Author: Toby Shapshak

“Go ahead, leave your wallet at home,” Bank Zero told me one morning a few weeks back, announcing that customers could use its cards with Apple Pay. I really wish I could leave my wallet behind. I have tried a variety of ways to not carry a small card holder because all I have in it is my driver’s licence. Everything else I use in my day-to-day life is digital. I’m the most anticipatory of Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber’s announced plans to make our IDs go digital. It’s not just that I want a minimalistic approach to what I…

To say Frank Gallagher has no shame is an understatement. He’s the hard-drinking, irresponsible, drug-taking, lying thief and a reprobate father that we should all despise.  But who doesn’t (secretly) love Frank Gallagher? He’s the title character in Shameless, an unlikely hit of a black comedy drama that is head-shakingly shameless about Frank’s utter lack of shame.  He’s a selfish, self-serving ingrate with no loyalty to his own kids, who live like a ragtag bunch of urban survivalists in his house, scraping by while trying to do right by each other. Having abandoned his six kids, they are raising themselves,…

It was meant to be Google’s big week with its long-awaited artificial intelligence announcements at its annual developers’ conference. But all the glory was hogged by OpenAI’s $6.4bn acquisition of io, the startup founded by Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive. Ive will take on the same role as head of design for OpenAI as it looks to convert its lead on artificial intelligence into consumer electronics devices. With a surname that has confounded spellcheckers since his halcyon days designing Apple’s greatest product, including the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Watch, Ive’s new venture is suddenly seen as a major threat…

“Get off your ass and go knock on doors” reads a sign on the wall of Bosch’s office cubicle. Bosch – as he’s known in the title of the hit TV show and by all his on-screen colleagues – is the ultimate badass cop, a no-nonsense detective who had a thriving career as the hero of the crime novels written by Michael Connelly. Then TV came calling – in both the literature and in reality – and the books have produced a highly watchable detective show. I’ve been hooked since the first season, even though I never read any of…

For the first time, Apple’s status as the most innovative company in consumer technology might be challenged by the man who created its most iconic products. Jony Ive worked closely with Steve Jobs on all of Apple’s signature products: the iPhone, iPod, MacBook, iPad, and Watch. He left in 2019 to start his own design firm, LoveFrom, and started io last year with many other high-profile Apple staffers, Scott Cannon, Evans Hanke, and Tang Tan, as Bloomberg highlighted when the deal was announced. Hankey took over as Apple’s head of design from Ive and left in 2023. Tan was in…

Two days after THAT Oval Office presidential meeting, South Africa has gazetted a new “policy direction” that allows Elon Musk’s Starlink to sidestep BEE ownership requirements. Communications minister Solly Malatsi gazetted this “proposed policy direction” to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Friday to allow it to sidestep the strict ownership requirements in the telecommunications sector. Instead, regulations will be applied like other sectors, where foreign companies meet BEE requirements through “equity equivalent investments programmes” such as training, building infrastructure, and supporting small businesses. Loopholes for Starlink Malatsi is, in effect, giving Icasa the legal groundwork it…

“I have to travel with a bag full of cables,” a friend admitted to me this week. When he explained what each of the cables were for, I felt immense and deep pity for him. To show my concern and compassion, I said to him: “You’re such a schmuck. You’re friends with me, and you still have all of those cables. I’m embarrassed for you.” After we finished laughing, I solved my friend’s problems with only R200. Let’s call him Del. In the age of USB-C, you only need one cable. Or several of one cable: the new universal standard, USB-C. Instead…

Checkers has updated its excellent Sixty60 app to make the service more user-friendly for blind and visually impaired people – after local organisation Blind SA approached the retailer with a list of improvements. The Sixty60 team listened, did their own research on accessibility, and have now implemented the first batch of enhancements. Many of these features use the phone’s own ability to read aloud, or what’s known as voice-overs. “This makes a major difference in the life of a blind person,” says Christo de Klerk, President of Blind SA, as he demonstrates how the app reads the names of items to him…

An unlikely hit show, The Penguin proves that good writing, good acting, and particularly good direction can make the sideshow even bigger than the main event. It happened with Better Call Saul, an offshoot that vies for supremacy with the masterful Breaking Bad that spawned the prequel. And now it’s happening with Colin Farrell’s sideshow performance as the iconic Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, and I’m loving it.  It says a lot that The Penguin will likely go down as one of Colin Farrell’s all-time great roles considering the exceptional career he’s had, recently earning himself an Oscar nomination for The Banshees…

In a stunning about-face over crippling trade tariffs against Chinese imports, US President Donald Trump managed to shoot his tough-guy-act in the foot as he kept iPhones from skyrocketing in cost. Such unpredictability in Trump is not unprecedented, as many have all experienced first-hand in the last maddening few months. This month’s shock tariffs wiped $5tn off US stock markets in the first two days alone, including $1tn from the so-called Magnificent Seven. After a whirlwind week of this tariff madness, Trump suddenly announced he would pause these tariffs for 90 days but added more against China. The world’s second…