Microsoft has confirmed that Halo Infinite’s campaign missions can’t be replayed once they’ve been completed – unless users start a new save file.
Aside from the inability to simply replay levels for fun, as was possible in previous Halo games via a mission select menu, the news isn’t good for completionists.
Halo Infinite’s first two missions are set off Zeta Halo and once they’re finished there’s no way to return to them, meaning collectibles missed on a first playthrough can’t be obtained later without starting a new game.
Halo Infinite campaign review | VGC
After these first levels the game transitions to a more open-world structure, which enables players to revisit areas and hoover up collectibles they might have missed when playing earlier missions.
“The postgame does give you the option to keep exploring the wider environment, but for missions like the first two, where you’re not on the ring yet, you can’t replay from the same save file,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Polygon. “You’d be able to get any remaining FOBs, targets, [and] audio logs, but the main story missions would not repeat.”
Skulls will stay attached to the player’s account, meaning they won’t reset when a new save file is started.
VGC published its Halo Infinite review on Monday, awarding the game 4/5 stars ahead of its December 8 release.
“Halo Infinite’s move to a more open-world structure feels like a new beginning for the series, with nostalgic nods and fresh introductions combining to great effect,” it reads. “Both the campaign and multiplayer have room for improvement, but the core experience is strong.”
One of the main highlights of the new 2021 MacBook Pro is the comeback of the SD card slot. Unfortunately, it seems that some users are having issues with the SD card reader on these new machines, as they have been reporting slow transfer speeds or even inaccessible files when trying to use an SD card on the new MacBook Pro.
As noted by MacRumors, multiple reports shared on the web suggest that there is a widespread issue regarding the SD card reader in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models introduced this year. There seems to be no consistency between the reports, as users say that they have experienced different issues with different SD cards.
A user of the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip describes their experience as “super flakey” as the machine takes up to 1 minute to recognize an SD card and sometimes it shows an error. Another user says that the Finder crashes when the Mac is trying to read an SD card.
It’s very frustrating. I was hoping that import from SD card including preview of images would be quick on my new 14″ MBP. I have a fairly new 64GB SD card which had been working fine. But Photos on the MBP using the internal SD card slot takes minutes to show photos and sometimes crashes half way through. Sometimes the Finder crashes too.
As pointed out by other users, formatting the SD card does not solve the problem in most cases. Some even confirm that the same SD card works by using a USB-C adapter.
The only thing that is consistent is that if a card works, it always works, and if a card does not work properly it never works properly. Reformatting, even to all other possible formats, makes no difference. Sandisk, Sony, Samsung, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, UHS-I, UHS-II, micro-SD, FAT32, exFAT, makes no difference. 100% of my cards work perfectly via a dongle.
Apple is yet to officially acknowledge the problem – and so far it is unclear whether this is a software or hardware issue. The company has allegedly told some customers that it is “aware of the issue” and promised that a software update with a fix will be available soon.
Have you experienced similar problems with the new MacBook Pro? Let us know in the comments section below.
Android 12 has been out for a couple of months now, and it seems to be coming to non-Pixel devices faster than ever before. On the heels of Samsung rolling out an update to the Galaxy S21 series last month, OnePlus is the next company to have new software ready to go for its most recent phones. After a couple of beta releases, OxygenOS 12 is ready to go for the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro.
Although the company has yet to post official release notes on its forums, some users have reported getting the update as an OTA on their phones (via XDA Developers). Unsurprisingly, it looks a lot like the Open Beta software OnePlus released two months ago, complete with the company's new "Burdenless Design" appearance. For anyone who didn't join the test group, you might be surprised to find that many system tools — settings, theming, the app launcher, and more — are all pulled directly from ColorOS, following the unification of the two platforms earlier this year. It's a process that's set to be completed sometime in 2022, following the announcement of the forthcoming OnePlus 10 series.
Image Gallery (3 Images)
Screenshots taken from an earlier OxygenOS 12 beta.
As AP's Karandeep Singh detailed in his hands-on a couple of months ago, these changes aren't necessarily for the worst. In addition to all of the improvements brought on with Android 12, OnePlus has overhauled its dark mode with various levels, given its Notes app a total makeover, and reconfigured Shelf to be far more helpful than its previous iterations. Scout — the company's universal search tool previously region-locked to India — is now available to all users globally, as are the Work-Life balance tools.
It looks like the update is only out for phones in India so far, so EU and Global users will have to keep waiting a while longer for official word from OnePlus. For a company that has struggled in the past to deliver timely updates to its phones, it's great to see new software hitting phones before the end of the year. Of course, with a controversial move to the ColorOS codebase, it's unclear if current OnePlus users will be excited for the latest upgrade to their phone. Check out the complete list of patch notes available below.
