What's the News: Computers are hot. Too hot, really, for their own good---not only can laptops burn users' thighs, but big clusters of servers require constant air conditioning, leading cloud-computing companies to consider situating them in places like Iceland to save on costs. On the other hand, for part of the year in a good chunk of the globe, humans are cold. Analysts at Microsoft Research wondered whether they couldn't somehow make these two things match up. The Concept:
Server farms don't produce enough heat, unfortunately, for it to be efficiently recycled into electricity. But their exhaust falls into a temperature range---104-122 degrees F---that's perfect for human needs like heating.
In a new paper, the Microsoft team suggest that by swapping a building's furnace for a box of servers belonging to a cloud-computing firm, owners of apartment complexes, offices, campuses, and homes could circulate that heat using the existing duct ...
