Monthly Archives: September 2022

Five technology giants including Twitter and Facebook have pledged to self-regulate and adhere to a new voluntary code of practice in New Zealand that aims to curb harmful online content. The move, however, has been dismissed as "window dressing" and an attempt to preempt regulation.

Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, and Twitter agreed to sign up for the Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms, which "obligates" tech companies to "actively reduce harmful content" on their respective digital platforms and services in the country. The agreement includes Google's YouTube, Meta's Facebook and Instagram, and Amazon's Twitch platforms.

The move marked the launch of the code of practice, which came into effect Monday after a year of development efforts led by Netsafe, a non-profit organisation focused on online safety.

Dependent on self-regulation, the code outlines principles and best practices that looks to improve online safety and cut harmful content. It can be applied to range of products and services that serve different user communities, addressing different concerns and use cases, according to Netsafe.

The code focuses on seven themes under which content is deemed harmful, including cyberbullying or harassment, incitement of violence, misinformation, and child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Under the code, signatories will make "best efforts" to four key commitments that encompass reducing the prevalence of harmful online content, empowering users with more control and to make informed choices, enhancing transparency of policies and processes, as well as supporting independent research.

Netsafe said: "It provides flexibility for potential signatories to innovate and respond to online safety and harmful content concerns in a way that best matches their risk profiles, as well as recalibrate and shift tactics in order to iterate, improve, and address evolving threats online in real-time."

It added that the code was not designed to replace "obligations" involved in existing laws or other voluntary regulatory frameworks. Instead, it focused on the signatories' architecture comprising their systems, policies, processes, products, and tools put in place to combat the spread of harmful content.

NZ Tech has been roped in take over the establishment and administration of the code. The not-for-profit NGO (non-governmental organisation) represents 20 technology communities and more than 1,000 members across New Zealand.

Several digital platforms, including all the five tech companies that signed up for it, were involved in the initial drafting of the code. Feedback from civil society groups, interest groups, the government, and general public also was taken into consideration.

The code will be monitored by a "new multi-stakeholder governance" group, Netsafe said, which noted that the code was built on online safety principles from Australia and EU.

Companies that agreed to adhere to the new code of practice would have to publish annual reports about their progress in adherence with the code and would be subject to sanctions if they breached their commitments.

Netsafe CEO Brent Carey said harmful content reports climbed more than 25% amidst increased online use fuelled by the global pandemic. "There are too many kiwis being bullied, harassed, and abused online, which is why the industry has rallied together to protect users," Carey said.

One industry critic, though, has hit out at the establishment of the code, calling it a framework that avoids change and accountability.

Tohatoha NZ CEO Mandy Henksaid in a post that the code seemed like a "Meta-led effort to subvert a New Zealand institution", in a bid to claim legitimacy without having done work to earn it.

"This is a weak attempt to preempt regulation, in New Zealand and overseas, by promoting an industry-led model that avoids the real change and real accountability needed to protect communities, individuals, and the health of our democracy," Heml said. "This code talks a lot about transparency, but transparency without accountability is just window dressing. In our view, nothing in this code enhances the accountability of the platforms or ensures those who are harmed by their business models are made whole again or protected from future harms."

Tohatoha NZ is a not-for-profit organisation that advocates public education of the social impacts of technology.

Henk said the processes that led to the Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice revealed that the minds behind it had "no awareness" of the imbalance of power between users and online platforms and had no interest in correcting this inequity.

He also noted that NZ Tech was an advocacy group that lacked the expertise or experience as well as community accountability to administer a code of practice of this nature. It was neither impartial nor focused on the needs of those harmed by the tech platforms, he added.

He further called out Netsafe for being involved in establishing the code, when its role as the approved administrator for New Zealand's Harmful Digital Communications Act meant there was a conflict of interest. "It aligns [Netsafe] too closely with the companies impacted by the Harmful Digital Communications Act and increases the risk of regulatory capture," he said. "This code is a distraction from their core work of administering the Act, which is crucially important. NetSafe's focus should be on serving the New Zealand public and enhancing the safety of every New Zealander who uses the internet."

Henk instead urged the need for a government-led process to develop online content regulations. This would provide the legitimacy and resources needed to establish a regulatory framework that safeguarded the rights of internet users.

He pointed to theContent Regulatory Reviewas the right step towards this direction.

The rest is here:

Tech media giants pledge to maintain online safety in NZ pact

In early August, Amazons SVP of human resources, Beth Galetti, penned a blog post urging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to expedite the processing of employment-based green cards.

