Author: Trent Meikle

If you thought Spotify’s freemium model was weak before, just know that it could always get worse. The streamer’s latest change proves that. Spotify wants those freeloading customers to pony up for access to the platform’s lyrics feature according to Android Authority who first noticed the changes. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. For one, Spotify has been stripping the freemium model for years, rendering the final product almost unusable. And two, it “told” us as much when it first began experimenting with the idea of paywalling lyrics back in September last year. We were lucky enough to escape their wrath…

Look, if we were consistently pulling down scores of two from Wordle daily, we’d also spend the morning bragging about it to our nearest coworkers. But what happens when they inevitably tire of your incessant back-pats? You assert dominance and challenge them to something new, and display it on LinkedIn for everyone to see. At least we think that’s what LinkedIn was going for when it released a slew of Wordle-like games on its site. Let’s circle back and take this online Those games are Pinpoint, Crossclimb and Queens. Like any Worlde-like worth their salt, these are designed to only take a…

When Communities first rolled out onto WhatsApp, the lack of any substantial organisational features felt like a missed opportunity. Meta evidently felt the same, having just updated the messenger to include features that’ll help Communities (and groups) stay on top of things — like planning events and better replies. Better late than never, huh? The idea is to fix a real issue on WhatsApp: how often does your group chat dabble in hypotheticals when it comes to putting together a straightforward meetup, all for it to fall apart thanks to the few who need to be inundated with reminders before…

There’s no denying that Showmax is one of the best homegrown products South Africa has seen in years. Much of that praise deservedly goes to the streamer’s new partners — Comcast’s NBC Universal — a prolific figure within the media entertainment industry. Showmax, to its merit, lowered prices, refreshed the app and put a whole lot more content on there. And now, it’s the first streamer in South Africa to get its hands on Barbenheimer. If you spent the better part of 2023 under a rock (we get it, Tears of the Kingdom was pretty good), you might’ve missed a…

Meta’s quest for revenue Meta is losing a whole bunch of money, and water is wet. We know this. The Facebook company has been haemorrhaging money for years — but now the amount is large enough that people are starting to take notice. Meta’s first-quarter earnings were published last week and revealed that it lost close to $4 billion in revenue. So what’s causing the holdup? WhatsApp? Facebook? Nope. Reality Labs, Meta’s VR/AR play, is the real culprit. That’s according to GamesIndustry.biz, who reported that Meta’s Reality Labs pulled in $440-million over the last three months, though its operating losses…

Look, we’re not going to sugarcoat this one. South Africa’s petrol drivers are in for another rough month, with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DoE) confirming yet another price hike for May — the fourth month in a row — while also handing diesel drivers a price decrease. Again. The only solace we can offer petrol drivers is that Wednesday, 1 May, the same day that the DoE mutilates the petrol pumps, is also a public holiday. It helps that the hike is not quite as debilitating as in previous months, hovering around the 30c mark, but an…

This town ain’t big enough for the both of us… You probably know HMD. Not by name, perhaps, but as the owner and manufacturer of that little underground brand going by the name of Nokia. At least, that was the case. For years, HMD Global has threatened to step into the smartphone arena itself, and it’s finally following through. First to break ranks is the HMD Pulse — a trio of smartphones targeting lower-budgeted folk in Europe. That trio consists of the €140 (R2,800) HMD Pulse, €160 (R3,200) HMD Pulse+ and, as is smartphone law, a Pulse-branded Pro moniker that’ll…

We don’t need to remind you just how appalling YouTube’s ad ideologies are. With the platform’s war on ad-blockers and third-party apps that circumvent those advertisements, YouTube is in its worst state possible. Well, not quite. Google recently began experimenting with a feature that plays ads on, get this, a paused screen. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this is an instant money-spinner for the search giant. There is no escape In the latest earnings call from Alphabet, Philipp Schindler — Google’s senior VP and chief business officer — positively gushed about the experiment running on a limited…

Remember when Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) Gemini was once called Google Bard? Remember when that same LLM (large language model) cost the search giant — what was it? $100 million? We just like bringing that up sometimes. And since Google is rolling out Gemini to older Android devices globally, what better time to reminisce over that costly memory? Android 10 is back, baby Past blunders aside, Google is officially bringing Gemini to those Android devices still sporting Android 10 or higher. When Google initially rolled out the chatbot earlier this year, it was limited to Android 12 devices and up.…

Look. There are only so many times that you can rage quit after yet another 8th-place finish in Mario Kart before your friends stop playing with you. If the phrases “my controller isn’t a Pro” or “there’s drift on my controller” sound familiar, the new BattlerGC Pro controller is giving you one last chance to rise to the occasion. And in this corner… the BattlerGC https://youtu.be/xAo3pR_WJHs Coming from Retro Fighters, the BattlerGC Pro is, in our opinion, the ultimate GameCube controller. Obviously, we’re way past the Game Cube days — but those controllers remain a zeitgeist staple. And for good reason. Retro…