Remote working, data breaches, job vacancies, 5G devices, and more: ZDNet's research roundup

Let's start with our special report on working from home, where TechRepublic Premium research found that a majority (61%) of businesses have gone out of their way to make remote work possible for most employees. The majority (96%) of respondents said their company either very successfully or successfully executed its remote work approach.

For more see: How businesses get remote working right

More data records have been compromised in 2020 alone than in the past 15 years combined, in what is described as a mounting "data breach crisis" in the latest study from analysis firm Canalys. Over the past 12 months, 31 billion data records have been compromised. This is up 171% from the previous year. 

For more see: Billions of records have been hacked already. Make cybersecurity a priority or risk disaster, warns analyst

New technologies will lead to tens of millions of job vacancies by 2030, according to the latest economic analysis from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). But that does little to erase the threat of unemployment spiking due to the automation of labour. BCG found that job losses in the next 10 years will effectively be matched by even greater job creation.

For more see: Technology will create millions of jobs. The problem will be to find workers to fill them

Most of the major smartphone manufacturers have now made the jump to 5G – and mobile analytics company OpenSignal has set out to discover to what extent the switch is actually making devices faster. Apple 5G smartphone users benefitted from the greatest jump, with overall download speeds in 5G areas at 44.5 Mbps.

For more see: Apple, Samsung or Google: Which 5G phones have the best download speeds?

Google has developed a new publicly available metric that provides an indication of exactly how clean the company's cloud regions are around the world. Called the carbon-free energy percentage (CFE%), the number reflects the average mix of carbon-free and fossil-fuel energy that is used to power Google's data centres in each region.  

For more see: How clean is cloud computing? New data reveals how green Google's data centres really are

The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) surveyed 12,000 individuals during six months; almost three-quarters felt that digital technology had the potential to be used in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Less than 42% of respondents said that digital technology was making the situation in the UK better. 

For more see: Apps, drone deliveries and AI: How technology stepped up its game to fight COVID-19

Back-to-work efforts are likely to require COVID-19 vaccine-tracking systems, management tools, digital health passports, and feature a bevy of privacy and compliance risks, according to analyst Forrester. Emerging return-to-work systems will have to integrate with whatever standard emerges for vaccine passports. In the meantime, employers are going to have to manage these 15 key risks.

SEE: Vaccine management software may have to handle digital passports and manage new risks

Adoption of artificial intelligence accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, but many business leaders are concerned that AI deployments are moving too fast, according to a KPMG survey. Half of the business leaders in industrial manufacturing (55%) and retail and tech (49% each) said AI is moving faster than it should.

SEE: AI implementations accelerated due to COVID-19 pandemic, says KMPG survey

Nearly all companies have a multicloud strategy but are wrestling to control costs, according to Flexera's 2021 State of Cloud Report. Flexera's report confirms that multicloud deployments are increasingly a two-cloud race between AWS and Microsoft Azure. But it's also worth noting Google Cloud's growth accelerating from 2021 as well as Oracle Cloud.

SEE: Multicloud deployments surge as Microsoft Azure duels with AWS

Okta's $6.5 billion purchase of Auth0 is based on the idea that there will be only a handful of clouds within companies in the years ahead. Identity will be one of those clouds joining functions like collaboration, CRM, infrastructure, HR and communication. Gartner's Magic Quadrant for access management highlights why Okta bulked up.

SEE: Okta and Auth0: A $6.5 billion bet that identity will warrant its own cloud

Finally, ZDNet spoke with Paula Goldman, chief ethical and humane use officer for Salesforce about how companies can develop technology, specifically AI, with ethical use and privacy in mind. The firm's research suggests that good AI ethics is good business.

For more see: AI ethics: How Salesforce is helping developers build products with ethical use and privacy in mind