Author: Toby Shapshak

Toby Shapshak is editor-in-chief and publisher of Stuff, a Forbes senior contributor and a columnist for the Financial Mail and Daily Maverick. He has been writing about technology and the internet for 28 years and his TED Global talk on innovation in Africa has over 1,5-million views. He has written about Africa's tech and start-up ecosystem for Forbes, CNN and The Guardian in London. He was named in GQ's top 30 men in media and the Mail & Guardian newspaper's influential young South Africans. He has been featured in the New York Times. GQ said he "has become the most high-profile technology journalist in the country" while the M&G wrote: "Toby Shapshak is all things tech... he reigns supreme as the major talking head for everything and anything tech."

Devilsdorp is one of the greatest true crime shows you’ll ever see. The events are so fantastical and outlandish, as are the antics of the conspirators who killed 11 people over four years. The killings, spanning from 2012 to 2016, all happened in Krugersdorp, the mining town to the west of Johannesburg named after Paul Kruger. The title is a clever play on the town’s name and the particular brand of religious manipulation used by a cunning woman, Cecilia Steyn. She claims to be a 42nd-generational witch, whatever that means, and is fighting to escape from the Satanic church, whatever…

Read More

If ever the phrase “watching a trainwreck in slow motion” was apt, and painfully so, this is it. SA-born Elon Musk driving the Trump Train through the US federal government is a disaster in the making. Except it is happening in anything but slow motion. The halting of US foreign aid for three months alone is an unspeakable travesty, let alone the shuttering of USAID, one of the greatest and most benevolent organisations on Earth. Millions of Africans will die because of Trump’s catastrophic assault on decency and dignity. And the man driving that trainwreck is Musk who was, until…

Read More

If you’re looking for the ultimate man’s man bakkie, this is it. Bigger really is better, especially if you’re camping in the Free State. Ford’s newest Ranger Raptor has got big clearance, big bumpers, big tyres and the biggest grill on the roads. And it’s got big attitude, perfect for impressing the other fathers on an annual school camping trip. For my son’s annual camping weekend, I took Ford’s ridiculously butch Ranger Raptor bakkie. It was fantastic. If Arnold Schwarzenegger was a car, he would be a Ford Ranger Raptor. With the XXL “tekkies” for tyres. If you’re going away…

Read More

“We have to push back on the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) is smarter than us,” Scott Hanselman, Microsoft’s vice president of developer community, tells Stuff editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak. “It’s artificial but it’s not real intelligence,” he adds. “We are real intelligence.” Along with Pelonomi Moiloa, CEO and co-founder of Lelapa AI, they talk about how AI is being practically used.

Read More

Who watches the watchers? It’s the central theme in the epic graphic novel Watchmen, but it has been expanded on by the TV series which spans a period of pushback against superheroes and their vigilantism. Zack Snyder’s 2009 film was a faithful reproduction of the graphic novel, including the gigantic metamorphised Doctor Manhattan, and followed the comic’s narrative. The 2019 TV series is a reimagining of the Watchmen universe and the underlying principles of anonymous superheroes who are essentially do-gooders. But this is an age where superheroes have run into what some financial markets would call headwinds. Public sentiments have…

Read More

And then the AI bubble burst. Or, as one meme put it: “ChatGPT just lost its job to AI.” Instead of obsessing over TikTok’s 24-hour banning in the United States, the world is in thrall of another Chinese app, DeepSeek. This artificial intelligence (AI) startup recently released its latest chatbot model with many capabilities that match OpenAI’s ChatGPT – except developed at a fraction of the cost. Instead of the hundreds of millions of dollars that US firms have invested in training advanced AI models, DeepSeek says it only spent $5.6 million developing its R1 model. This is estimated at…

Read More

So now that he’s got himself a new iPhone 16, a friend asked me earlier this week which USB-C chargers and accessories to get. Let’s call him Evan. “Funny you should mention it,” I told him. “I just went through this process myself in November. These are the things I bought myself,” I said, before sending over a thorough list of my go-to accessories. I am delighted that I have put Apple’s Lightning in my rear-view window. My cable pouch literally halved in size. I now use a comparatively small pouch sold by Thule, called Subterra 2 Power Shuttle Small…

Read More

Who doesn’t want a Bluetooth speaker that floats? It’s not the key metric I first think of, but it can’t hurt, can it? I’m always looking for good sound in a compact speaker – and I’ve tended toward size and weight as my main metric. The Anker Soundcore Select 4 Go Bluetooth Speaker weighs a delightful 265g and is only 121mm by 82mm. If anyone remembers them, that’s a little larger than a pack of cigarettes. Just a touch thicker and a little longer. I never smoked, so I have a poor grasp of the memory. Sorry about that. I…

Read More

To say The Sopranos was a groundbreaking TV series is, well, obvious. What other mafia show starts with its principal character going to see a psychologist?  In fact, the first episode hinges on the mental health of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), as he wrestles with his own demons. The arrival of a flock of geese that live in his swimming pool causes the Mafia don to feel real feelings. It’s an awkward prop for the narrative but it works well visually. Tony’s panic attacks finally get him to see a shrink (Lorraine Bracco), who finally gets him to open up…

Read More

It is indeed a heist, as the title of the documentary rightly said. Steinheist is a fascinating account of the biggest fraud in South Africa, which wiped R200 billion off the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), a never-seen-before destruction of shareholder value that impacted almost everyone in South Africa. As such a seemingly successful business, Steinhoff was a must-have stock for all investment institutions, including the big government retirement funds and many, many private investors. When it was revealed to be a giant scam in December 2017, the house of cards that Marcus Jooste had built came crashing down. And with…

Read More