Author: Trent Meikle

The launch of Xiaomi’s flagship 13 series is official – with two models to choose from. Obviously. It’s a crime to release one device and God forbid one of those models isn’t a ‘Pro’. Xiaomi isn’t trying to make like an FTX CEO. As ever, China already has its hands on both devices, but the rest of the world will have to wait ‘til 2023 for a chance to play with these. We’re still awaiting Xiaomi’s official release dates for the global version. We’re also waiting for local pricing, but going off China’s 5,000- and 4,000-yuan prices for the Pro…

If touching grass isn’t your cup of tea, it’s high time you tried out League of Legends. Or anything else Riot Games has made, really. But if you’re the owner of a PC Game Pass subscription, you can now try out its games there. You can also try them out without Game Pass since they’re all free. That’s how Riot catches its victims players. But if you play them through PC Game Pass, you’ll gain access to loads of free in-game content. That’s because Microsoft and Riot Games have teamed up to bring all of Riot’s “biggest PC and mobile…

Twitter Blue is back. Again. The service took a short holiday to give the Twitter higher-ups some time to realise how completely stupid the idea was in the first place. Of course, backtracking after tripling down on the service is out of the question. So, the service has been relaunched – with newly coloured checkmarks – because that worked so well last time. To counter the many counts of impersonation that plagued the service before, the platform will take “a number of other steps to detect and prevent impersonation,” which includes the requirement to have a valid phone number to…

We’re nearly halfway through December (already?), which means the Central Energy Fund (CEF) has begun predictions for the new year’s fuel prices. This is the part where we’d usually tell you to fill up your car before the prices change on the first Wednesday of 2023 (4 January, in this case). But if the CEF’s predictions are accurate, you’re better off filling up after the New Year. That’s because we could be looking at the biggest fuel price drop of the past twelve months. Both petrol and diesel are looking at substantial decreases, with diesel finally getting the better part…

Last week was a rough one for Eskom (and by extension, us). It faced delays to scheduled repairs, battled without diesel and had to put up with some hectic weather. All this was to keep the country from entering the clutches of stage 7, which it successfully managed to pull off against all odds. Or did it? According to economists at the Bureau for Economic Research (BER), the country “technically” already entered stage 7 load shedding. “At a point last week, Eskom was technically ‘shedding’ at stage 7, spread between rolling blackouts and load curtailment on heavy industrial users,” the…

Despite Snapchat’s users continuing to grow year-on-year, it’s dying. Not really – it still makes more money than it makes sense, but from the zeitgeist’s point-0f-view, it’s slowly falling into a pit of obscurity. Apps and users have long known that Snapchat’s gimmick is easily replicable. Meta understands this the most – and it’s deciding to copy a feature that it should have added years ago. According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp’s currently baked-in ‘View-Once’ feature is being expanded. For now, it’s limited to photos and videos, but that could apply to text soon, if the betas are to be believed. WhatsApp,…

Touchdown! It’s already been a month (or close to it) since NASA’s Orion left Earth’s atmosPhere on the long-awaited Artemis mission. On its 26-day journey, the Orion capsule managed to get itself around the mOon, snap some pictures, and bring itself back to Earth. Saturday saw the arrival of the Orion capsule in Baja, California where it touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean. The mission – testing the Orion capsule’s ability to one day ferry humans back to the moon – was a success. Upon re-entry, Orion successfully pulled off a ‘skip entry’ – a tactic that’s never been…

Eskom has begun construction on its first Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, with the team breaking ground for the first time at BESS’s Elandskop site yesterday. The power provider has teamed up with Hyosung Heavy Industries – one of the service providers the utility appointed to the job. The project is expected to take between seven and twelve months to complete. Keep in mind, this is Eskom we’re talking about. Expect delays to slow down production significantly over the coming year. #EskomMediaStatement Construction of Eskom’s first battery energy storage project begins pic.twitter.com/u63SN9Nutu — Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) December…

We all understand the pain of being blue-shelled. Well, most of us do. If you haven’t yet felt the sting of those flying blue bastards, we’re sorry to inform you that you’re not very good at Mario Kart. And that’s okay. Some are better at being hit with blue shells. Others are better at throwing them. With Mario Kart Deluxe’s latest free update, blue shells could become the new meta (if you want it to). Yup, the choice is yours. The update adds the ability to turn any item on or off for any race. Want to see real karting?…

Update – 08 December 14:45: Eskom has confirmed that Koeberg’s Unit 1 will go offline on Saturday, 10 December. This is a day later than what Eskom had originally planned. This is dependent on whether the “grid conditions have recovered to ensure [the] stability of the system.” Original Story: If you thought Eskom couldn’t possibly get worse, then congratulations on living in a constant state of bliss. If that’s the case, we’d like a taste of whatever’s growing in your gardEn. Please. Older, more cynical critics of Eskom (also known as ‘everybody else’) aren’t as easily fooled. Our doubts were…