Apple may double North Carolina data center to 1M square feet - Page 3

not just storage "cloud computing" whatever that stupidly overused term will actually mean when Apple does it right.

Holy cow! That's not what he said at all! What I read from what he's saying is that he would be happier if corporations looked at the ethical consequences of their actions in their pursuit of profit, rather than "profit above everything else". A lot of people, when they get bonuses, or have extra wealth, donate it to charities, or other organizations that are doing good and helping the less fortunate, which could be seen as a "voluntary tax".

This whole idea of clouds and centralised storage seems totally bonkers to me. Apple's market is worldwide and it does a significant proportion of it's business beyond the shores of the US.

The proposal that all European based users of Apple products will be happy to have all their data stored on US servers the other side of the Atlantic, just because Steve Jobs is philosophically opposed to moving parts, is seriously flawed. Not to mention the sheer cost and inefficiency of sending all data back and forth across the Atlantic for no good reason.

Bandwidth - the transmission of data really - costs. Perhaps it is a dirt cheap commodity in the US but it certainly isn't in Australia and Europe. Mobile data roaming charges anyone? So on the basis of the sheer communications costs alone, I think the cloud idea and remote storage would not be viable globally. The very reason Apple made the iPhones GSM was the potential global market.

There is the security aspect of remote storage also, as in the lack theirof. Just two years ago we had this:


Sort of takes the shine off the idea of extra-national remote storage, if you ask me.

Then there is national security. Under the Bush administration it became clear that the US security agencies were above the law and could bestow such protection on US Telecos that did their bidding in good faith. No government is going to allow any Apple products to be used within their public services if they rely and operate on the principle of remote US based storage.

While the Airs are nice exercises in design, there is no pressing need for laptops to be even that small. My 13" MBP has accompanied me as cabin baggage the equivalent of twice round the planet. Carrying it has been no trouble at all, apart from the hassle of taking it out of the bag multiple times for x-raying..

The truth is flash memory is too expensive compared to HDs. The idea of cloud computing and remote storage being necessary because Flash is too expensive and Apple don't want to use hard drives seems illogical to me. Effectively it is an acknowledgment that flash is too expensive, given the practicalities of peoples storage requirements, and attempts to address that reality by replacing local HD's with remote ones. Bonkers!

There are so many negatives and impracticalities that I don't think the data centre is intended for what people assume, otherwise they would be springing up around the world like mushrooms. I think the data centre is to take on Google on their home turf - search services.

No one has addressed the issue of telecoms links to this data centre. For streaming , remote storage and cloudiness, I would imagine there would be a need for massive bandwidth to this data centre. Have there been reports that such bandwidth has been provided?

Or the 19th century. Your choice.

Yes sweetie. \

That's an excellent point. If just a zoning designation it could be anything in the tech area ... do you know what that zoning designation is limited to or includes?

These are all valid points. But why do we assume that Apple will be overly concerned with global and/or governmental business in whatever they plan to use this data center for. This actually seems doubtful (specifically the governmental business). Secondly, when or if they pursue the wider global market for all of their cloud-based services, perhaps they will build another data center (say in Europe or Asia).

I suspect there isn't really anything terribly mysterious about this facility. It's just a data center to operate (perhaps in redundancy) their collection of online services.

Apple has created the mystery by not stating what the centre is intended for when asked. If the intended use is mundane, then I doubt they would bother with the secrecy. Where Apple is concerned, they usually evoke secrecy to maintain the element of surprise when they introduce something new.

If they were going to need data centres in Europe and Asia, I think they would have been building them in parallel with the one in the US, otherwise anything new that was introduced that relied on them in order to function, would only work in The US initially and would be delayed elsewhere by the time it would take to build new centres from scratch - after the planning and environmental impact processes and requirements had been satisfied first of course, so add another year or so ;-)

Maybe. I think people are reading a lot more into this than is really there.

But considering the costs of it (vs. the benefits of having data centers in other parts of the world), maybe they're taking it more slowly.

It's not quite as simple as you would have us believe.

Are you a fan of the companies (mostly chemical manufacturers) that operate on the Mexican side of the border, even "tho their customer base is largely in the US of A, because the environmental laws in that country allow it to do what they cannot do "at home", thereby lowering disposal costs, even when they are aware that the toxic waste that they dispose of in irresponsible ways have disastrous results on citizens health?

