Author: Toby Shapshak

I am an atypical smartwatch user. I have to say that at the beginning because I have an unusual use case. I have worn a watch most of my life to tell the time and still use it for that primary function – especially when I wake up at 4am, glance at my wrist and go back to sleep. It’s partly because I wear glasses and blurry bedside clocks are of no use to me. After telling the time, my next requirement is ONLY calls and ONLY important messages. I want the bare minimum when it comes to notifications and…

If you want a weird way of defining the beginning of 2022, then look no further than the most exciting technology previewed at the annual gadget fest that is the Consumer Electric Show was a self-driving tractor and a BMW that changes colour almost instantaneously. I am particularly interested in both, as it happens. The 8R tractor by John Deere was the early headline grabber, because, well, it’s a self-driving, AI-driven autonomous, er, tractor. It also costs over $600,000. This is not for your tractor for everyone, but it is the portents of a new era of industrial farming. The…

The BMW iX is a beauty of a beast of a car. It is hands down the best car I have ever driven. When I thought of the positives versus the negatives, I could think of only one downside: it is too wide. But, then again, I am a Mini driver. My new Countryman seems like a giant to me, so the iX is like a tank. Albeit a beautifully designed, aesthetically pleasing, comfort-overloaded, tech-marvel of a tank. Like a Cartier Tank (Francoise), as it were. Watch our video review of the BMW iX in South Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fGgaWcgbU It is…

In March 2007 in the most unlikely of places, a new era began for how us humans performed one of our most important activities: making payments. Until M-Pesa emerged in Kenya using the then rudimental 2G cellphones, financial transactions were extremely hard. Now, the grandfather of mobile money is part of a suite of offerings from its parent, Vodacom, which has a next-generation superapp of its own, VodaPay. He spoke to Stuff Studio’s editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about the future of fintech in Africa. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify Visit getshyft.co.za for more info.

How much does privacy costs? It’s a theoretical question most of the time this debate about surveillance capitalism is had. But we now have a number – albeit an interesting test case involving only Apple. After it introduced controversial privacy settings early last year, which reduced the ability for advertisers to track iPhone users and their app activity, it has cost social media giants as much as $10bn (R156bn). Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube lost about $9.85bn (R153bn) since Apple introduced its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) in April 2021, according to an investigation by The Financial Times. Under the new…

Moya is often mistakenly compared to WhatsApp, the mega messaging app, when the more apt comparison is super app WeChat. Although its CEO Gour Lentell points out his datafree app’s biggest drawcard is free messaging – which is the thing they miss most when they run out of data, his research found. But Moya, which has 6.5m monthly active users, is also pivoting to fintech, launching its own mobile wallet, MoyaPayD. He tells Stuff Studio’s editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about why datafree is the icing on the  cake, but you still have to have good cake to make the whole offering…

When I started thinking of my top five gadgets of the year, I realised I was thinking of specific products in specific fields, or the top gadget in each category. So here they are, the best things I have seen in 2021. Also, I had to write a top 5, because every time I thought of a stand-out product I have seen this year I realised one or two isn’t enough. 1) Phone of the year – Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 R38,000 | samsung.co.za I realised this year that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is the phone I have…

Just days after his mic-drop on Twitter, CEO Jack Dorsey has spurred more online hype by renaming the other business he runs from Square to Block. Only in the tech world does a name change constitute news. In most other industries, after the renaming hype has died down, it is seldom referenced again. Not many people call Ninety One “formerly Investec”, do they? But when Facebook tries to dodge bad publicity by rebranding itself Meta Platforms or Google creates a holding company called Alphabet, it remains in the news – for obvious reasons. But Square is different. It isn’t a…

Google and Facebook’s destructive effect on the media globally is well known. Having denuded it vital source of revenue, while displaying its content for free, these tech giants have literally profited off its work. Google and Facebook have tried many ways to incorporate news into their operations, including controversially into Facebook’s news feed. Over the years, Big Tech has tried to the convince the media – like it has its own users – that these big firms are somehow performing some kind of help by spreading their news coverage far and wide. The Fourth Estate, as it is sometimes called…

When two geeks tried to solve their own frustrations around rolling blackouts, they created a now-indispensable app called Eskom se Push. It now tells 2.5m South Africans every day what outages to expect from the power utility. Although the way Herman Maritz and Dan Wells have brought a county together, while demonstrating a key tenet of why innovation in Africa is better: innovation out of necessity. They tell Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about this remarkable app’s unusual journey to greatness. Meanwhile, a grateful nation thanks them. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify Visit getshyft.co.za for more info.