The CMF Watch 3 Pro features an upgraded four-channel heart rate sensor, and 131 sports modes (including seven smart recognition activities).
It also comprises an AI-powered running guidance and improved sleep tracking.
The smartwatch features a larger 1.43-inch AMOLED display (with a peak brightness of 670 nits) and over 120 customizable watch faces.
It further includes built-in dual-band GPS for precise location, features stable connection via the new Nothing X app, and offers up to 13 days of battery life.
Nothing’s sub-brand CMF has unveiled a new smartwatch, dubbed the CMF Watch 3 Pro. It comes as a successor to the Watch Pro 2 with significant upgrades.
The Watch 3 Pro is being positioned as an affordable and intelligent health and fitness tracker. It features an upgraded four-channel heart rate sensor, which is believed to showcase more accurate and reliable readings when compared to the predecessor Watch Pro 2 model.
(Image credit: Nothing)
According to the latest community blog post, the smartwatch incorporates 131 sports modes, which also comprise seven smart recognition activities — significantly higher than the previous iteration, which came with 120 models and five smart recognition activities. Additionally, for the first time, the Watch 3 Pro features AI-powered running guidance, real-time coaching, and personalized recovery tips, as well as enhanced sleep tracking accuracy.
In terms of accuracy, the Watch 3 Pro also features a built-in dual-band GPS that claims to provide precise location tracking, a notable addition over its predecessor. While the smartwatch still relies on Bluetooth 5.3, it is promised to have a stable connection with the help of the Nothing X app.
The Nothing X app is replacing the popular CMF Watch app, as it now includes support for the Watch 3 Pro, as well as previous smartwatches like the CMF Watch Pro and Watch Pro 2. The new Nothing X app is said to offer a new control center for settings and detailed fitness insights.
Users should note that the CMF Watch app will remain active until July 2026, a measure offered by the company to ensure a smoother transition for CMF users.
(Image credit: Nothing)
The Watch Pro 2, the latest iteration of the Watch 3 Pro, features a larger 1.43-inch AMOLED display and a notable increase in peak brightness, reaching a maximum of 670 nits. It also features over 120 customizable watch faces, which include dynamic and interactive options. As for the build, the latest smartwatch comes with a metal body, new color options, and an IP68 rating.
Get the latest news from Android Central, your trusted companion in the world of Android
As for battery life, the Watch 3 Pro promises 13 days of typical use and 10 days of heavy usage. In comparison, the Watch Pro 2 was promised with an 11-day battery life. The CMF Watch 3 Pro also features a wide range of smart capabilities, including a voice assistant, remote camera control, music controls, and the ability to record transcriptions, among others.
The CMF Watch 3 Pro has not been announced for global regions, and it retails at £99. For those who order right away, they can expect the smartwatch to reach their doorstep by the end of July.
Amazon is acquiring Bee, a startup that makes a $49.99 AI-powered wearable that passively listens to conversations and generates personalized summaries and suggestions. “You can also give the device permission to access your emails, contacts, location, reminders, photos, and calendar events to help inform its AI-generated insights, as well as create a searchable history of your activities,” adds The Verge. From the report: When asked about Amazon’s plans to apply the same privacy measures offered by Bee, such as its policy against storing audio, Amazon spokesperson Alexandra Miller says the company “cares deeply” about customer privacy and security, adding that the company will work with Bee to give users “even greater control over” their devices when the deal closes.
“We’ve been strong stewards of customer data since our founding, and have never been in the business of selling our customers’ personal information to others,” Miller says. “We design our products to protect our customers’ privacy and security and to make it easy for them to be in control of their experience — and this approach would of course apply to Bee.” Miller also says the terms of the deal are “confidential,” and all Bee employees have “received offers to join Amazon.”
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army Direct Download:
Undertake the case of the century in this must-play classic from ATLUS. The studio behind Shin Megami Tensei remasters “Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army” with revamped visuals, QOL updates, new VO, and an overhauled battle system! A young heiress approaches the Narumi Detective Agency with a strange request…to kill her. Without any further explanation, the girl is kidnapped. Apprentice detective Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, who moonlights as a Devil Summoner assigned to protect the Capital, is on the case. Raidou investigates all across the city, which includes entering the Dark Realm—a dangerous juncture between the real world and the netherworld where demons abound. The Necromancer’s Tale
Become Raidou Kuzunoha and work with your allied demons to unravel the mysteries that block your path. What was once a missing persons matter soon spirals into a conspiracy that will shake not only the Capital, but the entire nation. The supernatural action RPG classic returns, now revamped with visual, audio, and combat enhancements for modern consoles while staying true to the original game’s style. A brand-new UI, full VO, expanded 3D environments, and more invites both veterans and newcomers alike to a nostalgic and thrilling gameplay experience.
Features and System Requirements:
Enhanced HD graphics and improved character models breathe new life into the Taisho-era Tokyo setting.
Re-recorded and remastered soundtrack preserves the jazzy noir ambiance with modern clarity.
Unique blend of real-time action combat and demon summoning mechanics.
Raidou can summon demons mid-battle to assist in combat, provide support skills, or exploit enemy weaknesses.
Fuse demons to create more powerful allies, each with distinct abilities and personalities.
