Author: Trent Meikle

Ah, Bixby. Samsung’s answer to the infinitely more popular (and arguably better) Siri that Apple cultivated all the way back in 2011. We’ve dealt with Bixby for the past six years – only ever calling upon its services as a virtual assistant accidentally. Until you remember that you can turn it off, that is. But Samsung’s latest AI additions to the helper might warrant a resurrection from the ‘disabled apps’ list. Specifically, the South Korean conglomerate is rolling out Bixby Text Calling – a feature that’ll answer phone calls for you. Hey Siri Uh, hey Bixby? Picture this — you’re…

Yesterday saw the launch of Sony’s latest piece of hardware – the PSVR 2. There’s just one teensy little problem – the cost. Do you have R13,000+ just lying around? Yeah, us neither. And that’s without factoring in what you’ll pay to get your hands on one of the console’s new games. Don’t let that dwell on your mind too much, though. PlayStation’s first venture into the virtual world didn’t perform exceptionally well (at first). But in the six years since it launched, its catalogue of games has grown, building up a solid enough foundation for the PSVR 2. Now,…

We’ve got less than a week to go before the Department of Energy (DoE) makes March’s petrol and diesel prices official across South Africa. According to the Central Energy Fund’s latest round of predictions, it’s not looking so good for either petrol or diesel drivers. But we’ll get to that. Today, we actually have some good news sprinkled in, however minor it may be. Anything to help offset next week’s expected price hikes is good in our books. The “Good” News Finance minister Enoch Godongwana says the National Treasury will not increase the General fuel levy and Road Accident Fund…

Internet from anywhere We’ve been waiting for Elon Musk’s Starlink to roll out for years. According to a report from PCMag, that just might be happening. This isn’t an official rollout of the service, mind you. No, that’s apparently still in the pipeline. SpaceX has begun sending out emails to interested parties, offering a “global roaming service” that works “almost anywhere on land in the world,” for those that can’t access the service regularly. Two people reportedly received the email despite being outside Starlink’s list of available countries. The two people in question told PCMag that they signed up for…

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was always going to have a tough go of it. It was the series that Marvel chose to kick off Phase 5 of the MCU, while simultaneously introducing the series’ next ‘big-bad’ — bringing a scope far too massive to a series whose primary focus has always been on small stories (and people). That isn’t to say that there aren’t things that didn’t work. The scope of the Quantum Realm and all the quirky, eccentric characters that it brings with it was something we were interested in seeing more of. And when Kang the Conqueror…

The Western Cape, speaking at the recent State of the Province Address (SOPA 2023), reiterated its plans to become more independent, pulling further away from Eskom’s national grid, in the hopes of providing more power to its residents. The province’s premier, Alan Winde, said that the Western Cape was one of the few bright spots in the country’s future – at least where the electricity sector is concerned. The province’s main and eventual goals point towards energy security, supplying more power to the essentials – water, connectivity, and education — to better assist businesses to maintain their standards of operations.…

With Samsung’s latest range of flagships hitting shelves soon, it’s time to make a difficult (for some) decision: hang onto your old S22+, or bite the bullet and spend big on the S23+? It’s not a decision to be taken lightly, especially when there’s R24,000 on the line. Just think of how many PlayStation 5s you could buy instead (two!). But that’s why we’re here. To help settle the decision. Not the R24,000 bit. That’s between you and your budget. You’ve probably already made a subconscious choice but this might sway you in one direction or the other. Sitting pretty…

Robots are (mostly) brilliant. And they’re only going to get better. We’ve already gotten ones that can play the drums, tee off at the course and one that’s eyeing up humanity’s jobs (looking at you, Boston Dynamic’s Atlas). Then you get those whose only discernible purpose is to frighten the population. Meet SPIDAR – The University of Tokyo’s flying, crawling, terrifying robotic spider. SPIDAR isn’t a typo, is supposed to be a clever acronym for ‘SPherIcally vectorable and Distributed rotors assisted Air-ground amphibious quadruped Robot’. Good luck saying that three times quickly. If you’ve partaken in our What Stuff is…

Mario has always been a major facet in the zeitgeist – whether it was the early games or the movie that’s releasing later this year (or that one from the 90s). And it’s showing no sign of disappearing from pop culture any time soon. Mario will be a staple forever. At least, that’s what the creators of MarioGPT were going for. A platform that makes use of artificial intelligence to build an infinite number of levels for you to conquer. Until Nintendo gets a whiff, that is. The researchers behind the project currently belong to the IT University of Copenhagen.…

If you’ve noticed that Twitter’s feed has somehow gotten worse – specifically from Monday morning, we’re sorry to say that you’re a victim of poor management. Plenty of people – regardless of whether or not they follow the owner of the big blue bird – have noticed an increased number of Musk’s tweets showing up in their ‘For You’ feeds. Usually, that’s to be expected from an account that’s collected 128 million followers. But… something is different. Something is wrong.  ‘More. More!’ ∼ Elon Musk, probably And it’s all because Musk’s fragile ego can’t handle his tweets not being the talk…