For most mainstream users, LiDAR sensors for precision depth sensing remain the exclusive domain of Apple iPhones and iPads, but Google is helping Android device makers close the depth gap on the software side via its ARCore toolkit.
One of the most underrated features that came out with iOS 14 was being able to add captions to images and videos in the Photos app. It's an amazing tool to take advantage of if you ever need to search for a specific picture and Apple's AI fails to recognize the query in your library. The only problem is that you can only edit captions, also called descriptions, one by one.
The mission to rise above the fray to become a leading player in the augmented reality business is a moving target that depends on innovation, resources, and timing.
Apple's Find My app just got way more useful. While it's great for locating a lost or stolen iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Apple Watch, Mac, and AirPods, as well as anything attached to an AirTag tracker, it's even better now that it works with third-party accessories and gear.
While Touch ID has been a part of the iPhone's legacy since 2013, Apple waited until 2016 to add biometrics to its MacBook lineup, and it's not as impressive. An iPhone with Touch ID can register up to five fingerprints, but Macs can only register a maximum of three per account. If that seems unfair, there's an easy trick to doubling that number, meaning six of your fingerprints could unlock your laptop!
After the mobile augmented reality platforms of ARKit and ARCore moved Google's previously groundbreaking Project Tango (the AR platform that gave us the first smartphones with depth sensors) into obsolescence in 2018, we've seen a bit of a resurgence of what was then a niche component for flagship devices.
If you're like me, you enjoy using your phone's dark theme at night and light theme during the day. When switching from dark to light and vice versa, many of the UI elements in supported apps adjust accordingly, but you have no control over what does and doesn't change. WhatsApp, on the other hand, does give you some granular control by letting you pick a chat wallpaper for each theme.
Not only has Google released a completely new Google Pay app for US users on both iPhone and Android, but the've also minted a new mobile banking service. Called Plex, it provides online bank accounts at one of 11 partner banks and credit unions, with no minimum balance requirements, overdraft charges, or monthly fees.
It's pretty clear with all of the annoying "Get YouTube Premium" pop-ups that litter the YouTube app that Google really wants you to pay for its Premium membership tier. That's why you'll see that "Get background play with YouTube Premium" ad after closing YouTube with a video playing — even in iOS 14 which supports Picture in Picture playback. But there are workarounds for background listening on iPhone.
Excited about experiencing blazing-fast 5G speeds on your iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max? Well, that brand new iPhone you just bought might not actually be using 5G, even when you see that 5G symbol in the top right. Unless you follow these instructions, your iPhone will use regular old 4G LTE more often.
Google's Pixel smartphones have earned a reputation for taking great photos without relying on top-of-the-line camera sensors. Instead, Google leans on the software side to squeeze super images out of its camera. This also enables them to roll out new features out to previous-generation devices.
As if telemarketers weren't bad enough, now we have robocalls and spoofed numbers to deal with. Many of us get a least one spam call per day, if not much more than that. Google's Phone app has always been great at managing these calls, but it's been exclusive to their Pixel phones — until recently, that is.
Android has not had the best reputation for privacy and security, though Google has made strides in those departments in recent years.
You may be familiar with image-based or audio-based steganography, the art of hiding messages or code inside of pictures, but that's not the only way to conceal secret communications. With zero-width characters, we can use text-based steganography to stash hidden information inside of plain text, and we can even figure out who's leaking documents online.
With the Wigle WiFi app running on an Android phone, a hacker can discover and map any nearby network, including those created by printers and other insecure devices. The default tools to analyze the resulting data can fall short of what a hacker needs, but by importing wardriving data into Jupyter Notebook, we can map all Wi-Fi devices we encounter and slice through the data with ease.
For enterprise augmented reality platform makers, remote assistance apps represent one of the greatest opportunities to show off the power of immersive computing. These apps enable experts to guide front-line workers or customers with AR prompts and other content in the field of view of their smartphones or smartglasses.
The year 2019 was filled with all the normal peaks and valleys of the tech business cycle, but this year was particularly important in a space as relatively young as the augmented reality industry.
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.
The landscape of the augmented reality space is broad, diverse, and constantly shifting, perhaps more so than any other vertical in technology. At the same time, major players are attempting to standardize various hardware designs and delivery methods, while still others are rushing to claim their piece of virtual property through AR clouds and application stores.
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.
Smartphone technology has become as ubiquitous as automobiles. In Austin, Texas, a city that is widely known as the "Live Music Capital of the World," smartphones have been embraced by the music community not just as a way to document and promote, but to create music.