Screenshots
System Requirements
Recommended
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10/Windows 11
Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD equivalent or above
Memory: 4 GB RAM
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 10 GB available space
Support the game developers by purchasing the game on Steam
Installation Guide
Turn Off Your Antivirus Before Installing Any Game
1 :: Download Game 2 :: Extract Game 3 :: Launch The Game 4 :: Have Fun 🙂
In order to stay competitive in today’s market, businesses are always seeking ways to reduce expenses and increase production speed. One affordable approach is to use freelancing websites to discover CAD professionals who can work remotely. By contracting out 3D product design, businesses may potentially cut costs on salaries, software licensing, and employee training. In addition to tapping into global expertise, they may tailor their resource allocation to match the unique requirements of each project.
Cutting expenses without sacrificing quality is becoming more of a need as competition in product development heats up. Having in-house skills, particularly for specialized fields like 3D and CAD modeling, may be rather costly. Companies now have a state-of-the-art option for outsourcing the employment of remote CAD professionals thanks to the proliferation of dispersed work, even as freelance platforms continue to grow in popularity. You may acquire the results you need without breaking the bank by utilizing their services instead of recruiting full-time employees or big corporations.
Cad Crowd is an excellent platform that can put you in touch with freelance professionals in 3D product design and CAD solutions. It is also one of the most reliable and easy-to-use websites for locating reliable freelance CAD experts. Their product development processes may be streamlined, and they can save a ton of money with the help of remote CAD experts. This article takes a look at several tried-and-true ways for cutting costs when working with remote CAD specialists, and how platforms like Cad Crowd may be an integral part of your strategy.
🚀 Table of contents
Understanding the need for cost reduction in 3D product development
Before discussing the strategies, let’s understand why cost-saving during 3D product development is important. Conventional product development costs can be high, especially for organizations involved in areas such as consumer electronics, automobiles, or furniture design, where design intricacy is high and product development time windows are short.
Traditional in-house development challenges
Salaries and benefits: Paying the entire CAD staff on a full-time basis has fixed benefits, salaries, and long-term liabilities for product design companies. These turn out to be extremely expensive for organizations that need expert talent for a short term or just a single project.
Training and maintenance: CAD software is continually updated. To accommodate this, in-house personnel require regular training, which is both expensive and time-consuming.
Overhead costs: Maintaining an in-house team incurs significant costs, including office space, machinery, software licenses, and other administrative expenses. These costs are compounded in those firms that have large, full-time design teams.
By utilizing remote CAD experts, these firms can eliminate these problems and have a less costly alternative to 3D product development.
In today’s rapidly evolving and competitive corporate world, businesses are constantly seeking cost-reduction methods without compromising on output quality. One area where this holds true is in product development for businesses that are CAD-intensive. Utilizing remote CAD experts has tremendous potential for cost savings and improved project outcomes. By utilizing the services of freelance websites and remote working, companies can access superior talent without incurring the costs associated with traditional recruiting. The following are some methods that companies can use to reduce costs by hiring remote CAD experts.
Utilize freelance websites as a pool of global talent
The most effective method of reducing the cost of product development is by utilizing freelance platforms like Cad Crowd. The websites fill the gap between companies and a worldwide community of specialists to whom they might outsource and assign work on their projects. Through these locations, companies can hire 3D CAD design services of various skill levels and experience, and thereby have the option to select experts whose certification precisely matches the project requirements. This reluctance to flexibility reduces the dangers of unnecessary fixed costs of staff.
Expertise in reserve: Rather than employing generalists, companies can have the appropriate CAD professionals with the proper skills for every phase of the project in reserve. To perform tasks such as prototyping, high-level design, or testing, the appropriate specialist can be employed.
Pay-as-you-go model: Freelancers are compensated on a project-by-project basis, allowing the company to scale up or down resources based on project demands. It is much less expensive than paying an employee’s full-time salary, which might not be required in the long term.
World talent pool: Freelance platforms provide the opportunity to hire experts from around the world. Most often, experts from countries with lower living costs can offer competitive prices without compromising quality.
By accessing this large pool of talent worldwide, companies can be confident they are obtaining the maximum value for the exact skills they require. By doing so, they can cut costs without sacrificing quality.
Streamline project scopes and timelines
One benefit of employing remote CAD professionals is that resources can be quickly scaled to meet the precise requirements of a given project. A remote specialist works on specific steps in a product development cycle, thus avoiding wasteful costs for consumer product design companies. For instance, a firm may need the services of a CAD professional during the conceptual design or prototyping stage, but not for the entire process.
How to make the most out of scopes?
Split projects into stages: Breaking the whole product development process into phases, such as creating ideas, elaborately designing, and prototyping, enables companies to hire freelancers to outsource easily for the specific phases where they are needed.
Specify specific project milestones: Clearly defined project milestones for all stages enable distant CAD professionals to work in unison and deliver results on time, eliminating opportunities for delays that can lead to additional costs.
Limit project scope: Avoid broadening the project scope. Once firms accomplish what needs to be done to push the product ahead, they can acquire laborers specifically for such projects and avoid unnecessary expenses.
The remote work nature enables businesses to take a project-based approach, where they only pay for the work that must be done, without over-scaling resources.
