Are you excited to get 10TB SSDs??

SSDs and other flash memory devices will soon get cheaper and larger thanks to big announcements from Toshiba and Intel. Both companies revealed new “3D NAND” memory chips that are stacked in layers to pack in more data, unlike single-plane chips currently used. Toshiba said that it’s created the world’s first 48-layer NAND, yielding a 16GB chip with boosted speeds and reliability. The Japanese company invented flash memory in the first place and has the smallest NAND cells in the world at 15nm. Toshiba is now giving manufacturers engineering samples, but products using the new chips won’t arrive for another year or so.

At the same time, Intel and partner Micron revealed they’re now manufacturing their own 32-layer NAND chips that should also arrive in SSDs in around a year. They’re sampling even larger capacity NAND memory than Toshiba, with 32GB chips available now and a 48GB version coming soon. Micron said the chips could be used to make gum-stick sized M.2 PCIe SSDs up to 3.5TB in size and 2.5-inch SSDs with 10TB of capacity — on par with the latest hard drives. All of this means that Toshiba, Intel/Micron and companies using their chips will soon give some extra competition to Samsung, which has been using 3D NAND tech for much longer. The result will be nothing but good for consumers: higher capacity, cheaper SSDs that will make spinning hard disks sleep with one eye open.

Credits: engadget

Google Play Music Increases Cloud Storage Limit To 50,000 Songs

Google has bumped the storage limit for its locker service for Google Play Music from 20,000 to 50,000 songs, giving users more than double the capacity to store their own collection in the cloud, over and above the extensive streaming library that makes up Google Play Music’s own category. The extended library allowance is a free upgrade for users, meaning people get the additional capacity without having to sign up for more Drive storage or anything like that.

The bump in available space is easy to take advantage of, and applies automatically if you’re already hosting your collection in Google’s cloud. If you haven’t yet used Google Play Music’s locker service, however, it’s pretty easy to get started, using the instructions provided by Google below:

1. Sign in to Google Play Music with your Google account – Go to your computer and visit play.google.com/music. Sign up if needed.
2. Claim your free storage – If you’d like to try the Google Play music subscription service too, click “Get Started”. Otherwise, click “No Thanks” to continue with the free storage.
3. Add your music collection – The setup process will guide you through adding the Chrome app*, which provides seamless uploading. You can choose to simply upload your entire iTunes library or select other music folders. You can upload 50,000 songs for free.
4. Access your music at any time on multiple devices – You can stream or download music to your Android, iPhone, or iPad for easy offline listening. It’s also all available on the web when you’re on your computer. And when you upgrade to a new computer or the latest mobile device, your music comes along too. You’ll never be without your favorite artists again!

*Not using Chrome? The setup process at step 3 will instead guide you through installing Music Manager where you can still add 50,000 songs.

You can listen to them from all supported devices, that is.And even download them to your Android or iOS device for offline listening.

Content Credits: Techcrunch and gsmarena

Apple now allows everyone to create, save files in iCloud

One of the things Apple had working against them when it came to creating files for use in the cloud was actually creating files in the cloud itself. Though you could save a Pages document or presentation made via Keynote in iCloud, creating one via iCloud wasn’t really a thing. Until now.

Today, Apple is rolling out file creation in iCloud, all via a browser.

Now, you don’t even need access to an OS X or iOS device to use Pages, Keynote, or Numbers.

Find your way to a browser, log into iCloud, and away you go. Though all services still have their ‘beta’ tag, creating documents in the cloud is pretty simple and straightforward.

Editing tools are all there, and closely mimic the standalone app for OS X. Though it’s not a carbon copy, it’s much more than a simple text editor in the cloud. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are all fairly well built for the cloud.

This aligns Apple a bit more with Microsoft Office 365 and Google Drive. Though we’re sure Apple users will still want to go the normal route for file creation, this option at least lets them actually work in the cloud rather than access files stored in the cloud.

Apple says iCloud.com supports all major browsers, so there aren’t a lot of folks who will be left out, here. New web-only accounts will be limited to 1GB storage.

What we find via iCloud is free to use for anyone, but Apple is limiting some features for iOS or OS X users. If you want to save to iCloud from the desktop, for instance, you’ll need an Apple device.

Even with the beta tag, Apple’s iCloud services for Pages, Keynote, and Numbers is actually pretty good. It’s probably about as useful for simple documents as anything else out there.

Content Credits: slashgear.com