SMAF-NewsBot

Imagine something as tall as New York's Chrysler building, but spinning. China's Mingyang Smart Energy has announced plans for a colossal 22-megawatt . Imagine something as tall as New York's Chrysler building, but spinning. China's Mingyang Smart Energy has announced plans for a colossal 22-megawatt offshore wind turbine, and standing in its presence will be an unprecedented human experience. The feats of engineering in offshore wind are becoming almost comical in scale, for a simple reason: the amount of energy you can extract from a turbine depends mostly on its swept area. The bigger that swept circle gets, the more energy you can harvest - but also, the greater the bonus becomes for adding more length. Put it this way: if your turbine has a 20-meter (85.6-ft) diameter, and you add one further meter (3.3 ft) to that diameter, you gain somewhere around 34 square meters (366 sq ft) of additional swept area. But if your turbine starts with a 50-m (164 ft) diameter, adding one extra meter of diameter brings in about 79 extra square meters (850 sq ft) of swept area, since that extra blade length is sweeping a bigger circle. What's more, these huge offshore turbines are extremely expensive to install, and the economics of deployment and grid connection tend to work in favor of fewer, larger turbines than more, smaller ones. Thus, the sheer size of these things is getting absolutely nutty. The H260-18MW turbine currently under construction by CSSC uses 128-m-long (420-ft) long blades for a ridiculous 260-m (853-ft) diameter and a 53,000-sq-m (570,490-sq-ft) swept area. That's 9.9 NFL football fields or 42.4 Olympic swimming pools when converted to standard journalistic units - ignoring the small area left unswept by its hub. Wind turbines just keep getting bigger - the MingYang MySE 18.X-28X will rise out of the ocean higher than a 70-story buildingMingYang MingYang's own typhoon-proof MYSE 18.X-28X, pictured above, will use 140-m (459-ft) blades for a swept area of 66,052 sq m (711,000 sq ft, 12.3 NFL fields, 52.8 Olympic swimming pools) - again, minus the hub area. The new turbine proposed for 2025 by MingYang, according to Bloomberg, will have a peak output of 22 MW, and a rotor diameter over 310 m (1,017 ft), corresponding to a swept area of at least 75,477 sq m (812,425 sq ft, 14.1 NFL football fields, 60 olympic swimming pools), minus hub. Add on a little clearance to make sure the blade tips stay out of the water, and you'll probably be looking at something taller than New York's 319-m (1,047-ft), 77-story Chrysler Tower, or the 324-m (1,063-ft) Eiffel Tower in Paris - but spinning. I don't have an imagination capable of picturing just how awe-inspiring a machine like this would be at close range. Indeed, these will be some of the largest moving parts ever built. Can you think of anything else with visible moving parts this big? Nothing in the mining mega-machine category comes close, and while the 27-km (16.6-mile) circumference of the Large Hadron Collider holds the title of the world's largest machine overall, it's hidden underground, and particle acceleration isn't exactly a spectator sport. So taking a boat ride past these mammoth offshore wind turbines will be pretty much an unprecedented human experience. It'll be breathtaking. Sign me up! Source: Bloomberg

On poiny https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/13/consistent-policy-is-key-to-unlocking-the-climate-tech-boom-but-the-uks-u-turn-isnt-helping/

When British prime minister Rishi Sunak appeared in front of the hastily assembled press on September 20, the letter-crammed slogan on his lectern caused the country to squint: "Long-term decisions for a brighter future," it read. We now know, of course, there was little in the speech that followed . Eliza Eddison Contributor Eliza Eddison is COO at FabricNano, a biocatalyst engineering company that enables the sustainable manufacture of products - including but not limited to industrial chemicals - at scale. When British prime minister Rishi Sunak appeared in front of the hastily assembled press on September 20, the letter-crammed slogan on his lectern caused the country to squint: "Long-term decisions for a brighter future," it read. We now know, of course, there was little in the speech that followed that brought hope. Certainly not concerning the technological fight for our future climate. Not that long ago, the UK seemed a rather brighter beacon in the industrial transition toward reversing the global climate breakdown. The countrywide goals were laid out. COP26 at least offered a forum and a spotlight. London has made strides in establishing itself as a hub for green tech startups. On the narrow but viable path toward net zero, leaders were at least taking the right steps. Then came the nadir of the last few weeks. Last week, with the government's already infamous U-turn on its green pledges, the nation joined in a consternated chorus with global leaders to lament the prime minister's short-sighted choice. Sunak has pushed back the British net-zero transition timeline by at least five years. The first and most galling concern is, obviously, the consequences for the future of our species on this planet. The next biggest issue, currently being voiced by leaders across industries and especially within the climate tech and climate finance sectors, is the message it sends out to those of us in the trenches actually trying to build technology to change the world and enable a sustainable future. That message is loud and clear: The U.K. government isn't willing to be consistent when it comes to climate crisis response policy, which, aside from capital and the support of nascent tech markets, is one of the most critical things anyone in our sector can hope for. For entrepreneurs, innovators and businesses to thrive and unlock the economic potential that comes from creating new industries, we need a consistent approach from the government. I care about this because, as Americans who chose to build a biocatalyst engineering company here in the U.K., we're acutely aware of the impact such a reversal of policy has on every stage of our sector's existence. All major technological innovation ultimately comes from government support at the very beginning. We wouldn't have affordable solar panels, microchips, mobile phones or the internet without government funding, government subsidies, government encouragement and government infrastructure. You can't scale technology that is going to make a considerable impact without upfront capital to match. In January of this year, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled a long-term vision to grow the economy, saying, "I want the world's tech entrepreneurs, life science innovators and clean energy companies to come to the U.K. because it offers the best possible place to make their vision happen." Unless his long-term vision was only meant to last until the end of the summer, for entrepreneurs, innovators and businesses to thrive and unlock the economic potential that comes from creating new industries, we need a consistent approach from the government. We have enormous fiscal potential. Within the U.K. climate tech community, we are working to create high-paying jobs and value for investors across just about every asset class. And collectively - hell, individually - our solutions could genuinely change the world. Of course, this is the common cause we should be united around. Our company is trying to mo...

Humans are facing an existential crisis in climate change. We are also facing a crisis of collective action. As a species, we have every reason to . Humans are facing an existential crisis in climate change. We are also facing a crisis of collective action. As a species, we have every reason to slow the rise of global temperatures, but taking steps to cut carbon emissions is generally not in the short-term interest of individuals, companies, or countries. Where does that leave IT organizations? IT systems all around the world consume ever-increasing amounts of electric power, making them a critical factor in increasing carbon emissions. Many people in the industry are acutely aware of IT's climate impact and want to see it reduced, but minimizing IT's carbon footprint will entail a cost that many small businesses and multinational corporations are reluctant to bear. Curious about what might incentivize a shift to greener tech, I spoke to IT leaders who are pushing back on climate change. I found people working at every level of organizational leadership—from the top down to the bottom up—and pursuing a variety of strategies to reduce carbon consumption in company products and business models. Data drives climate change—and solutions When asked what drives IT's carbon emissions, most respondents pointed to data. In particular, the rising popularity of data lakes and the data centers that store them are a huge contributor to the problem. Given the primacy of data for modern businesses, companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint will have to make hard choices. "Companies would have to stop collecting a lot of (poor) data and storing it," says Chrissy Kidd, SEO manager at Splunk, which helps users sort through massive machine-generated data sets. "They won't do this because they're married to the idea that they are 'data driven' organizations, when most of them are not. We're also living in a data ecosystem, where everything is based on collecting and storing data, even when only an estimated 10% of that data gets 'used' beyond simple storage. Until we have less data to store, seemingly forever, IT companies will continue to emit more carbon than not," she said. The explosion of storage and its emissions in recent years was driven not only by data's usefulness (real or perceived), but by a fundamental shift in underlying economic factors. "In older models, storage was one of the most expensive components of a system, so we were very selective in what data was stored and how," says George Burns III. A senior consultant for cloud operations at SPR, a technology modernization firm, Burns notes that today, "the opposite is true, in that storage is often the least expensive component of a system, which has led many organizations to adopt a 'store everything forever' mentality." The most straightforward way to reduce data center emissions is to power those data centers with clean energy. This can turn out to be a quick win for companies looking to burnish their green credentials. As the cost of renewables continues to drop, it is also becoming a relatively inexpensive fix. "Customers of corporate colocation data centers are increasingly seeking more sustainable energy supplies, which thanks to recent progress they will be able to access more and more," says Chris Pennington, director of energy and sustainability at Iron Mountain. "Operators in our industry, Iron Mountain amongst them, have proven that renewables are a reliable and cost-effective energy source by activating innovative procurement solutions, and it is making clean energy more accessible to all." Solving IT's data problem with data A slew of companies are now trying to solve the data problem with data—that is, by using data analytics and other IT techniques to reduce the amount of stored data. For instance, Moogsoft, the developer of an AIOps incident management platform, uses machine learning algorithms to try to reduce the amount of data at rest and in motio...