Minimize software and equipment costs
CAD hardware and software may be quite costly, especially when purchasing licenses and hosting software for an in-house staff. Remote CAD professionals typically own their own subscription for commercial software such as AutoCAD, SolidWorks, or Rhino. Thus, product engineering companies don’t need to make regular payments for software subscriptions and hardware upgrades, which could be extremely costly in the long run.
Benefits of freelancers’ tools
Software license costs saved: Freelancers have their own licenses for software, and thus, companies are able to save on the exorbitant initial expenditure of purchasing and maintaining licenses for costly CAD software.
Upgraded tools: Freelance CAD professionals are generally keen to update their tools to the latest versions, enabling them to utilize the best available tools for creating high-quality designs.
Tailor Your Skills: The majority of freelancers choose tools based on their working style. Therefore, companies are working with individuals who can provide the majority of the productivity through tools they are familiar with and have mastered. Even some freelancers utilize open-source CAD packages or specialty equipment to reduce costs. Enjoying the benefit of it, companies can cut even more from their equipment and software expenses.
One of the most significant benefits of outsourcing remote CAD experts is avoiding the overheads associated with maintaining an office setup. With remote work, organizations can avoid the expense of expensive real estate, office space, and office supplies. Remote work also enables organizations to recruit specialists from regions with lower living expenses, allowing them to hire top professionals without incurring a premium.
Points of relevance for cost minimization
No office space: Freelance CAD engineers work from their respective locations, thus avoiding the expense of office space, utility bills, and office equipment, which are very high recurring expenses.
Lower administrative costs: Working remotely means companies do not need to bear costs on HR personnel, office management, and physical equipment. This results in lean operations with less overhead expense.
Lower-cost-of-living locations: Remote employment enables your company to hire CAD professionals outside your home country. This represents a savings in labor costs without compromising quality and expertise.
The ability to hire anywhere provides companies with the flexibility to strategically reduce operating expenses, enabling them to offer competitive pricing without compromising on design quality.
Take advantage of collaboration and communication tools
Advances in project management software and virtual communications technology have enabled remote work to be easier and more efficient than ever. Ease of collaboration despite different time zones is facilitated by tools like Slack, Zoom, Trello, and Google Drive, which ensure instant communication, feedback, and file exchange. Proper utilization of these instruments ensures that companies can ensure their remote workers are collaborating effectively, thereby providing faster project timelines and lower costs for design engineering companies.
Proper utilization of tools
Slack and Zoom: Communication and regular check-ins are easy with these tools, keeping remote CAD experts on the same page with objectives and project timelines.
Trello and Asana: Project management applications keep projects well-organized, tasks assigned with clarity, and deadlines respected, without unnecessary delays or misunderstandings.
Version control and file sharing: Cloud programs like Google Drive, Dropbox, and GitHub provide a straightforward method for storing, sharing, and versioning project files. Such programs have the capacity to monitor changes and recover the most recent version of a project at any time.
By utilizing these collaboration and communication tools effectively, businesses can enhance productivity and minimize time wastage due to delays, making the remote working process more cost-effective and efficient.
Take advantage of expertise with minimum commitment
One of the greatest advantages of using web-based services such as Cad Crowd is that organizations are able to tap into the services of experts without necessarily committing to having long-term in-house staff. This kind of flexibility in human resources enables organizations to hire the services of 3D product design experts for short-term projects or specific endeavors without committing to full-time employment.
Benefits to organizations
Flexibility: Businesses can hire freelancers on a project-by-project basis, tailored to the level of work and specific needs. This maintains the expenses associated with a full-time in-house team at a minimum.
On-demand talent: Offsite CAD professionals have high levels of experience and specialisation, so businesses can tap into the talent they need without losing time to conduct lengthy recruitment processes.
Cost predictability: With freelancers, businesses have a clear upfront cost because they are only paying for the work that has been completed. This eliminates the need to budget for employees’ wages, benefits, or other long-term costs.
This flexibility is particularly useful for companies with project requirements that vary or require specialized skill sets on an ad-hoc basis. The capability of accessing remote specialists on an ad-hoc basis enables the company to pay for what they consume, with variable costs kept to a minimum and in check.
Having CAD professionals at their disposal remotely provides companies with multiple options to reduce their payments without compromising the quality of the design. By utilizing freelance sites, reducing project scope, minimizing software and equipment costs, reducing overhead, and leveraging collaboration tools, businesses can achieve significant savings.
Secondly, having the ability to hire on-demand talent also enables businesses to remain flexible through open innovation services and not make long-term commitments, which remote working makes all the more appealing in today’s competitive age. By embracing these tactics, businesses can streamline operations, reduce costs, and access the best talent at every stage of product development.
Why Cad Crowd is the best tool for reducing costs in 3D product development
In 3D product design, it is not always quite so easy to balance quality and cost. Cad Crowd is very convenient in such situations, as it is the first port of call for companies that want to cut costs without sacrificing quality. Cad Crowd provides companies with access to a worldwide pool of highly skilled freelance CAD experts, making it easy to find the best skill set for the task at hand.
Most valuable, perhaps of all, is the pre-screened talent pool of Cad Crowd. Every freelancer on the platform is thoroughly screened and assessed to ensure they possess the proper qualifications and experience required to complete the job. This cuts down on the time wasted by businesses poring over dozens of resumes or portfolios—Cad Crowd has done the legwork for you, so it is easier to find the correct person to do the job in front of you. If you need help from seasoned 3D modeling experts, prototypers, or design-for-manufacturing experts, Cad Crowd can provide that assistance.