Are you a fan of logging operations that clear cut the forest to "harvest the trees", leaving it mostly barren, because it's cheaper than doing it in a more responsible way, thus saving forests for future use?

Are you a fan of companies that have a customer base that largely resides in North America, but off loads jobs that, at times, include manufacturing, call centers, and even the book keeping services, to the cheapest part of the world, at any given time.

Are you a fan of companies that will set up dummy corporations in foreign countries, for the singular purpose of avoiding taxes in the country where they reside ... you know ... the country where they enjoy a standard of living that is, at least partially, paid for by ... taxes???

Do you see any CEO today that would imitate this behaviour of Henry Ford?:

The $5-a-day Workday

After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another transformative idea: in January 1914, he startled the world by announcing that Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its workers. The pay increase would also be accompanied by a shorter workday (from nine to eight hours). While this rate didn't automatically apply to every worker, it more than doubled the average autoworker's wage.

Henry Ford had reasoned that since it was now possible to build inexpensive cars in volume, more of them could be sold if employees could afford to buy them. The $5 day helped better the lot of all American workers and contributed to the emergence of the American middle class. In the process, Henry Ford had changed manufacturing forever. (bolded part mine)

The point I'm trying to make is simply this: .... Just because a company can fatten up it's "bottom line" by using techniques that some may question ... doesn't justify it doing so, but sadly, that is being ignored by the majority nowadays.

I took some small business courses last year due to considering some ideas I had. The biggest surprise was finding out how much I had to make to take home the same wages I make now. In NY it is very close to double. It only gets worst if you want good benefits. Contrary to what has been said in this thread the tax situation is getting worst, not better.

Just imagine what it costs Apple to keep engineers employed in California. It is likely in the range of 160000 a year. California is another example of a state where the entittlement mentality has out striped the ability of the tax payers to pay for all the goodies they demanded.

I'm not hear to say manufacturing over seas is a good thing as clearly it isn't. What I'm saying is that it is very difficult to compete in the current climate. Sadly there is a large machine tool building and automation base in my local area, a common theme you here these days is yes there is work but most of the systems are going to The far east. The builders aren't happy about it but they have families to feed too.

By the way it isn't just an issue of taxes either though that is a significant issue. There are numerous other goverment mandates that greatly increase the burden on American manufactures. Some of these are good but some highly debatable but all can be seen as taxes or mandates that make manufacturing very difficult in the USA.

If it effected the non US price of an Apple product it would be a terrible thing to happen. Getting a few jobs in the US doesn't help the 50% of Apple buyers that are not in the US

Seriously, all these people wishing for Apple to manufacture in the US really don't understand global economics and the electronics manufacturing base in Asia. They say things like, "Bring the production of the iPhone to US and I'll be glad to pay $10 more for one." It just makes me laugh when I read stuff like this. At the very least, the iPhone will end up being at the very minimum 50% or, more likely, much more. It just isn't going to happen. How do these people expect Apple to compete with the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony, Nokia, HTC, etc. as well as other American companies like Motorola, Dell, and HP who also get their products manufactured in Asia?

Apple only started becoming more competitive price-wise and getting their operations act together when they closed down their US factories and moved manufacturing overseas shortly after Jobs came back and hired Tim Cook. There's no going back (or, more literally, coming back) now. As has been pointed out by other posters here, it's not just the cheaper labor wages overseas. The myriad taxes, unions, and environmental laws and regulations have made it virtually impossible to keep manufacturing competitive here in the States. Virtually all of the components (chips, displays, cases, etc.) would have to be bought from various suppliers in Asia anyway, so what would be the point?

The basic truth of the matter is that we (the American consumers) drove all this to happen and the Pandora's Box was opened decades ago when most Americans hadn't heard of Sony or Toyota. We want more for less. We want bargains. If it's free, so much the better. So American corporations competing for our dollars look at the situation and decide that they can get stuff made overseas much cheaper for basically the same things being made here and pass on the savings to us. So people here earning $30-and-up-an-hour (not including benefits, insurance, Workman's Comp, taxes, and other expenses for each head) for monotonous assembly line work (even janitorial work) are let go and they outsource. How can you blame them? We want the products cheap and aren't willing to pay more for the benefits of these unproductive and expensive workers.

