Saturday
Jul062019

Canadian Reviewer Weekly Roundup – 6/30 – 7/6

Saturday
Jul062019

Huawei CEO claims HongMengOS is faster than Android and macOS

Embed from Getty Images

Huawei CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei is setting our expectations for its alternative operating system. In an interview with a French magazine, he claims that HongMengOS will be faster than Android and that it’ll have broader applications as well. It will work not just with smartphones but with devices like tablets, routers, computers, network switches, as well as data centers. He even claims it’ll be quicker than macOS, with less than 5ms processing delay. The company continues to develop the operating system despite US’s softened ban on Huawei.

Source: GSMArena

Saturday
Jul062019

Netflix vows to cut back on depictions of smoking after report of tobacco exposure in its programs

Netflix

Just before the third season of Stranger Things dropped, a report from the anti-smoking group Truth Initiative found that Netflix depicted tobacco use more often than even cable or broadcast shows. And the show mentioned earlier is named as one of biggest offenders. The report reads, “The popularity of streaming combined with the pervasive rise of smoking in episodic content points to an emerging threat to a new generation of young Americans.” The streaming service promises to depict smoking less and pledges to closely monitor, particularly the content it aims at younger viewers. Truth Initiative tracked not just the instances of smoking, but any appearance of tobacco products.

In a statement told to EW, Netflix said it “strongly supports artistic expression. We also recognize that smoking is harmful and when portrayed positively on screen can adversely influence young people. Going forward, all new projects that we commission with ratings of TV-14 or below for series or PG-13 or below for films, will be smoking and e-cigarette free—except for reasons of historical or factual accuracy. For new projects with higher ratings, there’ll be no smoking or e-cigarettes unless it’s essential to the creative vision of the artist or because it’s character-defining (historically or culturally important). In addition, starting later this year, smoking information will be included as part of our ratings on the Netflix service so our members can make informed choices about what they watch.”

Friday
Jul052019

SwiftKey Beta introduces the Animoji-like Puppets

It seems every single app wants to have some sort of take on Animoji. Even third-party keyboard apps aren’t safe. SwiftKey Beta is trying this feature out on its own with a new feature called Puppets. It’ll let you record yourself as one of these five animals: dinosaur, cat, owl, dog, or panda. Like all incarnations of this feature, it makes use of your phone’s camera to track your facial movements. Of course, it has the help of artificial intelligence to make this possible. And since it is part of your keyboard app, it’ll work with just about any app. You can record clips of up to 30 seconds long and you can choose to leave in the sound you recorded or just mute it. It is, as we mentioned, shareable wherever you want to.

At this moment there is no native still capture button, so if you want stills, you need to export the clip and screenshot. Ease of use varies as well. As Android Central points out, if you send it through Slack, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram, then you need to select the recipient again even if you’re in the message thread with them. Also, it can’t track mouth movements as well right now, but it’s understandable since this is the beta version. Here’s to hoping SwiftKey tweaks this for the official release.