The second reason businesses employ Cad Crowd is that it provides an affordable price option. With worldwide access to top talent, companies can recruit exceptional candidates at a lower cost than they can through local hiring or traditional recruitment agencies. This makes businesses accessible because they receive high-quality work, which is crucial in today’s economy.
Cad Crowd also offers convenience in collaboration. The website features built-in communication, file transfer, and project management facilities, enabling companies and freelancers to collaborate seamlessly. Such an effective process not only saves time but also reduces the risk of delays, ensuring the project remains on track and within budget.
In brief, whether you need an expert for one job or long-term cooperation, Cad Crowd makes it possible to get the best CAD expert to fulfill your requirement easily and save money and gain more.
Reducing the cost of 3D product rendering and design services is not a matter of compromise; it is a question of creative financial management and leveraging the benefits of the flexibility and expertise offered by independent specialists. With the types of services that exist, such as Cad Crowd, companies can now access the best CAD brains at an affordable price, which is often too costly with the in-house option.
Either by utilizing flexible staffing, efficient software, or by being able to ramp up resources independently, remote CAD professionals offer a cost-effective solution for companies to stay competitive in this fast-paced economy.
With the right strategies in place, such as best-practice project scoping, the smart application of collaboration tools, and the controlled deployment of freelance resources, companies can save a significant amount of money without sacrificing the quality and operational efficiency required to successfully deliver 3D product design.
Cad Crowd is here to help
Collaboration with technologies such as CadCrowd exposes firms to the best freelance CAD engineers and designers in the market, who offer sector-specialized expertise and customized solutions. Whether you’re a new start-up that must get a new product out to market quickly or an established company looking to streamline your design process, working with experienced professionals ensures you receive high-quality work at a small fraction of what it would cost to have in-house personnel on the payroll.
For more information on how Cad Crowd can assist with your 3D product design and to receive a personalized quote, contact our dedicated experts who are committed to making your dreams a reality. Get your free quote today!
MacKenzie Brown is the founder and CEO of Cad Crowd. With over 18 years of experience in launching and scaling platforms specializing in CAD services, product design, manufacturing, hardware, and software development, MacKenzie is a recognized authority in the engineering industry. Under his leadership, Cad Crowd serves esteemed clients like NASA, JPL, the U.S. Navy, and Fortune 500 companies, empowering innovators with access to high-quality design and engineering talent.
Following its surprise launch in June, Splitgate 2 is now “unlaunching.” The multiplayer first-person shooter will remain online in a beta state and continue to get support through a season 3 update and bug fixes, but developer 1047 Games is otherwise pausing its planned roadmap to overhaul the project ahead of a relaunch in early 2026. The studio is also cutting an unspecified number of staff members and shutting down servers next month for the original Splitgate as cost-cutting measures.
“Basically, I feel like we missed the mark, and I don’t think that’s a secret,” 1047 Games CEO Ian Proulx told Polygon in a video interview ahead of today’s announcement.
Splitgate 2 launched on June 6 following a controversial announcement at this year’s Summer Game Fest, in which Proulx took to the stage wearing a “Make FPS Great Again” hat. While that moment generated heat for the studio, the game itself was met with negative feedback of its own from its community who voiced criticism of its bugs, its lack of a ranked mode at launch, expensive cosmetics, and more. Today, 1047 Games released a statement addressing those concerns and detailing the future of Splitgate, its sequel, and the studio at large.
“We’ve heard your feedback, and we agree with you:we launched too early,” the note to the game’s community reads. “We had ambitious goals with Splitgate 2, and in our excitement to share it with you, we bit off more than we could chew … So, we’re going back to beta.”
Speaking with Polygon, Proulx pinned some of Splitgate 2’s problems on a lack of community involvement in areas. Despite holding extensive playtests before launch, modes like Battle Royale were kept close to the chest to surprise players. 1047 Games intends to work closer with players moving forward, returning to the original Splitgate’s more grassroots development cycle.
“There was a giant Reddit thread that we literally read every single post,” Proulx said. “I read everything on the Reddit, everything, any tweets, Discord, all that stuff. We have a good sense of what needs to get done, what are the problems. Still tons of details to figure out, but I think the big change we’re going to make this time around is we’re going to actually do it alongside the community, get their feedback, playtest, and then when we feel like, all right, the game, it’s in a great place, it’s what it needs to be, that’s when we’re going to relaunch as opposed to just doing things in secret and then surprising them.”
1047 Games has a list of feedback that it’s planning to add in the overhaul, including ranked leaderboards and more mode-specific playlists. It will add more portal walls to arenas, following criticisms that the sequel had deemphasized the series’ central mechanic. A game mode revamp is coming too, as 1047 will put less focus on round-based modes to recapture the original Splitgate’s flow.
“I think there’s a lot of things Splitgate 2 does extremely well,” Proulx said. “I think we have a very polished actual core experience in terms of gun gunplay movements, graphics, et cetera. But I do feel like we bit off more than we could chew, and we have three games in one between Arena and Battle Royale and our own Map Creator. And so we tried to do a lot with a little, and I think we ended up with a game that’s kind of like 80% of the way there times three instead of a 100% of the way there on fewer things.”
