Just days after South Africa’s PlayStation distributor confirmed the launch of the PS5 Slim in April, we’re hearing news of Sony’s next big thing: the PS5 ‘Pro’. This isn’t coming from Sony directly, of course. It’s coming, as everything that counts as ‘news’ these days does, from an unofficial source (it was leaked) — by YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead. And later confirmed by Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson.

Oh, and it’ll be arriving sometime in the holiday shuffle — to better target those Christmas wishlists — as long as it pumps out enough first-party titles, that is. Good thing Nintendo stood aside this year, huh?

Anyone familiar with the scene knows who Tom Henderson is, and that he doesn’t mess around. He verified that the documents seen in Moore’s Law is Dead’s video are the real thing, coming from a PlayStation developer portal — with the documents hitting relevant developers a few weeks back.

We won’t bore you with all the nitty-gritty details. This is a PS5 Pro, after all. It’s a PlayStation with hardware befitting the four-year gap between itself and the original console — one that’s reportedly being kitted out to best suit any customers picking up GTA VI when it drops next year thanks to its improved GPU that’ll apparently render up to three times faster.

A more consistent frame rate is expected at 4K resolutions, and there’s talk that its ray tracing capabilities could be three (or even four) times faster than the previous iteration. PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling (PSSR) has been rumoured to use Sony’s machine learning — similar to AMD’s FSR or Nvidia’s DLSS image upscaling features to possibly boost graphics up to 8K.

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Let’s settle this on LinkedIn…

Anyone against the idea of starving themselves to death probably has a LinkedIn account, perhaps against their will. Microsoft’s social platform has long been a place to go in search of jobs, or employees to fill those jobs — with everyone patting themselves on the back in the process. Now, the platform is looking to branch into gaming.

That might sound like we’re pulling your leg, but it’s true. The billion-strong userbase will soon be treated to at least three of the company’s in-house games; akin to the surge of simple internet games like Wordle or something from neal.fun. They’re called Queens, Inference, and Crossclimb. It isn’t Linkle or something equally Wordle-y, so the NYT should leave them be.

The obvious implementation would be to allow employees to compete against one another, or against other companies. And, according to app researcher Nima Owji, that’s exactly what’s happening.

LinkedIn later confirmed in a message to TechCrunch that it was indeed working on a selection of games, though failed to provide any sort of release window. “We’re playing with adding puzzle-based games within the LinkedIn experience to unlock a bit of fun, deepen relationships, and hopefully spark the opportunity for conversations,” the spokesperson said in a message to TechCrunch.

It’s… a strange move. A website aimed at professionals, would-be or otherwise, succumbing to the pull of time-killing games — designed to kill company time? We hope it all works out.

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Sony hits the pause button on VR

Virtual reality (VR) isn’t for everyone, apparently. You’d think Sony, a company where the bucks flow out of every orifice, would find a way to make it work. But if the rumours are true, the Japanese conglomerate has hit the pause button on PSVR 2 production and begun stockpiling the headsets thanks to declining sales quarter after quarter. Yikes.

We’re just spitballing here, but we reckon the R15,000 price tag — or the fact that it requires a PS5 to work — might have something to do with the declining sales. Don’t even get us started on the lacklustre support for games since its debut, riding on the Horizon Call of the Mountain high ever since. The closing of the PlayStation London division, reportedly working on VR titles, hasn’t helped.

The company’s saving grace could be its decision to allow PC support for the PSVR 2 headset. Or it might continue to sink deeper into this mess, as more people flock towards the similarly priced Meta Quest 3.

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Google’s Gemini on Apple iPhones

AI might be coming to Apple’s iPhones sooner, rather than later. That isn’t thanks to a massive push to get Apple’s in-house AI out sooner, but because of a possible deal that’ll put Google’s Gemini engine on Apple’s devices, according to Bloomberg’s sources familiar with the matter. If the reports are true, Apple’s also explored the possibility of plugging OpenAI’s engine into the development of its next phone.

Whatever the case, we won’t be hearing about it until June at the earliest at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. It seems that nothing has yet been agreed upon between Apple and Google — with no ideas of how a partnership would work, or how the AI would be introduced to the devices.

Whether this will affect Apple’s long-rumoured plans to develop its own artificial intelligence in-house has yet to be seen. Just last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook was going on about the massive potential of AI, and that the company was investing heavily in the area in general.

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Elon Musk still hasn’t given up on the idea of turning X into an ‘everything app‘, recently adding phone and video calls into what was once Twitter. Now the app is apparently expanding to… TVs. Yup. According to a Fortune report (via Bloomberg) over the weekend, the eccentric billionaire wants people tuning in to, uh, Tucker Carlson, we guess, on Samsung and Amazon TVs as early as next week.

Fortune doesn’t name its sources, only citing an unnamed employee within the company, but this is Musk we’re talking about. Of course he’s got a video app in the works — one that reportedly looks “identical” to YouTube’s own app — a ploy to try and draw customers and compete with YouTube simultaneously. Whether it’ll work is yet to be determined. Our guess? It’ll be abandoned within the year, tail tucked between its legs.

Or, we’ll be proven wrong, and have to bow down to a new overlord of internet TV. We’re not particularly excited about that prospect. That can only happen if X can lay hands on exclusive content and push the app out to a far-wider host of TV brands. The odd Putin interview or shoddy Diablo IV stream might garner at least a few eyeballs. We’ll find out if X’s unnamed would-be YouTube killer has enough gall to do so next week.

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MAR10 Day, unsurprisingly, delivered a bunch of Mario news

Yesterday was Mario day. MAR10 Day, et cetera et cetera. As usual, Nintendo served up a slew of Mario-related news on a platter, including a Super Mario Bros. sequel film that reminded us water is wet, and a few other announcements that took our cynicism down a notch. The first involves release dates for two classics remastered: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD.

