News and Notes Roundup: Jan. 12

It’s Monday. We’re back. Time for this week’s dose of the NDItech News and Notes Roundup. As always, tweet or email (@nditech/[email protected]) with any tips for future roundups.

We’ll start this week’s look back into “Tech History” with a shout-out to the first flight of the legendary Boeing 747, the world’s original jumbo jet, which took place on January 12th, 1970. Of course before the commercial airliner came the mass-produced automobile, the first of which (Ford’s Model-T) began assembly-line production 101 years ago this Wednesday. Also of note this week: the birth of “911” as an emergency telephone number in 1968; Wikipedia going online for the first time on Jan. 15, 2001; and the 20th anniversary of the registration of Yahoo dot com (originally named “David and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” !!!) on the 18th of this month.

Now, time for the links:

Popular Tech News:

• U.S. Digital Service launches playbook on keys to building better online services

• Obama to “beef up” privacy and data breach laws

• A.I. experts vow to protect mankind from machines

• Google’s real-time voice translation service for mobile devices is on its way

• Spotify grows to 60 million active users, including 15 million paid subscribers

ICT and Development:

• Gender-Violence 2.0: The digital safety gap for women

• Is language translation technology finally starting to deliver on its promise?

• Fighting corruption with data mining by spotting inadequacies in government processes

• Women taking the Gazan startup scene by storm

• Sierra Leone techie develops Ebola response and data management software system

Mobiles:

• WhatsApp overtakes traditional text messages in popularity

• World Bank’s “Smarter Cities” development framework

• Is financial inclusion emerging as key part of development agenda for 2015 and beyond?

• Scaling mobile education technology programs to the Middle East

• Farmer using text messages to water crops in Vietnam