environment – Swedish IT

June 12, 2021June 21, 2021

Update 3: Pros vs Cons

Printing gone viral?

We mentioned the importance of the printing press before in our series about Information Technology History, but the printing press has during the last decade been in a transitioning phase and “new” printing technologies are emerging all over the world and might provide the best environmental impact since a long time.
But lets take it back a bit an recognize the print technology’s evolution.

G1P : Generation 1 printing technology was the Gutenburg print press (1500 CE) that provided about 10x faster printing than the written word.

This first generation promise: Good for printing and securing knowledge and thoughts, that otherwise would be left unknown.

G2P : Generation 2 introduces upgrades with the steam engine (1800 CE), that provides a boost and increased printing speeds up to 50x times faster or more.

This generation promises: Good for printing the above gen-stuff, but also prints for the masses (Mass-media is born)

G3P : It’s not until around 1940/1950’s that the electrical printer starts to establish it self. In par with the computer evolution, printers also became more and more efficient and it is commonly said it was the Xerox model A producing about seven copies per minute and the Remington-Rand that could reproduce 600 lines per minute, that form the start of todays modern printing.

This generation promises: This generation are good for all above, but also facilitates more practical printing for both business and homes.

G4P :When the subject is about additive manufacturing, 3D printing, we have entered the realm of what we would call the 4th generation of printing technologies. Because we have now left storing knowledge behind, we have left printing for the masses behind and have started to focus on printing practicality as a means for production of anything… And it is the fourth generation this article will focus more on.

– This new tech might actually remove “The grand father of all waste”

The new generation still stems from the old printing press technology, but now *prints layers after layer making 3d objects, instead of printing 2D pictures, covers and text. By enabling printing on demand, this new tech might actually remove “The grand father of all waste” meaning the batch production system which currently is a bi-product of “the ford assembly line”. Meaning this 4th generation printing technology could transition more businesses to “Pull systems” that are based on actual demand rather then “Push Systems” that are based on forecasts, that creates production that needs to be stored, counted, transported, managed and discounted (more labor intensive, costly and produces more waste).

*Some of the technologies referred in the article actually do not print but burns/melts the layers with laser or electrons etc.

SWEIT thinks Additive Manufacturing also called 3d printing* (SLA, SLS, FDM, DLP, MJF, PJ,DMLS, EBM etc) technology might have similar affect on the world, as the steam engine printing had during the electromechanical era! Meaning this technology has the potential to be implemented on large scale and there for increase production rate in areas where it’s previously been out sourced or perhaps never been located before!

Only this factor alone, would provide great benefits for both business and the environment, and not least the customers. But with the technology potentially breaking up logistical networks and decreasing the need for storage, the world might soon see a different business model or world all together.

We are currently seeing the “first generation” of these replicator “like printers” and they are increasingly becoming faster. More and more new materials are being studied & produced every day in order to bring this technology to use and it will probably enable industries to re-allocate to the best environmentally friendly spaces available in terms of placing the production as close to the source you use to print with or where the majority of your customers are living.

However there are potential risks to. Ever heard about the “Gray goo theory“? It’s a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario based upon out-of-control self-replicating machines that consume all biomass on the planet. It’s actually kind of scary and looking at the progress made within this sector it almost feels like what was recently SCI-FI, is now made IRL.

But with the potential to reduce the amount of shipping made globally in terms of just producing a products where it is cheapest to produce labor wise and instead focus on the greater beneficial circles that could be made from less environmental impact, less labour, less storage and less shipping etc. This technology is poised to be developed further and have an BIG impact on the world. But as always, there are pros and cons with everything!

This generation promises:

Pros:

3D printing allows more complex designs than traditional manufacturing processes..
Minimizes Waste/Print on demand
Cost Effective.
Ease of Access
Flexible Design/Rapid Prototyping.
Strong, durable and Lightweight Parts.
Fast Design and Production.

Cons:

– Reduction in Manufacturing Jobs.
– Hazardous materials used in 3d printing technology (ex. razing & plastics being used)
– Potential for additional *hazardous materials to be invented/produced (“grey goo stuff”).

Even if there is a risk for more hazardous materials being invented, Additive Manufacturing technology will bring a revolution in what materials we all use in or day to day life’s!
This might as well (hopefully) create better approaches to how we produce stuff in general and in turn procures local economies and the local environment!

If applied with sense and foresight (that includes an eco-friendly mindset)… or what SWEIT aspire to promote: It would need a regenerative mindset to secure the future, not one singular aspect but in term of many factors that intertwine in network that should reflect and reference benefits to the environment, society and coming generations of living life and technology.