Announced in September and June of 2023 respectively, it’s clear Nintendo’s been sitting on these titles for a while — possibly in an attempt to bolster the Switch’s 2024 line-up in the event of a delay to its follow-up console. That, unfortunately, happened. It’s fine. The 23 May release for Paper Mario and a 27 June release for Luigi’s Mansion should do enough to hold us over ’til 2025. Also, a Tears of the Kingdom replay might be on the cards.

The last announcement and possibly the most important involved a teaser for something going by called LEGO Mario Kart (a new game, maybe, or just new sets?) and three new Mario Lego sets hitting shelves this August. The Bowser Express train set is the most expensive of the lot, but honestly, King Boo’s Haunted Mansion set or the Battle with Roy at Peach’s Castle would suit us just fine.

Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t just in the business of deleting movies

You might have thanked Warner Bros. for vaulting Batgirl in 2022, but there’s no denying it set a horrific precedent that’s created a ripple effect across the rest of the business. Coyote vs. Acme is the latest (completed) film to be sent to the bins — and now the company is looking to do something similar for its games.

Several developers under the Adult Swim Games umbrella said that Warner Bros. Discovery reached out to them to essentially tell them that their games would be removed from digital storefronts on PC and consoles. Why? It might hint at the company’s plans for the Adult Swim Games brand — possibly looking to kill it off and watch the tax breaks roll in. Because that’s how business works, right?

Some of the affected developers said they would be republishing their games on Steam, but would lose out on the title’s community pages, Steam achievements, forums, and screenshots. That wouldn’t be the case if Warner would transfer publishing permissions to those developers — a process that takes roughly three minutes and three clicks according to @onemrbean — but isn’t being done due to a ‘lAcK oF rEsOuRcEs’.

You can see a list of the 25 games being removed by the $21 billion company right here.

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Your favourite Wordle clones might not be Wordle clones for much longer

Wordle, the word-guessing game that grabbed the world by its genitals in 2022, is looking to stomp out the thousands of clones riding off the back of the Wordle brand, idea, and colour scheme that The New York Times picked up for a cool “undisclosed price in the low-seven figures” in 2022.

The New York Times has reportedly filed several DMCA issues over any Wordle clones still out there, specifically targeting Reactle earlier this week, an open-source clone used to power around 1,900 other versions of the game. The NYT reckons the clones using Reactle’s code did so in “clearly bad faith,” and have been served the same DMCA takedown issue.

“I write to submit a revised DMCA Notice regarding an infringing repository (and hundreds of forked repositories) hosted by GitHub that instruct users how to infringe The New York Times Co.’s (‘The Times‘) copyright in its immensely popular Wordle game and create knock-off copies of the same,” the notice reads.

Expect plenty of those 1,900 or so games taken down to reappear in the coming weeks with Wordle-less names attached, and maybe a fresh coat of paint.

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This might be a little difficult to believe, but Apple is foregoing the dramatics and plans to launch a slate of new products “in the next several weeks” via a regular old press release on its website, with no event on the horizon. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and his ‘Power On‘ newsletter, those products are the refreshed iPad Pros, 12.9in iPad Air, Apple Pencils and some Magic Keyboards for those iPads. And we haven’t even gotten to the Macs, yet.

As for those, we will see the new 13- and 15in MacBook Airs kitted with the M3 chip arrive at the same time as the iPad revamp. These might sound like run-of-the-mill ‘filler’ products unworthy of Apple’s attention, but we’d argue that isn’t the case for at least one of these — with the iPad Pro getting its first (major) upgrade since before Silksong was announced. Yikes.

But, as the old saying goes, good things come to those who wait. The 2024 iPad Pro will be outfitted with an OLED display and internally repping Apple’s M3 chipset. That alone would be enough for Apple to throw a party to give these badboys a boost. Apparently, nope. Gurman reckons Apple is going to announce the products on its website “with a series of online videos and marketing campaigns,” sometime in “March or April.”

The PC Master Race is bolstering its ego with a Ghost of Tsushima port

While Xbox might be okay with dolling out its exclusives like a dodgy dude handing out candy, Sony is a little more hesitant to give up those sweet, sweet IPs to other consoles (here’s what we thought of Returnal for PC, by the way). It spent the better part of two years porting over some of those games to PC (and only PC) and the latest fruit of its labour appears to be a Ghost of Tsushima port.

That’s according to @Shpeshal_Nick on Twitter (sorry, X), who posted:

“I’m hearing that we might be getting something about the Ghost of Tsushima PC port pretty soon. Maybe around the 5th?”

Even if the tweet wasn’t coming from a reputable leaker such as Nick, we’d have believed it. As we’ve said, Sony’s been on a bit of a PC port roll, with only a couple of exclusive IPs left to go before Steam is on a similar playing field. But if you’re after proof of Nick’s sources being the real deal; just look at the last time he delved into Sony matters — correctly noting the games that would turn up at the then-next State of Play.

Fingers crossed for a reveal tomorrow, huh, Duncan?

Sony’s SRS-XV800 party speaker

If the idea of spending R10,000 on a Sony speaker didn’t at least make you giggle thanks to the absurdity, we’d recommend keeping on reading. Sony’s SRS-XV800 has come to South Africa and Sony’s got some shilling to do. Fortunately, the speaker’s good enough that we’ll do it for them, showing off the sort of features you can expect after spending four zeroes on a piece of audio equipment.

The first thing you’ll notice is that this thing is massive. The pair of wheels fixed to the speaker’s base should give you a good idea that this isn’t as quite portable as your friend’s JBL he’s always got with him. Sony’s made this thing portable enough to carry with you to a friend’s pool party, but for your sake, we hope you’re the friend with the pool.

