Htxt.Africa

Massmart, the Walmart-owned parent company of Game, Makro and Builders Warehouse, has just announced its efforts for Mandela Day. Mandela Day, taking place tomorrow on 18th July, is both a global and local celebration that encourages charity and giving back to the community. Both companies and individuals are encouraged to donate their items and more importantly their time to good causes – notably 67 minutes of their time to mirror Nelson Mandela’s 67 years fighting for equality.

In a strange turn of events, the final movie in the Jackass franchise – Best and Last – has quietly been removed from local cinemas. While all new movies eventually end their theatrical run, Best and Last launched on 3rd July meaning that it had less than two weeks in theatres. Wanting to see this movie ourselves, we discovered the film was missing when trying to book across both Ster-Kinekor and Nu Metro.

Hypertext (www.htxt.co.za) is looking to add a new member to its editorial. As one of the country’s leading, independent, tech news publications, we plan to hire a technology journalist to complement our current mix of journalists. Those interested in applying need to have a keen interest in technology within the South African context, and the ability to write daily about a number of different subjects, ranging from consumer electronics and telecommunications, to education and cybersecurity.

This Sunday, at 21:00 on 19th July 2026, Spain will take on defending champions Argentina in the final of the FIFA World Cup 2026. With the last tournament’s final garnering more than 1.5 billion viewers, FIFA is projecting even higher viewership now that it is taking place in North America. As such, a lot of eyes will be watching to see if Lionel Messi can lift back-to-back trophies, or whether Spain can add to the honours it won in 2010 in South Africa.

Earlier this month, Nintendo announced that, in order to become compliant with certain EU laws, much of its hardware lineup would receive a refresh to integrate user-replaceable batteries. This change will affect many countries, including those outside of the EU, but the hardware is not in the hands of customers just yet. To prepare for the change, however, Nintendo has started producing guides for the process.

In recent weeks, Acer Africa has been ramping up its offers in terms of gaming laptops locally. Now, it has kicked off a nationwide campaign that will run until 31st December 2026. The promotion is fairly straightforward, with those who buy a qualifying Nitro or Predator gaming laptop before 31st December getting up to R1 000 in Steam Vouchers and a custom XL gaming desk mat. This promotion has been split by Acer Africa into two distinct offers – the Level Up option and the Pro Gamer option.

This week, Isuzu Motors South Africa cut the ribbon on a recent R2 million investment in the Eastern Cape. Said investment had nothing to do with motoring or manufacturing, but was instead a new AI, Coding and Robotics Lab at Khulile Primary School in Motherwell. This new facility will provide an estimated 650 learners from Grade R to Grade 7 with access to the latest in digital learning technologies.

Before you rush into the weekend, you should head on over to the Epic Games Store to claim your two free PC games, as well as your free mobile game for those who have the Epic Games Store standalone app installed. The two PC games this week really caught out attention.

Rooibos has become an increasingly popular tea outside of its native South Africa. So much so, that it will soon be heading to space as part of an initiative that seeks to blend agriculture and space research. The Rooibos in Space programme plans to send seeds to the International Space Station (ISS), in efforts to combine space-based plant science with hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.

Today, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the Vodacom Group have announced a partnership designed to bring graduates up to speed before they become employees, which should set them up for success. The partnership takes the form of the 2026 Emerging Leaders Programme (ELP), which is a three-month programme on offer from the Development and Leadership Unit (DLU) in the Division of Student Affairs at Wits.