As US Crypto Mining Surges, Lawmakers Demand Disclosure of Emissions and Energy Data

The world has changed since China banned cryptomining, the Guardian reports. And now “more than a third of the global computing power dedicated to mining bitcoin comes from the US, Senator Elizabeth Warren and five other Democrats reported in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency…”
But the Guardian also notes there’s two problems with this:
– The largest US cryptomining companies have the capacity to use as much electricity as nearly every home in Houston, Texas; energy use that is contributing to rising utility bills, according to an investigation by Democratic lawmakers…

– “The results of our investigation … are disturbing … revealing that cryptominers are large energy users that account for a significant — and rapidly growing — amount of carbon emissions,” the letter states.

“It is imperative that your agencies work together to address the lack of information about cryptomining’s energy use and environmental impacts.” The congressional Democrats have asked the EPA and the Department of Energy to require cryptominers to disclose emissions and energy use, noting that regulators know little about the full environmental impact of the industry….

The power demands of the industry are also coming at a cost to consumers, the letter states, citing a study that found cryptomining operations in upstate New York led to a rise in electric bills by roughly $165m for small businesses and $79m for individuals.
The main operator of Texas’s grid admitted this week to the Verge that by 2026 crypto mining is set to increase demand on the state’s power grid by a whopping 27 gigawatts — or nearly a third of the grid’s current maximum capacity.

And an associate professor at Rochester Institute of Technology with a background in electricity system policy warns the site that “The more crypto mining that comes into the state, the higher the residents should expect the electricity prices to become.”

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Amazon Installs Sign in Warehouse Urging Workers Not to Sign Union Cards

Engadget reports that Amazon has installed a slick, high-tech sign in its warehouse in upstate New York with a message for employees: don’t sign a union card:

The carousel of anti-union posters went up Friday and cycles between approximately seven different slides, each actively discouraging workers from signing a union card. “It’s on a constant loop while people punch in and punch out of their shifts,” [one employee] said, “[when] they go on their breaks, or they go on their lunch. Any time that we’re going to be up towards the front.”

Amazon has been known to post signage meant to discourage unionization at other facilities. As Vice reported in March, workers at JFK8 in Staten Island, New York were treated to an array of posters with circumspect slogans like “Is union life for me?” and “Will the [Amazon Labor Union]’s voice replace mine?” The signage at ALB1 appears to represent the most forceful tack the company has taken in expressing its disdain for an organized workforce. The company also has a track record of breaking labor laws and frustrating organizing efforts: firing or otherwise retaliating against workers, preventing workers from handing out pamphlets, and interfering with a union election. Behind closed doors, the company also planned a smear campaign against a prominent organizer.

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Companies are Subtly Tricking Users Online with ‘Dark Patterns’

CNN reports:

An “unsubscribe” option that’s a little too hard to find. A tiny box you click, thinking it simply takes you to the next page, but it also grants access to your data. And any number of unexpected charges that appear during checkout that weren’t made clearer earlier in the process. Countless popular websites and apps, from retailers and travel services to social media companies, make use of so-called “dark patterns,” or gently coercive design tactics that critics say are used to manipulate peoples’ digital behaviors.

The term “dark patterns” was coined by Harry Brignull, a U.K.-based user experience specialist and researcher of human-computer interactions. Brignull began noticing that when he reported to one of his clients that most test subjects felt deceived by an aspect of their website or app design, the client seemed to welcome the feedback. “That was always intriguing for me as a researcher, because normally the name of the game is to find the flaws and fix them,” Brignull told CNN Business. “Now we’re finding ‘flaws’ that the client seems to like, and want to keep.”

To put it in the parlance of Silicon Valley, he realized it was a feature, not a bug….

Brignull, for his part, said he has spent time testifying as an expert witness in some class action lawsuits related to dark patterns in the UK. “The scams don’t work when the victim knows what the scammer is trying to do,” Brignull said. “If they know what the scam is, then they’re not going to get taken in — and that’s why I’ve enjoyed so much exposing these things, and showing it to other consumers.”
The article notes that America’s Federal Trade Commission “is ramping up its enforcement in response to ‘a rising number of complaints about the financial harms caused by deceptive sign-up tactics, including unauthorized charges or ongoing billing that is impossible cancel.'”

