Apple managed to keep satellite imagery of its new North Carolina data center off Google Maps until after iCloud was pre-announced.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt:
[Before Apple’s press release about WWDC] if you asked Google Earth or Google Maps to show you the intersection of U.S. Route 321 and Startown Road — where the data center is located — the current satellite imagery stopped a few yards short of the construction site. West of Startown Road, there was, as recently as two weeks ago, nothing but woods and farmland and a bit of driveway that ended abruptly in the middle of a field.
Given the timing of the image availability, the data center is likely to house Apple’s new iCloud storage offering which will integrate with OS X and iOS to give users remote access to iTunes as well data storage and document synchronization. It appears Apple still has some friends inside Google that were able to keep the imagery under wraps.
To give you an idea of the scale of the 500,000 square-foot data center, I measured the building to be roughly 390 by 190 meters or 1280 by 620 feet. That’s massive. It also appears Apple has enough land surrounding the area to plop another data center down right next to it, should the demand arise.
via Fortune Tech
