Author: Trent Meikle

A “purely technical” weekend of load shedding There we were – enjoying the fruits of a lazy, gaming-filled weekend when Eskom, SA’s supposed electricity provider saw fit to introduce Stage 3 load shedding, before only hours later implementing the devastating Stage 6 to ruin what little of the weekend we had left. The extended power cuts didn’t last long, however, before Eskom knocked the country back down to Stage 4 in the early hours of Monday, 24 February. The sudden return to form for Eskom is due to “multiple unit trips at Camden Power Station,” Eskom said in a post…

Anyone who doesn’t pull a face at the thought of going for a run is probably already familiar with Strava. But did you know that Strava has developed its very own AI, falling under the banner of ‘Athlete Intelligence’? It’s been locked in a beta state since last October, but now it’s finally stable enough for mass consumption. Yup, even you. You will, of course, need a subscription to Strava before you can take advantage of Strava’s AI, which “analyzes and summarizes key takeaways from subscribers.” If you did have access to the beta, you’ll notice that Strava is a…

It’s been more than 13 years since Bethesda returned to the world of The Elder Scrolls, with a whole bunch of… stuff in between, including at least as many re-releases of Skyrim in that time. We know that The Elder Scrolls VI is real, and now the leaks are really starting to pick up. According to known tipster eXtas1s (via Reddit), Bethesda’s sequel to the wildly popular Skyrim will be The Elder Scrolls VI: Hammerfell. eXtas1s’ source appears to be coming from a colleague of his, who offered a whole lot more information about the direction Bethesda will take for the…

UPDATE: After receiving confirmation from iStore SA, we have added pricing for the iPhone 16e 256/512GB models as well as the opening time for pre-orders locally. If you missed the news this morning, Apple announced the more affordable iPhone 16e last night as the newest member of the iPhone 16 family. It featured a starting price of $600 (∼R11,100) and a launch date of 28 February in the States, leaving hopeful South Africans scratching their chins. Well, no longer. The village iPhone A quick visit to the local iStore website shows that the iPhone 16e will get its start on…

Still eagerly awaiting a full release for Hades II? Well, tough. Supergiant Games, the team behind the arguable classic that is Hades is still tucked away in a lab somewhere, cooking up Hades II. Unless you own a PC of course. The highly-anticipated sequel has been available on Steam for quite some time now in early access, and it just got its second major update. One small leap for console players, one giant leap for Hades II That would be The Warsong Update, delivering more than 2,000 new voice lines and events, a God to charm some boons out of, and a new final boss before…

It’s not quite what we expected, but that’s okay. Apple has killed off the SE range and introduced the new iPhone 16e as a fully-fledged member of the iPhone 16 family. But this one isn’t like all the others. It, like the SE lineup before, features a more affordable price tag while still retaining that special sauce of the flagship 16 family – with some minor concessions, of course. Starting at $600 (∼R11,100), the iPhone 16e will go on sale on 28 February in the States, with pre-orders opening up tomorrow, 21 February. That price is, of course, before South…

Showmax being a proud product of South African heritage, has long championed accessibility for its African customers, made clear by the streamer’s latest bit of news. Kiswahili is now supported by the streamer’s UI on both the TV and mobile apps, offering a new avenue for Tanzanian subscribers where the language is the largest. Duo is watching you… Showmax sees the new addition as the logical next step in fulfilling its dream of becoming Africa’s “leading streaming service.” According to UNESCO, Kiswahili is one of the most-spoken languages in Sub-Saharan Africa, “as well as one of the 10 most widely…

We’ve got some bad news for all you solar PV system owners in South Africa. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has approved Eskom’s Retail Tariff Plan (RTP) that will effectively require residents – those who are still connected to the grid – to pay Eskom every month, whether they use electricity or not. Sometimes maybe good, sometimes… It’s not all bad news, however. Eskom’s proposed implementation for higher tariffs has been dramatically adjusted by Nersa, allowing the increased fixed charges to be spread out over the coming years. The recent revenue determination allowed Eskom a 12.74% hike,…

Anybody with a Nintendo Switch knows just how great the eShop Gold Points reward system is. Buy a digital game, and a few extra Gold Points are automatically added to your account ready to shave off a few bucks on your next purchase. Did you think we’d buy Suika Game at full price with our hard-earned cash? No. That was courtesy of Nintendo’s Gold Points. So what do you do with a beloved system? You kill it. Duh. Waaaah! Give us more money! Waaaaah! That’s what Nintendo is doing, anyway. In a post on the My Nintendo website, the Zelda and Mario maker confirmed…

MyBroadband Insights has published its 2024 Mobile Network Quality Report, pre-emptively answering the question on our lips: who’s got the best mobile network in South Africa? The report dished out awards to several of South Africa’s home-grown networks, ultimately crowning MTN as the ‘best’ overall mobile network over the year, leaving Vodacom, Telkom, Rain, and Cell C to squabble over 2nd place. The report spans from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024, comprising 1.17 million speed tests performed by 18,649 mobile data users. The year-long test includes data from “crowdsourced users” and “dedicated drive tests” (involving a mix of high-end…