How many people here in the US want to work in an assembly line putting phones together all day long for minimum wage or a little more? For that kind of money, they'd rather be working at a local mall selling shoes or sit in an office processing credit card orders. It's just how things are because, ultimately, we made things this way. Do we want to pay $150 for a pair of American-made Nike basketball shoes when exactly the same thing made in China can be had for $50? Oh, we still make a lot of stuff here. Caterpillar is an example of a badass American manufacturing company. As is Boeing. But these companies have something of real value that they can add to relatively very small volume but big-ticket products. They can do things that most foreign competitors just can't match. Manufacturing the iPhone or the iPad or Macs here just wouldn't add any value, just exorbitant costs. That's just the reality of the situation.

By the way, I've been traveling all over Asia (mainly China although I've also spent much time in Japan and Korea) since '93 for outsourcing and supply chain management work for several companies and still go there on a regular basis. East Asia is just where electronics manufacturing is at (besides various other industries). I've seen some amazing changes and progress being made there during my 17 years of regular travel. Their competitiveness is their manufacturing efficiency. Ours is creative ideas and engineering. Think about it. Why no software firms of note from Asia that could even dream of challenging the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google (although Baidu seems like it may end up dominating search in Asia) and Oracle, etc.? Our competitiveness is in what we can create and innovative ideas that we can come up with, not putting things together in massive assembly lines. And in this area, no one does it better than Apple.

Why should a teacher live any better than the people of the community where they work? Frankly I don't get this constant whine about teachers and their supposed low pay. Back in my day I wasn't all that impressed with the intelligence level of the teaching staff at the school I attended.

The problem isn't taxes per say as most people realize a need for government. The problem is related to what those taxes go for.

Here is a good example, everybody realizes the need for police, but do we really need a squad car parked every quarter mile down the street? More so we need to stop crime in its tracks by drastically increasing executions, which would quickly and completely remove much of the criminal element fron society and greatly reduce the need for police in the first place.

Never heard of volunteers?

Yes they do. At least taxes for tires and gas are suppose to, but many state governments have ethical problems here. They sell the taxes as as supporting the infra structure and then use the money for pet projects or to make up for short falls in the general fund.

And public schools are something to be proud of? Not that I blame the schools as liberal judges have gone way to far with this idea that children have a right to an education. Many of your public schools could be cleaned up significantly by hanging the trouble causing students and thus drastically lowering the need for police. If you can't hang them the least you could do for society is to make their lives as miserable as humanly possible. As a society it has amazed me all my life that we put up with defective children in or schools and then wonder why they turn to a life of crime as adults

Oh by the way research seems to indicate that yes people exhibiting criminal behaviour are in fact defective and born that way.

I'm all for parks but have mixed feelings on this idea of public as in free access. I'd much rather that people that use the facilities pay a bit just to hopefully cause a bit of thought on their part. Public parks are often abused by the users simply because of their free and "public" status.

And what good has that done those countries? Besides it isn't an issue in the USA as we have public health care now for the poor. What many reject is giving up choice and the ability to tailor your insurance to your personal needs. The secondary issue is that public health care in many counties has been a failure. How good or bad it is depends upon many things including the political climate and the wealth of the country.

Using your logic and being that I live in NY, we should have the smoothest roads in the world. A drive to PA or Ohio certainly and very quickly dispells that idea. In our case the vast majority of our taxes go to things the state should not be spending our money on. Hundreds of millions that could be spent on infra structure ends up being spent on welfare. Welfare that mind you is freely handed out without any expectations at all that the reciever attempts to better themselves.

There is no rational reason for the government to spend our tax money on concerts.

Which you demonstrate a strange concept of. Your comment about concerts demonstrates that you have no idea what the role of government should be in society.

Dave

Bravo, Wurm5150!

Best

Could we get some moderation in here please? At least break off the political thread and send it where it belongs.

Not too far off Rabbit....last July China had 27% of the treasuries...this July it's down to 22%...they're investing the money in buying the mines in Africa instead of buying Treasuries!

Don't mean to sound alarmist...I think the best analogy I've heard is that if I owned a lot of stock in GE, would I be very interested in what GE did? Yes. Would I have any control on what GE did? No.

Same with China.

