Can we use the cloud to reduce greenhouse emissions? Holding companies responsible for software bugs. And what if ChatGPT could approach you and touch you?
Welcome to trending hashtags for Friday, March 3rd.
I’m your host Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada and TechNewsday in the US – here’s today’s top tech news.
The cloud is the enabler of our new digital economy. OdourCan’t it also help us with the challenge of IT’s environmental footprint? As of September 2022 McKinsey reports, “Enterprise technology is responsible for approximately 350 to 400 megatons of emissions equal to carbon dioxide gases (CO2e), which accounts for about 1 percent of total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At first blush, this may not sound like a lot, but it is equivalent to almost half the emissions from aviation or shipping and the total carbon emitted by the United Kingdom.
We all know that the cloud is actually a countless number of servers in massive data centers that are constantly buzzing with digital activity.
But as mod texier, Google’s head of clean energy and carbon development explains news site ZDNET, “At the end of the day, the Internet runs on data centers, and from an operational perspective, data centers run on energy., So, that’s the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions – when someone is using the cloud, typing an email and creating something new.”
But is the rise in cloud computing problematic in the context of climate change? Probably not. But companies are increasingly sensitive to their environmental impact. According to research firm Gartner Inc., by 2025, 50 percent of CIOs will have performance metrics tied to the sustainability of the IT organization.
So how is the cloud doing? Research published in 2020 found that computing output of data centers increased by 550 percent between 2010 and 2018, while energy consumption from those data centers increased by only 6 percent.
miguel angel borregaresearch director of Gartner’s infrastructure cloud strategy team, said that “when we compare gas emissions, energy efficiency, water efficiency, and the way they efficiently use IT infrastructure, we realize that on the cloud Better go.” Furthermore, she recently said in an interview, that the general “IT infrastructure is about 40% under rated. When we move to cloud providers, the efficiency rate of using servers is 85%. So, with the same energy, we are managing double or more than double the workload.”
New cloud data centers are increasingly using renewable energy sources, even as traditional data centers continue to operate from fossil fuel sources.
Cloud providers are also becoming efficient with their energy use, with advances in areas such as refrigeration and cooling systems and efficient server utilization, According to a recent report, “AWS, Google and others are building their own custom chips and hardware to deliver the most computing power to customers while using the least amount of energy.”
Location matters in determining how green a cloud operation is. Some of Google’s data centers in places like Finland, Toronto and Iowa have a CFE (carbon pollution-free electricity) percentage above 90. Others, such as data centers in SingaporeJakarta and South Carolina are closer to 10 percent or 20 percent.
When cloud providers cannot use renewable energy, many offset their energy use with zero-carbon energy purchases, or carbon credits.
Microsoft, a huge global player in the cloud, has pledged to match 100 percent of its electricity consumption with zero-carbon energy purchases by 2030.
Source: ZDNet
Forget about Chinese spy balloons, the real threat is information technology, according to CISA, the cyber security and infrastructure agency in the US.
CISA director Jane Easterly thinks Yousafe Software products and technology present an enormous threat.
According to Easterly, technology providers should prioritize security in their products over cost, features and speed. And companies should be held accountable for selling vulnerable products that criminals and nation states later exploit in cyberattacks.
During his speech at Carnegie, Easterly said, “While it will not be possible to prevent all software vulnerabilities, the fact that we have accepted a monthly ‘Patch Tuesday’ as normal shows our willingness to work dangerously at the crash threshold.” There is further proof of.” Mellon University on Monday.
One example that Easterly pointed to was the adoption of MFA – multifactor authentication. Microsoft only has 25 percent of its enterprise customers using mfa, Twitter has made an already bad situation worse by turning off MFA and charging a fee to use it, unless the sophisticated user figures out how to enable it themselves using an alternative method.
eastern note, it could be better. Apple By comparison, it claims 95 percent of its iCloud users enable MFA.
In this regard, Easterly said, “”Apple’s impressive MFA numbers are not due to random chance. By making MFA the default for user accounts, Apple is taking ownership for the security consequences for its users.
She acknowledges that the transparency in the reporting of her MFA adoption from Microsoft and Twitter is “disappointing” though. It’s still important to highlight the importance of security by default, Easterly explained.
CISA is also pushing for “secure-by-design” and placing an obligation on vendors to sell secure products out of the box instead of dumping that race.Responsibility on consumers and businesses.
Easterly said, “Security-by-design includes actions such as transitioning to memory-safe languages, a transparent vulnerability disclosure policy, and secure coding practices.
According to CISA, “Using programming languages such as Rust, Go, Python and Java (instead of C and C++) can eliminate memory-safe vulnerabilities, which currently account for about two-thirds of all known software vulnerabilities”. “
Source: register
A tech company is locking employees out of their office systems at the end of the day to ensure work-life balance.
The message that appears on SoftGrid computer workers’ monitors at the end of their shifts reads: “WARNING!!! Your shift has ended. The office system will shut down in 10 minutes. please go home”
Tanvi Khandelwal, HR Specialist at the company posted the message on her LinkedIn, Garnering over 425,000 likes and 7,000 comments.
While people loved the idea of an employer who sets boundaries for people and encourages them to live their lives outside of work, others resented the idea of being forced to give up everything, potentially In the middle of an important task or call.
read the top comment; “I understand work-life balance is important, but being cut off like this seems more harmful and causes more stress than helps”
The other said, “God, I’d hate it, Let me decide how and when I work, I don’t need to switch off!”
Company CEO Shweta Shulka said the policy is aimed at helping employees prioritize breaks and clarified that the pop-up message is not an ultimatum, but serves as a reminder. With a normal restart, they can return to work if they wish.
Source: Narcity
It can answer questions, it can do research, it can write a program, it can make a report and now it can control robots.
Last week, Microsoft researchers unveiled an experimental framework that lets OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT write specialized code that controls robot movements.
The researchers taught ChatGPT a custom robotic API – Application Programming Interface. so when the chatbot Given instructions such as “pick up the ball”, ChatGPT can generate code for the robot to execute the instructions.
The researchers emphasize that “the use of ChatGPT for robotics is not a fully automated process, but rather serves as a tool to enhance human capability”. Currently, a human inspects the code and optimizes it for accuracy and security. edits for
Microsoft demonstrated the innovation in a demonstration video showing a robot apparently controlled by code written by ChatGPT following human instructions. Demonstrations showed a robotic arm arranging blocks in the Microsoft logo, flying a drone to inspect the contents of a shelf, or locating objects using a robot with vision capabilities.
While the instructions given to ChatGPT to control the robot come from humans in the form of text, the researchers also claim that they have had some success feeding visual data into ChatGPT. For example, when trying to catch a basketball with feedback from the camerachatgpt Ball was able to predict the presence of HTT in the camera image using SVG or scalable vector graphics code.
“Our goal with this research is to see if ChatGPT can think beyond text, and reason about the physical world to help robotics perform tasks,” Microsoft said in a blog post. interact with robotics more easily, without needing to learn complex programming languages or details about robotic systems.
and if chatgpt bot starts threatening you as has happened in a few sessions, you may want to run for it.
Source: Ars Technica
This is today’s top tech news
Links to these stories can be found in articles posted at itworldcanada.com/podcasts. You can also find more great stories and more in-depth coverage at itworldcanada.com or technewsday.com in the US.
Hashtag Trending airs five days a week with the daily newscast and we have a special weekend edition featuring an interview with an expert in some aspect of the technology that is making the news.
It’s always nice to hear from you, you can find me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, Twitter Or leave a comment below the article for this podcast on ITWorldCanada.com.
i’m your host jim love – have a great Friday!
