Active noise cancellation comes to servers

AT CES, COOLIT had a bunch of demo computers on display, one of which was by Silentium. At CeBit, Silentium was showing off a 1/4 rack with active noise cancellation.

Looks ugly, sounds less so

It may have all the good looks of a Soviet building project, but the Silentium case does appear to work. How it works is to take a microphone, listen to noise coming off the servers, and make sounds 180 degrees out of phase with the 'bad' noise. This is called antinoise.

Antinoise works best on constant sounds, things like jet engines or fan exhausts, the kinds of sounds servers tend to make. Between that and the foam padding, Silentium should be able to make a rack full of screaming 2U servers fairly quiet, or at least lose a few decibels.

It may never be able to quiet things down enough for a museum, and the styling sure won't get the case into one, but it does fill a niche.

If you need a or two server by your knee, or want to be able to use the phone near a few 2U boxes, this might just do the trick. µ