Best

Perhaps he's just on Mars

This is basically so much BS. When the Japanese, for example, flooded the Amarican markets with cheap transistor radios, we were told, let them make the cheap stuff because American manufacturing is superior and we will continue to produce TVs and the big ticket items. It was widely believed that Americans would always dominate high end manufacturing. How did that work out? Likewise, There is nothing inherently deficient about Asians and other people that keeps them from being innovative. In fact, the next apple could verry well come from China in 20 years time ...maybe less.

Your general analysis of the situation (your travels notwithstanding) is completely devoid of deep thinking and simply parrots the party line of state capitalists. When you finally wake up to that fact, it could be too late for you to do anything to extricate yourself from your gloomy future. You see, capital moves globally quite easily, but labor, not so much. Once conditions are finalized, Americans (even many professionals) will be trying to maintain a 1st world standard of living at 3rd world salaries. Then the fun will really begin. My advice is to emigrate now if it's possible. If not, time to learn what scrappy really means.

Hmmm ok major investments. Apple buys Google, but to avoid monopoly problems, spins off Youtube and Android as separate companies. Disney steps in and buys Youtube, giving them a nice chunk of the online video market, as they also own 30% of Hulu. Android maintains it's independence and begins buying up patents for cell phones. Along comes SCO and buys Android, trying to claim that they now have the one, true source code for UNIX System V. Trial is pending, but everyone is expecting another pounding, short or drawn out in agony.

Ok, enough goofy 3AM ideas

Apple buys Cayman Islands and forces Google to pay taxes.

So, tell me, where is Japan now? Things are not so rosy over there either. I'm a Korean-American, by the way, who lived most of my youth in Korea. And where is Korea now? Have you lived both in the East and the West in equal doses? Have you worked in both Asian and American companies? Have you dealt with politics in both parts of the world. I've lived through authoritarian government rule (South Korea in the 70's) as well as enjoying the individual freedom of America. When did I say that Asians are deficient? I merely stated that Asians are good at certain things and that Westerners are good at other things.

You can look at history and see that the West has produced the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Einstein, etc. who are beloved by Asians. It doesn't make the West necessarily "better," but the West, especially after the Renaissance and the Enlightenment have done more for creative and technological progress than the East. Of course, at one point in history, China was hundreds of years ahead of the West but once China closed itself off from the rest of the world just as the West started emerging from the Dark Ages, it regressed and fell way behind.

I still visit Korea to see family members and stay there weeks at a time. In the past, for business reasons, I've stayed for months at a time working with Korean companies for an American company. I still firmly believe that creativity and innovation are better fostered in corporate cultures of Western companies. I still find the militaristic (hierarchical), bureaucratic and conformist nature of most large Asian companies quite stifling and an impediment to free thinking. China, Japan, and Korea are conformist societies and have been so for many, many centuries. I grew up with that in my youth in the 60's and 70's and I still don't see that much of a change. Korean women still can't smoke out in the streets for example and nor do couples kiss in public.

You may think I'm a typical "ugly American" with a stereotypical view of Asia and Asians, but I have a deeper understanding of Asia than most Asians because I'm an Asian who can also view Asia from the outside who has split time equally between the East and the West. There are very good reasons why things sometimes seem as they are. I've traveled to deep within China (not just the rich coastal cities) and talked to people who candidly expressed what they think of their country. Every country has huge internal problems and that includes both China and the US.

Personally, I don't put one over the other. I'm a Korean and I'm an American but I like to consider myself something beyond that: just a citizen of the world. The East and the West both need each other. Each side has its own strengths and weaknesses. Both need to cooperate and compete at the same time and be complementary. We cannot be who we're not. I'm good at something and not-so-good at other things. The same for you and everyone else. I didn't mean to stereotype and I'm sorry if you looked at it that way as I didn't want to get too deep into it on a forum post.

It was an overly simplified post that seemed to have a tone of denigrating Asians but that wasn't my intent as I'm an Asian who was born in Korea. But I still say that some things just don't change in certain parts of the world as fast as we'd like because attempts at change just won't work due to the environment and history - both culturally and politically. I'm much more interested in the fusion of the positives and strengths of both sides and in limiting the negatives and weaknesses of both.

Post of the year.

alexkhan2000, I never said or assumed you were denigrating asians or that you are an ugly american. What I said is that you are making a mistake in thinking that innovation is some American birthright.

As for Japan, they are a tiny country compared to china and the US. Their economy can only climb so high. Yes, they have hit a very rough deflationary period but I think they will sort everything out and find their proper place in the global economy in due time.