Proulx noted that monetization will be reworked as well. That comes after the game drew criticism for including an $80 skin bundle at launch, among other pricey cosmetics. (“Obviously that one bundle … I mean, I’m not here to make excuses … Yeah …” Proulx trailed off when I asked about the response to monetization.)
I’ve made many, many, many mistakes …
— Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games
That controversy dovetailed with another surrounding the launch: Proulx’s now infamous Summer Game Fest stunt. The CEO came under scrutiny for sporting a hat that referenced U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, a move that happened as the current administration ramped up its deportation efforts with a wave of ICE raids – some mere blocks away from the YouTube Theater, the venue that hosted Summer Game Fest.
After initially standing behind the stunt as a non-political statement in an interview with IGN, Proulx has since apologized for it. Despite the scrutiny the moment generated, he affirmed that it didn’t have anything to do with the decision to unlaunch, though he still believes that that first-person shooter genre is not “in a great place right now.”
“Obviously the vibes are worse because of the hat, but, I think that if it was a 10 out of 10, feature-complete game that delivered on everything the community wanted, they would be playing it right now,” Proulx said.
“I’ve made many, many, many mistakes since we started this in January of 2017, and that’s one of them. And I’ve made so many more that the world doesn’t know about,” he added. “So, to me, it’s really just about moving forward, and I believe in this game, I believe in this team, and there’s tons of things I would do differently, that being one of them. But I’m focused on the future.”
As for what the “unlaunch” means for the game as it stands now, Splitgate 2 isn’t going away. The studio will forge ahead with a planned third season and will still run a few special events. Bug fixes are in the works, as well as quality-of-life improvements, like adding a playlist featuring player-made maps. Still, Proulx said that “95%” of the studio’s efforts will be spent on the relaunch. The team is targeting a rerelease window “as early as possible” in 2026, but Proulx said that an earlier window could be possible if the team was ready.
The studio will see layoffs as part of the change, but 1047 Games would not confirm the number of roles being reduced or say what departments would be impacted when asked by Polygon. This is the second wave of layoffs for the studio in the past two months, as the studio parted with a “small group” of staff members in June that included members of its art team.
The original Splitgate is getting caught up in the studio’s cost-cutting efforts too. 1047 Games will take the shooter’s servers down next month, though in the statement sent to its community today, noted that the studio is “exploring the possibility of supporting offline or peer-to-peer matches.”
This isn’t the first setback in Splitgate’s history. The original game first launched to middling reviews in 2019. 1047 Games would retool it over the next two years and pull off a successful relaunch in 2021. After staffing up with the goal of reworking the game from the inside out, the studio would then abruptly halt its plans one year later and pivot to developing a full sequel instead. Proulx is hopeful that Splitgate 2 will be able to retain the trust of a community who has seen the series’ direction morph several times in the past six years.
“We’ve been here before and we are as determined as ever,” Proulx said. “We’ve had much darker days with Splitgate where we almost quit, and I’m really glad we didn’t because 99% of this has been living the dream. So, we’re not going to quit. We are going to just absolutely grind this out and keep doing it and keep listening and make this game as amazing as possible.”
I will be taking a C course soon, and the professor requires us to install Visual Studio for the assignments (probably because that’s how the code will be tested).
The problem is that I have switched to Linux last year and realized I would need to find a solution for this, since I cannot install Visual Studio on my laptop, and I do not have enough space for a VM/dualboot.
I have looked into CMake, which supposedly can generate the .sln and .vcproj files, but only on Windows with Visual Studio installed…
Note that I do not need to compile anything, the code in the course does not rely on anything Windows specific and I do not mind testing my assignments on the universities computers before submitting to make sure it compiles there, so I need only to generate the files to submit them with the assignments.
“In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services. We remain committed to providing the most secure services possible to the US government, including working with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols as needed,” Shaw posted on X (formerly Twitter) late Friday.
Shaw did not say that that China-based engineering teams would be excluded from work on non-cloud-related Department of Defense projects, nor that they would be kept away from work for other US government departments or for governments of other countries.
The company had initially swept aside concerns about the use of Chinese worker on DoD systems, saying the global subject matter experts it relied on for support had no direct access to customer data or systems, and that they worked through authorized US personnel in accordance with US Government requirements and processes. “Only authorized US persons with the appropriate clearances and training provide direct support. These personnel are provided specific training on protecting sensitive data, preventing harm, and use of the specific commands/controls within the environment,” a company spokesperson said.
The team behind the /e/OS Android fork has addressed some security claims about the platform.
This comes after GrapheneOS developers criticized /e/OS for “lagging far behind” in terms of updates.
The /e/OS software ships on the Fairphone Gen 6 in the US.
The Fairphone Gen 6 will launch in the US next month using the Google-free /e/OS platform. However, the developers behind the privacy-focused GrapheneOS Android fork made a few concerning claims about this platform. The team behind /e/OS has now published a blog post addressing these claims.
Murena, the company behind /e/OS, published a blog post stating that it took security issues seriously. However, it also criticized the GrapheneOS developers for making what it called “misleading claims.”
The team confirmed that it targeted “standard industry practices” for timely security updates:
Therefore, for a given release on month N, our current work-flow is to integrate Android security patches from month N-1. As a result, in the worst case, it will take up to nine weeks to roll out the latest available security updates. In most cases, it will be much sooner.
