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The semiconductor industry faces a worker shortage.
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August 11, 2023

Tech Brew

HOKA

It’s Friday. TGIF! From the future-of-work files, we’ve got notes on the semiconductor industry. In terms of the future-of-future (?) files, we detailed how IBM and NASA are partnering to use AI to track the climate crisis. Plus, we’ll get you all caught up on the White House’s hiring plans for the national cyber director role.

In today’s edition:

Maeve Allsup, Patrick Kulp, Kelcee Griffis, Annie Saunders

SEMICONDUCTORS

Chipwork

Semiconductor chips. Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images

Thanks in part to investments from the CHIPS and Science Act, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) estimates that an increase in American chip manufacturing and development capacity will spur a 33% growth in industry jobs by 2030.

But according to research SIA conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics, there won’t be enough technicians, computer scientists, and engineers to fill those roles. The report estimates a shortage of around 67,000 technical workers, or 80% of newly created technical jobs.

Of those unfilled jobs, 39% are likely to be for technicians with certificates or two-year degrees, and 35% for engineers or computer scientists with four-year degrees.

A shortage of technical workers will have an impact beyond the semiconductor industry. Medical technology, clean energy, AI, and advanced manufacturing are just a few of the industries likely to feel the pressure of a “talent gap,” SIA said.

Keep reading here.—MA

     

TOGETHER WITH HOKA

Ace the race

HOKA

Ready to step into victory? HOKA just dropped a brand-new sneaker that’ll have you running like it’s race day, every day.

We’re talkin’ about the Mach X, and 3 (very lucky) Morning Brew team members gave ’em a spin during the Brooklyn Mile earlier this month. Let’s just say: These bad boys are made for PRs.

The Mach X is a high-speed plated road shoe that’s been refined through meticulous, cutting-edge testing. Designed to deliver serious speed, but also comfy enough for more casual runners, these kicks can do it all.

Oh, and they’re stabilized through the midsole’s Pebax® propulsion plate that’s paired with advanced foam compounds. Stability + speed = the perfect running shoe.

Add some first-place footwear to your sneaker lineup.

CLIMATE

Crisis monitoring

A NASA image looking down on the curvature of the Earth Elen11/Getty Images

IBM and NASA are using the same technology that powers ChatGPT to potentially track the ravages of the climate crisis.

The two organizations announced last week that they’d released a version of IBM’s AI foundation model trained on NASA satellite data through an open-source license on AI model hub Hugging Face.

The newly available AI package is a foundation model, a generalized AI architecture based on massive amounts of data that can be specialized through a process called fine-tuning. In this case, IBM has fine-tuned the model on labeled images of burn scars and floods to help predict where these disasters might strike next.

Keep reading here.—PK

     

CYBERSECURITY

Different direction

President Biden in front of a dark blue backdrop. Getty Images

The White House has set its sights on a former National Security Agency executive director to fill the role of national cyber director, marking the latest twist in the race to appoint a permanent expert to the post.

On July 25, the Biden administration announced Harry Coker Jr. as its pick to succeed former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, who left the job earlier this year.

Acting Director Kemba Walden had been the frontrunner to replace Inglis—the first person to hold the relatively new position created in 2021—until unexpected concerns about her personal finances surfaced and she withdrew from consideration.

Keep reading here.—KG

     

BITS AND BYTES

Stat: 87%. That’s the percentage of people who “saw too much of the same ad on streaming services at least some of the time,” the Washington Post reported, citing a research study. (For those of you sick of ads, scroll on. We have bad news.)

Quote: “Consider the fact that Google’s parent company is worth more than $1.6 trillion, and the value of the entire US newspaper industry today is only around $20 billion. If Google wanted to, it could easily purchase every remaining paper in America and run them as nonprofits, thereby ensuring that local news doesn’t die out, and ensuring a continuing flow of news content for themselves, and earning a lot of good PR by appearing to be something less than vultures that have sucked journalism dry and thrown its corpse off a cliff. But they don’t do that.”—Hamilton Nolan, a journalist who writes about labor, on Google and Facebook blocking news content in Canada in response to legislation requiring the Big Tech giants to pay fees to local news outlets for their content

Read: Microsoft’s AI red team has already made the case for itself (Wired)

Step up: Say hi to HOKA’s Mach X. These high-speed road shoes are perfect for training athletes and casual runners alike. We should know—we tried ’em out for the Brooklyn Mile. Cop your pair.*

*This is sponsored advertising content.

COOL CONSUMER TECH

Illustration featuring Venmo app. Hannah Minn

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Data payback: We’ve always marveled at people who let Venmo share details of their transactions with friends. Why is that woman you went to college with paying her husband for food for their joint baby? Are this many people really chipping in to split pizzas, or is the pizza emoji like a visual euphemism for drugs? Anyway, the New York Times has a servicey little piece about the personal information Venmo might be revealing without your even knowing. Consider this your notice to dig out your Venmo password and check your privacy settings, even if you’re OK with all your contacts knowing you’re “eating pizza” once a week.

Big-ticket TV: Disney announced it’s once again bumping up the monthly fee for ad-free streaming, The Verge reported. Beginning in October, it will cost 14 bucks a month to ensure your child can watch an endless stream of movies and shows on Disney+ without being exposed to something terrible, like advertisements.

         

Written by Maeve Allsup, Patrick Kulp, Kelcee Griffis, and Annie Saunders

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