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Newest Remote Working Trend: Nobody Wants to Be in the Office on Fridays

The Washington Post reports on a “widely adopted, even codified” trend in recent months: people aren’t coming in to their offices on Friday.

“The drop-off in office work, particularly on Fridays, has led coffee shops to reduce their hours, delis to rethink staffing and bars like Pat’s Tap in Minneapolis to kick off happy hour earlier than ever — starting at 2 p.m.”

Just 30 percent of office workers swiped into work on Fridays in June, the least of any weekday, according to Kastle Systems, which provides building security services for 2,600 buildings nationwide. That’s compared to 41 percent on Mondays, the day with the second-lowest turnout, and 50 percent on Tuesdays, when the biggest share of workers are in the office.

“It’s becoming a bit of cultural norm: You know nobody else is going to the office on Friday, so maybe you’ll work from home, too,” said Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “Even before the pandemic, people thought of Friday as a kind of blowoff day. And now there’s a growing expectation that you can work from home to jump-start your weekend….”

Some start-ups and tech firms have begun doing away with Fridays altogether. Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and online consignment shop ThredUp are among a small but growing number of firms moving to a four-day workweek that runs from Monday to Thursday. Executives at Bolt, a checkout technology company in San Francisco, began experimenting with no-work Fridays last summer and quickly realized they’d hit a winning formula. Employees were more productive than before, and came back to work on Mondays with new enthusiasm. In January, it switched to a four-day workweek for good.
“Managers were onboard, people kept hitting their goals,” Bolt’s head of employee experience tells the Post. “And they come back on Mondays energized and more engaged.”

An adviser at the Society of Human Resource Management tells the Post that employers are trying new inducements to get people to return to offices on Fridays. “If you feed them, they will come. Food trucks, special catered events, ice cream socials, that’s what’s popular right now.” And the Post adds that other employers have also tried wine carts, costume contests and karaoke sing-offs — “all aimed at getting workers to give up their couches for cubicles.”

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IPhone Sales Banned In Colombia

“5G iPhones have been slapped with a sales ban in Colombia,” reports Digital Trends, “due to a 5G patent infringement dispute between Apple and Ericsson… The ban affects the latest models, including the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and the iPad Pro, which the court found infringed Ericsson’s patent pertaining to 5G tech.”

They add that in response Apple is now suing Ericsson in Texas, “for damages that resulted from the ruling in Colombia, as well as any fines, fees, penalties, and costs that have been incurred because of it.”
The site FOSS Patents notes that Colombia reached the “banning” stage less than six months after the beginning of “the current wave of Ericsson v. Apple patent infringement actions.” ZDNet explains:
The backstory here is somewhat complicated but can be boiled down to the following points:

– Apple used to pay Ericsson royalty fees for patented 5G technologies.
– Apple failed to renew the licenses when they expired.
– Ericsson sued Apple.
– Apple then sued Ericsson, claiming that the company was violating FRAND rules, the patents were standard-essential patents, and Ericsson’s licensing fees were too high.

There followed a whole bunch of legal actions and counteractions, with both companies attempting to get sales bans on the other company’s hardware….

This ban is likely no big deal for Apple given the small size of that market. The problem is several more lawsuits are making their way through various courts in various territories. And since Apple isn’t disputing the validity of the patents, it’s almost certainly opening itself out to bans being enforced in other countries.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fermion for sharing the news!

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TikTok’s Head of Cybersecurity Is Stepping Down Amid Rising Privacy Concerns

TikTok’s chief security officer is leaving the role in September amid renewed calls from members of the government to look into the social media app’s ties to China. Insider reports: A TikTok spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the decision to replace Roland Cloutier as Chief Security Officer is unrelated to any data-privacy concerns. TikTok, which is currently the fastest growing social media company, has often faced scrutiny for being owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. Last month, Buzzfeed News reported that US user data had been repeatedly accessed by TikTok employees in China based on leaked audio from internal company meetings. […]

CEO Shou Zi Chew sent a note to TikTok employees about Cloutier’s exit as chief security officer, writing that “part of our evolving approach has been to minimize concerns about the security of user data in the U.S., including the creation of a new department to manage U.S. user data for TikTok. This is an important investment in our data protection practices, and it also changes the scope of the Global CSO role.” Cloutier will officially step down from his role as Chief Security Officer in September and transition to an advisory role at TikTok.

