Top stories

Coming Soon: Steve Jobs, the Sitcom

Fake Steve creator Dan Lyons just signed a deal to bring Steve Jobs to another small screen near you.
The half-hour series called “iCon” is billed by the presser as “a savage satire centering on a fictional Silicon Valley CEO whose ego is a study in power and greed.”
Making sure the barbs prick will be the [...]

What’s Next For the iPad? A Tabletop iPad, According to Xerox PARC Circa 1991

Way back in 1991, just as Apple was transitioning from 68k to PowerPC chips, the braniacs at Xerox PARC were predicting it’s entire iPod, iPhone and iPad strategy. And next up for the iPad is a blackboard-sized device.
Nearly 20 years ago, just as personal desktop computers were taking off, researchers at Xerox started thinking about [...]

iPhone App Arms Users With Silent Panic Button

A new app called Silent Bodyguard features a panic button that sends an SOS distress signal with GPS coordinates to potential rescuers without alerting onlookers.
While the $3.99 app, available on iTunes, isn’t the first ICE (in case of emergency) app, this one is backed by Dr. Clint Van Zandt, former FBI chief hostage negotiator and criminal [...]

Video: There’s Sexy Technology, Then There’s This…

20100312-brewbeau.jpg

You’re all going crazy with your iPad ordering. Meanwhile, over on Vimeo, BrewBeau has some craziness of his own going on.
BrewBeau writes: “I’m a recent PC convert who waited patiently while Apple worked out the kinks with their latest iMac release of the 27″ Intel powered 2.8GHz quad core i7 iMac. It’s a thing of [...]

Apple Hires Top Green Hardware Expert For Data-Center Ops

osancheApple is getting serious about getting green.

To make sure that its massive new data-center is energy efficient, Apple has just hired a top eBay executive and leading expert in the “greening” of cloud computing facilities.

Apple has picked up Olivier Sanche, eBay’s Senior Director Data Centers Services and Strategy, according to the Green Data Center Blog.

Based in San Francisco, Sanche has helped make eBay’s massive global operations carbon neutral since 2007. Most recently, he helped oversee the construction of eBay’s newest data-center, which will meet the highest green standards when it goes online in 2010.

“This new center is built to meet LEED Gold standards,” Sanche writes on his LinkedIn profile. “We broke ground in late-2008 and we are on track to deliver state-of-the-art efficiencies in cooling and power management.”

It looks like Apple needs someone of Sanche’s stature for its fast-growing cloud computing operations.

Apple is building its own huge data-center in North Carolina. The billion-dollar facility will reportedly be 500,000-square-feet and will serve as Apple’s primary East Coast data-center. In 2006, Apple bought a giant 107,000-square-foot facility data-center on the West Coast, in Newark, Calif. The new North Carolina facility will be nearly five times the size of Newark operation. Ground is expected to be broken later this month.

Data-centers are huge power hogs. Google puts its data-centers as close to power plants as possible, just like Las Vegas is next to the Hoover Dam. McKinsey has projected that data center emissions will overtake those of the world’s airlines by 2020.

At eBay, Sanche helped to green a massive data-center operation. The auction company runs more than 15,000 servers worldwide to support of 84 million eBay users. Sanche says the company has been carbon neutral since 2007 thanks to a combination of conservation, solar energy, facilities management and a high-quality carbon offset program.

Sanche is also Vice Chair of the advisory council for The Green Grid, an industry consortium that promotes energy efficiency.

Via 9to5Mac.

If you enjoyed this article:
Subscribe via RSS or email, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter

About the author

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is the editor of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

Email the author | Read more posts by Leander Kahney.

One comment

    That’s great news! I hope that Apple keeps this up until it reaches a point where the majority of it’s infrastructure is carbon-neutral.

    Thanks for the post.

Add your comment

Name(Required)

Mail (required, but not published)

Website

Comment

Buy Inside Steve's Brain Buy from Amazon.com Buy from Barnes & Noble