Obama won, Wolverine fired, Google Watch coming: #StuffToKnow this week

Well, the US government shut down (because of old men acting like children who didn’t get the toys they wanted), and after 16 day of chaos, nothing happened. South African banks were robbed via Mc Donald’s and Steers. Google is ready to release a watch of its own since Samsung messed up the hardware design. And oh yeah, no stress, but we are building the terminator.

INTERNET

US government ends shutdown and avoids debt crisis
Well this was an unmitigated US$26-billion mess by the Republicans and many citizens of the US, as well as people around the world, shared their frustrations online and via various social media platforms. Though the Republicans tried to blame it on Obama nobody was fooled and they used the internet to tell them that.

Massive malware breach sees SA banks lose tens of millions of Rands
Dexter robbed South Africa’s banks, mostly via takeaway joints. Sounds weird huh? Well Dexter is a malware virus that affects POS machines (those card readers you swipe your card through). It’s been going on for months, as they were smart and catered the malware to avoid detection by antivirus software. It seems to only affect those who don’t have smart chips in their cards (this kind of thing is why the security was enhanced for the credit card industry).

TechCrunch has redesigned, again
It looks clean and yes, you guessed it, flat. But it looks good. None of that pixellated 8-bit stuff it was trying out before. The new design is responsive and adapts to whatever interface you use to view it, be it a desktop, tablet or smartphone.

TECH

Watch: the world’s first fully functional bionic man

iPhone 5s outselling iPhone 5c two to one
Well… yeah, if someone wanted a candy coloured toy of a phone they would buy a Nokia and it would be cheaper.

Google Watch is happening soon, heavy into Kit Kat/Google Now functionality
The Samsung Gear version didn’t work out as we were hoping… maybe if we are lucky, one of the geniuses at Google will learn from the market that design is just as important as functionality. Yes, you need both. This is the reason Apple’s ‘i’ range has dominated their various markets for so long.

Message from BlackBerry: You can still count on us
A message that really meant: please don’t all leave us now. We need the few customers we still have to rationalize our selling price to whomever is willing to buy us. BlackBerry says “yes, there is a lot of competition out there and we know that BlackBerry is not for everyone. That’s OK. You have always known that BlackBerry is different, that BlackBerry can set you apart.”

Yeah, the same way wearing a multi coloured cap with a propeller on the top to a black tie event will “set you apart”.

Apple’s ‘spaceship’ HQ gets closer to reality
Getting approval for this place, which I must admit is an awesome design, was Steve’s last public appearance (he presented the plans to the city council of Cupertino). Since then the ambitious project has ballooned in cost to US$5-billion, but then again we are talking about Apple, who has US$147-billion in cash just chilling in the corner of some bank getting bored while doing nothing but making interest, so I think they can afford to flex out a bit on their new home.

ENTERTAINMENT

New ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’ trailer set to epic U2 song

NICE FIND

Wolverine, the Most Useless X-Man

This is just brilliant! Professor X tries explaining to Wolverine that his powers are a liability.

Let me know if I missed anything in the comments… it’s a good place to leave any big things I should mention next week.