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The applications for AI seem endless. Companies of all sizes and across all industries have numerous use cases for this type of technology. One of the most popular AI tools on the market is called ChatGPT. ChatGPT was released commercially in recent months by a company called OpenAI.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.niOF8_yrZgWtmqeIIbNMrC&pid=News

Amazon.com

Stock

Microsoft

This Big Tech Company Is the Latest to Double Down in the AI Race

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.4QjIDUvHz3Rc67mtMVQu7A&pid=news

The Motley Fool on MSN.com

Comcast

Now TV

Comcast unveiled NOW TV a new streaming offering that includes 40+ live channels from A&E, AMC, Hallmark and Warner Bros. Discovery, plus 20+ integrated FAST channels from NBC, Sky and Xumo Play, and a subscription to Peacock Premium at no additional cost.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.7XuK5e-EMF7f_4F8_wzmLy&pid=News

Comcast Introduces NOW TV: A $20 Entertainment Option With 60+ Streaming and Fast Channels, Plus Peacock Premium

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.smsuZRfJOwQGYjS9zfz9sw&pid=news

newsroom.businesswire.com

Michigan

Norway

Telecommunications facility

National Harbor, Md. — A Norwegian company will build a $400 million hydrogen technology facility in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday.

Michigan to get $400 million hydrogen technology facility from Norwegian company

Detroit News

NBCUniversal

Comcast today kicked off its new Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator: Generative AI, where the company will work with startups to gain insights on opportunities in Generative AI and explore working with the companies.

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.z33e6HqsHXbjwPyLATXrLi&pid=News

Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Selects Startups for Accelerator Focused on Generative AI

https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODF.fJDJ4f2BFbmOkQx_rnDw3Q&pid=news

YAHOO!Finance

Dividend

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.29 a share on the company’s common stock. The quarterly dividend is payable on July 26, 2023,

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVFT.xBPeOGXPz_oFsPRKz3FY7i&pid=News

Comcast Declares Quarterly Dividend

Japan

Mired

Allegations against Johnny Kitagawa, a powerful figure in Japanese entertainment and the founder ... boycott has begun against Johnny’s, as the company is also known, making for an extensive ...

Head of Japanese entertainment company mired in sex abuse scandal apologizes, promises fix

ABC News

WTNH

Oklahoma City

Oklahoma's News

Seattle Times

WKRG-TV

WKRG

Get the most recent info and news about Comcast on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

Comcast NBCUniversal creates incredible technology and entertainment that connects millions of people to the moments and experiences that matter most.

Popular YouTuber OMI IN A HELLCAT was raided by the FBI last year in connection with his 'pirate' IPTV service Gears TV. With the authorities refusing to comment on the ongoing investigation, OMI himself is now claiming that Comcast prompted the FBI to take action, knowing that to tackle him on their own would be "an uphill battle". When large ‘pirate’ services are taken down, the tendency is for copyright holders and/or the authorities to make a lot of noise. Taking out big players is seen as an achievement and is often held up as an example to others not to follow the same path. Last November, when the founder of Gears Reloaded ‘pirate’ IPTV service Omar Carrasquillo was reportedly , not a single person in authority would confirm the existence of an investigation. Independent eyewitnesses to reveal what they saw but now, several months on, information from official sources remains non-existent. targeted in a massive FBI raid appeared on TV Carrasquillo, better known by his social media handle OMI IN A HELLCAT, has been talking a lot, however. He’s appeared in TV interviews with his lawyer, decrying the seizure of dozens of luxury cars, huge volumes of jewelry, and . He says the entire operation against him grew out of his position as the founder of Gears, an unpaid tax bill, plus allegations of money laundering. “at least” $5.2m in cash Nevertheless, he keeps maintaining his innocence. Time and again he’s said that capturing live TV broadcasters from cable providers and streaming channels to end-users over the Internet at an affordable price is completely legal. He found a loophole, he says, and companies didn’t like it. Until now, Carrasquillo has never directly pointed a finger at who might have prompted the case against him. In a live stream this week, however, he claimed that the second-largest telecoms company in the United States is at the root of his troubles. (Note: most expletives removed) “There’s nothing worse than coming home and grabbing your bills – electric company you gotta pay, water is an essential, gas you need to cook, $300 cable bill – what the fuck?” he said. “Everybody hates the cable companies, they’re a monopoly. So when you come out with a service that’s affordable to the world and it’s not illegal, oh my God, I’m in somebody’s pocket.” And then the bombshell. “Comcast is paying for this investigation [unintelligible]. There’s an unfiled Comcast claim but why didn’t Comcast sue me? ‘Cos they knew it was an uphill battle so what did they do? They got the FBI involved, tried to take me down,” he . claimed Coincidentally or not, Carrasquillo’s main home is in Philadelphia. Comcast has its headquarters in the same city. According to several videos posted by Carrasquillo in recent weeks, he has been working hard behind the scenes through official channels to try and reclaim his property. However, he claims there has been significant pushback after the FBI began using his videos and social media postings as evidence against him. Insisting again and again that streaming captured TV broadcasts to the public is not illegal, Carrasquillo says he filed a motion to get his property back. In response, the FBI had to send in evidence to support why the goods should continue to be held while the investigation continues. According to him, they “took his [social media] posts and sent them to the judge”. Since the raid, most of Carrasquillo’s posts have centered on him getting back on his feet, allegedly making significant amounts of money, some of it used to replenish his car collection. He believes those videos are now undermining him. “Look judge, he’s saying that he’s still a millionaire, he doesn’t need the money. We can still hold it throughout the whole investigation,” he in a mocking summary of what was allegedly reported to the court. said At this point, Carrasquillo seems to imply that not everything portrayed in those videos and postings should necessarily be taken at face value and that, in some cases, those in the entertainment business may face pressures to impress. “Entertainers, we have a certain image to uphold and this is why I don’t show anything anymore because frankly, it ain’t nobody’s business. Whether I got it or I don’t got it, I ain’t gonna say it no more. Because obviously you’re using what I say as an exhibit and send it to the judge,” he added. Carrasquillo says he’s hoping to settle his case with the IRS via a payment plan but he insists that any claims of money laundering are nonsense. He says he’s not upset with anyone working on the case and says that he’s “pretty sure” that the two investigators and district attorneys “are pretty nice guys.” That said, he is unhappy with what he describes as an “unethical process and the events that took place.” Just before he was raided, Carrasquillo went to the Dominican Republic and he believes this prompted the authorities to act earlier than they would’ve preferred. “Be honest you guys came to [sic] early I broke no laws apology accepted,” he in a separate post. “While Gears is down 20 more shitty services came up and I don’t see you guys doing shit about it. Want to know why? Steaming isn’t illegal. It’s victimless and not against the law. I did not host shit on servers this was a matter for copyright holders to sue. Not for the FBI to get involved.” wrote Only time will tell when the other side of this pretty one-sided story will see the light of day. As indicated previously, no one in authority is prepared to comment at this stage. Originally published as “ OMI IN A HELLCAT Claims Comcast Got FBI to Pursue Gears IPTV Case ” with the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license

Comcast Got FBI to Pursue Gears IPTV Case - Claims YouTuber OMI IN A HELLCAT

Media Conglomerates Are Taking Over The World

This is a post about two things I see in the evolution of companies, and I wish did not exist. The first is popularizing an all encompassing enemy to start a company, and the second is popularizing an all encompassing enemy to scale a company. So basically, everything I write here can be summarized as, ‘ .’ Are people “convoluted” enough to unite for something? BTW, don’t expect all encompassing facts to support my opinion here. I’ll give you a few examples, but this post comes from my gut—great teams are built from a purpose for something, and not a purpose against something. don’t grow a company by popularizing an all encompassing enemy Startup Phase Too often I see startups say, “We exist because X sucks” where X is the incumbent, the government, the higher priced competitors, the lower priced imitators, or an “inability” to go to the pet store to buy dog food. I get it, the lean startup, your boss, and most venture capitalists out there ask, ‘What problem are you solving for?’ And I get why they are asking this question — who wants to go into business with people who aren’t thinking big? But the question is ultimately flawed because the fundamental problems that exist for the first humans also exist for humans today. The rest is just f*cking details. All long-term businesses impact the customer’s , , , , , , , , , and/or . water food shelter sanitation healthcare education family travel entertainment access to information Saying you’re the “uber of dog biscuits” is going to imply that you’re the dog biscuit company that sexually harasses its employees, and is capable of hailing a cab from your smartphone within 5 minutes. Now, 5 months ago it mostly implied the latter… but which one is your company more likely to achieve? The math clearly indicates that a new company is more likely to be charged for sexual harassment than achieve a $50B evaluation by disrupting the long standing social norm of not getting into a stranger’s car. The point is simpler. Who you are is not who you are not. Product-Market Fit Phase Too often I see established companies say, “We’re not like Y” or “We’re like Y, but we do Z.” For established companies this comparison is often done with a change in tone for when the competitor is mentioned. There’s nothing wrong with admitting similarity — if you’re honest about it. Internet accessibility is a great thing to offer. If it’s reliable, it works. Many of the products and services we pay for are like this — binary, meaning the granular improvement is negligible to the customer’s utility. There’s nothing wrong with many companies offering similar services; in fact it should be the staple of capitalism: many companies willing to provide the goods and services that the population demands. Unfortunately, there is only one decent cable provider in my area, and that is the essence of where this headline unfortunately meets reality. In the the quest to achieve product market fit (aka maximum profits extracted from X subset of population), uniting against a common enemy becomes the norm — until there is no more competition. can literally raise my rates to whatever they see fit — because I need internet access and there is no other provider in my area. Luckily for me, they’ll only raise fees 18% or so year over year! What a great deal, they claim! What luck it is that I am 29 years old in 2017 America! Comcast In reality, this is where the common enemy of the company becomes the customer. True product-market fit is more accurately described as “monopoly.” You may have played this game before. To put it more accurately, you are probably playing this game right now with some/many of your existing bills. Ultimately, if you go down the all encompassing enemy route, your goal is a monopoly, and the reality is, it might work… as in, the tech conglomerate is less companies with more market share but you just may be the next Zuck. Ultimately, I Get It I get why many CEOs do it… if you are united against a common goal, you are — in a convoluted way — united. It’s how many revolutions and countries have been started. Many citizens won’t migrate for universal healthcare but many citizens will migrate when brothers and sisters have been mistreated. But in today’s world, is that the business you want to create? A business that is united against , , , or whatever the next investor deems worth fighting for? Whenever your business lacks a common purpose, it’s easy to go into the well and find a common problem. I I get why many CEOs choose to — figuratively — be the predatory douche at the bar, but I hope to never choose that road for my people. newsfeeds parking garages advertisements Be For Something I’d like to tell you, what I’m for: . I’m for helping the person who is alone with the internet and wants a story about thinking bigger, thinking different, or just, thinking like another interesting person. I work to surface the next great story. With hard work and attention to detail, anyone should be able to tell a story that reaches the people they want to reach. It may happen on the first post or it may happen on the eighth post, but the opportunity to deliver your story is there like it’s never been before. Be a storyteller, and doors will open for your business. digital storytelling

