Imagine urgently needing your Windows PC to meet a deadline but helplessly waiting for it to boot. I know this can be a really frustrating situation. A sluggish Windows startup can dampen your productivity and greatly test your patience. It may also indicate some deep-rooted issues with the OS. Thankfully, you can apply many simple, actionable steps on your Windows 10 or 11 devices to increase the boot time. Most of these steps just involve changes to some Windows OS settings, though a few would require you to invest in upgrades. Here are the best steps you can take to improve your system startup.

Video editing is no longer limited to professionals with expensive software. There are plenty of great video editing programs like OpenShot and Shotcut have made it easier than ever for casual editors and aspiring creators to produce high-quality content without paying a dime. But with both programs offering robust features, it can be hard to know which one is the best fit for your needs. Here's a breakdown of OpenShot and Shotcut to help you decide which free video editor is right for you.

Half-Life 2 launched on November 16, 2004, and it's hard to understate its importance for "triple-A" gaming and PC gamers' habits for purchasing and playing games. Without it, the Steam distribution platform that eventually bankrolled Valve's hardware endeavors like the Steam Deck wouldn't have succeeded, at least not to the level of being the most used online platform for PC gaming.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Emails in Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI expose the startup’s rocky origins. Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Netflix is trying to carve a slice of the live entertainment market, and it’s enlisting help from Beyoncé to do so. The Houston-born singer will perform in her hometown on December 25th, headlining the halftime show for the Texans-Ravens NFL matchup as part of Netflix’s Christmas Gameday live show.Beyoncé’s performance will take place in the second of two NFL games that Netflix is streaming on Christmas Day, the first being between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The star is set to perform songs from Cowboy Carter live for the first time, and “is expected to bring along some special guests” that featured on the album, according to Netflix’s announcement. The games mark Netflix’s NFL streaming debut, having secured a... Continue reading…

The liquid hydrogen-powered GR Corolla H2 Concept. | Image: Toyota Toyota is pushing hydrogen-powered vehicle technology forward with a liquid hydrogen system design that includes a self-pressurizer to save escaping gas and reuse it as fuel to increase engine efficiency.Toyota introduced a liquid system in the GR Corolla H2 Concept in 2023, which keeps hydrogen at -253 degrees Celsius during filling and storing in the tank. Hydrogen exists as a gas at room temperature, so the pumps have to operate cold to prevent the liquid from boiling. Inherently, the system still has boil-off gas that gets wasted. Image: Toyota Boil-off gas chart for the system. So what’s the solution? Toyota exhibited a “self-pressurizer” at the Super Taikyu Series 2024 race this past weekend that “uses the... Continue reading…

The US Department of Energy headquarters building on February 9th, 2024, in Washington, DC. | Photo by J. David Ake / Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Energy is fossil fuel executive Chris Wright — who has misleadingly claimed on LinkedIn that “there is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.” Hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and other disasters exacerbated by climate change are already hitting the US. And renewable energy capacity is on course to more than double globally by the end of the decade.Nevertheless, Wright is a staunch evangelist for fossil fuels who consistently rejects mainstream climate science. While Wright also has ties to the nuclear energy industry, clean energy advocates say that with Trump’s cabinet picks, the US is losing ground in the race to deploy renewable... Continue reading…

Windows 11 is a very versatile and capable operating system, and while it works pretty well out of the box, there are many settings you can change and tweaks you can make to improve your experience with Windows 11 that much more. These may be things you don't even know about, or they may be things you forget to enable for one reason or another.

Windows Search isnt exactly known for being great at finding your files or apps, and its web search isnt much better. By default, when you type a query in the taskbar search box, alongside results for apps, files, and settings, Windows Search will also suggest web searches. These will open Microsoft Edge and use Bing to answer your question.

These days, there are plenty of ways to play Windows games on Mac, but you don't have a great deal of choice when it comes to peripherals. However, it seems that Corsair is trying to change that. The company has announced that it's releasing the first keyboard for Macs designed specifically for gaming, and it may be a sign of things to come for hardcore fans who love macOS.

OneNote has been my trusty companion for jotting down meeting notes, brainstorming project ideas, and organizing my chaotic thoughts for years. But recently, Notion, with its sleek interface, block-based editor, and powerful database features, has been making headlines. Intrigued, I decided to take the plunge and replace OneNote with Notion for an entire month to see if it could truly handle my note-taking workflow.

It's that time of year again when retailers crawl over each other to get your attention to buy all the things! Here at XDA, we won't sell you mattresses or other things that don't relate to our core coverage. We'll hunt down the best Black Friday deals and shortlist only the discounts worth caring for. You won't find a single deal here that we wouldn't purchase ourselves whether you're in the market for a discounted laptop, CPU, GPU, storage drives, an SBC, or even some networking equipment. We'll have all the best Black Friday deals right here.