Author: Trent Meikle

It just never ends, does it? After the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s recent battle with the country’s petrol and diesel prices — to which the country lost in spectacular fashion — you’d think we’d be afforded a reprieve, however slight. Well… that isn’t happening. At least that’s what the Central Energy Fund (CEF) had to say on the subject, having just dropped a fresh batch of predictions on our heads. Fortunately, there’s still plenty of time to turn things around and knock that price down. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy — the ones responsible for the…

If you’ve driven around Gauteng for any length of time, there’s a good chance you’ve spotted at least one of those Vumacam-branded cam stations dotted around the place. They’re part of what Vumacam calls the SafeCity initiative, and now it’s getting the government involved. It’ll be giving Gauteng’s Provincial Government immediate access to its extensive camera network. All in the name of fighting crime and promoting safety across the province, of course. Vumacam level: over 6,000! The partnership, announced at a press briefing in Milpark this morning, will see Gauteng benefitting from that over 6,000-strong camera network and “advanced crime-fighting…

Think back to 2019. COVID hadn’t yet turned us into gormless TikTok-scrolling beasts but we also only had a single device that could send WhatsApp messages at a time. We were happy. Once Meta introduced the wonders of linked device functionality, we began getting greedy. We were a part of that crowd that couldn’t understand why Locked Chats didn’t appear so when accessed from a secondary device. All that griping seems to have gotten through, however. WhatsApp is bringing Locked Chat parity to the numerous devices your account is available on. Finally. That’s what WABetaInfo had to say on the subject,…

Put that iPhone on fold We’ve been eagerly awaiting a folding iPhone for quite some time now. No, seriously. Apple’s plans for a bendable smartphone in the market reportedly date back as far as 2018, and it hasn’t yet given up on those dreams of taking on the countless foldables already on the shelves. According to a new report from The Information (via 9to5mac), the three-trillion-dollar company has at least two clamshell-foldable smartphones cooking in the lab. You’d think six years of ideas would be enough for a commercial model to have hit the market by now. Apparently not. Those…

If you’re as fed up as we are with Nintendo’s practice of selling you the same potentiometer-riddled controllers every couple of months, cast your gaze in CRKD’s direction and behold its latest piece of wizardry: the Neo S. It’s a follow-up to the Nitro Deck controller that somehow slipped by us, and we won’t be making the same mistake where its little brother is concerned. And before you ask; yes — they do ship to South Africa. We just want to talk, CRKD Not only are they more glorious than most things coming out of Nintendo’s front end (which is…

It’s pretty much an open secret at this point that Nintendo has a pretty big — around 8in or so — secret up its sleeve for 2024. If the incessant rumour-mongering of a Switch 2, Switch Pro or Ultra Max (or whatever it’s called) weren’t enough of a hint, leaker Nate The Hate reckons the Tears of the Kingdom publisher has something waiting in the wings for March. (That something is the Switch 2 if we hadn’t made that obvious.) Switch 2, Electric Boogaloo He said as much on his recent podcast and later in this one, where he sounded a…

We won’t debate what soundbars are and why you want one. They’ve been around since at least the late 90s and have since become a mainstay in most home cinema set-ups. Their rising popularity has given birth to a wave of far-too-expensive soundbar combos whose only purpose is to service the most rabid audiophiles out there. Most, however, are happy to pick the thing with the fewest zeroes and call it a day. If fewer zeroes sounds like a good deal, Hisense’s HS2100 soundbar + subwoofer combo will run you roughly R2,700 (if you know where to look), and conjure…

Disney’s in-house gaming ambitions haven’t quite panned out as it’d have hoped. Sure, it’s got Insomniac’s Spider-Man games and the odd half-decent Star Wars title going for it, but those don’t technically count as “in-house” thanks to the company’s shift to a licensing model a couple years back. Now, it’s looking to buy its way to the top. In a move that surprised nobody, The Walt Disney Company has thrown $1.5-billion (R28-billion or 1/29th of Twitter) bucks at Epic Games to acquire an equity stake within the company alongside a collaboration that’ll see the two build “an all-new games and entertainment universe…

While FNB South Africa’s customers are basking in the glow of their bank’s recent eBucks upgrades (and subsequent dismissal of tap-to-pay functionality), other banks are searching for a win. We think Absa’s launch of ChatWallet – the sequel to its 2018 ChatBanking feature – fits that bill. The bank announced and launched ChatWallet yesterday, giving users access to “quality banking services” – all through WhatsApp. Flying cars? Nah. Banking on WhatsApp ChatWallet is here! Absa’s new smart and convenient banking solution that allows you to chat and bank through WhatsApp. Sign up for ChatWallet and tell us what you love the…

If you weren’t specifically paying attention to WABetaInfo on Friday, 27 October 2023, you might’ve missed it foretelling one of WhatsApp’s next big features: AI customer support. It slipped under the radar for most — and hasn’t been seen since; from either WABetaInfo or WhatsApp’s official update team. That’s no longer the case after everyone’s favourite beta tester caught wind of the feature finally arriving on the TestFlight Beta Program. Meep Morp Zeep (How can we help you today?) The feature is about as self-explanatory as it gets. WhatsApp, understandably, would rather avoid dealing with its userbase’s repeatedly dull and commonplace questions,…