Author: Trent Meikle

Until Amazon finally admits its plans for South African domination, we’re stuck with the local offerings. That’s not so bad, especially after Checkers’ recent launch of Xtra Savings Plus – a subscription-based service that tacks onto the Sixty60 app, not unlike that of Amazon’s own Prime service in the States. Tom Cruise, is that you? “In an African retail first, Checkers has launched Xtra Savings Plus, a monthly subscription offering unlimited free Sixty60 grocery deliveries, more personalised offers and an additional in-store discount,” says Checkers in a release. Essentially, Checkers is looking to save some of its more loyal customers…

Sony hack and slash Sony has been hacked. At least, that’s what a report from Cyber Security Connect is claiming, with a newcomer in the ransomware space, Randsomed.vc, taking the credit. While the group’s claims haven’t yet been verified, it says that the stolen data is up for sale, due to Sony’s unwavering stance of not paying ransome demands. “We have successfully compromissed [sic] all of sony systems. We wont ransom them! we will sell the data. due to sony not wanting to pay. DATA IS FOR SALE,” it said before hammering the point home with “WE ARE SELLING IT.”…

Because just about everything in 2023 includes the words ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI), YouTube is updating its creator tools to usher in new features that’ll supposedly “enhance creativity and let anyone create”. With the help of AI, of course. Announced at this year’s Made on YouTube event, held last week, the Google-owned video platform showed off features like a ‘Dream Screen’ greenscreen, automatic language dubbing (sorry Mr Beast en Español), and AI insights to give your content a push in the right direction. Summoning the YouTube Dream Screen If you’ve watched any sort of TikTok video ever, then you’ve probably already…

If you’ve been counting down the days ‘til the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, we’ve got some good news. Nintendo South Africa turned up at this year’s Comic Con Africa 2023 to put on a show, featuring some of this year’s best games: Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, and of course, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. We got to play it. So can you. Keen-eyed gamers will notice that we’re still nearly a month away from the game’s 20 October 2023 release date. Nintendo brought the goods early, and they’re giving everyone who’s able to hold a controller a go.…

It’s official. After showing up to Tim Cook’s Wonderlust event and listening to him talk about all the money we’d be spending on his iPhones and smartwatches, the time has finally come to buy his products. Pre-orders go live today, with orders set to start arriving at their new owners’ homes a week later, Friday 29 September. You’ll be able to place your order with cold hard cash, or through a contract with some of SA’s largest operators, Vodacom, MTN and Telkom if you’re going through the iStore direct. (If you need any help determining which has the fastest network,…

DALL-E 3 is a thing now OpenAI, the company behind the wildly successful ChatGPT large language model (LLM), has announced DALL-E 3, a much-improved text-to-image AI generator that’s supposedly safer, smarter, and can leverage ChatGPT to create prompts on the fly. DALL-E 2 is still one of the more sophisticated generative AI platforms out there, and even then, it gets things wrong – ignoring specific prompts or just making things look plain weird. OpenAI reckons those issues will be far less prominent, with DALL-E 3 being more understanding of situational context. Aside from understanding user prompts better, DALL-E 3’s coolest…

Earlier this week, Microsoft let slip a wealth of internal documents courtesy of the company’s trial against the FTC. This doesn’t look to be some dinky internal leak designed to drum up hype. Microsoft showed its entire hand here, revealing the company’s outline for upcoming consoles, a new controller, and outdated (but still valuable) release schedules for several games. Hell, it even revealed CEO Phil Spencer’s desire to purchase Nintendo back in 2020. We’re more interested in the hardware. We already know the company is reviving at least two of its greatest hits: Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV:…

Neuralink goes home-sapien Elon Musk’s Neuralink – a company working on implantable brain–computer interfaces – has seemingly moved past the need for testing on monkeys and has begun recruiting humans for its cause. You’ll need to be willing to have the company’s N1 computer interface implanted into your brain – but you probably already knew that. The study, known as PRIME – Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface – (someone needs to teach Musk how acronyms work), isn’t looking for anyone who shows up and rings the doorbell. It’s encouraging applications from candidates suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or quadriplegia…

If you thought the owners of Ford’s Ranger line-up of bakkies weren’t nearly smug enough, the company’s newly announced Ford Ranger hybrid plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV), set to release sometime in 2025, might just change your mind on that. Not much of Ford’s new EV is known yet, aside from the name and a few other details. Of course, the name does speak to the bakkie’s hybrid capabilities from the offset. We also know it’s packing a 2.3l Ford EcoBoost turbo petrol engine, coupled with a battery that’ll net 45km of range off a single charge. That’s “without using a…

What with the current Rand-to-Dollar conversion rate, and the continually rising price of refined oil globally, it’s no wonder that the most recent round of data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) looks so grim. If you thought September’s big price hike was worth getting upset over, you won’t be looking forward to the nearly R2 increase slated for diesel prices come October. A hefty month for diesel Don’t panic just yet. We’ve still got two weeks to go before the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy decides the country’s official petrol and diesel prices. So why are we discussing…