Uniting the Team Against a Common Enemy Is Not Team Building

We Discovered Disparities in Internet Deals: Here's How We Did It

These Customer Service Reps Have to Pay to Talk to You

We’ve all been there: very politely asking the internet for a video of a cat engaging in some wacky antics. And then … the internet pauses, seeming to consider the request. What’s the problem here? It might be you (sorry). It might be the infrastructure you’re working with. It might be your internet provider. Let’s explore some causes and solutions together. What Is a “Good” Internet Speed? Step one is to conduct a so-called speed test. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel at Consumer Reports, who works on the organization’s , which is collecting consumers’ internet bills and speed test results as part of its advocacy work, suggests using a pair of tests, one from and another from . Fight for Fair Internet initiative Ookla MLab Each uses slightly different methods, so Schwantes recommends trying both to make sure they’re consistent. The tests show two important results: download speed (how quickly you’re receiving data from the internet) and upload speed (how quickly you’re sending data out to the internet), measured in megabits per second. A bit of data is a single unit of information, expressed in the binary code that computers can understand as either a one or a zero. A megabit is one million bits of data. If a speed test says your download speed is 100 megabits per second, your connection is pumping 100,000,000 ones and zeros into your device each second, and short kitty antics videos . should stream fine What qualifies as a “good” internet speed depends on what you’re using it for, however. If you have multiple users and need stable connections (think kids doing online schooling while you work in the next room), education advocacy group Common Sense Media recommends speeds of 200 mbps download and 10 mbps upload. Those recommended speeds can be high relative to available levels across much of the United States. For February of this year, Ookla median speeds in the U.S. for wired broadband connections at 146 mbps download and 20 mbps upload; speeds on mobile internet—63 mbps download and 9 upload—were far slower. pegged Amina Fazlullah, the organization’s director of equity policy, insists that stable video conferencing connections are crucial for things like virtual school. “What does it mean when a 7-year-old has an interruption?” Fazlullah said, noting that 25 mbps download and 3 mbps upload will technically work but likely with frequent service disruptions. “How long can you wait for them to get back up to speed? Will they be able to get back on track after those interruptions?” Netflix, on the other hand, a mere 15 mbps download speed for streaming content in 4K/Ultra HD. recommends What speed is available to you at home depends on the infrastructure available: the tubes through which your desired digital data flows. That infrastructure may seem intangible, but it exists both inside the walls of your home and in a corporeal series of tubes transmitting data across the globe. Understanding those factors, and how they work together, is crucial to understanding how the modern internet works—and how to get that cat video faster. Is the Slowdown Coming from Inside the House? When Schwantes gets a slow speed test result, his first suspicion is usually along the lines of “Something is up with my router.” If you’re reading this on a device connected to Wi-Fi, the first connection you have to the larger internet are your modem and wireless router or your modem/wireless router combo beaming out Wi-Fi to the immediate area. The first two things to try if your internet is slow are restart the router and get your device closer to the router. Like a computer, routers store information in their memory, and sometimes an error gets saved mistakenly. Restarting is a way to shake out the cobwebs. And Wi-Fi signals degrade the farther they travel. If distance is slowing your speed, consider your options: Your Wi-Fi router may offer the choice between a 2.4 GHz connection and a 5 GHz connection; 5 GHz offers faster speeds over shorter distances, and 2.4 GHz provides slower speeds over longer distances. The 2.4 GHz frequency can also get congested with traffic from other wireless networks in the area, so sometimes switching to 5 GHz will provide a less obstructed path for your cat video. If your device has an ethernet port, you can also plug directly into the router and avoid the Wi-Fi issue altogether. Around the start of the pandemic, Schwantes noticed his internet slowing down. In this case, the problem was him. He was using a decade-old wireless router. After replacing it, he said, his speeds improved dramatically. What’s Happening on the Other Side of the Wall? The biggest speed variances come from the different ways data flows through the tubes directly outside your home. Data can travel on different types of tubes—fiber optic, coaxial cable, and copper wire, and even on wireless cellular networks—each providing very different speeds for uploading and downloading. Sometimes the technology that leads to your home is too out of date to support faster speeds. The effects of this fall more on communities of color and poorer residents, an . AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink, and CenturyLink charged customers in 38 cities the same price for sluggish DSL connections as they did for zippy fiber connections. investigation by The Markup found In 36 of those cities, the worst deals tended to go to households located in neighborhoods that were lower-income, less-White, or historically redlined. Fiber optic cables consist of a core of ultra-thin glass surrounded by a reflective coating that transmits information as pulses of light at the speed of, well, light traveling through glass. The fastest internet connections available today are termed “fiber to the home” because the fiber optic cables begin where you live and run all the way to where they join the larger maze of fiber optic tubes making up the internet. (There are also systems called “fiber to the node” or “fiber to the curb,” where fiber runs to a connection hub somewhere in your neighborhood, and then the signal moves to slower wires the rest of the way.) If the internet is a road, fiber is like an expressway with five lanes in each direction and a 75 mph speed limit. Not everyone in the United States even has access to fiber internet. According to a study released in January by the Fiber Broadband Association, of U.S. homes have that option. less than half At the other end of the spectrum, copper wire is like a one-lane road where you can’t go above 25. Not only can Fiber Expressway get you home faster than Copper Lane, but it can also handle far more traffic without congestion, which is important because your data runs through the same tubes as those of your neighbors who use the same ISP. The longer you can stay on fiber before having to turn off to something that’s not fiber, the faster your connection. What is copper wire? DSL, which stands for Digital Subscriber Line, operates on the same copper wires that phone companies use for traditional telephone service—so-called landlines—albeit on a higher frequency range that doesn’t necessitate tying up a phone line the way dial-up service does. ( .) Kids, ask your parents Phone lines were built to transmit voice, which doesn’t require a whole lot of data, so they tend to be s‑l‑o‑w. DSL speeds are dependent on the distance from where they hook into the fiber connections leading to the internet’s backbone. They need to be boosted frequently to push data over longer distances. In the middle is cable internet, which is generally slower than fiber but can provide relatively high speeds. Copper wire is like a one-lane road where you can’t go above 25. Cable internet is piped through coaxial cables carrying signals on a copper conductor surrounded by layers of plastic and metal coating to shield it from interference (an improvement over DSL). Since the coaxial cables were originally developed to transmit cable TV, which is fairly data-intensive video and audio information, they can move a lot of data. Since cable TV is traditionally a one-way broadcast medium, cable connections generally have faster downloads than uploads. A relatively new entrant to the residential broadband market is fixed wireless. As the name implies, this type of connection doesn’t involve a tube running directly into your home. Getting a fixed wireless connection typically involves installing a receiver pulling in cellular service that is then converted to Wi-Fi. Fixed wireless home service across the country, but some services advertise speeds that can give cable connections a run for their money. isn’t universally available For remote locations, where it’s not feasible for ISPs to install any kind of wired connection between the internet’s fiber backbone and your home, satellite internet, which allows data to be transmitted up to a satellite and then beamed down to an antenna at your residence, is an option. Satellite internet is generally not as fast as fiber or cable internet. Ookla found the median speed for SpaceX’s Starlink, the fastest satellite internet available in the U.S., was around 100 mbps download and 13 mbps upload. Can I Just Switch to a Different Provider and Get Faster Internet? You can certainly give it a shot! However, a dearth of competition in the broadband market across the United States may make that tricky. “The U.S. market for internet service is dominated by just four companies: AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon,” reads the 2020 edition of the Open Technology Institute’s Cost of Connectivity about the state of the U.S. broadband market compared to that in other developed countries. report “In most cities, there were only, like, two providers, and there are large swaths of addresses that only had one provider,” said Claire Park, one of the report’s authors. A 2020 from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that 83.3 million Americans are only able to purchase broadband internet from a single provider. report PSA: If your household income is lower than , you may qualify for the (ACP), which was created by the 2021 infrastructure bill and provides a $30 monthly subsidy for internet service. these guidelines Affordable Connectivity Program That subsidy increases to $75 for folks living on tribal lands. If you’re already signed up for free and reduced lunch for your dependent at school, the , , , or a number of other public-benefit programs, you . Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Medicaid Supplemental Security Income likely qualify (But hurry: An analysis by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance suggests that the pool of money Congress allocated for the ACP as soon as 2024 if it is not replenished.) could run out Many ISPs have created their that would allow households that qualify for the ACP to effectively get monthly internet service for free when combined with the governmental benefit. own reduced-cost internet plans Even if you can afford your internet bill, you can still shop around to see if you can get faster and/or cheaper service. To check your options, enter your address into the to see which ISPs serve your address. FCC’s National Broadband Map What’s listed as available for every address isn’t always accurate, so after seeing your search results, go to each ISP’s website, search for your address and see what prices and speeds they offer you. Maybe, just maybe, you can get an upgrade that will get you that cat video a whole lot faster. Update This story has been updated to include the findings of an investigation by The Markup. Written by: Aaron Sankin Also published here Photo by on Pascal van de Vendel Unsplash

Reasons Why Your Internet Is Slow

Razones por las que su Internet es lento

Raisons pour lesquelles votre Internet est lent

कारण आपका इंटरनेट धीमा क्यों है

インターネットが遅い理由

Razões pelas quais sua Internet está lenta

Lý do tại sao Internet của bạn chậm

互联网速度慢的原因

I want you to picture the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Imagine that every platform and staircase is swarming with people, and it's at full capacity (5000). That's got to be a lot of people, right? Now multiply that by not two – not four – but six. And that's the number of people Steve White managed in his position as president of Comcast: 30,000 employees. Steve came onto the Success Story podcast this September and absolutely blew my socks off with his hard-won knowledge of business and team-building. He's the real deal – a man who successfully revived Comcast from its lowest point to its highest triumph. How is it possible for someone to manage tens of thousands of people, and come out so triumphantly? Steve pins it down to his strong set of purpose-driven strategies and attitudes. I can't wait to dig into our interview let's get started. Steve White's Business Success Steve was president of Comcast’s West Division for eleven years – so he was responsible for all Comcast Cable operations in the Western U.S., leading nearly thirty thousand employees, serving almost ten million customers, and driving annual revenue of nearly $18 billion. Not long before joining Comcast, he'd achieved a baffling 430% net sales increase while serving a tenure with Colgate-Palmolive. Incredible. By now, he's learned more about leadership and running a company than many of us could in a lifetime; he tirelessly helped the people around him move toward success, making his own endeavors successful by proxy. Set Up To Be 'The Victim' All this being said, I was intrigued to hear how Steve's story had begun; surely he was raised with opportunities aplenty and natural advantages? As it turns out – not at all. "I was set up to be the perfect victim," Steve told me. "I grew up in the housing projects of Indianapolis, raised by a single mother with an eighth grade education. When she decided to leave my father, she didn't even have a driver's license, and had never held a full-time job." So I was wrong; Steve had grown up under less-than-ideal circumstances. But he'd had a mother who cared deeply about the values she instilled in her boys, and that made all the difference. "While most kids on Saturday were watching cartoons and eating their favorite cereal, we were cleaning motel rooms; my mother would bring us along to help her. And what I learned from that foundation she established was hard work, love for family, teamwork, and commitment. “Clearly my mom's skill set was much greater than cleaning motel rooms. But she was clearing those rooms because her focus was on creating an environment where her four little boys would have a better chance at life than she did. She was doing what was necessary to give us a hand up, not a handout.” The American Dream Steve went into school and higher education with the attitudes his mother had instilled; mostly hard work, but also commitment to your cause, and the importance of teamwork. He became the first person in his entire family to attend college at Indiana University in Bloomington; he enjoyed a great corporate career, not by being the smartest guy, but because he focused on the two things that he could control: effort and attitude. “How does that happen?" Steve said, reflecting on his successes at Comcast and Colgate-Palmolive. "It's an American dream. But it highlights how when men and women are given opportunities to display their real talents, they usually rise to that occasion.” I love what he's implying here – that everyday men and women, regardless of their circumstances, have the potential for greatness if given a hand up. Steve's Comcast Triumph If you're at all familiar with the communications world, you know that Comcast is a juggernaut. They're the largest cable company and home internet service provider in the United States. Steve started out as an employee and then exec member of AT&T. When the company in 2001, he was one of the few AT&T execs who made the transition to Comcast. merged with Comcast for $72bn "About six months into the job, " Steve told me, "I asked my leaders at Comcast – why me? And they said, 'Steve, our plans were to let you go. But at every opportunity, your employees said 'Let me tell you about Steve White. He was a light in darkness for us by developing us and creating opportunities; he committed himself to ensuring that our W-2 grew every year.'" Steve didn't even put himself forward for the merger, but because he had led with such purpose and excellence, his employees did it for him. “None of us can talk our way into a promotion. The majority of the promotions come because your teammates are pushing you up, and therefore you get elevated. That's how you get noticed." Comcast made the right move; Steve was able to take an otherwise dwindling company and lead it to new levels of success. Working and Winning As a Team Steve has such an incredible story. I love hearing from people who truly overcame the toughest odds to get where they are – and so, I made sure to grill Steve on what his strategies are for working together and winning together. The main motto that he lives by is ‘work together to win together’; it’s about prioritizing success for the whole, not just yourself. Let's take a look at a few more of his insights. Don't Compromise On Your Why In his book called Steve talks about how important it is to identify the purpose and motive behind what you do. 'Uncompromising' "One of my favorite quotes is from Mark Twain: The two most important days in your life are the day you're born, and the day you figure out why you're alive. I truly believe each one of us is placed on this earth for a reason." What an excellent quote and sentiment. I've written about this in the past, and it's quickly become one of my favorite topics; if you haven't got rhyme or reason for getting up every day and working towards something, it's going to be very difficult to find fulfillment. "Life is about compromise. But once you figure out why you've been placed on this earth, that is what you're ruthless about. That is what you're uncompromising in your pursuit of understanding why you were placed on this earth." Steve didn't know it at the time, but he was discovering his 'why' from the moment he set foot in those motel rooms to clean alongside his mother. His life would be about opportunity; finding it, seizing it, and extending it toward others. The Table of Prosperity A term Steve kept bringing up in our interview was something called the 'table of prosperity.' This, as it turns out, is a key part of his business teamwork strategy. "Imagine Thanksgiving in America," Steve said. "You invite your family over and everyone brings something. Somebody brings a turkey, somebody brings the ham, somebody brings the stuffing, somebody brings the sweet potato pie. Think about the feasts you can create when more people bring something to the table. "So now, just envision that in life and in business. The more I can get people around the table, the more we all eat. We're not socialists, we're capitalists. But even I can understand that the more people you place at that seat of prosperity, the more they will reward you and the more they will support you." It's a simple yet incredibly eloquent way to look at things. Steve explained that too often, we get caught up in the 'me' mentality – my purpose is to further my career, pursue my goals, and so on. But when we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, it's clear that working together and supporting one another is not only the right thing to do; it's also the smart thing to do. What does this look like in practice? I interpret the table of prosperity as being supported by anything that grants opportunities to others – so mentorship, development programs, unexpected promotions, and challenging responsibilities are all things that push people forward and help them to prosper. They also build your team into people who elevate your business as a whole. "This idea of serving others constantly pays itself back. The more you've poured into others, the more they will pay you back, many, many times over." Hire the 'Failures' The next strategy we talked about was Steve's unique approach to recruiting. He spent a fair amount of time at Comcast just building his ideal team; a group of people with 'chipped shoulders', as he described them. "We don't want cookie cutters. We don't want robots. We certainly want hard work and team oriented people. We wanted somebody with a chip on their shoulder; not a bad chip, but somebody that had something to prove." I totally see where he's coming from with this. When you've been beat down by another company or told that you're not good enough, it makes you want to work twice as hard to prove everyone wrong. And Steve has found that this is an incredible motivator for employees. But here's the issue: how do you find out whether someone's got that shoulder chip? "Tell me what you've accomplished in your life," Steve said, "But more importantly, tell me about some of your failures. Because when you come through a big failure, that tells me something about you; that tells me that you've got a chip on your shoulder that you've been punched, you've been knocked down, but you dusted yourself off." So often, we only focus on people's successes. But Steve has found that it's the failures – and how someone deals with them – that really tells you what kind of person they are. Accountability is Key I'm often surprised at how many companies fail to get their accountability system in order. How can you hope to keep employees on track with half-yearly meetings and annual reviews? Steve has a much more regular and scalable system. "Literally six to eight times a year, I will sit down with my leadership team. We'll talk about how we're doing, what's working, what's not working. And then they will cascade it through their organization." It's genius, really; Steve doesn't sit down with all 30,000 employees, but by using the cascading model, he influences each and every interaction and sparks consistent chain reactions of meetings. "The reason our performance management works that by the end of the year, I can literally write my own review, because my boss has sat down with me six or seven times. “So now there's no misunderstanding around what my responsibility is and how I'm doing with that level of communication. There's no misunderstanding. There's no lack of clarity about where we're going." If Steve could do this with 30,000 employees, imagine what you could do with your team of five or 10. Just by being clear about your expectations and then holding people accountable to those expectations on a regular basis, you can create a culture of excellence in any organization. Respect Your Team's Livelihoods The final thought I'll touch on from my interview with Steve is this: your employees are not coming to work just to say hello to you every day. They have bills to pay, families to support, and lives outside of work. Alongside giving people development opportunities and a clear path to progression, it's important to keep broadening their monetary horizons, too. "I remember one of my frontline employees saying to me, 'Steve, I'm going to give you two keys to success in keeping your employees excited. Number one, you always respect your employees. And number two, you make sure my W-2 grows every year.'" Of all the businesses I've researched and seen first-hand, the best are those that manage to strike this balance between developmental and financial incentives. If you want to keep people motivated and excited about coming to work every day, make sure you're doing everything you can to help them improve their lives – not just their job performance. "For example," Steve told me, "Every month our leadership team will see how all of our salespeople are performing relative to their bonus, their commission, and how they're performing versus a year ago. Because let's be honest; people are there to work because they want to care for their families. So my job is to make sure we're winning." In all honesty, I think the employees that don't understand this will become victim to the 'Great Resignation'; the silent quitters, the job-hoppers, and the disengaged who slowly but surely become a detriment to your team's morale. It's crucial to demonstrate your understanding of – and respect for – the lives your employees are working so hard to maintain. Wrap-Up According to Ernest Hemingway: "Every man has two deaths; when he is buried in the ground, and the last time someone says his name." For Steve, I suspect his second death will come long after his first! Steve White is a pleasure to speak with and a joy to listen to; he's practically brimming with business insights and advice. I walked away from our conversation feeling motivated to be a better leader, and I hope you did too. Thanks for reading, as always! Also published here.