It’s got all the usual features of a party speaker, namely; Bluetooth (and even HDMI). What it does differently is the speaker’s built-in Karaoke mode and the 25 hours of battery life that go with it. It’s even IPX4 splash-resistant, so it can enjoy the party from a safe distance. It’ll be loud enough that a safe distance won’t make much of a difference, fortunately. It’s even got a TV Sound Booster that’ll do a decent job of removing any buyer’s remorse you might have (and, uh, make your TV sound a bit better, too).

Doom on a… toothbrush

When Stuff’s own Toby Shapshak returned from MWC 2024 with news of Doom running on a lawnmower, we thought humanity had reached the pinnacle of technology. How wrong we were. Less than a week later, and someone’s managed to get the 1993 first-person shooter running on… an electric toothbrush.

That someone is Aaron Christophel, a YouTuber who took advantage of just about every piece of tech around him coming equipped with some sort of screen, including his toothbrush. That toothbrush is an Evowera Planck Mini — running with just about all the features required to get something like this done; colour display and Wi-Fi.

Christophel used the toothbrush’s OTA functionality and his own ESP32 development board to get the game running here. He even has Bluetooth mouse capabilities going, linking basic forward and backward movements, not being able to make use of the toothbrush’s own sensor data. If you’re left scratching your head wondering why someone would ever play Doom on an electric toothbrush… you’ll never get it.

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The world’s largest brands are turning up in droves to show off their products for the year at Mobile World Congress — and HMD is no different. The Nokia-makers haven’t brought anything tangible with them, only news of a partnership with Mattel and something it calls “HMD Fusion” which should make for an interesting 2024.

That partnership with Mattel will present itself in the form of a retro, Barbie-themed flip phone later this year. Neither HMD nor Mattel is wasting the Barbie brand after the year it had, with HMD designing an entirely new product to fit the partnership, rather than rebranding an old piece of tech from the vaults. Actual specs are still a mystery, but we reckon it’ll function like something straight out of the 2000s. That’s, like, HMD’s whole thing at the moment.

If you’re not enveloped in the Barbie wave, ‘HMD Fusion’ might be of more interest to you. The company describes it as “a radically new and innovative approach to smartphones and what they can do.” It’s essentially a DIY smartphone that’ll need the owners to assume the role of manufacturer and programmer. It’ll give you the basics of a shell, screen, and battery, running Android with an unlocked bootloader.

HMD’s whole idea here is to give consumers and developers a blank canvas to customize their devices to suit their needs. The examples it was spouting at MWC include the potential to turn what the company calls “smart outfits” (those are the devices) into barcode scanners, game controllers or even blood testers with the right hardware.

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X is finally making voice and video calls free for everyone

If the idea of spending even more time on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter doesn’t have you audibly groaning, this one’s for you. X.com announced this morning that its audio and video calling feature would be rolling out to everyone soon — even the people who don’t pay to get a little tick next to their name.

It’s probably not a feature you’ve been clamouring for — WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord and Messenger already exist, after all — but it’s a must-have feature for a platform that hopes to one day call itself an ‘everything app‘. Linda Yaccarino, X’s chief officer, announced the feature’s expansion over the weekend, though X developer Enrique Barragan said the feature would slowly roll out to non-paying users.

Slow is right. We redownloaded the app to test the feature and were promptly told to subscribe to Premium or get lost. When it does eventually reach your device and you’d like to give it a go, just head to a DM with another user (you have to have messaged each other at least once) and a call symbol should appear at the top of the screen. If you’d rather receive calls from just about anyone, that’s a setting now too.

We can’t imagine anything worse.

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Meet the Zephyrus G16, Asus’ latest and greatest (in South Africa)

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Asus. We’d be bigger fans if the company managed to get more of that international stock to South Africa’s shelves, but we digress. Asus South Africa is doing just fine of late, recently announcing the R43,000 Zenbook Duo UX8406MA and Zephyrus G16 laptops for the braai-loving demographic.

It’s the G16’s sleek, CNC-machined aluminium body that initially caught our eye when it stood in a bright spotlight at this year’s CES last month. It’s the “pinnacle of gaming innovation,” apparently — but we’ll wait for a review unit before we pass judgement. It’s touting a far more refined body, without the usual chunk you tend to find on its ROG siblings.

Don’t let the thinner chassis fool you, the G16 is still sporting a massive 16in 2.5K OLED panel that’ll hit 240Hz when necessary and just about all the RGB you’d ever need. It’s also rocking the latest innards with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor that’s backed up by “dedicated AI support” (because of course it is) and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 doing the heavy lifting in design work or playing Crysis.

Tecno’s in the doghouse

You probably know Tecno as one of South Africa’s budget smartphone and laptop providers. But internationally, not only is it a purveyor of half-decent and well-priced folding phones, it’s now getting into the realm of AI companions, specifically, artificially intelligent canines. As if OpenAI’s Sora didn’t scare us enough already.

Robo-dogs aren’t anything new, Boston Dynamics has spent more than a decade working on perfecting its robot dog Spot. But it makes the news when Tecno is getting in on the robotic AI action. Meet Dynamic 1, the company’s “German Shepherd-looking” robot that we’d have no trouble believing was here to clean up the timelines and save Sarah Connor.

Tecno’s gone to great lengths to ensure this is as dog-like as possible, but without any of the annoying features we’d usually have to deal with. It’ll climb stairs, shake your hand and the four microphones embedded in its head will help it understand audio prompts, and adjust its head accordingly. We’re not exactly sure why, but we guess it’d be a great companion for those not fit to look after a real dog.