The team also explained that it makes an exception for zero-day exploits and tries to deliver these patches “as soon as possible.” It also posted a table showing how major Android smartphone makers compare in terms of update lag. This suggests that /e/OS is in line with some major OEMs as far as typical patches go. You can view this screenshot below.
Murena also took umbrage with claims that it lagged on browser updates for WebView issues. The company said it issued two zero-day WebView fixes and the June security patch level with the recently released /e/OS 3.0.4 update. For what it’s worth, these two zero-day exploits were disclosed in early June and late June, respectively.
What’s next for Murena, though? Well, the company confirmed that it will be making some improvements:
Murena is taking security issues seriously, and our policy about integration of security patches in /e/OS is very comparable to or even better in some cases than many of mobile OS vendors in the smartphone industry.
However, as part of our ongoing efforts to continuously improve we have decided to reduce the integration time of monthly security updates in /e/OS. Therefore we’ll progressively update our build infrastructure to allow the roll-out of latest security updates following the days after they have been released.
Murena will continue to deploy urgent /e/OS builds for 0-day security fixes
The company also disputed several other claims by the GrapheneOS team. For one, it said that /e/OS didn’t hide the true patch level but exposes these fields “exactly like stock Android.” The GrapheneOS developers argued that the Fairphone Gen 6 lacks a secure element, which made it “trivial” for bad actors to brute-force a PIN code or basic password. Murena downplayed these assertions, arguing that Qualcomm’s secure processing unit means it could take “years” for attackers to recover a six-digit PIN.
What do you think of /e/OS’s security and privacy?
31 votes
Murena also confirmed that it uses the open-source microG framework to hook into a few Google services (e.g. push notifications) but adds that users can swap Google’s notification service out for the UnifiedPush platform. It’s worth noting that microG is a long-established, popular alternative to Google Play Services that allows people to use Google apps and services. This framework is particularly useful on devices for custom ROMs and HUAWEI phones, which typically lack Google services. So this is a sensible inclusion if you want to let people use some Google apps on an otherwise deGoogled platform.
There’s evidently some room for Murena and Fairphone to improve their security practices. However, not every Android fork has the same security and privacy priorities. Thankfully, the beauty of the Android ecosystem means you can switch to a different Android skin, Android fork, or custom ROM if you have specific needs. In any event, you can read the full blog post for a more comprehensive response by the /e/OS team.
Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at news@androidauthority.com. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it’s your choice.
I wasn’t adequately prepared for just how massive the new Alienware Area-51 is in the flesh. It’s frankly enormous, especially compared with the rather meek little Aurora desktops of the last Dell gaming box refresh.
Those Auroras just felt like pretty standard mid-tower machines, with a rather dull, very Dell design. This Area-51, however, is a gaming PC absolutely in FULL TOWER MODE. And, you know what, I’m kinda into it. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m a little intimidated by its sheer presence—so maybe I’m feeling the need to be nice about it otherwise it’s coming for my lunch money—but it’s certainly an impressive thing when you pull it out of the box and turn it on.
I dig the smooth curves of its outer shell, the blue LED ring around the front intake area, and those absolutely massive twin intake fans. And that huge glass side panel giving unfettered visual access to the insides, where the amount of space somehow makes the portly RTX 5090 this system ships with look like a regular graphics card.
Oh yes, this is the Area-51 given the full Alienware beans. So, the review system I have next to me is pretty much top-of-the-line across the board. On the one hand, ooh, this is the fastest gaming PC I’ve had on the test bench, on the other it’s so hard to get anything that isn’t the absolute top spec out of the company for testing. And I don’t have the deep pockets to drop a couple grand on a mid-range version to see how that might turn out by comparison.
Area-51 specs
(Image credit: Future)
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Motherboard: Alienware Z890 ATX standard RAM: 64 GB (2x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 Storage: 2 TB SK Hynix PCIe 5.0 SSD GPU: Nvidia RTX 5090 PSU: 1500 W ATX12VO Dimensions: 569 x 231.6 x 610.5 mm (22.4 x 9.1 x 24 in) Weight: 34.5 kg (76.1 lbs) Price:$5,300 | £5,449
Still, this is a fitting spec for such a monstrous PC; there’s the RTX 5090 for a start, working cheek-by-jowl with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and 64 GB dual-channel DDR5-6400, with a 2 TB PCIe 5.0 Sk Hynix SSD doing the storage dance for you. And… er… yeah, the price. There’s none of Razer’s moment of clarity on its own slightly destructive laptop pricing; Alienware is still wearing its premium branding like some sort of armour against any consideration of sensible pricing.
This is a $5,300 gaming PC.
With the RTX 5090 itself costing around the $3,000 mark at the moment—though with deals that is starting to edge downwards again—that makes it maybe an understandable, if not at all acceptable price for most of us PC gamers.
Worth noting also that Corsair’s Vengeance PCs, systems generally also labouring under high price premiums, are sitting well over the $5K price point for RTX 5090 machines, too. Feels slightly ludicrous for that to make the Alienware price par for the course, but here we are. And hey, with a PC of this size, you are at least getting a tremendous sense of value.
