Here Is How You Can Increase Your Storage On Your 13 inch MacBook Air

After you have purchased your 13 inch MacBook Air and found out after several months that there is insufficient storage present in this notebook, what exactly can you do about it without spend a fortune all over again? TarDisk has the solution just for you.

TarDisk Brings Expandable Storage To Your 13 Inch MacBook Air, But It Is Still Going To Cost You

According to the company, TarDisk Pear is a brand new customized SD card solution that is inserted straight inside the SD card slot of your MacBook Air. Keep in mind that this option is not available for your 12 inch MacBook or 11 inch MacBook Air because none of these two machines provide support for an SD card slot. Moving on, a regular consumer might be thinking that why don’t they just purchase a regular SD card and they will have instant expandable storage. Here is the reason why; the primary difference between a regular SD card and a TarDisk Peak is that it creates a new logically merged volume managed by OS X.

According to the company, this is a more accurate description of TarDisk Pear:

“Unlike most external hard drives, where manual file allocation is necessary, this SD card creates a hybrid drive, combining the card and the internal hard drive into one. When installed, the hard drive is increased by up to 256GB and the product lies flush with the side wall of the laptop.”

Additional advantages of owning this product is as follows:

• TRIM enabled SSDs maintain original speed benefits of Trim
• Read/Write buffer (“swap-space-equivalent”) is maintained on SSD to buffer writes to files located on the product

The only issue that arises from purchasing such form of storage for your MacBook Air is that it will still cost you, and its price tag is much higher compared to the prices stamped on high capacity SD cards. Starting off, the 128GB storage variant will set you back by $149, while the 256GB variant will cost you $399. While this is an expensive investment in an attempt to upgrade your storage capacity, you will have to agree that it is much more resourceful than spending an exorbitant amount on purchasing a brand new MacBook Air with more storage.

Additionally, you will get the extra speed, which we have to say might be slower than the PCI-e type storage incorporated inside the MacBook Air, but it is much faster than the SD cards available in the market. If speed is something that you desire, then TarDisk Pear is a storage product that you should consider for your expensive machine.

Google’s Who’s Down App Let’s You Find Friends On Both Android And iOS

Google is attempting to connect individuals through the comfort of their smartphones in the simplest manner possible, and the process can only be completed in the form of mobile applications. The company’s latest offering to Android and iOS platforms is Who’s Down, an app that lets individuals know which friends are in their closest proximity. Let us take a look at more details of how Who’s Down works.

Google Who’s Down Is Available For Both iOS And Android But Can Only Be Used Through An Invite – Read All The Details Here

According to the details of the app, Who’s Down is an invite-only application that lets fellow teenagers know that they are available for a particular type of activity, or simply, if they are ‘down’ to hang out with each other. When users attempt to sign up for Who’s Down, Google will ask you to enter your email address and your school, suggesting the app is targeted to a younger crowd. If you visit the official website, the very first thing you will be able to see is the ‘REQUEST AN INVITE’, confirming that the app will not work without an invite.

Who’s Down will obviously not be in the same league as other popular messaging services such as WhatsApp, Viber and several others and the ‘REQUEST AN INVITE’ will definitely be a deal breaker for several potential users who want to try something different because they obviously want to avoid this tedious process altogether. If Who’s Down becomes mildly successful, we believe that some of its features will be able to be adopted into new applications, otherwise, it will just become a thing of the past like several others before it.

Coming to the actual features of Who’s Down, when users actually initiate their very first entry into the environment of the application, they can search for nearby friends and ask if they are ‘down’ for doing something. This can range from a quiet evening with a few close friends or can go up to an adventure filled night. Furthermore, there are group chatting features included so that you can keep track of communication with your close friends in order to see what additional plans they have for the remainder of the month.

Who’s Down is available for both iOS (download from here) and Android (download from here). Tell us what you thought about the application, if you are ever get ‘down’ to using it. Let us know what you think.

Qualcomm Refutes Rumors That Its Snapdragon 820 Suffers From Overheating

Leading mobile chipset manufacturer Qualcomm is once again under fire that its upcoming high-end chipset Snapdragon 820 is overheating. However, the company has stood its ground saying that it is not the case.

