Extinction Events, Pearls in Space, Solar Forcing | S0 News July.2.2021

Water-Monitoring Satellite Moves Closer to Launch

BRAVO! Jennifer Duff. . .6-1 Stand Out Break In The Mediocre Mesa City Council "Group-Think Mentality"

It takes a lot of courage to speak up on an issue that is vital to Sustainability in one of the most-conservative large cities in America - one of the "fastest-growing suburbs" where rampant speculation comes with a growth-at-any-price consequences.

Refreshing to see this report yesterday in a major mainstream media ABC15:

Data centers consume millions of gallons of Arizona water daily

By:Cameron Polom

KNXV

MESA, AZ — Massive buildings are sprouting from our desert landscapes, their footprints normally more than a million square feet. The structures are filled with computer servers processing and storing huge amounts of data.

“This recent one is on 196 acres, it’s going to be divided into three phases,” said Mesa Vice Mayor Jenn Duff.

Duff is the only city council member to vote no on a recently approved $800 million data center - rumored to be for Facebook - after discovering the facility would eventually use 1.75 million gallons of water every day for cooling their rows of servers once fully operational. This as state reservoirs like Lake Mead and rivers like the Colorado are so low that federal restrictions are likely to be triggered on Arizona’s water allocation as early as next year.

“So, when I think about that and I think about the huge impact of a data center that uses water for cooling, it’s something I felt wasn’t a good use of water for our city,” said Duff.

She says it’s the eighth data center approved in the City of Mesa and while they do generate millions in state taxes and fees for the water and electricity, the newest facility, like many others, will only employ around 150 people.

“They’re not high-income jobs and they don’t employ a lot of people that’s for sure,” said Duff.

“If you want to bring in new businesses and industries that are going to be water use intensive, that should be more heavily scrutinized,” said Dr. Christopher Castro, Professor of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona who agrees with Duff’s apprehensions. “So, my question to them is where exactly is this water coming from? Is it sustainable? Are you accounting for our conditions of being in a long-term 20-year megadrought?”

Right now, that water source would be drawing from the same one soon to be requiring cuts from our agriculture industry and possibly others in the future. That’s not to say companies running these data centers aren’t trying to reduce their water footprint.

Some use air conditioning systems while others are experimenting with using methods like free-air cooling, which uses fresh outdoor air to cool a space. However, it only works in cooler climates.

“If you want to talk about things like maybe using reclaimed or recycled water, treated wastewater, then those are perhaps more viable solutions,” said Castro.

As of now, that’s not the case with this latest approval or a Google data center currently under construction in Mesa. Once completed, the new facility alone will use the same amount of water on a daily basis as 9,200 homes. Duff says it was something she just couldn't ignore.

“If we weren’t in this cut back already, it might be different, but we are in a danger zone in my opinion,” said Duff.

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ADWR Field Services manager discusses recent “Water Level Change Map” for the Phoenix AMA

Published: Fri, 06/11/2021

ADWR is committed to making data about Arizona’s water resources as accessible to the public as possible. And, for that matter, as quickly as possible. Water analysts outside the Department often need fresh information about, say, groundwater conditions in certain regions of Arizona quickly

Quarterly Drought Status Update: JANUARY - MARCH 2021

             Home          Source: https://new.azwater.gov/drought/drought-status

Dry conditions during the January through March period led to the expansion of Exceptional Drought (D4) through northern Navajo and eastern Apache and Coconino counties, as well as through east central Arizona.

Additionally, Extreme Drought (D3) expanded across northern and central Arizona and throughout Pinal and Pima counties.

The few pockets of no drought or Abnormally Dry (D0) conditions were replaced by Moderate (D1) or Severe Drought (D2). 

While snowpack accumulated throughout a few locations, it was short-lived, and any potential run-off from the early melt-out was reduced by the already dry soils.

Streamflows and inflows into reservoirs are low as a result of the dry conditions.

 

This report was prepared by the Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee, April 14, 2021. Arizona's long-term drought status map is updated quarterly and the next update in early July, it will reflect the conditions of April, May and June. The long-term drought status for each watershed is determined by comparing the precipitation and streamflow percentiles for the past 24, 36, 48 and 60 months to a 40-year historical record.

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1 2019 Bill Jabjiniak, Mesa’s economic development director, said the boom is no coincidence and represents eight years of planning to lure the high-tech companies and their high-paying jobs to Mesa.

“I would tell you this is a vision that started eight years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, saying it was back then that he and his colleagues started assembling the infrastructure vital to data centers. . .OK What about the water??

. . .that's the most precious commodity here in the desert and The East Valley - it's not mentioned, left out!

 

 01 June 2021

It's about time Rogue Columnist Jon Talton warmed-up his pen and hit on this subject:

May 31, 2021

The data center hustle

 

"Data centers becoming dominant force in Mesa," reads the headline on a recent East Valley Tribune story. The lede: "It may never rival Silicon Valley, but Mesa is fast becoming Data Center Alley." 