System
Optimized desktop icons with improved textures, by using a design inspired by brand-new materials and uniting lights and layers
Dark mode
Dark mode now supports three adjustable levels, bringing a more personalized and comfortable user experience
Shelf
New additional style options for Cards, making data contents more visual and easier to read
Newly added Earphone Control Card with Bluetooth earphone one-click adjustment
Newly added access to OnePlus Scout in Shelf, allowing you to search multiple contents on your phone, including Apps, Settings, Media Data, etc
Newly added OnePlus Watch Card in Shelf, to easily glance at your health stats
Work-Life Balance
Work-Life Balance feature is now available to all users, allowing you to effortlessly switch between Work and Life mode via quick settings
WLB 2.0 now supports automatic Work/Life mode switching, based on specific locations, Wi-Fi network, and time, also bringing customized App notification profiles according to the personalization
Gallery
Gallery now allows you to switch between different layouts with a two-finger pinch gesture, intelligently recognizing the best-quality pictures, and cropping the thumbnail based on the content, making the gallery layout more pleasing Canvas AOD
Canvas AOD
Canvas AOD brings you new diverse styles of lines and colors, for a more personalized lock screen experience with inspiring visuals
Newly added multiple brushes and strokes and support for color adjustment
Optimized software algorithm and improved face recognition to better identify the features and skin color of different figures
Will has been an Android enthusiast since he got his first smartphone in 2011. He loves watching movies, has a never-ending backlog of video games, and produces a comedy podcast in his spare time. He lives in Buffalo, NY and is willing to give you chicken wing recommendations at any time. Just ask.
The reality star addressed her split from fiancé Zac Clark during The Bachelorette: The Men Tell All on Monday, Dec. 6.
In a separate conversation from the men, co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe raised the subject with the 31-year-old, saying, "I know there's a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation, but I do think it's important for you to have the chance to clear the air, have a voice for yourself. Say whatever you want to say before other people get to make the story for you."
"All I have to say is that I'm heartbroken," Tayshia shared. "But we tried really hard and I still love him very much. And I'm not sure what the future holds."
She told Kaitlyn through tears, "You know how it is. It's really hard."
Kaitlyn swiftly changed the subject to introduce Michelle Young's suitor, Rodney, but Tayshia left the stage to compose herself.
Halo Infinite’s campaign launches on Wednesday, but after your first trip through the story, you won’t be able to replay missions without starting all the way over, Microsoft confirmed to Polygon. It’s a significant omission, since it means you won’t be able to get collectibles you miss the first time around. It also means Infinite is the first Halo game without a way to go back and easily replay a chapter.
That might not always be the case, though, as developer 343 Industries wants to add the feature down the line, the studio told The Verge. “We haven’t announced a date but that is being worked on,” 343 Industries associate creative director Paul Crocker said in an interview.
“We want to have replay that works well, and when you have a more open game, it gets a lot trickier,” he said. “So we made a decision to improve the quality of the single-player campaign to ensure that, as a foundation, that it’s as strong as it possibly could be so that we could then add the other features back in.”
It’s frustrating not to be able to play through missions again; Halo Infinite’s campaign has some impressive set pieces and great boss fights that I’d love to tackle without going through the entire story another time. However, there are some elements that do carry over between full campaign replays, according to Crocker, including data pads (which contain story-focused voice logs) and the hard-to-find skulls that, in past games, let you modify certain aspects of the experience (such as doubling enemy health).
Replayable story missions aren’t the only thing that was pushed back for the launch; you’re going to have to wait at least six months for the time-honored tradition of playing through the campaign cooperatively with a friend, something you’ve been able to do since the very first Halo game. The goal was “from day one” to make the game playable in co-op and allow people to replay missions, but “we just had to prioritize what we could get done in time,” Crocker said.
Halo Infinite has had a somewhat rocky development. It was originally set to release alongside the Xbox Series X / S in November 2020, but was delayed to 2021 after a gameplay reveal that birthed the infamous Craig meme. Forge mode, which was introduced in Halo 3 and lets players develop multiplayer maps and games, is also missing for Infinite’s launch. And while 343 Industries launched Halo Infinite’sfree-to-play multiplayer beta early, it has had to address criticisms of the game’s progression system and lack of dedicated playlists.
Despite those problems, the extra development time paid off for Halo Infinite’s campaign and multiplayer, which are both pretty good. That bodes well for the features that won’t make it at launch — even if we don’t know how long we’ll have to wait for them.
Ikea is starting to distribute a new wireless charging puck with a built-in battery. The discovery of this Nordmärke-branded portable charger came from a reader of German tech news outlet mobiFlip (via Engadget), who purchased the product from an Ikea in Cologne for €19.99 Euros ($22.57).
We couldn’t find any references to the new charger on Ikea’s website, however, The Verge was able to locate the company’s filing with the FCC, where the product is listed with ID FHO-E2108.
The wireless charger carries the same label as Ikea’s other Qi-enabled wireless charging pads, which come in various circular and rectangular plastic bodies finished with materials such as cork and fabric. The new charger is also outfitted in gray fabric — but comes in a square shape and enough height to accommodate the batteries.
The bottom of the charger mentions that the Li-ion battery’s capacity is 24Wh (6,500mAh) and uses a common 18650 cell. Based on the internal images, the charger contains two heavily adhered and soldered 18650 cells — rendering the batteries hardly user-replaceable.
Ikea’s new charger, much like the company’s otherwireless chargers, operates at a sleepy 5W rate. According to the FCC-filed manual for this Nordmärke charger, the device needs a 10W USB-C power supply — but you’ll have to bring your own charging source and cable. Expect to start seeing these rolled out into Ikea stores in the near future.
Halo Infinite’s campaign launches at the same time, worldwide on Dec. 8. For folks in London, that’ll be 6 p.m GMT. New York, it’s 1 p.m. EST. Mexico City gets it at noon, and San Francisco at 10 a.m PST.
343 Industries’ community director tweeted this map on Monday just to reinforce the idea. No point in trying to switch regions to get at it early, because there is no early. But those who have pre-ordered the game, or who subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, may preload HaloInfinite to unlock at minute one. A 25.9 GB download is currently available through the Microsoft Store.