Except, it probably won’t. Tecno said this was more to show off its prowess in the robotics and AI departments, rather than something it’s looking to commercialize. That might be an avenue the company explores later if Dynamic 1 proves popular but we doubt you’ll be throwing digital sticks for it any time soon.

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It’s official. 2024 is over. The Nintendo Switch 2 has reportedly been delayed, and we won’t pretend the news didn’t leave us a little distraught. Sure, Nintendo’s got a couple of games waiting in the 2024 wings, but nothing it can confidently expect to carry the console until Q1 2025. That’s the revised release date the company is targeting, according to several outlets, including Bloomberg.

Initially, Nintendo was expected to put their new console on shelves before 2024’s end. There was even an unveiling pencilled in for March 2024. Bloomberg’s sources, saddled with “knowledge of the matter,” who preferred not to be named, believe Nintendo broke the news to its publishers that they shouldn’t expect the console until “March 2025 at the earliest.”

VGC, one of the first to report the delay, later corroborated the story with its own source, noting the same Q1 2025 release date. As for the reason behind the delay, it’s believed that Nintendo is simply looking to use the delay to bolster its line-up of first-party titles, simultaneously leaving the Switch to fend for itself in its final months. That’s what Sekan Toto, a Tokyo-based analyst had to say, anyway.

“The company will still try to keep the blockbusters for the next console, so 2024 might see more remakes of old Nintendo hits. In any case, 2024 will be a lot tougher for Nintendo without a new device.”

Hey, at least we’ve got a couple more months to find all those Korok seeds, huh?

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OK Peugeot, tell me about the Roman Empire

Were an all-out AI war to break out, we’re not sure whether you’d be better off sticking with Peugeot’s latest and greatest — or putting as much distance between it and yourself as possible. We’d imagine it’d depend largely on how well you treated the artificial intelligence infecting your car. Fortunately, it’s not too late to start treating our AI overlords with some respect. Peugeot, one of Stellantis’ charges, has officially incorporated ChatGPT into its i-Cockpit system.

When Peugeot says it’s “one of the first car manufacturers to integrate ChatGPT artificial intelligence as a service to its customers,” it technically isn’t lying. It is “one of the first,” but it isn’t the first. Mercedes-Benz won that race a while back. There’s nothing wrong with second place, though.

Before ChatGPT’s grand entrance in 2022, cars were, for lack of a better word, dumb. Most still are. Even those that can make the odd phone call when you ask nicely, but it won’t get more advanced than that. Now, Peugeot is aiming to turn the driving experience into a more fluid, intuitive and interactive one. Pre-empt your requests with a simple “OK Peugeot” and it’ll “spring into action,” performing tasks like answering questions or… hooking your kids up with a quiz that’ll keep them entertained on long trips. We bet it’s good at other stuff too.

Peugeot has limited the AI used here to ChatGPT version 3.5 and even got SoundHound’s Chat AI platform (we bet you forgot about that one) involved for the ride. That means it’s limited to data up until January 2022, so don’t worry if it doesn’t get your joke about the Will Smith incident. You can see a full list of the cars getting hold of the upgrade here.

Martians wanted

Ever wanted to uproot your life and live in a Mars-like facility for up to a year? Yeah, we didn’t think so. That isn’t stopping NASA from asking people with a STEM background to do exactly that, in an attempt to “help inform the agency’s plans for human exploration on the Red Planet.”

The mission, officially dubbed CHAPEA 2 (the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) will begin in 2025, and needs four (hopefully) willing participants to experience the Red Planet (on Earth) for a year in NASA’s 3D-printed 157-square-metre habitat where the conditions are about as harsh as you’d expect. Entrants will be paid, but NASA isn’t disclosing how much to just any old looky-loo.

Fortunately, the entry requirements aren’t particularly strenuous. You’ll need to be a US citizen (drat!), aged 30-55, and have a master’s degree in a STEM field, a minimum of 1,000 hours piloting an aircraft or two years experience in a STEM doctoral programme. Easy peasy.

CHAPEA 1’s volunteers are more than halfway through their year-long mission, after which CHAPEA 2 can commence. NASA has at least one more mission — CHAPEA 3 — to complete before it can get to work on the real thing.

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Reddit’s going in the wrong direction with AI. Are we surprised?

Right ahead of Reddit’s launch of its IPO (initial public offering), it’s gone and soured the whole thing. According to a new Bloomberg report, the ‘front page of the internet’ has signed a contract that’ll see an unnamed artificial intelligence (AI) company dig its claws into the platform and train its models using the content published on the site.

The deal, according to the outlet’s sources familiar with the matter, is worth around $60-million (R1.13-billion) and was announced to prospective investors in Reddit’s IPO. That $60-million isn’t a once-off thing, either. Reddit could be collecting a fat paycheck annually, Bloomberg’s sources said.

Usually, AI companies looking to smarten themselves up would hit the open web to get their training hours in, often without permission, and ask for forgiveness later. The New York Times could be changing that soon, potentially opening Reddit up to the multi-billion dollar deal in an attempt to get their hours in, uh, legally.

The precedent set by the unnamed AI company in question could drastically alter how AI functions forever. Companies like OpenAI and Apple have been seeking similar deals — though reportedly worth far less — with news publications to keep their AI models as accurate as possible. With figures like $60-million being thrown around, there’s a chance news companies are about to get a whole lot richer.

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We’ve been eagerly awaiting a folding iPhone for quite some time now. No, seriously. Apple’s plans for a bendable smartphone in the market reportedly date back as far as 2018, and it hasn’t yet given up on those dreams of taking on the countless foldables already on the shelves. According to a new report from The Information (via 9to5mac), the three-trillion-dollar company has at least two clamshell-foldable smartphones cooking in the lab.

