Ahead of September 9th, when it plans to share the first full trailer from The Matrix Resurrections, Warner Bros. has launched a teaser for the upcoming film. The website, whatisthematrix.com, offers a first look at Neo's latest adventure. 

In a call back to the first film, you'll see a red and blue pill on the screen when you first visit the website. Choose the former and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will narrate the clip that follows, while the latter will treat you to the voice of Neil Patrick Harris. Each will present a different interpretation of what follows and a different series of cuts from the movie. 

What's more, each time you refresh the website and watch the clips again, you'll see a different set of scenes from the movie, as well as a mention of the current time — you know, to break the fourth wall. There aren't an infinite number of variations of each teaser, but you can piece together quite a few different scenes together if you watch each one multiple times.  

Either way, it's a fun way to build up excitement for the film before the first official trailer drops later this week. Of course, if you want to go into The Matrix Resurrections blind, then it's best to wait until December to see it on your own terms. 

WhatsApp has come under fire of late for its privacy policies, but an upcoming update will actually give you a bit more control over your privacy settings, according to WaBetaInfo.com.

Several years back, WhatsApp introduced new privacy settings that let you change who could see your Profile Picture, About and Last Seen settings. Each of those could be set to allow Everyone, My Contacts or Nobody to see them — not exactly a great level of control. In a new preview, however, WhatsApp introduced a new parameter for "Last Seen" called "My Contacts Except...", allowing you to block specific contacts if you don't want them to see your Last Seen status. 

WaBetaInfo

WaBetaInfo has a screenshot taken from iOS as proof, thought it notes that the new feature should eventually appear on both iOS and Android. The parameters will also apply to the Profile Picture and About settings. According to the screenshot, if you block someone's Last Seen setting, you won't be able to see their Last Seen setting in return. 

The site notes that the feature is still under development, so it may either appear in a future release or be shelved, provided the post is accurate in the first place. It seems like a pretty logical setting, though, that probably should have been in there already. 

The Nintendo Switch Online subscription service may give you access to games newer than NES and SNES titles in the near future. According to the latest Nate the Hate podcast, Nintendo might be adding Game Boy and Game Boy Color games to Switch Online in the coming weeks. As the hosts discuss in the show, some people found back in 2019 that the the service has four emulators, and of two of those are still unused. They believe that those emulators are for Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles — and both Nintendo Life and Eurogamer corroborated the report with sources of their own.

Nintendo's Switch Online service turns three years old in a few weeks. It launched on September 18th, 2018, offering members access to retro games for two of the company's oldest consoles. Since then, the company has been regularly adding more and more SNES and NES games to its selection, including beloved classics like the Super Mario Bros. series, The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II and Donkey Kong. Adding Game Boy titles to the mix means Nintendo won't be running out of games to add in the foreseeable future.

Nintendo Life's source isn't optimistic about the possibility of the company rolling out Game Boy Advance titles for the service in the near future. According to Eurogamer, though, "other retro platforms are also on the cards." As you'd expect, Nintendo refuses to comment about the rumor. It told The Verge: "We have nothing to announce on this topic."

Facebook has apologized after its AI slapped an egregious label on a video of Black men. According to The New York Times, users who recently watched a video posted by Daily Mail featuring Black men saw a prompt asking them if they'd like to "[k]eep seeing videos about Primates." The social network apologized for the "unacceptable error" in a statement sent to the publication. It also disabled the recommendation feature that was responsible for the message as it looks into the cause to prevent serious errors like this from happening again.

Company spokeswoman Dani Lever said in a statement: "As we have said, while we have made improvements to our AI, we know it's not perfect, and we have more progress to make. We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations."

Gender and racial bias in artificial intelligence is hardly a problem that's unique to the social network — facial recognition technologies are still far from perfect and tend to misidentify POCs and women in general. Last year, false facial recognition matches led to the wrongful arrests of two Black men in Detroit. In 2015, Google Photos tagged the photos of Black people as "gorillas," and Wired found a few years later that the tech giant's solution was to censor the word "gorilla" from searches and image tags.

