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The Secret Behind Google's Power (Bill)

Computers

from the not-that-power... dept

Wed, Nov 2nd 2005 5:04pm — Mike Masnick
And, by "power," we mean electrical power. Turns out that those thousands upon thousands of machines Google has running eat up a ton of electrical power, and one of the company's challenges has been to make their use of electricity more efficient. Apparently, turning the machines off at night isn't an option...
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11 Comments

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  1. identicon
    Haggie, 2 Nov 2005 @ 5:53pm

    Google Electricity

    Google is working on an Internet based, web-enabled cold fusion application that will power all of their internal electricity needs. Excess capacity will be delivered to consumers in exchange for viewing targeted advertisements based upon power consumption (ie: use your radio, you'll get music ads; use an electric weed trimmer, get an ad for Better Homes & Gardens, use an electric suction pump, get an ad for penis enlargement....)

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    barry goodknight, 2 Nov 2005 @ 8:14pm

    lol

    3 google

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Pasta Sauce, 2 Nov 2005 @ 11:00pm

    Re: Google Electricity

    Has cold fusion even been a proven theory yet?

    If not, it won't supprise me if google gets it to work.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2005 @ 2:10am

    Re: Google Electricity

    Sure but it's already patented and sold by Macromedia. LOL!

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    dustrider, 3 Nov 2005 @ 2:21am

    That explains it

    My boss was at the googleplex last week, and he came back flumoxed at why Serge and co. spent three hours doing a presentation to mainly business partners on solar and wind power.
    Another mystery solved.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2005 @ 6:03am

    The Seti at Home model

    Google is working on a Seti-like project. When your computer's power-saving stuff kicks in (i.e. monitor turns off), your computer puts the saved power into special power-packets which go to Google.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Mike, 3 Nov 2005 @ 6:55am

    Re: The Seti at Home model

    Or maybe google plans on sucking power from any source availble and storing them into "Energon Cubes" which make it easy to transport large amounts of energy to their sever room

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Geoff, 3 Nov 2005 @ 7:04am

    Off peak electricity

    Maybe they should use off-peak electricity (In UK between 1am and 7am) with data centres in different time zones they could have continous service.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    bill, 3 Nov 2005 @ 9:22am

    Re: Google Electricity

    are you serious? what's next every American citizen regardless of age gets a federally employed babysitter? this is seriously an invasion of privacy!

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Cameron, 3 Nov 2005 @ 9:50am

    Re: Google Electricity

    cold fusion is a web development language. he wasn't referring to the theoretical technology based on nuclear fission.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    cc, 3 Nov 2005 @ 10:20am

    Re: Google Electricity

    I think Google engineers would be insulted that anyone thinks they use ColdFusion for any app development. What next, Picasa is written using Visual Basic - LOL

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


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