Author: Toby Shapshak

The best-known and most-loved computer company turned fifty this week. If you can still call Apple a computer company, given how much of its revenue and profit comes from just one device, a little game-changing smartphone called the iPhone. Apple has sold some 3 billion iPhones since it launched in 2007, according to Counterpoint Research, bringing in an estimated $2.3 trillion in revenue. More than anything, this large touchscreen device enabled the mobile world we find ourselves in. Perhaps “super-charged it” is more apt. Android’s rise to be the dominant mobile operating system was built on the early successes of Steve Jobs’ vision to have something so easy to use that…

 At last, the Tintin Lego Rocket has gone on sale in South Africa. An avid Tintin and Lego fan excitedly reported that he had just bought three of the much-anticipated tie-up between these two iconic brands.  No, the fan was not me – but rather a friend whooping that he got there first. I know he has four children, so I assume they are for him and his adult friends.  You can read about my excitement for the set here.  The Lego Tintin Moon Rocket has 1,283 pieces inside and will set you back R3,200. Standing about 30cm high, the top cone…

Nearly 20 years after first renting the auditorium at 56 Main Street in Marshalltown for his then brand-new inner-city education project, Dr Taddy Blecher bought the building. From a fledgling initiative with the lofty aim of educating 100,000 underprivileged children, Blecher and his utterly remarkable Maharishi Invincibility Institute are 25% of the way there. Scaling education to transform Johannesburg “We’ve educated 25,595 young people, 70% of them are women, so we’re now one quarter of the way to our goal,” Blecher said at the launch of a new initiative a few weeks back. “But the most important part is that we…

The best Six Nations yet, but eventual winners France had 50 points scored against them twice in a row, Andy Capostagno tells Toby Shapshak. Plucky Italy did well to beat England, while Scotland’s victories over England and France were just as memorable. Andy Capostagno has been talking and writing about South African rugby for more than three decades. He’s been my emotional support person for rugby since I was lucky enough to meet him when I was unexpectedly made the sports editor of the Mail & Guardian newspaper many moons ago. Welcome to Stuff Rugby. Listen to Stuff Rugby on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

They did it. They finally made a Lego Tintin rocket. Fans the world over are rejoicing. I’m one of those fans, and I am thrilled that two of my childhood joys have been smushed together (with much care and planning, I imagine). I will gladly pay the R3,200 for the Lego Tintin Moon Rocket when it turns up locally next month. It’s currently up for pre-order and already listed as ‘Hard to Find’. It’s frankly astounding that there hasn’t been a tie-up sooner between such iconic brands, both so beloved by children (and adults). Some of my happiest memories involve reading Tintin (and Asterix)…

Followers of science fiction movies – or just Arnold Schwazeneggar fans – know that the dominant theme for devastation is when the humans give the machines control of the weapons of mass destruction. In the Terminator movies, it’s Skynet, which “saw all humans as a threat; not just the ones on the other side” and “decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination”. In The Matrix, after the humans “blacken the sky” so the machines can’t get solar power, they turn to using humans as literal batteries. Whenever humanity gives artificial intelligence (AI) enough intelligence (or their hand on the big red…

Now and then, algorithms have a way of making life better, not worse. As the most high-profile court case against social media unfolds in the USA, showing how disastrous the algorithms that run social media can be, I found myself applauding when it works. Algorithms run our lives – if we let them. But occasionally I find that they can work for us too. I know it’s a highfalutin way to explain it, but I had such an epiphany this week when I got Spotify to play all of the similar songs to my current favourite track, Ride On / Right On by Phosphorescent. Hours of similar music later, and I’m again a fan of…

The first thing that strikes you about the glossy Oura Ring is just how many sensors are packed into it. To miniaturise such technology is impressive. To do it in a device as small as a (slightly) chunky ring is doubly impressive. That it has up to eight days of battery life is trebly so. We’ve been testing the Oura Ring 4 at Stuff for the past month, tracking sleep and exercise every step of the way. Not only does it work, but arguably it is also better than the Apple Watch 10, with eight times more battery life, albeit with no…

Elon Musk has a new vision. No, not that one. A new-new vision. Instead of Mars, he’s now setting his sights on building a base on the moon. He needs this “self-sustaining” base to launch satellites. The same satellites were the data centres in space that were his (old) new vision. It wasn’t that long ago when he also merged SpaceX with the loss-making xAI, which itself “acquired” the loss-making X (formerly known as Twitter). It came in the same week the European Commission raided the offices of #WhatWasOnceTwitter over its lack of content moderation. The latest blatant disregard of privacy came…

Threats against households to register their solar installations by Eskom and some municipalities are “impractical, irrational and unfair”, says the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA). Don’t rush to register your systems, OUTA adds, because of “uncertainty and ambiguity” outlined in the “significant amendments to earlier supposed requirements and deadlines by the authorities”. In other words, don’t panic. Being a homeowner with a career-saving solar system that let my family and me work (and live) through the dark days of #loadshitting, I have been watching this ongoing cluster-flunk with interest for years. There has been a surge in queries to OUTA over “threatening communications from Eskom and certain municipalities, including the City of Johannesburg, demanding registration…