Author: Trent Meikle

Google TV is faster now We’re big fans of Google TV OS at the Stuff office; having taken it for a test drive when Xiaomi’s TV Box S (2nd-gen) was in the building. It makes the search giant’s announcement that it would be “enhancing [the] Google TV experience with performance improvements, new updates, and more,” all the more sweet. Unfortunately, those “new updates” don’t apply to South Africa. Google is introducing some changes to the ‘Live’ tab — a feature that’s currently only available in the US, with no official word on a global rollout. We haven’t been skipped where the performance…

Newcomers to the petrol party over on Stuff won’t understand why we’re so giddy about the Central Energy Fund’s (CEF) latest petrol and diesel price predictions for the first month of 2024. It might seem obvious, considering the CEF is forecasting another drop in the country’s fuel prices — for the third month in a row. Our old hands, though, know just how rare it is to come off better in a fight with the Department of Mineral Resources two months in a row, let alone three. Petrol saw R1.78 and R0.65 drops in November and December respectively, with diesel seeing similar-enough…

E3 is dead. Forever ‘End of an era’ is one way to describe E3’s official exit from this world. “I cri evrytiem,” is… another way to put it. Oh, right. We haven’t told you the bad news yet. E3 is dead. Forever. We’ve become so accustomed to banging out those annual ‘E3 is cancelled’ articles (no, really, look), it was a bit of a shock to see the official E3 account on X.com confirming its demise. “After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.”…

Being a gamer isn’t easy. Especially during the Holiday season. Not only are we expected to conquer family meet-ups — which tend to be more difficult than Malenia if they’re a ‘conventional’ gamer — but when the annual “So what do you want for Christmas?” question rolls around, we don’t have much to say. Oh, we have an answer, but how can you explain to your grandmother that all you’re after is an original GameCube with copies of Double Dash and Wind Waker? We usually end up spouting more simple (and generally more attainable) items like those in this Gift Guide. If…

It’s not just you, ChatGPT is slacking for everyone we’ve heard all your feedback about GPT4 getting lazier! we haven’t updated the model since Nov 11th, and this certainly isn’t intentional. model behavior can be unpredictable, and we’re looking into fixing it 🫡 — ChatGPT (@ChatGPTapp) December 8, 2023 November hasn’t been a stellar month for OpenAI’s claim to fame; ChatGPT. Not only did the company suffer through the firing and subsequent rehiring of its CEO, Sam Altman, but its moneymaker has been on a downward spiral of late. Throughout the last few weeks, users have begun reporting that ChatGPT…

Vivica Group — the holding company behind companies such as Vox — is launching Stage Zero, “a power utility provider which is poised to radically overhaul how South African households are forced to deal with Eskom and local municipality unreliability.” If the company’s introductory statement didn’t make it clear enough, Stage Zero is an independent solar power provider, and it’ll be taking on the likes of MetwroWatt, Hohm Energy, and the rest with some out-of-the-box thinking. Back to Stage Zero Stage Zero isn’t like other power utility providers. That’s according to Stage Zero CEO, Abraham van der Merwe, who claims the…

Enter Imagine, yet another AI-powered image generator We’re honestly getting a little tired of introducing every new piece of artificially intelligent (AI) software that hits the streets. There’s a good chance that whatever’s hot right now is hailing from one of the same four or five big companies and shills some mightily similar tech to what OpenAI probably cooked up six months ago. Meet Imagine, Meta’s latest piece of AI wizardry, taking on the form of a standalone web-based image generator. Surprised? We doubt it. Imagine is just the latest AI-powered image generator on the market, joining the likes of…

It’s that time of the year again. Mariah Carey is fully defrosted,  Stuff’s Festive Gift Guides are beginning to go up and those pesky little beetles are officially back. Oddly enough, so are the real Beatles and they’re making us… feel things. But enough about that. We’ve got a job to do. That involves helping you pick out something for that tech-obsessed friend or family member who always seems to have it all before the morning of the 25th. We’re already a week through the month so… you might want to get moving. As in, right now. Considering the subject of this…

GeForce Now is available… now Nvidia’s GeForce Now — the cloud gaming service that’s been waiting in South Africa’s wings since November of last year — is finally making good on its word and has officially launched locally through a partnership with rain. It’s spent the past few months undergoing a considerable beta but is now open to the public in the form of two packages – down from the US’ three packages. Those are Priority and Ultra — here’s what each will cost and get you: Priority: R200/m — “Three-hour gaming sessions with uninterrupted play time and Nvidia RTX…

McDonald’s Google Smarts When we say that every company under the sun is getting into AI, we mean it. McDonald’s is the latest big company to smear artificial intelligence over its face, officially inking a multi-year deal with Google Cloud to deploy generative AI sometime in 2024. The old guy who had a farm said that the deal would connect Google Cloud tech across “thousands of its restaurants worldwide.” Unlike most companies that publish the AI press release before even deciding what to do with its newfound intelligence, McDonald’s and Google have a plan in place. McDonald’s didn’t dive into…