Tag - Scorpio

WD ships Scorpio Blue drive in 7mm ultrabook-friendly form

Western Digital on Wednesday started shipping a new version of its Scorpio Blue hard drive tailored for ultrabooks and otherwise thin notebooks. At 7mm tall, it fits in spaces where regular 9.5mm drives won't but can still have as much as 500GB of space. The design has the simultaneous upside of lower power consumption and is purportedly the most efficient spinning hard drive in the field.

Western Digital ships slim 1TB Scorpio Blue drive

Western Digital on Wednesday shipped its first 1TB notebook drive thin enough to fit most portables. An upgraded Scorpio Blue measures 9.5mm tall and is thin enough that a MacBook Pro or most other thinner but regular-sized notebooks can take the capacity. The slimming down comes through fitting 500GB per platter and cutting out the third platter that had been needed on earlier drives.

WD joins fray with thin 750GB notebook drive

Western Digital today joined the ranks of those making thin 750GB mobile drives with an upgrade to the Scorpio Blue. Like its Toshiba cousin, the 2.5-inch SATA II drive fits its 750GB into two platters and can fit into a typical 9.5mm (0.37in) height used by most notebooks, including thin-and-lights. Most slimmer notebook drives have stopped at 640GB.

Western Digital ships 640GB notebook drive

Western Digital this morning began shipping the 640GB Scorpio Blue, one of the first drives above 500GB to fit in most notebooks. It uses two 320GB platters to reach its capacity while still measuring 9.5mm thick and thus thin enough to fit in particularly slim portables like the MacBook Pro. As a Blue series drive, it's aimed at the mainstream and spins at 5,400RPM with an 8MB cache.

WD ships slim 500GB notebook drive

Western Digital on Friday began shipping the 500GB Scorpio Blue, the company's largest-capacity notebook drive. Claiming a record in the process, Western Digital says the disk is the only one to make no sacrifices in size or speed to reach its storage goal. The Serial ATA drive is as tall as normal notebook hard drives at 9.5mm (0.37in) and spins at the same 5,400RPM as most other 2.5-inch disks. Quietness is also considered paramount with an optimized seeking process cutting down on the noise generated by the drive head.

WD ships 320GB, 7,200RPM notebook drive

Western Digital started the week by shipping the 320GB Scorpio Black, its largest-capacity high-speed drive. The 2.5-inch Serial ATA drive enters the increasingly competitive arena of performance notebook drives and includes specs that are normally reserved for desktop drives, including a 7,200RPM spin rate and 16MB of cache to reduce the need for disk access. It also touts measures to protect against damage from the read head; a safe parking technique avoids damage when the drive is switched off, while the more common addition of a free-fall sensor keeps the head away from the magnetic surface in the event of a drop.

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Cirrus creates Lightning-headphone dev kit

Apple supplier Cirrus Logic has introduced a MFi-compliant new development kit for companies interested in using Cirrus' chips to create Lightning-based headphones, which -- regardless of whether rumors about Apple dropping the analog headphone jack in its iPhone this fall -- can offer advantages to music-loving iOS device users. The kit mentions some of the advantages of an all-digital headset or headphone connector, including higher-bitrate support, a more customizable experience, and support for power and data transfer into headphone hardware. Several companies already make Lightning headphones, and Apple has supported the concept since June 2014. http://bit.ly/29giiZj

Developer  92d

Apple Store app offers Procreate Pocket

The Apple Store app for iPhone, which periodically rewards users with free app gifts, is now offering the iPhone "Pocket" version of drawing app Procreate for those who have the free Apple Store app until July 28. Users who have redeemed the offer by navigating to the "Stores" tab of the app and swiping past the "iPhone Upgrade Program" banner to the "Procreate" banner have noted that only the limited Pocket (iPhone) version of the app is available free, even if the Apple Store app is installed and the offer redeemed on an iPad. The Pocket version currently sells for $3 on the iOS App Store. [32.4MB]

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Porsche adds CarPlay to 2017 Panamera

Porsche has added a fifth model of vehicle to its CarPlay-supported lineup, announcing that the 2017 Panamera -- which will arrive in the US in January -- will include Apple's infotainment technology, and be seen on a giant 12.3-inch touchscreen as part of an all-new Porsche Communication Management system. The luxury sedan starts at $99,900 for the 4S model, and scales up to the Panamera Turbo, which sells for $146,900. Other vehicles that currently support CarPlay include the 2016 911 and the 2017 models of Macan, 718 Boxster, and 718 Cayman. The company did not mention support for Google's corresponding Android Auto in its announcement. http://bit.ly/295ZQ94

Industry  92d

Apple employees testing wheelchair features

New features included in the forthcoming watchOS 3 are being tested by Apple retail store employees, including a new activity-tracking feature that has been designed with wheelchair users in mind. The move is slightly unusual in that, while retail employees have previously been used to test pre-release versions of OS X and iOS, this marks the first time they've been included in the otherwise developer-only watchOS betas. The company is said to have gone to great lengths to modify the activity tracker for wheelchair users, including changing the "time to stand" notification to "time to roll" and including two wheelchair-centric workout apps. http://bit.ly/2955JDa

Troubleshooting  92d

SanDisk reveals two 256GB microSDXC cards

SanDisk has introduced two 256GB microSDXC cards. Arriving in August for $150, the Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Premium Edition card offers transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s for reading data. The Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card can read at a fast 100MB/s and write at up to 90MB/s, and will be shipping sometime in the fourth quarter for $200. http://bit.ly/294Q1If

Upgrades/storage  93d

Apple's third-quarter results due July 26

Apple has advised it will be issuing its third-quarter results on July 26, with a conference call to answer investor and analyst queries about the earnings set to take place later that day. The stream of the call will go live at 2pm PT (5pm ET) via Apple's investor site, with the results themselves expected to be released roughly 30 minutes before the call commences. Apple's guidance for the quarter put revenue at between $41 billion and $43 billion. http://apple.co/1oi1Pbm

Investor  94d

Twitter stickers slowly roll out to users

Twitter has introduced "stickers," allowing users to add extra graphical elements to their photos before uploading them to the micro-blogging service. A library of hundreds of accessories, props, and emoji will be available to use as stickers, which can be resized, rotated, and placed anywhere on the photograph. Images with stickers will also become searchable with viewers able to select a sticker to see how others use the same graphic in their own posts. Twitter advises stickers will be rolling out to users over the next few weeks, and will work on both the mobile apps and through the browser. http://bit.ly/29bbwUE

IPhone apps  94d