The Xperia Z1, Sony's flagship device, has been extremely popular overseas, so much so that it has made its way into the U.S. market as the Xperia Z1S, a modified version of the original. Known more commonly as the "waterproof smartphone," the Xperia Z1 packs one of the most powerful cameras on the market, with an impressive 20.7 megapixels. Since the device is only available for T-Mobile here in the States, unless you currently have that carrier, the chances of you getting your hands on Sony...
What do Hulu Plus, Pandora, and YouTube all have in common? Ads—and lots of them. Sometimes, an advertisement or two isn't a big deal, but when you're bombarded with them daily on your iPhone, they can get old really quick, and might even lead you to delete the apps entirely.
The advent of the Google Nexus 4 seemed too good to be true—high-end hardware, unlocked and contract-free at a low price. As time went on, however, we began to see the compromises. The camera was "meh" at best, and most egregiously, it shipped without LTE functionality.
Samsung's quick settings toggles are insanely useful for accessing settings that you would normally need to dig into menus for. Definitely a case of function over form, though. TouchWiz's bright green on dark blue has to be one of the fugliest color combinations I have ever seen.
The Nexus 7 is a huge jump in screen size when coming from a phone, but obviously this tablet is still smaller than some of the major players such as the Nexus 10, Galaxy Tab, etc. One way to squeeze out a little more space is to eliminate the navigation and status bars.
From a very early age we have an intrinsic obsession with things that float. Why do you think we love balloons and bubbles so much? So, it's no surprise that our smartphones are being invaded by floating features.
David Blaine has made millions off his magic tricks and mind-bending illusions, so why shouldn't we get in on the action, too? Well, your Samsung Galaxy S3 can do all kinds of things, but magic isn't one of them...yet.
The new Jelly Bean is out in the wild, but if you've installed Android 4.3 from stock, you'll notice rooting is now not possible. If you miss the ad-blocking capabilities of AdBlock Plus, how Seeder made apps snappier, or the convenience of backing up with Titanium Backup, you'll need to get rooted.
While we're usually responsible for leaking our own private information through mediums like Facebook, there are other times when we mistakenly and unwillingly allow certain applications to scour through our personal data. Some apps may have enabled permissions for internet access, thus allowing it to share said data with its external servers.
A mustachioed Italian plumber collects coins and battles bullets, plants, fish, mushrooms, and turtles in strange environments to save a princess held captive by a crazy, spiked-shell, bipedal tortoise.
Recently, I wanted to share a large video file from my Nexus 7 to my friend's Samsung Galaxy S3, and even though he was standing right next to me, it was an extremely difficult and frustrating thing to do. Every single Nexus 7 tablet comes NFC equipped, so it can share files with other NFC-equipped devices just by tapping and holding them together. With both NFC and Android Beam enabled, sharing a small file between two devices should be fairly simple.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to install Mac OS on Windows 7 on Virtual Box. Video: .
BEATS by Dr. Dre started making their studio-style headphones and speakers over four years ago, which claim to help listeners actually "hear" music as it was intended by the artists, since commodity headphones and earbuds are known for producing lackluster results. But you can only go so far with Beats Audio headphones, since your computers and mobile devices weren't built to take advantage of high quality audio equipment.
Welcome back, my hacker wannabees! Most of my recent posts have addressed using Metasploit’s Meterpreter and what we can do once we have embedded it on the victim’s system. This includes remotely installing a keylogger, enabling the webcam, enabling the microphone and recording, disabling the antivirus software, among many other things. The list is almost unlimited.
As a former English major, I have a love/hate relationship with many books. And when I saw that this NFC-enabled charging dock project included a little book mutilation, I was suddenly more interested. Now, for those of you who have nothing against books, this is still a great project to add some style to your tech devices.
The problem of system freezes is not new to the world of Windows and this has come to light even in the latest Windows 8 release. In the event that your system freezes, you cannot open your desktop files, some controls stop functioning, or you are unable to launch the start screen applications either. You may experience this unusual behavior after updating Apps in the store or due to a driver issue. Sometimes, freezes occur because of video card problems too. In order to do away with these Wi...
Steampunk is a tremendously interesting phenomenon because of its reliance on science fiction, and fiction in general. Steampunk can arguably be broken down into two categories: the fiction, and the aesthetic. Sometimes these categories cross over, but they're often more distinct than most people suspect; that said, the aesthetic is firmly based in works of fiction.
If you're a musician, Google wants you on Google+ Hangouts. In an effort to make it easier to stream your concerts, performances, and impromptu jam sessions, they've revealed their latest feature: Studio Mode. Enabling the new Studio Mode optimizes your Hangouts On Air for music, and the quality difference is massive.