Those That Work Together Win Together

Did you know that over 20% of organizations do not protect their remote users on the internet, and only 9% use some means to protect them against internet-based threats? This is occurring despite the looming cybersecurity threats as remote work became more popular, as seen in a for businesses that switched to remote work patterns. 19.8% increase in data breaches But how did we even get here? The Covid19 pandemic was a driving force behind several businesses shutting down operations during the lockdown. Consequently, about half of the workforce began working remotely for prolonged periods. This popularized the idea of working from home, working remotely, or as I love to put it, Working From Anywhere. According to Interestingly, this idea eradicates the notion of work being tethered to a particular location and increases the possibility and advantages of pooling in global talents from almost anywhere and utilizing them, using available to push businesses forward. Databasix, 74% of organizations surveyed say 50-100% of staff are working from home, while 86% say the trend will continue after lockdown. technological tools However, this paradigm shift in working culture hasn’t been perfect security-wise. Well, this isn’t a utopia, and you didn’t expect everything to be perfect, did you? According to , remote work has increased the average cost of a data breach by $137,000. The statistics highlighting the cybersecurity dangers lurking around remote work have been nothing but thought-provoking, and a few of them are: Databasix Impact of Remote Work on Cybersecurity: What’s the relationship? Due to the Covid19 pandemic, remote work has become the leading cause of cybersecurity threats as cybercriminals devise new methods to attack remote workers. This Malwarebytes shows that 20% of organizations experienced a breach because of a remote worker and 24% of respondents in the report said that they paid unexpected expenses to resolve the breach or malware attack. This highlights the fact that remote work has only increased the apertures for data breaches and information leaks in cyber security. report So, it is not merely poor organizational security management within companies that causes cyber security breaches but individual employees too. These breaches caused by employees are referred to as ‘Insider Threat Risks.’ Contrary to public opinion, Insider Threat Risks may not always be a displeased employee selling the company out or acting maliciously. The majority of these Insider Threat Risks are due to the carelessness and negligence of remote workers. A study from the University of Central Florida further buttresses this opinion, as the study revealed that when employees are stressed out, they are far more likely to fault security rules and regulations. These faults, carelessness, and errors can prove very costly to the company. What’s the cost of poor cybersecurity in remote work? Most times, remote workers only take shortcuts that break these rules to increase productivity as they are stressed out. But indicates that this carelessness can prove extremely costly as fixing an insider-related breach can cost a large company roughly $22.68 million and a medium or small-sized company around $500,000. These are staggering figures considering these facts about security threats and the propensity of a data breach around the world as reported by : ProofPoint CampriTech 62% of companies in South and North America have encountered at least one data breach between 2021 and 2022 Personal Identifiable Information (PII) costs $180 per record In 2021, the cost of a data breach rose from $3.86 million to $4.24 million, which was the highest average total cost in the 17-year history of this report. $4.64 million is the average cost of a data breach in the United States 70% of cloud infrastructures are breached in a year 630% in cloud-based attacks within January-April 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The average cost of a breach increased by $1.07 million when remote work was a factor Sadly, these attacks are not slowing down. In 2021, the was Comcast- with a cost of $1.5 billion, seconded by the Brazilian resident data leak (660 million), and Facebook and LinkedIn followed with costs of $533 million and $500 million, respectively. biggest data breach What is even more saddening are the facts from another on the share prices of 34 companies that experienced data breaches listed on the New York Exchange. It was noticed that after 3 weeks of the breach, the share prices of these companies dropped by 3.5%, and even after three years, these companies were underperforming the market by 15%. Comparitech study What are these Cybersecurity risks? reports that 31% of companies do not employ any tangible means to protect their remote workers from cybersecurity risks. This might be because they might not be aware of the looming cyber security risks lurking in the dark online space. So some of these risks are: CyberTalk Cyber attackers can infiltrate sensitive data online through malware called Ransomware. This type of malware blocks users from accessing their systems. The cyber attackers will then take control of the systems and ask for ransom or threaten to publish/sell the data if a ransom is not paid. Ransomware: Login credentials are one of the biggest threats facing remote workers as they keep on using recycled, old, weak, or insecure passwords for their remote working accounts. These passwords are easily cracked by cyber attackers using software that can guess login combinations. Another way is hacking corporate accounts used by remote workers by using the passwords used by remote workers on their accounts. Weak passwords: : Most corporate companies' Wi-Fi networks are protected by secure firewalls to monitor and block malignant traffic. However, remote workers may connect to the corporate company’s systems using unsecured Wi-Fi. This leaves them susceptible to a data breach that may expose the company’s corporate data. Unsecure Wi-Fi Files stored on corporate servers are mostly safe due to encryption protection. Despite this, these files can be vulnerable to attacks during transit or intra-transfers through file sharing tools by remote workers. This can lead to identity fraud or ransomware attacks. File sharing: Can we improve Cybersecurity for remote workers? In one word? Absolutely. A blog on Turing, an AI-based talent cloud company founded by Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan, points out to improve remote security. 8 best practices for remote developers Although reports that 71.1 million people fall victim to cyber crimes yearly, it also notes that zero trust security policies saved $1.76 million per breach and security-driven AI had the best cost mitigation, saving up to $3.81 million. Along with zero trust security policies and security-driven AI, there are also more ways of securing remote workers from cyber risks. An enumeration of these methods is given below: PurpleSec : According to a report by ' ‘ this is where the zero trust security policy comes in. The zero trust policy mandates that every user requiring access, remotely or not, to a company’s system or data must be continuously validated, authenticated, and authorized before being granted access. This prevents random access from anyone within or outside the organization. Zero trust security policies HP Wolf Security Blurred Lines & Blindspots, Almost one-third (30%) of remote workers surveyed have let someone else use their work device’, : AI-driven security combines the strength of artificial intelligence, including machine learning, advanced data analytics, and automation, to build a robust security setup against cyber attackers. This has proven very effective because enterprises using it can ensure timely detection of advanced threats, faster analysis, and accurate responses to threats. Security-Driven AI : Although using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) allows remote workers to access the company’s resources and get jobs done anytime, anywhere, it can also prove dangerous. VPNs can be a point for data leaks for remote workers as this is proven by a report from Spiceworks. The report stated a SQL database dump was published on Telegram on the 7th of May, 2022 containing 10 GB of sensitive information of approximately 21 million people. Avoid the use of VPNs : Using Wi-Fi networks in public spaces to log in to company systems can expose a company to cyber risks through the remote user. Remote workers should avoid using these wireless networks in public spaces as much as possible. Be careful of using Wi-Fi in ‘third spaces’ MFA has a reputation for preventing the majority of credential-based attacks. MFA provides protections by ensuring that every time a user logs into a system, the user has to provide multiple credentials. Remote workers should enable MFA on all their remote devices. MFA (Multi-factor authentication): Regular updates on devices ensure that any device on a network is both configured correctly and has the latest patches and updates from the manufacturer. This builds the device's threat resistance against all types of attacks. Remote workers can use Endpoint Management Software to ensure that this happens across the network. Update devices regularly: Remote workers can improve cybersecurity by ensuring that malware protection software is installed and used in addition to more standard anti-virus software. This software will also alert its users about possible threats and viruses that may have gained access to the system. Employ anti-malware software: Closing words Cybersecurity is one of the major talking points in today's tech world, as millions of dollars have been lost and more are at risk of being forfeited to cyber attackers because of the growing threat and expertise of cyber attackers. However, to always be ahead of these cyber attackers and ensure that all these methods of cyber attack prevention are implemented, it is pertinent to hire an internet security developer. Ultimately, cybersecurity can only be attained through the combined 100% adherence of everyone involved, especially remote workers. Image Source: Cottonbro

Is Remote Work Responsible for Growing Cybersecurity Threats?

