Pixel 6 Pro has joined the list of devices that can stream games from GeForce Now at 120 frames per second and in 1080p. Until now, the only smartphones to support that option on NVIDIA's cloud gaming service were Samsung Galaxy devices, including S21, S20 FE and Note 20 phones. NVIDIA confirmed on a support page, which was first spotted by XDA Developers, that Pixel 6 Pro owners could use the 120 fps option.

In October, NVIDIA debuted a new high-end tier for GeForce Now that's powered by RTX 3080 GPUs. You'll need to subscribe to that plan (which costs $100 for six months) to stream games at 120 fps. On PC and Mac, the resolution tops out at 1440p but with NVIDIA Shield, you can play at up to 4K. The premium plan costs $50 for six months, so the RTX 3080 plan is quite the jump in price. However, you won't need a tricked-out rig to play titles from a number of PC gaming storefronts at high quality.

To use the 120 fps mode on Pixel 6 Pro, go to the stream quality section under GeForce Now in the app's settings. You'll need to make sure your display's 120Hz refresh rate is active too. NVIDIA says you'll need a connection of at least 25 MB/s for 120 fps gaming. It also plans to bring the option to more devices.

Streamlabs isn't the only company drawing flak from the Open Broadcasting Software (OBS) project. According to Protocol, OBS business development manager Ben Torell claims to have "clear evidence" TikTok is violating the open source GNU General Public License (aka GPL) with its recently released Live Studio software. The Windows livestreaming app allegedly uses code from OBS Studio and other open efforts, but TikTok isn't sharing that code under GPL terms.

Live Studio is meant to offer the features and quality you typically get from livestreaming services like Twitch, such as game capturing and overlays. It's only available to a small number of users in a few Western markets, TikTok told TechCrunch, but that doesn't matter in a licensing dispute like this.

We've asked TikTok for comment. This won't necessarily lead to a lawsuit, however. Torell stressed the OBS project responds to GPL violations "in good faith" and would be happy to work with TikTok as long as it respected the license. With that said, TikTok hadn't responded to OBS' concerns as of this writing — the dispute isn't over yet.

Electric vehicle company Nikola will pay $125 million to settle civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors. The company was accused of misleading investors about its in-house production capabilities, technological advancements, reservations and orders, hydrogen production and more.

The SEC accused founder and former CEO Trevor Milton of undertaking "a public relations campaign aimed at inflating and maintaining Nikola’s stock price" through tweets and media appearances before the company had made a commercial product. It said that the company also misled investors by "misrepresenting or omitting material facts" about the hydrogen station at its headquarters, how long it would take to refuel its concept vehicles, the source and cost of power for planned hydrogen production and the risks and benefits of a mooted partnership with a major automaker.

“As the order finds, Nikola Corporation is responsible both for Milton’s allegedly misleading statements and for other alleged deceptions, all of which falsely portrayed the true state of the company’s business and technology,” SEC enforcement director Gurbir S. Grewal said in a statement.

Although Nikola did not admit to or deny the SEC's charges of securities law violations, it agreed to some voluntary undertakings, to pay the penalty and to cease and desist from "future violations of the charged provisions." It will cooperate with ongoing litigation and investigation too.

"We are pleased to bring this chapter to a close as the company has now resolved all government investigations," Nikola said in a statement. "We will continue to execute on our strategy and vision to deliver on our business plan, including delivering trucks to customers, expanding our manufacturing facilities and our sales and service network, and building out our hydrogen infrastructure ecosystem including hydrogen production, distribution and dispensing stations." The company also said it was seeking reimbursement from Milton "for costs and damages in connection with the government and regulatory investigations."

Nikola became a publicly traded company in June 2020 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal, which enables companies to bypass the usual process of going public. That September, reports suggested the SEC was looking into Nikola's claims about its electric trucks. Milton, who had stepped down as CEO just before the company went public, resigned as executive chairman a few days after news emerged about the probe.

A grand jury indicted Milton on fraud charges in July 2021. He was accused of lying to investors about “nearly all aspects of the business” to increase Nikola's share price. He denied the charges and is free on bail pending a trial that's scheduled for April. 

Meanwhile, Nikola delivered its first electric trucks to customers last week.

"Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia," Morpheus says in The Matrix Resurrections. That's a not-so-subtle dig at the onslaught of reboots and remakes dominating our culture — revisiting characters and stories we already know is, well, safe. Audiences know what to expect, and it's a better bet for risk-averse studios. Of course, Morpheus (now played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen) is also commenting on the film he's in.

More than twenty years after The Matrix fundamentally reshaped genre cinema, director Lana Wachowski is finally diving back into the universe that made her and co-director Lilly Wachowski renowned. After all that time, is it really worth going back down the rabbit hole, or is this just another easy franchise cash-grab?

The answer to that question depends on what you want from a Matrix sequel. Like The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions before it, Wachowski (along with co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksander Hemon) isn't interested in merely retreading the past with Resurrections. Instead, it's a film that's keenly aware of its legacy, our relationship with its characters, and the lofty expectations that fans (and studios!) have when rebooting a beloved property.

Warner Bros.

As someone who adored the original film, and found plenty to respect in the much-maligned sequels, Resurrections feels made just for me. It's intoxicating, thrilling and unabashedly romantic. But judging from the polarizing early critical responses, it's clearly not for everyone.

Minor spoilers ahead.

It's hard to talk about what The Matrix Resurrections is without describing its basic setup, most of which you can gather from the film's trailers. Keanu Reeves returns as Thomas Anderson, a programmer adrift in a world that doesn't quite make sense to him. He meets a woman played by Carrie-Anne Moss, but this time she's not the Agent-whupping bad-ass Trinity, she's just your typical (albeit, strikingly beautiful) mom. The two feel an instant connection. Thomas eventually gets ripped out of the world he's in thanks to a plucky new character named Bugs (Jessica Henwick), he finds the real world, and yadda yadda, you get the picture.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Didn't Neo and Trinity die in The Matrix Revolutions?" All I can do is point at the title of the movie — what did you expect? This time, Anderson is a renowned game developer known for creating an popular trilogy of games that retell the entire Matrix story. When we first meet him, he's faced with a new challenge: making a fourth entry. He approaches it with the same sense of dread the Wachowskis likely felt about tackling a potential Matrix 4. A series of brainstorming scenes feel as if they're pulled directly from their own hellish meetings with Warner Bros. Anderson's team can only focus on the surface — How do they go beyond bullet time? What if they just focus on more mindless action? — rather than anything truly substantive.

As the film unfolds (and don't worry, I'm not revealing any  major surprises), it's  impressive how Lana Wachowski elegantly avoids the traps most reboots fall into, as if she were in the Matrix herself, deftly avoiding all of the bullets aimed right at her. Sure, Resurrections brings some new special effects toys to the party, and it has the requisite action scenes you'd expect. But in many ways it's more reminiscent of the Wachowski's recent works, like the time-hopping epic Cloud Atlas, and the unabashedly humanistic Sense8.

The Matrix Resurrections wears its heart on its sleeve. It's far more interested in the transcendental possibilities of love than it is in laying the groundwork for a new trilogy of films. The fact that Wachowski is practically refusing to play by the current rules of Hollywood – set up the sequel by any means necessary! – feels almost revolutionary. She has one story to tell, and it means a lot to her. That’s it.

Warner Bros.

Strangely enough, the movie Resurrections reminds me of most is Wes Craven’s A New Nightmare, a groundbreaking attempt at wrestling with a hugely popular genre franchise. That film – the seventh A Nightmare on Elm Street entry – brought Freddy Krueger into the real world to reclaim what made him terrifying. Throughout The Matrix Resurrections, it feels as if Wachowski is also ready to break the fourth wall with her sheer contempt for reboots, fan service and watered-down sequels. “The sheeple want control, certainty,” a villain says at one point. (At that moment, I couldn’t help but think of the utter failure of The Rise of Skywalker. Yes, the wound is still fresh.)

Warner Bros.

And this is where I come back to saying this movie isn’t for everyone. But that just makes it a Matrix sequel. Sure, Reloaded and Revolutions were a bit overstuffed and convoluted, but they were also  singular visions that took some major swings. (I’m still chasing the high of seeing Reloaded’s sprawling highway chase for the first time.)

Geek cinema has taken over the world, yet aside from Christopher Nolan’s work, it’s rare to see big-budget filmmaking that isn’t beholden to some major corporation’s franchise rules (and at this point, that’s usually just Disney). The Matrix Resurrections says “to hell with the rules!”, and I applaud it.

