News and Notes Roundup - 12/28/2015

Here it is, folks! The LAST News & Notes Roundup of the year. Come one, come all, and close out 2015 on a great note with this week’s slate of development!

Allow us to wax reflective for a moment. It’s been a fantastic year for the NDItech team: we launched DemTools 2.0; our expertise was used in several election observation missions; and we all made our own personal advancements as well. We’ve really enjoyed doing the work we have and hope to make 2016 a year more democratic and more exciting than any previous. Thanks for reading and here’s to a new year, new beginnings, and continued progress! Happy New Year, everyone!

Tech News:

• Some of Bitcoin’s leading developers left the project and made their own cryptocurrency: Decred
• If we’re going to use the Internet of Things, it needs a major security upgrade
• Here are four major developments to expect in virtual reality
• Enjoy the latest version of Ruby
• Can we move beyond passwords? Google thinks so
• Hopes for secure encryption in China are now dead
• One of the founders of The Pirate Bay has an art project dedicated to the music industry
• Take a look inside Red Star OS, North Korea’s national operating system

Tech4Dem:

• Using tech for data collection can greatly enhance monitoring efforts in international development
• College students in Virginia used online mapping to help Nepalese earthquake recovery efforts
• Wikipedia in French is now free to access for much of sub-Saharan Africa
• India banned Facebook’s Free Basics app over concerns of net neutrality
• 2015 was a banner year for the open source movement

Mobile News:

• Can changing Web standards render all of our precious apps obsolete?
• Switzerland is moving toward universal phone chargers
• YouTube claims T-Mobile’s new data offerings violate net neutrality
• Some Galaxy S5 users received Android Marshmallow by mistake
• Here’s how mobile devices can help stop diabetes