A group of independent movie companies has asked a Virginia federal court to grant millions in copyright damages against a popular fork of the piracy app Popcorn Time. The request for a default judgment also comes with a far-reaching injunction which, among other things, would require Internet providers to block several Popcorn Time domains. For , Popcorn Time has been a thorn in the side of movie studios large and small. more than seven years The ‘Netflix for Pirates’ offers an easy-to-use application that opens the door to a library of thousands of streamable movies and TV shows. Legal Issues The Motion Picture Association (MPA) recognized this threat early on and pressured the original developers to throw in the towel. , but it came too late as the open-source project was swiftly revived by others. That worked Popcorn Time lived on through many project forks, including PopcornTime.app, which carried on from where the original developers stopped. However, the fork’s developers haven’t been spared from legal pressure. Last year, Hawaiian anti-piracy attorney Kerry Culpepper registered the “Popcorn Time’ trademark, which he used to get Popcorn Time’s . Around the same time, Github removed the Popcorn Time repository following a , a decision that was . Twitter account suspended complaint from the MPA later reversed Movie Companies Sue Popcorn Time A few months ago, a group of independent movie companies, including the makers of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” and “London Has Fallen,” increased the pressure. The filmmakers sued the , together with the VPN service VPN.ht. anonymous PopcornTime.app operator According to a recent court filing, VPN.ht and the filmmakers are close to signing a settlement agreement. However, the same can’t be said for the anonymous “Popcorn Time” operator, who failed to respond in court. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, the official PopcornTime.app site disappeared. The official Reddit community also went private, but not before one of the moderators posted a message, pointing people to popcorn-ru.tk/build/, which remains online today. Millions in Damages The movie companies kept a close eye on these developments and remain determined to shut the fork down once and for all. Without a formal response from the developers, they are now asking the court to issue a default judgment, awarding millions of dollars for various copyright and trademark violations. The list of demands is long. Among other things, the filmmakers demand the maximum statutory copyright infringement damages for 21 movie titles. This adds up to a healthy $3,150,000. That’s not all, Popcorn Time trademark owner 42 Ventures joined the lawsuit as well. The company, which lists lawyer Kerry Culpepper as its director, demands $2 million in damages for trademark infringement. The requested damages amount is sufficient to bankrupt most people. However, the default judgment also comes with a request for an injunction, which could potentially have much broader consequences. Site Blocking and More The proposed injunction would require ISPs to block access to several Popcorn Time domain names, including popcorn-ru.tk. Thus far, no federal court has issued such a blocking order in a piracy case, but the filmmakers argue that this is an option under the DMCA. Specifically, Section 512 of the DMCA allows for an order that required Internet providers “to block access, to a specific, identified, online location outside the United States.” The movie companies believe that such a blocking order is warranted in this case. In their proposed order, which has yet to be approved by the court, they use the following terminology: It is ORDERED that, within 60 days receipt of this order, all Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) subject to personal jurisdiction of the United States use their best technical efforts to BLOCK access on their servers or servers under their control to the following Target Domain Names at which Defendant’s movie piracy app Popcorn Time is distributed: http://popcorn-ru.tk; https://popcorn-time.tw/; and https://popcorntime-online.ch/. The targeted ISPs, which could include Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T, can use a variety of blocking options, according to the rightsholders. This includes blocking domain names and IP-addresses. The requested injunction doesn’t stop there. The movie companies also want third-party service providers such as Cloudflare and Google to stop people from accessing Popcorn Time domains. This includes the removal of all search engine results. In addition, the rightsholders seek an order that requires the developer platform GitHub to take the Popcorn Time repository and various related accounts offline. As mentioned before, these requests are made as part of a motion for a default judgment. This means that the defendant is not represented in court, which makes it more likely that the court will approve the request. Unavoidable Blocking Battle? Given what is at stake here, however, it’s certainly possible that – if the order is granted – some of the third-party intermediaries will object. After all, some of these requests are quite novel. The movie studios’ site-blocking request is not entirely new. Over the past weeks, the same companies have listed similar demands in lawsuits against Internet providers such as , , and . Grande Communications RCN WOW! All in all, it seems likely that the site-blocking issue will be properly tested in U.S. courts in the near future. — A copy of the motion for a default judgment, submitted at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, is available here (pdf)

The ‘Netflix for Pirates’ Got in Trouble With the Law. Duh. 

El 'Netflix para piratas' se metió en problemas con la ley. Duh.

Le "Netflix pour les pirates" a eu des démêlés avec la loi. Euh.

'समुद्री डाकू के लिए नेटफ्लिक्स' कानून के साथ परेशानी में पड़ गया। दुह।

「海賊版ネットフリックス」が法律でトラブルに。当たり前。

O 'Netflix para piratas' teve problemas com a lei. Duh.

‘Netflix cho Cướp biển’ gặp rắc rối với pháp luật. Tât nhiên.

“Netflix for Pirates”触犯了法律。呃。

While most publishers would love to work collaboratively with platforms, many are reluctant to. They have good reasons to go at it alone, and competition authorities are not enthusiastic about collective action. However, publishers have several options to increase their power and negotiate better terms with platforms. These include setting up a joint front and negotiating with platforms individually. US and Australian publishers have each tried the joint front approach, with varying results. The French initiative ended in a modest settlement, while German publishers were willing to grant Google free licenses in order to maintain control of their content. A news publishing platform should be easy to use. It should offer many features, including a content management system. This way, you can create the content once and use it across several platforms. Rich media is also an important feature, including interactive maps, video, photo galleries, and MP3 audio. SEO is also a key factor To get a full feature set, you should choose a platform provider that offers a comprehensive set of features. An enterprise newsroom with marketing teams needs omnichannel distribution. A headless CMS offers content accessibility via an API, which enables developers to make changes to the format without impacting the content. Additionally, seamless integrations will make content available to many platforms simultaneously, such as Twitter and Facebook. This means you can automate actions such as converting content to Twitter cards or appending a user's name to social shares. There are many options when it comes to publishing a news product. Some publishers choose to collaborate with other publishers to develop their own platform, while others will simply go it alone. For example, some publishers will use joint platforms to sell advertising, while others will focus on subscriptions and registrations. This strategy can work, as publishers can minimize platform risk. Product management should also be brought closer to the core of a newsroom. This is particularly true of journalists. The importance of a headline cannot be stressed enough. It is crucial to choose the right sources and links. Pictures are a journalist's best asset. While a good source and good links will help establish credibility for an article, the headline can make or break the article. Moreover, readers don't subscribe to one publication. Furthermore, mega-platforms make it easier for bad actors to distribute low-quality content, causing misinformation and disinformation. Using a CMS can make a difference in a newspaper's overall productivity and efficiency. For example, the Content Hub model supports multiple stages of editorial workflow and is designed to handle large volumes of content. It also offers access to industry standard editing tools. This way, a publisher can easily integrate a variety of different workflows. There are also several features that can help manage the content of a news organization, including automated multichannel distribution. Managing a involves careful consideration of mutual interests and strategic partnerships. Whether a partnership is beneficial depends on the individual publisher's strategy and the platform's product and service offerings. news publishing platform Platforms are now active in the policy debate, but the road ahead is long, uncertain and complex. This is the nature of partnerships. And a publisher must remain vigilant to avoid becoming a victim. When the stakes are high, it's essential to keep these relationships civil and mutually beneficial. One of the most popular CMS solutions today is Netrix iCMS. This solution is capable of serving hundreds of thousands of users and can handle multiple websites and paywalls. Netrix iCMS allows users to publish content directly from a browser. With a CMS, the content of a news organization can be coordinated in a seamless way. So, whether a news organization is using a CMS or not, it is important to have a clear and simple workflow. Managing a news publishing platform is a complex process that requires a good understanding of a variety of different platforms. CMSs are typically "headless," which means they separate the presentation layer from the content. This makes them easier to adapt to different devices. Headless CMSs can also tie into changing business models. A CMS will create a business model and structure. The business model of a news publisher will need to be carefully planned before it can be launched. The Australian Media Industry The has always been a vibrant, yet complex industry. With the ever-expanding digital and social media landscape, there's no one industry to call home. Australian Media Industry From television to radio, newspapers to websites, the industry is growing and evolving at an exponential pace. Here's a closer look at what makes this industry tick. But before we get to those changes, let's explore some of the issues facing this industry today. Google, Facebook and other tech companies have been forming alliances to boost their visibility with advertisers. The alliances will also give Australian publications a stronger voice in shaping the media industry's future. But it's unclear whether these alliances will be able to protect the interests of smaller publications. Digital platforms have changed the way news is consumed around the world. Australia is home to the world's highest concentration of media ownership, according to reputable sources. As a result, new business models and commercial strategies are emerging in the media industry, affecting the quality of journalism in Australia. These changes, if not addressed, could lead to a media meltdown in Australia and other nations. The Australian Media Industry has plenty of room for improvement. In Australia, the media industry is highly fragmented, with regional and national news agencies competing with international mass media companies for advertising dollars. Large national media companies own small regional operations, but the vast majority of television and radio stations are based in Sydney and Melbourne. And this is where the competition for audience share is fierce. This is why it's crucial for the media industry to stay competitive and innovative. And, fortunately, the government is working on it! The Media Industry in the US The media industry in the US has traditionally been characterized by large, commercial enterprises. From the penny press to the rise of major urban newspapers during the nineteenth century, these companies grew to become some of the nation's largest manufacturing entities. That trend continued, and has been further consolidated by the growth of Hollywood and related industries, such as music recording and advertising. A new wave of large media companies, however, has emerged that are making a difference in the media landscape. Some of the largest companies in the industry are Disney and Comcast, which own ABC television, Fox, NBC, Telemundo, and Sky, as well as several broadcast networks. Viacom and CBS both own major cable networks, AT&T is a major competitor of Comcast in the delivery of content to homes. It is bidding to buy Time-Warner, which would transform it into a major player in the content industry. While all media outlets provide entertainment, not all are equally effective at spreading information. Some forms of mass communication are better suited for specific purposes. For example, print media is more durable and easy to archive, while newspapers are cheaper to produce but don't have the same impact as television and radio. While newspapers and radio can both provide news and entertainment, television is more dynamic than the static printed page and can broadcast live events to an audience nationwide. While the US state has historically limited the role of the media in society, it does play a limited role. When combined with the First Amendment legal tradition and free-market liberalism, it has become highly profitable for both media companies and consumers. There have also been attempts by the US government to regulate the media industry through antitrust laws. Some legislators have allowed newspapers to form joint operating agreements with other media outlets. And, of course, the media industry has been a major contributor to the culture of our society. Whether or not you choose to access the media industry in the US depends on your interests. Today, half of US households subscribe to a daily newspaper and have an average of 1.9 magazine subscriptions. That's a lot of media! No wonder the US has the largest media industry in the world. So, where is the future for the media industry? The US media regulatory system is a mix of federal and state government oversight. The media industry is subject to many general application laws that protect consumers and competitive markets. The industry also faces specific regulation in some countries, such as restrictions on access to foreign media. But there is more to media regulation than the US Constitution. Regardless of the structure of the media industry, its regulation is essential to the health of the country. If it does not, it may be at risk for censorship. In the past, magazines and newspapers were the primary institutions that housed journalism. But that has changed as new players entered the market, many of them online. The internet has also accelerated the trend toward hybrid forms of information, blurring the lines between journalism and other fields. For example, news media are now more focused on entertainment, and many radio stations focus solely on one genre of music. But, as with newspapers, the media industry is also transforming. Cable television has radically altered the media landscape in the United States. Early television viewers had a limited selection of channels, and were accused of homogeneity. The role of technology and media in society The role of is complex and varied. As the medium for communication has evolved, so has the content and purpose of media. technology and media in our society Media can be categorized as print, television, Internet, and new media. They also include advertisements and product placement. Ultimately, these technologies and media play a vital role in shaping our society. Nevertheless, a variety of criticisms exists regarding the role of media and technology in modern society. While radio programming preceded the rise of television, both media helped shape human life. They both provided immediacy and community to their listeners. When the Twin Towers were attacked, people around the world were able to receive the news through both the radio and television. Similarly, radio shows and serial television programs became popular among school children and office workers. This trend has continued to this day. However, the evolution of both technologies has had an impact on news consumption. Today, technology can range from a simple match to light a candle, to complex nuclear power plants. Media, on the other hand, can include television, ads placed on buses, and magazines placed in waiting rooms. The rise of new media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs has also altered the way news is communicated. And it continues to change how we think of these media. As long as they don't destroy traditional media, they will be a powerful tool. The term "media" has several meanings, and refers to a range of significant human activities organized around particular technologies. This includes film, radio, television, and the internet. Each media form has its own unique way of representing and communicating knowledge. And while each medium has its uses, they all have one thing in common - they are all forms of media. And they all require technology to operate properly. The question is: how to make the most of them? While both technology and media have their uses, the distinction between these two terms is often difficult to define. Philosophers have debated over the nature of media for centuries, and the role of technology in communication has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Even our everyday language uses these terms interchangeably. We often refer to television as a medium while the internet is considered a technology. This makes the terms meaningless, and can make it hard to identify the true function of a medium. While some people embrace the benefits of technology, others reject it as a symbol of the coldness of modern life. Functionalists look at technology from a different angle and focus on media and environmental impact. Many media sources are not scientific, and they don't convey complicated statistical data. The Media Industry Is Always Under Fire The media industry is constantly under attack, from the big brand publications that make millions of dollars per year to the small, regional media that struggle to stay afloat. Yet it seems that there are still people willing to listen and pay for journalism. Broadcasters will also face a greater challenge as more audiences shift to digital streaming services. Many other media companies will shift their resources into audio and video as well. These changes will undoubtedly result in a more diverse media landscape. But for now, the media industry will need to focus on rebalancing its business models. In this environment, the challenge for publishers is to create a high-quality product and avoid falling victim to the demands of . While many platforms reward quantity over quality, some publishers argue that they should focus on housekeeping first. tech platforms The media industry is constantly under fire for presenting the truth accurately and balancing editorial freedom with the needs of the bottom line. Despite the numerous pressures facing journalists and news organizations, it is still important to maintain high standards of integrity and ethics. Increasing political and corporate influence in the media creates a conflict of interest, but a good journalist will always strive to present issues fair. However, the pressure of quick news delivery can be a burden. Politically charged language has become more prevalent on news outlets. While political correctness may have been the primary motivation for the Capital shooting, the motives of the shooter may have been motivated by a private grudge against Capital. Even if the motives behind the shooting were not the same as those of the "Fourth Estate", it was an attack on democracy and on the "Fourth Estate." While the media industry has been under fire in recent years, it remains under fire even today. Newspapers and magazines have faced a plethora of challenges relating to the decline in print ads and subscriptions. With a shrinking support base, many have had to restructure and cut back. The evolution of media has impacted society's relationship with technology. While print media has existed for ages, the advent of the telegraph revolutionized the way that people shared information. Today, information is disseminated in a matter of minutes. Changing technology has also affected the way that we share information, from sharing news about a newborn child to publishing it on the internet. In addition to the media industry being under fire, technology has shifted the way that people communicate. People of colour are stepping up to take the reins and fight for more diversity. In the United States, for example, they are speaking out against the lack of diversity and inclusion in the publishing industry Publishing Digital Media There are many benefits to Publishing . It allows for faster timelines, agile design, and increased interaction with readers and potential clients. Plus, you can monitor your analytics and increase traffic to your content and with a wider audience, digital media will have a greater impact. Digital Media There are also fewer limitations on how many pages your content needs to be. If you're interested in getting involved in Digital Media, there are many ways you can get started. Power structures The importance of understanding power structures is critical to analyzing the impact of Digital Media on society. For instance, the power structures of digital technologies must be mapped in terms of Marxist theories of production, labour economics, and the interaction between systems. By thinking beyond traditional economic structures, we can map the complex dynamic of Digital Media. If we understand how the power structures work, we can begin to develop a comprehensive understanding of this new medium and its impacts. Extended Summary Managing a news publishing platform can be an overwhelming task. You must consider all the aspects before making the final decision. In the end, you should choose a CMS that suits your needs and budget. Creating a joint front between publishers and platforms is a common strategic approach that many platforms have tried to take. It gives them more leverage, which they use to negotiate more favourable terms of trade with platforms.