SWEIT hopes you want to be apart of a truly regenerative IT pursuit globally! So hopefully we can join forces and share insights, hope, expertise and know how, where it is badly needed!

May 26, 2021

Suppose that the progress made within IT/tech in general is beneficial to humans, how do we know?

In recent updates to our blog we might have suggest other wise. However we want to be clear there are clear benefits being made in all kinds of circumstance like in business, education, security, health, manufacturing, environment, science, space and of course in general to our virtual worlds, where we create the likes of world metropoles which has never been seen before. But behind everything there seems to be a lot of by products that push new perspectives.

So starting from this week forward SWEIT wants to initiate a new series of “pros vs cons” articles, where we list services related to Information Technology and question our selfs and our ideas about it. We begin with:

The World Wide Web / < The internet > ….sometimes referred to wide-area network (WAN)

I think we all can agree upon that the advantages & benefits of outweigh the disadvantages in reference to what the internet enables for us all. But lets take a step back and see where it all started. It stems from the vision of securing messages between interconnected computers and it was the Information Processing Technique Office (IPTO) at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) who got funded to create ARPANET (the forerunner of internet as we know it).

IPTO was envisioned to “support research on the conceptual aspects of command and control.” and the CCR (Command and Control Research) project was assigned to IPTO in 1961 through ARPA . It purpose was to provide a better understanding of organizational, informational, and man-machine relationships.
Previously different computer hubs were not enabled to communicate to each other from different sites because they consisted of different networks that were not compatible. Logically one would want all messages that was sent from one site to another, to be retrieved by the sites that the message was intended for, even in circumstances where the sender goes offline.

This was where the idea to set up one network took off! One network where sites in different regions could join and function as one system, even when if site goes offline there are sites online that’s keeps the network functioning. To create this vision, intermittent message processor where used (now called routers) as part of enabling a infrastructure to send and received small individual packages of information.

The packages were routed over a shared network, where each node/site routed the packaged onward to another node/site until it reaches it’s destination. So if you today have a router connected to the internet, you act as the intermediate and together all of our routers contributes to enable the vast reach that the internet has today.

“The more we engage in doing everything online, the more there’s going to be bits of our life that we probably don’t want to be part of our public online profiles. “

Since there are alot of users of the internet, many companies are enabling platforms or marketplaces that collect data, which can provide insights about the users and the products. It should be generally known by now how websites mine every bits of your data, meaning the more we do everything online, the more data of our public profile online is gathered.

If you never heard about Cambridge Analytica, please read up on the ways we are providing tools for corporation and power to states in how to influence our behavior. But SWEIT are actually concerned for the impatiences the smart devices and computer technology might be causing us in the future. Even J.C.R. Licklider him self (the man who enabled and pioneer interactive computing and the internet) mentioned that buyers of personalized computers will insist on “easy to use, easy to learned and quick to learn”. Providing insight that patience don’t seem to increase with the use of ICT devices, rather that an attitude for faster learning will be on demand which might come at the risk of increasing impatience when demand is not met.

And how often are we not agitated when stuff does not work properly? I mean today we are surfing the net daily from all parts of the world, with the potential of bringing huge benefit to goods and services for the users and of course to the regions that enables internet bases services. But when do the use of the technology such as the web becomes destructive for the environment and to society at large?

The internet based companies continues to concurred out a lot of our local healthy business practice and isolates humans a bit to much in certain areas. What previously was sold at the local squares, was later sold at the local market, but more is now transitioning to be sold through e-commerce.. even food. This in turn creates more delivery and less social life in the cities or squares that previously reflected a pulse of life and today often are bypassed without looking up from the screen we touch daily. So it begs the question: Where is internet disturbing healthy societal practices? Let’s list the good and the bad:

Pros: Making communication easy, making information more accessible, enables services such as paying bills, buying stuff and finding answers online direcly from your home.
Providing more efficient practices to business, education, security, health, manufacturing, environmentally,science, space and potential development for all users.

Cons: Easy way to become isolated causing us bad health, Addictive – Who haven’t been stuck behind the screen? Exposes us to poor integrity, who haven’t shared your personal info to just to continue with what your where doing (playing games, entering a site, shopping?), easy the increase over consumption and decrease your part of the local economy when no longer physically connected to the business spaces in your region.

Test: How much c02 is realized by going down to the local square to make your grocery’s compared to ordering it through the web?

The square scenario: A bit sweaty if you buy many things, but that should be beneficial to my health. And I myself did not affect the environment by visiting the square. Environmentally friendly indeed.

