Author: Toby Shapshak

Listening to President Cyril Ramaphosa State of the Nation Address I wondered if this is the year we can take his promises seriously. It was, as usual, filled with all the right pledges and a key admission: “We all know that government does not create jobs. Business creates jobs”. I’m using the quote in full to highlight his first words “we all know”. At least we know that government knows. It hasn’t seemed the case, nor have any of our recent ANC leaders seemed to understand it – not least coal-mining recidivist Gwede Mantashe. The next part is what I…

Facebook’s subscriptions dropped by 1 million,  from 1.93 billion to 1.929 billion and it lost a whopping $230 billion in one day, the biggest in history. Ouch. Just 1 million, out of a total of about 24% of the global population of 7.9 billion. And the market hammered Facebook, now trying to hide from its shame with a rebranding as Meta Platforms. Facebook – this is a column where we call a spade a vertical earth-moving technology innovation – is in big trouble, at last. This 26% plummet for what seems like a seemingly small drop in subscriber numbers, is…

If choosing the new chief justice was up to this lowly technology reporter, Dustin Mlambo would get my vote. Obviously, he has the character and moral authority to be chief justice ­– unlike the intellectual ankle-biters and ethical bottom feeders who “interviewed” him with baseless sexual accusations designed to smear him. But what he said more than anything else that piqued my attention was his comments about the necessary “modernisation” of the judiciary. Modernising the judicial system is one of the most pressing problems in this country, to my mind. The endless delays are maddening and unnecessary. The systems being…

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