As for authoritarian governments, china is proving that capitalism and democracy have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. In fact, democracy is a nuisance to capitalism. Capitalists like fixed costs and they'd much rather pay bribes and know the results of their purchase than lobby a candidate without knowing the direct outcome. China's success says to me, prepare for a new model of state capitalism.

As for the west in general, I am Greek, and I have heard the "Aristotle" arguments all my life. Take a lesson from the Greeks. If you think your history destines you for repeated success, think again. Other countries and cultures are not standing still.

And that's my real point. There is nothing genetic about American innovation. We could very well see some other county or region take the lead in short order. Since that's all we have left to crow about here in the US, where does that leave us? If we had at least retained some well-paying jobs, we could keep the population productive, fed, and housed. Instead, we bought into the idea that we could all get rich doing each others' laundry. The way it looks to me, this society is getting ready to come apart at the seams. And Americans own lots of guns. I don't need to paint you a picture.

What Google are doing is despicable. By avoiding tax, they avoiding the responsibility that comes with any form of society.

Societies function because everyone makes a contribution towards the common good, and everyone reaps the rewards of those benefits. All societies have this deal with their citizens.
Attempting to pay zero taxes is proudly declaring one-self to be a parasite.

And if Google take advantage of infrastructure, technology and education systems, and yet fail to contribute back into that society, then they too are parasites.

Don't be evil? What an enormous joke!

C.

Right. No reason for Apple to get off the dime until it can say "Me TOO!"

All that stuff - Fire, Police, Parkland, Roads - it all is socialized.

If you want medical care to be like that, you can go socialist.

[/(not total)SARCASM]

Poor excuse. Learning is a life-long process.

2 cents, I don't think I ever said that innovation is an American "birthright," just that it is a competitive advantage. Let's look at the global Fortune 500 companies. Look at the most valuable brands in the world. Whether it's product development or innovative marketing and branding ideas, American companies still dominate. Compare these American companies with the most powerful conglomerates in the Far East. You quickly see a pattern: American companies are more about design, the brand, engineering, and branding than brute manufacturing prowess that characterizes the largest and most successful companies of the Far East.

Sure, one needs innovation and creativity in manufacturing as well. Companies such as Toyota, Samsung, Hitachi, Sony, LG, Nissan, Toshiba and many others are very innovative companies as well. But, generally speaking in the big macro picture, they are still known for manufacturing. The biggest Asian companies are banks, telecoms, conglomerates that dabble in everything from insurance to shipbuilding as well as consumer electronics and automobiles. Manufacturing is what east Asians excel at. It's not just the low wages. If it's all about cheap labor, why didn't big-scale mass manufacturing flow to South America or Africa or even south Asia or eastern Europe?

I totally agree that things could change, but the inertia of several thousand years doesn't change overnight or even over a few centuries. Having spent much time in Korea, China, and Japan (with many friends and associates in these countries), I can say that their problems are at least as serious and colossal as the problems we face in the West and America, in particular. But a lot of these problems are unique to their own regions and are based in cultural mores of their societies as well as their geopolitical and demographic realities.

I could easily emigrate to South Korea if I want. I really don't see things any better off anywhere else than here. Every country and society has its own problems. I've been all over Europe as well and I always absorb what each country has to offer and assess their strengths and weaknesses. As for China, their problems are colossal. It's difficult to comprehend a country that has a population size of two United States and all of Europe combined. I'm often quite impressed by the Chinese government that governs and manages a nation of such enormous size. Democracy in a country such as China just wouldn't work.

You're right: democracy and capitalism do not have to go in hand-in-hand. If anything, China is a more of a free-wheeling capitalist nation than the US. That's the impression I've been getting for 17 years. But, in the big picture of things, you have to remember that the Chinese government has big stakes and control over key industry sectors such as energy, banking, and technology. The government leaves it up to professional managers to run these huge companies, but make no mistake, the government is often the major shareholder.

Corruption remains a major problem in China - especially at the lower state and local levels. There is deep pent-up anger amongst the common citizens over the rampant corruption that is virtually institutionalized in the government of China. There is no real check-and-balances there. If the government screws up, things get covered up and the citizens won't so much get an apology. And the gap between the haves and have-nots in China is probably the biggest internal problem and threat to the social stability of the entire nation. 60% of China's huge population live in abject poverty. Yes, China is producing millionaires and billionaires faster than any other nation in the world, but that only compounds the problem.