Halo Infinite’s multiplayer has been in an open beta since mid-November. That module is also about 26 GB. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is free-to-play, so when the full title launches Dec. 8 that installation simply carries over, without downloading or unlocking something else.
Halo Infinite’s cooperative multiplayer campaign support won’t arrive until next year, likely May 2022 at the earliest.
UPDATED: Drake has withdrawn his two Grammy nominations, a rep for the Recording Academy has confirmed to Variety. Reps for Drake did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sources tell Variety that the decision was made by Drake and his management and the Grammys honored his request, although his motivation was unclear at the time of this article’s publication.
He was one of five nominees for Best Rap Album, for “Certified Lover Boy,” and for Best Rap Performance, for his song “Way 2 Sexy” (featuring Future and Young Thug).
Rather than giving a nomination to the recipients of the sixth-most votes, as the Academy did when it suddenly decided to expand the top four categories from eight to 10 last month, the voting for those two rap categories will go forward with just four nominees, presumably because the ballots have already been posted to Academy members; Grammy ballots were posted for voting members on Monday morning.
Grammy nominations must be submitted by a representative, usually the artist’s record label, and if an artist does not want their music considered, the label simply doesn’t submit it. The decision to remove a nomination at this late stage — after it has been submitted and announced, on the day the ballots are posted — may be unprecedented.
Drake’s choices of nominations were unusual, however. While it is uncertain whether he chose not to submit the blockbuster “Certified Lover Boy” or any songs from it for the big categories — Album, Song or Record of the Year — his absence from any of those categories seems to suggest that he did not. He clearly did choose to submit — and was nominated — for the two rap categories he has withdrawn.
Some have speculated that his decision might have something to do with him being named in lawsuits surrounding the tragedy at the Astroworld festival in Houston last month, where 10 people died when the crowd rampaged during headliner Travis Scott’s set, which featured a guest appearance from Drake. However, Drake is scheduled to perform with Kanye West at the “Free Larry Hoover” benefit concert in Los Angeles on Thursday, so that explanation feels unlikely.
Drake has had a long and at times contentious relationship with the Grammys. A year ago, he called for them to be replaced with “something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come”, after it failed to recognize his peer and fellow Canadian artist the Weeknd in any of its 2021 categories, despite him having one of the top albums and singles of 2020.
“I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artist that exist now and the ones that come after,” he wrote in his Instagram Story. “It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just won’t change their ways. The other day I said @theweeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way. This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up overtime and pass on to the generations to come.”
In 2017, he declined to submit his album “More Life” for any 2018 Grammy awards, even though it qualified; the rancor around that year’s show intensified at the following year after Jay-Z won zero awards despite being nominated for eight.
Drake also threw shade at the Grammys during his acceptance speech in 2019, when “God’s Plan” won Best Rap Song. The awards show producers cut off his mic after he claimed awards hold no value.
“We play an opinion-based sport, not a factual-based sport,” he said. “You already won if you have people singing your songs word for word, if they’re singing in your hometown. You’re already winning, you don’t need this right here.”
However, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. has made a strong and concerted effort to overhaul some Academy procedures and staff and effectively clean up the organization’s act in the wake of years of accusations of insider deals and self-interest. Just weeks after the 2021 awards, the Academy announced that it was eliminating the “secret” nomination-review committees that for decades had curated the final list of nominees. And although some cried foul when the Academy abruptly expanded the nominees for Best Album, Song, Record and New Artist from eight to 10 last month, Mason insisted it was a decision that had long been in the works that Academy execs and board members saw an opportunity to finalize (although some suggest it was done to ensure that Taylor Swift, who had no other 2022 nominations, got one).
Variety will have more on this situation as it develops.
Halo Infinite’s campaign will launch on Dec. 8 missing a feature that made earlier games endlessly accessible: the ability to replay individual story missions. It’s a shame, because HaloInfinite’s levels are a blast to play — but there’s only one way to do so, which is starting a new save.
The complication comes from the semi open-world setting in Halo Infinite. Though all missions happen in a linear order, some require a player to travel across different regions of the world to clear a certain sequence of areas. The good news is that Halo Infinite’s map is open for most of the game: Once you’ve cleared an area or completed a story mission, you can go back to explore. It’s just that story missions won’t trigger. In some cases, this means that hidden items in these areas can be found after a mission, but it’s not true of all missions.
Specifically, Halo Infinite’s first two missions take place off Zeta Halo, and there’s no way back to these areas once you’ve finished. That means that any collectibles you missed will be inaccessible, unless you start a new save to replay those missions. Skulls will stay locked to the account, so they won’t disappear when a new save is started. But for those replaying missions outside the first two, it means replaying the full game, in order.
Earlier Halo games gave players the option to easily jump to different missions via a dedicated menu system. It made changing difficulty and adding skulls easier: You can hop into your favorite mission quickly. It’s something I liked to do a lot, especially in a time crunch — looking for something to play, I could load up a favorite mission and guarantee a good time. There’s still a lot to do in Halo Infinite to keep even the most dedicated players busy for a while, but the problem is that the story missions are good enough that I want to play them again.
A Microsoft representative confirmed to Polygon that story missions are not replayable. “The postgame does give you the option to keep exploring the wider environment, but for missions like the first two, where you’re not on the ring yet, you can’t replay from the same save file,” the representative said. “You’d be able to get any remaining FOBs, targets, [and] audio logs, but the main story missions would not repeat.”
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One summer night in 2019, Alana Haim was jet-lagged, tossing and turning in a London hotel bed, when her phone pinged with an email from the acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.
