Author: Trent Meikle

DStv is slowly coming to realise that treating your customers right might actually equal more customers and eventually, more money. Or at least, Canal+, the new owners of MultiChoice, seem like it’s coming to realise it. The pay-TV broadcaster just announced that it was adding four free pop-up channels to celebrate the holidays. That’s on top of the broadcaster ‘upsizing’ customers throughout Christmas, slashing decoder costs, and opening up DStv Premium to all decoder customers for a weekend. “… As families reunite over the festive season, DStv is coming to the party – and since we never arrive empty-handed, we’re…

After a stellar October for PS Plus Essential members, which offered subscribers access to three ‘free’ games per month (including heaters like Alan Wake 2 and Cocoon), we didn’t get our hopes up for November. The December lineup is a bit of a mixed bag, bringing subscribers five games as a gift. Christmas come early? The only issue is that the games included aren’t what we’d call respectable. Don’t get us wrong. We’ve looked for an excuse to try out Lego Horizon Adventures since it launched just over a year ago, and Neon White looks like a genuinely terrific puzzle-platformer that’ll entertain for a couple of…

After fibre network operator (FNO) Octotel revealed that it would bring South Africa’s first 10Gbps home-fibre line to the Western Cape as of tomorrow, it left us hanging with no price in sight. We never expected it to be cheap, but now ISP Vanilla has confirmed Octotel’s multi-gigabit pricing as well as our fears. Until further notice, the FNO’s coverage will only include Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs, the CBD, Atlantic Seaboard, and Blouberg. That list will continue to grow as the FNO determines demand and receives feedback from the ISPs offering the service, including Afrihost, Atomic Access, Mweb, and Webafrica…

By this time next week, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) will have installed December’s official petrol and diesel prices at pumps across South Africa. However, the final decision is likely to be made this Friday, 28 November, meaning the Central Energy Fund’s (CEF) latest predictions are, unfortunately, relatively close to the final product. Petrol and diesel take a dive for the holidays While the DMRE typically reaches a final verdict internally on the final Friday of each month, it typically publishes the official adjustments the following week, ahead of the official adjustment. As ever, these adjustments will…

One of the more difficult aspects of treating patients in a hospital (aside from actually treating the patients) is keeping a close eye on them. In a bid to make that bit easier for everyone involved, but especially nurses, Corsano Health today announced a partnership with Netcare Limited to bring 24-hour monitoring to all of its general wards — representing some 6,000 beds — in the form of smart, medical-grade wearables. Stay strapped, even in the hospital Corsano won’t hand over the goods all at once. First, the smart wearable will undergo an “extensive pilot” at a ‘flagship’ Netcare facility,…

Lofty ambitions for iOS 27 Now that Apple’s hardware line has completely concluded for 2025, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is left reporting on the company’s next bit of software — iOS 27. Apple previously made the jump from iOS 19 to 26 earlier this year to help avoid any muddle, which, in turn, heaped several spoonfuls of confusion onto our plate. iOS 27 may not be as exciting as a new iPhone, M-something chipset, or even the flashy offensive Apple typically goes for when there is a new software update on the horizon. Instead of half-assing several new features, Gurman reckons that…

With the holiday season coming up, it may not be the best time to have any Fallout fans at home. Or at least, Fallout fans who’ve already seen the new Pip-Boy 3000 1:1 replica, made to imitate the wrist-watch computer that Vault-Tec survivors are so fond of. You may just be coerced into dropping R5,000+ ($300) to pick it up. Pipped to the Boy Fortunately, most of the Fallout 3/New Vegas crowd are well into adulthood and can either purchase their own, or maturely stand by as they drop the cash on rent or servicing their car. If there was ever a time to shirk…

As though Spotify expected an influx of newcomers immediately after it announced yet another price hike, the music streaming behemoth will finally make it easier to transfer music over from your previous service. It’s an incredibly useful service that third parties have offered for quite some time, though with varying results. Spotify supreme? Don’t expect much to change on that front, however. Spotify hasn’t developed something completely new in-house. Instead, it’s partnered with one of those third parties — TuneMyMusic — and simply integrated the service into the Spotify app. This, of course, only allows you to bring playlists into the app,…

It may not have the prestige of a Nintendo Direct or PlayStation showcase, but it’s strangely inspiring to see that Microsoft is still plugging away at this whole gaming thing, despite the many recent missteps. Last night’s Xbox Partner Preview gave us a glimpse at what’s in store for the Xbox hardware, though importantly, from third-party developers. That means no Elder Scrolls, Halo, or Starfield announcements. Whew. We’ve spared you the minute-long Aston Martin ad for 007 First Light, for instance, instead reserving the slots on this list for the biggest and most interesting reveals of the night, of which only a few grabbed…

WhatsApp’s very first feature, ‘About’, is making a comeback in 2025. Except now it looks a whole lot more like Instagram’s Note feature, or we guess, Instagram Notes look a whole lot like WhatsApp’s ‘About’. We’re not entirely sure. Either way, Meta announced the return of the feature in a blog post yesterday. Is that updog? “Even before we brought the world private and secure messaging, we made it simple for you to quickly share what’s up in your life. Today we’re reintroducing and improving About, making it more visible, timely, and easier to use,” WhatsApp wrote. WhatsApp makes it…