China's size and bloat is also a major burden as well as an asset. Nearly a billion people in China live in conditions and environments that we would consider the slums. Going inland in China felt like I was traveling in a time machine to 70~80 years in the past. Hundreds of millions of people are impoverished to a level that's hard to imagine in the States and the West in general. How will the Chinese government bring these people out of poverty and give them hope while a very small percentage of the population continues to get filthy rich?

Yes, parts of Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities in China are as glitzy and modern as any other major cities around the world. But, overall, it's just a facade - an expensive lip stick on a big fat pig. By its sheer size, China will become the largest economy in the world, but the great majority of its population won't benefit from it and continue living in poverty and state of despair. And, yes, we've got that in the States as well. I just don't see things becoming any better in China than here or anywhere else. The way I see it, things are much more fragile in China than it is here.

There's a good reason the Chinese government is so paranoid and continues to spend billions and billions to filter out the Internet and repress dissent. You can be assured that the Chinese government continues to execute thousands and thousands of people for such "minor" crimes as fraud and open dissent against the government and that won't change. Yeah, democratic politics sucks and I hear that from people in Korea, Japan and Taiwan all the time. Some in Korea even yearn for the authoritarian days of President Park Jeong-Hee of the 60's and 70's. Such is the mess of multiple political parties constantly engaged in squabble and getting nothing done. Also, how many prime ministers has Japan had over the last 5 years? Can anyone here name even two of them? Japan has become a political joke.

Yeah, I agree that things are pretty messed up in America right now, but I just don't think it's really any worse than elsewhere (save for the small Scandinavian countries whose citizens are happy to pay taxes in the 50~60% range). I really don't share your doomsday scenario. Things have been much worse before and these aren't insurmountable problems. I'm sorry that you have such a negative view of what's going on here but I think we'll dig out of this hole. Hey, let's remember where Apple was in the mid-90's...

Peace.

alexkhan2000, while I don't travel like you do, I am aware of the many problems you point out about china through my readings. The major flaw I see in your argument is that you take comfort in other countries' problems. That really has no bearing on our problems here. Either we are moving ahead, or we are not. In my opinion, we are going backwards...and fast. If we were doing well, I would be optimistic regardless of other countries' progress or lack thereof.

And I stiil take issue with your optimism regarding the US. The US has all the signs of a dying empire in it's inability to solve major problems and transition from one paradigm to a new one. For example:

- our inability to continue spending more on military than the next 17 nations COMBINED! while we borrow from China at alarming rates to finance it. EVEN THOUGH THE COLD WAS OVER 20 YEARS AGO!

- our political system is old and decrepit. 500,000 people in a backwards state have the same leverage over our federal government as a state with 10 million people. The senate is utterly useless now. It cannot respond to the new world problems and it seems and it serves as a wedge between disagreeing parties. The know-nothings will never give up their power and there is no way to change the system unless they agree. Civil War part 2 is not out of the question down the line somewhere.

- education (is there any 1st world population worse in this area than the US?)

- infrastructure (China and Europe are building a high speed train to link the continents. The US is planning what?)

- renewable energy (china is making great strides here while the US lags badly)

- etc, etc

That said, I appreciate your comments and the way you lay out your argument.

Why limit yourself to Google, in Europe a lot of corporates structures their organisation to minimise taxes, including Apple.

2 Cents, I do not take comfort in other countries' problems. It's not a zero-sum game. One does not need to suffer for the other to prosper and vice versa. It's pretty sad to see all the problems around the world - both abroad and here at home. More than half of the world's population live on $2 or less per day. And this disparity between the haves and have-nots continues to grow as the Third World nations continue to develop and catch up with the "prosperous" West.

I'm no head-of-state, no CEO or no economist and I don't know what the answers are to these problems. I think we can all see what the problems are. I think there are a good number of very smart people who are attempting to take on these problems. It's why I admire Bill Gates leaving his role of CEO of Microsoft and focusing on philanthropy. I think there are people in the position of power and influence who really care.

I agree with you about the military spending but if the US doesn't play the role of the global cop, who will? People can debate until they're blue in the face whether it's mere projection of US power throughout the world or protection of US's economic interests or something more idealistic like protecting "freedom" and things like that. The thing is, even China wants US to play this role because it doesn't want to. It's got too many internal problems of its own. China just warns the US to stay out of China's internal affairs and its more regional squabbles like the islands being contested over control of resources and Taiwan, etc.

