Author: Trent Meikle

It’s taken a couple of weeks, but TymeBank has finally partnered up with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) as the latter seeks to use local bank branches to make smart ID and passport services readily available to everyone, regardless of bank, province, or branch. This makes it the eighth bank to join the DHA’s ranks, following the likes of Capitec, FNB, Absa, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Discovery Bank, and African Bank. It’s about Tyme “Through this partnership millions of South Africans will for the first time ever have access to a Smart ID and passport, many of whom live in…

It’s not often you hear about a new social media platform storming the app stores — especially not one that’s been grown and nurtured right here in South Africa. Discover Sport is that platform, unveiled at the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), aiming to “give every athlete, everywhere, a voice.” If the name wasn’t a dead giveaway, Discover Sport is a free, mobile-first, dedicated sports social network, weaving together content from professional athletes to their fans. There’s even enough room for ‘federations and media partners’ to promote their own advertisments content in the form of documentaries and…

Emirates, one of the world’s largest airlines, is hiring. But it’s not just looking for pilots or hosts to serve coffee. The airline confirmed today that it was looking for more than 200 folks to fill IT-related roles around the company. And the best bit? Emirates has cast its gaze over to South Africa to begin the hunt. To help facilitate what we’re expecting to be a rather large crowd of applications, the company said that it would be hosting two separate events around SA to better engage with all those interested. The first of those is scheduled for 18…

Running a business? Tired of constantly replenishing supplies? Takealot announced today that it was resurrecting the Takealot for Business platform, a B2B procurement service aiming to make restocking your office that much simpler, regardless of your stature as a startup, SMME, or well-known mega corporation. Getting down to Takealot for Business That’s the plan, anyway. Whether Takealot’s new B2B strategy will survive this second coming remains to be seen. With the division offering everything from office supplies, tech, furniture, and even catering supplies — on top of the 30-day interest-free payments, business-specific coupons, and rebates on offer — it’ll be…

Your YouTube Premium mooching days are over. Unless, of course, you happen to live with whichever champion invited you into the R150/m ‘Premium Family’ plan. Google, like Netflix, has reportedly begun flagging accounts that don’t reside alongside the primary account holder, forcing them to get with the programme, or get their own account. Making like Netflix That’s not new. Since at least 2023, Google has required all Family members to reside at the primary account holder’s location, but until now, it’s never really enforced the rule. Some moochers have reported receiving emails from Google warning them of the change. As…

When we half-jokingly said “it seems like just about everyone has an MVNO these days,” when Spar Mobile launched, we didn’t expect to cover the launch of Nedbank’s own mobile virtual network operator, Nedbank Connect, quite this soon. Nevertheless, it will arrive locally sometime this September. As you’ve probably guessed by this point, Nedbank Connect isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. It’s piggybacking off MTN just like nearly every other MVNO on the market, and the prices don’t appear particularly enticing. There is a level of flexibility, however, that might appeal to certain customers. Can you feel the Connection?…

Pivot! Pivot! You can always count on tech shows like next week’s IFA to supply the world with some of the oddest gadgets known to man, even if they’re technically just glorified concept art. Lenovo appears to be keeping that tradition alive, this time delivering a new concept laptop with a rotating display, switching between horizontal and portrait orientations on the fly. It’s known internally as Project Pivo. At least, that’s according to reliable leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks), who even shared an image of the device ahead of IFA in a post on X. Unfortunately, there’s not much more to…

This is starting to get out of hand. Spotify, easily the largest music streamer, which recently debuted new mixing tools to the excitement of… someone (probably), just announced something new. “Spotify Hifi?” you might be asking yourself, a hint of manic desperation in your voice. Uh, no. It’s adding direct messages, because why not? Spotify approves this message The next question on your lips might be “why?” That’s a valid question, seeing as how sending a link to your similarly-minded music mates works just as well, if not better. It’ll even let you make the link you send look all…

You haven’t been truly annoyed until you’ve tried to use the original Nintendo Switch Pro controller on Ninty’s latest console: the Nintendo Switch 2. Yeah, it works just as well as it did on the old hardware, but with one major flaw: it can’t wake the Switch 2. That means trudging up to the console to turn it on physically. Over and over. We get it; first-world problems and all that, but after you’ve sunk into the couch for what feels like the hundredth time, only to get right back up in a huff, that Switch 2 Pro controller starts…

If you thought something looked slightly off on your YouTube videos these past few weeks, you’re not going crazy. In a move that should surprise absolutely nobody, Google has been putting AI where you didn’t ask for it — secretly editing your uploads because, well, it can. All for the sake of improving upload quality, of course. A not-so-secret experiment At least, that’s what Rene Ritchie, YouTube’s head of editorial, had to say on the subject in a post on X. The experiment hit “select” YouTube Shorts earlier this year, using “traditional machine learning” to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in…