Author: Trent Meikle

Following a few months of rumours, Garmin has unleashed its long-speculated Forerunner 955 and 255 watches. Technically, we’re getting six new watches from Garmin, since each has multiple versions to choose from. The Forerunner 955 has a solar or non-solar option. The 255 releases with a 255s version alongside, with both the 255 and 255s offering music or non-music varieties. Here’s a brief rundown of what each of the different versions consists of. Before you get too excited, though, local details have yet to be announced. Expect some news on that front shortly. Forerunner 255 First up is the Forerunner…

The Vivo Y76 5G hit South African shelves in April, despite launching at the end of 2021 for overseas folks. Still, good things require patience, right? That makes this one of the first Vivo devices to release this year in South Africa. It doesn’t disappoint, especially at this price point. It starts at R9,000 in South Africa, which for this phone feels slightly undervalued. Vivo’s phone certainly won’t win any awards, but it may be nominated for a few. We used the Vivo Y76 for a week, and it replaced a Samsung Galaxy S10 during that time. Besides a few…

Yes, you read that right. The Department of Transport is looking to introduce even more rules and regulations. The department says that it hopes to encourage more environmentally friendly road use with the changes. This would be a great idea… if SA’s public transport wasn’t as terrible as it is. The proposed changes come from a revised white paper that the Department released earlier this week. Here are the proposals the department is considering: Higher licence fees Stricter parking policies Road pricing or area licensing Access restrictions for private cars If South Africa was a first-world country, this wouldn’t be…

Vodacom and Viu South Africa have joined forces to give Vodacom customers free data along with their Viu subscription plans. When signing up for Viu, Vodacom customers will be given additional data to enjoy Viu on the go. Viu is a subscription-based streaming service that originated in Hong Kong and has since expanded to plenty of other countries, reaching SA a little over two years ago. The current partnership will help solidify Viu’s spot in the South African streaming market. What to watch To really know if a streaming service is worth your time, you need to give it a…

Expand, in case you weren’t aware, is an app that has partnered with Nedbank to give away money. Every night at 20:00, people start playing in the hopes they’ll take home cash prizes. The best of the bunch for the night can take home R10,000.  Not too shabby. And all you need to do is be very familiar with brands in South Africa, which may or may not count as brainwashing. Over R5.5million has already been claimed from the Expand app since its October 2021 launch. So, of course, the app is keen on getting more people playing. Because it’s…

The ANC is searching for ways to expand sports in South Africa. The political party, according to the Sunday Times, suggests that South African sports should be free to watch, via the SABC. The suggestion comes from the ANC’s own documents set for the party’s conference in July. If these rules see the light of day, it would be some time after the conference. The ANC hopes to introduce a ban on exclusive sports broadcasting rights being sold. This would keep Multichoice (and DStv) from controlling the market in South Africa. It would also give the SABC a lifeline to…

Volkswagen is gearing up for the launch of its latest vehicle in South Africa – the Taigo SUV coupé. To celebrate, Volkswagen is hosting a free customer event. It will be held on the weekend of 4 and 5 of June, at the Prison Break Market in Joburg. The Taigo SUV launches in South Africa as early as next week, joining VW’s T-Cross and T-Roc. The car launches with a 6.5in display as standard for its Life model, with an 8in infotainment screen for the Style and R-Line editions. For the latter two, there’s an optional second 8in Discover Media…

Twitter is down in the dumps again. This time, it has nothing to do with Elon Musk. The platform is accused of selling its users’ telephone numbers without permission. As if people would have been okay with this if Twitter had filled its customers in beforehand. The company faces a fine of $150 million (R2.35 billion) as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US. It’s not as if Twitter just did this recently – reports indicate that this was ongoing for the better part of six years. Twitter is in violation of an agreement…

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has announced plans to make South African citizens sort out their own Smart IDs and Passports. This is via self-service kiosks, which the DHA plans to roll out before the end of next year. The announcement comes not long after the DHA announced they were opening more branches, including branches in a select few shopping centres. Home Affairs minister Njabulo Nzuza announced the self-service kiosks during his budget vote speech, saying that users will be able to reprint birth, marriage, and death certificates. This is in addition to the ability to apply for a…

This Saturday, 28 May, is the UEFA Champions League final, which pits Real Madrid and Liverpool against one another in order to determine the true Champions of Europe. The loser will head back to Liverpool empty-handed (or to Madrid, but this isn’t happening). This time around, the match won’t only be shown through SuperSport – which has been the case for ages. But now, SuperSport has negotiated a deal that allows the final to be broadcast on Showmax Pro too. This is the first time Showmax will play host to a Champions League match. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.…