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12+ min ago (260+ words) Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has created a "slim" version of its explosive co-op third-person shooter that massively reduces its file size on PC. Arrowhead has now rolled out this slim version of Helldivers 2 as part of a public technical beta. "Our testing shows that for the small percentage of players still using mechanical hard disk drives, mission loading times have only increased by a few seconds in the worst cases," Arrowhead explained. The studio had warned that changing the file size of Helldivers 2 might have increased load times by a factor of 10 " indeed that's why it duplicates data with update releases. But it turns out that its worst case projections did not come to pass. "These loading time projections were based on industry data " comparing the loading times between SSD and HDD users where data duplication was and was not used,…...

27+ min ago (225+ words) The Galaxy Z TriFold'is the pinnacle of foldable smartphone technology from Samsung, developed using the culmination of experience and experimentation in the field that stretches the boundaries of this form factor. From announcing the original Galaxy Fold in 2019, the Korean giant has introduced a brand new category of mobile devices that is highly innovative. However, when discussing the internal specifications, the company took a backseat. Instead of using the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Samsung resorted to the previous-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite'for Galaxy. A company executive has provided some reasoning for this decision, but we cannot [] The Galaxy Z TriFold'is the pinnacle of foldable smartphone technology from Samsung, developed using the culmination of experience and experimentation in the field that stretches the boundaries of this form factor. From announcing the original Galaxy Fold in 2019, the Korean giant has introduced a…...

39+ min ago (401+ words) The public beta is now underway Sweet liberty, the Helldivers 2 PC file size is finally getting a substantial reduction after months of bloating and taking up chunks of people's hard drives. In a new update, Arrowhead Game Studios has shaved around 85% of the overall memory requirement down, creating a "slim version." The numbers are as follows: the files for Helldivers 2 used to amount to around 154GB, but now they stand at a grand total of around 23GB. That's a massive difference, and one that's been long overdue in the eyes of players who've had to dedicate an increasingly large partition of their space to the multiplayer shooter. This also means load times are becoming reduced, something the devs actually feared would get worse instead of better. "I am pleased to say that our worst case projections did not come to pass. These…...

41+ min ago (153+ words) Apple has just shipped new firmware for its recent MagSafe Battery accessory for iPhone Air. Here are the details. New software updates are released fairly often, and certain accessories like AirPods get firmware updates with regularity too. But today Apple has released new firmware for a much more niche accessory. The MagSafe Battery for iPhone Air has a new update available. Aaron Perris noted the release in a post on X: It's unknown exactly what changes the firmware introduces, but presumably it improves compatibility with iOS or the iPhone Air itself in some way. Accessory updates like this install automatically in the background while the device is in use. There's no known way to manually trigger installation. On the note of rare firmware updates, last month Apple shipped new firmware for a host of other accessories such as the Magic Keyboard…...

43+ min ago (271+ words) Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Buds 4 lineup will give the "base" model a makeover too, as new leaks show off the design and uncover a new physical gesture for activating the "Interpreter" mode. With the Galaxy Buds 3 generation, Samsung transitioned its lineup to, for lack of a better description, pretty blatantly copy Apple's setup. The Pro model features rubber-like eartips for passive noise cancellation and a better fit, while the "base" model features an open-ear-ish design similar to Apple's base AirPods. The pattern will continue with the next generation. The folks over at Android Authority uncovered new images in a leaked One UI 8.5 build that show off the base Galaxy Buds 4. Like the Pro, they have a new brushed metal design, just without the eartip found on the higher-end product. There's no surprise here by any means. What is new, though, is…...

44+ min ago (426+ words) I'm convinced it's the best-value Garmin still on shelves, especially at deals price Cyber Monday and Black Friday are over, but someone forgot to turn a couple of the deals off, and I'd recommend taking advantage of them right now before they vanish. The Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) Sapphire Edition, the watch I used to run the London Marathon, is still available at record-low prices in both the US and UK. In the US, stock is low, but you can get the Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) Sapphire Edition in its middle 47mm size, in both Carbon Gray and Whitestone colors, for $549.99 at Walmart (was $999.99). That's an incredible $450 saving. In the UK, it's even better: there's still a huge discount on this watch at jewellery and watch retailer H. Samuel. You can get the Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) Sapphire Edition for "369.99 at H. Samuel…...

45+ min ago (749+ words) In a development that could reshape the global semiconductor race, Huawei filed a patent outlining a path to 2 nm-class chip production using only deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography tools " the very equipment it still has access to despite sweeping Western export controls that block extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) machines from ASML. The patent, originally submitted in 2022 [] The post Huawei pushes toward 2 nm chips without EUV appeared first on Gizmochina. In a development that could reshape the global semiconductor race, Huawei filed a patent outlining a path to 2 nm-class chip production using only deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography tools " the very equipment it still has access to despite sweeping Western export controls that block extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) machines from ASML. The patent, originally submitted in 2022 but only recently made public and spotted by veteran semiconductor researcher Dr. Frederick Chen, describes a sophisticated multi-patterning technique that could allow Huawei…...

48+ min ago (1238+ words) You've got to hand it to FiiO " the company never misses an opportunity to add as much value to a particular product as it can possibly manage. The FT13 are no exception and the results, in large part, are impressive. Open, organized and spirited sound Lack bite and tonal consistency at the top end Relatively large and heavy If you're after a touch of individuality in your wired, over-ear, closed-back headphones, the FiiO FT13 have you covered. These are big, relatively bulky headphones but that does mean that on the outside there's plenty of room for a quantity of highly polished purpleheart wood, while on the inside you've got a pair of 60mm "W'-shaped dynamic drivers that offer a frequency response of 7Hz - 40kHz. The standard of build and finish is excellent, and the combination of plenty of adjustability in the headband and some…...

52+ min ago (665+ words) OLED burn-in is real, but it's not a deal breaker. Monitors Unboxed has released its latest OLED monitor burn-in results. After 21 months, the YouTube channel found that their MSI QD-OLED monitor had degraded only marginally from the previous 18-month update. One other key takeaway is that OLED burn-in happens fastest in the first six months, after which further degradation seems to be more gradual. As before, this test is described as a worst-case scenario for OLED use and based on the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED, a 32-inch 4K model. That means Monitors Unboxed isn't using it for gaming but the daily computing grind with lots of static content for eight hours a day. The channel also only runs MSI's OLED panel compensation cycle at the end of the eight hour working day, not at the four-hour intervals that MSI recommends. The idea,…...

54+ min ago (334+ words) And now I need to know how many of the other storage-hogs on my hard drive could do this. Our hard drives get bigger, but so do the games. In 2025, we are beset by filesizes run amok. Time was, I'd consider a 30 GB game to be an unfathomable imposition on my C drive. How young and naive I was'as we speak, multiple games north of 100, even 200 GB are manspreading across my disks. But that number just decreased by one. In an update on Steam, Arrowhead announced that it has performed some manner of warlockery and reduced the footprint of Helldivers 2 by 85%. "By completely de-duplicating our data, we were able to reduce the PC installation size from ~154GB to ~23GB, for a total saving of ~131GB (~85%)." This is, as Arrowhead itself notes, closer to (or actually, better than) the game's install size on consoles,…...