetection out alongside a few other child safety features. YouTube’s AI for kids YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced the AI age restriction in his Tuesday letter on the video media site’s big bets for 2025. He mentions using machine learning to estimate a user’s…

An interesting security update may be coming to Google Chrome. The browser can already detect passwords leaked in data breaches, but soon it might gain the ability to generate a stronger replacement. The feature is currently experimental, and only available on the tinkerer-friendly Google Canary version of Chrome. Better paranoia with Google Chrome The feature was spotted by noted software developer Leopeva64. To try the feature, enter the browser’s experimental flag settings or enter “chrome://flags” into the address bar. From there enable the “Improved password change service” and the “Mark all credentials as leaked” options. The latter is necessary to…

Asus is bringing its ROG Elite Rewards programme to South Africa, and it’s interesting. It works similarly to regular rewards programmes, making subscribers eligible to win prizes via points earned through various online and offline tasks. There are a few wrinkles. Rewarding Asus There is a variety of ways in which hopefuls can start earning points. Keen users begin by accessing their Asus accounts or creating a new one and opting into the programme. This forms the basis of the whole deal but it’s only the first step. Fans earn points by purchasing ROG merch and attending the company’s booths…