Wednesday
Nov082017

IFTTT decentralizes Google Drive service, splits actions into Docs, Sheets, and Drive

IFTTT (or If This Then That) is an automation platform that works across a variety of services over the internet. You can use it to do things like save Instagram photos to your Google Drive, have it cross-post social media posts on various platforms, turn on the lights at home when it detects you’re in the area, and so much more. A new update coming to the platform though relates more to Google Drive. IFTTT is splitting up its Google Drive “applet” into the more specific Google apps, namely Drive, Sheets, and Docs.

This time, any applet that deals with spreadsheets will become linked to the Sheets channel, same goes for Docs and any created or uploaded document. Meanwhile, any applet that makes use of the file upload action will remain part of Drive. IFTTT is setting up these new services now and warns its users their might be some service interruptions on November 9. Some of you might already see the two new channels and have your applets migrated there.

Source: Android Police

Wednesday
Nov082017

Netflix acquires rights to ‘The Open House’ starring ’13 Reasons Why’ actor Dylan Minnette

It might be safe to say that 13 Reasons Why is a breakout role for actor Dylan Minnette. It also drew a lot more attention to Netflix than what it already gets. The two will be working again in a sense as Netflix just acquired worldwide rights to Minnette’s newest film, a thriller called The Open House. It’s written and directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote. It follows a teenager (Minnette) and his mother (Piercey Dalton) into a new house where they find themselves attacked by threatening forces. The film is set to premiere on the streaming service on January 19, 2018.

Source: Variety

Wednesday
Nov082017

Tech4SickKids fundraising initiative hopes to raise funds for SickKids

The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) is launching a new initiative to upgrade its facilities to meet the needs of its patients. Called #Tech4SickKids, the initiative is calling on the help of the tech and innovation community of Toronto to help raise $25 million for the improvement of child healthcare at SickKids. They will be hosting a launch event on November 15, which you can purchase tickets for from this link. A panel discussion will be held with SickKid experts entitled “SickKids: The other Canadian tech hub.”

The fundraising effort will help with things such as support for the first Chair in biomedical informatics and artificial intelligence in Canada; make SickKids the first children’s hospital in Canada to make use of data intelligence to improve efficiency of health care delivery and help cut down patient risk; as well as provide the funds to build a new campus complete with a state-of-the-art Emergency Suite. SickKids is currently housed in a 1949 building, which isn’t the best facility for furthering modern day, cutting edge child health care.

Wednesday
Nov082017

iPhone X measures up nicely against $2,000 camera in 4k video tests

The camera crew at FStoppers pitted an iPhone X against the Panasonic GH5, a professional 4K camera that's used to shoot videos and photos. Mostly a video comparison test, the video above shows the iPhone X's considerable chops as it manages to meet and even surpass some of the GH5's videos in various conditions. iPhone X output seems punchier with more colour depth and the testers also noted they were impressed with the optical image stabilization on the iPhone X, specially in tracking shots. 

Granted, the GH5 (which costs $2,000 for the body alone), does better in terms of bitrate and has more detail when your zoom in, FStoppers says that for most of the videos they make (some of which are commercial quality), the iPhone X or even older iPhone models are going to work just fine, provided the scenes are well lit. I've started to use the iPhone X more like a camera for a standalone camera review and find that it does take stunning and punchy photographs in most conditions. It's good to know the video aspect is also top notch.

Source: Daring Fireball