This was not particularly out of the ordinary: Anderson had become a close friend of the family in the years since he’d started directing music videos for Haim, the Grammy-nominated rock band Alana is in with her two older sisters, Este and Danielle. (Their mother, Donna, was also Anderson’s beloved elementary-school art teacher — a fortuitous coincidence he realized only after having already met her daughters.) When the band is on the road, Anderson will occasionally send the Haim siblings affable emails: a silly YouTube video, an article that might inspire them. But this message was different, and a little mysterious: Just an untitled Word document.
“All of a sudden, a script opens up,” Haim said over a video call from her home in Los Angeles,
“And the first name on the script is Alana.” Save for a few appearances playing herself in music videos, Haim had never acted before, and this was the first movie script she’d ever read. “It was like ‘EXTERIOR,’” she recalled, giddily. “I was like, here we go. We’re reading a script. This is the movies.”
As she read the screenplay for what would become “Licorice Pizza,” Anderson’s warm and nostalgic ninth feature, Haim thought he had sent it to let her know he had named a character after her. “I was honestly just flattered that he was using my name,” she said. “Because when you think about Paul Thomas Anderson movies, the names are so incredibly iconic,” she said, citing the porn star Dirk Diggler of “Boogie Nights” (1997) and Reynolds Woodcock, the tempestuous fashion designer that Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed in “Phantom Thread” (2017). “I mean, I like my name, but do I think my name is iconic? Not when you put it next to, like, Reynolds Woodcock. But I was flattered. I was like, ‘Paul’s going to use my name in a movie.’”
Bradley Cooper, left, and Cooper Hoffman with Alana Haim behind the wheel of a truck in “Licorice Pizza.” Once she mastered driving it, she said, “I felt like a badass.”MGM, via Associated Press
When presented with Alana’s version of events over the phone later that same day, Anderson sighed and then laughed for a long time. “Wouldn’t it have been completely rude and insane of me to send her a script with a character named Alana, only to say, ‘Thanks for reading it, I appreciate your notes, I’m going to go hire an actress to play a woman named Alana? Oh and by the way, she has two sisters named Este and Danielle and there are multiple situations that have come from your life.’ What kind of friend would I be? That’s terrible.”
But that would have been about as plausible as what was actually happening: A famous auteur was asking Haim, who had never been in a movie before, to carry his next feature. Later that night when they spoke on the phone and Anderson clarified his request, Haim — in a torrent of “word-vomit” — said yes immediately. A few hours later, the first doubts set in: “What if I’m just terrible? I was like, ‘I don’t even know where to look. What if I look at the camera?’”
Miraculously, she pulled it off in spades. “Licorice Pizza” establishes Haim as a revelatory and magnetic screen presence, a unique amalgamation of daffy, Carole Lombard screwball, early Sissy Spacek fresh-faced guilelessness, and an offbeat cartoon character’s nervy, can-do energy. Even when she’s sharing the frame with Sean Penn, Tom Waits or Bradley Cooper, it is her face — freckled, elastic, unpredictable — that commands the viewer’s attention. Critics have raved about the performance; David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called it “one of the most exciting screen debuts in recent memory.”
Haim didn’t know Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to cast her in his film until he sent her a script unbidden.Josefina Santos for The New York Times
Anderson said he knew Haim would be good but “I didn’t know she was going to be that good. I’ve worked with the same guys for like 20 years, and I just kept looking around at them for verification. Like, you have to tap me on my shoulder to make sure I’m seeing what I’m seeing. Don’t let me be delusional. And everybody collectively on set was seeing what I was seeing — her skill and the way you can photograph her.”
It helped that her co-star, the effortlessly charismatic Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was a frequent Anderson collaborator) had also never been in a movie before. Anderson cast him late in the process, after auditioning a number of young actors who felt too mannered and formally trained to match Haim’s naturalistic style. Hoffman and Haim had met briefly through Anderson five years prior, never thinking their paths would cross again, but as soon as they read together, Haim recalled, “It was like, oh, we’re a team. We can take on the world together.”
Despite the characters’ relatively chaste relationship, the age gap between them has caused some controversy. In real life, Haim, who turns 30 this month, is 12 years older than Hoffman (they bonded so much during the shoot that she still calls him “one of my best friends”), though in the movie her age is a little ambiguous. At one point the character says she’s 25, but there’s a pause between the two numerals that suggests she might be rounding up. “There was never really a conversation between me and Paul about how old Alana was,” she said. “Somewhere in her early 20s. I say some ages in the movie, but you don’t really believe Alana. She kind of doesn’t even know how old she really is? She’s very secretive. But really, it’s about her and Gary’s friendship more than anything.”
When we spoke on a late November afternoon, Haim was battling a sinus infection she blamed on the Santa Ana winds. As a Southern California breeze tickled the curtains of her open living-room window, she occasionally paused our conversation to blow her nose with humorous theatricality. (“Oh, that was a lot!”) She wore a white T-shirt, jeans and, around her neck, her most prized possession, a “Sisters of the Moon” pendant given to her by one of her idols, Stevie Nicks. In conversation Haim is garrulous and ebullient, occasionally clipping the ends off her sentences in an excited hurry to get to the next thought.
As they were shooting, Anderson found that the actor Haim most reminded him of was Joaquin Phoenix, whom Anderson directed in “The Master” (2012) and “Inherent Vice” (2014).
“She can throw herself into something, a lot like Joaquin,” Anderson said. “You cannot tell if they’re completely out of control, or if they’re so in their body that they’re able to make it look like they’re out of control. They’re very similar. It’s weird. They’re both feral, you know? You’re not really sure what’s coming next.”
