Facebook's first European data center in Luleå, Sweden (near the Arctic Circle) is now online, and thus far it's the only facility that's exclusively using servers the company itself designed. Similar to the social network's North Carolina complex that served as testing ground for its outdoor air-cooling configuration, the Swedish facility takes advantage of the region's frigid winds. Excess heat produced by the machines is then routed to offices to keep employees warm in the chilly region. The firm claims the 900,000-square-foot center is powered entirely by hydroelectric energy -- a source so reliable that Facebook saw it fit to scale down the number of backup generators by more than 70 percent. With an average power usage efficiency (PUE) of 1.07, the servers should consume 1.07 watts of energy for each watt they need to function pointing to minimal energy loss. Now that the Luleå installation is complete and operational, the company can focus on building its $1.5 billion megastructure (its biggest data center yet) in Altoona, Iowa.

[Image credit: Facebook]

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Via: Ars Technica, The Register

Source: Facebook

Google has just secured the services of an entire 72MW wind farm in Maevaara, Sweden for the next ten years to keep its Finnish data center humming, according to the official blog. It brokered the deal through German insurer Allianz, which purchased the farm and will begin selling all the electricity it produces to Mountain View by 2015. The move is part of Google's quest to remain carbon neutral, and is along similar lines to a recent deal which saw the search giant purchase 48MW of energy from a wind farm in Oklahoma. The news follows Apple's announcement that it gets 75 percent of its power from renewable sources -- showing the arch-foes can at least agree on something.

Filed under: Misc, Internet, Google

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Source: Google

While there are signs HTC's fortunes might turn a corner through the launch of the One, few would doubt that its finances could use some streamlining. The company has just outlined one of the ways it will be pinching pennies: it's closing its Watch movie stores in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden by May 31st, with some Italians reporting a shutdown on the 15th. As the company explains to us in a statement (after the break), it's concentrating on supporting Watch in those regions with the "highest engagement" while dropping those with "less application traffic" -- in short, markets with poor performance get the boot. HTC stresses that Watch isn't going away, however, and it's delivering a steady stream of content. We're glad to hear that the company is sharpening its focus rather than cutting the cord. Still, that won't be much consolation to movie-loving Europeans and Scandinavians.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, HTC

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Source: Telefonino.net (translated)

The Swedish Language Council appeared on Google's radar when it wanted to add the term ungoogleable (in Swedish, ogooglebar -- yep) to a list of new words. The company didn't want the word nixed, but redefined to reference Google directly and not just any general search engine -- this was the initial meaning of the term. Lawyers got involved, but instead of battling in court, the Language council decided to drop the addition entirely, not due to the objection but to bring more input to the process and avoid any legal time (and money) being wasted. The head of the council, Ann Cederberg said that "it's our use that gives it meaning -- not a multinational company exerting pressure." For now, at least, it looks like the definition is headed in the same direction of the one-time home of the Swedish Chef translator.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Via: Geek

Source: The Local.se

Despite a recent effort to move its servers to the cloud, Pirate Bay will be moving its base out of Sweden thanks to recent legal pressure. The Swedish Pirate Party that hosted the torrent site has been feeling heat from the film and music industry-backed Swedish Rights Alliance, which gave it until today to cut ties in order to avoid a lawsuit. As a result, the site has moved its operations to servers in Spain and Norway hosted by Pirate Parties there, saying it's had a contingency plan in place for awhile to do so. Anway, if the embattled site has to keep criss-crossing the seas while fighting legal battles to stay afloat, it might make for another good documentary.

