Rebooting Energy Demand: Automatic Software Upgrades

March 1, 2017 by kris de decker Filed Under: Software

When and how we upgrade our computer software used to be in large part our own decision. Today, it’s increasingly decided by software vendors themselves, who have automated this process through downloads. Automated software upgrades can increase energy use in different and unexpected ways, without any action from the user.

Before the advance of networked devices and automated software upgrades, the energy use of an appliance was rather predictable, because the features of such devices were static. Now, manufacturers can unilaterally decide to send out an upgrade that increases data and also energy use for all devices.

More and more consumer products are controlled by networked software: what does this mean for energy demand, and exactly who is responsible for increasing consumption? Although increased energy demand will be attributed to consumers, in fact they have little control over it.

Read more: Rebooting Energy Demand: Automatic Software Upgrades, an article I wrote for the UK’s DEMAND Centre. Picture: eBay.

Games on Disc More Energy Efficient than Downloads

September 11, 2014 by kris de decker Filed Under: Computers, Energy, Entertainment, Gadgets, Information age, Shopping, Software
videogame 2

Assasin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

“This research investigates the carbon footprint of the lifecycle of console games, using the example of PlayStation 3 distribution in the UK. We estimate total carbon equivalent emissions for an average 8.8-gigabyte game based on data for 2010. Two delivery scenarios are compared: the first examines Blu-ray discs delivered by retail stores, and the second, games files downloaded over broadband internet.”

“Contrary to current consensus that downloaded data will result in lower carbon emissions than distribution by disc, producing and distributing an average-sized game by Blu-ray disc in 2010 resulted in approximately 50 to 90% less emissions than downloading. The estimated carbon emissions from downloading only fall below that of Blu-ray discs for games smaller than 1.3 gigabyte. The study findings serve to illustrate why it is not always true that digital distribution of media will have lower carbon emissions than distribution by physical means when file sizes are large.”

[Read more…]

Antivirus Software Sucks

July 4, 2009 by kris de decker Filed Under: Computers, Quotes, Software

And:

“It’s not just AV software. The entire software industry operates this way.

1. Shovel feature-rich bug-ware onto unsuspecting schlubs to build “brand”
(especially in the enterprise/IT market where the person purchasing the
software is often not the person who has to use it, so they make
decisions based on feature list and brand name rather than quality)
2. Wait for hobbyists, researchers, or smaller companies to figure out how to do it right
3. Buy their companies
4. Repeat”

Quoted from the discussion at Slashdot.