News and Notes Roundup: Dec. 1

By Evan Summers | December 01, 2014

Photo
Cartoon, thin mint cookie dressed as Girl Scout, with a sash & soccer ball.

 

Thanksgiving has come and gone. The weekend is over. The turkey (or tofurkey) is eaten. A full work week is back with a vengeance. But amid all these post-holiday Monday negatives, we’ve got something to make you feel just a bit better: another issue of the critically acclaimed (why not?) NDItech News and Notes Roundup. As always, please tweet at us - @nditech - or email us - [email protected] - with any comments or suggestions for future roundups.

 

For “this Week in Tech History," we focus on December 1, 1996. On that day, AOL launched a new subscription plan offering its subscribers unlimited dial-up internet access for just under 20 bucks a month. The plan enticed over 1 million news customers, and average usage rates soared to over 32 minuted per day. Of course, this new demand did overload AOL's servers, leading to a bevy of complaints.

 

And now, time for the links:

 

Popular Tech News:

  • Girls Scouts to start selling cookies online

  • European MPs calling for break up of Google

  • Is tech coming to the rescue of endangered languages?

  • What’s the fastest growing social media platform?

  • Supreme Court to consider when a Facebook post breaks the law

 

ICT and Development:

  • Humanitarian Data Exchange’s incredible Ebola open data map

  • The data drought in developing countries

  • Are big ideas destroying international development?

  • Jamaica’s ICT development receives $226m boost

  • Ghana sets up commission to oversee cyber crimes

  • 2014 Measuring the Information Society report released

  • Guardian panel on the keys to game-changing health innovation

Mobiles:

  • Vodafone to provide reliable service in Uganda

  • India's offline mobile internet is going open source

  • How mobile is extending education in the Philippines

  • New Digital Inclusion report released - est. 48% of planet will still be offline by 2018

  • Expecting mothers among first to benefit from mobile access in Myanmar

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