It does at least perform like a $5,000 gaming PC. This thing is lightning quick, from its PCIe 5.0 SSD cold boot time, to the pace at which it can chew through games. The only misstep is in Baldur’s Gate 3 where you can see what benefit you can get from having a Ryzen 3D V-Cache CPU inside your rig instead of being restricted to an Intel Arrow Lake chip. Otherwise it’s plain sailing for the Area-51 in anything you throw at it.
With all our PC testing carried out at 1440p, the Area-51 is top of the class in terms of any prebuilt PC that we’ve looked at in recent times. And, well, ever. The only other machine we’ve seen that can beat it is a system we put together for a previous feature which packed an RTX 5090 inside a case with a Ryzen 9 9950X—and even then they trade blows.
You could maybe go faster with a Ryzen 3D V-Cache chip, such as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, especially in Baldur’s Gate 3, but this machine is about as fast a gaming PC as you can get in Intel trim. It’s not just in gaming terms that the Area-51 can top the class, either, because that Intel Core Ultra 9 can also deliver when it comes to heavily multi-threaded workloads, too. And, even if I’m not sold on the config, the cooling does a great job of taming the CPU’s heat demands.
Something else I’ve been really impressed with are the noise levels. Stick it in Performance mode and it will push both the CPU and GPU to their fullest, and during heavy operation you will certainly hear those fans spinning up. But, drop it to the Balanced mode in the Alienware Command Center (ACC) app and it will dial back the CPU while keeping the graphics core running hard.
With the CPU and its cooler being the hottest and loudest component pairing, that means you get a quiet system without compromising on gaming performance, and that is a bit of a win, for sure. The little bit of configuration nuance allowed by the Alienware Command Center software means you’re getting a system that is actually pre-tuned in a way many other prebuilt PCs might not be out of the box. With something like Corsair’s Vengeance machines not shipping with an iCUE configuration, that makes the ACC app a welcome little bit of bloat on the otherwise clean OS install.
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
There are still proprietary connections if you want to be able to do such things as change the AlienFX RGB lighting or, y’know, turn the damned thing on.
But this is Alienware, so we have the ever-thorny issue of proprietary parts. The good news here is that, essentially, the new Area-51 is harking back to the days of upgradeable Alienware machines, when once there was the option to simply use off-the-shelf parts to modify your PC down the line. All the old Auroras would let you swap out GPU, memory, and storage, but they regularly had weirdly sized and laid out motherboards that looked like they were ripped right out of some bizarre Dell corpo PC box. Because they probably were.
Now, the motherboard in the Area-51 is still pretty industrial-looking, with a million tiny chips and chokes on display, like miniature cyberpunk cityscapes, with only a few stylised heatsinks covering things up. We’ve become used to all that being hidden by modern mobos and their flashy shielding, not so with the Intel board inside the Alienware. But it is at least of standard ATX scale, with the same screw points as every other off-the-shelf motherboard. So, mobo upgrades are a doddle, then. A win for Alienware and one of the biggest issues we’ve had with its PCs dropped in one fell swoop.
Except, not quite.
The chassis itself isn’t all that compatible, because there are still proprietary connections if you want to be able to do such things as change the AlienFX RGB lighting or, y’know, turn the damned thing on. To be able to connect all the front panel, case cooling, and lighting gubbins up to a third-party motherboard you’ll need to pick up a $35 conversion kit, which comes with all the cables and adapters you might need.
Well, not exactly all, because the beefy 1500 W PSU this machine ships with is of the ATX12VO variety which ditches all the largely unnecessary 5 V connections and gives you a much smaller motherboard power connection. Which is great, except you’re going to struggle to find another third-party motherboard that will take that connection, and there’s no safe adapter on the planet that will help. So, you’re going to need to pick up a new PSU, too.
How much of an issue that actually is will only be something you can answer yourself. Me? I have a tendency to do in-place platform upgrades on my PCs rather than pick up a whole new system from scratch, but I know that’s not everyone. Especially not everyone who might buy a $5,000 Alienware in the first place.
The DIY market is loud, but small. And the notion of future-proofing your build, with the potential for in-place upgrades down the line, actually only caters to a vanishingly small minority of PC gamers. And I wonder how many $5,000 PCs from any manufacturer actually end up having their motherboards ripped out and replaced by the original owner even if they’re entirely off-the-peg, like a Corsair Vengeance. I would wager precious few.
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
What I will say is the motherboard in there is relatively well appointed for an Alienware rig. There are only a pair of M.2 slots for internal storage (one PCIe 5.0 and one PCIe 4.0), but I’ve never seen a system with quite so many USB Type-C ports on it. There are a pair on the front panel of the machine, with another four on the back panel of the board itself. Two of the six are Thunderbolt ports, while the rest are 10 Gbps sockets. There are a further six Type-A ports, though with only one of them designated as 5 Gbps, on the rear and another two USB 3.2 Type-A 5 Gbps ports on the front panel.
And it all feels very well put together, from the super rigid bracketing keeping the RTX 5090 in place and from dragging the PCIe slot down with it, to the cable routing in the rear of the machine. There are power and data cables already tidied into place around the spare 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drive bays in case you want to jam in some ancient SATA SSDs or spinning platter storage, which is a welcome touch.
That impression somewhat changed when I started checking out the cooling. It actually cools the system impressively well—running on Performance mode, yes it gets chatty, but stays chill and in Balanced mode it’s quiet but still delivers on gaming frame rates. But I’m not sure I’m into Alienware’s cooling config.
