"5.3 billion phones will be thrown away"

“5.3 billion phones will be thrown away” — Apple’s High-Yield Savings Account.

First up – Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders
Our second story – AI scans Hurricane Ian damage to give cash to poorest victims
Our third story – People will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year
For our fourth and final story – Students Are Using AI to Write Their Papers Because, Of Course, They Are

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What is going on everyone? I’m your host Kevin Muñoz. This is the LEO podcast tech episode, where we discuss all things tech.

For today’s tech episode. I have 4 juicy stories for you!

First up – Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders

Our second story – AI scans Hurricane Ian damage to give cash to poorest victims

Our third story – People will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year

For our fourth and final story – Students Are Using AI to Write Their Papers Because, Of Course, They Are

If you’re listening to this episode on the day that it’s released, then that means today is Monday, October 17th. And if you want early access to episodes and bonus content, then head over to our patreon.com/latinamericaneo and become part of our Palomitas community!

But if you’re not a patron yet, no worries! You can still enjoy this episode. It’s packed with great content.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Article 1: Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders

For our first story, Apple is taking a significant step toward providing its consumers with more banking options. Apple recently announced that it will work with Goldman Sachs to soon introduce a new savings account feature for users of its Apple Card credit cardholders. This feature will allow users to save and grow their “Daily Cash,” which is Apple’s cash-back rewards earned from their Apple Card purchases.

According to Apple, Cardholders will soon have the option to automatically store this money in a new, high-yield savings account from partner Goldman Sachs that is accessible through apple wallet. Additionally, customers will be able to deposit their cash into this account.

Apple also claims that there won’t be any fees, minimum contributions, or balance requirements for the account, making it somewhat competitive in a vast and growing space with other neobanks which for those who haven’t heard the term neobanks are completely digital, while traditional banks have physical branches coupled with online banking services.

It is important to note that Apple did not yet specify in its press release what the interest rate will be paid on these high-yield accounts.

According to information from bank rate, rival institutions are now providing Annual Percentage Yields in the range of 2.20% to 3.05% and some are even going as high as 3.1% according to Investopedia statistics. Apple stated that given the current context of especially volatile interest rates, it is not yet ready to release the APY.

If you’re wondering Apple Card users will be able to set up and manage their savings account straight in the current Apple Wallet mobile app. From that point forward, all the daily cash they earn through Apple Card purchases will be automatically deposited into this account, unless customers change this to instead have the cash added to their Apple Cash card in their wallet, as they do today. An option that can be switched at any time according to Apple.

An in-app Savings dashboard will display the account balance and interest accrued over time. Currently, Apple Pay’s 3% cash back on Apple Card purchases that are made by using Apple Pay at select merchants. Apple Card purchases will receive 2% cash back when Apple Pay is used and 1% back when the titanium card is used or when a virtual card number is used to shop online.

However, Cardholders won’t have to rely on their Apple Card purchases to fund their new Savings accounts because Apple also says that customers will be able to deposit additional funds through a linked bank account or their Apple Cash balance. With the option to also withdraw the cash at any time, by transferring it back to that same linked account or any linked bank account or even their Apple Cash card, without having to pay fees.

As for its release, Apple didn’t offer an exact launch date for its high-yield Savings account, saying only it would arrive in the “coming months.” The company said the Savings account feature will ship with an upcoming iOS release.

Article 2: AI scans Hurricane Ian damage to give cash to poorest victims

For our second story…a relief agency is using artificial intelligence to identify low-income victims of Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Fiona to provide them with emergency cash payments.

The nonprofit GiveDirectly teamed up with Google to identify those most in need of financial support, using AI to cross reference aerial images of storm damage with poverty data in Florida and Puerto Rico.

The idea behind this is to go beyond the traditional disaster response from aid charities and government organizations, which typically focus on donations like clothing or food.

According to their fundraising page, they currently have enough funding from their partners to deliver cash to several thousand families in the hardest-hit regions of Puerto Rico and Florida.

A one-time payment of $700 is sent to families, which is aimed at covering the cost of common post-disaster recovery items, like food, toiletries, and first supplies. So if you, a family member, or someone you know has been impacted by the hurricanes then this is definitely something worthwhile looking into.

GiveDirectly, which was founded by MIT graduates in 2009, has already delivered over $500 million in cash to more than 1 million impoverished people around the world.

Right now there are a lot of resources and aid for people impacted by the hurricanes so please make use of those resources made available by organizations or governments. Especially my people of color who are always the most affected by these types of disasters.

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Article 3: People will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year

For our third story… it is estimated that people will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year.

I’ve previously talked about the amount of E-waste that we produce and how this impacts children and women in other countries in episode #53, so if you’re interested go check that out.

By now we’re all used to seeing a new model of a smartphone coming out every year *cough* *cough* blame apple and their over-the-top events and I gotta be honest if you’re someone who loves tech these events are always exciting and something to look forward to. They always unveil their new phone models and typically how they have a better camera, faster processing, more storage, better screen, etc… but even for a tech lover like myself I can’t help but think about all this constant smartphone turnover and how bad it is on the environment, especially when it comes to disposing of older phones.