Curious. I think we in streaming call this "load concentration" https://www.fastcompany.com/90875493/biomimicry-algorithms-cloud-computing-seagull-behavior?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss

Flocks of seagulls have one of the most ruthlessly efficient hunting methods in nature. Network designers could learn a lot from them. In the fabric of life, Mother Nature is a starkly efficient seamstress, able to weave together seemingly random strands of human, animal, and plant behavior into . In the fabric of life, Mother Nature is a starkly efficient seamstress, able to weave together seemingly random strands of human, animal, and plant behavior into orderly patterns, loose threads forming a tight-knit tapestry that can withstand the eternal test of time. And as humankind has evolved into Renaissance beings seeking perfection in the disciplines of art and science, we've returned to our roots, extracting inspiration from nature's designs. We have engineered materials that are sturdier than ever, modeled after the oozing networks of the humble slime mold. And locomotive robots, propelled by the squishing trudge motions of an earthworm. And symmetric algorithms, which mimic the way shapes like snowflakes and sunflowers bloom spontaneously. Now, a team of researchers from the United Kingdom, China, and Austria are looking to use the habits of seagulls to build better cloud computing systems. In a paper published in Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems, a journal from KeAi, which was founded in a partnership between Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media, the researchers argue that using a “seagull optimization algorithm”—a so-called meta-heuristic algorithm that mimics the hunting and migration behavior of seagulls—can make cloud computing more energy efficient, cutting its power consumption by 5.5% and lightening its network traffic by 70%. Their study attacks the problem of connecting cloud computing's virtual machines to physical ones, as near-infinite streams of data must all flow through physical supercomputers that process each workload. They often converge in sprawling edge-cloud data centers run by industry giants, which are strategically scattered across the globe, because being geographically close to internet consumers who are using the cloud lets the digital signals buzz back and forth at a faster rate. These data centers are huge energy gobblers. In 2017, they ate up 416 billion kilowatt-hours of power, or about 2% of the world's total electricity cost. However, the researchers say that the way seagulls behave when they're on the hunt for food or prey is one of the most ruthlessly efficient examples of an entity zeroing in on its target, with minimal excess energy expenditure. They suggest using an algorithm that imitates the habits of food-hunting seagulls to determine where to place virtual machines—which, in cloud computing, are like nodes that route multiple data workflows to the same physical supercomputers—within a network of server communications. The idea is to make the network's traffic as efficient (and thus as light) as possible. So, if the supercomputers are like seagull food—hapless freshwater fish or shrimp that exist in limited numbers, and swim only in certain parts of the ocean—then the virtual machines are like the stalking birds of prey, eyeing their precious objective (which is a connection to a nearby physical machine), and mapping a path to it with the blistering urgency of a hungry carnivore. Seagulls do this while avoiding collisions with other seagulls, and their migration flight path over time naturally gravitates toward that of the fittest bird among them. When they lock onto a target and dive in for the kill, they vary their angle and speed deftly, resulting in a sort of downward spiral—calculated by study authors as a formula of cosines—that can predictably describe a striking seagull at any given time, relative to other seagulls in the area. It's not the first time that the biological genius of seagulls has been noted. In 2019, a paper in Knowledge-Based Systems outlined how the seagull-optimization algorithm could mathematically model solutions for stronger const...

Flocks of seagulls have one of the most ruthlessly efficient hunting methods in nature. Network designers could learn a lot from them. In the fabric of life, Mother Nature is a starkly efficient seamstress, able to weave together seemingly random strands of human, animal, and plant behavior into . Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker

Marc is a most interesting chap https://techmonitor.ai/focus/is-heat-reuse-the-key-to-making-data-centres-truly-sustainable

Heat reuse is touted as a way to make data centres sustainable and drivers of decarbonization. But it's harder than it looks. Mark Bjornsgaard is . Mark Bjornsgaard is getting used to the attention. “Ten days ago, I wasn't,” says the founder of Deep Green, referring to the unprecedented publicity his firm achieved by installing one of its digital boilers to heat a swimming pool in Exmouth, Devon. Something about using the waste heat generated from servers – a resource that apparently few people knew existed – seemed to capture the imagination of the British public. Since then, Bjornsgaard has been inundated by requests from other swimming pools for more information about its digital boilers, as well as local government leaders eager to learn how these pint-sized data centres might be used in their own public heating projects. “From a business point of view, it's been absolutely amazing, because we are now walking into conversations which we didn't think we'd have for a couple of years,” says Bjornsgaard. It's also a sign of the times. Amid unprecedented fluctuations in energy insecurity thanks, in large part, to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, anxiety about rising electricity prices is at an all-time high across Europe. As well as sparking a conversation about national reliance on natural gas, attention has drifted toward how energy might be saved or put to better use – not least in a cloud computing infrastructure that generates more carbon emissions than the aviation industry, thanks in part to its elaborate and power-hungry cooling systems. All that electricity and heat energy could, critics argue, be put to much better use outside the data centre and for the benefit of society at large. Going by the law of physics that energy is never lost but merely changes form, it is conceivable that the many gigawatts of electricity used to power data centres could, if left uncooled, be converted into heat to warm thousands of homes and businesses. That potential has seen Norway and Germany pass laws mandating data centre operators have a plan – any plan – for heat reuse on their premises, while similar projects have seen the cloud warm greenhouses, fish farms, homes and offices. “And that's good,” says Bjornsgaard, who professes a great belief in practical green energy solutions. When push comes to shove, he argues, “we can't muck about for the next ten years with space lasers and cracking hydrogen and trying all these elaborate [projects] that we love to engineer.” The mechanics of heat reuse Servers get very hot, very quickly – so much so that your common variety rack would probably catch fire were it not artificially cooled. This inevitably compromises the overall electrical efficiency of the data centre, calculated using a ratio called Power Usage Effectiveness. The more power that can be used for computation over cooling, the better. Even with the most efficient cooling systems, however, the average PUE score for most data centres remained at an uncomfortably high 1.57 throughout 2021 – meaning as much as 40% of power running through these facilities was used for cooling. Reusing waste heat would, in theory, drag those numbers down, make those data centres sustainable and contribute heat and warmth to local communities in the bargain. Such has been the case in Dublin, where AWS is participating in a community heating scheme, and in Stockholm, where one data centre operator has set the goal of using its waste heat energy to heat 10% of the city by 2035. The scale of these schemes, however, is also a reminder that many of these projects usually only come about through massive capital investment – not least because most of them reuse heat from air-cooled data centres using expensive heat pumps. An alternative lies in immersion cooling for edge high-performance compute units, wherein the server is surrounded by a liquid – usually water, or oil – and then wrapped in copper piping to build a heat exchanger. This also describes Deep Gr...

GreeningofStreaming members INTEL and Varnish doing some exiting work together. We particularly like the Gbps per Watt measurement. #nogreenwashing here :) https://www.varnish-software.com/press/varnish-software-sets-new-records-in-video-streaming/?utm_campaign=MWC%202023%20-%20Barcelona&utm_content=238953757&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-828155

Initiative Establishes New Industry Record For Speed, Power and TCO Efficiency For TLS-Encrypted Traffic, Paving Way For Next-Gen Live Streaming Los . Initiative Establishes New Industry Record For Speed, Power and TCO Efficiency For TLS-Encrypted Traffic, Paving Way For Next-Gen Live Streaming Los Angeles, CA – February 22, 2023 – Varnish Software, a leader in web caching, video streaming and content delivery software solutions, in collaboration with Intel and Supermicro today announced new, record-setting content delivery performance milestones, having achieved greater than 1.3 Tbps throughput on a single Edge server consuming approximately 1,120 watts, resulting in 1.17 Gbps per Watt. The combined solution makes it possible for content delivery services and the live event industry to support massive live streaming events in an economical and sustainable way. “Achieving over 1 Tbps in a single Edge server is a major leap forward for the industry, and critical for delivering the next generation of video and digital experiences,” said Frank Miller CTO, Varnish Software. “The need to deliver more throughput with less energy and at the lowest cost is growing exponentially. With commercially available software and off-the-shelf server hardware from Supermicro – built on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors – we have entered a new era of CDN cache performance. Varnish Software's unique architecture, features and capabilities were essential in reaching the new benchmarks, which include asynchronous direct I/O, NUMA awareness and software-based TLS.” The benchmarks were accomplished using Varnish Enterprise 6.0 deployed on a Supermicro 2U CloudDC server powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, without requiring the use of specialized, added-cost TLS offload cards. Supermicro's CloudDC server line is an optimized platform targeting private and public clouds offered in 1U and 2U form factors in single or dual processor configurations. These servers are optimized for balance among processor, memory, storage, expansion, and networking to give the best efficiency. For expansion, each of these servers offer a variety of PCI-Express (PCIe) Gen 5 x8 and x16 slots for the latest PCIe cards. CloudDC is a well rounded server that gives the best cost to optimized performance ratio. “We deliver first-to-market innovations and IT Solutions that are environmentally friendly and fit every organization's objectives and budget,” said Michael Mcnerney, vice president, Marketing and Network Security, Supermicro. “The collaboration with Intel and Varnish Software is an example of how we are working closely with best-in-class technology partners to deliver the latest generation of cutting-edge solutions, specifically in the video streaming and CDN space.” Importantly, the throughput and energy efficiencies achieved with this benchmark can be applied to a broad range of servers depending on customer requirements. Varnish looks forward to working with key partners Intel and Supermicro on solutions that support a wide range of video and content delivery workloads leveraging cost-effective system footprints and energy efficiency. Parties interested in learning more can contact Varnish directly or schedule a meeting with Varnish at MWC in Barcelona, February 27 – March 2, 2023. Varnish Software is the leading caching, streaming, and content delivery software stack. Our software helps content providers of any size deliver lightning-fast, reliable, and high-quality web and streaming experiences for huge audiences. With over 10 million deployments, our technology is relied on by millions of websites Worldwide across every industry including Hulu, Emirates, and Tesla. Varnish Software has offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore, Stockholm, Oslo, Karlstad, Düsseldorf, and Paris.

