Technologies

Gender inequality online is ‘expensive for all of us,’ says web inventor’s foundation

Tim Berners-Lee’s Web Foundation hopes governments will be spurred to act upon seeing the economic cost of the digital gender divide.

This story is part of Crossing the Broadband Divide, CNET’s coverage of how the country is working toward making broadband access universal.

When women and girls don’t have access to the internet, it costs governments a lot of money. How much money, exactly, has only been estimated, until now.

New research released Monday by Tim Berners-Lee‘s Web Foundation and its subsidiary, Alliance for Affordable Internet, has calculated that over the past 10 years, 32 low- and middle-income countries have lost $1 trillion by not helping more women get online. Some of those countries include India, Nigeria and the Philippines.

The digital divide is a global problem, but there are still distinct groups that are less likely to have access to the internet. These groups can be defined by their geography, their gender, their race, or all three. Women in low- and middle-income countries are even less likely to have internet access than their male counterparts.

«This report reveals just how expensive gender inequality is for all of us,» Boutheina Guermazi, director of digital development for the World Bank, said in a statement. «For governments looking to build a resilient economy as part of their COVID-19 recovery plans, closing the digital gender gap should be one of the top priorities.»

In the 32 countries the Web Foundation looked at in its report, just over a third of women had access to the internet, compared with almost half of all men. And this divide doesn’t seem to be closing over time, even as digital connectivity plays an increasingly central role in our lives. The coronavirus pandemic has shown how vital it is to have access to internet at home, for everything from remote school to health care. Over the past decade, the gap between the number of women and men online has dropped by only half a percentage point, the Web Foundation’s research says.

The lack of internet access for women means many are excluded from education and employment opportunities, which often keeps them in poverty or other dangerous situations, without access to health care or other assistance. That alone should be enough for governments to want to try to close that gender divide, but that hasn’t always been the case.

Inclusive broadband policies for economic gains

With its new report, the Web Foundation is laying out the cost of the digital gender divide in stark economic terms, in the hope it’ll be the push that governments need to take the problem seriously. According to the report’s calculations, closing the digital gender gap in the next five years could help generate an enticing $524 billion for the economies of the countries studied.

«It is not just good social policy, but it’s also good economics … to include women and girls in the online world,» Teddy Woodhouse, the Web Foundation’s senior research manager for access and affordability, said in an interview. For him, the big test of the report will be whether the information awakens new allies and helps move the needle in closing the digital gender gap. «It’s really trying to be quite practical and thinking about how can we build a case for change,» he said.

Focusing on the broad financial implications is also a way to ensure that the digital gender divide isn’t dismissed by those in power, as gender equality debates so often are, added Ana María Rodríguez Pulgarín, one of the report’s co-authors.

«Sometimes our gender discussions are with politicians that are already working on gender equality, closing the digital gender divide and all that,» she said. «But I think we want to bring the message that this will affect everyone.»

One of the main problems identified in the research as holding women back from getting on the internet is a lack of gender-responsive broadband policy — explicit targets for ensuring women have internet access.

Governments interested in narrowing the digital gender divide have a number of areas to choose from where they implement policy, including rights, education, access and content. Woodhouse pointed to Costa Rica as an example of a country that has implemented such measures by specifically setting targets for getting more women into STEM.

Every year Costa Rica publishes a report on how it’s meeting the targets. «That’s only possible if you’re setting those indicators in the first place,» said Woodhouse. It’s an example of how creating systems of accountability can be best practice.

Internet access beyond the binary

The Web Foundation’s research on gender has focused on traditional male-female lines and doesn’t incorporate the experiences of trans or nonbinary citizens. The «crucial problem» with expanding the research, Woodhouse said, is data availability. Even getting data that’s been broken down enough to show the discrepancy between the experience of cisgender men and women (people whose personal identity and gender correspond with their birth sex) has been challenging, he added.

«To then get data that is disaggregated even more comprehensively, is essentially nonexistent in most contexts, and particularly in the economic context we’re looking at of low- and middle-income countries,» he said. In some countries, being transgender is illegal and punishable by jail time or other serious measures, making the tracking of different genders impossible.

The lack of data is something Woodhouse hopes will change. But, he added, the overall goal of the research remains the same.

The aim is that we will «see less of the idea that gender should predetermine what rights someone should have, what kind of experiences they should have, what kind of access to the internet,» Woodhouse said. «That’s going to be a net benefit for everyone.»

Technologies

Amazon Reaches Automation Milestone by Deploying Its Millionth Robot

The company is also upgrading its entire fleet with a new generative AI model.

Amazon’s fleet of warehouse robots just hit a new milestone. The company announced Monday that it deployed its millionth bot to begin operations at a fulfillment center in Japan.

Amazon’s ambitions for robot use have long surpassed the company utilizing them for delivery service. The business juggernaut is the world’s leading manufacturer of mobile robotics, and aims to sell them to you for use at home as well — if you have $1,600 to spare.

The robotic workers operate in over 300 Amazon warehouses across the world, creating an ever-expanding automated delivery network. More than 75% of Amazon’s global deliveries are assisted in some way by robot automation, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Amazon has also developed a new generative AI model called DeepFleet to make the robots in the delivery system «smarter and more efficient.» According to Amazon, this new model will coordinate robots across the fulfillment network to improve package travel times by 10%.

The company’s robots currently lift thousands of pounds of packages at a time, integrate conveyor belts to move along individual items and move autonomously around the warehouse with heavy carts.