The plea was, of course, self-serving Amazon topped the list of companies applying for green cards in 2019 with 1,500 applications, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. But it did serve to spotlight that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) the agency responsible for issuing green cards is barreling toward a failure to adjudicate tens of thousands of applications before a September 30 deadline.

Green cards are highly sought after. Unlike temporary work visas (e.g., H-1Bs), they allow workers to freely switch jobs without losing their immigration status. In response to demand (and political pressure), Congress allotted 281,000 employment-based green cards in 2022, up from 262,000 in 2021. (The typical cap is 140,000.) But the pandemic and restrictive laws under the Trump administration threw an additional wrench in the largely manual, paper-driven process.

U.S. embassies and consular offices were temporarily closed, creating a long queue of appointments to collect fingerprints and photographs. Annual per-country caps didnt help matters according to the Cato Institute, about 875,000 approved petitions for green cards were waitlisted in 2021 because of the limits.

This year, the USCIS claims to have taken steps to expedite adjudication, telling Bloomberg Law in July that it shifted staff resources to prioritize processing green cards and adopted a risk-based approach to waive interview requirements. But its unclear whether this will be sufficient to prevent tens of thousands of green cards from going unused. As of July 31, the USCIS reported that it had adjudicated around 210,000 applications, leaving over 70,000 to be processed.

Read more here:

How tech giants are responding to the growing green card backlog - TechCrunch

After two years of mass hirings, were now in a reversal period.

Tech companies both large and small have cut jobs, includingNetflix, which cited the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and overhiring during rapid growth periods.Other tech giants like Robinhood,Twitter, Glossier and Better are a part of a growing list that are continually letting people go.

Recent data from LinkedIn shows that fintech has also been trimming their workforce. Forbes reported that Chicago-based debit card company M1, reduced its team of 369 people to 349 in one month. Neobank reported a slight decrease in employees on LinkedIn as well. PointCard, a debit rewards startup reported 105 employees in January and now its down to 61.

Retail tech is also taking a hit. USA Today recently reported thatShopifyis cutting 10% of its staff, or nearly 1,000 employees, as a result of a sales downturn in recent months.

Unfortunately, the list of tech layoffs seems to keep growing, and were keeping track. Heres who have made major downsizing moves to their workforce so far.

Hopefully, this trend will stop soon as Harvard Business Review pointed out that layoffs are awful for companies. A study they raised showed that even just a 1% downsizing would lead to a 31% increase in people quitting, and survivors of layoffs have a 41% decline in job satisfaction and a 20% decline in job performance and productivity.

Shopify

In astatement shared with employees in July, Tobias Tobi Ltke, Shopifys founder and CEO, revealed that layoffs will happen across their recruiting, support and sales departments. The organization will also be doing away with over-specialized and duplicate roles, as well as positions that were convenient to have but too far removed from building products.He continued, As a consequence, we have to say goodbye to some of you today and Im deeply sorry for that, Ltke said.

Netflix

With an initial round of reductions taking place in May, it was reported a month later that more than 300 employees were let go from the streaming giant across multiple departments, bringing the total to more than 450 so far. Today we sadly let go of around 300 employees, a Netflix spokesperson shared with Variety in a June 23 report. While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth. We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition.

Robinhood

NY Times reported on August 2 that the investing app giant laid off 23% of its staff because of the imploding cryptocurrency market. This came just months after laying off 340 employees.

Twitter

Snap Inc.

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These Are The Tech Companies That Have Made Some of The Biggest Layoffs So Far - Essence

A two-megawatt hydrogen-fueled powerplant, designed and built by First Mode in Seattle, is installed in this Anglo American haul truck at their platinum mine in South Africa, creating the largest zero-emission vehicle in the world. (First Mode Photo)

As the United States undergoes a massive transition toward clean energy, Washington state officials are hoping to stake a claim as a leader in hydrogen power.

The state is vying to be chosen as one of the nations hydrogen hubs, a federal designation that comes with a $1 billion boost to help develop the sector. And Amazon and Microsoft this summer shared news of their support of clean hydrogen in their operations.

Hydrogen is emerging as an increasingly attractive climate solution given its versatility as a fuel source, which has earned it the nickname of Swiss Army knife of clean energy.