Education is definitely a mess in the US. Having been educated both in Korea and the States, I can definitely vouch for the difference. The major problem for me going back and forth during my youth was that I just couldn't keep up with the math because Korea was 2~3 years ahead. At the same time, the problem with education in the Far East nations is that so much of it is rote learning of just memorizing textbooks. Teens there study 16+ hours a day for college entrance exams and only a small percentage ever make it into decent universities. Their education system doesn't exactly foster creative thinking and analysis.

In Korea, for instance, there's a serious problem of bright young kids being taken out of Korea by their relatively well-to-do parents to study abroad in the States, Canada, Australia, UK, etc. so they don't have to live through the hell of preparing for the college entrance exams. I'm not pointing out these problems that the rest of the world has to just cover up or make excuses for the problems we have here in the States. I'm just saying that we all have to cooperate and learn from each other to solve these problems. We compete but we have to cooperate as well.

Energy is a major issue as well. You can well imagine China's appetite for energy as it continues to grow at double-digit rates per year. But were you aware that over 70% of China's energy requirements are provided by burning of coal? Oh, yes, China is now starting to take the environment and green energy seriously but it still has long, long ways to go. The pollution there is absolutely suffocating. The skies are perpetually yellowish-gray over a huge swath of the country. In Beijing, it's often difficult to see beyond half-mile - such is the quality of the air. Foreign visitors often cough and gag uncontrollably for the first few days before their lungs acclimate to the surroundings. I used to be like that too.

During the late-spring months, the combination of winds from the Gobi Desert blowing out from Mongolia and the pollution from China blanket all of Korea and Japan in heavy yellow/gray smog and fly over the Pacific to reach as far as Colorado. I've been in Korea and Japan during this dreaded time of the year in the Far East and it's quite disgusting in an ominous way. The entire populations of Korea and Japan are forced to wear face masks whenever they venture out of their homes for weeks at a time. Even the Chinese government realizes that things have gone out of hand but there's the classic dilemma: how do they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty without industrial production?

As I said, I don't take solace in these things nor do I point them out just to say things aren't so bad here in the States. We've got serious problems indeed and problems that other nations don't have to deal with. Many foreigners when I travel abroad have told me that they sure don't envy our position and it's a sobering thing to hear. People around the world are very well aware of our problems as well. The thing is that most aren't sympathetic and I suppose they shouldn't be when we make up 25% of the world's economy. When you have a lot, that means you also have a lot to lose... Still, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a zero sum game. Call me an optimist or idealist, whatever, but I think we'll all somehow get over this hump (or mountain)...

I don't think this interesting exchange between you and 2cents is off topic, because if nothing else the data center represents massive optimism on the part of Apple about the future.

And why not, considering that Apple is in the middle of creating at least two revolutuions in communications, one being the pocket/handheld computer that is always with you and always on, the other being videotelephony. Maybe I should say 'assisting in' instead of 'creating,' but as usual Apple is showing how it should be done. FaceTime is not first but it is the slickest and most usable, etc. . . .

Others have suggested that the data center may be about FaceTime somehow, but I find it hard to picture how exactly. I just suspect it's true. And before someone says that videophones are a stupid exchange of mug shots, remember it's about the back camera as much or more than the front camera.

I'm wondering if Steve made Barack sign an NDA and then told him that the data center is just the first of many, a trial assembly, and that it and the ones to come are more about education than entertainment. Or something like that. One to one live video communications, or one to many, will make an excellent and revolutionary (and magical) teaching platform. Maybe creating an internet-based replacement of the old voice telephone network will require a lot of switching and storage. I'm out of my depth here.

Extremely unlikely. Facetime, like iChat AV, does not route the video stream through any central servers. It would be very burdonsome (and wasteful of resources) to do so, especially as the usage increases. Not to mention adding even more latency to the connection.

Facetime uses a central server to be able to find you and exchange location (on the internet) information between you and the person you are calling. Once the location information is exchanged, the video connection is peer-to-peer, not through a server. Facetime uses your AppleID on Apple's servers. iChat uses, among other options, your AIM ID on AIM's servers. So in that regard, Apple isn't doing anything they hadn't already done in iChat years ago.