These are the articles, videos and more that caught the attention of TechCentral’s editorial team in the past 48 hours.
- Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2024 – in pictures: The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2024 bring hilarious snapshots of animals that seem to be having a rough day. From squirrels auditioning for Cirque du Soleil to monkeys perfecting their photobombing skills, these critters are living their best (and funniest) lives. It’s like nature’s own standup comedy show, but with more fur and feathers! Check out the full gallery in The Guardian. DM
- Is a stealth bomber-shaped plane the future of air travel?: JetZero is developing a “blended wing” aircraft inspired by stealth bombers to reduce carbon emissions and fuel consumption by 50%. The design combines wings and fuselage, offering a potential solution to aviation’s net zero targets by 2050. With backing from airlines and a $235-million US air force contract, JetZero aims to launch a full-scale demonstrator by 2027. However, challenges like limited sustainable aviation fuel production and competing technologies such as hydrogen-powered aircraft complicate the industry’s decarbonisation efforts. Read more on FT.com (hard paywall). DM
- Samsung debuts the Galaxy S24 FE and Galaxy Watch FE LTE: Samsung has introduced the Galaxy S24 FE and Galaxy Watch FE LTE, offering flagship features at lower prices. The S24 FE boasts a 6.7-inch dynamic Amoled display, AI-powered camera tools and a gaming-friendly Exynos processor. The Watch FE LTE includes fitness tracking and LTE connectivity. Read more on Engadget. DM
- Millions of vehicles could be hacked and tracked thanks to a simple website bug: A security flaw in Kia’s web portal allowed hackers to hijack control of millions of vehicles’ internet-connected features. By exploiting the bug, they could track cars, unlock them, blow hooters or start ignitions using a custom app. Kia patched the issue but similar vulnerabilities persist across various motoring manufacturers. Read more on Wired (soft paywall). DM
- EV sales remain healthy despite online doom and gloom: Battery-electric vehicles accounted for 8% of new vehicle sales in June and July, and should be above 8% for September, according to estimates from S&P Global Mobility. While growth has slowed from the 50% experienced in 2023, the trend is still positive, with market share increasing from 7% in the first three months of the year. More on Ars Technica. TS
- Intel has discovered what actually caused its top gaming chips to break and is rolling out another fix: One might have thought the Intel stability issue was behind us, given that the official 0x129 microcode fix came out in August. However, although this update was supposed to fix the issue, it wasn’t a “root cause” fix. Now Intel’s releasing a proper root cause fix for affected 13th– and 14th-gen CPUs in its 0x12B microcode update. More on PC Gamer. TS
- How pen and paper comes to the rescue in an IT crisis: Most organisations tend to abandon manual procedures and workflows completely as they digitise. But the recent CrowdStrike outage affecting around 8.5 million computers worldwide has shown the value of having analogue procedures in place as backup for when the worst does happen. Read more on BBC News. NN
- AI-powered tech could help people with speech impairments work remotely: Israeli company Voiceitt is training speech recognition models to decipher the vocalisation of people affected by speech impediments due to conditions such as Down syndrome or cerebral palsy. Translation into text, or vocalisation by an AI, could lead to speech impediments no longer being a barrier to workplace integration for those affected by them. Read more on CNN. NN
- Google venture arm backs start-up aiming to bring mixed reality to any car windscreen or plane cockpit: Driving could become even more of an adventure. That’s if Helsinki-based Distance Technologies has anything to say about it. The mixed reality company just raised $11.1-million from the venture capital arm of Alphabet for the development of its screen technology, which uses digitisation to enhance a driver’s visual field. Read more on CNBC. NN
Top stories on TechCentral in the past 24 hours:
- ARM ‘approached Intel’ about deal
- Old Mutual to launch new South African bank in 2025
- Eskom builds a road out of power station ash
- Groete, ChatGPT – wie is Suid-Afrika se beste rugby span?
- ‘Profound’ changes coming to South Africa’s payments industry
- Maziv taps MTN, Telkom for new executives
Bookmarks is a daily feature on TechCentral and published Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.
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