Filed under: Internet

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Via: The Verge

Source: TorrentFreak

LG is about to kick its currently slow, worldwide Optimus G deployment into high gear. Right in time for Mobile World Congress, the company has confirmed that its late 2012 flagship is about to reach Europe. Sweden gets first crack at the Optimus G before February is over, while at least France, Germany and Italy are next in line. Every European version will ship with the Jelly Bean update LG promised for new launches back in late January. It adds more than just obvious Android 4.1 features like Google Now and rich notifications: there's a wider variety of QSlide-friendly apps, better status bar controls and small perks like Privacy Keeper for calls and Safety Care live support. We're still waiting for Jelly Bean to hit the US, but Europeans (and envious Americans) can see what they'll get by watching the video after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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Nokia and RIM already have a troubled history whenever they come into contact, so it's no surprise that what truces they do have are fraying at the edges. Thanks to filings, we now know that RIM has lost a Swedish arbitration proceeding where it tried to extend a 2003 patent cross-licensing deal with Nokia to include WiFi devices; the wireless technology isn't covered, the arbitrator says, and RIM now has to either pay royalties worldwide or risk seeing its devices yanked from the market. Nokia isn't wasting any time pressuring the team in Waterloo into coughing up -- it's taking steps to enforce the decision in Canada, the UK and the US. RIM has so far turned down any comment, although it's more likely that their firm will cut a deal rather than risk a sweeping ban. Consider it another of the many hurdles for RIM to jump on the road to January 30th.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Nokia, Blackberry

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Source: Reuters

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Source: GreenWave Reality

Thanks to a rapid pace of one country per day Netflix has made light work of its Nordic roll out. The internet movie service is launching its final Scandinavian flag today in Finland after starting Monday in Sweden, then notching Denmark and Norway (pictured above) in between. As with the others there's extensive device and app support from the start, and although the content selection may vary Netflix is the exclusive streaming home of Iron Sky, for all your Nazis-on-the-moon viewing needs. Not enough? Hey, there's always HBO Nordic, and you don't even need cable or satellite to get it.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Netflix Nordics Blog

Sweden is home to some of the world's better known movie makers and some very high speed data connections, but it has only had so much love from movie streaming services that you'd think would be a natural match. Netflix is making that union a reality today through the launch of its Watch Instantly service in the country. Pay 79 kronor ($12) a month and you'll get access to a mix of both international and domestic movies and TV shows on any device that can take Netflix in the country, which includes at least computers as well as Android and iOS devices. Other Nordic territories are still promised as coming soon; although that won't be much help to Danes, Finns or Norwegians, we're sure Swedes won't mind having one more excuse to flaunt their cheap fiber internet access.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Via: Hacking Netflix

Source: Netflix Nordics Blog, App Store, Google Play

Disappointed that your country or favorite carrier missed the initial cut for the iPhone 5 launch? Odds are that you're all good now. Worldwide, 22 more countries have joined the mix as of today, including wide swaths of Europe as well as New Zealand; you'll find the full list in the release here. Americans also don't have to turn to the big carriers, as they can now opt for prepaid carrier Cricket in addition to a slew of extra providers that include C Spire as well as regionals like GCI and nTelos. In some cases, you'll even snag a discount by going with one of the smaller networks. If you bagged an iPhone in Barcelona, or caught one on Cellcom, let others know how it's going in the comments.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Telia raised hackles in March when it proposed charging Swedish subscribers extra if they wanted to use voice over IP. On top of the net neutrality issues, the proposed price premium would have been a slap in the face to Skype, the country's homegrown VoIP pioneer. While Telia's Spanish subsidiary Yoigo has no problems with such a split, Telia itself must have had a change of heart: as of now, all regular plans will continue to treat internet telephony as just another set of data packets. Only a new, ultra-basic Telia Flex Bas plan excises the option. Unfortunately, most everyone will have to pay the price for equality -- new subscriptions will have their data plans "adjusted" to compensate for increasing data use, and those paying daily will see their maximum rates jump from 9 SEK ($1.40) to 19 SEK ($2.90). As painful as the price hike might sound, however, we'd still endure it to avoid carving the mobile internet into pieces.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

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Via: ZDNet

Source: Telia (PDF)

Google's cycling directions have been slowly expanding their reach to the mobile world and other countries, but the only option for navigation so far has been to memorize the route. As of today, you won't have to stop every five minutes to get your bearings. Google Maps for Android has received a low-key update that adds spoken, turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation for riders in every country where biking directions exist -- if you can clamp your phone to your handlebars, you can find your way. Many more riders are just seeing mobile support of any kind in the process. Both navigation and regular directions should now be live in the Android app for 10 more countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Cyclists just need to swing by Google Play to keep their two-wheeled adventures on track.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Transportation, Mobile

