Htxt.Africa

In two months, South Africans will be trawling several online retailers daily in order to find the best deals for Black Friday (now Black November). In the lead up to the annual shopping event, the Online Retail in South Africa 2026 report has been released, looking at ecommerce locally, and projecting how much it is expected to grow by the end of this year. The report was produced by local research firm, World Wide Worx, in partnership with Mastercard, Peach Payments, and Ask Africa.

South Africans of a certain age will remember Packard Bell as one of the biggest personal computing brands a couple of decades ago. In the years since, the brand has slipped out of visibility, but Acer is looking to breathe new life into it. To that end, at the next@acer event held on the eve of IFA 2026, the company reintroduced Packard Bell, announcing nine new devices in the process, including an affordable laptop (pictured below).

In June, NVIDIA announced a new processor designed with Windows OEMs in mind in the form of the RTX Spark. At the time, new hardware running the silicon was still in the offing, but this week, Acer is one of the first company’s to reveal a product powered by the NVIDIA RTX Spark – the Acer SFF RTX Spark.

The dust may have settled on Gamescom 2026, but PlayStation still has some upcoming exclusive titles it wants to highlight. To that end, the gaming giant will host one of its State of Play events later today. 15:00 South African time to be more precise, with the State of Play set to focus solely on Final Fantasy VII Revelation, with an extended look at the upcoming title from Square Enix.

At an event in Munich earlier today, Huawei unveiled a slew of new hardware, which was headlined by the Watch GT 7 Pro. It is the company’s latest flagship smartwatch made with outdoor sports in mind, with Huawei using the tag line “Chase the Wind” in the build up to its Innovative Product Launch. Hypertext was on hand for said event, and has been seeded a Watch GT 7 Pro for review.

Last month, we wrote about Huawei’s latest Innovative Product Launch, with the company set to unveil some new smartwatches in Munich. True to its word, Huawei did unveil the newest lineup in its outdoor sports-focused GT series, with three models in the GT 7 lineup being revealed. These devices were debuted by Huawei in China last month, but now they have made their global debut, with the new wearables slated for release in South Africa too.

Earlier today, Huawei hosted its latest Innovative Product Launch. While the company’s latest smartwatches took a lot of the spotlight, Huawei also had new smartphones to showcase. Here, the brand unveiled the Nova 16s series, with a standard and Pro model being revealed. This is not the first time that these devices have been debuted, however, with China-specific versions being launched last month.

This week, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) opened up orders for its all-electric luxury SUV in selected regions, which includes South Africa. As such, the Range Rover Electric is available to order for local motorists, EV enthusiasts, and long-time lovers of the 4×4. While a specific date has not been outlined in terms of when newly ordered vehicles will arrive to local customers, most expect the first batches to land in South Africa in 2027. As for recommended pricing, it starts at R3.9 million.

A regular fixture on the South African tech calendar these days, the Huawei Women in Tech Digital Skills Development Programme recently wrapped up its latest instalment, as a cohort of 50 female entrepreneurs and senior managers in government took part in an intensive and enlightening three-day course, which focused on the hard and soft skills when it comes to running a business in the AI era.

Last year, US President Donald Trump, made it his mission to rename a number of well-established geographical landmarks. The most notable to date has been the Gulf of Mexico, which has since been renamed the Gulf of America, with his administration targeting any publications and outlets which chose to do different. The latest change involves Lake Ontario, which has been unimaginatively renamed Lake America. It is an odd choice, given that Lake Ontario is the smallest of the US’ five Great Lakes.