The data center will be built with the same Open Compute Project server designs and outdoor-air cooling system of Facebook’s other data centers, but the company says that improvements to the building design and networking architecture will make Altoona’s center stand out in the crowd.

“We’re excited to have found a new home in Iowa, which has an abundance of wind-generated power and is home to a great talent pool that will help build and operate the facility. We plan to break ground this summer and expect to begin serving user traffic in 2014,” says Facebook’s Jay Parikh. “We’re especially appreciative of all the partners who helped make this project happen. Facebook’s mission is to connect the world. Thanks to Iowa, we’re building the global infrastructure to bring the next billion people online. We can’t wait to get started.”

Facebook says that they will break ground this summer and they hope the center will be ready to go in 2014.

Reports of the new data center first hit the web last weekend, with the Des Moines Register saying that the social media giant was behind “the most technologically advanced data center in the world.” That reports suggests that the facility will cost upwards of $1.5 billion.

Altoona, Iowa rests inside the West Des Moines Metropolitan area, and at last census had a population of just shy of 16,000 people. The Altoona data center will be Facebook’s 4th, and 3rd in the United States. Facebook currently has data centers in Prineville, Oregon; Forest City, North Carolina; and Luleå, Sweden.

“Our goal is not just to deliver you a fast, reliable experience on Facebook every day – we also want to help make connectivity a universal opportunity. Our data centers are essential for making that happen,” says Parikh.

Much like past 3D bio-printers, the University of Iowa is using the new 3D printer to create working blood vessels. The team seems to have already made great strides towards that goal. Their next goal is to create the insulin creating part of the pancreas so that they can have a chance at curing Diabetes. From there, we may start seeing fully functioning organs coming out of labs.

Not all of the advancements being made at the University of Iowa apply to medicine though. The engineering team has made a 3D printer with two arms. That’s typically never seen in 3D printers as people can’t figure out a way to keep the arms from hitting each other as they move around the build space. The video doesn’t go into detail over how the team accomplished the feat, but regular 3D printers would benefit greatly from multiple arms printing at once by completing jobs faster, and perhaps with even more detail.

[h/t: Fabbaloo]

Wednesday’s lottery is the 15th-highest payout in Powerball history. The winner can choose to either have the money in one enormous lump sum to the tune of $160 million before taxes or, alternatively, receive 30 payments over 30 years that will ultimately give them the full amount. Again, before taxes, of course. Uncle Sam is a winner, too.

“This truly is a life-changing amount of money and we want our winners to have the information they’ll need as they make their decisions,” Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich explained. “Whoever has the winning ticket should sign it immediately if they haven’t already done so for safe keeping.”

The winning numbers — which were 7, 10, 14, 33, 57 and Powerball 18, in case you were wondering — were reportedly purchased at a Hy-Vee store in Cedar Rapids. So, in short, if you purchased a ticket using those numbers at a Hy-Vee store in Cedar Rapids, by all means, keep the ticket in a safe place and immediately consult a financial advisor. Unless, of course, you have an aversion to becoming an instant millionaire. If that’s the case, I’m sure someone out there will be willing to relieve you of this awesome burden.

This marks the seventh winning ticket issued in Iowa.

As you probably noticed (or, understandably, didn’t notice), Huntsman barely made a blip in last week’s Iowa caucuses as he had a solidly poor showing of only receiving 0.6% of all votes cast. The results can largely be chalked up to Huntsman’s campaign itself since he has essentially put all of his election eggs into the New Hampshire basket where he hopes to establish himself as a legitimate contender against Romney’s all-but-foregone coronation as the Republican presidential nominee.

And whaddya know, it appears to be working! Shortly after the dawn of today’s election, Google Elections & Politics made an update on their Plus account citing a post-debate (the Republican candidates had a twofer this past weekend) swell of interest in Huntsman. Google explains:

We compared search traffic for each of the candidates on Saturday to searches for their names on Monday during the same time period. Though there are fewer searches on weekends, we found a wide variation in the degree of search volume for each candidate. As you can see in the first graph below, Jon Huntsman saw the sharpest increase in search traffic at 50%. He was followed by Newt Gingrich (+21%), Mitt Romney (+18%), and Ron Paul (+8%). Rick Santorum was the only candidate who actually saw a decrease in search traffic (-35%).