Learnings From Managing a News Publishing Platform

200 Black Women in Tech to Follow on Twitter in 2022

200 mujeres negras en tecnología para seguir en Twitter en 2022

200 femmes noires en technologie à suivre sur Twitter en 2022

टेक में 200 अश्वेत महिलाएं 2022 में ट्विटर पर फॉलो करेंगी

2022 年に Twitter でフォローするテクノロジー業界の黒人女性 200 人

200 mulheres negras em tecnologia para seguir no Twitter em 2022

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Wow, someone pinch me! I’ve been the Host of The for a year already?! HackerNoon Podcast Happy Podiversary, Hackers! It’s me, Amy Tom - your podcast host of t and self-proclaimed best friend. I’m wishing you, my beautiful podcast listeners, a wonderful 1-year podiversary! The HackerNoon Podcas 1 year ago, I released my first podcast episode of The HackerNoon Podcast. 🎉 The Podcast: How it All Began HackerNoon A few years ago, the HackerNoon team started The HackerNoon Podcast. In its infantry, it was hosted by various HackerNooners, including CEO David Smooke, (former) VP Natasha Nel, VP Utsav Jaiswal, and others. When I joined HackerNoon (as employee #16 at the time 🥺), I started as an Editor. A few months after I joined the team in December 2021, we decided we wanted to launch a new short series on the podcast, and we weren’t sure who would host it. Looking back, I can’t remember if I was asked or if I volunteered haha - but I somehow ended up as the host of the series. And on March 26th, 2021, I released my first episode as host of What I thought would be a fun project to run with for a few episodes turned into one of the largest projects of my career as a Content Creator to date. The HackerNoon Podcast. What I’ve Learned as a Podcast Host It may have been easier to title this section - “ ” What didn’t I learn as a podcast host? The HackerNoon Podcast, across the 90+ episodes I’ve produced over the year, has grown so much - and so have I! Not only did I learn about audio production, but I also got to chat with some REALLY COOL people. I talked to , the CEO of the American Ultimate Disc League, and learned after the launch and success of Dapper Labs and NBA’s Top Shot. Steve Hall about the NFTs they created I talked to my international HackerNoon colleagues about . At the time, we laughed and guessed that they would . After the official name change, we laughed some more. Facebook’s name change to Meta before it was officially announced change their name to MetaBook I did a series where I interviewed the founders of the startups nominated for HackerNoon’s . I talked to the like from Lately.ai, from Mux, from Stream, from tastytrade, from Camino Financial, and so many more. Startups of the Year awards founders of tech startups from around the world Kate Bradley Chernis Jon Mux Thierry Schellenbach Tom Sosnoff Sean Salas During pride month, I talked to my HackerNoon coworkers about . We discussed how it seems like some during pride month by offering pride-related merchandise without donating very much or bringing more discussion into the space. rainbowification big companies exploit the LGBTQIA+ community And then, who could forget the time I talked to a . told me about investing $300 into Dogecoin and watching it grow. We talked about Elon, Dogecoin, and decentralized partying. It was perhaps the strangest podcast episode I’ve ever done. Dogecoin millionaire Garry LaChance The Top 5 HackerNoon Podcast Episodes of 2021 Let’s take a lil’ throwback to the top 5 episodes of over the past year. The HackerNoon Podcast 1. What is Web 3.0 and Why Do We Need It? This is an episode I recorded with Jaro Šatkevic, the Head of Product at Mysterium Network, where we talked about Web3.0. We released this episode right after the 30th anniversary of the first webpage, which felt very appropriate. Listen to that episode here: https://podcast.hackernoon.com/what-is-web-30-and-why-do-we-need-it/ 2. How Decentralized Can We Get in the Modern World? This was the very first episode I released! It was with Sharmini Ravindran, the CMO at Mysterium Network. We talked about the implications of a decentralized internet for the world, world news and censorship, and more. If you listen back to this one, sorry for the nerves. We’ve come a long way y’all. 😅 Listen to that episode here: https://podcast.hackernoon.com/how-decentralized-can-we-get-in-the-modern-world/ 3. Demystifying DeFi, DEXs, and AMMs with AllianceBlock Team On this episode of The HackerNoon Podcast, Utsav was the host. He chatted to some super cool people from AllianceBlock about DeFi and DEXs. Rachid Ajaja (CEO), Houman Falakshahi (CRO), and Matthieu Mariapragassam (Head of Quantitative Analytics) were the guests on this episode. Listen to that episode here: https://podcast.hackernoon.com/demystifying-defi-dexs-and-amms-with-allianceblock-team/ 4. Media Conglomerates Are Taking Over The World This was an episode of the podcast where we discussed what went down This Week On Planet Internet. David, Utsav, and I discussed the world of big media conglomerates - think Facebook, Disney, Comcast, ATT - and how they rule the world. This seems a VERY KEY discussion again now that Elon owns Twitter. Listen to that episode here: https://podcast.hackernoon.com/media-conglomerates-are-taking-over-the-world/ 5. Document Databases Vs. Relational Databases On this episode, I talked to Eric Bishard and Arun Vijayaraghavan from Couchbase about the differences between a Document Database and a Relational Database. LOL, guys, can I make a confession to you? I distinctly remember recording this episode and watching a YouTube tutorial to prep for the episode to figure out how to say JSON out loud. Again, wow, we’ve come a long way 😂 Listen to that episode here: https://podcast.hackernoon.com/document-databases-vs-relational-databases/ Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Hackers, thank you so much for tuning into The HackerNoon Podcast over the past year. It’s been such a blast, and I’ve loved every single second of it. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to talk to you not only about technology but also its impact on the world. I’m proud to have discussed how technology relates to gender equality, world relations, wealth disparity, and more. But most of all, I’m so honoured to be your host, and I love y’all so much. Thank you for listening to The HackerNoon Podcast! Until next time, stay weird, and I’ll see ya on the internet 😉

Happy 1-Year Podiversary, Hackers!

¡Feliz 1 año de Podiversario, Hackers!

Joyeux Podiversaire d'un an, Hackers !

हैप्पी 1-ईयर पोडिवर्सरी, हैकर्स!

Podiversary 1 周年おめでとうございます、ハッカーの皆さん!

Feliz Podiversário de 1 ano, Hackers!

Chúc mừng 1 năm Podiversary, các hacker!

快乐 1 年 Podiversary，黑客！

By: Adit Madan, Jasmine Wang and Bin Fan, Alluxio This article highlights the synergy between the two widely adopted open-source projects, and , and demonstrates how together they deliver a . Alluxio Presto self-serve data architecture across clouds What Makes an Architecture Self-serve? Condition 1: Evolution of the data platform does not require changes All data platforms evolve over time, including the addition of a new data store, compute engine, or a new team that needs to access shared data. In either case, a data platform is self-serve if it does not require changes to accommodate evolution. Condition 2: Isolation across Teams Business units don’t step on each other with a self-serve platform. When a new team is introduced, data access by one team should have no impact on the existing usage of the shared data infrastructure. The combination of the above two offers agility, which oftentimes is more important than the cost of physical infrastructure. Data Platform Considerations Below, we introduce some considerations when designing a self-serve platform, and architectural patterns for simple solutions. Consideration 1: Data is shared Between Compute Frameworks There are a large number of specialized compute engines. Each engine is better suited for a specific task, which means there is a need to share data between engines. For example, ETL in a batch processing followed by Presto for interactive queries. Between Different Teams For example, a team is responsible for collection of operational data which is then consumed by multiple other business units. Between Data Centers Across Regions and Cloud Providers This offers the flexibility to choose the most optimal service across environments. The solution for shared data is to have an abstraction layer across heterogeneous compute. Alluxio provides such an abstraction across clouds for seamless sharing of data between Presto and other compute engines regardless of the data store. Consideration 2: Data has ownership domains and processing in place is simple Although replication provides isolation, governance becomes complex as the owner of data enforces strict policies about the consumption of data. Copies introduce redundancy, which is error-prone and has high resource requirements. It may seem obvious that a solution is to not make copies of data, but what about performance when we don’t move data? This calls for a single abstraction layer that takes care of governance, performance, and movement of data across ownership domains. The architecture below shows Presto using the Alluxio layer for access to data regardless of the location. The above design can be broken down into a few simple cases All within a single cloud or a datacenter Shared across multiple data centers or a hybrid cloud In all these cases, the separation of the CONSUMER from the PRODUCER of data is enabled by an abstraction layer that provides more than a simple cache. Advanced preloading and write capabilities guarantee SLAs even with the separation of data from compute. Conclusion: With a self-serve data architecture across clouds, we construct a solution that stands the test of time as a data platform evolves. Learn more from the whitepaper , and see how companies including Facebook, TikTok, Electronic Arts, Walmart, Tencent, Comcast, etc level up their current Presto platform leveraging Alluxio. Presto with Alluxio Overview – Architecture Evolution for Interactive Queries First Published here

Using a Self-serve Data Architecture to Share Data Across Development Teams

John Fazio has a vision, and it’s focused on video games. While competitive gaming has been in and out of mainstream culture over the past few decades, John foresees esports surpassing the popularity of athletic sports in as little as 10 years. Beyond competition, he believes esports will permeate the world of apparel, shopping, hotels, restaurants, and more. It’s a market poised for enormous growth, and John wants to ensure this brave new world isn’t reserved just for the privileged few who can afford a $3,000 PC or high-speed internet at home. John is the founder and CEO of , a national network of esports facilities and events built to provide young people access to opportunities for training and competition. Nerd Street Gamers As a kid, John was into technology and sports, training and competing at a high level in both soccer and PC gaming. But while his soccer teammates were being recruited to colleges and offered scholarships, there was no such ecosystem in place for esports. John realized, “Video games have a bigger picture here in our society. Video games can do a lot more than they're doing. It's not just about entertainment, there's real-life opportunity that can come from them.” Since he launched the business in 2017, Nerd Street Gamers has hosted some of the biggest esports tournaments in North America and established relationships with thousands of high schools, universities, and even a city parks and recreation department. They have opened seven esports centers — called — across the U.S., with many more to come thanks to a strategic partnership with retailer Five Below. Localhosts To fund this vision, John has raised $25 million from investors, including SeventySix Capital, Comcast Spectacor, and Founders Fund. On , John talks about how he went from a tech-smart teenager who had given up on VCs to the head of a fast-growing company built through well-aligned partnerships. an episode of the How I Raised It podcast Find investors who align with the vision At the age of 18, John had a clear vision for building an ecosystem of talent and career development in the gaming world. In 2005, he drew up a business plan for a network of video gaming arenas, but he wasn’t able to interest investors. Frustrated with the process and soured on the idea of working with venture capitalists, John shelved his idea and started a software company instead. A decade later, he had built enough capital to revive his dream, and Nerd Street Gamers opened its first Localhost facility in one half of John’s Philadelphia office space. The store was packed non-stop and needed more room, and that’s when Wayne Kimmel of reached out for a meeting. SeventySix Capital The team at SeventySix had an idea to bring esports to shopping malls, a sort of “arcade 2.0.” But that wasn’t John’s vision, and despite the need to grow his fledgling company, he had no trouble telling the investors what he thought. “I think what happened in the beginning of that conversation was I was like — no, that’s not right,” John says. “You have to get on board with what we’re doing.” They did, and John realized the opportunity that lay in front of him — to work with experienced investors who could each bring something to the table, whether it was Wayne’s 20 years of VC guidance or managing partner Jon Powell’s experience in developing high-end retail and sports teams. SeventySix came on board in the pre-seed round, and John continued to find investors that aligned closely with Nerd Street’s trajectory. Seed round funding was led by , whose gaming division had just acquired the Philadelphia Fusion esports franchise. Comcast Spectacor When came to the table for Series A, John wasn’t sure what a discount retailer could offer, but once he visited a store (during a Mortal Kombat tournament, no less) and met with CEO Joel Anderson, he saw the connections. Five Below “Joel gave me this strong vision about how Five Below was about bringing the high-end consumer experience to a more affordable market, and that was so aligned with what we were trying to do,” John says. Five Below pledged to open up to 70 stores across the U.S. with adjoining Localhost locations, connecting the experience and accessibility for youth across America. Seek out the one-star reviews When Wayne and the team at SeventySix Capital first reached out to John, he wanted to be sure that taking venture capital funding was the right move for Nerd Street Gamers. “I always knew that once you take the first check, you've got to continue to fuel that growth,” John says. The answer came from an unexpected source. As he had often done when vetting clients for his software company, John reached out to someone who had not had a great experience with SeventySix, hoping their review would complete the big picture of what it might be like to work with the investors. This founder felt that they had been pushed to grow too fast and build too big. “All of those things were exactly what I knew comes [with accepting venture capital], and that’s exactly what I wanted,” John says. “It was one of those interviews where the ‘bad’ was exactly what I wanted to hear. He ironically closed the deal for me.” Snail mail: Reach out to those who inspire you When the COVID-19 pandemic closed down all of Nerd Street’s retail locations in early 2020, the company pivoted to focus on their digital platform. It took off running, growing its membership by 219% in one year. By early 2021, Nerd Street Gamers had secured an additional $11.5 million from San Francisco-based , a VC firm known for backing the likes of PayPal, SpaceX, and Airbnb, and one that had long been at the top of John’s list. Founders Fund The deal started with a letter that John wrote to venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale after hearing him interviewed on a podcast. “It’s a habit I have of sending people who inspire me letters,” John says. A couple of weeks later, John realized that Joe, who was also an early backer of Palantir Technologies, had connections to Founders Fund. John sent an email requesting an introduction, and the rest is fundraising history. Nathan Beckord is the CEO of Foundersuite.com which makes software for raising capital. Foundersuite has helped entrepreneurs raise over $3 billion in seed and venture capital since 2016. This article is based on an episode of Foundersuite’s How I Raised It podcast, a behind-the-scenes look at how startup founders raise money.

