Apple May Build New Data Center In Oregon

Subject: General Tech | December 4, 2011 - 10:28 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: server farm, Internet, data center, cloud, apple

CNet is reporting that Apple is currently considering constructing a new data center outside of Prineville, Oregon. The 31 Megawatt facility would be built on 160 acres outside of the small Oregon town and would join other prominent tech companies’ data centers including those of Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

According to Oregon Live, it is the area’s mild climate (meaning lower cooling costs compared to naturally warmer climates in addition to all the heat from servers), low electricity costs, and certain “rural enterprise zones” that exempt computers and equipment from normal business property taxes. They state that such exemptions could save Apple several million dollars.

Although Apple has so far declined to comment, city officials have commented that the company looking to purchase the land for the data center codenamed “Maverick” appears to be serious about going through with the purchase. Two major issues stand in the way of Apple building a large data center in the area, however. The company is concerned about tax issues against their intangible assets. Due to Apple putting a great deal of stock (er, the other kind :P) in their brand name, trademarks, and patents, they could face further taxes in the way Oregon’s State Department of Revenue taxes data centers. The largest issue; however, lies in power concerns. In order to supply enough electricity to the various data centers in the area (including Apples should they indeed be building one), Bonneville Power Administration would need to upgrade the Ponderosa Substation, construct an additional substation, and add further transmission lines. This is because the utility company’s transmission capacity to the area is currently nearly maxed out. A 31 Megawatt data center would consume enough electricity to power approximately 22,000 homes and that kind of capacity is not available in an area where towns are a fifth of that size.

The upgrade to the areas electrical subsystems would cost nearly $26.5 million and would take almost three years. Member Services Director for the Central Electric Cooperative, Jeff Beaman, believes that after the appropriate upgrades, a new data center “seems doable.”

Whether this elusive “Maverick” is indeed Apple, and whether the company decides to build a data center remains to be seen; however, it is certainly plausible. Now that Apple is moving more services to the Internet, and the increased adoption of IOS devices thanks to the iPhone being available on all the major US carriers, the company would definitely benefit from having another facility on the other side of the country as their current North Carolina based data center for performance as well as redundancy and stability reasons. What are your thoughts on the reports, is Apple looking to put more cloud (server horsepower) in your icloud?

Apple IOS Update Fails To Fix Battery Issues

Subject: Mobile | November 12, 2011 - 04:07 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: iphone, iOS 5, battery issue, apple

Owners of Apples’ latest iOS devices (especially 3GS, 4, and 4S iphones) have recently run into some battery life issues. Allyn did some testing and found that the latest iOS 5 operating system has a bug (among others) the phone is not able to enter standby mode thanks to a rogue process keeping the phone awake and wasting battery life. Apple was slated to put out the iOS 5.0.1 update, which was supposed to fix the battery life issues.

Well, the update has been released and many users are still experiencing battery life issues. Apple gave a statement to AllThingsD where it stated that although the recent iOS update addressed many of the battery issues, “we continue to investigate a few remaining issues.” According to this poll, approximately 35% (1,822 participants) are having the same battery issues after the update and nearly 14% are experiencing even worse battery issues than before the update. Conversely, almost 18% (910 participants) of people are getting improved battery life from the update. Lastly, a bit over 33% have not reported not experiencing any battery issues. The poll is currently based on a total of 5,145 respondents.

According to Apple, the battery issues are software related, so here’s hoping that they will get their iphones in a row and release an update to fix the issues. More information on Apple’s statement can be found here. Did the update fix your iphone’s battery woes?

Don’t touch my wife! VIA sues Apple for patent infringement

Subject: General Tech, Mobile | September 24, 2011 - 04:08 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: VIA, Patent, htc, apple

Do not let the title deceive you: we probably also find Apple and Patent Infringement stories as boring as you do; this case on the other hand makes it through our tightly meshed sift and into our news feed. VIA is best known for chipsets and specialty x86 processors. VIA’s influence was recently felt through the introduction of the netbook craze as a result of their VIA Nano CPU line which lead to the rise of the Intel Atom processor line. Recently VIA decided that they would set their sights on Apple and sue them over three patents. This is one of those cases where the what is not nearly as funny as the alleged why.

Did Apple take a bite out of VIA’s forbidden fruit?

(Image from Wikipedia, modified)

If it seems to you that VIA is suing Apple over seemingly no reason then you probably are correct. There does not appear to be any public reason for VIA to go after Apple. HTC on the other hand has many reasons to sue, technically counter-sue, Apple. For those wondering where HTC came from in this discussion: the chairperson for HTC is the wife of the CEO of VIA Technologies. It very much seems like the whole reason for the VIA lawsuit is to protect his wife's company in their own lawsuits. If these patent lawsuits continue on their current trajectory then we might just be forced to sit every company down and settle like we did with similar issues back in the 90’s: Springer.