Green streaming is a concept that refers to industry and consumer efforts to reduce the energy impact of streaming by balancing quality and energy . Green streaming is a concept that refers to industry and consumer efforts to reduce the energy impact of streaming by balancing quality and energy efficiency. Today, the energy consumption of streaming infrastructures is poorly understood, despite growing pressure from consumers and regulators that all industries seek to make sustainability a business imperative. STL Partners spoke to Dom Robinson, founder of Greening of Streaming, an organisation focused on driving industry collaboration to reduce the carbon impact of streaming, to understand where the industry is now and how it can drive change in the future. How was Greening of Streaming born? Conversations about green streaming and the carbon impact of video began to emerge in 2018. These discussions prompted me to write an article on ‘greening of streaming' which attracted interest from across the global internet streaming industry and led to the creation of the Greening of Streaming members' association. Today we capture ~70% of internet traffic in Europe and North America through our members, including Intel, Varnish, Akamai, and Lumen. What is the energy impact of streaming; is streaming sustainable? Streaming infrastructures are technically complex and involve many different partners, this means that it is difficult to establish how much energy is being used and who ‘owns' the energy consumption at any given stage. The diagram below shows a simplified version of the stages of the streaming process. Each of these stages involves core access and termination, switches, amps, routers and more, equal to many thousands of components that all consume energy. You can find a more detailed version of the diagram produced by Greening of Streaming here. Given that the volume and resolution of streamed content will continue to grow, streaming businesses, telcos, content delivery networks, and other partners in the value chain need to act now. Increasingly streaming is the tail wagging the dog on this issue, with streaming businesses placing requirements on the content delivery infrastructure, including telcos, to disclose their energy impact and take steps to reduce consumption. But streaming must be more energy efficient than playing a CD or watching TV using a traditional cable box, right? For consumers, streamed content might seem more energy efficient than satellite TV or other traditional ways to consume media, but it isn't, it just makes the energy footprint less visible. Rather than paying the energy cost of satellite or cable connection yourself, the cost has been shifted onto the streaming infrastructure, including your internet provider and streaming service. What can telcos do to reduce the energy consumption of streaming? Understanding how energy is used by streaming infrastructure during a live event is a great place for the industry to start getting to grips with the energy consumption of streaming. This is because live video requires all players in the value chain to communicate at one point in time, generating the fullest picture of energy consumption. It will then be relatively easier for ecosystem players to apply the lessons learnt through live streaming to the on-demand context. This diagram shows the relationship between traffic and network energy consumption during a live streamed event: Figure 2: The relationship between traffic, network capacity, and power consumption during live-streamed events Source: Adapted by STL Partners from Schien, Shabajee and Priest Importantly it shows that high traffic during a live streamed event does not increase load or energy consumption of the network. Instead, it shows that the capacity of the network dictates energy consumption, no matter how many people are tuning in to watch. This is a really significant finding, as it shows that energy consumption remains peaked for the...

Microsoft has joined the likes of DAZN, V-Nova, Akamai and Intel as a member of not-for-profit organisation Greening of Streaming. The organisation . Not-for-profit organisation focuses on developing joined-up engineering strategies in the streaming industry to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure Microsoft has joined the likes of DAZN, V-Nova, Akamai and Intel as a member of not-for-profit organisation Greening of Streaming. The organisation focuses on developing joined-up engineering strategies in the streaming industry to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure. Simon Crownshaw, worldwide lead for media and entertainment at Microsoft said; “We hope that by helping to facilitate deep insight into the energy use of our infrastructure we can not only improve our own energy efficiency, but help the industry as a whole learn more about operating streaming infrastructure at scale, and doing so in a cost efficient and sustainable way.” Dom Robinson, founder of Greening of Streaming, added “Microsoft is undeniably a power house and a thought leader in our sector. Having their participation in our working groups will provide a critical resource for various efforts we are undertaking. Microsoft spans many disciplines in the sector and that joined up thinking will be critical to transforming how the streaming industry as a whole can ensure a minimal energy footprint, while maximising the user experience.”

This is the big Greening of Streaming story at the moment: we are inviting the entire industry to input!

While news leaked out in both CSI Magazine's recent coverage, and in Faultline's Sustainability in Streaming webinar, Greening of Streaming was still . While news leaked out in both CSI Magazine's recent , and in Faultline's Sustainability in Streaming Greening of Streaming was still getting things lined up to formally open the doors and invite input from across the industry to help the group explore ideas and options in creating an industry wide 'accord' around Low Energy Sustainable Streaming. At today's Dom Robinson, Founder of will open the door to contributions to LESS seeking the first from the IBC Accelerators, and hoping to seed the challenge of industry-wide engagement in forming an industry accord around action toward Energy Efficiency! The so called LESS Accord, aims to dig deep into the heart of the broadcast and streaming industry and ask a taboo question of an historically 'quality obsessed' industry : The fundamental idea is that in many cases consumers cannot tell the difference between various streaming and broadcast service qualities, and increasingly the industry relies on computer aided techniques to differentiate quality that humans perceive. The idea behind the LESS Accord is to 'give permission' to ask out loud what many engineers in the industry already instinctively, privately think and to explore how we might be able to deliver services that fulfil the consumers expectations without simply overselling imperceptible quality / value propositions, and creating inappropriate, expensive, unsustainable and unnecessary energy demands for no benefit to the viewer. "It is doubtless a challenging question, and one that will ruffle a few feathers. And it may prove impossible..." notes Robinson "...however, we have got to rigorously explore the possibilities together, or else 'energy saving' strategies may simply end up being used to 'greenwash' over ever spiralling energy consumption as we take up the savings by further overdelivering of quality we get no value from, in the same way that 'offsetting' has become widely open to abuse in many sectors." The project will span 18 months. In the first stage, starting today at IBC, GoS is inviting all stakeholders in the industry to contribute ideas (tried or simply educated guesses) about what LESS might look like, what bandwidths should be targeted, what decoding and caching strategies would work and how the end to end implementation might be put together. Even outliers and radical ideas need to be considered! In June, at Greening of Streaming's collaborative event with Media Tech Sustainability Summit,/ members will shortlist and invite those who contributed ideas that members feel can best be put to test in production, to present the ideas to a public audience, including invited policy makers, regulators and politicians. Over the summer this year the GoS members will then design tests to evaluate the energy efficiency of the best ideas, and these will be planned to be run, as far as possible, in real-world production environments. These ideas will be presented at IBC to the broad industry community for a check and balance, and then from October '23 to March 24 testing will be run in earnest by Greening of Streaming members. At the end of the test cycle, results will be collated and academic partners from Working Group 9 will be invited to help analyse the outputs. The final data driven results will then be discussed at a large event planned in Burbank to engage 'Golden Eyes' from Hollywood studios and their final subjective opinion, based around the notion that 'you normally mastered these for the big screen, but based on our tests here is what the content would look like when energy optimised for mass distribution on the small(er) screen would look like - what are the 'best' in your expert opinion'. Robinson notes - "That final event should hopefully close the loop and ensure that the greatest content producers are in accord with the production, encoding and str...

