Review: Google Home

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Google Home is Google’s smart speaker which connects via WiFi (or, even better, via Google WiFi) to Google’s smart assistant in the cloud. Designed to be connected at home, Google home uses voice as the primary means of control. It is available in Canada from Best Buy and online from Google.

For $ 179.00, Canadians can get their hands on Google Home, a voice-activated smart speaker, powered by the Google Assistant in English and French.

This diminutive speaker has a rather charming zen-like design. Some say it looks like an aromatherapy gadget, which is fine since it is created to sort of blend in to your home. I Installed Google Home in my kitchen/breakfast nook area and it is ideal for query and control situations when I have my hands full from preparing food or washing dishes.

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GarageBand for macOS gets new features, TouchBar support

Apple released an update to GarageBand for macOS, the most popular music creation and editing applications for consumers. GarageBand 10.2 is a significant update that comes with a modern design, new features and content, and usability improvements, including:

-- Expanded support for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar:

-- Navigation view lets users quickly move around their project by dragging across a visual overview of the arrangement

-- Performance view turns the Touch Bar into a simple one-octave musical keyboard or drum pads for playing and recording software instruments

-- Addition of 3 new Drummers that play percussion in the styles of Pop, Songwriter, and Latin

-- New Drummer loops, a new type of Apple Loop, which can be added to your song and then customized with performance controls

-- The ability to remotely add new tracks to your project using GarageBand on your iPhone or iPad

--  A new modern design that improves legibility in brighter working conditions and has a flatter overall look, consistent with the latest macOS designs.

The GarageBand 10.2 update is available to existing users for free.

Uniqlo unveils LifeWear Fall/Winter 2017 collection

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Uniqlo showed off its LifeWear Fall/Winter 2017 Collection in downtown Toronto today. On display were a variety of casual yet stylish outerwear, accessories and innovative new collections from Ines de La Fressage which focuses on menswear with a smart Parisian character, a first for Uniqlo.

The focus of the collection was very much on texture and a range of fabrics ideal for the cooler months. New this year was U-Kints, which brings a seamless knitted sweaters and dresses in varying designs and cuts. 

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Google crowns national winner and three grade group winners of Doodle 4 Google Canada

Google Canada revealed the national winner and three grade group winners of this year’s  Doodle 4 Google contest. More than 12,000 students from across the country submitted doodles around the theme “What I see for Canada’s future is…”. Young artists imagined a country where robots could cure disease, others dreamed of living on Mars, while some saw a world united by nature.

Following a very close public vote, where Canadians voted more than 465,000 times, we revealed our four incredibly talented grade group winners at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Of those four masterpieces, 11th-grader Jana Sofia Panem’s Doodle, "A Bright Future" was selected as the national winner!

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