Washington can tick two important boxes in its application to become a so-called H2Hub: the state has the cleanest power grid in the nation a key consideration for producing climate friendly hydrogen and its home to companies and government agencies that are eager to use the fuel. That includes green aviation, trucking and maritime interests, agriculture, ports, retail and tech companies. Plus Washington has scientific expertise from universities and institutions.

We are very bullish on our H2Hub opportunity, said Brian Young, clean technology sector lead at the Washington State Department of Commerce.

The U.S. Department of Energy is managing the $8 billion initiative. This fall, regions and states will be submitting concept papers proposing their plans for a hub. The DOE is expected to select between six to 10 regions for the H2Hubs by next spring. Some 22 contenders are in the running.

If Washington is chosen, the hub will include participation from Oregon, and possibly Idaho and Alaska, Young said.

The hydrogen hubs program from DOE is coming at a really impactful time, said Emily Kent, U.S. director of zero-carbon fuels at Clean Air Task Force, a national nonprofit.

Its sort of a down payment on a low emission, hydrogen economy in the U.S., she said. Its an opportunity to kick start some of this in regions where it makes a lot of sense.

Venture capitalists are also plugging into the field. The hydrogen sector attracted $1.64 billion in investments internationally as of April, according to PitchBook. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act includes significant tax credits for hydrogen production.

Even if the state isnt picked by the DOE, communities here are already planting flags as their own mini hubs.

Local tech giants Amazon and Microsoft are backing hydrogen efforts as well. Last week, Amazon announced a deal with Plug Power to begin purchasing enough green hydrogen each year beginning in 2025 to fuel 30,000 forklifts or 800 heavy-duty trucks. In July, Microsoft shared news that it was able to run data center computers off of hydrogen, also in partnership with Plug Power.

Amazon is proud to be an early adopter of green hydrogen given its potential to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors like long-haul trucking, steel manufacturing, aviation and ocean shipping, said Kara Hurst, vice president of Worldwide Sustainability at Amazon, in a statement.

To appreciate the hype over hydrogen and its limitations it helps to understand how it functions as a fuel.

Hydrogen is an element found in countless different molecules, including water, ammonia, natural gas and most organic compounds. But you cant efficiently burn all of those molecules.

People will say hydrogen is the most abundant element of the universe, said Kevin Schneider, a laboratory fellow at PNNL. It doesnt mean its the most abundant fuel in the universe.

Clean or green hydrogen fuel is made by splitting water to create hydrogen and oxygen, using a process called electrolysis. The hydrogen can be pumped into vehicles that are powered by fuel cells, generators and other devices, where its burned to make energy. It creates water as its main emission. Hydrogen can also be produced from sources like methane using pyrolysis, but that fuel typically is less clean.

People will say hydrogen is the most abundant element of the universe. It doesnt mean its the most abundant fuel in the universe.

Hydrogen stores energy and produces energy. But it takes energy to make hydrogen in the first place. For the fuel to be climate friendly, the electrolysis needs to be powered with renewable energy, such as solar, wind or hydroelectric dams.

Which brings us back to Washington. Roughly 80% of the states electricity is green, thanks mostly to its dams. That fact has attracted the attention of international companies keen on the hydrogen economy. About four years ago, they began making calls about opportunities in the state, Young said.

We just got too many [hydrogen-related inquiries] to ignore and that really put it on our map, he said. Thats when we started thinking about and talking about it.

So the state built a coalition of interested parties through a group called CHARGE, or the Consortium for Hydrogen And Renewably Generated E-Fuels, established and operated by Washington State University and JCDREAM. CHARGE became the anchor for a Department of Commerce-supported hydrogen innovation cluster. Its goal is to promote the field and fast.

The clock is ticking, said Aaron Feaver, executive director for CHARGE. When we see opportunities where the technology looks like its ready, I see it as extremely important to try to deploy that and advance it as rapidly as possible.

There are now numerous Washington companies and institutions interested in producing and using hydrogen fuel.

Producers include:

Users include:

While the sector is growing, there are still significant hurdles to the widespread production and use of hydrogen.

The fuel has struggled with a chicken-and-egg scenario similar to what the electric vehicle market has faced. In the case of EVs, customers were hesitant to buy the vehicles given the lack of recharging options, but recharging facilities didnt exist because there was no one to use them. Same goes for hydrogen fuel and devices.

There are similar economic hurdles as well. The cost of EV batteries was initially much higher, but as the technology has improved, the prices have declined. The expectation is that innovation in hydrogen production will also drive down costs.