A great start to the year! Welcome to Cognizant as a new Greening of Streaming member - the first of a few that we will be announcing over the next few weeks!

www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure - today welcomes as a new member! Cognizant helps companies modernise technology, reimagine processes and transform experiences so they stay ahead in a fast-changing world. We are committed to reducing our own carbon footprint, and using our expertise to help our clients and associates do the same. “We recognise that businesses are interdependent with the world's social and environmental systems. Businesses can thrive only if society prospers and the natural environment is protected.”— Brian Humphries, Chief Executive Officer Dom Robinson, Founder of Greening of Streaming, commented: "Cognizant are hugely influential in helping many in our sector think about their strategy, and we look forward to active input from Cognizant as we drive our various Working Groups forward. We are both very excited about the long term possibilities to help develop and drive energy related best practice through the streaming industry." To find out about becoming a member reach out to

After years of kneeling at the altar of long-term thinking and bold experimentation, Amazon (AMZN -1.40%) finally seems to be getting religion on the . After years of kneeling at the altar of long-term thinking and bold experimentation, Amazon (AMZN -1.40%) finally seems to be getting religion on the bottom line. The company is cutting costs like never before, taking an ax to formerly promising new ventures like Amazon Care and announcing its first major round of layoffs, dismissing 10,000 corporate employees. A sizable portion of those layoffs are coming from the company's Alexa and Devices division, where, according to Business Insider, the company is losing $10 billion a year on the voice-activated technology. The revelation that Alexa has become a financial quagmire begs the question of what else Amazon is wasting money on. Its international business seems like one target for savings. The division, which is mostly made up of e-commerce operations outside of North America, loses money in most years, and has posted an operating loss of $5.5 billion through the first three quarters of this year. Another division that seems deserving of more scrutiny is Prime Video, which Amazon doesn't directly account for on its financial statements. With the exception of a la carte spending on streaming rentals and sales, Amazon doesn't directly monetize Prime Video, using it instead as a perk to attract Prime members. The company spent $13 billion on video and music content in 2021, and video spending was estimated to increase to $15 billion in 2022, including sports. That's more than all of its peers, including even Netflix (NFLX 3.14%), which was expected to spend $13.6 billion on an amortized basis this year. Since video is only loosely connected to online shopping, investors should be asking if that $15 billion is money well spent. Unlike peers like Netflix or Disney (DIS 0.90%), Amazon keeps its subscriber metrics close to the vest. Last April's shareholder letter said the company now has 200 million Prime members globally. Amazon charges different prices for Prime around the world, but if you assume every one of those members paid $139 a year, that would bring in $27.8 billion in annual membership fees. That's close to the $34.1 billion it brought in with subscriber fees over the last four quarters, which comes from Prime and other subscription businesses like Kindle Unlimited, Audible, and Amazon Music. Based on those numbers, $30 billion in Prime revenue seems to be a fair estimate. That means Amazon is spending half of its Prime membership revenue on Prime Video, leaving only $15 billion to be allocated toward other Prime benefits like two-day shipping and free returns, the biggest driver of membership. Amazon also spent $82.4 billion on shipping costs over the last year, and at least some of that is allocated to Prime. Of course, the argument for spending on Prime Video is that signing up new Prime members and incentivizing existing ones encourages them to do more online shopping on Amazon. Explaining the company's differentiated approach to Hollywood, founder Jeff Bezos once said: "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes." That line of thinking also explains why the company is shelling out $1 billion annually on Thursday Night Football, which it said led to a record number of Prime sign-ups in a three-hour period. However, there are likely diminshing marginal returns to spending on Prime Video at this point. Anyone who is a frequent online shopper has probably already joined Prime, which has been around since 2005. The relationship between video streaming and online shopping is also tangential. If Amazon has $15 billion to spend to improve Prime benefits, would it not be better off spending it on faster delivery, better customer service, or lower prices? There's nothing magical about the relationship between Prime Video and online shopping. Amazon is ramping up video spending at a time when nearly all of its c...

Unusual, fairly hard commentary.. is it on the mark?

Amazon's lack of transparency is hurting itself and investors. After years of kneeling at the altar of long-term thinking and bold experimentation, . After years of kneeling at the altar of long-term thinking and bold experimentation, Amazon (AMZN 1.98%) finally seems to be getting religion on the bottom line. The company is cutting costs like never before, taking an ax to formerly promising new ventures like Amazon Care and announcing its first major round of layoffs, dismissing 10,000 corporate employees. A sizable portion of those layoffs are coming from the company's Alexa and Devices division, where, according to Business Insider, the company is losing $10 billion a year on the voice-activated technology. The revelation that Alexa has become a financial quagmire begs the question of what else Amazon is wasting money on. Its international business seems like one target for savings. The division, which is mostly made up of e-commerce operations outside of North America, loses money in most years, and has posted an operating loss of $5.5 billion through the first three quarters of this year. Another division that seems deserving of more scrutiny is Prime Video, which Amazon doesn't directly account for on its financial statements. With the exception of a la carte spending on streaming rentals and sales, Amazon doesn't directly monetize Prime Video, using it instead as a perk to attract Prime members. The company spent $13 billion on video and music content in 2021, and video spending was estimated to increase to $15 billion in 2022, including sports. That's more than all of its peers, including even Netflix (NFLX -0.64%), which was expected to spend $13.6 billion on an amortized basis this year. Since video is only loosely connected to online shopping, investors should be asking if that $15 billion is money well spent. Prime-o-nomics Unlike peers like Netflix or Disney (DIS -2.02%), Amazon keeps its subscriber metrics close to the vest. Last April's shareholder letter said the company now has 200 million Prime members globally. Amazon charges different prices for Prime around the world, but if you assume every one of those members paid $139 a year, that would bring in $27.8 billion in annual membership fees. That's close to the $34.1 billion it brought in with subscriber fees over the last four quarters, which comes from Prime and other subscription businesses like Kindle Unlimited, Audible, and Amazon Music. Based on those numbers, $30 billion in Prime revenue seems to be a fair estimate. That means Amazon is spending half of its Prime membership revenue on Prime Video, leaving only $15 billion to be allocated toward other Prime benefits like two-day shipping and free returns, the biggest driver of membership. Amazon also spent $82.4 billion on shipping costs over the last year, and at least some of that is allocated to Prime. Of course, the argument for spending on Prime Video is that signing up new Prime members and incentivizing existing ones encourages them to do more online shopping on Amazon. Explaining the company's differentiated approach to Hollywood, founder Jeff Bezos once said: "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes." That line of thinking also explains why the company is shelling out $1 billion annually on Thursday Night Football, which it said led to a record number of Prime sign-ups in a three-hour period. However, there are likely diminshing marginal returns to spending on Prime Video at this point. Anyone who is a frequent online shopper has probably already joined Prime, which has been around since 2005. The relationship between video streaming and online shopping is also tangential. If Amazon has $15 billion to spend to improve Prime benefits, would it not be better off spending it on faster delivery, better customer service, or lower prices? There's nothing magical about the relationship between Prime Video and online shopping. The streaming reality Amazon is ramping up video spendin...

In 1984 — the book, not the year — the means by which the evil totalitarian regime “Big Brother” retains its power is through something called “doublethink.” It's the practice of holding contradictory beliefs in tandem: “war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength,” “2 + 2 = 5,” to . In 1984 — the book, not the year — the means by which the evil totalitarian regime “Big Brother” retains its power is through something called “doublethink.” It's the practice of holding contradictory beliefs in tandem: “war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength,” “2 + 2 = 5,” to use the book's examples. It worked because when our minds — our sense of logic, our morality — become compromised, they're easier to control. Considering the events of the last several months, you could also interpret doublethink to mean things like “the metaverse is the future,” “people will pay millions of dollars for shitty art,” or “this crypto billionaire definitely has my best interests in mind.” It's a trite reference, but it's sort of the only one that makes sense. Somehow, somewhere along the way, the American public was duped into believing that these things could be true despite being, well, not. On November 11, the 30-year-old CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned after his firm filed for bankruptcy. Prior to its implosion, Bankman-Fried (colloquially referred to as SBF) was regarded as a boy genius in the crypto world, not only because of his billionaire status but because he was widely considered to be “one of the good ones,” someone who advocated for more government regulation of crypto and was a leader in the effective altruism space. Effective altruism (EA) is part philosophical movement, part subculture, but in general aims to create evidence-backed means of doing the most good for the most people. (Disclosure: This August, Bankman-Fried's philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox's Future Perfect a grant for a 2023 reporting project. That project is now on pause.) Instead, Bankman-Fried did the opposite: He tanked the savings of more than a million people and may have committed fraud. In a conversation with Vox's Kelsey Piper, he essentially admitted that the do-gooder persona was all an act (“fuck regulators,” he wrote, and said that he “had to be” good at talking about ethics because of “this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us”). In terms of corporate wrongdoing, the SBF disaster is arguably on par with Enron and Bernie Madoff. Here was a dude who marketed himself as a benevolent billionaire and convinced others to invest their money with him simply because he was worth $26 billion (at his peak). He partnered with celebrities like Tom Brady and Larry David to make crypto — a wildly risky investment that rests on shaky technology — seem like the only way forward. Both Brady and David, among several other famous people, are now being accused in a class-action suit of defrauding investors amid FTX's collapse. But there have been other examples of technological doublethink in recent history. Over the past year, Mark Zuckerberg has campaigned so hard for the mainstreaming of the “metaverse” that he changed the name of one of the world's most powerful companies to reflect his ambitions. His metaverse, though, called Horizon, would end up looking like a less-fun version of The Sims, a game that came out in the year 2000 (but even Sims had legs). The strategy has not, as of publication time, paid off. The company lost $800 billion. What's ironic, though, is that anyone with eyeballs and a brain could have simply told Zuckerberg that Horizon is terrible. Not only is it ugly and functionally useless, it's also expensive (VR headsets cost hundreds of dollars at minimum). People did, to be sure, tell him that — since its rollout, the platform has been widely mocked in the media and online — it's just that...