Performing onstage as part of the band Haim. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Her years onstage playing guitar, keyboards and percussion certainly taught her how to ground herself amid the chaos of a film set. “Being in Haim, I’m doing so many different things and there are so many different distractions that you have to tune everything out and just be very present in your body,” she said. “And I think that really helps with shooting a movie.”
Seeing herself in close-up on a huge screen for the first time was, she admitted, a bit uncomfortable: “Look, for my future boyfriends that I’ll maybe have, would I love to see less acne and maybe more glamorous vibes?” Haim asked rhetorically. “Of course. But it wouldn’t be truthful to the movie. Because growing up in the Valley where it’s 100 degrees outside, you would look worse if you wore makeup, because it would melt off and you’d look insane.”
But those supposed imperfections — and her contagious brand of self-acceptance — are at the core of Haim’s refreshing onscreen charm. “I feel like there’s this whole thing where everybody has to be perfect in all these movies,” she said, candidly admitting that the only reason her skin looked “impeccable and lovely” on our call that day was because she was using a Zoom filter. “But, I have acne, and there’s nothing I can do about it — and that’s OK!”
Raised in the San Fernando Valley, the Haim siblings all took up instruments at a young age and formed a family band. What they lacked in social capital, they made up for with sisterly camaraderie and humor. “We all wanted to be Barbra Streisand in ‘Funny Girl,’” Haim said. “That was our Bible growing up. Like, ‘Oh, we might not be the most gorgeous person in the seventh grade, and no one wants to make out with us, but we could be the funniest!’”
Anderson said that as a performer, Haim reminded him of Joaquin Phoenix: “They’re very similar. It’s weird. They’re both feral.”Josefina Santos for The New York Times
The sisters had their first gig as a trio when Alana was just 10, at Los Angeles’s storied Jewish institution Canter’s Deli. Their breakthrough came in 2013 when they released their debut album, “Days Are Gone,” a collection of sleek, percussive pop-rock songs. They’ve since collaborated several times with their former tour-mate Taylor Swift, and their best and most recent album, “Women in Music, Pt. III” (2020), was nominated for the album of the year Grammy.
Even though the siblings all harmonize and trade instruments, Alana is still known in the band, as in the family, as “Baby Haim.” Danielle is the de facto lead singer and guitarist, while the bassist Este is known for the gloriously over-the-top “bass faces” she makes onstage. Alana sometimes falls through the cracks. “I’m the baby, so that’s how I grew up with my siblings: ‘I’m just happy that you guys want me to hang out,’” she said modestly. “That was my whole upbringing.”
All the members of the Haim family appear sporadically in “Licorice Pizza” — their father, Mordechai, is a bona fide scene-stealer. But Alana is the movie’s beating heart, and her star turn feels like her long-delayed “Funny Girl” moment. That was apparent from her very first day of shooting: she was not only driving a vintage moving truck that required her to learn to operate a stick shift, but also improvising hilariously alongside a deliriously entertaining Bradley Cooper, who plays a manic version of Streisand’s onetime boyfriend, the producer Jon Peters. “At the end of the day, once I got the hang of it, I felt like a badass,” she said. “I was like, not only can I drive stick — but a ’70s U-Haul with a movie star and my best friend in the truck.”
She’d love to keep acting — and working with Anderson — if the right projects arise, but she’s also happy to have a day job to fall back on. “After this chapter is over with ‘Licorice Pizza,’ I go back on tour with my band, and I’m back to my other job that I love so much,” she said. “Nothing has changed. I’m still the baby.”
"I just wish that whole thing had never happened."
With the upcoming Sex and the City revival set to premiere later this week, news articles scrutinizing Kim Cattrall's absence from the series are everywhere, alongside speculation about why the actor won't appear in And Just Like That. As for whether it's related to her rift with Sarah Jessica Parker — we still don't know for sure, although Chris Noth shared his thoughts on the former costars's infamous feud recently.
Walter Mcbride / Getty Images, Bryan Bedder / Getty Images
To debrief, SATC fans received confirmation earlier this year that Kim — who played Samantha in the comedy-drama — wouldn't be reprising her beloved character alongside Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and SJP in the revival.
While Kim hasn't addressed her lack of involvement outright, many people assumed the decision was related to an ongoing and very public dispute with Sarah.
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images, Francois G. Durand / WireImage via Getty Images
In addition to calling her relationships with SATC cast members "toxic" and noting that she was never friends with her costars in a 2017 interview, Kim described SJP as a "hypocrite" when the latter actor offered condolences following her brother's death.
Vince Bucci / AFP via Getty Images
At the time, she also suggested Sarah was "exploiting [the] tragedy in order to restore [her] 'nice girl' persona."
Sarah later replied to an Instagram user's inquiry about the dynamic between her and her ex colleague by insisting that she doesn't "dislike" Kim, while Sex and the City author Candace Bushnellattributed her absence from the reboot to other, non-personal reasons.
Dimitrios Kambouris / WireImage via Getty Images
"I absolutely love Kim," said the writer in comments to the New York Post. "But it seems she wants to do other things, and she doesn't feel like doing the show. Maybe she doesn't want to be that character anymore. Maybe she doesn't want to put the Spanx on!"
Anyway, Chris — who is returning as Mr. Big in the SATC revival — weighed in on the controversy surrounding Kim and Sarah during a new interview with The Guardian, where he defended SJP against Kim's remarks.