Snapdragon 820 Is Not Overheating Says Qualcomm

According to a Chinese source, Qualcomm officials have stated that its upcoming flagship SoC is not overheating and that all steps and precautions have been taken in order to ensure that Snapdragon 820 does not end up being like its predecessor, Snapdragon 810. However, if we remember correctly, the firm also stated that its current flagship chipset did not overheat, and look how different things turned out to be? Samsung ended up incorporating its own Exynos chipset, and Qualcomm ended up losing a huge partner in the process.

However, it is expected that Galaxy S7 would be coming in two chipset variants, and one of them will comprise up of a Snapdragon 820. This is sufficient evidence that Samsung is impressed with how far Qualcomm has come in preventing history from repeating itself and has therefore, allowed the company to have yet another chance at redeeming itself. We also reported that Snapdragon 820 would be manufactured on the 14nm FinFET LPP process, which is much more advanced in comparison to its 14nm FinFET LPE variant.

14nm FinFET LPE delivers up to 20 percent more performance and 35 percent more efficiency compared to the 20nm node so you can only imagine the performance leaps that Snapdragon 820 will be able to cover with the new manufacturing process.

Additionally, the upcoming chipset In addition to performance, Snapdragon 820 also provides support for dual-channel LPDDR4 memory support with a speed of up to 1866MHz. The SoC will also provide support for a 28MP camera sensor. Perhaps the biggest difference between the previous generation chips is that Snapdragon 820 will be able to generate enough firepower to allow users to record 4K videos at a steady 60FPS, and that is twice the framerate that current devices are able to capture.

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Qualcomm has also stated that smartphone OEMs are also making sure that they are implementing suitable ways to remove the heat generated from the processor, indicating that if there is a slight chance that it does overheat, the blame will be branched out to both manufacturers. Regardless, Qualcomm seems quite confident about its Snapdragon 820 chipset, but we will still be waiting for more temperature benchmarks so that we can lay down our final verdict.

Do you guys think that Qualcomm has finally patched things up? Let us know your thoughts.

The iPad Pro Is Reportedly Set To Go On Sale November 11

Apple skipped the launch date when the iPad Pro was first announced. However, the gigantic 12.9-inch tablet was enlisted for a November launch, irrespective of the actual date. As for now, according to 9to5Mac’s report publications, the iPad Pro is just around the corner. The report emphasizes on Apple’s plans for an 11th November launch of the iPad Pro.

Considering the report as the finalized date to launch, other accessories like the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil are said to go on sale alongside the bigger tablet. The same launch date for the iPad Pro and its accessories definitely makes sense, since both of the accessories are complimentary products.

Let’s see some more details on the forthcoming iPad Pro and the utility of its accessories.

iPad Pro To Go On Sale On November 11

Even though the report mentions the launch date of the forthcoming iPad Pro as November 11, it does not show any pre-order period. Usually, the pre-order period starts a mere 4-5 days before Apple’s products go on sale, like the Apple TV. If we take this period into account, the pre-order period should start by 6-7th of November. There are also some additional questions about the launch of iPad Pro that needs to be answered. It is unclear at this point, whether the huge iPad Pro will go on sale through Apple’s retail stores or will users be opting for it through the company’s online store.

What we know about Apple’s accessories so far is that the Smart Keyboard costs at a hefty price of $169 while the Apple Pencil would cost about $99. Recently today, Adobe also updated its Photoshop Mix and Photoshop Fix with support for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. It could be a sign of the larger iPad Pro nearing in, however, no official news has been heard so far.

As for the iPad Pro, the prices remain the same what were were announced at the event, $799 for the 32GB variant and the 128GB with support for both Wi-Fi and LTE is charged at $1079. Moreover, the LTE variant of the iPad Pro will be available to users through carrier stores by November 11. It is also possible that the LTE variant is sold on another date through carriers. Judging by the past report, the November 6th launch seems to line up as AppleCare staff targets the finalization of the iPad pro training.

However, the official date belongs to Apple and the company will decide when is the best time for the launch. We hope Apple’s decisions coincides with the reports. This is it for now, let us know what you feel about the gigantic 12.9-inch iPad Pro in the comments.

