Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:
Committed: A project to build a hydroelectric generating facility near a new Apple (AAPL) data center in Oregon has been taken over by the iPhone-maker, The Oregonian notes. The 45-Mile Hydroelectric Project was previously owned by EBD Hydro, which received a $1.5 million federal grant and government loan guarantees worth $7 million to fund the project. Though work was scheduled to begin in late 2011, it is unknown how far the project — which was expected to generate between 3 megawatts and 5 megawatts of power — has progressed. Apple recently launched operations at a data center in the nearby town of Prineville. Data centers of that size can easily consume 30 megawatts or more, meaning that the hydroelectric plant will likely provide only a small portion of electricity used by the facility. According to The Bulletin, Apple purchased the project — which diverts water from an irrigation canal “for approximately half a mile before running it through a hydroelectric turbine and discharging it back into the canal” — in November. Apple has received praise from environmentalists groups for its use of green-power sources — like solar energy farms — to power its massive data centers.
Trigger: According to documents introduced into evidence during Apple’s latest patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung, officials at the South Korean electronics giant saw the death of Steve Jobs as a chance to go on the offensive against the iPhone, AppleInsider notes. Jobs died in October 2011, one day after new CEO Tim Cook unveiled Apple iPhone 4S, which included the debut of Apple’s Siri voice assistant. One Samsung executive noted that Jobs’ death had produced a “huge wave of press coverage of Apple’s and iPhone’s ‘superiority.’” He added that notions of the superiority of Apple products had persisted “far too long” and that “I know this is our best opportunity to attack iPhone.”
Turnaround: Despite initial opposition, a court-appointed external monitor for Apple’s ebook business says that his work with Apple has seen a “promising start,” Reuters notes. Michael Bromwich was tapped to monitor Apple’s ebook business after U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote found the iPad-maker guilty of conspiring with five publishing companies to manipulate the prices of ebooks sold through its iBookstore in violation of antitrust laws. The monitor was demanded by the Department of Justice. Apple is appealing the judge’s decision and initially fought the imposition of the monitor. However, an Appeals Court panel affirmed the monitor, though it limited the scope of his work. Bromwich filed a 77-page report with the court earlier this week indicating that his relationship with Apple had “significantly improved.” However, Bromwich noted that he had only been able to speak with a small number of employees and informed the court that his team still “still lacks a significant amount of the information it needs to fulfill its monitoring obligations.”
For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.