Gotham / GC Images via Getty Images
"I have to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what her thinking is, or her emotions," he shared. "I do know that I'm very close with SJ and [Kim's] descriptions of her don't even come close."
James Devaney / GC Images via Getty Images
"I liked [Kim], I thought she was marvelous in the show, and some people move on for their own reasons. I don't know what hers were," he continued, referencing her exit from the SATC franchise. "I just wish that whole thing had never happened because it was sad and uncomfortable."
"I just don't like to see anyone talking down about SJ because she's a target and people can be nasty," Chris added, noting that he feels "very protective" of his costar and subsequently "was not happy" hearing Kim's claims regarding her character. "That's all I'll say about that."
You can read Chris's full interview with The Guardian here. And Just Like That debuts on HBO Max this Thursday, Dec. 9.
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On December 9th, Epic Games will release The Matrix Awakens, an interactive tie-in to The Matrix Resurrections. You can preload the demo to your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S console ahead of its debut at The Game Awards. Epic built the experience using Unreal Engine 5, and you can see what the next-generation engine is capable of in a teaser the company shared today. “How do we know what is real?” asks a life-like Keanu Reeves partway through the clip.
It’s a rare movie experience that’s any good, but that might not matter with The Matrix Awakens. For most people, this will be their first chance to see UE5 in action. Epic previewed the latest iteration of its popular game engine part way through last year with a stunning PS5 demo that showed off what it could do. In May, the company released an early access version of UE5 to PC, but the system requirements meant most people couldn’t experience the Valley of the Ancient demo with the hardware they had.
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Quick Tap to Snap, a Google Pixel feature announced in October that lets you open Snapchat directly from your lock screen by tapping twice on the rear of the phone, is arriving as part of the Pixel’s latest feature drop. The functionality will be available on the Pixel 4A 5G and newer devices, and Google says there’s also a new Pixel-exclusive Snapchat filter called “Pixel Face” on the way this month.
The Quick Tap to Snap feature is one of a handful of updates coming as part of the Google Pixel’s feature drop this month. Other features include new ultra-wideband (UWB) functionality on the Pixel 6 Pro, a new “conversation mode” accessibility feature in the Sound Amplifier app, and the expansion of car crash detection and automatic transcriptions to more countries and languages, respectively.
We’ve known since its launch that the Pixel 6 Pro includes an ultra-wideband chip, but until now it’s not been used for much. However, with this latest update, Google says the 6 Pro’s UWB chip will be used to improve its Nearby Share feature when sending files to other ultra-wideband devices, including compatible Samsung phones. UWB chips found in Samsung and Apple’s recent phones have used the technology to accurately pinpoint their respective locationtrackers, but similar functionality has yet to make an appearance on Google’s latest phone.
Google is characterizing Sound Amplifier’s “conversation mode” as an “early-stage accessibility feature.” It’s designed to tune out distracting background noise when you’re trying to listen to someone, with an interface that’s as simple as pointing your phone at the person to whom you want to listen.
A couple of previously launched features are also expanding. The Pixel’s Recorder app, which allows you to automatically transcribe speech, now supports more languages like Japanese, French, and German on the Pixel 3 and up. These languages were previously exclusive to Pixel 6 devices, according to Google’s support page. Car crash detection, which originally launched with the Pixel 4 in 2019, is also expanding to more countries. It’s coming to Taiwan, Italy, and France, after having previously been available in Spain, Ireland, Japan, the UK, Australia, Singapore, and the US.
There are a couple of customization tweaks coming to select Pixel devices and accessories. If you’re using a Pixel phone with the A-series Pixel Buds you now get more control over bass response, and the Pixel 3 and newer can now customize how long you need to hold the power button before the Google Assistant activates.
Google says these features are rolling out “in the next few weeks.” The exact availability of features varies by Pixel model. They join a collection of new features that were announced for the Android platform more generally last week, which included the ability to unlock select 2020–2022 BMW cars in certain countries by tapping Pixel 6 phones on the door handle.
One of Amazon’s Fire TV partners just announced a new model that might outshine the tech giant’s own self-branded TVs that launched only weeks ago. Today Toshiba is introducing the first Fire TV 4K TVs to feature local dimming, a backlight technology that produces improved contrast and black levels compared to the direct LED method used by cheaper sets and Amazon’s new Fire TV Omni series.
Toshiba says the new M-Series contains “up to 48” dimming zones. The TV comes in 55, 65, and 75-inch screen sizes. So assuming that 48 number applies to the biggest model, it’s not exactly going to compete with high-end Vizios or TCLs, which pack more dimming zones into their backlighting systems, but it should still make for a significant improvement to overall picture quality. Despite including features like Dolby Vision on its largest-size Omni sets, Amazon didn’t built full-array local dimming into the devices. As the name suggests, local dimming allows the backlight to illuminate and dim at different areas of the display based on the content, so dark scenes appear the way they should without everything looking gray.
The new M-Series Fire TVs from Toshiba also have a “120Hz native panel,” so I’ve asked whether this means they’ll indeed support more fluid gaming from the Xbox Series X, S, and PS5. The TVs will go on sale this month at Best Buy retail stores for $799.99 (55-inch), $999.99 (65-inch), or $1,199.99 (75-inch). One thing Toshiba’s sets share in common with the Omni line is that both have embedded microphones for hands-free Alexa voice commands.