The social network shared a dataset it created with the AI community in an effort to combat the issue a few months ago. It contained over 40,000 videos featuring 3,000 paid actors who shared their age and gender with the company. Facebook even hired professionals to light their shoot and to label their skin tones, so AI systems can learn what people of different ethnicities look like under various lighting conditions. The dataset clearly wasn't enough to completely solve AI bias for Facebook, further demonstrating that the AI community still has a lot of work ahead of it. 

Fans of Neil Gaiman could soon see another of the author’s creations get the TV treatment. According to a report from Variety, WarnerMedia has ordered a pilot for a potential HBO Max series featuring the Dead Boy Detectives. The two characters, Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine, first appeared in issue 25 of Gaiman’s TheSandman comic. They’re ghosts who investigate supernatural crimes.

The interesting thing here is that Rowland and Paine will appear in the upcoming third season of HBO Max’s Doom Patrol. However, Variety reports it’s unclear whether Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant, the two actors who play Rowland and Paine in Doom Patrol, will also play the detectives in this new pilot. Steve Yockey, best known for his work on The Flight Attendant, is penning the episode’s script.

Following the success of Good Omens, streaming audiences have wanted to see more of Gaiman's unique brand of fantasy. That’s led to an influx of projects linked to the author, including an upcoming Netflix adaptation of The Sandman.

Horizon Forbidden West, probably the biggest PlayStation exclusive announced since the PS5 launch, is set to arrive in February. With the release date coming soon, developer Guerilla Games is opening pre-orders and detailing the many different editions of the game that will be available on February 18th, 2022. 

Perhaps the most important thing most buyers will need to know is that the standard "launch" editions of Horizon Forbidden West, whether you're buying a physical or digital copy, will only work on a single console. (You can clearly see this stated in an FAQ Sony published today.) Even though the game is being released for both PS4 and PS5, you'll have to choose which console you want and stick with that; there's no ability to upgrade for a fee later. As with most AAA games these days, the PS4 versions costs $60 and the PS5 $70. There are also special edition steelbook version for both consoles that also include a mini art book and digital copy of the soundtrack for $10 more.

If you're really not sure which console to buy for, there's a digital deluxe edition that might be the way to go. For $80 (the same as the PS5 steelbook version), you'll get the game on both PS4 and PS5. It also comes with a number of digital goodies including the art book, soundtrack, a digital comic and some in-game outfits and items. One unlock we haven't heard of before is for the game's photo mode; you'll unlock special face paint and a unique pose for Aloy.

As with other popular AAA titles, there are a couple of lavish and expensive editions for hardcore fans (like the author of this post). The highlight of the $200 Collector's Edition is a seemingly massive statue of the game's Tremortusk enemy alongside a much smaller statue of Aloy. It also includes the same physical art book and steelbook display case that comes with the special editions, plus all the digital gear included with the deluxe edition. 

Sony

The $260 "Regalla" edition (so named for an enemy faction in the new game) steps things up with an even more detailed statue that includes special armor and enemy warriors riding the Tremortusk. It also includes two artwork cards, a replica of Aloy's Focus, a canvas map and two replicas of "Strike" pieces from the game. Strike is apparently a type of board game that the characters in Horizon Forbidden West play; we'll have to learn more about them later.

Both of these massive editions come with the game for both PS4 and PS5 — but, they do not include the game on disc. Instead, you'll receive a download card. It makes some degree of sense, given that Sony now sells a PS5 with no disc drive, but it's definitely a bummer for people who don't want to have to wait for what will surely be a massive game download. 

Confused yet? Let's make it simple: If you want both PS4 and PS5 versions, you'll need to spend $80 on the digital deluxe edition, which is not a bad idea considering you get the two game versions plus a bunch of digital goodies for only 10 bucks more than the standard PS5 edition. The other option is buying the pricey Collector's or Regalla editions. But if you're set on buying a disc, you'll have to stick with whatever console you pick when you buy it, as there are no plans to offer an upgrade path to the PS5.

