Author: Trent Meikle

You may want to sit down for this. What we’re about to say might shock you. Are you sitting? Good. Eskom confirmed yesterday that Stage 4 would stick around for a while longer, due to a lack of diesel. Are you shocked? So are we. Not because Eskom is keeping load shedding around. Because Eskom hasn’t pushed us a stage or two higher. To make matters even worse, the power provider confirmed the shutdown of the Camden power station. Yes, the entire station. Failure to dock #Loadshedding Thread Loadshedding will unfortunately remain implemented at Stage 4 throughout the night and…

Netflix has released a second trailer for The Playlist – a miniseries chronicling the path Spotify took to becoming the top music streamer in the world. The series looks to be a serious business drama, with all the meetings, parties and backstabbings you might expect from the story. Charting Spotify’s story If you were a fan of David Fincher’s The Social Network, then you’ll probably enjoy The Playlist. Though, if you aren’t a fan of subtitles, then this one may not be for you. The series was shot in Swedish which, considering Spotify was originally launched there, makes sense. Read…

An investigation has been looking into some of Wall Street’s largest banks. Again. American regulators are addressing the banks’ use of unauthorized messaging apps and how they handle information passing through them. To counter this, the investigators have forced the banks to hire a ‘WhatsApp Cop’ to ensure these apps aren’t used again. On top of this, the eleven banks involved must pay fines that exceed $2 billion. You’re under arrest – would you like to block this contact? Amongst the offenders were Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Each has been forced to hire…

A lack of jet fuel at Cape Town International Airport could lead to issues with schedules and possibly cause flight cancellations, according to the Airline Association of Southern Africa (AASA). “These restrictions are now likely to result in disruptions to airline schedules and possibly cancelled flights at a time when the industry and the economy can ill afford it,” AASA said. We don’t have liftoff The airport believes that the shortage won’t lead to any disruptions, with a shipment of fuel arriving in the early days of October. There are still a few days’ worths of jet fuel left to…

After years of spending all of its time on hit-and-miss movies and TV shows, Netflix can finally add ‘game developer’ to its Twitter bio. Yesterday, the company announced its own internal gaming studio, Netflix Games, based in Finland, Helsinki. Hello Netflix Games This isn’t Netflix’s first rodeo but it is the company’s first internal studio. Earlier this year, Netflix paid enough money to call NextGames – another Helsinki-based mobile dev – its own. This joins the company’s other pair of devs – Boss Fight Studio and Night School Studio. Netflix has released around 26 games, though none have performed nearly…

In this age of expensive data, Capitec Connect has emerged –  that’s the bank’s own mobile virtual network operator. With it, Capitec plans to break into the mobile market with cheap data that never expires. It’s managing this by piggybacking off of the Cell C network, which itself piggybacks off the MTN network. “South Africans have been complaining about the cost of data. It’s expensive and complicated. Bundle pricing, off-peak and peak rates, and the fact that your data expires are all things that make no sense,” said Gerrie Fourie, Capitec’s CEO. Better than all the rest Yes, data bought…

Video and audio calls on WhatsApp will be far easier to join soon once Meta rolls out Call Links – something that Zoom made popular during its run as the video calling app. Now, WhatsApp is borrowing the feature, which lets users simply tap a link to join a call. One-Click Wonder Mark Zuckerberg announced Call Links through a Facebook post on Monday, saying that it would roll out this week. He also mentioned that the company is testing video calls that support up to 32 users. He failed to give any more information on when we can expect that…

As the FIFA World Cup draws nearer, participating players in the tournament have called on the tournament hosts for an easier way to view their stats after each match. The football conglomerate has responded with the FIFA Player App, offering extensive insights into players’ achievements and failures. Better than FIFA 23 And this isn’t just some passing and shooting tracker app. The FIFA Player App offers blow-by-blow stats such as when players make movements to receive or move the ball onwards. Each stat tracked is accompanied by a video of the player doing the movement. Of course, the app tracks…

Vodacom and Showmax have teamed up, releasing a mobile-only Showmax package that gives buyers of the deal free data, specifically earmarked for Showmax viewing. Vodacom customers rejoice The bundle, which costs R70/m, gives buyers 10GB of data to use for the first three months. Following that, it’ll drop down to 3GB every month, a rather drastic drop-off. Even so, for R70/m, it’s not a bad deal. Showmax claims that using the streamer’s new Max Data Saving mode allows you to watch content using only 50MB per hour. This means you’re given 60 hours’ worth of video at the lowest quality…

The launch of Disney+ in South Africa has been… successful – though not as successful as it should have been. This can be attributed to the streamer’s sub-par reskin of the Hotstar app and its failure to launch on many big-name devices. Mickey Mouse wants to change that… soon. Disney has decided to grace Xbox consoles with its presence, the first console in South Africa to receive the app, later this month. Wake us up when Disney+ launches on PlayStation Starting from 29 September, both old and current-gen Xbox consoles will have access to the Disney+ app on the Xbox…