Author: Trent Meikle

Anyone hoping for even a slight reprieve at South Africa’s fuel pumps this February will want to shut their eyes immediately and head to the nearest petrol station as soon as physically possible (with your eyes open, we hope). The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has published the official fuel price adjustments for February 2025 and, as expected, they’re not what we’d call pretty. As is tradition, the new prices won’t hit South Africa’s pumps until the first Wednesday of the new month, falling on 5 February. That leaves South Africans plenty of time to get their affairs…

Excellent news for load-shedding The rather short nightmare is officially over. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Eskom suspended load shedding, a day earlier than was initially predicted. The energy company announced the departure in a post on X, noting that it had managed to restore its emergency reserves following ten load-shedding-free months. Eskom first announced the return to rolling blackouts on Friday, 31 January, stating that several breakdowns – requiring full repairs – forced the company to rely on its energy reserves. With repairs on five coal-fired generation units now complete (adding 2,930MW back to the grid) and…

UPDATE (31/01/2025): Only a few hours after Eskom issued this warning, it was confirmed that the energy company will bring back load shedding to South Africa, ten months after it was suspended. Stage 3 will come into effect at 17h00 on Friday, 31 January 2025. Eskom has not yet confirmed how long load shedding will stick around for just yet. ORIGINAL STORY: The day that South Africans have dreaded for nearly a year is finally upon us. Kinda. Eskom (now that’s a name we haven’t for a long time) just issued the first load shedding warning since March 2024. Let’s first…

The one thing we’ll say in Netflix’s favour is that it doesn’t give up. Despite overwhelming evidence that it’s in over its head, and undeserving of a second chance, it’ll keep trudging along until it eventually stumbles upon the right answer. Netflix, the streamer, will host Tudum the Event on the platform directly on 31 May 2025. Ta-da! If you weren’t aware, Tudum is Netflix’s “premier global fan event”, named, perhaps unsurprisingly, for the ‘TUDUM’ sound effect that’s become synonymous with the streamer. And our favourite shows being cancelled, now that we think about it. It’s a place where Netflix…

Yesterday, Sony announced the new PS5 and PS4 games joining the PS Plus subscription as part of the ‘Essential’ and up tier – High on Life, Payday 3 (yikes), and Pac-Man World Re-Pac. These are the titles that subscribers can keep forever (as long as users claim the games in a timely fashion and keep their subscriptions active). But, in the PS5’s now five-year-long lifespan, there’s always been a nagging worry at the back of our minds. When would Sony finally stop catering to the PS4 fanbase, and focus solely on PS5 titles? This model has potentially harmed an all-PS5 line-up of games…

Ah, Asteroids. One of the most iconic games of the shady underbelly of arcades is turning 46. So of course, Atari has a 45th birthday celebration lined up for 2025. Don’t ask us why Atari left the party this late – but it appears as though it was worth the wait. Atari, in collaboration with Nubeo, has announced a set of Asteroids-themed-watches that look, well there’s no other word for it: awesome. Watch this (from afar) We should hope so, considering the R9,300 ($500) price. But it’s more than just a pretty Asteroids face (that we absolutely wouldn’t mind sacrificing a…

Honor really knows its ABCs, huh? At an event hosted in Kramerville on 29 January 2025, Honor South Africa proved as much when it debuted its latest mid-range device, the Honor X9c, a successor to the Chinese company’s previous mid-range efforts – the X9a and X9b. Honor took its mid-range game to a whole new level with the X9b, boasting a near-indestructible screen (and similar body) that served to bolster the phone’s already decent specs. The X9c has kicked it up a notch in 2025, delivering even better specs and a shell that’s supposedly just as impervious to damage as…

Now that your budget isn’t being skimmed in search of those Eskom-fighting machines, it’s time to put that money elsewhere. Perhaps a cordless vacuum? Or maybe a smart fan to beat the heat? What about an air purifier? Now we understand that might not sit atop your list of priorities – it sure didn’t for us. But after a few weeks in the company of Solenco’s big-boy purifier – the 803 (nicknamed Thuza) – our tune has changed. We mean that almost literally. A nearly full-time assault on the very air we breathe will have that effect. But in this case, that’s…

With a little under a week to go before the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) adjusts the country’s petrol and diesel prices, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) has released another of its daily predictive snapshots which foretells yet another massive price hike is on the cards for motorists – despite a similarly rough January in SA. This won’t be a small increase, either. The CEF’s latest snapshot, captured on 28 January, predicts a minimum R1+ increase for diesel drivers, while petrol drivers will have to suffer through an equally tough increase near the R0.90 mark. It might not…

Two of the entities that made Drake’s life a living hell in 2024, Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG), have come together to ink a new multi-year agreement. One that could finally see Spotify deliver on its promises to bring hi-res audio to subscribers – nearly four years later – as part of a streaming tier aimed at “superfans”. The phrase being thrown around by both Spotify and UMG is “Streaming 2.0” which is seemingly where the idea to charge dedicated customers more for certain privileges was born. It lines up with UMG’s philosophy on the subject at the very…