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The value of SanDisk’s stock was closed at $76.78 per share, about five dollars more than Western Digital. The deal does not come as a complete shock - It has been speculated for about a week that this was bound to happen. This marks the next step for WD into providing storage solutions on a global scale, using both their products and those of SanDisk.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced that it has created the world’s largest hard drive. At the Flash Memory Summit in California this past week, Samsung unveiled its golden child, the PM1633a, which uses NAND flash chips rather than spinning platters and crams almost 16 terabytes into a 2.5 inch SSD package.

The deal was paid for in cash by a group that had been eager to acquire it for a while. This included investors such as GIC, Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund. Symantec chose to sell due to an increased need to focus on security tools and anti-hacker efforts. With so many hackers and breaches in security, they were just fed up with trying to keep up with the anonymous trolls.

Cisco Systems, an American multinational technology company, has announced that they will no longer be selling their data-storage hardware known as the Cisco UCS Invicta Series. July 24^th, 2015 was the last day that Cisco Systems offered to sell the affected products. Cisco, which has recently decided to move beyond networking gear and into server systems, is taking action to narrow down their focus onto the most promising businesses. This decision will inevitably affect many Cisco employees, though a Cisco spokeswoman declined to comment on the exact amount of employees who would be losing their jobs.

Apple and Samsung are in discussions with GSMA, the mobile standards organization, to introduce electronic SIM cards. The discussion between two companies are due to the GSMA's imminent declaration of a standardized embedded SIM card for consumer devices, of which Apple and Samsung are primary players. It has already been rumored since late 2010 of Apple creating its own SIM card line which started when Gigaom claimed the company was working with the digital security firm Gemalto. The rumors lead people to believe that the two companies would work on the custom built-in SIM.

Samsung has increased the capacity of its 850 Evo and 850 pro solid-state drives, making them capable of holding two terabytes of data. It is the most storage space offered through any of their drives being sold via retail. Previous models offered storage of 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB.

In 2014, Microsoft pulled their support for Windows XP in which they will no longer issue security updates to fix issues with the software. Despite this, any company or agency that is still using Windows XP can pay Microsoft for continued updates. Notably, the United States Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command is still using Windows XP, though the agency is planning to upgrade its systems by July 12, 2016.

In June 2015, NASA announced that they have teamed up with Microsoft to develop a new project called Sidekick which will use commercial technology to empower astronauts on the International Space Station. The goal of Sidekick is to enable station crews with assistance whenever and wherever they need it. It will use Microsoft HoloLens to provide virtual aid to astronauts working off the Earth, for the Earth. This new capability has the potential to reduce crew training requirements and increase the efficiency at which astronauts can work in space.

Kingston Technology Co. has sold their Payton subsidiary to China’s Shenzhen Kaifa Technology Co. Ltd. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the deal still needs approvals from the Chinese government. Kaifa will assume one-hundred-percent equity stake in Payton. The deal will enable Payton to expand its horizons into wider areas for semiconductor packaging and testing as the computer industry continues to evolve.

More and more consumers are moving towards PCIe technology as server virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure, in-memory computing applications, and the need for real-time analytics increases. Over 7,000 customers have already received more than a quarter million PCIe application accelerators from just SanDisk.