You’d think six years of ideas would be enough for a commercial model to have hit the market by now. Apparently not. Those models are described as being in early development, so don’t expect an ‘iPhone Fold’ before 2025. It’s said that Apple has been in discussion with component manufacturers for two different-sized models. The report also mentions a folding iPad, which began getting more attention after Apple ran into troubles with the folding iPhone’s development somewhere around 2020.

Those issues lie in Apple’s desire for perfection. It hasn’t been able to achieve the levels of durability and thinness required for it to be comfortably stowed in a pocket, leading to the company’s switch of focus to the foldable iPad. The bendy iPad — rumoured to feature an 8in display — wouldn’t be held to the same standards, as it wouldn’t be living inside a pocket. Apple is also looking at getting the crease just right before release — to better appeal to users looking to use it as a digital drawing display.

There’s no word on when either might be appearing at any of Apple’s events, but don’t expect it to be soon.

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Meta’s taking a stand against political content. Kinda

If you only delve into Instagram and Threads to check up on family, friends, cat pictures and, let’s be honest, memes, Meta’s decision to stop force-feeding users political content probably has you excited. It isn’t abolishing political content entirely, with users still getting their usual flow of political content from the accounts they follow. Meta’s change, according to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, will no longer “proactively amplify” those posts it deems political.

These changes won’t be going into effect right away, though they should be rolling out “over the next few weeks.” It’ll hit public accounts that feature in Reels or the Explore tabs or suggested content across Threads. As for what Meta considers political, it didn’t fully explain, but it did mention that it would involve current global social issues and election-related content.

If that is the sort of thing you’re after, Meta has said you’ll need to opt-in via Instagram or Threads’ settings, while those who don’t will have their feeds filtered by default. “Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it,” Mosseri said in a Threads… thread.

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VW South Africa has some lofty carbon neutrality goals

In a bid to be more like its environmentally sustainable brethren globally, Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) is investing heavily to achieve its goal of making its Kariega production plant entirely carbon-neutral by 2030. It’s already begun work on making that a reality, and good job, too: 2030 sounds a whole lot closer from this side of 2020.

With only six years left to pull off the feat, it’s “putting environmental sustainability first through a range of projects being implemented at its Kariega plant, as well as its sites in Sandton and Centurion,” according to a press release. It’s thrown R34 million at the rollout of solar photovoltaic panels at its sites alone, which are capable of generating 4,488 MWh of electricity annually. Newer panels at the Kariega plant — costing a further R55 million — will come into effect from September, adding another 4,500 MWh of power into the mix.

VWSA isn’t only targeting ways to get out from under Eskom’s feet. It has installed a total of 1.2-million litre rainwater harvesting tanks, for “use in various production areas.” It’s joined by the group’s on-site wastewater recycling facility which can reduce freshwater consumption by 26%, it said. And finally, it claims it knocked down landfill waste by around 5% in 2023, reduced cardboard box waste by 17 tonnes, and plastic waste by 46 tonnes in the past two years.

Dfiance is a new deck-builder with hints of Marvel Snap and Gwent

Ever since The Witcher 3 showed us that we had a taste for deck-builder card games, we’re willing to give anything similar a try. Marvel Snap has filled that deck-builder-shaped hole in our hearts, but after we got wind of a new free-to-play title by the name of Dfiance, we had to check it out.

Dfiance is about as indie as it gets. It was built from a team of 34 “creatives” all collaborating from around the world. It’s “not just a collectible cards game, [but] an immersive PvP experience with a rich backstory unveiled through each character.” That… sounds a whole lot like Marvel Snap.

The game is currently playing through its beta phase, though just about anyone with an internet connection can get a turn to play by playing through their internet browser. It’s also available on Mac and Windows desktops, though we were unable to find it on the App Store. Boot it up here, and you’ll be prompted to choose from the three factions on offer (we went with the Infernals) and it’ll generate a free deck for you.

Don’t expect Dfiance to hold your hand, either. It throws you into the thick of things and leaves you to wade through the cards available from the outset. Or you could consult the wiki for a little more help on, you know, the goal of the game (winning two of the three rounds by having more attack power). According to the game’s trailer, beta players will be rewarded with access to special cards (such as Beata the Tester), though it’s likely that progress will be reset when it’s time for the game to launch properly.

When that’ll be, however, we can’t be sure. The developer’s X account reckons Dfiance is in “late beta” so a full release might be right around the corner.

Look, we knew PlayStation was winning this console cold war from the moment God of War Ragnarök was as damn gorgeous and excellent as it was. It didn’t help when Microsoft began discounting the Series X across Europe and hunting down big-name acquisitions worth more than some countries’ GDPs. But if the reports of Xbox losing hold of the few exclusives it has are true, we’ve got front-row seats to its obliteration.

When we heard the news of Hi-Fi Rush’s possible departure to the Nintendo Switch of all places, we thought nothing of it. A somewhat reputable title getting some more love than it initially deserved? Fine by us. But Starfield and Sea of Thieves (and possibly even Indiana Jones) breaking away from the Xbox? Even we didn’t think things were that rough over there.

According to XboxEra’s unnamed Microsoft sources, the company intends to bring Starfield to the PS5 sometime after the game’s Shattered Space DLC lands sometime in 2024. That’s next to all the other rumours of a potential Sea of Thieves PS5 port. The same sources noted that Xbox had made additional investments into PS5 devkits, so interpret that how you will.

Microsoft has apparently weighed the decision internally for some time, with most rejecting the idea. Money talks, though, and the idea that the company had left some “on the table” was enough to convince Xbox to make the massive change. We won’t have to wait much longer for official confirmation either, with Hi-Fi Rush’s announcement for the Switch taking place later this month.