Our site uses cookies so that we can offer you a better browsing experience, analyze site traffic, and personalize content. If you do not agree with our use of cookies, please change the current settings in your privacy preferences. You can also read more about cookies and similar technologies here Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions . If you continue to use this site, you consent to our use of cookies as they are currently set. Accept

Film, TV and online/VoD productions cause high CO2 emissions and consume many resources. A significant part of these CO2 emissions can be avoided by . Diese Cookies sind zur Funktion der Website erforderlich und können nicht deaktiviert werden. In der Regel werden diese Cookies nur als Reaktion auf von Ihnen getätigte Aktionen gesetzt, die einer Dienstanforderung entsprechen, wie etwa dem Festlegen Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie können Ihren Browser so einstellen, dass diese Cookies blockiert oder Sie über diese Cookies benachrichtigt werden. Einige Bereiche der Website funktionieren dann aber nicht. Diese Cookies speichern keine personenbezogenen Daten.

An interesting Eu (German) take on similar efforts to BAFTA's Albert project. Regardless of how many and who is launching these initiatives they are ALL heading the right direction!/

Well, Meta sure is in a bit of a mess. The company formerly known as Facebook rang in its one-year anniversary last week but had very little reason . Well, Meta sure is in a bit of a mess. The company formerly known as Facebook rang in its one-year anniversary last week but had very little reason to celebrate. Instead, an unfortunate Q3 earnings report showed that, since its inception last October, the company has lost a gargantuan amount of money in its quest to create “the metaverse”—a hypothetical new realm where it wants all of us to live. How did we end up here, exactly? It all started twelve months ago, when, in the heat of a whistleblower scandal, it looked like Congress might actually crack down on Facebook. Leaked documents—what came to be known as the Facebook Papers—had revealed the company's harmful impact on young people, its ineptitude with misinformation, and its algorithmic toxicity. As a result, regulation talk was afoot. U.S. Representatives were threatening antitrust action and activists were demanding a break up. Things were looking pretty bad. It was then that a thunderclap of inspiration must've struck over a Menlo Park boardroom somewhere: if things were getting too hot to handle in the real world, why couldn't Facebook simply invent a new world? Yesss...a new world—this could be the pivot of a lifetime! And hey, the company had changed the rules of the game before—it could definitely innovate its way out of this. Thus, after a meeting I'm sure resembled some watered down version of that “change the conversation” scene from Mad Men, The Facebook Company became “Meta Platforms” and something called the “metaverse” was born. What was the metaverse? Zuck and his cohort envisioned a bold digitization of our world—supported by hardware and infrastructure that hadn't been built yet. It would be fueled by investments in the most emergent and exciting technologies, from virtual reality to augmented reality to holograms to cryptocurrency. As the leader of a push to transform the digital economy, Meta could be a pioneer—an explorer going where no tech firm had gone before. Sure, in a lot of cases, the tech wasn't quite there yet to actually build this world, but, in the meantime, such shortcomings could be obscured via advertising and animation and hyperbolic rhetoric. All of this could be used to sorta...paint the picture of what the metaverse would look like someday...maybe. Anyway, what did it matter? The point was this: the company had to do something big to make people look at it differently—and this was it. Yes, Facebook's transformation into Meta always had to be two things at once: a desperate optics shift and a genuine redirect in business strategy. Maybe the company had always envisioned broader investments in AR/VR but crisis forced it to accelerate? We don't really know. What we do know is that the company's massive pivot to a place called the “metaverse” seems to have only caused it more headaches over the past year: namely, billions spent on dubious investments, plummeting profits, worried investors, and a slew of hackneyed digital products that people don't actually want to use. In a word, Meta's “first year” has been terrible. Will things get better? That's unclear. Zuck certainly thinks so, though others have their doubts. We decided to take a look back at the past twelve months to highlight key events involving “the metaverse”—an imagined place that Meta has promised to build but that, as far as we can tell, still doesn't exist yet. Our story begins in the dark days of early October, 2021, when the company known as Facebook is besieged on all sides. Frances Haugen, a former employee turned traitorous whistleblower, has leaked extensive documentation of the company's sins to the press. The Facebook Papers, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, expose a raft of concerns: antitrust issues, privacy issues, psychological health issues—the list seems endless. Meanwhile, a host of longstanding p...

Great blog post from @Mike Mattera at @Akamai! That diagram.. @greeningofstreaming Great blog post from @Mike Mattera at @Akamai! That diagram.. @greeningofstreaming

TuneIn On Air Distribution Now Offered for Live365 Stream Hosting Customers PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TuneIn and Live365 announce . TuneIn On Air Distribution Now Offered for Live365 Stream Hosting Customers PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TuneIn and Live365 announce today a TuneIn On Air distribution agreement between the leading internet radio companies. Live365 broadcasters can now access TuneIn On Air distribution as part of Live365's premium packages or as an add-on to any other package. TuneIn On Air is a new program that allows internet radio broadcasters to expand their reach to TuneIn's 30 million US-based listeners via TuneIn's app and 200+ connected devices and auto partners, which include Tesla, Volvo, Sonos, Amazon, Samsung, and others. Live365, a one-stop shop for internet radio stations, provides powerful streaming tools, analytics, monetization, listening distribution and the option for music licensing coverage. Live365's world-class tools, music licensing coverage and thousands of broadcasters, paired with TuneIn's massive reach, are opening the door for radio broadcasters to legally stream music and talk content to millions of listeners. TuneIn On Air is now included in Live365's premium broadcast packages – Broadcast 4 and Broadcast 5 – while those on remaining packages are able to select TuneIn On Air as an add-on to their current package. "This partnership with Live365 fits perfectly within our mission to reinvent radio for a connected world and democratize access to radio for broadcasters large and small. We believe great conversations are driven by the power of the human voice and we know our listeners rely on us to stay connected to the issues that matter to them most via our content catalog," said Richard Stern, CEO of TuneIn. "We're thrilled to help more broadcasters reach TuneIn's expansive audience." "We're excited to strike up this historic distribution deal with TuneIn to offer our Live365 Broadcaster Community access to TuneIn On Air's unparalleled distribution reach," said Live365 CEO and founder, Jon Stephenson. "As internet radio pioneers, this is an extraordinary opportunity to combine forces and allow broadcasters to utilize Live365's easy-to-use tools and licensing coverage while reaching TuneIn's millions of listeners. We're proud to offer this to our community as we focus on expanding our distribution offering." To learn more or start a station with Live365 with TuneIn On Air distribution, visit this page. About TuneIn TuneIn, the world's leading live streaming service, brings together live sports, news, music, podcasts, and radio from around the globe. With more than 75 million monthly active users, TuneIn is one of the most widely used streaming audio platforms in the world. TuneIn broadcasts over 100,000 owned & operated and partner radio stations and boasts thousands of podcasts. With premiere distribution across 200 platforms and connected devices, TuneIn empowers listeners to 'hear' what they love wherever 'here' might be. TuneIn Premium subscribers get exclusive access to commercial-free news from top networks like CNN, Fox News Radio, MSNBC, CNBC, and Bloomberg, as well as live MLB, NHL, NFL, and college sports programming, in addition to commercial-free music channels. For more information, please visit us at www.tunein.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. About Live365 Originally launched in 1999, Live365 has been innovating the internet radio and broadcasting space since its inception. The new Live365, a SoundStack company, is the easiest way to create an online radio station and discover thousands of stations from every style of music and talk. Live365's end-to-end broadcast platform empowers individuals and organizations alike by giving them a voice to reach audiences through easy-to-use audio tools and services, as well as licensing coverage, monetization options, and distribution opportunities. CONTACT [email protected] SOURCE ...

