This week on The Shift with Drex, I talked about the website tracking all the events being cancelled in the wake of COVID-19, what people do when they work from home, Chinese students flooding the App Store with negative reviews, and the deal to bring The Last of Us to HBO as a series.

This week, a free ebook to celebrate International Women’s Day and one of the best video games of all time is headed to TV. Plus, what people are really doing when they work from home and how Chinese students are coping with online learning. But first, tracking all the cancelled events.

Website “Is it cancelled yet?” tracking the things we’ve lost

Not all of the notable events and issues listed on Is it cancelled yet? are big, publicized events. Other things, like “handshakes” and Doctors Without Borders, are also listed. (Medecins sans frontieres is not cancelled, by the way; you should donate.)

But the website, curated by Chillmage, is tracking most of the big happenings that are now not happening. Like SXSW, GDC, and former Hardball host Chris Matthews.

Earlier this week, events like E3 and TED, were tagged with “uh oh”. Now E3 has been cancelled and TED delayed.

And just in case, @chillmage has included a salient disclaimer at the bottom of the page: “This is not a comprehensive guide to all human gatherings on planet Earth.”

Epson Canada survey about working from home reveals what people are really doing on that conference call

Lots of people are choosing to work from home or being asked to work from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while there are lots of people out there on the social networks sharing their tips on how to stay productive, Epson Canada wanted to know what kinds of things people are doing while working at home that they wouldn’t be able to get away with at the office.

So they conducted a survey.

• Conference calls: Half of the respondents said they had cooked or eaten during conference calls. 42 percent said they had been on calls while using the bathroom. 19 percent exercised or walked the dog.
• Dress code: 46 percent of the people said they wore sweatpants or yoga pants.
• Distractions: 21 percent of respondents said they had the TV on while they worked.

Another finding of the Epson survey was that nearly everyone, 97 percent, said they needed to print things.

Chinese elementary students may have found a way to get out of online homework

Wamg Xoiying writing The Word from Wuhan in the London Review of Books:

“Schools are suspended until further notice. With many workplaces also shut, notoriously absent Chinese fathers have been forced to stay home and entertain their children. Video clips of life under quarantine are trending on TikTok. Children were presumably glad to be off school – until, that is, an app called DingTalk was introduced. Students are meant to sign in and join their class for online lessons; teachers use the app to set homework. Somehow the little brats worked out that if enough users gave the app a one-star review it would get booted off the App Store. Tens of thousands of reviews flooded in, and DingTalk’s rating plummeted overnight from 4.9 to 1.4. The app has had to beg for mercy on social media: ‘I’m only five years old myself, please don’t kill me.’”

International Women’s Day marked with free ebook from Tor

It was International Women’s Day last Sunday, and to mark the occasion, book publisher Tor started giving away a notable ebook, Nevertheless, She Persisted.

The book was originally published on the publisher’s website in 2017 and includes short pieces of writing from writers including Kameron Hurley, Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Jo Walton, Catherynne M. Valente, and more.

“Chernobyl” creator adapting “The Last of Us” video game for HBO

Craig Mazin, who created the chilling TV series, “Chernobyl”, is partnering with Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the astonishing video game, “The Last of Us”, to bring the Playstation exclusive to HBO.

Druckmann, who was co-directed the 2013 game with Bruce Straley for Naughty Dog, is about to see the release of the sequel, The Last of Us Part II, scheduled for release on May 29.

The HBO series, which does not have a release date, will reportedly cover the events of the first game and possibly the sequel.

No casting has been announced.

This week on The Shift with Drex, I talked about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey being under threat by a company buying up stock, how Google and Microsoft have made conferencing and collaboration software available for free, how you can access the HDMI on the hotel TV, and the latest expansion for Ubisoft’s The Division 2.

This week, action in The Division 2 moves back to New York, and how to improve travelling by hacking hotel TVs, and managing your iPhone battery. But first, Google and Microsoft are responding to COVID-19 with free software.

COVID-19 prompts Google and Microsoft to make conferencing and collaboration software available free

In the wake of COVID-19’s spread, conferences and work travel are being cancelled, and two leading tech companies are responding by making conferencing technology available for free.

Google is making advanced Hangout features available for free to G Suite and G Suite for Education customers.

This allows for larger meetings, live streaming, and recording.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is making Teams available for free for six months. That platform includes collaborative file sharing, video conferencing, and chat.

At Microsoft, the health and safety of employees, customers, partners and communities is our top priority. By making Teams available to all for free for six months, we hope that we can support public health and safety by making remote work even easier. https://t.co/e8aaocLzYD

— JP Courtois (@JP_Courtois) March 3, 2020

How to access the HDMI port on that hotel TV

One of the Hilton’s I stayed at had a panel on the wall next to the TV where I could plug in my own HDMI cable so I could throw my iPad video up on the big screen.

But not all hotels are so civilized. Deviant Ollam tells us how to easily circumvent this.

it is shocking to me that some turdball hotels still try to restrict guests' use of the in-room TVs, but if you didn't know this, here's a tip…

(thread)

let's say your in-room TV clearly has HDMI jacks but you can't select that input. the staff even says "that's impossible" pic.twitter.com/8YcCcnaSMd

— Deviant Ollam ツ (@deviantollam) February 13, 2020

Get more life out of your iPhone battery with optimised charging

The other thing you want to keep track of when travelling is the power level on your smartphone.

One way that you can help do this is by treating your iPhone battery properly, because it turns out that keeping your battery fully charged all the time can reduce its lifespan.

That’s one reason that iOS 13 includes a feature that tracks your typical use and uses it to keep your batttery to 80% when you’re charging it, and only charging to full right before you need it to be full.

You can turn on “optimised battery charging” in the Settings menu:

• Battery
• Battery health

Which is great when you’re at home and have a fairly regular routine that has you plugging in your phone every night.

When you’re travelling, though, you can turn this off so that your phone takes the charge when it can get it.

Ubisoft’s The Division 2 returns to New York from Washington D.C.

The Division 2 is Ubisoft’s online third-person shooter set in a near future in which the world has been decimated by a smallpox pandemic.

The new expansion for the game is now available, and it ratchets up the tension consderably.

Warlords of New York takes the story back to New York, where the first game was set before moving to Washington D.C.

Warlords raises the level cap to 40 and introduces new weapons and gear as players and their teams try and capture a rogue agent who is responsible for a biological attack.

Learn more about what’s changed in Warlords of New York, and move out.

This week on The Shift with Drex, I talked about the rollout of two-factor authentication for Ring accounts, Facebook and Instagram allowing people to share music with their posts, Netflix’s decision to have autoplay be a configurable setting, and the hardware specs for Microsoft’s Xbox Series X.