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Bungie Is Now Officially Part of Sony

Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, is now officially a part of Sony. The Verge reports: The PlayStation maker had announced its intent to acquire the gaming studio in January, and now, that acquisition is complete. At the initial announcement, Sony said (pdf) the deal was worth $3.6 billion, but in an SEC filing on Friday, it said the deal was worth “approximately” $3.7 billion. Though it’s now under the Sony umbrella, Bungie will “continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,” Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said in a blog post from the original announcement of the acquisition. And future games in development won’t be PlayStation exclusives, Bungie’s Joe Blackburn and Justin Truman said.

But Sony does plan to lean on Bungie for its “world-class expertise in multi-platform development and live game services,” which “will help us deliver on our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers,” Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan said in January. Sony views live service games as a critical part of PlayStation’s future, as it plans to launch more than 10 new live service games by March 2026.

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1,500 Tesla Powerwall Owners Have Already Joined the New Virtual Power Plant In California

PG&E announced that more than 1,500 Tesla Powerwall owners have already decided to joined the new virtual power plant it launched in partnership with Tesla in California. Electrek reports: A virtual power plant (VPP) consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants. Last year, Tesla launched a test VPP in California, where Powerwall owners would join in voluntarily without compensation to let the VPP pull power from their battery packs when the grid needed it. Last month, Tesla and PG&E, a large electric utility company in Northern California, announced the launch of a new commercial VPP where homeowners with Powerwalls would get compensated for helping the grid with the energy in their battery packs.

PG&E has now released an update on the virtual power plant and said that more than 1,500 Tesla Powerwall owners have already joined the program: “On June 22, Tesla invited approximately 25,000 PG&E customers with Powerwalls to join the VPP and help form the world’s largest distributed battery. In the first two weeks of the new program, more than 3,000 customers have expressed interest in enrolling, with more than 1,500 customers officially in the program.” With an average of two Powerwalls per customer, the VPP most likely already has a 13 MW load capacity. PG&E says that if all eligible Powerwall owners join, the VPP would have the available megawatts equivalent to “the energy generated by a small power plant.” Tesla Powerwall owners can join through the Tesla app and receive $2 per kWh that they send back to the grid during emergency events. “Enabling Powerwall customers to support the grid and their community is a necessary and important part of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy,” said Drew Baglino, senior vice president of Powertrain and Energy Engineering at Tesla. “We seek to partner with utilities and regulators everywhere to unlock the full potential of storage to bring more renewable, resilient, and less costly electricity to everyone.”

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Microsoft Moves To New Windows Development Cycle

Microsoft is shifting to a new engineering schedule for Windows which will see the company return to a more traditional three-year release cycle for major versions of the Windows client, while simultaneously increasing the output of new features shipping to the current version of Windows on the market. Zac Bowden writes via Windows Central: The news comes just a year after the company announced it was moving to a yearly release cadence for new versions of Windows. According to my sources, Microsoft now intends to ship “major” versions of the Windows client every three years, with the next release currently scheduled for 2024, three years after Windows 11 shipped in 2021. This means that the originally planned 2023 client release of Windows (codenamed Sun Valley 3) has been scrapped, but that’s not the end of the story. I’m told that with the move to this new development schedule, Microsoft is also planning to increase the output of new features rolling out to users on the latest version of Windows.

Starting with Windows 11 version 22H2 (Sun Valley 2), Microsoft is kicking off a new “Moments” engineering effort which is designed to allow the company to rollout new features and experiences at key points throughout the year, outside of major OS releases. I hear the company intends to ship new features to the in-market version of Windows every few months, up to four times a year, starting in 2023. Microsoft has already tested this system with the rollout of the Taskbar weather button on Windows 11 earlier this year. That same approach will be used for these Moments, where the company will group together a handful of new features that have been in testing with Insiders and roll them out to everyone on top the latest shipping release of Windows. Many of the features that were planned for the now-scrapped Sun Valley 3 client release will ship as part of one of these Moments on top of Sun Valley 2, instead of in a dedicated new release of the Windows client in the fall of 2023.

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