Author: Trent Meikle

Bard, but for teenagers Of all the major AI players; ChatGPT, Llama 2, Grok, Google’s Bard is probably the one getting the least fanfare. It might have something to do with the $100 million stuff-up that sent the search giant’s AI marketing efforts into the toilet. That might not be the case for much longer, after Google’s announcement that it would be expanding the LLM’s (large language model) access to teenagers in “most countries”. Google first opened Bard’s doors to teens in the US back in September – giving them better results, additional information and links. Getting into Bard as…

South Africa’s largest in-house streamer, Showmax, is officially relaunching in February 2024, eight years after it entered South Africa’s rather weak-sauce streaming market. The ‘new’ service will still be called Showmax but subscribers can look forward to a “brand-new look, new app and entirely new product suite.” The relaunch has been in the works since at least March 2023 after the initial announcement of a new partnership between Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Sky with Showmax. At the time, MultiChoice said that the revamped streamer would “build on Showmax’s success to date and strive to create the leading streaming service in Africa.”…

Xbox, as usual, is late to the party. After PlayStation South Africa announced its own Black Friday deals yesterday, Xbox has followed suit. Being late might not be the worst thing in this case. Xbox’s deals appear to be considerably more wallet-friendly than PlayStation’s catalogue – an important detail in South Africa. Xbox has all the usual discounts on offer, with deals covering Xbox Series X|S consoles, accessories, subscriptions and gift cards. The only absentee is a selection of physical games – meaning you’ll need to pay full price for something to play alongside a new console. There’s no harm…

YouTube’s artificially intelligent policies AI isn’t going away anytime soon. If you don’t believe that, we have one question: which rock have you been living under? Companies have spent the last twelve months playing catch-up to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, so much so that YouTube has had to alter its existing policies or create new ones to explain how it will handle AI-created content, with the changes expected in the coming months. The first change involves YouTube’s new rule that’ll require all content creators across the platform to disclose if their video includes anything that’s been altered or generated entirely by artificial…

Maybe entangling the would-be Twitter killer with Instagram’s innards wasn’t such a great idea, in retrospect. There’s no denying that linking the two helped Meta secure the reported 100 million ‘users’ during the app’s first week, but after the novelty wore off, problems arose. We’re of course talking about the inability to purge a Threads account without also deleting the affiliated Instagram account. It forced all those unhappy users (us included) to stick with the app longer than they’d have liked until Meta got around to severing the connection between the two. That day has finally come, according to Instagram…

Sure, Black Friday has only claimed the lives of 17 people and injured a further 125 but that isn’t stopping the world from hunting down those sweet, sweet deals. PlayStation South Africa is one of the many companies offering discounts a little early to avoid the stampeding mall crowds come Friday, 24 November. We’re sure the extra moola doesn’t hurt. While Vodacom has started Black-November festivities relatively early this year, PlayStation is keeping things sensible, with deals starting on Friday, 17 November until Thursday, 30 November. If games, specifically digital, are all you’re after – the official PlayStation Store is…

TOTK for Game of the Year, anyone? 2023 is officially 87% complete. You know what that means? Like some worse-looking Mariah Carey, Geoff Keighley has defrosted himself just in time for December to officially get The Game Awards underway. That’s only taking place on 7 December 2023. First, Keighley had to announce what would be in the running. That took place last night, 13 November, when Keighley announced the contenders for that coveted Game of the Year award, alongside all the other awards. As listed on The Game Awards website, this year’s nominees are Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2,…

Unlimited mobile data? Now those are words we’ve not heard in a long time. At least, not since the days when Blackberry was king and, more recently, when Telkom tried to recreate the unlimited data hype through its then-new Infinite plans that cost a little too much for our liking. Whatever our feelings, they were apparently successful enough for Telkom to release an even more expensive follow-up in the form of the Telkom Infinite Max Plus mobile plan. “In line with our Summer campaign of showing up BIG for our customers, the introduction of the Infinite Max Plus product as…

Starship may go Starward on Friday Anyone that is serious about space travel is already aware of SpaceX’s Starship and its dreams of one day leaving this forsaken planet, if only temporarily – after the disastrous (yet still sort of successful) first attempt back in April. That occasion caused Starship to, uh, experience a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” – it blew up. SpaceX hasn’t been dissuaded, though. In fact, it’s ready for round two as early as this Friday.   That is if it can get the go-ahead from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) before the expected Friday launch date. “Starship preparing…

Any gamer worth their salt (…) was probably playing Braid back when it first landed in 2008. It was followed up with a port to nearly everything else a year later. We know because we were playing Braid when it first landed on Windows all those years ago. If you missed out – we’re sorry. But not that sorry. See, Braid is making a comeback in the form of Braid, Anniversary Edition. Finally.  Get your Braid: Anniversary Edition on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1repvdGU9I&t=59s Jonathan Blow’s masterpiece of a puzzle platformer was initially meant to get the remaster treatment over two years ago after…