Building an E-Sports Empire: How John Fazio Took Nerd Street Gamers from Bootstrap to $25 Million

Presto ( and ) is a popular choice for organizations to run interactive analytic queries on multiple data sources at a large scale. Positioned as SQL-on-Everything, Presto is designed to be a storage-independent engine that queries against any disparate data sources anywhere. PrestoDB Trino Many organizations are constantly modernizing their data platforms and developing scalable solutions to fit their existing and future needs. Although Presto is proven to have massive data processing capabilities, it is not optimized while dealing with data access across the pipeline. As a result, data platform engineers still have to find extra solutions to eliminate data redundancy, error-prone, slow and inconsistent performance, and high costs. To solve these challenges, an innovative architecture combining Presto with Alluxio together is recommended. Alluxio is a data orchestration platform that bridges computation frameworks and underlying storage systems. Presto and Alluxio working together enables a unified, robust, high-performance, low-latency, and cost-effective analytics architecture. This architecture not only benefits analytics but also all stages of the data pipeline, spanning ingestion, analytics, and modeling. It allows fast SQL queries across multiple storage systems on-prem, in public cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments. Many companies have leveraged Alluxio to level up their current Presto platform, including Facebook, TikTok, Electronic Arts, Walmart, Tencent, Comcast, and more. They have gained significant benefits with Alluxio integrated into their Presto stack. Why Pair Presto With Alluxio? Alluxio Helps Modernize the Data Platform as a Hybrid Cloud Data Lake More and more organizations are considering moving their data platforms to the cloud for elasticity and analytics at scale. But cloud migration is not an easy journey. As an initial step, organizations may migrate analytics workloads, for example, Presto, to the cloud to leverage on-demand compute resources. In this case, the data platform is hybrid with Presto in the cloud and data stored on-prem. Traditionally, a hybrid cloud is not considered a suitable architecture for latency-sensitive interactive queries because fetching remote data through the network suffers from slow, inconsistent performance and query failures when it’s timeout. Furthermore, multi-cloud deployment has similar issues as the compute and storage clusters reside in geographically disparate locations. These are huge roadblocks when trying to productionalize the cloud data platform. To begin the cloud journey, many companies choose the solution of Lift and Shift, which means copying their data into a cloud environment and maintaining that duplicate data. However, manually managing data copies is slow and complex. Furthermore, some organizations may face regulations that prohibit persistent copies in the cloud, preventing them from using the Lift and Shift approach. Alluxio enables hybrid and multi-cloud interactive queries using a different solution. Alluxio abstracts the storage layer and provides Presto with fast access to data on-prem, in the cloud, and multi-data centers, along with policies to manage data movement across environments: . Alluxio’s “zero-copy” burst enables Presto in the cloud to access data on-prem without first copying the data to the cloud, which helps seamlessly migrate workloads without changing the end-user experience. “Zero-copy” burst to tackle the challenges of cloud migration Alluxio serves as an intelligent multi-tiered layer for Presto caching and brings data locally to Presto. Alluxio automatically utilizes near-compute storage media for optimal data access to minimize network traffic and achieve high and consistent performance in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Intelligent multi-tiered cache to overcome network latency. Alluxio provides tight control over the whole lifecycle of the data in the public cloud. Presto only interacts with Alluxio, which only stores data temporarily. Even if the data is moved to a public cloud, you can use policies or configurations in Alluxio to control how long the data lives in the public cloud before being wiped out. Data control for regulation and compliance. Alluxio Enables a Unified Data Access Across Multiple Data Sources Because Presto is storage independent, the flexibility to connect to multiple data sources is an essential requirement for the data platform supporting Presto queries. Otherwise, you will end up creating and managing copies of all the data sources, which is complex, time-consuming, and error-prone. Alluxio can help simplify the architecture by unifying data access to multiple and varied data sources. When paired with Alluxio, Presto gets federated access directly from Alluxio with a single view of all the data. This brings several advantages: Alluxio provides a unified view of the data using a global namespace, which greatly simplifies data management and eliminates data duplication. Instead of individually connecting to each data source, you only need to connect to Alluxio, and Alluxio will give Presto the only relevant data required. Simplify data management by a global namespace. Ideally, Presto would access data independently from how the data was originally stored or managed. This is why Alluxio is a good match. Alluxio can bring the data locally to Presto on-demand, making data access on the decoupled architecture no longer a concern. Completely decouples compute and storage systems. Because Alluxio abstracts the storage layer, the applications running on the existing data platform, like Presto, can access data without the need to understand where data lives and how to access it. Furthermore, when making changes to the storage side, Alluxio provides seamless access without changing the application so that it gets easier and quicker to adopt innovations. No impact to the application side. Alluxio Accelerates the Whole Data Pipeline with One-Caching-For-All Solution Data analytics is never fast enough, especially for dashboarding and interactive queries or any user-facing data-driven application. Such workloads are typically read-heavy, low-latency, and high-throughput, and their performances are bottlenecked by slow access of the underlying storage. Caching is a typical solution to improve query performance by data locality and data sharing. Presto provides an embedded cache (called native cache or local cache) that benefits the reads. However, it does not support cache writes and cannot be shared among different Presto clusters. Using Presto embedded caching would lead to storage duplication to accommodate multiple caching models, increased storage cost, complex maintenance, and competition of resources. Alluxio provides a differentiated caching solution, which is a one-caching-for-all, bringing significant benefits beyond any embedded caching Presto provides: Data processing pipelines include a series of processing stages, produced by performing ETL with Spark, then executing a SQL query using Presto, then running a machine learning algorithm on the query’s result. Alluxio’s data orchestration platform spans the data pipeline from data ingestion to ETL to analytics and ML. Alluxio enables data sharing and saves the intermediate results for one compute engine to consume the output of another. The ability to share data between applications has led to even further performance gains and less data movement. Enable data sharing across the entire data pipeline. . Because Alluxio spans through the entire data pipeline, it allows any computation framework to take advantage of previously cached data, further enhancing the speed of workload reads and writes. The cached data can stay in Alluxio for the next stage of the pipeline, resulting in significant performance gains. Enhance performance across all compute engines . Using embedded caching provided by different compute engines means managing multiple caching models, which is complex. Alluxio, as a unified caching platform for all kinds of compute engines, manages all the caching storage for the entire enterprise, thus reducing the compute and storage needed. Also, Alluxio cache can be utilized across all engines without any changes to the engines themselves, bringing ease of deployment and management. Unified, cost-effective, easy-to-manage caching platform When using Presto embedded caching, you will lose the cached data if you want to scale the Presto cluster down, and caching data lost usually causes severe performance problems. Instead of co-locating Presto and Alluxio, you have the flexibility of having a separate Alluxio cluster to operate independently of the compute capacity of Presto, allowing Presto to scale down but still keep the cached data. Independently deployed Alluxio cluster allows Presto to scale down without losing cached data. With the Alluxio caching solution, Presto can achieve faster queries, lower latency, and consistent SLAs. Beyond accelerating Presto, the whole data pipeline gets better performance end-to-end. Better performance leads to higher data throughput and better resource utilization without purchasing unnecessary resources. Data platforms can scale as needed, reducing infrastructure scaling costs with a lower TCO. Common Use Cases by Deployment Models and Case Studies Here are three common use cases to use Presto with Alluxio by different deployment models, each followed by a real-world user story. You will be able to tie this to your architecture and start adding Alluxio to your data platform. Single Cloud Analytics: Fast SQL on Any Cloud Storage / Electronic Arts ** ** The first use case is a single cloud deployment model. Both Presto and Alluxio are deployed in a cloud environment such as AWS or Google Cloud. In this scenario, Alluxio sits between Presto and cloud storage as a caching layer to speed up the query performance. Presto + Alluxio in the cloud guarantees better SLAs than directly accessing data from cloud storage itself. You also save the cost of accessing cloud storage because of the reduced amount of data access. Alluxio not only handles the caching but also manages the corresponding metadata to avoid particular inefficient metadata operations and expensive metadata service costs. (Source: blog by EA) post Electronic Arts, a leading company in the gaming industry, adopted the innovative platform with Presto as the computing engine and Alluxio as a data orchestration layer between Presto and S3 storage to support real-time data visualization, dashboarding, and conversational analytics. With Alluxio, they achieved up to 5.9x performance gain with metadata caching when handling large numbers of small files and reduced infrastructure and S3 costs. Check out the case study . here Hybrid Cloud Analytics: Simplify the Journey to the Cloud / Walmart The second use case is to leverage the flexible compute resources on the public cloud so that you can burst Presto into the cloud on-demand and leave your data on-prem. With a “zero-copy” burst, Alluxio caches the data on-demand based on data access patterns, rather than manually moving data to the cloud and removing data later. By integrating on-prem data stores with Alluxio + Presto, data is intelligently brought close to Presto on-demand. You will get high performance in the hybrid cloud environment with I/O offloaded, which is much better than directly accessing the remote data. Walmart used Presto in the cloud to handle more capacity for Presto and offload previously on-prem Hive workloads. Alluxio is co-located with Presto for data locality. Alluxio’s zero-copy burst ensures seamless migration and improved Presto query performance and concurrency. With Presto + Alluxio, they can achieve 2x compute capacity for the same environment. Check out Walmart’s presentation . here Cross Datacenter Analytics: High-Performance Analytics Anywhere / A Leading SaaS Company The third use case is multiple datacenters where Presto is in one data center, and the data lake is in another data center. Many companies choose to deploy Presto in a separated cluster for performance and resource isolation but still use HDFS in the main cluster. This deployment often results in unstable performance as Presto always needs to fetch data remotely. Having Alluxio co-deployed with Presto in the satellite cluster helps with the performance. Alluxio can accelerate the remote data read from the main data cluster without adding extra ETL steps. Intelligent data caching eliminates the performance bottlenecks, decreasing the overall load of the main data cluster. At a leading SaaS company, as the main data center got overloaded with growing workloads and users, they wanted to leverage compute resources outside of the primary on-prem data center for Presto workloads. By using Alluxio, they can reduce redundant storage needs in multiple data centers and enhance the performance of Presto by 3x to meet the query latency expectations of end-users. Benchmarking Performance in a Hybrid Cloud Architecture For benchmarking, we run SQL queries on data in a geographically separated Hive and HDFS cluster. We used data and queries from the industry-standard benchmark for decision support systems that examines large amounts of data and answers business questions. The queries can be categorized into the following classes (according to visualizations in this ): Reporting, Interactive, and Deep Analytics. TPC-DS repository TPC-DS Data Specifications Scale Factor Format Compression Data Size Number of Files 1000 Parquet Snappy 463.5 GB 234.2 K EMR Instance Specifications Instance Type Master Instance Count Worker Instance Count Alluxio Storage Volume (us-west-1) HDFS Storage Volume (ap-southeast-1) r5.4xlarge 1 each 10 each NVMe SSD EBS We compared the performance of Presto with Alluxio (Cold and Warm) with Presto directly on HDFS (Local and Remote). Benchmarking shows an average of 3x improvement with Alluxio when the cache is warm over accessing HDFS data remotely. Check out this for more details. benchmarking blog Presto + Alluxio Architecture Overview The figure below depicts a high-level architecture of a typical Presto + Alluxio deployment. A Typical Architecture We all know that Presto has a Coordinator-Worker architecture. The Presto Coordinator is responsible for handling query requests and managing workers, and Presto Workers are in charge of query processing. Alluxio also employs a Master-Worker architecture – Alluxio Master manages metadata, monitors, and manages Workers; Alluxio Workers manage local storage resources (MEM/SSD/HDD), fetch data from storage, and store cached data. A typical setup of Presto is with metadata served by Hive metastore. Presto Coordinator first gets metadata from Hive metastore, then schedules Presto Workers to query the data directly from UFS, and then provides the query result to the Presto coordinator. Now we add Alluxio into the architecture. It is recommended to deploy Alluxio Workers co-located with Presto Workers for data locality. As a data abstraction layer, Alluxio bridges computation frameworks and underlying storage systems so that Presto only needs to talk to Alluxio. The underlying storage systems are now mounted to Alluxio with the table location on Alluxio Master and cached data stored on Alluxio Workers. How Presto and Alluxio Work Together When the Presto Coordinator asks Hive Metastore for the metadata, it actually gets the metadata from Alluxio Master, who knows where the data is and finds the closest way to get it from Alluxio Workers. On a cache hit, either cached data from a local or remote Alluxio Worker is returned to the Presto Worker. Otherwise, Alluxio Worker would retrieve data from the remote data source and cache the data on the Alluxio Worker node for follow-up queries. Presto Workers then process (join, aggregate, and so on) the data stored in Alluxio Workers and provide the result to the user by the Presto Coordinator. The benefit of Alluxio adding to the Presto architecture is that it abstracts out data access regardless of where the data resides. Alluxio decides where to store the data and moves the data based on data access (on-demand) or policies (pre-defined) to make sure that Presto and other applications achieve the desired performance. In addition, because Alluxio is a one-common-cache-for-all solution, the intermediate cached data is shared among all compute frameworks across the data pipeline, including Spark, Presto, Tensorflow, and so on. With Alluxio, Data Platform Engineers don’t have to worry about where and how to store the data anymore to gain high-performance access. Furthermore, Alluxio workers can also be deployed on dedicated nodes so that the cache is independent of Presto nodes. As a result, Presto can elastically scale up and down without losing cache data or having any resources taken by Alluxio if the Presto clusters are already overloaded. Ease of Deployment It is very easy to add Alluxio to the existing Presto environment without the burdens of table redefinitions, manual data copies, or application rewrites. Alluxio’s Transparent URI makes sure that URIs will be routed from the external storage system to Alluxio’s namespace. This allows users to access the storage systems through Alluxio without any change from the Presto side. Ready to Get Started? Presto + Alluxio is a proven combination that many organizations in their data platforms are leveraging. Together, Presto and Alluxio provide hybrid cloud capabilities, unified data access, and exceptional performance to interactive analytic workloads. Alluxio enables the true separation of storage and compute without sacrificing data locality, increases query performance by 3x via intelligent tiered cache, and makes scaling Presto more elastic and cost-effective.