Comparing the present-day states of the consumer and enterprise sectors of augmented reality is like evaluating the merits of sports car versus work trucks. Like consumer AR, sports cars are sexy and exciting, but perhaps a bit impractical at times. On the other hand, enterprise AR is utilitarian, but it gets the job done and, in the long run, pays for itself.
Motorola is a shell of its former self. In 2010, it had just released the Motorola Droid, a phone so popular it led to all Android phones being called "Droids" by non-techies. But there have been some rough years between then and now, and Motorola's latest "flagship" doesn't look like it will help get them off this path.
The music and sound effects that play in the background of any videos you edit helps set the tone, so it's essential to get it right. Enlight Videoleap, an extremely powerful and popular mobile video editing tool for iOS, lets you quickly and easily add audio from your iPhone and the cloud, but things can still get a little confusing when you have a timeline full of clips.
When joining a new network, computers use the Address Resolution Protocol to discover the MAC address of other devices on the same network. A hacker can take advantage of ARP messages to silently discover the MAC and IP address of network devices or actively scan the network with spoofed ARP requests.
Whether we like it or not, our personal information and smartphones are tied together at the hip. The former needs the latter to deliver a personalized experience that matches our individual needs. This personal data, however, makes your phone a prime target for thieves of all sorts to turn your privacy into illicit profit.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that augmented reality (or, AR for short) will "change everything." But what, exactly, is augmented reality?
After years of rumors and waiting, Samsung's first foldable smartphone is finally a reality. The phone itself is a bit wild, but with Samsung going so far out of their comfort zone with this one, there were some bumps in the road that caused a delayed release. The launch has been pushed back yet again, but when it does hit stores, it could end up being one of the most influential devices in years.
For years, iPhones have had haptic feedback, but Apple didn't incorporate it into the stock iOS keyboard until iOS 16. To use keyboard haptics in iOS 15 and older — or as an alternative to the default keyboard's in iOS 16 — you can take advantage of third-party keyboards like Gboard.
The tactic of brute-forcing a login, i.e., trying many passwords very quickly until the correct one is discovered, can be easy for services like SSH or Telnet. For something like a website login page, we must identify different elements of the page first. Thanks to a Python tool for brute-forcing websites called Hatch, this process has been simplified to the point that even a beginner can try it.
It's the icing on top of your cake (or whipped cream on top of your Android Pie) of despair. You may have not had the easiest time rooting your device, but you feel like you overcame all of the obstacles. Only now to discover that those very apps and mods you were rooting for still won't work — and the signs point to a lack of root access. Don't lose hope, because we have some tricks up our sleeve.
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.
The most common Wi-Fi jamming attacks leverage deauthentication and disassociation packets to attack networks. This allows a low-cost ESP8266-based device programmed in Arduino to detect and classify Wi-Fi denial-of-service attacks by lighting a different color LED for each type of packet. The pattern of these colors can also allow us to fingerprint the tool being used to attack the network.
Ever since the announcement of the Razer Phone, a wave of gaming smartphones started to hit the market. With ASUS being such a big name in gaming, it made sense for them to throw their hat in the ring. The result is the ROG Phone. And with this first try, ASUS has topped the rest, creating a gaming phone others should try to emulate.
People say that money makes the world go 'round. And it's no different in the world of augmented reality.
The newest version of macOS has arrived. While everyone's mind is being blown by Mojave's groundbreaking new Dark Mode, we'll be taking advantage of its insecure file permissions to establish a persistent backdoor with a self-destructing payload that leaves little evidence for forensics.
You know your infant is advanced. Maybe you want to give her or him a head start at learning things like writing code to develop the next big Fortnite game. Or maybe you just want to play Fortnite with your infant. But the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages screen time for kids under than 18 months, with just one exception: video chat.
The iPhone XR offers a discounted experience compared to the expensive iPhone XS and XS Max. However, that lower price tag comes with some caveats, such as "Haptic Touch" in lieu of 3D Touch. If you think these two "touch" features are the same, think again. Before you get an iPhone XR, you'll want to know all the excellent features 3D Touch you might miss. Can you go without them?
OnePlus will be releasing a new phone in the second half of 2018, specifically, an upgrade to their T-series. Over the past two years, #T versions have come out about five months after their predecessors and have included small updates that fix any problems from the previous OnePlus device. While we do know a bit about OnePlus 6T, what it could be is much more exciting.
The transcribing app can be an invaluable tool, especially if you're a student or are in a profession that relies on audio journals or interviews. These apps can convert important recordings like lectures and meetings into text for you to carefully read through to better comprehend.
