After tackling dirty floors, home robotics brand Mova is ready to clean your pool, with the debut of the Diver A10 in Australia.
More than 3.1 million Australians live in a home with either a swimming pool or a spa, according to 2023 research from Roy Morgan. By some estimates, well over a million Aussie households have a pool, which makes sense for a nation known as the ‘sunburnt country’.
But cleaning and maintaining a swimming pool is a lot of work. Nor is it just a summertime task. With the popularity of robot vacuums on the rise, so is the prominence of robot pool cleaners, automating a chore that’s typically time-consuming and costly.
It’s why Mova has moved in to provide some competition to fellow robot heavyweights, including Aiper, Dreame, and Ecovacs. Priced at $1,299 — discounted to $1,099 at launch during the EOFY sales — the Mova Diver A10 is one of the more reasonably priced options in Australia.
Mova’s robot scrubs a pool’s sides and base, while also filtering debris into its 3.5L basket. It sucks up to 22,700LPH (litres per hour), circulating water and getting rid of leaf litter and other particles that find their way into the water.
Doing most of the work for you, the robot runs along the bottom and side of the pool using four wheels, guided by a set of sensors to ensure it comprehensively cleans all areas, including 5cm above the waterline.
Like a lot of other robot appliances, the Diver A10 can be controlled remotely via an app. Here, you can set it to follow automatic cleaning routines, keeping the pool clean in winter, ready for use in summer.
Once it’s done cleaning, the robot then parks by the poolside, ready for emptying and charging. Out now in Australia, the Mova Diver A10 is available from various retailers, including Mova’s online store, Amazon, Harvey Norman, and Robot Mowers Australia.
There you have it: Grand Theft Auto 6 costs $129.95 in Australia. That’s for the standard edition, at least. The fancy ‘Ultimate Edition’ costs $159.95, but it’s not unheard of for game companies to sell a pricier version packed with a bunch of extra digital content.
With the GTA 6 price locked in, pre-orders are live now, with the game scheduled to launch on 19 November. Big W already has a small discount on the game’s standard edition, pricing its pre-orders at $125 across both PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Here are the current online listings in Australia:
Notably, the physical editions of GTA 6 won’t include a disc in the box. Instead, they will include a download code that players can redeem to start pre-downloading the game on 12 November, but it won’t be playable until the 19th. It’s likely a tactic to avoid overloading servers on the game’s launch date, which is set to be busy.
Why is GTA 6‘s price significant?
Rockstar Games’ announcement ends months of speculation around the price of GTA 6. Being the long-awaited follow-up to one of the best-selling games of all time, there was plenty of talk about the price tag being significantly higher to account for the game’s large scope and lengthy development time.
For a bit of background, Bloomberg journalist Jason Shreier published a good explainer on YouTube recently about why games cost so much to make. Essentially, because modern games are so big, more people are working on them for longer, with the bulk of development budgets going to employee salaries.
Overseas, GTA 6 costs US$80, above the usual price range of $60-$70 for a full-priced game. Here in Australia, the $129.95 pricing isn’t that far off the $124.95 sticker for a flagship PS5 game, like God of War Ragnarok.
Still, it’s a new price category, regardless. It might bust down the door for other game developers and publishers to follow, or it could be a move that can only be justified by Rockstar Games’ tentpole release.
Travel SIM cards have been growing in popularity for obvious reasons — people love going places and hate being without internet. But the question of what kind of trip makes these kinds of SIMs worth it also comes up a lot, so I used Simify for my whole family for a trip to Taiwan, and then for myself on business trips across Japan, China and Hong Kong.
The answer is that travel SIMs like Simify aren’t suited to every trip, but they come in clutch for very specific kinds of travel.
Using Simify in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan
What I loved about using Simify for my family holiday in Taiwan was how easy it was to set up. This was particularly great for my mother, because while she’s more tech savvy than many almost-80-year-olds, having me be able to order SIMs for her, my wife, and me in one go, and then text the links to them, which set up seamlessly in the app, was such a relief. The app’s instructions for the setup were clear, and both her iPhone 12 Pro Max and my iPhone 17 Pro Max were ready to go within minutes.
We got an Unlimited Asia eSIM because we wanted to be able to use it in Hong Kong if our layovers got extended or rerouted. I like to be prepared for any eventuality, and I don’t trust airlines to stick to a timetable (and I am so right for that).
Screenshot: Alice Clarke.
It wasn’t without a hitch, though, and while it’s certainly a lot less work than buying a prepaid SIM when you get to your destination, it lacks a lot of perks that are available to those willing to put in the effort.