This four part segment from Motorola provides a ton of information and serves as a guide on Webtop for the Droid Bionic.
Apps don't need to come bundled with an entire browser just to be able to display web pages — instead, they can call on the system WebView browser to render content for them. Android's default WebView renderer is Google software, which isn't quite as privacy-forward as some other options.
The Pixel 5's beautifully slim and symmetric bezels don't leave much room for extra hardware like a notification LED. But with the Ambient Display feature and an inventive app, you can turn the display cutout for the front-facing camera into an animated notification indicator.
KeePass, the free, open-source password manager, has an excellent Android client in Keepass2Android. Its UI is slicker than many of the other ports, it's packing most of the features you'd find in the official Windows version, and it's completely free. Now, it's even adding native biometrics support.
Undo. Redo. These two actions are forever intertwined, but they're missing from the standard keyboard on Android. Accidentally delete a word, and there is no Ctrl + Z to undo this mistake. But there is finally a solution available on Samsung Galaxy phones.
In the event of an emergency where you can't answer for yourself, trained professionals can view your Medical ID on your iPhone to learn about your medical situation, granted that you have created one. But that's not all your Medical ID can do. With a new feature, iOS can share your Medical ID data automatically with first responders when you place an emergency call.
If you're a public beta tester, you woke up this morning with your iPhone running iOS 13.4.5. Today, Apple released the second beta for iOS 13.5. No, Apple didn't skip a version — 13.5 public beta 2 is essentially 13.4.5 public beta 2. So why the name change? Apple included the first API for its joint COVID-19 contact-tracing and exposure notification program with Google.
Apple released the third developer beta for iOS 13.5 today, Wednesday, April 29. If you're confused where 13.5 betas 1 and 2 are, join the club. This appears to be, for all intents and purposes, iOS 13.4.5 developer beta 3, following 13.4.5 developer betas 1 and 2. The biggest change? The addition of Apple's joint COVID contact-tracing program with Google, which likely inspired the name change.
An unfortunate byproduct of Samsung's One UI version of Android is redundancy, where you have the Google/AOSP way of doing things mixed with Samsung's methods at the same time.
If you haven't used a Samsung device in a few years, the Galaxy S20 series will be your first taste of One UI 2, the skin running on top of Android 10. Although One UI is on the heavier side, it has loads of exciting features that go beyond what's offered in stock Android.
Beyond Apple-specific services like iMessage, having intuitive navigation gestures is certainly one of the features that makes the iPhone so hard to quit. Thanks to Android 10 and One UI 2, however, devices like the Samsung Galaxy S10 have caught up and now provide you with a less clunkier way of getting around, and one more reason to give the Google-based platform a try.
The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in an unprecedented time in modern history where terms like "social distancing" and "self-quarantine" have pushed their way into the zeitgeist.
Some of the oldest art on Earth was created 36,000 years ago on the walls of the Chauvet Cave in France. However, these days, physical access to the cave is restricted in order to preserve the site.
Android 11 won't be available as a beta update for Pixel devices until May 2020. Until then, the only way to try the latest Android version is by manually installing it. Usually, this means carrier models are left out since their bootloaders are locked, but there's still a way to get it done.
Google has always experimented with Chrome's UI, but when they make more drastic changes, they start by hiding them in the feature flags menu. One of the latest designs makes Chrome more accessible in a world of big and tall phones.
If you thought the news coming from China about the coronavirus might not affect your daily life in Europe and in the Americas, think again.
Snapchat is probably used to Facebook copying its features by now, but Apple borrowing a page out of its playbook is likely a bit more surprising.
Having emerged as one of the leading augmented reality video conferencing apps, Spatial is ready to improve upon the experience.
There are phones nowadays with 12 gigs of RAM, but they'll cost you well over a grand. The majority of Android devices have much less memory — I'd wager most have less than 4 GB. And with the system taking up around 2 GB, that leaves user-installed apps little room to breathe.
Android is all about customization. That's why it's entirely appropriate that Spark for Android's newest update adds a ton of customization options for your out-of-control email alerts. Now, you can add lights, sounds, and vibrations to notifications, and you can even set specific settings for all of your email accounts.
No one likes in-app advertisements, especially in mobile gaming, but they're necessary because they offer developers a way to make revenue without having to charge you to play. In some games, in-app purchases give you the chance to remove ads, but what can you do about apps that don't offer the option to kill ads?
We've been predicting the rush of augmented reality wearable makers from China for a couple of years, and now it looks like it's in full swing, with one of the most promising entrants coming from startup Pacific Future.