Exclusive: AMD R9 Fury X2 Specs Confirmed – Gemini Launching Within The Next Two Months

AMD is in the process of introducing its fastest graphics card yet, a flagship board code named Gemini with two full fledged Fiji XT GPUs. The new ultra-enthusiast flagship Radeon graphics card is set to replace the current holder of the title of the world’s fastest graphics card, the R9 295X2. The official product name for the dual Fiji XT board code named “Gemini” is still unknown, so we’ll be using the “Fury X2” designation to refer to the card in the time being. Fury X2 is set to come out within the next two months. We’ve managed to narrow it down more specifically to the back-end of November / beginning of December.

AMD “Fiji” GPU With Stacked Memory “HBM”

There have been multiple engineering samples of the card in circulation for a few weeks now. AMD engineers have been hard at work optimizing for clock speeds, power and CrossfireX scaling. They have finalized the specifications, which we’re sharing exclusively in this article. The R9 Fury X2 will be the fourth and last Fiji based graphics card from AMD this year. The card will feature two full fledged Fiji XT GPUs with 4GB of stacked High Bandwidth Memory each, for a total of 8GB of memory and a combined memory bandwidth of one Terabyte per second.

Gemini, AMD’s Most Powerful Graphics Card Ever

We exclusively brought you the specifications for both the R9 Fury X and the R9 Fury prior to their announcement earlier this year, and we’re doing the exact same thing today with the R9 Fury X2. Both Fiji XT GPUs inside the R9 Fury X2 will operate at clock speeds of up to 1000Mhz, the stacked 8GB of HBM VRAM operates at a clock speed of 500Mhz.
Internal documentation states that AMD is targeting an 80% boost in 4K and 2560×1440 gaming performance as compared to a single Fiji XT GPU at the same frequencies. AMD has also set a very aggressive target for frame consistency with net frame variance that’s less than 20% with their frame pacing technology.

One last tidbit is that the R9 Fury X2 will not be supported on 32bit Windows operating systems. But quite frankly if your graphics card has more memory than your entire system, then you should seriously consider re-thinking your priorities.

These seem like mighty impressive figures but as with all multi-GPU graphics cards and configurations, effective multi-GPU scaling is going to be essential in extracting performance out of these solutions. The references to a  performance scaling target of 80% with minimum frame variance in AMD’s documentation means that dual GPU graphics card fans can breathe sigh of a relief.

If we look at how a Fury X – or any Fiji based graphics card – does today in a CrossfireX configuration we can get a pretty good idea of how well the Fury X2 should scale. Sadly however as we only have one Fury X in-house we weren’t able to conduct our own testing. However we can turn to some of the folks over at Tweaktown.com who were able to publish CrossfireX results for the R9 Fury X.
At 3840×2160, which is the resolution that we would reasonably expect gamers who’d spend $1300+ on a pair of graphics cards to play games at, two R9 Fury X cards in CrossfireX demonstrated a significant lead in average and/or minimum FPS in 6 out of 7 tested games against two GTX Titan X cards in SLI. Against two GTX 980 Ti graphics cards in SLI, two R9 Fury X cards were faster in all 7 tested titles at 4K.

At 2560×1440 it was a much closer race. The dual R9 Fury X setup comes out ahead in 3 out of 7 games, the dual Titan X setup comes out ahead in 3 other games and both setups come to a dead heat in one out of the seven tested titles. It might seem slightly peculiar at first that Fury X cards in CrossfireX are far more competitive with the Nvidia offerings than the same Fury X cards in single GPU setups. One 980 Ti will often outperform one Fury X at 2560×1440. And while it’s a much closer race between the two cards at 4K, when it comes to multi GPU setups two Fury X cards will often lead two GTX 980 Ti cards in SLI.

XDMA, The Technology Behind Crossfire’s Exceptional Scaling

In 2013 AMD introduced a brand new Crossfire hardware implementation by adding a DMA engine to the Crossfire composting block on the GPU die. This was first introduced with the Hawaii GPUs in September of 2013, and each subsequent GPU that AMD introduced also had this technology which AMD dubbed XDMA, short for Crossfire DMA.

