If you ever had pastries at breakfast, drank soy milk, used soaps at home, or built yourself a nice flat-pack piece of furniture, you may have contributed to deforestation and climate change.
Every item has a price—but the cost isn’t felt only in our pockets. Hidden in that price is a complex chain of production, encompassing economic, social, and environmental relations that sustain livelihoods and, unfortunately, contribute to habitat destruction, deforestation, and the warming of our planet.
Approximately 4 billion hectares of forest around the world act as a carbon sink which, over the past two decades, has annually absorbed a net 7.6 billion metric tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of 1.5 times the annual emissions of the US.
Conversely, a cleared forest becomes a carbon source. Many factors lead to forest clearing, but the root cause is economic. Farmers cut down the forest to expand their farms, support cattle grazing, harvest timber, mine minerals, and build infrastructure such as roads. Until that economic pressure goes away, the clearing may continue.
In 2024, however, we are going to see a big boost to global efforts to fight deforestation. New EU legislation will make it illegal to sell or export a range of commodities if they have been produced on deforested land. Sellers will need to identify exactly where their product originates, down to the geolocation of the plot. Penalties are harsh, including bans and fines of up to 4 percent of the offender’s annual EU-wide turnover. As such, industry pushback has been strong, claiming that the costs are too high or the requirements are too onerous. Like many global frameworks, this initiative is being led by the EU, with other countries sure to follow, as the so-called Brussels Effect pressures ever more jurisdictions to adopt its methods.
The impact of these measures will only be as strong as the enforcement and, in 2024, we will see new ways of doing that digitally. At Farmerline (which I cofounded), for instance, we have been working on supply chain traceability for over a decade. We incentivize rule-following by making it beneficial.
When we digitize farmers and allow them and other stakeholders to track their products from soil to shelf, they also gain access to a suite of other products: the latest, most sustainable farming practices in their own language, access to flexible financing to fund climate-smart products such as drought-resistant seeds, solar irrigation systems and organic fertilizers, and the ability to earn more through international commodity markets.
Digitization helps build resilience and lasting wealth for the smallholders and helps save the environment. Another example is the World Economic Forum’s OneMap—an open-source privacy-preserving digital tool which helps governments use geospatial and farmer data to improve planning and decision making in agriculture and land. In India, the Data Empowerment Protection Architecture also provides a secure consent-based data-sharing framework to accelerate global financial inclusion.
In 2024 we will also see more food companies and food certification bodies leverage digital payment tools, like mobile money, to ensure farmers’ pay is not only direct and transparent, but also better if they comply with deforestation regulations.
The fight against deforestation will also be made easier by developments in hardware technology. New, lightweight drones from startups such as AirSeed can plant seeds, while further up, mini-satellites, such as those from Planet Labs, are taking millions of images per week, allowing governments and NGOs to track areas being deforested in near-real time. In Rwanda, researchers are using AI and the aerial footage captured by Planet Labs to calculate, monitor, and estimate the carbon stock of the entire country.
With these advances in software and hard-tech, in 2024, the global fight against deforestation will finally start to grow new shoots.
Inside or Outside Mount: For the cleanest look, you should install your shades or blinds in the window frame. Measure the depth and account for window handles or anything else that might collide with the shade. Think about where you can drill holes to fit the mounting brackets and whether your chosen spot can handle the weight of a shade. An outside mount doesn’t look as good, but it is easier to install and can cover the window completely to block more light. Inside-mounted shades always have small gaps that light can get through. If you are after a pitch-dark bedroom, combining inside mount shades with curtains is the best way to go.
Material and Finish: You can get shades and blinds in so many different styles. Take your time choosing the material and color you want and think about the opacity. If you just want a privacy shade for a street-facing living room, then choose something that lets a lot of light through. If you’re trying to conserve or block heat or reduce noise, a thicker shade can help. For the neatest look, it’s worth thinking about a valance that will cover the top of the shade (most manufacturers offer these as an added extra).