It's become something of a holiday tradition for Arturia to give away a free plugin for the holidays. Last year it took its recreation of the iconic chorus from the Juno-6 and turned it into a stand alone effect. This year, it's breaking out the tape effects from its Mellotron emulation. 

The original Mellotron is, of course, an iconic keyboard that played back tape loops of other instruments — kind of like a proto-sampler. Arturia caught wind that some artists were using their Mellotron V plugin in an unexpected way. They were loading custom samples in and, rather than playing them back as a melody with the keyboard, simply adding the warmth and vibe of the simulated tape loops. 

So this holiday season Arturia decided to just cut out the middleman and release Tape Mello-Fi as a standalone tape simulator plugin. It can add distortion, saturation, tape flutters and even some filtering. Its interface is simple and delivers everything from subtle warmth to full on machine malfunctions. There are even 25 presets included to get you started.

Of course, there are tons of lo-fi and tape simulation plugins out there. But Arturia's is particularly good. And, it's free. So there's really no reason not to grab it. And you should do it sooner than later. Tape Mello-Fi will be available as a free download from Arturia's site from December 21st through Friday December 31st. After that, well, who knows. 

At-home COVID-19 tests might not be as trustworthy as you'd hope — not in the hands of a committed hacker, at least. As The Vergenotes, F-Secure researcher Ken Gannon discovered a since-patched security flaw in Ellume's Bluetooth-connected nasal swab test that let him change the reported results. The vulnerability was complicated, but still disconcerting.

Gannon used a rooted Android device to inspect the Bluetooth traffic Ellume's lateral flow tester was sending to the company's mobile app. The researcher pinpointed the traffic used to indicate test results, and wrote scripts to change the outcome. F-Secure Marketing Manager Alexandra Rinehimer even managed to fool Azova, a company issuing certificates for US entry tests, when it supervised her test.

Ellume has made it harder to study and modify the data, and it's not clear iPhone or iPad users could replicate the same feat. The company is also building a portal to help officials verify at-home tests, and has determined that all previous tests were authentic.

Even so, the findings raise concerns about people using other flaws (including for other tests) to falsify their COVID-19 results. Someone with enough know-how could flip results negative to re-enter the US or a particular workplace while infected. Although the effort currently involved makes that fraud unlikely on a large scale, it wouldn't take many bogus results to lead to outbreaks.

Scientists have finally studied their first full samples returned from an asteroid in space, and they confirm what you'd expect — while providing some new insights. ScienceAlertreports researchers have released twopapers revealing their first analysis of samples from Ryugu, the space rock the Hayabusa2 probe visited in February 2019. The team knew Ryugu would be a common, carbon-rich C-type asteroid, but that still makes it a good peek at the ingredients of the early Solar System.

The sampling indicates Ryugu has a carbon-dominated composition similar to the Sun's photosphere (outer shell), much like certain meteorites. It's made of the most primitive materials in the Solar System, emerging from the dust disc that formed along with the Sun itself. It's also quite porous, like many asteroids. However, it's not quite a neat and tidy example. Most C-type asteroids have a low albedo (solar radiation reflectivity) of 0.03 to 0.09 due to their carbon, but Ryugu's is 0.02. It's dark even by the standards of its cosmic neighbors.

As it stands, the very existence of these studies represents an achievement. The first attempt to return a sample, from the astroid Itokawa in 2010, only netted a tiny amount of dust. There's still more to come from Ryugu, but even the existing data could help scientists reshape their understanding of the Solar System's birth and development.

To no one’s surprise, 2020 was a bumper year for streaming. With people stuck at home last year, services saw millions of new subscribers — Netflix attracted 16 million customers in just three months, alone. The early part of 2021 continued that trend, but as the year draws to a close, it appears the growth is slowing down across the board. This suggests that as restrictions ease around the world, people might be returning to pre-pandemic norms.

But on the whole, 2021 was still a pretty big year for streaming. Netflix now has 214 million global subscribers, and services like Disney+ and HBO Max lured customers with exclusive TV shows and movies. US platforms, like Peacock, expanded internationally and online-only programming was well-represented at multiple award shows. Titles exclusive to streaming, such as Squid Game and WandaVision, became part of the cultural landscape. A slow year or not, it’s clear that this is how most of us watch our shows now. Here are some of the biggest stories in streaming this year.

