BREAKING Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black man to win supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries 'Roots,' has died. He was 87.
As heat waves become more common and extreme due to the effects of climate change, the data centres that provide the backbone for the online services the public relies on are at risk of overheating.
"(Data centres) are responsible for running many of the services that you use. If you have Gmail, your Gmail is stored somewhere. If you have pictures on Instagram, your Instagram photos are stored in a data centre," said Clifford Stein, director of Columbia University's Data Science Institute, in an interview with CTV's Your Morning on Tuesday.
A data centre can have thousands of computers in one room, generating a considerable amount of heat. These computers have to be cooled in order for them to avoid malfunctioning -- a task that becomes far more challenging during extreme heat events, Stein says.
"As the climate heats up, it becomes harder and harder to keep data centres cool," Stein said. "They're constantly generating heat and they're generating it everywhere."
During July’s heat waves in the U.K., where temperatures topped 40 C, Google Cloud reported "cooling related failures" at one of the buildings that houses its data centres in London. Oracle Cloud also blamed "unseasonably high temperatures" after cooling units failed at a data centre in London, resulting in some service outages.
Some companies are opting to set up data centres in colder environments to avoid issues with overheating. Iceland's chamber of commerce is encouraging tech companies to set up more data centres in the country, touting "virtually free cooling all year round" thanks to their cold climate.
In 2020, Microsoft even experimented with storing data centres below the sea off the coast of Scotland, saying underwater data centres are "reliable, practical and use energy sustainably."
However, Stein says these solutions could also result in slower data speeds for users.
"The problem is that you also want your data centre to be near the users," he said. "When you want to get your data, you want to get it fast. So if you put all the data centres in Iceland, it would be easier to cool them, but your data would come much slower."
Watch the full interview about the potential of data centres overheating with Stein at the top of this article.
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries 'Roots,' has died. He was 87.
Warnings of up to 60 millimetres of rain and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces and one territory ahead of the Easter weekend.
Jameek Lowery was among more than 330 Black people who died after police stopped them with tactics that aren’t supposed to be deadly, like physical restraint and use of stun guns, The Associated Press found.
Luxury operator Regent Seven Seas Cruises is raising their price tag to eye-watering levels, with a suite on an upcoming 140-day world voyage costing US$1.7 million.
The estate of minimalist contemporary artist Donald Judd filed a lawsuit against Kardashian this week, claiming the fashion and beauty mogul promoted 'cheap knockoffs' of his furniture designs.
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
An Ontario man who built a garage on his property has been locked in a battle with his electricity provider for a year and half over a severed power line.
Buckingham Palace officials say King Charles III and Queen Camilla will attend an Easter service at the chapel at Windsor Castle on Sunday.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.