Hydrogen also presents new safety challenges. Like petroleum fuel, hydrogen is flammable and there are concerns about transporting and storing it. There are also significant costs for moving it from production sites to where its used.

But there is momentum for a growing hydrogen economy, including government tax breaks, customer demand, venture capital and the coming hubs. State leaders envision a significant role for the Pacific Northwest, which has been a technology and aerospace leader thanks to Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing and others.

The region punches above its weight in terms of global impact, Feaver said. So hopefully, well be doing the same thing in the hydrogen space.

More here:

How Washington state's leaders and tech giants are embracing the 'Swiss Army knife' of clean energy - GeekWire

Meta and Qualcomm have announced they are teaming up to design customized chipsets for future iterations of its extended reality (XR) platform. The two companies signed an extensive multi-year partnership at the IFA 2022 in Berlin.

The partnership extends the existing relationship between the social networking giant and the American chipmaker. Qualcomm currently produces the Snapdragon XR2 that powers Metas Quest 2.

However, going forward, expect a more significant collaboration between the two companies engineering and product teams to deliver next-generation platforms and core technologies to accelerate a fully realized metaverse.

The deal currently rules out any plans by Meta to fulfill its Metaverse ambitions with its own processor, at least in the short term, just like Microsoft, which also relies on Qualcomm for augmented reality (AR) chips, and unlike NVIDIA, Google, and Apple, all of which design their chips.

The Meta-Qualcomm partnership does, however, provide Menlo Park an opportunity to experiment with developing with Qualcomm, an established industry leader in chip design, and brings its staff a little bit closer to acquiring crucial experience.

Metaverse, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees as the successor to the mobile internet, would require the development of an entire ecosystem of products and services, both in terms of software application and hardware.

David Chen, co-founder and CTO of Orbbec, wrote for Spiceworks, From a hardware standpoint, the fulfillment of the metaverse will require three forms of technology.

First, wholly accurate and digital duplication, via scanning or digital construction, will need to take place. Next, networks will need to render those physical environments in the cloud or on devices in real time, making them easy to visit. The third and most challenging will be display technologies that provide a convincing real-world experience.

Chen continued, The devices and systems that enable this new era are well underway and, within a few years, will allow the metaverse to flourish. Processing power, rendering engines, display technologies, cellular networks and virtual content are all reaching new levels.

See More: Tech Giants Establish the Metaverse Standards Forum, But Apple Isnt Among Them

Barring the last, i.e., virtual content, Meta has little expertise in others. So through the partnership with Qualcomm, Meta will aim to create a niche for itself, much like what Apple did with its internally-developed M1 and M2 chips for Macs and Google with its Tensor chip for smartphones, as well as other AI development services. Apple is also developing the underlying hardware for its upcoming VR product in-house.

As we continue to build more advanced capabilities and experiences for virtual and augmented reality, it has become more important to build specialized technologies to power our future VR headsets and other devices, Zuckerberg said. Unlike mobile phones, building virtual reality brings novel, multi-dimensional challenges in spatial computing, cost, and form factor. These chipsets will help us keep pushing virtual reality to its limits and deliver awesome experiences.

Besides XR, both Qualcomm and Meta are working on AR products. The former clarified to CNET that the partnership does not encompass its AR-platform Snapdragon Spaces and that Metas XR products will be developed on Metas Presence Platform.

Metas Reality Labs division, responsible for AR/VR/XR and Metaverse development, posted a loss of $2.806 billion in Q2 2022 against earnings of $452 million. The company expects revenue from Reality Labs to slide further in Q3 2022, despite the rising demand for AR/VR headsets (jumped 241.6% in Q1 2022), of which Quest commands the lions share.

However, Meta remains optimistic, given it seeks to pour in additional investment in Reality Labs and is now partnering with Qualcomm. To offset AR/VR R&D costs, Meta relies on its vast advertising business, which is presently stifled by privacy-related features introduced in Apples iOS 14.5 onwards, not to mention global macroeconomic headwinds.

Meta has responded by jacking up the prices of Quest 2 by $100 starting August 1, 2022. Quest 2 now costs $399.99 and $499.99 for the 128 GB and 256 GB versions, respectively.

Let us know if you enjoyed reading this news on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We would love to hear from you!

See the article here:

Meta Partners With Qualcomm To Develop Customized Chips for the Metaverse - Spiceworks News and Insights

Like physical clouds, the services provided by the technology majors are utterly opaque to the outside world.