And like that – SHAZAM! – Huntsman’s got a dog in this fight. It’s too bad the campaign season didn’t start this past weekend or else Huntsman might have a real chance of crushing his opponents in one swoop. Unfortunately for him, election cycles don’t ever really start or stop, so he’s got his work cut out for him. Still, part of his appeal to New Hampshirers may be due to his Rudy-like moments in this past weekend’s debates, which his campaign shared on his website:

Seriously, with that dramatic music and the way the other nominees are standing off to the side in their nearly-submissive repose, you halfway expect mobs of supporters to circle Huntsman at the end of his speech and triumphantly hoist him up onto their shoulders. One reason we probably didn’t see that dramatic conclusion is that Huntsman is still a relatively fresh face among a field of candidates that have thus far been taking turns in a roulette of Not Romney candidates hewn to a surge-and-decline pattern. Google compiled the trends of searches on the Republican candidates and it appears that Huntsman’s star is rising:

The numbers all appear really promising but… these are all search trends gathered from the past couple of days. But who knows, he might fall as quickly as he has ascended since that’s been the fate of every other single Not Romney candidate. Previous to the New Hampshire primaries today, it wasn’t too common to hear much about Huntsman as he was pretty obscure among his fellow candidates. As encouraging as it must be for his campaign to see this kind of increase in attention, the benefit is negligible at best and a treasure chest of pyrite at worst. If the nation’s interest in Huntsman before the New Hampshire debates was hovering around the Hardly Anything point, a 50% boost of search trends on Hardly Anything is still Hardly Anything.

Incredibly, WebProNews was able to get an exclusive reaction from Mitt Romney, who took a moment from his very busy schedule today to offer the following assessment of Huntsman’s climb in the polls:

Today’s videos feature a reporter who was pushed too far, a ceiling fan fail, and a man who’s simply trying to let the rest of us know how awesome Iowa actually is…biatch. Enjoy.

Every reporter who’s had an unruly mob, or even one person behind them acting goofy just jumped out of their chair and pumped their first.

You think you’re better than Iowa? This guy has come to set you straight (Warning: language)

Christopher Nolan is such a hack. I knew upon viewing The Dark Knight Rises trailer that I had seen this movie done before; now I know what it was…

All I can think upon viewing this video is that Bob Barker never had to rely on celebrity appearances when he was hosting the show. Snoop does know his prices though.

I guarantee your Lego creation doesn’t come close to matching the awesomeness of this one.

I really hope the tagline for this movie is “This summer, things are about to get topsy turvy”. I think Kirsten Dunst has set the record for upside down make out scenes in film as well. (Trailers have been taken down, so this one might not last).

The sound created in this video should be used in movie sound effects. So righteously painful.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has won the first ever Online Iowa Straw Poll, and won by a wide margin at that. Out of over 6,000 votes cast, Congressman Paul received 44%. The poll has been open for about two weeks.

The second place finisher was Herman Cain with 16% of the vote and Michele Bachmann came in third with 10%. 4th place went to Texas Governor Rick Perry as he garnered 8% of the vote. Of course, Rick Perry is not an official candidate for President yet so he will not appear in the real Ames Straw Poll tomorrow. It is speculated, however, that Perry will announce his candidacy as soon as Saturday.

The other finishers, in order, were Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney (tie), Sarah Palin (also not officially running), “Someone else,” Rick Santorum, and John Huntsman and Newt Gingrich (tie). Yes, the “someone else” option beat Santorum, Huntsman and Gingrich.

The first ever online poll was sponsored by Iowa Republican congressman Tom Latham, who represents their 4th congressional district. In a statement to KCAU in Sioux City Iowa, he said this:

I congratulate Ron Paul and his campaign on this victory. Regardless of the results, the most important message of this online poll is that Iowans are united in their motivation to bring common sense back to Washington. And it’s clear why. Americans are tired of paying for Washington’s failed and costly policies. They are ready to fight for leaders who will put people before politics and progress before partisanship to change the way Washington works and the work that Washington does to restore the confidence in the American Dream.