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Bard could be called Gemini real soon

Google’s Bard is undergoing some changes. No, it’s still twelve years or so from sprouting hair in weird places, but when it does, it’ll be serving under a new name. According to an early changelog, Google could be rebranding Bard to “Gemini” — named after the large language model (LLM) that supplies all of its smarts. And it could be happening sooner than we thought — before Bard gets too comfy in the zeitgeist.

“Bard is now Gemini” was the headline of the new changelog, spotted by Dylan Roussel over on X.com — and a couple of other changes — all of which point to a 7 February change-up.

“We’re committed to giving everyone direct access to Google AI and, as of this week, every Gemini user across our supported countries and languages has access to Google’s best family of AI models. To better reflect this commitment, we’ve renamed Bard to Gemini.”

The changelog paved the path for something called ‘Gemini Advanced’, also scheduled for a 7 February rollout. It appears to be a paid-for plan that’ll trump the free Gemini’s abilities — such as improved coding support, “expanded multi-modal capabilities,” and a deeper analysis of uploaded files. You know, in exchange for money.

Pricing hasn’t been mentioned as of yet, though the changelog notes that it’ll be available in over 150 countries at the time of launch.

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You might not need R1,500 to try Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Xbox may be aboard a sinking ship, but PlayStation is flying high. Not like that — Sony is very much alive and kicking — evidenced by the confidence surrounding one of its larger titles of the year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Not only is it awarding the game its 40-minute State of Play on Wednesday morning (8 February 01:30 SAST), but there’s a good chance it’ll bring a demo with it, too.

That’s coming from the PlayStation Game Size X.com account, which has reportedly learned of the demo’s existence, and that it would be launching alongside or directly after the State of Play. He also said that the demo would give those who play it before the game’s 29 February release date access to in-game items for free.

The account and tweet don’t offer much in the way of reputable sources, but considering Square Enix’s history of game demos and the hype swirling around Rebirth, a demo feels like the most logical conclusion. Especially when the game you’re trying to shill costs R1,500 a pop.

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Dell’s on the lookout for South Africa’s next big tech innovators

Do you have an oddly specific talent that confers the ability to build small-scale, high-performance computing clusters? You’re in luck. Dell Technologies and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have teamed up to launch a Student Cluster Competition that’ll pit university students against each other to do exactly that.

More specifically, the competition will see ten teams comprised of undergraduate students currently enrolled in STEM fields come together in teams of four (plus a mentor) to build “small-scale (3 – 4 compute nodes) high-performance computing clusters with hardware sponsored by Dell and supported by various NICIS partners.”

It’ll need to be functional — obviously — before the teams attempt to run several application benchmarks to determine the real winner. At this point, the team with the best-performing cluster will be awarded the opportunity to further enhance their studies at the Texas Advanced Computing Centre at the University of Texas, and at Dell Labs in Austin, Texas. The accompanying trip to Hamburg to participate in the International Super Computing Student Cluster Competition doesn’t seem all too bad, either.

There’s no word on where and how to sign up for the competition, though we’d recommend keeping an eye on the scc.chpc.ac.za website, which has information about the current winners of the competition, pictured above. Or you could try speaking directly with your university’s STEM-based members of faculty for more information.

If something felt off during your daily morning search for ‘Taylor Swift’ on X, you’re not alone. That’s entirely by design, as X has begun blocking searches of the insanely popular pop star thanks to the recent influx of AI-generated imagery that puts her under a not-so-flattering light. We won’t dig into any specifics of the images, but we imagine you can guess why X, or Taylor Swift, doesn’t want those images floating around the web.

Searching ‘Taylor Swift’ or ‘Taylor Swift AI’ or something similar will net you a “Something went wrong” message. According to the platform’s head of business, Joe Benarroch, the measure is temporary, designed to “prioritize safety” for Swift. Specifically, that involves blocking those terms we’ve mentioned, and “actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” X said in a statement.

That’s great. If, you know, it worked. Getting around the block isn’t exactly difficult, as throwing those terms between two of these ” should serve you just fine. It worked at the time of writing, at least. X has at least done a decent job of removing the images too explicit for your average school child, though plenty of artificially generated images of the singer are still floating about.

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PlayStation left in a State of Play

There’s little worse than sitting through some highly anticipated PlayStation State of Play, Xbox Showcase, or Nintendo Direct, only to find out that the company’s slate includes nothing more substantial than a couple of cosy campfire games and… Starfield. So when a leak threatens to absolve our responsibility of checking out PlayStation’s next unveiling, we listen up.

According to @Shpeshal_Nick, one of the bigger leakers in the industry at the moment, and one of his enigmatic tweets, PlayStation’s got another State of Play on the cards, taking place “on the 31st (roughly)”. 

“On the 31st (roughly), Ronins will Rise, we’ll die stranded, have a rebirth and Kojima will fulfil his dream. Sonic will live in the shadow of his generation while the hills will remain silent until the dawn when you’ll need to catch the metro. Just don’t be a Judas about it,” the tweet reads.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Nick reckons Sony has lined up for the event this week, but we’ll help you out anyway. Rise of the Ronin, Death Stranding 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Silent Hill 2, Metro, Judas, and what might be yet another rehashing of the Sonic brand are on the cards. In a reply to a tweet, Nick mentions the possibility that this is an incomplete list and that the actual show might contain a couple more secrets. We’re willing to take our chances, though.

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If you thought Taylor Swift’s deep fakes were scary, Google’s Lumiere is a regular Jordan Peele movie

Until now, artificially generated video is usually quite obviously so. That’s all got to do with how current models handle video output — which usually involves splicing together extremely short videos or still frames to create a somewhat smooth, but still artificial-looking final result. Google’s in the mood to change all that. At least, that’s what its announcement of Lumiere is telling us.

