Author: Tshepo Chauke

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…

German car manufacturer Volkswagen is making its first big move this year with the launch of a new entry-level Golf sometime in the first quarter. The new model has an improved infotainment system and more efficient driving systems. Physically, the new Golf has a sharper front- and rear-end design along with redesigned brighter headlights. It comes in four different forms: the Life, Life +, R-Line, and R-Line equipment lines. Volkswagen tees off the new Golf The Golf Life model features a wireless app connection for its ten-colour infotainment panel, as well as a six-speaker sound system. It sports efficient Eco…

It’s been roughly a month since WhatsApp officially integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its platform, and new updates are already inbound. The newest gives users the ability to interact with ChatGPT in more ways. They can now send voice notes and images to ChatGPT via WhatsApp. ChatGPT on Whatsapp: chatbots in chatrooms Users need to add the number 1 (800) CHAT-GPT (or: 1 (800) 242-8478) to find the GPT chat in the WhatsApp contact list and start conversing with the AI agent like they would on its native site. Yes, it works worldwide, in case you were wondering. Originally, users could…

Mark Zuckerberg’s headwear venture between Meta and Ray-Ban may finally be starting to work out. The Meta CEO held the company’s first all-hands meeting with most of its employees on an online call, and answered a few of their questions about Meta’s direction in the era of Trump, though HR warned that they would “skip questions that [they] expect might be unproductive if they leak.” For the first time, comments were disabled, and the most upvoted employee questions were no longer openly ranked. Meta shades the competition Zuckerberg apparently began the meeting by reiterating his points on AI and smart…

GoPro’s new software update for its smallest and lightest camera the Hero, allows users to capture vertical 4:3 video in 4K. 4:3 footage has become the dominant aspect ratio on the internet and social media in particular, simply because phones have more vertical space than horizontal. The update is available via GoPro’s Quik app on Android and iOS. Semi-pro GoPro Some may remember, around ten years ago, when short-form video began growing into its own form of online entertainment. A certain subset would rage on anyone who filmed a video vertically. As TikTok’s dominance has proved, those complaints were a…