While the fact that they are apparently building structures in several places is interesting, I find the notion that they will be "used to market google glass" rather odd.
not only does it seem strange to make a marketing center on a barge, but it's absolutely huge. at a conservative rough count, it's about 8 8-foot-wide shipping containers wide, and about 6 20-foot-long shipping containers long. and four storeys high. that's 30000 square feet. for a showroom.
Just for a frame of reference, the Grand Central Terminal Apple store is 23,000 square-feet. Their proposed store in Union Square (SF) will occupy about 25,000 square-feet, with two levels and 1/3 of the building "behind the scenes", call 30,000 square feet total.
I agree, data center seems more likely, but there are strong hints already that Google Glass sales will need extra space. Google has been having fitting events so far with large areas of buildings dedicated to it and they are only servicing small batches of testers and conference goers so far. You can Google the Google Glass pickup experience and see pictures of the Chelsea office area and MV area, etc., people bragging about the champagne, ice cream, valet parking, etc..
As someone who has worked for smartphone OEMs, it is entirely possible a reduced return rate would be worth having extensive pickup experience options like this. Return rate was a huge consideration. If you have a high return rate, carriers won't even carry your device in their stores. Similarly, Samsung is having a big issue with Galaxy Gear watch returns right now.
It might make more sense if compared to the size of the Exploratorium rather than something like a showroom, and the visible, water location could be important if people are otherwise likely to ignore a large warehouse showcasing a technology which they think is a waste of time to even think about.
Except if you guess that the marketing center is virtualized and exists everywhere a Google Glass device does, requires lots of bandwidth, thus access to coastal fiber gateways. Considering the potential power of a centralized augmented-reality system with probably the most mature total information awareness system ever built as a decentralized back-end, putting them on floating barges with potential access to international waters makes lots of sense.
Agreed. The CNET investigation seemed to have some pretty solid (or, at least, convincing) evidence that these are floating data centers or something similar to that. My sense is that a floating marketing center would be VERY different than a floating data center.
Then again, maybe it's part of the marketing effort? I could see them building a "mock" data center or something like that -- "Step into a Google data center and learn how we'll be powering Glass for the whole world"...
The whole "international waters" thing isn't as much of a right, as it is a liability. Think of it like traveling internationally, you are far less protected by your home country, and you don't gain any magical new protections.
At sea you are always subject to the laws of the countries flag you are flying, and sometimes the laws of the port you are arriving at or departing from. If you upset a specific country, you are dependent on their respect for your flagged country to not board and seize your vessel. The US Coast Guard for example claims the right to board anything in the Pacific or Atlantic if they suspect it of being used in the commission of a crime. Good luck getting Panama or The Marshall Islands to come defend you.
In Google's case they would also be subject to laws wherever the fiber or satellite connection they are using makes landfall.
You mean it doesn't make sense to spend $10 million just on a building to house marketing for a new product in one city on a platform at sea? But KPIX 5 is the CBS News leader for San Francisco! Surely they couldn't be misinformed.
Seems like it could be a good idea WRT to cooling costs. Pumping cool, free seawater though exchangers would only require electricity for fans and pumps.
Confidentiality sounds like one of the more reasonable explanations, but it looks like the Coast Guard has its own set of approvals http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg521/
You know, this is popular to say, but it's an incredibly stupid statement.
The Onion is about absurdist humor. Absurdism makes some sense as political satire, but it's also anti-progress satire.
The inability to differentiate the absurd from reality is just as likely to be due to the fact that we've achieved something previously thought, and still popularly held, to be absurd.
My guess: They've had a breakthrough in through-the-ground radio and will soon be offering broadband globally with kilowatt transceivers attached to the sea floor.
If we're speculating, why not shoot for the moon? :D
They're data centers with some innovation in water cooled servers. They incorporate a heat exchanger system similar to coastal nuclear power stations to avoid running corrosive seawater through the system. They have the added advantage of being able to run fiber to/from the DC along the entire coast.
Perhaps you would be surprised, or not, to discover that dumping heat into the Bay is regulated just like other pollutants.
"Power plants may be located in any area where they do not interfere with and are not incompatible with residential, recreational, or other public uses of the Bay and shoreline, provided that any pollution problems resulting from the discharge of large amounts of heated brine into Bay waters, and water vapor into the atmosphere, can be precluded."
The engines of a large ship are going to release on the order 10 MW of heat into the ocean, and I'd expect a datacenter that could fit on that ship to release within an order of magnitude of that. By contrast, power plants can release tens of GW of heat.
True, the ships move though and much of its heat dump occurs in deep water. Power plants and datacenters create a 'warm spot' which persists. This alters the environment around their heat dump (generally in a tidal zone) and that changes the things that live there (or can live there).
You point is a valid, and I don't defend the BCNC, just note that they try to regulate everything.
Perhaps a marine engineer could answer the question I have with the floating data center idea: is it really cheaper to have a barge as a data center, rather than putting it in an empty lot next to a river, lake or sea?