To put it simply, Lumiere is what Google calls a “Space-Time Diffusion Model” that’s reportedly capable of spitting out artificially generated video — mostly of animals at this stage — and doing a bloody good job of it. Remember how we said current models all focus on piecing bits of a video together? Lumiere doesn’t do that.

Instead, it uses a “Space-Time U-Net architecture that generates the entire temporal duration of the video at once, through a single pass in the model.” That means the model can accurately judge a video or image’s objects through both space and time, allowing the model to take the reins and create a video in one smooth process without the need for many moving parts.

It’s quite a capable little piece of tech, too. It’ll create videos from text, convert images into video, generate videos based on an image’s style, create cinemagraphs (animating specific areas of a still image), or rearrange an image’s subject without much hassle. Sounds good, right? There’s just one issue: regular folk can’t get their paws on it. At least, not yet. At the time of writing, Google hasn’t discussed any plans to release Lumiere. And it might stay that way. At least until it can land on a firm asking price.

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Minimalism looks like a… Blackberry?

Have you found yourself yearning to rid yourself of modern-day smartphones and return to something more simple; say, a Blackberry? Well, too bad. Blackberry is officially defunct as of 2022, and it’s going to stay that way. Fortunately, there’s a new phone on the block, titling itself ‘The Minimal Phone’ that wants to recreate that hype in the form of physical keyboards, e-ink displays, and a four-day battery life that would put Xiaomi to shame.

Except, it doesn’t exist. It’s merely a concept that’s designed to promote the phone’s “Live More. Scroll Less” motto that’s only alive through a couple of renders and a website that invites you to ‘Join the waitlist” without ever committing to anything serious. The idea is a sound one, though. A technically ‘smart’ phone that’s only capable of the basics and won’t hog your time scrolling through TikTok or something similar. There’s always the ability to just… not scroll through TikTok, but that involves expending restraint and some rational thinking.

If it ever gets enough attention to become a reality, it’ll run off MinimalOS — a custom derivative of Android — and a 4,000mAh battery that’ll apparently last four days thanks to the lighter-than-most OS and e-ink display. There’s no word yet on pricing (it doesn’t even exist yet), but we’re guessing it won’t be cheap enough to convince most souls to make the switch away from something with some colour.

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When you hear the words ‘DNA data storage’, there’s a good chance you imagine something sci-fi, from George Lucas’ or James Cameron’s head perhaps. Well, a company named Biomemory has taken the ‘fiction’ bit out of the equation. The result? DNA memory cards that anyone can purchase. Well, anyone who’s got the necessary $1,100 (R21,000) per kilobyte of storage.

Yup, you read ‘per kilobyte’ correctly. But you aren’t spending R20,000 or so for a 1KB DNA memory card just for bragging rights. No, it’s got some actual benefits, even if it can only store one, very important email. According to Biomemory, those include a 150-year lifespan that’ll far exceed the needs of any mammal, unless the medical field takes a few technological leaps forward soon.

It’s less about the 1KB memory cards — which you can sign up on a waiting list for — and more about the technology that makes it possible and what it could mean for our future. Biomemory has grandiose visions for something it calls Biomemory Prime — a storage solution that’s capable of storing 100 petabytes of data in data centres — that it hopes to have up and running by 2026. We don’t see that happening, considering the fact it currently takes hours, even days to read and write that 1KB of data.

If that hasn’t dissuaded you, there’s a spot on Biomemory’s website that’ll let you encode plain text into DNA language. Gotta have something to stick on the memory card, right?

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The Mercedes G-Class is pregnant and it’s… electric?

CES might have wrapped up a little under two weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean the flow of news has. This time, we’re hearing from Mercedes-Benz’s Markus Schaefer, the company’s technical chief, confirming that the “baby” three-door G-Class it announced some months back will be entirely powered by an electric powertrain, putting any rumours of an ICE (internal combustion engine) alternative to rest.

Besides being electric, which isn’t unknown territory for Mercedes, the baby G-Class will differ slightly from its electric siblings. According to Schaefer, the new model won’t be built on the brand’s Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) platform. Instead, it’ll be making use of something different — though it doesn’t have a name yet — and meld components from the company’s larger off-roaders.

That’s… a big deal. Better yet, the company reckons the tiny Jimny-esque German automobile could be its most capable off-roader yet, beating out the more prominent ICE model sold today. Whether it’ll manage to conquer Mercedes’ electric version of the five-door G-Class, the EQG, remains to be seen. But with the baby’s delay to 2026, it might just have enough time to squeeze in more features to convince you three doors are better than five.

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Final Fantasy XVI could be coming to Xbox

Remember when ‘exclusive’ meant exclusive? While Stuff and Pepperidge Farm remember, it appears as though the gaming industry’s giants haven’t. Only last week we heard that Microsoft’s Hi-Fi Rush might be making a jump to the Switch, and now there’s talk of Final Fantasy XVI coming to Xbox.

It’s no secret that the latest entry into the Chocobo-riddled world of Final Fantasy XVI was coming to PC with a port eventually. It was news when Shpeshal Nick, host of the Xbox Era podcast, mentioned that it would be getting an Xbox port as well as a PC one. Nick preferred to keep his source — the same source who has previously provided accurate Square Enix release information — quiet.

It’s worth adding a pinch of salt until Xbox or Square Enix confirm the port with their own mouths, but there’s no harm in being quietly confident that a port will see the light of day eventually. XVI is the only mainline title of the series (disregarding VII’s remake trilogy PlayStation exclusivity) not to be released across the console spectrum, and Square Enix is likely feeling the sting in its purse strings.

Nick didn’t mention when the port would be released, only vaguely noting that the port could be released before 2024’s end.

