Author: Trent Meikle

YouTube is getting desperate You saw the sub-header. YouTube is getting desperate. The Google-owned company hasn’t said as much, but it doesn’t take a genius to notice that it’s on the hunt for new Premium subscribers — its R72/m ad-free tier. That’s evidenced by YouTube’s most recent assault on adblockers, involving slowing down load times and even limiting full-screen mode for anyone who dares avoid the platform’s ads. That’s according to a Reddit post that began seeing some traction over the weekend, showing video proof that YouTube is doing exactly that. It wasn’t just u/NightMean noting the issue, with many…

The time has come to say goodbye to the tech event of the year, CES. It’ll be January 2025 before we get to say hello to the Consumer Electronics Show again, but that’s okay. There’s still plenty to sift through from 2024’s show — but you needn’t bother with all that. Our job is to do all the sifting for you and cherry-pick the very best gadgets from CES 2024. First, we’ve got a ground rule. We’re only covering the tech that has a real shot of making it to the shelves — or at least, our shelves — before…

What is this? A console for ants? We think we’re finally starting to get why those games you played back in the days of yore aren’t as readily available as we’d like them to be. Money. Duh. Atari’s latest project — the Atari 400 Mini — from Plaion and Retro Games Ltd proves our point. Are we that fussed? Not really. Do we still want one? Obviously. How could you not? The 400 Mini is just that — a mini version of the Atari 400 that was released back in 1979 — that’s been retrofitted with a bunch of modern-day…

Anyone new to Acer’s Nitro family might not know that the whole idea is to meld high-end performance with “budget’ pricing. Sure, it’s difficult to ignore the Nitro 16’s R38,000 price tag, but stand it next to something like the ROG Strix Scar 18, and it all begins to sting a bit less, yes? The Nitro squad might be missing all those extra dressings you’d normally see in the altogether more expensive Helios line-up, but that’s okay. Acer’s done some work to keep the cost down, with the GPU taking the biggest hit but that’s okay. Our review model chugged…

Finally! A worthy YouTube update! It’s been a minute since we had the opportunity to praise YouTube. That might have less to do with our burgeoning cynicism than Google’s decisions, but alas. That’s changing today after the platform announced it would be making key how-to videos more accessible, specifically in the realm of first-aid and emergency care advice. It’s doing so by partnering up with various health organisations globally and making it “even easier to find step-by-step explainer videos for basic first-aid and emergency care made by authoritative health organizations.” For example, when searching up something like “how to perform…

Artemis II isn’t dead, just delayed Artemis II, NASA’s upcoming crewed flight that will carry four astronauts up to the Moon, has officially been pushed back. The National Space Agency confirmed that the mission won’t be lifting off before September 2025 at the very least. That’s still a relatively short while away. Honestly, there’s a good chance there will be four new people on the lunar surface before Rockstar gets around to releasing Grand Theft Auto 6.  The Artemis II mission’s delay caused a sort of domino effect, with NASA’s chief — Bill Nelson — confirming that the subsequent Artemis…

Have you ever caught yourself glancing at your laptop and thinking: “If only you could bend… more?” If that’s you, oh boy, do we have a gadget for you. It goes by the name of the Acer Aspire 5 Spin 14, and it’s here to answer one simple question: what if laptops could also be really big tablets? Rather large and weighty tablets, sure, but tablets, nonetheless. The answer, apparently, is an impressive piece of tech that almost seamlessly melds the two satisfyingly without breaking the bank. We get that it’s not exactly cheap, but if a laptop/tablet hybrid is…

Enter the Claw Only three things in life are certain; birth, death, and Steam Deck knock-offs hitting the shelves every few months. This time it’s MSI’s turn at the bat, having announced the ‘Claw’ (ooooooh!) at CES — another Windows-fied mini-PC that’ll give your games a new home. It joins the ranks of the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, and G Cloud, but what sets it apart? Not… much. If you’re looking at the broad strokes, at least. It’s retained the 7in 120Hz LCD display that’s become the standard amongst handheld PCs and a 53Wh battery that MSI will…

After an eventful first nine months of 2023, WhatsApp’s update department started to slack a little. We understand. We imagine it can get rather tiring refreshing Telegram’s blog for new ideas to swipe. But when the company you’re stealing from is putting out updates that’ll add more colourful phone calls, it forces you to get inventive. Kinda. According to WABetaInfo, the site that keeps track of everything running through WhatsApp’s back-end, the messenger has two updates in the pipeline — one that’ll improve upon screen sharing during calls and another that’ll add themes into the mix. Finally. Sharing music over…

Apple’s Vision for February If the latest edition of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman Power On newsletter is correct — and it usually is — then Apple could be lining up for something big; namely the release of the big fruit company’s heavily anticipated take on augmented reality, the Vision Pro. If things go according to plan, we could see folks double-tapping their way around the place before February closes out. Unfortunately, we’re referring to the most royal ‘we’ imaginable. Gurman reckons that the Vision Pro is already making the trek across the US to various distribution warehouses, with the potential for enough…