 

This "Alley" isn't transforming struggling west Mesa and it's nowhere near the light-rail line. Instead, it's centered on the "Elliott Avenue Technology Corridor" in far southeast Mesa, the location of agriculture, desert, and the former Williams Air Force Base. Now, with abundant concrete, gravel, and asphalt, it will expand the increasingly dangerous Phoenix urban heat island. The "Corridor" is entirely car dependent.

Data centers are lowest on the ladder of the tech economy: necessary, but bringing few jobs — much less high-end jobs — and several headaches. This is why they are usually found in rural areas desperate to replace their lost millwork, manufacturing, or railroad jobs. States and localities shell out huge incentives and disappointment follows. . .

Another problem with Data Center Alley: These massive server farms are water hogs. Elsewhere, they contribute to climate change because of their enormous appetite for electricity. Maybe Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station helps Mesa here. It's only built upwind of the nation's fifth most populous city.

And no evidence has emerged that data centers are a gateway to more advanced tech work. Metro Phoenix got nowhere in its bid for Amazon HQ2.

Read more closely and it's clear that Mesa's "technology corridor" is yet another Arizona real-estate hustle, dependent on cheap farmland and tilt-up buildings, plus a heapin' helping of tax breaks — in a state that ranks second from last in per-student funding. . .

After All These Years The Time Is (Almost) Right To Hit Pay-Dirt: City Planner Tom Ellsworth + The 4-in-One Zoning Case

< Here's one picture that's worth more than just a few thousandwords, two hours of your time watching a video-on-demand, and history going back to a bygone era in the 1880's. It's the next step in the development process after passing through the Mesa Planning & Zoning Board. It's been years in the making

____________________________________________________________________________

Here's City Staff Planner Tom Ellsworth making a presentation on Water Asset Management in front of a public Mesa City Council Study Session earlier this month on October 7, 2019.

There's $800,000,000 on-the-table and on the agenda for Capital Improvement Project for discussion . . .

Christened the "inner loop" by those in the planning effort, it's the area near Loop 202 around Elliot and Hawes Road. Much of the land falls within  Maricopa County and will require annexation into Mesa before development could take off. . .

The group of dairy farmers plan to take their zoning application to Mesa later this year, according to Jordan Rose, the attorney representing the farmers. The group wants to work with city officials to refine the plan for approval by the City Council next year. The proposed land-use plan so far includes residential, urban mixed-use, commercial and office space areas

BRIEF                

Mesa, AZ lands $1B Google data center

Author Jason Plautz @Jason_Plautz                                                                            

Published July 3, 2019

 

Dive Brief:

Google will bring a new $1 billion data center to Mesa, AZ after the city council approved the move in a vote Monday, according to the Arizona Republic. 

The data center will be built on 187 acres of farmland in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, which already has five existing or planned data centers. Construction is expected to begin within five years, with the first part of the data center projected to be in place by 2025. 

 

As part of the agreement, Google will get a $16 million break in property taxes over 25 years.

Dive Insight:

Google’s arrival boosts Mesa's reputation as a hub for data centers, which tech giants are increasingly building outside of the traditional base of Silicon Valley. Mesa is also home to a 1.3 million-square-foot Apple data center, open since 2016, and has used the facilities to build out its Technology Corridor. The development is growing across Arizona, with Microsoft recently purchasing three plots of land there for new data facilities. 

It’s unclear how many jobs the data center will create, since most operations at those facilities are automated, though construction will create new jobs. Even with the tax break, the city’s economic development director estimates the project will bring in nearly $157 million in revenue, according to the East Valley Tribune, including $10,000 in annual rent.

That led Mayor John Giles to declare the deal a "home run."

Bringing in data centers is also a way to potentially attract tech giants to relocate more operations there. Google has touted its "major expansion" in data centers as a way to spread its investments outside of California; in February, the company announced $13 billion in data center investments across 14 states. As cities look to attract big tech firms away from the coasts, Mesa’s recruitment could pose as a model on how best to bring in the industry. 

 

 

 

 

O NO! GOTCHA AGAIN! Another Vulnerability Gets Exploited

Report taken from The Verge: Just a few snippets. Read more details at the source

Microsoft warns of Windows ‘PrintNightmare’ vulnerability that’s being actively exploited

The Windows Print Spooler strikes again

By Tom Warren@tomwarren Jul 2, 2021, 5:54am EDT

The Verge

Microsoft is warning Windows users about an unpatched critical flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service. The vulnerability, dubbed PrintNightmare, was uncovered earlier this week after security researchers accidentally published a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit. While Microsoft hasn’t rated the vulnerability, it allows attackers to remotely execute code with system-level privileges, which is as critical and problematic as you can get in Windows.

Researchers at Sangfor published the PoC, in what appears to have been a mistake, or a miscommunication between the researchers and Microsoft. The test code was quickly deleted, but not before it had already been forked on GitHub.