Did Apple bite off more than they could chew? (Registration not required for comments)

Apple is da bomb! Vulnerability found in battery circuitry

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | July 25, 2011 - 10:24 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Malware, apple

Okay, so the title is more joke than anything else but security researcher Charlie “Safari Charlie” Miller discovered a vulnerability in Apple devices, sort of. This exploit, which appears to not actually be a security flaw and rather just an over-permissive design, allows an attacker to gain access to your battery control using one of two static company-wide passwords. Charlie has discovered many exploits in the past several years on the OSX and iOS platforms. One of the most high profile attacks he discovered involved a data-execution vulnerability in the iPhone’s SMS handling: under certain conditions your iPhone could potentially confuse inbound text messages as code and run it with high permissions.

Malware assaults and battery charges.

(Image from Apple, modified)

So what does having the ability to write to a laptop’s battery firmware mean? Firstly, remember the old advice of “Get a virus? Reinstall your OS!”? Well assuming you actually can perform a clean install without ridiculous hacking (thanks Lion) the battery controller can simply re-infect you if the attacker knows an exploit for your version of OSX. But how does the attacker know your current version of OSX? Well if you are installing from an optical disk they just need to know a Snow Leopard RTM exploit; unless of course you extract Lion from the Mac App Store and clean install using it – assuming the attacker does not know an exploit for Lion or simply just infects the reinstall media if you created it from the infected computer. True, malware is about money so it is highly unlikely that an attacker would go for that narrow of a market of Mac users (already a narrow-enough market to begin with) but the security risk is there if for some reason you are a tempting enough target to spear-phish. Your only truely secure option is removing the battery while performing the OHHHHHHHH.

You know, while working (very temporarily) on the Queen's University Solar Vehicle project I was told that Lithium cells smell like sweet apples when they rupture. I have never experienced it but if true I find it delightfully ironic.

While that would all require knowledge of other exploits in your operating system, there is a more direct problem. If for some reason someone would like to cause damage against your Apple devices they could use this flaw to simply break your batteries. Charlie has bricked nine batteries in his testing but has not even attempted to see whether it would be possible to over-charge a battery into exploding. While it is possible to force the battery controller to create the proper conditions for an explosion there are other, physical, safe guards in place. Then again, batteries have exploded in the past often making highly entertaining Youtube videos and highly unentertaining FOX news clips.

Apple brings OS X Lion to the masses

Subject: General Tech | July 20, 2011 - 01:52 PM | Steve Grever
Tagged: osx, macbook, mac, lion, imac, apple

Mission Control (Courtesy of Apple)

Apple released their latest operating system dubbed OS X Lion today that includes more than 250 new features the company states will make dramatic improvements to how users interact with Apple's entire line of computer systems. The $29.99 upgrade includes several new features like multi-touch gestures, full-screen apps, a new Mission Control section, and a new location for Mac apps called LaunchPad.

LaunchPad (Courtesy of Apple)

Apple expanded OS X's ability to view installed applications through a new program called Launchpad. Launchpad allows users to see all of their apps on one screen gives you instant access to all the apps on your Mac. Previously, loaded apps were viewed in a smaller window and now Launchpad will use all the screen real estate more efficiently to show users all their apps at one time. 

Apple Mail (Courtesy of Apple)

OS X Lion also showcases a redesigned Mail program that uses a widescreen view to show message lists in modular sections that are more intuitive to read and use. Another section called Conversations gives users a basic timeline to show threads of messages from specific people. The revamped program also includes search suggestions and search tokens to make finding archived or buried e-mails alot simpler than clicking around for them.

Apple Server (Courtesy of Apple)

Another interesting feature Apple added is the OS X Lion Server that provides more control over user and administerator permissions versus the previous Server app. This program can basically turn almost any Mac into a basic server with secure options for remotely managing computers running Lion and other iOS devices like iPhones and iPad2s. Server admins can also send updates to all their users wirelessly through push notifications. Apple also made many improvements to the OS's file sharing options and to other programs like Wiki Server, iCal Server and Mail Server.

The OS X Lion upgrade can be purchased from the Mac App Store or online at Apple.com for $29.99. The entire download weighs in at around 3.49GB, which is a pretty significant update that should give many users more flexibility in how their use and interact with their Apple systems.

Apple Defender: for better and for worse

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | May 25, 2011 - 09:22 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Malware, apple

Apple users have been dealing with a bad bout of malware over the last few weeks ironically called Mac Defender. Its modus operandi involves scaring the Apple user with claims of malware in a phony file browser and giving them a magical option to remove all problems. That option is actually the malware, but since the users are convinced they are downloading anti-malware they will often allow it to happen and provide their admin password. At that point, they are prompted to provide their credit card number to actually remove the now-present infection. Apple was actively quiet about the whole experience but has now gone vocal about the experience. Also, a new revision of Mac Defender just got substantially harder to avoid.

It should be noted that admin password or not; Apple or not; patch or not; this form of malware strikes the most vulnerable point of any system: the user’s complacency. It does not matter how good of an antivirus solution you have, or how protected your operating system and programs are (though in many cases both of those are lacking as well) you need to be cautious about what you do with any device that accepts information that is not yours. Food for thought: software that can jailbreak an iPhone steal admin privileges from Apple and give it to you. Even in a locked down system such as an iPhone where the user does not have admin rights, what would have happened had you not been the recipient of the admin privileges?