Many apps on your iPhone want to use your location, most of which are for valid reasons. But some apps can function perfectly fine without location permissions, while others have no business even requesting it. If you want to be more selective about which apps and services you give away your coordinates to, the best thing you could do is start from scratch.
After more than a decade, iPhones are finally getting widgets on the home screen. They even have that Apple aesthetic that many people crave, with their uniform, squircle appearance. But fret not, as with pretty much any iOS feature, you can get them on Android with a tiny bit of work.
3D printers allow hackers and makers alike to create something from nothing. They're an incredible technology that lets you build protective cases and covers for gear such as a wardriving phone and Raspberry Pi-Hole. 3D printers can even help you out in a bind when something breaks, and it's impossible to get the part, since you can just print one out yourself.
Apple has introduced several new features to its native Messages app with iOS 14. When it comes to group chats, you can now pin those conversations, use inline replies, and receive notifications only when you're tagged. And if that wasn't good enough, you or anyone else in the group can assign a photo for the entire group.
To share a song or album to family and friends, it's as easy as copying its link in the app and pasting that into a message. However, not everyone uses the same music streaming service, so a link to an Apple Music song won't do a Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, Deezer, or YouTube Music subscriber any good. If you're on an iPhone, though, there's an easy way to convert links from one service to another.
The Pi-hole project is a popular DNS-level ad blocker, but it can be much more than that. Its DNS-level filtering can also be used as a firewall of sorts to prevent malicious websites from resolving, as well as to keep privacy-killing trackers such as Google Analytics from ever loading in the browser. Let's take a look at setting a Pi-hole up and customizing a blacklist to suit your needs.
Android 10 added the framework for OS-wide chat bubbles, a feature popularized by Facebook Messenger. The new system allows you to interact with incoming messages as if you were in the app — all without having to leave your current app. In Android 11, this feature is finally activated.
The Digispark is a low-cost USB development board that's programmable in Arduino and capable of posing as a keyboard, allowing it to deliver a number of payloads. For only a few dollars, we can use the Digispark to deliver a payload to a macOS computer that will track the Mac every 60 seconds, even bypassing security like a VPN.
An attacker can repurpose public MyBB forums to act as command-and-control servers. It only takes a few lines of code to configure a MacBook to fetch commands and send responses to any website the attacker desires.
With every new Galaxy flagship release comes the age-old dilemma: do I choose great hardware or great software? For years, Samsung has given users the best components available on any smartphone. The problem is the software is an acquired taste. But there is something you can do about it.
People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the outstanding feat of "magic" presented, we nevertheless hold fast to our survival-based grip on the truth: we just saw simply "can't be real."
There are times when physically interacting with your iPhone is less than ideal, like when you're cooking or driving. Fortunately, iOS 13 has you covered regardless of the circumstance you may find yourself in. With the new Voice Control feature, you can control pretty much everything on your device without even touching it.
It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality.
For many of us, our work phone and our personal phone are one and the same. Just any old phone isn't going to cut it when you need to meet a deadline — a phone with built-in features that make it easier to get things done is almost a must.
Surprising? No. Exciting? Absolutely. After a grand introduction by at the Apple event on September 10, 2019, the iPhone 11 is finally here. We may have known nearly everything about this new iOS device ahead of time, thanks to the usual surge of reliable leaks and rumors.
OnePlus, whose phones always challenge for the title of best spec-to-price ratio, releases two main devices every year. There's the primary flagship in late spring, then an iterative update with the "T" suffix in fall. Typically, there's not much difference between the two, but this year, OnePlus is mixing up the formula a bit.
Apple shocked us all yesterday when it released iOS 13.1 developer beta 1. It was an unprecedented move since iOS 13.0 is still in beta testing and since Apple has never pushed out a "point" beta release before the stable base version. And now, you can get your hands on iOS 13.1 for iPhone if you're on the public beta.
Apple's upcoming update for the iPhone, iOS 13, is introducing over 200 new features. Many of those were never formally announced, instead silently released in new updates to the beta. After eight developer beta cycles, we were anxiously awaiting the release of developer beta 9. What we got instead, however, was the first iOS 13.1 developer beta.
September is nearly here, which means new iPhones are, too. We're looking forward to iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max, as well as the more affordable iPhone 11R. All three iPhones will run iOS 13, so Apple's entrusting beta testers to ensure its new OS is ready. The latest update, developer beta 8, is now here for us to test.
Apple dropped the sixth public beta for iOS 13 today, Aug. 15. This public update comes just hours after the release of developer beta 7, an interesting move for Apple. The company has recently stuck to a schedule of seeding the public beta at least one day after the developer beta, presumably to weed out any debilitating bugs that might have gone unnoticed.
Apple's sixth iOS 13 developer beta was a welcome update for us beta testers. New options for toggling Dark Mode, a way to hide website previews when peeking links, plus UI changes made for a significant iOS 13 upgrade. We're hoping Apple continues this trend of fun and excitement with the release of iOS 13 dev beta 7.
