Chinese tech brand Oppo has launched its new headline wearable device, the Oppo Watch X, in South Africa. It has done so just in time. With the departure of Fitbit from South African shores, the wearable technology landscape was beginning to look a little bare. Oppo is obviously hoping that its new smartwatch will fill at least a few gaps in the market, having taken a few pages from Samsung’s book and partnering up with Google to include Wear OS on the device. Since Wear OS combines Samsung, Fitbit, and Google’s software, we suspect the experience will be good. It…
Author: Brett Venter
Meta and LG have teamed up to accelerate the former’s extended reality (XR) aims, according to an announcement last week. Exactly what this will involve hasn’t been made clear but the smart money is on LG providing advanced display tech for future Meta devices. This makes a sort of sense. Since LG left the smartphone game, it’s continued to churn out components that would also suit virtual reality tech. But that doesn’t quite fit the stated aim of the partnership, which is to “…combine the strengths of both companies across products, content, services and platforms to drive innovation in customer…
Meta’s services have almost exclusively been about finding new ways to gather user data. This is especially true of the company’s hardware. If it’s able to provide an additional service at the same time, as was the case with the now-defunct Portal surveillance gear smart speakers, all the better. It should come as no surprise that the company’s VR kit will be the next Meta-owned hardware to start reporting back to the mothership. Well, reporting back… more. The Meta Quest and its successors have always shared some information with Meta but it has been confined to info required to keep…
Apple’s Project Titan, a long-rumoured and speculated-upon attempt by the company to design and launch its own electric vehicle, has concluded. That’s according to a Bloomberg report which claims that the EV project has been shuttered and staff involved have been moved to other tasks. According to the report, some of the engineers involved have been retasked to work on generative AI for the company. It’s almost a pity, knowing that we’re unlikely to see a self-driving EV from Apple (with a R2 million starting price tag), but given the number of delays to the decade-long speculative project, perhaps it’s…
We’ve often said that nobody does OLED better than LG. This remained true during our time with the company’s OLED evo 55CS3 4K TV set as it proved that we’ll let a few things slide if we’re allowed to spend time in front of one of these screens. You shouldn’t expect perfection from a R21,000 TV from any brand and LG’s offering is no exception. Still, the focus has been placed where it matters most. The panel is the main thing and if there’s nothing else you take from this review, know that this one is splendid. The semi-affordable price…
The Energizer Hard Case P28K, revealed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year, hasn’t been designed specifically for load shedding but it’ll handle the task just fine. A distant sibling of 2019’s Energizer Power Max P18K Pop, which also debuted at MWC and was the first smartphone we might have described as ‘girthy’. The Power Max P18K had one notable feature to thank for its thickness around the middle — an 18,000mAh battery. The Hard Case P28K, if you’re good at extrapolating numbers, has a similar feature. A 28,000mAh battery adorns its back, offering at least a week of uptime.…
Vodacom, in addition to raising prices this week, is also heading back to court. The ‘Please Call Me’ matter involving Kenneth Nkosana Makate, which saw the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) hand down a weighty judgment earlier this month, isn’t over. The mobile service provider and technology giant has applied for leave to appeal the Makate judgment in South Africa’s Constitutional Court, saying it believes “…the judgment and order are fundamentally flawed.” Vodacom’s reasoning Vodacom said, “It is apparent from the dissenting judgment of the SCA that the majority judgment overlooked or ignored many of the issues between the parties…
Google has teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an American NGO dedicated to… well, the environment. It’s right there in the name. The pair have come up with MethaneSAT, a system of satellites and artificial intelligence that can detect farts from space. Okay, fine, it can technically detect burps as well, but it’s not the product’s aim. You can still have Taco Bell, onions, pork sausages, or whatever else it is that makes you pass gas. Yes, your poo-powered tractor is probably also safe (for now). Google and the EDF have their eyes on large game. Google’s gas…
There’s a reason why Samsung charges more for its Ultra handsets than any other phone (besides the folding ones) in its stable and the Galaxy S24 Ultra is no different. This is the very pinnacle of Samsung’s hardware for 2024 and, therefore, it’s also the best Android phone to launch this year. And it’s only February. We’re guessing on that whole ‘best Android phone this year’ thing, obviously, but history has shown that Samsung usually wins the race early in the year. Smartphone releases have produced some diminishing returns for the South Korean tech maker of late, however. Sure, it’s…
The Mouse Company is attempting to make online advertising whimsical by launching Disney’s Magic Words. Instead of a karaoke feature for kids, it’s a method for making advertising served alongside streaming video content better suit the mood of what’s on-screen. If you guessed that this is powered by artificial intelligence, you were probably paying attention to the headline. Well done. It’s not much of a blind guess, either, as every second new feature launched since 1 January 2023 has been backed by the technology. Here’s how Disney’s version of it will work. Disney worry me In brief, Disney’s Magic Words…