Google now displaying tweets in desktop search

The integration began earlier this year with mobile devices.

A partnership between Google and Twitter that has placed tweets in Google search results on mobile devices since earlier this year has now been expanded to the desktop.

Relevant tweets will appear in desktop results for queries performed in English. The search doesn’t need to include the term “twitter” or twitter hashtags -- if there are tweets that Google thinks are relevant, it will surface them anyway.

On Friday, for instance, a search for “President Obama” returned recent tweets from Obama’s Twitter account near the top of the page, below a few news articles.

The tweets that appear will include photos and links that may have been contained in the tweet.

Google has provided links to tweets in its search results for a long time, but showing the actual tweets could potentially give a boost to Twitter at a time when it’s struggling to add new users.

Google noted the expansion on Friday in an update to its earlier announcement around the mobile rollout.

The company has said it will make the feature available in other languages besides English.

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Google pushes back Project Ara testing to 2016

The company plans to test the device in the U.S.

Google is delaying initial testing for its modular smartphone, known as Project Ara, to 2016.

The company plans to test the device in the U.S., according to several tweets posted Monday by the Project Ara team. Neither the exact location nor precise timing of the tests was given.

The Project Ara smartphone is designed to let users easily swap out its components.

The idea is that users purchase the hardware modules, like processors and sensors, themselves and snap them together to create a customized smartphone. In so doing, users could improve their device on their own terms, rather than buying a new phone outright.

Google had planned to commence initial testing in Puerto Rico this year, though those plans were scrapped as part of a "recalculation," announced last week.

The hastag #Yeswearelate was affixed to one of the tweets on Monday.

Google did not immediately respond to comment further.

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SanDisk, Toshiba double down, announce the world's highest capacity 3D NAND flash chips

Toshiba's BiCS technology stacks 48 layers of microscopic NAND layers atop one another, vastly increasing memory density. Credit: Toshiba

The new 3D NAND chip is designed for wide use in consumer, client, mobile and enterprise products

SanDisk and Toshiba announced today that they are manufacturing 256Gbit (32GB), 3-bit-per-cell (X3) 48-layer 3D NAND flash chips that offer twice the capacity of the next densest memory.

The two NAND flash manufacturers are currently printing pilot the 256Gb X3 chips in their new Yokkaichi, Japan fabrication plant. They are expecting to ship the new chips next year.

Last year, Toshiba and SanDisk announced their collaboration on the new fab wafer plant, saying they would use the facility exclusively for three dimensional "V-NAND" NAND flash wafers.

At the time of the announcement, the companies reported the collaboration would be valued at about $4.84 billion when construction of the plant and its operations were figured in.

In March, Toshiba announced the first 48-layer 3D V-NAND chips; those flash chips held 128Gbit (16GB) of capacity.

The new 256Gbit flash chip, which uses 15 nanometer lithography process technology, is suited for diverse applications, including consumer SSDs, smartphones, tablets, memory cards, and enterprise SSDs for data centers, the companies said.

Based on a vertical flash stacking technology that the companies call BiCS [Bit Cost Scaling], the new flash memory stores three bits of data per transistor (triple-level cell or TLC), compared to the previous two-bit (multi-level cell or MLC) memory Toshiba had been producing with BiCS.

"This is the world's first 256Gb X3 chip, developed using our industry-leading 48-layer BiCS technology and demonstrating SanDisk's continued leadership in X3 technology. We will use this chip to deliver compelling storage solutions for our customers," Siva Sivaram, SanDisk's executive vice president for memory technology, said in a statement.
sandisk nand manufacturing image2

SanDisk and Toshiba's fab operations in Yokkaichi, Japan where the new 48-layer 3D V-NAND chip is being produced.

Last year, Samsung became the first semiconductor manufacturer to begin producing 3D NAND. Its V-NAND chip provides two to 10 times higher reliability and twice the write performance, according to Samsung.

Samsung's V-NAND uses cell structure based on 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology. By applying the latter technologies, Samsung's 3D V-NAND can provide more than twice the scaling of today's 20nm-class planar NAND flash.

Samsung is using its 3D V-NAND for a wide range of consumer electronics and enterprise applications, including embedded NAND storage and solid-state drives (SSDs). Samsung's 3D NAND flash chips were used to create SSDs with capacities ranging from 128GB to 1TB.

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