Author: Trent Meikle

AI is keeping it real ‘Make it Real’ is the latest piece of AI genius that’s left us in awe and if we’re honest, a little frightened. A company going by the name of “tldraw” – a whiteboard app maker – caused a stir throughout X.com on Wednesday after showing off a prototype of ‘Make it Real’, a service that lets people draw out an image of a software UI and having AI bring the whole thing to life. It’s got GPT-4V’s API behind it to do all of the looking, and Tailwind CSS and JavaScript web code that’ll be…

As EVs (electric vehicles) begin to slowly pad out South Africa’s roads, so do the charging stations that go with them. It’s all well and good to drive a car that isn’t actively killing the planet, but when the source of that power is Eskom, how much of a difference is it really making? Not much, apparently. What if there was a charging station that was completely off the grid, out of Eskom’s clutches? Well, that’s exactly what Zero Carbon Charge is trying to build. Zero Carbon Charge (ZCC), an EV charging station contractor in Vredendal, recently announced that it…

Starship Oddity SpaceX has finally done it. Over the weekend, the private space company’s largest-ever rocket, Starship, took to the skies, eventually reaching space. Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends. Shortly after it achieved its goal on Saturday, 18 November, the rocket’s colossal Super Heavy booster exploded (after stage separation), with Starship’s upper-stage vehicle following suit before reaching its target altitude. The company described the entire process as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” – the same terminology presented during the rocket’s first launch attempt in April. For a second go, things didn’t go quite as badly as they could have.…

RCS support is finally coming to iPhones. After years of begging Apple to support Rich Communication Services (RCS) – a standard amongst Android and Google devices – the big fruit company has announced it’s finally yielding to the pressure, according to a report from 9to5Mac. It’s expected to arrive via a software update “later next year,” bringing with it a swathe of features that iMessage quite frankly lacks. “Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association,” Apple said in a statement shared with 9to5Mac. “We believe RCS…

X.com is kinda like LinkedIn, but far worse Have you ever looked at LinkedIn and thought “Wow! Wouldn’t this be great if it were on Elon Musk’s $44 billion platform, X.com?” We didn’t think so. The eccentric billionaire is doing it anyway, with the job search feature going live for all users on the web version of the site, following the feature’s beta back in August. Android and iOS users aren’t being left out, either. The company said that the feature would get mobile functionally “soon” but didn’t delve deeper into what the feature might look like there. The web…

If you were one of the many too busy drooling over GWM’s Ora EV yesterday, you might’ve missed the news that Showmax is officially relaunching in February 2024 and it’s bringing with it a “brand-new look, new app and entirely new product suite.” The MultiChoice-owned streamer didn’t delve into too many specifics, leaving out details of the revamped app’s exact launch date or what sort of prices people can expect to pay for access. That doesn’t mean we’re entirely in the dark. We know Showmax 2.0 will launch with three new plans and a host of new content from Comcast’s…

We’ve been feeling cautiously optimistic about South Africa’s future of late. Not only has Eskom eased up on load shedding, but November saw one of the larger petrol and diesel price drops in some time. According to mid-month data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF), that trend could continue right into December, with another R2.00 diesel price drop on the cards. No more walking for you, diesel drivers Still, we’d advise you to keep those expectations tamped until the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy announces the country’s official petrol and diesel prices at the beginning of the new month.…

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…