You can see and pre-order all the various editions here.

Amazon has shared the first trailer for its long-awaited adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. If you’re a newcomer to the fantasy series, the clip sketches out the basics of the world the author created before his death in 2007. 

In the Wheel of Time, only women known as Aes Sedai can channel magic. A powerful sorceress named Moiraine (played by Gone Girl and Hostiles actor Rosamund Pike) comes across a small town called Two Rivers where she finds five young men and women. One of them she believes is the Dragon Reborn, an entity that could be either the savior or destroyer of humanity.

Amazon first announced it was working on a live-action adaptation of Robert Jordan’s 14-volume fantasy back in 2018, but like with the company’s other big-budget fantasy adaptation, filming was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first three episodes of the Wheel of Time will debut on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, November 19th, with new episodes to follow every week thereafter until December 24th when the season finale starts streaming.

There's another gaming-focused event to look forward to this month. A week after Sony's PlayStation showcase, THQ Nordic is running a 10th anniversary celebration with a look at what's ahead for the publisher.

THQ Nordic is promising six new game announcements for its first digital showcase. Among those are revivals of some "legendary franchises," including some that have been dormant for decades. Hmm... The publisher's also planning to show off sequels to "beloved games" — perhaps there'll be a peek at the next Darksiders title.

Two games that will definitely be part of the showcase are RPGs ELEX II and Expeditions: Rome. If you join the stream before the event officially starts, you'll catch an update from HandyGames during the pre-show.

There will be a familiar face handling hosting duties: Geoff Keighley of The Game Awards, Summer Game Fest and Gamescom's Opening Night Live. The event starts at 3PM ET on September 17th. You can watch it on YouTube, Twitch and Steam.

How do you build on a filmography that includes disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day? If you’re Roland Emmerich, the answer is, quite simply, to drop the Moon on the planet. In the first trailer for his latest film, Moonfall, Earth’s natural satellite has decided to do humanity a solid favor and put it out of its misery by crashing into its anchor.

You might think its title says almost everything you need to know about Moonfall, but, sorry, the end of the world is only part of the story here. According to the film’s official synopsis, a “mysterious force” is what sets the Moon on its collision course with Earth. It’s up to a NASA executive, former astronaut and conspiracy theorist — played by Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley, respectively — to save the world. “These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is,” the film’s official summary says.

I’ll say it now. I hope it’s not aliens that are behind everything. Either way, Moonfall looks like it will be a fun and trashy way to spend an hour or two forgetting about all the real problems haunting humans at the moment. The film will debut in theaters on February 4th, 2022. We can't wait.

Facebook Gaming is letting more creators play licensed music in the background while streaming gameplay. Streamers who have partner status have been able to spin tracks from a broad range of publishers and labels since last September, and now Level Up creators can do so too.

Level Up is a step below partner status. Creators in the former group can monetize their streams with Facebook's Stars currency, ads and paid subscriptions. They also get access to tools to build their audience and features like being able to stream in 1080p at 60 frames per second. Partners get extra perks, such as a partner badge, early access to new products and more personalized support from Facebook.

Streamers in both categories can play songs from hundreds of music labels, publishers and societies, including big hitters like Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. As well as live broadcasts, the deals cover archived streams and clips viewers make from streams.

Creators aren't limited to predetermined playlists, so they can play almost any song they like. Facebook notes that streamers don't have the right to use certain songs, though, and it'll flag those to creators with a notification. The streamer can remove that restricted song from their playlist to avoid running into trouble.

Elsewhere, Facebook says its systems are better at detecting the difference between having music in the background while you're playing games and having music as the focus of the stream, like hosting a radio show, which isn't allowed.

To mark the expansion, Facebook is hosting several streams in which celebrity DJs will select the background tracks while creators play games. DJ Khaled and Diplo are among those taking part in the special streams, which take place throughout this month.