TuneIn On Air Distribution Now Offered for Live365 Stream Hosting Customers PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TuneIn and Live365 announce . TuneIn On Air Distribution Now Offered for Live365 Stream Hosting Customers PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TuneIn and Live365 announce today a TuneIn On Air distribution agreement between the leading internet radio companies. Live365 broadcasters can now access TuneIn On Air distribution as part of Live365's premium packages or as an add-on to any other package. TuneIn On Air is a new program that allows internet radio broadcasters to expand their reach to TuneIn's 30 million US-based listeners via TuneIn's app and 200+ connected devices and auto partners, which include Tesla, Volvo, Sonos, Amazon, Samsung, and others. Live365, a one-stop shop for internet radio stations, provides powerful streaming tools, analytics, monetization, listening distribution and the option for music licensing coverage. Live365's world-class tools, music licensing coverage and thousands of broadcasters, paired with TuneIn's massive reach, are opening the door for radio broadcasters to legally stream music and talk content to millions of listeners. TuneIn On Air is now included in Live365's premium broadcast packages – Broadcast 4 and Broadcast 5 – while those on remaining packages are able to select TuneIn On Air as an add-on to their current package. "This partnership with Live365 fits perfectly within our mission to reinvent radio for a connected world and democratize access to radio for broadcasters large and small. We believe great conversations are driven by the power of the human voice and we know our listeners rely on us to stay connected to the issues that matter to them most via our content catalog," said Richard Stern, CEO of TuneIn. "We're thrilled to help more broadcasters reach TuneIn's expansive audience." "We're excited to strike up this historic distribution deal with TuneIn to offer our Live365 Broadcaster Community access to TuneIn On Air's unparalleled distribution reach," said Live365 CEO and founder, Jon Stephenson. "As internet radio pioneers, this is an extraordinary opportunity to combine forces and allow broadcasters to utilize Live365's easy-to-use tools and licensing coverage while reaching TuneIn's millions of listeners. We're proud to offer this to our community as we focus on expanding our distribution offering." To learn more or start a station with Live365 with TuneIn On Air distribution, visit this page. About TuneIn TuneIn, the world's leading live streaming service, brings together live sports, news, music, podcasts, and radio from around the globe. With more than 75 million monthly active users, TuneIn is one of the most widely used streaming audio platforms in the world. TuneIn broadcasts over 100,000 owned & operated and partner radio stations and boasts thousands of podcasts. With premiere distribution across 200 platforms and connected devices, TuneIn empowers listeners to 'hear' what they love wherever 'here' might be. TuneIn Premium subscribers get exclusive access to commercial-free news from top networks like CNN, Fox News Radio, MSNBC, CNBC, and Bloomberg, as well as live MLB, NHL, NFL, and college sports programming, in addition to commercial-free music channels. For more information, please visit us at www.tunein.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. About Live365 Originally launched in 1999, Live365 has been innovating the internet radio and broadcasting space since its inception. The new Live365, a SoundStack company, is the easiest way to create an online radio station and discover thousands of stations from every style of music and talk. Live365's end-to-end broadcast platform empowers individuals and organizations alike by giving them a voice to reach audiences through easy-to-use audio tools and services, as well as licensing coverage, monetization options, and distribution opportunities. CONTACT [email protected] SOURCE ...

Researcher MoffettNathanson thinks we're near the end of linear TV as we have known it. The company says this has been taken for granted as SVoDs . Researcher MoffettNathanson thinks we're near the end of linear TV as we have known it. The company says this has been taken for granted as SVoDs have prospered, but looks more problematic now they are stalling. Moffett notes the continued value of linear TV. Linear TV revenue at $86.3 billion (€89.2bn), is nearly four times that of streaming's $22.6 billion. That could pose problems for content creators as their core linear business — pay-TV — is declining at a 6 per cent annually. According to the analyst, with the best scripted shows shifted to streaming, linear is left with news, some sports, reality shows and second tier drama. Overall pay TV subscribers fell 6.1 per cent in Q2, with cable, satellite and telco providers all reporting steep declines. Cable TV led the walk of shame with 1.048 million fewer linear TV customers (a 7.8 per cent decline), while satellite TV shed 635,000 subscribers (a 12.5 per cent decline) and telco TV lost 223,000 customers. Overall, traditional pay-TV lost 1.95 million customers. Including virtual MVPDs such as Sling TV, DirecTV Now and Hulu Plus Live TV, pay-TV providers shed 1.9 million customers in the period, according to Moffett. Related posts: Kagan: US pay-TV Q3 subs down 1.2m Research: US pay-TV subs losses continue Study: Online viewing gaining on linear US pay-TV sheds over 877k subs in Q3 US multichannel market loses 1m+ subs in 2015

What are the current innovations in reducing the carbon emissions and the carbon footprint of streaming? Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Choosing a Codec for Greener Streaming What are the current innovations in reducing the carbon emissions and the carbon footprint of streaming? Jan Ozer, Principal, Streaming Learning Center, and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media, asks two industry experts about the innovations and new technologies their organizations are using in order to lessen the environmental impact of streaming. “What are you hearing from your developers and what are you hearing from inside AWS in terms of the importance of attempting to address that from a codec selection standpoint?” Ozer asks Kevin Yao, Global Principal Solution Architect for Direct to Consumer, Media and Entertainment Solutions, AWS. “That's a very good topic,” Yao says. “If we look at video, it accounts for over 60%, if not more, of downstream traffic on the internet. There are a lot of energy resources being used for encoding and decoding the content. And in addition, we have to consider how much energy is used to deliver [content] across fiber to end users. So, there's some optimization done.” Yao discusses these various optimization approaches, which include content-based encoding combined with ARML to predict large-scale traffic patterns based on time periods and end-user preferences. “So, Saturday morning cartoons, for example, or Sunday night football,” he says. He then goes into further detail about encoding. “At AWS, we have Graviton Processors, which is an Arm64-based processor, and to help customers reduce their carbon footprint. Graviton3 was announced, and Graviton3-based instances used 60% less energy than compared to the same performance of the x86-based EC2 instances.” He elaborates that during last year's AWS re:Invent conference, “We ran x264, a very slow preset input, with uncompressed 1080p material. We see about 49% per frame per second, compared to the previous gen, C6g, to the current-gen Graviton3 C7g instances.” Yao says that in terms of sustainability in general, “Workload running on AWS are 80% more carboning efficient compared to running our customers' own data center. And as part of our commitment to a net zero carbon future, we're investing more power into our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.” David Ronca, Director, Video Encoding, Facebook, says, “We have to redefine the system to lower the baseline that we're working from. We are investing significantly in ASIC-driven processing and we're very happy with the quality we're seeing. And we're going to continue to push that. Google, for example, has released white papers on the ASICs they;ve deployed. So I think there's a role then for ASIC as well. So this gives us an opportunity, I think, across multiple dimensions to actually reduce the inherent or fixed complexity of the systems so that we can continue to reduce the energy consumed, and I think it's good that we're looking to clean energy sources. We do have a lot of responsibility, and I think the industry is very serious about that. And I'm really happy with the work that I'm seeing--everything from lower-power CPUs to ASICs and more efficient codecs.” With SVT-AV1, Ronca says, “You basically have a dial you can turn, so you can select the energy cost of your compute to do an encode based on the likely value that that video will provide in the market. So, you can bring it down to compete with x264 very fast while still significantly reducing the bits. And so to me, these are all great things. I think that we're all aware of the power consumption problem of the data center growth, and we're all working on it. And I'm excited by what I'm seeing.” Learn more about the greening of streaming at Streaming Media West 2022. Watch full-session videos from Streaming Media Connect 2022. Subscribe Now Current Issue Past Issues Free ...

Streaming Media talks energy efficient strategies with several of the leading thinkers in and around video encoding strategies...