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Palworld (Pokémon with guns) had a busy weekend

Palworld, the survival monster collector that launched on Xbox and PC this weekend (and strikes a daring similarity to that of Nintendo’s cutesy Pokémon franchise) is a hit. We’ll be honest, we thought Palworld wouldn’t last a day longer than it took for people to get over the Nintendo resemblance. How wrong we were.

In the short time since its early access launch, it’s sold over 4 million copies and has already become Steam’s fifth most-played game in history, according to a report from PCGamer. Great sales figures won’t calm the vocal minority, however, as Palworld spent the weekend undergoing a torrent of accusations that its cutesy gun-wielding characters were just a smidge too similar to Nintendo’s non-gun-wielding ones.

Many reckon that Palworld’s developers, Pocketpair, took those iconic Pokémon designs, ran them through some sort of AI blender, and stuffed them into their game. Pocketpair has since denounced that accusation, attributing its 100 own designs to that of a graduate student who did almost all of the work.

But we’re not fussed about all that. We’re more worried about when we’ll get a turn to play on the PS5. If, you know, it ever releases. According to Pocketpair’s FAQ, there are no plans carved in stone for a PS5 release just yet, but it’s being considered in the game’s development.

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Another day, another product that’s retroactively throwing AI into the mix. This time it’s Amazon’s Alexa getting the artificial intelligence makeover, not out of a desire to further advance the field as a whole — but out of a desire to add some cash into its back pocket. According to a new report from Business Insider (via Digital Trends), Bezos hasn’t had much success in actually monetizing its smart assistant, and a switch to an AI-focused model might be the only way to offset the costs. Emphasis on ‘might’.

We have no trouble believing Amazon is struggling in that department. It’s an already niche market that’s becoming overcrowded. So how does it fix that? Selling off a sixth-generation Amazon Echo or something similar riddled with AI is never going to work. Its only hope is to create a subscription-based fee that’ll add AI into the equation. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what it’s doing.

We think. Amazon hasn’t confirmed as much, but the report makes mention of “Alexa Plus”, a paid-for AI service that sounds typical of Amazon. Rumours are afoot that Amazon has already begun testing the new subscription service amongst a small group of users under the codename “Remarkable Alexa” that’ll turn the assistant into a much smarter one. There’s no word yet on how much it’ll cost and just how smart it’ll be, but there’s talk it could be launching at the end of July 2024.

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Indy, but not indie

There’s no denying that last night’s Xbox Developer Direct was a concoction for an early night. But we won’t pretend our inner child didn’t get at least a little excited when we finally got our first look at the gameplay of MachineGames and Bethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones game, now officially titled Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. 

We’ll throw the gameplay reveal up there somewhere so you can check it out for yourself. But if you’ve got the boss lurking over your shoulder, we’ll run with the CliffsNotes. The Great Circle is most broadly described as an action-adventure title that’ll toggle between putting you in the shoes of Indy himself and the shoes of a camera somewhere behind his right shoulder as he unravels… well, the Great Circle.

It’s got whipping, shooting and a young Harrison Ford, all while Troy Baker’s voice speaks seductively at you. There’s some stealth and puzzles, too, according to MachineGames, which are discussed at length during its Developer Direct segment.

It all appears to be rather story-centric, with Great Circle taking place chronologically somewhere in between Raiders and Last Crusade. Microsoft didn’t hand out any solid release information, only noting that it’ll be available for Xbox and PC sometime later this year. Sorry, PlayStation.

Bad news for Prime in Africa and the Middle East

Amazon, the company that has a net worth of $1.59-trillion as of 18 January, is downsizing its African and Middle Eastern operations where Prime Video is concerned. Don’t panic just yet — it isn’t pulling Prime Video or anything from those regions. Per a new Variety report, Baldy’s company is looking to cut funding in those regions — resulting in a loss of staff and original content in those areas.

Any shows that are currently being worked on, such as Trevor Noah’s Last One Laughing and Ebuka Turns Up Africa haven’t been cancelled and are moving forward as planned. They’ll just be the last original African content we see from the streamer.

Where it’ll be funnelling that money instead, is into Europe apparently. It’ll be splitting its European team in two, with one focusing on countries like the U.K., Germany, Italy, France, and Spain while the other is taking the reins of the Nords and the rest.

“We’ve been carefully looking at our business to ensure we continue to prioritize our resources on what matters most to customers. I have carefully evaluated our structure in the region and decided to make some adjustments to our operating model to rebalance and pivot our resources to focus on the areas that drive the highest impact and long-term success,” said Prime Video Europe VP Barry Furlong, according to an internal staff email seen by Variety.

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Lenovo’s got a mouse and keyboard combo that’s powered by physical labour

If you’re old enough to remember when cars had cranks, you’re probably exactly who Lenovo had in mind when it dreamt up one of the oddest CES combos we’ve ever seen. It’s known as The Mechanical Energy Harvesting Combo — a proof-of-concept keyboard and mouse duo that doesn’t need any third-party batteries or a charger. Instead, they run off the fruits of your manual labour.

The keyboard is aimed at gamers with its compact 68-key layout, all RGB-enabled, and a dial that might look like it controls volume but is actually the mechanical energy input method. Lenovo reckons it’ll need five minutes of spinning for around 30 minutes of charge. If you do the maths, that’s 28 hours of spinning for a week of charge. Awesome. That’s without taking the mouse’s crank into account, located in a pull-out ring on its bottom. Lenovo says it will net 30 minutes of charge from only a minute of cranking.

There’s only a slim chance The Mechanical Energy Harvesting Combo will ever be more than a proof-of-concept just to prove that Lenovo can. We’d like to see it get at least a limited release just for the memes, but we doubt that’ll ever happen.

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