Just when I thought the NFT chaos had subsided, this is Instagram. Speaking at SXSW, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed digital collections will appear on Instagram “in the near future.” Zuckerberg said the NFT could one day play some role in the company’s ultimate metaverse. “I hope that, the outfit your avatar is wearing in the metaverse… can basically be molded into NFT and you can carry it between your different places,” he said.
SXSW 2022 is this week, and we’re remotely reporting on all the major dashboards, announcements and revelations. It’s sad to not have the Austin food scene on hand.
– Matt Smith
The Biggest Stories You Might Have Missed
You will need the right hardware to play.
Google mentioned during its Game Developers Conference keynote that there will be a Steam alpha test for Chrome OS for “selective” Chromebooks. Details aren’t available as of this writing, but Google has indicated which players will join a Chromebook community forum post (currently unavailable). What about the minimum specs? According to rumors, you may be limited to models with at least 11th Gen Core i5 and 7GB of RAM. And hey, what about Stadia?
The API is now available to game developers.
“Windows games can ship with DirectStorage,” starting today, Microsoft announced. DirectStorage is the tech giant’s fast game loading technology that was introduced on Xbox Series X and S consoles. In September 2020, Microsoft revealed it would also offer the DirectStorage API on Windows, allowing for PC games take advantage of this technology. It can take a while for more titles to come with DirectStorage, especially since not everyone is upgrading to an NVMe SSD.
The base model 3 is currently priced at $46,990.
Tesla
Tesla raised the price of electric vehicles for the second time in a month. After adding $1,000 to several long-range models last week, the automaker has now performed a much larger price hike across its entire lineup. Prices now start at $46,990 for the base Model 3, which is $2,000 more than before. Although Tesla has quietly raised prices overnight, the move doesn’t go out of the left field. On Twitter, company director Elon Musk hinted at the possibility of prices rising. He said both Tesla and SpaceX are seeing “recently significant inflationary pressures on raw materials.” [and] logistics. “
It premieres June 8 on Disney+.
Marvel
Ms. Marvel, one of many Marvel Cinematic Universe shows coming to Disney+ this year, will premiere on June 8. The film revolves around Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a Pakistani-American whose idol is Captain Marvel. She will be the MCU’s first Muslim superhero and will also appear in The Marvels The film is scheduled to hit theaters on February 17, 2023.
The company is still awaiting progress from US regulators.
European Union officials have unconditionally approved Amazon’s $8.45 billion bid to buy the popular TV and movie studio MGM. The European Commission’s antitrust regulators identified limited overlap between the companies and said the merger would not significantly reduce competition in the film business.
Amazon still needs a green light from the Federal Trade Commission before it can close the deal announced last May. Recent reports suggest that the FTC is planning to challenge the merger with an antitrust lawsuit. However, that requires a majority of the members’ votes.
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