Tech

How to Build Sustainable Software

Published

4 months ago

July 3, 2024

Green software engineering is a set of best practices aimed at creating applications that lower carbon emissions. The green software movement is accelerating rapidly. The Green Software Foundation now has over 60 member organizations, including tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Intel.

Sustainable software can help reduce the often-considerable environmental impact of software development, says Tim Juravich, a principal with business advisory firm Deloitte Consulting, in an email interview. “By optimizing resource usage, sustainable software helps create a more environmentally friendly digital infrastructure.”

“Software development quality can have direct ties to energy consumption and, therefore, sustainability,” Juravich says. “Having teams think about creating software in a sustainable manner also promotes long-term software viability by utilizing efficient coding techniques, reducing maintenance requirements, and enhancing scalability — all with the goal of minimizing the carbon footprint.”

All enterprises should focus on lowering their carbon footprint, advises Carl Coken, vice president of engineering at Atrius, a software company focusing on energy management. “If we can build more efficient software, we can decrease the hardware resources that are used and therefore lower the overall carbon impact,” he says in an email interview.

With the arrival of chief sustainability officers (CSOs) and teams, and over half a million environmental, social, and governance (ESG) professionals, there’s a need to understand the carbon footprint of both the enterprise and vendors, says Mark Smith, partner and head of software research at technology research and advisory firm ISG. Supplier input is essential. “Software companies need to provide the compute and consumption of their operations and software, their related impact on sustainability, and where users can find reporting on ESG metrics,” he explains in an email interview.

Multiple Benefits

While sustainable software reduces energy consumption and carbon emissions, it also provides operational cost savings by allowing enhanced resource utilization. “In many cases, we’re also seeing a push toward sustainability reducing technical debt and enabling an easier developer experience due to architecture simplification,” Juravich says.

By building more sustainable, efficient software, adopters can decrease overall power consumption, including servers, storage, networking and, as AI becomes more prevalent, GPUs, Coken says. “This becomes even more important when considering the rapid development and implementation of AI, which can be particularly power hungry.”

The first step when building a sustainable software initiative is setting clear goals and developing quality success metrics. “By defining metrics that correlate to sustainability, it creates a quantifiable conversation of brokering sustainability throughout the development process,” Juravich says. He also recommends fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation — thinking outside the box — where all parties are encouraged to speak up, present ideas, and help develop software development practices designed to meet sustainability goals.

Targeting Sustainability

Developers play a major role in achieving enterprise sustainability by creating optimized code designed to minimize energy consumption, Juravich says. They should be encouraged to use energy-efficient development methods, such as those suggested by the Green Software Foundation, to improve efficiency and prolong application lifespans. “Organizations can also use renewable energy sources for their data centers and cloud computing needs,” he adds.

When building new products, software developers tend to use all available resources, Coken observes. This can lead to bad habits in terms of both cost and efficiency. “Furthermore, the resources that have the highest carbon impact also tend to also have the highest cost,” he notes. “Therefore, in a broad sense, you can use cost as a way to measure your carbon impact.”

Developers can also make software more sustainable by identifying and stopping wasteful activities. “Turning off VMs or containers when they aren’t being used, deprecating them when they are no longer needed, and creating and implementing storage retention policies can all significantly improve energy efficiency,” Coken says.

Building the Case

When approaching enterprise leaders about the need for a sustainable software strategy, begin by emphasizing the potential cost savings. “Typically, the best way to convince management colleagues is to appeal to their wallet,” Coken says. While most executives understand this, and would like to support policies that help the environment, sustainability goals can seem vague, esoteric, and costly to adopt with only a low return on investment. He notes that by showing how sustainability goals will positively impact budgets — and potentially their bonuses — over the long term, enthusiasm for sustainable software development initiatives will increase.

While focusing on cost is a helpful motivation tool, it’s also important to track your organization software’s carbon impact to show where savings may be found, Coken says. “Cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, provide the tools to do so.” One such tool is Microsoft’s Emissions Impact Dashboard. There are also other free tools, including the open-source Cloud Carbon Footprint, which allows users to carbon emissions across different clouds.

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Tech

Ottawa orders TikTok’s Canadian arm to be dissolved

Published

1 week ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

The federal government is ordering the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform, but stopped short of ordering people to stay off the app.

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the government’s “wind up” demand Wednesday, saying it is meant to address “risks” related to ByteDance Ltd.’s establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc.

“The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence community and other government partners,” he said in a statement.

The announcement added that the government is not blocking Canadians’ access to the TikTok application or their ability to create content.

However, it urged people to “adopt good cybersecurity practices and assess the possible risks of using social media platforms and applications, including how their information is likely to be protected, managed, used and shared by foreign actors, as well as to be aware of which country’s laws apply.”

Champagne’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking details about what evidence led to the government’s dissolution demand, how long ByteDance has to comply and why the app is not being banned.

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the shutdown of its Canadian offices will mean the loss of hundreds of well-paying local jobs.

“We will challenge this order in court,” the spokesperson said.

“The TikTok platform will remain available for creators to find an audience, explore new interests and for businesses to thrive.”

The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of TikTok in September 2023, but it was not public knowledge until The Canadian Press reported in March that it was investigating the company.

At the time, it said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity. It declined to provide any further details about what expansion it was reviewing.

A government database showed a notification of new business from TikTok in June 2023. It said Network Sense Ventures Ltd. in Toronto and Vancouver would engage in “marketing, advertising, and content/creator development activities in relation to the use of the TikTok app in Canada.”

Even before the review, ByteDance and TikTok were lightning rod for privacy and safety concerns because Chinese national security laws compel organizations in the country to assist with intelligence gathering.

Such concerns led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill in March designed to ban TikTok unless its China-based owner sells its stake in the business.

Champagne’s office has maintained Canada’s review was not related to the U.S. bill, which has yet to pass.

Canada’s review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate any foreign investment with potential to might harm national security.

While cabinet can make investors sell parts of the business or shares, Champagne has said the act doesn’t allow him to disclose details of the review.

Wednesday’s dissolution order was made in accordance with the act.

The federal government banned TikTok from its mobile devices in February 2023 following the launch of an investigation into the company by federal and provincial privacy commissioners.

— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

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Health

Here is how to prepare your online accounts for when you die

Published

3 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Anne Joseph

LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?

It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.

Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:

Apple

The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.

For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.

You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.

Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.

Google

Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.

When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.

You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.

There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.

Facebook and Instagram

Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.

When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.

The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.

You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.

TikTok

The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.

Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.

It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.

Passwords

Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?

Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.

But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.

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Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.

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Tech

Google’s partnership with AI startup Anthropic faces a UK competition investigation

Published

3 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Anne Joseph

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.

The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.

“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.

Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.

The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.

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