1) Nelson Mandela dies, age 95
The first president of the Free Democratic Republic of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, died on December 5th 2013.
Mandela was known for his imprisonment by the Apartheid Regime. He shocked the world when he was released in 1990 by promoting non-violence and quickly removed Apartheid from South Africa through the means of peace.
Mandela died at the age of 95. He is survived by his wife and his children.
2) Bitcoins value crashed
This week the controversial currency Bitcoin decreased rapidly in value. The peer-generated coins went from 1200$US per coin on the Tuesday to little over 600$US per coin on the Saturday. The cause of the freefall is said to be the banks of China denied Bitcoins as currency and refused to take it as any form of payment. The worst drop was between Friday and Saturday when the currency fell over 4$US per minute.
3) 4Chan joke destroys XBOX One
In the past week, it was discovered that you could access the developer tools on Microsoft’s XBOX ONE consoles. Since then, a joke appeared on image posting site 4Chan, telling you how to make the console able to run games from earlier Microsoft consoles. The joke was rather cruel, though, and the result is that your console will try to restart itself endlessly, leaving you with a very expensive paper weight.
Lead developer Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb has announced that there is no way to make the console backwards compatible and that you should avoid the developer menu at all cost. This feature was not meant to be publicly accessible and Microsoft will not take any responsibility for your actions inside that hidden menu. Major Nelson also said that any warranty on the machine will be voided if the problem arises from the user using the developer menu.
4) Fast and Furious star dies in crash
Paul Walker, famous from The Fast And The Furious movie series, died on Saturday, November 30th. Walker was passenger in a sports car during a charity event for the victims of the typhoon in the Phillipines when his car went off the road and crashed into a nearby tree. Driving the car was his close friend and co-worker, Roger Rodas, who also died in the crash. Earlier in the week, reports of his death were cleared as hoaxes and there were great confusion when it actually happened. Paul Walker, who was in the middle of recording Fast and Furious 7, was 40 years old. He is survived by his daughter.
5) Historical cross-grid meeting
On the last weekend of November, a historical meeting took place in Second Life, where the top people from InWorldz held a discussion panel about both grids. The meeting took up things like the controversial TOS, copyright laws and why they will not take direct action in any DMCA without the owners reporting the problem themselves. Other things discussed were how InWorldz isn’t trying to turn users against Second Life, but rather get people to use both grids. There are several advantages to having an avatar in both worlds and it is the hope of many that one day teleporting across grids will be possible.