The most recent fleet upgrade, Vulcan, uses force feedback sensors to create a sense of touch, physically lifting and moving items all by itself.

Amazon’s robots work in tandem with more than 1.6 million human workers worldwide. The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is on track to have more automated workers than employed humans, while Amazon workers have begun to unionize in recent years.

A representative for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

Starlink’s Wi-Fi Is Faster in the Air Than on the Ground

Technologies

Marvel Rivals Season 3 Banks on Blade, Phoenix and Shorter Seasons Restoring Excitement to the Hero Shooter

The game is in desperate need of new shake-ups, and two fan-favorite heroes alongside some quality-of-life changes might just do the trick.

Marvel Rivals is gearing up for the start of season 3 next week, and we got our first look at some of the upcoming changes, including glimpses at the two new fan-favorite Marvel heroes, Phoenix (Jean Grey) and Blade. The season trailer also heavily teased that the villain Knull might be making his way to the game in future seasons.

Season 3 is a major turning point for the hero shooter, marking the start of its new two-month seasons and the start of the era where we’ll be getting new heroes every month (one at the start of the season and one at midseason). Previously, seasons were about three months long, with new heroes coming out roughly every six weeks. The new cadence is an aggressive pace for expanding the game’s roster, and threatens to keep the metagame churning even faster, assuming those new heroes are relevant at launch.

It’s once again a high-stakes season for Rivals, which has been bleeding active players since launch. Based on SteamDB data, the start of each new half-season brings in fewer players than the previous (for example, fewer players joined for season 2.5 than for 2.0).

More concerning, is that even the the start of each half-season doesn’t bring in enough players to reach the lowest amount of players from a full season. Season 2.0’s peak count of 315,000 players sits below season 1.0’s low point of 331,000 players, and season 2.5’s peak of 190,000 is just below the season 1.5 valley of 196,000. That means the start of new seasons — the most exciting moments for the game — are losing their ability to bring in new players or bring old players back. Steam numbers don’t include console players, but it’s difficult to imagine the story there looking much different.

Rivals is probably hoping that the official launch of two long-awaited heroes and a faster seasonal rotation will reverse that trend. Here’s everything we know about Marvel Rivals season 3.0 so far.

When does season 3 start?

Marvel Rivals season 3.0 is scheduled to start on Friday, July 11 UTC. Typically, this involves servers going down for a few hours around midnight PT before being turned back on for the new season in the very early morning.

New Marvel Rivals heroes

It’s finally happening — after half a year of being rumored additions to the roster, Jean Grey and Blade are officially joining the party. Jean Grey, wielding the powerful Phoenix Force, joins at season start. While we’ll have to wait another day for a hero trailer to see her kit and abilities, the devs teased Phoenix’s AOE damage through a chain-reaction mechanic and her mobility. They also said that Phoenix’s ultimate deals massive damage and gets rid of enemy summons on the battlefield — great news if you’re facing down any combination of Namor’s turrets, Moon Knight’s ankhs, Peni’s nests and Rocket’s beacon (the latter of which have a team-up together).

Rivals continues to make Blade fans wait, since that hero won’t be added to the roster until season 3.5. But at least that’s only a month away under the new season structure.

Rivals season 3 balance changes

Rivals devs gave us a quick breakdown of the upcoming balance changes, though we’re still waiting on full details from official patch notes. Here’s the quick breakdown, with any confirmed details in parentheses.

Buffs:

Venom
Thing (gains a new ability to jump to enemies, possibly knocking down fliers)
Namor (primary fire)
Scarlet Witch (ultimate)
Invisible Woman (healing efficiency)
Mantis (healing and ultimate utility)

Nerfs:

Emma Frost
Iron Man (poke potential)
Punisher (turret)
Mister Fantastic (survivability)
Loki (ultimate charge)
Ultron

Team-up changes

Rivals is adding two new team-ups, tacking heroes onto two existing ones and removing two others (Storming Ignition and ESU Alumnus) from the game. It’s also nerfing another. Here’s the quick rundown:

New — Primal Flame: Phoenix anchors to add damage over time and lifesteal to Wolverine’s attacks after his leap.
New — Ever-Burning Bond: Human Torch anchors to let Spider-Man shoot a burning web with a flaming tracer. (The flaming tracer stacks with Spidey’s regular tracers, devs said.)
Updated — Symbiote Shenanigans: Adds Hela, giving her Soul Drainer Hel Sphere slowing tendrils.
Updated — Stark Protocol: Adds Squirrel Girl, giving her an explosive, homing gauntlet.
Updated — Guardian Revival: Devs said they’d be nerfing some element of the Guardians’ team-up.

Other things coming in season 3

The battle pass is getting some adjustments to account for shorter seasons. Battle passes still offer 10 skins, but you’ll earn tokens at a faster rate to make it easier to progress through the entire battle pass in the shorter time period. Daily missions are also going away, with weekly missions shifting to permanent quests instead of being time-limited. Seasonal missions that offer large batches of tokens are also being added.

Rivals devs also announced a new competitive mode coming in season 3.5 but said we’d have to wait for any details about it.

The game is also adding accessories (which appear to be animated stickers that float above the KO notifications), new chroma options and visual effects for ultimate abilities. Perhaps the nicest quality of life change is the ability to mix & match MVP animations with any skins, instead of having certain MVP animations locked to specific skins.