Samsung Pay is now available in South Africa

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, has died. The singer-songwriter fell ill earlier this week, and died on 16 August as a result of pancreatic cancer. She was 76. Born in 1942 in Memphis, USA, Aretha Franklin's career spanned seven decades, and included hits like "Respect", "Natural Woman" and "I Say A Little Prayer". Selling some 75-million records, there's no doubt that she had a massive impact on the music industry. Celebrities took to Twitter on Thursday night to mourn her death, celebrate her life, and thank her for her contribution to society. Former US President Barack Obama led the sentiment. "Aretha helped define the American...

Last week, the Galaxy Note 9 was announced by Korean smartphone maker Samsung. It's the largest Note device that Samsung has produced, and packs a number of new features. But how does the new Note stack up against more established competition, like the Huawei P20 Pro? We take a look at the key numbers and features of each flagship smartphone. Design The Huawei P20 Pro takes a bold design leap beyond its predecessor. Packing new technology into a slimmer shell, its hard not to notice its screen notch and triple rear cameras. It's also easier to hold and use thanks to its slim...

Sweetener is Ariana Grande's fourth and latest album, hitting streaming services early this morning in South Africa. It's her first album since 2016's Dangerous Woman. It's also the first since 2017's Manchester Arena bombing which claimed the lives of 23 people and injured scores more. Understandably, people are eager to hear just what is mentioned within its 15 tracks. As for initial impressions, positive would be an understatement. "Ari just gifted us R&B bops, party anthems & beautiful ballads about forgiveness, anxiety, toxic relationships, feminism, mourning the death of her fans, dating broken men, loving again, & being a baddie. whoever says...

If you need more than 15GB of storage space for all those reaction GIFs, cat pictures and birthday party videos, Google and WhatsApp has some good news. "Starting November 12, 2018, WhatsApp backups will no longer count towards the Google Drive storage quota," alerts the messaging service in an update to its FAQ. Previously, WhatsApp backups -- essential when transferring accounts across phones -- counted towards Google Drive's 15GB storage quota. If your Drive didn't have any free space, you couldn't complete a backup. This is no longer the case. With that said though, Google will now delete backups that are older than...

UCT on Wednesday announced that it will not suspend a chemical engineering lecturer who published a "deeply disturbing" post to Facebook earlier this week. The post, which was was republished by a student to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, slammed women for their role in the #MenAreTrash movement. The lecturer also admitted to thinking about raping and killing his two-year-old daughter in a post comment. UCT lecturer’s ‘disgusting’ Facebook post slams women for #MenAreTrash UCT is again coming under fire on social media after a lecturer took to Facebook to criticise women for the #MenAreTrash movement, and confessing to having thoughts about raping...

We're seeing more and more brands coyly attack one another on social media. A good example was Netflix's swipe at Multichoice's DStv, and Huawei's recent dig at Samsung after the Korean firm's Note 9 was unveiled. This week however it was two South African companies who stepped into the ring: Cell C and Rain. The former dragged its new data-only rival through the mud on Monday with an advertisement posted to YouTube. Rain has come under pressure from users for "teething problems" and spotty coverage across South Africa's major cities. It seems that Cell C was keen to highlight these issues. We're blown...

If you’ve been having issues accessing your Instagram account, you’re not alone. According to a post published to Instagram’s official blog late Tuesday, it's aware of an access problem to some users' accounts and is investigating further. "We are aware that some people are having difficulty accessing their Instagram accounts," the company briefly explained. We are aware that some people are having difficulty accessing their Instagram accounts. If you think you have been impacted, please follow our guidance to regain access: https://t.co/DfHpQuk9SJ — Instagram (@instagram) August 15, 2018 Users quickly took to Twitter to beg Instagram for help and guidance. "I'm concerned because my...