Netflix

Netflix continues to dominate

As mentioned above, Netflix is the undisputed leader in streaming with over 214 million subscribers worldwide. Sure, it’s faced a few challenges from rivals like Disney+ and Amazon Prime, but Netflix is still holding strong. Part of that is due to the company’s strategy of investing in original content that you can’t get anywhere else, like Stranger Things and The Crown.

And of course, there’s Squid Game which is undoubtedly the number one TV show of the year. Netflix has said that around 142 million households watched the Korean-language show, making it the most-viewed new show in Netflix history. There’s also the recently released Red Notice, which became the service’s most-watched movie in its first 28 days of release, with around 328.8 million viewing hours in that time span. That tops the previous record held by Bird Box, which had 282 million viewing hours back in 2018.

Things don’t seem to be slowing down, either. Netflix has signed multi-year deals with big names like Kevin Hart and Steven Spielberg, it has exclusive rights for Universal animated films and it purchased the rights to Roald Dahl’s entire catalog. this phenomenon

Still, 2021 wasn’t without its hiccups. The largest one by far is when Netflix employees staged a protest over the CEO’s remarks defending Dave Chappelle’s standup special, which was heavily criticized for its transphobic content. CEO Ed Sarandos has since said he “screwed up” on the messaging, but has not rescinded his defense.

Disney

Disney+ proves it’s a serious contender

Disney+, on the other hand, currently has 118.1 million paid subscribers worldwide, which doesn’t quite compare to Netflix. But the service still gained ground in 2021, with around 43 million more subscribers compared to last year. A lot of that can be attributed to Disney’s powerhouse brands such as Pixar, Star Wars and, especially in 2021, Marvel.

2021 was when the Marvel Cinematic Universe released four different TV shows, all exclusively on Disney+: WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki and Hawkeye. This is a big deal, as Marvel has said that these TV series are key to the MCU’s “Phase Four” chapter, indicating that fans will likely want to watch them in order to understand the context behind upcoming movies set in the same universe.

But there was more to these shows that made them required viewing. As the first out the gate, WandaVision set the tone. The episodes were meant to be watched weekly, as each one spurred so-called “water cooler” discussions in-person and online. This felt a lot like “anti-binging” TV, as much of the appeal of these shows lay in the anticipation of what would happen next. At the very least, it showed that Disney+’s slate of original content — which also includes The Mandalorian and the upcoming The Book of Boba Fett — could hold its own against that of more established platforms.

Warner Bros.

The direct-to-streaming revolution that wasn’t

During the thick of the pandemic, many movies eschewed theatrical releases for direct-to-streaming debuts. Examples include The Lovebirds, Borat Subsequent Movie Film,Mulan (via paid Premier Access), Soul, and Wonder Woman 1984. That carried into this year as well, with Disney+ continuing its paid Premier Access model with Cruella, Black Widow and Jungle Cruise (Luca, however, did not have Premier Access release).

The biggest move, however, was when Warner Bros. announced that every single one of its movies in 2021 would have a one month exclusive access period on HBO Max concurrent with the film’s domestic release. This meant that big blockbuster movies like Suicide Squad, Dune and Matrix 4 would be available on HBO Max on the same day they debuted in theaters for an entire year.

While some may have heralded this phenomenon as the future of entertainment, it looks to be short-lived. Disney revealed a few months ago that all of its remaining 2021 movies will get a 45-day head start in theaters. This could be due to strong responses to titles like Free Guy and Shang-Chi, but Disney might also want to avoid lawsuits like the one Scarlett Johansson filed for breach of contract over shortened theatrical releases. Warner Bros. also said that it’s going back to theater-first releases in 2022. It looks like the direct-to-streaming revolution isn’t quite here just yet.

Other notable streaming news

• Paramount+ replaces CBS All Access, which essentially opens up the service to other ViacomCBS channels, such as Comedy Central and VH1, plus Paramount’s existing movie library.

• Discovery+ makes its debut. The service features content from HGTV, Food Network, Animal Planet, TLC, the Magnolia Network, and Discovery.

• AT&T spun off its WarnerMedia division and merged it with Discovery in a $43 billion deal. The new company will combine Warner’s film division, HBO Max and Discovery+.