Life's pretty good for iOS public testers — we get to check out new iPhone features months before the general public even knows they exist. That said, we aren't first to the party. Developers get priority during beta testing, as evidenced by yesterday's iOS 13 dev beta 6 release. It's not all bad though since Apple just released the public version of that software, public beta 5, this afternoon.
If tradition holds, we're roughly one month away from Apple's big iPhone announcement. While we're excited to see what will mainly be a significant camera upgrade, it's not all about the hardware. Apple will also release the official version of iOS 13 to coincide with the iPhone XI. Before then, however, iOS 13 needs beta testing, and developer beta 6 just hit on August 7.
Apple just seeded the fourth public beta for iOS 13 to software testers today, Tuesday, July 30. AppleSeed participants saw this beta one day early, alongside the release of developer beta 5. Now, developer and public testers alike are up-to-speed with the latest in iOS 13.
Beta testing for Apple's big upcoming iPhone update, iOS 13, is well underway. So far, each of the four beta versions we've seen brought new features and changes to the table, many of which were never even mentioned by Apple during WWDC in June. Now, it's time to do it all over again, as Apple just released the fifth developer beta for iOS 13.
The wait wasn't so long this time. Apple released public beta 3 for iOS 13 on Thursday, July 18, just one day after the release of developer beta 4. For context, Apple took five days to seed public beta 2 after releasing dev beta 3, so it's a pleasant surprise that the latest public beta dropped so soon.
We're pumped for iOS 13 and all of the fresh features and changes that come with it. Developer beta 3 came with new features in the double digits, including AR eye contact in FaceTime and mouse cursor size customization. Developer beta 4, released today, has a few more additions and changes as well.
Fireworks are the best part about the Fourth of July and other celebrations, but they can easily cause accidental injuries. It's both safer and more fun to set them off remotely, so we'll hack some standard fireworks with nichrome wire, a relay, and an Arduino to ignite remotely over Wi-Fi using any smartphone or computer.
On July 3, Apple pushed out iOS 13 developer beta 3 for iPhone, and there's a lot found hidden within. A new FaceTime setting, more Arcade details, full-page scrolling screenshots everywhere, a noise cancellation option in the Control Center, and a new markup tool — and that's just a few of the new features.
There's no doubt iOS 13 has dominated the talk around the Apple community this month. Since the announcement and release of the first developer beta, we iPhone users have had a treasure trove of new features and changes to explore and discuss. Now the fun continues with iOS 13 dev beta 2. Who's ready to start up the conversation all over again?
The first developer beta for iOS 13 is available to install on iPhone models, but the process for doing so may be a bumpy ride. Apple has not included configuration profiles for the developer beta yet, and many developers are having issues installing iOS 13 even with macOS 10.15 Catalina installed. Plus, since this is the first beta, there are a lot of problems with old and new features to work the kinks out of.
Imagine being able to play a video instantly on hundreds of thousands of devices across the globe. It's totally possible, as long as all of those devices have a Chromecast plugged in. When Chromecasts are left exposed to the internet, hackers can use add them to a botnet that can play YouTube videos at will. The "attack" is made even easier thanks to a simple Python program called CrashCast.
Open-source intelligence researchers and hackers alike love social media for reconnaissance. Websites like Twitter offer vast, searchable databases updated in real time by millions of users, but it can be incredibly time-consuming to sift through manually. Thankfully, tools like Twint can crawl through years of Twitter data to dig up any information with a single terminal command.
If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a tiny Arduino Wi-Fi sniffer that saves Wireshark-compatible PCAP files and fits anywhere.
In the last couple of days there's been a lot of speculation about the powers of Microsoft's HoloLens 2, but few have had a chance to get their hands on one to see if the company's claims live up to what HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman showed off on stage.
A relay is an electrical component that works like a light switch, where it's turned on or off with an electrical signal. By connecting a relay to a Wi-Fi connected microcontroller like an ESP8266, you can build a connected switch that can be controlled from the web browser of any device connected to the same Wi-Fi network — all for just a couple of dollars.
Apple Watch owners know the struggle — it's the end of the day, and those rings aren't met. Whether you forgot your watch before hitting the gym, let the battery run out, or just didn't move enough, you could feel the sting of fitness failure. But it doesn't have to be this way. You can actually close your Activity rings yourself; it just takes a little know-how.
With the list of available mobile apps for moviegoers constantly expanding and improving, seeing a film at your local theater has never been better. With the right apps for your iPhone or Android phone, you can research movies, find out if showings are sold out, reserve seats, save money on tickets and concessions, preorder popcorn and soda, and even find dull bathroom-worthy scenes.
In the battle for best stock Android flagships, there are really only two choices: Google Pixel phones and OnePlus phones. Although the latter isn't true stock Android, it is impressively close and usually paired with more impressive hardware than the Pixel lineup. The latest is the OnePlus 6T, which will be a bit controversial for fans this year.
Smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices send radio signals called probe frames to locate nearby wireless networks, which makes them easy to track by listening for their unique MAC address. To show how this kind of tracking works, we can program a NodeMCU in Arduino to sniff the air for packets from any device we want to track, turning on an LED when it's detected nearby.
