Author: Trent Meikle

Disney+ just got a whole lot better. Or at least, it will. The Walt Disney Company and ESPN announced today that the pair were finally coming together in South Africa, with the R160/m subscription offering two 24-hour linear ESPN channels, covering everything from the NBA, NFL, and European football. Oh, and it’s free. “Customers will have access to the two 24-hour linear ESPN channels that showcase the very best live and studio sports programming from the US and around the world, spanning major leagues and iconic competitions,” it said. Disney’s got DStv on the ropes That goes for any Disney+ customer…

Not every WhatsApp update will be a hit. For every voice note transcription feature added, there are hundreds of other AI-powered additions, or suggestions that ads are coming to the free messenger. The latest changes for the Meta app, first spotted by WABetaInfo, thankfully, find themselves in that happy medium of usefulness. The silence is deafening Only last week did Meta issue its 2.25.26.3 beta for WhatsApp, which let users tag “@everyone” in group chats, rather than painstakingly checking names off one by one. The idea was to help save time for the moms of the group chat by gathering…

It’s a pretty rough time to be a petrol driver in South Africa as we edge towards October. The Central Energy Fund (CEF) has continued to supply the country with predictive fuel price snapshots, and the results aren’t what we’d call pretty — though they’re considerably more palatable now than they were just two short weeks ago. For the love of petrol Back then, the CEF’s early indicators foretold a nearly 25c/l price increase for petrol drivers, with diesel drivers looking forward to a roughly 17c/l decrease. The tables have turned somewhat in the weeks since, with petrol drivers facing…

Apple’s folding iPhone is clearer than ever It’s more or less an open secret that Apple has been developing a foldable iPhone for years now in an effort to catch up with the competition, all of which have some form of foldable or another. Samsung, for instance, is already on the seventh generation of flip and folding phones, while Apple is targeting a 2026 release for its first. That secret is largely due to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman never letting the rumours die, and according to the latter’s latest Power On newsletter, the device is beginning to take shape in…

If you’re lucky enough to own one of Amazon’s 11th- or 12th-gen Kindle e-readers, you’ll be treated to the v5.18.5 patch, first spotted by GoodEReader. Everyone else? Well, you’ll just have to wait — assuming Kindle ever bothers updating its older, or differently-shaped e-readers with the change. The additions, apart from the inclusion of the Kindle Assistive Reader, are all fairly basic quality-of-life changes that could be easily implemented. Amazon’s taking reading seriously again Yeah, you might be able to adjust the font and size of the book you’re currently reading, but what about the Kindle UI itself? You’d think that a…

Now back for its third year, Microsoft has announced the return of the Xbox Game Camp, where it hopes to continue its mission of supporting and uplifting game developers “across the continent.” It last made an appearance in July 2024, where it hosted three in-person conferences in South Africa, Morocco, and Kenya. This year, it’s doing things a little differently. With ID@Xbox’s Developer Acceleration Program (DAP) at the helm, it will instead gather “pre-selected professional game studios from across Africa for a 12-week structured program.” Previous iterations saw more than 1,900 ‘new-to-industry game creators’ in attendance. Pitching the Xbox Game…

Home Affairs is on a bit of a roll lately. Sure, it hasn’t actually done much other than spout some grandiose ideas — like digitising the country’s smart ID and passport services across all the major banks — and, more recently, the new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system. The project, announced yesterday, aims to shake up the stagnant visa structures in SA by bringing them into the digital present. “The ETA is set to eliminate visa barriers that have suppressed South Africa’s tourism potential for many years, while simultaneously revolutionising the security of our immigration processes,” said Leon Schreiber, Home Affairs…

Now that’s more like it. After Tecno SA strayed from tradition today when it debuted the considerably more mid-range Pova 7 Series at a launch event in Johannesburg, the company quickly followed it up with a return to normalcy with the definitively budget Spark 40 Series. Arriving today, the Spark 40 Series consists of four devices — the Spark 40C, Spark 40, Spark 40S, and, finally, the Spark 40 Pro. If you were at all stressed that Tecno was done with the budget side of things, don’t be. The company’s new devices are as budget-friendly as they come, with the…

Only a few weeks after Tecno offered a morsel of what’s to come at Comic Con, the company is finally ready to properly unleash the Tecno Pova 7 Series onto unsuspecting South Africans. We have, unfortunately, missed out on the most capable sibling, the Pova 7 Ultimate, but the devices we do have — the Pova 7 and Pova 7 Pro 5G — are more than up to the job of servicing the country’s upper mid-range market at an actually affordable price. The arrival of the Pova 7 Series is a first for Tecno SA, which is typically associated with…

Nearly every kid has wanted a Bugatti Veyron at some point in their lives. The only difficult part about that is owning a Bugatti Veyron. But what if we told past-you that Dreame, makers of fine robot and stick vacuums, would one day enter the EV market with a car that can supposedly rival Bugatti’s finest creation? A Dreame come true Because that’s exactly what’s happening, according to CarNewsChina. Sources familiar with the project reckon Dreame has split its blossoming automotive business into two. The first, known as Dreame Automotive, will handle the “Bugatti-level” cars and offer both pure electric…