Compared to Amazon’s aggressively-priced Omni line, you’re definitely paying more for the “flagship” local dimming feature; a 65-inch Omni TV usually goes for $829.99, for example. Still, it’s good to see these improvements coming for TVs with Amazon’s software built in. As more sets with local dimming (and eventually maybe even Mini LED) are released, TCL’s higher-end Roku and Google TV sets might finally start to get some real competition from the other side.
There’s obviously more to a TV than its backlighting, so I look forward to seeing a Toshiba M550KU TV in person to gauge where the overall viewing experience ranks for the price.
Halo Infinite's release, on Dec. 8, comes six years after the last installment in the series.
Microsoft/Screenshot by CNET
Microsoft wants Halo Infinite to be many things, and it will be tricky to balance them all. It's the Halo team's first attempt at a free-to-play online shooter. It also has a dramatic new multihour installment in the saga of its primary hero, Master Chief, told in an "open-world" setting where players can wander and explore rather than being sent from mission to mission.
But that all was in jeopardy with the Master Chief's most hardcore fans a year and a half ago, when Microsoft showed off its first demonstration of Halo Infinite's gameplay. At the time, the game was to helm the launch of Microsoft's next big video game consoles, the $500 Xbox Series X and $300 Xbox Series S. Both devices focused on performance as their selling point, promising more intricately designed and better-looking games.
The fan outcry over the demo, which Microsoft had titled Ascension, convinced the company to delay the game another year to avert tarnishing one of the industry's most storied video game franchises. That year ends on Wednesday, when Halo Infinite's new story will go on sale for $60 for the Xbox and PC and will be made available for free for subscribers to the Xbox Game Pass. (The multiplayer online component of the game was made available as a beta on Nov. 15.)
Master Chief's latest saga has him fighting aliens and saving humanity.
Microsoft
Bonnie Ross, a Microsoft corporate vice president and head of Halo maker 343 Industries, said the challenge her team faced was that of overambition. Microsoft wanted to offer Halo Infinite on Xbox and PC at the same time, another first, requiring additional engineering to make it work well with different types of computers and with Valve's Steam online store, in addition to Microsoft's own Xbox service.
In an interview shortly before the game's launch, Ross discussed Halo Infinite's development, which has been difficult not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic. All its firsts, she said, amounted to a lot of demands on the team. And that's on top of the struggle any installment in a beloved longtime franchise faces: making a game that's approachable for newcomers while satisfying for fans.
"It should feel familiar and comfortable if you're a Halo player, and you should be able to see things other can't because of the lore, but it should also be a place where a new person can come in and have a story," she said. "This is our time to make sure we are paying homage to what is Halo."
It's been two decades since Master Chief, the primary hero of the Halo universe, blasted onto our screens. And to say it blasted is an understatement. As the launch title for Microsoft's then-new Xbox video game console, Halo was front and center, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon.
More than 81 million copies of Halo games have been sold so far. But it's so much larger than that. Halo has spawned toys, cartoons, live-action adaptations, an esports league, more than 30 novels and about a dozen games. There's a Halo version of Hasbro's board game Risk and even an official gold-plated necklace shaped like one of the game's most popular alien weapons, the energy sword.
Bonnie Ross, corporate vice president and head of 343 Industries at Microsoft.
Microsoft
Halo Infinite's development was different from previous installments in part because it was being built on new coding technology, called the SlipStream game engine, which was designed to help Halo's developers create the expansive space-age world where Master Chief fights foes to save humanity.
Ross said SlipStream wasn't ready enough before the game began being built. "It's kind of like we're trying to fly the plane while we're building the plane," she said. The result was that it took longer to bring all the different images, designs and sounds together. "That just caused a lot of pain for people."
By the time of Microsoft's first big gameplay reveal in the summer of 2020, mere months before the game's planned full launch, the team was working to cut visual quality in an effort to get the game finished in time. Some people within the Halo team worried the cuts were too deep, Ross said. When fans reacted poorly to what they saw, Microsoft pushed the game to the fall of this year.
"We just took on too much real estate," she said. "We had a very ambitious initial creative direction that I think for a while strayed us away from the core of what we wanted to deliver on: paying homage to Halo."
Today, Ross said she's proud of what the team's accomplished, and early reviews for the parts of the game that have been made public have been glowing.
"For me, once a diehard fan, Halo Infinite feels like developer 343 Industries' last shot at reinvigorating my fandom," GameSpot's Tamoor Hussain wrote after playing a prerelease version of the game earlier this fall. "And, based on what I've played of the campaign, it might just be enough."
Below are edited excerpts from our conversation with Ross.
Halo has one of the longest development times for a regular running series in the industry. Why does it take so long? Ross: I'll be transparent: I think you could probably see it was not intended to be quite as long. We needed time to overhaul the engine, figure out free-to-play and figure out how to have a more expansive world. And so, just that tech infrastructure just took a lot more time than we had had planned. I think that there's a lot of learnings on doing both, as they were both new things for us to do. So I would just say that those just took longer than we had planned to do that. And then you can add COVID in there to make it even harder to do anything.
It seems from the outside that development was a struggle, COVID aside. What did your team run up against? There's a lot of different things there. I'd say one thing would be that we made the commitment to create a new engine and overhaul. And there were pieces that were not done as we were moving into preproduction and even production. It's kind of like we're trying to fly the plane while we're building the plane. And I think that that just caused a lot of pain for people. Things just took way longer than they should to get the content into the game and make sure the content is polished.
We had a very ambitious initial creative direction that I think for a while strayed us away from the core of what we wanted to deliver on: paying homage to Halo. I think we just took on too much real estate.
