GPUs Back in Stock-and Cheaper; iPhone 14-Selfie Cam Upgrade; Apollo May Act as Lender in Twitter Takeover Bid; Sega Super Game Project

They have been hard to find and carried premium pricing for white a while now, but at long last, Nvidia and AMD GPUs are getting back in stock, and the prices are falling. Theverge.com reports that some have dropped from $2505 last March down to $1569 now. Some were priced up double or triple list price, but the cards are down about 30% across the board in the last 3 months. Some are still commanding a $200 to $300 premium, but that’s a far cry from the last year or two. Gamers and coin miners will be looking to upgrade before long at these prices…albeit after they have recovered from the tax man’s bite! 

The rear cams on phones get all the attention and glory, but a lot of people (we all know some, LOL) shoot tons of selfies with the front cam. Now, 9o5mac.com says Ming-Chi Kuo is expecting Apple to upgrade the selfie cams on all the upcoming iPhone 14 models. Quoting Kuo: ‘The front camera of four new iPhone 14 models in 2H22 would likely upgrade to AF (autofocus) & about f/1.9 aperture (vs. iPhone 13’s FF (fixed-focus) and f/2.2). AF support and a lower f-number can provide a better shallow depth-of-field effect for selfie/portrait mode. In addition, AF can also enhance the focus effect for FaceTime/video call/live streaming.’ Translated into non-camera geek language, that means you would get better Portrait and Cinematic shots, as well as better low light selfies. I’m expecting to see a flood of new selfies from the aforementioned selfie kings and queens a month or two after the iPhone 14 models hit this September!

Reports picked up by CNBC have Apollo Global Management in discussions about financing a potential takeover of Twitter. It isn’t clear that they are interested in backing Elon Musk’s proposed deal, but might do one with another suitor. They are apparently not interested in being a piece of a private equity consortium, but would want to be involved in the form of preferred equity. Considering the poison pill Twitter put in place last week, it looks pretty likely that the board will reject Musk’s offer. 

Sega’s Super Game Project apparently has a big budget reboot of Crazy Taxi in the works…which might be out in the next 3 years. Engadget.com reports that the Super Game project involves a series of AAA titles leveraging cloud gaming and, deep sigh, NFTS. Late last year, Sega announced that it was teaming up with Microsoft’s Azure cloud division to help produce large-scale “global games.” In addition to Crazy Taxi, look for Sega to rework powered up versions of Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter.