Author: Trent Meikle

We finally get it. Meta’s recent restructuring which involved laying off over 10,000 employees, many under WhatsApp’s wing, wasn’t the bone-headed move we were led to believe it was. It was actually a genius ploy that put Meta’s strongest foot forward: AI. Specifically, the company has plans in the works to make the Meta AI chatbot even smarter by giving it a decent memory. A trip down WhatsApp’s memory lane The change was first reported by WABetaInfo, and spotted in the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.24.22.9 update. It will be released to the general public as part of a future…

Five million subscribers later, Netflix slows down When we wrote about Netflix’s staggering subscriber count totalling 260 million in January, we thought that was the end of it. Despite cancelling some of our favourite series and subsequently greenlighting even more of Zack Snyder’s work, the platform somehow continues to gain subscribers. It brings the figure up to 287.7 million after Q3 in 2024 – a five million rise from Q2 2024. Revenue, unsurprisingly, is also up. That’s all apparently thanks to shows such as The Perfect Couple and Nobody Wants This rather than the budget-heavy Kaos that saw the door just two months after…

When YouTube first announced its intentions to introduce more tiers under the Premium banner, we hoped it would involve paring YouTube Music away from the service and leave a cheaper, ad-free YouTube experience in its wake. That… seems like too good an idea, entirely ensuring Google would skip it. Instead, it’s reviving the old ‘Lite’ tier, which experienced a short two-year stay in only a few countries, removing the ads from YouTube (and nothing else) for a cheaper price before it was unceremoniously shut down before it could spread its wings. Now, it’s “testing a different version of Premium Lite,” in…

Apple let loose a reimagined iPad Air (2024) toting an M2 chipset earlier this year and, if you can stomach the price, a bigger, brighter, 13in display – its biggest contribution to this generation. Stuff has since been saddled with the somewhat dimmer though still-impressive 11in display and the lowest storage option available – 128GB. That’s still a bump in the right direction. If you aren’t all that fussed about watching Netflix or booting up Clash of Clans on a bigger display, you’ll be more than happy with the bog-standard R13,000 iPad Air we’re rocking for this review. Unless the last-gen iPad…

The future of retro gaming is here. Well, almost. Analogue, re-makers of fine retro (often Nintendo) gaming tech, is just about ready to put the finishing touches on its most ambitious project yet – a “reimagining” of the iconic N64. It’s wisely going by the name ‘Analogue 3D’ to avoid tangoing with Nintendo directly. Not just any N64 Analogue 3D Introducing Analogue 3D. A reimagining of the N64. In 4K resolution. Perhaps the greatest multiplayer system of all time. Analogue 3D is the worlds first 100% compatible with every original N64 game ever made. Region Free. Bluetooth LE. Dual-band Wifi.…

MTN, if you were wondering, is still South Africa’s leading mobile network. That’s according to a fresh report from MyBroadband Insights, which honoured the operator with the same title back in Q1 2024, and again in Q2, ultimately awarding second place to Vodacom, leaving Rain, Telkom, and Cell C to vie for third place. And nothing has changed since then. Aside from a couple of arbitrary numbers that prove Rain – one of SA’s newcomers in the mobile operator arena – is actually trying to bring its overall network quality up to scratch, despite the… *checks notes* fifth-place finish. Again. But more…

Well, it finally happened. Petrol and diesel prices are (likely) going up come November. Despite months of petrol and diesel shortfalls, our luck has taken a turn for the worst. We’re referring to the royal ‘we’ here, after the Central Energy Fund (CEF) released its latest crop of petrol price predictions, captured on 14 October, promising a price hike for both petrol and diesel next month. Sure, it’s a far cry from the R1+ increase the country experienced in March, but after five glorious months that saw prices falling continually, we’re not all that excited by the prospect of paying…

It’s been a minute (and eleven years) since Fujifilm had anything to do with the ‘M’ series of budget mirrorless cameras. We think we know why – it has something to do with adding a few more zeroes to Fuji’s bank account. Now, it’s rejuvenating the line-up, entirely skipping the X-M2, 3, and 4 and jumping right ahead into the X-M5, which is set to turn up on South Africa’s shores in November. Jarvis, turn on “Vlog” mode https://youtu.be/pUIliXGxXrE Fujifilm’s letting the X-M5 loose on those buyers who are still stuck apologising for their smartphone camera in the Instagram comments…

Stuff recently got to dig its claws into the iPhone 16 Pro. We’re not trying to pull the wool over your eyes; this is the latest, and most technically powerful iPhone Apple has put out – matching even that of the Pro Max’s hardware, minus the battery and display. It… doesn’t look like it, but trust us. This is the real thing. The point we’re so crudely getting at here is that the latest generation hasn’t done much to separate itself from all the rest. And yet here we are, reviewing the iPhone 16 Pro. Or, at least, reviewing all…

Heritage Day has already come and gone, but HP doesn’t mind celebrating the occasion past the holiday’s sell-by date. In collaboration with RGB Gaming, HP is on the hunt for South Africa’s hottest gaming developers through the GameOn hackathon. And, hopefully, shower the winners with money. The announcement was unclear. Before you start worrying about the prizes, someone needs to win the bloody thing first. Doing so involves beating out the other competitors taking part, which requires your team to design a game that “celebrates South African Heritage, blending culture, storytelling, and creativity.” And… be good. Eskommando, anyone? It’s in…