Today, Videon furthers its commitment to the environment by joining Greening of Streaming with other leading video technology companies that are . Today, Videon furthers its commitment to the environment by joining Greening of Streaming with other leading video technology companies that are focused on addressing the growing concerns about the energy impact of the streaming sector. The adoption of live video in the U.S. is expected to grow 4x by 2023 (CNBC), and today's video supply chain infrastructure is not built with the Earth in mind. Greening of Streaming and its members are working together to look at the entire video supply chain to ensure the changes they make to their technologies are truly reducing the carbon footprint live streaming produces. Videon's vision is to positively impact society by simply moving media, and they've extended that vision to ensure the development and design of their products are as green as possible. Since they design and develop their hardware and software with the compute power enabled by Qualcomm, their market-first hybrid:cloud architecture decreases their impact on the environment and enables cloud workflows to be more intelligent, flexible, and efficient. Tricia Iboshi, CEO of Videon, says, “Sustainability is a key topic for us. We started out in hardware and have a real understanding of resource management, be that in the physical construction of hardware devices and in the increasing energy requirements to operate at vast scale in the virtual space. We are excited about the creation of Greening of Streaming and look forward to contributing to its initiatives and bringing industry focus on these critical issues." Adam Curwin, Executive Director of Greening of Streaming, says, “Videon brings a wealth of expertise in the hardware and video software space to the group. While the ICT industry is very focused on virtualization of services, and streaming is no exception, these services still inevitably actually run on hardware. Having the close insight that Videon have brought to the table will be invaluable in developing best practices across the industry. We are absolutely thrilled to have them join the community!” More about Videon: To find out about becoming a member reach out to join@greeningofstreaming.org

www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure - today welcomes DAZN as a new member. DAZN is the world's leading sports entertainment platform. The only global digital sports broadcaster, DAZN is live in over 200 countries and is a market-leader in Italy, Japan, DACH and Spain. Producing many tens of thousands of live streaming events each year, DAZN has incredible insight into the complex end to end stream production and distribution chain. Dom Wedgwood, SVP Broadcast Technology, noted: “Through production of many thousands of events annually, each aiming for the highest standard, and leveraging a complex supply chain, DAZN is keen to optimise every aspect of our workflows to be as energy efficient as possible without in any way compromising the viewer experience. We hope that by helping to facilitate deep insight into the energy use of our infrastructure we can not only improve our own energy efficiency, but help the industry as a whole learn more about operating streaming infrastructure at scale, and doing so in a cost efficient and sustainable way." More about DAZN: To find out about becoming a member reach out to join@greeningofstreaming.org

Its always so exciting to announce new members! DAZN is of course no exception to that rule - kudos to Dom Wedgwood, Robin Oakley, Bob Hannent and all the team (forgive us for not naming all two or three thousand of you in this post!) for getting involved with such enthusiasm!

This year's Mediatech Hub Conference is (also) about green streaming. Dom Robinson, director and co-founder of Greening of Streaming, an interest . This year's Mediatech Hub Conference is (also) about green streaming. Dom Robinson, director and co-founder of Greening of Streaming, an interest group that brings players from the industry together, will be the speaker. We wanted to know from him: Can streaming be (more) environmentally friendly? INTERVIEW Boris Messing CCB Magazine:Streaming is the new television, and streaming services consume a lot of energy. How can the carbon footprint of a streaming service be calculated? Dom Robinson:A very good question. The industry itself is currently focusing on this, but as a whole there is little to no consensus yet. Early claims in this space have almost entirely come from onlookers, analysts and academics and been extrapolated from ‘lab tests' on various components or used ‘data attribution' models but with little real understanding or insight into how services are actually deployed and operated in real world Content Delivery Network and streaming infrastructures. So, any figures making estimates from outside the industry at the moment are not taken seriously by the industry itself. CCB Magazine:According to a study by the French think tank Shift Project, the Co2 equivalent of video streaming in 2018 was more than 300 million tons. A third of this, according to the study, was due to on-demand services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix. Is this a credible figure? Dom Robinson:The shift report was widely discredited since it not only used ‘data attribution' models but they had a calculation out between bits and bytes making their results out by a factor of 8. This was corrected by George Kamiya of the International Energy Agency and many others have supported that. Shift themselves corrected this and brought their estimates down considerably. Only the industry has the touch points with the infrastructure to really evaluate such things, and the industry itself is still in the throes of working out how to measure such things. The one figure we tend to accept is that about 3% of world energy is being used by Information and Communication Technology, and with Cisco and others estimating that 70-80% of all network traffic is now video streaming. We at Greening of Streaming talk about streaming ‘probably' requiring between 1% and 2% of World Energy. The one figure we tend to accept is that about 3% of world energy is being used by Information and Communication Technology, and with Cisco and others estimating that 70-80% of all network traffic is now video streaming CCB Magazine:What are the most promising measures and ideas to make streaming less CO2-intensive? Dom Robinson:Even if the entire Information and Communication Technology industry moved to renewable energy we, as engineers, seek to be better energy citizens so our infrastructures do not consume ‘all' the renewables, leaving energy available for other critical uses such as heating and refrigeration. That said we have key focus working groups investigating a move of thinking from ‘bandwidth' to ‘infrastructure availability' – the latter is actually what is consuming the energy. Energy is not (despite most thinking) relating to usage of infrastructure; it is actually being consumed in the provisioning and making available of infrastructure. In simple terms ‘everything is provisioned for peak all the time' – so this means that Service Level Agreements along the supply chains are hugely impacting and are the immediately low hanging fruit for making significant change. CCB Magazine:Who plays the most important role in reducing emissions from streaming: users or providers? Dom Robinson:Absolutely 100% the providers. We have a range of surveys we completed with the public and announced in our UK Parliament event this summer, that highlight that while there is increasing awareness in the consumer, they are almost entirely unable to do a...

Dom speaks @GreeningofStreaming with Creative City Berlin!/

"Green Stream" a series of monthly video podcasts from Greening of Streaming that present activities, thought leadership and technical strategies . "Green Stream" a series of monthly video podcasts from Greening of Streaming that present activities, thought leadership and technical strategies focussing on sustainability and energy efficiency optimisation in stream delivery. The archives are captured from the second part of our monthly members meetings, where (once all the day to day business is complete) we invite one member or a guest of a member to talk to the group about a key topic of interest. In this third edition of 'Green Stream' Aaron Behman from AMD delivers his talk: Efficient Live Video Transcoding Please follow the GoS linked-in group to ensure you catch every forthcoming edition and and for other updates. For more information: info@greeningofstreaming.org

@Aaron Behman (AMD) talks about Live Stream transcoding efficiency in episode 4 of @GreeningofStreaming's monthly 'Green Stream' podcast!

Complex landscape with a lot of challenges and unintended consequences.. Well worth a watch, even if its a bit bleak..

In this months 'Green Stream' (GreeningofStreaming's monthly podcast) Aaron Behman talks about AMD's video processing technologies and the efficiency gains they can bring.

Did I enjoy IBC? Of course; it was a great event. I love IBC. I am pretty sure I would rather see Christmas cancelled than IBC. I'd certainly rather . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. View From the Edge: IBC 2022 Did I enjoy IBC? Of course; it was a great event. I love IBC. I am pretty sure I would rather see Christmas cancelled than IBC. I'd certainly rather stand in the queue at Schipol talking to broadcasters than stand in the queue for the Christmas sales talking to the consumerism-minded. The moment I arrived back on the ground in Amsterdam after a couple of years away is the moment I remembered where my happy place is: networking with folks who are passionate about broadcast technology. All set with a backdrop of exhibition stands that give an indication of success (or at least ambition to succeed), and lubricated with an air of international viruses and odours that the Metaverse will never be able to synthesise. Real. Energising. Awesome. Indeed, I had a conversation with a few folks over the weekend, something along the lines of, “Isn't it great to be back around a table with a beer, just able to talk about what we love doing. Wouldn't you do this every month?” After a very short pause: “Hell, no. You would die really quickly!” “How about every quarter?” After a longer pause: “Man, that would be nice, although not with the exhibition. It'd be just great to see friends, colleagues, clients, peers, and so on. The exhibition is too much like hard work for anything more than once a quarter. But yes, I think my body could survive a quarterly meetup with the tribe.” “But isn't the great thing about coming back after two years the fact that we all have so much to talk about. There is so much change in the industry. Perhaps we should do it every two years instead?” After a very long pause: “Not at this stage. I am just so happy to be back. Let's run out of things to say before we plan to spend more time apart!” Naturally, there were a few issues. By now you have read enough of the ‘OMG it's going to have to move because Amsterdam can't run an airport' topic. Or the ‘Hotel prices are getting silly' discussions. Naturally, you plan to take the train next year. (All the way from San Francisco?). And it might make sense to rent a house for the year next to Leidseplein. But all that stuff is symptomatic of success. When everything is excellent, all we can do is ‘like' - but when we spot a tiny flaw we can ‘comment' and ‘share' the queue in Schipol into a headline story, which is, in all reality, a distraction from what IBC was about. IBC found the industry in a great mood, and in great shape. There were some obvious things that stood out. Hall 14 had become Hall 5; it was no longer appropriate to house the OTT world in a tent on the doorstep. The Streaming community has not only grown up, but has muscled in among the old giants. IP-based operators are thrusting and elbowing the traditional telco players off the board. Satellite operators are looking across their empty stands to wonder what the cool kids are doing crowded around the computer-based demonstrations. And while there is still a large bloc of traditional broadcasters hidden in bland, meeting-room-format stands waiting for their next appointment to turn up to renew a 40-year-old contract, across the aisle there are ‘Internet Unicorns' who are flooded with people trying to squeeze into glass-sided meeting rooms, seated on beanbags and surrounded by colour. But don't be fooled by the performance. The Unicorns had very very little to show this year beyond their fan bases turning up. The real innovation in the streaming space is on the tiny stands dotted all around the north halls. The bigger the stand, the slighter the innovation is almost a hard-and-fast rule in IBC, and always has been. Nothing at all on any of the biggest stands made me go ‘Oh wow, that's new.' In fact, mostly my take was, ‘Oh wow, you finally caught up—that's been going ...

