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GigaOm's Katie Fehrenbacher reports on Apple's Solar Farm.
A TV station in North Carolina snapped these still video clips of the solar farm being built next to Apple’s data center. It looks like it’s getting close to being completed.
I did an interview with North Carolina’s TV Station WCNC-TV this morning about the data center cluster in their state. After the interview they kindly sent me these aerial video stills that they took from a plane above Apple’s solar farm, next to its data center in the city of Maiden.
Update Mar 12, 2013. It looks like the real problem is resolved in 10.8.3 update. I currently have beta 12D76 and 12D78 and the problems look like they went away. http://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2013/3/12/bunch-of-retina-macbook-pro-problems-went-away-with-1083-bet.html
It looks like a lot of people had this same problem as many times I was getting hits to this blog post.
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One of my friends just traded in three of his old Macs and got a MacBook Pro Retina. I’ve had mine Retina MacBook Pro for a couple of months, and it’s worked great.
Except for yesterday it started to have an intermittent screen flicker problem. At seemingly random times, the screen would flicker, refreshing parts of the screen, mostly from in the bottom 50%. This was a real pain given the Retina Display is one of the main features of the new MacBook Pro. After looking at some mac forums to see about the problem, and found no good answers. Wondering whether I would have a warranty event which would be another pain.
I remembered I was playing around with MapGL in Google maps, and Safari was not compatible.
In order to use MapGL I needed to enable WebGL in the “Develop” pull down menu in Safari. That’s when the screen flicker problem started after WebGL was turned on.
So, let’s turning off WebGL, reboot. Screen flicker problem is gone. Wooh! glad there is nothing wrong with my hardware and I am not hunting all over to figure out how to fix a screen flicker problem.
For you Mac users, which is about 22% of GreenM3 readers, you may find this screen flicker MapGL tip useful.
I am surprised that 4.94% are from iPhone and 3.86% are from Android.
Here are the smallest % of readers. It is funny to think these devices hit this blog.
Apple has gone back on its EPEAT position and admits it made a mistake.
We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.
There are over 200 articles on this topic.
Apple returns to EPEAT environmental ratings list
Fox News-1 hour agoApple said Friday that it is putting its products back on an environmental ratings registry, saying it made a mistake in removing them from the ...Apple Backs Down, Returns to EPEAT PC MagazineApple: Leaving EPEAT a mistake, products back on green registry Los Angeles Times
With the vast majority missing the point. Apple wants IEEE 1680.1 to be upgraded.
We think the IEEE 1680.1 standard could be a much stronger force for protecting the environment if it were upgraded to include advancements like these. This standard, on which the EPEAT rating system is based, is an important measuring stick for our industry and its products.
Our relationship with EPEAT has become stronger as a result of this experience, and we look forward to working with EPEAT as their rating system and the underlying IEEE 1680.1 standard evolve. Our team at Apple is dedicated to designing products that everyone can be proud to own and use.
The threat of Apple walking from EPEAT will most likely wake-up a bunch of people. This whole thing was good PR for EPEAT and Apple. I think this was a win for Apple.
MacRumors has a post on Greenpeace's position on Apple's Maiden Data Center. Much of what is referenced comes from Data Center Knowledge.
Greenpeace announced yesterday that it has prepared an updated report on Apple's energy usage based on the new information, but as noted by Data Center Knowledge's Rich Miller, the group still seems to be being overly critical in its grading of Apple, even continuing to make up its own estimates of the North Carolina data center's energy usage rather than believing Apple's public statements.
In its initial report in April, Greenpeace estimated Apple’s power use in North Carolina at a whopping 100 megawatts. The group has reduced that slightly to 81 megawatts, dismissing the company’s disclosure that it expects draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity.
You can read the post to get a pro-Apple position vs. Greenpeace.
Another post by GigaOm's Katie Fehrenbacher goes into more detail on the Greenpeace position.
On the face of it, Apple’s steps are huge news in the world of data center operators, which for a long time have not been willing to pay a premium for clean power. Instead, most data center builders seek out locations that have cheap (and often times coal-based) power — like North Carolina, which has a grid that runs largely off of coal and nuclear. North Carolina has been able to attract a cluster of some of the largest data centers in the world whose owners want to buy its cheap and reliable power.
But Greenpeace still says that Apple isn’t being transparent about how it will reach those clean power goals. Greenpeace didn’t raise Apple’s score on “transparency” at all, and it kept its “D” grade in the update to the report. Greenpeace did raise Apple’s score for “infrastructure siting” to a D (from an F), “energy efficiency and green house gas mitigation” to a C (from a D) and “renewable energy investment and advocacy” to a C (from a D). Apple has now basically “passed,” but still trails behind companies like Google and Facebook in the ranking system.
But, then I read the comments on the MacRumors site. I think it is pretty clear these people love their Apple products more than Greenpeace. I don't think Greenpeace has ever attacked a company with a customer loyalty so high to criticize Greenpeace itself. This is going to be interesting to see played out over the years.
Skika4 hours ago at 09:51 amGreenpiss just wants attention and publicity.Rating: 34 Positives4 hours ago at 09:53 amGreenpeace won't be happy until people stop using electricity. They are just a bunch of luddites.Rating: 29 Positives4 hours ago at 09:54 amThose nutjobs lose credibility with junk like thisRating: 23 Positives4 hours ago at 09:54 amGreenpeace has been working hard for years to make themselves irrelevant.Rating: 22 Positives4 hours ago at 09:54 amGreenpeace again proves that it is completely worthless. Nothing but attention whores.Rating: 22 Positives4 hours ago at 10:07 amI'd love to see a green report done on Greenpeace. I'm willing to bet they are hypocrites.Rating: 15 Positives4 hours ago at 09:55 amGreenpiss just wants attention and publicity.
I agree. I used to like greenpeace but they've become nothing but publicity hounds while disregarding the truth.Rating: 14 Positives4 hours ago at 09:57 amThey, among countless others, have made Green the new Red.Rating: 13 Positives4 hours ago at 10:05 amGreenpeace, masters of PR, have learned what so many other media whores have learned: Criticize Apple and you will get headlines.Rating: 13 Positives3 hours ago at 10:16 amGreenpeace will be pleased to learn that my V-16 Maybach runs on liquified poor people.Rating: 12 Positives
GigaOm's Katie Fehrenbacher finishes her 4 part series with a behind the scenes story on Apple's iCloud data center.
The story behind how Apple’s iCloud data center got built
This article is the fourth in a four-part series that we’re publishing this week.
Apple’s new $1 billion data center — one of the highest-profile new data centers in the world — has put the town of Maiden, North Carolina (population: just over 3,000) on the tech map. But it almost didn’t get built.
