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Updated: To paraphrase (and mangle) StarTrek’s famous tagline: Can Russia be the place where Internet companies boldly go looking for the final frontier of data centers? At least one blog thinks so, and it points to the massive hydroelectric power capacity on tap in Russia. An article in this week’s The Economist points to RusHydro, a Russian company with the capacity to produce 25 gigawatts of electricity.

Much of the unused part is in Russia, RusHydro says. It has 5GW of new capacity under construction and more than 20GW on the drawing board—enough to double production.

Power is seen as the biggest constraint when it comes to building data center capacity. As a way around this conundrum, large consumers of Internet data center capacity have located their facilities closer to energy sources. For instance, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have built data centers in Quincy in the state of Washington near a hydroelectric dam where they pay a lot less for power than, say, in Silicon Valley. Google has built a massive facility in The Dalles, Oregon, another location close to power source. (Related stories: The Geography of Internet Infrastructure and Why Google Needs Its Own Nuclear Plant)

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Updated with details from the conference call after the jump: Juniper has officially announced that Kevin Johnson is going to the CEO, Scott Kirens is going to be chairman. The lack of response from their PR department shows that they are woefully out of date in this “immediate news age,” ironic for a company that makes equipment to enable this immediacy.

Johnson’s hiring indicates, according to some of my sources, that the company might be going in the direction of services, such as network management. (Of course they didn’t address any of the important stuff in the press release, which is packed with platitudes and non-information.) All that sounds good, but in theory very few companies (IBM, for example) have made a big business out of services. Many of them end up buying pure-play service companies.

So what does Johnson, a non-equipment guy, bring to the table? That’s not very clear, except for a reputation that got a severe battering in the light of failed Yahoo bid. Welcome Mr. Johnson, now all you have to do is prove yourself. There will be more details revealed on Juniper’s conference call with investors tonight, we are told

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As the debate rages over who can access the white spaces between licensed digital television spectrum, the Federal Communications Commission itself has emerged as a hot ticket. Everyone from the NFL to Lollapalooza is clamoring to have its events be used as a staging ground by the agency for the testing of devices aimed at utilizing portions of the DTV spectrum for wireless Internet access. The FCC has said it will test interference of the white space devices in 10 geographic locations or buildings in the DC area; it’s looking for other venues as well.

At issue is the ability of these proposed white space devices to operate in the spectrum, which will become available after the conversion to digital TV signals next year. Companies such as Google, Motorola, Microsoft and Intel all would like to see that spectrum used for wireless broadband access. However users of wireless microphones — everyone from recording stars to preachers at megachurches — are against that plan as they’re worried about interference on their wireless mics. The National Association of Broadcasters is opposing the efforts as well, arguing that such devices could interfere with the transmission of DTV channels.

The FCC is expected to make a decision about them later this year. Depending on the summer concert lineup, it may want to hold off doing its field tests until Madonna’s latest tour starts in October or until Led Zeppelin reunites — might as well enjoy the music along the way.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s CEO, may be learning something about the hard-driving style of management it takes to go it alone after an attempted takeover, especially if he follows Om’s logic and thinks Yahoo is about more than search. This morning, Yahoo said it will allow corporate raider Carl Icahn three seats on a newly expanded Yahoo board in an effort to settle the disagreement that is taking up so much of the web portal’s attention this summer. This ends the proxy battle, and Yang has brought Icahn in-house despite — or perhaps because of — the trouble he’s caused.

The deal gives Icahn and two other board members of his choosing spots on an 11-member board. Shareholders will choose from Icahn’s previously named slate of potential directors and newly named Jonathan Miller, currently a partner in Velocity Interactive Group and former chairman and CEO of AOL. This will settle the proxy battle Icahn began after Microsoft’s failed bids for Yahoo earlier this year, and make the Aug. 1 shareholder meeting a less contentious one.

However, it’s unclear what this peace offering means for Microsoft, which has expressed interest in doing a deal with Icahn should he gain control of Yahoo. Icahn’s board presence isn’t likely enough to sway Microsoft to put up the cash required to do a deal that Yahoo might sabotage while waiting for the closing. We’ll update the story as Microsoft comes out with its stance.

There’s already a ton of activity taking place in the cloud computing space, so much so that it can be hard to know who to watch. In many cases, it’s too early to pick winners. But there are distinct sectors of the IT industry that are particularly well suited to the on-demand, pay-as-you-go economics of cloud computing. Here are eight segments — and one company that’s a segment all its own — that we’re tracking closely.

Hosting companies that make the jump: When it comes to reliable managed hosting, Rackspace leads the pack. (Its VMware-based Mosso offering may appeal more to enterprises trying the cloud for the first time.) Clouds like XCalibre’s Flexiscale and Joyent are already there, but don’t have Rackspace’s installed base.

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Summer is generally a slower time for news and this summer is no exception. But the kind folks at Microsoft, Yahoo and Carl Icahn’s investment firm are charitably offering up a form of entertainment with their ongoing Let’s Make a Deal saga.

The latest installment is a letter to shareholders from Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang that accuses Microsoft of flip-flopping, creating confusion and generally not wanting to make a deal. The letter also also reiterates Yahoo’s desire to sell the entire company at $33 per share — or if that’s not interesting, just the search assets.

Let me tell you, Yahoo, playing hard to get is smart, but this letter is no way to get the guy of your dreams. In fact, rumor has it Microsoft is seeing AOL now, and everyone knows AOL hasn’t always made the best choice in relationships.

This stuff may play well in Silicon Valley, but outside of it the world is not watching. While Kara Swisher dutifully calls her sources and provides us with the ins and outs of the wheeling and dealing, the audience outside the tech world is yawning. This started back in February (2007 if you believe the original offer from Microsoft). Let’s finish this, so the world can really focus on the banking crisis or high gas prices.

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