Dom's off on one about IBC :)

In particular, one sustainability panel featuring Barbara Lange, CEO of Kibo121 and previous Executive Director at SMPTE, Dom Robinson, Co-Founder, . Concerns around how to create sustainable workflows in media, the question of where media fits into the global emissions picture and how to identify and respond to key drivers for change were central themes at IBC2022. In particular, one sustainability panel featuring Barbara Lange, CEO of Kibo121 and previous Executive Director at SMPTE, Dom Robinson, Co-Founder, Director and Creative Firestarter of id3as, Khandiz Joni, Creative Sustainableist at Creative Zero and Kristan Bullett, CEO of Humans Not Robots, set out to provide some answers. The four speakers set out to raise awareness on the complex issues and responsibilities that the media industry must face up to. They pinpointed the lack of clear and consistent measurements currently in place and the need for education on energy consumption in all aspects of media, from production to distribution, and how navigating through the complexities can offer cost effectiveness and business opportunities. Defining Sustainability Lange opened the discussion, concerned about how many organisations have no idea where to start with sustainability in media, and to answer the questions is it real? she confirms, “It is most definitely real.” She gave a shout out to projects that are already looking at how productions can reduce their carbon footprint in the content creation phase, such as the Albert programme and the Green Production Guide, both of which offer organisations techniques to reduce their carbon footprint. She delved into the production workflow, from content creation to content manipulation and distribution, and pointed out that the biggest current challenge in implementing sustainable practices is that there are no standards of measurement and a lack of mandates, while some companies may even see implying a sustainability method as an added expense. “Sustainability means recognising that ending poverty and other deprivations go hand in hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth, all while tackling climate change and environmental issues. Therefore, sustainability encompasses such Corporate Responsibility issues as diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as social justice issues”, said Lange. Joni emphasised the importance of defining sustainability via a human-centric approach - the intersection between people and planet: “Sustainability is about a stable resilient state of being and how do we get there? When we take the humanity out of this conversation, we are not going to drive the empathetic change we need to see in achieving this resilient state.” Blurred lines and gap-filling Dom Robinson spoke of energy consumption awareness in broadcasting vs. streaming: “In certain parts of broadcast and certainly in things like data centres, telco ISP, there's been a lot of [sustainability] thinking for a long time. But given that streaming is typically talked about as being 70% of network traffic these days, and we have a top line figure that ICT is burning 3% of all the world's energy.What I felt was [in] my industry, because we don't know, we haven't got that finger on the pulse yet and we're not ready to be transparent about things. We haven't worked out how to measure. [Energy consumption is] an afterthought.” Robinson added: “There was a lot of thinking that there's a linear relationship between bandwidth and energy. So if you reduce bandwidth, you're supposed to reduce energy. It doesn't really work like that. We don't quite know how it does work, because we are yet to go and measure it.There's no common framework of language.” Watch more Sustainability in news and sport operations Joni also recognised the lack of clarity surrounding sustainability in the industry: “You sort of cherry pick where we're going to use it so we can have an emissions reduction, and we'll give...

Dom, Kristan and Khandiz speak about sustainability in broadcast and streaming at IBC 2022

He's lost a staggering amount of money so far this year. Billionaire Wipeout It's no secret that Meta-formerly-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse . He's lost a staggering amount of money so far this year. Billionaire Wipeout It's no secret that Meta-formerly-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse pivot isn't exactly paying off yet. The billionaire's fortune has dropped by a whopping $71 billion — leaving him with a piddling $55.9 billion left over — this year, Bloomberg reports, rendering him only the 20th richest person in the world. Sure, that's still plenty of pocket money. But it's the lowest spot he's occupied in eight years, in a sign of how far he's fallen. Just two years ago, he was the third person in the world, with almost twice the net worth, according to the report. It's worth noting that 2022 has proven disastrous for global markets and other tech titans as well, but even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have lost far less than that. The takeaway? In the self-inflicted era of the metaverse, Zuckerberg is in big, big trouble. Meta Pivot Facebook's highest valuation in recent memory, September 2021, happens to coincide with the month before Zuckerberg announced the company's name change and pivot to the metaverse. Ever since, Zuckerberg has doubled down on the concept, which has so far materialized only as a desolate and much-lampooned virtual playground that requires the company's own clunky virtual reality hardware to visit. In other words, it's no wonder investors have responded negatively to Zuckerberg's zillion dollar bet. Some experts are even now saying that Zuckerberg is taking Meta down with him. "I think Facebook is not going to do well as long as he's there," senior Harvard Business School fellow Bill George told CNBC last week. "He's likely one of the reasons so many people are turning away from the company. He's really lost his way." Dismal Numbers The result is that the company's finances are in tatters. Bloomberg called the company's recent earnings reports "dismal," with TikTok stealing users from Meta's Instagram left and right. Zuckerberg has practically shackled himself to the fate of Meta. The vast majority of his net worth is tied up in the company's stock — and he infamously holds hundreds of millions of shares, giving him immense power over the company that he founded. It remains to be seen whether Zuckerberg will be able to prove investors wrong and turn his vision for the metaverse into a meaningful new direction for Meta. His next shot? Next month's release of the company's new VR headset. READ MORE: Mark Zuckerberg's $71 Billion Wealth Wipeout Puts Focus on Meta's Woes [Bloomberg] More on Zuckerberg: Harvard Expert Says Mark Zuckerberg Is Destroying Facebook Share This Article

.VR or Cambridge Analytica? Either way, its a challenge..

A quarter of humanity's carbon emissions come from industrial energy use – and a huge portion of that energy goes into creating heat for various . A quarter of humanity's carbon emissions come from industrial energy use – and a huge portion of that energy goes into creating heat for various processes. And right there lies a slam-dunk decarbonization opportunity that'll pay for itself incredibly quickly, reasons Oakland company Rondo Energy. "We're at a spectacular moment in history," Rondo CEO John O'Donnell told the Wharton Current podcast. "Where on a per unit of energy cost basis, wind and solar power are cheaper than fuels. Not just cheaper than conventional electricity, but cheaper than fuel for heat in most of the world – headed for all of the world." In other words, thanks to a huge crash in the price of renewable energy, there's no longer a "green premium" stopping most industrial heat consumers from decarbonizing and switching to clean solutions. The barrier, instead, is intermittency; you can buy renewable energy out of the grid at extremely low cost, right now – but only when the solar arrays are producing too much for the grid to use. You can't run your factory 24/7 that way unless you can store that energy up. And here's Rondo's play: this company is building "brick toasters" that store up cheap renewable energy as high-temperature heat, ready to be deployed throughout the day – and it says industrial clients will begin saving money compared to their old, dirty, fossil-fuel burning processes immediately. At the heart of it, this ain't rocket surgery; converting electricity into heat is something that happens at 100% efficiency every time you turn on your toaster or hairdryer, says O'Donnell. Rondo uses a simple toaster-style system to heat up "blast stoves," similar to the ones the steel industry already uses for cyclical heat storage. These stoves are full of plain ol' bricks, made out of plain ol' clay, sometimes with a bit of sand in there, but certainly nothing special in terms of materials. Nothing toxic, nothing that decays over time. These bricks will still be storing heat just as well in 40 or 50 years' time, when chemical batteries have gone through several generations of complex recycling. Rondo says it can pull that heat back out at an extraordinary 98% efficiency, resulting in a dirt-cheap industrial heat storage solution that costs "about one fifth the cost per unit of energy stored as any electrochemical battery," according to O'Donnell. "On the outside, it looks fairly boring. It's only possible today because of supercomputer computational fluid dynamics, and finite element analysis and AI system controls. We're building something that's very simple – but was very interesting and complicated to design." The first generation of Rondo brick toasters are optimized for low cost, super-fast deployment and scale, and are capable of holding heat up to 1,500 °C (2,732 °F), which O'Donnell says can cover approximately 80% of industrial heat requirements globally. Down the track, using more expensive heaters and brick materials chosen for the purpose, he says it's possible to hit 1,800 °C (3,272 °F) or so, which brings steelmaking into range, and would cover somewhere around 92% of industrial use cases. "The couple of years of science and investigation are behind us, and we are right now making the journey from the labs, through late-stage prototypes, to our first customer installations this year with a goal of being at very large scale next year in the year beyond," said O'Donnell. "And we're looking very hard at the project finance community and the pathways that enable scaling the fastest." Rondo's first customers, he says, have zero interest in being "green" or advertising their decision. They're in this for the bottom line, taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity that intermittent clean energy presents. And right now, it's a hell of an arbitrage opportunity. "Today, electricity through a Rondo u...

Sometimes the simplest ideas./