Sangfor researchers had been planning to detail multiple 0-day vulnerabilities in the Windows Print Spooler service at the annual Black Hat security conference later this month. It appears the researchers thought Microsoft had patched this particular vulnerability, after the company published patches for a separate Windows Print Spooler flaw.

The vulnerability is being actively exploited

It has taken Microsoft a couple of days to finally issue an alert about the 0-day, and Bleepingcomputer reports that the company is even warning customers that it’s being actively exploited. The vulnerability allows attackers to use remote code execution, so bad actors could potentially install programs, modify data, and create new accounts with full admin rights.

Microsoft admits “the code that contains the vulnerability is in all versions of Windows,” but it’s not clear if it’s exploitable beyond server versions of Windows 

REAL-TIME TRANSCRIPTIONS + AUTOMATIC CC (Closed Captioning) > TOOL FOR OPEN, TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT

For effective government to encourage active citizen participation this can be a real game-changer - why wait for so-called "Approved Minutes" that are usually delayed days or weeks or months to get on the public record when it is possible now. . .

Furthermore it is a vital accommodation for those with a deaf disability

HHH

Zoom acquires an AI company building real-time translation        

The Verge |

The company wants ‘to make collaboration frictionless’

By Mitchell Clark Jun 29, 2021, 8:40pm EDT

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

          

Zoom has announced that it’s acquiring a company known as Kites (short for Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions), which has worked on creating real-time translation and transcription software. Zoom says the acquisition is a move to help it make communicating with people who speak different languages easier, and that it’s looking to add translation capabilities to its video conferencing app.

According to its site, Kites began at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and its technology was originally developed to act as in-classroom translation for students who needed help understanding the English or German their professors were lecturing in.

Zoom already has real-time transcriptions, but it’s limited to people who are talking in English.

On a support page, Zoom also makes it clear that its current live transcription feature may not meet certain accuracy requirements. The company says it’s considering opening a research center in Germany, where the Kites team will be staying."

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Zoom will further improve its real-time transcription feature with this acquisition

Zoom Kites Acquisition Buyout Live Transcription Real Time Machine Translation Company

Kites was established in 2015 by co-founders Dr. Alex Waibel and Dr. Sebastian Stüker.

NDTV Gadgets 360 | By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 30 June 2021 12:10 IST

Zoom has acquired a real-time machine translation company named Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions – Kites. The company looks to leverage Kites resources to improve meeting productivity and efficiency on Zoom by providing real-time multi-language translation capabilities for users. Zoom says that "Kites' talented team of 12 research scientists will help its engineering team advance the field of machine translation." Kites was established in 2015 and the company was co-founded by Dr. Alex Waibel and Dr. Sebastian Stüker.

The company has not released the financial details of the acquisition, but has confirmed that Dr. Stüker and the rest of the Kites team will remain based in Karlsruhe, Germany. Zoom plans to invest and grow the team there and will even explore the opening of an R&D center in Germany sometime in the future. In its bog post, the company mentions that Dr. Waibel will become a Zoom Research Fellow, a role in which he will advise on Zoom's machine translation research and development.

Kites began its journey originally developing classroom translation tools for students who needed help understanding English or German spoken by professors during university lectures. The Kites app is said to now be "intuitive, accurate and full of advanced functionality." It integrates seq2seq technology and predictive AI to allow fast and accurate translation. “Transcript and translated text in fact appear before the speaker completes a sentence, and/or self-corrects if a better interpretation is warranted by further context,” the company says on its website.

Zoom introduced real-time live transcription for all users earlier this year. However, the company on its support page says that ‘live transcription' only supports English for now and it recommends users to speak clearly for best results. The accuracy of Zoom's live transcription feature is also said to depend on many variables like background noise, volume and clarity of the speaker's voice, speaker's proficiency with the English language, and lexicons and dialects specific to a geography or community. The integration of Kites intelligence will likely improve Zoom's capabilities in translation.

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Zoom has previously supported AI-generated closed captions for paid accounts.

Zoom adding automatic closed captioning for all free accounts

By Jon Porter@JonPorty Feb 25, 2021, 6:14am EST

The Verge

Zoom plans to roll out support for automatic closed captioning to free accounts this fall as part of its efforts to make the service more accessible, the company has announced. If you’re a free account holder who needs access to the feature before then, Zoom is allowing users to manually request access to the Live Transcription feature via a Google Form linked to in its announcement.

Automatic transcriptions aren’t an entirely new Zoom feature. The service has previously offered AI-powered live transcription for all its paid accounts. Otherwise, meeting hosts have had to manually add their own captions, or use a third-party service. But now the feature will become available to the millions of people that rely on Zoom’s services for free. A Zoom support page notes that its Live Transcription feature is currently only available in English.

Automatic closed captions are also available with other video conferencing services like Google Meet. Given how widely used Zoom has become since the start of the pandemic, however, it’s great to see it adding more accessibility features. Previous efforts to make Zoom more accessible have included allowing meetings to pin and spotlight interpreters on a call, as well as adding screen reader support.

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Cisco

 

Cisco

Real-Time Transcription - Cisco

 

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