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Via: Google Lat Long Blog

Source: Google Play

Sony's slow and painful transformation continues with a restructuring of its newly-minted mobile division. In October, it's moving its headquarters from Lund, Sweden (presumably a holdover from its Ericsson days) to Tokyo -- for deeper integration -- and repurposing the duties of its facilities in Tokyo, Lund and Beijing. As part of the changes, Sony Mobile will slash 15 percent of its workforce, with 1,000 employees being let go by the end of March 2014, in a trend we've seen across the industry. Most of those affected are in Sweden, with 650 on-site staffers and up to 450 consultants being shown the door.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Square gets most of the media hype, but without an international presence, would-be competitors have had a chance to carve out their own niches in the mobile commerce market. Sweden's iZettle has managed to make quite a splash in its homeland, and it's expanding its mini empire by finally bringing its wares to Android -- albeit in an extremely limited form. Unless you've got a Galaxy S III, S II or a Note then iZettle still isn't for you and with availability in a single Nordic country, it might seem more accurate to describe Android support as being in beta, but the company has ditched the testing tag regardless. Rest assured, however, it is actively working to add more handsets and export the app beyond its particle board-loving borders.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Software, Mobile

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If you're going to revisit a certain underwater dystopia, you might as well have a ball. At least that's the approach being taken by Sweden-based DIYer rasmadrak, who has decided to build a Bioshock-themed custom pinball machine just for kicks. The project is filled with lots of neat little touches from Rapture, including Little Sister vents and a few Big Daddy homages. The builder also does a pretty good job of drilling into the details and providing insight on the creation process -- like the challenge in using two different systems such as Arduino and chipKIT together, for example -- via detailed posts in the Poor Man's Pinball! blog. The project proved to be a pleasant shock to the system for fellow pinball aficionado Ben Heck, who gave the project a sprinkling of Heckendorn love via Twitter. Pinball geeks can also follow the saga, so to speak, by checking out the source link below.

Filed under: Gaming, Alt

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Just in case you only thought Amazon, Netflix and Redbox were working the studio deals, HBO announced today it's worked out an extension of its agreement with 20th Century Fox. Already the "premium network home" of Fox flicks for more than 30 years, this deal is long enough to keep it going into the next decade. The LA Times reports from its sources the original deal would have expired in 2015, while the extension pushes it out to 2022 at a price of over $200 million per year. One key adjustment that's been made for the digital age gives Fox the ability to continue to sell its movies over digital stores even while they're airing on HBO unlike the previous deal, although we're told this provision does not extend to rentals during that time. That's on top of a previous tweak negotiated months ago that let Fox and other HBO partners provide digital copies of their movies on services like iTunes from the Cloud and Ultraviolet during the HBO pay window. One other note is that on the same day Netflix revealed its service is coming to several Scandinavian locales, HBO announced it's doing the same, launching HBO Nordic in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

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Netflix mentioned during its most recent earnings call that it had identified an attractive European market to launch its streaming video service in during Q4 2012 and now we know where that is: Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. There's no word yet on pricing or which devices the service will be available on, but Nordic viewers can expect the usual assortment of movies and TV shows for a flat rate, with many available in HD and surround sound. Judging by the languages of support personnel Netflix was looking for last year, Asia is next on its world domination map (after Canada, Latin America and UK & Ireland) although how investors will react to the hit expansion makes on its earnings in the short term.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Cross-pollination is a beautiful thing. In the natural world, it brings bountiful harvests and pretty flowers. In the mobile world, we benefit from the sharing of ideas and technologies. Case in point is Windows Phone, as Microsoft has just announced that it's adopted traffic information from Nokia into the Maps app of its mobile OS. In addition to providing Windows Phone users in the US with more detailed overviews of traffic flows and congestion, the functionality will soon become available for many cities across the globe. Perhaps the move shouldn't come as a total surprise, as just last month, Microsoft revealed the inclusion of Nokia's "Where" platform within Bing Maps.

As for future availability, citizens of Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom will benefit from the sharing of technologies within the next few weeks. For the moment, however, just hop the break, where you can see the before / after traffic data that's now available to Los Angeles residents.

