Is data center growth slowing? Intel says its enterprise server chips slowed

It can be hard to figure out the growth of the data center industry.  One data point is Intel’s sales of its data center server chips.

ZDNet’s Larry Dignan digs into this aspect.

Regarding the data center, Smith said on a conference call:

If you look at the trends in the fourth quarter, I think the trends actually reinforce the growth rate among cloud, high performance computing, networking, storage. They all came in consistent with what we thought. As we entered Q4, we saw that we had more inventory out in the world than we knew when we started the quarter so that had to be burned off. And then secondly, we saw a tapering off in order patterns across certain customers. We think that was driven by the government shutdown and the uncertainty around the debt ceiling. Because when you look at the customers and the segments it's pretty clearly in those segments. We had a range around growth rates for 2014 and the investor meeting we said 10 to 15%. Based on a slower growth in enterprise in Q4 and maybe a slower recovery in enterprise over the course of 2014, I'd say we're now at the lower end of that range. So we're more at the 10% range than the 15% part.

Making a Life Change, Om Malik's serious heart attack

Yesterday, my business partner just had a friend’s father suffer a heart attack.  Yesterday I was at UCSF’s new Hospital Project at Mission Bay working on some process ideas.  And this morning I saw this inspiring post by Om Malik on his life changing experience spurred by his serious heart attack.

Almost exactly six years ago, I survived a serious heart attack thanks to the team at UCSF Medical Center – specifically the cardiology division. 

Because of their diligence, patience and care, I learned a lot about my health and how I wanted to live the rest of my life. Those three weeks spent in the hospital were as healing for my spirit as for my body. 

At my doctor's suggestion, I adopted better lifestyle habits such as a mostly vegetarian diet, more exercise and no alcohol or smoking. But the bigger change came in my approach to life. 

One of the two promises I made to myself when I was released from the hospital was that I was going to stop trying to control everything. As life’s unpredictability showed me, the best you can do is control the inputs (or your own efforts). We cannot control the outcome. The other promise I made was to stop evaluating life by the moment and instead live in the moment. Or, as Mahatma Gandhi put it, “Live as if you would die tomorrow, learn as if you would live forever.”

These past six years have added up to what could be the best years of my life – for now. And I will forever be grateful to the UCSF cardiology team. They saved me from near disaster and gave me a chance to rewrite my life story. 

Now it's my turn to give back to the team that gave so much to me. My goal is to raise $25,000 to help fund various heart disease-related projects at UCSF, and I would really appreciate your support.

There are three things you can do to help:

1. Contribute any amount to the campaign before January 31. 
2. Get more bang for your buck by contributing on Tuesday, December 3. To sweeten the pot, Indiegogo will kick in $1 for every $20 contributed to a #GivingTues campaign on December 3. 
   
3. Tell your friends about this campaign and ask them to contribute. 

UCSF is at the forefront of some of the most exciting research in cardiology. Private support is vital to their work. It allows UCSF to recruit outstanding faculty and trainees, launch cutting-edge research projects, and incubate them until they become competitive for government funding sources. All funds raised will go directly to the division of cardiology in the department of medicine. 

Isn’t it sad that sometimes to change your life needs to be at risk?

How many things finally change habits in the data center after a critical outage?

What Data Center Company will be first to experiment with Hydrogen Solar Cell? Apple, Google, Facebook

For environmental thought leadership in the data center industry the short list is Apple, Google, and Facebook.  Others also have environmental efforts, but these three are consistently in the news sharing their efforts, and the media loves writing about them. 

Here is a press release on a solar powered cell to create hydrogen.

UNC researchers harness sun's energy during day for use at night

Solar energy has long been used as a clean alternative to fossil fuels such as coal and oil, but it could only be harnessed during the day when the sun's rays were strongest. Now researchers led by Tom Meyer at the Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have built a system that converts the sun's energy not into electricity but hydrogen fuel and stores it for later use, allowing us to power our devices long after the sun goes down.

"So called 'solar fuels' like hydrogen offer a solution to how to store energy for nighttime use by taking a cue from natural photosynthesis," said Meyer, Arey Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UNC's College of Arts and Sciences. "Our new findings may provide a last major piece of a puzzle for a new way to store the sun's energy – it could be a tipping point for a solar energy future."

Caption: Tom Meyer's new system generates hydrogen fuel by using the sun's energy to split water into its component parts. After the split, hydrogen is sequestered and stored, while the byproduct, oxygen, is released into the air.

Credit: Courtesy: Tom Meyer

What Google brings to the Nest party, infrastructure that performs and scales

GigaOm’s Om Malik.  Or maybe it should be Om Malik on GigaOm posts on why Tony Fadell decided to team up with Google.

Nest’s CEO Tony Fadell explains why he teamed up with Google: it’s about infrastructure

by Om Malik

17 HOURS AGO

8 Comments

• A
• A

photo: (c) Pinar Ozger

SUMMARY:

In an interview, Nest’s CEO tells us why a union with Google is a good idea (hint: infrastructure and scale) and how he can now get back to designing killer product experiences.

Here are parts that emphasize the google infrastructure.

In an interview with Gigaom following the announcement of the deal, Fadell told us how he wants to refocus on designing product experiences instead of spending his time on scaling and infrastructure — something that’s long been at the core of massive Google. It’s certainly “not about laptops and phones,” joked Fadell; it’s more about a marriage of hardware, software and services, he explained. And the deal has been under discussion for a long time, he noted, Sergey Brin was the one who originally told Google Ventures to start a discussion with Nest.

...

Will Google’s server infrastructure come in handy in a few years? Absolutely. Will their ability to work with algorithms help us? Absolutely. There are a lot of short and long term benefits, but in reality they are going to help us get to new markets at a much faster rate — especially, overseas. I see there are a lot of customers in countries were we are not there yet.

My wish list of what Nest ship after Google acquisition, A Managed Router for the Home

Google acquired Nest and details are in the press release.

Nest, Google and you.

Today is undoubtedly an exciting day for all of us at Nest, but it’s also meaningful for you, our customers. I’m sure you have questions about whattoday’s news means for you, the Nest Thermostat, and Nest Protect. While Tony answered many of the broader questions regarding our new partnership with Google, I thought we’d talk product – my favorite!

When you look at stuff in the home the thermostat and smoke detectors are kind of important, but not as important as internet access in the home.  Without Internet connection the Nest thermostat and smoke detector are kind of dumb.

So how about if Nest ships a Home Router that is managed device that Google’s smart people with Nest can give us a more highly available internet?

This seems so obvious i hope this comes true by the summer.  You’ve got to believe that the Nest team had gone through the use case and numbers to create a Nest Router.

Nest says Safety shouldn’t be annoying.

How about internet connection should not be annoying!!!

A simple thermostat UI.  Green things are working.  Red Internet connection is down.  Google knows your home router has lost connection and is figuring out why?  DNS problems.  Local internet provider issue.  Hard reset required.  “push here to reset”  Or timeout without internet connection, then hard reset yourself. 

Wouldn’t it be great if home routers worked like your smartphones.  Android in Routers.