Devices could last longer and be more efficient

Actor and Lieutenant Colonel Waseem Mirza was not happy when he realized that he would have to change his phone – especially because he was working well.

Although the devices were running smoothly, Samsung had ended the safety updates of the phone in 2020.

“I thought the lack [security] “The updates were very stupid,” says Mr. Mirza, who bought the phone in 2016.

“Your battery and your screen are still working great. You feel as if the manufacturer forces you to upgrade.”

He used his phone to manage online banking services, including for his production company. “It was important for me to get the latest critical software updates,” he says.

In addition to the financial cost, there is an environmental cost to upgrade your phone. About 80 % of carbon emissions One of the mobile phones resulting from its manufacture. This is known as the guaranteed or embodied carbon.

Therefore, from the point of view of emissions, the longest phone users can get the latest programs to keep their phones to run, that was better.

The operating system may be called /E /OS is the solution that Mr. Mirza was looking for. It is a free version of Android that extends the age of devices that no longer get updates, providing a more green alternative to the private manufacturers’ programs.

Mr. Mirza’s old phone is among more than 200 subsidized devices, some of which are 10 years old. When the Galaxy S7 Edge support ends next year due to devices restrictions, /OS will expand the life of the phone for an additional five years.

“We provide /E /operating system for devices that have not been long supported by manufacturers,” says Gaël Duval, who developed /E /OS.

“We are trying that [enable them to] Receive all the latest security updates. Adult manufacturers put a lot of huge programs on phones, and useless things are not used by people. Over time, this makes things slower. We make the program lighter, so it continues to operate efficiently on old devices. “

The manufacturers have increased steadily of the backed by new phones. For this year’s Galaxy S24, Samsung has supported support for seven years, matching the Google promise with their pixels. You will support the Apple iPhone 16 for a period of not less than five years.

“Because of the current [processor] Rick Vierger, chief operational officer at /OS, says, the structure and size of memory on these latest phones says it is likely to remain used for a long time, and may exceed seven years.

In addition to enabling devices to operate for a longer period, the carbon programs can also be made when running.

Mobile phone applications should be energy -saving because the phone has limited battery power.

But many programs are run on servers in Datacenterres, as there are no such restrictions on energy consumption.

“Never think about the amount of electricity you use when creating server applications, so don’t do anything to improve this,” says Asim Hussain, CEO of Green Software. “There are barely no tools to measure them.”

Carbon’s intensity specifications in software (SCI) help measuring carbon fingerprint for programs, and earlier this year, It has become a global standard in industry. In his heart, the account includes both emissions from the operating program, and the sprays carbon is one of the devices it works on.

The idea is to obtain a carbon intensity degree that program developers can use to track progress while trying to reduce emissions from their programs.

Specifications were created by Green Software Foundation, which includes more than 60 Microsoft, Intel and Google.

“We are half of the green software as an effective program in using energy and effective devices, which means that it uses the least amount of possible physical resources, so there are less embodiment.”

“We also include carbon, which means doing more when electricity is clean and less when it is dirty.”

However, work is out of the result far from simplicity.

“account [the SCI] Mr. Hussein admits. “The problem is the lack of data.”

To help fill the gap, Foundation Green Software has created a set of models called the impact framework. It takes notes on things you can see, such as the percentage of server resources that are used, and turn them into carbon emissions estimates.

Mr. Hussein’s advice to senior technology officers? “Trust that if you give your teams a performance indicator like Sci, you will know what they need to do to improve. You are likely to make mistakes the first time, but be as transparent as possible and get notes.”

To help developers to improve energy efficiency in their programs, the Ecocode project collects a group of “code smell”. These are hints that the code may use less resources, such as replacing the instructions with another that does the same task faster.

“This is still a great field of research,” says Tariq Shukat. He is the CEO of Sonar, which makes the code analysis program use the Ecocode project.

“a lot [of code smells] It will fall under the umbrella of a very complex symbol. Second [type] They are things that work in an ineffective way: you update or pull the data more frequently than you need. Another one is bloating. How do you make your application meager and simplified as possible? “

Peter Campbell is the director of the Green Software program in Kainos, an Information Technology Services Company that builds on the cloud -based programs for its customers. The company trained 500 engineers, product personnel and designers using the Green Software Corporation Free short course.

He says: “We thought that if we educate internally and externally, it will get a magic adopt from all our teams,” he says.

“It turns out that it does not work simply. The piece is really difficult, not only to make people behave, but to maintain its priorities. There are many priorities from our customers so that sustainability is not sometimes the highest voice.”

The ICT ICT Technology Sector (ICT) was a sector Estimated 1.4 % of greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. However,, however, I estimated study 2018 IT and communication technology will be calculated 14 % by 2040.

There are signs that big companies take the problem more seriously.

Although only 10 % of large international institutions include the sustainability of software in their requirements today, it is scheduled to rise to 30 % by 2027, according to Gartner analysts.

Mr. Hussein adds that the program is much easier to remove carbon from many other sectors, such as flying. “We must press this button now because we can.”