• Roku purchased Quibi’s shows and released some of them as “Roku Originals.”

• Roku pulled YouTube TV from its channel store amid a contract dispute with Google. The latter apparently requested priority placement in search results and wanted to block results from other providers while the app was in use. As of December 8th, both parties have finally agreed to a multi-year extension.

• In other notable YouTube TV news, the service recently lost access to all of Disney's channels, which includes ESPN, ABC and FX, as Google and Disney had failed to strike a deal. After just a couple of days, however, the two companies reconciled and reached an agreement, thus restoring all of the aforementioned channels. When YouTube TV initially lost those channels, Google had dropped the price of the service by $15 (from $65 to $50 in the basic package). Now the price is back to normal. However, if users had already initiated the cancellation process, Google will still honor the one-time $15 credit if they resume their membership. 

• WWE Network ceased operations as most of its content moved to Peacock.

• Peacock aired multiple live Olympics sporting events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.

• Universal made a deal where Peacock and Amazon Prime Video would have some streaming rights for its live-action movies after their theatrical run. They would air on Peacock for four months, then on Prime Video for 10 months, and then back to Peacock for at least another four months. This kicks into effect in 2022.

• Netflix gained exclusive streaming rights to all of Sony’s upcoming movies, including upcoming titles in the Spider-Man franchise.

• Peacock debuts in the UK and Ireland.

What to look forward to in 2022

While the growth in streaming might be slowing, there are still plenty of shows and movies to anticipate next year. Netflix has confirmed that the aforementioned Sandmanwill be released in 2022, as well as The Witcher: Blood Origin and new seasons of favorites like Stranger Things, The Crown and Ozark. Disney+ will continue its MCU run of TV shows with Ms. Marvel, and will introduce a couple of Star Wars series too: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor. Perhaps the two biggest TV series to get excited about, however, are HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, and Amazon’s epic Lord of the Rings series, which is set thousands of years prior to The Hobbit.

Ubisoft recently launched the Quartz NFT platform as a way to monetize game properties, something that didn't exactly go over well with either customers or employees. Now, it appears that the effort is a financial bust so far, too, as the company reportedly sold just 15 NFTs of a Ghost Recon Breakpoint gun skin as of yesterday, Eurogamer reported. It appears to have sold two more M4A1 tactical weapons and one "Wolf Enhance Pants #76" for a total of 18 as of today. 

Apex Legends senior character artist Liz Edwards tweeted that she looked at the two third-party marketplaces linked to the Quartz sites "and there seems to be... 15 sales in total?" That works out to about $1,755.30 in revenue, as Eurogamer noted. As of today, Ubisoft appears to have minted about somewhere north of 3,000 NFTs.

Ubisoft launched the first three Ghost Recon Breakpoint Editions for free, with the weapon requiring XP Level 4, the helmet greater than 600 hours of play time, and the pants at least 100 hours of play time. Those went pretty quickly and the claim period ended, so the only way to get them now is to pay. 

As some critics have pointed out, Breakpoint doesn't have the most alluring visual aesthetic, so it seems an odd choice to kick off an NFT for visual collectibles. On the other hand, Ubisoft may have been just dipping its toe into the water with one of its less high-profile, though still popular franchises. 

For the minimum money collected so far, however, the effort may have done more harm than good. Ubisoft reportedly alienated its own French trade union, which called NFTs "a useless, costly, ecologically mortifying tech." 

Popular virtual reality workout app Supernatural is partnering with comedian Tiffany Haddish to release a new workout series. Part of its upcoming This Year, Be You campaign, the collaboration will add four new workouts for users to check out once 2022 arrives. You’ll find one new routine in each of Supernatural’s main fitness categories. Expect the experiences to take you to virtual locations modeled after beaches in Spain and Portugal, rice terraces in China and salt flats in Bolivia.

The two came to work together after developer Within found out Haddish was a big fan of its app. In April, Haddish took to Instagram to lament that she had managed to break the strap to her Oculus Meta Quest headset while working out with Supernatural. One day later, Within, which is at the center of an FTC probe involving Meta’s plan to acquire the studio, sent her a custom headset. “I became addicted to Supernatural last year,” Haddish said. “I’ve never felt so powerful or had so much fun working out.” 

All four workouts will be available starting on January 1st, 2022.