Filed under: Mobile

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Need an extra reason to give a Nokia Lumia some serious consideration? Today, Voddler has announced the official debut of its Windows Phone app for citizens of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Spain. Designed in conjunction with Nokia, the app is exclusive to Lumia owners and provides access to thousands of movies on demand. While many selections are available only as rentals, penny-pinchers will also find a wealth of free, ad-supported videos. Unique to this version, users may partake in a social feature known as Movie Night, which allows like-minded friends to schedule and coordinate movie viewing, chat and then review the flicks. Lumia users will also be treated to four months of Voddler Plus, a subscription service that eschews the ads of free titles and allows individuals to download movies for offline playback. Voddler Plus typically costs 79 SEK (€7.90) per month, so it's not a bad way to dip your toes into the water. Properly situated Lumia owners may download the app today in the Marketplace. For everyone else, feel free to dream of a life more Scandinavian in the PR after the break.

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Surprise, surprise, CloudOn has just opened a fresh can of tablet-friendly Office and is getting ready to deliver it outside of the US, UK and Canada for the first time in its relatively short history. The cloud-based service announced it's now launching its iOS and Android applications in 16 more countries, making it a total of 19 with the addition of the aforementioned trio. Some of the lucky nations include: Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Israel as well as the Netherlands -- and, in case you had any concerns, the app is keeping its free-of-charge status, so no need to worry. In addition to the beefy global expansion, CloudOn also released a few productivity-focused tidbits, giving users the ability to open links straight from the browser, copy and paste between the different built-in apps, plus a drag-and-drop feature to move around files and folders within the application -- unfortunately, this last one's only available to those with a Cupertino device (at least for the time being). All that's left to do now is grab yourself a copy from one of the links below, and be sure to check the presser after the break to see if your country made the cut.

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Details continue to emerge as we approach the IKEA Uppleva's June launch. GigaOM has discovered that the set will be available in sizes ranging from 24 to 46 inches and will be priced "around $960" -- with a scale relative to the display size, we presume. The TV will feature a built-in Blu-ray player and a wireless subwoofer, and is being assembled by TCL Multimedia a manufacturer in China. Uppleva is expected to roll out to France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden beginning next month, then to other European countries later in the year, followed by the US in 2013. There will also be a handful of applications that will vary based on region, including Dailymotion, Vimeo and YouTube, along with games, music playback and video-on-demand apps, and the Opera for TV web browser. There's a familiar sneak-peek vid awaiting you just past the break.

Update: Due to an error at the source article, we originally identified the manufacturer as TLC, rather than TCL Multimedia. The text above has been updated to reflect the correction.

Filed under: HD

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While there's already plenty of excitement around other quad-core Android phones, LG will join the party soon when its Optimus 4X HD launches in a few European countries next month. Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy and Poland are all on deck in June, where this latest Optimus variant will bring a 4.7-inch 720p HD IPS LCD, Tegra 3 CPU (benchmarked and seen in white here) and 2,150mAh battery coupled with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. On the software front, LG is touting its ability to take and share notes with "Quick Memo" (as seen in the Optimus Vu, now updated with the ability to include hyperlinks) as well as new "Media Plex" video playback controls. We got our hands all over this one during MWC 2012 a few months ago so until it drops in your neck of the woods, check out our gallery and video for a closer look or the press release after the break.

Gallery: LG Optimus 4X hands-on

Filed under: Mobile

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While the latest LTE and HD equipped addition to LG's Optimus line has already landed across Asia (Korea, Japan) and North America (US - AT&T, US - Verizon, Canada) under a few different names, the newly rebranded Optimus True HD LTE is finally prepared for a European debut. As seen by the flags flying above, this week LG will begin rolling out to Portugal, Germany and Sweden, with Britain and France on deck for the second half of the year when LTE service is available. The other flags present represent further Asian rollouts in Hong Kong and Singapore. The plan, described in the Korean press release linked below (Update: English PR after the break), is apparently to make LG synonymous with LTE, although we can't see how renaming its current dual-core standard bearer every other week is helping.

Filed under: Mobile

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