Author: Trent Meikle

If you’ve been eagerly awaiting a price decrease to pick up an Xbox Series X/S nearly five years after its release, we’ve got some bad news. Microsoft announced that, starting today, 1 May, the price of its Xbox consoles, controllers, and even a couple of its choicest games would see a price bump. The announcement is made more frustrating by its suddenness, leaving potential customers scrambling. Seriously, if you had your eye on an already pricey Xbox console, we’d suggest you place those orders ASAP – before the distributors and secondhand sellers catch on. If you didn’t immediately click ‘Add…

In the last year (and four months, but who’s counting?), the Google Play Store went from housing roughly 3.4 million apps available to download on Android devices to just 1.8 million as of today. That’s no rounding error. This was a concerted effort from Google to purge nearly half (around 47%) of the store’s entire library, according to data from Appfigures, via TechCrunch. Apple, for reference, has seen a surge in the number of apps allowed on the App Store, taking its total offerings up to 1.64 million, up from 1.6 million in the same period. So what gives? Where…

Artificial intelligence (AI) and WhatsApp may be a combo devised in the fiery depths of oblivion, but that isn’t stopping Meta from expanding the technology’s reach inside the messenger. What started as simple AI-powered customer support soon transitioned to a full-blown Meta AI assistant living on your home screen. And now, the Facebook owner wants to fill every nook and cranny of your private chats with AI. Why not try out these totally secure AI features? Tucked away in a blog post announced during the company’s first-ever LlamaCon, Meta briefly mentioned something it calls “Private Processing” that’ll deliver in-chat AI…

YouTube just dropped its latest quarterly update, and it’s a boon to those who do most of their watching on a smart TV, PlayStation 4/5, and the Xbox Series X/S. Today, Google announced a whole host of new features for the app, mostly improving navigation and discovery with some updated ‘shelves’, a newfangled ‘Podcasts’ tab, and most importantly of all: a way to shun those damn Shorts. Top shelf stuff Let’s start with the shelves. These are how the YouTube app for TVs (and consoles) distinguishes recommended content into different categories that you might be interested in – typically starting…

After what proved to be a very stable week for South Africa’s fuel price economy, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) has provided the country with another round of petrol and diesel price predictions that paint a very pretty picture. Whether you drive a diesel guzzler or a petrol polisher, or even just want to stock up on some illuminating paraffin for a potentially long winter, you’re in luck. Fuelling our love (and our cars) That’s only if you can restrain your fuel-buying habits until next Wednesday, 7 May. That’s typically when the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) adjusts…

As Samsung draws closer to the launch of the next generation series of Watches, the usual leaks typical of a Samsung launch are springing up. The latest concerns the return of the ‘Classic’ moniker that we last saw on the Galaxy Watch 6 Series, before Samsung decided to pull an Apple and go Ultra. A new report from Xpertick reveals that a Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic is in the works, judging by the still-unofficial device receiving Bluetooth SIG certification, and spotted bearing the model number SM-L505U. It’s not yet known whether the new Classic model will replace the Ultra, or…

While WhatsApp is always on the lookout for new features – perhaps something borrowed from Telegram or Signal – it toils endlessly to bring its less-looked-after versions up to scratch. The most neglected of the bunch is WhatsApp Web – the messenger’s web-based client, which still lacks one crucial feature: call support. WhatsApp Web on call Attempting to ring a mate using WhatsApp Web will prompt the user to download WhatsApp for Windows or Mac to get those features. That may soon change. Voice and video calls are finally wending their way to WhatsApp Web, as spotted by WABetaInfo. This follows…

It may be difficult to believe that the best thing to come out of Star Wars, since, well, Star Wars, is a no-nonsense political drama thriller that’s light on the laser swords and moving of objects with the mind, paying attention to the deeper lore at work, dialogue, and most importantly, the characters. That’s Andor for you. Think Better Call Saul, but in space. It really is that good. It may not come as a shock that Andor is as excellent as it is to anybody who has seen 2016’s Rogue One – a gritty prequel to the original Star Wars centred on rag-tag rebel…

There are few things quite as hilarious as watching Netflix attempt to describe the sound of a car or something similar through its closed captions. But if you’re tired of all those ambient noises disrupting your reading time, the streamer has introduced new dialogue-only subtitles, premiering alongside the final season of You. [cheers in slow motion] According to Netflix, nearly half of all viewing hours in the US involve watching content with subtitles or closed captions turned on. We’re guessing it’s a similar story elsewhere, too, which makes the decision a relatively simple one for the world’s largest streamer. Watchers…

If there’s anything we’re looking forward to more than the Nintendo Switch 2 itself, it’s the opening of a classic library of GameCube games and, if you have enough dough, a brand-new wireless GameCube controller to go along with it. While just about any Switch 2 controller will work for The Wind Waker or F-Zero GX, there’s still a question as to whether the new GameCube controller will work in reverse – on new Switch titles? Nintendo answers the call https://youtu.be/AmMxMVyWgvg On paper, it seems like a done deal. In a promotional trailer (above) shared around the time of the Switch 2,…