Power: Smart shades and retrofit smart blinds and curtains all require power. Most come with a rechargeable battery and they can generally be charged in situ with a long enough cable (if you don’t have an outlet close, use a power bank). Some shades take standard batteries you can swap in and out, though we recommend rechargeable batteries for these. Small solar panels are another common option that will keep your shades topped up, but you might not like how they look from the outside. In any case, always fully charge the battery before installation.
Connectivity: Most shades come with a remote control. But to put the smart in smart shades you need a hub that your shades can connect to. This will allow you to control the shades from your phone or using voice commands. Think about your current smart home setup and preferred voice assistant when you are shopping for shades to ensure compatibility. You can sometimes connect to shades via Bluetooth, but it is flaky, low range, and slow compared to Wi-Fi or Zigbee.
Automation: The number one reason to get smart shades is automation, so make sure you research what is possible when shopping. While any smart shade can be automated to open and close at set times, some can adjust to close at sunset and open at sunrise. You can also have motion sensors to trigger some shades to open when you walk into the room in the morning, or have your shades close automatically when a certain temperature is reached in the room. You may need some extra gadgets for more complex automation.
It’s been nearly two years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as the grim milestone looms and winter drags on, the two nations are locked in a grueling standoff. In order to “break military parity” with Russia, Ukraine’s top general says that Kyiv needs an inspired military innovation that equals the magnitude of inventing gunpowder to decide the conflict in the process of advancing modern warfare.
If you made some New Year’s resolutions related to digital security (it’s not too late!), check out our rundown of the most significant software updates to install right now, including fixes from Google for nearly 100 Android bugs. It’s close to impossible to be completely anonymous online, but there are steps you can take to dramatically enhance your digital privacy. And if you’ve been considering turning on Apple’s extra-secure Lockdown Mode, it’s not as hard to enable or as onerous to use as you might think.
If you’re just not quite ready to say goodbye to 2023, take a look back at WIRED’s highlights (or lowlights) of the most dangerous people on the internet last year and the worst hacks that upended digital security.
But wait, there’s more! Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t break or cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories, and stay safe out there.
23andMe said at the beginning of October that attackers had infiltrated some of its users’ accounts and abused this access to scrape personal data from a larger subset of users through the company’s opt-in social sharing service known as DNA Relatives. By December, the company disclosed that the number of compromised accounts was roughly 14,000 and admitted that personal data from 6.9 million DNA Relatives users had been impacted. Now, facing more than 30 lawsuits over the breach—even after tweaking its terms of service to make legal claims against the company more difficult—the company said in a letter to some individuals that “users negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords following … past security incidents, which are unrelated to 23andMe.” This references 23andMe’s long-standing assessment that attackers compromised the 14,000 user accounts through “credential stuffing,” the process of accessing accounts using usernames and passwords compromised in other data breaches from other services that people have reused on multiple digital accounts. “Therefore, the incident was not a result of 23andMe’s alleged failure to maintain reasonable security measures,” the company wrote in the letter.
“Rather than acknowledge its role in this data security disaster, 23andMe has apparently decided to leave its customers out to dry while downplaying the seriousness of these events,” Hassan Zavareei, one of the lawyers representing victims who received the letter, told TechCrunch. “23andMe knew or should have known that many consumers use recycled passwords and thus that 23andMe should have implemented some of the many safeguards available to protect against credential stuffing—especially considering that 23andMe stores personal identifying information, health information, and genetic information on its platform.”
Russia’s war—and cyberwar—in Ukraine has for years produced novel hybrids of hacking and physical attacks. Here’s another: Ukrainian officials this week said that they had blocked multiple Ukrainian civilians’ security cameras that had been hacked by the Russian military and used to target recent missile strikes on the capital of Kyiv. Ukraine’s SBU security service says the Russian hackers went so far as to redirect the cameras and stream their footage to YouTube. According to the SBU, that footage then likely aided Russia’s targeting in its bombardment on Tuesday of Kyiv, as well as the Eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, with more than a hundred drones and missiles that killed five Ukrainians and injured well over a hundred. In total, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the SBU says it’s blocked about 10,000 security cameras to prevent them from being hijacked by Russian forces.