Architecture Evolution for Interactive Queries

This blog is the first in a series introducing Alluxio as the data platform to unify data silos across heterogeneous environments. The next blog will include insights from PrestoDB committer Beinan Wang to uncover the value for analytics use cases, specifically with PrestoDB as the compute engine. Alluxio started as a virtual distributed file system, a research project out of the AMPLab at U.C. Berkeley. Alluxio foresaw the need for agility when accessing large data stores separated from compute engines like Hadoop or Spark. Fast forward several years and over a thousand committers later, and Alluxio has blossomed into the industry’s leading platform for analytics and AI/ML. But as with any new type of technology, figuring out the best ways to use it depends on your data environment, computational workloads, issues, and goals. data orchestration So, after working with hundreds of organizations and fielding numerous inquiries, we thought it would be good to offer up a fresh take on the most popular use cases for Alluxio data orchestration. Data Orchestration: Bringing Data Closer to Compute The ability to quickly and easily access data and extract insights is increasingly important to any organization. With the explosion of data sources, the trends of cloud migration, and the fragmentation of technology stacks and vendors, there has been a huge demand for data infrastructure to achieve agility, cost-effectiveness, and desired performance. To meet the demand, provides a data abstraction layer that bridges computation frameworks and underlying storage systems. Alluxio is the only platform in the market today that brings together data locality with a distributed cache, API compatibility with popular data analytics and AI/ML frameworks, and a global namespace to federate data silos. Alluxio Alluxio is designed to help any framework access any data from any storage at high performance regardless of your environment, which enables your organization to remain agile and competitive in adopting and experimenting with new and existing technologies. The first use case is to run data-intensive workloads in a single cloud. Although more organizations are choosing cloud object storage for cost-effectiveness, scalability, and ease of use, they can hardly enjoy the same capabilities as a file system like HDFS. Thousands of companies leverage Alluxio at a large scale in production for modern data services. We have seen five common use cases to begin. With this overview, you will be able to tie this to your architecture and workloads and start using Alluxio. The first two use cases are single cloud or solely on-prem, while the following three use cases are for hybrid cloud environments. Cloud: achieve consistent SLAs and cost savings in a single cloud On-prem: speed-up analytics on on-prem object stores Hybrid cloud with compute in the cloud, data on-prem: burst compute to a public cloud and gradually migrate Hybrid cloud with data in the cloud and compute on-prem: gateway to utilize on-prem compute for data in the cloud Multi-datacenter: cross datacenter access without changing ingest pipeline across regions Use Case 1: Achieve Consistent SLAs and Cost Savings in a Single Cloud The first use case is to run data-intensive workloads in a single cloud. Although more organizations are choosing cloud object storage for cost-effectiveness, scalability, and ease of use, they can hardly enjoy the same capabilities as a file system like HDFS. For example, if you are running TensorFlow on top of AWS S3, one of the biggest challenges is the data access performance mismatch between the training frameworks on GPUs and cloud storage. Also, metadata operations are inefficient and expensive because of a pricing model based on the amount of access. Furthermore, when you are using ephemeral instances, the embedded caching solutions are not valid. As a data orchestration platform, Alluxio addresses these challenges by providing intelligent caching and metadata management. When deploying Alluxio with the compute node, you can see significant performance gains while accessing data ( , ) and cost savings ( ). 2-7x for analytics engines 1.7-2.3x for model training cut storage access cost up to 50% Alluxio not only handles the caching but also manages the corresponding metadata to avoid particular inefficient metadata operations and expensive metadata service costs. In addition, off-cluster caching for on-demand ephemeral workloads further makes consistent performance possible. Overall, with Alluxio as a data orchestration platform, you can achieve consistent SLAs and cost savings on cloud object stores. Alluxio can integrate with major cloud object stores, including AWS S3, Azure Blob Store, Google Cloud Storage. Electronic Arts, a leading company in the gaming industry, used Alluxio to achieve a high-performance platform on AWS to support real-time gaming services. Check out the case study . here Use Case 2: Speed-up Analytics on On-prem Object Stores The second use case is to run data-driven applications on top of an object store deployed on-premise. Similarly, it is hard to achieve the desired performance for analytics and AI, and metadata operations lack performance. In addition, on-prem object storage does not provide as many native APIs for popular frameworks as cloud object stores do. As a result, applications have to use less optimal connectors to access on-prem object stores. Alluxio, as a data orchestration platform, can improve the performance and handle the API translation, which will make onboarding to on-prem object storage seamless with a familiar security model. To access the underlying object storage, the applications only need to talk to Alluxio using conventional  APIs, and Alluxio handles the API translations behind the scenes. Thus, you can migrate workloads to the object store at your own pace without changing applications that affect the end-user experience. Furthermore, because Alluxio brings data closer to the compute frameworks, it will dramatically speed up Spark, Presto, Tensorflow, and other analytics frameworks on your object store with the flexibility of segregated storage. Alluxio supports any commercial object storage platform, including Ceph, MINIO, Cleversafe, Dell EMC ECS, and more. DBS, a top bank in Singapore, uses Alluxio to orchestrate data locally and makes numerous data applications accessible to the object storage. Check out the presentation . here If you are working in a large organization, you are likely to face more complex data infrastructure in a hybrid cloud environment with disaggregated compute and storage over a network connection. Use Case 3: Burst Compute to a Public Cloud and Gradually Migrate The third use case is to leverage the flexible compute resources on the public cloud so that you can migrate analytics or AI to the cloud and leave your data on-prem. This migration is not easy because of the limitation of network latency and bandwidth while running analytic workloads in the cloud with the data on-prem. The common solution is copying data into the cloud environment and maintaining the duplicate data on-prem (also called “lift and shift”). However, this solution is not only error-prone and also leads to issues in data consistency. Furthermore, some organizations may face compliance and data sovereignty requirements, preventing them from copying data into the cloud. The performance concern makes it difficult to progress with cloud migration. Alluxio tackles these challenges by providing the “Zero-Copy” burst feature – this is one of the most powerful features that organizations benefit from Alluxio on their journey to the cloud. Zero-copy burst enables compute engines in the cloud to access data on-prem without a persistent data copy or synchronization. You can scale analytics workloads with no change in the end-user experience or the security model. In terms of performance, by bringing the data close to data analytics and machine learning applications on-demand, the performance is much better than directly accessing the remote data ( ). Also, the on-prem data stores will have offloaded the computation and minimized the additional I/O overhead. an average of 3x improvement In summary, Alluxio, as a data orchestration platform in the middle, handles data movement for high efficiency so that workloads can be migrated to the public cloud on-demand without moving data between computing environments first. Alluxio takes charge of connecting to multiple stores so that you can gradually migrate the data using Alluxio to smooth your cloud migration journey. Walmart leverages Alluxio for this use case. They used Presto in the cloud to handle more capacity for data analytics and offload previously on-prem Hive workloads, which wouldn’t be as seamless, high-performing, and cost-effective without Alluxio’s zero-copy burst. Check out Walmart’s presentation . here Use Case 4: Hybrid Cloud Gateway to Utilize On-prem Compute for Data in the Cloud The fourth use case is to access cloud storage from a private data center, which is also a hybrid cloud architecture with decoupled object storage systems and compute nodes. Since the data is remote to the compute nodes, when running analytics directly on the object store, you will have to repeatedly pull the data from the storage nodes over the network, leading to inadequate performance and a high network egress cost. Alluxio remedies these performance and cost issues by acting as a hybrid cloud storage gateway that utilizes on-prem compute for data in the cloud. When deployed with the compute on-prem, Alluxio manages the compute cluster’s storage and provides data locality to the applications. Alluxio also helps by caching data, which avoids repeatedly fetching data directly from the cloud storage. Now you can keep the single source of truth in the cloud without sacrificing good performance or suffering from high egress costs by using Alluxio to fully leverage your existing compute-side resource deployments. reduce a large amount of network egress costs Comcast uses Alluxio to logically decouple compute and storage to enable rapid innovation in the storage and application layers. Check out the presentation . here Use Case 5: Cross Datacenter Access Without Changing Ingest Pipeline Across Regions The fifth use case is in multiple data centers where compute is in one data center, and the primary data lake is in another data center. Many organizations maintain satellite compute clusters that are independent of their main data cluster for the purposes of performance, security, or resource isolation. These satellite clusters need to access data remotely from the main cluster, which would become overloaded and dramatically impact the performance of existing workloads. Alluxio’s data orchestration platform makes the multi-datacenter architecture more manageable. When deployed on the compute nodes in the satellite cluster and configured to connect to the main data cluster, Alluxio serves as one logical copy of data that provides the unified namespace as the main data cluster. Alluxio can accelerate the remote data read from the main data cluster without adding extra ETL steps. Intelligent data caching eliminates the performance bottlenecks, decreasing the overall load of the main data cluster. Thus, data platforms can be self-service across business units without changes to the applications. At a leading SaaS company, the data application team used Alluxio to improve performance by ~3x and achieve self-service when adding satellite clusters to offload their central storage cluster. Summary With Alluxio, you can finally realize the technical and business benefits no matter if you are all on-prem, in the cloud, multi-cloud, or in a hybrid environment. Alluxio can help you achieve better agility, cost-effectiveness, and desired performance, which leads to faster time to insight to make better-informed decisions that provide a crucial competitive advantage. This is the reason why thousands of organizations choose Alluxio as the data orchestration platform to modernize their data infrastructure. If you are interested in learning more about how Alluxio can help solve your challenges, and . You can also join our community to engage with our users or developers. And, of course, you can download a copy of the free or a trial of the full to discover the benefits of data orchestration for your own use cases. contact us request a demo today slack channel Alluxio Community Edition Alluxio Enterprise Edition Also Published Here