There’s even a study from 2018 predicting that smartphones and data processing centers will be the most environmentally damaging parts of the communications sector by 2040.

And yes while there are options for recycling smartphones, phones, and other waste electrical and electronic equipment aren’t recycled for a variety of reasons.

This year alone an estimated 5.3 billion mobile phones will be thrown out according to the WEE Forum and UN’s Global E-Waste monitor. To give you some context, that many unused phones would rise about 31 thousand miles into the air when stacked on top of one another. This is horrible for the environment because when items like laptops and cell phones are thrown into landfills, they leak toxic chemicals.

Now you’re probably asking yourself, why are there so many electronics that fail to be repaired or recycled? Well, the WEE Forum and the United Nations Institute set out to answer this question themselves. What they found was that the average household contains 74 e-products like phones, tablets, laptops, electric tools, hair dryers, toasters, and other appliances. Of that 74 average total e-products, 13 are being hoarded, meaning nine go unused but work, and four are broken.

We’re all guilty of hoarding electronics, so let’s check out the most commonly hoarded items and let me know what you’re guilty of hoarding in your home.

So the most commonly hoarded electronics are small consumer electronics and accessories like headphones and remote controls, household equipment like clocks, information technology equipment, mobile and smartphones, and equipment for food preparation.

I know I definitely have a few headphones and old cell phones, even laptops just sitting in my drawers that I don’t use anymore.

Some of the reasons people gave for holding on to these electronics ranged from 46 percent saying they might need it in the future, 13 percent saying it’s because of sentimental value, and 1 percent not seeing any incentive to recycle. So what’s your reasoning? I know I definitely fit in the 46 percent of thinking I might need it in the future.

Some solutions to this problem of e-waste could be setting universal recycling standards and legal standards but even this is tough because governments would need to ensure that they enforce these laws and standards by fining those who violate them and not just a small fine it has to be significant enough to affect their pockets for companies to actually take them seriously.

Also, I feel like the incentive for companies and governments to recycle these products is already there because they can recover valuable materials like gold, copper, silver, and palladium.

If you have any old tech or smartphone that you need to get rid of, the best way to do this is by giving it directly to the phone’s manufacturer, a retail store, or even donating it to a charity to be refurbished. You can even upcycle an old cell phone, by turning it into an alarm clock, security camera, or an e-reader.

I don’t know about you guys but all this new technology and E-Waste also gets me thinking on a deeper level as our planet becomes more and more technologically advanced. Are we perhaps creating our own downfall because of all the environmental damage that is being done as a result? Or will the very own technology that we invent also find a solution for this? I don’t know… maybe that is a question for another episode.

Article 4: Students Are Using AI to Write Their Papers Because, Of Course, They Are

For our fourth and final story!.. Students are using AI to write their papers, because…hey, why not right?

Tech-savvy students are reportedly getting straight As by using advanced language generators. I’m mainly talking about OpenAI’s wildly advanced GPT-3 to write papers for them! And apparently, these AI-written responses can’t be detected by plagiarism software.

A college student who goes by the name of innovate_rye on Reddit explains how “it would be simple assignments that included extended responses” for biology when they would be learning about biotech and need to write five good and bad things about biotech. He would send the prompt to the AI by simply imputing “what are five good things and bad things about biotech?” And it would generate an answer that would get him an A.

Honestly, I’m not surprised that this is happening, and can’t really blame students for using the resources around them. Think about how advanced technology is becoming and of course, the new generation of kids are the ones to pick up on it the fastest while most adults simply get left behind and don’t know how to keep up with it unless their career depends on it.

If plagiarism software were capable of flagging AI-made prompts, this probably wouldn’t be an issue. But while there’s definitely a philosophical debate to be had about whether any AI-generated writing should ever be considered original, it’s technically seen as such by plagiarism-checking softwares — and it’s unclear if or when those systems will ever be able to catch up.

The text is not copied from somewhere else, it’s produced by a machine, so plagiarism-checking software is not going to be able to detect it and it’s not able to pick it up because the text wasn’t copied from anywhere else.

Of course, these kids are cheating because they’re not doing their own work so sure teachers are probably right to be concerned about what this means for learning moving forward. But you can also make the debate that AI is just helping students focus on what they think is important to them, freeing up their busy schedules for things that they would rather dedicate their full attention towards.

Let me know what you think about this and if you think students are in the wrong for this, or hey maybe you’ve even used it yourself? Or even more interesting I think would be to get a teacher’s point of view on this. So if you’re a teacher I’d love to bring you on the podcast or maybe just send me a voice memo or DM on your thoughts about how technology is changing student learning in the education system.

THE END

That’s all for today on the LEO podcast. I’m Kevin Muñoz and as always feel free to send me a message with your thoughts or with any interesting topic that you’d like to see covered.

and for those of you on Patreon, I’ll see you in the bonus episode.

Otherwise, I’ll see you all in next week’s episode!

Sources:

Article 1:

Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders

Article 2:

AI scans Hurricane Ian damage to give cash to poorest victims

Article 3:

People will throw away about 5.3 billion phones this year

Article 4:

Students Are Using AI to Write Their Papers Because Of Course, They Are

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