Meta’s mega merch stores
The newly minted parent company of Facebook, Meta, has revealed plans on expanding its offering to physical stores. The company is planning to sell their VR headsets, AR glasses, its new Portal devices, the recently leaked smartwatch and merch, presumably. This is according to The New York Times via TechRadar. According to them, the first store is likely to open in Burlingame, California close to Meta’s Reality Labs office. Apparently, they’ll be going for a minimalist design, cue throwbacks to the first Apple stores.
Meta coming soon?
Early reports suggested there were a couple of names in the hat for what the physical stores should be called. Apparently, the company went with Facebook Store, skipping over Facebook Commons and Facebook Reality Store. This will likely change now that we know Zuck is going all-in on his metaverse concept.
While this move might seem like it’s coming from out of the blue, it does kinda make sense, at least in one way. Instead of trying to compete for floor and shelf space in other stores and having their products seen next to other similar products that could be better, now Meta can sell their products without any of that hassle. It does kinda beg the question though, why not just sell them on the Facebook marketplace.
Source: TechRadar
Elden Ring locked to 60fps on PC
If you, like us are itching to get your next fix of a souls-like RPG but don’t want to play Dark Souls III for the 5th time, we’ve only got a few months left before the release of Elden Ring. Which, judging from the 15-minute trailer that dropped last week, will fill that void perfectly. The one thing that we aren’t that keen on, is the news that the game will be capped to 60fps on PC. That’s about the least most PC gamers are willing to accept. The maximum resolution will also be capped at a much more respectable 4K. That being said, the title will offer HDR raytracing support. Although the latter will come in the form of a patch, presumably after launch. We expect to see PC system requirements in the next month or two. Along with the trailer, Bandai Namco also revealed all the playable classes.
Source: PCgamer
More leaked Samsung Galaxy S22 pics
Some more pictures of Samsung’s still-unannounced S22 Ultra flagship have leaked and it appears a few things have changed slightly from the last leaks and rumours. All the previous leaks and renders we’ve seen have shown a curious-looking P-shaped camera array. This latest leak shows an included S-pen and no camera bump at all.
FrontPageTech first revealed that the S22 Ultra would be launching in the second week of February 2022. Now, it’s given us a first look at the actual device. If the pictures are legit and nothing changes between now and the launch, then the S22 ultra (if that’s even the real name) will ship with an included S-pen. Samsung would’ve needed to make the phone thicker to accommodate that so that could be why there’s no camera bump. The camera sensors themselves aren’t too much of an upgrade from the S21. As with all leaks, the prescribed salt is required here. Things might be getting better as far as tech availability goes but that could change at a moments notice.
Source: Engadget
Thieves make off with an entire truck of RTX 30-series GPUs
If you reading this from California and are patiently waiting for your ordered and paid-for EVGA RTX 30-series GPU, we have some bad news. As if the ongoing chip shortage didn’t already make getting your hands on a new GPU difficult enough, now there are even fewer of them going around thanks to some thieving good-for-nothings. It’s unclear exactly how many cards were involved but you can fit a lot of GPUs into a truck so it’s probably a lot.
EVGA’s product manager Jacob Freeman (no relation to Gordon) warns in a forum post, that, “under state and Federal law, it is a criminal and civil offense(sic) to “buy or receive” property that has been stolen” and that “It is also a criminal and civil offense(sic) to “conceal, sell, withhold, or aid in concealing selling or withholding” any such property.” You can send an email to stopRTX30theft@evga.com if you have any questions or think you may have a card that was involved in the theft.
Source: The Verge