Last month, a Russian cyberattack hit the telecom firm Kyivstar, crippling phone service for millions of people across Ukraine and silencing air raid warnings amid missile strikes in one of the most impactful hacking incidents since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. Now, Illia Vitiuk, the cyber chief of Ukraine’s SBU security service, tells Reuters that the hackers accessed Kyivstar’s network as early as March 2023 and laid in wait before they “completely destroyed the core” of the company in December, wiping thousands of its machines. Vitiuk added that the SBU believes the attack was carried out by Russia’s notorious Sandworm hacking group, responsible for most of the high-impact cyberattacks against Ukraine over the last decade, including the NotPetya worm that spread from Ukraine to the rest of the world to cause $10 billion in total damage. In fact, Vitiuk claims that Sandworm attempted to penetrate a Ukrainian telecom a year earlier but the attack was detected and foiled.
This week in creepy headlines: 404 Media’s Joseph Cox discovered that a Google contractor, Telus, has offered parents $50 to upload videos of their children’s faces, apparently for use as machine learning training data. According to a description of the project Telus posted online, the data collected from the videos would include eyelid shape and skin tone. In a statement to 404, Google said that the videos would be used in the company’s experiments in using video clips as age verification and that the videos would not be collected or stored by Telus but rather by Google—which doesn’t quite reduce the creep factor. “As part of our commitment to delivering age-appropriate experiences and to comply with laws and regulations around the world, we’re exploring ways to help our users verify their age,” Google told 404 in a statement. The experiment represents a slightly unnerving example of how companies like Google may not simply harvest data online to hone AI but may, in some cases, even directly pay users—or their parents—for it.
A decade ago, Wickr was on the short list of trusted software for secure communications. The app’s end-to-end encryption, simple interface, and self-destructive messages made it a go-to for hackers, journalists, drug dealers—and, unfortunately, traders in child sexual abuse materials—seeking surveillance-resistant conversations. But after Amazon acquired Wickr in 2021, it announced in early 2023 that it would be shutting down the service at the end of the year, and it appears to have held to that deadline. Luckily for privacy advocates, end-to-end encryption options have grown over the past decade, from iMessage and WhatsApp to Signal.
It’s ironic, but we here at WIRED have long been fans of wireless charging. Not having to fumble with cables is nice! Most wireless charging devices these days follow the Qi (pronounced chee) standard, which has taken its time reaching ubiquity (the user experience has not always been great). The Wireless Power Consortium, which manages the charging protocol, announced the next-generation version called Qi2 in early 2023, and we’re finally starting to see devices supporting it. It promises perfect alignment, with the potential for accessories to bridge the Android and iPhone divide.
What Is Qi2?
Qi2 is the new open wireless charging standard from the Wireless Power Consortium, and it brings important upgrades over the original Qi standard. The headline is the Magnetic Power Profile (MPP), which is based on Apple’s MagSafe technology. (Apple was involved in developing the Qi2 standard.) This allows Qi2-branded devices to add a ring of magnets to ensure perfect alignment with chargers and allow for faster charging speeds.
The existing, non-magnetic wireless charging Extended Power Profile (EPP) has also been updated to comply with Qi2. This means that devices without magnets will be branded Qi and will still work with Qi2 chargers. Qi2 is also fully backward compatible, so you can charge an older Qi Android phone or MagSafe iPhone on a Qi2 charger. You can also use any Qi chargers to charge Qi2 devices, though they will charge at slower speeds.
Benefits of Qi2
Wireless charging with Qi2 brings several improvements over the original Qi standard.
Greater efficiency: Wireless charging relies on electromagnetic coils. One or more induction coils in the charging base create a magnetic field and transmit energy. A smaller coil in your phone or other device harvests it. The coils must be aligned for energy to flow between them and the magnets in the new Magnetic Power Profile ensure perfect alignment so less power is lost. When coils are misaligned, energy is often lost as heat, which is also not good for battery health.
Faster charging: The Qi standard was originally limited to 5-watt charging speeds, but Qi2 allows certified phones to charge at 15 watts (just like MagSafe). We expect this charging rate to increase as the Wireless Power Consortium works to improve the Qi2 standard, but probably not until 2025. Some manufacturers already offer speedier wireless charging, such as OnePlus and Xiaomi, but you have to use a specific wireless charger to see those gains.
