Slashdot Mirror
Apple's $1 Billion Data Center Mystery
1sockchuck writes "One of year's most tantalizing technology secrets involves Apple's $1 billion investment in a new data center in North Carolina. Is it the Death Star in Apple's plan for galactic domination? Some Apple watchers predict it will be the hub for a 21st century broadcasting network. Other enthusiasts are doing flyovers to film videos of the 500,000 square foot facility. There's also an unofficial FAQ about the new data center. What is Apple up to with this huge facility?"
Is the Death Star really the technology to which you want to compare this data center? How well did that work out for the empire?
Personally, I think it's the computational center for Steve's worldwide reality distortion field. You need to really crunch the data to figure out how to bend people to your will.
Don't take it personally, but I'm not going to read your pithy response to my post.
Odd that the only device that automatically sent images to a locked down cloud was the Microsoft Kin. I think you are rocking some tinfoil there.
Calm and measured reactions to rumors?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
It will also mean that the future iPhones, iPads and Mac computers will be even more locked down than previously. For example if you take a picture, it's directly uploaded "to the cloud". This is a huge privacy violation and means you don't really own your data anymore.
What in the hell are you talking about?
They're trying to build a simulator for Steve Jobs ego before he kicks the bucket.
The center's purpose isn't clear, but it apparently sports many catwalks, large video displays, and exercise facilities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I know it's always tempting (and easy) to fire off a quick anti-Apple slam, but...Jesus Christ on a crutch...couldn't you take a minute to learn the source of the video? It took me 10 seconds to find out that it was made by a local real estate agent. Somebody who quite probably has a financial interest in learning more about a billion-dollar Apple data center being built in his town. Hardly an "Apple fanboi."
Same thing we do every night Pinky, try to take over the world!
...for employees who leak info...
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Microsoft is the only one giving you choice, but on slashdot they're supposedly always the bad guy.
You haven't been watch television lately have you. If you were, you'd see the Microsoft 'To the Cloud' commercials ad nauseam. They are right there with all the others wanting the same thing. To the 'Mainframe' with all of them.
MobileMe is "expensive" (by which we mean $99 a year) precisely because it has no ads and doesn't vend your personal information to third parties. You can't have it both ways-- you either go Google and get your cloud for free with ads and metrics, or you actually pay money for your service.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
this is obviously the Royal Tomb.
Apple employees: I have some distressing news about the company Retirement Plan...
Now that they've taken the Xserve out back and given it the 'ol' yeller treatment', what exactly is humming away in that fancy new datacenter of theirs?
Are they actually taking their own risible advice, and packing the place floor-to-ceiling with the "3 mac-pros-per-12U-shelf-what-is-this-'LOM Card'-you-speak-of?" server configuration?
Will this facility be the world's largest collection of hackentoshes? Is this going to be the most humiliating "Get The Facts" microsoft ever gets to do? Will somebody actualy be running Darwin for reasons other than perverse experimentation?
why they need to build such a huge building to hold a cloud. Surely they could have condensed it?
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
Its not a data center at all, its a fabrication plant where they turn kittens and puppies into iPhones and iPads.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Where is this $1 billion price tag coming from? I've seen facotries go up twice that size for under $20 million, so unless the thing is filled with solid gold doorknobs I'm doubting that pricetag. Also, all these "sources" are random apple fanboi tech sites. It's apple rather well known for spawning their own viral mysteries to help build up suspense for their next big thing? To me that looks like your standard manufacturing plant, look at the water towers... why would you need those in a data center? Maybe they're sick of the bad press from china and might start offering an american made version of some of their hardware? It's clear their customers don't care about price.
The flashy iPhoto album stuff to[sic]?
Yeah, it's nothing proprietary.
Free of charge? Experience? Unlimited storage? Better bandwidth?
You misunderstand. I'm not asking why you'd want to go with services other than Apple's .Mac. I'm asking why you'd want to go with services that pretend to be .Mac instead of just using regular, off the shelf services for mail, jabber, backup disk, etc.
What?
For instance the remote desktop thingy
You mean Apple Remote Desktop? That doesn't rely upon the .Mac service that I know of. It's just a remote desktop client that runs on OS X (usually server).
Other examples would be Timemachine backups to whatever wireless router with an NTFS/FAT32 USB HDD.
That's not a function of .Mac either, it's just a limitation of the OS X built in backup (limited support for filesystems). The method used relies upon the journaling in HFS+ and they haven't spent the time to make it work with any other journaled filesystems, lt alone non-journaled ones. But this all has nothing to do with Apple's .Mac services.
Has nothing to do with MobileMe ...
Right, so you still haven't pointed out anything you can do with .Mac or MobileMe or whatever that you can't replicate with other services.
...but still with inconvenient solutions from Apple just so they can sell more of their gear.
It's actually a real limitation based upon filesystems. You can use any wireless router plugged into an HFS+ hard drive.
I'd rather choose options which benefits _me_.
By all means you should choose what works for you, but I'm not seeing how Apple is making that intentionally difficult other than not going out of their way to port some of their software to other OS's and filesystems.