For starters, not having a local phone number meant it was much harder to use Taipei’s bike rental scheme. This was another issue that came up in Japan, because I didn’t have access to any phone number, so I just couldn’t use the bikes there. There are workarounds, of course, but they’re a lot more labour-intensive and often not as good.
The second issue was that it was a lot more expensive than buying a local SIM, and also more expensive than some competitor products. Simify is cheaper than Holafly on some plans, but more expensive than some of the options on SimCorner, for example. On the Asia plan, at its most expensive, it’s $5.40 a day. It’s cheapest if you stay for 180 days, making it $2.19 a day.
My third issue was that Simify uses the old definition of “unlimited”. To me, unlimited data means that I can use an unlimited amount of data at the advertised 4G/5G speeds. To Simify, unlimited data is 1GB at full speed, and then unlimited data at a trickle so slow that Google Maps won’t load.
That said, it is very easy to message Simify in the app (over Wi-Fi, because the app also won’t load on the throttled speeds), and ask them to reset your data cap, and they’ll usually respond either instantly or the next day.
If your data allowance runs out, prepare for slow speeds. Screenshot: Alice Clarke.
Another issue is that for shorter trips (16 days or less), it’s actually more expensive than using Optus or Vodafone’s roaming options. With Optus, $5 a day gives me 5GB of data and unlimited calls and texts. With Simify, $5(ish) a day gives me 1GB at full speed and then not much else. But it does make a lot of sense on longer trips when you don’t need much data, because you can be connected for as little as $2.20 a day if you’re staying somewhere for more than 90 days.
While that doesn’t make sense if you’re just staying in the one country, because it would be cheaper and more effective to just get a local SIM, an around-the-world trip with many stops and a need for flexibility is the perfect use case for Simify.
The final issue is a bit nitpicky, but the app needs to chill with the notifications. If I am actively on a trip, using a Simify SIM card, I do not need daily (and sometimes more frequent) ads to buy a SIM card, regardless of what discounts are being offered. I needed to keep notifications on so I could know when customer support replied to my messages asking for more data, and it was just aggravating to have the privilege of push notifications be abused like that. It showed a lack of respect for the customer.
China
Those gripes aside, it was great using Simify in China, because all my roaming traffic was routed through various European countries by default, which meant I could browse the internet unimpeded.
On Wi-Fi, the Great Firewall of China blocked me from much of my social media and some other websites, but using Simify, I was able to (very slowly) browse like I was home without having to faff about with VPNs.
Simify Unlimited Asia eSIM verdict
While Simify isn’t the best option for every use case, I mostly found it very easy to use, and can absolutely see which situations it would be ideal for, as long as people are aware of the limitations.
If Simify upped the data cap for what is available at full speed, it would be a lot easier to recommend, given that 1GB is nothing in 2026. But aside from that, Simify is a great option for your next multi-country trip longer than 16 days.
My latest sim racing obsession is the Moza Porsche Mission R Steering Wheel, an officially licensed replica based on the CAD data of the real-life Porsche Mission R electric supercar wheel. The 320mm wheel comes with a machined aluminium frame, making it strong and rigid, while the suede-like grips feel great in-hand.
With a modest 12 controls, this Moza wheel has that sleek, premium feel while sticking true to the real-life version. Around the back, you have aluminium alloy paddles for shifting gears and releasing the clutch with precision. The big hitter has to be the oversized 5.4-inch flexible OLED display made from tempered glass. This thing is a beauty.
Naturally, I spun the wheel playing Forza Horizon 6 and driving the Porsche Mission R to match. Some things are just meant to be. At a rather lofty $2,299, this wheel is for those with deep pockets, compared to some of Moza’s more affordable wheels. But it’s great for diehard Porsche fans.
Meta has been all-in on smart glasses for a while now, but the price has typically been a deterrent. To try to get more people on board with its AI vision, Meta has launched a new set of smart specs starting at $469, the brand’s cheapest wearables so far.
Known simply as the ‘Meta Glasses’, the latest range consists of three different designs: Adventurer, Fury, and Glasses by Kylie (of the Jenner variety). All three models are part of a new range with fashion brand EssilorLuxottica. Each one has a different look, with the Adventurer a more traditional rectangular shape, Fury slightly bigger and rounder, while the Kylie Jenner-inspired pair opt for a slimmer, oval-shaped look.
As for what makes these glasses ‘smart’, each pair has built-in speakers, microphones, and cameras. Consistent with Meta’s smart glasses before them, these specs (not to be confused with Snap’s US$2,195 SPECS) include various AI-based features, like live translation, with pedestrian navigation coming soon to models like these without a built-in display. There’s also a dedicated button for Meta AI, the brand’s smart assistant designed to respond to context-based queries.