AMD RADEON™ R9-­‐290X, ONE BIG DGPU MIKE MANTOR

NEW AMD CROSSFIRE™ TECHNOLOGY -­‐ XDMA
– XDMA is a modern approach to negoIaIng the communicaIon of mulIple GPUs for peak gaming performance with the ultra-­‐high-­‐resoluIon displays of tomorrow.
– Radeon™R9-­‐290X includes a Hardware DMA engine in the AMD CrossFire™ composiIng block
– Designed for AMD Eyefinity and UltraHD resoluIons via DisplayPort™ ‒
– Allows for direct access between GPU display pipelines over PCI Express®
– No external connector required
– CompaIble on AMD Catalyst™ frame pacing technologies
– No performance penalty versus external bridge

The technology enables faster, lower overhead communication between multiple GPUs, this in turn translates to better Crossfire scaling. And that’s what we’re seeing take effect here. It also enables graphics cards in Crossfire setups to inter-communicate through the PCI Express interface which eliminates the need for a Crossfire bridge. But most importantly is that it enables more effective and efficient multi-GPU scaling. Allowing the performance of Crossfire, TriFire and QuadFire GPU setups to scale significantly better.
We’ve taken an in-depth look at Crossfire and SLI scaling in a previous article which you should check out if you want to learn more about how this technology can affect your gaming experience as well as reduce frametime variance, which is what causes the perceived micro suttering that gamers sometimes notice from multi-GPU setups.

WCCFTech	Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan X (SLI)		AMD Radeon R9 Fury X (CF/xDMA)
Metric	Performance/Scaling	Frametime Variance / Micro-stutter	Performance/Scaling	Frametime Variance / Micro-stutter
Single GPU	100%	0%	100%	0%
Dual GPU	179%	12%	187%	7%
Triple GPU	238%	26%	260%	15%
Quad GPU	283%	41%	313%	28%

In closing, you can find all the specifications for the R9 Fury X2 – that we’ve managed to confirm thus far – as well as the R9 Fury X, R9 Fury, R9 Nano and R9 290X below arranged conveniently in table for you to feast your eyes upon. The ~ symbol next to a spec denotes that it’s pending confirmation.

WCCFTech	AMD Radeon R9 Fury X2	AMD Radeon R9 Fury X	AMD Radeon R9 Nano	AMD Radeon R9 Fury	AMD Radeon R9 290X
GPU	Fiji XT x 2	Fiji XT	Fiji XT	Fiji Pro	Hawaii XT
Stream Processors	8192	4096	4096	3584	2816
GCN Compute Units	128	64	64	56	44
Render Output Units	128	64	64	64	64
Texture Mapping Units	512	256	256	224	176
GPU Frequency	Up to 1000 Mhz	Up to 1050Mhz	Up to 1000 MHz	Up to 1000 MHz	1000Mhz
Memory	8GB HBM (4 GB Per GPU)	4GB HBM	4GB HBM	4GB HBM	4GB GDDR5
Memory Interface	8192bit (4096 Per GPU)	4096bit	4096bit	4096bit	512bit
Memory Frequency	500Mhz	500Mhz	500 MHz	500Mhz	1250Mhz
Effective Memory Speed	1Gbps	1Gbps	1Gbps	1Gbps	5Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	1 Terabyte/s	512GB/s	512GB/s	512GB/s	320GB/s
Cooling	Liquid	Liquid, 120mm Radiator	Air, Single Fan/Custom AIB Solutions	Air, Custom AIB Solutions	Air, Single Blower Fan
Performance (FP32)	16.38 TFLOPS	8.6 TFLOPS	8.19 TFLOPS	7.2 TFLOPS	5.6 TFLOPS
TDP	~375W	275W	175W	275W	250W
GFLOPS/Watt	~43.7	31.3	47.1	26.2	19.3
Launch Price	TBA	$649	$649	$549	$549
Launch Date	November/December 2015	24th June 2015	7th September 2015	10th July 2015	24th October 2013

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-r9-fury-x2-specs-gemini/#ixzz3qDFy5m2j