Author: Trent Meikle

Not long after the launch of SABC+ – the service formerly known as TelkomONE – the SABC is once again working on a scheme that should see the broadcaster lose less money than it currently does. To counter South African residents not paying TV licences, the SABC is toying with the idea of a loyalty and rewards programme designed to ensnare more people into paying for a (useless) TV licence. From the horse’s mouth The news comes straight from SABC’s website, on which it posted a bid document highlighting the broadcaster’s plans. The broadcaster was in search of service providers…

Before you get all excited, no, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement were not involved with Evil West. As much as we’d have liked them to be, they aren’t. Get over it. Hopes and dreams dashed, we can actually tell you about Evil West. The game made by Flying Wild Hog – a developer you’ll only know if Hard Reset or Shadow Warrior sound familiar. Evil West slipped under our radar a bit. With God of War: Ragnarök (which we reviewed) predating Evil West by around two weeks, you can understand. After checking out the trailer for Evil West, we had…

Good news everyone! Elon Musk is making headlines again – and it’s not a Twitter story. This time. Before we return to your regularly scheduled Twitter updates, we need to discuss Musk’s Neuralink show-and-tell event, held on 30 November. “can i please have snacks” – Monke (2022, colourised) Monkeys can type telepathically now. No, we’re not joking. If you’ve followed Neuralink’s journey into the world of connecting human brains to machines, this might not be such a surprise. A few months ago, we got a look at a monkey playing Pong with only its mind as a controller. Neuralink has…

If you’re one of the few that actually own a DStv Streama – whether by choice or because you have an older Hisense or Samsung TV, you’ll be excited to learn that Multichoice is finally bringing Disney+ content to its dedicated streaming box – nearly two months after its launch. The Streama is finally on par with some of the country’s better Android TV boxes – and it only costs R200 more! The introduction of Disney+ puts the mouse’s offering alongside the DStv, Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and Showmax apps. Still not on PlayStation or Xbox “The DStv Streama upgrade…

Eskom has given South Africa some good news for the Christmas period. The power utility has announced changes to its Christmas maintenance schedules, set to greatly reduce load shedding over the holidays. It’s not quite the same as literally saving Santa Claus, but it’s the best Eskom can do. And if you’re crying about us spoiling the ending of The Nightmare Before Christmas – keep it to yourself. The twelve stages of Christmas Of course, we still need to remain prepared for the eventuality that we’ll experience load shedding at some stage over the period. Before making changes to its…

Last week hosted Black Friday. Today is Cyber Monday. Saturday was… well, Saturday. But it was a very Black-Friday-centric weekend of ‘deals’ if you can call them that. Only a few of these deals were actually any good, and most were downright tragic. Still, that didn’t stop people from spending their hard-earned money on deals that we’ll (probably) see again in a month or two. How do we know this? Well, FNB does tend to make a spectacle of things. The bank reports that on Black Friday its customers spent more than R3 billion collectively – R748,546,200,000 less than what…

SpaceX unleashes a Dragon This weekend saw the launch of Space X’s Dragon spacecraft, which arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday at 15:00 SAST. Unfortunately, Luckily, the launch and subsequent docking at the ISS went off without a hitch – bringing in supplies, new solar arrays, and a bunch of scientific experiments for the astronauts up there to keep themselves busy. The Dragon, which launched using a Falcon 9 rocket, wasn’t the only other spacecraft hanging around the ISS parking lot. It joined the Crew-5 Dragon, a Cygnus-18, a Russian Soyuz MS-22, and two unnamed Russian supply ships.…

‘Tis the day of deals – some that actually save you money, and some that charge you more (you know who you are, the company formerly known as Kalahari). Yes, Black Friday! Fortunately, the former applies to Vuma’s Black Friday weekend deals – only available from today, 25 November, until 28 November. Aside from the deals – which we’ll get into – if you order over Black Friday weekend, you’ll be able to get three months free (available with specific ISPs). Go check them out. Always check the Ts and Cs Stuff was sent a list of deals from Vuma’s…

Vodacom is getting into the healthcare game, launching the country’s first computer-aided emergency services dispatch system. Vodacom has worked with the Northern Cape Department of Health to get the launch off the ground, making healthcare more accessible to everyone (in the Northern Cape). That’s not to say that it won’t benefit the entire country. Vodacom hasn’t said as much but we expect that the Department and Vodacom are treating the launch as a sort of trial run. Should it be successful, we could see Vodacom pair up with other provinces. The two entities have been working on a solution to…

Yesterday, Eskom received a lifeline in the form of 50 million litres of diesel from PetroSA. Diesel isn’t free – and someone needs to pay the bill. It won’t be Eskom – at least not for the time being. It was the power provider’s poor management of money and maintenance that got the country into this mess in the first place. Who then? According to energy analyst Clyde Mallinson, it could be South Africans covering the bill. The 50 million litres of diesel arrived at the Ankerlig and Gourikwa power stations yesterday, which allowed Eskom to downgrade the country to…