Wider compatibility for accessories: Any Qi2 charger can charge any Qi2 device, so you can buy a single charger capable of juicing up an iPhone or Android phone. For Qi-supporting phones that lack magnets, you will likely soon be able to buy a case with a magnetic ring that works with Qi2 (as you can currently with MagSafe).
Other improvements Qi2 brings over Qi include wider device compatibility (from tablets to wearables), adaptive charging so chargers can talk to devices to supply the power they need instead of having a fixed power output, and enhanced safety with better heat management and foreign object detection.
Expect a Wave of Qi2 Devices
Before a device can bear the Qi2 logo, the Wireless Power Consortium must certify it in its independent labs. The Qi2 specification includes charging rate, magnet strength, and device compatibility. The Qi2 logo promises that the device meets the WPC’s exacting standards. It is likely that, as with the original Qi standard, there will soon be devices available that have not passed through the official Qi2 certification process.
Apple’s iPhone 15 range supports Qi2, and accessory makers like Anker, Belkin, Nomad, and Mophie have all announced Qi2 chargers. You can expect a much wider range of Qi2 accessories to land soon, and we expect most Android manufacturers to jump on board in 2024. The WPC hopes that Qi2 will unify wireless charging and finally provide the universal global standard we have been waiting for.
“Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” Ukrainian general Valerii Zaluzhnyi admitted late last year. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
That blunt assessment from the Ukrainian commander in chief, made in a November interview with The Economist, prompted waves of enormous pessimism. Headlines around the world seized on the idea that the war had essentially ended. Ukraine had fought valiantly—and lost.
Politicians in the West, particularly Republicans in the United States Congress, declared that it was time to stop supplying Kyiv and push for major concessions to Moscow.
The general’s actual point, however, wasn’t quite so fatalistic. In an accompanying nine-page essay, published in the British magazine, Zaluzhnyi doesn’t use the word “stalemate.” Instead, he called the war “positional,” with both sides trading just tiny slivers of land. Critically, however, he said Ukraine can still win. But it will mean, he wrote, “searching for new and non-trivial approaches to break military parity with the enemy.”
Technological innovation, more modern equipment, and changes in strategy could still turn the tide of this war, Zaluzhnyi argued. He laid out five areas where progress could mean overcoming their Russian opponent: achieving air superiority, improving mine clearing, expanding counterbattery, recruiting more soldiers, and advancing electronic warfare.
To achieve those goals, he wrote, Ukraine needs a once-in-a-century technological breakthrough.
“The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing,” Zaluzhnyi writes. “In order for us to break this deadlock we need something new, like the gunpowder, which the Chinese invented and which we are still using to kill each other.”
In recent months, WIRED has spoken to a host of NATO leaders and military analysts, as well as Ukrainian officials, regarding the future of the war. The consensus is clear: There is no silver bullet Ukraine can develop that will win this war. But there is agreement that Ukraine can and must innovate if it hopes to overcome its better-resourced and dug-in enemy.
“The thing that will break the logjam will be the right combination of new ideas, new organizations, and new technologies,” Mick Ryan, a 35-year veteran of the Australian Army who writes extensively on the future of war, tells WIRED. “It’s really about how you combine that trinity of ideas, technology, and organizations into something new.”
Another new year, another bombardment of fitness and health resolutions (plus expensive monthly gym subscriptions). Don’t let your commitment to a year of renewed health fizzle like day-old champagne. A fitness tracker or smartwatch certainly can be a helpful tool in monitoring your health, whether it’s for tracking steps, your workouts, or even heart rate zones. Who knows, with your newfound insight, you may keep that resolution yet.
If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more.
Fitness Tracker and Smartwatch Deals
Be sure to read our Best Fitness Trackers, Best Fitbits, Best Garmin Watches, and Best Smartwatches guides for more recommendations.
Fitbit Inspire 3
Photograph: Amazon
This entry-level device packs quite a wallop in value, offering much of Fitbit’s best features at an affordable price. With a stellar battery life of up to 10 days, the Inspire 3 bests any other Fitbit. New for the 3rd iteration is an AMOLED touchscreen that’s noticeably easier to see. An accurate SpO2 sensor tracks your blood oxygen levels, but only during sleep, and you can also view your breathing rate, skin temperature, and “stress management” scores.