The online web scenario: by contrast if I would of order the same stuff through the web, the deliver would contribute to more emission… How much is hard to say. But SWEIT actually asked a few of the delivery drivers on the street (4 randomly) about how many kilometers they drove per day and they seems hesitant to say exact numbers, but on average they easily drove more than 100km per day.

Lesson learned? Don’t isolate your self to long! Activate yourself, take a walk or a shopping tour and find the things you can be provided with locally and contribute to the local economy and be part of the atmosphere. And if you are sick or don’t have time to walk to the square, sure take the cost for ordering through the web, but try to prioritize yourself to explore your community another time;)

Stay tuned for next weeks update!

May 6, 2021

21 billion devices and still counting… Eco-friendly?

Internet of things today consists of approximately 7 billion devices (this is without accounting for mobile phones nor computers!) and is predicted to reach 21 billion devices year 2025! The thing with mobiles phones and computer are that these devices currently seems to transition into what looks more like a merger. For example Samsung is about to release a new “computer line” with 5G that is described as a series based on the company’s galaxy smart phones. In addition to that analysts even refers the Note20 Ultra 5G to “the power phone” that “works like a computer”. So the definition computer or mobile phone are merging some what or their definitions might soon only be one of many smart device references in the IoT matrix.

This is all interesting for sure and the evolution to smart cities, smart business and smart homes are probably around the corner for many, but have you ever stopped to reflect upon how this might effect e-waste/the climate? According to UN’s Global E-waste monitor 2020, we generated a record 53,6 million tonnes of electronic waste world wide 2019. That number has been around 50 million tonnes a per year the last decade! Now however we see a trajectory that shows an increasing consumption of electronic devices which in turn seems to generate an increased level of e-waste. But this don’t seem to be a transitory, because the UN report also predicts the level of e-waste to reach 74 million tonnes by 2030! So what are ICT companies and electronic device makers doing to make an effort to battle the climate issues that they themselves are a part of?

When looking at several companies websites, the majority have a lot of references about sustainable approaches and climate friendly intents, but several of these climate friendly policy’s are quite often a complex reading. In fact there are studies that have concluded that several environmental policies that companies use, are not readable at average comprehension levels. By using analysis methodology and readability scoring a study for example scored an environmental policy so complex that it would require 22 years of education to be understood (equivalent to a PhD)! Not as intuitive has their end-user manuals for sure.

But to the companies defense the studies was made a few years ago, so hopefully more people within the affected companies have learned to understand the policy or hopefully a few changes has been made since.

So what if a fancy environmental policy actually is enough to free a big international company from is climate responsibility? I mean if you are truly sustainable and climate friendly would you not want to be transparent with what climate risks and affect your company have each year? Similar to the initiative that the British aspire is business to do through implementing mandatory TCFD, short for “the global Task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure”, that is currently voluntary. Initiatives like these has been raised by several investor groups, recently such a proposal was raised to Berkshire Hathaway who was among the few companies in Action 100+ coalition that totally failed in every criteria. But the proposal was not adopted and leaves Berkshire Hathaway’s climate risks disclosed. So while being one of the biggest, if not the biggest power companies in the US (Berkshire Hathaway Energy) with a net zero goal, you would of thought a environmental policy of such a big corporation would be proud to present their progress in reducing their climate impact..

But to often big companies seems to be reluctant to be transparent about their intent of a product or company. Be it with good intention or for the lack of time.. But we need to face it, everyone today face the challenge to “make money” and be sustainable at the same time. And that has not been the initial business plan for many of our worlds biggest companies to date, which in turn makes the shift to a green economy risky for some companies that might have to questions their purpose more and more.

When we look at recent product updates to the electronic devices, it actually seem to go the opposite way of sustainable practices while claiming they are more eco-friendly. For example more and more electronics makers do make more efficient and cleaner devices, but the devices are likely to last only a few years before actually becoming part of the increasing e-waste that we raise concern about in this article.

Product life-cycles are increasingly becoming less lengthy and less lean for society, since you will not be able to repair them by design. This increase of e-waste keeps trashing our planet meaning going the opposite route in the fight against climate change. And of course making it costly for the end consumer, since if a small thing is broken, you will have to send the entire devices for repair due to several parts being clued together, where as before a specific part could be repaired by the end user/customer or small repair shops. So while big tech verbally aspire to be eco-friendly, we mostly see evidence of it by the materials used, but neither policy’s or designs shows a healthy eco-friendly approach. Making electronics devices more and more short term investments for the end consumer, who rather would enjoy a transparent long term relationships if they truly want to see an eco-friendly and sustainable electronic consumer market.

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