In a gaming PC, good airflow is a positive thing. And when you’ve got a ton of fans in a rig it’s important to make sure they’re blowing in the right directions, which normally means not having them all blowing in the same direction. The twin 180 mm fans on the front are intake fans, pulling cool air in to help cool the system as a whole, then there are a pair of 140 mm fans set just above the PSU ostensibly to pull cool air in from the bottom to pass up and across the GPU.
Finally, there are three 120 mm fans atop the 360 mm radiator. In most modern builds, those are used to pull the hot air out from the PC, over the radiator drawing more heat from the coolant to help chill the CPU itself.
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Whatever my misgivings might be it does it all in a quiet restrained way. Well, as restrained as any PC of this scale can.
Except that’s not what Alienware is doing. It’s working with complete positive pressure, with every fan in the rig pointing inwards, drawing cool air in with no active exhaust.
“Our engineers conducted countless simulations with different fan orientations and determined that, for this chassis, having all fans point inward optimizes cooling and acoustics while scaling for even higher wattages than what is available today,” Alienware told me when I queried the configuration. “By having all fans point inward to create positive pressure, Area-51 desktop can omit an exhaust fan and operate at low noise levels while effectively cooling the most important components (CPU and GPU).”
The company cites 45% quieter operation and 25% more airflow than previous Aurora chassis, but I did swap the fans around myself to test the difference. Mostly because I initially thought it was a mistake on the part of the PC builders, with the printing on the chassis seeming to indicate the direction of airflow out the top of the case.
In my testing I’ve seen the CPU running at least a couple of degrees cooler during heavy, sustained usage, and the graphics card running either the same or sometimes a little cooler, when the radiator fans are set to exhaust the hot air. I’m sure Dell has carried out a ton of thermal testing on this setup, but I’d be far happier having at least some of the fans dedicated to shifting out that hot air.
Total positive pressure means air gets heated up inside the chassis and can only escape through the gaps passively. This means hot air sticks around longer, getting hotter and insulating your components with toasty air. Of course the air can get out, but isn’t going to move as quickly as if there’s something actively pushing it out. With all that hot air trapped in there, it’s also harder to get cool air squeezed in, so the fans have to work that bit harder.
It is a pretty cool and quiet machine anyways, I just feel it could just be a bit cooler. But then, I’ve not conducted countless simulations…
There’s one other issue on the fan front, and that’s the rear most fan above the PSU. One of them is literally above the power supply itself, and there is zero clearance between it and the fan, which renders its existence pretty much pointless. With no real possibility of pulling in cool air itself, that fan is aesthetics, pure and simple.
My concerns about the fan configuration aside, this is the most impressed I’ve been with an Alienware PC in a long time. In both games and creative applications it performs as well as you would expect from the components the company has jammed inside, and whatever my misgivings might be it does it all in a quiet restrained way. Well, as restrained as any PC of this scale can.
Buy if…
✅ You’re willing to spend big on a seriously powerful gaming PC: Out of the box, the Area-51 will deliver gaming and content creation performance that, thanks to its high-end parts, is top of the class in prebuilt PCs. But to hit that level of performance you need to spend a ton of cash to get there.
✅ You want a quiet-running system: The Alienware Command Center allows for top-end gaming performance without the noise levels you might normally expect from a powerful gaming PC.
Don’t buy if…
❌ You want a discreet PC: There is nothing subtle about the Area-51; it’s a massive gaming PC that wants to be front and centre of your gaming setup.
❌ You want an AMD system: Currently Alienware is only kitting out the Area-51 with Intel Arrow Lake chips, which is a real shame given the power of AMD’s 3D V-Cache processors.
❌ You want an easy upgrade path: This is as upgradeable as modern Alienware machines have been, but the choice of ATX12VO PSUs makes the list of compatible motherboards vanishingly small, meaning you’ll need to replace the power supply whether you need more power or not.
It’s a scale I can dig, though, with a solid, accessible design that allows easy access to most of the parts inside. Is it the easily upgradeable Alienware we were promised? Not quite. Honestly, I can kinda forgive the $35 upgrade kit of cabling for integrating the chassis design and cooling into a future third-party motherboard replacement, but the ATX12VO PSU choice is going to make that 1500 W power supply it ships with a pain to replace if and when you do want to upgrade.
Which means I’m always going to come back to why would you want the Alienware Area-51 over an equivalently specced and equivalently priced PC from another vendor? I appreciate the tuning via the Alienware Control Center app, which means you can run a chilled system out of the box without having to tune it yourself, and I like the curvy chassis. And if it weren’t for the pain of a PSU upgrade down the line I’d say it all evens out. Especially as Dell has a propensity to discount its gaming PCs on the regular; our standing advice about not paying full price for an Alienware machine remains.
What would have me pausing on the Alienware more than its potential upgrade hiccups, however, is the choice of CPU supplier. Dell has decided that its Area-51 range, at least for the moment, are entirely Intel-based. In a world where AMD is currently the top-dog in gaming chips, that would probably have me looking elsewhere if prices are the same.
So, there is still a little grit in the eye of this beholder as I gaze upon the beauty of this Area-51 gaming PC, but I could probably blink that away quite happily once I started gaming on this behemoth.
