Author: Trent Meikle

By the end of last year, 2021 had the most load shedding South Africa had seen with 1,169 hours of rolling blackouts in total. 2022 is nearly done and with two months still to go, we’ve almost doubled the total hours. A quick glance at EskomSePush tells us we’re sitting on 2,096 hours in total. So we think it’s safe to say the SA government could use a little help. Luckily, Germany seems willing and able. The European country has pledged a further €355 million (R6.2 billion) to help pull South Africa away from the coal-fuelled nightmare we can’t wake…

South Africa’s go-to source for load-shedding schedules, EskomSePush, is getting an upgrade soon. It’ll add water-shedding schedules (because that’s a thing now), calendar support, and fire reporting. Hermann Maritz and Dan Southwood, the app’s developers, said this was only a taste of the new features to come while speaking with Rapport. EskomSePush is levelling up What was once a side hustle for the two developers, has grown to become a full-time job. The app has gained notoriety and with it, users, as Eskom continues to implement load shedding. It now has over 6.6 million installs, with a daily active user…

Apple goes USB-C It could be time to say goodbye to lightning charging – at least, in the case of Apple’s AirPods and Mac accessories. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, he believes that Apple is looking to do away with lightning charging and making the switch to USB-C. The change has to do with the European Union’s recently approved mandate that will force all devices sold in Europe to use USB-C ports as the standard. The mandate is not yet law in Europe, though European Parliament approved the changes last week. If Gurman is to be believed, we could see…

The day has finally arrived – after a record-breaking number of days of load shedding, Eskom has confirmed load shedding’s suspension. Mark your calendars for tomorrow, 8 October at 5 AM. #POWERALERT1 Loadshedding will be suspended at 05:00 on Saturday morning owing to lower weekend demand and adequate emergency generation reserves. pic.twitter.com/DNJV0IDZqH — Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) October 7, 2022 Power levels over “While the generation capacity constraints persist, the suspension of load-shedding is possible due to the anticipated lower weekend demand, as well as adequate levels of emergency generation reserves,” the power utility stated. Try and enjoy your…

Why is it that every brand feels the need to rebrand itself? And why does it never look good? Fortunately, First National Banks’ new logo isn’t the focus of this article. If it was… there wouldn’t be much to write about. It’s minimalist. That’s about it. Joining FNB’s new logo is a redesigned app and website – filled with a plethora of new features. During FNB’s launch event on Friday morning, it mentioned that it would be shifting its focus into becoming more “advice-led”, moving away from its previous “product-led” mindset. New app, new website, uglier logo, same FNB? FNB’s…

It feels as if every social media app out there has some sort of TikTok-esque video scrolling feature now. Twitter did it, Instagram did it and YouTube did it. This time around, it’s time for TikTok to do the copying – with the launch of ‘Photo Mode’. The feature, which adds the ability to post stills, complete with a set of tools that allow you to edit images, was announced on Thursday this week by the Chinese company. Instagram on the clock Photo posts will take up valuable real estate in the ‘For You’ tab, squashed between the regular…

Spotify has acquired Kinzen, a company that will serve one purpose for the streamer. Sifting through the million and one generic “friends sitting around and talking” podcasts, reporting any sort of harmful content it can find. Fortunately for Kinzen, there isn’t a human team going through all the podcasts. That would be far too boring. Kinzen uses machine learning, coupled with ‘human expertise’ to find any sort of hate speech, or other harmful content, on the platform. Spot-ifying problems on the platform This isn’t the first time Spotify and Kinzen have worked together. Back in 2020, during the US elections,…

Vodacom is turning its Midrand-based headquarters into a solar energy factory. The project plans to cover the campus in photovoltaic panels, expected to generate around 10.8 gigawatt-hours of energy every year. This is in response to Vodacom’s goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 2025. The project, once complete, will reduce the campus’s energy consumption by 21%. Saving the planet (and some money too) Vodacom expects phase one of the project to reach completion by March 2023. A power-purchase agreement is in place, which enlists the expertise of local vendors to install the panels on the headquarters’ rooftop and carports.…

Google is taking a page out of Microsoft and Amazon’s book, establishing its first African cloud infrastructure, announced during the company’s second annual Google4Africa conference yesterday. The service will begin in South Africa, with the goal to have it eventually spread across the rest of Africa. Additionally, the search giant announced it would build a series of interconnecting sites, linked to its reasonably new Equiano broadband cable. These sites will be built in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos. The point of these is to provide access to Google’s incoming data centre in South Africa. The birth of jobs (not…

Google is expanding on Gboard in Africa, adding nine African languages to the app’s voice dictation feature. Eight of these are official South African languages, with the ninth being one of Rwanda’s four languages. The news was announced at Google’s Google4Africa conference taking place on World Teacher’s Day. That’s Wednesday, 5 October 2022. How’s that for a lesson on a day we celebrate teachers across the world? Google also dedicated the Doodle to teachers on the day. We like! The eight official South African languages receiving support are; Xhosa, Swati, Sesotho, Venda, Tswana, Xitsonga, Northern Sotho, and Ndebele. Kinyarwanda…