Where's our Switch 2, Nintendo? We tried asking nicely. We tried asking not so
nicely. The Switch 2 is coming out tomorrow, and I still haven't played on
it yet. How am I supposed to wait any longer? Anyway, welcome to Techl. People
worldwide are posting unboxing videos of their Nintendo Switch 2Os, and content
creators like Sirloin and AllOut Gaming are live streaming games on Nintendo's
hot new handheld. All I've seen so far is Cyberpunk 2077 and Mario Kart World.
But with the console launching tomorrow, there's going to be a lot more coming.
And for all of us who can look but not yet touch, here are some morsels to get
you through the next couple of days or months as you fail to beat online
scalpers. Well, there's this expanded list of games that will receive free
performance boosting updates. Thanks, Nintendo. And this nugget that Fortnite
will in fact support game chat and mouse
controls. Eh, also the tidbit that
Switch 2 can store up to 30,000 screenshots. 30,000, you say. Wow,
that's going to be enough for me because the only time I ever take them is when I accidentally hit the button. But if you
want to know my favorite part, that Switch 2 welcome tour that you have to
pay for, it's only 100%able if you're playing on a 4K display and also pay for
the Switch 2's USB camera and either a Pro Controller or Joy-Con 2 charging
grip. At least you've probably already got a 4K TV if you can afford a Switch
to. But what you probably don't have yet is AMD's RX9060 XT. Reviews are out and
the news is mostly good. The 16 gig card
is solid and offers a reasonable uplift in performance over its predecessor, but
it looks like AMD has been trying to avoid comparisons to their 8 gig variant
by not seeding it to most reviewers. You can check out our full review on LT of
the 16 gig card um after complaining to Team Red. We did manage to get an 8 gig
card, but it arrived less than 24 hours
before the embargo lift. So, we can't tell you just how much performance is
hindered even at 1080p due to the memory being cut in half. We feel that may have
been AMD's plan all along. So, if you're shopping for one of these soon, maybe
check out Brazilian reviews. They didn't have any trouble getting their hands on
the 960 XT 8 gig. Also, be sure not to
spend a lot more than MSRP on this thing. We had no idea how to evaluate
the value of it. So, uh, good luck everybody. Speaking of things that kind
of suck, if you're still using Meta or Facebook, your privacy might as well be
non-existent. Okay, bear with me here. Yandex, a sanctioned technology company
from Russia, started embedding a tracking code into millions of websites
that dean anonymizes visitors by bypassing core security and privacy
protections on both the Android OS and
web browser. Um, think of your phone like a sandbox. You know, everything you
do within that sandbox is private. Maybe you build a cool sand castle. Maybe you
pooped in it. I don't know. Because normally what happens in the sandbox
stays in the sandbox. But this new bypass that we're coming back to
Facebook now, Meta adopted back in September allows the companies to pass
cookies and other identifiers from Firefox and Chromium based browsers to
native Android apps for Facebook, Instagram, and various Yandex
apps. Can we just Should we just all throw our phones in the ocean? Don't
worry, I have a Dbrand skin. It's fine. Speaking of destroying things, um, why
can't the internet just be cool? Like today's sponsor, Novium, makers of the
Hover Pen, which is both a high-end writing tool and a unique, innovative
piece of desk art meant to inspire you to defy expectations, like the
expectation that a pen is supposed to lie flat on a desk. Not the Hover Pen.
Made from aircraftgrade aluminum, the HoverPen Interstellar makes a striking
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a half degree angle, the same as the axial tilt of the Earth, which is the
planet we all live on. H wow. It's
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And there's even a premium version with a real meteorite shard older than the
Earth itself embedded in the tip. Okay, for those who prefer a fountain or
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Rapid morsels. Rapid morsels. Rapid morsels. Rapid morsels. What's rapid
today is how rapidly CD Project Red have gotten a working Witcher 4 gameplay tech
demo up and running. I mean, the last game came out only 10 years ago. But
they've allegedly been in full production for like 7 months really.
Yesterday at Unreal Fest, they teased us all with Siri, Kelpy, and a brief look
at Kovier. It was allegedly running at 4K 60fps with ray tracing enabled thanks
to new tech like multic character motion matching, nanite foliage, and a new
Unreal animation framework. But remember, no pre-orders, not even once,
even if it's really tempting. No clicking weird links either because a new malware named Crocodilus is so good
that it can change contacts in your phone. So, if you're infected, oh my
god, the next spam call you get could actually display the name of someone you
might actually answer, like bank support or a funeral home or your mom. It can
also monitor what you're doing and create a fraudulent login overlay when
you go to access something like a banking app. The scammers just keep
getting more and more sophisticated. This is the problem is there's more
money in ripping people off than defending people.
Something nobody expected to get any better though is the now ancient GTX
960. And yet YouTuber Trashbench has
proven that you can turn trash into better trash. They grabbed a CPU tower
cooler 3D printed a mount and stuck it directly to the GPU die to improve temps
and even rack up a cool 184 extra points in 3D Mark Fire Strike, setting a new
record. Heck yeah. Bring on the eight slot cards. I say you were going to use
that space anyway. What are you going to do? put a sound card in there. Speaking
of space, it turns out you maybe don't need to worry about the Milky Way and
Andromeda galaxies colliding in the future. I don't know about you guys, but
ever since hearing that was going to happen 10 billion years from now,
crippling anxiety gripped me. I I just couldn't let it go. That is until now.
Scientists have run about a 100,000 simulations, and it turns out it's more
like only a 50/50 chance that our theoretical multilanetary descendants
face certain doom. That's right, friends. The fate of our galaxy hinges
on a coin flip. Let's see. Call
it. We die. Subscribe to Techling. See you
later. Okay.