Apple Watch Series 9
Photograph: Apple
You might have seen that Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 sales were suspended late in December 2023 due to a pending patent dispute. Well, these smartwatches are back on the market now, and the Series 9 is on sale. It dipped as low as $329 during Black Friday and the holidays, but this is likely as good a sale as you’ll come across until the next big sale event. The Series 9 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is the standard top-of-the-line model that has all the fitness and health-tracking features you’d want, plus the handy-dandy new Double Tap trick.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and Watch6 Classic
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
We reviewed the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (7/10, WIRED Recommends), which has a mechanical rotating bezel you can use to interact with the operating system, but this isn’t present on the standard Watch 6. Still, this Wear OS 4 smartwatch matches the Apple Watch in its health and fitness features, plus it’s round! It only works with Android phones, though the electrocardiogram and irregular heart rate notifications only work when the watch is paired with a Samsung phone.
Fitbit Versa 4
Photograph: Fitbit
WIRED contributor Michael Sawh calls this the best Fitbit smartwatch, thanks largely to its native Google apps and built-in GPS and motion sensors to track outdoor runs, bike rides, and swims. The AMOLED touchscreen is bright and easy to use, measuring a satisfying 1.5 inches. You can even get up to six days of use out of it before it needs a recharge.
Fitbit Sense 2
Photograph: Fitbit
Aside from a brief period during this past year’s Black Friday sale, this is the cheapest we’ve seen this watch. For serious health tracking, this is the Fitbit for you. The electrical cEDA sensor that it uses to measure galvanic skin response—a marker of stress—needs some work, but its electrocardiogram, SpO2, and skin temperature sensors deliver excellent sleep tracking results. The built-in GPS and PurePulse heart-rate sensors make tracking sports a breeze as well. Just remember, you’ll need Fitbit Premium ($10 per month) to get the most out of this device.
Casio G-Shock Move
Photograph: Casio
The GPS connection lags behind other fitness trackers, and the Casio app is slow and clunky to use, but the physical buttons are a plus, the display is easy to read, and you can get up to 10 days of use before the battery runs out. The only color on a big sale right now is fluorescent yellow. This is a watch that already screams “Look at me!” Fluorescent yellow fits right in with that aesthetic.
Garmin Epix Pro
Photograph: Garmin
The Epix Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) has become one of WIRED reviews editor Adrienne So’s favorite sports watches. Not only is the AMOLED screen’s clean interface bright and easy to read in challenging lighting, but the flashlight and redshift mode make training at night a cinch too. As you’d expect from a Garmin, satellite support is phenomenal, although you need a phone paired to use all the features, and there’s no solar charging.
Garmin Instinct 2 Solar
Photograph: Garmin
Call this one svelte, but don’t call it stripped down. The Instinct 2 Solar (9/10, WIRED Recommends) offers full access to the suite of Garmin satellite systems, navigational features, and a smorgasbord of sport-specific tracking metrics. Without an obnoxiously large screen sucking up power, we were able to get an incredible 21 days of use out of it during testing. Plus you can top it up with sunlight.
Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 5
Photograph: Mobvoi
If you want a full-featured smartwatch companion for your Android smartphone but don’t want to charge it every day or two, then consider the Ticwatch Pro 5. We achieved three days of battery life thanks to the clever dual-display technology that allows it to sip power. It has a snappy interface, but unfortunately, the company still hasn’t brought Wear OS 4 to the watch just yet, meaning there’s no Google Assistant or a few other nifty features in the latest version.
Photograph: Amazon
The TicWatch GTH Pro didn’t win any ringing recommendations for us during testing, due partly to the screen fizzling out at times, but we gave it an honorable mention because it offers a clean aesthetic and simple user interface, along with a few features that make it a solid budget pick. The dual light sensors, nicknamed Arty, measure heart health but aren’t approved by the FDA yet. On this big of a sale, it’s almost a no-brainer for someone wanting basic features without dropping a wad of cash.
