As part of Microsoft’s plan to toss your data — and its data centers — into the sea, a recent patent filing illustrates just how the Redmond, Washington, company would keep your data safe in underwater data centers.
Microsoft’s underwater data center program, dubbed Project Natick, first emerged in 2016 as a way to offer an alternative to massive land-hungry server farms. It is still in the early stages, and your data is still going to reside on dry land for the time being. But according to a recent patent application, Microsoft is hard at work refining the plan and ensuring you data stays safe from marine intruders.
Landlocked data farms are easy enough to secure through typical means, but underwater data centers, designed to be fairly autonomous present a few unique challenges — like marine mammals trained to penetrate sensitive servers. Seriously.
“Because data centers may contain large amounts of valuable data, they are subject to intrusion. Submerged, or subsea data centers may be subject to intrusion by unwanted natural or man-made phenomena, in particular divers, submarines, ROVs, trained sea mammals, capture devices, or other covert attempts to access the datacenter,” reads the patent application, according to MS Power User.
So to thwart any trained otters from prying their way into these undersea data centers and pilfering your most sensitive data, Microsoft has a plan: Disguise the data centers as coral reefs. Well, there are other techniques outlined in the patent application, like intrusion detection which would scuttle the data in the event of any serious hostile intrusion.
But to protect the data centers from being targeted in the first place, Microsoft’s patent application suggests the company might clad the data centers in coral in hopes that it would not only remain hidden but also offer a refuge to adorable sea life like endangered corals.
“A data center configured for operation while submerged in water is designed to incorporate structural components and other features that actively promote marine life and attract growth of reef inhabitants,” the application reads. “Because the artificial reef data center emits little to no heat differential in the surrounding environment, natural growth of diverse reef life is provided. Further, diverse and rapid growth of reef inhabitants is actively promoted due to the structural stability and environmental conditions provided by the data center.”
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.