The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse • Hacker News Board

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#61

Post by AstralStorm » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

paulintrognon wrote: post #15

samcheng wrote: post #4

The math is pretty poor in this article. Information and Communication Tech represents only 3% of global carbon emissions, and most of that is from giant server farms. This other article states that the embodied CO2 in a cellphone is roughly equivalent to 1kg of beef. That's like three steaks. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20... The bigger emissions problems around electricity generation a…

But manufacturing a smartphone involves a lot of transportation and electricity, doesn't it? Our focus should also be on cutting energy spendings & reducing transportation, and stop buying new phones (and laptops and tvs etc..) every now and then sure will help, will it not?

Smartphones are manufactured in a small area of Asia well stocked with all kinds of electronics, bought in bulk.

They're sent to other countries by ship, also in bulk. Efficient but slow.

Even the last mile transport does not look bad there.

The main rare material in phones is actually lithium and that has some indirect impact - we could use it in cheaper batteries for solar and wind instead.

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#62

Post by AstralStorm » Wed, May 09, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #56

jdietrich wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest myth in sustainable energy policy is "every little helps". We get caught up on visible but irrelevant things, while ignoring massive systemic problems. Apple publish high-quality, audited environmental impact reports for all their products. A 64gb iPhone 8 produces the equivalent of 57kg of CO2 across the entire product lifespan, from manufacturing to recycling. A return flight from LAX to JFK produces ~…

Like most problems, the 'solution' to reducing CO2 emmissions is made up of a bunch of smaller changes, and will not be one large 'fix'. I see no harm in chipping away at even the smallest of gains, provided we continue/push changes at all levels. Even 57kg * millions of devices over 18 months (average lifetime of a phone) is still a substantial amount of CO2 being released, even if it is dwarfed by other sources.

Substantial? Not really compared to truck transport or even cars. Or especially not when compared to electricity generation.

Two cans of soda take more energy to make. (Because metals are extremely energy intensive to refine and recycle.)

The main environmental killers are still means of transport. A car is a ton of metal... Housing also demands plenty of energy in materials.

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#63

Post by Vinnl » Wed, May 09, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #23

Vinnl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that's a shame, do check out Fairphone [0]. It's not completely modular, but it's trivial to replace the battery, screen and camera's without tools. See also their spare parts shop [1], all of which you can replace by yourself. [0] https://www.fairphone.com [1] https://shop.fairphone.com/en/spare-parts/?ref=header

The Fairphone is a great idea, however, the software support plan, which is crucial for a long-term device, is vague [⁰]. I wonder if there is a realistic plan for such devices; I'm not sure a subscription plan would work - would non-technically minded people pay? [⁰] https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/205504175-Wh...

Coincidentally they just made some announcements on that [0].

> Right now, we’re hard at work to get Android 7.1 “Nougat” into the hands of existing and new Fairphone 2 users this summer.

Unfortunately:

> Now, you may be wondering, “why not Android 8, ‘Oreo’?”. Android 8 and 9 are entirely new levels of complexity from Android 7, far more different than 7 was to 6. Therefore, attempting the upgrade to 7 was the best option.

[0] https://www.fairphone.com/en/2018/05/08/keeping-your-phone-l...

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#64

Post by jimmy1 » Wed, May 09, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

swerner wrote: post #46

jimmy1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the disconnect I wonder? Your old iPad I am sure runs software that is many more times more complex, more lines of code, and more intense than the ad tracking software on a browser. Will web assembly help here?

Unless Apple surprises us with an iOS 5 update that includes a browser with web assembly - no, it won't help. Either way, simply going to spiegel.de crashes (!) Safari in a 1st gen iPad. The Washington Post web page also would constantly get reloaded in my iPhone 4S.

Sounds like it may be due to Safari purposefully limiting the memory and processing resources available to a browser tab, no?

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#65

Post by Arkanosis » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:46 PM UTC

dapreja wrote: post #58

Arkanosis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also mandate upgradable software. I feel that outdated software becomes an issue way before dead batteries for most phones on the market. Most vendors don't seem to care much about software upgrades, especially on the lower end, and not all devices are supported by LineageOS / postmarketOS and co. I'm not even talking about (ok, technically, I am) how hard and scary it is to install alternative firmware on smartphone…

To be fair the android rooting community is usually transperent. It's perspective of "scary" shouldnt be compared to jail breaking an iphone to get free apps. Also, most tutorial for rooting or just flashing firmware it's alwqys adviced to backup data, so fear of loss should be manegable.... one more thing, if you've reached the point of needing to root/change device software, do you really believe the company cares…

If you want to get software updates (and you /do/ want it, even if you don't know, because of critical security fixes), you reach the point of needing to change the device software in only a few years (see, even Google's own Nexus line has a laughable software support duration: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705#nexus_device...). In the lower end, it frequently happens before the end of the legal warranty in some countries (eg. 2 years in France), especially with discontinued devices sold during sales. Worse, there's a frightening number of phones sold on Amazon that run an /already/ unsupported version of Android with known security issues.

Then, when you have the chance to have a device supported by some third party, you discover that you can't do backups without having to appeal to some wizardry with ADB and your phone in “developer mode” (when you even have that option), because you can't otherwise do proper backups without having rooted your phone /before/ having data to back up in the first place (ie. thus voiding your warranty from day one).

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#66

Post by sliken » Thu, May 10, 2018, 6:03 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #59

rb808 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixel phones are end of life already. They were only guaranteed android updates for two years after 2016. This is another problem we have to overcome. https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en I have a 6p. It works great after a battery replacement, but Android P wont run on it.

Pixel was released in October 2016, so it hasn't been 2 years yet.

I thought it was two years since the LAST one was sold, not the first.

Re: The environmental impact of technology devices is getting worse

#67

Post by xbmcuser » Sat, May 19, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

syd_ wrote: post #50

xbmcuser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese smartphone sales have dropped dramatically this year. Mostly as smartphones have reached a point where upgrading cost vs return is no longer worth it for many. I really wanted Googles modular phone to be a successful but it died very quickly even before release otherwise that would have been a great way to upgrade parts without disposing old phones and creating waste.

Do you think Google bought it only to kill it (the modular phone startup)?

Ah no google is not into selling phones as much as getting people to use its services. I don't think they bought it for nefarious reasons but simply ended it as they were unlikely to get traction for it. All the phone manufacturers and telco would have have opposed it anyway as it would have destroyed trillion dollars of their market cap.