Image: Meta.
According to Meta, the glasses include “built-in safeguards to respect the privacy of people around you”. An LED light turns on when the camera’s in use, while Meta’s website has various tips for responsible use. Whether people follow those guidelines or not is a whole different thing.
Meta also advertises “over eight hours of battery” for the new smart glasses. That should be enough for all-day use, provided you’re not using every feature at every waking moment.
Australians can get the new Meta Glasses now via Meta’s online store or optical retailers. In addition to the $469 starting price for the Adventurer and Fury designs, the Kylie design starts at a pricier $629 locally.
Ref got it wrong? Now you can whip out your phone and tell them so, in slow motion. (I’m sure they’ll love that.)
Samsung reckons it has the answer, and it may already in your pocket. A few clever features on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and to a lesser extent the rest of the Galaxy S family, are being positioned as the great sideline peacekeeper:
Space Zoom, the 100x zoom found on the S26 Ultra, lets you zoom in close enough to settle exactly whose foot did what to whom, and where the ball actually ended up. Perfect for refereeing from forty metres away with the confidence of someone who definitely didn’t see it properly the first time.
If it all happens too fast for the human eye, Instant Slow-mo uses AI to generate extra frames and slow the action right down, so you can relive that contested handball in glorious, undeniable detail.
Super Steady (motion stabilisation) and Horizontal Lock keep your footage level even while you’re sprinting down the sideline for a better angle. The footage stays smooth. Your dignity, less so.
Samsung’s even floated the idea that the S26 Ultra could double as a pocket VAR, or video assistant referee – timely given how much the real VAR is already being talked about at The World Cup!
To see it in action, check out Samsung’s video featuring Archie Thompson, former Socceroo from the golden era of 2006, and a team of very enthusiastic kids from Sutherland Sharks FC.
Every time someone from a tech company has discussed the increasing prices of hardware, they’ve followed a pretty similar playbook. Vague, general references to the global memory shortage, followed by a boilerplate reason as to why the only option is to pass costs onto consumers. It’s why Valve’s confirmation of the Steam Machine’s pricing was so interesting; rather than give an empty, corporate-speak-filled response, as many have done before, it went into refreshing detail about the company’s price strategy.
Steam Machine, like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components. We felt like we had a good understanding of how those costs might change over time when we first started sourcing them for Steam Machine back in 2023. That understanding was born from the many years of data we all have about the evolution of PC hardware prices – primarily, that it tends to get cheaper over time as new technology arrives.
This last sentence is something that’s all too familiar to tech and gaming enthusiasts right now. Usually, early adopters would pay the most to be the first to have a new device. After a while, prices would come down, as components and manufacturing get cheaper. However, the opposite is currently happening.
As a quick refresher, the major investments in generative AI technology, namely the data centres required to power the technology at scale, have resulted in huge demand for components. Memory and storage are crucial to data centre operations, causing companies to buy up not only existing stock, but also future allocations yet to be produced.
This leads to the next part of Valve’s explanation:
Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components. There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices we’re sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past 6 months.
Price wasn’t the only thing impacted by all of this: availability was as well. There were periods where we found we couldn’t source some of our components at all, at any price. More than anything else, this has impacted the number of units we’ve been able to produce for launch.
It’s a remarkable level of transparency rarely seen from a tech (or tech-adjacent) company. Valve confirms the problem faced by every tech manufacturer right now: cost and availability.
Apple’s outgoing CEO, Tim Cook, recently claimed that “price increases are unavoidable”. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he described the squeeze on the tech supply chain as something he’d “never seen anything like” in his 40-plus-year career, labelling it a “hundred-year-flood” event.
While Cook didn’t elaborate as much as Valve’s statement (unattributed to any individual author), it was a rare show of candour from a Silicon Valley executive. Most of what gets said on public record only refers to broad concepts, likely in an attempt to avoid ceding any competitive advantages when negotiating hardware deals with suppliers. Even Cook’s statement, as enlightening as it was for contextualising the tech industry’s challenges, was scant on specifics.
Conversely, Valve revealed just how much the memory shortage is playing havoc with device launches, in both timing and pricing. When you look at a new phone, PC, or games console on a retailer’s shelf, you likely wouldn’t consider how many months’ worth of components the company had to secure, and at what cost, to arrive at the price indicated on the sticker.
An important distinction to make here is that Valve is a private company. It’s not beholden to appeasing shareholders and investors. Valve’s top priority is keeping its paying customers on board, hence the transparency.
Regardless, no amount of transparency makes it easier to shell out thousands of dollars for a device that would’ve been cheaper just a short few years ago.