Light can travel 300km in a millisecond. Being closer to users doesn't seem to outweigh the extra difficulties in plumbing, power connections, network connections, risk of sinking and stormy weather. The potential for mobility doesn't seem that useful either when you need a port with exceptional power and network connectivity.
My guess is that these are not permanent structures. Barges are not particularly suited to harsh open ocean conditions, and as others mentioned, there are some pretty heavy regulations against 'building out' into the bay. The secrecy of it hints at a marketing ploy.
This quote from a local official sums it up: taxes. Or, lack thereof.
"We shouldn't use the Bay as a lost opportunity for that which can be done on land. We need to ensure that whatever this permit is applied for actually fits into what the Bay should be used for."
My interpretation is it's about environmental concerns. There's a long history of people expanding the city of San Francisco into the bay via fill, structures, even ships. Eventually there was a backlash, and most of that behavior is now banned by laws, requirements for environmental impact reports, etc. I would expect attempts by Google to get around, or just ignore, such laws would provoke a strong negative reaction by the local government.
Not really the same, but floating nuclear reactors don't primarily float for the cooling, they primarily float for the mobility. What are the chances people are focusing on the wrong perk here?
Then again, I'm not sure what the mobility advantages of a datacenter are... maybe they're going to park it halfway between London and NY and load it up with high frequency trading bots?
That's a little fantastical though. Any more mundane reasons you might want mobile datacenters?
Power requirements alone rule out this thing being far from land. Maybe its just that they want to construct a handful of big building in california without jumping through onerous regulations.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 99.7 ms ] threadNot unheard of.
As someone who has worked for smartphone OEMs, it is entirely possible a reduced return rate would be worth having extensive pickup experience options like this. Return rate was a huge consideration. If you have a high return rate, carriers won't even carry your device in their stores. Similarly, Samsung is having a big issue with Galaxy Gear watch returns right now.
Then again, maybe it's part of the marketing effort? I could see them building a "mock" data center or something like that -- "Step into a Google data center and learn how we'll be powering Glass for the whole world"...
Would floating data centers allow them to avoid laws by operating out of international waters?
At sea you are always subject to the laws of the countries flag you are flying, and sometimes the laws of the port you are arriving at or departing from. If you upset a specific country, you are dependent on their respect for your flagged country to not board and seize your vessel. The US Coast Guard for example claims the right to board anything in the Pacific or Atlantic if they suspect it of being used in the commission of a crime. Good luck getting Panama or The Marshall Islands to come defend you.
In Google's case they would also be subject to laws wherever the fiber or satellite connection they are using makes landfall.
The EPA shut that down right quick because even a degree temperature change has dramatic effects on the wildlife population.
Somehow I doubt this is to employ people. If it is though, then its very Deus Ex Machina in some ways (the video game, specifically the last dlc).
The Onion is about absurdist humor. Absurdism makes some sense as political satire, but it's also anti-progress satire.
The inability to differentiate the absurd from reality is just as likely to be due to the fact that we've achieved something previously thought, and still popularly held, to be absurd.
"What's next? You'll let women vote?"
If we're speculating, why not shoot for the moon? :D
"Power plants may be located in any area where they do not interfere with and are not incompatible with residential, recreational, or other public uses of the Bay and shoreline, provided that any pollution problems resulting from the discharge of large amounts of heated brine into Bay waters, and water vapor into the atmosphere, can be precluded."
-- http://www.bcdc.ca.gov/laws_plans/plans/sfbay_plan#8
You point is a valid, and I don't defend the BCNC, just note that they try to regulate everything.
Light can travel 300km in a millisecond. Being closer to users doesn't seem to outweigh the extra difficulties in plumbing, power connections, network connections, risk of sinking and stormy weather. The potential for mobility doesn't seem that useful either when you need a port with exceptional power and network connectivity.
My guess is that these are not permanent structures. Barges are not particularly suited to harsh open ocean conditions, and as others mentioned, there are some pretty heavy regulations against 'building out' into the bay. The secrecy of it hints at a marketing ploy.
"We shouldn't use the Bay as a lost opportunity for that which can be done on land. We need to ensure that whatever this permit is applied for actually fits into what the Bay should be used for."
Your quote doesn't support that at all.
My interpretation is it's about environmental concerns. There's a long history of people expanding the city of San Francisco into the bay via fill, structures, even ships. Eventually there was a backlash, and most of that behavior is now banned by laws, requirements for environmental impact reports, etc. I would expect attempts by Google to get around, or just ignore, such laws would provoke a strong negative reaction by the local government.
Mostly by people with beachfront property who didn't want anyone getting in the way of their expensive view.
[Edit: Also plausibly used for some sort of Hunger-Games style interview process]
Then again, I'm not sure what the mobility advantages of a datacenter are... maybe they're going to park it halfway between London and NY and load it up with high frequency trading bots?
That's a little fantastical though. Any more mundane reasons you might want mobile datacenters?