Google has announced plans to construct three new undersea cables that are set to be activated in 2019. The project is said to be part of the company’s investment in cloud infrastructure.
The subsea cables are set to increase the amount of bandwidth available to the network that connects Google’s international cloud data centers, according to a report from IT Pro. This should result in better performance for sites and services that utilize the company’s cloud platform.
The Havfrue cable is set to link the U.S. with Denmark and Ireland, according to a blog post published by Google. The company is collaborating with Facebook, Aqua Comms, and Bulk Infrastructure on the project, which will be constructed by TE SubCom and is named for the Danish word for mermaid.
Google is working with RTI-C and NEC on the Hong Kong-Guam cable system, which is said to create multiple scalable paths to Australia in conjunction with the Indigo subsea system and other existing infrastructure.
Finally, there’s the Curie cable, which is named for the physicist and chemist Marie Curie who pioneered research into radioactivity. Google is going it alone for this project, and in doing so becomes the first major non-telecom company to pursue the construction of a private intercontinental cable. It’s set to span from Chile to Los Angeles, and is the first subsea cable to land in Chile in over 20 years.
“Owning the cable ourselves has some distinct benefits,” wrote Ben Treynor Sloss, vice president of engineering at Google. “Since we control the design and construction process, we can fully define the cable’s technical specifications, streamline deployment and deliver service to users and customers faster. Also, once the cable is deployed, we can make routing decisions that optimize for latency and availability.”
Of course, there are other benefits for a company that has the means to undertake such a project. Removing any other entities from the construction of undersea cables means that Google is in complete control of its network. Increasingly, we’re seeing the likes of Amazon and Google use their cloud platforms as major drivers of revenue, and this kind of major investment demonstrates that this is going to continue to be the case for years to come.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.