Towards the end of July, Microsoft and Googles parent company, Alphabet, presented their latest, relatively-disappointing economic results, blaming the ambient macroeconomic distress. Yet both companies referred to the momentum of their cloud service, a critical engine for future growth. The cloud was also responsible for Amazons better-than-expected quarterly data.

The cloud comprises computing services, including software, hardware and platforms, offered via the internet instead of running locally on individual computers. By 2025, 45 per cent of the worlds data storage will be on the cloud. While these services are used by all sorts of companies and public-sector organisations, cloud ownership is overwhelmingly dominated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Together, they concentrate around 65 per cent of cloud-infrastructure services.

Even such a titan as Netflix recently said it relied on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and could not easily switch to another cloud provider. Uber, which can only operate via Google Maps, and Booking have similarly recognised their dependence on Big Tech. Leading European corporations did likewise in a 2021 report to the European Commission.

Since the same lines of code can be simultaneously used by many, the reproduction costs of selling artificial-intelligence (AI) algorithms as cloud services tend to zero. Hence, as Amazon, Microsoft and Google expand their client base, profits increase exponentially: AWS is Amazons most profitable business. Furthermore, since the AI code rented as a service includes deep-learning algorithms, which learn as they process data, the more these algorithms are lent, the more they will learn and self-improve, thus reinforcing the three giants digital leadership.

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The tendency towards market dominance premised on privileged access to data is exacerbated by the code underpinning cloud services not being accessible to customers, who become locked in. Customers know what certain services can be used for, but they cannot learn from the rented code since they cannot gain access to the algorithms making those things happeneven if those algorithms were in part developed by universities and other public research organisations.

This is true even when those customers are other major corporations. Siemens, for example, is the European leader when it comes to the number of AI patents it has been granted. But Siemens is also dependent on the Big Tech cloud, including for the most advanced, generic AI required to operate the more specific applications Siemens integrates into its medical-imaging, energy and transport products.

Only a year after the company launched Siemens MindSphere, a cloud platform for storing and analysing data retrieved with the internet of things (IoT) from its sold equipment, AWS took over part of this platforms development. It provides computing services that Siemens cannot develop in-house but which it needs in order to offer AI-specific solutions to its clients.

Such technological dependence is risky for at least two reasons. First, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have already entered Siemens medical business, with the potential of becoming serious rivals.

Secondly, unlike the first wave of information and communications technology, where adopters could learn by using and adapting technologies, leading to complementary innovations, cloud computing offers technology as a black box. It limits users learning and generates long-term technological dependence, with no visible way out.

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All this while the technology giants algorithms self-improve by processing the data harvested by companies such as Siemens, which further widens the technological gap between cloud providers and other firms. As this dependence grows, Siemens may keep reducing its own development of MindSphere, relying instead on services from the Big Tech clouds.

Siemens is one of thousands of companies basing their digital transition on the analytics, databases and IoT provided as cloud services by the technology behemoths. As the use of these platforms as a service accelerates away from recourse to others, the leviathans will further enclose the internet commons.

Such economic power eludes regulatory frameworks. Even the Digital Markets Act, probably the most advanced digital policy globally, remains focused on markets: concern only attaches to the technology giants as potential market gatekeepers.

The term cloud appears just 14 times in the 193-page provisional public version of this legislation. Not a word is said about how Amazon, Microsoft and Google operate this aspect of their business, expanding their knowledge appropriation while subordinating other organisations: they are not only market but also knowledge and information gatekeepers. If the European Union and other global regions seriously want to introduce legislation that can counterbalance their power, this wider gatekeeping must be prevented.

The European Commission should pursue two fronts. Algorithms trained with data harvested in Europe, and based on collaborations with European universities and other research organisations, should be made publicly available. At the same time, the EU should dedicate funding and research to building a truly public cloud.

To be at the knowledge frontier as a cloud provider will certainly be a major challenge and the chances are that Europe will never catch up. Yet if there is a lagging region in the digital economy which has the scientific and technological foundation to make the attempt, Europe is it.

Does the EU have the political guts to do so? Thats a different discussion.

Cecilia Rikap is a lecturer in international political economy (IPE) at the City University of London, a researcher at CONICET, Argentinas research council, and associate researcher at COSTECH lab, Universit de Technologie de Compigne. She is author of Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered (Routledge) and co-author of The Digital Innovation Race: Conceptualizing the Emerging New World Order (Palgrave).

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Enclosing the internetBig Tech's cloud cover - Social Europe