Author: Toby Shapshak

Smart speakers are a tremendous boon to many people, especially Google’s range of voice-assistant models that can read you the news or the weather. You can also ask any of Google’s speakers to play music or podcasts or search for something. But the “cost” of all of this usefulness is that Google (and Amazon) record everything you say and use these recordings to build up its voice-recognition software. Revelations about how much personal data has been extracted – and heard by humans, who are hired for “grading” the quality of the machine-learning algorithms – haven’t seemed to dim anyone’s enthusiasm.…

Stuff’s publisher and editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak sat down with the head of Samsung South & Southern Africa mobile business Justin Hume ahead of the launch of the new Galaxy S22 range. They discuss the integration of the Note into the Galaxy S range with the S22 Ultra and the upgrades and features of the new mobile flagship. In addition to creating a device with dashing good looks, Samsung’s increased its focus on security at the hardware level. Justin explains how Samsung builds devices that solve real human problems. The Galaxy S22 range is available for pre-order on the Samsung South…

Netstock.co is the biggest new thing you’ve never heard of. This innovative South African company, which was bought in 2020 to a US private equity firm, provides data science analytics to small businesses to manage their inventory. Amazingly, Netstocks’ acquisition came just as the global supply chain was hit by Covid-19 lockdowns, making this service even more essential. It took over a decade to become an “overnight success” as Stuff Studio’s editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak jokes with its remarkable chief technology officer and co-founder Barry Kukkuk. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify

Google is guilty of “deceiving and manipulating consumers to gain access to their location data, including making it nearly impossible for users to stop their location from being tracked,” according to a new lawsuit by four US states. The case “to hold Google accountable for misleading and violating the privacy of its users” was filed last week by Washington DC Attorney General Karl Racine and three other attorneys general, who will sue Google in their own states. Since at least 2014, “Google has systematically deceived consumers about how their locations are tracked, and used and has misled consumers to believe…

If schadenfreude was your hormone of choice, then last month was a good one if you live for the death of Facebook. Never has a corporation grown so powerful, nor has a corporation been so inept that it couldn’t help but cause its own downfall. Hubris, by another Silicon Valley tech-bru name, if you will. In 2018 Google and Facebook concluded what the Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton called an “illegal price-fixing agreement”. Both CEOs personally signed off on the deal that would see Facebook win a prearranged number of auctions for Google ads. It would also “kill header bidding,” the…

If 2021 was the year of the Great Resignation, then 2022 is likely to be the year of the Great Breakup. After many years of slow build-up, the US government – both lawmakers and various attorneys-general, as well as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – has got a head of steam and is taking on the Big Tech firms. It won’t conclude this year – big corporates have big budgets for big lawyers – but this is the beginning of the beginning. In November the FTC refiled its case against Facebook, now called Meta Platforms, where it is alleging that…

Stuff’s editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak is joined by Mweb’s managing director Manelisa Mavuso and Head of Connectivity Derrick Kaylor following Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The $68 billion deal is one of the largest the gaming industry has ever seen and, when it is final, will make Microsoft Gaming the third largest gaming company in terms of revenue. Shapshak, Mavuso and Kaylor discuss what this means for SA gamers, the role Mweb plays in the local gaming industry and what the shift to cloud gaming will look like. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify 

It didn’t get any more explosive than this. The CEOs of Google and Facebook, the two biggest digital advertising giants, (allegedly) colluded to control the vast digital advertising marketing – especially involving publishers. Both Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally signed off on an “illegal price-fixing agreement” in 2018, according to a lawsuit filed by numerous US states. Originally filed in December 2020, swathes of the lawsuit were blacked out but were unredacted this week with spectacular revelations. In one newly revelated email, which still obscures the names of people but not their titles, Facebook COO…

“If I played you a track of music, could you tell if it was composed by a human or an artificial intelligence,” Tencent Africa CEO Brett Loubser asked an auditorium of people at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival’s digital conference, Creativate. Amazingly, nobody could answer. How AI and machine learning are being adapted for the most personal of skills – creativity – offer not only a fascinating look at how it is being achieved; but an equally intriguing insight into how AI could work in fintech. He spoke to Stuff Studio’s editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify

The Zondo Commission has produced a report that made use of one petabyte’s worth of digital evidence. That’s the equivalent of 250,000 movies – at least one of which must be Tom Moyane fancying himself as Rambo of the Tax Reform, the imaginary crusader of incompetence over excellence that he was. The first report, given by acting chief justice Raymond Zondo to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 4 January, landed via WhatsApp moments after it was handed over – surely a record for the release of such an important conclusion to a profoundly important commission of inquiry. At 874 pages, the…