Normally we’d expect a bit of a respite in August, as things quieten down for the middle of winter and the world prepares for its Christmas tech offensive. Not this year, though. In our continuing series of round up posts looking back at the last twelves months this is what stood out in the eighth month of 2014.
- South Africa hosted the world’s first Serious Games Conference. A fairly significant event if you believe – as I do – that gaming as a medium is about to become an important part of the way we consume news stories on our phones. Went unnoticed by everyone else though.
- The Ice Bucket Challenge took the world by storm, as an American medical charity hit viral gold with celebs dousing themselves with cold water. Left lawmakers baffled though.
- Hello Kitty is not, contrary to what you might think, a cat.
- A special panel is set up to consult and investigate the progress of etolls in Gauteng. Much is expected of this when it reports back in Jan.
- Mark Shuttleworth takes the South African Reserve Bank to court over levies charged for expatriating his fortune. We’ll hear more about that again in a later post.
- https://htxt.co.za/2014/08/25/mark-shuttleworth-wants-his-r250-million-back-from-sarb/
- Activists in South Africa are already digital savvy, but Amandla.mobi is remarkable amongst its peers. It’s an online petition site designed for the poor.
- The awesome and fun SA game Broforce was used to promote the Expendables 3. Oh yeah.
- And finally, in power-of-the-internet story of the year (almost), a crowdfunded journalism site found the location of the ISIS fighters who beheaded American James Foley and uploaded the video to YouTube.
