News and Notes Roundup - 10/19/2015

Another happy Monday to you, cherished readers! Here’s your weekly roundup to start things right.

Consumer hardware has had a big week with reveals, releases, and reviews. Valve’s hardware line for Steam is a mixed bag. The Nexus 6P appears to be a worthy follow-up and has some awesome features from Android Marshmallow, while the 5X pays loving tribute to its predecessor. The Apple TV’s release details are still a mystery. One of Segway’s owners released an affordable, knee-high scooter called the Ninebot Mini. Finally, Consumer Reports proved the iPhone 6S has consistent battery life, regardless of its A9 chip.

Any other Star Wars fans out there? Just me? Okay... Regardless, here’s some long-awaited good news!

Tech News:

• Some guy claims to have broken Bitcoin

• Amazon filed suit against more than a thousand writers of fake reviews

• This man has been designing political simulators nonstop for 15 years

• Russia is really worried about the internet and got busy rewriting its cyber rules

• Is a government trying to hack your computer? Facebook suggests you replace it

• China hasn’t really kept its promises on corporate cyberattacks

• US federal sites might be seeing some radical improvements

• Google’s troublesome “scan-all-of-the-books” project was found legal

Tech4Democracy:

• Indian villages are driving the country’s climate tech revolution

• Read about this man’s amazing accomplishments in social innovation at Qatar Computing Research Institute - he’s moving on to consulting work!

• Would crowdfunding support international development projects?

• ICTs help ameliorate climate change effects all over Africa

• Media for development underwent some crucial self-examination

Mobile News:

• The mobile economy is exploding in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Ghana’s districts can leverage growing mobile penetration to foster greater citizen engagement

• Malawi licensed a new network to operate in its borders

• Tanzanians can request a birth certificate by phone

• Hundreds of iOS apps were found to illicitly access users’ personal data