How to Unify Silos With Data Orchestration

Manufacturers in a broad range of industries have a monopoly on who repairs machines—and when devices are deemed unfixable By Jon Keegan As critically ill COVID-19 patients started showing up in droves at emergency rooms around the world, ventilators became a crucial technology keeping patients alive. When hospitals’ own resources became overwhelmed, the Strategic National Stockpile dusted off and distributed thousands of the life-support machines throughout the country. But were in working condition. not all J. Scot Mackeil, a biomedical technician with more than 40 years of experience, worked on a team tasked with inspecting machines sent to Massachusetts’s Emergency Management Agency. In mid-April, while performing spot checks on hundreds of ventilators packed in freight pods, Mackeil discovered one with a damaged power connector. But when he asked the manufacturer to send him a replacement part, he was surprised to receive the manufacturer’s response: “ ‘Absolutely no.’ ” “I had just expected, ‘Oh, no problem. Where can we send it?’ ” he said. “I wasn’t expecting them to dig their heels in.” Mackeil was well aware of what’s become a common obstacle for hospitals: Manufacturers not only have a monopoly over even simple replacement parts, but they also often allow only their authorized service technicians to repair equipment. Mackeil told The Markup that over his career, manufacturers resisting hospitals doing their own repairs has become the norm. “Medical equipment manufacturers look at the service phase of the device life as a huge profit center,” Mackeil said. Medical equipment manufacturers look at the service phase of the device life as a huge profit center. - J. Scot Mackeil, biomedical technician With the ventilator, he had thought they might relent. “It was just a shame,” he said. It’s not just medical device manufacturers who keep a tight grip on the inner workings of the products they sell —mobile phones, game consoles, coffee makers, and farm equipment all share examples of the same sort of repair restrictions that advocates calling for “right to repair” laws seek to eliminate. And though you might technically own your camera, game console, blender, or phone, you repair it at your own peril. Going outside the official route for fixes is either impractical without repair manuals and proprietary tools or could void the machine’s warranty (though consumers on that front). have some protections “We are no longer able to fix the things we buy,” said Gay Gordon-Byrne, who is the executive director of , a coalition of businesses and organizations seeking legislation across the country that would give consumers the right to repair their own machines. The Repair Association The right-to-repair movement has drawn an unusual coalition of stakeholders, including environmentalists, libertarians, engineers, independent repair shop owners, gamers, hobbyists, and farmers. Groups like The Repair Association have helped push consumer electronic right-to-repair bills introduced in dozens of states. None, however, have become law in recent years. Lobbyists for the electronics manufacturers have also raised concerns that unqualified repairs could lead to and that states with right-to-repair laws could become . dangerous failures of their products havens for hackers Such laws could eliminate a manufacturer’s monopoly on not only who can fix a product—but also on when a product is essentially deemed unfixable. Right-to-Repair Bills Have Been Introduced in 32 States. None have yet passed Other than Massachusetts’s 2013 Auto Right to Repair law, efforts to pass such legislation have been blocked. Here are the years in which right-to-repair legislation has been underconsideration. Right-to-Repair Bills Have Been Introduced in 32 States. None have yet passed Other than Massachusetts’s 2013 Auto Right to Repair law, efforts to pass such legislation have been blocked. Here are the years in which right-to-repair legislation has been underconsideration. Why Won’t Apple Fix My Phone? Can Someone Else Do It? Today’s mobile phone is a marvel of precision engineering—watertight seams, sealed batteries, and a lack of visible fasteners that would make most consumers unsure of how you would even go about opening it. To get inside requires detailed schematics, diagrams, and specialized tools. Apple has all of those, of course, but in July 2019, Apple VP Kyle Andeer testified to Congress that the company and its authorized service providers perform only four types of iPhone repair: display, battery, speaker, and camera. If your phone dies (when it is no longer covered by warranty or optional AppleCare coverage) and it can’t be fixed by one of those repairs, Apple may suggest you buy another phone. Jessa Jones, founder of iPad Rehab, a mobile device repair shop in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., says that’s disingenuous. “I think that my customers are largely unaware that what they’re being told by the manufacturer of the device, about the problem that they’re having and about the repairability of that problem, is false,” she told The Markup. “We aim to avoid the need for repair in the first place,” Apple spokesperson Keri Fulton said in a statement to The Markup. “But when a repair is needed, there should be safe, dependable options available to bring a device back to its best possible performance.” Jones runs a popular YouTube channel on which she uses her soldering skills under a microscope to perform several repairs that Apple does not offer. She particularly specializes in restoring data from dead phones—often helping people recover precious photos of loved ones. “There’s a chip on the board that is soldered on there that contains all of your memories, and those memories are encrypted by default,” Jones said, and it’s time-consuming though entirely possible to retrieve. Our ability to just take something from the junkyard of iPhone parts and plug it into your new phone is becoming increasingly limited. - Jessa Jones, founder of iPad Rehab “The only way to decrypt that and get them back out is you’ve got to get a multi-meter out and solve problems on that logic board,” she said. Jones also noted that there are many relatively simple repairs that shouldn’t require a trip to the Apple Store or an authorized dealer. Tips are easy to find online, and sites like iFixit offer detailed repair guides, tools, and replacement parts. Independent phone repair shops can be found in towns large and small, but they often operate without official manufacturer certifications to repair devices. These shops may use unofficial aftermarket parts from overseas, or replacement parts harvested from inoperable phones. But like many other device manufacturers, Apple increasingly employs strict digital controls over the hardware that the device detects, making non-Apple repairs of some components impossible without Apple diagnostic tools. “Our ability to just take something from the junkyard of iPhone parts and plug it into your new phone is becoming increasingly limited, because the parts are now serialized, meaning there’s a serial number in the part that the phone refuses to operate [without],” said Jones. Fulton from Apple declined to comment but pointed The Markup to the company’s 2020 Environment Report, which says products are becoming easier to repair. “For our iPhone devices, we’ve utilized stretch release adhesives, which securely hold the battery during use yet can be swiftly debonded by service partners to install replacements,” the report says. Apple is not alone in making devices that are hard to repair. Jones said manufacturers of Android devices employ manufacturing techniques that make repairs difficult. iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens told The Markup, though, that there are manufacturers who are voluntarily adopting right-to-repair principles. “Motorola is the first smartphone manufacturer that stepped up and is basically complying with right to repair,” he said. “They have worked with us.” There’s a Diverse, Growing Movement Behind the Right to Repair—but It Faces Hurdles Some of the earliest calls for right-to-repair legislation came from farmers, who’ve been struggling for the ability to fix their own John Deere tractors for years. John Deere equipment is sold with software restrictions that only authorized technicians can bypass, . frustrating traditionally self-reliant farmers During their campaigns for president, both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders cited the plight of these farmers unable to repair their own equipment and called for a national right-to-repair law as part of a host of proposals to help American farmers that ended up being adopted as for 2020. a plank in the Democratic platform A spokesperson for John Deere declined to comment. The company has recently made an effort to smooth things over, offering a program with diagnostics, training, and documentation for farmers wanting to do their own repairs, starting in 2021. In 2018, an won long-sought exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow farmers and other consumers to —without breaking the law. These (which are considered every three years under the law) enable the legal “jailbreaking” of new phones, voice assistants, and software locks on tractors, cars, and home appliances—though not on video game consoles. Importantly, they also allow you to hire someone to do this breaking for you. alliance of right-to-repair advocates break software locks on the products they own latest exemptions Massachusetts, where a voter-initiative with in favor, shows the potential popularity of expanding such laws. automotive right-to-repair law passed in 2012 86 percent voting This November, Massachusetts voters will consider an , which would allow consumers to access and control the automobile diagnostic and telemetric data that’s increasingly sent directly to car manufacturers via cellular radios. update to the automotive law Massachusetts also has a consumer electronics right-to-repair bill that advocates say is the furthest along of any in the country, though it’s currently awaiting a vote by both chambers of the state legislature. In 2018 … Apple, Verizon, Facebook, AT&T, Toyota, Caterpillar, and others successfully lobbied against a proposed New York State ‘Fair Repair Act.’ The Massachusetts bill has served as a template for proposed automotive and consumer electronic right-to-repair legislation around the country—some of which has come close to becoming law, only to be killed at the last minute by lobbying from electronics and automobile manufacturers. New York State for 2018, for instance, show that Apple, Verizon, Facebook, AT&T, Toyota, Caterpillar, and others all successfully lobbied against a proposed “ .” lobbying disclosures Fair Repair Act Industry groups opposing right to repair include Consumer Technology Association, , and TechNet (a large industry group whose members include Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Comcast). Association of Equipment Manufacturers In 2019, TechNet’s then Northeast executive director, before the Massachusetts state legislature’s Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure in opposition to the proposed . Christina Fisher, testified digital right-to-repair bill Fisher argued that the bill was “legislation in search of a problem”—that consumers already have plenty of choices for repairs and that such laws would hurt innovation. TechNet declined to comment for this story, pointing The Markup to the group’s previous statements. An all-star list of engineers and cyber security professionals founded Securepairs in 2018 to counter these arguments, which the group says are . without merit What Comes Next? If Massachusetts were to pass the nation’s first consumer electronic right-to-repair law, it could have national influence. When the Massachusetts Automotive Right to Repair bill passed in 2012, all major car manufacturers signed a voluntarily adopting the requirements of the Massachusetts law nationwide. memorandum of understanding Aside from legislation, Apple does appear to be moving forward with several efforts at for its products, but recent , disclosed as part of a U.S. House antitrust subcommittee hearing in July, show internal confusion surrounding these initiatives. increasing the availability of parts and repairs internal emails “What is our repair strategy? Are we comfortable releasing our repair manuals for all products moving forward?” read one email from Lori Lodes, Apple’s former director of corporate communications, from March 2019. 13,000 - Number of service and maintenance manuals for life-saving equipment that iFixit collected and made available online. Apple declined to comment on these emails directly and referred The Markup back to its 2020 Environment Report, in which the company says it has “broadened the reach of Apple authorized service repair. Through a partnership with Best Buy, we added 1000 more AASP locations in 2019, tripling the number of U.S. AASP locations compared to three years ago.” Meanwhile, prompted by the pandemic, there’s a bit of a guerrilla movement afoot, at least when it comes to medical devices. When Wiens, CEO of repair website iFixit, heard about the crisis of the shortage of ventilators in Italy as that country struggled at the height of its first wave of COVID-19 cases, he wanted to help. Aside from selling replacement parts and repair tools, iFixit offers for repairing electronics—and Wiens decided they could do something similar for crucial medical equipment. detailed documentation Wiens and his team collaborated with volunteers to collect and organize a free library of more than for lifesaving medical equipment. The move was potentially so far, the materials remain online. 13,000 service and maintenance manuals legally risky, but . Originally published as " Why Can’t I Fix My Own Phone, Toaster, or Tractor? " with the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license

Why are so Many Opposing the Right-to-Repair Laws

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background. I am currently the CEO of Zen Ecosystems, an energy management platform that helps small to medium sized businesses take control of their energy usage while meeting sustainability goals. I have more than 20 years of experience in energy, renewables, IoT and SaaS and I’m passionate about leveraging technology to make a tangible impact against climate change by redefining the way businesses interact with energy. Prior to Zen, I was Vice President of Corporate and Business Development at Inspire Energy, responsible for growth and partnerships. Prior to joining Inspire, I was SVP of Business Development at CEIVA Energy, a SaaS-based demand response and energy efficiency provider. I graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and earned my Master’s in Business from USC and Environmental Law degree from the UCLA School of Law. What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do? Our startup is called Zen Ecosystems and our mission is to make the clean energy transition simple and easy for small to mid-sized businesses. We deliver on this through Zen HQ, which provides the retail, hospitality, multi-dwelling unit and Quick-Serve-Restaurant (QSR) sectors the ability to implement demand-side management programs to meet demand response and energy efficiency goals. Zen HQ allows our customers to monitor and control energy demand associated with refrigeration, lighting, HVAC, equipment, and store operations in multiple sites anytime, anywhere. What is the origin story? Zen Ecosystems grew from an Australian kick-starter project, launched and funded to create a ZigBee thermostat based on an RFP from Comcast. After successfully winning the RFP, Zen launched a series of products, including a WiFi thermostat and an award winning SaaS platform, Zen HQ, that provides sophisticated control of HVAC, lighting, and other load control devices. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? We are a tribe of marketers, technologists, and environmentalists coming together to make a positive impact on our world. Our goal is to help our clients reach 100% carbon neutrality by 2030. We are open and transparent with all that share our journey. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? I would probably be working on the same problems! At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? We’re focused on helping key clients achieve their sustainability goals. We tie our success to our customer’s metrics. What’s most exciting about your traction to date? We’re excited to see our clients seek out broader, more strategic solutions that help them achieve their sustainability goals. We’re finding that it’s no longer about simple controls, it’s about fundamental changes in the way they embrace their energy usage. What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why? We are really excited about the growth of the “circular” economy; the improvement of attitudes and technologies around reuse/recycle have evolved from just a consumer focus to a comprehensive business focus as well. I mostly worry about businesses that have not adopted technology that is already available, and I worry about our current energy infrastructure. It’s getting hotter, there’s more demand on cooling systems, and companies need to embrace technology that’s already here to address this change. What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform? I appreciate the open format and the community of like-minded entrepreneurs! What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself? Surf more. What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing? Companies that range from the Fortune 100 all the way to small to medium-sized are tying goals (and backing it up with executive compensation) to sustainability initiatives. Zen Ecosystems was nominated as in Startups of the Year hosted by HackerNoon. Go vote for them! one of the best startups in Costa Mesa

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