Computer, lights.

Tone up for summer with SmartThings and IFTTT!

After our announcement earlier this week of version 2.1.0 of the app for iOS and Android, we wanted to assure our Windows Mobile customers that we haven’t forgotten about you. We’re incredibly proud to be one of the very few smart home systems that supports all three major phone platforms, and we wanted to make sure you had some insight into the development process.

A smart home needs a smart yard. Take the guesswork out of gardening with Spruce, the latest addition to the growing list of products compatible with SmartThings.

I hope you love Icona Pop’s 2012 rager, “I Love It.” If not, it might be best to learn to, um, love it. Among the many, many places you may have heard it are in at least one movie promo (Fun Size), Dr. Pepper and Shoedazzle commercials... and then there was its appearance in an episode of Girls.

The mention of Sergei Eisenstein during the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremonies got us thinking about the debt the art of filmmaking owes to the Russians. Luckily, we had a Russophile on staff who was more than happy to take us through the high points. Here’s our take on the essentials of Russian cinema.

Which TV series will your friends (and the entire internet) be talking about this week? Stay informed—or at least be able to fake it—with SideReel's weekly guide to The Most Important Shows on TV.

Riding around northern Iceland in whiteout conditions en route to one particular lava cave, I couldn't help but identify with that poor bastard. Having willingly joined the real-life equivalent of the Night's Watch for a day, I and four other intrepid travelers were being lead by our brilliant guide—and professional trollologist—Jón Þór (pronounced Yon Thor) around the Lake Mývatn area on the Game of Thrones tour. It was below freezing, snowing, wind-gusting, and we were in something called a Super Jeep in search of the shooting locations for scenes that take place "Beyond The Wall." 

Sometimes life just gets in the way of a happy ending. As a one-time How I Met Your Mother fan (who'd fallen off the wagon in recent years), I watched the penultimate episode with a combination of eye rolls and tears—something I'm sorry to say is a common occurence once you hit 30. Oof, these are hackneyed jokes, and please, please stop making us think Robin and Barney won't go through with it because people will riot, were my thoughts, though they were quickly eclipsed by a a watery-eyed smile during Ted's final narration about how "love is the best thing we do."

Summer reading! This yearly ritual designed to make sure your brain doesn't liquify in the July heat hasn't changed much over the last half-century. Sure, the lists may have been updated (if you're lucky), yet the process remains the same. Why not start a revolution?! TV is basically the greatest invention in the history of mankind (I'm not even being hyperbolic), and the staff here at SideReel is firmly of the opinion that it's time to start treating it as the literary medium that it is. We've put together suggestions for replacements to popular entries on summer reading lists. Binge away!

If you’re a girl who came of age any time in the last three-and-a-half decades and had any interest in theater (however fleeting it may have been), you almost certainly watched or were in a production of (or watched the movie adaptation of, or sang a selection from, or appreciated the Jay-Z sample of “Hard Knock Life” from) the musical Annie. That Depression-set, too-cute-by-half tribute to plucky optimism and the American Dream that is as ubiquitous as its most well-known song, “Tomorrow”.