Hi, I’m Samantha Edwards, an editor at The Globe and Mail. Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s new tech newsletter – and if you’re here for the first time, welcome! Every Friday morning, I break down the week’s biggest tech stories and how they intersect with, and even change, our world.
In this week’s issue:
🌎 Artificial intelligence and Google’s growing carbon footprint
🙅🏻♀️ Another city wants to ban Airbnb
🌽 Canadian farms seeking tech workers
🤢 How the “white boy summer” meme was co-opted by white supremacists
Barcelona’s mayor wants to ban all short-term rentals by 2028
Barcelona pledges to ban Airbnb by 2028.Nacho Doce/Reuters
Ask the locals or mayors of tourist hot spots such as Barcelona, Maui, or Rome and they’ll tell you: the short-term rental phenomenon is ripping the fabric of the city. Residents say Airbnbs are driving up rents as landlords shift to more lucrative vacation units, and historic city centres feel more like theme parks. This week in Barcelona, after residents protested against the rise in tourist rentals, the mayor announced a crackdown on illegal listings and pledged to phase out short-term rentals by 2028. In the past year, New York and London passed strict new regulations, such as imposing an annual cap on how often hosts can rent out their properties. The appeal of Airbnb has waned in recent years generally: initially billed as a more authentic and cheaper hotel alternative, many short-term rentals now look more like Ikea showrooms and cost more than a Holiday Inn. And at a hotel, you don’t have to spend your last couple of hours there cleaning up after yourself.
Canada’s agriculture sector has a problem: Not enough tech workers want to work on farms
Ontario farms struggle to attract tech workersGeoff Robins/The Globe and Mail
In the agricultural hub of southwestern Ontario, drones scan fields to detect weeds, pests and disease, while robots sort and package bell peppers in greenhouses that use AI-controlled irrigation and temperature systems. “When we were kids, everything was done manually by hand,” says Bert Mucci, CEO of Mucci Farms, in an interview with business reporter Kate Helmore. “These days, so much of what we do can be controlled by an app on my phone.” Yet as the sector embraces new technology to grow better-tasting vegetables and increase yield, it faces a growing problem: a critical shortage of engineers, roboticists and other tech workers who actually want to work with these machines on farms. Typical salaries for these roles are in the six figures – plus production bonuses and incentives – but, as Mr. Mucci says, the rural lifestyle is a deal-breaker for many young city slickers and recent grads.
Google’s carbon footprint on the rise due to AI
In the rush to add artificial intelligence to absolutely everything, one consequence that hasn’t been getting as much attention, as for example, potential doomsday scenarios, is the immense environmental impact it could have on our planet. A new report from Google brings that concern into focus and lays bare how AI is affecting its carbon footprint. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have soared, according to the company’s latest environmental report that shows emissions grew 13 per cent in 2023 over the year before. Since 2019, emissions have ballooned 48 per cent.
These figures should trouble Google, which has the ambitious plan to cut its pollution in half compared to that 2019 baseline. The report says that surge is from powering energy-hungry data centres used to train AI models. As Google dives headfirst into integrating generative AI into more of its products, from search to Android smartphones to Google Home, the report says “reducing emissions may be challenging”, acknowledging the difficulty of juggling AI development and climate goals.
What else we’re reading this week:
More electric vehicles are coming to Toronto’s streets, but who gets to fix them? (The Local)
One year of Threads: How is X’s rival really doing? (Fast Company)
Inside a16z’s boot camp for crypto startups (Wired)
Adult Money
You'll never have to worry about being forced to gate check your bag with this slim carry-onSupplied
Monos carry-on, $285
It’s officially summer vacation season, which also means worrying if your “carry-on” suitcase will actually fit into that impossibly small metal baggage sizer at the gate. I would like to avoid this anxiety this summer, so I’m eyeing a suitcase by the Canadian company Monos. The classic carry-on is designed to fit in the overhead bin of almost any airline, including Ryanair and EasyJet, which are notorious sticklers for size and weight.
Culture Radar
Chet Hanks "white boy summer" is about having fun, not bigotry.YouTube
How Chet Hanks’s ‘white boy summer’ mantra was co-opted by white nationalists
If you’re not Extremely Online or closely follow the happenings of Tom Hanks’s children, you may have missed the rise and fall of “white boy summer.” Let me explain. In the spring of 2021, Chet Hanks posted several Instagram videos about his upcoming “white boy summer,” a reference to Megan Thee Stallion’s banger Hot Girl Summer. He then released a rap song titled after his new slogan, which was roundly criticized for its Jamaican patois and just being a very bad song altogether.
Now a new report from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, says the “white boy summer” phrase has been co-opted by the Proud Boys, White Lives Matter and other extremist groups “to spread propaganda, recruit new members, and facilitate targeted hate campaigns.” In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Hanks condemned the use of the catchphrase, stating that twisting a “fun, playful and celebration of fly white boys who love beautiful queens of every race” into support for hate and bigotry was deplorable.
Other tech and telecom news:
Streaming platforms launch multiple legal challenges to Bill C-11 payments in Canada
Canada needs national strategy to monitor online gambling harms: report
Bell files injunction seeking to block Rogers from broadcasting Warner Bros. content