Wavelength - Thirsty data centres and Google's 'helpful' SEO changes

31st August, 2022 – In the latest episode of Wavelength, hosts Daniel Harrington and Alexander Orbell discuss the biggest B2B technology news over the last fortnight, and predict which headlines you should look out for next.

Find our last episode here.

Please enjoy and stay tuned for our next episode on the 14th of September!

1. Kwasi Kwarteng blocks the Chinese purchase of Pulsic, a UK electronics firm, citing security concerns.
2. Data centre water usage is in the spotlight as Thames Water prepares a hosepipe ban.
3. Amazon pushes for a greater share of the US healthcare market.
4. Google makes changes to SEO; prioritises 'helpful content'.
5. Meta lets an algorithm choose 60 employees to fire.

Kwasi Kwarteng and the UK Government block a Chinese takeover of Pulsic, a UK electronics firm, citing security concerns.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the UK's Business Secretary, has blocked the takeover of Pulsic, an electronic design automation company, by a Hong Kong firm – Super Orange HK. This is due to government concerns about risks to national security. His power to do this falls under the new National Security and Investment Act, which was introduced at the start of the year.

Sources: Computing, Bloomberg, The Guardian, BBC News, City AM

Data centre water usage is in the spotlight as Thames Water prepares a hosepipe ban.

Thames Water has launched a probe into the impact of data centres on water supplies in and around London due to a hosepipe ban that came into effect last week, affecting 15 million customers in the drought-hit area.

The company’s faced heavy criticism over its record on fixing leaks - or, indeed, not fixing them. So, now it’s started a “targeted exercise” to understand how much drinking water these 24-hour facilities — which reach extremely high temperatures — use to cool their servers.

Sources: Financial Times, Daily Mail Online, Computing, The Telegraph, Energy Live News

Amazon pushes for a greater share of the US healthcare market.

Amazon has recently announced that it’s closing its telehealth service, Amazon Care, despite a long-stated goal of disrupting the US healthcare industry.

But now, new chief executive Andy Jassy is spearheading their new venture into the sector – and it could be a good time for a disruptor with cash to burn. Amazon has unveiled the acquisition of One Medical for $3.9 billion, a  primary care practice based in San Francisco, New York and 23 other metropolitan areas.

Sources: Forbes, Business Insider, Financial Times, The Verge, Financial Times, Bloomberg

Google makes changes to SEO; prioritises 'helpful content'.

Google is planning the implementation of a change to the way that the search engine works: prioritising content that answers questions over pages designed with SEO in mind. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, spoke to Business Insider about the tips SEO writers and content marketers need to know:

• Don't load webpages with extra content you think will work well with search engines. 
• Product review websites that aggregate other reviews need to change. 
• Using automated software to produce content is not necessarily bad.
• Websites that have misleading headlines will be punished.
• When creating online content, act as if search engines don't exist.
• There's no appeal process for website owners.

Sources: Business Insider, Press Gazette, SEO Roundtable, SearchEngineLand

Meta lets an algorithm choose 60 employees to fire.

Facebook’s owner company Meta has randomly terminated 60 workers using an algorithm. These contract employees were working for Meta via the Texas branch of Accenture, who were – for $500 million annually – providing Meta workers for content moderation services.

Though these people were told they were chosen at random, they were given no other information or metrics to support the decision.

Sources: Computing, Business Insider, New York Times.

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Attribution:

Music used under Creative Commons license: Covert Affair by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3558-covert-affair

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license