Was that ambitious "initial creative direction" the open-world mechanics? I want to say I'm super proud with where we are. And we took the time to get there. But if you could go back in time, there are some decisions -- maybe we shouldn't have tried so many new things at once. Like doing free-to-play and doing a more expansive world with your more traditional story, but you're also allowed to have a lot more agency in your play. Those two things are huge in and of themselves. And we decided to take them both on.
It just meant we had to be a lot more thoughtful on what is the most important thing to land with each of those. So again, where we are today, I'm so proud of what the team got to. And as far as a leadership perspective, there are probably decisions -- not probably, there are decisions I should have made earlier on that would have made an easier development path for the team.
And those decisions being whittling down some of the effort? Yes, or even picking one and not both of them.
So COVID is this big thing in the room. I've heard a lot about how it's impacted work all over the place. I think a lot of people see game development as being hunched over a keyboard all the time because it's on computers, so why is it any different in the office or at home? Ross: The positive was that it was incredibly impressive how quickly -- from the moment we were told to go home for just two weeks, and hopefully it wasn't going to be more than that -- we were actually able to get the team up and productive. I assumed we were a day-for-day slip [needing to delay the game's launch] being in the pandemic, but I would say that the team definitely pulled together and was able to be a lot more productive than I had anticipated.
But what you lose: You talk about how yes, it's technology, but it's also art. You just lose that shared perspective. Even where we obviously stumbled on the Ascension demo, we shouldn't have.
I do want to say there were multiple people on the team pointing out, "Hey, I think this is wrong." But we're all looking at it at home on whatever monitor with whatever color grading that we have. And that was a huge wakeup call for us. We did need to have those touch points with people coming in, sitting side by side -- at a distance -- and looking at monitors.
Halo fans pointed to this alien from the summer 2020 demo, called "Craig," as an example of underwhelming visuals.
Microsoft
After Ascension, we cleared out a whole section of our fourth floor and then put monitors in with all the different versions of the game and then also set up cameras so people who didn't feel comfortable coming in could still work from home and participate from home.
And then basically, we had someone that kind of controlled and said, "OK, we're looking at this build on this screen" and everyone can give input. And the team came in, and for both campaign and multiplayer, weekly to do those evaluations. And that, just I don't think at least for where we were in production for our game, we couldn't do that from home.
Again, I'm incredibly impressed with what the team was able to do, but you know yourself and from your friends or family, COVID created additional life challenges and personal challenges. I definitely feel that a lot of focus was on just people contact and spending your time that you would have on a one-on-one making sure the team's OK. I don't know, I kind of meandered from what your question was.
But that's important. They are human beings, and as much as they're professionals and good at what they do, I think all of us had that fuzzy time in the middle of all this where we couldn't really get anything done. And multiply that by however large your team is, and that adds up. Yup.
I think of your team as very attuned to your community. Did you already have a sense that you were going to need to delay before showing the summer 2020 demo? What I would say happened before is we made a tremendous amount of cuts. And you see some of those cuts reflected in, I think, the Ascension demo. So we had people on the team already raising flags that we've cut too deep.
And I think that was just more of a very public look in the mirror that, "Yes, we did indeed cut corners that we shouldn't have cut," and we needed to really take a step back and make sure that we were spending the time we needed.
But I would say, unfortunately, putting that out in public was not what the team wants to see. You know, I think the team wants to be proud of everything they put out and wants it to represent the quality of their work. And what we put out didn't.
So I think that that was definitely a more visceral wakeup call than before, going, "Yeah, it's really important to be there for day one launch [of the new Xbox]. And "We can do it" to "We actually can't do it."
That's a journey for the team, but ultimately, what they were able to do with the additional year -- I'm really proud of what they've been able to do.
One of the things I constantly hear from you or someone on the team is that this is a Master Chief story. In the past, with the previous game Halo 5, there was some controversy about how you played as Master Chief for some of it, but not others. I'm curious what you've learned, because obviously you need to grow and change and innovate, but there seems to be a limit to what at least parts of the community will accept. I think that the Halo 5 story was not a bad story. It's just not the story you want to have when you're looking at a numbered game that's sitting on Master Chief's journey. It's an interesting side story, but I think our learning is that we have to pay homage to what is Halo, and there are things that are sacred and Halo. And if you're going to change them, you have to have a deliberate, meaningful reason, and you have to bring the audience along with you. And we just kind of jumped into a disruptive story. I think we missed, you know, with our campaign story. Again, not a bad story, not bad gameplay -- I'm not criticizing the work there. It just wasn't the right -- that wasn't what users would expect and I think, really, what is iconic to Halo. And it doesn't mean that we can't go tell different stories, it's just you need to make sure you're being pure and true with your programming why you're making changes.
Halo 5 was divisive among fans in part because of of its story, during which gamers play as characters other than Master Chief.
Microsoft Studios
OK, a little off to the side, what is Infinite? We've had numbered games for a long time. Why Infinite now? As we were looking at the console ecosystem and PC, I think that starting with a number means you kind of needed to be there for the whole series. And as we're starting a service -- a free-to-play service -- we want to start from a point where if you love Halo and you know Halo, it feels comfortable. If you've never been in Halo, you can jump in whenever and experience any part and we're gonna keep adding things, but we want to make sure that it's open and inviting to everyone. So, it's basically just, you know, a fresh start for how we look at Halo for the next 10 years. Like a platform upon which to build storytelling for the next 10 years.
So should I expect Halo 7 at some point? Or Halo Infinite Plus One? I think we have our hands full in making sure that we stand up and support this game. So, infinitely Infinite.
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