UCT is again coming under fire on social media after a lecturer took to Facebook to criticise women for the #MenAreTrash movement, and confessing to having thoughts about raping his two-year-old daughter. UPDATE: UCT chooses not to suspend lecturer after #MenAreTrash Facebook post The post, published by chemical engineering lecturer Arthur Mabentsela, suggested that men should not be blamed if women couldn't "attract and retain a quality man". "It was not me who said open your legs to a f**k boy," the rant continued. The post, along with a reply to a comment on said post, was screenshot by a UCT student and...

It's been a busy day for Multichoice. The DStv owner announced a new deal with the SABC to keep the latter's shows on its satellite TV service. The company has also announced that DStv Now, the company's over-the-air content streaming service, is now available on 4th generation Apple TVs, Google-certified Android TVs and Samsung Smart TVs. DStv Now first appeared on Android and iOS devices in November 2014 and allowed users to livestream SuperSport's sports channels and M-Net's offerings. The service is available for no additional cost to all DStv subscribers, however content depends on the subscriber's DStv package. Additionally, up to...

Multichoice and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) have signed a new deal to keep the latter's 24-hour news and classics channel on air. As a result, the channels News and Encore -- its classic shows channel -- will now continue to be broadcast on DStv channels 404 and 156 respectively. "The SABC welcomes the new agreement with Multichoice which will bring certainty to our viewers and our staff," explained Madoda Mxakwe, SABC's CEO. "The Board and management of the SABC are satisfied that the agreement meets both the commercial and governance needs of the SABC." No financial details were disclosed by either...

There are new apps appearing on the Google Play Store every day. Some are useful, some are just a waste of bits. But what are some of the apps you really, really should know about? In this piece, we detail five apps you should download right this instant if you haven't already. Blokada Download it from F-Droid. For: advertisement and tracker blocking. If you're sick of advertisements appearing on apps you've purchased, Blokada is for you. It filters ad and tracking traffic from your connection, be it apps or browsers. Users can also enable blocklists to filter specific sources, like porn advertisements, or bitcoin...

It's been more than a year since Twitter Lite launched in a select number of countries, including South Africa. Today, the social network announced that its lightweight Android app is heading to 21 more countries, five of which are in Africa. Said African nations receiving the app includes Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Uganda and Zimbabwe. This brings the total number of countries to 46. Twitter Lite is a web app for those living the data struggle Twitter has announced that its mobile site is now more convenient for the 45% of global mobile users working on 2G or slower networks. Read more... Twitter Lite "is a faster,...

Big news for footballing fans and social media users across the Indian subcontinent this week. Facebook will broadcast every Spanish La Liga football match during the 2018/19 season for free across eight Asian countries. The league features some of world football's most popular players, including Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Real Madrid's Sergio Ramos. For La Liga, the deal will broaden the reach of the league across Asia with minimal effort. "One of our goals for the last two years has been to offer content to the widest audience possible, so partnering with free platforms like Facebook, which has 270-million users in India, is...

This week's Southern Africa box office chart is dominated by large bodies of water, a large prehistoric shark and Jason Statham. No surprises there, really. After South African audiences got tired of seeing The Rock jump across skyscrapers as if they were three-feet tall, The Meg has debuted in first place on the local chart. That's keep up with the international trend at present too. The film also stars Ruby Rose, Li Bingbing and a megalodon lurking in the deepest trench in the Earth's ocean. While critics have bashed the film, it has already opened to just shy of US$150-million internationally. !function(e,t,n,s){var...

Recent rains has brought a much needed mid-winter refill to much of Cape Town's outlying dams. According to the City of Cape Town's latest dam report, its reservoirs are now 58.8% full collectively. This is an increase of 1.8% over the previous week, or 16-billion litres. The gains are largely thanks to two days of rainfall during the previous week. Last week, dams saw a collective increase of just 0.2%. The Theewaterskloof Dam's resurgence has slowed though July and into August. It's up by just 0.9%, topping out at 43.5%. It remains 6.3% short of the levels recorded in 2016, and more...