Author: Trent Meikle

As if the countless Transformers movies or James Cameron’s series surrounding this eerie topic weren’t warning enough, Mecedes-Benz is bringing ChatGPT voice controls to its cars. The AI chatbot has slowly wended its way into every nook and cranny of our lives; our PCs, smartphones, news, film, and finally, motor vehicles. At least it’s not our vehicles. Not yet. Mercedes’ first test is limited to the US, though we don’t expect that to remain the case forever. Exhausting  The idea, obviously, is to improve the brand’s current ‘Hey Mercedes’ assistant, or as Mercedes puts it; make it “even more intuitive.” The…

Somehow, we’re already in June. The middle of June to be specific, which means we’re just over two weeks away from the Department of Energy’s official decision that’ll determine the fate of the country’s petrol, diesel and illuminating paraffin prices in July. Fortunately, we don’t need the Department of Energy to get some sort of idea of where those prices are headed in the here and now. That’s a job for the Central Energy Fund (CEF), with its latest predictions pointing towards a (slight) drop in petrol prices. Diesel, on the other hand… Good news for petrol drivers Before we…

NASA’s got a plan NASA is erring on the side of private lately, with the recent announcement that it would be making numerous Space Act Agreements with seven of the world’s largest private space companies – all in the name of space discovery and the “U.S commercial low Earth orbit economy”, of course. If that sounded sarcastic, it wasn’t. That’s because these agreements are unfunded – meaning no unnecessary money enters the wrong pockets – we’re a little more inclined to believe them. Though no money is being exchanged, NASA is instead offering up its exceptional wealth of knowledge, plus…

Seriously, WhatsApp has been knocking it out of the park lately. Unique usernames, locked chats, and of course, the edit button. Meta’s messenger is due a “bad” update soon, right? Yes, but that won’t be happening any time soon if the rumours over at WABetaInfo are true (and they usually are). This time ’round, Meta is working on multi-account support. Living a double life As it stands, the only way to have two instances of yourself across two WhatsApp accounts is to use your phone’s built-in Dual Messenger feature which works… fine, though it can be a hassle to set…

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta isn’t the be-all-or-end-all content platform it hoped it would be by now. Creators are flying this way and that between YouTube, Twitch, and even TikTok and the few that decide to give Meta, or more specifically, Facebook, a chance rarely ever seem to stick it out long-term. Now, Meta is making some changes in the hopes of driving more creators towards itself with the expansion of its “performance bonus program.” Across the Meta-Verse The first change concerns Meta’s performance bonus program, which pays a premium to creators in exchange for more engagement on their Facebook posts. Meta…

For once, Twitter has gone a couple of days without inciting some sort of “controversy” on the Internet. Or perhaps we’re getting better at tuning Musk’s plaything out. Whatever the case, that blissful peace has come to an end. The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) has laid a $250 million lawsuit at Twitter’s feet for – you guessed it – violating copyright law. The NMPA’s lawsuit is on behalf of seventeen music publishers (including Sony and Universal) who themselves are working with some of the industry’s “best” artists. The suit was filed in Tennessee’s federal court, with the claim that…

Google just couldn’t help itself. During its annual I/O keynote last month, the search giant made it clear that it was joining the generative ‘AI goldrush’, a fad being adopted by any tech company worth its salt in 2023. Google took it a step further, with nearly every announcement at the keynote focusing on AI in some way or another – with Gmail’s “Help me write” feature being one of them. It’s finally being released from its desktop confines, and making its way to Gmail’s Android and iOS apps. Artificial Mail Alas, ‘Help me write’ is — so far –…

Making money through YouTube has long since been a dream coveted by the youth (both past and present), though the platform’s Partner Program has long since been reserved for its better-performing channels. Now, however, YouTube is changing the requirements for eligible channels to join up, allowing smaller creators to start earning some sort of revenue in their channel’s infancy. Howdy, partner YouTube announced the changes to its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) yesterday, giving smaller channels access to features like channel memberships, Super Chats, Super Thanks – also known as tipping (and money laundering), and the ability to promote their merch…

Well, the honeymoon period is finally over. Disney+ is officially hiking subscription prices in South Africa, just over a year since it launched. We’ve been dreading this day, knowing in our bones that the Mouse’s cheaper-than-usual prices wouldn’t last forever. Fortunately, the increase isn’t as drastic as we were expecting. And there’s a month or so left to prepare for the increase taking place on 19 July 2023. Out with the old, in with the new The news comes via the streaming platform’s updated official FAQ page, and official SMS’ sent out to subscribing customers (though we’re still awaiting our…

Games are massive. Just look at the incoming Mortal Kombat 1 (or 29?) which boasts that it’ll need at least 100GB of space before you can get going. That’s nothing compared to the original Warzone install. Activision’s game needs close to 175GB of valuable hard drive space on the PC (via ArsTechnica). Modern-day consoles can’t keep up with the games they’re pumping out and Microsoft’s latest announcement of a new Xbox Series S proves just that. Xbox goes back in time Say hello to the Carbon Black Xbox Series S, a ‘new’ console that’ll come loaded up with 1TB of…