Although the results of the Ames Straw Poll have no official effect on the primaries, many see it as the first big test of the candidates. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see whether or not Ron Paul can duplicate his online success at the real event.

"These state-wide agreements enable schools and districts to benefit from centralized resources such as deployment support and training materials, paving the way for an easy transition to Google Apps—including Gmail, Docs, Sites, Calendar, Video, and Groups—in their classrooms, immediately," says Google Apps Education Manager Jaime Casap.

Colarado Governor Bill Ritter had this to say: "I’m pleased to see the Statewide Internet Portal Authority (SIPA) continue its tradition of bringing innovative tools to members of the Colorado public. By leveraging the Internet, educators are able to bring new ways of learning to the classroom and connect with students in exciting and challenging ways."

Google has also announced the extension of its free Google Message Security service to K-12 institutions, as well as a new training solution.

This includes a free online training center, a set of qualification exams for teachers, and a Certified Trainer and Partner program.

 Arne Josefsberg

A piece of land that Microsoft already owns in West Des Moines, Iowa should stay undeveloped for some amount of time as a result.  Arne Josefsberg and Michael Manos, who are general managers of infrastructure services and data centers at Microsoft, respectively, explained the decision on the ms datacenters site.

The pair wrote, "We measure everything in our data center operations to the point of obsession, and continually analyze our measurements to identify areas where we can improve efficiency and increase ROI."  Advances have been made in the areas of virtualization, capacity allocation, and power density, so "we will be able to delay the construction and opening of some of our facilities, which will save Microsoft and its shareholders significant operating expenses . . ."

Josefsberg and Manos then mentioned data centers that are under construction in Dublin and Chicago, although the would-be data center in Iowa’s the only one to be affected so far.

Current Microsoft employees probably prefer data center delays over more layoffs, anyway.

We imagine the various political bloggers and webmasters must be in ecstasy today, now that the state of Iowa has its primary underway. To complement those fevered bloggers, we took a look at some of the resources available at the major search sites about the primary.

At Ask.com, a search for the Iowa primary brings up a Smart Answer block atop the search results. They link to the state of Iowa’s list of sites about the primary; the left sidebar of the Ask results features options for narrowing the search.

Google occupies the other end of the spectrum. They have been a fixture thanks to their presence in the YouTube debates held in 2007. Tonight, a Google Maps mashup will show live results of today’s voting in Iowa.

Yahoo goes farther with its election coverage than Google and its News section for the election. At Yahoo, features like their Election ’08 Political Dashboard offer a unique look at the various campaigns.

AOL Elections ’08, like many other AOL services, mimics the style and look of Yahoo. AOL’s site isn’t as gee-whizzy as Yahoo’s, as they have more of a focus on stories and headlines about the election. They will track primary results, and show them on the main elections page.

At Microsoft, their MSN Election page covers what they have to offer voters. MSNBC News figures prominently, with a lead story on how various outcomes would affect eleven of the candidates (Ron Paul didn’t merit a mention in MSNBC political director Chuck Todd’s piece, though.)

MSN’s continued connection with Slate.com, once a Microsoft property, brings in several stories from that publication. Latino MSN Elecciones 2008 serves the Spanish-language community seeking online election information.

The company goes on to say, “Google is very happy to be constructing a new data center in Berkeley County, South Carolina. . . .  Eventually, we plan to employ approximately 200 people, ranging from technology assistants to experienced data center managers.  We’re confident this $600 million investment will be good for Berkeley County, Google and our Internet users.”

And, there, in a nutshell, is Google’s Berkeley County Data Center site – lots of feel-good, FAQ-type stuff (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  Dan McCue of the Charleston Regional Business Journal interviewed Matt Dunne, Google’s community relations specialist, on the matter.

“There’s no question that this kind of community outreach is kind of new for Google, but I think it’s a reflection of how the company has grown and evolved over the years,” said Dunne, who later added, “As a result of the positive experience we’ve had here, we’re increasing our outreach to communities in Oklahoma and Iowa, where other data centers are being built.”

Google’s always been one of the most communicative companies on the Web; it looks like the search giant isn’t going to lose that distinction anytime soon.